LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OP 
 
 CALFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 ffr
 
 
 xnuL-? 
 
 2/oc
 
 LIVES 
 
 OF THE MOST EMINENT 
 
 f, Ettfr irrjjt 
 
 THE ORDER OF S. DOMINIC.
 
 LIVES 
 
 THE MOST EMINENT 
 
 , Intljifiira fa Itrjjikts 
 
 THE ORDER OF S. DOMINIC. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OP 
 
 /at jitr Jtarjjm rf t ju sutnB Snstittite, 
 
 WITH NOTES, ETC., 
 
 BY THE EEV. C. P. MEEHAN. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 
 JAMES DUFFY, 7, WELLINGTON QUAY. 
 1852.
 
 DUBI.IX : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. M. o'TOOI.K, 
 13, II A WKIXS'-8TR KKT.
 
 SIR YERE DE YERE, BARONET, 
 
 THESE VOLUMES ARE MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 
 
 THE TRANSLATOR.
 
 AFTER perusing Father Marchese's work, and the many 
 highly encomiastic notices bestowed on it by Reviewers 
 and Ecclesiological ' writers, it occurred to me that I 
 would be doing valuable service to Religion, Arts, and to 
 the Monastic Institutions particularly, if I were to give an 
 English version of the original Italian. Encouraged by 
 various Prelates, Clergymen, Noblemen, Protestants as 
 well as Catholics, and also by some of the most distin- 
 guished members of the Catholic Laity in England and 
 Ireland, I laboured according to the best of my ability 
 to produce the following pages ; and completed the trans- 
 lation within the brief period of two months. 
 
 Whatever may be the merit or demerit of the ren- 
 dering no one will venture to assert, after having 
 read the following pages, that they do not abound in 
 facts, which must have the greatest interest for the Artist, 
 as well as for the studious of Ecclesiastical History. 
 
 Apart from such considerations, it will be admitted 
 that there never existed any period in which it was more 
 incumbent on persons in my position, to exercise what- 
 ever ability they possess, in order to enlighten men's 
 minds on the real nature of Catholic dogmas, practices, 
 and Institutions, and to expose the calumnies which have 
 been so unsparingly showered on the Religious Orders, 
 Indeed, it would be difficult to point out a single one of the 
 
 1 See Dublin Review, Xo. L., January, 1849, and Rev. Mr. 
 Continental Eccl etiology.
 
 Vlll THE TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 
 
 many sanctioned and cherished by the Church, which has 
 escaped the obloquy and scorn of men who make it the 
 grand business of their lives to defame them. Some, no 
 doubt, have traduced the Religious Institutions, because 
 they were either ignorant of their true history, or derived 
 their information from sources which, far from being 
 trustworthy, should be regarded as the merest figments, 
 and frenetic ravings of disordered intellects. Whilst com- 
 passionating the mental blindness of men who blaspheme 
 what they do not comprehend, what are we to think of 
 those modern writers and itinerant ventilators of calumny, 
 who, for their own sordid ends, wilfully and knowingly 
 circulate these abominable misrepresentations from the 
 pulpit, the hustings, the Senate house, and in every 
 coterie to which they gain access? A spurious and soul 
 destroying literature has been subsidized to perpetuate 
 these delusions ; and if we had no other reason for vene- 
 rating and respecting the Religious Orders, these slander- 
 ous productions, no matter how plausible and fascinating, 
 instead of diminishing that respect and veneration, should 
 rather strengthen and confirm both, since the grand 
 object of those writers is to strike at Christianity, after 
 having striven to overthrow its strongest defences. Con- 
 spiracies against thrones and principalities have been 
 universal in the nineteenth century, and the anarchists of 
 succeeding ages will, doubtless, look back to it with 
 delight; but if men should ever become more reflect- 
 ing and dispassionate than they are at present, they 
 will certainly marvel at the wide-spread conspiracy 
 against truth, which has distinguished our era. Not 
 many centuries ago the gold and silver vessels of the 
 altar, the jewelled shrines wherein grateful generations 
 had deposited the canonized bones of their Sainted bene- 
 factors, the rich endowments with which the piety of
 
 THE TRANSLATORS PREFACE. IX 
 
 princes and people had invested the monasteries, and the 
 fair fields reclaimed by the industry of the monks, offered 
 a tempting prize to the cupidity of a sacrilegious monarch, 
 whose whole life, from the moment of his apostacy, was 
 an uninterrupted series of heinous atrocities against the 
 laws of God and human nature. The dispersion and 
 murder of the Monks, and the suppression of the religi- 
 ous houses, are facts familiar to almost every one who 
 reads. The legalized plunder 1 commenced by Henry 
 VIII., was a precedent for every other despot who had 
 the same passions to gratify ; and it is almost superfluous 
 to state, that vested rights and time-honoured immunities, 
 were of little avail to men whose very existence was 
 denounced as a positive evil to society. Contemplating 
 the remains of the glorious monuments of their genius 
 monuments that shame the creations of a period boasting 
 its superior enlightenment and exhaustless resources 
 which everywhere arrest the eye of the traveller in 
 England, Ireland, France and Spain, one might be 
 tempted to believe that they had been the dwellings of 
 a race far more execrable than the viper brood of Phari- 
 sees, if history did not assure him that the men who 
 caused this tremendous ruin, were the most relentless 
 enemies of civilization whom the world has ever seen since 
 the times of the Iconoclasts. Nevertheless, there was 
 that which they could not destroy, a principle, forsooth, 
 which defied all the expedients suggested by the most 
 malignant ingenuity a principle which could not be. 
 strangled by the halter, consumed by the fire, nor con- 
 signed to death by acts of Parliament. Need we say that 
 that principle was vitality and that we have the most 
 
 1 The latest instance of this has been given by the Swiss infidels, who 
 are about to seize the property of the Monks of Mont St Bernard, if they are 
 not deterred by the protest of the French government. 
 
 A2
 
 X THE TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 
 
 palpable proofs of its indestructibility, here and 
 where ? 
 
 This fact is so undeniable, that the enemies of the Mo- 
 nastic Institutions dare not gainsay it. The influences of 
 monasticism are operating too sensibly and too bene- 
 ficially on society, to allow any one to doubt for a moment 
 of their existence. Men and women of every grade, 
 tired of vain pursuits, and sick of a world which 
 has no anodyne for the soul's tribulations, yearn for that 
 repose which cannot be found outside the cloister, and 
 for the universal revival of that blessed economy which 
 provided an asylum for the repentant and contemplative, 
 in times when sins and excesses were far less heinous 
 and numerous, than they are in ours. 
 
 The evidences of that revival are as numerous as they 
 are consoling, not only in these countries, but also in many 
 regions of the Continent. Nay, the abortive attempts 
 which have been made by Anglicans to modify monas- 
 ticism, so as to accommodate it to their own views, are in- 
 contestible proofs of an irrepressible desire to return to 
 that happy state, which operated so beneficially not only 
 during the Middle Ages, but in times nearer to our own. 
 Were it our province to enumerate the multiform blessings 
 which monasticism is conferring on these countries, as 
 well as on many districts of the Continent, we would be 
 at no loss for facts to confute the calumnies of its adver- 
 saries, or to convince the sceptical of the utter falsity of 
 all the arguments that have been urged against it. When 
 the enemies of monasticism shall have proved that it is a 
 high misdemeanour against Christianity to enlighten the 
 ignorant, and preach the doctrines of the Redeemer in the 
 moral wildernesses that are to be found in many of the 
 cities of this empire, it will then be time to admit the 
 truth of all that has been asserted concerning its worth-
 
 THE TRANSLATORS PREFACE. XI 
 
 lessncss. When the scoffer and unbeliever shall 
 shewn that it is a work of supererogation to minister 
 consolation to the moribund, to open a refuge for the 
 outcast, or to convert the gorgeous palace 1 into an infir- 
 mary for those who should, otherwise, perish in the noi- 
 some damps of the cellar or in the deserted attic, then, 
 indeed, it will be time to applaud their philanthropy and 
 acknowledge the truth of their conclusions. In a word, 
 when they shall have demonstrated that it is criminal to 
 diffuse the Gospel truths, to educate youth in the fear and 
 love of God, to devote wealth to works of mercy, and 
 that we should discredit all that the Apostle S. John 
 has said of this world, 2 then, but not till then, will we 
 feel ourselves bound to consider them in the light of 
 philosophers, proclaiming irrefragable truths. 
 
 Far from respecting monasticism for the benefits which 
 it has bestowed on the human race, an ungrateful and 
 malignant tribe of writers has never ceased to vilipend 
 and depreciate it. The Novelist would deem his work 
 imperfect, and some of its principal characters omitted, if 
 he did not introduce a Nun or a Friar, to excite the pity 
 or move the mirth of his readers. The one is almost in- 
 variably represented as a victim, who either entombs herself 
 in living death, to brood and mourn over vanished hopes 
 
 1 S. Vincent's Hospital, for example. This splendid institution, in which 
 the Sisters of Charity perform the duty of nurses, affords medical aid to about 
 26,000 extern patients annually. The intern patients average about 1,500 
 per annum. Protestants, as well as Catholics, are freely admitted to this 
 grand establishment, which sprung up under the auspices of the late Most 
 Rev. Dr. Murray. Attached to this hospital is a school of clinical instruc- 
 tion, where lectures are delivered by Dr. OTerrall, one of the most eminent 
 physicians in England or Ireland. The pathological researches of this dis- 
 tinguished gentleman have been translated into various languages, and ar 
 highly valued in America and on the Continent. 
 
 2 Epistle i., v. 16.
 
 Xll THE TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 
 
 and unrequited loves, or as a mere hypochondriac, to 
 whose distempered vision and crazed imagination all that 
 is bright and beautiful in this world appears like a ghastly 
 panorama of dismal spectres, mocking the heart's affec- 
 tions and beckoning her on to the inevitable bourne of all 
 humanity. Occasionally, too, when it becomes necessary 
 to paint this character in a different light, she is repre- 
 sented as a victim sacrificed to the ambition or caprice of 
 a parent, who desires to aggrandize his own house, and 
 make some favoured first-born the inheritor of all his 
 wealth. Nor should it be forgotten, that the priest- 
 hood has been held up to scorn and execration as abettors 
 of acts analogous to these as men, in a word, who have 
 designs on the gold and chattels of their penitents, dis- 
 regarding the most sacred obligations in order to compass 
 their own sordid ends. Misrepresentations of this sort 
 have been multiplied beyond number. In fact, there 
 is scarcely a single work of fiction, prosaic or poetical, 
 that does not teem with them ; and the authors, who 
 derive golden gains by catering to the morbid appetites of 
 their readers, can afford to smile at that credulity which 
 it is their chiefest interest to perpetuate. Nevertheless, 
 we should congratulate ourselves that this race of tra- 
 ducers is fast fading away, that it is all but effete, and 
 that their absurd figments find scarcely any other media 
 for circulation than these wretched prints, whose object 
 is to unchristianize and subvert society. The vindicators 
 of Catholic doctrines and institutions are every day be- 
 coming more numerous. The genius and learning which 
 they have consecrated to the defence of Religion, is work- 
 ing a wonderful revolution in men's souls, not only within 
 these realms, but in almost every region of the Continent; 
 and we would fain flatter ourselves that the day has gone 
 by when any one, pretending to the name of Christian,
 
 THE TRANSLATORS PREPACK. Xlll 
 
 would tolerate a sneer or an attack on these grand virtues 
 Poverty, Continence, Humility, and Self-denial, which 
 were practised and inculcated by the Redeemer himself. 
 
 But, of all the characters whom the writers of fiction, 
 nay, and grave historians, have held up to the opprobrium 
 of mankind, none have been more sadly maligned than 
 the Friars. With the exception of Shakspeare, almost 
 every dramatist represents the inmate of the cloister in 
 the most odious light. His role in the drama, since the 
 days of Erasmus, has ever been that of an intriguer or 
 a debauchee ; so much so, that these two designations 
 were sought to be made synonymous with that of a Friar. 
 The Novelist, too, has not failed to paint him in the same 
 colours ; and when we find any Romancist giving a Friar 
 who is an essential character in the structure of all Ro- 
 mances the smallest amount of credit for any virtue, we 
 may reasonably begin to think that such a writer is 
 likely to forfeit all claims on the admiration and respect 
 of his readers. In fact, it has been the aim of Dramatists, 
 Essayists, Romancists, Poets, and Historians, to parade 
 the serge-clad form , as the veriest incarnation of every- 
 thing infamous, and deserving universal execration. If 
 a murder is to be done, the Friar, whose superior 
 knowledge has taught him how to blend the subtlest 
 poisons, is an agent always at hand, and ready to com- 
 mit the atrocity for the smallest consideration. If a 
 throne is to be subverted, a band of these men will 
 undertake, when bribed, to trample crowns beneath 
 their sandalled feet, and evoke all the demons of anarchy 
 from the abyss. If two hearts are to be united in " wed- 
 ded bonds," the Friar will hasten the union by means 
 of his ghostly influences, or prevent it by the same 
 agencies, as it may suit his own views or these of the 
 parties who commission him. Deeply skilled in all that
 
 XIV THE TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 
 
 is wicked and baneful, lie is, at the same time, utterly 
 ignorant, and hostile to all that tends to promote the weal 
 and happiness of society ! 
 
 This, in sober earnestness, is no exaggerated por- 
 traiture of the Monk, or Friar, as painted by those who 
 have had a decided interest in blackening and defaming 
 their characters. This gross and scandalous distortion of 
 truth is stereotyped in thousands of volumes, in almost 
 every language ; and it grieves one to think, that genera- 
 tion after generation has lived and passed away, believing 
 that these horrid fabrications were almost tantamount to 
 metaphysical certainties. The pains and penalties enacted 
 against those men here and elsewhere, the fiendish malig- 
 nity with which they have been banned and pursued in 
 almost every realm of Europe, and the unscrupulous 
 spoliation of their churches, shrines, libraries, and endow- 
 ments, while they reflect eternal disgrace on those who 
 profited thereby, must convince us, at the same time, 
 that they had succeeded in corrupting the people, who, 
 if true to themselves, or grateful for past benefits, would 
 not have looked calmly on during such scenes of persecu- 
 tion, murder, and robbery. These vast and splendid 
 benefits have been faithfully chronicled by the author 
 of this work in the following pages ; and were one dis- 
 posed to exaggerate their importance he should neces- 
 sarily fail, for they comprise all that is most valuable to 
 society Religion, Arts, Literature, and Science. This 
 charge of ingratitude, however, does not apply to Ire- 
 land, where the people and clergy of all Orders were sa- 
 crificed for their devotion to the Religion of their fathers ; 
 but rather to England, France, Spain, and some parts 
 of Italy, where the most glorious services were requited 
 with rapine, exile, death, and foulest defamation. 
 
 But of all the Orders that ever existed in the Church,
 
 THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xv 
 
 none lias been so grossly calumniated as that of S. Do- 
 minic. Whilst the Jesuit and Franciscan Institutes have 
 been described as corporations whose members were 
 distinguished for all that is disgusting, the Dominicans 
 have been invariably represented as communities of 
 assassins, whose grand mission was to invent instruments 
 of torture for the Inquisition, and to preside over revolt- 
 ing exhibitions in the piazzas of Italian and Spanish 
 cities. A countless tribe of slanderous writers, in 
 almost every tongue, from the days of Philip Van Lym- 
 borch, down to the fabricators in our times to say nothing 
 of the Moral Suicides who trade on the credulity of their 
 dupes in public assemblages, and whose frantic ravings 
 are pronounced in a language unintelligible to the 
 majority of those who hear them has never tired of 
 making this Order the special object of vituperation. In 
 fact, it is almost hopeless to think of obliterating the 
 impressions made on the minds of the bigoted and un- 
 reflecting, by those chroniclers of facts which never 
 existed outside their own imaginations facts on which a 
 dispassionate thinker should place the same reliance that 
 he ought on the Mysteries of Udolpho, or similar 
 figments. Happily, however, the Dominican Order has 
 found an apologist of great power, in the person of Father 
 Lacordaire ; and no one can peruse his " Memorial to the 
 French People," 1 and refuse to acknowledge that he has 
 lucidly and satisfactorily vindicated his Institute against 
 all those abominable traducers. Henceforth, they shall be 
 entitled to the same credence and respect that one should 
 give to Mazzini and his Free Lances. 
 
 The history of the Dominicans should not be studied 
 in the pages of men who have had an interest in blacken- 
 
 1 Life of S. Dominic, by P. Lacordaire. Duffy, Dublin.
 
 XVI THE TRANSLATORS PREFACE. 
 
 ing their characters, and misrepresenting them. Far 
 otherwise, it should be read in the works which they 
 have left to attest their piety and splendid genius. Dis- 
 tinguished in every department of literature, sacred and 
 profane, they have produced some of the greatest men 
 whom the world has ever seen. Dante 1 has apotheosized 
 S. Dominic, and him of Aquino, so justly titled " Angel of 
 the Schools." Touron is the faithful chronicler of the cele- 
 brated men of this Order, who shed lustre on Christianity 
 by the sanctity of their lives, and the cultivation of these 
 pursuits in which they have not been excelled by the 
 Illuminati of our times. The following pages, too, must 
 convince every unbiassed reader, that the very worst 
 enemies to civilization and mental progress, are they 
 who make the Religious Orders objects of ridicule and 
 scorn. No matter how unjust the verdict pronounced 
 on them by the malice and bigotry of the present 
 times, the long array of celebrities recorded in these 
 volumes will rise up to reverse it, and vindicate the 
 Dominicans. Their witnesses shall be the hallowed and 
 glorious temples that they raised to the honor of the 
 Eternal the marble, into which they almost breathed 
 the breath of life the storied windows the canvas 
 and the frescos whereon they pourtrayed the images of 
 the Saints, and the glories of that Angelic world to 
 which we all aspire. The generations to whom their 
 works were such a treasure and source of inspiration, 
 will bitterly condemn an ungrateful posterity, who, 
 instead of venerating their memories, have not ceased to 
 treat them with indifference and scorn. Many evidences 
 of that zeal with which they laboured to promote the 
 happiness of society, spiritual as well as temporal, have 
 
 J Paradise, Canto X. XI.
 
 THE TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. XV11 
 
 survived the wasting hand of time, and even now chal- 
 lenge the rivalry of modern genius. The graceful 
 fountains " flinging freshness all about" in many of the 
 Italian cities, the aquaducts, bridges, palaces, fortresses, 
 and gates of bronze, not unworthy, perhaps, of praise 
 similar to that which Michelangiolo bestowed on these 
 
 " So marvellously wrought, 
 That they might serve to be the gates of heaven," 
 
 are so many monuments, recording their love of their 
 fellow-man ; and above all, of that dear, sunny land, 
 with whose happiness and greatness they were long and 
 so intimately identified. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary for me to dwell further on this 
 subject; and, perhaps, it would be more desirable that I 
 should plead, in extenuation of the inaccuracies that 
 may be found in this version, the very limited time in 
 which it was accomplished to say nothing of occupa- 
 tions of a more serious and important character. A book 
 such as this must do much to promote the cultivation of 
 architecture and the decoration of our churches sub- 
 jects which have occupied the grave deliberations of the 
 Prelates lately assembled in the Synod of Thurles. Its 
 utility will be acknowledged by the Irish Ecclesiological 
 Society, which counts so many distinguished members, 
 and a president of such abilities as the Rev. Dr. Russell. 
 The translator is justified in this expectancy, by the 
 favourable opinion of a young and talented architect, 
 to whom some of the proofs were read before going 
 to press ; and, indeed, Mr. M'Carthy's judgment, on 
 such matters, is entitled to the highest respect, since 
 no other man, in this country, has done so much for the 
 revival of Christian Architecture. 
 
 I will not dismiss these pages without recording
 
 xviii THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 my sincere and lasting regret for the sudden decease 
 of the illustrious Prelate, under whose auspices they 
 were commenced. My chiefest ambition was to place 
 them in his hands, that I might thus testify my vene- 
 ration for all the admirable qualities which adorned his 
 sacred character, and endeared him to his clergy and 
 flock. The numerous churches, convents, and schools, 
 which he may be said to have created, will prove to after- 
 times that his zeal for Christian Art was great and noble ; 
 and that he would have blessed any effort, however 
 humble, that tended to promote it. Now that he lies 
 awaiting the Resurrection, under the dome of his cathe- 
 dral, and by the side of his predecessor, the Dominican 
 Archbishop, I may appropriately adopt the words of the 
 erudite and elegant Melchior Canus, of the same Institute, 
 " Motus sum, tali Parente orbatus, qualis, ut arbitror 
 apud mortales reliquus nullus est." 
 
 C. P. M. 
 
 SS. Michael and John, 
 
 Dublin, March 10th, 1852.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 THE history of the Fine Arts, considered under the influence of Christianity, 
 may be divided into two grand epochs. The first, commencing in the sixth 
 century, continued till the end of the twelfth; that la to say, throughout 
 that long interval which has been termed the sleep of the human race: the 
 second dates its origin at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and lasted 
 till about one half of the sixteenth had passed away. During the first of 
 these, it was the signal glory of Religion to have saved the Arts, together with 
 sciences and letters, from utter destruction, and to have preserved the sacred 
 primitive traditions, over whose development she watched with teuderest care. 
 In the second epoch, she raised them to that excellence of form and con- 
 ception which they attained and partly lost in the age of Leo X. At 
 both periods she deserves our veneration for having elevated the Arts to 
 the dignity of moral conceptions, and made them the teachers of the people. 
 The Greeks and Romans employed Art to cater to the delectation of the 
 senses ; but Christianity, motived by holier sentiments, made it a medium 
 for perfecting the heart and soul. Nor should we be understood as depre- 
 ciating the importance of the Arts whether contemplated in the Roman 
 catacombs, or under the empire of the Greeks in Constantinople. Neither do 
 we mean to imply that their history, in ages subsequent to the sixteenth 
 century, is not, in many respects, of great moment ; but we confidently assert, 
 that the influence of religion on the Arts, and the action of the Arts on the 
 people, were at no time so marvellously or universally felt as in the two 
 aforesaid epochs. Who is there that must not admire the sublime origin of 
 Christian Art, whose earliest essays were made amidst the dreary gloom of the 
 sepulchres where it wreathed its choicest garlands for the urns of the Martyrs, 
 and like a holy hand-maid, followed Religion even when She was compassed 
 by the instruments of death and torture? Who will not bless Art for 
 having nerved the hearts of the Christian heroes, and transmitted their names 
 and deeds to the latest posterity? Nevertheless, though born in holiness, 
 Art for many a year was forced to shroud itself in mysterious and obscure 
 symbols, as though its inspirations where unhallowed ; nor would the cir- 
 cumstances of the times permit it to strengthen or develope its innermost life. 
 Still more deplorable were the vicissitudes of the Arts among the Greeks in 
 Constantinople, for, after a short-lived and ignoble existence, they were
 
 xx AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 ostracised by the ruthless fury of Leo the Isaurian and Constantino Coproni- 
 mus, who obliged them to seek an asylum on the hospitable shores of 
 Latium. A terrible history is that in which we find the cultivators of the 
 Arts defending the Catholic dogma with their blood, and binding their brows 
 with the Martyr's crown. Oh! how they learned to suffer in the gloomy 
 depths of the catacombs. Oh ! how intimate was the union between Art 
 and Religion ! This struggle against the Iconoclasts deserves to be studied 
 and described far better than it has been, because it teems with great and 
 piteous facts, and because that heresy was not only an attack on the Faith 
 of Christendom but a war against civilization and the glory of nations. 
 It was a desperate and accursed effort to rob man of all he holds most 
 dear a conspiracy to deprive him of the media by which he reveals to 
 his fellow man his affections, joys, griefs, and hopes an office which Art 
 shares with poesy and eloquence.* Towards the decline of the sixteenth 
 century and in the beginning of the following, when Italy lay prostrate and 
 exhausted beneath foreign domination when public decency was contami- 
 nated by the debaucheries of the courts when the pernicious examples of 
 the aristocratic classes had corrupted the masses and when the Reformation 
 had weakened the faith of the people, the Arts far from being able to stay 
 this direful ruin suffered themselves to be carried away by the torrent on 
 whose turbid waters the wrecks of society were floating, and lapsed into the 
 most abominable obscenity. It was then that they abjured their high and 
 holy function ; it was then that they apostatized from their sacred calling 
 that they might pander to the lusts of the voluptuary, and the laciviousness 
 of their professors, thus covering our forefathers with shame, and perpetuat- 
 ing the history of our bondage and degradation. 
 
 But far different was it in the earlier Middle Ages, when the Arts had a 
 sanctified and noble mission to perform. For when eloquence was mute, when 
 philosophy was eclipsed, when the civil code was bloody and oppressive, when 
 language itself was uncouth and dissonant, the Arts associated with Religion, 
 undertook to civilize the ferocious races, and to form out of the fierce and 
 various tribes of barbarians one great and concordant brotherhood. For 
 this reason the artist may be called, the orator, poet, philosopher, and 
 historian of the Mediaeval period ; and during that long interval in which 
 we have no records, save of the sufferings of the oppressed, and the bar- 
 barity of their oppressors ; in which we cannot behold virtue or learning 
 triumphant outside the cloister, the Arts present themselves to us as 
 the media of civilization and perfection, exercising the holy ministry con- 
 fided to them, and consoling humanity in its long and terrible tribulations. 
 This, however, is an epoch so little known and so shamefully calumniated in 
 
 In the ConcUiabulum held in Constantinople, by order of Constantine Coproni- 
 mus, A.D., 754, the worship of images was pronounced to be a diabolical intention ; 
 and the art of painting was similarly anathematized. V. Condi, Tom. vii., p. 254.
 
 AUTHORS PREFACE. XXI 
 
 the history of the Arts, that few will deign to study it ; so much so, that 
 those who write on the state of the Arts at this period, are wont to exhaust 
 themselves in lamenting their decadence, and singing dirges over their grave, 
 without ever reflecting that their remains were still palpitating, and that 
 beneath these rude forms there was a vigorous and superabundant life, which 
 was destined to reveal itself, after a little while, in the schools of Niccola of 
 Pisa and of Giotto. The Painting and Sculpture of these ages, in all that 
 regards mere form, are not calculated to console the studious of Art; 
 nevertheless we are not to suppose that the miniatures and mosaics of the 
 same periods lack merit even in this particular. But in all that relates to 
 sacred architecture, we hold that they can bear comparison with the succeeding 
 centuries ; for if the classic eurythmy of the Greek and Roman edifices 
 was best adapted to the fascinating and voluptuous religion of the Gentiles, 
 the architecture improperly called Gothic, was unquestionably the fittest 
 style for the Christian temple, since no other was so well calculated to 
 sublimate the soul, or to inspire that profound recollection which the Catholic 
 Eitual requires of its votaries. So thought Muratori, who has not hesitated 
 to affirm, that though the moderns have introduced order and elegance into 
 the construction of their fabrics, they are nevertheless excelled by the ancients 
 in majesty and solidity.* Leon Battisa Alberti, who revived the archi- 
 tecture of Greece and Rome, was obliged to admit that Art, during the 
 Middle Ages, had won its most signal triumphs in the Christian churches. 
 Nay more, the origin of these edifices is intimately identified with the great 
 civil and religious events of those periods ; and the attentive observer will 
 regard them not merely as masses of stone put together and arranged with 
 greater or less order and proportion, but rather as so many adamantine pages 
 whereon history has been written. Surely the animus of the Mediaeval 
 period is far more lucidly revealed in these monuments than in the rude 
 chronicles and insipid lays of the Troubadours ; for we must needs confess 
 with Tommaseo, that Architecture is far more expressive of public life\ than 
 any other art can be. In fact, the very sight of it reminds us of the God's 
 Truces, of the Crusades, of Feudalism, and of Chivalry, of the virtues, crimes, 
 the few joys and the multiplied calamities of those times ; nor can we cross 
 the thresholds of these venerable piles without remembering how their vaults 
 resounded for many a century with the psalmody and with the groans of 
 our forefathers, who, during that tremendous struggle, came to the foot of the 
 altar, begging of God to give them strength to suffer and to hope ; since 
 religion alone was their defence against the oppression of their tyrants, the 
 sole guarantee of their rights, and their only consolation amidst the sorrows 
 that surrounded them. At this period, the artist who undertook to erect a 
 temple to the Most High, felt himself raised above all the conventionalities of 
 
 * De Artibus Italicorum post declinationem Rom., Imperil. Disert., xxiv., p. 350 
 Antiq., Ital., medii., eevi., v. 2. 
 + Nuovi Scritti d. N. Tommasseo, v. 2, p. 3, p. 317.
 
 XX11 AUTHORS PREFACE. 
 
 art, and thought of nothing save satisfying the civil and religious require- 
 ments of his time. In these ages of almost patriarchal simplicity, every 
 species of luxury was studiously avoided in private life ; but in all that 
 appertained to the temple of God, both artists and people determined that 
 it should be a monument of their genius, of their faith, and of the pros- 
 perity and riches of their country. Art having been thus ennobled, we are 
 not to be surprised, if, on reading the history of those periods, we find it to 
 have been professed by the Regular and Secular clergy, nay, and even 
 by Bishops; nor are we to wonder at that sacred enthusiasm which so 
 influenced the people in erecting edifices consecrated to the divine worship, 
 that they vied with each other in honoring the Religion which was so 
 intimately identified with their every-day-life, happiness and prosperity. 
 We find a singular example of this devout enthusiasm recorded by the 
 monk Aimone, who, when the Benedictines were erecting their church sacred 
 to S. Peter in Dive, wrote to his brethren of the Abbey of Tutbury in 
 England, thus: "It is truly an astonishing sight to behold men who 
 boast of their high lineage and wealth yoking themselves to cars, 
 drawing stones, lime, wood, and all the materials necessary for the con- 
 struction of the sacred edifice. Sometimes a thousand persons, men and 
 women, are yoked to the same car, so great is the burden ; and yet the pro- 
 foundest silence prevails. When they halt on the way, one hears nothing 
 but the recital of their sins, of which they make public confession, accom- 
 panied with tears and prayers. Then the priests avail themselves of the 
 opportunity to preach pardon of injuries, satisfaction of debts, &c., &c. ; 
 and should any one be so hardened as to withstand these pious exhortations, 
 he is immediately expelled the holy brotherhood." (Ann. 861.)* But it 
 often happened that Painting was productive of still grander results. We 
 read, for example, that Bogori, king of the Bulgarians, in the ninth century, 
 asked the monk Methodius for a picture, whereon the artist executed a 
 painting of the Final Judgment, so tremendous and awful, that the bar- 
 barian prince, on hearing its signification explained by the holy solitary, 
 immediately embraced Christianity, as did also all his subjects-! Arts 
 which wrought such wondrous effects on the minds and hearts of nations, 
 should not be treated superficially by historians, nor do we fear to assert 
 that the latter generally have paid little heed to the results which the 
 Arts were wont to produce. In fact, during these periods they supplied 
 the place of eloquence and Philosophy, and tended as much to the weal of 
 society as did either or both of the said sciences. Whoever would question 
 this, can consult the ancient Chronicles, which must convince him that the 
 great men who flourished in these days, employed both Painting and 
 Sculpture to enlighten the illiterate populace, to whom the grand truths of 
 
 Caumont, Ilistoire sommaire de I'architecture religieuse, militaire et civile au 
 Moyen Age, ch. viii., p. 176. 
 f D' Agincourt Histoire de L'Art. v. 1. ch. xxviii., p. 26, in the note.
 
 AUTHORS PREFACE. XX111 
 
 Religion and morality were thus made almost palpable.* Let us bear in 
 mind, however, that no one may hope to produce a perfect history of the 
 Arts during the Middle Ages, until he has deeply studied these won- 
 derful Monastic Institutions which have rendered such glorious services to 
 society. In fact, the Monks were not only the most learned of their times in 
 science and letters, but they were also the most distinguished cultivators of 
 Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. After preaching the holy doctrines 
 of peace and Christian charity to the fierce conquering hordes, and causing 
 the Law of Christ to triumph over the barbarous tyranny of Feudalism, they 
 proved themselves to be the Champions of the people and the Vindicators of 
 their rights. Having accomplished this glorious task, they applied themselves 
 sedulously to artistic pursuits, and we find them actively employed building 
 bridges, embanking rivers, and constructing these magnificent cathedrals and 
 abbeys, many of which still exist, recording to posterity their multiform 
 genius and beneficence. We will not deny that Charlemagne, Theodolinda, 
 and Theodoric, have strong claims on our gratitude for that zeal with which 
 they laboured to preserve and promote the Arts; but we will fearlessly 
 assert that neither their efforts, nor the laudable solicitude of many of the 
 Roman Pontiffs, could have saved the Arts from inevitable ruin, if the 
 Monks had not taken them under their fostering protection, and cultivated 
 them lovingly for many an age. They preserved the sacred traditions 
 entrusted to them by the Byzantines, and after having stamped them 
 with that devotion and melancholy which they reveal, despite their grace- 
 less developments, transmitted them like a holy heritage to succeeding 
 centuries. It would be almost superfluous to state, that this zeal and love, 
 acted most beneficially on the barbarians, who as soon as they saw the 
 Monks preserving, nay, and practising the Arts, began to respect and 
 admire them, as though they were emanations of that Religion which had 
 rehabilitated and humanized themselves. We have reason to regret that no 
 one has as yet given us memoirs of the Benedictine artists, or snatched from 
 oblivion those many great names which are worthy of eternal remembrance ; 
 but this is a service which we have a right to expect from the Monks 
 themselves, who by a diligent examination of their archives of that 
 portion of them, at least, which has escaped the Vandalic demolition of 
 latter times could easily produce a history of the Arts during the Middle 
 Ages, when they owed their salvation and advancement to the influence 
 of monachism itself. Every one is aware that the monasteries of S. Gall 
 in Switzerland, of Monte Casino in Italy, of Solognac near Limoges, (in 
 
 * V. the 105th Epistle of S. Gregory the great, in which we read these words : 
 " wherefore let pictures be employed in the churches, tliat those who do not under- 
 stand letters may be able at least to read on the walls what they are not able to read 
 in books." In the statutes enacted by the Sienese Painters (A.D., 1355,) we read " We, 
 by the Grace of God, manifest to rude and ignorant men the miraculous events 
 operated by virtue of and in confirmation of our Holy Faith." Gaye, Carteggio 
 Inedito. Archivio delle Riformagioni, etc. V. !
 
 XXIV AUTHORS PREFACE. 
 
 France,) of Douay in Flanders, not to mention others, were so many 
 flourishing schools in which the Arts were cultivated by the Recluses. 
 Nay more, the very earliest elementary treatise on Goldsmith's work and 
 Italian painting, was written by the monk Theophilus in the twelfth century ; 
 and in the days of the Revival, the Camaldulese Monks were the most 
 successful cultivators of Painting, the Olivetans of Tarsia, (or of wood-inky- 
 ing,) whilst those of Monte Casino were far famed for their Miniatures and 
 Paintings on glass. This alone ought to be sufficient to prove that the 
 monks of old burned with holy zeal to provide for the moral and intellectual 
 requirements of society. 
 
 Reverting to the second epoch, which is termed the Revival, we find 
 that the influence which Religion exercised on art, nay, and on Society, tran- 
 scends all our imaginings. The movement which originated in the twelfth 
 century foreshadowed the results which it was destined to produce in after 
 times, for when the Crusades and Chivalry had humanized the peoples' hearts, 
 and improved their social condition, every one was seized with a generous 
 resolve to ameliorate his status ; and it would appear that men began to be 
 ashamed of ignorance, and intolerant of the degrading serfdom beneath which 
 they had groaned for so many ages. It was then that they began to reunite 
 all these social bonds which feudal egotism had not only relaxed, but shat- 
 tered, sacrificing the rights and happiness of an entire people to the passions 
 of iniquitous oligarchs. Banding themselves together in municipalities, and 
 subsequently in commercial, civil, and religious confederations, and applying 
 themselves at the same time to the study of Roman jurisprudence, they wisely 
 emancipated themselves from those Lombard laws which allowed might to 
 triumph over right. The two Universities of Bologna and Paris fed the lamp 
 of knowledge; and the Arts, following the general movement, elevated them- 
 selves to greater dignity of development and conception. Poesy lisped with 
 the Troubadours, but they were sent to prepare the way for the great Alli- 
 ghieri ; and Painting, associating itself with the Bards, did not give Giotto to 
 the world till Dante had begun to sing the three kingdoms of the Second Life. 
 Wondrous, indeed, must this movement in favour of Arts and Sciences appear, 
 if we reflect on the turbulent character of that period. Though the Italians 
 were threatened with bondage by the house of Swabia though they were 
 distracted and split into factions by internecine feuds, nevertheless they 
 never for a moment renounced those resolves and hopes which, far from being 
 dismayed or weakened, seemed to gather strength and boldness from that 
 tremendous conflict. The same may be asserted of the Roman Pontiffs, 
 who were a great element in the revival of arts and sciences, at that precise 
 period when the struggle with the Germanic Empire was fiercest the strug- 
 gle in which the Roman Church triumphed over these disasters which en- 
 slaved and ruined her rival on the shores of the Bosphorus. Every honest 
 heart must throb with gratitude when recalling the names of Gregory VII., 
 Alexander III. and those of the two Innocents (III. and IV.) ; for had success
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xxv 
 
 attended the iniquitous machinations of their enemies, our glory must have 
 perished, the advancement of science, arts and letters must have been re- 
 tarded, and we ourselves, in all probability must have lapsed like the Greeks 
 into barbarism. To appreciate fully the influence which Religion exercised 
 on Art in this second epoch, we need but contemplate the sacred monuments 
 raised in this age, for they are far more eloquent than the historian's pen, 
 and in their number as well as beauty surpass all those that have been erected 
 before or since. The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed the erection 
 of S. Marco in Venice, and of the Cathedral of Pisa, At this period, too, a 
 goodly portion of the Cathedral of Siena was raised, and Monte Cassino was 
 partly rebuilt ; but the thirteenth century beheld the construction of more 
 numerous edifices, not only in Italy, but in France, Germany, England and 
 Belgium.* And this all-pervading enthusiasm for Art, and this cultivation 
 of Art for the sake of religion, created, and sooth to say, multiplied the num- 
 ber of artists. Then appeared that marvellous genius, Niccola of Pisa, whom 
 Italian sculpture canonizes as her saviour ; and who perpetuated in his disci- 
 ples, Giovanni Pisano and Arnolfo. that most splendid school so fruitful of 
 illustrious artists, that was destined to derive fresh lustre from such men as 
 Donatello, Ghiberti, and Michelangiolo Buonarroti. Arnolfo was the pre- 
 cursor of Brunellesco and Leon Battista Alberti ; and Cimabue was the in- 
 structor of that Giotto who founded one of the grandest schools recorded 
 in his country's history. Never since that moment when Christian Art, 
 unnoticed and timorous, traced its first etchings on the walls of the catacombs, 
 and the first symbols of its Faith on the Martyr's urns, never since that 
 period, whose annals are written in blood, did it behold such glorious days as 
 these. Twelve centuries had passed away ere Giotto came ; and never till 
 then had Christian Art been hailed with such devotion of heart and soul ; 
 for it was then that it began to develop all its potency and fecundity, giving 
 the universe to know that it possessed types of beauty which should rival 
 the productions of Greece and Rome, and excel the ancients by the subli- 
 mity of these holy sentiments which were transfused from heaven into the 
 intellects of its cultivators. 
 
 Speaking of the first epoch, we have observed that the Arts during the 
 earlier periods of the Middle ages had found a sanctuary and an asylum in 
 the cloisters, and that the Monks were their greatest and most enthusiastic 
 devotees; nor shall the oblivion of their names nor the destructive 
 
 * We may here mention some of the buildings belonging to this period. In Italy : 
 the basilica of S. Francesco di Assisi, A.D. 1228, the duomo of Florence, 1298 
 that of Orvietto, 1290 S. Antonio di Padova, 1231 the Campo Santo di Pisa, 
 1278 S. Maria Novella in Florence, 1279. S. Croce was built in 1294, and to 
 this period belong SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and the church of the Frari in Venice. 
 Outside Italy ; the cathedrals of Cologne, of Beauvais, of Chartres, Reims, Amiens, 
 Brussels, York, Salisbury, Westminster, Burgos, Toledo, etc. etc., all belong to th 
 first half of the thirteenth century. 
 
 b
 
 XXVI AUTHORS PREFACE. 
 
 hand of time gainsay this fact. The same may be asserted of the 
 Religious Orders founded in the thirteenth century, for although only 
 tlien in their infancy, they gave a vigorous impulse to the pro- 
 gressive social movement which was almost contemporaneous with them. 
 Whosoever has studied the genius and nature of that age, must have 
 perceived how intimately the Orders of the Franciscans and Dominicans are 
 identified with its progression, and must have seen at a glance that they were 
 an emanation of the religious enthusiasm which then pervaded the world. 
 Hence, their indefatigable and undying zeal in preaching peace and calming 
 these ferocious passions which had reddened the piazzas and fields of Italy 
 with blood. When it became necessary to espouse one of the two factions the 
 Guelph or the Ghibelline the Religious Order? did not withhold their fealty 
 from the Pontiff, or prove themselves traitors to the independence of Italy, 
 but preserved their allegiance inviolable to the one and the other, despite the 
 persecutions of the Emperor Frederic the Second, of Ezzelino da Romano,* and 
 of Ludovic, the Bavarian. When the chivalry of Europe was marching to 
 Palestine, they, too, marched in the vanguard of the Crusaders ; and when 
 the Ultramontanesf disseminated the baleful tares of the Manichean Heresy, 
 (whose tenets were destructive of religion, arts, and civilization,) on our fair 
 soil, they laboured with all their energy to uproot the seeds that must 
 have germinated a crop of malediction. Need we say, when time re- 
 quired a diffusion of light, and the souls of men were athirst for know- 
 ledge, that they produced S. Thomas of Aqnino, Albertns Magnus, 
 Bacon, and S. Bonaventura? In a word, when early monachism born 
 amid the tears and tribulations of the people during the barbaric inva- 
 sions, and designed by God to mitigate the bitterness of these calamities 
 and to prepare society for its future destinies had lost its moral power, 
 then came the Orders of the thirteenth century ; and as they originated at the 
 precise moment when the progressive movement was most impetuous, and 
 society was about to reconstruct itself on newer and more solid bases, they, 
 too, were constrained to take a part in that tremendous struggle of right 
 against might The grandest service however which they rendered to humanity, 
 was that of banding the discordant classes together, and making themselves 
 a centre of union between the people and the nobility. As to their love and 
 protection of the Arts, we need only contemplate the monuments they have 
 left ; nor can Italy deny that she is indebted to them for these splendid works 
 which must crown her with glory for evermore. Whosoever would appre- 
 ciate the paintings of the early periods must visit the splendid basilica of S. 
 Francesco in Assisi, for the decoration of which the Franciscans employed 
 
 For a -vivid portraiture of this man, who called himself the " Enemy of God," see 
 Wiley's learned History of the Papal States, vol. 3, page 236. 
 
 t The meaning of this designation will be understood when it is remembered that 
 J'uther Marchese wrote his work in Florence.
 
 AUTHORS PREFACE. XXV11 
 
 the pencils of the Greeks, and of Giunta, Cimabue, Giotto, Pietro Cavallini, 
 Giottino, Buffalmacco, Filippo and Simone Memmi, Puccio Capanna, and of 
 all the great men of the time. Whosoever would contemplate all the glories 
 of the chisel expended on one monument, has only to visit the sepulchral urn 
 which enshrines the bones of S. Dominic in Bologna ; for the ornamentation of 
 which the Preaching Friars engaged Niccola Pisano, Fra Guglielmo, Niccola 
 di Bari, the pupil of Jacopo della. Foute, Alfonso Lombardi, Gerolamo Colttl- 
 lini, and Michelangiolo Buonarroti. Whosoever would behold all the arts of 
 design unfolding all their diversified beauties must make a pilgrimage to the 
 temple of S. Antonio in Padua, to S. Croce and Santa Maria Novella in 
 Florence, to the Frari and SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, and to the 
 other churches in Italy and elsewhere. Those who are familiar with 
 the rigid poverty enjoined by the austere laws of these Orders will marvel, 
 no doubt, at the splendour hi which they arrayed their temples, but let it be 
 borne in mind that the Friars of those days set no value on the things of 
 earth, save when they could employ them for the embellishment of God's 
 consecrated dwelling. Innocent ambition which could produce so many and 
 such glorious monuments ! But they were not satisfied with being merely 
 protectors and patrons of the arts, they cultivated them themselves, and 
 in all the departments of design they contended for mastery with the most 
 celebrated artists of their times. When the Byzantines were " lording it over 
 Mosaic's field," Fra Mino da Turrita, the Franciscan, had already gained 
 celebrity in that art as early as the first half of the thirteenth century. The 
 architects of S. Maria Novella of the Preaching Friars, emulated Arnolfo 
 Fra Filippo Lippi, a Carmelite, walked with a master's step in the footprints of 
 Masaccio ; and the Blessed Giovanni Angelico, and Fra Bartolommeo (botli 
 Dominicans) were amongst the foremost of those whom Italian painting has 
 apotheosized. Montorsoli, of the Order of Servites, won the love and esteem 
 of Michelangiolo Buonarroti, who would fain have him as his assistant when 
 sculpturing the tomb of Julius the Second in Rome, and those of the Medici 
 in Florence. Fra Giocondo was so famed for his architecture and literary 
 accomplishments that he has none to compete with him save Leon Battista 
 Alberti. I will not mention the elect and numerous band of artists belonging 
 to the other Orders, for there is not a single one of them that cannot boast of 
 many ;* but it would be ingratitude not to notice the signal services rendered 
 to the Arts by two religious orders long since extinct, the Gesuati and Umiliati, 
 whose constitutions bound them to industrial pursuits, such as pharmacy 
 weaving cloth, etc. They also cultivated architecture, civil, religious, and 
 military, and we very frequently find them employed as public engineers by 
 
 * Whoever desires to peruse the series of the principal artists belonging to the other 
 Religions Orders may consult a long note given by Bottari at the end of Vasari's life 
 of Fra Giovanni Angelico. See the Livornese and Florentine editions of 1771. In the 
 course of these volumes we will have occasion to speak of others.
 
 XXV111 AUTHORS PREFACE. 
 
 the Florentine Republic and other cities of Tuscany. Nor should it be for- 
 gotten that they excelled as painters on glass.* Thus did the Religious 
 Orders realize, as early as the fourteenth century, one of the cherished ideas 
 of Carlo Denina,f who would have them employed not only in the study of 
 sacred and profane sciences, but also in the cultivation of the Fine Arts and 
 mechanics. Two religious communities effected all this in the fourteenth 
 century; and an age so industrial as ours will, doubtless, appreciate this fact 
 more than many others which we could enumerate. 
 
 It would be in our power to heighten these encomiums which we have been 
 bestowing on the religious Orders for their devotion to the arts, had we 
 space to insert the series of the men who have written on Art, and de- 
 veloped its grand principles. The foremost names in that category should 
 be those of Fathers Pacioli, Giocondo, Tgnazio Danti, Delia Valle, Aff6, 
 Federici, Lanzi, and Pungileoni ; and thus would a beauteous page be added 
 to the annals of the religious societies an important page truly without 
 which their history must be incomplete. 
 
 From all that we have said, every one may easily perceive what a grand 
 and noble mission is reserved for the man, who, motived by the love of 
 Religion and of Art, will undertake to narrate the great services which Ca- 
 tholicism has conferred on Art during the two foresaid epochs. Nor would 
 it be difficult to demonstrate that Christian Art was at all times under the 
 special protection and influence of monachism. In fact, it had scarcely 
 emerged from the Roman Catacombs after the Imperial persecutions, when 
 the Solitaries of the East gave it an asylum, and defended it with their 
 blood against the Iconoclasts, cultivating it fondly and ardently, if not ex- 
 clusively. Its destinies were then confided to the monks of the West, at the 
 time when the barbarians were invading the Roman Empire ; till at length, 
 the Mendicant Orders of the thirteenth century received it in its infancy, 
 and reared it to maturity by a two-fold action protection and cultivation. 
 What a blessing to Religion and society, if the Friars of the various Orders 
 would only search their archives and publish memoirs of the various artists 
 who shed lustre on our common country! Expecting to see this work ac- 
 complished sooner or later, we have laboured to compose this artistic history 
 of the Preaching Friars, humbly hoping that it may be productive of some 
 utility. And in truth, no other Order has reared a grander or more nume- 
 rous body of painters, architects, painters of glass, intarsiatori, and minia- 
 turists. In the pages of this work we shall find these Dominicans educating 
 
 * Oaye (Carteggio Ineclitio e Archivio delle Rifonnagioni, etc. v. 1 Appen.) gives 
 us a memorial presented by these two Orders to the Florentine Republic, which com- 
 mences thus " Whereas these two Orders (the Gesuati and Umiliati) heretofore and 
 nt present have been of service to the Republic and Florentine people in all matters 
 pertaining to said commune, and whereas they possess an establishment for the 
 weaving- of cloth, etc." 
 
 t Rivoluz. d'ltalia, lib. xii. cap. vi. e lib. xxiv. cap. T.
 
 AUTHORS PREFACE. XXIX 
 
 Raffaello da Urbino and Bramante Lazzari in the pictorial Art we shall 
 see them working in the Cathedrals of Pisa, Orvieto, Milan, in S. Petronio 
 at Bologna, and in S. Peter's at Rome. We shall find them erecting bridges 
 over the Arno, the Seine, and the Minho ; superintending the most gigantic 
 operations in hydraulics, and distinguishing themselves as military engineers, 
 in the principal cities and fortresses of Italy. Nor will we omit that most 
 brilliant episode in Italian history, which tells how, they toiled to rehabili- 
 tate Art, when the profligacy of the times had seduced and degraded it. 
 Need we say that the life and tragic death of SAVONAROLA must be an 
 everlasting attestation of this fact ? No one can doubt for a moment that 
 they excelled all other artists in sacred painting, for they not only sur- 
 passed all competitors in their knowledge of its innermost nature, but 
 regarded it as a holy profession, so that with few exceptions, all the artists 
 of this Order were famed for the sanctity of their lives. It is true, that 
 Vasari and Baldinucci have given us notices of the most distinguished of 
 these men ; but their memoirs are in many instances incomplete, and need 
 many corrections and additions. Nor should we forget that they have 
 suppressed many a glorious name which deserves to be chronicled in the 
 memory of mankind. We flatter ourselves with the hope of having done 
 some service ; and, indeed, it involved no inconsiderable labour, to shape a 
 unique narrative, comprising our most eminent Artists, out of the discord- 
 ant and often conflicting statements of Art-Historians. However, a diligent 
 investigation of public and private archives, has resulted in the discovery 
 of numerous valuable documents, hitherto unpublished, which are calculated 
 to diffuse stronger light on the history of Art. For example, the life of 
 Fra Bartolommeo della Porta, that most illustrious painter, is enriched with 
 many facts of the greatest importance. The life of Fra Benedetto del Mu- 
 gello, (Fra Giovanni, Angelico's brother,) the miniaturist, is entirely new ; as 
 is also that of Fra Domenico Portigiaui the sculptor, and pupil of Gian Bolog- 
 na. The life of Fra Gugliebno of Pisa, omitted by Yasari and Baldinucci, and 
 superficially treated by Alessandro Morrona, will be found in the pages of 
 this work, copiously illustrated with many valuable notices which have been 
 recently brought to light. To the very meagre details given by Count 
 Tassi, regarding the life of Fra Damiano da Bergamo, the most distin- 
 guished of the Italian Intarsiatori we will add much that has not been pub- 
 lished heretofore. The same may be said of the Blessed James of Ulm, 
 and of many others. But to the life of one in particular, we have devoted all 
 the energies we possess, sparing no research or labourj that we might do jus- 
 tice to the subject and satisfy the expectations of bis numerous admirers. 
 Hitherto the life of the Blessed Giovanni Angelico, has not been written with 
 that accuracy and copiousness which alone can rescue it from the arbitrary 
 conjectures of modern historians; and if our researches in public and private 
 archives for notices of the life of this eminent and holy painter, have not 
 
 b2
 
 XXX AUTHORS PREFACE. 
 
 been always crowned with success, we can congratulate ourselves, at least, 
 on having made additions to the memoirs written of him by his two 
 Tuscan biographers, and thus, in great part, satisfied the anxiety of those 
 who take deep interest in his history. As we have undertaken to write only 
 <>f the most emiment artists of the Order, we would hope that we shall not 
 be censured for having omitted many of those who are celebrated in Italy 
 and beyond the Alps ; and as the most eminent of them were Tuscans, we 
 are convinced that our biography will not be found in any particular 
 meagre. We frankly confess, however, that this first attempt to write the 
 Artistic History of the Preaching-Friars, is not without its imperfections ; 
 but we pray our readers to remember the many difficulties which must be 
 encountered by those who undertake to investigate and arrange the annals 
 and memoirs of early periods, and the liability to err, which such investiga- 
 tion almost invariably involves. Nobody has preceded us in this labour ; 
 and should we be fortunate enough to light on other documents calculated 
 to illustrate what is here collected, we shall not fail to give a supplemental 
 volume. 
 
 These Memoirs, therefore, are not to be considered as a history, but 
 rather as the result of our researches, and as material for a still more perfect 
 work. As it was not our province to treat of the ^Esthetics of Art, or to 
 pronounce criticisms on the productions of our artists, we have cautiously 
 avoided these extremes into which the opinions of writers on that subject 
 are wont to lead, contenting ourselves with occasional comments on the 
 genius and works of our distinguished confreres. Each one forms his own 
 judgment of the excellence or imperfections of objects of Art, nor should we be 
 deemed unreasonable for differing with many as to the correctness of their 
 conclusions. In fact, of all debatable subjects, there is not a single one on 
 which men are so likely to differ as on that of Art. It has been our grand 
 object to render some service to Religion as well as to the Arts ; and to 
 rekindle in the hearts of our Friars, the love of those pursuits which their 
 predecessors cultivated with such noble zeal. In extenuation of the short- 
 comings which must necessarily characterize these Memoirs, we can only say, 
 that if youth, good intention, and indefatigable labour, deserve sympathy, 
 we are certain that it will not be denied to us. 
 
 * Bottari, in a letter addressed to Mariette which may be read in V. volume, 
 " Delle PITTORICHE," says, " It would seem as tho' all writers on Art have some 
 malediction over them, for they invariably fall into incredible errors. I myself am 
 ;in instance of this, for I have made blunders in matters which I kuew as well as my 
 own name.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 BOOK I, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Fuge 
 
 State of the Arts in Italy at the commencement of the Thirteenth 
 Century, and particularly of Architecture, commonly termed 
 Gothic or Teutonic, . . . . .1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro, Tuscan architects Their first works for the 
 Florentine Republic They finish the Palace del Podesta They 
 rebuild the Carraja Bridge They build the Church of S. Maria 
 Novella They are called to Rome by Pope Nicholas III. to work 
 in the Vatican, . . . . .9 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Minor Tuscan Architects, their Works in Prato, Florence, and in 
 
 Val d' Arno, etc. . . . .30 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Of some Portuguese Architects of the Thirteenth Century, . 3(5 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Notice of the Life and Works of Fra Guglielmo da Pisa, Sculptor and 
 Architect State of Sculpture in Italy, at the beginning of the 
 Thirteenth Century The first Works of Fra Guglielmo, in his 
 own country and in Bologna, . . . .39
 
 XXX11 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Tape 
 Description of the Area or shrine of S. Dominic at Bologna What 
 
 part Niccola Pisano and Fra Guglielmo had in its execution 
 
 The Sculptors who at various periods were engaged at it, . 48 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Continuation of the Life of Fra Guglielmo da Pisa His works in the 
 
 Duonio of Orvieto, and in his own country His Death, . tjO 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Bolognese and Lombard Architects Their buildings in Venice, in 
 
 Padua, in Trevigi, in Milan, . . . .70 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Notices of Fra Giovanni da Campi, and Fra Jacopo Talenti, Tuscan 
 architects They finish the Church of S. Maria Novella They 
 build the new Convent They re-build the Carraja Bridge, and 
 raise other edifices for the Republic and private citizens, . 87 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Fra Giovannino da Marcojano, and other religious Architects of the 
 Convent of S. Maria Novella, pupils of Fra Giovanni da Campi 
 and Fra Jacopo Talenti, . . . .109 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Dominican Miniaturists of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries in 
 
 S. Maria Novella, S. Marco in Florence, and S. Catherine at Pisa, 115 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Notices of the Life and Works of Fra Benedetto del Mugello, 
 
 Miniaturist and Painter, . . . .129 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Fra Eustachio, and Fra Pietro da Tramoggiano, Tuscan Miniaturists 
 
 of the Sixteenth Century, . . . .141
 
 CONTENTS. XXX111 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ruge 
 Fra Angelico, . . . . . .150 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Published and unpublished Documents, from which the present Life 
 
 of Fra Giovanni Angelico has been compiled, . .160 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Origin, Country, Studies, and Religious Profession of Fra 
 
 Giovanni Angelico, ..... 164 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The first Works of the Angelico in Foligno and Cortona, . .175 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Fra Giovanni returns to Fiesole, . . .. .186 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Fra Giovanni and Fra Benedetto go to Florence The building of the 
 new Convent of S. Mark Paintings by the Angelico for the 
 Church and Convent of his Order, and for the city of Florence, 200 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Paintings by Fra Angelico for the other Churches of Florence, . 227 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Angelico is invited to paint in Rome, probably by Pope Eugene 
 IV. and is detained there by his successor, Nicholas V. His 
 Paintings in the Vatican, the Minerva, and in Orvieto His 
 Death, Eulogy, and Disciples, .... 240
 
 XXXIV CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Summary of the Paintings now existing by Fra Giovanni Angelico, 262 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Notices of Fra Bartolomeo Coradini of Urbino, commonly called Fra 
 
 Carnovale, .- . . . .265 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Fra Gerolamo Monsignori, the Veronese Painter, . . 2T2 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Fa'her Domenico Emanuele Maccarj, the Genoese Painter, . 2 79 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Fra Francesco Colonna, the Venetian Architect, author of the Art- 
 Romance, entitled The Dream of Polifilo, . . . 282 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Of some Tuscan Painters, and Fra Bartolomeo Perugino, . 295 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Notices of the Blessed James of Ulm and of his Disciples in Glass- 
 Painting, ...... 307 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Reformation of Italian Art attempted by Fra Gerolamo Savonarola 
 His Ideas on the Subject The Men who aided him in this 
 attempt, . . . . . . ;'.!''
 
 MEMOIES 
 
 OF THE MOST 
 
 (Eminent ^aratra, $rnlptar0 & Irrjjitote, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ORDER OF ST. DOMINIC. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 State of tbe Arts in Italy at the commencement of the Thirteenth Century, 
 and particularly of Architecture, commonly termed Gothic or Teutonic. 
 
 IN the second decade of the thirteenth century, when the 
 Preaching-Friars came to perform the duties of their reli- 
 gious and civil apostolate, the Fine Arts had begun to 
 emerge from the obscurity of the barbaric times into the 
 light of a new era, and were approaching their perfection, 
 with the same rapidity that had marked their decline. This, 
 however, cannot be asserted of every branch of art at this 
 precise period, since painting and mosaic were, for a long 
 time, retarded by the teachings and productions of the 
 Byzantines; so much so, that the advancement of both 
 was slow and inglorious in the days of Giunta, Margari- 
 tone of Arezzo, Guido of Siena, and Andrea Tafi ; whilst 
 the progress of sculpture, in the schools of Niccola Pisano 
 andhis disciples, may be described as rapid and gigantic.
 
 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Singularly capricious, however, yet not without glory, 
 was the progress of architecture. The causes of that 
 decline as well as of this happy return to their primitive 
 excellence, have been narrated by writers on the arts, with 
 more or less accuracy ; and we deem it our duty to ex- 
 pend a few words on the subject of architecture ; since 
 the Dominicans applied themselves most zealously to its 
 study and cultivation, in the two first centuries of their 
 institution. The necessity of erecting churches and con- 
 vents for themselves was well calculated to educate them 
 in an art as delightful as it was useful ; and, indeed, so 
 great was their proficiency, that Cicognara has not hesi- 
 tated to assert, that they were the only men who influ- 
 enced the glorious genius of Niccola Pisano, or success- 
 fully competed with him in this department. 1 
 
 Those who have made a study of the incipient decay 
 into which architecture the first-born of the arts had 
 fallen, are wont to trace it to the times of Diocletian, and 
 Constantino ; and to discover the signs of its debasement in 
 the baths of the one, as well as in the triumphal arch of 
 the other, which may be still seen at Rome, not to speak 
 of Diocletian's palace at Spalatro, in Dalmatia. 2 In these 
 
 i Cicognara Storia della Scultura Italiana. Vol. 3, 1. iii., c, 6, p. 366. 
 
 1 The palace of Spalatro, was erected in the third century, and bears all 
 the marks of the bad taste which then had begun to prevail. In this edifice 
 pillars are made to support arches instead of architraves, whilst arcades 
 destroy the entablature. The baths of Diocletian, at Rome, are evidences of 
 still greater deterioration, and licentiousness. Columns uselessly built into 
 the walls, and raised one above the other, resting on tasteless pedestals, sur- 
 mounted by architraves and broken cornices, are some of the marks wherein 
 may be recognised that decay of architecture, which was perpetuated during 
 the reign of Constantino, and his successors. What wonder, then, if the 
 wars which devastated the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, involved 
 arts and sciences in one. common ruin ? V. D'Agincourt, and the excellent 
 work entitled, " Archeologie Chretienne," par J. Oudin, Cure de Bourron. 
 Bruxelles, 1847.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. O 
 
 edifices the eye immediately recognises a licentious depar- 
 ture from the laws which the great masters had laid down, 
 as it were to overrule the caprices of innovators. These 
 signs of debasement were, if possible, still more distin- 
 guishable in Byzantium, where the absence of the grand 
 models with which Rome and the cities of Greece 
 abounded, might have made men despair of ever re- 
 viving classic elegance; since all laws had been sacri- 
 ficed to a vitiated taste for ornamentation. Indeed, the 
 manners of a people are so intimately connected with 
 their arts, that their grandeur or abjectness may be learned 
 from the monuments which bear the impress of their con- 
 ceptions. At a subsequent period, when the northern 
 hordes swept like a torrent over Europe, far from intro- 
 ducing a new style of architecture for, indeed, they knew 
 nothing of science or letters they retained the ROMAN ; 
 but, setting no value on any characteristic, save solidity, 
 they despoiled it of all ornament and grace. In an age 
 of rapine and conflagration, when fierce masses, thirsting 
 for blood and gold, were in constant conflict, the grand 
 object was to seek protection for life and property; at 
 that period private domiciles, nay, and even the conse- 
 crated temples of God, presented all the appearances of 
 fortresses. It was then that the barbarians began to erect 
 these massive castles where they stored their prey, and 
 the numberless towers, many of which are still standing 
 in our cities. This, then, is the first epoch of that style, 
 by some most improperly termed Gothic, (for it had 
 begun to be used at a period anterior to the irruption of 
 the Goths,) and by others, Romano-Byzantine ; but which 
 ought to be designated as Romano-barbaric, though in 
 some of the Italian provinces it has been called " Lom- 
 bard." Its principle characteristics are nudity, the total 
 absence of proportion, and immense massiveness. The
 
 4 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 ancient churches of S. Michele, in Pavia, and S. Fre- 
 diano, in Lucca, may be regarded as examples of this 
 style. This form of architecture was adopted during the 
 eleventh century ; but at the commencement of the twelfth 
 an improvement was introduced. For this we are indebted 
 to the crusades, to our intercourse with the East, and to 
 the invasion of the Saracens, who, having occupied 
 nearly the whole of Spain, and burst into Italy and 
 France, bequeathed much of their ornamental tastes, nay, 
 and of their mannerism, to the peoples whom they had 
 either conquered or expelled from their homesteads. To 
 say nothing of their Arabesques, and Damaskeening, 
 their architecture was closely imitated, as is clearly proved 
 by the palace of Ziza, and the church of Monreale, in 
 Sicily; and were confirmation of this needed, we have 
 but to point to the church of S. Mark, at Venice. 
 Strange as it may appear, it is not the less certain 
 that whilst the Italians were plunged in ignorance and 
 barbarism, the Spanish Arabs were engaged in rearing 
 such graceful monuments as the Alhambra, the Alca- 
 zar, and the Mosque (now the cathedral) of Cordova; 
 neither do we deem this the place to speak of their emi- 
 nence in science and literature. 1 Nevertheless, whilst archi- 
 tecture, in some parts of Italy, was copied after the prevail- 
 ing fashion of the East, and was every day adopting strange 
 and whimsical developments, a new, and far more desirable 
 change was manifesting itself in other regions of the penin- 
 sula. As soon as the barbarians had ceased to invade, and 
 when the different races, grown tired of blood andhavoc,had 
 
 i " Grenada (says an Arabic author, quoted by Romey, Hist D*E9- 
 pagne. T. viii., p. 194,) was so splendid in works of Arabic art, that it 
 resembled ' a silver cup, filled with hyacinths and emeralds.' " See also an 
 interesting chapter on the literature and arts of the Spanish Arabs in Prea- 
 cott's " Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella." VoL 1.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 5 
 
 begun to amalgamate, the interval of peace that followed 
 witnessed the erection of many sacred edifices of consi- 
 derable beauty, in Tuscany. These edifices generally 
 were constructed out of the debris of the ancient Roman 
 monuments, which still remained in abundance to attest 
 the glory of the past, and the terrible calamities that had 
 fallen on the earth. These relics of civilisation were 
 then piled one upon another, without order or propor- 
 tion. Even so, such beauteous remains of cultivated 
 genius might have stimulated the rude builders to study 
 and copy the works of the ancients, had not circum- 
 stances, for which we cannot account, exercised a deplor- 
 able influence over them. It must be admitted, however, 
 that Rome, Florence, Pisa, and other cities, which 
 abounded with monuments of the classical times, made a 
 better use of them ; and even now, after the lapse of so 
 many centuries, the cathedral of Pisa presents a vast 
 quantity of capitals, columns, bases, and inscriptions taken 
 from the Roman edifices of the purer ages. No one can 
 inspect the baptistery and campanile at Pisa, without 
 feeling astonishment at this singular aggregate. The 
 same may be remarked of S. Pietro, at Grado, near Pavia, 
 of S. Giovanni and S. Miniato, al Monte, and of the 
 Duomo, at Fiesole. Thus did Italy pass to the second 
 period of Gothic architecture, which of all its modifica- 
 tions, seems to have the strongest claim on our admira- 
 tion, for the arrangement of its details. But its duration 
 was short, for it did not outlive the twelfth century, and 
 was exclusively confined to these places in which the 
 remains of the Roman buildings were numerous. 
 
 Meanwhile, in this twelfth century, 1 and at the dawn 
 
 1 " Au douzieme siecle," writes M. Amperes, (Hist. litt. de la France) 
 " tout nait, tout resplendit & la fois dans le monde moderne ; chevalerie
 
 6 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 of that immediately following, a wondrous change was 
 witnessed in civil and religious architecture a change 
 that totally altered its form and aspect, and seemed to 
 herald the still more wondrous revolution that was taking 
 place in society. 
 
 The arches, which up to this period were semicircular, 
 became diagonal, or to speak more intelligibly, pointed; 
 columns and pilasters were succeeded by clustered co- 
 lumns, or pilasters adorned with demi-columns ; whilst 
 the Doric and Corinthian capitals, which had been so 
 happily employed in the preceding century, made way 
 for arabesques and most bizarre figures. The very roofs 
 began to be considerably elevated, and arches springing 
 out of arches, and gracefully intersecting each other, 
 were raised to a height hitherto unprecedented. It would 
 appear that the builders had resolved to conquer what 
 seemed an insuperable difficulty ; for they united perfect 
 solidity to that majestic altitude whose graceful lightness 
 fills the eyes of the spectator with astonishment and 
 delight. 1 Nor should we be understood as implying 
 that the pointed style did not appear before this period. 
 On the contrary, for D'Agincourt asserts that he has 
 found some examples of it in Italy, in the buildings of 
 the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. Nevertheless, 
 it was very rarely used, and was invariably alternated by 
 the semicircular, as may be seen in the monasteries of 
 S. Benedict and S. Scolastica, at Subbiaco. Now it 
 appears to us that this third epoch of the Gothic style 
 
 croisades, architecture, langues, litterature, nouvelles: c'est Ik que debute 
 veritablement 1'histoire de nos arts, de notre litterature, de notre civilisation ; 
 c'est au douzieme siecle que se termine la transformation du raonde ancien 
 imperial, remain, paien, qui devient le rnonde nouveau, feodal e Chretien." 
 
 1 V. D'Agincourt, 1'Histoire de 1'Art, and the eloquent pages of Monta- 
 lembert, on the origin of Gothic or Teutonic architecture, in the Introduction 
 to the Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 7 
 
 should be divided into two periods of time. The first, 
 which lasted throughout the thirteenth century, is the 
 most simple, and best proportioned. The second is that 
 of the fourteenth century ; and it is the richest and the 
 most ornate of all the styles presented to us in the archi- 
 tecture of the earlier ages. The fa9ades of the duomi of 
 Orvieto and Siena clearly belong to this style, as does 
 also the fa9ade of the cathedral at Milan, which is the 
 latest exemplification that Italy exhibits of the Gothic 
 in all its splendour, richness, and majesty. Beyond the 
 Alps the existence of Gothic architecture was destined 
 to be of much longer duration ; but with us it ceased 
 about the middle of the fifteenth century, when Leon 
 Battista Alberti and Brunellesco revived the orders of 
 Greece and Rome. Withal, though the last period of 
 the Teutonic style yields to the first in harmony of pro- 
 portions and severe majesty, it cannot be said to have 
 conferred many advantages on all the arts, since the love 
 of lavishing every species of decoration, especially on the 
 facades of the basilicas, obliged artists to pay special atten- 
 tion to the study of design, thus contributing to the 
 progress of painting and sculpture. These decorations 
 which they expended in such profusion on the exteriors 
 of the sacred edifices in the earlier periods, consisted of 
 fruits, flowers, animals, mysterious symbols, and, not 
 rarely, of figures in relievo and mezzo-relievo : till, at 
 length, many facades, like that of the duomo of Orvieto, 
 had their whole superficies covered with histories from 
 the Old and New Testament. Many of these fa9ades 
 presented the sculptured effigies of the holy protectors of 
 the city, of the benefactors of the church, of the archi- 
 tects who had designed them ; and the duomo of Siena 
 was decorated with the armorial bearings of all the cities 
 federated with that illustrious republic. Thus did one
 
 8 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 single edifice chronicle, as it were, the civil, religious, 
 and artistic glories of a people, their history, genius, and 
 faith. Mosaic, inlaid wood, (la tarsia,) stained glass, 
 bronze, and plaster, were copiously employed to decorate 
 the sacred precincts ; and this will account for the fact 
 that the ablest architects of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries, such as Niccola and Giovanni of Pisa, Agos- 
 tino and Agnolo of Siena, were also distinguished sculp- 
 tors ; nay, we sometimes find them both architects and 
 painters, as in the person of Taddeo Gaddi; whilst others, 
 such as Orgagna, were perfect masters of each of the three 
 sister-arts. 1 
 
 But when the Franciscan and Dominican orders were 
 founded in Italy, architecture underwent that change 
 which we have indicated in the first period of the third 
 epoch ; that is to say, when the imitation of the antique 
 was abandoned for the cultivation of the Gothic, or, as it 
 is more commonly termed, the Teutonic style. 2 
 
 1 V. their Lives in Vasari, Bobn's Series, vol. i. 
 
 1 The reader will understand that this partition of the Gothic style does 
 not pretend to rigid exactness, since architecture, more than any of the 
 other arts, is subject to modifications. Hence, what is here said of Italy 
 does not apply to France or Germany. As proof of this, we give the scale 
 of the Abbe Bourasse, (Archeol. Chret. c. v. p. 72,) which agrees with 
 Caumont's, and differs from D'Agincourt's the two first having written 
 especially for France, and the second for Italy. 
 
 IRoman-Byzantin. /'Primitive, from 400 to 1000. 
 Secondary, from 1000 to 1100. 
 Third, or transition, from 1100 to 1200. 
 Pointed, < Lancet, from 1200 to 1300. 
 Decorated, from 1300 to 1400. 
 Perpendicular, from 1400 to 1550. 
 V Renaissance in middle of 16th century. 
 
 Let it be borne in mind, also, that Orgagna employed the pointed arch 
 in Florence as early as 1370, or thereabouts.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro, Tuscan architects Their first works for the 
 Florentine Republic They finish the Palace del Podesta They rebuild 
 the Carraja Bridge They build the Church of S. Maria Novella They 
 are called to Rome by Pope Nicholas III., to work in the Vatican. 
 
 THE first cultivators of the arts whom the history of the 
 Preaching-Friars presents to us, are two distinguished 
 architects, greater than whom, if we except Niccola 
 Pisano and Arnolfo, were not beheld in their times. 
 Justly indeed has public gratitude classified these two 
 celebrated men with those who were conspicuous in the 
 restoration of Italian architecture. These men we_re 
 called Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro, lay-brothers of the 
 convent of S. Maria Novella. 
 
 Fra Sisto was born in Florence, in that quarter of the 
 city that bears his name, near the gate of S. Pancrazio. 
 Fra Ristoro was a native of Campi, a considerable ham- 
 let, seven miles from Florence and four from Prato. 
 The valuable, yet meagre, notices that have been pre- 
 served of them (and indeed they amount to a few lines 
 in the Necrology of the foresaid convent,) do not furnish 
 us with the names of their parents or the year of their 
 birth. 1 Nevertheless it would appear that they were 
 bom between 1220 and 1225, that is to say, fifteen or 
 
 1 Necrol. Yen. Conv. S. Marise Novelise de Flor. ord Praedic. ab anr. 
 1225. This Necrology was commenced by F. Pietro Macci, who continued 
 it to 1280, and probably to 1301, the year of his death. This interesting 
 record was partly published by F. Fineschi, (Florence, 1780,) in a work 
 entitled " Memorie istoriche per servire alle vite degli uomini illustri del 
 Conv. di S. Maria Novella. " 
 
 VOL. I. B 2
 
 10 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 twenty years before Cimabue. Neither have we been 
 able to discover from whom they learned the art of 
 building. Baldinucci and Niccolini pronounce them 
 imitators or disciples of Arnolfo ; but we would prefer to 
 adopt the opinion of Father Lanzi, who says that they 
 were his preceptors, had it not been ascertained that 
 Arnolfo learned the art from Niccola Pisano. 1 To re- 
 move all doubt on this subject, it may suffice to state 
 that Arnolfo survived Fra Ristoro twenty-seven, and 
 Fra Sisto twenty-one, years. 2 Two illustrious architects 
 were then living in Tuscany, Jacopo, whom Vasari calls 
 the German, and Niccola Pisano. The first, who was the 
 architect of the church and convent of St. Francis in Assisi, 
 built the Rubicon te bridge in Florence, laid the piers of the 
 Carraja, A. D. 1218, finished the church of S. Salvadore del 
 Vescovado, after his own designs, also the church of S. Mi- 
 chele, in piazza Bertelde, (now called degli Antinori,) and 
 the palace of the Podesta, which, it appears, he did not com- 
 plete. The second, who was well known for the splendid 
 works which he erected in his own country, in Bologna, 
 in Padua, in Venice, and Naples, built the church of the 
 holy Trinity in Florence, about the year 1250. Greater 
 architects than these were not living in Tuscany at this 
 period ; and it is probable that Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro 
 availed themselves of the teaching and productions of 
 the two. The Necrology of their convent does not 
 state the year in which they took the Dominican habit ; 
 
 1 Baldinucci, Notizie dei Professori del disegno. v. i. Vita di Arnolfo. G. 
 B. Niccolini, Elogio di L. B. Alberti, Lanzi, vol. i., part 1, Tuscan School. 
 That Arnolfo was a disciple of Niccola is now placed beyond doubt by the 
 " Lettere Sanese" of F. Guglielmo della Valle, vol. i. lettera xviiL 
 
 2 Baldinucci dates Arnolfo's death as having taken place either in 1300, 
 or 1320. The Necrology of Sta. Keparata states the period to have been 
 1310.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 11 
 
 nevertheless, F.Fineschi conjectures that they entered reli- 
 gion about the period when F. Aldobrandino Cavalcanti 
 (twice prior of the convent of S. Maria Novella,) caused 
 the ancient church of this name to be enlarged. In all 
 likelihood it was at this period that the two youthful 
 architects, after receiving the habit of S. Dominic, prof- 
 fered their services for this work, just as Filippo da 
 Campello superintended the construction of the great 
 church of Assisi, after taking the habit of St. Francis. 1 
 Cavalcanti was prior of Sta. Maria Novella from 1244 to 
 1252. In 1255 F. Enrico da Massa filled that office; 
 and in 1256 Cavalcanti was re-elected. F. Borghigiani 
 agrees with Fineschi in this chronology. 2 
 
 The first essay of their skill in architecture, recorded in 
 ancient documents, is a public work to which they were 
 invited by the Florentine magistracy. Desiring to finish 
 the Palace de Priori, begun in 1252 by Jacopo, called the 
 German, they were charged to raise large vaults, or it 
 may have been a court-yard or cloister (magnas testu- 
 dines) ; and this they executed with such excellence, that 
 the city resolved to employ them in works of greater im- 
 portance. 3 In the early part of October of the year 1269, 
 the Arno, swollen by heavy rains, carried away its em- 
 bankments, and inundated a great tract of the adjacent 
 country and the city of Florence. The flood was so 
 great that it bore along in its impetuous course a great 
 
 ' Fineschi. Memorie, p. 343. 
 
 2 Cronaca Annalistica del Conv. di S. M. Novella, dall' anno della sua 
 fundazione fino all' anno 1556, del P. Borghigiani, v. iii. in FoL M.S. (Ar- 
 chiv. di S. M. Novella.) 
 
 8 F. Fineschi is of opinion that the palace of the priors, of which there is 
 mention in the Necrology, was probably that of the Podesta, now called del 
 Bargello, not the Palazzo Vecchio, built by Arnolfo in 1298, when the two 
 Dominican architects were dead. From a passage in Villani, (b. viii. c. 26) 
 it appears that the priors had no fixed abode anterior to 1298.
 
 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 quantity of trees and wood, which, coming into violent 
 contact with the piers of the bridge della S. Trinita, 
 swept them away, utterly destroying at the same time 
 the bridge called la Carraja. 
 
 This inundation caused many deaths, and the destruction 
 of many buildings. The Republic, desiring to restore the 
 two bridges and the ruined edifices, engaged many archi- 
 tects, amongst whom were the two lay-brothers of S. 
 Maria Novella, to whom it especially entrusted the re- 
 building of the Carraj a. In all probability the other (la 
 Trinita) was confided to Arnolfo. 1 Vasari, Baldinucci, 
 Lanzi, Cicognara, together with the two Dominican his- 
 torians, Fineschi and Bitiotti, affirm that Fra Sisto and 
 Fra Ristoro rebuilt both bridges. F. Borghigiani men- 
 tions only one bridge, La Trinita; and what is truly 
 strange, F. Timoteo Bottonio attributes to them the Ru- 
 baconte, which had not been injiired by the flood. 
 None of them cite documents. Relying, therefore, on 
 the grave authority of the Necrology of S. Maria Novella, 
 which was written by a contemporary, we must conclude 
 that the Carraja alone was rebuilt by the two lay -bro- 
 thers. Some have believed that the actual beautiful 
 bridge of this name is the same that was erected in 1269 
 by Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro ; but this is a manifest 
 error, the present bridge being the work of another Do- 
 minican, of whom we shall have occasion to speak else- 
 where. Villani, an indubitable authority, states that 
 
 ' The Guide Book of 1830, errs in stating that the Carraja was built of 
 stone in 1318, after the designs of Arnolfo. It adds, moreover, that it was 
 built of stone, by Ammanato, under Cosimo I. The Guide of 1841, gives it 
 as probable that Fra Giovanni'da Campi, was employed to restore it in 1334. 
 Nor is the recent Guide, by Fantozzi (1842), more accurate, as it states 
 that this bridge was rebuilt by T. Gaddi, A.D. 1333. Elsewhere we will 
 have to speak of this bridge.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 
 
 13 
 
 before and after the flood of 1269, the Carraja was a wooden 
 bridge, and thatFra Sisto andFra Ristoro built the piers 
 of stone, as Jacopo, the German, is said to have done in 
 1218. Such, however, was the solidity of their construc- 
 tion, that they resisted the terrible floods of 1282, 1284, 
 and 1288. Subsequently, however, when the wooden 
 bridge was destroyed in the fashion that Villani describes, 
 a new one, entirely of stone, was built in 1304. This 
 having been swept away by the extraordinary and ever- 
 memorable inundation of 1333, was reconstructed as it is 
 at present, 
 
 The chroniclers of S. Maria Novella have reason to be- 
 lieve that the two architects executed other works in 
 Florence, as well for the Republic as for private citizens, 
 but in such poverty of materials we are not enabled to 
 confirm their opinion. I find, however, that the Guide- 
 book of 1841 conjectures that Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro 
 erected the little church of St. Remigio in Florence, and 
 this conjecture is founded on the similarity of its style to 
 that of S. Maria Novella. F. Joseph Richa has proved 
 the first to be long anterior to the second, and thinks it fur- 
 nished the two lay-brother architects with the idea of 
 their new church. Sigr. Federigo Fantozzi, in his GUIDE, 
 (published 1842,) brings the folio wing arguments against 
 the opinion of the learned Jesuit : " 'Tis very unlikely 
 that this church could have served as a model to the 
 Dominican architects for the magnificent temple of S. 
 Maria Novella, as many have written and supposed, since, 
 if it be true, as it really seems indisputable, that about the 
 year 1428 the church of S. Remigio passed from the pa- 
 tronage of the bishop to that of the people, as their reward 
 for having renewed (rinnovata) it about that period, . . . 
 it is clear that it could not have served as a model for
 
 14 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 S. Maria Novella, which was erected in 1278." 1 To this 
 reasoning, I think that the architecture of the church 
 itself is opposed, for as far as I am able to judge it, it 
 appears to be of extreme antiquity, and not very unlike 
 that of La S. Trinitd and S. Maria Novella. In Florence 
 architecture had made such progress under Brunellesco, 
 and L. B. Alberti, during 1428, that one would find it 
 hard to believe that there could have been a desire to 
 perpetuate the Gothic style in despite of the new methods ; 
 and it is probable that the word " renewed" was employed 
 to signify the simple restoration of the ancient edifice. 
 Howsoever that may be, I will leave the subject to be 
 discussed by more competent critics, as I have not docu- 
 ments that could prove our architects to have been the 
 builders of this church. But there is one work of theirs 
 which has given celebrity to their name the church of 
 S. Maria Novella, of which they furnished the designs. 
 The reader will pardon us if we be prolix in speaking of 
 this hallowed temple, since it has been always regarded 
 as a sanctuary of art, to which the Dominican artists 
 consecrated their genius for more than a century and 
 a half. 
 
 We cannot say in what year the Dominicans appeared 
 for the first time in Florence. The annalists of the order and 
 F. Fineschi assert that they arrived there in 1219. 2 Their 
 first appearance in a city seemed to have a special 
 
 ' AD. 1291, the Republic voted a sum " pro reparatione Pontis Car- 
 rariae," and on the 21st September (same year), 200 flor. parv. ad opus et 
 laborerium Pontis S. Trinitatis. V. Gaye Carteggio Inedito. The sum 
 voted for the Carraja (25 parv. fl.), would show that it did not sustain 
 much damage. 
 
 * Annal. Ord. Freed. Vol. i., p. 245. Fineschi, Memorie, etc. Pnefaz. 
 c vita del B. G. da Salerno.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 15 
 
 character. Few, or many, they presented themselves to 
 the people, and tendered their services to them. When 
 they lacked an asylum they betook themselves to one of 
 the public hospitals, situated near the gates of cities, and 
 then abounding and munificently maintained throughout 
 Italy for the reception of poor pilgrims. What a blessed 
 economy was this, at a period when internecine wars, 
 and the rage of factions cast so many houseless on the 
 high-ways ! In the day time they dispersed themselves 
 through the churches and piazzas, inviting the people to 
 come and hear their sermons. For their support they 
 trusted to God and the charity of the faithful where 
 civil discord raged they exhorted to peace, and employed 
 all their energies to promote friendship. Wheresoever 
 error had crept in they proved themselves champions of 
 the faith, and successfully encountered the teachers of 
 false doctrines. Thus did they comport themselves in 
 Florence, where they arrived, numbering twelve members, 
 under the guidance of the blessed Giovanni da Salerno ; 
 the hospital near the gate of S. Gallo was their first 
 domicile in this city ; and there did they fix their abode, 
 till the bishop, of his liberality, bestowed ' on them the 
 small oratory of S. Jacopo, in Pian di Ripoli, two miles 
 distant from Florence. Compassionating them for the fa- 
 tigue they were obliged to endure in coming such a distance 
 each day to preach in the city, he soon afterwards 
 conducted them to another hospital called S. Pancrazio, 
 which probably stood near the ancient gate of that name. 1 
 
 i The nuns of the order of St. Dominick were located at Pian di Ripoli 
 in 1224. In the year 1292, they removed to Florence, and were established 
 in Via della Scala. This convent was suppressed in 1787, by the Grand 
 Duke Pietro Leopoldo, who employed it as a conservatory for the daughters 
 of the nobility. The Dominican nuns of Florence were amongst the earliest 
 and most zealous encouragers of the art of printing. In 1476, Fra Do-
 
 16 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 It was here that they were met bj S. Dominic, on his 
 arrival in Florence in the year 1219: nor should we 
 forget to mention that the holy founder on entering Siena, 
 met his brethren in the public hospital of St. Mary Mag- 
 dalene, as they had no other refuge at the time. The number 
 of the brotherhood having increased in the year 1220, some 
 of them took up their abode with the Canons of S. Paul, in 
 Palazzuolo. In August, 1221, Cardinal Ugolino, the 
 Pontifical Legate, arrived in Florence, from Bologna, 
 where he had been attending the obsequies of S. Dominic, 
 who passed out of this life on the 6th of the said month, 
 and, finding the friars (whom he sincerely loved) very 
 poorly accommodated, he lost no time in providing them 
 with a suitable habitation. After two months negociation 
 he procured from the bishop and the chapter of the 
 cathedral, the small parochial church of S. Maria " tra le 
 vigne," or as it is often called " La Novella ;" and on the 
 12th of November, it was formally consigned to the 
 Dominicans, who, on the 20th of the same month, 
 took possession of it. To establish a convent was their 
 first object ; and having obtained the Legate's sanction, they 
 sold some lands which had belonged to the aforesaid 
 church. The ancient church, a part of which is now 
 under the actual, was in length equal to the distance 
 
 meiiico da Pistoja, and Fra Pietro da Pisa (0. S. D.), the spiritual directors 
 of this convent, established a printing-press and type-foundery, within its 
 precincts. Some of the nuns did the work of compositors, and the celebrated 
 Bartolommeo Fonzio, made the corrections. Many works were issued from 
 this press between 1476 and 1484. When Domenico da Pistoja died (1484), 
 the nuns ceased to print. F. Fineschi has published " Historical Notices of 
 the Printing-press of Ripoli, to illustrate the Typographical History of 
 Florence." 1 vol. octavo. Florence, 1781. See also Moreni Bibliografia 
 Storico-ragionata della Toscana. VoL i., p. 372. 
 
 i The first habitation of the Dominicans, at Milan, was the hospital of 
 St. Barnabas, where they arrived, twelve in number, A.D. 1218.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 17 
 
 between the chapel of S. Thomas and the steps of the 
 grand altar ; the door of entrance opened on the piazza vec- 
 chia ; and a fragment of the cloister erected by our religious 
 of that period may still be seen in the cemetry, where the 
 arches have been filled up with masonry. Meanwhile the 
 community was rapidly enlarging itself ; and numbers of the 
 Florentine youth, distinguished for birth, knowledge, and 
 riches, asked the habit from the blessed John of Salerno- 
 When the latter died, he left behind him one whose genius 
 and piety had great influence over the citizens this 
 was F. Aldobrandino Cavalcanti, and to him mainly was 
 the young community indebted for its extension. 
 
 In the year 1244, the Pontiff, Innocent IV., having 
 learned that the Manichean heresy was being dissemi- 
 nated by the Ghibelline faction in Florence, commissioned 
 S. Pietro di Verona, to proceed to the city and use every 
 exertion to eradicate such baneful tares. The sanctity of 
 his life, and the fervid eloquence for which the Veronese 
 was distinguished, gave him great influence with the 
 Florentines. Such a concourse come to hear him preach 
 that the church and contiguous piazza could not afford 
 sufficient accommodation: the saint, therefore, besought 
 the republic to enlarge the piazza di S. Maria Novella, 
 (then the widest in Florence,) and a decree, dated De- 
 cember 12, 1244, ordained that a considerable number of 
 houses should be forthwith removed. 1 F. Aldobrandino 
 saw the necessity of enlarging the church, in order that 
 the people might not be exposed to the inclemency of the 
 weather whilst hearing the Divine word, and immediately 
 applied himself to the realisation of his project. In the 
 
 1 This precious document, which must have escaped the learned F. Cam- 
 pano, in his life of S. Pietro, M., was published, I believe, for the first time, 
 by F. G. Richa (1755), in the work entitled "Notizie Storiche delle Chiese 
 Florentine," and more recently by F. Fineschi, in 1790.
 
 18 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 first instance he wrote to the pontiff, and obtained from 
 him two briefs granting indulgences to those who by alms 
 would contribute to the erection of the new building: 
 pending the erection of the new church he resolved to 
 enlarge the old one. The superintendence of the work 
 was confided to F. Pasquale dell' Ancisa, and F. Pagano 
 degli Adimari, who must have been well skilled in 
 architecture, as we shall see when describing the works 
 which they carried on in other parts of Tuscany. At 
 this period F. Aldobrandino invested many of the most 
 respectable citizens with the Dominican habit; but fore- 
 most of all were the two youthful architects, who had 
 resolved to co-operate in the holy work, after having put 
 on the insignia of the order these were Fra Sisto and Fra 
 Ristoro; who, says F. Fineschi, were joined by a certain 
 Fra Domenico, 1 and other men skilled in the building and 
 stone-cutting art. According to the biographer whom 
 we have quoted, these events must have taken place in 
 1256, or in the year following. As soon as the church 
 had been somewhat enlarged the friars wished to embellish 
 it with paintings by those Greeks whom the Republic had 
 invited to Florence about the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, to teach their art to the growing generation. 
 Strange, indeed it is, that the Republic preferred the 
 Greeks to the Pisan and Sienese painters: who were 
 certainly not inferior to the former. This surely is an 
 important fact in the history of art ; and thus it was that 
 the Dominicans may be said to have given the first 
 impulse to the genius of Cimabue. 2 Not content with 
 
 1 The Necrology of this Domenico does not give him the usual title 
 " magister lapidum," or architectus ; neither is he so mentioned in the docu- 
 ment cited by F. Fineschi, in the Life of the B. John di Salerno, p. 71. 
 How, then, can he be enumerated amongst the Dominican artists? 
 
 1 The Greeks were twice engaged to paiiit in S. Maria Novella. First in
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 19 
 
 their apostolic labours, but wishing to cary out the very 
 letter of their rule, which commands them to make them- 
 selves useful, the Dominicans opened a grammar school 
 (in this century and that which followed, such is the 
 designation given to the study of Latin,) for the education 
 of the Florentine youth, and their own novices. The 
 teacher at that period was an uncle of Cimabue, but 
 whether he was a friar or secular priest does not appear, 1 
 The nephew frequented the school, but was wont to 
 escape from his books to watch the Greek painters in the 
 church; at school, instead of attending to the grammar 
 lesson, he employed himself in making rude sketches with 
 the pen ; and the fathers wishing to encourage his incli- 
 nations, entrusted him to the Greeks. He was destined 
 to be the founder of the Florentine School of Painting- 
 there is now, however, no vestige of the frescos painted by 
 the Greeks. These tjaat now remain are by an unknown 
 hand of the school of Giotto, and were executed in 1348. 2 
 l/anzi says that in his day a fragment of the plaster 
 having fallen down, revealed a remnant of a very rude 
 painting by the Greeks. It would be difficult after the 
 lapse of so many ages, and the various modifications of 
 the church, to realise an idea of its form or beauty in the 
 olden time. It appears, however, to have been low and 
 narrow ; the vaultings were coloured in ultra-marine blue, 
 studded with golden stars ; and the walls, from cornice to 
 
 the ancient church, and then in the new. From not being able to distinguish 
 these two epochs, many controversies have arisen amongst critics on art. 
 (. imabue must have studied the paintings of the old church, and not of the 
 actual, which was commenced iu 1279, when he was already thirty-nine 
 years of age. 
 
 1 When the grammar-master was not a religious, he received from the 
 convent a florin per month, together with food and lodging. It appears 
 from the ancient records that multitudes came from Tuscany and the Papal 
 States, to study Latin in Florence, in the fourteenth century, attracted thither 
 by the fame of the blessed Guido Regiolano. Archiv. di S. Maria. 
 
 * V. Borghigiani, and Fineschi.
 
 20 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 basement, were covered with scenes from the life of the 
 Virgin and the Saints. 
 
 But F. Aldobrandino Cavalcanti was not to be satisfied 
 with a church of such poor dimensions ; he had long since 
 resolved on raising a temple far excelling all others in 
 Florence, and to this end he collected alms, and exerted 
 all his energies with the citizens. The Dominicans whose 
 relatives were wealthy did the same. The fact of having 
 two skilful architects in the convent was an additional 
 stimulus, and he was just about to commence the work 
 when Gregory X., appointed him to the See of Orvieto. 
 This appointment which took place in 1272, retarded the 
 work for seven years. When the pontiff set out for the 
 Ecumenic Council of Lyons, he appointed F. Cavalcanti, 
 to be his Vicar at Rome ; an office which he retained during 
 the pontificates of Gregory's three successors, (Innocent V., 
 Adrian V., John XXI.,) till the year 1277, when, on the 
 accession of Nicholas III., he obtained permission to go back 
 to Orvieto. For about two years he continued to govern 
 that church, till, on account of his failing health, he got 
 leave to return to his own country, bringing with him a con- 
 derable sum of money for his church of S. Maria Novella. 
 Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro then produced their plan, and it 
 was no sooner seen than approved of. Just as he was 
 about to lay the first stone, God called to himself, Mon- 
 signore Aldobrandino Cavalcanti, on the 31st of August, 
 1279. The honor was reserved for another religious in 
 higher dignity ; and, indeed, the foundation of this church 
 is associated with one of the grandest and most auspicious 
 passages in Florentine history. 
 
 Fra Latino Malabranca, nephew of Pope Nicholas III., 
 and Legate to the republic, having established peace between 
 the factions known in Bologna, as the GeremeiandLamber- 
 tazzi, and having acted in like manner amongst the other 
 Guelfs and Ghibellines of Romagna, came to Florence,
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 21 
 
 at the pontiff's bidding, charged with the same merciful 
 mission. Let us hear Villani " He came to Florence, 
 accompanied by three hundred gentlemen, on the 8th of 
 October, A.D. 1278 (old style) ; and was received with 
 marked distinction, by the Florentines and clergy, who 
 went out to meet him, and accompany his carriage into 
 the city. On the 18th of October, in the same year, 
 being the feast of St. Luke, the Evangelist, he laid and 
 blessed the first stone of the new church of S. Maria 
 Novella, of the Preaching-Friars, of whom he was a mem- 
 ber; and there upon that very spot he exhorted Guelfs 
 and Ghibellines to peace." Such was the joyful event 
 that marked the foundation of a temple, erected by the 
 devotion of the faithful to the God of peace. When, 
 however, the ambition of the Buondelmonti rekindled 
 the fires of discord, the indefatigable Legate, with still 
 greater pomp, solemnised a peace in February following. 
 " Having summoned the Florentines," continues Villani, 
 " to a parley in the Piazza Vecchia of said church (S. 
 Maria Novella) .... A great pulpit being erected for 
 the cardinal, in presence of the bishops, prelates, clerics, 
 religious, podestas, and all the various orders of Florence, 
 he pronounced a noble discourse, such as was suitable to 
 the occasion, and worthy of such a wise and eloquent 
 preacher. When the sermon was concluded, the syndics 
 deputed by the Guelfs and Ghibellines, kissed each other 
 on the mouth, to the great joy of the citizens." 1 
 
 Under such auspices was the church of S. Maria 
 Novella commenced. In these ages of faith, the erection 
 of a monastery or church was a cause of universal joy. 
 The poor man knew that in these asylums he could share 
 the bread that the friar begged at the portals of the rich ; 
 the learned sought the society of their inmates, to listen 
 
 1 Vilanni Cronaca., lib. vii., c. 6. Maccbiavelli Stone Florentine, lib. ii.
 
 22 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 to their lore ; the artists found in them a source of inspi- 
 ration, encouragement, and remuneration for their labours ; 
 souls enamoured of heaven were there comforted with 
 the spiritual aliment needful for their trials ; and the peo- 
 ple, almost invariably oppressed, regarded the monks as 
 their champions and defenders. No wonder, then, if the 
 people contributed their strength and their substance to 
 the building of these churches and cloisters, from which 
 so many blessings have flowed for the benefit of the 
 human race. 
 
 From the very beginning of the work, the two lay-bro- 
 thers, Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro, were appointed its archi- 
 tects. Many of their brethren, who were excellent stone- 
 masons, and of whom we will have occasion to speak, toiled 
 at the building with singular industry. The overseers and 
 architects all belonged to the convent. So much so, that 
 this beauteous temple was built by their own hands, with- 
 out the intervention of a single secular a very rare fact 
 in the history of art. 1 When the basilica of Assisi, the 
 duomi of Florence, Orvieto and Milan, were projected, 
 it was customary to compete for the appointment of ar- 
 chitect ; and invitations were held out to strangers. Not 
 so with the Dominicans ; those who now consecrated 
 their genius and their arms to this great work were all of 
 the same soil, of the same institute, and of the same 
 convent. 2 
 
 The Republic having examined the plans, concluded 
 that it would be the fairest church in all Florence ; and, 
 being at all times munificent patrons of art, they voted an 
 annual sum of ten thousand florins, and a hundred bushels 
 of lime, till such time as the work was completed. Such 
 
 1 The following superintended the building of S. Maria Novella : Fra 
 P. dell' Ancisa, to 1284 ; Fra Rainerio Gualterotti (called the Greek), to 
 1317 ; Fra Jacopo Passavanti, who witnessed its completion about 1317. 
 
 * The Cistercian Friars, in Flanders, deserve the same eulogium. V. 
 Milizia. Mem. degli Architetti Ant e Mod.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 23 
 
 generosity found a response in the hearts of the people ; 
 and many of the noble families, and bishops whose rela- 
 tives were members of this convent, contributed large 
 sums to the undertaking.! But what tended most to its 
 accomplishment was the eloquence of the far-famed Fra 
 Remigio, who, to distinguish him from the literary cele- 
 brity of the same name in the sixteenth century (who also 
 belonged to this convent) is called the SENIOR. Gifted 
 with glorious genius and natural fluency, he raised 
 pulpit eloquence to the highest dignity both in style and 
 conception. His, however, was not the enthusiastic and 
 impetuous diction of Fra Giovanni da Vicenza, who 
 saw four hundred thousand human beings swayed by his 
 tongue, abjuring their hates, and rushing into each other's 
 embrace; unlike that terrible Savonarola, before whom 
 the Medici quailed, and whom the people worshipped, 
 Fra Remigio, if we be allowed the comparison, reminds 
 us of Casa's discourses to Charles the Fifth, written, 
 however, in all the simplicity of the thirteenth century. 
 One of his orations, pronounced when the priors and gonfa- 
 loniere were entering on their office (December 25, 1293), 
 made a thrilling appeal on behalf of the church of Santa 
 Maria Novella ; nor was it inefficacious, for the Republic 
 made two grants to the building, the one on the 23rd 
 of September, 1295, and the other on the 6th of June, 
 1297. 
 
 The plan of the church of S. Maria Novella 2 is a Latin 
 cross,with nave, and aisles. Six pointed arches resting upon 
 as many pilasters of the stone called PEPERiNO,and adorned 
 
 1 Anno 1295, 23 Sept., Pro Ecclesiae S. M. Novelise Constructione, libr. 
 1200 f. p. (flor. parvor), persolvendae in quatuor terminis pro anno future 
 initiando in kalend. Januarii proxime venturi. Anno 1297, 6 Junii. Pro 
 Ecclesia S. M. N. quse de novo refficitur, et rehedificatur, libr. 1200 f. p., in 
 termino unius anni. Gaye, Archiv. delle Riformagioni. Vol. L, app. 2. 
 
 * For the dimensions of this church see document No. 1.
 
 24 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 with four mezzo-columns of the same material, extend along 
 its whole length on either side. The vaultings and arches 
 are so beautifully disposed, that there appears to be but one 
 point of difference between the architecture ofFraSisto and 
 Fra Ristoro, and that of Orgagna in the following century. 
 No one can see this church without discovering how well 
 these architects had penetrated the secret of perspective ; 
 for, being viewed from its threshold, it appears much 
 longer than it really is. This illusion, we need not say, 
 is produced by the admirable arrangement of the arches, 
 the span of which diminishes gradually from the entrance 
 to the end of the building. In fact, so happy is the 
 adaptation of all the details, that the eye must fail 
 to discover the massive iron chains which were em- 
 ployed at that period to strengthen the vaultings. Sim- 
 ple and majestic, solid and light, it embraces an ensem- 
 ble of beauties that makes it the fairest in Florence, 
 and, according to Richa and Fineschi, the most grace- 
 ful in Italy. Never let us forget the criticism of Michel- 
 angelo, who called it his " gentle spouse" (Sposa Gentile). 
 It is, beyond doubt, the precursor of Brunellesco's archi- 
 tecture. Here you do not find that multiplicity of detail 
 that wearies the eye, and produces confusion; nor the 
 superfluity of decoration which at that period was em- 
 ployed to ornament the sacred edifices. Here all is 
 rare and majestic simplicity. Behold it arrayed in 
 its pomp on festal days, draped in silk and gold, with its 
 altars lighted ; or better still, contemplate it in its severe 
 simplicity, at sunset, when the grand shadows of the pil- 
 lars cross each other, falling on the opposite walls, and the 
 richly-tin ted twilight streams through its storied windows, 
 colouring every object around, and you will feel a thou- 
 sand celestial thoughts springing up in your soul. 1 Be it 
 
 1 In the fifteenth century there was published a little volume (now, I
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 25 
 
 remembered, to the honour of these two architects, that 
 Florence did not furnish them with models of such beauty 
 as this; for it was not till 1294 that Arnolfo laid the 
 foundation of S. Croce, and S. Maria del Fiore was not 
 begun till 1298 ; that is to say, the first fourteen years, 
 and the second eighteen after the building of S. Maria 
 Novella, when the Dominican architects had passed out 
 of this life. Historic impartiality, however, dictates that 
 a great part of the glory derivable from this beauteous 
 edifice should be given to two other architects of the same 
 convent, who witnessed its completion in the succeeding 
 century. 
 
 The Necrology of the convent having narrated the 
 works of the two lay-brothers in their own country, goes 
 on to say, that their fame soon reached Rome, and that 
 the pontiff (who he was is not quite certain) invited them 
 to work in his own palace, and to construct some vaults, 
 (primas testudines,) as they had already done in that of 
 the Prior's or Podesta's at Florence. In all probability 
 the pope in question was Nicholas III., the uncle of 
 Cardinal Latino, whom we have seen laying the first 
 stone of S. Maria Novella, and who, 'tis likely, mentioned 
 the lay-brothers to his holiness. If this be true, it must 
 have been before the August of 1280, in which year and 
 month Nicholas III., died/ 
 
 Here I may be permitted to hazard a conjecture on a 
 question which may be satisfactorily resolved in time to 
 come. Comparing the date of the arrival of the two lay- 
 brothers in Rome, with that of the building of S. Maria 
 
 believe, lost,) entitled, " De Pulchritudine Sanctae Mariae Novelise." It is 
 quoted by Savonarola in one of his orations to the Florentine Republic. V. 
 Burlamacchi " Vita di Savon.," p. 70. Lucca, 1764. Marchese has 
 forgotten to mention the time in which this church was consecrated. The 
 inscription on the north pier of the chancel arch, states that Pope Martin V. 
 performed the ceremony, on the 7th Sept, 1420. 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 26 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 sopra Minerva, of the same Order, I am of opinion that 
 Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro may have furnished the de- 
 sign, and for some time superintended that work. The 
 architecture of this church, if unequal to, is not unlike 
 that of S. Maria Novella, save in lightness, of which its 
 vastness did not permit, as, with the exception of the 
 three Basiliche, it is the largest in Rome. The cruciform 
 character is precisely the same. The two lateral chapels 
 of the great altar, and the principal chapels correspond 
 with these of S. Maria Novella in Florence. So likewise 
 do the clustered columns ; or, in other words, the pilasters 
 decorated with four demi-colunms. In fact, if it had not 
 been frequently modernized, it is probable that the eye, 
 at one glance, might recognise the architecture of Fra 
 Sisto and Fra Ristoro. Let us compare the epochs. 
 This very F. Aldobrandino Cavalcanti, who had given 
 the religious habit to Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro, and 
 engaged them to design S. Maria Novella, being in 
 Rome in his capacity of vicar to the Pope, confirmed 
 the surrender made by the Benedictine nuns in Campus 
 Martius, of the ancient and small church of S. Maria 
 sopra Minerva in favour of the Dominican Friars, 
 (16th November, 1274.) It would appear that the new 
 church had not then been commenced, for F. Fontana 
 quotes a brief of Nicholas III., dated June 24, 1280, (the 
 year probably in which the lay-brothers entered Rome,) 
 addressed to John Colonna and Pandolfo Savelli, Roman 
 senators, exhorting them to give the promised subsidies 
 to the Preaching-Friars, in order to enable them to build 
 the new church : and it is therein expressly mentioned 
 that the foundations had been already laid, (cum itaque 
 dicta Ecclesia incipiatur fabricari ad presens") After 
 the death of Nicholas III., F. Fontana opines that the 
 building was not resumed till the election of Boniface
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 27 
 
 VIII. ; who issued a brief, (January 21, 1295, the first 
 year of his pontificate,) directed to the prior of the 
 Dominicans, which describes the commencement of the 
 new church as " most sumptuous," (opere plurimum son- 
 tuoso.) It is true that Fra Ristoro had returned to Flo- 
 rence, but Fra Sisto remained at Rome eight consecutive 
 years, during which time he might easily have conducted 
 the building so as to merit for it the description of "most 
 sumptuous" in 1295. Moreover, Fontana's assertion, 
 that he remained idle for fully fourteen years, the period 
 that intervened between the death of Pope Nicholas and 
 the election of Boniface VIII., is altogether gratuitous. 1 
 The Necrology of S. Maria Novella states nothing of the 
 sort, which it should have recorded ; and, indeed, this nega- 
 tive argument is worthy some consideration ; but, at the same 
 time, it is very unlikely that the Dominicans would have 
 invited strangers to do work, which could have been ably 
 performed by two distinguished members of their own 
 body, then actually in Rome. 2 Fontana, however, has not 
 been able to determine the name of the architect. Giuseppe 
 Vasi dates the cession of the ancient church (S. Maria 
 sopra Minerva,) A.D. 1395. The same error occurs in the 
 work entitled "Rome, Ancient and Modern," compiled 
 out of the writings of Panvinio, Pancirolo, and Nardini. 
 The Roman Guide, published in 1842, repeats the same 
 error. M. D'Agincourt, (Hist, de L' Art,) states that it 
 was built in the fourteenth century, in the pontificate of 
 Gregory XI. ; and wonders that the pointed arch should 
 have appeared at this period in Rome, (vol. i. p. 2, p. 
 240.) His wonder, however, is quite unreasonable ; for 
 although Orgagna employed the rounded arch at Flo- 
 
 1 De Rom. Prov. Ord. Praed. c, ii. Tit 1. 
 
 2 In 1G36 the Director of the modifications made in the Minerva was 
 Giov. M. da Pesaro, a Dominican lay-brother.
 
 28 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 rcncc about the year 1370 ; it is not less certain that the 
 " pointed" prevailed for many years in other Italian 
 cities. The duomo of Milan commenced at the close of 
 that century: and S. Petronio di Bologna, that was 
 begun in 1392, are sufficient proofs of this. But, as we 
 have already said, the church della Minerva is more 
 ancient by one century. 
 
 M. Valery, after visiting the churches of the Domini- 
 cans, (SS. John and Paul in Venice, S. Nicholas in 
 Trevigi, S. Maria Novella in Florence, the Minerva at 
 Rome, and S. Domenico Maggiore in Naples,) was 
 astonished at the peculiar character of the Gothic archi- 
 tecture of the period, which he pronounces noble, simple, 
 and majestic. 1 Such, too, is the opinion ofMontalem- 
 bert regarding the Dominican churches in France; 2 
 which, says the learned writer, suffered so much from 
 popular fury in the revolutions of the last century. Alas 
 that we are obliged to record the same of some of them 
 even in Italy ! 
 
 How little soever one may be read in the political, 
 religious, or literary history of Italy, he cannot cross the 
 threshold of the Minerva at Rome without experiencing 
 a tumult of ideas, alternately sad and joyful; without 
 beholding, as it were, the triumphal entry of the six- 
 teenth century, and its blood-stained exit. Leo X., 
 Bembo and Paolo Manuzio who moulder beneath its 
 vaults, remind us of our literary and artistic glories of 
 Raffaello and Buonarrotti. The tombs of Clement VII. 
 
 1 Voyages Historiques et Litter, d' Italic, liv. xii. c. 8. 
 * Da Vandalisme et du Catholocisme dans 1'Art Paris, 1839, p. 47. " Je 
 vous fais observer en passant qu' une sorte de fatalite toute particuliere sem- 
 ble s' attacher aux Eglises constitutes par les Dominicains, toujours d' un 
 gout si simple, si pur, ri regulier: dies sent partout choisies en premier lieu 
 par les destructeurs."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 29 
 
 and Paul IV. revive memories of the sack of Rome, of the 
 Reformation, and the terrible beleaguering that the Pon- 
 tifical See had to sustain. From such reminiscences as 
 these the mind seeks comfort at the sepulchre of the 
 blessed Angelico da Fiesole, and at that of the holy maiden 
 of Siena, whose eloquence, more persuasive than Petrarca's, 
 restored the throne of the pontiffs to the eternal city. 
 
 Here terminate the notices of Fra Sisto and Fra Ris- 
 toro. The first died at Rome, in March, 1289, whilst 
 carrying on works for the Dominican nuns of the monas- 
 tery of S. Sisto; the second in his own country, in 1283: 
 and he desired that his ashes should repose in that temple 
 which confers a title to glory on the twain. 1 These two 
 architects are highly lauded by Vasari, in his Life of 
 Gaddo Gaddi ; by Bottari, in a note to his Life of Fra 
 Giovanni Angelico; by Baldinucci, in his Memoirs of 
 Arnolfo; by Lanzi, in the History of Painting; but 
 especially by Cicognara, in his invaluable History of 
 Italian Sculpture. Observe what he says : " It is strange 
 that the names of Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro, both Flo- 
 rentines, and builders of the principal bridges of the 
 Arno, to say nothing of their other works in the city, 
 and in the Vatican, should be almost shrouded in 
 oblivion. Why is it that no mention is made of Fra 
 Jacopo Talenti da Nipozzano, who, along with the fore- 
 said, raised so many edifices in Florence ? These archi- 
 tects of the thirteenth century, (Talenti belongs to the 
 
 1 The following is an entry in the Necrology of S. Maria Novella : " Fr. 
 Ristorus conversus de Campi, hie f uit maximus architectus et una cum fratre 
 Sixto converse, qui est infra, et obiit Romae, et fecerunt nostram Ecclesiam 
 tanto siquidem artificio ut usque hodie sit in admirationem, et hi duo fece- 
 runt magnas testudines palatii dominorum Priorura Florentiae, et pontem 
 CarraguB, et primas testudines domini Papae, ubi obiit Fr. Sixtus. 
 
 " Fr. Sixtus conversus de porta, S. Pancratii de vico qui dicitur S. Sixtus, 
 obiit Romse in loco dominarum S. Sixtii, A.D. 1289, m. martii.
 
 30 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 fourteenth,) have an immense claim on our gratitude, for 
 to them we owe the splendid revival of architecture. 
 After the Pisan architects, and the builders of the Basilica 
 at Venice, they deserve the highest place in Italy." 1 
 
 Before closing this chapter, we would fondly pray 
 that some monument may be raised above their ashes to 
 tell the native and the stranger their names and works. 
 Florence did tardy justice to the memory of Arnolfo and 
 Brunellesco ; may the day soon come when she will show 
 her gratitude to Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro in S. Maria 
 Novella ! 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Minor Tuscan Architects, their Works in Prato, Florence, and in 
 Val d' Arno, etc. 
 
 THAT religious enthusiasm which was kindled in the 
 hearts, not only of the Italian people, but in these of the 
 ultramontanes also, is very discernible in the vast number 
 of edifices which in these days arose, as it were by en- 
 chantment, in the cities, hamlets, and rural districts of 
 Spain and Italy. In 1233 Fra Giovanni, a Dominican 
 of Bologna, addressed the people of Reggio in that fervid 
 strain of eloquence so efficacious at a period singularly 
 remarkable for its bloody feuds. He appealed to them 
 for means to enable him to erect a convent and church 
 of his order in Reggio ; " and then," writes a contemporary 
 historian, " you might have seen the whole population 
 making an offering of their services and chattels, nay, 
 vieing with each other in activity and zeal." What was 
 witnessed a few centuries before, when the Benedictines 
 
 1 Cicognara, v. iii. lib. iii. c. i. pag. 45.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 31 
 
 set about building their church in Dive, was repeated 
 on this memorable occasion. Men, women, and chil- 
 dren, noble, and plebeian, absolutely carried the mate- 
 rials for the sacred edifice, which, under the direction of 
 a certain Fra Jacopino of the same Order, was finished in 
 the brief term of three years. 1 The Perugian Magis- 
 tracy confided the banner of the State to the blessed 
 Niccolo Di Giovenazzo, telling him, at the same time, 
 that wheresoever he planted it there should be raised a 
 temple to S. Dominic, and an asylum for his children. 2 
 This zeal for church-building required a great number 
 of architects, stone-masons, engineers, and other persons 
 competent to superintend the works; and the new Orders, 
 on this account, received many skilful persons into their 
 ranks. This will appear more clearly from what we are 
 about to write. When Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro died, 
 the building of S. Maria Novella was continued un- 
 interruptedly; and such was the abundance of able 
 architects, that three lay-brothers of the same convent 
 undertook various works in the neighbouring cities and 
 towns of Tuscany. The names of these three, (accord- 
 ing to the Necrology,) were Fra Mazzetto, Fra Borghese, 
 and Fra Albertino Mazzanti. Of these, the second only 
 could have learned the art from Fra Sisto and Fra Ris- 
 toro, unless we suppose that the other two had been his 
 disciples before entering religion. We have not ascer- 
 tained the birth place of Fra Mazzetto, the names of his 
 
 i Muratori, writing of this church, says, (Rer. Ital. Script, v. viii. pp. 
 1107-8:) " A.D. 1233, on the festival of St. James, the first stone of this 
 church was consecrated by Albertus, Archipresbyter of Eeggio, and the 
 bishop Nicholas. All the men and women of Reggio, great and small, 
 noble and ignoble, citizens and peasants, carried stone, sand, and lime on 
 their backs, in skins and baskets, and blessed was he who could carry most 
 . . . and Fra Jacopino superintended the works." 
 
 * Fontana De Rom. Prov. Ord. Praed. Tit. vii. p. 103.
 
 32 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 parents, or the year of his birth ; but it is certain that he 
 took the habit in the church of S. Maria Novella, A.D. 
 1298, when its two first architects had passed out of this 
 world. About 1300 the superiors entrusted him with 
 the building of the church of S. Dominic in Prato; 
 and that work was greatly facilitated by the co-operation 
 of Fra Niccolo Albertino, the same who was destined to 
 wear the sacred purple, and to act such a remarkable 
 part in the political history of his own country and Tus- 
 cany. The church of S. Dominic in that city was 
 begun in 1281, in all probability after the designs of Fra 
 Sisto and Fra Ristoro ; and F. Paul Pilastri conducted the 
 works to the year 1300 ; but when the latter was sent to 
 govern the convents of Pisa, Arezzo, Florence, etc., Fra 
 Mazzetto took charge of it till its completion. This we 
 confidently assert, despite Fineschi, who fancies that 
 Mazzetta was engaged at it in 1281, whereas he did not 
 receive the habit of the Order till 1298. Neither do we 
 agree with Vasari, who affirms that the convent of Prato 
 was restored by Giovanni Pisano in 1300; since it is 
 indubitable that neither convent nor church were finished 
 in 1322. 1 For this fact we are indebted to the researches 
 of Emmanuele Repetti, who states, that on the 10th of 
 February of that year, Fra Lapo, a Dominican, and one of 
 the executors of Cardinal Niccolo Albertino, informed 
 the magistrates of the city that the foresaid Cardinal had 
 bequeathed a sum of money for the completion of this 
 church and convent. 2 Fra Mazzeto continued to super- 
 intend these works for about ten years, and closed his 
 days in Prato, (October llth, 1310,) in the twelfth year 
 of his religious life. The writer of the Necrology in S. 
 
 i V. Vasari's Life of P. Pilastri. 
 
 * Dizionario Geog. fisico stor. della Toscana, voL iv. p. 649. Vasari's 
 Life of Gior. and Nic. Pisano.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 33 
 
 Maria Novella, records that " he was a devout religious, 
 skilful and industrious in all matters connected with 
 carpentry, and beloved by his brethren." 1 It would be 
 very difficult to form an accurate judgment of the works 
 of this architect in Prato, for the church having been de- 
 stroyed by fire in 1647, has been almost wholly rebuilt 
 after the design of Baccio del Bianco. 2 
 
 Much more copious, however, are the documents 
 relating to the two other architects, Fra Albertino Maz- 
 zanti and Fra Borghese. The first was born in Florence, 
 A.D. 1260. From his father's name, which was Cambio, 
 some have fancied that he was related to the celebrated 
 Arnolfo, who was not the son of Lapo, as Vasari asserts, 
 but of Cambio, as Baldinucci has shown. 3 He took the 
 religious habit in S. Maria Novella, A.D. 1284, when 
 Fra Sisto was in Rome, and Fra Ristoro had been one 
 year dead. He served God thirty-five years in the in- 
 stitute of the Preaching-Friars, and was praised as an 
 eminent architect. Aged fully sixty years, he passed 
 out of this life in his convent of S. Maria Novella, 
 A.D. 1319. 4 
 
 Fra Borghese was born in Florence about 1250, and 
 was the son of a certain Ugolino, architect, from whom 
 he may have learned the rudiments of the art. When he 
 took the habit in S. Maria Novella, in 1272, (being then 
 in the twentieth year of his age,) Fra Sisto and Fra Ris- 
 
 1 It may be useful to state that the word " Carpentarius," so frequently 
 occuring in the Necrology, is invariably meant to signify an architect the 
 term employed to signify carpenter is " Lignarius," or "lignorum faber." 
 Ducange, however, has no example of this sort. 
 
 * Repetti Dizion. 1. c. 
 
 s Notizie dei professor! del disegno, v. i. 
 
 4 F. Albertinus diet Mazzante filius Cambi, CARPENTARIUS, et in edifi- 
 ciis fratrum construendis persubtilis, obiit 1319, vixit in ord. circa 35. ann. 1 ' 
 Necrology, S. M. N. 
 
 c 2
 
 34 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 toro were still living, and it is probable that he cultivated 
 architecture under the guidance of these able masters. 
 At that precise period they were collecting materials for 
 the new edifice. When the first stone was laid by 
 Cardinal Latino, (A. D. 1279,) Fra Borghese may have 
 attained that degree of proficiency which must have 
 made him a valuable accession to Sisto and Ristoro. The 
 latter were not more than eight months engaged at S. 
 Maria Novella, when they were invited to Rome to work 
 in the Vatican, as we have already stated ; and in their 
 absence, none could have been more fitted to substitute 
 them than Fra Borghese. Assisted by Albertino, in 1284, 
 the two worked conjointly for many years. And, indeed, 
 it would appear from a valuable hint of the learned Jesuit, 
 Richa, that we should attribute to them the eastern aisle, 
 built in 1307, when Fra Giovanni da Campi, and Fra 
 Jacopo Talenti had not as yet taken the habit. 1 Work, 
 and prayer, and profound study of the beautiful in art 
 always associating his aesthetic genius to the austerity of 
 the anchorite constituted the whole life of Fra Borghese, 
 who, having spent forty years in the institute of the 
 Preaching Friars, was called to the peace of the just, 
 February 20, 1313. Much praise is due to these two 
 architects for having realised the ideal of Sisto and Ris- 
 toro ; since in works of this nature, if the executors lack 
 science, the beauty of the edifice must be considerably, if 
 not wholly, deformed. 
 
 Whilst Fra Mazzeto was superintending the church of 
 S. Dominic, in Prato, and Borghese and Mazzanti that 
 
 1 Lib. di Ricord. del Conv. di S. M. Novella. " In consideration of Fra 
 Ugolino Minerbetti, who took the habit of S. Dominic, in 1298, the Miner- 
 betti (family) gave 300 gold florins to build the eastern aisle ; and Andrea 
 Minerbetti, and his wife Francesca, were painted on the vault in fresco." 
 Rjgha Not. Stor. delle C. Florentine. V. ill, p. 25.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 35 
 
 of S. Maria Novella, some religious, either architects or 
 amateurs of the ar^, undertook very many buildings in 
 Tuscany. The church of S. Domenico, at Pistoja, which 
 was commenced in 1280, was built, probably, after the 
 designs of Fra Sisto and Ristoro, and F. Pasquale dall' 
 Ancisa, whom we have seen employed at S. Maria No- 
 vella, superintended the works from 1279 to 1284. In 
 this year, however, he must have come to Pistoja, leaving 
 F. Rainerio Gualterotti to succeed him in Florence. All 
 the hospices, which in former ages belonged to the Domi- 
 nicans in Tuscany, were built about this period; and 
 some of them, being enlarged, were subsequently used as 
 convents. Exclusive of S. Vincenzo di Tridozio, in the 
 Romagna, which belonged to S. Maria Novella, they 
 amounted to eight; that of St. Domenico di Figline, a 
 large town on the way between Arezzo and Florence, was 
 entrusted to F. Pagano degli Adimari, who directed the 
 works which were finally completed by F. Pietro Macci, 
 an eminent architect. To Macci, likewise, was entrusted 
 that of S. Maria Casciano, on the road that leads from 
 Florence to Siena. That of S. Giovanni, in Val-d' Arno, 
 was built by Fra Giovanni dell' Ancisa. The first and 
 second of these, as well as that of S. Niccolo, in Monte 
 Lupo, erected by the generosity of Saltarelli, a Dominican, 
 and Archbishop of Pisa, had attached to it a public 
 hospital, after the style of these which, at an earlier period, 
 used to be built near the gates of every city, for the 
 reception of pilgrims. 1 Thus did the Dominicans repay 
 
 1 Besides the hospices mentioned in the text, the Dominicans possessed 
 four more in Tuscany. The Necrology makes special mention of one of them, 
 and we transcribe it here. " F. P. fiL Galigai de Maccis Sacerdos et predi- 
 cator, cantor bonus, scriptor gratiosus, conversatione quietus, et fratribus 
 gratus, ingeniosus circa mechanica, et ad edificia construenda industrius ; 
 furt supprior in conv. flor., insuper conversation!, et recreationi fratrum nos-
 
 36 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 the charity which the Tuscans evinced, when receiving 
 them into the hospitals of S. M. Magdalene in Siena, 
 and SS. Paul and Pancrazio, at Florence when unknown, 
 needing protection, and poor, they threw themselves on 
 their generosity. When we remember that all these 
 edifices were raised by architects, masons, and stone- 
 cutters belonging to one convent, we can form some 
 notion of the number and capabilities of the artists 
 themselves. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Of some Portuguese Architects of the Thirteenth Century. 
 
 IN order of time three Portuguese architects, illustrious 
 for their learning and sanctity, and who accompanied 
 their apostolic labours with the cultivation of the arts, 
 should take precedence of all the Tuscan architects of 
 whom we have been writing ; but, in fact, they did not 
 make architecture the business of their lives, and rarely 
 exercised it. Indeed, we would have been disposed to 
 speak of them simply as successful preachers of the divine 
 
 trorura studiose invigilans, et aliorum etiam pauperum hospital! tati intendens, 
 hopitale de Fignino sibi a fratre Pagano de quo dictum est supra, sibi com- 
 missum, ad quern principaliter pertinebat, suaedificavitindustria, lectos ibidem 
 et alia ad hsec necessaria cum multa diligentia procurando, et qualiter fratres 
 nostri omnes ibidem sufficientem refectionem haberent tarn discrete, quam 
 provide ordinavit ad quos pleniori ferebatur affectu. Fratre autem Pagano 
 viam universe carnis ingresso, cura hospitalis ipsius est ei principaliter credita, 
 a Magistro Ordinis, qui super excrescentibus possessionibus supradicti hospi- 
 talis, utpote fidelis dispensator et prudens, territorium emit in S. Cassiano et 
 locum pro fratribus simili modo recipiendis cepit edificare ibidem, quern 
 morte preventus non potuit consumare. Vix. in ord. ann. 41, ob. 1301."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 37 
 
 word, had not Milizia, 1 who ranks them amongst the most 
 celebrated of ancient and modern architects, counselled 
 otherwise. These are the blessed Gundisalvo, the blessed 
 Peter Gonzales, and a certain venerable F. Lorenzo; 
 who are better known as the " Three holy Architects." 
 The lives of these men will serve to illustrate what we 
 have already asserted, and prove, if proof be necessary, 
 that the arts, in their earlier development, received an 
 eminently religious character from the inmates of the 
 cloister. The blessed Gundisalvo was born in the diocese 
 of Braga, in Portugal, and at a very advanced period of 
 his life, took the habit of the Preaching-Friars. Enamoured 
 of solitude, and imitating the example of the anchorites 
 of old, he built for himself an oratory and a cell in a 
 lonely place, three leagues from the banks of the Douro, 
 on the confines of the province called Tras-os-montes. This 
 solitude was called Amaranthe. It is a fact worth noticing, 
 that many persons attracted thither by the fame of his virtues 
 and eloquence, began to construct habitations in the 
 neighbourhood of the saint's cell ; and in these humble 
 beginnings the city of Amaranta had its origin. All his- 
 torians attribute to this saint a magnificent bridge over 
 the Tagus, and describe it a work of great solidity. In 
 fact, for fully six centuries it withstood the immense 
 masses of water that rushed against its piers. On the 10th 
 of January, A.D. 1295, the holy architect passed to the 
 glory of heaven; and on that day the Catholic Church 
 celebrates his memory. 
 
 The blessed Peter Gonzalez, commonly called St. 
 Telmo, was a native of the city of Astorga, in Spain, but 
 spent the greater part of his life at Guimaranez, in Por- 
 tugal, where he died, on the 15th of April, 1246. He, 
 
 i Memorie degli architetti antichi e moderni. V. i., 1. 1, c. 2.
 
 38 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 too, was canonised. The Lusitanian historians, the Bol- 
 landists, and, on their authority, Milizia, state that he was 
 the arcliitect of a noble bridge over the Minho, between 
 Rivadavia and Orense a work, says Michele Pio, " too 
 great for any king, and at which he laboured with his own 
 hands." 1 F. A. Touron is of opinion that the writers we 
 have quoted were led into an error on account of the 
 similarity of the name, for, says he, " in the Portuguese 
 idiom, the blessed Gundisalvo, is called Gonzalez, as is 
 the blessed Peter :" from this he concludes that the bridge 
 in question is simply that erected by the former over the 
 Tagus.* The truth of this must have been better known 
 to the Portuguese historians than to Touron ; but, how- 
 soever it be, we have no other architectural remain of 
 either. F. Michele Pio makes honorable mention of 
 Father Lorenzo Mendez, a Portuguese, and distinguished 
 orator, who died in 1259, the same year as the blessed 
 Gundisalvo ; but he does not assert that he was an archi- 
 tect. Meagre as these notices are, it is consoling to find 
 three religious occupied in works of public utility, and 
 shedding a holy lustre on art, by the purity of their 
 lives. 3 
 
 i Vite degU uomini Illustri dell' Ord. di S. Domenico. P. I. lib. i, p. 1. 
 
 * Vies des Homines Illustres de 1'Ordre de S. Dom. VoL i., liv. 1. 
 
 3 I have not been able to discover any notices of the life of the Yen. 
 Lorenzo Mendez, the architect of the bridge of Cavez. Two other holy 
 architects are celebrated in Spain Giovanni d' Ortega and Domenico della 
 Calzava, concerning whom v. Milizia Memorie, &c., lib. 1, c. 2.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Notices of the Life and Works of Fra Guglielmo, da Pisa, Sculptor and 
 Architect State of Sculpture in Italy, at the beginning of the Thirteenth 
 Century The first Works of Fra Guglielmo, in his own country and in 
 Bologna. 
 
 WHOSOEVER would desire to contemplate Pisa's Artistic 
 glory, must not hope to find it during that turbid and 
 feverish period when it bent beneath the bondage of the 
 Medici. Let it rather be sought in these days memora- 
 ble for the victory of Mont-Aperti 1 in the days of the 
 dreadful struggle with Genoa, when all the Guelphic 
 cities of Tuscany were leagued to exterminate the Athens 
 of Italy. Then it was that Niccola Pisano, following the 
 precepts of Giunta and Bonanno, consulting the antique, 
 and what was better still, the real, founded a school of 
 sculpture and architecture, which may be said to have 
 revived art in Italy. Truly it was a noble school that 
 educated such men as Arnolfo, Giovanni, and Andrea of 
 Pisa. Happy auspices of a glorious future ! But alas 
 for the Republic ! prostrated by the Genoese at Meloria ; 2 
 then beseiged and taken by Castruccio ; 3 sold and assas- 
 sinated by the infamous Appiano, 4 she was doomed to 
 fall, like a victim all bloody and mutilated, into the gripe of 
 the Florentines. Then did the arts follow in the train of 
 
 1 This battle was fought in 1260. The Lucchese historian writes of it, 
 " Citra tempera salvatoris non fuit major clades." (Since the Saviour's days 
 there was never such carnage.) 
 
 * The sea-fight at Meloria occurred in 1284. 
 
 3 Castruccio died, A.D. 1328. 
 
 4 Appiano, who died in 1398, treacherously slew Pietro Gambacorti, and 
 usurped the government of the Republic.
 
 40 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 the victors ; and it was only from time to time that they 
 deigned to bestow a smile of gratitude on that hospitable soil, 
 which was consecrated by their resurrection. Amongst 
 the great ones to whom Niccola had taught both sculp- 
 ture and architecture, there was a youth whose genius 
 equalled that of his contemporaries, and whose birth and 
 piety raised him immeasurably above all competitors. This 
 youth took the habit of the Preaching-Friars, and was the 
 foremost of the sculptors whom the Order claims. But 
 since his life and works are known to few, or, at least, 
 badly described, we will do our best to illustrate both. 
 
 Fra Guglielmo Agnelli, was born in Pisa, of an honor- 
 able family. We do not know the year of his birth, nor 
 would it be easy to discover it, as the notices of him which 
 have descended to us are very meagre. 1 F. Michele Pio, 
 without quoting any document, and showing himself 
 very ignorant of this sculptor's life, would have us believe 
 that he was born in 1222 ; but, as we shall have occasion 
 to see, this assertion is not warranted by history. Per- 
 haps it were better to profess ignorance of it, or to hazard 
 a conjecture, and say that he was born in 1238, or there- 
 abouts. Nature had gifted Agnelli with a gentle soul, 
 which the example and the counsels of his parents inclined 
 to the practices of virtue ; so much so, that when he grew 
 apace, and acquired fame as a sculptor, the people were 
 wont to look on him as a man of sanctity. His intellect 
 was prompt and vigorous : but more enamoured of the 
 
 1 The cognomen " Agnelli," not mentioned in the original chronicle of 
 the Convent of S. Catherine in Siena, and of which Alberti and Pio were 
 ignorant, was well known to F. S. Razzi ; and to Morrona, the historian of 
 Pisa. Nearly all of them call him " blessed." Razzi has preserved his por- 
 trait, and the armorial bearings of the family ; and their identity with these 
 of Agnello Agnelli, a Pisan, and member of the Franciscan Order, leads us to 
 believe that both were somehow related. In 13C8, Giovanni Agnello was 
 Doge of Venice.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 41 
 
 beautiful revealed in nature's works, than of science or 
 letters ; whilst yet a youth, he committed himself to the 
 teaching of Niccolo Pisano, whose fame had already sur- 
 passed that of Bonanno, and all his contemporaries. This, 
 in my judgment, accounts for the preference which the 
 Pisans of this period gave to sculpture and architecture. 
 The chisel was prized beyond the pencil of Giunta. We 
 have already remarked on the condition of the arts in Italy 
 during the thirteenth century ; and briefly alluded to that 
 wonderful revolution of ideas and principles which induced 
 art to renounce the imitation of the ancient methods for 
 a new and imaginative style, which, certainly, did not 
 lack either beauty or majesty. But miserable in the ex- 
 treme was the state of painting and sculpture ; so much 
 so, that both one and the other, trammelled by old tradi- 
 tions, and still more retarded by the Byzantine produc- 
 tions, did not dare to break the chains of that servile 
 imitation, and take nature (the most essential foundation 
 of art,) for their model and exemplar. And here we 
 may observe that the condition of painting was far more 
 deplorable than that of sculpture, since time and human 
 hands had obliterated almost every trace of the Grecian and 
 Roman pencil ; whereas sculpture could avail itself of many 
 statues and bassi-relievi, which had escaped the devastat- 
 ing barbaric hordes. This, beyond doubt, is the reason 
 why the progress of sculpture outstripped that of painting. 
 Nor should we be understood to assert that many were 
 not anxious to revive sculpture, or that their efforts were 
 altogether fruitless, since we know that Benedetto Ante- 
 lani in Parma, Biduino in Lucca, Bonanno in Pisa, 
 Viligelmo in Modena, Gruamonte and Enrico in Pistoja, 
 cultivated the art ; but whether it was that they did not 
 avail themselves of the masterpieces of antiquity, or did 
 not study nature, they failed to obtain praise, and, most
 
 42 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 certainly, did not hasten its progress. But when Niccolo 
 Pisano began to study in Rome and in his own country, 
 the remains of Grecian and Roman excellence, maturing 
 that study by the contemplation of the real, then, and not 
 till then, did sculpture cast off barbarism, and arise to a 
 new life. Pisa contained two precious monuments adorned 
 with bassi-relievi : the one, a Greek work, represented the 
 history of Hippolytus and Phaedra ; on the other (Roman) 
 was sculptured the chase of Meleager. Niccolo, instead 
 of the Byzantine models, presented the two Sarcophagi 
 to his disciples, retaining nothing of the old school save 
 the symbolism necessary for Christian art and its tradi- 
 tions. Cicognara gives us many of Niccola's designs, and 
 some, too, of the golden age of sculpture, a glance at 
 which will convince us how intently he applied himself 
 to the study of the latter, and how he laboured to imitate 
 them, both in the nude and draped figures : struggling, as 
 it were, to triumph over all the difficulties that opposed 
 themselves to that first attempt. 1 Being likewise an emi- 
 nent architect, he indoctrinated his disciples inth is branch ; 
 and, indeed, they all became more or less distinguished in 
 both these arts. When Agnelli placed himself under Nic- 
 cola, his companions may have been Giovanni, (Niccolo's 
 son,) and Arnolfo and Lapo, the Florentines. In that age, 
 as well as in the following, art had not begun to embellish 
 the mansions of the great, but served solely as the hand- 
 maid of religion, from which it derived its inspirations, 
 and for whose lustre it wrought. Guglielmo, not satisfied 
 with consecrating his genius and his chisel to religion, 
 determined to sacrifice himself entirely to God ; and in 
 the convent of S. Catherine of Pisa, in the year 1257, as 
 far as we have been able to ascertain, he received the habit 
 
 1 Storia della Scultura. Tav. xiii., xiv.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 43 
 
 of the Order of S. Dominic. Influenced either by a senti- 
 ment of humility, or a desire to have more leisure for the 
 exercise of his art, he determined to be enrolled amongst 
 the lay-brothers. 
 
 The Dominicans appeared in Pisa, in the year 1221 ; 
 and, as it happened elsewhere, such was the concourse 
 attending their sermons, that it became necessary for them 
 to build a new and vast temple. This building was begun 
 in 1252 ; and Morrona would have us believe that the 
 design was furnished by Niccola, and that Guglielmo 
 executed it. Supposing then that the latter was born in 
 1238, it would be difficult to maintain the opinion of the 
 learned Illustrator: for he should thus have been but 
 fourteen years of age, a period certainly not suitable to such 
 a work. 1 The same writer is of opinion, that Agnelli, 
 wishing to give a proof of his proficiency in sculpture, 
 made an essay on the fa9ade of the same church, which 
 may have been finished a few years subsequently. In 
 Morrona's time there was an excellent piece of chiselling 
 in the great spherical orifice on the centre of the faqade ; 
 but with a great many other pieces of sculpture, it was 
 either carried away, or misplaced, during the last century. 
 That Fra Guglielmo applied himself with great assiduity to 
 the building of the convent is indubitable ; and it must 
 have been well nigh finished in 1272, as the Fathers, 
 amongst whom was St. Thomas of Aquino, held a general 
 chapter there at that period. Elsewhere we will have 
 occasion to speak of this convent, where in every age 
 there flourished such a number of men remarkable for 
 their learning and piety a convent which has given to 
 Italy Fra Domenico Cavalca, Fra Bartolomeo da S. Con- 
 
 1 Pisa Illustrate. V. II., p. 1. The second volume of this learned work 
 was published in 1792.
 
 44 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 cordio, and Fra Giordano da Pisa, three of its best prose- 
 writers. 
 
 Amongst the earliest of Fra Guglielmo's works, is the 
 campanile of the Abbey of Settimo, in the neighbour- 
 hood of Florence, which bears this inscription : 
 
 Guliel. me fecit 
 
 Momma believes it to have been built by our friar ; 
 and Vasari recognises in it a disciple of Niccola Pisano, 
 who faithfully followed the traces of the master. 1 And, 
 indeed, it is probable that after finishing the building of 
 that Abbey, Niccola, who had many commissions in 
 various parts of Italy, may have left Guglielmo to erect 
 the campanile after his own designs. 
 
 Whilst Agnelli was carrying on these and similar works, 
 in his own country and out of it, under the guidance of 
 Niccola, the Dominicans of Bologna had determined to 
 erect a monument to S. Dominic, their founder, such as 
 would excel every other in Italy. To this work they 
 most wisely invited Niccola Pisano and Fra Guglielmo, 
 about the year 1266. And since this is one of the most 
 important facts in the history of Italian sculpture, we will 
 speak of it at considerable length. 
 
 Giorgio Vasari has written that the marble urn contain- 
 ing the relics of S. Dominic, was sculptured by Niccola, 
 in the term of six years, between 1225 and 1231. This 
 date, admitted by all, has led many into error, and, 
 what is strange, even the Count Leopoldo Cicognara. 
 Malvasia, however, questioned it ; and this doubt caused 
 Virgilio Davia to conjecture the true date, although, for 
 want of documents he could not determine it precisely. 2 
 
 1 Vasari's Life of Niccola and Giovanni Pisani. 
 
 i Memorie Storico-Artistiche intorno all' Area di S. Domenico. 1 voL 
 8vo. Bologna, 1838. A most valuable work, showing great taste for art.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 45 
 
 With good reason did the author of the " Felsina Pittrice" 
 argue, that the miracles of the saint could not have been 
 sculptured on his monument before his canonization ; and 
 it was therefore very natural to conclude that these 
 scenes were wrought subsequently. Let us examine the 
 history. 
 
 S. Domenico di Guzman had closed his days in 
 Bologna, on the 6th of August, 1221. His body, en- 
 closed in a wood coffin, was buried without any pomp or 
 pageant. The friars, wishing to avoid any charge of 
 venality, were termed ingrates, because they prevented 
 the people from worshipping the remains, and removed the 
 votive offerings which the faithful made at his tomb. For 
 twelve years the precious relics of the saint's mortality 
 lay in their humble sepulchre. Finally, Pope Gregory 
 IX. commanded the blessed Jordan of Saxony, the 
 Second General of the Order, to transfer them to a more 
 honorable place, as the process of the canonization had 
 been commenced. Meanwhile, on the 23rd of May, A. D. 
 1233, in the presence of the Archbishop of Ravenna, of 
 the Chief Magistrate of Bologna, and a countless crowd 
 of the people, the wood coffin was raised from the earth, 
 and the body, immediately after the autopsy, was enclosed 
 in a marble urn ; or, as some will have it, in one of stone. 
 Of this we have a very precious document in the letter 
 which the said Jordan of Saxony addressed to the whole 
 Order of the Preaching-Friars on that occasion. 1 From 
 all this it follows that the remains of S. Dominic had 
 
 1 Ep. B. Jord. " Instruments fabrilibus lapis duriori csemento sepulcro 
 
 compaginatus aufertur delatum est corpus ad monumentum niar- 
 
 moreum cum propriis aromatibus ibidem recondendum." (The stone covering 
 
 the sepulchre was detached from the hard cement by masons' tools 
 
 and the body was borne to a marble monument to be there deposited with 
 its own embalmments.)
 
 46 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 lain till the 23rd of May, (1233,) in a coffin of wood ; 
 and, consequently, that Vasari's assertion is incorrect. 
 That the urn, in which they were afterwards deposited, 
 was unadorned with sculpture, is as easily collected from 
 another precious document that has reached us. In fact, 
 the second translation of S. Dominic's body took place on 
 the 5th of June, A. D. 1267; and the blessed Bartolomeo 
 Bishop of Vicenza, of the Order of Preaching-Friars, 
 who was present, wrote a full account of the ceremony, 
 and described how the Archbishop of Ravenna removed 
 the relics of the holy founder from an urn of stone, not 
 sculptured, to a marble one which was sculptured, (" de 
 tuinulo lapideo non caelato, ad marmoreum et caelatum.") 
 The only discrepancy between this statement of the 
 bishop and that of Jordan of Saxony is, that the former 
 calls it a stone urn, the latter, one of marble. This dis- 
 crepancy arises, probably, from the quality of the stone 
 employed. And, indeed, Michele Pio says it was simple 
 stone ; white, however, and beautiful, but according to the 
 usage of the times, rough and square. This we think 
 removes all doubt as to the date of this marvellous work 
 of Niccola Pisano. Moreover, I hold it to be indubitable 
 that he did not execute it till the early part of 1266, or, 
 at farthest, a little anterior to that date ; since it appears 
 from his life that he returned to his own country on the 
 29th of September, 1266, and made a contract with Fra 
 Melano, 1 a Cistercian, to sculpture the pulpit for the 
 
 1 Cicognara. Stor. ddla Scult, L 3. P. Guglielmo delk Valle Lettere 
 Sanesi. VoL 1, Lett, xviii. For this wonderful work (the Pulpit of Siena,) 
 Niccola Pisano received 65 lire. ! Fra Melano, the Cistercian, was employed 
 at the duomo of Orvieto, in 1271. He was engaged by the Republic of 
 Siena to rebuild the church of S. Cristoforo, in 1291. One Fra Doinenico, 
 of the Order of the Umiliati, superintended the building of Castel Paganico, 
 for the same Republic. Lettere Sanesi, &c. Lett. xxiv.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 47 
 
 duomo of Siena, and bound himself to complete it in one 
 year, as he did. Hence it follows that Niccola Pisano 
 was at Siena, in the September of 1267. That Guglielmo 
 was present at the foresaid translation is apparent from 
 the concordant testimonies of Leandro Alberti, Melloni, 
 Pio, and Razzi 5 1 and though they do not state whether it 
 was at the first or second, it is nevertheless plain that it 
 must have been that of 1267, since Agnelli was not born 
 at the time of the first. Such were the conjectures con- 
 cerning the date and the author of this work, and they 
 were so near the truth that they amounted almost to a 
 moral certainty. It remained for us to discover some 
 authentic instrument of the period to set the seal of 
 historic truth on the epoch. Having, therefore, applied 
 ourselves to the study of the ancient original chronicle of 
 the convent of S. Catherine in Siena, which does not 
 appear to have been consulted by any one on the subject, 
 it soon appeared that both master and disciple worked at 
 the monument during the time we have indicated. 2 
 
 1 Albert! De viris illustr. Ord. Prsed. Lib. vi., p. 261. Melloni. Vita di 
 S. Domenico. C. xxiii., p. 128. in iiota. P. Michele Pio vite degli uomini 
 illustri di S. Domenico. Lib. i., p. 134. P. Serafino Razzi, Vite dei Santi e 
 beati del Sacro ordine dei frati predicatori. 
 
 2 " Hie (fr. Gulielmus) cum beati Dominici corpus sanctissimum in sollem- 
 pniori tumulo levaretur quern sculpserant (sic) magistri Nicole de Pisis, 
 Policretiori manu, sociatus dicto architettori," &c. I am indebted to Sigre 
 Buonaini for this and other extracts from the Chronicle of the Convent of 
 S. Catherine at Pisa.
 
 48 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Description of the Area or shrine of S. Dominic, at Bologna What part 
 Niccola Pisano and Fra Guglielmo had in its execution The Sculptors 
 who at various periods were engaged at it. 
 
 THE monument commonly called the Ark of S. Dominic 
 is, in its total height, from the pavement to the statuette 
 of the Redeemer, which is placed on its summit, six 
 metres and eleven centimetres; its length is two metres 
 and forty-two centimetres ; the width of its sides is one 
 metre and twenty-two centimetres. It is composed of 
 three parts ; an embasement, the Ark itself properly so- 
 called, and the cover ; the entire is of the finest statuary 
 marble. It is isolated in the chapel of the saint, in order 
 that it may be seen on all sides, as it is everywhere 
 adorned by the chisel. Its form, like that of all the 
 sacraphagi of the period, is a right-angled parallelogram. 
 Of the three parts of the monument, Niccola Pisano and 
 Fra Guglielmo sculptured only the Ark, where the relics 
 of the saint repose ; the base or gradino having been 
 executed by Alfonso Lombardi of Ferrara ; the summit, 
 with some statues that adorn it, by Niccola da Barri, 
 called Niccola " of the urn ;" and the two angels on the 
 mensa, one by Michelangelo, and the other by some un- 
 known hand of the fifteenth century. There can be 
 no doubt that Niccola Pisano furnished the design of all 
 the legends on the Ark, and that he undertook to sculp- 
 ture the front and two of the sides, leaving the other to 
 Fra Guglielmo: for, indeed, it is not very likely that 
 Agnelli, then so very young, would have attempted any 
 other part of the work.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 49 
 
 I 
 
 The legends sculptured on the monument form six 
 compartments ; two in front, one on either side, and two 
 behind. The figures are in mezzo-relievo, and in height 
 little more than a mezzo-braccio. 1 In the first compart- 
 ment Niccola sculptured the miracle wrought in Rome by 
 S. Dominic, when he resuscitated the young Napoleone ; 
 and in the second, the legend of the fiery ordeal in Lan- 
 guedoc, where the books of the Manicheans were 
 consumed, whilst S. Dominic's remained unscathed. 
 These legends, as far as composition, design, and expres- 
 sion, are concerned, may be pronounced most beautiful, 
 if we take into account the time at which they were 
 produced. In the middle of these two compartments he 
 placed an exquisite statuette of the Madonna, in relievo, 
 holding the Divine Son in her arms ; a work that heightens 
 the beauty of this splendid monument. On the side next 
 the Gospel he produced two legends which have been 
 strangely confused by Cicognara. One of these represents 
 the holy Apostles Peter and Paul giving the holy Scrip- 
 tures to S. Dominic, and commanding him to go and 
 convert sinners and heretics ; the other, the holy Founder 
 himself, consigning the sacred volume to his brethren, 
 and commissioning them to preach it everywhere. On the 
 side next the Epistle he sculptured only one legend, 
 which describes how angels provided food for the young 
 brotherhood, at a period when the charity of the faithful 
 waxed cold. The workmanship of these two legends is 
 truly admirable; and, indeed, that of the two angels is of 
 such rare excellence, that no one, who had seen the 
 grotesque sculptures of that age, and the following, could 
 believe it to be a work of the thirteenth century : but 
 
 i The Florentine braccio is equal to one foot eleven inches, English 
 measurement. 
 
 D
 
 50 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 rather of a period posterior to it; since the design, life- 
 like attitudes and flowing drapery of the figures, announce 
 a wonderful progress in the art. On the angles of the 
 Ark he chiselled the four Doctors of the church : but 
 although they deserve much praise for the style of the 
 heads and elaborate execution, Da via does not think them 
 well proportioned. 
 
 The posterior part of the monument, which we think 
 was designed by Niccola, and executed by Fra Gugliel- 
 mo, in its two compartments presents six legends : three 
 of which relate to the blessed Reginald of Orleans, a 
 disciple of S. Dominic ; and three to the holy Founder, and 
 they are the following: 1. The B. Reginald smitten by 
 distemper, and falling into the arms of a youth, who 
 supports him. 2. The Madonna healing the sick man, 
 pointing to the habit of the new Order of Preaching- 
 Friars, and commanding him to take it. 3. The same 
 who, holding S. Dominic's hands, is freed from a terrible 
 temptation. This is Davia's interpretation. The second 
 compartment is divided from the first by a beautiful 
 statuette of the Redeemer; which, judging by the design 
 and execution, seems to be the work of Niccola. The 
 fourth legend represents the vision of Pope Honorius III., 
 who dreamed that he saw the Lateran Basilica falling, 
 and S. Dominic supporting it. This subject has been 
 badly handled by every painter who undertook to produce 
 it on canvas; and, surely, it must have presented greater 
 difficulties to the sculptor on account of the perspective. 
 The fifth represents Pope Honorius III., examining the 
 Dominican rule and laws; and the sixth, the Pontiff 
 pronouncing his solemn approbation of the same. Every 
 one will perceive at a glance how unhappily the subjects 
 of these six histories were selected, and how little they 
 aided the sculptor's imagination ; whereas the life of the
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 51 
 
 great patriarch (S. Dominic,) presents the most varied and 
 astounding facts which, like these of the anterior part of the 
 monument, were far better suited to the development of 
 Niccola's glorious genius, and the execution Fra Gugliel- 
 mo's chisel. And, in truth, whosoever has seen the splendid 
 paintings by Simone Memmi, in the great chapel of the 
 Spagmioli, inS. Maria Novella; the most rare productions 
 of Fra Angelico in Cortona and Paris; or even the 
 embasement of the Ark itself, on which Alfonso Lombardi 
 sculptured other scenes of the saint's life, must perceive 
 how unfounded is the criticism of M. Rio, who asserts 
 that the history of S. Dominic does not contribute so much 
 to the poetry of Christian art as does that of S. Francis. 
 He is contradicted, however, by M. Montalembert, who 
 points to the blessed Angelico as demonstrating the falsity 
 of this opinion ; l and he might have added, that when 
 Dante set about chronicling the glories of S. Dominic, he 
 produced that beautiful twelfth Canto of the Paradise, 2 
 than which none is grander or more replete with splendid 
 imagery. But to return to the works of Fra Guglielmo, 
 which we have described. No one will deny that they are, 
 in execution, much inferior to these of Niccola, his master, 
 and that this (Fra Guglielmo's) portion of the monument 
 exhibits many of the defects of the period ; for, indeed, 
 
 1 A. F. Rio de la Poesie Chretienne. 1 Vol. Paris, 1837, ch. iii., p. 86. 
 We shall have more than one occasion to speak of the work, that does so 
 much honour to the genius and piety of M. Montalembert, Du Vandalism* 
 et du Catholocisme dans I' Art, p. 88. " Et d'ailleurs, comment se fait il que 
 1'Ordre des Freres Precheurs ait produit tant de grand artistes, et du premier 
 rang, tels que Fra Angelico et Fra Bartholommeo, tandis que le nombre 
 de ceux sortis des freres Mineurs est infmiment moindre. Nous avouons que 
 nous sommes jaloux de la moindre parcelle de la gloire de S. Domini- 
 que," &c. 
 
 2 See Cantos xi. and xii. (Carey's Translation) of the Paradise, for a 
 magnificent narrative of the glories of S. Thomas D'Aquino, and S. 
 Dominic.
 
 52 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 tlic members are too rigid, and the extremities are far 
 from being well finished ; and, what is still more censur- 
 able, the figures crowd too much one on the other. In my 
 judgment, however, these defects should not be attributed 
 to Niccola, or his disciple, but rather to those who desired 
 to have so many legends sculptured within such narrow 
 limits; for, as we have already observed, whilst the 
 anterior part of the Ark has but two legends in two 
 compartments, there are no less than six in the two which 
 fell to the lot of Fra Guglielmo. Despite all this, there 
 is no one who knows anything of the state of Italian 
 sculpture in the middle of the thirteenth century, who 
 will deny that Fra Guglielmo, if he did not equal his 
 master, far excelled all his contemporaries Arnolfo and 
 Giovanni Pisano excepted. 
 
 To these legends which adorn the saint's sepulchral 
 urn, the two artists added an exquisite embellishment of 
 acanthus-leaves and birds, all along the upper cornice ; 
 the entire of which composition is admirably designed and 
 executed. These, then, are the works that Agnelli exe- 
 cuted in Bologna, under the guidance of Niccola; which 
 being finished, the master returned to his own country, 
 and the disciple, as it is said, remained to witness the 
 final translocation of S. Dominic's relics. And since we 
 have dwelt so long on this subject, we deem it well to 
 narrate the works which various artists, at subsequent 
 periods, produced on the same monument; for, although 
 an account of them does not, of right, pertain to these 
 Memoirs, it cannot be otherwise than agreeable to all 
 amateurs of art, who have not had an opportunity of 
 beholding the Ark, or of reading the valuable notices of it, 
 published by the Marquis Davia in Bologna. 
 
 It would be idle to assert that Niccola's design had 
 been fully carried out in the sculptures of the legends
 
 53 
 
 already described, as the Ark still needed to have the 
 embasement adorned, to say nothing of the many other 
 embellishments which in that age were invariably wrought 
 on the sepulchres of distinguished men ; and if any one 
 be anxious to form a notion of the eminent sculptor's 
 entire design for the Dominican monument, (provided he 
 had been able to realize it,) he must, in my opinion, call 
 to mind that which Fuccio erected, about this period, in 
 Assisi, to the Queen of Cyprus, (if, indeed, it be Fuccio's,) 
 and that by Giovanni Pisano to Benedict XI., in Perugia; 
 that of Guido Tarlati, in Arezzo, a most beautiful work 
 by Agnolo and Agostino of Siena in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury; or, what is more to the purpose, the magnificent 
 altar of the cathedral church of that city, where repose 
 the sacred ashes of the bishop and martyr, S. Donatus, 
 to whom Giovanni Pisano raised a monument, which, if 
 we except that of S. Augustin in Pavia, has none to 
 surpass or equal it in Italy. 1 All these monuments, and 
 others of this period, were adorned not only with figures in 
 relievo and mezzo-relievo, but also with architecture ; and, 
 indeed, nothing can exceed the beauty of these elaborate 
 spiral columns, springing out of symbolic animals '; or that 
 of the little Gothic temples, with mouldings so finely 
 chiselled, and angels on either side drawing the curtains so 
 as to reveal the reclining statue of the saint or hero. The 
 base also was embellished with arabesques or mosaics ; and, 
 finally, the plain, but withal devout and affectionate inscrip- 
 
 1 Cicognara (Storia della Scultura Ital.) ascribes the monument of St. 
 Augustin, at Pavia, to the scholars of Agostino and Agnolo of Siena. It 
 was commenced December 14, 1362. It now lies in a ruinous state in an 
 apartment contiguous to the cathedral. It was in breadth two, in height 
 seven, and length five, braccia. It contained 290 figures in relievo and 
 mezzo-relievo. The workmanship cost the Augustinian Friars 4,000 gold 
 florins.
 
 54 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 tion, invited the spectator to pray for the defunct, and 
 warned him of the sure and terrible doom of all mortality. 
 Whether for want of means, or for some other reason un- 
 known to us, S. Dominic's monument remained just as the 
 two Pisan sculptors had left it. 1 Finally, in the year 1469, 
 the Preaching-Friars came to the unanimous determina- 
 tion of finishing the monument in a style worthy of the 
 great Patriarch whose ashes it held. The counsel-book 
 of the convent of S. Dominic in Bologna records how, on 
 the 9th of July of that year, the Fathers made arrange- 
 ments for the work, and confided it to the eminent 
 sculptor, Niccola di Puglia ; and how, on the 10th of Au- 
 gust of the same year, they provided the artist with a 
 cell in their convent. 2 As the Friars had not money 
 enough, they applied to the chief magistrates of the city, 
 who, according to Leandro Alberti, having deputed four 
 of their number to hasten the work, voted them the sum 
 of seven hundred gold crowns to enable the foresaid 
 artist to begin immediately. 3 Art, meanwhile, had made 
 such rapid progress, and even taste had been so much 
 improved, that it seemed unwise to finish the monument 
 according to the style and conception of the old masters ; 
 wherefore the Fathers resolved to embellish it with all the 
 pure graces of the sculpture of the better era. Niccola 
 devoted four years to the marble cover which was to be 
 
 1 In the fifteenth century the urn of S. Dominic was covered with a board, 
 which on festive days was substituted by a cloth of gold. 
 
 * Lib. Consil. S. D. Bononiae, ab ann* 1459, p. 19. " July 9th, (1469,) it 
 was decreed that the Ark of St. Dominic, not yet finished, shall be completed 
 by Master Niccola di Puglia," p 20. " August 10, (1469,) decreed that said 
 Master Niccola shall work in the convent." 
 
 3 L. Alberti, deDivi Dom. obitu et sepulture, Bononue, 1535. "And 
 having received seven hundred gold crowns, so zealously was the work 
 carried on, that on the 16th of July, A.D. 1473, the marble covering, most 
 ingeniously and elaborately wrought, was placed on the Ark."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 55 
 
 placed on the Ark, in lieu of the wooden one ; and on the 
 16th of July, A. D. 1473, though wanting some statues, it 
 was raised to its destination : but we will take the descrip- 
 tion of it from Davia. " The marble cover, with its 
 elegant and varied curvature, is laid on the upper cornice 
 of the Ark, and is entirely decorated with leaves symme- 
 trically alternated over the whole superficies, from which 
 descend eight large zones, at equal distances, terminating 
 in as many volutes, to serve as bases for eight figures that 
 represent Saints Francis, Petronius, Dominic, Florian, 
 Proculus, John the Baptist, and two other saints whose 
 names I have not been able to discover. (They are the 
 holy Martyrs Vitalis and Agricola.) From the plane of 
 the cover springs an exquisite frieze adorned with 
 seraphims, and crowned by the corresponding cornice 
 most delicately carved, upon the four angles of which 
 stand the figures of as many prophets, and between the 
 two who correspond to the anterior face of the monument, 
 is our Lord coming forth naked from the sepulchre, and 
 adored by two angels. Resting on the cornice of the 
 foresaid frieze there is a quasi-pyramidal elevation, on 
 which is laid a species of candelabrum of most elegant 
 form, sustaining a figure which represents God the Father, 
 having the globe in his left hand, and his right in the 
 act of blessing. From the handles of the candelabrum 
 descend two great festoons of fruits and flowers, beautifully 
 intertwined, against which the angels, standing on the 
 corbels at the foot of the candelabrum, lean, thus giving 
 the two festoons a most graceful curvature, by the pressure 
 of their bodies." 1 
 
 All these adornments and figures are of such exquisite 
 
 Memorie Storico-Artistiche, p. 30, 31.
 
 56 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 beauty, and so ably elaborated, that Niccola deserved to 
 be called " of the Ark," (Niccola dell'arca) as Jacopo, his 
 master, was called " of the fountain," which he so laudably 
 wrought in his birth-place Siena. For the completion 
 of the rich frieze there yet remained to be executed 
 some statues, which, perhaps, because Niccola had other 
 engagements elsewhere, and died in 1494, could not be 
 placed thereon. Nevertheless, though this omission must 
 have caused regret at the period, it may be said to have 
 heightened the beauty of the monument at a more 
 glorious epoch. For when Piero de Medici was expelled 
 by the Florentines, Michelangiolo Buonarroti, then but 
 twenty years of age, fled with his protector and patron 1 
 to Venice, and subsequently to Bologna, where, having 
 been kindly received by Giovan Francesco Adovrandi, 
 one of the sixteen then composing the government, he 
 was prevailed upon by the latter to decorate the Domi- 
 nican urn with his chisel. Some have asserted that he 
 executed four statues ; others three ; and some mention 
 only two. We will follow the opinion of the learned 
 Vincenzo Vannini, who has studied the question. " There 
 are some historians," says the authority quoted, " who 
 affirm that Michelangiolo sculptured for the Ark of S. 
 Dominic, besides the angel, the statues of S. Petronius, 
 S. Proculus, and S. Francis. But there is authority to 
 prove that he merely executed the drapery of S. Petronius, 
 left unfinished by Niccola da Barri ; as to the S. Francis 
 they have little or no proof; and as to S. Proculus there 
 are authentic documents to convince every one that it 
 was executed before Buonarrotti's time." 2 It would appear 
 
 1 V. Roscoe'a Life of Lorenzo de' Medici ; and Duppa de Quincy's Life of 
 Michelangiolo. 
 8 Buonarrotti's angel on the monument of St. Dominic, illustrated by Pro-
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 57 
 
 that the angel on the Gospel-side of the altar, was the only 
 work produced here by this great sculptor. 1 By way of 
 contrast to the angel on the Epistle-side, Buonarroti repre- 
 sented his kneeling on one knee, in the act of adoration, 
 and holding the candelabrum in his hands. He is clothed 
 in a flowing tunic, admirably draped, and so beauteous is 
 the countenance so radiant with devotion that one 
 might mistake it for a denizen of heaven worshipping on 
 earth. The other statues were, doubtless, the work of 
 Gerolamo Coltellini, a Bolognese of the sixteenth centuiy, 
 and an artist of rare merit. 
 
 But although the Ark of S. Dominic had received some 
 of the most glorious embellishments of art, and none in 
 Italy coidd surpass it, nevertheless, considered in its 
 ensemble, it was easy to see that it wanted an elevation, 
 which would render the monument better proportioned 
 in its parts, and make it appear more graceful to the eye. 
 To effect this the embasement was necessary, and this, 
 too, required additional decorations. For this we are 
 indebted to Leandro Alberti a Bolognese, and a religious 
 of the Preaching-Friars, whose earnest entreaties induced 
 Antonio Marsigli Gonfaloniere (di Giustizia) to obtain 
 from the Senate of Bologna a grant which would enable 
 the convent to provide a marble base for the monument, 
 and have it sculptured with histories by Alfonso Lom- 
 
 fessor Vine. Vannini. Bologna, 1840. We are rejoiced to learn that this 
 distinguished architect has been collecting materials, hitherto unpublished, to 
 illustrate the magnificent chapel of the Ark. I gladly seize this opportunity 
 to attest my gratitude for the notices he has given me of some of the Domi- 
 nican artists. 
 
 1 Condivi, who attributes two statues to him, i. e. S. Petronius and the 
 angel, writes that he received for the former twelve ducats, and for the latter 
 eighteen. He adds, that he would have executed others had he not been 
 deterred by the threats of a Bolognese sculptor, who had conceived the design 
 of producing them. Vita di Michelangelo. 
 
 D 2
 
 58 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 bardi of Ferrara. The sum granted did not exceed a 
 hundred gold crowns, Albert! and the brotherhood 
 having supplied the remainder. The histories were to be 
 executed in basso-relievo ; and the contract with the artist 
 is dated November 20, 1532. Having set to work, 
 Alfonso divided the frieze of the base into five compart- 
 ments of unequal proportions, on the four smallest of 
 which he wrought scenes from the life of the saint, 
 introducing into the centre compartment (which was the 
 largest) a passage out of the New Testament, namely 
 the Adoration of the Magi. The first compartment 
 represents some beautiful scenes relating to the Saint's 
 birth. The second exhibits the saint while yet a child, 
 sleeping on the ground, after having abandoned his bed. 
 The third contains two histories, or rather the same idea 
 at two different epochs. There was a famine in the city 
 of Palenza, and the wealthy, far from succouring the poor, 
 affected ignorance of their condition. The young Guz- 
 man, having first given all that he possessed, finally sold 
 the books which were necessary for his philosophical and 
 theological studies. And here Lombardi pourtrays a 
 usurer who cautiously counts out the money to the saint, 
 who gives it to the crowd of starvelings and cripples that 
 surrounds him. Finally, he sculptured the transit of S. 
 Dominic, and the angels conducting his blessed soul to 
 heaven. We should be too prolix were we to dwell on 
 all the beauties of these splendid decorations. They must 
 be seen in order to estimate the ability of Lombardi 
 ability which induced Michelangiolo to call him to his 
 assistance when he was casting the bronze statue of 
 Julius II., in Bologna. 1 The wonder really is how, in 
 
 1 This statue was cast in 1506. Buonarrotti having asked Julius what 
 he would place in the right hand, which was in a threatening attitude, was
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 59 
 
 such narrow compass, (the figures being only one-fourth 
 of a Bolognese braccio in height,) he could exhibit such 
 admirable composition, such exquisite workmanship, and 
 such good design. Rightly has Cicognara remarked, " if 
 we except the dimensions, every thing is grand in these 
 wonderful sculptures." 1 Thus, after the lapse of three cen- 
 turies, Italian sculpture strewed its choicest flowers on the 
 sepulchre of that great man, who despising pomp and the 
 fleeting pleasures of the age, became voluntarily poor and 
 followed Christ over the thorny, road of humiliations and 
 sorrows. To him not only Italy, but Europe, in a great 
 measure, owes the preservation of the Catholic faith, and 
 the advancement of science, letters, and arts. 
 
 told by his holiness to put a sword in it as he was no book-man. V. Duppa's 
 Life of Angelo, p. 37. Bogue's edition. 
 
 1 L. Alberti, de divi Dom. ob. et sepult "Quin et anno 1532, basim 
 marmoream minutissimis figuris insculptam ab Alfonso Lombardo egregio 
 statuario poni jussit (i. e. Sen. Bonon.) pro qua aureos centum, curante 
 Leandro Alberto Bonon. et Ant Marsilio vixillefero justitiae ad senatum 
 referente, et ipse senatus, videlicet xl. viri, ex publico erario decrevit. Unum 
 dixerim, absit invidia verbo, me quamplurima nobilissima sepulcra ex argento, 
 atque ex lapidibus, ex aere, diducta vidisse, non solum per Italiam, quam 
 totam peragravi, prout in geographia ac typographia ipsius Italise ostendi, 
 sed etiam per Germaniam Galliasque, et adhuc non solum superius ullum 
 hoc sanctissimo sepulcro, sed nee par vidi." The notices of the translation of 
 St. Dominic's remains, his sepulchre, church, &c., are most copiously given 
 in his life, written by F. Melloni, vol. V., c. 23. As the anterior part of the 
 mensa remained to be decorated, some of the religious of the convent, in the 
 last century, entrusted the work to Bolognese and extern artists. Mauro Tesi 
 furnished the design ; and Carlo Bianconi executed the history representing 
 the burial of St. Dominic. Alessandro Savolini sculptured the frieze and its 
 decorations ; and Jean Boudard of France, director of the School of Sculp- 
 ture in Parma, did the rest. These works are not devoid of merit.
 
 60 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 Continuation of the Life of Fra Guglielmo da Pisa His works in the Duomo 
 of Orvieto, and in his own country His death. 
 
 HAVING now said all that was necessary of the Ark 
 of S. Dominic, we jesume the life of Fra Guglielmo. 
 The biographers of the Order, and the Chronicles of the 
 Convent of S. Catherine of Pisa, which are so silent in 
 many particulars concerning this man, furnish us with an 
 anecdote which we will briefly narrate. The 5th of June, 
 A.D. 1267, was the day appointed for the solemn transloca- 
 tion of the body of S. Dominic to the urn recently sculp- 
 tured by the two Pisan artists. To prevent every pious 
 theft, the General of the Preaching-Friars, having obtained 
 faculties from the Pope, pronounced sentence of excom- 
 munication against any one who would dare to appropriate 
 any portion of the sacred relics. The good Fra Guglielmo, 
 forgetful of the sentence, contrived to carry off a rib of 
 the saint, which he conveyed to Pisa, and hid under the 
 altar of S. Mary Magdalen, in the church of his institute ; 
 deeming himself thus adequately remunerated for all the 
 labour he expended on the decoration of the sepulchre in 
 Bologna : and never did he reveal that theft till his last 
 moments, when he had no longer any reason to dread the 
 indignation of the General of the Order. Now, following 
 up the narrative of the works which he executed in his 
 own country and elsewhere, we must refute a conjecture 
 of F. Guglielmo della Valle, who fancied that Niccola 
 Pisano, after setting out from Bologna for Siena, to 
 execute the splendid pulpit of the cathedral, conjointly 
 with Arnolfo and Lapo, brought with him his son 
 Giovanni, and Agnelli ; for it appeared to the learned
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 61 
 
 Franciscan that in the very short time allowed by the 
 contract, Niccola could not have completed that immense 
 work, if not assisted by more than his two scholars. But 
 this opinion is not maintainable, as it is proved that whilst 
 Niccola was engaged on the Sienese pulpit, Fra Guglielmo 
 was living in Bologna. This was precisely in the middle 
 of the year 1267. 
 
 Here we have an immense blank in the history of 
 Agnelli, for which we can only account by attributing 
 it to the modesty and humility of the ancients, who were 
 far more intent on spending their lives in good and pious 
 works, than in writing or proclaiming them ; unlike the 
 men of our day, who abound more in words than in 
 works. It is not likely, however, though it would appear 
 so from the chronicle, that an artist of Agnelli's merit 
 would have remained idle for twenty-six years ; or that he 
 would not have been invited along with the foremost 
 sculptors of the time to work in Orvieto, at these bassi- 
 relievi, which still excite the admiration of every beholder. 
 Every body knows that denser darkness shrouds the life 
 and works of other eminent sculptors, at periods not so 
 remote from our times; as for example, that of Niccolo da 
 Barri and Gerolamo Coltellini, who worked at the Ark of 
 Dominic. This, indeed, was the most glorious epoch of 
 Fra Guglielmo's life ; when advanced in years and matured 
 in genius, he could divide the aurels with Arnolfo, and 
 add an additional triumph to Italian sculpture. We will 
 now premise some notices which are necessary for the illus- 
 tration of Agnelli's life, and the works which he produced. 
 
 The enthusiasm of all the Italian cities for art, in the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, partakes of the mira- 
 culous. Venice, Pisa, and Monte Cassino, had given the 
 impulse; Siena followed it, and raised its magnificent 
 cathedral. Florence charged Arnolfo to erect a temple
 
 62 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 worthy a people famed for arts, letters, and commerce. 
 Assisi, Padua, and Bologna, emulated the other cities. All 
 of them, with the exception of Assisi, were rich: but it 
 excited astonishment to see the little city of Orvieto 
 rivalling with its cathedral the most splendid edifices of 
 Italy ; nor need I insist that the far-famed duomo not only 
 equals, but surpasses that of Siena. Glorious monument 
 of Italian genius ; true emporium of the arts ; rich in the 
 sculptures of Arnolfo, of Fra Guglielmo, Agostino, and 
 Agnolo of Siena of Goro, Gregorio the Sienese, Donatello, 
 Simone Mosca, Raffaello di Monte Lupo, Ippolito Scalza, 
 the pupil of Buonarroti ; of Caccini, and Giovanni di Bolog- 
 na ! Glorious monument, indeed, consecrated by the pencils 
 of Gentile da Fabriano, Giovanni the angelic, Benozzo 
 Gozzoli, and Luca Signorelli ; temple raised not by the 
 gold of princes, but by the oboli of the poor! l 
 
 The foundations of this cathedral were laid A.D. 1290. 
 The first stone was blessed by Pope Nicholas IV., on the 
 13th of November. Lorenzo Maitani furnished the design, 
 and was appointed architect and chief superintendent of 
 the works. To make this temple surpass every other in 
 every department of the arts, the ablest professors were 
 invited from all parts of Italy. Thither came forty artists, 
 amongst whom, excelling all the rest, were Arnolfo, the 
 Cosmati of Rome, Ramo Pag anello, and probably Giovanni 
 Pisano. 2 Fra Guglielmo is recorded as having been 
 engaged at the works in 1293 ; and he laboured in the 
 quarter provided for the sculptors and stone-masons. We 
 have not learned how long he remained in Orvieto. 
 
 1 F. Guglielmo della Valle wrote a history of the duomo of Orvieto, pub- 
 lished 1791. 
 
 2 Storia del duomo di Orvieto. Docnm. No. 11, p. 263. The chief sculp- 
 tors received six soldi per diem ; the apprentices two. Niccola Pisano, 
 whilst working in Siena, received eight soldi per diem!
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 63 
 
 Arnolfo must have left it at the beginning of the year 
 1294; for at that period S. Croce in Florence was begun 
 after his designs, and four years afterwards S. Maria del 
 Fiore. 1 The departure of this sculptor and architect from 
 Orvieto being fully ascertained, and the date of Giovanni 
 Pisano's arrival remaining still doubtful, gives us reason 
 to believe that the bassi-relievi must, in great part, be 
 attributed to Agnelli. Of all the Germans mentioned by 
 Vasari as having been engaged sculpturing marbles for 
 this church, the Memoirs record but one German and one 
 Fleming. For a long time it was thought that the most 
 exquisite of the foresaid bassi-relievi were produced by 
 Niccola and Giovanni Pisano. Vasari asserted it, and it 
 was universally repeated. F. della Valle, after making a 
 diligent examination of the archives of the church, found 
 no record of either of these sculptors ; nevertheless, and it 
 is a fact worthy consideration, he placed Niccola 
 foremost amongst all those who worked at the duomo. 
 As to his son Giovanni, it is probable that he was em- 
 ployed there, but we lack authentic documents to prove 
 it. Cicognara has shown that Niccola Pisano was born 
 in the thirteenth century ; remarking, at the same time, 
 that if the sculptures on the facade were contemporaneous 
 with the foundation of the duomo, (A. D. 1290,) Niccola 
 should have been a nonogenarian, a time of life which 
 must have rendered him incapable of undertaking such a 
 work. 2 If Vasari were not in the habit of contradicting 
 himself, I think that we could easily learn from him the 
 date of Niccola's death, and the solution of the doubt. 
 Narrating the life of his son Giovanni, he writes, " having 
 heard that Niccola, his father, was dead, he went to Pisa, 
 where his great merits caused the whole city to receive him 
 
 1 In 1280 Arnolfo produced the monument of Card. Brayo in Orvieto. 
 
 2 Storia della Scultura. L. ii., c. 4.
 
 64 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 with much honour," etc., and having seen some of his 
 works, " the Pisans employed Giovanni to construct the 
 Campo Santo." From all this it appears that when Gio- 
 vanni undertook the works of the Campo Santo, his father 
 was defunct. Now that fabric was begun in 1278; that 
 is to say, twelve years before the first stone of the cathedral 
 of Orvieto was laid. Thus, admitting the truth of Vasari's 
 statement, every doubt vanishes. F. della Valle saw the 
 difficulty of the chronology ; but it would appear that 
 he set no great value on it, since he asserts, with a 
 marvellous indifference, that, "fully seventy years before, 
 (the foundation of the duomo,) Niccola Pisano enjoyed the 
 reputation of a most excellent artist, having produced the 
 Sepulchre of S. Dominic in Bologna, and various pulpits 
 in Tuscany 7" 1 Subsequently, however, after more ma- 
 ture consideration, he abandons certainty for doubt, and 
 adds, " Tliis dearth of data has often made me doubt 
 whether I should believe Vasari, who attributes the finest 
 of the bassi-relievi of the facade to Giovanni Pisano: for 
 as the history of art in the thirteenth century does not pre- 
 sent any artist equal to him, and as Arnolfo, then living, 
 was one of the most distinguished and ablest of the scho- 
 lars whom he was in the habit of associating with himself 
 in the execution of the many works then confided to him 
 in the chief cities of Italy, I incline to think that Vasari s 
 opinion is the least erroneous"* but I think I have disco- 
 vered what led Vasari into this error, and F. della Valle 
 himself rectifies it in his " Documents relative to the 
 Artists of the Fifteenth Century." (V. No. 70.) The 
 historian says, " Here we find a certain Niccola di Pisa, 
 with his son, an able sculptor, and probably nephew 
 (after two hundred years !) of that other celebrated man 
 
 1 Storia del duomo di Orvieto. Docum. xii. 
 * Ibid, c. i, p. 99,
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 65 
 
 who flourished about the end of the thirteenth century ; 
 and who executed the most beautiful of the bassi-relievi 
 of the fa9ade, as has been already said." From this it 
 appears that Vasari or his correspondents who, it must be 
 confessed, did not care much for accuracy, finding in the 
 ancient memoirs a certain Niccola Pisano with his son 
 employed at sculpture in Orvieto, were led into error by 
 the similarity of name, country, and profession. 
 
 The history, therefore, of the Cathedral of Orvieto, 
 does not inform us to whom we should attribute the prin- 
 cipal part of these sculptures ; and our Fra Guglielmo is 
 barely mentioned in a note, as our author had forgotten 
 how much praise he had bestowed on him in a letter 
 dated June 3rd, 1787, addressed to Alessandro da 
 Morrona, and inserted in the work entitled, " Pisa 
 Illustrata." 1 
 
 The bassi-relievi which adorn the fa9ade of the cathe- 
 dral of Orvieto comprise histories of the Old and New 
 Testament, the most beautiful of which are engraved in 
 fourteen plates, given with F. della Valle's work ; and they 
 are the following. The Creation of the animals, which is 
 contained in two bassi-relievi ; that of man and of the 
 woman being represented in three : the Command not to eat 
 of the " TREE," and the Disobedience of our first parents ; 
 the penalty of their sin, and their expulsion from Eden ; 
 Adam and Eve in exile experiencing the ills of life ; the 
 Sacrifice of Cain and Abel the first Fratricide and, 
 transporting the spectator from the genesis of the world 
 
 1 " "What will you think of another Pisan sculptor, Fra Guglielmo, of the 
 Order of St. Dominic, who was equal to him (Niccola Pisano) in producing 
 these living histories, (of the duomo of Orvieto.) I have been lately feeding 
 my eyes on them, and they so affected me that I stood before them mute 
 
 and immovable as the marble I hold for certain that up to the 
 
 times of Raffaello art never beheld such beauteous productions."
 
 66 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 to its destruction, they exhibit the general Resurrection 
 on the last day, the agonies of the damned, and the glories 
 of the elect. Wonderful epic, in which the mind, crossing 
 over the gulf of time, pauses to meditate how the human 
 family has passed from innocence to guilt, and to everlasting 
 pains and glories ! In that age of faith the Italians were 
 ever anxious to have before their eyes and present to their 
 thoughts the foundations of their hopes and fears, and it 
 was to the incarnation of these sublime conceptions that 
 the painter and the sculptor consecrated the pencil and 
 the chisel, the poet his immortal lay, and the melodist the 
 sweetest strains of his lyre. Dante, Niccola Pisano, or 
 Giotto, could produce nothing half so well calculated to 
 stimulate genius as the dogma of Life and Death. Hence 
 the very pastimes of the Italians were impressed with 
 a Religious character; for, indeed, it was Religion 
 that blessed and sanctified sciences, arts, arms, and 
 literature. 
 
 Cicognara's strictures on the bassi-relievi of the facade 
 of Orvieto appear to us too severe ; and perhaps he did 
 not reflect that he should not have contrasted them with 
 these of the pulpits of Pisa and Siena, or with the histories 
 on S. Dominic's monument in Bologna ; since the latter were 
 wrought for close inspection, and therefore executed with 
 consummate diligence ; whereas these of the fa9ade of the 
 duomo of Orvieto, being at a very great elevation, and ex- 
 posed to all the injuries of the weather, did not afford the 
 same advantages for the patient labour of the artists. This 
 doubtless damaged their general effect. Certain it is that 
 none of Niccola's scholars could rival him in giving marble 
 such life-like shape ; but none can deny that some of the 
 bassi-relievi of Orvieto are singularly beautiful, such, for 
 example, as the creation of Adam and Eve, the sacrifice 
 of Abel, our progenitors tilling the soil, &c. And if
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 67 
 
 amongst them there be some which may be termed 
 inferior, such as the Eternal cursing the prevaricators, the 
 pains of the damned, &c. ; the multiplicity ofartists, all of 
 whom were not equal in power, will satisfactorily account 
 for all their defects and contrasts. But, generally speak- 
 ing, the nude is well drawn, many of the difficulties of 
 design are mastered, and the conception is admirably 
 expressed ; nor do I fear to assert that that age exhibits 
 no greater work, except these of Niccola Pisano. 
 
 How long Agnelli tarried in Orvieto is not certain ; 
 but in 1304 we find him in his own country, engaged on 
 important works of sculpture and architecture ; and this 
 is the reason why he was not invited by Cardinal Niccolo 
 Albertino, the Dominican, to Perugia, to sculpture the 
 sepulchral monument of Benedict XI., (of the same 
 Order,) who died July 27, A.D. 1304. In his place 
 Giovanni Pisano was chosen, and he executed the monu- 
 ment admirably. 
 
 The Camaldolese monks of Pisa, wishing to finish the 
 Church of S. Michele di Borgo, and to decorate its fa9ade 
 with histories in basso-relievo, invited Fra Guglielmo, who 
 was now famed for these of Orvieto. The church and 
 monastery of S. Michele, in Borgo, were founded in 1018. 
 Vasari affirms, and he is supported by Alessandro da 
 Morrona, that in 1262, Niccolo Pisano was employed 
 there, either as an architect or sculptor. 1 In fact, that 
 church must have been, if not wholly, in great part re- 
 built; since we read how in 1304, the Abbot Andrea di 
 Volterra, caused our Fra Guglielmo to finish the fa9ade, 
 roof, and part of the church. These works of architecture 
 and sculpture occupied, as it appears, the remaining, nine 
 
 1 Pisa Illustrate. Vol. III., p. 1, c. vi. sec. 2.
 
 68 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 years of Agnelli's life. It is not very probable, however, 
 that he alone sculptured all the histories at this advanced 
 age, (he had passed his sixtieth year,) and the diversity 
 of their merit, according to Morrona, announces a diver- 
 sity of workmanship. I cannot, however, agree with the 
 learned illustrator of Pisa, who says that among those who 
 laboured with Agnelli was Giovanni Pisano, whose then 
 renowned-name would not have been suppressed in the 
 inscription that records the authors of the bassi-relievi. 
 And, in truth, Giovanni had too many commissions on 
 hands to allow him to associate himself with Agnelli ; 
 and, moreover, he must have remained a very long time 
 in Perugia, with the Dominicans, for whom, after finish- 
 ing the monument to Benedict XI., and that to Guida- 
 lotti, the Founder of the University of Perugia, he re- 
 constructed the centre aisle of their church according to 
 his own design. While Fra Guglielmo was engaged at 
 the building of S. Michele in Borgo, and sculpturing 
 marbles for the same, he was charged to construct a pulpit, 
 like these of Siena, Pisa, and Pistoja; and following the 
 traces of Niccola, he in a very short time completed it. 
 But the barbarity of the times, called civilized, destroyed 
 the work of the Pisan Friar, together with the histories on 
 the facade as well as these of the pulpit: at the present 
 day but eight of them remain. They have been transferred 
 to the cathedral, and are placed partly under the choir, 
 and partly over the doors of the two sacristies. 
 
 These works completed, to the satisfaction of the monks 
 and the glory of the artist, it was resolved to perpetuate 
 his memory in an inscription now destroyed, but preserved 
 by Father Grandi in his " Epistola de Pandectis," as may 
 be seen in Moronna's work on Pisa. This inscription 
 stamps Fra Guglielmo as the author of these works ; and
 
 SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS. 69 
 
 corrects all the historians who assert that he died in 1312. 
 Paoli Tronci, Pio, and Morrona himself, who give the 
 inscription, had all the facilities for fixing the date -, 1 as 
 the verse " Milleno trecento tres dato deno" clearly means 
 1313; and the first year of the reign of Henry VII., re- 
 corded on the inscription, manifestly indicates 1313; for 
 although he received the iron crown at Milan, January 
 6, 1311, it was not till the year following that he was 
 crowned with the imperial crown at Rome. Counting 
 the years from the time of his coronation at Rome, he had 
 reigned one year, one month, and twenty-five days. In 
 a word, as it has been said, Fra Gugliehno Agnelli fol- 
 lowed him, according to Pio, in his ninetieth year ; but, 
 more probably in his seventieth, after having spent forty- 
 six years in his institute, as we read in the Chronicle of 
 the convent of S. Catherine at Pisa. 2 
 
 Fra Guglielmo deserves to be ranked amongst the 
 grandest of Italian sculptors, by reason of the many and 
 important works which he executed in his own country, 
 in Bologna, and Orvieto. But as it has fared with other 
 artists, others reaped the glory of his labours. We should 
 not wonder, then, if Cicognara only mentions him in a 
 note to his history ; 3 but it is inconceivable how Morrona, 
 who was the first to collect notices of his life and works, 
 did not consult, as he might, the Chronicle of S. Cathe- 
 
 1 See document No. 2, in the appendix of this volume. 
 
 1 See document No. 3, at the end of this volume. 
 
 3 Storia della Scultura. Vol. Ill,, lib. iii., c. vi. " We have also an in- 
 scription to the memory of Fra Guglielmo, a Dominican architect and sculp- 
 tor, who is mentioned by the Abbot Grandi, a Camaldolese, in his " Epist. 
 de Pandectis." Leandro Alberti calls him "Optimus lapidum sculptor." 
 This friar, mentioned by Morrona, died in 1312, and he might have been 
 living at the time of this building, (S. Maria Novella,) or about the time of 
 its completion, Henry II. died at Buonconvento, near Siena, August 24, 
 1313.
 
 70 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 line, which must have certified him of the share which 
 Agnelli had in the sculptures of S. Dominic's shrine in 
 Bologna. 1 We think we have said enough of his fame as 
 an artist and religious ; and we will barely add that, pro- 
 bably, his disciple in the art was a certain Fra Fazio, a 
 lay-brother of the convent of S. Catherine of Pisa, whom 
 the chronicle calls " Magister Sculpturas." He, in all 
 likelihood, aided Agnelli in his many works, but we have 
 no remain of him save the brief entry which the chronicler 
 makes of his piety and death, which occurred A.D. 
 1340. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Bolognese and Lombard Architects Their buildings in Venice, in Padua, 
 in Trevigi, in Milan. 
 
 WE have often lamented the ungrateful silence of the 
 historians who have consigned artists of ability to un- 
 deserved oblivion ; and the destruction of ancient records 
 in days not very remote from our own, when the peaceful 
 inhabitants of the cloister being dispersed, their libraries 
 and archives were ruthlessly plundered. And we have 
 to regret, likewise, that we have been unable to undertake 
 long journeys in pursuing our researches, as was required 
 of us, in order to illustrate still more copiously the subject- 
 matter of these volumes. 
 
 The Dominican architects erected three magnificent 
 temples in the States of the Venetian Republic, and 
 such as may well bear comparison with the most 
 
 1 See document 4.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 71 
 
 splendid in Italy. However, as we are not able to 
 determine the names of the architects, we must rely alto- 
 gether on strong conjectures. The following are the 
 churches: S. Giovanni and Paolo in Venice, S. Agostino 
 in Padua, and S. Niccola in Trevigi. 1 We will say only a 
 few words regarding the two former, that we may be 
 enabled to dwell at greater length on the third. 
 
 The Preaching-Friars must have arrived simultaneously 
 in Padua and Venice. In this latter city they had been 
 preceded by their holy Founder, A.D. 1221. Their first 
 abode, probably, was the house of some private citizen, 
 or the public hospitals, as it happened to them when 
 they appeared in Siena, Florence, and Milan. Accord- 
 ing to the chronicle of Andrea Dandolo, in the sixth 
 year of Giacomo Tiepolo's dogato, the Dominicans were 
 so celebrated for their preaching, (ex laudatione publicae 
 concionis,) that they obtained from the said Tiepolo a 
 piece of marshy ground on the confines of S. Maria For- 
 mosa and S. Marina, and there built their church and 
 convent. 2 The sixth year of the dogato of Giacomo 
 Tiepolo, according to the chronology of F. Bernardo de 
 Rubeis, was the year of our Lord 1234. 3 I will not 
 admit, however, that the Dominicans remained so long 
 in Venice without erecting a convent ; since it is only 
 reasonable to conjecture that on the ground granted by 
 the Doge they would have built a larger and more regu- 
 lar edifice. In this opinion we are sustained by De 
 Rubeis, who, on the authority of Ferdinando Ughelli, 
 
 ' It is probable that the church of S. Anastasia in Verona, and the con- 
 vent of the Preaching-Friars may have been erected by architects of the 
 Order, but we lack documents to prove it. 
 
 2 Lib. x. c. v. p. xiii. v. Rev. Italic. Script, v. xii. 
 
 ' De rebus. Congregat. B. Jacopi. Salom. in Prov. S. Dom. Venetiarum 
 erectse. Comment. Hist auct. F. J. Franc. Bernardo de Rubeis Venetiis, 
 1751, one vol. in 4to. c. ii. p. 88.
 
 72 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 quotes a valuable document, which induces us to believe 
 that they might have had a hospice in Venice and Padua 
 as early as 1226. This very ancient memoir tells how 
 Giordano da Modena, bishop of Padua, at the supplica- 
 tion of Fra Guidone, prior of the Dominicans of Padua, 
 and of Fra Martino, prior in Venice, blessed the first 
 stone of the new church which they determined to raise 
 at Padua, under the invocation of S. Augustin. This 
 must have been on the 5th of October of the year 1227. 
 (De Rubeis reads 1226.) The document cited, there- 
 fore, clearly shows that there was a community of Domi- 
 nicans in the cities of Venice and Padua in that year, 
 and that Fra Martino and Fra Guidone were the 
 superiors. 1 
 
 On more than one occasion we have adverted to the 
 activity and enthusiasm of the Italians and ultramontanes 
 in erecting gorgeous churches during this wonderful thir- 
 teenth century ; and showed how the new Orders vied with 
 each other in the magnificence of cloisters and temples, 
 notwithstanding the rule of poverty which they professed 
 and followed. Venice now exemplifies this. The Fran- 
 ciscans had commenced a splendid church, after the 
 design of Niccola Pisano : and the Dominicans, not satisfied 
 with the narrow limits of a small oratory, began theirs, 
 which, on account of the similiarity of architecture, 
 Cicognara believes to have been planned by the same 
 artist. But Vasari, who, in the life of Niccola Pisano, 
 attributes to him the church of the Frari, is silent re- 
 garding S. Giovanni and Paolo. The learned Illustrators 
 of the most conspicuous buildings in Venice observe, 
 " we have nothing to oppose to this conjecture, (Cicog- 
 nara's,) for, although we may lack irrefragable evidence, 
 
 1 Italia Sacra, vol. v. p. 444. De Rubeis, loc. cit. c. ii. p. 68.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 73 
 
 we can easily believe that, as the Dominicans commonly 
 had architects in their communities, it is likely they would 
 have had recourse to some member of their brother- 
 hood." 1 We cannot but admire the caution of these 
 writers who, in the absence of authentic documents, did 
 not pronounce definitively. In the very important work 
 by M. TAbbel Bourasse, on the monuments of the middle 
 ages, the following words may be found in the Appen- 
 dix : " The church di S. Giovanni and Paolo com- 
 menced A.D. 1246, and, not finished in 1390, was con- 
 structed by the Dominicans, whose architects followed 
 one style, while the Franciscans adopted another." 2 It 
 would be desirable to learn where the author came by 
 such information, and what constituted the styles fol- 
 lowed by the Dominicans and Franciscans. The Fran- 
 ciscan Order, which, in the magnificence of its temples, 
 very often equals and surpasses every other, either for 
 want of architects, or, being desirous to avail themselves 
 of extern talent, neither in the thirteenth nor fourteenth 
 century, as fax as I can learn, employed any architect of 
 their own body to erect any edifice of importance. The 
 church of Assisi, if Vasari tells truth, was designed by 
 Jacopo the German ; and Fra Filippo da Campello did 
 nothing more than superintend the works. S. Croce in 
 Florence had for its architect the celebrated Arnolfo ; and 
 S. Antonio in Padua, and the Frari in Venice, Niccola 
 Pisano. Hence, the difficulty of determining what style 
 the Franciscans followed at this period in building their 
 churches. But to return to S. Giovanni and Paolo, it is 
 indubitable that it was begun in 1246, since it appears, 
 by a Bull of Innocent IV. issued on the 10th of- July 
 
 1 Fabriche piu conspicue di Venezia, 2 vol. in fol. 
 3 Archeologie Chretienne. 
 VOL. I.
 
 74 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 of that year, that an indulgence was granted to all those, 
 who would contribute to the building of the church 
 of the Dominicans. 1 All my endeavours to ascertain 
 the name of the architect, have been unavailing ; and 
 although it would appear probable, that he belonged to 
 the Order, which, at that period, had abundance of 
 architects and sculptors, nevertheless, in the absence of 
 documents, I would not venture to affirm it. For want 
 of funds, the works were suspended, and proceeded so 
 slowly, that, in the year 1395, only the upper half was 
 finished. From a letter of the Ven. F. Raimundo da 
 Capua, Master-general of the Order, dated Palermo, 
 March 26, 1395, it appears that, after the reformation of 
 the convents in the Venetian States, (for, indeed, the 
 said convents, owing to the pestilence and schism, had 
 fallen away from their ancient observances,) the people 
 contributed very considerable sums to restore the old 
 monasteries and build new ones. Wherefore, at this 
 period, precisely twenty-thousand florins were collected 
 to complete the magnificent temple of S. Giovanni and 
 Paolo. Fra Antonio da Siena affirms that this money 
 served to finish the under half of said church, the chapel 
 of S. Dominic, and the campanile, (belfry,) which 
 so resembles that of the Franciscans. 2 From all this it 
 is manifest, that if Niccola Pisano furnished the design 
 of S. Giovanni and Paolo, as Cicognara thinks, he must 
 have seen but a small portion of it completed. But, in 
 the works carried on in the fourteenth century, there can 
 be no doubt, (according to Ghirardacci and Petrogalli,) 
 that Niccola da Imola, or Fra Benvenuto da Bologna, both 
 lay-brothers of the Dominicans, and most skilled in the 
 art, were the architects employed. These men, also, for 
 
 1 Bullarium Ord. Pried, v. i. p. 166. 
 * De Kubeis, Loc. cit, ch. i. v. p. 26.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 75 
 
 some time, conducted the building of S. Agostino in 
 Padua, and S. Niccolo in Trevigi. 1 
 
 The church of S. Giovanni and Paolo at Venice, ac- 
 cording to Cicognara, 2 is " most rich in everything that is 
 precious, and may be styled the Pantheon of Venetian 
 art, particularly since all the great monuments of sculp- 
 ture and painting, that were well nigh perishing in the 
 demolition of the other churches of the city, have been 
 transferred to it." 
 
 Of the church of S. Augustin in Padua, so magnificent 
 for its pictures and marbles, we have little to say, since it 
 was utterly ruined in 1822. Suffice it to observe that it 
 was begun in 1226, and finished in 1303, under the direction 
 of Fra Benvenuto, a Bolognese architect. We prefer dwell- 
 ing at considerable length on the church of S. Niccolo in 
 Trevigi, as the notices relating to it are very copious. 
 
 The consolation which the newly-instituted Mendicant 
 Orders gave to the people in these days of civil strifes, 
 and the barriers they opposed to the tyranny of their 
 task-masters, justly endeared them to those who heard 
 from their lips the language of peace and mercy. The 
 absolute necessity of having God's holy Gospel preached 
 to them, procured from the inhabitants of Trevigi <a 
 warm welcome for S. Dominic's Order in the year 1221. 
 But as the little church given them, when they first 
 
 1 P. Domenico Federici. Mem. Trevigiane Sulle Opere del disegno. 
 
 1 Storia della Scultura, voL vi. 1. vi. c. iv. p. 232. " This beautiful 
 church of the Dominicans is cruciform, and of vast height. The nave and 
 aisles are of five bays ; the lantern has a dome ; and the eastern face of the 
 transept contains the chancel, between four apsidal chapels." V. Webb's 
 Continental Ecclesiology. This church contains Tiziano's celebrated picture 
 of the martyrdom of S. Pietro di Verona, which holds the same place in the 
 Venetian School that Raffaello's " Transfiguration" does in the Roman. It was 
 painted before 1537, andS. Pius V. caused Tiziaco, when ninety years of age, 
 to repeat it with some modifications.
 
 76 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 appeared in the city, could not contain the vast multi- 
 tudes flocking to the sermons, it was decreed by the 
 State, that one far more spacious should be built from 
 the foundations. 1 This decree found a responsive echo 
 in the hearts of the inhabitants, who gladly made an 
 offer of everything necessary for the work. And surely 
 never was there an apostolate grander or more noble 
 than that of the Franciscans and Preaching-Friars, who, 
 for the benefit of the people of Trevigi, Padua, and 
 Vicenza, raised their voices against that tiger of ferocity 
 and barbarity, Ezelino da Romano, whose memory shall 
 be eternally execrated in every region of Italy. 
 
 As the church of S. Maria Novella in Florence marked 
 an epoch of peace between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, 
 so was that of S. Niccolo in Trevigi a tribute of gratitude 
 which the denizens of the latter place offered to the zealous 
 defenders of their most sacred rights. 2 At length, in the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century, a citizen of Trevigi, 
 and an inmate of this very convent of the Preaching- 
 Friars, famed for his learning and sanctity, was raised to 
 
 i F. Federici discovered in the archives of the Commune of Trevigi the 
 decree of the city for the building of the church of the Preaching- Friars. It 
 is as follows : " In the name of Christ Amen. To the honour of God 
 and all his saints, and for the confirmation of the holy Christian faith, we 
 ordain and decree that the commune of Trevigi erect one church in a con- 
 venient spot of the city or suburbs, in which the Friars of S. Dominic's Order 
 may preach and celebrate the divine offices, if it seem good to them to have 
 a convent in the city or suburbs of Trevigi." 
 
 1 Pope Alexander IV. A.D V 1255, sent circular letters to all the bishops 
 and noblemen of the free cities of Lombardy, Emilia, and the Marches of 
 Trevigi, exhorting them to form a crusade against the tyrant Ezelino, and 
 granting them the indulgences formerly given to those who marched to the 
 Holy I^and. Every corps of armed men selected a religious for its leader, 
 and the Bolognese troops had for their general Fra Giovanni da Vicenza, the 
 same who reconciled the Guelphs and Ghibellines on the plain of Paquara. 
 See Sismondi's Ital. Repub. Ezelino, or, as he styled himself, " the enemy 
 of God and man," died of wounds received at the battle of Capano, A.D. 1259.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 77 
 
 the dignity of the sacred purple ; and was subsequently 
 elevated to the Papal Throne, after the death of Boniface 
 VIII. This was Benedict XI. When the tiara was 
 placed on his head, he did not forget his country or his 
 brethren. On the contrary, he determined to adorn his 
 birth-place with new and elegant buildings, and to erect 
 for the Dominicans a magnificent temple and convent, 
 that might equal in beauty those of Venice, Padua, and 
 Verona. Trevigi sent ambassadors to his holiness, who 
 presented to him the plan of the city ; and the Domini- 
 cans, at the same time, forwarded to him the design of 
 the new church, taken in great part from these of S. Gio- 
 vanni and Paolo, and S. Agostino. In the midst of their 
 joyful anticipations, premature death deprived the Church 
 of one of its most distinguished Pontiffs, and destroyed all 
 hope of the BUILDINGS ; fortunately, however, it did not 
 interfere with the new church of the Dominicans: for, 
 during his CardinalatejBoccasini 1 bestowed to his brethren 
 twenty-five thousand gold ducats ; and, before dying, left 
 in the hands of the Dominican bishops of Mantua and 
 Ferrara a larger sum of forty-eight thousand ; with which 
 the church was erected, and the building of the new 
 convent commenced. Although there is no record of 
 the name of the architect who furnished the design, I 
 have no reason to doubt that it was Fra Benvenuto da 
 Bologna, who, in 1303, completed the temple of S. 
 Agostino in Padua; since it is very probable that the 
 Dominicans would not have selected an extern in pre- 
 ference to a distinguished member of their own institute : 
 
 His whole posterity was destroyed, that none of his race might survive him ; 
 thus forcibly reminding us of Juvenal's dictum : 
 
 " Ad generum Cereris sine csede et vulnere pauci 
 
 Descenduut reges, et sicca morte tiranni." 
 i Benedict XL
 
 78 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 and this, in my opinion, is sufficient to confute Federici, 
 who, after examining the ancient memoirs of this con- 
 vent, and finding that a Franciscan lay-brother, named 
 Fra Benvenuto, was then practising architecture in Tre- 
 vigi, mistakes him for another Friar of the same name, 
 who was the author of this church, and who, according 
 to Ghirardacci, was a Dominican. 1 
 
 We have not ascertained precisely in what year the 
 sacred edifice was commenced, but it was probably between 
 1310 and 1315 : three years after this latter date, it would 
 appear to have been considerably advanced. It was inter- 
 rupted, however, by the wars for the space of thirty years, 
 that is, from 1318 to 1348. At this period, the building was 
 resumed under the direction of another Dominican archi- 
 tect, Fra Nicola da Imola, who completed it A.D. 1352. 
 From what has been said hitherto, we may easily perceive 
 how far Cicognara is from the truth, when he asserts, that 
 all the most remarkable edifices raised in Italy in the 
 thirteenth century, should be attributed to Niccola Pisano. 
 Whensoever Cicognara is not able to determine the name 
 of the architect, he is wont to give the glory of the fabric 
 to the great Pisan, and he goes so far as to say, that Nicola 
 furnished the design of the Dominican church at Trevigi, 
 leaving it to be executed by Friar- Architects : 2 but as we 
 have already observed, the celebrated Pisan sculptor and 
 
 > In Trevigi, as well as throughout all the Venetian States, during the 
 fourteenth century, many of the religious were famous as architects. In 
 1315, three of them were employed at the works on the river Piave ; and at 
 this period nourished Fra Giovanni Agostiniano, architect and engineer of the 
 communes of Bassano, Trevigi, and Padua, hi which city he constructed the 
 roof of the hall della Ragione, one of the most singular in Italian architec- 
 ture. The celebrated saloon of Padua is two hundred and fifty-six feet 
 long, eighty-six wide, and seventy-two high. Milizia terms it the greatest 
 in the world. 
 
 2 Memorie Trevig. v. i., p. ii., p. 174.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 79 
 
 architect, died in 1278, that is fully thirty-two years before 
 this church was commenced. 
 
 " If the church of S. Niccola in Trevigi," says Federici, 
 " must yield in vastness to the duomo of Milan, and to 
 these of Orvieto and Siena if it be surpassed by S. Maria, 
 Novella in Florence, S. Petronio in Bologna, S. Antonio 
 in Padua, and some others (all works of the same period,) 
 in windows, cornices, columns, and other details, it is not 
 inferior to them in the boldness of its arches, and upper 
 pilasters, nor in its fine chapels, with these exquisite 
 windows which are characterised by simplicity, solidity, 
 and grandeur. In this church, there is more harmony 
 between the length, width and height, than is to be found 
 in many others." 1 What occurs to me as most worthy 
 of remark in this church is, that being less in length and 
 width than these of S. Antonio in Padua, and S. Giovanni 
 and Paolo in Venice, it exceeds them all in the lofti- 
 ness of its vaults, since it is eighty feet higher than 
 S. Anthony's, and eighty-two feet higher than that 
 in Venice, if Federici's measurement be correct. The 
 said church having been finished in 1352, it was deter- 
 mined that every embellishment of art should be be- 
 stowed on it. There was then in that city, a painter, 
 named Tommaso di Modena, an artist of celebrity, if we 
 take the time into consideration. F. Francesco Massa 
 invited him to paint the church; and F. Vazzola en- 
 gaged him to produce the histories in the chapter-room. 
 Thus S. Niccola in Trevigi, was, so to say, an image of 
 S. Maria Novella in Florence ; so much the more as they 
 were both built by architects of the Dominican Order, 
 both completed at the same time, and decorated simul- 
 taneously, by the best pencils of that age, at the instance 
 
 ' This church is 274 feet in length ; and 107 in height
 
 80 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 of Friars who cherished the profoundest veneration for 
 art. 
 
 The pictures that adorn the Trevigian church, must 
 have been executed between 1353 and 1354. In the 
 fourteenth century, as we have already observed, it was 
 usual to decorate the walls of the church with histories, 
 either sculptured in marble, or painted in fresco, of the 
 principal facts of the Old and New Testament, in order 
 that wheresoever the eye rested, whether on the coloured 
 glass of the windows, or on the ceiling of the holy edifice, 
 it might there find a solemn record, or a solemn lesson, 
 moral, civil, and religious. Tommaso di Modena, who 
 in all probability, did not possess the fecundity of Gaddi, 
 Memmi or Spinello, contented himself with a legendary 
 ichonography, and painted the images of a great number 
 of the saints of various periods, on and over the arches, 
 together with these symbols so dear to the piety of the 
 faithful. Many of these paintings no longer exist, as 
 they were destroyed in 1400, to make way for the 
 restorations and alterations in the church. Federici writes 
 profusely on the merit of these pictures, and their sig- 
 nification. The religious of the convent, to attest their 
 gratitude to F. Massa, who at his own expense, caused 
 the paintings to be executed, raised a marble monument to 
 his memory. But of far greater importance to the history 
 of the Order, were the paintings which the said Tommaso 
 di Modena, executed in the chapter -room of the same con- 
 vent, in 1352 ; as they form an historical gallery of all the 
 most distinguished Dominicans, who, up to that year, 
 either by sanctity of life or great learning, had reflected 
 lustre on their institute. There you may behold the se- 
 ries of all the Generals and Cardinals of the Order ; and on 
 the friezes you see described the number of the provinces, 
 and that of the convents of the province of lower Lorn-
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 81 
 
 bardy to which the Trevigian convent belonged. Rightly 
 has Frederici called these paintings a " Sacred, Literary, 
 and Political history of the Order of Preaching-Friars 
 in the first century of their institution." It is very likely 
 that Fra Giovanni Angelico, when painting a much 
 smaller, but similar gallery in the chapter-room of the 
 convent of S. Marco, availed himself of that of Trevigi, 
 since Federici who saw both, found many points of re- 
 semblance between them. Moreover, Giorgio Vasari, 
 writes, that Fra Giovanni Angelico, was assisted by the 
 Friars, who procuring portraits from many places for him, 
 enabled him to execute likenesses after nature; much 
 merit is due to Father Federici, who by illustrating these 
 pictures and causing them to be engraved, has rendered 
 valuable service to the history of art, and his institute ; 
 since anterior to his time, they were all but un- 
 known. 1 
 
 Here terminate the notices relating to the church of 
 S. Niccolo di Trevigi, and its architects, Fra Benvenuto 
 da Bologna and Fra Niccolo da Imola. Of the first we 
 may add, that we find him (A.D. 1314) in his own 
 country, employed by the magistracy of that city, 
 together with other engineers, in a work of great impor- 
 tance. The canal between Bologna and Ferrara being 
 choked up, so as to impede commerce and all communi- 
 cation between the two cities, Fra Benvenuto, and the 
 other engineers, were charged to remedy this great 
 inconvenience. This they effected by deepening the 
 bed of the river, taking five feet from either bank, and 
 turning the water into the Caradiccio, or Grossetta, the 
 canal that communicates with Ravenna. This work cost 
 
 i Lanzi who knew them only from the engravings published by Federici, 
 mentions them in his history of painting, in the first epoch of the Modenese school. 
 
 E 2
 
 82 MEMOIKS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 the city of Bologna over 5,000 lire. 1 More of him 
 we have not been able to learn. We cherish a 
 hope, however, that public and private archives may yet 
 reveal more of the life and works of these two illustrious 
 Dominican architects. 
 
 Before closing the Trevigian notices, we will mention 
 a fact recorded by Federici, which plainly shows how 
 much the religious of that convent loved everything 
 connected with art. In the private archives of S. Niccolo, 
 Federici discovered a document, signed by Father 
 Masa, and dated A.D. 1347, by virtue of which the said 
 father bequeathed to the convent of Trevigi a precious 
 collection of objects connected with the fine arts, which 
 he acquired with great labour and expense. Amongst 
 these were miniatured books, painted images, precious 
 vases, crystals, corals, cameos, a Madonna in alabaster 
 and another in ivory ; to these he added a collection of 
 poetical, historical, and philosophical works. This we 
 have thought worth recording, since at that period few 
 cities of Italy, and very few of the princes of the land, 
 could boast of such an abundance of books or objects 
 connected with the fine arts. Even this may disabuse 
 some persons, who fancy that the friars of the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries were so infatuated by mystic 
 and scholastic theology, as to set no value on other 
 and less sombre studies. 
 
 Having spoken of the Bolognese architects, it is time 
 to turn to those of Lombardy. And here again we have 
 to lament the paucity of our notices. Our sorrow is 
 increased, when we reflect that towards the close of the 
 fourteenth century, there lived in Milan an architect of 
 the Dominican Order, who deserved to be chronicled by 
 
 1 Padre Cherubino Ghirardacci, Agostin. Historia di Bologna, 2 vol. in 
 folio. Bologna : v. vol. ii. lib. 17, p. 573.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 83 
 
 the historians of art. Some one has called the middle 
 ages the epoch of great anonymous celebrities ; and, 
 indeed, with truth, since at no other period do we find 
 such wonderful activity, or so much anxiety to hide 
 great names. 
 
 Ticozzi, in his Dictionary, and Cicognara, in the His- 
 tory of Sculpture, make honourable mention of two 
 Friar-architects, the one belonging to the Franciscan, 
 and the other to S. Dominic's Order, who, when the 
 duomo of Milan was commenced, were invited to assist 
 at the works, with many other engineers and architects, 
 Italian and ultramontane. 1 These were Fra Giovanni da 
 Giussano, a Dominican, and Fra Andreolo de Ferrari, a 
 Franciscan. But it would be useless to seek in the 
 volumes of Ticozzi or Cicognara, for any notice of the 
 works or life of these two religious ; nay, even Milizia, 
 who undertook to write the lives of the most distinguished 
 architects, says nothing of them. They barely tell us 
 that, in 1390, they were both in Milan, engaged at the 
 erection of the duomo. Duke Giovanni Galeazzo Vis- 
 conti laid the foundation-stone of this grand edifice, in 
 the year 1386 ; but not satisfied with the works executed 
 in a few months, they were destroyed, and another build- 
 ing was commenced in the October of 1387. Visconti 
 very unwisely had invited a great number of architects 
 from various countries, who, instead of forwarding the 
 work, retarded it most considerably. Differences of 
 opinion, rivalries, and ill-will interrupted it at every 
 stage. This, however, served to exhibit the capabilities 
 of the two architects ; since Fra Andreolo and Fra 
 Giovanni were appointed to decide between the rival 
 builders and engineers, who submitted their case to their 
 judgment. This is all that is recorded of them by 
 
 1 Storia della Scultura, Vol. III., lib. iii., cap. i.
 
 84 MEMOIRS OP EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Ticozzi and Cicognara. Nevertheless, I think it likely 
 that Fra Giovanni may have directed the building of the 
 church and convent of S. Eustorgio at Milan, which, 
 about this period, were very considerably enlarged. 
 
 In fact, the Preaching -Friars must have availed 
 themselves of the services of a member of their own 
 Order to decorate their own church; and it is only 
 reasonable to suppose that they would not have preferred 
 an extern. I should not, however, forget to remark, that 
 Michele Caffi, who has recently published a work on the 
 church of S. Eustorgio, makes no mention of Fra 
 Giovanni da Giussano; but this may be attributed to 
 the want of documents, and every one knows how care- 
 less the old chroniclers were in this particular. Neither 
 shall I go beyond the confines of simple conjecture. 
 
 In the year 1218, the city of Milan received a colony 
 of Preaching-Friars, sent thither by their holy Founder. 
 They were twelve in number; and here, as in Florence, 
 their first abode was the public hospital of the Pellegrini, 
 or S. Barnabas. In 1220, they began to officiate in the 
 church of S. Eustorgio; and, in 1227, they took possession 
 of it. In Florence they commenced their mission by 
 preaching peace to those factions who waged war against 
 each other; in Trevigi, they began by denouncing the 
 impious tyranny of Ezelino; but not less difficult or 
 important was the work they had to execute in Milan. 
 The baneful doctrines of the Manicheans, supported by 
 the Imperial arms, were being disseminated through 
 Lombardy. This depraved sect, hitherto satisfied with 
 the diffusion of their pernicious dogmas and the corrup- 
 tion of public morals, had now become audacious, and 
 proceeded to works of sedition and rapine. To the 
 children of S. Dominic and S. Francis, Rome entrusted 
 the important duty of ridding Italy of the foul contagion.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 85 
 
 They were commissioned to avail themselves of doctrine, 
 preaching, and example ; and whenever it was necessary 
 to resort to such, they were empowered to put in execu- 
 tion the severe laws which Pontiffs and kings had enacted 
 against heretics. Foremost in this grand work, in Milan 
 and through Lombardy, was S. Peter of Verona, of the 
 Order of Preaching-Friars, who, with his companion, 
 were both slain by the weapons of assassins, on the 6th 
 of April, 1252. The Milanese, wishing to honour him 
 who was the zealous defender of their faith, engaged 
 Balduccio, the Pisan, to erect a splendid marble monu- 
 ment to his memory ; which, if it be not equal to that of 
 S Domenico at Bologna, or to the 'monument erected to 
 Guido Tarlati, or to that of S. Donate in Arezzo, or, 
 finally, to that of S. Agostino in Pavia, most certainly 
 surpasses them all in magnificence. 1 
 
 1 Balduccio, as Cicognara and Lanzi suspect, was probably a disciple of 
 Andrea Pisano. " He," writes Verri, " was charged by Duke Azzone to 
 produce the most magnificent design possible, and to execute it with all 
 diligence and artistic power." Cicognara Storia della Scultura, lib. iii., chap, 
 viii., p. 442 ; Verri, Storia di Milano, VoL I., p. 442. The marble monu- 
 ment to S. Peter Martyr, is in length five cubits and fourteen and a-half 
 ounces ; in breadth, one cubit and twenty-three ounces. The total height of 
 the area or shrine, from the pavement to the statue of the Saviour, is twelve 
 cubits and twelve ounces. It is sculptured with arabesques, and has eight 
 histories of the Saint in basso-relievo, with many statues on the sides and 
 summit. It was finished in the year 1339. It is not true, as some have 
 asserted, that this monument should be attributed to the generosity of 
 Azzone Visconti, and Giovanni, his uncle, Bishop of Novara ; for Taegio 
 narrates, (Ampl. Chronicse, p. ii. p. 192,) " that many persons from various 
 parts of the world sent large alms for the construction of this ark." Amongst 
 the contributors were the King of Cyprus, who gave three hundred gold ducats, 
 and a nobleman of that island who gave one hundred. The Cardinal Matteo 
 Orsini advanced the same amount. The Bishop Giovanni Viscojiti gave 
 fifty ; the Duke Azzone fifty, and sixty loads of lime for the foundations and 
 base, together with twenty gold ducats for gilding the shrine itself. These 
 personages were all sculptured on the lid of the ark. D. Erasmo Bozzia gave 
 thirty gold ducats ; and many other nobles of France, Germany, and Italy,
 
 00 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Not satisfied with this, the people of Milan contributed 
 large sums for the building of the church and convent. 
 Fra Beltramo da Robbiano, a religious of that convent, 
 who must have been skilled in architecture, (as were 
 usually those selected for such employment,) 1 presided 
 over the works. The building, interrupted for some time, 
 was resumed by Archbishop Ottone Visconti, in 1278 ; 
 and it is believed that, about this period, the church was 
 enlarged, and reduced to its present form. In 1290, the 
 vault of the chapel, on the left of the grand altar, was 
 finished ; and the bell-tower, according to the manuscript 
 of Galvano Fiamma, was commenced in 1297, and per- 
 fected in 1309. Fra Giovanni da Giussano, the architect, 
 must have been engaged at many of these works. I will 
 here take occasion to observe, that in 1306, the first 
 public clock ever seen in Italy, was placed in the tower 
 of S. Eustorgio.* 
 
 This, no doubt, is but a very meagre memoir of the 
 Venetian, Bolognese, and Lombard artists of the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth century. The notices regard- 
 ing them and their works, indeed, are scanty ; but we 
 will be able to make amends out of the copious materials 
 furnished by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which 
 produced so many illustrious men, famous in all the arts 
 of design. 
 
 sent large subscriptions. The whole expense amounted to two thousand gold 
 ducats. Campana, Vita di S. Pietfo Martire, lib. iv. chap, ii., p. 270, etc. 
 Michele Caffi, Delia Chiesa di S. Eustorgio in Milano, Ulustrazione Storico- 
 monumentali epigrafica Milano, 1841. 1 vol. 8vo. p. 104. 
 
 \ Caffi loc. citato, p. 20. 
 
 1 In the year 1395, Forli had its public clock, which was the work of Fra 
 Gaspare, a Dominican whom Paolo Bonoli calls, " an excellent professor and 
 engineer." Storia di Forli, lib. viiL, voL ii., p. 57. We hope at some 
 future day to learn more of the works of this celebrated mechanician.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 87 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Notices of Fra Giovani da Campi, and Fra Jacopo Talenti, Tuscan architects 
 They finish the Church of S. Maria Novella They build the new Con- 
 vent They re-build the Carraja Bridge, and raise other edifices for the 
 Republic and private citizens. 
 
 FLORENCE, the mother and protectress of every art, presents 
 to us new and able artificers, whose names and works she 
 has recorded and honoured. No city has ever excelled 
 her in the science or love of the imitative arts ; and none 
 has surpassed her in solicitude to transmit to posterity the 
 memories of those of her children, who have reflected 
 lustre on Italy. Whosoever has had the good fortune to 
 tarry on the banks of Arno, or to enjoy this beauteous 
 climate, and hear the dulcet language of its people, must 
 have perceived at a glance that the love of art is natural 
 to the inhabitants that they possess a remarkable power 
 of appreciating it, and that even the poorer orders are 
 gifted with general notions of the beautiful. Well may 
 they be called a privileged people, for their arts, like 
 their language, are the expression of souls intensely 
 enamoured of all that is beautiful in nature. 
 
 The church of S. Maria Novella, commenced by Fra 
 Sisto and Fra Ristoro, and whose eastern aisle was con- 
 tinued by Fra Borghese and Fra Albertino, brings us to 
 speak of two other distinguished architects, who finished it 
 in the fourteenth century, and who in their knowledge of 
 building might be compared to Gaddi and Orgagna. 
 These are the two lay-brothers Fra Giovanni da Campi, 
 and Fra Jacopo Talenti. It may be said with truth, that 
 for more than a hundred years this temple was a school
 
 88 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 of architecture, which educated in that art many of the 
 young religious who, as we shall see, must have become 
 illustrious in all its branches, if immature death had not 
 carried them off. In speaking of them we will follow 
 the valuable Necrology, deploring the absence of the 
 Memoirs compiled by F. Fineschi, which were lost after 
 his death. 
 
 Fra Giovanni Brachetti was born at Campi, the birth- 
 place of Fra Ristoro : the year is uncertain, but it was 
 probably about 1280. He could not have learned archi- 
 tecture from Fra Sisto or his colleague ; and his teacher 
 must have been either Fra Albertino or Arnolfo. The 
 Necrology informs us that he lived in the Order for 
 twenty-two years, having taken the Dominican habit in 
 1317. 
 
 Fra Jacopo Talenti, who was much younger than 
 Brachetti, was born at Nipozzano, in the diocese of Fiesole, 
 two miles and a half from Pontassieve. The Necrology 
 makes no mention of the date of his birth, of his parents, 
 or of the year in which he took the Dominican habit. It 
 would appear that he reached a great old age, and 
 survived Giovanni twenty-three years. The history of 
 the duomo of Orvieto mentions a certain Francesco 
 Talenti of Florence, who, in 1327 worked in that church, 
 and belonged to the sculptors and stone-masons who 
 received five soldi a day the remuneration given to 
 the Masters. Some have concluded from this fact, that 
 the foresaid Jacopo belonged to the Franciscan Order, 
 and that he had changed his name after taking the 
 religious habit ; but as we have discovered that he had 
 enrolled himself amongst the Dominicans precisely in that 
 year, it is likely that Francesco may have been his close 
 relative ; a conjecture which would lead us to think that
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 89 
 
 he belonged to a family celebrated for the cultivation of 
 art. 1 The Necrology terms Fra Jacopo " magister lapidum," 
 (stone-mason,) a designation frequently given to sculptors, 
 as Cicognara has shown. 2 It appears to us, however, that 
 Talenti's first occupation was that of a stone-mason, and 
 that he studied or perfected himself in architecture under 
 Fra Giovanni da Campi. He it was who produced the 
 sculptures and traceries in the church of S. Maria Novella, 
 as also the capitals of the pillars, the ornaments of the 
 ancient gates and windows, and the works in the chapel 
 of the Spaniards, together with the beautiful deco- 
 rations on the pulpit or bridge (now destroyed) which 
 formerly divided said church. 3 Fra Albertino Mazzanti 
 having died in 1319, Fra Giovanni da Campi, who two 
 years before had taken the Dominican habit, set about 
 completing the church. Fra Rainerio Gualterotti, a 
 Florentine, surnamed the Greek, had presided over the 
 works till 1317, when he was succeeded by the far- 
 famed Fra Jacopo Passavanti. The Florentine Republic, 
 
 1 Storia del duomo di Orvieto. Docum. No. xxiv., p. 272. At the build- 
 ing of the library of S. M. Novella, we find a master Giovanni Talenti 
 employed as a mason ; he must have been a brother or nephew of Jacopo. 
 Borghigiani, Cronaca. An. v. i., p. 377. 
 
 2 A certain Arduino, a Venetian sculptor and architect, subscribes himself 
 thus " Arduinus Tajapetra, (stone-cutter) fecit." Cicogn. Stor. della Scult. 
 L. Hi., c. 2. 
 
 3 Biliotti, Chronica etc., c. vi., p. 9. " Super ipsum (pontem) privatim 
 sacrificabant certis diebus, festis autem diaconus et subdiaconus cantabant 
 hie epistolam, evangelium ille, idque super marmoream illam columnam 
 egregie sculptam, et quatuor evangelistarum figuris notatam, quse post pontia 
 dejectionem, Anno Dom. 1565 factam, in hospitium deportata, atque ibi erecta 
 ad lectionem hospitibus habendam prostrat." This bridge was destroyed 
 October 22 of that year, to the grief of many. Gaye, Categgio Inedito. 
 This bridge served to separate the men from the women during Divine 
 service. The Rev. Mr. Webb, in his valuable " Sketches of Continental 
 Ecclesiology," opines that this bridge must have been a rude-loft.
 
 90 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 although it had begun to build the cathedral of S. Maria 
 del Fiore, proved itself munificent to S. Maria Novella ; 
 and in the very year in which the first stone of the new 
 cathedral (1298) was laid, it granted 1,500 lire to be 
 divided between the churches of S. Croce, S. Maria 
 Novella, and S. Spirito. 1 With the contributions of the 
 citizens and these sent by the prelates of the Order, which 
 in that age had produced many, it was easy to hasten the 
 completion of the sacred edifice. But the most distin- 
 guished and most zealous of all those who laboured for the 
 building was the celebrated Passavanti. This religious, 
 who was an eloquent preacher, a wise and elegant writer, 
 and an exceedingly learned man, was the intimate friend 
 of the most distinguished artists of Florence, of Gaddi, 
 Memmi, and Orgagna, whom he consulted and invited to 
 decorate this church ; which, owing to his solicitude, and 
 that of the religious who succeeded him, became like the 
 Campo Santo of Pisa, and the basilica of S. Francesco in 
 Assisi, a gallery of splendid paintings, and rarest products 
 of the fine arts. We do not know at what time Fra 
 Jacopo Talenti associated himself with Fra Giovanni, but 
 the Necrology emphatically states that he laboured inde- 
 fatigably at the building, and actually completed it. We 
 do not hesitate to affirm that he may have begun to direct 
 the works in 1339, the year in which his colleague died; 
 and, if this be the fact, the period of his labours did not 
 exceed eighteen years. They were both assisted by 
 many lay-brothers of the convent, who were excellent 
 masons. Following the design of Fra Sisto and Fra 
 Ristoro, they erected the grand nave and western aisle ; 
 they also built the principal chapel, and the one 
 next it called di S. Luca or the Gondi, and the two 
 
 1 Gave, loc. tit v. 1. Appendix 2.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 91 
 
 great chapels, that is the Rucellai, south of the south 
 transept, and in the north that of the Strozzi family, 
 dedicated to S. Thomas Aquinas. The three lateral 
 chapels of the great altar, as the architecture manifestly 
 proves, are of a later period. 
 
 At length the year 1357 witnessed the completion of 
 the church of S. Maria Novella. More than 100,000 gold 
 florins were expended on it, and seventy-seven years were 
 devoted to the works. 1 The fagade encrusted with white 
 and black marble, was commenced after 1350, and finished 
 in 1470 : the expenses being defrayed by many honorable 
 families. And this likewise is due to Passavanti, to whom 
 Turino Baldesi, in 1349, gave four hundred gold florins for 
 the construction of the gates and their ornaments. This sum 
 finished the facade to the arches under the great cornice. 
 In 1456 the work was resumed at the expense of Gio- 
 vanni Paolo Rucellai, and was finally completed in 
 1470, after the design of the celebrated Leon Battista 
 Alberti. 2 
 
 In an age so prolific of artists, and so glorious for 
 Christian art, when every one desired to read on the walls 
 of the temple the most sublime pages of the Bible, the 
 popular legends, and even the immortal strain of Dante, 
 the artist had a grand field for the development of his 
 genius. Religion was the fountain source of his inspira- 
 tion, and painting was employed as a grand moral lesson 
 worthy of a Christian people. Well did Passavanti know 
 the wants of his age, when he engaged Gaddi, Memmi, 
 Orgagna, and Buffulmacco, to decorate the walls of S. 
 
 1 Fantozzi's Guide Book says that it was finished in 1349, by Era Gio- 
 vanni da Campi, but this architect died ten years before, i. e. in 1339. 
 
 2 V. F. Fineschi's Letter on the Facjade of S. M. Novella, inserted in the 
 Novelle Letterarie of 1779. Gio. Masselli's Notes to the Life of L. B. Alberti, 
 by Vasari. Note xvii., p. 308.
 
 92 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTEE8, 
 
 Maria Novella. If we except Spinello di Arezzo, and 
 Pietro Cavallini the Roman, there were none who 
 surpassed the foresaid painters in the poetry of art. The 
 Rucellai chapel already possessed that wonderful picture 
 of the Madonna, by Cimabue, which the Florentines in 
 their enthusiasm had carried in grand procession to that 
 very temple. And indeed it was but just that the church 
 where this great master had received his earliest inspira- 
 tions should possess his rarest work. Giotto had placed 
 within its precints the crucifix which is even now over 
 the grand entrance. Orgagna was commissioned to fresco 
 the great chapel, or choir, and the chapel of the Strozzi 
 family. In the former he produced some histories of the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary, of S. John Baptist, and S. 
 Dominic. These grand decorations injured by damp, 
 were, so to say, reproduced by Domenico del Ghirlandajo, 
 in the following century, and here did the youthful 
 Michelangelo Buonarotti employ his glorious pencil. 1 
 In the second chapel Orgagna painted the two Last Things, 
 Hell and Paradise. And as the Divina Commedia con- 
 stituted the delight of the people, and as Orgagna was 
 fascinated by its beauty, he divided the Inferno according 
 to the Dantesque circles, filling them with the damned 
 spirits, and as it were incarnating these awful agonies 
 which revealed themselves to the imagination of the 
 poet. This theme had tasked the genius of Niccola, 
 Pisano, Giotto, and others, and it has been repeated 
 with consummate mastery by the followers of he 
 latter. But if art be not perfect here, if the nude 
 be badly designed, and the composition frequently 
 confused, nevertheless, Dante's poetry pervades it ; and 
 
 1 Ghirlandajo received for this work 1,000 gold florins. It was finished 
 in 1490.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 93 
 
 it manifests the horrors of that abyss from which hope 
 is banished, and looking at it we may almost fancy that 
 we hear < 
 
 . " Various tongues, 
 Horrible languages, outcries of woe, 
 Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, 
 With hands together smote, that swell the sounds." i 
 
 Opposite to this he painted the Glory of the Saints, 
 and in this composition he displayed such power, that the 
 two works seem as if produced by different hands. It is 
 true, as F. Borghigiani observes, that the Paradiso was 
 subsequently retouched by Veraccini. 2 Finally Orgagna 
 executed the beautiful picture for the altar of S. Thomas, 
 whereon he traced his name, and the year 1357. To 
 Bonamico Buffalmacco, many years before, were entrusted 
 the paintings of a chapel which stood on the spot now 
 the entrance to the belfry, and of which only one picture 
 now remains on the door of the same, but so injured that 
 we no longer recognise the hand of the master. But far 
 more splendid than all these were the paintings which 
 Taddeo Gaddi and Simone Memmi executed in the 
 ancient chapter-room, at present called the chapel of the 
 Spaniards, as it had for some time belonged to that 
 nation. This edifice, which may be termed a monument 
 of vast importance in the history of Italian painting, is 
 but little known, and we, therefore, deem it our duty to 
 speak of it, even at the risk of being charged with 
 prolixity. 
 
 Buonamico di Lapo Guidalotti, merchant of Florence, 
 having purchased a little chapel, contiguous to the old 
 
 1 Inferno, Canto III. Carey's transl. 
 
 s Cronaca Annal. v. iii., ad ann. 1556, p. 329-330.
 
 94 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 church of S. Maria Novella, caused the foundation of the 
 great chapter-room to be laid, A.D. 1320. This room was 
 meant to serve as an assembly-place for the religious, 
 and for the annual celebration of the feast of Corpus 
 Domini. 1 Fineschi and Borghigiani, who date its erection 
 about 1350, have fallen into an error, for Simone could 
 not have painted it at this period, since he died at 
 Avignon, in the year 1344. 2 Which of the two architects 
 named above, was its author, is not quite certain. The 
 three Dominican historians, Biliotti, Borghigiani and 
 Fineschi, to whom we may add, Mecatti, say that it was 
 Fra Jacopo Talenti ; but in my judgment, it was Gio- 
 vanni da Campi; for in 1320, Talenti was too young, 
 and Fra Giovanni had been three years a Dominican, and 
 had presided over the works of the church. Moreover, 
 the beautiful cloister called il Verde (the Green,) must 
 have been erected contemporaneously, and Fineschi asserts, 
 that Giovanni was its builder. When the chapter-room 
 was finished, Guidalotti resolved to adorn it with the 
 choicest paintings. He first selected Simone Memmi, who 
 as Rosini remarks, could not have worked there before 
 1336, the year in which he returned from Avignon, 
 where he saw the celebrated Laura, whose likeness he 
 painted in the chapter-room. 3 The second to paint there 
 was Taddeo Gaddi ; but I have not ascertained in what 
 year. The inscription on Guidalotti's sepulchre states, 
 that the chapter-room was painted A.D. 1355, the year of his 
 decease ; and it is quite certain, that Taddeo Gaddi must 
 
 1 Mecatti, Notizie Storiche riguardanti il Capitolo dei P. Dom. di S- 
 M. Novella Fineschi Forestiero instruito in S. M. N. p. 44, Borghig. ad 
 hunc nun. 
 
 - Giovanni Rosini, Storia della Fittura Italiaua, v. ii., Epoca. prima, 
 c. xii., p. 98. 
 
 3 Rosini, loc. cit
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 95 
 
 have (lied about this period. 1 The expense amounted to 
 eight hundred and fifty gold florins. Now we are encoun- 
 tered here by a very great difficulty. Mecatti and Fineschi 
 have discovered, that Guidalotti, on his death-bed, had 
 left to his brother Domenico, another sum of three hundred 
 and twenty-five gold florins, for the completion of the 
 pictures in the chapter-room ; to which sum, because in- 
 sufficient, as it would appear, Domenico added ninety-two 
 more. From this we collect, that the chapter-room 
 cost 1,265 florins; that in the year 1355, it was not 
 finished, and that many paintings were still to be exe- 
 cuted, for which another sum of four hundred and fifteen 
 florins had been disbursed. But to whom were these 
 paintings entrusted, if Memmi and Gaddi were dead, 
 and if the whole chapter-room, even to the very vault, 
 had been coloured by the same ? Not having seen 
 Guidalotti's last will and testament, I incline to think 
 that the four hundred and fifteen florins must have been 
 applied to the decorations of the altar, and to these works 
 of sculpture that adorn the door and the great windows 
 of the chapter-room, which were probably produced by 
 Fra Jacopo Talenti. 2 Having spoken of the building, 
 let us now return to the paintings. In all that apper- 
 tained to the historical, symbolical and legendary pictures, 
 the artists had recourse to Passavanti, who furnished the 
 
 1 Lanzi, History of Painting, 1st Epoch. Flor. School. 
 Inscription on Guidalotti's tomb : 
 
 HIO JACET MICHUS, 
 
 FILIUS OLIM. LAPII DE GUIDALOTTIS MERCATOK 
 
 QUI FECIT FIERI ET DIPIXGI ISTtTD CAPITtTHJM, 
 
 CUM CAPPELLA, SEPULTUS IN HABITU ORDINIS, 
 
 A.D., MCCC.LV. DIE III. SEPTKMBRIS, 
 
 REQUIESCAT IN PACE. 
 
 * It might not be unreasonable to suppose, that the tribune or chapel 
 mentioned in the inscription remained to be painted ; who worked at the 
 subsequently, is uncertain. In 1590, these paintings were restored by the 
 disciples of Alessandro Allori, and by Procetti.
 
 96 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 necessary notices and directed the works. 1 Simone 
 Memmi undertook to paint three parts: the oriental, the 
 meridianal, and the northern. In the meridianal, he exe- 
 cuted some histories of S. Domenico and S. Pietro, martyr, 
 which are nearly all destroyed. In the oriental, he painted 
 the church militant and the church triumphant. In the 
 former, he depicted the principal dignities, civil and 
 ecclesiastical; and this work is doubly precious for the 
 portraits it gives us of Pope Benedict XI., the Emperor 
 Henry VII., Philip the Fair of France, Cardinal Niccolo, 
 Albertino diPrato, FraAngelo Acciajuoli, the Dominican 
 bishop of Florence, Cimabue, Giotto, Arnolfo, Petrarca, 
 and others. His idea may have been to show how, in 
 the midst of errors, ambition and pleasures, that fascinate 
 or torment human life, the true followers of Jesus Christ, 
 aided by the divine assistance, may attain to celestial 
 glory. By the errors he typified the sect of the Mani- 
 cheans, by whom a great portion of Italy had been over- 
 run. He described the heretics disputing with the 
 Catholics; and in another compartment, he painted 
 foxes pursued by white and black hounds, to attest the 
 vigilance of the Preaching-Friars, who have always 
 combated false teaching in all its multiform phases. To 
 denote the blandishments and luxuries by which frail 
 mortality is seduced, he painted a troop of dancing girls, 
 amongst whom is seen the beauteous Laura, who inspired 
 Petrarca's muse. To signify the ambition of honour and 
 power, he introduced the highest dignities of the church 
 and state. After these he produced confession, absolution, 
 and repentance, by which we must enter into the church 
 
 1 Rosini writes, that the painting of this chapter-room was superintended 
 by Fra Domenico Cavalca of Pisa ; but he is in error, since all the memoirs 
 of the convent of S. Maria Novella affirm, that it was Fra Jacopo Passavanti. 
 who directed these works.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 97 
 
 triumphant in a word, his pencil embodied all that has 
 been written by the erudite and elegant author of the 
 work entitled, "The Mirror of True Repentance." In the 
 northern part he painted Christ, ascending to Calvary : 
 His crucifixion and death, and his descent to the limbus 
 of the Fathers. These pictures, for invention 1 and design, 
 may be termed truly wonderful. Memmi is nowhere 
 grander than in these frescoes of the chapter-room. 
 They reflect honour on Christian painting as well as on 
 the artist. Taddeo Gaddi was not equal to Memmi in 
 the poetry of his compositions, but he probably sur- 
 passed him in design; he restricted himself, however, 
 to a simpler style of composition. In the western 
 department, he painted S. Thomas Aquinas triumphing 
 over error, and treated the subject, much in the style 
 of Francesco Traini, in his great picture, which is in 
 the convent of S. Catherine at Pisa. He represents 
 the holy doctor seated with an open book in his 
 hand, and surrounded by patriarchs, prophets, apos- 
 tles, and doctors; at his feet are the heretics in con- 
 fusion; amongst whom, overwhelmed with shame, is 
 the Arab Averrhoes, the corrupter of the doctrines of 
 Aristotle ; whose deliriums S. Thomas Aquinas had so 
 signally confuted. In the lower part he pourtrayed four- 
 teen female figures to represent the most distinguished 
 virtues and sciences, and under them the most illustrious 
 cultivators of the same. The Byzantines and Giottesque 
 were ardent admirers of this symbolism. On the vault of 
 
 1 Here it may not be out of place to give the reader Borghini's definition 
 of " Invention and Design." " Invention," says this learned writer on art, 
 " is that history or fable, or man or God, which Painting or Sculpture repre- 
 sents, and it may be derived from the artist himself or from others. Design 
 is an apparent demonstration by lines of that which was first conceived in 
 the mind, and imagined in the idea." V. IlRiposo, lib. i., p. 58, 1. ii., p. 157 
 
 F
 
 98 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 the chapter-room, he painted the Resurrection of our 
 Lord, the Holy Ghost descending into the supper-room, 
 and the barque of Peter tost on the waters. Gaddi, in 
 his emulation of Memmi, applied himself with so much 
 study and diligence to this work, that it may be classed 
 as the grandest of all his paintings. 
 
 All these pictures must in great part be attributed to 
 the zeal of Passavanti. But it may be asserted with 
 truth, that, commencing from the Greeks and Cimabue, 
 this church and its cloisters engaged the genius and art 
 of all the illustrious painters of the Florentine school, 
 with the exception of Andrea del Sarto, and Fra Bartolo- 
 meo della Porta; for, independently of the foresaid, Spi- 
 nello di Arezzo, Fra Giovanni 1'Angelico, Filippo Lippi, 
 Paolo Ucello, and Massaccio, worked within its precincts. 
 And it appears from the ancient records, that the walls of 
 this church, from top to basement, were all adorned with 
 pictures of the Giotto school. These were destroyed, 
 however, in the sixteenth century, when the building was 
 modernized under the direction of Giorgio Vasari. Let 
 this suffice concerning S. Maria Novella. 
 
 Resuming the life of the architect Fra Giovanni da 
 Campi, we may observe, that his occupations in the 
 church and cloister did not prevent him from engaging 
 in public works, to which he was frequently invited on 
 account of his great skill and ability, in the years 1319 
 and 1321. The masons and stone-cutters of S. Maria 
 Novella were employed by the Republic to erect some 
 edifices ; and the decrees of the State are still preserved 
 in oui' archives. In that which relates to 1319, there is 
 a record of a building erected contiguous to their con- 
 vent, in order to lodge the officers of the Republic, as 
 well as those distinguished visitors who might happen to 
 pass through Florence. This edifice, though meant for
 
 99 
 
 public utility, was in great part built at the expense of 
 the Friars, the State granting only two hundred lire. 1 
 The Dominicans were driven to this alternative in order 
 to be rid of the inconvenience attendant on lodging 
 strangers in their domicile ; for, since the Republic had 
 no place fit for such accommodations, it was usual to 
 send illustrious guests to the various convents of the 
 city, and particularly to S. Maria Novella, though at 
 that period very poor and very small. Such as it was, 
 however, it was soon found to be utterly unsuited for 
 this purpose; so much so, that in 1419, on occasion of 
 the visit of Martin V., who came to Florence, accom- 
 panied by a large retinue of Cardinals and Prelates, the 
 city caused a magnificent apartment to be built for him 
 in the convent of S. Maria Novella, expending thereon 
 fifteen hundred florins out of the fund set apart for the 
 erection of the duomo. 2 
 
 Far more important is the decree, dated February 10, 
 
 1 Gaye, loc. cit. (To the Friars of S. Maria Novella, two hundred florins) 
 " Since they have begun to build, near the gate of their convent, a house 
 of considerable dimensions, the walls of which are now raised to the coping- 
 stone, which house will be of great utility to the Republic, for the reception 
 of the officers of the state, as well as of other citizens, as the case may be ; 
 and, indeed, the said Friars have not houses large enough for such pur- 
 poses, as has been very sufficiently proved." 
 
 2 Gaye, loc. cit, "January 31, 1419. The builders of the cathedral of 
 Florence are to erect, at the cost of said cathedral, in the convent of S. Maria 
 Novella, a habitation for our Lord Pope Martin V. The expenditure is not 
 to exceed fifteen hundred gold florins." The said Pontiff, on his return from 
 the council of Constance, remained in this convent, with his court, for the 
 term of six months. Pope Eugene IV. dwelt there six years (A.D. 1434,) 
 and there assembled the ecumenic council, for the reconciliation of the 
 Greeks. In 1451, this convent was the temporary abode of the Emperor 
 Frederic III. and Ladislaus, his nephew, King of Hungary. A.D. 1459, 
 Pope Pius II. took up his residence in it. In 1474, Cristierno, King of 
 Sweden, received its hospitality ; and in 1515, Pope Leo X. dwelt beneath 
 its roof.
 
 100 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 1321, in which the Republic votes to the Dominicans 
 the great sum of 2000 florins, for the restoration of old 
 buildings and the erection of new ones. Although it 
 does not set forth whether these belonged to the city or 
 to the religious, it would appear that the architects and 
 masons of S. Maria Novella were invited to undertake 
 public works, as the Orders of the Umiliati and Gesuati 1 
 were wont to do at that period. For, indeed, it is not 
 likely that a Mendicant Order possessed many habita- 
 tions, or that the Republic would have made them a 
 present of such a large sum. 
 
 But the work that shall always render Fra Giovanni 
 da Campi's memory dear to posterity, is the present 
 beautiful bridge over the Arno, vulgarly called " la 
 Carraja." This noble monument of his genius occupies 
 the site of that erected a century before by his two pre- 
 decessors, Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro. And since some 
 have striven to rob him of this honour, we deem it our 
 duty to maintain it for him by producing authentic 
 documents. 
 
 We have already narrated, how, towards the close 
 of 1269, the two Dominican architects, Fra Sisto and Fra 
 Ristoro, had built the piers, and constructed a wooden 
 bridge, like these at that period generally adopted 
 throughout Florence. In the year 1304, the events, 
 which we are going to describe, contributed to the des- 
 truction of this bridge (the Carraja). Florence was once 
 more a prey to ciAal discord: the Guelphs and Ghibel- 
 lines were succeeded by the factions known as the 
 Neri and Bianchi (the Blacks and Whites). 2 The bishop 
 
 1 This Order, founded about 1367, was suppressed by Clement IX., 
 A.D. 1668. 
 
 For the origin and history of these factions, V. Macchiavelli's Hist of 
 Florence, p. C6.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 101 
 
 Lottieri, instead of promoting peace, as was his duty, 
 placed himself at the head of the Bianchi. Benedict XI. 
 being informed of the terrible internecine war, then 
 raging amongst the citizens, despatched Cardinal Niccolo 
 Albertino di Prato, of the Order of the Preaching- 
 Friars, to allay the tumult, and stay bloodshed. The 
 Pontiff remembered, that another member of this in- 
 stitute, had reconciled similar factions, in 1279. " This 
 Master Nicholas," writes Giovanni Villani, " Cardina- 
 of Prato, was a Dominican, very learned, very wise, and 
 of Ghibelline origin."' The fact of belonging to a 
 family, partial to one of the two political factions, caused 
 the people to suspect him; and, as all his efforts to 
 bring about peace were unavailing, he retired to his 
 own. country ; nevertheless, in the following year, when 
 the parties had been somewhat quieted, it was resolved 
 to celebrate his return from Prato, by a grand popular 
 festival. 2 " The people of Borgo San Friano," continues 
 Villani, " were in the habit of inventing many sorts of 
 amusements ; and amongst others, they announced that 
 all persons desirous of hearing news from the other world, 
 should assemble on the Carraja bridge on the kalends of 
 May. On this occasion the Arno presented the unusual 
 sight of a vast number of boats and rafts, whereon were 
 various parties tricked out as demons, and enveloped in 
 flames, who shouted and groaned in mimic agony. It 
 was a spectacle terrible and odious to hear and see. The 
 concourse of the people was immense, and the Carraja- 
 bridge, which was of wood, resting on stone piers, yielded 
 
 1 Villaiii Cronaca, 1. viii. c. 66. Macchiavelli, loc. cit 
 
 2 The Florentines, annually, celebrated many of these festivities in their 
 churches. It was on one of these occasions, that the church di Santo Spirito 
 was burned to the ground, A.D. 1471. This church was rebuilt, after the 
 designs of Brunellesco.
 
 102 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 to the pressure, and multitudes were either killed by the 
 falling timbers or drowned in the Arno. In fact, the 
 promise of intelligence from the other world proved to 
 be no joke ; for many who came to be amused, very soon 
 learned more than they had anticipated." 1 After this 
 the Carraja was entirely rebuilt of stone, but who the 
 architect was does not appear. In the decrees of the 
 year 1332, we read that there was a deliberation con- 
 cerning the paving of the bridge. But the work had 
 scarcely been carried into effect, when the Arno was 
 flooded to an extent unprecedented in the annals of the 
 city. Having done great damage in Valdarno, Casen- 
 tino, and Arezzo, it was now swollen by tributary tor- 
 rents, which acquired additional strength when mingled 
 with the Sieve near the city. Sweeping away the banks 
 in its impetuosity, it first encountered the Carraja, leav- 
 ing only two of its arches standing. Of the Trinita 
 bridge it left but one pier and an arch. Having 
 shattered the Ponte Vecchio, which was propped up 
 with wood, and nearly carried away the Rubaconte, it 
 rushed out on the unhappy city, causing the death of 
 more than three hundred persons. Villani, who was an 
 ocular witness of these disasters, relates that it cost the 
 Florentines one hundred and fifty thousand gold florins 
 to repair the bridges and other edifices. 2 At this crisis 
 the Republic needed able architects, and amongst others 
 it selected Taddeo Gaddi and Fra Giovanni da Campi. 
 To the former it entrusted the rebuilding of the Ponte 
 Vecchio ; to the latter the Carraja. Vasari and Baldi- 
 nucci assert that the Trinita bridge was re-constructed 
 by Gaddi ; but Bottari, in his Notes to the Life of this 
 
 1 Vasari says, that this representation of hell, was invented by Buffal- 
 macco. 
 
 * Villani, loc. cit 1. xi. c. J2.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 103 
 
 painter and architect, suspects that it was rebuilt by 
 Da Campi. 1 Probably Baldinucci may err when he 
 states that " Gaddi rebuilt the Ponte Vecchio after his 
 own design, of square stone ;" since the Florentine chro- 
 nicler affirms that " only two piers were added to it." 
 However the Carraja was rebuilt from the foundations, 
 as we learn from Villani, who says, " In the month of 
 July, of the year 1334, the new bndge, called 'Alia Car- 
 raja,' was commenced from the foundations." 2 To prove 
 that Fra Giovanni da Carnpi was its builder, besides the 
 authority of Baldinucci and Bottari, we have that of 
 the Necrology, which gives him all the credit of this 
 grand work. 3 
 
 Another, and not less valuable, document has been 
 brought to light by Fra Borghigiani ; and it is the old 
 ledger of the syndic of the convent. This contains an 
 account of various sums paid by the Commune to Fra 
 Giovanni for this work. An entry made in 1337 records 
 how this lay-brother-architect gave the syndic thirty 
 florins out of his earnings from the Carraja bridge, which 
 he directed to be expended on the pavement of the new 
 dormitory, at which Fra Jacopo Talenti laboured inces- 
 santly. With these authorities before them, none, I 
 presume, will dare to rob Fra Giovanni of the honour 
 accruing from this great work. It was completed in 
 January, A.D. 1336, and cost over twenty-five thousand 
 gold florins. The Trinita bridge, according to Vasari, 
 cost twenty thousand ; and ^Baldinucci erred when 
 
 1 V. VasarFs Lives. 
 
 2 Villani, loc. tit. 
 
 8 Necrol. S. M. Nov. No. 277 "The Commune appointed him the prin- 
 cipal, and only architect, of that entire work." The Archives state, that 
 on the 1st of November, 1333, a committee was formed to enquire, by what 
 contrivance a communication might be kept with the two banks of tlie 
 river." Gaye, Carteggio Ined.
 
 104 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 stating that the expense amounted to two hundred 
 thousand ; since Villani writes that all the losses 
 caused by the inundation did not exceed one hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand gold florins. Baldinucci has 
 fallen into a similar error when he states that the Ponte 
 Vecchio cost sixty thousand. 1 
 
 The Carraja bridge, with its five arches of stone, re- 
 mains to this day in Florence, and after the Trinita, 
 (built two centuries later,) it is the most beautiful of 
 these that span the Arno. The heavy floods of succeed- 
 ing ages caused it to undergo some repairs; and, after 
 the terrible inundation of 1557, which carried away two 
 of its piers and two of its arches, they were restored by 
 Bartolommeo Ammannato. But it is not true, as the 
 Florence Guide-Book of 1830 states, that the bridge was 
 entirely rebuilt. 2 This was not asserted by contempo- 
 raneous writers, and the very character of the architec- 
 ture would be sufficient to prove the contrary. I hold, 
 however, for certain, that Ammannato, besides the two 
 arches and two piers, added also the spurs that strengthen 
 the piers, which, like these of the Trinita, belong to the 
 same architect. 
 
 During the time that Fra Giovanni da Campi was 
 employed at these public works, Fra Jacopo Talenti and 
 the other Dominican architects and masons were actively 
 engaged at the building of the church and convent. 
 About 1330 they constructed the beautiful belfry, after 
 the design left by Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro ; and this is 
 
 1 Notizie dei Professori del disegno, Decennio III. del Sec. 2. 
 
 1 In a MS. Record, of the convent of S. Marco, Florence, we read " On 
 this 13th of Septemb. 1657, at the third hour of night, the Arno, swollen by 
 heavy rains, burst its banks, and overflowed the city for a mile and a half. 
 
 In Florence it destroyed the Trinitk bridge entirely it destroyed 
 
 two piers and two arches, and in great part, destroyed the Rubaconte. so 
 that one cannot pass over," &c.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 105 
 
 manifest from the inscriptions on the old bells. One 
 bears date 1331, the other 1334. The belfry is one 
 hundred and eighteen braccia in height ; and such is its 
 graceful lightness, that, if we except the campanile of 
 the duomo, there is none in Florence to excel or equal 
 it. It cost eleven thousand gold florins. 1 In the year 
 1334 they finished the great chapel ofS. Niccolo, with 
 the sacristy contiguous, which is frescoed with histories 
 of our Lord by Spinello di Arezzo. Fra Ottaviano 
 Rustici, who was eminently skilled in architecture, pre- 
 sided over these works. Two 'lay-brothers of the same 
 convent, Fra Lapo Bruschi and Fra Francesco da Car- 
 mignano were employed by Talenti as his head masons. 
 Meanwhile, the memorable inundation had occasioned 
 great injury to the primitive subterranean church and 
 ancient convent. The lower dormitory had been filled 
 with water. The religious, therefore, saw the necessity 
 of erecting, from the foundations, a new and larger, and 
 withal higher convent than the old one, in order to be 
 prepared for similar contingencies. In fact, they had 
 already commenced a new dormitory, spacious enough 
 for the religious who daily became more numerous, as 
 appears from a memorial which they presented to the 
 Republic in 1334 a memorial ignored by all the histo- 
 rians of the Order. In this they prayed for means to 
 complete the church and the dormitory commenced long 
 before, and for an additional plot of ground for the fore- 
 said edifices. Following the chronology of F. Borghigiani, 
 we will notice how the new wing of the convent was 
 built over the grand cloister, and how, when it was dis- 
 covered that the pilasters of the same were too weak to 
 sustain the superincumbent weight, it became necessary to 
 
 1 The expenses of the campanile were defrayed by Mons. S. Saltarelli, 
 Archbishop of Pisa, a religious of the convent of S. M. Novella. 
 
 F 2
 
 106 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 strengthen them. For such an immense building large 
 sums were required ; but as sufficient money could not 
 be procured at one and the same time, the work was 
 interrupted ; so much so, that the architecture resulted in 
 that irregularity so plainly visible at the present moment 
 Amongst those who contributed largely to the necessary 
 funds, was Fra Giovanni Infangati, who, aided by his 
 relatives, built the meridianal wing. The western is 
 due to Angelo Acciajuoli, bishop of Florence. Mons. 
 Simone Salterelli, archbishop of Pisa, and Fra Scolario 
 Squarci, all children of this convent, in great part con- 
 tributed to the completion of the whole. At what period 
 the convent and church were finished is not very certain. 
 In the year 1337 the pavement of the new dormitory was 
 perfected; but in 1340 the cloister was not finished. 
 This beautiful cloister, with its fifty-six arches, is 
 the largest in all Florence. A short time before 
 1570 the solicitude of the Ven. F. Capocchi caused the 
 painting of it to be commenced; and the most distin- 
 guished artists of the Florentine school were engaged, 
 and, according to Lanzi, the works which they produced 
 here may be regarded as the pictorial history of that 
 school, (the Florentine,) in its third epoch. Bronzino, 
 Allori, Santi di Tito, Cosimo Gamberucci, Poccetti 1 and 
 others painted the histories of S. Dominic, of S. Peter 
 Martyr, of S. Thomas of Aquino, and of S. Antonino. 
 All these works were executed at the expense of the 
 religious of the convent. With the exception of a few 
 large lunettes, it was entirely finished, A.D. 1582. 
 
 At the moment when the convent and church were 
 well nigh being completed, Fra Giovanni da Campi, the 
 celebrated architect, migrated from this world. This was 
 
 1 Stor. Pittorica Scuola Fior. epoca 3.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 107 
 
 in the twenty-second year of his claustral life, A.D. 1399. 
 He passed away regretted by his confreres and all the 
 citizens, to whom he had rendered such important ser- 
 vices. He was a great artist, and a most pious and exem- 
 plary Friar. 1 
 
 No one that has seen his works, particularly the 
 Carraja bridge, the chapel of the Spaniards, and the 
 green cloister in S. M. Novella, will deny him a distin- 
 guished place amongst the great architects of the four- 
 teenth century. He is honourably mentioned by Bal- 
 dinucci, Cicognara, and Bottari, in a copious note to his 
 Life of the Angelico. But it will not astonish the 
 learned in these matters, when we observe that Fran- 
 cesco Milizia seems to have known nothing of him, of 
 Fra Sisto, Fra Ristoro, or Jacopo Talenti ; another proof, 
 if such be wanting, of the worthlessness of the book 
 entitled, " Memoirs of Ancient and Modern Architects." 
 
 Having such an abundance of architects, the religious 
 of S. Maria Novella were in no difficulty as to the pro- 
 secution of the works in the church and convent. The 
 whole was now confided to Fra Jacopo Talenti, who had 
 already devoted much time to forward both. And, in 
 fact, when we compare the works of the latter with these 
 of Fra Giovanni, we discover such identity of design 
 and workmanship, that they appear to have been erected, 
 not by different, but by the same hands. Talenti was 
 
 i NecroL S. M. " N. F. Johannes conversus fil. olim Brachetti de Campis, 
 fuit morum maturitate necnon precipua honestate prepollensi. Hie effectus 
 est in ordine bonus carpentarius et industrius in edificiis construendis, unde 
 contigit, quod post diluvium quod inundavit Florentiam A.D. 1333 ad re- 
 hedificationem del ponte alia Carraja quern prsefatum diluvium dissipavit, 
 ipse factus est per Commune totius illius operis principalis et unicus archi- 
 tector, tandemque ipsum cum honore ordinis et suo laudabiliter consuma- 
 vit, ita ut in aliis operibus civitatis continue et avide peteretur. Vixit 
 autem in ordine ann. xxii. tandemque longa ajgritudine paulatim ad ex- 
 trema deductus obiit A.D. 1339."
 
 108 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 singularly remarkable for the celerity with which he con- 
 ducted his buildings ; for he was wont to undertake many, 
 all at the same time, and to perfect them in the briefest 
 term possible. Scarcely was the church of S. Maria No- 
 vella finished, when he commenced the sacristy, a noble 
 and severe edifice, in which you do not know what you 
 are to admire most, its solidity, or its airy lightness. It 
 must have been finished in 1350, for in that year it was 
 used as a chapel by the Cavalcanti family, and there 
 was placed in it a marble monument to Mainardo Caval- 
 canti, grand seneschal of Queen Johanna of Naples. 1 
 About the same year, (1350,) he laid the foundations of 
 the refectory, which was completed in 1353. A more 
 beautiful work than this is no where to be seen. 2 This 
 and the great chapel of S. Niccolo, may be regarded as 
 his most perfect works. They are both remarkable for 
 the beauty of their vaults, the harmony of their propor- 
 tions, and the admirable arrangement of their windows. 
 Two years after the completion of the church, (1357,) 
 he erected the vaults of the ancient hospice, which is 
 now used as a refectory. In 1360 he resumed the 
 building of the dormitory ; and long before this he had 
 completed the library and chapel of S. Anthony, abbot. 
 The belfry, twice struck by lightning, was twice restored 
 by him. To all these we may add the works he 
 executed for the Republic and private citizens. The 
 Necrology tells us that they occupied him for many 
 years. If the two first architects deserve our gratitude 
 for having furnished the design of S. Maria Novella, 
 surely Talenti merits our praise for having carried it 
 
 1 Fineschi, Forestiero, Instr. p. 35. 
 
 8 The old Records state, that F. Passavanti gave twenty gold florins for 
 the painting of the refectory : the work was executed by an unknown hand 
 of the Giottesque School.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 109 
 
 out so perfectly. I, for my part, never see these edifices 
 without experiencing a sense of veneration for this illus- 
 trious artist, who, although the equal of Gaddi and 
 Orgagna, studiously desired to conceal himself in the 
 silence of his solitude, and, like the architect-brethren 
 who preceded him, sought in God alone t|>e premium 
 and the praise of his honoured labours. He died of the 
 pestilence on the second of October, 1362. And the 
 Necrology, so chary of its praise to the deceased religious, 
 records the exemplarity of his life and his zeal for the 
 glory of the Order to which he belonged. 1 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Fra Giovannino da Marcojano, and other religious Architects of the Convent 
 of S. Maria Novella, pupils of Fra Giovanni da Campi and Fra Jacopo 
 Talenti. 
 
 THERE are no gloomier records in the annals of Florence 
 than these of the pestilence of the year 1348. It is said 
 to have come from the East into our peninsula, where it 
 caused such terrible disasters, that the like have never 
 been witnessed since or before. Giovanni Boccaccio has 
 given us a terrible narrative of its ravages in Florence ; a 
 
 1 Necrol S. M. Novellas, No. 416, " F. Jacopo Talenti of Nipozzano, a lay- 
 brother, stone-master (magister lapidum) and architect, so famous, that the 
 Commune of Florence and its nobility, for many years, availed themselves of 
 his services in their buildings. He built a great part of the church of 
 S. Maria Novella, and the chapter-room, and sacristy. In the convent, he 
 was a man of good and exemplary life, and always full of zeal for the honor 
 of his Order. After many labors, he passed out of this life to the rest he 
 yearned for, Octob. 2, 1362." Although this article attributes the chapel 
 of the Spaniards to him, I cannot induce myself to believe, that Talenti 
 was its author, but that it, of right, belongs to Fra Giovanni da Campi, as 
 we have already observed.
 
 110 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 narrative, in sooth, which makes one tremble. Nearly 
 one hundred thousand citizens were the victims of this 
 direful scourge. The convent of S. Maria Novella had 
 to deplore the loss of more than eighty religious, amongst 
 whom were many youths who had studied architecture 
 under Fra Giovanni and Fra Jacopo. Some who had 
 survived the plague of 1348, were carried off immaturely 
 in the pestilences that followed; for, indeed, after the 
 first tremendous visitation, the plague became indigenous, 
 and, throughout an entire century, manifested itself from 
 time to time in virulent and mitigated phases. In that 
 of 1362, (the year of Talenti's death,) the convent lost 
 twenty-eight of its religious ; in that of 138 3, fourteen, 
 amongst whom was the Blessed Alessio Strozzi, in the 
 thirty-fourth year of his age. The plague of 1400 
 carried off twenty ; and nine perished in that of 1417. 
 
 Amongst the victims of 1348, in his mature years, was 
 a lay -brother-architect, who is not mentioned by the 
 historians of art, and whose only record is found in the 
 Necrology. This is Fra Giovannino, whose cognomen is 
 suppressed. He was born in Marcojano del Mugello. 
 He took the habit in S. M. Novella, in the year 1302, 
 or thereabouts; and from this we infer that he had 
 learned the art from Fra Giovanni da Campi : he culti- 
 vated painting, but the requirements of his convent 
 caused him to devote himself principally to architecture. 
 I cannot say that he was employed at the public works 
 in Florence, but he must have assisted Talenti in building 
 S. Maria Novella. What makes us confident of his high 
 merits is that he was sent to Rome to work at S. Peter's. 
 I have not ascertained what Pope employed him, the 
 year he went to Rome, or the work which he executed. 
 All this, we grieve to say, is suppressed in the Necrology ; 
 for Fra Jacopo Altoriti, who made the entry, being far
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. Ill 
 
 more desirous of recording his excellence as a religious 
 than describing his ability as an architect, restricts himself 
 to a narrative of the virtues which adorned Giovannino's 
 life. He tells us that he was given to fasting and prayer ; 
 that he took little sleep ; and that he was indefatigable in 
 sculpturing, building, and painting ; nay, more, that his 
 chief pleasure, when surrounded by the groups that came 
 to admire his works, was to entertain them by reciting 
 the most graceful passages of the holy Scriptures. 
 After a laborious and sanctified life, he died of the 
 pestilence, April 16, 1348, in the sixtieth year of his 
 age. 1 It is a consolation to the writer of these Memoirs, 
 that it has been his good fortune to have rescued the 
 name of Giovannino from the oblivion in which it was 
 shrouded for five centuries. 
 
 Continuing our narrative of the other religious of that 
 convent who applied themselves to architecture, we find 
 in the Necrology, (No 309,) a certain Fra Matteo 
 Guiducci da Campi, who is lauded as an industrious and 
 excellent CARPENTER. He died on the 25th of August, 
 1346, after having spent twenty-nine years in the Order. 
 We have already remarked in what sense this word, car- 
 penter, should be understood, since the Necrology always 
 employs it to signify an architect. Fra Giovanni da 
 
 i Nicol. No, 321. " F. Joanninus de Marcojano de Mugello conversus fait 
 in vita miiabiliter exemplaris, multarum abstinentiarum et vigiliarum et 
 orationum, nunquam vacando otio. Nan cum esset optimus lignorum faber 
 et carpentarius perutilis, [here the architect is distinguished from the carpen- 
 ter] multa et magna edificiorum perfecit in diversis conventibus provincial 
 ac etiam in Urbe in Ecclesia S. Petri. Fuit iiisuper bonus pigmentarius, 
 (painter,) erat etiam instructus hujus artis. Historias Biblias memoriter 
 retinebat in quarum narratione dum operabatur manibus devotum solatium 
 capiebat. Tandem decursis in ordine annis xlvi. vel circa, ei Deus, ut pie 
 credi potest, post diutinos labores, quietis tribuit mausionem, A.D. 1348 
 die xvi. Aprilis."
 
 112 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Settignano is described as very skilful in that art ; but 
 he died when very young, A.D. 1348. Fra Francesco da 
 Murello is spoken of as most studious of the same art. 
 After ten years monastic life, he, too, was stricken by the 
 plague, and died in the said year. Finally, the Necrology 
 mentions another lay-brother, named Fra Giacomo di 
 Andrea, of Florence, whom it lauds as an able artificer 
 in wood, stone, and glass. He was for some time at 
 Rome, and died of the plague in Viterbo, A.D. 1369, 
 having lived forty years in the Order. He is spoken of 
 by the historians, Biliotti and Borghigiani. 1 Of others 
 who devoted themselves to other branches of art, we 
 shall have occasion to speak elsewhere. But Fra Fran- 
 cesco da Carmignano deserves special mention. It 
 appears that he was an engineer, and worked with Fra 
 Lapo Bruschi, in the great chapel of S. Niccolo, as we 
 have already said. The following anecdote is recorded 
 of him. A certain Fra Ubertino de' Filippi, a priest of 
 the same convent, in the year 1345, pronounced a dis- 
 course from the pulpit, exhorting the young men of 
 Florence to undertake a crusade against the Saracens. A 
 long series of calamities, and the interval of three centu- 
 ries, had not yet extinguished their hatred of that barba- 
 rous race. I know not what was the scope of this 
 armament, for Tolemais had for many years been in 
 possession of the Turks ; but their object, probably, was 
 to retake this place, and expel the Mahomedans. He soon 
 mustered a number of armed men, amongst whom were 
 ten religious of his convent, some priests, and some lay- 
 brothers. Of the latter was Fra Francesco da Carmig- 
 nano; and the whole posse having appointed Fra 
 
 > Chron. cap. xx. p. 24. Borgh. Cron. Annal. ad aim. 1368, p. 116.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 113 
 
 TJbertino, chief of the expedition, set sail for the East. 1 
 The Chronicles of the convent, narrating their exploits, 
 tell how the lay-brother Fra Francesco, directed the 
 machines then used in sieges, as well as the construction 
 of the necessary fortifications. In all these operations, he 
 conducted himself with singular bravery and skill, 
 inflicting as much damage as he possibly could on the 
 enemy. As the reward of his valour he petitioned to be 
 admitted to the order of priesthood, and his prayer was 
 granted.' 2 Those who escaped the Ottoman scimitars 
 were mowed down subsequently by the fatal pestilence 
 that devastated Florence in 1348. 
 
 We have now completed the artistic history of S. 
 Maria Novella ; nor do we find in that convent, after the 
 fourteenth century, any distinguished cultivator of the 
 arts, save a few Miniaturists, of whom we are about to 
 speak. We have seen the great number of its able 
 architects, and the love they cherished for all the arts of 
 design, with which, for more than six centuries, the 
 religious of that convent laboured to embellish their 
 church and cloisters. And most certainly if the pestilence 
 of 1348, and these which followed, had not cut off many 
 of its youth, who devoted themselves to architecture, we 
 should have had some amongst them in many respects equal 
 
 1 Besides Fra Francesco da Carmignano and Fra Ubertino de Filippi, 
 there were, belonging to that expedition, Fra B. di Buonacorso, Fra Otton di 
 Stefano, Fra Tommaso Mazzei, Fra Ardinghi, Fra de' Rigaletti, Fra Dom. 
 di Castel Florentine, and Fra Bartolom. di Acone, (Aeon Tolemais.) In the 
 siege of St Jean d'Acre, (1291,) we find two other religious of the convent of 
 S. SI. Novella actually fighting. They were Fra Lapo da Cascia, and Fra Matteo 
 of Florence, the first of whom was slain. (Necrol.) There was also in this 
 combat Fra Slanetto de' Calcagni, a priest, who, according to the Necrology, 
 " died beyond the seas in Aeon." The Dominicans at this period had a con- 
 vent in Tolemais, mentioned by Kicoldo in his Itinerary. 
 
 2 BiliottL Chronic, c. xxxv. p. 39, " Qui cum esset conversus, et machi- 
 narum bellicarum extruendarum optime gnarus, profectus est cum qnibusdam
 
 114 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 to Fra Sisto, Fra Ristoro, and their contemporaries. A 
 little further on, we shall see the arts migrating to 
 the convent of S. Mark, in the same city, where not 
 architecture, but painting, despite the rigours of a first 
 reform, was cultivated with a zeal unparalleled in all the 
 other cloisters of Italy. And, in fact, it would seem as 
 if art had grown enamoured of austerity, and that it 
 aided the aesthetic genius of the artists; for when S. 
 Antonino revived the ancient discipline, the Blessed 
 Angelico began to produce his heavenly tints : and at a 
 subsequent period, when Savonarola revivified the 
 monastic body, Porta came forth in all his glory. Both 
 reformers were great men, and great was their influence 
 on art. No one can look at the paintings of the Ange- 
 lico, without feeling how the soul of the artist was swayed 
 by the gentle influences of the holy Archbishop of Flo- 
 rence ; but contemplating the sternness and grandeur of 
 Fra Bartolommeo, we are at once reminded of the fierce 
 invectives of the REPUBLICAN FRIAR, and of his 
 tremendous ruin. 
 
 patribus in Christianorum exercitum contra Turcas. Quibus contra Christi- 
 anos bellantibus multa intulisset incomoda, et Christianos multum juvisset, 
 habitum meruit et obtinuit clericorum." 
 
 1 The Chronicle of F. Modesto Biliotti has the following notice : " F. J. 
 Ricci, in the second year of his prefecture, (1582,) received three youths 
 skilled in architecture into the Order. They were lay-brothers, who restored 
 many edifices in the city and country, and many were the buildings which 
 they raised." And F. Joseph Richa writes that " almost all the armoriesi 
 urns, and busts (of the sacristy) are the work of lay-brothers of S. Maria 
 Novella, where there have always been able men in each of the three arts.' 1 
 Notizie Storiche delle Chiese Fior. v. 3, p. 46.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 115 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE DOMINICAN MINIATURISTS. 
 
 Miniaturists of the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries in S. Maria Novella, 
 S. Marco in Florence, and S. Catherine at Pisa. 
 
 THE history of miniature is so important, the number of 
 its artists so great, and the art itself so exquisitely beau- 
 tiful, that it requires some diligent and zealous hand to 
 record its progress and vicissitudes. In this respect, 
 the general history of Italian art is far from being com- 
 plete ; and the same may be said of painting on glass, 
 mosaic, and tarsia. 1 
 
 This is to be accounted for by reason of the great 
 masters who raised historic painting to a height of glory 
 that won universal admiration for its developments; so 
 much so, that the minor arts were almost uncared for, 
 nevertheless it is in miniature precisely that we must 
 study the genesis of painting during the early ages. It 
 alone, after architecture, sustained the honour of art 
 through a long course of centuries ; and without it, 
 it would be difficult to learn whether the Italians 
 ever painted in these days, since man and time had 
 destroyed every vestige of pictorial art, properly so 
 called, with the exception of a few ignoble fragments 
 of mosaic. In fact, M. d' Agincourt, writing the history 
 of painting during the long period of the middle ages, 
 could discover only an immense number of miniatures, 
 which are still treasured in the principal libraries of 
 Europe. 
 
 1 Tarsia or Intarsia, is work of wood inlaid in various colours.
 
 116 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Born in the disastrous days of barbaric irruptions, minia- 
 ture may be said to have grown up within the shadow of 
 the cloister. Fed on pious legends and on the psalmody 
 of the monks, it sweetened their solitude, strengthened 
 their piety, and preserved the precious fragments of the 
 classics, which were esteemed by the barbarians only for 
 the gold with which the pages were embellished, and for 
 the beauteous tintings that adorned them. Enamoured 
 of mysticism and contemplative life, it decked itself 
 with the biblical and liturgical poetry of the Catholic 
 Church. Hence, whenever the same individual was a 
 chronicler of pious legends and a miniaturist, his glow- 
 ing, though homely phrases, like his little pictures, were 
 deeply impressed with the devotion of his heart. Above 
 each picture he was wont to wreath a crown of flowers, 
 that his written words might find an echo in the graces 
 of his pencil; which, sooth to say, was often a better 
 interpreter of the secrets of his heart, than the barbarous 
 idiom of the Sclaves, or the still more barbarous Latin 
 then spoken. Hence, (as a celebrated writer of our 
 times reflects,) the rigours of monastic life were a great 
 obstacle to the influence of paganism and the profane 
 joys of the age ; and the work of the artist, prosecuted 
 regularly, as though it were an ascetic exercise, in the 
 silence of his cell, became thus an association with the 
 triumphs and bygone tribulations of the church a com- 
 memoration of martyrdoms and miracles, an act of faith 
 in some particular dogma, a devout pilgrimage to some 
 sepulchre or Calvary ; or, more happily still, it developed 
 itself in fervid prayer, accompanied by an abundant effu- 
 sion of tears, as Vasari narrates of the Blessed Angelico. 1 
 
 Such, for many centuries, was the history of miniature 
 
 1 Rio, Da la Poesie Chretienne, c. vi. p. 174.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 117 
 
 in tlic various cloisters of the Benedictines, Camaldulese 
 and Dominicans, whilst it numbered amongst its cultiva- 
 tors such men as Cassidorus and Cardinal Giov. Dominici. 
 But, after the celebrated D. Giulio Clovio, of the Regular 
 Canons, had raised it to an eminence that deserved for it 
 a place beside the grand productions of Raffaello's age, 
 the introduction of printing and engraving caused it to 
 disappear. It is true that it was not confined to trifling 
 or to merely devout subjects ; on the contrary, the Idyl, 
 the Eclogue and the Epic called forth all the power and 
 graces of its most refined cultivators. Hence, Atavante, 
 Gherardo, the miniaturist, and Memmi embellished the 
 pages of Martial, Silius Italicus, the Eneid, the Eclogues 
 of Virgil, etc. And if Alighieri, in the Divina Corn- 
 media, records with honour the two grand fathers of 
 Italian Painting, Cimabue and Giotto, he has not omitted 
 the two most celebrated miniaturists of his age, Oderigi 
 da Gubbio, and Franco of Bologna. 1 
 
 It would "be a grand and noble work to give us the 
 history of Italian miniature, of which there are so many 
 glorious remains in the public and conventual libraries of 
 Rome, Ferrara, Modena, etc. : and it would, no doubt, 
 supply the omissions of Agincourt, whose sketch does 
 not go beyond the Renaissance of painting. 2 We, 
 
 1 Purgat Canto XL 
 
 " Art thou not Oderigi? art not thou 
 Agobbio's glory glory of that art, 
 Which they of Paris call the limner's skill ?" 
 " Brother !" said he, " with tints that gayer smile, 
 Bolognian Franco's pencil lines the leaves." 
 
 CAREY'S TRANS. 
 
 Here we may observe, that Mr. Carey has very poorly translated Dante's 
 phrase, which is " allvminare." 
 
 2 M. Rio, in the work quoted, has given us some specimens of miniatures. 
 But it appears that he did not see the truly beautiful ones in the Ducal 
 library of Modena, executed for Duke Borso, by Giovanni Russi, about
 
 118 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 however, have thought it wise to preface the history of 
 the Dominican Painters with this short essay on the 
 miniaturists of the Order, because they preceded them, 
 and because we could not comprehend the Blessed 
 Angelico, nor generally the followers of the Giottesque 
 school, who were so excellent in this art, if we were not 
 at first initiated in the history of miniature. Every one 
 knows that the Greeks themselves, not to speak of the 
 numerous disciples of Giotto, commenced with it ; and 
 that, as its dimensions enlarged, and the theories of 
 Chiaroscuro were better studied, it finally eventuated in 
 grand historical painting. Nay, more, a great many of 
 the works of these artists, on canvas and in fresco, are 
 simply repetitions of these very histories which they had 
 miniatured in books, profane and choral. From the fact 
 of the parchment being better preserved than the canvas 
 or walls, and being, likewise, less exposed to retouchings, 
 we may affirm that the miniatures present the truest 
 types and traditions of the two schools. Let us observe, 
 also, that the ancients were accustomed to attach to 
 every picture a predella, or gradino, 1 which contained 
 scenes of the Life of the Saint whose effigy was on the 
 canvas; nay, the very ornaments of the cornices ex- 
 hibited a variety of most graceful little figures; and, 
 
 1455 ; or that he did not remember these of Giulio Clovio. Otherwise he would 
 not have written that " les artistes ultramontains vinrent etonner 1'Italie 
 par la perfection qu'ils savaient donner a ce genre d'ouvrages." 
 
 1 To understand this word, which frequently occurs in the following pages, 
 we deem it well to give M. Montalembert's definition of it " The Predella 
 or Gradino is a small longitudinal border, which is generally placed by the 
 ancient masters under their principal pictures ; on this border they were wont 
 to paint various passages of the life of the saint or saints who formed the 
 subject of their work. Thus Fra Angelico's chef-d'oeuvre (the Coronation of 
 Our Lady), haa a Predella or Gradino, representing the life_of S. Dominic. 
 This master-piece is in the Louvre.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 119 
 
 hence, it was absolutely necessary to study miniature, as 
 did Cimabue and Giotto. 
 
 And here let us remark that the cultivators of this art 
 were divided into two classes ; the miniaturists, properly 
 so called, and the miniature-caligraphists. It was the 
 province of the first to colour the histories, the ara- 
 besques, etc., and to lay the gold ornaments on the 
 pages. The second wrote the book and the initial 
 letters, frequently traced in red or blue, which were so 
 capricious, and withal so graceful, that they leave us 
 doubtful what we ought to admire most the genius of 
 the artist or his unwearied patience. People of this class, 
 when skilled in the art, were described as " fair writers," 
 (pulchri scriptores.) Every convent had a great many 
 of them. Sometimes the same person wrote and minia- 
 tured the book ; and then the workmanship was far more 
 perfect. We must not forget, however, that the ancient 
 memoirs often describe both under the same denomination 
 of " fair writers ;" and this should guard us in discrimi- 
 nating their respective merits. 
 
 The first miniaturists of whom I find mention in the 
 Chronicles of the Order, belong to the first half of the 
 fourteenth century, and to the convent of S. Maria 
 Novella; but the authors of that Necrology, not caring to 
 distinguish between miniaturist and caligraphist, leave 
 us to doubt whether they should be classed amongst the 
 first or second. 1 Only one of them is described as a 
 painter, and he was a priest, named Fra Guido, son of a 
 certain Niccolo, of the parish of the Holy Trinity. After 
 praising him for the exemplarity of his life, and his 
 
 1 We may mention, amongst others, the Fathers P. Macci, who died in 
 1301 ; Fra Carlo Bellocci, who died in 1336; Fra Matteo Marconaldi, who 
 died in 1348 ; Fra Tom. di Romena, deceased, A.D. 1358, etc. All these are 
 described as " fair- writers."
 
 120 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 abilitity as a preacher, the Necrology tells us that he was 
 a fair writer, (pulcher scriptor,) and a universal mecha- 
 nician (totus mechanicus). Instead of being a miniaturist, 
 he might have been a painter on canvas or in fresco ; 
 and he is the first Dominican whom I find decorated 
 with this title. Like the other architects of this convent, 
 he also fell a victim to the pestilence of 1348, after having 
 lived twelve years in religion. No works of these men 
 survive ; and we can only conjecture that they executed 
 these very ancient choral books that are now preserved 
 in the novitiate of the same convent, adorned with very 
 small, but most graceful figures. There are very few 
 productions more important to the history of Italian 
 miniaturing in the first period of the Renaissance of the 
 arts than these. The design, the colouring, and compo- 
 sition, manifestly announce an imitator of the Greeks, or 
 of Cimabue. The flesh is dull and clayey. Nevertheless 
 the countenances have an expression that is not easily 
 found in the works of the Greeks : and the attitudes are 
 far more graceful than these of the Greek pencil. The 
 ornaments of the initial letters are very few and very 
 rude. Wonderful, however, is the freshness and trans- 
 parency of the colouring after the lapse of so many 
 ages. In some places there are evidences that they 
 have been retouched, but they are few and easily 
 recognised. The form of the character of the books 
 themselves, however, makes me doubt their anti- 
 quity, and it seems to me to be more recent than the 
 miniatures. This caused the celebrated painter Camillo 
 Pucci, who examined them with me, to believe that they 
 belong to an epoch somewhat posterior; and as in the 
 days of Giotto there were some who, despite the progress 
 of the arts, still adhered obstinately to the imitation of 
 the Greeks and of Cimabue; so, likewise, did the
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 121 
 
 miniaturist of these Choral-books. The histories which I 
 deem most worthy of consideration in them, are a Nativity 
 of Jesus Christ, the Adoration of the Magi, the Resur- 
 rection and Ascension : all small pictures of good 
 composition. 
 
 To this same fourteenth century belong some minia- 
 turists of the convent of S. Catherine at Pisa; two of 
 whom are designated fair-writers, and they are, a Father 
 Domenico Pollini, a Sardinian, and Father Alessandro 
 della Spina, the inventor of spectacles. The last-named 
 is entitled a fair- writer and miniaturist. 1 A certain Fra 
 Pietro Fieschi, and a Fra Jacopo Gualterotti are praised 
 as painters. Were we disposed to form a pictorial ento- 
 mology, we might add to them Fra Guido, of S. Maria 
 Novella, and insert them all in the number of Dominican 
 painters: but, where there is such a multitude of great 
 artists, it would be unreasonable to exhume such as have 
 been consigned to merited oblivion. Of the Choral- 
 books of the convent of Pisa, only six are now extant in 
 the archiepiscopal seminary, and these are so worn and 
 mutilated, that we cannot form any notion of their 
 pretensions. 
 
 At length came that glorious fifteenth century, in 
 which the arts may be said to have reached unpre- 
 cedented eminence in purity of design and excellence of 
 composition. Miniature, too, made grand progress, and 
 invested itself with all the beauties and adornments 
 peculiar to that epoch. And here, as from an elevation, 
 
 1 Chron. Antiq. S. Cath. Ord. Prsed. Pisarum, p. 16 : " Fra Alexander 
 de Spina, vir modestua et bonus, quae vidit oculis facta scivit et.facere. 
 Occularia AB ALIO primo facta commuuicare nolente, ipse fecit, et omnibus 
 commnnicavit corde hilari et voleute. Cantare, scribere, miniare, et crania 
 scivit quae manus mechanicce valent." Fra Giacomo, son of Lanfranco 
 Gualterotti, died Archbishop of Turritano in 1379. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 we behold a long series of able Tuscan miniaturists, who 
 will furnish ample matter for the writer of these Me- 
 moirs. Foremost amongst these elegant masters is F. 
 Michele Sertini della Casa, a religious of the convent of 
 S. Maria Novella, and a Doctor of the University of 
 Florence, who died in 1416. The chronicles of the 
 convent, making special mention of him, bestow much 
 praise on the two great Psalters which he miniatured, 
 and which are still preserved in the novitiate of the 
 same house, along with these already alluded to. 1 If, in 
 some particulars they be inferior to these in the convent 
 of S. Mark, as far as mere adornment is conce rned, their 
 design, however, and the composition of the histories, 
 possess great merit. Having been in constant use for 
 three centuries, and frequently retouched by some un- 
 known hand, they are greatly injured. The frontis- 
 pieces of both are very beautiful, and of equal merit. 
 In the upper part is God the Father, in the act of creat- 
 ing the world: in the lower is the prophet David, who, 
 wedding the harmony of his harp to the inspired strain, 
 magnifies the wisdom and goodness of the Creator in 
 this sublime manifestation of His divine attributes. Exqui- 
 sitely beautiful are the little figures with which he adorns 
 the hundred and ninth Psalm. Desiring to embody, as 
 it were, the sentiment of the words, " The Lord said to 
 my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand," he designed and 
 coloured two figures, not precisely like, but equal, in 
 order to denote the identity of the Divine Nature in the 
 Father and in the Son. They are seated in great 
 
 ' In the time of F. Borghigiani, these Psalters were used daily in the 
 choir of S. Maria Novella, and the tradition was, that they were miniatured 
 by Father SertinL The design and composition announce an artist who 
 flourished at the beginning of the fifteenth century, or end of that which 
 preceded. I myself believe them to be the work of the foresaid religious.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 123 
 
 majesty*, but the Eternal, according to the vision in the 
 Apocalypse, has on His knees an open volume, where the 
 usual Alpha and Omega are inscribed; whereas the Son 
 holds a closed volume, and points to the wound in His side. 
 No language of ours can adequately describe the majesty 
 of these two truly divine figures ; nor can one ever tire of 
 beholding the beauty of the ample and noble robe, that, 
 falling from the shoulders, folds itself gracefully and 
 naturally on the knees of Both. His manner of express- 
 ing the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, appears to 
 me to be quite novel ; for, besides the two figures of the 
 angel and the Virgin, he introduces the two prophets 
 who had more distinctly enunciated the mystery of the 
 Incarnation : and, in the foreground, he places two friars 
 who, with profoundest veneration, worship the Mother 
 of God. Over the thirty-eighth Psalm he designed an 
 excellent figure of king David, which, with others, we 
 omit for brevity's sake. 
 
 In the same century there flourished two other cele- 
 brated miniaturists in the convent of S. Maria Novella. 
 They have honourable mention in the Chronicles and 
 Necrology, but we are not sure of the works attributed 
 to them. 
 
 l These were F. Biagio de Filippi, who was an eloquent preacher, and a 
 distinguished writer and miniaturist, (he died in 1510,) and Father Antonio 
 De' Rossi, who, being unable to attend to other studies by reason of a long 
 and painful infirmity, devoted himself to writing and miniaturing Choral- 
 books for his convent. He died of the plague in 1495. The same novitiate 
 possesses two antiphonaries, in which there are some charming miniatures of 
 excellent composition, tut, withal, imperfect in design and colouring. 
 
 In the history of the church of S. Domenico at Bologna, we have an account 
 of the expenses incurred by the convent for the writing and miniaturing of 
 the Choral-books, as well as books for the library ; and we find a lay- 
 brother, named Fra Marco, employed as a writer, together with a Fra 
 Bartolommeo, who was a painter and miniaturist. They began to work iu 
 1474 ; but their productions do not exist.
 
 124 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 But it is time that we proceed to speak of the other 
 convent, (S. Marco,) where miniature numbered some of 
 the greatest cultivators of an art of which Italy is justly 
 proud. Of these men we shall briefly treat in the 
 following pages : Alas ! briefly, for during the French 
 invasion and the suppression of the convents of the 
 Order, not only many of the Choral-books were dispersed, 
 but also the records which would, doubtless, have thrown 
 much light on the history of their authors. 
 
 We will, therefore, begin with the Blessed Giovanni 
 Dominici, of the Order of Preaching-Friars, and a 
 Cardinal of holy Church. In every convent of the 
 Order whether of men or women whose regular 
 discipline he reformed nay, in every convent that he 
 built from the foundations in each and all of them he 
 toiled to introduce this most noble art, whose tendency 
 is to raise the soul and the heart to chaste and holy 
 thoughts. Many of his letters on this subject, written to 
 the Dominican nuns of the monastery of Corpus Domini, 
 (which he founded in Venice,) remain to attest the truth 
 of my assertion. In these letters he directs the religious 
 how to perfect themselves in miniaturing, and offers to 
 complete some whose final tintings were too difficult for 
 them. 1 To him, in my opinion, we are indebted for the 
 great number of distinguished miniaturists who flourished 
 in Fiesole, in S. Marco, and in the other convents of the 
 Order. Most conspicuous of all these were the two friars 
 of Mugello, Fra Giovanni and Fra Benedetto, so illus- 
 trious in the annals of the institute, and whom he 
 probably received into the Order a short time before he 
 left Florence for the court of Gregory XII., in the 
 
 ' Commentario della Vita del C. Giovanni Bacchini, 1 vol. in fol. MS. 
 Archiv. di S. Marco.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 125 
 
 disastrous days of the schism. It is true that the Blessed 
 Giovanni Angelico is chiefly known for his paintings on 
 panel and in fresco ; but that he was a most excellent 
 miniaturist (though Vasari does not say much on the 
 subject,) is evident from his pictures, in which we easily 
 detect the methods and the precepts of the miniaturists. 
 In all of them we clearly see the chaste and simple style 
 of composition the flowing outline, the lightness and 
 transparency of the shading ; nay, and all the graces and 
 diligence which characterised the most perfect miniaturist 
 And in fact it was not till the first half of the fifteenth 
 century that painters attempted landscape ; and in this 
 particular they were preceded by the miniaturists, 
 although the limited surface on which they worked 
 presented great obstacles to perspective, and compelled 
 them to fill up their back ground with straggling trees 
 and naked mountains. The heads of their figures were 
 full of love and life ; but we cannot say as much of their 
 extremities, which in imitation of the Greeks, they were 
 wont to conceal. With a few strokes of the pencil they 
 gave shape to the conceptions of their souls ; and few 
 were ever equal to them in producing such wonderful 
 results with such limited means. From them we have 
 learned the graceful arrangements of drapery ; and in all 
 these subjects known as tender and devout, they have 
 eclipsed all other painters. But the beauty of their 
 colouring, that ever changing iris, that wonderful blending 
 of the warmest and most languid tints, that light which, 
 despite the glitter of the gold ornamenting within . and 
 without, is almost reflected from their works, surpasses 
 all our powers of description. Add to all this the 
 beauty and the variety of the accessory embellishments, 
 which in miniaturing, generally speaking, were primary 
 characteristics ; the capricious and bizarre arrangement of
 
 126 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 fruits, flowers, animals, fantastic and symbolic figures, 
 and not unfrequently spirited caricatures, all executed 
 with marvellous diligence. And indeed miniature seems 
 to have been a prelude to the study of the grotesque, in 
 which Morto di Feltre, Giovanni da Udine, Baldassarc 
 Peruzzi, and others were so celebrated. From all this I 
 would infer that every one even slightly acquainted with 
 the productions of the Angelico, must recognise all these 
 characteristics in the little works on panel which are now 
 in the gallery of the Uffizj at Florence, in that of the 
 Florentine Academy, and in the reliquaries of S. Maria 
 Novella. 
 
 Treating of Fra Angelico as a miniaturist, Vasari 
 writes thus " Two great books divinely miniatured, 
 richly adorned, and regarded with great veneration, are 
 now preserved in S. Maria del Fiore. They are the 
 work of Fra Giovanni, and are never seen save on most 
 solemn festivals." Vainly did I seek these books in the 
 cathedral. These that I found are from other hands, and 
 they are manifestly the productions of the second half of 
 the fifteenth century, or of the first half of that which 
 followed. 1 
 
 Continuing the life of the Angelico, Vasari says, 
 "There are in the convent of S. Maria some Choral- 
 books, miniatured by Fra Giovanni, so beautiful that 
 I cannot describe them ; and, like these, are some which 
 he produced with wonderful diligence, and left in the 
 convent of S. Dominic at Fiesole. 'Tis quite certain 
 that an elder brother, who was a miniaturist, and had 
 
 1 More fortunate than us, Rosini saw them, and writes thus, " The re- 
 sults of this employment, (miniaturing,) are the Choral-books of S. Domenico 
 in Fiesole. Probably two of these belong to the Cathedral of Florence, and 
 many others which have been carried away from Italy." Storia della 
 Pittura, v. 2, c. xvil, p. 254.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 127 
 
 practised painting, assisted him in these works." Vasari 
 has here fallen into some errors which, with the aid of 
 authentic documents, we will correct. In the first place, 
 the Choral-books in the convent of S. Marco, which 
 Vasari attributes to Giovanni, are not his, but his 
 brother's, as we shall see in his life. These of Fiesole 
 "are, in great part, lost; and such of them as exist have 
 no miniatures, save a few arabesques. In Florence there 
 are some (but outside Italy a great many more) leaves of 
 these books, believed to be the work of Fra Giovanni; 
 but either avarice or barbarity has sadly mutilated them, 
 and it is not long since a German purchased one of 
 these, which is described as containing one of the best 
 miniatures that ever came from the great Fiesolan's 
 pencil. A graceful wreath of fruits and flowers occu- 
 pies the whole length of the page, within which, in 
 little circlets, were twelve half-figures of the Apostles, 
 and in the midst an Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin. 
 I believe that Fra Giovanni may have assisted his 
 brother in miniaturing many of the books belonging 
 to S. Mark's; and I think that he not only designed 
 but coloured them, and that they bear all the marks of 
 his wonderful and perfect skill. In the library of the 
 same convent there is an ancient Dominican Missal, 
 which Cosimo de Medici caused to be written and 
 miniatured; and it is the second of the five that 
 remain. It contains a miniature, by Fra Giovanni, 
 which may be regarded as the choicest of all his works 
 in this style. In the upper part of the first page he 
 produced a God the Father in the clouds, in the act of 
 blessing ; and in the under part a number of saints, who 
 are prostrate and adoring: they are S. Domiriici, S. 
 Peter, Martyr, S. Tommasso of Aquino, S. Francesco, 
 etc., figures that remind one of these that he painted, life
 
 128 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 size, in the chapter room, or of these which delight us in 
 the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin. None save those 
 who have seen them can imagine how perfectly these 
 little figures are made to express the love and ardent 
 piety with which these saints raise their prayers to the 
 Most High; for indeed every touch of his pencil is as 
 bold and as light as it is in paintings of great dimensions. 
 At foot of these is another circlet, having a half figure of 
 the Redeemer bound, which recalls that in the Medicean 
 apartment in the same convent. We have to lament 
 that this miniature has been retouched. These that 
 follow in the same volume seem to be the work of 
 another miniaturist, who retouched the arabesques and 
 histories. A third miniaturist, following the original 
 design, not only retouched but executed, within the 
 spaces of the initial letters, some exquisitely graceful 
 histories, which, I think, are the work of the end of the 
 fifteenth century. In the Festival of the Resurrection, 
 there is a reminiscence of the Marys at the sepulchre, 
 which the Angelico frescoed in the convent. In that 
 of the Ascension, there is a group of the Apostles with 
 the Blessed Virgin, of whom we see only the counte- 
 nance; truly beautiful figures but retouched: totally 
 untouched, however, is a half-figure of our Lord ascend- 
 ing into the heavens. The most beautiful of all, how- 
 ever, is a Descent of the Holy Ghost, which is either the 
 work of the Angelico or of his brother ; and on which, 
 happily, no profane hand has been laid. 
 
 Not knowing any other work in miniature which may 
 be ascribed to him with certainty, we will now proceed 
 to narrate the life and works of Fra Benedetto, who was 
 the most distinguished master in this art; and as he 
 applied himself to miniaturing and painting under the 
 same cloister-roof with his brother Giovanni, the Angelic,
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 129 
 
 we will not expend many words on his life, but rather 
 confine ourselves to his productions, as we will have to 
 speak more copiously of the former in our history of the 
 Blessed Fra Giovanni. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Notices of the Life and Works of Fra Benedetto del Mugello, Miniaturist and 
 Painter. 
 
 FRA BENEDETTO, (son of a certain Peter, whose cogno- 
 men is suppressed,) was born in the vast and fertile pro- 
 vince of Mugello, near the Castle of Vicchio, which was 
 built by the Florentine Republic, to check the audacity 
 and ambition of the Guidi. If it be true, as Vasari 
 states, that Fra Benedetto was older than the Angelico, 
 we should say that he was born about 1386 ; but as the 
 act of his religious profession is posterior to that of Fra 
 Giovanni, and in the same year, I incline to think that 
 he was younger, and that we ought to date his birth about 
 the year 1389. From whom he learned painting does 
 not appear, and it would be useless to try to discover it. 
 He may have cultivated the art before taking the habit 
 of the Order : be that as it may, he entered the convent 
 of Fiesole in 1407, when he may have been about 
 eighteen years of age. In the following year he made 
 his solemn profession, probably in Cortona, and was 
 enrolled amongst the clerks. 1 I do not know if he was 
 
 1 Cron Conv. S. Dom. de Fesulis " Fra Benedictus Petri de Mugello jirxta 
 Vichium, Germanus prsedicti frat. Joamiis qui et fuit Scriptor optimus, et 
 raultos libros scripsit et notavit pro cantu : accepit habitom clericorum . . . 
 et sequente anno fecit profesaionem." 
 
 G 2
 
 130 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 in Cortona when that city was taken by Ladielaus, King 
 of Naples, or if he had gone to Fiesole, which I think 
 likely. If so, he must have left it in 1409, for reasons 
 which we will hereafter recount ; but he could not have 
 returned to it sooner than 1418. All that the chaste joys 
 of religion, added to the severe discipline of the cloister 
 and virtuous example, could effect in a soul well inclined, 
 appeared manifest in him. The exhortations and the 
 whole life of his truly Angelic brother, and the eminent 
 virtues of S. Antonino, had such decided influence on his 
 heart, that he was soon numbered amongst the most dis- 
 tinguished and venerable Fathers of that convent. In- 
 deed, we could not desire a more convincing proof of his 
 goodness than the friendship which, through all his life, 
 existed between him and S. .Antonino ; who, in his love 
 for the two brothers of Mugello, brought them both with 
 him to Florence, in 1437, after he had obtained the 
 new convent of S. Marco from Cosimo de Medici. Here 
 they resided for eight consecutive years, during which 
 time S. Antonino, desiring to show how much he es- 
 teemed Fra Benedetto's virtues, divided the government 
 of the religious community with him, and appointed him 
 to be his sub-prior as often as he himself was elected 
 to the priorship. In 1443, Cosimo de Medici, knowing 
 his skill as an illuminator of sacred and profane books, 
 commissioned him to write and miniature all these 
 belonging to the church and sacristy of S. Marco. In 
 this he was aided by some of his confreres, who were 
 excellent caligraphists, and, with the exception of one, 
 he completed the whole in the space of five years. This 
 wonderful labour cost fifteen hundred ducats. The 
 work, however, had scarcely been commenced, when 
 the religious of S. Domenico at Fiesole elected Fra 
 Benedetto prior of their convent ; and S. Antonino, who,
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 131 
 
 at that time was vicar-general, having sanctioned the 
 election, our good miniaturist returned to that sunny 
 hill-side, where, in company with his brother, he had 
 taken the habit of S. Dominic. 1 For three years he 
 ruled that convent, and edified its religious by his 
 example ; but, before the third and last year of his guar- 
 dianship arrived, he was stricken by the pestilence, and 
 died in the year 1448, in the fifty-ninth of his age. We 
 have not discovered the month or the place where he 
 died; for Father Timoteo Bottonio says that he died, not 
 in Fiesole, but in the convent of S. Marco at Florence ; 
 and, in fact, the Necrology of the latter has an entry of 
 his decease, while that of the convent of Fiesole barely 
 alludes to it. Perhaps, for the sake of the books which 
 he was miniaturing for the convent of S. Marco, he may 
 have gone to Florence, hoping to escape the pestilence 
 when it showed itself in Fiesole. The chroniclers of 
 both convents make brief, but honourable mention of his 
 memory. These 'of Florence call him a most perfect 
 religious, blessed in name, as well as in works; and 
 those of Fiesole, a devout and holy man. 2 He must, 
 
 1 Chron. Conv. S. Dom. de Fesulis. 
 
 Fra Benedictus Petri de Mugello, filios nativus et tune prior existens 
 Fesulani conventus, Germanus fratris Joannis, illius tarn mirandi pictoris 
 cujus arte picturae fere omnes hujus conventus extant. Hie re et nomine 
 Benedictus moribus et vita integemmns fuit, et sine querela in ordine con- 
 versatus. extitit autem exoellentissimus, non modo suorum, sed et plurimorum 
 temporum scriptor et miniator. Cujus, manu, litteris, cantus, nota et minio 
 st. (sic) omnes fere libri chori hujus Ecclesiae S. Marci. Antiphonaria vide- 
 licet, Gradualia et Psalteria dempto ultimo duntaxat festivo Gradual!. Hie 
 ex ea peste invasus alacer mortem intuitus, sacramentis omnibus rite perceptis 
 in dom. requievit ipso anno 1448, sepultas in communibus fratnun sepulturis 
 R. L P. Annal. Conv. S. Marci. 
 
 " Fra Benedictus Petri de Mugello Germanus praedicti pictoris, (the An- 
 gelico,) obiit . ... hie fuit egregius scriptor et scripsit pene omnes librot 
 chori S. Marci et notavit, et aliquos etiam hie Fesulis. Fuit hie pater
 
 also, have been sufficiently versed in sacred science and 
 an able preacher, since the constitutions of the Order do 
 not allow any of its members to be raised to a position 
 of superiority without a proof of sound studies and ability 
 for announcing the divine word ; and in the fervour of 
 that reformation which did not tolerate the defect of 
 pious and learned men, we are not to believe that there 
 was any infringement of its fundamental law. 
 
 Having spoken of his life, we will now turn to his 
 works. Necessity creates arts: the pleasure that is 
 derived from the cultivation of them gives them perfec- 
 tion. The want of an asylum induced the Preaching- 
 Friars to apply themselves to architecture : that of the 
 books necessary for the celebration of divine worship 
 made them study miniature : the beauty of the colouring 
 caused others to imitate them, and the art, which at first 
 was necessary, became a delightful occupation to many, 
 and was thus perpetuated in the Dominican cloisters. 
 
 The example of his brother Giovanni, and, mayhap, 
 the counsels of S. Antonino, persuaded Fra Benedetto to 
 devote himself to it. The first essay he made was in 
 miniaturing some Choral-books belonging to the convent 
 of S. Domenico in Fiesole, as the chronicle narrates; 
 and, perhaps, these are the same that Vasari attributes to 
 the Angelico. These of S. Marco, which he is said to 
 have commenced miniaturing in 1443, and that were 
 not finished at his death, were perfected two years after- 
 wards by a religious of the Franciscan Order, whose 
 name we have not ascertained. (1463.) Father Roberto 
 Ubaldini, the writer of the chronicle of the convent of S. 
 Marco, has made a catalogue of them ; and they consist 
 
 devotus et sanctus et bono fine quievit in domino," (here we see the caligra- 
 phist confounded with the miniaturist,) NecroL Conv. S. DominicL Fes.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 133 
 
 of fourteen volumes, between Graduals and Antiphona- 
 ries, all written and miniatured by his own hand, with 
 the exception of the last volume of the Festive Gradual, 
 and, perhaps, three volumes of the Ferial Gradual, which 
 death did not allow him to complete ; but which, accord- 
 ing to Ubaldini, were miniatured by a religious of the 
 Minorites. 1 The same Ubaldino, speaking again, (in 
 another part of the chronicle,) of these books, excepta 
 only the Festive Gradual. 2 From this we infer that only 
 the one last-named can with certainty be attributed to the 
 Franciscan. Fra Benedetto also wrote and miniatured 
 the two Psalters, some Missals, and the book of the Invi- 
 tatoria, which is not illuminated. 3 These books are not, 
 asM. Rio says, lost, but are used daily by the religious, and, 
 
 1 Annal. Conv. S. Marci. "Nam 14 volumina Gradualium, et Antiphona- 
 riorum scripta sunt manu supradicti fratris Benedict! prioris conventus 
 Fesulani, excepto ultimo volumine Gradualis festivi, et tribus voluminibus 
 Gradualis ferialis quas imperfecta remanserunt propter super venientem 
 mortem: quae postea completa fuerunt per quemdam Ordinis Minorum. 
 Sed et tarn conventui Fesulano ratione primi scriptoria; quam secundo 
 scriptori satisfactum semper successive fuit a Domino Cosma. Scripsit 
 similher idem frat. Benedictus duo Psalteria chori, requirente eodem Cosma, 
 et librum invitatoriorum." As there is here an allusion to two different 
 writers in Fiesole and S. Marco, a doubt arises whether we should credit 
 the chronicler of Fiesole in preference to him of S. Marco. 
 
 * V. The obituary already cited. 
 
 s Amongst the MS. in the library of S. Marco, there are five Missals, two 
 Psalters, some Breviaries, and an Office of the B. V., all miniatured. The two 
 Psalters are evidently the work of Fra Benedetto, and the little miniatures 
 that adorn them are very beautiful, but in great part retouched. Some of 
 the Missals are the work of an unskilful hand ; and the Office of the B. V., 
 which must have been splendidly illuminated, is so deformed by retouching, 
 that we can scarcely recognise a vestige of its primitive beauty. On the 
 fourth and sixth Missal, we read, " This Missal belongs to the Dominican 
 convent of S. Marco, at Florence ; and Cosmos John de Medici caused it to 
 be executed." In the third, we find the arms of the Medici, and an exqui- 
 site Epiphany, with other miniatures, which, I thiiik, are by a hand not 
 inferior to Fra Benedetto's. 
 

 
 134 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 not counting the two Psalters and the Missals, they make 
 altogether twenty. The increase of six is posterior to 
 the times of the annalist, for some of them being very 
 large, were divided into two ; but it should be remarked 
 that three of them have no miniatures. These that I 
 think certainly belong to Fra Benedetto, are marked 
 with the letters of the alphabet from A to I. The two 
 first, (the Gradual of the Saints,) are the richest in deco- 
 ration and histories, and, we may also add, the most 
 elaborate. The title page of the first has the Medicean 
 arms and the following miniatures, videlicet: Jesus, call- 
 ing Peter and Andrew to the apostolate the Stoning of 
 S. Stephen, where there is a beautiful landscape, exqui- 
 sitely tinted S. John the Evangelist a figure elegantly 
 designed and coloured, but much worn by attrition, and 
 still more by the audacity of some hand that presumed 
 to restore it. In the gold ornaments of the initial letter 
 there is an inscription, of which I could read only the 
 following words, which remove all doubt as to their 
 origin :,..** hos libros suis pecuniis, illustrissimus 
 civis . . . multa et magna beneficia, et <hoc templum 
 extruxit Cosmos Medic? then follow a Slaughter of the 
 Innocents a most beautiful figure of S. Agnes, Virgin 
 and Martyr the Conversion of S. Paul, the design of 
 which is weak, but the perspective admirable a Purifi- 
 cation of the Virgin, somewhat inferior to the others 
 and a charming Anminp.iat.ioTi. In the Common of Apos- 
 tles and Martyrs he repeats the same conception : that is 
 to say, Jesus Christ blessing the Apostles, Martyrs, and 
 Virgins. But surpassing all these in diligence and ex- 
 cellence of colouring is a Crucifixion, over the votive 
 Office of the Cross. In the second volume, marked with 
 the letter B., there is an Annunciation of considerable 
 dimensions then follow the Martyrdom of S. Peter of 

 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 135 
 
 Verona, the Dominican a little S. John, conducted by 
 an angel into the desert, admirably designed, and still 
 more admirable for its colouring and a S. Peter the 
 Apostle, opening the gate of heaven to a sanctified soul. 
 In the ornaments of the initial letter there is an inscrip- 
 tion, (hard to be deciphered,) which tells that the con- 
 vent of S. Marco was founded by the Medici. It ia 
 somewhat of the same character as the Latin inscription 
 already quoted. We cannot but admire Fra Benedetto 
 for frequently reminding us of the benefits which our 
 religious received from that great family. It is a sign of 
 a soul grateful for kindness. At the Festival of S. Mary 
 Magdalene he produced a choir of angels carrying the 
 holy penitent to heaven ; a conception which was trans- 
 mitted from the Greeks to the Giottesque, and which, 
 for many ages, was most agreeable to Christian art. At 
 the Feast of S. Domenico, he painted a most beautiful 
 figure of the Founder of the Preaching-Friars. Equally 
 beautiful are an Assumption and a Nativity of the 
 blessed Virgin, which follow. But excelling all in 
 correctness of design and perfect execution, is a figure 
 of S. Michael Archangel. For sake of brevity, we will 
 omit these of the other volumes. But to show how 
 admirable was Fra Benedetto in the composition of his 
 little pictures, I will select two miniatures ; the first of 
 which, prefixed to the Common of a Martyr in the 
 second volume, represents a saint in the act of being 
 decollated by the executioner, and Jesus Christ, to en- 
 courage the martyr, placing His left hand on his head, 
 and pointing to heaven with the right. But still more 
 beautiful is that in the first page of a volume marked I. 
 (an Antiphonary,) in which he desired to illustrate the 
 passage of the Gospel where our Lord foretells all the 
 sufferings his Apostles should have to endure after His
 
 136 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 return to heaven. The better to embody this concep- 
 tion, he placed before the Redeemer and the apostles 
 the figure of a youth with his eyes bandaged and his 
 hands tied behind his back, in the act of being slain. 
 And truly does this figure, in presence of the astonished 
 disciples, realise the beautiful idea of the painter. The 
 whole is so admirably designed and coloured, that we do 
 not hesitate to pronounce it one of the most exquisite of 
 all the works in miniature. In the other volumes we 
 find only one history in the frontal page. But whoso- 
 ever would desire to find all the beauties and graces 
 which he expended on such an immense number of 
 miniatures, epitomised in one work, must see his won- 
 derful Adoration of the Magi, which adorns the first 
 volume of the Festive Gradual. This will convince us 
 of his eminent skill in this branch of painting. He 
 must also contemplate the first page of this very volume, 
 where composition, design, colouring, and the vast 
 variety of ornamentation, prove him to have been a 
 most perfect master of miniature. This Adoration of 
 the Magi is a happy imitation of that more divine than 
 human work of the Angelico, which adorns the apart- 
 ment of the Medici in the convent of S. Marco. 
 
 Fra Benedetto was equal to his brother in the beautiful 
 details of drapery ; and most diligent in the elaboration 
 of the heads. In the extremities, however, he is most 
 negligent, a defect common to the miniaturists of that 
 age. In the celestial traits of the countenances he does 
 not equal the Angelico, although his are noble and 
 expressive. He appears to me to be feeble in design, 
 but most happy in composing and grouping his figures. 
 In colouring he equals the best miniaturists, and as to 
 perspective, considering the period, he is not excelled by 
 any. It would be difficult to believe that he was not
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 137 
 
 assisted by His brother in his designs, since nearly all his 
 miniatures are repetitions of the paintings of the Angelico, 
 with some variations. In his ornaments of fruits, flowers, 
 and animals, he is more monotonous than rich, but in 
 these particulars ho faithfully followed the conventional 
 style of the fourteenth century. It was only in the 
 sixteenth that these details reached their marvellous 
 perfection. In the embellishments of nearly all these 
 volumes we occasionally find ridiculous caricatures, which 
 are surely not to be desired in such works. But in the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they were very common 
 in painting and sculpture, particularly outside Italy ; and 
 the spirit of the age countenanced such licenses. Finally 
 let us advert that about the middle of the sixteenth 
 century all these books were restored in the letters, notes, 
 and figures by another miniaturist, of whom we shall 
 have occasion to speak very soon ; and, perhaps, it is to 
 him that we should attribute the imperfection of the 
 extremities. Comparing the Choral-books of the duomo 
 of Siena, with those of S. Marco, it appears to us that 
 with the exception of such as were miniatured by 
 Liberale da Verona, a painter and miniaturist of the 
 sixteenth century, these by Benedetto da Matera, a 
 Benedictine monk, and these by Fra Mattei, the Servite, 
 and Ansano di Pietro of Siena, they are inferior in design 
 and composition to the works of Fra Benedetto of 
 Mugello, and excel them only in their most rich and 
 beautiful ornamentations. His have been injured by 
 retouchings and daily use through four centuries, whereas 
 these of the cathedral of Siena have been preserved with 
 the greatest care and diligence. 1 
 
 \ I know not how Vasari, in his life of Agnolo Gaddi, could have written 
 that " Pietro da Perugia miniatured all the books that are in the library of
 
 138 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 It now remains for us to speak of Fra Benedetto as a 
 cultivator of historical painting ; since many think that 
 he assisted his brother in the innumerable series of his 
 productions ; as it would appear almost incredible that 
 the Angelico alone could have laboured so constantly 
 and so diligently. To this let us add what Vasari says 
 of Fra Benedetto, when writing the life of the Angelico, 
 videlicet, " that he was most skilful as a painter;" and, in 
 fact, the precepts as well as the example of such a master 
 were well calculated to advance him to perfection. 
 Professor Rosini in his recent and previous history of 
 Italian painting, thinks that he has discovered the method 
 of distinguishing the productions of Fra Giovanni from 
 these of his brother ; and having observed that some by 
 the former have more of gold ornamenting than these of 
 the latter, he conjectures that the first are by the Angelico, 
 and the second by his brother. 1 But this opinion of the 
 illustrious professor does not appear well founded ; since 
 the greater or lesser quantity of gold employed by painters 
 at that period depended more on the will of the persons 
 who employed them, than on the means which the 
 artists possessed. And, in fact, in a contract entered into 
 between Fra Giovanni and a merchant, concerning the 
 painting of a tabernacle, there is special mention of the 
 amount of gold and silver agreed upon. Wherefore, if 
 Fra Benedetto practised painting on panel and on fresco, 
 his works must be sought amongst the feebler ones usually 
 attributed to the Angelico ; and especially in some frescos 
 in the cells of the convent of S. Marco, which are 
 certainly inferior to these of Giovanni. And since such 
 
 Pius II., attached to the Cathedral of Siena," as the variety of style clearly 
 proves a variety of miniaturists, some of whom, like Liberate, and Ansaiio di 
 Pietro, subscribed their names to them. 
 
 1 Storia della Pittura Italiana, VoL II., ch. xvii., p. 257.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 139 
 
 was the modesty of these distinguished painters, that they 
 never signed their productions with their names; and 
 that even now it is difficult to distinguish the works of 
 the one from these of the other, we will allow a common 
 glory to fall on the twain. 
 
 It is not ascertained whether Fra Benedetto, at the 
 time of his death, had brought up any pupil in miniatu- 
 ring amongst the religious of the convent of S. Marco, 
 or that of Fiesole. An heir, however, of his name, of 
 his art, and his virtues appeared in the former convent 
 towards the close of the fifteenth century. We cannot, 
 however, point out any of his works with certainty, as 
 they are not mentioned in the Chronicles. They record, 
 nevertheless, a passage in his life, which shall always 
 associate the name of this artist with that of a GREAT and 
 
 UNFORTUNATE MAN. 
 
 This was Fra Benedetto, the son of a certain Paul, a 
 Florentine, who, according to the usage of the times was 
 known by the diminutive Bettuccio. In his youth he 
 was amongst the impassioned admirers of Girolamo 
 Savonarola and where was the noble genius or excellent 
 artist who, in those days, could have been insensible to 
 the fascinating eloquence, and splendid virtues of the 
 Republican Friar? Like Delia Porta, Credi Robbia, 
 Cronaca, and others, Bettuccio loved and reverenced the 
 Ferrarese ; and he was amongst the first of those whom 
 Savonarola induced to take the habit of S. Dominic. On 
 the 7th of November, 1495, when Fra Girolamo was 
 Vicar-General of the congregation of S. Marco, he was 
 admitted to the Order, and on the 13th of November, of 
 the following year, he made his solemn profession. 
 Bound to him by every tie of love and veneration, he 
 did not abandon him in the hour of his saddest sorrow.
 
 140 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 When the faction of the " Arrabbiati," 1 thirsting for Sa- 
 vonarola's blood, came to tear their victim from his convent, 
 Burlamacchi (who knew them both,) describes how Fra 
 Benedetto, armed to the teeth, joined the Piagnoni in 
 defending the life so dear to him ; and how Savonarola 
 caused him to throw away his weapons, saying that these 
 of a religious should be spiritual, not material. But 
 when Fra Benedetto saw him carried off to prison, he 
 made every effort to go along with him, and when they 
 refused him, he still importuned to be allowed to share 
 his fate : but Fra Girolamo turning to him, said " Fra 
 Benedetto I command you not to come, for Fra Domenico 
 and I must die for the love of Christ." " And then he was 
 torn from the eyes of his children, who were all weeping. 
 This was at nine of the night." 2 It is consoling to be able 
 to record these memories of an artist possessing such 
 gratitude, in an age so chary of generous and heroic 
 examples. 
 
 More than this we do not know of him. Perhaps he 
 miniatured the books of the library of S. Marco, or others 
 that have been transferred to the Laurenziana, but 
 we cannot point with certainty to any of his productions 
 in this branch of design. 
 
 1 The Arrabbiati (the Frantic) were the parties opposed to the reforms in 
 government and morality advocated by Fra Girolamo Savonarola, and they were 
 composed of the gentry and nobles, who, hating the Medicean dynasty, contem- 
 plated the establishment of an oligarchy. The Piagnoni (Mourners) were 
 those who lamented the decay of liberty and morality, and joined the 
 democratic friar an his efforts to overthrow the splendid tyranny of the 
 Medici. 
 
 * Vita del P. F. Girolamo Savonarola scritta dal P. Pacifico Burlamacchi. 
 Lucca, 1764. 1 voL v. p. 136, 143.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 141 
 
 CHAP. XIII. 
 
 Fra Eustachio, and Fra Pietro da Tramoggiano, Tuscan Miniaturists of the 
 Sixteenth Century. 
 
 THE art of illuminating parchments, which for many 
 agos had enriched the cloisters and libraries with so 
 many and such rare works, was approaching its decline 
 at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Timid 
 and unnoticed, but withal ambitious to displace it, 
 engraving had begun its glorious career in the middle 
 of the preceding century : at first by poor and ignoble 
 attempts on wood, till, as it were, taking courage, it 
 developed itself in the wonderful works on copper by 
 Albert Diirer and Marc' Antonio Raimondi. Neverthe- 
 less, it is in these last days of its existence that we must 
 seek the grand Italian miniaturists, who, having cor- 
 rected the design of both figures and ornaments, giving 
 greater vigour to the colouring and greater relief to the 
 bodies, by means of chiaroscuro, carried this most beau- 
 tiful art to its perfection. Neither could it have closed its 
 history with more glorious names than these of Gerolamo, 
 " dai libri" (of the books,) Liberale da Verona, and 
 Giulo Clovio. The sixteenth century, that was destined 
 to terminate the series of its cultivators, presents to us 
 some who possessed wonderful ability in this branch. 
 Amongst the foremost of them was Fra Filippo Lappac- 
 cini, aFlorentine, and religious of the convent of S.Marco, 
 who took the Dominican habit in 1492, and died in 
 1535. We have no work which can be attributed to 
 him with certainty ; all that we have been able to learn 
 is, that not being able to apply himself to sacred studies, 
 he determined, like many other artists of that convent, to
 
 142 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 remain a deacon, and devote all his time to writing and 
 miniaturing Choral-books, in which occupation, says F. 
 Serafino Razzi, he exhibited marvellous skill. 1 
 
 Lappaccini had been but three years professed when 
 he was joined by one of the greatest miniaturists of 
 whom Italy is justly proud ; and of whose works, happily, 
 we possess many remains. If it be allowed us to com- 
 pare great things with small, he is the Porta of miniature, 
 as Fra Benedetto del Mugello may be called its Angelico. 
 They were both exceedingly eminent masters : the one 
 in simplicity and devout tenderness, the other in his 
 delineations of nature, in grandeur of design, and, above 
 all, in the character of his ornamentations, which we may 
 term exquisite and Raffaellesque. His name was Fra 
 Eustachio, his birth-place Florence, his father Baldassare, 
 and his cognomen unknown. He was born in 1473 ; in 
 the world he was called Thomas. Like the other minia- 
 turists of S. Marco, he received the lay-brother's habit 
 from the hands of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, in 1496, and 
 twenty-third of his age. In the year following, on 
 account of the pestilence in Florence, Savonarola, then 
 vicar-general, conducted his novices to the villa of Gondi, 
 and amongst them was Fra Eustachio. There the mini- 
 aturist pronounced his solemn vows in September, 1497. 2 
 If the historians of art do not mention him, (and a feeling 
 of gratitude should have prompted Vasari to do so,) we 
 can learn enough of him from these of the Order. Father 
 Bottonio, who knew him in Florence, speaks thus of him 
 in his Annals " Fra Eustachio, a lay-brother of Florence, 
 was a rarely-gifted genius; he was an excellent minia- 
 
 1 Cronaca della Provincia Romana dell' Ordine de' Predicatori, scritta 
 dal P. Serafino Razzi. 
 
 a Annal. S. Marci, " Fr. Eustachius antea Thomas Balthassaria, florent. 
 conversus. hie accepit habitum anno at sure 23 complete."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 143 
 
 turist, and produced very beautiful works, especially a 
 large and exquisite Psalter, that is now used in the choir 
 of S. Marco. He had a prodigious memory, and although 
 decrepid, he recited from memory long passages of the 
 Commedia Divina, which he thoroughly understood. 
 When Vasari was writing the Lives of the Painters, he 
 came frequently to this old man and learned from him 
 many particulars of the great and most illustrious artists. 
 He walked through the convent supporting himself on a 
 staff; and I remember me that he was greatly in dread 
 of the agony of death: though, sooth to say, his depart- 
 ure from this world was sweet and placid, as I myself 
 witnessed. Aged 83 years, he died September 25. M1 
 He is similarly recorded by Father Serafino Razzi, and 
 by the continuator of the Annals of S. Marco. 2 The 
 Psalter of which Bottonio speaks, exists, and is used 
 daily by the religious of the said church. The first page 
 is most gracefully embellished ; and in the initial letter 
 there is a half figure of Isaia, over whose head is sus- 
 pended a scroll, on which we read " Ari. Dri. M. 
 V. V.," there is no trace of any intermediary num- 
 ber : and, perhaps, the good lay-brothers meant to 
 write M. D. V. Here we do not find the armorial 
 bearings of the Medici ; a clear proof that this book was 
 not due to their generosity ; for at that period there was 
 
 1 AnnaLMSS. 
 
 1 Istoria degli Uomini Illustri del sac. Ord, dei Predicatori scritta dal P. 
 Serafino Razzi : " Fra Eustachio of S. Marco was an excellent miniaturist, as 
 may be seen by the two great Psalters that are used on the high festivals in 
 S. Marco. He recited long passages of Dante from memory. He sang each 
 night, after supper, according to usage, some devout canticles for the com- 
 munity. He died in 1555." 
 
 Annal. conv. S. Marci, " Hie fuit, ni fallor, egregius miniator, id quod 
 inter alia ipsius opera, Psalterii liber in dextera nostri chori parte locatus 
 acile attestatur.
 
 144 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 nothing however insignificant, attributable to this family, 
 that would not have borne their cognizances. But the 
 great excellence of Fra Eustachio is plainly visible in his 
 illumination of the first Psalm. A rich ornament of 
 flowers and most elegant arabesques all in gold, on a 
 ground of azure and crimson, occupies the whole length 
 of the page ; the flowers and volutes support some groups 
 of angels nude, but well designed ; and here and there 
 are little circles at equal distances, which diminish 
 the uniformity of design. In the two above and below 
 he miniatured half figures of the four Doctors of the 
 Latin Church, videlicet, Pope S. Leo, S. Jerom, S. 
 Augustin, S. Ambrose, all of which show evident marks 
 of the greatest diligence. In the centre, on the right and 
 left, are two most graceful animals. At bottom of the 
 page is a figure of S. Catherine of Siena, but so injured as 
 to be scarely recognisable. In the initial letter he 
 produced a landscape of beautiful perspective with Mount 
 Sion ; and this is a repetition of a similar one by Fra 
 Benedetto. In the midst of a radiant champaign under 
 the azure and limpid sky, he represents David prostrate, 
 with hands folded on his bosom, and his crown lying in 
 the dust, in the act of listening to the voice of God, who 
 from the highest heavens is seen shedding His consoling 
 light on the prophet: the figure of David is full of 
 majesty and life, and the beauty of the drapery reminds 
 us of Fra Bartolommeo della Porta. The extremities 
 are not well proportioned, nor sufficiently worked out : a 
 defect to be found in most miniaturists. That Fra 
 Eustachio understood well the laws of design is clearly 
 proved by the nude of the angels, which is most correctly 
 executed. 
 
 To illustrate the thirty-eighth Psalm, he produced a 
 half figure of king David, with the fore-finger on his
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 145 
 
 mouth to indicate silence ; but I think Father Sertini's 
 style of shaping the same thought, far more happy. He 
 represents David seated in great majesty, and placing 
 the summit of the regal sceptre on his lips. But nothing 
 can excel the beautiful idea of Fra Eustachio, or his 
 mode of embodying it, when he illustrates that passage 
 of the thirteenth Psalm, where the impious insults the 
 Almighty "The fool hath said in his heart: There is 
 no God." Here he designed and exquisitely coloured a 
 young man, sumptuously attired, reeling in the drunken- 
 ness of the senses, who, because he values or fears for 
 nothing in the world, save his pleasures, holds a 
 sparrow-hawk on his right hand, and raises the other 
 contemptuously to heaven. At the hundred and ninth 
 Psalm, (" The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou at my 
 right hand,") he pourtrayed the Eternal holding in His 
 arms the lifeless form of His only Son. An excellent 
 miniature, but so injured by attrition that it must soon 
 perish. Here we have unmistakable evidence of the 
 superiority of the Giotto school in the composition of 
 their sacred pictures ; for the foresaid Father Sertini pro- 
 duced that most beautiful miniature mentioned in the 
 first chapter, at the same Psalm in the Psalters of S. 
 Maria Novella. For sake of brevity, we omit some 
 others of the same volume. From this short notice, 
 every one will be able to form some estimate of the 
 ability of Fra Eustachio, whom I do not hesitate to 
 compare to Liberale da Verona in the selection of sub- 
 jects, and to whom he is vastly superior in embellishments 
 and arabesques; such is the elegance and purity with 
 which they are designed, not to speak of the trans- 
 parency of their colouring. Nor would we err in say- 
 ing that the design of these miniatures is due to Fra 
 Bartolommeo della Porta, who, in the days of Fra Eus- 
 
 VOL.I. H
 
 146 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 tachio, and in this very convent of S. Marco, executed his 
 wonderful paintings. Fathers Razzi and Bottonio affirm 
 that our miniaturist painted large subjects, but they do 
 not mention when or where. Father Richa attributes 
 to him the miniatures of the Choral-books belonging to 
 the cathedral of Florence ; of which, however, he must 
 have executed only a part, their number being very con- 
 siderable, and manifestly the work of various miniaturists 
 of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 1 It is certain, 
 nevertheless, that Fra Eustachio miniatured four books 
 for the choir of S. Maria della Quercia, near Viterbo, as 
 they are mentioned in the Chronicles of that convent. 
 I am assured that they still exist, but not having seen 
 them, I cannot speak of them. 2 
 
 We have now to speak of Fra Pietro da Tramoggiano, 
 with whom we will close this sketch of the Dominican 
 miniaturists. We are ignorant of the year in which this 
 religious was born, of his cognomen and parents; we 
 know simply that he was born in Tramoggiano, a little 
 hamlet of Casentino, on the slopes of the Apennines. 
 He was a priest, and probably affiliated to the convent 
 of S. Maria del Sasso, near Bibbiena, where he was six 
 times elected prior. That he was an excellent miniatu- 
 rist appears from the Chronicles of the Order ; but we 
 could not with certainty point out any work in miniature 
 from his pencil. The continuator of the Annals of S. 
 Marco writes that, in the year 1577, a certain Father 
 Antonio Caffarelli desired to have all the Choral-books 
 of that convent restored, as they had been much injured 
 by daily use. Fra Pietro da Tramoggiano was invited 
 to perform this work, and, at his instance, they were 
 
 1 Notizie Istoriche, etc., v. 7. 
 
 1 Libro delle Chroniche della Chiesa e Sacristia del Convento della 
 Quercia. (MS. in the archives of that convent)
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 147 
 
 newly bound ; the largest of them divided ; the miniatur- 
 ing and text restored wherever necessary ; and all addi- 
 tions that the times and liturgy required inserted. He 
 was employed at these restorations from 1577 to 1578. 
 Some question having arisen between him and the supe- 
 rior of the convent, the miniaturist set out from Florence, 
 nor did he return till F. Filippo Brandolini was elected 
 to that office, under whom, with the exception of one, 
 he finished the restoration of all these books. 1 I am 
 quite certain that the miniatures of Fra Benedetto del 
 Mugello sustained no damage, as is usually the case in all 
 retouchings executed by the ablest artist. The pain- 
 ters, as well as miniaturists of the sixteenth century regarded 
 the colouring of the Quattrocentisti as too weak and 
 diluted, their outlines too narrow, and the design of the 
 nude miserable ; hence, in their restorations they did not 
 hesitate to alter both the one and the other, to the great 
 injury of the works of these reflecting and chastened 
 painters. 
 
 Father Serafino Razzi, who may have known Fra 
 Pietro da Tramoggiano, does not mention any of his 
 works with certainty. 2 For what we know of him, we are 
 indebted to F. V. Fineschi, who speaks of him thus in 
 his little work : " I cannot omit to mention the most 
 beautiful Choral-books, (of the convent of S. Maria del 
 Sasso,) so admirably miniatured by Fra Pietro da Tra- 
 moggiano, who was prior of this convent; and who, 
 along with his other merits, had also that of being an 
 excellent writer of Choral-books, by which art he gained 
 much money, which he expended in the collection of all 
 
 1 Annal, Conv. S. Marci, foL 45. 
 
 2 Cronica della Provincia Romana.
 
 148 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 the books necessary for the choir. They make, altogether, 
 fourteen, have beautiful miniatures, and were valued at 
 more than fifteen hundred dollars. 1 In a note Fineschi 
 informs us that some of these miniatures were cut out 
 and carried away. I know not what became of these 
 Choral-books, which were so likely to prove the high 
 merits of Fra Pietro. The convent of Bibbiena possesses 
 only one, and this has no work of miniature. I am 
 informed, however, that some of them have been 
 transferred to the church of S. Maria Novella. He 
 died in the year 1596, probably in the convent of 
 Bibbiena, where he had spent the greater part of his 
 life. 
 
 We might add to the series of Dominican miniaturists 
 some Nuns of the same Order, who successfully cultivated 
 this branch of art ; but they shall find a place amongst 
 the paintresses, of whom we will speak in the second 
 volume of this work. 
 
 Recapitulating all that we have hitherto said in this 
 first book, concerning the artists of the Order of Preach- 
 ing-Friars, we think we have shown that, in genius and 
 ability, they rivalled the most celebrated men of their 
 age. Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro divided the laurels with 
 Arnolfo; Fra Guglielmo Agnelli with the disciples of 
 Niccola Pisano ; Fra Giovanni da Campi and Fra Jacopo 
 Talenti with Taddeo Gaddi and Orgagna ; and Fra Be- 
 nedetto del Mugello and Fra Eustachio with Liberale da 
 Verona. So much so, that, during three centuries, arts 
 derived splendour and progress from them ; not only in 
 
 ' Compend. Storico-Critico on two images of Most Holy Mary, which are 
 renerated in the church of the Dominicans (S. Maria del Sasso near Bibbiena,) 
 bv F. Fineschi. Florence, 1792.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 149 
 
 private works, but in public, in Florence, in Pisa, in 
 Orvieto, in Rome, Bologna, and the Venetian dominions. 
 The second book of this work, as well as those that 
 follow, will show whether they deserve the same 
 eulogium as painters. 
 
 END OF BOOK I.
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 tnmettt ^ninto of tjje 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 FRA ANGELICO, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ax a very early period of the fifteenth century Italian 
 arts had obtained the most happy results in almost all 
 the branches of design. Whosoever calls to mind their 
 very miserable condition under the empire of the Greeks, 
 and contemplates them in this period of glory, must 
 desire to know by what ways and means they arrived at 
 such rare excellence. The genius of three men, Niccolo, 
 Giotto, and Arnolfo, was sufficient for this grand con- 
 summation ; and their numerous and noble descendants, 
 giving an impulse to that movement, in a very short time 
 covered Italy from one extremity to the other with 
 divine and marvellous works. Their titles to ce- 
 lebrity are to be found in the cathedrals of Siena, 
 Florence, Orvieto, Padua, Assisi, in the Campo Santo of 
 Pisa, and on the gates of the baptistery at Florence. 1 
 These, indeed, are works that challenge every age that 
 
 1 They are the work of Lorenzo Ghiberti 
 
 " Sit thee down awhile ; 
 
 There, by the gates so marvellously wrought, 
 That they might serve to be the gates of heaven, 
 Enter the Baptistery." Rogers' Italy.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 151 
 
 passes, to produce monuments excelling them in beauty 
 and in number. For my part I love to trace the causes 
 of this happy development of human genius to our civil, 
 religious, and political history. For if it be true that the 
 arts are the most eloquent language of a people, as it 
 progresses from barbarism to refinement, it must neces- 
 sarily imprint on arts as well as letters, the marks of all 
 these stages through which it had to pass. And in my 
 judgment nothing is more calculated to exhibit the 
 abject state of Italy in the middle ages than the influence 
 which the Byzantines exercised on our arts ; for as we 
 were subjugated to barbarous laws and barbarous rulers, 
 so do all the works of painting, sculpture, and archi- 
 tecture, produced in that age, present evidences of that 
 ignominious servitude which Italian genius and Italian 
 liberty had to endure. But when Italy flung off the 
 shackles of feudalism, enacted her own laws, and assumed 
 a position which caused her to be feared and respected ; 
 first came Niccola, and then Giotto, to supersede the 
 teaching and types of the Byzantines. At the com- 
 mencement of the fifteenth century turbulent and 
 bloody by reason of the political and religious questions 
 that agitated it the arts seemed to be disturbed and 
 divided, some wishing to follow the progressive move- 
 ment of the age; whereas, others desired to adhere, 
 obstinately, to old principles ; believing that the sources 
 of these inspirations, which up to that period, had 
 produced so many sublime works were not exhausted ; 
 and not knowing what might be the result of contemning 
 these traditions, which it had been their chief study to 
 maintain and diffuse for many ages. In a word, the old 
 Republican society, with its great vices and great virtues ; 
 its faith and patriotism seems to me to have been 
 represented by the disciples of the Giottesque school;
 
 152 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 whereas social refinement with its new political and 
 philosophical systems its Medicean splendour, and 
 laxity of morals heralded the artists of the fourteentl 
 century, as well as those who followed them in the 
 succeeding age. Whosoever wishes to investigate thi 
 identification of art with Italian refinement, even in ages 
 nearer to our own, will find it rigidly exact. But since 
 in our times much has been written concerning 
 ancient art, its tendency and nature ; we will say a few 
 words on the subject which will be calculated to throw 
 some light on the actual state of Italian painting at the 
 period when Fra Giovanni Angelico began to colour his 
 devout conceptions. 
 
 Art in every age was primarily devoted to religion. 
 After religion it was employed to cater to the luxury of 
 the great, and the pleasures of the people. According to 
 the nature of both it assumed a varied configuration, and 
 a varied existence. Hence, amongst the Egyptians it 
 imaged a people disgraced by revolting and cruel rites, 
 or meanly bending beneath the yoke of their tyrants. In 
 this instance it was not the office of art to admonish or 
 delight that people, but rather to mystify and appal 
 them. Whilst Paganism animated all nature with 
 beauteous and fascinating developments, the Eastern 
 nations, and more especially the Egyptians, delighted in 
 foul and revolting divinities, and shrouded their religious 
 tenets with myths and mysterious symbols. With them 
 art was truly symbolical and orgic a pasture for deluded 
 souls and corrupted hearts. Under the radiant skies of 
 Greece, amongst a mighty people gifted with exquisite 
 perceptions of the beautiful, art drew inspiration from the 
 voluptuous and poetic theogeny of Hesiod and Homer, and 
 developed itself in these light and graceful forms which 
 made other people despair of ever rivalling their sublimity
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 153 
 
 and elegance. But it was seldom or never employed to 
 correct or reform morality: its office being chiefly to 
 please depraved and vitiated tastes. Amongst the 
 Romans it embodied the genius of conquest, and, as it 
 were, historied their wars and triumphs. Abandoning 
 simplicity and gentleness, it aspired to the splendour of 
 magnificence, and sowed the seeds of that tremendous 
 ruin which ten centuries were not able to arrest. At 
 length Christianity came to elevate it to a position of 
 greatness never dreamt of, for it gave a new character to 
 art, making it a holy medium for instructing the people 
 in the truth, and enamouring them of virtue, associating 
 it with all its joys and sorrows, and opening to it beyond 
 the sensible world, a vast field utterly unknown to the 
 Gentiles. Born amidst the sepulchres of the martyrs, 
 nourished by the faith of the first Christians, deriving 
 inspiration from the Gospels and the Canticles of the 
 prophets, taking little interest in mere beauty of the 
 outward form, its grand aim was to adumbrate the chaste 
 joys of heaven, to make man look with contempt on this 
 evanescent scene, and to console him in his tribulations, 
 whilst it disdained to minister to the lusts of the great and 
 powerful voluptuaries of the world. A sweet, eloquent, 
 and melancholy comfortress, it adapted itself to all these 
 forms, and to all these conceptions which were suggested 
 by faith, hope, and love. Ever and anon it smote man's 
 heart like the living word ; and seldom did tears flow 
 more abundantly, seldom did the human bosom expe- 
 rience more delicious throbbings, or the soul such 
 sublime ecstacies, as in presence of a painting stamped 
 with the ardent faith of ihese happy ages. The Egyp- 
 tians made art a medium for inspiring terror the Greek 
 employed it for his refined voluptuousness the Roman 
 made it subservient to glory, but Christianity sanc- 
 
 H 2
 
 154 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 tificd and made it the teacher and the consoler of her 
 people. 
 
 And here we deem it well to advert, that without ever 
 altering its inmost nature, in all its peregrinations 
 amongst such varieties of race, it always accommodated 
 itself to the genius of the people and the circumstances 
 of the times. In the catacombs, it pictured the days of 
 its sorrow ; in the Roman basilicas, the joy of its triumphs ; 
 in Constantinople, it decked itself with the barbaric 
 luxury of a degenerate people ; during the invasion of 
 the Barbarians, it revived memories of the gloomy days 
 when it struggled into light, once more converting itself 
 into a comfortress ; till at last, in the Renaissance, history, 
 pious legends, and popular songs, became the fountain- 
 springs of its inspiration. The following canons, how- 
 ever, which may be said to be the dogmatic portion of 
 art were always held inviolably. Its primary ^object should 
 always be, not so much to please as to instruct and move ; 
 in other words, delight was to be regarded as the means, 
 not the end ; and the conception was to be embodied in the 
 clearest and most simple manner possible : nor were there 
 to be any accessories to disturb the moral or religious 
 effect of the subject represented. The artist was to be 
 allowed ample liberty, and the use of all these means 
 which he deemed necessary for the end he had in view, 
 despite the severity of history and criticism. The entire 
 subject should appeal to the soul and the heart of the 
 spectator; and wherever the artist was notable to achieve 
 this, he should introduce plain and intelligible symbols ; 
 which proving insufficient, he might cull passages from 
 the Bible, and inscribe them in a fitting place. 1 In all 
 
 T his will account for the usage that prevailed amongst the ancients, of 
 associating the words with the picture. It is also a proof that Christianity 
 regarded painting as a most happy medium of imparting instruction to the
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 155 
 
 paintings exposed to the veneration of the faithful, ho 
 was to delineate the Saints, not as mere men in the state 
 of transition, but surrounded by celestial glory ; and in 
 painting these, and more particularly still, the effigies of 
 our Divine Redeemer and the Virgin, he should never 
 make portraits of living people, as such should necessarily 
 distract and diminish the devotion of the worshipper. The 
 most rigid decency was to be observed at all times. The 
 artist was always to abhor immoral subjects, and ever to 
 bear in mind that Christian art was a divine inspiration, 
 and that no one could undertake to produce the semblance 
 of the Saints, and the chaste joys of Paradise, without a 
 pure heart, lively faith, ardent charity, and fervid prayer. 
 To these general rules were added a few particular ones 
 regarding types, traditions, and subjects. Thus, in the 
 pictures of the Byzantines, we always recognise severe 
 majesty: nor would it appear that they ever aspired 
 after tenderness and grace, but sought rather to inspire 
 profound veneration mixed with terror, such as one 
 must experience in presence of these Virgins and massive 
 crucifixes, with their great and tremendous eyes. On 
 the other hand, in the productions of the Italians, when 
 they did not wish to be merely servile imitators of the 
 Greeks in the middle ages, we find greater softness in 
 the lines, a far more spontaneous movement of the person, 
 and a desire to fill the spectator with filial reverence, 
 and loving confidence in those whose effigies they 
 pourtrayed. 
 
 These, if we do not err, are the principal characteristics 
 of this art, more or less faithfully maintained down to 
 the fifteenth century ; but since it was not so exclusively 
 
 literate and illiterate. The Giottesque school was very partial to this intro- 
 duction of the words which are so well calculated to convey the idea of the 
 artist
 
 156 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 intent on feeding the mind with high and holy ideas, as 
 to spurn every extrinsic perfection, such as the manage- 
 ment of lights and shadows, perspective, and all the noble 
 theories of art, it did not fail, during that century, or at 
 the commencement of the following, to correct and 
 improve design, colouring, perspective, etc.; till with 
 Perugino and Raffaello it reached that supreme excellence 
 of conception and form, than which nothing further was 
 to be desiderated. To appreciate its worth and nobility, 
 I believe that one requires nothing more than a heart 
 sensible to the chaste joys of religion, a soul freed from 
 prejudices, and an eye that is not easily seduced by the 
 fascination of charming tints, or by the theatrical com- 
 positions of times far removed from the venerable sim- 
 plicity of the ancients. We may say, however, of all 
 the schools that followed, that their paintings, once or 
 twice seen, produce satiety, whilst we never tire of 
 beholding these of the former ; and that no one can 
 seriously contemplate them without immediately feeling 
 their influence on his soul, like a word of peace and 
 comfort. 
 
 The learned investigators of its history (leaving most 
 remote times out of the question) beheld it revived and 
 propagated in Italy by the miniaturists; and since it 
 impressed itself with more devout affection, and derived 
 more strength from heavenly meditations in the moun- 
 tains of Umbria, on the slopes of Fiesole, and in Bologna, 
 than elsewhere, they gave it the name of MYSTIC; a 
 name so appropriate that we shall use no other, but by 
 no means refuse it to all these artists of the Roman, 
 Sienese, and Florentine Schools, who cultivated this style. 
 Umbria points to Oderigi da Gubbio, the miniaturist, to 
 
 entile da Fabriano, Perugino, and others as founders of 
 his school in their country. Bologna is justly proud of
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 157 
 
 Franco, (the same whom Dante records with Oderigi,) of 
 Vitale, Avanzi, Simone dai Crocifissi, Lippo Dalmasio, 
 S. Catherine, Francia, etc. The Fiesolan school was 
 supereminently illustrious in the two brothers of Mugello, 
 Fra Benedetto and Fra Giovanni the Angelic; and I 
 would say that, in mysticism, these two were equalled by 
 Pietro Cavallini, the Roman, and Spinello, of Arezzo. 
 Truly, they formed a glorious band, and many of them 
 were remarkable for the sanctity of their lives. I verily 
 believe that art was never cultivated with greater vene- 
 ration than in this school of the my sties \ and that it 
 nowhere else exercised such salutary influences on the 
 hearts of its devotees. Hence it was that Lippo Dal- 
 masio (not to mention many others) never set about 
 painting a picture of the Virgin without fasting on 
 the day preceding his work, and partaking of the Holy 
 Eucharist. Vasari, writing of Pietro Cavallini, tells us 
 that "he was not only a good Christian, but a most 
 devout friend of the poor ; and much loved for his 
 goodness, not only in Rome, his birth-place, but by 
 every one who had any knowledge of him or his 
 works. In his old age he so gave himself up to religion, 
 and led such an exemplary life, that he was reputed a 
 saint." 1 Never have I been able to contemplate the few 
 but sublime remains of his works without thinking of 
 the Angelico, whom he resembled by his genius and 
 virtues ; and whom, according to the estimate of his 
 cotemporaries, he is said to have equalled. 
 
 This school, at first, so timid and reserved, that it 
 seemed to shun, or sink beneath the greater difficulties 
 of design, was, nevertheless, of such a noble order, that 
 it did not hesitate to attempt the epic and historical, and 
 
 1 Lives of the painters, etc. Life of Pietro Cavallini.
 
 158 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 to rival the poesy of Allighieri in power and beauty. 
 The subjects selected were numerous and varied, such, 
 for example, as the History of the Creation, the Life of 
 Jesus Christ, the Two Last Things, Paradise and Hell, 
 with which they covered the walls of the burial-grounds, 
 (Campi Santi) cloisters, and chapter-rooms; but no- 
 where did the Christian painter show such power as in 
 the legends of the Blessed Virgin. Here the theories of 
 art availed little. Before such judges as the people of 
 the middle ages, with their glowing faith, who loved 
 religion, and venerated the Queen of Angels with 
 a worship at once poetical and affectionate, the 
 artist who would do justice to his subject, should 
 study all the avenues to the heart, and participate of 
 that sacred enthusiasm which was cherished by the 
 populace. His work worthily achieved, what was his 
 reward? The sobs and tears of devout worshippers, 
 and the benediction of the sensitive multitude ! The 
 legends of the B. V. were succeeded by these of the 
 Saints, written, probably, by Blessed Jacopo Varzze, 
 Metafraste and Cesario; and it is wonderful how these 
 stories, that our age spurns, furnished the Giottesqne 
 school with so many beauties, and supplied the piety of 
 the Christian people for many ages with sweetest 
 pasture. Occasionally the painter drew his inspira- 
 tion from the great poets, and applied himself to illus- 
 trate the "Divina Commedia" and the pages of Petrarch's 
 " Triumph." 
 
 Nor was symbolic painting less poetical, or less 
 productive, of grand, moral, and religious precepts. 
 Transmitted by the Greeks, and embellished by the 
 Italians, it, for a long time, exercised the genius of the 
 sculptor and the painter, and wonderfully assisted the 
 artist in developing his conceptions. It was an eloquent
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 
 
 159 
 
 language, and so peculiar to Christian art, that we cannot 
 penetrate its innermost nature, without fully compre- 
 hending it. 
 
 But Christianity, after having re-created architecture 
 after having breathed the breath of life into marble, in 
 the works of the Pisans, after educating and encouraging 
 miniature, painting on glass, and mosaic after watch- 
 ing over the birth of engraving, and opening a new school 
 of mystic painting, had scarcely arrived at the end of 
 the fifteenth century, when it beheld its works despised, 
 and almost destroyed in the sixteenth. The ardent 
 faith of the preceding ages, was succeeded by doubt, and 
 polemical controversies. After the simple sculptures of 
 Niccola Pisano, of Donate, and Ghiberti, came these of 
 Baccio Bandinelli. The architecture of Arnolfo, of Fra 
 Sisto, and Fra Ristoro, was no longer visible. Miniatur- 
 ing and painting on glass, languished, and disappeared ; 
 and painting the noble, and dear companion of its 
 glories the reflex of all its celestial delights having 
 abjured its most high and holy office of comfortress and 
 instructress of the people, seemed to prefer the rhapsodies 
 and turpitudes of the mythology. No human power 
 no human counsel, could have staid the movement of 
 an age, that tended to external perfection. It remained 
 only for Christian art to give a more splendid sample 
 of its beauties, by concentrating, in one man, all that 
 it had produced, whether tender, devout, graceful, or 
 sublime, in the Catacombs, or at Byzantium in a man, 
 whom the severe criticism of the fifteenth, and follow- 
 ing century, should stamp as the most unapproachable 
 painter of divinity. This man was Fra Giovanni del 
 Mugello. He was destined to raise Christian art from 
 the dust; for, although we concede, that those who 
 succeeded him, may have excelled him in perfection
 
 160 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 of design and colouring, nevertheless, he is surpassed 
 by none in affection and religious sentiment. In fact, 
 the sixteenth century so enamoured of the Greek and 
 Roman productions so sorely travailed, in heart and 
 soul, that it delighted only in lascivious pictures was 
 so astounded by his celestial works, and was so 
 charmed by the virtues of Fra Giovanni, that, wishing to 
 epitomise all his high deserts, it called him by the name 
 of the Angelic ; thus assimilating the painter of Mugello, 
 to the Doctor of Aquino. Both were remarkable for 
 innocence and sanctity of life ; both wore the same habit, 
 and followed the same rule. If the title was bestowed 
 on S. Thomas, for having excelled all men, in describing 
 the angelic and Divine Nature, it was also due to the 
 artist, for having rendered it almost palpable by the 
 tintings of his pencil. 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 
 Published and unpublished Documents, from which the present Life of Fra 
 Giovanni Angelico has been compiled. 
 
 BEFORE we begin to describe the life and works of 
 Fra Giovanni, we deem it our duty to state, from what 
 sources we have collected the notices regarding him; 
 and, to make the reader aware of the method we have 
 adopted, to satisfy those who are desirous of knowing 
 more of this illustrious painter, than has been hitherto 
 set forth, and who are not satisfied if anything, calculated 
 to throw light on his genius, goodness, and innermost 
 nature, be omitted. The method, however, may not 
 satisfy the tastes and desires of all parties. Some 
 would be content with a rapid and simple narrative 
 which would only point out the extraordinary merits of
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 161 
 
 his works, and the principal actions of his life. Others, 
 on the contrary, who praise this artist, more for his con- 
 ceptions, than developments, (his grand scope being, 
 rather to move and instruct, than to delight,) are anxious 
 to learn, as distinctly as possible, the causes of that 
 profound emotion, which is ordinarily experienced in 
 presence of his pictures ; wishing, as it were, to be 
 introduced to the secret movements of his heart, and to 
 feel, whilst perusing his life, these tender impressions, 
 that the sight of his works is always calculated to pro- 
 duce. We, therefore, according to our poor ability, 
 will endeavour to satisfy the longings of the one, without 
 lessening these of the other. 
 
 Before Vasari published his Lives of the Painters and 
 Sculptors, (1550,) three Dominicans, who were almost 
 contemporaries, had made an epitome of that of Fra 
 Giovanni the Angelic. The first of these is Father Gio- 
 vanni de Tolosani, the Chronicler of the convent of S. 
 Dominic at Fiesole, who, according to his own state- 
 ment, commenced it in 1516 ; that is, seventy-one years 
 after the death of our painter. But so negligent was he 
 in writing the Life, that, without mentioning the year of 
 his birth or decease, he did little more than produce a 
 confused catalogue of his paintings, suppressing every 
 one of these particulars which Vasari detailed fully forty 
 years afterwards. Nevertheless, deficient as this manu- 
 script is, it will serve to throw some light on the life of 
 this artist. The second is Father Roberto Ubaldini, the 
 Annalist of the convent of S. Mark, of whom we have 
 already spoken. He began to write his Annals in 1505, 
 but did not continue them further than 1508. It is cer- 
 tain, however, that he did not die till 1534. We have 
 mentioned him posteriorly to Tolosani, for, although a 
 more copious and eloquent writer of the Annals of his
 
 162 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 ^ 
 
 convent than the former, he makes but passing men- 
 tion of the Angelico, who was affiliated to the convent 
 of Fiesole. The third is Father Leandro Alberti of 
 Bologna, a historian and geographer of great merit. In 
 1517 he published a volume of Latin eulogies on the 
 illustrious men of the Preaching -Friars ; but we collect 
 from two letters written by friends of the author, and 
 prefixed to the work, (the first dated February, and the 
 second March, 1516,) that they were composed some 
 years before. Amongst these eulogiums is that of Fra 
 Giovanni Angelico. Alberti is not much more copious 
 than Tolosani and Ubaldini ; but he narrates some parti- 
 culars that we find in the Life written by Vasari many 
 years afterwards, and, what is really valuable, the day 
 and the month of the painter's death, unknown to all 
 historians of art up to this period. After the publication 
 of Vasari's work, two other Dominicans briefly described 
 the life, or rather made incidental mention of the Ange- 
 lico, and these are, Father Serafino Razzi of Florence, 
 and Father Bottonio of Perugia; the first in his History 
 of the Illustrious Men of the Order, and in that of its 
 Saints and Beatified. The second in the MS. Annals that 
 still exist in S. Domenico of Perugia. But the first copied 
 Vasari, and the second translated Ubaldini. Neither of 
 the two, however, added a single line to the Life written 
 of him by the first historian of our arts. 1 It remains for 
 
 i Two poets, contemporaries of Fra Angelico, make honourable mention of 
 him in their verses. The first is Fr. Domenico da Corella, who died in 1483. 
 In a heroic poem, " De Origine. Urbis Flor.," he speaks of him thus 
 
 " Angelicus Pictor quam finxerat ante Johannes 
 Nomine, non Jotto, non Cimabue minor." v. vol. xii. Delicice Eruditorum. 
 
 Corella here alludes to the painting of the Madonna in the church 
 of the Servites, which has been erroneously attributed to Pietro 
 Carallim. Kosini, (Storia della Pittura, v. 2, c. viii.,) conjectures that
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 163 
 
 us now to ask how Vasari, who lived so long after the 
 time of the Angelico, was enabled to enter so minutely 
 into the details of his life, whilst the two chroniclers of 
 Fiesole and S. Marco, and Leandro Alberti, who were so 
 near to him, observe such profound silence ? This appears 
 to us a grave question, as Vasari is not accustomed to cite 
 authorities in confirmation of his statements, and has 
 no great reputation for truthfulness. Having weighed this 
 difficulty well, we incline to think that the said biogra- 
 pher collected all the traditions regarding the painter in 
 Florence and Fiesole ; and that they were faithfully con- 
 veyed to him by Fra Eustachio, the miniaturist, who, 
 as we have already observed, gave great assistance to 
 Vasari in the first edition of his work. For, when he 
 took the habit from Fra Girolamo Savonarola, in 1496, 
 (forty-two years after the death of the Angelico,) the his- 
 tory of his life and works was so fresh in the memory of 
 people then living, that it was very easy to gather all 
 the particulars which have come down to us. This 
 miniaturist, moreover, lived to be eighty-three years of 
 age, and, being gifted with a most retentive memory, he 
 was well able to describe a long and important period, 
 not only of Florentine history, but of the arts also. 
 
 After the writers of his life, follow some partial 
 documents, discovered in the past century and the 
 antecedent, by Baldinucci and Father Guglielmo della 
 
 it was restored by Fra Giovanni. The second is Giovanni Santi da Urbino, 
 painter, and father of Raffaello, who, in a poem entitled ' Dei fattied imprese 
 di Federico Duca d'Urbino," which is now in the Vatican, (unpublished,) 
 speaks thus of the Fiesolan : 
 
 " Ma nelT Italia in questa eta presente 
 Vi fu il degno Geutil da Fabriano 
 Giovan da Fiesole frate al ben ardente." 
 
 Giovanni Santi died, August, 1494.
 
 164 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Valle. With these preliminary notices, we will now 
 proceed to write the Life of the painter Fra Giovanni 
 Angelico. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 The Origin, Country, Studies, and Religious Profession of Fra 
 Giovanni Angelico. 
 
 THE uncertainty of the ancient memoirs, and the impru- 
 dence of those who pretended to supply them by fictions 
 and romance, have so strangely confused the life of the 
 Angelico, that to place it in a clear light, and separate 
 truth from probability, and probability from falsehood, is 
 a very arduous undertaking. Vasari states that he was 
 of Fiesole, but it is likely that he alludes to the convent 
 of this place, where he resided so long, instead of mak- 
 ing it out as his birth-place. Father Guglielmo Bartoli, 
 on the other hand, suspects that he was born in Florence 
 or its neighbourhood. 1 Montalembert says that he saw 
 the light in Mugello, adding that Mugello is a hamlet in 
 the vicinity of Florence. 2 Not being able to discover 
 the cognomen of the family, they thought it judicious to 
 invent one. Thus Lorenzo Cantini, citing Borghini, 
 calls him a Montorsoli, strangely confounding Fra Gio- 
 vanni AngioloMontorsoli, a Servite, an illustrious sculptor, 
 and disciple of Buonarroti, with our painter. 3 It is true 
 that Borghini has not fallen into these errors. Lanzi, on 
 the authority of the " Novelle Letterarie" of the year 1773, 
 states that in the world he was called Santi Tosini, son 
 
 1 Istoria di S. Antonino e de? suoi piu illustri Discepoli. Florence, 1782. 
 
 * Du Vandalisme et du Catholicisme dans TArL V. Append., p. 243. 
 
 * Hetruria Sacra, v. 3.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 165 
 
 of Micliele Ridolfi, a painter. But Fra Santi Tosini, the 
 Dominican, of the convent of Fiesole, and a most excel- 
 lent painter, died in Rome more than a hundred and fifty 
 years after the Angelico, (1608.) 1 Finally, Masselli 
 suspects that he was called Petri. 2 Nor is there less 
 difficulty in determining the year of his birth, as the first 
 edition of Vasari would have it in 1388, and the second 
 in 1387. Brocchi dates it about 1390-6. 3 
 
 Having briefly set forth the various opinions of 
 historians, we will now, with the aid of authentic 
 documents, describe the early years of the artist. Fra 
 Giovanni Angelico, as we said in the life of his brother, 
 was born near Vicchio, a strong and picturesque castle, 
 situated between Dicomano and Borgo San Lorenzo, on 
 the river Sieve, in the vast and fertile province of 
 Mugello. Vespignano, the birth-place of Giotto, is but 
 a short distance from it. Thus the same region was the 
 birth-place of the father of Italian painting, and of one of 
 his most illustrious followers, the painter of nature and of 
 heaven. The castle of Vicchio was built by the Floren- 
 tine Repulic, in 1324, to curb the licentiousness of the 
 Counts Guidi, after having levelled the ancient fortress 
 of Ampinana. 4 We will date the birth of Fra Giovanni 
 
 1 Hist of Painting, Epoch 1st, Florent. School There is a biography of 
 this F. Santi Tosini, who was reputed a most holy man, in the MSS. 
 Chronicle of S. Dom. at Fiesole, It is believed that he assisted his father 
 in restoring the Madonna in the Annunziata, (Church of the Annunciation,) 
 at Florence. 
 
 2 See the Notes to Vasari's Life of the Angelico, by David Passigli, 
 Florence, 1832. This is by far the best edition of the Lives, and abounds in 
 annotations teeming with artistic lore. 
 
 3 G. M. Brocchi Descriz. della Prov. del Mugello. All these errors have 
 been copied by M. Fortoul, in a work entitled De 1'Art. en Allemagne. 
 Paris, 1843. 
 
 4 Giovanni Villani, Cronache Fior. L ix. c. 274.
 
 166 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 in 1387, as we have no arguments to refute Vasari's 
 correction of himself. His father was Pietro; his 
 cognomen unknown. 1 In the world he was called Guido 
 or Guidolino ; and to the authority of Vasari is added 
 that of Baldinucci, who discovered a precious document 
 which we will give in its proper place. The epithet 
 Blessed, or Angelic, was given him by the veneration of 
 the people. We do not know whether he had any 
 other brother than Fra Benedetto the miniaturist ; and as 
 to the temporal affairs of his parents we can only repeat 
 what Vasari has recorded. " He might have remained 
 in the world in very ample circumstances, and along 
 with what he possessed he might have earned much by 
 the exercise of that art in which he was well skilled, 
 while yet a mere youth." From this we collect that he 
 applied himself at a very early period of his life to design 
 and the rudiments of painting ; and for this reason he 
 left Vicchio for Florence. I know not who was the 
 instructor of his youth, but I hold as indubitable that his 
 first occupation was illuminating Choral-books; and 
 Vasari, Lanza, and Rossini, agree in this opinion. For, 
 as we have already observed, the apprenticeship of the 
 painters of that age was spent in miniaturing the predelle 
 of the pictures with histories in small figures; thus 
 gradually progressing to works of large dimensions. As 
 
 1 To show more clearly that the cognomen of the Angelico was Dot 
 Pietri, we deem it sufficient to observe that, in the Chronicle of Fiesole, and 
 also in that of S. Marco, and S. Maria Novella, and generally in these of all 
 the Mendicant Orders, the name of the Religious is immediately followed by 
 that of his father, grandfather, or birth-place ; but we very rarely find the 
 cognomen. To take one example out of thousands, the celebrated painter, 
 Fra Bartolommeo della Porta is called, in the Chronicle of S. Marco, " Fra 
 Bartholomeus Pauli Jacopi de Florentia." Here Paolo is the name of his 
 father, Giacomo of his grandfather; but neither of them can be said to 
 designate the cognomen of his family.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 167 
 
 a proof of this we may instance the example of Bartolo- 
 meo della Gatta, the Camaldulese monk; who, after 
 having studied miniature, in his mature years practised 
 historical subjects with happiest success ; till with Luca 
 Signorelli da Cortona, and Pietro Perugino he was 
 invited to Rome to paint the chapel of Pope Sixtus IV. 
 But what we have said in our essay on the Dominican 
 miniaturists is quite sufficient. Baldinucci and Rosini 
 think that his master in the art of painting was Gherardo 
 Stamina, a Florentine, whose style is described by Lanzi 
 as "gay;" but irrespective of Vasari's silence, I am 
 inclined to doubt it, as Gherardi spent many years in 
 Spain, and having returned to Italy died in 1403, when 
 Guideline of Mugello was but sixteen years of age. It 
 is true that Baldinucci was induced by a similarity of 
 style, which he recognised in these two masters, to 
 believe that Fra Angclico had been his pupil. Never- 
 theless, the opinion is worthy of consideration ; for if it 
 be well founded, it would go to prove that the Angelico 
 was the con-disciple of Masolino da Panicale, to whom 
 he shows some affinity in his shading and management 
 of drapery ; and as Masolino may have been his senior, 
 it is likely that he instructed him by precept and 
 example. 1 
 
 Our Guido possessed a mild and amiable disposition, 
 and such exquisite taste for the beauties of nature, that 
 he easily ascended to these of a higher order. In the 
 admirable accord of all visible things there is a poetry, a 
 law of love, and a beauty teeming with sweet emotions, 
 far more easily felt than expressed, since to feel it, and 
 describe it, is the privilege of but very few. Painting, 
 
 1 We adopt the correction made by Baldinucci in the Chronology of 
 Masolino da Panicale ; since, were we to follow Vasari, Masolino, disciple of 
 Stamina, should have been born the very year in which the master died.
 
 168 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 that most powerful and animated language, when 
 associated to the ecstacy of a contemplative mind, does 
 not require great efforts, or to astound or flatter the 
 senses by the strength of tints, or the management of 
 lights and shadows ; but in the sweetness and variety of 
 lines, in the profiling of the countenances, and in the 
 simple and ingenious movement of the figure, it becomes 
 In some sort a reflex of that arcane beauty, and of that 
 harmony which, pervading all creation, reveals itself 
 supremely in man. Paintings of this character are not 
 for the effeminate or the parasite, but for men of delicate 
 and noble sensibility. Guido saw many artists of that age 
 so enamoured of nature, that they aspired to no greater 
 praise than that of pourtraying its exterior. All their 
 glory was to approach it as nearly as possible ; in a word, 
 to deceive the senses as much as they could. This 
 appeared to him to be not only foolish but criminal, as it 
 substituted the means for the end, and made art a pas- 
 time and a pleasure for the frivolous. He held that it 
 might be made as useful to that age as either philosophy 
 or eloquence, provided it became the medium for incul- 
 cating great lessons, religious and moral. And truly did 
 that age need them, and Florence beyond all the cities of 
 Italy; for the factions were stained with each other's 
 blood; morality was disregarded, and religion was made 
 instrumental to the ambition of many, who, during the 
 terrible schism, abused it for their sordid and sacrilegious 
 purposes. 
 
 Indeed, when I reflect on the condition of sciences and 
 letters, and more particularly still on the civil and 
 political state of Italy during the fifteenth century ; I am 
 persuaded that a grand mission was confided to the artists 
 who, if they followed the examples of the Angelico, and 
 the counsels of Savonarola, must have wonderfully
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 169 
 
 improved the morals of the people. Our Guido, therefore, 
 to satisfy the yearnings of his heart, and to obey the 
 command of heaven, determined to embrace the cloister- 
 life, concluding that he might thus strengthen his heart 
 and soul with the sublime sweetness of religion. He was 
 then about twenty-one, or twenty-two years of age, and 
 his artistic education, if not perfected, must have been 
 considerably advanced. 
 
 On the declivity of the lovely hill of Fiesole, there had 
 been already laid the foundations of a convent for the 
 Preaching-Friars. 1 It was rumoured far and near that 
 this was to be an asylum of sanctity a retreat for the 
 penitent and prayerful. The Blessed Giovanni di 
 Domenico Bacchini, better known as Dominici, (his 
 cognomen,) a religious of the convent of S. Maria 
 Novella, was its founder. He wished to present a model 
 of reform to all the religious Orders which had fallen 
 away from their ancient observance, by reason of the 
 terrible pestilence of the preceding century, and the schism 
 which was then actually afflicting the church. S. Antonino 
 was amongst the first of those who presented themselves 
 to Dominici in order to embrace that reform (1405) ; and 
 two years afterwards he was followed by the two brothers 
 of Mugello ; who came, as it were, to adorn the restoration 
 of the Dominican Order with sweetest flowers. The 
 building was commenced on the 1st of March, of the 
 year 1406 ; and in the September following, fourteen 
 religious, most of whom had come from Cortona, where 
 there was another convent reformed by Dominici, were 
 domiciled within its precincts. Father Marco di Venezia 
 having been appointed its superior ; the Blessed Giovanni 
 
 i Jacopo Altoviti, (a Dominican,) Bishop of Fiesole, gave the ground for 
 the building in 1405, but the formal cession of it was not perfected till 
 1406. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 170 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Dominici was obliged to leave Fiesole, as he had been sent 
 as orator by the Florentine Republic to Pope Gregory 
 XII. ; who, wishing to retain him in his court, raised him 
 to the high dignity of Cardinal. 1 In 1407 Guidolino 
 and his brother presented themselves to Father Marco, and 
 asked and obtained the habit of S. Dominic. I think, 
 however, that they were sent to Cortona, as was also S. 
 Antonino, there being no novitiate attached to the 
 convent of Fiesole, which was still very limited and 
 quite unfinished. The master of novices of the two 
 painters was the venerable Father Lorenzo di Ripafratta, 
 a most holy religious, the very same who presided over 
 the first years of S. Antonino's cloister-life, and of whom 
 the holy Archbishop has left us a splendid eulogium in 
 a letter addressed to the Dominicans of Pistoja, to condole 
 with them on the loss of that mirror of every virtue. 2 
 The Fiesolan Chronicle leaves no doubt that the two 
 brothers were enrolled amongst the clerices. Guido 
 took the name of Fra Giovanni, and the younger brother 
 that of Fra Benedetto. 8 In 1408 they made their 
 solemn profession ; and it is very likely that they imme- 
 diately returned to the convent of S. Domenico, at 
 Fiesole. Here they were united in holy friendship with 
 the glorious S. Antonino, who reciprocated their affection 
 and held the twain in equal esteem. 4 
 
 A year had scarcely passed over our two painters in 
 
 1 This letter is dated October, 1456. V. Vita di S. Antonino, by Dom. 
 Maccarani. Venezia, 1709. 
 
 1 Cron. Conv. S. Dom. de Fesulis, " 1407. F. Joannes Petri de Mugello 
 Juxta Vicchium, optimus pictor, qui niultas tabulas et parietes in diversis 
 locis pinxit, accepit habit uni clericorum in hoc conventu et seq. 
 
 anno fecit professionem." 
 
 * Along with the friendship of S. Antonino, Fra Giovanni enjoyed alao 
 that of the Blessed Pietro Capucci, and the Blessed Costanzo da Fabriano, 
 who about that period were living in the convent of S. Domenico in 
 Cortona.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 171 
 
 the convent of Fiesole, when the tempest of religious and 
 political discord which had so terribly travailed the 
 church and society, burst forth in all its fury, and 
 disturbed the peace of their solitude. Up to this period 
 the Florentine Republic remained faithful to Gregory 
 XII., to whom, as we have already stated, it sent the 
 Blessed Giovanni Dominici as its orator in 1406. Never- 
 theless, on the 26th of January, 1409, having renounced 
 all allegiance to the said Pontiff, the Republic, by a 
 solemn and formal act, declared that it would adhere to 
 the approaching council of Pistoja, and acknowledge 
 whatever Pontiff it might elect and recognise. That 
 Synod began its sittings on the 25th of March of said 
 year, and on the 5th of June it deposed the two compe- 
 titors, Benedict XIII., and Gregory XII. On the 26th 
 of the same month it elected Fra Pietro Fillorga, a 
 Minorite, with the title of Alexander V. This determi- 
 nation instead of extinguishing the schism, rendered it 
 still more calamitous, as it added a third to the two 
 Pontiffs already mentioned; who fulminating excommu- 
 nications against each other, and enlisting clerics, prelates, 
 and princes for their respective partisans, carried the 
 torch of discord into the abodes where peace and love 
 should have their sanctuary and citadel. The Florentine 
 Republic and the General of the Preaching-Friars, 
 (Tommaso di Fermo,) had sworn obedience to Alexander 
 V. ; but the religious of the convent of S. Domenico at 
 Fiesole, owing to the persuasions of Dominici, who 
 adhered to Gregory XII., remained unshaken in their 
 devotion to the latter. The superior of the Order sought 
 by threats and entreaties to weaken their constancy; but 
 when he found that he could not effect his purpose, he 
 caused Father Antonio di Milano, prior of the convent 
 of Fiesole, to be cast into the prison of Florence. The
 
 172 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 religions, indignant at this sacrilegious violence, unani- 
 mously resolved to abandon that loved sojourn, rather 
 than belie their consciences; and to seek elsewhere 
 that liberty and peace which they could not enjoy on 
 their natal soil. But as Cortona, which was then (1409) 
 beseiged by Ladislao, King of Naples, could not afford 
 them a secure refuge, they left the convent of S. Dome- 
 nico at midnight, and set out for Foligno, which city 
 was leal to Pope Gregory XII. Led by Father Antonio 
 di Milano, the whole community, which consisted of 
 about twenty, arrived safely at their destination in 
 Umbria. 1 Here they were united to the brotherhood of 
 the convent of S. Domenico, who received them with 
 that distinction that was due to their deserts. 2 It must 
 be admitted, however, that they got but a very cold 
 reception from Monsignore Federico Frezzi, bishop of the 
 city, a religious of the same institute, and a celebrated 
 rhymer of his times. 3 This fact, hitherto unrecorded by 
 the historians who have written of S. Antonino and the 
 Angelico, throws additional light on the life and works 
 of the painter, and induces us to make a few important 
 reflections. 
 
 Amongst modern writers on art, there are some so 
 enamoured of the sublime beauties of the pictorial school 
 of Umbria, that their admiration seems occasionally to 
 
 ' V. Document at the end of this volume. 
 
 3 Supposing that the Angelico and his brother were already in Cortona, 
 when the religious of Fiesole abandoned their convent, they must have 
 remained there from 1407 to 1418 L e. t about eleven consecutive 
 years. 
 
 * He is the author of a poem, (in terza rima,) which he entitled, " Qna- 
 triregnio, or the Kingdom of Love, Lucifer, Vice, and Virtue." It was pub- 
 lished in Venice, 1515. According to Tiraboschi, it is " in imitation of Dante, 
 to whom he is very far from being equal, though we must admit tliat he has 
 imitated him." Frezzi died at the Council of Constance in 1416.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 173 
 
 go beyond the confines of truth : for they have imagined 
 that these mountains have sent forth a chosen band of 
 painters, who re-awakened the semi-spent poetry of art 
 throughout all Italy ; and a writer of our own times, for 
 whom we profess great veneration, has not hesitated to 
 assert, that " The poetry of art was everywhere dead ; 
 everywhere, save in the fastnesses of the Apennines. 
 Amidst the gloomy forests and rugged mountains where 
 the Seraphic (S. Francis of Assisi,) raised his prayer to 
 the Eternal, beseeching Him to send His peace into the 
 hearts of his brethren ; amidst the mountains of Umbria 
 there was reared a simple, modest, and solitary school of 
 Painting, which gloried in sublime inspirations, and 
 cultivated external beauty only to show the splendour of 
 its conceptions. Gentile da Fabriano, the Blessed Ange- 
 lico, Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino, Pinturricchio, and, 
 finally, Raffaello, were the pupils of this school." 1 Now 
 as the Angelico's brief sojourn in Foligno might lead the 
 advocates of this opinion to form false or exaggerated 
 conclusions, we will not omit observing that, if Umbria, 
 in the fifteenth century, had educated a pictorial school 
 of any merit, with the aid of the miniaturists, neverthe- 
 less, it was not of such a character as to be able to com- 
 pete, either in the abundance or ability of its artists, with 
 the schools of Florence, Siena, or Bologna. Moreover, 
 if by poetry of art we are to understand devout affection, 
 and beauty of images, I do not know what painter of 
 Umbria could, in these characteristics, I will not say 
 excel, but rival, the ancient Tuscan artists, Giotto, 
 Memmi, Gaddi, Spinello, Pietro Cavallini, etc. So true 
 is this, that, when we seek the names of the champions 
 
 i Sull' Educazione del Pittore Storico Ordierno Italiano, di P. Selvatico. 
 Padova, 1842.
 
 174 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 of this school who were educated on the Apennines, 
 instead of Nuzi, Giovanni Bonnini di Assisi, Lello 
 Perugino, Francesco Tio, Fabriano, and other obscure 
 painters, mentioned by Lanzi, they cite the Blessed 
 Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, Lorenzo di Credi, who were 
 Florentines, and who, in their own country, were tutored 
 by the wonderful works of Giotto, who preceded them ; 
 nay, more, this same Gentile da Fabriano studied art to 
 far greater perfection in his own country, under the 
 Angelico, than elsewhere. Again, I deem it very re- 
 markable (if this Apennine school was so very illustrious) 
 that, when they were decorating the church of S. Fran- 
 cis in Assisi, instead of Umbrian painters, we find the 
 builders inviting, (after the Greeks,) Cimabue, Giotto, 
 Memmi, Gaddi, who all belonged to the Tuscan school. 
 But if, as it is likely, these words : " The poetry of art 
 was everywhere dead," be referable to the times when the 
 naturalism of Massaccio and Lippi began to influence art 
 in Florence ; I still maintain that, as long as the Angelico, 
 Benozzo, Lorenzo di Credi, and others, remained in that 
 capital, it cannot be said to have died there or elsewhere, 
 since, in them, and by them, it may be said to have 
 been revivified. None can surpass us in our veneration 
 for the illustrious propagators of Christian art, whose 
 glorious works entitle them to the respect of every man 
 who values either religion or its adornments, and we 
 here proclaim our acknowledgments of their genius ; but 
 we deem it a duty not less important to point out how 
 dangerous it is, in a matter of history, to go beyond 
 these confines that are marked by the severity of criticism. 1 
 
 1 M. A. Rio is fiar more cautious, and confines himself to the mystic 
 school V. Poesie Chretienne, pp. 168, 169. He does not, however, deny 
 that the Florentine and Siena schools sent to the mountains of Umbria little 
 colonies, or better still, the choicest flowers of the two schools. V. p. 209.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 175 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The first Works of the Angelico in Foligno and Cortona. 
 
 THE Fiesolan exiles, having found a refuge in Cortona, 
 where Frezzi, bishop of the city, had given them the 
 convent of S. Domenico, set about introducing that 
 severe discipline, and all these conventual observances 
 which were cultivated by the Blessed Giovanni Dominici, 
 in that of Fiesole. S. Antonino was sent to govern the 
 convents of the Roman province and of the kingdom of 
 Naples. Fra Angelico, to satisfy the yearnings of his 
 heart, which required that he should show by his works 
 the holy fire of affection that burned within his bosom, 
 once more resumed his pencil. And, indeed, Monta- 
 lembert and Rio have truly written of him, that painting 
 was his ordinary prayer and his mode of elevating his 
 heart and soul to God. It is said that Dante, in the 
 Paradiso, mated the doctrine of Thomas of Aquino to the 
 harmony of his verse; and I would venture to affirm 
 that the Angelico incarnated and coloured the concep- 
 tions of these two great men. If we compare the 
 pictures of the Angelico with the writings of the great 
 philosopher and the great poet, we will have little diffi- 
 culty in detecting the identity of thought that charac- 
 terised the three Italians in their theories of the super- 
 natural, and the imagery with which they clothed them. 
 The primitive mystic school of Bologna had such a 
 limited range of subjects for its artistic productions, that 
 Simone confined himself to painting Crucifixions, and 
 Vitale very rarely went beyond the usual subject of 
 Madonnas. The Angelico, educated in the poetic and
 
 176 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 imaginative school of Giotto, Spinello, and Merami, 
 embraced the whole history of the Old Testament, and, 
 from time to time, produced something in the Legen- 
 dary character, in which he surpassed all his predecessors. 
 Having devoted his life and genius to Religion, he firmly 
 resolved to observe the rigid canons of Christian art, and 
 all the traditions of the Giotto school, of which, I would 
 venture to say, he was the last flower. Hence, he never 
 profaned his pencil with merely secular subjects ; for he 
 resolved to make it, like the Evangelical word, a means 
 of moral and religious perfection. 
 
 We have no works which can be attributed to him 
 with certainty at this period ; but it is only reasonable to 
 suppose that, during his sojourn in Foligno, he began to 
 paint the altar-piece of the chapel of S. Niccolo dei 
 Guidalotti, for the church of S. Domenico in Perugia, 
 which still exists. This I reckon amongst the earliest of 
 his works, for it exhibits more of the style and man- 
 nerism of the Giottesque than is to be found in any of 
 his other performances. M. Rio is of opinion that he 
 executed it when he was returning from Rome to Flo- 
 rence, through Perugia. 1 But we do noj know, if we 
 except the three months he passed at Orvieto in 1447, 
 that he ever left Rome after having been summoned to 
 work there by Eugene IV. Neither are there good 
 grounds for the opinion of Father Timoteo Bottonio, 
 who writes that he produced it in 1437 ; 2 at which 
 period Fra Angelico was in Florence, when the restora- 
 tions of the church of S. Marco and the building of the 
 new convent, which he adorned with his marvellous 
 frescos, had been commenced. This picture, now in the 
 
 1 Poesie Cbretienne, c. vi, p. 199. 
 8 MSS. Annali.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 177 
 
 chapel of S. Orsola, like other works of the same artist, 
 must have been of pyramidal form, and was divided into 
 three compartments, after the style of the triptychs, with 
 one or three cusps, (like arrow-heads,) on the summit, 
 and a gradino, (base,) in the under part ; the whole was 
 enclosed within a richly- wrought cornice, in the inter- 
 stices of which were painted many beautiful little figures 
 of saints, in the style of the celebrated Deposition from the 
 Cross, by the same author, in the gallery of the Florentine 
 Academy of Design. Judging from the portions of it 
 which we have, it was composed after this fashion : On 
 a gold ground he painted the Blessed Virgin, seated on a 
 throne, with the Divine Babe on her knees. Two angels 
 stand at either side, with baskets of flowers, from which 
 the infant seems to have taken a rose that he holds in his 
 right hand. At foot of the throne are some shrubs, with 
 white and red roses ; a beautiful idea, that the painter 
 repeated afterwards in Cortona and elsewhere. The 
 Virgin, rejoicing in her maternity, smiles on her Son ; 
 and this portrait appears to us to be the noblest and 
 sweetest of the many he has executed. Its grand charac- 
 teristics, like these of all his other paintings of the Ma- 
 donna, are purity and grace, so well befitting the Mother 
 of the Son of God. I think, however, that the design 
 of the nude in the infant, as well as angels, is feeble. 
 Retouchings, or, perhaps, the injuries of time, prevent 
 us from recognising the drapery of the Virgin's robe. 
 In the two lateral compartments, now divided, there 
 were four figures, two on the right, and two on the left ; 
 these were S. John Baptist, S. Catherine, Virgin and 
 Martyr, S. Dominic and S. Nicholas, all in one line, 
 according to the Giottesque; and, if we except the 
 second of these figures, all the others are most beautiful 
 and excellently executed. But truly beautiful was the 
 
 i 2
 
 178 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 gradino of this picture, on which he painted three histo- 
 ries of the life of S. Nicholas, of which only one remains, 
 the other two having been removed to the Vatican. 1 
 This, that may still be seen in the church of S. Domenico, 
 (Perugia,) over the great door of the sacristy, is divided 
 into two compartments; in one of which he represents 
 the holy bishop, and two youths, who, with bandaged eyes, 
 are in the act of waiting the headsman's stroke ; multi- 
 tudes, assembled to witness the execution, seem to shud- 
 der and groan ; and the sudden appearance of the Saint 
 stays the axe of the executioner, and saves them. In 
 the other he painted the funeral of the Saint, whom he 
 represents stretched on the bier, and surrounded by the 
 poor, by monks and women, who exhibit signs of the 
 deepest grief. But that which is still more exquisite is 
 the action of the two youthful acolytes, one of whom 
 raises the hem of his surplice to wipe away the tears 
 which he could not restrain. In the upper part of the 
 same compartment he painted the soul of the Saint con- 
 ducted to heaven by angels. Amongst the works of the 
 Angelico, executed in the miniature style, this appears 
 to me to be truly beautiful, the little figures being exqui- 
 sitely designed and coloured. The cornice that adorned 
 this picture, (now divided into twelve pieces, each hav- 
 ing a little figure,) may be seen near the same door of 
 the sacristy ; but, although they possess great merit, no 
 one that has seen his Deposition from the Cross in Flo- 
 rence, will pronounce them to be his best performance. 
 To complete the entire picture, we want the points of 
 the upper part ; and, probably, the two little pictures in 
 the same sacristy formed a part of them. These represent 
 
 " In the first chamber of the Vatican Gallery, are two paintings with 
 three histories of the Saint; i.e., his birth, preaching, and miracles." 
 Nibby Itinerario di Roma, 1830
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 179 
 
 the Annunciation and the angel Gabriel, on a gold 
 ground. 1 They appear to me to have been executed by 
 the same painter, but I would not dare to affirm it. To 
 confute the error of Mariotti, who attributes the figures 
 we have been describing to Gentile da Fabriano, I think 
 it quite sufficient to remark that the same are over and 
 over again repeated in the paintings of Fra Giovanni 
 Angelico ; a peculiarity of this painter being, never to 
 vary the types of his images, which, though a hundred 
 times repeated, are always the same. The long expe- 
 rience which we have of this artist will not permit us to 
 doubt it for a moment. To this we may add, also, the 
 grave authority of F. Timoteo Bottonio, the Chronicler of 
 the convent of Perugia, by whom we are assured that the 
 same painter not only painted the picture in the Guida- 
 lotti chapel, but also that of the great altar of the ancient 
 church of S. Domenico, which was still existing in the 
 time of the Annalist, i. e. in 1570. E-osini 2 agrees in 
 Bottonio's opinion. 
 
 We do not know that the Angelico executed any work 
 for his convent of Foligno or for the other convents of 
 his Order in Umbria; and we are equally ignorant of 
 the length of his absence from Tuscany. But, although 
 the Chronicle of Fiesole states that it was of many years' 
 duration, I do not think that it exceeded four. At the 
 termination of this period, the pestilence showed itself in 
 Foligno ; and the death of the prior and of many of the 
 
 ' There are in the same place two panels with the same subject, but by a 
 different artist, both representing the Annunciation. The oldest, by an un- 
 known hand, represents the Holy Ghost in the form a dove, with the divine 
 fetus in its beak. This error appears in Pistoja, in a very ancient painting 
 on glass. 
 
 * Storia della Pittura, v. 3. This picture was taken by the French, and 
 restored at the general peace.
 
 180 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 religious relaxed that severe discipline which they had 
 established. This, indeed, was the usual result of this 
 terrible scourge. Meanwhile, Alexander V. died at 
 Bologna, and three years afterwards, (1413,) in Genoa, 
 Father T. di Fermo, Master -general of the Order, who, 
 from the opposition he met from many of his religious in 
 various parts of Italy, had bitter experience of the evils 
 that must result from doing violence to consciences. 
 When every apprehension of danger disappeared, and 
 when it had become irksome or perilous to remain in 
 Foligno, all the religious began to yearn for the sunny 
 hill of Fiesole. But, on account of non-residence, this 
 convent had fallen into the hands of the bishop. 
 Wherefore they set out immediately for Cortona, and 
 implored Cardinal Domenici to have their ancient domi- 
 cile restored to them. This must have happened about 
 1414.' 
 
 We think that it was about this time that Fra Gio- 
 vanni produced the paintings which are in Cortona, as 
 we cannot reasonably believe he could have executed 
 them during the period of his noviceship. 
 
 On the exterior fa9ade of the church of S. Domenico, 
 on the little arch over the entrance, he frescoed the 
 Blessed Virgin with her Son in her arms; and on 
 either side S. Domenico and S. Peter, martyr, in the 
 act of adoration. On the ceiling he painted the four 
 Evangelists. This work, despite the injuries of rain and 
 sun, through the course of four hundred years, retains 
 much freshness of colouring and a certain suavity of 
 
 1 " It was stipulated that three Friars should always reside in the convent, 
 and that if they left it either on account of pestilence or violence done to 
 them, and did not return within two months, they forfeited all right to said 
 convent." Ctiron. S. Dom. de Fesulis.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 181 
 
 pencil that reveals the Angelico; but the Evangelists, 
 having been less exposed, are better preserved. For the 
 same church he executed two pictures, only one of which 
 remains; the other, with its gradino, having been 
 removed to the oratory Del Gesu, near the cathedral. 
 That which is still in S. Domenico, in the lateral chapel, 
 near the grand altar, may, in some sort, be said to have 
 been a repetition of the other in S. Domenico of 
 Perugia, which we have described ; but it is so far supe- 
 rior to it in design and colouring, that I do not hesitate 
 to number it amongst the best of the Angelico's works. 
 He painted, moreover, a Madonna, of large dimensions, 
 seated on a throne, as he was always accustomed to 
 represent her, having on her knees the Child, Jesus, in 
 whose right hand he placed a rose ; angels, with baskets 
 of flowers and vases, are at the foot of the throne. On 
 the right of our Lady, on the same line, are S. John 
 Baptist, and S. John the Evangelist; on the left S. 
 Mary Magdalene and S. Mark. As the form of this 
 picture is, in its upper extremity, pointed, its vertex 
 exhibits a crucifixion, and on either side the B. V. and 
 S. John ; and in the two angles of the triangle, are 
 two circlets, in one of which is the Angel Gabriel, and 
 in the other an Annunciation. Here we find, with very 
 little variation, the same idea that we have recognised in 
 the picture at Perugia. He very often repeated this 
 same subject on panel and in fresco in Florence and 
 elsewhere, with the addition of other figures ; but he has 
 rarely excelled the perfection of these figures in drapery, 
 shading, grace or beauty. To this picture, probably, 
 belonged that gradino with the histories of the life of 
 S. Dominic, which is now in the church Del Gesu. If 
 the reader has visited Bologna, and seen the sculptures 
 that adorn the sepulchre of the holy Founder of the
 
 182 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Preachers, he must have observed how the same inspi- 
 ration and the same conceptions guided the chisels of 
 Nicola Pisano, Fra Guglielmo, Alfonso Lombardi, and 
 the pencil of Fra Angelico, all of whom vied with each 
 other in grace, poetry, and truth. In six compartments 
 he painted eight histories of the life of the Saint; and, 
 from time to time, by way of episodes to that epic, he 
 introduced some graceful little figures of saints, which, 
 far from violating the unity of the subject, tend to 
 heighten the beauty and perfection of the entire compo- 
 sition. First, there is S. Peter, Martyr, the wound in 
 whose head and breast tells how generously he laid 
 down his life for the faith; then comes the compart- 
 ment in which he executed two histories the first is 
 the vision of Pope Honorius III., who, after having 
 refused to sanction the new Order, dreamt that he saw 
 the Lateran Basilica falling, and S. Dominic sustaining it ; 
 the second is, S. Dominic meeting S. Francis of Assisi, 
 who, recognising each other by divine revelation, kneel 
 and embrace. The second compartment, like the first, is 
 divided into two parts, one of which represents the poor 
 cell, and the other the oratory of the saint. The perspec- 
 tive in both is admirable. In the oratory we see S. 
 Dominic before the altar in ecstacy receiving the gospels 
 and staff from Saints Peter and Paul, who send him 
 forth to evangelize peoples and nations. One of the 
 most charming figures in this composition is that of a 
 friar, who, setting out on his mission in obedience to the 
 command of his superior, pauses on the threshold of the 
 cell to steal a glance at this wonderful apparition. Next 
 comes a beautiful little figure of S. Michael the Arch- 
 angel, light, airy, and full of grace. In the third 
 compartment there are also two histories ; in the first, he 
 represents S. Dominic disputing with the Albigeois ; and
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 183 
 
 in the second the ordeal of fire, in which he depicts the 
 astonishment of the Saint's adversaries on seeing their 
 book burn and his unscathed. In the picture of the 
 saint resuscitating the young Napoleone at Rome, he 
 faithfully carried out the idea of Niccola Pisano, and 
 placed the afflicted mother near the dead body, imploring 
 the Saint to call back her son to life. Then follows the 
 figure of a martyr, beautifully painted. I am ignorant, 
 however, of the subject. By the dalmatic we know that 
 he is a holy deacon, and that the heavy weight suspended 
 from his neck describes the mode of his death. He 
 produced only one history in the compartment that fol- 
 lows ; and here he represents the Holy Founder seated 
 at table with his brethren, and the angels bringing 
 them food. In the last he painted the death of the holy 
 patriarch; and this, in my judgment, excels all the 
 others. The holy soul has been already borne into the 
 bosom of the Eternal by angels ; His bereaved children 
 surround the lifeless body ; some of them kiss his hands, 
 others raise their arms to heaven; some of them, almost 
 petrified by grief, fix their eyes on his beloved features ; 
 whilst others, tmable to restrain their tears, raise their 
 garments to their eyes. This is a work calculated to 
 awaken piety in every heart. The actual gradino has a 
 most graceful figure of S. Thomas of Aquino. All these 
 histories are beatifully designed and coloured, and are 
 most simple in their composition. 
 
 The picture, by the same artist, that passed from the 
 church of his Order to that of the Gesu, is an Annuncia- 
 tion of the Blessed Virgin; a subject much loved by Fra 
 Fra Giovanni. In painting the Saints, as we have 
 already observed, he always maintained the same types ; 
 whereas, in these of the Madonna and angels, he is 
 always varied and graceful. And although he some-
 
 184 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 times leaves us to desire more correct design and greater 
 boldness of outline, (a peculiarity of the great masters,) 
 nevertheless, none can excel him in that angelic purity 
 and supreme virtue that radiates from the countenances 
 of his virgins and angels. 1 This, that we now speak of, 
 is not, certainly, the most perfect, but it is not less 
 devout than the others. We will not undertake to de- 
 scribe it, as it is a repetition of a similar one which he 
 frescoed in the convent of S. Marco. Of this, the design 
 of which is more perfect, we will have occasion to speak 
 elsewhere. Here we find that he adhered to the Giot- 
 tesque traditions, as he introduces the usual salutation, 
 " Ave Maria gratia plena ;" as though he wished, by this 
 means, to invite the faithful to a more profound contem- 
 plation of the ineffable mystery. That this was the 
 object of the painter, there cannot be a doubt, since, in 
 his times, the use of such inscriptions had been univer- 
 sally discontinued, and an artist of his great power did 
 not need them to express or signify his ideas. 2 In the 
 wings of this angel there is a profusion of gold and 
 colouring unexampled in the other pictures of the same ; 
 nor does the drapery of this figure deserve so much 
 praise as that which we find in the generality of Fra 
 Giovanni's works. Here, indeed, it is too much elabo- 
 rated and confused. And since the Incarnation of the 
 Word is intimately connected with the history of our 
 first parents, he introduced into this picture a landscape 
 
 > I will here observe that Fra Angelico followed two different manners in 
 his paintings of our Lady. Those that represent her glorified are by far the 
 most beautiful. In these he always represents her clothed in white. 
 In these which represent her living on earth, he clothes her in red and 
 azure colours. 
 
 2 There are very few pictures, whether on panel or in fresco, by Fra Gio- 
 vanni, that have not some devout inscription at foot of the painting, or in 
 the aureole of the saints, and sometimes in their garments.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 185 
 
 of good perspective, in which he represented Adam and 
 Eve expelled from paradise ; thus to show that Mary was 
 made instrumental in repairing their tremendous rain. 
 This picture, and its two gradini, are in excellent pre- 
 servation. If we be allowed to conjecture that these 
 works were produced at different periods, I would say 
 that the Annunciation now in the Gesil was anterior to 
 that which is in S. Domenico. The former is feeble in 
 design ; whilst the latter may be classed amongst the best 
 of his works. 
 
 It remains for us to speak of the gradino on which he 
 described the Life of the Virgin, from her birth till her 
 death, in the same manner and proportions as he did 
 that of S. Dominic. Whosoever has seen these little 
 and most graceful pictures by Fra Angelico, which are 
 now in the gallery of the Uffizj at Florence, may form 
 an idea of the histories on this gradino, some of which 
 are repetitions of the former. The first compartment 
 exhibits the Birth of the Virgin : and it is manifest that 
 it must have been inserted at a late period ; or, perhaps, 
 it was taken away and restored to its proper place, since 
 it seems to have been divided from the panel. In the 
 second he painted the Espousals of the Virgin. In the 
 third the Visitation, which is truly charming. The 
 painter represents the consort of Zachary coming to 
 meet the Virgin of Nazareth outside her habitation, on 
 the threshold of which is a girl, who, unobserved, con- 
 templates the joyful greeting of the two mothers. At a 
 little distance is another woman, who, on bended knees 
 and with hands raised to heaven, gives thanks to God 
 for the wonders he has wrought in both. Most beautiful 
 are the two figures of Our Lady and S. Elizabeth. But 
 what renders this compartment really precious is a beautiful 
 landscape, so well designed and coloured, that the Ange-
 
 186 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 lico has no where excelled it. The fourth is an Adoration 
 of the Magi, in every way like that in the Uffizj. The 
 fifth is the Presentation in the Temple, with good archi- 
 tectural perspective. The sixth is the Death and Sepulture 
 of the Virgin ; and this, also, is a repetition of the most 
 delightful work, whiclTmay be seen in the same gallery. 
 The seventh is a history, which, in all probability, was 
 taken from the gradino of the life of S. Dominic ; as it 
 represents the Blessed Virgin, surrounded by a choir of 
 Angels, and directing the Blessed Reginald of Orleans, 
 a Dominican, to take the habit of the new Order. This 
 gradino is remarkable for the same excellences that are 
 to be found in that already mentioned. Nothing can 
 surpass the beauty of the images, the grace of the figures, 
 or their diligent execution; and as to the colouring, 
 which is in tempera, nothing can be more transparent 
 or lively. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Fra Giovanni returns to Fiesole. 
 
 WHILST Fra Giovanni was painting the life of our Lady 
 in Cortona, and that of the Holy Founder of his Order, 
 the Blessed Giovanni Dominici interested himself with 
 the Bishop of Fiesole, and Pope Gregory XH., to have 
 the convent which he founded restored to our friars. 
 Father Leonardi Dati, Master-General of the Dominicans, 
 was not less zealous in advocating their petition; till 
 finally, after many negociations, the Fiesolan bishop 
 yielded to their requests on condition that the religious 
 would present him with a vestment for the altar, worth a 
 hundred ducats. This was in the year 1418. This sum
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 187 
 
 was taken from a bequest left to the convent by the 
 father of S. Antonino, who died precisely at this period. 
 It happened, moreover, that in that very year a rich 
 Florentine merchant died and bequeathed to the convent 
 of S. Domenico at Fiesole, six thousand florins, which 
 he desired to be expended on enlarging the dimensions 
 of said convent. As soon as the absolute surrender of 
 the building had been formally made by the bishop, the 
 Father-General sent thither four religious of the convent 
 of Cortona, amongst whom, however, we do not find Fra 
 Giovanni or Fra Benedetto. But there is reason for 
 believing that all those who abandoned it in 1409 soon 
 afterwards followed the four. As soon as the building 
 was commenced, Fra Giovanni resumed his usual occupa- 
 tion of painting ; for wheresoever he went he strewed 
 flowers of art flowers which he seems to have culled in 
 Paradise. He strewed flowers on the mountains of 
 Umbria and Tuscany ; on the banks of Arno and Tiber ; 
 but the most beauteous and odoriferous that ever fell 
 from his hands were treasured for the loved and sunny 
 hill of Fiesole. And it was only just that the spot 
 whereon he sacrificed himself to his God, should be 
 adorned with the choicest fruits of his genius and piety. 
 Even though history had not narrated his virtues, the 
 very sight of these pictures would be quite sufficient to 
 record his humility his glowing charity, his contempt 
 of all earthly pleasures nay more, the tears and sighs of 
 a soul enamoured of heaven. 
 
 In giving the reader an account of the innumerable 
 works produced by Fra Giovanni we must observe, that 
 as he never inscribed them with dates ; and as no order 
 of time has been recorded by Vasari, we, following the 
 system already adopted, will classify them according 
 to reason and history. For although there is no great
 
 188 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 difficulty in discriminating the works executed by other 
 painters in youth and maturity their diversity of 
 manners and methods always enabling us to arrive at a 
 sure conclusion ; these of Fra Giovanni, on the other hand, 
 being characterised by a uniformity of design, shading, 
 colouring, and composition, leave us in great embarrass- 
 ment to discover which was first, and which last. Let 
 us not forget, however, that a few of his works are 
 executed with greater study and diligence than others. 
 
 In Fiesole, I believe, he painted many of these 
 little panels that are now in the Academy of Design at 
 Florence, and perhaps the doors of the armoury for the 
 silver utensils in the sacristy of the church of the Annun- 
 ciation in the same city. In his first edition Vasari num- 
 bered them amongst his earliest works ; and this appears 
 likely, as his first essays were in miniaturing and colouring 
 histories, as has been already said. Vasari praises 
 his diligence, but he should likewise have praised the 
 composition, which in many compartments is most 
 beautiful. We will not expend many words on these 
 rare paintings, that we may avoid prolixity. He under- 
 took to narrate the life of our Redeemer in thirty-five 
 histories, adding a specimen of symbolic painting, and 
 closing the series with a General Judgment, inferior in 
 dimensions, as well as merit, to his later works ; but yet 
 not without very great excellence. Especially worthy 
 of notice are the following : The Adoration of the Magi 
 The Flight into Egypt The Slaughter of the Inno- 
 cents The Resurrection of Lazarus Judas Selling 
 Christ to the Priests The Prayer in the Garden, etc., 
 all of which deserve much praise for their truth and 
 happy execution. One of the doors (of the armory) 
 seems to be far inferior to the others, and according to 
 the opinion of some, it should be attributed to another
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 189 
 
 artist. It is that which represents the following 
 histories,: The Nuptials in Cana The Baptism of 
 Christ, and the Transfiguration; but as to the merit of 
 this work of the Angelico, it will be better to hear the 
 opinion that Father Tanzini, (a man deeply skilled in 
 art,) has pronounced on it. 
 
 " But amongst his marvellous and innumerable pic- 
 tures, these that he executed for the armory in the chapel 
 of the Annunziata, built by Pietro di Cosimo dei Medici, 
 and now in the Florentine Academy of the Fine Arts, 
 are perhaps the most admirable. They represent the 
 life of our Lord, a favourite theme of our most pious 
 artist, which he often meditated. Hence, it is easy to 
 understand that he set his whole soul on it; and this 
 work alone by that sovereign genius, would suffice to 
 prove that in religious expression he stands superior to 
 every other that his soul was enlightened by a supernal 
 ray that his exquisite pencil was guided by faith. The 
 drapings, simple and majestic; the movements natural, 
 but full of dignity; the expression of the heads truly 
 celestial, render these ideal histories superior to praise ; 
 and they must be seen over and over again in order to 
 form a correct estimate of them. At first sight indeed, 
 like every other solemn and extraordinary painting, they 
 do not produce the effect that is usually the result of 
 more brilliant works; but which, on closer study, are 
 found to be indifferent. The more one contemplates 
 these of the Angelico, the more palpably does he behold 
 their arcane and ineffable excellences. The ignorant, 
 the learned, the sciolist who knows not the secrets of art, 
 cannot stand before these pictures without experiencing 
 unwonted emotions although he is utterly unable to 
 account for the fascination which they cause. Every one 
 must admire them, and experience in presence of them
 
 190 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 affections not material but spiritual nay, there is no one 
 who would not desire that his last gaze shojild rest 
 on these chaste images of Mary, the Saints, and the 
 Crucifix."! 
 
 For the church of S. Domenico in Fiesole, he painted 
 three pictures, and in the convent he frescoed two histo- 
 ries ; and as of the former only one remains, one of them 
 being now in Paris, and the other lost, we will describe 
 it in the words of Vasari. " He also painted the altar- 
 piece for the church of S. Domenico in Fiesole, and 
 this work, because it had been injured, was retouched, 
 and thus more injured by other masters; but the pre- 
 della and the ciborium for the sacrament are in better 
 preservation, and the little figures, surrounded by celes- 
 tial glory, which we see there, are so delightful, that 
 they seem to be of paradise, nor can one ever tire of 
 beholding them." 
 
 The historian, however, does not tell us what was the 
 subject of this picture; but it seems to have been the 
 same as that which alone, of the three by the Angelico's 
 hand, remained in that church, and is now actually in the 
 choir. It represents the Blessed Virgin seated on a 
 throne with her Divine Son. Here, as in his other 
 pictures, there are two saints on the right, and two on 
 the left, videlicit: S. Peter the Apostle, and S. Thomas 
 of Aquino, S. Dominic, and S. Peter, Martyr. Some 
 angels, in profound adoration, form a circle around 
 them. The composition, simple and graceful, maintains 
 the forms and manner of the Giottesque. Neither Vasari 
 nor the Chronicler of the convent informs us what the 
 predella represented; but the latter tells us that in 1501, 
 
 1 Some of these histories were beautifully engraved by A. Perfetti in his 
 Dlustraz. dell Acad. del disegno. (1843-4.) The entire (35 in number J have 
 been engraved and published by Nocchi.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 191 
 
 when the tribune was repaired, the grand altar being 
 removed to another site, this picture was restored by 
 Lorenzo di Credi ; and, as its form was pyramidal, they 
 most unwisely reduced it to a square, and added the 
 ornaments and little figures that surround it. After so 
 many vicissitudes it would be difficult to form a notion 
 of its merits. 1 I know not what became of the ancient 
 gradino ; some say that it is in the possession of Signor 
 Valentini in Rome. The ciborium was lost with the 
 predella. 
 
 The second picture was an Annunciation, of which 
 Vasari speaks thus : " In a chapel of the same church 
 is a painting of our Lady and the Angel Gabriel, the 
 profile of whose countenance is so devout, so delicate, 
 and so well executed, that it does not seem to be the 
 work of man, but of paradise ; and in the landscape, 
 forming the back-ground, he represented Adam and Eve, 
 whose crime rendered it necessary that the Redeemer 
 should take flesh of a Virgin. On the predella there are 
 also some most beautiful little histories." As we have 
 not seen this painting we cannot say more of it. We 
 will barely observe that it was sold (in 1611) to Mario 
 Farnese, for 1,500 ducats; and that a copy of it was left 
 in the church of S. Domenico. The latter shared the 
 fate of the original, and both are now lost. 2 " But 
 above all the works executed by Fra Giovanni," continues 
 Vasari, " and in which he surpassed himself, is the 
 painting which is in the same church near the door, as 
 you enter by the left. In this he represents Jesus Christ 
 crowning our Lady in the midst of a choir of angels, and 
 an infinite multitude of saints male and female. So 
 numerous are they, so well delineated, so varied their 
 attitudes, and the characters of their countenances, that 
 1 Cron. S. Dom. de Fesulis. 2 Vide Document No. v.
 
 192 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 one must feel incredible pleasure and sweetness whilst 
 beholding them. Nay, more, it seems as though these 
 blessed spirits could not be otherwise in heaven ; or, better 
 still, that they could not, even though they had bodies, 
 be more exquisitely pourtrayed. For all the saints, male 
 and female, represented here, are not only living and 
 characterised by a sweet and delicate expression, but the 
 entire colouring of this work seems to have been 
 executed by the hand of a saint, or an angel like them- 
 selves : and it was for this reason that our good religious 
 was always called Fra Giovanni Angelico. The histories 
 of our Lady and S. Dominic on the predella are so 
 divine in their way, that I can affirm that I never see 
 this work without discovering some new beauty in it, 
 and never tire of contemplating it." 1 Which words, 
 written in an age that recognised and appreciated no 
 beauty save the nude, and the imitation of Greek and 
 Roman statues, in my opinion, deserve much considera- 
 tion. Let those to whom the terms " mystic school and 
 mystic painting," (of which Fra Giovanni was the prince,) 
 appear to be dangerous innovations, and who dub the 
 inventors of such designations hypocrites and fanatics, 
 tell us why it was that the followers of Vasari, of Giulio 
 Romano, and Caracci never arrived at such perfection in 
 sacred painting. If they admit that before giving 
 expression to noble and grand affection, it must needs be 
 felt ; how will they deny that the heart and soul of Fra 
 Giovanni teemed with heavenly contemplations at the 
 period when he produced these wonderful works, that 
 have awakened such profound admiration even in Vasari ? 
 But if the term mystic painting (whose synonyme is devout) 
 
 l This painting is now in the Louvre. It was taken by the French in 
 1812. It is engraved by Schegel.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 193 
 
 seems intolerable to them, provided they admit the fact, 
 we will not reject it on such slight grounds, or quarrel 
 with them. 1 
 
 The two great frescos that Fra Giovanni painted in 
 the convent must now be spoken of. That with which 
 he decorated the refectory may be said to have been 
 almost lost ; but that in the chapter-room is admirably 
 preserved. These two histories were executed by the 
 Angelico at a later period, when he had attained to 
 wonderful perfection. The one in the chapter-room is 
 remarkable for the grandeur of its style, the softness and 
 harmony of its tints, and bold pencilling. But to begin 
 with the first. On the front wall of the refectory he 
 painted a Crucifixion, (life size,) with the Blessed Virgin 
 on one side, and S. John the Evangelist on the other : 
 at the foot of the Cross, kneeling, and seen from behind, 
 is S. Dominic ; but this last figure seems to have been 
 introduced at a subsequent period. We cannot now 
 appreciate the colouring or design of this painting, as the 
 hand of some very ignorant person, who undertook to 
 restore it, and the vandalism of the parties who got 
 possession of it, have all but cancelled it. The continu- 
 ator of the Chronicle of the convent of S. Domenico at 
 Fiesole, tells how it was restored by a young Florentine 
 artist, named Francesco Mariani, in 1556 ; but, heavens, 
 after what a fashion ! enlarging the outlines, and height- 
 
 1 It is hard to believe that in these days of enlightenment an outcry should 
 be raised against the cultivators of Christian art, attributing to them princi- 
 ples which they never maintained. The grand object, however, which they 
 have in view, is well calculated to console and stimulate them in this grand 
 pursuit. The accession of many learned men at home and abroad, has 
 tended much to forward the advance of Christian art ; and we would exhort 
 them to read the three allocutions pronounced by Antonio Bianchini before 
 the " Societa Bomana degli Amatori e Cultori delle Belle Arti." Florence, 
 1839. 
 
 VOJ-- I. K
 
 194 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 cning the colours, so as to efface altogether these delicate 
 mezzotints, these lines so beautifully varied, and the 
 simplicity of the drapery, in order to introduce all the 
 defects peculiar to an age when art was in its decadence. 
 Finally, when the convent was taken from the religious, 
 the refectory was turned into a fruit store, to the great 
 injury of this painting. 1 Notwithstanding, the beauteous 
 head of S. John is admirably preserved, as is also the 
 nude of the Redeemer. 
 
 But the history that he painted in the chapter-room, 
 though known to very few, is well preserved, and de- 
 serves to be classed amongst the best works of the Ange- 
 lico. Here he painted the Blessed Virgin seated, and, 
 as in the Perugian picture, holding the Divine Babe on 
 her knees. The Infant is nude, but the white veil that 
 covers our Lady's head and bosom falls gracefully over 
 Him. On her right is S. Dominic, standing ; on the left 
 S. Thomas of Aquino; both having an open book. 
 The Founder of the Preaching-Friars (a mode of repre- 
 senting him unusual to this painter) has his chin covered 
 with a flowing beard, and holds in his hand a lily, the 
 emblem of his virginity a simple composition, and well 
 calculated to awaken devout feelings in the spectator. 
 Few of the Angelico's works present more beauty in the 
 expression of the countenances, or more negligence in the 
 extremities and necessary accessories, than this does. 
 The type of the Virgin is perhaps less ideal than usual ; 
 it reminds us of Raffaello and Pietro Perugino ; and it 
 is impressed with such beauty and majesty, that we are 
 almost forced to kneel down and worship in presence of 
 that image. Wonderfully beautiful are the faces of S- 
 Dominic and the Infant ; that of S. Thomas is the most 
 
 1 Chron. S. Dom. de Fesulis.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 195 
 
 beautiful in its design and colouring. But we no sooner 
 set about examining the extremities of these figures, and 
 the folds of the drapery, than we are obliged to ask 
 ourselves, whether the same hand that outlined and 
 coloured the countenances finished the rest of the work. 
 So much so, that in many places we do not recognise these 
 exquisite foldings of the robes so peculiar to Fra Ange- 
 lico ; and the feet of S. Thomas and S. Dominic look 
 like a large blot. This led me to suspect that the same 
 artist who had attempted to restore the fresco in the 
 refectory, had likewise injured the drapery and the ex- 
 tremities of that in the chapter-room. A distinguished 
 painter, who examined it with me, is of opinion that it 
 exhibits evident signs of having been retouched at a later 
 period. 
 
 These are the works that Fra Giovanni executed for 
 the religious of his convent in Fiesole. He painted 
 something for the churches of the city, and I am assured 
 that in the church of S. Jerom there is a Madonna, a S. 
 Jerom, and other saints, by his pencil. But so many 
 works did this Father execute, writes Vasari, that one 
 must wonder how any one man, even in many years, 
 could have done so much, and so perfectly. It seems 
 that the Florentines vied with each other to obtain some 
 devout picture from the hands of the Angelico ; and that 
 the churches and oratories of the city sought them avidly 
 is evident from a catalogue which is still preserved. 
 During his sojourn in Fiesole, he indubitably executed 
 the tabernacle that is now in Florence, in the Gallery of 
 the Uffizj, near the entrance on the left hand. Baldinucci 
 has given us a precious document, which appears to.be a 
 memorial or contract, made by the Guild of joiners, for 
 whom it was destined. The celebrated sculptor, Lorenzo 
 Ghiberti, was requested to furnish the design, which did
 
 196 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 not prove to be very elegant. On the llth of July, 
 1433, the Guild of joiners signed the contract for the 
 painting of the said tabernacle in the following terms, 
 " They have empowered Fra Guido, (his primitive 
 name,) called Fra Giovanni, of the Order of S. Dominic 
 in Fiesole, to paint a tabernacle of our Lady, to be 
 painted within and without ornamented with gold and 
 silver colours and metals to be of the finest description 
 all to be executed by his workmanship and skill for 
 which they will give 190 gold florins, or whatsoever shall 
 appear to his conscience to be just. The figures are to be 
 these furnished in the design." 1 This option of deter- 
 mining the price of the work, which they leave to his 
 own conscience, clearly shows what a high opinion they 
 had formed of the artist's honour. This tabernacle is six 
 palms high by three wide. Its form is that of an armory; 
 and it has two doors, with a very strong lock. As the con- 
 tract stipulated, the painter coloured it within and without, 
 with great profusion of gold and silver, so as to make 'it 
 one of the most splendid things of its sort. In the inte- 
 rior he depicted Our Lady (life size) seated on a rich 
 cushion shot with gold. The azure mantle that falls 
 from her head to her feet, and covers her whole person, 
 is equally adorned with gold embroidery. On the Vir- 
 gin's knees sits the Holy Infant, clad in a beautiful tunic, 
 and holding the globe in His right hand. Around the 
 Virgin and Son, he introduced a troop of little angels, 
 playing on various instruments ; and they are so graceful 
 that they seem to have come down from heaven. On 
 the inside of the two doors he painted (also life size) S. 
 John Baptist and S. Mark, and on the exterior S. Peter 
 and S. Mark. This figure he repeated, because this 
 
 1 Baldinucci, Notizie dei Professor! del Disegno. Dccenn. 2, p. 1, deL 
 sec. iv. This tabernacle was removed to the gallery of the Uffizj, 1777.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 11)7 
 
 Evangelist was the patron of the Guild, and he desired 
 that, whether the tabernacle was closed or opened, they 
 should have him always before their eyes. At foot of 
 this armory, there must have been an embasement, with 
 three histories, somewhat like the gradini that he was ac- 
 customed to attach to his pictures. In the centre was an 
 Adoration of the Magi, and on the sides S. Peter preach- 
 ing and S. Mark writing. The subject of the third 
 picture was, a Sea in a tempest, and a Fury threatening the 
 persecutors of the Evangelists. These three panels were 
 removed from the tabernacle, and taken to the Gallery of 
 the Uffizj. This work, though executed in what may 
 be termed his grandiose style, is nevertheless defective in 
 chiaroscuro; but in my judgment this may be accounted 
 for thus. The Angelico, according to his custom, coloured 
 the figures with light and transparent tints, but as they 
 are on a gold ground, the excess of light that is reflected 
 will not allow the eye to rest calmly on the paintings. 
 This observation holds good in regard of some other 
 works from his pencil, which, when taken out of the 
 sombre, religious light of the churches for which they 
 were executed, and exposed to the glare of the great 
 windows in public Galleries, cannot produce the effect 
 which they would doubtless have if viewed in their 
 original position. 1 
 
 Amongst the works of his youth, Vasari mentions 
 three pictures which in his time were to be seen in the 
 Certosa of Florence ; two of which have been lost, and 
 the third taken from the veneration of the faithful, is 
 now exposed to gratify the curiosity of persons visiting 
 the gallery of the Uffizj. We will speak of the first two 
 
 1 This painting has been engraved by Signer Livy.
 
 198 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 in the words of the historian " One of the first works 
 in painting executed by this father was in the Certosa of 
 Florence, where he painted on panel, an altar-piece for 
 the chapel of Cardinal Acciajuoli. It represents our 
 Lady with her Son in her arms, and some angels at her 
 feet who play on instruments and sing. On the sides 
 are S. Laurence, S. Mary Magdalene, S. Zanobi, S. 
 Benedict; and on the predella (base) are many little 
 histories of these saints, executed with infinite diligence. 
 In the same principal chapel are two other pictures by 
 the same hand ; in one of which is a Coronation of our 
 Lady, and in the other a Madonna with two saints, in 
 ultramontane blue they are most charming." But as 
 he does not make further mention of the Coronation, 
 (which is still preserved,) we will endeavour to describe 
 it, as it is one of the most splendid of the Angelico's 
 productions. 
 
 This picture of the Coronation is about two palms and 
 a half in height and breadth. In the upper part, a most 
 lucent gold ray beams from the centre, and forms the 
 ground of the picture ; in the midst is the Blessed Virgin 
 seated at the right of her Son. Instead of being clothed 
 in white, as his crowned Virgins usually are, her mantle 
 is azure, studded with very small gold stars: her hands 
 are sweetly crossed on her bosom, and the head and 
 whole person are gently bent in an attitude of affection 
 and reverence. This idea is supremely mystical, and the 
 artist kept the interpretation of it to himself. A troop of 
 angels, beautiful as possible, encircle her, some playing 
 on every sort of instrument ; whilst others, hand in hand, 
 move as in a dance. In the under part are two who 
 profoundly adore, and offer incense out of thuribles; 
 whilst two others wake melodies from their harps from
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 199 
 
 the countenances and movements of them all radiate 
 grace, ecstacy, and marvellous affection. In presence of 
 this picture we are reminded of Dante's Vision : 
 
 " On every side the living flame decayed, 
 And in that, midst their sportive pennons, wav'd 
 Thousands of angels ; in resplendence each 
 Distinct, and quaint adornment. At their glee 
 And Carol, smil'd the Lovely One of heav*n, 
 That joy was in the eyes of all the blest."* 
 
 In the under part of the picture, disposed in beautiful 
 order, he introduced on the right and left a great host of 
 saints who, to use Allighieri's thought, rejoice in the 
 sight, and in these celestial harmonies. On one side are 
 S. Nicholas di Ban, S. Egidius Abbot, S. Dominic, S. 
 Jerom, S. Benedict, S. Peter, and S. Paul, Apostles, 
 with many others ; on the other side are S. Mary Magda- 
 lene, S. Catherine, Virgin and Martyr, with many female 
 saints, amongst whom he painted S. Stephen, Proto- 
 Martyr, and S. Peter the Dominican Martyr, because the 
 Church calls the former the protector of the weaker sex, 
 and because the latter was illustrious for his singular 
 love of virginity. No eloquence could describe the 
 impressions which this work is calculated to produce. 
 The heart has a language for which it cannot at all times 
 find words, and we can never contemplate this picture 
 without yearning for heaven. Oh ! may all the paintings 
 employed by the Catholic church be like to this : for we 
 would be thus spared many of the invectives which 
 those who are not of us, are accustomed to heap on our 
 veneration for sacred images, which are often far more 
 efficacious in inculcating virtue than even the words of 
 man! 2 
 
 1 Paradise, Canto xxxi. 
 
 * It has been engraved excellently by Buonajuti of Florence.
 
 200 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Perhaps we would not err in classing amongst the 
 best works that the Angelico executed at Fiesole, the 
 painting for the nuns of S. Pietro in Piazza, which is 
 now in the gallery of the Uffizj, near the entrance, and 
 the Deposition from the Cross which is in the Academy 
 of Design, in the gallery of the little pictures, marked 
 No. 43. The design and composition of both seem to 
 me to be much in the Giottesque style ; and although they 
 possess wonderful merit, particularly the Deposition, 
 we refrain from describing them ; since the first, if we 
 except some little figures, bears great resemblance to the 
 Perugian picture of which we have spoken ; and as to 
 the second, since we have to write of another Deposition, 
 in every way far superior to it, we do not deem the 
 omission unreasonable. 1 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Fra Giovanni and Fra Benedetto go to Florence The building of the new 
 Convent of S. Mark Paintings hy the Angelico for the Church and 
 Convent of his Order, and for the city of Florence. 
 
 WE have now arrived at the most splendid period of the 
 Angelico's life. "Well indeed does it merit this predicate, 
 by reason of the number of his works, and the great 
 perfection to which he had attained in design, chiaros- 
 curo, and perspective. Here, however, we deem it our 
 
 1 This Deposition was painted for the Confraternity of Holy Cross, (del 
 Tempio,) and amongst the Marys and the disciples weeping over the lifeless 
 body of the Redeemer, he introduced S. Dominic and the Blessed Villana, a 
 tertiary of the Dominican Order, who was buried in S. Maria Novella. This 
 picture was placed in the Gallery of the Academy, A.D. 1786. Richa, 
 Notizie 1st
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 201 
 
 duty to introduce the reader to that portion of pictorial 
 history that records the termination of the ancient, and 
 the beginning of the modern school. A memorable 
 epoch truly, and for the imitative arts, one of supreme 
 glory. Had its duration been longer, history would have 
 nothing to record that could equal it. For whilst the 
 people were struggling between tyranny and liberty; 
 whilst philosophy was engaged with its deliriums about 
 judicial astrology, and multiplying comments on the 
 Stagirite ; whilst the civil code was cruel and oppressive, 
 and religion itself suffered desolation from the schism, 
 the arts were gradually approaching that sovereign 
 excellence to which the genius of Leonardo da Vinci 
 and Raffaello were destined to raise them ; till, with the 
 rapidity that signalised their advancement, they began to 
 fall into decay and ruin. 
 
 When the Angelico left his early instructors, in order 
 to take the Dominican habit in Fiesole, the old school 
 of Giotto may be said to have exercised sovereign sway 
 over the arts ; but so tenacious was it of the ancient 
 methods and primitive traditions, that it did not make 
 that progress which might have been reasonably expected 
 during such a lengthened period. Stefano of Florence, 
 was the only one who had attempted to solve the great 
 difficulties which accompanied the management of light 
 in perspective, and his attempts had no very remarkable 
 results, and were not certainly equal to the requirements : 
 nevertheless, the labours of many had sowed the seeds of 
 the new reform ; which being lovingly cultivated by 
 glorious genius, soon gave an increment to art. In two 
 respects they improved design and colouring; and to 
 effect that amelioration in the former, they applied -them- 
 selves to the study of perspective, not according to vague 
 and uncertain theories, but with the aid of Geometry, in 
 
 K2
 
 202 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 which Piero della Franccsca and Fra Luca Pacioli, tlie 
 Minorite, were deeply skilled. Paolo Uccello learned it 
 from Giovanni Manetti, Brunellesco from Paolo Tusca- 
 nelli, and Father Ubertino Strozzi, the Dominican. 1 
 
 Sculpture and goldsmith's work improved colouring as 
 far as lights and shades were concerned. It was thus 
 that Masolino da Panicale who, being a goldsmith, 
 painter, and sculptor, and consequently obliged to model 
 in plaster, learned how to give relief to his figures by 
 means of shading. He it was who helped Ghiberti to 
 polish the bronze gates of S. Giovanni. Hence, in the 
 Renaissance of art, sculpture preceded and aided painting, 
 as it did in the days of Niccola Pisano, in the 
 thirteenth century. The glory of this reform is entirely 
 attributed to Masaccio ; but on calm reflection it must be 
 admitted that he found the way smoothed for him, and 
 many of the chief difficulties that attended painting 
 almost removed; whereas, Masolino, after finding art 
 poor and defective, elevated it marvellously. Of him we 
 may well affirm what has been said of Giotto, that he 
 invested painting with new attributes, changing it from 
 the antique to the modern. Vasari lauds Masolino's 
 works for their grace, the grandeur of their style, the 
 softness and unity of their colouring, and the relief of the 
 figures, although he does not think their design perfect. 
 It is, nevertheless, indubitable that Masaccio followed the 
 precepts of his master, and dated the commencement of 
 the modern school. They and their followers gave a new 
 character to composition ; so much so that the figures 
 were no longer disposed symmetrically on a horizontal 
 line or on inclined planes, as was usual with the 
 
 i This distinguished Friar is honourably mentioned in the Chronicles of S. 
 M. Novella. He was a renowned mathematician and engineer in his times. 
 Borghigiani, Cron. Ann. ad ann. 1413.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 203 
 
 Giottesque on the contrary, their figures were placed 
 gracefully in various attitudes round the throne of the 
 Virgin and the Saints. They likewise attempted the 
 nude, but timidly, and they varied the arrangement and 
 the robing of the figures; giving to the heads more 
 life, and a certain simplicity that must ever charm us. 
 Abandoning the use of gold grounds they substituted 
 elegant fabrics, graceful landscapes, and a variety of 
 beautiful accessory adornments. All the painters of this 
 truly golden age are remarkable for that rare sobriety in 
 which there is nothing superfluous, and nothing defective ; 
 and the eye reposes tranquilly, and the heart affectionately 
 on their beauteous works. But it is not for us to repeat 
 what others have already written, or to describe how at 
 a, subsequent period the study of all the branches of design, 
 and the imitation of the antique and real, insensibly 
 caused artists to substitute the means for the end; or 
 how when art had reached its climax, sentiment began 
 to be utterly disregarded. But let us return to where 
 we left oiF. When Giovanni Angelico set out from 
 Fiesole for Florence, to paint in the new convent of S. 
 Mark, (1436,) Masolino da Panicale was dead; Masaccio 
 in all probability was decorating the Carmine j 1 Brunel- 
 lesco was erecting the wondrous cupola of S. Maria del 
 Fiore; and Lorenzo Ghiberti had just finished these 
 gates of the baptistery which Michelangelo pronounced 
 to be worthy of Paradise. Donatello and Luca della 
 Robbia were at this period vieing with each other in 
 sculpture and works in plaster. The sight of so many 
 
 i Lanzi says that it was not likely that the Angelico, who was then of 
 mature age, would have set about learning from Masaccio, who was still 
 very young ; nevertheless the history of art records many examples of this. 
 Hist, of Painting.
 
 204 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 monuments of splendid genius soon taught the Angelico 
 that he had yet much to learn ; and that in order to 
 render his celestial meditations still more acceptable to 
 the people, he must needs apply himself intently to the 
 study of perspective and chiaroscuro. And though now 
 matured in years, and with a name bruited abroad, he 
 did not fail to devote himself to such studies. He 
 therefore sat down to contemplate Masaccio's works in 
 the Carmine; nor need we observe that Leonardo da 
 Vinci, Buonarroti, Raffaello, and others, learned their 
 earliest lessons there. 1 
 
 The convent of S. Mark, whose history is identified 
 with that of religion, literature, arts, and politics, was 
 founded towards the close of the thirteenth century. It 
 had belonged to the Silvestrine monks, till the begin- 
 ning of the fifteenth, when, at the prayers of the 
 Florentines, supported by Cosimo dei Medici, Martin 
 V. took it out of the hands of its original owners, (for 
 whom he provided on the other bank of the Arno,) and 
 granted it to the reformed religious of the convent of S. 
 
 The Church of the Carmelites 
 
 " In this chapel wrought 
 One of the Few, Nature's Interpreters, 
 The Few whom Genius gives as Lights to shine, 
 Massaccio ; and he slumbers underneath. 
 Wouldst thou behold his monument ? Look round ! 
 And know that where we stand, stood oft and long, 
 Oft till the day was gone, Raphael himself; 
 Nor he alone, so great the ardour there, 
 Such, while it reigned, the generous rivalry ; 
 He and how many as at once called forth, 
 Anxious to learn of those who came before, 
 To steal a spark from their authentic fire, 
 Theirs who first broke the universal gloom, 
 Sons of the Morning." Rogers' Italy.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 205 
 
 Dominic in Fiesole. 1 In the year 1436 Pope Eugenius 
 IV., who was then in Florence, " ordained that the 
 Dominicans should take possession of it in great state 
 and solemnity. Three bishops of Taranto, of Trevigi, 
 and Parentino, accompanied the monks, who were pre- 
 ceded by the mace-bearers of the Signory, sent thither 
 to add to the pomp. Father Cipriano da Firenze then 
 took formal possession of it in the name of his religious 
 society." 8 Then it was that Cosimo dei Medici employed 
 Michelozzo Micchelozzi, the architect, to build the actual 
 convent and library on the site of the old one, and also 
 to enlarge the church and convent, on which he would 
 have lavished his well-known magnificence, had he not 
 been requested by the friars to have regard to their 
 modesty and religious poverty. On the buildings he 
 expended thirty-six thousand gold ducats ; and, during 
 the period of the works, he gave, for the support of its 
 new inmates, three hundred and sixty-six crowns an- 
 nually. He also gave fifteen hundred more for the 
 purchase of books, as well as for the miniaturing of the 
 Choral-books; not to speak of other sums which he 
 bestowed to meet various contingencies. Little did the 
 magnificent Cosimo imagine that he was then preparing 
 an asylum for that terrible Savonarola, who was destined 
 to dispute the dominion of Florence with his posterity ! 
 
 In 1437 the architect commenced the building, by 
 constructing twenty cells for the religious, and restoring 
 the roof of the church, which was in a ruinous condition. 
 The principal chapel having been completed in 1439, 
 they set about decorating the church ; and it was at this 
 period that the frescos of Pietro Cavallini and Lorenzo 
 
 1 Annali del Conv. di S. Marco. 
 
 2 Richa. Notiz. 1st. delle Chiese Fior., T. 7.
 
 206 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Bicci, which adorned it, were destroyed. Of the former, 
 happily there still remains a most beautiful Annuncia- 
 tion, which proves that the same idea guided the hand 
 of the unknown painter of that which is in the church of 
 the Senates and of Cavallini, in S. Mark's, so as to lead 
 Vasari to believe that they were both by the same artist. 
 In 1441 the restorations and the adornments of the 
 church must have been completed. In the following 
 year, on the Feast of the Epiphany, it was solemnly 
 consecrated by Cardinal Niccolo Acciapaccio, Arch- 
 bishop of Capua, in presence of Pope Eugene IV., and 
 the College of Cardinals. The building of the convent 
 was finished in 1443, but, according to Vasari, in 1452, 
 and, according to Father Richa, at a period posterior; 
 for he tells us that only the first cloister and the dormi- 
 tories over it were finished in 1451, and that the founda- 
 tion having been discovered to be too weak, the whole 
 was taken down, and built out of the new. A statement 
 which I believe to be quite true. The first cloister and 
 upper dormitories were painted by the Angelico, and 
 this must have been before 1445 ; since, about that time, 
 he set out for Rome, where he died. We must, there- 
 fore, follow the authority of the Chronicle. The last 
 work was the library, which, for its architecture, is not 
 surpassed by any in Florence. It is eighty braccia long, 
 by eighteen wide, and its ceiling is supported by two 
 rows of columns of the Doric order. This was the first 
 that was ever opened in Italy for the public benefit ; and 
 its librarian was the celebrated Tommaso di Sarzana, 
 afterwards Pope Nicholas V., who, as we shall see, loved 
 and esteemed the Angelic Painter. 1 
 
 1 This library possessed the greatest quantity of Greek works then in 
 Italy ; heuce it was called La Greca. When the Republic decreed Savona-
 
 , SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 207 
 
 Having determined the dates of the building, we will 
 speak chronologically of the paintings which were sub- 
 sequently executed by Fra Giovanni ; as we will thus be 
 enabled to correct some errors that have escaped Bal- 
 dinucci and Professor Rosini. The first-named asserts 
 that the paintings in the cloister of S. Mark should be 
 reckoned amongst the productions of his youth ; whereas 
 it is indubitable that, if he began to paint them even in 
 1436, that is, when the Dominicans obtained the con- 
 vent, the Angelico must have been forty -nine years of 
 age; but, supposing them to have been executed in 
 1440, (and I, for my part, think it very likely,) he 
 could not then have been less than fifty-three. As to 
 what Rosini states, namely, that Fra Giovanni had 
 finished the painting of the chapter-room in 1415, (if 
 this be not a typographical error,) I hold it to be false, 
 for the reasons already alleged. 1 
 
 When the Preaching-Friars got possession of their 
 new domicile, they all firmly resolved to deserve well of 
 the Florentine people, who had given them such signal 
 proofs of their esteem and veneration. S. Antonino 
 realised this by his preaching, as well as by the moral 
 and historical works that he published, and the Angelico 
 and Fra Benedetto, by these glorious developments that 
 shall evermore class them amongst the greatest artists of 
 the world. And, indeed, if the religious of S. Marco 
 could not boast that they erected the church and con- 
 vent by their own architects, as their confreres of S. 
 
 rola's death, all the books, MSS., <fec., were taken from the religious. This 
 happened May 8, 1498. They were restored, however, in the October of 
 1500. The inventory made by Tommaso Sarzana (Pope Nicholas V.) for 
 Cosmo de Medici, has been discovered. 
 
 1 Baldinucci, Notiz. dei P. del Disegno Vita di F. G. Angelico. Rosini 
 Storia delta Pitttira, v. 11.
 
 208 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Maria Novella had done, they might be justly proud of 
 having decorated the one and the other by the agency 
 of their own painters, of whom they had many. 
 
 It was, probably, during the restoration of the church 
 of S. Mark that Fra Giovanni commenced painting the 
 picture for the great altar of that church. It is that of 
 which Vasari speaks in the following terms : " But 
 singularly beautiful is the picture of the grand altar of 
 that church, for the Madonna not only excites to devo- 
 tion, as do the saints who encircle her and resemble her, 
 but the predella, on which are histories of SS. Cosmas, 
 Damian, and others, is so well executed, that it is impos- 
 sible to imagine anything more diligently elaborated, or 
 in which the figures could be more delicate or better 
 defined." 
 
 In this picture, where there is a perceptible deviation 
 from the Giottesque method, it appears that the Ange- 
 lico made an attempt to approach the new school, not 
 so, however, as to diminish the religious effect of the 
 work. For, instead of placing the figures that are on 
 the right and left of the Virgin's throne, on a horizontal 
 line, in symmetrical order, as he was hitherto wont to do, 
 he has here grouped them in a variety of attitudes, as 
 though they were paying court to the Queen of Heaven. 
 On the right are S. Dominic, S. Francis, S. Peter, 
 martyr; on the left S. Laurence, S. Paul, and S. Mark, 
 the Evangelist, with some angels ; and in the foreground, 
 kneeling, are SS. Cosmas and Damian, whom we 
 find in almost all the paintings he produced in Florence, 
 as they were the patrons of the Medicean family. 
 
 This painting would appear to have been executed in 
 his grandiose style; but we cannot now judge of its 
 merits, as far as colouring, relief, and expression, are 
 concerned. It has been much injured, I know not
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 209 
 
 whether by damp or retouchings ; so much so, that scarcely 
 a trace of its ancient beauty remains. The gradino, it 
 seems, was divided into many parts, and some of them 
 were placed on the altar of S. Luke, in the chapel of the 
 Painters, in the cloister of the Anmmziata. Perhaps, to 
 the same belonged that history of SS. Cosmas and Da- 
 mi an healing the infirm, which is now in the gallery of 
 the Little pictures in the Academy of Design, marked 
 39, and the other of the Burial of the Five Martyrs, 
 marked 45, which is a sequel to the History of the 
 Martyrs, which may be seen on the said gradino in the 
 chapel of S. Luke. 1 Neither the Memoirs of the convent 
 nor Vasari state that he executed any other work for 
 his church: but, instead of doing so, he set about deco- 
 rating the convent. And most certainly he was well 
 skilled in fresco-painting, and as polished in composi- 
 tions of this sort as in these of which we have been 
 speaking. Nay, more, it would appear that in his latter 
 years he preferred this style, which requires great 
 promptitude of intellect and hand ; and that he possessed 
 both, is easily seen by the works which he produced in 
 Florence, Rome, and Orvieto. These, his last works, 
 shared a better fate than the others ; for, as ultramontane 
 depredators could not carry them away, they were left in 
 the holy temples to excite the piety of the devout wor- 
 shipper ; and, what is more, they were thus preserved 
 
 1 In this same Gallery is another picture by the same, better preserved than 
 the preceding, in which he repeated the same subject, varying only some 
 figures. Much merit as this picture may possess, it is very inferior in the 
 figure of the Virgin and Child, whilst it excels in these of S. Francis, and S. 
 Peter Martyr, which are divinely coloured and designed. It has been en- 
 graved in the collection of Antonio Perfetti, and illustrated by La Farina. 
 Another Picture by the Angelico in the same Gallery of the Little pictures, 
 marked 31, is worthy of consideration. The subject is the Virgin and Infant. 
 The heads of both are beautiful and graceful.
 
 210 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 from the desecration of being exhibited in the public 
 galleries side by side with obscene productions. 
 
 As we mean to speak of the frescos which he painted 
 in the cloister and cells of the religious, which are over 
 forty in number, we have deemed it wise to mention 
 only such as are best worthy consideration, that we may 
 avoid prolixity. Another reason for this is, that we 
 have every hope of seeing them all engraved very soon 
 by Signer Antonio Perfetti, of the Royal Academy. 1 
 In the first cloister, which is now called S. Antonino's, 
 (because it is ornamented with many histories of the 
 Saint, by various masters,) opposite the entrance, he 
 painted a Crucifixion, life size, and S. Dominic embrac- 
 ing the holy rood ; the figures in which are designed 
 and finished with great excellence. Nothing can be 
 more happy than the Angelico's style of depicting the 
 Crucified Redeemer ; for, instead of following the exam- 
 ple of his contemporaries, who pourtrayed Him as dead, 
 and with evident marks of excessive agony on the coun- 
 tenance and whole person, and all the contortions of a 
 violent and cruel death, he, like the painters of the 
 ancient school, represents Jesus as still living, pouring 
 most copious streams of blood from His holy wounds ; and 
 he impresses on the face such calm, such serenity, and 
 such tender affection, that every one must see how the 
 Man-God truly suffers for His love of us, a sentiment 
 which is calculated to awaken compunction in the heart 
 
 ' A great many, and certainly the most perfect of these frescoes, designed 
 and coloured by M. Laborde, have been published in Paris : " Fresque du 
 Couvent de Saint Marc, & Florence ; par Beato Angelico da Fiesole, dessine'es 
 BUT les Origineaux par M. H. de Laborde, et reproduces en Chromo-Litho- 
 graphie, par les Precedes de MM. Englemann et Graff, par MM. Moulin, 
 Blanke, Colette, et Sanson, sous la Direction de M. Paul Delaroche ; pre- 
 cedls d'une Notice Historique sur Beato Angelico, par Ludovic Vitel."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 211 
 
 of the spectator. Over the door that leads to the sacristy 
 he executed a half-figure of S. Peter Martyr, indicating 
 silence. He has the forefinger raised to his mouth ; but 
 far more impressive, and far more calculated to invite us 
 to silence and recollection is the severe, I would almost 
 say threatening, aspect of the Saint. Over the other doors 
 he also executed, in half-figures, S. Dominic, with the 
 discipline in his right hand, and the Rules of the Order 
 in his left; and a Pieta, or Jesus Christ rising from the 
 sepulchre, and pointing to the wound in His side. A 
 figure of wonderfully religious effect; for which the 
 Mystic School had great predilection, as they frequently 
 repeated it in and out of Florence. Over the door of the 
 ancient Guest-house, he painted our Lord, in the garb of 
 a pilgrim, receiving hospitality from two Dominicans. 
 The three figures are so beautiful, so devout, and so well 
 coloured and designed, that I do not hesitate to class 
 them amongst the most perfect works he executed for S. 
 Mark's. Then over the other door there is a half figure 
 of S. Thomas of Aquino ; but this, as well as that of S. 
 Dominic, is very much injured. 
 
 But the history that he painted in the chapter-room is 
 alone sufficient to demonstrate the splendid genius and 
 piety of the artist ; nor do I remember to have seen any 
 where such a grand and sublime conception, despite the 
 tenuity of the means, so efficaciously expressed. Others 
 may excel him in colouring, shading, and in the details 
 of drapery; but no other man shall ever surpass him in 
 filling the human bosom with tenderness and sorrow. 
 
 On a vast superficies of thirty-two palms in length, 
 and little less in height, he painted the Crucifixion of 
 our Lord, in figures as large as life. According to Vasari, 
 he was charged by Cosimo dei Medici to execute this 
 work. The composition, however, was left to the choice
 
 212 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 of the painter ; for he did not like to be trammelled by 
 the severe canons of art in whatever concerned the unity 
 of the subject and the truth of the history. The scope 
 of all his works was to move and instruct. Nothing that 
 tended to this result was omitted by him, and he regarded 
 everything else as extraneous to the object he had in 
 view. 
 
 Any of the schools that followed, which would have 
 undertaken such a difficult theme, would, doubtless, have 
 filled the scene with executioners, soldiers, scoffers, 
 horsemen, and an immense multitude of spectators; 
 neither would they have omitted a fair landscape with 
 beautiful perspective, in a word, they would have 
 sought to please by a diversity of objects and a resem- 
 blance to the real. They cared little for touching the 
 heart, or causing a single tear to flow: not so with the 
 Angelic, who followed the traditions of the ancients, 
 and the impulses of his piety. His sensitiveness would 
 not allow him to cater to the tastes of the Medici, who 
 were the patrons of those who painted the nude accord- 
 ing to the antique. The subject was too sacred and too 
 dear to the painter. Before applying himself to hfe work, 
 he prostrated himself at the foot of the crucifix, like S. 
 Thomas of Aquino, before solving questions on religion, 
 metaphysics, and law ; the tears streamed from his eyes, 
 his heart throbbed audibly in his breast, his soul crossed 
 the confines of this world, and he then arose, seized 
 his pencil, and set him to his labour. No matter how it 
 resulted, he never retouched it, for he regarded the first 
 conceptions formed in his mind as heavenly inspirations, 
 to which he could not add or alter without irreverence. 
 
 In the chapter-room, of which we speak, he painted 
 the Redeemer on the Cross, and on either side of Him the 
 two thieves. At the foot of the Cross, and on both sides of
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 213 
 
 it, he introduced a great multitude of Saints. The figure 
 of the Redeemer is one of rare beauty and noble form : 
 the nude is slightly Giottesque ; nevertheless, it is, in my 
 judgment, far superior to the carnose forms of the Cinque- 
 centists, not excepting even these of Fra Bartolommeo 
 della Porta. The nude of the two thieves is inferior; 
 but on the countenance of one of them, you read the 
 assurance of pardon, whilst that of the other bears the 
 stamp of blasphemy and a despairfulness that seems a 
 foretaste of hell. At the Cross's foot, on the right, he 
 painted the Virgin, who has swooned, and is supported 
 by S. John and one of the pious women. Magdalene 
 throws herself forward to help her, and clasps her in 
 her arms. This is a group so beauteous and so touching 
 that it does not yield to Razzi's Swoon of S. Catherine 
 da Siena a composition that* fills every eye with tears. 
 Then follows a beautiful figure of the Baptist, well 
 designed and well coloured, pointing with the index 
 to that Saviour whom he had preached to the multitude 
 in the wilderness. S. Mark kneeling, points to the book 
 of the Gospels, in which he has described the life 
 and death of the Redeemer. The last figures are SS. 
 Laurence, Cosmas, and Damian. On the left a new 
 scene, not less tender and devout, presents itself. Here 
 are eleven saints, for the most part Founders of the 
 Religious Orders, who seem to meditate the Passion of 
 Christ, and it may be that the Angelico introduced 
 them to show that they had partaken copiously of the 
 fruits of the Redemption ; and as the chapter-room was 
 meant to be the place for admonishing, correcting, and 
 inspiring the religious with fervour for the observance of 
 conventual discipline, perhaps, he desired to present 
 them these saints as grand models for their imitation. 
 And first we see S. Dominic prostrate at foot of the
 
 214 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Cross, wrapt in profound contemplation ; a figure excel- 
 lently designed and coloured. Then follows S. Zanobi, 
 bishop of Florence, who meditates the vaticinations of 
 the prophets, realised in the Redeemer, to whom he 
 points with his finger. That bald old man, with white 
 beard, wasted and emaciated by years and fastings, is the 
 great Jerom, in whose breast the love of the Cross blunted 
 the keenest passions, and who seems to beg aid in his 
 most direful need. Then comes S. Augustin, who medi- 
 tates and writes. The Patriarch of the Franciscans, the 
 poor one of Christ, is prostrate on the ground, in the 
 most overwhelming dolor : a wonderful figure, in which 
 there is indescribable affection. S. Benedict is in deep 
 meditation ; but I know not whether the Passion of the 
 Lord or the revival of monastic discipline in the West 
 has most of his thoughts. S. Bernard lovingly gazes at 
 the Crucified, and, with both hands, clasps a volume to 
 his bosom that dear volume into which he has poured 
 the tender effusions of his heart. S. Romuald, bending 
 neath the weight of years, supports his feeble body on a 
 staff, and seems buried in some profoundly sad thought. 
 A solitary, that I take to be S. John Gualberto, sobs and 
 weeps. The last are two Dominican Saints, S. Thomas 
 of Aquino, who contemplates the sublime mystery which 
 saved the human race, and of which he wrote so wisely ; 
 and S. Peter Martyr, whose gaping wound tells how he 
 gave to Christ blood for blood. What is still more 
 remarkable in this work is, that the common grief per- 
 vading all the saints, finds, in each of them, a different 
 expression, according to their respective characteristics. 
 In St. Jerom we see it warm and impassioned, in S. 
 Francis and S. Bernard, tender and expressive; and in 
 S. Thomas of Aquino, sublime and meditative. This, 
 indeed, is a work as worthy of a great philosopher as it
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 215 
 
 is of the Angelic painter : a work that reminds us of the 
 Theban Aristides, who boasted that he could paint the 
 soul and its passions. It proves, however, that Fra Gio- 
 vanni had begun to adopt the improvements which were 
 introduced into art at this period in Florence. The 
 figures in this composition are remarkable for flowing 
 drapery, as also for the expression of the heads, not to 
 speak of the relief and great power of the design. I 
 must observe, however, that I am not satisfied with the 
 extremities, in which there is a negligence not unusual 
 to him; nevertheless, whenever he wished he removed 
 such blemishes. Let us advert, too, that this work bears 
 evident marks of retouching ; and what is still worse, the 
 primitive ground, which may have been azure, was 
 removed and substituted (when and by whom I have not 
 been able to discover) by one of glaring red, which has 
 injured the outlines of the figures. 
 
 In order to develop still more effectively this devout 
 meditation, the painter executed, on the ten hexagons 
 that surround the arch of the ceiling, ten half-figures 
 of Prophets and Sybils, holding certain scrolls with 
 words relative to the Passion of our Lord ; and they are 
 as beautiful and graceful as it is possible to imagine. 
 On the frieze that runs under the fresco the entire length 
 of the fagade, he executed, in ten small circles, the por- 
 traits of S. Dominic and the illustrious men of his insti- 
 tute. We have elsewhere told how the Dominicans of 
 the convent of Trevigi, a century before, had caused 
 Tommaso da Modena to paint similar works in the 
 chapter-room of S. Niccolo, of which there is a mediocre 
 engraving in Father Federici's book. The friars of S. 
 Mark's desiring to have a series of portraits, sent to 
 Trevigi to procure copies of these executed by the said 
 Tommaso da Modena. Fra Angelico painted S. Dominic
 
 216 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 in the centre of the picture, supporting with both his 
 hands, the trunk of a tree, the branches of which extend, 
 right and left, thirty-two palms; and from which hang 
 down sixteen medallions. It is to be deplored that, in 
 times subsequent to the Angelico, some one removed the 
 names which he had originally inscribed, and introduced 
 others nowise relevant to the personages whom he repre- 
 sented. At present we read on the right the names of 
 Innocent V., Cardinal Hugo, Father Paul of Florence, 
 S. Antonino, the Blessed Jordan of Saxony, the Blessed 
 Nicholas, (the provincial,) the Blessed Remigio of Flo- 
 rence, and the Blessed Buoninsegna, the Martyr. On the 
 left we find these of Benedict XI., the Blessed John Domi- 
 nici (Cardinal), the Blessed Peter dellaPalude, (called the 
 Annotator,) Albertus Magnus, S. Raymond de Pennafort, 
 the Blessed Chiaro da Sesto, the first Roman provincial, 
 S. Vincent Ferrar, and the Blessed Bernard, Martyr, 
 probably one of the three slain at Avignon, in 1240. 
 The Saints have an aureole, and the Beatified, rays of 
 gold. 1 We do not need much critical acumen to perceive 
 that the name of S. Antonino must have been added at a 
 much later period ; for independently of the fact that this 
 picture nowise resembles the various portraits of the 
 Saint, the Angelico could not have painted the holy 
 Archbishop with an aureole, or the insignia of an arch- 
 bishop, whilst he was still living, and nothing more than 
 a simple religious of the convent of S. Marco. More- 
 
 1 For a very learned dissertation on this department of Christian iconography, 
 v. Father Oudin's Archeologie Chretienne, Bruxelles, 1847. We here transcribe 
 as much as we deem necessary on the subject : " Les signes characteristiques 
 des divers personnages en Archeologie, sont la gloire, le nitnbe, et Vaurecle. 
 Par le mot Gloire, on entend ordinairement, dans un sens gcnerique, un orna- 
 ment que les artistes, les peintres, et les sculpteurs mettent, soit autour de la 
 tete, soit autour du GOBI'S de quelques personnages. "
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 217 
 
 over, under the name of S. Antonino, we can trace the 
 remains of a very ancient inscription. We may also 
 question these of S. Vincent Ferrar and the Blessed 
 Giovanni Dominici ; or, at least believe, that the aureole 
 of the former and the rays of the second were introduced 
 at a more recent period. These portraits are very beau- 
 tiful but very much injured, and particularly in the 
 eyes. 1 
 
 The Chronicle of the convent of S. Marco mentions 
 another painting by Fra Giovanni, which he executed 
 for the refectory of the same convent. It was a Cruci- 
 fixion, and probably a repetition of that in the refectory 
 at Fiesole, with the Blessed Virgin and S. John on 
 either side. 2 It no longer exists, and we may suppose 
 that it was destroyed to make room for the great fresco 
 by Antonio Sogliani, which represents S. Dominic seated 
 at table with his brethren, and served by angels. This 
 work, executed in 1534, is amongst the best productions 
 of this painter, who was a very happy copyist of Fra 
 Bartolommeo della Porta, and in some instances excelled 
 n Frate. 
 
 But by far the most remarkable of Fra Giovanni's 
 works singularly remarkable for the elegance of the 
 figures are these frescos in the convent which can bear 
 comparison with the most excellent productions of our 
 age, renowned for the number and ability of its artists. 
 
 " Nimbe en archeologie, c'est le cercle lumiueux dont les peintres ou les 
 sculpteurs ornent la tete de la Divinite ou des Saints. 
 
 " L' Aureole est le nimbe de tout le corps, de meme que le nimbe est 1'Aureole 
 de la tete," etc. 
 
 1 During the French occupation, the soldiers extracted the pupils from 
 the eyes of all the figures. They did the same to these of the beautiful 
 gradino of the life of S. Niccolb in Perugia, which, as we have already said, 
 was carried off to France. 
 
 2 Annal. S. MarcL fol. 6. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 He determined to adorn the cells and dormitories of the 
 religious with subjects calculated to elevate their souls 
 and hearts to God, to keep them always in mind of their 
 heavenly destination, and of the glorious examples given 
 them by the Saints. This idea, in all likelihood, was 
 suggested by S. Antonino. We rejoice that we are able 
 to give the reader a vivid notion of these simple, yet 
 wonderful works of the Angelico, as they have hitherto 
 been unnoticed by the historians of art, or seem at least 
 to have been little known to them. Their subject was 
 not, as M. Montalembert supposes, the life of the Blessed 
 Virgin, but that of Jesus Christ, and he barely gives us 
 as many passages out of the history of the former as were 
 necessary to illustrate that of the Son. They are taken 
 for the most part from these thirty-five histories of our 
 Lord, which he painted on the doors in the Annunziata, 1 
 with the addition of a Dominican Saint, according to 
 the devotion of the religious who inhabited the cell. 
 
 We will now follow the order of the history, but not 
 that of the cells, and confine ourselves to a notice of the 
 principal pictures, leaving the others to be described in 
 Signer Perfetti's work. The first that presents itself is 
 an Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, in the upper 
 dormitory, the figures of which are somewhat less than 
 the life-size. On a superficies, ten palms in length, he 
 painted the habitation of our Lady, surrounded by a 
 vestibule, which rests on Corinthian columns, much in 
 the style of that which he executed at Gorton a ; and 
 though the perspective is not perfect, it is better than 
 that of the former. On the outside is the little Garden 
 of Mary, enclosed by a thick hedge and railing ; a figure 
 employed by the Church to denote her unblemished 
 virginity. The Holy Maiden of Nazareth is seated on 
 
 1 I. E. on the doors of the armorv in that church.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 219 
 
 an unadorned chair; the colour of her tunic is a pale 
 red, her azure mantle falls in folds over her knees, her 
 arms are crossed on her bosom, and her countenance, if 
 not remarkable for great beauty, is resplendent with the 
 calm serenity of Paradise. Her fair hair falls grace- 
 fully on her shoulders, and so humble and devotional is 
 her whole attitude, that in the presence of this dear 
 image, we almost feel the Angelical Salutation, " Hail 
 full of Grace," trembling on our lips. But that no one 
 should be so insensate as to refuse her that homage, our 
 painter inscribed the words at foot of the painting. 1 The 
 figure of the Archangel is truly beautiful. A sweet smile 
 plays on his celestial features, and bending one knee, and 
 crossing his arms on his breast, he seems to await 
 anxiously the announcement of Mary's consent: it is 
 thus that Dante has described him. 2 Whoever has seen 
 the beautiful Annunciation in the church of the Servites, 
 or the admirable one by Cavallini in S. Mark's, will 
 readily admit that the mystic school in treating such 
 subjects was infinitely superior to the painters of succeed- 
 ing ages. Truly, indeed, has an illustrious writer 
 described why it is that modern artists never succeed in 
 painting true love, chastity, faith, hope, or the peace of 
 the just. (All of which are wonderfully embodied in 
 
 1 The words are, " Virginis intact dutn veneris ante figuram, pretere- 
 undo cave, ne sileatur Ave." And at top, "Mater pietatis et totius 
 Trinitatis nobile triclinium. Maria." 
 
 2 " Say, who that angel is, that with such glee 
 Beholds our Queen, and so enamoured glows, 
 Of her high beauty, that all fire he seems, 
 , . In him are summ'd 
 Whate'er of buxomness and free delight 
 May be in spirit, or in angel met : 
 And so beseems, for that he bare the palm 
 Down unto Mary, when the Son of God 
 Vouchsafed to clothe him in terrestrial weeds." 
 
 PARADISO, c. xxxii. (Gary.)
 
 220 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 this work.) With what truth has he asserted that, " our 
 love is very often a mere relaxation of hate ; our faith, 
 the faith of critics ; our hope, a violent passion ; and our 
 calm, more threatening than the tempest." 1 
 
 The Nativity, a most charming work, and in admira- 
 ble preservation, is a repetition of that in the Annun- 
 ziata church. The Presentation reminds us of Giotto's 
 conception, which may be seen in his little pictures in. 
 the Academy of Design. Nothing could be truer than 
 his manner of pourtraying the affection of the Mother, 
 or the jubilee of the aged Simeon, clasping the Promised 
 One in his arms. Although this picture has sustained 
 injury at the hands of some one who removed the pri- 
 mitive ground, it is still very beautitul, particularly in 
 the heads of Simeon and the Mother. But, where the 
 Angelico may be said to have excelled himself, (as is 
 admitted by all,) in design, chiaroscuro, colouring, and 
 truth of expression, is in the Adoration of the Magi. 
 In this work it would seem as if he had undertaken to 
 prove that he was not prevented by the difficulties of 
 art from arriving at perfection in a certain style of com- 
 position ; but rather by the severe maxims that he pro- 
 fessed. Nay, more, he clearly shows that he was able 
 to avail himself of all that was beauteous in Masolino da 
 Panicale and Masaccio, without violating, in the sim- 
 plest particular, any one of the canons of Christian art. 
 Beautiful as are the two little pictures on the same sub- 
 ject which are now in the gallery of the Uffizj of the 
 Florentine Academy, this is transcendently superior to 
 them. 
 
 Cosimo dei Medici had caused an apartment to be 
 built for him in the convent of S. Marco, in order that 
 
 1 Tomrnaseo, Nuovi Scritti.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 221 
 
 he might have greater facilities for his intercourse with 
 S. Antonino and the two artist-brothers. This apart- 
 ment was the abode of Pope Eugene IV., when he 
 assisted at the consecration of the church, in 1442. It is 
 therefore very probable that this painting, allusive to the 
 Feast of the Epiphany, on which day the consecration 
 took place, was executed precisely at that period for the 
 adornment of the Pontifical chamber. Fra Giovanni 
 Angelico felt himself bound to give a proof of his genius 
 which would correspond with the magnificence of the 
 two guests, and bear evidence of the love with which he 
 cultivated these arts, of which Cosimo was naturally, 
 and politically, a munificent patron. 
 
 The back ground presents a distant view of the moun- 
 tains of Judea ; and, in order that nothing might seduce 
 the eye or the soul from the contemplation of the princi- 
 pal subjects, he divested them of verdure and foliage. 
 Hollowed in the living rock is seen the miserable grotto 
 which first sheltered the Saviour. The poor Virgin is 
 seated, and has her Divine Son on her knees. On her 
 left is her spouse, who contemplates an offering made 
 by one of the Kings. Before them, prostrate on the 
 ground, in most profound adoration, is a hoary-headed 
 king, the first of the Magi, who, having laid down his 
 diadem, approaches his lips to the Divine Infant, who, 
 with childish grace, blesses him. Behind him is the 
 second, who kneels, and evinces anxiety to perform the 
 same act of devotion. The third, the youngest of the 
 three, is standing. Then follows a long train of foot- 
 men and servitors, admirably arranged and grouped; 
 some of whom discourse animatedly; and in order to 
 show that these princes were skilled in astronomy, 
 he placed in the hand of one of them an armillary 
 sphere, as though he would thus seek to account for that
 
 222 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 wonderful star which had lighted their way to Beth- 
 lehem. This idea is beautifully expressed. The others 
 are engaged with the horses ; but nothing can be more 
 graceful than the last figure on the left, which represents 
 a man endeavouring to gaze at the star, beaming over 
 the grotto, whilst he uses his hand to protect his eyes 
 against its blinding rays. Speaking of the artistic 
 merits of this work, we may say that the Blessed Virgin 
 and Infant are supernaturally beautiful. Nothing could 
 have been better designed and coloured than the first of 
 the Magi, nor can anything better express his burning 
 desire to kiss the holy feet of the Redeemer. The two 
 other figures of the kings possess equal merit for the 
 nobility and grace that beam from their countenances; 
 but no words of ours could describe the perfection of 
 that group of courtiers and pages, who, gathered toge- 
 ther, converse about the wondrous event. In fact one 
 knows not which should be most praised, the beauty of 
 the attitudes, or the arrangement of the draperies, that 
 are in every respect worthy of the most celebrated 
 painter. No one will refuse to recognise in the whole 
 composition a happy imitation of that life and grace so 
 peculiar to Masolino ; and these characteristics are chiefly 
 noticeable in the relief which the Angelico has given to 
 all the figures. The extremities are well designed ; nor 
 does the entire lack a single beauty calculated to gladden 
 the heart or the eye. We grieve to think that time has 
 done much injury to this work ; nor do I know if it be 
 in man's power to preserve it from approaching ruin. 
 
 Of great merit are also the following histories The 
 Sermon on the Mount The Transfiguration The Insti- 
 tution of the Sacrament, in which, following the method 
 of the Giottesque, he painted the Apostles seated at the 
 mystic Supper, and Jesus with the chalice in his left
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 223 
 
 hand whilst he presents to them the consecrated host 
 with his right. No one may ever hope to excel him in 
 depicting the wonder, the tender devotion and impatient 
 desire of the disciples to receive that divine food. In 
 the Prayer in the Garden, in order the better to express 
 the weakness of the Apostles at that terrible moment of 
 the Lord's dereliction, he represents them as buried in 
 profound sleep, whilst Our Lady and Martha in the dis- 
 tance pray and meditate. The same encomiums may be 
 bestowed on the Treason of Judas ; and still greater on 
 the history where he painted the Redeemer spurned by 
 Herod and his army. As the profound devotion of the 
 Angelico would not allow him to represent the sacred 
 humanity of the Redeemer exposed to fiendish outrage 
 and derision, he studied to make His divinity appear 
 under the lowly garb of His mortality. He therefore 
 painted Jesus seated in great majesty on a throne, but, 
 though blindfolded, the transparency of the veil allows 
 us to see His eyes, which are stern and threatening. His 
 right hand holds the globe, and the left, instead of a 
 scepter, a bunch of rods. Of the scoffers we can only see 
 the hands and faces. The white garment that covers 
 Him is beautifully draped. Seated at the foot of the 
 throne are the Dolorated Virgin and S. Dominic, on the 
 right and left; the latter, whose attitude is graceful, 
 holds an open volume on his knees, and profoundly 
 meditates the humiliations of the Divine Word. Motived 
 by the same tender devotion, instead of exhibiting the 
 Redeemer writhing under the scourger's lash, he repre- 
 sents Him bound to the pillar ; and places before Him S. 
 Dominic, who inflicts the discipline on his own -naked 
 shoulders. He painted the Crucifixion in many of the 
 cells ; and in that inhabited by the writer of these Me- 
 moirs, he represented Christ ascending the gibbet, to
 
 224 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 show the spontaneity of His death, and Mary fainting 
 and falling into the arms of Magdalene, at foot of the 
 Holy Rood. In the contiguous cell he painted the 
 Doloured Virgin and S. John weeping bitterly; then 
 follow portraits of S. Dominic and Thomas of Aquino, 
 absorbed in the contemplation of this ineffable mystery 
 of love. 
 
 Omitting the others, I will now speak of three which, 
 after the Adoration of the Magi, excel all these that we 
 have been describing. In the Marys at the Sepulchre, fol- 
 lowing the Evangelical description, he painted a tomb 
 hollowed out of the living rock, within which we be- 
 hold the white marble sarcophagus of the Redeemer 
 uncovered. In the upper part of the same is Jesus Christ, 
 Risen, and holding in His hand the triumphal ensign. 
 The pious women who had come with spikenard and per- 
 fumes to bestow their last offices of love on the Re- 
 deemer's body, are three figures excellently designed, 
 and expressive of such profound grief, that they awaken all 
 our sympathies. The most beautiful, however, apparently 
 not the work of human pencil, is the angel who, seated 
 on the threshold of the Sepulchre, gracefully tells the 
 disconsolate women, that Christ has risen. He also in- 
 troduced S. Dominic meditating the glory of that Resur- 
 rection; and this figure is truly angelical. The upper 
 part of this fresco has suffered some injury. The Descent 
 to the Limbus 1 of the Fathers that he painted in Saint 
 Antonino's cell, according to Rosini, has more power and 
 poetry than any of his other works. On the threshold of 
 a most gloomy cave, is seen the noble figure of the Re- 
 deemer, who triumphantly strikes down the infernal gate, 
 which crushes Lucifer, just as we see him represented in 
 Memmi's picture in the chapter-room of S. Maria Novella. 
 This idea was derived from the Greeks by the Giottesque.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 225 
 
 The Saviour stretches out His right hand to Adam, be- 
 hind whom comes an immense multitude of souls in great 
 jubilation. As often as I have contemplated this paint- 
 ing, in which there is great truth of expression united to 
 a most happy conception, so often have I said to myself 
 that nature destined the Angelico to embody none but 
 tenderest and devoutest ideas ; nay, more, I am persuaded 
 that he possessed such a fervid imagination, and such 
 abundant imagery, that in these respects he may com- 
 pete with the greatest artists. 
 
 The last of the frescos, and most beautiful of them all, 
 in which he displays such mastery in depicting the inef- 
 fable joys of heaven, is the Coronation of the Blessed 
 Virgin. This, indeed, is far more celestial than his pic- 
 ture on the same subject now in the gallery of the Uffizj. 
 We, however, will endeavour to describe how the artist 
 developed his devout conception ; for, indeed, we confess 
 our inability to express the sensations which this glorious 
 work has awakened in our heart. He painted the Virgin 
 seated on a white cloud, which is overarched by a 
 charming rainbow; She is robed in white, her arms are 
 folded on her bosom, a gentle smile is on her lips, and 
 she leans gracefully forward towards her Divine Son. 
 Mid all the glory, she is the humblest of all. The Word 
 is seated by her side, and seems to crown her. He does 
 not, however, hold the golden diadem in his hands ; on 
 the contrary, he barely touches it with the extremity of 
 His fingers, as though he had ordered it to go and encircle 
 His mother's temples a sublime idea that reminds us of 
 the creative Fiat. He also wears a white robe, which is 
 shaded with a light tint of chiaroscuro, and appears to 
 be as subtile as the air. In the drapery of these -figures 
 the Angelico has excelled himself. At their feet he 
 painted three Saints on the right and three on the left ; 
 
 L2
 
 226 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 they also stand on a white cloud, and are wrapt in extacy, 
 contemplating this glory. Here he has more closely fol- 
 lowed Dante ; for he disposed these six figures on a semi- 
 circular line, as though they constituted one of these gar- 
 lands of Blessed spirits who incessantly sing and dance 
 round the throne of the Eternal. They are SS. Paul, 
 Thomas, Francis, Benedict, Dominic, Peter Martyr; and 
 they all have their eyes and hands raised to heaven. 
 From their countenances beam joy and beatitude. 
 Whosoever stands in presence of it, may almost fancy 
 himself translated to the society of the Blessed. The 
 tinting of this history is so delicate and transparent, and 
 the pencilling so fine that it looks more like a celestial 
 vision than a painting ; and, perhaps, it appeared as such 
 to the devout artist in the act of colouring it. 1 On the 
 wall of the second dormitory, he also painted the Blessed 
 Virgin and her Son surrounded by many Saints. The 
 figures are admirably designed and finished. 
 
 These, in my opinion, are the best frescos that he 
 painted in the Convent of S. Marco; they are all well 
 preserved, but unfortunately the same cannot be said of 
 these that he executed in the cells on the right of the 
 second dormitory, which have been so injured that many 
 of them are lost ; and others reduced to a most deplorable 
 state by retouchings. 
 
 This precious gallery this glorious monument of 
 Italian Painting, was near being destroyed at the begin- 
 ning of the current century by the barbarians who came to 
 civilize Italy ; and who, in their wisdom, concluded that 
 a piazza of larger dimensions than the actual, was of far 
 
 i There is a copy of this Coronation, hy Father Serafino Guidotti, 
 a religious of this convent, who, following the example of Fra Giovanni, 
 Angelico, and Bartolommeo della Porta. gives great promise of future 
 excellence.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 227 
 
 greater importance than all these works by the 
 Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo della Porta. The pa- 
 triotism of Signor Alessandri saved us from this Van- 
 dalic demolition. 
 
 CHAP. VII 
 
 Paintings by Fra Angelico for the other Churches of Florence. 
 
 OUR painter was not so intent on embellishing his own 
 church and monastery, that he would refuse to gratify his 
 friends who, from time to time, sought some devout 
 image at his hands ; on the contrary, such was his kind- 
 liness of disposition, that he was wont to say to those who 
 importuned him, " see that the prior be satisfied, and I 
 will not fail to oblige you." The Dominicans of S. 
 Maria Novella desired that their church, which was 
 adorned by the works of the most illustrious Florentine 
 artists, should not lack some from the pencil of their con- 
 frere, who was now regarded as one of the most splendid 
 of the Christian artists. They, therefore* invited him to 
 paint some history in the nave of their church ; and he 
 accordingly depicted S. Dominic, S. Catherine of Siena, 
 and S. Peter, Martyr, together with some little histories in 
 the chapel of our Lady. These works, which were either 
 on panel or in fresco, no longer exist, having been de- 
 stroyed, perhaps, at the restoration of the church, when 
 (together with the frescos of the Giotto school) the 
 Twelve Apostles, that stupendous work by Masaccio, were 
 
 1 On the site of the actual altar of the Rosary, there was formerly a Cru- 
 cifixion by the chisel of Masaccio, and on the sides some frescos of Saints 
 by the same. The Crucifixion was removed to the Sacristy, where it is at
 
 228 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 wholly cancelled. Somewhat more fortunate were the 
 little pictures on panel which Fra Giovanni had executed 
 many years before for Father Giovanni Masi, a religious 
 of that same convent ; these were four reliquaries and a 
 painting for the Paschal candle. 1 At present only three 
 of them remain, the fourth having been carried off, and 
 the ornaments of the candle lost. I have never looked 
 at the first without experiencing a sense of admiration 
 and love for the painter; they are so beauteous, so 
 devout, and so graceful. In one of them he painted the 
 Coronation of the Blessed Virgin, and a choir of Angels. 
 The manner in which he has depicted these celestial 
 spirits is incomparable. At foot of the throne there is a 
 multitude of saints, so beautifully coloured that nothing 
 more exquisite can be imagined. On the base, he 
 painted the Virgin, and S. Joseph adoring the Infant, 
 with angels on either side. The second reliquary he 
 divided into two compartments ; in the first he painted 
 an Annunciation ; and in the second, the Adoration of 
 the Magi; and it is wonderful how he could have 
 enclosed so many graceful figures within such narrow 
 limits. On the base are some Virgins with our Lady, 
 who holds the Infant in her arms. In the third he 
 repeated the subject of the Tabernacle, which is in the 
 gallery of the Uffizj, with some slight deviation. In 
 this, the Virgin, instead of being seated, is standing, 
 surrounded by a choir of Angels, who sing and play on 
 
 present, and the paintings are hidden from view by an inferior work of Vasari, 
 painted in 1570, for which he received 1800 lire. 
 
 1 " Habemus et multas plurimorum sanctorum reliquias quas quidam Fr. 
 Joannes Masius Florentinus multse devotionis et taciturnitatis vir, in quatuor 
 inclusit tabellas, quas Fr. Joannes Fesulanus pictor cognomento Angelicas, 
 pulcherrimis beatissimse Mariae Virginis et Sanctorum Angelorum ornavit 
 figuris." Ib. Fr. J. Masiua, 1430. BUiotti Chron, MSS.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 229 
 
 various instruments. On the base there are half figures 
 of S. Dominic, S. Thomas of Aquino, S. Peter Martyr, 
 and two angels. And whilst on the subject of these 
 little pictures on panel, we will briefly advert to these 
 which are in the gallery of the Uffizj ; and which, in my 
 opinion, were the gradini of larger pictures ; for he never 
 painted any Saint, male or female, whose life he did not 
 narrate in little histories at foot of the picture. We 
 have already alluded to the Adoration of the Magi, and 
 the two histories of S. Mark, which were taken from the 
 Tabernacle that belonged to the Guild of Joiners. 
 There are also in the same gallery, two of the Blessed 
 Virgin, and one of S. John Baptist, that is the Espousals, 
 and the Transit of the Virgin : and Zaccharia calling the 
 child John. Of the first, Professor Rosini writes in these 
 terms : " It (the Virgin) derived such purity, and such 
 loveliness of features from the hands, or rather from the 
 heart of Fra Angelico, that in simple expression of 
 most chaste affection, it excels all his antecedent works, 
 and leaves us to doubt whether he was surpassed even by 
 Raffaello in the picture now in the Brera. 1 But oh, how 
 beautiful is that in which he describes the Transit of Holy 
 Mary ! It must be seen in order to form an idea of Fra 
 Giovanni's skill in miniature, to which the diligent 
 execution of this work assimilates it. He has here 
 faithfully followed the traditions of the ancient masters 
 in all that regards the life of the Virgin, and the whole 
 composition may be regarded as a reflex of the tender 
 feelings of the artist's heart, while engaged in colouring 
 it. He painted our Lady extended on the bier ; and to 
 show that death could nowise injure that most holy 
 
 1 Storia della Pittura, v. 2, p. 2, p. 257.
 
 230 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 form, wherein the Son of God abode ; he depicted her 
 radiant in loveliness, and as though she were sleeping, 
 tranquilly. She is encircled by the Apostles who have 
 come to offer her the homage of their tears ; and their 
 countenances exhibit sorrow intense and resigned. At 
 the head of the bier are two Angels, who act as acolytes, 
 and between them is an Apostle who pronounces the 
 eulogium of the defunct. But the most charming figure 
 of all is that of Jesus Christ descending from heaven in 
 great effulgence, and clothed in an azure chlamys, studded 
 with countless golden stars, who having lovingly taken 
 the Soul of Mary into His arms, (the painter represented 
 it in the form of a beautiful child,) blesses it before 
 conducting her body into heaven. This idea was 
 developed by him less happily in Cortona. 1 
 
 We will close the series of the works which he exe- 
 cuted for the city of Florence, with two pictures by his 
 pencil which may be termed chefs-d'oeuvres of Christian 
 art. Speaking of this painter, I have to regret that nature 
 has not gifted me with a power of eloquence capable of 
 conveying an adequate idea of his marvellous excellence ; 
 so much so, that whenever I fix my eyes on the Deposi- 
 tion from the Cross, or on the Final Judgment that he 
 has delineated so admirably, I deem it wise to be silent : 
 for in truth language has no words capable of describing 
 the beauty of these productions which seem to have been 
 conceived in a moment of divine ecstacy. They are a 
 
 1 The modern historian of our paintings has given us an engraving of a 
 Transit of the B. V. M., by Paul Veneto, painted in Vincenza, 1330, in 
 which the Soul of Mary is represented in the form of a beautiful child, sur- 
 rounded by a choir of Angels. The three pictures the Espousal, the Tran- 
 sit, and the Nativity of S. John have been engraved in the Galleria di 
 Firenza Illustrata. Serie i. Tav. 30, 105, 106.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 231 
 
 celestial harmony that inebriates the soul with ineffable 
 delight ; and the more profoundly it is felt, the more dif- 
 ficult it is to express it. 
 
 The painting of the Deposition from the Cross, which 
 has been removed from the Church of the Holy Trinity, for 
 which it was executed, to the Academy of Design, is 
 about seven palms high by eight wide ; its upper part is 
 pointed, or to speak more intellegibly, is in the form of 
 three triangles, which are divided from the principal 
 painting by a gilded cornice. The points and cornice 
 are beautifully chiselled and painted, the former being 
 ornamented with many little histories, and the latter with 
 some minute figures of Saints, somewhat larger in their 
 dimensions, and certainly far more perfect than those 
 which he executed in the Perugian painting already de- 
 scribed. Contrary to his usual idea, he here represents 
 Mount Calvary clothed with flowers and verdure, as 
 though he meant to signify that the footprints and blood 
 of the Redeemer caused the most beautiful vegetation to 
 flourish on that accursed hill. That such was the paint- 
 ter's idea may be collected from the fact of the distant 
 mountains in the back ground (the perspective of which 
 is admirable,) being treeless and herbless, if we except 
 here and there some isolated palm. On the opposite side 
 is a good perspective of Jerusalem, designed and finished 
 with incredible diligence. The figures are disposed in 
 three groups ; in the centre are two disciples, who, stand- 
 ing on the steps of the ladder that leans against the 
 Cross, lower the Redeemer's body; at the ladder's foot 
 two disciples support the sanctified remains, and the 
 youngest of the two who betrays such wonderful emotion 
 is the Evangelist John; a fifth prostrate on the 'earth 
 adores the body, and raising his hand to his breast seems 
 to say, " / should have died this ignominious death!"
 
 232 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 The group on the left presents six figures, one of which 
 holds the thorny crown in his right hand, and in his left 
 the bloody nails wherewith the Redeemers hands and 
 feet were digged ; whilst he exhibits them to an old man 
 who contemplates them in profound dolor. This thought 
 has been most happily expressed by Donatello in the 
 basreliefs on the pulpit of San Lorenzo; and also by 
 Pietro Perugino in that glorious Deposition from the 
 Cross, which I regard as the most precious ornament in the 
 Pitti Gallery. Two of the disciples gaze intently on 
 the dead body of Christ, and in their midst is one who, 
 unable to restrain his tears, buries his face in his hands and 
 sobs almost audibly. " If thou weep'st not now, say, what 
 
 will cause thy tears to flow ?"* The group on 
 
 the right is composed of pious women. Whosoever 
 would find the tender and loving Magdalene let him seek 
 her at the feet of Jesus. The Angelico represents her 
 supporting them and imprinting her last kiss on them. 
 Behind her, is the Mother. Oh! what a woe- 
 begone Mother ! Grief and agony have so wrung her 
 heart, that the eye knows not on which of the two objects 
 it should rest the lifeless body of the Lord, or on her, 
 the most afflicted of women ! Who can behold this 
 work and not feel love and sorrow stirring in his heart ? 
 Two women hold the winding-sheet, and two others 
 contemplate the poignant anguish of Mary ; but the last 
 figure at the side is the most beautiful of all ; it is that 
 of a woman whose whole person is robed in a violet 
 mantle, which she gracefully gathers over her bosom, thus 
 revealing only the exquisite beauty of her face. The 
 figure of the Redeemer is perfection itself, and nothing 
 can exceed the softness of the lines or the delicate trans- 
 parency of the mezzotints. The nude which exhibits 
 
 i Se non piangi, di che pianger suoli ?
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 233 
 
 the stripes of the scourge and the marks of the nails is 
 most correct. The anatomy is well defined ; nor is there 
 a single trace of that harshness that offends us in the 
 productions of the Giotto school. 
 
 In the triangles are three histories, which the intelli- 
 gent in art suppose to be the work of a more ancient 
 painter. In the centre one is the Resurrection ; in that 
 on the right, Magdalen and the Marys : and, on the left, 
 the " Noli me tangere." In the cornice, partly whole 
 and partly half figures, are twenty saints of rare beauty. 1 
 To fix the attention of the spectator, he introduced, at 
 the foot of the work, some passages of the Scripture 
 allusive to the death of the Redeemer. 2 Like that of 
 the Adoration of the Magi, (in fresco,) the design of this 
 picture is correct, and the colouring very beautiful. The 
 attitudes, as well as draperies, are elegantly disposed, and 
 the countenances are noble and expressive. The extre- 
 mities, likewise, are well designed ; but the perspective 
 wants that gradation of tints that improves distance by 
 the diminution of light and the addition of shading. Let 
 us observe, also, that the tinting of the flesh, being very 
 languid, and that of the robes most brilliant, the eye is 
 somewhat hurt by the contrast. This, however, was not 
 a defect peculiar to him alone, but to the entire of that 
 school. Nevertheless, I believe that no one will deny 
 what D'Agincourt has asserted of the Angelico that he 
 surpassed in liveliness of colouring all the painters in 
 tempera who preceded him ; and that he united the two 
 most opposite qualities of this art, that is, the delicate 
 touches of the miniaturist with the bold and easy pencil- 
 
 1 These have been engraved by Perfetti and illustrated by the author of 
 this work in 1843. 
 
 * Plangent eum quasi unigenitum, quia innocens estimatus sum cum 
 descendentibus in lacum. Ecce quomodo moritur Justus et nemo percipit corde !
 
 234 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 ling of the frescoist ; so much so, that if you contemplate 
 his pictures from a near point of view, you will imagine 
 that they belong to the former, but, if from a distance, 
 that they are the work of the latter. 1 
 
 It now remains for us to speak of that Final Judgment, 
 which of all the Angelico's works, appears to me to be 
 the most stupendous. From the days of Niccola Pisano, 
 to these of Michelangelo, this subject tasked the art and 
 genius of the most celebrated artists, who, for the most 
 part, vied with each other in painting the joys of the 
 Just, and the despair of the Doomed, as Allighieri had 
 sung them. Indeed they had almost exhausted them- 
 selves in depicting the tardy disenchantment and appaling 
 tortures of the reprobate : in inventing fanciful agonies, 
 and unprecedented writhings ; so much so, that the heart 
 and soid must shudder at sight of that terrible scene 
 which Signorelli produced in Orvieto and Buonarrotti 
 at Rome. Man, it is true, is conversant with sorrows 
 and woes ; and he can well depict them in verse, or on 
 canvas ; but when he undertakes to paint joy, his imagery 
 is defective, nor does he know in what guise he should 
 
 1 We here subjoin the reflections of M. Montalembert on this splendid 
 work, " What a superabundance of love of God, of immense and burning 
 contrition must that dear Angelico have had the day that he painted this ! 
 How he must have wept and meditated that day in the retirement of his 
 cell, on the sufferings of our Divine Master! Every stroke of his pencil, 
 every tint seems to have been so many acts of love and sorrow, springing from 
 the depths of his soul. What a touching sermon is not the sight of such a 
 picture ! Oh, delicious masterpiece ! oh, what a happiness, what a grace, 
 to be able to contemplate this marvellous representation of the Passion of 
 our Lord ! Others look on it merely as a work of 
 
 art. I have derived consolations and profound lessons from it" Vandalisms 
 et Catholicisme dans I 1 Art. This Deposition was excellently restored in 
 1841, by Francesco AcciaL
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 235 
 
 develop it. Wherefore, as the drama of the Final 
 Judgment consists of two most distinct acts; that is, 
 of extreme joy, and of extreme sorrow, it was almost 
 impossible to convey a lucid idea of the former, for since 
 God has not revealed the joy of heaven to man, how will 
 he, most miserable, essay to describe it in words or tintings 
 of the pencil. 1 To Giovanni Angelico alone, this power 
 was given ; and none of those who preceded or followed 
 him have surpassed him in this most difficult experiment. 
 There are four pictures by him on this subject, two in 
 Rome, and two in Florence. The first is in the gallery 
 of Prince Corsini it is that mentioned by Bottari in his 
 notes to Vasari's Life of Fra Giovanni ; the second was 
 in the collection of the late Cardinal Fesch ; the third, is 
 in the Academy of Design in Florence, it is a compart- 
 ment of the doors in the Annunziata Church ; and the 
 fourth is actually in the possession of the Camaldulese 
 Monks in S. Maria degli Angioli. All of them are 
 splendid, but in my judgment the last is the most perfect, 
 and it was for many years suspended over the sedilia, or 
 seat used by the priests during the celebration of the 
 chaunted Mass. It is about seven palms long, and its 
 summit is in the form of three arches, the central one 
 being largest, and the two side ones smaller. The Final 
 Judgment occupies the central one ; in that on the right, 
 he painted Paradise ; and in that on the left, Hell. The 
 figures are of the dimensions of these which he painted 
 on the gradini of his pictures. The Judge of the living 
 and the dead is seated in great majesty in the centre. 
 
 1 In the unique collection of original designs of the Italian Painters by 
 Andrea Tafi, (which amounts to over 27,838,) there is a final Judgment 
 executed with a pen by the Angelico, different from any other that I have
 
 236 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 He is encircled by choirs of angels, cherubim and sera- 
 phim, and you behold the Virgin, with arms crossed on 
 her bosom, turning on her Son a look of love, and mak- 
 ing her last intercession for miserable sinners. Ah, what 
 words could describe her trepidation for such an immense 
 section of the human race ? Aleft and right of that tre- 
 mendous judgment-seat, enthroned on clouds, are Patri- 
 archs, Prophets, and Apostles, the series of whom is 
 closed by S. Dominic and S. Francis. From the gold 
 ground of the picture springs a torrent of light that 
 reveals the glory of the Elect. At the feet of our Lord 
 an angel raises on high the triumphal ensign of the Cross, 
 whilst two other blow trumpets, whose sound causes man 
 to shake off the sleep of ages, and to arise from the 
 grave. The Supreme Judge is in the act of fulminating 
 His malediction against the Reprobate. Let not the 
 reader fancy HIM with His right hand stretched out, or 
 that there is anything like human vengeance on His fea- 
 tures, as others would depict Him ; on the contrary, there 
 is nothing irate in His expression ; He merely turns away 
 His eyes from the Doomed, and, by a waive of His hand, 
 commands them to withdraw for ever from His presence. 
 A most simple act this, but, surely, far more eloquent 
 and sublime than any terrible menace. A brief space 
 divides the Elect from the Damned. Michelangiolo 
 painted both naked in the Sixtine: Zuccheri, in the 
 cupola of the cathedral at Florence, represents the 
 damned naked, and the elect clothed ; and Luca Signo- 
 relli follows the former in his Judgment in Orvieto, em- 
 ploying only as much drapery as was required by 
 modesty. Giovanni Angelico clothed all his figures 
 equally, thus, not only preserving decorum, but greatly 
 heightening the moral and religious effect of the whole 
 composition ; for we are thus enabled to recognise those
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 237 
 
 whom the painter placed amongst the lost, as well as 
 those who are made the recipients of eternal joy; from 
 which the spectator may learn a salutary lesson. Thus 
 Dante, not satisfied with having recounted the agonies 
 to which his damned were sentenced, or the blisses which 
 his elect enjoyed, determined to give us the names of 
 the most distinguished amongst them, and to narrate, 
 also, the virtues and the vices according to which they 
 were adjudged. He thought, no doubt, that he might 
 thus awaken admiration for the one, and detestation for 
 the other. It would appear that the Angelico was in- 
 fluenced by a similar motive. Hence, you behold 
 amongst the accursed, persons of every age, grade, and 
 condition, and especially many ministers of the sanc- 
 tuary ; a fact that should not startle us, when we recall 
 the licentious days of the schism already alluded to in 
 this work. Hence it is that he has placed so many 
 monks, prelates, cardinals, and Antipopes amongst the 
 damned ; for, indeed, we cannot think that a painter of 
 his well-known sanctity could have imagined the distur- 
 bers of the peace of the Church in these times worthy of 
 any other location. Dante did the same, for other rea- 
 sons, and also to impart a great moral lesson. It has 
 been well remarked that the countenances of the doomed 
 do not exhibit the fury and despair that is given them by 
 other painters ; on the contrary, we find them undeceived 
 and overwhelmed with grief for having forfeited the 
 supreme good that was in store for them, as well as the 
 elect, if they had observed the divine commandments. 
 Strange and bizarre is the form in which the Angelico 
 painted his demons; and it must be confessed that, in 
 this portraiture, he lacked imagination. He divided Hell 
 into seven circles, (or bolgi,) in each of which, according to 
 the nature of the seven capital vices, there are various
 
 238 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 torments and tormented. And this portion of the paint- 
 ing, if it be not in every respect perfect in its composi- 
 tion, yields to that which follows in design and execu- 
 tion. The idea of finding the " Emperor who sways the 
 realm of sorrow" in the depth of the abyss is somewhat 
 poetical, and is evidently taken from Dante, for, indeed, 
 the three-headed monster, who 
 
 "At every mouth his teeth a sinner champed, 
 Braised as with pond'rous engine ; so that three 
 Were in this guise tormented," 1 
 
 was not such a figure as would have presented itself to 
 the imagination of Fra Giovanni, who seems to have con- 
 templated little else than celestial beauty. But where this 
 painter triumphs and establishes his title to the name of 
 Angelico, with which the people honoured him, is on the 
 right side of the picture, where we behold the Elect. 
 Who can see these graceful little figures and not be 
 enamoured of virtue? Who is it that does not yearn 
 to taste the holy and ineffable joys of these blessed 
 beings; who, having fought the good fight, and com- 
 pleted their term of exile, are now approaching their true 
 country to enjoy that reward for which they longed, and 
 for sake of which they had suffered so many afflictions ? 
 They all have their eyes and arms turned towards their 
 Redeemer, and they seem to bless and thank Him for 
 having placed them among his Elect. There you see 
 princes, warriors, pilgrims, bishops, pontiffs, and mem- 
 bers of the religious Orders : and here, as in all his paint- 
 ings, he has given a distinguished place to the children 
 of SS. Francis and Dominic. But more charming than 
 even this, are the kisses and embracings which the Elect 
 interchange with the Angels who protected and guided 
 
 1 Inferno, canto xx xiv. (Gary's.)
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 239 
 
 them on the path of peril. Kneeling, they clasp each 
 other in heavenly affection. The idea of the painter, 
 probably, was to exhibit the angels, venerating in these 
 bodies, humanity glorified. The greetings between the 
 angels and the elect terminated, we see them linking 
 hands and gracefully dancing on a sweet meadow, enamel- 
 led with most beauteous flowers. Their garments glisten 
 with innumerable little golden stars ; the head of each is 
 wreathed with a garland of white and red roses, whilst 
 a brilliant little flame burns on the forehead of each 
 angel. Then light, aery, graceful, and even during the 
 dance absorbed in ecstatic contemplation, carolling and 
 singing they advance towards the celestial Jerusalem; 
 and the nearer they approach to it, the more etherial and 
 luminous do their bodies become ; till at last, arrived at 
 the gates of the holy city, they appear to be transmuted 
 into most subtile and resplendent spirits ; and then, two 
 by two, holding each other's hand, they are introduced 
 into eternal beatitude. Where did the painter find this 
 sweet conception ? How was he able to develop such 
 varied beauties? We confess our inability to give or 
 imagine a reply. 
 
 These are the principal works that he executed for the 
 city of Florence is fresco and on panel ; but, certainly, 
 we have not enumerated them all, since it appears from 
 an ancient catalogue, in the Chronicle of S. Domenico, in 
 Fiesole, that he produced others, of which we are all but 
 ignorant. For example, there was in the church of the 
 Holy Trinity, along with the " Deposition" another work, 
 the subject of which is unknown. In the church of S. 
 Egidio, there was also one. There were some minor 
 pictures in the Oratories and Confraternities of the 
 " Children," many of which congregations were supported 
 by the Florentines. Some of them were in S. Maria
 
 240 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Novella and one in S. Marco. Vasari makes no mention 
 of these paintings. At the end of this Memoir we will 
 give an inventory of Fra Giovanni's works, in order to 
 gratify the admirers of the Angelic artist. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Angelico is invited to paint in Rome, probably by Pope Eugene IV. 
 and is detained there by his successor, Nicholas V. His Paintings in the 
 Vatican, the Minerva, and in Orvieto His Death, Eulogy, and Disciples. 
 
 THESE works had rendered the Angelico's name so cele- 
 brated throughout Italy, that Pope Eugene IV., who had 
 already admired many of his productions in Florence, 
 desiring to decorate the Vatican during the last years of 
 his pontificate, invited him to set out for Rome. 
 
 The silence of the ancient as well as the contradictions 
 of modern writers cause us to question the precise period 
 of his arrival in Rome. Vasari would have us believe 
 that he was summoned to the eternal city by Pope Nicho- 
 las V.; and Rosini, following Vasari, states, that he 
 arrived there in 1447. l Leandro Alberti, a much earlier 
 writer, favours this opinion ; nevertheless I think there 
 are very grave reasons for believing that he went to 
 Rome in the last years, or at least in the last months of 
 the reign of Eugene IV. The first of these historians, 
 who seemingly forgets all he had written, after narrating 
 the Angelico's arrival at Rome, tells us that Pope Nicho- 
 las V., knowing the sanctity of his life, offered him the 
 bishopric of Florence, which was then vacant ; and that 
 our friar supplicated his holiness to provide somebody 
 
 1 Storia dclla Pittura Italiana, v. 2, p. 2.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 241 
 
 else, as he did not think himself competent for such an 
 onerous office, adding, at the same time, that there was 
 in his Order a man of great sanctity and remarkable for 
 his love of the poor, on whom such a responsible dignity 
 might be properly conferred. The Pontiff, knowing the 
 truth of all this, yielded to the suggestion of the Ange- 
 lico ; and thus was Fra Antonino, of the Order of Preach- 
 ing-Friars, raised to the Archiepiscopal See of Florence ; 
 and he proved to be a man of such extraordinary sanc- 
 tity, that he was canonized by Hadrian VI. 1 Supposing 
 Vasari's statement to be true, in order not to fall into a se- 
 rious anachronism, we must go back to an anterior epoch, 
 in order to determine at what time the Angelico set out 
 for Rome. Let us remember, therefore, that Zabarella, 
 Archbishop of Florence, who was succeeded by S. Anto- 
 nino, died in 1445, during the pontificate of Eugene IV. 2 
 therefore this journey could not have been undertaken 
 in 1447, as Rosini asserts; but granting that Rosini's 
 narrative is not only false, but very unlikely as it has 
 appeared to some I think, nevertheless, that he was in- 
 vited to Rome by Eugene IV. ; and that he was retained 
 there after the death of this Pontiff by Nicholas V., his 
 successor. As a proof of this I will cite the contract 
 between Fra Giovanni and the builders of the cathedral 
 of Orvieto, from which it appears that he was in Rome 
 in 1447, as the said contract, by which he bound himself 
 to paint in Orvieto, is dated in the former city. Eugene 
 IV. died in February; and on the sixth of March, of 
 said year, he was succeeded by Tommaso da Sarzana, of 
 the Preaching-Friars, who assumed the name of Nicholas 
 V. ; but as it was not at all probable that the Angelico 
 
 ' V. Vasari. 
 
 1 S. Antonino was consecrated Archbishop of Florence, ilarch 13, 1446. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 would have been invited to Rome immediately after the 
 elevation of the foresaid to the pontifical throne, or that 
 he would have, immediately on his arrival there, entered 
 into a contract with the builders of Orvieto, I deem it 
 far more reasonable to suppose that he was sent for by 
 Eugene IV. in 1446, and that he was retained by 
 his successor to complete the works he had already com- 
 menced. Thus we might easily reconcile the conflicting 
 opinions. 1 
 
 The name of Nicholas V. shall be always venerated by 
 the lovers of science, letters, and arts ; and it was but just to 
 inscribe his cenotaph with that high encomium " He re- 
 stored to Rome its golden age." He was the first to set that 
 glorious example, which being followed by Julius II. and 
 Leo X., made the eternal city the sanctuary of all that is 
 beautiful and noble. The tiara was scarcely on his head 
 when he invited to his court the most distinguished men 
 of the age. Vespasiano, the Florentine, tells" us that great 
 numbers of learned men flocked to his court, either 
 invited thither, or of their own accord. He emploved 
 many writers to copy rare works; and he gave ample 
 pensions to others whom he engaged to translate the 
 Greek authors into Latin, and also to correct them accord- 
 ing to the best exemplars. 2 He was equally munificent 
 in his patronage of the arts, and particularly of architec- 
 ture, as the many splendid buildings which he erected in 
 
 1 M. Rio (Poesie Cbretienne, ) is of the same opinion. 
 
 2 V. Muratori " Rer. Italic. Script/ores, v. 24, p. 279." To Guarino, the 
 translator of Strabo, he gave 1,500 crowns ; and to Perotti, for the translation 
 of Polibius, 500. He promised Francesco Filelfo, a house and villa at Rome, 
 and 10,000 gold crowns, if he would undertake to give a Latin version of 
 Homer. Diodorus, Zenophon, Thucidides, Herodotus, Appianus Alexandri- 
 nus, Plato, and some of the Greek holy Fathers were introduced to Latium, 
 by the munificence of Nicholas V. V. Spoiorno. Stor. Lett. delU Liguria, 
 and Sismondi'a Italian Republics.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 243 
 
 Rome can testify. Bernardo Rosscllino, and the cele- 
 brated Leon Battista Albert! were employed by him to 
 conduct many fabrics ; and he commissioned the latter to 
 furnish the design of a new and vast Basilica, under the 
 invocation of S. Peter ; but he saw only its foundations 
 laid. The greater glory was reserved for Bramante, by 
 Julius II. 
 
 The Angelico found in this Pontiff not only a Macenas, 
 but an affectionate friend and sincere admirer. He com- 
 missioned him to finish the works which had been inter- 
 rupted by the death of Eugene IV. It appears likely 
 that he was assisted in their execution by his disciple, 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, who, as we shall soon see, followed 
 him to Orvieto, since he was not only skilled in the 
 manner of the Angelico, but was likewise far-famed for 
 his admirable paintings of buildings, landscapes, and such 
 accessories as the condition of art in that age allowed. 
 They painted two chapels in the Vatican ; in the first, 
 which was called, of the Most Holy Sacrament, (subse- 
 quently taken down by Paul III.) Fra Giovanni frescoed 
 some histories of the life of our Lord, and introduced 
 portraits of many of the distinguished men of these 
 times, which works would have been lost, had not Giovio 
 caused them to be removed to his museum. Amongst the 
 portraits, we find these of Pope Nicholas V., the Emperor 
 Frederick, who was then in Italy, Fra Antonino, who 
 was afterwards Archbishop of Florence, Biondo da Forli, 
 and Ferrante of Aragona. In the second chapel, (now 
 called, " of Pope Nicholas V.,") he painted some histories 
 of the protomartyr S. Stephen, and S. Laurence, in the 
 manner which we will now describe. He coloured the 
 whole ceiling in ultramarine blue, and studded it with 
 many golden stars, according to the Giottesque, and he 
 introduced the four Evangelists, and eight Doctors of
 
 244 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 holy Church. On the right, are S. John Chrysos- 
 tom and S. Bonaventure. Above these are S. Gregory 
 and S. Augustin. On the left, in the under part, are S. 
 Athanasius, and S. Thomas of Aquino, and over them S. 
 Ambrose and S. Leo, the last of which figures is almost 
 wholly effaced. All these Doctors are represented as 
 standing erect under a little Gothic temple. The histo- 
 ries of the Martyrs he executed in six compartments, 
 wherein he painted the principal facts of the lives of 
 two of them, in order to show the great resemblance that 
 the history of the one bears to that of the other. They 
 are as follows : S. Peter at an altar giving the chalice to 
 the first consecrated Deacon, S. Stephen, who receives it 
 kneeling The holy Martyr giving alms to the poor. 
 In the under part, he introduced Pope S. Sixtus. In the 
 upper part is the Sermon of S. Stephen, and the same 
 Saint before the Jewish high priest, who forbids him to 
 announce Christ Crucified. In the under part he intro- 
 duced Pope S. Sixtus blessing S. Laurence, and giving 
 him the treasures of his church to dispense them to the 
 poor, at the very moment that two armed men are strik- 
 ing the door in order to gain admittance. Then comes 
 the holy Deacon, giving alms to a great multitude of 
 poor and infirm. On the left wall he painted the Stoning 
 of S. Stephen, and in the under part S. Laurence before 
 the tyrant, who, pointing to the various instruments of 
 torture, strives to shake his constancy. In another com- 
 partment, he executed a little window, through which we 
 can see the Saint in his dungeon, baptizing his fellow- 
 captives. Finally, comes the martyrdom of S. Laurence. 
 Under these little histories, he painted a rich ornamenta- 
 tion of fruits and flowers, variously intertwined and alter- 
 nated with the heads of angels and the triple crown: 
 roses and stars exquisitely arranged complete the adorn-
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 245 
 
 ment of this work. I doubt not that Benozzo Gozzoli, 
 who was celebrated for such decorations, was the author 
 of these. Of the merits of the histories, we will now 
 hear two of the most celebrated writers on art. M. Seroux 
 D'Agincourt 1 speaks of them thus : " The ability with 
 which these frescos are finished is truly prodigious, 
 and nothing can be more delicious to the eye than their 
 colouring. The shadings are not strong, but the chiar- 
 oscuro is harmonious. On near inspection, these frescos 
 have all the graces of miniature. At a distance, the 
 vigour of their tints produce the effect of a bold and 
 free pencilling," etc. He then lauds the artist for the 
 beauty of the expression, in which he recognises a happy 
 imitation of Masaccio. He likewise praises the perspec- 
 tive of the buildings. 1 The criticism of M. Rio is as 
 follows : " The work which excels that of which I speak, 
 (the reliquaries in S. Maria Novella) I will not say in 
 beauty, as that is impossible, but in dimensions, and 
 perhaps, too, in historical importance, is the great fresco 
 in the Vatican, in which Fra Angelico, who was in- 
 vited to Rome by Eugene IV., painted, in six compart- 
 ments, the principal facts of the life of S. Stephen and S. 
 Laurence, thus uniting these two Christian heroes in the 
 same poetic commemoration, as it is the custom of the 
 faithful to invoke them conjointly, since one and the same 
 sepulchre enshrines the ashes of both in the ancient Basi- 
 lica of San Lorenzo, outside the walls of Rome. 
 
 " The Consecration of S. Stephen, the Distribution of 
 the alms, and far better still the Preaching, are three 
 paintings as perfect in their style as any of the grandest 
 productions of the most distinguished masters ; it would 
 be difficult to fancy a group that could excel the life and 
 
 ' Histoire de 1'Art, v. 4, p^427.
 
 246 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 attitudes of these figures, and particularly of the women 
 who are seated and listening to the holy preacher. 
 If the bestial fury of the murderers who stone the Saint 
 be not adequately expressed, we should attribute it to a 
 glorious impotency of that Angelic imagination which 
 teemed with ecstacies of love, and was never accustomed 
 to these dramatic scenes in which it is necessary to depict 
 violent passions. 
 
 " The figures are disposed with equal grace and nobility, 
 and this merit that is always to be admired in all the 
 works of the Angelico, is here, if possible, still more admi- 
 rable, since he has paid marked attention to the costume 
 and other adjuncts belonging to the period, which he 
 copied from the monuments of the Primitive Church. Not 
 so, however, can we speak of the inferior compartments in 
 which the painter has given the histories of S. Laurence." 1 
 We will finally observe with Professor Rosini, that in this 
 work, more than in any other, he seems to have enlarged 
 his style, and to have carried it to such perfection as to 
 dispute the palm with the noblest geniuses of that age. 
 For the altar of the same chapel he also painted a De- 
 position from the Cross, which, I believe, is now lost. a 
 
 Whilst Fra Angelico was engaged at the histories we 
 have been describing, the Pontiff, from time to time, 
 came to inspect them, and as much as he admired his 
 artistic genius the more did he admire his virtues. His- 
 tory has preserved an anecdote which we will give on the 
 authority of Fra Leandro Alberti and Vasari. " Fra 
 Giovanni," says the latter, " was a very simple and most 
 holy man, and as a proof of his goodness we may state 
 
 i Loc. Cit p. 198. 
 
 1 Some of these frescos have been engraved in Professor Rosini's His- 
 tory of Painting. The copies in D'Agincourt are far inferior. Vide 
 Tav. CXLV.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 247 
 
 that, being invited by Pope Nicholas to dine with him ; 
 he excused himself, saying that he could not eat meat 
 without the permission of his prior: not thinking on the 
 authority of the Pontiff." 1 It would appear that it was 
 during this familiar intercourse that what we have related 
 about the Archbishopric of Florence occurred. Leandro 
 Alberti, however, the most ancient of Fra Giovanni's 
 biographers, makes no mention of it. It appeared to 
 F. Guglielmo Bartoli to be not only false but very un- 
 likely, for two reasons : the first of which is, that Vasari 
 states the offer to have been made to Fra Angelico by 
 Nicholas V.; whereas Eugene IV. was Pope at the 
 time of the supposed presentation. The second is, 
 that the Angelico, though a most holy man and 
 distinguished painter, did not possess that learning so 
 essential to such an exalted dignity. As to Alberta's 
 silence, I will observe that he has omitted much of the 
 Angelico's life, and instead of narrating his works he 
 expends all his powers in eulogising the good religious ; 
 this however does not detract in the smallest degree from 
 the truth of whatever he says- in reference to him. That 
 Vasari, instead of writing Eugene IV. should have 
 written, Nicholas V. will not be a matter of surprise to 
 any one who is acquainted with the negligence of this 
 biographer ; who is generally correct as to facts, but very 
 heedless as to dates. Let us adduce an example of this ; 
 in his life of Giovanni Pisano, he informs us that this 
 artist sculptured the marble monument which was 
 erected in the Church of S. Dominic in Perugia, to Pope 
 Benedict IX. who died about that period. Now every 
 
 1 It is not likely that the Pope would have asked him to dine with him, 
 as Vasari says ; but I think we may rely on what Albertus states, namely, 
 that the Pontiff, seeing him overworked, exhorted him to use meat instead 
 of the meagre fare prescribed by the Dominican Rule.
 
 248 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 one must know that Giovanni Pisano could not have 
 been engaged at this work, since there was not only an 
 interval of years but of centuries between the sculptor 
 and this Pontiff. Transpose a figure, or instead of IX. 
 read XL, and you shall have arrived at the truth, as 
 Benedict XI. died in the days of the said Giovanni. In 
 like manner Vasari has erred in stating that the Arch- 
 bishopric was conferred on S. Antonino bj Nicholas V. 
 instead of Eugene IV., but despite this confusion of 
 names the fact may still be undeniable, provided the 
 Angelico was invited to Rome by Eugene IV. as we 
 have endeavoured to show. Bartoli subjoins that he was 
 not very learned, or in other words, that he had made no 
 ecclesiastical studies ; this, however, is a very gratuitous 
 assertion, for he may have had more learning than his 
 well known modesty would allow him to display, and he 
 certainly must have had that amount of it which is 
 always required in a priest belonging to an Order 
 famed for its cultivation of sacred studies. Those who 
 have perused the history of that period must know 
 that ecclesiastical dignities of the highest Order were 
 often bestowed on the most illiterate of men, and they 
 at least will not be astonished at reading that the Pontiff 
 desired to confer the Archbishopric on a holy painter. 
 I will now give my own opinion on this subject. Fran- 
 cesco Castiglioni, a man remarkable for piety and learning, 
 who was the intimate friend of S. Antonino, tells us that 
 on the death of Zabarella, the Pope saw so clearly into 
 the intrigues of parties looking for the dignity, as to feel 
 himself justified in leaving the See vacant for fully nine 
 months, in order to provide some one who was really 
 deserving of it. He then goes on to say that " Some 
 religious men proposed S. Antonino to his Holiness, 
 which so accorded with the Pope's own ideas, that he
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 249 
 
 immediately elevated him to the archiepiscopal throne, 
 from which I infer that, if Eugene IV. did not really 
 offer the Archbishopric to the Angelico, as Vasari states, 
 it is very likely that S. Antonino was proposed by 
 him. Hence, if we cannot laud the painter for his pro- 
 found humility in declining such an honour, we can well 
 praise his prudence for having advised the Pontiff to 
 consecrate a man who was an exemplar of virtues to his 
 own age, and to these that shall follow." 1 
 
 The histories described above, in the two chapels of 
 the Vatican, were only commenced when the death of 
 Eugene IV., and the election of Nicholas V., took place, 
 in the year 1447. In the beginning of May, or at the 
 end of April, the works were suspended, by order of the 
 Pontiff, and it is likely that Fra Giovanni, in order to 
 escape the insalubrious heats of Rome, during the 
 summer months, wrote to the builders of the cathedral 
 of Orvieto, that he would undertake to paint in that 
 duomo, during the months of June, July, and August. 
 More joyful news coulH not have reached the superinten- 
 dents, who were desirous of inviting the ablest artists of 
 the day. A painter of Fra Angelico's celebrity, then 
 actually in the service of the Pontiff, was naturally 
 regarded as a most invaluable accession to the number of 
 the great geniuses then employed at the decorations of 
 this renowned temple. We have already told how 
 splendid were the sculptures produced by the chisel of 
 Guglielmo da Pisca in this edifice, towards the decline 
 
 1 EpisL Francisci Castilionensis presbyteri secularis ad fratres S. Dom. de 
 Bononia super vita Beati Antonii de Florentia, ejusd. Ord. Arch. Floreut. 
 " Ita novem mensibus ambiguus, suspensusque animo Romanus Ponti- 
 fex perseverat : cui tandem subjicientibus viris religiosis personam Antonii, 
 cum jam antea virtutem hominis cognovisset, statim eorum consiliis acquie- 
 vit" This letter may be seen in the Acta Sanctorum, (the Bollandists.) 
 
 M 2
 
 250 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 of the thirteenth century. In 1362 Fra Giovanni Luca 
 Leonardelli, of the third Order of S. Francis, an eminent 
 mosaicist, was invited thither. In 1401, Father Fran- 
 cesco di Antonio, a Cistercian monk, worked at the 
 mosaics and glass-painting of this cathedral, and when 
 the Angelico arrived, it is probable that Father Fran- 
 cesco Brunacci, a Benedictine, one of the most celebrated 
 glass-painters recorded by history, was actually working 
 within the sacred precincts. It would appear, indeed, 
 that the religious Orders had determined to vie with each 
 other in the embellishments of this temple dedicated to 
 Mary. On the 13th <5f May, the Council of the super- 
 intendents met to deliberate on Fra Angelico's proposal. 
 He had offered to bring with him his disciple Benozzo 
 Gozzoli, who had been working with him in the Vatican, 
 together with some younger pupils. When this was 
 acceded to, they resolved to engage him to paint the 
 chapel of the Blessed Virgin, for which he was to receive 
 two hundred gold ducats a year, above all contingent 
 expenses. Benozzo was to get seven ducats per month, 
 and two of his assistants three. They bound themselves 
 to paint four months each year, till the work was 
 completed. On the 2nd of June, 1447, the secretary 
 reported to the deputies that " Fra Giovanni di Pietro . . . 
 of the Order of Preachers, had accepted the invitation 
 to come and paint the new chapel, and that he would 
 arrive in Orvieto on the feast of Corpus Domini, and 
 that he now sought to know what paintings he should 
 execute." It was, therefore, unanimously resolved that 
 he should paint a Final Judgment, in life-size figures: 
 and to show their high appreciation of him, they 
 bestowed on him the title of " Master of Masters," which 
 was only conferred on the most distinguished artists, and 
 which had been given to Gentile da Fabriano, in 1423
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 251 
 
 This last-named was cither a disciple or an imitator of 
 the Angelico. On the 14th of June, Fra Giovanni 
 signed the contract: and as the greater part of that 
 month had gone by, it was agreed that he should paint 
 during the months of July, August, and September. 1 
 We will now adopt the words of Father Gugliclmo della 
 Valle, the historian of the cathedral : " Fra Giovanni 
 set to work diligently ; but he was greatly grieved for 
 the death of Antonio Giovanelli, who fell from a scaffold, 
 
 and died at his feet He was assisted in these 
 
 paintings by Pietro di Niccolo, and Giovanni di Pietro 
 Orvietans, probably in the ornamental departments; 
 because it is written of the latter that he painted over 
 Master Fra Giovanni, painter and chief of the Masters; 
 and thus he continued to work at the ceiling till the 
 28th of September, of same year; when after having 
 been paid one hundred and three florins for himself and 
 companions, he set out for Rome, and never returned to 
 Orvieto." 2 According to this historian, the Angelico 
 painted the Judge in the act of pronouncing his male- 
 diction on the Reprobate, and the beautiful Choir of 
 Prophets that is over the Inferno, which was completed 
 some years afterwards by Luca Signorelli da Cortona. 
 These figures were engraved and published with the rest 
 of the paintings, by the same Father della Valle in his 
 history of that cathedral. Nobody, I believe, has ob- 
 served that the Christ in this work is a repetition of 
 that which he executed in very small dimensions on the 
 
 1 See Document vi. 
 
 * F. Della Valle states that a few months after the Angelico's departnr 
 from Orvieto it was found necessary to repair the roof of the chapel^ through 
 which the rain had entered, to the great injury of his works. The diminu- 
 tion of the sum agreed upon may be accounted for by the fact that, instead 
 of painting for four months, he remained but three in Orvieto.
 
 252 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 doors of the armory in the church of the Annunciation 
 at Florence. Here, as in that of the Camaldulese, the 
 Lord of the living and the dead is enthroned in great 
 majesty ; and instead of the calm severity which distin- 
 guishes His features in the foresaid painting, he repre- 
 sented Him with His right hand raised as it were in 
 awftil anger, commanding the wicked to flee from before 
 His face. It is very likely, that Michelangelo, in some 
 respects, copied this figure in his Final Judgment in the 
 Sixtine chapel. It is probable, too, that Buonarrotti not 
 only studied the Judge, as depicted by the Angelico, but 
 also the rest of the work executed by Signorelli, and 
 this will very considerably diminish the admiration with 
 which every one must regard the tremendous terrors of 
 the Judgment in the Sistina ; so much so, that this work 
 by Luca, has always appeared to me, both in the beauty 
 of the figures, and the truth of the expression, to be 
 truly stupendous. The boldness and correctness of the 
 design, the management of the nude, and the nobleness 
 of the figures, may be said to be very admirable, 
 and particularly worthy of consideration as they are the 
 work of an artist of the fifteenth century. But let no 
 one hope to find in Signorelli's " Elect," the divine 
 ecstacy and the aerial forms of the Angelico let no one 
 hope to be inebriated by that celestial delight that must 
 be felt at sight of these dear images, since such merit 
 belongs to him alone, and no other may ever calculate 
 on attaining it. Signor Rosini, having considered the 
 shortness of the time one hundred days and the 
 interval that must have been employed in making the 
 designs, the contours, and putting up the scaffolding, is 
 of opinion that Fra Angelico could not have executed 
 all the work that is attributed to him. He thinks, 
 however, that Christ the Judge was by Benozzo Gozzoli,
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 253 
 
 and the Choir of Prophets by the Angelico. His reason 
 for this opinion is, that the Choir is much superior to the 
 formef work in its grandiose and perfect execution. In 
 the absence of authentic documents, it would be difficult 
 to admit or reject this opinion. I will barely advert, 
 that Fra Giovanni was so expeditious in frescoing, that 
 he could, in a very short time, cover a great superficies 
 with the choicest compositions, a fact which excited the 
 wonder of Vasari, and must ever win the admiration of 
 those who shall see the innumerable frescos that he 
 produced in the convent of San Marco. This illustrious 
 historian of art believes that the choir of angels raising up 
 the cross, which is surrounded by others holding the 
 various instruments of the Passion, was designed by 
 the Angelico. The Virgin is here represented in the 
 midst of the Apostles ; as are also the four Doctors of the 
 Church, with the four Founders of the Mendicant Orders. 
 " If the composition," continues Rosini, " rigorously 
 speaking, presents nothing singular, the expression of the 
 heads is most beautiful and varied ; and the figure of S. 
 Francis is full of life." 1 
 
 It would now be almost impossible to divine the 
 Angelico's motives for not returning to Orvieto to finish 
 the works he had commenced. Perhaps the painter was 
 overwhelmed with grief for the death of Giovanelli ; or 
 it may be that the important works which he had under- 
 taken by command of the Pontiff, would not allow him 
 to satisfy his obligations to the Orvietan cathedral. In 
 fact, he not only painted in the Vatican the histories we 
 have described, and the Deposition from the Cross ; but 
 he also, (by the Pope's command,) miniatured some 
 books, which, according to Vasari, were extremely beau- 
 
 1 Storia della Pittura Ttaliana, Epoca ii. c. v. p. 299.
 
 254 MKMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 tiful, and which, at his time of life, must have caused 
 him great labour. He also executed some little pictures 
 for private Roman citizens, for example, the two* Final 
 Judgments which are in the Corsini and Fesch galleries, 
 if we may suppose that they were not brought thither 
 from Florence ; and particularly the two great paintings 
 that he placed in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, if what 
 Vasari writes be true. He mentions, without tell- 
 ing us the subject, the painting for the grand altar, 
 and an Annunciation that was near the principal chapel, 
 laid against the wall. Some of the Roman Guide books, 
 mentioning the Angelico's works, attribute to him the 
 altar-piece of the chapel del Rosario, that of S. Thomas 
 of Aquino, and that of the most holy Annunciation. 
 Giovanni Masselli, in his Notes to Vasari, being misled, 
 probably, by some of these Guides, adopted the same 
 opinion. The anonymous writer of the Life of Cardinal 
 Dominici, (which is in MS. in the archives of S. Marco.) 
 attributes to Fra Giovanni Angelico the two paintings of 
 the chapels of the Rosary and S. Thomas Aquino. Ano- 
 ther Guide, published in 1842, thinks that the altar- 
 piece of the Annunziata was by Benozzo Gozzoli. 1 
 Having consulted some of the most distinguished Roman 
 painters, I have ascertained that that church does not 
 possess a single work by the Angelico. But, as to the 
 painting in the chapel of S. Thomas Aquino, Filippino 
 Lippi executed an Annunciation for it, which, in all 
 probability, was subsequently removed to the chapel of 
 this name built by Cardinal Giovanni di Torrecremata. 
 Let us remark, however, that there is reason for suppos- 
 ing that this work was executed by Benozzo Gozzolo; 
 since, besides Our Lady of the Annunciation, he also 
 
 1 Roma compiutameute descritta in vii. Giornate.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 255 
 
 painted a portrait of the Cardinal, who is prostrate 
 amongst a number of young females, venerating the 
 Madonna; thus alluding to the charitable foundation of 
 the said Cardinal, which annually gives a dowry to a 
 certain number of girls, either for the purpose of entering 
 convents or getting married; a foundation that was 
 established whilst Benozzo Gozzoli was in Rome. 
 
 The Angelico had now reached his sixty-eighth year. 
 His marvellous works had embellished Florence, Rome, 
 Perugia, Cortona and Fiesole ; his name was venerated 
 by the people, by the Medicean Princes, and two Roman 
 Pontiffs. He had witnessed the decline of the ancient 
 and religious school of Giotto, of which he was the last 
 flower : and the rise of another, full of life, of grace, and 
 studious of the True, which was destined to win re- 
 splendent glories for Art. Unlike the old M argaritone, 
 who mourned over the fall of the Greek school, our 
 painter, even in his mature years, worshipped the sub- 
 limity of Masaccio, nor did he shrink from becoming the 
 disciple of a man to whom, as far as years were con- 
 cerned, he might have been a master. But while he 
 admired the rare perfection to which art was rapidly 
 approaching in every branch of design, he felt conscious 
 that no theory would ever enable the new school to de- 
 pict the joys of heaven as he had done, not by the acces- 
 sories of Art, but by an ardent faith and a glowing 
 charity. I, for my part, believe that no other man shall 
 ever excel him in this respect, unless God Himself 
 reveals to him a glimpse of His transcendent glory. He 
 had now run his career, after having caused Christian 
 Art to beam forth in new light, and leaving to all .future 
 ages, in the history of his life, as well as in his paintings, 
 many beautiful moral and religious precepts. On the 
 18th of March, of the year 1455, he was taken up to
 
 256 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 heaven, to contemplate these dear and holy images which 
 he so admirably depicted here on earth. The Pontiff, 
 Nicholas V., who bewailed his departure, caused a mar- 
 ble monument to be erected to his memory in the 
 church of the Minerva, on which he ordered that the 
 effigy of the artist should be sculptured. According to 
 some, the Pope himself wrote the inscription, which was 
 meant to record the ability and the virtues of the painter, 
 as well as the esteem in which the Pontiff held him. It 
 is as follows : 
 
 " Hie. JACET. VEN. PICTOK. 
 FB. Jo. de FLOR. ORD. P. 
 
 M. 
 
 c. c. c. c. 
 
 L. 
 V. 
 
 Non mihi sit laudi, quod eram velut alter Apelles, 
 
 Sed quod lucra tuis (L. pauperibus) omnia, Christe dabam : 
 
 Altera nam terns opera extant, altera ccelo 
 
 Urbs me Joannem flos tulit Etruriae." ' 
 
 We will close his life with the eulogy which Vasari 
 has pronounced on him, " Fra Giovanni was a most holy 
 man, and very simple in his habits . . . He shunned 
 all worldly pursuits, and, living a pure and sanctified life, 
 he was as much the friend of the poor whilst here on 
 earth, as I believe his soul to be now in heaven. He 
 painted constantly ; nor did he ever wish to produce any- 
 thing save for the Saints. He might have been wealthy, 
 but he did not care to become so ; on the contrary, he 
 was wont to say that true riches consist in being content 
 with little. He might have commanded many, but he 
 did not wish for it, and it was a maxim of his that there is 
 
 1 The term " venerable," applied to the Angelico so soon after his death, 
 appears somewhat remarkable. Lcandro Albert! is the first who, as far as I 
 have ascertained, calls him Beato, (Blessed.)
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 257 
 
 less trouble and less danger of error in being subject to 
 others. It was in his power to have had dignities con- 
 ferred on him by the friars and others, but he did not 
 esteem them, and he was accustomed to say that he de- 
 sired no dignity save escaping hell and winning Para- 
 dise. And, in fact, what dignity can be compared to 
 that which all religious, nay, all men of every condition, 
 should seek, and which is to be found in God alone and 
 a holy life ? He was most gentle and sober, and disen- 
 gaged himself from the snares of the world by living 
 chastely; and he used to say that persons of his art 
 had need of repose, and should be entirely freed from all 
 interruptions ; and that he whose works related to Christ 
 should be always communing with Christ. Never did 
 he exhibit anger amongst his brethren, a fact which to 
 me seems almost incredible; and whensoever he had 
 occasion to admonish his friends, he did so with a gentle 
 smile. Whensoever any one sought works by his pencil, 
 he used to tell them, with incredible amiability, that, if 
 they satisfied his prior, he would not fail them. In a 
 word, this never to-be-sufficiently-lauded father, both in 
 actions and words, was most humble and modest, and, in 
 his paintings, simple and devout ; and the saints that he 
 painted have more of the air and resemblance of saints 
 than these of any other painter. It was his custom never 
 to retouch or heighten the effect of any of his works, 
 but to leave them just as they came from his pencil, 
 believing, as he used to say, that such was the will of 
 God. Some say that Fra Giovanni never took up pencil 
 without first having recourse to prayer. Whensoever 
 he painted a Crucifixion, the tears streamed down his 
 cheeks, and in the countenances and attitudes of his 
 figures it is easy to perceive the goodness of his soul and 
 his great love of the Christian religion."
 
 258 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 It may bo pleasing to the reader if we add a few words 
 concerning the portraits of Fra Angelico that exist, or 
 that are thought to be meant for him ; for, indeed, most 
 people are anxious to learn from the features of all 
 great men, what may have been the internal workings of 
 their souls. It appears to me, therefore, that the likeness on 
 the monument in the Minerva, should be regarded as the 
 truest, since it is probable that it was taken from a cast after 
 death. This portrait, however, has suffered so much from 
 attrition, that we cannot now very clearly trace his linea- 
 ments. According to Rosini and, I believe, Father Gug- 
 lielmo Delia Valle, Luca Signorelli made a likeness of 
 him in his Final Judgment in Orvieto, placing him near 
 himself in the two figures which are on the left of Anti- 
 christ ; thus wishing to present to the spectator the por- 
 traits of the two painters of this tremendous epic. Fra 
 Bartolomeo della Porta, who could not have seen him as 
 he lived many years after him, gives us his portrait in 
 the Final Judgment that he painted in the hospital of S. 
 Maria Nuova in Florence, whilst he was yet a secular ; 
 and this was engraved by Vasari, in the second edition of 
 his works published by Giunti, Florence, 1568; the best 
 of all, however, is that by Signer Raffaello Buonajuti. 
 There is one by Carlo Dolce, in the Academy of Design, 
 at Florence, which if it does not present the true linea- 
 ments of the Angelico, charms all eyes by its sweetness 
 and religious expression. Hitherto, the convent of S. 
 Marco possessed one coloured,. I know not by what hand ; 
 and it was in the cell of S. Antonino. The friars of that 
 convent very wisely transformed the humble cell inha- 
 bited by the holy Archbishop, into a Pinacoteca, wherein 
 you might behold the likenesses of all these religious 
 whose learning or sanctity reflected honour on the con- 
 gregation of San Marco. This was a splendid eulogium
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 259 
 
 and a solemn monument that attested the glory of the 
 Saint to whom, in great measure, the restoration of the Do- 
 minican Order was due. The portraits were as follows : 
 Giovanni Dominici the Cardinal the Archbishop S. 
 Antonino the Venerable Lorenzo da Ripafratta Fra 
 Giovanni Angelico the Blessed Pietro Cappucci di Citta 
 di Castello the Blessed Antonio Neyrot the Martyr the 
 Blessed Costanzo da Fabriano the Venerable Father 
 Santi Schiattesi, &c. ; of all of which there only remains 
 now that of S. Antonino, and of the Venerable Father Lo- 
 renzo da Ripafratta, who, it would seem, were destined to 
 represent their illustrious compeers. The convent of 
 Fiesole, which counted the two brothers of Mugello 
 amongst its earliest inmates, and who embellished it by 
 their genius, placed the portrait of the Angelico with 
 these of other great men of the Order, illustrious for 
 learning and sanctity, in their refectory, with the follow- 
 ing inscription : 
 
 " Beatus Joannes pictor, moribns et pencillo 
 Angelici cognomen jure merito. H. C. F."i 
 
 This portrait no longer exists. 
 
 It now remains for us to mention those whom the 
 Angelico educated in painting, or who having adopted 
 his manner, may be regarded as his imitators. Vasari 
 enumerates four, amongst whom, however, there is no 
 Dominican they are the following: Benozzo Gozzoli, 
 Zanobi Strozzi, Gentile da Fabriano, and a certain 
 Domenico di Michelino. Of the first there can be no 
 doubt, as there is distinct mention of him in the contract 
 regarding the Orvietan cathedral. Of the second no 
 work remains at present, or it may be that his paintings, 
 on account of the similarity of style, were attributed to 
 
 1 Hujus Conventus Filius.
 
 260 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, or to the Angelico. Lanzi enumerates 
 Strozzi, amongst the dilettanti; Vasari adds that he 
 executed pictures on canvas and in panel, for all Florence, 
 and the said biographer has given a series of his paint- 
 ings ; but that by Baldinucci, is still better. Domenico 
 di Michelino was altogether forgotten, even by Lanzi, 
 who records an abundance of mediocre painters. At last 
 the celebrated Doctor Gaye, a few years back, discovered 
 a precious document, which gives us to understand that 
 the picture in S. Maria del Fiore, of Dante crowned 
 with Laurel, and presenting his Divine Poem to Florence, 
 (a sort of reparation made by the city to the grandest of 
 its Bards,) was not the work of Orgagna, as had been 
 commonly believed, but of Domenico Michelino. 1 But 
 far superior to all these were Benozzo, and Gentile da 
 Fabriano. The first of these excelled all his contempo- 
 raries in landscape, and equalled Filippino Lippi in the 
 variety and beauty of his edifices. Second to none in 
 the poetry of art, he has left in the Ricardi palace, 
 Florence, and in the Campo Santo of Pisa, such proof of 
 his power, as is sufficient to frighten a legion of painters. 
 (Vasari.) In my opinion he imitated the Angelico in 
 the lightness and transparency of his tints, as well as in 
 graceful and devout expression. He is not so noble, but 
 perhaps more imaginative, and he is inferior to him in 
 draperies, as are most painters of his period. 
 
 On the authority of Lanzi and Father Delia Valle, 
 many doubted whether Gentile da Fabriano should be 
 classed amongst the disciples of the Angelico, alleging 
 that Gentile was actually painting in Orvieto, in 1417; 
 and that he was then called " Master of Masters." But 
 Rosini very wisely adverts that, 1417, is either an error 
 
 1 Carteggio inedito, v. i.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 261 
 
 of type, or a mistake of F. Delia Valle ; since; in another 
 passage of his book, he states that Gentile went there in 
 1423. 1 Amico Ricci, in a very learned work on the 
 artists of the Marches of Ancona, thinks, that Gentile da 
 Fabriano learned the rudiments of the art from Alegretto 
 di Nuzio, and that he studied to perfect himself under 
 the Angelico in Florence. 2 We have nothing to oppose 
 to this opinion. It may be more probable, however, that 
 Fabriano, having heard of the Angelico's arrival in 
 Foligno, proceeded thither to see his paintings, and obey 
 his precepts. Michelangiolo said of Gentile, that his 
 style was like his name. In the expression of his heads, 
 which exhibit all the finish of the miniaturist, he is supe- 
 rior to Benozzo ; and if I were to judge by the Adora- 
 tion of the Magi that is in the gallery of the Florentine 
 Academy, I would say that he is inferior to Gozzoli in 
 correctness of design. His highest encomium, however, 
 is, that he educated, in Venice, Jacopo Bellini, the 
 Founder and Father of that school, which produced 
 Giorgione and Tiziano. 
 
 ' Storia della Pitturia, Ep. ii. v. iii. 
 Memorie Storiche delle Arti, etc., Macerata, 1834.
 
 SUMMARY OF THE PAINTINGS 
 
 NOW EXISTING BY 
 
 FRA GIOVANNI ANGELICO. 
 
 PERUGIA. 
 
 Church of S. Dominic In the little choir of the Religious : 
 The Blessed Virgin on a throne, with her Sou in her arms; and 
 on the sides two panels, in one of which is S. John Baptist, and 
 S. Catherine V. M ; and in the other S. Dominic and S. Nicholas 
 di Bari. In the sacristy: Twelve little pictures of twelve 
 Saints ; a panel, with two histories of S. Nicholas di Bari; and 
 two panels of the Annunciation and the Angel Gabriel. 
 
 CORTONA. 
 
 Church of S. Dominic On the facade of the church in fresco: 
 The Blessed Virgin, with her Son in her arms, and on the sides 
 two Dominican Saints ; in the little arch: the Four Evangelists. 
 In the church, in the lateral chapel: the B. V. seated on a throne, 
 with some Angels and Saints at the sides. Church del Gesu : Au 
 Annunciation, and two gradini ; one a history of S. Dominic, 
 the other of the B. V. M. 
 
 FIESOLE. 
 
 Church of S. Dominic In the choir (on panel): the B. V. 
 seated on a throne, surrounded by Angels and Saints. In the 
 refectory: a fresco of the Crucifixion, with S. John and the B. V. 
 on the sides. In the chapter-room (fresco) : The B. V. with her 
 Son in her arms, between S. Dominic and S. Thomas of Aquino, 
 figures life-size. Church of S. Jerom: The B. V., with the holy 
 Doctor and other Saints (v. Montalembert.)
 
 SCULPTORS, AUD ARCHITECTS. 263 
 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 S. Marco (in fresco) The Crucifixion in the first cloister, 
 with five lunettes in half figures. The Crucifixion in the 
 chapter-room, and portraits of illustrious Dominicans. In the 
 convent, with the exception of two, all the cells of the upper 
 dormitory, in number thirty-two, and three histories on the ex- 
 terior walls. In the dormitory called il Giovanato, some Cruci- 
 fixes. 
 
 S. Maria Novella Three Reliquaries. Academy of Design, 
 Gallery of large pictures: No. 15. The Deposition from the 
 Cross. Gallery of little pictures: Nos. 14 and 20, two little 
 pictures, representing the Blessed Albertus Magnus, and S. 
 Thomas Aquino disputing ex cathedra ; No 30, the B. V., with 
 her Son in her arms ; No. 39, S. Cosimo, healing an Infirm; 
 No. 43, a Deposition from the Cross ; 44, the Last Judgment ; 
 45, the Burial of the five Martyrs i. e., SS. Cosmas and 
 Damian, and their three brothers; 51, a Pieta, with the instru- 
 ments of the Passion ; 56, eight panels or doors of the armory 
 of the Church of the Annunciation, with thirty-five histories of 
 the life of our Lord. Saloon: 14, the B. V. M. surrounded by 
 Saints ; 15, a similar panel; 18, the B. V. between two Angels 
 and some Saints. Gallery degli UfEzj: A grand tabernacle, 
 with the B. V. on a throne, and some Saints ; a panel with the 
 B. V. and some Saints, now in the Gallery of the Palazzo Pitti. 
 Tuscan School: The Coronation of the B. V. and the six little 
 panels i.e., the Adoration of the Magi; two histories of S. 
 Mark ; the Espousals and Transit of the B. V. M. ; and the 
 Nativity of S. John the Baptist. 
 
 ROME. 
 
 Vatican The chapel of Pope Nicholas V. painted in fresco, 
 with histories of S. Stephen and S. Laurence, Martyrs. Gallery : 
 two little panels of the life of S. Nicholas di Bari. Galleria 
 Valentini : a portion of a gradino, belonging, perhaps, to the 
 picture that is now in the choir of S. Domenico at Fiesole. 
 Galleria Corsini: a Final Judgment. Fesch Gallery: a Final 
 Judgment.
 
 264 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 ORVIETO. 
 
 Cathedral. The ceiling of the chapel of the B. V: A great 
 fresco, with the upper portion of a Final Judgment, finished by 
 Luca Signorelli. 
 
 MONTEFALCO. 
 
 Church of the Franciscans Professor Rosini says it contains 
 some works by the Angelico, but he does not mention their 
 subject. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 Louvre The picture of the Coronation of the B. V. M, and a 
 gradino, with passages from the life of S. Dominic. 
 
 BERLIN. 
 
 Royal Museum S. Dominick and S. Francis embracing, (v. 
 Montalembert, " Da Catholicisme et du Vandalisme.") A Final 
 Judgment, (Fortoul de 1'Art en Allemagne.)
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 265 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NOTICES OF FRA BAHTOLOMEO CORADINI OF URBINO, 
 COMMONLY CALLED FRA CARNOVALE. 
 
 IF we were to depend on Vasari, Baldinucci, and Lanzi, 
 for a memoir of Bartolomeo Coradini, a very excellent 
 painter of the city of Urbino, we should be content with 
 the following very meagre notices. Towards the close of 
 the fifteenth century, there flourished in Urbino a painter, 
 vulgarly called Fra Carnovale, either on account of his 
 lively temperament, or, perhaps, because his features were 
 very gay and cheerful. He painted an altar-piece for the 
 church of the Franciscans in his native city ; and Bramante 
 Lazzari and the divine Raffaello studied the works of this 
 cheerful friar in their youth. Thanks, however to the 
 diligent and indefatigable researches of the learned 
 Father Luigi Pungileoni of the Minor Conventuals, 
 whose demise has evoked the sorrow of every lover of 
 art, we are now enabled to know more of the life and 
 works of this Dominican painter. In the historical 
 eulogy of Giovanni Santi di Urbino, father of Raffael, 
 Pungileoni has inserted a long letter, in which he details 
 all that he was able to collect regarding Coradini. This 
 letter he addressed to the Marquis Antaldi, a most pro- 
 found virtuoso ; l and we will enrich our pages with it, 
 barely supplying some few observations which could 
 
 1 Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi, painter and poet, father of Raffael, of 
 Urbino, by Vincenzo Guerriiii, 1822, 1 vol. in 8vo. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 266 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 not have come within the narrow limits of an 
 epistle : 
 
 " TO THE MARQUIS RAIMONDI ANTALDI, PATRICIAN, AND 
 GONFALONIERE OF URBINO. 
 
 " The love with which you cultivate the fine arts, has 
 induced me to send you such notices as I have been able 
 to collect respecting Bartolommeo, the Dominican painter, 
 son of Giovanni di Bartoli Coradini and Michelina, of 
 whose family I am ignorant. Gifted with no ordinary 
 talent, lie devoted himself to the study of sacred litera- 
 ture and art. He was far from being mediocre, and he 
 would have acquired greater reputation in painting, if 
 the duties of the cloister and the cure of a parish, (he 
 was the Cure of Castello Cavallino,) had not often obliged 
 him to abandon the pencil. Various notices extracted 
 from the book of the confraternity of Santa Maria della 
 Misericordia, induce me to believe that he was a disciple 
 of Fra Jacopo Veneto, his confrere. 1 Our gratitude is due 
 to the man who compiled the Memoirs regarding the 
 church and suburban convent of S. Bernardino, from 
 which the learned Father Thomas of the Reformed 
 Minorites, has kindly transcribed for me, the following 
 fragment: 'About this period, (1472,) Fra Bartolomeo, 
 called Fra Carnovale, painted the picture for the great 
 altar: the Madonna, is the portrait of the Duchess 
 
 1 Loc. cit. p. 47. In a book of the Archives of S. Croce, written between 1363 
 and 1420, we read, "July 21st, to Fra Giacomo di Venezia, of the Order of 
 S. Dominic, two florins, as an instalment of what he is to receive for painting 
 the new audience chamber ;" here we find another Dominican artist, hitherto 
 unknown to Art-History. In the Annali del Convento di S. Dominico in 
 Bologna, we have an entry datd 1434, concerning some pieces of land, the 
 usus-fructus of which belonged to Fra Antonio, a Bolognese painter. We 
 hope to be able to discover some painting or memoir of these two Dominican 
 artists, Fra Giacomo di Venezia and Fra Antonio di Bologna.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 267 
 
 Battista Sforza, wife of Duke Frederic, and the infant 
 that is on the Madonna's knees, is the portrait (taken from 
 life) of the baby then born to the Duke, of the said 
 Battista,' etc. I entirely agree with your brother, who 
 says in his unpublished notices of the artists of Pesaro 
 and Urbino, that the picture was executed between the 
 24th of January (Guidobaldo's birth-day) and the 6th 
 of July, on which day the second wife of Duke Federico 
 departed this life. Whatsoever may have been the date 
 of this painting, which is now in the Pinacoteca, at 
 Milan you who have had time to examine it, can 
 readily inform me whether we should trust to Stefano 
 Ticozzi, who lauds it for its colouring, but not for the 
 drapery of the figures, or the architecture, in which he 
 discovers all the imperfections of the period ; or to Lanzi, 
 who describes the architecture as beautiful. The learned 
 Count Montevecchio, in his unpublished memoirs, 
 reconciles both opinions, by observing that, it was very 
 difficult to shake off the Gothic dust, which was more 
 the vice of the times, than of the painter. To him, I am 
 indebted for various reflections on the works of Santi 
 and Viti, and I will not fail to notify to the public, the 
 weight of my obligations. A sketch on wood, believed 
 to have been by the same hand that produced the altar- 
 piece, is now carefully preserved in S. M. delle Grazie, 
 of the Reformed Franciscans, near Sinigaglia. It 
 represents the Infant sleeping on the Mother's bosom, 
 and Duke Federico with his arms crossed on his breast ; 
 but it is deficient in perspective, and wants more than 
 one personage of the Feltresca family. I am tempted to 
 introduce to your notice here, another work from his 
 pencil, now existing in S. Maria della Bella, but I abstain 
 from doing so because Cardinal Barberini, the Legate, 
 took it away ; and gave in lieu of it an excellent picture
 
 268 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 by Claudio Ridolfi, which has also disappeared. I will 
 rather mention the painting on wood, now preserved in 
 the Staccoli Gallery, which is attributed to him by the 
 Professor Michele Dolci, in his manuscript memoirs. The 
 head of the Madonna, who is seated in the centre of the 
 painting, within a niche, is well painted, and expressive ; 
 and amongst the other figures, that of an old man, with a 
 white beard, reading a book, is elaborated with taste 
 approaching perfection. Occupied with his pastoral 
 duties, he had not much time for his pencil. In my 
 opinion, want of leisure caused him, in 1456, to refund 
 to the bank of Lucca Zaccagna, a sum which had been 
 advanced to him by the Guild of Corpus Domini, for a 
 picture which they had ordered, as appears from the 
 following entry in Latin: ' Whereas, it was agreed 
 between the members of the Guild of Corpus Domini of 
 Urbino, and Fra Bartolomeo, of the Dominicans, that the 
 latter should paint a certain picture, for said Fraternity, 
 and whereas, the said Fra Bartolomeo received in part- 
 payment, forty gold ducats, of which he expended seven 
 for colours, and as said parties absolved said Fra Bartolo- 
 meo from this agreement, . . . because Baldo, the 
 goldsmith, promised to make good the remaining thirty- 
 three gold ducats,' etc. Permit me to give you another 
 notice, though it does not regard the painter. In the 
 Communal Archives of this city, there are various entries 
 regarding wax oblations and, dated August, 22, 1461, 
 is the following : ' Item to the Venerable Bartolomeo, 
 Pastor of S. Cassiano di Cavallino, four florins, for four 
 pounds of wax, painted, . . . this sum was given 
 to the said Pastor, for thus commemorating the victory 
 which his Lordship (probably the Duke of Urbino) had, 
 on the festival, when he defeated Sigismondo di Mala- 
 testa.' I might add much more anent this artist, were I
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 269 
 
 not afraid of tiring you, but let me inform you, that if 
 you think, with Lanzi, that he died in 1478, you are 
 mistaken. 1 The Archives of Urbino, ad. aim. 1481, tell 
 us that amongst other witnesses, summoned for some 
 legal proceeding was, ' the venerable man and Pastor 
 Fra Bartolomeo, of S. Cassiano Cavallino;' and in 
 the book of the Confraternity we read: (ad. ann. 
 1482,) ' To Fra Bartolomeo, Archpriest of Cavallino.' 
 Again, under date, January 1st, 1484: ' To Fra Barto- 
 lomeo, as above, for the poor.' It would appear that he 
 died in 1488, and was succeeded by a certain Baldissare, 
 whose baptismal name I have not discovered. I would 
 desire, my most amiable Lord, to tender you all my 
 services, if they be worth anything ; accept, therefore, 
 my most anxious desire to exhibit my profound respect 
 and esteem," etc. 
 
 To these observations of the learned Franciscan, I 
 have little to add ; and I will confine myself to a few 
 remarks on the picture now existing in the church of S. 
 Bernardino, of which I can only speak from the engra- 
 ving given in his History of Italian Painting, by 
 Professor Rosini. 2 In this he represents the Virgin 
 seated on a throne, having on her knees the Divine 
 Infant, (nude,) who is in profound sleep. The features, 
 and whole attitude of the Madonna, are expressive 
 of prayer and adoration. At either side he places 
 two Saints, on one line, according to the style of the 
 Giotto-school; and they are, S. John Baptist, S. Jerom, 
 S. Francis, and another Saint, whose name I cannot 
 determine. Before the throne, kneeling, and clothed in 
 
 1 Lazzari, Father Lanzi, and even Professor Rosini have erred in stating 
 that this painter died in 1478. 
 3 Tav. XCIII.
 
 270 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 armour, is the Duke of Urbino, in the act of imploring 
 for himself and family, (whom he places behind the 
 throne,) the protection of Mary. Every body praises the 
 beauty of the heads, and the portraits of the Duke and 
 his Children ; which are so life-like, that they will bear 
 comparison with the best productions of Pietro Perugino. 
 We cannot say so much, however, of the composition, 
 and particularly as regards the manner in which he 
 disposes the Ducal family. Instead of hiding them 
 behind the throne, he should have grouped them before 
 it, as did many painters of that and the following 
 century. In my opinion, Coradini was influenced by 
 the traditions of the old masters, of which there are 
 many traces in his works. The drapery is far from 
 being graceful in its folds, and is, likewise, very scanty ; 
 and as to the nude of the Infant, it is feeble in design. 
 Despite these defects, common to nearly all the painters 
 of that age, this painting reveals an artist gifted with 
 genius; and worthy of being classed amongst the fore- 
 most of the Roman school of the fifteenth century. 
 Lanzi thinks him superior to Giovanni Santi ; and Father 
 Pungileoni suspects that the latter did not fail to avail 
 himself of the precepts and mannerism of Fra Carnovale, 
 who was his senior. 1 Three of the most distinguished of 
 the painters of Urbino studied his works. Vasari states, 
 of Bramante, that " whilst yet a mere boy, he studied 
 
 1 History of Painting, Rom. School, 1st Epoch. " But the most distin- 
 guished of them all was Fra Bartolomeo Corradini, of Urbino, the Domini- 
 can called Fra Carnovale. His pictures are defective in perspective, and re- 
 tain, in the drapery, the dryness of his age ; but the portraits are so strongly 
 expressed, that they seem to live and speak ; the architecture is beautiful, 
 the colours bright, and the expression of the heads is noble and un- 
 affected. It has been ascertained that Bramante and Raflaello studied them 
 as there was nothing superior to them then in Urbino."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 271 
 
 many of the paintings of Coradini, commonly called Fra 
 Carnovale, of Urbino, who executed the altar-piece of 
 Santa Maria della Bella, in Urbino. 1 As to Santi, all 
 agree with Pungileoni ; but as to Raffaello, the assertions 
 of Lanzi and Rosini, are nothing more than conjectures. 
 And, indeed, the recent works executed by Piero della 
 Francesca, about this period, for Duke Federico, of 
 Urbino, all of which were conducted in the style of the 
 miniaturists, with little historical figures, could not have 
 been of great assistance to the painters we have recorded, 
 who desired to emancipate themselves from the ancient 
 methods, and, as it were, to enter on a larger field; 
 whereas, in Fra Carnovale, I think, we can discover a 
 grander style, as though he represented, in his own 
 person, Sandro Botticelli, Andrea del Castagno, Roselli, 
 etc., and the other Florentines of this period. 
 
 A person, whom I venerate, and who is skilled in arts 
 and literature, suspects that the picture, now in the 
 Pinacotea of Milan, should be attributed to Piero della 
 Francesca, instead of Corradini. His reason for this 
 opinion is, that he found in many of the works of the 
 former, all the portraits of the Duke and of his family. 
 He evidently alludes to these now in the Gallery of the 
 Uffizj at Florence. Nevertheless, it is but a conjecture ; 
 since, irrespective of the ancient Memoirs of Father 
 Pungileoni, which remove all doubt as to the author of 
 
 1 History of Painting, v. 3, Epoch, 2nd., ch. VIII. How very little 
 Baldinucci knew this artist, appears from these, his own words: "This painter 
 came from Raffaello's school, and became excellent in perspective." . . . 
 and further on " This was that Fra Bartolomeo da Urbino who taught the 
 art of design and painting to Bramante di Castel Durante, and who lived 
 about 1520." V. Decenn. III. Part 1, Sec. IV. How could a painter of 
 Raffael's school be master to Bramante, and flourish about 1520 ? Add to 
 this the eulogium on his perspective, whereas all his pictures are most de- 
 fective in this particular.
 
 272 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 that picture, it is easy to suppose that Piero della Fran- 
 cesca, during his residence in the Feltresca Court, may 
 have designed and coloured the portraits of Duke 
 Federico and his family. This fact could not be an 
 argument for ascribing to him the said altar-piece. 
 Moreover, admitting what Ticozzi and Lanzi state of the 
 defective perspective of the temple, that forms the back 
 ground of the painting, how could we suppose that 
 Piero della Francesca, who was so great a master in this 
 science, could have been its author ? But let this suffice 
 regarding Fra Carnovale, till we discover other materials 
 to illustrate his life and works. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Fra Gerolamo Monsignori, the Veronese Painter. 
 
 LEAVING the declivity of the Apennines, and proceeding 
 along the smiling banks of the Adige and Mincio, we 
 find amongst the painters educated in the school of 
 Andrea Mantegna the Padovan, Fra Gerolamo Monsig- 
 nori, whose name, with these of many others, should 
 have been buried in oblivion, had not Vasari recorded it 
 to posterity. Bartolommeo del Pozzo, concluding the 
 Life of Francesco Monsignori, adopts Vasari's words in 
 relation to Gerolamo: 1 and Scipione Maffei simply states 
 that Francesco had two brothers who cultivated paint- 
 ing. 2 Father Serafino Razzi is not more copious than 
 the authors we have quoted, and, to spare himself trou- 
 
 i Vite del Pittori Scultori e Architetti VeroneaL * Verona illustrata.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 273 
 
 ble, he merely quoted Vasari. This uncertainty and 
 poverty of materials will not allow us to determine pre- 
 cisely the year of Gerolamo's birth, which Razzi says 
 was 1440 (according to him he died, aged sixty, at the 
 beginning of 1500) ; whereas Vasari, speaking of his 
 brother, affirms that 1445 was the year in which he was 
 born, and that he died in 1519. This discrepancy pre- 
 cludes all possibility of reasonable conjecture, and indeed 
 these two historians are very heedless of accuracy in 
 matters of dates. The country of our Friar was Verona, 
 and his father, Alberto Monsignori, was a man in easy 
 circumstances. He had three children, Gerolamo, Cheru- 
 bino, and Francesco, but I have not ascertained which of 
 them was the eldest ; it appears, that the last-named sur- 
 vived Gerolamo for a few years. As Alberti took great de- 
 light in painting, and cultivated it, not as a means to 
 make out his livelihood, but to shun idleness, he deter- 
 mined that his three sons should be educated in the art, 
 and he himself taught them the first rudiments. Subse- 
 quently, finding that Francesco had exquisite taste and a 
 ready hand, and that Gerolamo, who was of a very mild 
 disposition, equalled his brother in talent, he resolved to 
 provide them with the ablest master he could provide. 
 What redounds more to the praise of the father, was the 
 earnestness with which he laboured to instil into the 
 minds of his children the holy fear of God, both by pre- 
 cept and example. Nor did the result disappoint the 
 hopes he had preconceived; for both Gerolamo and 
 Francesco led a most holy life, the former in the clois- 
 ters of the Preaching-Friars, and the latter amongst the 
 Minorites. As to Francesco, we need only transcribe 
 what Vasari has recorded of him : " Francesco was a 
 man of holy life, and a hater of every vice, and he never
 
 274 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 could be induced to execute lascivious works, though 
 importuned by Francesco Gonzaga, of Mantua all his 
 brothers resembled him in goodness." 1 
 
 Such splendid conduct as this, in a most corrupt age, is 
 well calculated to console these high-minded artists who 
 attach more value to a moral idea than to the disgusting 
 nude; and who, despite most prave examples, know how to 
 accomplish the object of their art without contaminating 
 their pencils with indecent productions. 
 
 The man at this period in highest esteem was the 
 painter Andrea Mantegna, of Padua, the disciple of 
 Squarcione ; who, having left his own country, and Ve- 
 nice, where he married the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, 
 accepted the invitation of the Marquess Lodovico Gon- 
 zaga, and settled himself in Mantua. Here were laid 
 the foundations of the Lombard school, which the tran- 
 scendent genius of Lionardo da Vinci soon raised to that 
 eminence which is known to all. Alberto Monsignori 
 thought, however, that his sons required an able teacher, 
 and that Verona had no one who could compete with 
 Mantegna; and indeed few of that period excelled him 
 in fertility or elegance, and certainly none in the correct- 
 ness of design. He therefore sent Francesco and Gero- 
 lamo to study under him. As to Francesco, there can be 
 no doubt that Mantegna was his master; and of Ge- 
 rolamo, we may readily affirm the same; for he 
 not only followed Mantegna in his first manner, but 
 Lanzi assures us that he should be numbered amongst 
 the Mantegneschi painters. 2 Cherubino, on the other 
 hand, applied himself to miniaturing, and he succeeded 
 
 * Vite degli uomini illostri. 
 
 4 History of Painting, Mantuan School, Epoch 1st.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 275 
 
 so admirably in this art, that Vasari terms him " a most 
 beautiful writer and miniaturist." When and where 
 Gerolamo took the Dominican habit is not recorded by 
 any one. Without knowing it, save by hearsay, he was 
 a most faithful imitator of Fra Giovanni Angelico. 
 Though the offspring of respectable parents, such was 
 his humility, that he entered amongst the lay -brothers. 
 Prayer, seclusion, and an indifference to all earthly 
 goods, were his grand characteristics. Vasari has given 
 us some particulars of his life ; and we will narrate 'them 
 in the words of this writer: "Fra Gerolamo was a most 
 simple person, and altogether detached from mundane 
 pursuits ; and staying in the country in a farm belonging 
 to the convent, in order to avoid all interruptions, he 
 kept the money which he earned by his works, and 
 which he expended on the purchase of colours, in a box 
 without a lid, which he hung up in the centre of his 
 cell, so that any one, who so wished, might come and 
 make use of it. To avoid all trouble about his daily 
 food, he cooked, each Monday, a pot of beans, which 
 sufficed him throughout the week. At length, when 
 Mantua was smitten by the plague, and when every 
 body fled, Fra Gerolamo, motived by charity, never 
 abandoned the sick Fathers, but, on the contrary, tended 
 them with his own hands. Thus, not shrinking from 
 sacrificing his life to God, he caught the contagion, and 
 died at the age of sixty, regretted by all who knew 
 him." 
 
 As a painter, Vasari styles him mediocre ; but, speak- 
 ing of his works, he raises them above mediocrity. He 
 painted much for his convent in Mantua; and amongst 
 the works he produced in that place is the altar-piece of 
 the chapel del Rosario, and in the refectory a very beau- 
 tiful " Last Supper," and a Crucifixion, which death
 
 276 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 prevented him from finishing. In his own country, in 
 the convent of S. Anastasia, he frescod a Madonna, S. 
 Remigius, the bishop, and S. Anastasia, the martyr ; of 
 which nearly all the figures have been destroyed. In 
 the second cloister of the same convent, over the second 
 door, in the little arch, he painted the B.V., S. Dominic, 
 and S. Thomas of Aquino. At the latter period of his 
 life, when the fame of Lionardo da Vinci was resounding 
 not only through Lombardy, but throughout all Italy, 
 Fra Gerolamo abandoned the study and imitation of 
 Mantegna, and began to follow the manner of Vinci. 
 This proves that Monsignori's genius was not swayed by 
 prejudices, for, even in his old age, which is almost 
 always tenacious of the first methods, he desired to strike 
 out into a new and more difficult path. Lionardo had 
 been invited to paint in Milan by Duke Lodovico, called 
 il Moro, in 1494, or, as others think, .as early as 1482. 
 It must be borne in mind that our Fra Gerolamo, having 
 left Mantua or Verona, where he usually dwelt, pro- 
 ceeded to the convent delle Grazie, in Milan, when that 
 bizarre genius, Matteo Bandello was there, and Vinci 
 was painting the marvellous Supper, that Lanzi truly 
 describes as one of the most beautiful paintings that ever 
 came from the hand of man. Here, the precepts and 
 example of such a great master must have been of the 
 greatest service to him ; and in order to make an essay 
 in the Leonardesque style, he painted a little S. John, 
 and a woman laughing, which, in the days of Vasari, 
 were preserved in the mint at Milan, and in which many 
 recognise that truthfulness and grace peculiar to the 
 great master. But, above all his paintings, that which 
 won for him most praise, was a most beautiful copy of 
 the Supper, that Vinci had frescod in the convent delle 
 Grazie, which he must have executed between 1498 and
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 277 
 
 1499, in which year Lionardo left Milan, then beseiged 
 by the French. The Benedictine monks of Mantua en- 
 trusted Monsignori with this work, for they knew well how 
 splendid was the original by Lionardo, and how faith- 
 fully our Friar imitated him. This painting was of the 
 same dimensions as the original. We are not able to 
 determine exactly the year in which he executed this 
 copy, but supposing that he died in 1500, as Father 
 Razzi says, it must necessarily have been finished in 
 1499. As this was the first copy of Lionardo's great 
 work, so was it, likewise, the most excellent of the 
 many. As to the original, it very soon became quite 
 blackened, so much so, that in the time of Armennini, i.e. 
 fifty years after it was painted, it was already half de- 
 stroyed; and Vasari, who saw it in 1566, affirms that it 
 was in such sad condition, that it seemed like a dazzling 
 blot: " and," continues Vasari, " the piety of this good 
 Father, (Fra Gerolamo Monsignori,) will always bear 
 testimony to Lionardo's abilities." 1 
 
 Lanzi, who probably had seen the copy which the 
 Veronese Friar made, writes that some regarded it as the 
 best ever executed of that miracle of art ; and Vasari says 
 it was so beautifully finished, that it struck him with 
 astonishment. 2 The Benedictine monks, for whom it 
 
 1 Life of Gerolamo da Carpi in fine. 
 
 1 In the Milanese edition of Vasari's Lives, published 1809, there is an 
 elenchus of the copies of the Supper executed by illustrious painters : that of 
 Fra Gerolamo is marked the eighteenth ; and it is there stated of Gerolamo 
 that he studied Lionardo, and imitated him excellently. The first in the 
 series is one executed by Lomazzo, in 1561, for the Observantines della 
 Pace. I do not know whether the annotator followed the order of time or 
 merit ; but I will observe that in the first case that if Monsignori is anterior 
 by sixty-two years ; and in the second, that if the original was in the con- 
 dition described by Vasari, I do not see how Lomazzo could have produced 
 a faithful copy of it. Lanzi, and many along with him, affirm that Gerola- 
 mo's was by far the best.
 
 278 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 was painted, at first placed it in their refectory in the 
 convent of Mantua, and then in the library, but it was sold 
 at the beginning of the present century, and removed to 
 France. 1 After having finished this work, it would 
 appear that Monsignori returned to Mantua, where he 
 had scarcely arrived, when the Dominicans of that city 
 requested him to paint that Crucifixion, which, as has 
 been said, death prevented him from finishing. We will 
 not place Fra Gerolamo amongst the most illustrious 
 painters of the Lombard and Venetian school, but we think 
 he was above mediocrity; and even though he did not 
 equal his brother Francesco, it appears to us that he should 
 be classed amongst the most happy imitators of Mantegna 
 and Vinci, which is no trifling encomium. Every one 
 who respects virtue will venerate this artist, whose whole 
 life reflected honour on art. 
 
 1 Signer Mariette has written the history of Leonardo's " Supper ;" and it 
 will be found in the second vol. of the Lettere Pittoriche, No. 84. We will 
 not close the life of Gerolamo without a few observations on the original 
 painting. At a time when every one thought it was irreparably lost, the 
 Superior of that convent (and I cannot be his apologist) caused the wall in 
 the under part of the picture to be sawed through, in order to construct a 
 window for the convenience of the friars. Subsequently in the year 1726, 
 Michael Angelo Bellotti, the painter, proposed to restore it ; and the religious, 
 flattering themselves that .this chef-doeuvre might be preserved, gladly em- 
 braced the offer, and gave the said artist five hundred crowns for his trouble. 
 The Abate Carlo Bianconi, in his Milan Guide, is too severe on the Domini- 
 cans, for the first and second of these doings, as both resulted badly. But 
 those who are wont to measure the merit of actions, according to the 
 good intention, will not, I trust, blame them for the infelicitous termination 
 of all these attempts.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 279 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Father Domenico Emanuele Maccarj, the Genoese Painter. 
 
 ONLY one Ligurian, and he a mediocre painter, shall 
 figure in these Memoirs; for, indeed, the religious of 
 another institute, and another district, were far superior 
 to the Dominican artists in that Republic. There was, 
 first, a certain Fra Stefano da Milano, I know not of 
 what order, who flourished about the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century. There were also three Carmelites, 
 Fra Gerolamo and Fra Giovanni da Brescia, and a Fra 
 Lorenzo Moreno, whom Lanzi describes as a good 
 frescoist. Simone da Carnuli, of the Reformed Minors, 
 was a Genoese, and very able in perspective. But emi- 
 nent above them all was Fra Bernardo Strozzi, by 
 some called the Cappucine, and by others the Priest, 
 who was such a splendid painter that he may be said to 
 have divided the laurels with the best of the Venetian 
 masters. Our Maccarj, who was unknown to Lanzi, 
 Ratti, Soprani, and, in fact, to all the historians of the 
 Genoese school, is indebted to the diligence of Father 
 Spotorno the Barnabite, for obtaining a very distinguished 
 position in the same. But he has shared the fate of 
 many of his confreres, for the notices of his life were lost ; 
 and of all his works, only one picture has survived 
 him. 
 
 The district of Pigna, on the confines of Piemonte, 
 was the birth-place of Fra Emanuele Maccarj ; arid this 
 humble region has been honoured in our times as the 
 natal soil of a most distinguished antiquarian, the Abate
 
 280 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Fea. Of his parents, the year of his birth, or even of his 
 death, we have no authentic documents. We readily 
 adopt the opinion of the historian of Ligurian Literature, 
 who states that our Domenico Emanuele learned the art 
 in Taggia, from Corrado the German, and that his con- 
 disciple wasLodovico Brea di Nizza, whom Lanzi, without 
 any reason, calls the founder of the Genoese school. 1 Giusto 
 di Allemagna had a much better title to this designation. 
 This was the artist who executed the fresco of the An- 
 nunciation in the convent of S. Maria di Castello in 
 Genoa, A.D. 1451, and who, in all probability, was master 
 to that Corrado who educated Brea and Maccarj in 
 Taggia. This, however, should not be understood in 
 any sense derogatory to the other national painters, who 
 were either the contemporaries of Giusto, or preceded 
 him, and who claim to be the founders of the Ligurian 
 school. The registry of the Genoese painters, (recently 
 discovered by the learned Barnabite, Father Spotorno, 
 who was the early and honoured instructor of the writer 
 of these pages) induces us to believe that this high 
 merit should not be attributed to the ultramontanes. 
 Where or when Maccarj took the Dominican habit has 
 baffled all our researches; it appears certain, however, 
 that he was a priest, and affiliated to the convent of S. 
 Maria della Misericordia in Taggia. This was one of 
 the convents that had embraced the reform which was 
 being introduced into the Order, since in all the ancient 
 memoirs it is called Conventus Observantice. We desire 
 that particular stress should be laid on this remark, for 
 wheresoever the regular discipline prevailed in the Domini- 
 can cloisters, there were always to be found the most eminent 
 artists and scholars. The blessed Angelico, his brother, 
 
 1 Storia Letteraria della Liguria, Geneva, 1826, voL 4.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 281 
 
 Fra Bartolomeo, Fra Paolino, Fra Gerolamo Monsignori, 
 all belonged to the reformed convents of Tuscany and 
 Lombardy. By Father Domenico Emanuele Maccarj, 
 we have only the altar-piece of the chapel of S. Peter, 
 Martyr, in the church of his institute in Taggia: a 
 church which David Bertolotti justly termed a rich 
 Pinacoteca of the paintings of the fifteenth century ; as 
 it was embellished with these by Lodovico Brea, Cor- 
 rado di Allemagna, Maccarj, and others. 1 Maccarj also 
 painted a Crucifixion, with S. Dominic and Catherine 
 V. M. at either side, and at foot of the Holy Rood S. Peter, 
 Martyr, and St. Jerom. It would now be difficult to 
 judge of the merits of this work, as the chronicle of the 
 convent tells us that a gang of desperadoes made an in- 
 cursion into the district for the purpose of plundering, 
 and hacked the picture with hatchets, the traces of which 
 are discernible even now. Far worse than this was the 
 outrage perpetrated on it by an unworthy priest, whom 
 heaven's vengeance suddenly and severely chastised. 2 We 
 do not know precisely in what year Maccarj began to 
 paint it, but it appears to have been after 1522. We are 
 led to believe this by the last will and testament of Dome- 
 nico Oddi, of Taggia, dated January, 21st of that year, 
 in which he devised to the chapel of S. Peter, Martyr, 
 in the church of the Dominicans, all his property, toge- 
 ther with twenty-five ducats to defray the expense of the 
 painting, which was subsequently executed by Father 
 Domenico Emanuele, as manifestly appears from said 
 chronicle. For this notice I am indebted to the kind- 
 
 i Viaggio nella Liguria Marittima di Davide Bartolotti, Torino, .1834, 
 vol. L 
 
 3 V. Document, ad fiuem.
 
 282 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 ness of the Canon Vincenzo Lotti, of Taggia, who is a 
 distinguished investigator of his country's annals. 
 
 It may be objected to us that a painter who flourished in 
 1522 should be placed amongst the artists of the sixteenth 
 century, rather than amongst the Quattrocentisti ; but we 
 will take leave to observe that in the history of art, along 
 with years, we are bound to consider style and method ; 
 and that ofMaccarj, in the judgment of many, is peculiar 
 to the latter and not to the former. This consideration 
 shall serve as a rule to us as we proceed in these pages. 
 Here end the very meagre notices which we have been 
 able to collect regarding Father Emanuel. Perhaps we 
 may one day light upon some memoir or work of his 
 which will be calculated to make us appreciate him still 
 more, and thus fill up the void which Ratti and Soprani 
 have left in the Pictorial History of Liguria. 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 Fra Francesco Colonna, the Venetian Architect, author of the Art-Romance, 
 entitled The Dream of Polifilo. 
 
 THE fifteenth century which has enriched these memoirs 
 with so many able artists, has not, as yet, presented to us 
 any cultivator of the first of the three Sister-Arts I 
 mean Architecture. But happily we are now enabled to 
 narrate the life of one who, with Leon Battista Alberti, 
 and Brunellesco, was instrumental in restoring the classic 
 eurythmy of the Greeks and Romans to Italy. So 
 lovingly did the Preaching-Friars cultivate this art, that 
 its destinies seem to have been linked with theirs, and 
 wheresoever civilization progressed, we are sure to find
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 283 
 
 them setting the seal of their genius on the move- 
 ment. Hence, it is, that Gothic architecture, in its 
 two last and most splendid phases, revives memories 
 of the many architects of S. Maria Novella in Flo- 
 rence; whilst the Renaissance reminds us of two 
 Venetian writers, and at the same time most able 
 architects and antiquarians Fra Francesco Colonna, and 
 Fra Giocondo. Of the second we will have occasion to 
 speak in the following volume. But should any one 
 seek to know why we have divided two artists who 
 exercised the same art, and were contemporaries, we will 
 answer that the work which won for Colonna the name 
 of a great architect, belongs to the last periods of the 
 fifteenth century; whereas, Fra Giocondo designed and 
 constructed many splendid edifices in the golden age of 
 Leo X. 
 
 It is really wonderful that a Mar who consecrated all 
 his days, studies, and writings to the glory and advance- 
 ment of the imitative arts, should, in progress of time, 
 have fallen into such oblivion, and that his name should be 
 unknown not only to people of other countries, but even 
 to his fellow-citizens. In fact the learned researches of 
 many able writers did not suffice to restore his memory 
 to the veneration of men. 1 . His destiny was like that of 
 many others, who either wrote on Art, or otherwise 
 
 1 How very little Colonna was known to the Venetian historians, even to 
 those of his own Order, appears from the brief notice of Fathers Echard and 
 Quietif. " Fr. Franciscus Colunna Venetus, inter viros in oratoria hac 
 aetate prsestantes laudatur a. Leandro, foL 164, 6, et de eo sic. habet: 
 In quodam libro materno sermone edito, litteraturam et varium ac multi- 
 plex ingenium suum prcesefert." Nescio qui Alberico s^nit in mentem in 
 suis scriptoribus Venetis, ut librum litteraturam auctoris arguentem ut habet 
 Leander, verteret in volumen variarum epistolarum eruditum, nam opus ipse 
 se vidisse non indicat. Albericum tamen excipiunt Altamura, ad 1489 et 
 Kovetta, ad 1493. Mihi donee lux major affulserit Leandro aequali standum 
 visum est Script. Ord. Praedicat, v. 2, torn. 35 ad 1517.
 
 284 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 helped to advance it. Is not the Treatise on Painting, 
 by the Monk Theophilus, so rare in Italy, that few know 
 anything more of it than what they have been able to 
 learn in the fragments given to us by writers on Art? 
 Is it not true that we are indebted to the recent solicitude 
 of Tambroni, for Cennino Cennini's little work? 
 Lorenzo Ghiberti's work shared a similar fate ; and, even 
 now, there are many treatises by Lionardo da Vinci, 
 which have not been printed. The past and present 
 century, which may be justly termed the two epochs of 
 solemn reparations to the names of the great men who 
 vied with each other in honouring their respective 
 countries, have begun to study the history, and illustrate 
 the works of these celebrated Italians, whose genius has 
 crowned their peninsula with glory. Such, too, was the 
 fate of our Colonna, till Filibien, Apostolo Zeno, Fossati, 
 and Algarotti vindicated his fame. But foremost in this 
 work were Temanza and Father Federici, of the Domi- 
 nican Order, who laboured with incredible diligence to 
 dissipate the clouds that hung over the author, and the 
 mysterious book entitled, " The Dream of Polifilo." 
 
 Amongst the families expelled from Lucca, by the 
 tyranny of Castruccio Castracane, was that of Colonna, 
 which, like many others of the period, sought and found 
 hospitality in Venice. 1 Our Francesco was born there in 
 the year 1433, and received a splendid education, in every 
 respect worthy of his talents and social position. The 
 Venetians very wisely thought that to perfect the civil 
 and scientific education of their young patricians, it was 
 not enough to have acquired knowledge from books by 
 way of precept, but that it was absolutely necessary to 
 visit foreign countries, and to study the customs of 
 
 1 Vite dei piu celebri architetti Veneziani, Venezia, 1778, 1 vol. 4 to.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 285 
 
 peoples, their laws, arts, religion, and politics. Temanza 
 however, supposes that Francesco, when a very young 
 man, travelled in the East, visiting Greece, Egypt, and 
 Constantinople to store his mind with varied and rarest 
 erudition. He states, moreover, that he saw all Italy, 
 and that he made a long sojourn in Rome, where he col- 
 lected these antiquarian notices with which his book 
 abounds. When his biographer could find no further 
 traces of Colonna, he fancied that his life should be sought 
 in his Art-Romance ; and that Polifilo, who is its hero, 
 was also the author of the mysterious dream. For this 
 reason he assumed that Colonna, till his thirty-fourth 
 year, was an idle tourist and married to Polia, the 
 heroine of the composition ; and that on the death of his 
 spouse, he took the Dominican habit. But all romances 
 are very fallacious guides, for Father Federici has dis- 
 covered documents which prove that in the year 1455 
 Colonna belonged to the institute of the Preaching-Friars, 
 i. e. when he was but twenty-two years of age that 
 he resided in Trevigi till 1472 ; that in the latter place 
 he taught rhetoric and languages, and was master of the 
 young religious that in 1473 the University of Padua 
 gave him the degree of bachelor ; and finally, that he 
 there studied Theology, and was decorated with the 
 laurea. Whosoever desires to find this subject more fully 
 developed, needs but to read the Trevigian Memoirs of 
 the author we have been quoting. Here follow two other 
 documents, one of which informs us that he was Lector 
 to his religious ; and the other states that in 1485 he was 
 procurator for the nuns of S. Paolo, in Trevigi. Other 
 notices, omitted by F. Federici, will be found in Te- 
 manza's work. Amongst these is an act of the Council 
 of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, in Venice, (a convent to 
 which Colonna was probably affiliated,) dated October,
 
 286 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 1523, which shows how careful the friars were of his 
 old age, as it ordains that " Father Francis Colonna shall 
 every day have as much wood as the infirmarian can 
 carry ; and that the Sacristan shall each day give him 
 four pence (quatuor solidi) and bread and wine, and all 
 this in consideration of his wants, necessities, and decre- 
 pitude." Finally, his decease is dated in the Necrology of 
 that convent, " October 2nd, 1527, in the 94th year of 
 his age." He was honoured with a private sepulchre in 
 the cloister of his convent, as appears from the registry of 
 the monumental inscriptions of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, 
 compiled by Father Luciani. 1 
 
 Having premised so much, we must now speak of the 
 studies and works of this most learned man. All writers 
 agree in saying that he was skilled in Latin, Greek, 
 Hebrew, and Syriac. But the pursuit that constituted 
 his chiefest delight was that of antiquity, and especially 
 of that branch of it which has relation to the Fine Arts. 
 He was deeply read in Vitruvius and the work of Leon 
 Battista Alberti, which was published in his time. Chro- 
 nology, Numismatics, and monumental inscriptions were 
 all familiar to him, and in eacH of these departments he 
 acquired much knowledge during his travels. That a 
 man so deeply versed in the theory of architecture must 
 have raised various edifices in his own country and else- 
 where, is very likely, even though history does not 
 record them ; but even supposing that such was not the 
 case, no one, I believe, will deny him an honourable 
 place amongst the great architects, since Milizia and 
 Temanza have conceded it to him, although the former 
 (because he could not penetrate the obscure significancy 
 of his artistic-poem) renounced all veneration for him. 2 
 
 1 Memorie Trevigiane. 
 
 * Loc. cit p. 52, 53, Memorie degli architetti antichie modern!.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 287 
 
 Father Colonna, desiring to give us, in a single work, 
 a sample of his deep studies, and to render the doctrine 
 of Vitruvius familiar to all, fancied that the dogmatic 
 
 O 
 
 style would revolt the generality of readers, who wish to 
 become, or mayhap appear, learned, with as little labour 
 as possible. He doubtless fancied that the best method 
 of inculcating science, together with a knowledge of 
 antiquity and art, was that which should prove novel 
 and delectable to persons of every condition. Influenced 
 by this persuasion, he wrote the Art-Romance, to which 
 he gave a sesquipedal Greek title, which was quite 
 enough to terrify the polished and terse Annibale Caro, 
 and, indeed, the generality of readers. The title is 
 " Hypnerotomachia di Polifiol" or, in other words, " The 
 Combat of Love in a Dream." In this dream, fantastic 
 and bizarre beyond all other dreams, and surely much 
 longer than any ordinary dream, he fancied that he be- 
 held all the objects of the Fine Arts that he describes ; 
 and that he encountered in his somnolent state all these 
 amorous incidents which make up a large folio volume. 
 Had the " Hypnerotomachia" been turned into verse, it 
 must have been as long as the Morgante Maggiore of 
 Pulci, the Ricciardetto of Forteguerri, or the Orlando of 
 Ariosto and Berni. But that which overwhelms the 
 patience of every one is the pedantic style, by means of 
 which he sought to cloak his arcane doctrines and the 
 lascivious loves of his Polifilo; so much so, that the 
 Dream often acts on the reader's eyes like a narcotic. As 
 the author concealed his name, not wishing (and with 
 very good reason) to be thought an indecent writer, 
 some persons imagined that they had discovered his mo- 
 tive. Fossati, for example, believed Polifilo to have been 
 a Servite Friar, masked like another Filoxeno ; and Fon- 
 tanini would have us suppose that he was a contemplative
 
 288 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 canon. On the other hand, F. Petrogalli and Apostolo 
 Zeno found the name of Francesco Colonna, in acrostics, in 
 the initial letters of the chapters of the work. Nor did the 
 vagaries of the writers who sought to find the history of 
 this antiquarian friar in the adventures of Polifilo end 
 here. They resolved to discover who was the Polia 
 with whom the unhappy Polifilo was so much smitten, 
 and in my opinion she was as much a real entity as was 
 Don Quixote's Dulcinea. Such conjectures are more 
 laughable than the most amusing incidents of any dream. 
 Others have determined Polia to be an allegorical person, 
 or another name for Science, Antiquity, and Architecture, 
 the study of which occupied Colonna's whole life ; and 
 we, for our part, very willingly subscribe to this opinion. 
 Various people, notwithstanding, maintained that Polia 
 was not an ideal person, but a concrete of flesh and bone 
 in a word, a handsome young woman, of the family of 
 Poli. Some fancied her to have been a Lucrezia, or 
 Camilla Collalto; and Temanza and Federici would 
 have us believe that the Hypolita, (playfully termed Polia,) 
 was the daughter of a certain Francesco Lelio, a lawyer 
 of Trevigi. But we will prove by Colonna's own words, 
 that all such conjectures are baseless ; and we will at 
 the same time unveil the allegory of the Art Romance ; 
 though we may not attempt to clear him of the charge of 
 being a very loose writer. He forcibly reminds us of the 
 too celebrated Matteo Bandello, who in the last years of 
 Colonna's life was writing his indecent Novels in Milan. 
 So wide spread was pravity in these days, that it had 
 corrupted all classes I 1 
 
 The time in which this long and learned dream com- 
 
 i Bandello's Romeo and Juliet is an exception to all his Novelle, which 
 deserve the character given them by F. Marchese.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 289 
 
 menced, seems to have been indicated by the author 
 himself, at the end of the work, in the following words : 
 " Trevigi, where the most wretched Polifilo was held in 
 bonds by Polia, MCCCCLXVIL, Kalendis Maii," in 
 which year Colonna was lector in his convent of S. Nic- 
 colo, Trevigi, and had attained his thirty-fourth year. 
 Some have thought that this is the date of the publica- 
 tion, but the first opinion is preferable. It went through 
 two Aldine editions, and was translated into French by 
 Jean Martin, secretary to Cardinal Lenencourt, who 
 also translated Vitruvius and Leon Battista Alberti into 
 the same language by order of Francis I. of France. 
 The Italian editions have many woodcuts, which Fede- 
 rici says were designed by Giovanni Bellini, the Vene- 
 tian painter; or, if we are to believe Temanza, by 
 Colonna himself. As a remarkable work, reflecting ho- 
 nour on the age and Italy, Lorenzo Crasso dedicated it 
 to Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino. But it is now time to 
 introduce the reader to the mysterious dream of Polifilo, 
 and to unfold its arcane significance. 
 
 In my opinion, the very title reveals the author's 
 innermost mind: " Hypnerotomachia, Poliphili ubi hu- 
 mana omnia non nisi esse somnium docet" (Polifilo's 
 Battle of Love, in which he shows that all human things 
 are but a dream,) being an evident allusion to the vanity 
 and instability of all earthly affairs. This moral and 
 philosophical scope is placed in a still clearer light by 
 the author in the preface, where he distinctly reveals 
 his project. Let us hear himself: " Reader, if thou 
 desirest to learn what this book contains, know that 
 Polifilo narrates the wonderful things he beheld in a 
 dream, and that he has given the work a Greek title, 
 which signifies the " Battle of Love in a Dream." In 
 this work he feigns that he saw many ancient things 
 
 o
 
 290 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 worthy of being recorded, and that he himself saw them 
 all one by one, and he describes them according to 
 their proper names in an elegant style, (not very) they 
 are Pyramids, Obelisks, great Ruins of buildings, the 
 difference of columns, their measurement, the capitals, 
 bases, epystyles, friezes, cornices, and their adornments. 
 A great horse an immense elephant a colossus a 
 magnificent harbour, with its dimensions and ornaments. 
 A fright, the five senses in five nymphs, a beautiful 
 bath, fountains, the palace of the queen, which is free- 
 will, ... a game of chess, ... a labyrinth, 
 which is human life," etc. From all this, it is very 
 manifest that Polifilo's dream should not be understood 
 in any other than an allegorical sense ; as he himself tells 
 us that the five nymphs are simple allusions to the five 
 senses, which act as handmaids to the soul, and convey to 
 it the forms of material objects. The queen of the royal 
 palace is free-will, that governs and influences the body 
 and the sensitive appetites. Finally, the tortuous laby- 
 rinth represents the many vicissitudes of life, and the 
 various contingencies to which it is subject. Hence, I 
 conclude that the Polia who so fascinated Polifilo was 
 no other than the study of antiquity, as the whole Art- 
 Romance bears evidence of the love with which Colonna 
 cultivated it. As the author proceeds in his work, he 
 develops its allegorical sense. For example, in the first 
 chapter of the first part, he narrates how he dreamed that 
 he wandered along a quiet, silent shore, all uncultivated, 
 and that, trembling with great fear, he entered a dense 
 and gloomy forest. Words which clearly refer to our 
 first entrance into life, which may be aptly compared to a 
 dense and opaque forest, wherein it is easy alas ! too easy 
 to lose oneself. In the second chapter Polifilo, dreading 
 the dangers of the forest, prostrates himself in prayer
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 291 
 
 before Diespiter, and, feeling himself parched by thirst, 
 applies his lips to a stream of limpid water : but in the 
 very act he is spell-bound by some one who sings a 
 melodious strain, and he gets -up and abandons the 
 stream for the Syren. ' Here we see adumbrated the 
 yearning of our youth for knowledge, which is too often 
 diverted and destroyed by sensible objects. The third, 
 fourth, and fifth chapters are devoted to a description of 
 the great architectural works which he had seen in a 
 valley wonderfully enclosed; nor do we think we err in 
 stating that the author's object was to shew how no one 
 can become learned in that science without long and 
 laborious study. Thus it would be easy to turn, if not 
 the whole, at least the greater part of the Dream into a 
 moral sense. As to the amours of Polifilo, we have 
 nothing to say of them; and whosoever desires to be 
 acquainted with the scientific portion of the work, parti- 
 cularly on architecture, Vitruvius, and Leon Battista 
 Alberti, let him read Temanza. We will now take a 
 cursory glance of the great merits of the " Hypneroto- 
 machia," and of the vast services it has done to all the 
 arts and their cultivators. Father Federici observes that 
 all these precious objects of art which he feigned to have 
 seen in a dream, are not inventions, but realities, which 
 came under his notice when he was travelling. Amongst 
 these were marble monuments, coins, cameos, (for which 
 name we are indebted to him,) cornelians, and other 
 precious stones, in which he was deeply skilled. 1 " So 
 much so," says Federici, " that we are not to believe 
 what M. Mariette states in his Dattiliographia, namely, 
 
 1 "We have elsewhere alluded to the museum which was formed by 
 Father Francesco Massa in the convent of S. Niccolo, Trevigi, where Colonna 
 lived for many years. Here there was a valuable collection of cameos and 
 cornelians which Polifilo must have studied.
 
 292 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 that Antoine Le Pois and Enea Vico di Parma were the 
 first illustrators of the lapidary monuments of the an- 
 cients. On the contrary, Colonna preceded them all, 
 and was the first to make impressions from the marbles 
 themselves, in all that related to the religion of the Gen- 
 tiles ; and he it was who illustrated and published their 
 sculptures, and described their value and their super- 
 stitious uses. The Roman inscriptions, historical and 
 sepulchral, that he copied, form the beautiful Polifilian 
 lapidary museum, and these, in most part, are gems 
 which he read on the various marble monuments, and 
 which were collected by Gruter, Gudio, Gori, and at 
 an earlier period by Ciriaco, Feliciano, and Giocondo, 
 who interpreted them all these are encountered in the 
 dream. He gives us the precepts of Vitruvius, in the 
 author's own words, and sometimes in these of Leon Bat- 
 tista Alberti, thus proving himself to have been a most 
 zealous cultivator of architecture, no matter what Milizia 
 fanatically says to the contrary. It was from him that 
 Bernardino Baldo derived so much knowledge : he was 
 the first to solve the problem of forming a polygon of 
 seven sides within a circle, and this geometrical dis- 
 covery has been claimed most unfairly by others, who 
 plumed themselves on it. He was the first to teach the 
 new form of the Vitruvian volutes, and true arches, 
 divesting them of all Gothicism: he did much for har- 
 monics: he has given us the most distinct and exact 
 notion of the five orders, with the interpretation of Vit- 
 ruvius, and the most correct measurement of the ancient 
 Roman fabrics, together with the dimensions of harbours, 
 palaces, piazzas, bascourts, temples, all most accurately 
 designed, even out of the debris of the ancient edifices 
 which are crumbling in Rome. And now, will any one 
 refuse to admit Polifilo to a distinguished place amongst
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 293 
 
 architects and the writers on this first-born of the 
 arts? 
 
 Not satisfied with having treasured the most precious 
 antiquities, Colonna also gives us some valuable essays 
 on the progress of art, from the days of the Renaissance 
 to his own times. Hence, we find in the Dream, the 
 description of Dante's Inferno, painted by Giotto in 
 Padua; that of the Triumph of Caesar, painted by 
 Mantegna in Mantua; together with descriptions of 
 Theodoric's Mausoleum in Ravenna, Donatello's Bronze 
 Horse in Padua, and the Obelisk, which is supported by 
 the Elephant, in the Piazza Minerva at Rome. With 
 regard to the latter, we may here state, what is universally 
 admitted, that Bernino took the conception, design, and 
 proportions of this work, from Colonna's dream. Add, 
 to all this, the descriptions of the Game of Chess ; the 
 twenty emblems that were painted in the cloister of S. 
 Giustina in Padua, by Bernardo Parentino, and many 
 other works of art and antiquity ; and finally, a valuable 
 Treatise on Grotesque Painting, in which Morto da 
 Feltre, Giovanni da Udine, Baldassare Peruzzi, Perin 
 del Vaga, and others, acquired such celebrity. Where- 
 fore, we cordially agree with Federici, and anxiously 
 hope that some one skilled in these sciences, will under- 
 take to winnow Colonna's rich gleanings of the chaff I 
 mean the fantastical and amorous follies and give us as 
 much of the work as relates to antiquarian erudition, 
 and the doctrines of classic architecture. Freed from 
 much unintelligible jargon, this work would be of the 
 greatest value to Italian art. We will now conclude 
 this notice in the words of M. Seroux D'Agincourt: 
 " We will not attempt to analyse Polifilo's Dream ; but 
 simply remark that Colonna, yielding to the sweetest 
 illusions of love, and most fervid enthusiasm for art, has
 
 294 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, ETC. 
 
 proved himself, in the picture created by his warm 
 imagination, to have been a painter, sculptor, and 
 architect. His grand object was to reproduce the 
 beautiful monuments of antiquity, from which, as he 
 himself states, he learned all he knew. To architecture 
 he devoted his most profound attention. Stimulated by 
 the reading of Vitruvius, enlightened by the contempla- 
 tion of the ancient edifices, which had then begun to be 
 studied, the friar, in his own peculiar style, walks in the 
 foot-prints of Leon Battista Alberti placing, so to say, 
 the rules and principles of the Florentine Professor, in 
 action. He sees, in a dream, but he makes his readers 
 behold in reality, all that some commentators had only 
 attempted to explain, sometimes without being under- 
 stood by others, or even by themselves. The idea of 
 teaching architecture in this fashion, and giving its 
 precepts a poetical colouring, was very ingenious. Co- 
 lonna's book had most beneficial influence on his age, 
 and contributed to the resuscitation of art." 1 
 
 1 Histoire de 1'Art, v. 2.
 
 PAINTERS ON GLASS 
 
 TN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Of some Tuscan Painters, and Fra Bartolomeo Perugino. 
 
 HAVING narrated with all possible diligence the notices 
 of the life and works of these members of the Dominican 
 Order who cultivated architecture, sculpture, and paint- 
 ing during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth cen- 
 turies ; and having given a brief sketch of the Tuscan 
 miniaturists of the two last centuries, it only remained 
 for us to record those who studied mosaic and glass- 
 painting, to which, being inferior arts, we give the last 
 place. Amongst the Dominicans I have not found a 
 single mosaicist, properly so called; but as that style of 
 art is so much akin to glass-painting, and as some of our 
 friars attained to great celebrity in the latter, I would 
 fain hope that they thus made amends for their deficiency 
 in the former. That they had many and most renowned 
 artists in this branch is indubitable ; and, in my opinion, 
 no other glass-painter has ever excelled Fra Guglielmo 
 di Marcillat ; but as he belongs to the sixteenth century, 
 we will have occasion to speak of him in the second 
 volume of these Memoirs. 
 
 The art of painting on glass was cultivated in Italy as 
 early as the eighth century, in the pontificate of Leo III., 
 as may be seen in the treatise on this subject and mosaic, 
 published by Muratori, in the second volume of Italian
 
 296 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Antiquities, and written by an anonymous of the same 
 eighth century ; and there is also some trace of it in the 
 work of the monk Theophilus, who flourished in the ninth 
 century. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 
 this art was fondly cherished by the Order of the Gesuati, 
 particularly in Tuscany ; and the cathedrals of Florence, 
 Arezzo, 1 and other cities present many remains of their 
 excellence in this department. Like miniature, it con- 
 stituted the delight of the cloistered for many an age ; 
 and we will never be able to appreciate the great services 
 which it rendered to Italy, till some one shall have given 
 us a history or even a copious essay on the art of glass- 
 painting Whether it was that the Italians did not care 
 to cultivate this sort of painting, or that the glass which 
 they had did not answer the purpose, (it was chiefly 
 manufactured in Venice and was not remarkable for its 
 transparency) it is certain that the Ultramontanes excelled 
 them in preparing and colouring it ; but in invention and 
 the composition of the histories and ornaments, we may 
 be said to have excelled all others, since Pietro Perugino, 
 Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, and men of such note, very 
 frequently furnished the designs. 
 
 The fifteenth century is, perhaps, the most luminous 
 period of glass-painting; in that which succeeded, it 
 reached its perfection and terminated its career. In the 
 early ages it followed the symbolism of Christian art; 
 and as its most noble object was to convey moral instruc- 
 tion, we sometimes find it associated with the Evange- 
 lical word. 2 In subsequent ages, it was raised to the 
 
 1 Gaye, Carteggio Inedito, etc., v. 2, App. p. 449. 
 
 * We should never forget the pious solicitude of the Cure of Saint Nixier 
 di Troyes, who caused three windows to be painted to serve as a Catechism 
 and instruction to the people. V. Rio Poesie Chretieune, c. i. p. 38.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 297 
 
 dignity of historical painting ; till the barbarism of man 
 and the ruthlessness of time destroyed these wonderfully 
 storied windows whose beauteous colourings tinted the 
 walls and floors of our ancient basilicas, and impressed 
 the worshipper with most solemn and holy thoughts. 
 There is no heart so savage, wrote Montaigne, that will 
 not feel itself filled with reverence when it considers the 
 sombre vastness of our churches, and the variety of their 
 ornaments ; when it hears the pealings of the organ, and 
 the sweet and religious harmony of our canticles. The 
 present century is making an effort to revive an art which 
 its three predecessors had almost caused to be forgotten. 
 In France it has had most happy results, but we cannot 
 say so much of Italy. 1 
 
 The Tuscans, who are always foremost in these Me- 
 moirs in painting, sculpture, and architecture, were also 
 the most distinguished painters on glass. The Necrolo- 
 gies of this region record many men who were famous in 
 this art, but they are uncertain and very jejune. The 
 chronicle of the convent of S. Catherine, in Pisa, extols, 
 above all others, a certain Fra Domenico Pollini, a native 
 of Cagliari, in Sardinia, affiliated to that convent, and 
 praises him for his skill in music, miniaturing, and glass- 
 painting. He, it appears, was a priest, and died in 1340. 
 Somewhat more copious is the eulogy bestowed on Fra 
 Michele, of Pisa, who was also a priest: he is described 
 as a grave and solitude- loving religious, and a perfect 
 master of the art of glass-painting. He painted the great 
 window in the church of S. Domenico, (Pistoja,) now de- 
 stroyed, and another in the refectory of S. Catherine, at 
 
 i M. Emile Thibaud has established a manufactory for glass-painting at 
 Clennont Ferrand, and published some historical notices on the ancient and 
 modern windows. Lievel and Langlois have likewise written on this sub- 
 ject 
 
 o2
 
 298 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Pisa. 1 The convent of Santa Maria Novella presents to 
 us a Florentine lay-brother, named Fra Giacomo di 
 Andrea, who had considerable skill in this art. In the 
 following century Fra Bernardino, a priest, is called (in 
 the Necrology) a most excellent master of glass-painting 
 (magister fenestrarum vitrearum optimus); he died in 
 Florence, A. D., 1450. But the artist who deserves to be 
 classed amongst the chiefest of Italy, in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, was Fra Bartolomeo of Perugia, of whom we will 
 give such notices as we have been able to collect in the 
 archives of the convent of that city. 
 
 Three Dominicans undertook to write the memoirs of 
 that convent. The first is an anonymous of the four- 
 teenth century, and author of a brief chronicle, which 
 is in the style of the Necrologies. It begins in 1232, 
 and terminates in 1345. 2 The second is Father Dome- 
 nico Baglioni of Perugia, who continued it from 1500 to 
 1503. The third is the often-mentioned F. Timoteo 
 Bottonio, a most learned religious, and as far as I know, 
 most accurate. He has left two MS. folio vols. of 
 Annals of Universal History, divided into four parts, the 
 first of which treats of General History; the second of 
 the History of Perugia; the third of the principal 
 events relating to the Dominican Order ; and the last, of 
 such as regarded his convent of S. Domenico ; but as to 
 
 1 " Prater Dominicus Sardus de Pollinis Kallaritanus fuit valde gratiosos 
 et probus, soavissimae conversationis. Cantabat bene, scribcbat pulcre, et 
 finestras vitreas operabatur optime. Frater Michael Domine Pine, dictus 
 Pisanus fuit antiquus pater coellicula continuus. Fuit perfectus magister in 
 arte vitrorum ita ut fenestram pistoriensis conventus faceret in ecclesia, et in 
 refectorio nostro, et quidquid in conventu reficiendum videbat, promptissime 
 resarcire curabat." Migravit ut supra. (1340.) 
 
 2 Chron. de ob. Frat. Prsedicat. conv. S. Dom. de Perusio, ab anno 1232. 
 Father Baglioni is author of a poem, entitled " De fuga Christ! in Egyp- 
 tum."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 299 
 
 facts, it is little better than an amplified Historical 
 Index. To these, we might add, a Historical Description 
 of the church of S. Domenico in Perugia, by F. Reginald 
 Boarini, and some MS. memoirs of that convent by F. 
 Agostino Guiducci. 1 From these writers we will glean 
 as much as we can regarding this great artist. 
 
 All the aforesaid historians are silent as to the year of 
 Fra Bartolomeo's birth and decease. His father was a 
 certain Peter, and if we are to credit Serafino Siepi, was 
 called Vanni Accomandati. 2 But of this cognomen 
 there is no mention in the Conventual Chronicles. This 
 writer says that he, for some time, exercised the office of 
 syndic. Bottonio and Baglioni, however, agree in 
 stating that he was elected Superior of his convent, (S. 
 Domenico,) A.D. 1413; a fact which assures us of his 
 integrity, as well as prudence. The loss of old documents 
 has occasioned great penury in the notices of the life and 
 productions of this rare artist. Baglioni blames the 
 negligence of the friars of that convent for not continuing 
 the memoirs, in which there is a vacuum of more than 
 one century, and particularly of the fifteenth. 3 Hence, 
 it is quite impossible to discover from whom Fra Barto- 
 lomeo learned the art of glass-painting, or what works 
 should be attributed to him. There remains, however, 
 for the honor and glory of his name, a most beautifully 
 painted window, in the church of S. Domenico in 
 Perugia, which in dimensions, composition, and excel- 
 
 1 Boarini's work was published in 1778. 
 
 * Descriz. Tropologica della citta- di Perugia da S. SiepL Perugia, 1822. 
 
 s Chronica de obitu etc, " Postquam per centum et plures aimos haec in- 
 termissa est chronica de glorioso obitu fratrum conv. S. Dom. de Perusio, 
 vel viventium neglectu vel oblivione seu negligentia, vel quod libellus iste ad 
 tempus latuerit .... visum est mihi fratri Dominico quondam 
 Francisci Ballionii de Perusio, etc. . . . innovare pro viribus."
 
 300 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 lence of colouring, surpasses all that are in Italy ; these 
 by Fra G. Marcillat in Arezzo, excepted. 
 
 It is ninety-five palms high, by thirty-four and a half 
 wide. It is divided in the centre by a travertine tree, 
 whose summit forms various branches, chiselled out of 
 the same stone. In its upper extremity is the Eternal 
 Father, who sustains the globe, and is in the act of 
 blessing. The branches are intertwined in the form of 
 small circles, which contain various Seraphims, and a 
 figure that seems to be surrounded by tongues of fire. 
 This summit is supported by an architrave, under 
 which are four orders of Saints; then comes a base, and 
 after the base an inscription. The figures are whole, 
 and enclosed within a little Gothic temple, according to 
 the style of that age. In the first order are: S. Peter, 
 S. Paul, S. John Baptist, the Angel Gabriel, an Annun- 
 ciation, S. John the Evangelist, which last figure being 
 destroyed, was substituted by a painting on canvas, but 
 so transparent as to appear, like the others, on glass. In 
 the second order are: S. Stephen, S. Peter Martyr, S. 
 Constance, S. Herculanus, S. Dominic, and S. Laurence. 
 In the third S. Thomas of Aquino, S. Augustin, S. 
 Gregory, S. Ambrose, S. Jerom, and a holy Dominican 
 Bishop ; w'n, according to Siepi, is S. Antonino, which 
 is irrprobable, as that Saint died in 1459, and was 
 canonized in 1523. Under this order are twelve circlets, 
 with twelve half figures, of Founders of religious Orders. 
 In the fourth order he painted S. Lucy, S. Dorothy, S. 
 Mary Magdalene, S. Catherine of Siena, S. Agnese, V. M., 
 and S. Catherine, V. M. On the base, in little figures, 
 he historied the Martyrdom of S. James the Apostle, 
 with three Miracles ; and at the sides he introduced the 
 armorial cognizance of the Graziani family; who, 
 probably, defrayed the expense of the window. Lower
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 301 
 
 down, we read in Gothic characters, the following inscrip- 
 tion : 
 
 to tip innnr nf $nir unit ijp 3Hnst Inlq Virgin 
 
 of St. James the Apostle, and the Blessed Dominic our Founder, 
 
 and of the 
 
 Whole Celestial Choir, 
 and to perpetuate his own name, 
 
 Irntljtr Uartnlnittpir, 
 
 Son of Peter of Perugia, the least of the illustrious Order of the Preachers, 
 painted this Glass Window, and, with the Divine Aid, 
 
 finished it in the 
 
 fourteen hundredth and eleventh year after the Incarnation of the Lord, 
 in the month of August. 
 
 The design of this window is grand, and the colouring 
 most exquisite, but exceeding these in beauty are the 
 ornaments, particularly of the little Gothic temples which 
 enclose the little figures. The history of S. James, on 
 the base, is so well conceived and executed, that no 
 work of the same dimensions is to be found amongst 
 these of the fifteenth century to surpass it. The extre- 
 mities, however, are not very correctly designed, and in 
 the expression of the heads we miss that accuracy and 
 truth that astonish us in the windows of Arezzo. But 
 this is a defect, not of the artist, but of his times, for it 
 required many centuries of study and labour to over- 
 come the difficulty that attended painting the nude on 
 glass. Moreover, nearly all the glass-painters were very 
 feeble in design, and availed themselves of cartoons de- 
 signed and coloured by painters, whereas G. di Marcillat, 
 who executed the windows of the cathedral of Arezzo, 
 was also a good frescoist, as his paintings on the ceiling 
 of the same church prove. 
 
 No one will suppose that Fra Bartolomeo lacked ge- 
 nius to produce other works of this sort, although we
 
 302 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 cannot point them out. But, despite the traditions of 
 three centuries, and the inscription of the author, some 
 have striven to rob the artist of the glory of this work, 
 and Perugia of one of the most distinguished glass-paint- 
 ers of the fifteenth century. Mariotti was the first who 
 doubted this truth, having persuaded himself that Bindo 
 di Siena was its author. 1 Siepi adopted his opinion. 
 We, after giving the arguments of both, will maintain 
 that the Perugian Friar was its indubitable artist, the 
 meagreness of the Memoirs notwithstanding. 
 
 " We must observe," says Siepi, " with the learned 
 Mariotti, that the date, (1411,) which is here marked, 
 does not belong to this work, for we cannot suppose that 
 the window was finished before the church, which was 
 not completed till 1458. Moreover, the art of glass- 
 painting was not familiar to us before 1436 
 
 . and Campano assures us, (in Vita Pii II.,) that in 
 1459, when Pius II. passed through Perugia, and con- 
 secrated this church, he ordered that the great window 
 then opened behind the grand altar should be closed 
 opere vitreo artificio et textura texellata." The author 
 opines, with Mariotti, that, there was another painted 
 window of an earlier period in the lateral wall of the 
 choir, and an altar dedicated to S. James the Apostle, 
 belonging to the Graziani family; and that when the 
 window was closed up, the painted-glass and altar de- 
 stroyed, and the title removed to the grand altar, some 
 portions of the old painted-glass, and particularly the 
 inscription, with the histories of S. James., were em- 
 ployed by Bindo di Siena and Benedetto di Valdorcia 
 to form the base of the actual great window now at the 
 end of the choir ; and, as far as Fra Bartolomeo is con- 
 
 1 Lettere Pittoriche Perugine. Perugia, 1778.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 303 
 
 cerned, that he was simply recorded there because he 
 was syndic of the convent, which, with the oblations of 
 the faithful, and particularly of the Graziani family, had 
 caused the painted-glass window to be executed in 1411. * 
 
 So inconclusive do the first reasons appear, that we will 
 not expend many words in confuting them ; but the grave 
 authority of Campano deserves more serious consideration. 
 
 When Fra Bartolomeo was employed at his glass- 
 painting in 1411, the church of S. Domenico in Perugia 
 may be said to have been well nigh finished, as Gio- 
 vanni Pisano had erected the central nave, after his own 
 designs, as early as 1304, or thereabouts. The choir 
 in which the window in question is, is a remain of the 
 ancient church. About the middle of that same four- 
 teenth century, the Dominicans of Perugia were zealously 
 labouring to embellish their temple through the agency 
 of the most distinguished artists, amongst whom was 
 Buonamico Buffalmacco ; and the building of the church 
 was not yet perfected. Now why might not Fra Bar- 
 tolomeo have painted this window sixty years afterwards ? 
 Neither is it easy to understand how, after having as- 
 serted that there was a painted glass window in the 
 lateral part of the choir before 1459, there might not also 
 have been another at the end of the choir. As to saying 
 that the Perugians were not familiar with glass-painting 
 before 1436, it is manifestly contradicted by the inscrip- 
 tion, which bears date 1411. Fra Bartolomeo might 
 have learned the art outside his own country; -and we 
 have already seen that some of his confreres were skilled 
 in it a century before, and that they left proof of this in 
 Pisa, Pistoja, and Florence. But let us return to Cam- 
 pano, a contemporaneous writer. 
 
 Narrating the arrival in Perugia of Pius II., in 1459, 
 
 1 Descrizione Tropol. v. 3.
 
 304 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 lie writes : " And at the instance of the citizens, on ac- 
 count of the great dimensions of the church, he dedicated 
 it to S. Dominic, and he was the first to make offerings; 
 and he ordered a painted glass window of great magni- 
 tude to be placed near the great altar."' 1 From which 
 words we easily collect the Pontiff's order to construct a 
 window of painted-glass for the choir. Supposing Cam- 
 pano's narrative to be true, I think it reasonable to 
 answer, that, instead of an order, the Pope expressed a 
 wish ; and that, as he did not give the friars the necessary 
 means, they fancied that they could not satisfy his holi- 
 ness's pleasure, save by removing the entire window ex- 
 ecuted in 1411, which was in the lateral wall of the choir, 
 and placing it at the end of the same. As to what Mariotti 
 and Siepi say of its destruction, it is wholly gratuitous. 
 Moreover, if the Pontiff had contributed to defray the 
 whole, or even a part of the expense, neither the name 
 of Fra Bartolomeo, even though he were the syndic who 
 caused the work to be executed, nor the armorial cogni- 
 zance of the Graziani could have figured on it; on the 
 contrary, we should have had a eulogium on the generosity 
 of the Pontiff, and probably his escutcheon. To all this 
 we will add that this window does not present evidences 
 to make us believe it an ensemble of two works; on 
 the contrary, such unity of conception pervades the 
 whole heavenly hierarchy which it represents, together 
 with some passages in the life of S. James, that we must 
 regard the entire as the production of one mind and one 
 hand. 
 
 Let the words of the inscription be well pondered. "Fra 
 Bartolomeo, son of Peter .... painted this glass window 
 to perpetuate his name, and with the Divine aid finished 
 it," &c. Now, when was any religious who, with the 
 
 1 Joann. Cainpanus. opera omnia in Vita Pii II.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 305 
 
 money collected from the faithful, caused works of art to 
 be executed, allowed to set them forth as his own pro- 
 ductions? And if the Graziani family supplied the 
 means, as their armorial bearings and the conventual me- 
 moirs record, and if Bindo di Siena painted the work ; 
 what are we to think of the modesty of the Friar who 
 asserts that he executed it to perpetuate his own name ? 1 
 To these arguments, which to us appear conclusive, 
 we will add the authority of the historians of that con- 
 vent. In the Chronicle (de Obitu F. F. Praedicatorum) 
 we read, I believe in Baglioni's hand, " Fra Bartolomeo 
 of Perugia, who painted the wonderful window of our 
 church, as clearly appears by the inscription. Of that 
 ingenious man we have no other work." Again : " Fra 
 Bartolomeo was a man of genius, and he constructed 
 the window of our church, as appears from the words 
 on the same." In 1460, a year after the arrival of 
 Pius II., in Perugia there died in the convent of 
 S. Dominic a religious, called Giuliano d'Agnolo, a 
 Perugian, who left a MS. memoir relative to the same 
 convent. This was seen by F. Bottonio ; and amongst 
 other illustrious religious whom it records, he found 
 distinct mention of " Fra Bartolomeo, who painted 
 the great window." 2 Baglioni, in his Registry of the 
 church and sacristy of S. Domenico, in Perugia, which 
 he commenced in 1548, speaking of the presbytery, 
 writes : " And the great painted window was made by the 
 Graziani family, as appears by the arms of that family 
 (one of the most noble in Perugia) at foot of the painting. 
 
 i Siepi writes that Pier Antonio Graziani, in 1547, left a bequest of five 
 florins yearly for the maintenance of the Presbytery and choir, from which 
 obligation Captain Felice Graziani freed himself a few years afterwards, by 
 payment of one hundred florins. 
 
 Annali, vol ii., p. 119.
 
 306 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Said family also made the presbytery, as is clearly proved 
 by their cognizances. 1 " If I have hitherto seemed to regard 
 Campano's account of the order given by Pius II. to paint 
 a great window at the end of the choir, (in 1459,) as true, 
 nevertheless, I cannot give it my entire assent, for we 
 read in the MS. Annals of F. Bottonio, ad ann. 1411 : 
 " The great painted window of our church was finished 
 in this year, as appears by the inscription thereon." 
 Again, under date 1455, he writes, that " the curtains 
 which are on the great painted window, were made in 
 this year;" that is to say, four years before the Pope's 
 arrival in Perugia. 2 Describing the consecration of the 
 church, he shows himself to be particular in the veriest 
 minutiae. " Our church was dedicated, or rather conse- 
 crated, in this year by Pope Pius II. on Sunday, Feb. 10, 
 the bishop of the city made the unctions and per- 
 formed the ceremonies ; and the archpriest sang the Mass, 
 the Pope being at the altar on the side of the choir." 3 
 Now, how could Bottonio, who was so throughly ac 
 quainted with his country's history, not to speak of that 
 of his convent, and who is so particular about every cir- 
 cumstance how could he have been ignorant of what 
 Campano writes concerning the window ordered by the 
 Pope? Serafino Razzi, who was the contemporary of 
 Bottonio, and who was lector of theology in that convent, 
 in his work (The Illustrious Men of the Preaching-Friars) 
 which we have had frequent occasion to quote, speaks 
 thus of our celebrated Artist: " Fra Bartolomeo da 
 Perugia, was the author and constructor of the painted 
 glass window of the principal chapel (in the choir) ; and 
 that he painted it is proved by the inscription at foot 
 of it." 
 
 Registry MS. Loc. cit. v. 2, fol. 21 and fol. 103. 
 
 3 Loc. Cit. ad aun. 1459.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 307 
 
 With such authorities as these before us, I must con- 
 clude that Campano either erred in attributing the window 
 to Pius II., or that the actual one was removed from the 
 lateral wall, not only with its base but in its entirety ; 
 and that Fra Bartolomeo was the painter who coloured 
 it. The unanimity of the ancient writers, and the words 
 of the inscription confirm us in this opinion ; therefore, 
 till the authority of Campano shall have been corrobo- 
 rated by irrefragable proofs, we will insist that Fra Bar- 
 tolomeo " to perpetuate God's glory and his own name," 
 painted this marvellous window, which is a solemn 
 monument to his genius and memory. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Notices of the Blessed James of Ulm and of his Disciples in 
 Glass-Painting. 
 
 NARRATING the lives and works of the Dominican artists, 
 we have often had occasion to speak of the rare goodness 
 of some of them, who made art the medium for impart- 
 ing religious and moral instruction. Foremost, amongst 
 these, were the Blessed Guglielmo Agnelli, Fra Giovan- 
 nino da Marcojano, Fra Gerolamo Monsignori, and that 
 most devout painter Fra Giovanni Angelico. At present 
 we are about to speak of one who attained much 
 celebrity in glass-painting, and whose exemplary life has 
 caused the Catholic Church to rank him amongst her 
 Beatified. This man is the Blessed James, the German, 
 of the convent of S. Domenico in Bologna. 
 
 As the life of the Blessed .James has been written by 
 many and accurate historians, we have not to lament
 
 308 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 the poverty of materials. Nevertheless, we have to 
 regret, that very few of his paintings on glass remain, 
 and that there are many attributed to him, to which we 
 cannot establish his claim. Most infelicitous indeed is 
 the condition of this art, whose productions are liable to 
 so many accidents. It may be justly termed the most 
 perishable of any style of painting, since the most trifling 
 contingency can destroy the work of long years of labour 
 and study. 
 
 The Blessed James was born in the city of Ulm, 
 A.D. 1407. His father was called Theodoric, and was a 
 merchant. Fra Ambrogino da Soncino, a Dominican 
 lay-brother, (who was also a pupil of the Blessed James,) 
 the earliest biographer of this illustrious artist, records 
 that, in his youth, he devoted himself to the study of 
 mechanics, for which he had a peculiar aptness ; and that 
 he also applied himself to glass-painting, in which the Ger- 
 mans and Flemings had attained great celebrity. Being 
 of a very religious turn of mind, he set out to visit the 
 sepulchre of the Prince of the Apostles; for, indeed, 
 there were very few in these ages of faith who did not 
 yearn to see that venerable shrine, and bathe it with 
 their tears. He arrived at Rome, in 1432, being then 
 only twenty-five years of age ; and so ineffable was the 
 delight which he experienced, while tarrying on the 
 soil, sanctified by the blood of so many martyrs, that he 
 would fain have dwelt there for ever. When, however, 
 his money was exhausted, he set out for Naples, and 
 took service under the banner of Alfonso, King of 
 Arragon ; and was engaged in that memorable fight in 
 which the valour of the Genoese deprived Alfonso of 
 his throne and liberty. For four years he carried the 
 sword with integrity and valour ; but at length, tiring of 
 the military life, he got into the service of a private
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 309 
 
 citizen of Capua. In 1440, or '41, the love of Father- 
 land, or that home-sickness which visits every gentle soul, 
 induced him to set out to embrace his aged father. 
 Having reached Bologna, on his way to Germany, he 
 visited the shrine of S. Dominic, and whilst praying 
 before it, felt himself inspired to renounce his earthly 
 home, and to go in pursuit of the " True Land." At the 
 gate of that convent, (S. Domenico,) when thirty-four 
 years of age, he asked, and obtained, the lay-brother's 
 habit. For fifty years he lived a most holy life, in the 
 Dominican institute, and died, October 11, 1491. A 
 pilgrim, a soldier, and a monk, he was a mirror of every 
 virtue. Pope Leo XII., enrolled him amongst the 
 Beatified, in 1825, and the church solemnizes his 
 memory on the 12th of October. Whosoever may desire 
 to know more of his life, can consult " Melloni's Acts of 
 the Bolognese Saints," and Leandro Alberto in the fifth 
 book of his " Eulogiums of the Illustrious Men of the 
 Preaching -Friars." We can speak here only of his 
 merits as an artist. 
 
 Scarcely had the Blessed James put on the Dominican 
 habit, when he resumed the practice of glass-painting, 
 which had been interrupted by nine years absence from 
 his native land; and, in fact, Fra Ambrogino, in the 
 18th chapter of his Chronicle, states that he had been a 
 disciple of the Blessed James for fully thirty-three years. 
 The earliest notice of his works that I have been able to 
 discover, is dated 1465. In the public archive of De- 
 manio in Bologna, there are two MS. volumes, now 
 belonging to the convent of S. Domenico, which contain 
 entries of sums expended on that building, and on the 
 decorations of the church itself. One of these volumes 
 was written in 1465, and the other in the following year 
 by the lay-brother Fra Bartolomeo di Vigevanp. In
 
 310 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 both there is an account of the cost of the windows 
 painted by the Blessed James: For example, in the 
 book marked F. G. No. 2, under date 1465, we find 
 the following entry : " Fra Giacomo of Germany, is to 
 receive, May 3rd, for works executed at various times, 
 thirty-eight pounds, (libre,) and two soldi, in three 
 payments, which are to be debited to this building." 
 Again, under date, 1466, we read: "Fra Giacomo of 
 Germany, (of the windows,) is to receive, April 16th, 
 seven soldi, on account of the iron work which Gugliel- 
 mo da Como executed in our forge, for the eye of the 
 window." Other entries of this sort are very frequent. 
 In another journal, of the building of the same convent, 
 we find, ad. ann. 1467, a memorandum of monies 
 expended " on colours, for the windows of the library. 
 Ad. ann. 1468, there is an entry of sixteen, (Bolognini,) 
 paid to Micheli for the design of the window of the 
 library" From this, we think, we may infer that Fra 
 Giacomo was assisted by others in designing. Similar 
 entries for painting the windows of the library are found 
 as late as 1472 ; and the last time his name appears in 
 that journal, is in 1480, when he had completed his 
 seventy -third year. He also painted the windows of the 
 refectory of his convent, two windows in the chapel of 
 S. Dominic, and the great eye over the principal door of 
 said church, which Vincenzo Vannini certifies to have 
 been exceedingly beautiful. His brethren do not at pre- 
 sent possess any work by this distinguished artist. Over 
 the entrance of the first dormitory there is a little history 
 on glass, which an ancient tradition attributes to the 
 Blessed Giacomo ; it represents the Crucifixion, with the 
 B. V. M., and S. John the Evangelist, in small figures. 
 Having examined it accurately, I deem it to be the 
 work of an earlier artist. Others agree in this opinion ;
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. ' 311 
 
 and the Bologna " Guide-book" terms it the most ancient 
 glass-painting which that city possesses. 1 
 
 But the works which secured the greatest celebrity for 
 him, as a glass-painter, are the windows in the cathedral 
 of San Petronio, which are still preserved. All writers 
 of his life extol their beauty ; and the Bologna Guide 
 pronounces a merited eulogium on them. But who 
 could now determine the age of these paintings ? Many 
 and excellent artists worked in that church, and amongst 
 others Fra Ambrogino, a disciple of the German. More- 
 over, some of these windows were removed in 1792, and 
 substituted by white glass, as the painted ones were 
 much injured by time. Amongst these there may have 
 been some by the B. James. F. Melloni attributes to 
 him some little histories in the oratory of S. Helena, 
 (dall' Olio,) in the Bentivogli palace, Bologna. 2 Others 
 regard as his a small painting on glass, which is now 
 in the house, of Professor Bianconi, (Via Mascarella,) 
 and attribute to him, likewise, the two circlets in the 
 church of the Misericordia, near Bologna, together with 
 some other works on glass in the principal chapel of the 
 College of Spain, in the same city. 
 
 Having enumerated all these paintings, which history 
 and tradition attribute to the Blessed James of Ulm, we 
 will close the notices of his life and works with the 
 
 J I would hope that the following extract may be of use in helping us to 
 discover a window which he painted for the chapel of S. Domenico in 
 Bologna. Irrespective of this, it shows by what means the builders and de- 
 corators of the fifteenth century procured the monies which were required 
 for erecting and embellishing their churches : "Anno 1462, die 2 7 Decembris. 
 Determinatnm fuit in concilio per patres, quod frater Guliehnus debeat com- 
 plere Auconam quam fecit fieri Venetiis pro Archa S. Dominici Bononiensis, 
 et quod conventus debeat dare sibilitteras sigillatas sigillo conventusin bona 
 forma, habito prius consensu conventus continentes quod ipse frater Gulielmut 
 possit eleemosinas quaerere ubique terrarum pro ipsa Ancona." 
 
 2 Memorie della Beata Elena.
 
 312 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 narrative of a fact, which we have collected from the 
 writings of M. Emile Thibaud. Jean de Bruges, who is 
 generally believed to have been the discoverer of oil 
 painting, is said to have invented a method of tinting the 
 leaves of glass in the furnace. Thibaud, however, would 
 maintain that James of Ulm is primarily entitled to this 
 honor, and he states that our friar was the first who 
 discovered the method of giving glass a diaphonous 
 yellow tint, by the application of oxide of silver. He 
 relates that the friar was one day engaged preparing 
 glass at the furnace, when a vessel of silver falling on the 
 lime, which he used as a stratum, a portion of the silver 
 was fused, and the glass with which it came in contact 
 assumed a yellowish tinge. This fact was subsequently 
 noted down in all the books relating to the art of glass- 
 painting. 1 
 
 It reflects great credit on an artist to be able to perpe- 
 tuate himself in his disciples. The Angelico left Benozzo 
 Gozzoli and Gentile da Fabriano heirs of his style ; but 
 the Blessed James of Ulm, far more fortunate, found 
 successors in his own convent, and he not only trans- 
 mitted to them his artistic power, but even his very 
 sanctity. These were Fra Ambrogino and Fra Anas- 
 tasio. The former was born in Soncino, in the Milanese. 
 Leandro Alberti, a contemporary, and religious of the 
 same convent, writes that he was eminently skilled in 
 glass-painting, and that there was no man of his times 
 who surpassed him. He likewise adds that many of his 
 works were the admiration of Bologna. There is also 
 honourable mention made of him in Alberti's " Descrip- 
 tion of Italy." Having recorded some celebrated literary 
 men of Soncino, he continues, " All these splendid 
 
 1 Bourasse Archeologie Cliretienne, c. xiv., p. 260.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 313 
 
 geniuses were contemporaries of Ambrogino, the Domini- 
 can lay-brother, who was not more famed for his sanctity 
 than for his skill in glass-painting. Although he was 
 only a lay-brother, he wrote the Life of the Blessed 
 James of Germany, of whom he was a disciple." 1 Michele 
 Pio, who gives him the title of Blessed, seems to have 
 derived his knowledge of him from this notice by 
 Alberti. 2 We are unable to point with certainty to any 
 of his paintings on glass, and, in this respect, he resem- 
 bles his master. It is certain, however, that he painted 
 with Fra Giacomo in the cathedral of S. Petronio and 
 this may be said to be a proof of his ability, as the Bolog- 
 nesi employed none but the most excellent masters to de- 
 corate that church. Echard and Quietif, in the " Library of 
 Dominican Writers," date Fra Ambrogino's death A. D. 
 1517, the year in which Fra Bartolomeo della Porta died 
 in Florence. The memory of this good lay -brother shall 
 be always venerated by his Order, for his skill as a glass- 
 painter, for his virtues, and for having described the 
 wonderful life of the Blessed James of Ulm, which sub- 
 sequently afforded matter for these written by Prierio, 
 Flaminio, Alberti, and Melloni. We have thought it 
 fair to make the following extract from a letter which, 
 in his own unadorned style, he addressed to the General 
 of the Order : " I well remember that mirror of religion 
 and holy life, the Blessed lay brother, Fra Jacopo of Ger- 
 many, whose unworthy disciple I have been. I slept 
 with him during one year on the same sack, and I have 
 heard many secrets from his holy mouth, which are 
 worthy of being treasured." The two biographers already 
 quoted think that he was the author of another legend 
 relating to the Blessed Luchina da Soncino, of the third 
 
 i Loc. Cit p. 160. * Uomini illustri dell' Ordine di S. Domenico. 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 314 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 Order of S. Dominic, which is condensed in Pio's work 
 on the Illustrious Men of the Preaching- Friars. 1 
 
 As to Fra Anastasio, a lay-brother of the same insti- 
 tute and convent, we are ignorant of his country, cog- 
 nomen, and works ; neither could I have known anything 
 of him were it not for the kindness of Vannini, who has 
 kindly communicated to me an extract which he made 
 out of the public archives of Bologna. In a memoran- 
 dum concerning the Ark of S. Dominic, which was com- 
 menced April 10, 1521, we find that Fra Anastasio 
 succeeded Petronio Bolognese, who held the office of 
 Archist 2 from 1512 to 1521. We will give the extract 
 in the simple and affectionate style of the lay -brother : 
 
 " After him my beloved and dear master and prede- 
 cessor was appointed (Archist) ; he was a most devout 
 man wholly a man of God and of our Blessed Founder, 
 S. Dominic. He was a rosy, lively person of the middle 
 height ; and I am certain that the beauty of his soul was 
 reflected on his body ; I often thought him a cherub, and 
 one of his hands was worth my whole body. He pos- 
 sessed a fine intellect ; he was very skilful in glass-paint- 
 ing; he was a disciple and imitator of the Blessed 
 Giacomo. For the space of eight years, most faithfully, 
 fervently, and devoutly, and with the greatest exempla- 
 rity and integrity he served his and our good Father, S. 
 Domenico; and by him, doubtless, he was richly re- 
 warded. On Pentecost night, as he was going to kiss 
 the sacred Ark, I said to him, walk slowly and cau- 
 tiously, my dearest master, to your cell ; and in the 
 month of July he had a rupture, and, after receiving all 
 
 1 Bibliotheca Script. Ord. Prsedic. v. 2, p. 35. 
 
 * The Archists were the custodians of the shrine of S. Dominic ; and we 
 find distinct mention of similar functionaries in our own annals. V. Reeves' 
 learned work on the Antiquities of Down and Connor.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 315 
 
 the sacraments, lie slept in the Lord. He was buried 
 with his fathers on the following day." 1 From this it 
 would appear that he learned the art from the German, 
 that he survived Fra Ambrogino twelve years, that he 
 taught the writer of this record the art of glass-paint- 
 ing, and that he died in 1529. We experienced a 
 feeling of delight in restoring to the veneration of 
 present times and future the memory of Fra Giovannino 
 di Marcojano, the architect of S. Maria Novella ; and we 
 are equally delighted to be able to record this distin- 
 guished glass-painter, this true imitator of the Blessed 
 Giacomo of Ulm, who was forgotten by all the historians 
 of the Order. 
 
 From these brief notices of the glass-painters of the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, every one may fancy 
 what a great collection might be made if we were able 
 to enumerate those who flourished in the Venetian 
 dominions, in Lombardy, and particularly in France and 
 Germany. Though the Dominican Order could count 
 only Fra Guglielmo di Marcillat, he, alone, would reflect 
 honour on it in this branch of art. 
 
 i In the history of the duomo of Orvieto, we read that a Dominican, 
 named Fra Mariano di Viterbo, offered to paint the windows of that cathe- 
 dral, and proposed to make a trial. The directors of the building ordered 
 him to execute a figure with various adornments, which was intended for 
 the chapel of the holy Corporal. But being dissatisfied with the work, which 
 was feeble in design, they invited Don Gasparre, a priest of Volterra, who 
 likewise failed to please them. They then brought from Perugia the cele- 
 brated Benedictine monk, Francesco di Barone Brunacci, who painted some 
 of the windows with consummate skill. I will here submit a conjecture of 
 my own. It is h'kely that this Perugian glass-painter may have been a 
 disciple of Fra Bartolomeo di Pietro, or that he followed his precepts, 
 as they were contemporaries. The Necrology of the convent of S. Domenico 
 di Siena, ad ann. 1515, mentions another eminent artist: Frater Raphael 
 Peregrin! Senen. artis vitrarias peritus Ecclesise Sacramentis devote susceptu 
 vii. Decemb. migravit ad Christum.
 
 316 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Keforination of Italian Art attempted by Fra Gerolamo Savonarola His 
 Ideas on the Subject The Men who aided him in this attempt. 
 
 HAVING concluded this first volume of the Memoirs of the 
 Dominican Artists, in which we have compendiously nar- 
 rated the history of three centuries, we think that this 
 work should be defective if we were to overlook one of 
 the grandest and most memorable events which is recorded 
 in the civil, religious, and artistic history of the fifteenth 
 century. It is our intention to speak of the magnani- 
 mous attempt made by Fra Gerolamo Savonarola, to raise 
 Italian arts from the debasement to which the licen- 
 tiousness of the times had contributed to reduce them at 
 a period when they were threatened with that ruin into 
 which they lapsed after his death. I have said that this 
 fact pertains to civil, religious, and artistic history, because 
 the entire fifteenth century seems to have been epito- 
 mised in that sole, terrible orator ; and, because he availed 
 himself of civil and religious science to give art a nobler 
 tendency. Hitherto, no one that I know of undertook to 
 develop this subject. The first amongst the modern 
 writers who has touched it with wonderful genius and 
 elegance, is M. Rio ; and the most valuable portion of his 
 book on the vicissitudes of Christian Art, is that in which 
 he speaks of this fact. Wherefore we willingly unite 
 with M. Montalembert in returning thanks to this author, 
 who seems to have deserved well, not only of art, but of 
 religion, since every line he has written is a learned
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 317 
 
 commentary on the dogmas of Catholicity, regarding the 
 imitative arts, in as much as they are ancillary to her 
 forms of worship. Having pretermitted the two grand 
 questions anent Savonarola's political opinions, and the 
 part he took in the government of Florence, and without 
 discussing whether he ignored the authority of the Pontiff 
 in fulminating the excommunication against him, M. 
 Rio, like a true lover of art and Christian poetry, calmly 
 considers that truly dramatic and spirited struggle wliich 
 was maintained by a simple Dominican friar against 
 his age, in the presence of all Italy. " His object is to 
 re-establish the reign of Christ in the heart and soul of 
 peoples ; to enlarge and extend the blessings of redemp- 
 tion to all the human faculties, and to all their operations. 
 The enemy that he combats with all the energy of his 
 soul, and all the power of his word, is Paganism, of which 
 he has everywhere found traces in arts and morals, in 
 ideas as well as acts, in the cloisters, as well as in the 
 schools of his age." 1 Without entering into a detailed 
 account of this drama, we will barely touch that portion 
 of it which relates to the arts ; and although we confess 
 our inability to write in the style of M. Rio's imaginative 
 and glowing narrative, we will endeavour, nevertheless, 
 to confirm, with authentic documents, all that he has 
 asserted of the Ferrarese orator. 2 
 
 1 Du Vandalisme et du Catholicisme dans FArt, p. 1 15 : " Mais ce n'est 
 pas seulement A 1'histoire de 1'art, c*est a 1'histoire religieuse en general que 
 M. Rio a rendu un service essentiel, en pulvirisant les mensonges a 1'aide de 
 quels les Protestants et les philosophes ont j usque a present exploite le role 
 joue par Savonarola au profit de leurs haines centre 1'Eglise Romaine. . . . 
 M. Rio a rehabilitee les opinions religieuses et politiques de ce grand homme; 
 il a prouve que son Catholicisme etait aussi pur que sa politique et'ait sage 
 et eloignee de la demagogic qu'on lui impute ; il a reconquis pour PEglise la 
 gloire et le genie de Savonarola. Qu'il en soil beni !" 
 
 2 Savonarola was born in Ferrara, A.D. 1452.
 
 318 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 At the termination of the fifteenth century, Italy 
 was agitated by a tremendous movement, which fore- 
 shadowed the breaking up of the old feudal society, and 
 the genesis of the present. The people were making 
 their last struggle to liberate themselves from these 
 tyrants, great and small, who exerted all their energies 
 to retain and defend every inch of ground that they had 
 usurped in the days of internecine discord. Nor more 
 pacific or less unhappy was the condition of the Church, 
 which, after a long contest against schism and heresy, 
 beheld her influence diminished, and the veneration and 
 affection of many waxing cold. The invention of print- 
 ing aiding the study of the classics, and, as it were, 
 broadcasting the seeds of erudition, shook the founda- 
 tions of the old Aristotelian edifice, opened a new high- 
 way to genius, and gave study new direction. From 
 these causes the following consequences were derived : 
 In policy no age ever surpassed the fifteenth century in 
 wickedness, for it fought, not with arms and valour, but 
 but with fraud and poisons ; and few ever equalled it in 
 the corruption of morality. In religion there appeared 
 the signs of these heresies which, in the following cen- 
 tury, tore such a great portion of Europe from the Roman 
 Church. The study of the classics during that century 
 did little for letters; it neither refined language nor 
 consoled philosophy ; but merely prepared the world for 
 that luminous period called the age of Leo X. The 
 Medici, who were intent on securing the dominion of 
 Tuscany, strove to corrupt the people and to debauch them 
 by their festivals and pageants. Like all other oppressors 
 of liberty, they thought to win the people by their 
 promises and bribes. Such was the policy of Pericles in 
 Greece, and of Augustus in Rome. When the instances 
 ofPicodella Mirandola caused the Medici to invite Savo-
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 
 
 narola to Florence, the friar found pride and infidelity in 
 the men of learning, in the people and the artists licen- 
 tiousness in all classes a turbulent restlessness, an ennui 
 of actual evils, and an anxious expectation of something 
 novel. When the conditions of society have reached 
 this term, the very nature of the times creates singular 
 men to sway it; and in fact, if they be not able to 
 rule and wield the movement, they must perish in it 
 Savonarola believed himself destined to perform a grand 
 mission, moral, intellectual, artistic, and political ; and he 
 at once cast himself boldly into that tremendous conflict 
 of ideas, passions, and interests in which only one out of 
 a thousand escapes, while the generality are victimised 
 and exhibited to all future generations to prove how 
 fatal it is to have been gifted, in such times, with a 
 soul that soars above the ordinary level of intelligence. 
 
 Every quality that is most glowing and impassioned 
 in popular and religious eloquence ; all that the genius 
 and imagination of an orator can communicate to a 
 people as fervid and imaginative as himself, was wit- 
 nessed in Florence during the eight consecutive years 
 that beheld Fra Gerolamo wielding dominion over that 
 great Republic. The Annals of Greece or Latium record 
 no eloquence so powerful as that of the Friar. In the 
 thirteenth century, a voice went forth from the Domi- 
 nican cloisters, inviting the Lambertazzi and Geremei in 
 Bologna, and the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Florence, 
 to renounce their murderous animosities; and at this 
 voice, which sped from mouth to mouth, from Fra 
 Giovanni da Vicenza to Fra Latino Malabranca, from Fra 
 Jacopo da Varagine, to Fra Bartolorneo di Vicenza, all 
 the people " shut in by the Alps and sea," fraternised. In 
 the sixteenth century this same voice resounded in the 
 woods of America, striving to burst the bonds of a
 
 320 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 people cruelly oppressed, and the words and the virtues 
 of the venerable bishop of Chiapa, Fra Bartolomeo di 
 Las Casas, obtained some alleviation of the afflictions 
 which the Spanish tyrants inflicted on the poor Indians. 
 This sublime mission cost Las Casas and his predecessors 
 toil of mind and body : but far more arduous was the 
 mission of Fra Gerolamo ; for although they all had but 
 one common end to achieve, the enemies against whom 
 he had to combat, were of a very different order. Nor 
 would the eloquence and splendid virtues of the bishop 
 of Chiapa have saved him from the poignards of the 
 exterminating Spaniards, if he had not been over- 
 shadowed by the dreaded power of Charles the Fifth. 
 It is not our province to speak of the political influence 
 which Savonarola exercised in the Government of Flor- 
 ence, and we would rather refer the reader to what Nardi, 
 Guicciardini, and especially Bernardino Segni have 
 written of him. " Fra Gerolamo," say the latter, " who 
 conferred the blessing of free government on our country, 
 should be ranked amongst the good legislators, and as 
 such, should be honoured and loved by the Florentines, 
 just as much as Numa was loved by the Romans, Licur- 
 gus by the Lacedaemonians, and Solon by the Athenians." 1 
 When I reflect how great must have been the efficacy of 
 Savonarola's language, which could raise a people so 
 thoroughly corrupted to a sense of their own dignity 
 when I remember that he alone effected that wonderful 
 revolution, which is usually the work of years of toil ; I 
 grieve to think that in our days, sacred, and popular 
 eloquence, seems all but extinct. As to the wondrous 
 change that Savonarola wrought in Florence, let us hear 
 
 1 Storie Fiorent. Had Segni lived in our times he would have added, 
 " or as much as Washington is loved by the Americans."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 
 
 Burlamacchi, who was an ocular witness: "The 
 people rose from their beds at midnight to go to the 
 sermon, and they came to the doors of the cathedral, 
 waiting uncovered, till they were opened ; nor did they 
 complain of the inconvenience, nor of the cold, nor of 
 the air, nor of standing in the winter-time on the marble, 
 and amongst these were young and old, women and 
 children, of every sort, all filled with great joy, and 
 going to the sermon, as though it were to a wedding. 
 In the church, there was profound silence, every one 
 going to his place with taper in hand, and such as could 
 read, read the office, and others said other prayers. 
 Amongst such a multitude, not a whisper was heard, till 
 the children came, who sang some hymns, with such 
 sweetness, that Paradise seemed to have been opened. 
 Thus, they waited, three or four hours, till the Father 
 ascended the pulpit, etc. (p. 27.) * * * 
 
 *** **#** 
 
 " They no longer sang profane songs, but spiritual 
 canticles, a great many of which were composed at that 
 time they sometimes chaunted them in chorus on the 
 highways, as Friars do in the choir, and with great 
 jubilee whilst at their work, so wide-spread was this 
 great fire everywhere ! Mothers were seen in the streets 
 reciting the office with their children. When they sat 
 at table, after the benediction, they observed silence, and 
 they listened to a person reading the lives of the Holy 
 Fathers, and other devout works, and in particular, the 
 sermons of the Father, (Savonarola,) and others of his 
 works." And at page 80 : " The women dressed with 
 greatest modesty, and to effect a reform in this particular, 
 they sent a deputation, of their own body, to the Signory, 
 with great solemnity. The children did the same, and 
 
 p 2
 
 322 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 sent a deputation to the Governors of the City, 
 praying them to enact laws for the protection of good 
 morals." 1 
 
 This wonderful eloquence found its way to the hearts 
 of all classes: the plebeian, the monk, the priest, nay, 
 and even the grand intellects, native, as well as Ultra- 
 montane, whom the Medici retained in their court, 
 bowed before its majesty. Rio has truthfully observed 
 that no other man, no matter how famed, was ever fol- 
 lowed by such a long array of celebrities ; and, indeed, it 
 would be difficult to persuade oneself that it was merely 
 to honour the friar, since we find amongst his most 
 enthusiastic admirers philosophers, poets, artists in every 
 branch, painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers, 
 who presented themselves to him as his most pliant 
 instruments in this grand social reform. 2 Foremost 
 amongst these was the Count Giovanni Pico della Mi- 
 randola> on whom an admiring age bestowed the epithet 
 of " Phoenix of Intellects ;" then came Angelo Poliziano, 
 a polished writer of the Medicean court ; Marsilio Ficino ; 
 the Canon Sacromoro ; the two Benivieni ; Giorgio Ves- 
 pucci, uncle to the great navigator ; Zanobi Acciaiuoli ; 
 Tommaso Seratico, all of whom were tamed for their 
 knowledge of Greek and Roman literature. Some 
 of them, not satisfied with being classed amongst his 
 admirers, resolved to follow the observances of his 
 domestic life, and took the habit of the Order; and 
 Mirandola, whom death prevented from pursuing a like 
 course, desired that his body should be consigned to the 
 tomb, clothed in the costume of S. Dominic, and in- 
 
 1 Vita del P. F. Gerolamo Savonarola, scritta dal C . P. BurlamacchL 
 Lucca, 1764. 
 
 1 Loc. Cit. p. 341.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 323 
 
 terred beside Poliziano, in the church of S. Mark, where 
 they had both often listened to the preaching of Fra 
 Gerolamo. 
 
 None but those who have perused the Chronicles of 
 the Convent of S. Marco, could believe what numbers of 
 the Florentine nobility hastened to enrol themselves 
 under the banner of S. Dominic, in order to be near to 
 this wonderful man. 1 But that which exceeds all 
 powers of imagination is the influence which he exer- 
 cised over the Florentine artists. Vasari compares it to 
 a delirium, so great was liis power over their hearts and 
 souls: for they not only adopted all his ideas of what 
 should be the moral tendency of art, but also declared 
 themselves ready to suffer any amount of toil, and to 
 confront the rage of a brutal faction, sooner than aban- 
 don him in the tremendous struggle that he maintained 
 for his country and her Arts. Some of them paid 
 dearly for their devotion, for they either fell beneath the 
 assassin's stiletto or were driven into exile. Others, 
 when the terrible tragedy was ended, abandoned the 
 cultivation of these arts which formed their delight dur- 
 ing the life-time of Fra Gerolamo. The history of these 
 facts is given by men who were not the partisans of 
 Savonarola, but by the creature of the Medici, Giorgio 
 Vasari, who confesses himself unable to account for that 
 mighty influence which Fra Gerolamo exercised over 
 the most distinguished geniuses of his times. 
 
 i So great was the number of those who took the habit, that the convent 
 of S. Marco, which had to be enlarged, counted two hundred inmates. All 
 the Camaldulese monks in Florence sent a deputation to Savonarola, beseeching 
 him to invest them with the Dominican habit, and receive them into his Order. 
 Burlamacchi, who conveyed their request, was informed by Fra Gerolamo 
 that he could not grant their prayer, and that they should return to their 
 convents, and live according to the rule of their Founder, which was in every 
 respect calculated to make them perfect men. Y. BurlamacchL
 
 324 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 The artists who adopted Savonarola's ideas were by 
 far the most distinguished men of the Florentine school 
 in all the branches of design ; and there is no one who 
 will not admit the great excellence of Giovanni dclle 
 Corniole, as an engraver on stone ; of Baldini and Sandro 
 Botticelli, in copper-plate engraving; of Cronaca, in 
 architecture ; of the Robbia family, in all the branches of 
 the plastic art ; of Baccio da Monte Lupo, in sculpture ; 
 of Baccio della Porta and Lorenzo di Credi in painting ; 
 and of Bettuccio and Eustachio, of Florence, in minia- 
 turing. And the very same motive that induced many 
 of the Florentine nobility to retire from the world, and 
 pass their days with that singular man, impelled many 
 an artist to ask the habit at his hands. Elsewhere we 
 shall see what numbers were invested by him in- the 
 convent of S. Marco, and in that of Fiesole. 1 
 
 Surrounded by such a galaxy of artists and literati, 
 Savonarola began to unfold his ideas to both. His object 
 was to convert the literary man from infidelity, and 
 .to impress him with the proper notions of Christianity. 
 As to the artists, the scope of all his reasonings was to 
 rescue the imitative arts from that immoral tendency 
 which was so much encouraged by the licentiousness of 
 the times ; for they not only delighted in depicting the 
 nude, and representing foulest abominations, but treated 
 with contempt the very subjects suggested by religion 
 itself. Nothing was then more common than to select 
 women of depraved life as originals for portraits of the 
 Madonna and other Saints ; nor need we say that such 
 practices brought dishonour on religion and scandalized 
 
 1 Amongst the artists who opposed Savonarola, were Mariotto Alberti- 
 nelli and Piero di Cosimo, Florentine painters. Burlamacchi states that 
 Baccio da Monte Lupo fled the city in order to escape the poignards of Fra 
 Gerolamo's enemies.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 325 
 
 the faithful. It is true, indeed, that abuses of this sort 
 were still more flagrant in the following century, in the 
 days of Giulio Romano, Tiziano, and Coreggio, but the 
 far-seeing eye of the Ferrarese clearly beheld the debase- 
 ment which should inevitably prevail, if he did not warn 
 the cultivators of art of the ignominy with which they 
 would cover themselves; and of the direful evils that 
 should befal their country, if they devoted their genius 
 to propagate such foul contamination. Alas ! they knew 
 not that corruption always precedes the loss of liberty ; 
 and they took little heed of that maxim which we 
 read in Tacitus: that the easiest way to conquer and 
 enslave a people is to debauch it. Was it not thus that 
 the Romans subjugated Britain, Gaul, and Germany? It 
 was -against men of this class that Savonarola thundered 
 from the pulpit, and he also predicted the tremendous evils 
 which they were likely to bring on his country. It 
 may be that the future was revealed to him, and that he 
 beheld the Imperialists besieging Florence. Who knows 
 but that he saw in prophetic vision the last struggle of 
 the Republic, which, despite of valour and chivalry, 
 lapsed once more into the power of the Medicean 
 tyrants ! Knowing the power which the imitative arts 
 exercised over that imaginative people, and that they 
 might be made instrumental in the social reform, he set 
 about developing his ideas of them, by going back to 
 the general principles of aesthetics, and giving a new 
 definition of the beautiful. This, he maintained, should 
 not be understood to be a mere pleasing of the senses, 
 but that the senses should be the media for conveying it 
 to the heart and soul, and enamouring it of virtue.. He 
 never would separate his ideal of the beautiful from that 
 of truth and decorum. Perhaps, it may be better to 
 hear himself: " In what does beauty consist? In colour-
 
 326 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTEE8, 
 
 ing ? no : In form ? no : but beauty is a form that results 
 from the proportion and correspondency of all the mem- 
 bers and colours ; and from this proportion there results 
 a quality which philosophers term beauty. This is true 
 in compound entities, but in simple ones their beauty is 
 the light. Behold the sun; its beauty consists in pos- 
 sessing light: behold the blessed spirits, the beauty of 
 whom is light: behold God, who, because he is most 
 lucid, is beauty itself. The beauty of every creature 
 is the more perfect, the more closely it is assimilated 
 to the beauty of God ; and the body is beautiful in pro- 
 portion to the beauty of the soul. Suppose two women 
 whose bodies are equally beautiful : fancy one of them to 
 be of holy life, and the other immoral ; you will find that 
 the holy woman will be more loved by every one than 
 the wicked woman, and that all eyes will be turned on 
 her. I now speak of carnal men. Suppose a holy man, 
 whose body is deformed you will find that every one 
 respects him, and, although deformed, his sanctity seems to 
 be reflected in his countenance. Now fancy what must 
 have been the beauty of the Virgin, who possessed 
 such sanctity sanctity that shone from all her features. 
 Imagine how beautiful was Christ, who was God and 
 Man I" 1 Every one must perceive that the Angelico 
 realised all these theories ; for no painter ever excelled 
 him in giving to his images the beauty of an immortal 
 soul. Having given these general notions of the Beauti- 
 ful, Savonarola proceeds to denounce the licentiousness 
 of artists, who made painting subservient to the lusts of 
 the great, instead of an eloquent language for inculcat- 
 ing virtue and morality ; and, to overwhelm them with 
 shame, he quotes a Gentile author. " Aristotle," he 
 
 1 Prediche Quadrigesimali del P. Sav. Rccitate 1'anno 1495.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 327 
 
 exclaims, " who was a pagan, tells us that we should not 
 tolerate indecent pictures, lest children, seeing them, be 
 corrupted ; but what shall I say of you, Christian pain- 
 ters, who produce these nude figures ? I tell you to do 
 so no more. You, who have such paintings in your houses, 
 should destroy them, for you would thus be doing a work 
 pleasing to God and the Holy Virgin." 1 Directing his 
 discourse to those who selected as models for portraits of 
 the Saints, women whose profligacy was well known to 
 every one, after quoting the passage in Amos, (c. v.) 
 " But you carried a tabernacle for your Moloch, and the 
 image of your idols" he pronounces the following in- 
 vective : " You have dedicated my temple and my 
 churches to your God Moloch. See how they act in 
 Florence ! When Florentine mothers have married their 
 daughters, they deck them out for show, till they look 
 like nymphs; and they lead them forthwith to Santa 
 Liberata (the cathedral). These are your idols that you 
 have placed in my temple. The images of your gods 
 are the images and the likenesses of the figures that you 
 cause to be painted in the churches ; and the young men 
 say to this and that maiden : this is Magdalene ; that 
 beyond there is S. John ; because you paint figures in 
 the church which resemble this woman or that. All this 
 is sinful, and a contempt of God. You painters act 
 wrongly ; and if you knew the scandal that results, as I 
 know it, you would not paint such things. You intro- 
 duce worldly vanities into the church. Do you believe 
 that the Blessed Virgin was dressed as you represent 
 her ? I tell you that she was modestly dressed, and so 
 veiled that one could scarcely see her face ; and S. Eliza- 
 beth was also modest and simple in her attire. You 
 
 ] Predica delk prima Dom. di Quar.
 
 328 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 would do well if you would cancel these indecent pic- 
 tures. You represent the Virgin Mary decked out like a 
 harlot. Oh, how is God's worship debased I" 1 It is easy 
 to conjecture what effect such discourses as these had 
 on the minds of the Florentine artists, many of whom 
 swore to Savonarola that they would never again degrade 
 the art of painting or sculpture. Not content with this, 
 Baccio della Porta, (called in religion Fra Bartolomeo,) 
 Lorenzo di Credi, and others, laid at the Father's feet all 
 their designs in the nude, together with their other works 
 which outraged decency. But, as Savonarola desired to 
 impress the minds of the Florentines with a salutary 
 horror of all such objects, he caused them all to be 
 burned with great solemnity in the piazza of the Palazzo 
 Vecchio. Let us hear Burlamacchi on this subject: 
 At the beginning of the carneval, (1497,) the Father 
 ordered that there should be a very solemn procession, 
 full of mysteries; and he caused to be erected in the 
 Piazza dei Signori, a large cabin, within which were 
 gathered all vain and lascivious things, which the 
 children had collected from all parts of the city. The 
 cabin was formed as we will describe: The joiners 
 constructed a pyramid, and in its hollow placed a great 
 quantity of brush-wood, and some gunpowder. This 
 pyramid had fifteen steps, on which were laid and 
 arranged, with great ingenuity, all the various offensive 
 objects. On the first step were laid the most precious 
 
 1 Sabbato dopo la Seconds Dom. di Quar. In another sermon on the edu- 
 cation of youth, he speaks thus : " The bad Poets should riot be read in 
 schools: such as Ovid, (de Arte Am.,) Tibullus, Catullus, and Terentius 
 (where he speaks de Meretricibus.) Read S. Jerom, S. Augustin, and other 
 ecclesiastical books, or Tully, Virgil, and some portions of holy Scripture. 
 And you, masters, when you find mention of Jove and Pluto, say to your 
 scholars: these are fabulous deities, and God alone governs the world."
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 329 
 
 foreign tapestries, on which obscene figures had been 
 wrought; above these, on the second step, was a great 
 number of figures and portraits of the fairest damsels of 
 Florence, and others by most excellent painters and 
 sculptors. On another step, were tables, cards, dice, and 
 such like diabolical inventions. On another step were 
 music-books, harps, lutes, guitars, cymbals, trumpets, and 
 various other instruments. Then came the adornments 
 of women false hair, mirrors, perfumes, Cyprus powders, 
 and similar vanities. On another step were the works of 
 the Latin and modern poets, such as Morganti, Boccaccio, 
 Petrarcha, and the like. Then followed masques, beards, 
 liveries, and all such carneval trumpery. There were 
 also many very beautiful works of the chisel and pencil, 
 together with ivory and alabaster chess-men, for which a 
 Venetian merchant offered the Signory twenty thousand 
 crowDs; but instead of getting them, they painted him, 
 from the life, and enthroned him on the top of the pyra- 
 mid, as King of all these vanities. ... At length, 
 four men approached, with lighted torches, and set fire 
 to the cabin, mid the ringing of bells, and the sounding of 
 fifes and trumpets, so that every one seemed enraptured 
 on the occasion of this festivity. The flames mounted 
 to heaven, and all the vanities were consumed." 1 This 
 spectacle was renewed A.D. 1498, the last of Fra Gerola- 
 mo's Apostolic career. 
 
 And, here, it sickens the soul to think that this solemn 
 triumph, which he had achieved over the licentiousness 
 of his age, should soon be followed by error and immo- 
 rality. The partisans of the Medici, who were working 
 for their restoration : a ruler far more potent than the 
 Medici ; the libertine artists who battened on corruption, 
 
 1 Burlamacchi. Loc. Cit. p. 113.
 
 330 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 and who had fallen in popular esteem ; the literary men, 
 too, who could not tolerate the severe maxims of the 
 Friar, all conspired, and swore to effect Savonarola's 
 overthrow. Then arose the sect of the Arrabbiati, who 
 were the partisans of everything infamous, and who 
 thirsted for vengeance. Foiled in their first attempts, 
 they retired for a while, to knit themselves more closely 
 together, and seizing the occasion of the disputation 1 on 
 May 23rd, 1498, they inaugurated their triumph: In 
 that very square, and on that very pyre whereon, a few 
 months before, Savonarola had attempted to consume 
 revived Paganism, he, himself, was burned. Illustrious, 
 and hapless victim ! in thee was realised that aphorism 
 of Macchiavelli " 111 fares it with prophets who expose 
 their unarmed breasts to the fury of factions."* But 
 though his enemies destroyed his body, they could not 
 destroy his memory, which has been honorably recorded 
 by every writer who does not shrink from stating truth. 
 For more than two centuries, on the anniversary of his 
 death, the ground that drank his blood, has been covered 
 with garlands, and this will attest the veneration in 
 which the Friar is held, and prove that his grand 
 precepts have not perished in the memory of the 
 Florentines. , 
 
 Ten years after Savonarola's death on an ignominious 
 gibbet, Raffaello painted him amongst the Doctors of the 
 
 1 This is an allusion to the ordeal of fire, to which Savonarola blindly 
 consented, and, as it were, signed his own death-warrant. V. the Life and 
 Times of Savonarola, where this terrible scene is very well described. 
 
 8 Savonarola seems to have had a presentiment of the tragic termination 
 of his apostolic career. Nothing else can be collected from these memorable 
 words : " Go read the sacred books, and you will see that all the prophets 
 were murdered. So too, I think, it shall be with me. This is the reward 
 that I receive from this people." Oraz. della Renovation* della Chi&a, lib. i., 
 page 51. '
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 331 
 
 Catholic Church, in the halls of the Vatican, and this is 
 his most splendid religious rehabilitation the most 
 luminous proof of his innocence, and the most convincing 
 evidence of the perfidy of his persecutors. Julius II. 
 charged Raffaello to execute these grand works, and 
 surely he would not have allowed an impious man, or 
 one who outraged the honor of the Pontificate, to figure 
 amongst the champions of the church, in the " Dispu- 
 tation on the Sacrament." Mark how Julius proclaimed 
 Savonarola's innocence : l 
 
 " The death of the Friar preceded, by a few years, the 
 death of the Republic !" 
 
 Having thus briefly described the ideas of Fra Gero- 
 lamo, as well as his calamitous death, it remains for us to 
 vindicate his character against those who call him an 
 apostle of barbarism an iconoclast, and an enemy to the 
 fine arts. The facts we have narrated from Burlamacchi 
 have been distorted to furnish grounds for these accusa- 
 tions, and to prove that Savonarola was utterly insensible 
 to the beautiful in arts as well as letters. But I am, per- 
 suaded that every dispassionate reader of Fra Gerolamo's 
 history, will confess that he did not denounce the legiti- 
 mate use of either arts or letters, but simply inveighed 
 against those who made them subservient to the demora- 
 lization of society. That public and solemn spectacle of 
 the destruction of so many lascivious objects, seems to 
 have been necessitated by the very nature of the evil 
 
 i Filippo Moise', Illustrazione Storico-Artistica del Palazzo vecchio. Fir. 
 1843. Kio Poesie Chretienne, c. viii., p. 361. Rosini endeavours to prove 
 that the portrait in the " Disputation" is not Savonarola's, aud has given an 
 engraving of it in his History of Painting. In my judgment this is the 
 strongest confirmation of the generally received opinion, and any one who 
 takes the trouble of examining it must find that it bears a most striking re- 
 semblance to the portrait of Fra Gerolamo painted by Fra Bartolomeo.
 
 332 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 which demanded a prompt and desperate remedy. Were 
 we to condemn Savonarola for this, we should also con- 
 demn the Apostle Paul, who not only caused such books 
 as sinned against morality to be consumed, but also such 
 as were calculated to lure the faithful from the cultiva- 
 tion of Christian knowledge. 1 A writer of the last cen- 
 tury did not hesitate to pronounce Paul a fanatic for 
 conduct like Savonarola's. Certain it is that the artists 
 who espoused Fra Gerolamo's doctrines, did not abandon 
 painting or sculpture, as they would have done, if 
 he had anathematized either of these arts ; far other- 
 wise, they did nothing more than give them a right 
 direction, no longer contaminating either pencil or 
 chisel with obscene representations, and their example 
 may be said to have preserved many from corruption. 
 That the Friar was a lover of art is, I think, very 
 evident to such as have read our history. If this had 
 not been the fact, it would be hard to understand how 
 so many and such illustrious painters and sculptors could 
 have entertained the kindliest feelings for the man who 
 denounced the arts which they professed, or have sub- 
 mitted to so many grievous trials for their devotion to 
 his principles. Nay, more, when Fra Gerolarno hurled 
 his most scathing invectives against those who desecrated 
 the temple of the living God by their obscene paintings, 
 did he not thus vindicate the character of Catholicity 
 from the aspersions of her enemies, who had ample reason 
 to accuse us of a serious innovation ? In a word, did he 
 not anticipate the decision of the Tridentine Council, 
 which ordains that no work of art should find a place 
 within the sacred precincts, that was not calculated to 
 
 1 " And many of them who had followed curious arts, brought together 
 their books, and burnt them before all ; and counting the price of them, they 
 found the money to be fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew th 
 word of Goi>, and was confirmed. 1 ' Acts, xix.
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 333 
 
 convey a moral lesson and stimulate the piety of the 
 faithful? 1 
 
 To these arguments which to us appear conclusive, 
 we will add some facts. Savonarola for many years 
 belonged to a congregation which had always cherished 
 and cultivated art. We have already seen how the 
 Blessed Giovanni Dominici, who was its Founder, 
 laboured to propagate and diffuse the love of arts in all 
 the cloisters of men and women that he had established. 
 In these solitudes lived and worked Fra Giovanni An- 
 gelico, and that distinguished band of miniaturists 
 whom we have recorded, in the first book of these 
 Memoirs ; and this, in my judgment, was a most benefi- 
 cial provision, since there can be nothing better calcu- 
 lated to fill the heart and soul with chastened and sub- 
 lime ideas than the divine art of design and painting, 
 when directed by that spirit of piety that glowed in the 
 bosom of the Angelico. We are assured on the authority 
 of Burlamacchi, that when Fra Gerolamo determined to 
 revive the primitive rigid observance in his convent of 
 San Marco, he resolved to promote the study of the arts 
 of design which he regarded as essential to his grand 
 reform. " He determined," says Burlamacchi, " that the 
 lay-brothers should apply themselves to some of the arts 
 which were not likely to distract them, such as sculpture, 
 painting, mason's work, writing, &c. ; and that by the 
 exercise of these arts, they might acquire means for the 
 support of the convent. This, he thought, would enable 
 his preachers to pronounce the truth more fearlessly, and 
 render them independent of those who would not contri- 
 bute alms when their vices were openly attacked and 
 
 1 Sess. xxv. c. L " Omnis denique lascivia vitetur ; ita ut procaci venustate 
 imagines non pingantur, nee ornentur. "
 
 334 MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PAINTERS, 
 
 exposed." This prudential arrangement had the happiest 
 results, so much so, that during his life time, or at least a 
 few years after his tragic death, a chosen band of artists 
 entered the convent of San Marco, to walk in the foot- 
 prints and revive the examples of the Blessed Angelico ; 
 a fact that never could have been realised if Savonarola, 
 who was the president of that Dominican Congrega- 
 tion, had been an Apostle of barbarism, an iconoclast, 
 and implacable enemy of the imitative arts. Let 
 us take another passage from his history to corro- 
 borate what we have here asserted. The most noble 
 Lady Camilla Ruccllai was so deeply impressed by the 
 holy preaching of Fra Gerolamo, that she resolved to 
 renounce the world, for the sake of Jesus Christ, and to 
 erect a convent, within whose walls she might end her 
 career, in the practices of austere piety. Having opened 
 her mind to Savonarola, and being encouraged by him, 
 she built and endowed the magnificent monastery of S. 
 Caterina da Siena in Via Larga ; and there, carrying out 
 Savonarola's reform, she introduced,~ at his suggestion, 
 the arts of painting and modelling in plaster. Most 
 happy were the results, so much, that no other convent 
 in all Italy produced abler female artists than this one, 
 founded by Rucellai. A learned and accurate writer 
 attests, that the fine arts were most lovingly cultivated in 
 this convent till the beginning of the last century, that 
 is to say, till the suppression of the religious Orders. 
 " There exist," says he, " in this monastery, many 
 glorious monuments, which evidence the zeal and piety 
 of Savonarola, who, to protect its religious inmates from 
 the dangers of idleness, introduced the noble arts of 
 painting, design, and miniature, in which these pious 
 women became so excellent, that their works were
 
 SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. 335 
 
 sought in Rome, Naples, Lombardy, and through all 
 Italy." 1 
 
 This convent adopted all the observances practised in 
 that of San Marco, and may be said to have rivalled it 
 in the cultivation of the Arts. This accomplished sister- 
 hood will furnish matter for us in the second volume of 
 these Memoirs. 
 
 We need not dwell longer on Savonarola, for we are 
 conscious that every one who desires to see art employed 
 as an efficacious means for inculcating religious and 
 moral precepts, will applaud his magnanimous attempt 
 to rescue it from degradation. He would not have it 
 ancillary to base and revolting passions : he struggled to 
 raise it to the dignity of the Evangelical language, and 
 though his efforts failed, we cannot refuse to do homage 
 to the motives that influenced him. 
 
 i Delia Storiadi Fr. Gerolamo Savonarola. Livorno, 1782. This most 
 complete and accurate life of Fra Gerolamo, was written by Father 
 Barsanti di S. Marco. M. P. J. Carle published another life of this great 
 man. Paris, 1842. It is replete with poetry and devotion.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ARTISTS WHOM SAVONAROLA INFLUENCED TO 
 TAKE THE DOMINICAN HABIT. 
 
 MINIATURISTS. 
 
 Fra Benedetto or Bettuccio of Florence, invested November 7th, 1459 ; 
 and professed by F. Savonarola, 13th November, 1496. 
 
 Fra Filippo Lappacciui of Florence, invested at the beginning of August, 
 1492 ; professed, August 3, 1493. 
 
 Fra Eustachio of Florence, invested in 1461; professed, September 12, 
 1497. 
 
 PAINTERS. 
 
 Fra Agostino di Paolo Del Mugello, invested in 1495 ; professed, 1416. 
 Fra Andrea, a Florentine, invested in 1500 ; professed, 1596. 
 Fra Bartolommeo Delia Porta, invested at Prato, July 26, 1500 ; pro- 
 fessed, 1501. 
 
 ARCHITECTS. 
 
 Fra Domenico Di Paolo, a Florentine. I do not know in what year he 
 entered. He was a priest, and died October 5, 1501. 
 
 Fra Francesco di Prato. The time of his reception and profession does 
 not appear. He died, December, 1522. 
 
 MODELLERS IN PLASTER. 
 
 Amongst the cultivators of this art was, probably, Fra Ambrogio 'della 
 Robbia, invested by Fra Gerolamo Savonarola, in 1425. He was professed 
 December 13, 1496. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 DOCUMENTS 
 
 TO ILLUSTRATE 
 
 THE MEMOIRS OF THE DOMINICAN ARTISTS. 
 BOOK I. 
 
 [CHAP, ii., p. 23.] 
 
 " The plan of S. M. Novella is a nave with aisles, transepts with chapels 
 at their ends, and on their east faces, and a small square-ended chapel. 
 The nave is parted from its aisles hy six arches of a broad pointed span : the 
 arches diminish in width from west to east. The transepts have two chapels 
 ou each east face, and one apiece on a higher level and reached by some 
 steps at the extremities ; and there is a fine Pointed sacristy (built in 1350) 
 west of the north transept. The south elevation of the south transept has a 
 round window of t\\celve radiating lights, not foliated, and with trefoils 
 between each pair of their heads and the circumference." V. Webb's Con- 
 tinental Ecclesiology. This church is 322 feet long, 88 feet wide across the 
 nave and aisles, and 203 feet through the transepts. 
 
 [PAGE 69.] 
 
 The following is the inscription on the fagade of the church of S. Michele 
 in Borgo: 
 
 Cernite vos queso que fulgent marmore ceso 
 Hoc opus alarum frontis templi quoque clarum 
 Tempore constructum fuit, ad finemq. reductum 
 Hie patris Andree laudis de culmine vere 
 Vulterri natus fuit Abbas ipse prefatus, 
 Infrascriptorum numero tune et monachorum 
 Cei ductoris claustralis rite prioris 
 Anselmique, Boni, Benedictum junge Guidoni 
 Sic Plancus, Michael, Andreas, Angelus inde 
 Camaldulenses sunt hie, et cenobienses 
 Laude supernorum insistunt angelicorum 
 Anno milleno trecento tres dato deno 
 Cesar et Henricus annus regnandoque primus 
 GUGL1ELMUS sane pisanus sumite plane 
 Hie operis factor caput extat et ordinis actor 
 Ergo tu spector qui respicis hec quoque lector 
 Summo dans laudes Patri quo denique plaudes 
 Die animabus eorum, da bona Christe polorum. 
 
 (V. AI.ESSANDRO DA MoKKONA, Pisa Illustrata,\o\. III. p. 1, cap. VI.)
 
 APPENDIX. 339 
 
 [CHAP. VH. p. 69.] 
 
 ANCIENT CHRONICLE OF THE CONVENT OF S. CATHERINE 
 
 OF THE ORDER OF S. DOMINIC IN PISA. 
 
 (NECROLOGY OF FRA GUGLIELMO DA PISA.) 
 
 " William, tho lay-brother, was a famous sculptor, and did much for the 
 enlargement of the convent. When the body of Blessed Dominic was being 
 removed to the Area which was sculptured by Master Nicholas of Pisa, 
 (with whom our William worked at the same,) he (William) contrived to 
 carry off one of the ribs of the Saint's side, not thinking of the excommuni- 
 cation pronounced by the Master of the Order, who was then at Bologna 
 presiding over the general chapter. William conveyed the rib to Pisa, and 
 reverently hid it under the altar of S. M. Magdalene. On his death-bed he be- 
 wailed his innocent fault, and revealed the fact. When the brethren found it 
 where he told them, they removed it to the sacristy. He lived fifty-six years in 
 the Order. May his spirit have everlasting rest in Abraham's bosom ! n 
 
 [PAGE 70.] 
 (NECROLOGY OF FKA FAZIO.) 
 
 " Fazio, the lay- brother, was a master of sculpture, and a very devout and 
 discreet man. He was for a long time janitor to the convent : and he dis- 
 charged that and all other offices punctually and obediently. Full of years, 
 he entered into the peace of the Lor3, A.D. 1340." 
 
 BOOK II. 
 [CiiAP. in., p. 172.] 
 
 CHRONICLE OF THE CONVENT OF S. DOMINIC IN FIESOLE. 
 In the same year, (1406,) the Ven. Fra Giovanni Dominici, was sent as 
 orator, by the Florentine Signory, to Pope Gregory XII., who succeeded 
 Innocent VII. ; and he was retained by Pope Gregory, and employed in 
 affairs of the Church, and created Cardinal. There remained, however, in 
 that convent (which was unfinished) about sixteen members, the first Prior 
 of whom was Marcus of Venice, and he was succeeded by Brother Antony 
 de Cruce of Milan, during whose Priorate the schism was greatly augmented 
 in the Church of God, A.D. 1409. Up to that period two men, Gregory XII. 
 and Benedict XIII. contended for the Papacy. At length the Cardinals of the 
 foresaid Pontiffs, who in great numbers seceded from them, held a concilin- 
 bulum at Pisa, and created a third Pope, namely, Alexander V., who was 
 hitherto called Peter of Candia, a Minorite, and one of Pope Gregory's (xii.) 
 Cardinals. But although the city of Florence sided with Alexander V., the 
 Friars of that convent (S. Domenico at Fiesole) maintained their allegiance 
 to Pope Gregory XII., who was their true and legitimate Pastor. But when
 
 340 APPENDIX. 
 
 F. Thomas de Fermo, who was then Master of the Order, wished to coerce 
 the conscience of the Friars, and make them acknowledge Alexander V., and 
 when he had imprisoned the Prior of the convent in the dungeons of 
 Florence the Friars, to avoid the schismatical contagion, stole away, every 
 one of them, from the convent by night, lest they might be intercepted, and 
 guided by the Prior, journeyed on to Foligno, where the Governor of the Oty, 
 and the Bishop of the same, (Federico, of the Order of S. Dom.) who remained 
 faithful to Gregory XII., gave them the convent which belonged to the 
 Order. Here they lived for many years according to STRICTEST DISCIPLINE. 
 But when the pestilence came and killed the Prior and many of the religious, 
 the discipline in that convent was relaxed. 
 
 " The aforesaid Fiesolan convent being abandoned by the Friars, for 
 the causes we have stated, was taken possession of by some Friars from S. 
 Maria Novella ; but a short time afterwards they, too, left it, because the 
 conditions on which they were to hold it had not been observed, and the 
 Bishop of Fiesole seized it as a fief of his Church." 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 [CHAP. v. p. 191.] 
 
 FROM A BOOK OF MEMORANDA BELONGING TO THE 
 
 CONVENT OF S. DOMINIC DI FIESOLE. 
 
 " I remember how, on the 20th of February, 1611, the illustrious Lord 
 Mario Farnese, after having negotiated with our convent for two years, to 
 obtain the picture of the Annunciation, painted by Fra Angelico of Mugello, 
 a son of this house, and contemporary of S. Antonino, Archbishop of Flor- 
 ence, (who also belonged to this convent,) finally obtained it ; and he, in 
 consideration of this privation, gave us one thousand five hundred ducats. 
 This painting was consigned to F. Carlo Strozzi, together with its predella, 
 on which were painted five histories of the B. V. M., by the same painter. 
 . Glory be to the Lord, and honor to our Angelic painter, from 
 whom our convent has experienced benefits for more than one hundred and 
 sixty years." 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 [CHAP. vm. p. 251.] 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL OF ORVIETO. 
 
 (ROME, 1791.) 
 CONTRACT BETWEEN THE ItUILDKKS OF THE CATHEDRAL AND 
 
 FBA GIOVANNI ANQELICO, JUNE 14, 1447. 
 
 " In the name of God, amen. After many conversations with the painter, 
 
 .' . . he was engaged to paint the new chapel near the Episcopate. 
 
 The chamberlain employed Fra Giovanni, Son of Peter, of
 
 APPENDIX. 341 
 
 the Order of Preaching-Friars, to paint all the pictures of said rlmi.rl, uu 
 condition that Fra Giovanni would personally execute said pictures, and 
 engage Benozzo Gozzoli of Florence and James de Coli, and that he would 
 exercise all care and diligence." 
 
 " He is, likewise, to see that the figures of said pictures shall be beautiful 
 and laudable, 
 
 "The engagement is to commence on to-morrow, which is the 15th of tin- 
 current month of June. Item. He is to paint each year with the said 
 artists, during the months of June, July, August, and September, till the whole 
 chapel shall have been finished Item. He is to execute the whole work 
 without fraud, and as becometh a good painter. 
 
 "And the aforesaid chamberlain, . . . hath solemnly 
 promised and sworn to Fra Giovanni, then present, and representing his 
 heirs, and likewise to the said Benozzo, and John and James, to give and 
 disburse to brother John, for his works, as salary for said four months each 
 year, at the rate of CC. gold ducats, for each and every complete year. 
 Videlicet, for said four mouths, the third part of CC. ducats. 
 
 " Item, to Benozzo, each month, seven ducats of the same value ; to John, 
 two ducats, and to James, one ducat. 
 
 " Item, the said master will give the painter all the colours necessary for 
 said picture*, . . . irrespective of the salary. 
 
 " Item, independently of the salary, bread and wine in abundance ; and 
 XX. libras each month, . . .as long as they are working. 
 
 " Item, he will defray all their expenses up to the present day. 
 
 " Item, whilst the scaffolding is being set up, said Master John, (the 
 Angelico,) will furnish the designs of the pictures and figures which he is to 
 paint on the ceiling of the chapel. 
 
 " All which articles were agreed on. Stipulated before us, Peter Mei, 
 goldsmith, and Peter Natii, of the city of Orvieto, and Master Giovanniiio 
 de Senis, chief of the superintendents." 
 
 [From the same Work.] 
 (28th September, 1447.) 
 
 " Fra Giovanni, of the Order of S. Dominic, Painter, was engaged to 
 paint in the new chapel of said church, with his own person, and the persons 
 of Benozzo of Florence, whom he brought with him for this work. 
 He fully satisfied the chamberlain, .... that he would not 
 insist on the agreement, by which he was entitled to one hundred and three, 
 gold florins, . . . which he was to get from said building, as 
 well for himself as for the said Benozzo. . . . And for three 
 months . . .he declared himself content. . . . The 
 said Master John swore on the Holy Gospels . . . that he would 
 
 Q 2
 
 342 APPENDIX. 
 
 at all times observe and attend. Moreover, for greater caution, he exonerated 
 said building, . . -by stipulation, etc. etc., in the presence of 
 Jacopo Petri, Petro Putii, Master John of Peter, alias Pintalvecchia painter, 
 and Pancrazio Luce, witnesses." 
 
 [CHAP. vm. p. 256.] 
 
 NECROLOGY OF FRA GIOVANNI ANGELICO IN THE 
 CHRONICLE OF S. DOMENICO AT FIESOLE. 
 
 " Fra Giovanni de Mugello, died on the ..... This 
 was a great painter, and as he was a devout man at heart, so were his 
 pictures full of devotion. He painted many works for the altars of 
 various churches, chapels, and confraternities. Three of them are in this 
 Fiesolan convent ; one in S. Marco, Florence ; two in the church of the Holy 
 Trinity, of the Order of Valombrosa ; one in S. Maria degli Angeli, of the 
 Camaldulese ; one in S. Egidio, in the hospital of S. Maria Nuova. Some 
 minor pictures are in the Confraternities of the children. He painted the cells 
 of San Marco, and the chapter-room, and some figures in the cloister. He 
 likewise painted some figures here in the refectory at Fiesole, in the chapter- 
 room, which is now the guest-house. He painted the Papal chapel, and 
 part of a chapel in the cathedral of the old city; and many other works did 
 he pnint splendidly : and at length, after having lived in all simplicity, he 
 rested in the Lord." 
 
 ANNALS OF THE CONVENT OF S. MARCO, FLORENCE. 
 " The picture of the great altar, and the figures of the chapter-room, and 
 of the first cloister, and of all the upper cells, and of the Crucifixion in the 
 refectory, were all painted by a certain friar of the Order of S. Dominic, of 
 the convent of Fiesole, who was reputed to be the greatest master of the 
 pictorial art in Italy. He was called Fra Giovanni, and was a man of great 
 modesty and religious life." 
 
 ILLUSTRIOUS MEN OP THE PREACHING- FRIARS. 
 
 (SIX BOOKS.) 
 
 BY LEANDRO ALBERTI. 
 
 [BOOK v.] 
 
 BLESSED JOHN OF FIESOLE. 
 
 " John, of Fiesole, the Hetrurian, a man of great sanctity, and most 
 celebrated for his paintings, died at Rome XII. Kal of March, MCCCCLV., 
 auJ was buried in a manner worthy such a man, in the church of S. Maria
 
 APPENDIX. .> 1 .") 
 
 sopra Minerva, in a marble tomb, which Nicholas V. caused to be adorned 
 with two elegantly written epitaphs. This venerable man was so addicted 
 to all the observances of his rule, that even whilst working in the Pope's 
 palace, he would not omit a single tittle of it. For when the Pontiff came 
 one day to visit the works he was executing in the chapel, which still exists, 
 he said to him, ' John, tliou must eat meat to-day, for thou hast laboured 
 much' whereon Giovanni answered, ' Holy Father, the prior of the convent 
 did not give me this privilege ;' then quoth the Pope, ' I, who have power 
 over all, grant thee this indulgence.' From this, it is easy to imagine how 
 strict was the rule of life, followed by this illustrious member of our Order. 
 Pope Nicholas venerated this man for his integrity and excellent morals." 
 
 BOOK II. 
 [CHAP. xi. p. 281.J 
 
 CHRONICLE OF THE CONVENT OF S. MARIA DELLA MISERI- 
 CORDIA, (TAGGIA,) OF THE PREACHING-FRIARS, MS. 
 
 "Chapel of S. Peter Martyr, A.D. 1474. The nobleman, Bartholomew 
 Luprus, bequeathed to it a hundred pounds ; (libras centum.) but in the year 
 1522, January 21st, Dominic Oddi made his last will, in which he devised 
 all his property to the chapel of S. Peter Martyr ; and he ordered the picture 
 to be executed as it now is, leaving for the expense of the same twenty-five 
 ducats. . . . The Rer. F. Emmanuel Maccarj de Pigna, painted 
 that picture. It represents our Lord Crucified : on His right is the Blessed 
 Dominic : on the left S. Catherine V. et M. : at foot of the Crucifix (on the 
 right) is S. Hieronymus striking his breast with a stone : on the left is S. 
 Peter Martyr. In a raid made by the Turks, that painting received much 
 injury from the strokes of then- axes they did great damage to the arms 
 faces, and breasts. But (what should never be forgotten) a certain priest 
 impiously painted spectacles on the face of our Blessed Founder, S. Dominic, 
 and as he went homewards, enjoying his sacrilegious exploit, he was struck 
 blind, and remained so till the end of his days. Many ocular witnesses of 
 this just punishment are still living."
 
 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. 
 
 At there was an interval of a year between the publication of the first and 
 second volume of these Memoirs, the author has deemed it advisable to 
 supply the following remarks. 
 
 P. 12. (Note.) After a more careful perusal of the Florentine Guide 
 Book, we admit that Signor Fantozzi is perfectly right in what he states 
 concerning the Carraja Bridge. 
 
 P. 44. David had ascertained the true date of the erection of the Ark 
 of S. Dominic before the publication of this work. See his Memoirs, con- 
 cerning the Ark of S. Dominic, Bologna, 1842. 
 
 P. 82. Vincenzo Vannini has discovered the names of various artificers 
 belonging to the Dominican Order, in some MS. Memoirs preserved in the 
 Ercolani Library at Bologna. The first of these is a Fra Domenico of 
 Bologna, who is styled an Engineer. He is mentioned in the will of Pietro 
 Martini. This friar (who is also mentioned in the Annali Domenicani di 
 Bologna) may have been engaged at the primitive church of our Order, 
 which was built after the designs of Niccola Pisano. The second of these, 
 discovered by Vannini, is Fra Evangelista Marani, the architect He fur- 
 nished the design of the portico for the Church of S. Dominic and the 
 original design is still preserved in the Demanio. There are also notices of 
 Fra Bartol. da Vigevano and Fra Gerol. Mamoliui, who worked as head- 
 masons at the building of the library of the convent, in 1466 and 1467. 
 
 P. 146. The following notices regarding Fra Eustachio, the Minaturist, 
 occur in the Chronicle of the Dominican Convent (di S. Spirito) in Siena. 
 " A.D. MDIL, when Fra Malatesta Sacromoro was prior of this convent, Fra 
 Eustachio, a Florentine lay-brother, finished the miniaturing of the Anti- 
 phonary of the Saints. This work is in two volumes, and it was commenced 
 
 at the expense of the community many years before Fra 
 
 Eustachio was brought hither for the purpose of miniaturing and binding 
 this Antiphonary ; and he restored all the books belonging to the choir and 
 sacristy." The choral books of this convent do not exist at present. 
 
 P. 191. The lucidi of this Gradino are now in the possession of the Metzger 
 family, in Florence. It represents Christ Risen, and in the under part a 
 band of Angels playing various instruments. I have been told that Metzger 
 bought this Gradino, by the Angelico, for 700 dollars, and that he sold it to 
 Signor Valentini for 900.
 
 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. 345 
 
 P. 198. The Coronation, now in the Gallery degli Uffizj, was removed 
 thither from the Church of S. Maria Nuova, and not from the Certosa. 
 
 P. 231. The translator of Delecluze's "Essay on Lionardo da Vinci," 
 conjectures (and with good reason) that the three little histories which adorn 
 the cusps or triangles of the Angelico's Deposition from the Cross, are by D. 
 Lorenzo the Camaldulese monk. He inclines to this opinion principally, be- 
 cause there existed the strongest friendship between these two religious artists. 
 
 P. 254. It is thought that the two paintings executed by the Angelico 
 for S. Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome, are still in existence. Those who 
 maintain this opinion assert, that some mediocre painter covered them with 
 inferior productions of his own pencil, in order to conceal them from the 
 French and other depredators, at the time of tbe suppression of the religious 
 houses. We will here subjoin a list of other paintings by the Angelico, of 
 which we had no information previous to the publication of these Memoirs. 
 Florence. The Metzger family possess seven little pictures on panel : i. e., 
 two doors of a Tryptich, on one of which is represented the Ascent of the Elect 
 into Heaven; and on the other, the Damned going down to Hell. AS. 
 Thomas of Aquino receiving the cincture from Angels. A S. Peter Martyr. 
 Two most beautiful Angels on panel, now in the R. Gallery of Turin. A 
 Presepium (Manger) which has been repainted. There is also a Madonna 
 holding the Divine Infant, but the rich ornamentation of the robes, parti- 
 cularly, causes us to doubt whether we should attribute it to the Angelico. 
 In the Ugobaldi Gallery, Florence, there is also a painting of the Martyr- 
 dom of SS. Cosmas and Damian, in little figures. Signer Acchille Sandrini 
 possesses a small picture by the Angelico, representing the Virgin with the 
 Divine Babe in her arms : this is a very beautiful work, and somewhat 
 resembles that which the same artist executed on the wall of a dormitory in 
 S. Marco. Rome The late Count Bisenzio possessed a Madonna with the 
 Divine Infant, surrounded by Angels and Saints: its height is one and a-half 
 (pollici) by ten-twelfths wide. The paintings in the Convent of Monte 
 Falco were attributed to the Angelico; but it is more likely that they were 
 executed by Benozzo Gozzoli. In the sanctuary of Suasia (Civitella di 
 Romagna) there is a picture of the Madonna which is popularly attributed 
 to Fra Giovanni Angelico ; but we are not able to certify the truth of this. 
 
 P. 276. Professor Rossini says, that there is still in Mantua a Madonna 
 painted by Fra Gerolamo Monsignori. It is in the grandiose style, and 
 resembles that known as Mantegnesque. This work has been engraved and 
 illustrated by Count Carlo d'Arco in the Monumenli di Mantova I llustratati, 
 v. Rosini, Storia della Pittura Ital., v. iv., p. 4, cap. 24, p. 194. 
 
 P. 278. The copy of Vinci's " Supper," by Monsignori, was sold to a 
 Frenchman for 13 Louis. It appears that Monsignori changed the ground 
 of the original in his copy ; converting the hall into an atrium. V. d'Arco, 
 loc. cit.
 
 346 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. 
 
 GLASS PAINTEKS. 
 
 P. 297. Valtancoli (Annali Pisani) states, on the authority of Tronci, 
 that the painted window of the choir of S. Catherine's, (Pisa,) was executed 
 by a Dominican lay brother named Andrea, as may be seen by the inscrip- 
 tion on said window. This lay-brother was a native of Poland. The 
 window being decorated with the armorial bearings of the Mastiani family, 
 we may suppose that they caused it to be painted. 
 
 P. 315. We think that some few notices regarding Fra Bartolommeo 
 (di Pietro,) the author of the beautifully painted window in the choir of S. 
 Domenico in Perugia, will interest the reader. We are indebted to Professor 
 Vermiglioli, who has kindly communicated them to us. We therefore make 
 the following extract from his Description of tfie Church of S. Domenico in 
 Pei*ugia: 
 
 " It has been commonly thought that the Fra Bartolommeo of Perugia, 
 who paiuted the window, and who is mentioned in the inscription, belonged 
 to the Graziani of Perugia, and that the same family was charged to preserve 
 this window. This opinion was popular amongst the inhabitants of our city, 
 till Father Boarini, the Dominican, discovered in the Perugian Memoirs that 
 the Friar who executed the window was a certain Fra Bartolommeo di 
 Pietro di Vanni Accomandoni, a Dominican, and native of Perugia. It 
 appears that he was living in our city in 1370, when his father made his 
 will, in which Bartolommeo is mentioned along with his other children. 
 This Bartolommeo is likewise mentioned in some legal documents, dated 1383. 
 It is certain, moreover, that he waa living in 1415 ; and this appears on the 
 face of an agreement into which he entered regarding the execution of a 
 window for the sacristy of the Church of S. Domenico in Perugia. Hence, 
 we may reasonably conclude that he was the author of the great window of 
 the choir, which was finished five years before the latter date. Nor would 
 it be unreasonable to conjecture, that Benedetto da Siena (who executed 
 various works in said church) furnished the designs for this window ; from 
 all this we conclude, that the armorial bearings of the Graziani family 
 were introduced into the window, simply because the chapel of that family 
 was lighted by said window ; or, more probably, because the Graziani had 
 erected the presbytery of the church. Pier Antonio Graziani bequeathed a 
 sum of money, to be paid annually, for the preservation of the window which 
 lights the presbytery and the choir. In 1574, Astorre Graziani entered into 
 some arrangements concerning the legacy ; and, finally, the Captain Felice 
 Graziani released his family from all further responsibility in the matter, by 
 paying 100 florins." 
 
 P. 315, Signore Gaetano Milanesi has extracted the subjoined most 
 interesting documents from the archives of the Duomo of Siena, and as they
 
 ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. 347 
 
 relate to a distinguished glass-painter of our Order, we willingly present 
 them to the reader. In a book entitled " Pigioni e Fitti de* Beni dal 1 349 al 
 1404," we read, "A. D. 1404, Fra Ambrogio di Bindo, of the Sienese Domi- 
 nicans, has taken from us Chatarino da Corsino, in order to execute two glass 
 windows, one over the altar and chapel of S. Ansano, and the other over 
 the chapel and altar of S. Vettorio. He is to provide all the necessaries, 
 glass, lead, etc., and he is to set up said windows in their proper places, 
 receiving for the workmanship from two and a-half to three gold florins per 
 braccio ; he is not to exceed this sum, and to this agreement Giovanni Pucci 
 and Giovanni di Donato are witnesses. For said sum Fra Ambrogio shall be 
 bound to place the netting over said windows, and we are to supply him with 
 the metal and scaffolding for said windows, and to give him something over 
 and above as soon as they are finished." 
 
 Memoriale di Nastagio di Francesco, Scrittore deW Opera. " Fra Ambrogio 
 di Bindo, the Dominican, who is executing the glass-window over the altar 
 of S. Savino and S. Vettorio." 
 
 Memoriale di Antonio di Giacomo, 1409. "Fra Ambrogio di Bindo 
 is to receive, on the 28th of March, twenty- two florins for a window having 
 large figures painted thereon. Said window is over the chapel of S. Sebas- 
 tian." 
 
 (Archives of the Hospital della Scala.) " April, 23, 1411, I, Guglielmo di 
 Martino, sacristan of the hospital, and Fra Nello di Ser Giovanni, writer 
 of said hospital, entered into the following agreement with Fra Ambrogio di 
 Bindo. Said A mbrogio shall execute two glass-windows, together with all 
 the tin and lead-work thereto pertaining. We bind ourselves to furnish 
 him with the netting and iron that shall be required, and he is to receive a 
 florin for every braccio of the workmanship. We pledge ourselves, moreover, 
 to give him the necessary supply of oil, and also the glass. As soon as the 
 work is finished we will pay him five soldi and six Ubre. As we desire to 
 have armorial devices on said windows, we will furnish the design ; and as 
 the said devices were not taken into consideration heretofore, he professes his 
 readiness to abide by the decision of Fra Guglielmo. who will now pay him 
 three florins of the Sienese currency, to be deducted from the sum for which 
 he has stipulated." 
 
 This Fra Ambrogio di Bindo is not mentioned in the Necrology of S. 
 Domenico in Siena ; neither is there any notice of him in the Chronicle of 
 that city. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 COERIGENDA. 
 
 Page 287, line 14, for Poliftol, read Polifllo. 
 312, line 8, for Diaphonous, read Diaphanous. 
 318, line I, for termination, read commencement. 
 320, line 3, for afflictions, read cruelties.
 
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