Ulrich Middeldorf 
 
BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY. 
 
 HISTORY OF PAINTING, 
 
 src 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
RAFFAEILE . FXNX T 
 
 J.MTOLIìISON. S CTJLP.t 
 
 1 1 A F FA E L L E S AN ZIO. 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF PAINTING 
 
 IN 
 
 ITALY, 
 
 FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REVIVAL OF THE FINE ARTS TO THE END 
 OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: TRANSLATED FROM 
 THE ITALIAN OF THE 
 
 ABATE LUIGI LANZI. 
 
 BY THOMAS ROSCOE. 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 CONTAINING THE FLORENTINE, SIENESE, AND ROMAN SCHOOLS. 
 
 $efo eBirt'tion, retrtseU. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COYENT GARDEN. 
 
 1852. 
 
THE GETTY CEntc? 
 LIBRAR/ 
 
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 After the very copious and excellent remarks upon the 
 objects of the present history contained in the Author's Pre- 
 face, the Translator feels that it would be useless on his 
 part to add any further explanation. 
 
 It would not be right, however, to close these volumes 
 without some acknowledgment of the valuable assistance he 
 has received. Amongst others, he is particularly indebted to 
 Dr. Traill, of Liverpool^* who after proceeding to some length 
 with a translation of this work, kindly placed the portion 
 which he had completed in the hands of the Translator, with 
 liberty to make such use of it as might be deemed advan- 
 tageous to the present undertaking. To Mr. W. Y. Ottley, 
 who also contemplated, and in part executed, a version of the 
 same author, the Translator has to express his obligations for 
 several explanations of terms of art, which the intimacy of that 
 gentleman with the fine arts, in all their branches, peculiarly 
 qualified him to impart. Similar acknowledgments are due 
 to the enlightened and learned Mr. Panizzi,t for his able ex- 
 planation of various phrases and doubtful passages. 
 
 THOMAS ROSCOE. 
 
 * Now Professor Traill, of Edinburgh. 
 
 f Since raised to the responsible office of head librarian to the British 
 Museum. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 Biographical Notice by the Translator ... ... \ 
 
 Preface by the Author . . . ... ... ... 11 
 
 HISTORY OF PAINTING IN LOWER ITALY. 
 Book I. 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 
 
 Epoch I. — Origin of the revival of painting — Associa- 
 tion and methods of the old painters — Series 
 of Tuscan artists before the time of Oimabue 
 and Giotto. Sect. I. ... ... ... 29 
 
 Florentine painters who lived after Giotto to 
 the end of the fifteenth century. Sect. II.... 61 
 
 Origin and progress of engraving on copper and 
 wood. Sect. Ill 06 
 
 Epoch II. — Vinci, Bonarruoti, and other celebrated ar- 
 tists, form the most flourishing era of this 
 school 123 
 
 Epoch III. — The imitators of Michelangelo 176 
 
 Epoch IV. — Cigoli and his Associates improve the style 
 
 of painting ... 209 
 
 Epoch V. — Pietro da Cortona and his followers , . 244 
 
viii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Book II. 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Epoch I. — The old masters 267 
 
 Epoch II. — Foreign painters at Siena — Origin and pro- 
 gress of the modern style in that city ... 290 
 Epoch III. — The art having declined through the dis- 
 asters of the state, is revived by the labours 
 of Salimbeni and his sons ... ... ... 308 
 
 Book IIL 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 Epoch I. — The old masters 329 
 
 Epoch II. — Raffaello and his school ... ... ... 354 
 
 Epoch III. — The art declines, in consequence of the 
 public calamities of Rome, and gradually falls 
 into mannerism ... ... ... ... 403 
 
 Epoch IV. — Restoration of the Roman school by Ba- 
 rocci and other artists, subjects of the Roman 
 state and foreigners ... ... ... ... 437 
 
 Epoch V. — The scholars of Pietro da Cortona, from an 
 injudicious imitation of their master, deterio- 
 rate the art- — Maratta and others support it ... 492 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Luigi Lanzi was born in the year 1732, at Monte deli 
 Olmo, in the diocese of Fermo, of an ancient family, which 
 is said to have enjoyed some of the chief honours of the 
 municipality to which it belonged. His father was a phy- 
 sician, and also a man of letters : his mother, a truly excellent 
 and pious woman, was allied to the family of the Firmani. 
 How deeply sensible the subject of this memoir was of the 
 advantages he derived, in common with many illustrious 
 characters, from early maternal precepts and direction, he has 
 shewn in a beautiful Latin elegy to her memory, which ap- 
 peared in his work entitled " Inscription, et Carmin." Lib. iii. 
 
 Possessed of a naturally lively and penetrating turn of 
 mind, he began early to investigate the merits of the great 
 writers of his own country, alike in poetry, in history, and 
 in art. His poetical taste was formed on the models of 
 Petrarch and of Dante, and he was accustomed, while yet a 
 child, to repeat their finest passages to his father, an enthu- 
 siastic admirer of Italy's old poets, who took pride in culti- 
 vating the same fervour in the mind of his son, a fervour of 
 which, in more northern climates, we can form little idea. 
 His imitations of these early poets, whose spirit he first 
 imbibed at the fountain head, before he grew familiar with 
 the corrupt and tasteless compositions of succeeding eras, are 
 said to have frequently been so bold and striking as to deceive 
 the paternal eye. To these, too, he was perhaps mainly 
 indebted for that energy of feeling and solidity of judgment, 
 as well as that richness of illustration and allusion, which 
 confer attractions upon his more serious and elaborate works. 
 He was no less intimate with the best political and literary 
 historians at an early age ; with Machiavelli, Davila, and 
 Guicciardini ; with Muratori and Tiraboschi ; whose respec- 
 tive compositions he was destined to rival in the world of art. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 Lanzi's first studies were pursued in the Jesuits' College at 
 Fermo, where an Italian Canzone, written in praise of the 
 Beata Vergine, is said to have acquired for him, as a youth 
 of great promise, the highest degree of regard. Under the 
 care of his spiritual instructor, Father Raimondo Cunich, 
 Lanzi likewise became deeply versed in all the excellences 
 of classical literature, and, along with the technical skill of 
 the scholar, he imbibed the spirit of the ancient writers. In 
 his succeeding philosophical and mathematical studies he was 
 assisted by Father Boscovich, one of the first mathematicians 
 of his day. Thus to a keen and fertile intellect, animated by 
 enthusiasm for true poetry and the beauties of art, was added 
 that regular classical and scientific learning, inducing a love 
 of order and of truth, so useful in applying the clear logic 
 derived from Euclid to advantage, in subjects of a less tan- 
 gible and demonstrative nature. The value of such prelimi- 
 nary acquirements to the examination of antiquarian and 
 scientific remains, which can only be conducted on uncertain 
 data and a calculation of possibilities, as in ancient specimens 
 of art, can bear no question ; and of this truth Lanzi was 
 fully aware. To feel rightly, to reason clearly, to decide 
 upon probabilities, to distinguish degrees, resemblances, and 
 differences, comparing and weighing the whole with persever- 
 ing accuracy ; these were among the essentials which Lanzi 
 conceived requisite to prepare a writer upon works of art. 
 
 These qualities, too, will be found finely relieved and en- 
 nobled by frequent and appropriate passages of eloquent feel- 
 ing ; flowing from that sincere veneration for his subject, and 
 that love which may be termed the religion of the art to which 
 he became so early attached. How intimately such a spirit is 
 connected with the best triumphs of the art of painting, is 
 seen in the angelic faces of Da Yinci, of Raffaello, and Cor- 
 reggio ; and the same enthusiasm must have been felt by a true 
 critic, such as Lanzi. Far, however, from impeding him in 
 the acquisition of his stores of antiquarian knowledge, and in 
 his scientific arrangements, his enthusiasm conferred upon him 
 only an incredible degree of diligence and despatch.* He 
 was at once enabled to decipher the age and character, to 
 
 * Ab. Zannoni. Cav. Boni. 
 
OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 3 
 
 arrange in its proper class, and to give the most exact descrip- 
 tion of every object of art which passed under his review. 
 
 Lanzi thus came admirably prepared to his great task, one 
 of the most complete models of sound historical composition 
 of which the modern age can boast. It was written in the 
 full maturity of his powers ; no hasty or isolated undertaking, 
 it followed a series of other excellent treatises, all connected 
 with some branches of the subject, and furnishing materials 
 for his grand design. Circumstances further contributed to 
 promote his views. Shortly after the dissolution of the order 
 of Jesuits, to" which he belonged, he was recommended by his 
 friend Fabroni, prior of the church of S. Lorenzo, to the 
 grand duke Leopold of Florence, who, in 1775, appointed 
 him to the care of his cabinet of medals and gems, in the 
 gallery of Florence. This gave rise to one of his first pubi - 
 cations, entitled, " A Description of the Florentine Gallery," 
 which he sent in 1782 to the same friend, Angiolo Fabroni, 
 then General Provveditore of the Studio at Pisa, and who 
 conducted the celebrated Literary Journal of that place, in 
 which Lanzi's " Description" appeared. 
 
 His next dissertation, still more enriched with antiquarian 
 illustration and research, was his Essay on the "Ancient 
 Italian Dialects," which contains a curious account of old 
 Etruscan monuments, and the ducal collection of classical 
 vases and urns. This was followed by his "Preliminary 
 Notices respecting the Sculpture of the Ancients, and their 
 various Styles," put forth in the year 1789, in which he pur- 
 sues the same plan which he subsequently perfected in the 
 history before us, of allotting to each style its respective 
 epochs, to each epoch its peculiar characters, these last being 
 exemplified by their leading professors most celebrated in 
 history. He farther adduces examples of his system as he 
 proceeds, from the various cabinets of the Royal Museum, 
 which he explains to the reader as a part of his chief design 
 in illustrating them. He enters largely into the origin and 
 character of the Etruscan School, and examines very fully the 
 criticisms, both on ancient and Italian art, by Winckelman 
 and Mengs. 
 
 From the period of these publications, the grand duke, 
 entertaining a high opinion of Lanzi's judgment, was in the 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 habit of consulting him before he ventured to acid any new 
 specimens to his cabinet of antiquities. He was also entrusted 
 with a fresh arrangement of some new cabinets belonging to 
 the gallery, which, together with the latter, he finally com- 
 pleted, on a system which it is said never fails to awaken the 
 admiration of all scientific visitors at Florence. During this 
 task, his attention had been particularly directed to the inter- 
 pretation of the monuments and Etruscan inscriptions con- 
 tained in the ducal gallery, which, together with the ancient 
 Tuscan, the Umbrian, and other obsolete dialects, soon grew 
 familiar to him, and led to the composition of his celebrated 
 " Essay upon the Tuscan Tongue." For the purpose of more 
 complete research and illustration, he obtained permission 
 from the duke to visit Rome, in order to consult the museums, 
 and prepare the way for his essay, which he published there 
 in 1789 ; a work of immense erudition, and research. 
 
 It was here Lanzi first appeared as the most profound 
 antiquarian of modern Italy, by his successful explanation of 
 some ancient Etruscan inscriptions and remains of art, which 
 had baffled the skill of a number of his most distinguished 
 countrymen. Upon presenting it to the grand duke, after 
 his return from Rome, Lanzi was immediately appointed his 
 head antiquary and director of the Florentine gallery ; while 
 the city of Gubbio raised him to the rank of their first patrician 
 order, on account of his successful elucidation of the famous 
 Eugubine Tables. In one of his " Dissertations upon a small 
 Etruscan Urn," he triumphantly refuted some charges which 
 had been invidiously advanced against him, and defended his 
 principles of antiquarian illustration by retorting the charge 
 of fallacy upon his adversaries. 
 
 In the year 1790, Lanzi, at the request of the Gon- 
 faloniere and priors of Monte dell' Olmo, published an 
 inquiry into the " Condition and Site of Pausula, an ancient 
 City of Piceno:" said to be written with surprising ingenuity, 
 yet with equal fairness; uninfluenced by any prejudices 
 arising from national partiality, or from the nature of the 
 commission with which he had been entrusted. This was 
 speedily followed by a much more important undertaking, 
 connected with the prosecution of his great design, which it 
 would appear he had already for some time entertained. 
 
OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 5 
 
 During the period of his travels through Italy in pursuit 
 of antiquities, he had carefully collected materials for a 
 general History of Painting, which was meant to comprise, 
 in a compendious form, whatever should be found scattered 
 throughout the numerous authors who had written upon the 
 art. These materials, as well as the work itself, had gra 
 dually grown upon his hands, as might be expected from a 
 man so long accustomed to method, to criticism, to perspicuity ; 
 in short, to every quality requisite in the philosophical 
 treatment of a great subject. The artists and literati of Italy, 
 then, were not a little surprised at the appearance of the first 
 portion of the " Storia Pittorica," comprehending " Lower 
 Italy; or the Florentine, Sienese, Roman, and Neapolitan 
 Schools, reduced to a compendious and methodical form, 
 adapted to facilitate a knowledge of Professors, and of their 
 Styles, for the lovers of the art." It was dedicated to the 
 grand duchess Louisa Maria of Bourbon, in a style, observes 
 the Cav. Boni, " which recalls to mind the letters of Pliny 
 to Trajan, composed with mingled dignity and respect ; with 
 genuine feeling, and with true, not imaginary, commen- 
 dations." * 
 
 But the unfeigned pleasure and admiration expressed in 
 the world of literature and art, on being presented with the 
 Pictorial History of Lower Italy, was almost equalled by its 
 disappointment at the delay experienced with regard to the 
 appearance of the second part ; and which it was feared would 
 never see the light. Lanzi's state of health had, some time 
 subsequent to 1790, been very precarious ; and he suffered 
 severely from a distressing complaint, which frequently inter- 
 rupted his travels in which he was then engaged, collecting 
 further materials for his History of Painting in Upper Italy. 
 While thus employed, on his return from Genoa in Decem- 
 ber, 1793, he experienced a first attack of apoplexy, as he 
 was passing the mountains of Massa and Carrara. After his 
 recovery and return to Florence, he was advised in the en- 
 suing spring to visit the baths^ of Albano, which, being 
 situated near Bassano, afforded him an opportunity of super- 
 intending the publication of his history, in the Remondini 
 
 * Elogio, p. 127. 
 
e 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 Press, and on a more extensile scale than lie had at first con- 
 templated. He likewise obtained permission from the grand 
 duke Leopold, in September, 1793, to absent himself during 
 some time from his charge at Florence. The first portion of 
 his labours he conceived to be too scanty in point of names 
 and notices to satisfy public taste ; so that, upon completing the 
 latter part upon a more full and extensive scale, he gave a new 
 edition of that already published, very considerably altered 
 and augmented. 
 
 To these improvements he invariably contributed, both in 
 notes and text, at every subsequent edition, a number of which 
 appeared in the course of a few years, until the work attained 
 a degree of completeness and correctness seldom bestowed 
 upon labours of such incredible difficulty and extent. The 
 last which received the correction and additions of the author 
 was published at Bassano, in the year 1809. 
 
 That a work upon so grand a scale was a great desideratum, 
 no less to Italy than to the general world of art, would appear 
 evident from the character of the various histories and 
 accounts of painting which had preceded it. They are rather 
 valuable as records, than as real criticism or history ; as annals 
 of particular characters and productions derived from con- 
 temporary observation, than as sound and enlightened views, 
 and a dispassionate estimate of individual merits. Full of 
 errors, idle prejudices, and discussions foreign to the subject, 
 a large portion of their pages is taken up in vapid conceits, 
 personal accusations, and puerile reasoning, destitute of 
 method. 
 
 The work of Lanzi, on the other hand, as it is well re- 
 marked by the Cav. Boni, observes throughout the precept of 
 the series et junctura of Horace. It brings into full light the 
 leading professors of the art, exhibits at due distance those 
 of the second class, and only glances at mediocrity and infe- 
 riority of character insomuch as to fill up the great pictoric 
 canvas with its just lights and shades. The true causes of 
 the decline and revival of the art at certain epochs are 
 pointed out, with those that contribute to preserve the fine 
 arts in their happiest lustre ; in which, recourse to examples 
 more than to precepts is strongly recommended. The best 
 rules are unfolded for facilitating the study of different 
 
OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 manners^ some of which are known to bear a resemblance, 
 though by different hands, and others are opposed to each 
 other, although adopted by the same artist; a species of 
 knowledge highly useful at a period when the best production* 
 are eagerly sought after at a high rate. It is a history, in 
 short, worthy of being placed at the side of that on the Lite- 
 rature of Italy by Tiraboschi, who, having touched upon the 
 fine arts at the outset of his labours, often urged his ancient 
 friend and colleague to dilate upon a subject in every way so 
 flattering to the genius of Italy ; to Italy which, however 
 rivalled by other nations in science and in literature, stands 
 triumphant and alone in its creative mind of art. 
 
 It is, however, difficult to convey a just idea of a work 
 composed upon so enlarged and complete a scale ; which em- 
 braces a period of about six centuries, and fourteen Italian 
 schools, but treated with such rapidity and precision, as to 
 form in itself a compendium of whatever we meet with in so 
 many volumes of guides, catalogues, descriptions of churches 
 and palaces, and in so many lives of artists throughout the 
 whole of Italy.* 
 
 It is known that Richardson expressed a wish that some 
 historian would collect these scattered accounts relating to the 
 art of painting, at the same time noting down its progress 
 and decline in every age, a desideratum which Mengs in part 
 supplied in one of his letters, briefly marking down all 
 the respective eras. Upon this plan, as far as regarded 
 Venetian painting, Zanetti had partially proceeded; but 
 the general survey, in its perfect form, of the whole of the 
 other schools, was destined to be completed by the genius of 
 Lanzi. Here he first gives the general character of each, 
 distinguishing its particular epochs, according to the alter- 
 ations in taste which it underwent. A few artists of dis- 
 tinguished reputation, whose influence gave a new impulse 
 and new laws to the art, stand at the head of each era, which 
 they may be said to have produced, with a full description of 
 their style. To these great masters, their respective pupils 
 are annexed, with the progress of their school, referring to 
 such as may have more or less added to, or altered the manner 
 
 * Boni, Elogio, pp. 130-1. 
 
s 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE 
 
 of their prototype. For the sake of greater perspicuity, the 
 painters of history are kept distinct from the artists in inferior 
 branches ; among whom are classed portrait and landscape 
 painters, those of animals, of flowers, of fruits, &c. Nor 
 are such as bear an affinity to the art, like engraving, inlay- 
 ing, mosaic work, and embroidery, wholly excluded.* 
 
 After having resided during a considerable period at Bas- 
 sano, occupied in the superintendence of the first edition of 
 his great work, Lanzi, in 1796, found himself compelled to 
 retire to Udine, from the more immediate scene of war ; 
 a war which subsequently involved other cities of Italy in 
 its career. From Udine he shortly returned to Florence, 
 where he again resumed his former avocations in the ducal 
 gallery, about the period of the commencement of the Bourbon 
 government. 
 
 Lanzi's next literary undertaking was three Dissertations 
 upon " Ancient painted Yases, commonly called Etruscan ;" 
 and he subsequently published a very excellent and pleasing 
 work, entitled, " Aloisii Lanzii Inscriptionum et Carminum 
 Libri Tres:" works which obtained for him the favourable notice 
 of the Bourbon court. Nor was he less distinguished by that of 
 the new French dynasty, which shortly obtained the ascend- 
 ancy throughout all Italy, as well as at Florence, and by 
 which Lanzi was appointed President of the Cruscan Academy. 
 
 Among Lanzi's latest productions may be classed his edition 
 and translations of Hesiod ; entitled, " I Lavori, e le Gior- 
 nate di Esiodo Ascreo opera con L. Codici riscontrata, emen- 
 data la versione Latina, aggiuntavi l'Italiana in Terze Rime 
 con annotazioni." In this he had been engaged as far back 
 as the year 1785, and it had been then announced in a beau- 
 tiful edition of Hesiod, translated into Latin by Count 
 Zamagua. 
 
 The list will here close with his " Opere Sacre," sacred 
 treatises, produced on a variety of occasions, and on a variety 
 of spiritual subjects. One of these was upon the Holy 
 Sacrament, entitled, " Il divoto del SS. Sacramento istruito 
 nella pratica di tal devozione." In truth, Lanzi was a good 
 Christian, and may be ranked in the number of that great 
 
 * Boni, Elogio. Zannoni. 
 
OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 0 
 
 and honoured band of Christian philosophers, who, like 
 Newton, Locke, and Paley, have triumphantly opposed the 
 whole strength of their mighty intellect, and vast reach of 
 their reasoning powers, to the specious and witty, but less 
 powerful and argumentative genius of Gibbon, of Hume, and 
 of Voltaire. Nor was the conviction of these great truths 
 in the mind of Lanzi the result of sickness and misfortunes, 
 or sombre reflections in the decline of life. Great as was the 
 reputation he had acquired by his valuable labours, he was 
 often known sincerely to declare, among his private friends, 
 that he would willingly renounce all kind of literary honours for 
 the pleasure of being assured that his sacred works had in 
 any degree promoted the cause of Christianity. 
 
 Shortly after the last edition of the History now before us, 
 which he had personally superintended, though at a very 
 advanced age, in the year 1809, at Bassano, Lanzi's health 
 began rapidly to dec] ine, and he prepared with perfect com- 
 posure to meet the termination of his earthly career. He 
 had already attained his seventy-eighth year ; but his mind 
 preserved its usual tone and vigour, though he could with 
 difficulty pace his apartment. He wrote letters,* and even 
 pursued his beloved studies on the day of his decease, which 
 took place on Sunday, the 30th of March, 1810, occasioned 
 by a fresh attack of apoplexy. For this he had long been 
 prepared, and only the preceding evening had taken an affec- 
 tionate leave of his friends and domestics, thanking the Cav. 
 Boni for his kindness in continuing so long to mount his 
 staircase to visit an old man. 
 
 * Antiquarian history would be greatly enriched by the publication of 
 Lanzi 's correspondence, now in possession of his nephew at Monte dell' 
 Olmo, and which is mentioned as extremely valuable by the Ab. Zannoni, 
 his biographer. An inscription due to Lanzi' s genius, by the latter, has 
 been placed over the facade of the Sig. Gaetano Lanzi* s residence, a 
 tribute which shews that the descendant, like the countrymen, of that 
 historian, is zealous to promote his fame. — Ed. 
 
LÀNZPS 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 When detached histories become so numerous that they can neither 
 be easily collected nor perused, the public interest requires a writer 
 capable of arranging and embodying them in the form of a general histo- 
 rical narative ; not, indeed, by minute details, but by selecting from each 
 that which appears most interesting and instructive. Hence it mostly 
 happens, that the difFuser compositions of earlier ages are found to give 
 place to compendiums, and to succinct history. If this desire has pre- 
 vailed in former times, it is more especially the characteristic of our own. 
 We live in an age highly favourable to the cultivation of intellect : the 
 boundaries of science are extended beyond what our forefathers could have 
 hoped ; and we become anxious to discover the readiest methods of 
 obtaining a competent knowledge of a few sciences, since it is impossible to 
 acquire them all. On the other hand, the ages preceding ours, since the 
 revival of learning, being more occupied about words than things, and 
 admiring certain objects that now seem trivial, have produced historical 
 compositions, the separate nature of which demands combination, no less 
 than their prolixity requires abridgment. 
 
 These observations are especially applicable to the history of painting. 
 Its materials are found ready prepared, scattered through numerous 
 memoirs of artists of every school which, from time to time, have been 
 given to the public ; and additional articles are supplied by dictionaries of 
 art, letters on painting, guides to several cities, catalogues of various col- 
 lections, and by tracts relating to different artists, which have been pub- 
 lished in Italy. But these accounts, independent of want of connexion, 
 are not useful to the generality of readers. Who, indeed, could form a 
 just idea of painting in Italy by perusing the works of certain historians 
 of latter ages, and some even of our own time, which abound in invec- 
 tives, and in attempts to exalt favourite masters above the artists of all 
 other schools ;* and which confer eulogies indiscriminately upon profes- 
 sors of first, second, or third rate merit ?f How few are there who feel 
 interested in knowing all that is said of the artists with so much verbosity 
 Oy Vasari, Pascoli, or Baldinucci : their low jests, their amours, their 
 
 * This municipal and party spirit has alwavs reigned in Italy, and 
 Vasari is by no means exempt from this fault. 
 
 f See Algarotti, " Saggio sopra la Pittura/' in the chapter DeUa critica 
 necessaria al Pittore. 
 
12 LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 private affairs, and their eccentricities ! What do we learn by being in 
 formed of the jealousies of the Fiorentine artists, the quarrels of the 
 Roman, or the boasts of the Bolognian schools i Who can endure the 
 verbal accuracy with which their wills and testaments are recorded, even 
 to the subscription of the notary, as if the author had been drawing up a 
 legal document ; or the descriptions of their stature and physiognomy, 
 more minute than the ancients afford us of Alexander or Augustus ?* 
 Not that I object to the introduction of such particulars in the lives of 
 the great luminaries of art ; in a Raffaello or a Caracci minute circum- 
 stances derive interest from the subject ; but how intolerable do they be- 
 come in the life of an ordinary individual, where the principal incidents 
 are little interesting ! Suetonius has not written the lives of his Cassars 
 and his grammarians in the same manner : the former he has rendered 
 familiar to the reader ; the latter are merely noticed. 
 
 The tastes of individuals, however, are different ; some people delight in 
 minutiae, as it regards both the present and the past ; and since it may be 
 of utility to those who may hereafter be inclined to give a very full and 
 perfect history of every thing relating to Italian painting, let us view with 
 indulgence those who employed themselves in compiling lives so copious, 
 and let those who have time to spare, beguile it with their perusal. At 
 the same time, regard should be paid to that respectable class of 
 readers, who, in a history of painting, would rather contemplate the artist 
 than the man ; who are less solicitous to become acquainted with the 
 character of a single painter, whose insulated history cannot prove instruc- 
 tive, than with the genius, the method, the invention, and style of a 
 great number of artists, with their characteristics, their merits, and their 
 rank, the result of which is a history of the whole art. 
 
 To this object there is no one whom I know who has hitherto dedicated 
 his pen, although it seems to be recommended no less by the passion 
 indulged by princes for the fine arts, than by the diffusion of a knowledge 
 of them among all ranks. The habit of travelling, rendered familiar by 
 the example of many great sovereigns, the traffic in pictures, now become 
 a branch of commerce important to Italy, and the philosophic genius of 
 an age which shuns prolixity, and requires systematic arrangement, are 
 additional incentives to the task. It is true, that some pleasing and 
 instructive biographical sketches of celebrated painters have been pub- 
 lished by M. d' Argenville, in France ; and various epitomes have appeared, 
 in which the style of painting alone is discussed.f But without taking 
 
 * For this fault, called by the Greeks, Acribia, Pascoli has been 
 sharply reproved. He has informed us which among the artists could 
 boast a becoming and proportionate nose, which had it short or long, 
 aquiline or snubbed, sharp or hollow. He observes that such an artist 
 was neither tall nor large of stature, neither handsome nor plain in his 
 physiognomy ; and who would have thought it worth his while to inquire 
 about it ? The sole utility that can attend such inquiries is, the chance 
 of detecting some impostor, who might attempt to palm upon us for a 
 genuine portrait the likeness of some other individual. Engravings, how- 
 ever, are the best security against similar impositions. 
 
 f In the " Magasin Encyclopédique," (An. viii. torn. iv. p. 63), there 
 
LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 13 
 
 into account the corruption of the names of our countrymen in which 
 their authors have indulged, or their omission of celebrated Italians, 
 while they record less eminent artists of other countries, no work of this 
 kind, still less any dictionary, can afford us a systematic history of paint- 
 ing. None of these exhibit pictures, if we maybe allowed the expression, 
 in which we trace at a glance the progress and series of events ; none of 
 them exhibit the principal masters of the art in a conspicuous point of 
 view, while inferior artists are reduced to their proper size and station. 
 Far less can we discover in them those epochs and revolutions of the art, 
 which the judicious reader most anxiou^y desires to know, as the source 
 from which he may trace the causes that have contributed to its revival or 
 its decline ; or from which he may be enabled to recollect the series and 
 arrangement of the facts narrated. The history of painting has a 
 strong analogy to literary, to civil, and to sacred history ; it too requires 
 the aid of certain beacons, some particular distinction in regard to places, 
 times, or events, to divide it into epochs, and mark its successive stages. 
 Deprive it of these, and it degenerates, like other history, into a chaos of 
 names more calculated to load the memory than to inform the under- 
 standing. 
 
 To supply this neglected branch of Italian history, to contribute to the 
 advancement of the art, and to facilitate the study of the different styles 
 in painting, were the objects I proposed to myself when I began the pre- 
 sent work. My intention was to form a compendious history of all our 
 schools, in two volumes ; adopting Pliny's division of the country into 
 Upper and Lower Italy. It was my design to comprehend in the first 
 volume the schools of Lower Italy ; because in it the reviving arts arrived 
 earlier to maturity ; and in the second to include the schools of Upper 
 Italy, which were more tardy in attaining to celebrity. The first part of 
 my work appeared at Florence in 1792 ; the second I was obliged to defer ; 
 and the succeeding years have so shaken my constitution, that I have 
 scarcely been able to bring it to a conclusion, even with the assistance of 
 amanuenses and correctors of the press.* One advantage has been 
 
 is a work in two volumes, edited in the German language at Gottingen, 
 announced as well as commended. The first volume is dated 1798, the 
 second 1801, from the pen of the learned Sig. Fiorillo, the title of which 
 we insert in the second index. It consists of a history of painting upon 
 the plan of the present one ; but there is some variation in the order of 
 the schools. 
 
 * It was finished in the year 1796, and it is now given, with various 
 additions and corrections throughout. Many churches, galleries, and 
 pictures are here mentioned, which are no longer in existence ; but this 
 does not interfere with its truth, inasmuch as the title of the work is con- 
 fined to the before mentioned year. Numerous friends have lent me 
 their assistance in the completion of this edition, and in particular the 
 cavalier Gio. de' Lazara, a gentleman of Padua, who possesses a rich col- 
 lection, both in books and MSS., and displays the utmost liberality in 
 affording others the use of them. To this merit, in regard to the present 
 work, he has likewise added that of revising and correcting it through the 
 press, a favour which I could not have more highly estimated from ?.ny 
 other hand, deeply versed as he is in the history of the fine arts. 
 
14 
 
 LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 derived from this delay ; a knowledge of the opinion of the public, a 
 tribunal from which no writer can appeal ; and I have been enabled to 
 prepare a new edition conformable to its decision.* I understood 
 through various channels, that an additional number of names and of 
 notices were necessary to afford satisfaction to the public ; and this I 
 accomplished, without abandoning my plan of a compendious history. 
 Nor does the Florentine edition, on this account, become useless ; it will 
 even be preferred by many to that published at Bassano ; the inhabitants, 
 for instance, of Lower Italy will be pleased to possess a work on their 
 most illustrious painters, without concerning themselves about accounts 
 of other places. 
 
 To a new work, then, so much more extensive, I prefix a preface 
 almost entirely new. The plan is not wholly my own. Richardson f 
 suggested that some historian should collect the scattered remarks on 
 art, especially on painting, and should point out its progress and decline 
 through successive ages. He has even given us a sketch, which he 
 brought down to the time of Giordano. MengsJ accomplished the task 
 more perfectly in the form of a letter, in which he judiciously distin- 
 guished all the periods of the art, and thus laid the foundations of a more 
 enlarged history. Were I to follow their example, the chief masters of 
 every school would be considered together, and we should be under the 
 necessity of passing from one country to another, according as painting 
 acquired a new lustre from their talents, or was debased by a wrong use 
 of the great example of those artists. This method might be easily pur- 
 sued, if the subject were to be treated in a general point of view, such as 
 Pliny considered and transmitted it to posterity ; but it is not equally 
 adapted to the arrangement of a history so full and particular as Italy 
 seems to require. Besides the styles introduced by the most celebrated 
 painters, such diversities of a mixed character, often united with origi- 
 nality of manner, have arisen in every school, that we cannot easily 
 reduce them to any particular standard : and the same artists at different 
 periods, and in different pictures, have adopted styles so various, that at 
 one time they appear imitators of Titian, at another of Raffaello, or of 
 Correggio. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, adopt the method of the naturalist, who having 
 arranged the vegetable kingdom, in classes more or less numerous, 
 according to the systems of Tournefort or of Linnaeus, can easily reduce 
 a plant, wherever it may happen to grow, to a particular class, adding a 
 name and description, at once precise, characteristic, and permanent. In a 
 complete history it is necessary to distinguish each style from every 
 other ; nor do I know any more eligible method than by composing a 
 
 * " Ut enim pictores, et qui signa faciunt, et vero etiam poetse suum 
 quisque opus à vulgo considerari vult, ut si quid reprehensum sit à pluri- 
 
 bus id corrigatur sic aliorum judicio permulta nobis et facienda 
 
 5t non facienda, et mutanda et corrigenda sunt." Cicero De Officiis 
 ii. c. 41. 
 
 f Treatise on Paintinsr, torn. ii. p. 166. 
 X Opere, torn. ii. p. 108. 
 
LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 15 
 
 separate history of each school. In this I follow Winckelman, the best 
 historian of ancient art in design, who specified as many different schools 
 as the nations that produced them. A similar plan seems to have been 
 pursued by Rollin, in his ** History of Nations," who has thus been 
 enabled to record a prodigious mass of names and events within the com- 
 pass of a few volumes. 
 
 The method I follow in treating of each school is analogous to that 
 prescribed to himself by Signor Antonio Maria Zanetti,* in his " Pittura 
 Veneziana," a work of its kind highly instructive, and well arranged. 
 What he has done, in speaking of his own, I have attempted in the other 
 schools. I accordingly omit the names of living painters, and do not 
 notice every picture of deceased artists, as it would interrupt the con- 
 nection of the narrative, and would render the work too voluminous, 
 contenting myself with commending some of their best productions. I 
 first give a general character of each school ; I then distinguish it into 
 three, four, or more epochs, according as its style underwent changes 
 with the change of taste, in the same way that the eras of civil history 
 are deduced from revolutions in governments, or other remarkable events. 
 A few celebrated painters, who have swayed the public taste, and given a 
 new tone to the art, are placed at the head of each epoch ; and their style 
 is particularly described, because the general and characteristic taste of 
 the age was formed upon their models. Their immediate pupils and 
 other disciples follow their great masters ; and, without a repetition of the 
 general character, reference is made to what each has borrowed, altered, 
 or added to the style of the founder of the school. This method, though 
 not susceptible of strict chronological order, is much better adapted to 
 a history of art than an alphabetic arrangement, which interrupts the 
 notices of schools and eras ; or the method pursued in annals, by which 
 we are often compelled to make mention of the scholar before the master ; 
 or that of separate lives, which involves much repetition, by obliging the 
 writer to bestow praises on the pupil for the style which he commends 
 in the master, and to notice in each individual that which was the general 
 character of the age. 
 
 For the sake of perspicuity, I have generally separated from historical 
 painters artists in inferior branches, such as painters of portraits, landscape, 
 animals, flowers, and fruit ; of sea-pieces, perspectives, drolls, and all 
 who merit a place in such cjasses. I have also taken notice of some arts 
 analagous to painting, which, though they differ from it in the materials 
 
 * A learned Venetian, skilled in the practice of design and of painting. 
 He must not be confounded with Antonio Maria Zanetti, an eminent 
 engraver, who revived the art of taking prints from wooden blocks with 
 more than one colour, which was invented by Ugo da Carpi, but after- 
 wards lost. He also wrote works, serviceable to the fine arts ; and 
 several of his letters may be seen in the second volume of " Lettere 
 Pittoriche." They are subscribed Antonio Maria Zanetti, q. Erasmo ; but 
 this is an error of the editor : it ought to be q. Girolamo, to distinguish 
 him from the other, who was called del q. Alessandro. This mistake 
 was detected by the accurate Vianelli, in his " Diario della Camera," 
 p. 49. 
 
16 
 
 LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 employed, or the manner of using them, may still be included in the art 
 for example, engraving of prints, inlaid and mosaic work, and embroider- 
 ing tapestry. Vasari, Lomazzo, and other writers, have mentioned them ; 
 and I have followed their example ; contenting myself with noticing only 
 what has appeared worthy of being recorded. Each might form the sub- 
 ject of a separate work ; and some of them have long had their peculiar his- 
 torians, in particular the art of engraving. By this method, which boasts 
 great examples, I am not without hopes of affording satisfaction. I am 
 more apprehensive in regard to my selection of artists ; the number of 
 whom may to some appear too limited, to others too extended. But cri- 
 ticism will not so readily apply to the names of illustrious artists, 
 whom I have included, nor to those of very inferior character, whom I 
 have omitted ; except a few that claim mention from their connexion 
 with celebrated masters.* The accusation, then, of having noticed some, 
 and omitted others, will apply only as regards artists of a middle 
 class, that rank neither with the senate, the equestrian order, nor vulgar 
 herd ; but constitute the class of mediocrity. The adjustment of limits 
 is a frequent cause of legal contention ; and the subject now under dis- 
 cussion may be considered like a dispute concerning boundaries. It 
 may often admit of doubt whether a particular artist approaches more 
 nearly to the class of merit or of insignificance ; in other words, whether 
 he should or should not obtain a place in history. Under such uncer- 
 tainty, which I have several times encountered, I have more usually 
 inclined to the side of lenity than of severity ; especially when the artist 
 has been noticed with a degree of commendation by former authors. We 
 ought to bow to public opinion, which rarely blames us for noticing 
 mediocrity, but frequently for passing it over. Books on painting 
 abound with complaints against Orlandi and Guarienti, for their omis- 
 sions of certain artists. Still more frequently are authors censured, 
 when the guide to a city points out some altar-piece by a native artist, 
 who is not even named in our dictionaries. The describers of collections 
 repeat similar complaints in regard to every painting bearing the signa- 
 ture of an artist whose name appears in no work. Collectors of prints 
 do the same when they discover the name of some designer, of whom 
 history is silent, affixed to an engraving. Thus, were we to consult 
 public opinion, the majority would recommend copiousness, rather than 
 express satisfaction at a more discriminating selection. Artists and 
 amateurs belonging to every city would be desirous that I should com- 
 memorate as many of their second rate painters as possible ; and our 
 selection, in this respect, resembles the exercise of justice, which is gene- 
 rally applauded as long as it visits the dwellings of others, but cried 
 down when it knocks at our own doors. Thus a writer, bound to 
 observe impartiality towards every city, can scarcely shew great severity 
 to artists of mediocrity in any. This is not without reason ; for to pass 
 
 * An amateur unacquainted with the fact that there were various 
 artists of the same name, as the Vecelli, Bassani, and Caracci, will never 
 become properly acquainted with these families ; neither will he be com- 
 petent to judge of certain pictures, which only attract the regard of the 
 vulgar, because they boast the reputation of a great name. 
 
LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 ir 
 
 mediocrity in silence may be the study of a good orator, not the office of 
 a good historian. Cicero himself, in his treatise " De Claris Oratori - 
 bus," has given a place to less eloquent orators, and it may be observed 
 that the literary history of every people does not merely include its most 
 classic writers, and those who approached nearest to them ; but it adds 
 concise accounts of authors less celebrated. In the Iliad, which is a 
 history of the heroic age, there are a few eminent leaders, many valiant 
 soldiers, and a prodigious crowd of others, whom the poet has transiently 
 noticed. In our case, it is still more incumbent on the historian to give 
 mediocrity a place along with the eminent and most excellent. Many 
 books describe that class in terms so vague, and sometimes so discordant, 
 that to form a proper estimate of their claims, we must introduce them 
 among superior artists, as a sort of performers in third-rate parts. Such, 
 however, I am not solicitous to exhibit minutely, more especially when 
 treating of painters in fresco, and generally of other artists, whose works 
 are now unknown in collections, or add more to the bulk than the orna- 
 ment of a gallery. Thus also, in point of number, my work has main- 
 tained the character of a compendium ; but if any of my readers, adopting 
 the rigid maxim of Bellori, that, in the fine arts, as in poetry, mediocrity 
 is not to be tolerated,* should disdain the middle class, he must look for 
 the heads of schools, and for the most eminent painters. To these he 
 may dedicate his attention, and turn his regard from the others like one, 
 
 " Cui altra cura stringa e morda 
 
 Che quella di colui che gli è davante."-)- 
 
 Having described my plan, let us next consider the three objects origi- 
 nally proposed, of which the first was to present Italy with a history 
 important to her fame. This delightful country, already indebted to 
 Tiraboschi for a history of her literature, is still in want of a history of 
 her arts, in which she is confessedly without a rival. This I propose to 
 supply, or at least to facilitate the attempt. In some departments of 
 literature and of the fine arts we are equalled, or even surpassed, by 
 foreigners ; in others, the palm is yet doubtful : but in painting, universal 
 
 * I do not admit this principle. Horace laid it down for the art of 
 poetry, because it is a faculty that perishes when it ceases to give delight. 
 Architecture, on the other hand, confers utility when it does not please, 
 by presenting us with habitations ; and painting and sculpture, by pre- 
 serving the features of men, and illustrious actions. Besides, Horace 
 denounces the production of inferior verses, because there is not space 
 enough for them ; " Non concessere columnse," but it is not so with 
 paintings of mediocrity. In any country, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso 
 may be read, and he who has never read a poor poet, will write better 
 than if he had read a hundred. But it is not every one who can boast, 
 either in the houses or temples of his country, of possessing the works of 
 good artists ; and for purposes of worship or of ornament, the less ex- 
 cellent may suffice ; wherefore these also produce some advantage. 
 
 t Like one who thinks of some other person than he that is before hini* 
 — Dante. 
 
 VOL. I 
 
18 
 
 LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 consent yields the triumph, to Italian genius, and foreigners are the more 
 esteemed in proportion to their approach towards us. It is time then, for 
 the honour of Italy, to collect in one point of view those observations, 
 scattered through upwards of a hundred volumes, and to embody them in 
 what Horace terms series et junctura ; without which the work cannot be 
 pronounced a history. I will not conceal that the author of the " His- 
 tory of Italian Literature " frequently animated me to this undertaking, 
 as a sequel to his own work. He also wished me to subjoin other anec- 
 dotes to those already published y and to substitute more authentic 
 documents for the inaccuiacies abounding in our dictionaries of paint- 
 ing. I have attended co both these objects. The reader will here 
 find various schools never hitherto illustrated, and an entire school, 
 that of Ferrara, now first described from the manuscripts of Baruf 
 faldi and of Crespi. In other schools he will often observe names of 
 fresh artists, which I have either collected from ancient MSS.* and the 
 correspondence of my learned friends, or deciphered on old paintings. 
 Although such pictures are confined to cabinets, it cannot prove useless 
 to extend a more intimate acquaintance with their authors. The reader 
 will also meet with many new observations on the origin of painting, 
 and on its diffusion in Italy, formerly a fruitful subject of contention ; 
 and likewise with some original reflections on the masters, to whom 
 various disciples may be traced ; a branch of history, the most uncertain 
 of any. Old writers of respectability often mention Raffaello, Correggio, 
 or other celebrated artists, as the master of a painter, without any 
 better foundation than a similarity of style ; just as the credulous hea- 
 thens imagined one hero to be the son of Hercules, because he was strong ; 
 another of Mercury, because he was ingenious ; a third of Neptune, 
 because he had performed long voyages. Errors like these are easily 
 corrected, when accompanied by some inadvertency in the writer ; as for 
 instance, where he has not been aware that the age of the disciple does 
 not correspond with that of his supposed master. Occasionally, however, 
 their detection is attended with more difficulty ; in particular when the 
 artist, whose reputation is founded upon that of his master, represented 
 himself, in foreign parts, as the disciple of men of celebrity, whom he 
 scarcely knew by sight. Of this we have an example in Agostino Tassi, 
 and more recently in certain soi-disant disciples of Mengs ; to whom it 
 scarcely appears that he ever so much as said, " Gentlemen, how do 
 you do ? " 
 
 Finally, the reader will find some less obvious notices relating to the 
 
 * For the improvement of my latest edition, I am greatly indebted to 
 the Prince Filippo Ercolani, who, having purchased from the heirs of 
 Signor Marcello Oretti fifty-two manuscript volumes, which that inde- 
 fatigable amateur, in the course of his studies, journeys, and observations, 
 had compiled respecting the professors of the fine arts, their eras, and 
 their labours, allowed materials to be drawn from them for various notes, 
 by the Sig. Lazazra, who superintended the edition. To the devoted 
 attachment of these gentlemen to the fine arts the public are indebted 
 for much information, either wholly new, or hitherto little known. 
 
LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 19 
 
 name, the country, and the age of different artists. The deficiency of out 
 dictionaries in interesting names, together with their inaccuracy, are 
 common subjects of complaint. I can excuse the compilers of these 
 works ; I know how easily we may be misled in regard to names which 
 have been gathered from vulgar report, or from authors who differ in 
 point of orthography, giving opposite readings of the same name. But it 
 is necessary that such mistakes should be cleared up. The index of this 
 work will form a new dictionary of painters, more copious, and perhaps 
 more accurate than usual, although it might be further improved by con- 
 sulting archives and manuscripts.* 
 
 The second object which i had in view was to advance the interests cf 
 the art. It was of old observed that examples have a more powerful 
 influence than any precepts can possess ; and this is particularly true in 
 respect to painting. Whoever writes history upon the model of the 
 ancients ought not only to narrate events, but to investigate their sources 
 and causes. These will be here developed, tracing the progress of paint- 
 ing as it advanced or declined in each school ; and such causes being 
 invariable, point out the means of its improvement, by shewing what 
 ought to be pursued and what avoided. Such observations are not of im 
 
 * Vasari, from whom several epochs are taken, is full of errors in dates. 
 See Bottari's note on torn ii. p. 79. The same observation applies gene- 
 rally to other authors, as Bottari remarks in a note on "'Lettere Pit- 
 toriche/ ' torn. iv. p. 366. A similar objection is made to the Dictionary 
 oi" P. Orlandi in another letter, torn. ii. p. 318, where it is termed "a 
 useful work, but so full of errors, that one can derive no benefit from it 
 without possessing the books there quoted.*' After three editions of this 
 work, a fourth was printed in Venice, in 1753, corrected and enlarged by 
 Guarienti, " but enough still remains to be done after his additions, even 
 to increase it twofold." Bottari, Lett. Pitt. torn. iii. p. 353. See also 
 Crespi " Vite de* Pittori Bolognesi," p. 50. No one, who has not perused 
 this book, would believe how often he defaces Orlandi in presuming to 
 correct him ; multiplying artists for every little difference with which 
 authors wrote the name of the same man. Thus Pier Antonio Torre, and 
 Antonio Torri, are with him two different men. Many of the articles, 
 however, added by him, relating to artists unknown to P. Orlandi, are 
 useful; so that this second Dictionary ought to be consulted with 
 caution, not altogether rejected. The last edition, printed at Florence, in 
 two volumes, contains the names of many painters, either lately dead, or 
 still living, often of very inferior merit, and on this account is little noticed 
 in my history. This Dictionary, moreover, affords little satisfaction to 
 the reader concerning the old masters, unless he possess a work printed 
 at Florence in twelve volumes, entitled, " Serie degli Uomini più illustri 
 in Pittura," to which the articles in it often refer. The " Dizionario Por- 
 tatile," by Mr. La Combe, is also a book of reference, not very valuable 
 to those who look for exact information. We give a single instance of 
 his inaccuracy in regard to the elder Palma ; but our emendations have 
 been chiefly directed towards the writers of Italy, from whom foreigners 
 have, or ought to have, borrowed, in writing respecting our artists. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 portance to the artist alone. In the Roman school, during its second 
 epoch, I perceive that the progress of the arts invariably depends on 
 certain principles universally adopted in that age, according to which 
 artists worked, and the public decided. A general history, by pointing 
 out the best maxims, may contribute to make them known and regarded. 
 Hence artists can execute, and others approve or direct, on principles no 
 longer questionable, nor deduced from the manner of a particular school, 
 but founded on maxims unerring and established, strengthened by the 
 uniform practice of all schools and all ages. In a history so diversified, 
 numerous examples occur suited to the genius of different students, who 
 have often to lament their want of success by neglecting to follow the path 
 in which nature destined them to tread. On the influence of examples I 
 shall add no more : should any one be desirous also of precepts under 
 every school, he will find them given by those who have written more 
 ably on the art, and whom I have diligently consulted with regard to 
 different masters. 
 
 My third object was to facilitate an acquaintance with various styles. 
 The artist or amateur, who has studied the manner of all ages and of 
 every school, on meeting with a picture, can readily assign it to a par- 
 ticular master, or at least to a certain style, much as antiquarians, from a 
 consideration of the paper and the characters, are enabled to assign a 
 manuscript to a particular era ; or as critics conjecture from his 
 phraseology, the age and place in which an anonymous author flourished. 
 With similar lights we proceed to investigate the school and era of artists ; 
 and by diligent examination of prints, drawings, and other relics, we deter- 
 mine the real author. Much of the uncertainty, with regard to pictures, 
 arises from a similitude between the style of different masters : these I 
 collect under one head, and remark in what one differs from the other. 
 Ambiguity often arises from comparing different works of the same 
 painter, when the style of some does not seem to accord with his general 
 manne:*, nor with his great reputation. On account of such uncertainty, 
 I usually then point out the master of each artist, because all at the out- 
 set imitate the example offered by their teachers. I note the style formed, 
 adhered toby eacb, or abandoned for another manner ; sometimes marking 
 the age in which he lived, and his greater or less assiduity. By atten- 
 tive consideration of such circumstances we avoid pronouncing a picture 
 spurious, which may have been painted in old age, or negligently 
 executed. Who would receive as genuine all the pictures of Guido, were 
 it not known that he sometimes affected the style of Caracci, of Calvart, 
 or of Caravaggio ; at other times pursued a manner of his own, in which 
 he was often very unequal, as he is known to have painted three or four 
 pieces in a single day ? Who would suppose that the works of Giordano 
 were the production cf the same artist, if it were not known that he 
 aspired to diversify his style, by adopting the manner of various ancient 
 artists ? These are well known facts, but how many are there yet un- 
 noted worthy of being related, if we wish to avoid falling into error ? 
 Such will be found noticed in my work., among other anecdotes of the 
 various masters, and the different styles. 
 
 To become critically acquainted with the diversity of styles is not the 
 
LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 21 
 
 ultimate object to which the travels and the eager solicitude of the con- 
 noisseur aspire. His object is to make himself familiar with the handling 
 of the most celebrated masters, and to distinguish copies from originals. 
 Happy should I be, could I promise to accomplish so much ! Even they 
 might consider themselves fortunate, who dedicate their lives to such 
 pursuits, were they enabled to discover any short, general, and certain 
 rules for infallibly determining this delicate point ! Many rely much 
 upon history for the truth. But how frequently does it happen that the 
 authority of an historian is cited in favour of a family picture, or an altar- 
 piece, the original of which having been disposed of by some predecessor, 
 and a copy substituted in its place, the latter is supposed to be genuine ! 
 Others lay great stress on the importance of places, and hesitate to raise 
 doubts respecting any specimen they find contained in royal and select 
 galleries, assuming that they really belong to the artists referred to in the 
 gallery descriptions and catalogues. But here, too, they are liable to mis- 
 take ; inasmuch as private individuals, as well as princes, unable to pur- 
 chase ancient pictures at any price, contented themselves with such 
 copies as approached nearest to the old masters. Some, indeed, were made 
 by professors, despatched by princes in search of them ; as in the instance 
 of Rodolph I., who employed Giuseppe Enzo, a celebrated copyist. (See 
 Boschini, p. 62, and Orlandi, on Gioseffo Ains di Berna.) External 
 proofs, therefore, are insufficient, without a knowledge of different 
 manners. Such discrimination is the fruit only of long experience, and 
 deep reflection on the style of each master ; and I shall endeavour to 
 point out the manner in which it may be obtained.* 
 
 To judge of a master we must attend to his design, and this is to be 
 acquired from his drawings, from his pictures, or ; at least, from accurate 
 engravings after them. A good connoisseur in prints is more than half 
 way advanced in the art of judging pictures ; for he who aims at this 
 must study engravings with unremitting assiduity. His eye becomes 
 familiarized to the artist's method of delineating and foreshortening the 
 figure, to the air of his heads and the casting of his draperies ; to that 
 action, that peculiarity of conception, of disposing, and of contrasting, 
 which are habitual to his character. He is introduced, as it were, to the 
 different families of youths, of children, of women., of old men, and of 
 individuals in the vigour of life, which each artist has adopted, and usually 
 exhibited in his pictures. We cannot be too well versed in such matters, 
 so minute are the distinctions between the imitators of one master 
 (Michelangelo, for example), who have perhaps studied the same cartoon, 
 or the same statues, and, as it were, learned to write after the same 
 model. 
 
 More originality is generally to be discovered in colouring, a branch of 
 the art foimed by a painter rather on his own judgment, than by instruc- 
 tion. No amateur can attain experience in this branch who has not 
 studied pictures by the same master ; who has not observed his selection 
 
 * See Mr. Richardson's " Treatise on Painting/' torn. ii. p. 58 ; and 
 M. D' Argentine's "Abrégé de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres,'' tom. i. 
 p. 65. 
 
22 
 
 LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 of colours, method of separating, uniting and subduing them ; what are 
 his local tints, and what (he general tone that harmonises the colours. 
 This tint, however, clear and silvery in Guido and his followers, bright 
 and golden in Titiano and his school, and thus of the rest, has still as 
 many modifications as there are masters in the art. The same remark 
 extends to middle tints and to chiaroscuro, in which each artist employs a 
 peculiar method. 
 
 These are qualities which catch the eye at a distance, yet will not always 
 enable the critic to decide with certainty ; whether, for instance, a certain 
 picture is the production of Vinci, or Luini, who imitated him closely ; 
 whether another be an original picture by Barocci, or an exact copy from 
 the hand of Vanni. In such cases judges of art approach closer to the 
 picture with a determination to examine it with the same care and accu- 
 racy as are employed in a judicial question, upon the recognition of hand- 
 writing. Fortunately for society, nature has given to every individual a 
 peculiar character in this respect, not easy to counterfeit, nor to mistake. 
 The hand, habituated to move in a peculiar manner, always retains it : 
 in old age the characters may be more slowly traced, become more negligent 
 or heavy ; but the form of the letters remains the same. So it is in 
 painting. Every artist retains this peculiarity : one is distinguished by a 
 full charged pencil, another by a dry but neat finish ; the work of one 
 exhibits blended tints, that of another distinct touches ; and each has his 
 own manner of laying on the colours.* Even in regard to what is com- 
 mon to so many, each has a peculiar handling, a marking of his lines 
 more or less waved, more or less free, and more or less studied, by which 
 those skilled from long experience are enabled, after due consideration of 
 all circumstances, to decide who was the author. Such judges do not 
 fear a copyist, however excellent. He will perhaps keep pace with his 
 model for a certain time, may sometimes shew a free, but commonly a 
 timid, servile, and meagre pencil ; but he will not be long able, with a 
 free hand, to keep his own style concealed, especially in regard to less 
 important points, such as the pencilling of the hair, and in the fore and 
 back grounds of the picture. f Certain observations on the canvas and 
 the priming ground may assist inquiry ; and hence some have endea- 
 
 * " Some made use of pure colours, without blending one with the 
 other ; a practice well understood in the age of Titiano ; others, as 
 Correggio, adopted a method co tally opposite ; he laid on his admirable 
 colours in such a manner, that they appear as if they had been breathed 
 without effort on the canvas ; so soft and so clear, without harshness of 
 outline, and so relieved, that he seems the rival of nature. The elder 
 Palma and Lorenzo Lotto coloured freshly, and finished their pictures as 
 highly as Giovanni Bellini ; but they have loaded them with outline and 
 softness in the style of Titiano and Giorgione. Some others, as Tintoretto, 
 to a purity of colour not inferior to these artists, have added a boldness 
 as grand as it is astonishing &c. — Baldinucci, Lett. Pittor. torn. ii. 
 lett. 126. 
 
 f See Baldinucci in Lett, Pittor. torn. ii. lett. 126, and one by Crespi, 
 torn. iv. lett. 162. 
 
LANZl's PREFACE 
 
 23 
 
 voured to attain greater certainty by a chemical analysis of the colours. 
 Diligence is ever laudable when exerted on a point so nice as ascertaining 
 the hand-work of a celebrated master. It may prevent our paying ten 
 guineas for what may not be worth two ; or placing in a choice collection pic- 
 tures that will do it no credit ; while to the curious it affords scientific views, 
 instead of creating prejudices that often engender errors. That mistakes 
 should happen is not surprising. A true connoisseur is more rare than a 
 good artist. His skill is the result of indirect application ; it is acquired 
 amidst other pursuits, and divides the attention with other objects ; the 
 means of attaining it fall to the lot of few ; and still fewer practise it suc- 
 cessfully. Among that number I do not reckon myself. By this work 
 I pretend not to form an accomplished connoisseur in painting ; my 
 object is to facilitate the acquisition of such knowledge. The history of 
 painting is the basis of connoisseurship ; by combining it, I super- 
 sede the necessity of referring to many books ; by abbreviating it 
 I save the time and labour of the student ; and by arranging it in a 
 proper manner, I present him with the subject ready prepared and 
 developed. 
 
 It remains, that I should give some account of myself ; of the criticisms 
 that I, who am not an artist, have ventured to pass upon each painter : 
 for if the professors of the art had as much leisure and experience in 
 writing as they have ability, every author ought to resign to them the 
 field. The propriety of technical terms, the abilities of artists, and the 
 selection of specimens, are usually bettei understood, even by an indiffe- 
 rent artist, than by the learned connoisseur ; but since those occupied in 
 painting have not leisure to write, others, assisted by them, may be per- 
 mitted to undertake the office.* 
 
 By the mutual assistance which the painter has afforded to the man of 
 letters, and the man of letters to the ariist, the history of painting has 
 been greatly advanced. The merits of the best painters are already so 
 ably discussed, that a modern historian can treat the subject advantage- 
 ously. The criticisms I most regard are those that come directly from 
 professors of the art. We meet with few from the pen of Raffaello, Ot 
 Titiano, of Poussin, and of other great masters ; such as exist, however, 
 I regard as most precious, and deserving the most careful preservation ; 
 for, in general, those who can best perform can likewise judge the best. 
 Vasari, Lomazzo, Passeri, Ridolfi, Boschini, Zanotti, and Crespi, require, 
 perhaps, to be narrowly watched in some passages where they allowed 
 themselves to be surprised by a spirit of party ; but, on the whole, they 
 
 * We must recollect that " de pictore, sculptore, fusore, judicare nisi 
 artifex non potest'' (P!in. Jun. i. epist. 10), must be understood of 
 certain refinements of the art that escape the eye of the most learned con- 
 noisseur. But have we need of a painter to whisper in our ear whether 
 the features of a figure are handsome or ugly, its colouring false or natural, 
 whether it has harmony and expression, or whether its composition be in 
 the Roman or Venetian taste ? And where it is really expedient to have 
 the opinion of an artist, will that opinion have less authority in rav pages 
 than on his own tongue ? 
 
24 
 
 LÀNZl's PREFACE. 
 
 have an undoubted right to dictate to us, because they were themselves 
 painters. Bellori, Baldinucci, Count Malvasia, Count Tassi, and similar 
 writers, hold an inferior rank ; but are not wholly destitute of authority ; 
 for though mere dilettanti, they collected both the opinions of professors 
 and of the public. This will at present suffice, with regard to the histo- 
 rians of the art : we shall notice each of them particularly under the school 
 which he has described. 
 
 In pronouncing a criticism upon each artist I have adopted the plan 
 of Baillet, the author of a voluminous history of works on taste, where he 
 does not . so frequently give his own opinion as that of others. Accord- 
 ingly, I have collected the various remarks of connoisseurs, scattered 
 through the pages of history ; but have not always cited my authorities, 
 lest I should add too much to the dimensions of my book ;* nor have I 
 regarded their opinion when they seemed to me to have been influenced 
 by prejudice. I have availed myself of the observations of some approved 
 critics, like Borghini, Fresnoy, Richardson, Bottari, Algarotti, Lazzarini, 
 and Mengs ; with others who have rather criticised our painters than 
 written their lives. I have also respected the opinions of living critics, 
 by consulting different professors in Italy : to them I have submitted my 
 manuscript ; I have followed their advice, especially when it related to 
 design, or any other department of painting, in which artists are almost 
 the only adequate judges. I have conversed with connoisseurs, who, in 
 some points, are not less skilful than the professors of the art, and are 
 even consulted by artists with advantage ; as on the suitableness of the 
 subject, on the propriety of the invention and the expression, on 
 the imitation of the antique, on the truth of the colouring. Nor have I 
 failed to study the greatest part of the best productions of the schools of 
 Italy ; and to inform myself in the different cities what rank their least 
 known painters hold among their connoisseurs ; persuaded that the most 
 accurate opinion of any artist is formed where the greatest number of his 
 works are to be seen, and where he is most frequently spoken of by his 
 fellow. citizens and by strangers. In this way, also, I have been enabled 
 to do justice to the merits of several artists who had been passed over, 
 either because the historian of their school had never beheld their produc- 
 tions, or had merely met with some early and trivial specimens in one city, 
 being unacquainted with the more perfect and mature specimens they had 
 produced elsewhere. 
 
 Notwithstanding my diligence, I do not presume to offer this as a work 
 to which much might not be added. It has never happened that a his- 
 
 * Abundance of quotations and descriptions of the minutest particulars 
 from rarer works is a characteristic of the present day, to which I think 
 I have sufficiently conformed in my second Index. But in a history 
 expressly composed to instruct and please, I have judged it right not to 
 interrupt the thread of the narrative too frequently with different authori- 
 ties. The works from which I draw my account of each artist are 
 indicated in the body of the history and in the first Index ; to make con- 
 tinual allusion to them might please a few. but would prove very disagree- 
 able to many. 
 
LANZI S PREFACE. 
 
 25 
 
 tory, embracing so many objects, is at once produced perfect ; though it 
 may gradually be rendered so. The history earliest in point of time, 
 becomes, in the end, the least in authority ; and its greatest merit is in 
 having paved the way to more finished performances. Perfection is still 
 less to be expected in a compendium. The reader is here presented with 
 the names of many artists and authors ; but many others might have 
 been admitted, whom w r ant of leisure or opportunity, but not of respect, 
 has obliged us to omit. Here he will find a variety of opinions ; but to 
 these many others might have been added. There is no man, of whom 
 all think alike. Baillet, before mentioned, is a proof of this, with regard 
 to writers on literary subjects ; and he who thinks the task worthy of his 
 pains might demonstrate it more fully with respect to different painters. 
 Each judges by principles peculiar to himself: Bonarruoti stigmatized as 
 drivelling, Pietro Perugino and Francia, both luminaries of the art ; 
 Guido, if we may credit history, was disapproved of by Cortona ; Cara- 
 vaggio by Zucchero ; Guercino by Guido ; and, what seems more extra- 
 ordinary, Domenichino by most of the artists who flourished at Rome 
 when he painted his finest pictures.* Had these artists written of their 
 rivals they either would have condemned them, or spoken less favourably 
 of them than unprejudiced individuals. Hence it is that connoisseurs 
 will frequently be found to approach nearer the truth, in forming their 
 estimate, than artists ; the former adopt the impartial feelings of the 
 public, while the latter allow themselves to be influenced by motives of 
 envy or of prejudice. Innumerable similar disputes are still main- 
 tained concerning several artists, who, like different kinds of aliment, 
 are found to be disagreeable or grateful to different palates. To hold the 
 happy mean, exempted from all party spirit, is as impossible as to 
 reconcile the opinions of mankind, which are as multifarious as are the 
 individuals of the species. 
 
 Amid such discrepancy of opinion I have judged it expedient to avoid 
 the most controverted points ; in others, to subscribe to the decision of 
 the majority ; to allow to each his particular opinion ;f but not, if possi- 
 
 * Pietro da Cortona told Falconieri that when the celebrated picture ot 
 S. Girolamo della Carità was exhibited, " it was so abused by all the 
 eminent painters, of whom many then flourished, that he himself joined 
 in its condemnation, in order to save his credit." See Falconieri, Lett. 
 Pittor. torn. ii. lett. 17. He continues : 44 Is not the tribune of the 
 church of S. Andrea della Valle, ornamented, by Domenichino, among 
 the finest specimens of painting in fresco ? and yet they talked of sending 
 masons with hammers to knock it down after he had displayed it. When 
 Domenichino afterwards passed through the church, he stopped with his 
 scholars to view it ; and, shrugging up his shoulders, observed, 4 After 
 all, I do not think the picture so badly executed/ " 
 
 f The most singular and novel opinions concerning our painters are 
 contained in the volumes published by M. Cochin, who is confuted in the 
 44 Guides" to the Cities of Padua and Parma, and is often convicted of 
 erroneous statements in matter of fact. He is reproved, with regard to 
 Bologna, by Crespi, in Lett. Pittor. torn. vii. : and for what he has said 
 
26 
 
 LANZl's PREFACE. 
 
 ble, to disappoint the reader, desirous of learning what is most authentic 
 and generally received. Ancient writers appear to have pursued this 
 plan when treating of the professors of any art, in which they themselves 
 were mere amateurs ; nor could it arise from any other circumstance that 
 Cicero, Pliny, and Quintilian, expressed themselves upon the Greek 
 artists in the same manner. Their opinions coincide, because that of the 
 public was unanimous. I am aware that it is difficult to obtain the 
 opinion of the public concerning the more modern artists, but it is not 
 difficult with regard to those on whom much has been written. I am 
 also aware that public opinion accords not at all times with truth, 
 because " it often happens to incline to the wrong side of the question." 
 This, however, is a rare occurrence in the fine arts,* nor does it militate 
 against an historian who aims more at fidelity of narrative, and impar- 
 tiality of public opinion, than the discussion of the relative merit or 
 correctness of tastes. 
 
 I commence by treating of that part of Italy, which, through the 
 genius of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raffaello, became first conspi- 
 cuous, and exhibited a decided character in painting. Those artists were 
 the ornaments of the Florentine and Roman schools, from which I pro- 
 ceed to two others, the Sienese and Neapolitan. About the same time 
 Giorgione, Titiano, and Correggio, began to flourish in Italy ; three 
 artists, who as much advanced the art of colouring, as the former im- 
 proved design. Then follows the school of Bologna, in which the attempt 
 was made to unite the excellences of all the other schools ; and on ac- 
 count of proximity it is succeeded by that of Ferrara, and Upper and 
 Lower Romagna. Then follows the school of Genoa, which was late in 
 acquiring celebrity ; and we conclude with that of Piedmont, which, 
 though it cannot boast so long a succession of artists as those of other 
 
 of Genoa, by Ratti, in the lives of the painters of that city. Commenc- 
 ing with his preface, they point out the grossest errors in Cochin. It is 
 there also observed that his work was disapproved of by Watellet, by 
 Clerisseau, and other French connoisseurs then living : nor do I believe 
 it would have pleased Filibien, De Piles, and such masters of the critical 
 art. Italy also, at a later period, has produced a book, which aims at 
 overturning the received opinions on subjects connected with the fine 
 arts. It is entitled " Arte di vedere secondo i principii di Sulzer e di 
 Mengs." The author, who, in certain periodical works at Rome, was 
 called the modern Diogenes, has been honoured with various confutations. 
 (See '* Lettera in Difesa del Cav. Ratti," p. 11.) Authors like these 
 launch their extravagant opinions, for the purpose of attracting the gaze 
 of the world ; but men of letters, if they cannot pass them over in silence, 
 ought not to be very anxious to gratify their wishes — " Opinionum com- 
 menta delet dies." — Cicero. 
 
 * Of Apelles himself Pliny observes, " Vulgum diligentiorem judi 
 centi quam se prseferens." Examine also Carlo Dati in " Vite do' 
 Pittori Antichi," p. 99, where he proves, by authority and examples, 
 that judging of the imitative arts is not confined to the learned. See also 
 Giunio " De Pictuia Veterum," lib. i. cap. 5. 
 
LANZI'S PREFACE. 
 
 27 
 
 states, has merits sufficient to entitle it to a place in a history of painting.* 
 Thus the five most celebrated schools will be treated of in the order in 
 which they arose, as the ancient writers on painting began with the 
 Asiatic school, which was followed by the Grecian, and this last was sub- 
 divided into the. Attic and Sicyonian ; to which in process of time suc- 
 ceeded the Roman school.f At the end of the work is gi ven an ample 
 index, quite indispensable to render the work more extensively useful, and 
 to give it its full advantage. In assigning artists to any school I have 
 paid more regard to other circumstances than the place of their nativity ; 
 to their education, their style, their place of residence and the instruction 
 of their pupils : circumstances sometimes found so blended and confused, 
 that several cities may contend for one painter, as they are said to have 
 done for Homer. In such cases I do not pretend to decide ; the object 
 of my labours being to trace the vicissitudes of the art in various places, 
 and to point out those artists who have exercised an influence over them ; 
 not to determine disputes, unpleasant in themselves, and wholly foreign 
 to my undertaking. 
 
 * Where, we might inquire, is the Lombard school ? Yet the author 
 gives an account of it in vol. iv. ; and Da Vinci, when jailed by II Moro 
 to Milan, found painting there already matured by the works of Bernardo 
 Zenale, by Borgognoni, and by many other artists. 
 
 •f See Mons. Agucchi, in a fragment preserved by Bellori, in " Vite 
 de' Pintori, Scultori, e Architetti moderni/ ' p. 190. 
 
HISTORY OF PAINTING 
 
 IN 
 
 LOWER ITALY. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH I. 
 
 Origin of the revival of Painting — Association and methods of the old 
 Painters — Series of Tuscan Artists before the time of Cimabue and 
 Giotto. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 That there were painters in Italy, even during the rude ages, 
 is attested not only by historians,*" but by pictures which 
 have escaped the ravages of time. Rome retains several ancient 
 specimens. t Passing over her cemeteries, which have handed 
 down to us a number of Christian monuments, part in speci- 
 mens of painted glass, scattered through our museums, and 
 part in those of parietal histories, or walled mosaic, it will be 
 sufficient to adduce two vast works, unrivalled by any others 
 in Italy. The first is the series of the Popes, which, in order 
 to prove the succession of the papal chair from the prince 
 of the Apostles down to the time of St. Leo, this last holy 
 pontiff caused to be painted ; a work of the fifth century, 
 
 * See Tiraboschi, " Storia della Litterat. Italiana," towards the end of 
 torn. iv. Also the Dissertation of Lami on the Italian painters and 
 sculptors who flourished from the year 1000 to 1300 ; in the Supplement 
 to Vinci's " Trattato della Pittura," printed at Florence in 1792 ; and 
 see Moreni, P. iv. p. 108. 
 
 f See the oration of Mon. Francesco Carrara " Delle Lodi delle belle 
 Arti," Fvoma, 1758, 4to., with the accompanying notes, in which the two 
 Bianchini, Marangoni, and Bottari, their illustrators, are cited. 
 
30 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 subsequently continued until our own times. The second 
 is the decoration of the whole church of San Urbano, where 
 there are several evangelical acts represented on the walls, 
 along with histories of the Titular Saint and St. Cecilia, a 
 production which, partaking in nothing either of the Greek 
 lineaments or style of drapery, may be attributed more justly 
 to an Italian pencil, which has subscribed the date of 1011.'* 
 Many more might be pointed out, existing in different cities ; 
 as, for instance, the picture at Pesara, of the patron saints of 
 the city, illustrated by the celebrated Annibale Olivieri, 
 which is earlier than the year 1000 ; those in the vaults 
 of the cathedral at Aquileja,t the picture at Santa Maria 
 Primerana at Fiesole, which seems the work of that or the 
 succeeding age; % and the picture at Orvieto which was 
 formerly known by the name of S. Maria Prisca, but is now 
 generally called S. Brizio.§ I say nothing of the figures 
 of the Virgin formerly ascribed to St. Luke, now supposed to 
 be the production of the eleventh or twelfth century, as 
 I shall have to treat of them at the opening of the third 
 book. The painters of those times were, however, of little 
 repute ; they produced no illustrious scholars, no work 
 worthy of marking an era. The art had gradually dege- 
 nerated into a kind of mechanism, which, after the models 
 afforded by the Greek workers in mosaic employed in the 
 church of St. Mark, at Venice, || invariably exhibited the 
 
 * Pointed out to me by Signor D'Agincourt, a gentleman deeply- 
 versed in antiquities of this sort. 
 
 f There were similar remains in the choir, the design of which I have 
 seen. They were covered over in 1733. Among other curiosities was 
 the portrait of the patriarch Popone, of the Emperor Conrad, and his son 
 Henry : the design, action, and characters, like the mosaics at Rome ; 
 executed about the year 1030. See Bartoli " Antichità di Aquileja." 
 p. 369 ; and Altan, " Del vario Stato, " &c. p. 5. 
 
 X The figure of our Lady is retouched ; but two miniatures, attached to it, 
 are better preserved ; the one represents a man, the other a woman : and 
 their drapery is in the costume of that period. The figures are reversed 
 in the engraving of them, which is published. 
 
 § See P. della Valle in the preface to Vasari, p. 51. 
 
 |j A few pictures by superior Greek artists remain, which are very good. 
 Of this number is a Madonna, with a Greek inscription, at the church of 
 So Maria in Cosmedin at Rome. There is also one at Camerino said to 
 have come from Smyrna ; and I know c f no Gieek picture in Italy better 
 executed or better preserved. 
 
NICCOLA PISANO. 
 
 31 
 
 same legends, in which nature apj)eared distorted rather 
 than represented. It was not till after the middle of the 
 thirteenth century that any thing better was attempted ; and 
 the improvement of sculpture was the first step towards the 
 formation of a new style. 
 
 The honour of this is due to the Tuscans ; a nation that 
 from remote antiquity disseminated the benign light of art 
 and learning throughout Italy ; but it more especially belongs 
 to the people of Pisa. They taught artists to shake off the 
 trammels of the modern Greeks, and to adopt the ancients 
 for their models. Barbarism had not only overwhelmed the 
 arts, but the maxims necessary for their re-establishment. 
 Italy was not destitute of fine specimens of Grecian and 
 Iloman sculpture; but she had long been without an artist 
 who could appreciate their value, much less attempt to 
 imitate them. Little else was executed in those dark ages 
 but some rude pieces of sculpture, such as what remains 
 in the cathedral of Modena, in San Donato at Arezzo, in 
 the Primaziale at Pisa,* and in churches where specimens 
 are preserved on the doors or in the interior. Niccola Pisano 
 was the first who discovered and pursued the true path. 
 There were, and still are, some ancient sarcophagi in Pisa, 
 especially that which inclosed the body of Beatrice, mother 
 of the countess Matilda, who died in the eleventh century. 
 A chase, supposed to represent that of Hippolytus, is sculptured 
 on it in basso relievo, which must be the production of a 
 good school; being a subject which has been often delineated 
 by the ancients on many urns still extant at Rome.t This 
 
 * The lateral gate of bronze is of very rude workmanship, as described 
 by the Canon Martini, in his account of that temple, p. 85 ; and by 
 Signor da Morrò na, it is ascribed to the hand of Bonanno Pisano. From 
 Vasari's life of Arnolfo, we learn that the same sculptor also executed 
 the great gate of the Primaziale at Pisa, in bronze, about the year 1180, 
 subsequently destroyed by fire. That of Santa Maria Nuova at Mon- 
 reale, is likewise his. It is described by P. del Giudice, in his account of 
 that church, and bears the name of Bonanno Pisano, with the date 1186. 
 It is as rudely executed as the preceding one at Pisa, as I am assured by 
 the Cavalier Puccini, accurately versed in every branch of the fine arts. 
 If we wish to estimate the merit of Niccola Pisano, we have only to com- 
 pare these two gates with the specimens which he gave us only a few 
 years afterwards. 
 
 t Several specimens of similar productions also remain in Sicily, parti- 
 
32 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 was the model which Niccola selected ; from this he formed 
 a style which participated of the antique, especially in the 
 heads and the casting of the drapery ; and when exhibited 
 in different Italian cities, " it inspired artists with a laudable 
 emulation to apply to sculpture more assiduously than they 
 had before * done," as we are informed by Yasari. Niccola 
 did not attain to what he aspired. The compositions are 
 sometimes crowded, the figures are often badly designed, 
 aftd show more diligence than expression. His name, how- 
 ever, will always mark an era in the history of design, 
 because he first led artists into the true path by the intio- 
 duction of a better standard. Reform in any branch of 
 study invariably depends on some rule, which, promulgated 
 and adopted by the schools, gradually produces a general 
 revolution in opinion, and opens a new field to a succeeding 
 age. 
 
 About 1231, he sculptured at Bologna the urn of San 
 Domenico, and from this, as a remarkable event, he was named 
 " Niccola of the Urn." He afterwards executed, in a much 
 superior style, the Last Judgment, for the cathedral of Or- 
 vieto, and the pulpit in the church of San Giovanni, at Pisa ; 
 works that demonstrate that design, invention, and com- 
 position, received from him a new existence. He was suc- 
 ceeded by Arnolfo Fiorentino, his scholar, the sculptor of 
 the tomb of Boniface Vili, in San Pietro at Rome ; and 
 by his son Giovanni, who executed the monuments of Urban 
 IV. and of Benedict IX. in Perugia. Pie afterwards com- 
 pleted the great altar of San Donato, at Arezzo, the cost 
 of which was thirty thousand gold florins ; besides many 
 other works which remain in Naples and in several cities 
 of Tuscany. Andrea Pisano was his associate, a/id probably 
 also his disciple in Perugia, who, after establishing himself 
 in Florence, ornamented with statues the cathedral and the 
 
 cularly at Mazzerra and Girganti. At Palermo, the tomb of the Empress 
 Constance II., who died in the year 1222, is decorated with an antique 
 sculpture in basso relievo, representing a chase, which is conjectured to 
 represent that of ^Eneas and Dido, and which is well engraved. See the 
 work entitled, " I Regali Sepolchri del Duomo di Palermo riconosciuti e 
 illustrati. Nap. 1784. ,, ~ W. R. 
 
 Another specimen of this sort is said to be in the collection of Mr. 
 Blundell, at Ince.— W. R. 
 
GIOVANNI BALDUCCI. 
 
 S3 
 
 cliurcli of San Giovanni in that city ; and in twenty-two 
 years finished the great gate of bronze " to which we are 
 indebted for all that is excellent, difficult, or beautiful in 
 the other two, which are the workmanship of succeeding 
 artists/' He was, in fact, the founder of that great school 
 that successively produced Orcagna, Donatello, and the cele- 
 brated Ghiberti, who fabricated those gates for the same 
 church, which Michelangelo pronounced worthy to form the 
 entrance of Paradise. After Andrea, we may notice Gio- 
 vanni Balducci, of Pisa, whose era, country, and style, all 
 lead us to suppose him one of the same school. He 
 was an excellent artist, and was employed by Castruccio, 
 lord of Lucca, and by Azzone Visconti, prince of Milan ; 
 where he flourished, and left, among other monuments of 
 his art, the tomb of San Pietro Martire, at S. Eustorgio, 
 so highly praised by Torre, by Lattuada, and by various 
 learned illustrators of Milanese antiquities.* Two eminent 
 artists, natives of Siena, proceeded from the school of Gio. 
 Pisano, namely, the two brothers, Agnolo and Agostino, who 
 are commended by Vasari as improvers of the art. Who- 
 ever has seen the sepulchre of Guido, bishop of Arezzo, 
 decorated with an infinity of statues and basso relievos, re- 
 presenting passages of his life, will not only admire in them 
 the design, which was the work of Giotto, but the execution 
 of the sculpture. The brothers also executed many of their 
 own designs in Orvieto, in Siena, and in Lombardy, where 
 they brought up several pupils, who for a long period pur- 
 sued their manner, and diffused it over Italy. 
 
 To the improvement of sculpture succeeded that of mosaic, 
 through the efforts of another Tuscan, belonging to the order 
 of minor friars, named Fra Jacopo, or Fra Mino da Turrita, 
 from a place in the territory of Siena. It is not known whe- 
 ther he was instructed in his art by the Romans or by the 
 
 * In the " Guide to Milan," Sig. Abate Bianconi observes, "that these 
 are beautiful works, and that nothing superior is to be seen in any work 
 of that age. Vasari, by omitting this very eminent Pisan, and not men- 
 tioning these works, although he was, according to his own account, at 
 Milan, has given reason to believe, that he was not over anxious in his 
 researches." p. 215. 
 
 See also Giulini and Verri, as quoted by Sig. da Morrona in torn, i. 
 pp. 199, 200. 
 
 VOL. I. j) 
 
34 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 Greek workers in mosaic,* but it is well ascertained that lie 
 far surpassed them. On examining what remains of his works 
 in Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, one can hardly be per- 
 suaded that it is the production of so rude an age, did not 
 history constrain us to believe it. It appears probable that 
 he took the ancients for his models, and deduced his rules 
 from the more chaste specimens of mosaic, still remaining in 
 several of the Roman churches, the design of which is leas 
 crude, the attitudes less forced, and the composition more 
 skilful, than were exhibited by the Greeks who ornamented 
 the church of San Marco, at Venice. Mino surpassed them 
 in every thing. From 1225, when he executed the mosaic 
 of the tribune of the church of San Giovanni, at Florence, 
 he was considered at the head of the living artists in mosaic. 
 He merited this praise much more by his works at Rome, 
 and it appears that he long maintained his reputation. Vasari 
 has not been sufficiently just to the fame of Turrita, in no- 
 ticing him only casually in the life of Tafi, but the verses he 
 recites, and the commissions he mentions, demonstrate how 
 greatly Turrita was esteemed by his contemporaries. It is 
 maintained that he was also a painter ; but this is a mistake 
 which will be cleared up in the Sienese school. 
 
 From a deficiency of specimens, painting long remained in 
 a more rude state than mosaic, and was very far behind 
 sculpture. But we must not imagine, that at the birth of 
 Cimabue, in 1240, the race of artists was entirely extinct, as 
 erroneously asserted by Vasari. This must be deemed an ex- 
 aggeration, for he himself has recounted several sculptors, 
 architects, and painters then living ; and the general scope of 
 his less cautious expressions, against which so many writers 
 have inveighed, and still continue to declaim, favours this 
 
 * The mosaic school subsisted at Rome as early as the eleventh and 
 twelfth centuries. (See Musant. Fax Chronol. pp. 319, 338.) In this 
 the family of the Cosmati acquired great excellence. Adeodato di Cosimo 
 Cosmati employed himself in the church of St. Maria Maggiore, in 1220 
 (Guide to Rome) ; and several of the same name exercised their talents in 
 the cathedral of Orvieto. (See Valle, Catalogo.) The whole of these are 
 preferred to the Greek mosaic -workers, who were at the same period 
 engaged in decorating St. Mark' s at Venice. (See Valle's Preface to 
 Vasari, p. 61.) 
 
THE FINE ARTS IN PISA. 
 
 35 
 
 opinion. I shall be constrained to advert, in almost every 
 book, to their accusations, and to produce the names of artists 
 who then lived. I shall commence with those who then 
 nourished in Tuscany. The city of Pisa, at this time, had 
 not only painters, but a school for each of the fine arts.* The 
 distinguished Signor Morrona, who has illustrated the Pisan 
 antiquities, deduces its origin immediately from Greece. The 
 Pisans, already very powerful by . sea and land, having re- 
 solved in 1063 to erect the vast fabric of their cathedral, had 
 drawn thither artists in miniature, and other painters, at the 
 same time with Buschetto the architect, and these men 
 educated pupils for the city. The Greeks at that time were 
 but ill qualified to instruct, for they knew little. Their first 
 pupils in Pisa seem to have been a few anonymous artists, 
 some of whose miniatures and rude paintings are still in ex- 
 istence. A parchment, containing the Exultet, as usually 
 sung on Sabbato Santo, is in the cathedral, and we may here 
 and there observe, painted on it, figures in miniature, with 
 plants and animals : it is a relique of the early part of 
 the twelfth century, yet a specimen of art not altogether 
 barbarous. There are likewise some other paintings of that 
 century, in the same cathedral, containing figures of our Lady, 
 with the holy infant on her right arm : they are rude, but the 
 progress of the same school may be traced from them to the 
 time of Giunta. This artist lately received a fine eulogium, 
 among other illustrious Pisans, from Signor Tempesta, and 
 he was entitled to it from the more early historians. His 
 country possesses none of his undoubted pictures, except 
 a crucifixion with his name, which is believed to be among 
 his earliest productions, a print from which may be found in 
 the third volume of " Pisa Illustrata/' He executed better 
 pictures in Assisi, where he was invited to paint by Frat' Elia 
 di Cortona, superior of the Minori, about the year 1230. 
 From thence we are furnished with notices of his education, 
 which is thus described by P. Angeli, the historian of that 
 cathedral : " Juncta Pisanus rudi ter à Grsecis instructus, pri- 
 mus ex Italis, artem apprehendit circa an. sal. 1210/' In 
 the church of the Angioli there is a better preserved work 
 
 * See " Pisa Illustrata" of Signor da Morrona, torn. i. p. 224. 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 of the same master ; it is a crucifixion painted on a wooden 
 cross ; on the lateral edges and upper surface of which our 
 Lady is represented, with two other half-length figures, and 
 underneath the remains of an inscription are legible, which 
 having copied on the spot, I do not hesitate to publish with 
 its deficiencies now supplied : — 
 
 .Z^nTA PisAnus 
 Ivmiim me Fecit. 
 
 I supply Juntini, because Signor da Morrona asserts, that 
 about this time, a Giunta di Giuntino is mentioned in the 
 records of Pisa, whom, by the aid of the Assisi inscription, 
 I conjecture to be the painter we have now under notice. 
 The figures are considerably less than life ; the design is dry, 
 the fingers excessively long, but these are vitia non hominum 
 sed temporum ; in short, this piece shews a knowledge of the 
 naked figure, an expression of pain in the heads, and a dis- 
 position of the drapery, greatly superior to the efforts of the 
 Greeks, his contemporaries. The handling of his colours is 
 strong, although the flesh inclines to that of bronze ; the local 
 tints are judiciously varied, the chiaroscuro even shews some 
 art, and the whole is not inferior, except in the proportions, 
 to crucifixions with similar half-figures usually ascribed to 
 Cimabue. He painted at Assisi another crucifixion, which is 
 now lost, to which may be added, a portrait of Frat' Elia, 
 with this inscription, "F. Helias fecit fieri. Jesu Christe 
 pie miserere precantis Helise. Juncta Pisanus me pinxit, 
 An. D. 1236. Indit. IX." The inscription has been pre- 
 served by P. Wadingo, in his annals of the Franciscan order 
 for that year, and the historian describes the crucifixion as 
 affaire pictum. The fresco works of Giunta were executed 
 in the ^reat church of the Franciscans, and according to 
 Vasari, he was there assisted by certain Greeks. Some busts 
 and history pieces still remain in the gallery and the con- 
 tiguous chapels, among which is the crucifixion of San Pietro, 
 noticed in the " Etruria Pittrice/' Some believe that those 
 paintings have been injudiciously retouched, and this may 
 serve to excuse the drawing, which may have been altered, in 
 many places, but the feebleness of the colouring cannot be 
 denied. When thev are compared with ' what Cimabue 
 
SPREAD OF ART IN TUSCANY. 
 
 37 
 
 executed there about forty years afterwards, it seems that 
 Giunta was not sufficiently forcible in this species of painting ; 
 perhaps he might have improved, but he is not mentioned 
 after 1236 ; and it is conjectured that he died while yet a 
 young man, at a distance from his native country. I am in- 
 duced to believe so from observing, that Giunta di Giuntino 
 is noticed in the records of Pisa, in the early part of that cen- 
 tury, but not afterwards ; and that Cimabue was sent for to 
 paint the altar-piece and portrait of San Francesco of Pisa, 
 about the year 1265, before he went to Assisi. It is more 
 likely that Giunta would have executed this, had he returned 
 home from that city, where he had seen, and perhaps painted, 
 the portrait of the Holy Father.* 
 
 From this school the art is believed to have spread in these 
 early times over all Tuscany, although it must not be forgotten 
 that there were miniature painters there as well as in other 
 parts of Italy, who, transferring their art from small to large 
 works, like Franco of Bologna, betook themselves, and incited 
 others, to painting on walls and on panel. Whatever we 
 may choose to believe, Siena, at this period, could boast her 
 Guido, who painted from the year 1221, but not entirely in 
 the manner of the Greeks, as we shall find under the Sienese 
 school. Lucca possessed in 1235 one Bonaventura Berlin- 
 gieri. A San Francesco painted by him still exists in the 
 castle of Guiglia, not far from Modena, which is described as 
 a work of great merit for that age.t There lived another 
 artist about the year 1288, known by his production of a 
 crucifixion, which he left at San Gerbone, a short distance 
 from the city, with this inscription : " Deodatus filius Orlandi 
 de Luca me pinxit, A. D. 1288." Margaritone of Arezzo 
 was a disciple and imitator of the Greeks, and by all accounts 
 he must have been born several years before Cimabue. He 
 painted on canvas, and if we may credit Yasari, made the first 
 
 * In the sacristy of the Angioli is preserved the most ancient portrait of 
 San Francesco that is extant. It is painted on the panel which served as 
 the saint's couch until the period of his decease, as we learn from the 
 inscription. It is there supposed to be the work of some Greek artist 
 anterior to Giunta. 
 
 f See Signor Ab. Bettinelli, " Risorgimento d' Italia negli studii, nelle 
 arti, ne' costumi dopo il mille," p. 192. 
 
88 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 discovery of a method of rendering his pictures more durable, 
 and less liable to cracking. He extended canvas on the panel, 
 laying it down with a strong glue, made of shreds of parch- 
 ment, and covered the whole with a ground of gypsum, before 
 he began to paint. He formed diadems and other ornaments 
 of plaster, giving them relief from gilding and burnishing 
 them. Some of his crucifixions remain in Arezzo, and one 
 of them is in the church of the Holy Cross at Florence, near 
 another by Cimabue ; both are in the old manner, and not so 
 different in point of merit, but that Margaritone, however 
 rude, may be pronounced as well entitled as Cimabue to the 
 name of painter. 
 
 While the neighbouring cities had made approaches towards 
 the new style, Florence, if we are to credit Vasari and his fol- 
 lowers, was without a painter ; but subsequent to the year 1 250, 
 some Greek painters were invited thither by the rulers of the 
 city, for the purpose of restoring the art of painting in Florence, 
 where it was rather wholly lost than degenerated. To this as- 
 sertion I have to oppose the learned dissertation of Doctor Lami, 
 which I have just commended. Lami observes that mention 
 is made in the archives of the chapters of one Bartolommeo 
 who painted in 1236, and that the picture of the Annun- 
 ciation of our Lady, which is held in the highest veneration 
 in the church of the Servi, was painted about that period. 
 It is retouched in some parts of the drapery ; it possesses, 
 however, much originality, and for that age is respectably 
 executed. When I prepared my first edition, I had no know- 
 ledge of the work of Lami, which was not then published, 
 and hence was unable to proceed further than to refute the 
 opinion of those who ascribed this sacred figure to Cavallini, 
 a pupil of Giotto. I reflected that the style of Cavallini 
 appeared considerably more modern in his other works which 
 I had examined at Assisi and at Florence ; yet, various 
 artists whom I consulted, and among others Signor Pacini, 
 who had copied the Annunciation, disputed with me this 
 diversity of style. I further adduced the form of the cha- 
 racters written there in a book, " Ecce Yirgo concipiet," &c, 
 which resembles those of the thirteenth century ; nor have 
 they that profusion of lines which distinguishes the German, 
 commonly denominated the Gothic character, which Cavallini 
 
ACCUSATIONS AGAINST "VASARI. 
 
 39 
 
 and other pupils of Giotto always employed. I rejoice that 
 the opinion of Lami confirms my conjecture, and stamps its 
 authenticity ; and it seems to me highly probable that the 
 Bartolommeo, whom he indicates, is the individual to whom 
 the memorandums of the Servi ascribe the production of their 
 Annunciation about the year 1250. The same religious 
 fraternity preserve, among their ancient paintings, a Mag- 
 dalen, which appears, from the design and inscription, a work 
 of the thirteenth century ; and we might instance several 
 coeval pictures that still exist in the Chapter House, and in 
 other parts of the city.* 
 
 Having inserted these notices of ancient painters, and 
 some others, which will be found scattered throughout 
 the work, I turn to Yasari, and to the accusations laid to 
 his charge. He is defended by Monsignor Bottari in a 
 note at the conclusion of the life of Margaritone, taken 
 from Baldinucci. He affirms, from his own observation, 
 " that though each city had some painters, they were ail as 
 contemptible and barbarous as Margaritone, who, if compared 
 to Cimabue, is unworthy of the name of painter." The 
 examples already cited do not permit me to assent to this 
 proposition ; even Bottari himself will scarcely allow me to 
 do so, as he observes, in another note on the life of Cimabue, 
 " that he was the first who abandoned the manner of the 
 Greeks, or at least who avoided it more completely than any 
 other artist." But if others, such as Guido, Bonaventura, 
 and Giunta, had freed themselves from it before his time, 
 why are they not recorded as the first, in point of time, by 
 Yasari ? Did not their example open the new path to Cima- 
 bue ? Did they not afford a ray of light to reviving art ? 
 
 * To this list of early painters might perhaps be added the name of 
 Francesco Benani, by whom there is a whole-length figure of St. Jerome 
 holding a crucifix in his hand. It possesses all the characteristics attri- 
 buted by Lanzi to this early age. 'Near the bottom of the picture is a 
 label, inscribed Franciscus Benanus, Filius Petri Ablada. The size of the 
 picture is 2 feet 8 by 2 feet 2, on panel, covered with gypsum. The 
 vehicle of the colours is probably prepared from eggs, which were usually 
 employed for that purpose before the invention of painting in oil, and to 
 which an absorbent ground of lime or gypsum seems to have been indis- 
 pensable. It is surprising how well the early pictures executed in thi3 
 style have preserved their colouring to the present day. — W. R. 
 
40 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 Were they not in painting what the two Guidos were in 
 poetry, who, however much surpassed by Dante, are entitled 
 to the first place in a history of our poets ? Vasari would, 
 therefore, have acted better had he followed the example of 
 Pliny, who commences with the rude designers, Ardices of 
 Corinth, and Telephanes of Sicyon ; he then minutely nar- 
 rates the invention of Cleophantes the Corinthian, who co- 
 loured his designs with burnt earth ; next, that of Eumarus 
 the Athenian, who first represented the distinction of age and 
 sex. Then comes that of Cimon of Cleonse, who first ex- 
 pressed the various attitudes of the head, and aimed at repre- 
 senting the truth, even in the joints of the fingers and the 
 folds of the garments. Thus, the merits of each city, and 
 every artist, appear in ancient history ; and it seems to me 
 just that the same should be done, as far as possible, in 
 modern history. These observations may, at present, suffice 
 in regard to a subject that has been macie a source of com- 
 plaint and dispute among many writers. 
 
 Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there is no city to 
 which painting is more indebted than to Florence, nor any 
 name more proper to mark an epoch, whatever may be the 
 opinion of Padre della Yalle,* than that of Cimabue. The 
 artists before mentioned had few followers ; their schools, 
 with the exception of that of Siena, languished, and were 
 
 * This writer has thrown much light upon the history of our early- 
 painters, from which I have derived much benefit ; but in the heat of 
 dispute he has frequently depreciated Cimabue in a way which I cannot 
 approve. For instance, Vasari having said that " he contributed greatly 
 to the perfection of the art," della Valle asserts, that " he did it neither 
 good nor harm and that having closely examined the pictures of 
 Cimabue, " he has found them in a ruder style than appears in those of 
 Giunta Pisano, of Guido da Siena, of Jacopo da Turrita, &c." (torn. i. 
 p. 235.) Of the two last I shall speak elsewhere. With respect to the 
 first, the writer contradicts himself four pages after ; when, commenting 
 on another passage of the historian relating to certain pictures of Cimabue, 
 executed in Assisi in the inferior church of S. Francesco, he says, that 
 " he there, in his opinion, surpassed Giunta Pisano.' ' It is to be 
 remembered that this was his first work, or amongst the first that Cimabue 
 painted in Assisi. When he went thither, therefore, he was a better 
 artist than Giunta. How, then, when he worked in ihe superior church, 
 in Assisi, and in so many other places, did he become so bad a painter, 
 and more uncouth than Giunta himself ? 
 
GIOVANNI CIMABUE. 
 
 41 
 
 either gradually dispersed, or united themselves to that of 
 Florence. This school in a short time eclipsed every other, 
 and has continued to flourish in a proud succession of artists, 
 uninterrupted even down to our own days. Let us then trace 
 it from its commencement. 
 
 Giovanni Cimabue, descended from illustrious ancestors,* 
 was both an architect and a painter. That he was the pupil of 
 Giunta is conjectured in our times, only because the Greeks 
 were less skilful than the Italians. It ought to be a previous 
 question, whether the supposed scholar and master ever re- 
 sided in the same place, which it would seem, after the obser- 
 vations before adduced, can scarcely be admitted.t It appears 
 from history, that he learnt the art from some Greeks who 
 were invited to Florence, and painted in S. Maria Novella, 
 according to Vasari. It is an error to assert that they 
 painted in the chapel of the Gondi, which was built a cen- 
 tury after, together w T ith the church ; it was certainly in 
 another chapel, under the church, where those Greek paint- 
 ings were covered with plaster, and their place supplied by 
 others, the work of a painter of the thirteenth century, j 
 
 Not long since a part of the new plaster fell down, and 
 some of the very rude figures of those Greek painters became 
 again visible. It is probable that Cimabue imitated them in 
 early life, and perhaps at that time painted the S. Francesco 
 and the little legends which surround it in the church of 
 S. Croce. But, if I mistake not, it is doubtful who painted 
 this picture ; at least, it neither has the manner nor the 
 
 * See Baldinucci, torn. i. p. 17, Florentine edition, 1767, where it is 
 said that the Cimabuoi were also called Gualtieri. 
 -|* But see Baldinucci in " Veglia," p. 87. 
 
 X We read, in the preface to the Sienese edition of Vasari's " Lives " 
 (p. 17), as follows : "To Giunta and to the other artists of Pisa, as heads 
 of the school, was given the principal direction of adorning the Franciscan 
 church ; and Cimabue and Giotto are known to have been either disciples 
 or assistants in their school, in which they produced several important 
 works. Giunta had the direction of his assistant as long as he resided 
 there, which may have been even subsequent to 1236. But how are we 
 to suppose that he could have been at Assisi so long as to permit Cimabue 
 (who was born in 1240, and went to Assisi about 1265) to assist, to 
 receive instructions from, and to succeed him ? Such a supposition is 
 still more untenable as regards Giotto, who was invited to Assisi many 
 years afterwards.' ' — Vasari. 
 
42 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 colouring of the works of Cimabue, even when young. I 
 may refer to the S. Cecilia, with the implements of her mar- 
 tyrdom, in the church dedicated to that saint, and which was 
 afterwards removed to that of San Stefano, a picture greatly 
 superior to that of S. Francesco. 
 
 However this may be, Giovanni, like other Italians of his 
 age, got the better of his Greek education, which seems to 
 have consisted in one artist copying another without adding 
 any thing to the practice of his master. He consulted nature, 
 he corrected in part the rectilinear forms of his design, he 
 gave expression to the heads, he folded the drapery, and he 
 grouped the figures with much greater art than the Greeks. 
 His talent did not consist in the graceful. His Madonnas 
 have no beauty, his angels in the same piece have all the 
 same forms. Wild as the age in which he lived, he succeeded 
 admirably in heads full of character, especially in those of 
 old men, impressing an indescribable degree of bold sublimity, 
 which the moderns have not been able greatly to surpass. 
 Vast and inventive in conception, he executed large compo- 
 sitions, and expressed them in grand proportions. His two 
 great altar-pieces of the Madonna, at Florence, the one in 
 the church of the Dominicans, the other in that of the Tri- 
 nity, with the grand figures of the prophets, do not give so 
 good an idea of his style as his fresco paintings in the church 
 of Assisi, where he appears truly magnificent for the age in 
 which he lived. In these histories of the Old and New 
 Testament, such as remain, he appears an Ennius, who, amid 
 the rudeness of Roman epic poetry, gave flashes of genius 
 not displeasing to a Virgil. Vasari speaks of him with ad- 
 miration for the vigour of his colouring, and justly so of the 
 pictures in the ceiling. They are still in a good state of 
 preservation, and although some of the figures of Christ, and 
 of the Virgin in particular, retain much of the Greek man- 
 ner, others representing the Evangelists, and Doctors in- 
 structing the Monks of the Franciscan Order, from their 
 chairs, exhibit an originality of conception and arrangement 
 that does not appear in contemporary works. The colouring 
 is bold, the proportions are gigantic even in the distance, and 
 not badly preserved ; in short, painting may there be said to 
 have almost advanced beyond what the mosaic worker at first 
 
GIOTTO. 
 
 43 
 
 attempted to do. The whole of these, indeed, are steps in 
 the progress of the human intellect not to be recounted in 
 one history, and form beyond question the distinguishing 
 excellence of the Florentine artist, when put into competition 
 with either the Pisans or the Sienese. Nor do I perceive 
 how, after the authority of Vasari, who assigns the work of 
 the ceiling to Cimabue, confirmed by the tradition of five 
 centuries, P. della Valle is justified at this day, in ascribing 
 that painting to Giotto, a painter of a milder genius. If he 
 was induced to prefer other artists to Cimabue, because they 
 gave the eyes less fierceness, and the nose a finer shape, these 
 circumstances appear to me too insignificant to degrade Cima- 
 bue from that rank which he enjoys in impartial history.* 
 He has, moreover, asserted, that Cimabue neither promoted 
 nor injured the Florentine school by his productions, a harsh 
 judgment, in the opinion of those who have perused so many 
 old writers belonging to the city who have celebrated his 
 merits, and of those who have studied the works of the Flo- 
 rentine artists before his time, and seen how greatly Cimabue 
 surpasses them. 
 
 If Cimabue was the Michelangelo of that age, Giotto 
 was the Raffaello. Painting, in his hands, became so ele- 
 gant, that none of his school, nor of any other, till the time 
 of Masaccio, surpassed, or even equalled him, at least in 
 gracefulness of manner. Giotto was born in the country, 
 and was bred a shepherd ; but he was likewise born a 
 painter ; and continually exercised his genius in delineating 
 some object or other around him. A sheep which he had 
 
 * To the testimonies in favour of Cimabue, may be added one of no 
 little weight, from the manuscript given to the public a few years since, 
 by the Abbate Morelli. We there find that Cimabue painted in Padua, 
 in the church del Carmine, which was afterwards burnt ; but that a head 
 of S. Giovanni, by him, being rescued from the flames, was inserted in a 
 frame, and preserved in the house of Alessandro Capella. Would a pain- 
 ter, who had done neither good nor harm to the Florentine school, and to 
 the art, have been invited to Padua ? Would the remains of his works 
 have been held in such esteem ? Would he have been so highly valued, 
 after so great a lapse of time, by Vasari, to whose arts he seems to wish to 
 ascribe the reputation of Cimabue. Other proofs of this reputation may 
 be seen in the defence of Vasari, in the present book, third epoch. The 
 writer of history ought completely to divest himself of the love of system 
 and party spirit. 
 
44 
 
 THF REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 drawn on a flat stone, after nature, attracted the notice of 
 Cimabue, who by chance passed that way ; he demanded 
 leave of his father to take him to Florence, that he might 
 afford him instruction ; confident that, in him, he was about 
 to raise up a new ornament to the art. Giotto commenced 
 by imitating his master, but quickly surpassed him. An 
 Annunciation, in the possession of the Fathers of Badia, is 
 one of his earliest works. The style is somewhat dry, but 
 shews a grace and diligence, that announced the improvement 
 we afterwards discern. Through him symmetry became 
 more chaste, design more pleasing, and colouring softer than 
 before. The meagre hands, the sharp pointed feet, and 
 staring eyes, remnants of the Grecian manner, all acquired 
 more correctness under him. 
 
 It is not possible to assign the cause of this transition, 
 as we are able to do in the case of later painters; but it 
 is reasonable to conclude that it was not wholly produced, 
 even by the almost divine genius of this artist, unaided 
 by adventitious circumstances. There is no necessity for 
 sending him, as some have done, to be instructed at Pisa ; 
 his history does not warrant it, and an historian is not a 
 diviner. Much less ought we to refer him to the school of 
 F. Jacopo da Turrita, and give him Menimi and Lorenzetti 
 for fellow-pupils, who are not known to have been in Rome 
 when F. Jacopo was distinguished for his best manner. But 
 P. della Yalle thinks he discovers in Giotto's first painting, 
 the style and composition of Giunta (Preface to Yasari, 
 p. 17), and in the pictures of Giotto at S. Croce, in Florence, 
 which " he has meditated upon a hundred times," he re- 
 cognises F. Jacopo, and finds " reason for opining" that 
 he was the master of Giotto. (Yide torn. ii. p. 78.) When a 
 person becomes attached to a system, he often sees and 
 opines what no one else can possibly see or opine. In the 
 same manner Balolinucci wished to refer to the school of 
 Giotto, one Duccio da Siena, Vital di Bologna, and many 
 others, as will be noticed ; and he too argues upon a re- 
 semblance of style, which, to say truth, neither I nor any 
 one I know can perceive. If I cannot then agree with 
 Baldinucci, can I value his imitator ? and more particularly 
 as it is no question here of Vitale, or any other artist of 
 
• 
 
 GIOTTO A SCULPTOR. 
 
 45 
 
 mediocrity, almost unknown to history, but of Giotto him- 
 self. Is it likely, with a genius such as his, and born in 
 an age not wholly barbarous, with the advantages enjoyed 
 under Cimabue, especially in point of colouring, that he 
 would take Giunta for his model, or listen to the instruction 
 of Fra Mino, in order to excel his master ? Besides, what 
 advantage can be obtained from thus disturbing the order 
 of chronology, violating history, and rejecting the tradition 
 of Giotto's native school, in order to account for his new 
 style ? 
 
 It is most probable that, as the great Michelangelo, by 
 modelling and studying the antique, quickly surpassed in 
 painting his master, Ghirlandaio, the same occurred with 
 regard to Giotto. It is at least known that he was also 
 a sculptor, and that his medals were preserved till the time of 
 Lorenzo Ghiberti. Nor was he without good examples. 
 There were specimens of antique sculpture at Florence, 
 which may be yet seen near the cathedral (not to mention 
 those which he afterwards saw at Rome) ; and their merit, 
 then already established by the practice of Niccola and Gio- 
 vanni of Pisa, could not be unknown to Giotto, to whom 
 nature had granted such a taste for the exquisite and the beau- 
 tiful. When one contemplates some of his heads of men ; 
 some of his forms, proportioned far beyond the littleness 
 of his contemporaries ; his taste in flowing, natural, and 
 becoming drapery ; some of his attitudes after the manner 
 of the antique, breathing grace and tranquillity, it is scarce 
 possible to doubt that he derived no small advantage from 
 ancient sculpture. His very defects discover this. A good 
 writer (the author of the Guide of Bologna) remarks in 
 him a style which partakes of statuary, contrary to the 
 practice of contemporary foreign artists ; a circumstance 
 very common, as we shall observe, under the Roman school, 
 to those painters who designed from statues. I shall be 
 told that he probably derived assistance from the sculpture of 
 the two Pisani ; especially as Baldinucci has discovered a 
 strong resemblance between his style and that of Giovanni, 
 and some others also have noticed the circular compositions, 
 the proportions and casting of the drapery which one per- 
 ceives in the basso relievos of the early Pisan school. I 
 
46 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 would not deny that he also availed himself of them ; but 
 it was perhaps in the manner that Raffaello profited by 
 Michelangelo, whose example taught him to imitate the 
 antique. Nor let it be objected to me that the dryness of 
 the design, the artifice of concealing the feet by long gar- 
 ments, the inaccuracy of the extremities, and similar defects, 
 betray rather a Pisan than an Attic origin. This only 
 proves, that when he became the founder of a style, he did 
 not aim at giving it the perfection of which it was suscep- 
 tible, and which it could hardly be expected to obtain 
 amid the numerous avocations in which he appears to have 
 been engaged. In short, I cannot persuade myself, that 
 without the imitation of the antique, he could in so short 
 a time have made such a progress, as to have been admired 
 even by Bonarruoti himself.* 
 
 The first histories of the patriarch S. Francesco, at Assisi, 
 near the paintings of his master, shew how greatly Giotto 
 excelled him. As his work advanced he became more cor- 
 rect; and towards the conclusion, he already manifested 
 a design more varied in the countenances, and improved 
 in the extremities ; the features are more animated, the atti- 
 tudes more ingenious, and the landscape more natural. To 
 one who examines them with attention, the composition ap- 
 pears the most surprising ; a branch of the art in which 
 he seems not only to surpass himself, but even sometimes 
 appears unrivalled. In many historical pictures, he often 
 aimed at ornamenting with buildings, which he painted of 
 a red, or azure, or a yellow, the colours employed in staining 
 houses, or of a dazzling white, in imitation of Parian marble. 
 One of his best pictures in this work is that of a thirsty 
 person, to the expression of which scarcely any thing could 
 be added by the animating pencil of Raffaello d'Urbino 
 himself. With similar skill he painted in the inferior church, 
 and this is perhaps the best performance which has reached 
 our times, though specimens remain in Ravenna, in Padua, 
 in Rome, in Florence, and in Pisa. It is assuredly the most 
 spirited of all, for he has there, with the most poetical images, 
 depicted the saint shunning vice, and a follower of virtue ; 
 
 * Vasari, torn. i. p. 322 
 
GIOTTO*» INVENTIONS. 
 
 47 
 
 it is my opinion that he here gave the first example of sym- 
 bolical painting, so familiar to his best followers. 
 
 His inventions, which, according to the custom of the age, 
 were employed in scripture history, are repeated by him in 
 nearly the same style in several places ; and are generally 
 most pleasing when the proportions of the figures are the 
 least. His small pictures of the Acts of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul, with some representations of our Saviour, and. 
 of various saints, in the sacristy of the Vatican, appear 
 .most elegant and highly finished miniatures ; as likewise 
 are some others in the church of the Holy Cross at Florence, 
 taken from scriptural history, or from the life of St. Francis. 
 The real art of portrait painting commenced with him ; to 
 whom we are indebted for correct likenesses of Dante, of 
 Brunetto Latini, and of Corso Donati. It was indeed before 
 attempted, but, according to Vasari, no one had succeeded. 
 He also improved the art of working in mosaic ; a piece 
 wrought by him in the Navicella, or ship of St. Peter, 
 may be seen in the portico of that cathedral ; but it has 
 been so much repaired, that now the design is wholly dif- 
 ferent, and appears the work of another artist. It is be- 
 lieved that the art of miniature painting, so much prized 
 in that age for the ornamenting of missals, received great 
 improvement from him.* Architecture undoubtedly did; 
 the admirable belfry of the cathedral of Florence is the 
 work of Giotto. 
 
 After collecting all the notices he could of the scholars 
 of Cimabue and Giotto, Baldinucci endeavours to make us 
 believe that all the benefits which accrued to painting, 
 
 * A book is mentioned by Baldinucci ornamented by Giotto with 
 miniatures, with histories from the Old Testament, and presented to the 
 vestry of St. Peter, by Cardinal Stefaneschi ; of this he neither adduces 
 any proof, nor can I find any record. From the evidence, rather of an 
 existing necrology, where, among the presents made by Stefaneschi to the 
 cathedral, the pictures and the mosaic by Giotto are noticed without any 
 other work of this artist, the gift of the book is very doubtful. See Sig. 
 Ab. Cancellieri " De Secretariis Veteris Basilica? Vaticana," p. 859 
 and 2464. Some miniatures of the martyrdom and miracles of St. 
 George, in another book, are ascribed to him ; but I am uncertain whe- 
 ther there is any ancient document for this ; and they might, possibly, be 
 the work of Simone da Siena, who is often confounded with him. 
 
48 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 sculpture, and architecture in Italy, and even throughout 
 the world, came directly or indirectly from Florence. The 
 following is the manner in which he expresses himself in 
 his first pages, with the proofs which he adduces. " During 
 my researches, I have ascertained beyond all doubt the 
 truth of an opinion I always considered as indisputable, 
 and which is not controverted by respectable ancient his- 
 torians ; that these arts in the first place were restored by 
 Cimabue and Giotto, and afterwards diffused over the world 
 by their disciples; and I conceived the idea of making it 
 evident by the help of a tree, which at a glance might 
 shew their progress from the earliest to the present times/' 
 Pie published the first small part of this tree, just as 1 
 exhibit it to the leader ; and promised in each succeeding 
 volume to give another part, that would establish the con- 
 nection with the principal root (Cimabue), or with the 
 branches derived from it ; a promise from which he adroitly 
 delivered himself ; therefore we are without any more than 
 these few branches that follow : 
 
 CIMABUE 
 
 1 
 
 Arnolfo, 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 i i 
 
 1 Oderigi, 
 
 1 Gaddo. 
 
 Tan, 
 
 Giotto, 
 
 Ugolino. | 
 
 F. Ristoro, 
 F. Sisto, 
 and 
 F. Giovanni, 
 architects. 
 
 Fra Mino, 
 a worker 
 
 Gio. Pisano, 
 a sculptor 
 
 and 
 architect. 
 
 Franco 
 Bolognese, 
 a minature 
 
 painter. 
 
 But with all his pains he has not satisfied the public expec- 
 tation, as is observed by Signor Piacenza, who published the 
 splendid Turin edition of Baldinucci as far as the life of 
 Franciabigio, accompanied with very useful notes and disser- 
 tations.* It is alleged, that to make this tree fair and flourish- 
 ing, he has inserted in it branches dexterously stolen from 
 his neighbours, who have not failed to reclaim their property. 
 I rejoice to write in an a#e when the opinions of Baldinucci 
 
 * See his first volume, pp. 131 and 202 ; and also P. della "Valle in 
 the preface to Vasari, p. 27 ; also Signor da Morrona in his " Pisa 
 Illustrata,' 9 p. 154 ; besides many other authors. — W. R. 
 
SCHOLARS OF C1MABUE. 
 
 4 ( J 
 
 have few followers even in Florence. The excellent work 
 entitled " Etruria Pittrice," composed and applauded in that 
 city in proportion as it is free from the prejudice of 
 former times, proves this sufficiently. Following in like 
 manner the light of history and of reason, unswayed by party 
 spirit, I shall, in the first place, observe, that among all the 
 scholars of Cimabue, I do not find any named by Vasari, 
 but Giotto and Arnolfo di Lapo, concerning whom it is certain 
 that the, historian was in error. Lapo and Arnolfo are the 
 names of different sculptors, disciples of Niccolo Pisano, who, 
 being already versed in the art, assisted him in 1266 to adorn 
 with history-pieces the pulpit of the cathedral at Siena, an 
 authentic document of which remains in the archives of the 
 work.* Thus this branch of the tree belongs to Pisa, unless 
 Cimabue have a claim to it, by contributing to the instruction 
 of Arnolfo in the principles of architecture. Andrea Tafi was 
 the pupil of Apollonius, a Greek artist, and assisted him in 
 the church of St. John, in some pieces of mosaic, from scrip 
 turai history, which, according to Vasari, are without inven- 
 tion and without design ; but he improved as he proceeded, 
 for the last part of the work was less despicable than the 
 beginning. Cimabue is not named in these works, nor in 
 what Tafi afterwards executed without assistance ; and as he 
 was old when Cimabue began to teach, I cannot conceive how 
 he can be reckoned the scholar of the latter, or a branch from 
 that root. Gaddo Gaddi, says Vasari, was contemporary with 
 Cimabue, and was his intimate friend, as well as that of 
 Tafi ; through their friendship he received hints for his im- 
 provement in mosaic. At first he followed the manner of 
 the Greeks, mingled with that of Cimabue. After long 
 working in this manner, he went to Home, and improved his 
 style, while employed on the facade of S. Maria Maggiore, 
 by his own genius, assisted by imitating the ancient workers 
 in mosaic. He also painted some altar-pieces, and I saw at 
 Florence one of his crucifixions, of a square figure, and very 
 respectable workmanship. This circumstance induces me 
 to consider Gaddo, in some measure, among the imitators 
 of Cimabue, but not one of his pupils ; for it appears to me 
 
 * D. VaUVs preface to Vasari, p. 36. 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 unjust, should a contemporary communicate with an artist 
 either as a friend,, or for the sake of advice on the art, to set 
 him immediately down as a branch from that stock. Vasari 
 relates of Ugolino Senese, that he was a tenacious follower 
 of the Greek style, and inclined more to imitate Cimabue 
 than Giotto. He does not, indeed, expressly say that he had 
 been his scholar ; he rather hints that he had other instruct- 
 ors at Siena, for which reason it will be better to consider 
 him under that school. In that of Bologna we should also 
 class Oderigo, who, as a miniature painter, was more likely 
 to employ some other master than a painter in fresco like 
 Cimabue. In the mean time it is useful to reflect, that were 
 the method of Bald inucci to be pursued, nothing authentic 
 would remain in a history of painting ; and the schools of the 
 early masters would increase beyond all limits, were the 
 scholars of each master to be confounded with his friends, 
 acquaintances, and contemporaries, who paid attention to his 
 maxims. 
 
 It is still more strange to peruse the account of the con- 
 nection between the first and secondary branches of the tree, 
 or, if one may use the expression, between the children and 
 grandchildren of Cimabue. There is nothing natural in their 
 succession, and the labour is wholly useless which derives the 
 professors of every fine art, of whatever country, past, pre- 
 sent, and to come, from one individual. F. Ristoro and F. 
 Sisto were eminent architects, who rebuilt the grand bridges 
 of the Carraja and the Holy Trinity, about 1264, when 
 Cimabue was twenty- four years of age. Baldinucci writes of 
 both, that they were, perhaps, disciples of Arnolfo, or even 
 imitators, judging from the appearance of their works. But 
 how comes he to found on a perhaps, what he, a little before, 
 had vaunted as a clear demonstration ? And then, on what 
 does this perhaps rest ? Is it not more probable that Arnolfo, 
 and Cimabue himself, imitated them ? That Fra Mino da 
 Turrita should appear in his tree as a scholar of Tafi, and as 
 posterior to Cimabue, is no less absurd. In 1225, a date 
 omitted by Baldinucci, Mino wrought in mosaic at Florence, 
 fifteen years before Cimabue was born. In his old age he 
 commenced a similar work in the cathedral of Pisa, " in the 
 same style in which he had executed his other labours," 
 
CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS OF HISTORIANS. 
 
 51 
 
 says Vasari, who adds, that Tafi and Gaddi (both his infe- 
 riors in age and reputation) assisted him. The work was 
 " little more than begun, " from which we may infer 
 that they were not long associated. It seems extraordi- 
 nary how Baldinucci could assert, " it appears that Vasari 
 imagined that Mino was the pupil of Andrea Tafi," which 
 is contrary to fact; instead of the "clear demonstration," 
 which he promised, he has amused us with " it appears/' 
 which is evident only to himself. 
 
 At length, wishing to make us believe that Giovanni 
 Pisano the sculptor is a, pupil of Giotto the painter, he again 
 turns to Vasari, from whom he brings evidence that Giovanni, 
 having completed his work in the cathedral of Arezzo, and 
 being then established at Orvieto, came to Florence to 
 examine the architecture of S. Maria del Fiore, and to be- 
 come acquainted with Giotto : he further notices two pieces 
 which he executed at Florence, the one a Madonna between 
 two little angels, over the gate of the cathedral ; the other a 
 small baptism of St. John; this happened in 1297. Here 
 Baldinucci hazards a reflection, that " if one compares the 
 other works of this artist with the above-mentioned figure of 
 the Virgin Mary, we may recognise in it such improvement, 
 and so much of the manner of Giotto, that there cannot re- 
 main a doubt but he is to be reckoned a disciple of this 
 master, both in respect of his imitation of him, and his ob- 
 servance of his precepts, which he followed during so many 
 years in the exercise of the profession" Every attentive 
 reader will discover here not a clear demonstration of the 
 assumption, but a mass of difficulties. He compares this to 
 the other figures made by Pisano at Florence, before he was 
 acquainted with Giotto ; and yet this was the first which he 
 there executed. He wishes to make Giovanni, already sixty 
 years of age, an imitator of Giotto, then twenty-one, when it 
 is much more probable that Giotto would follow him, the best 
 sculptor of the age. There is no foundation for the supposed 
 instruction which Giovanni received from Giotto, who, 
 shortly after, departed for Rome ; where, after some other 
 works, he executed the mosaic of the boat in 1298. In short, 
 the whole question of preceptorship rests on no better autho* 
 rity than a single figure. How great are the inconsistencies 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 in this account, and how absurd the explanations and repeti- 
 tions which are offered ! Is it not lamentable thus to see so 
 many old and honoured artists compelled, in spite of history, 
 to become pupils to masters so much younger and less cele- 
 brated ? I know that various writers have censured Baldi- 
 nucci as an historian of doubtful fidelity, artful in concealing 
 or misrepresenting facts, captious in expounding the opinions 
 of Yasari, and more intent on captivating than instructing. 
 I am not ignorant that his system was controverted even in 
 his own country, as appears from his work published there, 
 entitled " Delle Veglie ;** and that Signor Marmi, a learned 
 Florentine, strongly suspected his fair dealing, of which we 
 shall adduce a proof under the Sienese school. Nevertheless 
 I take into account that he wrote in an age less informed in 
 regard to the history of painting, and that he defended an 
 opinion then much more common in Italy than at present. 
 He had promised Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici to demon- 
 strate it for the honour of his country, and of the house of 
 Medici, and had received advice and assistance from him in 
 order to encourage him to defend it, and to refute the con- 
 trary opinion. Under the necessity of answering Malvasia,* 
 a severe writer against Vasari, and of proving his assertion, 
 that the people of Bologna, no less than those of Siena, of Pisa, 
 and other places, had learned the art from the Florentines, he 
 formed a false system, the absurdity of which he did not immedi- 
 ately perceive ; but he at last discovered it, as Signor Piacenza 
 observes, and succeeded in escaping from its trammels. The 
 most ingenious builders of systems have subjected themselves 
 very frequently to the same disadvantage, and the history of 
 literature abounds with similar instances. 
 
 Having examined this sophism, I cannot subscribe to the 
 opinion of Baldinucci ; but shall comprise my own opinion in 
 two propositions: — The first is, that the improvement of 
 painting is not due to Florence alone. It has been remarked, 
 that the career of human genius, in the progress of the fine 
 
 * We may observe, that Malvasia is the champion, not only of Bo- 
 logna, but of Italy, and of all Europe. At p. 11, volume first, he has 
 quoted a passage from Filibien, which proves that design always 
 maintained itself in France, even in rude ages, and that at the time of 
 Cimabue it was there equally respectable as in Italy. 
 
DIFFUSION OF ART IN ITALY. 
 
 53 
 
 arts, is the same in every country. When the man is dis- 
 satisfied with what the child learned, he gradually passes 
 from the ruder elements to what is less so, and from thence, 
 to diligence and precision ; he afterwards advances to the 
 grand, and the select, and at length attains facility of 
 execution. 
 
 Such was the progress of sculpture among the Grecians, 
 and such has been that of painting in our own country. 
 When Correggio advanced from laborious minuteness to 
 grandeur, it was not necessary for him to know that such was 
 the progress of Raffaello, or to have witnessed it : in like 
 manner, nothing more was wanting to the painters of the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, than to learn that they had 
 pursued a wrong path ; this was sufficient to guide them into 
 a better, and it was not then untried ; for sculpture had 
 already improved design. We have seen the Pisani, and 
 their scholars, preceding the Florentines ; and, as their pre 
 cursors, diffusing a new system of design over Italy. It 
 would be injustice to overlook them in the improvement of 
 painting, in which design is of such importance ; or to sup- 
 pose that they did not signally contribute to its improvement. 
 But if Italy be indebted solely to Cimabue and Giotto for its 
 progress, all the good artists should have come from Florence. 
 And yet, in the cathedral of Orvieto (to instance the finest 
 work, perhaps, of that age), we find, from the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century, many artists from various other places, who 
 would not have been called to ornament such a building, had 
 they not previously enjoyed the reputation of able masters. * 
 Add to this, if we are to derive all painters from those two 
 masters, every style of painting should resemble that of their 
 Florentine disciples. But on examining the old paintings of 
 Siena, of Venice, of Bologna, and of Parma, they are found 
 to be dissimilar in idea, in choice of colouring, and in taste of 
 composition. All, then, are not derived from Florence. 
 
 My second proposition is, that no people then excelled in, 
 nor contributed, by example, so much to the progress of art 
 as the Florentines. Rival cities may boast artists of merit, 
 
 * A catalogue of them is given in P. della Valle, in his history of that 
 church, and is republished in the Sienese edition of Vasari, at the 
 end of the second volume. 
 
54 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 even in the first era of painting ; their writers may deny the 
 fame of Giotto and his disciples ; but truth is more powerful 
 than declamation. Giotto was the father of the new method 
 of painting, as Boccaccio was called the father of the new 
 species of prose composition. After the time of the latter, 
 any subject could be elegantly treated of in prose ; after the 
 former, painting could express all subjects with propriety. A 
 Simon da Siena, a Stefano da Firenze, a Pietro Laurati, added 
 charms to the art; but they and others owe to Giotto the transi- 
 tion from the old to a new manner. He essayed it in Tus- 
 cany, and while yet a young man, greatly improved it, to the 
 general admiration of all classes. He did not leave Assisi 
 until called to Rome by Boniface VIII., nor did he take 
 up his residence at Avignon, until invited to France by 
 Clement V. Before going there, he was induced to stop at 
 Padua, and on returning some years after, he again resided at 
 the same place. Many parts of Italy were under a republican 
 form of government; but abounded in potent families, that 
 bore sway in various quarters, and which, while adorning 
 their country, aimed at its subjugation. Giotto, beyond every 
 other, was in universal request, both at home and abroad. 
 The Polentani of Ravenna, the Malatesti of Rimino, the 
 Estensi of Ferrara, the Visconti of Milan, the Scala of Verona, 
 Castruccio of Lucca, and also Robert, king of Naples, sought 
 to engage him with eagerness, and for some period retained 
 him in their service. Milan, Urbino, Arezzo, and Bologna, 
 were desirous to possess his works; and Pisa, that, in her 
 Campo Santo, afforded an opportunity for the choicest artists 
 of Tuscany to vie with one another,* as of old they contended 
 at Corinth, and in Delphi,t obtained from him those historic 
 paintings from the life of Job, which are greatly admired, 
 though they are amongst his early productions. When Giotto 
 was no more, similar applause was bestowed on his disciples : 
 
 * This place, which will ever do high honour to the magnificence of 
 the Pisans, would be an inestimable museum, if the pictures there, exe- 
 cuted by Giotto, by Memmi, by Stefano Fiorentino, by Buffalmacco, by 
 Antonio Veneziano, by the two Orcagni, by Spinello Aretino, and by 
 Laurati, had been carefully preserved ; but the greatest number having 
 been injured by dampness, were repaired, but with considerable judg- 
 ment, within the century. 
 
 f Plin. xxxv. 9. 
 
SOCIETY OF ST. LUKE. 
 
 55 
 
 cities contended for the honour of inviting them, and they 
 were more highly estimated than the native artists themselves. 
 We shall find Cavallini and Capanna in the Roman school ; 
 in that of Bologna the two Faentini, Pace, and Ottaviano, 
 with Guglielmo da Forli ; Menabuoi at Padua ; Menimi, who 
 was either a scholar or assistant of Giotto, at Avignon ; and 
 we find traces of the successors of the same school throughout 
 all Italy. This work will indicate the names of some of 
 them; it will point out the style of others; without including 
 the great number who, in every province, have been with- 
 drawn from our view, for the purpose of replacing old pictures 
 with others in the new manner. Giotto thus became the 
 model for students during the whole of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, as was Raffaello in the sixteenth, and the Caracci in the 
 subsequent century : nor can I find a fourth manner that has 
 been so generally received in Italy as that of those three 
 schools. There have been some who, from the inspiration of 
 their own genius, had adopted a new manner, but they were 
 little known or admired beyond the precincts of their own 
 country. Of the Florentines alone can it be asserted, that 
 they diffused the modern style from one extremity of Italy to 
 the other : in the restoration of painting, though not all, yet 
 the chief praise belongs to them ; and this forms my second 
 proposition. 
 
 I proceed more willingly to the sequel of my work, having 
 escaped from that part of it in which, amid the contradictory 
 sentiments of authors, I have often suspended my pen, mind- 
 ful of the maxim, Historia nihil falsi aadeat dicere, nihil 
 veri non audeat. Resuming the subject of Florence, after the 
 death of her great artist in 1336, I find painters had there 
 prodigiously multiplied, as I shall presently, from undoubted 
 testimony, proceed to prove. Not long afterwards, that is, 
 in 1349, the painters associated themselves into a religious 
 fraternity, which they denominated the Society of St. Luke, 
 first established in S. Maria Nuova, but afterwards in S. 
 Maria Novella. This was not the first that had arisen in 
 Italy, as Baldinucci affirms : in 1290 there was a company of 
 painters previously established at Venice, of which St. Luke 
 was the patron, the laws of which, it is believed, are still 
 
56 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 preserved in the church of St. Sophia.* * But neither this, 
 the Florentine, nor that of Bologna, can be called academies 
 for design ; they were only the results of Christian devotion, 
 a sort of school, such as formerly existed, and still exist in 
 many of the arts. They did not consist of painters alone ; 
 these always possessed the most elevated rank ; but in the 
 same place were assembled artists " in metal and in wood, 
 whose works partook, more or less, of design ? as is related 
 by Baldinucci, in describing the Florentine association. In 
 that of Venice were comprehended basket-makers, gilders, 
 and the lowest daubers ; in that of Bologna were included 
 even saddlers, and scabbard -makers ; who were only divided 
 from the painters by means of lawsuits and decisions. That 
 unrefined age did not as yet acknowledge the dignity of paint- 
 ing ; it denominated those artists master workmen, whom we 
 now call professors of the art, and it called shops what we 
 name studies. I have often doubted, whether the progress of 
 the arts was so rapid among us as in Greece, because there 
 painting, either from the beginning or a very early era, was 
 considered as a liberal art : with us its dignity was much 
 longer in being acknowledged. 
 
 He who desires to discover the origin of those associations, 
 will find it in the works composed of different arts then most 
 in use, of which I shall treat somewhat fully, for the sake of 
 illustrating the history. A little above I mentioned basket- 
 makers : at that time, all kinds of furniture, such as cup- 
 boards, benches, and chests, were wrought by mechanics, and 
 then painted, especially when intended as the furniture of 
 new married women. Many ancient cabinet pictures have 
 been cut out of such pieces of furniture, and, by this means, 
 preserved to later ages. As for images on altars, through the 
 whole of the fourteenth century, they were not formed, as at 
 present, on a seperate piece from the surrounding ornaments. 
 There were made little altars, or dittici,t in many parts of 
 
 * Zanet. p. 3. 
 
 f It was a very ancient practice of Christian worship to place the 
 silver, or ivory dittici, upon the altars during the service of the mass, 
 and when the sacred ceremony was over, they were folded up in the 
 manner of a book, and taken elsewhere. The same figure was retained, 
 
CARVERS IN WOOD. 
 
 57 
 
 Italy, called Ancone ; they first shaped the wood, and labori- 
 ously ornamented it with carving. The design was conformed 
 to the Teutonic, or, as it is called, the Gothic architecture, 
 seen in the facades of churches built in that age. The whole 
 work was a load of minuteness, consisting of little tabernacles, 
 pyramids, and niches ; and various doors and windows, with 
 semicircular and pointed arches, were represented on the 
 surface of the panel ; a style very characteristic of that period. 
 I have sometimes there observed, in the middle, little statues 
 in mezzo-rilievo.* Most frequently the painter designed 
 these figures or busts of saints : sometimes there were also 
 prepared various sorts of little forms, or moulds — formelle — 
 in which to represent histories. Often there was a step added 
 to the little altar, where, in several compartments, were like- 
 wise exhibited histories of our Saviour, of the Virgin, and of 
 the martyrs, either real or feigned, t Sometimes various com- 
 partments were prepared, in which their lives were repre- 
 sented. The carvers in wood were so vain of their craft, that 
 they often inscribed their own names before that of the 
 painter. % 
 
 Even pictures for rooms were fashioned by the carvers into 
 triangular and square forms, which they surrounded with 
 
 even in the introduction of the largest altar-pieces, which likewise con- 
 sisted of two wings, and were portable. This custom, of which I 
 have seen few remnants in Italy, has been long preserved in the Greek 
 church. At length, by degrees, artists began to paint upon one whole 
 panel. — See Buonarroti, Vetri Antichi, p. 258, &c. 
 
 * In Torrello, one of the Venetian isles, there is an ancient image of St. 
 Hadrian, which is tolerably carved, and around it the history of the saint 
 is depicted : the style is feeble, but not Grecian. 
 
 •)- I notice this peculiarity, because the histories, either painted or 
 engraved, belonging to those early times, are apt to perplex us ; nor can 
 they be cleared up without having recourse to books of fiction, which 
 were, in those less civilized periods, believed. In the acts of our Saviour 
 and of the Virgin, it may be useful to consult Gio. Alberto Fabrizio, in 
 the collection entitled " Codex Apocr. Novi Testamenti in the acts 
 of the apostles and martyrs, it is not so much their real history, as the 
 legends, either manifestly false or suspected, as recounted by the Bollan- 
 disti, that will throw light unon the subject. 
 
 X See Vasari, in the " Life of Spinello Aretino " Simone Cini, a 
 Florentine, carved it ; it .was gilt by Gabriello Saracini, and Spinello di 
 Luca, of Arezzo, painted it in the year 1385." A similar signature may 
 be seen in *' Pittura Veneziana," p. 15. 
 
58 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 heav,y borders, with rude foliage, lace, or arabesque orna- 
 ments around them. In that age, pictures were rarely com- 
 mitted to canvas alone, though some such are to be seen at 
 Florence, and more among the Venetians and people of 
 Bologna ; but panels were most frequently employed. The 
 borders often inclosed portions of canvas, not unfrequently 
 of parchment, and sometimes of leather, which, in all proba- 
 bility, were prepared by those who usually wrought in such 
 materials ; and this is the reason why such artists, and even 
 in some instances saddlers, were sometimes associated with 
 painters. 
 
 History informs us that shields for war, or the tourna- 
 ment, and also various equestrian accoutrements, as the saddles 
 and trappings of horses, were ornamented with painting, a 
 custom which was retained till the time of Francia, as Vesari 
 mentions in his life ; hence armourers and saddlers became 
 associated with painters. Among them might be included 
 those who prepared walls for painting in fresco, and who 
 covered them with a reddish ground, which not unfrequently 
 is still discovered in the flaws. On this colour the figures 
 were designed, and such walls were the cartoons of the old 
 masters. The stucco- workers also assisted them in those re- 
 lieved ornaments we see in fresco paintings. They used 
 moulds in those works, which seem nothing else than glo- 
 bules, flowerets, and little stars, formed with a stamp, such 
 as we see on gilt plaster, on leather, on board, and on playing 
 cards. On whatever substance they painted, some gold was 
 usually added ; with it they ornamented the ground of their 
 pictures, the glories of their saints, their garments, and 
 fringes. Although painters themselves were skilled in such 
 labours, it appears that they sought the assistance of gilders, 
 and therefore gilders were classed with painters, and, like 
 them, inscribed works with their names. 
 
 This was the practice of Cini and Saracini, and particu- 
 larly of a native of Ferrara, who, in the pictures of the 
 Vivarini, at Venice, suscribes his name before theirs. (See 
 Zanetti, " Pittura Ven." p. 15.) And in the cathedral of 
 Ceneda, below an Incoronation of the Virgin, in which the 
 artist did not care to exhibit himself to posterity, the en- 
 graver, already noticed, left the following inscription, which 
 
IMPROVEMENT IN CARVING. 
 
 59 
 
 Signor Lorenzo Giustiniani, a Venetian patrician of great 
 taste and cultivation of mind, has very politely communicated 
 to me : " 1438, a dì 10. Frever Christofalo da Ferara 
 
 INTAJO." 
 
 Towards the end of the fourteenth century, when the Gothic 
 style was disappearing from architecture, the design of the 
 carvers improved, and they began to erect over altars oblong 
 panels, divided by partitions, which were fashioned into 
 pilasters, or small columns, and often between these last 
 feigned gates or windows, so that the ancona or altar bore 
 some resemblance to the facade of a palace or a church ; over 
 them was placed a frieze, and above the frieze was a place 
 like a stage, with some figures. The saints were placed below, 
 and their histories were painted in the compartments ; and 
 often there appeared their histories painted upon some little 
 form, or upon the steps. The partitions were gradually re- 
 moved, the proportions of the figures enlarged, and the saints 
 were disposed in a single piece around the throne of our Lord, 
 not so erect as formerly, after the manner of statues, but in 
 different actions and positions, a custom which prevailed even 
 in the sixteenth century. The practice of gilding grounds 
 declined towards the end of the fifteenth century, but it was 
 increased on the garments, and fringes were never so deep as 
 at that period. About the close of that century gold was more 
 sparingly employed, and it was almost wholly abandoned in 
 the following. No little benefit would be conferred upon the 
 art by any one who would undertake to point out with accu- 
 racy what were the colours, gums, aud other mixtures em- 
 ployed by the Greeks. They were undoubtedly in possession 
 of the best methods transmitted to them by a tradition, which 
 though in some measure corrupted, was confessedly derived 
 from their ancestors. Even subsequent to the invention of 
 oils, their colouring is in some degree deserving of our admi- 
 ration. In the Medicean Museum there is a Madonna, sub- 
 scribed with the following Latin inscription, " Andreas Rico 
 de Candia pinxit," the forms of which are rude, the folds 
 inelegant, and the composition coarse ; but with all this, the 
 colour is so fresh, vivid, and brilliant, that there is no modern 
 work that would not lose by a comparison. Indeed, the 
 colouring is so extremely strong and firm, that when tried 
 
60 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING. 
 
 with the iron, it does not liquefy, but rather scales off, and 
 breaks in minute portions. The frescos, likewise, of the 
 earliest Greek and Italian painters, are surprisingly strong, 
 and more particularly in Upper than in Lower Italy. There 
 are some figures of saints upon the pilasters of the church of 
 San Niccolo, at Trevigi, remarkable for their durability, an 
 account of which is given in the first volume of Padre Fe- 
 derici (p. 188). I have understood from professors that 
 such a degree of adhesiveness must have been produced by a 
 certain portion of wax, employed at that period, as will be 
 explained in the subsequent chapter, on the subject of 
 painting in oil. It must, however, be admitted that we are 
 little advanced in these inquiries into the ancient methods of 
 preparing colour. Were they once satisfactorily explored, it 
 would prove highly useful in the restoration of ancient 
 pictures, nor superfluous in regard to the adoption of that 
 firm, fused, and lucid colouring which we shall have occasion 
 to commend in various Lombard and Venetian pictures, and 
 more especially in those of Correggio. 
 
 These observations will not be useless to the connoisseur, 
 who doubts the age of a picture on which there are no cha- 
 racters. Where there are letters, he may proceed with still 
 greater certainty. The letters vulgarly called Gothic began 
 to be used after the year 1200, in some places more early 
 than in others ; and characters were loaded with a superfluity 
 of lines, through the whole of the fourteenth, until about the 
 middle of the fifteenth century, when the use of the Ro- 
 man alphabet was revived. What forms were adopted by 
 artists in subscribing their names, will be more conveniently 
 explained in the course of a few pages further. I have 
 judged it proper to give here a sort of paleology of painting ; 
 because inattention to this has been, and still is, a fruitful 
 source of error. The reader, however, may observe, that 
 though the rules here proposed afford some light to resolve 
 doubtful points, they are not to be considered as infallible 
 and universal, and he may further recollect, that in matters 
 of antiquity nothing is more dangerous and ridiculous than 
 to form general rules, which a single example may be sufficient 
 to overthrow. 
 
61 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 
 EPOCH I. 
 
 Florentine Painters who lived after Giotto to the end of the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that Vasari, in the Life of Jacopo di 
 Casentino, quotes the manuscript records of the Society of St. 
 Luke, afterwards printed by Baldinucci, and mentions four- 
 teen painters who were formerly its captains, counsellors, or 
 chamberlains ; yet he takes no notice of them in his " Lives," 
 and of but very few of the great number named in that 
 manuscript. The same selection was employed by Baldi- 
 nucci, in whose " Veglia " we are informed that many paint- 
 ers flourished about 1300, the names of whom he has refused 
 to insert in his anecdotes. It clearly appears from his writ- 
 ings that he omitted about a hundred, all belonging to that 
 age.* It is therefore incorrect to say, that those two histo- 
 rians have commemorated many artists of mediocrity, merely 
 
 * " The number of artists of whom I can collect nothing more than 
 the time they lived, their name and occupation, and their death (I speak 
 of those who lived about the year 1300), amounts in the city of Florence 
 alone to nearly a hundred, without including those who have been dis- 
 covered by some of our antiquarians ; and those we find mentioned in the 
 old book of the Society of Painters." — (See Baldinucci in Notizie del 
 Gioggi.) The Florentine painters of this age, whose names have been 
 produced by the Canon Morenifrom the records of the diplomatic archive 
 may be seen in part the fourth of his " Notizie Jstoriche," p. 102. 
 Others have been collected and communicated to me by the Abbate Vin- 
 cenzio Follini, librarian to the Magliabecchi collection, extracted from 
 various MSS. of the same, besides those from the " Novelle Letterarie" 
 of Florence, from the " Delizie de' Letter." of the P. Xldefonso, C.S., 
 and from the " Viaggi " of Targioni, works which will always be found 
 to supply the brevity of the present history. 
 
62 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 because they were natives of Florence, an accusation alleged 
 against them by foreigners. The artists of their country 
 whom they have transmitted to posterity, are not less worthy 
 of record than those ancient ones of Venice, of Bologna, and 
 of Lombardy, whom we are accustomed to praise in their 
 respective schools. Among this number I include Buffal- 
 macco, the wit whose jests, as recorded in Boccaccio and Sac- 
 chetti, render him more celebrated than his pictures. His 
 real name was Buonamico di Cristofano. He had been the 
 scholar of Tan, but by living long in the time of Giotto, he 
 had an opportunity of correcting his own style. He dis- 
 played a most lively fancy, " and when he chose to exert 
 himself, was not inferior to any of his contemporaries." * 
 Unfortunately, his best works, which were in the Abbey and 
 in Ognisanti, have perished, and there only remain some less 
 carefully executed at Arezzo and at Pisa. The best pre- 
 served are in the Campo Santo ; viz. the Creation of the 
 World, in which there is a figure of the Deity, sustaining 
 the mighty frame of the heavens and the elements, and three 
 other historical pictures of Adam, of his children, and of 
 Noah. A crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of the 
 Redeemer, may be seen at the same place. Good symmetry 
 is not to be looked for in them ; he knew but little of design, 
 and he drew his figures by other rules than the roundness and 
 facility seen in the disciples of Giotto. His heads are defi- 
 cient in beauty and variety. The pious women near the 
 cross all have the same mean and vulgar features, in which 
 the mouths are opened even to deformity. Some of the 
 heads of the men, especially that of Cain, possess, however, 
 a physiognomical expression which arrests the eye of the 
 spectator. The air of nature, too, in the action, as in the 
 man, who, full of horror, flies from Mount Calvary, is highly 
 praiseworthy. His draperies are greatly varied, distinguished 
 by the difference of stuffs and linings, and laboriously orna- 
 mented with flowers and with fringes. Before he was em- 
 ployed in the Campo Santo, he painted in the church of St. 
 Paul, Ripa d'Arno, where he was associated with one Bruno 
 di Giovanni, formerly his fellow-student, and believed to be 
 
 * Vasari. 
 
ANDREA ORCAGNA. 
 
 the painter of a St. Ursula in a piece which still exists in the 
 Commenda. Unable to attain the expression of Buffalmacco, 
 he tried to atone for the defect by the aid of sentences pro- 
 ceeding from the mouths of his figures, which expressed 
 what their features and attitudes were incapable of explain- 
 ing, a practice in which he was preceded by Cimabue, and 
 followed by the eccentric Orcagna and several others. This 
 Bruno, together with Nello di Dino, was associated with 
 Buffalmacco in the jests contrived for the simple Calandrino. 
 They all owe their fame to Boccaccio, who introduces them 
 in the eighth of his Decamerone ; and a similar favour was 
 conferred by Sacchetti on a Bartolo Gioggi, a house-painter, 
 whom he introduced into his one hundred and seventieth tale. 
 Giovanni da Pente, the scholar of Buffalmacco, had some 
 merit, but he w as not solicitous to increase it by his dili- 
 gence. Some remains of his pictures exist on the walls of 
 the church of St. Francis, at Arezzo. 
 
 Bernardo Orcagna, who rivalled the fame of Buffalmacco, 
 proceeded from some old school. He was the son of one 
 Cione, a sculptor, and his brother Jacopo was of the same 
 profession : but the other brother, Andrea, surpassed them 
 all ; and so far united the attainments of the three sister 
 arts, that he was by some reckoned second only to Giotto. 
 He is known among architects for having introduced the 
 circular arch instead of the acute, as may be seen in the gal- 
 lery of the Lanzi, which he built and ornamented with sculp- 
 ture. Bernardo taught him the principles of painting. They 
 who have represented him as the pupil of Angiol Gaddi, do 
 not appear attentive to dates. In the Strozzi chapel in the 
 church of S. Maria Novella, he and Bernardo painted Para- 
 dise, and over against it the Infernal Regions ; and in the 
 Campo Santo of Pisa, Death and the Judgment were executed 
 by Andrea, and Hell by Bernardo. The two brothers imi- 
 tated Dante in the novel representations which they executed 
 at those places ; and that style was more happily repeated 
 by Andrea in the church of Santa Croce, where he inserted 
 portraits of his enemies among the damned, and of his 
 friends among the blessed spirits. These pictures are the 
 prototypes of similar pictures preserved in S. Petronio, at 
 Bologna, in the cathedral of Tolentino, in the Badia del 
 
t)4 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. — EPOCH I. 
 
 Sesto, at Friuli,* and some other places, in which hell is 
 distinguished by abysses and a variety of torments, after 
 the manner of Dante. Several pictures by Andrea remain, 
 and his name is still on that in the Strozzi chapel, which 
 is full of figures and of episodes. On the whole, he discovers 
 fertility of imagination, diligence, and spirit, equal to any of 
 his contemporaries. In composition he was less judicious, in 
 attitudes less exact, than the followers of Giotto ; and he 
 yields to them in drawing and in colouring. 
 
 The same school produced Mariotto, a nephew of An- 
 drea, and a Tommaso di Marco, whom I pass over, as well 
 as others of little note, no longer known by existing works. 
 Bernardo Nello di Gio. Falconi, of Pisa, merits consideration. 
 He executed many pictures in that cathedral, and is sup- 
 posed to be the same with that Nello di Tanni, who, with 
 other Pisan artists, painted in the Campo Santo in the 
 fourteenth century. Francesco Traini, a Florentine, is known 
 as much superior to his master, by a large picture which is 
 in the church of S. Catherine of Pisa, in which he has re- 
 presented St. Thomas Aquinas in his own form, and in his 
 beatification. He stands in the middle of the picture, under 
 the Redeemer, who sheds a glory on the Evangelists and 
 him; and from them the rays are scattered on a crowd of 
 listeners, composed of clergy, doctors, bishops, cardinals, and 
 popes. Arius and other innovators are at the feet of the saint, 
 as if vanquished by his doctrine ; and near him appear Plato 
 and Aristotle, with their volumes open, a circumstance not to 
 be commended in such a subject. This work exhibits no 
 
 * They are believed by the historian of the art of painting at Friuli 
 to be anterior to the year 1300 ; but to this I cannot agree. The pic- 
 tures bear a very great resemblance to the designs of Orcagna. or rather 
 to the poetry of Dante, who, in the year above mentioned, feigns to have 
 had his vision, and described it in the years immediately succeeding. In 
 confirmation of this opinion, it must be remarked that the style is Flo- 
 rentine, and induces us to suppose that a painter of that school must 
 have been there. See " Lettera postuma del P. Cortinovis sopra le An- 
 tichità di Sesto," published in the " Giornale Veneto " (or Memorie per 
 servire all' Istoria Letter, e Civile), Semestre ii. p. 1, of the year 1800. 
 It was reprinted at Udine in 1801, in octavo, with some excellent notes 
 by the Cav. Antonio Bartolini, who has distinguished himself by other 
 productions connected with bibliography and the fine arts. 
 
THE FOLLOWERS OF GIOTTO. 
 
 C5 
 
 skill in grouping, no knowledge of relief, and it abounds 
 in attitudes which are either too tame, or too constrained; 
 and yet it pleases by a marked expression in the counte- 
 nances, an air of the antique in the draperies, and a certain 
 novelty in the composition. Let us now pass on to the fol- 
 lowers of Giotto. 
 
 The scholars of Giotto have fallen into an error common 
 to the followers of all illustrious men ; in despairing to sur- 
 pass, they have only aspired to imitate him with facility. On 
 this account the art did not advance as it might otherwise 
 have done, among the Florentine and other artists of the four- 
 teenth century, who flourished after Giotto. In the several 
 cities above mentioned, Giotto invariably appears superior 
 when seen in the vicinity of such painters as Cavallini, or 
 Gaddi ; and whoever is acquainted with his style, stands in no 
 need of a prolix account of that of his followers, which, with 
 a general resemblance to him, is less grand and less agreeable. 
 Stefano Fiorentino alone is a superior genius in the opinion of 
 Vasari, according to whose account he greatly excelled Giotto 
 in every department of painting. He was the son of Cathe- 
 rine, a daughter of Giotto, and possessed a genius for pene- 
 trating the difficulties of the art, and an insuperable desire of 
 conquering them. He first introduced fore-shortenings, and 
 if in this he did not attain his object, he greatly improved the f 
 perspective of buildings, the attitudes, and the variety and 
 expression of the heads. According to Landino, he was called 
 the " Ape of Nature," an eulogy of a rude age ; since such 
 animals, in imitating the works of man, always debase them : 
 but Stefano endeavoured to equal and to embellish those of 
 nature. The most celebrated of his pictures, which were in 
 the Ara Cceli at Rome, in the church of S. Spirito at Flo- 
 rence, and in other places, have all perished. As far as I 
 know, his country does not possess one of his undoubted pic- 
 tures ; unless we mention as such, that of the Saviour in the 
 Campo Santo of Pisa, which is in a greater manner than the 
 works of this master, but it has been retouched. A Pietà, 
 by his son and disciple Tommaso, as is believed by some, 
 exists in S. Remigi at Florence, which strongly partakes of 
 the manner of Giotto ; like his frescos at Assisi. He de- 
 served the name of Giottino, given him by his fellow-citizens, 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 who used to say that the soul of Giotto had transmigrated, 
 and animated him. Baldinucci alleges that there was another 
 of the same name, who should not be confounded with him, 
 and quotes an inscription from a picture in the Villa Tolomei. 
 But Cinelli, the strenuous opponent of Baldinucci, attributes 
 it to Giottino. This artist left behind him one Lippo, com- 
 mended by Vasari, but who rather seems to have been an 
 imitator than a scholar. Giovanni Tossicani, of Arezzo, was 
 a disciple of Giottino, employed in Pisa and over all Tuscany. 
 Pie painted the St. Philip and St. James, which still remain 
 on the baptismal font in Arezzo, and were repaired by Vasari 
 while a young man, who acknowledges that he learned much 
 from this work, injured as it was. With him perished the 
 best branch of the stock of Giotto. 
 
 Taddeo Gaddi may be considered as the Giulio Romano ot 
 Giotto, his most intimate and highly favoured pupil. Vasari, 
 who saw his frescos and easel pictures at Florence, in good 
 preservation, prefers him to his master, in colouring and in 
 delicacy ; but the lapse of time at this day forbids our decid- 
 ing this point, although several of his pictures remain, especi- 
 ally in the church of Santa Croce, which are scriptural his- 
 tories, in the manner of Giotto. He discovered more origi- 
 nality in the Chapter-house of the Spagnuoli, where he 
 worked in competition with Menimi.* He painted some of 
 the acts of the Redeemer on the ceiling, and the descent of 
 the Holy Spirit in the refectory, which is among the finest 
 specimens of art in the fourteenth century. On one of the 
 walls he painted the Sciences, and under each some one of its 
 celebrated professors ; and demonstrated his excellence in this 
 species of allegorical painting, which approaches so nearly to 
 poetry. The brilliance and clearness of his tints are chiefly 
 conspicuous in that Chapter-house. The royal gallery con- 
 tains the taking down of Christ, the work of his hands, wljich 
 was formerly at Orsanmi chele, and by some ascribed to Buf- 
 falmacco, merely because it was unascertained. Taddeo 
 flourished beyond the term assigned him by Vasari, and out- 
 lived most of those already named. This may be collected 
 
 * Vide Giuseppe Maria Mecatti, who has given an exact description 
 of it. 
 
PUPILS OF TADDEO GADDI. 
 
 67 
 
 from Franco Sacchetti, a contemporary writer, who relates in 
 his 136th Tale, that Andrea Orcagna proposed as a question, 
 " Who was the greatest master, setting Giotto out of the ques- 
 tion ?" Some answered Cimabue, others Stefano, some Ber- 
 nardo, and some Buffalmacco. Taddeo Gaddi, who was in 
 the company, said, " Truly these were very able painters, but 
 the art is decaying every day," &c. He is mentioned up to 
 1352, and he might possibly survive several years. 
 
 He left at his death several disciples, who became eminent 
 teachers of painting in Florence, and other places. D. Lo- 
 renzo Camaldolese is mentioned with honour. He instructed 
 pupils in the art ; and several pictures by him and his scho- 
 lars are in the monastery of the Angeli. At that time the 
 fraternity of Camaldulites furnished some miniature painters, 
 one of whom, named D. Silvestro, ornamented missals, which 
 still exist, and are amongst the best that Italy possesses. The 
 most favoured pupils of Taddeo were Giovanni da Milano, 
 whom I shall notice in the school of Lombardy, and Jacopo di 
 Casentino, who also will find a place there, with his imitators. 
 To these two he recommended on his death-bed his two sons 
 and disciples, Giovanni, who died prematurely, with a repu- 
 tation for genius ; and Angiolo, who being then very young, 
 most needed a protector. The latter died, according to Va- 
 sari, at sixty- three years of age ; in 1389, according to the 
 date of Baldinucci. He did not improve the art in propor- 
 tion to his abilities, but contented himself with imitating 
 Giotto and his father, in which he was astonishingly success- 
 ful. The church of S. Pancrazio possessed one picture by 
 him, containing saints, and some histories from the Gospel, 
 which may still be seen in the monastery, divided into several 
 pieces, and coloured in a superior taste. There is another in 
 the same style in the sacristy of the Conventual friars, by 
 whom he was employed in the choir of the church, to paint 
 in fresco the story of the recovery of the Cross, and its trans- 
 portation in the time of Heraclius : a work inferior to the 
 others, because much larger, and to him somewhat new. He 
 afterwards lived at Venice, as a merchant rather than as a 
 painter ; and Baldinucci, who seizes every opportunity of sup- 
 porting his hypothesis, says, that if he was not the founder of 
 that school, he, at least, improved it. But I shall demon- 
 
 f2 
 
68 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 strate, in tlie proper place, that the Veneti an school was ad- 
 vancing to a modern style before Angiolo could have taught 
 in that place ; and in the many old pictures I saw at Venice, 
 I was unable to recall to mind the delicate style of Angiolo. 
 The Venetians owe to him the education of Stefano da Verona, 
 whom I shall consider in another place ; and he gave the 
 Florentines Cennino Cennini, praised by Vasari as a colourist, 
 of whom as a writer I shall soon make mention. 
 
 In the school of Angiolo Gaddi we may reckon Antonio 
 Veneziano, concerning whom Vasari and Baldinucci disagree. 
 The former makes him a Venetian, " who came to Florence to 
 learn painting of Agnolo Gaddi : " the latter, a system writer, 
 as we have seen, asserts that he was born in Florence, and 
 that he obtained the surname of Veneziano, from his residence 
 and many labours in Venice, on the authority of certain me- 
 moirs in the Strozzi library, which were, perhaps, doubted by 
 himself ; for had they been of high authority, he would not 
 have omitted to proclaim their antiquity. However this may 
 be, each of them is a little inconsistent with himself. As they 
 assert that Antonio died of the plague in 1384, or, according 
 to the correction of their annotators, in 1383, at the age ot 
 seventy-four, it follows that he was born many years before 
 Gaddi, whose disciple, therefore, we cannot easily suppose him. 
 It is likewise rendered doubtful by his design in the legends of 
 S. Ranieri,*"" which remain in the Campo Santo of Pisa, where 
 there is a facility, care, and caprice in the composition, that 
 savour of another school. Vasari, moreover, notices a method 
 of painting in fresco, without retouching it when dry, that 
 would seem to have been introduced from other parts, different 
 
 * Vasari is by no means so bitter against the Venetian school as it is 
 wished to make him appear. In regard to these pictures he declares, 
 " that they are universally admitted, with justice, to be the best which 
 were produced among many excellent masters, at different times, in that 
 place." They are, therefore, preferred by him to the whole of the Flo- 
 rentine and Siennese paintings there exhibited ; and his opinion is 
 authorized by that of P. della Valle, who frequently differs from him. It 
 it could be proved from history, as it may be reasonably conjectured, that 
 Antonio was a painter when he came from Venice, and did not commence 
 his art at Florence, he would merit the reputation of being the greatest 
 artist of that school known to us ; as well as of having conferred some 
 benefit upon that of Florence, from the Venetian school. But this point 
 is very doubtful. 
 
DECLINE OF THE SCHOOL OF GIOTTO. 
 
 69 
 
 from what was employed by the Tuscan artists, his competi- 
 tors, whose paintings, in the time of the historian, were not 
 in as good a state of preservation as those of Antonio. In 
 the same place he deposited his portrait, which the describers 
 of the ducal gallery at Florence pretend still to find in the 
 chamber of celebrated artists. This portrait is, however, 
 painted in a manner so modern, that I cannot believe it the 
 work of a painter so ancient. On this occasion I must ob- 
 serve that there was another Antonio Veneziano, whom this 
 picture probably represents, and who, about the year 1300, 
 painted, at Osimo, a picture of St. Francis, in the manner of 
 that age, and inscribed it with his name. I learned this from 
 the accomplished Sig. Cav. Acqua, who added, that this name 
 had been erased, and that of Pietro Perugino inserted, who 
 certainly gains no very great honour by such substitution. 
 
 We learn from history * that Antonio educated in Paolo 
 Uccello, a great artist in perspective ; and in Gherardo Star- 
 nina, a master in the gay style, of whom there are yet some 
 remnants, in a chapel of the church of Santa Croce. They 
 are among the last efforts of the school of Giotto, which suc- 
 ceeding artists abandoned, to adopt a better manner. One 
 exception occurs in Antonio Vite, who executed some works 
 in the old style, in Pistoia, his native city, and in Pisa. I 
 may here observe, that Stamina and Dello Fiorentino shortly 
 after introduced the new Italian manner in the court of Spain, 
 and returned to Florence with honour and with affluence. 
 The first remained to enjoy them in his native country, until 
 the time of his death : the latter returned back to increase 
 them ; and left no public work in Florence, except an historic 
 design of Isaac, in green earth, in a cloister of the church of 
 S. Maria Novella. Perhaps we ought to have said, that he 
 
 * We cannot reconcile it to dates that Paolo Uccello was one of his 
 scholars, having been born after the death of Antonio, if, indeed, there 
 be not some error in regard to the chronology either of the master or of 
 his pupil. Stamina might have been his pupil, as he is said to have been 
 born in 1354 ; and, therefore, in 1370, he might possibly be one of his 
 school. Yet it appears that Antonio had then renounced the easel. In 
 his epitaph we find written : — 
 
 Annis qui fueram pictor Juveniltbus, artis 
 Me Medica? reliquo tempore coepit amor, &c. 
 See Vasari, ed. Senese, torn. ii. p. 297. 
 
70 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 left various works, for several are there visible, all in the 
 same taste, and so rude, as to induce us to reckon him rather 
 a follower of Buffalmacco than of Giotto. But he excelled 
 in small pieces ; and there was none then living who could 
 more elegantly ornament cabinets, coffers, the backs of 
 couches, or other household furniture, with subjects from his- 
 tory and fable. 
 
 Among the disciples of Taddeo Gaddi I have named 
 Jacopo del Casentino, of whom there are some remains in the 
 church of Orsanmichele. Jacopo taught Spinello Aretino, a 
 man of lively fancy, as may be gathered from some of his 
 pictures in Arezzo, no less than from his life. He painted 
 also at Florence, and was one of those who had the honour of 
 ornamenting the Campo Santo of Pisa with historical paint- 
 ings. His pictures of the martyrs S. Petito and S. Epiro are 
 noticed by Yasari as his best performances. He was, how- 
 ever, inferior to his competitors by the meanness of his design, 
 and the style of his colouring, in which green and black are 
 too predominant. The Fall of the Angels still remains in S. 
 Angelo at Arezzo, in which Lucifer is represented so terrible, 
 that it afterwards haunted the dreams of the artist, and, de- 
 ranging both his mind and body, hastened his death. Ber- 
 nardo Daddi was his scholar ; a man less known in his own 
 country than at Florence, where he executed a picture, seen 
 on the gate of San Giorgio ; as was also Parri, the son of 
 Spinello, who modernised his style on the manner of Masolino. 
 The latter excelled in the art of colouring, but he was bar- 
 barous in the drawing of his figures, which he made extrava- 
 gantly long and bending, in order, as he was used to say, to 
 give them greater spirit. One may see some remains of them 
 at Arezzo in S. Domenico, and other places. Lorenzo di 
 Bicci, of Florence, another scholar of Spinello, was the Yasari 
 of his time, for the multiplicity, celerity, and easy self-com- 
 placency shewn in his labours. The first cloister of the 
 church of S. Croce retains several specimens, consisting cf 
 the legends of S. Francis ; and there is an Assumption on the 
 front, in which he was assisted by Donatello, while still a 
 young man. Perhaps his best work is the fresco, ornament- 
 ing the sanctuary of S. Maria Nuova, built by Martin Y. 
 about the year 1418. His son Neri is reckoned among the 
 
SCULPTURE CULTIVATED AT PISA. 
 
 71 
 
 last followers of Giotto. He lived but a short time ; he left, 
 in S. Romolo, a picture which would not have disgraced his 
 father, and which is certainly more carefully executed than 
 was usual with the latter. 
 
 During the fourteenth century, sculpture was cultivated at 
 Pisa by as many artists as painting was at Florence ; but 
 Pisa was not on that account destitute of painters worthy of 
 being recorded. Vasari mentions one Ticino, who finished 
 the mosaic begun by Turrita, assisted by Tafi and Gaddi, and 
 adds, that he was also a painter. Sig. da Morrona says, that 
 he retained the old style of his school ; which was the case 
 with many others, as appears from several old Madonnas upon 
 panels, both of anonymous and of ascertained painters. Of 
 this sort is that in the old church of Tripalle, and that at S. 
 Matthew's in Pisa. On the first is this inscription, " Nerus 
 Nellus de Pisa me pinxit, 1299 :" on the second we read, 
 u Jacopo di Nicola dipintore detto Gera mi dipinse." The 
 mode of expression is derived from the /jl £7roi7?<7£ of the 
 Greeks ; to which the old Pisans closely adhered in their 
 paintings, their sculptures, and their bronzes.* Like the 
 
 * The old painters varied the manner of their superscriptions, even in 
 the following ages, according to the taste of the Greeks. Sebastianus 
 Venetus pingebat a. 1520; is written upon a St Agatha in the Palazzo 
 Pitti, and this corresponds to the EITOIEI, faciebat ; hy which the 
 Greek sculptors wished to convey, that such work was not intended to 
 exhibit their last effort ; so that they were at liberty to improve it when 
 they pleased. The subscription of Opus Belli is obvious, and similar 
 ones, drawn from the EPEON (for example), A.Y2IIXII0Y, which we see 
 in Maffei. I recount in my fifth book as singular, the epigraph Sumus 
 Jtogerii man us ; it is, however, derived from the Greeks, who, for 
 instance, sometimes wrote XEIP. AMBP02I0Y, MONAXOY, as I 
 read in a Fabrianese church called Della Carità, where there is a pic- 
 ture of the General Judgment ; the figures very small, and highly 
 finished, upon a large tablet : with, I think, more figures than are seen 
 in the Paradise of Tintoretto. XEIP BITOPE, was written by Vittor 
 Carpaccio, under his portrait cited in the index. I omit other forms 
 better known. That adopted at Trevigi, Hieronymus Tarvisio, is very 
 erudite ; and it is imitated from the military latercoli, in which, with the 
 same view, the soldier and his country are named. In short, where the 
 words fecit or pinxit are not used, the best plan was that of giving the 
 proper name in the genitive case at the foot of the picture, as the engrav- 
 ers of Greek gems were wont to do in inscriptions, as AAAOY AIO- 
 2K0PIA0Y, &c. 
 
72 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH 1 
 
 other Italians, they at length reformed their style, and tnere, 
 as well as at Florence and Siena, families of painters arose, in 
 which the fathers were excelled by their sons, and they by 
 their children. Thus, from Yanni, who nourished in 1300, 1 
 sprung Turino di Yanni, who flourished about 1343, and 
 Nello di Yanni, who painted in the Campo Santo, whose son 
 Bernardo was the disciple of Orcagna, and furnished many pic- 
 tures for the palace of the primate. There was also in that 
 city Andrea di Lippo, who is noticed in the " Academical Dis- 
 course on the Literary History of Pisa," in the year 1336 ; 
 the same, I believe, with that Andrea da Pisa, mentioned 
 among the artists that ornamented the cathedral of Orvieto in 
 1346. A work by one Giovanni di Niccolo remains in the 
 monastery of S. Martha, and, perhaps, he painted the fine 
 trittico of the Zelada museum at Rome, which represents our 
 Saviour with S. Stephen, S. Agatha, and other saints, and 
 which has this inscription, Jo. de Pisis pinxit. This is a 
 picture of great labour, by some ascribed to Gio. Balducci ; 
 which, if ascertained, would confer honour on that great man, 
 as a professor of the three sister arts. Towards the end of 
 the century the power of the Pisans declined, rather from 
 civil discord than from other misfortunes ; till at length the 
 city fell into the hands of the Florentines in 1406, and lay 
 for a long time prostrate and humbled, deprived not only of 
 her artists, but almost of her citizens. She at length rose 
 again, not, indeed to command, but to more dignified sub- 
 jection. 
 
 The spirit of the Florentines in the mean time increasing 
 with their power, they became chiefly solicitous to suit the 
 magnificence of their capital to the grandeur of the state. 
 Cosmo, at once the father of his country and of men of genius, 
 gave stability to public affairs. Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 and others of the house of Medici, followed, whose hereditary 
 taste for literature, and the fine arts is celebrated in a multi- 
 tude of books, and most copiously in the histories written by 
 three eminent authors, Monsignor Fabroni, the Signor Ab. 
 Galluzzi, and Mr. Roscoe. Their house was at once a 
 lyceum for philosophers, an arcadia for poets, and an academy 
 for artists. Dello, Paolo, Masaccio, the two Peselli, both the 
 Lippi, Benozzo, Sandro, the Ghirlandai, enjoyed the perpetual 
 
THE FINE ARTS AT FLORENCE. 
 
 73 
 
 patronage of this family, and as constantly rendered it what- 
 ever honour they could bestow. Their pictures are full of 
 portraits, according to the custom of the times, and continually 
 presented to the people the likenesses of the Medici, and often 
 represented them with regal ornaments in their pictures of the 
 Epiphany, as if to prepare the people to behold the sceptre 
 and royal robe securely established in that house. The 
 good taste of the Medici was seconded by that of other citizens, 
 who were then distributed into various corporations, according 
 to their place of residence and profession, each of which 
 strove with reciprocal emulation to decorate their houses and 
 their churches. Besides the desire of public ornament, they 
 were animated by religion, which, in what relates to divine 
 worship, is so widely spread, not only among the great, but 
 also among the lower orders of people ; that those have 
 a difficulty in believing who have not beheld it. Their 
 cathedral, a vast fabric, was already reared for the ceremonies 
 of religion, and here and there some other churches arose ; 
 these and the more ancient, in emulation of each other, they 
 adorned with paintings, a luxury unknown to their ancestors, 
 and less common in the other cities of Italy. This disposition 
 gave rise, after the conclusion of the century, to that prodi- 
 gious number of painters already mentioned ; and hence 
 sprang, in the century we now treat of, that crowd of artists 
 in marble, bronze, and silver, who transferred pre-eminence 
 in sculpture, the ancient inheritance of the Pisans, to the 
 people of Florence. The Florentines were desirous of orna- 
 menting the new cathedral and baptistery, the church of 
 Orsanmichele, and other sacred places, with statues and basso- 
 relievos. These brought forward Donatello, Brunelleschi, 
 Ghiberti, Filarete, Rossellini, Pollajuoli, and Verrocchio, and 
 produced those noble works in marble, in bronze, and in 
 silver, which appear to have attained the perfection of the art, 
 and to have rivalled the ancients. The rising generation was 
 instructed in design by those celebrated men, and the univer- 
 sality of the principles they taught, made the transition from 
 one art to another easy. The same individuals were often 
 statuaries, founders in bronze, in gold, lapidaries, painters, or 
 architects, talents that appear enviable to this age, in which 
 an artist with difficulty acquires a competent knowledge in a 
 
74 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 single art. Such was the course of instruction at Florence in 
 the Studies, and such the subsequent encouragement without, 
 from which it will not appear wonderful to the reader that 
 this city was the foremost to attain the perfection of the art. 
 But let us trace the steps by which it advanced in Florence, 
 and in the rest of Italy. 
 
 The followers of Giotto had carried painting beyond the 
 period of its infancy, but it continued to give proofs of its 
 infant faculties, especially in chiaroscuro, and still more 
 in perspective. Figures sometimes appeared as if falling or 
 slipping from the canvas ; buildings had not a true point of 
 view ; and the art of foreshortening was yet very rude. Ste- 
 fano Fiorentino perceived rather than removed the difficulty ; 
 others for the most part sought either to avoid or to com- 
 pensate for the deficiency. Pietro della Francesca, else- 
 where noticed, appears to have been the first who revived the 
 Grecian practice of rendering geometry subservient to the 
 painter. He is celebrated by Pascoli,* and by authors of 
 greater note, as the father of perspective. Brunelleschi was 
 the first Florentine who saw the method of bringing it to per- 
 fection, " which consisted in drawing it in outline by the 
 help of intersections ;"f and in this manner he drew the 
 square of St. John, and other places, with true diminution 
 and with receding points. Be was imitated in mosaic by 
 Benedetto da Maiano, and in painting by Masaccio, to both of 
 whom he was master. 
 
 About the same period Paolo Uccello, having studied under 
 Gio Manetti, a celebrated mathematician, applied to it with 
 assiduity ; and even so dedicated himself to the pursuit, that 
 in labouring to excel in this, he never acquired celebrity in 
 the other branches of pointing. He delighted in it far beyond 
 his other studies, and used to say that perspective was the 
 most pleasant of all ; so true is it that novelty is a great 
 source of enjoyment. He executed no work that he did not 
 reflect some new light on that art, whether it consisted of 
 edifices and colonnades, in which a great space was repre- 
 sented in a small compass, or of figures foreshortened with a 
 skill unknown to the followers of Giotto. Some of his historic 
 
 * Pascoli, torn. i. p. 199. 
 
 f Vasari. 
 
MASOLINO DA PANICALE AND GHIBERTI. 
 
 75 
 
 pictures of Adam, and of Noah, in which he indulged in hid 
 favourite taste for the novel and whimsical, remain in the 
 cloisters of S. Maria Novella ; and there are landscapes with 
 trees and animals so well executed, that he might be called 
 the Bassano of the first age. He particularly delighted to 
 have birds in his house, from which he drew, and from thence 
 he obtained his surname of Uccello. In the cathedral there 
 is a gigantic portrait of Gio. Aguto on horseback, painted by 
 Paolo in green earth. This was, perhaps, the first attempt 
 made in painting, which achieved a great deal without ap- 
 pearing too daring. He produced other specimens at Padua, 
 where he delineated some figures of giants with green earth 
 in the house of the Vitali. He was chiefly employed in 
 ornamenting furniture for private individuals ; the triumphs 
 of Petrarch in the royal gallery, painted on small cabinets are 
 supposed by some good judges to be his. 
 
 Masolino da Panicale cultivated the art of chiaroscuro. He 
 derived advantage from having long dedicated his attention 
 to modelling and sculpture, a practice which renders relief 
 easy to the painter, beyond what is generally conceived. 
 Ghiberti had been his master in this branch, who, at this 
 time, was unrivalled in design, in composition, and in giving 
 animation to his figures. Colouring, which he yet wanted, 
 was taught him by Stamina, and in this also he became a 
 very celebrated master. Thus uniting in himself the excel- 
 lences of two schools, he produced a new style, not indeed 
 exempt from dryness, nor wholly faultless ; but grand, deter- 
 mined, and harmonious, beyond any former example. The 
 chapel of St. Peter al Carmine is a remaining monument of 
 this artist. He there painted the Evangelists, and some acts 
 of the Saint ; as his vocation to the apostleship, the tempest, 
 the denying of Christ, the miracle performed at Porta Spe- 
 ciosa, and the Preaching. He was prevented by death from 
 representing other acts of St. Peter, as, for instance, the 
 tribute paid to Caesar, baptism conferred on the multitude, the 
 healing of the sick, which several years afterwards were 
 painted by his scholar, Maso di S. Giovanni, a youth who ob- 
 tained the surname of Masaccio, from trusting to a precarious 
 subsistence, and living, as it was said, by chance, while deeply 
 engrossed with the studies of his profession. This artist was 
 
76 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 a genius calculated to mark an era ; and Mengs has assigned 
 him the highest place among those who explored the untried 
 paths of the art. Vasari informs us that " what was executed 
 before his time might be called paintings, but that his pictures 
 seem to live, they are so true and natural f and in another 
 place adds, that " no master of that age so nearly approached 
 the moderasi He had formed the principles of his art on 
 the works of Ghiberti and Donatello ; perspective he acquired 
 from Brunelleschi, and on going to Rome, it cannot be doubted 
 that he improved by the study of ancient sculpture. He 
 there met with two senior artists, Gentile da Fabriano, and 
 Vittore Pisanello, upon whom high encomiums, as the first 
 painter of his time, may be seen in Maffei and elsewhere.* 
 They who write thus had not seen any of the paintings of 
 Masaccio, or at most only his early productions ; such as the 
 S. Anna in the church of S. Ambrose in Florence, or the 
 chapel of S. Catherine in S. Clement's at Rome, in which, 
 while still young, he executed some pictures of the passion of 
 Christ, and legends of S. Anna, to which may be added, a 
 ceiling containing the Evangelists, which are all that now 
 remain free from retouching. This work is excellent for that 
 time, but some doubt whether it ought to be ascribed to him ; 
 and it is inferior to his painting in the Carmine, of which we 
 may say with Pliny, jam perfecta sunt omnia. The positions 
 and foreshortenings of the figures are diversified and com- 
 plete beyond those practised by Paolo Uccello. The air of 
 the heads, says Mengs, is in the style of Raffaello ; the ex- 
 pression is so managed that the mind seems no less forcibly 
 depicted than the body. The anatomy of the figure is marked 
 with truth and judgment. That figure, so highly extolled in 
 the Baptism of S. Peter, which appears shivering with cold, 
 marks, as it were, an era in the art. The garments, divested 
 of minuteness, present a few easy folds. The colouring is 
 true, properly varied, delicate, and surprisingly harmonious ; 
 the relief is in the grandest style. This chapel was not 
 finished by him. He died in 1443, not without suspicion of 
 poison, and left it still deficient in several pictures, which, 
 after many years, were supplied by the younger Lippi. It 
 
 * Verona Illustrata, torn. iii. p. 277. 
 
F. GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE. 
 
 77 
 
 became the school of all the best Florentine artists, whom we 
 shall have occasion to notice in this and the succeeding epoch, 
 of Pietro Perugino, and even of Raffaello ; and it is a curious 
 circumstance, that in the course of many years, in a city 
 fruitful in genius, ever bent on the promotion of the art, no 
 one in following the footsteps of Masaccio attained that emi- 
 nence which he acquired without a director. Time has 
 defaced other works of his hand at Florence, equally com- 
 mended, and especially the sanctuary of the church del 
 Carmine, of which there is a drawing in the possession of 
 the learned P. Lettor Fontana Barnabita in Pavia. The 
 royal gallery has very few of his works. The portrait of a 
 young man, that seems to breathe, and is estimated at a high 
 price, is in the Pitti collection. 
 
 After Masaccio, two monks distinguished themselves in the 
 Florentine school. The first was a Dominican friar named 
 F. Giovanni da Fiesole, or B. Giovanni Angelico. His first 
 employment was that of ornamenting books with miniatures, 
 an art he learned from an elder brother, who executed mi- 
 niatures and other paintings. It is said that he studied in the 
 chapel of Masaccio, but it is not easy to credit this when we 
 consider their ages. Their style, too, betrays a different 
 origin. The works of the friar discover some traces of the 
 manner of Giotto, in the posture of the figures and the com- 
 pensation for deficiencies in the art, not to mention the 
 drapery, which is often folded in long tube-like forms, and the 
 exquisite diligence in minute particulars common to miniature 
 painters. Nor did he depart much from this method in the 
 greatest part of his works, which chiefly consist of scripture 
 pieces of our Saviour, or the Virgin, in cabinet pictures not 
 unfrequently to be met with in Florence. The royal gallery 
 possesses several ; the most brilliant and highly-finished of 
 which, is the Birth of John the Baptist. The Glory,* which 
 is in the church of S. Mary Magdalen de* Pazzi, from its 
 great size, is among his rarest productions ; and it also ranks 
 with the most beautiful. His chief excellence consists in the 
 beauty that adorns the countenances of his saints and angels; 
 
 * Gloria is a name given in Italy to a representation of the celestial 
 regions. 
 
78 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 and he is truly the Guido of the age, for the sweetness of his 
 colours, which, though in water, he diluted and blended in 
 a manner which almost reaches perfection. He. was also 
 esteemed one of the best of his age in works executed in 
 fresco ; and he was employed in the decoration of the cathe- 
 dral of Orvieto, as well as the palace of the Vatican itself, 
 where he painted a chapel — a work much commended by a 
 number of writers. Vasari enumerates Gentile da Fabriano 
 among his disciples, but the dates render this impossible ; and 
 says the same of Zanobi Strozzi, a man of noble origin, of 
 whom I do not know that any certain picture exists in a 
 public collection : I only know that, treading in the steps of 
 his master, he surpassed the reputation of a mere amateur. 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, another of his disciples, and an imitator of 
 Masaccio, raised himself far above the majority of his con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 In a few points he even surpassed his model, as in the 
 stupendous size of his edifices, in the amenity of his land- 
 scapes, and in the brilliancy of his fancy, lively, agreeable, 
 and picturesque. In the Riccardi palace, once a royal resi- 
 dence, there is a chapel in good preservation, where he exe- 
 cuted a Glory, a Nativity, and an Epiphany. He there 
 painted with a profusion of gold and of drapery, unexampled, 
 perhaps, in fresco ; and with an adherence to nature that 
 exhibits an image of that age in the portraits, the garments, 
 the accoutrements of the horses, and in the most minute par- 
 ticulars. He long resided at Pisa, and died there, where he 
 ought to be studied ; for his compositions in that place are 
 better than those at Florence, and he was there also more 
 sparing in the use of gold. The portrait of S. Thomas 
 Aquinas is highly spoken of by Vasari and Richardson ; but 
 they especially notice the pictures from scripture history, 
 with which he ornamented a whole wing of the Campo 
 Santo, " a most prodigious work, sufficient to appal a legion 
 of painters and he finished it within two years. Here he 
 displayed a talent for composition, an imitation of nature, a 
 variety in the countenances and attitudes, a colouring juicy, 
 lively, and clear, and an expression of the passions, that 
 
 * Vasari. 
 
FILIPPO LIPPI. 
 
 79 
 
 places him next to Masaccio. I can scarcely believe that he 
 painted the whole. In the Ebriety of Noah, in the Tower of 
 Babel, and in some other pictures, we discern an attempt at 
 surprising, not to be seen in some others, where figures some- 
 times occur that seem dry and laboured ; defects which I 
 am disposed rather to attribute to his coadjutors. Near this 
 great work a monument is erected to his memory by a grate- 
 ful city, in the public name, with an epitaph that commends 
 him as a painter. Time itself, as if conscious of his merit, 
 has respected this work beyond any other in the Campo 
 Santo. 
 
 The other monk was Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite, a genius 
 of a different stamp from B. Giovanni. He received his 
 instruction, not from Masaccio, as Yasari would have it, but 
 from his works. His assiduity in copying him makes him 
 sometimes appear a second Masaccio, especially in small his- 
 tories. Some of his choicest are in the sacristy of the church 
 of S. Spirito. In that place, in the church of S. Ambrose, 
 and elsewhere, his pictures represent the Virgin surrounded 
 by angels, with full and handsome countenances, distin- 
 guished by a colouring and a gracefulness peculiarly his own. 
 He delighted in drapery like the neat folds of a surplice ; his 
 tints were very clear but delicate, and often subdued by a 
 purple hue not common to other painters. He introduced 
 gigantic proportions in his large frescos in the parish church 
 of Prato ; where his pictures of S. Stefano and the Baptist 
 were, in the opinion of Yasari, his capital performances. 
 His forsaking the convent, his slavery in Barbary, his works 
 at Naples, at Padua, and elsewhere, his death, hastened by 
 poison, administered by the relations of a young lady who 
 had borne him a natural child, likewise named Filippo Lippi, 
 are recorded by Yasari. P. della Yalle is of opinion that he 
 never professed any order, but in the register of Carmine, his 
 death is noticed in the year 1469, and he is there denomi- 
 nated Fra Filippo. He died at Spoleti when he had nearly 
 completed his large picture for the cathedral. Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent requested his ashes from the townsmen, but was 
 refused ; on which he caused a handsome monument to be 
 erected for him, with an inscription by Angelo Poliziano; 
 a circumstance I mention, to demonstrate the respect paid to 
 
80 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 the art at that period. F. Diamante da Prato, the scholar of 
 Lippi, and his assistant in his last work, imitated him well ; 
 as likewise did Francesco Pesello, a Florentine of the same 
 school ; his son Pesellino, a short-lived artist, followed him 
 with still greater success. The Epiphany of Francesco, 
 described by Vasari, in which there is a portrait of Donato 
 Acciaiuoli, is in the royal gallery. The grado, painted by his 
 son for the apartments of the novices of S. Croce, is there 
 still ; on this last are the histories of S. Cosma and S. Da- 
 miano, of S. Anthony, and S. Francis, denominated by the 
 historian most wonderful productions, and, perhaps, this is 
 not too much to say when we recollect the period. 
 
 About this time other able artists nourished at Florence, 
 who were obscured by greater names. Of this number was 
 Berto Linaiuolo, whose pictures in private houses were held 
 in great repute. They were even ordered by the king of 
 Hungary, and procured him great fame in that kingdom. 
 Alessio Baldovinetti, of noble extraction, was a painter par- 
 ticularly diligent and minute, a good worker in mosaic, and 
 the master of Ghirlandaio. In his picture of the Nativity 
 in the porch of the Nunziata, and in his other works, the 
 design, rather than the colouring, may now be said to remain ; 
 for the tints have vanished, from a defect in their composi- 
 tion. To them we may add Verrocchio, a celebrated statuary, 
 a good designer, and a painter for amusement rather than by 
 profession. While he painted the Baptism of Christ at S. 
 Salvi, his scholar, L. da Vinci, then a youth, finished an 
 angel, in a manner superior to the figures of his master, who, 
 indignant at his own inferiority to a boy, never more handled 
 the pencil. 
 
 Baldinucci imagines that Andrea del Castagno, a name in- 
 famous in history, was a scholar of Masaccio ; he was rather 
 his imitator in attitude, relief, and casting of the drapery, 
 than in grace and colouring. He lived at the time that the 
 secret of painting in oil (discovered by John Van Eych, or 
 John of Bruges, about 1410),* was known in Italy, not 
 
 * In the dictionary of Guarienti, in the article Gio. Abeyk, appears 
 an account of a picture of this artist existing in the gallery at Dresden, 
 bearing date 1416 ; a time, says the writer, when he enjoyed his highest 
 reputation, by painting in his second manner, in oil. It represents the 
 
ASSASSINATION OF DOMENICO. 
 
 81 
 
 only by report, but by experience of the advantages of this 
 method. Our artists, admiring the harmony, delicacy, and 
 brilliance, which colours received from this discovery, sighed 
 to possess the secret. For this purpose, one Antonello da 
 Messina, who had studied at Rome, travelled to Flanders, 
 and having learned the secret, according to Vasari, from 
 the inventor, went to Venice, where he communicated it to a 
 friend named Domenico. After having practised much in 
 his own country, at Loreto,* and other parts of the eccle- 
 siastical states, Domenico came to Florence. There he be- 
 came the general favourite, and on that account was envied 
 oy Castagna, whose dissembled friendship won him to impart 
 the secret, and rewarded him by an atrocious assassina- 
 tion, which he perpetrated, in order that there might be none 
 living to rival him in the art. The assassin was sufficiently 
 skilful to conceal his crime, owing to which a number of 
 innocent persons soon fell under suspicion, which did not in- 
 duce the real criminal to avow the atrocious deed, until he 
 lay upon his death-bed, when he disclosed his guilt, and did 
 justice to the innocence of others. He had the reputation of 
 being the first artist of his time, for vigour, for design, and 
 for perspective, having perfected the art of foreshortening. 
 His finest works have perished : one of his pictures remains 
 at S. Lucia de* Magnuoli, and also some of his historic 
 pieces, executed with great diligence. There is also a Cru- 
 cifixion, painted on a wall in the monastery of the Angeli. 
 
 Many writers have appeared who deny the above-men- 
 tioned statement of Vasari, and maintain that the art of 
 painting in oil was known long before. It is pretended that 
 
 Virgin in a majestic seat with the divine infant, who is seen very grace- 
 fully receiving an apple from St. Anne, seated on a couch of straw. The 
 young St. John is seen assisting, and also St. Joseph, whose countenance 
 represents the portrait of the painter himself. The introduction of arms 
 shews that the picture must have been executed for some distinguished 
 person. It is in high preservation, and is pronounced by Guarienti the 
 miracle of painting, from its display of extreme diligence, even in the 
 minute furniture, and particularly because the chamber in which the 
 scene is represented, the couch, the window, the pavement, executed a 
 punto alto, together with the whole action, are conducted with the most 
 exact rules of perspective. 
 
 * In 1454 he was in great credit at Perugia. — See Mariotti, Lett. 
 Perug. p. 133, 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 it existed in the time of the Romans, an opinion adopted by 
 Sig. Ranza, in regard to a picture said to be of S. Helena, 
 consisting of a quilting of different pieces of silk stitched 
 together, exhibiting a picture of the Virgin Saint with the 
 Infant. The heads and hands are coloured in oils ; the 
 drapery is shaded with the needle, and in a great measure 
 with the pencil. It is preserved in Vercelli, and from the 
 tradition of its citizens, reported by Mabillon (Diar. Ital. 
 cap. 28), it is said to be the work of S. Helena, mother of 
 Constantine ; that is, the patches of silk were sewed by her, 
 and the gilding and painting added to it by her painter, as is 
 conjectured by Ranza. He was not aware that the practice 
 of drawing the Infant Christ in the lap of the Virgin (as we 
 notice in the preface to the Roman school) was posterior to 
 the fourth century ; and that other particulars related by 
 him of the picture cannot belong to the age of Constantine ; 
 for instance, the hooded mantle of our Lady. From such 
 signs we ought rather to conclude that it is either not an oil 
 painting, or that the figure, at whatever period executed, has 
 been retouched, in the same way as that of the Nunziata at 
 Florence, or of the Santa Maria Primerana at Fiesole ; the 
 former of which in the drapery, and the latter in the linea- 
 ments, are not the same now as in their ancient state. 
 
 Others, without ascending to the first ages of the church, 
 have asserted that oil painting was known out of Italy, at 
 least as early as the eleventh century. As a proof of this, 
 they adduce a manuscript of the Monk Teofilo or Ruggiero, 
 no later back than that period, which bears title, " De omni 
 scientià artis pingendi," where there is a receipt for the pre- 
 paration and use of oil from flax.* Lessing gave an account 
 of this manuscript in the year 1774, in a treatise published at 
 
 * Lib. i. c. 18. Accipe semen lini, et exsicca illud in sartagine super 
 ignem sine aqua, &c. Brustolato says, it should be pounded, and again 
 subjected to the fire in water, then put into a press between cloths, and the 
 oil extracted. He continues : Cum hoc oleo tere minium sive cenobrium 
 super lapidem sine aqua, et cum pincello linies super ostia vel tabulas 
 quas rubricare volueris, et ad solem siccabis, deinde iterum linies et 
 siccabis. And in chap. 22, he says, — Accipe colores quos imponere 
 volueris, terens eos diligsnter, oleo lini sine aqua ; et ftic mixturas vul- 
 tuum ac vestimentorum sicut superius aqua feceras, et bestias, sive aves, 
 aut folia, variabis suis coloribus prout libuerit. 
 
DISCOVERY OF OIL PAINTING. 
 
 83 
 
 Brunswick, where he filled the office of librarian to the 
 prince. Morelli, also, in the Codici Naniani (cod. 39) ; and 
 more at length Raspe, in his critical " Dissertation on Oil 
 Painting," published in the English language at London, in 
 which he enumerated the existing copies in various libraries, 
 and gave a great part of the manuscript, entered into an 
 examination of the subject. Lastly, Teofilo's treatise is in- 
 serted by Christiano Leist, in Lessing's collection, " Zur Ge- 
 schichte unde Litteratur," Brunsw. 1781. The Dottore 
 Aglietti, in his Giornale Veneto, December, 1793, likewise 
 adds his opinion ; while the learned Abbate Morelli, in his 
 " Notizia/' which is often cited by me in the emendation and 
 illustration of this edition, throws the greatest light upon the 
 present question, agitated by so many, and, we may add, 
 " rem acu tetigit." He, then, will be found to concede to 
 Giovanni, whom he calls Gianes da Brugia, the boast of this 
 great discovery, agreeing with Vasari, though in a different 
 sense from that in which the latter writer views it. For he 
 does not reply to his opponents, that the art of painting, as 
 taught by Teofilo, might have gone into disuse, and was only 
 revived by Giovanni ; whence Vasari ventured to commend 
 him as an original inventor ; in the same manner as Tira- 
 boschi replied, who followed the Roman anthologists (St. 
 Lett. t. vi. p. 1202). Neither does he bring forward the de- 
 fence advanced by the Baron de Budberg in the apology of 
 Gio. da Bruges,* to the purport that Teofilo taught the art 
 of painting in oil, only upon a ground, without figures, and 
 without ornaments : because Teofilo, in chap. 22, whose 
 words we have given in the note, likewise taught this art. 
 Into what, then, does the long-boasted invention of Giovanni 
 resolve itself? Nothing more than this: according to the 
 ancient practice, a fresh colour was never added to the panel 
 until the first covering had been dried in the sun : a mode, as 
 Teofilo confesses, infinitely tedious : " quod in imaginibus diu- 
 turnum et tsediosum nimis est " (cap. 23) ; to which I may add, 
 that the colours in this way could never perfectly harmonize. 
 ^ r an Eych saw this difficulty, and he became more truly sen- 
 sible of it, from the circumstance of having exposed one of 
 
 * Gottingen, 1792. See Esprit dcs Journaux, Octobre, 1792. 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 his paintings to the sun, in order to harden, when the excess 
 of heat split the panel. Being at that period sufficiently 
 skilled both in philosophical and philological inquiries, he 
 began to speculate on the manner of applying oils, and 01 
 their acquiring a proper consistency without the aid of the 
 sun. " By uniting it with other mixtures he next produced 
 a Tarnish, which, dried, was waterproof, and gave a clearness 
 and brilliancy, while it added to the harmony of his colours." 
 Such are the words of Yasari ; and thus, in a very few 
 words, we may arrive at a satisfactory solution of the ques- 
 tion. Before the time of Van Eych, some sort of method of 
 painting in oil was known, but so extremely tedious and im- 
 perfect, as to be scarcely applicable to the production oi 
 figure-pieces. It was practised beyond the Alps, but is not 
 known to have been in use in Italy. Giovanni carried the 
 first discovery to its completion ; he perfected the art, which 
 was afterwards diffused over all Europe, and introduced into 
 Italy, by means of Antonio, or Antonello da Messina. 
 
 Here again we are met by another class of objectors, who 
 enter the lists against Van Eych, against Antonello, and 
 more decidedly against Yasari, not with arguments from 
 books, but in the strength of pictorial skill, and chemical ex- 
 periments. 
 
 Malvasia, upon the authority of Tiarini, maintains, that 
 Lippo Dalmasio painted in oil ; the Neapolitans, relying upon 
 Marco da Siena, and other men of skill, assert the same 
 of their artists in the thirteenth century ; while a few have 
 pretended that some of the pictures* produced in the four- 
 teenth century, to be seen at Siena and Modena, in par- 
 ticular that from the hand of Tommaso da Modena, belonging 
 to the Imperial cabinet, and described by me in the native 
 school of that artist, are also coloured in oil ; because, after 
 being exposed to water, and analyzed, the colours discovered 
 
 * Raspe (Lib. Cit.). Della Valle (Ann. al Vasari, torn. iii. p. 313). 
 Tiraboschi (St. Lett. torn. vi. p. 407). Vernazza (Giorn. Pisano, torn, 
 xciv. p. 220), cited by Morelli (Notizia, p. 114). More recently is 
 added the authority of P. Federici Domenicano. It is absurd to sup- 
 pose that Tommaso da Modena, or, according to him, da Trevigi, carried 
 the discovery from this city into Germany, from whence it was subse- 
 quently communicated to Flanders. 
 
CHEMICAL EXPERIMENTS. 
 
 85 
 
 their elements, and were pronounced oil. In spite, however, 
 of so much skill, and so many experiments, I cannot see that 
 Vasari has yet been detected in an error. It would not be diffi- 
 cult to oppose other experiments and opinions, that might 
 throw light upon the question. To begin with Tuscany : 
 an analysis of several Tuscan paintings was made at Pisa by 
 the very able chemist Bianchi ; and though apparently 
 coloured in oil, the most lucid parts were found to give out 
 particles of wax ; a material employed in the encausti, and 
 not forgotten by the Greeks, who instructed Giunta and his 
 contemporaries. It would appear that they applied it as a 
 varnish, to act as a covering and protection from humidity, as 
 well as to give a lucid hue and polish to the colours. It has 
 been observed, that the proportion of wax employed decreased 
 during the fourteenth century; and after the year 1360 fell 
 into disuse, and was succeeded by a vehicle, that carries no 
 gloss. But in these experiments oil was never elicited, if we 
 except a few drops of essential oil, which the learned professor 
 conjectures was employed at that early period to dissolve the 
 wax made use of in painting. 
 
 Besides this material, certain gums, and yolks of eggs, 
 which easily deceive the eye of the less skilful, were also used, 
 and resemble those pictures that display a scanty portion 01 
 oil, as is observed by Zanetti, in his account of Venetian 
 painting (p. 20) ; and the analysis of Tommaso da Modena's 
 picture has tended to confirm his opinion. This information 
 I owe to the late Count Durazzo; who, in 1793, assured me, 
 when at Venice, that he had himself beheld, at Vienna, the 
 process of analyzing such pictures, by very skilful hands, in 
 the presence of Prince Kaunitz ; and that it was the unani- 
 mous opinion of those professors, that no traces of oil were to 
 be found. The colours consisted of the finest gums, mixed 
 with the yolk and white of eggs, a fact that afforded just 
 ground for a like conclusion in regard to similar works by the 
 ancients. I fully appreciate, likewise, the opinion of Piacenza 
 upon the celebrated picture of Colantonio ; this I reserve, 
 however, together with some further reflections of my own, 
 for the school of Naples. 
 
 I shall here merely inform the reader, that, in regard to 
 the chemical experiments employed on these paintings, Sig. 
 
ss 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 da Morrona* observes, that old pictures are often believed to 
 be in a state of purity, when they have been retouched with 
 oil colours at a subsequent period : the use of wax, and of 
 essential oils, or of some such old methods, may frequently 
 give rise to doubt, as I shall soon shew. 
 
 Having removed the objections brought against the opinion 
 of Vasari, I must add a few words in regard to a passage where 
 he seems to have forgotten what he had said in the life of 
 Angiolo Gaddi, but which will, in fact, throw further light 
 upon the question. He is giving an account of the paintings 
 and writings of Andrea Cennini, a scholar of Angelo. This 
 person, in 1437, that is, long before the arrival of Domenico, 
 composed a work on painting, which is preserved in MS. in 
 the library of S. Lorenzo.f He there treated, says Vasari, 
 of grinding colours with oil, for making red, blue, and green 
 grounds ; and various methods and sizes for gilding, but not 
 figures. Baldinucci examined the same manuscript, and 
 found these words in the 89th chapter : — u I wish to teach 
 thee how to paint in oil on walls, or on panel, as practised by 
 many Germans ;" and on consulting the manuscript, I find, 
 after that passage, " and by the same method on iron and on 
 marble ; but I shall first treat of painting on walls." In the 
 succeeding chapters he says, that this must be accomplished "by 
 boiling linseed oil." This appears not to accord with the as- 
 sertion of Vasari, that John of Bruges, after many experiments, 
 " discovered that linseed oil and nut oil were the most drying. 
 When boiled with his other ingredients they formed the var- 
 nish so long sought after by him and all other painters." On 
 weighing the evidence, we should take three circumstances into 
 consideration: — 1. That Vasari does not deny that oil was 
 employed in painting ; since he affirms that it was long a 
 desideratum, and consequently had been often attempted; 
 but that alone is perfect which, " when dry, resists water ; 
 which brightens the colours, makes them clear, and perfectly 
 unites them." 2. The oil of Cennini might not be of this 
 sort, either because it was not boiled with the ingredients of 
 Van Eych, or because it was intended only for coarse work ; 
 
 * Pisa Illustrata, p. 160, et seq. 
 
 t This MS. by Cennini was published only a short time ago under the 
 superintendence of Sig. the Cav. Tambroni. 
 
ARTISTS IN TUE SISTINE CHAPEL. 
 
 87 
 
 a circumstance rendered probable by the fact, that though he 
 painted the Virgin, with several Saints, in the hospital of 
 Bonifazio, at Florence, " in a good style of colouring," yet he 
 never excited the admiration nor the envy of artists. 3. The 
 above remarks forbid us to give implicit confidence to every 
 relation that is given of ancient oil-pictures ; but we are not 
 blindly to reject all accounts of imperfect attempts of that 
 nature. 
 
 The painters that remain to bo noticed approach the golden 
 age of the art, of which their works in some degree partici- 
 pate, notwithstanding the dryness of their design, and the 
 want of harmony in their colouring. The vehicle of their 
 colours was commonly water, very rarely oil. They flou- 
 rished in the time of Sixtus IV., who, having erected the 
 magnificent chapel that retains his name, invited them from 
 Florence. Their names are Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli, 
 Luca da Cortona, and D. Bartolommeo d'Arezzo. Manni, 
 the historian of some of these artists,* conjectures that this 
 was executed about the year 1474. They were desired to 
 portray the history of Moses on one part of the chapel, and 
 that of Christ on the other : thus the old law was confronted 
 by the new, the shade by the light, and the type by the 
 person typified. The pontiff was unskilled in the fine arts, 
 but covetous of the glory they confer on the name and actions 
 of princes. To superintend the work, he made choice of 
 Sandro Filipepi, from his first master, a goldsmith, surnamed 
 Botticelli, and the pupil of F. Filippo ; a celebrated artist at 
 that time, and distinguished by his pictures containing a 
 number of small figures, in which he strongly resembled 
 Andrea Mantegna, though his heads were less beautiful. 
 Vasari says, that his little picture of the Calumny of Ap- 
 pelles is as fine a production as possible, and he pronounces 
 the Assumption, painted for the church of S. Pier Maggiore, 
 to be so excellent, that it ought to silence envy. The former 
 is in the royal gallery, the latter in a private house. What 
 he painted in the Sistine Chapel, however, surpasses his other 
 works. Here we scarcely recognise Sandro of Florence, 
 The Temptation of Christ, embellished with a magnificent 
 
 * See Opuscoli del Calogerà, torn xliii. 
 
88 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH T. 
 
 temple, and a crowd of devotees in the vestibule; Moses 
 assisting the daughters of Jethro against the Midianite shep- 
 herds, in which there is great richness of drapery, coloured 
 in a new manner ; and other subjects, treated with vigour 
 and originality, exhibit him in this place greatly superior to 
 his usual manner. The same observation applies to the paint- 
 ers we are about to notice : such were the effects produced 
 by their emulation ; by the sight of a city that is calculated 
 to enlarge the ideas of those who visit it, and by the judg- 
 ment of a public scarcely to be satisfied by what is above 
 mediocrity, because its eye is habituated to what is wonderful. 
 
 History does not point out the portion of this work that 
 was performed by Filippino Lippi, the son, as we have already 
 observed, of F. Filippo. It is, however, highly probable 
 that he assisted, because he was his father's pupil from an 
 early age, and because the taste of Lippi, that delighted in 
 portraying the usages of antiquity, appears to have been 
 formed while he was still young, and engaged in his studies 
 at Rome. In the life which Cellini has written of himself, 
 he tells us that he had seen several books of antiquities drawn 
 by Lippi ; and Vasari gives him credit for being the first who 
 decorated modern paintings by the introduction of grotesques, 
 trophies, armour, vases, edifices, and drapery, copied from the 
 models of antiquity; but this I cannot confirm, because it 
 was before attempted by Squarcione. It is true that he 
 excelled in those ornaments, in his landscape, and in minute 
 particulars. The S. Bernard of the Abbey, the Magi of the 
 royal museum, and the two frescos in S. Maria Novella ; 
 the one the history of S. John, the other of S. Philip, the 
 apostles, please more perhaps by these accessories of the 
 art than by the countenances, which, indeed, have not the 
 beauty and grace of the elder Lippi. They are faithful por- 
 traits, but shew no discrimination. He was invited to Rome 
 to ornament a chapel of the Minerva, in which there is an 
 Assumption by his hand, and some histories of Thomas 
 Aquinas, amongst which the Disputation is the best. In 
 this chapel he shews great improvement in his heads, but was 
 surpassed in this respect by his pupil Raffaellino del Garbo, 
 who painted a choir of angels on the ceiling, that would alone 
 suffice to justify the name by which he was distinguished. 
 
DOMENICO CORRADI. 
 
 SO 
 
 In Monte Oli veto at Florence, there is a Resurrection by 
 RafFaellino, where the figures are small, but so graceful withal, 
 so correct in attitude, and so finely coloured, that we can 
 scarcely rank him inferior to any master of that age. There 
 is mention made by the learned Moreni, in the concluding 
 part of his " Memorie Isteriche " (p. 1G8), of another of his 
 beautiful altar-pieces, still in existence at S. Salvi, with the 
 grado entire. Some early pictures are in a similar state ; 
 but becoming the father of a numerous family, he gradually 
 degenerated in his style, and died in poverty and obscurity. 
 
 The second whom I have mentioned among the artists in 
 the Sistine Chapel, is Domenico Corradi, surnamed Del 
 Ghirlandaio, from the profession of his father.* He was a 
 painter, an excellent worker in mosaic, and even contributed 
 to the improvement of these arts. He painted in the Sistine 
 Chapel the Resurrection of Christ, which has perished ; and 
 the Call of S. Peter and S. Andrew, which still remains. 
 He is that Ghirlandaio, in whose school, or on whose man- 
 ner, not only Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, his son, but also Bonar 
 ruoti, and the best artists of the succeeding era, formed their 
 style. He possessed clearness and purity of outline, correct- 
 ness of form, and variety of ideas, together with facility and 
 uncommon diligence ; he was the first Florentine who, by 
 means of true perspective, attained a happy method oi 
 grouping, and depth of composition. t He was among the 
 first to reject the deep golden fringes to the drapery, that the 
 old masters introduced ; who, unable to render their figures 
 beautiful, endeavoured to make them gaudy. Some of his 
 pictures, however, yet remain, moderately illuminated with 
 gold ; as for instance, the Epiphany in the church of the 
 Innocents, at Florence. It is a fine work, as is also his 
 chapel in the Holy Trinity, with the actions of S. Francis, 
 and his Nativity, in the sacristy. His most celebrated work 
 is the choir of S. Maria Novella, on one side of which he 
 designed the history of John the Baptist, on the other that 
 of our Lady, and on another part the murder of the Inno- 
 cents, so much commended by Vasari. It contains many 
 
 * This person invented and fabricated an ornament called ghirlanda or 
 garland, worn on the heads of the Florentine children, 
 t Mengs, torn. ii. p. 109. 
 
90 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 portraits of literary men, and noble citizens, and almost 
 every head is from the life ; but they are dignified, and ju- 
 diciously selected. The hands and feet of. the figures, how- 
 ever, do not correspond, and attention to this circumstance 
 is the peculiar merit of Andrea del Sarto, who seems to have 
 carried the manner of Ghirlandaio to perfection. Many 
 works of the latter are scattered over Italy, in Rome, in 
 Rimini, and at Pisa, at the Eremitani di Pietra Santa, and 
 the Camaldolesi of Volterra ; where, besides the paintings in 
 the refectory, there is in the church a figure of S. Romualdo, 
 carved by Diana of Mantua. The pictures of this master 
 should not be confounded with those of his scholars, as hap- 
 pens in many instances. Thus the holy families painted by 
 his brothers or his scholars, frequently pass for his ; but they 
 are very far from meriting the praise we have justly bestowed 
 on him. Davide, one of his brothers, became very eminent 
 in mosaic ; another, Benedetto, painted more in France than 
 in Italy ; Bastiano Mainardi, their brother-in -law, was rather 
 the assistant of Domenico, than a painter of originality. 
 Baldino Bandinelli, Niccolo Cieco, Jacopo del Tedesco, and 
 Jacopo Indaco, are little known ; except that the last is 
 recorded as having assisted with Pinturicchio, at Rome, and 
 was the brother of Francesco, better known as a painter at 
 Montepulciano than in Florence. 
 
 Cosimo Rosselli, whose noble family has produced several 
 other artists, also wrought in the Sistine Chapel. Few of 
 his works remain in public places in his own country, besides 
 the miracle of the sacrament in the church of S. Ambrose, 
 a fresco picture, full of portraits ; in which we discover 
 variety, character, and truth. Vasari praises his labours at 
 Rome less than those of his fellow-artists. Being unable to 
 rival his competitors in design, he loaded his pictures with 
 brilliant colours and gilded ornaments, which, though it was 
 at that time condemned by an improving taste, yet pleased 
 the pontiff, who commended and rewarded him beyond all 
 other artists. Perhaps his best work there, is Christ preach- 
 ing on the Mount, in which the landscape is said to be the 
 work of Pier di Cosimo, a painter more remarkable for his 
 colouring than his design, as is evident from a picture in the 
 church of the Innocents, and his Perseus in the royal gallery. 
 
PIERO AND ANTONIO POLLAIUOLI. 
 
 01 
 
 They are both, however, celebrated in history ; the one as the 
 master of del Porta, the other of Andrea del Sarto. 
 
 No other Florentine was employed to ^paint in the Sistine 
 Chapel ; but Piero and Antonio Poliamoli, who were both 
 statuaries and painters, came there not long afterwards, and 
 wrought in bronze the tomb of Sixtus IV. Some of their 
 paintings may yet be seen in the church of S. Miniato, with- 
 out the walls of Florence, and the altar-piece was transferred 
 to the royal museum. We may there trace the school of 
 Castagno, the master of Piero, in the harsh features, coloured 
 in a strong and juicy manner. Antonio, the scholar of Piero, 
 became one of the best painters of that age. In the chapel 
 of the Marchesi Pucci, at the church of St. Sebastiano de* Servi, 
 there is a martyrdom of the saint, which is one of the best 
 pictures of the fifteenth century I have seen. The colouring 
 is not in the best style ; but the composition rises above the 
 age in which he lived, and the drawing of the naked figure 
 shews what attention he had bestowed on anatomy. He was 
 the first Italian painter who dissected bodies in order to learn 
 the true situations of the tendons and muscles. Both the 
 Poliamoli died at Rome, where their tomb is to be seen in 
 S. Piero in Vincoli, ornamented with a picture, which, ac- 
 cording to some, typifies a soul in purgatory, and the efficacy 
 cf indulgences to deliver it ; but whether it is by them, or 
 of their school, I am unable to determine. 
 
 The two following artists were brought to the Sistine Cha- 
 pel from the Florentine territory, the painters of which I 
 shall now consider after those of the capital. Luca Signor- 
 elli, the kinsman of Vasari of Arezzo, and the disciple of 
 Piero della Francesca, was a spirited and expressive painter, 
 and one of the first Tuscan artists who designed figures with 
 a true knowledge of anatomy, though somewhat dryly. The 
 cathedral of Orvieto evinces this ; and those naked figures 
 which even Michelangelo has not disdained to imitate. 
 Although in most of his works we do not discover a proper 
 choice of form, nor a sufficient harmony of colouring in some 
 of them, especially in the Communion of the Apostles, 'painted 
 for the Jesuits in his native city, there are beauty, grace, and 
 tints approaching to modern excellence. He painted in Ur- 
 bino, at Volterra, Florence, and other cities. In the Sistine 
 
92 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 Chapel he painted the Journey of Moses with Sefora, and 
 the Promulgation of the Old Law, paintings full of incident, 
 and superior in composition to the confused style of that age. 
 Vasari and Taia have assigned him the first place in this 
 great assemblage of artists ; to me he seems at least to have 
 equalled the best of them, and to have improved on his usual 
 style. He had two countrymen of noble families for pupils ; 
 Tommaso Bernabei, who followed him closely, and has left 
 some works in S. M. del Calcinaio, and Turpino Zaccagna, 
 whose style was different, as appears from a picture painted 
 for the church of S. Agatha, in Cantalena, near Cortona, in 
 1537. 
 
 Don Bartolommeo della Gatta executed none of his own 
 designs in the Sistine Chapel ; he lent assistance to Signor- 
 elli and to Perugino. He had been educated in the monas- 
 tery of the Angeli, at Florence, rather as a painter of minia- 
 tures than of history. On being appointed abbot of S. 
 Clement, in Arezzo, he exercised both ; and was also skilled 
 in music and in architecture. There is of his works only 
 a S. Jerome, executed in the chapel of the cathedral, as 
 we find from a MS. guide to the city, and which was trans- 
 ferred into the sacristy in 1794. The abbot instructed 
 Domenico Pecori and Matteo Lappoli, two gentlemen of 
 Arezzo, who improved themselves in the art on other models, 
 especially the first, as is evident from a picture in the parish 
 church, in which the Virgin receives under her mantlé the 
 people of Arezzo, who are recommended to her protection by 
 their patron saints. In it are heads in the style of Francia, 
 good architecture, judicious composition, and a moderate use 
 of gold. 
 
 Two miniature painters, according to Vasari, learned much 
 from the precepts, or rather from the example, of the abbot. 
 These were Girolamo, also named by Ridolfi, as a pupil of the 
 Paduan school, at the same time with Lancilao ; and Vanto, 
 or as he subscribed himself, Attavante Fiorentino. Two of 
 his letters are inserted in the third volume of the " Lettere 
 Pittoriche ? and it may be collected from Vasari and Tira- 
 boschi,* that Vante ornamented with miniatures many books 
 
 * Tom. vi. o. 1204. 
 
PUPILS OF PIETRO PERUGINO. 
 
 03 
 
 for Matthias, king of Hungary, which afterwards remained in 
 the Medicean and Estensean libraries. The learned Sig. Ab. 
 Morelli, who has the direction of the library of S. Mark at 
 Venice, shewed me one in that place. It is a work of Mar- 
 ziano Capella, where the subject is poetically expressed by 
 the painter. The assembly of the Gods, the emblems of the 
 arts and sciences, the grotesque ornaments set off with little 
 portraits, discover in Vante a genius that admirably seconded 
 the ideas of the author. The design resembles the best works 
 of Botticelli ; the colouring is gay, lively, and brilliant ; the 
 excellence of the work ought to confer on the artist greater 
 celebrity than he enjoys. In the life of D. Bartolommeo, 
 Vasari, or his printers, have confounded Attavante with Ghe- 
 rardo, the miniature painter, who at the same time was a 
 worker in mosaic, an engraver in the style of Albert Durer, 
 and a painter ; of him there are some remains in each of 
 these arts ; but they were certainly different individuals, as 
 is demonstrated by Sig. Piacenza. 
 
 Having before named Pietro Perugino, who long taught in 
 Tuscany, we may here mention the pupils who retained his 
 manner. These were Rocco Zoppo, whose Madonnas remain 
 in many houses in Florence, I believe, to this day, and are in 
 the manner of Pietro ; Baccio libertini, a great colourist, and 
 on that account adopted as an assistant of his master ; Fran- 
 cesco, the brother of Baccio, surnamed Bacchiacca, known at 
 S. Lorenzo by the Martyrdom of S. Arcadius, executed in 
 small figures, in which, as well as in the grotesque, he was 
 very eminent, and nearly approached the modern style. To 
 these artists, .who lived in Florence, their native country, we 
 may add Niccolo Soggi, likewise a Florentine, who, to shun 
 the concourse of more able painters, fixed his residence in 
 Arezzo, where he had sufficient employment. His accuracy, 
 his studious habits, and his high finish, may be there contem- 
 plated in the Christ in the Manger, in the church of Madonna 
 delle Lagrime, and in many other places in the city and 
 its environs. It would have been fortunate had he pos- 
 sessed more genius ; but this gift of nature, which, to use the 
 words of a poet,* confers immortality on books, and I would 
 
 * Victurus genium debet habere liber. — Martial. 
 
94 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 add pictures, was not granted to Soggi. Vasari bas given 
 this character of a diligent, but meagre, and frigid painter, 
 also to Gerino da Pistoia, in which place one of his pictures, 
 now in the royal gallery, was painted for the monks of 
 S. Pier Maggiore ; others are in the city of S. Sepulcro, and 
 some even in Rome, where he assisted Pinturicchio. With 
 the two preceding, I class Montevarchi, a painter so named 
 from his own country, beyond which he is almost unknown. 
 Among these artists, though scholars of Pietro, we find imita- 
 tors of the Florentines of the fourteenth century. I omit the 
 name of Bastiano da S. Gallo, who continued with him only a 
 short time, and left him on account of the aversion he had con- 
 ceived to the dryness of his style. In the Florentine history, by 
 Varchi (book 10), we find mention of a Vittorio di Buonac- 
 corso Ghiberti, who, on occasion of the siege of Florence by 
 the family of the Medici, in 1529, painted the figure of the 
 Pontiff, Clement VII., on the facade of the principal chamber 
 of the Medici, in the last act of hanging from the gallows. 
 But neither of this, nor of any other production from so infa- 
 mous a hand, do there remain any traces in Florence, from 
 which to judge either of the manner or the master of Vit- 
 torio. 
 
 I close the catalogue of old Tuscan painters with an illus- 
 trious native of Lucca, named the elder Zacchia, who was 
 educated at Florence, though not invariably adhering to the 
 taste of that ancient school, either in design, his chief excel- 
 lence, or in an outline somewhat harsh and cutting, which 
 was his greatest defect. He obtained the name of the elder, 
 to distinguish him from another Zacchia, who shewed more 
 softness of contour, and more strength of colouring, but in 
 design, and in every other respect, was held in less estima- 
 tion. I know only of one picture by the latter artist, which 
 is in the chapel of the Magistrates ; but several altar-pieces 
 by the former are to be seen in the churches of Lucca, and 
 among them an Assumption in that of S. Augustine ; a pic- 
 ture displaying much study and elegance, and, by its bearing 
 the date 1527, among his last works. One of his Madonnas, 
 surrounded by saints, formerly in the parish church of S. 
 Stefano, is now in the house of Sig. March. Jacopo Sardini, 
 which is enriched by other paintings, by a valuable collection 
 
THE " GOLDEN " AGE OF ART. 
 
 95 
 
 of drawings, and still more by the presence of its learned 
 possessor, to whom I am indebted for many notices inter- 
 spersed throughout this work. 
 
 Such was the state of the art in Tuscany, about the be- 
 ginning of the sixteenth century. Much was then attained, 
 because nature began to be imitated, especially in the heads, 
 to which the artists imparted a vivacity, that even at this day 
 is surprising. On viewing the figures and portraits of those 
 times, they actually appear to look at, and to desire to enter 
 into conversation with the beholder. It still remained to give 
 ideal beauty to the figure, fulness to design, and harmony to 
 colouring, a true method to aerial perspective, variety to com- 
 position, and freedom to the pencil, on the whole still timid. 
 Every circumstance conspired to this melioration of the art 
 in Florence as well as in other places. The taste for magni- 
 ficent edifices had revived throughout Italy. Many of the 
 finest churches, many public edifices, and ducal palaces, which 
 still remain at Milan, Mantua, and Venice, in Urbino, Rimini, 
 Pesaro, and Ferrara, were executed about this period : not to 
 mention those buildings in Florence and in Rome, where mag- 
 nificence contended with elegance. It became necessary to 
 ornament them, and this produced that noble emulation among 
 artists, that grand fermentation of ideas, which invariably 
 advances the progress of art. The study of poetry, so ana- 
 logous to that of painting, had increased to a degree which 
 conferred on the whole age the epithet of Golden ; a name 
 which it certainly did not merit on the score of more severe 
 studies. The design of the artists of that period, though 
 somewhat dry, was yet pure and correct, and afforded the best 
 instruction to the succeeding age. It is very justly observed, 
 that scholars can more easily give a certain fulness to the 
 meagre outline of their models, than curtail the superfluity of 
 a heavy contour. On this account, some professors of the 
 art incline to believe, that it would be more advantageous to 
 habituate students in the beginning, to the precision charac- 
 teristic of the fifteenth century, than to the exuberance intro- 
 duced in after-times. Such circumstances produced the hap- 
 piest era that distinguishes the annals of painting. The 
 bchools of Italy, owing to mutual imitation, before that period 
 strongly resembled each other ; but having then attained 
 
06 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 maturity, each began to display a marked and peculiar cha- 
 racter. 
 
 That of the Florentine school I shall describe in the next 
 Epoch ; but I first propose to treat of several other arts ana- 
 logous to that of painting, and in particular of engraving 
 upon copper, the discovery of which is ascribed to Florence. 
 To this the art is indebted for an accession of new aids ; the 
 work of an artist, before confined to a single spot, was dif- 
 fused through the world, and gratified the eyes of thousands 
 
 ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF ENGRAVING ON COPPER 
 AND WOOD. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 The subject of which I propose here to treat ought to be 
 more carefully examined than any other portion of this work. 
 The age in which I write is, we know, by many called the 
 age of brass, inasmuch as it has been less productive of great 
 names and great pictoric works ; yet I believe we might bet- 
 ter denominate it such from the number of engravings, which 
 have recently been carried to a high degree of excellence. 
 The number of their connoisseurs has increased beyond calcu- 
 lation ; new collections everywhere appear, and the prices 
 have proportionably advanced, while treatises upon the art 
 are rapidly multiplied. It has become a part of liberal know- 
 ledge to discern the name and hand of a master, as well as to 
 specify the most beautiful works of each engraver. Thus, 
 during the decline of painting, the art of engraving on copper 
 has risen in estimation ; modern artists in some points equal 
 or surpass the more ancient ; their reputation, their remunera- 
 tion, and the quick process of their labours, attract the regard 
 of men of genius born to adorn the arts, who to the loss of 
 painting, devote their attention to the graver. 
 
 The origin of this art is to be sought for in that of cutting 
 on wood, just as in printing, the use of wooden types led to the 
 adoption of metal. The period of the first invention of wood 
 
PLAYING-CARDS. 
 
 97 
 
 engraving is unknown ; the French and the Germans tracing 
 it to that of playing-cards, which the former affirm were first 
 used in France in the time of Charles V. ; while the latter 
 maintain they were in use much earlier in Germany, or before 
 the year 1300.* Both these opinions were attacked by Papil- 
 lon, in his " Treatise upon cutting in Wood," where he claims 
 the merit of the discovery for Italy, and finds the most 
 ancient traces of the art about the year 1285, at Ravenna. 
 His account of it is republished in the preface to the fifth 
 volume of Vasari, printed at Siena ; but it is mixed up with 
 so many assertions, to which it is difficult to give credit, that 
 I must decline considering it. The Cav. Tiraboschi is a far 
 more plausible and judicious advocate in favour of Italy. t 
 On the subject of cards, he brings forward a MS. by Sandro 
 di Pippozzo di Sandro, entitled u Trattato del Governo della 
 Famiglia/' It was written in 1299, and has been cited by 
 the authors of the Delia Cruscan dictionary, who quote, 
 among other passages, the following : " If he will play for 
 money, or thus, or at cards, you shall provide them," &c. 
 We may hence infer, that playing-cards were known with us 
 earlier than elsewhere, so that if the invention of stamping 
 upon wood was derived from them, we have a just title to the 
 discovery. In all probability, however, it does not date its 
 origin so early ; the oldest playing-cards were doubtless the 
 work of the pen, and coloured by the old illuminators, first 
 practised in France, and not wholly extinct, in Italy at the 
 time of Filippo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan. J 
 
 The first indication we meet with of printed play-cards is 
 in a public decree issued at Venice in 1441 ; where it says 
 that " the art and trade of cards and printed figures, that is 
 carried on at Venice," was on the decline, " owing to the 
 great increase of playing-cards with coloured figures stamped," 
 which were introduced from abroad ; and that such importa- 
 
 * See Baron d'Heineken's " Idée generale d'une Collection," &c. 
 p. 239. See likewise the same work, p. 150, in order to give us a proper 
 distrust of the work of Papillon. Sig. Huber agrees with Heineken : see 
 his Manuel, &c. p, 35. 
 
 f Storia Letter, torn. vi. p. 1194. 
 
 X Muratori, Rerum Ital. Scriptores, vol. xx. Vita Phil. M. Visconti, 
 chap. lxi. 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 tion should be prohibited for the future. Sig. Zanetti, to 
 whom we are indebted for this information,* is of opinion 
 that they were in use long before 1441 ; because the art 
 is seen to have first flourished there, afterwards to have fallen 
 into disuse, and again revived, owing to the protection afforded 
 it by the state. These vicissitudes, that suppose the lapse of 
 many years, will carry us back to the commencement of the 
 fifteenth century. To this period, it appears, we ought to refer 
 those ancient specimens of play-cards, which were collected 
 for the cabinet of Count Giacomo Durazzo, formerly imperial 
 ambassador at Venice, and are now to be seen in that of the 
 Marquis Girolamo, his nephew. They are of larger dimen- 
 sions than those now in use, and are of a very strong texture, 
 not unlike that of the paper made of cotton, found in the 
 ancient manuscripts. The figures are exhibited on a gold 
 ground in the manner before described ;f there are three kings, 
 two queens, and two knaves, one on horseback ; and each has 
 a club, or sword, or money, I could perceive no trace of 
 suits, either because they had not then come into use, or more 
 probably because so limited a number of cards can convey no 
 complete idea of the whole game. The design approaches 
 very nearly to that of Jacobello del Fiore ; to the best 
 judges the workmanship appears the effect of printing, the 
 colours being given by perforations in the die. I know of no 
 other more ancient specimen of its kind. 
 
 In the meanwhile printing of books being introduced into 
 Italy, it was quickly followed by the practice of ornamenting 
 them with figures in wood. The Germans had afforded ex- 
 amples of cutting sacred images in this material, J and the 
 same was done in regard to some of the initial letters during 
 the early progress of typography, a discovery which was ex- 
 tended at Rome, in a book published in 1467, and at Verona 
 in another, with the date of 1472. The former contains the 
 
 * Lettere Pittoriche, torn. v. p. 321. f Vide ante, p. 58. 
 
 J In the ancient monastery of Certosa, at Buxheim, remains 'a figure 
 of S. Cristoforo in the act of passing the river, with Jesus upon his 
 shoulders ; and there is added that of a hermit lighting the way with a 
 lantern in his hand. It bears the date 1423. A number of other devout 
 images are seen in the celebrated library at Wolfenbuttel, and others in 
 Germany, stamped upon wood ina manner similar to that of playing- 
 cards. — Huber, Matmel, torn. i. p, 86. 
 
ART OF ENGRAVING ON WOOD. 
 
 99 
 
 Meditations of Card. Turrecremata, with figures also cut in 
 wood, and afterwards coloured : the latter bears the title of 
 " Roberti Valturii opus de re militari," and it is adorned with 
 a number of figures, or drawings of machines, fortifications, 
 and assaults; a very rare work, in the possession of Count 
 Giuseppe Remondini, along with many other specimens of the 
 earliest period, collected for his private library, where I saw 
 it. It is worth remarking, that the book of Turrecremata 
 was printed by Ulderico Han, that of Valturio by Gio. da 
 Verona, and that in this last the woodcuts are ascribed to 
 Matteo Pasti, the friend of Valturio, and a good painter for 
 those times.* After this first progress the art of wood en- 
 graving continued gradually to advance, and was cultivated 
 by many distinguished men ; such as Albert Durer in Ger- 
 many ; in Italy by Mecherino di Siena, by Domenico delle 
 Greche, by Domenico Campagnola, and by others down to 
 Ugo da Carpi, who marks a new epoch in this art, by an in- 
 vention, of which we shall speak in the school of Modena. 
 
 If it be the progress of the human mind to advance from 
 the more easy to more difficult discoveries, we may venture to 
 suppose that the art of engraving on wood led to that of 
 engraving on copper ; and, to a certain extent, it probably 
 did. Vasari, however, who wrote the history of Tuscan pro- 
 fessors, rather than of painting itself, refers its origin to works 
 in niello, or inlaid modelling work, a very ancient art, much 
 in use, more especially at Florence, during the fifteenth cen- 
 tury ; though it was quite neglected in the following, in spite 
 of the efforts of Cellini to support it. It was applied to 
 household furniture, silver ornaments, and sacred vessels, such 
 as holy cups and vases, to missals and other devotional books, 
 and to reliquaries ; as well as to profane purposes, as adorn- 
 ing the hilts of swords, table utensils, and many kinds of 
 female ornaments. In some kinds of ebony desks and escru- 
 toires it was held in great request, for its little silver statues, 
 and modelled plates, representing figures, histories, and flowers. 
 In the cathedral of Pistoia there still remains a large silver 
 palliotto, adorned in places with plates, on which are figured 
 
 * See Maffei, Verona Illustrata, Part iii. col. 195, and Part ii. col. 68, 
 76. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 images in niello, and little scripture histories. The method 
 was to cut with the chisel upon the silver whatever history, 
 portrait, or flowers were required,* and afterwards to fill up 
 the hollow part of the engraving with a mixture of silver and 
 lead, which, from its dark colour, was called, by the ancients, 
 nigellum, which our countrymen curtailed into niello ; a sub- 
 stance which, being incorporated with the silver, produced the 
 effect of shadow, contrasted with its clearness, and gave to 
 the entire work the appearance of a chiaroscuro in silver. 
 There were many excellent niellatori, or inlayers, who cast 
 models with this substance ; such as Forzore, brother to Parri 
 Spinelli of Arezzo, Caradosso and Arcioni of Milan,t and 
 three Florentines, who rivalled each other at S. Giovanni, 
 Matteo Dei, Antonio del Poliamolo, and Maso Finiguerra ; 
 specimens of whose paxes, cut with wonderful accuracy, ac- 
 quired for them the highest reputation. 
 
 We are to attribute to Maso, says Vasari, " the beginning 
 of engraving upon copper,"" an art which, for the sake of 
 greater perspicuity, I shall distinguish into three different 
 states; the first of which will be found as follows. Fini- 
 guerra was in the habit of never filling the little hollows or 
 cuts prepared in the silver plate until he had first made proof 
 of his work. " For this purpose, as in taking a cast, he 
 impressed them with earth, upon the top of which having 
 
 * There was collected for the ducal gallery in 1801, a silver pax 
 that had been made for the company of S. Paolo, and sold upon the 
 suppression of that pious foundation. It represents the saint's conver- 
 sion, with many tolerably executed figures, from an unknown hand, 
 though less old and valuable than that of Maso. He had ornamented it 
 with niello ; but in order to ascertain the workmanship, it was taken to 
 pieces some years since, and the plate examined in the state it came from 
 under the tools of the silversmith. The cuts were found not at all deep, 
 resembling those of our engravers upon sheets of copper, upon the model 
 of which the silver plate, being provided with the ink, was put into the 
 press, and from it were taken as many, perhaps, as twenty fine proofs* 
 One of these is in the collection of the Senator Bali Martelli ; and upon 
 this a foreign connoisseur wrote that it was the work of Doni, I know not 
 on what authority, unless, from an error of memory, the name Doni was 
 inserted instead, of Dei. 
 
 f Ambrogio Leone mentions both, "De Nobilitate rerum," cap. 41, 
 and he particularly praises, for his skill in working niello, the second, 
 who is so little known in the history of the arts. — See Morelli, Notizia, 
 p. 201. 
 
ENGRAVING UPON COPPER. 
 
 101 
 
 thrown a quantity of liquid sulphur, they became imprinted, 
 and filled with smoke ; which, with the aid of oil, gave him 
 the effect of the work in silver. He also produced the same 
 with moistened paper, and with the same tint or ink, pressing 
 it sufficiently hard with a round roller, with a smooth surface 
 throughout. This gave them not only the effect of being 
 printed, but that of having been designed with ink." * So far 
 we quote Vasari in the preface to his Life of Marc Antonio. 
 He adds, that in this plan Finiguerra was followed by Bal- 
 dini, a Florentine goldsmith ; next to whom he mentions 
 Botticelli ; and he might have added the name of Poliamolo. 
 Finally, he concludes that the invention was communicated 
 from Florence to Mantegna at Rome, and to Martino, called 
 De Clef, in Flanders. 
 
 These proofs, the first of their kind, made by Finiguerra, 
 have, for the most part, perished. Some, which are attri- 
 buted to him, in possession of the fathers of Camaldoli, are 
 not ascertained to be his.t We are assured, however, that 
 
 * Vasari, who is difficult to understand, at least by many, on account 
 of his brevity, touches upon the different processes used by Maso, which 
 are these : When he had cut the plate, he next proceeded to take a print 
 of it, before he inlaid it with niello, upon very fine earth ; and from the cut 
 being to the right hand, and hollow, the proof consequently came out on 
 the left, shewing the little earthen cast in relief. Upon this last he threw 
 the liquid sulphur, from which he obtained a second proof, which, of 
 course, appeared to the right, and took from the relief a hollow form. 
 He then laid the ink (lamp-black or printer's ink) upon the sulphur, in 
 such a way as to fill up the hollows on the more indented cuts, intended 
 to produce the shadow ; and next, by degrees, he scraped away from 
 the ground (of the sulphur) what was meant to produce the light. And 
 this is also the plan pursued in engraving on copper. The final work was 
 to polish it with oil, in order to give the sulphur the bright appearance 
 of silver. 
 
 f They are to be seen in a little portable altar ; and are most probably 
 the proofs of some niello worker of the time ; who had executed those 
 histories in silver to ornament some similar little altar, or the place in which 
 sacred relics were laid. Before introducing the niello, he had cast proofs 
 of his work in these zolfi (sulphurs), which were subsequently inlaid with 
 great symmetry and taste in the altar-piece. They consist of various 
 forms and sizes, and are adapted to the architecture of the little altar, and 
 to its various parts. Many of them have now perished, though several 
 are yet in existence, the smallest of which chiefly represent histories from 
 Scripture, and the largest of them the acts of the Evangelists, to the num- 
 ber of fourteen, and about one-sixth of a braccio (an arm, two -thirds of 
 a yard) in height. 
 
102 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 the sulphur of the pax* cut for S. Giovanni in 1452, upon 
 which he represented the Assumption of our Lady, in a 
 variety of minute figures, is from his hand. . It was formerly 
 in the museum of the Proposto Gori, who gave a description 
 of it in his Dittici (a treatise upon a particular kind of altar- 
 pieces, torn. iii. p. 315), and it is now in the Durazzo cabinet, 
 with a memorandum in Gori's own hand, in which he de- 
 clares that he had compared it with the original. t Of the 
 proofs made on paper none are ascertained to exist, with the 
 exception of that of the Assumption recognised by the Ab. 
 Zani, in the national collection at Paris. It was made known 
 by him in the year 1 803 ; and to this I may add the Epi- 
 phany, in an inferior style, but more exactly finished, which 
 
 * Pax, a sort of sacred vessel borne in procession by the priests ; lite- 
 rally, it means peace. 
 
 f In this edition I ought to mention another zolfo (a sulphur cast) of 
 the same pax of S. Giovanni, in possession of his excellency the Senator 
 Prior Seratti. This, when compared with the model, corresponds line for 
 line ; there is a full display of the very difficult character of Maso's heads, 
 and what is still more decisive, is, that it is cut, or indented, an effect that 
 must have been produced according to the manner already described. 
 The zolfo Durazzo, as appears from the impression, does not correspond 
 so well ; some of the flowers and ornaments of drapery are wanting ; it is 
 not equally finished, and it seems smooth on the surface. This does not 
 derogate from its genuineness, for as several proofs were taken of the 
 same pax, which was cut by degrees, if we find less completeness in the 
 Durazzo proof, it is only an indication of its having been taken before the 
 rest. And if the impressions of the cuts are not so plainly traced as in 
 the other, I do not, therefore, conjecture that they do not exist. The 
 zolfi of the fathers of Camaldoli, already cited, seem as is if they were 
 printed, and smooth. A fragment breaking off, highly polished on the 
 surface, the cuts were then discovered, even to the minutest lines, as 
 many professors, even the most experienced in the art of printing, to 
 their surprise, ha^e witnessed ; and they conjectured that the ocular 
 illusion might arise, 1st, from the fineness of cut made with the style, or 
 possibly with the graver, which was diminished in proportion as it passed 
 from the sheet to the earthen mould, and from this to the zolfo ; 2nd, 
 from the density of the ink, when hardened between the cuts or hollows 
 of the zolfo ; 3rd, from a coat of bluish colour, laid on the work, of which 
 there remain traces, and from that which time produces both in paintings 
 and on cards. I have not a doubt, that, if the experiment were tried 
 on the Durazzo zolfo, the result would appear exactly the same. The 
 extrinsic proofs of its origin, also adduced by Gori, together with the 
 aspect of the monument, which is fresh in my memory, do not authorize 
 me to suspect the existence of a fraud. 
 
EARLY ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 103 
 
 I found in the possession of the senator Martelli, besides a 
 duplicate belonging to S. E. Seratti. It appears from its* 
 style, the work of Finiguerra, and to have been executed 
 before the Assumption. It is doubtful whether specimens 
 exist in the ducal gallery, a question which I leave to the 
 solution of abler pens than mine. We have in the Durazzo 
 collection the proofs or models of many silversmiths, whose 
 names are unknown ; and for many we are indebted to Sig. 
 Antonio Armanno, an excellent connoisseur in prints, to 
 whom I shall have occasion to recur. Following the ideas 
 thrown out by Vasari, he concluded that these impressions 
 might happen to have been confounded with pen designs, 
 owing to the resemblance between them ; he therefore sought 
 for them in collections of designs, and, having recognised 
 them, purchased them for Count Giacomo, his patron. 
 
 Many of these were met with in the ancient Gaddi gallery 
 at Florence ; the work of artificers much inferior to Fini- 
 guerra, at least if we except two specimens not unworthy 
 even of his hand. To these a number of others were after- 
 wards added from different schools of Italy. Sometimes we 
 may gather their origin from the design ; sometimes with 
 more certainty from inscriptions, and other unequivocal signs 
 of the period. For instance, we read the following words in 
 a Presepio,* engraved in reversed characters : " Dominus 
 Philippus Stancharius fieri fecit;" where the family which is 
 named, along with other circumstances, shew it to have been 
 executed at Bologna. One small print represents a woman 
 turning towards a cat ; and on it is written, also in reverse, 
 " Va in là Caneva ;" in another we read " Mantengave Dio 
 both which are either Lombard or Venetian, if we may judge 
 from the dialect. From all this we have a right to conclude 
 that Vasari's words, which ascribe to Finiguerra the practice 
 of proving his works before he inserted the niello, are not to 
 be limited to him only, or to his school. On the contrary, it 
 appears that Caradosso, as well as all the best Italian arti- 
 ficers, considered it as no small portion of their art, and that 
 they only attained correctness in the process of inlaying and 
 modelling by dint of such proofs, and not by mere chance. 
 
 * Christ in the manger. 
 
104 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 Nor does Vasari's silence militate against this. He repeat- 
 edly complains that he could not obtain sufficiently full and 
 satisfactory information regarding the Venetian and Lombard 
 schools ; and if he confesses his ignorance of so many things 
 pertaining to their schools of painting, it is not surprising 
 that he should know less of their engraving. 
 
 The proofs, therefore, of the niellatovi on paper are to be 
 found in all parts of Italy, and they may be particularly 
 known from the position of the letters, which being written 
 on the original models in the ordinary way, appear in the 
 impression like the eastern characters, from right to left; 
 and in like manner the other part of the impression is seen in 
 reverse ; as for instance, a saint is seen standing on the left 
 hand, who, from his dignity, ought to have occupied the right, 
 and the actors all write, play music, and do every thing with 
 the left hand. Other signs serve to distinguish them ; be- 
 cause, having been pressed by hand, or with a roller, they 
 leave no mark or furrows in the outlines ; nor are we to look 
 for that delicacy and precision in the lines that appear in 
 impressions from under the press. They are characterized too 
 by their colour, which merely consisted of lamp-black and of 
 oil, or of some other very slight tint ; though both are dubious 
 signs, as we shall shew. It is conjectured that proofs of a 
 similar* nature were made by silver carvers, in regard to their 
 graphic labours, and to others in which the niello was not 
 employed. At all events, they preserved them in their studies ; 
 and in those of their pupils, to whom they afforded a model ; 
 and in this way several have been handed down to our own 
 times. 
 
 From these early efforts, the art gradually advanced, 
 until it attained what I call the second state of the impression. 
 When the pleasing effect of these proofs was seen, the idea 
 was struck out, of forming works in the same delicate and 
 finished taste, and for this purpose to make use of the same 
 means as had been adopted for impressions in wood. We might 
 thus observe, that in the workshop of the goldsmith was pre- 
 pared the art of chalcography, and the first labours were 
 
 * Heineken gives a generai nomenclature of the works of these silver 
 carvers. — Idée, &c. p. 217. 
 
THE GAME OF MANTEGNA. 
 
 105 
 
 executed upon silver, upon tin, or, as Heineken observes, 
 upon some composition less hard than copper. Such was the 
 practice of the Italians, before they cut their subjects in 
 copper ; but whatever material the first goldsmiths might 
 adopt, it was not difficult for them to substitute for the shadow 
 they produced by the niello, the shadow of the cut itself, and 
 to execute the subject on the reverse, in order to receive the 
 impression right. From that time, they proceeded gradually 
 to refine the art. Both the roller and the press which they 
 had then in use were very imperfect, and, to improve the im- 
 pression, they first inclosed the plate in a frame of wood, 
 with four small nails to prevent its slipping ; upon this they 
 placed the paper, and over it a small moist linen cloth, which 
 was then pressed down with force. Hence, in the first old 
 impressions, we may plainly trace on the reverse the marks 
 of the linen, for which felt was next substituted, which leaves 
 no trace behind it.* They next made trial of various tints ; 
 and gave the preference to a light azure or blue, with which 
 the chief part of the old prints are coloured. t The same 
 method was adopted in forming the fifty cards, which are 
 commonly called the game of Mantegna. I saw them, for 
 the first time, in possession of his excellency the Marchese 
 Manfredini, major-domo to the duke of Tuscany, whose 
 cabinet is filled with many of the choicest prints. Another 
 copy I found in the possession of the Ab. Boni, and a third, 
 formerly belonging to the duke of Cassano, was afterwards 
 transferred to the very valuable collection made by the sena- 
 tor Prior Se ratti. There is also a copy of this game on a 
 large scale, with some alterations ; as, for instance, La Fede 
 bears a large instead of a small cross, as in the original, and 
 is of a much later date. A second copy, not so very rare, 
 with a number of variations, is in existence ; and in this the 
 
 * I must remark that some copper of the earliest age may have been 
 preserved and made use of after the introduction of felt and of the press. 
 In this case there will remain no impression of the linen cloth, but the 
 print will be poor and faint. 
 
 f In the prints of Dante, and other Florentine books, a yellowish 
 colour prevails ; and we may observe stains of oil and blots at the extre- 
 mities. A pale ash-colour was also used for wood prints by the Germans, 
 and Meerman remarks that it was employed to counterfeit the colour of 
 designs. 
 
106 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 first card bears the Venetian lion as ensign, with the two let- 
 ters C. and E. united. The card of the Doge is inscribed the 
 Doxe ; and elsewhere we read in the same way, Artixan^ 
 Famejo, and other words in the Venetian idiom, which proves 
 that the author of so large and fine a work must have be- 
 longed to the city of Venice or to the state. The design dis- 
 plays much of Mantegna, and of the Paduan school ; though 
 the cut is not ascertained to be that of Andrea, or of any 
 known master of that age. A careful but timid hand is dis- 
 cernible, betraying traces of a copyist of another's designs, 
 rather than of an original invention. Time only may possi- 
 bly clear up this doubt. 
 
 Proceeding from cards to books, we are made acquainted 
 with the first attempts at ornamenting them with cuts in metal. 
 The most celebrated of these consist of the " Monte Santo di 
 Dio," and the " Commedia of Dante," both printed at Flo- 
 rence, and the two editions of " Ptolemy's Geography," at 
 Rome and Bologna ; to which we may add the " Geography 
 of Berlinghieri," printed at Florence ; all the three accom- 
 panied with tables. The authors of these engravings are not 
 well known ; except so far as we learn from Vasari, that 
 Botticelli was one who acquired the most reputation. He 
 represented the Inferno^ and took the impression ; and the 
 two histories, executed by Gio. de Lamagna in his Dante, 
 display all the design and composition of Sandro, so as to 
 leave no doubt of their being his.* Other prints are found 
 pasted in a few of the copies of the same edition, amounting 
 to nineteen ; and their manner is more coarse and mean,f as 
 we are informed by the Cav. Gaburri, who collected them for 
 his cabinet. They must have been executed by some inferior 
 hand, and with the knowledge of the printer, who had left 
 blank spaces in parts of the work intended to receive the 
 engravings, not yet completed, on the publication of the work. 
 Of a similar cast were other anonymous engravers of that 
 period, nor is there any name, except those of Sandro and of 
 Poliamolo, truly distinguished in the art among the Floren- 
 tines. In Upper Italy, besides Mantegna, Bartolommeo 
 
 * See Lettere Pittoriche, torn, ii, p. 268. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 169. I should add, that the twenty others are now known 
 obtained for the Riccardi library at Florence. 
 
ANONYMOUS ENGRAVERS. 
 
 107 
 
 Montagna, his pupil, from Yicenza (to whom some add Mon- 
 tagna, his brother), and Marcello Pigolino, their fellow-citi- 
 zen, were both well known. Figolino is asserted to have been 
 the same artist as one Robetta, or rather one who subscribes 
 himself so, or R.B.T.A. ; yet he ought not to be separated 
 from the Florentine school, to which Vasari refers him, which 
 the character of his design confirms. The names of Nicoletto 
 da Modena, F. Gio. Maria da Brescia, a Carmelite monk, and 
 of his brother Gio. Antonio^ have also survived ; as well as 
 Giulio and Domenico Campagnoli of Padua. There are not 
 a few anonymous productions which only announce that they 
 were executed in the Venetian or Lombard manner. For 
 such artificers as were in the habit of taking impressions from 
 the roller, either wholly omitted names, or only affixed that 
 of the designer, or merely gave their own initials, which are 
 now either doubtful, or no longer understood. For instance, 
 they would write M. F., which Vasari interprets into Marc- 
 antonio Francia, while others read Marcello Figolino, and 
 a third party, Maso Finiguerra ; this last quite erroneously, 
 as, after the most minute researches, made by the very able 
 Cavaliere Gaburri, throughout Florence, there is no engraving 
 of that artist to be found.* In the Durazzo collection, after 
 twelve plates, which are supposed to be proofs of the silver 
 engravers, printed in reverse, we find several others of the 
 first impressions taken with the roller, and appearing to the 
 right ; but not unlike the proofs in the mechanical part of the 
 impression, and in regard to the uncertainty of their artists* 
 For this, and other information on the subject, I am indebted 
 to the kindness of the Ab. Boni, who having enjoyed the 
 familiar acquaintance of Count Giacomo, is now engaged in 
 preparing a full account of his fine collection. 
 
 The last state of engraving on copper I consider that in 
 which, the press and the printing-ink being now discovered, the 
 art began to approach nearer perfection ; and it was then it 
 became first separated from the goldsmith's art, like the full- 
 grown offspring, received pupils, and opened its studio apart. 
 
 * Lettere Pittoriche, torn. ii. p. 267. It is ascertained that Maso 
 flourished less recently ; and the Dante prints, inferior to those of Botti- 
 celli, were ascribed to him only on account of their coarseness, as we 
 gather from Gaburri. 
 
108 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 It is difficult to fix the precise epoch when it attained this 
 degree of perfection in Italy. The same artificers who had 
 employed the roller, were some of them living, to avail them- 
 selves of the press, such as Nicoletto da Modena, Gio. Anto- 
 nio da Brescia, and Mantegna himself, of whose prints there 
 exist, as it were, two editions ; the one with the roller, exhi- 
 biting faint tints, the other in good ink, and from the press. 
 Then engravers first becoming jealous lest others should ap- 
 propriate their reputation, affixed their own names more fre- 
 quently to their works; beginning with their initials, and 
 finally attaching the full name. The Germans held out the 
 earliest examples, which our countrymen imitated ; with one 
 who surpassed all his predecessors, the celebrated Marc Anto- 
 nio Raimondi, or del Francia. He was a native of Bologna, 
 and was instructed in the art of working in niello by Fran- 
 cesco Francia, in which he acquired singular skill. Proceed- 
 ing next to engravings upon metal, he began with engraving 
 some of the productions of his master. At first he imitated 
 Mantegna, then Albert Durer, and subsequently perfected 
 himself in design under Raffaello d'Urbino. This last afford- 
 ed him further assistance ; he even permitted his own grinder 
 of colours, Baviera, to manage the press, in order that Marc 
 Antonio might devote himself wholly to engraving Raffaello's 
 designs, to which we owe the number we meet with in dif- 
 ferent collections. He pursued the same plan with the works 
 of antiquity, as well as those of a few moderns, of Bonar- 
 ruoti, of Giulio Romano, and of Bandinelli, besides several of 
 which he was both the designer and engraver. Sometimes he 
 omitted every kind of mark, and every letter ; sometimes he 
 adopted the little tablet of Mantegna, either with letters or 
 without. In some engravings of the Passion he counterfeited 
 both the hand and mark of Albert Durer : and not unfre- 
 quently he gave the initial letters of his own and of Raffaello's 
 name, and that of Michel Angiolo Fiorentino upon those he 
 engraved after Bonarruoti. He was assisted by his two 
 pupils, Agostin Veneziano and Marco Ravignano, who suc- 
 ceeded him in the series of engravings from Raffaello ; which 
 led Vasari to observe, in his Life of Marc Antonio, that, 
 " between Agostino and Marco nearly all Raffaello's designs 
 and paintings had been engraved/' These two executed 
 
ENGRAVING IN AQUA-FORTIS. 
 
 109 
 
 works conjointly ; till at length they parted, and each affixed 
 to his productions the two initial letters of his name and 
 country. 
 
 It was thus the art of engraving in the studio of Raffaello, 
 and by means of Marc Antonio, and of his school, in a few 
 years rose to a high degree of perfection. Since that period 
 no artist has appeared capable of treating it with more know- 
 ledge of design, and with more precision of lines and contour ; 
 though in other points it has acquired much from the hand of 
 Parmigianino, who engraved in aqua-fortis,* from Agostino 
 Caracci, and from different foreigners of the last century, 
 among whom we may notice Edelink, Masson, Audran, Dre- 
 vet, and, in the present age, several, both Italians and stran- 
 gers, of whom we must not here speak. 
 
 I may be permitted, in this place, to enter into a brief in- 
 vestigation of the long-contested question of engraving upon 
 copper, whether its discovery is to be attributed to Germany 
 or to Italy ; and if to Italy, whether to Florence or to some 
 other place. Much has been written upon the subject, both 
 by natives and foreigners, but, if I mistake not, it has scarcely 
 been treated with that accuracy which is necessary for the 
 attainment of truth. That it is quite requisite to divide this 
 branch of art into three several states or stages, I trust I have 
 already sufficiently shewn. In following up this division, we 
 shall have a better chance of ascertaining what portion of merit 
 ought to be awarded to each country. Vasari, together with 
 Cellini, in his Treatise upon the Goldsmith's art," as well 
 as most other writers, are inclined to refer its commencement 
 to Florence, and to the artist Finiguerra. Doubts have since 
 arisen ; while so recent an author as Bottari, himself a Flo- 
 rentine, mentions it as a circumstance not yet ascertained. 
 The epoch of Maso was altered through mistake, by Manni, 
 who speaks of his decease as happening previous to 1424.f 
 This has been corrected by reference to the authentic books 
 of the Arte de' Mercanti, in which the pax already cited is 
 mentioned as being paid for in the year 1452. About the 
 
 * It is denied that he was the inventor of this mode of engraving by 
 many learned Germans, who give the merit of it to Wolgemuth. — Meer 
 man, L. C. p. 256. 
 
 •f Notes to Baldinucci, torn. iv. p. 2. 
 
110 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 same time, Antonio Poliamolo, still a youth, as we learn from 
 Vasari, in his life, was the rival of Finiguerra in the church 
 of S. Giovanni ; and as Maso had at that period already 
 acquired great celebrity, we may conclude that he was of 
 a mature age, and experienced in the art. We have further 
 a right to suppose, with Gaburri and Tiraboschi, that having 
 then taken proofs " of all the subjects which he had engraved 
 on silver," he had observed this custom from the year 1440, 
 and perhaps earlier ; and we thus discover the elements of 
 chalcography in Florence, satisfactorily deduced from history.* 
 For neither with the aid of history, monuments, nor reason- 
 ing, am I enabled to discover an epoch equally remote be- 
 longing to any other country ; as we shall shew in regard to 
 Germany. It possesses no annals so far back as that period. 
 The credulity of Sandrartf led him to question the truth of 
 this, by referring to a small print of uncertain origin, on which 
 he believed he could read the date 1411, and upon another 
 that of 1455. At this period, however, when the authority of 
 Sandrart is of small account, no less from his frequent contra- 
 dictions than his partiality, we may receive his two engrav- 
 ings as false coin, not valuable enough to purchase the credit 
 of the discovery from us. Those two distinguished writers, 
 MeermanJ and the Baron Heineken,§ were equally bent upon 
 refuting him* They do not pretend to trace any engraver in 
 Germany earlier than Martin Schon, called by others Bonmar* 
 tino, and by Vasari, Martino di Anversa, || who died in 1486. 
 
 * It was observed, at p. 102, that the Epiphany of Maso is anterior 
 to the work of the Assumption. The progress from the minute and 
 careful, to the free and great style, is very gradual. The present work 
 contains many examples of this, even in the loftiest geniuses, in Correggio, 
 and in Raffaello himself. 
 
 •J* A sample of his ignorance appears in what he wrote of Demone ; 
 not well understanding Pliny, he did not believe Demone to be the 
 fabulous genius of Athens ; but set him down as a painter of mortal flesh 
 and blood, and gave his portrait with those of Zeuxis, Apelles, and other 
 ancient painters. 
 
 X Origines Typographical torn* i. -p. 254. 
 
 § Idée generale d'une Collection complète d'Estampes, pp. 224, 116, 
 where he gives his opinion on Sandrart's work. See also Dictionnaire 
 des Artistes, vol. ii. p* 331. 
 
 || He says that his cipher was M. C, which P. Orlandi reads Martinus 
 de Clef, or Clivensis Augustanus. But he was not from Anversa ; but 
 
EARLY GERMAN ENGRAVERS. 
 
 ill 
 
 Some are of opinion that he had two brothers, who assisted 
 him, but who are unknown ; and not long after appear the 
 names of Israel Meckeln,* Van Bockold, Michael Wolge- 
 muth, master to Albert Durer, with many others who ap- 
 proach the sixteenth century. It is contended, however, that 
 engraving on copper was known in Germany anterior to 
 these ; as there exist specimens by doubtful hands, which have 
 the appearance of being much earlier. Meerman, on the 
 authority of Christ, t adduces one with the initials C. E. and 
 the date 1465, besides tvro described by Bar. Heineken, dated 
 1466, the first of wnicn is signed f. f s, the second b x s, and 
 both the artists unknown. He declares that ae bad never 
 seen older engravings that bore a name (p. 231), and observes 
 that their manner resembles that of Schon, only coarser, which 
 leads him to suspect that the authors must have been his mas- 
 ters (p. 220). But whoever was Schòn s master, Heineken 
 concludes he must have flourished more than ten years earlier 
 than his time, so as to bring it back to 1450, when the 
 art of engraving by the burin was undoubtedly practised in 
 Germany (p. 220). And as if this appeared too little to be 
 granted, he adds, about four pages further on, " that he was 
 tempted to place the epoch of its discovery at least towards 
 the year 1440." 
 
 The cause is well pleaded, but it is not carried. Let us try 
 to confront reasons with reasons. The Italians have the tes- 
 timony of history in their favour ; the Germans have it against 
 them. The former, without any attempt at exaggeration, 
 proceed so far back as 1440, and even farther \% the latter, by 
 dint of conjecture, reach as far as 1450, and are only tempted 
 to anticipate it by ten years' date. The Italians commence 
 the art with Maso, not from his master ; the Germans are not 
 content to date from Schòn, but from his master, an advan 
 
 was, according to Meerman, Calembaco-SuevUS Colmariae, whence we 
 may explain the cipher to mean Martinus Colmariensis. In many of his 
 prints it is M. S. 
 
 * Called by Lomazzo " Israel Metro Tedesco, painter and inventor of 
 the art of engraving cards in copper, master of Bonmartino," in which 
 I think we ought rather to follow the learned natives already cited, than 
 our own countryman. 
 
 f Diction, des Monogram, p. 67. 
 
 % See Tiraboschi, 1st Lett, torn. vi. p. 119. 
 
112 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL- EPOCH I. 
 
 tage they either deny to Italy, and thus fail to draw an equal 
 comparison ; or if they concede the master, we still anticipate 
 by ten years their origin of chalcography. The Italians, 
 again, confirm the truth of their history by a number of au- 
 thentic documents, proofs in niello, first impressions, and the 
 progress of the art from its earliest stages to maturity. The 
 Germans supply their historic deficiency by monuments, in 
 part proved to be false, in part doubtful, and which are easily 
 convicted of insufficiency for the proposed object. Because 
 who can assure us that the prints of 1465 or 66 are not the 
 production of the brothers or the disciples of Schon, since 
 Heineken himself confesses that they were possibly the work 
 of some contemporary artists, his inferiors ? Do we not find 
 in Italy that the followers of Botticelli are inferior to him, 
 and appear to be of earlier date ? Moreover, who can assure 
 us that Schon was instructed by a master of his own nation ; 
 when all his engravings that have been hitherto produced, 
 appear already perfect in their kind ?* nor do we find men- 
 tioned in Germany either proofs in niello, or first essays in 
 metals of a softer temper. The fact most probably is, what 
 has invariably obtained credit, — that the invention was com- 
 municated from Italy to Germany, and as a matter not at all 
 difficult to the goldsmiths, was speedily practised there with 
 success ; I might even add, was greatly improved. For both 
 the press and printers ink being well known there, artists 
 were enabled to add to the mechanic part of the art, improve- 
 ments with which Italy was unacquainted. I will produce 
 an example of what I mean, that cannot fail to convince. 
 Printing of books was discovered in Germany : history and 
 monuments alike confirm it, which are to be traced gradually 
 from tabular prints to moveable types, still of wood, and from 
 these to characters of metal. In such state was the inven- 
 tion brought to Italy, where, without passing through these 
 intermediate degrees, books were printed not only in move- 
 able characters of metal, but with tables cut in copper, 
 thus adding to the art a degreeof perfection which it wanted, 
 Heineken objects that the Germans at that period had very 
 
 * The prints of Schon, even such as represent works in gold and 
 silver, are executed with admirable knowledge and delicacy. — Huber, 
 torn. i. p. 91. 
 
DISPUTE AS TO FIRST ENGRAVERS. 
 
 113 
 
 little correspondence with the cities of Italy, with the excep- 
 tion of Venice (p. 139). To this I answer that our univer- 
 sities of Pisa and Bologna, besides several others, were much 
 frequented by young men from Germany at that period, and 
 that, for the convenience both of strangers and of natives, a 
 dictionary of the German language was printed at Venice 
 in 1475, and in 1479 at Bologna; a circumstance sufficient 
 of itself to prove that there was no little communication be- 
 tween the two nations. There are besides so many other 
 reasons to believe that a great degree of intercourse subsisted, 
 more particularly between Germany and Florence,* during 
 the period we treat of, that we ought not to be at all sur- 
 prised at the arts belonging to the one being communicated to 
 the other. Hitherto I have pleaded, as far as lay in my 
 power, the cause of my country, tkough without having been 
 able to bring the question to a close. Some time, it is possi- 
 ble, that those earliest essays and proofs of the art, which 
 have hitherto eluded research, may be discovered : it is possi- 
 ble that some one of their writers, who are at once so truly 
 learned and so numerous, may improve upon the hint thrown 
 out by Heineken (p. 139), that the Germans and the Italians, 
 without any kind of corresponding knowledge on the subject, 
 struck out simultaneous discoveries of the modern art. How- 
 ever this may chance to be, it is my part to write from the 
 information a,nd authorities which I have before me. 
 
 It remains to be seen whether, on the exclusion of Ger- 
 many, there is any other part of Italy that may have antici- 
 pated the discovery of Finiguerra at Florence. Some of his 
 opponents have ventured to question his title, on the strength 
 of metallic impressions of seals, which are met with on Italian 
 parchments from the earliest periods. This shews only that 
 the art advanced during several ages on the verge of this in- 
 vention, but it does not prove that the very drigin of the 
 discovery is to be sought for in seals ; otherwise we should be 
 
 * The Florentine merchants, during 1 the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
 turies, especially such as advanced money upon interest, abounded in 
 Germany ; insomuch, that part of a town was called Borgo Fiorentino. 
 This I learn from Dottore Gennari, a Paduan gentleman, not long since 
 :ost to the republic of letters. The number of German princes who 
 coined money in Florence may be gathered from the work of Orsini, 
 and other writers upon our modern coinage. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 bound to commence the history of modern typography from 
 the seals of earthenware, with which our museums abound. 
 No one will contend that certain immemorial and undigested 
 elements that lay for many ages neglected and unformed, 
 ought to hare a place in the history of art ; and this we are 
 now treating on, ought not to date its commencement beyond 
 the period when silversmiths' shops had been established, 
 where, in fact, it took its origin and grew to maturity. We 
 must compare the proofs remaining to us of their labours, and 
 see whether such proofs were in use at any other place, before 
 the time of Finiguerra. There are two threads which may 
 serve as a clue to this labyrinth, until we may somewhere or 
 by some means ascertain the actual date ; and these two are 
 the character and the design. The character in all the proofs 
 I have examined is not at all of a Gothic description ; it is 
 round and Roman, and does not lead us farther back than the 
 year 1440. The design is more suspicious : in the Durazzo 
 collection I have seen proofs of nielli with more coarse de- 
 signs than are displayed in the works of Maso, but they are 
 perhaps not the offspring of the Florentine school. I shall 
 not anticipate the judgment of those who may engage to illus- 
 trate these ancient remains ; nor that of the public, in regard 
 to the engravings correctly taken from them, which must pro- 
 nounce their definitive sentence. True connoisseurs will be 
 cautious how they pass a final opinion. It will not be difficult 
 to discern a Bolognese from a Florentine artist, in modern 
 painting, after it is seen that each school formed its peculiar 
 character both in colouring and in design ; but in regard to 
 proofs of nielli, * to distinguish school from school, will not be 
 so easy a task. For though it may be ascertained that such 
 a proof came from Bologna ; can we pronounce from its be- . 
 ing coarser than the designs of Finiguerra, that it is so far 
 more ancient ? Maso and the Florentines, after the time of 
 Masaccio, had already softened their style towards the year 
 
 * The direction given by the Ab. Zani for similar specimens is this : 
 " The engravings of the Venetian school generally are of a soft and full 
 design, the figures large, few, and beautiful in the extremities. Those 
 of the Florentines are engraved in a stronger manner, less soft and 
 round ; sometimes even harsh ; the figures small, pretty numerous, with 
 the extremities less highly finished."— Materiali, p. 57. 
 
SECOND STATE OF ENGRAVING. 
 
 115 
 
 1440 ; but can we assert the same of other schools of Italy ? 
 Besides, is it certain that the silversmiths, from whose hands 
 proceeded the proofs, sought the best designers ;* and did not 
 copy, for instance, the Bolognese, the design of a Pietà by 
 Jacopo Avanzi, or the Venetians, a Madonna by Jacobello 
 del Fiore ? The more dry, coarse, and clumsy specimens, 
 therefore, cannot easily be adduced against Finiguerra as a 
 proof of greater antiquity ; otherwise we should run into the 
 whimsical sophistry of Scalza, who affirmed that the Baronci 
 were the most ancient men in Florence, and in the world, be- 
 cause they were the ugliest, t We must therefore permit 
 Maso to rest quietly in possession of the discovery, until 
 more ancient proofs are adduced than are to be found in his 
 cards and his zolfi. 
 
 In my account of the second state of engraving, I shall not 
 mention the German masters, in regard to whom I have not 
 dates that may be thought sufficient ; I shall confine my 
 attention to those of Italy. I shall compare the testimony of 
 Vasari and Lomazzo ; one of whom supposes the art to have 
 originated in Upper, the other in Lower Italy. In his life of 
 Marc Antonio, Vasari observes, that Finiguerra " was fol- 
 lowed by Baccio Baldini, a Florentine goldsmith, who being 
 little skilled in design, every thing he executed was after 
 designs and inventions of Sandro Botticello. As soon as 
 Andrea Mantegna learned this circumstance at Home, he first 
 began to turn his attention to the engraving of his own works." 
 Now, in the life of Sandro he makes particular mention of the 
 time when he applied himself to the art, which was at the 
 period he had completed his labours in the Sistine chapel. 
 Returning directly after to Florence, " he began to comment 
 upon Dante, he drew the Inferno, and engraved it, which, 
 occupying a large portion of his time, was the occasion of 
 much trouble in his future life." Botticelli is here considered 
 an engraver from about 1474, at the age of thirty-seven 
 years ; and Baldini, who executed every thing from the 
 designs of Sandro, also practised the art. At the same period 
 
 * Cellini, in his preface to his Treatise upon the Art of Working in 
 Gold, asserts that Maso himself copied from designs of Poliamolo, which 
 has been completely refuted by the Ab. Zani. — Materiali, p. 40. 
 
 t Boccaccio, Decamerone, Giorn. vi. Nov. 6. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 flourished Antonio Poliamolo, who acquired a higher reputa- 
 tion than either. Few of his impressions remain, but among 
 these is the celebrated battle of the naked soldiers, approach- 
 ing nearest to the bold style of Michelangelo. The epoch 
 of these productions is to be placed about 1480, because, 
 having acquired great celebrity by them, he was invited to 
 Rome towards the close of 1483, to raise the monument of 
 Sìxtus IV., who died in that year. 
 
 According to Vasari, Mantegna, having decorated the 
 chapel of Innocent VIII. at Rome, about 1490,* from that 
 date is entitled to the name of engraver, computing it from 
 about his sixtieth year. He flourished more than sixteen 
 years after this period ; during which is it to be believed that 
 he produced that amazing number of engravings, t amounting 
 to more than fifty, of which about thirty appear to be genuine, 
 on so grand a scale, so rich in figures, so finely studied and 
 Mantegnesque in every part ; that he executed these when he 
 
 * See Taia, Description of the Vatican Palace, p. 404. 
 
 f Forty of these I find cited, and I am informed of some others not 
 yet edited. The Ab. Zani (p. 142) assures us 4< that the genuine im- 
 pressions which are now acknowledged to be from the hand of Man- 
 tegna do not amount to twenty, and nearly all of them executed with few 
 figures.' ' Such an assertion appears no less singular to me than to 
 others on whose judgment I could rely. How can we admit its accuracy — 
 when confronted with the account of Mantegna's fellow-citizen Scar- 
 deone, who collected his works, and who expressly declares, as cited by 
 the Ab. Zani, " that Mantegna engraved Roman triumphs, Bacchanalian 
 festivals, and marine deities : also the descent of Christ from the cross, 
 and the burial," engravings exhibiting a variety of figures, in number 
 more than a dozen. After this enumeration the historian adds, " et alia 
 permulta," and many others. To confute this testimony, the Ab. Zani 
 refers only to the words of the same Scardeone : " Those plates are pos- 
 sessed by few, and held in the highest esteem ; nine of them, however, 
 belong to me, all of them different." This writer, therefore, in spite of 
 his expression " et alia permulta," confesses that he had only nine spe- 
 cimens from the hand of his fellow-citizen. Yes, I reply, he confesses 
 his scanty portion, but admits the superior number that exists, and what 
 reason have we for believing the first assertion and not the second ? For 
 my part, I give credit to the historian ; and if any one doubt, from a 
 diversity of style between the plates, that there is any exaggeration in his 
 statement, I should not hence conclude that they are from different 
 hands, but executed by the same hand, the works of the artist's early life 
 being inferior to his last. For what artist ever devoted himself to a new 
 branch, and did not contrive to improve it ? It is sufficient that the tasts 
 be not wholly opposite. 
 
MANTEGNA AN EARLY ENGRAVER. 
 
 117 
 
 was old, new to the art, an art iatiguing to the eye arid the 
 chest even of young artists ? that he pursued it amidst his 
 latest occupations in Mantua, which we shall describe, and 
 that he produced such grand results within sixteen or seven- 
 teen years ? Either Vasari must have mistaken the dates, or 
 wished to impose upon our credulity by his authority. 
 Lomazzo leads us to draw a very different conclusion when, 
 in his Treatise (p. 682), he adds this short euology to the name 
 and merits of Mantegna, " a skilful painter, and the first 
 engraver of prints in Italy but wherein he does not mention 
 him as an inventor, meaning only to ascribe to him the merit 
 .of introducing the second state of the art at least in Italy, 
 because he believed that it had already arisen in Germany. 
 Such authority as this is worth attention. I shall have occa- 
 sion in the course of my narrative to combat some of Lomazzo's 
 assertions, but I shall also feel bound to concur with him 
 frequently in the epochs illustrated by him. He was born 
 about twenty-five years subsequent to Vasari ; he had more 
 erudition, was a better critic, and on the affairs of Lombardy 
 in particular, was enabled to correct him, and to supply his 
 deficiencies. I am not surprised, then, that Meerman (p. 259) 
 should suppose Andrea to have been already an engraver 
 before the time of Baldini and Botticelli ; I could have wished 
 only that he had better observed the order of the epochs, and 
 not postponed the praise due to him until the pontificate of 
 Innocent VIII. In fact, it is not easy to ascertain the exact 
 time when Mantegna directed his attention to the art of 
 engraving. It appears that he commenced at Padua ; for the 
 confidence lie displays in every plate shews that he could be 
 no novice ; nor is it credible that his noviciate began only in 
 old age. I suspect he received the rudiments of the art from 
 Niccolo, a distinguished goldsmith, as he gave his portrait, to- 
 gether with that of Squarcione, in a history piece of S. Cristo- 
 foro, at the Eremitani in Padua ; each probably being a tribute 
 of respect to his former master. It is true that we meet with 
 no specimens of his hand at that, or even a later period of his 
 early life, though we ought to recollect that he never affixed 
 any dates to his works. So that it is impossible to say that 
 none of them were the production of his earlier years, how- 
 ever equal and beautiful they appear in regard to their style ; 
 
118 
 
 FLORENTINE^ SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 inasmuch, as in his paintings we are enabled to detect little 
 difference between his history of S. Cristoforo, painted in the 
 flower of youth, and his altar-piece at S. Andrea of Mantua, 
 which is considered one of his last labours. A specimen of 
 his engraving with a date is believed, however, by some to 
 be contained in a book of Pietro d'Abano, entitled " Tracta- 
 tus de Venenis," published in Mantua, 1472, "in cujus 
 pagina prima littera initialis aeri incisa exhibetur, quae inte- 
 gram column® latitudinem occupat. Patet hinc artem chal- 
 cographicam jam anno 1472 extitisse." Thus writes the 
 learned Panzer,* but whether he saw the work that exists in 
 folio, and of seven pages, I am not certain, t A quarto edi- 
 tion was likewise edited in Mantua, 1473, and a copy is pre- * 
 served in the public library, but without plates. 
 
 It is certain, however, that about this period copper en- 
 graving was practised, not only in Mantua, where Mantegna 
 resided, but also in Bologna. The geography of Ptolemy, 
 printed in Bologna by Domenico de Lapis, with the appa- 
 rently incorrect date of 1462, is in the possession of the 
 Corsini at Rome, and of the Foscarini at Venice.^ It con- 
 tains twenty-six geographical tables, engraved very coarsely, 
 yet so greatly admired by the printer, that he applauds this 
 new discovery, and compares it to the invention of printing, 
 which not long before had appeared in Germany. We give 
 his words as they are quoted from the Latin without being 
 refuted, by Meerman, at p. 251: " Accedit mirifica impri- 
 mendi tales tabulas ratio, cujus inventoris laus nihil illorum 
 laude inferior, qui primi litterarum imprimendarum artem 
 pepererunt, in admirationem sui studiosissimum quemque 
 facillime convertere potest." The same writer, along with 
 other learned men, contends that the date ought to be cor- 
 rected, on the authority of the catalogue of the correctors of 
 
 * Panzer, Ann. Typogr. torn. ii. p. 4. 
 
 f The Catalogue of the Libreria Heideggeriana is cited as the first 
 source ; but after fresh research, nothing certain has been discovered. 
 Volta conjectures that this edition de Venenis was not a separate book, 
 but a part of the Conciliatore of Pietro d' Abano, printed in folio at 
 Mantua, 1472. 
 
 % This splendid copy has been transferred from the Biblioteca Fos- 
 carini, into the selection of old prints and books illustrated by the Ab. 
 Mauro Boni. 
 
EARLY ENGRAVED CHARTS. 
 
 119 
 
 the work, among whom we find Filippo Beroaldo, who, in 
 1462, was no more than nine years of age. Hence Meerman 
 infers, that we ought to read 1482 ; Àudifredi and others, 
 1491 ; neither of which opinions I can agree with. For the 
 work of Ptolemy being published at Rome, accompanied by 
 twenty-seven elegant charts in 1478, what presumption, or 
 rather folly, in the publisher of the Bolognese edition, to 
 think of applauding its beauty, after the appearance of one so 
 incomparably superior ! I am therefore compelled to refer 
 the former to an earlier period. Besides, I ought to inform 
 the reader, that the engraving of twenty-six geographical 
 plates, full of lines, distances, and references, must have been 
 a long and difficult task, particularly during the infancy of 
 the art ; as we are certain that three or four years were 
 devoted to the same purpose at Rome by more modern en- 
 gravers, far more expert. We are, therefore, bound to antedate 
 the epoch of the Bolognese engraving several years before the 
 publication of the book, which belongs perhaps to the year 
 1472.* I shall not, however, set myself up as an umpire in 
 this dispute, expecting, as I do, an excellent treatise from 
 the pen of Sig. Bartolommeo Gamba, which will not fail to 
 gratify the public.f In regard to Bologna, therefore, I shall 
 only seek to prove that the progress of the goldsmith's art to 
 that of engraving upon metal, was more rapid than it has 
 been supposed. Heineken himself observes, in describing 
 the Ptolemy, that it is evident, from the traces of the zigzag, 
 which the goldsmiths are in the habit of putting on the silver 
 plates, the work is the production of one belonging to that 
 art. The earliest works that can be pointed out with cer- 
 tainty at Florence, are the three elegant engravings of the 
 
 * See de Bure, Bibliographic Instructive, Histoire, torn. i. p. 32. 
 From the tenor of this opinion we are authorized in adding to the inscrip- 
 tion, anno mcccclxii another x, omitted by inadvertency, if not pur- 
 posely ; instances of which are to be found in the dates of books belonging 
 to the fifteenth century. In 1472, Beroaldo was already a great scholar, 
 and in 73 he opened his academy. 
 
 *f* This little work, whose title will be found in the second Index, is 
 now published, and has been well received by scholars on account of its 
 learning and bibliographical research. The author approves the suppo- 
 sition that we ought to read 1472. We wish him leisure to produce 
 more such works, which, like those of the Manuzi, combine the character 
 of the elegant typographer and the erudite scholar. 
 
120 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 Monte Santo di Dio, published in 1477, and the two in the 
 two cantos of Dante, 1481 ; one of which, as if a third 
 engraving, was repeated in the same book, -while all of them 
 seem to have been drawn from the roller, the art of inserting 
 the plates in the letter-press being then unknown. "We have 
 yet to notice the thirty-seven geographical charts, in what- 
 ever way executed, affixed to the book of Berlinghieri, which 
 was printed about the same period, without any date. These 
 also contain several heads with the names Aquilo, Africus, 
 &c, but they are all of youthful appearance, and tolerable 
 in point of design ; whereas the same heads in Bologna are of 
 different ages, with long beards and caps, and in a coarser 
 manner. The three before-mentioned works appeared from 
 the press of Niccolo Tedesco, or Niccolo di Lorenzo de La- 
 magna, the first who printed books at Florence with copper- 
 plates. 
 
 The last and most complete state of engraving upon copper, 
 comes next under our notice. For this improvement, we are 
 as much indebted to Germany as for the art of printing 
 books. The press there first discovered for typography, 
 opened the way for that applied to copper-plates. The 
 mechanical construction, to be sure, was different, in the 
 former the impression being drawn from cast letters which 
 rise outwards ; in the latter from plates cut hollow within by 
 the artist's graver. A kind of ink was at the same time 
 adopted, of a stronger and less fuliginous colour, than had 
 been used for engravings in wood ; but as it is termed by 
 Meerman (p. 1 2), " singulare ac tenuius/' The same author 
 fixes the date of this improvement in the art at about 1470 ; 
 and probably he meant to deduce it from the earnest copper 
 engravings which appeared in Germany. Of this I cannot 
 venture to speak, not having seen the two specimens cited by 
 Heineken, and the others that bear a date ; nor is it at all 
 connected with our present history of Italian art, as far as 
 regards engraving. We gather from it, that such improve- 
 ment was brought to us from Germany by the same Corrado 
 Sweyneym, who prepared the beautiful edition of Ptolemy at 
 Home. We learn from the preface prefixed, that Corrado 
 devoted three years to the task, and left it incomplete ; and it 
 was continued by Arnold Buckinck, and published by him, as 
 
IMPROVED ERA IN ART OF ENGRAVING. 
 
 121 
 
 I already observed, in 1478. The tables are engraved with 
 a surprising degree of elegance, and are taken from the press, 
 as Meerman, adopting the opinion of Raidelio, and of such 
 bibliographers as have described it, has clearly shewn 
 (p. 258). It is conjectured that Corrado commenced his 
 labours about 1472, a fact ascertained no less from the testi- 
 mony of Calderino, the corrector of the work, than from the 
 tables, impressions of which were taken in 1475.* Some 
 are of opinion that the engraving was from the hand of Cor- 
 rado, although the author of the preface simply observes, 
 " animum ad hanc doctrinam capessendam applicuit (that is, 
 to geography) subinde matematicis adhibitis viris quemad- 
 modum tabulis aeneis imprimerentur edocuit,t triennioque in 
 hàc cura consumpto diem obiit." And it seems very probable, 
 that as he employed Italians in the correction of the text, be 
 was also assisted by some one of the same nation in the en- 
 gravings. Botticelli was, perhaps, attracted by this novel 
 art at Rome, since on his return, about the year 1474, he 
 began to engrave copper-plates with all the ardour that Vasari 
 has described, and was, in fact, the first who represented full 
 figures and histories in the new art. Perhaps the cause oi 
 his impressions being less perfect than others arose from his 
 ignorance of the method of printing upon a single page both 
 the plates and the characters, as well as from the want of the 
 press, and that improved plan derived from the office of the 
 German printers. From whatever cause, it is certain that 
 our engravers long continued to labour under this imperfection 
 in the art. In the time of Marc Antonio, who rose into 
 notice soon after the year 1500, the art, in its perfect state, 
 had been introduced into Italy, insomuch that he was enabled 
 to rival Albert Durer and Luca d'Ollanda, equalling them in 
 the mechanism of the art, and surpassing them in point of 
 design. From this triumvirate of genius the more finished 
 
 * Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. ii. col. 118. 
 
 f That is, in Rome, where he also taught the art of printing books, as 
 we are informed in the same preface. This last is wholly devoted to 
 Roman matters, and it would be vain to look in it for the general history 
 of typography and engraving in Italy. It appears then, that Sweyneym 
 instructed the artists of Rome in the best manner of printing from copper- 
 plates with the press ; though others may have taught the art of printing 
 them more rudely and in softer metal at Bologna. 
 
122 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 age of engraving takes its date ; and nearly at the same period 
 we behold the most improved era in the art of painting. The 
 completion of the new art soon diffused good models of design 
 through every school, which led the way to the new epoch. 
 Following the steps of Durer, the imitators of nature learned 
 to design more correctly ; while they composed, if not with 
 much taste, at least with great variety and fertility, examples 
 of which appear in the Venetian artists of the time. Others, 
 of a more studied character, formed upon the model of Raf- 
 faello and of the best Italian masters, exhibited by Marc An- 
 tonio, applied with more diligence to compose with order, and 
 to attain elegance of design, as we shall further see in the 
 progress of this History of Painting. 
 
FLORENTINE 
 
 EPOCH 
 
 SCHOOL, 
 ii. 
 
 Vinci Bonarruoti, and other celebrated artists, form the most flourishing 
 era of this School. 
 
 Nations have their virtues and their vices, and it is the 
 duty of the historian to give them credit for the one, and to 
 confess the other. Thus it is with the Schools of Painting ; 
 no one of which is so perfect as to leave us nothing to desire; 
 no one so faulty that it has not much in it to commend. The 
 Florentine school (I do not speak of its greatest masters, 
 but of the general practice of the others) had no great merit 
 in colouring, from which Mengs was induced to denominate 
 it a melancholy school ; nor did it excel in its drapery, from 
 which arose the saying, that the drapery of figures appeared 
 to be fashioned with economy in Florence. 
 
 It did not shine in power of relief, a study not generally 
 cultivated till the last century, nor did it exhibit much beauty, 
 because, long destitute of fine Grecian statues, Florence was 
 late in possessing the Yenus ; and only through the attention 
 of the Grand Duke Leopold, has been enriched by the Apollo, 
 the group of Niobe, and other choice specimens. From these 
 circumstances this school aimed only at a fidelity of repre- 
 sentation that resembles the works of those who copied ex- 
 actly from nature, and in general made a judicious selection 
 of its objects. It could not boast of superior grouping in the 
 composition of a picture, and it more inclined to erase a 
 superfluous figure, than to add one unnecessarily to the rest. 
 In grace, in design, and in historic accuracy, it excels most 
 other schools ; chiefly resulting from the great learning that 
 always adorned this city, and invariably gave a bias to the 
 erudition of her artists. 
 
 Design forms the peculiar excellence of this school, and its 
 
124 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 Hereditary patrimony, to which the national characteristic of 
 minute correctness has greatly contributed ; and it may justly 
 be observed, that this people has excelled others no less in the 
 symmetrical delineation of the figure, than in parky of idiom.* 
 It may also boast of having produced many excellent painters 
 in fresco ; an art so superior to that of painting in oil, that 
 Bonarruoti looked on the latter as mere sport when compared 
 with the former, as it necessarily requires great dexterity, 
 and the talent of executing well and with rapidity, very diffi- 
 cult attainments in any profession. This school had but few 
 engravers on copper, from which circumstance, though abound- 
 ing in historians, t and rich in paintings, it has not a suffi- 
 cient number of prints to make it known in proportion to 
 its merit, a defect which the " Etruria Pittrice" has, in some 
 measure, supplied. Finally, the reader may indulge in this 
 very just reflection, that the Florentine school first taught the 
 method of proceeding scientifically, and according to general 
 
 * At the epoch of which the author writes, the Venetian school, in 
 point of correctness of design, was in no degree inferior to that of Flo- 
 rence. Lionardo himself, when called by II Moro into Lombardy, with 
 a court distinguished by men of letters, found also a school of art highly 
 flourishing, and which gave birth to admirable artists. Bernardo Zenale, 
 an excellent painter, more especially in fresco, equal to any of his age, 
 was esteemed and consulted by Lionardo himself. There were Civer- 
 chio, Montorfano, Butenone, Borgognone, and others worthy of lasting 
 fame, not less than those so extolled by Vasari, Borghini, Baldinucci, 
 and other municipal writers. — A. 
 
 f Although Vasari, Borghini, and Baldinucci have also treated of 
 other schools, they have chiefly illustrated that of Florence, with which 
 they were best acquainted. To them succeeded the respectable authors of 
 the " Florentine Museum," and the " Series of the most celebrated 
 Painters," containing choice anecdotes of those masters, which are now 
 republished, and accompanied by a print from the work of each painter, 
 in the " Etruria Pittrice" of the learned Sig. Ab. Lastri. Other anec- 
 dotes are to be found in the work of P. Richa, " On the Churches of 
 Florence " and in Sig. Cambiagi's " Guide " to that city. Pisa too, has 
 its " Guide " by the Cav. Titi ; to which has succeeded the much larger 
 work of Sig. da Morrona, above noticed. Siena has one by Sig. Pecci, 
 Volterra another by Ab. Giachi, and Pescia and Valdinievole by the Ab. 
 Ansaldi. Sig. Francesco Bernardi, an excellent connoisseur in the fine 
 arts, prepared a guide to Lucca after Marchiò : it remains inedited since 
 his death, together with his anecdotes of the painters, sculptors, and 
 architects of his native country. Meanwhile the " Diario 99 of Mons. 
 Mansi affords considerable information. 
 
LIONARDO DA VINCI. 
 
 125 
 
 rules. Other schools have originated in an attentive con- 
 sideration of natural effects, by mechanically imitating (if 
 we may be allowed the expression) the external appearances 
 of objects. But Vinci and Bonarruoti, the two great lumi- 
 naries of this school, like true philosophers, pointed out the 
 immutable objects and established laws of nature, thence de- 
 ducing rules which their successors, both at home and abroad, 
 have followed with great benefit to the art. The former has 
 left a Treatise on Painting, and the public were induced to 
 look for the publication of the precepts of the latter, which 
 have, however, never yet been produced ;* and we obtain 
 some idea of his maxims only from Vasari, and other writers. 
 About this time also flourished Fra Bartolommeo, Andrea del 
 Sarto, Rosso, the young Ghirlandaio, and other artists, whom 
 we shall name in the sequel of this grand epoch, unfortunately 
 of short duration. Towards the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, when Michelangelo, who survived the other great artists, 
 was still living, a less auspicious era began ; — but we must 
 proceed with this epoch. 
 
 Lionardo da Vinci, so called from a castle in Lower Valdarno, 
 was the natural son of one Pietro, notary to the Florentine 
 republic, and was born in 1452.f He was endowed by nature 
 with a genius uncommonly elevated and penetrating, eager 
 after discovery, and diligent in the pursuit, not only in what 
 related to the three arts dependent on design, but in mathe- 
 matics, in mechanics, in hydrostatics, in music, in poetry, and 
 also in the accomplishments of horsemanship, fencing, and 
 dancing. He was so perfect in all these, that when he per- 
 formed any one, the beholders were ready to imagine that it 
 must have been his sole study. To such vigour of intellect 
 he joined an elegance of features and of manners, that graced 
 the virtues of his mind. He was affable with strangers, with 
 citizens, with private individuals, and with princes, among 
 whom he long lived on a footing of familiarity and friend- 
 
 * Condivi promised to publish them , but this was never performed. — 
 See Bottari's Notes on the life of Michelangelo, p. 152, in Florent. edit. 
 1772. 
 
 "I" See the fine eulogy on him by Sig. Durazzini, among his Panegyrics 
 on illustrious Tuscans, where he corrects Vasari, his annotators and others, 
 who have fixed the birth of Lionardo before this year. — Tom. iii. n. 25. 
 
126 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IL 
 
 ship. On this account, says Yasari, it cost him no effort to 
 behave and live like a man of high birth. 
 
 Verrocchio taught him painting ; and while still a youth, 
 he surpassed his master. He retained traces of his early 
 education through his whole life. Like Yerrocchio, he de- 
 signed more readily than he painted ; he assiduously culti- 
 vated mathematics ; in his design and in his countenances, he 
 prized elegance and vivacity of expression, more than dignity 
 and fulness of contour ; he was very careful in drawing his 
 horses, and in representing the skirmishes of soldiers ; and 
 was more solicitous to improve the art than to multiply his pic- 
 tures. He was an excellent statuary, as is demonstrated by 
 his S. Tommaso in Orsanmichele at Florence, and by the 
 horse in the church of S. John and S. Paul at Yenice. Yinci 
 not only modelled in a superior manner the three statues cast 
 in bronze by Rustici, for the church of S. John at Florence, 
 and the colossal horse at Milan, but, assisted by this art, he 
 gave that perfect relief and roundness, in which painting was 
 then wanting. He likewise imparted to it symmetry, grace, 
 and spirit, and these and his other merits gave him the title 
 of the father of modern painting,* though some of his works 
 participate in the meanness of the old school. 
 
 He had two styles, the one abounded in shadow, which 
 gives admirable brilliancy to the contrasting lights ; the other 
 more quiet, and managed by means of middle tints. In each 
 style, the grace of his design, the expression of the affections, 
 and the delicacy of his pencil, are unrivalled. Every thing is 
 lively, the foreground, the landscape, the adventitious orna- 
 ments of necklaces, flowers, and architecture ; but this gaiety 
 is more apparent in the heads. In this he purposely repeats 
 the same idea, and gives them a smile which delights the mind 
 of a spectator. He did not, however, consider his pictures as 
 complete, but from a singular timidity,! often left them imper- 
 
 * See Sig. Piacenza, in his edition of Baldinucci, t. ii. p. 252. He has 
 dedicated a long appendix to Vinci, and collected all the aneedetes scattered 
 through Vasari, Lomazzo, Borghini, Mariette, and other modern au- 
 thors. 
 
 f " Lionardo seems to have trembled whenever he sat down to paint, 
 and never finished any of the pictures he began ; by meditation on the 
 perfection of art, he perceived faults in what to others appeared ad 
 mirable." —Lomazzo, " Idea del Tempio della Pittura/' p. 114. ( 
 
DA VINCl's VARIOUS ACQUIREMENTS. 
 
 127 
 
 feet, as I shall more fully state under the Milanese school. 
 There he will appear with the dignity of a consummate mas- 
 ter, and a portion of his fame must at present suffice for his 
 native school. 
 
 / The life of Lionardo may be divided into four periods, the 
 first of which includes the time he remained at Florence. To 
 this era may be referred the Medusa of the royal gallery, and 
 the few pieces mentioned by Vasari ; others also, less power- 
 ful in the shadows, and less diversified in the folds of the 
 drapery, present heads more delicate than select, apparently 
 derived from the school of Verro echio. Such is the Magda- 
 len of the Pitti palace at Florence, and that of the Aldo- 
 brandini palace at Rome ; some Madonnas and Holy Fami- 
 lies in the Giustiniani and Borghese galleries ; and some 
 heads of the Redeemer and of the Baptist in various places ; 
 although it is often reasonable to suspend our judgment in 
 regard to the genuineness of such pieces, on account of the 
 great number of Lionardo' s imitators. The child, in a bed 
 richly ornamented, enveloped in its clothes, and adorned with 
 a necklace, in the house of his excellency the Gonfaloniere of 
 Bologna, is of a different class, and of undoubted originality. 
 
 After this first period, Lionardo was brought to Milan by 
 Lodovico Sforza, " whom he highly gratified by his perform- 
 ance on the lyre, a curious and new instrument, almost en- 
 tirely of silver," which Lionardo carried with him, and had 
 constructed with his own hands. All the musicians there 
 assembled were vanquished, and the whole city being struck 
 with admiration of his extemporaneous poetry, and his elo- 
 quence, he was retained by the prince, and remained there 
 till 1499, engaged in abstruse studies, and in mechanical and 
 hydrostatical labours for the service of the state. During 
 this time he painted little, except the celebrated Last Supper ; 
 but by superintending an academy of the fine arts, he left a 
 degree of refinement in Milan, so productive of illustrious 
 pupils, that this period may be reckoned the most glorious era 
 of his life. 
 
 After the misfortunes of Lodovico Sforza, he returned to 
 Florence, where having remained thirteen years, he went to 
 Rome at the time his patron Leo X. ascended the papal chair; 
 but his stay was short. Some of his best works at Florence 
 
128 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 may be referred to this period ; the celebrated portrait of 
 Mona Lisa, which was the labour of four years, and yet left 
 unfinished ; the cartoon of S. Anna, for a picture in the 
 church of the Servi, which was never executed in colours ;* 
 the cartoon of the battle of Niccolo Piccinino, intended to 
 dispute the palm of excellence with Michelangelo in the 
 council-chamber at Florence, t but never executed, after his 
 failing in an attempt to paint it in a new method in oil on the 
 wall. He probably employed another method in painting the 
 Madonna with the child in her arms, in the monastery of S. 
 Onofrio, of Rome, a picture in the style of Raffaello, now 
 peeling off the walls in many places. There are some other 
 fine pieces, which might be with propriety assigned to this 
 period, in which Lionardo, having attained his highest skill, 
 and unoccupied by other pursuits, painted in his best manner. 
 Such is the specimen that was preserved at Mantua, but which 
 was stolen, and concealed during the sack of the city ; after 
 many vicissitudes, it was sold for a high price to the imperial 
 court of Russia. The subject is a Holy Family ; in the back- 
 ground is seen a woman of a beautiful and mnjestic counte- 
 nance in an upright position. It bears the cipher of Lion- 
 ardo, consisting of a D interlaced with an L and a V, as it is 
 seen in the picture of the Signori Sanvitali, at Parma. The 
 Consigliere Pagave, who left a memorandum of it in his MSS. 
 was the first to recognise it, upon its being brought to Milan 
 in 1775, where it was also kept concealed. The same judi- 
 cious critic has conjectured that this production was executed 
 in Rome, for one of the princesses of Mantua, or rather for 
 the sister-in-law of Leo X. ; inasmuch as it displayed a de- 
 cided emulation of Raffaello's manner, at that time highly 
 extolled in Rome. Such a conjecture might receive support 
 from his picture of a Madonna, which ornaments San Ono- 
 frio, also in the Raffaello manner ; and in order that this pic- 
 ture and that of Mantua might not be confounded by poste- 
 
 * It was represented in a painting by Lucini, which is in the Ambrosian 
 library at Milan, esteemed one of the chefs-d'oeuvre of that collection. 
 
 f Both have perished, after serving as models to the best painters or 
 that age, and even to Andrea del Sarto. See what has been written by 
 Vasari, and by M. Mariette,in the long letter concerning "Vinci, which is 
 inaertedin torn. ii. of " Lett. Pittoriche." 
 
CHEFS* D'CEUVRE OF DAVINCI. 
 
 129 
 
 rity with the works of Raffaello, Lionardo, according to Sig- 
 nor Pagave, took care to affix the cipher of his name. This 
 is not at all improbable : both writers and painters are im- 
 pelled by their natural genius to adopt a peculiar style. 
 Whoever will compare the portraits that remain, expressive 
 of the elevated, touching, penetrating, and beautiful spirit, 
 incessantly bent upon acquiring something still more exquisite 
 in art, which inspired these two prodigies, will find little dif- 
 ficulty in believing that both produced works which, owing 
 to a similarity of natural taste, selection and admiration of 
 the same object, might be mistaken for specimens of the same 
 hand.* Of this number is his own portrait, at an age which 
 corresponds with this period, in the ducal gallery, a head that* 
 surpasses every other in that room for energy of expression ; 
 also another head, which is in a different cabinet, and is called 
 a portrait of Raffaello ; together with the half-length figure 
 of a young nun so much commended by Bottari, and which he 
 points out as one of the greatest treasures in the splendid 
 mansion of the Marchese Niccolini. In the same rank we 
 may include the much admired specimens in the possession of 
 eome of the noble families f at Rome ; as the picture of 
 Christ disputing in the Temple, and the supposed portrait of 
 Queen Giovanna, ornamented with fine architecture, in the 
 Doria palace ; the Vanity and Modesty in the Barberini 
 palace, the tints of which no pencil has been able to imitate ; 
 the Madonna of the Albani palace, that appears to be re- 
 questing the lily which the infant Jesus holds in his hand, 
 while he draws back, as if unwilling to part with it ; a pic- 
 ture of exquisite grace, and preferred by Mengs to every 
 other painting contained in that fine collection. It would, 
 however, be presumptuous to assign a date to every picture 
 ei an artist Who became early a distinguished painter, and 
 who frequently discontinued a work before it was completed. 
 
 * Amoretti, 4< Memorie Storiche " di Lionardo da Vinci, p. 105. Who- 
 ever has not studied design may be of this opinion. The eye accus- 
 tomed to distinguish colours can make no mistake in regard to a painting 
 by Lionardo and one by Raffaello. — A. 
 
 f To one acquainted with the style and design of the drapery and 
 colouring of Bernardino Luini, the cited 44 Dispute of Christ " in tue 
 Doria palace, and the 44 Vanity and Modesty " in that of the Barberini, 
 will appear clearly by his hand. 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
*30 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 When this celebrated artist had attained his sixty -third 
 year, he appears to have renounced the art for ever. Fran- 
 cis I., who saw his Last Supper at Milan, about the year 
 1515, attempted to saw it from the wall, that it might be 
 transported to France ; and not succeeding in his project, was 
 desirous of possessing the artist, though now an old man. He 
 invited Vinci to his court, and the artist felt little regret at 
 leaving Florence, where, since his return, he found in the 
 young Bonarruoti a rival that had already contended with 
 him, and was even employed in preference to Vinci both in 
 Florence and in Rome ; because the former gave them works, 
 if we may credit Vasari, while the latter amused them with 
 words.* It is known that they had a quarrel ; and Lionardo 
 consulting his repose, which their emulation embittered, 
 passed over into France, where, before he had employed his 
 pencil, he expired in the arms of Francis L, in the year 
 1519. 
 
 Though his style is highly worthy of imitation, it was less 
 followed in Florence than in Milan ; nor is this surprising. 
 Vinci left in Florence no picture in public ; he there taught 
 no pupil ; and it appears that he retained Salai, whom I shall 
 notice among the Milanese artists, in the station of a depen- 
 dant, during his residence at Florence. In Florence we meet 
 with pictures in the possession of private individuals, that 
 seem the work of Vinci; and sometimes the dealers extol 
 them as his, gravely adding that they cost a large sum. Such 
 pieces are, probably, the productions of Salai, or of other 
 imitators of Lionardo, who availed themselves of his cartoons, 
 his drawings, or his few paintings. We are informed that 
 Lorenzo di Credi, whose family name was Sciarpelloni, made 
 use of them more than any other Florentine. Educated, as 
 well as Vinci, in the school of Verrocchio, he followed rules 
 nearly similar ; he was patient, and aimed at the same object; 
 but he approached less closely to the softness of the moderns. 
 He copied, with such precision, a picture of Lionardo, which 
 was sent to Spain, that the copy was not distinguishable from 
 the original. Private houses contain many of his circular 
 
 * It was on account of the same procrastinating disposition that Leo X, 
 withdrew the patronage he had conferred on him, and which he was accus- 
 tomed to bestow upon all men of genius. 
 
IMITATORS OF DA VINCI'S STYLE. 
 
 131 
 
 Holy Families, of which the invention and gracefulness remind 
 us of Lionardo. I possess one which represents the Virgin 
 sitting with Christ in her arms, and at her side the young 
 S. John, to whom she turns as if to lay hold of him, at which 
 the child seems timid, and draws back : it is in a lovely 
 manner ; but the style is not well suited to such a subject. 
 Some of Credi' s pictures, which Bottari did not meet with in 
 public places, are now exhibited ; as the Magdalen with S. 
 Nicholas and S. Julian, adduced by Vasari as an example of 
 a picturesque and highly-finished style. His Christ in the 
 Manger may be also seen at S. Chiara ; and it is one of his 
 finest pictures, for the beauty of the faces, the vigour of ex- 
 pression, the finish of the back-ground, and the good colour- 
 ing. Both in this, and in his other original pictures, we may 
 discern some imitation of Vinci, and of Pietro Perugino, 
 another friend of Credi : he possesses, however, some origi- 
 nality, which his scholar, Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, success- 
 fully imitated and improved. 
 
 This artist lived twenty-four years with Lorenzo ; and, in 
 imitation of his model, was contented to paint less than his 
 contemporaries, that he might do it better. He likewise 
 attempted to imitate Porta ; but his natural disposition led 
 him rather to follow the simple grace of his instructor, than 
 the sublimity of his master. Few of his school can compare 
 with him for the natural appearance he gave the naked as 
 well as the clothed figure, or for the conception of 65 hand- 
 some, good-natured, sweet, and graceful features/'* Like 
 Lionardo, he possessed the rare talent of representing images 
 of virtue by the faces of his saints, and of vice by those of his 
 wicked characters. This is exemplified in his Cain and Abel, 
 in the cathedral of Pisa, where he has introduced a landscape 
 that would do honour to any painter. "With equal felicity in 
 the figure and the back-ground, he painted the Crucifixion of 
 S. Arcadius, which was brought from another church to that 
 of S. Lorenzo at Florence, where it still remains. He entered 
 into competition with Perino del Vaga, with Mecherino, and 
 Andrea del Sarto, at Pisa, where he was noted for his dila- 
 toriness, but admired for that happy simplicity and elegance 
 
 * Vasari. 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. — EPOCH II. 
 
 which he always preserved. Some have praised a few of his 
 pictures as inclining to the manner of Raffaello, a com- 
 mendation also bestowed on Luini, and other followers of 
 Lionardo. He had pupils who afterwards followed other 
 masters ; but a Zanobi di Poggino, who painted many pictures 
 for Florence, which are now unknown, appears to have had no 
 other master. 
 
 One of the best imitators of Vinci, almost equal to Luini 
 himself, may be recognised in the sacristy of S. Stephen, at 
 Bologna, in which there is a S. John in the Desert, with the 
 inscription Jul. Fior. If this be read Julius Florentine, 
 the artist is unknown ; but perhaps we should read Julianu?, 
 and ascribe it to Bugiardini. We are informed by Vasari 
 that he was at Bologna, and that he painted a Madonna be- 
 tween two Saints for the church of S. Francis, where it still 
 is, and approaches the style of Lionardo. Both pictures 
 seem the work of the same artist ; and to this artist also be- 
 longs a Nativity, in the cloister of the canons of S. Salvatore; 
 and various pictures found in private houses, with a similar 
 epigraph. If we embrace the opinion of Vasari, we must 
 consider Giuliano as a feeble painter, but uncommonly careful 
 and slow. We should rather suppose him the imitator of any 
 artist than of Vinci ; for he is described as the fellow-student 
 of Bonarruoti, the assistant of Albertinelli, and the colourist 
 of some works of Fra Bartolommeo. One can readily per- 
 ceive that Vasari was wrong in his slight estimation of this 
 artist, on which account he has not paid a due attention to his 
 works or to his style. He has represented this man as 
 amiable in disposition, a picture of contented poverty, an un- 
 bounded admirer of his Madonnas, and very profuse in his 
 own commendations ; qualities which rendered him highly 
 amusing even to Michelangelo. Intent on amusing his 
 reader with the character of the man, he has not, perhaps, 
 sufficiently rated the merits of the artist. This is proved by 
 the little respect with which he mentions the Martyrdom of 
 S. Catherine in S. Maria Novella, which Bottari has called 
 " a work worthy of admiration," not only for the figures of 
 the soldiers, which, as Giuliano found himself unequal to the 
 performance, were outlined with charcoal by Michelangelo, 
 and afterwards painted by Giuliano : but for other parts of 
 
MICHELANGELO BONARRUOTI. 
 
 133 
 
 the story. The truth seems to be, that he had not much in- 
 vention, and did not adhere to one style, but now and then 
 borrowed a thought ; as in the Nativity already noticed, where 
 one may recognise the style of Fra Bartolommeo. On con- 
 sidering each figure separately, he appears on the whole happy 
 in his imitations, especially in Bologna, where the S. John 
 is held in the highest esteem. In Florence he painted many 
 Madonnas and Holy Families, which, with the aid of the Bo- 
 lognese pictures, may perhaps be recognised as his by their 
 clearness, the masculine and somewhat heavy proportions, 
 and the mouths sometimes expressive of melancholy, although 
 the subject did not call for it. One of these is in the collection 
 of the noble family of Orlandini. 
 
 Michelangelo Bonarruoti, of whom memoirs were published 
 by two of his disciples while he was still living,* was born 
 twenty-three years after Lionardo da Yinci. Like him, he was 
 endowed with a ready wit, and consummate eloquence. His 
 bon-mots rival those of the Grecian painters, which are re- 
 corded by Dati, and he is even esteemed the most witty and 
 lively of his race. He possessed not the polish and elegance 
 of Vinci, but his genius was more vast and daring. Hence he 
 attained the three sister arts in an eminent degree, and has left 
 specimens in painting, sculpture, and architecture, sufficient to 
 immortalize three different artists. Like Yinci, he gave proofs 
 of talent in his boyish years, that compelled his master to 
 confess his own inferiority. This master was Domenico 
 Ghirlandaio, who sent his own brother Benedetto to paint in 
 France, from jealousy of his pre-eminence ; and, perhaps, 
 fearing the wonderful powers of Bonarruoti, turned his atten- 
 tion to sculpture. Lorenzo the Magnificent, desirous of en- 
 couraging the statuary art, which was on the decline in his 
 country, had collected in his gardens, adjacent to the monas- 
 tery of S. Mark, many antique marbles, and committing the 
 care of them to Bertoldo, a scholar of Donatello, he requested 
 of Ghirlandaio some young man to be there educated as a 
 sculptor, and this artist sent him Michelangelo. This trans- 
 action was disliked by his father, Lodovico, in whose mind the 
 
 * Vasari, who published a life of him in 1550, and enlarged it in anothei 
 edition ; and Ascanio Condivi da Ripatransone, who printed one in 1553. 
 ten years before the death of Bonarruoti. 
 
134 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 art appeared degrading to his high birth ; but he had no reason 
 to repent it. On obtaining his object, Lorenzo not only added 
 to the fortune of Lodovico, but retained Michelangelo in his 
 house, rather as a relation than a dependant, placing him at 
 the same table with his own sons, with Poliziano, and other 
 learned men who then graced his residence. During the four 
 years that he remained there he laid the foundation of all his 
 acquirements ; he especially studied poetry, and thus was 
 enabled to rival Yinci in his sonnets, and to relish Dante, a 
 bard of a sublimity beyond the reach of vulgar souls.* Bo- 
 narruoti studied design in the chapel of Masaccio, he copied 
 the antiques in the garden of Lorenzo, and attended to ana- 
 tomy, a science to which he is said to have dedicated twelve 
 years, with great injury to his health, and which determined 
 his style, his practice, and his glory.t To this study he owed 
 that style from which he obtained the name of the Dante of 
 the art. As this poet made choice of materials difficult to be 
 reduced to verse, and from an abstruse subject extracted the 
 praise of sublimity and grandeur, in like manner Michelan- 
 gelo explored the untrodden path of design, and in pursuing 
 it, displayed powers of execution at once scientific and magni- 
 ficent. In his works, man assumes that form which, according 
 to Quintiliano Zeuxis delighted to represent; nervous, mus- 
 cular, and robust : his foreshortenings and his attitudes are 
 most daring ; his expression full of vivacity and energy. The 
 poet and the painter have other points of resemblance ; a dis- 
 play of knowledge, from which Dante appears sometimes a 
 disclaimer rather than a poet, Bonarruoti, an anatomist rather 
 than a painter ; a neglect of elegance, from which the first 
 
 * He was very partial to this poet, whose flights of fancy he embodied 
 in pen-drawings in a book, which, unfortunately for the art, has perished, 
 and to whose memory he wished to sculpture a magnificent monument, 
 as appears from a petition to Leo X. In it the Medicean Academy re- 
 quests the bones of the divine poet ; and among the subscribers we read 
 the name of Michelangelo, and also his offer. — Gori Illustraz. alia Vita 
 del Condivi, p. 112. 
 
 f He projected a tract on "all the movements of the human body, 
 on its external appearances, and on the bones, with an ingenious theory, 
 the fruit of his long study." — Condivi, p. 117. 
 
 X * * Zeuxis plus membris corporis dedit, id amplius et augustius ratus ; 
 atque ut existimant Homerum secutus, cui validissima quaeque forma 
 etiam in foeminis placet." — Inst. Orat. lib. xii. c. 10. 
 
ARIOSTO IN PRAISE OF MICHELANGELO. 135 
 
 often, and if we subscribe to the opinions of the Caracci and of 
 Mengs, the second sometimes, degenerated into harshness.* On 
 points like these, which depend wholly on taste, I shall content 
 myself with warning the reader that such comparisons should 
 not be pushed too far : for this poet, from his desire of sur- 
 mounting difficulties in conception and versification, has some- 
 times so deviated from the usual path, that he cannot always 
 be proposed as a model for imitation : but every design of 
 Michelangelo, every sketch, as well as his more finished works, 
 may be regarded as a model in art ; if in Dante we trace 
 marks of labour, in Michelangelo every thing exhibits nature 
 and facility. f It was one of his observations, that the com- 
 passes ought to lie in the eyes, a principle apparently drawn 
 from Diodorus Siculus, where he asserts that the Egyptians 
 had the rules of measurement in their hands, the Greeks in 
 their eyes.J Nor is such eulogy inapplicable to our artist ; 
 who, whether he handled his pen, his chisel, or a piece of 
 charcoal, even in sport, still displayed infallible skill in every 
 part of his design. 
 
 Bonarruoti was extolled to the skies by Ariosto for his 
 painting, as well as for his sculpture ;§ but Condivi and others 
 prefer his chisel to his pencil, and he undoubtedly exercised 
 it more professedly and with greater reputation. His Moses 
 on the tomb of Julius II. in the church of S. Pietro in Vin- 
 coli, his Christ in the Minerva, his Piety in S. Pietro Vati- 
 cano, and the statues in the church of S. Lorenzo at Florence 
 and in the ducal palaces, must be acknowledged to be the finest 
 
 * None, however, of these great men presumed to despise Michelan- 
 gelo so much as to compare the picture of Christ, in the Minerva, to an 
 executioner, like the author of the " Arte di Vedere." Mengs, whom he 
 rather flatters than follows, would have disdained to use this and similar 
 expressions ; but it is the office of adulators not merely to approve the 
 opinion of the object flattered, but greatly to exaggerate it. Juvenal, 
 with his peculiar penetration into the vices of mankind, describes one of 
 the race. — See Satire iii. v. 100. 
 
 f Bottari confesses " that he shews somewhat of mannerism, but con- 
 cealed with such skill, that it is not perceptible, " an art which very few of 
 his imitators possess. 
 
 X See Winckelman in his " Gems of Baron Stochs," where he records 
 and comments upon the text of the historian, p. 316. 
 
 § *' Duo Dossi e quel che a par sculpe e colora 
 Michel più che mortal Angiol divino." 
 
 Ori. Fur. Cant, xxxiii. 2. 
 
136 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 specimens of sculpture, in themselves forming schools of the 
 revived art. I will not extol them so highly as Vasari does 
 the colossal David, placed near the Palazzo Vecchio, when he 
 says " that it bore away the palm from every statue, modern 
 or ancient, either Grecian or Roman nor shall I follow his 
 annotator, Bottari, in whose judgment Bonarruoti has greatly 
 surpassed the Greeks, who are not so successful in statues 
 larger than the life. I have heard competent judges remark, 
 that we do injustice to the Grecian masters, not only by pre- 
 ferring any modern to them, but even by comparing them ; 
 but my pen ought not to wander too far from the canvas and 
 from colouring.* 
 
 The few remaining drawings of Michelangelo demonstrate 
 how little he painted. Conscious of his superiority in sculp- 
 ture, he seems to have dreaded appearing as a second or third 
 rate painter. The majority of his compositions that have 
 reached our time, like those of Vinci, are mere outlines ; and 
 therefore, though many cabinets are rich in his drawings, none 
 can boast the possession of his paintings. The cartoon of the 
 battle of Pisa, prepared for a competition with Vinci in the 
 saloon of the public palace at Florence, is said to have been 
 a wonderful production in this species of art. Mariette sup- 
 poses, in the letter above quoted, that the example of Vinci 
 paved the way for this great undertaking, which he confesses 
 surpassed the original. Michelangelo did not rest satisfied 
 with representing the Florentines cased in armour, and min- 
 gling with their enemies ; but choosing the moment of the 
 attack upon their van, while bathing in the river Arno, he 
 seized the opportunity of representing many naked figures, as 
 they rushed to arms from the water, by which he was 
 enabled to introduce a prodigious variety of foreshortenings, 
 attitudes the most energetic, in a word, the highest perfection 
 of his peculiar excellences. Cellini observes in the thirteenth 
 
 * Nothing shews the immense distance between Bonarruoti and the 
 ancients more than the statue " del Fiume,' ' in the Clementine Museum, 
 to which Michelangelo supplied the head, the right arm with the urn, and 
 other small parts, but in a style which, at the side of the true " grand " 
 in the ancient artist, appears heavy and forced. This is observed by the 
 illustrator of that museum, in vol. i. p. 72. And a similar opinion wa9 
 uttered by the celebrated Cav. Cavaceppi. — A. 
 
CARTOON OF MICHELANGELO. 
 
 137 
 
 chapter of his life, that when Michelangelo " painted the 
 chapel of Pope Julius, he reached not half that dignity;" 
 and Vasari adds, that " all the artists who studied and de- 
 signed after this cartoon, became eminent;" among these he 
 reckons the best Florentine artists of the second epoch, from 
 the time of Frate, and to them he joined Raffaello d'Urbino. 
 This is a point of critical disquisition not yet sufficiently 
 cleared up, though much has been written both for and against 
 the opinion of Vasari. I am not of the number of those who 
 suppose that the labours of Bonarruoti had no influence on 
 the style of Raffaello because it appears dissimilar. It would 
 seem to me an act of injustice to this divine genius, to ima- 
 gine that, profiting as he did by the finest productions of the 
 art, he neglected those sources of information. I therefore 
 firmly believe, that Raffaello likewise studied Michelangelo, 
 which he himself appears to acknowledge, as I shall after- 
 wards relate. I cannot, however, grant to Vasari that he 
 saw this cartoon on his first short visit to Florence.* 
 
 This cartoon has perished, and report accuses Baccio Bandi- 
 nelli of tearing it, either that others might not derive advan- 
 tage from viewing it, or because from partiality to Vinci, and 
 hatred to Bonarruoti, he wished to remove a subject of com- 
 parison, that might exalt the reputation of the latter above 
 that of Lionardo. This circumstance is not authenticated, 
 nor are we much interested in the supposed criminal, who, 
 though eminent as a designer and a sculptor, painted a very 
 few pieces, that may almost all be redifced to an Ebriety of 
 Noah, and the Imprisonment of the Fathers of the Church. 
 Baccio soon renounced the pencil, and Michelangelo appears 
 to have done the same, for he was called to Rome by Julius II. 
 
 * Raffaello came to Florence towards the end of 1504. (Lett. Pitt, 
 torn. i. p. 2.) In this year Michelangelo was called to Rome, and left 
 his cartoon imperfect. Having afterwards fled from Rome, through 
 dread of Julius II., he completed it in three months, in the year 1506. 
 Compare the brief of Julius, in which he recals Michelangelo (Lett. 
 Pitt. torn. iii. p. 320), with the relation of Vasari (torn. vi. ed. Fiorent. 
 p. 191). During the time that Michelangelo laboured at this work, " he 
 was unwilling *o shew it to any person (p. 182) ; and when it was finished 
 it was carried to the hall of the pope," and was there studied (p. 184). 
 Raffaello had then returned to Florence, and this work might open the way 
 to his new style, which, as a learned Englishman expresses it, is interme- 
 diate between that of Michelangelo and of Perugino. 
 
133 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 as a sculptor, and when the pope, about 1508, asked him 
 to paint the ceiling of the chapel, he declined it, and wished 
 to transfer the commission to Raffaello. 
 
 He was, however, constrained to undertake it, and, unac- 
 customed to work in fresco, he invited the best painters in 
 this branch from Florence,* that they might assist, or rather 
 instruct him. When he had acquired what he deemed neces- 
 sary, he effaced their labours, and set about the work without 
 an assistant. When the task was about half finished, he 
 exhibited it for a little time to the public. He then applied 
 himself to the other part, but proceeding more slowly than 
 the impatience of the pontiff could endure, he was compelled 
 by threats to use quicker despatch, and without assistance 
 finished the greater part, then incomplete, in twenty months. 
 I have said that he was unaided, for such was the delicacy of 
 his taste, that no artist could please him ; and as in sculp^ 
 ture, every piercer, file, and chisel, which he used, was the 
 work of his own hands, so in painting, " he prepared his own 
 colours, and did not commit the mixing and other necessary 
 manipulations to mechanics or to boys." t Here may be seen 
 those gvànà and finely- varied figures of the Prophets and the 
 Sybils, the style of which is pronounced by Lomazzo, an im- 
 partial judge, because an artist of a different school, " to be 
 the finest in the world." I The dignity of the aspects, the 
 solemn majesty of the eyes, a certain wild and uncommon 
 casting of the drapery, and the attitudes, whether represent- 
 ing rest or motion, announce an order of beings who hold 
 converse with the Deity, and whose mouths utter what he 
 inspires. Amid this display of genius, the figure most ad- 
 mired by Vasari is that of Isaiah, " who, absorbed in medita- 
 tion, places his right hand in a book, to denote where he had 
 been reading ; and with his left elbow on the book, and his 
 cheek resting on that hand, he turns round his head, without 
 
 * He chose the companions of those who had painted in the Sistine, 
 Jacopo di Sandro (Botticelli), Agnolo di Donnino, a great friend of Ros- 
 selli, and the elder Indaco, a pupil of Ghirlandaio, who were but feeble 
 artists. Bugiardini, Gianacci, and Aristotile di S. Gallo, of whom we 
 shall take further notice in the proper place, were there also. 
 
 •f* Varchio, in his Funeral Oration, p. 15. 
 
 % Idea del Tempio della Pittura, p. 47. Ed. Bologna. 
 
MICHELANGELO VISITED BY PAUL III. 
 
 139 
 
 moving his body, on being called by one of the children that 
 are behind him ; a figure which, if attentively studied, might 
 fully teach the precepts of a master." No less science is dis- 
 played in his pictures of the Creation of the World, of the 
 Deluge, of Judith, and in the other compartments of that 
 vast ceiling. All is varied and fanciful in the garments, the 
 foreshortenings, and the attitudes ; all is novel in the com- 
 position and the designs. He that contemplates the pictures 
 of Sandro and his associates on the walls, and then, raising 
 his eyes to the ceiling, beholds Michelangelo " soaring like 
 an eagle above them all," can hardly believe that a man, not 
 exercised in painting, in what may be considered as his first 
 essay, should so nearly approach the greatest masters of anti- 
 quity, and thus open a new career to modern artists. 
 
 In the succeeding pontificates, Michelangelo, always occu- 
 pied in sculpture and architecture, almost wholly abandoned 
 painting, till he was induced by Paul III. to resume the 
 pencil. Clement VII. had conceived the design of employing 
 him in the Sistine Chapel on two other grand historical pic- 
 tures ; the Fall of the Angels, over the gate, and the Last 
 Judgment, in the opposite facade, over the altar. Michel- 
 angelo had composed designs for the Last Judgment, and 
 Paul III. being aware of this, commanded, or rather entreated 
 him, to commence the work ; for he went to the house of 
 Michelangelo, accompanied by ten Cardinals, an honour, ex- 
 cept in this instance, unknown in the annals of the art. On 
 the suggestion of F. Sebastiano del Piombo, he was desirous 
 that the picture should be painted in oil ; but this he could 
 not procure, for Michelangelo replied, that he would not un- 
 dertake it except in fresco, and that oil painting was employ- 
 ment only fit for women, or idlers of mean capacity. He 
 caused the plaster prepared by Frate to be thrown down, 
 and substituting a rough-cast suited to his purpose, he com- 
 pleted the work in eight years, and exhibited it in 1541. If 
 in the ceiling of the chapel he could not fully satisfy himself, 
 and was unable to retouch it as he wished after it was dry, 
 in this immense painting he had an opportunity of fulfilling 
 his intentions, and of demonstrating to the full the. powers of 
 his genius. He peopled this space, and disposed innumerable 
 figures awakened by the sound of the last trumpet ; bands of 
 
140 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 angels and of devils, of elected and condemned souls : some 
 of them rising from the tomb, others standing on the earth ; 
 some flying to the regions of bliss, while others are dragged 
 down to punishment. 
 
 Bottari observes * that there have been some who affected 
 to depreciate this picture, on comparing it with the works of 
 other artists, by remarking how much he might have added 
 to the expression, to the colouring, or to the beauty of the 
 contours : but Lomazzo, Felibien,t and several others, have 
 not failed on that account to acknowledge him supreme in 
 that peculiar branch of the profession, at which he aimed in 
 all his works, and especially in this of his Last Judgment. 
 The subject itself appeared rather created than selected by 
 him. To a genius so comprehensive, and so skilled in draw- 
 ing the human figure, no subject could be better adapted than 
 the Resurrection ; to an artist who delighted in the awful, no 
 story more suitable than the day of supernal terrors. He 
 saw Raffaello pre-eminent in every other department of the 
 art : he foresaw that in this alone could he expect to be 
 triumphant ; and, perhaps, he indulged the hope also that 
 posterity would adjudge the palm to him who excelled all 
 others in the most arduous walk of art. Vasari, his con- 
 fidant, and the participator of his thoughts, seems to hint at 
 something of this sort in two passages in his Life of Michel- 
 angelo. J He informs us, " that applying himself to the 
 human figure, the great object of art, he neglected the attrac- 
 tions of colouring, all sporting of the pencil, and fantastic 
 novelty f and again, " neither landscapes, trees, nor houses, 
 are to be seen in it, and we even look in vain for some degree 
 of variety and ornament, which are never attempted, pro- 
 bably because he disdained to submit his towering genius to 
 such objects." I cannot suppose in Michelangelo such arro- 
 gance, nor such negligence of his own improvement in an art 
 which embraces every object in nature, that he would limit 
 himself to the naked figure, which is a single branch, and to 
 one only character, his own sublime and awful manner. I 
 
 * Tom. vi. p. 398. 
 
 f See Entretiens sur les Vies et sur les Ouvrages des plus exceiiens 
 Peintres, torn. i. p. 502. 
 t See pp. 245, 253. 
 
MICHELANGELO LAST JUDGMENT. 
 
 141 
 
 rather imagine, that discovering his strength in this style, he 
 did not attempt any other. There he proceeded as in his pe- 
 culiar province, and, what one cannot wholly commend, he 
 observed no limits, and wished for no control. This Last 
 Judgment was filled with such a profusion of nudity, that it 
 was in great danger of being destroyed : from a regard to 
 the decency of the sanctuary, Paul IV. proposed to white- 
 wash it, and was hardly appeased with the correction of its 
 most glaring indelicacies, by some drapery introduced here 
 and there by Daniel da Volterra, on whom the facetious 
 Romans, from this circumstance, conferred the nick-name of 
 the Breeches-maker* 
 
 Other corrections have been proposed in it by different 
 critics, both with regard to the costume and the conception. 
 The artist has been censured for confounding sacred with pro- 
 fane history ; for introducing the angels of Revelation with 
 the Stygian ferryman ; Christ sitting in judgment, and Minos, 
 who assigns his proper station to each of the damned. To 
 this profanity he added satire, by portraying in Minos the 
 features of a master of the ceremonies, who, in the hearing 
 of the pope, had pronounced this picture more suitable for a 
 bagnio than a church but Bonarruoti did not set the ex- 
 ample in such composition. Scannelli has expressed a wish 
 that there had been greater variety in the proportion, and 
 muscularity according to the diversity of age \% although, by an 
 evident anachronism, this criticism is attributed to Vinci, who 
 died in 1,519. Albani, as quoted by Malvasia,§ says, that 
 " had Michelangelo contemplated Raffaello, he might have 
 learned to dispose the crowd that surround the judgment-seat 
 of Christ in a superior manner ? but here I am uncertain 
 whether he blames the composition or the perspective. |j I 
 can discover, however, an anachronism in his imagining the 
 
 * Lett. Pitt. torn. iii. lett. 227. Rosa, Sat. iii. p. 85. 
 
 f Salvator Rosa in his third satire, p. 84, narrates the rebuke which the 
 prelate gave Michelangelo for his indecency in painting the saints them- 
 selves without garments. 
 
 + Microcosmo, p. 6. 
 
 § Tom. ii. p. 254. 
 
 li He is also blamed for this part of the perspective by others. (Seo 
 P. M. della Valle in the " Prosa recitata in Arcadia," 1784, p. 260, of 
 the Giorn. Pis. torn, liii.) 
 
142 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. — EPOCH II. 
 
 Last Judgment an earlier work than it really is by many 
 years ; as if it had been executed before Raffaello came to 
 Rome. 
 
 I find that Albani rendered justice to the merit of Michel- 
 angelo ; he reckoned not three great masters in painting only, 
 as is now commonly done, but he added a fourth, and thought 
 that Bonarruoti surpassed Raffaello, Titiano, and Correggio, 
 " in form and in grandeur/'* We may here observe, that when 
 Michelangelo was so inclined, he could obtain distinction for 
 those endowments in which the others excelled. It is a vulgar 
 error to suppose that he had no idea of grace and beauty ; the 
 Eve of the Sistine Chapel turns to thank her Maker, on her 
 creation, with an attitude so fine and lovely, that it would do 
 honour to the school of Raffaello. Annibale Caracci admired 
 this, and many other naked figures in this grand ceiling, so 
 highly, that he proposed them to himself as models in the art, 
 and, according to Bellori,f preferred them to those of the Last 
 Judgment, that appeared to him too anatomical. In chiaro- 
 scuro Michelangelo had not the skill and delicacy of Correggio ; 
 but the paintings of the Vatican have a force and relief much 
 commended by Renfesthein, an eminent connoisseur, who, on 
 passing from the Sistine Chapel to the Farnesian gallery, re- 
 marked how greatly in this respect the Caracci themselves were 
 eclipsed by Bonarruoti. Dolce speaks less favourably of his 
 colouring^ for this author was captivated by Titiano and the 
 Venetian school : no one, however, can deny that the colour- 
 ing of Michelangelo in this chapel is admirably adapted to the 
 design, § and the same, also, would have been the case with 
 his two pictures in the Pauline Chapel, the Crucifixion of S. 
 Peter and the Conversion of S. Paul, but they have sustained 
 great injury from time. 
 
 None of his paintings are to be seen in public, except in 
 those two chapels ; those described as his in collections, are 
 almost all the works of other hands. During his residence at 
 Florence he painted an exquisite Leda for Alphonso, duke of 
 Ferrara, to whom however it was not sold. Michelangelo, 
 offended at the manner in which it was demanded by one ot 
 
 * Malv. torn. ii. p. 254. t Vite de* Pittori, &c. p. 44. 
 
 J Dialogo sopra la Pittura. 
 § Idea del Tempio della Pittura, p. 41. 
 
LEDA THE HOLY FAMILY. 143 
 
 the courtiers of that prince, refused to let him have it ; but 
 made a present of it to his pupil, Antonio Mini, who carried 
 it to France. Vasari describes it as " a grand picture, painted 
 in distemper, that seemed as if breathed on the canvas and 
 Mariette affirms, in his notes on Condivi, that he saw the pic- 
 ture in a damaged state, and that it appeared as if Michelan- 
 gelo had there forgot his usual style, and " approached the 
 tone of Titiano." This expression inclines one to suspect that he 
 is describing a copy taken in oil by some able painter, espe- 
 cially as D'Argen ville informs us that this painting was burnt 
 in the reign of Louis XIII. It is said there is also one of his 
 pictures, representing the Virgin and the Divine Infant, in an 
 upright position, standing near the cradle upon a rock, a figure 
 of the size of nature, formerly in possession of the noble house 
 of Mocci (Mozzi) at Florence ; and afterwards transferred to 
 the cathedral of Burgos, where it still remains.* Michelan- 
 gelo executed likewise a circular Holy Family, with some naked 
 figures in the distance, for Agnol Doni. It is now in the tri- 
 bune of the Fiorentina gallery, ina high state of preservation. 
 It is praised by Richardson and some others for the vigour of 
 its tints, and is painted in distemper. Placed among the works 
 of the greatest masters of every school that vie with each other 
 in this theatre of art, it appears the most scientific, but the least 
 pleasing picture : its author seems the most powerful designer, 
 but the feeblest colourist among them all. In it aerial per- 
 spective is neglected, as the figures are not indistinct in pro- 
 portion to their diminution, a fault not uncommon in that age. 
 I cannot readily decide whether his style appears in certain 
 pictures that are described as his in several collections in Flo- 
 rence, Rome, and Bologna, so well as in the catalogue of the 
 imperial gallery at Vienna, and in the royal collections in 
 Spain, that represent the subjects of the Crucifixion,t the 
 
 * Conca, Descriz. Odeporica della Spagna, torn. i. p. 24. 
 
 t The ignorant believed that Michelangelo " nailed a man to a cross 
 and left him there to expire, in order to paint from the life a figure of our 
 Saviour on the cross." See Dati, in his notes of the Life of Parrhasius, 
 who is said to have committed a similar homicide. This story of the 
 latter is probably a fable, and undoubtedly it is so of Michelangelo. The 
 crucifixions of this artist are often repeated, sometimes with a single 
 figure, sometimes with our Lady and S. John ; at other times with two 
 
14* 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II 
 
 Pietà,* the Infant Jesus asleep, and the Prayer in the Garden, 
 They resemble the design of Michelangelo, but their execution 
 betrays another pencil. This is rendered probable by the 
 silence of Vasari ; their high finish seems incredible in an 
 artist, who, even in sculpture, very rarely attempted it ; and 
 our scepticism is confirmed by the opinion of Mengs, and other 
 competent judges, whom I have consulted. Some of them, in 
 which the distribution of the tints was perhaps originally made 
 under his inspection, resemble his style. These may have been 
 copied by Fiamminghi, as the tints of some of them indicate, 
 or by other Italian artists of the various schools, since they 
 differ so much in their mode of colouring. Some copies may 
 be the work of the scholars of Michelangelo, though Vasari 
 informs us they were all but feeble artists. He gives us the 
 names of those who dwelt in his house ; Pietro Urbano of 
 Pistoia, a man of genius, but very indolent ; Antonio Mini of 
 Flerence, and Ascanio Condivi da Ripatransone, both eager 
 in their profession, but of little talent, and therefore the authors 
 of no work worthy of regard. The people of Ferrara include 
 their countryman Filippi in this school, an artist unknown to 
 Vasari, but worthy of notice. Lomazzi mentions Marco da 
 Pino as one of the number. To these Palomino adds Castelli 
 of Bergamo (whose master, while he was in Rome, is not 
 noticed by any of our writers), and Gaspar Bacerra, of Anda- 
 lusia, a celebrated Spanish painter. We may likewise add 
 Alonzo Berrugese, who is reckoned by Vasari only among 
 those that studied the cartoon of Michelangelo, at Florence, 
 with Francia, and other strangers, not among his disciples. In 
 the history of Spanish painting is mentioned by all the writers 
 a Roman, of the name of Matteo Perez d'Alessio, or d' Alessi. 
 They recount that he lived many years at Seville, and pro- 
 duced works there, among which his S. Cristoforo, in the ca- 
 thedral, which cost 4,000 crowns, is the grandest. They add, 
 
 Angels, who collect the blood. Bottari mentions several of these pictures 
 in different galleries. To these we may add the picture of the Capran* 
 palace, and those in the possession of Monsignor Bonfigliuoli and of Sig. 
 Biancani in Bologna. Sig. Co. Chiappini of Piacenza has a very good 
 one, and there is another in the church of the college of Ravenna. 
 
 * A name given by the Italians to pictures of a dead Christ on the 
 Knees of his mother. 
 
SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO. 
 
 145 
 
 that Luigi Vargas, a very able disciple of Perino del Vaga, 
 having returned from Rome, Alessi was glad to leave the field 
 open to him, and to return into Italy ; where Preziado finds 
 him. Indeed he rather finds him at Rome, and at the Sistine 
 Chapel, where two histories, painted u opposite to the Last 
 Judgment of his master,'' are ascribed to him ; these, however, 
 are the production of Matteo da Leccio, who aimed at imitat- 
 ing Michelangelo and Salviati ; but he is only despised by 
 Taia, and by every one who has a grain of sense. He exe- 
 cuted this work in the time of Gregory XIII. ; and neither 
 he nor the supposititious Alessio,* an imaginary name, had 
 any connection with Michelangelo. The rest we refer to the 
 note, in order to proceed without delay to names which may 
 boast a better title to such a connection. 
 
 Other figures and historic compositions were designed by 
 Michelangelo, and painted at Rome by F. Sebastiano del 
 Piombo, an excellent colourist of the Venetian school. The 
 Pietà in the church of S. Francis of Viterbo,t the Flagella- 
 tion, and Transfiguration, with some other pieces at S. Pietro 
 in Montorio, are of this number. Two Annunciations, de- 
 
 * Bottari, in his Notes to the Letter of Preziado, doubts whether this 
 supposed scholar of Michelangelo be Galeazzo Alessi, remarking, at the 
 same time, that this last was rather an architect than a painter. I am 
 inclined to think that the Matteo in question may have been the fore- 
 going Matteo da Lecce, or da Leccio, and that, owing to one of those 
 errors, which Clerche in his a Arte Critica," calls ex auditu, his name in 
 Spain became D'Alessi, or D'Alessio, the letters c and s in many coun- 
 tries being made use of reciprocally. Besides, this Leccese, of whom we 
 write in the fourth volume, nourished in the time of Vargas, went to 
 Spain, affected the style of Michelangelo, and never settled himself in any 
 place, from his desire of seeing the world. Memoirs of him appear to 
 have been collected in Spain, by Pacheco, who lived in 1635 (Conca, iii. 
 252,, who in his account, at this distance of time, must have been guided 
 by vulgar report ; a bad authority for names, particularly those of fo- 
 reigners, as was noticed in the Preface. That he should further be called 
 Roman instead of Italian, in a foreign country, and that he should there 
 adopt the name of Perez, not having assumed any surname in Rome, can 
 scarcely appear strange to the reader, and the more so as he is described 
 as an adventurer — a species of persons who subsist upon tricks and 
 frauds. 
 
 ■f" Sebastiano painted it again for the Osservanti of Viterbo ; and there 
 is a similar one described in the Carthusian Monastery at ^aples, painted 
 in oil, and supposed to be the work of Bonarruoti. 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 signed by Bonarruoti, were coloured for altar-pieces by Mar- 
 cello Venusti of Mantua, a scholar of Perino, who adopted 
 the style of Michelangelo, without apparent affectation. The 
 one was put up in the church of S. Giovanni Laterano, the 
 other in the Delia Pace. He is said to have painted also 
 some cabinet pictures after designs of Bonarruoti ; as the 
 Limbo,* in the Colonna palace ; the Christ going to Mount 
 Calvary, and some other pieces in the Borghese ; also the 
 celebrated copy of the Last Judgment, which he painted for 
 Cardinal Farnese, that still exists in Naples. Although a 
 good designer, and the author of many pieces described by 
 Baglione, he obtained greater celebrity by clothing the inven- 
 tions of Michelangelo in exquisite beauty, especially in small 
 pictures, of which, Vasari says, he executed a great many. 
 This writer, and Orlandi following him, have erroneously 
 named him Raffaello, not Marcello. Batista Franco coloured 
 the Rape of Ganymede, after a design of Bonarruoti, which 
 was also done by the artist who painted the small picture 
 which D'Argenville describes in France ; and another on a 
 larger scale, to be seen at Rome in the possession of the 
 Colonna family : it was also painted in oil by Giulio Clovio. 
 Pontormo employed himself in a similar manner at Florence, 
 on the design of Venus and Cupid ; and on the cartoon of 
 Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen, a work re-executed by 
 him for Città di Castello, Bonarruoti having said, that none 
 could perform it better. Francesco Salviati painted another 
 of his designs, and Bugiardini executed some figures designed 
 by him. Such is the information transmitted to us by Vasari ; 
 and he would have been justly reprehensible if he had written 
 with such minuteness on tha drawings of Michelangelo, and 
 of those employed to finish them, and had neglected to in- 
 form us as to those pieces which Michelangelo himself exe- 
 cuted. Hence it is not easy to avoid scepticism on the 
 genuineness of the Annunciation, the Flagellation, or any 
 other oil-painting ascribed to Bonarruoti by Bottari, D'Argen- 
 ville, or the describers of collections. We have noticed his 
 aversion to this method of painting. We are informed that 
 
 * Limbo, among theologians of the Pvoman Church, is the place where 
 the souls of just men, who died before the coming of our Saviour, and of 
 unbaptized children, are suppcsed to reside. 
 
FRANCESCO GRANACCI. 
 
 147 
 
 he employed others in this branch ; and we know that after 
 his death artists availed themselves of his designs ; as Sabba- 
 tini did in a Pietà for the sacristy of the church of S. Peter, 
 a work copied by some other artist for the Madonna de* 
 Monti, and others made known to us by Baglione. Can we 
 then hesitate as to the originality of any picture, if we give 
 credit to the oil-paintings of Michelangelo ? The portraits 
 of Bonarruoti ascribed to his own hand, are also, in my opi- 
 nion, supposititious. Vasari knew of no likeness of him ex- 
 cept the figure casi in bronze by Ricciarelli, and two por- 
 traits, the one painted by Bugiardini, the other by Jacopo del 
 Conte. From these are derived the very old and well-known 
 portraits, preserved in the ducal gallery, in the collection of 
 the Capitol, in the Caprara palace at Bologna, and that in the 
 possession of Cardinal Zelada at Rome. 
 
 Franco, Marco da Siena, Tibaldi, and other foreign artists, 
 who have imitated Michelangelo, shall be noticed under their 
 respective schools. The Florentine school abounded in them, 
 and these we shall consider all together in the succeeding 
 epoch. I shall here only notice two, who lived on intimate 
 habits with him, who executed works under his own eye, and 
 for a long time received directions from his own lips ; cir- 
 cumstances which cannot be said of Vasari, of Salviati, nor 
 of any other able artist of his school. One of these was 
 Francesco Granacci of Florence, characterized by Vasari as 
 an excellent artist, who derived much of his merit from his 
 early intimacy with Michelangelo. He was the fellow-stu- 
 dent of the latter, under Domenico Ghirlandaio, and also in 
 the garden of Lorenzo ; and from his precepts, and by study- 
 ing his cartoon, he enlarged his own manner, and approached 
 near the modern style. After the death of his master, he re- 
 mained with the brothers of that artist, to complete some of 
 the works of the deceased, and was employed in painting 
 some Holy Families, and cabinet pictures, in distemper, which 
 might easily pass under another name, as they resemble the 
 best productions of that school. In his new style he never 
 entirely abandoned the simplicity of the old manner; but 
 there is a specimen in the church of S. Jacopo without-the- 
 walls, more studied in design, and more determined in the 
 colouring. In this picture S. Zan obi and S. Francis appear 
 
 l2 
 
148 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPCCH II. 
 
 near our Lady under a lofty canopy ; a subject then familiar 
 in every school. His style seems more matured in an As- 
 sumption which was in S. Pier Maggiore, a church now sup- 
 pressed : here he inserted, between two other figures, a 8. 
 Thomas, wholly in the manner of Michelangelo. Few other 
 considerable paintings can be ascribed to this artist, who was 
 left in easy circumstances by his father, and painted rather 
 as a commendable amusement than from necessity. 
 
 Ricciarelli, usually known in history by the name of 
 Daniele di Volterra, enjoys a greater name, and is generally 
 described as the most successful follower of Michelangelo. 
 Educated in Siena, according to report, by Peruzzi and Razzi, 
 he became the assistant of Perino del Vaga, and acquired an 
 astonishing talent for imitating Bonarruoti, who greatly 
 esteemed him, appointed him his substitute in the labours of 
 the Vatican, and brought him into notice, assisting and en- 
 riching him with designs. It is known that Michelangelo 
 was often with Daniele when he painted in the Farnese 
 palace, and it is said that Bonarruoti, during his absence, 
 mounted the scaffold, and sketched with charcoal a colossal 
 head that is still seen there. Volterra let it remain, that 
 posterity might judge of the powers of Bonarruoti, who, with- 
 out premeditation and in mere jest, had finished a work in such 
 proportion and so perfect. Nor did Daniele execute, without 
 the assistance of Michelangelo, the wonderful Descent from 
 the Cross in the Trinità de* Monti, which, together with the 
 Transfiguration by Raffaello, and the S. Girolamo of Dome- 
 nichino, may be reckoned among the finest paintings in Rome.* 
 We seem to behold the mournful spectacle, and the Redeemer 
 sinking with the natural relaxation of a dead body in descend- 
 ing ; the pious men engaged in various offices, and thrown in 
 different and contrasted attitudes, appear assiduously occu- 
 pied with the sacred remains which they seem to venerate ; 
 the mother of Jesus having fainted between the sorrowing 
 women, the beloved disciple extends his arms and bends oyer 
 her. There is a truth in the naked figures that seems perfect 
 nature ; a colouring in the faces and the whole piece that suits 
 
 * This noble fresco was ruined during the revolutionary tumults at 
 Rome.- -Tr. 
 
BACCIO DELLA PORTA. 
 
 149 
 
 the subject, and is more determined than delicate ; a relief, a 
 harmony, and, in a word, a skill that might do honour to the 
 hand of Michelangelo himself, had the picture been inscribed 
 with his name. To this the artist, I believe, alluded when he 
 painted Bonarruoti with a mirror near it ; as if in this pic- 
 ture he might behold a reflection of himself. Volterra painted 
 some other Crucifixions in the Orsini Chapel, where he was 
 employed for seven years ; but inferior to that described 
 above. He employed his pupils in another chapel of that 
 church (Michele Alberti, according to the Guidfc to Rome, 
 and Gio. Paolo Rossetti), and supplied them with designs ; 
 one of which he himself executed in a picture, with figures 
 of a moderate size. The subject is the Murder of the Inno- 
 cents, and it is now deposited in the Tribune of the Royal 
 Gallery of Florence ; an honour that speaks more for it than 
 my eulogy. The Grand Duke Leopold purchased it at a 
 high price from a church in Volterra, where there is now no 
 other public specimen of this master. The Ricciarelli family 
 possess a fine Elijah, as an inheritance and memorial of this 
 great man ; and a beautiful fresco remains in a study in the 
 house of the Dottor Mazzoni, relating to which we may refer 
 the reader to the excellent historiographer of Volterra (torn, 
 i. p. 177). 
 
 There was a youth of Florence, named Baccio della Porta, 
 because his study was near a gate of that city. Having be- 
 come a Dominican, he obtained that of Fra Bartolommeo di 
 S. Marco, from the convent where he resided, or, more shortly, 
 that of Frate. Whilst he studied under Rosselli, he became 
 enamoured of the grand chiaroscuro of Vinci, and emulated 
 him assiduously. We read that his friend Albertinelli studied 
 modelling, and copied ancient basso-relievos, from a desire of 
 obtaining correctness in his shadows ; and we may conjecture 
 the same of Baccio, although Vasari is silent on this head. 
 The Prince has a Nativity and Circumcision of Christ in his 
 early manner; most graceful little pictures, resembling minia- 
 tures. About this period he also painted his own portrait in 
 the lay habit, a full-length figure, most skilfully inclosed in a 
 small space, and now in the splendid collection of the Signori 
 Montecatini at Lucca. He entered the cloister in 1500, ai 
 the age of 31, and for four years never handled the pencil. 
 
150 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL, EPOCH II. 
 
 The execution of Savonarola, whom he knew and respected, 
 preyed upon his mind; and, like Botticelli and Credi, he gave 
 up the art. When he resumed it, he seems to have advanced in 
 improvement, during the last thirteen or fourteen years of his 
 life; so that his earlier productions, though very beautiful, are 
 inferior to his last. His improvement was accelerated by Raf- 
 faello, who came to Florence to pursue his studies in 1504, con- 
 tracted a friendship for him, and was at the same time his scholar 
 in colouring, and his master in perspective.* Having gone to 
 Rome some* years after, to see the works of Bonarruoti and 
 Raffaello, he greatly elevated his style ; but his manner was 
 at all times more conformable to that of his friend than of his 
 fellow-citizen, uniting dignity with grace in his heads and in 
 his general design. The picture in the Pitti palace, which 
 Pietro da Cortona imagined to be the work of Raffaello, is a 
 proof of this, though Frate painted it before he went to Rome. 
 In that place he appeared with diminished lustre, says the 
 historian, in the presence of those two great luminaries of the 
 art, and speedily returned to Florence ; a circumstance which 
 also happened to Andrea del Sarto, to Rosso, and to other 
 truly eminent masters, whose modesty was equal to the confi- 
 dence of innumerable artists of mediocrity, who frequently 
 enjoyed at Rome much ill-placed patronage. Frate left there 
 two figures of the Chief Apostles, that are preserved in the 
 Quirinal palace ; the S. Peter, which was not finished, had its 
 last touches from the hand of Raffaello. One of his pictures 
 is also in the Vatican palace, where it was deposited by Pius 
 VI., with many other choice paintings. A Holy Family exists 
 in the Corsini collection by the same hand, and is perhaps his 
 finest and most graceful performance. 
 
 His most finished productions are in Tuscany, which boasts 
 various altar-pieces, all of them very valuable. Their compo- 
 sition is in the usual style of the age, which may be observed 
 in the production of every school, not excepting Raffaello, and 
 
 * That Raffaello was at this time well versed in perspective it is 
 unreasonable to doubt, as Bottari has done : he proceeded from the 
 school of Perugino, who was very eminent in that science ; and he left a 
 good specimen at Siena, where he remained some time before he came to 
 Florence. 
 
BACCIO DELLA PORTA. 
 
 151 
 
 which continued in the Florentine until the time of Pontormo, 
 viz. a Madonna seated, with an infant Jesus, and accompanied 
 by saints. But in this hackneyed subject, Prate distinguished 
 himself by grand architecture, by magnificent flights of steps, 
 and by the skilful grouping of his saints and cherubim. He 
 introduces them, one while seated in concert, another poised on 
 their wings to minister to their king and queen; of whom some 
 support the drapery, others have charge of the pavilion, a rich 
 and happily conceived ornament, which he readily connected 
 with such thrones, even in cabinet pictures. He departed 
 from this mode of composition in a picture that he left at S. 
 Romano of Lucca, called Madonna della Misericordia, who 
 sits in an attitude full of grace, amid a crowd of devotees, 
 shielding them with her mantle from the wrath of heaven. 
 His rivals occasioned the production of two more altar-pieces : 
 according to the example of other eminent men, he answered 
 their sneers by his classic performances ; a retort the most gall- 
 ing to the invidious. They had stigmatized him as unequal to 
 large proportions ; and he filled a large piece with a single 
 figure of S. Mark, which is admired as a prodigy of art in the 
 ducal gallery, and is described by a learned foreigner as a 
 Grecian statue transformed into a picture. He was accused 
 of being 'gnorant of the anatomy of the human figure ; and to 
 refute this calumny he introduced a naked S. Sebastian in ano 
 ther picture, which was so perfect in drawing and in colouring, 
 that "it received the unbounded applause of artists;" but be- 
 coming too much the admiration of the female devotees of that 
 church, it was removed by the fathers into a private room, and 
 afterwards sold, and sent into France. 
 
 To sum up all, he knew how to excel in every department of 
 painting. His design is most chaste, and his youthful faces are 
 more full and fleshy than was usual with Raffaello; and accord- 
 ing to Algarotti, they are little elevated above the standard of 
 ordinary men, and somewhat vulgar. His tints at one period 
 abounded with shadows produced by lamp-black or ivory- 
 black, which impairs the value of some of his pictures ; but he 
 gradually acquired a better manner, and, as we have related, 
 was able to instruct Raffaello. In firmness and clearness he 
 yields not to the best of the school of Lombardy. He was the 
 inventor of a new method of casting draperies ; having taught 
 
152 
 
 FLORENTINE SCKOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 the use of the wooden figure, with moveable joints, that serves 
 admirably for the study of the folds of drapery. None of 
 his school painted them more varied and natural, with more 
 breadth, or better adapted to the limbs. His works are to be 
 seen in several private collections in Florence ; but they are 
 rare beyond the precincts of that city : they are there eagerly 
 sought after by foreigners, but are very rarely to be sold. One 
 of his Madonnas was procured within these few years by his 
 excellency the major domo of the ducal household, whose 
 collection may be reckoned another Florentine gallery in mi- 
 niature, consisting of about thirty pictures of the best masters 
 of different schools. The Fathers of S. Mark have a consider- 
 able number of his paintings in their private chapel, and among 
 these is a S. Vincenzo, said by Bottari to resemble a work of 
 Titiano or Giorgione. His best and rarest performances are in 
 the possession of the Prince, in whose collection the last work 
 of Fra Bartolommeo remains, a large picture in chiaroscuro, 
 representing the patron saints of the city surrounding the 
 Virgin Mary. The gonfalonier Soderini intended this piece 
 for the hall of the Council of State ; but it was only a design 
 at the death of its author, in 1517, like the projected works 
 of Vinci and Bonarruoti. It would seem as if some fatality 
 attended the decoration of this building, which ought to have 
 employed the pencil of the greatest native artists. Among 
 this number Frate must be included; and Richardson remarks, 
 that had he possessed the happy combinations of Raffaello, he, 
 perhaps, would not have been second to that master/* The last- 
 mentioned production, though imperfect, is looked upon as a 
 model in the art. The method of this artist was first to draw 
 the figure naked, then to drape it, and to form a chiaroscuro, 
 sometimes in oils, that marked the distribution of the light and 
 shadow, which constituted his great study, and the soul of his 
 pictures. This large picture demonstrates such preparatives ; 
 and it has as high a value in painting, as the antique plaster 
 models have in sculpture, in which Winckelmann discovers the 
 stamp of genius and compass of design better than in sculp- 
 tured marbles. 
 
 Mariotto Albertinelli, the fellow-student and friend of Bac- 
 
 * Vol. iii. p. 126. 
 
MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI. 
 
 153 
 
 ciò, the sharer of his labours and his concerns, emulated his first 
 style, and approaches to his secondili some of his works; but 
 they may be compared to two streams springing from the same 
 source ; the one to become a brook, the other a mighty river. 
 Some pictures in Florence are supposed to be their joint per- 
 formances ; and the Marquis Acciainoli possesses a picture of 
 the Assumption, in the upper part of which are the Apostles, 
 by Baccio, and the lower is deemed the work of Mariotto. 
 He is somewhat dry in several of his pictures, as in the S. 
 Silvestro, in Monte Cavallo at Rome ; where he also painted 
 a S. Domenico, and a S. Catharine of Siena, near the throne 
 of the Virgin Mary. He should likewise be known at Flo- 
 rence. He executed two pictures for the church of S. Giuli- 
 ano, remarkable for the force of colouring, and imitations of 
 the style of Frate. The best and nearest to his model is the 
 Visitation, transferred from the Congregazione de' Preti to the 
 ducal gallery, and even to its most honoured place, the Tri- 
 bune. Albertinelli obtained great credit by his two pupils, 
 Franciabigio and Innocenzio da Imola, of whom I shall speak 
 in the proper place as ornaments of their school. I find Vi- 
 sino praised beyond them both : he painted but little in Flo- 
 rence, and that in private ; but he was much employed in 
 Hungary. 
 
 Benedetto Cianfanmi, Gabriele Rustici, and Cecchin del 
 Frate, who inherited his masters name, were the scholars of 
 Fra Bartolommeo in his best time ; but they are no longer 
 known by any undoubted works. Fra Paolo da Pistoia, his 
 colleague, honoured in his own country with a medal, which I 
 have seen, with those of many eminent men of Pistoia, in the 
 possession of the Sign. Dottor Visoni, obtained the richest in- 
 heritance in the studies of Baccio ; and from his designs this 
 artist painted many pictures at Pistoia, one of which may be 
 seen in the parochial church of S. Paul, over the great altar. 
 Those designs were afterwards carried to Florence, and in the 
 time of Vasari there was a collection of them at the Dominican 
 convent of S. Catharine, in the hands of Sister Plautella Nelli. 
 The noble family of this lady possesses a Crucifixion painted 
 by her, in which there is a multitude of small figures highly 
 finished. She seems on the whole a good imitation of Frate ; 
 but she also followed other styles, as may be seen in her con- 
 
154 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IT. 
 
 vent. A Descent from the Cross is there shewn, said to be 
 the design of Andrea del Sarto, but the execution is by her ; 
 and likewise an Epiphany, in which the landscape would do 
 honour to the modern, but the figures savour of the old 
 school. 
 
 Andrea Vannucchi, called Andrea del Sarto, from the occu- 
 pation of his father, is commended by Vasari as the first artist 
 of this school, " for being the most faultless painter of the Flo- 
 rentines, for perfectly understanding the principles of chiaro- 
 scuro, representing the indistinctness of objects in shadow, and 
 for painting with a sweetness truly natural : he taught how to 
 give a perfect union to frescos, and in a great measure obviated 
 the necessity of retouching them when dry, a circumstance 
 which gives all his works the appearance of having been 
 finished in one day." He is censured by Bald inucci, as barren 
 in invention ; and undoubtedly he wanted that elevation of 
 conception, which constitutes the epic in painting as well as in 
 poetry. Deficient in this talent, Andrea is said to have Veen 
 modest, elegant, and endued with sensibility ; and it appears 
 that he impressed this character on nature wherever he em- 
 ployed his pencil. The portico of the Nunziata, transformed 
 by him into a gallery of inestimable value, is the fittest place 
 to judge of this. Chaste outlines that procured him the sur- 
 name of Andrea the Faultless; conceptions of graceful counte- 
 nances, whose smiles remind us of the simplicity and grace of 
 Correggio;* appropriate architecture ; draperies adapted to 
 every condition, and cast with ease ; popular expressions of 
 curiosity, of astonishment, of confidence, of compassion, and of 
 joy, never transgressing the bounds of decorum, and understood 
 at first sight, gently affect the mind without agitating it, 
 charms that are more readily felt than expressed. He who 
 feels what Tibullus is in poetry, may conceive what Andrea 
 is in painting. 
 
 This artist demonstrates the ascendancy of native genius 
 over precept. When a boy he was put under the tuition of 
 Giovanni Barile, a good carver in wood, employed on the 
 
 * This is conspicuous in a S. Raffaello with Tobias, which was trans- 
 ferred from the royal gallery of Florence to the imperial gallery of Vienna. 
 — See Rosa Scuola Italiana, p. 141. 
 
ANDREA VANNUCCHI. 
 
 155 
 
 ceilings and doors of the Vatican, after the designs of Raffa- 
 ello, but a painter of no celebrity. While still a youth, he 
 was consigned to Pier di Cosimo, a practical colourist, by no 
 means skilled in drawing or in composition ; hence the taste 
 of Andrea in these arts was formed on the cartoons of Vinci 
 diià Bonarruoti ; and, as many circumstances indicate, on the 
 frescos of Masaccio and of Ghirlandaio, in which the subjects 
 were more suited to his mild disposition. He went to Rome, 
 I know not in what year, but that he was there, appears not, 
 as in the case of Correggio, to admit of dispute. I do not argue 
 this from his style approaching near to that of Raffaello, as it 
 appeared also to Lomazzo and other writers, though with less 
 of ideal beauty. Raffaello and Andrea had studied the same 
 originals at Florence ; and nature might have given them cor- 
 responding ideas for the selection of the beautiful. I ground 
 my opinion entirely on Vasari. He informs us that Andrea was 
 at Rome, that seeing the works of the scholars of Raffaello, timi- 
 dity induced him to despair of equalling them, and to return 
 to Florence. If we credit other stories of the pusillanimity of 
 Andrea, why should we reject this? or what faith shall we 
 give to Vasari, if erroneous in a circumstance relating to one 
 who was his master, and which was written in Florence soon 
 after the death of Andrea, while his scholars, his friends, and 
 even his wife, were still living, an assertion, too, uncontra- 
 dicted in the second edition, in which Vasari retracted so 
 much. 
 
 His progress from one perfection in art to another was thus 
 not sudden, as has happened to some artists, but was gra- 
 dually acquired during many years at Florence. There, " by 
 reflecting on what he had seen, he attained such eminence that 
 his works have been esteemed, and admired, and even more 
 imitated after his death, than in his lifetime :" so says the 
 historian. This implies that he improved at Rome ; chiefly 
 by his own geniujs, which led him from one step to another, as 
 may be observed in the Compagnia dello Scalzo, and in the 
 convent of the Servi, where his pictures, executed at different 
 periods, are to be seen. At the Scalzo, he painted some 
 stories from the life of S. John in chiaroscuro, the cartoons for 
 which are in the Rinuccini palace: in this work we may notice 
 some palpable imitations, and even some figures borrowed from 
 
156 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 Albert Durer. We may trace his early style in the Baptism 
 of Christ ; his subsequent progress in other pictures, as in the 
 Visitation, painted some years after ; and his greatest excel- 
 lence and broadest manner in others, especially in the Birth of 
 the Baptist. In like manner, the pictures from the life of S. 
 Filippo Benizi, in the lesser cloister of the Servi, are very 
 beautiful productions, though among the first efforts of Andrea's 
 genius. The Epiphany of our Saviour, and the Birth of the 
 Virgin, in the same place, are more finished works ; but his 
 finest piece is that Holy Family in Repose, which is usually 
 called Madonna del Sacco, from the sack of grain on which S. 
 Joseph leans, than which few pictures are more celebrated. It 
 has frequently been engraved ; but after two centuries and a 
 half, it has at length employed an engraver worthy of it in 
 Morghen, who recently executed it, and a similar composition 
 after Raffaello. Both prints are in the best collections ; and 
 to those who have not seen Rome or Florence, Andrea appears 
 rather a rival than an inferior to the prince of painters. On 
 examining this picture narrowly, it affords endless scope for 
 observation : it is finished as if intended for a cabinet ; every 
 hair is distinguished, every middle tint lowered with consum- 
 mate art, each outline marked with admirable variety and 
 grace ; and amid all this diligence a facility is conspicuous, 
 that makes the whole appear natural and unconstrained. 
 
 In the ducal palace at Poggio a Caiano, there is a fresco 
 picture of Csesar, seated in a hall, ornamented with statues, 
 on a lofty seat, to whom a great variety of exotic birds and 
 wild animals are presented as the tribute of his victories ; 
 a work sufficient to mark Andrea as a painter eminent in 
 perspective, in a knowledge of the antique, and in every ex- 
 cellence. The order for ornamenting that palace came from 
 Leo X. ; and Andrea, who had to contend with Franciabigio 
 and Pontormo, exerted all his energy to please that encourager 
 of art, and to surpass his competitors. The other artists seem 
 to have been discouraged, and did not proceed : some years 
 after Alessandro Allori put a finishing hand to the hall. The 
 royal palace possesses a treasure in the oil-pictures of Andrea. 
 Independent of the S. Francis, the Assumption, and other 
 pictures, collected by the family of the Medici, the Grand 
 Duke Leopold purchased a very fine Pietà from the nuns of 
 
ANDREA VANNUCCHI. 
 
 157 
 
 Lugo, and placed it in the Tribune as an honour to the school. 
 The introduction of S. Peter and S. Paul in that piece, con- 
 trary to historical facts, is not the error of the painter who 
 represented them so admirably, but of those who commissioned 
 the picture. Critics have remarked a slight defect in the dead 
 Christ, which they think sustains itself more, and has a greater 
 fulness of the veins, than is suitable to a dead body : but this 
 is immaterial in a picture the other parts of which are designed, 
 coloured, and composed, so as to excite astonishment. A Last 
 Supper, if it were not confined to the cloisters of the monastery 
 of S. Salvi, would, perhaps, be equally admired. The soldiers 
 who besieged Florence in 1529, and destroyed the suburbs of 
 the city, undoubtedly admired it : after demolishing the belfry, 
 the church, and part of the monastery, they were astonished 
 on beholding this Last Supper, and had not resolution to 
 destroy it ; imitating that Demetrius who, at the siege of 
 Rhodes respected nothing but a picture by Protegenes.* 
 
 Andrea painted a great deal ; and on this account is well 
 known beyond the limits of his own country. Perhaps his 
 best performance in the hands of strangers is a picture trans- 
 lated to a palace in Genoa from the church of the Dominicans 
 of Sarzana, who possess others, very beautiful. It is composed 
 in the manner of F. Bartolommeo ; and besides the Saints 
 distributed around the Virgin, or on the steps, four of whom 
 are standing and two on their knees, there are two large 
 figures in the foreground that seem to start from the lower 
 part of the picture, and are seen as high as the knee. This 
 disposition of the figures displeases the critics, yet gives 
 variety in the position of so many figures, and introduces 
 a great distance between the nearest and most remote, by 
 which the space seems augmented, and every figure produces 
 effect. The best collections are not deficient in his Holy 
 Families. The Marquis Rinuccini, at Florence, possesses 
 two ; and some of the illustrious Romans have even a greater 
 number ; but all different, except that the features of the 
 Virgin, which Andrea usually copied from his wife, have 
 always some resemblance. Others may be seen in Rome and 
 in Florence, and not a few in Lombardy, besides those noticed 
 in the catalogues of foreign nations. 
 
 * Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xxxv. cap. 10. 
 
158 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 So much genius merited success ; and to write a Look on 
 the misfortunes of painters, as has already been done on those 
 of authors, would awaken compassion for the lot of Andrea- 
 The poverty of Correggio is exaggerated, or perhaps untrue ; 
 the misery of Domenichino had a termination ; the Caracci 
 were ill rewarded, but lived in easy circumstances. Andrea, 
 from his marriage with Lucrezia del Fede until his death, was 
 almost always pressed with griefs. In his first edition, Yasari 
 says, that he was despised by his friends, and abandoned by 
 his employers, from the time of his marriage with this woman ; 
 that, the slave of her will, he left his father and mother to 
 starve ; that through her arrogance and violence none of the 
 scholars of Andrea could continue long with him ; and this 
 must have happened to Yasari himself. In the second edition 
 he omitted this censure, either because he repented of it, or 
 was appeased ; but did not conceal that she was a perpetual 
 source of misfortune to her husband. He there repeated that 
 Andrea was invited to the French court by Francis I., where, 
 caressed and rewarded, he might have excited the envy of 
 every artist ; but influenced by the womanish complaints of 
 Lucrezia, he returned to Florence, and remained in his own 
 country, in violation of his faith solemnly pledged to that 
 monarch. He afterwards repented and was anxious to regain 
 his former situation ; but his efforts were ineffectual. He 
 dragged out a miserable existence, amid jealousy and domestic 
 wretchedness, until, infected with the plague, and abandoned 
 by his wife and every other individual, he died, in 1530, in 
 the forty-second year of his age, and had a very mean 
 funeral. 
 
 The two who approximated most nearly to the style of 
 Andrea were Marco Antonio Francia Bigi, as he is named by 
 Baldinucci, called also Francia-bigio, or Francia, as Yasari 
 denominates him, and Pontormo. Francia was the scholar of 
 Albèrtinelli, and then appears to have formed himself on the 
 best models of the school ; and few are commended so highly 
 by Yasari for a knowledge of anatomy, for perspective, for 
 the daily habit of drawing the naked figure, and the exquisite 
 finish of all his performances. One of his Annunciations was 
 formerly in S. Pier Maggiore ; the figures were small and 
 highly 'finished, accompanied by good architecture, but not 
 
FRANCIA AND PONTORMO. 159 
 
 without a degree of dryness. Andrea, his friend, and the 
 associate of his studies, helped him to a more elevated style. 
 From a companion Francia became his enthusiastic follower ; 
 but, inferior in talents, he never attained the art of represent- 
 ing such sweetness of disposition, affection so true, and grace 
 so natural. A semicircular piece of his, representing the Mar- 
 riage of the Virgin, may be seen near the works of Andrea, 
 in the cloister of the Nunziata, where we recognise him as 
 a painter who sought to attain by labour what the other 
 accomplished by genius. This work was never completed. 
 Some of the monks having uncovered it before it was finished, 
 the artist was so offended that he struck the work some blows 
 with a hammer ; and though they prevented his defacing it, 
 he never after could be prevailed on to complete it, and no 
 other dared to undertake the task. He was a competitor with 
 Andrea also in the Scalzo, where he executed two histories 
 that are not much eclipsed by the pictures in their vicinity. 
 He imitated his friend likewise at Poggio a Calano, in a pic- 
 ture of the return of Cicero from exile ; a work of merit, 
 though never finished. It is the great glory of his pencil, 
 that it was so often employed in contending with Andrea, in 
 whom it awakened emulation and industry, from the fear of 
 being surpassed. 
 
 Jacopo Carrucci, called Pontormo, from the place of his 
 nativity, was a man of rare genius, whose early productions 
 obtained the admiration of Raffaello and Michelangelo. He 
 got a few lessons from Vinci, and was afterwards under the 
 care of Albertineili, and Pier di Cosimo, but finally became 
 the pupil of Andrea. He excited the jealousy of this master, 
 was induced by unhandsome treatment to withdraw from his 
 school, and afterwards became not only the imitator of Andrea, 
 but his rival. The Visitation in the cloister of the Servi, the 
 picture of several saints at S. Michelino, the two pictures of 
 the History of Joseph, represented in minute figures, in an 
 apartment of the ducal gallery, shew that he trod in the foot- 
 steps of his master, and that congeniality of talent led him 
 into a similar path. I use the term similar ; for he is not 
 a copyist, like those who borrow heads or whole figures, but 
 invariably retains originality. I saw one of his Holy Families 
 in the possession of the Marquis Gerbone Pucci, along with 
 
160 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 others by Baccio, by Rosso, and Andrea : the picture by Pon- 
 tonno vied with them all ; yet was sufficiently characteristic 
 
 He had a certain singularity of disposition, and readily 
 abandoned one style to try a better ; but he was often unsuc- 
 cessful ; as likewise happened to Nappi, of Milan ; to Sacchi, 
 of .Rome ; and to every other artist who has made this attempt 
 at an age too advanced for a change of manner. The Car- 
 thusian monastery at Florence has some of his works, from 
 which connoisseurs have inferred the three styles attributed to 
 him. The first is correct in design, vigorous in colouring, and 
 approaches the manner of Andrea. In the second" the draw- 
 ing is good, but the colouring somewhat languid ; and this 
 style became the model for Bronzino and the artists of the 
 succeeding epoch. The third is a close imitation of Aibert 
 Durer in the composition, in the heads and draperies ; a man- 
 ner unworthy of so promising an outset. It is difficult to find 
 specimens of Pontormo in this style, except some histories oi 
 the Passion, which he servilely copied from the prints of 
 Albert Durer, for the cloister of that monastery, where he 
 trifled away several years. We might perhaps notice a fourth 
 manner, had the Deluge and Last Judgment, on which he 
 spent eleven years at S. Lorenzo, still existed ; but this last 
 performance, with the tacit consent of every artist, was white- 
 washed. Here he attempted to imitate Michelangelo, and to 
 afford a model of the anatomical style, which at this time 
 began to be extolled at Florence : but he taught us a different 
 lesson, and only succeeded in demonstrating that an old man 
 ought not to become the votary of fashion. 
 
 Andrea pursued the custom of Raffaello and other artists 
 of that age, in conducting his works with the assistance of 
 painters experienced in his style, whether friends or scholars ; 
 a remark not useless to those who trace in his pictures the 
 labours of another pencil. It is known that he gave Pon- 
 tormo some pieces to finish, and retained one Jacone, and a 
 Domenico Puligo ; two individuals who possessed a natural 
 turn for painting, ready to try every species of imitation, and 
 more desirous of recreation than of fame. The facade of the 
 Buondelmonte palace, at S. Trinità, by the former, was highly 
 extolled. It was in chiaroscuro ; the drawing, in which he 
 excelled, was very beautiful, and the whole conducted in the 
 
NANNOCCIO AND SGUAZZELL A. 
 
 161 
 
 manner of Andrea. He aiso executed some oil-pictures at 
 Cortona, much commended by Vasari. Domenico Puligo was 
 less skilled in design than in colouring : his tints were sweet, 
 harmonious, and clear, but he aimed at covering the outline, 
 to relieve him from the necessity of perfect accuracy. By 
 this mark he is sometimes recognised in Madonnas and in 
 cabinet pictures, which having been perhaps designed by 
 Andrea, at first sight pass for the work of that master. 
 Domenico Conti was likewise intimate with Andrea, was his 
 scholar and the heir to his drawings ; and that great artist was 
 honoured with a tomb and epitaph designed by Conti, in the 
 vicinity of his own immortal works in the Nunziata. Ex- 
 cepting this circumstance, Vasari notices nothing praisewor- 
 thy in Conti, and therefore I shall take no more notice of him. 
 He gives a more favourable opinion of Pierfrancesco di 
 Jacopo di Sandro, on account of his three pictures in the 
 church of S. Spirito. He makes honourable mention of 
 two other artists, who lived long in France, viz. Nannoccio 
 and Andrea Sguazzella, who retained a similarity to the style 
 of Andrea del Sarto. It is not our present business to notice 
 those who abandoned it ; for in this work it is my wish to 
 keep sight rather of the different styles than of the masters. 
 
 The fine copies that so often pass for originals, in Florence 
 and other places, are chiefly the work of the above-men- 
 tioned artists ; nor does it seem credible that Andrea copied 
 so closely his own inventions, and reduced them from the 
 great to the small dimensions. I have seen one of his Holy 
 Families, in which S. Elizabeth appears, in ten or twelve col- 
 lections ; and other pictures in private houses. I found the 
 S. Lorenzo surrounded by other saints, at the Pitti palace, in 
 the Albani gallery ; the Visitation, in the Giustiniani palace ; 
 the Birth of our Lady, in the convent of the Servi, in pos- 
 session of Sig. Pirri, at Rome : all these are beautiful pictures, 
 all on small panels, all of the old school, and all believed the 
 work of Andrea. It seems not improbable that the best of 
 these were at least painted in his studio, and retouched by 
 him, a practice adopted by Titiano, and even by Raffaello. 
 
 Rosso, who contended in the cloisters of the Nunziata with 
 the best masters, and appears in his Assumption to have aimed 
 at a work not so much superior in beauty as in size to the 
 
 VOL. I. M. 
 
162 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 productions of other artists, is among the greatest painters of 
 his school. Endowed with a creative fancy, he disdained to 
 follow any of his countrymen or strangers. We recognise 
 much originality in his style : his heads are more spirited, his 
 head-dresses and ornaments more tasteful, his colouring more 
 lively, his distribution of light and shade broader, and his 
 pencilling more firm and free, than had been hitherto seen in 
 Florence. He appears in short to have introduced into that 
 school a peculiar spirit, that would have been unexceptionable, 
 had it not been mingled with something of extravagance. 
 Thus, in the Transfiguration at Città di Castello, instead of 
 the Apostles he introduced a band of gypsies at the bottom 
 of the picture. His picture in the Pitti palace, however, is 
 far removed from any such fault. It exhibits various saints, 
 grouped in so excellent a manner, that the chiaroscuro of one 
 figure contributes to the relief of another ; and it has such 
 beautiful contrasts of colour and of light, such energy of 
 drawing and of attitude, that it arrests attention by its ori- 
 ginality. He likewise painted for the State : an unfinished 
 Descent from the Cross may be seen in the oratory of S. Carlo, 
 in Volterra ; and another in the church of S. Chiara at Città 
 S. Sepolcro ; in the cathedral of which there are many old 
 pictures. Its great merit consists in the principal group, and 
 that twilight, or almost nocturnal tint, that gives a tone to 
 the whole, sombre, true, and worthy of any Flemish artist. 
 The works of this painter are scarce in Italy ; for he went to 
 France into the employment of Francis I. during his best 
 time, and superintended the ornamental painting and plaster 
 work then going on at Fontainebleau. Whilst engaged in 
 this work, he unhappily put an end to his existence by poi- 
 son ; and in the enlargement of the building many of his 
 works were defaced by Primaticcio, who was a rival, but not 
 a follower, as is pretended by Cellini.* Thirteen pictures, 
 dedicated to the fame and actions of Francis I., have escaped. 
 
 * " Any excellence he possessed was stolen from the admirable manner 
 of our Florentine painter, Rosso ; a man truly of wonderful genius." — 
 Cellini, in his life, as quoted by Baldinucci, torn. v. p. 72. He who 
 writes thus of the ablest pupil of Giulio Romano, either was unacquainted 
 with his works in Bologna, and in Mantua, executed before he knew Rosso, 
 or, blinded by party rage, was incapable of appreciating them. 
 
DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO. 
 
 163 
 
 and are described by Abbé Guget, in his Memoir on the 
 Royal Academy of France.* Among these is the remarkable 
 one of Ignorance Banished by that monarch ; a picture that 
 has been three different times engraved. He was assisted in 
 those works by several artists, amongst whom were three 
 Florentine painters, Domenico del Barbieri, Bartolommeo 
 Miniati, and Luca Penni, the brother of that Gianfrancesco, 
 called II Fattore in the school of Raffaello. 
 
 Ridolfo di Domenico Ghirlandaio lost his father in his in- 
 fancy ; but was so well initiated in the art, first by his 
 paternal uncle Davide, and afterwards by Frate, that when 
 Raffaello d' Urbino came to Florence, he became his admirer 
 and his friend. On his departure from that city he left with 
 him a Madonna, intended for Siena, that it might be com- 
 pleted by him ; and having soon after gone to Rome, he 
 invited him to assist in the decorations of the Vatican. Ri- 
 dolfo declined this, unfortunately for his own name, which 
 might thus have rivalled that of Giulio Romano. He un- 
 doubtedly possessed a facility, elegance, and vivacity of 
 manner, to enable him to follow closely the style of his 
 friend. That he was ambitious of imitating him, may be in- 
 ferred from the pictures in his early manner, preserved in the 
 church of S. Jacopo di Ripoli, and in S. Girolamo, that bear 
 some resemblance to the manner of Perugino, like the early 
 productions of Raffaello. His taste is displayed to more ad- 
 vantage in two pictures, filled with many moderate-sized 
 figures, which were transferred from the Academy of Design 
 to the Royal Gallery. They represent two stories of S. 
 Zenobi, and perhaps approach nearer to the two pictures by 
 Pinturicchio, in the cathedral of Siena, that were painted 
 under the direction, and partly by the assistance of Raffaello, 
 than to any other model ; with this exception, that they re- 
 tain more traces of the old school. We may remark, in the 
 pictures of Ridolfo, some figures strikingly like those of 
 Raffaello ; and in the whole there appears a composition, an 
 expression, and skill in improving nature to the standard of 
 ideal beauty, apparently proceeding from principles conform- 
 able to the maxims of that great master. That he did not 
 
 * Page 81. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 afterwards perfect them, is to be attributed to his not having 
 seen the best productions of his friend, and to his study of 
 the art having been retarded by his commercial pursuits. 
 
 On modernizing his manner, and by this means obtaining 
 reputation, he aimed at nothing further ; and continued to 
 study painting rather as an amusement than as a profession. 
 He assembled round him artists of every description, and 
 disdained not to impart advice to painters of ensigns, of fur- 
 niture, or of scenes ; still less to those who executed pictures 
 for cabinets or churches. Many such who flourished about 
 the middle of the sixteenth century, are mentioned in history 
 either as his pupils or his companions. The following is a 
 brief catalogue of them. Michele di Ridolfo assumed his 
 name ; because, on passing from the schools of Credi and 
 Sogliani into that of Ridolfo, he was treated not so much as 
 a companion as a son, till the death of Ghirlandaio. They 
 painted many pictures conjointly, which always pass under 
 their name ; and of this number is the S. Anne of Città di 
 Castello; an exquisite picture, both for elegance of design 
 and a peculiar fulness of colouring. Michele was particularly 
 eminent in this department, which he diligently studied in 
 his own works, and employed in his fresco pictures over 
 several of the gates of the city ; and he was selected by 
 Vasari as the companion of his labours. Mariano da Pescia 
 must have been much esteemed by Ridolfo ; for when this 
 master painted the frescos in the state chapel of the Old 
 Palace, a work which gained him high honour, he wished the 
 smaller pieces to be painted by Mariano. There is a Holy 
 Family in that place, in a firm but agreeable style : it is the 
 only remaining production of this artist, who died young. 
 He was of the Gratiadei family ; a piece of information for 
 which, with various others, I am indebted to the politeness of 
 his fellow-citizen Sig. Innocenzio Ansaldi, an able writer, 
 both in poetry and prose, in whatever relates to the art. 
 Carlo Portelli da Loro in Yaldarno, proceeded from the same 
 school. He painted much in the City, and sometimes with 
 little harmony ; yet the testimony of Vasari, and the picture 
 of S. Romulus, which remains at the Santa, demonstrate his 
 ability. Of Antonio del Cerajuolo, little remains to com- 
 memorate the painter but the name. Mirabello da Salincorno, 
 
THE GROTESQUE STYLE. 
 
 165 
 
 who was employed on the funeral obsequies of Bonarruoti, 
 devoted himself to cabinet pictures ; and an Annunciation, 
 with his name, and the date of 1565, is said to be in the 
 hands of the Baldo vinetti family. It would be tiresome to 
 follow Vasari, who, in several passages of his history, men- 
 tions artists now sunk into oblivion, that might have found a 
 place here. I close the list with two illustrious names, Perino 
 del Yaga, already noticed, but afterwards to be more fre- 
 quently mentioned ; and Toto del Nunziata, reckoned by the 
 English the best of the Italian artists, who in that century 
 visited their island, though almost unknown among us.* 
 He was the son of an obscure artist, but obtained celebrity ; 
 and Perino himself had not a more formidable rival in the 
 school of Ridolfo. 
 
 This glorious epoch was not deficient in good landscape 
 painters ; although the art of landscape painting without 
 figures was not yet in great repute. Vasari highly praises 
 in this line one Antonio di Donnino Mazzieri, a scholar of 
 Franciabigio, a bold designer, and a man of great invention 
 in representing horses, and in landscape. 
 
 The grotesque came into fashion through the efforts of 
 Morto da Feltro and Giovanni da Udine. Both artists were 
 settled at Florence, and there painted ; especially the second, 
 who decorated the palace of the Medicean family, and the 
 chapel in the church of S. Lorenzo. Andrea, called di Co- 
 simo, because he was the scholar of Rosselli, learnt this art 
 from Morto,f and he obtained the surname of Feitriiii, or 
 
 * About the time when Michele taught, there resided in Spain one 
 Tommaso Fiorentino ; one of whose portraits is mentioned by the Sig. 
 Ab. Conca (torn. i. p. 90), belonging to the royal palace at Madrid. 
 In the ducal palace of Alva, there are also galleries of grotesques, where 
 we read the name of Tommaso Fiorentino, the author, to which is added 
 (torn. ii. p. 362), " The name of this professor of the art is quite new to 
 me ; in his grotesques we meet with the exact style of the sons of Ber- 
 gamasco, &c." I hardly know how the name can appear new to the 
 Ab. Conca, when he had already mentioned it elsewhere ; nor how th.fl 
 composition of an artist, who painted in 1521, could resemble that 
 of others who were still young in the year 1570, in which their father 
 died. 
 
 f Vasari, in his Life of Morto, says, that he came to Florence in order 
 to improve his skill in figures, in which he was deficient, by studying the 
 models of Vinci and of Michelangelo. In despair, however, he returned 
 
166 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 perhaps Feltrino, from his best-known master. He exercised 
 the invention not only on walls but on furniture, on banners 
 and festive decorations : abounding in fancy, he was the 
 leader of a taste originating with him, and much imitated in 
 Florence. His ornaments were more copious and rich than 
 those of the ancients ; were united in a different manner, and 
 his figures were admirably adapted to them. Mariotto and 
 Raffaello Mettidoro were his associates ; but no artist was 
 more employed than he in designing foliage for brocades on 
 cloth, or in ornamental painting. Pier di Cosimo, and 
 Bachiacca, or Bachicca, were very eminent in the grotesque ; 
 of whom, with others who began the study about the end of 
 the first Epoch, I have already treated, among the old mas- 
 ters : but none of them modernized more than the latter, who 
 was usually employed on small subjects, particularly on the 
 furniture of private houses, and on small pictures, many of 
 which were sent to England. About the time of his decease 
 be was employed by the Duke Cosmo. He drew most ele- 
 gant small historical designs for tapestry and beds, which 
 were executed by his brother Antonio, an embroiderer whom 
 Varchi commends ; and by Gio Rossi, and Niccolo Fiam- 
 minghi, who introduced the art of tapestry weaving into 
 Florence.* His best work was a cabinet, which he orna- 
 mented divinely, says Yasari, with flowers and birds in oil- 
 colours. 
 
 Perspective was not cultivated in Italy during the fifteenth 
 century, except so far as subservient to historical painting, 
 and in this department the Venetian and Lombard masters 
 
 to his grotesques. Now I shall elsewhere produce an unedited document, 
 shewing his ability in figure-painting, which I should not have occasion 
 to do if the beautiful portrait of Morto, in the Royal Gallery at Florence, 
 was, as is conjectured, by his hand. But I am inclined to think that it 
 is the likeness of an unknown person, who, as I have seen in other por- 
 traits, caused himself to be drawn with a finger pointing to a death's head, 
 in order to remind him of his mortality, but in this picture the head has 
 been capriciously interpreted as a symbol of the name of Morto, and the 
 painting given as the portrait and work of the Feltrese ; of whom Vasari 
 gives a very different one. 
 
 * They wrought from the designs of Pontormo, and still more those of 
 Bronzino. They also wrought for the duke of Ferrara after the designs 
 of Giulio Romano, published by Gio. Battista Mantuano, among his 
 prints. 
 
LEO X. VISITS FLORENCE. 
 
 167 
 
 were no less eminent than those of Florence or of Rome. After 
 this period, artists began to represent arches, colonnades, por- 
 ticos, and every other kind of architecture, in pictures appro- 
 priated to such subjects, to the great ornament of the theatres, 
 and of religious and convivial festivities. One of the fir/St who 
 devoted himself to this study was Bastiano di San gallo, the 
 nephew of Giuliano, and of Antonio, and the brother of another 
 Antonio, all of whom were eminent in architecture. He got 
 the surname of Aristotile, from his disquisitions on anatomy, or 
 on perspective, accompanied by a certain philosophic authority 
 and ingenuity. He acquired the principles of his art from 
 Pietro Perugino, but he soon abandoned his school, to adopt a 
 more modern style. He exercised himself for several years in 
 painting figures ; he copied some subjects after his friends 
 Michelangelo and Raffaello; and, aided by the advice of 
 Andrea and Ridolfo, he produced not a few Madonnas and 
 other pictures of his own composition : but not possessing 
 invention in an eminent degree, he latterly dedicated his at- 
 tention wholly to perspective, in which he was initiated by 
 Bramante ; and exercised it during this epoch, when Florence 
 abounded with grand funeral obsequies and public festivities. 
 Of these, the most memorable were those instituted on the 
 election of Leo X. in 1513, and on his visit to Florence in 
 1515. He had in his train Michelangelo, Raffaello, arid 
 other professors of the art, to deliberate concerning the facade 
 of the church of S. Lorenzo, and other works which he 
 meditated. His court added pomp to every spectacle ; and 
 Florence became, as it were, a new city. Arches were erected 
 in the streets by Granacci and Rosso ; temples or new facades 
 were designed by Antonio da San Gallo, and Jacopo Sanso- 
 vino ; chiaroscuros were prepared by Andrea del Sarto ; gro- 
 tesques by Feltrino; basso-relievos, statues, and colossal 
 figures, by Sansovino above mentioned, by Rustici, and Ban- 
 dinelli ; Ghirlandaio, Pontormo, Franciabigio, and libertini, 
 adorned with exquisite taste the residence of the pontiff. I 
 say nothing of the meaner artists, although in another age 
 even these would not have been classed with the vulgar herd, 
 but have obtained distinction : I shall content myself with 
 observing that this emulation of genius, this display of the 
 fine arts, in short this auspicious period, sufficed to confer on 
 
168 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL.-*-EPOCH II. 
 
 Florence the lasting appellation of another Athens ; on Leo 
 the name of another Pericles or Augustus. 
 
 Spectacles of this sort became afterwards more common to 
 the citizens ; for the Medici, on commencing their domination 
 over a people whom they feared, affected popularity, like the 
 Roman Csesars, by promoting public hilarity. Hence, not 
 only on extraordinary occasions, such as the elevation of 
 Clement VII. to the papal chair, of Alexander, and of Cosmo 
 to the chief magistracy of their country, on the marriage of 
 the latter, on that of Giuliano and of Lorenzo de' Medici, 
 and on the arrival of Charles V. ; not only on such occa- 
 sions, but frequently at other times, they instituted tourna- 
 ments, masquerades, and representations, of which the deco- 
 rations were magnificent, such as cars, robes, and scenery. 
 In this improved state of every thing conducive to exquisite 
 embellishment, industry became excited, and the number of 
 painters and ornamental artists increased. Aristotile, to re- 
 turn to him, was always much employed ; his perspectives 
 were in great request in public places ; his scenes in the 
 theatre : the populace, unaccustomed to those ocular decep- 
 tions, were astonished ; and it seemed to them as if they 
 could ascend the steps, enter the edifices, and approach the 
 balconies and windows in the pictures. The long life of 
 Aristotile, coeval with the best epoch of painting, permitted 
 him to serve the ruling family and his country, until his old 
 age, when Salviati and Bronzino began to be preferred to 
 him. He died in 1551. 
 
 While the city of Florence acquired so much glory by the 
 genius of her artists, the other parts of the state afforded 
 materials for future history, chiefly through the assistance of 
 the Roman school. This happened more especially after 
 1527, when the sack of Rome dispersed the school of 
 Raffaello and its young branches. Giulio Romano trained 
 Benedetto Pagni at Pescia, who ought to be noticed among 
 the assistants of his master at Mantua. If we credit some 
 late writers, his native place possesses many of his works : 
 but I acquiesce in the opinion of Sig. Ansai di, in refusing to 
 admit any of them as genuine, except the facade of the habi- 
 tation of the Pagni family, now injured by time, and the pic- 
 ture of the Marriage of Cana in the Collegiate church, which 
 
SEBASTIANO VINI. 
 
 1G9 
 
 is not his best production. Pistoia is indebted to Gio. Fran- 
 cesco Penni, or perhaps to Fattore, for a respectable scholar : 
 this was Lionardo, an artist much employed in Naples and in 
 Rome, where he was named II Pistoia. I find him surnamed 
 Malatesta by some, Guelfo by others; but I suspect that his 
 true family name is to be collected from an inscription on an 
 Annunciation in the little chapel of the canons of Lucca, 
 which runs thus, Leonardus Gratta Pistoriensis. I am in- 
 debted to Sig. T. F. Bernardi above mentioned for this fact : 
 and the picture is worthy of a descendant of Raffaello. I do 
 not know that there is a single trace of Lionardo remaining 
 in his native place : at the village of Guidi, in the diocese oi 
 Pistoia, one of his pictures is to be seen in the church of S. 
 Peter, where the titular, and three other saints, stand around 
 the throne of the Virgin.* Sebastiano Vini came from Ve- 
 rona, in I know not what year of the sixteenth century, and 
 was enrolled among the citizens of Pistoia. His reputation 
 ind his pictures did honour to the country that adopted him. 
 He left many works both in oil and fresco; but his most ex- 
 traordinary production was in the suppressed church of S. 
 Desiderio. The facade over the great altar was storied with 
 the crucifixion of the ten thousand martyrs, a work abound- 
 ing in figures and invention. I have noticed the younger 
 Zacchia of Lucca, who belongs to this epoch, in the preceding 
 one, that I might not separate the father and the son. I am 
 unable to find any other artists sufficiently worthy of record 
 in this district of Tuscany. 
 
 On the opposite side of it we may turn our eyes to Cortona, 
 and notice two good artists. The one was Francesco Signor- 
 
 * A similar composition is to be seen in an altar-piece in the cathedral 
 of Volterra. It is inscribed, Opus Leonardi Pisi oriens. an. 1516. This, 
 however, ought not to be passed over, on account of an historical doubt 
 started by the Cavalier Tolomei, whether there flourished, at the same 
 period, two Lionardi da Pistoja ; thus insinuating they were of different 
 families. And this would appear to be the case. The painter of the piece 
 in Volterra was not Grazia, at Naples, probably, surnamed Guelfo ; since 
 his master Penni, if we are to believe Vasari, was in that year, 1516, 
 still the scholar and assistant of Raffaello ; nor does it seem probable 
 that he educated a pupil of so much merit. The Lionardo, there- 
 fore, who painted in Volterra, must have been some other of more pro- 
 ti cien-cy. 
 
170 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 elli, the nephew of Luca, who, though unnoticed by Vasari, 
 shews himself a painter worthy of praise, by a circular pic- 
 ture of the patron saints of the city, which was executed for 
 the council-hall, in 1320 ; after which period he lived at least 
 forty years. The other was Tommaso Paparello, or Papacello, 
 both which names are given him by Vasari, when writing of 
 his two masters, Caporali and Giulio Romano. He assisted 
 them both ; but I can discover no trace of any work wholly 
 his own. 
 
 Borgo, afterwards named Città San Sepolcro, could then 
 boast its Raffaello, commonly called Raffaellino dal Colle, 
 born at a small place a few miles from Borgo. He is reckoned 
 amoug the disciples of Raffaello ; but rather belongs to the 
 school of Giulio, whose pupil, dependant, or assistant in his 
 labours at Rome, and in the Te at Mantua, he is considered 
 by Vasari. It is singular that he did not write a separate 
 life of this artist ; but assigns him scanty praise in a few 
 scattered anecdotes. His merit is but little known to the 
 public, as he painted for the most part in his native place, or 
 the neighbouring cities ; and I am able to add to the catalogue 
 of his pictures from having seen them. He has two pictures 
 at Città San Sepolcro, his only works specified by Vasari. 
 One represents the Resurrection of our Saviour, who, full of 
 majesty, regards the soldiers around the sepulchre with an air 
 of displeasure, which fills them with terror. This very 
 spirited picture is in the church of S. Rocco, and is repeated 
 in the cathedral. The other, which is in the Osservanti of S. 
 Francis, represents the Assumption of the Virgin ; a piece 
 agreeable both in colouring and design, but its value is dimi- 
 nished by a figure I am unable to explain, drawn at one side 
 of it by another hand. The same subject is treated in the 
 church of the Conventual friars, at Città di Castello, where 
 great beauty is joined to the highest possible finish, but it 
 loses something of its effect by standing opposite to a fine 
 picture by Vasari, which throws it strongly into the shade. 
 An entombing of Christ by Raffaellino is in the Servi ; a 
 very beautiful picture, but the colouring is less firm; and 
 there is another of his works at S. Angelo with S. Michael, 
 and S. Sebastian, who humbly presents an arrow, a type 01 
 his martyrdom, to the infant Jesus and the Virgin. In this 
 the composition is simple but graceful in every part. A pic- 
 
RAFFAELLINO DAL COLLE. 
 
 171 
 
 ture of our Lady, with S. Sebastian, S. Rocco, and a canonized 
 bishop, painted in a similar style, is to be seen in the church 
 of S. Francis of Cagli ; in it the figures and the landscape 
 much resemble the manner of Raffaello. His Apostles in the 
 sacristy of the cathedral of Urbino are noble figures, draped 
 in a grand style, in small oblong pictures, firmly coloured. 
 The Olivet monks of Gubbio have in one of their chapels a 
 Nativity by RafFaellino, and two pieces from the history of 
 S. Benedict, painted in fresco, in which he was, I believe, 
 assisted by his scholars. The former is certainly superior to 
 the two last, although he has introduced in them real portraits, 
 finely conceived architecture, and added a figure of Virtue in 
 the upper part, that seems a sister of the Sybils of Raffaello. 
 He also painted, in the castle of Perugia, and in the Im - 
 'periate of Pesaro, a villa of the duke of Urbino, to whom he 
 afforded more satisfaction than the two Dossi. After having 
 assisted Raffaello and Giulio, he disdained not to paint after 
 the designs of less eminent artists. On the arrival of Charles 
 V. at Florence, in 1536, he assisted Vasari, who was one of 
 the decorators ; and he painted cartoons after the designs of 
 Bronzino, for the tapestry of Cosmo I. ; after which period I 
 do not find him mentioned. Another instance of his diffidence 
 is the following : on the arrival of Rosso at San Sepolcro, 
 Raffaellino, out of respect to that artist, gave up to him an 
 order for a picture which he was to have executed ; a rare 
 instance among painters, who are in the habit of using kindly 
 those artists only, who come merely to see a city, and imme- 
 diately leave it. He kept a school at San Sepolcro, whence 
 proceeded Gherardi, Vecchi, and other artists, some of whom, 
 perhaps, surpassed him in genius ; but they did not equal 
 him in grace, nor in high finish. 
 
 About this time many artists flourished in Arezzo, but of 
 these two only are praised by Vasari, who is not sparing in 
 his commendations of the Florentines, as I have remarked, 
 but deals them scantily to his own townsmen. Giovanni 
 Antonio, the son of Matteo Lappoli, was the scholar of Pon- 
 tormo, and the friend of Perino and of Rosso, with whom lie 
 lived in Tuscany, and whose style he emulated in Rome. 
 He was more employed in painting for private houses than 
 for churches. Guglielmo, surnamed Da Marcili a, by Vasari, 
 
172 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 a foreigner by birth, became a citizen of Arezzo from incli- 
 nation and long residence ; he was dear to the citizens, who 
 afforded him the means of enjoying life, and grateful to the 
 city, where he left most beautiful monuments of his genius. 
 He had been a Dominican in his own country ; he became a 
 secular priest on arriving in Italy ; and at Arezzo he was 
 called the Prior. He was an excellent painter on glass, and, 
 on this account, was brought to Rome by one Claude, a 
 Frenchman, to execute windows for Julius IT. : but he also 
 employed himself in fresco. He studied design in Italy, and 
 so improved in that art, that his works at Rome seem designs 
 of the fourteenth century, while the Aretine ones appear the 
 work of a modern. He painted some ceilings and arches in 
 the cathedral, with scriptural subjects in fresco. In design 
 he followed Michelangelo, as nearly as he could ; but his co- 
 louring was not firm. His paintings on glass are quite in a 
 different style ; there, to very good drawing, and uncommon 
 expression, he joined tints that partake of the emerald, the 
 ruby, and of oriental sapphire, and which, when illuminated 
 by the sun, exhibit all the brilliance of the rainbow. In 
 Arezzo, there are so many windows of this glass at the ca- 
 thedral, at S. Francis, and at many other churches, that they 
 might excite the envy of much larger citiès. They are so 
 finely wrought with subjects from the New Testament, and 
 other scriptural histories, that they seemed to have reached 
 the perfection of the art. The Vocation of S. Matthew, in 
 a window of the cathedral, is highly praised by Vasari ; it 
 exhibits " perspectives of temples and flights of steps, figures 
 so finely composed, landscapes so well executed, that one can 
 hardly imagine they were glass, but something sent down 
 from Heaven for the delight of mankind." 
 
 This place and period remind me, that before I pass on to 
 another epoch, I ought to say a few words concerning the in- 
 vention of painting on glass, which was anciently likewise 
 styled Mosaic, because it was composed of pieces of different 
 coloured glass, connected by lead, which represented the 
 shadows. We may observe glass windows that emulate well 
 composed pictures on canvas or on panel ; and this art is 
 treated of by Vasari in the thirty-second chapter of the in- 
 troduction to his work. From the preface to the treatise De 
 
PAINTING ON GLASS. 
 
 173 
 
 omni Sdentici Artis Pingendi, by Theopliilus the Monk, I find 
 that France was celebrated for this art beyond any other 
 country ;* and there the art seems to have been invariably 
 cultivated, and brought by degrees to perfection. From the 
 earliest ages of the revival of painting, the Italians wrought 
 windows with different coloured glasses, as is remarked by P. 
 Angeli in his description of the churches of Assisi, where the 
 most ancient specimens are to be seen. In the church like- 
 wise of the Franciscan friars at Venice, we find that one 
 Frater Theotonius y a German, worked in tapestry and glass 
 windows, and was imitated by Marco, a painter, who lived in 
 the year 1335.t It may also be observed, that such win- 
 dows over the altars supplied the place of sacred paintings in 
 churches ; Christian congregations, in lifting up their eyes, 
 there sought the resemblance of what " they hoped some time 
 to behold in the celestial paradise ; che ancor lassù nel ciel 
 vedere spera," and they often addressed their supplications to 
 those images. In the fifteenth century Lorenzo Ghiberti, a 
 man eminent in various arts, still further improved this, and 
 ornamented the oval windows of the facade of the church of 
 S. Francis, and of the cathedral of Florence, with coloured 
 glass. In a similar manner he finished all the oval apertures 
 in the cupola of the cathedral, except that of the Assumption, 
 executed by Donatello. The glass was manufactured at Flo- 
 rence, for which purpose one Domenico Livi, a native of 
 Gambassi, in the principality of Volterra, who had learnt and 
 practised the art at Lubec, was invited to that place, as is 
 proved by Baldinucci in his correction of Vasari. J From this 
 school apparently came Goro, and Bernardo di Francesco, with 
 that train of Ingesuati, whose workmanship, exhibited at S. 
 Lorenzo and elsewhere, has been much commended by the 
 
 * " Hie invenies quidquid diversorum colorum generibus et mixturis 
 habet Grsecia .... quidquid in fenestrarum varietate pretiosa diligit 
 Francia." 
 
 f Zanetti, Nuova Raccolta delle Monete e Zecche d'Italia (torn. iv. 
 p. 158). In this work we meet with a long Latin document, which 
 makes mention of a brother of Marco, named Faolo, also a painter ; qui 
 habet in carta designatam mortem S. Francisci, et Virginis gloriose, sicut 
 picte sunt ad modum theutonicum in pano (i. e. panno) ad locum minorum 
 in Tarvisio. 
 
 X Tom. iii. p. 25, 
 
174 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 Florentine historians. (See Moreni, part vi. p. 41.) This 
 art afterwards flourished at Arezzo, where it was introduced 
 by Parri Spinelli, a scholar of Ghiberti. About the same time 
 flourished in Perugia P. D. Francesco, a monk of Cassino, not 
 merely a painter in glass, but a master in that city ; and some 
 conjecture that Yannucci profited by his school, though a com- 
 parison of dates does not favour such supposition. This art 
 also flourished in Venice, about 1473, where one window was 
 executed after the design of Bartolommeo Vivarini, in the 
 church of S. John and S. Paul ; another was erected at Mu- 
 rano ; but the art of painting glass could not be unknown at 
 this last place, where it originated. 
 
 It is true, that in process of time the Florentine and Vene- 
 tian glass appeared to be not sufficiently transparent for such 
 purposes ; and a preference was given to that of France and 
 of England, the clearness and transparency of which was 
 better adapted for receiving the colours, without too much 
 obscuring the light. It had this other advantage, that the 
 colours were burnt in the glass, in the manner described by 
 Vasari, instead of being laid on with gums or other vehicles ; 
 hence they had greater brilliancy, and were more capable of 
 resisting the injuries of time. This was a Flemish, or rather 
 a French invention, and the Italians received it from France. 
 Bramante invited from that country the two artists above 
 mentioned who, besides the windows of the Vatican palace, 
 that were wrought with colours burnt into the glass, and de- 
 stroyed in the sack of Rome, ornamented two in the church of 
 S. Maria del Popolo, with those scriptural histories that yet 
 remain perfectly brilliant in colour, after the lapse of three 
 centuries. Soon after this Claude died at Rome. William 
 survived him many years, and from that time continued to 
 reside in Arezzo. He there was engaged in the service of the 
 capital, where one of his painted glass windows is preserved 
 in the Capponi chapel, at the church of S. Felicità ; and he 
 taught the art to Pastorino of Siena, who exercised it very 
 skilfully in the state saloon of the Vatican, after designs by 
 Vaga, and in the cathedral of Siena. This artist is reckoned 
 the best scholar of his master. Maso Porro, Michelangelo 
 Urbani, both natives of Cortona, and Batista Borro of Arezzo, 
 were trained in the same school, and were employed in Tuscany 
 
PAINTING ON CRYSTAL. 
 
 175 
 
 and elsewhere. In ornamenting the old palace, Yasari availed 
 himself of the assistance of two Flemish artists, Walter and 
 George, who wrought after his designs. Celebrated equal to 
 any artist is Yalerio Profondavalle of Louvain, who settled at 
 Milan after the middle of the sixteenth century, a man of fer- 
 tile invention, and a pleasing colourist in fresco, but chiefly 
 eminent in painting on glass, as we are informed by Lomazzo. 
 Orlandi celebrates Gerardo Ornerio Frisio, and his windows 
 executed about 1575, in the church of S. Peter at Bologna. 
 This art afterwards declined, when custom, the arbiter of arts, 
 by excluding it from palaces and churches, caused it gradually 
 to be forgotten. 
 
 Another method of painting on glass, or rather on crystal, 
 was much in fashion in the last century, and was employed 
 for ornamenting mirrors, caskets, and other furniture of the 
 chambers of the great. Maratta and his contemporaries painted 
 on crystal for such works in the same style that they employed 
 in painting on canvas ; and above all Giordano, who taught 
 it to several pupils. Among these, the best was Carlo Garo- 
 falo, who was invited to the court of Charles II. of Spain, to 
 practise this species of painting,* the era of which does not 
 embrace a great number of years. 
 
 * Bellori, Vite de' Pittori, &c. page 392. 
 
FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH III. 
 
 The Imitators of Michelangelo Bonarruoti. 
 
 After the time of the five great masters, the Florentines were 
 so rich in fine specimens of art that they had no occasion to 
 apply to foreign schools for improvement. They had only to 
 select the best specimens from the works of native artists ; 
 grandeur from Michelangelo, grace from Andrea, and spirit 
 from Rossi ; they could learn colouring and casting of drape- 
 ries from Porta, and chiaroscuro from Vinci. They appear, 
 however, to have assiduously applied to design, but to have 
 paid little attention to other branches of painting. Even 
 in that branch, they imagined that every thing was to be found 
 in Bonarruoti ; and imitated him alone. Their choice was 
 influenced by the celebrity,* the success, and long life of this 
 artist, who, having survived all his eminent fellow-citizens, 
 naturally recommended to employment the followers of his 
 maxims, and the adherents of his manner; hence it has been 
 observed by some, that Raffaello lived too short a time for the 
 progress of the fine arts, Michelangelo too long. But artists 
 ought to keep in mind the opinion, or rather prophecy of Bo- 
 narruoti — that his style would be productive of inept artists, 
 which has invariably been the character of those who have 
 imitated him without judgment. 
 
 Their study and constant practice have been to design from 
 his statues : for the cartoon on which so many eminent men 
 formed their style, had already perished ; and his paintings 
 
 * " All painters seem to worship him as their great master, prince, and 
 god of design." It is thus Monsig. Claudio Tolomei writes in a letter to 
 Apollonio Filareto, towards the end of the fifth book. Such is the opinici 
 of the artists of the Leonine uge, whatever maybe the judgment passed in 
 the age of Pius VI. 
 
MICHEL ANGELOS IMITATORS. 
 
 177 
 
 were not to be seen in Florence, but in Rome. They transferred 
 into their compositions that statue-like rigidity, that strength 
 of limb, and those markings of the origin and insertion of mus- 
 cles, severity of countenance, and positions of the hands and 
 fingers, which characterized his sublimely awful style ; but 
 without comprehending the principles of this extraordinary 
 man, without thoroughly understanding the play of the softer 
 parts of the human figure, either by inserting them in wrong 
 situations, or by representing in the same manner those in 
 action and at rest ; those of a slender stripling, and of the full- 
 grown man. Contented with what they imagined grandeur of 
 style, they neglected all the rest. In some of their pictures 
 we may observe a multitude of figures arranged one above the 
 other, with a total disregard of their relative situations ; fea- 
 tures that express no passion, and half-naked figures that do 
 nothing, except pompously exhibit, like the Entellus of Virgil, 
 magna ossa lacertosgue. Instead of the beautiful azure and 
 green formerly employed, they substituted a languid yellowish 
 hue ; the full body of colour gave place to superficial tints ; 
 and, above all, the bold relief, so much studied till the time of 
 Andrea, went wholly into disuse. 
 
 In several passages Baldinucci confesses this decline, which, 
 however, scarcely extended to two or three generations, and 
 seems to have commenced about 1540. During this unfortu- 
 nate era the Florentines did not degenerate as much as some 
 other schools. The churches are full of pictures of this era, 
 which, if they are not to be admired like those of the preceding, 
 are respectable. Whoever sees the church of S. Croce, S. Maria 
 Novella, and other places, where the best artists of this era 
 painted, will undoubtedly find more to praise than to condemn. 
 Few of them were eminent as colourists, but many in design ; 
 few were entirely free from mannerism ; many, however, by 
 progressive improvement, attained gracefulness. We shall 
 proceed to consider them, chiefly following the steps of Vin- 
 cenzio Borghini, their contemporary ; the author of 77 Reposo, 
 a dialogue worthy of perusal. We commence with Vasari, 
 who not only belongs to this epoch, but has even been charged 
 with being one of the chief authors of the decline of the art* 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 * Baldinucci, torn. ix. p. 35. 
 N 
 
178 FIORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 Giorgio Vasari, of Arezzo, descended from a family at- 
 tached to the fine arts, was the great grandson of Lazzaro, the 
 intimate friend of Pietro della Francesca, and the imitator of 
 his paintings ; the nephew of another Giorgio, who, in model- 
 ling vases in plaster, revived the forms of the antique, in their 
 basso-relievos, and their brilliant colours ; specimens of whose 
 art exist in the royal gallery at Florence. Michelangelo, 
 Andrea, and other masters, instructed him in design ; Gugli- 
 elmo da Marcilla, called the Prior, and Rosso, initiated him in 
 painting ; but he chiefly studied at Rome, whither he was 
 brought by Ippolito, Cardinal de' Medici, the person to whom 
 he owed his success. By his means Giorgio was introduced 
 to this family, that loaded him with riches and with honour. 
 After having designed all the works of his first master, and of 
 Raffaello, at Rome, and much after other schools and antique 
 marbles, he formed a style in which we recognise traces of his 
 studies ; but his predilection for Bonarruoti is apparent. 
 After acquiring skill in painting figures, he became one of the 
 most excellent architects of the age ; and united in himself 
 the various branches which were known to Perino, Giulio, 
 and their scholars, who followed the example of Raffaello. He 
 could unaided direct the construction of a grand fabric, adorn 
 it with figures, with grotesques, with landscapes, with stuccos, 
 with gilding, and whatever else was required to ornament it 
 in a princely style. By this means he began to be known in 
 Italy ; and was employed as a painter in several places, and 
 even in Rome. He was much employed in the hermitage of 
 the Camaldules, and in several monasteries of the Olivets. 
 In their monastery at Rimino he executed a picture of the 
 Magi, and various frescos for the church ; in that at Bologna 
 three pieces from sacred history, with ornaments in the refec- 
 tory ; but still more in that at Naples, where he reduced the 
 refectory to the rules of true architecture, and splendidly 
 adorned it with stuccos and pictures of every description. 
 Assisted by many young men, he spent a year in this work ; 
 and, as he himself says, was the first who gave an idea of the 
 modern style to that city. Some of his pictures are to be seen 
 in the Classe di Ravenna-, in the church of S. Peter at Perugia, 
 at Bosco, near Alessandria, in Venice, at Pisa, in Florence, 
 and at Rome, where the largest part of them are in the Vati- 
 
VASARI AS A PAINTER. 
 
 179 
 
 can, and in the hall of the Chancery. These pictures are his- 
 torical frescos of the life of Paul III., undertaken at the desire 
 of Cardinal Farnese ; with whom originated the idea of writing 
 the lives of the painters, afterwards published at Florence. 
 Brought into notice by these works, honoured by the esteem 
 and friendship of Bonarruoti, and recommended by his multi- 
 farious abilities, he was invited to the court of Cosmo I. He 
 went there with his family in 1553 ; at which time the artists 
 above alluded to were either dead or very old, and he had 
 little to fear from competitors. He superintended the mag- 
 nificent works executed by that prince; among which it 
 would be wrong not to distinguish the edifice for the public 
 offices, esteemed among the finest in Italy ; and the old palace, 
 with its several subdivisions, all painted and decorated by 
 Vasari and his pupils, for the use of government. Each 
 chamber bears the name of some distinguished member of the 
 family, and represents his exploits. This is one of his best 
 works ; and here the chamber of Clement VII. is chiefly con- 
 spicuous, on the ceiling of which he represented the Pontiff in 
 the act of crowning Charles V., and all around disposed the 
 emblems of his virtues, his victories, and most remarkable ex- 
 ploits. In this work the magnificence of the prince is rivalled 
 by the judgment and taste of the artist. The reader may find 
 notices of his other works, which are either in churches or in 
 private houses, and of his temporary decorations, by consult- 
 ing his life written by himself down to 1567, and the conti- 
 nuation of it to 1574, the year of Giorgio's decease. 
 
 It remains for us to discuss the merits of this artist, who 
 has been praised by some and condemned by other authors 
 that have treated of the fine arts, especially in Italy. I shall 
 consider him first as a painter, and next as a writer. Had 
 all his works perished but some of those in the old palace, 
 the Conception, in S. Apostolo at Florence, which Borghinl 
 commends as his finest production ; the Decollation of S. John, 
 in the church of the Baptist at Rome, which is adorned by 
 excellent perspective ; the Feast of Ahasuerus, in the posses- 
 sion of the Benedictines at Arezzo ; some of his portraits, 
 which Bottari scruples not to compare with those of Gior- 
 gione, and some of his other pictures that demonstrate his 
 ability, his reputation would have been much greater. But 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 he aimed at too much ; and for the most part preferred expe- 
 dition to accuracy. Hence, though a good designer, his figures 
 are not always correct ; and his painting often appears lan- 
 guid, from his meagre and superficial colouring.* The habit 
 of careless execution is usually the companion of some maxim 
 that may serve to excuse it to others, as well as our own self- 
 love : Vasari has recommended in his writings the acquire- 
 ment of compendious methods, f and " the expedition of prac- 
 tice in other words, to make use of former exercises and 
 studies. This method is highly advantageous to the artist, 
 because it increases his profits ; but is prejudicial to the art, 
 which thus degenerates into mannerism, i. 0., departs from 
 nature : Vasari fell into this error, especially in his hasty 
 productions, or where he borrowed the hand of others ; apo- 
 logies which he frequently offers to the readers of his 
 "Lives." He was principally induced, I believe, to offer 
 such apologies for his practice, from strictures on his paintings 
 contained in the hall of the Chancery, finished in a hundred 
 days, in order to please the cardinal : but he ought rather to 
 have excused himself to Farnese, and requested him to employ 
 some other artist, than to make his apology to posterity, and 
 entreat us to excuse his faults. He ought to have listened to 
 the admonitions of his friends ; among whom Caro did not 
 fail to remind him of the injury his reputation might sustain.j 
 As he long superintended the decorations of the capital or- 
 dered by Cosmo I. and Prince D. Francesco, and was assisted 
 in them by young men, Baldinucci affirms that he chiefly 
 contributed to that dry manner which prevailed in Flo- 
 rence^ 
 
 * He executed a picture of S. Sigismund for the church of S. Lorenzo, 
 at the desire of the noble family of Martelli, which delighted the Duke 
 Cosmo. This picture ought to be removed from the altar, for the tints 
 are fading. 
 
 t We learn from Pliny, that Filosseno Eretrio, celeritatem prseceptoris 
 (Nicomachi) secutus breviores etiamnum quasdam picturse vias, et com- 
 pendiarias invenit. (Lib. xxxv. cap. 36.) We perceive, however, from 
 the context, that his pictures were no less perfect on that account ; and I 
 believe that those compendious means were more particularly connected 
 with the mechanism of the art. 
 
 X See Lettere Pittoriche, torn. ii. let. 2. 
 
 § Bald. torn. ix. p. 35. 
 
VASARI AS A WRITER. 
 
 This opinion is probably not erroneous ; for the example of 
 a painter employed by the court was sufficient to seduce the 
 rising generation from pristine diligence to a more careless 
 manner. After all, the Florentines who assisted him were 
 chiefly the scholars of Bronzino, and, except two or three, 
 they did not adopt the style of Yasari : others also may have 
 done so for a little time. Francesco Morandini, called Poppi, 
 from his native place, was his disciple and imitator ; and in 
 his picture of the Conception, at S. Michelino, in the superior 
 one of the Visitation, at S. Nicholas, and other works, he 
 appears a follower of Giorgio ; except that he was more 
 minute, and attended more to gay and cheerful composition. 
 Giovanni Stradano Fiammingo, for ten years a dependant of 
 Yasari, adopted his colouring, but imitated the design of 
 Salviati ; with whom and also with Daniele di Volterra he 
 had lived in Rome. There is a Christ on the Cross by him, 
 at the Serviti, preferred to any other he painted at Florence, 
 where he executed designs for tapestry, and many prints. 
 He had a fertile invention ; he is praised by Vasari as highly 
 as any other artist then in the service of the court, and is 
 considered by Borghini among the eminent masters. Vasari 
 after him retained Jacopo Zucchi, whose works exhibit none 
 of the carelessness of Giorgio. He sometimes imitated him; 
 but his style is better and more refined. He lived long at 
 Rome, under the protection of Ferdinando, Cardinal de' 
 Medici, in whose house, and more especially in the Rucellai 
 palace, he painted in fresco with incredible diligence. His 
 picture of the Birth of the Baptist, in S. Giovanni Decollato, 
 is esteemed the best in that church ; and he appears more a 
 follower of Andrea, than of any other master. He usually 
 introduced portraits of distinguished characters and men of 
 letters in his compositions, and shewed a peculiar grace in the 
 figures of children and young people. Baglioni praises both 
 this artist and his brother Francesco, who was a good artist 
 in mosaic, and an excellent painter of fruit and flowers. 
 
 In considering Giorgio as a writer, I shall not consume 
 much time ; having so frequently to notice him in the course 
 of my work. He wrote precepts of art and lives of the 
 painters, as is well known ; and he added to them disserta- 
 
182 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. — EPOCH III. 
 
 tions on his own occupations,* and his pictures. t He entered 
 on this work at the instigation of Cardinal Farnese, as well 
 as of Monsig. Giovio ; and he was encouraged in it by Caro, 
 Molza, Tolomei, and other literary men belonging to that 
 court. His first intention was to collect anecdotes of artists, 
 to be extended by Giovio. They wished him to commence 
 with Cimabue ; with which, perhaps, he ought not to have 
 complied ; but this circumstance diminishes the fault oP 
 Vasari in passing over the older masters in silence, and raises 
 the glory of Cimabue far above all his contemporaries. 
 When it was discovered that Vasari could write well, J and 
 was capable of extending the anecdotes in even more appro- 
 priate language than Giovio himself, the whole task devolved 
 on him ; but in order to render the work more worthy of the 
 public, he had the assistance afforded him of men of letters. 
 In 1547, on finishing the book, he went to Rimino ; and whilst 
 employed in painting for the fraternity of Olivets, Father 
 D. Gio. Matteo Faetani, abbot of the monastery, corrected 
 his work and caused it to be wholly transcribed ; about the 
 end of that year it was sent to Caro for perusal. He signified 
 his approbation of it, " as written in a fine style, and with 
 great care ;"§ except that in some passages a less artificial 
 style was desirable. After being corrected in this respect, it 
 was printed in two volumes by Torrentino, at Florence, in 
 the year 1550 ; in this edition he received considerable aid 
 from Father D. Miniato Pitti, then an Olivetine friar. || 
 
 * See his "Description of the preparations for the marriage of the 
 Prince D. Francesco, of Tuscany.' ' It is inserted in volume xi. of the 
 ed. of Siena, which we frequently allude to. 
 
 -j- " Treatises by the Cav. Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect of 
 Arezzo, upon the designs painted by him at Florence, in the palace of 
 their Serene Highnesses, &c. ; together with the design of the painting 
 commenced by him in the cupola." It is a posthumous work, supplied 
 by his nephew Giorgio Vasari, who published it in 1588 at Florence. It 
 was republished at Arezzo in 1762, in 4to. 
 
 % He had been well imbued with literature at Arezzo, and, when a 
 youth at Florence, "he spent two hours every day along with Ippolito 
 and Alessandro de* Medici, under their master Pierio." — Vasari nella Vita 
 del Salvi ati. 
 
 § See Lett. Pittoriche, torn. iii. lett. 104. 
 
 || Bottali adduces an authentic document of this in his Preface, 
 pagé 6. 
 
VASARl's niSTORY. 
 
 180 
 
 Vasari complained that "many things were there inserted he 
 knew not how, and were altered without his knowledge or 
 consent but I cannot agree with Bottari,t that these alter- 
 ations were made by Pitti or any other monk. If Vasari 
 could not discover their author, we are much less likely ; and 
 there is some ground for believing that Vasari had offended 
 many persons by invidious anecdotes, and thus endeavoured 
 to excuse himself. Who can believe that the things cancelled 
 in the second edition, which seems almost a new work, were 
 liberties taken by other persons, " he did not know how ?" 
 and not mistakes made by himself. 
 
 In whatever way it happened, he had an opportunity of 
 correcting his Lives, of augmenting and again printing them, 
 accompanied by portraits. After publication of the first edi- 
 tion he availed himself of the manuscripts of Ghiberti, of 
 Domenico Ghirlandaio, of Raffaello d'Urbino ; and had him- 
 self collected a number of anecdotes in his different journeys 
 through Italy. He undertook a new tour in 1566, to prepare 
 for the new edition, as he informs us in the Life of Benvenuto 
 Garofolo ; he again examined the works of different masters, 
 and obtained new information from friends, some of whom he 
 mentions when treating of the artists of Forli and Verona. 
 He would have been still more full of anecdote had his success 
 corresponded with his diligence. On this account, in the be- 
 ginning and at the end of the Life of Carpaccio, he laments 
 that "he was not able to obtain every particular of many 
 artists ; * nor to possess their portraits ; and he M entreats us to 
 accept what he is able to offer, although he cannot give all he 
 might desire." He republished his Lives in 1568, and affirmed 
 in the Dedication to Cosmo I. that " as for himself he wished 
 for nothing more in them." The new edition issued from the 
 press of the Giunti ; of the additions, consisting of fine obser- 
 vations upon philosophy and Christian morality, which cannot 
 be ascribed to Giorgio, part was supplied by Borghini, and 
 still more by Father D. Silvano Razzi, a Camalduline monk, 
 as Bottari conjectures in his Preface, % but it does not follow 
 
 * In the Dedicatory Letter to Cosmo I., prefixed to second edit, 
 f See Lett. Pittor. torn. iii. let. 226. 
 
 X It is founded also on Vasari 's remark, in his Life of Frate : " There 
 is likewise a portrait by F. Gio. da Fiesole, whose life we have given, 
 
184 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 that they assisted in correcting the work. It is full of errors ; 
 sometimes in the grammatical construction, often in names, 
 and frequently in dates ; and though reprinted at Bologna, in 
 1648 ; at Rome, with the notes and corrections of Bottari, in 
 1759; in Leghorn and Florence, in 1767, with fresh notes 
 and additions by the same ; and lastly, in Siena, with those 
 of P. della Yalle ; it still remains not so much a judicious 
 selection of facts, as a mass of chronological emendations.* 
 
 This, if I am not deceived, is the objection that can be most 
 frequently, and almost continually, urged against the work. 
 The other strictures to be met with in authors are exaggera- 
 tions of writers, offended at Vasari for his silence or his criti- 
 cisms, on the artists of their country. There is nothing so 
 flattering to the vanity of an author, as defending the character 
 of his native place, and of citizens who have rendered her 
 
 which is in the part of the Beati which cannot, observes Bottari, apply 
 to any other except D. Silvano Razzi, author of the "Vite dei SS. e 
 Beati Toscani among which is found that of B. Giovanni. But this 
 indication would be little ; or at least it is not all. The document which 
 clearly reveals the fact, has been pointed out to me by the polite attention 
 of Sig. Luigi de Poirot, secretary to the royal finances ; and this is in the 
 " Vite de' SS. e BB. deir ordine de' Frati Predicatori di Serafino Razzi 
 Domenicano," published after the death of Vasari, in Florence, 1577. 
 In these, treating of works in the fine arts in S. Domenico at Bologna, 
 he adds; "We cannot give a particular account of these histories, 
 * but whoever is desirous of it may consult the whole, in the Lives 
 of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, written, for the most 
 party by D. Silvano Razzi, my brother, for the Cav. Giorgio Vasari oi 
 Arezzo, his very intimate friend." After such information, we must 
 suppose that Vasari, having communicated his materials to this monk, 
 received from him a great number of Lives, that boast such elegant pre- 
 faces and fine reflections ; but that he here and there retouched them ; 
 adding things, either from haste or inadvertency, not well connected with 
 the context. And in this way we ma/ account for the many inconsis- 
 tencies to be met with in a number of Lives, very finely written, but 
 containing passages that do not appear to come from the same pen, and 
 frequently make the author contradict himself. 
 
 * Bottari wrote principally to mark the changes that the works described 
 by Vasari had undergone during 200 years. In regard to the emen- 
 dations pointed out by us, he declares in the preface, that he could not 
 undertake them for want of time, health, books, and most of all, inclina- 
 tion. However, we are indebted for not a few to him, and also to P. 
 Guglielmo, though not equally so in every school. Both are writers of 
 merit ; the former by his citations from printed works, the second for his 
 information of MSS. and unedited authors. 
 
UNJUST ATTACKS ON VASARI. 
 
 185 
 
 illustrious. In whatever manner he writes, all his country- 
 men, who are all the world to him, think him in the right ; 
 and in the coffee-houses, in the shops of the booksellers, and 
 in all public places, they hail him as the public advocate 
 Hence we need not be surprised that such an author writes as 
 if his country had appointed him her champion, assumes a 
 spirit of hostility, and the transition is easy from a just de- 
 fence to an injurious attack. From such causes some writers 
 appear to me actuated by unbecoming enmity to Vasari. 
 Passages of the first edition, cancelled in the second, have 
 been quoted against him ; he has incurred odium for some 
 deformed portraits, as if he was accountable for the defects 
 of nature ; his most innocent expressions have been tortured 
 into a sinister meaning ; his enemies would have us believe 
 that, intending to exalt his darling Florentines, he neglected 
 the other Italian artists, as if, to do justice to these, he had 
 not travelled and sought for information often in vain. The 
 historians of other schools have used him as the commentators 
 of Yirgil treated Servius ; all abused him, and all availed 
 themselves of his labours. For if the information collected by 
 Yasari concerning the old masters of the Venetian, Bolognese, 
 and Lombard schools be taken awaj", how imperfect does their 
 history remain ? In my opinion, therefore, he deserves our 
 best thanks for what he has done, and much forbearance for 
 what he has omitted. 
 
 If his judgment appears less accurate on some artists of 
 a different school, he ought not to be taxed with malignity 
 and envy, as is well observed by Lomazzo. He has protested 
 that he has done his best to adhere to truth, or to what he 
 believed to be true,* and it is sufficient to read him without 
 prejudi«e to give him credit for such justification. He seems 
 to write as he thinks. Thus, he bestows commendations upon 
 Baldinelli and upon Zuccaro, his enemies,t as well as upon 
 his friends : he distributes censure and praise with an equal 
 hand to Tuscan and other artists. If he discovers painters of 
 little merit in other schools, he finds them also in that of 
 
 * Tom. vii. p. 249. 
 
 f Vide Taia, Descrizione del Palazzo Vaticano, p. 11. Zuccaro did not 
 so readily pardon Vasari, whose work he noted with severity : as did also 
 one of the three Caracci. — Lett. Pittor. torn. iv. lett. 210. 
 
286 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCTI III. 
 
 Florence ; if he relates the jealousies of foreign artists, he 
 does not conceal those of the Florentines, of which he speaks 
 with a playful freedom in the Life of Donatello, in his own, 
 and more especially in that of Pietro Perugino. His partial 
 criticisms, therefore, on certain artists arose less from national- 
 ity, than from other causes. It is certain that he saw but 
 littie of some masters ; his opinion of others was formed upon 
 incorrect information ; and he could not attain the same cer- 
 tainty that we now boast, on what related to a number then 
 living, who, as usual, were then more censured than admired. 
 Allowance, too, should be made for his other avocations ; hj 
 the multiplicity of which he doubtless wrote as he painted, 
 with the expedition of his mode of practice. A proof of this 
 is afforded by the repetitions that occur in successive passages, 
 and the contradictory characters he sometimes gives of the 
 same picture, pronouncing it good in one sentence, and in ano- 
 ther allowing it scarcely the praise of mediocrity. This was 
 the case in regard to Razzi, towards whom he seems to have 
 entertained ill-will ; arising, however, more from the bad re- 
 putation of the man than from prejudice against the school of 
 the artist. For the incorrectness of such censures I blame his 
 maxims of art, and the age in which he lived. He reckoned 
 Bonarruoti the greatest painter that had ever existed ;* and 
 exalted him above the ancient Greeks, t and, from his prr.ctice, 
 held a bold and vigorous design as the summit of perfection ; 
 compared to which, beauty and colouring were nothing. J 
 From such fundamental principles proceeded some of his ob- 
 noxious criticisms on Bassano, Titiano, and on Raffaello him- 
 self. But is this the effect of his malignity, or of his educa- 
 tion ? Does it not happen in philosophy as in painting, that 
 every one gives a decided preference to those of his own sect ? 
 Has not Petrarca generalized the observation, when he asks, 
 
 " Or che è questo 
 Che ognun del suo saper par che si appaghi ?" 
 
 We may, then, forgive in Vasari what appeared to this philo- 
 sophic poet human weakness ; and may observe on a few pas- 
 sages in his work what was applied to Tacitus ; that we con* 
 
 * Tom. viii. P . 203. f P. 217. 
 
 J Tom. viii. p. 123. 
 
VASARI DEFENDED. 
 
 187 
 
 demn his principles, but admire his history. Such, I believe, 
 was the opinion of Lomazzo, who, though not wholly satisfied 
 with the opinions of Vasari, not only excused but defended 
 him ;* and in this he acted properly. 
 
 Vasari is, moreover, the father of the history of painting, 
 and has transmitted to us its most precious materials. Edu- 
 cated in the most auspicious era of the art, he has in some 
 measure perpetuated the influence of the golden age. In pe- 
 rusing his Lives, I fancy myself listening to the individuals 
 of whom he has collected the traditions and the precepts. 
 It was thus, think I, that Raffaello and Andrea imparted 
 these facts to their scholars ; thus spoke Bonarruoti ; the 
 friends of Giorgio heard this from Vinci and Porta, and in 
 this manner must have related it to him. I am delighted 
 with the facts, and also with the luminous, simple, and 
 natural manner in which they are expressed, interwoven with 
 technical terms that originated in Florence, worthy of every 
 writer whose subject is the fine arts. Finally, should I dis- 
 cover in him any prejudice of education, or arising from self- 
 love, it seems unjust on account of such a fault, to forget his 
 many services, and to declare hostilities for such blemishes. 
 
 Another service Vasari conferred on the fine arts remains 
 to be noticed, and that is the establishment of the Academy 
 of Design in Florence, about the year 1561, principally 
 through his exertions. The society of S. Luke there existed 
 from the fourteenth century, but it had fallen into decay, and 
 was almost extinct, when F. Gio. Angiolo Mon torsoli Servita, 
 a celebrated statuary, conceived the design of reviving it. 
 He communicated his idea to Giorgio, who so effectually re- 
 commended it to Cosmo I., that it arose with new vigour, 
 and became at the same time a charitable institution and an 
 academy of the fine arts. The prince wished to be considered 
 its head, and D. Vincenzio Borghini was appointed his repre- 
 sentative in transacting his ordinary business, which situation 
 was afterwards filled by Cav. Gaddi, by Baccio Valori, and 
 
 * " Although I do not deny, that he shews himself a little too much 
 the partisan, he ought not to be defrauded of his due praise, as is 
 attempted by the ignorant and invidious ; for the completion of such an 
 elegant and finished history must have cost him great study and research." 
 — Idea del Tempio, &c. cap. iv. 
 
188 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 successively by some of the most accomplished gentlemen of 
 the city ; an arrangement maintained by the sovereigns down 
 to the present day. The chapter-house of the Nunziata, 
 " decorated with the sculpture and pictures of the best mas- 
 ters " of the age, was granted to this college of artists for a 
 hall, as we are informed by Valori.* Another place was as- 
 signed for their meetings, and they have frequently expe- 
 rienced the liberality of succeeding princes. Their rules were 
 drawn up by the restorers of this institution, of whom Vasari 
 was one. He wrote concerning it to Michelangelo, f and as- 
 serted that every member of this academy " was indebted to 
 him for what he knew and indeed in all its branches it 
 partakes strongly of his style. A similar doctrine already 
 prevailed at Florence ; but it would have been better that 
 every one followed the master whom his genius pointed out. 
 In the choice of a style Nature ought to direct, not to follow ; 
 every one should make his election according to his talents. 
 It is true that the error of the Florentines is common to other 
 nations ; and has given rise to an opinion, that academies 
 have had a baneful influence on the arts since they have 
 only tended to constrain all to follow the same path ; and 
 hence Italy is found fruitful in adherents to systems, but bar- 
 ren in true painters. To me the institution of academies has 
 always appeared highly useful, when conducted on the plan 
 of that of the Caracci. 
 
 The contemporaries of Vasari were Salviati and Jacopo 
 del Conte, both of whom lived also with Andrea del Sarto, 
 and Bronzino, the scholar of Pontormo. Like Giorgio, their 
 genius led them to an imitation of Michelangelo. Francesco 
 de* Rossi, called Salviati, from the surname of his patron, was 
 the fellow-student of Vasari, under Andrea del Sarto and Bac- 
 cio Bandinelli. The last was an excellent sculptor, who taught 
 design to students in painting, an art which, like Verrocchio, 
 he sometimes practised for amusement. While at Rome, 
 Salviati, contracting friendship with Giorgio, pursued the 
 same studies, and adopted the same fundamental principles of 
 the art. He finally became a painter more correct, more ele- 
 
 * Lett. Pittor. torn i. p. 190. 
 + Lett. Pittor. torn. in. p. 51. 
 
 X Such too is the opinion of the celebrated Bacon, Lor* Verulam. — A. 
 
FRANCESCO DE ROSSI. 
 
 189 
 
 vated, and more spirited than his companion, and Vasari 
 classes him among the best artists then in Rome. There he 
 was employed in the palace of his patron, in the Farnese and 
 Riccio palaces, in the Chancery, in the church of S. Gio. 
 Decollato, and other places, where he filled extensive walls 
 with historical frescos, an employment which was his chief 
 delight. His invention was fertile, his compositions varied, 
 his architecture grand ; he is one of the few who have united 
 celerity of execution with scientific besign, in which he was 
 deeply versed, although occasionally somewhat extravagant. 
 His best production now in Florence is the Battle and Triumph 
 of Furius Camillus, in the saloon of the old palace, a woik 
 full of spirit, that appears from the representations of armour, 
 draperies, and Roman customs, conducted by an able anti- 
 quary. There is also in the church of Santa Croce, a 
 Descent from the Cross ; to him a familiar subject, which he 
 repeated at the Panfili palace at Rome, and in the Corpus 
 Domini at Venice ; and it may be seen in some private col- 
 lections, in which his Holy Families and portraits are not 
 rare. The octagonal picture of Psyche, in possession of the 
 Grimani family, is highly celebrated, and Giorgio pronounces 
 it the " finest picture in all Venice." His remark would 
 have been less invidious had he said it was the most scientific 
 in design ; but who can concede to him that it appeared a 
 paragon in that city ? The features of Psyche have nothing 
 uncommon ; and the whole, though well composed, arid 
 adorned with beautiful landscape, and an elegant little tem- 
 ple, cannot be compared to the charming compositions of 
 Titiano, or of Paolo Veronese, in which we sometimes behold, 
 as Dante would express it, " the whole creation smile." The 
 design of Salviati was better than his colouring ; and on this 
 account he did not meet with success at Venice; on his going 
 to France he was but little employed, and is now less sought 
 after and esteemed than Titiano or Paolo. In ornamental 
 arts, such as poetry and painting, mankind are more easily 
 contented with a mediocrity in knowledge, than with medio- 
 crity in the art of pleasing. It was correctly observed by 
 Salvator Rosa, when requested to give his opinion upon the 
 relative merits of design and colouring, that he had been able 
 to meet with many Santi di Tito in the shops of the suburbs, 
 
190 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 at a very low price, but that he had never seen there a single 
 specimen of Bassano. Salviati was the best artist of this 
 epoch, and if he was little employed at Florence, it arose 
 partly from the envy of malevolent persons, partly from his 
 own turbulent, restless, and haughty demeanour. He trained 
 up, however, some artists who belong to this school. Fran- 
 cesco del Prato, an eminent goldsmith, and an excellent artist 
 in the inlaying of metals, when advanced in life imbibed the 
 love of painting from Salviati, and became his pupil. Having 
 a good idea of design, he was soon able to execute cabinet 
 pictures; two of which, the Plague of Serpents and the 
 Limbo, are pronounced most beautiful by Vasari. It is pro- 
 bable that some of the minor pictures ascribed to Salviati 
 mav be the work of this artist, who is as little named as if 
 he "had never existed. Bernardo Buontalenti, a man of uni- 
 versal genius, was instructed in miniature painting by Clovio, 
 and had Salviati, Vasari, and Bronzino for his masters in the 
 other branches of painting. He was so successful that his 
 works were in request by Francis I., by the emperor, and 
 the king of Spain. His portrait is in the royal gallery, be- 
 sides which little in Florence can be ascribed to him with 
 certainty, for he dedicated his time chiefly to architecture and 
 to hydrostatics. Ruviale Spagnuolo, Domenico Romano, and 
 Porta della Garfagnana, belong to the school of Salviati. 
 We shall notice the last among the Venetians, among whom 
 he lived. In the treatise of Lomazzo, Romolo Fiorentino is 
 assigned to the same school ; the individual conjectured by 
 P. Orlandi to be the Romolo Cincinnato, a Florentine painter, 
 employed by Philip II. of Spain. He is honourably men- 
 tioned by Palomino, with his sons and pupils, Diego and 
 Francesco, both eminent artists favoured by Philip IV. and 
 Pope Urban VIII. 
 
 Jacopino del Conte, noticed in the Abeeedario Pittorico^ 
 under the name of Jacopo del Conte, and considered not as 
 the same individual, but as two distinct artists, was little em- 
 ployed in Florence, but in great request in Rome. He was 
 eminent as a portrait-painter to all the popes and the prin- 
 cipal nobility of Rome, from the time of Paul III. to that of 
 Clement VIII., in whose pontificate he died. His ability in 
 composition may be discovered in the frescos in S. Gio. De- 
 
ANGIOLO BRONZIN). 1 91 
 
 mollato, and especially in the picture of the Deposition, a 
 work which is reckoned among his finest productions. There 
 the competition of his most distinguished countrymen stimu- 
 lated his exertions. He was an imitator of Michelangelo, 
 but in a manner so free, and a colouring so different, that it 
 seems the production of another school. Scipione Gaetano, 
 whom we shall consider in the third book of our history, was 
 his scholar. Of Domenico Beceri, a respectable pupil of 
 Puligo, and others of little note, I have nothing to add. 
 
 Angiolo Bronzino, another friend of Yasari, nearly of the 
 same age, was enumerated among the more eminent artists, 
 from the grace of his countenances, and the agreeableness of 
 his compositions. He is likewise esteemed as a poet. His 
 poems were printed along with those of Berni ; and some 
 letters on painting are preserved in the collection of Bottari.* 
 Although the scholar and follower of Pontormo, he also re- 
 calls Michelangelo to our recollection. His frescos in the old 
 palace <ue praised, adorning a chapel, on the walls of which 
 he repiesented the Fall of Manna, and the Scourge of the 
 Serpents, histories full of power and spirit, although the 
 paintings on the ceiling do not correspond with them. Some 
 of hito altar-pieces are in the churches of Florence, several 
 feebly executed, with figures of angels, whose beauty appears 
 too soft and effeminate. There are many, on the other hand, 
 extremely beautiful, such as his Pietà at S. Maria Nuova, 
 and his Limbo at Santa Croce, in an altar belonging to the 
 noble family of Riccasoli. This picture is better suited for 
 an academy of design, from the naked figure, than for a 
 church ; but the painter was too much attached to Michel- 
 
 * He examines the question, then keenly contested, whether Sculpture 
 or Painting was the most noble art. He decides in favour of his own 
 profession ; and there are some other letters in that volume on the oppo- 
 site side of the question worthy of perusal. Bonarruoti, on being asked 
 the question by Varchi, was unwilling to give a decision. (See torn. i. 
 p. 7, and p. 22.) After Bonarruoti's decease the contest was renewed, 
 and prose and verse compositions appeared on both sides. Lasca wrote 
 in favour of painting, while Cellini defended sculpture. (See Notes to 
 the Rime of Lasca, p. 314.) Lomazzo is well worthy of notice in hia 
 Treatise, lib. ii. p. 158, in which he gives a MS. of Lionardo, drawn up 
 at the request of Lodovico Sforza, where he prefers painting to the sister 
 art. 
 
192 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 angelo to avoid imitating him even in this error. This pic- 
 ture has been lately very well repaired. Many of his por- 
 traits are in Italian collections, and praiseworthy for their 
 truth and spirit ; but their character is frequently diminished 
 by the colour of the flesh, which sometimes partakes of a 
 leaden hue, at other times appears of a dead white, on which 
 the red appears like rouge. But a yellowish tint is the pre- 
 dominant colour in his pictures, and his greatest fault is a 
 want of relief. 
 
 The succeeding artists, chiefly Florentines, are named by 
 Vasari in the Obsequies of Bonarruoti, in the memoirs of the 
 academicians, written about the year 1567, and in several 
 other places. Their works are scattered over the city, and 
 many of them are in the cloister of S. Maria Novella. If 
 these semicircular pictures had not been retouched and al tered, 
 this place would be, with regard to this epoch, what the 
 cloister of the Olivetines in Bologna is to that of the Caracci ; 
 an era, indeed, more auspicious for the art, but not more inte- 
 resting in an historical point of view. Another collection, of 
 which I have spoken in my description of the tenth cabinet of 
 the royal gallery, is better preserved, and indeed is quite per- 
 fect. It now occupies another apartment. It consists of 
 thirty-four fabulous and historical pictures, painted on the 
 panels of a writing-desk for Prince Francesco, * by various 
 artists of this epoch. Vasari, to whom the work was in- 
 trusted, there represented. Andromeda delivered by Perseus, 
 and procured the assistance of the academicians, who thus 
 emulated each other, and strove to recommend themselves to 
 the court. Most of them have put their names to their work ;t 
 and, if defects common to that age, or peculiar to the indi- 
 vidual, are here and there visible in the work, it demonstrates 
 that the light of painting was not yet extinguished in Florence. 
 Nevertheless, I advise him who examines this collection, J to 
 
 * For an account of this writing-desk, which was made during the life 
 of Cosmo I., see Baldinucci, torn. x. pp. 154 and 182. 
 
 + We there may read Allori, Titi, Buti, Naldini, Cosci, Macchietti, 
 Minga, Butteri, Sciorini, Sanfriano, Fei, Betti, Casini, Coppi, and Cava- 
 lori ; besides Vasari, Stradano, and Poppi, already noticed. 
 
 X It was afterwards placed in the grand corridor of the gallery, where, 
 are seen the series of Tuscan painters, from the revival of the art. These 
 productions are nearly all well authenticated by history ; the most 
 
IMITATORS OF ANGELO. 
 
 193 
 
 suspend his judgment on the merits of those artists until he 
 has considered their other productions in their own country or 
 at Rome, where some of them have a place in the choicest 
 collections. They may be divided into several schools : we 
 shall begin with that of Angelo. 
 
 Alessandro Allori, the nephew and pupil of Bronzino, whose 
 surname he sometimes inscribed on his pictures, is reckoned 
 inferior to his uncle. Wholly intent upon anatomy, of which 
 he gave fine examples in the Tribune of the Servi, and on 
 which he composed a treatise for the use of painters, he did 
 not sufficiently attend to the other branches of the art. Some 
 of his pictures in Rome, representing horses, are beautiful ; 
 and his Sacrifice of Isaac, in the royal museum, is coloured 
 almost in the Flemish style. His power of expression is 
 manifested by the picture of the Woman taken in Adultery, 
 in the church of the Holy Spirit. He was expert in portrait- 
 painting, but abused this talent by introducing portraits in 
 the modern costume in ancient histories. His genius appears 
 * to have been equal to every branch of painting ; but it was 
 unequally exercised, and consequently unequally expanded. 
 He painted much for foreigners, and enjoyed the esteem of the 
 ducal family, who employed him to finish the pictures at 
 Poggio a Caiano, begun by Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, 
 and Pontormo. Opposite to these pictures he painted, from 
 his own invention, the Gardens of the Hesperides, the Feast 
 of Syphax, and Titus Flaminius dissuading the Etolians from 
 the Achaean League ; all which historical subjects, as well as 
 those of Caesar and Cicero, were chosen as symbols of similar 
 events in the lives of Cosmo and Lorenzo de' Medici. Such 
 was the manner of thinking in that age, and moderns, per- 
 sonified in ancient heroes, obtained a less direct, but higher 
 honour from the art. Giovanni Bizzelli, a disciple of Ales- 
 valuable are preserved in small cabinets. This is one of the most novel 
 attractions, presented by the " Museo Reale," to the curious, for there 
 we see the principles, the progresses, the various changes of a pictoric 
 school, that may be termed the mother, or at all events, the nurse, of all 
 other schools. For this series, so admirably arranged and exhibited, we 
 are indebted to the Cav. Puccini of Pistoja, the present director of the 
 gallery, upon which his talents and acquirements have thrown additional 
 lustre. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 O 
 
194 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III 
 
 sandro, of middling talents, painted in S. Gio. Decollato, at 
 Rome, and in some Florentine churches. Cristofano, a son 
 of Alessandro, also became eminent. 
 
 Santi Titi, of Città San Sepolcro, a scholar of Bronzino and 
 Cellini, studied long at Rome, whence he returned, with a 
 style full of science and of grace. His beautiful is without 
 much of the ideal ; but his countenances exhibit a certain 
 fulness, an appearance of freshness and health, that is sur- 
 passed by none of those who took nature for their model. 
 Design was his characteristic excellence, and for this he was 
 commended by his imitator, Salvator Rosa. In expression he 
 has few superiors in other schools, and none in his own. His 
 ornaments are judicious; and having practised architecture 
 with applause, he introduced perspectives, that gave a dignity 
 and charm to his compositions. He is esteemed the best 
 painter of this epoch, and belongs to it rather from the time 
 in which he lived than his style ; if we except his colouring, 
 which was too feeble, and without relief. Borghini, at once 
 his critic and apologist, remarks that even in this department 
 he was not deficient, when he chose to exert himself ; and he 
 seems to have studied it in the Feast of Emmaus, in the 
 church of the Holy Cross at Florence, in the Resurrection of 
 Lazarus, in the cathedral of Volterra, and in a picture àt Città 
 di Castello, in which he represents the faithful receiving the 
 Holy Spirit from the hands of the Apostles : a painting that 
 may be viewed with pleasure, even after the three by Raffaello 
 which adorn that city. 
 
 Among his numerous pupils in design we may reckon his 
 son Tiberio ; but this artist attended less to the pursuits of 
 his father than to painting small portraits in vermilion, in 
 which he had singular merit : these were readily received 
 into the collection formed by Cardinal Leopold, which now 
 forms a smgle cabinet in the royal museum. Two other 
 Florentines are worthy of notice, viz. Agostino Ciampelli, 
 who flourished in Rome under Clement VIII. ; and Lodovico 
 Buti, who remained at Florence. They resemble twins by 
 the similarity between them; less scientific, less inventive, 
 and less able in composition, than Titi, they possessed fine 
 ideas, were correct in design, and cheerful in their colouring, 
 beyond the usage of the Florentine school ; but they were 
 
IMITATORS OF SANTI. 
 
 fomewhat crude, and at times profuse in the use of red tints 
 not sufficiently harmonized. Frescos by the first may be seen 
 in the Sacristy at Rome, and the chapel of S. Andrea al 
 Gesù, and an oil-painting of the Crucifixion at S. Prassede, 
 in his best manner. A Visitation, with its two companions, 
 at S. Stephen of Pescia, may be reckoned among his choicest 
 works ; to which the vicinity of Tiarini does little injury. 
 The second may be recognised by a picture of the Miracle of 
 the Loaves and Fishes, abounding in figures, which is in the 
 royal gallery. Baccio Ciarpi, a pupil of the same school, is 
 celebrated as the master of Berrettini, and deserves to be 
 commended for his diligence and correctness. He was thought 
 worthy of being employed at La Concezione at Rome, a most 
 splendid gallery, painted by the greatest artists. A portrait 
 of one Andrea Boscoli, his pupil and imitator, remains in the 
 royal museum of Florence, and many of his paintings with 
 horses are dispersed through the city. He travelled into 
 different parts, leaving specimens of his art in different coun- 
 tries, at S. Ginesio, at Fabriano, and in the district of Piceno. 
 His largest work is a S. John the Baptist, at the Teresiani of 
 Rimino, a picture that shews invention, but it was unknown 
 to Baldinucci, who compiled anecdotes of this artist. Con- 
 stantino de' Servi is conjectured by Baldinucci to be a scholar 
 of Ti ti. He is well known to have been originally his imi- 
 tator, and having gone into Germany, there adopted the style 
 of Purbus. In foreign countries he seems to have painted 
 few portraits, a brandi in which he had greater merit than 
 employment. His celebrity was greater as a master architect 
 and engraver of gems. In closing the account of the school 
 of Santi, it may be proper to observe, that his example re- 
 claimed a great proportion of the succeeding generation, and 
 inclined artists to mitigate the severity of the style of Michel- 
 angelo, by introducing more grace in the contours, and a better 
 taste in the heads. 
 
 Batista Naldini holds the third rank among the scholars of 
 Bronzino. He was first the pupil of Pontormo, afterwards 
 of Bronzino, and having resided some time at Rome, he 
 was chosen by Vasari as the companion of his labours in 
 the old palace, and retained by him about fourteen years. 
 The historian makes honourable mention of Naldini, even 
 
 o 2 
 
196 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 when a young man, and denominates him a painter skilful 
 and vigorous, expeditious and indefatigable. Naldini obtained 
 similar praise in Rome from Baglione, especially for the 
 chapel of St. John the Baptist, at Trintà de' Monti, which he 
 painted with the history of the saint. He painted many 
 pictures in his native city, some of which, as the Taking down 
 from the Cross, and the Purification at S. Maria Novella, are 
 commended by Borghini, for the colouring and the design, for 
 the disposition, the perspective, and the attitudes. The defects 
 observable are, that the knees are rather too much swollen, 
 the eyes too open, and marked with a certain fierceness, by 
 which he may be generally recognised ; his colouring is also 
 characteristic, and those changeable hues in which he delighted 
 more than any other artist of his age. 
 
 He taught according to the method then pursued, which 
 was to employ his scholars in designing after the chalk 
 drawings of Michelangelo, and to give them his own finished 
 pictures to copy ; for, like bees, artists were exceedingly 
 anxious to work in secret, and ready to wound all who over- 
 looked them. Baldinucci has recorded several instances of 
 this peculiarity. From these circumstances the fault of the 
 scholars of Naldini was stiffness, the common failing of that 
 age ; they had little of that free touch and taste in colouring 
 which he possessed, but yet they deserve to be recorded. 
 Giovanni Balducci, called also Cosci, from the surname of his 
 maternal uncle, was long his assistant. His Last Supper in 
 the cathedral, the Finding of the Cross at the Crocetta, his 
 historical compositions in the cloister of the Dominicans at 
 Florence, and in S, Prassede at Rome, prove his genius to 
 have been more refined than that of his master. To second 
 the latter, he, perhaps went beyond his province, and to 
 some, his attitudes at times appear affected. He resided and 
 died at Naples, and he is deservedly praised by the historians 
 of that city. Cosimo Gamberucci appears to have aimed at 
 a different object. On examining a great part of his works, 
 we may say of him, as was observed of the ancient artist, 
 that he has not sacrificed to the Graces. He seems finally to 
 have improved, for he has left some fine pictures, worthy of 
 the following epoch. Peter healing the lame in S. Pier 
 Maggiore, a picture in the style of the Caracci, is the work 
 
BRONZINO S SCHOLARS. 
 
 197 
 
 of his hand. The Servitian monks have a good picture by 
 him in their public hall ; and his holy families and cabinet 
 pictures, of a high class, are to be met with in the city. The 
 Cav. Francesco Currado had a still better opportunity of 
 improvement, for he lived ninety-one years, constantly em- 
 ployed in painting and in teaching. One of his best pictures 
 is on the altar of S. Saverio, in the church of S. Giovannino. 
 He was eminent in small figures, and in this style painted 
 the History pf the Magdalen, and the Martyrdom of S. Tecla, 
 of the royal gallery, which are works of his best time. In 
 the same school we include Yalerio Marucelli, and Cosimo 
 Daddi, both artists of some merit ; the second is memo- 
 rable for his celebrated pupil Volterrano, in whose native 
 place he married, and two of his altar-pieces still remain there. 
 
 Giovanni Maria Butteri, and Lorenzo dello Sciorina, were 
 two other scholars of Bronzino, and assisted Vasari in the 
 above-mentioned pictures on the escrutoire, and in his pre- 
 parations for festivals. The first imitated Vasari, his master, 
 and Titi ; but at all times his colouring was inharmonious ; the 
 second has little to boast of beyond his design. Both are 
 honourably mentioned among the academicians ; as is also 
 Stefano Pieri, who assisted Vasari in the cupola of the 
 metropolitan church. The Sacrifice of Isaac, of the Pitti 
 palace, is ascribed to him, and it is the best of his works 
 executed at Rome, which are censured as hard and dry by 
 Baglione. Cristofano dell' Altissimo, whose talent lay in 
 portrait-painting, may be added to these. Giovio had formed 
 the celebrated collection of portraits of illustrious men, which 
 is still preserved at Como, though now divided between the 
 two families of the Conti Giovio, one of which possesses the 
 portraits of learned men, the other those of warriors. From 
 this collection, which the prelate styled his museum, that 
 still existing at Mondragone was copied, and also the collec- 
 tion now in the Florentine gallery, by the labours of Cristo- 
 fano, who was sent for that purpose to Como by Cosmo I. 
 He copied the features of those celebrated men, but attended 
 iittle to other circumstances; whence it happens that the 
 Giovian collection exhibits many very dissimilar manners, 
 the Medicean one alone ; but the features of the originals are 
 very faithfully expressed. 
 
198 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio instructed many artists 
 in this epoch. From his school proceeded Girolamo Mac- 
 chietti, or del Crocifissaio, the assistant òf Yasari for six 
 years, who afterwards studied for two years at Rome, though 
 already an adept in the art. His example merits imitation, 
 for that school speaks more to the eye than the ear ; and he 
 who there employs his eyes judiciously, cannot fail to reap 
 the advantage. After his return to Florence he finished a 
 few valuable pictures with care and assiduity, among which 
 may be noticed an Epiphany for the chapel of the Marquis 
 della Stufa, at S. Lorenzo, and a martyrdom of S. Lorenzo, at 
 S. Maria Novella, greatly praised by Lomazzo. Borghini 
 also, after commending the beauty, the expression, and the 
 picture in general, scarcely found any thing to censure. It is 
 certainly among the most striking pictures in that church. 
 Macchietti also went to Spain, and was employed at Naples 
 and at Benevento, where he is said to have painted his best 
 pictures. In the Dizionario Storico of the professors of the 
 fine arts at Urbino (Colucci, torn, xxxi.), I find mention that 
 Girolamo Macchietti produced some battle-pieces for the hall 
 of the Albani at S. Giovanni ; but I see no reason why he 
 should be admitted to a place among native artists belonging 
 to that city, or to the state of Urbino. 
 
 Yasari mentions Andrea del Minga, then a youth, as con- 
 temporary with Macchietti ; yet he is reckoned by Orlandi 
 and Bottari, the fellow-student of Michelangelo. He was 
 among the last pupils of Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, when the 
 school was chiefly under the direction of Michele ; and hence 
 he rather followed the latter than the former. His own works 
 are by no means among the most excellent. In the Prayer 
 in tbe Garden, which remains in the church of the Holy 
 Cross, he rivals any of his contemporaries ; and hence it is 
 alleged, that he was assisted in this picture by three of his 
 friends. Francesco Traballesi, mentioned by Baglione as the 
 painter of some historical frescos in the Greek church at Rome, 
 was a pupil of Michele, but lived too short a time to do him 
 honour. The fable of Danae, on the writing-desk, is the work 
 of his brother Bartolommeo. 
 
 About this time lived Bernardino Barbatelli, surnamed 
 Poccetti, an artist omitted by Yasari in the school of Michele, 
 
BERNARDINO BARBATELLI. 
 
 199 
 
 and in the catalogue of the academicians ; because at that 
 period he painted only grotesques and fronts of buildings, in 
 which, though he had arrived at great eminence, he had not 
 the reputation he afterwards attained in Rome as an archi- 
 tect, from assiduously studying the works of Raffaello, and 
 of other great masters. He subsequently returned to his na- 
 tive place, a pleasing and graceful figurist, rich and learned 
 in his compositions ; hence he was enabled to adorn his his- 
 torical subjects with beautiful landscapes, sea- views, fruit, 
 and flowers, not to mention the magnificence of his draperies, 
 and tapestries, which he imitated to admiration. Few 
 of his pictures on panel or on canvas, but many of his fres- 
 cos, remain in almost every corner of Florence ; nor does he 
 yield to many Italian masters in this art. Pietro da Cortona 
 used to express his astonishment that he was in his time less 
 esteemed than he merited ; and Mengs never came to Flo 
 rence without going to study him, and diligently searching 
 after his most forgotten frescos. He often painted with care- 
 less haste, like a class of poets whose minds are imbued with 
 Parnassian fury and fine imagery, and who recite verses with 
 little preparation. He is, however, always to be admired, 
 always shews facility and freedom with that resolute and firm 
 pencil which never makes an erroneous touch ; a circumstance 
 from which he has been denominated the Paul of his school. 
 He often studied and made great preparation for his works, 
 and corrected his outline as one would do in miniature paint- 
 ing. Whoever wishes to estimate the powers of this artist 
 should examine the Miracle of the Drowned Restored to Life 
 in the cloister of the Santissima Nunziata, a picture reckoned 
 by some connoisseurs among the best in the city. His fresco 
 works are to be met with nearly throughout all Tuscany, and 
 his circular pictures in the cloister of the Servi at Pistoja, 
 are greatly commended. 
 
 Maso Manzuoli, or M. di S. Friano, a scholar of Pierfran- 
 cesco di Jacopo and of Portelli, is esteemed equal to Naldini 
 and Allori by Vasari. Nor will this appear strange to any 
 one who beholds his Visitation, which decorated S. Pier 
 Maggiore, and was afterwards carried to Rome, where it was 
 deposited in the gallery of the Vatican. It was painted 
 
200 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 when he was about thirty ; and, in the opinion of the his- 
 torian, it abounds with beauty and grace in the figures, in the 
 draperies, and in the architecture. Thi3 is his finest work, 
 and is even among the best of that age. In his other pic- 
 tures at S. Trinità, in the ducal gallery, and elsewhere, he is 
 something dry ; and may be compared to some writers who, 
 though they offend not against grammar, are not entitled to 
 the praise of eloquence. Alessandro Fei, or del Barbiere, 
 was his companion, and partly his scholar. This artist, who 
 painted in private, received his first instruction in the school 
 of Ghirlandaio, and of Piero Francia. He had a bold and 
 fertile genius, adapted to large historical frescos, in which he 
 introduced fine architecture and grotesques. In his pictures 
 he attended more to design and expression than to colouring ; 
 except in some pieces, supposed to be his last productions, 
 and executed after the reformation of the art by Cigoli. His 
 picture of the Flaggellation in S. Croce is highly approved 
 by Borghini. Baldinucci admires him, especially in small 
 historical subjects, such as, amongst the pieces on the writing- 
 desk, are the Daniel at the Feast of Belshazzar, and that of 
 the Goldsmith's Art. 
 
 Federigo Zuccaro may be reckoned among the instructors 
 of the artists of this epoch ; for whilst employed in painting 
 the cupola of the cathedral, where Yasari had only finished a 
 few figures at his death, he taught painting to Bartolommeo 
 Carducci, who became an architect and statuary under Aman- 
 nati, and an. artificer in stucco under another master. Car- 
 ducci acquired distinction by those talents in the court of his 
 Catholic majesty, where he was introduced by Zuccaro ; and 
 where he established himself and his younger brother and 
 pupil, Vincenzio. Both are mentioned by Palomino among 
 the eminent artists who painted in the court of Spain. Both 
 must be well known there ; especially the latter, who lived 
 but little at Florence, and who painted more pictures when 
 in the service of Philip III. and Philip IV. than any of his 
 predecessors or successors. He printed a dialogue in the 
 Spanish tongue, De las Excelencias de la Pintura, from 
 which Baldinucci has quoted passages in the account of this 
 artist. 
 
SCHOLARS OP MICHELE. 
 
 201 
 
 Of some of the artists mentioned by Vasari as his assist- 
 ants in the decoration of the palace, in the preparations for 
 the marriage of Prince Francesco, in the funeral obsequies of 
 Bonarruoti, or in the collection of pictures on the writing- 
 desk, the masters are unknown ; and the knowledge would be 
 of little consequence. Such artists are Domenico Benci, and 
 Tommaso del Verrocchio, whom he names in his third volume 
 at page 873, and Federigo di Lamberto, a Fleming, called F. 
 del Padovano, whom he had a little before noticed as a new 
 citizen of Florence, and as a considerable ornament to the 
 academy. Omitted by Vasari, but inscribed on the writing- 
 desk, we find the names of Niccolo Betti, who painted the 
 story of Caesar ; of Vittor Casini, who there represented the 
 Forge of Vulcan ; of Mirabello Cavalori, who portrayed 
 Lavinia Sacrificing, and also the emblems of the art of weav- 
 ing; of Jacopo Coppi, who there painted the Family of 
 Darius, and the Invention of Gunpowder. I suspect that 
 they were all scholars of Michele ; and Vasari has more than 
 once noticed them. Perhaps Cavalori is the Salincorno men- 
 tioned in another place, and Coppi is believed to be that 
 Jacopo di Meglio, who is more severely treated by Borghini 
 than any other in the church of the Holy Cross ; and not 
 without reason, for his Ecce Homo*m that place has all the 
 defects of this epoch. "Whether Coppi is to be identified with 
 this person or not, he cannot be equally reprehended for his 
 pictures on the writing-desk ; and in S. Salvator at Bologna, 
 he produced a picture of the Redeemer crucified by the Jews, 
 that might vie with the best pictures in that city previous to 
 the time of the Caracci, and is yet one of those most full of 
 subject and most carefully studied. He imitated Vasari in 
 colouring, and in propriety of invention, in variety of figures, 
 and in diligence, I have seen no picture of Vasari by which 
 it is surpassed. It bears the date of 1579, together with his 
 name. There is an account of two of his frescos in the 
 Guida di Roma ; one of which, very copious in subject, is 
 placed in the tribune of S. Pietro in Vincoli. 
 
 To the same period belongs the name of Piero di Ridolfo, 
 by whom there is a large altar-piece, consisting of the As- 
 cension, and bearing the date 1612 ; it is supposed that he 
 took his name from the last of the Ghirlandai, in whose ser- 
 
202 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 vice he may have been during his early life. Whoever may 
 be desirous of adding to the list of names, will find a great 
 number in a letter of Borghini to the Prince D. Francesco 
 (Lett. Pittor. torn. i. p. 90), in which he suggests a plan for 
 the preparations of the prince's nuptials, as well as the artists 
 best qualified to conduct them. The names, however, I here 
 give would be more than amply sufficient, were it not my 
 wish to illustrate Yasari by every means in my power. 
 
 After considering the artists of Florence, on turning to the 
 rest of Tuscany, we find in many places other associates of 
 Giorgio, who, perhaps, had as many assistants in painting as 
 bricklayers in architecture. Stefano Veltroni, of Monte San- 
 savino, his cousin, was a man of slow parts, but very respect- 
 able in the art. He assisted Vasari in the vineyard of Pope 
 Julius ; or rather superintended the grotesque works in that 
 place ; and followed his cousin to Naples, to Bologna, and to 
 Florence. I know not whether Orazio Porta, likewise a na- 
 tive of Sansavino, and Alessandro Fortori of Arezzo, ever 
 left Tuscany ; they appear to have painted chiefly in their 
 native city and its vicinity. Bastiano Fiori and Fra Salva- 
 tore Foschi, both natives of Arezzo, were employed in the 
 Roman Chancery, with Bagnacavallo, and the Spaniards Ru- 
 viale and Bizzerra. Andrea Aretino, the scholar of Daniello, 
 lived at a later period, or at least until 1615.* 
 
 About this time Città San Sepolcro was a seminary for 
 painters, either wholly or chiefly educated by Raffaellino. 
 From this place Vasari invited not only the master, but seve- 
 ral of the scholars to assist him in his labours. He was 
 greatly assisted by Cristoforo Gherardi, surnamed Doceno, 
 whose life he has written. This artist was his right hand, so 
 to say, in almost every place where he was employed. Ghe- 
 rardi followed his designs with a freedom resulting from a 
 genius pliant, copious, and natural, adapted to ornamental 
 works. Such was his talent for managing fresco colours, that 
 Vasari pronounces himself his inferior : but the grotesques 
 of the Vitelli palace, wholly his own, shew him not to have 
 been more vigorous in his colouring. The oil -picture of the 
 Visitation in the church of S. Domenico, at Città di Castello, 
 
 * Baglione, in the Life of P. Biagio Betti. 
 
THE THREE CUNGI. 
 
 203 
 
 is entirely his ; but Vasari does not mention it. The upper 
 part of the picture of S. Maria del Popolo, at Perugia, is 
 likewise his ; no less elegant and graceful , than the lower 
 part, which is the work of Lattanzio della Marca, firm and 
 vigorous. Doceno died in his native place in 1552 ; and 
 Cosmo L honoured his tomb with a bust, and an epitaph, in 
 which he is said to be Pingendi arte prwstantissimus, and 
 Vasari, who had approved of his labours in the old palace, is 
 called hujus artis facile princeps. It is written in the name 
 of all the Tuscan painters,* and is sufficient to demonstrate 
 the state of this school, and the taste of Cosmo. After this 
 specimen, it is not surprising that the prince neglected to have 
 his portrait painted by Tiziano, whom he would esteem little 
 in comparison to his own Vasari. It is a true observation 
 that virtues are not hereditary, or, as it is expressed by the 
 poet, they rarely spring up again in the branches. Leo X. 
 was the patron of the arts, and he knew how to appreciate 
 them ; but Cosmo encouraged, without possessing taste to 
 discriminate. 
 
 The Three Cungi, or Congi, are also claimed by San 
 Sepolcro. Gio. Batista was the servant of Vasari ; Lionardo 
 is described to us as an eminent designer, in the life of Perino, 
 and in that of Zuccaro said to have been a painter employed 
 in the pontifical palace about 1 560, along with his country- 
 man Durante del Nero. For a knowledge of the third bro- 
 ther, Francesco, I am indebted to my learned friend Sig. 
 Annibale Lancisi ; and have since received more particular 
 information from Sig. Giachi, who gives an account of an 
 altar-piece of S. Sebastiano, in the cathedral at Volterra, with 
 the receipt for its purchase-money in 1587, where he is called 
 Francesco di Leonardo Cugni da Borgo. At Rome we can- 
 not judge properly of their style, but discover it in their own 
 country, in the church of S. Rocco, at the convent of the 
 Osservanti, and in other places. Their compositions display 
 great simplicity, their ideas are chiefly drawn from nature, 
 and they attended sufficiently to colouring. Raffaele Scami- 
 nossi, a scholar of Raffaellino, painted in a similar manner. 
 Giovanni Paolo del Borgo was the assistant of Vasari in hia 
 
 * Pictores Hetruscù 
 
204 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 very hasty, labours in the Chancery, about 1545. He cannot 
 be the Gio. de* Vecchi who -painted so much in Rome, as we 
 are informed by Baglione ; and who chiefly excelled at Capra- 
 rola, when contending with Taddeo Zuccaro, and in the church 
 of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, in the various histories of the Martyr. 
 He appears to have arrived at a later period, as did the three 
 Alberti, of a family in San Sepolcro, abounding in painters. 
 They went to study at Rome, and formed themselves on the 
 style common to artists in the time of Gregory XIII. There 
 they took up their abode, and died, after having executed 
 many works, especially in fresco, in that city, and also memo- 
 rials of their art in their native country. 
 
 The cathedral contains a Nativity by Durante, a subject 
 handled better in the Vallicella of Rome, and which is, 
 perhaps, his best performance in that city : in others he is 
 often languid, both in design and colouring, and appears 
 rather a laborious artist than a man of genius. Cherubino, 
 the reputed son of Michele, and the assistant of Daniel di 
 Volterra,* was a celebrated engraver on copper, and from this 
 art derived great assistance in design. Although late in ap- 
 plying to painting, he obtained a name. His proportions were 
 light and spirited ; his choirs of angels agreeable and original; 
 his pencilling and whole composition dexterous and sponta- 
 neous. Such is the character of his Trinity in the cathedral of 
 Borgo, in which place there remains the facade of a palace, 
 well conceived, ornamented with arms, genii, and other fanci- 
 ful devices. He painted the ceiling of the chapel of Minerva 
 in Rome with various ornaments and figures, on a golden 
 ground; in that city he assisted his younger brother Gio- 
 vanni, who introduced a new era in perspective ; not only by 
 his works, existing in the houses of private individuals at 
 San Sepolcro, and other cities, but by the fresco perspectives 
 executed at Rome. He claims admiration in the sacristy of 
 the church of S. Gio. Laterano, where he imitated the salient 
 and receding angles of architecture ; and still more in the 
 
 * Vasari calls him Michele Fiorentino, and the painter of the Slaughter 
 of the Innocents, which we have noticed at page 149. Orlandi makes 
 him the father of Cherubino, an assertion not contradicted by Bottari. 
 I follow Baglione, the contemporary of Cherubino, who says that he was 
 the son of Alberto Alberti, an eminent engraver on copper. 
 
DOMENICO GIUNTALOCCHIO. 
 
 205 
 
 grand Clementine salon, the most prodigious and exquisite 
 work in perspective then existing. Baglione highly com- 
 mends the S. Clement and other figures with which it is orna- 
 mented ; and remarks that they are admirably foreshortened, 
 and superior to those of Cherubino, who was not so eminent 
 in perspectives. Baglione mentions a Francesco, the son of 
 Durante, who died at Rome. I am uncertain whether he is 
 the Pierfrancesco to whom we attribute the Ascension in the 
 church of S. Bartholomew at Borgo, with some pictures of 
 no great merit in the church of S. John, and in other places. 
 History mentions also Donato, Girolamo, Cosimo, and Ales- 
 sandro Alberti, of whom I can collect nothing further. 
 
 The writers of Prato exalt their countryman Domenico 
 Giuntalocchio, pupil to Soggi, in whose life Vasari mentions 
 Domenico more as an engineer than a painter. He describes 
 him as a correct portrait painter, but so extremely tardy in 
 his works in fresco, that he became tiresome to the Aretini, 
 with whom he for some time dwelt. I cannot point out any 
 genuine picture from his hand ; but his memory is still fresh 
 in the minds of his fellow-citizens, because, instead of leaving 
 his native place ornamented with his pictures, he left 10,000 
 crowns as a fund to be appropriated to the education of young 
 artists. 
 
 After the death of Daniel, his scholar and relation Gio- 
 vanni Paolo Rossetti, retired to Volterra, and, as is attested 
 by Vasari, executed works of great merit in his native place ; 
 among which we may reckon the Deposto, in the church of 
 S. Dalmatius. At a short distance from the city is a place 
 which gave name to Niccolo dalle Pomarance, of the family 
 of Circignani, who likewise subscribed himself Volterrano. 
 His master appears to have been Titi, whom he assisted in the 
 great salon of the Belvidere palace. He grew old in Rome, 
 where he left numerous specimens of the labours of his pen- 
 cil, which he employed with freedom, and at a good price. 
 He shewed himself greatly superior to the artists of this 
 period in some of his works, as in the cupola of S. Puden- 
 ziana. Cavalier Roncalli was a native of the same place ; 
 there are pictures by them both at Pomarance ; where are 
 also some by Antonio Circignani, the son of the former, an 
 
206 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 able artist, though little known. All three will again be 
 
 treated of in their place. 
 
 Pistoia possessed at the same time two scholars of Riccia- 
 relli ; Biagio da Cutigliano, noticed by Vasari,* and P. Biagio 
 Betti Teatino, a sculptor, miniature and historical painter of 
 merit, whom Baglione represents as constantly employed in 
 the service of the church and convent to which he belonged. 
 Leghorn gave birth to Jacopo Rosignoli, pupil of an unknown 
 master, who lived in Piedmont, where his works must be 
 sought. Baccio Lomi, whose style much resembles that or 
 Zuccaro, remained at Pisa, and owes much of his skill and 
 of his reputation to his two nephews. Though unknown be- 
 yond the limits of his native country, he must not be passed 
 over in silence. The Assumption, in the residence of the 
 Canons, and some of his other pictures, participate of the 
 hardness of the age, but exhibit very good design and 
 colouring. 
 
 Paolo Guidotti distinguished himself in the neighbouring 
 state of Lucca as a painter of genius and spirit, no less than 
 a man of letters, and well grounded in anatomical knowledge ; 
 but his taste was not refined. He came to Rome in the dis- 
 tracted times of Gregory and Sixtus, and lived there during 
 the pontificate of Paul V., who created him a knight, and 
 conservator of Rome ; permitting him to assume the name of 
 Borghese, the family name of the pontiff. Many of his 
 paintings in fresco are preserved in the Vatican library, in 
 the Apostolic chamber, and in several churches at Rome : the 
 artists with whom he was associated prove that be was re- 
 puted a good artist. Several of his pictures are in his native 
 place ; and there is a large piece representing the Republic, 
 in the palace. Girolamo Massei pursued a similar track, only 
 confining himself to painting. Baglione, who gave an account 
 of him, introduces him into Rome as an artist, muchcommend- 
 ed for his accuracy ; to which Taia adds, that he was both 
 a good designer and colourist ; so much so as to lead us to dis- 
 
 * Vasari writes the name da Carrigliano, in which he has been followed 
 by other writers on the art, including myself, until I was informed by Sig. 
 Ansaidi that it ought really to be written Cutigliano, taken from a consi- 
 derable territory in the Pistoiese. 
 
ANTONIO TEMPESTI. 
 
 207 
 
 tinguish him from the crowd of Gregorian and Sixtine prac- 
 titioners, in the same way that he was chosen by P. Danti to 
 ornament the chambers of the Vatican. He returned to his 
 native place in his old age, not to employ himself anew, but 
 to die in tranquillity among his friends. Benedetto Brandi- 
 marte, of Lucca, is mentioned by Orlandi. I saw a Decolla- 
 tion of S. John by this artist in the church of S. Peter, at 
 Genoa, but a poor performance ; a single production, how- 
 ever, is not sufficient to decide the character of an artist. 
 
 The name of a Pietro Ferabosco is mentioned only by the 
 continuator of Orlandi ; he is supposed to have been a native 
 of Lucca, though referred to the academy of Home, where 
 he probably pursued his first studies ; I say probably, because 
 the excellence of his colouring in the Titian manner, would 
 lead me rather to include him among the Venetian artists. 
 There are three of his half-length figures, with his name, and 
 the date of 1616, reported as being in the possession of a gen- 
 tleman in Portugal ; where he resided, most likely, a longer 
 period than in Italy. 
 
 We have already noticed some Tuscans who acquired dis- 
 tinction in the inferior branches of painting ; such as Vel- 
 troni, Constantino de* Servi, Zucchi, and Alberti : Antonio 
 Tempesti, of Florence, a scholar both of Titi and Stradano, 
 was among the first to acquire a celebrated name in Italy for 
 landscapes and for battles. He practised engraving, prepared 
 cartoons for tapestry, and gave scope to his genius in the most 
 fanciful inventions in grotesque and ornamental work. He 
 surpassed his master in spirit, and was inferior to none, not 
 even to the Venetians. In a Letter on Painting by the Mar- 
 quis Giustiniani,* he is adduced as an example of great spirit 
 in design, a gift conferred by nature, and not to be acquired 
 by art. He attempted few things on a large scale, and was 
 not so successful as in small pictures. The Marquis Nicco- 
 lini, the Order of the Nunziata, and several Florentine fami- 
 lies, possess some of his battles painted on alabaster, in which 
 he appears the precursor of Borgognone, who studied him 
 attentively. He most frequently painted in fresco, as at 
 
 * Tom. vi. p. 25. 
 
203 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 Caprarola, in the Este Villa at Tivoli, and in parts of Rome, 
 from the time of Gregory XIII. Most of the historical pic- 
 tures in the Vatican gallery are his work ; the figures, a palm 
 and a half high, display astonishing variety and spirit, ac- 
 companied by beautiful architecture and landscapes, with 
 every species of decoration. He is not, however, very cor- 
 rect; and his tints are sometimes too much inclined to a 
 brownish hue ; but all such faults are pardonable in him, as 
 being occasioned by that pictoric fury which inspired him, 
 that fancy which hurried him from earth, and conducted him 
 through novel and sublime regions, unattempted by the vulgar 
 herd. 
 
209 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH IV. 
 
 Cigoli and his associates improve the style of Painting. 
 
 Whilst the Florentines regarded Michelangelo and his 
 imitators as their models, they experienced the fate of the 
 poets of the fifteenth century, who fixed their eyes on Petrarca 
 and his followers alone ; they contracted a strong similarity 
 of style, and differed from each other only as to their individual 
 talents and genius. As we have above remarked, they began 
 to exhibit some diversity after the age of Titi ; but still lan- 
 guid colourists required to be impelled into another career. 
 About 1580 they began to abandon the manner of their coun- 
 trymen for that of foreign artists ; and then, as we shall have 
 occasion to shew, the Florentine styles became firm and va- 
 ried. This revolution originated with two young artists, 
 Iiodovico Cigoli and Gregorio Pagani. Attracted by the 
 celebrity of Barocci, and a picture which he had recently 
 sent from Urbino to Arezzo, which is now in the royal gallery 
 at Florence, they went together to see it ; they examined it 
 attentively, and were so captivated with the style, that they 
 renounced the manner of their master. Passignano followed 
 their steps, continues Baldinucci, and Cigoli, in his company, 
 took a second journey as far as Perugia, when Barocci had 
 completed his celebrated Deposition from the Cross ; but here 
 the historian fell into a chronological error, inasmuch as 
 Bellori, the accurate writer of Barocci's life, describes his 
 picture at Perugia as anterior to that at Arezzo. In what- 
 ever way the mistake ought to be cleared up, it is certain that 
 Passignano promoted the views of Cigoli. Their example 
 turned the rising generation from the old manner to a more 
 vigorous style. This was the case with Empoli, with Cav. 
 vol. i. p 
 
2J0 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 Gurradi, and some of those above mentioned, followed by 
 Cristofano Allori and Rosselli, artists that transmitted the 
 new method to their disciples. They did not, however, imi- 
 tate Barocci so much as Correggio, his model. Unable to 
 visit Lombardy, they studied the few copies of his pictures, 
 and still fewer originals, to be met with in Florence, in order 
 to acquire his management of chiaroscuro, a branch of the 
 art then neglected even at Rome. They began to model in 
 clay and wax ; they wrought in plaster ; they studied the 
 effects of light and shade ; they paid less attention to practical 
 rules, and more to nature. Hence arose a new style which, 
 in my opinion, is among the best hitherto attempted in Italy; 
 corrected upon the model of the Florentine school ; soft and 
 well relieved on that of Lombardy. If their forms had ap 
 proached to Grecian elegance, their expression been more 
 refined, the improvement of painting, which took place in 
 Italy, should have been ascribed no less to Florence than to 
 Bologna. 
 
 Some favourable circumstances assisted the progress of the 
 Florentine school ; among these, a succession of princes 
 friendly to the art ;* the readiness with which the celebrated 
 Galileo imparted to artists his discoveries, and the laws of 
 perspective ; the travels of several Florentine masters to Ve- 
 nice, and through Lombardy ; and the residence of foreign 
 artists, eminent as colourists, at the court of Florence. But 
 it was chiefly owing to Ligozzi, who studied under the Vene- 
 tian masters, then considered the best in Italy, and who 
 animated the old Florentine style with greater spirit and bril- 
 liancy than it had hitherto displayed. After noticing the 
 good style of that period, we must not omit one less praise- 
 worthy ; a sombre manner, which usurped its place, and at 
 this day renders many pictures of that period of little or no 
 
 * The new style began in the reign of Francesco I., who was greatly 
 skilled in design, which he had learnt of Buontalenti. He was succeeded 
 by Ferdinando I., Cosmo II., Ferdinando II., all of them celebrated for 
 their magnificent works in ornamenting the city and the palace ; Cardinals 
 Gio. Carlo and Leopoldo de* Medici also flourished there, both of them 
 patrons of the arts ; and the latter is recorded in history for his knowledge 
 of them, and the splendid collection which he formed. We may add to 
 these Prince Mattia, and others of that family. 
 
RAGE FOR CHIAROSCURO. 
 
 211 
 
 value. Some ascribe the fault to the method of mixing the 
 colours, which was everywhere changed ; and hence it is not 
 peculiar to the Florentines, but found diffused over Italy. It 
 was partly owing likewise to the rage for chiaroscuro. It is 
 the characteristic of every school of long standing to carry 
 to excess the fundamental maxims of its master : this we 
 have remarked in the preceding epoch, this we shall find ex- 
 emplified in every period of painting, and this, if it were 
 consistent with our present undertaking, we might demon- 
 strate to have happened in literature ; for a good rule extra- 
 vagantly pursued leads to the corruption of taste. We shall 
 now direct our attention to the fourth epoch, in which, omit- 
 ting the two older authorities, Yasari and Borghini, we shall 
 chiefly follow Baldinucci, who was acquainted with the artists 
 we are now to consider, or with their successors.* 
 
 Lodovico Cardi da Cigoli, the scholar of Santi di Tito, 
 first awakened his countrymen to a nobler style. The addi- 
 tional observation of Baldinucci, that he perhaps surpassed 
 all his contemporaries, and that few derived such benefit as he 
 did from the study of Correggio, will not readily be granted 
 by those conversant with Schedone, the Caracci, or even 
 Barocci, when they chose to imitate the manner of that great 
 master. From the pictures that have reached our time, 
 Cigoli appears to have acquired a fine effect of light and 
 shade from Correggio ; to have united this to a scientific de- 
 sign, to a judicious perspective, the rules of which were pre- 
 viously taught him by Buontalenti, and to a vivacity of 
 colouring superior to his countrymen. His works, however, 
 exhibit not that contrast of colouring, that mellowness and 
 clearness, that grace in foreshortenings and features, that cha- 
 racterize the ornament of the Lombard school. In short, he 
 was the. inventor of a style always beautiful, but not always 
 equal; especially if we compare his early works with his 
 pictures executed after his visit to Rome. His general co- 
 louring savours of the school of Lombardy, his draperies 
 
 * He was born in 1624, and died in 1692, leaving materials for the 
 completion of the work, which were afterwards arranged by Saverio, his 
 son, a gentleman of the law, who put the finishing hand to the whole. 
 — Piacenza, Ristretto della Vita di Filippo Baldinucci, p. xvi. 
 
 P 2 
 
212 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 sometimes resemble those of Paolo Veronese, and lie often 
 rivals the bold style of Quercino. 
 
 Independent of the great number of his pictures in the 
 royal gallery, and many in the possession of the noble family 
 of Pecori, there are a few in some private houses in Florence. 
 The following are his most esteemed pictures : the Trinity, 
 in S. Croce ; the S. Alberto, in S. Maria Maggiore ; the 
 Martyrdom of St. Stephen, in the nunnery of Monte Domini, 
 which Pietro da Cortona considers one of the finest pictures 
 in Florence. Of the same class is the picture which he placed 
 in the church of the Conventualists at Cortona, in which S. 
 Anthony is represented in the act of converting an unbeliever, 
 by a miracle of a mule seen kneeling before the holy sacra- 
 ment : in this piece he aspired at surpassing any work of art 
 in that highly decorated city. In the Vatican he painted S. 
 Peter healing the Lame, a wonderful production, which, 
 among the pictures in Rome, was reckoned by Sacchi next in 
 excellence to the Transfiguration by Raffaello, and the S. 
 Girolamo by Domenichino. The Florentine school may well 
 be proud of this opinion, pronounced by a profound connois- 
 seur, by no means lavish of his commendations. This master- 
 piece, which obtained him the honour of knighthood, is, 
 however, utterly ruined by the dampness of the church, and 
 the ignorance of one who undertook to repair it : but his 
 frescos in the church of S. Maria Maggiore, at Rome, still 
 remain ; and there, by some error in perspective, he appears 
 inferior to himself ; * nor was he permitted to retouch them, 
 notwithstanding that he employed both interest and entreaties. 
 Fortune, in some degree, persecuted this great artist ; for 
 had those frescos perished, and that oil-painting remained, 
 Cigoli would have enjoyed a higher fame, and Baldinucci ob- 
 tained more credit. 
 
 Andrea Comodi and Giovanni Bili vert nearly approached 
 Cigoli ; Aurelio Lomi followed at a greater distance. Of the 
 latter I shall speak among the Pisan artists ; and of two 
 
 * In this branch of the art, indeed, he was not so greatly skilled ; and 
 the Cav. Titi, after commending his Assumption, which is exhibited in 
 the entablature of the cathedral at Leghorn, adds, that not having been 
 conducted according to the rules of foreshortening, some exceptions may- 
 be made to it. 
 
COMODI AND BILIVERT. 
 
 213 
 
 Romans, belonging to the same school, in the third book. 
 Comodi, the associate rather than the scholar of Cigoli, is 
 almost unknown at Florence ; but there are many of his copies 
 after celebrated masters, which pass for originals, in that city 
 and at Home. This was his peculiar talent ; in this he was 
 unrivalled ; and it employed his best years. He produced, 
 however, several original works, highly valuable for the 
 design, the exquisite finish, and the strong body of colouring 
 they display. In these we may trace the friend of Cigoli, 
 and the copyist of Raffaello. They are chiefly Madonnas, and 
 are greatly admired for the disposition of the fingers, which 
 are somewhat spread out, for the graceful slender neck, and 
 a certain virgin air, peculiarly his own. The Corsini family, 
 at Rome, possess a very fine one. Some of his fresco pictures 
 remain in the churcli of S. Yitale, in that city ; and there is 
 a picture of the titular saint in S. Carlo a* Catinari, which 
 appears dark and cloudy ; an uncommon circumstance with so 
 good a colourist. 
 
 Gio. Bilivert is a name which we in vain look for in Or- 
 landi, who has transformed him into two painters, one of 
 whom he calls Antonio Biliverti, and the other, in imitation 
 of Baglione, Gio. Ballinert ; both Florentines, and pupils of 
 Cigoli. Like the preceding artist, Bilivert is not always 
 equal to himself. He finished some pictures that had been 
 left imperfect by Cigoli, to whose design and colouring he 
 endeavoured to unite the expression of Titi, and a more 
 avowed imitation of the ornaments of Paolo Veronese. 
 Bilivert is not sufficiently choice in heads ; but he abounds 
 in expression, as may be seen at S. Gaetano and S. Marco, 
 where there are many of his historical pictures, particularly 
 the Raising of the Cross, esteemed one of his best per- 
 formances, Those pieces which he engaged to execute, and 
 in which he never appears able to satisfy himself, are repeated 
 by his scholars ; sometimes inscribed with the initials of his 
 name, especially when he himself retouched them ; at other 
 times they are without an epigraph. None of his productions 
 are so worthy of being copied as Joseph with Potiphar's 
 wife, which arrests the eye of every spectator in the ducal 
 gallery. Many copies of it are to be found in Florence ; it 
 is seen in foreign collections, in the Barberini palace at 
 
214 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 Home, in the Obizzo collection at Cattaio, and in several 
 other places. 
 
 The ornamented style of Bili vert had many imitators, 
 whose works, in galleries and private houses, would pass for 
 those of Venetian artists, had they greater spirit and better 
 colouring. Bartolommeo Salvestrini is at their head ; but he 
 was cut off in his prime, by the plague of 1630, so disastrous 
 to Italy and the art. Orazio Fidani, an assiduous artist, 
 skilled in the style of his master, painted much at Florence. 
 His Tobias, that was finished for the fraternity of Scala, but 
 is now removed, is especially commended. Francesco Bianchi 
 Buonavita w^s engaged in few public works. He was chiefly 
 employed in copying ancient pictures, which the court pre- 
 sented to foreign princes, and in furnishing cabinets with 
 little historical pieces, that were at that time in great request 
 in countries beyond the Alps. They were painted on jasper, 
 agate, lapis -lazzuli, and other hard stones, the spots in which 
 assisted in forming the shadows of the pictures. Agostino 
 Melissi contributed much to the tapestry of the ducal family, 
 by furnishing cartoons from the works of Andrea del Sarto, 
 and also some of his own invention. He likewise possessed 
 a genius for oil-painting ; in which branch his S. Peter at the 
 Gate of Pilate, which he painted for the noble family of Ga- 
 burri, is particularly praised by Baldinucci. Francesco Monte- 
 latici, by some supposed to be a Pisan, by others a Florentine, 
 and surnamed Cecco Bravo, from his quarrelsome disposition, 
 abandoned the style of Bilivert, or, at least, mixed it with 
 that of Passignano. He was a fanciful and spirited designer, 
 and not a bad colourist. A fine painting of S. Niccolo 
 Vescovo, by this artist, is to be seen at the church of S. 
 Simone ; but his works are rare in churches, for he was chiefly 
 employed in painting for private, and sometimes for royal 
 collections. He died painter to the court of Inspruck. 
 Giovanni Maria Morandi remained but a little time with 
 Bilivert, and, on going to Rome, adopted the style of that 
 school. 
 
 Gregorio Pagani was the son of Francesco, who died 
 voung, but was highly esteemed by his countrymen. He 
 studied the works of Polidoro and of Michelangelo, at Rome, 
 and executed admirable imitations of them for private gentle- 
 
DOMENICO DA PASSIGNANO. 
 
 men in Florence. Gregorio himself could scarcely distinguish 
 them. He received the rudiments of his art from Titi, out 
 was initiated in a better style by Cigoli. Strangers praised 
 him as a second Cigoli, whilst his country possessed at the 
 Carmine the picture of the Finding of the Cross, which has 
 been engraved ; but when the painting, with the church, was 
 consumed by fire, no great work of his remained in public, 
 except a few of his frescos ; one of which, though somewhat 
 injured by time, is an ornament to the cloister of S. Maria 
 Novella. He is rarely to be met with in Florentine collec- 
 tions, as he chiefly painted for foreigners. Of his school I 
 here say nothing ; it only produced one eminent pupil ; but this 
 one was so conspicuous, that he may be said to form a new era. 
 
 Another associate of Cigoli was Domenico da Passignano, 
 the scholar of Naldini and of Federigo Zuccaro, whom he 
 resembles most, from his long residence at Venice, where he 
 likewise married. He became so decided an admirer of the 
 merits of this school, that he was accustomed to say, that he 
 who had not seen Venice, ought not to boast that he was a 
 painter. This circumstance sufficiently accounts for his style, 
 which is not the most profound, nor the most correct ; but it 
 exhibits contrivance, is vast, rich in architecture and in 
 drapery, resembling more the manner of Paolo Veronese than 
 that of the Florentine school. Sometimes he resembles Tin- 
 toretto in his attitudes, and in that oily colouring which ought 
 to have been avoided, and through which many works of both 
 artists have perished. This has been the fate of his Cruci- 
 fixion of St. Peter, which he executed for the great church 
 in Rome, under Paul V., and of the Presentation of M. V., 
 which he painted at the same place, under Urban VIII. 
 Several pictures remain in Italian cities, that were begun by 
 his scholars and finished by him, with a degree of care that 
 hands him down to posterity as a great artist. A dead Christ, 
 in the chapel of Mongradone, at Frescati, is in this style ; as 
 are an Entombing of Christ, in the Borghese palace, at Rome ; 
 a Christ bearing the Cross, in the college of S. Giovannino, 
 and other works of his at Florence. Passignano, his 
 native place, possesses what is, perhaps, his most perfect 
 work, in the font of the church of the Fathers of Vallombrosa. 
 He there painted a Glory, that proclaims him an excellent 
 
216 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 artist, and worthy of a place with his pupils, Lodovico Ca- 
 pacci, the founder of the Bolognese school, and Tiarini, one of 
 its great ornaments. His Tuscan pupils did not attain equal 
 celebrity. Sorri of Siena, whom we reserve for that school, 
 is the one best known in Italy, having painted with applause 
 in several of her cities. Here we must consider those artists 
 connected with Florence. 
 
 Fabrizio Boschi is a spirited painter, whose characteristic 
 excellence appears to consist in novelty of composition, united 
 to a precision superior to the generality of his school. A 
 S. Bonaventura in the act of celebrating mass, in All Saints' 
 church at Florence, is much praised ; and, perhaps, his two 
 historical frescos of Cosmo II. which he painted in the palace 
 of Cardinal Gio. Carlo de' Medici, in emulation of Rosselli, 
 are superior to his other works. Ottavio Vannini became 
 eminent in colouring, and was attentive to every other branch 
 of painting ; but he was sometimes poor and cold ; and 
 although good in each part of his pictures, was not happy in 
 the whole. Cesare Dandini, a disciple of several schools, 
 imitated Passignano in design, in brilliancy, and also in the 
 perishable nature of his colours : he was diligent in other 
 things, and very assiduous. His best picture is a S. Carlo, 
 surrounded by other saints, in the church of Ancona : the 
 composition is fine, and the whole in good preservation. 
 Many works of this artist, and of Vannini, decorate collec- 
 tions. 
 
 Nicodemo Ferrucci, the favourite pupil of Passignano, and 
 the companion of his labours at Rome, possessed much of the 
 boldness and spirit of his master. By his example he was 
 led to affix a good price to his pictures, mostly frescos exe- 
 cuted at Florence, Fiesole, and for the State. He died young 
 at Fontebuoni ; but many of his works, too good to be here 
 omitted, still remain in Rome ; one of the most esteemed of 
 which is found at S. Gio. de* Fiorentini, besides two histories 
 of Maria S. S. which have suffered from being retouched. 
 
 Cristofano Allori was at perpetual variance with Alessan- 
 dro, his father and preceptor, on account of his attachment 
 to the novel maxims of the three masters just commended. 
 In the opinion of many he is the greatest painter of this 
 epoch. When the excellence he attained, during a long life. 
 
CRISTOFANO ALLORI. 
 
 2i7 
 
 is considered, he appears to me in some degree the Cantarmi 
 of his school. They resembled each other in the beauty, 
 grace, and exquisite finish of their figures ; but the beauty of 
 Cantarmi partakes more of the ideal, and the flesh tints of 
 Allori are more happy. This is the more surprising, inas- 
 much as he knew nothing of the Caracca, nor of Guido ; but 
 supplied all by nice discrimination, and unwearied persever- 
 ance ; for it was his custom never to lift his pencil from the 
 canvas until his hand had obeyed the dictates of his fancy. 
 From this method, and from vicious habits that often seduced 
 him from his labours, his pictures are extremely rare, and he 
 himself is little known. The S. Julian of the Pitti palace is 
 the grandest effort of his genius ; and if not among the finest 
 pictures in this magnificent collection, it undoubtedly claims 
 the highest rank in the second class. His picture of Beato 
 Manetto, in the church of the Servi, a small piece, but excel- 
 lent in its kind, is reckoned the next in merit. 
 
 Many young men were sent to be instructed by him in the 
 art of painting ; but few of them remained long : most of 
 them were disgusted at the dissipation of the master, and the 
 insolence of their fellow-students. He formed some landscape 
 painters, whom we shall notice under their class ; and also 
 some copyists, whose labours may boast of hues and retouch- 
 ing, the work of his hand. Of this class were Yalerio 
 Tanteri,* F. Bruno Certosino, and Lorenzo Cerrini. These, 
 and other artists of this school, continued the Giovian series 
 of the later race of illustrious men, by transmitting to us 
 many of their portraits, to which he lent his hand. To them 
 we owe numerous duplicates of his most celebrated pictures, 
 scattered through Florence, and over all Italy ; more especi- 
 ally of that Judith, so beautifully and magnificently attired, 
 a portrait of his mistress ; while her mother appears in the 
 character of Abra, and the head of Holofernes is that of the 
 painter, who permitted his beard to grow for this purpose. 
 Zanobi Rosi lived to a later period, and finished some pieces 
 left imperfect by the death of Cristofano ; but he never ob- 
 tained the praise of invention. The name of Giovanni 
 
 * There is a Visitation by this artist, and inscribed with his name, 
 in the church of S. Anthony of Pisa, which he executed in a weak style 
 in 1606. 
 
218 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 Batista Yanni is superior to any other scholar of the school 
 of Allori. The Pisaus claim him as their countryman ; Bai- 
 ci inucci assigns him to Florence. After talking lessons from 
 Empoli and other masters, he attended Allori for six years, 
 and whilst he imitated this master admirably in colouring, 
 and rivalled him in design, he also imbibed his lessons of in- 
 temperance. Had he conducted himself with more propriety, 
 and adhere 1 to fixed principles, the genius he possessed might 
 have raised him to more celebrity. He visited the best 
 schools of Italy, and copied, or at least designed, the choicest 
 productions of each. Many praise his copies of Titiano, of 
 Correggio, and of Paolo Veronese : from the works of the 
 two last he likewise made etchings. Notwithstanding such 
 studies, his colouring degenerated, and he became so much a 
 mannerist, that he has not left behind him a truly classical 
 work. The S. Lorenzo in the church of S. Simone, reckoned 
 the master-piece of Yanni, has nothing uncommon, except 
 that the light of the fire invests the spectators, and gives the 
 picture novelty and surprising harmony. 
 
 Jacopo da Empoli, a scholar of Friano, retains in most of 
 his works the stamp of his early education ; but he adopted 
 a second manner not deficient in fulness of design, nor in 
 elegance of colouring. Such is his S. Ivo, which, among 
 painters of great name in a cabinet of the ducal gallery, sur- 
 prises most strangers more than the other pictures. He exe- 
 cuted other works on similar principles, from which we might 
 infer that he belongs to an era favourable to the art. Paint- 
 ers cannot, like authors, amend the first on a second edition 
 of the same subject : their second editions, by which they 
 should be judged, pass as other pictures superior to their first 
 performances. Two of Jacopo' s pictures in fresco are com- 
 mended by Moreni (torn. ii. p. 113), one belonging to the 
 Certosa, the other to the monastery of Boldrone. Both 
 prove the extent of his ability in this branch of the art ; but 
 after his fall from the scaffolding in the Certosa, he aban- 
 doned this methed and devoted himself wholly to painting in 
 oil. Empoli gave all the beauty and fine effect of large 
 works to those pleasing pictures he painted for private indi- 
 viduals, and in this style he was very successful. 
 
 This artist taught Yanni the principles of painting ; but 
 
FELICE FICHEKELLI. 
 
 2D 
 
 his greatest pupil was Felice Ficherelli ; a man of the most 
 indolent disposition, lazy in every occupation, and, as if afraid 
 of disturbing his tongue, usually silent unless when asked a 
 question : hence he was named Felice Riposo by the Floren- 
 tines. He executed few pictures ; but what proceeded from 
 his studio may be held up as an example of industry ; sim- 
 ple, natural, and studied, without appearing to be so. There 
 is a picture of S. Anthony in S. Maria Nuova, where he 
 seems to have been directed by his intimate friend Cristofano, 
 whose work it strongly resembles. He is rare in collections ; 
 but always makes a good figure there by his graceful design, 
 his full body of colouring, and his softness. The Adam and 
 Eve driven out of Paradise, in the gallery of the Rinuccini 
 palace, is worthy such a collection. He copied Pietro Peru- 
 gino, Andrea del Sarto, and some other masters, so well, that 
 his work might pass for the originals ; and to this employ- 
 ment we may chiefly attribute the exquisite finish of his 
 pictures. 
 
 To this period we may assign some other artists, who, from 
 whatever cause, are, perhaps, less commended by historians 
 than they deserve. Of this number is Giovanni Martinelli, 
 of whom there is a capital work in the Conventualists of 
 Pescia, viz. the Miracle of S. Anthony, a subject also exe- 
 cuted by Cigoli. His Feast of Belshazzar, in the ducal gal- 
 lery at Florence, and his Guardian Angel, at S. Lucia de* 
 Bardi, are pictures of note, but inferior to that at Pescia. 
 Of the same class also is Michel Cinganelli, a scholar of 
 Poccetti, who was employed in the metropolitan church of 
 Pisa, where he ornamented the corbels of the cupola, and 
 strove to emulate the best Tuscan artists in an historical pic- 
 ture of Joshua. Such is Palladino, mentioned in the Guide 
 of Florence in reference to a S. Giovanni Decollato ; a work 
 deserving notice, for its freedom from the beaten track of his 
 school. He seems to have studied the Lombard more than 
 native artists, and to have been acquainted with Baroccio. 
 I saw his altar-piece at S. Jacopo a' Corbolini. I suspect 
 that this artist is the same as Filippo Paladini, pointed out 
 by Hackert, born and educated at Florence, and who resided 
 in foreign parts. He was compelled to fly from Milan on 
 account of some disturbance, and took refuge in Rome, where 
 
220 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 he was received by Prince Colonna; but being pursued, went 
 to Sicily, and resided at Mazzarino, an estate belonging to 
 the Colonna family. There, as well as at Syracuse, Palermo, 
 Catania, and elsewhere, he left works that display much ele- 
 gance and fine colouring, but not free from mannerism, the 
 fault also of the picture at Florence. Benedetto Yeli painted 
 in the cathedral of Pistoia an Ascension of Christ, placed at 
 the entrance to the presbytery. It is the companion to one 
 of the Pentecost by Gregorio Pagani, which sufficiently 
 proves that it has no common merit. There lived other 
 painters about this time, of whom Tuscany retains no trace ; 
 but they are recognised in other schools : as Vaiano in the 
 Milanese, and Mazzoni in the Yenetian schools, where we 
 shall give some account of them. 
 
 Last among the great masters of this period I place Matteo 
 Rosselli, a scholar of Pagani and of Passignano, and of seve- 
 ral old masters, under whom he studied at Rome and Flo- 
 rence. He became so distinguished, that he was invited to the 
 court of the duke of Modena, and retained by Cosmo II., 
 grand duke of Tuscany. In painting, however, he had 
 many equals ; but few in the art of teaching, for which he 
 was adapted by a facility of communicating instruction, a 
 judicious method of discovering the talents of each pupil, and 
 of directing his progress : hence his school, like that of the 
 Caracci, produced as many different styles as he had pupils. 
 His placid genius was not fitted for the conception of novel 
 compositions, nor for pursuing them with the steadiness that 
 characterizes the painter of elevated fancy. His merit lies 
 in correctness in the imitation of nature ; in which he is not 
 always select ; and there is a peculiar harmony in the whole, 
 by which his pictures (generally in a sombre tone) please, 
 even when compared with works of the most brilliant colour- 
 ing. He excels in dignity of character ; some of the heads 
 of his apostles so strongly resemble the works of the Caracci, 
 that connoisseurs are sometimes deceived. He strove to rival 
 Cigoli : as in his Nativity of our Saviour at S. Gaetano, 
 which is thought to be his master-piece, and in the Cruci- 
 fixion of S. Andrew in All Saints' church, which has been 
 engraved at Florence. His fresco paintings are greatly 
 admired ; go well do his labours, on the principles of the 
 
GIOVANNI DA S. GIOVANNI. 
 
 221 
 
 past age, preserve their brilliancy. The cloister of the Nun- 
 ziata has many of his semicircular pieces ; and that represent- 
 ing Alexander IY. confirming the Order of the Servi, ap- 
 peared a grand work to Passignano and Cortona. He orna- 
 mented a ceiling in the royal villa of Poggio Imperiale with 
 some histories of the Medicean family. The chamber where 
 this painting was placed was ordered to be demolished in the 
 time of the Grand Duke Peter Leopold ; but so highly was 
 Rosselli esteemed, that the ceiling was preserved, and trans- 
 ferred to another apartment. His chief praise, however, 
 arises from his preserving that fatherly regard for pupils, 
 which Quintilian thinks the first requisite in a master : hence 
 he became the head of a respectable family of painters, whom 
 we shall now consider. 
 
 Of these, Giovanni da S. Giovanni (his family name was 
 Manozzi) could boast of being one of the best fresco painters 
 that Italy ever possessed. Gifted by nature with a fervid 
 genius, a fertile imagination, celerity and freedom of hand, 
 he painted so much in the dominions of the Church, even in 
 Rome, especially in the church of the Four Saints, in Tus- 
 cany, in Florence, and the Pitti palace,* that we can scarcely 
 believe he began to study at the age of eighteen, and died 
 when only forty-eight. His style is very far from the solid 
 manner of his master ; he carried the celebrated maxim of 
 Horace, " All is allowable" to excess; and often preferred 
 whim to art. Amid choirs of angels he introduced the 
 novelty of female angels ; if we may ascribe this to him, and 
 not to the Cavalier d'Arpino or Alessandro Allori. But 
 whatever exertions he made to discredit himself, he did not 
 succeed. His spirit is greatly superior to the conceits of 
 other artists ; and his performances at Florence, in which he 
 bridled his eccentricities, prove that he knew more than he 
 was ambitious to shew. Among these we may notice his 
 Flight into Egypt in the Royal Academy ; some semicircular 
 
 * In the great saloon he has poetically represented the protection 
 afforded to literature by Lorenzo de' Medici. With some licenses peculiar 
 to that age, the composition and the figures are very beautiful ; and 
 there is an imitation of basso-relievo in his painting, that would de- 
 ceive the most skilful. This work, left imperfect by him, was com- 
 pleted by Pagani, by Montelatici, and by Furini, with some semicircular 
 pieces. 
 
222 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 pieces in the church of All Saints ; the Expulsion of the 
 Sciences from Greece, of the Pitti palace, in which the blind 
 Homer appears groping his way with great nature, as he is 
 exiled from his native land. It is related of Pietro di Cor- 
 tona, that on seeing one of the works of Giovanni, which did 
 him no credit, he did not condemn him ; but pointing to the 
 piece, observed, " Giovanni painted that when he was already 
 conscious of being a great man." His pictures on panel and 
 on canvas are less admired, nor always exempt from crudity. 
 He had a son called Gio. Garzia, who produced several fresco 
 works at Pistoia, tolerably well executed. 
 
 Baldassare Franceschini, surnamed Volterrano, and also 
 the younger Volterrano, to distinguish him from Ricciarelli, 
 seemed formed by nature to adorn cupolas, temples, and mag- 
 nificent halls, a style of work in which he is more con- 
 spicuous than in painting cabinet pictures. The cupola and 
 nave of the Niccolini chapel, in the church of the Holy Cross, 
 is his happiest effort in this way ; and surprises even an ad- 
 mirer of Lanfranco. That of the Nunziata is most beautiful ; 
 and we must not omit the ceiling of a chapel in S. Maria 
 Maggiore, where Elias appears so admirably foreshortened, 
 that it calls to mind the S. Rocco of Tintoretto, by mere 
 optical illusion. His talents excited the envy of Giovanni da 
 S. Giovanni, who, having engaged him as his assistant in the 
 decoration of the Pitti palace, speedily dismissed him. His 
 spirit is tempered by judgment and propriety ; his Tuscan de- 
 sign is varied and ennobled by an imitation of other schools, to 
 visit which he was sent to travel by his noble patrons of the 
 house of Niccolini. He derived great advantages from 
 studying the schools of Parma and of Bologna. He knew 
 Pietro di Cortona, and adopted some of his principles, a thing 
 not uncommon among the artists of this epoch. 
 
 Volterrano painted a great many frescos in Florence, one 
 in the Palazzo del Bufalo, at Rome, and some at Volterra, 
 noticed by Baldinucci. The praise bestowed on him by the 
 historian appears rather scanty than extravagant, to those 
 who duly consider the propriety of his inventions, the correct- 
 ness of his design — so rare in this class of artists ; his know- 
 ledge of the perspective, of foreshortening figures in ceilings, 
 the spirit of his attitudes, the clearness of his graduated, well- 
 
ANTONIO FRANCHI. 
 
 223 
 
 balanced, and united colours, and the pleasing harmony of 
 the whole. The same talents are evident in his oil-pictures, 
 as may be observed in his S. Filippo Benizi, in the Nunziata 
 of Florence ; in his S. John the Evangelist, a noble figure 
 which he painted with other saints in S. Chiara at Volterra ; 
 his S. Carlo administering the communion in the Nunziata of 
 Pescia, and some of his other paintings that are well finished, 
 which was not the case with all his works. The same 
 observations apply to his cabinet pictures, which abound 
 in the ducal palace, and in the houses of the nobility of 
 Volterra, especially in those of the families of Maffei and 
 Sermolli. 
 
 Cosimo Ulivelli is also a good historical painter ; and hi3 
 style is sometimes mistaken for that of his master, by less 
 skilful judges ; but a good connoisseur discovers in him forms 
 less elegant, a colouring less clear, a character approaching 
 to mannerism and meagerness. We ought to form an opinion 
 from the works of his best period, such as his semicircular 
 pieces in the cloister of the Carmine. Antonio Franchi, a 
 native of Lucca, who lived at Florence, is reckoned by many 
 inferior to Ulivelli ; but he is generally more judicious, and 
 more diligent. His S. Joseph of Calassanzio, in the church 
 of the Fathers of Scolopi, is a picture of good effect, and is 
 commended for the design. Another of his fine works is in 
 the parish church of Caporgnano, in the state of Lucca ; it 
 represents Christ delivering the keys to S. Peter, and I am 
 informed by an experienced artist, that it is the most esteemed 
 of his productions, more of which may be found in the account 
 of his Life, published at Florence, by Bartolozzi. He was 
 painter to the court, by which he was much employed, as well 
 as by private individuals. He was a moderate follower of 
 Cortona. He wrote a useful tract on the " Theory of Paint- 
 ing," in which he combated the prejudices of the age, and 
 enforced the necessity of proceeding on general principles. It 
 was printed in 1739, and afterwards defended by the author 
 against certain criticisms made on it. Giuseppe and Mar- 
 gherita, his two sons, have met with some commendation, 
 and I am told there is a fine altar-piece by the former, which 
 adorns the parish church at Borgo Buggiano. It is retouched, 
 
224 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 however, hy his father, who honourably makes mention of the 
 fact. I repeat honourably, because many fathers are known 
 to have aided their sons with a view of obtaining for them a 
 reputation beyond their deserts. Michelangelo Palloni da 
 Campi, a pupil of Volterrano, is known in Florence by a good 
 copy of the Furius Camillus, of Salviati, in the old palace, 
 which was placed by the side of the original. He resided 
 long, and was much employed in Poland. An eminent pupil 
 of Baldassare, named Benedetto Orsi, was omitted by Baldi- 
 nucci. A fine picture of S. John the Evangelist, in the 
 church of S. Stephen, at Pescia, his native place, is attributed 
 to him. He also painted the Works of Mercy, for the reli- 
 gious fraternity of nobles. These oil-paintings were shewn 
 to strangers among the curiosities of that city, but they were 
 dispersed on the suppression of the order. There still exists a 
 large circular picture which he produced at Pistoia for S. 
 Maria del Letto, enumerated by good judges among the finest 
 works of Volterrano, until an authentic document discovered 
 the real author. Last in this list I have to mention Arrighi, 
 the fellow-citizen of Franceschini, and his favourite pupil. 
 He has nothing remaining in public, in which his master 
 cannot boast a great share.* 
 
 After Franceschini, who may be considered the Lanfranco 
 of the Rosselli, or rather Florentine school, we proceed to 
 Francesco Furini, who is its Guido and its Albano. Foreigners 
 recognised him as such : hence he was invited to Venice, for 
 the express purpose of painting a Thetis, as a companion to 
 an Europa, by Guido Reni. He had seen the works of mas- 
 ters of this class at Rome, and appears to have aspired at 
 rivalling, rather than at imitating them. His ideas certainly 
 do not seem borrowed from them, nor from any other artists. 
 He spent a long time in meditating on his subject, and was 
 accustomed to consider his picture completed when he had 
 finished his studies for it ; so little time and trouble did it 
 cost him to embody his ideas in colours. Having been or- 
 dained a priest about his fortieth year, and becoming curate 
 of S. Ansano, in Mugello, he executed some pictures truly 
 
 * See torn. ii. of Signor Giachi, p. 202. 
 
FRANCESCO FURINI. 
 
 225 
 
 valuable, both on account of the rarity of his works and their 
 excellence, for the neighbouring town of S. Lorenzo. Above 
 all, we may notice with admiration a S. Francis receiving the 
 Stigmata, and a Conception of the Blessed Virgin, in which, 
 elevated above mortality, she appears soaring and resplen- 
 dent. But his great name in Italy arose from his cabinet 
 pictures, which are rare out of Florence, and in Florence are 
 highly esteemed, though considerable numbers of them remain 
 there. His Hylas carried away by the Nymphs, which he 
 painted for the family of Galli, and in which he introduced 
 noble figures that are grandly varied, is highly celebrated ; 
 not to mention the three Graces of the Strozzi palace, and 
 the many historical pieces and half-length figures dispersed 
 through the city that are unnoticed in his life. They chiefly 
 consist of nymphs, or of Magdalens, no less naked than the 
 nymphs, for Furini was a very expert painter of delicate 
 flesh, but not one of the most modest. Furini must have had 
 a great number either of pupils or imitators, as his pictures 
 for private houses before mentioned, which were copied, are 
 of frequent occurrence in Florence. They are often of a 
 dusky hue, through the defect of their ground, and Simone 
 Pignone is made, often erroneously so, their most common 
 author. He was Francesco's best pupil ; very delicate in the 
 colours of his fleshes, as we may judge from the altar-piece 
 of B. Bernardo Tolomei, at Monte Oliveto, where the Virgin 
 and the Infant are coloured very beautifully in the flesh, if 
 not handsome in their features. His picture of S. Louis, 
 king of France, at S. Felicità, is still more celebrated. It 
 was much commended by Giordano, and the artist received 
 five hundred crowns for its execution. In the first volume 
 of Lettere Pittoriche we are informed, that Maratta only 
 esteemed Gabbiani and Pignone among all the Florentine 
 painters of his time. He was also praised by Bellini, in the 
 work entitled " Bucchereide," where he coins a new term for 
 Pignone (a liberty extremely common among our jocose 
 poets), I know not how far susceptible of imitation in another 
 tongue : " E Tarcipittorissimo de* buoni/' 
 
 Lorenzo Lippi, like his friend Salvator Rosa, divided his 
 hours between poetry and painting. His MaJmantile Rac- 
 
 TOL. I. Q 
 
226 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 •pistato,* which is a model of Tuscan purity of language,! is 
 a work less read perhaps, but more elegant than the satires 
 of Salvator ; and is sprinkled with those graceful Florentine 
 idioms that are regarded as the Attic salt of Italy. In look- 
 ing for a prototype among the artists of his own school, guided 
 by similarity of genius, he made choice of Santi di Tito. A 
 delineator of the passions sufficiently accorded with the genius 
 of the poet, and a painter of the choicest design was highly 
 congenial to so elegant a writer. He, however, added to his 
 style a greater force of colouring ; and in drapery he followed 
 the practice of some Lombard masters and of Baroccio, in 
 modelling the folds in paper, a practice of which their works 
 retain some traces. The delicacy of pencil, the clearness, 
 harmony, and, to sum up all, the good taste, pervading his 
 pictures, demonstrate that he had a feeling of natural beauty 
 superior to most of his contemporaries. His master admired 
 him, and said, with a liberality not always to be found among 
 history painters, " Lorenzo, thou art more knowing than I." 
 His pictures are not very rare at Florence, although he re- 
 sided far from it for many years, for he was painter to the 
 court of Inspruck. A Crucifixion, among his best perform- 
 ances, is in the ducal gallery. The noble family of Arrighi 
 possesses a S. Saverio recovering from the claws of a crab 
 the Crucifix which he had dropped into the sea. Baldinucci 
 and the author of " The Series of the most Illustrious Paint- 
 ers/' have spoken very highly of his Triumph of David, 
 painted for the hall of Angiol Gaddi, who wished him to 
 represent his eldest son as the son of Jesse, and his other six- 
 teen children as the youths and virgins that, with songs and 
 timbrels, greet the victor, and hail the deliverance of Israel. 
 In this celebrated piece, the artist was enabled to give full 
 scope to his talent for portrait-painting, and to the style 
 approaching to nature, which he loved, without troubling 
 himself about studied and artful embellishments. It was his 
 maxim to write poetry as he spoke, and to paint what he 
 observed. 
 
 * The Ragged Cloak recovered. 
 
 f It was published with notes by Dr. Paolo Minucci, and was reprinted 
 iftith other illustrations of Sig. Antonio Biscioni. 
 
MARIO BALASSI. 
 
 227 
 
 Mario Baiassi perfected himself under Passignano, and 
 after the choicest examples of the Roman and other schools. 
 He was an excellent copyist of the old masters, and a painter 
 of invention above mediocrity. Some of his small historical 
 pictures, and a few pieces representing eatables, are to be 
 met with in private houses ; and, above all, there are many 
 of his half-length figures finely coloured and relieved. In 
 his old age he changed his manner, and retouched as many of 
 the works of his youth as he could lay his hands on ; but in 
 striving to improve, he only injured them. 
 
 Francesco Boschi, the nephew and scholar of Rosselli, was 
 an excellent portrait-painter. In the cloister of All Saints, 
 where his uncle Fabrizio also painted, there are some of his 
 portraits that seem absolutely alive, and are executed in fresco 
 so admirably, that they clearly shew the school from which 
 he proceeded. He finished some pieces in oil, that were left 
 imperfect by the death of Rosselli, and painted others entirely 
 his own, the subjects of which were chiefly religious, where 
 the countenances are strikingly expressive of probity and 
 sanctity. As he grew older he assumed the ecclesiastical 
 habit, and sustained its dignity by his exemplary conduct, 
 the account of which Baldinucci has extended at some length. 
 During twenty-four years in which he lived a priest, he did 
 not resign his pencil ; but he employed it less frequently, and 
 generally less successfully, than in his youth. His elder 
 brother, Alfonso, promised much, and even attained a great 
 deal, though cut olf in early life. 
 
 The style of Jacopo Vignali has some resemblance to that 
 of Guercino, but less in the forms than in the dark shadows 
 and the grounds. He is amongst those scholars of Rosselli 
 who are seldom mentioned, although he painted more than 
 any of the rest for the prince and the state. He often is 
 weak, especially in attitude ; often, however, he appears 
 praiseworthy, as in the two pictures at S. Simone, and in the 
 S. Liborio, which is possessed by the missionaries. He is 
 most conspicuous in fresco-painting, with which he orna- 
 mented the chapel of the Bonarruoti. He painted good his- 
 torical pictures in the palaces of many of the nobility, and he 
 even boasts noble pupils, none of whom did so much honour 
 to his memory as Carlo Dolci. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 Dolci liolds the same rank in the Florentine, that Sasso- 
 ferrato holds in the Roman school. Both, though destitute 
 of great powers of invention, obtained high reputation for 
 Madonnas and similar small subjects, which have now be- 
 come extremely valuable ; for the wealthy, desirous of pos- 
 sessing pictures at once estimable and religious, to hang up 
 in their oratories, have brought those two masters into great 
 request, notwithstanding that they operated on very different 
 principles. Carlo is not so celebrated for beauty (for he was 
 like his master, a mere naturalist), as for the exquisite pains 
 with which he finished every thing, and the genuine expres- 
 sion of certain affecting emotions ; such as the patient suffer- 
 ing of Christ, or of the Virgin Mary ; the penitential com- 
 punction of a saint, or the holy confidence of a martyr devot- 
 ing himself as a victim for the living God. The colouring 
 and general tone of his pictures accord with the idea of the 
 passion ; nothing is turgid or bold ; all is modesty, repose, 
 and placid harmony. In him we may retrace the manner of 
 Rosselli brought to perfection, as we sometimes can view the 
 features of the grandsire in his descendants. A few of his 
 larger works still remain, such as the S. Antonio, in the royal 
 museum ; the Conception of our Lady, in the possession of 
 the Marquis Rinuccini ; also a very few of his subjects from 
 profane story, a few of his portraits, and the celebrated figure 
 of Poetry, in the palace of Prince Corsini. His small pic- 
 tures, for each of which he usually received 100 crowns, are 
 very numerous, and were frequently repeated by himself or 
 by his pupils, Alessandro Lomi and Bartolommeo Mancini, 
 and often by Agnese Dolci, his daughter, a good artist, and 
 follower of the style of her father, but not his equal. His 
 two Madonnas in the cabinet of the Grand Duke, and his 
 martyrdom of S. Andrew, in the possession of the Marquis 
 Germi, have been often copied. 
 
 Of Onorio Marinari, the cousin and scholar of Carlo, but 
 few pictures remain at Florence, either in private or in pub- 
 lic. After imitating his master (which usually is the first 
 exercise of students in the art, and often, from dissimilarity 
 of genius, is their great bane), he formed another style, by 
 yielding to the bent of his natural powers, which was more 
 grand, had more of the ideal, and deeper shadows ; and of 
 
JACOPO LIGOZZI. 
 
 229 
 
 this several specimens remain in the churches of S. Maria 
 Maggiore and S. Simone. This artist died young, very un- 
 fortunately for the school to which he belonged. 
 
 About the period we have been describing, some foreign 
 artists resided at Florence for a considerable time, to the no 
 small advantage of the native painters, as we have already 
 observed. Paggi came there in the reign of the Grand Duke 
 Francis I., remained there twenty years, and left some works 
 behind him. About the same time Salvator Rosa, Albani, 
 Borgognone, Colonna, Mitelli, and many more, either invited 
 by the princes from abroad, or coming there of their own 
 accord, were retained by them for the decoration of the palace 
 and the city. We shall consider them particularly under the 
 schools of the countries where they were born, or in which 
 they taught ; but here we shall give a place to Jacopo Ligozzi, 
 whom the Florentine school may claim on account of his resi- 
 dence, his employment, and his scholars. He had studied at 
 Verona, under Paolo Veronese, according to Baldinucci ; but 
 under Gio. Francesco Carrotto, according to the emendation 
 of Maffei, without reflecting that this artist died when Jacopo 
 was scarcely three years old. Some foreign writers make 
 him the son of Gio. Ermanno, the painter, a circumstance 
 unknown to Cav. del Pozzo, the townsman and historian of 
 them both. Ferdinand II. appointed him painter to the 
 court, and superintendent of the gallery. This was very 
 honourable, when conferred by such a prince on him, in pre- 
 ference to many eminent Florentines. Ligozzi executed 
 some works at Rome, and introduced at Florence a freedom 
 of pencil, an art in composition, a taste for the ornamental, 
 and a grace and gaiety, till then rare in that city. His de- 
 sign was sufficiently correct, and uniformly improved while 
 he remained in Tuscany. As to his colouring, although it 
 was not that of Paolo, it was not deficient in truth and 
 vigour. 
 
 His seventeen semicircular pictures in the cloisters of All 
 Saints, are valued at Florence, especially the interview be- 
 tween S. Francis and S. Damenick, the founders of the order. 
 On this picture he wrote, " To the confusion of our friends/* 
 meaning the envious and malignant. This is his masterpiece 
 in fresco. He painted more frequently in oil-colours, in 
 
230 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. — EPOCH IV. 
 
 several churches. The S. Raymond in the act of reanimating 
 a child, in S. Maria Novella, is a picture full of art ; and 
 there is another in the same style at the Scalzi of Imola, 
 representing the four Crowned Saints. The Martyrdom 01 
 S. Dorothea I do not hesitate to call a wonderful picture ; in 
 which we recognize a follower of Paolo, and which is in pos- 
 session of the Conventual Friars of Pescia. The scaffold, the 
 executioner, the prefect on horseback, who is ordering him to 
 strike, the great crowd of spectators variously affected, and 
 all the apparatus of a public punishment, strike and astonish 
 equally the connoisseur and the unskilled in painting; the 
 holy martyr especially interests us, who, on her knees, with 
 a placid composure, willingly resigns her life, and is about ti- 
 receive from angels the eternal crown purchased with her 
 blood. In other performances he shews more simplicity, as 
 in the S. Diego, at All Saints, or in the Angels, at the P. P. 
 Scolopi ; but he is an artist who always pleases, and who 
 shews that he felt what he painted. Ligozzi painted much 
 for private individuals. In his very small pictures, a style 
 in which he was expert, he finished as highly as if they were 
 miniatures. Several of his works were published by Agostino 
 Caracci, and other engravers. 
 
 None of his Florentine pupils is esteemed equal to Donato 
 Mascagni, for such was his real name, which may be seen 
 subscribed to two scriptural pieces, in possession of Sig. Ab. 
 Giachi, at Volterra. Having entered the order of Servi, he 
 assumed the name of Fra Arsenio ; and several of his works 
 painted after that period are to be seen in Florence, executed 
 in a manner not very full and soft, but diligent ; of which 
 there are several other specimens in his Miracles of the Nun- 
 ziata, which are engraved and illustrated in the little work of 
 Padre Lottini. What does him greatest honour is the picture 
 preserved in the library of the monastery of Yallombrosa 
 It represents the donation of the State of Ferrara to the Holy 
 Seat, by the Countess Matilda, as is believed by some, or 
 rather the distribution of some privileges by her to the order 
 of Yallambrosa, and is a picture full of subject, and the chief 
 glory of this master. 
 
 In casting our eyes over other cities of Tuscany, we find 
 some painters very capable of decorating houses and altars. 
 
SCHOOLS OF PISA AND LUCCA. 
 
 231 
 
 Francesco Morosini, surnamed Montepulciano, may be recog- 
 nised in the church of S. Stephen, of Florence, where he 
 painted a Conversion of S. Paul, in the manner of his master, 
 Fidani. Arezzo produced the two Santini. Of one of them, 
 there named the Elder, several pictures were pointed out to 
 me by the accomplished Cav. Giudici, among which was a S. 
 Catherine, in possession of the Conventual Friars ; it savours 
 of the Florentine manner during this epoch, except that the 
 use of changing tints is more frequent. Bartolommeo and 
 Teofilo Torre, of Arezzo, are noticed as fresco painters by 
 Orlandi, who mentions halls, and even whole houses, being 
 ornamented by the latter with historical pieces ; which, if 
 deficient in design, he praises for their colouring. Francesco 
 Brini left a good picture of the Immaculate Conception, at 
 Volterra : of his country and school I am ignorant. I do 
 not know the master of Pompeo Caccia ; it is certain that he 
 called himself a native of Rome, perhaps because it is easy to 
 substitute the capital, so well known, for places in the state 
 of less notoriety. In Rome, however, I do not find any 
 traces of him. I find, indeed, that he left several pictures at 
 Pistoja, among which is the Presentation (at the Salesiane) 
 of Jesus in the Temple, to which is affixed the date 1615. 
 Alessandro Bardelli was a native of Pescia ; in his style we 
 find traces of his preceptor, Curradi, and of Guercino. He 
 was a good painter, and executed the ornamental border for 
 the portrait of S. Francis, painted by Margaritone, for his 
 church in Pescia : he represented around it the virtues of the 
 saint, and a choir of angels above. I am doubtful whether 
 we should include Alessio Gimignani, one of a family of art- 
 ists in Pistoia, to be recorded in the fifth epoch, among the 
 pupils of Ligozzi, but he was undoubtedly his follower. 
 
 About this period two schools arose, highly deserving of 
 notice, those of Pisa and of Lucca. The Pisan school recog- 
 nises as its founder, Aurelio Lomi, first a scholar of Bronzino, 
 and afterwards of Cigoli. His very correct performances, in 
 the cathedral of Pisa, are executed after both masters ; but 
 when compared to Cigoli he is more minute, and has much 
 less softness. His aim appears to be to surprise the multi- 
 tude by an agreeable colouring, and a magnificence of drape- 
 ries and ornaments. This style pleased at Florence, in Rome, 
 
232 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH I\. 
 
 and more especially at Genoa, where he was preferred to 
 Sorri, many years established and in good repute. His works 
 in that city are very full of subject ; as his S. Anthony, be- 
 longing to the Franciscans, and his Last Judgment, in S. 
 Maria of Carignano ; pictures which surprise by an air of 
 novelty : the first is graceful, rich, but modest in the tints ; 
 the second terrible, and the colours more vivid than those he 
 employed on any other occasion. A. S. Jerome, in the Cam- 
 po Santo, is less glowing, but it is esteemed by the Pisans 
 his capital work ; at the bottom of this piece he put his 
 initials and the date 159.5. 
 
 He most probably taught the principles of the art to his 
 brother, Orazio Lomi ; who was called Gentileschi, from the 
 surname of an uncle. Gentileschi formed his style, however, 
 on the finest examples in Rome, assisted by his friend Agos- 
 tino Tassi. Tassi was an eminent ornamental landscape 
 painter, and Gentileschi executed appropriate figures to his 
 inventions in the Loggia Rospigliosi, in the saloon of the 
 Quirinal palace, and in other places. He also painted some 
 smaller pictures in Rome, particularly at the Pace, from 
 which we cannot ascertain his merit, either because they were 
 performances of his unripe years, or because they have be- 
 come black from age. He had not then attained the beautiful 
 colouring, nor the Lombard-like manner of managing the 
 shadows, which we observe in many of his cabinet pictures. 
 A fine specimen, representing S. Cecilia with S. Valerian, is 
 in the Borghesi palace. The choicest adorn the royal palace 
 of Turin, and some houses in Genoa. In the collection of 
 his Excellency Cardinal Cambiasi, there is a David standing 
 over the dead Goliath, so relieved, and with tints so vivid 
 and so well contrasted, that it gives the idea of a style en- 
 tirely new. He was esteemed by Yandyck, and inserted by 
 him in his series of portraits of one hundred illustrious men. 
 When already old, he went to the English court, where he 
 died at the age of eighty-four. 
 
 Artemisia, his daughter and disciple, followed her father 
 into that island ; but she passed her best years in Italy. She 
 was respected for her talents, and celebrated for the elegance 
 of her manners and appearance. She is noticed both by 
 Italian and foreign writers, and by Walpole among the latter, 
 
ORAZIO RIMINALDI. 
 
 233 
 
 in his Anecdotes of Painting in England. She lived long 
 at Naples, married there a Pier Antonio Schiattesi ; and was 
 there assisted and improved in the art by Guido Reni, stu- 
 died the works of Domenichino, and was not unskilled in 
 other approved styles. She shews variety of style in her 
 few remaining historical pictures. Some of them are at Na- 
 ples and Pozzuolo, and there are two in Florence inscribed 
 with her name ; one in the ducal gallery, and the other in 
 possession of my noble and learned friend Sig. Averardo de' 
 Medici; the former, representing Judith slaying Holof ernes, 
 is a picture of a strong colouring, of a tone and perspicuity 
 that inspires awe ; the latter, a Susanna and the Elders, is a 
 painting that pleases by the scene, the elegance of the prin- 
 cipal figure, and the drapery of the others. Artemisia, how- 
 ever, was more celebrated for her portraits, which are of 
 singular merit ; they spread her fame over all Europe, and in 
 them she surpassed her father. 
 
 Orazio Riminaldi was a scholar of the elder Lomi in Pisa, 
 and of the younger in Rome, but imitated neither of them ; 
 from the beginning he gave himself up to the guidance of 
 Manfredi, in the manner of Caravaggio, and afterwards be- 
 came a follower of Domenico Zampieri, to rival whom he 
 seems intended by nature. From the time that the art of 
 painting revived in Pisa, that city had not perhaps so emi- 
 nent a painter, nor have many better been born on the banks 
 of the Arno, a soil so propitious to the arts. Grand in con- 
 tour and in drapery, after the manner of the Caracci, pleas- 
 ing and agreeable in his carnations, full, free, and delicate in 
 the management of his pencil, he would have been faultless, 
 had not the wretched style of engraving raised prejudices 
 against him. Excessive fatigue, or, as others will have it, 
 the plague of 1630, snatched him in early life from his coun- 
 try ; for the fame of which alone he seems to have lived to 
 maturity. He there ornamented many altars with fine pic- 
 tures, one of which representing the martyrdom of S. Cecilia, 
 was afterwards placed in the Pitti palace. In the choir of 
 the cathedral there are two of his scriptural pieces, that form 
 a perfect study for any one who wishes to become acquainted 
 with this epoch. The judgment of the master of the works 
 was conspicuous in engaging Riminaldi to paint the cupola, 
 
234 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IY. 
 
 even before he had finished the above pictures, and in making 
 choice of him in preference to any other artist. The As- 
 sumption of the Virgin Mary, which he painted in oil, is one 
 of the best conceived and most perfect works that Tuscany 
 had ever beheld, and it was the last labour of Orazio. His 
 brother Girolamo completed it feebly, by introducing some 
 figures that were wanting, and the family received 5,000 
 crowns as its price. Girolamo is rarely to be met with in 
 Pisan collections, and still more rarely in other places. He 
 was, however, well known in his day, having been invited to 
 Naples to ornament the chapel of S. Gennaro, and to the 
 court of Paris by the queen. 
 
 From among many Pisan artists of this period recorded by 
 Sig. da Morrona, or Sig. Tempesti, we shall select some of 
 the most considerable. Ercole Bezzicaluva is worthy of no- 
 tice, both for his engravings and his picture representing 
 various saints in the choir of St. Stephens at Pisa. So like- 
 wise is Gio. del Sordo, otherwise called Mone da Pisa ; but 
 his colouring seems superior to his invention. Zaccaria Ron- 
 dinosi, I believe, of the Florentine school, was more skilled 
 in ornamental than in any other branch of painting. He re- 
 paired the pictures in the Campo Santo, and on that account 
 was honoured by the citizens with a tomb there, and near it 
 an inscription on the marble. I know not whether any pic- 
 ture of Arcangela Paladini, an excellent embroiderer, except 
 her own portrait, has reached our times. It was hung in the 
 ducal gallery among the portraits of illustrious painters : to 
 be deposited in such a place, and to remain there from 1621, 
 is an unequivocal proof of its merit ; since it is the custom 
 of the place not lightly to refuse the portraits of tolerably 
 good painters, but to keep them there as if only lodgers, and 
 then send them to some villa of the prince, when new guests 
 arrive, to take a place in the cabinets which are named de 
 Pittori. Gio. Stefano Marucelli, both an engineer and a 
 painter, was not born in Pisa, but he may be reckoned 
 a Pisan from his long residence and attachment to the place. 
 Having come from Umbria into Tuscany, according to the 
 tradition of the Pisans, he became a pupil of Boscoli, and 
 remaining at Pisa, he contended with the celebrated artists 
 whom we have noticed as employed from time to time in 
 
ARTISTS OF LUCCA. 
 
 235 
 
 ornamenting the tribune of the cathedral. The Abraham 
 entertaining the Three Angels is a work of his, commended 
 for felicity of invention, and beauty of colouring. In the 
 church of S. Nicolas at Pisa there remains a memorial of 
 Domenico Bongi of Pietra-santa, who was a follower of Perino 
 del Yaga. He flourished in 1582. 
 
 The series of the principal artists of Lucca commences with 
 Paol Biancucci, the best scholar of Guido Reni, whose grace 
 and power of colour he has imitated in many works. He 
 sometimes so strongly resembles Sassoferrato as to be mis- 
 taken for him. The Purgatory, which he painted at Suffragio, 
 the picture representing various saints, which he left at the 
 church of S. Francis, two in possession of the noble family of 
 Boccella, and others scattered over the city, are of such 
 merit, that Malvasia should have noticed him among the 
 pupils of Guido. He has also omitted Pietro Ricchi of 
 Lucca, who went to Bologna from the school of Passignano. 
 It is true that the preceptorship of Guido is in this instance 
 doubtful, though Baldiuucci and Orlandi both assert it : for 
 Boschini, his intimate friend, says not a word upon the matter, 
 merely observing that Ricchi regretted he had not studied in 
 Venice. It is certain he frequently imitated the forms of 
 Guido ; but in colouring and design adhered to the manner of 
 Passignano ; he also imbibed the principles of the Venetian 
 school, as we shall relate. Two of his pictures are preserved 
 at the church of S. Francis in Lucca, and others remain in 
 private hands ; small remains of a genius very fertile in in- 
 vention, and of a hand rapid and almost indefatigable in exe- 
 cution. He painted in several cities of France, in the 
 Milanese, and still more in the Venetian states, where he 
 died at Udine, in the MS. guide to which place he is often 
 named. 
 
 Pietro Paolini long lived and taught at Lucca ; he was a 
 pupil of the Roman school, but to judge from his works one 
 would pronounce him of the Venetian. In Rome he fre- 
 quented the study of Angelo Caroselli, by education a fol- 
 lower of Caravaggio, but exceedingly expert in copying and 
 imitating. Under him Paolini acquired a manner that shews 
 good drawing, broad shadows, and firm touches, compared by 
 some to the style of Titian, and by others to that of Porde- 
 
236 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 none : one also remarks in his works undoubted imitations of 
 Veronese. The martyrdom of S. Andrew, that exists at S. 
 Michele, and the grand picture, sixteen cubits long, preserved 
 in the library of S. Frediano, would be sufficient to immor- 
 talize a painter. In this he represented the pontiff S. Gre- 
 gory, entertaining some pilgrims ; it is a magnificent picture, 
 ornamented in the style òf Veronese, with plate and architec- 
 tural perspective, full of figures, and possessing a variety, 
 harmony, and beauty, that have induced many poets to extol 
 it. His cabinet pictures of conversations and rural festivals, 
 not rare at Lucca, are exquisite. Two, of the Massacre of 
 Valdestain, belonging to the Orsetti family, were especially 
 commended by Baldinucci. The historian remarks that he 
 had a particular talent for such tragic themes, and in general 
 for the energetic ; he admires him less in the delicate, and even 
 accuses him of marking the action of his female figures too 
 strongly. That he could however be very pleasing when he 
 inclined, we are led to believe from his large work in the church 
 of the Trinity ; which he is said to have conducted in this 
 graceful style, to demonstrate that he was not inferior to his 
 rival Biancucci. 
 
 It is uncertain whether Pietro Testa, called at Rome II 
 Lucchesino, was his disciple ; but highly probable, when his 
 age is compared with that of Paolini, that he learnt from the 
 latter the principles of the art, which he had acquired in 
 Lucca before he came to Rome. He there had several mas- 
 ters, was chiefly under Pietro da Cortona, from whose school 
 he was expelled, because he treated the maxims of his master 
 with contempt. He then put himself under Domenichino, on 
 whose principle, says Passeri, he gloried to rely ; but his 
 style, in his own despite, at times approaches nearly to that 
 of Cortona. He has also some resemblance to his friend 
 Poussin, both in his figures (which at one time he made too 
 slender), in his landscapes, and in his study of the antique, 
 of which he was deeply enamoured ; having applied himself to 
 designing the finest specimens in architecture and in sculpture 
 that Rome afforded. In this branch he is excellent. The 
 death of B. Angelo, placed in S. Martino a* Monti, a picture 
 of great force, is the only piece before the public. Testa is 
 more frequently recognised in galleries : there is a Joseph 
 
SIMONE DEL TINTORE. 
 
 237 
 
 sold to the Ishmaelites by him in the Capitol ; a Murder of 
 the Innocents, in the Spada palace ; but there are not many 
 of his pictures elsewhere ; for he engraved more than he 
 painted.* He left some oil-paintings at Lucca, one in a fee- 
 ble style at S. Romano, several at S. Paolino, in the Buon- 
 visi gallery, and in other places. Two of his works in fresco 
 remain there ; viz. the allegorical picture of Liberty in the 
 senate house, and the small very elegant cupola of the ora- 
 tory in the Lippi palace. He settled at Rome, where he 
 lived unhappily, and either from despair, or some affront, 
 drowned himself in the Tiber. His fate may teach young 
 artists of genius not to overrate their own talents, nor to 
 dispise those of others. By these failings, Testa alienated 
 the minds of his contemporaries, so that neither in reputation 
 nor in employment was he so successful as many others ; and 
 his perpetual complaints occasioned doubts even of his sanity. 
 
 Omitting some scholars of Paolini less addicted to his man- 
 ner, we shall notice the three brothers, Cassiano, Francesco, 
 and Simone del Tintore. I find nothing recorded of the first 
 that exalts him above mediocrity ; and when one meets with 
 an indifferent picture of the school of Paolini, it is ascribed 
 to Cassiano, or some such pupil ; or sometimes to the dotage 
 of Paolini, when he produced sketches rather than paintings. 
 Francesco is recognised as an able artist in the Visitation, in 
 the apartments of his excellency the Gonfaloniere ; and pieces 
 in the Motroni collection. Simone was expert in depicting 
 birds, fruit, and other objects in the inferior walks of the art, 
 to which I shall here devote a few pages. 
 
 And to pursue this pleasing branch of painting, I may 
 observe that Angiol Gori and Bartolommeo Bimbi of Florence 
 distinguished themselves in fruit, and more especially in 
 flowers : the second was the scholar of the first in this line, 
 and of Lippi in figures. Lippi induced Andrea Scacciati to 
 abandon figures for fruit and flowers, and animals, in which 
 
 * Passeri, a great admirer of his tints, pronounces him a master of 
 invention ; and, treating of his engravings, says, " such vigour of con- 
 ception, such novelty, and such variety, were never the gift of any other 
 artist. He is a poet in all his historic pieces, his composition is full of 
 fancy ; this, however, is not equally commended by all, who look for the 
 simple action without other accessories." 
 
238 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 department lie succeeded well, and sent many pictures into 
 foreign countries. Bimbi was the Mario of his school. He 
 instructed Fortini, whom we shall notice along with Moro, 
 a painter of flowers and animals. All these gave place to 
 Lopez of Naples, who visited Florence in his journeys through 
 Italy. 
 
 The art of painting landscapes, and their introduction into 
 collections, began during this epoch : the first style that be- 
 came fashionable at Florence was that of Andriano Fiam- 
 mingo ; but Cristofano Allori excelled all by his neat and 
 firm touch, and by the exquisite figures which he introduced 
 into his landscapes. Guasparre Falgani surpassed him in 
 the number of such subjects : he was initiated in the art by 
 Valerio Marucelli, and imitated by Giovanni Rosi, and 
 Benedetto Boschi, the brother of Francesco. The landscapes 
 of this age have often their greens changed into black, and 
 are reckoned of the old school by Baldinucci. The new style 
 was introduced into Florence by Filippo d'Angeli, or Philip 
 the Neapolitan, long retained at the court of Cosmo II. ; but 
 chiefly by Salvator Rosa. This artist was brought to Florence 
 by Cardinal Gio. Carlo, and remained there seven years ; 
 where as painter, poet, and author of comedies, he was con- 
 stantly applauded for his fine genius, and his society courted 
 by men of learning, with whom, in every department of 
 letters, the country abounded. He formed no pupils at that 
 place, but many young men became his copyists and imitators, 
 as Taddeo Baldini, Lorenzo Martelli, and others. Antonio 
 Giusti, a pupil of Cesare Dandini, was particularly skilled in 
 this art ; but he likewise practised other branches of painting, 
 and Orlandi has described him as universal. Signor da 
 Morrona notices the Poli, two brothers, who executed many 
 pleasing landscapes, known in the collections of Florence and 
 of Pisa. 
 
 Passing from landscape to sea views, no Tuscan in this respect 
 equalled Pietro CiafFeri, otherwise called Lo Smargiasso,* and 
 recorded among the Pisan artists. It is said that he resided 
 long at Leghorn, a place suited to his genius. He there de- 
 corated facades of houses with naval enterprises and of such 
 
 * The Bully. 
 
\ 
 
 GIULO PARIGI PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 239 
 
 subjects, ports, sea-coasts, and ships, he composed oil paintings, 
 usually highly finished, and ornamented with small figures, 
 well designed and fancifully draped. He likewise succeeded 
 in architectural views. Leghorn and Pisa are rich in his 
 easel pictures, and one in possession of Sig. Decano Zucchetti 
 bears his name and the date 1651. 
 
 Perspective was much cultivated at Florence about this 
 period, and the Bolognese carried it to a degree of excellence 
 that will claim attention in the proper place. Lessons in it 
 were given by Giulio Parigi, an excellent architect, and after- 
 wards by Baccio del Bianco, who became engineer to his 
 Catholic Majesty Philip IV. Their theoretic views were 
 seconded by the example of Colonna, who came to Florence 
 in 1638, with Mitelli, a native of that place, and remained 
 in the service of the court. After this period Florence pro- 
 duced painters of cabinet pieces, and in the ornamental line, 
 or rather a new school was founded by Jacomo Chiavistelli, 
 a painter of sound and more chaste taste than was common in 
 that age. One may form an idea of him in several churches, 
 and in saloons in the city, as in that of the Cerretani palace, 
 among his most elegant works. He likewise painted for 
 cabinets, where his perspective pieces are frequently to be met 
 with. Orlandi notices his most considerable pupils, Rinaldo 
 Botti, and his cousin Lorenzo del Moro,* Benedetto Fortini, 
 and Giuseppe Tonelli, who also studied at Bologna. To these 
 may be added, Angiol Gori, Giuseppe Masini, and others who 
 assisted him about 1658, in painting the corridore of the ducal 
 gallery, which is not their best performance. I find in the 
 anecdotes of Mondina and Alboresi, edited by Malvasia, that 
 Antonio Ruggieri contended with them in Florence : he was, 
 I believe, a scholar of Tannini, and a S. Andrew by him 
 exists in the church of S. Michele, in Berteldi, now called 
 S. Gaetano. Nor were these the only artists capable of in- 
 troducing figures into their perspectives ; but many of the 
 
 * Botti is pronounced a famous fresco painter by Magalotti, in Lett. 
 Pitt. torn. v. p. 229. There are various mechanical works of Lorenzo. 
 He painted the whole ceiling of the church of the Dominicans at Fiesole, 
 which was considered by Conca among the respectable productions of hia 
 age. 
 
240 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 painters in fresco were, so to say, ambidexter, for each could 
 paint perspectives and figures at the same time. 
 
 Portrait painting, the school of the best artists who aspire 
 to fidelity of representation, was greatly promoted by Passig- 
 nano, who instructed Filippo Furini, surnamed Sciameroni, 
 father of the celebrated Francesco. He taught the art to 
 Domenico and Valore Casini, two brothers, celebrated by 
 Baldinucci : Valore was remarkable for a free pencil, and was 
 a faithful copyist of every lineament. The capital is filled 
 with his portraits. Cristofano Allori painted portraits, both 
 on commission and for studies in the delineation of the most 
 beautiful forms. His portraits on canvas are reckoned valu- 
 able, even when the subjects are not known, as that in pos- 
 session of the senator Orlandini ; and some on small pieces of 
 copper, in the grand Medicean collection. Cerrini, among his 
 disciples, followed his steps ; he is, I think, also admitted into 
 that museum. Giovanni Batista Stefaneschi, a monk of 
 Monte Senario, a scholar of Comodi, and an excellent minia- 
 ture painter, was conspicuous among the painters of portraits 
 and copyists. 
 
 Justus Subtermans, a native of Antwerp, educated by 
 William de Vos, was also greatly admired. Having fixed 
 his residence at Florence, in the time of Cosmo II., he was 
 retained by the court to the end of the reign of Cosmo III. ; 
 and went to other princes in Germany and Italy, ambitious 
 of having a specimen of a portrait painter, esteemed little 
 inferior to Vandyck. He was much esteemed by the latter, 
 who requested his portrait, prefacing his request by sending 
 him his own. Peter Paul Rubens likewise honoured him, 
 and presented him with one of his own historical pictures, 
 regarding him as an honour to their country. Subtermans 
 painted all the living members of the Medicean family, in a 
 variety of attitudes ; and when Ferdinand II. ascended the 
 throne, while still a young man, Subtermans executed a stu- 
 pendous picture, wholly composed of portraits. He repre- 
 sented in it the ceremony of swearing allegiance to the new 
 sovereign ; and portrayed him with his mother and grand- 
 mother, and the senators and nobility who were present. 
 This picture was very large : it has been engraved on copper 
 
JACOPO BORGOGNONE BATTLE-PIECES. 241 
 
 and still remains in the gallery. The artist had a neatness 
 and elegance of pencil extraordinary even in the school to 
 which he belonged ; and possessed a peculiar talent of enno- 
 bling every countenance without injuring the likeness. It 
 was his practice to study the peculiar and characteristic air 
 of the person, and to impart it to his work ; so that when he 
 would sometimes conceal the face of a portrait, the bystanders 
 could with certainty tell whom it represented, from the dis- 
 position of the hands and the figure. 
 
 Jacopo Borgognone remained long in Florence, and was 
 highly respected by Prince Matthias ; whose military achieve- 
 ments in Germany and in Italy he represented to the life, as 
 an historian would have described them. This artist's battle- 
 pieces are not rare in Florence ; but I do not know that he 
 had any pupils in that place. The person who promoted 
 most the imitation of Jacopo, and whose works are every- 
 where, was Pandolfo Reschi, of Dantzig, one of his best 
 scholars; eminent in landscape in the style of Salvator Rosa, 
 and in architectural subjects. In the hands of Dr. Yiligiardi, 
 I saw a picture by him, with a view of the Pitti palace, and 
 the additions to it then wanting ; but which were afterwards 
 supplied by the Austrian princes, to the great ornament of the 
 royal residence. Those additions were from a design of 
 Giacinta Marmi; but the whole picture was the work of 
 Pandolfo. He enlivened it with figures, and excites surprise 
 by the whole, excepting in the distribution of the light and 
 shadow, in which he is not so happy. One Santi Rinaldi, 
 surnamed II Tromba,* a painter of battle-pieces and of land- 
 scapes, formed himself under Furini : he was contemporary 
 with Pandolfo, but is less known in Florence. 
 
 Baccio del Bianco, ha ring become a good designer and 
 tolerable painter in the school of Bilivert, went into Germany 
 with Pieroni, the imperial architect and engineer, from whom 
 he learnt perspective. He afterwards taught it with applause 
 in Florence, as we have said ; and did not omit to exercise 
 his pencil, especially in fresco. Naturally facetious, he be- 
 came distinguished by his burlesques, which, for the most 
 part, were designed only with the pen. He coloured small 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 * The Trumpet. 
 R 
 
242 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 oil-pictures of much force, i. e. portraits in the style of the 
 Caracci, and sometimes painted freaks of scaramouches, and 
 similar abortions. 
 
 Gio. Batista Brazze, called II Bigio,* a scholar of Empoli, 
 employed his genius in another branch of the capricious : it 
 consisted of what appeared human figures when seen at a dis- 
 tance, but a nearer approach shewed them to be composed of 
 different sorts of fruit, or machines, artfully arranged. Bal- 
 dinucci reckons him the inventor of this art ; but prior exam- 
 ples may be found in the Milanese school, in which I treat 
 of them fully at the end of the second epoch. 
 
 Lastly, mosaic work in hard stone owes its rise in Florence 
 to this epoch ; and, after gradually improving during two 
 centuries, is now everywhere known as a work of this capi- 
 tal, almost exclusively its own. In a letter of Teofilo Gal- 
 laccini,t we read that this species of mosaic " had been in- 
 vented in Florence, in the time of Ferdinand I. f an asser- 
 tion which is not true. Before that period it flourished in 
 Lombardy. The Carthusian monastery of Pavia had in its 
 pay a family of the name of Sacchi ; which has existed there 
 to our own times, and filled the great church with this kind 
 of mosaic. There are specimens of it in Milan, of very an- 
 cient date. In that place Giacomo da Trezzo, who executed 
 the tabernacle for the church of the Escurial, which is 
 esteemed the most beautiful and magnificent in Christendom, J 
 received his instruction. About the time of Cosmo I., Flo- 
 rence witnessed the rudiments of this art, in a " small picture 
 composed of gems," which she possessed, as is recorded by 
 Vasari. § A similar one was executed for Francis I., from a 
 design of Vasari, by Bernardino di Porfirio, of Leccio, " com- 
 posed of oriental alabaster, and large slabs of jasper, helio- 
 trope, cornelian, lapis lazuli, agate, and other stones and 
 gems, which they estimate at 20,000 crowns.'' But pictures 
 so wrought in large pieces, were not of that perfect kind of 
 
 * The Swarthy. f Lett. Pitt. torn. i. p. 308. 
 
 $ The Ab. Conca, torn. ii. p. 33, writes of this artist, that with this 
 and similar works he acquired so much reputation in Madrid, that the 
 name of a principal street in which he lived was borrowed from his ; from 
 the time of Philip II. it has been called J acome Trezza* 
 
 § Tom. viii. p. 156. 
 
MOSAIC WORK. 
 
 243 
 
 mosaic that contained a vast variety of colours and middle 
 tints. Such are executed in every shade of colour, from the 
 natural stains of the stone ; and the tints are lowered, height- 
 ened, and managed, so as almost to rival painting. For this 
 purpose, every species of hard stone is sawed, innumerable 
 colours are selected, graduating from the deepest to the lightest 
 shade, which are kept ready for use. This art was in request 
 at Milan ; where, on account of the vicinity of Alpine coun- 
 tries, abounding in every species of hard stone, it arrived at 
 great perfection. Francesco I., meditating 'the erection of the 
 magnificent chapel for the sepulture of the royal family, in the 
 church of S. Lorenzo, and the ornamenting it with urns and 
 altars wrought in hard stone, invited Giovanni Bianchi from 
 that city to his court, in 1580, and committed the works in 
 mosaic to his direction. Soon after Ferdinando ascended the 
 throne, and the new art gained ground under him ; it was 
 promoted by Constantino de* Servi, and afterwards by otner 
 artists, who improved it. The tables, cabinets, and coffers, 
 small landscapes, and architectural pieces, there executed, and 
 sent as presents to princes, are dispersed over Europe. In 
 one cabinet of the ducal gallery is an exquisite octagonal 
 table, the round central piece of which was designed by Poc- 
 cetti, and the ornamental border by Ligozzi. Jacopo Autelli 
 executed the work, on which, with numerous assistants, he 
 was employed sixteen years, and finished it in 1649. In the 
 cabinet of cameos and engraved gems are figures in mezzo- 
 rilievo, and little statues in hard stone, fabricated by the 
 same company of artists ; not to mention what are in the Pitti 
 palace and the church of S. Lorenzo. A similar company 
 still exists, under the direction of the Signori Siries, and 
 abounding in subordinate artists, which is supported with 
 royal magnificence by the prince, for whom it is constantly 
 employed. 
 
 r2 
 
244 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 
 EPOCH V. 
 
 Pietro da Cortona and .his followers. 
 
 After the middle of the seventeenth century, trie Florentine 
 school, and that of Rome, underwent a remarkable revolu- 
 tion, occasioned by the number of followers of Pietro da 
 Cortona. Sects in painting have the same fate as sects in 
 philosophy ; one succeeds another ; and the new principles 
 are propagated more or less rapidly, according to the degree 
 of opposition they have to encounter where they happen to be 
 diffused. The manner of Cortona met with considerable 
 opposition in Rome, as we shall find in the proper place. 
 He was invited to Florence by Ferdinand II. about 1640, to 
 ornament the apartments of the Pitti palace ; and this work, 
 in which he spent several years, has appeared to connoisseurs 
 the most beautiful he ever performed. He was directed in 
 it by Michelangelo Bonarruoti the younger, a literary man of 
 great judgment ; and Cortona appears also to display learn- 
 ing in the execution. In one apartment he painted the four 
 ages, which the poets of all nations have described in imita- 
 tion of Hesiod ; five other chambers were dedicated to five 
 fabulous deities, the chamber of Minerva, of Apollo, of Mars, 
 of Jupiter, and of Mercury. He united the mythology of 
 each with history. Thus, for instance, in the chamber of 
 Apollo, he represents this patron of the fine arts on the 
 ceiling in the act of receiving the young Hercules, who is 
 introduced by Minerva, that he may be instructed ; and 
 on the walls he painted Alexander reading the works of 
 Homer, Augustus listening to Virgil, and other similar 
 stories, which are fully described by Passeri in his life of 
 Cortona. The great work was finished by Ciro Ferri ; for 
 
PIETRO BERRETTINI. 
 
 245 
 
 after Cortona had begun the chamber of Mercury, on some 
 disgust, he secretly withdrew from court, returned to Rome, 
 and always declined to revisit Florence. There, however, 
 he had laid the foundations of a new school. Baldinucci 
 remarks on the style of Pietro, that it was no sooner seen at 
 Florence, than praised by the best judges.* The predilection 
 of Cosmo III. contributed to bring it into credit ; this prince 
 pensioned Ciro Ferri in Rome, that he might instruct the 
 Tuscans who came there to study. At that time there was 
 no artist of that country who did not imitate this style. We 
 shall now describe and trace it to its origin. 
 
 Pietro Berrettini, a native of Cortona, the scholar of 
 Comodi in Tuscany, and of Ciarpi at Rome, is mentioned 
 also among the writers on the art.f He acquired his 
 knowledge of design by copying antique bassorilievos, 
 and the chiaroscuros of Polidoro, a man who appears in- 
 spired by the soul of an ancient. Pietro chose Trajan's column 
 as his favourite study ; and from it he may have drawn his 
 heavy proportions, and the appearance of strength and 
 robustness, that characterize even his female forms and his 
 children ; in their eyes, noses, and lips, he surpasses the 
 medium standard ; and their hands and feet are certainly not 
 remarkable for light elegance. But in contrast, or the art oi 
 opposing group to group, figure to figure, and part to part, in 
 which he was distinguished, he appears to have followed 
 Lanfranco, and partly to have formed it from the Bacchana- 
 lian vases, particularly mentioned in his life by Passeri. 
 His taste may probably have been drawn, in some measure, 
 from the Venetian school ; since having gone to study there, 
 and then returned to Rome, he destroyed what he had pre- 
 viously done, and executed his works anew in the Barberini 
 palace, according to the account of Boschini, his great admirer. 
 Generally speaking, he finishes nothing highly but what was 
 
 * Life of Matteo Rosselli, in torn. x. p. 72. 
 
 f Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. I tal. (torn. viii. p. 258), ed. Ven. 
 " Pietro Berrettini, in addition to the letters pointed out by Mazzucchelli 
 (Scritt. Ital. torn. ii. p. 925), wrote also along with P. Giandomenico 
 Ottonelli da Fanano, a Jesuit, a ' Treatise upon painting and sculpture, 
 their use and abuse ; composed by a painter and a theologian/ " This 
 work has become very rare. 
 
246 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 intended to be conspicuous ; he avoids strong shadows, is 
 fond of middle tints, prefers the less brilliant grounds, colours 
 without affectation, and is reckoned the inventor and chief 
 artist of a style, which, in the opinion of Mengs, combines 
 facility with taste. He employed it in pictures of all sizes 
 with applause ; but in painting of furniture, and still more on 
 ceilings, in cupolas, and recesses, he carried it to a pitch of 
 beauty which will never fail to procure him panegyrists and 
 imitators. The judicious division of his historical composi- 
 tions, which derives aid from the architecture, that skilful 
 gradation by which he represents the immensity of aerial 
 space, his knowledge in the art of foreshortening what is seen 
 from below, that play of light seemingly celestial, that sym- 
 metrical disposition of his figures, are circumstances which 
 enchant the eye and fascinate the soul. 
 
 It is true that this manner does not always satisfy the 
 mind ; for, intent on gratifying the eye, it introduces useless 
 figures, in order that the composition may not be deficient in 
 the usual fulness ; and, for the sake of contrast, figures in the 
 performance of the gentlest actions are painted as if the artist 
 was representing them in a tournament or a battle. Gifted 
 by nature with facility of genius, and no less judgment, 
 Berrettini either avoided this extravagance, as in his stupen- 
 dous Conversion of S. Paul, or did not carry it to that absur- 
 dity which in our times has marked his followers, from the 
 usual tendency of all schools to overcharge the characteristic 
 of their master. Hence the facility of this style has dege- 
 nerated into negligence, and its taste into affectation ; until its 
 chief adherents begin as at present to abandon it, and to adopt 
 a superior manner. 
 
 But not to wander from the Florentine school, we must 
 confess that this epoch has been the least productive of emi- 
 nent painters. Pietro had some pupils at that place, who did 
 him equal honour with the Romanelli and the Ferri at Rome. 
 I shall first mention a foreigner, who having established him- 
 self at Florence, may be reckoned of that school. Livio 
 Mehus, a native of Flanders, came into Tuscany from Milan, 
 where he had received some instruction from another Fleming, 
 named Charles, was taken under the protection of Prince 
 Matthias, and recommended to Berrettini, who gave him 
 
VINCENZIO DAN DIN I. 
 
 247 
 
 lessons both in Florence and at Rome. By copying the 
 antique he became a good designer, and he studied colouring 
 at Venice and in Lombardy. He retained little of the man 
 ner of Cortona besides the composition. He imitated the 
 Venetians less in colouring, than in his light and firm touches. 
 His tints are modest, his attitudes lively, his shadows most 
 beautiful, and his inventions ingenious. He painted few 
 altar-pieces, but many cabinet pictures, for he was pensioned 
 by the prince, and employed by noble families, in whose 
 houses his works are often to be met with. The historical 
 picture of the Repose of Bacchus and Ariadne, which he 
 painted for Marquis Gerini, in emulation of Ciro Ferri, is 
 highly praised. Ferri conceived some jealousy of him, when 
 he painted the cupola of the Pace at Florence, where he 
 appears to approach the Lombard school, and even to surpass 
 Cortona.* He was imitated by a Lorenzo Rossi, previously 
 a scholar of Pier Dandini, who, according to P. Orlandi, 
 executed some elegant small pictures. 
 
 Vincenzio Dandini went from the school of his brother 
 Cesare into that of Cortona, or rather into the Roman, where 
 he copied with unwearied assiduity the finest specimens in 
 painting, sculpture, and architecture. On this foundation, 
 aided by practice in anatomy, at the academy for the naked 
 figure, which still flourished at Florence, he became superior 
 to his brother in design and in softness of colouring : he also 
 finished more highly than Cesare, was more studious in his 
 drapery, and in other branches. In All Saints there is a 
 Conception of the Virgin, and three other pictures, by his 
 hand. He was employed in the ducal villas : in that of 
 Poggio Imperiale he painted a beautifully foreshortened 
 figure of Aurora, attended by the Hours, in a recess he had 
 erected ; and at Petraia painted in oil the Sacrifice of Niobe. 
 In him the pupil of Cortona is very manifest. A similar 
 style, but degenerated both in execution and in manner, id 
 discoverable in Pietro, his son and scholar. This artist was 
 superior to all the other Dandini ; and by more extensive 
 travels he obtained greater knowledge of foreign painters : 
 it would have been well if he had not attempted to surpass 
 
 * Lett. Pitt. torn. i. p. 44. 
 
248 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 them also in his emoluments. From avarice he undertook 
 too many works, and contented himself with mediocrity in 
 study, for which he in some measure compensated by a free- 
 dom of pencil that is always admirable. Where well paid, 
 he demonstrated his abilities ; as in the cupola of S. Mary 
 Magdalen, in several frescos in the ducal palace at Florence, 
 in the royal villas, and in the copious historical picture of 
 the Taking of Jerusalem, painted in the public palace at 
 Pisa. He also painted some altar-pieces worthy of himself ; 
 as the S. Francis in S. Maria Maggiore, or the Beato Pieco- 
 lomini in the attitude of saying mass, in possession of the 
 Servi ; a beautiful picture, full of spirited attitudes. His 
 son, Ottaviano, appears his follower in some semicircular 
 pictures in the cloister of S. Spirito, in a piece representing 
 various saints in the church of S. Lorenzo, and wherever he 
 was employed. One of his grandest works may be seen in 
 S. Mary Magdalen at Pescia, the ceiling of which he painted 
 in fresco. 
 
 The Dandini family had many scholars, who, with their 
 descendants, have kept alive the school of Cortona, even to 
 our own days. This school was not eminent ; it requires but 
 little examination, or prolixity of description. It has pro- 
 duced some good artists ; but few of them are above medio- 
 crity ; a fault less to be attributed to their genius, than the 
 times. The more modern style was esteemed the best : the 
 last master seemed to discover new maxims, and abolished the 
 old : and thus artists of little celebrity gave birth to others 
 more minute and mannered, resembling their prototype in 
 maxims, but inferior in reputation. About this time it be- 
 came fashionable to paint with a certain degree of careless 
 ease, or Sprezzatura, as it is styled ; and Giordano and some 
 Venetians are applauded for this manner. Several Florentine 
 artists tried to imitate them, and have produced works that 
 resemble sketches : this species of mannerism is not uncom- 
 mon in other schools. It is only necessary to observe that 
 such artists are as rare in choice collections of pictures, as 
 Andrea del Sarto or Cigoli : the latter are there scarce, be- 
 cause they painted with great care ; the former class because 
 they painted with very little. In the work entitled " Series of 
 the most celebrated Painters," we find Antonio Riccianti, 
 
PUPILS OF THE D ANDINI FAMILY. 
 
 249 
 
 Michele Noferi, and some others whose names are merely 
 mentioned as scholars of Vincenzio ; and Gabbiani is the only 
 one particularly praised. In like manner, among the pupils 
 of Pietro Dandini we find the names of Gio. Cinqui, whose 
 portrait is in the ducal gallery, Antonio Puglieschi, of Flo- 
 rence, who studied under Ciro, and Valerio Baldassari of 
 Pescia ; but there is a particular eulogy bestowed on Fratinelli, 
 whom we shall notice hereafter. I find also that P. Alberigo 
 Carlini, a Minorite monk of Pescia, was the pupil of Otta- 
 viano, and attended Conca at Rome. He painted some good 
 pictures, in the church of his order at Pietrasanta. To his we 
 may also add the name of Santarelli, a patrician of the same 
 country, who died at Rome. 
 
 The most celebrated pupil of the Dandini was Anton Do- 
 menico Gabbiani. Before he was the pupil of Vincenzio, he 
 liad lessons from Subtermans, and finished his education at 
 Rome under Ciro Ferri, and at Venice, by studying the best 
 masters. We must not give credit to Pascoli, who has repre- 
 sented him as a mean artist.* Gabbiani ranks amongst the 
 best designers of his age ; a collection of his drawings is in 
 the possession of Sig. Pacini, which was often inspected and 
 commended by Mengs for the facility and elegance he there 
 discovered. Many of his designs were engraved and pub- 
 lished in his life by Ignatius Hugford. His colouring some- 
 times borders on the languid, but is generally good : he is 
 correct and natural, especially in fleshy tints ; juicy, and 
 tempered by a pleasing harmony. The greatest fault is in 
 his draperies, which, though correct and studied, always ex- 
 hibit a degree of heaviness in the execution, are too confined, 
 and sometimes not quite true in the colouring His merit is 
 great in light subjects : in the Pitti, and other palaces of 
 some of the nobility of Florence, his dances of genii and 
 groups of boys are to be met with, and yield little to those 
 of Bacicelo. One of the finest is in the house of the Orlan- 
 dini family; and the Marquis of Riccardi has specimens 
 among the mirrors placed in his collection. His largest and 
 most celebrated work in fresco is the vast cupola of Cestello, 
 which he did not wholly finish. His oil pictures are esteemed 
 
 * In the Life of Luti. See Lett. Pitt. torn. i. p. 69. 
 
250 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 precious even in the ducal gallery. Several of his works of 
 unequal merit are preserved in churches ; but his S. Philip, 
 in possession of the fathers Deli* Oratorio, justifies the asser- 
 tion of Redi, that, except Maratta, there was then no painter 
 in Rome that could eclipse him.* The catalogue of his scho- 
 lars is extensive ; but some of them, as happens to every 
 master, may be also claimed by other preceptors. Benedetto 
 Luti was an honour to Gabbiani and to Florence. Having 
 formed himself in this school, he went to Rome, in hopes of 
 receiving the instructions of Ciro Ferri ; but the death of 
 that master intervening, he was guided by his own genius, 
 and the monuments of art. The style he there formed may 
 be considered a compound of various imitations, select in the 
 forms, pleasing and bright in colouring, shewing art in the 
 distribution of light and shade. In that metropolis we shall 
 find him master of the new style ; but in Tuscany we cannot 
 point out many of his pictures besides those in the ducal pa- 
 lace : private collections are rich only in his crayon pieces, 
 which are likewise well known out of Italy. There is one of 
 his large pictures on canvas at Pisa, the subject of which is 
 the Vestment of S. Ranieri, the most admired among the 
 larger paintings of the cathedral. Luti sent it to Gabbiani 
 for his correction before it was exhibited ; a circumstance 
 highly honourable to the modesty of the scholar and the abili- 
 ties of the master.t His portrait is in the ducal gallery ; 
 and the more rigid critics have boen known to say, " Behold 
 the last painter of his school." 
 
 Tommaso Redi, a pupil of the same master, is noticed ins 
 the " Lettere Pittoriche," as a good composer of historical pic- 
 tures, and is also praised for design, colouring, and spirit. 
 From the school of Gabbiani he went under the tuition of 
 Maratta and Balestra, both respectable artists, and declared 
 enemies of the innovations which have debased our schools 
 for so long a period. Redi also visited the most celebrated 
 schools, for the purpose of studying the old masters, and of 
 making copies of their works, some of which, with a few 
 pieces of his own invention, remain in his family. In the 
 eulogy of Anton Domenico we find honourable mention made 
 
 * Lett. Pitt. torn. ii. p. 69. 
 
 f See Lett. Pitt, torn. ii. lett. 35. 
 
ALESSANDRO GHERARDINI. 
 
 251 
 
 of his nephew, Gaetano Gabbiani ; of Francesco Salvetti, 
 his intimate friend ; of Gio. Antonio Pucci, a painter and a 
 poet ; of Giuseppe Baldini, whose career was cut short by 
 death ; and of Ranieri del Pace, a native of Pisa, who after- 
 wards became a complete mannerist. Ignatius Hugford, born 
 in Florence, but whose father was a native of England,* was 
 skilled in recognising the hands of different masters, and 
 likewise painted in a good manner a picture of S. Raphael at 
 S. Felicità, and other pieces, mostly small, which have been 
 admitted into the royal museum. The feeble paintings in 
 possession of the Vallombrosani at Forli, and some of the 
 same stamp at Florence, are likewise by this artist. 
 
 Alessandro Gherardini, a rival of Gabbiani, and in the 
 opinion of many, his superior in genius, had wonderful facility 
 in counterfeiting different styles. He would have equalled 
 any of his contemporaries, had he always painted in the style 
 of his Crucifixion of our Lord in Candeli, in which he calls 
 to mind a happy imitation of different schools. It is a work 
 studied in every part, especially in the general tone, which 
 artfully expresses the darkness of that hour. A history piece 
 of Alexander the Great, in Casa Orlandini, with figures of 
 half-length, and executed with great industry, is also held in 
 hi/^h esteem; but he aimed at painting pictures of every 
 
 * He was brother to Henry Hugford, a monk of Vallombrosa, to whom 
 we owe the progress of working in Scagliola, afterwards successfully 
 practised in Florence by Lamberti Gori, his pupil ; and at this day by the 
 Signor Pietro Stoppioni. Although the portraits, and in general the 
 figures, of a variety of colours, are pleasing, yet the dicromi, or yellow 
 figures upon a black ground, attract most notice, copied from ancient 
 vases formerly called Etruscan, and these copies either form separate 
 pictures, or are inserted for ornament in tablets. The tragic poet Alfieri 
 caused his epitaph to be inscribed on one of these small tables covered 
 with scagliola work. Being found after his death, it quickly spread 
 abroad, but was not inscribed on his tomb. Upon another of these he 
 had written the epitaph of a great personage, whom he wished to be 
 interred near him ; and the two little tablets united together folded one 
 upon another in the way of a dittico or small altar, or of a book, on the 
 side of which was written Alfieri liber novissimus. In this way others 
 write, on tablets of scagliola, fine precepts from scripture, a philosophy 
 that comes from and leads to heaven, intended to be placed in pri- 
 vate sanctuaries, to aid meditation in sight of the crucifix. The silver 
 tablets I have seen for the same purpose are more valuable, but less arti- 
 ficial. 
 
252 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. — EPOCH \. 
 
 degree of merit. One of his pupils, no less fertile in talent, 
 and named Sebastiano Galeotti, is rather remembered than 
 known at Florence. He left his native place young, travelled 
 about without any fixed residence, and has left specimens 
 behind him in many parts of Upper Italy. He at length 
 settled at Genoa, where we shall again notice him. The 
 • ducal gallery contains portraits both of the master and of the 
 scholar, by the side of those of Gabbiani and Redi. Other 
 considerable painters of this epoch have obtained a similar 
 honour; among whom we may mention Agostino Veracini, 
 a scholar of Sebastian Ricci ; Francesco Conti, a disciple of 
 Maratta ; and Lapi, a follower of Giordano ; each of these 
 has successfully imitated his guide.* The S. Apollonia of 
 the first, painted for the church of that name ; various Ma- 
 donnas of the second, in the hands of private gentlemen ; and 
 the Transfiguration of the last, in the ducal gallery, are cal- 
 culated to do them honour, and even to shed a lustre on their 
 less refined productions. Others now dead have been equally 
 honoured by a portrait : of this number are Vincenzio Ba- 
 cherelli, Gio. Francesco Bagnoli, Anton Sebastiano Bettini, 
 Gio. Casini, Niccolo Nannetti, and others, mentioned in the 
 " Museo Fiorentino." 
 
 Giovanni Camillo Sagrestani, a scholar of Giusti, was 
 esteemed at Florence, even during the lifetime of Gabbiani 
 and Gherardini. To study different masters, he visited the best 
 schools, and for some time attended that of Cav. Cignani, 
 whose manner he copied rather than emulated. One of his 
 Holy Families is in the Madonna de* Ricci, the beauty of which 
 has more of ideal cast, and the colouring more florid, than is 
 usual with his contemporaries of this school. One of the first 
 judges in Florence assured me that this painting was the work 
 of Sagrestani, although others ascribe it to his scholar, Matteo 
 Bonechi. Bon echi had excellent parts, but not an equal 
 knowledge of the art, in which he is reported to have been 
 instructed by a species of dictation ; for he practised under 
 the eye, and wa3 directed by the voice of his master. He 
 thus became one of those practical artists, who make up for 
 
 * In his larger works (the altar-pieces at the Missionari and at the 
 Monastero Nuovo), it would appear that Conti aimed at approaching the 
 style of Trevisani. 
 
SODERINI, METICCI, AND FERRETTI. 
 
 253 
 
 the poverty of their design by their spirit and colouring. 
 Some of his pictures would, in any collection, be calculated to 
 attract the eye. Among his works in fresco, the picture at 
 Cestello, where he finished what was begun by Gabbiani, is 
 worthy of record ; and also that in the Capponi palace, near 
 the Nunziata, where he continued the work of Marinari. 
 
 About this time Cignani died in Bologna, and Gio. Gio- 
 seffo del Sole, denominated the modern Guido, enjoyed the 
 highest reputation. Florence employed three of his eminent 
 pupils ; one of the two Soderini, Meucci, and Ferretti, who, 
 although called da Imola, was born and lived in Florence. 
 Mauro Soderini enjoyed the reputation of a good designer, 
 and aimed at beauty and effect. The Death of S. Joseph, in 
 the cathedral, is said to be by his hand, though it is in fact 
 by Ferretti ; the Child revived by S. Zanobi, in the church 
 of S. Stephen, is really his. Vincenzio Meucci was chiefly 
 employed in works of perspective, which he executed in parts 
 of Tuscany, and even in the cupola of the royal chapel in 
 S. Lorenzo. If any one could dispute with him pre-eminence 
 in fresco-painting, it was his fellow-disciple, Giovanni Dome- 
 nico Ferretti, whose works may be seen in Florence, in other 
 parts of Tuscany, and at Bologna ; from which he appears to 
 have surpassed Meucci in fancy and in spirit, especially at the 
 Philippini at Pistoia, where his performance in the cupola 
 is highly praised. In fresco works they were both excellent ; 
 but in oil paintings often too hasty, an error into which all 
 fresco painters, not excepting the most esteemed, has^e fallen. 
 Hence Ferretti, although he painted the Martyrdom of S. Bar- 
 tolommeo, for the church dedicated to that saint at Pisa, in 
 an excellent style, did not give equal satisfaction by his His- 
 tory of S. Guido, in the archiepiscopal church. Several of 
 the works of Meucci are dispersed through various churches 
 in Florence ; and in a chapel of the Nunziata, where he 
 painted the recess, he coloured a Madonna, which is allowed 
 to be one of his most diligent and best-finished pictures. He 
 was there rivalled by Giuseppe Grisoni, a scholar of Redi : 
 and it is reported that vexation at this circumstance shortened 
 his days. Grisoni had travelled more than he in visiting the 
 schools of Italy, had even gone to England, and acquired 
 great skill in figures, and still more in landscape. He 
 
254 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 therefore was induced to add landscape not only to historical, 
 but also to portrait painting ; as, in the instance of a portrait 
 of himself, one of the most respectable in the second chamber of 
 painters. He added it also to the S. Barbara, painted in 
 competition with Meucci ; and it does honour to the school 
 in form, relief, and taste of colouring. He likewise painted 
 other pieces on the same plan, in which, however, he did not 
 succeed so well. 
 
 Meucci and Grisoni cannot be reckoned in the same rank 
 with Luti ; but if all are to be estimated by the times in which 
 they flourished, each was eminent in his day. I had noticed 
 them briefly in my first edition, and some painters have in- 
 formed me, that with them I ought to have mentioned Giu- 
 seppe Zocchi, a painter of note. I now correct my error, and 
 produce what information the noble family of Gerini, under 
 whose protection he was received when a boy, and who, after 
 his elementary studies at Florence, sent him to Rome, to 
 Bologna, and other parts of Lombardy, for his instruction, 
 have supplied me. I may be allowed to add, that the Flo- 
 rentine nobility have always been most liberal in this way ; 
 and there are not a few living artists who owe their education 
 in the fine arts to the bounty of some noble family : such 
 clients are an ornament to a nobleman, and are not to be 
 numbered among his servants. Zocchi had a genius fertile 
 in invention, pliant in imitation, and judicious in selection ; 
 and hence, at the conclusion of such a course of study, he was 
 able to compose large works with skill, and to colour beauti- 
 fully. He painted four pretty large frescos in the villa Serris- 
 tori, beyond the gate of S. Nicholas, some apartments in the 
 Rinuccini palace, and one in the Gerini gallery ; and these 
 are believed to be his best works of this sort. In smaller 
 pieces he was still greater ; as in his oil-picture of the festi- 
 vities at Siena, on the arrival of the Emperor Francis I., a 
 work true in the perspective, and graceful in the multitude Of 
 figures. It is deposited in the splendid Sansedonii collection, 
 at Siena, where the entertainment given to the Grand Duke 
 Peter Leopold may also be seen : with this object the painter 
 went to Siena, where he caught the epidemic disorder that 
 raged in 1767, and soon after died at Florence. 
 
 On turning to other parts of Tuscany, we find them from 
 
IMITATORS OF CORTONA. 
 
 255 
 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century full of the followers 
 of Cortona; San Sepolcro boasted Zei, of whom I find no 
 further account than that of his painting an altar-piece repre- 
 senting the souls in purgatory, for the cathedral of that place, 
 a work extremely well coloured, and conducted in the maxims 
 of the school, though the countenances are of a common cast ; 
 and, if we except the liberating angel, of poor expression. 
 Among this sect we cannot include Gio. Batista Mercati, one 
 of the latest painters of that city, not unknown at Rome, and 
 much noted in his native place, where he painted either at a 
 more mature time of life, or with greater pains. Two of his 
 historical frescos, representing our Lady, are in S. Chiara ; 
 and at S. Lorenzo there is a picture of the titular with other 
 saints ; in both there is an air apparently drawn from the 
 school of the Caracci, especially in the breadth of the dra- 
 pery, which is well cast and skilfully varied. In the Guides 
 to Venice and to Rome, several of his works are mentioned, 
 and in that of Leghorn, the only picture in the cathedral 
 esteemed worthy of notice is that of the Five Saints, painted 
 by Mercati with great care. Orlandi notices Tommaso Lan- 
 cisi, a scholar of Scaminossi, and two of his brothers, and 
 adds that painting was hereditary in this family. 
 
 One only of the countrymen of Berrettini is known to me 
 as his follower, Adriano Palladino, mentioned by Orlandi, 
 which is the only trace of him that I have discovered. 
 
 Arezzo abounds with pictures in the manner of Cortona. 
 Salvi Castellucci, the scholar of Pietro, either at Florence or 
 at Rome, was a great imitator of his style, and painted with 
 expedition, according to the practice of the school. He exe- 
 cuted many good pieces in the cathedral and other churches, 
 besides numerous cabinet pictures in private houses, estimable 
 for the facility and good taste of their colouring. One of his 
 frescos, representing our Lady surrounded by the patron saints 
 of the city, is in the public palace ; but he is greater in oil- 
 painting. He had a son, on whom he bestowed the name of 
 Pietro, probably in honour of his master. He also was a fol- 
 lower of Cortona, but never equalled his father. 
 
 Pistoia, however, had two Gimignani, the father Giacinto, 
 and Lodovico, his son, of whom it is disputed which was the 
 most eminent. From the school of Poussin, Giacinto entered 
 
256 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 that of Berrettini ; and as he approached nearer his first mas- 
 ter in design and composition, so in colouring and in taste for 
 architecture he came nearest to the second. He moreover took 
 the lead in works of fresco. Here he rivalled Camassei and 
 Maratta, at the baptistery of S. Gio. Laterano, where he 
 painted the histories of Constantine, besides leaving speci- 
 mens in different parts of Rome, in the Niccolini palace at 
 Florence, and other places. In some pictures he emulated 
 Guercino, as for instance in the Leander in the ducal gallery, 
 which was long considered as a Guercino. Though Lodovico 
 was the scholar of Giacinto, he is not so correct in design, 
 but was superior to his father in all the faculties that excite 
 pleasing emotions ; his ideas are more beautiful, his tints more 
 lovely, his attitudes more spirited, and his harmony more 
 agreeable. It would appear either that the style of his mater- 
 nal uncle, Orbetto, had attracted his attention, or that Bernini, 
 the director of his studies, had led him into this path. He 
 obtained great applause for his works in fresco, and those he 
 executed at Rome in the church of the Virgins are studied 
 by artists for the attitudes, the clouds, and the grace of the 
 wings with which his angels were furnished. He chiefly re- 
 sided at Rome, which possesses several of his paintings for 
 churches, and a greater number for halls and private rooms ; 
 being moreover much employed in these for foreign countries. 
 Two histories of S. John by the hand of Giacinto are in the 
 church dedicated to that saint at Pistoia ; and there was also 
 a S. Rocco in the cathedral, esteemed excellent. Lodovico 
 executed a beautiful picture for the church of the Capuchins, 
 now converted into a parish church. 
 
 After the death of both, Lazzaro Baldi still remained, 
 another great ornament of the school of Cortona, and of 
 Pistoia, his native place. He may be there recognised in two 
 pictures, the Annunciation in the church of S. Francis, and 
 the Repose in Egypt in that of the Madonna della Umiltà. 
 This latter place is a majestic octagonal temple, executed by 
 Ventura Vitoni of Pistoia, the great pupil of Bramante, and 
 surmounted by a cupola, reckoned among the noblest in Italy. 
 Baldi established his abode in Rome ; where he was much 
 employed, as well as in other parts of the states of the Church. 
 One of his most studied pictures is at S. Camerino, and repre 
 
GIO. BATISTA CIPRIANI. 
 
 257 
 
 eotits S. Peter receiving the pontifical power. A still more 
 recent artist is Gio. Domenico Piastrini, a scholar of Luti, 
 who in the porch of Madonna della Umiltà, filled two large 
 spaces with pictures, illustrative of the history of this church, 
 and who rivalled the best followers of Maratta, in S. Maria 
 in Via Lata, at Rome. It is not foreign to this period to 
 notice Gio. Batista Cipriani, who was born in Florence, but 
 descended from a family of Pistoia ;* especially as he left 
 specimens of his pencil in the neighbourhood of the places we 
 have just mentioned. Two of his altar-pieces were in the 
 abbey of S. Michael-on-the-Sea ; one of S. Thesaurus, the 
 other of S. Gregory VII., which are valuable, as Cipriani 
 painted but little. His excellence lay in design, which he 
 acquired from the collection of the studies of Gabbiani. 
 Having afterwards gone to London, he was much employed 
 by the celebrated Bartolozzi, who has immortalized the painter 
 by engravings of his inventions. We might augment our 
 catalogue with the two Giusti and Michele Paoli, a Pistoian 
 of the school of Crespi ; but they did not attain maturity, if 
 we depend on the information afforded by the continuator oi 
 Felsinei Pittrice.^ 
 
 Of those within the Florentine territory, the Pisans, and of 
 those beyond it, the artists of Lucca, remain to be considered. 
 Camillo Gabrieli, a scholar of Ciro, was the first who trans- 
 planted the style of Cortona into Pisa ; and in this manner 
 executed a good oil-painting at the convent of the Carmelites, 
 and several for private individuals : in this kind of painting 
 he was more happy than in fresco. In this line, however, his 
 memory is honoured in his native place, both for his works in 
 the grand saloon of the Alliata palace, and in the apartments 
 of other noble houses ; and likewise on account of his pupils, 
 
 * See Saggio Istorico della R. Galleria de Firenze, torn. ii. p. 72. 
 This work, valuable for its learning and authenticity, is written by Sig. 
 Giuseppe Bencivenni, a gentleman of Florence, and formerly director of 
 the ducal gallery, known by his other literary labours, on the lives of the 
 most eminent painters, by the life of Dante, and by the learned dissertation 
 on coins, appended to the lives of the followers of Cortona. He arranged 
 the collection of modern coins, that of engravings and of drawings, and 
 the paintings of the ducal gallery ; of these, and also of the gems kind 
 medals, he has there left manuscript catalogues. 
 
 T See that work at p. 232. 
 VOL. I. S 
 
268 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 the two Melani, who contributed much to his reputation. We 
 shall notice Francesco among the professors of architectural 
 design : Giuseppe, his brother, and a knight of the Golden 
 Spur, became no common artist in figures, and was worthy of 
 painting in the cathedral a large oil-picture of the death of 
 S. Ranieri. Although this piece ranks in the scale of medio- 
 crity in this sanctuary of the arts, it does honour to its author; 
 the invention is good, the perspective regular, and exhibits no 
 marks of carelessness. But his place is among the painters in 
 fresco ; in which department he ornamented with figures the 
 architectural works of his brother ; and has shewn himself 
 tenacious of the manner of Cortona, both in what is com- 
 mendable in it, as the perspective, colouring, and harmony ; 
 and also where it is less praiseworthy, as in the heaviness and 
 imperfect finish of the figures. 
 
 * With a similar instance we commence the series of artists 
 of Lucca : the two brothers, Ippolito and Giovanni Marracci, 
 obtained equal applause in different branches of the art ; the 
 former was a painter of architecture, the latter of figures ; 
 and of him only we shall speak. Although little known be- 
 yond Lucca, he is reckoned among the eminent scholars and 
 most successful imitators of Pietro da Cortona; and merits 
 this name, either when he painted in fresco, as in the cupola 
 of S. Ignatius, at S. Giovanni ; or when he wrought in oil, 
 as in several pictures in the possession of the brotherhood of 
 S. Lorenzo, in the collegiate church of S. Michael, and in 
 other places. With equal success two other artists, natives of 
 Lucca, educated in his school, became imitators, for a period, 
 of Pier Cortona. These were Giovanni Coli and Filippo 
 Gherardi, who were trained in the school of their native 
 place, and resembled each other no less in style than in dis- 
 position ; so that though they usually painted in the same 
 piece, all their joint labours appear the work of a single 
 artist. They afterwards adopted a manner that participates 
 of the Venetian and Lombard schools ; and painted the vast 
 ceiling of the library of S. Giorgio Maggiore at Venice. 
 Home possesses some of their stupendous works in the church 
 of the Lucchesi, and in the magnificent Colonna gallery. The 
 most celebrated picture with which they ornamented their 
 native place was the fresco of the tribune of the church of 
 
cortona's imitators. 
 
 259 
 
 S. Martin, and next to it that in S. Matthew's, which they 
 decorated with three oil-pictures. After the death of Coli, 
 his companion continued to paint in Lucca : the whole cloister 
 of the Carmelite monastery was painted by him alone. 
 
 The manner of Cortona was likewise adhered to by Gio. 
 Batista Brugieri, a scholar of Baldi and of Maratta, highly 
 applauded for his works in the chapel of the Sacrament, at the 
 Servi, and his other productions in public. P. Stefano Cassi- 
 ani, from the fraternity to which he belonged, surnamed II 
 Certosino, or the Carthusian, painted in fresco the cupola of 
 his church, and two large histories of our Lady, besides other 
 reputable works in the style of Cortona, at the Certosa of 
 Pisa, of Siena, and elsewhere. Girolamo Scaglia, a disciple of 
 Paulini and of Gio. Marracci, is surnamed Parmegianino. In 
 architecture he imitated Berrettini, as is remarked by Sig. da 
 Morrona ;* in his shadows he followed Paulini, and approached 
 Ricchi : as a painter his effect was superior to his design ; or 
 as it was observed by the Cav. Titi (p. 146) on beholding his 
 picture of the Presentation, painted at Pisa, it exhibits extreme 
 industry and very little taste. Gio. Domenico Campiglia was 
 reckoned among the best designers in Rome ; and of him the 
 engravers of antiquities particularly availed themselves. He 
 was not without merit as a painter ; and in Florence, where 
 he executed some pictures, his portrait has a place among those 
 of eminent artists. A picture painted by Pietro Sigismondi, 
 of Lucca, for the great altar of S. Nicholas in Arcione at 
 Rome, is honourably mentioned by Titi : I know not whether 
 any of his works remain in his native place ; and the same is 
 the case with Massei and with Pini. 
 
 I shall close this series with two other artists ; and had the 
 age produced many like them, Italian painting would not have 
 declined so much as it has done during the 18th century. 
 Giovanni Domenico Lombardi lived not, like his pupil, Cav. 
 Batoni, within the enlightening precincts of Rome, but in 
 merit he was at least equal to Batoni. He formed his style 
 on the works of Paulini, and improved it by studying the 
 finest colourists at Venice, and by paying attention to the 
 school of Bologna. The genius of this artist, his taste, hie 
 
 * Tom. iii. p. 113. 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 grand and resolute tone, appear in several of his pictures, 
 executed in his best time, and with real pains. Such are his 
 two pieces on the sides of the choir of the Olivetani, which 
 represent their founder, S. Bernard, administering relief to the 
 citizens infected with the plague. There are two others in a 
 chapel of S. Romano, painted with a magic force approaching 
 to the best manner of Guercino; and one of them seems the work 
 of that artist himself. He should always have painted thus ; 
 and never have prostituted his pencil to manufacture pieces at 
 all prices. Batoni, who will be noticed in our third book among 
 the Roman masters, supported better his own dignity and that 
 of the art. He adhered in a great measure to the maxims of 
 this school, a circumstance which did not altogether please his 
 first master, who, on examining his early performances, re- 
 marked, that they required a greater covering of dirt, for they 
 appeared too trimly neat. One who has not an opportunity 
 of examining his capital works, may satisfy himself in Lucca, 
 either in the church of the Olivetine fathers, where he painted 
 the Martyrdom of S. Bartolommeo ; or in that of S. Catherine 
 of Siena, where she is represented receiving the mystic wounds. 
 
 The example of Cortona influenced none in the inferior walks 
 of the art, except a few ornamental painters, and some artists 
 who accompanied their figures by landscapes. The painters of 
 landscapes, flowers, &c, continued to follow their original 
 models. Chiavistelli, for instance, has been followed by 
 various artists in fresco, who besides executing figures, ex- 
 ercised, as before remarked, other branches of painting. Pure 
 architectural and ornamental painting in good taste are, how- 
 ever, distinct arts ; and to attain excellence in them requires 
 all the faculties of man. Angiol Rossi, of Florence, applied 
 himself to it, as I believe, in Bologna ; and assiduously prac- 
 tised it at Venice, as we are informed by Guarienti. Two 
 artists of Lucca, Pietro Scorzini and Bartolommeo Santi, re- 
 ceived their education at Bologna, and were the favourite, 
 decorators of many theatres. Francesco Melani, of Pisa, ad- 
 hered strongly to Cortona. As learned in perspective as his 
 brother was in figures, his style was so similar, that no archi- 
 tectural painter was so well suited to accompany the figures 
 of the other. This will be allowed by all who view the ceiling 
 in the church of S. Matthew at Pisa, their finest work, or their 
 
GIOVANNA FRATELLINI. 
 
 261 
 
 paintings in Siena, and at other places, where they were em- 
 ployed together. They educated a pupil worthy of them, m 
 Tommaso TommasL of Pietra Santa, a man of vast conception, 
 who succeeded in Pisato to the commissions bestowed upon his 
 masters, and produced pleasing specimens of his powers 
 in the nave of the church of S. Giovanni. Ippolito Marracci, 
 of Lucca, the scholar of Metelli, appears a successful rival of 
 his master, either when he painted by himself, as in the 
 Rotonda, at Lucca, or when associated with his brother, as 
 was generally the case. Domenico Schianteschi, a disciple of 
 Bibieni, lived in San Sepolcro; his perspectives in that city 
 in the houses of many of the nobility, are much esteemed. 
 
 Florence has boasted professed portrait-painters, even to 
 the present time ; among whom Gaetano Piattoli is particularly 
 extolled. He was pupil to a French artist, Francesco Reviera, 
 who resided and died at Leghorn, and was very much prized 
 in collections for the excellence of his Conversazioni and 
 Turkish ballets. He is well known too, in other countries ; 
 for he was employed to take portraits of the foreign nobility 
 who visited Florence. The portrait of himself, which he 
 painted for the ducal gallery, indicates the style of the rest. 
 An illustrious female artist emanated from the school of Gab- 
 biani, although assisted in her studies by other masters, and this 
 was Giovanna Fratellini, who was not without invention, and 
 most expert in portrait- painting. She executed in oil, in 
 crayons, in miniature, and in enamel, various portraits of the 
 family of Cosmo III. and of other princes, to paint whom she 
 was sent by her sovereign to several cities of Italy. That 
 which she painted of herself, is in the ducal gallery : in it she 
 has blended the employment of the artist with the affection of 
 a mother. She is represented taking a likeness of Lorenzo, 
 her only son and pupil, who died in the flower of his age. It 
 is painted in crayons, an art in which she may be called the 
 Rosalba of her time. Domenico Tempesti, or Tempestino, is 
 rather included among engravers than painters ; though he 
 was instructed by Volterrano in Florence, in the latter art, 
 and exercised it with credit. He is mentioned by Vianelli in 
 the catalogue of his pictures. It would appear that he was 
 the same Domenico de Marchis, called Tempestino, whom 
 Orlandi casually notices in the article of Girolamo (Manu whom 
 
262 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH Y. 
 
 Domenico had initiated in the elements of landscape painting. 
 Orlandi gives also a separate article, under the head of Dome- 
 nico Tempesti, in which his voyages through Europe, and his 
 long residence at Rome, are dwelt upon. 
 
 Many landscapes, chiefly rural views, painted by Paolo 
 Anesi, are dispersed through Florence, and there are many of 
 them in Rome. Francesco Zuccherelli, a native of Pitigliano, 
 born in the year 1702, was his scholar. He resided a long 
 time at Rome, and first entered the school of Morandi, and 
 afterwards of Pietro Nelli. His intention was to study 
 figures, but by one of those circumstances which discover the 
 natural predilection, he applied himself to painting land- 
 scape ; and pursued it in a manner that united strength and 
 sweetness; and has been highly extolled over all Europe. 
 His figures were elegant, and these he was sometimes employed 
 to introduce in the landscapes and architectural pieces of other 
 artists. His principal field in Italy was Venice, until the 
 celebrated Smith made him known in England, and invited 
 him to that island, in which he remained many years, exer- 
 cising his pencil for the court, and for the most considerable 
 collections of pictures. He enjoyed the particular esteem of 
 Count Algarotti ; in the possession of whose heirs are two 
 landscapes by Tesi, with figures by Zuccherelli : of the first 
 artist I shall again speak in the school of Bologna. Alga- 
 rotti was commissioned by the court of Dresden to procure 
 the works of the best modern painters, and suggested to Zuc- 
 cherelli subjects for two pictures, in which he succeeded ad- 
 mirably, and was employed to repeat them for the king of 
 Prussia. In his old age he returned to Rome, and was em- 
 ployed there, at Venice, and in Florence, where he died in 
 1788. These anecdotes I obtained, along with many others, 
 from the Sig. Avvocato Lessi, a gentleman deeply versed in 
 the fine arts. 
 
 The name of this artist brings to a fair conclusion the series 
 of Florentine painters, which has been continued for little less 
 than six centuries, in an uninterrupted succession of native 
 artists, without the intervention of one foreign master in this 
 school, at least one so eminent as to mark an era. With the 
 exception of the last years, in which art was on the decline 
 throughout Italy, the Florentine school, with all its merit, 
 
AUSPICIOUS ERA. 
 
 263 
 
 undoubtedly very great, owes its progress to native genius. 
 It was not unacquainted with foreign artists, but from them 
 it disdained to borrow ; and its masters never adopted any 
 other style on which they did not engraft a peculiarity and 
 originality of manner. 
 
 I might write much in praise of masters now living,* but 
 I propose not to enter on their merits, and leave them wholly 
 to the judgment of posterity. In other arts I indulge a 
 greater latitude, but not frequently. I may add that during 
 the course of six centuries, the artists of Florence have 
 been fortunate in a government most auspicious to the fine 
 arts. The last princes however of the Medicean family had 
 shewn more inclination than activity in patronising them ; 
 and the reign of the Emperor Francis I., though distinguished 
 for enterprise,t was nevertheless that of an absent sovereign. 
 The accession of the Grand Duke Peter Leopold to supreme 
 
 * It was necessary to confine myself thus in the preceding edition. In 
 the present we may give free scope to our commendation of Tommaso 
 Gherardini, a Florentine, and pupil to Meucci ; and who, having com- 
 pleted his studies in the schools of Venice and Bologna, succeeded admi- 
 rably in basso-relievo and chiaroscuro. He decorated a large hall in the 
 Medicean gallery in fresco, and painted likewise much in oil for the impe- 
 rial gallery of Vienna, for German and English gentlemen, and various 
 countries that have ornamented their collections. He shewed, at least 
 for his age, no less skill in fresco histories, which are seen in many Fio- 
 rentine palaces and villas. The best of these are such as he executed in 
 mature age, or at his own suggestion ; like his Parnaso in Toscana, 
 placed in the Casa Martelli, one of his patrons from his early years ; 
 besides others in the noble houses of Ricciardi and Ambra. He died in 
 1797 ; the senator Martelli, on the decease of the archbishop his uncle, 
 and that of his father, continued his patronage to the artist, and consi- 
 ders him as one who has reflected the greatest degree of credit on his 
 house. The clients of that family, from the time of Donatello, have been 
 numerous, a taste for the fine arts being hereditary in the family. The 
 master of the academy, Pietro Pedroni, ought not to be here omitted ; 
 an oil-painter of merit, whose four pictures, executed subsequent to his 
 studies at Parma and Rome, are an ornament to his native place. Owing 
 to ill health, he produced little during his residence at Florence, which, 
 added to other disappointments, induced him, always the best resource, 
 to travel. If not a rare painter, he was at least an able master ; profound 
 in theory, and eloquent in conveying his knowledge to the pupils, of 
 whom history will treat in the ensuing age. Their success, their affection 
 and esteem for Pedroni, is the best eulogy on him which I can transmit 
 to posterity. 
 
 f See II Saggio Istorico of Sig. Pelli, towards the conclusion. 
 
264 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 power in Tuscany, in 1765, marked a new era in the history 
 of the arts. The palace and royal villas were repaired and 
 embellished ; and amid the succession of undertakings that 
 attracted the best artists, painting was continually promoted. 
 The improvement of the ducal gallery was most opportune 
 for it ; and afforded new commissions to painters, and new 
 specimens of the art : for the prince ordered all the inferior 
 pieces to be removed from the collection, and their place to be 
 supplied by vast numbers of choice pictures. Fine specimens 
 of antique marbles were likewise added : to him Florence 
 owes the Niobe of Praxiteles,* the Apollo, and other statues; 
 the basso-relievos, and busts of the Csesars, which complete the 
 grand series in the corridor : the cabinets of the gallery were 
 then only twelve in number, and they contained a confused 
 assemblage of paintings, statues, bronzes, and drawings, anti- 
 quities, and modern productions. He reduced this chaos to 
 order ; separated the different kinds, assigned separate apart- 
 ments to each, made new purchases of what was before want- 
 ing, and increased the number of cabinets. This great work, 
 one branch of which he was pleased to commit to my charge,t 
 
 * See Le Notizie su la Scoltura degli Antichi e i vari suoi Stili, p. 39. 
 This short tract, illustrative of many marbles in the ducal gallery, is 
 inserted in the third volume of " Saggio di Lingua Etnisca." It was 
 intended as a preface to a full description of the Museum, which was then 
 in the press, but it was suspended in consequence of the numerous changes 
 and additions made in that place. 
 
 f It was the cabinet of antiquities, not then arranged. In each class 
 I have noticed the additions of Leopold. To the busts of the Csesars 
 I was able to add about forty, some of which had been purchased, and 
 others removed from the royal palaces and villas. See the Description 
 above quoted, p. 34. The collection of heads of philosophers and 
 illustrious men was almost all new. I give an account of it in p. 85. 
 The series of busts of the Medicean family was completed at the same 
 time, and Latin inscriptions were added, which are to be found in various 
 descriptions of the gallery, with some errors, that are not to be attributed 
 to me, but to the printers ; and this remark applies to other royal 
 epitaphs, as published in many books. The cabinet of antique bronzes 
 is described in p. 55. For the collection of antique earthenware, see 
 p. 157; of Greek and Latin inscriptions on stones, see p. 81. For the 
 Hetrucsan and carved cinerary urns, see p. 46. This cabinet I also en- 
 deavoured to illustrate in " Saggio di Lingua Etnisca," &c. published at 
 Rome, in 1789. For the cabinet of antique medals, arranged by the 
 celebrated Sig. Ab. Eckell, see p. 101 ; the others, arranged by Sig. Pelli, 
 are mentioned a little before. 
 
DUCAL GALLERY. 
 
 265 
 
 was worthy of record. I laid it before the public in 1782, 
 in a memoir, which was inserted also in the forty-seventh 
 volume of the Journal of Pisa. Whoever compares this book 
 with the Description of the Gallery, published in 1759, by 
 Bianchi, will clearly perceive that Leopold was rather a second 
 founder than a restorer of that emporium of the fine arts : so 
 different is the arrangement, so remarkable are the additions 
 to the building, to its ornaments, and to the articles it con- 
 tains.'"* I have been diffuse in my description of the antiqui- 
 ties which appeared to me deserving of more particular eluci- 
 dation ; of the pictures I merely indicated the artist and the 
 subject. Since that period, other descriptions of the gallery, 
 by very able writers, have been given to the public, in which 
 my nomenclature and expositions of the antiquities have been 
 adopted ; but a fuller and better catalogue of the paintings is 
 given on the plan of that of the imperial cabinet of Vienna, 
 and similar works. 
 
 Ferdinand III., who now for five years has promoted the 
 welfare of Tuscany, succeeded no less to the throne of his 
 august father, than to the protection of the fine art3. The 
 new buildings already completed, as the right wing of the 
 Pitti palace, or now begun, as the vestibule of the Laurentian 
 library, which is to be finished upon a design of Michelangelo, 
 are matters foreign to my subject. Not so, however, are the 
 additions made by the prince to the gallery and the academy 
 of design. To the first he has added a vast number of prints 
 and pictures of those schools in which it was formerly defi- 
 cient ; and the gallery is enriched by a collection of Venetian, 
 and another of French masters, which are separately arranged 
 in two cabinets.f The academy, since 1785, had been as it 
 
 * After the departure of the prince, his bust in marble was erected, 
 and beneath it the following inscription, of which he was pleased to 
 approve : 
 
 PETRVS. LEOPOLDVS. FRANCTSCT. AVG. F. AVSTRIACVS. M. D. E. 
 AD. VRBIS. SVAE. DECVS. ET. AD. INCREMENTVM. ARTIVM. OPTIMARVM 
 MVSEVM. MEDICEVM 
 OPERIBVS. AMPLIATIS. COPlSdVE. AVCTIS 
 ORDINANDVM. ET. SPLENDI DIORE. CVLTV. EXORNANDVM. CVRAVIT 
 ANNO. M.DCC.LXXXIX. 
 
 f He employed in this work the highly -esteemed Sig. Cav. Puccini, 
 from whom I understand, that almost a third of the pictures now in the 
 
266 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 were, created anew by his father ; had obtained a new and 
 magnificent edifice, new masters, and new regulations, cir- 
 cumstances already well known over Europe, and here unne- 
 cessary to be repeated. This institution, which required im- 
 provement in some particulars, has been at length completed, 
 and its apartments and its splendour augmented by the son, 
 seconded by the superintendence of those accomplished con- 
 noisseurs, the Marchese Gerini, the Prior Rucellai, and the 
 Senator Alessandri. To the artists in every branch of the 
 fine arts which were before in Florence, he has recently added 
 the engraver Sig. Morghen, an ornament to the city and the 
 state. The obligations of the fine arts to Ferdinand III. are 
 eloquently stated by Sig. Cav. Puccini, a nobleman of Pis- 
 toia, and superintendent of the ducal gallery, in an oration 
 on the arts, pronounced not long ago in this academy, of 
 which he is the respected secretary, and since published, 
 accompanied by engravings.* 
 
 gallery were placed there by the munificence of Ferdinand. Sig. Puccini 
 nas arranged them in a manner so symmetrical and instructive, as to form 
 a model for all other collections. 
 
 * In 1801 Lodovico I. began his reign in Tuscany. Dying shortly 
 after, he was succeeded by the infant Carlo I., under the regency of the 
 queen-mother Maria Louisa. From this period the arts have experienced 
 new patronage and encouragement. The very copious and select Salvetti 
 library has been appropriated for the use of the academy ; a noble example 
 to all parts of Italy, possessing similar institutions. A new improvement 
 also here made, is the reunion in one place of masters in scagliola, and 
 mosaic-work, gems, and the restoring of pictures, an occupation recently 
 introduced ; and in place of a master, who formerly presided, a director, 
 with greater authority and emolument, has been appointed. Sig. Pietro 
 Benvenuti, whom I dare not venture to commend as he deserves, for he 
 is still living, was selected for this charge. The addition of casts also by 
 our new rulers is of great utility, in particular those from the works of 
 the celebrated Canova, who has been requested to produce a new statue 
 of Venus, on the model of the Medicean, lost to us by the chance of war. 
 The honour conferred by the queen regent upon the arts deserves like - 
 wise a place in history, who, in the meeting of the academy, held in 
 1803, Sig. Alessandri being president, distributued rewards to the young 
 students, and encouraged them to do well. It was upon this occasion 
 that the same Cavaliere Puccini, secretary to the institution, delivered 
 another excellent discourse, intended to prove that the pursuit of 
 the fine arts forms one of the most expeditious and least perilous paths 
 to human glory ; — a discourse that, equally for the credit of the writer 
 and of the fine arts, was eiven to the world at Florence, in the year 
 1804. 
 
26? 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 S I E N E S E SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH I. 
 
 The old Masters. 
 
 The Sienese is the lively school of a lively people ; and is 
 so agreeable in the selection of the colours and the air of the 
 heads, that foreigners are captivated, and sometimes even 
 prefer it to the Florentine. But this gaiety of style forms 
 not the only reason of this preference; there is another, which 
 few have attended to, and none have ever brought forward. 
 The choicest productions of the painters of Siena are all in 
 the churches of that place ; and he who wishes to become 
 acquainted with the school, after having seen these, need not 
 be very solicitous to visit the private collections, which are 
 numerous and well filled. In Florence it is otherwise : no 
 picture of Vinci, of Bonarruoti, of Rosso, is to be seen in 
 public ; none of the finest productions of Andrea, or of Frate, 
 and few of any other master who has best supported the 
 credit of the scho' L. Many of the churches abound in pic- 
 tures of the third and fifth epochs ; which are certainly 
 respectable, but do not excite astonishment, like the works of 
 the Razzi, the Vanni, and other first-rate artists, everywhere 
 to be met with in Siena. They are, moreover, two different 
 schools, and ought not to be confounded together in any work 
 of art ; possessing, for a long period of time, different govern- 
 ments, other heads of schools, other styles, and not affected 
 by the same changes. A comparison between the two schools 
 is drawn by P. della Valle, "' whom we have mentioned, and 
 
 * See Lettere Sanesi, torn. ii. let. 23, addressed to the author of thin 
 work. 
 
268 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 shall afterwards mention with respect ; and his opinion ap- 
 pears to be, that the Florentine is most philosophical, the 
 Sienese the most poetical. He remarks on this head, that 
 the school of Siena, from its very beginning, displays a pecu- 
 liar talent for invention ; animating with lively and novel 
 images the stories it represents, filling them with allegory, 
 and forming them into spirited and well-constructed poetic 
 compositions. This originates in the elevated and fervid ge- 
 nius of the people, that no less aids the painter, whose poetry 
 is addressed to the eye, than the bard who yields it to the 
 ear. In the latter, and also in extemporary poets, the city 
 abounds, and still maintains in public estimation those laurels 
 which, after Petrarca and Tasso, her Perfetti won in the 
 capital. He likewise observes, that those artists particularly 
 attended to expression. Nor was this difficult, in a city so 
 adverse to dissimulation as Siena, whose natural disposition 
 and education have adapted the tongue and countenance to 
 express the emotions of the heart. This vivacity of genius 
 has perhaps prevented their attaining perfection in design, 
 which is not the great attribute of those masters, as it is 
 reckoned of the Florentines. To sum up all, the character 
 of the school of Siena is not so original as that of some others ; 
 and we shall find, during its best period, that some of its 
 artists distinctly imitated the style of other painters. With 
 regard to the number of its artists, Siena has been prolific in 
 the proportion of its population ; its artists were numerous 
 while it had many citizens, but on the decrease of the latter, 
 its professors of the fine arts also diminished, until every trace 
 of a school was lost. 
 
 The accounts of the early painters of Siena are rather con- 
 fused during the three first centuries, by the plurality of the 
 Guidi, the Mini, the Lippi, the Yanni (abbreviations of Gia- 
 como, Filippo, Giovanni), and such sort of proper names as 
 are used without a surname ; hence it is not sufficient to 
 peruse only such accounts, we must reflect on them and com- 
 pare them. They are scattered in many historians of the city, 
 especially in Ugurgieri, who was pleased to entitle his work, 
 " Le Pompe Sanesi in the Diary of Girolamo Gigli ; and 
 in several works of the indefatigable Cav. Gio. Pecci, whom 
 we have before noticed. Many manuscripts, rich in anec- 
 
QUESTION AS TO ITS ORIGIN. 
 
 269 
 
 dotes of painting, still remain in the libraries : of this num- 
 ber are the histories of Sigismondo Tizio, of Castiglione, who 
 lived at Siena from 1482 to 1528 ; " The Cathedral of Siena," 
 minutely described by Alfonzo Landi ; the u Treatise on Old 
 Paintings," of Giulio Mancini; and some "Memoirs" of 
 Uberto Benvoglienti, whom Muratori denominates " diligen- 
 tissimus rerum suae patriae investigator/* From these, and 
 other sources,* P. della Valle has drawn what is contained in 
 the " Lettere Sanesi," and repeated in the notes on Vasari 
 concerning the school of Siena. By the work of Della Valle 
 it has acquired a celebrity to which it has long been entitled, 
 I take him for my guide in the documents and anecdotes 
 which he has given to the public ;t in the older authorities I 
 follow Vasari and Baldinucci in many circumstances, but dis- 
 sent from them in others ; and, hostile to error, and anxious 
 for the truth, I shall pursue the same plan with regard to the 
 historians of the school of Siena. I shall omit many names 
 of old masters, of whom no works now remain, and here and 
 there shall add a few modern artists who have come to my 
 knowledge, by the examination of pictures, or by the perusal 
 of books. 
 
 The origin of the Sienese school is deduced either from the 
 crusades in the east, whence some Grecian painter had been 
 brought to Siena : or from Pisa, which, as we have seen, had 
 its first artists from Greece. On such a question every one 
 may judge for himself; to me, the data necessary for resolv- 
 ing it appear to be wanting. I know that Italy was never 
 destitute of painters, and artists who wrought in miniature ; 
 that from such, without any Grecian aid or example, some 
 Italian schools took their origin. Siena must have had them 
 in the twelfth century. The " Ordo officiorum Senensis Ec- 
 clesia?," which is preserved in the library of the academy at 
 Florence, was written in the beginning of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, and exhibits initial letters, surrounded with illumina- 
 
 * See Lett. Sen. torn. ii. p. 23, et sequent. 
 
 t In regard to these documents the public is much indebted to the 
 Abate Ciaccheri, the learned librarian of the city, who employed himself 
 lor many years in collecting them ; but his eyes failing him, it became 
 necessary that others should publish them ; the excellent historian has 
 frequently made mention of him. 
 
270 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 tions of li Hie stories, and ornaments of animals. They are 
 painted in vermilion, in a very hard and meagre style ; but 
 they are valuable on account of their era, 1213, in which 
 they were executed by Oderico Canonico, of Siena.* Similar 
 books were ornamented by the same painter in the parchment 
 of the leaves, and painted on the covers without ;f and afford 
 a proof that thus the art of ornamenting with miniatures 
 might lead to large compositions. All, however, more or 
 less, savour of the Greek design ; either because the Italians 
 were originally disciples of the Greeks, dispersed over Italy, 
 or because they regarded the Grecian masters as models, and 
 ventured not to attempt much beyond them. 
 
 The most ancient pictures in the city, the Madonna of the 
 Graces, the Madonna of Tressa, the Madonna of Bethlehem, 
 a S. Peter, in the church dedicated to that saint ; and a S. 
 John the Baptist, surrounded by many small historical repre- 
 sentations, at S. Petronilla, are believed to be older than 
 1200 ; but it is by no means clear that they are the works of 
 Italians, though often believed such from their initial charac- 
 ters, plaster, and design. On the two last the names of the 
 saints near the figures are in Latin characters ; a circum- 
 stance, however, which does not prove an Italian painter. 
 On the mosaic- works at Venice, on the Madonna of Came- 
 rino, brought from Smyrna,^ and on other pictures executed 
 by the Greeks for Italian cities, ignorant of their language, 
 they wrote, or got others to write, inscriptions in Latin ; and 
 they did the same on statues. § The method of painting on 
 
 * The work was published by Trombetti, at Bologna, in 1766. — Delia 
 Valle, torn. i. p. 278. What he adds, that this very Oderico may be 
 the Oderigi da Gubbio, noticed by Dante in the xith canto of his 
 Purgatorio, ought not to be admitted. Dante might, for the sake of 
 rhyme, change Oderico into Oderigi ; but he has said, in the middle of 
 the verse, that the celebrated miniature-painter was a native of Gubbio. 
 Moreover, the latter, who died about 1300, could not have painted 
 in 1213. 
 
 t See Della Valle, torn. ii. p. 273. 
 
 J This is an Annunciation, with the following verse : 
 
 Virgo parit Christum velut Angelus intimat ipso. 
 The error in the last word stands on the picture. 
 
 § Hard by the cathedral of that city there are two lions, cn one of 
 which, in a mixture of Greek and Latin characters, is written, 
 Mahister Thexde fevit ( fecit) Srfevit fieri ambos istos. 
 
GUIDO, OR GUIDONE. 
 
 271 
 
 gilt plaster, which we observe in some old pictures, decidedly 
 Italian, is no argument ; for I have several times observed a 
 similar practice in what was unquestionably the work of a 
 Greek artist. The drawing of the features in those picture , 
 the grimness of the aspect, and the composition of thè stories, 
 all accord with the productions of the Greeks. They may, 
 therefore, have been painted by Greek artists, or by a scho- 
 lar, or, at least, by an imitator of the Greeks. Who, then, 
 can determine whence the artist came, whether he was a re- 
 storer of painting, and whether he executed those paintings 
 at Siena, or sent them from some other place ? This is cer- 
 tain, that painting quickly established itself at Siena, sent 
 out roots, and rapidly multiplied its blossoms. 
 
 The series of painters known by name commences with 
 Guido or Guidone, already noticed in the beginning of this 
 volume. He flourished before Cimabue of Florence saw the 
 light ; and seems to have been at the same time an illumi- 
 nator of manuscripts and a painter. The writers of Siena 
 have declaimed against Vasari and Baldinucci for omitting 
 this artist ; notices of whom could not have escaped the 
 former, who was many times at Siena, nor the latter, who 
 was made acquainted with them before the publication of his 
 " Decennali." Cav. Marmi, a learned and celebrated Flo- 
 rentine, thus notices the omission in one of his letters.* " Bal- 
 dinucci laboured to make us credit the restoration of painting 
 by Cimabue and Giotto ; and to give stability to his hypo- 
 thesis, it is probable that he omitted to make any mention of 
 the painters who, independent of the two just named, departed 
 from the raw and feeble manner of the Greeks." And Guido 
 certainly left it not a little behind, in his picture of the Vir- 
 gin, now hung up in the Male vol ti chapel, in the church of 
 S. Domenico. On it he has thus inscribed his name and the 
 date : 
 
 "Me Guido de Senis diebus depinxit amenis 
 Quern Christus lenis nullis velit agere poenis." 
 
 An. 1221. 
 
 And this example was often followed by the masters of this 
 school, to the great benefit of the history of painting. The 
 
 * See Lettere Sanesi, torn. i. p. 243. 
 
272 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 countenance of the Virgin is lovely, and participates not in 
 the stern aspect that is characteristic of the Greeks ; we may 
 discover some trace of a new style in the drapery. The 
 Madonnas of Cimabue, which are at Florence, the one in the 
 church of the Trinity, the other in S. Maria Novella, are not, 
 however, inferior. In them we may discern the improvement 
 of the art ; a more vivid colouring, flesh-tints more true, a 
 more natural attitude of the head of the infant, while the 
 accompaniments of the throne, and of the glory of angels, 
 proclaim a superior style. 
 
 On this subject I make two remarks, in which I widely 
 dissent from the opinion of the author of the Sienese Letters, 
 without committing any breach of our long-established friend- 
 ship. The one is, that to prove Guido superior to Cimabue, 
 he frequently compares the Madonna of S. Domenico, which 
 is the only one of his pictures which he mentions,* with the 
 paintings of Cimabue, which are numerous, and full of sub- 
 ject ; and without setting any value on the colouring, the 
 fertility of invention, and the various other qualities in which 
 the Florentine surpassed the artist of Siena, he dwells on cer- 
 tain little particulars, in which it appears that Guido was 
 superior. An artist of whom it is not known that he ever 
 attempted any picture but Madonnas, might become more or 
 less perfect in this subject ; but painting is not so much in- 
 debted to him, as to one who has carried it to the higher walks 
 of the art ; a merit which Marco of Siena, a writer not in- 
 clined to favour the Florentines, denies not to Cimabue, as we 
 shall find in the fourth book. The other circumstance alluded 
 to is, that when he mentions a picture which does honour to 
 the fame of Cimabue, he attempts to discredit its history, and 
 the tradition ; as I have already observed with regard to the 
 two large pictures in the church of Assisi, and am now under 
 the necessity of remarking with regard to the two Madonnas 
 at Florence above mentioned. He " strongly suspects "t 
 them to be the work of Mino da Turrita, since mosaic, in 
 which Mino was expert, is there represented by a skilful 
 hand ; and Cimabue was not dexterous in that art ; as if a 
 painter could not represent buildings without being an archi- 
 
 * Tom. ii. p. 15. 
 
 t P. 288. 
 
FRA MINO, PUPIL OF GUIDO. 
 
 273 
 
 tect, or garments without knowing how to cut them out, or 
 drapery without being versed in the art of weaving. He even 
 doubts whether Giotto visited France, for, had this been the 
 case, he, and not Simone da Siena, would have painted the 
 portrait of Laura ; as if history did not inform us that Giotto 
 visited that country about 1316, long before the period when 
 Petrarca first became enamoured of that beauty. He has in- 
 troduced some other speculations, which he would not have 
 admitted, had he not been betrayed into it, almost involun- 
 tarily, by a system which has some probable foundation, but 
 is carried to an extravagant length. I should have been 
 silent on this subject ; but when writing of these artists it 
 became me to recollect that the unicuiqice suum was no less 
 the duty of the historian than the judge. 
 
 The authors of chronicles require correction on the era of 
 this painter. The most undoubted picture of Guido is that 
 bearing the date 1221, for the other in the church of S. Ber- 
 nardino, dated 1262, is ascribed to him without sufficient 
 evidence. It is hardly probable that he who was so eminent 
 in a new art in 1221, was still alive in 1295, as is affirmed by 
 some,* on the faith of a sum of money paid to one Guido, a 
 painter. The celebrated Guido must then have been at least 
 105 years of age : it is more probable that he was dead, and 
 the name applied to another Guido, without any danger of a 
 mistake. 
 
 It is generally believed that the elder Guido instructed 
 F. Mino, or Giacomino da Turrita, the celebrated artist in 
 mosaic, of whom we have spoken in the first book. On the 
 era of Mino also much has been written without sufficient 
 authority. Baldinucci says he died about 1300 ; and omits 
 to mention in his Life that he was employed in 1225 : although 
 this date is legible on the mosaic of Mino in the church of 
 S. Giovanni at Florence, in letters a cubit in length, t This 
 circumstance has likewise escaped the historians of Siena, 
 some of whom have prolonged his life to the year 1298, on 
 
 * See Lett. Sen. torn. ii. p. 276. 
 
 f 1 * Vigintiquinque Christi cum mille ducentis, ' 1 &c. — Vide Piacenza, torn . 
 i. p. 70. Baldinucci was extremely diligent in his research of epochs ; 
 but he took care not to mention this, inasmuch as it overturned his 
 system. 
 
 VOL. I T 
 
274 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 the authority of payment made to Minuccio, a painter; and 
 others have extended it to about 1200, on account of the 
 tomb of Boniface VIII., which is said to be the work of 
 Turrita. The utmost period that can be granted them is 
 about 1290; for Titi observes, in his Description of the 
 Paintings in Borne, that Mino finished the mosaic of S. 
 Maria Maggiore in 1289, and died, after beginning another 
 in S. Giovanni Laterano, which was completed by Gaddo 
 Gaddi in 1292. This renders it extremely doubtful that 
 F. Mino was taught painting by Guido, that he imparted it 
 not only to Giotto, whom, for other reasons, we have excluded 
 from his school, but to the Sienese artists, Mem mi and Loren- 
 zetti,* and even that he was a painter ; all which is founded 
 on the following memorandum, under the year 1289, in a 
 manuscript in the library of Siena : " Paid on the twelfth 
 day of August, nineteen lire to Master Mino, the painter, who 
 painted the Virgin Mary, and other SS. in the council-room 
 of the public palace, the balance, &c." 
 
 He who is here denominated Maestro Mino, not Fra Mino ; 
 who is sometimes called Minuccio, a diminutive not fitted for 
 an old monk, and appears to have been employed in Siena 
 when Fra Mino was at Rome, is another artist. Thus we 
 discover another eminent painter of the name of Mino, or 
 Minuccio, who seems to be in reality the author of the pic- 
 ture of 1289, above alluded to, which remained in the coun- 
 cil-hall even within my memory, and of others, down to 1298. 
 He there represented the Virgin and Child, surrounded by 
 angels, and under a canopy, supported by apostles and the 
 patron saints of the city. The size of the figures, the inven- 
 tion and the distribution, of the work, are surprising for that 
 age : of the other qualities one cannot speak with certainty ; 
 for it was repaired in 1321 by Simone da Siena, and there 
 are beauties in the features and the drapery that can be as- 
 cribed only to the restorer. The mistake thus occasioned by 
 
 * History only gives him some assistants in mosaic ; at Pisa, Tan and 
 Gaddo Gaddi ; at Rome, in S. Maria Maggiore, a Franciscan monk, who 
 there executed a portrait of himself, and inscribed his name, that is now 
 illegible, and his native place, which was Camerino. One F. Giacomo da 
 Camerino painted in the cathedral of Orvieto in 1321, and it is probable 
 that this is the same artist. 
 
DISCIPLES OF GUIDO. 
 
 275 
 
 the same name being cleared up, the system of the learned 
 author of the Lettere Sanesi, is in part confirmed, and in part 
 falls to the ground. He is right in refusing to Giotto certain 
 Sienese pupils, referred to him only from traces of a more 
 modern style ; for we here discover an artist who made some 
 advances towards the new manner even previous to Giotto, 
 who, in 1289, was only thirteen years of age. Now this 
 Mino, and Duccio, of whom we shall soon treat, might cer- 
 tainly have formed pupils able to compete with the school of 
 Giotto, and even in length of years to surpass Giotto himself. 
 There is no reason, however, to prefer the Sienese painters to 
 Cimabue, on the strength of this painting, as the author in 
 question has so often done. Comparison ought to be employed 
 between painter and painter, between contemporary and con- 
 temporary. F. Mino, to whom this single picture was attri- 
 buted, is now shewn to have been merely a mosaic-worker ; 
 Mino or Minuccio began to be known when Cimabue was fifty 
 years of age ; and is the author of a single work, not so free 
 from retouches, nor so large as that of Assisi, already described. 
 The comparison then is not just. 
 
 Every school thinks itself sufficiently honoured when it can 
 produce two or three painters of the thirteenth century : the 
 school of Siena is peculiarly rich in them, and these are re- 
 corded in the twenty-fifth letter " On the disciples of Guido. " 
 As usual I shall omit the names of those least entitled to 
 recollection. I will not affirm that all of them proceeded from 
 the school of Guido ; for in a city where the fine arts flourished 
 so rapidly, masters unknown to us may have been produced. 
 Much less will I ascribe artists of other cities to this school. 
 In the manuscripts of Mancini, one Bonaventuri da Lucca is 
 mentioned, who is the Berlingieri already mentioned.* I 
 neither assign him to Guido nor to Giunta. Who can tell 
 whether Lucca had not also in those early times an original 
 school, now unknown to us ? Setting aside uncertain points, 
 therefore, we can only assert, that after the middle of the 
 century, Siena abounded in painters, more, perhaps, than any 
 other city of Italy : and the causes of this are as follows. 
 
 The cathedral was begun several years before, in a style of 
 
 * See ante, p. 37. 
 T 2 * 
 
276 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH 1. 
 
 magnificence suited to the lordly views of the citizens. It 
 was not a work to be completed in a short time : hence it was 
 frequently interrupted, and a long period had elapsed before 
 it was finished. During this time many architects (magistri 
 lapidum) and sculptors either were invited from other places, 
 or were reared up in the city ; and in 1250 they formed a 
 corporate body, and required particular laws.* Although 
 nothing is ascertained with regard to their mode of study, it 
 is natural to suppose that the study of sculpture contributed 
 to the advancement of painting, a sister art. The celebrated 
 battle of Monte Aperto, in which the people of Siena de- 
 feated the Florentines, happened in 1260. This victory pro- 
 duced an era of peace and opulence to the city, and encou- 
 raged both in public and in private the arts depending on 
 luxury. The victory was ascribed to the interference of the 
 blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the city was consecrated ; the 
 adoration of her votaries increased, and her images were mul- 
 tiplied in the streets, and in all other places ; and thence 
 painting obtained fresh encouragement and new followers. 
 
 Ugolino da Siena should be referred to this era ; he died 
 decrepit in 1339, and consequently might have been born be- 
 fore 1260. We cannot agree with Vasari, who insinuates 
 that he was the scholar of Cimabue ; nor with Baldinucci, 
 who ingrafts him on his tree; nor yet with others who assert 
 that he was the pupil of Guido ; for the latter must have 
 been dead when Ugolino was very young. That he was edu- 
 cated in Siena, seems to me highly probable, from the number 
 of masters then in that city, and because the colouring of 
 his Madonna of Orsanmichele at Florence is in the style of 
 the old school of Siena ; less strong and less true than tha.t of 
 Cimabue and the Florentines. This fact appears to me of 
 importance, for it depends on the mechanism of the art, which 
 was different in different schools. Design at that early period 
 savoured more or less of the Greeks; and in this respect 
 Ugolino adhered to them too closely. " He painted pictures 
 and chapels over all Italy," says Vasari ; and, if I am not 
 mistaken, he came to Florence after his travels, and at length 
 died at Siena. 
 
 * See Lett. Sen. p. 279. 
 
DUCCIO DI BONINSEGNA. 
 
 277 
 
 Duccio di Boninsegna is another master of this age, of 
 whom I shall speak in another place, as the inventor of a new 
 species of painting. Tizio says he was the pupil of Segna, 
 an artist now almost unknown in Siena. He must, however, 
 have enjoyed great celebrity in his day among his country 
 men ; for Tizio informs us that he painted a picture at Arezzo, 
 containing a figure which he pronounces excellent and highly 
 esteemed. He has transmitted to us the following remarkable 
 testimony concerning Duccio : " Ducius Senensis inter ejus- 
 dem opificii artifices eà tempestate primarius ; excujus officina 
 veluti ex equo Trojano pictores egregii prodierunt." 
 
 The eà tempestate refers to 1311, when Giotto was at Avig- 
 non ; and when Duccio was employed on the picture that still 
 exists in the opera-house, which was completed in three years, 
 and almost forms an era in the art. It was large enough to 
 have formed a picture for the great altar of the metropolitan 
 church for which it was intended. On the side facing the 
 people he painted large figures of the Virgin, and of various 
 saints ; on that fronting the choir he represented scriptural 
 subjects, in many compartments, in which he introduced a 
 vast number of figures a palm in length. Pius II. relates in 
 his Annals of Siena, which were never published, that it cost 
 2,000 florins ; others raise it to 3,000 ; but not so much on 
 account of the workmanship as the profusion of gold and 
 ultra-marine. The style is generally thought to approach the 
 Greek manner; the work, however, is the most copious in 
 figures, and among the best-executed productions of that age. 
 Duccio was employed in many parts of Tuscany, and in the 
 church of the Trinity at Florence he painted an Annunciation 
 which, in the opinion of Baldinucci, " leaves no doubt that 
 he was a scholar of Giotto, or of his disciples/' But this 
 will not be granted or believed by those who have seen it ; 
 for both the colouring and the style are totally dissimilar. 
 Chronology, too, opposes the conclusion ; unless we introduce 
 here also a confusion, arising from artists with similar names : 
 Duccio painted from 1282,* and died about 1340.t 
 
 The history becomes more complete when we arrive 
 at the celebrated Simone Menimi, or Simone di Mar- 
 
 * Lett. Sen. torn. i. p. 277. 
 
 f Ibid. torn. ii. p. 69. 
 
278 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 tino,* the painter of Laura, and the friend of Petrarca, who 
 has celebrated him in two sonnets that will hand him down to 
 the latest posterity. The poet has also eulogized him in his 
 letters, where he thus speaks : " duos ego novi pictores egre- 
 gios. . . . Joctum Florentinum ci veni, cujus inter modernos 
 fama ingens est, et Simonem Senensem which is not, how- 
 ever, comparing him to Giotto, to whom he pays a double 
 compliment, but it is giving Memmi the next rank. In such 
 a convenient place the poet would not, in my opinion, have 
 omitted Jocti discipulum, had he been acquainted with such 
 a circumstance : but he appears to have no knowledge of it ; 
 and this renders it doubtful whether Simone was the pupil of 
 Giotto at Rome, notwithstanding the assertion of Vasari, 
 who adds that the latter was then engaged in the mosaic of 
 the Navicella. The writers of Siena contradict him with 
 good reason ; for in 1298 Simone was only fourteen years of 
 age.t They reckon him the scholar of their Mino, and cer- 
 tainly he derived much from the large fresco before noticed : 
 but as he retouched it himself, we cannot put much faith on 
 the resemblance. His colouring is more vivid than that of 
 the followers of Giotto, and in floridness it seems a prelude 
 to Baroccio. But if he was not the scholar of Giotto, he 
 may have assisted him in some of his works, or, perhaps, stu- 
 died him closely, as many eminent painters have often done 
 with the best masters. This may account for his imitating 
 
 * Martino was the father of Simone ; Memmo or Guglielmo his father- 
 in-law : and in the inscriptions on his pictures he sometimes assumes the 
 one name, and sometimes the other. — Benvoglienti. 
 
 f I conjecture this on the authority of Vasari, who says, that he died 
 in 1345, at the age of 60. In the genuine books at S. Domenico, of 
 Siena, we find this sentence " Magister Simon Martini pictor mortuus 
 est in curia ; cujus exequias fecimus . . 1344." Since Vasari approaches 
 so near the truth in the time of the painter's death, we may reasonably 
 credit him also in his age. Mancini says he was born about 1270 ; which 
 gives occasion for P. della Valle to mention Simone as a contemporary, 
 and a competitor of Giotto at Rome. I cannot agree with him on this 
 date, and the information drawn by him from books belonging to the 
 Sienese hospital, that Simone was in Siena in 1344, only a few months 
 before his death, at the court of the Pope at Avignon, strengthens 
 my opinion. I cannot believe that an old man of seventy-four would 
 transfer his residence from Siena to Avignon. If we credit Vasari, the 
 difficulty vanishes, inasmuch as Simone, being then scarcely sixty, might 
 be equal to undertake so long a journey. 
 
SIMONE MEMMI. 
 
 279 
 
 Giotto so admirably in S. Peter's at Rome ; a merit which 
 procured him an invitation to the papal court at Avignon, 
 where he died. The picture of the Yatican has perished ; but 
 some of his other works still exist in Italy ; and they are not 
 so numerous at Siena as in Pisa and Florence. In the Cam- 
 po Santo of Pisa we find various actions of S. Ranieri, and 
 the celebrated Assumption of the Virgin, amid a choir of 
 angels, who seem actually floating in the air, and celebrating 
 the triumph. Memmi was excellent in this species of com- 
 position, as I believe, from the numerous pictures of this sub- 
 ject which he painted at Siena, where there is one at the church 
 of S. John, which is more copious but not more beautiful 
 than that at Pisa. Some of his larger works may be seen in 
 the chapter-house of the Spanish Friars at Florence ; several 
 histories of Christ, of S. Domenico, and of S. Peter Martyr ; 
 and there the Order of the Preaching Friars are poetically 
 represented as engaged in the service of the church, in reject- 
 ing innovators, and in luring souls to paradise. Vasari, to 
 whom the inventions of Memrni appear " not those of a 
 master of that age, but of- a most excellent modern artist," 
 especially praises the last : and, indeed, it might be supposed 
 that it was suggested by Petrarch, did not a comparison of 
 dates refute such an idea. The picture was painted in 1332, 
 and Simone went not to France till 1336 ; what is said about 
 the portrait of Laura in the chapter-house is a mere fable. 
 Taddeo Gaddi, an undoubted pupil of the improved and dig- 
 nified school of Giotto, was there his competitor, and as far 
 surpassed Memmi in the qualities of that school, as he was 
 excelled by the latter in spirit, in variety of the heads and 
 attitudes, in fancy of the draperies, and in originality of com- 
 position. Simone paved the way to more complex pictures, 
 and extended them over a whole facade, so as to be taken in 
 at one glance of the eye ; whereas Giotto used to divide a 
 large surface into many compartments, in each of which he 
 painted an historical picture. 
 
 Although I do not usually dwell on miniature painting, I 
 cannot resist mentioning one which is to be seen in the Ara- 
 brosian library at Milan, which appears to me a singular pro- 
 duction. In that place, there is a manuscript of Virgil, with 
 the commentary of Servius, which formerly belonged to Pe - 
 
280 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 trarca. In the frontispiece is a miniature that is reasonably 
 conjectured to have been suggested to Simone by the poet, 
 who has subjoined the following verses : 
 
 " Mantua Virgilium qui talia carmina finxit, 
 Sena tulit Simonem digito qui talia pinxit." 
 
 The artist has represented Virgil sitting in the attitude ol 
 writing, and with his eyes raised to heaven, invoking the fa- 
 vour of the Muses. ÌÉneas is before him in the garb and 
 with the demeanour of a warrior, and, pointing with his 
 sword, intimates the subject of the iEneid. The Bucolics 
 are represented by a shepherd, and the Georgics by a hus- 
 bandman ; both of whom are on a lower foreground of the 
 piece, and appear listening to the strain. Servius, in the 
 mean time, appears drawing aside a veil of great delicacy 
 and transparency, to intimate that his readings unveil what 
 would otherwise have remained obscure and doubtful to the 
 reader of that divine poet. An account of this picture is 
 contained in a letter of the secretary Ab. Carlo Bianconi,* 
 where the author praises the originality of the idea, the co- 
 louring and harmony of the picture, the propriety and variety 
 in the costume according with the subject. He also remarks 
 a little rudeness in the design, more of truth than of beauty 
 in the heads, and the largeness of the hands ; that usually, 
 indeed, were the characteristics of every school at this period. 
 
 Simone had a relation named Lippo Memmi, whom he him- 
 self instructed in the art. Although he was not equal in 
 genius to Simone, he succeeded admirably in imitating his 
 manner, and, aided by his designs, produced pictures that 
 might have passed for the work of the former, had he not in- 
 scribed them with his name. When he wrought without such 
 assistance, there is a manifest mediocrity in his invention and 
 design ; but he is still a good colo uri st. A picture executed 
 by thern both is preserved in S. Ansano di Castel vecchio of 
 Siena.t In Ancona, Assisi, and other places, pictures existed 
 
 * See Lett. Senesi, torn. ii. p. 101. 
 
 f There is on it " A. D. 1333, Simon Martini et Lippus Memmi de 
 SenÌ3 me pinxerunt." It is now in the ducal gallery at Florence. It 
 may be remarked on the chronology of this painter, that where we find 
 not Memmi but only Lippo or Filippo, it does not always seem intended 
 for him. Thus the M. Filippo, who received a sum of money in 1308, 
 
LORENZO, OR LORENZETTO. 
 
 281 
 
 that were begun by the former, and finished by the latter. 
 There is a picture wholly the work of Lippo in Siena ; and 
 the author of the Description of Pisa records one at the 
 church of S. Paul in that place, which is not without merit. 
 In my first edition, implicitly following the writers of chroni- 
 cles, I mentioned a Cecco di Martino as the brother of Si- 
 mone. But on considering that he flourished about 1380, and 
 that there was a less celebrated Simon Martino, in Siena, 
 about 1350, mentioned by Cittadini, I do not judge it right 
 to follow their authority. 
 
 An artist named Lorenzo, and familiarly Lorenzetto, was 
 the father of another family of painters : he had a son named 
 Ambrogio, who is surnamed Lorenzetti by historians. A 
 large picture by this artist, on which he subscribes himself 
 Ambrosius Lanrentii, is to be seen in the public palace, and 
 may be designated a poem of moral precepts. The vices oi 
 a bad government are there represented under different as- 
 pects, and with appropriate symbols ; accompanied by verses 
 explanatory of their nature and consequences. The Virtues, 
 too, are there personified with suitable emblems : and the 
 whole is adapted to form governors and politicians for the re- 
 public, animated by the spirit of genuine patriotism alone. 
 Had there been a greater variety in the countenances of the 
 figures, and a superior arrangement in the piece, it would 
 have been little inferior to the finest pictures in the Campo 
 Santo of Pisa. Siena possesses many of his frescos and large 
 pictures ; but they are not so surprising as his smaller works, 
 in which he appears as the forerunner of B. Angelico, whom 
 we have commended in another place. I have observed no- 
 thing similar in his contemporaries ; and it possesses a nation- 
 ality of character that prevents his being confounded with 
 the followers of Giotto : the ideas, the colouring, and the 
 draperies, are wholly different. In a similar taste is a pic- 
 ture in the possession of Sig. Abate Ciaccheri, librarian to 
 the university of Siena, where Ambrogio painted some very 
 original works, in which he far surpassed the Orcagni. His 
 
 and that Lippo, who in 1361, is said to be the assistant of another artist 
 (Lett. Sen. torn. ii. p. 110), most probably are not to be identified with 
 Memmi. He was younger than his relation, and, according to Vasari, 
 survived him fourteen years. 
 
282 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 style was admired in Florence ; where, to please his friends, 
 who were desirous of seeing a specimen of his art, he painted 
 several pieces from the life of S. Nicholas, in the church of 
 S. Proculus, that were afterwards transferred to the abbey. 
 
 Another son of Lorenzo was called Pietro, and, in conjunc- 
 tion with his brother, painted the Presentation, and Nuptials 
 of Our Lady, in the hospital of Siena, on which the following 
 inscription was legible : Hoc opus fecit Petrus Laurentii et 
 Ambrosius ejus f rater, 1335. The inscription is preserved 
 by Cav. Pecci, who in 1720, when the painting was destroyed, 
 transcribed it most opportunely for correcting Vasari, who 
 had read Petrus Laurati instead of Laurentii in another 
 inscription ; from which he concluded this artist not to be the 
 brother of Ambrogio ; and from some similarity between his 
 style and that of Giotto, had concluded that he was the dis- 
 ciple of the latter : but it is highly improbable that with such 
 a father and with such a brother, Pietro would have gone 
 from home for instruction. Vasari gives, however, a most 
 favourable opinion of this illustrious Sienese, which may 
 suffice to vindicate his impartiality. He says of one of his 
 pictures, " that it was executed with a better design and in a 
 superior manner to any thing that Tuscany had then seen ;" 
 and in another place he asserts, that Pietro " became a better 
 master than either Cimabue or Giotto." What could he have 
 said further ? might it have been asserted that he was, if not 
 the disciple of Giotto, at least his fellow-student in the school 
 of F. Mino ? (Vasari, torn. ii. p. 78, ed. Sen.) But granting 
 that Giotto was not his master, how are we to believe him 
 his fellow-student ? The first pictures of Giotto are traced 
 to 1295 ; those of Pietro to 1327. And where, when, or to 
 whom did F. Mino teach painting ? Pietro' s historical pic- 
 ture of the Fathers dell' Eremo remains in the Campo Santo 
 of Pisa, where, in conformity with ecclesiastical history, he 
 has painted the various discipline of those recluses. This 
 picture, if I am not mistaken, is richer in ideas, more original, 
 and better conceived than any one in that place. In the du- 
 cal gallery there is a copy of this picture, if not a duplicate 
 by the artist himself : the taste of the colouring certainly 
 belongs not to the Florentine, but to the Sienese school, of 
 that period. 
 
STATUTES OF SIENESE PAINTERS. 
 
 283 
 
 After painting had attained so high a degree of excellence 
 in Siena, it was liable to decline, both from the usual lot of 
 the most auspicious eras, in which an age of servile imitation, 
 and of hurried execution, generally succeeds, and also from 
 the terrible plague which, in 1348, desolated Italy and 
 Europe ; sweeping off distinguished masters and pupils in 
 every school. Siena, however, did not lose her Lorenzetti, 
 who constituted her ornament for several years ; but if her 
 population at one time equalled 75,000, it was afterwards 
 greatly diminished. She could, however, still vie in the num- 
 ber of her artists with Florence itself. This clearly appears 
 from " The Statutes of the Painters of Siena,"* published by 
 P. della Valle, in his first volume, letter sixteen. They are 
 drawn up with the characteristic simplicity, clearness, and 
 precision of the thirteenth century ; and are a very admirable 
 body of regulations for the due propriety and direction of 
 artists, and for the honour of the art. We can discern that 
 this society consisted of cultivated and well-educated persons ; 
 and it does not excite astonishment to find that, democratic in 
 government as Siena then was, the highest magistrates of the 
 republic were sometimes elected from among the professors of 
 the art. They formed a body corporate ; not merely a fra- 
 ternity, nor an academy of design ; and received their char- 
 ter, not from the bishop, but from the city, or the republic, in 
 1355. Some have conjectured that those statutes are as old 
 as the preceding century ; and that they were translated into 
 Italian from the Latin about 1291 : for Tizio informs us that, 
 in this year, u Statuta materna lingua edita sunt ad ambigui- 
 tates tollendas." But Tizio must have meant the statutes 
 concerning wool, and others then existing ; and those of the 
 artists may have been framed at a subsequent period. Indeed, 
 the manner in which they are drawn up, without a reference 
 to preceding ordinances, indicates a first edition. If there 
 were statutes published in the vulgar tongue in 1291, why 
 was the sanction of the law deferred for 66 years ? or why 
 are the new not distinguished from the old, as is usual in 
 similar codes ? 
 
 * Statuti dell' arte de' Pittori Senesi. 
 
284 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. — EPOCH I. 
 
 In the code to which I refer, the names of a great number 
 of artists are inscribed, who lived after 1350 and at the be- 
 ginning of the next century. With the exception of a few 
 who merit some consideration, I shall pass them over in silence 
 as I did in the Florentine school. I find among them An- 
 drea di Guido,* Jacomo di Frate Mino, and Galgano di Ma- 
 estro Minuccio ; and I bring these forward to confirm what I 
 have before observed, that painters of the same name have 
 introduced confusion into the history of this school. I also 
 find there N. Tedesco, Vannino da Perugia, Lazzaro da Or- 
 vieto, Niccolò da Norcia, Antonio da Pistoia, and other foreign 
 artists : thence I infer that Siena, like a university for paint- 
 ing, had furnished masters to various cities of Italy, and other 
 countries. We here meet with some painters of whom there 
 still remains some trace in history, or in the inscriptions on 
 pictures. Martino di Bartolommeo is the artist who, in 1405, 
 painted the Translation of the Body of S. Crescentius at the 
 cathedral, and of whom a still better picture remains at S. 
 Antonio Abate. His family name brings to mind Bartolom- 
 meo Bolonghino, or Bolgarino, mentioned by Vasari as the 
 best pupil of Pietro Laurati, and the painter of some excel- 
 lent pictures in Siena, and other parts of Italy. He was a 
 man of rank, and obtained the honour of the magistracy. 
 Andrea di Vanni is undoubtedly the painter of the S. Sebas- 
 tian in the convent of S. Martin, and of the Madonna sur- 
 rounded by saints in that of S. Francis, an artist not un- 
 known beyond the limits cf his native country, especially in 
 Naples, where he painted before 1373. He was likewise 
 employed in public embassies, and, like another Reubens, was 
 a magistrate, and ambassador of the republic to the Pope ; 
 and was honored by S. Catherine of Siena, who in one of her 
 letters, gives him some excellent advice on the subject of go- 
 vernment. 
 
 About the year 1370 flourished Berna (i. e. Bernardo) da 
 Siena, of whom Vasari says, that " he was the first who 
 painted animals correctly f and at the same time allows him 
 
 * This Guido da Siena is, perhaps, the one mentioned by Sacchetti in 
 his eighty-fourth tale, and of whom there remains a picture in the church 
 of S. Antonio, painted in 1362. — Baldinucci. 
 
BERNA DA SIENA. 
 
 285 
 
 no common merit in the human figure, especially in wnat re- 
 gards expression. One of his frescos remains in the parish 
 church of Arezzo, more praiseworthy on account of the ex- 
 tremities, in which he was superior to many of that age, than 
 for the drapery or the colouring, in which many artists sur- 
 passed him. He died in the prime of life, about the year 
 1380, at S. Gimignano, after having made considerable pro- 
 gress in a copious work, consisting of some subjects from 
 sacred history, that still remains in that parish church. The 
 work was continued with a superior colouring, but with a 
 less pure design, by Giovanni d'Asciano, who is his reputed 
 scholar. The whole still exists, and thirteen of the pictures, 
 or perhaps more, are the work of the scholar, who exercised 
 his art at Florence, under the protection of the Medicean 
 family, much respected by his fellow-artists. As those two 
 painters lived long abroad, I find no mention of them in the 
 catalogue just quoted. There is a well-executed altar-piece 
 in Venice, with the name Bernardinus de Senis, Some of 
 his pictures have been discovered in the diocese of Siena, by 
 the Archbishop Zondadari, who has formed a good collection 
 of ancient pictures of the Sienese school. In these pictures, 
 Berna appears to be a pretty good colourist, a talent which he 
 does not display in his frescos. Luca di Tome, another scho- 
 lar of Berna, noticed hj Vasari, is there mentioned. One of 
 his Holy Families remains at S. Quirico, in the convent of 
 the Capuchins, and bears the date of 1367. It has not suf- 
 ficient softness, but in other respects is very reputable. 
 
 In the beginning of the fifteenth century, not only indi- 
 vidual painters, but whole families of artists, had multiplied, 
 in which the art for a long series of years descended from 
 father to son. This circumstance contributed greatly to the 
 progress of painting; for the master, who is likewise the 
 father, teaches without any feeling of jealousy, and generally 
 aims at forming a pupil superior to himself. The family of 
 the Fredi, or the Bartoli, became celebrated beyond all the 
 rest. The reputation of Taddeo, who began to be distinguished 
 in the fourteenth century, rose very high. In the records he 
 is styled Thaddatus magistri Bartholi magistri Fredi* from 
 
 * Manfredi. 
 
286 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 his father * and grandfather, artists of some name. By him, 
 " as the best master of the age," says Vasari, the chapel 01 
 the public palace was painted, where some historical pieces, re- 
 presenting our Lady, are yet to be seen ; and in 141 4 he orna- 
 mented the adjoining hall. Besides some pictures from sacred 
 history, he there formed, as it were, a gallery of illustrious 
 men, chiefly republicans ; and for the edification of the citizens, 
 added some Latin and Italian verses ; a mode of instruction 
 very liberally employed in this school. The chief merit of 
 the work lies in the dignity and originality of its invention, 
 which was afterwards imitated in part by Pietro Perugino, in 
 the hall of the Exchange, at Perugia. The portraits are 
 ideal ; they are dressed in the costume of Siena, when they 
 represent Romans and Grecians, and their attitudes are not 
 happy. His pictures at Pisa and in Volterra, mentioned by 
 Vasari, still exist ; and that of the Arena in Padua, in the 
 tribune of the church, is well preserved. In it we discover 
 practical skill, little variety, and less grace in the heads, 
 feeble tints and imitations of Giotto, that lose their value on 
 a comparison with the original. His small pictures do him 
 greater honour : an imitation of Ambrogio, his great proto- 
 type, is conspicuous, and also the subdued but agreeable 
 colouring of this school ; which, like all the others in Italy, 
 excelled about this period more in small than in large pro- 
 portions. 
 
 The manner of Taddeo was greatly aggrandized by Do- 
 menico Bartoli, his nephew and disciple. Foreign connois- 
 seurs behold with delight the various fresco pictures which 
 he painted in the pilgrims' ward of the hospital, representing 
 the circumstances of its foundation, and the exercises of 
 Christian charity bestowed upon the sick, the dying, and the 
 indigent. On comparing these one with another, the artist 
 displays considerable improvement, and a greater freedom 
 than usual from the old dryness ; his design and perspective 
 are better, his compositions more scientific ; without taking 
 into account the richness and variety of ideas, which he has 
 
 * In the parish chureh of S. Gimignano is an historical fresco of this 
 artist, dated 1356, and in that of S. Agostino, a painting in a much better 
 style, according to Vasari, executed in 1388, which date P. della Valle 
 gives as 1358. 
 
LORENZO DI PIETRO. 
 
 287 
 
 in common with the artists of this school. From those 
 pictures Raffaello and Pinturicchio, while painting at Siena, 
 took many of their notions of national costume, and, perhaps, 
 of some other particulars ; for it is characteristic of great 
 minds to derive advantage even from examples not above 
 mediocrity. 
 
 Thus the art was gradually advancing in the republic, when 
 new opportunities were afforded for producing works on a 
 grand scale ; occasions in which genius is developed and in- 
 vigorated. Siena gave Pius II. to the chair of S. Peter, who, 
 to the most ardent love of his country, united a taste for mag- 
 nificence; and, during his residence in the city, it was em- 
 bellished with architecture and every kind of ornament. He 
 would have been still more profuse, had he not, disgusted 
 with the ingratitude of the people, turned his attention and 
 beneficence to Rome. Among other advantages he conferred 
 on the state of Siena, was that of adding to its territory the 
 city of Corsignano, his native palace ; which, from him, was 
 afterwards called Pienza. The new city received another 
 form, and new edifices, among which was the cathedral. It 
 was erected in 1462, and for its decoration he invited the best 
 artists of Siena, Ansano and Lorenzo di Pietro, Giovanni di 
 Paolo, and Matteo his son. Their style was laborious and 
 minute, the universal character of that age ; for the manner 
 of painting was introduced and transferred from one country 
 into another, without our being able to discover where it 
 originated ; but in the arts depending on design, as we have 
 before remarked, when the path was once opened, the natural 
 genius of each school will regulate its progress. These four 
 are mentioned in the catalogue of Sienese artists ; and Ansano, 
 or Sano, at one time enjoyed the highest reputation. About 
 1422 he had painted the beautiful fresco over the Roman 
 gate ; and has represented the Coronation of the Virgin : it is 
 much in the style of Simone, and in some respects surpasses him. 
 A picture by this artist, of inferior merit, remains in the church 
 of Pienza. Lorenzo di Pietro, surnamed II Vecchietta, was 
 eminent in sculpture and in casting in bronze. He was less 
 successful in painting, and offends by hardness, as far as we 
 can determine from the small remains of him in Siena, for 
 there are none existing at Pienza. A picture of his, with 
 
288 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 the date 1457, was lately added to the Medicean gallery. 
 Giovanni di Paolo makes a good figure in Pienza ; and a still 
 better in a Descent from the Cross, painted four years after- 
 wards in the Osservanza of Siena ; in which the defects of the 
 age are counterbalanced by qualities, at that time by no 
 means common, displaying considerable knowledge of the 
 naked figure. 
 
 Matteo di Giovanni was then young, but surpassed them 
 all in the extent of his genius. This is the Matteo denomi- 
 nated by some the Masaccio of this school, although there is a 
 great distance between him and the Florentine Masaccio. 
 The new style of Matteo begins to be recognised in one of 
 his two pictures in the cathedral. He afterwards improved 
 it in his works in the church of S. Domenico, at Siena, in 
 Madonna della Neve, and in some other churches ; and it 
 was he who excited the Neapolitan school to attempt a less 
 antiquated style. Having learnt the process of painting in 
 oil, he imparted softness to his figures ; and from his intimacy 
 with Francesco di Giorgio, a celebrated architect,* he imbibed 
 a good taste in buildings, and diversified them very ingeni- 
 ously with alto and basso relievos. He foreshortened level 
 objects well ; he cast draperies with more of nature, and with 
 less frippery than was common in that age ; if he imparted 
 little beauty to the features, he attained variety of expres- 
 sion ; and was attentive in marking the muscles and veins in 
 his figures. He did not always aim at novelty and display ; 
 on the contrary, after painting a Murder of the Innocents, 
 which was his best composition^ he often repeated it in Siena, 
 and in Naples, but always with improvements : his most stu- 
 dious picture on this subject is that at the Servi of Siena, 
 painted in 1491, which must have been near the close of his 
 life. He was accustomed to introduce into his pictures some 
 episode, unconnected with the principal story, in small figures, 
 a style in which he excelled. The noble house of Sozzini 
 
 * He was a good sculptor ; and, according to the custom of the time 
 of uniting the three sister arts, he also practised painting, but not with 
 great success. I have not seen any of his pictures but a Nativity, in 
 which he chiefly appears emulous of Mantegna. It is in the possession of 
 Sig. Abate Ciaccheri, whose collection will greatly assist any one desirous 
 of becoming acquainted with the school. 
 
 f An engraving of it is in the third volume of Lettere Sanesi. 
 
ANGELO PÀRRASIO. 
 
 289 
 
 and other families in Siena, possess several of his small pic- 
 tures. As an artist, he is inferior to Bellini, to Francia, or 
 Vannucci; but surpasses many others. Another eminent 
 Sienese, who flourished in the first ages of oil painting, is 
 made known to us by Ciriaco Anconitano,* who was ac- 
 quainted with him in 1449, at the court of Leonello, Mar- 
 quis of Este. This artist was named Angelo Parrasio : he 
 painted the nine muses in the palace of Belfiore, near Ferrara, 
 in imitation of the manner of Giovanni and Ruggieri da 
 Bruggia. 
 
 * In the fragment of a letter, quoted by Sig. Abate Colucci in Anti- 
 chità Picene, torn. xv. p. 143. " Cnjus nempe inclytse artis et eximii 
 artificum ingenii egregium equidem imitatorem Angelum Parrasium 
 Senensem, recens picturae in Latio specimen vidimus/ ' &c. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 V 
 
•2-90 
 
 SIENE SE SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH IL 
 
 Foreign Painters at Siena. The origin and progress of the modern style 
 in that city. 
 
 Before this era we have met with no strangers who had 
 taught painting or changed the manner of this school. The 
 art had there existed for three centuries, almost always,* un- 
 der the guidance of native painters ; and it had even been 
 provided by the statutes of the art, that no foreigner might be 
 encouraged to practise it at Siena. In one chapter it is 
 enacted, that " any stranger, wishing to be employed, shall 
 pay a florin and elsewhere, that " he may receive a just 
 and sufficient recompense to the extent of twenty-five livres." 
 The provision was subtle : on the one hand they did not, 
 with marked inhospitality, positively exclude strangers ; but, 
 on the other, they deprived them of any chance of rivalling 
 the artists of the city in employment at Siena. Hence it 
 came to pass, according to P. della Valle, that no pictures of 
 other schools, but those of a late period, are to be found there. 
 But this circumstance, though favourable to the artist, was 
 detrimental to the art : for the school of Siena, by admitting 
 strangers, would have swelled the list of her great masters ; 
 and she might have kept pace with other schools ; but this 
 she neglected, and, after having vied with the Florentine 
 school in painting, and even surpassed it for some years, 
 towards the close of the fifteenth century Siena could not, 
 perhaps, boast of a better artist than Capanna, who executed 
 
 * Baldinucci, in his Life of Antonio Veneziano, contends that this artist 
 resided, during some time, at Siena ; but the silence of the city historians 
 leads us to aoubt the truth of his assertion. 
 
PINTURICCHIO AT SIENA. 
 
 291 
 
 some facades from the designs of others ;* or than Andrea 
 del Brescianino, who, in conjunction with one of his brothers, 
 is said to have painted some pictures, with which I am unac- 
 quainted, in the church of the Olivetine Friars. They have 
 been more commended by historians than Bernardino Fungai, 
 an artist whose style was modernized, but dry,t than Neroc- 
 cio, or any other Sienese painter of that period ; but they 
 could not be compared to the best masters of Italy. The 
 nobility perceived the decline of the native school, and the 
 necessity of supporting it by the accession of foreign artists ; 
 they wished for such assistance, to the dissatisfaction, pro- 
 bably, of the populace, every where apt to contend that the 
 provender of the land should rather feed the native beast of 
 burden than the foreign steed. The Florentine style of 
 painting found its way to Rome; but ancient rivalry and 
 political jealousy prevented its introduction into Siena. Pe- 
 rugia seemed a less objectionable ally ; and from that place, 
 h'rst Bonfigli, and afterwards his scholar Pietro Perugino, 
 who executed two pictures at Siena, were invited ; and at 
 length several scholars of the latter were called, who remained 
 in the service of two celebrated natives of Siena. The one 
 was Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, who soon after became 
 Pius III. For the purpose of decorating the sacristy of the 
 cathedral, and the chapel of his family, with various pictures 
 from the life of Pius II. he invited Pinturicchio to Siena. 
 This artist carried along with him other scholars of Perugino, 
 and even Raffaello himself, who is reported to have designed 
 either wholly, or in a great measure, those historical pictures. 
 The other was Pandolfo Petrucci, who, for some time, usurped 
 the government of the republic : eagerly desirous of embel- 
 lishing the palace and some churches, he availed himself of 
 Signorelli, and of Genga,J and recalled Pinturicchio. 
 
 * Vasari calls him " a pretty good master 99 in the life of D. Barto- 
 lommeo : from the note of Bottari on this passage we collect that he 
 flourished about 1500. Gigli makes him the master of Beccafumi. 
 
 f There is a Coronation of the Virgin by him at Fonte Giusta, and a 
 picture, representing various saints, at Carmine, dated 1512. 
 
 % See Lett. Sanesi, torn. iii. p. 320, where the inscription of Sig- 
 norelli on bis pictures in the Petrucci palace is quoted, and Vasari is 
 corrected. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 
 
 SIE^ESE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 This passed at the beginning of the sixteenth century ; for 
 the sacristy was completed in 1503 ; the return of Pinturic- 
 chio took place in 1508 ; and, after a short interval, it appears 
 that Genga, the scholar of Perugino, and Signorelli, came to 
 Siena. From that period, the Sienese school began to assume 
 the modern style ; and design, a full tone of colouring, and 
 perspective, all attained perfection in a few years. Had 
 Siena produced a family equal to the Medicean in taste, 
 power, and a disposition to encourage the fine arts, what 
 might it not have attained ! Siena about this time could 
 boast of four men of talents admirably adapted to produce a 
 great revolution in the art, and these were Pacchiarotto, Razzi, 
 Mecherino, and Peruzzi, all of whom (with the exception of 
 Razzi), Baldinucci, for some reason unknown to me, has de- 
 rived from the school of Raffaello. The works of Raffaello, 
 then a young man, and of other foreign artists, far from re- 
 pressing their spirit, awakened in them an honourable emula- 
 tion. Whoever compares the pictures of Matteo with their 
 works, would conclude that many years had intervened ; yet 
 they were all living at the death of Matteo. We now come 
 to the bright era of the school of Siena; and to the considera- 
 tion of its most eminent masters. 
 
 Jacopo Pacchiarotto* followed the manner of Pietro more 
 closely than any of them, although he was not his scholar, and, 
 perhaps, had not been out of Siena before 1535. In that year 
 there happened an insurrection of the people against the go- 
 vernment, in which he was a ring-leader, and would have 
 suffered an ignominious death, had he not been saved by the 
 Osser vantine fathers, who concealed him for some time within 
 a tomb. Prom thence he withdrew to France, where he as- 
 sisted Rosso, and is supposed to have died. Siena possesses 
 several of his cabinet pictures and altar-pieces, in the style of 
 Perugino ; especially a beautiful one in the church of S. 
 
 * He is thus named by Baldinucci : but Vasari, in his Life of Razzi, 
 mentions a Girolamo del Pacchia, a rival of Razzi himself; and this 
 person appears to be Pacchiarotto. He also mentions Giorno, or 
 Girolamo del Sodoma, who died young ; and whom both Orlandi 
 and Rotari have confounded with Pacchiarotti ; when we ought rather 
 to believe that he was a pupil of Razzi, and died while he was yet 
 young. 
 
Gì ANN ANTONIO RAZZI. 
 
 293 
 
 Christopher. In his frescos, in the church of S. Catherine 
 and of S. Bernardino, where he emulated the ablest artists of 
 Siena, he appears great in composition. The most admired is 
 the copious picture representing the Visit of the Virgin, S. 
 Catherine, to the body of S. Agnes of Montepulciano : the 
 others are executed in a similar taste. He appears to have 
 studied Raffaello with the greatest care ; and there are heads 
 and whole figures so lively, and with such a grace in the fea- 
 tures, that, to some connoisseurs, they seem to possess the 
 ideal. Nevertheless, his Pacchiarotto is almost unknown be- 
 yond the limits of his native place, for he is only incidentally 
 mentioned by Vasari ; and his works have passed under the 
 name of Perugino, or of his school. 
 
 Giannantonio Razzi, surnamed II Sodoma, undoubtedly en- 
 joyed the citizenship of Siena ; but it is disputed whether he 
 was born at Vergelle, a Sienese village, or at Vercelli, in Pied- 
 mont. Vasari expressly states, that he was invited to Siena 
 by some of the noble family of Spannocchi, and that he was a 
 native of Vercelli. He is supported by Tizio, Giovio, Mancini, 
 and all who wrote before Ugurgieri. I am confirmed in it by 
 observing his carnations, his style of chiaroscuro, and other 
 peculiarities of the old school of Milan, and of Giovenone, who 
 flourished at Vercelli : and of this style there appears to me 
 traces in the works of Gio Antonio ; especially in those he 
 executed shortly after he left his master. I have not observed 
 the historical pictures of S. Benedict, which he painted at 
 Monte Oliveto about 1502, and are so ably described by Sig. 
 Giulio Perini, secretary to the academy of Florence. I have 
 seen those he executed at Rome in the pontificate of Julius II. 
 He painted several in the Vatican, that were defaced, because 
 they did not satisfy the Pope. Raffaello substituted other 
 pictures, but spared the grotesques. Razzi afterwards ex- 
 ecuted some pictures from the life of Alexander the Great, in 
 the Chigi, now the Farnese palace. The nuptials of Roxana, 
 and the suppliant family of Darius, are the best of them. They 
 do not exhibit the facility, grace, and dignified heads that 
 characterize the style of Vinci ; but they shew much of his 
 chiaroscuro, which was then greatly followed by the Lombards : 
 perspective, their hereditary attribute, is conspicuous ; they 
 
294 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 abound in gay images, in little cupids with their arrows, and 
 a pomp that is captivating. 
 
 His works in Siena, the fruit of his studies in Rome, and 
 of his mature age, are still superior. The Epiphany, in the 
 church of S. Augustino, appeared wholly in the style of Yinci 
 to an eminent foreign connoisseur, who mentioned it to me 
 with rapture. The flagellation of Christ, in the cloister of S. 
 Francis, is preferred to the figures of Michelangelo by judges 
 of the art : Razzi never produced a finer picture. Some think 
 as highly of his S. Sebastian, now in the ducal gallery, sup- 
 posed to have been copied from an antique Torso. The Swoon 
 of S. Catherine of Siena, which he painted in fresco in a chapel 
 of S. Domenico, is a picture in the manner of Raffaello. 
 Peruzzi greatly admired it, and affirmed that " he had never 
 seen a swoon so naturally represented/' The air and varied 
 expression in the heads are not borrowed from any artist, and 
 on this account he seems to have extorted the applause even 
 of Vasari. His models, as usual with other artists of this 
 school, were selected from among the Sienese, whose heads 
 possess a great innate gaiety, openness, and spirit. He painted 
 frequently in a hurried manner, without preparatory study ; 
 especially in his old age, when reduced to poverty at Siena, 
 he sought for employment at Pisa, at Volterra, and at Lucca : 
 but in all his pictures I discover traces of an able artist, who, 
 though careless of excellence, never painted badly. Vasari, the 
 great enemy of his fame, generally styles him Mattacelo,* ascrib- 
 ing to chance, to fortune, or to fancy, whatever he performed 
 well ; as if his usual style had been that of a bad painter. 
 Here Vasari betrays a want of memory ; for he confessed in 
 the life of Mecherino, that Razzi " possessed the grand prin- 
 ciple of design f in another passage he praised the brilliant 
 colouring he brought with him out of Lombardy ; and before 
 noticing the works of his old age, often pronounced the others 
 beautiful, sometimes most beautiful and wonderful : hence it 
 may be said of him, modo ait, modo negat. Guided by public 
 estimation, Giovio has written of Razzi in a different manner, 
 when speaking of the death of Raffaello, he subjoins : " plures 
 pari pene gloria certantes artem exceperunt, et in his Sodomas 
 
 * Mattaccio signifies a buffoon. — Tr. 
 
BARTOLOMMEO NERONI. 
 
 295 
 
 Vercellensis."* He who objects to the testimony of this 
 eminent scholar, will receive that of a celebrated painter : 
 Annibale Caracci, passing through Siena, said, " Razzi appears 
 a very eminent master of the greatest taste, and few such 
 pictures are to be seen/'t 
 
 During the many years that Giannantonio lived at Siena, 
 ie must have educated many pupils. A few only are noticed 
 by Mancini, in one of his Fragments Rustico, the father of 
 Cristofano, an excellent painter of grotesques, with which he 
 filled Siena ; Scalabrino, a man of genius and a poet ;§ and 
 Michelangiolo Anselmi, or Michelangiol da Siena, a painter 
 claimed by several places. We shall consider him in the 
 school of Parma, as he left no work in Siena, except a fresco 
 in the church of Fonte Giusta, a production of his youth, and 
 not worthy of so great a name. A scholar of Razzi, his as- 
 sistant, and finally his son-in-law, was Bartolommeo Neroni, 
 called Maestro Riccio, who, after the death of the four great 
 pillars of the school of Siena, supported its reputation, and 
 probably educated one of its restorers. He may be recognized 
 at the Osservanti, in a Crucifixion with three saints standing 
 around, and people in the distance. But his master-piece 
 was a Descent from the Cross, much in the manner of Razzi, 
 at the Derelitte. Some of his other pictures yet remain in 
 the city, in which he appears to mingle the style of his father- 
 in-law, with a certain resemblance to the manner of Vasari, 
 in the distribution of his tints. He is known to have been 
 excellent in perspective, and particularly so in painting 
 
 * In P. della Valle, in the Supplement to the Life of Razzi, See Vasari, 
 edit, of Siena, p. 297. In the following page there is a chronological 
 error. He agrees with Baldinucci that Razzi was born in 1479, and says 
 that his picture of S. Francis was executed in 1490, that is, when the 
 artist was about eleven years of age. 
 
 •f See also Perini, in his " Lettera su V Archicenobio di Monte (Divieto, " 
 p. 49, where he defends Razzi from the charge of indecorum made by 
 Vasari, on a view of the grotesques and fancy subjects which he painted 
 in that place. 
 
 X Tom. iii. p. 243. 
 
 § I am in doubt as to his native place. The name of one Scalobrinus 
 Pistoriensis, a painter of merit, and belonging to the same age, is found 
 inscribed at the church of S. Francesco, without the Tuscan gate, where 
 he left seven specimens of altar-pieces. — Memorie per le belle Arti, torn, 
 ii. p. 190. 
 
296 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. — EPOCH II. 
 • 
 
 scenery ; a specimen of which was engraved by Andreani. 
 He was greatly skilled in architecture, and had a pension 
 from the magistrates of Lucca for his assistance in their public 
 works. Some books include among his disciples Anselmi, 
 who was rather his kinsman ; and Arcangiolo Salimbeni, who 
 finished some of his works after his death, and on this account 
 only has been supposed his scholar. From him we shall com- 
 mence a new epoch in this school. 
 
 Domenico Beccafumi derived the surname of Mecherino 
 from a citizen of Siena, who, having remarked him when a 
 shepherd boy designing something on a stone, argued favour- 
 ably of his genius. Obtaining the consent of his father, he 
 brought hiin to the city, and according to Gigli, recommended 
 him to Capanna as a scholar. He there employed himself in 
 copying the designs of eminent artists, and in imitating the 
 pictures of Pietro Perugino, whose manner he first adopted. 
 His works in the cathedral of Pisa exhibit a dryness, though 
 they are the productions of his maturer years.* Having gone 
 to Rome in the pontificate of Julius II., a new scene was 
 opened to him in the specimens of ancient sculpture, of which 
 he was a most sedulous designer, and in the pictures in which 
 Michelangelo and Raffaello had assayed their skill. After 
 two years, he returned home, and there continued his close 
 attention to design, found himself strong enough to contend 
 with Razzi ; and if we may credit Yasari, even to surpass 
 him. He had acquired skill in perspective, and was fertile 
 in invention. In Siena, Mecherino is ranked after Razzi ; 
 and the many places where they vied with each other, facili- 
 tates the comparison. At first he humoured his placid dispo- 
 sition by painting in a sweet style ; at that time he made 
 choice of beautiful airs for his heads ; and frequently inserted 
 the portrait of his mistress in his pictures. In this style is 
 his fine pictures at the church of the Olivetines of S. Benedict ; 
 in which he represented the titular saint, with S. Jerome, and 
 the Virgin S. Catherine, and added some circumstances of 
 
 * See Sig. da Morrona, torn. i. p. 116. Mecherino there painted the 
 Evangelists, and some historical pieces from the life of Moses : 
 Razzi executed in the same place a Descent from the Cross, and an 
 Abraham offering his Son, which are among his last, and not his best 
 works. 
 
MECIIERINO. 
 
 297 
 
 her life in small figures. The last annotator on Yasari pre- 
 fers this work to many other pictures of Mecherino, and 
 laments, that, captivated by the energy of Bonarruoti, he 
 had deviated from his original manner. And, indeed, when 
 he aspired to more vigour, he frequently appears coarse in his 
 proportions, negligent in his extremities, and harsh in his 
 heads. This defect so increased in his old age that his heads 
 of that period appeared without beauty even to Vasari. 
 
 His mode of colouring is not the most true ; for it was 
 mannered with a reddish hue, which is, however, fascinating 
 and cheerful to the eye ; it is neat, clear, and of such a body, 
 that it remains on walls at this day, in the highest preserva- 
 tion. A few of his works remain in Genoa, where he painted 
 the palace of Prince Doria ; they are not numerous at Pisa ; 
 but they abound in his native place, both in public and in 
 private. His merit was greater in distemper than in oil 
 colouring ; and his historical frescos do him greater honour 
 than his other paintings. His skill was great in distributing 
 them to suit the place, and in adapting them to the architec- 
 ture ; he ornamented them with grotesque decorations in such 
 a manner that he required not the aid of gilt stucco, or other 
 gaudy trappings. These inventions have such felicity, that a 
 single glance recals the story to the memory of o'ne acquainted 
 with its circumstances. He treats his subject copiously, with 
 dignity, and with perfect nature ; he imparts grandeur to it 
 by his architectural views, and elegance by introducing the 
 usages of antiquity. He peculiarly delighted in the more 
 recondite principles of the art, then less generally employed ; 
 as peculiar reflections of fires and other lights ; difficult fore- 
 shortenings, especially applied to ceilings, very rare in lower 
 Italy. Yasari has described his figure of Justice ; the feet of 
 which are in dark shadow, gradually diminishing to the 
 shoulders, which are vested with a most brilliant celestial 
 light ; " Nor is it possible," says he, " to imagine, much less 
 
 to find, a more beautiful figure amongst all that ever 
 
 were painted to appear foreshortened when viewed from 
 below." According to this verdict, Mecherino deserves the 
 appellation of the Correggio of lower Italy, in this very 
 difficult branch of painting ; for no modern artist had at- 
 tempted so much before his time. The above-mentioned 
 
298 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 figure is painted on the vaulted ceiling of the consistory of 
 government ; and the artist has arranged below it various oval 
 and square pictures, each representing some memorable ex- 
 ploit of a republican hero. He pursued the same idea in an 
 apartment in the mansion now in possession of the Bindi 
 family, which P. della Valle reckons his master-piece. The 
 figures resemble those in the Logge of Raffaello ; they are 
 better coloured than those in the consistory, and being smaller 
 are, on that account, better designed ; for the style of Meche- 
 rino resembles a liquor which retains its qualities when shut 
 up in a phial, but evaporates when poured into a larger vessel. 
 This circumstance, however, was common to many others ; his 
 peculiarity consists in what he communicated to Vasari ; 
 that, " out of the atmosphere of Siena, he imagined he could 
 not paint successfully an effect, according to P. Guglielmo, 
 of the climate, which would be a happy secret for peopling 
 it with painters. Perhaps it is to be explained by the greater 
 degree of tranquillity that he enjoyed at home, in the society 
 of his friends, among the people ready to encourage him by 
 praise, not to chill him by reproach, and surrounded by all 
 the spectacles and the lively genius of his country ; objects 
 eagerly desired by the natives of Siena, but not easily found 
 in other places. 
 
 The style of Mecherino, now described, expired with him : 
 for his pupil, Giorgio da Siena, became a painter of grotes- 
 ques, and imitated Gio. da Udine, both in his own country 
 and at Rome : Giannella, or Gio. da Siena, turned his atten- 
 tion from painting to architecture ; and Marco da Pino, sur- 
 named also da Siena, united a variety of styles. Paglione, 
 and the historians of Siena, say, that he was there educated 
 by Beccafumi, and Baldinucci adds, likewise by Peruzzi : 
 P. della Valle, from his brilliant colouring, denies him to 
 them, and assigns him to Razzi. All, however, are agreed 
 that he obtained his knowledge principally from Rome, where 
 he first painted from the cartoons of Ricciarelli or of Perino ; 
 and if we may credit Lomazzo, was instructed by Bonarruoti. 
 We cannot readily find any Florentine capable of following 
 the precepts of Michelangelo, without ostentation; but he 
 acquired the principles without the affectation of displaying 
 his knowledge. His manner is grand, select, and full of 
 
BALDASSARE PERUZZI. 
 
 299 
 
 elegance : it is adduced by Loraazzo as a model for the human 
 figure, and for the just distribution of light according to the 
 distance of objects; a department of the art in which he 
 shares the glory with Vinci, Tintoretto, and Barroccio. He 
 painted little in Siena except a picture, with which I am not 
 acquainted, in the mansion of the Francesconi family ; and few 
 of his works are to be seen at Rome, with the exception of a 
 Pietà, in an altar of Araceli, and some frescos in the church 
 Del Gonfalone. Naples was his field ; and there he will 
 appear as a master and historian of that school. 
 
 If conjecture were allowable in assigning masters to painters 
 of the old schools, I should be inclined to reckon Daniele di 
 Volterra rather the scholar of Mecherino, then of Razzi or 
 Peruzzi. We know for certain that he studied at Siena in 
 early life, when those three artists kept an open academy. 
 Peruzzi was wholly a follower of Raffaello ; Razzi disliked 
 the Florentine style ; and Beccafumi alone aspired to be 
 esteemed a faithful imitator of Bonarruoti : by regarding him, 
 therefore, as a master of Daniele, we can best account for the 
 already noticed predilection of the latter for the style of 
 Michelangelo. No artist was capable of initiating him better 
 in the art of casting in bronze that Mecherino ; or afford him 
 more frequent examples of that strong opposition of bright 
 and sombre colours in some works of Daniele. Yet I will 
 not depart from the correct rule which forbids us in such 
 doubtful points to depart readily from history; for each 
 painter was always free to choose his style ; he might be 
 directed in one path by his master, and drawn a different way 
 by his own genius, or by accidental circumstances. 
 
 Baldassare Peruzzi is one of the numerous individuals 
 whose merit must not be measured by their good fortune. 
 Born in indigent circumstances in the diocese of Volterra, but 
 within the territory of Siena, and of a Sienese father,* he was 
 nurtured amid difficulties, and through life the perpetual sport 
 of misfortune. Reckoned inferior to his rivals, because he 
 was as modest and timid as they were arrogant ; despoiled of 
 his whole property in the sack of Rome ; constrained to exist 
 
 * The Sienese historians prove this in opposition to Vasari, who makes 
 bim by descent a Florentine. — See Lett. Sen. torn. iii. p. 178. 
 
300 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 on a mere pittance at Siena, at Bologna, or at Rome,* lie 
 died when he began to be known, not without suspicion of 
 being poisoned, and with the affliction of leaving a wife and 
 six children almost beggars. His death demonstrated to the 
 world the greatness of his genius; and the justness of his 
 epitaph, in which he is compared to the ancients, is allowed 
 by posterity. General consent ranks him among the best 
 architects of his age ; and he would have been classed with 
 the greatest painters, had he coloured as well as he designed, 
 and always been equal to himself ; a thing he could not com- 
 mand during a life so chequered and wretched. 
 
 After Peruzzi had received the elements of the art in his 
 native place from an unknown master, he went to Rome for 
 the completion of his studies, in the time of Alexander VI. 
 He knew, admired, and imitated Raffaello (of whom some 
 suppose him a pupil), especially his Holy Families, t He 
 approached him nearly in some frescos ; such as the Judg- 
 ment of Paris in the castle of Belcaro, which is deemed his 
 best performance, and the celebrated Sybil foretelling the 
 birth of Christ to Augustus, in the Fonte Giusta, of Siena, 
 admired as one of the finest pictures in that city, He impar- 
 ted to it such a divine enthusiasm, that Raffaello himself 
 never surpassed him in treating this subject ; nor Guido, nor 
 Guercino, of whom so many Sybils are exhibited. In great 
 compositions, such as the Presentation in the Pace at Rome,J 
 
 * For his labours in the cathedral of Siena he had thirty crowns a year ; 
 as the architect of S. Peter's two hundred and fifty. He derived 
 little advantage from private commissions, for people generally took 
 advantage of his modesty, in either not paying him at all, or rewarding 
 him scantily. 
 
 •j* I saw one in possession of Cav. Cavaceppi in Rome, of which this 
 great connoisseur used to say, that it might pass for a Raffaello, if it had 
 been as like in colouring as in every thing else. The Sergardi family at 
 Siena have another, and a Holy Family, by Razzi, as its companion. 
 These are reckoned among their first performances, and are believed to 
 have been painted in competition with each other. In that of Peruzzi one 
 recognizes, even at that time, that elegance of design which he delighted 
 afterwards to exhibit in his figures, especially in the Chigi, now called the 
 Farnese palace. 
 
 X It is a fresco, and though retouched, surprises at once by the 
 novelty and expression of the figures. A. Caracci designed it for one of 
 his studies. 
 
BALDASSARE, ARCHITECT. 
 
 301 
 
 he designs well, gives a faithful representation of the passions 
 and embellishes the subject by appropriate edifices. His oil 
 paintings are very rare ; those representing the Magi, which 
 are shewn in many collections at Florence, Parma, and 
 Bologna, are copies from one of his chiaroscuros, whicji was 
 afterwards coloured by Girolamo da Trevigi, as we are in- 
 formed by Vasari. I was told at Bologna, .that the picture 
 of Girolamo was lost at sea, and that the picture which 
 the Rizzardi family of that place possess, is a copy by 
 Cesi. His small altar-pieces are uncommonly scarce likewise: 
 and I am unable to point out any of them but one, which 
 contains three half-length figures of the Virgin, the Baptist, 
 and S. Jerome, and is at Torre Babbiana, eighteen miles from 
 Siena. 
 
 Yv T hat I have here related would have added to the glory 
 of any other artist ; but is little to the merit of Baldassare. 
 His genius was not limited to the production of excellent 
 cabinet pictures and frescos. I have already said he was an 
 architect, or a universal architect ; and in this profession, the 
 fruit of his assiduous study of ancient edifices, he ranks 
 among the foremost, and is even preferred to Bramante. The 
 encomiums bestowed on him by the most celebrated writers 
 on architecture are mentioned in the Sienese Letters.* No 
 one has done him greater honour than his scholar Serlio, who 
 declares in his fourth book, that, whatever merit his work 
 possesses, is not due to himself, but to Baldassare da Siena, 
 of whose manuscripts he became the heir, and the plagiarist, 
 if we are to credit Giulio Piccolominit and his other towns- 
 men. The declaration above stated absolves Serlio from this 
 imputation, unless it is insisted that he ought to have affixed 
 the name of Baldassare to every anecdote that he learnt or 
 took from those manuscripts, which it would be unreasonable 
 to demand. He has, indeed, frequently mentioned him, and 
 commended him for a sound taste, for facility, and elegance, 
 both in designing edifices and in ornamenting them. His 
 peculiar merit lies in giving a pleasing effect to his works ; 
 and I have not observed any idea of his which in some way 
 does not exhibit the stamp of a lively imagination. This 
 
 * Lett. vii. 
 
 f Siena Illustre. 
 
302 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 character is apparent in the portico of the Massimi at Rome, 
 the great altar of the metropolitan church, of Siena, and the 
 large gateway of the Sacrati palace at Ferrara, which is so 
 finely ornamented, that it is named among the rarities of that 
 city, and, in its kind, even of Italy. But what chiefly 
 establishes his reputation as a man of excellent and various 
 genius, is the Farnese palace, which is " executed with such 
 exquisite grace, that it appears created by enchantment."* 
 
 He was eminently skilled in ornamenting facades ; in paint- 
 ing so as to represent real architecture, basso-relievos of 
 sacrifices, Bacchanalian scenes, and battles, which " serve to 
 maintain buildings sound and in good order, while they im- 
 prove their appearance," according to Serlio.t He left fine 
 specimens of this art at Siena and in Rome, where he was 
 followed by Polidoro, who carried it to perfection. Peruzzi 
 practised it at the Farnese palace in those pictures in green 
 earth, with which he covered the outside, and still more in 
 the internal decorations. Not to mention F. Sebastiano, 
 Raffaello himself was employed in the same place, and in one 
 apartment, finished, without assistance, the celebrated Galatea. 
 Baldassare painted the ceiling and the corbels with some 
 fables of Perseus, and other heroes : the style is light, 
 spirited, and resembles that of Raffaello, but is unequal to 
 that of his model. Though inferior in figures, he was not 
 behind in some other branches. His imitation of stucco 
 ornaments appears so relieved, that even Titian was deceived 
 by it, and found it necessary to change his point of view be- 
 fore he could be convinced of his error. A similar ocular 
 deception is produced by the hall where a colonnade is re- 
 presented, the intercolumniations of which make it appear 
 much larger than it really is. This work induced Pietro 
 Aretino to say, that the palace " contained no picture more 
 perfect in its kind/'J Had the scenes he painted for the 
 plays, represented in the Apostolical palace for the amuse- 
 ment of Leo X. survived to our days, the perspective paint- 
 ings of Peruzzi would have obtained greater fame than the 
 Calandra of Card, da Bibbiena. It would have been said of 
 
 * The expression in the original is : " condotto con quella bella grazia 
 che si vede-non murato, ma veramente nato." — Vasari, 
 t P. 191. t Serlio, l. c. 
 
THE GROTESQUES OF PERUZZI. 
 
 303 
 
 him, as of the ancient, that he discovered a new art, and 
 brought it to perfection. The observation of Vasari, Lomazzo, 
 and other old writers, that Peruzzi was not to be surpassed 
 in perspective, has been recently confirmed by Sig. Milizia in 
 the Memoirs of Architects. In this art he appears to have 
 given the first and most classic examples. When I have 
 occasion hereafter to notice celebrated perspectives in Rome, 
 in Venice, or Bologna, we must recollect, that if others sur- 
 passed him in the vastness of their works, they never did so 
 in their perfection. Maestro Riccio is praised in Siena as 
 second to him in perspective, and was his scholar for some 
 time, but afterwards imitated the figures of his father-in-law. 
 
 The merit of Baldassare in grotesque is better seen at Siena 
 than in Rome. This sort of painting, the offspring of a 
 whimsical fancy, was congenial to Mecherino and to Razzi ; 
 both practised it with success. The latter, born to conceive 
 and to execute it with unpremeditated facility, painted in this 
 style in the Vatican, and obtained the approbation of Raffaello, 
 who was unwilling to cancel his grotesques as he did his his- 
 torical compositions : he also executed others at Monte Oliveto 
 that are highly facetious, and may he called an image of his 
 own brain. Cristoforo Rustici and Giorgio da Siena obtained 
 great fame in this style ; but none of them equalled Peruzzi. 
 This artist, graceful in all his works, was most elegant in 
 grotesque ; and amid the freedom that a subject wholly ca- 
 pricious inspires, he preserved an art which Lomazzo has 
 studied, in order to comprehend its principles. He employs 
 every species of idea : satyrs, masks, children, animals, 
 monsters, edifices, trees, flowers, vases, candelabra, lamps, 
 armour, and thunderbolts ; but in their arrangement, in the 
 actions represented, and in every other circumstance, he 
 bridled his caprice by his judgment. He distorts and con- 
 nects those images with a surprising symmetry, and adapts 
 them as devices emblematic of the stories which they sur- 
 round. Living in the brightest period of modern art, he is, 
 in short, one of the individuals most interesting in its history. 
 He had many pupils in architecture, but few in painting: 
 among the latter a Francesco Senese, and a Virgilio Romano, 
 who are commended by Vasari for their frescos, and to whom 
 grotesques, of uncertain origin, are attributed in Siena. 
 
304 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 Somewhat later, but certainly before the complete revival 
 of the art at Siena, I am disposed to class a fresco painter, 
 whom Baglione and Titi call Matteo da Siena; but who is* 
 named Matteino in his native place, that he may not be con- 
 founded with the Matteo of the fourteenth century. He 
 lived at Rome in the time of Niccolo Circignani, in whose 
 pictures, and in those of artists of the same class, he inserted 
 perspectives and landscapes. The efforts of his pencil may 
 be seen at S. Stefano Rotondo, in thirty-two historical pic- 
 tures of martyrs painted by Circignani, which have been 
 engraved by Cavalieri. Many landscapes are in the Vatican 
 gallery, which are beautiful, although in the old style. At 
 the age of fifty-five he died at Rome, where he was established 
 in the pontificate of Sixtus V. These circumstances make it 
 appear unlikely, that he either painted in the Casino of Siena 
 about 1551, or in the Lucarini palace, with Rustichino. 
 
 I shall now give some account of the chiaroscuros executed 
 in mosaic, which owe their perfection to the school of Siena, 
 during the epoch of which we are about to finish our account. 
 I have already mentioned the erection of the magnificent 
 cathedral of Siena, a work of many years ; and may now add, 
 that though grand in all its parts, nothing shewed such origi- 
 nality, or was so generally admired, as the pavement around 
 the great altar, all storied with subjects taken from the New 
 Testament, of which the figures were surrounded by appro- 
 priate ornaments, which served to vary and divide the immense 
 ground of the painting. A succession of artists always labour- 
 ing to improve this work, carried it to an astonishing pitch of 
 excellence. The nature of the stone quarries in the Sienese 
 territory, afforded also facilities to the art which could not be 
 attained in other places. It originated, like other arts, from 
 small and rude beginnings. Duccio commenced this orna- 
 mented pavement. The part which he executed is constructed 
 of stones, in which the contours of the figures are scooped 
 out : it is a dry, but not ungraceful production of the thir- 
 teenth century. The woman in the choir who kneels with 
 her arms leaning on a cross, and, as an inscription informs us, 
 implores the mercy of the Lord, is the work of Duccio : it 
 probably represents Christian piety ; and both the attitude 
 and the countenance are expressive of what she asks. Those 
 
CHIAROSCURO IN MOSAIC. 
 
 305 
 
 who continued the pavement immediately after Duccio, are 
 not so well known. We read of Urbano da Cortona, and 
 Antonio Federighi, who designed and executed the two 
 Sybils ; the rest was the work of artists of little note. All, 
 however, improved the art in some degree, cutting the figures 
 with the chisel, and filling up what was removed by the iron, 
 with pitch or some black composition ; a rude sort of chiar- 
 oscuro. To them succeeded Matteo di Giovanni, who, from 
 an attentive consideration of what his predecessors had done, 
 fell on a method of surpassing them. He remarked a vein of 
 the marble in the drapery of a figure of David, which formed 
 a very natural fold, and by the contrast of the colours made 
 the knee and leg appear in relief : in like manner he dis- 
 covered in a figure of Solomon a shade of colour in the marble, 
 well suited to produce effect. He then selected marbles of 
 different colours ; and joining them after the manner of an 
 inlaying with stained wood, produced a work that was entitled 
 to the name of a marble chiaroscuro. In this manner he ex- 
 ecuted without assistance a Slaughter of the Innocents, a 
 composition which he frequently repeated, as we before re- 
 marked. He thus opened the path for Beccafumi's histories, 
 who wrought in a superior style a large part of that pavement, 
 which his exertions, says Vasari, rendered " the most beau- 
 tiful, the largest, and most magnificent that was ever exe- 
 cuted." This work employed his leisure hours till he attained 
 to old age ; and though painting interrupted his labours, he 
 did not abandon it until his death, and hence, some of the 
 historical compositions were completed by other hands, as is 
 supposed from his cartoons. He executed the Sacrifice of 
 Isaac, in figures as large as life ; and Moses striking the Rock, 
 with a crowd of Hebrews rushing to catch the water, and 
 slake their thirst ; besides several other subjects, described by 
 Vasari ; and more minutely by Landi.* I subjoin a few 
 observations on the mechanism of the art. The first attempt 
 of Beccafumi was to compose a picture of inlaid wood, which 
 
 * Lettere Senesi, torn. iii. lett. 6. See also lett. 8, page 223, where 
 there are many observations on the design of Mecherino, and on the 
 execution committed to the Martini, brothers, and eminent sculptors 
 of that period. For the prints from their works by Andreani and Gabug- 
 giani, see the notes of Bottari on the Life of Mecherino, p. 435. 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 was long preserved in the studio of Vanni, and afterwards was 
 in the possession of the counts of the Delci family. He 
 represented the Conversion of S. Paul in this piece, by em- 
 ploying wood of the colours only that were necessary to pro- 
 duce a chiaroscuro. After this model he selected white 
 marble for the light parts of his figures, and the very purest 
 for the catching lights ; grey marble for the middle tints, 
 black for the shadows, and for the darkest lines he sometimes 
 employed a black stucco. He cut the pieces of these marbles, 
 which are all indigenous, and inlaid them so nicely, that the 
 joinings are not easily discernible. This has induced some to 
 believe that white marble is alone employed in this pavement, 
 and that the middle tints and shadows are formed by certain 
 very penetrating colours, capable of softening the marble and 
 of colouring it throughout. We learn from a letter of Gallac- 
 cini, that this idea was adopted by some natives of Siena, and it 
 appears from another of Mariette, that this great connoisseur 
 was impressed with it, and gained over Bottari to his opinion.* 
 But we may discover the seams between the different colours ; 
 and this circumstance induces the author of the Sienese Letters 
 and the best-informed persons, to disbelieve the artificial 
 colouring of the marble. The truth is, the secret of colouring 
 marble was not then known, but was afterwards discovered in 
 Siena by Michelangelo Vanni, who has transmitted the 
 memory of his invention to posterity.t He erected a monu- 
 ment for his father, Cav. Francesco, with columns, ornaments, 
 festoons, and figures of children ; accompanied by a genealogy 
 of the family, all designed on a white slab, and every part 
 carefully and appropriately coloured, so as to resemble mosaic 
 of different marbles. It is supposed that the colours were 
 imparted to the marble by some mineral essences, because they 
 penetrated a considerable way. He entitles himself the in- 
 ventor of this art, in the monumental inscription. A secret 
 of this nature was known to Niccolò Tornioli, of Siena, about 
 the year 1640 ; and this artist is said to have painted a Vero- 
 
 * See Lett. Pittoriche, torn i. p. 311, and torn. iv. p. 344. See also 
 Notes on Vasari, torn. iv. p. 436, ed. Fiorentin. 
 
 f He inscribed the monument, " Francisco Vannio . . Michael Angelus 
 . . novae hujus in petrà pingendi artis inventor et Raphael . . Filii parenti 
 optimo m. p. a. 1656. 
 
NICCOLÒ TORNIOLI. 
 
 307 
 
 nica in that manner, the marble of which he caused to be 
 sawed, and the same picture was found on each side of the 
 section.* He was probably a scholar of Vanni; and the 
 latter seems anxious by the inscription that he should not 
 claim the honour of the invention. The connection of the 
 subject has led me to notice these two artists in this place. 
 Their true place is in the third epoch of the Sienese school, to 
 which I proceed. 
 
 * See the note of Bottari on GaUaccini's letter, torn. i. p. 308. 
 
 X 2 
 
308 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH III. 
 
 The Art having declined in Siena through the disasters of the State, is 
 revived by the labours of Salimbeni and his sons. 
 
 We have related the progress and best works of the Sienese 
 school from the beginning to about the middle of the sixteenth 
 century, but we have not considered a circumstance that 
 adds greatly to the merit of the artists of that period. If 
 we search into the history of that half-century, we shall find 
 that all Italy groaned under the pressure of public calamities ; 
 but Siena, to a greater degree, and for a longer period than 
 any other place, endured an accumulation of the most terrible 
 evils. Famine, pestilence, and a suspension of commercial 
 intercourse, afflicted other states, but here they seem to have 
 exhausted their rage : civil commotions and external enemies 
 agitated other states, but here, during a period of years, they 
 allowed not a moment of tranquillity. The republic of Siena, 
 strong in the valour of her citizens, was feeble in every thing 
 besides : it resembled a gulph, where tempests are more fre- 
 quent and more violent than on the ocean. The usurpation 
 of the Petrucci, the dissensions between the nobles and the 
 people, and jealousy of foreign powers, who sought her sub- 
 jugation, kept Siena in constant alarm, and often incited to 
 arms and to bloodshed. The remedy which they now ex- " 
 pected in the protection of the emperor, at another time from 
 France, only served to aggravate internal commotion and 
 foreign aggression. Amid this perpetual agitation, I know 
 not whether most to admire the genius of the people, ever 
 directed to the decoration of their houses and public edifices, 
 or the spirit of the artists, who could summon all the powers of 
 their minds to such efforts : similar instances are rare in other 
 
ARCANGIOLO SAL1MBENI. 
 
 309 
 
 countries. The year 1555 at length arrived, when Cosmo I. 
 deprived the Sienese of their long defended liberty. To any 
 enemy but the Florentines they would have submitted with 
 less reluctance ; and our astonishment is lessened on finding 
 that, on this occasion, two-thirds of the inhabitants abandoned 
 their native soil, refusing to live subject to enemies so abhorred. 
 
 At this time, and in the disasters above alluded to, the city 
 lost many able artists, and several families, from whom emi- 
 nent artists were descended, and whose Sienese origin is con- 
 firmed by history. Camillo Mariani was born at Vicenza, 
 and his father was a native of Siena, who had expatriated 
 himself on account of the wars ; and Baglione praises the 
 cabinet pictures of this artist, who died at Rome, with the 
 reputation of an excellent sculptor. I likewise find at Bologna 
 an Agostino Marcucci, of Siena, who is wholly unknown in 
 that place, probably because he was the son of an emigrant. 
 He was a disciple of the Caracci, till a schism arose in that 
 school, when he ranged himself with the foremost adherents 
 of Facini, the leader of the party, and they had the boldness 
 to set up a new academy in opposition to that of the Caracci. 
 He continued to reside in Bologna, and to teach to the time of 
 his death, and is reckoned by Malvasia among " the first 
 men" of that age. Of his scholars, Malvasia mentions only 
 Ruggieri, and he only notices one of his pictures at the Con- 
 cezione,* to which several others are added in the New Guide. 
 
 Siena, in the mean time, began to be reconciled to the new 
 government, which, through the prudence of Cosmo, appeared 
 rather a reformation than a new domination. No long time 
 elapsed before the void left in the city by the artists, who had 
 emigrated, was filled up. Rustico had remained there, as 
 well as his superior, Riccio, who painted the celebrated scene 
 already noticed, on the coming of Cosmo. Siena also pos- 
 sessed Tozzo and Bigio, whom Lancillotti reckons "among 
 the most famous painters," I believe, in small figures ; and it 
 is not easy to distinguish between those two artists, who had 
 an extraordinary similarity of style. Arcangiolo Salimbeni, 
 who is expressly said by Baldinucci to be a " scholar of 
 Federigo Zuccari," may have received the rudiments of the 
 
 * See Malvasia, torn. i. p. 57y ; and torn. ii. p. 355. 
 
310 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 art from one of them. Perhaps, as the historian goes on to 
 say, during his residence at Eome he might . contract an inti- 
 mate friendship with Zuccari ; but the style of Salimbeni 
 discovers very opposite principles from those cf that master, 
 and notwithstanding all researches, no one has succeeded in 
 finding pictures of his that bear indications of that school. 
 He loved precision more than fulness of design ; and we may 
 even observe in him an attachment to the manner of Pietro 
 Perugino, as was observed by Della Valle with regard to a 
 Crucifixion attended by six Saints, in the parish church of 
 Lusignano. In his other pictures at Siena, especially in the 
 S. Peter-Martyr, in possession of the Dominicans, he appears 
 wholly modern ;* but diligent, and free from the defects we 
 observe in Federigo, who may be considered as a professed 
 mannerist. It was the good fortune of the Sienese school, 
 that Riccio was succeeded by this artist, who, if he had not 
 a lofty genius, possessed, at least, the judgment to avoid the 
 faults of his contemporaries. Hence, amid the degeneracy of 
 the neighbouring schools, this remained but slightly infected ; 
 and the new disciples it sent forth contributed to the improve- 
 ment of the art. They were not so much attached to home 
 as Mecherino ; they painted equally well beyond the territory 
 of Siena ; they visited very distant cities, and in them all 
 left specimens of their art, both in public and in private, 
 which are still preserved. After receiving the first instruc- 
 tion from Salimbeni, or some less-known artist, each chose 
 his own guide. 
 
 After receiving the rudiments of the art at Siena, Pietro 
 Sorri went to Florence, under Passignano, and became his 
 son-in-law, and the associate of his labours in that place and 
 in Yenice. He emulated the style of Passignano, which 
 partook, as we have observed, of the Florentine and the 
 Venetian : he succeeded so well, that their works bear a per- 
 fect resemblance, and are held in equal estimation. He 
 
 * It has his name and the year 1579, which date must be false. The 
 widow of Arcangiolo married again, and bore Francesco Vanni in 1565. 
 Consequently the latter could not be the scholar of Arcangiolo, though 
 such an idea is very prevalent ; and he could give lessons only for a short 
 time to his son, Ventura, or to Sorri, and Casolani, if the period of their 
 birth is true. 
 
CASOLAM. 
 
 311 
 
 painted less expeditiously than his father-in-law, but his 
 colouring was more durable, and his design more graceful. 
 The convent of S. Sebastian, ornamented by a competition of 
 the best Sianese artists of this epoch, has one of his pictures, 
 which are rather uncommon in Siena, for his best years were 
 spent in other places. He was much at Florence ; visited 
 many other Tuscan cities, and there is scarcely any con- 
 siderable place among them which cannot boast the efforts of 
 his easy and graceful pencil, particularly Pisa, the cathedral 
 of which could not but attract such an artist. He repre- 
 sented the Consecration of that church on one large canvas, 
 and, on another, Christ disputing with the Doctors, which is 
 inscribed with his name ; and never did he approach nearer 
 to the excellence of Paul Veronese in architecture and other 
 accompaniments. He was employed in the Carthusian mo- 
 nastery of Pavia, and also in Genoa as a preceptor in that 
 school. 
 
 Casolani took his surname from Casole, the little town 
 from which his family removed to Siena. In the ducal 
 gallery of Florence there is a portrait of a lady with three 
 men, in the same piece, which is said to represent Lucrezia 
 Piccolomini, with her three sons, Alessandro Casolani, Fran- 
 cesco Vanni, and Ventura Salimbeni, whom she bore to 
 different husbands, in the course of a few years. This makes 
 Alessandro the step-son of Arcangiolo Salimbeni, and the 
 uterine brother of Ventura and of Vanni. I cannot find this 
 story in any author, except in Niccolò Pio, a Roman writer 
 of no authority, whose manuscript, containing notices of two 
 hundred and fifty artists, which was drawn up about 1724, is 
 preserved in the Vatican library.* The old writers of Siena 
 take no notice of so remarkable an event, and we cannot, 
 therefore, give credit to Pio, a stranger, and a modern author. 
 The relation then in which Alessandro stands to Arcangiole 
 is that of scholar ; but he learnt more from Cav. Roncalli in 
 Siena and in Rome. He remained long in the latter city : 
 designed the finest works it contained, and obtained some 
 idea of different styles. This knowledge was increased by 
 a journey which he made some years afterwards to Pavia, 
 where he painted in the Carthusian monastery, and other 
 
 * See letter 127 in vol. v. of Lett. Pittor., in which there is a catalogue 
 of those painters. 
 
312 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 places. His manne? is wonderfully varied. It exhibits traces 
 of the best style of Roncalli, good design, sobriety of compo- 
 sition, modesty of colouring, and tranquil harmony. He 
 seems also to have aimed at originality, for he was continually 
 altering his style, mingling it with the graces of various artists, 
 and sometimes striking out into a novel path. He possessed 
 promptness of genius and of execution : he was quick in 
 committing his ideas to the canvas ; and when dissatisfied 
 with his work, he often chose to cancel the whole, rather 
 than correct a part. Although unacquainted with ideal 
 beauty, he was esteemed by Guido, who may be considered 
 as the father of modern painters, and who said of him " this 
 truly is a painter." Whoever would see his best work, may 
 examine the Martyrdom of S. Bartholomew, at the Carmine 
 of Siena. It is a picture of considerable size, and with great 
 variety in the figures and in the expression, and altogether 
 excites surprise. We are told that when Roncalli had 
 examined it, he exclaimed, that the art of that period was 
 comprised in such a picture. But the short life of Casolani 
 prevented him attaining the excellence this specimen pro- 
 mised. His works are in various cities of Tuscany, and also 
 in Naples, Genoa, and Fermo, in the metropolitan church of 
 which there is a picture of S. Louis of France, numbered 
 among the choice paintings in that city. 
 
 A good many of his works in Siena shew traces of, and 
 even whole figures by, other hands ; having been finished by 
 Yanni, and Ventura Salimbeni, or by other artists of differ- 
 ent schools. Ilario Casolani, his son, by a daughter of Rus- 
 tici, finished the Assumption for the church of S. Francis ; 
 and afterwards went to Rome, where he was " noticed by 
 Cav. Pomaranci, out of respect to his father," says Mancini, 
 as of a thing he knew, and adds, that Pomaranci had good 
 hopes of him. Baglione and Pio called him Cristoforo, a 
 name he, perhaps, received along with several others at bap- 
 tism ; and which probably the Sienese artist thought more be- 
 coming at Rome than Ilario, since he is named Cristoforo by 
 Roncalli. Under Pomaranci he became a proficient in his 
 style of fresco, and imitated it particularly at Madonna de* 
 Monti, in pictures from the history of the Virgin, and in an 
 Ascension on the ceiling; the best work, perhaps, he pro- 
 duced. Ti ti uniformly names him Cristoforo Consolano ; but 
 
CAV. VENTURA. 
 
 313 
 
 a consideration of the anecdotes of Mancini and Baglione 
 leads us to convert it into Casolano. A Resurrection of Laza- 
 rus, begun by Alessandro for the church of S. Francis, was 
 finished by Vincenzio Rustici ; probably his scholar and his 
 kinsman, and the least celebrated among this family of 
 painters. One of his pictures, intended for Santuccio, was 
 finished by Sebastiano Folli. His frescos are more numerous 
 at Siena than his oil-pictures : the ornamental parts are su- 
 perior to his figures, in which he inclined to mannerism ; his 
 compartments are beautiful, his architecture finely conducted, 
 his imitations of stucco deceive the eye, and he was expert 
 in foreshortening what was to be seen from below. In 1608 
 he painted the frescos of S. Sebastian, in competition with 
 various artists, and in this trial of skill he only yields to 
 Rutilio Manetti. In the Guide of the Cav. Pecci, I find 
 mention made of designs of Casolani, executed in fresco by 
 Stefano Yolpi, whose name frequently occurs in that work, 
 and who was probably a scholar of that excellent artist. 
 
 Cav. Ventura, the son of A. Salimbeni, is reckoned the 
 third scholar of that master, though his lessons from Arcan- 
 gelo must have been but few. The young man left his home 
 early, and journeying through the cities of Lombardy, stu- 
 died the works of Correggio and others, whose taste began to 
 be applauded in Tuscany. He went to Rome in the pontifi- 
 cate of Sixtus V. and raised a very favourable opinion of his 
 genius, which, giving himself up to dissipation, he did not 
 fulfil. In that city he left many frescos that are praised by 
 Baglione, among which, the Abraham entertaining the An- 
 gels, in a chapel of the Gesù, appears the work of a consum- 
 mate painter. It has something lively and graceful in the 
 colouring and the countenances : it also shews attention to 
 design and chiaroscuro, which he afterwards neglected in his 
 paintings. In conjunction with Vanni he executed some 
 ceilings, and, perhaps, derived advantage from observing this 
 painter. In many of his works he resembles him in his imi- 
 tation of Baroccio, and hardly yields to him in grace of con- 
 tour, in expression, and in delicacy and clearness of colouring 
 He is admired in the church of S. Q.uirico, and in that of S. 
 Domenick : in the one is his Appearance of the Angel at the 
 Sepulchre; in the other a Crucifixion, with various Saints, 
 
314 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 superior to the generality of his works. In Siena there are 
 others of great merit, especially where he painted in the vi- 
 cinity of the works of the best masters of his school. He 
 likewise executed some beautiful historical pieces when he 
 vied with Poccetti, in the cloister of the Servi at Florence, 
 and in the cathedral of Pisa, where he was surrounded by 
 such great painters. His Marriage of the Virgin, in the ca- 
 thedral of Foligno, his S. Gregory, in the church of S. Peter 
 at Perugia, his works in Lucca, Pavia, and various cities of 
 Italy, justify the remark of Baglione, that Salimbeni was im- 
 patient of remaining long in any one place. In Genoa, how- 
 ever, his stay was not so short. The beautiful chamber in 
 the Adorno palace, and other works he there executed, are 
 still in existence, while others have perished. He went to 
 Genoa at the same time with Agostino Tassi, who served him 
 for an ornamental and landscape painter, and, perhaps, it was 
 through him that Ottavio Ghissoni, of Siena, came to that 
 place, an artist forgotten in the annals of his own country ; 
 in fresco he was more lively than correct. He studied at 
 Rome under Cherubino Alberti ; but his country, his style, 
 and the time of his arrival at Genoa, afford ground to sus- 
 pect that he had also received lessons from Salimbeni. So- 
 prani gives Ventura the surname of Bevilacqua, an addition 
 to his name granted him by Cardinal Bevilacqua when he 
 knighted him in Perugia. 
 
 Cav. Francesco Vanni, in the opinion of many, is the best 
 painter of this school ; and is reckoned one of the restorers 
 of Italian painting in the sixteenth century. The early in- 
 struction of his genius is to be assigned with greater proba- 
 bility to his brother than to his step-father. At sixteen he 
 went to Rome, for the purpose of designing after Raffaello 
 and the best masters. He was for some time under the tui- 
 tion of Gio. de* Vecchi, whose style he introduced into his na- 
 tive country. There are specimens of him in many churches, 
 and it is related that they were not relished by his fellow- 
 citizens ; a circumstance which might occasion him uneasiness 
 at the time, but soon after afforded him a lasting source of 
 satisfaction. It induced him to examine the pictures of Lom- 
 bardy, as his brother had done: and having remained in 
 Parma to design some of them, he afterwards went to Bo- 
 
CAV. FRANCESCO VANNI. 
 
 315 
 
 logna, where he was assiduously occupied. Ugurgieri writes 
 that he was at that place in 1667, at which time he was 
 twelve years old : this I believe to be incorrect ; for it was 
 unknown to Mancini, who was acquainted with Yaniri. Mal- 
 vasia repeats it on the authority of Ugurgieri ; but he can 
 discover nothing further of Vanni, at Bologna, than his being 
 there after he had arrived at manhood, and designing in the 
 academy of Facini and Mirandola, to which he was probably 
 introduced by his countryman Marcucci. He left works at 
 Bologna, in the style of the Caracci, if he is the painter of a 
 Madonna, which was shewn me as a Tanni, in a cabinet of 
 the Zambeccari collection. His Flight into Egypt, painted 
 for the church of S. Quirico, in Siena, bears also undoubted 
 marks of the Bolognese school. 
 
 Although he attempted other styles, he was not, like Caso- 
 lani, an adherent to none. Yanni attached himself to the 
 elegant and florid manner of Barocci, in which he was emi- 
 nently successful. Of this, the Humiliation of Simon the 
 Sorcerer, which he painted on a stone slab for the church of 
 S. Peter at Rome, affords a proof ; though recently cleaned 
 with little judgment, it is still an object of admiration. Both 
 the design and colouring are in the manner of Barocci ; and 
 it is prepared with due regard to the humidity of that church ; 
 nor has it been found necessary, as has happened to other pic- 
 tures, to remove it. He also painted in Siena, and in other 
 Italian cities, where he has approached the manner of Barocci 
 more closely than Yiviani, or any other pupil of that artist. 
 His Marriage of S. Catherine, with a numerous group of 
 angels, at the Refugio, is much praised in Siena ; as is the 
 Madonna, surrounded by saints, painted for the church of 
 Monna Agnese ; and the S. Raymond walking on the Sea, in 
 the possession of the Dominican Fathers, which is supposed 
 by some to be his best picture in Siena, where his works are 
 very numerous. Among the finest pictures in the cathedral 
 of Pisa, is the Dispute about the Sacrament, painted in emu- 
 lation of his brother Yen tura, who had surpassed his usual 
 style in the altar-piece of the angels. At the Umiltà of 
 Pistoia, in the convent of the Camaldules of Fabriano, and in 
 that of the Capuchins of S. Quirico, are some of his most ex- 
 quisite works : and thev are so numerous in other places, that 
 
316 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 I do not imagine a full catalogue of them has ever been madu 
 out. He is generally a follower of Barocci, as we have ob- 
 served ; and amateurs, deceived principally by his colouring, 
 and the heads of his boys, which appear cast m the mould of 
 Barocci, frequently confound the latter with Yanni : but one, 
 well acquainted with Federigo, observes in him more grandeur 
 of design, and greater freedom in the touches. The pictures 
 which Vanni executed negligently, or at low prices (of 
 which there are several at Siena), can hardly be recognized 
 as his. 
 
 By the example and lessons of Vanni, the honour of paint- 
 ing was long supported at Siena. He taught many pupils, 
 who did not, however, rigidly adopt his style ; but, as is 
 usually the case, imitated the master most recently in vogue. 
 "VVe shall begin with his two sons, to whom he had given the 
 names most celebrated in the art. Michelangelo, the eldest, 
 we have mentioned with applause, as the inventor of staining 
 marble ; but he did not attain much celebrity except in this 
 art. I know not whether he was ever out of Siena, and there 
 we find few of his paintings, except a S. Catherine in the act 
 of praying with the Redeemer, which was painted for the 
 Olivetine monks. Raffaele, the second, left an orphan at the 
 age of thirteen, was recommended to Antonio Caracci, and in 
 that school, according to Mancini, made such progress as even 
 to surpass his father ; but this is not the opinion of posterity. 
 All allow that he possessed grandeur of design, and a fine 
 taste in shadows and in colouring, with some resemblance to 
 Cortona, who drew after him even his contemporaries. The 
 Birth of the Virgin Mary, in the Pace at Rome, and several 
 of his other pictures, have no small portion of the ideas and 
 contrasts of the followers of Cortona. He lived long in Rome, 
 and is frequently mentioned by Ti ti. Tuscany is not deficient 
 in his works. At the church of S. Catherine, at Pisa, is a 
 picture of the titular Saint ; Florence possesses the pictures of 
 the Riccardi saloon ; and at the church of S. George, in Siena, 
 is his Procession of our Saviour to Calvary. These are es- 
 teemed among his finest productions ; and the last is charac- 
 terized as his master-piece. Both brothers had the honour 
 of knighthood; but it was most worthily bestowed on the 
 second. 
 
RUSTICIIINO. 
 
 317 
 
 Contemporary with the Cav. Raffaello, as well as his as- 
 sistant at S. Maria della Pace at Rome, and in several places 
 at Siena, we find the name of Bernardino Mei. I am unac- 
 quainted with that of his master ; and P. della Valle, who 
 saw several of his works, sometimes compares him to the 
 Caracci, at others to Paul Veronese, and to Guercino, much 
 as the eclectic philosophers adopt or change the maxims of 
 the different schools. He commends him for the airs of his 
 heads, and, as one of his best productions, alludes to a fresco 
 in the Casa Bandinelli, with an Aurora in a ceiling, and with 
 several other elegant figures and designs. 
 
 Francesco di Cristofano Rustici, called Rustichino, is still 
 better known in Siena. He obtained the name of Rustichino, 
 either because he was the last of a family that had produced 
 three painters before him. or because he died in the outset of 
 life. This circumstance, perhaps, contributed to his reputa- 
 tion. All his remaining works are beautiful, which seldom 
 happens to artists who live to a great age, and who abate in 
 diligence as they advance in reputation and in years. He is 
 a graceful follower of Caravaggio ; and particularly excels in 
 confined or candle lights, much in the style of Gherardo della 
 Notte ; but is perhaps more select. The Dying Magdalen, 
 in possession of the grand duke of Tuscany, and the S. Se- 
 bastian, cured by S. Irene, which belongs to Prince Borghese, 
 in Rome, are in this style. But it was not the only one in 
 which Rustichino painted. He visited Rome, and studied the 
 works of the Caracci and of Guido, of which traces may be 
 discovered in his works ; but, at the same time, all of them 
 possess a certain originality, and something peculiarly his own. 
 The best of all his pictures at Siena is an Annunciation, in 
 Provenzano, before which the Virgin, S. Catherine, prays, 
 surrounded by a multitude of angels. If Rustichino pleases 
 in other works, in this he enchants us. He began a work on 
 the history of the city in the public palace, in which his 
 father, whose figures were not equal to his decorations, was 
 also employed, and it was finished by other artists. 
 
 Rutilio Manetti, or, as Pecci writes it, Mannetti, followed 
 Caravaggio with less discrimination, but with greater force in 
 the shadows. His pictures at Siena are easily recognised by in- 
 variably partaking of a certain sombre hue, which deranges the 
 
318 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 balance and participation of light and shade. The same ob- 
 jection lies against many of his contemporaries of every 
 school. The method of purifying colours, and of composing 
 vehicles,* had degenerated ; and the injury sustained from 
 this defect was not observed in the pictures : the artist only 
 looked to the grand effect, to which the age so much aspired. 
 Manetti united an improved design to ideas above the common 
 order, and beautiful architecture ; and hence, at times he 
 approaches rather to Guercino than to Caravaggio. In the 
 cathedral of Siena is his Elijah under the Juniper Tree, in 
 which the historian of that church commends the force of the 
 colouring, which is juicy and natural. Many of his works 
 remain in the Carthusian monastery of Florence, and in several 
 churches of Siena, the most admired of which is the Repose of 
 the Holy Family, in S. Peters of Castelvecchio. In private 
 collections, where pictures are better preserved than in 
 churches, we find very beautiful Madonnas by this artist ; and 
 there is a most exquisite Lucretia in the possession of the 
 Bandinelli family. He sometimes departed from his usual 
 manner, as in the Triumph of David, in the ducal gallery, in 
 which the shadows are not so dark, and the tone of the whole 
 
 * The idea that the brilliant colouring of the Venetian school was 
 owing to the use of a peculiar vehicle for the colours, or a certain varnish, 
 has been long entertained by artists and connoisseurs ; and the opinion 
 has been sanctioned by great names ; yet it is highly probable that the 
 great secret of the Venetian painters consisted not in vehicles nor in var- 
 nishes, but in employing mineral colours, and in laying them on the canvas 
 as little mixed as possible. No colour derived from the vegetable king- 
 dom will stand well when mixed with oil, and our best colours are com- 
 posed of metallic oxides, or earthy bodies highly charged with those oxides. 
 When colours are much mixed on the palette they become invariably 
 muddy, and to him who aims at brilliancy of colouring no maxim is of 
 greater consequence than to keep his palette as clean as possible. The 
 use of transparent colours in the shadows is another great cause of 
 brilliancy, and this cannot be obtained by the use of mixed colours. It 
 is produced by what is called glazing, or laying transparent colours one 
 over another. In nothing is the effect of glazing, in giving transparency, 
 more obvious, than the astonishing clearness of the skies and water in 
 the works of the best Dutch artists. That the magical effect of Kuyp's 
 pictures is thus produced, I had an opportunity of knowing from the 
 blunder of a picture-cleaner, who thought he had made a great discovery 
 when he found the Rhine of a deep blue in a picture by this master ; from 
 
ASTOLFO PETRAZZI. 
 
 319 
 
 is more lively. Mention is made in the " Lettere Pittoriche,"* 
 of Bernardino Capitelli, a scholar of Manetti, and an etcher ; 
 and in the third volume there is casual mention of one Dome- 
 nico Manetti, probably of the same family, but not to be mis- 
 taken for the great individual of the same name. He appears 
 rather to have employed himself in ornamenting private col- 
 lections, and painted a Baptism of Constantine for the casa 
 Magnoni, that has been much commended. 
 
 Astolfo Petrazzi, as well as Yanni, was a pupil of the 
 younger Salimbeni and of Sorri ; and seems, more than any 
 other, to have adhered to the manner of his master. He fre- 
 quently aims at pleasing, and not unfrequently chooses his 
 models from the schools of Upper Italy. A Marriage-feast 
 of Cana, by his hand, in a private house, brings Paolo strongly 
 to our recollection. His Communion of S. Jerome, in the 
 possession of Augustine friars, partakes, perhaps, too strongly 
 of the manner of the Caracci. This picture, which he painted 
 at Rome, was much admired at Siena, and was the origin of 
 his great employment in that city, where his pictures are al- 
 ways decorated with most pleasing choirs of angels. His 
 cabinet pictures were also lively : witness the Four Seasons 
 at Volte, a seat of the noble family of Chigi. He kept an 
 open academy for painting in his house, much frequented by 
 natives of Siena, and honoured by the attendance of Bor- 
 gognone, who stopped some months with Astolfo before he 
 went to Rome. Hence, many of this artist's early battle- 
 pieces and landscapes are to be met with at Siena : the house 
 of Sig. Decano Giovanelli, a literary ornament of that city, 
 abounded with them. 
 
 I find some other painters of this school who are known 
 beyond the state of Siena. Antiveduto Grammatica, an emi- 
 nent Sienese, was known at Rome, where he was president of 
 the academy of S. Luke. He was deprived of that office for 
 attempting to substitute one of his own copies for a S. Luke 
 by Raffaello, which he had sold to a gentleman. He had a 
 
 which, along with the varnish, he had removed a thin coating of yellow, 
 with which the blue was glazed over, to produce the beautiful greenish 
 hue of the water. (Note by Dr. Traill.) 
 * Tom. i. 
 
320 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 peculiar talent in the art of copying, especially heads, and on 
 this account he was a good portrait painter. Although we 
 are not certain that he had any master but one Domenico 
 Perugino, a painter of little wooden scenes,* he obtained ap- 
 plause in large compositions. There is an Annunciation by 
 Grammatica of a most brilliant colouring, in the hospital of 
 the Incurables ; and several of his other pictures in different 
 churches. He died at Rome in 1626. 
 
 Two other artists, unknown in their native place, are made 
 known to me by their signatures. On a Last Supper, in the 
 convent of the Angioli, below Assisi, I discovered " Franciscus 
 Antonius Senensis," 1614, or thereabouts. The style has 
 enough of Baroccio to lead me to suspect that he was the 
 scholar of Yanni, or of Salimbeni : nor must he be reckoned 
 the meanest of that school, for he was master of expression 
 in a degree superior to mediocrity. The figure of the depart- 
 ing Judas is the image of desperate resolve, and would be 
 much better had he not given it the feet of a bat, a grotesque 
 conceit. In the same neighbourhood, at the church of Foligno, 
 I read, beneath a Holy Family, the name of " Marcantonio 
 Orecchi," and the date 1634. The style is solid, expressive, 
 and correct ; more resembling Tiarini di Bologna than any 
 master of Siena. Niccolo Tornioli, lately mentioned, painted 
 in the church of S. Paul, at Bologna, in various cities of 
 Italy : in Siena he left, perhaps, no picture in public but the 
 Vocation of S. Matthew, still remaining in the custom-house. 
 Towards the close of the century, painting was practised at 
 Siena chiefly by foreigners. Annibale Mazzuoli, a fresco- 
 painter of rapid execution, but little merit, was most em- 
 
 * His name alone survives in Perugia ; though it is believed that one 
 of his pictures remains in the church of S. Angelo Magno, at Ascoli, 
 where the figure of S. Giovanni is ascribed by Lazzeri, in his " Ascoli in 
 Prospettiva,' ' to one Giandomenico da Perugia, and a landscape to Gio. 
 Francesco da Bologna, that is to say, to Grimaldi. The figure is in the 
 Guercino taste, according to the opinion of Sig. Orsini ; but I cannot 
 conceive how he or the Sig. Mariotti (p. 273) should not have re- 
 marked that it must be the production of Giandomenico Cerrini, of 
 Perugia, contemporary with Grimaldi and Guercino, and not of that 
 Domenico, the painter of wooden scenes, who lived about an age anterior 
 to them. 
 
GIUSEPPE NASINI. 
 
 321 
 
 ployed : he afterwards went to Rome, and is the last name 
 inserted in the Eulogies of Pio. 
 
 Painting came again into repute at Siena about 1700, when 
 its credit was restored by Cav. Giuseppe Nasini, a scholar of 
 Ciro Ferri. Nasini possessed qualities for which I have com- 
 mended many of his nation ; fervid genius, fertile imagination, 
 and a poetic vein ; but his poetry was of the species that pre- 
 vailed in Italy during his younger days, a composition unre 
 strained by fixed rules. To this spirit we not unfrequently 
 discover some analogy in his paintings, in which we could 
 desire to find more order, a more choice design, and colouring 
 less vulgar. He always shews, however, a taste for allegory, 
 great command of pencil, and an imposing air ; and the ob- 
 servation of Redi, that " he stuns the beholder," is not with 
 out some foundation.* This remark was made when Nasini 
 had finished the cupola of the chapel of S. Anthony, in the 
 church of the Apostles at Rome, in which chapel there is "a 
 picture by Luti. He afterwards entered into a competition 
 with Luti, and the first artists then in Rome, in the large 
 Prophets of the Lateran cathedral. His masterpiece is sup- 
 posed to be the S. Leonard, in Madonna del Pianto at Foligno, 
 the ceiling of which he painted with good frescos. Siena 
 contains some of his finest productions of every kind ; above 
 all, the pictures of the Novissimi, intended for the Pitti 
 palace, but transferred from it to the church of the Conven- 
 tuals. It contains a number of figures neither so select nor 
 so well arranged as to arrest the eye ; but he who would con- 
 temptuously overlook it, let him say how many painters then 
 in Italy could have produced such a picture ? 
 
 Giuseppe brought up two pupils in his house. He had a 
 brother named Antonio, a priest, whose likeness is among the 
 eminent portrait painters in the gallery at Florence. Cav. 
 Apollonio Nasini, the son of Giuseppe, was inferior to his 
 father in the profession, yet assisted him in his greatest works, 
 and held an honourable rank among his contemporaries. 
 Giosefib Pinacci, of Siena, a disciple of Mehus in figures, and 
 of Borgognone in battle-pieces, lived in the time of Nasini. 
 He was a good painter of portraits, and made a consideiable 
 
 fOL. i. 
 
 * Lett. Pittoriche, torn. ii» p. 69. 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL.— EPOCH III. 
 
 fortune, first at the court of Carpio, viceroy of Naples, and 
 afterwards in the service of the grand duke Ferdinand at 
 Florence, where several of his works remain. But his chief 
 merit consisted in a knowledge of the pencilling of the old 
 masters. Nicolo Franchini distinguished himself rather by 
 restoring the work of other hands than by his own produc- 
 tions, and thus furnished Pecci with much convenient in- 
 formation for his City Guide ; " by his skill," says the Cava- 
 liere, " in restoring injured specimens to their original beauty, 
 without applying to them a fresh pencil, and in supplying the 
 faded colours with others taken from paintings of less value, 
 he entitled himself, in fact, to the praise of a new discovery/* 
 We shall here conclude the school of Siena, and shall add in 
 its praise, that if it did not produce painters of the very 
 highest class, it at least boasts many artists, eminent when we 
 consider their era, and few inferior, or not above mediocrity.* 
 It indeed appears, that either a genius for painting is natural 
 to that people, or that none of them have embraced the art 
 who were not capable of prosecuting it successfully. 
 
 * A few of the names that obtained least celebrity in Siena are pointed 
 out by P. M. della Valle in the third volume of the Lettere Senesi (p. 
 459), among which are found Crescenzio Gamberelli Nasinesco, Deifobo 
 Burbarini, a poor artist, Aurelio Martelli, called II Mutolo, Gio. Batista 
 Ramacciotti, a priest and connoisseur in painting ; and the same may be 
 said of Bernardino Fungai, and of the noble Marcello Loli, of Galgano 
 Perpignano, with others of like merit, either omitted or slightly mentioned 
 by Sig. Pecci. P. della Valle excuses himself from the task of treating of 
 them in favour of happier writers ; but as we do not pretend to aspire to 
 that felicity, we shall leave others to avail themselves of the father'* 
 liberality. 
 
323 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 I have frequently heard the lovers of art express a doubt 
 whether the Roman school possesses the same inherent right 
 to that distinctive appellation as the schools of Florence, Bo- 
 logna, and Venice, Those of the latter cities were, indeed, 
 founded by their respective citizens, and supported through a 
 long course of ages ; while the Roman school, it may be said, 
 could boast only of Giulio Romano and Sacchi, and a few 
 others, natives of Rome, who taught, and left scholars there. 
 The other artists who flourished there were either natives of 
 the cities of the Roman state, or from other parts of Italy, 
 some of whom established themselves in Rome, and others, 
 after the close of their labours there, returned and died in 
 their native places. But this question is, if I mistake not, 
 rather a dispute of words than of things, and similar to those 
 objections advanced by the Peripatetic sophists against the 
 modern philosophy ; insisting that they abuse the meaning of 
 their words, and quoting, as an example, the vis inertias ; as 
 if that, which is in itself inert, could possess the quality of 
 force. The moderns laugh at this difficulty, and coolly reply 
 that, if the t displeased them, they might substitute natura^ 
 or any other equivalent word ; and that it was lost time to 
 dispute about words, and neglect things. So it may be said 
 in this case ; they who disapprove of the designation of 
 school, may substitute that of academy, or any other term 
 denoting a place where the art of painting is professed and 
 taught. And, as the learned universities always derive their 
 names from the city where they are established, as the uni- 
 versity of Padua or Pisa, although the professors may be all, 
 
 T 2 
 
324 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 or in great part, from other states, so it is with the schools of 
 painting, to which the name of the country is always at- 
 tached, in preference to that of the master. In Yasari we do 
 not find this classification of schools, and Monsignor Agucchi 
 was the first to divide Italian art into the schools of Lom- 
 bardy, Venice, Tuscany, and Rome.* He has employed the 
 term of schools after the manner of the ancients, and has 
 thus characterized one of them as the Roman school. He 
 has, perhaps, erred in placing Michelangelo, as well as Raf- 
 faello, at the head of this school, as posterity has assigned 
 him his station as chief of the school of Florence ; but he has 
 judged right in classing it under a separate head, possessing, 
 as it does, its own peculiar style ; and in this he has been 
 followed by all the modern writers of art. The characteristic 
 feature in the Roman school has been said to consist in a strict 
 imitation of the works of the ancients, not only in sublimity, 
 but also in elegance and selection ; and to this we shall add 
 other peculiarities, which will be noticed in their proper place. 
 Thus, from its propriety, or from tacit convention, the appella- 
 tion of the Roman school has been generally adopted ; and, 
 as it certainly serves to distinguish one of the leading styles 
 of Italian art, it becomes necessary to employ it, in order to 
 make ourselves clearly understood. We cannot, indeed, allow 
 to the Roman school so extensive a range as we have assigned 
 to that of Florence, in the first book ; nevertheless, every one 
 that chooses may apply this appellation to it in a very en- 
 larged sense. Nor is the fact of other artists having taught, 
 or having given a tone to painting in the capital, any valid 
 objection to this term ; since, in a similar manner, we find 
 Titiano, Paolo Veronese, and Bassano, in Venice, though all 
 of them were strangers ; but, as they were subjects of her 
 government, they were all termed Venetians, as that name 
 alike embraces those born in the city or within the dominions 
 of the Republic. The same may be said of the subjects of 
 the Pope. Besides the natives of Rome, there appeared mas- 
 ters from many of her subject cities, who, teaching in Rome, 
 
 * Bellori, Vite de* Pittori, p. 191. "The Roman school, of which 
 Raffaello and Michelangelo were the great masters, derived its principles 
 from the study of the statues and works of the ancients/ * 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 325 
 
 followed in the steps of their predecessors, and maintained 
 the same principles. Passing over Pier della Francesca and 
 Pietro Yannucci, we may refer to Raffaello himself as an 
 example. Raffaello was born in Urbino, the subject of a 
 duke, who held his fief under the Roman see, and who, in 
 Rome, held the office of prefect of the city ; and whose do- 
 minions, in failure of male issue, reverted to the Pope, as the 
 heritage of the Church. Thus Raffaello cannot be considered 
 other than a Roman subject. To him succeeded Giulio Ro- 
 mano and his scholars ; followed by Zuccari, and the manner- 
 ists of that time, until the art found a better style under the 
 direction of Baroccio, Baglione, and others. After them flou- 
 rished Sacchi and Maratta, whose successors have extended to 
 our own times. Restricted within these bounds, the Roman 
 may certainly be considered as a national school ; and, if not 
 rich in numbers, it is at least so in point of excellence, as 
 Raffaello in himself outweighs a world of inferior artists. 
 
 The other painters who resided in Rome, and followed 
 the principles of that school, I shall neither attempt to 
 add to, nor to subtract from it ; adopting it as a maxim 
 not to interfere in the decision of disputes alike idle and 
 irrelevant to my subject. Still less shall I ascribe to it 
 those who adopted a totally different style, as Michelangelo 
 da Caravaggio, an artist whom Lombardy may lay claim 
 to, on account of his birth, or Venice, from his receiving 
 his education in that city, though he lived and wrote in 
 Rome, and influenced the taste of the national school there 
 by his example and that of his scholars. In the same man- 
 ner other names will occasionally occur in the history of this 
 school : it is the duty of the historian to mention these, and 
 it is an incomparable triumph to the Roman school, that she 
 stands, in this manner, as the centre of all the others ; and 
 that so many artists could not have obtained celebrity, if they 
 had not seen Rome, or could not have claimed that title from 
 the world unless they had first obtained her suffrage. 
 
 I shall not identify the limits of this school with those of 
 the dominions of the Church, as in that case we should com- 
 prise in it the painters of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna, 
 whom I have reserved for another volume. In my limits I 
 
32G 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 shall include only the capital, and the provinces in its imme- 
 diate vicinity, as Lati am, the Sabine territories, the patrimony 
 of the Church, Umbria, Picenum, and the state of Urbino, 
 the artists of which district were, for the most part, educated 
 in Rome, or under the eyes of Roman masters. My histo- 
 rical notices of them will be principally derived from Vasari, 
 Baglione, Passeri, and Leone Pascoli. From these writers 
 we have the lives of many artists who painted in Rome, and 
 the last-named author has included in his account his fello w- 
 countrymen of Perugia. Pascoli has not, indeed, the merits 
 of the three first writers ; but he does not deserve the discre- 
 dit thrown on him by Ratti and Bottari, the latter of whom, 
 in his notes to Vasari, does not hesitate to call him a wretched 
 writer, and unworthy of credit. His work, indeed, on the 
 artists of Perugia, shews that he indiscriminately copied what 
 he found in others, whether good or bad ; and to the vulgar 
 traditions of the early artists he paid more than due atten- 
 tian. But his other work, on the history of the modern 
 painters, sculptors, and architects, is a book of authority. In 
 every branch of history much credit is attached to the ac- 
 counts of contemporary writers, particularly if they were 
 acquaintances or friends of the persons of whom they wrote ; 
 and Pascoli has this advantage ; for, in addition to informa- 
 tion from their own mouths, he derived materials from their 
 surviving friends, nor spared any pains to arrive at the truth 
 (see " Vita del Cozza"). The judgment, therefore, which he 
 passes on each artist, is not wholly to be despised, since he 
 formed it on those of the various professors then living in 
 Rome, as Winckelman has observed (torn. i. p. 450) ; and, if 
 these persons, as it is pretended, have erred in their judgment 
 on the Greek sculptors, they have certainly not erred in their 
 estimate of modern painters, particularly Luti, to whom I 
 imagine Pascoli, from esteem and intimacy, deferred more 
 than to any other artist. 
 
 We have from Bellori other lives, written with more learn- 
 ing and criticism, some of which are supposed to be lost. He 
 had originally applied himself to painting, but deserted that 
 art, as we may conjecture from Pascoli ( Vita del Canini)^ 
 and attached himself to poetry and the study of antiquities. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 327 
 
 His skill in both arts manifests itself in the lives he has left, 
 which are few, but interspersed with interesting and minute 
 particulars of the characters of the painters and their works. 
 In his plan, he informs us he has followed the advice of Nic- 
 colo Poussin. He also composed a " Description of the 
 figures painted by Raffaello, in the churches of the Vatican 
 a tract which contains some severe reflections on Vasari,* but 
 is nevertheless highly useful. We also find a profusion of 
 entertaining anecdotes in Taja, in his " Description of the 
 Vatican and in Titi, in his account of the pictures, sculp- 
 ture, and architecture of Rome. This work has recently been 
 republished, with additions, and we shall occasionally quote 
 it under the name of the " Guide." Pesaro is indebted for 
 a similar " Guide " to Signor Becci, and Ascoli and Perugia 
 to Signor Baldassare Orsini, a celebrated architect. "We have 
 also the Lettere Perugine of Sig. Dottore Annibale Mariotti, 
 which treat of the early painters of Perugia, with a store of 
 information and critical acumen that render them highly 
 valuable. To these may also be added, the Risposta of the 
 above-named Sig. Orsini, whom I regret to see entering 01 
 Etruscan ground, as he there repeats many ancient error? 
 which have long been exploded by common consent : in othei 
 points it is a treatise worth perusal. If we turn to " Descrip- 
 tions," we have them of several periods, as that of the Basilica 
 Loretana, and that of Assisi, composed by P. Angeli ; the 
 account of the Duomo of Orvieto, written by P. della Valle ; 
 and the works on the churches of S. Francesco di Perugia, 
 and S. Pietro di Fano, by anonymous writers. The Abbate 
 Colucci has favoured us with recent notices on various artists 
 of Piceno, Umbria, and Urbino, in his " Antichità Picene," 
 extended, as far as my observation goes, to torn, xxxi.f The 
 
 * Lett. Pittor. torn. ii. p. 323 ; and Dialoghi sopra le tre Arti del 
 Disegno. In Lucca, 1754. 
 
 ■f* This work contains contributions from various quarters. I have not, 
 however, made an equal use of all ; as I believe some pictures to be copies, 
 which are there referred to as originals ; and as several names mentioned 
 may with propriety be omitted. In my references, I shall often cite the 
 collections ; sometimes also the authors of some more considerable trea- 
 tises, as P. Civalli, Terzi, Sig. Agostino Uossi, Sig. Arciprete Lazzari, 
 respecting whom I must refer to the second index, where will be found 
 the titles of their respective works. 
 
328 
 
 ifcOMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 learned authors whom I have named, and others to whom I 
 shall occasionally refer, have furnished the chief materials of 
 my present treatise, although I have myself collected a con- 
 siderable part from artists and loyers of art, either in con- 
 versation or in my correspondence. Thus far in the way of 
 introduction. 
 
329 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH I. 
 
 Early Artists. 
 
 If we turn our eyes for a moment to that tract of country 
 which we have designated as falling within the limits of the 
 Roman school, amidst the claims of modern art, we shall 
 occasionally meet with both Greek and Latin pictures of the 
 rude ages, from the first of which we may conclude that Greek 
 artists formerly painted in this part of Italy, and from the 
 latter, that our own countrymen were emulous to follow their 
 example. One of these artists is said to have had the name 
 of Luca, and to him is ascribed the picture of the Virgin, at 
 S. Maria Maggiore, and many others in Italy, which are be- 
 lieved to be painted by S. Luke the Evangelist. Who this 
 Luca was, or whether one painter or more of that name ever 
 existed, we shall presently inquire. The tradition was im- 
 pugned by Manni,* and after him by Piacenza (torn. ii. p. 
 120), and is now only preserved among the vulgar, a nume- 
 rous class indeed, who shut their ears to every rational criticism 
 as an innovation on their faith. This vulgar opinion is alike 
 oppugned by the silence of the early artists, and the well 
 attested fact, that in the first ages of the Church the Virgin 
 was not represented with the Holy Infant in her arms,t but 
 had her hands extended in the act of prayer. This is ex- 
 
 * " Dell' errore che persiste," &c. ; see the second index. It was 
 opposed by Crespi, in his " Dissertazione Anticritica," referred to in the 
 same index. It was also opposed by P. dell' Aquila, in the " Dizionario 
 portatile della Bibbia, tradotto dal francese," in a note of some length, on 
 the article S. Luca. 
 
 f See the Opuscoli Calogeriani, torn, xliii., where a learned dissertation 
 is inserted, which shews that this custom was introduced about the middle 
 of the fifth century, on occasion of the Council of Ephesus. 
 
330 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 emplified in the funeral vase of glass in the Museo Trombelli 
 at Bologna, with the inscription maria, and in many bassi- 
 rilievi of Christian sarcophagi, where she is represented in a 
 similar attitude. Rome possesses several of these specimens, 
 and others are to be found in Velletri.* It is, however, a 
 common opinion, that these pictures are by a painter of the 
 name of Luca. Lami refers to a legend of the fourteenth 
 century of the Madonna dell' Impruneta, where they are said 
 to be the works of a Florentine of the name of Luca, who, 
 for his many Christian virtues, obtained the title of saint.t 
 They are not, however, all in the same style, and some of 
 them bear Greek inscriptions, whence we may conclude that 
 they are by various hands, although they all appear to have 
 been painted in or about the twelfth century. This tradition 
 was not confined to Italy, but found its way into many of the 
 eastern churches. The author of the " Anecdotes des Beaux 
 Arts," relates that the memory of a Luca, a hermit, who had 
 painted many rude portraits of the Virgin, was held in great 
 veneration in Greece ; and that through a popular superstition 
 he had succeeded to the title of S. Luke the Evangelist. 
 Tournefort (" Voyage," &c.) mentions an image of the Virgin 
 at Mount Lebanon, attributed by the vulgar to S. Luke ; 
 but which was doubtless also the work of some Luke, a monk 
 in one of the early ages. 
 
 More considerable remains, both of the Greek and Italian 
 artists of the thirteenth century, are to be found in Assisi, as 
 related in my first book ; and to those already mentioned as 
 painted on the walls, may be added others on panel, all by 
 unknown artists; particularly a Crucifixion in S. Chiara, of 
 which there is a tradition, that it was painted before Giunta 
 appeared. Another picture, anterior to this period, and bear- 
 ing the date of 1219, is to be seen at Subiaco ; it is a conse- 
 cration of a church, and the painter informs us that Conciolus 
 pinxit. If, in addition to these, we inquire after the miniature 
 
 * Engraved by command of the learned Cardinal Borgia. The artists 
 began about the middle of the fifth century, to represent her with the 
 Infant in her arms. 
 
 f The painter was a man of holy life, and a Florentine, whose name 
 was Luca, and who was honoured by the common people with the title of 
 saint." — Lami, Delicise Eruditorum, torn. xv. 
 
ODERIGI OF GUBBIO. 
 
 331 
 
 painters, we may find specimens of them in abundance, in the 
 library of the Vatican, and other collections in Rome. I 
 shall name only S. Agostino, in the public library of Perugia, 
 where the Redeemer is seen in the midst of saints, and the 
 opening of Genesis is painted in miniature : a design, which, 
 from the angular folds of the drapery, partakes of the Greek 
 style, but still serves to prove this art to have been known at 
 that time in Umbria. In addition to what I have remarked, 
 I may also observe, that in Perugia, in the course of the same 
 century, the artists were sufficiently numerous to form an 
 academy, as we may collect from the "Lettere Perugine," 
 and these, when we consider the time, must have been in 
 great part miniature painters. 
 
 It is now time to notice Oderigi of Gubbio, a town very 
 near to Perugia. Vasari tells us that he was a man of 
 celebrity, and a friend of Giotto, in Rome ; and Dante, in 
 his second " Cantica," calls him an honour to Agobbio, and 
 excelling in the art of miniature. These are the only authori- 
 ties that Baldinucci could have for transferring this ancient 
 artist to the school of Cimabue, and ingrafting him in his 
 usual manner on that stock. Upon these, he founded his con- 
 jecture ; and, according to his custom, gave them more weight 
 than t'hey deserved. His opinion, however amplified, reduces 
 itself to the assumption, that Giotto, Oderigi, and Dante, 
 were lovers of art, and common friends, and became there- 
 fore acquainted in the school of Cimabue : a very uncertain 
 conclusion. "We shall consider this subject more maturely in 
 the school of Bologna, since Oderigi lived there, and in- 
 structed Franco, from whom Bologna dates the series of her 
 painters. It is thought, too, that he left some scholars in his 
 native place, and not long after him, in 1321, we find Cecco, 
 and Puccio da Gubbio, engaged as painters of the cathedral 
 of Orvieto; and about the year 1342, Guido Palmerucci of 
 the same place, employed in the palace of his native city. 
 There remains a work of his in fresco in the hall, much in- 
 jured by time ; but some figures of saints are still preserved, 
 which do not yield to the best style of Giotto. Other vestiges 
 of ancient paintings are to be seen in the Confraternita de 
 Bianchi, in whose archives it is mentioned, that the picture of 
 S. Biagio was repaired by Donato in 1374, whence it must 
 
332 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 necessarily be of a very early period. This and ottier in- 
 teresting information I obtained from Sig, Sebastiano Rang- 
 liasci, a noble inhabitant of Gubbio, who has formed a cata- 
 logue of the artists of his native city, inserted in the fourth 
 volume of the last edition of Vasari. 
 
 We are now arrived at the age of Giotto, and the first who 
 presents himself to us is Pietro Cavallini, who was instructed 
 by Giotto, in Rome,* in the arts of painting and mosaic, both 
 of which he followed with skill and intelligence. The Ro- 
 man Guide makes mention of him, and that of Florence re- 
 fers to a Nunziata at S. Mark ; and there are others mentioned 
 by Vasari as being in the chapels of that city, one of which 
 is in the Loggia del Grano. The most remarkable of his 
 works is to be seen in Assisi. It is a fresco, and occupies a 
 large facade in one division of the church. It represents the 
 crucifixion of our Saviour, surrounded by bands of soldiers, 
 foot and horse, and a numerous crowd of spectators, all varying 
 in their dress and in the expression of their passions. In the 
 sky is a band of angels, whose sympathizing sorrow is vividly 
 depicted. In extent and spirit of design, it partakes of the 
 style of Memmi, and in one of the sufferers on the cross, he 
 has shewn that he appreciated and successfully followed his 
 guide. The colours are well preserved, particularly the blue, 
 which there, and in other parts of the church, presents, to use 
 the language of our poets, a heaven of oriental sapphire. 
 
 Vasari does not appear to have been acquainted with any 
 scholar of Pietro Cavallini, except it be Giovanni da Pistoja ; 
 but Pietro, who lived in Rome the greater part of his life, 
 which was extended to a period of eighty-five years, must 
 have contributed his aid in no small degree to the advance- 
 ment of art, in the capital, as well as in other places. How - 
 ever this may be, in that part of Italy, pictures of his school 
 are still found ; or at least memorials of the age in which he 
 
 * So says Vasari, who writes his life, but Padre della Valle thinks it 
 highly probable that he was the scholar of Cosimati, and not of Giotto ; 
 as Cavallini was contemporary with Giotto. I agree that he was 
 only a few years younger, and might have received some instructions 
 in the school of Cosimati : but who, except Giotto himself, could have 
 taught him that Giottesque and improved style scarcely inferior to 
 Gaddi ? 
 
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 333 
 
 flourished. We have an Andrea of Velletri, of whom a 
 specimen is preserved in the select collection of the Museo 
 Borgia, with the Virgin surrounded by saints, a common 
 subject at that period in the churches, as I have before ob- 
 served. It has the name of the painter, with the year 1 334, 
 and in execution approaches near to the school of Siena. In 
 the year 1321 we find Ugolino Orvietano, Gio. Bonini di 
 Assisi, Lello Perugino, and F. Giacomo da Camerino, noticed 
 by us in another place, all employed in painting in the 
 cathedral of Orvieto. Mariotti, in his letters, mentions 
 other artists of Perugia, and the memory of a very 
 early painter of Fabriano is preserved by Ascevolini, the 
 historian of that city, who informs us, that in the country 
 church of S. Maria Maddalena, there was a picture in fresco, 
 by Bocco, executed in 1306. A Francesco Tio da Fabriano, 
 who, in 1318, painted the tribune of the Conventuals at 
 Mondaino., is mentioned by Colucci (torn. xxv. p. 183). 
 This work has perished ; but the productions of a successor 
 of his at Fabriano are to be seen in the oratory of S. Antonio 
 Abate, the walls of which remain. Histories of the saint are 
 there to be found, divided into' pictures, in the early style, 
 and inscribed " Allegrettus Nutii de Fabriano hoc opus fecit, 
 136 ..." The art in these parts was not a little advanced by 
 their proximity to Assisi, where Giotto's scholars were em 
 ployed after his death, particularly Puccio Capanna of Flo- 
 rence. This artist, esteemed one of the most successful fol- 
 lowers of Giotto, after painting in Florence, in Pistoia, 
 Rimino, and Bologna, is conjectured by Yasari to have settled 
 in Assisi, where he left many works. 
 
 We shall find the succeeding century more fruitful in art, 
 as the popes at that time forsook Avignon, and, re-estab- 
 lishing themselves in Rome, began to decorate the palace of 
 the Vatican, and to employ painters of celebrity both there 
 and in the churches. There does not appear any person of 
 distinction amongst them as a native of Pome. From the 
 Roman state we find Gentile da Fabriano, Piero della Fran- 
 cesca, Bonfigli, Yannucci, and Melozzo, who first practised 
 the art of foreshortening what is seen from below ; and 
 amongst the strangers are Pisanello, Masaccio, Beato Ange- 
 lico, Botticelli and his colleagues. Amongst these too, it is 
 
334 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 said, was to be found Mantegna, and. there still remains the 
 chapel painted by him for Innocent VIII., although since 
 converted to another purpose. Each of these artists I shall 
 notice in their respective schools, and shall here only mention 
 such as were found in the country from the Ufente to the 
 Tronto, and from thence to the Metauro, which are the con- 
 fines of our present class. The names of many others may be 
 collected from books ; as an Andrea, and a Bartolommeo, 
 both of Orvieto, and a Mariotto da Viterbo, and others who 
 worked at Orvieto from 1405 to 1457 ; and some who painted 
 in Rome itself, a Giovenale and a Salii di Celano, and others 
 now forgotten. But without pausing on these, we will 
 advert to the artists of Piceno, of the state of Urbino, and 
 the remaining parts of Umbria : where we shall meet with 
 the traces of schools which remained for years. 
 
 The school of Fabriano, which seems very ancient in 
 Picenum, produced at that time Gentile, one of the first paint- 
 ers of his age,* of whom Bonarruoti is reported to have said, 
 that his style was in unison with his name. The first notice 
 we have of him is among the painters of the church of Orvieto, 
 in 1417 ; and then, or soon afterwards, he received from the 
 historians of that period the appellation of magister magis- 
 trorum, and they mention the Madonna which he there 
 painted, and which still remains. He afterwards resided in 
 Venice, where, after ornamenting the Palazzo Publico, he 
 was rewarded by the republic with a salary, and with the 
 privilege of wearing the patrician dress of that city. He 
 there, says Vasari, became the master, and, in a manner, the 
 father of Jacopo Bellini, the father and preceptor of two of 
 the ornaments of the Venetian school. These were Gentile, 
 who assumed that name in memory of Gentile da Fabriano, 
 born in 1421 ; and Giovanni, who surpassed his brother in 
 reputation, and from whose school arose Giorgione and Titiano. 
 He (Gentile da Fabriano) was employed in the Lateran, at 
 Rome, where he rivalled Pisanello, in the time of Martin V. ; 
 and it is to be regretted that his w r orks have perished. Facio, 
 who eulogizes him, and who had seen his most finished per 
 
 * The R. Pinacoteca of Milan is enriched with various works of Gentile 
 His name is there met with written in half-gothic characters. — A. 
 
GENTILE DA FABRIANO. 
 
 335 
 
 formances, extols him as a man of universal art, who repre- 
 sented, not only the human form and edifices in the most 
 correct manner, but painted the stormy appearances of nature 
 in a style that struck terror into the spectator. In painting 
 the history of St. John, in the Lateran, and the Five Prophets 
 over it, of the colour of marble, he is said to have used more 
 than common care, as if he prognosticated his approaching 
 death, which soon afterwards occurred, and the work remained 
 unfinished. Notwithstanding this, Ruggier da Bruggia, as 
 Facio relates, when he went to Rome, in the holy year, con- 
 sidered it a stupendous work, which placed Gentile at the 
 head of all the painters of Italy. According to Vasari and 
 Borghini, he executed a countless number of works in the 
 Marca, and in the state of Urbino, and particularly in Gubbio, 
 and in Città di Castello, in the neighbourhood of his native 
 place ; and there still remain in those districts, and in 
 Perugia, paintings in his style. A remarkable one is men- 
 tioned in a country church called la Romita, near Fabriano.* 
 Florence possesses two beautiful specimens : the one in S. 
 Niccolo, with the effigy and history of the sainted bishop, the 
 other in the sacristy of S. Trinità, with an Epiphany, having 
 the date of 1423. They bear a resemblance to the style of 
 B. Angelico, except that the proportions of the figures are not 
 so correct, the conception is less just, and the fringe of gold 
 and brocade more frequent. Vasari pronounces him a pupil 
 of Beato, and Baldinucci confirms this opinion, although he 
 says that Beato took religious orders in 1407, a period which 
 would exclude Gentile from his tuition. I conjecture both 
 the one and the other to have been scholars of miniature 
 painters, from the fineness of their execution, and from the size 
 of their works, generally on a small scale. The name of an 
 Antonio da Fabriano appears in a Crucifixion, in 1454, 
 painted on wood, which I saw in Matelica, in the posses- 
 
 * In the archives of the collegiate church of S. Niccolo, in Fabriano, 
 is preserved a catalogue of the pictures of the city, communicated to me 
 oy Sig. Can. Claudio Serafini. This picture, which is divided into five 
 compartments, is there mentioned ; and it is added, that " many celebrated 
 painters visited the place to view this excellent work, in particular, the 
 illustrious Raffaello." 
 
336 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 sion of the Signori Piersanti ; but it is inferior to Gentile in 
 style.* 
 
 On an ancient picture, which is preserved in Perugia, in 
 the convent of S. Domenico, is the name of a painter of Ca- 
 merino, a place in the same neighbourhood, who flourished in 
 1447. The inscription is " Opus Johannis Bochatis do Cha- 
 mereno." In the same district is S. Severino, where we find 
 a Lorenzo, who, in conjunction with his brother, painted in 
 the oratory of S. John the Baptist in Urbmo, the life of that 
 saint. These two were much behind their age. I have seen 
 some other works by them, from which it appears that they 
 were living in 1470, and painted in the Florentine style of 
 1400. Other artists of the same province are named in the 
 " Storia del Piceno," particularly at S. Ginesio, a Fabio di 
 Gentile di Andrea, a Domenico Balestrieri, and a Stefano 
 Folchetti, whose works are cited, with the date of their 
 execution.! In this district also resided several strangers, 
 scarcely known to their native places, as Francesco d* Imola, a 
 scholar of Francia, who, in the convent of Cingoli, painted a 
 Descent from the Cross ; and Carlo Crivelli, a Venetian, who 
 passed from one state to another, and finally settled in Ascoli. 
 His works are to be met with there more frequently than in 
 any other city of Picenum. I shall speak of his merits in 
 the Venetian school, and shall here only add, that he had for 
 a pupil Pietro Alamanni, the chief of* the painters of Ascoli, 
 a respectable quattrocentista, who painted an altar-piece at S. 
 Maria della Carità, in 1489. About this time also we find 
 amongst their names a Vittorio Crivelli, a Venetian, of the 
 family, and perhaps of the school of Carlo. There is fre- 
 quent mention of him in the " Antichità Picene." 
 
 Urbino, too, had her artists, as her princes were not behind 
 
 * In the archives, are also mentioned two ancient pictures of a Giu- 
 liano da Fabriano, the one in the church of the Dominicans, the other in 
 the church of the Capuchins. 
 
 f Tom. xxiii. page 83, &c. By the first, is the ancient picture of 
 S. Maria della Consolazione in that church, erected in 1442. By the 
 second, are the pictures in the church of S. Rocco, painted about the 
 year 1 463. The third artist painted a picture in the church of S. Liberato, 
 in 1494. • 
 
PAINTERS OF URBINO. 
 
 337 
 
 the other rulers of Italy in good taste. At the restoration of 
 the art, we find Giotto and several of his scholars there ; 
 and afterwards Gentile da Fabriano,* a Galeazzo, and, pos- 
 sibly, a Gentile di Urbino. At Pesaro, in the convent of S. 
 Agostino, I have seen a Madonna, accompanied with beautiful 
 architecture, and an inscription, " Bartholomaeus Magistri 
 Gentilis de Urbino, 1497 ;" and at Monte Cicardo, I saw the 
 same name on an ancient picture of 1508, but without his 
 birthplace. (Ant. Pic. torn. xvii. 145.) I am in doubt 
 whether this M. Gentilis refers to the father of Bartolommeo 
 or his master, as the scholars at that time often took their 
 designation from their masters. At all events, this artist is 
 not to be confounded with Bartolommeo from Ferrara, whose 
 son, Benedetto, subscribes himself " Benedictus quondam Bar- 
 tholomaei de Fer. Pictor. 1492." This is to be seen in the 
 church of S. Domenico di Urbino, on the altar-piece in the 
 chapel of the Muccioli, their descendants. 
 
 In the city of Urbino there remain some works of the father 
 of Raffaello, who, in a letter of the Duchess Giovanna della 
 Rovere, the first of the Lettere Pittoriche, is designated as 
 molto virtuoso. There is by him, in the church of S. Francis, 
 a good picture of S. Sebastian, with figures in an attitude of 
 supplication. There is one attributed also to him in a small 
 church, dedicated to the same saint, representing his martyr- 
 dom, with a figure foreshortened, which Raffaello, when 
 young, imitated in a picture of the Virgin, at Città di Cas- 
 tello. He subscribed himself Io. Sanctis Urbi. (Urbinas). 
 So I read it in the sacristy of the Conventuals of Sinigaglia, 
 in an Annunciation, in which there is a beautiful angel, and 
 an infant Christ descending from the Father, and which seems 
 to be copied from those of Pietro Perugino, with whom Raf- 
 faello worked some time, though it has a still more ancient 
 style. The other figures are less beautiful, but yet graceful, 
 and the extremities are carefully executed. But the most 
 distinguished painter in Urbino was F. Bartolommeo Corra- 
 dini d' Urbino, a Dominican, called Fra. Carnevale. To an 
 accurate eye, his pictures are defective in perspective, and re- 
 tain in the drapery the dryness of his age, but the portraits 
 
 * Galeazzo Sanzio and his sons will be noticed in the second epoch, 
 VOL. I. Z 
 
338 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 are so strongly expressed, that they seem to live and speak : 
 the architecture is beautiful, the colours bright, and the air of 
 the heads at the same time noble and unaffected. It is known 
 that Bramante and Raffaello studied him, as there were not, 
 at that time, any better works in Urbino. In Gubbio, which 
 formed a part of this dukedom, were to be seen in that age 
 the remains of the early school. There exists a fresco by 
 Ottaviano Martis in S. Maria Nuova, painted in 1403. The 
 Virgin is surrounded by a choir of angels, certainly too much 
 resembling each other, but in their forms and attitudes, as 
 graceful and pleasing as any contemporary productions. 
 
 Borgo S. Sepolcro, Foligno, and Perugia, present us with 
 artists of greater celebrity. Borgo was a part of Umbria, 
 subject to the Holy See, and was, in 1440, pledged to the 
 Florentines* by Eugenius IY. at the time Pietro della Fran- 
 cesca, or Pietro Borghese, one of the most memorable painters 
 of this age, was at the summit of his reputation. He must 
 have been born about 1398, since Vasari states that "he 
 painted about the year 1458,"t and that he became blind at 
 sixty years of age, and remained so until his death, in his 
 eighty-sixth year. From his fifteenth year he applied him- 
 self to painting, at which age he had made himself master of 
 the principles of mathematics, and he rose to great eminence 
 both in art and science.} I have not been able to ascertain 
 who was his master, but it is probable that as he was the son of 
 
 * See Vasari, Bologna edition, p. 260. 
 
 f The commentators of Vasari remark, that when he uses this phrase, 
 he refers to the year of the death of the artist, or to the period when he 
 relinquished his art. Pietro must therefore have become blind about the 
 year 1458, in the sixtieth year of his age, and must have died about 1484, 
 aged eighty-six. This painter was ultimately connected with the family of 
 Vasari. Lazaro, the great-grandfather of Vasari, who died in 1452, was 
 the triend and imitator of Pietro, and some time before his death assigned 
 him his nephew fcignorelli as a scholar. We must, therefore, give 
 credit to Vasari's account of Borghese ; for if we discredit him on this 
 occasion, as some have done, when are we to believe him ? It is true, 
 indeed, that he is guilty of a strange anachronism in mentioning Guidu- 
 baldo, the old duke of Urbino, as his first patron ; but this kind of error 
 is frequent in him, and not to be regarded. 
 
 J " Fu eccellentissimo prospettivo, e il maggior geometra de* suoi 
 tempi."— Romano Alberti, Trattato della Nobiltà della Pittura, p. 32. 
 See also Pascoli, Vite, torn. i. p. 90. 
 
PIETRO BORGHESE. 
 
 339 
 
 a poor widow, who had barely the means of bringing him up, 
 he did not leave his native place ; and that under the guidance 
 of obscure masters he raised himself, by his own genius, to 
 the high degree of fame which he enjoyed. He first appeared, 
 says Vasari, in the court of the elder Guidubaldo Feltro, 
 duke of Urbino, where he left only some pictures of figures 
 on a small scale, which was the case with such as were not 
 the pupils of the great masters. He was celebrated for a 
 remarkable drawing of a vase, so ingeniously designed, that 
 the front, the back, the sides, the bottom, and the mouth, 
 were all shewn : the whole drawn with the greatest correct- 
 ness, and the circles gracefully foreshortened. The art of 
 perspective, the principles of which he was, as some affirm, 
 the first among the Italians to develope and to cultivate, was 
 much indebted to him ;* and painting owed much to his ex- 
 ample in imitating the effects of light, in marking correctly 
 the muscles of the naked figure, in preparing models of clay 
 for his figures, and in the study of his drapery, the folds of 
 which he fixed on the model itself, and drew very accurately 
 and minutely. On examining the style of Bramante and his 
 Milanese contemporaries, I have often thought that they de- 
 rived some light from Pietro, for he painted in Urbino, where 
 Bramante studied, and afterwards executed many works in 
 Rome, where Bramantino came and was employed by Nicho- 
 las V. 
 
 In the Floreria of the Vatican is still to be seen a large 
 fresco painting, in which the above-named pontiff is repre- 
 sented with cardinals and prelates, and there is a degree of 
 truth in the countenances highly interesting. Taja does not 
 assert that it is by Pietro, but says that it is attributed to 
 him.t Those which are pointed out in Arezzo doubtless be- 
 
 * It appears that in this art he was preceded by VanEych of Flanders. 
 See suprày p. 81, &c. ; and also the eulogium on him by Bartolommeo 
 Facio, p. 46, where he praises his skill in geometry, and refers to several 
 of his pictures, which prove him to have been highly accomplished, and 
 almost unrivaUed in perspective. 
 
 t If there be any truth in Pietro having been blind for twenty-four 
 years, I do not know how he could have painted Sixtus IV. On the other 
 hand, this tradition of his blindness comes from Vasari, whose family was 
 so intimately connected with that of Pietro della Francesca, that there 
 
 z 2 
 
340 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 long to him, and the most remarkable are the histories of the 
 holy cross, in the choir of the church of the Conventuals, 
 which shew that the art was already advanced beyond its in- 
 fancy ; there is so much new in the Giotto manner of fore- 
 shortening, in the relief, and in many difficulties of the art 
 overcome in his works. If he had possessed the grace of 
 Masaccio, he might with justice have been placed at his side. 
 At Città S. Sepolcro there still remain some works attributed 
 to him : a S. Lodovico Vescovo, in the public palace, at SL 
 Chiara a picture of the Assumption, with the apostles in the 
 distance, and a choir of angels at the top, but in the fore- 
 ground are S. Francis, S. Jerome, and other figures, which 
 injure the unity of the composition. There are, however, 
 still traces in them of the old style : a poverty of design, a 
 hardness in the foldings of the drapery, feet which are well 
 foreshortened, but too far apart. As to the rest, in design, 
 in the air, and in the colouring of the figures, it seems to be 
 a rude sketch of that style which was ameliorated by P. Pe- 
 rugino, and perfected by Raffaello. 
 
 In the latter part of this century there flourished several 
 good painters at Foligno, but it is not known from whom they 
 derived their instructions. In the 25th volume of the Anti- 
 chità Picene we read, that in the church of S. Francesco di 
 Cagli there exists a most beautiful composition, painted in 
 1461, at the price of 115 ducats of gold, by M. Pietro di 
 Mazzaforte and M. Niccolo Deliberatore of Foligno. At S. 
 Venanzio di Camerino is a large altar-piece on a ground of 
 gold, with Christ on the cross, surrounded by saints, with 
 three small evangelical histories. The inscription is " Opus 
 Nicolai Fulginatis, 1480 it is in the style of the last imi- 
 tators of Giotto, and there is scarcely a doubt that the artist 
 studied at Florence. I believe him to be the same artist as 
 Niccolo Deliberatore, or di Liberatore ; and different from 
 
 was less room for error in the life of that artist than any other. This 
 excellent picture, of which I have seen a beautiful copy in the possession 
 of the duke di Ceri, I should myself rather attribute to Melozzo. 
 
 * A picture by Niccolo Fulignanto is in the R. Pinacoteca of Milan, 
 representing a Madonna and child upon a gold ground, surrounded by 
 angels singing and playing on different instruments. It bears the date 
 of 1454. 
 
PAINTERS OF PERUGIA. 
 
 341 
 
 Niccolo Alunno, also of Foligno, whom Vasari mentions as an 
 excellent painter in the time of Pinturicchio. He painted in 
 distemper, as was common before Pietro Perugino, but in tints 
 that have survived uninjured. In the distribution of his 
 colours he was original ; his heads possess expression, though 
 common, and sometimes heavy. There is at S. Niccolò di 
 Foligno a picture by him, composed in the style of the 14th 
 century, the Virgin surrounded by saints, and underneath 
 small histories of the Passion, where the perspicuity is more 
 to be praised than the disposition. In the same style some of 
 his pieces in Foligno are painted after 1500. Vasari thinks 
 they are all surpassed by his Pietà in a chapel of the Duomo, 
 in which are represented two angels, " whose grief is so vividly 
 expressed, that any other artist, however ambitious, would 
 find it difficult to surpass it." 
 
 Perugia, from whence the art derived no common lustre, 
 abounded in painters beyond any other city. The celebrated 
 Mariotti formed a long catalogue of the painters of the 14th 
 century, and among the most conspicuous are Firenzo di 
 Lorenzo, and Bartolommeo Caporali, of whom we have pic- 
 tures of the date of 1487. Some strangers were to be found 
 amongst them, as that Lello da Velletri, the author of an 
 altar-piece, and its lower compartments, noticed by Signor 
 Orsini. Benedetto Bonfigli was distinguished above all others, 
 and was the most eminent artist of Perugia in his day. I have 
 seen by him, besides the picture in fresco in the Palazzo Pub- 
 lico, mentioned by Vasari, a picture of the Magi, in S. Do- 
 menico, in a style similar to Gentile, and with a large propor- 
 tion of gold ; and another in a more modern style, an Annun- 
 ciation, in the church of the Orfanelli. The angel is most 
 beautiful, and the whole picture would bear comparison with 
 the works of the best artists of this period, if the drawing 
 were more correct.* 
 
 * He is favourably mentioned by Crispolti, in the " Perugia Augusta 
 by Ciatti, in the " Istorie di Perugia Alessi, in the " Elogi de' Peru- 
 gini illustri and by Pascoli, in the "Vite de' Pittori Sc. Arch. Perugini 
 with whom I can in no manner concur in opinion, that " Benedetto was 
 equal to the best artists of his time, and probably the first among the 
 early masters who contributed to the introduction of an improved style" 
 (p. 21) ; an assertion singularly unjust to Masaccio. 
 
342 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 What I have already adduced sufficiently proves that the 
 art was not neglected in the Papal States, even in the ruder 
 ages ; and that men of genius from time to time appeared 
 there, who, without leaving their native places, still gave an 
 impulse to art. Florence, however, has ever been the capital 
 of design, the leading academy, and the Athens of Italy. It 
 would be idle to question her claim to this high honour ; and 
 Sixtus IV., who, as we have before mentioned, sought through 
 all Italy for artists to ornament the Sistine chapel, procured 
 the greatest number from Tuscany ; nor were there to be 
 found amongst them any who were his own subjects, except 
 Pietro Perugino, and he had risen to celebrity in Florence. 
 These, then, are the first mature fruits of the Roman school, 
 for until this period they had been crude and tasteless. Pietro 
 is her Masaccio, her Ghirlandaio, her all. We will here take 
 a short view of him and his scholars, reserving the divine 
 Raffaello to the epoch, which is designated by his illustrious 
 name. 
 
 Pietro Vannucci della Pieve,* as he calls himself in some 
 pictures, or of Perugia in others, had studied under a master 
 of no great celebrity, if we are to believe Yasari ; and this was 
 a Pietro da Perugia, as Bottari conjectured, or Niccolò Alun- 
 no, as reported in Foligno. Mariotti pretends that Pietro 
 advanced himself greatly in Perugia in the schools of Bonfigli 
 and Pietro della Francesca, from which he derived that ex- 
 cellence in perspective from the testimony of Yasari so much 
 admired in Florence, and much of his design and colouring.t 
 Mariotti raises a doubt whether, when he went to Florence, 
 he became the scholar of Yerrocchio, as writers report, or 
 whether he did not rather perfect himself from the great ex- 
 amples of Masaccio, and the excellent painters who at that 
 
 * He subscribed himself de Castro Plebis, now Città della Pieve. 
 There, according to Pascoli, the father was born, who afterwards removed 
 to Perugia, where Pietro was born ; but the greater probability is, that 
 Pietro also was born in Città della Pieve. — Mariotti. 
 
 f This resemblance might have arisen from his imitation of the works 
 of Borghese (Pietro della Francesca), which he saw in Perugia, as it most 
 assuredly cannot be proved that Perugino was ever in his school. P. Valle 
 and others express great doubts of it, and when I reflect that Vannucci 
 was only twelve vears old when Borghese lost his sight, I regard it as an 
 absurd tradition. 
 
PIETliO VANNUCCI. 
 
 343 
 
 time flourished there ; and finally determines in favour of the 
 opinion held by Pascoli, Bottari, and Taja, and adopted by 
 Padre Resta, in his Galleria Portatile, p. 10, that Verrocchio 
 was never his master. It is worth while to read the disquisi- 
 tions of this able writer, where we may admire the dexterity 
 with which he settles a point so perplexed and so interesting 
 to the history of art. I will only add that it appears not im- 
 probable that Pietro, when he arrived at Florence, attached 
 himself to this celebrated artist, was instructed by him in de- 
 eign, and in the plastic art particularly, and in that fine style 
 of painting with which Yerrocchio, without much practising 
 it himself, imbued both Vinci and Credi. Traditions have 
 generally some foundation in truth. 
 
 The manner of Pietro is somewhat hard and dry, like that 
 of other painters of his time ; and he exhibits poverty in the 
 drapery of his figures ; his garments and mantles being cur- 
 tailed and confined. But he atones for these faults by the 
 grace of his heads, particularly in his boys and in his women ; 
 which have an air of elegance and a charm of colour unknown 
 to his contemporaries. It is delightful to behold in his pic- 
 tures, and in his frescos which remain in Perugia and Rome, 
 the bright azure ground which affords such relief to his 
 figures ; the green, purple, and violet tints so chastely harmo- 
 nized, the beautiful and well-drawn landscape and edifices, a 
 thing, as Yasari says, until that time never seen in Florence. 
 In his altar-pieces he is not sufficiently varied. There is 
 executed for the church of S. Simone, at Perugia, a Holy 
 Family, one of the first specimens of a well-designed and 
 well-composed altar-piece. In other respects Pietro did not 
 make great advances in invention ; his Crucifixions and his 
 Descents from the Cross are numerous, and of an uniform 
 character. He has represented, with little variation, the As- 
 censions of our Lord and of the Yirgin, in Bologna, in Flo- 
 rence, Perugia, and Città di S. Sepolcro. Reproached with 
 this circumstance in his lifetime, he defended himself by say- 
 ing that no one had a right to complain, as the designs were 
 all his own. There is also another defence, which is, that 
 compositions, really beautiful, are still seen with delight when 
 repeated in different places; whoever sees in the Sistine his 
 S. Peter invested with the keys, will not be displeased at 
 
344 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 finding at Perugia the same landscape, in a picture of the 
 Marriage of the Virgin. On the contrary, this picture is one 
 of the finest objects that noble city affords ; and may be con- 
 sidered as containing an epitome of the various styles of 
 Pietro. In the opinion of some, his frescos exhibit a more 
 fertile invention, and greater delicacy and harmony of colour. 
 Of these, his masterpiece is in his native city, in the Sala del 
 Cambio. It is an evangelical subject, with saints from the 
 Old Testament, and with his own portrait, to which his 
 grateful fellow-citizens attached an elegant eulogy. He is 
 most eminent, and adopts a sort of Raffaellesque style, in 
 some of his latter pictures. I have observed it in a Holy 
 Family, in the Carmine in Perugia. The same may be said 
 too of certain small pictures, almost of a miniature class ; as 
 in the grado of S. Peter, in Perugia, than which nothing can 
 be more finished and beautiful ; and in many other pieces in 
 which he has spared no pains, * but which are few in compari- 
 son to the multitude by his scholars attributed to him. 
 
 In treating of the school of Pietro Perugino, it is necessary 
 to advert to what Taja,f and after him the author of the 
 " Lettere Perugine," notices respecting his scholars, " that 
 they were most scrupulous in adhering to the manner of their 
 master, and as they were numerous, they have filled the 
 world with pictures, which both by painters and connoisseurs 
 are commonly considered as his." When his works in Perugia 
 are inspected, he generally rises in the esteem of travellers, 
 of whom many have only seen paintings incorrectly ascribed 
 to him. In Florence there are some pictures in the Grand 
 Duke's collection : and in the church of S. Chiara, his beau- 
 tiful Descent from the Cross, and other works ; but in private 
 collections, many Holy Families are assigned to him, which 
 are most probably by Gerino da Pistoja, or some of his Tus- 
 
 * Vasari, at the close of his Life, observes, " none of his scholars ever 
 equalled Pietro in application or in amenity of colour.' ' Padre della Valle 
 asserts, on the contrary, " that he was indebted for a great portion of his 
 celebrity to the talents displayed by his scholars and says that he de- 
 tected the touch of Raffaello in his picture in the Grand Duke's collection ; 
 but we must have a stronger testimony before we submit ourselves to this 
 decision. 
 
 f Descrizione del Palazzo Vaticano, p. 36. 
 
BERNARDINO PINTURICCIIIO. 
 
 345 
 
 can scholars. The Papal states also possessed many of his 
 scholars, who were of higher reputation, nor so wholly at 
 tached to his manner as the strangers. Bernardino Pintu- 
 ricchio, his scholar and assistant in Perugia and in Rome, was 
 a painter little valued by Vasari, who has not allowed him 
 his full share of merit. He has not the style of design of 
 his master, and retains, more than consistent with his age, the 
 ornaments of gold in his drapery ; but he is magnificent in 
 his edifices, spirited in his countenances, and extremely natu- 
 ral in every thing he introduces into his composition. As he 
 was on a familiar footing with Raffaello, with whom he painted 
 at Siena, he has emulated his grace in some of his figures, as 
 in his picture of S. Lorenzo in the church of the Francescani 
 di Spello, in which there is a small S. John the Baptist, 
 thought by some to be by Raffaello himself. He was very 
 successful in arabesques and perspective ; in which he was 
 the first to represent cities in the ornaments of his fresco 
 paintings, as in an apartment of the Vatican, where in his 
 landscapes he introduced views of the principal cities of Italy. 
 In many of his paintings he retained the ancient custom of 
 making part of his decorations of stucco, as the arches, a cus- 
 tom observed in the Milanese school to the time of Gaudenzio. 
 Rome possesses some of his works, particularly in the Vatican, 
 and in Araceli. There is a good picture by him in the duomo 
 of Spello.* His best are at Siena, in the magnificent sacristy. 
 They consist of ten historical subjects, containing the most 
 memorable passages in the life of Pius II., and on the outside 
 is an eleventh, which represents the Coronation of Pius III., 
 by whom this work was ordered. 
 
 Vasari has added to the life of Pinturicchio that of Giro- 
 lamo Genga, of Urbino, at first a scholar of Signorelli, after- 
 wards of Perugino, and who remained some time pursuing 
 
 * Consisting of three subjects from the life of Christ, in the chapel of 
 the Holy Sacraments. The Annunciation, the Birth of Christ, and the 
 Dispute with the Doctors, (a) the best of the three. In one of these he 
 introduced his own portrait. Vasari does not mention this fine production. 
 
 (a) This picture is now in the R. Pinacoteca. If Luca Signorelli was 
 among the first to enlarge the prevailing style, Genga, it must be allowed, 
 surpassed him. His figures display great power ; so great, that he might 
 have served as a model for Andrea del Sarto, and Michelangelo. 
 
346 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 his studies in Florence. He was long in the service of the 
 duke of Urbino, and attached himself more to architecture 
 than to painting, though he was sufficiently distinguished to 
 deserve a place in the history of art. We cannot form a cor- 
 rect judgment of him, as great part of his works have pe- 
 rished ; and as he assisted Signorelli in Orvieto and other 
 places ; and was assisted by Timoteo della Yite in Urbino, 
 and in the imperial palace of Pesaro by Raffaelle del Colle, 
 and others. In the Petrucci palace at Siena, which now be- 
 longs to the noble family of Savini, some historical pieces are 
 ascribed to him near those of Signorelli. They are described 
 in the Lettere Senesi, in the notes published at Siena to the 
 fourth volume of Vasari, and praised as superior to those ol 
 Signorelli, and approaching the early style of Raffaello. 
 Nor do I see how, in the above-mentioned letters, they could 
 be supposed to be by Razzi, or Peruzzi, or Pacchiarotto, " in 
 their hard dry manner" when history assures us that Giro- 
 lamo was with Pandolfo a considerable time, which cannot be 
 asserted of the other three ; and as it appears that Petrucci, 
 to finish the work of Signorelli, selected Genga from among 
 his scholars. If we deprive him of this work, which is the 
 only one which can be called his own, what can he have exe- 
 cuted in all this time ? In this house there is no other pic- 
 ture that can be assigned to him, although Vasari asserts that 
 he painted other rooms. A most beautiful picture by Genga, 
 and of the greatest rarity, is to be seen in S. Caterina da 
 Siena in Rome ; the subject is the Resurrection of our 
 Saviour. 
 
 Of the other scholars of Perugino we have no distinct ac- 
 count ; but we find some notice of them in the life of their 
 master. Giovanni Spagnuolo, named Lo Spagna, was one of 
 the many oltramontani whom Perugino instructed. The 
 greater part of these introduced his manner into their own 
 countries ; but Giovanni established himself at Spoleto, at 
 which place, and in Assisi, he left his best works. In the 
 opinion of Vasari the colouring of Perugino survived in him 
 more than in his fellow-scholars. In a chapel of the Angioli, 
 below Assisi, there remains the picture described by Vasari, 
 in which are the portraits of the brotherhood of S. Francis, 
 and, perhaps, no other pupil of this school has painted por- 
 
SCHOLARS OF VANNUCCI. 
 
 347 
 
 traits with more truth, if we except Raffaello himself, with 
 whom no other painter is to be compared. 
 
 A more memorable person is Andrea Luigi di Assisi, a 
 competitor of Raffaello, although of more mature years, who, 
 from his happy genius, was named L'Ingegno. He assisted 
 Perugino in the Sala del Cambio, and in other works of more 
 consequence ; and may be said to be the first of that school 
 who began to enlarge the style and soften the colouring. 
 This is observable in several of his works, and singularly so 
 in the Sybils and Prophets in fresco, in the church of Assisi ; 
 if they are by his hand, as is generally believed. It is im- 
 possible to behold his pictures without a feeling of compas- 
 sion, when we recollect that he was visited with blindness at 
 the most valuable period of his life. Domenico di Paris Al- 
 fani also enlarged the manner of his master, and even more 
 than him, Orazio, his son, and not his brother, as has been 
 imagined. This artist bears a great resemblance to Raffaello. 
 There are some of his pictures in Perugia, which, if it were 
 not for a more delicate colouring, and something of the suavity 
 of Baroccio, might be assigned to the school of Raffaello ; 
 and there are pictures on which a question arises, whether 
 they belong to that school or to Orazio, particularly some 
 Madonnas, which are preserved in various collections. I have 
 seen one in the possession of the accomplished Sig. Auditor 
 Frigeri, in Perugia, and there is another in the ducal gallery 
 in Florence. The reputation of the younger Alfani has in- 
 jured that of the other ; and even in Perugia some fine pieces 
 were long considered to be by Orazio, which have been re- 
 stored to Domenico. An account of these, and other works 
 of eminent artists may be found in modern writers, particu- 
 larly in Mariotti, who mentions the altar-piece of the Cruci- 
 fixion, between S. Apollonia and S. Jerome, at the church of 
 the Conventuals, a work by the two Alfanis, father and son. 
 In commendation of the son, he adds, that he was the chief 
 of the academy for design, which was founded in 1573, and, 
 after many honourable struggles, revived in our own time. 
 
 There are other artists of less celebrity in Perugia, though 
 not omitted by Vasari. Eusebio da S. Giorgio painted in the 
 church of S. Francesco di Matelica, a picture with several 
 saints, and on the grado, part of the history of S. Anthony, 
 
348 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL.— EPOCH T. 
 
 witib bis name, and the year 1512. We may recognise in it 
 the drawing of Perugino, but the colouring is feeble. His 
 picture of the Magi at S. Agostino is better coloured, and in 
 this he followed Paris. The works of Giannicola da Perugia, 
 a good colourist, and therefore willingly received by Pietro 
 to assist him in his labours, however inferior to that artist in 
 design and perspective, are recognised in the Cappella del Cam- 
 bio, near the celebrated sala of Perugino, which was painted 
 by him with the life of John the Baptist. In the church of 
 S. Thomas, is his picture of that Apostle about to touch the 
 wounds of our Saviour, and excepting a degree of sameness 
 in the heads, it possesses much of the character of Perugino. 
 Giambatista Caporali, erroneously called Benedetto by Va- 
 sari, Baldinucci, and others, holds likewise a rank in this 
 school, and is more celebrated among the architects. Giulio, 
 his natural son, afterwards legitimatized, cultivated the same 
 profession. 
 
 The succeeding names belonging to this school are not men- 
 tioned by Vasari ; which does not prove the impropriety of 
 their admission, as there are many deserving of notice. Ma- 
 riotti, our guide in the chronology of this age, and a correct 
 judge of the conformity of style, notices Mariano di Ser Eus- 
 terio, whom Vasari calls Mariano da Perugia (torn. iv. p. 
 162), referring to a picture in the church of S. Agostino, in 
 Ancona, which is " not of much interest." In opposition to 
 this opinion of Vasari, however, Mariotti adduces another 
 picture, of a respectable class, by Mariano, to be found in S. 
 Domenico di Perugia ; whence we may conclude that this 
 painting is deserving of a place in the history of art. He 
 also mentions Berto di Giovanni, whom Raffaello engaged as 
 his assistant to paint a picture for the monks of Monteluci 
 (of which we shall speak in our notice of Penni), and who 
 was appointed in this contract, by Raffaello himself, to paint 
 the grado. This grado is in the sacristy, and is so entirely in 
 the manner of Raffaello, in the history of the Virgin which it 
 represents, that we may conclude, either that Raffaello made 
 the design, or that it was painted by one of his school. If it 
 was by Berto, it proves him to have been one of those who 
 exchanged the school of Perugino for that of Raffaello ; and 
 if he did not paint it, he must always be held in considera- 
 
SCHOLARS OF VANNUCCI. 
 
 349 
 
 tion for the regard he received from the master of the art. 
 Of this artist more information may be obtained from Bian- 
 coni, in the "Antologia Romana," vol. iii. p. 121. Mariotti 
 enumerates also Sinibaldo da Perugia, who must be esteemed 
 an excellent painter, from his works in his native place, and 
 more so from those in the cathedral at Gubbio, where he 
 painted a fine picture in 1505, and a gonfalon still more beau- 
 tiful, which would rank him among the first artists of the 
 ancient school. To the above painters Pascoli adds a female 
 artist, of the name of Teodora Danti, who painted cabinet pic- 
 tures in the style of Perugino and his scholars. 
 
 From tradition, as well as conjecture, we may notice in 
 Città di Castello a Francesco of that city, a scholar of Peru- 
 gino, who, in an altar-piece in the church of the Conventuals, 
 left an Annunciation with a fine landscape. He is named in 
 the Guida di Roma, in the account of the chapel of S. Ber- 
 nardino in Ara Cceli, where he is supposed to have worked 
 with Pinturicchio and Signorelli. There is a conjecture, 
 though no decided proof, that a Giacomo di Guglielmo was a 
 pupil of Pietro, who, at Castel della Pieve, his native place, 
 painted a gonfalon, estimated by good judges in Perugia at 
 6ixty-five florins ; and also a Tiberio di Assisi, who, in many 
 of the coloured lunettes in the convent degli Angeli, contain- 
 ing the history of the Life of S. Francis, shews clearly that 
 Perugino was his prototype, though he had not talent enough 
 to imitate him. Besides Tiberio, some have assigned to the 
 instructions of Perugino, the most eminent painter of Assisi, 
 Adone (or Dono) Doni, not unknown to Yasari, who often 
 mentions him, and particularly in his life of Gherardi (vol. v. 
 p. 142). He is there called of Ascoli, an opinion which 
 Bottari maintains against Orlandi, who, on the best grounds, 
 changed it to Assisi. In Ascoli he is not at all known, but 
 he is well known in Perugia, by a large picture of the Last 
 Judgment in the church of S. Francis, and still better in 
 Assisi, where he painted in fresco, in the church of the 
 Angeli, the life of the founder, and of S. Stephen, and many 
 other pieces, which, for a long period, served as a school for 
 youth. He had very little of the ancient manner ; the truth 
 of his portraits is occasionally wonderful ; his colouring is that 
 of the latest of the scholars of Perugino ; and he appears to 
 
350 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 be an artist of more correctness than spirit. I find also a 
 Lattanzio della Marca, of the school of Perugino, commemo- 
 rated by Vasari in the above-mentioned Life. He is thought 
 to be the same as Lattanzio da Rimino, of whom Ridolfi 
 makes mention, among the scholars of Giovanni Bellino, as 
 painting a picture in Venice in rivalship with Conegliano.* 
 We are enabled more correctly to ascertain this from a docu- 
 ment in the possession of Mariotti, of which we shall shortly 
 speak, from which we not only learn to a certainty his native 
 place, but further, that he was the son of Vincenzo Pagani, a 
 celebrated painter, as will hereafter be seen, and that both 
 were living in the year 1553. It appears, therefore, very 
 probable that Lattanzio was instructed by his father, and that 
 we may doubt of his being under Bellini, who died about 
 1516, or under Perugino, among whose disciples he is not 
 enumerated by the very accurate Mariotti. On the death of 
 Vannucci he succeeded to his fame, and obtained some of the 
 most important orders in Perugia, as, for instance, the great 
 work of painting the chambers in the castle. He accom- 
 plished this task by the assistance of Raffaellino del Colle, 
 Gherardi, Doni, and Paperello. He there commenced the 
 picture of S. Maria del Popolo, and executed the lower part, 
 where there are a great number of persons in the attitude of 
 prayer ; a fine expression is observable in the countenances, 
 the figures are well disposed, the landscape beautiful, there is 
 a strength and clearness in the colouring, and a taste which, 
 on the whole, is different from that of Perugino. The upper 
 part of the picture, which is by Gherardi, has not an equal 
 degree of force. Lattanzio finished his career by being sheriff 
 of his native city ; and of this office, a more honourable dis- 
 tinction than at the present day, it appears he took possession 
 in the year 1553, and at that time renounced the art. It is 
 certain, that, in the before-mentioned paper, the Capitano 
 Lattanzio di Vincenzo Pagani da Monte Rubbiano acknow- 
 ledges to have received six scudi of gold from Sforza degli 
 Oddi, as earnest-money for a picture representing the Trinity, 
 
 * He probably came to Venice from Rimino, or resided there for 
 some time. We find other early painters assigned, first to one country 
 and then to another, as Jacopo Davanzo, Pietro Vannucci, Lorenzo 
 Lotto, &c. 
 
ERCOLE RAMAZZANI. 
 
 351 
 
 with four saints ; and engages that in the ensuing August it 
 should be executed by his father, Vincenzo, and Tommaso da 
 Cortona. This must be the picture still existing in the chapel 
 of the Oddi in S. Francesco, since the figures particularized 
 in the agreement are found there ; we shall have an oppor- 
 tunity of noticing it again. 
 
 In the " Antichità Picene," torn. xxi. p. 148, Ercole Ra- 
 mazzani di Roccacontrada is recorded as a scholar of Pietro 
 Perugino, and for some time of Raffaello. A picture of the 
 Circumcision, by him, is there mentioned to be at Castel Planio, 
 with his name and the date of 1588 ; and in speaking of the 
 artist, it is added, that he possessed a beautiful style of colour^ 
 a charming invention, and a manner approaching to Barocci. 
 I have never seen the picture, nor the others which he left in 
 his native city, mentioned in the " Memorie " of Abbondan- 
 ziere ; but only one by a Ramazzani di Roccacontrada, painted 
 in the church of S. Francesco, in Matelica, in 1573. Al- 
 though I cannot affirm to a certainty that this painter called 
 himself Ercole, I still suspect him to be the same. It repre- 
 sents the conception of the Virgin, in which the idea of the 
 subject is taken from Vasari, where Adam, and others of the 
 Old Testament, are seen bound to the tree of knowledge of 
 good and evil, as the heirs of sin, while the Virgin triumphs 
 over .them in her exemption from the penalty of the first 
 parents. Ramazzani has adopted this design, which he had 
 probably seen, but he has executed his picture on a much 
 larger scale, with better colouring, and more expression in the 
 countenances. To conclude, we do not see a trace of the 
 manner of Perugino, and the period at which he lived seems 
 too late for him to have received instructions from that artist ; 
 and it is probable that he was taught by some of his latter 
 scholars, in whom that more fascinating than correct style of 
 colouring had its origin, before it was adopted by Barocci. 
 
 I may further observe, that as Perugino was the most cele- 
 brated name at the beginning of the sixteenth century, many 
 other artists of the Roman states, who studied the art about 
 his time, are given to his school without sufficient authority ; 
 and particularly those who retained a share of the old style. 
 Such was a Palmerini of Urbino, a contemporary of Raffaello, 
 and probably his fellow-scholar, of whom there remains at 
 
352 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH I. 
 
 S. Antonio a picture of various saints, truly beautiful, and ap- 
 proaching to a more modern style. In the same style I found, 
 ill the Borghese gallery at Rome, the Woman of Samaria at 
 the Well, painted by a Pietro da Giulianello, a little district 
 not far from Rome ; an artist deserving to be placed in the 
 first rank of quattrocentisti, although not mentioned by any 
 writer. There are some pictures by Pietro Paolo Agabiti, 
 who, in torn. xx. of the " Ant. Pic," is said to be of Masaccio, 
 where he painted in 1531, and afterwards. But I have seen 
 a work by him in the church of S. Agostino in Sassoferrato, 
 a series of small histories, with an inscription, in which he 
 names Sassoferrato as his native place, with the date of 1514, 
 that will carry him from the moderns to the better class of 
 the old school. Lorenzo Pittori da Macerata painted in the 
 church of the Virgin, highly esteemed for its architecture, a 
 picture of Christ in 1533, in a manner which has been called 
 antico moderno. Two artists, Bartolommeo and Pompeo, his 
 son, flourished in Fano, and painted in 1534 in conjunction, 
 in the church of S. Michele, the Resurrection of Lazarus. It 
 is wonderful to observe how little they regarded the reform 
 which the art had undergone. These artists strictly foUowed 
 the dry style of the quattrocentisti, with a thorough contempt 
 of the modern. Nor was the son at all modernized on leaving 
 his father s studio. I found at S. Andrea di Pesaro a picture 
 of various saints, which might have done him honour in the 
 preceding age. Civalli mentions other works by him in a 
 better style ; and he certainly in his lifetime enjoyed a degree 
 of reputation, and was one of the masters of Taddeo Zuccaro. 
 There are a number of painters of this class, of whom a long 
 list might be compiled ; they are generally represented to be 
 pupils of some well-known master, and in such cases Pietro 
 Perugino is selected, but it would be more candid to confess 
 our ignorance on the subject. 
 
 It would be improper to pass to another epoch without ad- 
 verting to the grotesque. This branch of the art is censured 
 by Vitruvius* as a creation of monsters beyond the reign of 
 nature, transferring to canvas the ravings of a disordered 
 
 * It is said that Mengs, who was desirous of being considered n 
 philosophical painter, coincided with Vitruvius in opinion. But th\s 
 
REVIVAL OF GROTESQUES. 
 
 353 
 
 fancy, wild as the waves of a convulsed sea, lashed into a 
 thousand varying forms by the tempest. This style took its 
 name from the grotte, for so those beautiful antique edifices 
 may be called, where paintings of this kind are found, covered 
 with earth, and with buildings of a later period. It was revived 
 in Rome, where a greater proportion of these ancient specimens 
 is found, and was restored at this epoch. Vasari ascribes the 
 revival to Morto da Feltro, and the perfecting of the style to 
 Giovanni da Udine. Notwithstanding the little esteem he had 
 for Pinturicchio, he calls him the friend of Morto da Feltro, 
 and allows that he executed many works in the same manner 
 in Castel S. Angelo. Before him, too, Pietro his master had 
 painted some of the same kind in the Sala del Cambio, which 
 Orsini says are well conceived, and to him likewise .a prece- 
 dent had been afforded by Benedetto Bonfigli, of whom Taja. 
 in his description of the Vatican palace, says, that he painted 
 for Innocent VIII. in Rome some singularly beautiful gro- 
 tesques. This branch was afterwards cultivated in many of 
 the schools of Italy, particularly in that of Siena. Peruzzi 
 approved of it in architecture, adopted it in his painting, and 
 gave occasion to Lomazzo to offer a defence of it in the sixth 
 book of his Trattato della Pittura. 
 
 opinion should be restricted to some indifferent specimens ; for when he 
 afterwards saw them painted in the true style of the ancients, he regarded 
 them with extraordinary pleasure ; as in Genoa, which possesses 
 some beautiful arabesques by Vaga. So the defender of Ratti assures 
 us. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
354 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH IL 
 
 Raffaello and his School. 
 
 "We are row arrived at the most brilliant period of the Roman 
 school, and of modern painting itself. We have seen the art 
 carried to a high degree of perfection by Da Yinci and Bonar- 
 ruoti, at the beginning of the 16th century, and it is remark- 
 able that the same period embraces not only Raffaello, but also 
 Correggio, Giorgione, Titiano, and the most celebrated Venetian 
 painters ; so that a man % enjoying the common term of life 
 might have seen the works of all these illustrious masters. The 
 art in a few years thus reached a height to which it had never 
 before attained, and which has ne^er been rivalled, except in 
 the attempt to imitate these early masters, or to unite in one 
 style their varied and divided excellencies. It seems an ordi- 
 nary law of providence that individuals of consummate genius 
 should be born and flourish at the same period, or at least at 
 short intervals from each other, a circumstance of which Yel- 
 leius Paterculus protested he could never discover the real 
 cause. I observe, he says, men of the same commanding 
 genius making their appearance together, in the smallest possi- 
 ble space of time ; as it happens in the case of animals of 
 different kinds, which, confined in a close place, nevertheless, 
 each selects its own class, and those of a kindred race separate 
 themselves from the rest. A single age sufficed to illustrate 
 Tragedy, in the persons of iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides: 
 ancient comedy under Cratinus, Aristophanes, and Eumol- 
 pides ; and in like manner the new comedy under Menander, 
 Diphilus, and Philemon. There appeared few philosophers of 
 note after the days of Plato and Aristotle, and whoever has 
 
REMARKS ON GENIUS. 
 
 355 
 
 made himself acquainted with Isocrates and his school, is ac- 
 quainted with the summit of Grecian eloquence. The same 
 remark applies to other countries. The great Roman writers 
 are included under the single age of Octavius : Leo X. was 
 the Augustus of modern Italy ; the reign of Louis XIV. was 
 the brilliant era of French letters, that of Charles II. of the 
 English. 
 
 This rule applies equally to the fine arts. Hoc idem, pro- 
 ceeds Velleius, evenisse plastis, pictoribus, sculptoribus, quis- 
 quis temporum institerit notis reperiet, et eminentiam cujusque 
 operis artissimis temporum claustris circumdatum.* Of 
 this union of men of genius in the same age, Causas, he says, 
 quum semper requiro, numquam invenio quas ver as confidam. 
 It seems to him probable that when a man finds the first sta- 
 tion in art occupied by another, he considers it as a post that has 
 been rightfully seized on, and no longer aspires to the posses- 
 sion of it, but is humiliated, and contented to follow at a dis- 
 tance. But this solution does not satisfy my mind. It may 
 indeed account to us why no other Michelangelo, or Raffaello, 
 has ever appeared ; but it does not satisfy me why these two, 
 and the others before mentioned, should all have appeared in 
 the same age. I am of opinion that the age is always influ- 
 enced by certain principles, universally adopted both by pro- 
 fessors of the art, and by amateurs : which principles happen- 
 ing at a particular period to be the most just and accurate of 
 their kind, produce in that age some supereminent professors, 
 and a number of good ones. These principles change through 
 the instability of all human affairs, and the age partakes in 
 the change. I may add that these happy periods never occur 
 without the circumstance of a number of princes and influen- 
 tial individuals rivalling each other in the encouragement of 
 works of taste ; and amidst these there always arise persons 
 of commanding genius, who give a bias and tone to art. The 
 history of sculpture in Athens, where munificence and taste 
 went hand in hand, favours my opinion, and it is confirmed 
 by this golden period of Italian art. Nevertheless, I do not 
 pretend to give a verdict on this important question, but leave 
 the decision of it to a more competent tribunal. 
 
 * Hist. Rom. vol. i. ad. calcem. 
 2 a 2 
 
356 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 But although it be a matter of difficulty to account for this 
 development of rare talent at one particular period, we may 
 hope to trace the steps of a single individual to excellence ; 
 and I would wish to do so of Raffaello. Nature and fortune 
 seemed to unite in lavishing their favours on this artist ; the 
 first in investing him with the rarest gifts of genius, the other 
 in adding to these a singular combination of propitious circum- 
 stances. In order to illustrate our inquiry it will be necessary 
 to observe him from his earliest years,* and to note the pro- 
 gress of his mind. He was born in Urbino in 1483 ; and if 
 climate have any influence on the genius of an artist, I know 
 not a happier spot that could have been chosen for his birth 
 than that part of Italy which gave to architecture a Bramante, 
 supplied the art of painting with a successor to Raffaello in 
 Baroccio, and bestowed on sculpture the plastic hand of a 
 Brandani, without referring to less celebrated, but still de- 
 serving artists, the boast of Urbino and her state. The father 
 of this illustrious artist was Giovanni di Santi,t or, as he has 
 
 * Besides his life by Vasari, another was published by Sig. Abate 
 Comolli, which I consider posterior to that of Vasari. Memoirs of him 
 were collected by Piacenza, Bottari, and other authors whom I shall 
 notice ; and I shall avail myself of the information derived from the in- 
 spection of his pictures, their character, and the dates of his works. 
 
 f We find his name written Io Sanctis in the Nunziata of Sinigaglia (a) ; 
 and it appears that he was born of a father called, according to the ex- 
 pression of that age, Santi or Sante; a name in common use in many 
 parts of Italy. In support of the surname of Sanzio, Bottari pro- 
 duces a portrait of Antonio Sanzio, which exists in the Palazzo 
 Albani, representing him holding in his hands a document, with the 
 title of " Genealogia Raphaelis Sanctii Urbinatis." Julius Sanctius is 
 there named as the head of the family, families quce adhuc Urbini illus- 
 tris extat, ab agris dividendis cognomen imposuit, and was the progenitor 
 of Antonio. From the latter, and through a Sebastiano, and afterwards 
 through a Gio. Batista, descends Giovanni, ex quo ortus est Raphael qui 
 pinxit a. 1519. It is also recorded that Sebastiano had a brother, 
 Galeazzo, egregium pictorem, and the father of three painters, Antonio, 
 Vincenzio, and Giulio, called maximus pictor. Thus in this branch of 
 the Sanzii are enumerated four painters, of whom I do not find any 
 memorial in Urbino. The family also boasts of a Canon in divinity, and 
 a distinguished captain of infantry. The anonymous writer of Comolli 
 confirms this illustrious origin of Raffaello ; but it is highly probable, that 
 in that age, when the forgery of genealogies, as Tiraboschi observes, was 
 
 {a) The Annunciata of Sinigaglia is now seen in the R. Pinacoteca of 
 Milan, and we there read Io Sanctius Urbinas Pix. 
 
RAFFAELLOS YOUTH. 
 
 357 
 
 been commonly called, Giovanni Sanzio, an artist of moderate 
 talents, who could contribute but little to the instruction of 
 his son ; although it was no small advantage to have been 
 initiated in a simple style, divested of mannerism. He made 
 some further progress from studying the works of F. Carne- 
 vale, an artist of great merit for the times in which he 
 flourished ; and being placed at Perugia, under Pietro, he 
 soon became master of his style, as Yasari observes, and had 
 probably already formed the design of excelling him. I was 
 informed, in Città di Castello, that at the age of 17 he painted 
 the picture of S. Nicholas of Tolentino, in the church of the 
 Eremitani. The style was that of Perugino, but the compo- 
 sition differed from that of the age, being the throne of our 
 Saviour surrounded by saints. The Beato is there represented, 
 while the Virgin and St. Augustine, concealed in part by a 
 cloud, bind his temples with a crown ; there are two angels 
 at the right hand, and two at the left, graceful, and in different 
 attitudes ; with inscriptions variously folded, on which are 
 inscribed words in praise of S. Eremitano. Above is the 
 Eternal Father, surrounded by a majestic choir of angels. The 
 actors of the scene appear to be in a temple, the pillars of 
 which are ornamented in the minute and laboured style of 
 Mantegna, and the ancient manner is perceptible in the folds 
 of the drapery, though there is an evident improvement in the 
 
 a common practice, he may have adopted it without any examination. 
 The portrait of Antonio is well executed, but it has been said that it 
 would have been much more so, if Raffaello had painted it a year before 
 his death, according to the inscription. If connoisseurs (who alone ought 
 to decide this point) should be of this opinion, it must be suspected that 
 the person that counterfeited the hand of the artist, might also substitute 
 the writing ; or we may at least conclude, that the etymology of Sanzio 
 should be sought for in the word Sanctis, the name of the grandfather of 
 Raffaello, not in sancire (to divide fields or property). In torn. xxxi. of 
 the Ant. Picene, a will is produced of Ser Simone di Antonio, in 1477, 
 where a Magister Baptist a, qu. Peri Sanctis de Peris, who is called 
 Pittar di grido e di eccellenza, leaves his son Tommaso his heir, to whom 
 is substituted a son of Antonio his brother, of the name of Francesco. 
 I may remark, that in this Batista di Pier Sante de' Pieri, we may find 
 the surname of a family different from that of Sanzia. But on this subject 
 I hope we shall shortly be favoured with more certain information by the 
 Sig. Arciprete Lazzari, who has obliged me with many valuable contribu- 
 tions to the present edition of this work. 
 
358 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 design, as in the figure of Satan, under the feet of the saint. 
 This figure is free from the singular deformity with which the 
 ancient painters represented him ; and has the genuine fea- 
 tures of an Ethiopian. To this picture another of this period 
 may be added in the church of S. Domenico ; a Crucifixion, 
 with two attendant angels ; the one receives in a cup the 
 sacred blood which flows from the right hand, the other, in 
 two cups, collects that of the left hand and the side ; the 
 weeping mother and disciples contribute their aid, while the 
 Magdalen and an aged saint kneeling in silence contemplate 
 the solemn mystery ; above is the Deity. These figures might 
 all pass for those of Pietro, except the Virgin, the beauty of 
 which he never equalled, unless, perhaps, in the latter part of 
 his life. Another specimen of this period is noticed by the 
 Abate Morcelli (de Stylo Inscript. Latin, p. 476). He states, 
 that in the possession of Sig. Annibale Maggiori, a nobleman 
 of Femo, he saw the picture of a Madonna, raising with both 
 hands a veil of delicate texture from the holy Infant, as he 
 lies in a cradle asleep. Nigh at hand is S. Joseph, whose 
 eyes rest in contemplation on the happy scene, and on his 
 staff the same writer detected an inscription in minute cha- 
 racters, " r. s. v. a. a. xvii. p." Raphael Sanctius Urbinus an. 
 setatis 17 pinxit. This must have been the first attempt of 
 the design which he perfected at a more mature age, and which 
 is in the Treasury of Loretto, where the holy Infant is repre- 
 sented, not in the act of sleeping, but gracefully stretching out 
 his hand to the Virgin : of the same epoch I judge the tondini 
 to be, which I shall describe when I refer to the Madonna 
 della Seggiola. 
 
 Vasari informs us, that before executing these two pictures, 
 he had already painted in Perugia an Assumption, in the 
 church of the Conventuals, with three subjects from the life 
 of Christ in the grado ; which may, however, be doubted, as 
 it is a more perfect work. This picture possesses all the best 
 parts of the style of Vannucci ; but the varied expressions 
 which the apostles discover, on finding the sepulchre void, are 
 beyond the reach of that artist's powers. Raffaello still fur- 
 ther excelled his master, as Vasari observes, in the third pic- 
 ture painted for Città di Castello. This is the Marriage of 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 the Virgin, in the church of S. Francesco.* The composition 
 very much resembles that which he adopted in a picture of 
 the same subject in Perugia ; but there is sufficient of modern 
 art in it to indicate the commencement of a new style. The 
 two espoused have a degree of beauty which Raffaello scarcely 
 surpassed in his mature age, in any other countenances. The 
 Virgin, particularly, is a model of celestial beauty. A youth- 
 ful band, festively adorned, accompany her to her espousals ; 
 splendour vies with elegance ; the attitudes are engaging, the 
 veils variously arranged, and there is a mixture of ancient 
 and modern drapery, which at so early a period cannot be 
 considered as a fault. In the midst of these accompaniments 
 the principal figure triumphantly appears, not ornamented by 
 the hand of art, but distinguished by her native nobility, 
 beauty, modesty, and grace. The first sight of this perform- 
 ance strikes us with astonishment, and we involuntarily ex- 
 claim, " How divine and noble the spirit that animates her 
 heavenly form !" The group of the men of the party of S. 
 Joseph are equally well conceived. In these figures we see 
 nothing of the stiffness of the drapery, the dryness of execu- 
 tion, and the peculiar style of Pietro, which sometimes ap- 
 proaches to harshness ; all is action, and an animating spirit 
 breathes in every gesture and in every countenance. The 
 landscapes are not represented with sterile and impoverished 
 trees, as in the back-grounds of Pietro ; but are drawn from 
 nature, and finished with care. The round temple in the 
 summit is ornamented with columns, and executed, Vasari 
 observes, with such admirable art, that it is wonderful to ob- 
 serve the difficulties he has willingly incurred. In the dis- 
 tance are beautiful groups, and there is a figure of a poor man 
 imploring charity, depicted to the life, and more near, a youth 
 in the act of spitefully breaking his unblossomed wand,t a 
 figure which proves the artist to have been master of the 
 then novel art of foreshortening. I have purposely described 
 these specimens of the early years of Raphael, more particu- 
 larly than any other writer, in order to acquaint the reader 
 
 * This picture now forms the most valuable specimen of the R. Pina- 
 coteca. 
 
 •f From this description it would appear that Lanzi borrowed it from 
 some book, and had not seen the painting. 
 
360 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 with the rise of his divine talents. In the labours of his 
 more mature years, the various masters whose works he stu- 
 died may each claim his own ; but in his first flight he was 
 exclusively supported by the vigour of his own talents. The 
 bent of his genius, which was not less voluptuous and grace* 
 fui than it was noble and elevated, led him to that ideal 
 beauty, grace, and expression, the most refined and difficult 
 province of painting. To insure success in this department 
 neither study nor art is sufficient. A natural taste for the 
 beautiful, an intellectual faculty of combining the several ex- 
 cellencies of many individuals in one perfect whole, a vivid 
 apprehension, and a sort of fervour in seizing the momentary 
 expressions of passion, a facility of touch, obedient to the 
 conceptions of the imagination, were means which nature 
 alone could furnish, and these, as we have seen, he possessed 
 from his earliest years. Whoever ascribes the success of 
 Raffaello to the effects of study, and not to the felicity of his 
 genius, does not justly appreciate the gifts which were lavished 
 on him by nature. * 
 
 He now became the admiration of his master and his fel- 
 low scholars ; and about the same time Pinturicchio, after 
 having painted with so much applause at Rome, before Raffa- 
 ello was born, aspired to become, as it were, his scholar in the 
 great work at Siena. He did not possess a genius sufficiently 
 elevated for the sublime composition which the place re- 
 quired ; nor had Pietro sufficient fertility, or a conception of 
 mind equal to so novel an undertaking. It was intended to 
 represent the life and actions of iEneas Silvius Piccolomini, 
 afterwards Pope Pius II. ; the embassies entrusted to him by 
 the council of Constance to various princes ; and by Felix, 
 the antipope, to Frederick III., who conferred on him the 
 laurel crown ; and also the various embassies which he under- 
 took for Frederick himself to Eugenius IV., and afterwards 
 to Callistus IV., who created him a cardinal. His subse- 
 
 * Condivi, in his life of Bonarruoti (num. 67), assures us that Michel- 
 angelo was not of a jealous temper, but spoke well of all artists, not ex- 
 cepting Raff aello di Urbino, " between whom and himself existed, as I 
 have mentioned, an emulation in painting ; and the utmost that he said 
 was, that Raffaello did not inherit his excellencies from nature, but obtained 
 them through study and application." 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 361 
 
 qnenf, exaltation to the papacy, and the most remarkable 
 events of his reign, were also to be represented ; the cano- 
 nization of S. Catherine ; his attendance on the Council of 
 Mantua, where he was received in a princely manner by the 
 duke ; and finally his death, and the removal of his body 
 from Ancona to Rome. Never, perhaps, was an undertaking 
 of such magnitude entrusted to a single master. The art 
 itself had not yet attempted any great flight. The principal 
 figures generally stood isolated, as Pietro exhibited them in 
 Perugia, without aiming at composition. In consequence of 
 this the proportions were seldom true, nor did the artists de- 
 part much from sacred subjects, the frequent repetition of 
 which had already opened the way to plagiarism. His- 
 torical subjects of this nature were new to Raffaello, and to 
 him, unaccustomed to reside in a metropolis, it must have 
 been most difficult, in painting so many as eleven pictures, to 
 imitate the splendour of different courts, and the manners of 
 all Europe, varying the composition agreeably to the occasion. 
 Nevertheless, being conducted by his friend to Siena, he made 
 the sketches and cartoons of all these subjects, says Yasari 
 in his life of Pinturicchio, and that he made the sketches of 
 the whole is the common report at Siena. In the Life of 
 Raffaello he states that he made some of the designs and car- 
 toons for this work, and that the reason of his not continuing 
 them, was his haste to proceed to Florence, to see the cartoons 
 of Da Yinci and Bonarruoti. But I am more inclined to the 
 first statement than the subsequent one. In April, 1503, 
 Raffaello was employed in the Library, as is proved by the 
 will of Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini.* While the Library 
 was yet unfinished, Piccolomini was elected Pope ; and his 
 coronation following on the eighth of October, Pinturicchio 
 commemorated the event on the outside of the Library, in 
 the part opposite to the duomo. Bottari remarks, that in this 
 facade we may detect not only the design, but in many of the 
 heads the colouring of Raffaello. It appears probable there- 
 fore that he remained to complete the work, the last subject 
 of which might perhaps be finished in the following year, 
 
 * See the Preface to the Life of Raffaello, by Vasari, ediz. Seneze, p. 
 228, where the will is quoted. 
 
362 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 1504, in which he departed to Florence. We may here ob- 
 serve, that this work, which has maintained its colours so 
 well that it almost appears of recent execution, confers great 
 honour on a young artist of twenty years of age ; as we do 
 not find a composition of such magnitude, in the passage from 
 ancient to modern art, conceived by any single painter. So 
 that if Raffaello stood not entirely alone in this work, the 
 best part of it must still be assigned to him, since Pintu- 
 ricchio himself was improving at this time, and the works 
 which he afterwards executed at Spello and Siena, incline 
 more to the modern than any he had before done. This will 
 justify us in concluding that Raffaello had already, at that 
 early age, far outstripped his master ; his contour being more 
 full, his composition more rich and free, accompanied by an 
 ornamental and grander style, and an ability unlimited, ca- 
 pable of embracing every subject presented to him. 
 
 The works which he saw in Florence did not lead him out 
 of his own path, as, to mention one instance, afterwards hap- 
 pened to Franco, who, coming from Venice, applied himself 
 to a style of design and career entirely new. Raffaello had 
 formed his own system, and only sought examples, to enlarge 
 his ideas and facilitate his execution. He therefore studied 
 the works of Masaccio, an elegant and expressive painter, 
 whose Adam and Eve he adopted in the Vatican. He also 
 became acquainted with Fra Bartolommeo, who, about this 
 time, had returned to the exercise of his profession. To this 
 artist he taught the principles of perspective, and acquired 
 from him, in return, a better style of colouring. We have 
 not any record to prove that he made himself known to Da 
 Vinci ; and the portrait of Raffaello, in the ducal gallery in 
 Florence, said to be by Lionardo, is an unknown head. I 
 would willingly, however, flatter myself, that a congeniality 
 of mind and an affinity of genius, emulous in the pursuit of 
 perfection, must have produced a knowledge of each other, if 
 it did not conciliate a mutual attachment. No one was more 
 capable than Da Vinci of communicating to Raffaello a de- 
 gree of refinement and knowledge, which he could not have 
 received from Pietro ; and to introduce him into the more 
 subtle views of art. As to Michelangelo, his pictures were 
 rare, and less analogous to the genius of Raffaello. His 
 
RAFFAELLO. 363 
 
 celebrated cartoon was not yet finished, in 1504, and that 
 great master was jealous of its being seen before its entire 
 completion. He finished it some few years afterwards, when 
 he returned to Florence on his flight from Rome, occasioned 
 by the anger of Julius II. Raffaello, therefore, could not 
 have had the opportunity of studying it at the time, nor did 
 he then long remain in Florence, for, as Vasari states, he was 
 soon obliged to return to his native place, in consequence of 
 the death of his parents.* In 1505 we find him in Perugia: 
 and to this year belongs the chapel of S. Severo, and the 
 Crucifixion, which was severed from the wall, and preserved 
 by the Padri Camaldolensi. From these works, all in fresco, 
 we may ascertain the style which he acquired in Florence ; 
 and we may asseit, that it was not anatomical, no traces of 
 it being visible iu the body of the Redeemer, which was an 
 opportunity well adapted for the exhibition of it. Nor was 
 it the study of the beautiful, of which he had previously ex- 
 hibited such delightful specimens ; nor that of expression, 
 as there were not to be found in Florence, heads more 
 expressive and lovely than those he had painted. But 
 after his visit to Florence, we find his colouring more 
 delicate, and his grouping and foreshortening of his figures 
 improved ; whether or not he owed it to the example 
 of Da Vinci or Bonarruoti, or both together, or to some of 
 the older masters. He afterwards repaired to Florence, but 
 soon quitted it again, in order to paint in the church of S. 
 Francis, in Perugia, a dead Christ entombed, the cartoon of 
 which he had designed at Florence ; and which picture was first 
 placed in the church of S. Francis, was afterwards, in the pon- 
 tificate of Paul V., transferred to Rome, and is now in the Borg- 
 hese palace. After this he returned again to Florence, and re- 
 
 * Vasari states, that that event occurred either whilst Michelangelo 
 was employed upon the statues in S. Pietro in Vincoli, or whilst he was 
 painting the vault of the Sistine Chapel, some years afterwards, when 
 Raffaello was in Rome. To this second opinion, which is the most com- 
 mon one, I formerly assented ; but since, on perusal of a Brief of Julius 
 II. (Lett. Pittoriche, torn. iii. p. 320), in which that Pope invites 
 Michelangelo back to Rome, and promises that illasus, inviolatmqun 
 erit, I am inclined to believe that the cartoon was finished in 1506, 
 which is the date of the brief ; so that Raffaello, if he could not see it 
 9n his first visit to Florence, might have done so on his second or third. 
 
364 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. — EPOCH II. 
 
 mained there until his departure for Rome, at the end of the year 
 1508. In this interval, more particularly, he executed the works 
 which are said to be in his second style, though it is a very deli- 
 cate matter to attempt to point them out. Vasari assigns to this 
 period the Holy Family in the Rinuccini gallery, and yet it 
 bears the date of 1506. Of this second style is undoubtedly 
 the picture of the Madonna and the infant Christ and S. John, 
 in a beautiful landscape, with ruins in the distance, which is 
 in the gallery of the grand duke, and others, some of which 
 are to be found in foreign countries. His pictures of this 
 period are composed in the more usual style of a Madonna, 
 accompanied by saints, like the picture of the Pitti palace, 
 formerly at Pescio, and that of S. Fiorenzo in Perugia, which 
 passed into England. The attitudes, however, the air of the 
 heads, and smaller features of composition, are beyond a com- 
 mon style. The dead Christ above-mentioned, is in a more 
 novel and superior style. Vasari calls it a most divine pic- 
 ture ; the figures are not numerous, but each fulfils perfectly 
 the part assigned to it ; the subject is most affecting ; the 
 heads are remarkably beautiful, and the earliest of the kind 
 in the restoration of art, while the expression of profound 
 sorrow and extreme anguish does not divest them of their 
 beauty. After finishing this work, Raffaello was ambitious 
 of painting an apartment in Florence, one, I believe, of the 
 Palazzo Publico. There remains a letter of his, in which 
 he requests the duke of Urbino to write to the Gonfaloniere 
 Soderini, in April, 1508.* But his relative, Bramante, pro- 
 cured him a nobler employ in Rome, recommending him to Julius 
 II. to ornament the Vatican. He removed thither, and was al- 
 ready established there in the September of the same year.t 
 
 We at length, then, behold him fixed in Rome, and placed 
 in the Vatican at a period, and under circumstances, calculated 
 
 * See Vasari, ed. Sen. torn. v. p. 238, where we find the letter written 
 from him to one of his uncles, with all the provincialisms common to the 
 inhabitants of Urbino and its neighbourhood. 
 
 •j- Malvasia, " Felsina Pittrice," torn. i. p. 45. There are some facts, 
 however, in opposition to this letter, and which seem to prove that 
 Raffaello did not go to Rome until 1510. But the Sig. Abate Francesconi 
 is now employed in rectifying the chronology of the Life and Works of 
 Sanzio ; and from his critical sagacity we may expect the solution of this 
 diificulty. 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 365 
 
 to render him the first painter in the world. His biographers 
 do not mention his literary attainments ; and, if we were to 
 judge from his letter just cited, and now in the Museo Borgia, 
 we might consider him grossly illiterate. But he was then 
 writing to his uncle, and therefore made use of his native 
 dialect, as is still done even in the public acts in Venice ; 
 though he might be master of, and might use on proper occa- 
 sions, a more correct language. Raffaello, too, was of a family 
 competent to afford him the necessary instructions in his early 
 years. Other letters of his are found in the " Lettere Pit- 
 toriche," in a very different style ; and of his knowledge in 
 matters of importance, it is sufficient to refer to what Celio 
 Calcagnini, an eminent literary character of the age of Leo, 
 states of him to Giacomo Zieglero : " I need not," he says, 
 " mention Yitruvius, whose precepts he not only explains, but 
 defends or impugns with evident justice, and with so much 
 temper, that in his objections there does not appear the slight- 
 est asperity. He has excited the admiration of the pontiff 
 Leo, and of all the Romans, in such a way, that they regard 
 him as a man sent down from heaven purposely to restore the 
 eternal city to its ancient splendour."* This acknowledged 
 skill in architecture must suppose an adequate acquaintance 
 with the Latin language and geometry ; and we know from 
 other quarters, that he assiduously cultivated anatomy, history, 
 and poetry, f But his principal pursuit in Rome was the 
 study of the remains of Grecian genius, and by which he 
 perfected his knowledge of art. He studied, too, the ancient 
 buildings, and was instructed in the principles of architecture 
 for six years by Bramante, in order that on his death he might 
 succeed him in the management of the building of S. Peter. J 
 He lived among the ancient sculptors, and derived from them 
 
 * See Le Aggiunte al Vasari, Ed. Senese, p. 223. 
 
 t A sonnet by him is referred to by Sig. Piacenza, in his notes to 
 Baldinucci, torn. xi. p. 371. 
 
 X In compliance with the wishes of Leo X. he made drawings of the 
 buildings of ancient Rome, and accompanied them with descriptions, 
 employing the compass to ascertain their admeasurement. We owe this 
 information to Sig. Abate Francesconi, who has restored to Sanzio a letter, 
 formerly attributed to Castiglione. It is a sort of dedication of the wcrk 
 to Leo. X. ; but the work itself and the drawings are lost ; and many of 
 the edifices measured by Raffaello were destroyed in the following ponti- 
 
366 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 not only their contours and drapery, and attitudes, but the 
 spirit and principles of the art itself. Not content with what 
 he saw in Rome, he employed artists to copy the remains of 
 antiquity at Pozzuolo and throughout all Italy, and even in 
 Greece. Nor did he derive less assistance from living artists 
 whom he consulted on his compositions. " The universal 
 esteem which he enjoyed,"f and his attractive person and en- 
 gaging manners, which all accounts unite in describing as in- 
 comparable, conciliated him the favour of the most eminent 
 men of letters ; and Bembo, Castiglione, Giovio, Navagero, 
 Ariosto, Aretino, Fulvio, and Calcagnini, set a high value on 
 his friendship, and supplied him, we may be allowed to sup- 
 pose, with hints and ideas for his works. 
 
 His rival, Michelangelo, too, and his party, contributed 
 not a little to the success of Raffaello. As the contest between 
 Zeuxis and Parrhasius was beneficial to them both, so the 
 rivalship of Bonarruoti and Sanzio aided the fame of Michel- 
 angelo, and produced the paintings of the Sistine chapel ; and 
 at the same time contributed to the celebrity of Raffaello, by 
 producing the pictures of the Vatican, and not a few others. 
 Michelangelo, disdaining any secondary honours, came to the 
 combat, as it were, attended by his shield -bearer, for he made 
 drawings in his grand style, and then gave them to F» 
 Sebastiano, the scholar of Giorgione, to execute ; and by 
 these means he hoped that Raffaello would never be 
 able to rival his productions either in design or colour. 
 Raffaello stood alone ; but aimed at producing works with 
 a degree of perfection beyond the united efforts of Michel- 
 angelo and Sebastian del Piombo, combining in himself 
 a fertile imagination, ideal beauty founded on a correct imita- 
 tion of the Greek style, grace, ease, amenity, and an uni- 
 versality of genius in every department of the art. The 
 noble determination of triumphing in such a powerful contest 
 
 ficates. The Abate Morelli has made public a high eulogium on this 
 work, by a contemporary pen, in the notes to the Notizia, p. 210. It is 
 written by one Marcantonio Michiel, who asserts, that Raffaello had 
 drawn the ancient buildings of Rome in such a manner, and shewn their 
 proportions, forms, and ornaments so correctly, that whoever had in- 
 spected them might be said to have seen ancient Rome, 
 f In a brief of Leo. X. 1514, mentioned by Sig. Piacenza, torn. ii. p. 321 , 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 367 
 
 animated him night and day, and allowed him no respite. It 
 also excited him to surpass both his rivals and himself in 
 every new work. The subjects, too, chosen for these chambers 
 aided him, as they were in a great measure new, or required 
 to be treated in a novel manner. They did not profess to re- 
 present bacchanalian or vulgar scenes, but the exalted symbols 
 of science ; the sacred functions of religion ; military actions, 
 which contributed to establish the peace of the world ; im- 
 portant events of former days, under which were typified the 
 reigns of the pontiffs Julius and Leo X. ; the latter the most 
 powerful protector, and one of the most accomplished judges 
 of art. More favourable circumstances could not have con- 
 spired to stimulate a noble mind. The eulogizing of Augustus 
 was a theme for the poets of his age, which produced the 
 richest fruits of genius. Propertius, accustomed to sing only 
 of the charms or the disdain of his Cinthia, felt himself another 
 poet when called on to celebrate the triumphs of Augustus ; 
 and with new-born fervour invoked Jove himself to suspend 
 the functions of his divinity whilst he sang the praises of the 
 emperor.* Such elevated subjects, in minds richly stored, 
 must excite corresponding ideas, and thus both in poets and 
 painters, give birth to the sublime. 
 
 Raffaello, on his arrival in Rome, says Vasari, was com- 
 missioned to paint a chamber, which was at that time caHed 
 La Segnatura, and which, from the subject of the pictures, 
 was called the chamber of the sciences. On the ceiling are 
 represented Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence. 
 Each of them has on the neighbouring facade a grand histo- 
 rical piece, illustrative of the subject. On the basement are 
 also historical pieces which belong to the same sciences ; and 
 these smaller performances, and the caryatides and telamoni 
 distributed around, are monocromati or chiaroscuri, an idea 
 entirely of Raffaello, and afterwards, it is said, continued by 
 Polidoro da Caravaggio. Raffaello commenced with Theo- 
 logy, and imitated Petrarch, who, in one of his visions, has 
 assembled together men of the same condition, though living 
 in different ages. He there placed the evangelists, whose 
 
 * Csesaris in nomen ducuntui carmina : Caesar 
 Dum canitur, quseso, Jupiter ipse vaces. 
 
 Prop lib. iv. Eleg. vi. 
 
368 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 volumes are the foundation of theology ; the sacred writers, 
 who hare preserved its traditions ; the theologists, S. Tho- 
 mas, S. Bonaventura, Scotus, and the rest who have illus- 
 trated it by their arguments ; above all, the Trinity in the 
 midst of the beatified, and beneath, on an altar, the eucharist, 
 as if to express the mystery of that doctrine. There are 
 traces of the ancient style in this piece. Gold is made use of 
 in the glories of the saints, and in other ornamental parts ; 
 the upper glory is formed on the plan of that of S. Severo, 
 already noticed : the composition is more symmetrical and 
 less free than in other pieces ; and the whole, compared with 
 the other compositions, seems too minute. Nevertheless, 
 whosoever regards each part in itself, will find it of such 
 careful and admirable execution, that he will be disposed to 
 prefer it to all other works. It has been observed, that Raf- 
 faello began this piece at the right side, and that by the time 
 he had arrived at the left side portion, he had made rapid 
 strides in the art. This work must have been finished about 
 the year 1508 ; and such was the surprise and admiration of 
 the Pope, that he ordered all the works of Bramantino, Pier 
 della Francesca, Signorelli, l'Abate di Arezzo, and Sodoma 
 (though some ornamental parts by this last are preserved) to 
 be effaced, in order that the whole chamber might be decorated 
 by Raffaello. 
 
 In the subsequent works of Raffaello, and after the year 
 1509, we do not find any traces of his first style. He had 
 adopted a nobler manner, and henceforth applied all his powers 
 to the perfecting of it. He had now to represent, on the 
 opposite side, Philosophy. In this he designed a gymnasium, 
 in the form of a temple, and placed the learned ancients, 
 some in the precincts of the building, some on the ascent of 
 the steps, and others in the plain below. In this, more than 
 on any other occasion, he was aided by his favourite Petrarch 
 in the third capitolo of his Fame. Plato, " che in quella 
 schiera andò più presso al segno," is there represented with 
 Aristotle, " più d'ingegno," in the act of disputation ; and 
 they possess also, in the composition, the highest place of 
 honour ; Socrates is represented instructing Alcibiades ; Py- 
 thagoras is seen, and before him a youth holds a tablet with 
 the harmonious concords ; and Zoroaster, King of Bactriana, 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 369 
 
 appears with an elementary globe in his hand. Diogenes is 
 stretched near on the ground, with his wooden bowl in his 
 hand, " assai più che non vuol vergogna aperto Archi- 
 medes is seen, " star col capo basso," and turning the com- 
 passes on the table, instructs the youth in geometry ; and 
 others are represented meditating, or in disputation, whose 
 names and characters it would be possible, with careful obser- 
 vation, to distinguish more truly than Vasari has done. This 
 picture is commonly called the School of Athens, which, in 
 my judgment, is just as appropriate as the name of the Sacra- 
 ment bestowed on the first subject. The third picture, repre- 
 senting Jurisprudence, is divided into two parts. On the 
 left side of the window stands Justinian, with the book of the 
 civil law ; Trebonian receives it from his hand, with an ex- 
 pression of submission and acquiescence, which no other pen- 
 cil can ever hope to equal. On the right side is seen Gregory 
 IX., who delivers the book of the Decretals to an advocate 
 of the Consistory, and bears the features of Julius II., who is 
 thus honoured in the character of his predecessor. In the 
 concluding picture, a personification of Poetry, is seen Mount 
 Parnassus, where, in company of Apollo and the muses, the 
 Greek, Roman, and Tuscan poets are represented in their 
 own portraitures, as far as records will allow. Homer, seated 
 between Virgil and Dante, is, perhaps, the most striking 
 figure ; he is evidently gifted with a divine spirit, and unites 
 in his person the characters of the prophet and the poet. The 
 historical pieces in chiaroscuro contribute, by their ornaments, 
 to charm the sight, and preserve the unity of design. Be- 
 neath the Theology, for instance, is represented S. Augustine 
 on the borders of the sea, instructed by the angels not to ex- 
 plore the mystery of the Trinity, incomprehensible to the 
 human mind. Under the Philosophy, Archimedes is seen 
 surprised and slain by a soldier, whilst immersed in his stu- 
 dies. This first chamber was finished in 1511, as that year 
 appears inscribed near the Parnassus. 
 
 Vasari, until the finishing of the first chamber, does not 
 speak of the improvement of his manner; on the contrary, 
 in his life of Raffaello, he says, " although he had seen so 
 many monuments of antiquity in that city, and studied so 
 unremittingly, still his figures, up to this period, did not pos- 
 
 vol. i. 2 b 
 
370 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 sess that breadth and majesty which they afterwards exhib ted. 
 For it happened, that the breach between Michelangelo ai d 
 the Pope, which we have before mentioned in his life, 
 occurred about this time, and compelled Bonarruoti to flee to 
 Florence ; from which circumstance, Bramante obtaining 
 possession of the keys of the chapel, exhibited it to his friend 
 Raffaello, in order that he might make himself acquainted 
 with the style of Michelangelo ; " and he then proceeds to 
 mention the Isaiah of S. Agostino, and the Sibyls della Pace, 
 painted after this period, and the Heliodorus. In the life of 
 Michelangelo, he again informs us of the quarrel which 
 obliged him to depart from Rome, and proceeds to say, that 
 when, on his return, he had finished one-half of the work, 
 the Pope suddenly commanded it to be exposed ; " whereupon 
 Raffaello d'Urbino, who possessed great facility of imitation, 
 immediately changed his style, and, at one effort, designed 
 the Prophets and Sibils della Pace." This brings us to a 
 dispute, prosecuted with the greatest warmth, both in Italy 
 and other countries. Bellori attacked Vasari in a violent 
 manner, in a work entitled, " Se Raffaello ingrandì e migliorò 
 la maniera per aver vedute le opere di Michelangxolo" (Whe- 
 ther Raffaello enlarged and improved his style on seeing the 
 works of Michelangelo). Crespi replied to him in three 
 letters, inserted in the Lettere Pittoriche,* and many other 
 disputants have arisen and stated fresh arguments. 
 
 It is not, however, our province to engage the reader in 
 these disputations. It was greatly to the advantage of Mi- 
 chelangelo's fame to have had two scholars, who, while he 
 was yet living, and after the death of Raffaello, employed 
 themselves in writing his life; and a great misfortune to 
 Raffaello not to have been commemorated in the same manner. 
 If he had survived to the time when Vasari and Condivi 
 wrote, he would not have passed over their charges in silence. 
 Raffaello would then have easily proved, that when Bonar- 
 ruoti fled to Florence, in 1506, he himself was not in Rome, 
 nor was called thither until two years afterwards ; and that 
 he could not, therefore, have obtained a furtive glance of the 
 Sistine chapel. It would have been proved, too, that from 
 
 * Voi. ii. p. 323 et seq. 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 371 
 
 the year 1508, when Michelangelo had, perhaps, not com- 
 menced his work, until 1511, in which year he exhibited the 
 first half of it,* Raffaello had been endeavouring to enlarge 
 his style ; and as Michelangelo had before studied the Torso 
 of the Belvidere, so Raffaello also formed himself on this and 
 other marbles, t a circumstance easily discoverable in his style. 
 He might, too, have asked Vasari, in what he considered 
 grandeur and majesty of style to consist ; and from the ex- 
 ample of the Greeks, and from reason herself, he might have 
 informed him, that the grand does not consist in the enlarge- 
 ment of the muscles, or in an extravagance of attitude, but 
 in adopting, as Mengshas observed, the noblest, and neglect- 
 ing the inferior and meaner parts ; J and exercising the higher 
 powers of invention. Hence he would have proceeded to 
 point out the grandeur of style in the School of Athens, in 
 the majestic edifice, in the contour of the figures, in the folds 
 of the drapery, in the expression of the countenances, and in 
 the attitudes ; and he would easily have traced the source of 
 that sublimity in the relics of antiquity. And if he appeared 
 still greater in his Isaiah, he might have refuted Vasari from 
 his own account, who assigns this work to a period anterior 
 to 1511, and therefore contemporary as it were with the 
 School of Athens; adding, that he elevated his style by 
 propriety of character, and the study of Grecian art. The 
 Greeks observed an essential difference between common men 
 and heroes, and again between their heroes and their gods ; 
 and Raffaello, after having represented philosophers immersed 
 in human doubts, might well elevate his style when he came 
 to figure a prophet meditating the revelations of God.§ All 
 
 * See the first letter of Crespi, Lettere Pittoriche, torn. ii. p. 338. 
 
 f Mengs has observed, that Raffaello diligently studied the bassi-relievi 
 of the arches of Titus and Constantine, which were on the arch of Trajan, 
 and adopted from them his manner of marking the articulations of the 
 joints, and a more simple and an easier mode of expressing the contour of 
 the fleshy parts. — Riflessioni sopra i tre gran Pittori, &c. cap. 1. 
 
 X Riflessioni su la bellezza e sul gusto della Pittura, parte iii. cap. 1 , 
 and see the " Osservazioni " of the Cav. Azara on that tract, § xii. 
 
 § A doubt has arisen on the exact time in which he painted the Pro- 
 phet and the Sibyls, and from the grandeur of their style, doubts have 
 been thrown on Vasari's account, that they were painted anterior to 1511. 
 But a painter who is the master of his art, elevates or lowers his style 
 according to his subject. The Sibyls are in Raffaello's grandest style ; 
 
 2 B2 
 
372 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 this might have been advanced by Raffaello, in order to relieve 
 Bramante and himself from so ill-supported an imputation. 
 As to the rest, I believe he never would have denied, that 
 the works of Michelangelo had inspired him with a more 
 daring spirit of design, and that in the exhibition of strong 
 character, he had sometimes even imitated him. But how 
 imitated him ? In rendering, as Crespi himself observes, 
 that very style more beautiful and more majestic (p. 344). 
 It is indeed a great triumph to the admirers of Raffaello to 
 be able to say, whoever wishes to see what is wanting in the 
 Sibyls of Michelangelo, let him inspect those of Raffaello ; 
 and let him view the Isaiah of Raffaello, who would know 
 what is wanting in the Prophets of Michelangelo. 
 
 After public curiosity was gratified, and Raffaello had ob- 
 tained a glimpse of this new style, Bonarruoti closed the doors, 
 and hastened to finish the other half of his work, which was 
 completed at the close of 1512, so that the Pope, on the so- 
 lemnization of the Feast of Christinas, was enabled to perform 
 mass in the Sis tine chapel. In the course of this year, Raf- 
 faello was employed in the second chamber on the subject of 
 Heliodorus driven from the Temple by the prayers of Onias, 
 the high priest, one of the most celebrated pictures of the 
 place. In this painting, the armed vision that appears to 
 Heliodorus, scatters lightnings from his hand, while the neigh- 
 ing of the steed is heard amidst the attendant thunder. In the 
 numerous bands, some of which are plundering the riches of 
 the Temple, and others are ignorant of the cause of the sur- 
 prise and terror exhibited in Heliodorus, consternation, 
 amazement, joy, and abasement, and a host of passions, are 
 expressed. In this work, and in others in these chambers, 
 Raffaello, says Mengs, gave to painting all the augmentation 
 it could receive after Michelangelo. In this picture he intro- 
 duced the portrait of Julius II., whose zeal and authority are 
 represented in Onias. He appears in a litter borne by his 
 grooms, in the manner in which he was accustomed to repair 
 to the Vatican, to view this work. The Miracle of Bolsena 
 was also painted in the lifetime of Julius. 
 
 and that they are amongst his earliest works, is proved from his having 
 had Timoteo delia Vite as his assistant in them. 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 373 
 
 The remaining decorations of these chambers were all illus- 
 trative of the history of Leo X., whose imprisonment in 
 Ravenna, and subsequent liberation, are typified by St. Peter 
 released from prison by the angel. It was in this piece that 
 the painter exhibited an astonishing proof of his knowledge 
 of light. The figures of the soldiers, who stand without the 
 prison, are illuminated by the beams of the moon : there is a 
 torch which produces a second light ; and from the angel 
 emanates a celestial splendour that rivals the beams of the 
 sun. He has here, too, afforded another proof how art may 
 convert the impediments thrown in her way to her own ad- 
 vantage ; for the place where he was painting being broken 
 by a window, he has imagined on each side of it a staircase, 
 which affords an ascent to the prison, and on the steps he has 
 placed the guards overpowered with sleep ; so that the painter 
 does not seem to have accommodated himself to the place, but 
 the place to have become subservient to the painter. The 
 composition of S. Leo the Great, who checks Attila at tne 
 head of his army, and that of the other chamber, the battle 
 with the Saracens in the port of Ostium, and the victory ob- 
 tained by S. Leo IV., justify Raffaello's claim to the epic 
 crown : so powerfully has he depicted the military array of 
 men and horses, the arms peculiar to each nation, the fury of 
 the combat, the despair and humiliation of the prisoners. Near 
 this performance is the wonderful piece of the Incendio di 
 Borgo, which is miraculously extinguished by the same S. 
 Leo. This wonderful piece alternately chills the heart with 
 terror, or warms it with compassion. The calamity of fire is 
 carried to its extreme point, as it is the hour of midnight, and 
 the fire, which already occupies a considerable space, is in- 
 creased by a violent wind, which agitates the flames that leap 
 with rapidity from house to house. The affright and misery 
 of the inhabitants are also carried to the utmost extremity. 
 Some rush forward with water, are driven back by the scorch- 
 ing flames ; others seek safety in flight, with naked feet, robe- 
 less, and with dishevelled hair ; women are seen turning an 
 imploring look to the Pontiff ; mothers, whose own terrors are 
 absorbed in fear for their offspring ; and here a youth, who 
 bearing on his shoulders his aged and infirm sire, and sinking 
 beneath the weight, collects his almost exhausted strength to 
 
374 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 place him out of danger. The concluding subjects refer to 
 Leo III. ; the Coronation of Charlemagne, by the hand of 
 that pontiff, and the Oath taken by the Pope on the Holy 
 Evangelists, to exculpate himself from the calumnies laid to 
 his charge. In Leo, is meant to be represented Leo X., who 
 is thus honoured in the persons of his predecessors ; and in 
 Charlemagne is represented Francis I., king of France. 
 Many persons of the age are also figured in the surrounding 
 group, so that there is not an historical subject in these cham- 
 bers that does not contain the most accurate likenesses. In 
 this latter department also, Raffaello may be said to have been 
 transcendant. His portraits have deceived even persons the 
 most intimately acquainted with the subjects of them. He 
 painted a remarkable picture of Leo X., and on one occasion 
 the Cardinal Datary of that time found himself approaching 
 it with a bull, and pen and ink for the Pope's signature.* 
 
 The six subjects which relate to Leo, elected in 1513, were 
 finished in 1517. In the nine years which Raffaello employed 
 on these three chambers, and also in the three following years, 
 he made additional decorations to the Pontifical palace ; he 
 observed the style of ornament suitable to each part, and thus 
 made the Pope's residence a model of magnificence and taste 
 for all Europe. Few have adverted to this instance of his 
 merit. He superintended the new gallery of the palace, avail- 
 ing himself in part of the design of Bramante, and in part im- 
 proving on him. " He then made designs for the stuccos, and 
 the various subjects there painted, and also for the divisions, 
 and he then appointed Giovanni da Udine to finish the stuccos 
 and arabesques, and Giulio Romano the figures." The ex- 
 posure of this gallery to the inclemencies of the air has left 
 little remaining besides the squalid grotesques ; but those who 
 saw it at an early period, when the unsullied splendour of the 
 gold, the pure white of the stuccos, the brilliancy of the colours, 
 and the newness of the marble, rendered every part of it beau- 
 tiful and resplendent, must have thought it a vision of para- 
 dise. Vasari, in eulogizing it, says, " It is impossible to 
 execute or to conceive a more exquisite work." The best 
 which now remain are the thirteen ceilings, in each of which 
 
 * Lett. Pittor. torn, v, p. 131. 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 375 
 
 are distributed four subjects from holy writ, the first of which, 
 the Creation of the World, Raffaello executed with his own 
 hand as a model for the others, which were painted by his 
 scholars, and afterwards retouched and rendered uniform by 
 himself, as was his custom. I have seen copies of these in 
 Rome, executed at great cost, and with great fidelity, for 
 Catherine, empress of Russia, under the direction of Mr. 
 Hunterberger, and from the effect which was produced by the 
 freshness of the colours, I could easily conceive how highly 
 enchanting the originals must have been. But their great 
 value consisted in Raffaello having enriched them by his in- 
 vention, expression, and design, and every one is agreed that 
 each subject is a school in itself. He was desirous of com- 
 peting with Michelangelo, wdio had treated the same subject 
 in the Sistine chapel ; and of appealing to the public to judge 
 whether or not he had equalled him. To describe in a suitable 
 manner the other pictures in chiaroscuro, and the numerous 
 landscapes and architectural subjects, the trophies, imitations 
 of cameos, masks, and other things which this divine artist 
 either designed himself or formed into new combinations from 
 the antique, is a task, says Taja, far above the reach of human 
 powers. Taja has, however, himself given us a delightful 
 description of these works.* It confers the highest honour 
 on Raffaello, to whom we owe the fifty-two subjects, and all 
 the ornamental parts. 
 
 Nor were the pavements, or the doors, or other interior 
 works in the palace of the Vatican, completed without his 
 superintendence. He directed the pavements to be formed 
 of terra invetriata, an ancient invention of Luca della Rob- 
 bia, which having continued for many generations as a family 
 secrèt, was then in the hands of another Luca. Raffaello 
 invited him to Florence to execute this vast work, employed 
 him in the gallery, and in many of the chambers, which he 
 adorned with the arms of the Pope. For the couches and 
 other ornaments of the Camera di Segnatura he brought to 
 Rome F. Giovanni da Verona, who formed them of mosaic 
 with the most beautiful views. For the entablatures of the 
 chambers, and for several of the windows and doors, he en 
 
 * Commencing at p. 139. 
 
376 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 gaged Giovanni Barile, a celebrated Florentine engraver of 
 gems. This work was executed in so masterly a manner, 
 that Louis XIII., wishing to ornament the palace of the 
 Louvre, had all these intaglios separately copied. The 
 drawings of them were made by Poussin, and Mariette 
 boasted of having them in his collection. Nor was there any 
 other work either of stone or marble for which a design was 
 required, which did not come under the inspection of Raf- 
 faello, and on which he did not impress his taste, which was 
 consummate also in the sister art of sculpture. A proof of 
 this is to be seen in the Jonah, in the church of the Madonna 
 del Popolo, in the Chigi chapel, which was executed by 
 Lorenzetto under his direction, and which Bottari says, may 
 assume its place by the side of the Greek statues. Among 
 his most remarkable works may be mentioned his designs for 
 the tapestry in the papal chapel, the subjects of which were 
 from the lives of the Evangelists, and the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles. The cartoons for them were both designed and coloured 
 by Raffaello ; and after the tapestries were finished in the 
 Low Countries, the cartoons passed into England, where they 
 still remain. In these tapestries the art attained its highest 
 pitch, nor has the world since beheld any thing to equal them 
 in beauty. They are exposed annually in the great portico 
 of S. Peter, in the procession of the Corpus Domini^ and it 
 is wonderful to behold the crowds that flock to see them, and 
 who ever regard them with fresh avidity and delight. But 
 all the works of Raffaello would not have contributed to the 
 extension of art at that period, beyond the meridian of Rome, 
 if he had not succeeded in extending the fruits of his genius, 
 by the means of prints. We have already noticed M. A. 
 Raimondi, in the first book, and we have shewn that this 
 great engraver was courteously received, and was afterwards 
 assisted by Sanzio, whence an abundance of copies of the 
 designs and the works of this master have been given to the 
 world. A fine taste was thus rapidly propagated throughout 
 Europe, and the beautiful style of Raffaello began to be justly 
 appreciated. In a short time it became the prevailing taste, 
 and if his maxims had remained unaltered, Italian painting 
 would probably have flourished for as long a period as Greek 
 sculpture. 
 
RAFFAELLO. 
 
 377 
 
 In the midst of such a variety of occupations, Raffaello 
 did not fail to gratify the wishes of private individuals, de- 
 sirous of having his designs for buildings, in which branch of 
 art he was highly celebrated, and also of possessing his pic- 
 tures. I need only to refer to the gallery of Agostini Chigi, 
 which he ornamented with his own hand with the well-known 
 fable of Galatea. He afterwards, with the assistance of his 
 pupils, painted the Marriage of Psyche, at the banquet of 
 which he assembled all the heathen deities, with such pro- 
 priety of form, with their attendant symbols and genii, that 
 in these fabulous subjects he almost rivalled the Greeks, 
 These pictures, and those also of the chambers of the Vatican, 
 were retouched by Maratta, with incredible care ; and the 
 method he adopted, as descrihed by Bellori, may serve as a 
 guide in similar cases. Raffaello also painted many altar- 
 pieces, with saints generally introduced ; as that of the Con- 
 tesse at Foligno, where he introduced the chamberlain of the 
 Pope, alive, rather than drawn from the life : that for S. 
 Giovanni in Monte, at Bologna, of S. Cecilia, who, charmed 
 to rapture by a celestial melody, forgets her musical in- 
 strument, which falls neglected from her hands ; that for 
 Palermo, of Christ ascending Mount Calvary, called della 
 Spasimo, which, however much disparaged by Cumberland, 
 for having been retouched, is a noble ornament of the royal 
 collection at Madrid ; and the others at Naples and Piacenza, 
 which are mentioned by his biographers. He also painted 
 S. Michael for the king of France, and many other Holy 
 Families* and devotional subjects, which neither Vasari nor 
 his other biographers have fully enumerated. 
 
 But although the creation of these wonderful works was 
 become a habit in this great artist, still every part of his pro- 
 ductions cannot be considered as equally successful. It is 
 
 * I do not find that any mention has been made of his picture in the 
 possession of the Olivieri family at Pesaro, or of the one in the Basilica di 
 Loreto in the Treasury, which seems to be the same which was formerly 
 in the church of the Madonna del Popolo, or a copy of it. I have seen a 
 similar subject in the Lauretana, belonging to the Signori Pirri, in Rome. 
 At Sassoferrato also, on the great altar of the church of the Capucins. 
 there is a Virgin and Child, said to be by him ; but it is more probably by 
 Fra Bernardo Catelani. There exist engravings of the two first, but I 
 have not seen any of the last. 
 
378 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 known, that in the frescos of the palace, and in the Chigi 
 gallery, he was censured in some naked figures for errors com- 
 mitted, as Vasari says, by some of his school. Mengs, who 
 varied his opinions at different periods of his life, insinuates 
 that Raffaello for some time seemed to slumber, and did not 
 make those rapid strides in the art, which might have been 
 expected from his genius. This was, probably, when Michel- 
 angelo was for some years absent from Rome ; but when he 
 returned, and heard it reported that many persons considered 
 the paintings of Raffaello superior to his in colour, of more 
 beauty and grace in composition, and of a corresponding ex- 
 cellence in design, whilst his works were said to possess none 
 of these qualities except the last, he was stimulated to avail 
 himself of the pencil of Fra Sebastiano, and at the same time 
 supplied him with his own designs. The most celebrated 
 work which they produced in conjunction, was a Transfigura- 
 tion, in fresco, with a Flagellation, and other figures, in a 
 chapel of S. Peter in Montorio. Raffaello being subsequently 
 employed to paint a picture for the Cardinal Giulio de' Me- 
 dici, afterwards Clement VII., Sebastiano, in a sort of com- 
 petition, painted another picture of the same size. In the 
 latter was represented the raising of Lazarus ; in the former, 
 with the masters accustomed spirit of emulation, the Trans- 
 figuration. " This is a picture which combines," says Mengs, 
 " more excellences than any of the previous works of Raf- 
 faello. The expression in it is more exalted and more refined, 
 the chiaroscuro more correct, the perspective better understood, 
 the pencilling finer, and tbere is a greater variety in the 
 drapery, more grace in the heads, and more grandeur in the 
 style/'* It represents the mystery of the Transfiguration of 
 Christ on the summit of Mount Tabor. On the side of the 
 hill he has placed a band of his disciples, and with the hap- 
 piest invention has engaged them in an action conformable to 
 their powers, and has thus formed an episode not beyond the 
 bounds of probability. A youth possessed is presented to 
 them, that they may expel the evil spirit that torments him ; 
 and in the possessed, struggling with the presence of the 
 demon, the confiding faith of the father, the affliction of a 
 
 * Riflessioni soprai tre gran Pittori, &c, cap. i. § 2. 
 
DEATH OF RAFFAELLO. 
 
 379 
 
 beautiful and interesting female, and the compassion visible 
 in the countenances of the surrounding apostles, we are pre- 
 sented with perhaps the most pathetic incident ever conceived. 
 Yet this part of the composition does not fix our regard so 
 much as the principal subject on the summit of the mountain 
 There the two prophets, and the three disciples, are most ad 
 mirablj delineated, and the Saviour appears enveloped in a 
 glory emanating from the fountain of eternal light, and sur- 
 rounded by that chaste and celestial radiance, that is reserved 
 exclusively for the eyes of the elect. The countenance of 
 Christ, in which he has developed all his combined ideas of 
 majesty and beauty, may be considered the master-piece of 
 Raffaello, and seems to us the most sublime height to which 
 the genius of the artist, or even the art itself, was capable of 
 aspiring. After this effort he never resumed his pencil, as he 
 v^as soon afterwards suddenly seized with a mortal distemper, 
 of which he died, in the bosom of the church, on Good Fri- 
 day (also the anniversary of his birthday), 1520, aged thirty- 
 seven years. His body reposed for some days in the chamber 
 where he was accustomed to paint, and over it was placed this 
 noble picture of the Transfiguration, previous to his mortal 
 remains being transferred to the church of the Rotonda for 
 interment. There was not an artist that was not moved to 
 tears at this affecting sight. Raffaello had always possessed 
 the power of engaging the affections of all with whom he was 
 acquainted. Respectful to his master, he obtained from the 
 Pope an assurance, that his works, in one of the ceilings of 
 the Vatican, should remain unmolested ; just towards his 
 rivals, he expressed his gratitude to God that he had been 
 born in the days of Bonarruoti ; gracious towards his pupils, 
 he loved them, and intrusted them as his own sons ; courteous 
 even to strangers, he cheerfully lent his aid to all who asked 
 his advice ; and in order to make designs for others, or to di- 
 rect them in their studies, he sometimes even neglected his 
 own work, being alike incapable of refusing or delaying his 
 inestimable aid. All these reflections forced themselves on 
 the minds of the spectators, whose eyes were at one moment 
 directed to the view of his youthful remains, and of those 
 divine hands that had, in the imitation of her works, almost 
 excelled nature herself ; and at another moment, to the con- 
 
380 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 templation of this his latest production, which appeared to 
 exhibit the dawn of a new and wonderful style ; and the 
 painful reflection presented itself, that, with the life of Raf- 
 faello, the brightest prospects of art were thus suddenly ob- 
 scured. The Pope himself was deeply affected at his death, 
 and requested Bembo to compose the epitaph which is now 
 read on his tomb; and his loss was considered as a national 
 calamity throughout all Italy. True indeed it is, that soon 
 after his decease, Rome herself, and her territory, experienced 
 such unheard of calamities, that many had just cause to envy 
 him, not only the celebrity of his life, but the opportune period 
 of his death. He was not doomed to see the illustrious Leo 
 X., at a time when he extended the most exalted patronage 
 to the arts, poisoned by a sacrilegious hand; nor Clement 
 VII., pressed by an enraged enemy, seeking shelter in the 
 castle of S. Angelo, afterwards compelled to fly for his life, 
 and obliged to purchase, at enormous sums, the liberty of his 
 servants. Nor did he witness the horrors attending the sack- 
 ing of Rome, the nobility robbed and plundered in their own 
 palaces, the violation of hapless females in the convents ; pre- 
 lates unrelentingly dragged to the scaffold, and priests torn 
 from the altars, and from the images of their saints, to whom 
 they looked in vain for refuge, slaughtered by the sword, and 
 their bodies thrown out of the churches a prey to the dogs. 
 Nor did he survive to see that city, which he had so illustrated 
 by his genius, and where he had for so many years shared the 
 public admiration and esteem, wasted with fire and sword. 
 But of this we shall speak in another place, and shall here 
 adduce some observations on his style, selected from various 
 authors, more particularly from Mengs, who has ably criticised 
 it in his works already enumerated by me, as well as in some 
 others. 
 
 Raffaello is by common consent placed at the head of his 
 art ; not because he excelled all others in every department 
 of painting, but because no other artist has ever possessed the 
 various parts of the art united in so high a degree. Lazza- 
 rini even asserts that he was guilty of errors, and that he is 
 only the first, because he did not commit so many as others. 
 He ought, however, to have allowed, that his defects would 
 be excellences in any other artist, being nothing more in bim 
 
RAFFAELLO'S STYLE OF DESIGN. 
 
 381 
 
 than the neglect of that higher degree of perfection to which 
 he was capable of attaining. The art, indeed, comprehends 
 so many and such difficult parts, that no individual artist has 
 been alike distinguished in all ; even Apelles was said to 
 yield to Amphion in disposition and harmony, to Asclepia- 
 dorus in proportion, and to Protogenes in application. 
 
 The style of design of Raffaello, as seen in those drawings, 
 divested of colours, which form the chief ornaments of cabi- 
 nets, presents us, if we may use the term, with the pure 
 transcript of his imagination, and we stand in amaze at the 
 contours, grace, precision, diligence, and genius which they 
 exhibit. One of the most admired of his drawings I once 
 saw in the gallery of the duke of Modena, a most finished 
 and superior specimen, uniting in style all the invention of 
 the best painters of Greece, and the execution of the first ar- 
 tists of Italy. It has been made a question whether Raffa- 
 ello did not yield to Michelangelo in drawing ; and Mengs 
 himself confesses, that he did, as far as regards the anatomy 
 of the muscles, and in strong expression, in which he con- 
 siders Raffaello to have imitated Michelangelo. But we need 
 not say with Vasari, that in order to prove that he understood 
 the naked figure as well as Michelangelo, he appropriated to 
 himself the designs of that great master. On the contrary, 
 in the figures of the two youths in the Incendio di Borgo, 
 criticised by Vasari, one of whom is in the act of leaping 
 from a wall to escape the flames, and the other is fleeing with 
 his father on his shoulders, he not only proved that he had a 
 perfect knowledge of the action of the muscles and the 
 anatomy requisite for a painter, but prescribed the occasion 
 when this style might be used without impropriety, as in 
 figures of a robust form engaged in violent action. He 
 moreover commonly marked the principal parts in the naked 
 figure, and indicated the others after the example of the bet- 
 ter ancient masters, and where he wrought from his own 
 ideas, his execution was most correct. On this subject Bel- 
 lori may be consulted at page 223 of the work already quoted, 
 and the annotations to vol. ii. of Mengs (page 197), made 
 by the Cavaliere d'Azzara, minister of the king of Spain at 
 Rome, an individual, who, in conferring honour on the artist, 
 has by his own writing conferred honour on art itself. 
 
0S2 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 In chasteness of design, Raffaello was by some placed on a 
 level with the Greeks, though this praise we must consider 
 as extravagant. Agostino Caracci commends him as a model 
 of symmetry ; and in that respect, more than in any other, 
 he approached the ancients ; except, observes Mengs, in tho 
 hands, which being rarely found perfect in the ancient sta- 
 tutes, he had not an equal opportunity of studying, and did 
 not therefore design them so elegantly as the other parts. 
 He selected the beautiful from nature, and as Mariette ob- 
 serves, whose collection was rich in his designs, he copied it 
 with all its imperfections, which he afterwards gradually cor- 
 rected, as he proceeded with his work. Above all things, he 
 aimed at perfecting the heads, and from a letter addressed to 
 Castiglione on the Galatea of the Palazzo Chigi, or of the 
 Farnesina, he discovers how intent he was to select the best 
 models of nature, and to perfect them in his own mind.* 
 His own Fornarina assisted him in this object. Her portrait, 
 by Raffaello's own hand, was formerly in the Barberini pa- 
 lace, and it is repeated in many of his Madonnas, in the pic- 
 ture of S. Cecilia, in Bologna, and in many female heads. 
 Critics have often expressed a wish that these heads had pos- 
 sessed a more dignified character, and in this respect he was, 
 perhaps, excelled by Guido Reni, and however engaging his 
 children may be, those of Titian are still more beautiful. 
 His true empire was in the heads of his men, which are por- 
 traits selected with judgment, and depicted with a dignity 
 proportioned to his subject. Vasari calls the air of these 
 heads superhuman, and calls on us to admire the expression 
 of age in the patriarchs, simplicity of life in the apostles, 
 and constancy of faith in the martyrs ; and in Christ in the 
 Transfiguration, he says, there is a portion of the divine es- 
 sence itself transferred to his countenance, and made visible 
 to mortal eyes. 
 
 This effect is the result of that quality that is called ex- 
 pression, and which, in the drawing of Raffaello, has attracted 
 more admiration of late years than formerly. It is remark- 
 
 * Lo dico con questa condizione che V. S. si trovasse meco a far 
 la scelta del meglio : ma essendo carestia e di buoni giudici e di belle 
 donne, mi servo di una certa idea che mi viene in mente. — Lett. Pittor. 
 torn. i. p. 84. 
 
GENIUS AND ART OF RAFFAELLO. 
 
 383 
 
 able, that not only Zuccaro, who was indeed a superficial 
 writer, but that Vasari, and Lomazzo himself, so much more 
 profound than either of them, should not have conferred on 
 him that praise which he afterwards received from Algarotti, 
 Lazzarini, and Mengs. Lionardo was the first, as we shall 
 see in the Milanese School, to lead the way to delicacy of 
 expression ; but that master, who painted so little, and with 
 such labour, is not to be compared to Raffaello, who pos- 
 sessed the whole quality in its fullest extent. There is not a 
 movement of the soul, there is not a character of passion 
 known to the ancients, and capable of being expressed by 
 art, that he has not caught, expressed, and varied, in a 
 thousand different ways, and always within the bounds of 
 propriety. We have no tradition of his having, like Da 
 Vinci, frequented the public streets to seek for subjects for 
 his pencil ; and his numerous pictures prove that he could not 
 have devoted so much time to this study, while his drawings 
 clearly evince, that he had not equal occasion for such as- 
 sistance. Nature, as I have before remarked, had endowed 
 him with an imagination which transported his mind to the 
 scene of the event, either fabulous or remote, in which he 
 was engaged, and awoke in him the very same emotions 
 which the subjects of such story must themselves have ex- 
 perienced ; and this vivid conception assisted him until he 
 had designed his subject with that distinctness which he had 
 either observed in other countenances, or found in his own 
 mind. This faculty, seldom found in poets, and still more 
 rarely in painters, no one possessed in a more eminent degree 
 than Raffaello. His figures are passions personified; and 
 love, fear, hope, and desire, anger, placability, humility, or 
 pride, assume their places by turns, as the subject changes ; 
 and while the spectator regards the countenances, the air, 
 and the gestures of his figures, he forgets that they are the 
 work of art, and is surprised to find his own feelings excited, 
 and himself an actor in the scene before him. There is ano- 
 ther delicacy of expression, and this is the gradation of the 
 passions, by which every one perceives whether they are in 
 their commencement or at their height, or in their decline. 
 He had observed their shades of difference in the intercourse 
 of life, and on every occasion he knew how to transfer the 
 
384 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 result of his observations to his canvas. Even his silence 
 is eloquent, and every actor 
 
 " Il cor negli occhi, e nella fronte ha scritto :" — Petr. 
 
 the smallest perceptible motion of the eyes, of the nostrils, 
 of the mouth, and of the fingers, corresponds to the chief 
 movements of every passion ; the most animated and vivid 
 actions discover the violence of the passion that excites 
 them ; and what is more, they vary in innumerable degrees, 
 without ever departing from nature, and conform them- 
 selves to a diversity of character without ever risking pro- 
 priety. His heroes possess the mien of valour ; his vulgar, 
 an air of debasement ; and that, which neither the pen nor 
 the tongue could describe, the genius and art of Raffaello 
 would delineate with a few strokes of the pencil. Num- 
 bers have in vain sought to imitate him; his figures are 
 governed by a sentiment of the mind, while those of others, 
 if we except Poussin and a very few more, seem the imita- 
 tion of tragic actors from the scenes. This is Raffaello* s 
 chief excellence ; and he may justly be denominated the 
 painter of mind. If in this faculty be included all that is 
 difficult, philosophical, and sublime, who shall compete with 
 him in the sovereignty of art ? 
 
 Another quality which Raffaello possessed in an eminent 
 degree was grace, a quality which may be said to confer an 
 additional charm on beauty itself. Apelles, who was su* 
 premely endowed with it among the ancients, was so vain of 
 the possession that he preferred it to every other attribute of 
 art.* Raffaello rivalled him among the moderns, and thence 
 obtained the name of the new Apelles. Something might, 
 perhaps, be advantageously added to the forms of his cbil 
 dren, and other delicate figures which he represented, but no- 
 thing can add to their gracefulness, for if it were attempted 
 to be carried further, it would degenerate into affectation, a ■ 
 we find in Parmegiano. His Madonnas enchant us, as 
 Mengs observes, not because they possess the perfect linea- 
 oients of the Medicean Yenus, or of the celebrated daughtei 
 of Niobe ; but, because the painter in their portraits, and in 
 
 * Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. xxxv. cap. 10. Quintil. Instit. Orat, xii. 10. 
 
DEFECTS OF RAFFAELLO. 
 
 385 
 
 their expressive smiles, has personified modesty, maternal 
 love, purity of mind, and, in a word, grace itself. Nor did 
 he impress this quality on the countenance alone, but distri- 
 buted it throughout the figure in its attitude, gesture, and 
 action, and in the folds of the drapery, with a dexterity 
 which may be admired, but never rivalled. His freedom of 
 execution was a component part of this grace, which, indeed, 
 vanishes as soon as labour and study appear ; for it is with 
 the painter as with the orator, in whom a natural and spon- 
 taneous eloquence delights us, while we turn away with indif- 
 ference from an artificial and studied harangue. 
 
 In regard to the province of colour, Raffaello must yield 
 the palm to Titian o and Correggio, although he himself ex- 
 celled Michelangelo and many others. His frescos may rank 
 with the first works of other schools in that line : not so his 
 pictures in oil. In the latter he availed himself of the 
 sketches of Giulio, which were composed with a degree of 
 hardness and timidity ; and though finished by Raffaello, they 
 have frequently lost the lustre of his last touch. This defect 
 was not immediately apparent, and if Raffaello's life had been 
 prolonged, he would have been aware of the injuries his pic- 
 tures received from the lapse of time, and would not have 
 finished them in so light a manner. He is, on this account, 
 more admired in his first subject in the Vatican, painted under 
 Julius II., than in those he executed under Leo X., for being 
 there pressed by a multiplicity of business, and an idea of the 
 importance of a grander style, he became less rich and firm in 
 his colouring. That, however, he excelled in these respects 
 is evinced by his portraits, when, not having an opportunity 
 of displaying his invention, composition, and beautiful style 
 of design, he appears ambitious to distinguish himself by his 
 colouring. In this respect his two portraits of Julius II. are 
 truly admirable, the Medicean and the Corsinian : that of 
 Leo X. between the two cardinals ; and above all, in the 
 opinion of an eminent judge, Renfesthein, that of Bindo 
 Altoviti, in the possession of his noble descendants at Flo- 
 rence, by many regarded as a portrait of Raphael himself.* 
 
 * Portraits of Raffaello are to be found in the Duomo, and in the 
 Sacristy of Siena, in more than one picture ; but it is doubtful whether 
 VOL. I. 2 c 
 
386 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 The heads in his Transfiguration are esteemed the most 
 perfect he ever painted, and Mengs extols the colouring of 
 them as eminently beautiful. If there be any exception, it 
 is in the complexion of the principal female, of a greyish 
 tint, as is often the case in his delicate figures ; in which he 
 is therefore considered to excel less than in the heads of his 
 men. Mengs has made many exceptions to the chiaroscuro 
 of Raffaello, as compared with that of Correggio, on which 
 connoisseurs will form their own decision. We are told that 
 he disposed it with the aid of models of wax ; and the relief 
 of his pictures, and the beautiful effect in his Heliodorus, and 
 in the Transfiguration, are ascribed to this mode of practice. 
 To his perspective, too, he was most attentive. De Piles 
 found in some of his sketches the scale of proportion.* It 
 is affirmed by Algarotti, that he did not attempt to fore- 
 shorten his figures in ceilings. But to this opinion we may 
 oppose the example we find in the third arch of the gallery 
 of the Vatican, where there is a perspective of small columns, 
 says Taja, imitated in that manner. It is true, that in his 
 larger works he avoided it ; and in order to preserve the 
 appearance of nature, he represented his pictures as painted 
 on a tapestry, attached by means of a running knot to the 
 entablature of the room. 
 
 But all the great qualities which we have enumerated 
 would not have procured for Raffaello such extraordinary 
 celebrity, if he had not possessed a wonderful felicity in the 
 invention and disposition of his subjects, indeed his highest 
 merit. It may with truth be said, that in aid of this object 
 he availed himself of every example, ancient and modern ; 
 and that these two requisites have not since been so united 
 
 by his own hand or that of Pinturicchio. That which is mentioned in the 
 Guida di Perugia, as being a picture of the Resurrection at the Conven- 
 tuals, is said to be by Pietro Perugino : and in the Borghese gallery in 
 Rome, there is one, supposed to be by the hand of Timoteo della Vite. 
 The portrait in the gallery in Florence, by Da Vinci, bears some resem- 
 blance to Raffaello, but it is not he. Another, which I have seen in 
 Bologna, ought, perhaps, to be ascribed to Giulio Romano. One of the 
 most authentic portraits of Raffaello, by his own hand, next to the one in 
 the picture of S. Luke, is that in the Medici Collection in the Stanza 
 de' Pittori, though this is not in his best manner. 
 * Idée de Peintre parfait, chap . xix. 
 
INVENTIVE POWERS OF RAFFAELLO. 387 
 
 in any other artist. He accomplishes in his pictures that 
 which every orator ought to aim at in his speech — he in- 
 structs, moves, and delights us. This is an easy task to a 
 narrator, since he can regularly unfold to us the whole pro- 
 gress of an event. The painter, on the contrary, has but 
 the space of a moment to make himself understood, and his 
 talent consists in describing not only what is passing, and 
 what is likely to ensue, but that which has already occurred. 
 It is here that the genius of Raffaello triumphs. He em- 
 braces the whole subject. From a thousand circumstances 
 he selects those alone which can interest us ; he arranges the 
 actors in the most expressive manner ; he invents the most 
 novel modes of conveying much meaning by few touches ; 
 and numberless minute circumstances, all uniting in one 
 purpose, render the story not only intelligible, but palpable. 
 Various writers have adduced in example the S. Paul at 
 Lystra, which is to be seen in one of the tapestries of the 
 Vatican. The artist has there represented the sacrifice pre- 
 pared for him and S. Barnabas his companion, as to two gods, 
 for having restored a lame man to the use of his limbs. The 
 altar, the attendants, the victims, the musicians, and the axe, 
 sufficiently indicate the intentions of the Lystrians. S. Paul, 
 who is in the act of tearing his robe, shews that he rejects 
 and abhors the sacrilegious honours, and is endeavouring 
 to dissuade the populace from persisting in them. But all 
 this were vain, if it had not indicated the miracle which had 
 just happened, and given rise to the event. Raffaello added 
 to the group the lame man restored to the use of his limbs, 
 now easily recognized again by all the spectators. He stands 
 before the apostles rejoicing in his restoration ; and raises his 
 hands in transport towards his benefactors, while at his feet 
 lie the crutches which had recently supported him, now cast 
 away as useless. This had been sufficient for any other 
 artist ; but Raffaello, who wished to carry reality to the 
 utmost point, has added a throng of people, who, in their 
 eager curiosity, remove the garment of the man, to behold 
 his limbs restored to their former state. Raffaello abounds 
 with examples like these, and he may be compared to some 
 of the classical writers, who afford the more matter for reflec- 
 tion the more they are studied. It is sufficient to have 
 
 2 c 2 
 
ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 noticed in the inventive powers of Raffaello, those circum- 
 stances which have been less frequently remarked ; the 
 movement of the passions, which is entirely the work of 
 expression, the delight which proceeds from poetical concep- 
 tions, or from graceful episodes, may be said to speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 Other things might contribute to the beauty of his works, 
 as unity, sublimity, costume, and erudition ; for which it is 
 sufficient to refer to those delightful poetical pieces, with which 
 he adorned the gallery of Leo X., and which were engraved 
 by Lanfranco and Badalocchi, and are called the Bible of 
 Raffaello. In the Return of Jacob, who does not immediately 
 discover, in the number and variety of domestic animals, the 
 multitude of servants, and the women carrying with them 
 their children, a patriarchal family migrating from a long 
 possessed abode into a new territory ? In the Creation of the 
 World, where the Deity stretches out his arms, and with one 
 hand calls forth the sun, and with the other the moon, do we 
 not see a grandeur, which, with the simplest expression, awakes 
 in us the most sublime ideas ? And in the Adoration of the 
 Golden Calf, how could he better have represented the idola- 
 trous ceremony, and its departure from true religion, than by 
 depicting the people as carried away by an insane joy, and 
 inad with fanaticism ? In point of erudition it is sufficient to 
 notice the Triumph of David, which Taja describes and com- 
 pares with the ancient bassirelievi, and is inclined to believe 
 that there is not any thing in marble that excels the art and 
 skill of this picture. I am aware that on another occasion he 
 has not been exempted from blame, as when he repeated the 
 figure of S. Peter out of prison, which hurts the unity of the 
 subject ; and in assigning to Apollo and to the Muses instru- 
 ments not proper to antiquity. Yet it is the glory of Raffaello 
 to have introduced into his pictures numberless circumstances 
 unknown to his predecessors, and to have left little to be added 
 by his successors. 
 
 In composition also he is at the head of his art. In every 
 picture the principal figure is obvious to the spectator ; we 
 have no occasion to inquire for it ; the groups, divided by 
 situation, are united in the principal action ; the contrast is 
 not dictated by affectation, but by truth and propriety a 
 
RAFFAELLO^ SKILL IN COMPOSITION. 389 
 
 figure absorbed in thought, often serves as a relief to another 
 that acts and speaks ; the masses of light and shade are not 
 arbitrarily poised, but are in the most select imitation of 
 nature ; all is art, but all is consummate skill and concealment 
 of art. The School of Athens, as it is called, in the Vatican, 
 is in this respect amongst the most wonderful compositions in 
 the world. They who succeeded Raffaello, and followed other 
 principles, have afforded more pleasure to the eye, but have 
 not given such satisfaction to the mind. The compositions of 
 Paul Veronese contain a greater number of figures, and more 
 decoration ; Lanfranco and the machinists introduced a 
 powerful effect, and a vigorous contrast of light and shade : 
 but who would exchange for such a manner the chaste and 
 dignified style of Raffaello ? Poussin alone, in the opinion 
 of Mengs, obtained a superior mode of composition in the 
 groundwork, or economy of his subject ; that is to say, in the 
 judicious selection of the scene of the event. 
 
 We have thus concisely stated the perfection to which 
 Raffaello carried his art, in the short space allotted him. 
 There is not a work in nature or art where he has not practi- 
 cally illustrated his own axiom, as handed down to us by 
 Federigo Zuccaro, that things must be represented, not as 
 they are, but as they ought to be ; the country, the elements, 
 animals, buildings, every age of man, every condition of life, 
 every affection, all was embraced and rendered more beautiful 
 by the divine genius of Raffaello. And if his life had been 
 prolonged to a more advanced period, without approaching 
 the term allowed to Titiano or Michelangelo, who shall say to 
 what height of perfection he might not have carried his 
 favourite art ? Who can divine his success in architecture 
 and sculpture, if he had applied himself to the study of them, 
 having so wonderfully succeeded in his few attempts in those 
 branches of art ? 
 
 Of his pictures a considerable number are to be found in 
 private collections, particularly on sacred subjects, such as the 
 Madonna and Child, and other compositions of the Holy 
 Family. They are in the three styles which we have before 
 described : the Grand Duke has some specimens of each. The 
 most admired is that which is named the Madonna della Seg- 
 
390 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 gioia.* Of this class of pictures it is often doubted whether 
 they ought to be considered as originals or copies, as some of 
 them have been three, five, or ten times repeated. The same 
 may be said of other cabinet pictures by him, particularly the 
 S. John in the Desert, which is in the Grand Ducal gallery at 
 Florence, and is found repeated in many collections both in 
 Italy and in other countries. This was likely to happen in a 
 school where the most common mode was the following :— 
 The subject was designed by Raffaello, the picture prepared 
 by Giulio, and finished by the master so exquisitely, that one 
 might almost count the hairs of the head. When the pictures 
 were thus finished, they were copied by the scholars of Raf- 
 faello, who were very numerous, and of the second and third 
 order ; and these were also sometimes retouched by Giulio 
 and by Raffaello himself. But whoever is experienced in the 
 freedom and delicacy of the chief of this school, need not fear 
 confounding his productions with those of the scholars, or of 
 Giulio himself ; who, besides having a more timid pencil, made 
 use of a darker tint than his master was accustomed to do. I 
 have met with an experienced person, who declared that he 
 could recognize the character of Giulio in the dark parts of 
 the flesh tints, and in the middle dark tints, not of a leaden 
 colour as Raffaello used, nor so well harmonized ; in the greater 
 quantity of light, and in the eyes designed more roundly, 
 which Raffaello painted somewhat long, after the manner of 
 Pietro. 
 
 On this propitious commencement was founded the school 
 which we call Roman, rather from the city of Rome itself, 
 
 * Engraved by Morghen. The three figures, the Madonna, the Infant, 
 and St. John, appear almost alive. It would seem that Raffaello made 
 several studies for this picture, and he painted one without the St. John, 
 which remained for some time in Urbino. I saw a copy in the possession 
 of the Calamini family, at Recanati, which was said to be by Baroccio, 
 and at all events belonging to his school. I have seen the same subject 
 in the Casa Olivieri, at Pesaro, and at Cortona, in possession of another 
 noble family, to whom it had passed by inheritance from Urbino, and was 
 considered to be by Raffaello. The faces in these are not so beautiful, 
 nor the colours so fine ; they are round, and in a larger circle, with some 
 variations ; I have also seen a copy in the Sacristy of S. Luigi de* Fran- 
 zesi, in Rome, and in the Palazzo Giustiniani. 
 
RAFFAELLOS IMITATORS. 
 
 301 
 
 than from the people, as I have before observed. For as the 
 inhabitants of Rome are a mixture of many tongues, and 
 many different nations, of whom the descendants of Romulus 
 form the least proportion, so the school of painting has been 
 increased in its numbers by foreigners whom she has received 
 and united to her own, and who are considered in her academy 
 of S. Luke, as if they had been born in Rome, and enjoyed 
 the ancient rights of Romans, Hence is derived the great 
 variety of names that we find in the course of it. Some, as 
 Caravaggio, derived no assistance from the study of the 
 ancient marbles, and other aids peculiar to the capital ; and 
 these may be said to have been in the Roman School, but not 
 to have formed a part of it. Others adopted the principles 
 of the disciples of Raffaello, and their usual method was to 
 study diligently both Raffaello and the ancient marbles ; and 
 from the imitation of him, and more particularly of the 
 antique, resulted, if I err not, the general character, if I may 
 so express it, of the Roman School : the young artists, who 
 were expert in copying statues and bassirelievi, and who had 
 those objects always before their eyes, could easily transfer 
 their forms to the panel or the canvas. Hence their style is 
 formed on the antique, and their beauty is more ideal than 
 that of other schools. This circumstance, which was an ad- 
 vantage to those who knew how to use it, became a disadvan- 
 tage to others, leading them to give their figures the air of 
 statues, beautiful, but isolated, and not sufficiently animated. 
 Others have done themselves greater injury from copying the 
 modern statues of saints ; a practice which facilitated the 
 representation of devout attitudes, the disposition of the folds 
 in the garments of the monks and priests, and other pecu- 
 liarities which are not found in ancient sculpture. But as 
 sculpture has gradually deteriorated, it could not have any 
 beneficial influence on the sister arts ; and it has hence led 
 many into mannerism in the folds of their drapery, after 
 Bernino and Algardi ; excellent artists, but who ought not to 
 have influenced the art of painting as they did, in a city like 
 Rome. The style of invention in this school is, in general, 
 judicious, the composition chaste, the costume carefully ob- 
 served, with a moderate study of ornament. I speak of 
 pictures in oil, for the frescos of this later period ought to be 
 
392 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 separately considered. The colouring, on the whole, is not 
 the most brilliant, nor is it yet the most feeble ; there being 
 always a supply of artists from the Lombards or Flemings, 
 who prevented its being entirely neglected. 
 
 We may now return to the original subject of our inquiry, 
 examine the principles of the Roman School, and attend it to 
 its latest epoch. Raffaello at all times employed a number of 
 scholars, constantly instructing and teaching them : whence he 
 never went to court, as we are assured by Yasari, without 
 being accompanied (out of respect) by probably fifty of the 
 first artists. He employed every one in the way most agree- 
 able to his talent. Some, having received sufficient instruction, 
 returned to their native country ; others remained with him, 
 and after his death established themselves at Rome, where 
 they became the germs of this new school. At the head of 
 all was Giulio Romano, whom, with Gio. Francesco Penni, 
 Raffaello appointed his heir, whence they both united in finish- 
 ing the works on which their master was employed. They 
 associated to themselves as an assistant Perino del Vaga, and 
 to render the connexion permanent, gave him a sister of Penni 
 to his wife. To these three were joined some others who had 
 worked under Raffaello. On their first establishment they 
 did not meet with any great success, for, as Vasari informs us, 
 the chief place in art being by universal consent assigned to 
 Fra Sebastiano, through the partiality of Michelangelo, the 
 followers of Raffaello were kept in the back ground. We 
 may also add, as another cause, the death of Leo X., in 1521, 
 and the election of his successor, Adrian VL, a decided enemy 
 to the fine arts, by whom the public works contemplated, and 
 already commenced by his predecessor, remained neglected ; 
 and many artists, in consequence of the want of employment, 
 occasioned by this event, and by the plague, in 1523, were 
 reduced to the greatest distress. But Adrian dying after a 
 reign of twenty-three months, and Giulio de* Medici being 
 elected in his place under the name of Clement VII., the arts 
 revived. Raffaello, before his death, had begun to paint the 
 great saloon, had designed figures, and left sketches for the 
 completion of it. It was intended to represent four historical 
 events, although the subjects of some are disputed. These 
 were the Apparition of the Cross, or the harangue of Con- 
 
SCHOOL OF RAFFAELLO. 
 
 393 
 
 stantine ; the battle wherein Maxentius is drowned, and Con- 
 statine remains victor ; the baptism of Constantine, received 
 from the hands of S. Silvester ; and the Donative of the city 
 of Rome, made to the same pontiff. Giulio finished the two 
 first subjects, and Giovanni Francesco the other two, and they 
 added to them bassirelievi, painted in imitation of bronze 
 under each subject, with additional figures. They afterwards 
 painted, or rather finished, the pictures of the villa at Monte 
 Mario, a work ordered by the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, 
 and suspended until the second or third year of his papal 
 reign. This villa was afterwards called di Madama, and 
 there still remain many traces of the munificence of that 
 prince, and the taste of the school of Raffaello. Giulio mean- 
 while, with the permission of the pope, established himself in 
 Mantua, Il Fattore went to Naples ; and afterwards, in 1527, 
 in consequence of the sacking of Rome, and the unrestrained 
 licence of the invading army, Vaga, Polidoro, Giovanni da 
 Udine, Peruzzi, and Vincenzio di S. Gimignano left Rome, 
 and with them Parmigianino, at this time in the capital, pas- 
 sionately employed in studying the works of Raffaello. This 
 illustrious school was thus dispersed over Italy, and hence it 
 happened that the new style, quickly propagated, gave birth 
 to the florid schools, which form the subjects of our other 
 books. Some of the scholars of Raffaello might return to 
 Rome, but the brilliant epoch was past. The decline became 
 apparent soon after the sacking of the city, and from the time 
 of that event, the art daily degenerated in the capital, and 
 ultimately terminated in mannerism. After this general 
 notice of the school of Raffaello, we shall treat of each par- 
 ticular scholar and of his assistants. 
 
 Giulio Pippi, or Giulio Romano, the most distinguished 
 pupil of Raffaello, resembled his master more in energy than 
 in delicacy of style, and was particularly successful in sub- 
 jects of war and battles, which he represented with spirit and 
 correctness. In his noble style of design he emulates Michel- 
 angelo, commands the whole mechanism of the human body, 
 and with a masterly hand renders it subservient to all his pur- 
 poses. His only fault is, that his demonstrations of motion 
 are sometimes too violent. Vasari preferred his drawings to 
 his pictures, as he thought that the fire of his original concep- 
 
394 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 tion was apt to evaporate, in some degree, in the finishing. 
 Some have objected to the squareness of his physiognomies, 
 and have complained of his middle tints being too dark. But 
 Niccolo Poussin admired this asperity of colour in his battle 
 of Constantine, as suitable to the character of the subject. 
 In the picture of the church dell' Anima, which is a Madonna, 
 accompanied by saints, and in others of that description, it 
 does not produce so good an effect. His cabinet pictures are 
 rare, and sometimes too free in their subjects. He generally 
 painted in fresco, and his vast works at Mantua place him at 
 the head of that school, which indeed venerates him as its 
 founder. 
 
 Gianfrancesco Penni of Florence, called II Fattore, who, 
 when a boy, was a servant in the studio of Raffaello, became 
 one of his principal scholars, and assisted him more than any 
 other in the cartoons of the tapestries : he painted in the gal- 
 lery of the Vatican the Histories of Abraham and Isaac, no- 
 ticed by Taja. Among other works left incomplete by his 
 master, and which he finished, is the Assumption of Monte 
 Luci in Perugia, the lower part of which, with the apostles, 
 is painted by Giulio, and the upper part, which abounds with 
 Raffaellesque grace, is ascribed to II Fattore, although Vasari 
 assigns it to Perino. Of the works which he performed alone, 
 his frescos in Rome have perished, and so few of his oil pic- 
 tures remain, that they are rarely to be found in any collec- 
 tion. He is characterised by fertility of conception, grace of 
 execution, and a singular talent for landscape. Joint heir of 
 Raffaello with Giulio, he wished to unite himself with him 
 in his profession ; but being coldly received by Giulio in 
 Mantua, he proceeded to Naples, where he contributed greatly 
 to the improvement of art, although cut off by an early death. 
 Orlandi notices two Penni in the school of Raffaello, compre- 
 hending Luca, a brother of Gianfrancesco, a circumstance not 
 improbable, and not contradicted by history. We are also 
 told by Vasari, that Luca united himself to Perino del Vaga, 
 and worked with him at Lucca, and other places; that he 
 followed Rosso into France, as we have before observed ; and 
 ultimately passed into England, where he painted for the king 
 and private persons, and made designs for prints. 
 
 Perino del Vaga, whose true name was Pierino Buonaccorsi, 
 
PER1N0 DEL VAGA. 
 
 395 
 
 was a relation and fellow-citizen of Penni. He had a share 
 in the works of the Vatican, where he worked stuccos and 
 arabesques with Giovanni da Udine, painted chiaroscuri with 
 Polidoro, or finished subjects from the sketches and after the 
 style of Raffaello. Vasari considered him the best designer 
 of the Florentine school, after Michelangelo, and at the head 
 of all those who assisted Raffaello. It is certain that no one 
 could, like him, compete with Giulio in that universality of 
 talent so conspicuous in Raffaello ; and the subjects from the 
 New Testament, which he painted in the papal gallery, were 
 praised by Taja above all others. In his style there is a great 
 mixture of the Florentine, as may be seen at Rome, in the 
 Birth of Eve, in the church of S. Marcello, where there are 
 some children painted to the life, a most finished performance. 
 A convent at Tivoli possesses a S. John in the Desert, by him, 
 with a landscape in the best style. There are many works 
 by him in Lucca, and Pisa, but more particularly in Genoa, 
 where we shall have occasion again to consider him as the 
 originator of a celebrated school. 
 
 Giovanni da Udine, by a writer of Udine called Giovanni 
 di Francesco Ricamatore (Boni, p. 25), likewise assisted San- 
 zio in arabesques and stuccos, and painted ornaments in the 
 gallery of the Vatican, in the apartments of the pope, and in 
 many other places. Indeed, in the art of working in stucco, 
 he is ranked as the first among the moderns,* having, after 
 long experience, imitated the style of the baths of Titus, dis- 
 covered at that time in Rome, and opened afresh in our own 
 days.t His foliage and shells, his aviaries and birds, painted 
 
 * Morto da Feltro sotto Alessandro VI., cominciò a dipingere a grot- 
 tesco, ma senza stucchi. Baglione, Vite, p. 21. 
 
 f The entrance into these baths was designedly and maliciously closed. 
 Serlio, speaking of the various arabesques in Pozzuolo, Baja, and 
 Rome, says that they were injured or destroyed by the artists who had 
 copied them, through a jealous feeling lest others should also avail them- 
 selves of the opportunity of studying them (lib. iv. c. 11). The names 
 of these destroyers, which Serlio has suppressed, posterity has been 
 desirous of recovering, some have accused Raffaello, others Pinturicchio, 
 and others Vaga, or Giovanni da Udine, or rather his scholars and assis- 
 tants, fi of whom," says Vasari, " there were an infinite number in every 
 part of Italy." This subject is ably discussed by Mariotti, in " Lettera" 
 ix. p. 224, and in the 4 * Memorie delle belle Arti," per V anno 1788, 
 p. 24. 
 
396 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 in the above-mentioned places, and in other parts of Home 
 and Italy, deceive the eye by their exquisite imitation ; and 
 in the animals more particularly, and the indigenous and 
 foreign birds, he seems to have reached the highest point of 
 excellence. He was also remarkable for counterfeiting with 
 his pencil every species of furniture ; and a story is told, that 
 having left some imitations of carpets one day in the gallery of 
 Raffaello, a groom in the service of the pope coming in haste 
 in search of a carpet to place in a room, ran to snatch up one 
 of those of Giovanni, deceived by the similitude. After the 
 sacking of Rome, he visited other parts of Italy, leaving, 
 wherever he went, works in the most perfect and brilliant 
 style of ornament. This will occasion us to notice him in 
 other schools. At an advanced age he returned to Rome, 
 where he was provided with a pension from the pope, till the 
 time of his death.* 
 
 Polidoro da Caravaggio, from a manual labourer in the 
 works of the Vatican, became an artist of the first celebrity, 
 and distinguished himself in the imitation of antique bassi- 
 rilievi, painting both sacred and profane subjects in a most 
 beautiful chiaroscuro. Nothing of this kind was evev seen 
 more perfect, whether we consider the composition, the mecha- 
 nism, or the design ; and Raffaello and he, of all artists, are 
 considered in this respect to have approached nearest to the 
 style of the ancients. Rome was filled with the richest 
 friezes, facades, and ornaments over doors, painted by him and 
 Maturino of Florence, an excellent designer, and his partner ; 
 but these, to the great loss of art, have nearly all perished. 
 The fable of Niobe, in the Maschera d'Oro, which was one of 
 their most celebrated works, has suffered less than any other 
 
 * It was charged on the office of the Piombo, or papal signet, when 
 Sebastiano da Venezia was invested with it, and was a pension of three 
 hundred scudi. Padre Federici observes that the one was designated 
 Fra Sebastiano, but that the other was not called Fra Giovanni ; nor is 
 this remarkable, for a Bishop is called Monsignore, but the person who 
 enjoys a pension charged upon a bishoprick has not the same title. It 
 cannot however be deduced from this, as Federici wishes to do, that 
 Sebastiano was first Frate di S. Domenico, by the name of F. Marco 
 Pensaben, and afterwards secularized by the pope, and appointed 
 to the signet, and lhat he retained the Fra in consequence of his former 
 situation. 
 
PELLEGRINO DA MODENA. 
 
 397 
 
 from the ravages of time and the hand of barbarism. This 
 loss has been in some measure mitigated by the prints of 
 •Cherubino Alberti, and Santi Bartoli, who engraved many of 
 these works before they perished. Polidoro lost his comrade 
 by death in Rome, as was supposed, by the plague, and he 
 himself repaired to Naples, and from thence to Sicily, where 
 he fell a victim to the cupidity of his own servant, who as- 
 sassinated him. With him invention, grace, and freedom of 
 hand, seem to have died. This notice of him as au artist 
 may suffice for the present, as we shall again recur to him in 
 the fourth book, as one of the masters of the Neapolitan 
 school. 
 
 Pellegrino da Modena, of the family of* Munari, of all the 
 scholars of Raffaello, perhaps resembled him the most in the 
 air of his heads, and a peculiar grace of attitude. After 
 having painted, in an incomparable manner, the history of 
 Jacob, before mentioned, and others of the same patriarch, and 
 some from the life of Solomon in the gallery of the Vatican, 
 under Raffaello, he remained in Rome, employed in the deco- 
 ration of many of the churches, until his master's death. He 
 then returned to his native place, where he became the head 
 of a numerous succession of Raffaellesque painters, as we 
 shall in due time relate. 
 
 Bartolommeo Ramenghi, or as he is sometimes named, 
 Bagnacavallo, and by Vasari, Il Bologna, is also included in 
 the catalogue of .those who worked in the gallery. There is 
 not, however, any known work of his in Rome, and we may 
 say the same of Biagio Pupilli, a Bolognese, with whom he 
 afterwards united himself to paint in Bologna. Vasari is 
 not prodigal of praise towards the first, and writes with the 
 most direct censure against the second. Of their merits we 
 shall speak more fully in the Bolognese school, to which 
 Bagnacavallo was the first to communicate a new and better 
 style. 
 
 Besides these, Vasari mentions Vincenzio di S. Gimignano, 
 in Tuscany, to whom, as a highly successful imitator of Raf- 
 faello, he gives great praise, referring to some facades in 
 fresco by him, which have now perished. After the sacking 
 of Rome he returned home, but so changed and dispirited, 
 
398 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 that he appeared quite another person, and we have no account 
 of any of his subsequent works. Schizzone, a comrade of 
 Vincenzio, a most promising artist, shared the same fate; and 
 we find also, in the Bolognese school, Cavedone losing his 
 powers by some great mental affliction. Among the subjects 
 of the Vatican we do not find any ascribed to Vincenzio, but 
 we may perhaps assign to him the History of Moses in Ho- 
 reb, which Taj a, on mere conjecture, ascribes to the bold pen- 
 cil of Raffaelle del Colle, who was employed by Raffaello in 
 the Farnesina, and in the Hall of Constantine under Giulio. 
 Of this artist and his successors we have spoken in the first book 
 where we have made some additions to the account of Vasari. 
 
 Timoteo della Vite, of Urbino, after some years spent at 
 Bologna in studying under Francesco Francia, returned to 
 his native city, and from thence repaired to the academy 
 which his countryman and relation Raffaello had opened in 
 the Vatican. He assisted Raffaello at the Pace, in the fresco 
 of the Sibyls, of which he retained the cartoons ; and after 
 some time, from some cause or other, he returned to Urbino, 
 and there passed the remainder of his days. He brought with 
 him to Rome a method of painting which partook much of 
 the manner of the early masters, as may be seen in some of 
 his Madonnas, at the palace Bonaventura, and the chapter of 
 Urbino ; and in a Discovery of the Cross in the church of 
 the conventuals of Pesaro. He improved his style under 
 Raffaello, and acquired much of his grace, attitudes, and 
 colour, though he always remained a limited inventor, with a 
 certain timidity of touch, more correct than vigorous. The 
 picture of the Conception at the Osservanti of Urbino,* and 
 the Noli me Tangere, in the church of S. Angelo, at Cagli, 
 are the best pieces that remain of Timoteo. Pietro della 
 Vite, who is supposed to have been his brother, painted in 
 the same style, but in an inferior manner. This Pietro is, 
 perhaps, the relative and heir of Raffaello, whom Baldinucci 
 mentions in his fifth volume. The same writer affirms, at 
 the end of his fourth volume, that the artists of Urbino 
 included amongst the scholars of Raffaello one Crocchia, and 
 
 * This picture is now to be seen in the R. Pinacoteca at Milan. 
 
RAFFAELLo's ASSISTANTS. 
 
 399 
 
 assign to him a picture at the Capuchins in Urbino, of which 
 I have no further knowledge. 
 
 Benvenuto Tisi, of Ferrara, or, as he is generally called, 
 TI Garofalo, also studied only a little time under Sanzio, but 
 it was sufficient to enable him to become, as we shall notice 
 hereafter, the chief of the Ferrarese school. He imitated 
 Raffaello in design, in the character of his faces, and in ex- 
 pression, and considerably also in his colouring, although he 
 added something of a warmer and stronger cast, derived from 
 his own school. Rome, Bologna, and other cities of Italy, 
 abound with his pictures from the lives of the apostles. They 
 are of various merit, and are not wholly painted by himself. 
 In his large pictures he stands more alone, and many of these 
 are to be found in the Chigi gallery. The Visitation of the 
 Palazzo Doria, is one of the first pieces in that rich collection. 
 This artist was accustomed, in allusion to his name, to mark 
 his pictures with a violet, which the common people in Italy 
 call garofalo. It does not appear from Vasari, Titi, and Taja, 
 that Garofalo had any share in the works which were exe- 
 cuted by Raffaello and his scholars. 
 
 Gaudenzio Ferrari is mentioned by Titi, as an assistant of 
 Raffaello in the story of Psyche, and we shall advert to him 
 again in another book as chief of the Milanese school. Or- 
 landi, on the credit of some more modern writers, asserts, 
 that he worked with Raffaello also at Torre Borgia, and be- 
 fore that time, he considers him to have been a scholar of 
 Scotto and Perugino. In Florence, and in other places in 
 Lower Italy, some highly-finished pictures are attributed to 
 him, which partake of the preceding century, though they do 
 not seem allied to the school of Perugino. Of these pictures 
 we shall resume our notice hereafter ; at present it may be 
 sufficient to remark, that in Lombardy, where he resided, 
 there is not a picture in that style to be found with his name 
 attached to it. He is always Raffaeli esque, and follows the 
 chiefs of the Roman school. 
 
 Vasari also notices Jacomone da Faenza. This artist 
 assiduously studied the works of Raffaello, and from , long 
 practice in copying them, became himself an inventor. He 
 flourished in Romagna, and it was from him that a Raffaell- 
 esque taste was diffused throughout that part of Italy. He 
 
400 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 is also mentioned by Baldinucci, and we shall endeavour to 
 make him better known in his proper place. 
 
 Besides the abo^ve-mentioned scholars and assistants of 
 Raffaello, several others are enumerated by writers, of whom 
 we may give a short notice. Il Pistoja, a scholar of II 
 Fattore, and probably employed by him in the works of 
 Sanzio, as Raffaellino del Colle was with Giulio, is mentioned 
 as a scholar of Raffaello by Baglione, and, on the credit of 
 that writer, also by Taja. We mentioned him among the 
 Tuscans, and shall further notice him in Naples, where we 
 shall also find Andrea da Salerno, head of that school, whom 
 Dominici proves to be a scholar of Raffaello. 
 
 In the " Memorie di Monte Rubbiano," edited by Colucci, 
 at page 10, Vincenzo Pagani, a native of that country, is 
 mentioned as a pupil of the same master. There remains of 
 him, in the collegiate church there, a most beautiful picture of 
 the Assumption ; and the Padre Ci valli points out another in 
 Fallerone and two at Sarnano, in the church of his religious 
 fraternity, much extolled, and in a Raffaellesque manner, if 
 we are to credit report. This painter, of whom, in Piceno, I 
 find traces to the year 1529, again appears in Umbria in 
 1553, where Lattanzio, his son, being elected a magistrate of 
 Perugia, he transferred himself thither, and was employed to 
 paint the altar-piece of the Cappella degli Oddi, in the church 
 of the Conventuals, as we have already mentioned. Accord- 
 ing to the conditions of the contract, Paparelli had a share 
 with him in this work, and he must be considered as an 
 assistant of Vincenzo, both because he is named as holding the 
 second place, and because he is reported by Vasari on other 
 occasions, as having been an assistant. But as history men- 
 tions nothing relative to this picture, except the contract, we 
 shall content ourselves with observing, that this praiseworthy 
 artist, who was passed over in silence for so many years, still 
 painted in the year 1553. Whether he was a scholar of 
 Raffaello, or whether this was a tradition which arose in his 
 own country in progress of time, supported only on the con- 
 sideration of his age and his style, is a point to be decided by 
 proofs of more authority than those we possess. I agree 
 with the Sig. Arciprete Lazzari, when, writing of F. Ber- 
 nardo Catelani of Urbino, who painted in Cagli the picture 
 
FOREIGNERS OF RAFFAELLOS SCHOOL. 
 
 40 i 
 
 of the great altar in the church of the Capuchins, he says, 
 that he had there exhibited the style of the school of Raf- 
 faello, but he does not consider him his scholar. 
 
 It has been asserted, that Marcantonio Raimondi painted 
 some pictures from the sketches of Raffaello, in a style which 
 excited the admiration of the designer himself ; but this ap- 
 pears doubtful, and is so considered by Malvasia. L'Arme- 
 nini also assigns to this school Scipione Sacco, a painter of 
 Cesena, and Orlandi, Don Pietro da Bagnaja, whom we shall 
 mention in the Romagna school. Some have added to it 
 Bernardino Lovino, and others Baldassare Peruzzi, a suppo- 
 sition which we shall shew to be erroneous. Padre della 
 Valle has more recently revived an opinion, that Correggio 
 may be ranked in the same school, and that he was probably 
 employed in the gallery, and might have painted the subject 
 of the Magi, attributed by Vasari to Perino. This is conjec- 
 tured from the peculiar smile of the mother and the infant. 
 But these surmises and conjectures we may consider as the 
 trifling of that author, who has nevertheless presented us with 
 much substantial information. We shall now advert to the 
 foreigners of this school. Bellori has enumerated, among the 
 imitators of Raffaello, Michele Cockier, or Cocxie, of Malines, 
 of whom there remain some pictures in fresco in the church 
 dell' Anima. Being afterwards in Flanders, where several 
 works of Raffaello were engraved by Cock, he was accused 
 of plagiarism, but still maintained a considerable reputation ; 
 as to a fertile invention he added a graceful style of execution. 
 • Many of his best pictures passed into Spain, and were there 
 purchased at great prices. Palomino acquaints us with ano- 
 ther excellent scholar of Sanzio, Pier Campanna, of Flanders, 
 who, although he could not entirely divest himself of the 
 hardness of his native school, was still highly esteemed in his 
 lay. He resided twenty years in Italy, and was employed 
 in Venice by the patriarch Grimani, for whom he painted 
 several portraits, and the celebrated picture of the Magdalen 
 led by Saint Martha to the Temple, to hear the preaching of 
 Christ. This picture, which was bequeathed by the patriarch 
 to a friend, after a lapse of many years, passed into the hands 
 of Mr. Slade, an English gentleman. Pier Campanna dis- 
 tinguished himself in Bologna, by painting a triumphal arch 
 
 VOL. I. 2 q 
 
402 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH II. 
 
 on the arrival of Charles V., by whom he was invited to 
 Seville, where he resided a considerable time, painting and 
 instructing pupils, among whom is reckoned Morales, who, 
 from his countrymen, had the appellation of the divine. He 
 was accustomed to paint small pictures, which were eagerly 
 sought after by the English, and transferred to their country, 
 where they are highly prized. Of his altar-pieces several 
 ìCmain in Seville, and we may mention the Purification, in 
 the cathedral, and the Deposition at S. Croce, as the most 
 esteemed. Murillo, who was himself a truly noble artist, 
 greatly admired and studied this latter picture, which, even 
 after we have seen the master-pieces of the Italian school, 
 still excites our astonishment and admiration. This artist, 
 to some one, who, in his latter years, inquired why he so 
 often repaired to this picture, replied, that he waited the 
 moment when the body of Christ should reach the ground. 
 Mention is also made of one Mosca, whether a native or 
 foreigner I know not, as a doubtful disciple of this school. 
 Christ on his way to Mount Calvary, now in the Academy 
 in Mantua., is certainly a Raffaellesque picture, but we may 
 rather consider Mosca an imitator and copyist, than a pupil 
 of Raffaello. In the edition of Palomino, published in 
 London, 1742, I find some others noticed as scholars of 
 Raffaello, who being born a little before or after 1520, could 
 not possibly belong to him ; as Gaspare Bacerra, the assistant 
 of Vasari ; Alfonso Sanchez, of Portugal ; Giovanni di 
 Valencia ; Fernando Jannes. It is not unusual to find simi- 
 lar instances in the history of painting, as I have frequently 
 remarked throughout this work ; and these reports have 
 for the most part originated in the last age. Whenever the 
 artists of a country began to collect notices of the masters 
 who had preceded them, their style had become the prevailing 
 taste ; and as if human genius could attain no improvement 
 beyond that which it receives subserviently from another, 
 every imitator was supposed to be a scholar of the artist 
 imitated, and every school, arrogating to itself the names 
 of the first masters, endeavoured to load itself with fresh 
 honours. 
 
403 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH III. 
 
 The art declines in consequence of the public calamities of Rome, and 
 gradually falls into mannerism. 
 
 After the mournful events of the year 1527, Home for some 
 time remained in a state of stupor, contemplating her past 
 misfortunes and her future destiny ; and, like a vessel 
 escaped from shipwreck, began slowly to repair her numerous 
 losses. The soldiers of the besieging army, among other 
 injuries committed in the Apostolic palace, had defaced some 
 heads of Raffaello ; and F. Sebastiano, an artist by no means 
 competent to such a task, was employed to repair them. 
 This, at least, was the opinion of Titiano, who was introduced 
 to these works, and, ignorant of the circumstances, asked 
 Sebastiano what presumptuous wretch had had the audacity 
 to attempt their restoration ; * an impartial observation, 
 against which even the patronage of Michelangelo could not 
 shield the artist. Paul III. was now in possession of the 
 papal chair, and under his auspices the arts again began to 
 revive. The decoration of the palace of Capraruola, and 
 other works of Paul and his nephews, gave employment to 
 the painters, and happy had these patrons been, could they 
 nave found a second Raffaello. Bonarruoti. as we have 
 observed, was engaged by the pope, and gave to the Roman 
 school many noble specimens of art, though he formed but 
 few scholars. Sebastiano, after the death of Raffaello, freed 
 from all further competition with that great artist, and 
 honoured with the lucrative cffice of the papal signet, seemed 
 disposed to rest from his labours ; and as he had never, at 
 
 * Dolce, Dial, della Pittura, p. 11. 
 
 2 D 2 
 
404 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 any time, discovered great application, he now resigned him- 
 self to a life of vacant leisure, and "Vasari does not mention 
 with commendation any pupil of his scho- ? except Laureti.* 
 Giulio Romano was now invited back to Rome, and the 
 superintendence of the building of St. Peters offered to him, 
 but death prevented his return to his native city. Perino 
 del Vaga, however, repaired to Rome, and might, himself, 
 have effected the restoration of art, if his magnanimity had 
 corresponded with the sublimity of his mind. But he did 
 not inherit the daring genius of his master. He communi- 
 cated his instructions with jealousy, and worked with a spirit 
 of gain ; or to speak correctly, he did not paint himself, but 
 undertaking works of more or less consequence, he allowed 
 his scholars to execute them, often to the injury of his own 
 reputation. He continued to secure to himself artists of the 
 first talents, as we shall see ; but this was done with the 
 intention of making them dependent on him, and to prevent 
 their interfering with his emoluments and commissions. But 
 together with the good, he engaged also many indifferent and 
 inferior artists, whence it happens, that in the chambers ot 
 the castle of S. Angelo, and in other places, we meet with so 
 marked a difference in many of his works. Few of his 
 scholars attained celebrity. Luzio Romano is the most 
 noted, and possessed a good execution. Of him there exists 
 a frieze in the Palazzo Spada ; and for some time, too, he had 
 for an assistant Marcello Venusti of Mantua, a young man of 
 great talents, but diffident, and probably standing in need of 
 more instruction than Perino afforded him. He afterwards 
 received some instructions from Bonarruoti, whose ideas he 
 executed in an excellent manner, as I have mentioned before, 
 and by his aid he became himself also a good designer, f 
 Perino, by these means, always abounded in work and in 
 
 * We shall notice him again in the school of Bologna, where he passed 
 his best years, and also in the Roman school, in which he was a master. 
 Sebastiano had also another scholar, or imitator, as we find a Communion 
 of S. Lucia, painted in his style, in the collegiate church of Spello. The 
 artist inscribes his name, Camillus Bagazotus Carriers faciebat. — " Orsini 
 Risposta/' p. 16. 
 
 f He painted the S. Catherine in S. Agostino, the Presepio in S. Sil- 
 vestro at Monte Cavallo, and left works in many other churches. 
 
PAINTINGS IN THE SALA REGIA. 
 
 405 
 
 money. A similar traffic in the art was carried on by 
 Taddeo Zuccaro, if we are to believe Vasari ; and by Vasari 
 himself, too, if we may be allowed to judge from his pic- 
 tures. 
 
 The actual state of the art at this period may be ascertained 
 from a view of the numerous works produced ; but none are 
 so distinguished as the paintings in the Sala Regia, com- 
 menced under Paul III., and scarcely finished, after a lapse 
 of thirty years, in 1573. Of these Vaga had the direction, 
 as Raffaello had formerly had of the chambers of the Vatican. 
 He planned the compartments, ornamented the ceiling, directed 
 all the stuccos, cornices, devices, and large figures, and all in 
 the style of a great master. He then applied himself to 
 design the subjects for his pencil, and was employed on them 
 when he was carried off by death in 1547. Through the 
 partiality of Michelangelo, he was succeeded by Daniel di 
 Volterra, who had already worked in stucco, under his direc- 
 tion, in the same place. Volterra resolved to represent the 
 donations of those sovereigns who had extended or consoli- 
 dated the temporal dominion of the church, whence the cham- 
 ber was called Sala dei Regi, and this idea was, in some 
 degree, though with variations, continued by succeeding 
 artists. Volterra was naturally slow and irresolute, and after 
 painting the Deposition from the Cross, which we have men- 
 tioned as being executed with the assistance of Michelangelo, 
 he produced no more of these prodigies of art. He had in- 
 deed begun some designs, but on the death of the Pope, in 
 1549, he was compelled, in order to accommodate the Con- 
 clave, to remove the scaffolding, and expose the work un- 
 finished. It did not meet with public approbation, nor was 
 it continued under Julius III., and still less under Paul IV., 
 in whose reign the art was held in so little respect, that the 
 Apostles, painted by Raffaello in one of the chambers of the 
 Vatican, were displaced. 
 
 Pius IV., who resumed the work, on the suggestion of 
 Vasari, in 1561, had intended to charge Salviati with the 
 entire execution of it ; but, by the intercessions of Bonar- 
 ruoti, was at length prevailed on to assign one half of the 
 apartment to Salviati, and the other half to Ricciarelli, though 
 this did not contribute to expedite the work. Pirro Ligorio, 
 
406 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 a Neapolitan, was at this time held in high esteem by the 
 pope. He was an antiquarian, though not of great celebrity, 
 but a good architect, and a fresco painter of some merit ;* an 
 enthusiast too, and alike jealous of Ricciarelli, for the homage 
 he paid to Bonarruoti, and of Salviati, for the respect which 
 be did not shew to Ligorio himself. Remarking that the pope 
 wished to hasten the completion of the work, he proposed to 
 select a number of scholars, and to divide the work amongst 
 them. Vasari adds, that Salviati was disgusted and left Rome ; 
 where, on his return, he died, without finishing his work ; 
 and that Ricciarelli, who was always slow, never touched it 
 again, and died after some little time. The completion of the 
 work was then intrusted to the successors of Raffaello. Livio 
 Agresti da Forli, Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, and Mar- 
 co da Pino, of Sienna, although they had received their first 
 instructions from other masters, had been instructed by Pe- 
 rino del Vaga, and had assisted in his cartoons. Taddeo 
 Zuccaro had accomplished himself under Giacomone da Fa- 
 enza, and made his younger brother Federigo an able artist. 
 To these the work was assigned ; there were added to them 
 Samacchini and Fiorini, Bolognese artists, and Giuseppe 
 Porta della Garfagnana, called Giuseppe Salviati. This lat- 
 ter had been the pupil of Francesco Salviati, from whom he 
 learnt the principles of design ; he was afterwards a follower 
 of the school of Venice, where he resided. Of these nume- 
 rous artists, Vasari assigns the palm to Taddeo Zuccaro, but 
 the court was so much pleased with Porta, that it was in con- 
 templation to destroy the works of the other artists, in order 
 that the apartment might be finished by him alone. He re- 
 presented Alexander III. in the act of bestowing his benedic- 
 tion on Frederick Barbarossa, in the Piazza of S. Mark, in 
 Venice ; and he here indulged his taste for architectural or- 
 naments, in the Venetian manner. When however this work 
 is viewed and compared with that of other artists, we discover 
 a sameness of style, the character of the time ; a deficiency 
 
 * He painted some facades in Rome. In the oratory of S. Giovanni 
 Decollato, there remains the Dance before Herod, not very correctly 
 designed, and feeble in colouring; but the perspective, and the rich- 
 ness of the drapery in the Venetian style, may confer some value on the 
 picture. 
 
DECLINE OF ART. 
 
 407 
 
 of strength in the colours and shadows is the common failing. 
 It seems as if the art, through a long course of years, had 
 become debilitated : it discovers the lineaments of a better 
 age, but feebly expressed and deprived of their primitive vi- 
 gour. That portion of the work which remained unfinished, 
 was, after the death of Pius IV., completed by Vasari and 
 his school, under his successor ; and some little was supplied 
 under Gregory XIII., who was elected in 1572. 
 
 With that year a reign commenced little auspicious to art, 
 and still less so was the pontificate of Sixtus V., the successor 
 of Gregory. These pontiffs erected or ornamented so many 
 public buildings, that we can scarcely move a step in Rome 
 without meeting with the papal arms of a dragon or a lion. 
 Baglione has accurately described them, and to him we are 
 indebted for the lives of the artists of this and the following 
 period. It is natural for men advanced in years to content 
 themselves with mediocrity in the works which they order, 
 from apprehension of not living to see them, if they wait for 
 the riper efforts of talent. Hence those artists were the most 
 esteemed, and the most employed, who possessed despatch and 
 facility of execution, particularly by Sixtus, of whose severity 
 towards dilatory artists we shall shortly adduce a memorable 
 instance. This inaccuracy of style was continued to the time 
 of Clement VIII., when a number of works were hastily 
 finished to meet the opening of the holy year 1600. Under 
 these pontiffs the painters of Italy, and even the oltramon- 
 tan% inundated Rome with their works, in the same manner 
 that the poets and philosophers had filled that city with their 
 writings in the time of Domitian and Marcus Aurelius. 
 Every one indulged his own taste ; and the style of many 
 was deteriorated through rapidity of execution. Thus the 
 art, particularly in fresco, became the employment of a me- 
 chanic, not founded in the just imitation of nature, but in the 
 capricious ideas of the artist.* Nor was the colouring better 
 than the design. At no period do we find such an abuse of 
 simple tints, in none so feeble a chiaroscuro, or less harmony. 
 These are the mannerists, who filled the churches, convents, 
 and saloons of Rome with their works, but in the collections 
 of the nobility they have not had the same good fortune. 
 * Bellori, Vite de' Pittori, p. 20. 
 
408 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 This era, nevertheless, is not wholly to be condemned ; it 
 contains several great names, the relics of the preceding illus- 
 trious age. We have enumerated the painters who flourished 
 in Rome in the first reigns of this century, and we ought to 
 notice others. They were for the most part foreigners, and 
 ought to be introduced in other schools. I shall describe 
 those particularly who were born within the limits of the 
 Roman school, and those who, being established in it, taught 
 and propagated their own peculiar style. 
 
 Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, who adopted Raffaello's 
 style, may be enumerated among the scholars of that great 
 man, from his felicitous imitation of their common master. 
 In the Sala de' Regi, in the Vatican, he painted Pepin, king 
 of France, bestowing Ravenna on the church, after having made 
 Astolfo, king of the Lombards, his prisoner. But he ap- 
 proached Raffaello more closely in some of his oil pictures, as in 
 the martyrdom of S. Lucia, in the church of S. Maria Maggiore ; 
 in the Transfiguration in Ara Coeli, and in the Nativity in the 
 church della Pace, which he repeated in the most graceful 
 style in the church of Osimo. His master-piece is in Ancona 
 on the great altar in the church of S. Bartolommeo, a vast 
 composition, original and rich in invention, and commensurate 
 with the grandeur of the subject, and the multitude of saints 
 introduced in it. The throne of the Virgin is seen above, 
 amidst a brilliant choir of angels, and on either side a virgin 
 saint in the attitude of adoration. To this height there is a 
 beautiful ascent on each side, and the picture is thus divided 
 into a higher and lower part, in the latter of which is the 
 titular saint, a half-naked figure vigorously coloured, together 
 with S. Paul and two other saints, the whole in a truly Raffa- 
 ellesque style. This altar-piece possesses so much harmony, 
 and such a force of colour, that it is esteemed by some per- 
 sons the best picture in the city. If any thing be wanting in 
 it, it is perhaps a more correct observance of the perspective. 
 Sermoneta did not paint many pictures for collections. He 
 excelled in portrait painting. 
 
 A similar manner, though more laboured, and formed on 
 the styles of Raffaello and Andrea, del Sarto, was adopted by 
 Scipione Pulzone da Gaeta, who was educated in the studio 
 of Jacopino del Conte. He died young in his thirty-eighth 
 
TADDEO. 
 
 409 
 
 year, bat left behind him a great reputation, partly in the 
 painting of portraits, of which he executed a great number 
 for popes and princes, and with so much success, that by some, 
 he is called the Vandyke of the Roman school. He was a 
 forerunner of Seybolt in the high finishing of the hair, and 
 representing in the pupil of the eye the reflection of the win- 
 dows, and other objects as minute and exact as in real life. 
 He also painted some pictures in the finest style, as the Cru- 
 cifixion in the Vallicella, and the Assumption in S. Silvestro, 
 at Monte Cavallo, a composition of chaste design, beauty of 
 colouring, and brilliant in effect. In the Borghese collection, 
 is a Holy Family ; in the gallery in Florence, a Christ, pray- 
 ing in the garden ; and in other places are some of his cabinet 
 pictures, deservedly held in high esteem. 
 
 Taddeo and Federigo Zuccaro called the Yasaris of this 
 school, professed to follow Raffaello, as Vasari trod in the 
 steps of Michelangelo. They were sons of an indifferent 
 painter of S. Angiolo in Vado, called Ottaviano Zuccaro, came 
 to Rome one after the other, and in the States executed a num- 
 ber of works, good, indifferent, and when they allowed their 
 pupils to take a share in them, absolutely bad. A salesman, 
 who dealt in the pictures of these artists, was accustomed, 
 like a retailer of merchandise, to ask his purchasers whether 
 they wished for a Zuccaro of Holland, of France, or of 
 Portugal ; thus intimating that he possessed them of all 
 qualities. Taddeo, the elder of the two, studied under 
 Pompeo da Fano, and afterwards with Giacomone da Faenza. 
 From the latter and other good artists, whom he assiduously 
 studied, he acquired sufficient talent to distinguish himself. 
 He adopted a style which, though not very correct, was un- 
 constrained and engaging, and very attractive to such as do 
 not look for grandeur of design. He may be compared to that 
 class of orators who keep the attention of their hearers 
 awake, not from the nature of their subject, but from the 
 clearness of their language, and from their finding, or think- 
 ing they find, truth and nature in every word. His pictures 
 may be called compositions of portraits ; the heads are beau- 
 tiful, the hands and feet not negligently painted, nor yet 
 laboured, as in the Florentine manner ; the dress and orna- 
 ments, and form of the beard, are agreeable to the times ; the 
 
410 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 disposition is simple, and he often imitates the old painters in 
 shewing on the canvas only half-figures in the foreground, 
 as if they were on a lower plain. He often repeated the 
 same countenance, and his own portrait. In his hands, feet, 
 and the folds of his drapery, he is still less varied, and fre- 
 quently errs in his proportions. 
 
 In Rome, are vast works of Taddeo, in fresco, and amongst 
 the best, the history of the Evangelists, in the church of the 
 Consolazione. He left few pictures in oil. There is a Pen- 
 tecost in the church of the Spirito Santo in Urbino, which 
 city also possesses some other of his works, not in his best 
 style. He is most pleasing in his small cabinet pictures, 
 which are finished in the first style of excellence. One of 
 the best, formerly possessed by the duke of Urbino, is now 
 in the collection of the noble family of Leopardi, in Osimo. 
 It is a Nativity of our Lord, in Taddeo's best manner, but 
 none of his productions have added so much to his celebrity, 
 as the pictures in the Farnese palace of Capraruola, which 
 were engraved by Preninner, in 1748. They represent the 
 civil and military history of the family of the Farnesi. There 
 occur also other subjects, sacred and profane, of which the 
 most remarkable is the Stanza del Sonno, the subject of 
 which was executed in a highly poetical manner, from the 
 suggestions of Caro, in a delightful letter circulated among 
 his friends, and reprinted in the Lettere Pittoriche (torn. iii. 
 I. 99). Strangers who visit Capraruola often return with a 
 higher opinion of this artist than they carried with them. 
 It is true that a number of young artists, fully his equal, or 
 perhaps, superior to him, were employed there, both in con- 
 junction with him and after his death, whose works ought 
 not to be confounded with his, though it is not always easy 
 to distinguish them. Like Raffaello, he died at the age of 
 thirty-seven, and his monument is to be seen at the side of 
 that illustrious master in the Rotunda. 
 
 Federigo, his brother and scholar, resembled him in style, 
 but was not equal to him in design, having more mannerism 
 than Taddeo, being more addicted to ornament, and more 
 crowded in his composition. He was engaged to finish in the 
 Vatican, in the Farnese palace, in the church of La Trinità 
 de' Monti, and other places, the various works which his 
 
FEDERIGO. 
 
 411 
 
 brother bad left incomplete at bis death ; and he thus suc- 
 ceeded, as it were, to the inheritance of his own house. He 
 had the reputation of possessing a noble style, and was in- 
 vited by the grand duke, Francis L, to paint the great 
 dome of the metropolitan church at Florence, commenced by 
 Vasari, and left unfinished at his death. Federigo, in that 
 task, designed more than three hundred figures, fifty feet in 
 height, without mentioning that of Lucifer, so gigantic, that 
 the rest appeared like children, for so he informs us, adding, 
 that they were the largest figures that the world had ever 
 seen.* But there is little to admire in this work, except 
 vastness of conception, t and in the time of Pier da Cortona, 
 there was an intention of engaging that artist to substitute 
 for it a composition of his own, had not the apprehension 
 that his life might not be long enough to finish it, frustrated 
 the design. After the painting of this dome, every work on 
 a large scale in Rome, was assigned to Federigo, and the 
 pope engaged him to paint the vault of the Paolina, and thus 
 give the last touch to a work commenced by Michelangelo. 
 About this period, in order to revenge himself on some of the 
 principal officers of the pope, who had treated him with 
 indignity, he painted, and exposed to public view, an alle- 
 gorical picture of Calumny,^ in which he introduced the por- 
 traits of all those persons who had given him offence, repre- 
 senting them with asses' ears. His enemies, on this, made 
 such complaints, that he was compelled to quit the dominions 
 
 * Idea de' Pittori, Scultori, e Architetti, reprinted in the Lett. Pitt, 
 torn. vi. p. 147. 
 
 f The charming poet Lasca noticed this work as soon as the cupola 
 was open to public view, in a madrigal inserted in the edition of his 
 poems in the year 1741. He blamed Giorgio d' Arezzo (Vasari) more 
 than Federigo, that for sordid motives he had designed and undertaken 
 a work, which in the judgment of the Florentines, injured the cupola of 
 Brunellesco, which was the admiration of every one, and which Benvenuto 
 Cellini was accustomed to call, la maraviglia delle cose belle. He con- 
 cludes by saying, that the Florentine people 
 
 " Non sarà mai di lamentarsi stanco 
 Se forse un dì non le si dà di bianco. " 
 
 X This is not the large picture of the Calumny of Apelles painted in 
 distemper for the Orsini family, and engraved, and which is now to be 
 seen in the Palazzo Lante, and is one of the most finished productions of 
 Federigo. 
 
412 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 of the pope. He, therefore, left Rome, visited Flanders, 
 Holland, and England, and was afterwards invited to Venice, 
 to paint the submission of the emperor Federigo Barbarossa 
 to Pope Alexander III., in the Palazzo Pubblico, and he was 
 there highly esteemed and constantly employed. The pon- 
 tiff, being by this time appeased, Federigo returned to finish 
 the work he had left imperfect, and, which is, perhaps, the 
 best of all he executed in Rome, without the assistance of 
 his brother. The larger picture also of S. Lorenzo, in Da- 
 maso, that of the Angels in the Gesù, and other of his works, 
 in various churches, are not deficient in merit. Federigo 
 built for himself a house in the Monte Pincio, and decorated 
 it with pictures in fresco, portraits of his own family, conver- 
 sazioni, and many novel and strange subjects, which he 
 painted with the assistance of his scholars, and at little ex- 
 pense ; but, on this occasion, more than on any other, he 
 appears an indifferent artist, and may be called the champion 
 of mediocrity. 
 
 Federigo was afterwards invited to Madrid by Philip II. ; 
 but that monarch not being satisfied with his works, they were 
 effaced, and their places supplied by Tibaldi, and he himself, 
 with an adequate pension, was sent back to Italy. He un- 
 dertook another journey late in life, visiting the principal cities 
 of Italy, and leaving specimens of his art in every place where 
 he was called to exercise his talents. One of the best of these 
 is an Assumption of the Virgin, in an oratory of Rimino, on 
 which he inscribed his name, and the Death of the Virgin, at 
 S. Maria in Acumine, with some figures of the Apostles, more 
 finished than usual with him. A simple and graceful style is 
 observable in his Presepio, in the cathedral of Foligno, and in 
 two pictures from the life of the Virgin, in a chapel of Loretto, 
 painted for the duke of Urbino. The Cistercian monks, at 
 Milan, possess two large pictures in their library on the 
 Miracle della Neve, with a numerous assemblage of figures, 
 the countenances in his usual lively manner, the colouring 
 varied and well preserved. In the Borromei college, in Pavia, 
 is a saloon painted in fresco, with subjects from the life of S. 
 Carlo. The most admired of these is the saint at prayer in 
 his retirement ; the other pieces, the Consistory in which was 
 his chapel, and the Plague of Milan, would be much better, if 
 
FEDERIGO. 
 
 413 
 
 the figures were fewer. He returned to Venice, where his 
 great picture remained, and which had not been so much in- 
 jured by time, as by a sarcasm of Boschini on certain sugar 
 (Zucchero) of very poor quality lately imported into Venice, 
 in consequence of which he retouched his work, and wrote on 
 it, "Federicus Zuccarus f. an. sal. 1582, perfecit an. 1603." 
 It is one of his best works, copious, and, according to Zanetti, 
 beautiful and well sustained. He then went to Turin, where 
 he painted a S. Paul, for the Jesuits, and began to ornament 
 a gallery for Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy. It was in 
 that city that he first published " La idea de' Pittori, Scultori, 
 e Architetti," which he dedicated to the duke. He afterwards 
 returned into Lombardy, where he composed two other works, 
 the one entitled " La Dimora di Parma del Sig. Cav. Federigo 
 Zuccaro " the other, " II Passaggio per Italia colla dimora di 
 Parma del Sig. Cav. Federigo Zuccaro," both printed in 
 Bologna, in 1608. In the following year, on his return to his 
 native place, he fell sick in Ancona, where he died. Baglione 
 admired the versatility of talent in this artist, which extended 
 to sculpture and architecture ; but more admired his good 
 fortune, in which he exceeded all his contemporaries. This 
 distinction he owed in a great measure to his personal qualities, 
 to his noble presence, his encouragement of letters, his quality 
 of attaching persons to him, and his liberality, which led him 
 to expend in a generous manner the large sums he derived 
 from his works. 
 
 He appears to have written with the intention of rivalling 
 and excelling Vasari. Whatever was the cause, Vasari was 
 disliked by him, as may be gathered from the notes to his 
 Lives, occasionally cited by the annotator of the Poman edi- 
 tion ; and is charged by him with spleen and malignity, par- 
 ticularly in the life of Taddeo Zuccaro. In order to excel 
 Vasari, it seems he chose an abstruse mode of writing, in oppo- 
 sition to the plain style of that author. The whole work, 
 printed in Turin, is involved in its design, and instead of 
 precepts, contains speculative opinions, which tend more to 
 raise disputes than to convey information. The language is 
 incongruous and affected, and even the very titles to the 
 chapters are interwoven with absurdities, as that of the 1 2th, 
 " Che la filosofia e il filosofare è disegno metaforico simili- 
 
414 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 tudinario." This style may impose on the ignorant, but can- 
 not deceive the learned.* The latter do not esteem a writer 
 for pedantic expressions adopted from the Greek and Latin 
 authors ; but for a correct mode of definition, for accuracy of 
 analysis, for sagacity in tracing effects to their causes, and for 
 a manner strictly appropriate to the subject. These qualities 
 are not to be found in the works of Federigo, where we find 
 philosophical expressions mingled with puerile reflections, as 
 in the etymology of the word disegno, which after much cir- 
 cumlocution, he informs us, owes its derivation to Segno di 
 Dio, Instead of affording instructive maxims to youth, he 
 presents them with a mass of sterile and ill-directed specula- 
 tions. Hence we derive more information from a single page 
 of Vasari, than from this authors whole work. Both 
 Mariette and Bottari have shewn the little esteem in which 
 they held this work, by their correspondence, inserted in the 
 6th volume of the Lettere Pittoriche. Nor are his other two 
 works of greater utility, one of which contains arguments in 
 the same style, proposed as a theme for disputation in the 
 Academy of the Innominati, in Parma. 
 
 It is generally thought that this treatise of Zuccaro was 
 composed in Home, where he presided in the Academy of S. 
 Luke. That academy was instituted in the pontificate of 
 Gregory XIII., who signed the brief for its foundation at the 
 instance of Muziano, as Baglione relates in the life of that 
 artist He further states, that when the ancient church of S. 
 Luke, on the Esquiline, was demolished, the seat, I believe, 
 of the society of painters, the church of S. Martina was 
 allotted to them, at the foot of the Campidoglio. But this 
 brief does not seem to have been used until the return of Zuc- 
 caro from Spain, as according to the same writer, it was he 
 who put it into execution. And this must have occurred in 
 
 * The same inflated style has of late become prevalent in parts of Italy, 
 with no little injury to language and good taste. In the "Arte di 
 vedere" we find "le pieghe longitudinali, la trombeggiata resurrezione 
 del Bello," &c. Some one has also attempted to illustrate the qualities 
 of the art of painting by those of music, which has given occasion to a 
 clever Maestro di Capella to write a humorous letter, an extract of which 
 is given in the " Difesa del Ratti," p. 15, &c, and is the most entertain- 
 ing and least ill-tempered thing to be met with in that work. 
 
FEDERIGO. 
 
 415 
 
 1595, if the year which was celebrated by the painters of S. 
 Luke in 1695, was the true centenary of the academy. But 
 the origin of the institution may be dated, agreeably to some 
 persons, from the month of November, 1593, as mentioned by 
 the Sig. Barone Yernazza, who, among the first promoters, or 
 members, includes the Piedmontese Arbasia, on the relation 
 of Romano Alberti. Baglione says that Federigo was de- 
 clared president by common consent ; and that that day was 
 a sort of triumph to him, as he was accompanied on his return 
 home by a company of artists and literary persons ; and in a 
 little time afterwards he assigned a saloon in his own house 
 for the use of the academy. He wrote both in poetry and in 
 prose in the academy of S. Luke, which is referred to more 
 than once in his greater work. He evinced an extraordinary 
 affection for this institution, and according to the example of 
 Muziano, he named it the heir of his estate, in the event of 
 the extinction of his family. He was succeeded in the presi- 
 dency by Laureti, and a series of eminent artists down to our 
 own time. The sittings of the academy have for a long time 
 past been fixed in a house contiguous to the church of S. 
 Martina, decorated with the portraits and works of its mem- 
 bers. The picture of S. Luke, by Raffaello, is there religi- 
 ously preserved, together with his own portrait ; and there, 
 too, is to be seen the skull of Raffaello, in a casket, the richest 
 spoil ever won by death from the empire of art. Of this 
 academy we shall speak further towards the conclusion of this 
 third book. We will now return to Federigo. 
 
 The school of this artist received distinction from Pas- 
 signano and other scholars, elsewhere mentioned by us. To 
 these we may add Niccolo da Pesaro, who painted in the 
 church of Ara Cosli : but whose best piece is a Last Supper 
 in the church of the Sacrament at Pesaro. It is a picture so 
 well conceived and harmonized, and so rich in pictorial orna- 
 ment, that Lazzarini has descanted on it in his lectures as 
 one of the first in the city. It is said that Baroccio held 
 this artist in great esteem. Baglione commended him for his 
 early works, but it must be confessed that he did not per- 
 severe in his first style, and fell into an insipid manner, 
 whence he suffered both in reputation and fortune. Another 
 artist of Pesaro, instructed by Zuccaro, was Gio. Giacomo 
 
416 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 Pandolfi, whose works are celebrated in his native city, and 
 do not yield the palm to those of Federigo, as seen in the 
 picture of S. George and S. Carlo in the Duomo. He orna- 
 mented the whole chapel in the Nome di Dio, with a variety 
 of subjects in fresco, from the Old and New Testaments ; but 
 as he was then become infirm, they did not add to his fame. 
 His greatest merit was the instilling good principles into 
 Simon Canterini, of whom, as well as of the Pesarese artists 
 his followers, we shall write at large in the school of Bologna. 
 One Paolo Cespede, a Spaniard, called in Rome Cedaspe, 
 also received his education from Zuccaro. He commenced 
 his career in Rome, and excited great expectations from some 
 pictures in fresco, still to be seen at the church of Trinità 
 de Monti, and other places. He had adopted a natural 
 style, and was in a way to rise in his profession, when he 
 obtained an ecclesiastical benefice, and retired to reside upon 
 »t. Marco Tullio Montagna accompanied Federigo to Turin 
 as an assistant ; and a small picture of S. Saverio and other 
 saints in a church of that city, generally attributed to the 
 school of Zuccaro, is probably by him, He painted in Rome 
 in the church of S. Niccolo in Carcere, in the vaults of the 
 Vatican, and in many other places, in a tolerable style, but 
 nothing more. 
 
 After these artists a crowd of contemporaries present 
 themselves, more particularly those who had the direction of 
 the works under Gregory XIII. The Sala de' Duchi was 
 intrusted to Lorenzino of Bologna, who was invited to Rome 
 from his native city, where he enjoyed the reputation of an 
 excellent painter, and deservedly so, as we shall see in his 
 place. He undertook the decoration of the gallery of the 
 Vatican, which, from the vast size of that building, forms a 
 boundless field of art. Niccolo Circignani, or delle Poma- 
 rance, already mentioned in the first book, distributed the 
 work amongst a number of young artists, who there painted 
 historical subjects, landscapes, and arabesques. The pope 
 was desirous that the walls also should serve the cause of 
 science, and ordered the compartments to be adorned with 
 geographical delineations of ancient and modern Italy, a 
 task assigned to Padre Ignazio Danti, a Dominican, a mathe- 
 matician and geographer of his court, and who was after- 
 
GIROLAMO MUZIANO DA BRESCHIA. 
 
 417 
 
 wards promoted to the bishopric of Àlatri. Ignazio was 
 born In Perugia, of a family devoted to the fine arts, and 
 had two brothers, painters ; Girolamo, of whom there remain 
 some works in S. Pietro, on the model of Vasari ; and Vin- 
 cenzio, who in Rome assisted Ignazio, and was a good fresco 
 painter. Another grand work was also undertaken about this 
 time, which was the continuation of the gallery of Raffaello, 
 in an arm of the building contiguous to it, where, in con- 
 formity to the plan of that great artist, it was intended to 
 paint four subjects in every arcade, all from the Ne*w Testa- 
 ment. Roncalli, the scholar of Circignano, our notice of 
 whom we shall reserve to a subsequent epoch, was charged 
 with the execution of this plan, but was himself subject to 
 the direction of Padre Danti, experience having shewn that 
 the entire abandonment of a design to the direction of prac- 
 tical artists is injurious to its execution, as there are few that, 
 in the choice of inferior artists, are not governed by influence, 
 avarice, or jealousy. The selection, therefore, was reserved 
 to Danti, who to an excellent practical knowledge of the art 
 of design, united moral qualities that insured success. Under 
 his direction the whole work was regulated and conducted in 
 such a manner, that the spirit of Raffaello seemed to be re- 
 suscitated in the precincts of the Vatican. But the hand 
 was no longer the same, and the imbecility apparent in the 
 new productions, compared with the old, betrayed the decline 
 of the art, though we occasionally meet with subjects by 
 Tempesti, Raffaellino da Reggio, the younger Palma, and 
 Girolamo Massei, which reflect a ray of honour on the age. 
 
 Another superintendent of the works of the Vatican, but 
 rather in architecture than in painting, was Girolamo Muziano 
 da Brescia, who, undistinguished in his native place, came 
 young to Rome, and was considered the great supporter of 
 true taste. He derived his principles both in design and 
 colour from the Venetian school, and acquired such skill in 
 landscape, that he was named in Rome II Giovane de' Paesi. 
 But he afterwards adopted a more elevated style, and devoted 
 himself with such assiduity to study, that he shaved his head 
 to prevent himself from going out of the house. It was at 
 this time that he painted the Raising of Lazarus, afterwards 
 transferred from the church of S. Maria Maggiore to the 
 
 vol. r. 2 e 
 
41S 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 Ciuirinal palace. When exposed to public view, it immediately 
 obtained for him the esteem and protection of Bonarruoti. 
 His pictures occur in churches and palacés of Rome, and are 
 often ornamented with landscapes in the style of Titian. The 
 church of the Carthusians possesses one of singular beauty. 
 It represents a troop of Anchorets attentively listening to a 
 saint. There is great elegance and good disposition in the 
 picture of the Circumcision in the Gesù, and the Ascension 
 in Ara Coeli displays an intimate knowledge of art. The 
 picture too of S. Francis receiving the Stigmata, in the church 
 of the Conception, is an enchanting piece, both as regards the 
 figures and the landscape. Nor was he beneath himself in 
 the pictures executed in the Duomo at Orvieto, which are 
 highly commended by Vasari. The chapel of the Visitation 
 in the Basilica Loretana possesses three pictures, and that of 
 the Probatica discovers great originality and expression. In 
 the Duomo of Foligno, a picture in fresco, of the Miracles of 
 S. Feliciano, is pointed out, which was formerly hidden by 
 dust, but was a few years ago restored in a wonderful manner 
 to all its original freshness and charm of colour. 
 
 The figures of Muziano are accurately drawn, and we not 
 unfrequently trace in them the anatomy of Michelangelo. He 
 excelled in painting military and foreign dresses ; and above 
 all, in representing hermits and anchorets, men of severe as- 
 pects, with bodies attenuated by abstinence, and his style in 
 clines rather to the dry than the florid. We are indebted to 
 this artist for the engraving of the Trajan Column. Giulio 
 Romano had begun to copy it, and the laborious undertaking 
 was continued and perfected by Muziano, and so prepared for 
 the engraver. 
 
 The most celebrated setolar of Muziano, was Cesare Neb- 
 bia of Orvieto. He presided over the works of Sixtus, en- 
 trusting the completion of his designs to the younger painters. 
 In this task he was assisted by Gio. Guerra da Modena, who 
 suggested the subjects, and apportioned the work among the 
 scholars. Both the one and the other of these artists was en- 
 dowed with a facility essential to the vast works on which 
 they were employed in the five years' reign of Sixtus, in the 
 chapel of S. Maria Maggiore, in the library of the Vatican 
 itself, in the Quirinal and Lateran palaces, and at the Scaia 
 
RAFFAELLINO DA REGGIO. 
 
 419 
 
 Santa, and other places. In other respects, Muziano left hia 
 scholars far behind, as he was possessed of a great and in- 
 ventive genius, while Nebbia was more remarkable for the 
 mechanism of bis art, particularly when he decorated walls. 
 There are, however, some beautiful and well-coloured pictures 
 by him, among which may be mentioned the Epiphany, in the 
 church of S. Francis at Viterbo, quite in Muziano's style. 
 Baglione associates with Nebbia Giovanni Paolo della Torre, 
 a gentleman of Rome, who was raised by Girolamo above the 
 rank of a mere dilettante. Taja adds Giacomo Stella di 
 Brescia, who, he observes, had degenerated in some degree 
 from the style of his master. He was employed both in the 
 gallery of Gregory XIII., and in other places, not without 
 commendation. It may be observed, that M. Bardon states 
 him to have been a native of Lyons, long resident in Italy. 
 
 Another foreigner, but who came a considerable time after 
 Muziano, was Raffaellino da Reggio. After being instructed 
 in the first principles of the art by Lelio di Novellara, he 
 formed a master-style in Rome. Nothing was wanting to 
 this artist except a greater knowledge of design, as he pos- 
 sessed spirit, disposition, delicacy, relief, and grace : qualities 
 not common in that age. His pictures in oil are occasionally 
 found in galleries, but his best works are his frescos of small 
 figures, such as the two charming fables of Hercules, in the 
 ducal hall at Florence, and the two gospel stories in the gal- 
 lery adjoining to that of Raffaello d'Urbino. He painted 
 also at Capraruola in competition with the Zuccari and Vecchi, 
 with such success, that his figures seem living, while those of 
 his comrades are inanimate. This excellent artist died pre- 
 maturely, greatly lamented, without leaving any pupil worthy 
 of his name. He was however considered as the head of a 
 school in Rome, and his works were studied by the youth of 
 the academy. Many artists adopted his manner of fresco, 
 particularly Paris Nogari of Rome, who left there numerous 
 works, which are known for their peculiar manner ; amongst 
 others, some subjects in the gallery. He had another follower 
 in Gio. Batista della Marca, of the family of Lombardelli, a 
 young man of great natural talents, but which were rendered 
 unavailing from his want of application. Many pictures in 
 fresco by him remain in Perugia and in Rome, but the best 
 
 2 e2 
 
420 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 are in Montenovo, his native place. None approached so 
 near to Raffaellino as Giambatista Pozzo, who also died young, 
 and who, as far as regards ideal beauty, may be considered 
 the Guido of his day. To be convinced of this, it is only 
 necessary to see the Choir of Angels, which he painted in the 
 chapel of the Gesù. If he had survived to the time of the 
 Oaracci, it is impossible to say to what degree of perfection 
 he might not have attained. 
 
 Tommaso Laureti, a Sicilian, noticed with commendation 
 among the scholars of F. Sebastiano, and deserving honour- 
 able mention among the professors of Bologna, was invited to 
 Rome in the pontificate of Gregory XIII., and entrusted 
 with a work of an invidious nature. This was the decoration 
 of the ceiling and lunettes in the Hall of Constantine, the 
 lower part of which had been illustrated by the pencils of 
 Giulio Romano and Perino. The subjects chosen were in- 
 tended to commemorate the piety of Constantine, idols sub- 
 verted, the cross exalted, and provinces added to the church. 
 Baglione informs us that Laureti was entertained by the Pope in 
 his palace in a princely manner ; and either from his natural 
 indolence, or his reluctance to return to a laborious profession, 
 procrastinated the work so much, that Gregory died, and 
 Sixtus commenced his reign before it was completed. The 
 new pontiff was aware that the artist had abused the patience 
 of his predecessor, and became so exasperated, that Laureti, 
 in order to avert his wrath, proceeded in all haste to finish his 
 labours. When the work was exposed to public view, in the 
 first year of the new pontificate, it was judged unworthy of 
 the situation. The figures were too vast and heavy, — the 
 colouring crude, the forms vulgar. The best part of it was a 
 temple in the ceiling, drawn in excellent perspective, in 
 which art indeed Laureti may be considered as one of the 
 first masters of his day. Misfortune was added to his dis- 
 grace ; for he was not only not rewarded as he had expected, 
 but the cost of his living and provisions were placed to his 
 charge, even to the corn supplied to his horse. So that he 
 gained no remuneration, and actually died in poverty in the 
 succeeding pontificate. He had nevertheless an opportunity 
 afforded him of redeeming his credit, particularly in the 
 stories of Brutus and Horatius on the bridge, which he 
 
GIUSEPPE CESARI. 
 
 421 
 
 painted in the Campidoglio, in a much better style. Inti- 
 mately acquainted with the theory of art, and possessing an 
 agreeable manner of inculcating its principles, he taught at 
 Rome with considerable applause. He had a scholar and 
 assistant in the Vatican, in Antonio Scalvati, a Bolognese, 
 who in the time of Sixtus was employed among the painters 
 of the library, and afterwards engaged in painting portraits 
 under Clement VIII., Leo. XL, and Paul V., and was 
 highly celebrated in this department. 
 
 A better fortune attended Gio. Batista Ricci da Novara, 
 who arrived at Rome in the pontificate of Sixtus, and who 
 from his despatch manifested in the works at the Scala Later- 
 anense, and the Vatican Library, was immediately taken 
 into employ by the Pope, who appointed him superintendent 
 for the decorations of the palace of the Quirinal. He was 
 also held in favour by Clement VIII., in whose time he 
 painted in S. Giovanni Laterano the history of the consecra- 
 tion of that church : and there, according to Baglione, he 
 succeeded better than in any other place. He left not a few 
 works in Rome, and elsewhere his pictures display a facility 
 of pencil, and a brilliancy and elegance which attract the eye. 
 He was born in a city into which Gaudenzio Ferrari had in- 
 troduced the Raffaellesque style, and where Lanini, his son- 
 in-law, had practised it ; but in whose hands it seemed to 
 decline, and still more so under Ricci, when he came to 
 Rome ; so that his style was Raffaellesque reduced to man- 
 nerism, like that professed by Circignani, Nebbia, and others 
 of this age. 
 
 Giuseppe Cesari, also called II Cavaliere d'Arpino, is a 
 name as celebrated among painters, as that of Marino among 
 poets. These two individuals, each in his line, contributed to 
 corrupt the taste of an age already depraved, and attached 
 more to shew than to reality. Both the one and the other 
 exhibited considerable talents, and it is an old observation, 
 that the arts, like republican states, have received their sub- 
 version from master spirits. Cesari discovered great capacity 
 from his infancy, and soon attracted the admiration of Danti, 
 and obtained the protection of Gregory XIIL, with the repu- 
 tation of the first master in Rome. Some pictures painted in 
 
422 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 conjunction with Giacomo Rocca,* from designs of Michel- 
 angelo (in which Giacomo was very rich), established his 
 reputation. So much talent was not required to secure him 
 general applause, as the public of that day were chiefly at- 
 tracted by the energy, fire, tumult, and crowds, that filled his 
 composition. His horses, which he drew in a masterly man- 
 ner, and his countenances, which were painted with all the 
 force of life, won the admiration of the many ; while few at- 
 tended to the incorrect design, the monotony of the extremi- 
 ties, the poverty of the drapery, the faulty perspective and 
 chiaroscuro. Of these few however were Caravaggio, and 
 Annibale Caracci. With them he became involved in dis- 
 putes, and challenges were mutually exchanged. Cesari 
 refused the challenge of Caravaggio, as he was not a cavaliere, 
 and Annibale declined that of the Cavaliere d'Arpino, alleging 
 that the pencil was his proper weapon. Thus these two 
 eminent professors met with no greater obstacle in Rome in 
 their attempts to reform the art, than Cesari and his adherents. 
 
 The Cavaliere d'Arpino survived both these masters more 
 than thirty years, and left behind him progeniem vitiosiorem. 
 He was born a painter, and in so vast and difficult an art, 
 had endowments sufficient to atone, in part, for his defects. 
 His colouring in fresco was admirable, his imagination was 
 fruitful and felicitous, his figures were animated, and pos- 
 sessed a charm that Baglione, who himself entertained very 
 different principles, could not refrain from admiring. Cesari 
 moreover practised two distinct manners. The one most to 
 be commended is that in which he painted the Ascension, at 
 S. Prassede, and several prophets, that appear foreshortened 
 when seen from below : the Madonna on the ceiling of S. 
 Giovanni Grisogono, remarkable for its fine colouring ; the 
 gallery of the Casa Orsini ; and in the Campidoglio, the Birth 
 of Romulus, and the battle of the Romans and the Sabines, a 
 painting in fresco, preferred by some to all his other works. 
 Others of his pictures may be added, particularly some smaller 
 
 * A scholar of Daniel di Volterra, from whom he inherited these 
 designs, with many others by the same great master. He painted little, 
 and generally from the designs of others, which he did not execute in 
 a happy manner ; and Baglione says, his pictures were deficient in taste. 
 
CAV. d'aRPINO. 
 
 works, with lights in gold, exquisitely finished, as if they 
 were by an entirely different artist. Of this kind there is an 
 Epiphany, in possession of the Count Simonetti, in Osimò, and 
 S. Francis in ecstasies, in the house of the Belmonti at 
 Rimino. His other style was sufficiently free, but negligent, 
 and this latter he used too frequently, partly through im- 
 patience of labour, and partly through old age, as may be 
 seen in three other subjects in the Campidoglio, painted in the 
 same saloon forty years after the first. His works are 
 almost innumerable, not only in Rome, where he worked in 
 the pontificates of Gregory and Sixtus, and where, undei 
 Clement VIII., he presided over the decorations in S. Gio. 
 Laterano, and continued under Paul V., but in Naples, 
 at Monte Casino, and in various cities of the Roman state, 
 without mentioning the pictures sent to foreign courts, 
 and painted for private individuals. For the latter indeed, 
 and even for persons of inferior rank, he worked more willing- 
 ly than for princes, with whom, like the Tigellius of Horace, 
 he was capricious and morose. He was indeed desirous of 
 being solicited by persons of rank, and often affected to neglect 
 them, so much had a corrupted age flattered his vanity. 
 
 Cesari had many scholars and assistants, whom he more 
 particularly employed in the work of the Lateran ; as he did 
 not deign in those times often to take up the pencil himself. 
 Some of these pupils adopted his faults, and as they did not 
 possess the same genius, their works proved intolerably bad. 
 A vicious example, easy of imitation, is, as Horace has ob- 
 served, highly seductive. There were, however, some of his 
 school, who in part at least corrected themselves from the 
 works of others. His brother, Bernardino Cesari, was an 
 excellent copyist of the designs of Bonarruoti, and worked 
 assiduously under the Cav. Giuseppe, but little remains of 
 him, as he died young. One Cesare Rossetti, a Roman, ser- 
 ved under Arpino a longer time, and of him there are many 
 works in his own name. There are also to be found public 
 memorials of Bernardino Parasole, who was cut off in the 
 flower of his age. Guido Ubaldo Abatini, of Città di Castello, 
 merited commendation from Passeri as a good fresco painter, 
 particularly for a vault at the Vittoria. Francesco Allegrini 
 di Gubbio was a fresco painter, in design very much resem- 
 
«24 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 Ming his master, if we may judge from the cupola of the 
 Sacrament in the Cathedral of Gubbio, and from another at 
 the Madonna de' Bianchi. We observe the same attenuated 
 proportions, and the same predominant facility of execution. 
 He nevertheless shewed himself capable of better things, 
 when his mind became matured, and he worked with more 
 care. He is commended by Ratti for various works in fresco, 
 executed at Savona, in the Duomo, and in the Casa Gavotti, 
 and for others in the Casa Durazzo at Genoa ; where one 
 may particularly admire the freshness of the colouring, and 
 the skill exhibited in his foreshortnings seen from below. He 
 is also commended by Baldinucci for similar works in the 
 Casa Panfili, and merits praise for his smaller pieces and bat- 
 tles frequently found in Rome and Gubbio. He also added 
 figures to the landscapes of Claude, two of which are to be 
 seen in the Colonna palace. He lived a long time in Rome, 
 and his son Flaminio with him, commemorated by Taja for 
 some works in the Vatican. Baglione has enumerated not a 
 few other artists, in part belonging to the Roman state, and 
 in part foreigners. Donato of Formello (a fief of the dukes 
 of Bracciano) had greatly improved on the style of Vasari 
 his master, as is proved by his histories of S. Peter, in a stair- 
 case of the Vatican, particularly the one of the piece of money 
 found in the fish's mouth. He died whilst yet young, and the 
 art had real cause to lament his loss. Giuseppe Franco, also 
 called c; dalle Lodole," in consequence of his painting a lark 
 in one of his pieces in S. Maria in Via, and on other occasions, 
 and Prospero Orsi, both Romans, had a share in the works 
 prosecuted by Sixtus. When these were finished, the former 
 repaired to Milan, where he remained some years ; the latter, 
 from painting historical subjects, passed to arabesque, and 
 from his singular talents in that line, was called Prosperino 
 dalle Grottesche. Of the same place was Girolamo Nanni, 
 deserving of particular mention, because, during all the time 
 that he was engaged in these works, he never hurried himself, 
 and to the directors who urged him to despatch, he answered 
 always u poco e buono/' which expression was ever after- 
 wards attached to him as a surname. He continued to work 
 with the same study and devotion, as far as his talents would 
 carry him, at S. Bartolommeo all' Isola, at S. Caterina do* 
 
SECOND-RATE ARTISTS. 
 
 425 
 
 Funai, and in many other places : lie was not however much 
 distinguished, except for his great application. Of him, 
 nevertheless, and of Giuseppe Puglia, or Bastare, and of 
 Cesare Torelli, also Romans ; and of Pasquale Cati da 
 Jesi, an inexhaustible painter of that age, though somewhat 
 affected, and of many professors, that are in fact forgotten in 
 Rome itself, I have thought it my duty to give this short 
 notice, as I had pledged myself to include a number of the 
 second-rate artists. It would be an endless task to enume- 
 rate here all the foreign artists. It may be sufficient to 
 observe, that in the Vatican library more than a hundred 
 artists, almost all foreigners, were employed. In the first 
 book* I have mentioned Gio. de' Vecchi, an eminent master, 
 who, from the time of his works for the Farnese family, was 
 considered a first-rate artist ; and the colony of painters, his 
 follow-citizens, whom Raffaellino brought to Rome. In the 
 same book we meet with Titi, Naldini, Zucchi, Coscj, and a 
 number of Florentines, and in the following book Matteo da 
 Siena and others of his school. Again, in the fourth book,f 
 Matteo da Leccio and Giuseppe Valeriani dell' Aquila will 
 have place ; and in the third vol urne J will be described Palma 
 the younger (amongst the Venetians) who worked in the 
 gallery ; about which time Salvator Fontana, a Venetian, 
 painted at S. Maria Maggiore, whom it is sufficient to have 
 named. We may also enumerate Nappi and Paroni of Milan, 
 Croce of Bologna, Mainardi, Lavinia Fontana, and not a few 
 others of various schools, who in those times painted in Rome, 
 without ultimately remaining there, or leaving scholars. 
 
 A more circumstantial mention may be made of some 
 oltramontani, who, in conjunction with our countrymen, 
 were employed in the works in these, pontificates ; and it 
 may be done with the more propriety, as we do not speak of 
 them in any other part of our work. But those who worked 
 in Rome were very numerous in every period, and it would 
 be too much to attempt to enumerate them all in a history of 
 Italian painting. One Arrigo, from Flanders, painted a Re- 
 surrection in the Sistine chapel, and also worked in fresco in 
 other places in Rome ; and is commended by Baglione as an 
 
 * Of the Italian edition. f Ibid. 
 
 % Ibid.— Tr. 
 
426 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 excellent artist. Francesco da Castello was also of Flanders, 
 and of a more refined and correct taste. There is a picture 
 by him at S. Rocco, with various saints : and it is perhaps 
 the best piece the world possesses of him ; but almost all his 
 works were painted for the cabinet, and in miniature, in which 
 he excelled. The Brilli we may include among the landscape 
 painters. 
 
 The states of the church possessed in this epoch painters of 
 consideration, besides those in Perugia, where flourished the 
 two Alfani and others, followers of a good style ; but whether 
 they were known or employed in Rome, I am not able to say. 
 I included them in the school of Pietro, in order that they 
 might not be separated from the artists of Perugia, but they 
 continued to live and to work for many years in the 16th 
 century. To these may be added Piero and Serafino Cesarei,* 
 and others of less note. In the city of Assisi there resided, 
 in the beginning of the 16th century, a Francesco Vagnucci, 
 and there remain some works by him in the spirit of the old 
 masters. There, also, afterwards resided Cesare Sermei Cava- 
 liere, who was born in Orvieto, and married in Assisi, and 
 lived there until 1600, when he died at the age of 84. He 
 painted both there and in Perugia, and if not in a grand style 
 
 * There remained, in the time of Pascoli, some pitture saporite, as he 
 terms them, by this artist, at Spoleto, where Piero established himself, 
 and in the neighbouring towns ; and which often pass for the works of 
 Pietro Perugino, from a similarity of names. It appears, however, that 
 Cesarei was desirous of preventing this error, as he inscribed his name 
 Perinus Perusinus, or Perinus Cesareus Perusinus, as in the picture 
 of the Rosary at Scheggino, painted in 1595. Vasari, in the life of Agnol 
 Gaddi, names among his scholars Stefano da Verona, and says, that " all 
 his works were imitated and drawn by that Pietro di Perugia, the painter 
 in miniature, who ornamented the books at the cathedral of Siena, in the 
 Library of Pope Pius, and who worked well in fresco." These words 
 have puzzled more than one person. Pascoli (P. P. p. 134) and Mari- 
 otti (L. P. p. 59) consider them as written of Piero Cesarei ; as if a 
 man born in the golden age should so far extol an old trecentista ; or as 
 if the canons of Siena could approve such a style after possessing Razzi 
 and Vanni. Padre della Valle interprets it to mean Pietro Vannucci, 
 and not finding the books of the choir adorned in such a style as he 
 wished, reproves Vasari for having confounded so great a master with a 
 common fresco painter and a Miniatore. It is most likely that this 
 Miniatore and Frescante of Vasari was a third Pietro, hitherto unknown 
 in Perugia, and whom we shall notice in the Venetian School. 
 
ARTISTS OF GUBBIO. 
 
 427 
 
 of fresco, still with a felicity of design, with much spirit in his 
 attitudes, and a vigorous pencil. He was a good machinist, 
 and of great merit in his oil pictures. At Spello I saw a pic- 
 ture by him of the Beatified Andrea Caccioli ; and it seems 
 to me that few other painters of the Roman school had at that 
 time equalled him. His heirs, in Assisi, possess some pictures 
 by him of fairs, processions, and ceremonies which occur in 
 that city on occasion of the Perdono ; and the numbers and 
 variety and grace of the small figures, the architecture, and 
 the humour displayed, are very captivating. At Spello, just 
 above mentioned, in the church of S. Giacomo, is a picture 
 which represents that saint and S. Catherine before the Ma- 
 donna: where we read " Tandini Mevanatis, 1580 f that is, 
 of Tandino di Bevagna, a place near Assisi ; nor is it a picture 
 to be passed over. 
 
 Gubbio possessed two painters, brothers of the family de' 
 Nucci ; Virgilio, who was said to be the scholar of Daniel 
 di Volterra, whose Deposition he copied from an altar at S. 
 Francis in Gubbio ; and Benedetto, a disciple of Raffaellino 
 del Colle, considered the best of the painters of Gubbio.* 
 Both of them have left works in their native place, and in 
 the neighbouring districts ; the first of them always following 
 the Florentine, and the second the Roman School. Of the 
 latter there are many pictures at Gubbio, which shew the 
 progress he had made in the style of Raffaello ; and to see 
 him in his best work, we must inspect his S. Thomas in the 
 Duomo, which would be taken for a picture of Garofalo, or 
 some such artist, if we were not acquainted with the mas- 
 ter. A little time afterwards flourished Felice Damiani, or 
 Felice da Gubbio, who is said to have studied in the Venetian 
 School. The Circumcision at S. Domenico has certainly a 
 good deal of that style ; but in pencil he inclines more to the 
 Roman taste, which he, perhaps, derived from Benedetto 
 Nucci. The Decollation of St. Paul, at the Castel Nuovo, 
 in Recanati, is by him : the attitude of the saint excites our 
 sympathy : the spectators are represented in various attitudes, 
 
 * See II Sig. Cav. Reposati, " Appendice del tomo ii. della Zecca 
 di Gubbio ;" and the Sig. Conte Ranghiasci in the M Elenco de' Professori 
 Eugubini,'' inserted in vol. iv. of Vasari (ediz. Senese"), at the end of the 
 t ohimè. 
 
428 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. — EPOCH III. 
 
 all appropriate and animated : the drawing is correct, and 
 the colours vivid and harmonious. It is inscribed with the 
 year 1584. About ten years afterwards, he painted two 
 chapels at the Madona de' Lumi, at S. Severino, with subjects 
 from the life of Christ ; and there likewise displayed more 
 elegance than grandeur of style. His most studied and 
 powerful work is at S. Agostino di Gubbio, the Baptism of 
 the Saint, painted in 1594, a picture abounding in figures, 
 aud which surprises by the novelty of the attire, by its cor- 
 rect architecture, and by the air of devotion exhibited in the 
 countenances. He received for this picture two hundred 
 scudi, by no means a low price in those times ; and it should 
 seem that his work was regulated by the price, since in some 
 other pictures, and particularly in one in 1604, he is exceed- 
 ingly negligent. Federigo Brunori, called also Brunoini, 
 came, it is said, from his school, and still more decidedly 
 than his master, followed the Venetian style. His portraits 
 are natural ; and he was a lover of foreign drapery, and 
 coloured with a strong effect. The Bianchi have an Ecce 
 Homo by him, in which the figures are small, but boldly 
 expressed, and shew that he had profited from the engravings 
 of Albert Durer. Pierangiolo Basilj, instructed by Damiani, 
 and also by Roncalli, partakes of their more delicate manner. 
 His frescos, in the choir of S. Ubaldo, are held in esteem ; 
 and at S. Marziale, there is by him a Christ preaching, with 
 a beautiful portico in perspective, and a great number of 
 auditors : the figures in this are also small, and such as are 
 seen in the compositions of Albert Durer. The pictures ap- 
 pear to be painted in competition. Brunori displays more 
 energy, Basilj more variety and grace. 
 
 In the former edition of this work I made mention of 
 Castel Durante, now Urbania, in the state of Urbino. I 
 noticed Luzio Dolce among the ancient painters, of whom I 
 had at that time seen no performance, except an indifferent 
 picture, in the country church of Cagli, in 1536. Since that 
 period Colucci has published (torn, xxvii.) a Cronaca di 
 Castel Durante, wherein he gives a full account of Luzio, 
 and of others that belong to that place. Bernardino, his 
 grandfather, and Ottaviano, his father, excelled in stucco, 
 and had exercised their art in other places ; and he himself, 
 
AVANZINO NUCCI. 
 
 420 
 
 who was living in 1589, is commended for his altar-pieces 
 and other pictures, in the churches, both in his native city 
 and other places : and further, it is stated that he was em- 
 ployed by the duke to paint at the Imperiale. He also 
 makes honourable mention of a brother of Luzio, and extols 
 Giustino Episcopio, called formerly de' Salvolini, who, in 
 conjunction with Luzio, painted in the abbey the picture of 
 the Spirito Santo, and the other pictures around it. He 
 also executed many other works by himself in Castel Durante 
 and elsewhere, and in Rome as well, where he studied and 
 resided for a considerable time. It is probable that Luzio 
 was, in the latter part of his life, assisted by Agostino Apo- 
 lonio, who was his sister s son, married in S. Angelo in Yado, 
 and who removed and settled in Castel Durante where he 
 executed works both in stucco and in oils, particularly at S. 
 Francesco, and succeeded alike to the business and the pro- 
 perty of his maternal uncle. 
 
 At Fratta, which is also in the state of Urbino, there died 
 young, one Plori, of whom scarcely any thing remains, except 
 the Supper of our Lord, at S. Bernardino. But this picture 
 is composed in the manner of the best period of art, and de- 
 serves commemoration. Not far from thence is Città di 
 Castello, where, in the days of Vasari, flourished Gio. Batista 
 della Bilia, a fresco painter, and another Gio. Batista, em- 
 ployed in the Palazzo Vitelli (toni. v. p. 131). I know not 
 whether it was from him, or some other artist, that Avanzino 
 Nucci had his first instructions, who repairing to Rome, de- 
 signed after the best examples, and was a scholar and fellow- 
 labourer in many of the works of Niccolo Circignano. He had 
 a share in almost all the works under Sixtus, and executed 
 many others, in various churches and palaces. He possessed 
 facility and despatch, and a style not very dissimilar to that 
 of his master, though inferior in grandeur. He resided some 
 time in Naples, and worked also in his native place. There 
 is a picture by him of the Slaughter of the Innocents, at S. 
 Silvestro di Fabriano. Somewhat later than he, was Sguaz- 
 zino, noticed by Orlandi for the pictures painted at the Gesù 
 in Perugia ; though he left better works in Città di Castello, 
 as the S. Angelo, in the Duomo ; and the lunettes, containing 
 various histories of our Lady, at the Spirito Santo, besides 
 
430 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 others in various churches. He was not very correct in his 
 drawing, but had a despatch and a contrast of colours, and a 
 general effect that entitled him to approbation. 
 
 Another considerable painter, though less known, was 
 Gaspare Gasparrini, of Macerata. He was of noble birth, 
 and followed the art through predilection, and painted both in 
 fresco and oils. From the information which I received from 
 Macerata,'* it seems he learned to paint from Girolamo di 
 Sermoneta.t However this may be, Gasparrini pursued a 
 similar path, although his manner is not so finished, if we may 
 judge from the two chapels at S. Venanzio di Fabriano, in one 
 of which is the Last Supper, and in the- other the Baptism 
 of Christ. Other subjects are added on the side walls, and 
 the best is that of S. Peter and S. John healing the Sick, a 
 charming composition, in the style of Raffaello. We find by 
 hirn, in his native place, a picture of the Stigmata, at the Con- 
 ventuals, and some cabinet pictures, in the collection of the 
 Signori Ferri, relations of the family of Gaspare. Others, too, 
 are to be found, but either doubtful in themselves, or injured 
 by retouching. Padre Civalli M. C, who wrote at the close 
 of the 16th century, mentions this master with high commen- 
 dation, as may be seen on reference to the " Antichità Picene," 
 torn. xxv. In a recent description of the pictures at Ascoli, 
 I find that a Sebastian Gasparrini, of Macerata, a scholar of 
 the Cav. Pomaranci, decorated a chapel of S. Biagio in that 
 city with historical paintings in fresco. But it is probable 
 that this may be Giuseppe Bastiani, the scholar of Gasparrini. 
 Another chapel at the Carmelites in Macerata, contains many 
 pictures by him, with the date of 1594. 
 
 Of Marcantonio di Tolentino, mentioned by Borghini in his 
 account of the Tuscan artists, and after him by Colucci (torn, 
 xxv. p. 80), I do not know whether or not he returned to 
 practise his art in his native country. In Caldarola, in the 
 
 * I am indebted for it to the noble Sig. Cav. Ercolani, who obligingly 
 transmitted it to me, after procuring it from the Sig. Cav. Piani and the 
 Sig. Paolo Antonio Ciccolini, of Macerata. 
 
 f In the former edition, on the authority of a MS. I called him 
 Serj, and was doubtful whether Siciolante was not his surname. Sig. 
 Brandolese has informed me of an epitaph, in the hands of Mons. Galletti, 
 in which he is called Siciolante, whence Serio was most probably his 
 surname. 
 
PROVINCIAL PAINTERS. 
 
 431 
 
 territory of Macerata, flourished a Durante de* Nobili, a 
 painter who formed himself on the style of Michelangelo. A 
 picture of a Madonna by him is to be seen in Ascoli, at S. 
 Pier di Castello, on which he inscribed his name and country, 
 and the year 1571. From another, school, I believe, arose a 
 Simon de' Magistris, a painter as well as sculptor, who left 
 many works in the province. One of his pictures of S. Philip 
 and S. James, in the Duomo of Osimo, in 1585, discovers a 
 poverty in the composition, and little felicity of execution ; 
 but he appears to greater advantage, at a more advanced 
 period of life, in the works he left at Ascoli. There is one, 
 of the Rosario, at S. Domenico, where Orsini found much to 
 commend in the arrangement of the figures, in the design, and 
 in the colouring. There is another of the same subject at S. 
 Hocco, which is preferred to the former, except for the short- 
 ness of the figures, and which we have described in writing of 
 Andrea del Sarto, and afterwards of Taddeo Zuccaro. For 
 the same reason he reproaches Carlo Allegretti, who, in the 
 same city, committed a similar fault. He painted in various 
 styles, as may be seen from an Epiphany, in Bassano's manner, 
 which he placed in the cathedral, a picture which will apolo- 
 gize for the others. Baldassini,in his "Storia di Jesi," speaking 
 of Colucci, records there the priest Antonio Massi, who studied 
 and gave to the world some pictures in Bologna ; and Antonio 
 Sarti, whom I esteem superior to Massi ; praising highly his 
 picture of the Circumcision, in the collegiate church of Mas- 
 saccio. This city gave birth to Paolo Pittori, who ornamented 
 his native place and its vicinity. These may serve as an ex- 
 ample of the provincial painters of this age. I purposely omit 
 many, several of whom are fresco painters, who were indifferent 
 artists ; and others who were below mediocrity. It is indeed 
 true that many have escaped from being unknown to me, and 
 there still remain in the Roman state many works highly 
 beautiful, deserving of research and notice. 
 
 From the time of the preceding epoch, the art became 
 divided into various departments ; and at this period they 
 began to multiply, in consequence of many men of talent 
 choosing to cultivate different manners. After Jacopo del 
 Conte and Scipione da Gaeta* the portraits of Antonio de' 
 Monti, a Roman, who was considered the first among the 
 
432 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 portrait-painters under Gregory, are celebrated ; as also those 
 of Prospero and Livia Fontana, and of Antonio Scalvati ; all 
 three of the school of Bologna ; to whom may be added Pie- 
 tro Fachetti, of Mantua. 
 
 With regard to perspective, it was successfully cultivated 
 by Jacopo Barocci, commonly called II Vignola, an illustrious 
 name in architecture ; owing to which his celebrity in the 
 other branches has been overlooked. But it ought to be ob- 
 served that his first studies were directed to painting, in the 
 school of Passarotti, in Bologna, until he was led, by the im- 
 pulse of his genius, to apply himself to perspective, and by 
 the aid of that science, as he was accustomed to say, to archi- 
 tecture, in which he executed some wonderful works, and 
 amongst others the palace of Capraruola. There, and I know 
 not whether in other places, are to be seen some pictures by 
 him. As a writer, we shall refer to him in the second index, 
 where, omitting his other works, we shall cite the two books 
 which he wrote in this department of art. Great progress 
 was made in Rome, in the art of perspective, after Laureti, 
 by the genius of Gio. Alberti di Città S. Sepolcro, whose 
 eulogy I shall not here stop to repeat, having already spoken 
 of it in this volume. Baglione names two friends, Tar- 
 quinio di Yiterbo and Giovanni Zanna, of Rome, the first of 
 whom painted landscapes, and the second adorned them with 
 figures. He mentions the two brothers Conti, of Ancona ; 
 Cesare, who excelled in arabesques, and Vincenzio in figures : 
 these artists painted for private persons. Marco da Faenza 
 was much employed under Gregory XIII., in arabesques, and 
 the more elegant decorations of the Vatican, and had also the 
 direction of other artists. Of him we shall make more par-- 
 ticular mention amongst the artists of Romagna. 
 
 The landscapes in the Apostolic palace, and in various 
 places of Rome, were many of them painted by Matteo da 
 Siena, and by Gio. Fiammingo, with whom Taja makes us 
 acquainted, in the ducal hall, and particularly the two brothers 
 Brilli, of Flanders, who painted both in fresco and oil. Matteo 
 always retained his ultramontane manner, rather dry, and not 
 very true in colour. Paolo, who survived him, improved his 
 style, from the study of Titian and the Caracci, and was an 
 excellent artist in every department of landscape, and in the 
 
PAINTED EARTHEN VASES. 
 
 433 
 
 power of adapting it to historical subjects. Italy abounds 
 with his pictures. Two other landscape painters also lived 
 in Rome at this time, Fabrizio of Parma, who may be ranked 
 • with Matteo, and Cesare, a Piedmontese, more attached to 
 the style of Paolo. Nor ought we to omit Filippo d'Angeli, 
 who, from his long residence in Naples, is called a Neapolitan, 
 though he was born in Rome, where, and as we have observed 
 in Florence, he was highly esteemed. His works are gene- 
 rally of a small size ; his prospects are painted with great 
 care, and ornamented with figures admirably introduced. 
 There are also some battle-pieces by him. 
 
 But in battles and in hunting-pieces, none in these times 
 equalled Antonio Tempesti. He was followed, though at a 
 considerable interval, by Francesco Allegrini, a name not new 
 to those who have read the preceding pages. To these we 
 may add Marzio di Colantonio, a Roman, though he has left 
 fewer works in Rome than in Turin, where he was employed 
 by the Cardinal, prince of Savoy. He was also accomplished 
 in arabesque and landscapes, and painted small frescos in an 
 agreeable manner. 
 
 It is at this epoch that Yasari describes the manufacture of 
 earthen vases, painted with a variety of colours, with such 
 exquisite art, that they seemed to rival the oil pictures of the 
 first masters. He pretends that this art was unknown to the 
 ancients, and it is at any rate certain that it was not carried 
 to such perfection by them. Signor Gio. Batista Passeri, 
 who composed " 1* Istoria delle pitture in Majolica fatte in 
 Pesaro e ne' luoghi circonvicini," derives the art from Luca 
 della Robbia, a Florentine, who discovered a mode of giving 
 to the clay a glazing to resist the injuries of time. In this 
 manner were formed the bassi-relievi and altars which still 
 exist, and the pavements which are described at page 375. 
 Others derive this art from Cina, whence it passed to the 
 island of Majolica, and from thence into Italy ; and this in- 
 vention was particularly cultivated in the state of Urbino. 
 The coarse manufacture had been for a long time in use. The 
 fine earthenware commenced there about 1500, and was ma- 
 nufactured by an excellent artist, of whom there exists in the 
 convent of Dominicans, of Gubbio, a statue of an abbot, S. 
 Antonio, well modelled and painted, and many services in 
 
 VOL. I. 2 F 
 
434 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 various noble houses with his name " M. Giorgio da Ugubio," 
 The year is also inscribed, from which it appears that his ma- 
 nufacture of these articles began in 1519, and ended in 1537. 
 At this time Urbino also cultivated the plastic art, and the 
 individual of his day, who most excelled, was Federigo Bran- 
 dani. Whoever thinks that I exaggerate, may view the Na- 
 tivity, which he left at S. Joseph, and say, whether, except 
 Begarelli of Modena, there is any one that can be compared 
 with him for liveliness and grace in his figures, for variety and 
 propriety of attitude, and for natural expression of the acces- 
 sory parts ; the animals, which seem alive; the satchels and 
 a key suspended ; the humble furniture, and other things ad- 
 mirably appropriate, and all wonderfully represented : the 
 figure of the divine Infant is not so highly finished, and is 
 perhaps the object which least surprises us. Nor in the 
 meanwhile did the people of Urbino neglect to advance the 
 art of painted vases, in which fabric a M. Rovigo, of Urbino, 
 is much celebrated. The subjects which were first painted in 
 porcelain were poor in design, but were highly valued for 
 the colouring, particularly for a most beautiful red, which was 
 subsequently disused, either because the secret was lost, or 
 because it did not amalgamate with the other colours. 
 
 But the art did not attain the perfection which Vasari 
 describes until about the year 1540, and was indebted for it 
 to Orazio Fontana, of Urbino, whose vases, for the polish of 
 the varnish, for the figures, and for their forms, may perhaps 
 be ranked before any that have come down to us from an- 
 tiquity. He practised this art in many parts of the state, but 
 more especially in Castel Durante, now called Urbania, which 
 possesses a light clay, extremely well adapted for every thing 
 of this nature. His brother, Flamminio, worked in conjunc- 
 tion with him, and was afterwards invited to Florence by the 
 grand duke of Tuscany, and introduced there a beautiful 
 manner of painting vases. This information is given us by 
 the Sig. Lazzari, and for which the Florentine history of art 
 ought to express its obligations to him. The establishment 
 of this fine taste in Urbino was, in a great measure, owing to 
 the duke Guidobaldo, who was a prince enthusiastically de- 
 voted to the fine arts, and who established a manufactory, and 
 supported it at his own expense. He did not allow the 
 
ORAZIO FONTANA. 
 
 435 
 
 painters of these vases to copy their own designs, but obliged 
 them to execute those of the first artists, and particularly those 
 of Raffaello; and gave them for subjects many designs of Sanzio, 
 never before seen, and which formed part of his rich collection. 
 Hence these articles are commonly known in Italy by the name 
 of Raffaello ware, and from thence arose certain idle traditions 
 respecting the father of Raffaello, and Raffaello himself; and 
 the appellation of " boccalajo di Urbino " (the potter of Ur- 
 bino), was in consequence applied, as we shall mention, to 
 that great master.* Some designs of Michelangelo, and 
 many of Raffaelle del Colle, and other distinguished masters, 
 were adopted for this purpose. In the life of Batista Franco, 
 we are informed that that artist made an infinite number ol 
 designs for this purpose, and in that of Taddeo Zuccaro it is 
 related that all the designs of the service which was manu- 
 factured for Philip II. were entrusted to him. Services of 
 porcelain were also prepared there for Charles V. and other 
 princes, and the duke ordered not a few for his own court. 
 Several of his vases were transferred to, and are now in the 
 S. Casa di Loreto ; and the queen of Sweden was so much 
 charmed with them, that she offered to replace them with 
 vases of silver. A large collection of them passed into the 
 hands of the grand duke of Florence, in common with other 
 things inherited from the duke of Urbino, and specimens of 
 them are to be seen in the ducal gallery, some with the names 
 of the places where they were manufactured. There are 
 many, too, to be found in the houses of the nobility of Rome, 
 and in the state of Urbino, and, indeed, in all parts of Italy. 
 The art was in its highest perfection for about the space of 
 twenty years, or from 1540 to 1560; and the specimens of 
 that period are not unworthy a place in any collection of art. 
 If we are to believe Lazzari, the secret of the art died with 
 the Fontani, and the practice daily declined until it ended in 
 a common manufactory and object of merchandise. Whoever 
 wishes for further information on this subject, may consult the 
 
 * Another probable cause of this appellation, is to be found in the 
 name of Raffaello Ciarla, who was one of the most celebrated painters of 
 this ware, and was appointed by the duke to convey a large assortment of 
 it to the court of Spain. Hence the vulgar, when they heard the name of 
 Raffaello, might attribute them to Sanzio. 
 
 2 F 2 
 
436 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH III. 
 
 above cited Passeri, who inserted his treatise in the fourth 
 volume of the Calogeriani, not forgetting the Dizionario Urbi- 
 nate, and the Cronaca Durantina. 
 
 The art of painting on leather deserves little attention ; 
 nevertheless, as Baglione mentions it with commendation in 
 his life of Vespasian Strada, a fresco-painter of some merit in 
 Rome, I did not think it right to pass it over without this 
 slight notice. 
 
437 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH IV. 
 
 Restoration of the Roman School by Barocci, and other Artists, Subjects 
 of the Roman State, and Foreigners. 
 
 The numerous works carried on by the pontiffs Gregory and 
 Sixtus, and continued under Clement VIII., while they in a 
 manner corrupted the pure taste of the Roman school, con- 
 tributed, nevertheless, at the same time, to regenerate it. 
 Rome, from the desire of possessing the best specimens of 
 art, became by degrees, the resort of the best painters, as it 
 had formerly been in the time of Leo X. Everyplace sent 
 thither its first artists, as the cities of Greece formerly sent 
 forth the most valiant of their citizens to contend for the 
 palm and the crown at Olympia. Barocci, of Urbino, was 
 the first restorer of the Roman school. He had formed him- 
 self on the style of Correggio, a style the best calculated to 
 reform an age which had neglected the true principles of art, 
 and particularly colouring and chiaroscuro. Happy, indeed, 
 had it been had he remained in Rome, and retained the di- 
 rection of the works which were intrusted to Nebbia, Ricci, 
 and Circignani ! He was there, indeed, for some time, and 
 assisted the Zuccari in the apartments of Pius IV., but was 
 compelled to fly, in consequence of some pretended friends 
 having, in an execrable manner, administered poison to him, 
 through jealousy of his talents, and so materially injured his 
 health, that he could only paint at intervals, and for a short 
 space of time. Forsaking Rome, therefore, he resided for 
 some time in Perugia, and a longer period in Urbino, from 
 whence he despatched his pictures, from time to time, to 
 Rome and other places. By means of these, the Tuscan 
 School derived great benefit through Cigoli, Passignano, and 
 Vanni, as we have before observed ; and it is not improbable, 
 
438 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 that Roncalli and Baglione may have profited by them, if 
 we may judge from some works of both the one and the 
 other of these artists, to be seen in various places. 
 
 However this might be, at the commencement of the 17th 
 century, these five were in the highest repute as artists, who 
 were not corrupted by the prevailing taste. An idea had 
 subsisted from the time of Clement VIII., of decorating the 
 church of the Vatican with the History of S. Peter, and of 
 employing in that work the best artists. The execution of 
 this design occupied a considerable time, the pictures being 
 reduced to mosaic, as the painting on wood and slate did not 
 resist the humidity of the church. The five before-mentioned 
 artists were selected to paint each a subject ; and Bernardo 
 Castelli, one of the first painters of the Genoese school, was 
 the sixth, and the least celebrated. These artists were all 
 liberally paid, and the five first raised to the rank of Cava- 
 lieri, and their works had a beneficial influence on the rising 
 generation, and proved that the reign of the mannerists was 
 on the decline. Caravaggio gave it a severe shock by his 
 powerful and natural style, and Baglione attests, that this 
 young artist, by the great applause which he gained, excited 
 the jealousy of Federigo Zuccaro, then advanced in years, 
 and entered into competition with Cesare, his former master. 
 But the most serious blow the mannerists received, was from 
 the Caracci and their school. Annibale arrived in Rome, 
 not much before the year 1600, invited by the Cardinal 
 Farnese, to paint his gallery ; a work which occupied him 
 for nearly eight years, and for which he received only five 
 hundred scudi, a sum so inadequate, that we can scarcely be- 
 lieve it to be correct. He also decorated several churches. 
 Lodovico, his cousin, was with him for a short time ; Agos- 
 tino, his brother, for a longer period ; and he had his scholars 
 with him, amongst whom we may enumerate Domenichino, 
 Guido, Albano, and Lanfranc. They came thither, at diffe- 
 rent periods, matured in their talents, and able to assist their 
 master not only in execution, but design. 
 
 Rome had for some years seen only the two extreme styles 
 of painting. Caravaggio and his followers were mere natu- 
 ralists; Arpino and his scholars pure idealists. Annibale 
 introduced a style founded in nature, yet ennobled in the 
 
THE CARACCI POUSSIN. 
 
 439 
 
 ideal, ami supported his ideal by his knowledge of nature. 
 He was at first denounced as cold and insipid, because he 
 was not affected and extravagant, or rather, because great 
 merit was never unaccompanied by envy. But though envy 
 for a time, by her insidious suggestions and subterfuges, may 
 derive a mean pleasure in persecuting a man of genius, she 
 can never hope to succeed in blinding the public, who ever 
 decide impartially on the merits of individuals, and whose 
 judgment id not disregarded even by princes. The Farnese 
 gallery was opened, and Rome beheld in it a grandeur of 
 style, which might claim a place after the Sistine chapel, and 
 the chambers of the Vatican . It was then discovered, that 
 the preceding pontiffs had only lavished their wealth for the 
 corruption of art, and that the true secret which the great 
 ought to put in practice lay in a few words : a judicious 
 selection of masters, and a more liberal allowance of time. 
 Hence, though somewhat tardy, indeed, in consequence of 
 the death of Annibale, came the order from Paul V., to dis- 
 tribute the work among the Bolognese ; for so the Caracci 
 and their scholars were at that time designated ; one of 
 whom, Ottaviano Mascherini, was the pope's architect.* A 
 new spirit was thus introduced into the Roman school, which, 
 if it did not wholly destroy the former extravagance of style, 
 atill, in a great degree, repressed it. The pontificate of Gre- 
 gory XV. (Lodovisi) was short, but still, through national 
 partiality, highly favourable to the Bolognese, amongst whom 
 we may reckon Guercino da Cento, although a follower of 
 Caravaggio, rather than Annibale. He was the most em- 
 ployed in St. Peter's, and in the villa Lodovisi. This reign 
 was followed by the pontificate of Urban VIII., favourable 
 both to poets and painters, though, perhaps, more so to the 
 latter than the former ; since it embraced, besides the Ca- 
 racci and their school, Poussin, Pietro da Cortona, and the 
 best landscape painters that the world had seen. The lead- 
 ing masters then all found employment, either from the Pope 
 himself, or his nephew, the cardinal, or other branches of 
 that family, and were engaged in the decoration of St. Peter's, 
 
 * He excelled chiefly in architecture, although he had given a proof of 
 his talents in painting in some subjects in the gallery, executed under Gre- 
 gory XIII. 
 
440 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 or their own palaces, or in the new church of the Capuchins, 
 where the altar-pieces were distributed among Lanfranc, 
 Guido, Sacchi, Berrettini, and other considerable artists. 
 The same liberal plan was followed by Alexander VII. a 
 prince of great taste, and by his successors. It was during 
 the reign of Alexander, that Christina, queen of Sweden, 
 established herself in Rome, and her passion for the fine 
 arts inspired and maintained not a few of the painters whom 
 we shall mention. It must, indeed, be premised, that we 
 are under the necessity of deferring our notice of the greatest 
 names of this epoch to another place, as they belong of right 
 to the school of Bologna, and some we have alreadyrecorded 
 in the Florentine school. But to proceed. 
 
 Federigo Barocci might from the time of his birth be 
 placed in the preceding epoch, but his merit assigns him to 
 this period, in which I comprise the reformers of art. He 
 learned the principles of his art from Batista Franco, a Vene- 
 tian by birth, but a Florentine in style. This artist, going 
 young to Rome to prosecute his studies there, was struck 
 with the grand style of Michelangelo, and copied, both there 
 and in Florence, all his works, as well his paintings and 
 drawings as statues. He became an excellent designer, but 
 was not equally eminent as a colourist, having turned his 
 attention at a late period to that branch of the art. In Rome 
 he may be seen in some evangelical subjects painted in fresco, 
 in a chapel in the Minerva, and preferred by Vasari to any 
 other of his works. He also decorated the choir of the 
 Metropolitan church of Urbino in fresco, and there left a 
 Madonna in oil, placed between S. Peter and S. Paul, in the 
 best Florentine style, except that the figure of S. Paul is 
 somewhat attenuated. There is a grand picture in oil by 
 him in the tribune of S. Venanzio, in Fabriano, containing 
 the Virgin, with the titular and two other protecting 
 Saints. In the sacristy of the cathedral of Osimo, I saw 
 many small pictures representing the life of Christ, painted 
 by him in the year 1547, as we learn from the archives of 
 that church, a thing of rare occurrence, as Franco was 
 scarcely ever known to paint pictures of this class. Under this 
 artist, whilst he resided in Urbino, Barocci designed and 
 studied from the antique. He then went to Pesaro, where 
 
STYLE OF BAROCCI". 
 
 441 
 
 lie employed himself in copying after Titian, and was in- 
 structed in geometry and perspective by Bartolommeo Genga, 
 the architect, the son of Girolamo and the uncle of Barocci. 
 From thence he passed to Rome, and acquired a more correct 
 style of design, and adopted the manner of Raffaello, in which 
 style he painted the S. Cecilia for the Duomo of Urbino, and 
 in a still more improved and original manner, the S. Sebastian, 
 a work which Mancini, in point of solid taste, sets above all 
 the works of Barocci. But the amenity and gracefulness of 
 his style led him almost instinctively to the imitation of 
 Correggio, in whose manner he painted in his native city the 
 delightful picture of S. Simon and S. Judas, in the church of 
 the Conventuals. 
 
 Nevertheless this was not the style which he permanently 
 adopted as his own, but as a free imitation of that great 
 master. In the heads of his children and of his female 
 figures, he approaches nearly to him ; also in the easy flow 
 of his drapery, in the pure contour, in the mode of foreshort- 
 ening his figures ; but in general his design is not so grand, 
 and his chiaroscuro less ideal ; his tints are lucid and well 
 arranged, and bear a resemblance to the beautiful hues of Cor- 
 reggio, but they have neither his strength nor truth. It is 
 however delightful to see the great variety of colours he has 
 employed, so exquisitely blended by his pencil, and there is 
 perhaps no music more finely harmonized to the ear, than his 
 pictures are to the eye. This is in a great measure the effect 
 of the chiaroscuro, to which he paid great attention, and 
 which he was the first to introduce into the schools of Lower 
 Italy. In order to obtain an accurate chiaroscuro, he formed 
 small statues of earthenware, or wax, in which art he did not 
 yield the palm to the most experienced sculptors. In the 
 composition and expression of every figure, he consulted the 
 truth. He made use of models, too, in order to obtain the 
 most striking attitudes, and those most consonant to nature ; 
 and in every garment, and every fold of it, he did not shew 
 a line that was not to be found in the model. Having made 
 his design, he prepared a cartoon the size of his intended 
 picture, from which he traced the contours on his canvas ; 
 he then on a small scale tried the disposition of his colours, 
 and proceeded to the execution of his work. Before colouring, 
 
442 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOLv EPOCH IV. 
 
 however, lie formed his chiaroscuro very accurately after the 
 best ancient masters (suprà, p. 149), of which method he 
 left traces in a Madonna and Saints, which I saw in Home 
 in the Albani palace, a picture which I imagine the artist 
 was prevented by death from finishing. Another picture 
 unfinished, and on that account very instructive and highly 
 prized, is in possession of the noble family of Graziani in 
 Perugia. To conclude, perfection was his aim in every 
 picture, a maxim which insures excellence to artists of 
 genius. 
 
 Bellori, who wrote the life of Barocci, has given us a cata- 
 logue of his pictures. There are few found which are not of 
 religious subjects ; some portraits, and the Burning of Troy, 
 which he painted in two pictures, one of which now adorns 
 the Borghese gallery. Except on this occasion his pencil 
 may be said to have been dedicated to religion ; so devout, so 
 tender, and so calculated to awaken feelings of piety, are the 
 sentiments expressed in his pictures. The Minerva, in Rome, 
 possesses his Institution of the Sacrament, a picture which 
 Clement X. employed him to paint ; the Valliceila has his 
 two pictures of the Visitation and the Presentation. In the 
 Duomo of Genoa is a Crucifixion by him, with the Virgin 
 and S. John, and S. Sebastian ; in that of Perugia, the Depo- 
 sition from the Cross ; in that of Fermo, S. John the Evan- 
 gelist; in that of Urbino, the Last Supper of our Lord. 
 Another Deposition, and a picture of the Rosario, and mys- 
 teries, is in Sinigaglia ; and, in the neighbouring city of 
 Pesaro, the calling of St. Andrew, the Circumcision, the 
 Ecstacy of S. Michelina on Mount Calvary, a single figure, 
 which fills the whole picture, and esteemed, it is said, by Simon 
 Cantarini, as his master-piece. Urbino, besides the pictures 
 already noticed, and some others, possesses a S. Francis in 
 prayer, at the Capuchins; and at the Conventuals, the great 
 picture of the Perdono, in which* he consumed seven years. 
 The perspective, the beautiful play of light, the speaking 
 countenances, the colour and harmony of the work, cannot be 
 imagined by any one who has not seen it. The artist himself 
 was delighted with it, wrote his name on it, and etched it. 
 His Annunciation, at Loreto is a beautiful picture, and the 
 same subject at Gubbio, unfinished ; the Martyrdom of S. 
 
DISCIPLES OF BAROCCI. 
 
 443 
 
 Vitale, at the church of that saint, in Ravenna,* and the 
 picture of the Misericordia, painted for the Duomo of Arezzo, 
 and afterwards transferred to the ducal gallery of Florence. 
 The same subject exists also in the hospital of Sinigaglia, 
 copied there by the scholars of Barocci, who have repeated 
 the pictures of their master in numerous churches of the state 
 of Urbino, and of Umbria, and in some in Piceno, and these 
 are, occasionally, so well painted, that one might imagine he 
 had finished them himself. 
 
 The same may be said of some of his cabinet pictures, 
 which are to be seen in collections ; such is the Virgin ador- 
 ing the Infant Christ, which I remarked in the Ambrosian 
 Library at Milan, in the Casa Bolognetti in Rome, and in a 
 noble house in Cortona, and which I find mentioned also in 
 the imperial gallery at Vienna. A head of the " Ecce Homo" 
 has also been often repeated, and some Holy Families, which 
 he varied in a singular manner ; I have seen a S. Joseph 
 sleeping, and another S. Joseph, in the Casa Zaccaria, in the 
 act of raising a tapestry ; and in the Repose in Egypt, which 
 was transferred from the sacristy of the Jesuits at Perugia to 
 the chamber of the Pope, he is represented plucking some 
 cherries for the Infant Christ, a picture, which seems painted 
 to rival Correggio. Bellori remarks, that he was so fond of it 
 that he frequently repeated it. 
 
 The school of Barocci extended itself through this duchy 
 and the neighbouring places ; although his best imitator was 
 Vanni of Siena, who had never studied in Urbino. The dis- 
 ciples of Federigo were very numerous, but remaining in 
 general in their own country, they did not disseminate the 
 principles, and few of them inherited the true spirit of their 
 masters style ; the most confining themselves to the exterior 
 of the art of colouring ; and even this was deteriorated by 
 the use of large quantities of cinnabar and azure, colours 
 which their master had employed with greater moderation ; 
 and they were not unfrequently condemned for this practice, 
 a-s Bellori and Algarotti remark. The flesh tints under their 
 pencil often became livid, and the contours too much charged. 
 
 * This picture, to which the author affixed his name, forms part of 
 the collection appropriated to instruction in the R. Palazzo of Sciences and 
 Arts in Milan. 
 
444 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 I cannot give an accurate catalogue of these scholars, but 
 independent of the writers on the works in Urbino, and other 
 guides and traditions in various parts, I am certain, that if 
 they were not instructed by Barocci himself, they must at all 
 events, from their country, and from the period at which 
 they flourished, have formed themselves on his pictures. 
 There is little to be observed respecting Francesco Baldelli, 
 the nephew and scholar of Federigo. I do not find any me- 
 morial of him, except a picture which he placed in the Capella 
 Danzetta, of S. Agostino, in Perugia, and which is mentioned 
 by Crispolti, in his history of that city, at page 133. 
 
 Of Bertuzzi and Porino I have not seen any works, except 
 copies in the style of Barocci, or feeble productions of their 
 own. An excellent copyist was found in Alessandro Vitali 
 of Urbino, in which city, at the Suore della Torre, is found 
 the Annunciation of Loreto, copied by him in such a manner 
 that it might be taken for the original picture. Barroci was 
 pleased with his talent, and willingly retouched some of his 
 pictures, and probably favoured him in this way in the S. 
 Agnes and S. Agostino, placed by Vitali, the one in the 
 Duomo, the other in the church of the Eremitani, where he 
 may be said to surpass himself. Antonio Viviani, called il 
 Sordo of Urbino, also made some very accurate copies of his 
 master, which are still preserved by his noble posterity. He 
 too was a great favourite of Federigo, and was in his native 
 city called his nephew ; although Baglione, who wrote his life, 
 is silent on this head. He left some pictures in Urbino, in the 
 best style of Barocci ; particularly the S. Donato, in a sub- 
 urban church of the saint of that name. This, however, 
 cannot be called his own style, for he visited Rome at vario s 
 times, where, having received instructions from Mascherini, 
 and employed himself for a time in the imitation of Cesari, 
 and of the rapid manner of the practicians recorded by us, he 
 exhibited in that metropolis various styles, and some of the 
 most feeble which he adopted. Assuredly his fresco pictures, 
 which remain in various places in Rome, do not support the 
 opinion which is inspired by a view of the vast work which 
 he conducted in the church de* Filippini at Fano. There, in 
 the vault, and in the chapel, are executed various histories of 
 the chief of the apostles to whom the church is dedicated. His 
 
FILLIPPO BELLINI. 
 
 445 
 
 style in these exhibits a beautiful imitation of Barocci and 
 Raffaello, in which the manner of the latter predominates. 
 Lazzari maintains that this Antonio Yiviani repaired to 
 Genoa, and that Soprani changed his name to Antonio Anto- 
 niani ; thus giving to Barocci a scholar who never existed. 
 Of this supposition we shall speak with more propriety in 
 the Genoese School. Another Yiviani Lodovico is mentioned 
 by tradition in Urbino, a brother or cousin of the preceding. 
 This painter sometimes imitates Barocci, as in the S. Giro- 
 lam* in the Duomo, and sometimes approaches the Venetian 
 style, as in the Epiphany at the Monastery della Torre. 
 
 Another painter almost unknown in the history of art, but 
 of singular merit, is Filippo Bellini of Urbino, of whom I 
 have not seen any works in his native place, but a number in 
 oil and fresco scattered through many cities of the March. 
 He is in general an imitator of Barocci, as in the picture of 
 the Circumcision in the church of Loreto, in the Espousals of 
 the Virgin in the Duomo in Ancona, and in a Madonna be- 
 longing to the Counts Leopardi at Osimo. He affords, how- 
 ever, sometimes an example of a vigorous and lively style, 
 and exhibits a powerful colouring, and a grandeur of compo- 
 sition. He discovered this character in some works in Fa- 
 briano in his best time, and particularly in the Opere della 
 Misericordia, which are fourteen subjects taken from Scrip- 
 ture, and represented in the church della Carità.* They are 
 beheld by cultivated foreigners with admiration, and it appears 
 strange that such a painter, whose life and works are alike 
 worthy of remembrance, should not have found a place in the 
 catalogues. He is also extolled for his works in fresco, in 
 the chapel of the Conventuals in Montalboddo, where he has 
 represented the Martyrdom of S. Gaudenzio, and which is 
 described in the guide book of that city. 
 
 We may next notice Antonio Cimatori, called also Antonio 
 Yisacci, not only by the vulgar, but also by Girolamo Bene- 
 detti, in the " Relazione," which in the lifetime of the artist he 
 composed on the festival at Urbino, in honour of Giulia de* 
 Medici, married to the Prince Federigo. Cimatori was there 
 
 * In the, not very accurate, catalogue of pictures in Fabriano, be- 
 sides the above-mentioned fourteen, seven more are mentioned by the 
 same master. 
 
446 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 engaged to paint the arches and pictures, which were exhi- 
 bited, in conjunction with the younger Viviani, Mazzi, and 
 Urbani. His forte lay in pen-drawing, and in chiaroscuro ; 
 as may be seen from his Prophets, in a grand style, trans- 
 ferred from the Duomo to the Apostolic palace. He did not 
 leave many works in his native place ; but amongst them is 
 his picture of S. Monica, at S. Agostino. His copies from 
 the original pictures of Barocci are to be found in various 
 places, particularly in the Duomo of Cagli. He resided and 
 worked for a long time in Pesaro, where he instructed Giulio 
 Cesare Begni, a bold and animated artist, a good perspective 
 painter, and in a great degree a follower of the Venetian 
 school, in which he studied and painted. He left many 
 works in Udine, and many more in his native place, in a 
 rapid and unfinished style, but of a good general effect. In 
 the " Descrizione odeporica della Spagna" (torn. ii. p. 130), we 
 find Giovanni and Francesco d'Urbino mentioned, who, about 
 the year 1575, it seems, were both engaged by the court to 
 decorate the Escurial. The latter eame early in life to Spain, 
 and being endowed with a noble genius, soon became an ex- 
 cellent artist, and is extolled by his contemporary P. Siguenza, 
 and by all who have seen the Judgment of Solomon, and his 
 other pictures in a choir in that magnificent place : he died 
 young. That these works belong to the pencil of Barocci 
 might be suspected from their era, and the practice of that 
 splendid court, which was in the habit of engaging in its 
 service the first masters of Italy, or their scholars. But not 
 possessing positive information, nor finding any indication of 
 their style, I dare not assign these two to Barocci. I feel a 
 pleasure, however, in restoring them to the glorious country 
 from which they had been separated. 
 
 Passing from the fellow-countrymen of Barocci to foreigners, 
 some persons have imagined Andrea Lilio, of Ancona, to have 
 been his disciple. I rather consider him to have been an imitator 
 of him, but more in respect to colour than any thing else. He 
 had a share in the works which were carried on under Sixtus, 
 and painted for the churches, chiefly in fresco, and sometimes 
 in partnership with Viviani of Urbino. He went to Rome 
 when young, and lived there until the reign of Paul V., but 
 suffered both in body and mind from domestic misfortunes, 
 
GIORGIO PICCHI. 
 
 447 
 
 which interrupted not a little his progress in art. Ancona 
 possesses several of his pictures in fresco, varying in their 
 merit, as well as some of his oil pictures, at the Paolotti, in S. 
 Agostino, and in the sacristy some pieces, from the life of S. 
 Nicholas, highly prized. The most celebrated is his Martyr- 
 dom of S. Lorenzo, by many ascribed to Barocci, for which I 
 refer to the Guida of Montalboddo, and the church of S. Ca- 
 therine, where it is placed. His greatest work is the altar- 
 piece in the Duomo at Fano, representing all the saints, con- 
 taining a vast number of figures, well grouped and well con- 
 trasted, and if not very correctly designed, still possessing 
 Barocci's tone of colour. 
 
 Giorgio Picchi, of Durante, I included in a former edition 
 among the scholars of Barocci, in conformity to the general 
 opinion prevalent in Pesaro and Rimini ; but I have not 
 found this confirmed in the chronicle of Castel Durante, pub- 
 lished by Colucci, which contains a particular account of this 
 artist, written soon after his death. I am therefore inclined 
 to think him only a follower, like Lilio, with whom he was 
 associated in Rome in the time of Sixtus V., if the chronicle 
 is to be relied on. It relates that he worked in the library 
 of the Vatican, at the Scala Santa, and at the Palazzo di S„ 
 Giovanni ; and it appears unaccountable that all this was un- 
 known to Baglione, who narrates the same circumstances of 
 Lilio and others, and makes no mention of Picchi. However 
 this may be, he was certainly a considerable artist, and was 
 attached to the style of Barocci, which was in vogue at that 
 period, as we may perceive from his great picture of the 
 Cintura, in the church of S. Agostino, in Rimini, and still 
 more from the history of S. Marino, which he painted in the 
 church of that saint in the same city. Others of his works 
 are to be found, both in oil and fresco, in Urbino, in his native 
 place, at Cremona, and elsewhere ; and although on a vast scale, 
 embracing whole oratories and churches, they could not have 
 cost him any great labour, from the rapid manner which he 
 had acquired in Rome. 
 
 In S. 'Ginesio, a place in the March, Domenico Malpiedi is 
 considered as belonging to Federigo's school, and of him there 
 are preserved in the collegiate church, the Martyrdoms of S. 
 Ginesio and S. Eleuterio, which are highly commended. From 
 
448 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 Colucci we learn that there also remain other works by him ; 
 and from the prices paid, we may conclude that he was es- 
 teemed an excellent artist. He was living in 1596, and about 
 the same time there flourished also another Ma] piedi, who 
 painted a Deposition from the Cross in S. Francesco di Osimo, 
 and inscribed on it Franciscus Malpedius di S. Ginesio, a 
 picture feeble in composition, deficient in expression, and 
 little resembling the school of Barocci, except in a distant 
 approximation of colour. 
 
 The Guida of Pesaro assigns to the same school Terenzio 
 Terenzj, called il Rondolino, whom it characterizes as an emi- 
 nent painter, and of whom there exist four specimens in public, 
 and many more in the neighbourhood of the city (page 80). 
 It is also mentioned that he was employed by the Cardinal 
 della Rovere in Rome, and that he placed a picture in the 
 church of S. Silvestro. The picture of S. Silvestro in capite^ 
 which represents the Madonna, attended by Saints, is ascribed 
 by Titi to a Terenzio of Urbino, who, according to Bag- 
 iione, served the Cardinal Montalto. It is most .probable, 
 that in the records of Pesaro there arose some equivoque 
 on the name of the cardinal, and that these two painters 
 might, or rather ought to, be merged in one. Terenzio Ron- 
 dolino, it appears to me, is the same as Terenzio d'Urbino, 
 and very probably in Rome took his name from Urbino, the 
 capital of Pesaro. But, by whatever name this painter may 
 be distinguished, we learn from Baglione that Terenzio 
 d'Urbino was a noted cheat : and that, after having sold, to 
 inexperienced persons, many of his own pictures for those of 
 ancient masters, he attempted to pass the same deceit upon 
 the Cardinal Peretti, the nephew of Sixtus V., and his own 
 patron, offering to his notice one of his own pieces as a Ra- 
 phael : but the fraud was detected, and Terenzio, in conse- 
 quence, banished from the court ; a circumstance which he 
 took to heart, and died whilst yet young. 
 
 Two brothers, Felice and Vincenzio Pellegrini, born and 
 resident in Perugia, are recorded by Orlandi and Pascoli, as 
 scholars of Barocci. The first became an excellent designer, 
 and in the pontificate of Clement VIII. was called to Rome, 
 probably to assist Cesari, though it is not known that he left 
 any work in his own name. Some copies after Barocci by 
 
CLAUDIO VERONESE. 
 
 449 
 
 him exist in Perugia, and it is well known that his master 
 was highly satisfied with his labours in that line. The other 
 brother is mentioned by Bottari in the notes to his life of 
 Raffaello ; and I recollect having seen in Perugia a picture 
 in the sacristy of S. Philip, in rather a hard manner, in which 
 it is difficult to recognise the style of his supposed master. It 
 is possible that these two artists might have had their first 
 instructions from Barocci, and that they afterwards returned 
 to another manner. A similar instance occurs in Ventura 
 Marzi. In the Biographical Dictionary of the Painters of 
 Urbino he is given to the school of Barocci. His manner, 
 however, is different, and I should say bad, if all his pictures 
 were similar to that of S. Uomobuono, which I saw in the 
 sacristy of the metropolitan church ; but he did indeed paint 
 some better, and it is an ancient maxim, that to improve we 
 must sometimes err. Benedetto Bandiera, of Perugia, who 
 approaches nearer to the style of Barocci than most others, is 
 said to have been a relative of Yanni, from whom he derived 
 that manner, if we may believe Orlandi. But Pascoli, both on 
 this point, and on the period in which he flourished, confutes 
 him, and considers him to have been instructed by Barocci inUr- 
 bino for many years, and that afterwards he became a diligent 
 observer of all his pictures which he could discover in other places. 
 
 Whilst Italy was filled with the fame of Barocci, there 
 come to Urbino, and resided in his house for some time, Claudio 
 Hidolfi, called also Claudio Veronese, from his native city, of 
 which he was a noble. He was there instructed by Dario 
 Pozzo, an author of few but excellent works, and after these 
 first instructions he remained many years without further 
 applying himself. Being afterwards compelled by necessity 
 to practise the art, he became the scholar of Paolo, and the 
 rival of the Bassani ; and not finding employment in his 
 native place, which then abounded with painters, he removed 
 to Rome, and from thence to Urbino. It is said that he 
 derived from Federigo the amenity of his style, and the beau- 
 tiful airs of his heads. He married in Urbino, and afterwards 
 fixed his residence in the district of Corinaldo, where, and in 
 the neighbouring places, he left a great number of pictures, 
 which yield little in tone to the best colourists of his native 
 school, and are often conducted with a design, a sobriety, and 
 
 vol. i. 2 G 
 
450 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. — EPOCH IV. 
 
 a delicacy sufficient to excite their envy. Ridolfi, who wrote 
 a brief life of him, enumerates scarcely one-half of his works. 
 There are some at Fossombrone, Cantiano, and Fabriano ; 
 and Rimino possesses a Deposition from the Cross, a beau- 
 tiful composition. There are several mentioned in the " Guida 
 di Montalboddo," lately edited. Urbino is rich in them, 
 where the Nascita del S. Precursore (the Birth of S. John 
 the Baptist), at S. Lucia, and the Presentation of the Virgin 
 at the Spirito Santo, are highly valued. Many of his works 
 are also to be seen in the Palazzo Albani, and in other collec- 
 tions of the nobility in Urbino. He there indeed formed a 
 school, which gave birth to Cialdieri, of whom there are 
 works remaining, both public and private ; the most noted 
 of which is a Martyrdom of S. John, at the church of S. 
 Bartholomew. He possessed a facility and elegance of 
 style, was highly accomplished in landscape, which he 
 often introduced into his pictures, and is remarkable for his 
 accurate perspective. Urbinelli, of Urbino, and Cesare 
 Maggieri,* of the same city, lived also about this time. 
 The first was a vigorous painter, an excellent colourist, and 
 partial to the Venetian style. The second an industrious 
 artist, inclining to the style of Barocci and the Roman school. 
 The history of art does not assign either of these to the school 
 of Ridolfi ; but there is a greater probability of the first 
 rather than the second belonging to it. Another painter of 
 uncertain school, but who partakes more of Claudio than of 
 Barocci, is Patanazzi, who is mentioned in the Galleria de* 
 Pittori Urbinati (v. Coluc. torn, xvi.), and poetic incense is 
 bestowed on his " risentito pennello e l'ottima invenzione."t 
 I have seen by him in a chapel of the Duomo a Marriage of 
 the Virgin, the figures not large, but well coloured and cor- 
 rectly drawn, if indeed some of them may not be thought 
 rather attenuated than slender and elegant. A celebrated 
 scholar of Ridolfi, Benedetto Marini, of Urbino, went to Pia- 
 cenza, where he left some highly valued pictures in several 
 churches, in which the style of Barocci is mixed with the 
 Lombard and Venetian. The work which excites our greatest 
 
 * Mention is also made of one Basilio Maggieri, an excellent painter of 
 portraits. 
 
 •J* His vigorous pencil and consummate invention. 
 
MORIGI DA CARAVAGGIO. 
 
 451 
 
 admiration is the Miracle of the Loaves in the Desert, which 
 he painted in the refectory of the Conventuals in 1625. It 
 is one of the largest compositions in oil which is to be seen, 
 well grouped and well contrasted, and displaying uncommon 
 powers.* I should not hesitate to prefer the scholar to the 
 master in grandeur of idea and vigour of execution, though in 
 the fundamental principles of the art he may not be equal to 
 him. The history of his life, as well as his works, scattered 
 in that neighbourhood in Pavia, and elsewhere, were deserv- 
 ing of commemoration; yet this artist as well as Bellini 
 remains unnoticed by the catalogues, and what is more, he is 
 little known in his native place, which has no other specimen 
 of his pencil than a picture of S. Carlo at the Trinità, with 
 some angels, which does not excite the same admiration as his 
 works in Lombardy.t Some other scholars of Claudio are 
 found in Verona, to which city he returned, and remained for 
 a short time ; and in the Bolognese School mention will be 
 made of Cantarini, amongst the masters of which he is num- 
 bered. In the meantime let us turn from these provincial 
 schools, which were the first that felt the reviving influence 
 of the age, to the capital, where we shall find Caravaggio, the 
 Caracci, and other reformers of the art. 
 
 Michelangiolo Amerighi, or Morigi da Caravaggio, is 
 memorable in this epoch, for having recalled the art from 
 mannerism to truth, as well in his forms, which he always 
 drew from nature, as in his colours, banishing the cinnabar 
 and azures, and composing his colours of few but true tints, 
 after the manner of Giorgione. Annibale Caracci extolling 
 him, declares that he did not paint, but grind flesh, and both 
 Guercino and Guido highly admired him, and profited from 
 his example. He was instructed in the art in Milan, from 
 whence he went to Venice to study Giorgione ; and he 
 adopted at the commencement of his career that subdued 
 style of shadow, which he had learnt from that great artist, 
 and in which some of the most highly prized works of Cara- 
 
 * V. Le Pitture pubbliche di Piacenza, p. 81. 
 
 f In a letter of the Oretti correspondence, written in 1777, from An- 
 drea Zanoni to the Prince Ercolani, I find Marini classed in the school of 
 Ferraù da Faenza, and there still remain many pictures by him in the 
 style of that master. 
 
 2 G 2 
 
452 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 raggio are executed. He was however afterwards led away 
 by his sombre genius, and represented objects with very little 
 light, overcharging his pictures with shade. His figures 
 inhabit dungeons, illuminated from above by only a single 
 and melancholy ray. His backgrounds are always dark, and 
 the actors are all placed in the same line, so that there is 
 little perspective in his pictures ; yet they enchant us, from 
 the powerful effect which results from the strong contrast of 
 light and shade. We must not look in him for correct 
 design, or elegant proportion, as he ridiculed all artists who 
 attempted a noble expression of countenance, or graceful fold- 
 ings of drapery, or who imitated the forms of the antique, as 
 exhibited in sculpture, his sense of the beautiful being all 
 derived from visible nature. There is to be seen by him in 
 the Spada palace a S. Anne, with the Virgin at her side, 
 occupied in female work. Their features are remarkable only 
 for their vulgarity, and they are both attired in the common 
 dress of Rome, and are doubtless portraits, taken from the 
 first elderly and young women that offered themselves to his 
 observation. This was his usual manner ; and he appeared 
 most highly pleased when he could load his pictures with 
 rusty armour, broken vessels, shreds of old garments, and 
 attenuated and wasted bodies. On this account some of his 
 works were removed from the altars, and one in particular at 
 the Scala, which represented the Death of the Virgin, in 
 which was figured a corpse, hideously swelled. 
 
 Few of his pictures are to be seen in Rome, and amongst 
 them is the Madonna of Loretto, in the church of S. Agos- 
 tino ; but the best is the Deposition from the Cross, in the 
 church of the Vallicella, which forms a singular contrast to 
 the gracefulness of Barocci, and the seductive style of Guido, 
 exhibited on the adjoining altars. He generally painted for 
 collections. On his arrival in Rome he painted flowers and 
 fruit : afterwards long pictures of half figures, a custom much 
 practised after his time. In these he represented subjects 
 sacred and profane, and particularly the manners of the lower 
 classes, drinking parties, conjurers, and feasts. His most 
 admired works are his Supper at Emmaus, in the Casa Bor- 
 ghese; S. Bastiano in Campidoglio; Agar, with Ishmael 
 Dying, in the Panfili collection ; and the picture of a Fruit 
 Girl, which exhibits great resemblance of nature, both in the 
 
IMITATORS OF CARAVAGGIO. 
 
 453 
 
 figures and accompaniments. He was still more successful in 
 representing quarrels and nightly broils, to which he was 
 himself no stranger, and by which too he rendered his own 
 life scandalous. He fled from Home for homicide, and resided 
 for some time in Naples ; from thence he passed to Malta, 
 where, after having been honoured with the Cross by the 
 Grand Master, for his talent displayed in his picture of the 
 Decollation of S. John, in the oratory of the church of the 
 Conventuals, he quarrelled with a cavalier and was thrown 
 into prison. Escaping from thence with difficulty, he resided 
 for some time in Sicily, and wished to return to Rome ; but 
 had not proceeded further on his journey than Porto Ercole, 
 when he died of a malignant fever, in the year 1609. He 
 left numerous works in these different countries, as we learn 
 from Gio. Pietro Bellori, who wrote his life at considerable 
 length. Of his chief scholars we shall treat in the following 
 book. At present we will enumerate his followers in Home 
 and its territories. 
 
 His school,, or rather the crowd of his imitators, who were 
 greatly increased on his death, does not afford an instance of 
 a single bad colourist ; it has nevertheless been accused of 
 neglect, both in design and grace. Bartolommeo Manfredi, 
 of Mantua, formerly a scholor of Roncali, might be called a 
 second Caravaggio, except that he was rather more refined in 
 his composition. His works are seldom found in collections, 
 although he painted for them, as he died young, and is often 
 supplanted by his master, as I believe was the case with 
 some pictures painted for the Casa Medicea, mentioned by 
 Baglione. 
 
 Carlo Saracino, or Saraceni, also called Veneziano, wishing 
 to be thought a second Caravaggio, affected the same singular 
 mode of dress as that master, and provided himself with a 
 huge shagged dog, to which he gave the same name that Ca- 
 ravaggio had attached to his own. He left many works in 
 Rome, both in fresco and oils. He too was a naturalista, 
 but possessed a more clear style of colour. He displayed a 
 Venetian taste in his figures, dressing them richly in the 
 Levant fashion, and was fond of introducing into his compo- 
 sitions corpulent persons, eunuchs, and shaven heads. His 
 principal frescos are in a hall of the Quirinal ; his best oil 
 
454 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 pictures are thought to be those of S. Bonone, and a martyred 
 bishop in the church deir Anima. He is seldom found in col- 
 lections ; but, from the above peculiarities, I have more than 
 once recognised his works. He returned to Venice, and soon 
 afterwards died there ; hence he was omitted by Ridolfi, and 
 scarcely noticed by Zanetti. 
 
 Monsieur Valentino, as he is called in Italy, who was born 
 at Brie, near Paris, and studied in Rome, became one of the 
 most judicious followers of Caravaggio. He painted in the 
 Quirinal the Martyrdom of the Saints Processo and Mar- 
 tiniano. He was a young artist of great promise,* but was 
 cut off by a premature death. His easel pictures are not very 
 rare in Rome. The Denial of S. Peter, in the Palazzo Cor- 
 sini, is a delightful picture. 
 
 Simone Vovet, the restorer of the French school, and the 
 master of Le Brun, formed his style from the pictures of Ca- 
 ravaggio and Valentino. In Rome there are some charming 
 productions by him both in public and private, particularly 
 in the Barberini gallery. I have heard them preferred to 
 many others that he painted in France in his noted rapid 
 style. 
 
 Angiolo Caroselli was a Roman, in whose works, consisting 
 chiefly of portraits and small figures, if we except the S. 
 Vinceslao of the Quirinal palace, and a few similar pictures, 
 we find the style of Caravaggio improved by an addition of 
 grace and delicacy. He was remarkable for not making his 
 design on paper, or using any preparatory study for his can- 
 vas. He is lively in his attitudes, rich in his tints, and 
 finished and refined in his pictures, which are highly prized, 
 but few in number, when we consider the term of his life. 
 Besides practising the style of Caravaggio, in which he fre- 
 quently deceived the most experienced, he imitated other 
 artists in a wonderful manner. A S. Elena by him was con- 
 sidered as a production of Titian even by his rivals, until they 
 found the cipher A.C. marked on the picture in small letters, 
 and Poussin affirms, that he should have taken his two copies 
 
 * Though prematurely cut off, he left in France sufficient to perpetuate 
 his fame. Though few, his works stand the test of being placed by the 
 side of those of Caravaggio. 
 
GHERARDO HUNDHORST. 
 
 455 
 
 of Raffaello for genuine pictures, if he had not known where 
 the originals were deposited. 
 
 Gherardo Hundhorst is called Gherardo dalle Notti, from 
 having painted few subjects except illuminated night-pieces, 
 in which he chiefly excelled. He imitated Caravaggio, adopt- 
 ing only his better parts, his carnations, his vigorous pencil, 
 and grand masses of light and shade ; but he aimed also at 
 correctness in his costume, selection in his forms, gracefulness 
 of attitude, and represented religious subjects with great pro- 
 priety. His pictures are very numerous, and the Prince 
 Giustiniani possesses the one of Christ led by night to the 
 Judgment Seat, which is one of his most celebrated works. 
 
 The school ' of Caravaggio flourished for a considerable 
 period, but its followers, painting chiefly for private indi- 
 viduals, have in a great degree remained unknown. Baglione 
 makes particular mention of Gio. Serodine, of Ascona, in 
 Lombardy, and enumerates many works by him, more re- 
 markable for their facility of execution than their excellence. 
 There remains no public specimen of him, except a Decolla- 
 tion of S. John at S. Lorenzo fuor delle Mura. One of the 
 latest of the school of Caravaggio was Tommaso Luini, a 
 Roman, who, from his quarrelsome disposition and his style, 
 was called II Caravaggino. He worked in Rome, and ap- 
 peared most to advantage when he painted the designs of his 
 master, Sacchi, as at S. Maria in Via. When he embodied 
 his own ideas, his design was rather dry and his colouring 
 dark. About the same time, Gio. Campino, of Camerino, 
 who received his first instructions under Gianson in Flanders, 
 resided in Rome for some years, and increased the number of 
 this school. He was afterwards painter to the court of Ma- 
 drid, and died in Spain. It is not known whether or not 
 Gio. Francesco Guerrieri di Fossombrone ever studied in 
 Rome, but his works are to be seen at Filippini di Fano, 
 where he painted in a chapel, S. Carlo contemplating the 
 Mysteries of the Passion, with two lateral pictures from the 
 life of that saint ; and in another chapel, where he represented 
 the Dream of S. Joseph, his style resembles that of Caravag- 
 gio, but possesses more softness of colour and more graceful- 
 ness of form. In the Duomo of Fabriano is also a S. Joseph 
 by him. He has left in his native place an abundance of 
 
456 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 works, which, if distributed more widely, would gire him a 
 celebrity which it has not hitherto been his lot to receive. I 
 there saw in a church a night-piece of S. Sebastian, attended 
 by S. Irene, a picture of most beautiful effect ; a Judith, in 
 possession of the Franceschini family; other works in the 
 Casa Passionei and elsewhere, very charming, and which often 
 shew that he had very much imitated Guercino. His female 
 forms are almost all cast in the same mould, and are copied 
 from the person of a favourite mistress. 
 
 We now come to the Caracci and their school. Before 
 Annibale arrived in Rome, he had already formed a style 
 which left nothing to be desired, except to be more strongly 
 imbued with the antique. Annibale added this to his other 
 noble qualities when he came to Rome ; and his disciples, who 
 trod in his steps, and continued after his death to paint in 
 that city, are particularly distinguished by this characteristic 
 from those who remained in Bologna under the instruction of 
 his cousin Lodovico. The disciples of Annibale left scholars 
 in Rome ; but no one except Sacchi approached so near in 
 merit to his master," as they had done to Annibale, nor did 
 there appear, like them, any founder of an original style. 
 Still they were sufficient to put a check on the mannerists, 
 and the followers of Caravaggio, and to restore the Roman 
 school to a better taste. We shall now proceed to enumerate 
 their scholars in their various classes. 
 
 Domenichino Zampieri, to his talents as a painter, added 
 commensurate powers of instruction. Besides Alessandro 
 Fortuua, who under the direction of his master, painted some 
 fables from Apollo, in the villa Aldobrandini in Frcscati, and 
 died young, Zampieri had in Rome, two scholars of great 
 repute, mentioned only by Bellori ; Antonio Barbalunga, of 
 Messina, and Andrea Camassei of Bevagna, both of whom 
 honoured their country with their names and works, although 
 they did not live many years. The first was a happy imita- 
 tor of his master, who had long employed him in copying for 
 himself. In the church of the P. P. Teatini, at Monte Ca- 
 vallo, is his picture of their Founder, and of S. Andrea 
 Avellino, attended by angels, which might be ascribed to 
 Zampieri himself, whose forms in this class of subjects were 
 select, and his attitudes elegant, and most engaging. To 
 
FRANCESCO COZZA. 
 
 457 
 
 him, I shall return in the fourth book. The second, who 
 had also studied in the school of Sacchi, lived longer in 
 Rome ; and whoever wishes justly to appreciate him, must 
 not judge from the chapel which he painted whilst yet young 
 in his native place, but must inspect his works in the capital. 
 There, in S. Andrea della Valle, is the S. Gaetano, painted at 
 the same time, and in competition with the S. Andrea of Bar- 
 balunga, before mentioned with commendation ; the Assump- 
 tion, at the Rotonda, and the Pietà at the Capucins ; and 
 many excellent frescos in the Baptistery of the Lateran, and 
 in the church of S. Peter ; which evince that he had almost 
 an equal claim to fame with his comrade. If, indeed, he was 
 somewhat less bold and less select, yet he had a natural 
 style, a grace, and a tone of colour, that do honour to the 
 Roman school, to which he contributed Giovanni Carbone, 
 of S. Severino, a scholar of some note. It has been remarked, 
 that his fate resembles that of Domenichino, as his merits 
 were undervalued, and himself persecuted by his relatives, 
 and he was also prematurely cut off by domestic afflictions. 
 
 Francesco Cozza was born in Calabria, but settled in Rome. 
 He was the faithful companion of Domenichino, during the 
 life of that master, and after his death completed some works 
 left unfinished by him, and executed them in the genuine 
 spirit of his departed friend, as may be seen in Ti ti. He 
 appears to have inherited from his teacher, his learning, ra- 
 ther than his taste. One of his most beautiful pictures is the 
 Virgin del Riscatto, at S. Francesca Romana a Capo alle 
 Case. Out of Rome, there are few public or private works 
 to be met with by him. He was considered exceedingly ex- 
 pert in his knowledge of the hands of the different masters, 
 and on disputed points, which often arose on this subject in 
 Rome, his opinion was always asked and acted on, without 
 any appeal from his judgment. Of Pietro del Po, also a 
 disciple of Domenichino, and of his family, we shall speak 
 more at large in the fourth book. 
 
 Giannangiolo Canini, of Rome, was first instructed by 
 Domenichino, and afterwards by Barbalunga, and would have 
 obtained great reputation for his inventive genius, if, seduced 
 by the study of antiquities, he had not for his pleasure taken 
 a short way to the art ; which led him to neglect the com- 
 
460 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 sition, and extremely well coloured. He published a book in 
 Pavia, in 1654, which he entitled " Le Finezze de Pennelli 
 Italiani." It is full, says the Abbate Bianconi, di buona 
 volontà pittorica. It possesses nevertheless some interesting 
 remarks. 
 
 Gio. Batista Michelini, called II Folignate, is almost for- 
 gotten in this catalogue; but there are in Gubbio various 
 works by him, and particularly a Pietà, worthy of the school 
 of Guido. Macerata possessed a noble disciple of Guido, in 
 the person of the Cav. Sforza Compagnoni, by whose hand 
 there is, in the academy de' Catinati, the device of that so- 
 ciety, which might be taken for a design of Guido. He gave 
 a picture to the church of S. Giorgio, which is still there, and 
 presented a still more beautiful one to the church of S. Gio- 
 vanni, which was long to be seen over the great altar, but is 
 now in the possession of the Conte Cav. Mario Compagnoni. 
 Malvasia mentions him in the life of Yiola, but makes him a 
 scholar of Albano. The Ginesini boast of Cesare Renzi, as 
 a respectable scholar of Guido, and, in the church of S. Tom- 
 maso, they shew a picture of that saint by his hand. In ad- 
 dition to the scholars of Guido, whose names have been 
 handed down to us, I shall here beg leave to add an imitator 
 of Guido, who from the time in which he flourished, and from 
 his noble style of colour, probably belonged to the same 
 school. I found his name subscribed Giorgio Giuliani da 
 Cività Castellana, 161 . ., on a large picture of the Martyr- 
 dom of S. Andrew, which Guido painted for the Camaldolesi 
 di S. Gregorio at Rome, and which this artist copied for the 
 celebrated monastery of the Camaldolesi all* Avellana. It is 
 exhibited in the refectory, and notwithstanding the dampness 
 of the place, maintains a freshness of colour very unusual in 
 pictures of that antiquity. 
 
 The Cav. Gio. Lanfranco came to Rome whilst yet young, 
 and there formed that free and noble style which served to 
 decorate many cupolas and noble edifices, and which pleases 
 also in his cabinet pictures when he executed them with care. 
 Giacinto Brandi di Poli was his most celebrated scholar in 
 Rome. He at first adopted his masters moderate tone of 
 colour, the variety and contrast of his composition, and his 
 flowing pencil ; but in consequence of his filling, as he did, 
 
GIACOMO GIORGETTI. 
 
 461 
 
 Rome and the state with his works, he neglected correctness 
 of design, and never arrived at that grandeur of style which 
 we admire in Lanfranc. He sometimes indeed went beyond 
 himself, as in the S. Rocco of the Ripetta, and in the forty 
 martyrs of the Stigmata in Rome ; but his inordinate love of 
 gain would not allow him to finish many works in the same 
 good style. I have been informed by a connoisseur, on whose 
 opinion I can rely, that the best works of this artist are at 
 Gaeta, where he painted at the Nunziata a picture of the 
 Madonna with the Holy Infant ; and where, in the inferior 
 part of the Duomo, he painted in the vault three recesses and 
 ten angles, adding over the altar the picture of the martyr- 
 dom of S. Erasmus, bishop of the city, who was buried in 
 that church. Brandi did not perpetuate the taste of his 
 school, not leaving any pupil of eminence except Felice Ot- 
 tini, who painted in his youth a chapel at the P. P. di Gesù 
 e Maria, and did not long survive that work. Orlandi also 
 mentions a Carlo Lamparelli di Spello, who left in Rome a 
 picture at the church of the Spirito Santo, but nothing further. 
 An Alessandro Vaselli also left some works in another church 
 in Rome. 
 
 After Brandi, we ought to commemorate Giacomo Gior- 
 £etti, of Assisi, who is little known beyond his native city 
 and the neighbouring towns. He is said to have first studied 
 the art of design in Rome, when he learned colouring from 
 Lanfranc, and became a good fresco painter. There is by him 
 in a chapel of the Duomo at Assisi, a large composition in 
 fresco, and in the sacristy of the Conventuals various sub- 
 jects from the Life of the Virgin, also in fresco ; all works 
 coloured in a fine style, and much more finished than was 
 usual with Lanfranc. If there be any fault to be found with 
 them, it is the proportions of the figures, which not unfre- 
 quently incline to awkwardness. His name is found in the 
 " Descrizione della Chiesa di S. Francesco di Perugia," to- 
 gether with that of Girolamo Marinelli, his fellow-citizen 
 and contemporary, of whom I never found any other notice. 
 
 Lanfranc instructed in Rome a noble lady, who filled the 
 church of S. Lucia with her pictures. These were designed 
 by her master, and coloured by herself. Her name was 
 Caterina Ginnasi. There were also with Lanfranc in Rome, 
 
460 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 sition, and extremely well coloured. He published a book in 
 Pavia, in 1654, which he entitled u Le Finezze de' Pennelli 
 Italiani." It is full, says the Abbate Bianconi, di buona 
 volontà pittorica. It possesses nevertheless some interesting 
 remarks. 
 
 Gio. Batista Michelini, called II Folignate, is almost for- 
 gotten in this catalogue ; but there are in Gubbio various 
 works by him, and particularly a Pietà, worthy of the school 
 of Guido. Macerata possessed a noble disciple of Guido, in 
 the person of the Cav. Sforza Compagnoni, by whose hand 
 there is, in the academy de* Catinati, the device of that so- 
 ciety, which might be taken for a design of Guido. He gave 
 a picture to the church of S. Giorgio, which is still there, and 
 presented a still more beautiful one to the church of S. Gio- 
 vanni, which was long to be seen over the great altar, but is 
 now in the possession of the Conte Cav. Mario Compagnoni. 
 Malvasia mentions him in the life of Yiola, but makes him a 
 scholar of Albano. The Ginesini boast of Cesare Renzi, as 
 a respectable scholar of Guido, and, in the church of S. Tom- 
 maso, they shew a picture of that saint by his hand. In ad- 
 dition to the scholars of Guido, whose names have been 
 handed down to us, I shall here beg leave to add an imitator 
 of Guido, who from the time in which he flourished, and from 
 his noble style of colour, probably belonged to the same 
 school. I found his name subscribed Giorgio Giuliani da 
 Cività Castellana, 161 . ., on a large picture of the Martyr- 
 dom of S. Andrew, which Guido painted for the Camaldolesi 
 di S. Gregorio at Rome, and which this artist copied for the 
 celebrated monastery of the Camaldolesi all' Avellana. It is 
 exhibited in the refectory, and notwithstanding the dampness 
 of the place, maintains a freshness of colour very unusual in 
 pictures of that antiquity. 
 
 The Cav. Gio. Lanfranco came to Pome whilst yet young, 
 and there formed that free and noble style which served to 
 decorate many cupolas and noble edifices, and which pleases 
 also in his cabinet pictures when he executed them with care. 
 Giacinto Brandi di Poli was his most celebrated scholar in 
 Pome. He at first adopted his masters moderate tone of 
 colour, the variety and contrast of his composition, and his 
 flowing pencil ; but in consequence of his filling, as he did, 
 
GIACOMO GIORGETTI. 
 
 461 
 
 Home and the state with his works, he neglected correctness 
 of design, and never arrived at that grandeur of style which 
 we admire in Lanfranc. He sometimes indeed went beyond 
 himself, as in the S. Rocco of the Ripetta, and in the forty 
 martyrs of the Stigmata in Rome ; but his inordinate love of 
 gain would not allow him to finish many works in the same 
 good style. I have been informed by a connoisseur, on whose 
 opinion I can rely, that the best works of this artist are at 
 Gaeta, where he painted at the Nunziata a picture of the 
 Madonna with the Holy Infant ; and where, in the inferior 
 part of the Duomo, he painted in the vault three recesses and 
 ten angles, adding over the altar the picture of the martyr- 
 dom of S. Erasmus, bishop of the city, who was buried in 
 that church. Brandi did not perpetuate the taste of his 
 school, not leaving any pupil of eminence except Felice Ot- 
 tini, who painted in his youth a chapel at the P. P. di Gesù 
 e Maria, and did not long survive that work. Orlandi also 
 mentions a Carlo Lamparelli di Spello, who left in Rome a 
 picture at the church of the Spirito Santo, but nothing further. 
 An Alessandro Vaselli also left some works in another church 
 in Rome. 
 
 After Brandi, we ought to commemorate Giacomo Gior- 
 getti, of Assisi, who is little known beyond his native city 
 and the neighbouring towns. He is said to have first studied 
 the art of design in Rome, when he learned colouring from 
 Lanfranc, and became a good fresco painter. There is by him 
 in a chapel of the Duomo at Assisi, a large composition in 
 fresco, and in the sacristy of the Conventuals various sub- 
 jects from the Life of the Virgin, also in fresco ; all works 
 coloured in a fine style, and much more finished than was 
 usual with Lanfranc. If there be any fault to be found with 
 them, it is the proportions of the figures, which not unfre- 
 quently incline to awkwardness. His name is found in the 
 " Descrizione della Chiesa di S. Francesco di Perugia," to- 
 gether with that of Girolamo Marinelli, his fellow-citizen 
 and contemporary, of whom I never found any other notice. 
 
 Lanfranc instructed in Rome a noble lady, who filled the 
 church of S. Lucia with her pictures. These were designed 
 by her master, and coloured by herself. Her name was 
 Caterina Ginnasi. There were also with Lanfranc in Rome, 
 
462 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 Mengucci, of Pesaro, and others, who afterwards left Rome, 
 and will be mentioned by us elsewhere. Some have added 
 to these Beinaschi, but he was only an excellent copyist and 
 imitator, as we shall see in the fourth book. At the same 
 time, we may assert that none of the Caracci school had a 
 greater number of followers than Lan franc ; as Pietro di 
 Cortona, the chief of a numerous family, derived much of 
 his style from him, and the whole tribe of machinists 
 adopted him as their leader, and still regard him as their 
 prototype. 
 
 Albano too, here deserves a conspicuous place as a master 
 of the Roman school. Giambatista Speranza, a Roman, 
 learned from him the principles of the art, and became a 
 fresco painter of the best taste in Rome. If we inspect his 
 works at S. Agostino, and S. Lorenzo in Lucina, and in other 
 places where he painted religious subjects, we immediately 
 perceive that his age is not that of Zuccari, and that the true 
 style of fresco still flourished. From Albano too, and from 
 Guercino, Pierfrancesco Mola di Como derived that charming 
 style which partook of the excellences of both these artists. 
 He renounced the principals of Cesari, who had instructed 
 him for many years ; and after having diligently studied 
 colouring at Venice, he attached himself to the school of the 
 Caracci, but more particularly to Albano. He never, how- 
 ever, equalled his master in grace, although he had a bolder 
 tone of colour, greater invention, and more vigour of subject. 
 He died in the prime of life whilst preparing for his journey 
 to Paris, where he was appointed painter to the court. Rome 
 possesses many of his pictures, particularly in fresco, in the 
 churches ; and in the Quirinal palace, is Joseph found by his 
 Brethren, which is esteemed a most beautiful piece. There 
 are also many of his pictures to be found in private collections ; 
 and in his landscapes, in which he excelled, it is doubted 
 whether the figures are by him or Albano. He had in Rome 
 three pupils, who, aspiring to be good colourists, frequented 
 the same fountains of art as their master had done, and 
 travelled through all Italy. They were Antonio Gherardi 
 da Rieti, who on the death of Mola frequented the school of 
 Cortona, and painted in many churches in Rome with more 
 
ANDREA SACCHI. 
 
 463 
 
 despatch than elegance j* Gio. Batista Boncuore, of Abruzzo, 
 a painter in a grand though somewhat heavy style ;t and 
 Giovanni Bonnati, of Ferrara, whom we shall reserve for his 
 native school. 
 
 Virgilio Ducei, of Città di Castello, is little known among 
 the scholars of Albano, though he does not yield to many of 
 the Bolognese in the imitation of their common master. 
 Two pictures of Tobias, in a chapel of the Duomo, in his 
 native place, are painted in an elegant and graceful style. 
 An Antonio Catalani, of Rome, is mentioned to us by Mal- 
 vasia, and with him Giarolamo Bonini, of Ancona, the in- 
 timate friend of Albani. These artists resided in Bologna, 
 and were employed there, as we shall see in our history of 
 that school. Of the second we are told that he painted both 
 in Venice and in Rome ; and Orlandi praises his works in 
 the Sala Farnese, which either no longer exist orare neglected 
 to be mentioned in the Guida of Ti ti. 
 
 Lastly, from the studio of Albani issued Andrea Sacchi, 
 after its chief the best colourist of the Roman school, and 
 one of the most celebrated in design, in the practice of which 
 he continued until his death. Profoundly skilled in the 
 theory of art, he was yet slow in the execution. It was a 
 maxim with him that the merit of a painter does not consist 
 in giving to the world a number of works of mediocrity, but 
 a few perfect ones, and hence his pictures are rare. His 
 compositions do not abound with figures, but every figure 
 appears appropriate to its place ; and the attitudes seem not 
 so much chosen by the artist, as regulated by the subject 
 itself. Sacchi did not, indeed, shun the elegant, though he 
 
 * Pascoli has restored to him the picture of S. Rosalia at the Madda- 
 lena, which Titi had ascribed to Michele Rocca, called II Parmigianino, 
 an artist of repute, and proper to be mentioned, as by those who are not 
 acquainted with his name and style, he might be mistaken for Mazzuola 
 or perhaps Scaglia. The same author, soon afterwards, mentioned Greco - 
 lini, and thereby renders any further notice of that artist on my part 
 unnecessary. 
 
 f We ought to judge of him from the Visitation, at the church of the 
 Orfanelli, rather than from the picture of various Saints, in Ara Cseli. 
 This kind of observation may be extended to many other artists, who are 
 commemorated for the sake of some superior work. 
 
464 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 seems born for the grand style — grave miens, majestic at- 
 titudes, draperies folded with care and simplicity ; a sober 
 colouring, and a general tone, which gave to all objects a 
 pleasing harmony and a grateful repose to the eye. He 
 seems to have disdained minuteness, and, after the example of 
 many of the ancient sculptors, to have left some part always 
 unfinished ; so at least his admirers assert. Mengs expresses 
 himself differently, and says, that Sacchi' s principle was to 
 leave his pictures, as it were, merely indicated, and to take his 
 ideas from natural objects, without giving them any determinate 
 form ; on this matter the professors of the art must decide. His 
 picture of S. Romualdo surrounded by his monks, is ranked 
 among the four best compositions in Rome ; and the subject 
 was a difficult one to treat, as the great quantity of white in 
 the vestures tends to produce a sameness of colour. The 
 means which Sacchi adopted on this occasion have always 
 been justly admired. He has placed a large tree near the 
 foreground, the shade of which serves to break the uniformity 
 of the figures, and he thus introduced a pleasing variety in the 
 monotony of the colours. His Transito di S. Anna at S. 
 Carlo a' Catinari, his S. Andrea in the Quirinal, and his 
 S. Joseph at Capo alle Case, are also beautiful pictures. 
 Perugia, Foligno, and Camerino, possess altar-pieces by him 
 which are the boast of these cities. He enjoyed the reputa- 
 tion of an amiable and learned instructor. One of his lec- 
 tures, communicated by his celebrated scholar, Francesco 
 Lauri, may be read in the life of that artist, written by Pas- 
 coli, who, as I have before remarked, collected the greater 
 part of his information from the old painters in Pome. He 
 has probably engrafted on them some sentiments either of his 
 own or of others, as often happens in a narrative when the 
 facts related are founded more in probability than in cer- 
 tainty; but the maxims there inculcated by Sacchi are worthy 
 of an artist strongly attached to the true, the select, and the 
 grand, and who, to give dignity to his figures, seems to have 
 had his eyes on the precepts of Quintilian respecting the 
 action of his orator. He had a vast number of scholars, 
 among whom we may reckon Giuseppe Sacchi, his son, who 
 became a conventual monk, and painted a picture ili the 
 sacristy, in the church of the Apostles. But his most illus- 
 
GIAMBATISTA SALVI. 
 
 4G5 
 
 trious disciple was Maratta, of whom and of whose scholars 
 we shall speak in another epoch. 
 
 We find a follower of the Caracci, though we know not 
 of what particular master, in Giambatista Salvi, called from 
 the place in which he was born, Sassof errato,* and whom we 
 shall notice further when we speak of Carlo Dolci, and his 
 very devotional pictures. This artist excelled Dolci in the 
 beauty of his Madonnas, but yielded to him in the fineness of 
 his pencil. Their style was dissimilar, Salvi having formed 
 himself on other models ; he first studied in his native place 
 under Tarquinio, his father, t then in Rome, and afterwards 
 in Naples ; it is not known precisely under what masters, 
 except that in his MS. Memoirs we read of one Domenico. 
 The period in which Salvi studied corresponds in a remark- 
 able manner with the time in which Domenichino was em- 
 ployed in Naples, and his manner of painting shews that he 
 adopted the style of that master, though not exclusively. I 
 have seen in the possession of his heirs many copies from the 
 first masters, which he executed for his own pleasure. I ob- 
 served several of Albano, Guido, Barocci, Raffaello, reduced 
 to a small size, and painted, as one may say, all in one 
 breath. There are also some landscapes of his composition, 
 and a vast number of sacred portraits ; several of S. John 
 the Baptist, but more than all of the Madonna. Though not 
 possessing the ideal beauty of the Greeks, he has yet a style 
 of countenance peculiarly appropriate to the Virgin, in which 
 an air of humility predominates, and the simplicity of the 
 dress and the attire of the head corresponds with the expres- 
 sion of the features, without at the same time lessening the 
 dignity of her character. He painted with a flowing pencil, 
 was varied in his colouring, had a fine relief and chiaroscuro; 
 but in his local tints he was somewhat hard. He delighted 
 
 * Memoirs of this painter have been long a desideratum, as may be 
 seen from the Lett. Pitt. torn. v. p. 257. I give such information as I 
 have been able to procure in his native place, assisted by the researches 
 of the very obliging Monsignore Massajuoli, bishop of Nocera. Gio. 
 Batista was born in Sassoferrato on the 11th July, 1605, and died in 
 Rome on the 8th August, 1685. And I may here correct an error of my 
 first edition, where it is printed 1635. 
 
 f There is a picture of the Rosario in the church of the Eremitani, 
 with his name, and the year 1573. It is a large composition. 
 TOL. I. 2 H 
 
4GG ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 most in designing heads with a part of the bust, which fre- 
 quently occur in collections ; his portraits are very often of 
 the size of life, and of that size, or larger, is a Madonna, by 
 him, with the infant Christ, in the Casali palace at Rome. 
 The picture of the Rosario, that he painted at S. Sabina, is 
 one of the smallest pictures in Rome. It is, however, well 
 composed, and conducted with his usual spirit, and is regarded 
 as a gem. In other places the largest picture by him which 
 is to be seen is an altar-piece in the cathedral of Montefias- 
 cone. 
 
 A follower of the Caracci also, though of an uncertain school, 
 was Giusseppino da Macerata, whom a dubious tradition has 
 assigned to Agostino. His works are to be seen in the two 
 collegiate churches of Fabriano ; an Annunciation, in oils, in 
 S. Niccolò, and at S. Venanzio two chapels, painted in fresco, 
 in one of which, where he represented the miracles of the 
 apostles, he surpassed himself in the beauty of the heads and 
 in the general composition ; in other respects he is somewhat 
 hasty and indecisive. Two of his works remain in his native 
 place; at the Carmelites the Madonna in Glory, with S. 
 Nicola and S. Girolamo on the foreground ; and at the 
 Capuchins, S. Peter receiving the Keys. Both these pictures 
 are in the Caracci style, but the second is most so ; cor- 
 responding in a singular manner with one of the same subject 
 which the Filippini of Fano have in their church, and which 
 is an authentic and historical work of Guido Reni. The 
 second, therefore, is probably a copy. There is written on it 
 Joseph Ma. faciebat 1630, but the figures of the year are not 
 very legible. Marcello Gobbi, and Girolamo Boniforti,* a 
 tolerable good imitator of Titian, lived at this time in Mace- 
 rata. Perugia presents us with two scholars of the Caracci, 
 Giulio Cesare Angeli and Anton. Maria Fabrizzi, the one the 
 pupil of Annibale in Rome, the other of Lodovico in Bologna. 
 They were attracted by the fame of their masters, and 
 secretly leaving their native place for about the space of 
 
 * In the Oretti Correspondence there is a letter from an anonymous 
 writer to Malvasia respecting this painter, who is there called Francesco - 
 and is declared to be Pittore di molta stima. He then painted in Ancona, 
 as appears from letters under his own hand to Malvasia, where he invari- 
 ably subscribes himself Francesco. 
 
ANGELI AND FABRIZZI. 
 
 467 
 
 twelve years, they obtained admission for some time into their 
 school, if we may rely on Pascoli. Fabrizzi, who is also said 
 to have worked under Annibale, does not shew great correct- 
 ness, and the cause may be ascribed to his too ardent tem- 
 perament, and the want of more mature instruction ; for 
 Annibale dying after three years, from a scholar he became a 
 master, and was celebrated for his vigorous colouring, his 
 composition, and the freedom of his pencil. Angeli was more 
 remarkable for expression and colour than design, and ex- 
 celled rather in the draped than in the naked figure. There 
 is a vast work by him in fresco in the oratory of the church 
 of S. Agostino in Perugia, and in part of it a limbo of saints, 
 certainly not designed by the light of Lodovico' s lamp, if 
 indeed it ought not to be considered that this lunette is by 
 another hand. This branch of the Bolognese school, which 
 was constantly degenerating from the excellence of its origin, 
 being at such a distance from Bologna as not to be able to be 
 revivified by the pictures of the Caracci, still survived for a 
 long time. Angeli instructed Cesare Franchi, who excelled 
 in small pictures, which were highly prized in collections ; 
 and Stefano Amadei also, who was formed more on the 
 Florentine school of that age than on the school of Bologna. 
 Stefano was also attached to letters, and opened a school, and 
 by frequent meeting and instructive lectures improved the 
 minds of the young artists who frequented, it. One of the 
 most assiduous of these was Fabio, brother of the duke of 
 Cornia, of whom some works are mentioned in the Guida di 
 Roma, and who entitled himself to a higher rank than that of 
 a mere dilettante. 
 
 Besides the Bolognese, a number of Tuscans who were em- 
 ployed by Paul Y. in the two churches of S. Peter and S. M. 
 Maggiore, also contributed to the melioration of the Roman 
 school ; and some others who, deprived of that opportunity 
 of distinguishing themselves, are yet memorable for the 
 scholars they left behind them. Of the diocese of Volterra 
 was Cristoforo Roncalli, called II Cav. delle Pomarance> cur- 
 sorily noticed by us among the Tuscans. I now place him in 
 this school, because he both painted and taught for a con- 
 siderable time in Rome ; and I assign him to this epoch, not 
 from the generality of his works, but from his best having 
 
 2h? 
 
468 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 been executed in it. He was the scholar of Niccolò delle 
 Pomarance, for whom lie worked much with little reward ; 
 and from his example he learnt to avail himself of the 
 labour of others, and to content himself with mediocrity. 
 Yet there are several pictures by him, in which he ap- 
 pears excellent, except that he too often repeats himself 
 in his backgrounds, his foreshortened heads, and full 
 and rubicund countenances. His style of design is a mixture 
 of the Florentine and Roman. In his frescos he displayed 
 fresh and brilliant colours ; in his oil pictures, on the con- 
 trary, he adopted more sober tints, harmonized by a general 
 tone of tranquillity and placidness. He frequently decorated 
 these with landscapes gracefully disposed. Among his best 
 labours is reckoned the Death of Ananias and Sapphira, which 
 is at the Certosa, and which was copied in mosaic in S. 
 Peters. Other mosaics also in the same church were ex- 
 ecuted after his cartoons, and in the Lateranense is his 
 Baptism of Constantine, a grand historical composition. But 
 his most celebrated work is the cupola of Loreto, very rich in 
 figures, but injured by time, except some prophets, which are 
 in a truly grand style. He painted considerably in the 
 treasury of that church ; and there are some histories of the 
 Madonna not conducted with equal felicity, particularly in 
 the perspective. He obtained this vast commission through 
 the patronage of the Cardinal Crescenzi, in competition with 
 Caravaggio, who, to gratify his revenge, hired an assassin to 
 wound him in the face ; and in rivalship too with Guido 
 Reni, who retaliated in a more laudable manner, by proving 
 his superiority by his works. Roncalli from this time was in 
 great request in the cities of Picenum, which in consequence 
 abound with his pictures. There is to be seen at the 
 Eremitani at S. Severino, a Noli me tangere ; at S. Agostino 
 in Ancona, a S. Francis praying ; and at S. Palazia in 
 Osimo, a picture of a saint, one of his most finished produc- 
 tions. In the same city, in the Casa Galli, he painted, so as 
 to be viewed from below, the Judgment of Solomon ; and 
 this is perhaps the best fresco that he ever executed. He 
 could vary his manner at will. There is an Epiphany in the 
 possession of the Marquis Mancinforti in Ancona, quite in the 
 style of the Venetian school. 
 
TUE MARCHESE CRESCENZO 
 
 469 
 
 There were two artists who approached this master in style, 
 the Cav. Gaspare Celio, a Roman, and Antonio, the son o? 
 Niccolò Circignani. Celio was the pupil of Niccolò, accord- 
 ing to Baglione, but of Roncalli, if we are to believe Titi. 
 He designed and engraved antique statues, and painted ìd a 
 commendable manner whilst young, after the design of P. 
 Gio. Bat. Fiamme ri, at the Gesù, and at a more mature age 
 after his own, in numerous churches. The S. Francis, on the 
 altar of the Ospizio, at Ponte Sisto, is by him ; and he also 
 painted the history of S. Raimondo at the Minerva, and the 
 Moses passing the Red Sea, in a vault of the Mattei gallery, 
 where he competed with other first-rate artists. Antonio is 
 not well known in Rome, where he worked with his father, 
 after whose death he decorated by himself a chapel at the 
 Traspontina, another at the Consolazione, and painted also in 
 private houses. Città di Castello, where he passed some ot 
 the best years of his life, possesses many of his pictures, and 
 amongst the rest, that of the Conception, at the Conventuals, 
 which may be called a mixture of Barocci and Roncalli, from 
 whom he probably learned to improve the style he had 
 inherited from his father. 
 
 The Cav. delle Pomarance instructed the Marchese Gio. 
 Batista Crescenzi, who became a great patron of the fine arts, 
 and who was so much skilled in them, that Paul V. appointed 
 him superintendent of the works which he was carrying on in 
 Rome ; and Philip III., the Catholic, also availed himself of 
 his services in the Escurial. He did not execute many 
 works, and his chief talent lay in flower-painting. His 
 house was frequented by literary men, and particularly by 
 Marino ; he formed in it a gallery containing an extensive 
 collection of pictures and drawings, of which he himself says, 
 " I believe I may indeed safely affirm that there is not a 
 prince in Europe that does not yield to me in this respect." 
 (Lett. p. 89.) There the artists were always to be found, 
 one of whom, his disciple, was called Bartolomrneo del Cres- 
 cenzi, of the family of Cavarozzi of Viterbo. He was a most 
 correct artist, a follower first of Roncalli, and afterwards be- 
 came the author of a captivating natural style. There exist 
 many excellent pictures by him in collections, and in the 
 
470 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 church of S. Anna a picture of that saint, executed, says 
 Baglione, in his best taste, and with a vigorous pencil. 
 
 Among the scholars of Roncalli may also be ranked Gio- 
 vanni Antonio, father of Luigi Scaramuccia, who also saw 
 and imitated the Caracci. His works are often met with in 
 Perugia. The spirit and freedom of his pencil are more 
 commended than his tints, which are too dark, and which in 
 the churches easily distinguish him amidst a crowd of other 
 artists. It is probable that he used too great a quantity of 
 terra d'ombra^ like others of his day. Girolamo Buratti, 
 of the same school, painted in Ascoli the beautiful picture of 
 the Presepio at the Carità, and some subjects in fresco, highly 
 commended by Orsini. Of Alessandro Casolani, who belongs 
 to this master, we spoke in the Sienese School. With him, 
 too, was included Cristoforo, his son, who, with Giuseppe 
 Agellio of Sorrento, may be ranked with the inferior 
 artists. 
 
 Francesco Morelli, a Florentine, demands our notice only 
 as having imparted the rudiments of the art to the Cav. Gio. 
 Baglione of Rome. His pupil, however, did not remain with 
 him for any length of time, but formed a style for himself 
 from a close application to the works of the best masters, 
 and was employed by Paul V., by the duke of Mantua, and 
 by persons of distinction. He is less vigorous in design and 
 expression than in colour and chiaroscuro. We meet with 
 his works not only in Rome, where he painted much, but 
 also in several provincial towns, as the S. Stephen in the 
 Duomo of Perugia, and the S. Catherine at the Basilica 
 Loretana. In his colours he resembled Cigoli, but was far 
 behind him in other respects. The picture which procured 
 him great applause in the Vatican, the Resuscitation of Tabi- 
 tha, is defaced by time ; but both there and at the Cappella 
 della Paolina in S. Maria Maggiore, which was the most 
 considerable work of Paul N., his pieces in fresco still re- 
 main, and are not unworthy of their age. He is not often 
 found in collections, but in that of the Propaganda I saw a 
 S. Rocco painted by him with great force of colour. He 
 lived to a considerable age, and left behind him a compendium 
 of the lives of professors of the fine arts, who bad been his 
 
CAV. GIO. BAGLIONE. 
 
 471 
 
 contemporaries in Home from 1572 to 1642. He wrote in 
 an unostentatious manner, and free from party spirit, and 
 was on all occasions more disposed to commend the good than 
 to censure the bad. Whenever I peruse him, I seem to hear 
 the words of a venerable teacher, inclined rather to inculcate 
 precepts of morals than maxims on the fine arts. Of the 
 latter, indeed, he is very sparing, and it would almost lead 
 one to suppose that he had succeeded in his profession more 
 from a natural bias, and a talent of imitation, than from 
 scientific principles and sound taste. It was, perhaps, in 
 order that he might not be tied to treat of the art theoreti- 
 cally, and to write profoundly, that he distributed his work 
 in five dialogues, in the course of which we do not meet with 
 professors of art, but are introduced to a foreigner and to a 
 Roman gentleman, who act the respective parts of master and 
 scholar. Dialogues, indeed, were never composed in a more 
 simple style, in any language. The two interlocutors meet 
 in the cloisters of the Minerva, and after a slight salutation, 
 one of them recounts the lives of the masters of the art, to the 
 number of eighty, which are commenced, continued, and 
 ended in a style sufficiently monotonous, both as to manner 
 and language ; the other listens to this long narrative, with- 
 out either interrupting or answering, or adding a word in 
 reply : and thus the dialogue, or rather the soliloquy, con- 
 cludes, without the slightest expression of thanks on the part 
 of the auditor, or even the ceremony of a farewell. We shall 
 now return to the Tuscan scholars. 
 
 Passignano was at Rome many times, without, however, 
 leaving there any scholars, at least of much name. We may 
 indeed mention Yanni, and he left there, too, a Gio. Antonio, 
 and a Gio. Francesco del Vanni, who are mentioned in the 
 4i Guida di Roma/' The school of Cigoli produced two 
 Roman artists of considerable reputation ; Domenico Feti, 
 who distinguished himself in Mantua, and Gio. Antonio Lelli, 
 who never left his native place. They painted more fre- 
 quently in oil, and for private collections, than in fresco, or 
 in churches. Of the first, no public work remains except the 
 two Angels at S. Lorenzo in Damaso ; of the second some 
 pictures, and some histories on the walls, among which the 
 Visitation in the choir of the Minerva is much praised. 
 
472 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 Comodi and Ciarpi are said to have been the successive 
 masters of Pietro di Cortona ; and on that account, and from 
 his birthplace, he has by many been placed in the school of 
 Florence ; although others have assigned him to that of 
 Rome. It is true, indeed, that he came hither at the age of 
 fourteen, bringing with him from Tuscany little more than a 
 well-disposed genius ; and he here formed himself into an 
 excellent architect, and as a painter became the head of a 
 school distinguished for a free and vigorous style, as we have 
 mentioned in our first book. Whoever wishes to observe how 
 far he carried this style in fresco, and in large compositions, 
 must inspect the Sala Barberina in Rome : although the Pa- 
 lazzo Pitti, in Florence, presents us with works more elegant, 
 more beautiful, and more studied in parts. Whoever, too, 
 wishes to see how far he carried it in his altar-pieces, must 
 inspect the Conversion of S. Paul at the Capuchins in Rome, 
 which, placed opposite the S. Michael of Guido, is neverthe- 
 less, the admiration of those who do not object to a variety of 
 style in art : nor am I aware that we should reject this 
 principle in what we designate the fine arts : as it is invaria- 
 bly acknowledged in eloquence, in poetry, and history, where 
 we find Demosthenes and Isocrates, Sophocles and Euripides, 
 and Tlmcydides and Xenophon, equally esteemed, though all 
 dissimilar in style. 
 
 The works of Pietro in Rome, and in the states of the 
 Church, are not at all rare. They are to be found also in 
 other states of Italy, and those pieces are the most attractive 
 in which he had the greatest opportunity of indulging his love 
 of architecture. His largest compositions, which might dis- 
 may the boldest copyist, are S. Ivo at the Sapienza of Rome, 
 and the S. Charles in the church of that saint, at Catinari, in 
 the act of relieving the infected. The Preaching of S. James 
 in Imola, in the church of the Dominicans, is also on a vast 
 scale. The Virgin attended by S. Stephen, the Pope, and 
 other saints in S. Agostino, in Cortona, is a picture of great 
 research, and is considered one of his best performances. 
 There is an enchanting picture of the Birth of the Virgin, in 
 the Quirinal palace ; and the Martyrdom of S. Stephen, at S. 
 Ambrogio, in Rome, and Daniel in the Den of Lions, in the 
 church of that saint, in Venice, are most beautiful works, 
 
VERONESE ARTISTS* 
 
 473 
 
 superior to those of most of his competitors in this school, in 
 regard to composition, and equal to them in colour. His 
 historical subjects are not met with in the galleries of the 
 Roman nobility. In that of the Campidoglio, is the battle 
 between the Romans and the Sabines, full of picturesque 
 spirit ; and in possession of the Duke Mattei, is the Adultery, 
 half-figures, more studied and more highly finished than was 
 customary with him. This brief notice of him may suffice 
 for the present. Of the scholars whom he formed in the 
 Roman school, I shall speak more opportunely in the sub- 
 sequent epoch. 
 
 At this period we find three Veronese artists, Ottini, 
 Bassetti, and Turchi, studying in Rome ; and we shall speak 
 of them more at length in the Venetian School. The first 
 returned home without executing any public work. The 
 second left, in the church dell' Anima, in Rome, two pictures 
 in fresco, the Birth, and the Circumcision of Christ. The 
 third, known under the name of Orbetto, took up his resi- 
 dence, and died in that capital ; but I am not aware that he 
 left there any disciples of merit, except some of his own 
 countrymen, who returned to their native place. This 
 engaging and elegant painter, who possessed great originality 
 and beauty of colour, worked still more in Verona than in 
 Rome, and we ought to see his works in the former city, in 
 order justly to appreciate them. But he is not on that 
 account held in the less esteem in Rome for his cabinet pic- 
 tures, which are highly prized, as the Sisara de* Colonnesi, 
 and for his scriptural subjects, as the Flight into Egypt, in 
 the church of S. Romualdo, and the S. Felice Cappuccino, at 
 the Conception, where, as we before observed, the Barberini 
 family employed the most eminent artists. 
 
 Many other Italians worked in Rome in the time of the 
 Caracci, but their schools, as well as the places of their birth, 
 are uncertain ; and of these, in a city so abounding in pic- 
 tures, a slight notice will suffice. In the " Guida di Roma," w r e 
 find only a single notice of Felice Santelli, a Roman, in the 
 church of the P. P. Spagnuoli del Riscatto Scalzi, where he 
 painted in competition with Baglione ; he is a painter full of 
 truth, and one of his pictures in Viterbo, in the church of 
 S. Rosa, is inscribed with his name. In Baglione, we. read 
 
474 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL.— EPOCH IV. 
 
 of Orazio Borgianni, a Roman, the rival of Celio, and we 
 find pictures and portraits by him in a good natural style. 
 Gio. Antonio Spadarino, of the family of Galli, painted in 
 S. Peters at S. Valeria, with such talent, that Orlandi com- 
 plains of the silence of biographers respecting him. He had 
 a fellow-disciple in Matteo Piccione, of the March, and Titi 
 mentions their peculiar style. Nor is Grappelli much known, 
 whose proper name or country I cannot accurately ascertain ; 
 but his Joseph Recognised, which is painted in fresco, in the 
 Casa Mattei, commands our admiration. Mattio Salvucci, 
 who obtained some reputation in Perugia, came to Rome, and 
 although he was graciously received by the pope, yet, from 
 his inconstant temper, he did not remain there, nor does 
 Pascoli, his fellow-countryman and biographer, mention any 
 authentic pictures by him. Domenico Rainaldi, nephew of 
 the architect Cav. Carlo Rainaldi, who was employed by 
 Alexander VII., is mentioned in the Roman Guida, as also 
 Giuseppe Vasconio, praised too by Orlandi. In the same 
 description of books, and particularly in those which treat of 
 the pictures of Perugia, mention is made in this epoch of the 
 Cav. Bernardino Gagliardi, who was domiciled for many 
 years in that city, though born in Città di Castello. Although 
 a scholar of Avanzino Nucci, he adopted a different style, 
 after having seen in his travels the best works of every school 
 of Italy, from Rome to Turin. In historical composition he 
 particularly followed the Caracci and Guido, but in what 
 I have seen of him, both in his own and his adopted city, he 
 appears exceedingly various. The noble house of Oddi, in 
 Perugia, amongst some feeble productions of his, have a Con- 
 versazione of young people, half-figures, and truly beautiful. 
 In the Duomo of Castello is a Martyrdom of S. Crescenziano, 
 a picture of fine effect, though inferior in other respects. He 
 there appears more studied and more select in the two pictures 
 of the young Tobias, which are included among his superior 
 works. His best is perhaps the picture of S. Pellegrino, with 
 its accompaniments, in the church of S. Marcello in Rome. 
 I do not recollect any other provincial painters of this period 
 whom I have not assigned to one or other of the various 
 masters. 
 
 A more arduous task than recording the names of the 
 
FOREIGN ARTISTS. 
 
 475 
 
 Italian artists now awaits us in the enumeration of strangers. 
 About the beginning of the century Peter Paul Rubens came 
 young to Rome, and left some oil-pictures at the Valliceli a, 
 and in S. Croce in Gerusalemme. Not many years afterwards 
 Antonio Yandyck arrived there also, with an intention of 
 remaining for a long period ; but many of his fellow-country- 
 men, who were there studying, became offended at his refusing 
 to join them in their convivial tavern parties and dissipated 
 mode of life ; he in consequence left Rome. Great numbers 
 too of that nation, who professed the lower school of art, re- 
 mained in Italy for a considerable period, and some are men- 
 tioned in their classes. Others were employed in the churches 
 of Rome and the Ecclesiastical State. The master is unknown 
 who painted, at S. Pietro in Montorio, the celebrated Depo- 
 sition, which is recommended to students as a school of colour 
 in itself ; by some he is called Angiolo Fiammingo. Of Vin- 
 cenzio Fiammingo there is at the Vaìlicella a picture of the 
 Pentecost ; of Luigi Gentile, from Brussels, the picture of 
 S. Antonio at S. Marco, and others in various churches in 
 Rome ; he painted also at the church of the Capuchins, at 
 Pesaro, a Nativity and a S. Stephen, pictures highly finished 
 and of a beautiful relief. He executed others at Ancona, 
 and in various cities, with his usual taste, which is still more 
 to be admired in his easel-pictures. He excelled, says Pas- 
 seri, who was very sparing in his praise of artists, in small 
 compositions ; since besides finishing them with great dili- 
 gence, he executed tHem in an engaging style ; and he con- 
 cludes with the further encomium, that he equalled, if not 
 surpassed, most artists in portrait-painting. 
 
 About the year 1630, Diego Velasquez, the chief ornament 
 of Spanish art, studied in Rome and remained there for a 
 year. He afterwards returned thither under the pontificate 
 of Innocent X., whose portrait he painted, in a style which 
 was said to be derived from Domenico Greco, instructed by 
 Titian, at the court of Spain. Velasquez renewed in this 
 portrait the wonders which are recounted of those of Leo X. 
 by Raffaello, and of Paul III. by Titian ; for this picture so 
 entirely deceived the eye as to be taken for the pope himself. 
 At this time too a number of excellent German artists were 
 employed in Rome ; as Daniel Saiter, whom I shall notice in 
 
470 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 the school of Piedmont, and the two Scor, Gio. Paolo, called 
 by Taja Gian. Paolo Tedesco, whose Noah's Ark, painted in 
 the Quirinal palace, has excited the most enthusiastic enco- 
 miums ; and Egidio, his brother, who worked there for a 
 considerable time in the gallery of Alexander VII. There 
 were also in Rome Vovet, as we have observed, and the two 
 Mignards, Nicolas, an excellent artist, and Pierre, who had 
 the surname of Romano, and who left some beautiful works 
 at S. Carlino and other places ; and a master who claims 
 more than a brief notice, Nicolas Poussin, the Raffaello of 
 France. 
 
 Bellori, who has written the Life of Poussin, introduces 
 him to Rome in 1624, and informs us that he was already a 
 painter, and had formed his style more after the prints of 
 Raffaello than the instruction of his masters. At Rome he 
 improved, or rather changed his style, and acquired another 
 totally different, of which he may be considered the chief. 
 Poussin * has left directions for those who come to study the 
 art in Rome ; the remains of antiquity afforded him instruc- 
 tion which he could not expect from masters. He studied 
 the beautiful in the Greek statues, and from the Meleager of 
 the Vatican (now ascertained to be a Mercury) he derived 
 his rule of proportions. Arches, columns, antique vases, and 
 urns, were renderd tributary to the decoration of his pictures. 
 As a model of composition, he attached himself to the Aldo- 
 brandino Marriage ; and from that, and from basso-relievos, 
 he acquired that elegant contrast, that ^propriety of attitude^ 
 and that fear of crowding his picture, for which he was so 
 remarkable, being accustomed to say, that a half-figure more 
 than requisite was sufficient to destroy the harmony of a 
 whole composition. 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, from his sober and refined style ol 
 colour, could not fail to please him ; and he decorated that 
 masters work "Su la Pittura" with figures designed in his 
 usual fine taste. He followed him in theory and emulated 
 him in practice. He adopted Titian's style of colour, and 
 the famous Dance of Boys, which was formerly in the Villa 
 
 * Poussin, the present model for composition, was unable to take rules 
 from the " Nozze Aldobrandine," inasmuch as these present a composi- 
 tion adopted rather for basso-relievo than for paintings. 
 
NICOLAS POUSSIN. 
 
 47? 
 
 Lodovisi, and is now in Madrid, taught him to invest with 
 superior colours the engaging forms of children, in which he 
 so much excelled. It should seem that he soon abandoned 
 his application to colouring, and his best-coloured pictures are 
 those which he painted on first coming to Rome. He was 
 apprehensive lest his anxiety on that head might distract his 
 attention from the more philosophical part of his picture, to 
 which he was singularly attentive ; and to this point he 
 directed his most serious and assiduous care. Raffaello was 
 his model in giving animation to his figures, in expressing the 
 passions with truth, in selecting the precise moment of action, 
 in intimating more than was expressed, and in furnishing 
 materials for fresh reflection to whoever returns a second and 
 a third time to examine his well-conceived and profound 
 compositions.* He carried the habit of philosophy in paint- 
 ing even further than Raffaello, and often executed pictures, 
 •whose claim to our regard is the poetical manner in which 
 their moral is inculcated. Thus, in that at Versailles, which 
 is called " Memoria della Morte," he has represented a group 
 of youths, and a maid visiting the tomb of an Arcadian 
 shepherd, on which is inscribed the simple epitaph, " I also 
 was an Arcadian." 
 
 He did not owe this elegant expression of sentiment to his 
 genius alone, but was indebted for it, as well to the perusal of 
 the first classic authors, as to the conversation of literary men, 
 and his intercourse with scholars. He deferred much to the 
 Cav. Marini, and might do so with advantage where poetry 
 was not concerned. In the art of modelling, in which he ex- 
 celled, he accomplished himself under Fiammingo ; he con- 
 sulted the writings of P. Zaccolini for perspective ; he studied 
 the naked figure in the academy of Domenichino and in that 
 of Sacchi ; he made himself acquainted with anatomy ; he 
 exercised himself in copying the most beautiful landscapes 
 from nature, in which he acquired an exquisite taste, which 
 he communicated to his relative Gaspar Dughet, of whom we 
 shall speak in a short time. I think it may be asserted with- 
 out exaggeration, that the Caracci improved the art of land- 
 
 * Here, indeed, we should be placed in contradiction with the study of 
 the " Nozze Aldobrandino." 
 
478 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 scape painting, and that Poussin brought it to perfection.* 
 His genius was less calculated for large than small figures, 
 and he has generally painted them a palm and a half, as in 
 the celebrated Sacraments, which were in the Casa Boccapa- 
 duli : sometimes of two or three palms* size, as in the picture 
 of the Plague in the Colonna gallery, and elsewhere. Other 
 pictures of his are seen in Rome, as the Death of Germanicus 
 in the Barberini palace, the Triumph of Flora in the Campi- 
 doglio, the Martyrdom of S. Erasmus, in the pope's collection 
 at Monte Cavallo, afterwards copied in mosaic in S. Peters. 
 Although he had established himself in Rome, he afterwards 
 left that city for Paris, where he was appointed first painter 
 to the court ; after two years' time, however, he again re- 
 turned to Rome, but had his appointment confirmed, and, 
 though absent, enjoyed the same place and stipend. He 
 remained in Rome for twenty-three years, and there closed 
 his days. It is not long since his bust in marble, with an 
 appropriate eulogy, was placed in the church of the Rotunda, 
 at the suggestion and general expense of the Sig. Cav. 
 d'Agincourt. 
 
 In the class of portrait-painters, we find at the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century, Antiveduto Grammatica, and 
 Ottavio Lioni of Padua, who engraved the portraits of the 
 painters ; and, on his death, Baldassare Galanino was pre- 
 eminent. It must however be remarked, that these axtists 
 were also designers ; and that even those who were held the 
 first masters in composition were employed in portrait-paint- 
 ing, as Guido for example, who executed for the Cardinal 
 Spado one of the finest portraits in Rome. 
 
 Thus far of historical painters. We may now recur to 
 landscape and other inferior branches of the art, whose 
 brightest era may be said to have been in the reign of Urban 
 VIII. Landscape, indeed, never flourished so greatly as 
 at that period. A little time before this pontificate, died in 
 Rome, Adam Elzheimer, or Adam of Frankfort, or Tedesco, 
 who had already, under the pontificate of Paul V., established 
 
 * Passeri, " Vite de' Pittori, " page 363. He was remarkable for being 
 the first to adopt a new style in trees, in landscapes, where, by a strong 
 character of truth and attention to the forms of the trunk, foliage, and 
 branches, he denoted the particular species he wished to express. 
 
LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 
 
 470 
 
 a school (in which David Teniers was instructed) ; an artist 
 of an admirable fancy, who in an evening committed to the 
 canvas, with singular fidelity, the scenery which he had 
 visited in the early part of the day ; and he so refined his 
 style in Rome, that his pictures, which generally represented 
 night-scenes, were there held in the greatest request. Only 
 a short time too had elapsed since the death of Giovanni 
 Batista "Viola in Rome, one of the first artists who, profiting 
 from the instructions of Annibal Caracci, reformed the old, 
 dry style of the Flemish,* and introduced a richer mode of 
 touching landscape. Vincenzio Armanno had also promoted 
 this branch of art, adding to his landscapes a similitude to 
 nature, which without much selection of ground, or trees, 
 or accompaniments, charms us by its truth, and a certain 
 stillness of colour, pleasingly chequered with lights and 
 shades. He is highly to be commended, too, in his figures, 
 and is copious in his invention. But the three celebrated 
 landscape-painters, whose works are so much sought after in 
 the collections of princes, appeared under Urban ; Salvator 
 Rosa, a Neapolitan, and a poet of talent ; Claude Gellée, of 
 Lorraine ; and Gaspar Dughet, also called Poussin, the 
 relative of Nicolas, as I have already mentioned. That kind 
 of fashion,f which often aspires to give a tone to the fine arts, 
 alternately exalted one or other of these three, and thus also 
 obliged the painters in Rome to copy in succession, and to 
 follow their various styles. 
 
 Rosa was the most celebrated of this class at the commence- 
 ment of this century. A scholar of Spagnoletto, and the 
 son, as one may say, of Caravaggio, as in historical composi- 
 tion he attached himself to the strong natural style and dark 
 colouring of that master, j so in landscape he seems to have 
 
 * The former dryness of the Flemings proved less pernicious than the 
 soft manner which subsequently prevailed. The first led the way to truth, 
 the last to mannerism. 
 
 f If this can be called fashion, it is confessedly one that has maintained 
 itself even to our own times. There are persons who now prefer Salvator 
 to Poussin. This depends upon individual taste. 
 
 X These three great heads of schools observed nature on the side in 
 which they felt impelled to imitate her. Of the first, it might be averred 
 that he admired nature in its most convulsed and terrific aspect ; the 
 second exhibited her smiling ; the last, in her most pompous array. 
 
480 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 adopted Lis subject without selection, or rather to have se- 
 lected the least pleasing parts. Le selve selvagge, to speak 
 with Dante, savage scenery, Alps, broken rocks and caves, 
 wild thickets, and desert plains, are the kind of scenery in 
 which he chiefly delighted ; his trees are shattered, torn, and 
 dishevelled ; and in the atmosphere itself he seldom introduced 
 a cheerful hue, except occasionally a solitary sunbeam. He 
 observed ^the same manner too in his sea- views. His style 
 was original, and may be said to have been conducted on a 
 principle of savage beauty, as the palate of some persons is 
 gratified with austere wines. His pictures too were rendered 
 more acceptable from the small figures of shepherds, mariners, 
 or banditti, which he has introduced in almost all his composi- 
 tions ; and he was reproached by his rivals with having con- 
 tinually repeated the same ideas, and in a manner copied 
 himself. 
 
 Owing to his frequent practice, he had more merit in his 
 small than in his large figures. He was accustomed to insert them 
 in his landscapes, and composed his historical pictures in the 
 same style as the Regulus, so highly praised in the Colonna 
 palace ; or fancy subjects, as the Witchcrafts, which we see in 
 the Campidoglio, and in many private collections. In these 
 he is never select, nor always correct, but displays great 
 spirit, freedom of execution, and skill and harmony of colour. 
 In other respects he has proved, more than once, that his 
 genius was not confined to small compositions, as there are 
 some altar-pieces well conceived, and of powerful effect, parti- 
 cularly where the subject demands an expression of terror, as 
 in a Martyrdom of Saints at S. Gio. de' Fiorentini at Rome ; 
 and in the Purgatory, which I saw at S. Giovanni delle Case 
 Rotte in Milan, and at the church del Suffragio in Matelica. 
 We have also some profane subjects by him, finely executed 
 on a large scale ; such is the Conspiracy of Catiline, in the 
 possession of the noble family of Martelli, in Florence, men- 
 tioned also by Bottari, as one of his best works. Rosa left 
 Naples at the age of twenty, and established himself in Rome, 
 where he died at the age of about sixty. His remains were 
 placed in the church degli Angeli, with his portrait and 
 eulogy ; and another portrait of him is to be seen in the 
 Chigi gallery, which does not seem to have been recognised by 
 
(RASPAR POUSSIN. 
 
 481 
 
 Pascoli ; the picture represents a savage scene; a poet is repre- 
 sented in a sitting attitude (the features those of Salvator), and 
 before him stands a satyr, allusive to his satiric style of poetry ; 
 but the picture is described by the biographer as the god Pan 
 appearing to the poet Pindar. He had a scholar in Bartol- 
 lommeo Torregiani, who died young, and who excelled in 
 landscape, but was not accomplished enough to add the figures. 
 Giovanni Ghisolfi, of Milan, a master of perspective, adopted 
 in his figures, the style of Salvator. 
 
 Gaspar Dughet, or Poussin, of Rome, or of the Roman 
 school, did not much resemble Rosa, except in despatch. 
 Both these artists were accustomed to commence and finish a 
 landscape and decorate it with figures on the same day. 
 Poussin, contrary to Salvator, selected the most enchanting 
 scenes, and the most beautiful aspects of nature ; the graceful 
 poplar, the spreading plane-trees, limpid fountains., verdant 
 meads, gently undulating hills, villas delighfully situated, 
 calculated to dispel the cares of state, and to add to the de- 
 lights of retirement. AW the enchanting scenery of the 
 Tusculan or Tiburtine territory, and of Rome, where, as 
 Martial observes, nature has combined the many beauties 
 which she has scattered singly in other places, was copied by 
 this artist. He composed also ideal landscapes, in the same 
 way that Torquato Tasso, in describing the garden of Armida, 
 concentrated in his verses all the recollections of the beautiful 
 which he had observed in nature. 
 
 Notwithstanding this extreme passion for grace and beauty, 
 it is the opinion of many, that there is not a greater name 
 amongst landscape painters. His genius had a natural fer- 
 vour, and as we may say, a language, that suggests more than 
 it expresses. To give an example, in some of his larger 
 landscapes, similar to those in the Panfili palace, we may 
 occasionally observe an artful winding of the road, which in 
 part discovers itself to the eye, but in other parts leaves 
 itself to be followed by the mind. Every thing that Gaspar 
 expresses is founded in nature. In his leaves he is as varied 
 as the trees themselves, and is only accused of not having 
 sufficiently diversified his tints, and of adhering too much to a 
 green hue. He not only succeeded in representing the rosy 
 tint of morning, the splendour of noon, evening twilight, or a 
 
 VOL. I. 2 I 
 
482 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 sky tempestuous or serene ; but the passing breeze that 
 whispers through the leaves, storms that tear and uproot the 
 trees of the forest, louring skies, and clouds surcharged with 
 thunder and rent with lightning, are represented by him with 
 equal success. Nicolas, who had taught him to select the 
 beauties of nature, instructed him also in the figures, and the 
 accessory parts of the composition. Thus in Gaspar every 
 thing- displays elegance and erudition, the edifices have all the 
 beautiful proportions of the antique ; and to these may be 
 added arches and broken columns, when the scene lay in the 
 plains of Greece or Rome ; or, if in Egypt, pyramids, obe- 
 lisks, and the idols of the country. The figures which he 
 introduces are not in general shepherds and their flocks, as in 
 the Flemish pictures, but are derived from history, or classic 
 fables, hawking-parties, poets crowned with laurel, and other 
 similar decorations, generally novel, and finished in a style 
 almost as fine as miniature. His school gave birth to but 
 few followers. By some Crescenzio di Onofrio is alone con- 
 sidered his true imitator, of whom little remains in Rome ; 
 nor indeed is he much known in Florence, although he resided 
 there many years in the service of the ducal house. It is said 
 that he executed many works for the ducal villas ; and that 
 he painted for individuals may be conjectured from some 
 beautiful landscapes which the Sig. Cancelliere Scrilli pos- 
 sesses, together with the portrait of Sig. Angelo, his ancestor, 
 on which the artist has inscribed his name and the year 1712, 
 the date of his work. After him we may record Gio. Dome- 
 nico Ferracuti, of Macerata, in which city, and in others of 
 Piceno, are to be found many landscapes painted by him, 
 chiefly snow-pieces, in which kind of landscape he was singu- 
 larly distinguished. 
 
 Claude Lorraine is generally esteemed the prince of land- 
 scape painters, and his compositions are indeed, of all others, 
 the richest and the most studied. A short time suffices to run 
 through a landscape of Poussin or Rosa from one end to the 
 other, when compared with Claude, though on a much smaller 
 surface. His landscapes present to the spectator an endless 
 variety ; so many views of land and water, so many interest- 
 mg objects, that like an astonished traveller, the eye is obliged 
 to pause to measure the extent of the prospect, and his dis- 
 
CLAUDE LORRAIÌSE, 
 
 tances of mountains or of sea are so illusive, that the spectator 
 feels, as it were, fatigued by gazing. The edifices and temples, 
 which so finely round off his compositions, the lakes peopled 
 with aquatic birds, the foliage diversified in conformity to the 
 different kinds of trees,*"* all is nature in him ; every object 
 arrests the attention of an amateur, every thing furnishes in- 
 struction to a professor, particularly when he painted with 
 care, as in the pictures of the Altieri, Colonna, and other 
 palaces of Rome. There is not an effect of light, or a reflec- 
 tion in the water, or in the sky itself, which he has not imi- 
 tated ; and the various changes of the day are nowhere better 
 represented than*in Claude. In a word, he is truly the painter 
 who, in depicting the three regions of air, earth, and water, 
 has embraced the whole universe. His atmosphere almost 
 always bears the impress of the sky of Rome, whose horizon 
 is, from its situation, rosy, dewy, and warm. He did not 
 possess any peculiar merit in his figures, which are insipid, and 
 generally too much attenuated ; hence he was accustomed to 
 observe to the purchasers of his pictures, that he sold them 
 the landscape, and presented them with the figures gratis. 
 The figures indeed were generally added by another hand, 
 frequently by Lauri. A painter of the name of Angiolo, 
 who died young, deserves to be mentioned as the scholar of 
 Claude, as well as Vandervert. Claude also contributed to 
 the instruction of Gaspar Poussin. 
 
 To the preceding may be added those artists who particu- 
 larly distinguished themselves by sea views and shipping. 
 Enrico Cornelio Yroom is called Enrico di Spagna, as he came 
 to Rome immediately from Seville, although born in Haerlem 
 in Holland. He was a pupil of the Brills, and seems rather 
 to have aimed at imitating the national art of ship-building, 
 than the varying appearances of the sea and sky. No one is 
 more diligent or more minute in fitting up the vessels with 
 every requisite for sailing ; and some persons have purchased 
 
 * He painted for his studio a landscape enriched with views from the 
 Villa of Madama, in which a wonderful variety of trees was introduced. 
 This he preserved for the purpose of supplying himself, as from nature, 
 with subjects for his various pictures, and refused to sell it to the munifi- 
 cent pontiff, Clement IX., although that prince offered to cover it with 
 pieces of gold. 
 
 2 I 2 
 
484 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 his pictures for the sole purpose of instructing themselves in 
 the knowledge of ships, and the mode of arming them. Sand- 
 rart relates that he returned to Spain, and there painted land- 
 scapes, views of cities, fishing-boats, and sea-fights. He 
 places his birth in 1566, whence he must have flourished about 
 the year 1600. Guarienti makes a separate article of Enrico 
 Yron of Haerlem, as if he had been a different artist. 
 Another article is occupied upon Enrico delle Marine, and on 
 the authority of Palomino, he says that that artist was born 
 in Cadiz, and coming to Rome, there acquired that name ; and 
 that, without wishing ever to return to Spain, he employed 
 himself in painting in that city shipping and sea views until 
 his death, at the age of sixty, in 1680. I have named three 
 writers, whose contradictions I have frequently adverted to in 
 this work, and whose discordant notices require much ex- 
 amination to reconcile or refute. What I have advanced re- 
 specting Enrico was the result of my observations on several 
 pictures in the Colonna gallery, six in number, and which, as 
 far as I could judge, all partake of a hard and early style, 
 and generally of a peculiar reddish tone, often observed in the 
 landscapes of Brill. Any other Enrico di Spagna, a marine 
 painter, or of a style corresponding with that of him who 
 died in 1680, I have not met with in any collection, nor is 
 any such artist to be found in the works of Sig. Conca, as any 
 one may ascertain by referring to the index of his work. 
 Hence, at present, I can recognise the Dutch artist alone, and 
 shall be ready to admit the claims of the Cadiz painter when- 
 ever I am furnished with proofs of his having really existed. 
 
 Agostino Tassi, of Perugia, whose real name was Buona- 
 mici, a man of infamous character, but an excellent painter, 
 was the scholar of Paul Brill, though he was ambitious of 
 being thought a pupil of the Caracci. He had already dis- 
 tinguished himself as a landscape painter, when he was con- 
 demned to the galleys at Leghorn, where, through interest, 
 the laborious part of his sentence was remitted, and in this 
 situation he prosecuted his art with such ardour, that he soon 
 obtained the first rank as a painter of sea views, representing 
 ships, storms, fishing-parties, and the dresses of mariners of 
 various countries with great spirit and propriety. He excelled 
 too in perspective, and in the papal palace of the Quirinal and 
 
PIETRO MULIER. 
 
 485 
 
 in the palace de' Lancellotti displayed an excellent style of 
 decoration, which his followers very much overcharged. He 
 painted many pictures in Genoa in conjunction with Salimbeni 
 and Gentileschi, and was assisted by a scholar of his born in 
 Home, and domiciled in Genoa, where he died. This scholar 
 is called by Raffaello Soprani, Gio. Batista Primi, and he 
 eulogizes him as an esteemed painter of sea views. 
 
 Equal to Tassi in talent, and still more infamous in his 
 life, was Pietro Mulier, or Pietro de Mulieribus, of Holland, 
 who, from his surprising pictures of storms, was called II 
 Tempesta. His compositions inspire a real terror, presenting 
 to our eyes death, devoted ships overtaken by tempests and 
 darkness, fired by lightning, or driving helpless before the 
 demons of the storm ; now rising on the mountain waves, and 
 again submerged in the abyss of ocean. His works are more 
 frequently met with than those of Tassi, as he almost always 
 painted in oil. He was assisted in Rome by a young man, 
 who in consequence obtained the name of Tempestino, though 
 he often exercised his genius in landscape in the style of Pous- 
 sin. He afterwards married a sister of this young artist, and 
 subsequently procured her assassination, for which he was 
 sentenced to death in Genoa, but his sentence was commuted 
 for five years' imprisonment. His pictures of storms, which 
 he painted in his dungeon, seem to have acquired an addi- 
 tional gloom from the horrors of his prison, his merited 
 punishment, and his guilty conscience. These works were 
 very numerous, and were considered his best performances. 
 He excelled also in the painting of animals, for which pur- 
 pose he kept a great variety of them in his house. Lastly, 
 he acquired celebrity from his landscapes, in some of which 
 he has shewn himself not an unworthy follower of Claude in 
 invention, enriching them with a great variety of scenery, 
 hills, lakes, and beautiful edifices, but he is still far behind 
 that master in regard to tone of colour and finishing. He 
 was however superior to Claude in his figures, to which he 
 gave a mixed Italian and Flemish character, with lively, 
 varied, and expressive countenances. There are more speci- 
 mens of his talents in Milan than in any other place, as he 
 passed his latter years in that and the neighbouring cities, as 
 
486 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 in Bergamo, and particularly in Piacenza. His epitaph is 
 given in the " Guida di Milano," page 129. 
 
 Il Montagna, another artist from Holland, was also a 
 painter of sea views, which may almost indeed be called the 
 landscapes of the Dutch. He left many works in Italy, 
 more particularly in Florence and in Rome, where he is some- 
 times, mistaken for Tempesta in the galleries and in picture 
 sales ; but Montagna, as far as I can judge, is more serene in 
 his skies, and darker in his waves and the appearance of the 
 sea. A large picture of the Deluge, which is at S. Maria 
 Maggiore in Bergamo, placed there in 1668, in which the 
 figures are by the Cav. Liberi, is supposed to be by Montagna, 
 from the tone of the water. This however is an error, for 
 the Montagna of whom we speak, called by Felibien (torn, 
 iii. p. 339) Montagna di Yenezia, certainly died in Padua ; 
 and in a MS. by a contemporary author, where he is men- 
 tioned as a distinguished sea-painter, he is said to have died 
 in 1644. I apprehend this is the same artist whom Malvasia 
 (torn. ii. p. 78) calls Mons. Rinaldo della Montagne, and 
 states that he was held in esteem by Guido for his excellence 
 in sea views. I also find a Niccolo de Plate Montagne, fa- 
 vourably mentioned by Felibien, also a marine painter, who 
 died about 1665 ; and I formerly imagined that this might 
 be the artist who painted so much in Italy, but I now retract 
 that opinion. 
 
 Tempesta was the first to introduce the custom of decorat- 
 ing landscapes with battles and skirmishes. A Flemish artist 
 of the name of Jacopo succeeded to him in this branch, but 
 his fame was eclipsed by his own scholar Cerquozzi, a Roman, 
 who, from his singular talent in this respect, was called Mi- 
 chelangelo delle Battaglie. He was superior to Tempesta in 
 colouring, but inferior to him in designing horses. In the 
 human figure, too, he is less correct, and more daring in the 
 style of his master Cesari. It must however be remembered, 
 that when Cerquozzi painted battles he was not in his prime, 
 and that his chief merit lay in subjects on which I shall pre- 
 sently make some remarks. 
 
 Padre Jacopo Cortese, a Jesuit, called from his native 
 country II Borgognone, carried this branch of the art to a 
 
IL BORGOGNONE. 
 
 487 
 
 height unknown before or since. M. A. Cerquozzi discovered 
 his genius for this department, and persuaded him to abandon 
 the other branches of painting which he cultivated, and to 
 confine himself to this alone. The Battle of Constantine, by 
 Giulio Romano, in the Vatican, w T as the model on which he 
 founded his style. His youth had been dedicated to arms, 
 and his military spirit was not to be extinguished by the 
 luxury of Rome, or the indolence of the cloister. He im- 
 parted a wonderful air of reality to his compositions. His 
 combatants appear before us courageously contending for ho- 
 nour or for life, and we seem to hear the cries of the wounded, 
 the blast of the trumpet, and the neighing of the horses. He 
 was indeed an inimitable artist in his line, and his scholars 
 were accustomed to say that their own figures seemed to fight 
 only in jest, while those of Borgognone were the real occupants 
 of the field of battle. He painted with great despatch, and 
 nis battle-pieces are in consequence very frequent in collec- 
 tions ; his touch w T as rapid, in strokes, and his pencil flowing, 
 so that the effect is heightened by distance ; and this style 
 was probably the result of his study of Paolo at Venice, and 
 of Guido in Bologna. From whatever cause it may be, his 
 colouring is very different from that of Guglielmo Baur, who 
 is considered his master, and of whom there are some works 
 in the Colonna gallery. There also may be seen several 
 specimens of his scholars, Bruni, Graziano, and Gianni zero, 
 who adopted from Borgognone their colouring, and the selec- 
 tion of a distant point of view for their subject. Others of 
 his scholars occur in various schools. 
 
 It was also during the pontificate of Urban, about the year 
 1626, that the burlesque style was first brought into notice in 
 Rome. It had been practised by Ludius in the time of 
 Augustus, and was not wholly unknown to our early artists ; 
 but I am not aware that any one had exercised this branch as 
 a profession, or on so small a scale as was practised by Pietro 
 Laar, who was called Bamboccio, from his deformity, as w r ell 
 as from the subjects of his pencil ; and the appellation of 
 bambocciate is generally applied to these small pictures,- 
 which represent the festivities of the vintage, dances, fights, 
 and carnival masquerades. His figures are usually of a span 
 in sii-e, and the accompanying landscape and the animals are 
 
438 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 so vividly coloured, that we seem, says Passeri, to see the 
 very objects themselves from an open window, rather than 
 the representation on canvas. The great painters frequently 
 purchased the pictures of Pietro, in order to study his natural 
 style of colour, though at the same time they lamented that 
 so much talent should be misapplied to such low subjects. 45 " 
 He resided many years in Rome, and then retired to Holland, 
 where he died at an advanced age, and not a young man, as 
 Passeri has imagined. 
 
 His place and his employ in Rome were soon filled up by 
 Cercjuozzi, who had for some time past exchanged the name of 
 M. A. delle Battaglie, for that of M. A. delle Bambocciate. 
 Although the subjects which he represents are humorous, 
 like those of Laar, the incidents and the characters are for 
 the most part different. The first adopted the Flemish boors, 
 the other the peasantry of Italy. They had both great force 
 of colour, but Bamboccio excels Cerquozzi in landscape, while 
 the latter discovers more spirit in his figures. One of Cer- 
 quozzi's largest compositions is in the Spado palace at Rome, 
 in which he represented a band of insurgent Lazzaroni 
 applauding Maso Aniello. 
 
 Laar had another excellent imitator in Gio. Miei, of 
 Antwerp, who having imbibed a good style of colouring from 
 Vandyke, came to Rome and frequented the school of Sacchi. 
 From thence, however, he was soon dismissed, as his master 
 wished him to attempt serious subjects, but he was led both 
 by interest and genius to the burlesque. His pictures 
 pleased from their spirited representations and their excellent 
 management of light and shade, and brought high prices from 
 collectors. He afterwards painted on a larger scale, and 
 besides some altar-pieces in Rome, he left considerable works 
 in Piedmont, where we shall notice him again. Theodore 
 Hembreker, of Haerlem, also employed himself on humorous 
 subjects and scenes of common life, although there are some 
 religious pieces attributed to him in the church della Pace in 
 Rome, and a number of landscapes in private collections. 
 He passed many years in Italy, and visited most of the great 
 
 * V. Salvator Rosa, sat. iii. p. 79, where he reprehends not only the 
 artists, but also the great, for affording such pictures a place in their 
 collections. 
 
ANIMAL PAINTERS. 
 
 489 
 
 cities, so that his works are frequently found not only in 
 Rome, where he had established himself, but in Florence, 
 Naples, Venice, and elsewhere. His style is a pleasing 
 union of the Flemish and Italian. 
 
 Many artists of this period attached themselves to the paint- 
 ing of animals. Castiglione distinguished himself in this line, 
 but he resided for the most part of his time in another 
 country. M. Gio. Rosa, of Flanders, is the most known in 
 Rome and the State, for the great number of his paintings of 
 animals, in which he possessed a rare talent. It is told of 
 him, that dogs were deceived by the hares he painted, thus 
 reviving the wonderful story of Zeuxis, so much boasted of 
 by Pliny. Two of his largest and finest pictures are in the 
 Bolognetti collection, and there is attached to them a portrait, 
 but whether of the painter himself, or some other person, is 
 not known. We must not confound this artist with Rosa da 
 Tivoli, who was also an excellent animal painter, but not so 
 celebrated in Italy, and flourished at a later period, and whose 
 real name was Philip Peter Roos. He was son-in-law of 
 Brandi, and his scholar in Rome, and rivalled his hasty 
 method in many pictures which I have seen in Rome and the 
 states of the Church ; but we ought not to rest our decision of 
 his merits on these works, but should view the animals 
 painted by him at his leisure, particularly for the galleries of 
 princes. These are to be found in Vienna, Dresden, Monaco, 
 and other capital cities of Germany ; and London possesses 
 not a few of the first value in their way.* 
 
 After Caravaggio had given the best examples of flowers 
 in his pictures, the Cav. Tommaso Salini, of Rome, an excel- 
 lent artist, as may be seen in a S. Niccola at S. Agostino, was 
 the first that composed vases of flowers, accompanying them 
 with beautiful groups of corresponding foliage, and other 
 
 * He was the ancestor of the Sig. Giuseppe Rosa, director of the impe- 
 rial gallery in Vienna, who has given us a catalogue of the Italian and 
 Flemish pictures of that collection, and who will, we hope, add the Ger- 
 man. Of this deserving artist he possesses a portrait, engraved in 1789* 
 where we find a list of the various academies that had elected him a mem- 
 ber, and these are numerous, and of the first class in Europe. We find 
 him also amongst those masters whose drawings were collected by Ma- 
 nette ; and he is mentioned in the " Lessico Universale delle Belle Arti," 
 edited in Zurich, in 1763. 
 
490 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH IV. 
 
 elegant designs. Others too pursued this branch, and the 
 most celebrated of all was Mario Nuzzi della Penna, better 
 known by the name of Mario da' Fiori, whose productions 
 during his life were emulously sought after, and purchased at 
 great prices ; but after the lapse of some years, not retaining 
 their original freshness, and acquiring, from a vicious mode of 
 colouring, a black and squalid appearance, they became much 
 depreciated in value. The same thing happened to the flower- 
 pieces of Laura Bernasconi, who was his best imitator, and 
 whose works are still to be seen in many collections. 
 
 Orsini informs us, that he found in Ascoli some paintings 
 of flowers by another of the fair sex, to whose memory the 
 Academy of S. Luke in Home erected a marble monument in 
 their church, not so much in compliment to her talents in 
 painting, as in consequence of her having bequeathed to that 
 society all her property, which was considerable. In her 
 epitaph she is commemorated only as a miniature painter, 
 and Orlandi describes her as such, adding, that she resided 
 for a long time in Florence, where she left a large number of 
 portraits in miniature of the Medici, and other princes of that 
 time, about the year 1630. She also painted in other capitals 
 of Italy, and died at an advanced age in Rome, in 1673. 
 
 Michelangelo di Campidoglio, of Rome, was greatly dis- 
 tinguished for his masterly grouping of fruits. Though 
 almost fallen into oblivion from the lapse of years, his pictures 
 are still to be met with in Rome, and in other places. The 
 noble family of Fossombroni in Arezzo possess one of the 
 finest specimens of him that I have ever seen. More gene- 
 rally known is Pietro Paolo Bonzi, called by Baglione, II 
 Gobbo di Cortona, which was his native place ; by others, II 
 Gobbo de* Caracci, from his having been employed in their 
 school ; and by the vulgar, Il Gobbo da' Frutti, from the 
 natural manner of his painting fruit. He did not pass 
 the bounds of mediocrity in historical design, as we may see 
 from his S. Thomas, in the church of the Rotunda, nor in 
 landscapes ; but he was unrivalled in painting fruits, and 
 designing festoons, as in the ceiling of the Palazzo Mattei ; 
 and in his elegant grouping of fruit in dishes and baskets, as 
 I have seen in Cortona, in the house of the noble family of 
 Velluti, in the Olivieri gallery in Pesaro, and elsewhere. 
 
PERSPECTIVE PAINTERS. 
 
 491 
 
 The Marchesi Venuti, in Cortona, bave a portrait of him, 
 painted, it is believed, by one of the Caracci, or some one of 
 their school, and it is well known that the drawing of carica- 
 tures was a favourite amusement of that academy. 
 
 At this brilliant epoch, the art of perspective too was 
 carried to a high degree of perfection in deceiving the eye of 
 the spectator. From the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, it had made great advances by the aid of P. Zacco- 
 lini, a Theatine monk of Cesena, in whose praise it is suffi- 
 cient to observe, that Domenichino and Poussin were 
 instructed by him in this art. S. Silvestro, in Montecavallo, 
 possesses the finest specimen of this power of illusion, in a 
 picture of feigned columns, and cornices and other archi- 
 tectural decorations. His original drawings remain in the 
 Barberini library. Gianfrancesco Niceron de' P. P. Minimi 
 added to this science by his work entitled " Thaumaturgus 
 opticus," 1643 ; and in a gallery of his convent at Trinità de* 
 Monti, he painted some landscapes, which, on being viewed 
 in a different aspect, are converted into figures. But the most 
 practised artist in the Academy of Rome was Viviano Coda- 
 gora, who drew from the ruins of ancient Rome, and also 
 painted compositions of his own invention in perspective. 
 He engaged Cerquozzi and Miei, and others in Rome, to 
 insert the figures for him, but he was most partial to Gar- 
 giuoli of Naples, as we shall mention in our account of that 
 school. Viviano may be called the Vitruvius of this class of 
 painters. He was correct in his linear perspective, and an 
 accurate observer of the style of the ancients. He gave his 
 representations of marble the peculiar tint it acquires by the 
 lapse of years, and his general tone of colour was vigorous. 
 What subtracts the most from his excellence is a certain 
 hardness, and too great a quantity of black, by which his 
 pictures are easily distinguished from others in collections, 
 and which in the course of time renders them dark and 
 almost worthless. His true name is unknown to the greater 
 number of the lovers of art, by whom he is called II Viviani ; 
 and who seem to have confounded him with Ottavio Viviani 
 of Brescia, who is mentioned by the Dictionaries ; a per- 
 spective painter also, but in another branch, and in a different 
 style, as we shall hereafter see. 
 
492 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. 
 
 EPOCH V. 
 
 The Scholars of Pietro da Cortona, from an injudicious imitation of their 
 Master, deteriorate the art. Maratta and others support it. 
 
 It may with equal justice be asserted of the fine arts, as of 
 the belles lettres, that they never long remain in the same 
 state, and that they experience often great changes even in 
 the common period assigned to the life of man. Many causes 
 contribute to this ; public calamities, such as I mentioned to 
 have occurred after the death of Raffaello ; the instability of 
 the human mind, which in the arts, as in dress, is guided by 
 fashion and the love of novelty ; the influence of particular 
 artists ; the taste of the great, who, from their selection or 
 patronage of particular masters, silently indicate the path to 
 those artists who seek the gifts of fortune. These and other 
 causes tended to produce the decline of painting in Rome 
 towards the close of the 17th century, at a time too when 
 literature began to revive ; a clear proof that they are not 
 mutually progressive. This was in a great measure oc- 
 casioned by the calamitous events which afflicted Rome and 
 the state, about the middle of that century ; by the feuds of 
 the nobles, the flight of the Barberini family, and other un- 
 fortunate circumstances, which, during the pontificate of 
 Innocent X., as we are informed by Passeri (p. 321), ren- 
 dered the employment of artists very precarious ; but more 
 than all, the dreadful plague of 1655, under Alexander 
 VII. To this state of decay, too, the evil passions of man- 
 kind contributed in no small degree, and these indeed in all 
 revolutions are among the most active and predominant 
 sources of evil, and often even in a prosperous state of things 
 sow the seeds of future calamities. 
 
SERVILE COPYISTS. 
 
 493 
 
 The Cav. Bernini, a man of more talents as an architect 
 than as a sculptor, was, under Urban VIII. and Innocent X., 
 and also until the year 1680, in which he died, the arbiter 
 of the public taste in Rome. The enemy of Sacchi and the 
 benefactor of Cortona, he obtained more employ for his friend 
 than for his rival ; and this was easily accomplished, as Cor- 
 tona was rapid as well as laborious, while Sacchi was slow 
 and irresolute, qualities which rendered him unacceptable 
 even to his own patrons. In course of time Bernini began 
 to favour Romanelli, to the prejudice of Pietro ; and, in- 
 structing that artist and Baciccio in his principles, he in- 
 fluenced them to the adoption of his own style which, though 
 it possessed considerable beauty, was nevertheless mannered, 
 particularly in the folds of the drapery. The way being 
 thus opened to caprice, they abandoned the true, and substi- 
 tuted false precepts of art, and many years had not elapsed 
 before pernicious principles appeared in the schools of the 
 painters, and particularly in that of Cortona. Some went so 
 far as to censure the imitation of Raffaello, as Bellori attests 
 in the " Life of Carlo Maratta" (p. 102), and others ridiculed, 
 as useless, the study of nature, preferring to copy, in a servile 
 manner, the works of other artists. These effects are visible 
 in the pictures of the time. All the countenances, although 
 by different artists, have a fulness in the lips and nose like 
 those of Pietro, and have all a sort of family resemblance, so 
 much are they alike ; a defect which Bottari says is the only 
 fault of Pietro, but it is not the only fault of his school. 
 Every one was anxious to avoid the labour of study, and to 
 promote facility at the expense of correct design ; the errors 
 in which they endeavoured to conceal by overcharging rather 
 than discriminating the contours. No one can be desirous 
 that I should enter into further particulars, when we are 
 treating of matters so very near our own times, and whoever 
 is free from prejudice may judge for himself. I now return 
 to the state of the Roman school about one hundred and 
 twenty years back. 
 
 The schools most in repute, after the death of Sacchi, in 
 1661, and of Berrettini, in 1670, when the best scholars of 
 the Caracci were dead, were reduced to two, that of Cortona, 
 supported by Ciro, and that of Sacchi, by Maratta. The 
 
494 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 first of these expanded the ideas, but induced negligence ; 
 the second enforced correctness, but fettered the ideas. Each 
 adopted something from the other, and not always the best 
 part; an affected contrast pleased some of the scholars of 
 Maratta, and the drapery of Maratta was adopted by some 
 of the followers of Ciro.* The school of Cortona exhibited 
 a grand style in fresco ; the other school was restricted to 
 oils. They became rivals, each supported by its own party, 
 and were impartially employed by the pontiffs until the death 
 of Ciro, that is, until 1689. From that time a new tone was 
 given to art by Maratta, who, under Clement XI., was ap- 
 pointed director of the numerous works which that pontiff 
 was carrying on in Rome and in Urbino. Although this 
 master had many able rivals, as we shall see, he still main- 
 tained his superiority, and on his death, his school continued 
 to flourish until the pontificate of Benedict XIV., ultimately 
 yielding to the more novel style of Subleyras, Batoni, and 
 Mengs. Thus far of the two schools in general : we shall 
 now notice their followers. 
 
 Besides the scholars whom Pietro formed in Tuscany, as 
 Dandini of Florence, Castellucci of Arezzo, Palladino of Cor- 
 tona, and those whom he formed in other schools, where we 
 shall see them as masters, he educated others in the Roman 
 state, of whom it is now time to speak. The number of his 
 scholars is beyond belief. They were enumerated by Sig. 
 Cav. Luzi, a nobleman of Cortona, who composed a life of 
 Berrettini with more accuracy than had been before done, but 
 his death prevented the publication of it. Pietro continued 
 to teach to the close of his life, and the picture of S. Ivo, 
 which he left imperfect, was finished by Gio. Ventura Bor- 
 ghesi, of Città di Castello. Of this artist there are also at S. 
 
 * With regard to drapery, Winckelmann conjectures (" Storia delle Arti 
 del Disegno," torn. i. p. 450), that the erroneous opinion that the ancients 
 did not° drape their figures well, and were surpassed in that department 
 by the moderns, was'at that time common among the artists. This 
 opinion still subsists among some sculptors, who disapprove particularly 
 of the ancient custom of moistening the drapery, in order to adapt it the 
 better to the form of the figure. The ancients, they say, ought to be 
 esteemed, not idolized. To carry nature to the highest degree of per- 
 fection was always allowable, but not so to degrade her by manner- 
 ism. — R. 
 
SCHOLARS OF PIETRO DA CORTONA. 
 
 493 
 
 Niccola, two pictures, the Nativity and the Assumption of the 
 Virgin, and I am not acquainted with any ,other public speci- 
 mens of his pencil in Rome. His native place possesses many 
 of his performances, and the most esteemed are four circles of 
 the History of S. Caterina, V.M., in the church of that saint. 
 Many of his works are to be found also in Prague, and the 
 cities of Germany. He follows Pietro with sufficient fidelity 
 in design, but does not display so much vigour of colour. 
 Carlo Cesi, of Rieti, or rather of Antrodoco, in that neigh- 
 bourhood, was also a distinguished scholar of Pietro. He 
 lived in Rome, and in the Quirinal gallery, where the best 
 artists of the age painted under Alexander VII., he has left 
 a large picture of the Judgment of Solomon. He worked 
 also in other places ; as at S. M. Maggiore, at the Rotunda, 
 and was patronised by several cardinals. He was correct in 
 his design, and opposed, both in person and by his precepts 
 and example, the fatal and prevailing facility of his time. 
 Pascoli has preserved some of his axioms, and this among 
 others, that the beautiful should not be crowded, but distributed 
 with judgment in the composition of pictures ; otherwise they 
 resemble a written style, which, by the redundancy of brilliant 
 and sententious remarks, fails in its effect. Francesco Boni- 
 fazio was of Viterbo, and from the various pictures by him, 
 which Orlandi saw in that city, I do not hesitate to rank him 
 among the successful followers of Pietro. We may mention 
 Michelangelo Ricciolini, a Roman by birth, although called 
 of Todi, whose portrait is in the Medici gallery, where is also 
 that of Niccolo Ricciolini, respecting whom Orlandi is silent. 
 Both were employed in decorating the churches of Rome ; the 
 second had the reputation of a better designer than the first, 
 and in the cartoons painted for some mosaics for the Vatican 
 church, he competed with the Cav. Franceschini. Paolo 
 Gismondi, called also Paolo Perugino, became a good fresco 
 painter, and there are works remaining by him in the S. 
 Agata, in the Piazza Nova, and at S. Agnes, in the Piazza 
 Navona. Pietro Paolo Baldini, of whose native place I am 
 ignorant, is stated by Titi to have been of the school of Cor- 
 tona. Ten pictures by him are counted in the churches of 
 Rome, and in some of them, as in the Crucifixion of S. Eustace, 
 a precision of style derived from another school is observable. 
 
496 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL EPOCH V. 
 
 Bartolommeo Palombo has only two pictures in the capital. 
 That of S. Maria Madalena de' Pazzi, which- is placed at S. 
 Martino a' Monti, entitles him to rank with the best of his 
 fellow-scholars, the picture possesses so strong a colouring, 
 and the figures are so graceful and well designed. Pietro 
 Lucatelli, of Rome, was a distinguished painter, and is named 
 in the catalogue of the Colonna gallery, as the scholar of Ciro, 
 and in Titi, as the disciple of Cortona. He is a different artist 
 from Andrea Lucatelli, of whom we shall shortly speak. Gio. 
 Batista Lenardi, whom, in a former edition, I hesitated to 
 place in the list of the pupils of Pietro, I now consider as be- 
 longing to that school, though he was instructed also by Baldi. 
 In the chapel of the B. Rita, at S. Agostino, he painted two 
 lateral pictures as well as the vault ; he also ornamented other 
 churches with his works, and particularly that of Buonfratelli, 
 at Trastevere, where he painted the picture of S. Gio. Calibita. 
 That of the great altar was ascribed to him, probably from a 
 similarity of style ; but is by Andrea Generoli, called II 
 Sabinese, a pupil either of Pietro himself, or of one of his 
 followers. 
 
 Thus far of the less celebrated of this school. The three 
 superior artists, whose works still attract us in the galleries of 
 princes, are Cortesi, and the two elder scholars of the academy 
 of Pietro, Romanelli and 1 Ferri. Nor is it improbable that, 
 having competitors in some of his first scholars, he became in- 
 disposed to instruct others with the same degree of good-will, 
 as those noble minds are few in whom the zeal of advancing 
 the art exceeds the regret at having produced an ingrate or a 
 rival. 
 
 Guglielmo Cortesi, the brother of P. Giacomo, like him 
 named II Borgognone, was one of the best artists of this period ; 
 and a scholar rather than an imitator of Pietro. His ad- 
 miration was fixed on Maratta, whom he followed in the 
 studied variety of his heads, and in the sobriety of the com- 
 position, more than in the division of the folds of his drapery 
 or in colour ; in which latter he manifested a clearness par- 
 taking of the Flemish. His style was somewhat influenced 
 by that of his brother, whose assistant he was, and by his 
 study of the Caracci. He often appears to have imitated the 
 strong relief and azure grounds of Guerrino. His Crucifixion 
 
FRANCESCO ROMANELLI. 
 
 497 
 
 of S. Andrea, in the church of Monte Cavallo, the Fight of 
 Joshua, in the Quirinal palace, and a Madonna attended by 
 saints, in the Trinità de' Pellegrini, merit our attention. In 
 these works there is a happy union of various styles, exempt 
 from mannerism. 
 
 Francesco Romanelli was born at Viterbo, and, as well as 
 Testa, studied some time under Domenichino. He after- 
 wards placed himself with Pietro, whose manner he imitated 
 so successfully, that on Pietro going on a journey into Lom- 
 bardy, he left him, together with Bottalla (called Bortelli by 
 Baldinucci), to supply his place in decorating the Barberini 
 palace. It is reported that the two scholars, in the absence 
 of their master, endeavoured to have the work transferred to 
 themselves, and were on that account dismissed. It was at 
 this time that Romanelli, assisted by Bernini, changed his 
 style, and adopted by degrees a more elegant and a seductive 
 manner in his figures, but possessing less grandeur and sci- 
 ence than that of Pietro. He used more slender proportions, 
 clearer tints, and a more minute taste in folding his drapery. 
 His Deposition in S. Ambrogio, which was extolled as a 
 prodigy, stimulated Pietro to paint opposite to it that won- 
 derful picture of S. Stephen, on seeing which, Bernini ex- 
 claimed, that he then perceived the difference between the 
 master and the scholar. Romanelli was twice in France, hav- 
 ing found a patron in the Cardinal Barberini, who had fled 
 to Paris ; and he participated in the spirited manner of that 
 country, which gave an animation before unknown to his 
 figures. This, at least, is the opinion of Pascoli. He de- 
 corated a portico of Cardinal Mazarine with subjects from 
 the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and afterwards adorned some of 
 the royal saloons with passages from the iEneid. He was 
 preparing to return to France, with his family, for the third 
 time, when he was intercepted by death, at Viterbo. He 
 left in that city, at the grand altar of the Duomo, the picture 
 of S. Lorenzo, and in Rome, and in other cities of Italy, nu- 
 merous works both public and private, although he died at 
 about forty-five years of age. He had the honour of painting 
 in the church of the Vatican. The Presentation which he 
 placed there is now in the church of the Certosa, the mosaic 
 in S. Peter's. He did not leave behind him any scholars who 
 
 VOL. I. 2 K 
 
498 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH \. 
 
 inherited his reputation. Urbano, his son, was educated by 
 Ciro after the death of his father. H« is known for his 
 works in the cathedral churches of Yelletri and Viterbo : 
 those in Viterbo are from the life of S. Lorenzo, the patron 
 saint of the church, and prove him to have been a young 
 man of considerable promise, but he was cut off premature]y. 
 
 Ciro Ferri, a Roman by birth, was, of all the disciples of 
 Cortona, the one the most attached in person, and similar to 
 him in style ; and not a few of the works of Pietro were 
 given to him to complete, both in Florence and in Rome- 
 There are, indeed, some pictures so dubious, that the ex- 
 perienced are in doubt whether to assign them to the master 
 or the scholar. He displays, generally, less grace in design, 
 a less expansive genius, and shuns that breadth of drapery 
 which his master affected. The number of his works in 
 Rome is not proportioned to his residence there, because he 
 lent much assistance to his master. There is a S. Ambrogio 
 in the church of that saint just mentioned, and it is a touch- 
 stone of merit for whoever wishes to compare him with the 
 best of his fellow-scholars, or with his master himself. His 
 works in the Pitti palace have been already mentioned in 
 another place, and we ought not to forget another grand com- 
 position by him in S. M. Maggiore in Bergamo, consisting of 
 various scriptural histories painted in fresco. He speaks of 
 them himself, in some letters inserted in the " Pittoriche" 
 (torn. ii. p. 38), from which we gather, that he had been repre- 
 hended for his colouring, and contemplated visiting Venice, 
 in order to improve himself. He did not leave any scholar 
 of celebrity in Rome. Corbellini, who finished the cupola 
 of S. Agnes, the last work of Ciro, which has been en- 
 graved, would not have found a place in Titi and Pascoli, if 
 it had not been to afford those writers an opportunity of ex- 
 pressing their regret at so fine a composition being injured by 
 the hand that attempted to finish it. 
 
 But another scion of the same stock sprung up to support 
 the name and credit of the school of Ciro, transferred from 
 Florence to Rome. We mentioned in the first book, that 
 when Ciro was in Florence, he formed a scholar in Gab- 
 biani, who became the master of Benedetto Luti. Ciro was 
 only just dead, when Luti arrived in Rome, who not being 
 
BENEDETTO LUTI. 
 
 499 
 
 able to become his scholar, as he had designed, when he left 
 his native place, applied himself to studying the works of 
 Ciro, and those of other good masters, as I have elsewhere 
 remarked. Pie thus formed for himself an original style, 
 and enjoyed in Rome the reputation of an excellent artist 
 in the time of Clement XI., who honoured him with com- 
 missions, and decorated him with the cross. It is to be re- 
 gretted that he attached himself so much to crayons, with 
 which he is said to have inundated all Europe. He was in- 
 tended by nature for nobler things. He painted well in 
 fresco, and still better in oils. His S. Anthony in the church 
 of the Apostles, and the Magdalen in that of the Sisters of 
 Magnanapoli, which is engraved, are highly esteemed. Nor 
 would it add a little to his reputation, if we had engravings 
 of his two pictures in the Duomo of Piacenza, S. Conrad 
 penitent, and S. Alexius recognised after death ; where, 
 amidst other excellences, a fine expression of the pathetic 
 predominates. Of his profane pieces, his Psyche, in the 
 Capitoline gallery, is the most remarkable, and breathes an 
 elegant and refined taste. Of the few productions which 
 Tuscany possesses by him, we have written in the school of 
 Gabbiani. We shall here mention a few of his scholars, 
 who remained in Rome, noticing others in various schools. 
 
 Placido Costanzi is often mentioned with approbation in 
 the collections of Rome, for the elegant figures he inserted in 
 the landscapes of Orizzonte ; he also painted some altar- 
 pieces in a refined style. In the church of the Magdalen is 
 a picture of S. Camillo attended by Angels, so gracefully 
 painted, that he seems to have aspired to rival Domenichino. 
 He also distinguished himself in fresco, as may be seen in the 
 S. Maria in Campo Marzio, where the ceiling in the greater 
 tribune is the work of Costanzi. 
 
 Pietro Bianchi resembled Luti more than any of his scholars 
 in elegance of manner, and excelled him in large composi- 
 tions, which he derived from his other master, Baciccio. 
 His extreme fastidiousness and his early death prevented him 
 from leaving many works. A very few of his pictures are 
 found in the churches of Rome. At Gubbio is his picture 
 of S. Chiara, with the Angel appearing, a piece of grand 
 effect, from the distribution of the light. The sketch of this 
 
 2k2 
 
500 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 picture was purchased by the king of Sardinia at a high 
 price. He painted for the church of S. Peter a picture, 
 which was executed in mosaic in the altar of the choir : the 
 original is in the Certosa, in which the Cav. Mancini had 
 the greatest share, as Bianchi did little more than furnish 
 the sketch. 
 
 Francesco Michelangeli, called If Aquilano, is known to 
 posterity from a letter written by Luti himself (Lett. Pitt, 
 torn. vi. p. 278), where the annotator informs us, that his 
 master frequently employed him in copying his works, and 
 that he died young. This notice is not without its use, as it 
 acquaints us with the origin of the beautiful copies of Luti 
 which are so frequently met with. 
 
 We may lastly notice an artist of mediocrity of this school, 
 who is nevertheless said to be the painter of some beautiful 
 pictures ; the two pictures of S. Margaret, in Araceli ; S. 
 Gallicano, in the church of that saint ; and the Nativity, in 
 the church of the Infant Jesus. His name was Filippo 
 Evangelisti, and he was chamberlain to the Cardinal Cor- 
 radini, through whose influence he obtained many commis- 
 sions. Being himself incapable of executing these well (if 
 we may rely on a letter in the u Pittoriche" ), he engaged Be- 
 nefial, whom we shall shortly notice, to assist him. They 
 thus painted in partnership, the gain was divided between 
 them, but the celebrity was the portion of the principal ; and 
 if any piece came out under the name of the assistant, it was 
 rather censured than praised. The poor artist at last became 
 impatient of this treatment, and disdaining any longer to 
 support a character which did him no honour, he left his 
 companion to work by himself; and it was then that Evan- 
 gelisti, in his picture of S. Gregory, in the church of the 
 Saints Peter and Marcellino, appeared in his true colours, and 
 the public thus discovered that he was indebted to Benefial 
 for genius as well as labour. 
 
 The school of Sacchi may boast of one of the first artists 
 of the age in Francesco Lauri, of Rome, in whom his 
 master flattered himself he had found a second Raffaello. 
 The disciple himself, in order to justify the high expectation 
 which the public had conceived of him, before opening a 
 school in Rome, travelled through Italy, and from thence 
 
FRANCESCO LAURI. 501 
 
 visited Germany, Holland, and Flanders, and resided for the 
 space of a year in Paris ; thus adding greatly to the funds of 
 knowledge and experience already obtained by him in his 
 native place. He was, however, cut off very early in life, 
 leaving behind him, in the Sala de* Crescenzi, three figures 
 of Goddesses painted in the vault in fresco ; but no other 
 considerable work, as far as my knowledge extends. This 
 artist must not be confounded with Filippo, his brother, and 
 scholar in his early years, who was afterwards instructed 
 by Caroselli, who espoused his sister. He was not accustomed 
 to paint large compositions ; and the Adam and Eve, which 
 are seen in the Pace, it should seem, he represented on so 
 much larger a scale, lest any one should despise his talent, 
 as only capable of small works, on which he was always 
 profitably employed. We meet with cabinet pictures by him 
 in the Flemish style, touched with great spirit, and coloured 
 in good taste, evincing a fund of lively and humorous in- 
 vention. He sometimes painted sacred subjects, and at S. 
 Saverio, in the collection of the late Monsignor Goltz, I saw 
 an enchanting picture by him, a perfect gem, and greatly 
 admired by Mengs. He painted in the Palazzo Borghese 
 some beautiful landscapes in fresco, in which branch his family 
 was already celebrated, as his father, Baldassare, of Flanders, 
 who had been a scholar of Brill, and lived in Rome in the 
 time of Sacchi, was ranked among the eminent landscape- 
 painters, and is commemorated by Baldinucci. 
 
 The immature death of Lauri was compensated for by the 
 lengthened term of years accorded to Luigi Garzi and Carlo 
 Maratta, who continued to paint to the commencement of the 
 18th ceutury; enemies to despatch, correct in their style, and 
 free from the corrupt prejudices which afterwards usurped the 
 place of the genuine rules of art. The first, who is called a 
 Roman by Orlandi, was born in Pistoja, but came while yet 
 young to Rome. He studied landscape for fifteen years under 
 Boccali, but being instructed afterwards by Sacchi, he disco- 
 vered such remarkable talents, that he became highly cele- 
 brated in Naples and in Rome in every class of painting. In 
 the former city, his decoration of two chambers of the royal 
 palace is greatly extolled ; and in the latter, where he orna- 
 mented many churches, he seemed to surpass himself in the 
 
502 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 ft 
 
 Prophet of S. Giovanni Laterano. He is praised in general 
 for his forms and attitudes, and for his fertile invention and 
 his composition. He understood perspective, and was a good 
 machinist, though in refinement of taste he is somewhat behind 
 Maratta. In his adherence to the school of Sacchi we may 
 still perceive some imitation of Cortona, to whom some have 
 given him as a scholar, as well in many pictures remaining in 
 Rome, as in others sent to various parts ; among which is his 
 S. Filippo Neri, in the church of that saint at Fano, which is 
 a gallery of beautiful productions. But on no occasion does 
 he seem more a follower of Cortona, or rather of Lanfranco, 
 than in the Assumption in the Duomo of Pescia, an immense 
 composition, and which is considered his master-piece. It is 
 mentioned in the " Catalogo delle migliori Pitture di Valdi- 
 nievole," drawn up by Sig. Innocenzio Ànsaldi, and inserted 
 in the recent History of Pescia. Mario, the son of Luigi 
 Garzi, who is mentioned twice in the " Guida di Roma," died 
 young. We may here also mention the name of Agostino 
 Scilla of Messina, whom we shall hereafter notice more at 
 length. 
 
 Carlo Maratta was born in Camurano, in the district of 
 Ancona, and enjoyed, during his life, the reputation of one of 
 the first painters in Europe. Mengs, in a letter " On the 
 Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Art of Design/' assigns to 
 Maratta the enviable distinction of having sustained the art 
 in Rome, where it did not degenerate as in other places. The 
 early part of his life was devoted to copying the works of 
 Raffaello, which always excited his admiration, and his inde- 
 fatigable industry was employed in restoring the frescos of 
 that great master in the Vatican and the Farnesina, and 
 preserving them for the eyes of posterity ; a task requiring 
 both infinite care and judgment, and described by Bellori. 
 He was not a machinist, and in consequence neither he nor 
 his scholars distinguished themselves in frescos, or in large 
 compositions. At the same time he had no fear of engaging 
 in works of that kind, and willingly undertook the decoration 
 of the Duomo of Urbino, which he peopled with figures. This 
 work, with the cupola itself, was destroyed by an earthquake 
 in 1782 ; but the sketches for it are preserved in Urbino, in 
 four pictures, in the Albani palace . He was most attached by 
 
CARLO MARATTA. 
 
 503 
 
 inclination to the painting of cabinet pictures and altar-pieces. 
 His Madonnas possess a modest, lively, and dignified air ; his 
 angels are graceful ; and his saints are distinguished by their 
 fine heads, a character of devotion, and are clothed in the 
 sumptuous costume/ of the church. In Rome his pictures are 
 the more prized the' nearer they approach to the style of Sacchi, 
 as the S. Saverio in the Gesù, a Madonna in the Panfili 
 palace, and several others. Some are found beyond the terri- 
 tories of the Church, and in Genoa is his Martyrdom of S. 
 Bagio, a picture as to the date of which I do not inquire, but 
 only to assert that it is worthy of the greatest rival of Sacchi. 
 He afterwards adopted a less dignified style, but which for its 
 correctness is worthy of imitation. Though he had devoted 
 the early part of his life to the acquisition of a pure style of 
 design, he did not think himself sufficiently accomplished in it, 
 aud again returned, when advanced in years, to the study of 
 Raffaello, of whose excellences he possessed himself, without 
 losing sight of the Caracci and Guido. But many are of opi- 
 nion that he fell into a style too elaborate, and sacrificed the 
 spirit of his compositions to minute care. His principal fault 
 lay in the folding of his drapery, when through a desire of 
 copying nature he too frequently separates its masses, and 
 neglects too much the naked parts, which takes away from 
 the elegance of his figures. He endeavoured to fix his prin- 
 cipal light on the most important part of his composition, sub- 
 duing rather more than was right, the light in other parts of 
 his picture, and his scholars carried this principle afterwards 
 so far as to produce an indistinctness which became the cha- 
 racteristic mark of his school. 
 
 Though not often, he yet painted some few pictures of an 
 extraordinary magnitude, as the S. Carlo in the church of 
 that saint at the Corso, and the Baptism of Christ in the 
 Certosa, copied in mosaic in the Basilica of S. Peter. His 
 other pictures are for the most part on the smaller scale ; 
 many are in Rome, and amongst them the charming composi- 
 tion of S. Stanislaus Kostka, at the altar where his ashes 
 repose ; not a few others in other cities, as the S. Andrea 
 Corsini in the chapel of that noble family in Florence, and 
 the S. Francesco di Sales at the Filippini di Forli, which is 
 one of his most studied works. He contributed largely, also, 
 
504 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. — EPOCH V. 
 
 to the galleries of sovereigns and private individuals. There 
 is not a considerable collection in Rome without a specimen 
 of his pencil, particularly that of the Albani, to which family 
 he was extremely attached. His works are frequently met with 
 in the State. There is a valuable copy of the Battle of Con- 
 stantine, in possession of the Mancinforti family in Ancona. 
 It is related, that, being requested to copy that picture, he 
 proposed the task to one of his best scholars, who disdained 
 the commission. He therefore undertook the work himself, 
 and on finishing it, took occasion to intimate to his pupils, 
 that the copying such productions might not be without benefit 
 to the most accomplished masters. He had a daughter whom 
 he instructed in his own art, and her portrait, executed by 
 herself, in a painting attitude, is to be seen in the Corsini 
 gallery at Rome. 
 
 Maratta, in his capacity of an instructor, is extolled by his 
 biographer, Bellori (p. 208) ; but is by Pascoli accused of 
 jealousy, and of having condemned a youth of the most pro- 
 mising talents in his school, Niccolo Berrettoni di Montefeltro, 
 to the preparation of colours. This artist, however, from the 
 principles which he imbibed from Cantarini, and from his 
 imitation of Guido and Correggio, formed for himself a mixed 
 style, delicate, free, and unconstrained, and the more studied, 
 as that study was concealed under the semblance of nature. 
 He died young, leaving very few works behind him, almost 
 all of which were engraved, in consequence of his high repu- 
 tation. The Marriage of the Virgin Mary, which he executed 
 for S. Lorenzo in Borgo, was engraved by Pier Santi Bartoli, 
 a very distinguished engraver of those times, an excellent 
 copyist, and himself a painter of some merit.* Another of 
 his pictures, a Madonna, attended by saints, at S. Maria di 
 Monte Santo, and the lunettes of the same chapel, were en- 
 
 * He was the pupil of Niccolas Poussin, and from him acquired his 
 taste for drawing after the antique. He employed this talent in copying 
 the finest bassi-rilievi, and the noblest remains of ancient Rome. These 
 were engraved by him, and circulated through Europe. He also copied 
 a great number of ancient pictures from the Sotterranei, which passed 
 into private hands unpublished. Pascoli mentions many more of his 
 works in engraving, the pursuit of which branch of the art led him gradu- 
 ally to forsake painting. Of his pictures we find one in the church of 
 Porto, and a very few more of his own designing. He devoted himself to 
 
SCHOLARS OF MARATTA. 
 
 505 
 
 graved by Frezza. An account of this artist may be found 
 in the Lettere Pitt. torn. v. p. 277. 
 
 Giuseppe Chiari of Rome, who finished some pictures of 
 Berrettoni and of Maratta himself, was one of the best 
 painters of easel-pictures of that school. Many of his works 
 found their way to England. He painted some pictures for 
 the churches of Rome, and probably the best is the Adoration 
 of the Magi in the church of the Suffragio, of which there is 
 an engraving. He also succeeded in fresco. Those works in 
 particular, which he executed in the Barberini palace under 
 the direction of the celebrated Bellori, and those also of the 
 Colonna gallery, will always do him credit ; he was sober in 
 his colours, careful and judicious : rare qualities in a fresco 
 painter. He did not inherit great talents from nature, but 
 by force of application became one of the first artists of his 
 age. Tommaso Chiari, a pupil also of Maratta, and whose 
 designs he sometimes executed, did not pass the bounds of 
 mediocrity. The same may be observed of Sigismond Rosa, 
 a scholar of Giuseppe Chiari. 
 
 To Giuseppe Chiari, who was the intimate friend of Ma- 
 ratta, we may add two others, who were, according to Pascoli, 
 the only scholars whom he took a pleasure in instructing ; 
 Giuseppe Passeri, the nephew of Giambatista, and Giacinto 
 Calandrucci of Palermo. Both were distinguished as excel- 
 lent imitators of their master. Passeri worked also in the 
 State. In Pesaro is a S. Jerome by him, meditating on the 
 Last Judgment, which may be enumerated among his best 
 works. In the church of the Vatican, he painted a pendant 
 to the Baptism of Maratta, S. Peter baptizing the Centurion, 
 which, after being copied in mosaic, was sent to the church of 
 the Conventuals in Urbino. This picture, which was executed 
 under the direction of Maratta, is well coloured : but in many 
 of his works his colouring is feeble, as in the Conception at 
 the church of S. Thomas in Parione, and in other places in 
 Rome. Calandrucci, after having given proof of his talents 
 in the churches of S. Antonino de* Portoghesi, and S. Paolino 
 
 the copying the pictures of the best masters, and carried his imitation 
 even to the counterfeiting the effects of time on the colours ; and he copied 
 some pictures of Poussin with such dexterity, that it was with difficulty 
 the painter himself could distinguish them. 
 
506 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 della Regola, and in other churches of Rome, and after hav- 
 ing been creditably employed by many noble persons, and by 
 two pontiffs, returned to Palermo, and thére, in the church 
 del Salvatore, placed his large composition of the Madonnas, 
 attended by S. Basil and other saints, which work he did not 
 long survive. He left behind him in Rome a nephew, who 
 was his scholar, called Giambatista ; and he had also a brother 
 there of the name of Domenico, a disciple of Maratta and 
 himself ; but there are no traces of their works remaining. 
 
 Andrea Procaccini and Pietro de' Petri also hold a dis- 
 tinguished place in this school, although their fortunes were 
 very dissimilar. Procaccini, who painted in S. Giovanni La- 
 terano, the Daniel, one of the twelve prophets which Clement 
 XL commanded to be painted as a trial of skill by the artists 
 of his day, obtained great fame, and ultimately became painter 
 to the court of Spain, where he remained fourteen years, and 
 left some celebrated works. Petri on the contrary continued 
 to reside in Rome, and died there at a not very advanced age. 
 He was employed there in the tribune of S. Clement, and in 
 some other works. He did not, however, obtain the reputa- 
 tion and success that he deserved, in consequence of his infirm 
 health and his extreme modesty. He is one of those who en- 
 grafted on the style of Maratta, a portion of the manner of 
 Cortona. Orlandi calls him a Roman, others a Spaniard, but 
 his native place in fact was Premia, a district of Novara. 
 Paolo Albertoni and Gio. Paolo Melchiorri, both Romans, 
 flourished about the same time ; less esteemed, indeed, than 
 the foregoing, but possessing the reputation of good masters, 
 particularly the second. 
 
 At a somewhat later period, the last scholar of Maratta, 
 Agostino Masucci, presents himself to our notice. This artist 
 did not exhibit any peculiar spirit, confining himself to pleas- 
 ing and devout subjects. In his representations of the Virgiu 
 he emulated his master, who, from his great number of sub- 
 jects of that kind, was at one time called Carlo dalle Ma- 
 donne ; as he himself has commemorated in his own epitaph. 
 Like Maratta, he imparted to them an expression of serene 
 majesty rather than loveliness and affability. In some of his 
 cabinet pictures I am aware that he occasionally renounced 
 this manner, but it was only through intercession and expos- 
 
STEFANO POZZI. 
 
 507 
 
 tulation. He was a good fresco painter, and decorated for 
 Pope Benedict XI V. an apartment in a casino, erected in the 
 garden of the Quirinal. He painted many altar-pieces, and 
 his angels and children are designed with great elegance and 
 nature, and in a novel and original style. PI is S. Anna, at 
 the Nome S. S. di Maria, is one of the best pictures he left in 
 Rome ; there is also a S. Francis in the church of the Osser- 
 vanti dì Macerata, a Conception at S. Benedetto di Gubbio, 
 in Urbino a S. Bonaventura, which is perhaps his noblest 
 composition, full of portraits (in which he was long considered 
 the most celebrated painter in Rome), and finished with ex- 
 quisite care. Lorenzo, his son and scholar, was very inferior 
 to him. 
 
 Stefano Pozzi received his first instructions from Maratta, 
 and afterwards became a scholar of Masucci. He had a 
 younger brother, Giuseppe, who died before him, ere his fame 
 was matured. Stefano lived long, painting in Rome with the 
 reputation of one of the best masters of his day ; more noble 
 in his style of design than Masucci, and if I err not, more 
 vigorous, and more natural in his colouring. We may easily 
 estimate their merits in Rome in the church just mentioned, 
 where we find the Transito di S. Giuseppe of Pozzi, near the 
 S. Anna of Masucci. Of the Cav. Girolamo Troppa, I have 
 heard from oral tradition that he was the scholar of Maratta. 
 He was certainly his imitator, and a successful one, too, al- 
 though he did not live long. He left works both in oil and 
 fresco in the capital, and in the church of S. Giacomo delle 
 Penitenti, he painted in competition with Romanelli. I have 
 found pictures by him in the State ; and in S. Severino is a 
 church picture very well conducted. Girolamo Odam, a 
 Roman of a Lorena family, is reckoned among the disciples of 
 the Cav. Carlo, and is eulogized in a long and pompous article 
 by Orlandi, or perhaps by some friend of Odam, who supplied 
 Orlandi with the information. He is there described as a 
 painter, sculptor, architect, engraver, philosopher, mathema- 
 tician, and poet, and accomplished in every art and science. 
 In all these I should imagine he was superficial, as nothing 
 remains of him except some engravings and a very slender 
 reputation, not at all corresponding to such unqualified com- 
 mendation. 
 
508 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 Of other artists who are little known in Rome and its terri- 
 tories, such as Jacopo Fiammingo, Francesco Pavesi, Michele 
 Semini, there is little information that can be relied on. Re- 
 specting Subissati, Conca is silent, though information might 
 possibly be obtained of him in Madrid, at which court he died. 
 In Urbino, which was his native place, I find no picture of 
 him remaining, except the head of a Sibyl : Antonio Balestra, 
 of Verona, and RafFaellino Bottalla, will be found in their 
 native schools, but I must not here omit one, a native of the 
 State, who, after being educated in the academy, returned to 
 his native country, and there introduced the style of Carlo, at 
 that time so much in vogue. Orlandi mentions with applause 
 Gioseffo Laudati, of Perugia, as having contributed to restore 
 the art, which, after the support it had found in Bassotti and 
 others, had fallen into decay. 
 
 Lodovico Trasi, of Ascoli, is deserving of particular notice. 
 He was for several years a fellow-disciple of Maratta in the 
 school of Sacchi, and was afterwards desirous of becoming his 
 scholar. After studying some time in his academy, he re- 
 turned to Ascoli, where he has left a great number of works, 
 both public and private, in various styles. In some of his 
 smaller pictures he discovers a good Marattesque style ; but 
 in his fresco and altar-pieces he is negligent, and adheres much 
 to Sacchi, yet in a manner that discovers' traces of Cortona. 
 His picture of S. Niccolo at the church of S. Cristoforo is 
 beautiful, and is one of the pieces which he finished with more 
 than usual care. He has there represented the enfranchise- 
 ment of a slave, at the moment the pious youth is serving at 
 his masters table. There are some remarkable pictures of 
 this artist in the cathedral, painted in distemper, particularly 
 that of the Martyrdom of S. Emidio. 
 
 Trasi was the instructor of D. Tommaso Nardini, who con- 
 tinued, on his masters death, the decoration of the churches of 
 the city, and his best work is perhaps in S. Angelo Magno, a 
 church of the Olivetani. The perspective was by Agostino 
 Collaceroni, of Bologna, a scholar of Pozzi. Nardini supplied 
 the figures, representing the mysteries of the Apocalypse and 
 other scriptural events. It displays great spirit and harmony, 
 richness of colouring and facility, which are the distinguishing 
 characteristics of this master, and are perhaps better expressed 
 
THE TWO RICCI. 
 
 509 
 
 in this picture than in any other. We may add to the two 
 before-mentioned painters, Silvestro Mattei, who studied under 
 Maratta ; Giuseppe Angelini, the scholar of Trasi ; and Biagio 
 Miniera, also of Ascoli, whom Orsini has noticed in his 
 " Guida." 
 
 There flourished about the same time in the neighbouring 
 city of Fermo, two Ricci, scholars of Maratta, who were proba- 
 bly instructed before going to Rome by Lorenzino di Fermo, a 
 good artist, though it is doubtful of what school, and who is said 
 to have painted the picture of S. Catherine at the church of 
 the Conventuals, and other pictures in the adjoining territories. 
 The one was named Natale, the other Ubaldo ; the latter was 
 superior to the former, and is much extolled for his S. Felice, 
 which he painted for the church of the Capuchins, in his native 
 place. He did not often pass the bounds of mediocrity, which 
 is frequently the case with artists residing at a distance from 
 a capital, and who have not the incitement to emulation and 
 an opportunity of studying good examples. The same obser- 
 vation is, I think, applicable also to another scholar of Maratta, 
 Giuseppe Oddi, of Pesaro, where one of his pictures' remains 
 in the church della Carità. We shall now return' to the me- 
 tropolis. 
 
 A fresh reinforcement, to support the style of the Caracci 
 in Rome, was received from the school of Bologna. I speak 
 only of those who established themselves there. Domenico 
 Muratori had been the scholar of Pasinelli, and painted the 
 great picture in the church of the Apostles, which is probably 
 the largest altar-piece in Rome, and represents the martyrdom 
 of S. Philip and S. James. The grandeur of this composition, 
 its judicious disposition and felicity of chiaroscuro, though its 
 colouring was not entirely perfect, gave him considerable 
 celebrity. He was also employed in many smaller works, in 
 which he always evinced an equally correct design, and 
 perhaps better colouring. He was chosen to paint one of the 
 prophets in the Basilica Lateranense, and was employed also 
 in other cities. In the cathedral of Pisa, he painted a large 
 picture of S. Ranieri, in the act of exorcising a demon, which 
 is esteemed one of his most finished works. Francesco 
 Mancini di S. Angiolo in Yado, and Bonaventura Lamberti 
 di Carpi, had better fortune in Bologna, in having for their 
 
510 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 master Carlo Cignani. Mancini, when he came to Rome, 
 did not adhere exclusively to his masters manner, as he was 
 rather more attached to the facility and freedom of Frances- 
 chi ni, his fellow-scholar, whom he somewhat resembles in 
 style. He seems, however, to have had less despatch, and 
 certainly painted less. He was chaste in his invention, and 
 followed the example of Lazzarini ; he designed well, 
 coloured in a charming manner, and was numbered among 
 the first artists of his age in Rome. He painted the Miracle 
 of S. Peter at the beautiful gate of the temple, a picture 
 which is preserved in the palace of Monte Cavallo, and is 
 copied in mosaic in S. Peter's. This picture, which is a 
 spirited composition, and well arranged in the perspective, is 
 his principal work, and does not suffer from a comparison with 
 those mentioned in the " Guida di Roma," and others scat- 
 tered through the dominions of the Church. Such are pictures 
 with various saints in the church of the Conventuals of 
 Urbino, and in that of the Camaldolesi of Fabriano ; the 
 appearing of Christ to S. Peter in that of the Filippini, in 
 Città di Castello, and the various works executed in oil and 
 in fresco at Forli and at Macerata. He painted many pictures 
 for foreign collections, and was commended for his large com- 
 positions. From his studio issued the Canonico Lazzarini 
 before named, whom, as he lived amongst other followers of 
 Cignani, I shall reserve with them to the close of the Bolog- 
 nese school. Niccola Lapiccola, of Crotone, in Calabria 
 Ultra, remained in Rome ; and a cupola of a chapel in the 
 Vatican, painted by him, was copied in mosaic. There are 
 some pictures by him in other churches ; the best are, 
 perhaps, in the State, particularly in Velletri. I have heard 
 that he was a disciple of Mancini, though in his colouring he 
 somewhat adhered to his native school. 
 
 Bonaventura Lamberti is numbered by Mengs among the 
 latest of the successful followers of the school of Cignani, 
 whose style he preserved more carefully than Mancini himself. 
 He did not give many works to the world. He had, how- 
 ever, the honour of having his designs copied in mosaic by 
 Giuseppe Ottaviani, in S. Peters, and one of his pictures en- 
 graved by Frey. It is in the church of the Spirito Santo de* 
 Napolitani, and represents a miracle of S. Francesco di Paola. 
 
MARCO BENEFIAL. 
 
 ,511 
 
 The Gabrieli family, which patronised him in an extraordi- 
 nary manner, possesses a great number of historical pictures 
 by him, which are in themselves sufficient to engage the at- 
 tention of an amateur for several hours. Lamberti had the 
 honour of giving to the Roman school the Cav. Marco Bene- 
 fial, born and resident in Rome, a painter of great genius, 
 though not always equal to himself, rather perhaps from neg- 
 ligence, than deficiency of powers. 
 
 The Marchese Venuti * extols this master above all others 
 of his time for his accurate design, and his Caracciesque co- 
 louring. His monument is placed in the Pantheon, among 
 those of the most celebrated painters, and to his bust is at- 
 tached the eulogy bestowed on him by the Abate Giovenazzo, 
 where he is particularly commended for his power of expres- 
 sion. The factions to which he gave rise still subsist, as if he 
 were yet living. His admirers not being able to defend all 
 his works, have fixed on the Flagellation at the Stimmate, 
 painted in competition with Muratori,t and S. Secondino at 
 the Passionisti, as the subjects of their unqualified approba- 
 tion ; pictures, indeed, of such science, that they may chal- 
 lenge any comparison. To these may be added his S. Lorenzo 
 and S. Stefano, in the Duomo of Viterbo, and a few others of 
 similar merit, in which he evidently imitated Domenichino 
 and his school. His enemies have designated him as an in- 
 ferior artist, and adduce several works feeble in expression 
 and effect. The impartial consider him an eminent artist, 
 but his productions vary, being occasionally in a grand style, 
 and at other times not passing the bounds of mediocrity. 
 This is a character which has been ascribed to many poets 
 also, and even to Petrarch himself. 
 
 Our obligations are due to the Sig. Batista Ponfredi, his 
 scholar, for the memoirs of this eminent man. They were 
 addressed to the Count Niccola Soderini, a great benefactor 
 of Benefial, and more rich in his works than any other Ro- 
 man collector. His letter is in the fifth volume of the " Pit- 
 
 * In the " Risposta alle Riflessioni Critiche di Mons. Argens." 
 
 t This artist had painted one of the two laterals of the chapel, asserting 
 that there was no artist living capable of painting a companion to it. 
 Benefial painted one very superior, and represented in it an executioner 
 with his eyes fixed on and deriding the picture of Muratori. 
 
512 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 toriche," and is one of the most instructive in the collection, 
 although altered by the editor in some points. I shall tran- 
 scribe a passage from it, as it may be satisfactory to see the 
 actual state of the art at that time, and the way in which 
 Marco contributed to its support. " He was so anxious to 
 revive the art, and so grieved to see it fall into decay, that he 
 frequently consumed several hours in the day in declaiming 
 against the prevailing conception of style, and urging the 
 necessity of shunning mannerism, and adopting a style founded 
 in truth, which few did, or if they did, attempted not to imi- 
 tate its simplicity, but adapted it to their own manner. He 
 directed the particular attention of his pupils to the difference 
 between the production of a mannerist, and one which was 
 studied and simple, and founded in nature ; that the first, if 
 it were well designed, and had a good chiaroscuro, had at first 
 sight a striking effect from the brilliancy of its colours, but 
 gradually lost ground at every succeeding view, while the 
 other appeared the more excellent the longer it was inspected/' 
 — These and other precepts of the same kind he delivered in 
 terms perhaps too cynical ; not only in private, but in the 
 school of design at the Campidoglio, at the time that he pre- 
 sided there; the consequence was, that the inferior artists 
 combined against him, deprived him of his employment, and 
 suspended him from the academy. Some further information 
 respecting Benefial was communicated to the public in the 
 u Risposta alle Lett. Perugine/' p. 48. 
 
 From a scholar also of Cignani (Franceschini), Francesco 
 Caccianiga received instructions in Bologna, whence he came 
 to Rome, where he perfected his style and established himself. 
 He was a painter to whom nothing was wanting, except that 
 natural spirit and vigour which are not to be supplied by in- 
 dustry. He was employed by several potentates, and two of 
 his works executed for the king of Sardinia were engraved by 
 himself. Ancona possesses four of his altar-pieces, among 
 which are the Institution of the Eucharist, and the Espousals 
 of the Yirgin ; pictures coloured in a clear, animated, and en- 
 gaging style, and easily distinguished among a thousand. 
 Rome has few public works by him. In the Gavotti palace 
 is a good fresco, and there are others in the palace and villa 
 of the Borghesi, who generously extended to him a permanent 
 
SEBASTIANO GHEZZI. 
 
 513 
 
 and suitable provision, when overtaken by poverty and 
 age.* 
 
 From the school of Guercino came Sebastiano Ghezzi of 
 Comunanza, not far from Ascoli. He was eminent both in 
 design and colouring, and at the church of the Agostiniani 
 Scalzi di Monsammartino is a S. Francesco by him, which is 
 esteemed an exquisite picture, and wants only the finishing 
 hand of the artist. He was the father and teacher of Giu- 
 seppe Ghezzi, who studied in Rome, and was also a tolerable 
 writer, considering the period at which he wrote. In his 
 painting he seemed to adopt the style of Cortona. His name 
 is frequently mentioned in the " Guida di Roma,'* and more 
 than once in the " Antichità Picene," where it is stated that 
 he was held in great esteem by Clement XI., and that he died 
 secretary to the academy of S. Luke (torn. xxv. p. 11). Pas- 
 coli, who has written his life, extols him for his skill in re- 
 storing pictures, in which capacity the queen of Sweden em- 
 ployed him exclusively on all occasions. 
 
 Pierleone, his son and scholar, possessed a style similar to 
 that of his father, but less hurried, and became a more dis- 
 tinguished artist. He was selected with Luti and Trevisani, 
 and other eminent masters, to paint the prophets of the La- 
 teran, as well as other commissions. But for his chief reputa- 
 tion he is indebted to the singular talent he possessed in de- 
 signing caricatures, which are to be found in the cabinets of 
 Rome and other places. In these he humorously introduced 
 persons of quality, a circumstance particularly gratifying in a 
 country where the freedom of the pencil was thought a desir- 
 able addition to the license of the tongue. 
 
 Other schools of Italy also contributed artists to the Roman 
 school, who however did not produce any new manner, except 
 that in respect of the two principal masters then in vogue, 
 Cortona and Maratta, they have afforded an occasional modifi- 
 cation of those two styles. 
 
 Gio. Maria Morandi came whilst yet a youth from Florence, 
 and forsaking the maimer of Bilivert, his first instructor, 
 
 * See " Memorie perle Belle Arti," torn. ii. p. 135, where Sig. Gianghe- 
 rardo de' Rossi gives an account of this artist, derived principally from 
 information furnished by Sig. Cav. Puccini, who has been occasionally 
 mentioned with approbation in this work. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 L 
 
£14 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 formed for himself a new style. This was a mixture of 
 Roman design and Venetian colouring (for in travelling 
 through Italy, he resided some time at Venice, and copied 
 much there), while some part of it partakes of the manner of 
 Cortona, and was esteemed in Rome. He established himself 
 in this latter city, in the Guida of which he is often mentioned, 
 and his works are not unfrequently found in collections. His 
 Visitation at the Madonna del Popolo is a fine composition ; 
 and still more highly finished, and full of grand effect, is his 
 picture of the death of the Virgin Mary, in the church della 
 Pace. This may indeed be considered his master-piece, and 
 it has been engraved by Pietro Aquila. He was also cele- 
 brated for his historical pictures, which he sometimes sent into 
 foreign countries, and more than in any other branch, he ac- 
 quired a reputation in portraits, in which he was constantly 
 employed by persons of quality in Rome and Florence, and 
 was also called to Vienna by the emperor. There, besides 
 the imperial family, he painted also the portraits of many of 
 the lesser princes of Germany. Odoardo Vicinelli, a painter 
 of considerable merit in these latter times, in vol. vi. of the 
 Lett. Pitt, is said to have been a scholar of Morandi, and 
 Pascoli does not hesitate to assert that he conferred greater 
 honour than any other of his scholars on his master ; I be- 
 lieve, in Rome, where Pietro Nelli alone could dispute pre- 
 cedence with him. 
 
 Francesco Trevisani, a native of Trevigi, was educated by 
 Zanchi in Venice, where, in order to distinguish him from 
 Àngiolo Trevisani, he was called II Trevisani Romano. In 
 Rome he abandoned his first principles, and regulated his 
 taste by the best manner then in vogue. He possessed a 
 happy talent of imitating every manner, and at one time ap- 
 pears a follower of Cignani, at another of Guido ; alike suc- 
 cessful whichever style he adopted. The Albiccini family, in 
 Forlì, possess many of his pictures in various styles, and 
 amongst them a small Crucifixion, most spirited and highly 
 finished, which the master esteemed his best work, and offered 
 a large sum to obtain back again. His pictures abound in 
 Rome, and in general exhibit an elegance of design, a fine 
 pencil, and a vigorous tone of colour. His S. Joseph dying, 
 in the church of the Collegio R., is a remarkably noble pro- 
 
PASQUALINO. 
 
 515 
 
 cìuction. A subject painted by him to accompany one by 
 Guido in the Spada palace is also highly esteemed. He en- 
 joyed the patronage of Clement XI., by whom he was not 
 only commissioned to paint one of the prophets of the Laterali, 
 but was also employed in the cupola of the Duomo in Urbino, 
 in which he painted the four quarters of the world : a work 
 truly estimable for design, fancy, and colouring. In other 
 cities of the state we find pictures by him painted with more 
 or less care, in Foligno, at Camerino, in Perugia, at Forli, and 
 one of S. Antonio at S. Rocco in Venice, of a form more 
 elegant than robust. 
 
 Pasquale Rossi, better known by the name of Pasqualino, 
 was born in Vicenza, and from long copying the best Venetian 
 and Roman pictures, attained without the instruction of a 
 master, a natural mode of colour, and a good style of design. 
 Few of his public works remain in Rome ; Christ praying in 
 the garden, in the church of S. Carlo al Corso, the Baptism 
 also of our Saviour at the Madonna del Popolo. The Silves- 
 trini of Fabriano have several pictures by him, and among 
 them a Madonna, truly beautiful. His S. Gregory, in the 
 Duomo of Matelica, in the act of liberating souls from pur- 
 gatory, is in the style of Guercino, and is one of his best 
 works. In private collections we find his cabinet pictures re- 
 presenting gaming parties, conversations, concerts, and similar 
 subjects, carefully finished on a small scale, and little inferior 
 to Flemish pictures. I have met with numerous specimens of 
 them in various places ; but in no place have I admired this 
 artist' so much as in the royal gallery at Turin, in which are 
 some ornaments over doors, and pictures of considerable size 
 by him, chiefly scriptural subjects, executed in an animated 
 and vigorous style, and with so much imitation of the Roman 
 school, that we should think them to be by some other master. 
 
 Giambatista Gaulli, commonly called Baciccio, studied first 
 in Genoa. Whilst still young he went to Rome, where, under 
 the direction of a Frenchman, and by the more valuable aid 
 of Bernino, he formed himself on the style of the great ma- 
 chinists. As he was endowed by nature with a ready genius 
 and a dexterity of hand, he could not have chosen any 
 branch of the art more adapted to his talent. The vault of 
 the Gesù is his most conspicuous work. The knowledge of 
 
 2 l 2 
 
516 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 foreshortening seen from below, the unity, harmony, and 
 correct perspective of its objects, the brilliancy and skilful 
 gradation of the light, rank it among the best, if indeed it be 
 not his best picture in Rome. It must, however, be confessed, 
 that we must inspect it with an eye to the general effect, 
 rather than to the local tints, or the drawing of the figures* 
 in which he is not always correct. His faults in his easel 
 pictures, which are very numerous in Italy and in foreign 
 countries, are less obtrusive, and are abundantly atoned for by 
 their spirit, freshness of tints, and engaging countenances. 
 He varies his manner with his subject, assigning to each a 
 peculiar style. There is a delightful picture in his best man- 
 ner, gracefully painted in the church of S. Francesco a Ripa, 
 representing the Madonna with the divine Infant in her arms, 
 and at her feet S. Anna kneeling, surrounded by Angels. In 
 a grave and pathetic style, on the contrary, is the representa- 
 tion of S. Saverio dying in the desert island of Sanciano, 
 which is placed near the altar of S. Andrea at Monte Cavallo. 
 His figures of children are very engaging and highly finished, 
 though after the manner of Fiammingo, more fleshy and less 
 elegant than those of Titian or the Greeks. He painted 
 seven pontiffs, and many persons of rank of his day, and was 
 considered the first portrait painter in Rome. In this branch 
 of his art he followed a custom of Bernino, that of engaging 
 the person he painted in an animated conversation, in order 
 to obtain the most striking expression of which the subject 
 was susceptible. 
 
 Giovanni Odazzi, his first scholar, was ambitious of emula- 
 ting him in celerity, but not possessing equal talent, he did 
 not attain the same distinction. He is the most feeble, or, at 
 all events, the least eminent of the painters of the prophets 
 of the Lateran, where his Hosea is to be seen ; and indeed, 
 in every corner of Rome, his pictures are to be met with, as 
 he never refused any commission. Pascoli has preserved the 
 memory of another of his scholars, a native of Perugia, in 
 the lives of the painters of his native country. This was 
 Francesco Civalli, initiated in the art by Andrea Carlone ; 
 he was a youth of talent, but impatient of instruction. He 
 painted in Rome and other places, but did not pass the 
 bounds of mediocrity. The Cav. Lodovico Mazzanti was the 
 
SEBASTIANO CONCA- 
 
 517 
 
 scholar of Gaulli, and emulated his manner to the best of his 
 ability ; but his talents were not commanding, nor were his 
 powers equal to his ambition. Gio. Batista Brughi, a worker 
 in mosaic rather than a painter, left notwithstanding some 
 public pictures in Rome. He is called in the Guida sometimes 
 Brughi, and sometimes Gio. Batista, the disciple of Baciccio, 
 which makes it there appear as if they had been distinct 
 individuals. I do not recollect any other artist contributed 
 by Gaulli to the Roman school. 
 
 The Neapolitan school, which was in the beginning of this 
 age supported by Solimene, sent some scholars to Rome, who 
 adopted a Roman style. Sebastiano Conca was the first that 
 arrived there with an intention of seeing it, but he established 
 himself there, together with Giovanni, his brother, to meliorate 
 his style of design. Resigning the brush, he returned at 
 forty years of age to the pencil, and spent five years in draw- 
 ing after the antique, and after the best modern productions. 
 His hand, however, had become the slave of habit in Naples, 
 and would not answer to his own wishes ; and he was kept 
 in constant vexation, as he could appreciate excellence, but 
 found himself incapable of attaining it. The celebrated 
 sculptor Le Gros advised him to return to his original style, 
 and he then became in Rome an eminent painter, in the man- 
 ner of Pietro da Cortona, with considerable improvements on 
 his early manner. He possessed a fertile invention, great 
 facility of execution, and a colour which enchanted by its 
 lucidness, its contrasts, and the delicacy of the flesh tints. 
 It is true, that on examination we find that he was not in 
 reality a profound colourist, and that to obtain a grandeur of 
 tone, he adopted in the shadows a green tint, which produced 
 a mannerism. He distinguished himself in frescos, and also 
 in pictures in the churches, decorating them with choirs of 
 angels, happily disposed in a style of composition that may 
 be called his own, and which served as an example to many 
 of the machinists. He was indefatigable too in painting for 
 private individuals, and in the states of the church there is 
 scarcely a collection without its Conca. His most studied, 
 finished, and beautiful work is. the Probatica at the hospital 
 of Siena. Of great merit in Rome is the Assumption at S. 
 Martina, and the Jonah among the prophets in the S. Gio- 
 
518 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 vanni Laterano. His works were in high esteem in the 
 Ecclesiastical State ; his best appear to be the S. Niccolo at 
 Loretto, S. Saverio in Ancona, S. Agostino at Foligno, S. 
 Filippo in Fabriano, and S. Girolamo Emiliano at Velletri. 
 Giovanni, his brother, assisted Sebastiano in his commissions, 
 had an equal facility, a similar taste, though less beautiful in 
 his heads, and of not so fine a pencil. He shewed great 
 talent in copying the pictures of the best masters. In the 
 church of the Dominicans of Urbino are the copies which 
 he made of four pictures to be executed in mosaic ; they 
 were by Muziani, Guercino, Lanfranco, and Romanelli. 
 Conca is eulogized by Rossi with his usual intelligence and 
 discrimination (v. torn. ii. of his " Memorie," p. 81). 
 
 Mengs perhaps censures him too severely where he says, 
 that by his precepts he contributed to the decay of the art. 
 He had his followers, but they were not so numerous as to 
 corrupt all the other schools of Italy. Every school, as we 
 have seen, had within itself the seeds of its own destruction, 
 without seeking for it elsewhere. It is true, indeed, that 
 some of his scholars inherited his facility and his colour- 
 ing, and left many injurious examples in Italy. Nor shall 
 I give .myself much trouble to enumerate his disciples, 
 but shall content myself with the names of the most 
 celebrated. Gaetano Lapis di Cagli was one of these, and 
 brought with him good principles of design when he came to 
 study under Conca. He was a painter of an original taste, 
 as Rossi describes, not very spirited, but correct. Many of 
 his works are found in the churches of his native place ; and 
 in the Duomo are two highly prized pieces on each side the 
 altar, a Supper of our Lord, and a Nativity. In the various 
 pictures I have seen of him at S. Pietro, S. Niccolo, and S. 
 Francesco, I generally found the same composition of a Ma- 
 donna of a graceful form, attended by Saints in the act of 
 adoring her and the Holy Infant. We find some of his works 
 also in Perugia and elsewhere. The Prince Borghese, in 
 Rome, has a Birth of Yenus by him, painted on a ceiling, 
 with a correctness of design, and a grace superior to any thing 
 that remains of him, and no one can justly appreciate his ta- 
 lents who has not seen this work. It should seem that a 
 timidity and diffidence of his own powers prevented his afc~ 
 
GREGORIO GUGLIELMI. 
 
 519 
 
 taining that high station which his genius seemed to have in- 
 tended for hira. Salvator Monosilio, who resided much in 
 Rome, was of Messina, and trod closely in the footsteps of his 
 master. In a chapel of S. Paolino della Regola, where Calun- 
 drucci furnished the altar-piece, he painted the vault in fresco ; 
 and others of his works are to be seen at the S. S. Quaranta, 
 and at the church of the Polacchi. In Piceno, where Conca 
 was in great reputation, Monosilio was held in high esteem, 
 and was employed both in public and in private. At S. Gi- 
 nesio is a S. Barnabas by him, in the church of that saint, 
 which in the " Memorie," so often quoted by us, is designated 
 as an excellent work. Conca educated another Sicilian stu- 
 dent, the Abbate Gaspero Serenari, of Palermo, who was con- 
 sidered a young man of talents in Rome, and painted in the 
 church of S. Teresa, in competition with the Abate Peroni ot 
 Parma. On his return to Palermo he became a celebrated 
 master, and besides his oil pictures he executed some vast 
 works in fresco, particularly the cupola of the Gesù, and the 
 chapel of the monastery of Carità. 
 * Gregorio Guglielmi, a Roman, is not much known in his 
 native place, although his fresco pictures in the hospital of 
 the S. Spirito in Sassia, entitle him to be numbered amongst 
 the most eminent young artists who painted in Rome in the 
 pontificate of Benedict XIY. He left Rome early and went 
 to Turin, where, in the church of S. S. Solutore e Comp. is a 
 small picture of the Tutelar Saints. He was afterwards in 
 Dresden, Vienna, and St. Petersburgh, where he painted in 
 fresco with much applause," for the respective sovereigns of 
 those cities. Pie was facile in composition, pleasing in his 
 colour, and attached to the Roman style of design, which, like 
 Lapis, he seemed to have carried from some other school into 
 that of Conca. Among his most esteemed works is a ceiling, 
 painted in the university of Vienna, and another in the im- 
 perial palace at Schoenbrunn. He did not succeed so well in 
 oils, in which his efforts are mostly feeble ; a proof that he 
 belongs more to the school of Conca than that of Trevisani, to 
 which some have assigned him. 
 
 Corrado Giaquinto was another scholar of Solimene. He 
 came from Naples to Rome, where he attached himself to 
 Conca to learn colouring, in which he chiefly followed his 
 
520 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 master s principles, though he was less correct and more of a 
 mannerist, and was accustomed to repeat himself in the 
 countenances of his children, which resemble the natives of 
 his own country. He was not, however, without merit, as he 
 possessed facility as well as vigour, and was known in the 
 Ecclesiastical State for various works executed in Rome, 
 Macerata, and other places. He went afterwards to Pied- 
 mont, as we shall mention at the proper time ; then to Spain, 
 where he was engaged in the service of the court, and gave 
 satisfaction to the greater part of the native artists. The 
 public taste in Spain, which had for a long time retained the 
 principles of the school founded by Titian, had been changed 
 within a few years. Luca Giordano was become the favorite, 
 and they admired his spirit, his freedom, and his despatch ; 
 qualities which were combined in Corrado. This partiality 
 lasted even after Mengs had introduced his style, which 
 in consequence appeared at first meagre and cold, to many 
 of the masters and connoisseurs of the day, when compared 
 with that of Luca Giordano ; until prejudice there, as in 
 Italy, ultimately yielded to truth. 
 
 Some other artists flourished in Rome at the commence- 
 ment, and, as far as the middle of the century, and some- 
 what beyond, who may, perhaps, have a claim to be remem- 
 bered. Of Francesco Fernandi, called L'Imperiali, the 
 Martyrdom of S. Eustachio, in the church of the saint of 
 that name, is well conceived and scientifically coloured. 
 Antonio Bicchierai, a fresco painter, is more particularly 
 known at S. Lorenzo in Panisperna, in which church he 
 painted a recess which did him honour. Michelangiolo Cer- 
 ruti, and Biagio Puccini, a Roman, about the time of Cle- 
 ment XL and Benedict XIII., were esteemed artists of good 
 execution. Of others who acquired some reputation in the 
 following pontificate, I shall write in other schools ; or if I 
 should not mention them, they may be found in the Guida of 
 the city. 
 
 I shall now pass from native to foreign artists, and shall 
 take a brief notice of them, since my work has grown upon 
 me with so many new Italian names, which are its proper 
 object, that I have not much spare room for foreigners, and a 
 sufficient notice of them may be found in their own country. 
 
FOREIGN ARTISTS. 
 
 521 
 
 Not a few oltremontani painted at this period in Rome, cele- 
 brated for the most part in the inferior branches of painting, 
 where they deserve commemoration. Some of them were 
 employed in the churches, as Gio. Batista Vanloo di Aix, a 
 favorite scholar of Luti, who painted the picture of the Fla- 
 gellation at S. Maria in Monticelli. But he did not remain 
 in Rome, but passed to Piedmont, and from thence to Paris 
 and London, and was celebrated for his historical composi- 
 tions, and highly esteemed in portrait. Some years after 
 Vanloo, Pietro Subleyras di Gilles settled in Rome, and con- 
 ferred great benefit on the Roman school ; for whilst it pro- 
 duced only followers of the old manuer, and thus fell gra- 
 dually into decay, he very opportunely appeared and intro- 
 duced an entirely new style. An academy had been founded 
 in Rome, by Louis XI Y., about the year 1666. Le Brun 
 had there co-operated, the Giulio Romano of France, and 
 the most celebrated of the four Carli, who were, at that time, 
 considered the supporters of the art ; the others, were Cig- 
 nani, Maratta, and Loth. It had already produced some 
 artists of celebrity, as Stefano Parocel, Gio. Troy, Carlo 
 Natoire, by whom many pictures are to be found in the pub- 
 lic edifices in Rome. There prevailed, however, in the style 
 of this school a mannerism, which in a few years brought it 
 into disrepute. Mengs designated it by the epithet of 
 spiritoso, and it consisted, according to him, in overstepping 
 the limits of beauty and propriety, overcharging both the 
 one and the other, and aiming at fascinating the eyes rather 
 than conciliating the judgment. Subleyras, educated in this 
 academy, reformed this taste, retaining the good, and reject- 
 ing the feeble part, and adding from his own genius what 
 was wanting to form a truly original manner. There was an 
 engaging variety in the air of his heads and in his attitudes, 
 and he had great merit in the distribution of his chiaroscuro, 
 which gives his pictures a fine general effect. He painted 
 with great truth ; but the figures and the drapery, under his 
 pencil, took a certain fulness which in him appears easy, be- 
 cause it is natural ; it remained his own, for although he left 
 some scholars, none of them ever emulated the grandeur of 
 style which distinguished their master. 
 
 He was mature in talent, when he left the academy, and 
 
522 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 tbe portrait which he, in preference to Masucci, painted of 
 Benedict XIV., established his reputation as the first painter 
 in Rome. He was soon afterwards chosen to paint the his- 
 tory of S. Basil, for the purpose of being copied in mosaic 
 for the church of the Vatican. The original is in the church 
 of the Carthusians, and astonishes, by the august represen- 
 tation of the Sacrificé solemnly celebrated by the saint, in 
 the presence of the emperor, who offers bread at the altar. 
 The countenances are very animated, and there is great 
 truth in the drapery and accompaniments, and the silks in 
 their lucid and light folds appear absolutely real. From this 
 production, and others of smaller size, and particularly the 
 Saint Benedict at the church of the Olivetani di Perugia, 
 which is, perhaps, his master-piece, he deserves a place in the 
 first collections, where, indeed, his pictures are rare and 
 highly prized. Further notices of this artist may be found in 
 the second volume of the "Giornale delle belle Arti." 
 
 Egidio Ale, of Liege, studied in Rome, and became a spi- 
 rited, pleasing, and elegant painter. His works in the sacristy 
 dell' Anima, in fresco and oil, painted in competition with 
 Morandi, Bonatti, and Romanelli, do him honour. Ignazio 
 Stern was a Bavarian, who was instructed by Cignani in Bo- 
 logna, and worked in Lombardy. An Annunciation in Pia- 
 cenza, in the church of the Nunziata, exhibits a certain grace 
 and elegance, which is peculiar to him, as is observed in the 
 description of the public pictures in that city. Stern after- 
 wards established himself in Rome, where he painted in fresco 
 the sacristy of S. Paolino, and left some oil pictures in the 
 church of S. Elizabetta, and in other churches. • He was 
 more particularly attached to profane history, conversations, 
 and similar subjects, which bave a place even in royal col- 
 lections. Spain possessed a disciple of the school of Maratta, 
 in Sebastiano Mugnoz, but dying young, he left few works 
 behind him. 
 
 In this place I ought to notice an establishment designed 
 " to revive the art in that quarter, where it seemed to have 
 so much declined," as D. Francesco Preziado, of that country, 
 says, in a letter which we shall shortly have occasion to men- 
 tion with commendation. " The Royal Academy of S. Ferdi- 
 nand, in Madrid, which owed its origin to Philip V., and was 
 
FOREIGN INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 523 
 
 completed and endowed by Ferdinand VI., sent several stu- 
 dents to Rome, and provided for their maintenance." They 
 there selected the master the most agreeable to their genius, 
 and had, in addition, a director, who was employed to super- 
 intend their studies ; as I am informed by Sig. Bonaventura 
 Benucci, a Roman painter, educated in that academy. Bottari 
 and all Rome called it the Spanish academy, and I myself, in a 
 former edition, followed the common report, and the two above- 
 named sovereigns I described as the founders of the academy. 
 Having been censured for this statement, I have here thought 
 proper to specify my authorities. It may without dispute be 
 asserted, that the Spanish students have left in Rome many 
 noble specimens of their talents and taste. D. Francesco Pre- 
 ziado was for many years the director of this academy, and 
 painted a Holy Family at the S. S. Quaranta, in a good 
 style. He made also a valuable communication to the " Lettere 
 Pittoriche" (torn. vi. p. 308), on the artists of Spain, very 
 useful to any one desiring information respecting this school, 
 which is less known than it deserves to be. 
 
 An institution very much on the plan of the French aca- 
 demy was founded in Rome a few years ago, by his most 
 faithful majesty, for Portuguese students, to the promotion of 
 which, two celebrated Portuguese, the Cav. de Manique, 
 intendant-general of the police in Lisbon, and the Count of 
 Sou za, minister of that court in Rome, had the merit of con- 
 tributing their assistance ; the one having projected, and the 
 other executed, the plan in the year 1791. The government 
 of the academy was entrusted to the Sig. Gio. Gherardo de* 
 Rossi, known for his very numerous and able writings, to 
 which he has recently added an ingenious little work, intitled, 
 " Scherzi poetici e pittorici," with engravings by a celebrated 
 academician. These establishments are of too recent a 
 date to allow me to speak further respecting their produc- 
 tions. 
 
 The provincial painters have been occasionally noticed in 
 connection with their masters. I here add a supplement, 
 which may be useful in the way of completion. Foligno pos- 
 sessed a Fra Umile Francescano, a good fresco painter, engaged 
 in Rome by Cardinal Castaldi, to ornament the tribune of S. 
 Margaret, while Gaulli and Garzi were commanded to paint 
 
524 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH Y. 
 
 the pictures for it. The Abbate Dondoli lived at Spello at 
 the beginning of this century. He was more to be commended 
 for his design than for his colouring. Marini has some cele- 
 brity in S. Severino, his native place. He was the scholar of 
 Cipriano Divini, whom he surpassed in his art. Marco Va- 
 netti, of Loreto, is known to me more from his life of Cignani, 
 who was his master, than from his own works. Antonio 
 Caldana, of Ancona, painted a very large composition in 
 Rome, in the sacristy of S. Niccola da Tolentino, from the life 
 of that saint. I do not know whether there remain any 
 works of his in his native place ; but there are a great num- 
 ber by a respectable artist, one Magatta, whose name was 
 Domenico Simonetti, and who painted the gallery of the Mar 
 diesi Trionfi ; he furnished many churches with his paintings, 
 and distinguished himself in that of the church of the Suffra- 
 gio, which is his most finished production. Anastasi di 
 Sinigaglia was a painter less elegant and finished, but free 
 and spirited. His works are not scarce in that city, and his 
 best are the two historical subjects in the church della Croce. 
 Three pictures by him also in S. Lucia di Monte Alboddo 
 are highly prized, and are called by the writer of the " Guida," 
 " Capi d'opera dell' Anastasi." Camillo Scacciani, of Pesaro, 
 called Carbone, flourished at the beginning of the age we are 
 writing on, and had a Caracciesque style allied to the modern. 
 There is a S. Andrea Avellino by him in the Duomo of 
 Pesaro ; his other works are in private collections. This 
 notice I deem sufficient, always excepting the living artists, 
 whom I of course omit.** 
 
 * Francesco Appiani, of Ancona, a scholar of Magatta, and not long 
 since deceased, did not find a place in my former edition, but is fully- 
 entitled to one in this. He studied a considerable time in Rome, whilst 
 Benefìal, Trevisani, Conca, and Mansini, flourished there ; and through 
 the friendship of these masters (particularly of the latter), was enabled to 
 form an agreeable style, of which he there left a specimen at S. Sisto Vecchio. 
 it is the death of S. Domenico, painted in fresco, by order of Benedict 
 XIII., who remunerated him with a gold medal. He went afterwards to 
 Perugia, where he was presented with the freedom of the city, and con- 
 tinued his labours there with unabated ardour, until ninety years of age,- 
 an instance of vigour unexampled, except in the case of Titian. Perugia 
 abounds with his paintings of all kinds, and his best works are to be found 
 in the churches of S. Pietro de' Cassinensi, S. Thomas, and Monte Corona. 
 He also decorated the church of S. Francis, and the vault of the cathedral, 
 
THE CAV. RAFFAELLO MENGS. 
 
 525 
 
 Three masters who died successively in the pontificate of 
 Pius VI. seem to require from me more than a transient 
 notice, and with them I shall conclude the series of historical 
 painters of the fifth epoch. I shall first commemorate the 
 Cav. Raffaello Mengs, from whom our posterity may perhaps 
 date a new and more happy era of the art. He was born in 
 Saxony, and brought to Rome by his father while yet a boy, 
 and was at that time skilled in miniature, and was a careful 
 and correct draughtsman. On his arrival in Rome, his father 
 employed him in copying the works of Raffaello, and chastised 
 the young artist for every fault in his work, with an incredible 
 severity, or rather inhumanity, inflicting on him even corporeal 
 punishment, and reducing his allowance of food. Being thus 
 compelled to study perfection, and endowed with a genius to 
 appreciate it and perceive it, he acquired a consummate taste 
 in art ; he communicated to Winckelmann very important 
 materials for his " Storia delle belle Arti," and was himself 
 the author of many profound and valuable essays on the fine 
 arts, which have materially contributed to improve the taste 
 of the present age. They have different titles, but all the 
 same aim, the discrimination of the real perfection of art.* 
 
 The artist, as characterized by Mengs, may be compared to 
 the orator of Cicero, and both are endued by their authors 
 with an ideal perfection, such as the world has never seen, and 
 
 where he rivalled the freedom of style and composition of Carloni. Both 
 he himself, and one of his pictures, placed in a church of Masaccio, are 
 eulogised in the " Antìch. Picene" (torn. xx. p. 159). He painted many 
 pictures also for England. 
 
 * For the more particular catalogue of these works, see the " Memorie 
 delle belle arti," 1788, in which year they were republished in Rome, 
 with the remarks of the Sig. Avvocato Fea, in one vol. 4to. and 2 vols. 
 8vo. The most celebrated treatise of Mengs is the *' Riflessioni sopra i 
 tre gran pittori, Raffaello, Tiziano, e Correggio, e sopra gli antichi." On 
 the life and style of Correggio he wrote a separate paper, which was after- 
 wards the subject of a controversy; for as, at the close of the year 1781, 
 appeared the " Notizie storiche del Correggio" of Ratti, accompanied by 
 a letter from Mengs, dated Madrid, 1774, in which he entreats Ratti to 
 collect and publish them, Ratti was by several writers accused of 
 plagiarism, and of having endeavoured, by a change of style and the 
 addition of some trifling matter, to appropriate to himself what in reality 
 belonged to Mengs. Not long afterwards there appeared an anonymous 
 Defence of Ratti, without date or plaee, for which I refer to the next 
 note. 
 
526 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 will probably never see ; and it is the real duty of an instructor 
 to recommend excellence, that in striving to attain it, we may 
 at least acquire a commendable portion of it. Considered in 
 this point of view, I should defend several of his writings, 
 where, in the opinion of others, he seems to assume a dicta- 
 torial tone in the judgment he passes on Guido, Domenichino, 
 and the Caracci ; the very triumvirate whom he proposes as 
 models in the art. Mengs assuredly was not so infatuated as 
 to hope to surpass these great men ; but because he knew that 
 no one does so well but that it might be done still better, he 
 shews where they attained the summit of art, and where they 
 failed. The artist, therefore, described by Mengs, and to 
 whose qualifications he also aspired, and was anxious that all 
 should do the same, ought to unite in himself the design and 
 beauty of the Greeks, the expression and composition of 
 Raffaello, the chiaroscuro and grace of Correggio, and, to 
 complete all, the colouring of Titian. This union of qualities 
 Mengs has analyzed with equal elegance and perspicuity, 
 teaching the artist how to form himself on that ideal beauty, 
 which is itself never realised. If, on some occasions, he 
 appears too enthusiastic, or in some degree obscure, it cannot 
 excite our surprise, as he wrote in a foreign language, and 
 was not much accustomed to composition. His ideas there- 
 fore stood in need of a refined scholar to render them clear 
 and intelligible ; and this advantage he would have procured, 
 had he been resolved to publish them ; but his works are all 
 posthumous, and were given to the world by his excellency 
 the Sig. Cav. Azara. Hence it frequently happens in his 
 works, that one treatise destroys another, as Tiraboschi has 
 observed in regard to his notice of Correggio, in his " Notizie 
 degli Artefici Modenesi and hence concludes that the 
 " Riflessioni di Mengs su i tre gran Pittori," where he finds 
 much to censure in Correggio, were written by him before he 
 saw the works of that master ; and that his " Memorie" on 
 the life of the same master, where he extols Coreggio to the 
 skies, and calls him the Apelles of modern painting, were 
 written after having seen and studied him.* In spite however 
 
 * In the M Difesa del Ratti," accused de repeiundis, this very obvious 
 contradiction is adduced as a proof that the 44 Memorie " were really 
 composed by that author. It is there asserted that he wrote them in a 
 
PAINTINGS BY MENGS. 
 
 527 
 
 of all objections, he will retain a distinguished place, as well 
 among the theorists or writers, as among professors themselves, 
 as long as the art endures. 
 
 We perhaps should not say that Mengs was a whetstone 
 which gave a new quality to the steel, which it could not 
 otherwise have acquired ; but that he was the steel itself, 
 which becomes brighter and finer the more it is used. He 
 became painter to the court of Dresden ; every fresh work 
 gave fresh proof of his progress in the art. He went after- 
 wards to Madrid, where in the chambers of the royal palace 
 he painted the assembly of the Gods, the Seasons, and the 
 various parts of the day, in an enchanting manner. After 
 repairing a second time to Rome to renew his studies, he 
 again returned to Madrid, where he painted in one of the 
 saloons the Apotheosis of Trajan, and in a theatre, Time sub- 
 duing Pleasure ; pictures much superior to his former pieces. 
 In Rome there are three large works by him ; the painting 
 in the vault of S. Eusebio ; the Parnassus in the saloon of 
 the Villa Albani, far superior to the preceding one 5* and 
 lastly, the cabinet of manuscripts in the Vatican was painted 
 by him, where the celestial forms of the angels, the majesty of 
 Moses, and the dignified character of S. Peter, the enchanting 
 colour, the relief, and the harmony, contribute to render this 
 chamber one of the most remarkable in Rome for its beautiful 
 
 dear and simple style, and then communicated them to Mengs, on whose 
 death they were found among his writings, and published as his. Some 
 other things are indeed said, that do not favour the cause of Ratti ; as 
 that when he was in Parma he consulted Mengs on what he should say of 
 the works of Correggio in that city, and as he could not see those in 
 Dresden, he had from him a minute account of them ; and also that 
 Mengs was accustomed to add remarks to the MS. on which his friends 
 consulted him. If, therefore, it be conceded that Mengs had such a share 
 in this MS. (which would appear to have been drawn up by the scholar 
 ander the direction of the master, as to opinions on art, and as to a cata- 
 logue of the best pictures, accompanied too with remarks), who does not 
 perceive that the best part of that work, and the great attraction of its 
 matter and style, is due to Mengs ? 
 
 * This picture is one of the most finished compositions since the resto- 
 ration of art. Each muse is there represented with her peculiar attri- 
 bute, as derived from antiquity ; and the artist is deservedly eulogized 
 by the Sig. Ab. Visconti, in the celebrated " Museo Pio dementino/' 
 torn. i. p. 57. 
 
528 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. — EPOCH V. 
 
 decorations. This constant endeavour to surpass himself 
 would be evident also from his easel pictures, if they were 
 not so rare in Italy ; as he painted many of this description 
 for London and the other capitals of Europe. In Rome 
 itself, where he studied young, where he long resided, to 
 which he always returned, and where at last he died, there 
 are few of his works to be found. We may enumerate the 
 portrait of Clement XIII. and his nephew Carlo, in the col- 
 lection of the prince Rezzonico ; that of Cardinal Zelada, 
 secretary of state ; and a few other pieces, in the possession of 
 private gentlemen, more particularly the Sig. Cav. Azara. 
 Florence has some large compositions by him in the Palazzo 
 Pitti, and his own portrait in the cabinet of painters, besides 
 the great Deposition from the Cross in chiaroscuro, for the 
 Marchese Rinuccini, which he was prevented by death from 
 colouring ; and a beautiful Genius in fresco in a chamber of 
 the Sig. Conte Senatore Orlando Malevolti del Benino. 
 
 Returning from the consideration of his works to Mengs 
 himself, I leave to others to estimate his merit, and to deter- 
 mine how far his principles are just.* As far as regards 
 myself, I cannot but extol that inextinguishable ardour of 
 improving himself by which he was particularly distinguished, 
 and which prompted him, even while he enjoyed the reputa- 
 
 * This eminent man was not without his enemies and calumniators, 
 excited by his criticisms on the great masters, and still more by his 
 animadversions on artists of inferior fame, and some recently deceased. 
 Cumberland wrote against him with manifest prejudice ; and the anony- 
 mous author of the " Difesa del Cav. Ratti,' ' the work of Ratti himself, 
 or for which at least he furnished the materials, speaks of him in a con- 
 temptuous manner. He particularly questions his literary character and 
 his discernment, and ascribes to his confidential friend, Winckelmann, 
 the merit of his remarks. In point of art he estimates Mengs as an 
 excellent, but by no means an unrivalled painter. Descending to parti- 
 culars, he publishes not a few criticisms, which he received either in MS. or 
 from the mouths of different professors, and adds others of his own. Of 
 these the experienced must form their own judgment. With regard to 
 his colouring, indeed, with which his rival Batoni found great fault, the 
 most inexperienced person may perceive that it is not faultless, as the 
 flesh tints are already altered by time, at least in some of his works. 
 Lastly, in the " Difesa " are some personal remarks regarding Mengs, 
 which, if Ratti, from respect to his late deceased friend, thought it right 
 to omit them in his life of him, printed in 1779, might with still greater 
 propriety have been spared in this subsequent work. 
 
POMPEO BATONI. 
 
 529 
 
 tlon of a first- rate master, to proceed in every work as if he 
 were only commencing his career. Truth was his great aim, 
 and he diligently studied the works of the first luminaries of 
 the art, analyzed their colours, and examined them in detail, 
 till he entered fully into the spirit and design of those great 
 models. Whilst employed in the ducal gallery in Florence, 
 he did not touch a pencil until he had attentively studied the 
 best pieces there, and particularly the Venus of Titian in the 
 tribune. In his hours of leisure he employed himself in care- 
 fully studying the fresco pictures of the best masters of that 
 school, which is so distinguished in this art. He was accus- 
 tomed to do the same by every work of celebrity which fell 
 in his way, whether ancient or modern ; all contributed to his 
 improvement, and to carry him nearer to perfection ; he was, 
 in short, a man of a most aspiring mind, and may be compared 
 to the ancient, who declared that he wished " to die learning." 
 If maxims like these were enforced, what rapid strides in the 
 art might we not expect ! But the greater part of artists 
 form for themselves a manner which may attract popularity, 
 and then relax their efforts, satisfied with the applause of the 
 crowd ; and if they feel the necessity of improving, it is not 
 with a design of acquiring a just reputation, but of adding to 
 the price of their works. 
 
 Notwithstanding the considerable space which Mengs has 
 occupied in our time, he has nevertheless left room for the 
 celebrity of Pompeo Batoni, of Lucca. The Cav. Boni, who 
 has honoured this artist with an elegant eulogium, thus ex- 
 presses himself in comparing him with Mengs. " The latter," 
 he says, " was the painter of philosophy, the former of nature. 
 Batoni had a natural taste which led him to the beautiful 
 without effort ; Mengs attained the same object by reflection 
 and study. Grace was the gift of nature in Batoni, as it had 
 formerly been in Apelles; while the higher attributes of 
 the art were allotted to Mengs as they were in former days to 
 Protogenes. Perhaps the first was more painter than philoso- 
 pher, the second more philosopher than painter. The latter, 
 perhaps, was more sublime, but more studied ; Batoni less pro- 
 found, but more natural. Not that I would insinuate that 
 nature was sparing to Mengs, or that Batoni was devoid of the 
 necessary science of the art, &c." If it were ever said with 
 
 vol. i. 2 m 
 
530 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 truth of any artist, that he was born a painter, this distinction 
 must be allowed to Batoni. He learned only the principles of 
 the art in his native country, and of the two correspondents 
 from whom I have received my information, the one considers 
 him to have been the scholar of Brugieri, the other of Lombardi, 
 as already mentioned (suprà, p. 259), and probably he was 
 instructed by both. He came young to Rome, and did not 
 frequent any particular school, but studied and copied Raffaello 
 and the old masters with unceasing assiduity, and thus learnt 
 the great secret of copying nature with truth and judgment. 
 
 That boundless and instructive volume, open to all, but 
 cultivated by few, was rightly appreciated by Batoni, and it 
 was hence that he derived that beautiful variety in his heads 
 and contours, which is sometimes wanting even in the great 
 masters, who were occasionally too much addicted to the ideal. 
 Hence, too, he derived the gestures and expressions most ap- 
 propriate to each subject. Persuaded that a vivid imagina- 
 tion was not alone sufficient to depict those fine traits in which 
 the sublimity of the art consists, he did not adopt any attitudes 
 which were not found in nature. He took from nature the 
 first ideas, copied from her every part of the figure, and 
 adapted the drapery and folds from models. He afterwards 
 embellished and perfected his work with a natural taste, and 
 enlivened all with a style of colour peculiarly his own ; clear, 
 engaging, lucid, and preserving after the lapse of many years, 
 as in the picture of various saints at S. Gregorio, all its ori- 
 ginal freshness. This was in him not so much an art as the 
 natural ebullition of his genius. He sported with his pencil. 
 Every path was open to him ; painting in various ways, now 
 with great force, now with a touch, and now finishing all by 
 strokes. Sometimes he destroyed the whole work, and gave 
 it the requisite force by a line.* Although he was not a man 
 of letters, he yet shews himself a poet in conception, both in 
 a sublime and playful style. One example from a picture in 
 the possession of his heirs will suffice. Wishing to express 
 the dreams of an enamoured girl, he has represented her 
 
 * See the " Elogio di Pompeo Batoni,' ' page 66, where the illustrious 
 author, who, to his other accomplishments, adds that of painting, expa- 
 tiates at length, and in the style of a professor, on this wonderful talent of 
 Batoni. 
 
PAINTINGS BY BATONI. 
 
 531 
 
 wrapped in soft slumbers, and surrounded by loves, two of 
 whom present to her splendid robes and jewels, and a third 
 approaches her with arrows in his hand, while she, captivated 
 by the vision, smiles in her sleep. Many of these poetical 
 designs, and many historical subjects, are in private collec- 
 tions, and in the courts of Europe, from which he had con- 
 stant commissions. 
 
 Batoni possessed an extraordinary talent for portrait 
 painting, and had the honour of being employed by three 
 pontiffs in that branch of the art, Benedict XIV., Clement 
 XIII., and Pius YI. ; to whom may be added the emperor 
 Joseph II., and his august brother and successor, Leopold II., 
 the grand duke of Muscovy, and the grand duchess, be- 
 sides numerous private individuals. He for some time painted 
 miniatures, and transferred that care and precision which is 
 essential in that branch to his larger productions, without 
 attenuating his style by hardness. We find an extraordinary 
 proof of this in his altar-pieces, spread over Italy, and men- 
 tioned by us in many cities, particularly in Lucca. Of those 
 that remain in Rome, Mengs gave the preference to S. Celso, 
 which is over the great altar of that church. Another pic- 
 ture, the Fall of Simon Magus, is in the church of the Certosa. 
 It was intended to have been copied in mosaic for the Vati- 
 can, and to have been substituted for a picture of the same 
 subject by Vanni, the only one in that church on stone. But 
 the mosaic, from some cause or other, was not executed. 
 Perhaps the subject displeased, from not being evangelical, 
 and the idea of removing the picture of Vanni not being re- 
 sumed, the subject was changed, and a commission given to 
 Mengs to paint the Government of the Church conferred on 
 S. Peter. He made a sketch for it in chiaroscuro with great 
 care, which is in the Palazzo Chigi, but did not live to finish 
 it in colours. This sketch evinces a design and composition 
 superior to the picture of Batoni, but the subject of the latter 
 was more vigorously conceived. At all events, however, 
 Batoni must henceforth be considered the restorer of the 
 Roman school, in which he lived until his 79th year, and 
 educated many pupils in his profession. 
 
 The example of the two last eminent artists was not lost 
 on Antonio Cavallucci da Sermoneta, whose name when I 
 
 2m 2 
 
532 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. — EPOCH V. 
 
 began to print this volume, I did not expect would here have 
 found a place. But having recently died, some notice is due 
 to his celebrity, as he is already ranked with the first artists 
 of his day. He was highly esteemed both in Rome and else- 
 where. The Primaziale of Pisa, which in the choice of its 
 artists consulted no recommendation but that of character, 
 employed him on a considerable work, representing S. Bona 
 of that city taking the religious habit. It breathes a sacred 
 piety, which he himself both felt and expressed in a striking 
 manner. In this picture he wished to shew that the examples 
 of Christian humility, such as burying in a cloister the gifts 
 of nature and fortune, are susceptible of the gayest decora- 
 tion. This he effected by introducing a train of noble men 
 and women, who, according to custom, assisted in the so- 
 lemnity. In this composition, in which he follows the prin- 
 ciples of Batoni rather than those of Mengs, we may perceive 
 both his study of nature and his judgment and facility in 
 imitating her. Another large picture of the saints Placido 
 and Mauro, he sent into Catania, and another of S. Francesco 
 di Paola he executed for the church of Loreto, and which was 
 copied in mosaic. In Pome are his S. Elias and the Purga- 
 torio, two pictures placed at S. Martino a' Monti, and many 
 works in the possession of the noble family of Gaetani, who 
 were the first to encourage and support this artist. His last 
 work was the Venus and Ascanius, in the Palazzo Cesarini, 
 which has been described to me as a beautiful production by 
 the Sig. Gio. Gherardo de Rossi, who has declared his inten- 
 tion of publishing the Life of Cavallucci, which will no doubt 
 be done in his usual masterly manner. 
 
 The Roman school has recently had to regret the loss of 
 two accomplished masters ; Domenico Corvi of Viterbo, and 
 Giuseppe Cades of Rome, who although younger than Corvi, 
 and for some years his scholar, died before him. In my no- 
 tice of them I shall begin with the master, who has been 
 honoured and eulogized more than once in the respectable 
 " Memorie delle belle Arti," as well as his scholar, and also 
 some other disciples ; as there was not in Rome in the latter 
 times any school mGre productive in talent. He was truly 
 an accomplished artist, and there were few to compare with 
 him in anatomy, perspective, and design ; and from Mancini, 
 
CORVI AND CADES. 
 
 533 
 
 his instructor, he acquired something of the style of the 
 Caracci. Hence, his academy drawings are highly prized, 
 and I may say, more sought after than his pictures, which 
 indeed want that fascination of grace and colour which 
 attracts the admiration alike of the learned and the vulgar. 
 He maintained an universal delicacy of colour, and was accus- 
 tomed to defend the practice by asserting, with what justice 
 I cannot say, that pictures painted in that manner were less 
 liable to become black. His most esteemed works are his 
 night-pieces, as the Birth of our Saviour, in the church of 
 the Osservanti at Macerata, which is perhaps the summit of 
 his efforts. Some amateurs went thither express towards the 
 close of day ; a lofty window opposite favoured the illu- 
 sion of the perspective of the picture ; and Corvi, who in 
 other pictures is inferior to Gherardo delle Notti, viewed in 
 this manner, here excels him, by an originality of perspective 
 and general effect. He worked much both for his own coun- 
 trymen and foreigners, besides the pictures which he kept 
 ready by him, to supply the daily calls of purchasers, and 
 many of which are still on sale in the house of his widow. 
 
 Cades recommends himself to our notice principally by a 
 facility of imitation, dangerous to the art when it is not go- 
 verned by correct principles. No simulator of the character 
 of another handwriting could ever rival him in the dexterity 
 with which at a moment's call he could imitate the physiog- 
 nomy, the naked figure, the drapery, and the entire character 
 of every celebrated designer. The most experienced persons 
 would sometimes request from him a design after Michel- 
 angelo or Raffaello, or some other great master, which he 
 instantly complied with, and when confronted with an indis- 
 putable specimen of the master, and these persons were re- 
 quested to point out the original, as Bonarruoti for example, 
 they often hesitated, and frequently fixed on the design of 
 Cades. He was, notwithstanding, extremely honourable. 
 He made on one occasion a large design in the style of 
 Sanzio, to deceive the director of a foreign cabinet, who 
 boasted an infallible knowledge of the touch of Raffaello ; and 
 employing a person to shew it to him, with some fictitious 
 history attached to it, the director purchased it at 500 zee- 
 chins. Cades wishing to return the money, the other refused 
 
534 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 to receive it, insisting on retaining the drawing, and disre- 
 garding all the protestations of the artist, and his request to 
 be remunerated by a smaller sum ; and this drawing is at this 
 moment probably considered as an original, in one of the 
 finest cabinets of Europe. He was confident in his talents 
 from his early years, and on a public occasion he made a 
 drawing after the bent of his own genius, regardless of the 
 directions of Corvi, who wished it to be done in another 
 style, and he was in consequence dismissed from that school. 
 This drawing obtained the first premium, and now exists in 
 the academy of S. Luke, where it is much admired. In the 
 art of colouring, too, he owed little to the instruction of mas- 
 ters, and much to his native talent of imitation. I have seen 
 exhibited in the church of the Holy Apostles, a picture by 
 him, which in the upper part represents the Madonna with 
 the Holy Infant, and in the inferior part five saints, an alle- 
 gorical picture, as I have heard suggested, relating to the 
 election of Clement XIV. That pope was elected by the 
 suffrages of the Cardinal Carlo Rezzonico and his friends, 
 and contrary to the expectation of P. Innocenzio Buontempi, 
 who ordered the picture, and who after this election was pro- 
 moted by the pope to the eminent station of Maestro nel S. 
 Ordine Serafico, and afterwards to that of the pope's con- 
 fessor. Hence this piece represents in the centre S. Clement 
 reading the sacred volume ; on his right is S. Carlo, who 
 appears to admire his learning, and by his attitude seems to 
 say, " This is a man justly entitled to the pontificate and in 
 the last place S. Innocent the pope, which representing the 
 person of the P. Maestro, must here for the sake of propriety 
 yield the place to the Cardinal S. Carlo. In the back-ground 
 are S. Francis and S. Anthony, half-figures. Cades here 
 took for his model the picture of Titian in the Quirinal, 
 which he imitated as well in the composition as in the colour. 
 And in this, indeed, he proceeded too far, giving it that ob- 
 scure tone which the works of Titian have acquired only by 
 the lapse of time. Cades here defended himself by saying 
 that this piece was intended to be placed in the church of 
 S. Francesco di Fabriano in a very strong light, where if the 
 colours had not been kept low, they would have been dis- 
 pleasing to the spectator. There is an error in the perspec- 
 
LANDSCAPE PAINTERS. 
 
 535 
 
 tire which cannot be overlooked. The allegorical figure of 
 P. M. Innocenzio, who stands amazed at the sudden pheno- 
 menon, appears to be out of equilibrium, and would fall in 
 real life. Other faults of colour, of costume, or of vulgarity 
 of form, are noticed in others of his pictures by the author of 
 the " Memorie," in torn. i. and iii. But as he advanced in 
 life he improved his style from study, and attending to the 
 criticisms of the public. In torn. iii. just referred to, we find 
 the description of one of his works executed for the Villa 
 Pinciana, the subject of which is taken from Boccaccio : 
 Walter Conte di Anguersa recognised in London. Let us 
 weigh the opinion which this eminent author gives of this 
 most beautiful composition, or let us compare it with the pic- 
 ture of S. Joseph of Copertino, which he painted at twenty- 
 one years of age, as an altar-piece in the church of the 
 Apostles, and we shall perceive the rapid strides which are 
 made by genius. Other princely families, besides the Bor- 
 ghesi, availed themselves of his talents to ornament their 
 palaces and villas ; as the Ruspoli and the Chigi, and he 
 executed several works for the empress of Russia. He died 
 before he had attained his fiftieth year, and not long after he 
 had so much improved his style. In the opinion of some, his 
 execution still required to be rendered more uniform, since he 
 sometimes displayed as many different manners in a picture 
 as there were figures. But in that he might plead the 
 example of Caracci, as we shall notice on a proper oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 We shall now pass to other branches of the art, and shall 
 commence with landscapes. In this period flourished the 
 scholars of the three famous landscape painters, described in 
 their proper place, besides Grimaldi, mentioned in the 
 Bolognese School, who resided a considerable time in Rome ; 
 and Paolo Anesi, of whom we made mention in speaking of 
 Zuccherelli. With Anesi lived Andrea Lucatelli, a Roman, 
 whose talents are highly celebrated in every inferior branch of 
 the art. In the archbishop's gallery in Milan are a number of 
 his pictures, historical, architectural, and landscapes. In 
 these he often appears original in composition, and in the 
 disposition of the masses ; he is varied in his touch, delicate 
 in his colouring, and elegant in his figures, which, as we shall 
 
536 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 see, he was also accustomed to paint in the Flemish style, 
 separate from his landscapes. 
 
 Francis Van Blomen was a less finished artist, and from 
 the hot and vaporous air of his pictures, obtained the name 
 of Orizzonte. The palaces of the pope and nobility in Rome 
 abound with his landscapes in fresco and oil. In the character 
 of his trees, and in the composition of his landscapes, he 
 commonly imitated Poussin. In his general tone there pre- 
 dominates a greenish hue mixed with red. His pictures are 
 not all equally finished, but they rise in value as those of 
 older artists become injured by time, or rare from being 
 purchased by foreigners. At the side of Van Blomen we 
 often find the works of some of his best scholars, as Giacciuoli 
 and Francis Ignazio, a Bavarian. 
 
 At the same time lived in Rome Francesco Wallint, called 
 M. Studio, who painted small landscapes and sea views, 
 ornamented with very beautiful figures ; devoid however of 
 that sentiment which is the gift of nature, and that delicacy 
 which charms in the Italian school. He imitated Claude : 
 Wallint the younger, his son, attached himself to the same 
 manner with success, but did not equal his father. 
 
 At the beginning of this epoch, or thereabouts, there 
 flourished two artists in Perugia, in the same line : Ercolano 
 Ercolanetti, and Pietro Montanini, the scholar of Ciro Ferri 
 and of Rosa. The last was ambitious of the higher walks of 
 art, and attempted the decoration of a church, but failed in 
 the attempt, as his talent was restricted to landscape ; and 
 even when he added figures to these, they were not very 
 correct, and possessed more spirit than accuracy of design. 
 He was nevertheless a pleasing painter, and his pictures were 
 sought after by foreigners. In Perugia there is an abundance 
 of his works, and some are to be seen in the sacristy of the 
 Eremitani, which might be said to discover a Flemish style. 
 
 Alessio de Marchis, a Neapolitan, is not much known in 
 Rome, although in the Ruspoli and Albani palaces, some 
 pleasing pieces by him are pointed out. He is better known 
 in Perugia and Urbino, and the adjacent cities. It is said 
 that, in order to obtain a study for a picture from nature, he 
 set fire to a barn. For this act be was condemned to the 
 galleys for several years, and was liberated under the pontifi- 
 
MANGLARD AND VERNET. 
 
 537 
 
 cate of Clement XL, whose palace in Urbino he decorated 
 with architectural ornaments, distant views, and beautiful sea- 
 pieces, more in the style of Rosa than any other artist. 
 There is an extraordinarily fine picture by him of the Burn- 
 ing of Troy, in the collection of the Semproni family, and 
 some landscapes in other houses in Urbino, in which he has 
 displayed all his genius, and extended it also to figures. But 
 in general there is little more to praise in him than his spirit, 
 his happy touch, and natural colouring, particularly in fires, 
 and the loaded and murky air, and the general tone of the 
 piece, as the detached parts are negligent and imperfect. 
 He left a son, also a landscape painter, but not of much 
 celebrity. 
 
 At the beginning of the century Bernardino Fergioni dis- 
 played in Rome an extraordinary talent in sea views, and 
 harbours, to which he added a variety of humorous figures. 
 He was first a painter of animals, and afterwards tried this 
 line with better success ; but his fame was a few years after- 
 wards eclipsed by two Frenchmen, Adrian Manglard, of a 
 solid, natural, and correct taste ; and his scholar, Joseph 
 Vernet, who surpassed his master by his spirit and his 
 charming colouring. The first seemed to paint with a degree 
 of timidity and care, the latter in the full confidence of genius ; 
 the one seemed to aim at truth, the other at beauty. Mang- 
 lard was many years in Rome, and his works are to be seen 
 in the Villa Albani, and in many other palaces. Vernet is 
 to be seen in the Rondanini mansion, and in a few other 
 collections. 
 
 There were not many painters of battles during this epoch, 
 except the scholars of Borgognone. Cristiano Reder, called 
 also M. Leandro, who came to Rome about 1686, the year of 
 the taking of Buda, devoted himself, in conformity with the 
 feelings of the times, to painting battles between the Chris- 
 tians and the Turks ; but his pictures, though well touched, 
 were soon depreciated from the great number of them. The 
 best, in the opinion of Pascoli, was that in the gallery de' 
 Minimi ; and he left many also in the palaces of the nobility. 
 He was also expert in landscape and humorous subjects, and 
 was assisted by Peter Van Blomen, called also Stendardo, the 
 brother of Francis Orizzonte. Stendardo also painted battle- 
 pieces, but he was more attached to Bambocciate, in the 
 
538 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 Flemish style, wherein he delights to introduce animals, and 
 particularly horses, in designing which he was very expert, 
 and almost unrivalled. His distances are very clear, and 
 afford a fine relief to his figures. 
 
 In Rome, and throughout the Ecclesiastical State, we find 
 many pictures of this sort by that Lucatelli who has been 
 mentioned among the landscape painters. The connoisseurs 
 attribute to him two different manners ; the first good, the 
 second still better, and exhibiting great taste, both in colour- 
 ing and invention. In some collections we find Monaldi near 
 him, who, although of a similar taste, yielded to him in cor- 
 rectness of design, in colour, and in that natural grace which 
 may be called the Attic salt of this mute poetry. 
 
 I have not ascertained who was the instructor of Antonio 
 Amorosi, a native of Comunanza, and a fellow-countryman of 
 Ghezzi, and his co-disciple also in the school of the Cav. 
 Giuseppe (Yernet). I only know that he is in his way 
 equally facetious, and sometimes satirical. Like Ghezzi he 
 painted pictures in the churches, which are to be found in 
 the " Guida di Roma ? he did not, however, succeed so well in 
 them as in his bambocciate, which would appear really 
 Flemish if the colours were more lucid. He is less known in 
 the metropolis than in Piceno, where he is to be seen in many 
 collections, and is mentioned in the " Guida d'Ascoli." He 
 pleased also in foreign countries, and represented subjects 
 from common life, as drinking-parties in taverns in town and 
 country, on which occasion he discovered no common talent 
 in architecture, landscape, and the painting of animals. 
 
 Arcangelo Resani, of Rome, the scholar of Boncuore, 
 painted animals in a sufficiently good taste, accompanying 
 them with large and small figures, in which he had an equal 
 talent. In the Medici gallery is his portrait, with a specimen 
 attached of the art in which he most excelled, the representa- 
 tion of still life. In the same way Nuzzi added flowers, and 
 other artists landscapes, to their portraits. 
 
 Carlo Yoglar, or Carlo da Fiori, was a painter of fruit 
 and flowers in a very natural style, and was also distinguished 
 in painting dead game. He had a rival in this style in 
 Francesco Varnetam, called Deprait, who was still more 
 ingenious in adding glass and portraits, and composed his 
 pieces in the manner of a good figurist. This artist, after 
 
P. ANDREA POZZO. 
 
 539 
 
 residing several years in Rome, was appointed painter to the 
 imperial court, and died in Vienna, after having spread his 
 works and his fame through all Germany. In the time of 
 the two preceding artists, Christian Bernetz was celebrated, 
 who on the death of the first, and the departure of the second 
 artist, remained in Rome the chief painter in this style. All 
 the three were known to Maratta, and employed by him in 
 ornamenting his pictures ; and he enriched theirs in return 
 with children and other figures, which have rendered them 
 invaluable. The last was arlso a friend of Garzi, in conjunc- 
 tion with whom he painted pictures, each taking the depart- 
 ment in which they most excelled. Scipione Angelini, of 
 Perugia, improperly called Angeli by Guarienti, was cele- 
 brated by Pascoli for similar talents. His flowers appear 
 newly plucked and sparkling with dew-drops. In the 
 " Memorie Messinesi," I find that Agostino Scilla, when he 
 was exiled from Sicily, repaired to Rome, where he died. 
 Whilst in Rome, he seemed to shun all competition with the 
 historical painters, and occupied himself (with a certainty of 
 not being much celebrated) in designing animals, and in 
 other inferior branches of the art. In this line both He and 
 Giacinto, his younger brother, had great merit. Saverio, the 
 son of Agostino, who, on the death of them both, continued to 
 reside and to paint in Rome, did not equal them in reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 During this period of the decline of the art, one branch of 
 painting, perspective, made an extraordinary progress by the 
 talents of P. Andrea Pozzo, a Jesuit, and a native of Trent. 
 He became a painter and architect from his native genius, 
 rather than from the instruction of any master. His habit of 
 copying the best Venetian and Lombard pictures had given 
 him a good style of colour, and a sufficiently correct design, 
 which he improved in Rome, where he resided many years. 
 He painted also in Genoa and Turin, and in these cities and 
 in both the states, we find some beautiful works, the more so 
 as they resemble Rubens in tone, to whose style of colour he 
 aspired. There are not many of his oil paintings in Italy, 
 and few of them are finished, as S. Venanzio in Ascoli, and S. 
 Borgia at S. Remo. Even the picture of S. Ignatius at the 
 Gesù, in Rome, is not equally rendered in every part. 
 
540 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. — EPOCH V. 
 
 Nevertheless, he appears on the whole, a fine painter, his 
 design well conceived, his forms beautiful, his colours fascinat- 
 ing, and the touch of his pencil free and ready. Even his 
 less-finished performances evince his genius ; and of the last- 
 mentioned picture, I heard from P. Giulio Cordara, an 
 eminent writer in verse and prose, an anecdote which 
 deserves preservation. A painter of celebrity being directed 
 to substitute another in its place, declared that neither himself 
 nor any other living artist could execute a superior work. 
 His despatch was such, that in four hours he began and 
 finished the portrait of a cardinal, who was departing the 
 same day for* Germany. 
 
 He occupies a conspicuous place among the ornamental 
 painters, but his works in this way would be more perfect if 
 there was not so great a redundance of decoration, as vases, 
 festoons, and figures of boys in the cornices, though this 
 indeed was the taste of the age. The ceiling of the church of 
 S. Ignatius is his greatest work, and which would serve to 
 shew his powers, if he had left nothing else, as it exhibits a 
 novelty of images, an amenity of colour, and a picturesque 
 spirit, which attracted even the admiration of Maratta and Ciro 
 Ferri ; the last of whom, amazed that Andrea had in so few 
 years, and in so masterly a manner, peopled, as he called it, 
 this Piazza Navona, concluded that the horses of other artists 
 went at a common pace, but those of Pozzo on the gallop. 
 He is the most eminent of perspective painters, and even in 
 the concaves has given a convex appearance to the pieces of 
 architecture represented, as in the Tribune of Frascati, where 
 he painted the Circumcision of Jesus Christ, and in a corridor 
 of the Gesù at Rome. He succeeded too in a surprising 
 manner in deceiving the eye with fictitious cupolas in many 
 churches of his order ; in Turin, Modena, Mondovi, Arezzo, 
 Montepulciano, Rome, and Vienna, to which city he was 
 invited by the emperor Leopold I. He also painted scenes 
 for the theatres, and introduced colonnades and palaces with 
 such inimitable art, that it renders more credible the wonder- 
 ful accounts handed down to us by Yitruvius and Pliny of the 
 skill of the ancients in this art. Although well grounded 
 in the theory of optics, as his two volumes of perspective 
 prove, it was his custom never to draw a line without first 
 
ARCHITECTURAL PAINTERS. 
 
 541 
 
 Laving made a model, and thus ascertained the correct dis- 
 tribution of the light and shade. When he painted on 
 canvas, he laid on a light coat of gum, and rejected the use 
 of chalk, thinking that when the colours were applied, the 
 latter prevented the softening of the lights and shadows, when 
 requisite. 
 
 He had many scholars who imitated him in perspective ; 
 some in fresco ; others in oil, taking their designs from real 
 buildings, and at other times painting from their own inven- 
 tions. One of these was Alberto Carìieri, a Roman, a 
 painter also of small figures, of whom Orlandi makes mention. 
 Antonio Colli, another of his scholars, painted the great altar 
 at S. Pantaleo, and decorated it in perspective in so beautiful 
 a manner, that it was by some taken for the work of his 
 master. Of Agostino Collaceroni of Bologna, considered of 
 the same school, we have before spoken. 
 
 There were also architectural painters in ether branches. 
 Pierfrancesco Garoli, of Turin, painted the interior of 
 churches, and Garzi supplied the figures. Tiburzio Verzelli, 
 of Recanati, is little known beyond Piceno, his birth-place. 
 The noble family of Calamini, of Recanati, possess perhaps 
 his best picture, the Elevation of S. Pietro in Vaticano, one 
 of the most beautiful and largest works of this kind that ever 
 I saw, which occupied this master several years in finishing. 
 Gaspare Vanvitelli, of Utrecht, called Dagli Occhiali, may 
 be called the painter of modern Rome ; his pictures, which 
 are to be found in all parts of Europe, represent the magnifi- 
 cent edifices of that city, to which landscapes are added, 
 when the subject admits of it. He also painted views of 
 other cities, seaports, villas, and farm-houses, useful alike to 
 painters and to architects. He painted some large pictures, 
 though most of his works are of a small size. He was correct 
 in his proportions, lively and clear in his tints, and there is 
 nothing left to desire, except a little more spirit and variety 
 in the landscape or in the sky, as the atmosphere is always 
 of a pale azure, or carelessly broken by a passing cloud. He 
 was the father of Luigi Vanvitelli, a painter, who owed his 
 great name to architecture, as we shall see was the case also 
 with the celebrated Serlio. 
 
 But no painter of perspective has found more admirers 
 
542 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 than the Cav. Gio. Paolo Pannini, mentioned elsewhere ; not 
 so much for the correctness of his perspective, in which he 
 has many equals, as for his charming landscape and spirited 
 figures. It cannot indeed be denied, that these latter are 
 sometimes too high in proportion to the buildings, and that 
 also, to shun the dryness of Yiviani, he has a mannered style 
 of mixing a reddish hue in his shadows. For the first defect 
 there is no remedy ; but the second will be alleviated by time, 
 which will gradually subdue the predominant colour. 
 
 Lastly, to this epoch the art of mosaic owes the great per- 
 fection which it attained, in imitating painting, not only by 
 the means of small pieces of marble selected and cemented 
 together, but by a composition which could produce every 
 colour, emulate every tint, represent each degree of shade, 
 and every part, equal to the pencil itself. Baglione attri- 
 butes the improvement in this art to Muziani, whom he calls 
 the inventor of working mosaics in oil ; and that which he 
 executed for the Cappella Gregoriana, he praises as the most 
 beautiful mosaic that has been formed since the time of the 
 ancients. Paolo Rossetti of Cento was employed there under 
 Muziani, and instructed Marcello Provenzale, his fellow- 
 countryman. Both left many works beautifully painted in 
 mosaic ; and the second, who lived till the time of Paul V., 
 painted the portrait of that pope, and some cabinet pictures. 
 An extensive work, as has often been the case, was the cause 
 of improving this art. The humidity of the church of S. 
 Peter was so detrimental to oil paintings, that from the time 
 of Urban VIII. there existed an idea of substituting mosaics 
 in their place. The first altar-piece was executed by a 
 scholar of Provenzale, already mentioned, Giambatista Calan- 
 dra, born in Vercelli. It represents S. Michael, and is of a 
 small size, copied from a picture of the Cav. d'Arpino. He 
 afterwards painted other subjects in the small cupolas, and 
 near some windows of the church, from the cartoons of 
 Romanelli, Lanfranco, Sacchi, and Pellegrini ; but thinking 
 his talents not sufficiently rewarded, he began to work also 
 for individuals, and painted portraits, or copied the best 
 productions of the old masters. Among these, Pascoli 
 particularly praises a Madonna copied from a picture of 
 Raffaello, in possession of the queen of Sweden, and of this 
 
WORKS IN MOSAIC. 
 
 543 
 
 and other similar works he judged that from their harmony 
 of colour and high finishing, they were deserving of close 
 and repeated inspection. 
 
 At this time great approaches were made towards the mo- 
 dern style of mosaic ; but this art was afterwards carried to 
 a much higher pitch by the two Cristofori, Fabio, and his son 
 Pietro Paolo. These artists painted the S. Petronilla, copied 
 from the great picture of Guercino, the S. Girolamo of Do- 
 menichino, and the Baptism of Christ by Maratta. For 
 other works by him and his successors, I refer the reader to 
 the " Descrizione" of the pictures of Rome above cited. 
 
 Before I finish this portion of my work, I would willingly 
 pay a tribute to the numerous living professors, who have 
 been or who are now resident in Rome ; but it would be diffi- 
 cult to notice them all, and to omit any might seem invidious. 
 We may be allowed, however, to observe that the improve- 
 ment which has taken place in the art of late years has had 
 its origin in Rome. That city at no period wholly lost its 
 good taste, and even in the decline of the art was not without 
 connoisseurs and artists of the first merit. Possessing in 
 itself the best sources of taste in so many specimens of Gre- 
 cian sculpture, and so many works of Raffaello, it is there 
 always easy to judge how near the artists approach to, and 
 how far they recede from, their great prototypes of art. This 
 criterion too is more certain in the present age, when it is the 
 custom to pay less respect to prejudices and more to reason ; 
 so that there can be no abuse of this useful principle. The 
 works too of Winckelmann and Mengs have contributed to 
 improve the general taste ; and if we cannot approve every 
 thing we there find, they still possess matter highly valuable, 
 and are excellent guides of genius and talent. This object 
 has also been promoted by the discovery of the ancient pic- 
 tures in Herculaneum, the Baths of Titus, and of the Villa 
 Adriana, and the exquisite vases of Nola, and similar remains 
 of antiquity. These have attracted every eye to the antique; 
 Mengs and "Winckelmann have admirably illustrated the his- 
 tory of ancient sculpture, and the art of painting may be 
 more advantageously studied from the valuable engravings 
 which have been published, than from any book. From these 
 extraordinary advantages the fine arts have extended their 
 
544 
 
 ROMAN SCHOOL. EPOCH V. 
 
 influence to circles where they were before unknown, and 
 have received a new tone from emulation as well as interest. 
 The custom of exhibiting the productions of art to a public 
 who can justly appreciate them, and distinguish the good 
 from the bad ; the rewards assigned to the most meritorious, 
 of whatever nation, accompanied by the productions of lite- 
 rary men, and public rejoicings in the Campidoglio ; the 
 splendour of the sacred edifices peculiar to the metropolis of 
 the Christian world, which., while the art contributes to its 
 decoration, extends its protection in return to the professors 
 of that art ; the lucrative commissions from abroad, and in 
 the city itself, from the munificence and unbounded liberality 
 of Pius VI. and that of many private individuals ;* the cir- 
 cumstance of foreign sovereigns frequently seeking in this 
 emporium for masters, or directors for their academies ; all 
 these causes maintain both the artists and their schools in per- 
 petual motion, and in a generous emulation, and by degrees 
 we may hope to see the art restored to its true principles, the 
 imitation of nature and the example of the great masters. 
 There is not a branch, not only of painting, but even of the 
 arts depending on it, as miniature, mosaic, enamel, and the 
 weaving of tapestry, that is not followed there in a laudable 
 manner. Whoever desires to be further informed of the pre- 
 sent state of the Roman school, and of the foreign artists 
 resident in Rome, should peruse the four volumes entitled, 
 " Memorie per le belle Arti," published from the year 1785, 
 and continued to the year 1788, a periodical work deserving 
 a place in every library of the fine arts, and which was, I 
 regret to add, prematurely discontinued, 
 
 * The decoration of the Villa Pinciana, in which the prince Borghesi 
 has given encouragement to so many eminent artists, is an undertaking 
 that deserves to be immortalized in the history of art. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
177 Lanzi, Abate \J 
 Revival of the Fine | 
 493 pp. text of the 
 London, Bohn, 1847 
 
 167 (Guasti, Cesare). La O 
 pinta nel Secolo XIV. 18 pp. 
 1871.