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 1.— Giovanni Cimabub. 
 
 From a Portrait by Simone Memmi, in Sta. Maria Novella. 
 
 
 Page 1. 
 
 i 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 EAELY ITALIAN PAINTERS, 
 
 Cjxe ^regress of fainting in Jtalg. 
 
 CIMABUE TO BASSANO. 
 
 BY MRS. JAMESON, 
 
 AITHOR OF ' SACRED AND LEGENDARY ART,' ETC. ETC. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, WITH PORTRAITS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1868. 
 
HD(°n 
 
 J~3 
 
 LATELY PUBLISHED. 
 
 THE MODERN VASARI ; A New History of Painting in Italy, 
 from the 2nd to the 15th Century, from new materials and recent researches 
 in the Archives of Italy and elsewhere. By J. A. Crowe and G. B. Caval- 
 caselle. With 100 Illustrations. 3 vols." 8 vo. 21s. each. 
 
 A NEW HISTORY OF PAINTING IN NORTHERN ITALY, from 
 the 2nd to the 15th Century, from new materials and recent researches in 
 Italy and elsewhere. By J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle. With 
 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. ( In Preparation.) 
 
 A HANDBOOK FOR YOUNG PAINTERS. By C. R. Leslie, R.A. 
 With Illustrations. Post 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 THE ITALIAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING : from the German of 
 Kugler. Edited with Notes, by Sir Chas. L. Eastlake, P.R.A. With 
 Illustrations. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 30s. 
 
 THE GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH SCHOOLS OF 
 PAINTING. Based on the work of Kugler. Edited with Notes, by 
 Dr. Waagen. With Illustrations. 2 vols. Post 8vo. 24s. 
 
 LIVES OF THE EARLY FLEMISH PAINTERS. With Notices 
 of their Works. By J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle. With Illus- 
 trations. Post 8vo. 12s. 
 
 £f<"V 
 
 \ls 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
o*<*? 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION : SOMETHING ABOUT PICTURES AND PAINTERS IX 
 
 GIOVANNI CIMABUE (EARLY CHRISTIAN ART) 1 
 
 NICCOLO PISANO 15 
 
 ANDREA TAFI 1-7 
 
 GADDO GADDI 17 
 
 DUCCIO OF SIENNA 17 
 
 GIOTTO 19 
 
 PIETRO CAVALLINI 40 
 
 ANDREA ORCAGN A 42 
 
 SIMONE MEMMI .. .. 51 
 
 PIETRO LORENZETTI 52 
 
 ANTONIO VENEZIANO 52 
 
 TADDEO GADDI 53 
 
 LORENZO GHIBERTI 57 
 
 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI 67 
 
 FRA ANGELICO DA FIESOLE 72 
 
 MASACCIO AND FILIPP1NO LIPPI 78 
 
 BENOZZO GOZZOLI 88 
 
 ANDREA DI CASTAGNO 95 
 
 SANDRO BOTTICELLI .. 97 
 
 LUCA SIGNORELLI .. , 98 
 
 DOMENICO DAL GHIRLANDAJO 100 
 
 ANDREA VERROCCHIO .. 105 
 
 ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO" .. , - 106 
 
 ANDREA MANTEGNA -l08 
 
 THE INVENTION OF ENGRAVING 121 
 
 THE BELLINI « *•- - *-> ■» .. 128 
 
 h 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAU3 
 
 PIETEO PERUGINO 135 
 
 PINTURICCHIO 142 
 
 LO SPAGNA .. 142 
 
 FRANCESCO FRANCIA 143 
 
 FRA BARTOLOMEO 152 
 
 LIONARDO DA VINCI 162 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO 181 
 
 MARCELLO VENUSTI 208 
 
 SEBASTIAN DEL PIOMBO 209 
 
 GIACOPO PONTORMO 210 
 
 DANIEL DA VOLTEERA ., 210 
 
 GIORGIO VASARI ». t . ,- <• 210 
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO ^ .. 212 
 
 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO 216 
 
 GIAN FRANCESCO AND LUCA PENNI 263 
 
 GIULIO ROMANO 264 
 
 CARAVAGGIO 266 
 
 THE DOSSI 268 
 
 BENVENUTO GAROFALO 268 
 
 GIULIO CLOVIO 269 
 
 CORREGGIO 271 
 
 PARMIGIANO .. 281 
 
 GIORGIONE 289 
 
 TITIAN .. .. 296 
 
 MORONE .. .. . 316 
 
 BONIFAZIO ', 317 
 
 IL MORETTO .. .. 318 
 
 SCHIAVONE 318 
 
 PARIS BORDONE , , 319 
 
 PALMA VECCHIO , 319 
 
 TINTORETTO , 320 
 
 PAUL VERONESE 323 
 
 BASSANO 327 
 
LIST OF PORTEAITS. 
 
 1. Giovanni Cimabue 
 
 Simone Memmi 
 
 .. 1 
 
 2. Niccolo Ptsano 
 
 »» •• 
 
 . 15 
 
 3. Andrea Taei 
 
 G. Vasari 
 
 . 17 
 
 4. Gaddo Gaddi 
 
 „ . . 
 
 . 17 
 
 5. Duccio DI Bontnsegna 
 
 L. Schorn 
 
 . 17 
 
 6. Giotto 
 
 G. Vasari 
 
 19 
 
 7. PlETRO CAVALLINI 
 
 . L. Schorn 
 
 . 40 
 
 8. Andrea Orcagna .. .... 
 
 G. Vasari .. . 
 
 . 42 
 
 9. Simone Memmi 
 
 • »» . . • 
 
 . 51 
 
 10. PlETRO LaERATI DI LORENZETTI 
 
 • >» • • • 
 
 . 52 
 
 11. Antonio Veneziano 
 
 »» .. . 
 
 . 52 
 
 12. Taddeo Gaddi 
 
 N .. . 
 
 . 53 
 
 13. Lorenzo Ghiberti 
 
 • »> . . . 
 
 . 57 
 
 14. Fra FrLippo Lippi 
 
 • t> .. • 
 
 • 67 
 
 15. Fra Angelico da Fiesole .. 
 
 . Nocchi 
 
 . 72 
 
 16. Masaccio 
 
 Brancacci Chapel . 
 
 . 78 
 
 17. FiLippmo Ld?pi 
 
 G. Vasari 
 
 . 83 
 
 18. Benozzo Gozzoli 
 
 $t ... 
 
 . 88 
 
 19. Andrea del Castagno 
 
 
 . 95 
 
 20. Sandro Botticelli 
 
 • » .. • 
 
 . 97 
 
 21. LrCA SlGNORELLI .. .... 
 
 N .. . 
 
 . 98 
 
 22. DOMENICO DEL GhIRLANDAJO 
 
 . By himself 
 
 . 100 
 
 23. Andrea Verrocchio 
 
 G. Vasari 
 
 105 
 
 24. Antonio del Pollaiuolo 
 
 Filippino Lippi 
 
 . 106 
 
 25. Andrea Mantegna 
 
 G. Vasari 
 
 . 108 
 
 26. Giovanni Bellini 
 
 By himself 
 
 . 128 
 
LIST OF PORTRAITS. 
 
 27. 
 28. 
 29. 
 30. 
 81. 
 32. 
 33. 
 34. 
 35. 
 36. 
 37. 
 38. 
 39. 
 40. 
 41. 
 42. 
 43. 
 44. 
 45. 
 46. 
 47. 
 48. 
 49. 
 50. 
 51. 
 52. 
 53. 
 54. 
 55. 
 56. 
 57. 
 
 Pietro Perugino By himself 
 
 Pintueicohio G. Vasari 
 
 Francesco Francia „ 
 
 Fra Bartolomeo . . . . . . . . By himself 
 
 LlONARDO DA VlNCI .. ' .. .. „ 
 
 Michael- An gelo Buonarroti .. Buonasone 
 
 Marcello Venusti 
 
 Sebastian del Piombo G. Vasari 
 
 GlACOPO PONTORMO „ 
 
 Daniele da Yolterra „ 
 
 Giorgio Vasari By himself 
 
 Andrea del Sarto „ 
 
 Kaphael Sanzio d' Urbino .... „ 
 
 Gian Francesco Penni .. .. G. Vasari 
 
 Giulio Eomano Uffizi Gallery 
 
 Oaravaggio By himself 
 
 Dosso Dossi „ 
 
 Garofalo G. Vasari 
 
 Giulio Clovio 
 
 Correggio Vienna Gallery 
 
 Parmeggiano By himself 
 
 GlORGlONE G. Vasari 
 
 Titian .. Agostino Carracci 
 
 Morone Old Engraving 
 
 Bonifazio 
 
 Il Moretto 
 Andrea Schiavone 
 Paris Bordone 
 Palma Vecchio 
 Tintoretto 
 Paul Veronese 
 Bassano 
 
 Carlo Ridolfi 
 
 By himself 
 Carlo., Ridolfi 
 
 To face page 
 .. 135 
 .. 142 
 .. 143 
 .. 152 
 .. ' 162 
 .. 181 
 .. 208 
 .. 209 
 .. 210 
 .. 210 
 t. 210 
 .. 212 
 .. 216 
 .. 263 
 .. 264 
 .. 266 
 .. 268 
 .. 269 
 .. 269 
 .. 271^ 
 .. 281 
 .. 289 
 296 
 316 
 317 
 318 
 318 
 319 
 319 
 320 
 323 
 327 
 
California 
 
 inteSTjt^ion 
 
 TO THE PRESENT EDITION 
 
 Something About Pictures and Painters. 
 
 It is now about fourteen years since these * Memoirs ' 
 of the early Italian Painters were first published in the 
 form of detached essays. 
 
 The intention was to afford to young travellers, 
 young students in art, young people generally, some 
 information relating to celebrated artists who have 
 filled the world with their names and their renown ; 
 some means of understanding their characters, as well 
 as comparing their works ; for without knowing what 
 a painter was, as well as who he was, and the circum- 
 stances around him, and the age and the country in 
 which he lived, we cannot comprehend the grounds of 
 that relative judgment which renders even imperfect 
 works most precious and admirable. These biographical 
 essays were necessarily brief. Since they were first 
 published the taste for art has been much extended ; 
 many works have appeared, some beautifully illus- 
 trated ; and unnumbered reviews, and essays, and guide- 
 books, from the pens of accomplished critics and artists, 
 all facilitating the study of art ; but the original purpose 
 of this little book as a companion for the young, has not 
 been superseded. The author has therefore prepared 
 this new edition with great care. The references to ex- 
 amples have been made, wherever it has been possible, 
 
V 
 
 X INTRODUCTION 
 
 to our National Gallery ; and the number of valuable 
 early pictures which have been lately added to our col- 
 lection has rendered these references and descriptions 
 much more intelligible and interesting to the young 
 student than they were a few years ago. Many remark- 
 able pictures have since changed hands ; all the arrange- 
 ments in the Gallery of the Louvre at Paris, in the 
 Florentine Gallery, and in that of the Academy at 
 Venice, have been altered within the last ten years. 
 It has been necessary, therefore, to correct the re- 
 ferences with some regard to the existing arrange- 
 ments and the numbering of the pictures in all these 
 famous galleries. Of course it has not been possible in 
 this little work to enter into disputed points of criti- 
 cism or chronology ; but the author has profited by 
 two recent visits to Italy, and more particularly by the 
 last excellent edition of Vasari, 1 to add several new 
 biographies, and to render these Memoirs altogether 
 not only more interesting, but sufficiently accurate, 
 considering their comprehensive and popular form, not 
 to mislead the inexperienced student on questions 
 relating to particular pictures and individual artists 
 which remain to be settled. 
 
 And with regard to pictures, let it be remembered 
 that, although a knowledge of the name, the character, 
 the country of the painter, adds greatly to the pleasure 
 with which we contemplate a work of art, it is not — it 
 ought not to be — the source of our highest gratification ; 
 that must depend on our capacity to understand the 
 
 1 The edition published by Le Monnier, at FWence. in 184$- 
 1857. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 work in itself, and have delight in it for its own sake, y/ 
 Our first question, when we stand before a picture, 
 should not be, " Who painted it ? " but " What does it 
 mean ? " " What is it about ? " " What was it in the 
 painter's mind to express when he thus embodied his 
 thoughts in form and colour ? " We should be able to 
 read a picture as we read a book ; and a picture has 
 this advantage over a book, that the significance is not 
 expressed in written or printed words, which are mere 
 arbitrary signs of human invention, but in forms and 
 colours, which are the creation of God. Imagery, 
 whether in painting or sculpture, was a means of im- 
 parting instruction as well as delight long before the 
 art of writing existed, and painting was brought to a 
 certain degree of perfection, and used for the grandest, 
 the most important purposes, long before we had the 
 art of printing. In those times, to use the expression 
 of one of the old Fathers of the Church, " Pictures were 
 the books of the people ;" in fact, they had no other ; 
 and even now, when books are plentiful and cheap, the 
 use of pictures to convey instruction more rapidly and 
 more accurately than by any words, is well known 
 both to those who train the young and those who teach 
 science. 
 
 But it is another thing when we have to consider 
 pictures as Art, and painting as one of the divinest of 
 the Fine Arts properly so called. 
 
 Now a man may collect books merely as articles of 
 curiosity and rarity, as specimens of printing and bind- 
 ing, like that collector whom Pope describes — 
 " In books, not authors, curious was my lord ! " — 
 
xu INTRODUCTION. 
 
 or lie may like them as furniture to fill his shelves 
 with gay binding and accredited, names ; and even so 
 may a man collect pictures for their beauty, or their 
 rarity, or their antiquity, or hang them upon his walls 
 as mere ornamental furniture. No doubt such collec- 
 tions are a great, an allowable source of pleasure to the 
 possessor and to the observer ; but considered as pro- 
 ductions of mind addressed to mind, this is not the 
 highest advantage to be derived from pictures. As I 
 have said, we should be able to read a picture as we 
 read a book. A gallery of pictures may be compared 
 with a well-furnished library ; and I have sometimes 
 thought that it would be a good thing if we could 
 arrange a collection of pictures as we arrange a collec- 
 tion of books. In the ordering of a library with a view 
 to convenience and use, we do not mix all subjects 
 together. We have different compartments for theo- 
 logy, history, biography, poetry, travels, science, ro- 
 mances, and so forth ; and we might consider pictures 
 in a similar order. Theology in that case would com- 
 prise all sacred subjects, whether taken from the Holy 
 Scriptures, or having any religious significance ; they 
 may be the representation of an event, such as the Eleva- 
 tion of the Serpent in the Wilderness, 1 the Eaising of 
 Lazarus, 8 the Worship of the Magi ; 3 or they may be 
 the expression of an idea, such as the Dead Saviour 
 mourned by his mother and the angels, 4 or those most 
 beautiful and inexhaustible subjects, the Human 
 
 1 Rubens, Nat. Gal., 59. 
 
 2 Sebastian del Piornbo, Nat. Gal., 1. 
 
 3 Paul Veronese, Nat. Gal., 268. 
 
 4 Francia, Nat. Gal., 180. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 Mother nursing her Divine Son, 1 and the Divine Son 
 crowning in heaven the Mother who bore him on 
 earth. 2 Such ideal subjects bear the same relation to 
 sacred events as the Psalms and prophecies bear to the 
 book of Kings. 
 
 In the category of theological pictures maybe classed 
 those which represent the effigies and sufferings of the 
 holy Martyrs, who perished for their faith in the early 
 ages of Christianity — as the noble Eoman soldier St. 
 Sebastian; 3 the Great Doctors and Teachers of the 
 Church — as St. Jerome, 4 who made the first translation 
 of the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue (thence called 
 the Vulgate)-, and those personages who became ideajl 
 types of Christian virtues : thus we have the valorous 
 angel Michael, the conqueror of the powers of evil ; 5 
 the benign angel Eaphael, the guardian of the young ; 6 
 the learning and wisdom of St. Catherine, 7 the for- 
 titude of St. Antony, 8 the chivalrous faith of St. 
 George. 9 Some knowledge of these personages, their 
 characters and actions, historical or legendary, and the 
 manner in which they were represented by various 
 artists for the edification of the people, will add 
 greatly to the interest of a gallery of pictures ; and we 
 class such subjects as sacred art, just as we should 
 class Milton's Paradise Lost and the Pilgrim's Progress 
 as sacred poetry. 
 
 All would range as theology, and nothing is more 
 
 1 Ghirlandajo, Nat. Gal., 29G. 
 2 Andrea Orcagna, Nat. Gal., 569. 
 3 Pollaiuolo, Nat. Gal., 292. * Nat. Gal., 11, 227, 281. 
 
 3 Perugino, Nat. Gal., 288. 6 Ibid. 
 
 7 Raphael, Nat. Gal., 168. 8 An. Carracoi, 198. 
 
 9 Tintoretto, Nat. Gal., 16. 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 interesting than to observe the very different manner 
 in which the self-same scene and subject has been con- 
 ceived and represented by different artists. 
 
 But to continue our parallel between a library and a 
 J. picture gallery. History would comprise all pictures 
 representing such actions and events as have been re- 
 corded by uninspired writers — classical and modem. 
 Such are " the Family of Darius at the feet of Alex- 
 ander " l (from Grecian history), " the Eomans carrying 
 off the Sabine Women" 2 (from Eoman history), " the 
 Death of Lord Chatham " 3 (from English history), and 
 so on ; and portraiture stands in the same relation to 
 historical painting that biography bears to history. Is 
 not the picture of Ippolito de' Medici and Sebastian del 
 Piombo a piece of biography ? 4 and Julius the Second, 
 that resolute old pope ? 5 and Julia Gonzaga? 6 and Zur- 
 baran's Monk? 7 and Rembrandt's Rabbi? 8 "We are 
 ignorant indeed, darkly ignorant, of history as of cha- 
 racter, if we cannot read such pictures. 
 
 Poetry would comprise all subjects from the poets 
 — ancient and modern. Such are the Bacchus and 
 Ariadne, 9 the Venus and Adonis, 10 Mercury teaching 
 Cupid to read, 11 the Judgment of Paris (all taken 
 from the classics) ; Erminia and the Shepherds 12 (from 
 Tasso) ; the Rescue of Serena 13 (from Spenser). These 
 
 I P. Veronese, Nat. Gal., 294. 2 Rubens, Nat. Gal., 38. 
 3 Copley. 4 Nat. Gal., 20. 5 Ibid., 27. 
 
 6 Ibid., 24. • 7 Ibid., 230. 8 Ibid., 51. 
 
 9 Titian, Nat. Gal., 35. w Titian, Nat. Gal., 34. 
 
 II Correggio, Nat. Gal., 10. 12 a. Carracci, Nat. Gal., 88. 
 
 13 Hilton : this picture, and Copley's Death of Chatham, are now 
 in the English school at the Kensington Museum. 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 are poetry, if they be not rather each in itself a jxem. 
 Then, correlative with fiction and the drama, domestic 
 or romantic, we have that style of painting, called 
 Genre, which deals with the scene^ and incidents of <: 
 £} familiar life, which may be of a very high moral signi- 
 ficance, as the Marriage a-la-Mode ; ' or of the lowest, 
 as the Woman peeling Carrots, 2 or the " Drinking 
 Boors ; 3 but whatever the significance, it may be en- 
 nobled by the perfect execution. Some modern novels, 
 in which the most commonplace events of every-day 
 life are treated with the most exquisite grace, delicacy, 
 and knowledge of human nature, may be likened to those 
 Dutch pictures in which two misers counting their gold, 
 a lady reading a letter, or a woman bargaining for a 
 fowl, shall be treated with such consummate elegance 
 of execution, and even power of character, that they 
 delight at once the eye and the fancy. 
 
 But genre painting was unknown in the early schools / 
 of Italian art ; the concerts and conversazioni of Gior- 
 gione and the other Venetians are too poetical to 
 come under this designation, so I shall say no more of 
 it here. And animal-painting, as a special class of art, 
 such as Rubens, and Snyders, and Landseer have made 
 it, was also unknown. At the same time we must 
 acknowledge that, when the old Italians did introduce 
 animals into their pictures, they showed themselves 
 capable of excelling in imitative as well as ideal art. V 
 What can exceed the little birds on the steps of the 
 throne in Benozzo Gozzoli's Madonna, 4 or the fish in 
 
 1 Hogarth. 2 Maas, Nat. Gal. 3 Terriers, Nat. Gal. 
 
 « Nat. Gal., 283. 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Perugino's picture of Eaphael and Tobit, l for exqui- 
 site truth of nature ? To be sure we cannot say the 
 same of Paolo Uccello's horses. 2 Yet it is interesting 
 to observe the first efforts in this way of a school which 
 afterwards produced Andrea Verrocchio's equestrian 
 statue of Colleone, 3 and Lionardo's " Battle of the 
 Standard." 4 
 
 Landscape-painting, which may be likened to books 
 of travels and descriptions of scenery, was unknown as 
 a separate class of art till the middle of the sixteenth 
 century ; but some of the early painters, particularly 
 the Venetians, give us lovely bits of background to 
 their religious scenes. That intense sympathy with 
 natural scenery which we find in the works of Thom- 
 son and Wordsworth as poets, Cuyp and Hobbema as 
 painters, seems to have been the growth of modern 
 times. 
 
 Lastly, to continue our parallel, we have a scientific 
 class of art as of books. Painting, when called in to 
 illustrate the discoveries and triumphs of science, as 
 geology, botany, architectural elevations, and the like, 
 fj may be called scientific art ; and a collection of this 
 kind of pictures, where beauty of treatment is com- 
 bined with exact truth, might be made very attractive 
 as well as interesting and profitable. In these days 
 scientific art is chiefly employed in illustrating books, 
 and is the handmaid rather than the priestess and inter- 
 preter of nature. But photography is teaching us all 
 
 1 Nat. Gal., 288. 
 2 In the Battle of St. Egidio, Nat. Gal., 583 
 ' At Venice. There is a fine cast in the Crystal Palace. 
 4 See page 173. 
 
INTRODUCTION. * XVU 
 
 the beauty and all tlie poetry that may be found in the 
 most literal transcripts of truth; and, like landscape 
 and portraiture, scientific art will find in time a place 
 tor itself in our galleries. 
 
 When we know and thoroughly understand the sub- 
 ject of a picture, we may then inquire the name of the 
 painter, the age, the country, the school of art in which 
 he was reared, to which he belonged ; and hence we 
 may derive the most various delight from the associa- 
 tions connected with this extended knowledge. These 
 Memoirs of famous painters are intended to suggest 
 such comparative and discriminating reflections, and I 
 will conclude with a passage written long ago by an 
 almost forgotten critic in art, old Jonathan Kichard- 
 son: — 
 
 " When one sees an admirable piece of art, it is a part 
 of the entertainment to know to whom to attribute it, 
 and then to know his history ; whence else is the cus- 
 tom of putting the author's picture or life at the begin- 
 ning of a book ? When one is considering a picture or a 
 drawing, and at the same time thinks that this was 
 done by him who had many extraordinary endowments 
 of body and mind, but was withal very capricious ; r 
 who was honoured in life and death, expiring in 
 the arms of one of the greatest princes of that age, 
 Francis I., King of France, who loved him as a friend. 
 Another is of him 2 who lived a long and happy life, 
 beloved of Charles V., Emperor, and many others of 
 the first princes of Europe. W T hen one has another 
 in his hand, and thinks this was done by him 8 who 
 Lionardo da Vinci. See p. 174. 2 Titian 3 Michael Angel o. 
 
xviii ' INTRODUCTION. 
 
 so excelled in three arts as that any of them in 
 that degree had rendered him worthy of immortality, 
 and one that, moreover, durst contend with his sove- 
 reign (one of the haughtiest popes that ever was) upon 
 a slight offered to him, and extricated himself with 
 honour. Another is the work of him 1 who, without 
 any one exterior advantage, by mere strength of genius, 
 had the most sublime imaginations, and executed then 
 accordingly, yet lived and died obscurely. Another 
 we shall consider as the work of him* who restored 
 painting when it was almost sunk ; of him whose art 
 made honourable, but, neglecting and despising great- 
 ness with a sort of cynical pride, was treated suitably 
 to the figure he gave himself, not his intrinsic merit ; 
 which, not having philosophy enough to bear it, broke 
 his heart. Another is done by one 3 who (on the con- 
 trary) was a fine gentleman, and lived in great magni- 
 ficence, and was much honoured by his own and foreign 
 princes ; who was a courtier, a statesman, and a painter, 
 and so much all these, that, when he acted in either 
 character, that seemed his business, and the others his 
 diversion. — I say, that when one thus reflects, besides 
 the pleasure arising from the beauties and excellencies 
 of the work, the fine ideas it gives us of natural things, 
 the noble way of thinking one finds in it, and the 
 pleasing thoughts it may suggest to us, an additional 
 pleasure results from these reflections. 
 
 " But, the pleasure ! when a connoisseur and lover 
 of art has before him a picture or a drawing of which 
 he can say, this is the hand, there are the thoughts, of 
 1 Correggio. 2 Annibal Carracci. 3 Rubens. 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 him l who was one of the politest, best-natured gentle- 
 men that ever was ; and beloved and assisted by the 
 greatest wits and the greatest men then in Kome ; of 
 him who lived in great fame, honour, and magnificence, 
 and died extremely lamented, and missed a Cardinal's 
 hat only by dying a few months too soon, but was par- 
 ticularly esteemed and favoured by two popes, the only 
 ones who filled the chair of St. Peter in his time, and 
 as great men as ever sat there since that apostle, — if at 
 least he ever did ; 2 one, in short, who could have been 
 a Leonardo, a Michael Angelo, a Titian, a Correggio, 
 an Annibale, a Rubens, or any other he pleased, but 
 none of them could ever have been a Eaphael. And 
 when we compare the hand and manner of one master 
 with another, and those of the same man in different 
 times, when we see the various turns of mind and 
 various excellencies, and, above all, when we observe 
 what is well or ill in their works, as it is a worthy, so 
 it is also a very delightful exercise of our rational 
 faculties." 
 
 It is to enlarge this sphere of rational pleasure in the 
 contemplation of works of art that the following Me- 
 moirs were written. 
 
 May, 1859. 
 
 1 Eaphael. 
 
 2 Julius II. and Leo X are the popes alluded to, whose likeness 
 to St. Peter may be doubted. Both were great patrons of art; but 
 the first was violent, haughty, and ambitious; the latter selfish, 
 sensual, vain, unprincipled. Raphael painted both; and each portrait 
 
 is a faithful transcript of character, as well as a masterpiece of art. v 
 
meSIhrs 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS 
 
 GIOVANNI CIMABUB. 
 
 Born at Florence 1240, died about 1302. 
 
 To Cimabue for three centuries had been awarded the 
 lofty title of "Father of Modern Painting;" and to 
 him, on the authority of Vasari, had been ascribed the 
 merit, or rather the miracle, of having revived the art of 
 painting when utterly lost, dead, and buried — of having 
 by his single genius brought light out of darkness, form 
 and beauty out of chaos. The error or gross exaggera- 
 tion of Vasari in making these claims for his country- 
 man has been pointed out by later authors : some have 
 even denied to Cimabue any share whatever in the 
 regeneration of art; and at all events it seems clear 
 that his claims have been much over-stated ; that, so far I 
 from painting being a lost art in the thirteenth century, 
 and the race of artists annihilated, as Vasari would lead 
 us to believe, several contemporary painters were living 
 and working in the cities and churches of Italy previous 
 to 1240; and it is possible to trace back an uninter- 
 rupted series of pictorial remains and names of painters 
 
2 GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Born 1240. 
 
 even to the fourth century. But in depriving Cimabue 
 of his false glories, enough remains to interest and fix 
 attention on the period at which he lived : his name has 
 stood too long, too conspicuously, too justly, as a land- 
 mark in the history of art to be now thrust back under 
 the waves of oblivion. A rapid glance over the pro- 
 gress of painting before his time will enable us to judge 
 of his true claims, and place him in his true position 
 relative to those who preceded and those who followed 
 him. 
 
 The early Christians had confounded in their horror 
 of heathen idolatry all imitative art and all artists ; they 
 regarded with decided hostility all images, and those 
 who wrought them as bound to the service of Satan and 
 heathenism; and we find all visible representations of 
 sacred personages and actions confined to mystic em- 
 blems. Thus the Cross signified Eedemption ; the Fish, 
 Baptism ; the Ship represented the Church ; the Serpent, 
 Sin or the Spirit of Evil. When, in the fourth century, 
 the struggle between paganism and Christianity ended 
 in the triumph and recognition of the latter, and art 
 revived, it was, if not in a new form, in a new spirit, 
 by which the old forms were to be gradually moulded 
 and modified. The Christians found the shell of ancient 
 art remaining ; the traditionary handicraft still existed ; 
 certain models of figure and drapery, &c., handed down 
 from antiquity, though degenerated and distorted, re- 
 mained in use, and were applied to illustrate, by direct 
 or symbolical representations, the tenets of a purer 
 faith. From the beginning, the figures selected to typify 
 our redemption were those of the Saviour and the Blessed 
 
Died 1302.] TRADITIONAL FORMS. 3 
 
 Virgin, first separately, and then conjointly as the Mother 
 and Infant. The earliest monuments of Christian art 
 are to be found, nearly effaced, on the walls and ceilings 
 of the catacombs at Rome, to which the persecuted 
 martyrs of the faith had fled for refuge. The first re- 
 corded representation of the Saviour is in the character 
 of the Good Shepherd, and the attributes of Orpheus 
 and Apollo were borrowed to express the character of 
 him who "redeemed souls from hell," and "gathered 
 his people like sheep." In the cemetery of St. Calixtus 
 at Eome a head of Christ was discovered, the most 
 ancient of which any copy has come down to us : the 
 figure is colossal ; the face a long oval ; the countenance 
 mild, grave, melancholy; the long hair, parted on the 
 brow, falling in two masses on either shoulder; the 
 beard not thick, but short and divided. Here then, 
 obviously imitated from some traditional description 
 (probably the letter of Lentulus to the Roman Senate, 
 supposed to be a fabrication of the third century), we 
 have the type, the generic character since adhered to 
 in the representations of the Redeemer. 
 
 A controversy arose afterwards in the early Christian 
 Church which had a most important influence on art 
 as subsequently developed. One party, with St. Cyril 
 at their head, maintained that, the form of the Saviour 
 having been described by the Prophet as without any 
 outward comeliness, he ought to be represented in 
 painting as utterly hideous and repulsive. Happily the 
 most eloquent and influential among the fathers of the 
 Church, St. Jerome, St. Augustin, St. Ambrose, and St. 
 Bernard, took up the other side of the question ; the 
 
GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Born 1240. 
 
 pope, Adrian I., threw his infallibility into the scale ; 
 and from the 8th century we find it decided, and after- 
 wards confirmed by a papal bull, that the Eedeemer 
 should be represented with all the attributes of divine 
 beauty which art in its then rude state could lend him. 
 Since that time the accepted and traditional type for 
 the person of our Lord has been strictly attended to by 
 
 , the most conscientious artists and in the best schools of 
 art — a tall, slender figure ; a face of a long oval ; a 
 
 . broad, serene, elevated brow ; a countenance mild, me- 
 lancholy, majestic; the hair ("of the colour of wine or 
 wine lees " — which may mean either a dark rich brown 
 or a golden yellow — both have been adopted) parted in 
 the front, and flowing down on each side ; the beard 
 parted. The resemblance to His mother — His only 
 earthly parent — was strongly insisted upon by the early 
 ecclesiastical writers and attended to by the earliest 
 painters, which has given something peculiarly refined 
 and even feminine to the most ancient heads of our 
 Saviour. 
 
 The most ancient representations of the Virgin Mary 
 now remaining are the sculptures on the ancient 
 Christian sarcophagi, about the 3rd and 4th centuries, 
 and a mosaic in the chapel of San Yenanzio at 
 Rome, referred by antiquarians to the 7th century. 
 Here she is represented as a colossal figure majestically 
 draped, standing with the arms outspread (the ancient 
 attitude of prayer), and her eyes raised to heaven ; then, 
 
 v after the 7th century, succeeded her image in her 
 maternal character, seated on a throne with the infant 
 Saviour in her arms. We must bear in mind, once for 
 
Died 1302. TRADITIONAL FORMS. 5 
 
 all, that from the earliest ages of Christianity the 
 Virgin Mother of our Lord has been selected as the 
 allegorical type of Eeligiox in the abstract sense ; and ^ 
 to this, her symbolical character, must be referred those 
 representations of later times, in which she appears as 
 trampling on the Dragon ; as folding her votaries within 
 the skirts of her ample robe ; as interceding for sinneis ; 
 as crowned between heaven and earth by the Father 
 and the Son. 
 
 In the same manner traditional heads of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, rudely sketched, became in after-times the 
 groundwork of the highest dignity and beauty, still 
 retaining that peculiarity of form and character which 
 time and long custom had consecrated in the eyes of 
 the devout. 
 
 Besides the representations of Christ and the Virgin, 
 some of the characters and incidents of the Old Testa- y 
 ment were selected as pictures, generally with reference 
 to corresponding characters and incidents in the Gospel ; 
 thus St. Augustin, in the latter half of the 4th century, 
 tells us that " Abraham offering up his son Isaac " was 
 then a common subject, typical, of course, of the Great 
 Sacrifice of the Son of God; "Moses striking the rock," 
 the Gospel or the Water of Life ; the vine or grapes 
 expressed the sacrament of the Eucharist ; Jonah swal- 
 lowed by the whale and then disgorged signified death 
 and resurrection ; Daniel in the lions' den signified 
 redemption, &C. This system of corresponding subjects, 
 of type and anti-type, was afterwards, as we shall see, 
 carried much further. 
 
 In the 7th century, painting, as it existed in Europe, 
 
6 GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Born 1240. 
 
 may be divided into two great schools or styles — the 
 Western, or Koman, of which the central point was 
 Kome, and which was distinguished, amid great rude- 
 ness of execution, by a certain dignity of expression 
 and solemnity of feeling ; and the Eastern, or Byzantine 
 school, of which Constantinople was the head-quarters, 
 and which was distinguished by greater mechanical 
 skill, by adherence to the old classical forms, by the 
 use of gilding, and by the mean, vapid, spiritless con- 
 ception of motive and character. 
 
 From the 5th to the 9th century the most important 
 and interesting remains of pictorial art are the mosaics 
 in the churches,* and the miniature paintings with 
 which the MS. Bibles and Gospels were decorated. 
 
 But during the 10th and 11th centuries Italy fell 
 into a state of complete barbarism and confusion, which 
 almost extinguished the practice of art in any shape ; 
 of this period only a few works of extreme rudeness 
 remain. In the Eastern empire painting still survived ; 
 it became, indeed, more and more conventional, insipid, 
 and incorrect, but the technical methods were kept up ; 
 and thus it happened that when, in 1204, Constanti- 
 nople was taken by the Crusaders, and the intercourse 
 between the east and west of Europe was resumed, 
 several Byzantine painters passed into Italy and Ger- 
 many, where they were employed to decorate the 
 
 * Particularly those in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at 
 Rome, along the nave and over the principal arch, which date about 
 the year 440 (those in the vault of the apsis are much later, about 
 1288) ; in the church of St. Cosmo and St. Damian at Rome, about 
 the year 526 ; in the church of San Vitale at Ravenna, about the years 
 527-565 ; and in the church of St. Cecilia at Rome, about the year 817. 
 
Died 1302.] SPECIMENS OF BYZANTINE ART. 7 
 
 churches ; and taught the practice of their art, their 
 manner of pencilling, mixing and using colours, and 
 gilding ornaments, to such as chose to learn of them. 
 They brought over the Byzantine types of form and / 
 colour, the long lean limbs of the saints, the dark- 
 visaged Madonnas, the blood-streaming crucifixes ; and 
 these patterns were followed more or less servilely by 
 the native Italian painters who studied under them. 
 Specimens of this early art remain, and in these. later 
 times have been diligently sought and collected into 
 museums as curiosities, illustrating the history and pro- 
 gress of art : as such they are in the highest degree 
 interesting ; but it must be confessed that otherwise 
 they are not attractive. There are some very valuable 
 examples in the Wallerstein Gallery at Kensington 
 Palace. We have also one, lately acquired, in our 
 National Gallery, a little Greek picture of the famous 
 Apothecary Saints, Cosmo and Damian, painted by a 
 certain Emanuel. In the Berlin Gallery, in the Flo- 
 rence Gallery, and in the Louvre,* a few Greek pictures 
 are preserved as curiosities. The subject is generally 
 the Madonna and Child, throned; sometimes alone, 
 sometimes with angels or saints ranged on each side. 
 The characteristics are in all cases the same : the figures 
 are stiff ; the extremities long and meagre ; the features 
 hard and expressionless ; the eyes long and narrow. 
 The head of the Virgin is generally declined to the 
 left : the infant Saviour is generally clothed, and some- 
 times crowned ; two fingers of his right hand are ex- 
 
 * Nos. 503, 504, and 505. They are placed together near the 
 entrance of the long gallery. 
 
8 GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Born 1240. 
 
 tended in act to bless ; the left hand holding a globe, a 
 scroll, or a book. With regard to the execution, the or 
 naments of the throne and borders of the draperies, and 
 frequently the background, are elaborately gilded ; the 
 local colours are generally vivid ; there is little or no 
 relief; the handling is streaky; the flesh-tints are 
 blackish or greenish. At this time, and for two hun- 
 dred years afterwards (before the invention of oil paint- 
 
 y ing), pictures were painted either in fresco, an art never 
 wholly lost, or on panels of seasoned wood, and the 
 colours mixed with water thickened with white of egg 
 or the juice of the young shoots of the fig-tree. This 
 last method was styled by the Italians a colla or a tem- 
 pera ; by the French, en detrempe ; and in English, in 
 distemper : and in this manner all movable pictures were 
 executed previous to 1440. 
 
 As it is not the purpose of this little book to trace the 
 gradual progress of early art, but rather to give some 
 account of the early artists, and as we know nothing of 
 those who lived in the first half of the 1 3th century ex- 
 cept a name and a date inscribed on a picture, I shall 
 not dwell upon them ; only revert to the fact that before 
 the birth of Cimabue (from 1 200 to 1 240) there existed 
 
 v schools of painting at Sienna and at Pisa, not only 
 under Greek but under Italian teachers. The former 
 city produced Guido da Sienna, whose Madonna and 
 Child, with figures the size of life, signed and dated 
 1221, is preserved in the church of San Domenico at 
 Sienna. It is engraved in Eosini's ' Storia della Pit- 
 tura,' on the same page with a Madonna by Cimabue, 
 
 - to which it appears superior in drawing, attitude, ex 
 
Died 1302.] HIS SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 pression, and drapery. Pisa produced about the same 
 time Giunta da Pisa, of whom there remain works with 
 the date 1236 : one of these is a Crucifixion, engraved 
 in Ottley's ' Italian School of Design,' and on a smaller 
 scale in Eosini's ' Storia della Pittura,' in which the 
 expression of grief in the hovering angels, who are 
 wringing their hands and weeping, is very earnest and 
 striking. But undoubtedly the greatest man of that , 
 time, he who gave the grand impulse to modern art, 
 was the sculptor Niccolo Pisano, whose works date from 
 about 1220 to 1270. Further, it appears that even at 
 Florence a native painter, a certain Maestro Bartolomeo, 
 lived and was employed in 1236. Thus Cimabue can 
 scarcely claim to be the "father of modern painting" 
 even in his own city of Florence. We shall now pro- 
 ceed to the facts on which his traditional celebrity has 
 been founded. 
 
 Giovanni of Florence, of the noble family of the 
 Cimabui, called otherwise Gualtieri, was born in 1240. 
 He was early sent by his parents to study grammar in 
 the school of the convent of Santa Maria Novella, where 
 (as is also related of other inborn painters), instead of I 
 conning his task, he distracted his teachers by drawing 
 men, horses, buildings, on his school-books : before 
 printing was invented, this spoiling of school-books 
 must have been rather a costly fancy, and no doubt 
 alarmed the professors of Greek and Latin. His parents, 
 wisely yielding to the natural bent of his mind, allowed 
 him to study painting under some Greek artists who 
 had come to Florence to decorate the church of the 
 convent in which he was a scholar. It seems doubtful 
 
10 GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Bokn 1240. 
 
 whether Ciinabue did study under the identical painters 
 alluded to by Vasari, but that his masters and models 
 were the Byzantine painters of the time seems to admit 
 of no doubt whatever. The earliest of his works men- 
 tioned by Vasari still exists — a St. Cecilia, painted for 
 the altar of that saint, but now preserved in the Gallery 
 of Florence.* He was soon afterwards employed by the 
 monks of Vallombrosa, for whom he painted a Madonna 
 with Angels on a gold ground, now preserved in the 
 Academy of the Fine Arts at Florence. He also painted 
 a Crucifixion for the church of the Santa Croce, still to 
 be seen there, and several pictures for the churches of 
 Pisa, to the great contentment of the Pisans ; and by 
 these and other works his fame being spread far and 
 near, he was called in the year 1265, when he was only 
 twenty-five, to finish the frescoes in the church of St. 
 Francis at Assisi, which had been begun by Greek 
 painters and continued by Giunta Pisano. 
 
 The decoration of this celebrated church is memorable 
 in the history of painting. It is known that many of 
 the best artists of the 13th and 14th centuries were 
 employed there, but only fragments of the earliest pic- 
 tures exist, and the authenticity of those ascribed to 
 Cimabue has been disputed by a great authority, f Lanzi, 
 however, and Dr. Kugler, agree in attributing to him 
 
 * It is a doubtful picture, but interesting from the subject. St. 
 Cecilia, instead of playing on her organ or listening to the angels, 
 is here a solemn-looking matron seated on a throne, and holding in 
 one hand the palm as martyr, and in the other the Gospel for 
 which she died. It is on the right hand as we enter the first long 
 Corridor. 
 
 f Rumohr, * Italienische Forschungen.' 
 
Died 1302.] HIS WORKS. 11 
 
 the paintings on the roof of the nave, representing, 
 in medallions, the figures of Christ, the Madonna, St. 
 John the Baptist, St. Francis, and four magnificent 
 angels winged and sceptred. ''In the lower corners of 
 the triangles are represented naked Genii bearing taste- 
 ful vases on their heads ; out of these grow rich foliage 
 and flowers, on which hang other Genii, who pluck the 
 fruit or lurk in the cups of the flowers."* If these are 
 really by the hand of Cimabue, we must allow that 
 here is a great step in advance of the formal monotony 
 of his Greek models. He executed many other pictures 
 in this famous church, " con diligenza infinita" from the 
 Old and New Testaments, in which, judging from the 
 fragments which remain, he showed a decided improve- 
 ment in drawing, in dignity of attitude, and in the 
 expression of life, but still the figures have only just so 
 much of animation and significance as are absolutely 
 necessary to render the story or action intelligible. 
 There is no variety, no express imitation of nature. 
 Being recalled by his affairs to Florence, about 1270, 
 he painted there the most celebrated of all his works, 
 the Madonna and infant Christ, for the chapel of the 
 Euccellai in the church of Santa Maria Novella. This 
 Madonna, of a larger size than any which had been 
 previously executed, had excited in its progress great 
 curiosity and interest among his fellow-citizens, for 
 Cimabue refused to uncover it to public view : but it 
 happened about that time that Charles of Anjou, brother 
 of Louis IX., being on his way to take possession of the 
 kingdom of Naples, passed through Florence, and was 
 * Kugler, 'Handbook.' 
 
12 GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Born 1240. 
 
 received and feasted by the nobles of that city ; and 
 among other entertainments, they conducted him to visit 
 the house of Cimabue, which was in a garden near the 
 Porta San Piero : on this festive occasion the Madonna 
 was uncovered, and the people in joyous crowds hur- 
 ried thither to look upon it, rending the air with excla- 
 mations of delight and astonishment, whence it is said 
 this quarter of the city obtained and has kept ever since 
 the name of the Borgo dei Allegri.* The Madonna, 
 when finished, was carried in great pomp from the 
 house of the painter to the church for which it was 
 destined, accompanied by the magistrates of the city, 
 by music, and by crowds of people in solemn and festive 
 procession. This well-known anecdote has lent a vene- 
 rable charm to the picture, which is yet to be seen in 
 the church of Santa Maria Novella ; but it is difficult in 
 this advanced state of art to sympathise in the naive 
 enthusiasm.it excited in the minds 'of a whole people 
 six hundred years ago. Though not without a certain 
 grandeur, the form is very stiff, with long lean fingers 
 and formal drapery, little varying from the Byzantine 
 models ; but the infant Christ is better, the angels on 
 either side have a certain elegance and dignity, and the 
 colouring in its first freshness and delicacy had a charm 
 hitherto unknown. J After this Cimabue became famous 
 
 * But according to others the street derived its name from the 
 family of the Allegri. 
 
 f We have lately added to our National Gallery a picture by 
 Cimabue, the originality of which has been disputed, but, as it 
 appears to me, on no sufficient grounds. Its antecedents are well 
 authenticated, and its resemblance to the undisputed pictures in 
 the Belle Arti and the Kuccellai Chapel, at Florence, is ciuite satis- 
 
Died 1302.] HIS WORKS. 13 
 
 in all Italy. He had a school of painting at Florence 
 and many pupils, among them one who was destined to 
 take the sceptre from his hand and fill all Italy with his 
 fame — and who, but for him, would have kept sheep in 
 the Tuscan valleys all his life — the glorious Giotto, of 
 whom we are to speak presently. Cimabue, besides 
 being a painter, was a worker in mosaic and an archi- 
 tect : he was employed, in conjunction with Arnolfo 
 Lapi, in the building of the church of Santa Maria del 
 Fiore, the cathedral of Florence. Finally, having lived 
 for more than sixty years in great honour and renown, 
 he died at Florence about the year 1302, while em- 
 ployed on the mosaics of the Duomo of Pisa, and was 
 earned from his house in the Yia del Cocomero to the 
 church of Santa Maria del Fiore, where he was buried : 
 the following epitaph was inscribed above his tomb : — 
 
 " Credidit ut Cimabos picture castra tenere ; 
 Sic tenuit vivens — nunc tenet astra Poll" * 
 
 Besides the undoubted works of Cimabue preserved 
 in the churches of San Domenico, la Trinita, and Santa 
 Maria Novella at Florence, and in the Academy of Arts 
 in the same city, there is in the Gallery of the Louvre 
 a Madonna and Child enthroned, with six attendant 
 
 factory. If one of the hard, melancholy, lifeless Greek Madonnas 
 could be placed beside it, the observer would better appreciate the 
 advance made by Cimabue in gentleness and dignity. As an his- 
 torical document the specimen is invaluable. It was formerly in 
 the Santa Croce at Florence. 
 
 * Cimabue thought himself master of the field of painting ; 
 While living he was so— now, he holds his place among the 
 stars of heaven. 
 
14 GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Born 1240. 
 
 angels ; the figures larger than life. (No. 174.) This is 
 supposed to be the same which was originally painted 
 for the convent of St. Francis at Pisa, and much re- 
 sembles the Madonna in the Euccellai Chapel. From 
 these productions we may judge of the real merit of 
 Cimabue. In his figures of the Virgin he has not much 
 improved on the Byzantine models. The faces are not 
 beautiful ; the features are elongated ; the extremities 
 meagre ; the general effect flat : but to his heads of 
 prophets, patriarchs, and apostles, whether introduced 
 into his great pictures of the Madonna or in other sacred 
 subjects, he gave a certain grandeur of expression and 
 largeness of form, or, as Lanzi expresses it, " un non so 
 che di forte e sublime" in which he has not been greatly 
 surpassed by succeeding painters; and this energy -of 
 expression — his chief and distinguishing excellence, and 
 which gave him the superiority over Guido of Sienna 
 and others who painted only Madonnas — was in har- 
 mony with his personal character. He is described to 
 us as exceedingly haughty and disdainful, of a fiery 
 temperament, proud of his high lineage, his skill in 
 his art, and his various acquirements, for he was well 
 studied in all the literature of his age. If a critic found 
 fault with one of his works when in progress, or if he 
 were himself dissatisfied with it, he would at once 
 destroy it, whatever pains it might have cost him. From 
 these traits of character, and the bent of his genius, 
 which leaned to the grand and terrible rather than the 
 gentle and graceful, he has been styled the Michael 
 Angelo of his time. It is recorded of him by Vasari 
 that he painted a head of St. Francis after nature, a 
 
2. — NlCCOLO PlSANO. 
 
 From, the original by Simone Memmi, in the Chapel of the Spagnnoli, 
 Florence. 
 
 Page. 15. 
 
Died 1302.] HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 15 
 
 thing, he says, till then unknown : it could not have 
 been a portrait from life, because St. Francis died in 
 1225. The earliest head after nature which remains to 
 us was painted by Giunta Pisano, about 1235, and was 
 the portrait of Frate Elia, a monk of Assisi. Perhaps 
 Vasari means that the San Francesco was the first re- 
 presentation of a sacred personage for which nature had 
 been taken as a model. 
 
 The portrait of Cimabue prefixed to this essay is 
 copied from a tracing of the original head, painted on 
 the walls of the Chapel degli Spagnuoli, in the church 
 of Santa Maria Novella, by Simone Memmi of Sienna, 
 who was at Florence during the lifetime of Cimabue, 
 and must have known him personally. This painting, * 
 though executed after the death of Cimabue, has always 
 been considered authentic as a portrait ; it is the same 
 alluded to by Vasari, and copied for the first edition oi 
 his book. 
 
 Cimabue had several remarkable contemporaries. The 
 greatest of these, and certainly the greatest artist of his 
 time, was the sculptor Niccolo Pisano. The works of 
 this extraordinary genius which have been preserved 
 to our time are so far beyond all contemporary art hiv 
 knowledge of form, grace, expression, and intention, that, 
 if indisputable proofs of their authenticity did not exist, 
 it would be pronounced incredible. On a comparison 
 of the works of Cimabue and Pisano, it is difficult to 
 conceive that Pisano executed the bas-reliefs of the pul- 
 pit in the Cathedral of Pisa, and the Scriptural histories 
 
16 GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Born 1240. 
 
 which, adorn the facade of the Duomo at Orvieto, while 
 Cimabue was painting the frescoes in the church of 
 Assisi. He was the first to leave the stiff monotony of 
 the traditional forms for the study of nature and the 
 antique. The story says that his emulative fancy was 
 early excited by the beautiful antique sarcophagus on 
 which is seen sculptured the story of Phaedra and Hippo- 
 lytus. In this sarcophagus had been laid, a hundred 
 years before, the body of Beatrice, the mother of the 
 famous Countess Matilda : in the time of Niccolo it had 
 been inserted into the exterior wall of the Duomo of 
 Pisa ; and as a youth he had looked upon it from day 
 to day, until the grace, the life, and movement of the 
 figures struck him, in comparison with the barbarous 
 art of his contemporaries, as nothing less than divine.* 
 Many before him had looked on this marble wonder, but 
 to none had it spoken as it spoke to him. He was the 
 first, says Lanzi, to see the light and to follow it.f 
 There is an engraving after one of his bas-reliefs — a 
 Deposition from the Cross — in Ottley's ' School of De- 
 sign,' which should be referred to by the reader who 
 may not have seen his works at Pisa, Florence, Sienna, 
 and Orvieto. There are also several of his works en- 
 graved in Cicognara's ' Storia della Scultura.' 
 
 * This sarcophagus was restored in 1810 to the Campo Santo, 
 where Beatrice had been interred in 1116. 
 
 f Rosini, in his ' Storia della Pittura/ has rectified some errors 
 into which Vasari and Lanzi have fallen with regard to the dates of 
 Niccolo Pisano's works — it appears that he lived and worked so late 
 as 1290. 
 
Library. 
 
 r- r - 
 
3.— Andrea Tafi. 
 
 Engraved in Vasari's History. 
 
 Page 17. 
 
Library* 
 
4. — Gaddo Gaddi. 
 
 Engraved in Vasarfs History. 
 
 Page 17 
 
It* ' ^ 
 
 Library. 
 
 °f Calif I ' 
 
5. — DUCCIO DI BONINSEGNA. 
 
 Engraved by L. Schorn. 
 
 Page 17. 
 
Died 1302.] HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 17 
 
 Another contemporary of Cimabue, and his friend, 
 was Andrea Tafi, the greatest worker in mosaic of his . 
 time. The assertion of Vasari, that he learned his art 
 from the Byzantines, is now discredited ; for it appears 
 certain that the mosaic-workers of Italy (the forerunners 
 of painting) excelled the Greek artists then, and for a 
 century or two before. Andrea Tafi died, very old, in 
 1294; and his principal works remain in the Duomo of 
 St. Mark at Venice, and in the Baptistery of San Giovanni 
 at Florence. Another famous mosaic-worker, also an 
 intimate friend of Cimabue, was Gaddo Gaddi, remark- 
 able for being the first of a family illustrious in several 
 departments of art and literature. It must be remem- 
 bered that the mosaic-workers of those times prepared » 
 and coloured their own designs, and may therefore take 
 rank with the painters. 
 
 Further, there remain pictures by painters of the 
 Sienna school which date before the death of Cimabue, 
 and particularly a picture by a certain Maestro Mino, 
 dated 1289, which is spoken of as wonderful for the in- 
 vention and greatness of style. 
 
 Another Siennese painter was Duccio, who painted 
 from 1282 (twenty years before the death of Cimabue) 
 to about 1339, and "whose influence on the progress of 
 art was unquestionably great." To this painter was 
 allotted, in the year 1308, the task of painting the great 
 altarpiece for the beautiful Cathedral of Sienna, dedi- 
 cated to the Virgin Mary. The high altar then stood in 
 the centre of the church, and the panel was painted on 
 both sides, as it was to be seen both from before and 
 behind the altar. On one side Duccio represented the 
 
18 GIOVANNI CIMABUE. [Boen 1240. 
 
 history of our Lord in twenty -seven small compartments, 
 beginning with the Annunciation and ending with the 
 Crucifixion, which forms the largest and principal sub- 
 ject. On the other side of the panel was represented 
 the Madonna and Child enthroned, on each side six 
 prophets and ten adoring angels, and lower down, on 
 each side, five saints — in all forty-four figures. When 
 finished this picture was carried in grand procession, 
 attended by music and rejoicing crowds, to its place in 
 the Cathedral. In the year 1506 it was removed. The 
 panel was afterwards sawed through into two parts : one 
 side (the Madonna) now hangs in the chapel of Sant' 
 Ansano, to the left of the choir ; the other (the life of 
 Christ) on the right hand, opposite. They are accounted 
 among the most precious monuments of early art. The 
 predella, which was beneath the Madonna, contained, as 
 usual, small subjects from the history of the Virgin 
 Mary — these, five in number, are now in the sacristy 
 of the Cathedral. Besides this great altarpiece, only 
 one undoubted picture by Duccio is known to exist, and 
 this is in the collection of his Eoyal Highness Prince 
 Albert.* 
 
 All these artists (Niccolo Pisano excepted) still 
 worked on in the trammels of Byzantine art. The first 
 painter of his age who threw them wholly off, and left 
 them far behind him, was Giotto. 
 
 * A series of outline engravings from Duccio's ' History of our 
 Lord ' was published at Rome by Dr. Emil Braim, the celebrated 
 archseologist, and these justify the praise and admiration which is 
 now accorded to the grace, the simplicity, and the spiritual signi- 
 ficance of these beautiful compositions. 
 
%* _*-, *£ 
 Library. 
 
 Of Calif n.-- 
 
6.-— Giotto (Giotto di Bondone). 
 
 Engraved in the 15B8 edition of Vasari. 
 
 Page 19. 
 
C 19 ) 
 
 GIOTTO. 
 
 Born 1276, died 1336. 
 
 " Credette Cimabue nella Pittura 
 Tener lo campo, ed ora ha Giotto il gridoj — 
 Sicche la fama di colui oscura." 
 
 Cimabue thought 
 
 To lord it over painting's field ; and now 
 The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclips'd." 
 
 Carey's Dante. 
 
 These often-quoted lines, from Dante's ■ Purgatorio,' 
 must needs be once more quoted here : for it is a 
 curious circumstance that, applicable in his own day, 
 five hundred years ago, they should still be so applicable 
 in ours. Open any common history not intended for 
 the very profound, and there we still find Cimabue 
 "lording it over painting's field," and placed at the 
 head of a revolution in art, with which, as an artist, he 
 had little or nothing to do — but much as a man ; for to 
 him — to bis quick perception and generous protection 
 of talent in the lowly shepherd-boy — we owe Giotto, 
 than whom no single human being of whom we read 
 has exercised, in any particular department of science 
 or art, a more immediate, wide, and lasting influence. 
 The total change in the direction and character of art 
 must in all human probability have taken place sooner 
 
20 GIOTTO. [Born 1276. 
 
 or later, since all the influences of that wonderful period 
 of regeneration were tending towards it. Then did ar- 
 chitecture struggle as it were from the Byzantine into 
 the Gothic forms, like a mighty plant putting forth its 
 rich foliage and shooting up towards heaven ; then did 
 the speech of the people — the vulgar tongues, as they were 
 called — begin to assume their present structure, and 
 become the medium through which beauty and love and 
 action and feeling and thought were to be uttered and 
 immortalized; and then arose Giotto, the destined in- 
 strument through which his own beautiful art was to 
 become one of the great interpreters of the human sou] , 
 with all its M infinite " of feelings and faculties, and of 
 human life in all its multifarious aspects. Giotto was 
 the first painter who " held as it were the mirror up to 
 nature." Cimabue's strongest claim to the gratitude of 
 succeeding ages is, that he bequeathed such a man to 
 his native country and to the world. 
 
 About the year 1289, when Cimabue was already old 
 and at the height of his fame, as he was riding in ihe 
 valley of Vespignano, about fourteen miles from Flo- 
 rence, his attention was attracted by a boy who was 
 herding sheep, and who, while his flocks were feeding 
 around, seemed intently drawing on a smooth fragment 
 of slate, with a bit of pointed stone, the figure of one of 
 his sheep as it was quietly grazing before him. Cimabue 
 rode up to him, and, looking with astonishment at the 
 performance of the untutored boy, asked him if he would 
 go with him and learn ; to which the boy replied, that 
 he was right willing, if his father were content. The 
 father, a herdsman of the valley, by name Bondone, 
 
Died 1336.] HIS EARLY PRODUCTIONS. 21 
 
 being consulted, gladly consented to the wish of the 
 noble stranger, and Giotto henceforth became the inmate 
 and pupil of Cimabue. 
 
 This pretty story, which was first related by Lorenzo t, 
 Ghiberti, the sculptor (born 1378), and since by Va- 
 sari and a hundred others, luckily rests on evidence as 
 satisfactory as can be given for any events of a rude 
 and distant age, and may well obtain our belief, as well 
 as gratify our fancy ; it has been the subject of many 
 pictures, and is introduced in Kogers's ' Italy : ' — * 
 
 " > Let us wander thro' the fields 
 
 Where Cimabue found the shepherd-boy 
 Tracing his idle fancies on the ground." 
 
 Giotto was about twelve or fourteen years old when 
 taken into the house of Cimabue. For his instruction in 
 those branches of polite learning necessary to an artist, 
 his protector placed him under the tuition of Brunetto 
 Latini, who was also the preceptor of Dante. When, 
 at the age of twenty-six, Giotto lost his friend and 
 master, he was already an accomplished man as well as - 
 a celebrated painter, and the influence of his large 
 original mind upon the later works of Cimabue is dis- 
 tinctly to be traced. 
 
 The first recorded performance of Giotto was a paint- 
 ing on the wall of the Palazzo dell' Podesta, or council- 
 chamber of Florence, in which were introduced the 
 portraits of Dante, Brunetto Latini, Corso Donati, and 
 others. Vasari speaks of these works as the first sue- ' y 
 cessful attempts at portraiture in the history of modern 
 art. They were soon afterwards plastered or white- 
 
22 GIOTTO [Born 1276. 
 
 washed over during the triumph of the enemies of 
 Dante; and for ages, though known to exist, they were 
 lost and buried from sight. The hope of recovering 
 these most interesting portraits had long been enter- 
 tained, and various attempts had been made at different 
 x/ v times without success, till at length, as late as 1840, 
 they were brought to light by the perseverance and 
 enthusiasm of Mr. Bezzi and Mr. Kirkup, assisted by a 
 subscription among the English and American residents 
 and visitors then at Florence. On comparing the head of 
 Dante, painted when he was about thirty, prosperous 
 and distinguished in his native city, with the later por- 
 traits of him when an exile, worn, wasted, embittered 
 by misfortune and disappointment and wounded pride, 
 the difference of expression is as touching as the identity 
 in feature is indubitable. 
 y The attention which in his childhood Giotto seems to 
 have given to all natural forms and appearances, showed 
 itself in his earlier pictures ; he was the first to whom it 
 occurred to group his personages into something like a 
 situation, and to give to their attitudes and features the 
 expression adapted to it : thus, in a very early picture 
 of the Annunciation he gave to the Virgin a look of 
 fear ; and in another, painted some time afterwards, of 
 the Presentation in the Temple, he made the infant 
 Christ shrink from the priest, and, turning, extend his 
 little arms to his mother — the first attempt at that 
 species of grace and naivete of expression afterwards 
 carried to perfection by Eaphael. These and other 
 works painted in his native city so astonished his fellow- 
 citizens and all who beheld them, by their beauty and 
 
Died 1336.] HIS WORKS IN FLORENCE. 23 
 
 novelty, that they seem to have wanted adequate words 
 in which to express the excess of their delight and 
 admiration, and insisted that the figures of Giotto so 
 completely beguiled the sense that they were mis- 
 taken for realities; a commonplace eulogium, never 
 merited but by the most commonplace and mechanical 
 of painters. 
 
 In the church of Santa Croce, at Florence, Giotto 
 painted a Coronation of the Virgin (still to be seen there 
 in the Baroncelli Chapel), with choirs of angels and a 
 multitude of saints on either side. In the refectory he 
 painted the Last Supper, also still remaining ; a grand, 
 solemn, simple composition, which, as a first endeavour 
 to give variety of expression and attitude to a number 
 of persons — all seated, and all but two actuated by a 
 similar feeling— must still be regarded as extraordinary.* 
 In a chapel of the church of the Carmine at Florence 
 he painted a series of pictures from the life of John the 
 Baptist. These were destroyed by fire in 1771 ; but, 
 happily, an English engraver, then studying at Florence, 
 named Patch, had previously made accurate drawings 
 from them, which he engraved and published. A frag- 
 ment of the old fresco, containing the heads of two of 
 the Apostles, who are bending in grief and devotion 
 over the body of St. John, was in the collection of Mr. 
 Eogers, the poet, and is now in the National Gallery 
 (No. 276). It certainly justifies all that has been said 
 
 * The large refectory of Santa Croce is now a carpet manufactory, 
 and Giotto's Cenacolo fills up one side. It is in a most ruined con- 
 dition, and I find that it has lately been attributed to Taddeo 
 Gaddi, one of the best pupils of Giotto. 
 
24 GIOTTO. [Born 1276. 
 
 of Giotto's power of expression, and, when compared 
 with the remains of earlier art, more than excuses the 
 wonder and enthusiasm of his contemporaries. 
 
 The pope, Boniface VIII., hearing of his marvellous 
 skill, invited him to Eome ; and the story jsays that the 
 messenger of his Holiness, wishing to have some proof 
 that Giotto was indeed the man he was in search of, 
 desired to see a specimen of his excellence in his art : 
 hereupon, Giotto, taking up a sheet of paper, traced on 
 it with a single nourish of his hand a circle so . perfect 
 that " it was a miracle to see ;" and (though we know 
 not how or why) seems to have at once converted the 
 pope to a belief of his superiority over all other painters.* 
 This story gave rise to the well-known Italian proverb, 
 "Piii tondo che V di Giotto" (rounder than the of 
 Giotto), and is something like a story told of one of the 
 Grecian painters. But to return. Giotto went to Eome, 
 and there executed many things which raised his fame 
 higher and higher ; and among them, for the ancient 
 Basilica of St. Peter's, the famous colossal mosaic of the 
 Navicella, or the Barca, as it is sometimes called. It 
 represents a ship, with the Disciples, on a tempestuous 
 sea; the winds, personified as demons, rage around it. 
 Above are the Fathers of the Old Testament; on the 
 right stands Christ, raising Peter from the waves. The 
 subject has an allegorical significance, denoting the 
 troubles and triumphs of the Church. This mosaic has 
 often changed its situation, and has been restored again 
 and again, till nothing of Giotto's work remains but the 
 
 * " He was probably guided by the safer evidence of Giotto's 
 fame," says a late critic. 
 
Died 1336.] INFLUENCE OF DANTE. 25 
 
 original composition. It is now in the vestibule of St. 
 Peter's at Eome.* 
 
 For the same Pope Boniface, Giotto painted the Insti- 
 tution of the Jubilee of 1300, which still exists in the 
 portico of the Lateran at Eome. 
 
 In Padua Giotto painted the chapel of the Arena with 
 frescoes from the history of Christ and the Virgin, in 
 fifty square compartments. Of this chapel the late Lady 
 Callcott published an interesting account, illustrated from 
 drawings made by Sir Augustus Callcott. These however 
 are superseded by the set of drawings engraved on wood 
 and published by the. Arundel Society, which, besides 
 their beauty and conscientious accuracy, have the ad- 
 vantage of being described and commented on by Mr. 
 Euskin. At Padua Giotto met his friend Dante ; and \S 
 the influence of one great genius on another is strongly 
 exemplified in some of his succeeding works, and par- 
 ticularly in his next grand performance, the frescoes in 
 the church of Assisi. In the under church, and imme- 
 diately over the tomb of St. Francis, the painter repre- 
 sented the three vows of the Order — Poverty, Chastity, 
 and Obedience ; and in the fourth compartment, the 
 Saint enthroned and glorified amidst the host of Heaven. 
 The invention of the allegories under which Giotto has - 
 represented the vows of the Saint, — his Marriage with 
 Poverty — Chastity seated in her rocky fortress — and 
 Obedience with the curb and yoke, — are ascribed by a 
 tradition to Dante. Giotto also painted, in the Campo 
 
 * It is over the arch facing the principal door, so that you must 
 turn your back to the door to see it. 
 
26 GIOTTO. [Born 1276. 
 
 Santo at Pisa, the whole history, of Job, of which only 
 some fragments remain. 
 
 By the time Giotto had attained his thirtieth year he 
 had reached such hitherto unknown excellence in art, 
 and his celebrity was so universal, that every city and 
 every petty sovereign in Italy contended for the honour 
 of his presence and his pencil, and tempted him with 
 the promise of rich rewards. For the lords of Arezzo, 
 of Rimini, and Eavenna, and for the Duke of Milan, he 
 executed many works, now almost wholly perished. 
 Castruccio Castricani, the warlike tyrant of Lucca, also 
 employed him ; but how Giotto was induced to listen to 
 the offers of this enemy of his country is not explained. 
 Perhaps Castruccio, as the head of the Ghibelline party, 
 in which Giotto had apparently enrolled himself, ap- 
 peared in the light of a friend rather than an enemy ; 
 however this may be, a picture which Giotto is said to 
 have painted for Castruccio, and in which he introduced 
 the portrait of the tyrant, with a falcon on his fist, 
 was long preserved at Lucca.* For Guido da Polente, 
 the father of that hapless Francesca di Eimini whose 
 story is so beautifully told by Dante, he painted the in- 
 terior of a church ; and for Malatesta di Eimini (who 
 was father of Francesca's husband) he painted the 
 portrait of that prince in a bark, with his companions 
 and a company of mariners ; and among them, Vasari 
 tells us, was the figure of a sailor, who, turning round 
 
 * It is no longer there. It may have been a copy of the portrait 
 of Castruccio, painted by Andrea Orcagna, in the Campo Santo afc 
 Pisa. 
 
Died 1336.] HE VISITS NAPLES. 27 
 
 with his hand before his face, is in the act of spitting 
 in the sea, so life-like as to strike the beholders with 
 amazement: this has perished; but the figure of the 
 thirsty man stooping to drink, in one of the frescoes 
 at Assisi, still remains, to show the kind of excellence 
 through which Giotto excited such admiration in his 
 contemporaries — a power of imitation, a truth in the v- 
 expression of natural actions and feelings, to which 
 painting had never yet ascended or descended. This 
 leaning to the actual and the real has been made a subject 
 of reproach, to which we shall hereafter refer. 
 
 It is said, but this does not rest on very satisfactory 
 evidence, that Giotto also visited Avignon, in the train 
 of Pope Clement V., and painted there the portraits of 
 Petrarch and Laura. 
 
 About the year 1327, King Eobert of Naples, the father 
 of Queen Joanna, wrote to his son, the Duke of Calabria, 
 then at Florence, to send to him, on any terms, the 
 famous painter Giotto, who accordingly travelled to the 
 court of Naples, stopping on his way in several cities, 
 where he left specimens of his skill. He also visited 
 Orvieto for the purpose of viewing the sculpture with 
 which the brothers Agostino and Agnolo were decorating 
 the cathedral, and bestowed on it high commendation. 
 There is at Gaeta a Crucifixion painted by Giotto, either 
 on his way to Naples or on his return, in which he 
 introduced himself kneeling in an attitude of deep 
 devotion and contrition at the foot of the cross : this 
 introduction of portraiture into a subject so awful was * 
 another innovation, not so praiseworthy as some of his 
 characteristics. Giotto's feeling for truth and propriety 
 
28 ' GIOTTO. [Born 1276. 
 
 of expression is particularly remarkable and commend- 
 able in the alteration of the dreadful but popular subject 
 of the crucifix: in the Byzantine school the sole aim 
 seems to have been to represent physical agony, and to 
 render it, by every species of distortion and exaggera- 
 tion, as terrible and repulsive as possible. Giotto was 
 the first to soften this awful and painful figure by an 
 expression of divine resignation and by greater attention 
 to beauty of form. A Crucifixion painted by him became 
 the model for his scholars, and was multiplied by imi- 
 tation through all Italy; so that a famous painter of 
 crucifixes after the Greek fashion, Margaritone, who had 
 been a friend and contemporary of Cimabue, confounded 
 by the introduction of this new method of art, which he 
 partly disdained and partly despaired to imitate, and old 
 enough to hate innovations of all kinds, took to his bed 
 " infastidito " (through vexation), and so died. 
 
 But to return to Giotto, whom we left on the road to 
 Naples. King Robert received him with great honour 
 and rejoicing, and being a monarch of singular accom- 
 plishments, and fond of the society of learned and dis- 
 tinguished men, he soon found that Giotto was not 
 merely a painter, but a man of the world, a man of 
 various acquirements, whose general reputation for wit 
 and vivacity was not unmerited. He would sometimes 
 visit the painter at his work, and, while watching the 
 rapid progress of his pencil, amused himself with the 
 quaint good sense of his discourse. " If I were you, 
 Giotto," said the king to him one very hot day, " I 
 would leave off work and rest myself." " And so would 
 I, sire," replied the painter, "if I were you!" The 
 
Died 1336.] HIS WORKS AT NAPLES. 29 
 
 king, in a playful mood, desired him to paint his king- 
 dom, on which Giotto immediately sketched the figure 
 of an ass with a heavy pack-saddle on his back, smelling 
 with an eager air at another pack-saddle lying on the 
 ground, on which were a crown and sceptre. By this 
 emblem the satirical painter expressed the servility and 
 the fickleness of the Neapolitans, and the king at once 
 understood the allusion. 
 
 There exists at Naples, in the church of the In- 
 coronata, a series of frescoes representing the Seven 
 Sacraments according to the Eoman ritual, which were 
 formerly attributed to Giotto, but are now supposed 
 to be by some follower of his style and time.* The 
 Sacrament of Marriage contains many female figures, 
 beautifully designed and grouped, with graceful heads 
 and flowing draperies. This picture is traditionally 
 said to represent the marriage of Joanna of Naples and 
 Louis of Taranto; but Giotto died in 1336, and these 
 famous espousals took place in 1347 ; a dry date will 
 sometimes confound a very pretty theory. In the 
 Sacrament of Ordination there is a group of chanting 
 boys, in which the various expressions of the act of 
 singing are given with truth of imitation, not unworthy 
 of the master himself, which made Giotto the wonder 
 of his day. His paintings from the Apocalypse in the 
 church of Santa Chiara were whitewashed over, about 
 two centuries ago, by a certain prior of the convent, 
 
 * There exist engravings from these frescoes, from which an idea 
 may be formed of the grouping and composition. Three of these are 
 given in Kugler's Handbook. But when I visited the old church 
 of the Incoronata in 1858, I found then in a ruined condition. 
 
30 GIOTTO. [Born 1276. 
 
 because, in the opinion of this barbarian, they made 
 the church look dark ! 
 
 Giotto quitted Naples about the year 1328, and re- 
 turned to his native city with great increase of riches 
 and fame. He continued his works with unabated ap- 
 plication, assisted by his pupils, for his school was now 
 the most famous in Italy. Like most of the early Italian 
 artists, he was an architect and sculptor, as well as a 
 painter ; and his last public work was the exquisitely 
 beautiful Campanile or Bell-tower at Florence, founded 
 in 1334, for which he made all the designs, and even 
 executed with his own hand the models for the sculp- 
 ture on the three lower divisions. According to Kugler, 
 they form a regular series of subjects illustrating the 
 development of human culture, through religion and 
 laws, " conceived," says the same authority, " with pro- 
 found wisdom." When the emperor Charles V. saw 
 this elegant structure, he exclaimed that it ought to be 
 "kept under glass." In the same allegorical taste 
 Giotto painted many pictures of the Virtues and Vices, 
 ingeniously invented and rendered with great attention 
 to natural and appropriate expression. In these and 
 similar representations we trace distinctly the influence 
 of the genius of Dante. 
 
 A short time before his death Giotto was invited to 
 Milan by Azzo Visconti. He executed some admirable 
 frescoes in the ancient palace of the dukes of Milan ; 
 but these have perished. Finally, having retured to 
 Florence, he soon afterwards died — " yielding up his 
 soul to God in the year 1336 ; and having been," adds 
 Vasari, " no less a good Christian than an excellent 
 
Died 1336.] HIS INFLUENCE ON ART. 31 
 
 painter :" lie was honourably interred in the church of 
 Santa Maria del Fiore, where his master Cimabue had 
 been laid with similar honours thirty-five years before. 
 Lorenzo de' Medici afterwards placed above his tomb 
 his effigy in marble. Giotto left four sons and four 
 daughters, but we do not hear that any of his de- 
 scendants became distinguished in art or otherwise.* 
 
 Before we proceed to give some account of the per- » 
 sonal character and influence of Giotto, both as a man 
 and an artist, of which many amusing and interesting 
 traits have been handed down to us, we must turn for 
 a moment to reconsider that revolution in art which 
 originated with him — which seized at once on all ima- 
 ginations, all sympathies; which Dante, Boccaccio, and 
 Petrarch have all commemorated in immortal verse or 
 as immortal prose ; which, during a whole century, 
 filled Italy and Sicily with disciples formed in the same 
 school and penetrated with the same ideas. All that 
 had been done in painting before Giotto, resolved itself 
 into the imitation of certain existing models, and their 
 improvement to a certain point in style of execution : 
 there was no new method ; the Greekish types were 
 everywhere seen, more or less modified — a Madonna in 
 the middle, with a couple of lank saints or angels stuck 
 on each side ; or saints bearing symbols, or with their 
 names written over their heads, and texts of Scripture 
 proceeding from their mouths; or at the most a few 
 figures, placed in such a position relatively to each 
 
 * In the foregoing sketch some disputed points in the life of Giotto . 
 are for obvious reasons left at rest, and the order of events has been 
 somewhat changed, in accordance with more exact chroniclers than 
 Vasari. 
 
32 GIOTTO. [Born 1276. 
 
 other as sufficed to make a story intelligible, the arrange- 
 ment being generally traditional and arbitrary; such 
 seems to have been the limit to which painting had 
 advanced previous to 1280. 
 
 Giotto appeared ; and almost from the beginning of 
 his career he not only deviated from the practice of the 
 older painters, but stood opposed to them. He not onty 
 improved — he changed; he placed himself on wholly 
 new ground. He took up those principles which Kiccolo 
 Pisano had applied to sculpture, and went to the same 
 sources, to nature, and to those remains of pure antique 
 art which showed him how to look at nature. His resi- 
 dence at Eome while yet young, and in all the first 
 glowing development of his creative powers, must have 
 had an incalculable influence on his after-works. De- 
 ficient to the end of his life in the knowledge of form, 
 he was deficient in that kind of beauty which depends 
 on form ; but his feeling for grace and harmony in the 
 airs of his heads and the arrangement of his groups was 
 exquisite ; and the longer he practised his art, the more 
 free and flowing became his lines. But, beyond grace 
 and beyond beauty, he aimed at the expression of na- 
 tural character and emotion, in order to render intelli- 
 gible his newly invented scenes of action and his religious 
 allegories. A writer near his time speaks of it as some- 
 thing new and wonderful, that in Giotto's pictures " the 
 personages who are in grief look melancholy, and those 
 who are joyous look gay." For his heads he introduced 
 a new type, exactly reversing the Greek pattern : long- 
 shaped, half-shut eyes ; a long, straight nose ; and a 
 very short' chin. The hands are rather delicately, but 
 
Died 1336.] HIS STYLE. 33 
 
 never correctly, drawn, and he could not design the 
 feet well, for which reason we generally find those of 
 his men clothed in shoes or sandals wherever it is pos- 
 sible, and those of his women covered with flowing 
 drapery. The management of his draperies is, indeed, 
 particularly characteristic ; distinguished by a certain 
 lengthiness and narrowness in the folds, in which, how- 
 ever, there is much taste and simplicity, though, in point 
 of style, as far from the antique as from the complicated 
 meanness of the Byzantine models; and it is curious 
 that this peculiar treatment of the drapeiy, these long 
 perpendicular folds, correspond in character with the i 
 principles of Gothic architecture, and with it rose and 
 declined. For the stiff, wooden limbs, and motionless 
 figures, of the Byzantine school, he substituted life, . 
 movement, and the look, at least, of flexibility. His 
 notions of grouping and arrangement he seems to have 
 taken from the ancient basso-relievos ; there is a statu- 
 esque grace and simplicity in his compositions which 
 reminds us of them. His style of colouring and exe- 
 cution was, like all the rest, an innovation on received 
 methods : his colours were lighter and more roseate 
 than had ever been known ; the fluid by which they 
 were tempered more thin and easily managed ; and his 
 frescoes must have been skilfully executed to have stood 
 so well as they have done. Their duration is indeed 
 nothing compared to the Egyptian remains; but the 
 latter have been for ages covered up from light and air 
 in a dry sandy climate : those of Giotto have been ex- 
 posed to all the vicissitudes of weather and of under- 
 ground damp, have been whitewashed and every way 
 
34 GIOTTO [Born 1276- 
 
 ill-treated, yet the fragments which remain have still 
 a surprising freshness, and his distemper pictures are 
 still wonderful. We have in the National Gallery a 
 single example of Giotto, the small fragment of a fresco 
 already described (p. 23), and an altarpiece, certainly 
 from his school and contemporary (painted about 1330), 
 which will give an idea of his characteristic merits. 
 The only picture in the Louvre attributed to him 
 (a St. Francis, as large as life) is dubious and un- 
 worthy of him. In the Florentine gallery are three 
 pictures : Christ on the Mount of Olives, one of his best 
 works ; and two Madonnas, with graceful angels. In 
 the gallery of the Academy of Arts, in the same city, 
 are more than twenty small pictures, about a foot in 
 height, which formerly decorated the presses or ward- 
 robes in the sacristy of Santa Croce, and representing 
 subjects from the life and acts of Christ and St. Francis.* 
 Those who are curious may consult the engravings after 
 Giotto in the plates to the ' Storia della Pittura ' of 
 Kosini ; those in D'Agincourt's ' Histoire de 1' Art par 
 les Monumens ; ' in Ottley's ' Early Italian School,' a 
 copy of which is in the British Museum ; and the set of 
 engravings published by the Arundel Society. 
 
 Giotto's personal character and disposition had no 
 small part in the revolution he effected. In the union 
 of endowments which seldom meet together in the same 
 
 * There were originally twenty-six of these small but beautiful 
 compositions ; thirteen from the history of our Saviour, and thirteen 
 from the history of St. Francis. The church of Santa Croce belongs 
 to the Franciscan order. See Kugler's Handbook, p. 130, and the 
 ' Legends of the Monastic Orders,' for an explanation of this double 
 series. 
 
Died 1336.] HIS CHARACTER. 35 
 
 individual — extraordinary inventive and poetical genius, 
 with sound, practical, energetic sense, and untiring 
 activity and energy — Giotto resembled Kubens ; and 
 only this rare combination could have enabled him to 
 fling off so completely all the fetters of the old style, 
 and to have executed the amazing number of works 
 which are with reason attributed to him. His character 
 was as independent in other matters as in his own art. 
 He seems to have had little reverence for received opi- 
 nions about anything, and was singularly free from the 
 superstitious enthusiasm of the times in which he lived, 
 although he lent his powers to embodying that very 
 superstition. Perhaps the very circumstance of his 
 being employed in painting the interiors of churches 
 and monasteries opened to his acute, discerning, and 
 independent mind reflections which took away some of 
 the respect for the mysteries they concealed. There is 
 extant a poem of Giotto's, entitled ' A Song against 
 Poverty,' which becomes still more piquante in itself, and 
 expressive of the peculiar turn of Giotto's mind, when 
 we remember that he had painted the Glorification of 
 Poverty as the Bride of St. Francis, and that in those 
 days songs in praise of poverty were as fashionable as 
 devotion to St. Francis, the "Patriarch of poverty." 
 Giotto was celebrated too for his joyous temper, for his 
 witty and satirical repartees, and seems to have been 
 as careful of his worldly goods as he was diligent in 
 acquiring them. Boccaccio relates an anecdote of him, 
 not very important; but as it contains several traits 
 which are divertingly characteristic, I will give it 
 here: — 
 
36 GIOTTO. [Born 127G. 
 
 " Fair and dear ladies ! " (Thus the novelist is wont 
 to address his auditory.) "It is a wondrous thing to see 
 how oftentimes nature hath been pleased to hide within 
 the most misshapen forms the most wondrous treasures 
 of soul, which is evident in the persons of two of our 
 fellow-citizens, of whom I shall now briefly discourse to 
 you. Messer Forese da Rabatta, the advocate, being a 
 personage of the most extraordinary wisdom, and learned 
 in the law above all others, yet was in body mean and 
 deformed, with, thereunto, a flat, currish (ricagnato) phy- 
 siognomy ; and Messer Giotto, who was not in face or 
 person one whit better favoured than the said Messer 
 Forese, had a genius of that excellence, that there was 
 nothing which nature (who is the mother of all things) 
 could bring forth, but he with his ready pencil would so 
 wondrously imitate it, that it seemed not only similar, 
 but the same ; thus deluding the visual sense of men, so 
 that they deemed that what was only pictured before 
 them did in reality exist. And seeing that through 
 Giotto that art was restored to light which had been for 
 many centuries buried (through fault of those who, in 
 painting, addressed themselves to please the eye of the 
 vulgar, and not to content the understanding of the wise), 
 I esteem him worthy to be placed among those who have 
 made famous and glorious this our city of Florence. 
 Nevertheless, though so great a man in his art, he was 
 but little in person, and, as I have said, ill-favoured 
 enough. Now it happened that Messer Forese and 
 Giotto had possessions in land in Mugello, which is on 
 the road leading from Florence to Bologna, and thither 
 they rode one day on their respective affairs, Messer 
 
Died 1336.] HIS CHARACTER. 37 
 
 Forese being mounted on a sorry hired jade, and the 
 other in no better case. It was summer, and the rain 
 came on suddenly and furiously, and they hastened to 
 take shelter in the house of a peasant thereabouts who 
 was known to them ; but the storm still prevailing, they, 
 considering that they must of necessity return to Florence 
 the same day, borrowed from the peasant two old, worn- 
 out pilgrim-cloaks and two rusty old hats, and so they 
 set forth. They had not proceeded very far when they 
 found themselves wet through with the rain, and all 
 bespattered with the mud ; but after a while, the weather 
 clearing in some small degree, they took heart, and from 
 being silent they began to discourse of vaiious matters. 
 Messer Forese, having listened a while to Giotto, who 
 was, in truth, a man most eloquent and lively in speech, 
 could not help casting on him a glance as he rode along- 
 side, and considering him from head to foot thus wet, 
 ragged, and splashed all over, and thus mounted and 
 accoutred, and not taking his own appearance into ac- 
 count, he laughed aloud. ' Giotto,' said he, jeeringly, 
 4 if a stranger were now to meet us, could he, looking on 
 you, believe it possible that you were the greatest painter 
 in the whole world ? ' ' Certainly,' quoth Giotto, with a 
 side glance at his companion, ' certainly ; if looking 
 upon your worship he could believe it possible that you 
 knew your ABC!' Whereupon Messer Forese could 
 not but confess that he had been paid in his own coin." 
 
 This is one of many humorous repartees which tra- 
 dition has preserved, and an instance of that readiness 
 of wit — that prontezza — for which Giotto was admired ; 
 in fact he seems to have presented in himself, in the 
 
38 GIOTTO. [Born 1276. 
 
 union of depth and liveliness, of poetical fancy and 
 worldly sense, of independent spirit and polished suavity, 
 an epitome of the national character of the Florentines, 
 
 > such as Sismondi has drawn it. We learn, from the hyper- 
 boles used by Boccaccio, the sort of rapturous surprise 
 which Giotto's imitation of life caused in his imaginative 
 contemporaries, and which assuredly they would be far 
 from exciting now ; and the unceremonious description 
 of his person becomes more amusing when we recollect 
 that Boccaccio must have lived in personal intercourse 
 with the painter, as did Petrarch and Dante. When 
 Giotto died, in 1336, his friend Dante had been dead 
 three years ; Petrarch was thirty-two, and Boccaccio 
 twenty-three years of age. When Petrarch died, in 1374, 
 he left to his friend Francesco da Carrara, Lord of 
 
 * Padua, a Madonna, painted by Giotto, as a most precious 
 legacy, "a wonderful piece of work, of which the igno- 
 rant might overlook the beauties, but which the learned 
 must regard with amazement/' All writers who treat 
 of the ancient glories of Florence — Florence the beautiful 
 — Florence the free — from Villani down to Sismondi, 
 count Giotto in the roll of her greatest men. Anti- 
 quaries and connoisseurs in art seach out and study the 
 relics which remain to us, and recognise in them the 
 dawn of that splendour which reached its zenith in the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century. No visitor to Flo- 
 rence ever looks up to the Campanile without a feeling 
 of wonder and delight, without thinking what that man 
 must have been who conceived and executed a work so 
 nobly, so supremely elegant ; while to the philosophic 
 observer Giotto appears as one of those few heaven- 
 
Died 1336.] ILLUMINATED MSS. 39 
 
 endowed beings, whose development springs from a 
 source within — one of those unconscious instruments in 
 the hand of Providence, who, in seeking their own profit 
 and delight through the expansion of their own faculties, 
 make unawares a step forward in human culture, lend a 
 new impulse to human aspirations, and, like the "bright 
 morning star, day's harbinger," may be merged in the 
 succeeding radiance, but never forgotten. 
 
 Before we pass on to the scholars and imitators of 
 Giotto, who during the next century filled all Italy with 
 schools of art, we may here make mention of one or two 
 of his contemporaries, not so much for any performances 
 left behind them, but because they have been commemo- 
 rated by men more celebrated than themselves, and 
 survive embalmed in their works as " flies in amber." 
 Dante has mentioned, in his ' Purgatorio,' two painters 
 of the time, famous for their miniature illustrations of 
 Missals and MSS. Before the invention of printing, and 
 indeed for some time after, this was an important branch 
 of art : it flourished from the days of Charlemagne to 
 those of Charles V., and was a source of honour as well 
 as riches to the laymen who practised it. Many, how- 
 ever, of the most beautiful specimens of illuminated 
 manuscripts are the work of the nameless Benedictine 
 monks, who laboured in the silence and seclusion of 
 their convents, and who yielded to their community most 
 of the honour and all the profit : this was not the case 
 with Oderigi, whom Dante has represented as expiating 
 in purgatory his excessive vanity as a painter, and 
 humbly giving the palm to another, Franco Bolognese, 
 
40 PIETRO CAVALLINI. 
 
 of whom there remains no relic but a Madonna, engraved 
 in Eosini's * Storia della Pittura.' He retains, however, 
 a name as the founder of the early Bolognese school. 
 The fame of Buffalmacco as a jovial companion, and the 
 tales told in Boccaccio of his many inventions and the 
 tricks he played on his brother-painter the simple Calan- 
 drino, have survived almost every relic of his pencil. 
 Yet he appears to have been a good painter of that time, 
 and to have imitated, in his later works, the graceful 
 simplicity of Giotto : # he had also much honour and 
 sufficient employment, but, having been more intent on 
 spending than earning, he died miserably poor in 1340. 
 Pietro Cavallini studied under Giotto at Rome, but 
 seems never to have wholly laid aside the Greekish style 
 in which he had been first educated. He was a man of 
 extreme simplicity and sanctity of mind and manners, 
 and felt some scruples in condemning as an artist the ill- 
 painted Madonnas before which he had knelt in prayer : 
 this feeling of earnest piety he communicated to all his 
 works. There is by him a picture of the Annunciation pre- 
 served in the church of St. Mark at Florence, in which the 
 expression of piety and modesty in the Virgin, and of 
 reverence in the kneeling angel, is perfectly beautiful : 
 the same devout feeling enabled him to rise to the sublime 
 in a grand picture of the Crucifixion which he painted 
 in the church of Assisi, and which is reckoned one of 
 the most important monuments of the Giotto school. 
 
 * A picture of St. Ursula, an early work of this painter, in the 
 Academy at Pisa, is quite Byzantine in style. The frescoes in the 
 Campo Santo at Pisa, so long attributed to him, are by another 
 hand. 
 
7.— PlETKO CaVALLINI. 
 
 Engraved by Schorn. 
 
 Page 40. 
 
SCHOLARS OF GIOTTO. 41 
 
 The resignation of the divine sufferer, the lamenting 
 angels, the fainting Virgin, the groups of Roman soldiers, 
 are all painted with a truth and feeling quite wonderful 
 for the time. Engravings after Cavallini may be found 
 in Ottley's ' Early Italian School,' and in Eosini (p. 21). 
 He became the pupil of Giotto when nearly forty years 
 old, and survived him only a short time, dying in 1340, 
 With Cavallini begins the list of painters of the Roman 
 school, afterwards so illustrious. Among the contem- 
 poraries of Giotto we must refer once more to Duccio of 
 Sienna, whose great altarpiece has been already de- 
 scribed. It is remarkable, and should be kept in remem- 
 brance, that, of all the schools of painting then rising in \ 
 Italy, all more or less modified by the Giottesque style, 
 the painters of Sienna alone retained a particular stamp 
 of nationality, which in the course of two centuries they 
 never wholly lost. While the school of Florence de- 
 veloped into increasing vigour, elegance, and dignity, 
 that of Sienna leaned towards pathos and sentiment — 
 qualities remarkable in Duccio and his successors, and 
 which characterised the Sienna pictures even when that 
 peculiar pathetic grace was afterwards modified by the 
 grand drawing of the Florentine school. Duccio was an 
 established painter when Giotto was a child, and his 
 influence in his native city remained long after death. 
 Perhaps the perpetual enmity and jealousy between these 
 two famous cities, and frequent sanguinary conflicts, 
 conspired to keep the two nationalities at variance even 
 in art. 
 
 The scholars and imitators of Giotto, who adopted the 
 new method (il nuovo metodd), as it was then called, and 
 
42 ANDREA ORCAGNA. 
 
 who collectively are distinguished as the Scuola Giottesca, 
 may be divided into two classes : — 1. Those who were 
 merely his assistants and imitators, who confined them- 
 selves to the reproduction of the models left by their 
 master. 2. Those who, gifted with original genius, fol- 
 lowed his example rather than his instructions, pursued 
 the path he had opened to them, introduced better 
 methods of study, more correct design, and carried on in 
 various departments the advance of art into the succeed- 
 ing century. 
 
 Of the first it is not necessary to speak. Among the 
 
 v men of great and original genius who immediately suc- 
 ceeded Giotto, three must be especially mentioned for 
 the importance of the works they have left, and for the 
 influence they exercised on those who came after them. 
 These were Andrea Orcagna, Simone Memmi, and Tad- 
 deo Gaddi. 
 
 The first of these, Andrea Cioni, commonly called 
 Andrea Orcagna, did not study under Giotto, but owed 
 much indirectly to that vivifying influence which he 
 breathed through art. Andrea was the son of a goldsmith 
 
 / at Florence. The goldsmiths of the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries were in general excellent designers 
 and not unfrequently became painters, as in the instances 
 of Francia, Verrochio, Andrea del Sarto, &c. Andrea 
 Orcagna apparently learned design under the tuition of 
 his father. Eosini places his birth previous to the year 
 1310 : in the year 1332 he had already acquired so much 
 celebrity that he was called upon to continue the deco- 
 ration of the Campo Santo at Pisa. 
 
 This seems the proper place to give a more detailed 
 

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CAMPO SANTO AT PISA. . 43 
 
 account of one of the most extraordinary and interesting 
 monuments of the middle ages. The Campo Santo of 
 Pisa, like the Cathedral at Assisi, was an arena in 
 which the best artists of the time were summoned to 
 try their powers ; but the influence of the frescoes in 
 the Campo Santo on the progress and development of 
 art was yet more direct and important than that of the 
 paintings in the church of Assisi. 
 
 The Campo Santo,* once a cemetery, though no longer 
 used as such, is an open space of about four hundred 
 feet in length and one hundred and eighteen feet in 
 breadth, enclosed with high walls, and an arcade, some- 
 thing like the cloisters of a monastery or cathedral, 
 running all round it. On the east side is a large chapel, 
 and on the north two smaller chapels, where prayers 
 and masses are celebrated for the repose of the dead. 
 The open space was filled with earth brought from 
 the Holy Land by the merchant-ships of Pisa, which 
 traded to the Levant in the days of its commercial 
 splendour. This open space,, once sown with graves, is 
 now covered with green turf. At the four corners are 
 four tall cypress-trees, their dark, monumental, spiral 
 forms contrasting with a little lowly cross in the centre, 
 round which ivy or some other creeping plant has 
 wound a luxuriant bower. The beautiful Gothic ar- 
 cade was designed and built about 1283 by Giovanni 
 Pisano, the son of the great Niccolo Pisano already 
 mentioned. This arcade, on the side next the burial- 
 ground, is pierced by sixty-two windows of ele- 
 
 * The Campo Santo or •' Holy Field" is the generic name of a 
 cemetery in Italy. 
 
44 ANDREA ORCAGNA. 
 
 gant tracery divided from each other by slender 
 pilasters ; upwards of six hundred sepulchral monu- 
 ments of the nobles and citizens of Pisa are ranged 
 along the marble pavements, and mingled with them 
 are some antique remains of great beauty, which the 
 Pisans in former times brought from the Greek Isles. 
 Here also is seen the famous sarcophagus which first 
 inspired the genius of Niceolo Pisano, and in which had 
 been deposited the body of Beatrice, mother of the 
 famous Countess Matilda. The walls opposite to the 
 windows were painted in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries with Scriptural subjects. Most of these are 
 half ruined by time, neglect, and damp ; some only 
 present fragments ; here an arm — there a head ; and 
 the best preserved are faded, discoloured, ghastly in 
 appearance, and solemn in subject. The whole aspect 
 of this singular place, particularly to those who wander 
 through its long arcades at the close of day, when the 
 figures on the pictured walls look dim and spectral 
 through the gloom, and the cypresses assume a blacker 
 hue, and all the associations connected with its sacred 
 purpose and its history rise upon the fancy, has in its 
 silence and solitude, and religious destination, some 
 thing inexpressibly strange, dreamy, solemn, almost 
 awful. Seen in the broad glare of noonday, the place 
 and the pictures lose something of their power over the 
 fancy, and that which last night haunted us as a vision, 
 to day we examine, study, criticise. 
 
 The building of the Campo Santo was scarcely 
 finished when the best painters of the time were sum- 
 moned to paint the walls all round the interior with 
 
CAMPO SANTO AT PISA. 45 
 
 appropriate subjects. This was a work of many years : 
 it was indeed continued at intervals through two cen- 
 turies ; and thus we have a series of illustrations of the 
 progress of art during its first development, of the reli- 
 gious influences of the age, and even of the dress and 
 manners of the people, which are faithfully exhibited 
 in some of these most extraordinary compositions. To 
 comprehend them aright we must first consider the 
 purpose of the locality — a place sacred to the dead. 
 It was to remind those who came to meditate within its 
 precincts of the providence of God towards men, as 
 exemplified in Scriptural history ; of the great sacrifice 
 which brought redemption ; of the troubles of human 
 life ; of inevitable death ; of resurrection ; of the last 
 judgment ; and of the final destinies which await the 
 souls of the just and the unjust. This was the general 
 design. 
 
 On the left, as we enter, we find the troubles of life 
 represented in the history of Job, the great biblical 
 type of suffering, faith, and patience. This compart- 
 ment was painted by Giotto, but few fragments remain. 
 On the north wall opposite we find the history of God's 
 dealings with man : first, the Creation of the universe 
 and of mankind ; then the whole series of events from 
 the Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise, down to David 
 and Solomon, including the history of the patriarchs 
 Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph; the story 
 of-the Israelites and Moses and Aaron ; ending with the 
 Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon, These were painted 
 by Benozzo Gozzoli. Then on the east wall was the 
 history of our Lord, now almost wholly effaced. On 
 
46 ANDREA ORCAGNA. 
 
 the south wall followed the Triumph of Death, the 
 Future Life, the Last Judgment, and Punishment of 
 the Wicked; these were painted by Andrea Orcagna. 
 Paradise and the Blessedness of the Just were to have 
 followed, but these were never executed ; and at a later 
 period the Legends of the patron saints of Pisa, St. 
 Ranieri, St. Efeso, and St. Potito, were painted on this 
 portion of the wall. It is clear that, to understand the 
 religious significance of these decorations of the Campo 
 Santo, the subjects must be considered in the order I 
 have followed. 
 
 When Andrea Orcagna was summoned to Pisa, about 
 1350, to continue the paintings on the walls of the 
 Campo Santo, he selected those subjects which har- 
 monised peculiarly with the destination of these sacred 
 precincts : they were to represent in four great com- 
 partments what the Italians call "I quattro novissimi" 
 i. e. the four last or latest things — Death, Judgment, 
 Hell or Purgatory, and Paradise ; but only three were 
 completed. 
 
 The first is styled the Triumph of Death {II Trionfo 
 della Morte). It is full of poetry, and abounding in ideas 
 then new in pictorial art. On the right is a festive 
 company of ladies and cavaliers, who by their falcons 
 and dogs appear to be returned from the chase. They 
 are seated under orange-trees, and splendidly attired ; 
 rich carpets are spread at their feet. A troubadour and 
 singing-girl amuse them with flattering songs ; Cupids 
 flutter around them and wave their torches. All the 
 pleasures of sense and joys of earth are here united. 
 On the left Death approaches with rapid flight — a fear- 
 
CAMPO SANTO AT PISA. 47 
 
 ful-looking woman with wild streaming hair, claws 
 instead of nails, large bats' wings, and indestructible 
 wire- woven drapery. She swings a scythe in her hand, 
 and is on the point of mowing down the joys of the 
 company. (This female impersonation of Death is sup- 
 posed to be borrowed from Petrarch, whose ' Trionfo 
 della Morte ' was written about this time.) A host of 
 corpses closely pressed together lie at her feet ; by their 
 insignia they are almost all to be recognised as the 
 former rulers of the world, kings, queens, cardinals, 
 bishops, princes, warriors, &c. Their souls rise out of 
 them in the form of new-born infants ; angels and de- 
 mons are ready to receive them : the souls of the pious 
 fold their hands in prayer, those of the condemned 
 shrink back in horror. The angels are peculiarly yet 
 happily conceived, with bird-like forms and variegated 
 plumage ; the demons have the semblance of beasts of 
 prey or of disgusting reptiles. They fight with each 
 other. On the right the angels ascend to heaven with 
 those they have saved; while the demons drag their 
 prey to a fiery mountain, visible on the left, and hurl 
 the souls down into the flames. Next to these corpses 
 is a crowd of beggars and cripples, who with out- 
 stretched arms call upon Death to end their sorrows ; 
 but she heeds not their prayer, and has already passed 
 them in her flight. A rock separates this scene from 
 another, in which is represented a second hunting-party 
 descending the mountain by a hollow path : here again 
 are richly-attired princes and dames on horses splen- 
 didly caparisoned, and a train of hunters with falcons 
 and dogs. The path has led them to three open sepul- 
 
48 ANDREA ORCAGNA. 
 
 chres in the left corner of the picture ; in them lie the 
 bodies of three princes, in different stages of decay. 
 Close by, in extreme old age and supported on crutches, 
 stands the old hermit St. Macarius, who, turning to the 
 princes, points down to this bitter " Memento mori." 
 They look on apparently with indifference, and one of 
 them holds his nose, as if incommoded by the horrible 
 stench. One queenly lady alone, deeply moved, rests 
 her head on her hand, her countenance full of a pensive 
 sorrow. On the mountain heights are several hermits, 
 who, in contrast to the followers of the joys of the 
 world, have attained in a life of contemplation and 
 abstinence to a state of tranquil blessedness. One of 
 them milks a doe, squirrels are sporting round him ; 
 another sits and reads ; and a third looks down into the 
 valley, where the remains of the mighty are mouldering 
 away. There is a tradition that among the personages 
 in these pictures are many portraits of the artist's con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 The second representation is the Last Judgment, 
 Above, in the centre, Christ and the Virgin are throned 
 in separate glories. He turns to the left, towards the 
 condemned, while he uncovers the wound in his side, 
 and raises his right arm with a menacing gesture, his 
 countenance full of majestic wrath. The Virgin, on 
 the right of her Son, is the picture of heavenly mercy : 
 she turns, with an appealing look, to our Lord ; with 
 one hand pressed to the bosom which nourished Him, 
 she pleads for sinners. On either side are ranged 
 the prophets of the Old Testament, the apostles, and 
 other saints — severe, solemn, dignified figures. Angels, 
 
CAMPO SANTO AT PISA. 49 
 
 holding the instruments of the Passion, hover over 
 Christ and the Virgin : under them is a group of arch- 
 angels. First, the archangel Michael, as the " Angel of 
 Judgment," stands in the midst, holding a scroll in each 
 hand ; immediately before him another archangel, sup- 
 posed to represent Eaphael, the guardian angel of 
 humanity, cowers down, shuddering, while two others 
 sound the awful trumpets of doom. Lower down is the 
 earth, where men are seen rising from their graves ; 
 armed angels direct them to the right and left. Here is 
 seen King Solomon, who, whilst he rises, seems doubt- 
 ful to which side he should turn ; here a hypocritical 
 monk, whom an angel draws back by the hair from the 
 host of the blessed ; and there a youth in a gay and 
 rich costume, whom another angel leads away to Para- 
 dise. There is wonderful and even terrible power of 
 expression in some of the heads, and it is said that 
 among them are many portraits of contemporaries, but 
 unfortunately no circumstantial traditions as to parti- 
 cular figures have reached us. The attiudes of Christ 
 and the Virgin were afterwards borrowed by Michael 
 Angelo, in his celebrated Last Judgment ; but, not- 
 withstanding the perfection of his forms, he stands far 
 below the dignified grandeur of the old master. Later 
 painters have also borrowed from his arrangement of 
 the patriarchs and apostles — particularly Fra Bartolo- 
 meo and Eaphael. 
 
 The third representation, directly succeeding the 
 foregoing, is Hell. It is said to have been executed 
 from a design of Andrea, by his brother Bernardo : it is 
 altogether inferior to the preceding representations in 
 
50 ANDREA ORCAGNA. 
 
 execution, and even in the composition. Here the 
 imagination of the painter, unrestrained by any just 
 rules of taste, degenerates into the monstrous and dis- 
 gusting, and even the grotesque and ludicrous. Hell is 
 here represented as a great rocky caldron, divided into 
 four compartments rising one above the other. In the 
 midst sits Satan, a fearful armed giant — himself a fiery 
 furnace, out of whose body flames arise in different 
 places, in which sinners are consumed or crushed. In 
 other parts the condemned are seen spitted like fowls, 
 and roasted and basted by demons, with other such 
 atrocious fancies, too horrible and sickening for de- 
 scription. The lower part of the picture was badly 
 painted over, and altered according to the taste of the day, 
 in the sixteenth century ; certainly not for the better. 
 
 Andrea Orcagna was' also a sculptor. He executed, 
 in 1359, the exquisitely beautiful and elaborate taber- 
 nacle or shrine which the Florentines dedicated in the 
 church called Or San Michele, and which is still to be 
 seen there ; and, not less consummate as an architect 
 than as a sculptor and painter, he designed and built 
 v the graceful and beautiful portico in the Piazza del Gran 
 Duca at Florence, called the Loggia dei Lanzi, and which, 
 according to his design, was to have been continued all 
 round the Piazza ; but the municipality could not afford 
 the expense, the funds having been expended in the 
 war with the Pisans ; and before the work could be com- 
 pleted — and it still remains incomplete — Andrea died, 
 about 1376.* 
 
 * We have now in the National Gallery an undoubted picture by 
 Andrea— a large altarpiece in three large and nine small divisions 
 
9. — SlMONE DI MARTINO, CALLED SlMONE MeMMI. 
 
 Engraved in Vasari's ffistory. 
 
 Page 51. 
 
CAMPO SANTO AT PISA. 51 
 
 Simone Martini, usually called Simoxe Memmi, was a 
 painter of Sienna, of whom very few works remain, but 
 the friendship of Petrarch has rendered his name illus- 
 trious. Simone Memmi was employed at Avignon 
 when it was the seat of the popes (about 1340), and 
 there he painted the portrait of Laura and presented it 
 to Petrarch, who rewarded him with two Sonnets — and 
 immortality. Simone also painted a famous picture on 
 the wall of the Spanish chapel in the church of Santa 
 Maria Novella at Florence, which may still be seen 
 there : it represents the Church militant and triumph- 
 ant — with a great number of figures, among which are 
 the portraits of Cimabue, Petrarch, and Laura. He also 
 painted in the Campo Santo, and his pictures there are 
 among the finest in expression and in grouping. They 
 represented, on the south wall over the door, the " As- 
 sumption of the Virgin Mary " — that is, her ascension 
 into heaven — a subject often chosen in those times to 
 express the hope in a future life ; and the history of St. 
 Eanieri, a native of Pisa, who, for his pious life and 
 wonderful miracles, was held in great respect by his 
 countrymen the Pisans. 
 
 Simone Memmi also painted, in conjunction with 
 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, another Siennese painter, some 
 very extraordinary frescoes in the Palazzo PubbMco, or 
 Town-hall, of Sienna. I have also seen at Naples, in 
 the church of San Lorenzo, a very interesting picture, 
 representing St. Louis of Anjou, Bishop of Toulouse, 
 
 — which if studied carefully, with the explanations in the Cata- 
 logue, will give a very good idea of the manner in which these great 
 religious compositions were put together. 
 
52 MEMMI— LORENZETTI. 
 
 crowning his brother, Robert of Anjou, as King ot 
 Naples, while he is himself crowned by two angels. 
 There is a beautiful little miniature, undoubtedly by 
 him, in the Liverpool Museum, but we have no spe- 
 cimen in our National Gallery. Simone was certainly 
 one of the most remarkable and interesting painters 
 of his time, and quite independent of the influence of 
 Giotto. He died about 1 345. 
 
 Pietro Lorenzetti painted in the Campo Santo the 
 Hermits in the Wilderness: they are represented as 
 dwelling in caves and chapels, upon rocks and moun- 
 tains ; some studying, others meditating, others tempted 
 by demons in various horrible or alluring forms, for 
 such were the diseased fancies which haunted a solitary 
 and unnatural existence. As the laws of perspective 
 were then unknown, the various groups of hermits and 
 their dwellings are represented one above another, and 
 all of the same size, much like the figures on a china 
 plate. It is, however, very interesting, and Lorenzetti 
 repeated these scenes on a smaller scale in a picture 
 now in the Gallery at Florence. 
 
 Antonio Veneziano also painted in the Campo Santo, 
 about 1387 ; and showed himself superior to all who had 
 preceded him in feeling and grace, though inferior to 
 Andrea Orcagna in sublimity. Spinello of Arezzo was 
 next employed, about 1390. He painted the story of 
 St. Ephesus. Spinello seems to have been a man of 
 genius, but of most unregulated mind. Vasari tells 
 a story of him which shows at once the vehemence of 
 his fancy and his morbid brain. He painted a picture 
 of the Fallen Angels, in which he had laboured to 
 
10.— Pietro Laueati di Lorenzetti. 
 Engraved in Yasari, Ed. 1568. 
 
 Fage 52. 
 
11. — Antonio Venkziano. 
 Engraved in Vasaris History. 
 
 Page 52. 
 
rr,~/?^ 
 
 
 ■ J 
 
 f f -'n\\X t I 
 
12.— Taddeo Gaddi. 
 
 Engraved in Vasan's History. 
 
 rage 53. 
 
SPINELLO— TADDEO GADDI. . 53 
 
 render the figure of Satan as terrible, as deformed, as 
 revolting as possible. The image, as he worked upon 
 it, became fixed in his fancy, and haunted him in sleep. 
 He dreamed that the Prince of Hell appeared before 
 him under the horrible form in which he had arrayed 
 him, and demanded why he should be thus treated, and 
 by what authority the painter had represented him so 
 abominably hideous. Spinello awoke in terror; soon 
 afterwards he became distracted, and so died, about the 
 year 1400. 
 
 But leaving the Campo Santo, we must return to the 
 pupils of Giotto. The third alluded to was Taddeo v 
 Gaddi, the favourite scholar of Giotto, and his godson. 
 His pictures are considered the most important works 
 of the 14th century : they resemble the manner of Giotto 
 in the feeling for truth, nature, and simplicity ; but we 
 find in them improved execution, with even more beauty 
 and largeness and grandeur of style. His pictures are 
 numerous : several are in the Academy at Florence and 
 the Museum at Berlin ; and in our National Gallery are v 
 two large panels, which probably formed the two wings 
 of a central piece (an " Enthroned Madonna," or a " Coro- 
 nation of the Virgin"), filled with figures of saints who 
 appear as if in attendance on some grand ceremony or 
 some superior personage, all the heads being finely dis- 
 criminated in character. Also (-lately acquired) an 
 altarpiece dedicated to John the Baptist, representing 
 the Baptism of our Saviour, and subjects from the his- 
 tory of St. John below, which are worthy of study as 
 examples of the style of Taddeo. There are four small 
 
54 TADDEO GADDI. 
 
 pictures by him in the Louvre, and four more important 
 in the Berlin Gallery. Between Taddeo Gaddi and 
 Simone Memmi there existed an ardent friendship and a 
 mutual admiration which did honour to both. He was, 
 like many of the old painters, a skilful architect, and 
 • built the Ponte Yecchio at Florence, which is still 
 standing, and still famous for the goldsmiths' shops 
 which line it on each side. After Giotto's there was no 
 name more celebrated in his time than that of Taddeo 
 Gaddi. He died in 1366, leaving two sons, Agnolo and 
 Giovanni, who were both painters. Another of Giotto's 
 most famous followers was Tommaso di Stefano, called 
 Giottino, or " the little Giotto," from the success with 
 which he emulated his master. He was of a thoughtful, 
 rather melancholy temperament, and seems to have 
 thrown all the tenderness of his nature into a small pic- 
 ture of the dead Saviour lamented by his Mother, the 
 other Maries, and Nicodemus, which exists in the Flo- 
 rence Gallery. 
 
 I have mentioned here but a few of the most pro- 
 minent names among the multitude of painters who 
 flourished from 1300 to 1400 : before we enter on a new 
 century we will take a general view of the progress of 
 the art itself, and the purposes to which it was applied. 
 
 The progress made in painting was chiefly by carry- 
 ing out the principles of Giotto in expression and in 
 imitation. Taddeo Gaddi and Simone excelled in the 
 first ; the imitation of form and of natural objects was 
 so improved by Stefano Fiorentino, that he was styled 
 by his contemporaries II Scimia della Natura y "the Ape 
 of Nature." Giottino, the son of this Stefano, and 
 
CHARACTER OF EARLY ART. 55 
 
 others, improved in colour, in softness of execution, and 
 in the means and mechanism of the art ; but oil-paint- * 
 ing was not yet invented, and linear perspective was 
 unknown. Engraving on copper, cutting in wood, and 
 printing were the inventions of the next century. Por- 
 traits were seldom painted, and then only of very dis- 
 tinguished persons, introduced into large compositions. 
 The imitation of natural scenery, that is, landscape paint- 
 ing, as a branch of art, now such a familiar source of 
 pleasure, was as yet unthought of. When landscape 
 was introduced into pictures as a background or ac- 
 cessory, it was merely to indicate the scene of the 
 story : a rock represented a desert ; some formal trees, 
 very like brooms set on end, indicated a wood ; a bluish 
 space, sometimes with fishes in it, signified, rather than 
 represented, a river or a sea ; yet in the midst of this 
 ignorance, this imperfect execution, and limited range 
 of power, how exquisitely beautiful are some of the 
 remains of this early time ! affording in their simple, 
 genuine grace, and lofty, earnest, and devout feeling, 
 examples of excellence which our modern painters are 
 beginning to feel and to understand, and which the 
 great Eaphael himself did not disdain to study, and even 
 to copy. 
 
 As yet the purposes to which painting was applied 
 were almost wholly of a religious character. No sooner 
 was a church erected than the walls were covered with 
 representations of sacred subjects, either from Scriptural 
 history or the legends of saints. Devout individuals 
 or families built and consecrated chapels; and then, 
 at great cost, employed painters either to decorate the 
 
56 CHARACTER OF EARLY ART. 
 
 walls or to paint pictures for the altars ; the Madonna 
 and Child, or the Crucifixion, were the favourite sub- 
 jects ; the donor of the picture or founder of the chapel 
 being often represented on his knees in a corner of the 
 picture, and sometimes (as more expressive of humility) 
 of most diminutive size, out of all proportion to the 
 other figures. Where the object was to commemorate 
 the dead, or to express at once the grief and the devo- 
 tion of the survivors, the subject was generally a " De- 
 position from the Cross" — that is, our Saviour taken 
 down from the cross, and lying in the arms of his 
 afflicted mother. The doors of the sacristies, and of the 
 presses in which the priests' vestments were kept, were 
 often covered with small pictures of Scriptural subjects ; 
 as were also the chests in which were deposited the 
 utensils for the Holy Sacrament. Almost all the small 
 moveable pictures of the 14th and 15th centuries which 
 have come down to us are either the borders or small 
 compartments cut out from the broken-up altarpieces 
 of chapels and oratories, or they are from the panels of 
 doors, from the covers of chests, or other pieces of eccle- 
 siastical furniture. In those days the idea of having 
 . pictures of any kind, far less pictures representing the 
 most awful scenes and mysteries of our religion, hung 
 as mere ornaments upon the walls of a room, had -never 
 occurred to any one. 
 
13. — Lolienzo Ghtbertt. 
 
 From Vasari's History. 
 
 fwje 5" 
 
( 57 ^ 
 
 LORENZO GHIBERTL 
 
 Born 1378, died 1455. 
 
 THE DOORS OF SAN GIOVANNI. 
 
 We are now to enter on a view of the progress of paint 
 ing in the fifteenth century — a period perhaps the most 
 remarkable in the whole history of mankind — distin- 
 guished by the most extraordinary mental activity, by 
 rapid improvement in the arts of life, by the first steady 
 advance in philosophical inquiry, by the restoration of 
 classical learning, and by two great events, of which 
 the results lie almost beyond the reach of calculation — 
 the invention of the art of printing, and the discovery 
 of America. 
 
 The progressive impulse which characterised this * 
 memorable period was felt not less in the fine arts : in 
 painting, the adoption of oils in the mixing of colours, 
 instead of the aqueous and glutinous vehicles formerly 
 nsed for the purpose, led to some most important re- 
 sults. But long before the general adoption of this and 
 other improvements in the materials employed, there - 
 had been a strong impulse given to the mental develop- 
 ment of art, of which we have to say a few words before 
 we come to treat further of the history and efforts of 
 individual minds. 
 
58 ' LORENZO GHIBERTI. [Born 1378. 
 
 During the fourteenth century the leading school of 
 art was that of Florence, and we find all Italy filled with 
 the scholars and imitators of Giotto ; but in the fifteenth 
 century there was a manifest striving after originality 
 of style, — a branching off into particular schools, dis- 
 tinguished by the predominance of some particular cha- 
 racteristic in the mode of treatment, — as expression, 
 form, colour, the tendency to the merely imitative, or 
 the aspiration towards the spiritual and ideal. At this 
 time we begin to hear of the Neapolitan, Umbrian, 
 Bolognese, Venetian, and Paduan schools as distinctly 
 characterised ; but from 1400 to 1450 we still find the 
 painters of Florence, Sienna, and Arezzo in advance of 
 all the rest in power, invention, fertility, and in the 
 application of knowledge and mechanical means to a 
 given end : and as in the thirteenth century we traced 
 the new influence given to modern art by Giotto back 
 to the sculptor Niccolo Pisano, so in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury we find the influence of another sculptor, Lorenzo 
 Ghiberti, producing an effect on his contemporaries, 
 mere especially his fellow-citizens, which, by develop- 
 ing and perfecting the principles of imitation on which 
 Giotto had worked, stamped that peculiar character on 
 Florentine art which distinguished it all through the 
 century of which we have now to speak, and the begin- 
 ning of the next. 
 
 For these reasons, the story of Ghiberti, and the 
 casting of the famous doors of San Giovanni, may be 
 considered as an epoch in the history of painting : we 
 shall find, as we proceed, almost every great name, and 
 every important advance in art, connected with it 
 
Died 1455.] THE DOORS OF SAN GIOVANNI. 59 
 
 directly or indirectly, while the system of competition 
 which has been adopted with regard to the designs 
 for our Houses of Parliament and other public monu- 
 ments lends a particular interest and application to this 
 beautiful anecdote. 
 
 Florence, at the period of which we speak, was at 
 the head of all the states of Italy, and at the height of 
 its prosperity. The government was essentially demo- 
 cratic in spirit and form ; every class and interest in 
 the state, the aristocracy, the military, merchants, trades- 
 men, and mechanics, had each a due share of power, and 
 served to balance each other. The family of the Medici, 
 who a century later seized on the sovereignty, were at 
 this time only among the most distinguished citizens, 
 and members of a great mercantile house, at the head 
 of which was Giovanni, the father of Cosmo de' Medici. 
 The trades were divided into guilds or companies, called 
 Arti, which were represented in the government by 
 twenty-four Consoli, or consuls. It was the consuls of 
 the guild of merchants who, in the year 1401, under- 
 took to erect a second gate or door of bronze to the 
 Baptistery of St. John, which should form a pendant to 
 the first, executed in the preceding century (1330), by 
 Andrea Pisano, from the designs of Giotto, and repre- 
 senting in rich sculpture the various events of the life 
 of St. John the Baptist.* To equal or surpass this 
 
 * A Baptistery, as its name irnpoi-ts, is an edifice used for the 
 purposes of baptism, and always dedicated to St. John the Baptist. 
 The Baptistery of San Giovanni at Florence is a large chapel of an 
 octangular form, surmounted by a dome : on three of the sides are 
 entrances. It is an appendage of the cathedral, though separate 
 from it. 
 
60 LORENZO GHIBERTI. [Born 1378. 
 
 beautiful door, which had been for half a century the 
 admiration of all Italy, was the object proposed, and no 
 expense was to be spared in its attainment. 
 
 The Signoria, or members of the chief government, 
 acting in conjunction with' the Consoli, made known this 
 munificent resolve through all Italy, and in consequence 
 not only the best artists of Florence, but many from 
 other cities, particularly Sienna and Bologna, assembled 
 on this occasion, From among a great number, seven 
 were selected by the Consoli as worthy to compete for 
 the work, upon terms not merely just, but munificent. 
 Each competitor received, besides his expenses, a fair 
 indemnity for his labour for one year. The subject 
 proposed was the Sacrifice of Isaac, and at the end of 
 the year each artist was required to give in a design, 
 executed in bronze, of the same size as one of the com- 
 partments of the old door, that is, about two feet square. 
 
 There were thirty-four judges, principally artists, 
 some natives of Florence, others strangers ; each was 
 obliged to give his vote in public, and to state at the 
 same time the reasons by which his vote was justified. 
 The names of the seven competitors, as given by Vasari, 
 were — Jacopo della Quercia, of Sienna ; Nicolo d' Arezzo, 
 his pupil ; Simon da Colle, celebrated already for his 
 fine workmanship in bronze, from which he was sur- 
 named Simon dei Bronzi ; Francesco di Valdambrina ; 
 Filippo Brunelleschi ; Donato, better known as Dona- 
 tello ; and Lorenzo Ghiberti. 
 
 Lorenzo was at this time about twenty-three ; he was 
 the son of a Florentine named Cione, and of a family 
 which had attained to some distinction in Florence. 
 
Died 1455.] THE DOORS OF SAN GIOVANNI. 61 
 
 The mother of Lorenzo, left a widow at an early age, 
 married a worthy man named Bartoluccio, known for 
 his skill as a goldsmith. The goldsmiths of those days 
 were not merely artisans, but artists in the high sense 
 of the word ; they generally wrought their own designs, 
 consisting of figures and subjects from sacred or classical 
 stoiy, exquisitely chased in relief, or engraved or ena- 
 melled on the shrines or chalices used in the Church 
 service ; or vases, dishes, sword-hilts, and other imple- 
 ments. 
 
 The arts of drawing and modelling, then essential to 
 a goldsmith, as well as practical skill in chiselling, and 
 founding and casting metals, were taught to the young 
 Lorenzo by his father-in-law ; and his progress was so 
 rapid, that at the age of nineteen or twenty he had 
 already secured to himself the patronage of the Prince 
 Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Pesaro, and was employed 
 in the decoration of his palace when Bartoluccio sent 
 him notice of the terms of the competition for the exe- 
 cution of the doors of San Giovanni. Lorenzo imme- 
 diately hastened to present himself as one of the com- 
 petitors, and, on giving evidence of his acquired skill, 
 he was accepted among the elected seven. They had 
 each their workshop and furnace apart, and it is related 
 that most of them jealously kept their designs secret 
 from the rest : but Lorenzo, who had all the modest 
 self-assurance of conscious genius, did not ; on the con- 
 trary, he listened gratefully to any suggestion or criticism 
 which was offered, admitting his friends and distin- 
 guished strangers to his atelier while his work was going 
 forward. To this candour he added a persevering 
 
62 LORENZO GHIBERTI. [Born 1378. 
 
 courage ; for when, after incredible labour, lie had com- 
 pleted his models, and made his preparations for casting, 
 some flaw or accident in the process obliged him to 
 begin all over again, he supplied this loss of time by 
 the most unremitting labour, and at the end of the year 
 he was not found behind his competitors. When the 
 seven pieces were exhibited together in public, it was 
 adjudged that the work of Quercia was wanting in 
 delicacy and finish; that of Valdambrina confused in 
 composition ; that of Simon da Colle well cast, but ill 
 drawn ; that of Niccolo d'Arezzo heavy and ill-propor- 
 tioned in the figures, though well composed ; in short, 
 but three among the number united the various merits 
 of composition, design, and delicacy of workmanship, 
 and were at once preferred before the rest. These three 
 were the work of Brunelleschi, then in his twenty-fifth 
 year; Donatello, then about eighteen; and Lorenzo 
 Ghiberti, not quite twenty-three. The suffrages seemed 
 divided ; but after a short pause, and the exchange of 
 a few whispered words, Brunelleschi and Donatello 
 withdrew, generously agreeing and proclaiming aloud 
 that Lorenzo had excelled them all, that to him alone 
 belonged the prize ; and this judgment, as honourable 
 to themselves as to their rival, was confirmed amid the 
 acclamations of the assembly.* 
 
 * The three are preserved in the Camera de' Bronzi, in the Florence 
 Gallery ; and in the set of engravings from the three doors, pub- 
 lished by Lasinio, the designs by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi are 
 placed side by side, and may be compared. The superiority of the 
 former, in point of elegance, is at once apparent. See ' Le tre 
 Porte del Battisterio di San Giovanni di Firenze, incise ed illustrate,' 
 1821. There is a copy in the British Museum. 
 
Died 1455.] THE DOORS OF SAN GIOVANNI. 63 
 
 The citizens of Florence were probably not less de- 
 sirous than we should be in our day to behold the com- 
 pletion of a work begun with so much solemnity. But 
 the great artist who had undertaken it was not hurried 
 into carelessness by their impatience or his own ; nor 
 did he contract to finish it, like a blacksmith's job, in a 
 given time. He set about it with all due gravity and 
 consideration, yet, as he describes his own feelings in 
 his own words, con grandissima diligenza e grandissimo amove, 
 "with infinite diligence and infinite love." He began 
 his designs and models in 1402, and in twenty-two 
 years from that time, that is, in 1424, the door was 
 finished and erected in its place. As in the first door 
 Andrea Pisano had chosen for his theme the life of John 
 the Baptist, the precursor of the Saviour, and the patron 
 saint of the Baptistery, Lorenzo continued the history 
 of the Eedemption in a series of subjects from the An- 
 nunciation to the descent of the Holy Ghost ; these he 
 represented in twenty panels or compartments, ten on 
 each of the folding-doors, and below these eight others 
 containing the full-length effigies of the four evangelists 
 and the four doctors of the Latin Church — grand, ma- 
 jestic figures ; — and all around a border of rich orna- 
 ments, fruit, and foliage, and heads of the prophets and 
 the sibyls intermingled, wondrous for the beauty of the 
 design and excellence of the workmanship ; the whole 
 was cast in bronze, and weighed thirty-four thousand 
 pounds of metal. 
 
 Such was the glory which this great work conferred 
 not only on Lorenzo himself, but the whole city of 
 Florence, that he was regarded as a public benefactor, 
 
64 LORENZO GHIBERTI. [Born 1378. 
 
 and shortly afterwards the same company confided to 
 him the execution of the third gate of the same edifice, 
 The gate of Andrea Pisano, formerly the principal 
 entrance, was removed to the side, and Lorenzo was 
 desired to construct a central door which was to surpass 
 the two lateral ones in beauty and richness. He chose this 
 time the history of the Old Testament, the subjects being 
 selected by Leonardo Bruni d'Arezzo, chancellor of the 
 republic, and represented by Ghiberti in ten compart- 
 ments, each two and a half feet square, beginning with 
 the Creation, and ending with the Meeting of Solomon 
 and the Queen of Sheba ; and he enclosed the whole in 
 an elaborate border or frame composed of intermingled 
 fruits and foliage, and full-length figures of the heroes 
 and prophets and prophetesses of the Old Testament, 
 standing in niches, to the number of twenty-four, each 
 about fourteen inches high, wonderful for their various 
 and appropriate character, for correct, animated design, 
 and delicacy of workmanship. This door, of the same 
 material and weight as the former, was assigned to him 
 in 1424, and the ten compartments finished in 1447 ; 
 but the ornaments and small figures around were not 
 completed till 1450 ; the whole was gilt and set up in 
 its place by Lorenzo and his son Yittorio in 1452. 
 
 It is especially worthy of remark that the only fault 
 of these otherwise faultless works was precisely that 
 character of style which rendered them so influential as a 
 school of imitation and emulation for painters. The sub- 
 jects are in sculpture, in relief, and cast in the hardest, 
 severest, darkest, and most inflexible of all manageable 
 materials — in bronze. Yet they are treated throughout 
 
Died 1455.] THE DOORS OF SAN GIOVANNI. - 65 
 
 much more in accordance with the principles of paint- 
 ing than with those of sculpture. Yv r e have here groups 
 of numerous figures, near or receding from the eye in 
 just gradations of size and relief, according to the rules 
 of perspective ; different actions of the same story re- 
 presented on different planes; buildings of elaborate 
 architecture ; landscape, trees, and animals : in short, 
 a dramatic and scenic style of conception and effect 
 wholly opposed to the severe simplicity of classical 
 sculpture. Ghiberti's genius, notwithstanding the in- 
 flexible material in which he embodied his conceptions, 
 was in its natural bent pictorial rather than sculptural ; 
 and each panel of his beautiful gates is, in fact, a pic- 
 ture in relief, and must be considered and judged as 
 such. Regarding them in this point of view, and not 
 subjecting them to those rules of criticism which apply 
 to sculpture, we shall be able to appreciate the astonish- 
 ing fertility of invention exhibited in the various designs 
 — the felicity and clearness with which every story is 
 told, the grace and naivete of some of the figures,* the 
 simple grandeur of others, the luxuriant fancy displayed 
 in the ornaments, and the perfection with which the 
 whole is executed ; and to echo the energetic praise Oi 
 Michael Angelo, who pronounced these gates " worthy to 
 be the Gates of Paradise I " 
 
 Complete sets of casts from these celebrated composi- 
 tions are now to be found in most of the collections and 
 academies on the Continent. King Louis Philippe pre- 
 sented a set to our Government School of Design. In 
 
 * The angels in the woodcut are a perfect example of this grace 
 and simplicity. 
 
 F 
 
66 LORENZO GHTBERTI. [Born 1378 
 
 the Crystal Palace a set of the casts, with all the orna- 
 ments, has been most artistically put together and 
 coloured in imitation of bronze, so as to give a very 
 perfect idea of the present state of these gates ; it must 
 not be forgotten, however, that they were originally 
 gilt. 
 
 Lorenzo Ghiberti died in the year 1455, at the age of 
 seventy-seven. His former competitors, Brunelleschi 
 and Donatello, remained his friends through life, and 
 have left behind them names not less celebrated, the 
 one as an architect, the other as a sculptor. 
 
 This is the history of those famous gates 
 
 " So marvellously wrought, 
 That they might serve to be the gates of Eleaven I " 
 
14. — Fra Filtppo Lippi. 
 
 From Vasari's History. Ed. 1568. 
 
 Pane 67. 
 
( 67 ) 
 
 F1LIPP0 LIPPI, 
 
 Born 1400, died 1469 ; 
 
 AXD 
 
 ANGELICO DA FIESOLE, 
 
 Born 1387, died 1455. 
 
 Contemporary with Lorenzo Ghiberti lived two painters, 
 both gifted with surpassing genius, both of a religious 
 order, being professed monks ; in all other respects the 
 very antipodes of each other ; and we find the very oppo- 
 site impulses given by these remarkable men prevailing 
 through the rest of the century at Florence and else- 
 where. From this period we date the great schism in 
 modern art, though the seeds of this diversity of feeling 
 and purpose were sown in the preceding century. We 
 now find, on the one side, a race of painters who culti- 
 vated with astonishing success all the mental and me- 
 chanical aids that could be brought to bear on their 
 profession ; profoundly versed in the knowledge of the 
 human form, and intent on studying and imitating the 
 various effects of nature in colour and in light and shade, 
 without any other aspiration than the representation of 
 beauty for ite own sake, and the pleasure and the triumph 
 
 of difficulties overcome. On the other hand, we find a race 
 
 -f 2 
 
68 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. [Born 1400. 
 
 of painters to whom the cultivation of art was a sacred 
 vocation — the representation of beauty a means, not an 
 end ; by whom Nature in her various aspects was studied 
 and deeply studied, but only for the purpose of embodying 
 whatever we can conceive or reverence as highest, holiest, 
 purest in heaven and earth, in such forms as should best 
 connect them with our intelligence and with our sym- 
 pathies. 
 
 The two classes of painters who devoted their genius 
 to these very diverse aims have long been distinguished 
 in German and Italian criticism as the Naturalists and 
 the Idealists or Mystics, and these denominations are now 
 becoming familiarized in our own language. During the 
 fifteenth century we find in the various schools of art 
 scattered through Italy these different aims more or less 
 apparent, sometimes approximating, sometimes diverging 
 into extremes, but the distinction always apparent ; and 
 the influence exercised by those who pursued their art 
 with such very different objects — with such very dif- 
 ferent feelings — was of course different in its result. 
 Painting, however, during this century was still almost 
 wholly devoted to ecclesiastical purposes; it deviated 
 into the classical and secular in only two places, Florence 
 and Padua. 
 
 In the convent of the Carmelites, where Masaccio 
 painted his famous frescoes, was a young monk, one 
 whom poverty had driven, as a child, to take refuge 
 there, and who had afterwards taken the habit from 
 necessity rather than from inclination. His name was 
 Filippo Lippi (which may be translated Philip the son 
 of Philip), but he is known in the history of art as Fra 
 
Died 1469.] HIS ADVENTURES. 69 
 
 Filippo (Friar Philip). In him, as in many others, the 
 bent of the genius was early decided, for nature had 
 made him a painter.* He was son of a butcher, born 
 1412, and was left an orphan 2 years later. The 
 patient investigations of Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle v"" 
 and others prove, from authentic records, that the 
 greater part of Yasari's Life of him is without foun- 
 dation, a mere romance, though it is not possible to 
 disprove altogether the charge of immorality brought 
 against him. From 1420 to 1432 he remained an 
 inmate of the Carmine monastery, and perhaps studied 
 in the Brancacci chapel. In 1 432 he left the monastery. 
 It is probable that the connection of the friar with the 
 family of Cosmo de' Medici began at a much earlier 
 date than Vasari believed. 
 
 " The story of Lippi's capture by the pirates of 
 Barbary seems to be a romance, and there is no trace 
 either of his stay in Ancona, the place where he is 
 supposed to have been captured, or of his residence 
 in Naples, where he is said to have landed after his 
 captivity. Nor is it true that his withdrawal from 
 the convent in which he had been brought up involved 
 his abandonment of the frock, or at least of some species 
 of religious vow. We may note, on the contrary, that 
 in all the pictures which bear his signature he calls 
 himself 'Frater Filippus.' In a letter written by 
 Lippi to Piero de' Medici, dated August 13, 1439, the 
 
 * On a comparison of dates it appears that Fra Filippo did not 
 owe his first inspiration to Masaceio, for he was at least thirty years 
 of age when the frescoes in the chapel of the Carmine were under- 
 taken. 
 
70 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. [Born 1400. 
 
 Fra clearly describes his condition when he says, ' I am 
 one of the poorest friars of Florence.' This note indeed 
 is one of the most direct contradictions to the general 
 tenor of Yasari's narrative respecting Fra Filippo that 
 can be conceived. It paints the man, and gives such 
 an insight into his struggles as to create a lively 
 sympathy in his favour."* 
 
 Under the patronage of the Medici family he painted 
 at Florence a great number of admirable pictures, and 
 was called upon to decorate many convents and churches 
 in the neighbourhood. He is known to have been very 
 poor, and constantly in want of money ; but the follow- 
 ing story of his extreme profligacy rests solely on the 
 authority of Vasari, and its truth may be fairly doubted. 
 It is alleged that, being called upon to paint a Madonna 
 for the convent of St. Margaret at Prato, he persuaded 
 the sisterhood to allow a beautiful novice, whose name 
 was Lucretia Buti, to sit to him for a model. In the end 
 he seduced this girl, and carried her off from the con- 
 vent, to the great scandal of the community and the 
 inexpressible grief and horror of her father and family. 
 The best answer to this charge of profligacy perhaps is 
 the fact that Filippo was then an old man nearly 60 ; that 
 he had been elected in 1452 chaplain to a nunnery in Flo- 
 rence, and in 1457 was rector of St. Quirico at Legnaia. 
 
 Filippo Lippi was undoubtedly a man of extra- 
 ordinary genius : he adopted and carried on all the 
 improvements of Masaccio, and was the first who in- 
 vented that particular style of grandeur and breadth 
 
 * Crowe and Cavalcaselle's JSe\v History of Italian Painters, 
 vol. ii. p. 323. 
 
Died 1469.] WORKS OF FRA FILIPPO. 71 
 
 in the drawing of his figures, the grouping, and the 
 contrast of light and- shade, afterwards carried to such' , 
 perfection by Andrea del Sarto. He was one of the 
 earliest painters who introduced landscape backgrounds, 
 painted with some feeling for the truth of nature ; but * 
 the expression he gave to his personages, though always 
 energetic, was often inappropriate, and never calm or 
 elevated : in the representation of sacred incidents he \ 
 was sometimes fantastic and sometimes vulgar ; and 
 he was the first who desecrated such subjects by in- 
 troducing the portraits of women who happened to be 
 the objects of his preference at the moment. There 
 are many pictures by Fra Filippo in the churches a^ 
 Florence, particularly in the Augustine church of the 
 Santo Spirito ; two in the gallery of the Academy there ; 
 five in the Berlin Museum. In the Louvre there is one 
 undoubtedly genuine, and of great beauty, marked by 
 all his characteristics; it represents the Madonna 
 standing, and holding the infant Saviour in her arms ; 
 on each side are angels; and two bishops of the 
 Augustine Order, St. Frediano and St. Gregory, kneel 
 in front. The attitude of the Virgin is grand, the head 
 commonplace; the countenance of the infant Christ 
 heavy ; the angels, with crisped hair, have the faces of 
 street urchins ; but the adoring monks are wonderful 
 for the fine expression in their upturned faces, and 
 the whole picture is most admirably executed. It was 
 painted for the church of the Santo Spirito at Florence, 
 and is a celebrated production. In our National Gallery / 
 we have now a remarkable and authentic picture, 
 " the Vision of St. Bernard ; " also two lunettes from 
 
72 ANGELICO DA FIESOLE. [Born 1387. 
 
 the Riccardi (Medici) palace, — the Annunciation, and 
 St. John the Baptist with six other saints. This extra- 
 ordinary man died at Spalato, it is said of poison, about 
 i 1469. He left a son, probably an adopted son, Filippo 
 Lippi, called Filippino (to distinguish him from his 
 father), who became in after years an excellent painter. 
 Contemporary with Era Filippo, or rather earlier in 
 point of date, lived the other painter-monk, presenting 
 in his life and character the strongest possible contrast 
 to the former. He was, as Yasari tells us, one who 
 might have lived a very agreeable life in the world, had 
 he not, impelled by a sincere and fervent spirit of devo- 
 Vins 9 tion, retired from it at the age of twenty to bury himself 
 within the walls of a cloister : a man with whom the 
 practice of a beautiful art was thenceforth a hymn of 
 praise, and every creation of his pencil an act of piety 
 and charity, and who, in seeking only the glory of God, 
 earned an immortal glory among men. This was Fka 
 Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole, whose name, before he 
 entered the convent, was Guido or Guidolino. He has 
 since obtained, from the holiness of his life, the title of 
 H Beato, " the Blessed," by which he is often mentioned 
 in Italian histories of art. He was born in 1387, near 
 Fiesole, and in 1407, being then twenty, and already 
 skilled in the art of painting, particularly miniature 
 illuminations of Missals and choral books, he, with one 
 of his brothers named Benedetto, also a painter, entered 
 the Dominican convent of St. Mark at Florence, and 
 took the habit of the Order. It is not known exactly 
 under whom he studied, but he is said to have been 
 taught by Stamina, the best colourist of that time. The 
 
15. — Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, called II Beato 
 Angelico. 
 
 From a fresco by Fra Bartolommeo at Florence. 
 Engraved by G. B. Nocchi. 
 
 Page 72. 
 
jf 
 
Died U55.] CHARACTER OF ANGELICO.' 73 
 
 rest of his long life of seventy years presents only one 
 unbroken tranquil stream of placid contentment and 
 pious labours. Except on one occasion, when called to 
 Eome by Pope ^Nicholas V. to paint in the Vatican, he 
 never left his convent, and then only yielded to the 
 express command of the pontiff. While he was at Eome 
 the Archbishopric of Florence became vacant, and the^ 
 pope, struck by the virtue and learning of Angelico, 
 and the simplicity and sanctity of his life, offered to 
 install him in that dignity, one of the greatest in the 
 power of the papal see to bestow. Angelico refused it 
 from excess of modesty, pointing out at the same time 
 to the notice of the pope one of the monks of his con- 
 vent as much more worthy of the honour, and by his 
 active talents more fitted for the office. The pope list- 
 ened to his recommendation ; Frate Antonio was raised 
 to the see, and became celebrated as the best Archbishop 
 of Florence that had been known for two centuries. 
 Meanwhile Angelico pursued his vocation in the still 
 precincts of his quiet monastery, and, being as assiduous 
 as he was devout, he painted a great number of pic- 
 tures, some in distemper and on a small scale, to which 
 he gave all the delicacy and finish of miniature ; and in 
 his own convent of San Marco many large frescoes, with 
 numerous figures nearly life size, as full of grandeur as 
 of beauty. He painted only sacred subjects, and never • 
 for money. Those who wished for any work of his 
 hand were obliged to apply to the prior of the convent, 
 from whom Angelico received with humility the order 
 or the permission to execute it, and thus the brother- 
 hood was at once enriched by his talent and edified by 
 
74 ANGELICO DA FIESOLE. [Born 1387. 
 
 his virtue. To Angelico the act of painting a picture 
 devoted to religious purposes was an act of religion, for 
 which he prepared himself by fasting and prayer, im- 
 ploring on bended knees the benediction of Heaven on 
 his work ; he then, under the impression that he had 
 obtained the blessing he sought, and glowing with what 
 might truly be called inspiration, took up his pencil ; 
 and mingling with his earnest and pious humility a sin- 
 gular species of self-uplifted enthusiasm, he could never 
 be persuaded to alter his first draught or composition, 
 believing that which he had done was according to the 
 will of God, and could not be changed for the better by 
 any afterthought of his own or suggestion from others. 
 All the works left by Angelico are in harmony with 
 this gentle, devout, enthusiastic spirit. They are not 
 remarkable for the usual merits of the Florentine school : 
 they are not addressed to tne taste of connoisseurs, but 
 to the faith of worshippers. Correct drawing of the 
 human figure could not be expected from one who 
 regarded the exhibition of the undraped form as a sin ; 
 in the learned distribution of light and shade, in the 
 careful imitation of nature in the details, and in variety 
 , of expression, many of his contemporaries excelled him ; 
 but none approached him in that poetical and religious 
 fervour which he threw into his heads of saints and 
 Madonnas. Power is not the characteristic of Angelico ; 
 wherever he has had to express energy of action, or 
 bad or angry passions, he has generally failed. In his 
 pictures of the Crucifixion and the Stoning of St. 
 Stephen, the executioners and the rabble are feeble 
 and often ill drawn, and his~ fallen angels and devils 
 
Died 1455.] ALTARPIECE IN THE LOUVRE. 75 
 
 are anything but devilish ; while, on the other hand, 
 the pathos of suffering, of pity, of divine resignation 
 — the expression of extatic faith and hope, or serene 
 contemplation, have never been placed before us as in 
 his pictures. In the heads of his young angels, in the 
 purity and beatitude of his female saints, he has never 
 been excelled — not even by Eaphael. 
 
 The principal works of Angelico are the frescoes in 
 the church of his own convent of St. Mark at Florence ; 
 an exquisite reliquary or tabernacle, painted in minia- 
 ture, in the sacristy of Santa Maria Novella ; another 
 Jarge tabernacle of an enthroned Madonna in the 
 Florence Gallery, in which the angels are surprising 
 for their celestial grace ; at Rome, the stories of St. 
 Lawrence and St. Stephen in the chapel of Nicholas V. 
 In the Louvre is an altarpiece by him of surpassing 
 beauty. The subject is the Coronation of the Virgin 
 Mary by her son the Eedeemer, in the presence of 
 saints and angels. It represents a throne under a rich 
 Gothic canopy, to which there is an ascent by nine 
 steps; on the highest kneels the Virgin, veiled, her 
 hands crossed on her bosom. She is clothed in a red 
 tunic, a blue robe over it, and a royal mantle with a 
 rich border flowing down behind. The features are 
 most delicately lovely, and the expression of the face 
 full of humility and adoration. Christ, seated on the 
 throne, bends forward, and is in the act of placing the 
 crown on her head; on each side are twelve angels, 
 who are playing a heavenly concert with guitars, 
 tambourines, trumpets, viols, and other musical instru- 
 ments ; lower than these, on each side, are forty holy 
 
76 ANGELICO DA FIESOLE. [Born 1387. 
 
 personages of the Old and New Testament ; and at the 
 foot of the throne kneel several saints, male and female, 
 among them St. Catherine with her wheel, St. Agnes 
 with her lamb, and St. Cecilia crowned with flowers. 
 Beneath the principal picture there is a row of seven 
 small ones, forming the predella, and representing 
 various incidents in the life of St. Dominic. The 
 whole measures about seven and a half feet high by 
 six feet in width. It is painted in distemper; the 
 glories round the heads of the sacred personages are 
 in gold ; the colours are the most delicate and vivid 
 imaginable, and the ample draperies have the long 
 folds which recall the school of Giotto ; the gaiety and 
 harmony of the tints, the expression of the various 
 heads, the divine rapture of the angels with their air 
 of immortal youth, and the devout reverence of the 
 other personages, the unspeakable serenity and beauty 
 of the whole composition, render this picture worthy of 
 the celebrity it has enjoyed for more than four cen- 
 turies. It was painted by Frate Angelico for the 
 church of St. Dominic at Fiesole, where it remained till 
 the beginning of the present century. How obtained 
 it does not appear, but it was purchased by the French 
 Government in 1812, and is now to be seen in the 
 long gallery of the Louvre, on the left hand near the 
 entrance.* 
 
 * A very good set of outlines were engraved and published at 
 Paris, with explanatory notes by A. "W. Schlegel ; and to those who 
 have no opportunity of seeing the original, these engravings will 
 convey some faint idea of the composition, and of the exquisite and 
 benign beauty of the angelic heads. 
 
Died 1455.] HIS DEATH. 77 
 
 It is a curious circumstance that the key of the 
 chapel of Pope Nicholas V. in the Vatican, in which 
 Angelico painted some of his most beautiful frescoes, 
 was for two centuries lost, and few persons were aware 
 of their existence, fewer still set any value on them. 
 In 1769 those who wished to see them were obliged to 
 enter by a window. 
 
 Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole died at Eome in 
 1455, and is buried there in the church of Santa Maria 
 sopra Minerva, where his monument may now be seen 
 and contemplated with that reverence due to his ex- 
 celling powers as an artist and his most pious and 
 blameless life. 
 
{ 78 ) 
 
 v 
 
 MASACC10. 
 
 BOEN 1400, DIED 1443. 
 
 It is easily conceivable that, during the forty years 
 which Lorenzo Ghiberti devoted to his great work, and 
 to other undertakings on which he was employed at in- 
 tervals, the assistance he required in completing his own 
 designs, in drawing, modelling, casting, polishing, should 
 have formed round him a school of young artists who 
 worked and studied under his eye. The kind of work 
 on which they were employed gave these young men 
 great superiority in the knowledge of the human fomi, 
 and in effects of relief, light and shade, &c. The appli- 
 cation of the sciences of anatonry, mathematics, and 
 geometry to the arts of design, began to be more fully 
 understood. This early school of painters was favour- 
 ably distinguished above the later schools of Italy by a 
 generous feeling of mutual aid, emulation, and admira- 
 tion among the youthful students, far removed from the 
 detestable jealousies, the stabbings, poisonings, and con- 
 spiracies, which we read of in the seventeenth century. 
 Among those who frequented the atelier of Lorenzo were 
 Paolo Uccello, the first who applied geometry to the 
 study of perspective ; he attached himself to this pursuit 
 with such unwearied assiduity, that it had nearly turned 
 
10. — Tomaso di San Giovanni, called Masaccio. 
 From the Portrait in the Brancacci Chapel. 
 
 Page 78. 
 
PAOLO UCCELLO. 79 
 
 his brain, and it was for his use and that of Brunelleschi 
 that Manetti, one of the earliest Greek scholars and 
 mathematicians in modern Europe, translated the ' Ele- 
 ments of Euclid;' Maso Finiguerra, who invented the. 
 art of engraving on copper ; Pollaiuolo, the first painter 
 who studied anatomy by dissection, and who became the 
 instructor of Michael Angelo ; and Masolino, who had 
 been educated under Stamina, the best colourist of that 
 time. 
 
 Paolo Uccello was one of the first of the early painters 
 who studied the imitation of animals, particularly birds 
 (Uccelli, — whence he derived his surname) and horses. 
 He assisted Ghiberti in modelling the animals and 
 foliage introduced into his first set of gates, and by him 
 there is a curious picture (lately acquired) in our Na- 
 tional Gallery, ' The Battle of Sant' Egidio' (1416), in 
 which Carlo Malatesta of Eimini and his nephew Ga- 
 leazzo were taken prisoners : the young Galeazzo, with 
 his fair hair uncovered; is seen in front. This picture 
 is historically interesting and most curious, as the earliest \ 
 attempt to represent such a scene. The horses, which 
 appear to us absolutely lifeless and wooden, were won- 
 derful for the time. 
 
 There was also a young boy, scarcely in his teens, who 
 learned to draw and model by studying the works of 
 Ghiberti, and who, though not considered as his disciple, 
 after a while left all the regular pupils far behind him. He 
 had come from a little village about eighteen miles from 
 Florence, called San Giovanni, and of his parentage and 
 early years little is recorded, and that little is doubtful. 
 His name was properly Tommaso Guido, or, from the 
 
80 MASACCIO. [Eorn 1400. 
 
 place of his birth, Maso di San Giovanni ; but from his 
 abstracted air, his ntter indifference to the usual sports 
 and pursuits of boyhood, his negligent dress and manners, 
 v/ Ihis companions called him Masaccio, which might be 
 translated ugly or slovenly Tom ; and by this reproachful 
 nickname one of the most illustrious of painters is now 
 known throughout the world and to all succeeding gene- 
 rations. Masaccio was one of those rare and remarkable 
 
 v men whose vocation is determined beyond recall almost 
 from infancy. He made his first essays as a child in his 
 native village ; and in the house in which he was born 
 they long preserved the effigy of an old woman spinning, 
 which he had painted when a mere boy on the wall of 
 his chamber, astonishing for its life-like truth. Coming 
 to Florence when about thirteen, he commenced his 
 studies, acquiring the principles of design under 
 Ghiberti and Donatello, and the art of perspective 
 under Brunelleschi. The passionate energy and forget- 
 
 - fulness of all the common interests and pleasures of life 
 with which he pursued his favourite art obtained him, 
 at an early age, the notice of Cosmo de' Medici. Then 
 intervened the civil troubles of the republic : Cosmo was 
 banished; and Masaccio left Florence to pursue his 
 studies at Rome -with the same ardour, and with all the 
 advantages afforded by the remains of ancient art col- 
 lected there. 
 
 While at Eome, Masaccio painted in the church of San 
 Clemente a Crucifixion, and some scenes from the life 
 of St. Catherine of Alexandria ; but unhappily these 
 
/ 
 
 Died 1443.] FRESCOES IN THE CARMINE. 81 
 
 have been so coarsely painted over, that every vestige 
 of Masaccio's hand has disappeared — only the composi- 
 tion remains ; and from the engravings which exist some 
 idea may "be formed of their beauty and simplicity.* 
 
 Cosmo de' Medici was recalled from banishment in 
 1433 ; and soon afterwards, probably through his patron- 
 age and influence, the completion of the chapel of St. 
 Peter in the church of the Carmine, left unfinished by 
 Masolino, was intrusted to Masaccio. 
 
 This chapel is in the form of a parallelogram, and 
 three sides are covered with the frescoes, divided into 
 twelve compartments, of which four are large and oblong, 
 and the rest narrow and upright. All represent scenes 
 from the life of St. Peter, except two, which are imme- 
 diately on each side as you enter — Adam and Eve in 
 Paradise, and the Expulsion from Paradise — which are 
 here introduced because St. Peter, according to the 
 popular legend, was keeper of the gates of Paradise. Of 
 the twelve compartments, two" had been painted by 
 Masolino previous to 1415 — the preaching of St. Peter, 
 one of the small compartments, and the St. Peter and St. 
 John healing the Cripple, one of the largest. In this 
 fresco are introduced two beautiful youths, or pages, in 
 the dress of the patricians of Florence. Nothing can be 
 more unaffectedly elegant ; they would make us regret 
 that the death of Masolino left others to complete his 
 
 * In Ottley's 'Early Italian School ' there is an engraving of St. 
 Catherine disputing with the Heathen Philosophers. In Rosini are 
 others. Both these works may be consulted in the British Museum 
 
82 MASACCIO. [Born 1400. 
 
 undertaking, had he not been . succeeded by Masaccio 
 and Filippino Lippi. 
 
 Six of the compartments, two large and four small 
 ones, were executed by Masaccio. These represent St. 
 Peter taking the Tribute-money from the mouth of the 
 fish ; Peter raising a Youth to Life ; Peter baptizing the 
 Converts ; Peter and John healing the Sick and Lame ; 
 the same Apostles distributing Alms ; and the Expulsion 
 of Adam and Eve from Paradise. 
 
 The scene represented in one of these large compart- 
 ments is an incident in the apocryphal History of the 
 Apostles. Simon the Magician challenged Peter and 
 Paul to restore to life a dead youth, who is said to have 
 been a kins'man or nephew of the Roman emperor. The 
 sorcerer fails of course. The Apostles resuscitate the 
 youth, who kneels before them ; the skull and bones near 
 him represent the previous state of death : a crowd of 
 spectators stand around beholding the miracle. The 
 figures are half the size of life, and quite wonderful for 
 the truth of expression, the variety of character, the 
 simple dignity of the forms and attitudes. Masaccio died 
 while at work on this grand picture, and the central 
 group was painted some years later by Filippino Lippi, 
 the son of Fra Filippo. The figure of the youth in the 
 centre is traditionally said to be that of the painter 
 Granacci, then a boy. Among the figures standing 
 round are several contemporary portraits : Piero Guic- 
 ciardini, father of the great historian ; Luigi Pulci, the 
 poet, author of the ' Morgante Maggiore ; * Antonio Pol- 
 laiuolo, the painter ; and others. 
 
**#^ 
 
 17. — Filippino Lippi. 
 
 Engraved in the 1 568 edition of Vasari. 
 
 Page 83. 
 
Died 1443.] FILIPPINO LIPPI. 83 
 
 The fresco of the two Apostles Peter and John accused 
 by Simon Magus before the throne of Nero, and the 
 Crucifixion of Peter, are now attributed to Filippino 
 Lippi. To him also belongs the grand figure of St. Paul 
 standing before the Prison of St. Peter, which Raphael 
 transferred with little alteration into his cartoon of St. 
 Paul preaching at Athens. The four remaining com- 
 partments were added many years later (about 1470), 
 by the same Filippino Lippi, of whom I must say a few 
 words here, as we possess two of his pictures in the 
 National Gallery, which indeed cannot be accounted 
 among his best, but are genuine and valuable. He was 
 the adopted son of Fra Filippo, some say his natural 
 son by Lucrezia Buti ; be this as it may, Fra Filippo, 
 dying when he was about nine years old, bequeathed 
 him to the love and care of another painter-monk, his 
 friend Fra Diamante. With him and Sandro Botticelli, 
 an admirable artist of that time, Filippino pursued his 
 studies, and, gifted with all the genius of his father, 
 but without his faults, he became one of the greatest 
 painters of that time. There is a picture by him, 
 painted when he was about twenty, in the church of 
 the Badia at Florence, which for drawing, expression, 
 vigorous colour, and beauty of every kind, appeared 
 to me a wonder, even without regard to the early age 
 of the painter when it was executed. It represents 
 the Vision of St. Bernard (the same subject painted 
 by his father and in our National Gallery, but treated 
 in a very different manner). Another most admirable 
 picture by him is the altarpiece of the enthroned 
 Madonna and Child, attended by St. John the Baptist, 
 
84 MASACCIO. [Born 1400. 
 
 St. Zenobio, St. Bernard, and St. Vittorio, painted for the 
 chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico, and now in the Gallery 
 of Florence ; and in the same gallery is the Adoration of 
 the Magi — a richly-coloured splendid composition, with 
 heads worthy of Baphael : this was painted in his twenty- 
 fifth year. To his excellence as an artist Filippino 
 united irreproachable morals and the most courteous 
 and amiable manner, so that he was adored by his fellow- 
 citizens, and when he died in 1505 he was carried to the 
 . grave with public honours, all the shops being closed 
 along the way. 
 
 But to return to Masaccio. In considering his works, 
 their superiority over all that painting had till then 
 achieved or attempted is such, and so surprising, that 
 there seems a kind of break in the progression of the art 
 — as if Masaccio had overleaped suddenly the limits which 
 his predecessors had found impassable ; but Ghiberti and 
 his Gates explain the seeming wonder. The chief ex- 
 cellences of Masaccio were those which he had attained, 
 or at least conceived, in his early studies in modelling. 
 He had learned from Ghiberti not merely the knowledge 
 of form, but the effects of light and shade in giving relief 
 and roundness to his figures, which, in comparison to 
 those of his predecessors, seemed to start from the canvas. 
 He was the first who successfully foreshortened the 
 extremities. In most of the older pictures the figures 
 appeared to stand on the points of their toes— the fore- 
 shortening of the foot, though often attempted with more 
 or less success, seemed to present insurmountable diffi- 
 culties. Masaccio added a precision in the drawing of 
 
Died 1443.] CHAPEL OF THE BRANCACCI. 85 
 
 the naked figure, and a softness and harmony in colouring 
 the flesh, never attained before his time, nor since sur- 
 passed till the days of Eaphael and Titian. He excelled 
 also in the expression and imitation of natural actions 
 and feelings. In the fresco of St. Peter baptizing the 
 Converts there is a youth who has just thrown off his 
 garment, and stands in the attitude of one shivering with 
 sudden cold. " This figure," says Lanzi, " formed an 
 epoch in art." Add the animation and variety of cha- 
 racter in his heads — so that it was said of him that he 
 painted souls as well as bodies — and his free-flowing 
 draperies, quite different from the longitudinal folds of 
 the Giotto school, yet grand and simple; and we can 
 form some idea of the combination of excellence with 
 novelty of style which astonished his contemporaries. 
 The Chapel of the Brancacci was for half a century what 
 the Camere of Eaphael in the Vatican have since become 
 — a school for young artists. Vasari enumerates by 
 name twenty painters who were accustomed to study 
 there ; among them, Lionardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, 
 Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, Perugino,» Baccio 
 Bandinelli, and the divine Eaphael himself. Nothing 
 less than first-rate genius ever yet inspired genius ; and 
 the Chapel of the Brancacci has been rendered as sacred 
 and memorable by its association with such spirits, as it 
 is precious and wondrous as a monument of art. 
 
 " In this chapel wrought 
 One of the Few, Nature's interpreters ; 
 The Few, whom Genius gives as lights to shine — 
 Masaccio ; and he slumbers underneath. 
 "VVouldst thou behold his monument ? Look round, 
 And know that where we stand, stood oft and long, 
 
MASACCIO. [Born 1400. 
 
 Oft till the day was gone, Raphael himself, 
 He and his haughty rival * — patiently, 
 Humbly, to learn of those who came before, 
 To steal a spark of their authentic fire, 
 Theirs who first broke the universal gloom — 
 Sons of the morning." — Rogers. 
 
 No mention is here made of Filippino Lippi, one of 
 the brightest among these " sons of the morning," and 
 whose fame has been merged in that of Masaccio — un- 
 justly as we are now obliged to confess ; but when Lanzi 
 wrote, some of his finest pictures were attributed to 
 others. With regard to his precursor Masaccio, of him 
 little is known but his works. It is certain that he 
 disappeared suddenly and mysteriously from Florence, 
 in debt, leaving unfinished his finest fresco in the 
 Brancacci chapel : documents discovered in the present 
 century indicate that he died at Eome between 1427 
 and 1430. 
 
 The vexed question of his birth has also been set at 
 restf by recent investigations; it occurred in 1402 
 at Castel S. Giovanni di Val d'Arno, where his father 
 was a notary. He showed as a child a propensity 
 for drawing; at the age of 19 he was enrolled in the 
 Grocers' Guild at Florence, and soon after entered that 
 of the Painters. As to his early attainment of the 
 most wonderful skill in art, we may recollect several 
 other examples of precocious excellence : for instance, 
 Ghiberti, already mentioned ; Filippino, who painted 
 a masterpiece at the age of twenty ; Michael Angelo, 
 who executed the marble pieta in St. Peter's at the 
 
 * Michael Angelo. 
 
 t See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 'New History of Painting in Italy.' 
 
IJied 1443.] MASACCIO. 87 
 
 age of twenty-five ; and Raphael, who was summoned 
 to Rome to paint the great series of frescoes in the 
 Vatican in his twenty-seventh year. The head of 
 Masaccio, painted by himself, in the chapel of the 
 Brancacci, in the story of the Tribute-money, represents 
 him as a man apparently about four or five and 
 thirty.* (See woodcut.) 
 
 * For all that can be known respecting the life of Masaccio, the 
 date of his birth, and his share in the frescoes of the Brancacci 
 .Chapel, see the ' New History of Painting in Italy ' by Crowe and 
 Cavalcaselle, 1864-67. 
 
( 88 ) 
 
 BENOZZO GOZZOLL 
 
 Born 1424, died about 1485. 
 
 Fra Giovanni Angelico possessed, among his other 
 amiable qualities, one true characteristic of a generous 
 mind, the willingness to impart whatever he knew to 
 others; and notwithstanding the retirement in which 
 he lived, he had several pupils : but that which formed 
 the principal charm and merit of his productions, the 
 impress of individual mind, the profound sentiment of 
 piety, was incommunicable except to a kindred spirii 
 Hence it is that his influence, like the Prophetic mantle, 
 fell on those who had the power to catch it and retain 
 it, and is more apparent in its general results, as seen in 
 the schools of Umbria and Venice, than in any particular 
 painter or any particular work. Cosimo Eoselli, a dis- 
 tinguished artist of that time, is supposed to have. studied 
 under Angelico, and certainly began by imitating his 
 manner : afterwards he painted like Masaccio, and then 
 fell into a capricious manner, which strikes us as at 
 once hard and fantastic. There is a picture by him in 
 our National Gallery (an altarpiece dedicated to St. 
 Jerome), and of great interest, though marked by his 
 characteristic faults. A much more celebrated name is 
 
18. — Benozzo Gozzoli. 
 
 From Vasaris History. 
 
 Page 88. 
 
Died 1485.] BENOZZO GOZZOLI. 89 
 
 that of Benozzo Gozzoli, who was born at Florence 
 about 1424. 
 
 We know very little of the life of this extraordinary 
 man ; but that little shows him to have been worthy of 
 the particular love of his master, whose favourite pupil 
 and companion he was, and, during the last years of 
 Angelico's life, his assistant. According to Vasari, 
 Benozzo was an excellent man, and a good and pious 
 Christian, but he had no vocation for the cloister. No 
 painter of the time had such a lively sense of all the 
 beauty and variety of the external and material world. 
 For him beauty existed wherever he looked — wherever 
 he moved. He took such delight in the practice of his 
 art, that he had little time for other pursuits. He suc- 
 ceeded to the popularity of Angelico as a painter of 
 sacred subjects, into which he introduced much more 
 ornament, decorating them with landscapes, buildings, 
 animals, &c. It appears that he did not design the 
 figure more correctly than Angelico, nor equal him in 
 the profound feeling and celestial air of his heads ; but 
 he has shown more invention and variety in his compo- 
 sitions, and mingled with his grace a certain gaiety of 
 conception, a degree of movement and dramatic feeling, 
 which are not seen in the works of Angelico. 
 
 Benozzo, before the death of his master, painted some 
 frescoes in the cathedral at Orvieto, and in the churches 
 of the little town of Montefalco near Foligno, and also 
 at Eome in the church of the Ara-celi. The former 
 remain, but those in the Ara-celi have long since been 
 destroyed. All these were more or less in the style of 
 his master. After the death of Angelico, Benozzo was 
 
90 BENOZZO GOZZOLI. [Boiln 1424. 
 
 employed to paint the church of San Geminiano, a little 
 city on the road from Florence to Sienna. Here he 
 painted the Death of St. Sebastian, and the history of 
 St. Augustin ; and here some of his own peculiar cha- 
 racteristics were first displayed. For Pietro de' Medici 
 he painted a chapel in the palace of the Medici (now the 
 Palazzo Eicardi at Florence), the subject being the 
 Adoration of the Magi : over the altar was the Nativity 
 of our Lord (now removed) ; angels scattering flowers, 
 singing and rejoicing, approach on each side; while 
 round the walls is still seen the journey of the Wise 
 Kings from the land of the East, and their return to 
 their own country, in a procession of figures on foot and 
 on horseback, represented with the utmost elegance and 
 animation. In all the paintings he executed at this time 
 (1460) and afterwards, Benozzo introduced many figures, 
 generally the portraits of distinguished inhabitants of 
 the place, or those of his friends, grouped as spectators 
 round the principal incident or personage represented, 
 having nothing to do with the action, but so beautifully 
 managed, that, far from appearing intrusive, they rather 
 add to the solemnity and the poetry of the scene, as if 
 he would fain represent these sacred events as belonging 
 to all times, and still, as it were, passing before our eyes. 
 This observation must be borne in mind as generally 
 applicable to all sacred pictures, in which the apparent 
 anachronisms are not really such if properly considered. 
 Benozzo carried this and other characteristics of his own 
 original style still further in his greatest work, the deco- 
 ration of the Campo Santo. 
 
 When the troubles of war, famine, plague, and in- 
 
Died 1485.] FRESCOES IN THE CAMPO SANTO. 91 
 
 testine divisions which had distracted Pisa during the 
 first half of the fifteenth century had subsided, the 
 citizens of that rich and active republic resumed those 
 works of peace which had been long interrupted, and 
 resolved to complete the painting of their far-famed 
 cemetery, the Campo Santo. One whole side, the north 
 wall, was yet untouched: they intrusted the work to 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, who, though now old (upwards of 
 sixty) and worn with toil and trouble, did not hesitate 
 to undertake a task which, to use Vasari's strong ex- 
 pression, was nothing less than " terribilissima" and 
 enough " to frighten a whole legion of painters." In 
 twenty-four compartments he represented the whole 
 history of the Old Testament from Noah down to 
 King Solomon. The endless fertility of fancy and 
 invention displayed in these compositions; the pas- 
 toral beauty of some of the scenes, the Scriptural sub- 
 limity of others; the hundreds of figures introduced, 
 many of them portraits of his own time ; the dignity 
 and beauty of the heads ; the exquisite grace of some 
 of the figures, almost equal to Eaphael ; the ample dra- 
 peries, the gay rich colours, the profusion of accessories, 
 as buildings, landscapes, flowers, animals, and the care 
 and exactness with which he has rendered the costume 
 of that time — render this work of Benozzo one of the 
 most extraordinary monuments of the fifteenth century. 
 But it would have been more than extraordinary, it 
 would have been miraculous, had it been executed in the 
 space of two years, as Lanzi relates — trusting to a 
 popular tradition which a moment's reflection would 
 
92 BENOZZO GOZZOLI. [Born 1424. 
 
 have shown to be incredible. It appears from authentic 
 records still existing in the city of Pisa that Benozzo 
 was engaged on this great work not less than sixteen 
 years, from 1468 to 1484.* 
 
 Of the original frescoes, three out of the twenty-four 
 are entirely destroyed ; the others have peeled off in some 
 parts, but in others have been coarsely restored ; in many 
 figures the expression "of the features and the lucid har- 
 mony of the colours have remained. Each compartment 
 contains several incidents and events artlessly grouped 
 together. Thus we have Hagar's presumption, her casti- 
 gation by Sarah, the Visit of the three Angels, &c, in one 
 picture. Among the most beautiful subjects may be 
 mentioned the Vineyard of Noah, the first which Ben- 
 ozzo painted, as a trial of his skill. On the left of this 
 composition are two female figures — one who comes 
 tripping along with a basket of grapes on her head, the 
 other holding up her basket for more — which are models 
 of pastoral grace and simplicity. In the Building of the 
 Tower of Babel a crowd of spectators have assembled 
 to witness the work ; among them are introduced the 
 figures of Cosmo de' Medici, the Father of his country, 
 and his two grandsons Lorenzo and Giuliano, with Poli- 
 ziano and other personages, all in the costume of that 
 time. In the Marriage Feast of Jacob and Eachel he 
 has introduced the two graceful dancing figures which 
 are given in the woodcut. In the Eecognition of Joseph 
 
 * Those who would form an idea of its immensity, considered as 
 the work of one hand, may consult the large set of engravings from 
 the Campo Santo, published by Lasinio in 1821. 
 
Died 1485.] FRESCOES AND OTHER WORKS. 93 
 
 he lias painted a profusion of rich, architectural decora- 
 tion — palaces, colonnades, balconies, and porticoes — in 
 the style of the time ; and in the distance we have, in- 
 stead of the Egyptian Pyramids, a view of the Cathedral 
 of Pisa! 
 
 Soon after the completion of the last compartment, 
 the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon (of which un- 
 happily scarce a fragment remains), Benozzo Gozzoli 
 died at Pisa, in his seventy-eighth year. The grateful 
 and admiring Pisans, among whom he had resided for 
 sixteen years in great honour and esteem, had presented 
 him in the course of his work with a vault or sepulchre 
 just beneath the compartment which contains the history 
 of Joseph, and in this spot he lies buried, with an in- 
 scription intimating that his best monument consists in 
 the works around. Benozzo left an only daughter, who 
 after his death inherited the modest little dwelling which 
 he had purchased for himself on the Carraia di San 
 Francesco. 
 
 Benozzo's principal works, being in fresco, remain 
 attached to the walls on which they were painted. Those 
 only of the Campo Santo are engraved. In our National 
 Gallery we have a splendid and valuable specimen of 
 this master, and one of undisputed authenticity. It was 
 painted for the charitable association called the " Com- 
 pagnia di San Marco," at Florence, and represents the 
 usual subject of the Madonna and Child enthroned, 
 attended by the patrons of Florence and other saints. 
 There is another, a small picture, representing Paris 
 and hic> companions carrying off Helen and her attend- 
 
94 BENOZZO GOZZOLI. [Born 1424. 
 
 ants, which probably ornamented a marriage cassone or 
 bridal chest.* A picture in distemper of St. Thomas 
 Aquinas is in the Louvre (72), and is the same men- 
 tioned by VasaH. as having been painted for the Cathe- 
 dral of Pisa.f 
 
 * When I first saw this beautiful and curious little picture in the 
 Lonibardi collection it was ignorantly styled " The Brides of Venice," 
 and attributed to Gentile da Fabriano ! 
 
 f This picture is most curious as an historical document, and an 
 instance of the manner in which art was employed to illustrate the 
 characters, opinions, and controversies of the time. See, in the 
 ' Legends of the Monastic Orders,' tho Life of Thomas Aquinas. 
 
i 
 
19.— Andrea del Castagno. 
 
 From Vasarfs History. 
 
 Page 95. 
 
( 95 ) 
 
 ANDKEA DI CASTAGNO, 
 
 Born 1403, died 1477 ; 
 
 AND 
 
 LUCA SIGNOKELLI, 
 
 Born 1440, died 1521. 
 
 Towards the close of the fifteenth century we find 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, master of the Floren- 
 tine republic, as it was still denominated, though now 
 under the almost absolute power of one man. The 
 mystic and spiritual school of Angelico and his followers 
 no longer found admirers in the city of Florence, where 
 the study of classical literature, and the enthusiastic 
 admiration of the Medici for antique art, led to the cul- 
 tivation and development of a style wholly different ; 
 the painters, instead of con fining themselves to Scrip- 
 tural events and characters, began at this time to take 
 their subjects from mythology and classical history : 
 meantime the progress made in the knowledge of form, 
 the use of colours, and all the technical appliances of 
 the art, prepared the way for the appearance of those 
 great masters who in the succeeding century carried 
 painting in all its departments to the highest perfection, 
 and have never yet been surpassed, . 
 
96 ANDREA DI CASTAGNO. [Born 1403. 
 
 About 1460 a certain Neapolitan painter, named 
 Antonello da Messina, having travelled into the 
 Netherlands, learned there from Johan v. Eyk and his 
 scholars the art of managing oil-colours : being at 
 Venice, on his return, he communicated the secret to a 
 Venetian painter, Domenico Veneziano, with whom he 
 had formed a friendship, and who, having acquired con- 
 siderable reputation, was called to Florence to assist 
 Andrea di Castagno in painting a chapel in Santa Maria 
 Novella. Andrea, who had been a scholar of Masaccio, 
 was one of the most famous painters of the time, and a 
 favourite of the Medici family : on the occasion of the 
 conspiracy of the Pazzi, when the Archbishop of Pisa 
 and his confederates were hung by the magistrates from 
 the windows of the palace, Andrea was called upon to 
 represent, on the walls of the Podesta, this terrible exe- 
 cution — " fit subject for fit hand" — and he succeeded so 
 well, that he obtained the surname of Andrea degV Im- 
 piccati, which may be translated Andrea the Hangman ; 
 he afterwards earned a yet more infamous designation — 
 Andrea the Assassin. Envious of the reputation which 
 Domenico had acquired by the beauty and brilliance of 
 his colours, he first -by a show of the most devoted 
 friendship obtained his secret, and then seized the op- 
 portunity when he accompanied Domenico one night to 
 serenade his mistress, and stabbed him to the heart. He 
 contrived to escape suspicion, and allowed one or two in- 
 nocent persons to suffer for his crime ; but on his death- 
 bed, ten years afterwards, he confessed his guilt, and has 
 been consigned to merited infamy. Very few works of 
 this painter remain : they are much praised by Lanzi, 
 
20.— Sandko Botticelli. 
 
 From Vasaris History. 
 
 Page 97. 
 
Died 1477.] BOTTICELLI. 97 
 
 but, however great their merit, it is difficult to get rid 
 of the associations of disgust and horror connected with 
 the character of the man. One of his pictures, a figure 
 of the Magdalene in the Belle Arti, at Florence (No. 37), 
 as likewise those in the Berlin Museum (1055 and 1139), 
 struck me as intensely disagreeable — hard, almost cruel, 
 in character. He seems to have preferred penitential 
 subjects, such as St. Jerome beating his bleeding breast 
 with a stone, or Mary Magdalene looking emaciated and 
 despairing. It is also remarkable that none of his re- 
 maining pictures are painted in oil-colours, but all are 
 in distemper, as if he had feared to avail himself of the 
 secret acquired by such flagitious means, and the know- 
 ledge of which, though not the practice, became general 
 before his death. 
 
 In the year 1471 Sixtus IV. became pope. Though 
 by no means endued with a taste for art, he resolved to 
 emulate the Medici family, whose example and patron- 
 age had diffused the fashion, if not the feeling, through- 
 out all Italy ; and having built that beautiful chapel in 
 the Vatican called by his name, and since celebrated as 
 the Sistine Chapel, the next thing was to decorate it with 
 appropriate paintings. On one side of it was to be 
 represented the history of Moses ; on the other, the his- 
 tory of Christ : the old law and the new law, the Hebrew 
 and the Christian dispensation, thus placed in contrast 
 and illustrating each other. As there were no distin- 
 guished painters at that time in Eome, Sixtus invited 
 from Florence those of the Tuscan artists who had the 
 greatest reputation in their native country. 
 
 The first of these was Sandro (i e. Alessandro) Fili- 
 
 h 
 
98 LUC A SIGNORELLI. [Born 1440. 
 
 pepi, called Botticelli, remarkable for being one of the 
 earliest painters who treated mythological subjects on a 
 small scale as decorations for furniture, and the first who 
 made drawings for the purpose of being engraved : these, 
 as well as his religious pictures, he treated in a fanciful, 
 allegorical style. Six of his pictures are in the Museum 
 at Berlin — one an undraped Venus ; and two are in the 
 Louvre. Sandro was a pupil of the monk Fra Filippo 
 already mentioned, and after his death took charge of 
 his young son Filippino Lippi, who excelled both his 
 father and his preceptor, and became one of the greatest 
 painters of his time.* In the south corridor of the Flo- 
 rence Gallery hangs a picture by Sandro Botticelli of 
 surpassing beauty. It represents the Virgin with the 
 infant Saviour on her knee, whom she supports with 
 one hand, while with the other she is in the act of writ- 
 ing her famous and beautiful hymn (' My soul doth mag- 
 nify the Lord !') on the leaf of a book held by an angel. 
 The angel behind her throne is the portrait of Lorenzo 
 de' Medici when a boy.t Another exquisite picture 
 in the first room of the Tuscan School represents the 
 " Calumny of Apelles." 
 
 Another painter employed by Pope Sixtus was Luca 
 Signorelli of Cortona, the first who not only drew the 
 human form with admirable correctness, but, aided by a 
 degree of anatomical knowledge rare in those days, threw 
 such spirit and expression into the various attitudes of 
 
 * He completed the frescoes in the chapel of the Carmine at 
 Florence, left unfinished by Masaccio, as already related. 
 
 f There is a poor duplicate or copy of this picture in the Louvre, 
 No. 195 ; nor is our specimen in the National Gallery first rate. 
 
21. — LUCA SlGNORELLI. 
 
 From Vasari's History, ed. 1568. 
 
 Page 98. 
 
>•) 
 
 # 
 
Died 1521.] LUCA SIGNORELLI. 99 
 
 his figures, that his great work, the frescoes of the 
 Cathedral of Orvieto, representing the Last Judgment, 
 were studied and even imitated by Michael Angelo. This 
 original and illustrious painter was born at Oortona.in 
 1441. We have no reason to suppose that he was dis- 
 tinguished, like so many of his compeers, by any early 
 or precocious excellence in his art ; his first works, of 
 which we have any account, date about 1472, when 
 he was thirty-seven. Signorelli was a man of great 
 learning and industry as well as original genius — of 
 irreproachable life and amiable manners ; courteous and 
 helpful to those who needed his assistance ; to his nu- 
 merous scholars kind and communicative, as became a 
 great and generous artist. His principal works are the 
 grand mural frescoes at Orvieto, in the Sistine Chapel 
 at Rome, and in the convent of Monte Uliveto, near 
 Sienna. His moveable pictures and altarpieces are of 
 great value. "Whatever subject he treated, whether re- 
 ligious or classical, he treated with decision, with power 
 and grandeur in the grouping and forms, and with sin- 
 gular depth and originality in the heads. He was 
 famous in his lifetime, enriched by constant employ- 
 ment, and is recorded as having been several times 
 elected as chief magistrate of his native city of Cortona, 
 then free and prosperous. The year of Signorelli's death 
 is not exactly known, but he certainly lived to be up- 
 wards of eighty. This painter was apparently a favour- 
 ite of Fuseli, whose compositions frequently remind us 
 of the long limbs and animated, but sometimes exagge- 
 rated, action of Signorelli. We have, as yet, no picture 
 by him in our National Gallery. 
 
( 100 i 
 
 DOMENICO DAL GHIKLANDAJO. 
 
 Born 1451, died 1495. 
 
 Domenico dal Ghirlandajo was also employed in the 
 Sistine Chapel, but he was then young, and, of his two 
 pictures there, one only remains, the Calling of St. 
 Peter and St. Andrew ; — so inferior to his later produc- 
 tions, that we do not recognise here the hand of him 
 who became afterwards one of the greatest and most 
 memorable painters of his time. 
 
 Domenico Corradi, or Bigordi, was born at Florence 
 in 1451, and was educated by his father for his own 
 profession, that of a goldsmith. In this art he acquired 
 great skill, and displayed in his designs uncommon 
 elegance of fancy. He was the first who invented the 
 silver ornaments in the form of a wreath or garland 
 {Ghirlandd) which became a fashion with the Florentine 
 women, and from which he obtained the name of Ghir- 
 landajo, or Grillandajo, as it is sometimes written. At 
 the age of four-and-twenty he quitted the profession of 
 goldsmith, and became a painter. "While employed in 
 his father's workshop he had amused himself with 
 taking the likenesses of all the persons he saw, so rapidly, 
 and with so much liveliness and truth, as to astonish 
 every one : the exact drawing and modelling of forms, 
 
!2. — DOMENICO CORRADI, CALLED DEL GHIRLANDAJO. 
 
 By himself. From the Choir of Sta. Maria Novella, 
 Florence. 
 
 Page 100. 
 
Died 1495.] GHIRLANDAJO. 101 
 
 the inventive fancy exercised in his mechanical art, and 
 the turn for portraiture, are displayed in all his subse- 
 quent productions. These were so many in number, so 
 various in subject, and so admirable, that only a few of 
 them can be noticed here. After he returned from Rome 
 his first work was the painting of a chapel of the Ves- 
 pucci family, in the church of Ognissanti (All Saints), 
 in which he introduced, in 1485, the portrait of Amerigo 
 Vespuccio the navigator, who afterwards gave his name 
 to a new world. 
 
 Ghirlandajo painted a chapel for a certain Florentine 
 citizen, Francesco Sassetti, in the church of the Trinita. 
 Here he represented the whole life of Francesco's patron 
 saint, St. Francis, in a series of pictures full of feeling 
 and dramatic power. As he was confined to the popular 
 histories and traditions, which had been treated again 
 and again by successive painters, and in which it was 
 necessary to conform to certain fixed and prescribed 
 rules, it was difficult to introduce any variety in the 
 conception. Yet he has done this simply by the mere 
 force of expression. The most excellent of these frescoes 
 is the Death of St. Francis, surrounded by the monks of 
 his order, in which the aged heads, full of grief, awe, 
 resignation, are depicted with wonderful skill : at the 
 foot of the bier is an old bishop chantiDg the litanies, 
 with spectacles on his nose, which is the earliest known 
 representation of these implements, then recently in- 
 vented. On one side of the picture is the kneeling 
 figure of Francesco Sassetti, and on the other Madonna 
 Nera, his wife. All these histories of St. Francis are 
 engraved in Lasinio's • Early Florentine Masters,' as are 
 
102 GHIRLANDAJO. [Born 1451. 
 
 also the magnificent frescoes in the choir of Santa Maria 
 Novella, his greatest work. This he undertook for a 
 generous and pnblic-spirited citizen of Florence, Gio- 
 vanni Tornabuoni, who agreed to repair the choir at his 
 own cost, and, moreover, to pay Ghirlandajo one thousand 
 two hundred gold ducats for painting the walls in fresco, 
 and to add two hundred more if he were well satisfied 
 with the performance. 
 
 Ghirlandajo devoted four years to his task. He painted 
 on the right-hand wall the history of St. John the Bap- 
 tist ; and, on the left, various incidents from the life of 
 the Virgin. One of the most beautiful represents the 
 Birth of the Virgin :, female attendants, charming grace- 
 ful figures, are aiding the mother or intent on the new- 
 born child ; while a lady, in the elegant costume of the 
 Florentine ladies of that time, and holding a handker- 
 chief in her hand, is seen advancing, as if to pay her 
 visit of congratulation. This is the portrait of Ginevra 
 de' Benci, one of the loveliest women of the time. He 
 has introduced her again as one of the attendants in 
 the Visit of the Virgin to St. Elizabeth. In the other 
 pictures he has introduced the figures of Lorenzo de' 
 Medici, Poliziano, Demetrio Greco, Marsilio Ficino, and 
 other celebrated persons (of whom there are notices in 
 Eoscoe's ' Life of Lorenzo de' Medici '), besides his own 
 portrait and those of many other persons of that time. 
 
 The idea of crowding these sacred and mystical sub- 
 jects with portraits of real persons and representations 
 of familiar objects may seem, on first view, shocking 
 to the taste, ridiculous anachronisms, and destructive of 
 all solemnity and unity of feeling. Such, however, is 
 
Died 1495.] HIS FRESCOES AND OTHER WORKS. 103 
 
 not the case, but the reverse. In the first place, the 
 sacred and ideal personages are never portraits from 
 nature, and are very loftily conceived in point of ex- 
 pression and significance. In the second place, the real 
 personages introduced are seldom or never actors ; they 
 are merely attendants and spectators in events which 
 may be conceived to belong to all time, and to have no 
 especial locality; and they have so muoh dignity in 
 their aspects, the costumes are so picturesque, and the 
 grouping is so fine and imaginative, that only the coldest 
 and most pedantic critic could wish them absent. 
 
 When Ghirlandajo had finished this grand series of 
 pictures, his patron, Giovanni Tornabuoni, declared 
 himself well pleased ; but, at the same time, expressed 
 a wish that Ghirlandajo would be content with the sum 
 first stipulated, and forego the additional two hundred 
 ducats. The high-minded painter, who esteemed glory 
 and honour much more than riches, immediately with- 
 drew his claim, saying that he cared far more to have 
 satisfied his employer than for any amount of payment. 
 
 Besides his frescoes, Ghirlandajo painted many pic- 
 tures in oil and in distemper. There is one of great 
 beauty in the Louvre* — the Visitation — that is, the visit 
 which Mary, the mother of our Lord, paid to her cousin 
 Elizabeth. In this picture Elizabeth kneels as to a 
 superior ; the two attendant women are Mary Cleophas 
 and Mary Salome. But the subject he most frequently 
 repeated was the Adoration of the Magi; perhaps be- 
 cause it gave him the opportunity of introducing bril- 
 liant accessories, as crowns, vases, embroidered garments, 
 
 * No. 204 
 
 * 
 
104 GHIRLANDAJO. [Born 1451. 
 
 and jewelled ornaments, in which, as well as in the 
 higher departments of painting, he excelled. His dra- 
 peries are elegant, but sometimes rather fluttering and 
 fantastic. The finest picture by him I have ever 
 seen is the altarpiece in the chapel of- the Innocenti 
 (the Foundling Hospital) at Florence. 
 
 It may be said, on the whole, that the attention 
 of Ghirlandajo was directed less to the delineation of 
 form than to the expression of his heads and the imita- 
 tion of life and nature as exhibited in feature and coun- 
 tenance. He also carried the mechanical and technical 
 part of his art to a perfection it had not before attained. 
 He was the best colourist in fresco who had yet ap- 
 peared, and his colours have stood extremely well 
 to this day.* 
 
 Another characteristic which renders Ghirlandajo 
 very interesting as an artist was his diligent and pro- 
 gressive improvement ; every successive production was 
 better than the last. He was also an excellent worker 
 in mosaic, which, from its durability, he used to call 
 " painting far eternity" 
 
 To his rare and various accomplishments as an artist, 
 Ghirlandajo added the most amiable qualities as a man 
 — qualities which obtained him the love as well as 
 the admiration of his fellow-citizens. He was, says 
 Vasari, " the delight of the age in which he lived." He 
 was still in the prime of life and in the full possession 
 
 * Except where the whole surface has been destroyed by damp or 
 accident, as in several of the frescoes in the choir of S. Maria 
 Novella. 
 
23. — Andrea Verrocchio. 
 
 Engraved in the 1 508 edition of Vasari. 
 
 Page 105. 
 
Died 1495.] ANDREA VERROCCHIO. 105 
 
 of conscious power — so that he was heard to wish they 
 would give him the walls all round the city to cover 
 with frescoes — when he was seized with sudden illness, 
 and died, at the age of forty-four, to the infinite grief of 
 his numerous scholars, by whom he was interred, with 
 every demonstration of mournful respect, in the church 
 of Santa Maria Novella, in the year 1495. His two 
 brothers, Davide and Benedetto, were also painters, and 
 assisted him in the execution of his great works ; and 
 his son Kidolfo Ghiklandajo became afterwards an 
 excellent artist, but he belongs to a later period. 
 
 Ghirlandajo formed many scholars ; among them was 
 the great Michael Angelo. 
 
 Contemporary with Ghirlandajo lived an artist, me- 
 morable for having aided with his instructions both 
 Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Vinci. This was 
 Andrea Verrocchio (b. 1432, d. 1488), who was a 
 goldsmith and sculptor in marble and bronze, and also 
 a painter, though in painting his works are few and little 
 known. He drew and modelled admirably, but his 
 style of painting is rather hard and formal. He is cele- 
 brated through the celebrity of the artists formed in his 
 school ; and is said to have been the first who took casts 
 in plaster from life as aids in the study of form. 
 
f 106 ) 
 
 ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO. 
 
 Born about 1430, died 1498. 
 
 Among the assistants of Ghiberti one more must be par- 
 ticularly commemorated. Antonio del Pollaiuolo, like 
 many other great Florentine artists, began his professional 
 career as a goldsmith and a modeller and carver in wood 
 and metal. To be the sons of a poulterer (Pollaiuolo, whence 
 they derive their name) does not seem to promise much 
 in regard to art ; but the father of Antonio and Piero 
 was soon aware of the talent of his sons, and found 
 means to place the eldest under the tuition of Bertuccio, 
 the father-in-law of Lorenzo Ghiberti. Antonio at once 
 distinguished himself by his aptitude and his skill in 
 modelling and designing, and Ghiberti selected him as 
 one of his assistants in the second Bronze Gate of the 
 Baptistery. On the rich border of foliage and figures 
 on the left hand, and about four feet from the ground, is 
 seen the quail modelled by Antonio, of which Yasari 
 says, " it wants nothing of life but the power to fly." 
 
 After executing many beautiful works in metal, and 
 particularly part of the elaborate silver altar (Dossale) 
 for the same church of St. John the Baptist, Antonio 
 applied himself to painting, in which, however excellent 
 in some things, he retained a certain hardness and for- 
 mality of design derived from his first profession. 
 
 The altarpiece which he painted for Antonio Pucci in 
 
24. — Antonio del Pollaiuolo. 
 
 By Filippino Lippi. From the Brancacci Chapel. 
 
 Page 106. 
 
^ ' rit* I ■ 
 
 H 
 
 V 
 
Died 1498.] POLLAIUOLO : HIS ALTARPIECE. 107 
 
 1475 is now in our National Gallery. It is a known 
 and celebrated picture, and one of our most valuable 
 acquisitions, but not attractive considered as a reli- 
 gious work. The young Roman soldier who died for his 
 faith is here a commonplace and contorted figure ; the 
 head has none of that fervent aspiration and love which 
 we are accustomed to look for in St. Sebastian. It is, 
 in fact, a portrait, and that of a celebrated man, Gino 
 Capponi. The two soldiers in front bending their cross- 
 bows are the most admired figures in this picture ; the 
 technical skill displayed in the foreshortening and in 
 the expression of strong bodily effort was new at that 
 time, and was a kind of merit which the learned and 
 the unlearned would equally understand. Antonio 
 Pucci, in paying for it the stipulated 300 crowns, ex- 
 pressed his satisfaction, and was heard to declare that 
 the money only paid the cost of the colours — it would 
 not recompense the skill of the artist. Pollaiuolo was 
 soon afterwards called to Rome, employed there by 
 Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., and Alexander VI., and 
 executed the famous and elaborate, but not quite satis- 
 factory, monument of Sixtus IV. in the Vatican. Pol- 
 laiuolo, as an artist, had that leaning to pagan and clas- 
 sical taste which was the fashion of the time ; he was a 
 capital designer, but deficient in sentiment and grace. 
 As a man, he was esteemed for his exemplary life no 
 less than for his talents, and died at Eome in 1498, rich 
 and prosperous, leaving a dowry of 5000 gold crowns to 
 each of his two daughters. He and his brother Piero 
 were buried in the same tomb, in S. Peter-in- Vincula, 
 at Rome. 
 
( 108 ) 
 
 ANDKEA MANTEGKA. 
 
 Born 1431, died 1506. 
 
 For a while we must leave beautiful Florence and her 
 painters, who were striving after perfection by imitating 
 what they saw in nature — the common appearances of 
 the objects, animate and inanimate, around them — and 
 turn* to another part of Italy, where there arose a man 
 of genius who pursued a wholly different course ; at least 
 he started from a different point ; and who exercised for 
 a time a great influence on all the painters of Italy, 
 including those of Florence. This was Andrea Man- 
 tegna, particularly interesting to English readers, as his 
 most celebrated work, the Triumph of Julius Csesar, is 
 now preserved in the palace of Hampton Court, and has 
 formed part of the royal collection ever since the days of 
 Charles I. 
 
 Andrea Mantegna was the son of very poor and 
 obscure parents, and was born near Padua in 1431. All 
 we learn of his early childhood amounts to this — that he 
 was employed in keeping sheep ; and being conducted 
 to the city, entered, we know not by what chance, the 
 school of Francesco Squarcione. 
 
 About the middle of the 15th century, from which 
 time we date the revival of letters in Europe, the study 
 
25. — Andrea Mantkgna. 
 
 From Vasart's History, ed. 1568. 
 
 Page 1( 
 
Died 1506.] SCHOOL OF PADUA. 109 
 
 of the Greek language, and a taste for the works of the 
 classical authors, had become more and more diffused 
 through Italy. We are told that "to write Latin cor- 
 rectly, to understand the allusions of the best authors, to 
 learn at least the rudiments of Greek, were the objects 
 of every cultivated mind." Classical literature was par- 
 ticularly studied at the University of Padua. Squar- 
 cione, a native of that city, and by profession a painter, 
 was early smitten with this passion for the antique. He 
 not only travelled over all Italy, but visited Greece in 
 search of the remains of ancient art. Of those which 
 he could not purchase or remove, he obtained casts or 
 copies ; and, returning to Padua, he opened there a 
 school or academy for painters, not indeed the most 
 celebrated nor the most influential, but at that time the 
 best attended in all Italy. Squarcione numbered one 
 hundred and thirty-seven pupils, and was considered the 
 best teacher of his time : yet of all this crowd of stu- 
 dents the names of three only are preserved, and of 
 these only one has attained lasting celebrity. By Squar- 
 cione himself we hear only of one undoubted picture 
 displaying great talent ; but it appears that he painted 
 little, employed his scholars to execute what works were 
 confided to him, and gave himself up to the business of 
 instruction. 
 
 Andrea Mantegna was only known in the academy of 
 Squarcione as a poor boy, whose talent and docility 
 rendered him a favourite with his master, and at length 
 his adopted son. He worked early and late, copying 
 with assiduity the models which were set before him, 
 drawing from the fragments of statues, the busts, the 
 
110 MANTEGNA. [Born 1431. 
 
 Das-reliefs, ornaments, and vases with which Squarcione 
 had enriched his academy. At the age of seventeen 
 Andrea painted his first great picture for the church of 
 Santa Sofia in Padua (now lost), and when nineteen he 
 executed the most important frescoes in the chapel of 
 St. Christopher in the Eremitani — here he represented 
 on the vault the four evangelists ; his imagination and 
 his pencil familiarized only with the forms of classical 
 art, he gave to these sacred personages the air and 
 attitude of heathen philosophers, but they excited 
 nevertheless great applause. 
 
 At this time the Venetian Jacopo Bellini, father of 
 the two great Bellini, of whom we shall have to speak 
 presently, arrived in Padua, where he was employed to 
 paint some pictures. He was considered as the rival of 
 Squarcione, both as a painter and teacher. Andrea was 
 captivated by the talents and conversation of the Vene- 
 tian ; and yet more attracted by the charms of his 
 daughter Nicolosia, whose hand he asked and obtained 
 from her father. Jacopo Bellini was of opinion that he 
 who had given such early proofs of assiduity and ability 
 must ultimately succeed ; and though Andrea was still 
 poor and but little known, and the Bellini family already 
 rich and celebrated, he did not hesitate to bestow his 
 daughter on the youthful and modest suitor. This mar- 
 riage, and what he regarded as the revolt of his favourite 
 disciple, so enraged Squarcione that he never forgave 
 the offence. Andrea having soon after completed a 
 picture which excelled his first, his old master attacked 
 it with the most merciless severity, and publicly de- 
 nounced its faults : the figures, he said, were stiff, were 
 
Died 1506.] SCHOOL OF PADUA. HI 
 
 cold — without life, without nature ; and he observed sar- 
 castically that Andrea should have painted them white, 
 like marble, and then the colour would have harmonized 
 with the drawing. This criticism came with a par- 
 ticularly ill grace from him who had taught the very 
 principles he now condemned, and Andrea felt it bitterly. 
 The Italian annotator of Vasari remarks very truly, that 
 excessive praise often turns the brain of the weak man, 
 and renders the man of genius slothful and careless ; 
 but that severe and unjust censure, while it crushes 
 mediocrity, acts as a spur and excitement to real genius. 
 Andrea showed that he had sufficient strength of mind 
 to rise superior to both praise and censure ; he felt with 
 disgust and pain the malignity of his old master ; but he 
 knew that much of his criticism was just. Instead of 
 showing any sense of injury or discouragement, he set 
 to work with fresh ardour ; he drew and studied from 
 nature, instead of confining himself to the antique ; he 
 imitated the fresher and livelier colouring of his new 
 relations, the Bellini ; and his next picture, which 
 represented a legend of St. Christopher, was so superior 
 to the last, that it silenced the open cavilling of Squar- 
 cione, though it could not extinguish his animosity, 
 perhaps rather added to it ; for Andrea had introduced 
 among the numerous figures in his fresco that of Squar- 
 cione himself, and the likeness was by no means a flatter- 
 ing one. Notwithstanding the admiration which these 
 and other works excited in his native city, the enmity of 
 his old master seems to have rendered Padua intolerable 
 as a residence. Andrea therefore went to Verona, where 
 he executed several frescoes and some smaller pictures ; 
 
112 MANTEGNA. [Born 1431. 
 
 and being invited to Mantua by Ludovico Gonzaga,- he 
 finally entered the service of that prince. The native 
 courtesy of Andrea's manners, as well as his acquired 
 knowledge and his ability in his profession, recom- 
 mended him to his new patron, who loaded him with 
 honours and favours. 
 
 Some years after he had taken up his residence in 
 Mantua, and had executed for the Marquis Ludovico, 
 and his son and successor Frederigo, several works 
 which yet remain, Andrea was invited to Eome by Pope 
 Innocent VIII., to paint for him a chapel in the Bel- 
 vedere. The Marquis of Mantua permitted him to 
 depart but for a time only ; the permission was accom- 
 panied by gifts and by letters of recommendation to the 
 pontiff" ; and the more to show the esteem in which the 
 painter was held, he bestowed on him the honour of 
 knighthood. 
 
 Mantegna, on his arrival in Rome, set himself to work 
 with his characteristic diligence and enthusiasm, and 
 covered the walls and the ceiling with a multiplicity of 
 subjects, executed, says Vasari, with the delicacy of 
 miniatures. These beautiful paintings existed till late 
 in the last century, when Pius VI. destroyed the chapel 
 to make room for his new museum.* While Andrea was 
 employed at Eome by Pope Innocent, a pleasant and 
 characteristic incident occurred, which does honour both 
 to him and to the pope. His holiness was at this time 
 much occupied and disturbed by state affairs; and it 
 
 * " Contrary to the advice of those who entreated him to abstain 
 from such barbarity" (tanta barbarie). The "New Museum " is now 
 the famous Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican. 
 
Died 1506.] HIS EXISTING WORKS. 113 
 
 happened that the payments were not made with the 
 regularity which Andrea desired. The pope sometimes 
 visited the artist at his work, and one day he asked him 
 the meaning of a certain female figure on which lie was 
 painting. Andrea replied, with a significant look, that 
 he was trying to represent Discretion. The pope, under- 
 standing him at once, replied, " If you would place 
 Discretion in fitting company, you should place Patience 
 at her side." Andrea took the hint, and said no more ; 
 and when his work was completed, the pope not only 
 paid him the sums stipulated, but rewarded him muni- 
 ficently besides. About the year 1487 he returned to 
 Mantua, where he built himself a magnificent house, 
 painted inside and outside by his own hand, and in 
 which he resided in great esteem and honour until his 
 death in 1506. He was buried in the church of his 
 patron saint, St. Andrew, where his monument in bronze 
 and several of his pictures may yet be seen. 
 
 The existing works of Andrea Mantegna are so 
 numerous that I shall record here only the most remark- 
 able, and the occasions on which they were painted. 
 
 In the year 1488 Andrea executed for the Marquis 
 Gian-Francesco (grandson of his first friend Ludovico 
 Gonzaga) the famous frieze representing in nine com- 
 partments the Triumph of Julius Caesar after his conquest 
 of Gaul.* These were placed round the upper part of 
 a hall in the palace of San Sebastiano, at Mantua, which 
 
 * The dates are taken from the Chronological Supplement to the 
 1 Life of Mantegna' in the Lemonnier edition of Vasari, vol. v., 1849; 
 from which it appears that Mantegna began this frieze in the begin- 
 ning of the year 1488, before he went to Rome, and finished it, 
 after his return, in 1492. 
 
 I 
 
114 MANTEGNA. [Born 1431. 
 
 Francesco had lately erected. They hung in this palace 
 for a century and a half. When Mantua was sacked and 
 pillaged in 1629, they, with many other pictures, escaped; 
 the Duke Carlo Gonzaga, reduced to poverty by the vices 
 and prodigality of his predecessors, and the wars and 
 calamities of his own time, sold his gallery of pictures to 
 our King Charles I. for 20,000/., and these and other 
 works of Andrea Mantegna came to England with the 
 rest of the Mantuan collection. When King Charles's 
 pictures were sold by the Parliament after his death, the 
 Triumph of Julius Caesar was purchased for 1000?., but 
 on the return of Charles II. it was restored to the royal 
 collection, how or by whom does not appear. The nine 
 pictures now hang in the palace of Hampton Court. 
 They are painted in distemper on twilled linen, which 
 has been stretched on frames, and originally placed 
 against the wall with ornamented pilasters dividing the 
 compartments. In their present faded and dilapidated 
 condition, hurried and uninformed visitors will probably 
 pass them over with a cursory glance ; yet, if we except 
 the Cartoons of Eaphael, Hampton Court contains no- 
 thing so curious and valuable as this old frieze of Andrea 
 Mantegna, which, notwithstanding the fragility of the 
 material on which it is executed, has now existed for 
 three hundred and eighty years, and, having been fre- 
 quently engraved, is celebrated all over Europe. 
 
 Andrea retained through his whole life that taste for 
 the forms and effects of sculpture which had given to 
 all his earlier works a certain hardness, meagreness, and 
 formality of outline, neither agreeable in itself nor in 
 harmony with pictorial illusion ; but in the Triumph of 
 
Died 1506.] TRIUMPH OF C^SAR. 115 
 
 Julius Caesar the combination of a sculptural style with 
 the aims and beauties of painting was not, as we usually 
 find it, misplaced and unpleasing; it was fitted to the 
 designed purpose and executed with wonderful success ; 
 the innumerable figures move one after another in a 
 long and splendid procession, as in an ancient bas-relief, 
 but coloured lightly, in a style resembling the antique 
 paintings at Pompeii. Originally it appears that the 
 nine compartments were separated from each other by 
 sculptured pilasters. In the first picture, or compart- 
 ment, we have the opening of the procession ; trumpets, 
 incense burning, standards borne aloft by the victorious 
 soldiers. In the second picture we have the statues of 
 the gods carried off from the temples of the enemy ; 
 battering-rams, implements of war, heaps of glittering 
 armour carried on men's shoulders, or borne aloft in 
 chariots. In the third picture, more splendid trophies 
 of a similar kind ; huge vases filled with gold coin, 
 tripods, &c. In the fourth, more such trophies, with the 
 oxen crowned with garlands for the sacrifice. In the 
 fifth picture are four elephants adorned with rich 
 garlands of fruits and flowers, bearing on their backs 
 magnificent candelabra, and attended by beautiful youths. 
 In the sixth are figures bearing vases, and others dis- 
 playing the arms of the vanquished. The seventh 
 picture shows us the unhappy captives, who, according 
 to the barbarous Eoman custom, were exhibited on these 
 occasions to the scoffing and exulting populace : there is 
 here a group of female captives of all ages, among them 
 a young dejected bride-like figure, a woman carrying 
 her infant children, and a mother leading by the hand 
 
116 MANTEGNA. [Born 1431. 
 
 her little boy, who lifts up his foot as if he had hurt it ; 
 this group is particularly pointed out by Vasari, who 
 praises it for its nature and its grace. In the eighth 
 picture we have a group of singers and musicians, and 
 among them is seen a youth whose unworthy office it 
 was to mock at the wretched captives, in which he is 
 assisted by a chorus of the common people ; a beautiful 
 youth with a tambourine is distinguished by singular 
 spirit and grace. In the last picture appears the con- 
 queror, Julius Caesar, in a sumptuous chariot richly 
 adorned with sculptures in the antique style. He is 
 surrounded and followed by a crowd of figures, and 
 among them is seen a youth bearing aloft a standard, on 
 which is inscribed Caesar's memorable words, Veni, Vidi> 
 Vici — " I came, I saw, I conquered." 
 
 The inconceivable richness of fancy displayed in this 
 triumphal procession, the numbers of figures and objects 
 of every kind, the propriety of the antique costumes, 
 ornaments, armour, &c, with the scientific manner in 
 which the perspective is managed, the whole being 
 adapted to its intended situation far above the eye, so 
 that the under surfaces of the objects are alone visible 
 (as would be the case when viewed from below), the 
 upper surfaces vanishing into air ; all these merits com- 
 bined renders this series of pictures one of the grandest 
 works of the fifteenth century, worthy of the attention 
 and admiration of all beholders. 
 
 When the great Flemish painter, Eubens, was at 
 Mantua in 1606, he was struck with astonishment on 
 viewing these works, and made a fine copy in a reduced 
 form of the fifth compartment : copy, however, it cannot 
 
Died 1506.] MANTEGNA. 117 
 
 properly be called ; it is rather a version in the manner 
 of Kubens, the style of the whole, and even some of the 
 circumstances, being altered. This fine picture is now 
 in our National Gallery.* 
 
 Another of the most celebrated of Mantegna's works 
 is the great picture now in the Louvre, at Paris, and 
 called by the Italians " la Madonna delta Vittoria" the 
 Madonna of Victory. The occasion on which it was 
 painted recalls a great event in history, the invasion of 
 Italy by Charles VIII, of France. Of all the wars 
 undertaken by ambitious and unprincipled monarchs, 
 whether instigated by revenge, by policy, or by rapa- 
 cious thirst of dominion, this invasion of Italy, in 1495, 
 was the most flagitious in its injustice, its folly, and its 
 cruelty ; it was also the most retributive in its results. 
 Charles, after ravaging the whole country from the Alps 
 to Calabria, found himself obliged to retreat, and on the 
 banks of the Taro was met by Gian-Francesco, Marquis 
 of Mantua, the son and successor of Frederigo, at the 
 head of an army. On the part of the Italians it was 
 
 * Rubens made this copy for his own pleasure, and would never 
 part with it : it was among the effects left at his death. There can 
 be no doubt that the sojourn of Rubens at Mantua, previous to his 
 visit to England in 1630, led to the acquisition of the Mantuan 
 Gallery by Charles I., which was effected by the advice and agency 
 of Rubens. After the death of Rubens, this copy was acquired by 
 the Balbi family; and subsequently it was purchased by Mr. Rogers, 
 and hung for many years in his drawing-room over the chimney- 
 piece. For all these reasons, the acquisition of this beautiful and 
 memorable picture by our National Gallery is a matter of con- 
 gratulation. 
 
 In the British Museum there is a fine set of the woodcuts in 
 chiaro-scuro, executed by Andrea Andreani about 1599, when the 
 original frieze still kept its place in the palace at Mantua. 
 
118 MANTEGNA. [Born 1431. 
 
 rather a victory missed than a victory won ; for the 
 French continued their retreat across the Alps, and the 
 loss of the Italians was immense. The Marquis of 
 Mantua, however, chose to consider it as a victory : he 
 built a church on the occasion, and commanded Andrea 
 Mantegna to paint a picture for the high altar, which 
 should express at once his devotion and his gratitude. 
 Considering the subject and the occasion, the French 
 must have had a particular and malicious pleasure in 
 placing this picture in the Louvre, where it now hangs. 
 It represents in the centre, under a canopy or arbour 
 composed of garlands of foliage and fruit, and seated on 
 a throne, the Virgin Mary, who holds on her knees the 
 infant Saviour. On her right stand the archangel 
 Michael and St. Maurice in complete armour. On the 
 left are the patron saints of Mantua, St. Longinus and 
 St. Andrew, with the infant St. John ; more in front, on 
 each side, are the Marquis of Mantua and his wife, the 
 celebrated and accomplished Isabella d'Este, who, kneel - 
 ing, return thanks for the so-called victory over the 
 French. The figure of the Marchesa Isabella is still, in 
 the French catalogue of the Louvre, styled St. Elizabeth, 
 an error pointed out long since by Lanzi and others. 
 This picture was finished in the year 1500, when Andrea 
 was seventy; in beauty and softness of execution it 
 exceeds all his other works, while in the poetical con- 
 ception of the whole, the grandeur of the saints, and the 
 expression in the countenance of Gonzaga as he gazes 
 upwards in a transport of devotion, it is worthy of his 
 best years. In the Louvre are three other pictures by 
 Andrea Mantegna. One is the Crucifixion of our Savi- 
 
Died 1506. J MANTEGNA. 119 
 
 our, a small picture remarkable for containing his own 
 portrait in the figure of the soldier seen half-length in 
 front. Another, an allegorical subject, represents the 
 Vices flying before Wisdom, Chastity, and Philosophy, 
 while Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance return from 
 above, once more to take up their habitation among 
 men. Another picture, of exceeding beauty, represents 
 the Muses dancing to the sound of Apollo's lyre : Mars, 
 Venus, and Cupid stand on a rocky height, looking upon 
 them, while Vulcan is seen at a distance threatening his 
 faithless consort. In this little picture Mantegna seems 
 inspired by the very spirit of Greek art : the Muses are 
 designed with exquisite taste and feeling ; it is probably 
 the chef-d'oeuvre of the artist in his own particular 
 style, that for which his natural turn of mind and early 
 studies under Squarcione had fitted him. In general 
 his religious pictures are not pleasing ; and many of his 
 classical subjects have a meagreness in the forms which 
 is quite opposed to all our conceptions of beauty and 
 greatness of style ; but he has done grand things. We 
 are so fortunate as to possess in our National Gallery a 
 genuine and celebrated picture by Andrea Mantegna, 
 the Virgin and Child enthroned — the Divine Child 
 standing on her knee, and blessing, while Mary Mag- 
 dalene and St. John the Baptist stand on each side ; the 
 background is formed of orange-trees. The colouring 
 is rather pale, and the expression of the Madonna rather 
 weak, faults not usual with Andrea ; in other respects — 
 in the fine drawing, the character of the two saints, and 
 the pose and drapery of the Virgin — it is as' fine as pos- 
 sible. Besides the works already mentioned, there are 
 
120 MANTEGNA. [Born 1431. 
 
 four pictures in the Museum at Berlin, and others at 
 Vienna, Florence, and Naples. 
 
 Of many disciples formed by Andrea Mantegna not 
 one attained to any fame or influence in his art ; they 
 all exaggerated his manner and defects, as is usual with 
 scholars who follow the manner of their master. His 
 two sons were both artists, studious and respectable 
 men, but neither of them inherited the genius of their 
 father. Ariosto, in a famous stanza of his great poem 
 (Orlando Furioso, c. xxxiii., st. 2), in which he has com- 
 memorated all the leading painters of his own time, 
 places the name of Andrea Mantegna between those of 
 Lionardo da Vinci and Gian Bellini : — 
 
 E quei che furo a nostri di, o son ora, 
 Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Gian Bellino, 
 Duo Dossi, e quel, che a par sculpe, e colora 
 Michel piu che mortal Angel divino ; 
 Bastiano, Kaffael, Titian ch' honora 
 Non men Cador, che quei Venezia e Urbino ; 
 E gli altri di cui tal opra si vede 
 Qual della prisca eta si legge, e crede." 
 
 Lo ! Leonardo ! Gian' Bellino view, 
 Two Dossi, and Mantegna reached by few ; 
 "With these an angel, Michael, styled divine, 
 In whom the sculptor and the painter join: 
 Sebastian, Titian, Eaphael, three that grace 
 Cadora, Venice, and Urbino's race : 
 Each genius that can past events recall 
 In living figures on the storied wall." 
 
INVENTION OF ENGRAVING. 121 
 
 The Invention of Engraving on Wood and 
 Copper: 1423—1452. 
 
 Andrea Mantegna was not only eminent as a painter ; 
 lie owed much of his celebrity and his influence over the 
 artists of that age to the multiplication and diffusion of 
 his designs by copper-plate engraving, an art unknown 
 till his time : he was one of the first who practised it ; 
 certainly the first painter who engraved his own 
 
 In these days, when we cannot walk through the 
 streets even of a third-rate town without passing shops 
 filled with engravings and prints, when not our books 
 only but the newspapers that lie on our tables are illus- 
 trated ; when the ■ Penny Magazine ' can place a little 
 print after Mantegna at once before the eyes of fifty 
 thousand readers ;* when every beautiful work of art 
 as it appears is multiplied and diffused by hundreds and 
 thousands of copies ; when the talk is rife of wondrous 
 inventions by which such copies shall reproduce them- 
 selves to infinitude, without change or deterioration, f 
 we find it difficult to throw our imagination back to a 
 time when such things were not. 
 
 What printing did for literature, engraving on wood 
 and copper has done for painting — not only diffused the 
 designs and inventions of artists, which would otherwise 
 be confined to one locality, but in many cases preserved 
 those which would otherwise have perished altogether. 
 
 * This was written in 1845. 
 
 f Electrotyping and photography for instance. 
 
122 INVENTION OF ENGRAVING. [1423-1452. 
 
 It is interesting to remember that three inventions to 
 which we owe such infinite instruction and delight were 
 almost simultaneous. The earliest known impression 
 of an engraving on wood is dated 1423; the earliest 
 impression from an engraved metal plate was made about 
 1452 ; and the first printed book, properly so called, 
 bears date, according to the best authorities, 1455. 
 
 Stamps for impressing signatures and characters on 
 paper, in which the required forms were cut upon blocks 
 of wood, we find in use in the earliest times. Seals for 
 convents and societies, in which the distinctive devices 
 or letters were cut hollow upon wood or metal, were 
 known in the fourteenth century. The transition seems 
 easy to the next application of the art; and thence 
 perhaps it has happened that the name of the man who 
 made this step is lost. All that is certainly known is, 
 that the first wood-blocks for the purpose of pictorial 
 representations were cut in Germany, in the province 
 of Suabia ; that the first use made of the art was for the 
 multiplication of playing-cards, which about the year 
 1418 or 1420 were manufactured in great quantities at 
 Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Venice ; arjd that the next 
 application of the art was devotional ; it was used to 
 multiply rude figures of saints, which were distributed 
 among the common people. The earliest woodcut known 
 is a coarse figure of St. Christopher, dated 1423. This 
 curiosity exists in the library of Earl Spencer, at Al- 
 thorpe.* Another impression, which is declared by 
 connoisseurs to be a little later, is in the Eoyal Library 
 
 * A reduced imitation of this earliest known woodcut is annexed. 
 
1423-1452.] INVENTION OF ENGRAVING. 123 
 
 at Paris, where it is framed and hung up for the inspec- 
 tion of the curious. Kude, ill-drawn, grotesque — printed 
 with some brownish fluid on the coarsest ill-coloured 
 paper — still it is impossible to look at it without some 
 of the curiosity, interest, and reverence with which we 
 regard the first printed book, though it must be allowed 
 that, in comparison with this first sorry specimen of a 
 woodcut, the first book was a beautiful performance. 
 
 Up to a late period the origin of engraving on copper 
 was involved in a like obscurity, and volumes of con- 
 troversy have been written on the subject — some claim- 
 ing the invention for Germany, others for Italy: at 
 length, however, the indefatigable researches of anti- 
 quarians and connoisseurs, aided by the accidental dis- 
 covery, in 1794, of the first impression from a metal 
 plate, have set the matter at rest. If to Germany belongs 
 the invention of engraving on wood, the art of copper- 
 plate, engraving was beyond all doubt first introduced 
 and practised at Florence ; yet here again the invention 
 seems to have arisen out of a combination of accidental 
 circumstances rather than to belong of right to one man. 
 The circumstances, as well as we can trace them, were 
 these : — 
 
 The goldsmiths of Italy, and particularly of Florence, 
 were famous, in the fifteenth century, for working in 
 Niello. They traced with a sharp point or graver on 
 metal plates, generally of silver, all kinds of designs, 
 sometimes only arabesques, sometimes single figures, 
 sometimes elaborate and complicated designs from sacred 
 and profane history. The lines thus cut or scratched 
 were filled up with a black mass of sulphate of silver, so 
 
124 INVENTION OF- ENGRAVING. [1423-1452. 
 
 that the design traced appeared very distinct contrasted 
 with the white metal : in Italy the substance used in 
 filling np the lines was called, from its black colour, in 
 Latin nigellum, and in Italian niello. In this manner 
 church plate, as chalices and reliquaries ; also dagger- 
 sheaths, sword-hilts, clasps, buttons, and many other 
 small silver articles, were ornamented : those who prac- 
 tised the art were called niellatorL 
 
 According to Vasari's account, Maso Finiguerra was 
 a skilful goldsmith, living in Florence ; he became cele- 
 brated for the artistic beauty of his designs and work- 
 manship in niello. Finiguerra is said to be the first to 
 whom it accidentally occurred to try the effect of his 
 work, and preserve a memorandum of his design, in the 
 following manner : — Previous to filling up the engraved 
 lines with the niello, which was a final process, he applied 
 to them a black fluid easily removed, and then, laying 
 a piece of damp paper on the plate or object, and press- 
 ing or rubbing it forcibly, the paper imbibed the fluid 
 from the. tracing, and presented a fac-simile of the design, 
 which had the appearance of being drawn with a pen. 
 That Finiguerra was the first or the only worker in niello 
 who used this method of trying the effect of the work 
 is more than doubtful ; but it is certain that the earliest 
 known impression of a niello plate is the impression 
 from a pax* now existing in the Gallery of Bronzes 
 at Florence, executed by Finiguerra, and representing 
 the subject we have often alluded to — the Coronation of 
 
 * A pax or pix is the name given to the vessel in which the con- 
 secrated bread or wafer of the sacrament was deposited. This vessel 
 was usually of the richest workmanship, often enriched with gems. 
 
1423-1452.] INVENTION OF ENGRAVING. 125 
 
 the Virgin by her Son the Redeemer, in presence of 
 Saints and Angels ; it contains nearly thirty minute 
 figures most exquisitely designed. This relic is pre- 
 served in the Eoyal Library at Paris, where it was dis- 
 covered lying among some old Italian engravings by 
 the Abbe Zani. The date of the work is fixed beyond 
 all dispute ; for the record of the payment of sixty- 
 six gold ducats (321. sterling) to Maso Finiguerra for 
 this identical pax still exists, dated 1452. The only 
 existing impression from it must have been made pre- 
 viously, perhaps a few weeks or months before. It is 
 now, like the first woodcut, framed and hung up in the 
 Royal Library at Paris for the inspection of the curious : 
 a reduced copy is given in the annexed illustration. 
 
 Another method of trying the effect of niello-work 
 before it was quite completed was by taking the impres- 
 sion of the design, not on paper, but on sulphur, of 
 which some curious and valuable specimens remain. 
 After seeing several impressions of niello plates of the 
 fifteenth century, we are no longer surprised to find 
 skilful goldsmiths converted into excellent painters and 
 sculptors.* 
 
 We have no evidence that it occurred to Maso 
 Finiguerra, or any other niello-worker, to engrave 
 designs on plates of copper for the express purpose of 
 making and multiplying impressions of them on paper. 
 The first who did this as a trade or profession was 
 
 * In our own time this art, after having been forgotten since the 
 sixteenth century, when it fell into disuse, has been very success- 
 fully revived by Mr. Wagner, a goldsmith of Berlin, now residing 
 at Paris. 
 
126 MANTEGNA. [Born 1431. 
 
 Baccio Baldini, who, about 1467, employed several 
 painters, particularly Sandro Botticelli and Filippino 
 Lippi, to make designs for him to engrave. Andrea 
 Mantegna caught up the idea with a kind of enthusiasm . 
 he made the first experiment when about sixty, and, 
 according to Lanzi, he engraved, during the sixteen 
 remaining years of his life, not less than fifty plates : of 
 these about thirty are now known to collectors, and 
 considered genuine. Among them are his own designs 
 for the Triumph of Julius Caesar (the fifth, sixth, and 
 seventh compartments only). 
 
 Familiar as we now are with all kinds of copperplate 
 and wood-engraving, there are persons who do not 
 understand clearly the difference between them. Inde- 
 pendent of the difference of the material on which they 
 are executed, the grand distinction between the two arts 
 is this — that the copperplate engraver cuts out the 
 lines by which the impression is produced, which are 
 thus left hollow, and afterwards filled up with ink ; the 
 impression is produced by laying a piece of wet paper 
 on the plate and passing them together under a heavy 
 and perfectly even roller. The method of the engraver 
 on wood is precisely the reverse. He cuts away all the 
 surrounding surface of the block of wood, and leaves the 
 lines which are to produce the impression prominent; 
 they are afterwards blackened with ink like a stamp, 
 and the impression taken with a common printing- 
 press. 
 
 When Andrea Mantegna made his first essays in 
 engraving on copper he does not seem to have used a 
 press or roller ; perhaps he was unacquainted with that 
 
Died 1506.] INVENTION OF ENGRAVING. 127 
 
 implement. At all events the early impressions of his 
 plates have evidently been taken by merely laying the 
 paper on the copper-plate and then rubbing it over 
 with the hand ; and they are very faint and spiritless 
 compared with the later impressions taken with a 
 press. 
 
( 128 ) 
 
 COMMENCEMENT OF 
 
 THE VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 THE BELLINI. 
 
 A.D. 1421 TO A.D. 1516. 
 
 Jacopo Bellini, the father, had studied painting under 
 Gentile da Fabriano, of whom we have spoken as the 
 scholar, or at least the imitator, of the famous monk 
 Angelico da Fiesole. To express his gratitude and 
 veneration for his instructor, Jacopo gave the name of 
 Gentile to his eldest son : the second and most famous 
 of the two was christened Giovanni (John); in the 
 Venetian dialect Gian Bellini. 
 
 The sister of the Bellini being married to Andrea 
 Mantegna, who exercised for forty years a sort of patri- 
 archal authority over all the painters of northern Italy, 
 it is singular that he should have had so little influence 
 over his Venetian relatives. It is true the elder brother, 
 Gentile, had always a certain leaning to Mantegna's 
 school, and was fond of studying from a mutilated 
 antique Venus which he kept in his studio. But the 
 genius of his brother Gian Bellini was formed altogether 
 
26. — Giovanni Bellini. 
 
 From a Portrait by himself, now in the Louvre. 
 
 Page 128. 
 

U21-1516.] THE VIVARINI AND THE BELLINI. 129 
 
 by other influences. The commercial intercourse be- 
 tween Venice and Germany brought several pictures 
 and painters of Germany and the Netherlands into 
 Venice. In the island of Murano, at Venice, dwelt a 
 family called the Vivarini, who had carried on the art 
 of painting from generation to generation, and who had 
 associated with them some of the early Flemings : thus 
 it was that the painters of the first Venetian school 
 became familiarized with a style of colouring more rich 
 and vivid than was practised in any other part of Italy : 
 they were among the first who substituted oil-painting 
 for distemper. To these advantages the elder Bellini 
 added the knowledge of drawing and perspective taught 
 in the Paduan school, and the religious and spiritual 
 feeling which they derived from the example and in- 
 struction of Gentile da Fabriano. In these combined 
 elements Gian Bellini was educated, and founded the 
 Venetian school, afterwards so famous and so prolific in 
 great artists. 
 
 The two brothers were first employed together in an 
 immense work, which may be compared in its im- 
 portance and its object to the decoration of our houses 
 of parliament. They were commanded to paint the 
 Hall of Council in the palace of the Doge with a series 
 of pictures representing the principal events (partly 
 legendary and fictitious, partly authentic) of the Vene- 
 tian wars with the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa (1177); 
 the combats and victories on the Adriatic, the reconcilia- 
 tion of the Emperor with Pope Alexander III. in the 
 Place of St. Mark, when Frederic held the stirrup of 
 the pope's mule; the Doge Ziani receiving from the pope 
 
 K 
 
130 THE BELLINI. [1421-1516. 
 
 the gold ring with, which he espoused the Adriatic in 
 token of perpetual dominion over it ; and other memo- 
 rable scenes dear to the pride and patriotism of the 
 Venetians. 
 
 These were painted in fourteen compartments round 
 the hall. What remains to us of the works of the two 
 brothers renders it a subject of lasting" regret that these 
 frescoes, and others still more valuable, were destroyed 
 by fire in 1577. 
 
 In 1453 Constantinople was taken by the Turks, an 
 event which threw the whole of Christendom into con- 
 sternation, not unmixed with shame. The Venetians 
 were the first to resume their commercial relations with 
 the Levant ; they sent an embassy to the Turkish Sultan 
 to treat for the redemption of the Christian prisoners 
 and negotiate a peace. This was happily concluded in 
 454, under the auspices of the Doge, old Francesco 
 Foscari.* It was on this occasion that the Sultan 
 Mohammed II., having seen some Venetian pictures, 
 desired that the Venetian government would send him 
 one of their painters. The Council of Ten, after some 
 deliberation, selected for this service Gentile Bellini, 
 who took his departure accordingly in one of the state 
 galleys, and on arriving at Constantinople was received 
 with great honour. During his residence there he 
 painted the portrait of the Sultan and one of his favourite 
 sultanas ; and he took an opportunity of presenting to 
 the Sultan, as a token of homage from himself, a picture 
 
 * The story of the two Foscari is the subject of a tragedy by 
 Lord Byron. The taking of Constantinople is the subject of one of 
 the most beautiful tragedies of Joanna Baillie. 
 
1421-1516.] WORKS OF GENTILE BELLINI. 131 
 
 of the head of John the Baptist after decapitation. The 
 Sultan admired it much, but criticised, with the air of 3 
 connoisseur, the appearance of the neck : he observed 
 that the shrinking of the severed nerves was not properly- 
 expressed. As Gentile Bellini did not appear to feel 
 the full force of this criticism, the Sultan called in one 
 of his slaves, commanded the wretch to kneel down, and, 
 drawing his sabre, cut off his head with a stroke, and 
 thus gave the astonished and terrified painter a prac- 
 tical lesson in anatomy. It may be easily believed that 
 after this horrible scene Gentile became uneasy till he 
 had obtained leave of departure, and the Sultan at length 
 dismissed him, with a letter of strong recommendation 
 to his own government, a chain of gold, and other rich 
 presents. After his return to Venice he painted some 
 remarkable pictures ; among them one representing St. 
 Mark preaching at Alexandria, in which he has painted 
 the men and women of Alexandria in rich Turkish cos- 
 tumes, such as he had seen at Constantinople. This 
 curious picture is now in the Brera at Milan, and is 
 engraved in Eosini's ' Storia della Pittura.' A portrait 
 of Mohammed II., painted by Gentile Bellini, is in 
 England, the property of A. H. Layard, Esq. All the 
 early engravings of the grim Turkish conqueror which 
 now exist are from the portraits painted by Bellini. 
 He died in 1501, at the age of eighty. 
 
 A much more memorable artist in all respects was his 
 brother Gian Bellini. His works are divided into two 
 classes — those which he painted before he adopted the 
 process of oil-painting, and those executed afterwards. 
 The first have great sweetness and elegance and purity 
 
132 THE BELLINI. [1421-1516. 
 
 of expression, with, however, a certain timidity and 
 dryness of manner ; in the latter we have a foretaste of 
 the rich Yenetian colouring, without any diminution of 
 the grave simple dignity and melancholy sweetness of 
 expression which distinguished his earlier works. Be- 
 tween his sixty -fifth and his eightieth year he painted 
 those pictures which are considered as his chefs-d'oeuvre, 
 and which are now preserved in the churches at Venice 
 and in the Gallery of the Academy of Arts in that city. 
 
 It has been said that Gian Bellini introduced himself 
 disguised into the room of Antonello da Messina when 
 he was painting at Venice, and stole from him the newly 
 discovered secret of mixing the colours with oils instead 
 of water. It is a consolation to think that this story 
 does not rest on any evidence worthy of credit. Anto- 
 nello had divulged his secret to several of his friends, 
 particularly to Domenico Veneziano, afterwards mur- 
 dered by Andrea Castagno. Besides, the character of 
 Bellini renders it unlikely that he would have been 
 guilty of such a perfidious trick. 
 
 Gian Bellini is said to have introduced at Venice the 
 fashion of portrait-painting; before his time the like- 
 nesses of living persons had been frequently painted, 
 but they were almost always introduced into pictures of 
 large subjects : portraits properly so called were scarcely 
 known till his time ; then, and afterwards, every noble 
 Venetian sat for his picture, generally the head only 
 or half-length. Their houses were filled with family 
 portraits, and it became a custom to have the effigies of 
 their doges and those who distinguished themselves in 
 he service of their country painted by order of the 
 
421-1516.] WORKS OF GIAN BELLINI. 133 
 
 state and hung in the ducal palace, where many of them 
 are still to be seen. Up to the latest period of his life 
 Gian Bellini had been employed in painting for his 
 countrymen only religious pictures, or portraits, or 
 subjects of Venetian history ; the classical taste which 
 had spread through all the states of Italy had not yet 
 penetrated to Venice : but towards the end of his life, 
 when nearly ninety, he was invited to Ferrara to paint 
 in the palace of the duke a Dance of Bacchanals. On 
 this occasion he made the acquaintance of Ariosto, who 
 mentions him with honour among the painters of his 
 time. 
 
 There is at the palace of Hampton Court a very 
 curious little head of Bellini, certainly genuine, though 
 much injured : it is inscribed underneath, Johanes Bellini 
 ipse. We have in our National Gallery a most curious 
 and genuine portrait of one of the old doges painted by 
 Bellini. It is somewhat hard in the execution, but we 
 cannot look at it without feeling that we could swear to 
 the truth of the resemblance. In the Louvre at Paris 
 are three pictures ascribed to Gian Bellini : one contains 
 his own portrait and that of his brother Gentile, heads 
 only ; the former is dark, the latter fair ; both wear a 
 kind of cap or beret. Another, about six feet in length, 
 represents the reception of a Venetian ambassador at 
 Constantinople* A third is a Virgin and Child. The 
 first-mentioned is by Gentile, and the two last uncertain. 
 In the Berlin Museum are seven pictures by him, all 
 considered genuine, and all are painted on panel and 
 in oils ; they belong therefore to his latest and best 
 period. 
 
134 THE BELLINI. [1421-1516. 
 
 Gian Bellini died in 1516. He had formed many- 
 disciples, and among them two whose glory in these 
 later times has almost eclipsed that of their great teacher 
 and precursor — G-iorgione and Titian. Another, less 
 famous, hut of whom some beautiful pictures still exist 
 at Venice, was Cima da Cornegliano. 
 
27.— Pibtro Vannttcct, called Pietro Perugino. 
 
 By himself. From the Camhio di Perugia. 
 
 Page 135. 
 
( 135 ) 
 
 THE UMBRIAN SCHOOL. 
 PIETRO PERUGINQ, 
 
 Born 1446, died J524 ; 
 
 AND 
 
 FRANCESCO FRAJSTCIA. 
 
 For a long period the fame of Peragino, at least in this 
 country, rested more on his having been the master and 
 instructor of Raphael than on his own works or worth, 
 but he is now better appreciated. He was a great 
 and remarkable painter, popular in his own day and 
 interesting in ours as the representative of a school of 
 art immediately preceding that of Eaphael. He was 
 what the Italians call a " Capo-scuolo," and one of the 
 most celebrated of all. 
 
 The territory of Umbria in Italy comprises that 
 mountainous region of the Ecclesiastical States now 
 called the Duchy of Spoleto. Urbino, Perugia, Foligno, 
 Assisi, and Spoleto were among its principal towns; and 
 the whole country, with its etired valleys and isolated 
 cities, was distinguished in the middle ages as the 
 peculiar seat of religious enthusiasm. It was here that 
 
136 PERUGINO. [Born 1446. 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi preached and prayed, and gathered 
 around him his fervid self-denying votaries. Art, as 
 usual, reflected the habits and feelings of the people, 
 and here Gentile da Fabriano, the beloved friend of 
 Angelico da Fiesole, exercised a particular influence. 
 No less than thirteen or fourteen Umbrian painters, 
 who flourished between the time of Gentile and that of 
 Kaphael, are mentioned in Passavant's * Life of Kaphael.' 
 This mystical and spiritual direction of art extended 
 itself to Bologna, and found a worthy interpreter in 
 Francesco Francia. We shall, however, speak first of 
 Perugino. 
 
 Pietro Vannucci was born at a little town in Umbria, 
 called Citta della Pieve, and he was known for the first 
 thirty years of his life as Pietro della Pieve ; after he 
 had settled at Perugia, and had obtained there the rights 
 of citizenship, he was called Pietro di Perugia, or II 
 Perugino, by which name he is best known. 
 
 We know little of the early life and education of 
 Perugino ; his parents were respectable, but poor. His 
 first instructor is supposed to have been Niccolo Alunno. 
 At this time (about 1470) Florence was considered as the 
 head-quarters of art and artists ; and the young painter, 
 at the age of five-and-twenty, undertook a journey to 
 Florence as the most certain path to excellence and 
 fame. 
 
 Vasari, who is very unjust to Pietro in some respects, 
 tells us that he was excited to industry by being con- 
 stantly told of the great rewards and honours which the 
 professors of painting had earned in ancient and in 
 modern times, and also by the pressure of poverty, but 
 
Died 1524.] HIS EARLY LIFE. 137 
 
 there can be no doubt that he added to genius and 
 industry a more genuine sentiment of truth and beauty, 
 a more real delight in his art, and a nobler ambition than 
 Vasari gives 'him credit for, at least in his younger 
 years. He left Perugia in a state of absolute want, and 
 reached Florence, where he pursued his studies for 
 many months with unwearied diligence, but so poor 
 meanwhile that he had not even a bed to sleep on. He 
 studied in the Brancacci chapel in the Carmine, which 
 has been already mentioned ; received some instruction 
 in drawing and modelling from Andrea Verrocchio ; and 
 was a friend and fellow-pupil of Lionardo da Vinci. 
 They are thus mentioned together in a contemporary 
 poem written by Giovanni Santi, the father of the great 
 Raphael : — 
 
 " Due giovin par d' etate e par d' amori, 
 Lionardo da Vinci e '1 Perusino 
 Pier della Pieve, che son divin pittori.'' 
 
 ** Two youths, equal in years, equal in affection, 
 Lionardo da Vinci and the Perugian 
 Peter della Pieve, both divine painters." 
 
 When young in his art a pure and gentle feeling 
 guided his pencil ; and in the desire to learn, in the 
 fixed determination to improve and to excel, his calm 
 sense and his calculating spirit stood him in good stead. 
 There was a famous convent near Florence,* in which 
 the monks — not lazy nor ignorant, as monks are usually 
 
 * The convent of the Gesuati or Jesuati, who must not be con- 
 founded with the Jesuiti — the Jesuits. This noble convent, with 
 most of its fine paintings, was destroyed when Clement VII. 
 besieged Florence in 1529. 
 
138 PERUGINO. [Born 1446. 
 
 described — carried on several arts successfully, par- 
 ticularly the art of painting on glass. Perugino was 
 employed to paint some frescoes in their convent, and 
 also to make designs for the glass-painters : in return, 
 he learned how to prepare and to apply many colours 
 not yet in general use ; and the lucid and vigorous tints 
 to which his eye became accustomed in their workshop 
 certainly influenced his style of colouring. He gradually 
 rose in estimation ; painted a vast number of pictures 
 and frescoes for the churches and chapels of Florence, 
 and particularly an altarpiece of great beauty for the 
 famous convent of Vallombrosa. In this he represented 
 the Assumption of the Virgin, who is soaring to heaven 
 in the midst of a choir of angels, while the tutelary saints 
 of the convent, St. Bernard Cardinale, St. John Gualberto, 
 St. Benedict, and the Archangel Michael, standing below, 
 look upwards with adoration and astonishment. This 
 excellent picture is preserved in the Academy of the 
 Fine Arts at Florence.* Ten years after Perugino had 
 first entered Florence a poor nameless youth, he was 
 called to Eome by Pope Sixtus IV. to assist with most 
 of the distinguished painters of that time in painting the 
 famous Sistine Chapel. All the frescoes of Perugino 
 except two were afterwards effaced to make room for 
 Michael Angelo's Last Judgment. Those which remain 
 show that the style of Perugino at this time was 
 decidedly Florentine, and quite distinct from his earlier 
 and later works. They represent the Baptism of Christ 
 in the river Jordan, and Christ delivering the Keys to 
 
 * It belongs, however, to a later period than his first sojourn at 
 Florence in 1482, the date on the picture being 1500. 
 
Died 1524,] HIS POPULARITY. 139 
 
 St. Peter. While at Eome he also painted a room in the 
 palace of Prince Colonna. When he returned to Perugia 
 he resumed the feeling and manner of his earlier years, 
 combined with better drawing and colouring, and his 
 best pictures were painted between 1490 and 1502 ; his 
 principal work, however, was the hall of the CoTlegio del 
 Cambio (i. e. Hall of Exchange) at Perugia, most richly 
 and elaborately painted with frescoes, which still exist. 
 The personages introduced exhibit a strange mixture 
 of the sacred and profane : John the Baptist and other 
 saints, Isaiah, Moses, Daniel, David, and other prophets, 
 are figured on the walls with Fabius Maximus, Socrates, 
 Pythagoras, Pericles, Horatius Codes, and other Greek 
 and Eoman worthies. Other religious pictures pain.ted 
 in Perugia are remarkable for the simplicity, grace, and 
 dignity of the Virgin, the infantine sweetness of the 
 children and cherubs, and the earnest, ardent expression 
 in the heads of his saints. 
 
 Perugino, in the very beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, was certainly the most popular painter of his time; a 
 circumstance which, considering that Eaphael, Francia, 
 and Lionardo da Vinci were all working at the same 
 time, would surprise us did we not know that con- 
 temporary popularity is not generally the recompense of 
 the most distinguished genius. We must remember that 
 in 1505, when Eaphael was a youth, Perugino was nearly 
 sixty, and had in his long life painted many pictures 
 in many different cities of Italy, having been employed 
 at Eome, Florence, Sienna, Orvieto, Fano, as well as his 
 own country of Perugia and its neighbourhood, which 
 no doubt extended his name and popularity. He had also 
 
140 PERUGINO. [Born 1446. 
 
 opened a school or academy, which became celebrated 
 for the number of admirable painters it produced. 
 After 1505 his powers declined, though his fame and 
 popularity remained. He undertook an immense number 
 of works, and employed his scholars and assistants to 
 execute them from his designs. A passion, of which 
 perhaps the seeds were sown in his early days of poverty 
 and misery, took possession of his soul. He was no 
 longer excited to labour by a spirit of piety or the 
 generous ambition to excel, but by an insatiable thirst 
 for gain : all his late pictures, from the year 1505 to his 
 death, betray the influence of this mean passion. He 
 aimed at nothing beyond mechanical dexterity, and 
 to earn his money with as little expense of time and 
 trouble as possible ; he became more and more feeble, 
 mannered, and monotonous, continually repeating the 
 same figures, actions, and heads, till his very admirers 
 were wearied ; and on his last visit to Florence, Michael 
 Angelo, who had never done him justice, pronounced 
 him, with contempt, " Goffo nelV arte" that is, a mere 
 bungler ; for which affront Pietro summoned him before 
 the magistrates, but came off with little honour. He 
 was no longer what he had been. Such was his love of 
 money, or such his mistrust of his family, that when 
 moving from place to place he carried his beloved gold 
 with him ; and being on one occasion robbed of a large 
 sum, he fell ill, and was like to die of grief. It seems, 
 however, hardly consistent with the mean and avaricious 
 spirit imputed to him, that, having married a beautiful 
 girl of Perugia, he took great delight in seeing her 
 arrayed, at home and abroad, in the most costly gar- 
 
Died 1524.] ALTARPIECE FOR THE CERTOSA. 141 
 
 merits, and sometimes dressed her with his own hands. 
 To the reproach of avarice — too well founded — some 
 writers have added that of irreligion : nay, two centuries 
 after his death they showed the spot where he was 
 buried in unconsecrated ground under a few trees, near 
 Fontignano, he having refused to receive the last sacra- 
 ments : this accusation has been refuted ; and in truth 
 there is such a divine beauty in some of the best pictures 
 of Perugino, such exquisite purity and tenderness in 
 his Madonnas, such an expression of enthusiastic faith 
 and devotion in some of the heads, that it would be 
 painful to believe that there was no corresponding 
 feeling in his heart. In one or two of his pictures he 
 has reached a degree of sublimity worthy of him who 
 was the master of Raphael, but the instances are few. 
 
 In our National Gallery we have one of his most 
 exquisite productions, an altarpiece painted for the 
 Certosa at Pavia about 1501, and in which he is sup- 
 posed to have been assisted by his pupil Raphael. In 
 its original form this altarpiece consisted of six divi- 
 sions or compartments — the three which we possess 
 representing in the centre the Madre Pia (the Virgin 
 Mary adoring her divine Son), with on one side the 
 fine martial figure of St. Michael, " captain of the hosts 
 of the Lord," and oh the other the graceful and 
 sympathising guardian angel, St. Eaphael, leading his 
 young charge Tobias. Of the . three small half-length 
 figures placed above, one remains in the Certosa and 
 two are lost. Another little picture in tho National 
 Gallery (a Madonna and Child with St. John) is com- 
 paratively unimportant and feeble, and must have been 
 
142 PINTURICCHIO— LO SPAGNA. 
 
 a very early picture, as it is painted in distemper, pro- 
 bably before his first visit to Florence. 
 
 In the Louvre at Paris there is a curious allegorical 
 picture by Perugino, representing the Combat of Love 
 and Chastity ; many figures in a landscape. It seems a 
 late production — feeble and tasteless ; and the subject is 
 precisely one least adapted to the painter's style and 
 powers. 
 
 In almost every collection on the Continent there are 
 works of Perugino, for he was so popular in his lifetime, 
 that his pictures were as merchandise, and sold all over 
 Italy. 
 
 Pietro Perugino died in 1524. He survived Eaphael 
 four years, and he may be said, during the last twenty- 
 five years of his life, to have survived himself. 
 
 His scholars were very numerous, but the fame of all 
 the rest is swallowed up in that of his great disciple 
 Raphael. Bernardino di Perugia, called Pinturicchio, 
 was rather an assistant than a pupil : he has left some 
 excellent and important works in the Ara Celi, the 
 Vatican, and S. Maria del Popolo at Pome, in the famous 
 series of the life of Pius II. at Sienna, and at Spello. He 
 was a most elegant and graceful painter and a great 
 friend of Eaphael, though considerably older. We have 
 now a fine work of Pinturicchio in our National Gal- 
 lery ; and by another scholar of Perugino, Lo Spagna, 
 we have a charming picture — the Madonna and Child 
 glorified, with angels singing and playing. 
 
28. — Bernardino Betti, called Pinturicchio. 
 
 From Vasari's History. 
 
 1'ag.e 142. 
 
29. — Francesco Raiboljni, called Francesco Francia. 
 
 Engraved in the 1568 edition of Vasari. 
 
 Page 143. 
 
( us ) 
 
 tfKANCESCO RAIBOLINI, 
 
 CALLED IL FRANCIA. 
 
 Born 1450, died 1517. 
 
 Theee existed throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries a succession of painters in Bologna, known in 
 the history of Italian art as the early Bolognese school, 
 to distinguish it from the later school, which the Carracci 
 founded in the same city — a school altogether dissimilar 
 in spirit and feeling. The chief characteristic of the 
 former was the fervent piety and devotion of its pro- 
 fessors. In the sentiment of their works they resembled 
 the Umbrian school, but the manner of execution is dif- 
 ferent. One of these early painters, Lippo (or Filippo) 
 di Dalmasio, was so celebrated for the beauty of his 
 Madonnas, that he obtained the name of Lippo dalle Ma- 
 donne. He greatly resembled the Frate Angelico in life 
 and character, but was inferior as an artist. To his 
 heads of the Virgin he gave an expression of saintly 
 beauty, purity, and tenderness, which two hundred 
 years later excited the admiration and emulation of 
 Guido. Lippo died about 1409. Passing over some 
 other names, we come to that of the greatest painter of 
 the early Bologna school, Francesco Kaibolini. 
 
144 IL FRANCIA. [Born 1450. 
 
 He was born in 1450 ; being just four years younger 
 than his contemporary Perugino. Like many other 
 painters of that age, already mentioned, he was educated 
 for a goldsmith, and learned to design and model cor- 
 rectly. Francesco's master in the arts of working in 
 gold and niello * was a certain Francia, whose name, in 
 affectionate gratitude to his memory, he afterwards 
 adopted, signed it on his pictures, and is better known 
 by it than by his own family name. Up to the age of 
 forty, Francesco Francia pursued his avocation of gold- 
 smith, and became celebrated for the excellence of his 
 workmanship in chasing gold and silver, and the exqui- 
 site beauty and taste of his niellos. He also excelled in 
 engraving dies for coins and medals, and was appointed 
 superintendent of the mint in his native city of Bologna, 
 which office he held till his death. 
 
 We are not told how the attention of Francia was first 
 directed to the art of painting. It is said that the sight 
 of a beautiful picture by Perugino awakened the dormant 
 talent ; that he learned drawing from Marco Zoppo, one 
 of the numerous pupils of Squarcione ; and that for many 
 months he entertained in his house certain artists who 
 initiated him into the use of colours, &c. However this 
 may be, his earliest picture is dated 1490, when he was 
 in his fortieth year. It exists at present in the gallery 
 at Bologna, and. represents his favourite subject, so often 
 repeated, a Madonna and Child, enthroned, and sur- 
 rounded by saints and martyrs. This picture, which, 
 if it be a first production, may well be termed wonderful 
 
 * For an account of the art of working in niello, and the inven- 
 tion to which it led, see p. 123. 
 
Died 1517.] HIS FRESCOES. 145 
 
 as well as beautiful, excited so much admiration, that 
 Giovanni Bentivoglio, then lord of Bologna, desired him 
 to paint an altarpiece for his family chapel in the church 
 of San Giacomo. This second essay of his powers ex- 
 cited in the strongest degree the enthusiasm of his 
 fellow-citizens. The people of Bologna were distin- 
 guished among the other states of Italy for their patron- 
 age of native talent ; they now exulted in having pro- 
 duced an artist who might vie with those of Florence, 
 or Perugia, or Venice. 
 
 The vocation of Francia was henceforth determined : 
 he abandoned his former employment of goldsmith and 
 niello-worker, and became a painter by choice and by 
 profession. During the next ten years he improved 
 progressively in composition and in colour, still retain- 
 ing the simple and beautiful sentiment which had from 
 the first distinguished his works. His earliest pictures 
 are in oil; but his success encouraged him to attempt 
 fresco, and in this style, which required a grandeur of 
 conception and a breadth and rapidity of execution 
 for which his laborious and diminutive works in gold 
 and niello could never have prepared his mind or 
 hand, he appears to have succeeded at once. He was 
 first employed by Bentivoglio to decorate one of the 
 chambers in his palace with the story of Judith and 
 Holofernes : and he afterwards executed in the chapel 
 of St. Cecilia a series of frescoes from the legend of that 
 saint. " The composition," says Kugler, " is extremely 
 simple, without any superfluous figures; the action 
 dramatic and well conceived. "VVe have here the most 
 noble figures, the most beautiful and graceful heads, a 
 
 L 
 
146 IL rRANCIA. [Born 1450. 
 
 pure taste in the drapery, and masterly backgrounds." 
 It should seem that the merits here enumerated include 
 all that constitutes perfection : unhappily these fine 
 specimens of Francia's art are falling into ruin and 
 decay. 
 
 The style of Francia at his best period is very distinct 
 from that of Perugino, whom he resembles, however, so 
 far as to show that the pictures of the latter were the 
 first objects of his emulation and imitation. In the later 
 works of Perugino there is a melancholy verging fre- 
 quently on sourness and harshness, or fading into in- 
 sipidity. Francia, in his richer and deeper colouring, 
 his ampler forms, and the cheerful, hopeful, affectionate 
 expression in his heads, reminds us of the Venetian 
 school. 
 
 His celebrity in a short period had extended through 
 the whole of Lombardy. Not only his native city, but 
 Parma, Modena, Cesena, and Ferrara, were emulous to 
 possess his works. Even Tuscany, so rich in painters 
 of her own, had heard of Francia. The beautiful altar- 
 piece which has enriched our National Gallery since the 
 year 1841 was painted at the desire of a nobleman of 
 Lucca. 
 
 This altarpiece is composed of two separate pictures, 
 The larger compartment contains eight figures rather 
 less than life. In the centre on a raised throne are 
 seated the Virgin and her mother St. Anna. The Virgin 
 is attired in a red tunic and a dark blue mantle which is 
 drawn over the head. She holds in her lap the infant 
 Christ, to whom St. Anna is presenting a peach. The 
 expression of the Virgin is exceedingly pure, calm, and 
 
Died 1517.] HIS ALTARPIECES. 147 
 
 saintly, yet without the seraph-like refinement which 
 we see in some of Kaphael's Madonnas : the head of the 
 aged St. Anna is simply dignified and maternal. At the 
 foot of the throne stands the little St. John, holding in 
 his arms the cross of reeds and the scroll inscribed 
 " Ecce Agnus Dei " {Behold the Lamb of God!). On each 
 side of the throne are two saints. To the right of the 
 Virgin stands St. Paul holding a sword, the instrument 
 of his martyrdom ; and St. Sebastian bound to a pillar 
 and pierced with arrows: on the left, St. Lawrence 
 with the emblematical gridiron and palm-branch ; and 
 St. Benedict, wearing the white habit of the reformed 
 Benedictines. The heads of these saints want elevation 
 of form, the brow in all being rather low and narrow ; 
 but the prevailing expression is simple, affectionate, 
 devout, full of faith and hope. The background is 
 formed of two open arches adorned with sculpture, the 
 blue sky beyond ; and lower down, between St. Paul 
 and St. Sebastian, is seen a glimpse of a beautiful land- 
 scape. The draperies are grand and ample ; the colouring 
 rich and warm; the execution most finished in every 
 part. On the cornice of the raised throne or pedestal 
 is inscribed Francia aurifex Bononiensis P. (i. e. painted 
 by Francia, goldsmith of Bologna), but no date. It 
 measures six feet and a half high by six feet wide. 
 
 Over this square picture was placed the lunette, or 
 arch, which is now separated from it. It represents the 
 subject called in Italian a Pieta — the dead Redeemer 
 supported on the knees of the Virgin mother. An angel 
 clothed in green drapery supports the drooping head of 
 the Saviour ; another angel in red drapery kneels at his 
 
148 IL FRANCIA. [Born 1450. 
 
 feet. Grief in the face of the sorrowing mother — in the 
 countenances of the angels reverential sorrow and pity 
 — are most admirably expressed. 
 
 This altarpiece was painted by Francia about the 
 year 1500, for the Marchesa Buonvisi of Lucca, and 
 placed in the chapel of the Buonvisi family in the 
 church of San Frediano. It remained there till lately 
 purchased by the Duke of Lucca, who sent it with other 
 pictures to be disposed of in England. The two pieces 
 were valued at 4000?. ; after some negotiation our go- 
 vernment obtained them for the National Gallery at the 
 price of 350.0Z.* 
 
 The works of Francia were, until lately, confined to 
 the churches of Bologna and other cities of Lombardy ; 
 now they are to be found in all the great collections of 
 Europe. The Bologna Gallery contains six, the Berlin 
 Museum three of his pictures.")" In the Florentine Gal- 
 lery is an admirable portrait of a man holding a letter 
 in his hand. In the Imperial Gallery at Vienna there 
 is a most exquisite altarpiece, the same size and style 
 as the one in the National Gallery, but still more beau- 
 tiful and poetical : the Virgin and Child are seated on 
 the throne in the midst of a charming landscape ; St. 
 Francis standing on one side, and St. Catherine on the 
 
 * In the same church of San Frediano at Lucca, where this altar- 
 piece was originally placed, there still exists (in 1858) a picture by 
 Francia of astonishing beauty. It represents that curious subject, 
 the Predestination of the Madonna, and not the Assumption, as it is 
 styled in the last edition of Vasari, where, however, due praise is 
 given to this wonderful picture — " Opera veramente stupenda in ogni 
 sua parte." — Vide Vasari, edit. Lemonnier, vi. 19. 
 
 f One of these (No. 253) is a repetition of the Pietk in our National 
 Gallery. 
 
Died 1517.] HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH RAPHAEL. 149 
 
 other. The Gallery at Munich contains a picture by 
 him, perhaps the most charming he ever painted : it 
 represents a Madre Pia, — the infant Saviour lying on 
 the grass amid roses and flowers, while the Virgin 
 stands before him, looking down with clasped hands, in 
 an ecstacy of love and devotion, on her divine Son : the 
 figures are rather less than life. 
 
 It is pleasant to be assured that the life and character 
 of Francia were in harmony with his genius. Vasari 
 describes him as a man of comely aspect, of exemplary 
 morals, of amiable and cheerful manners ; in conversa- 
 tion so witty, so wise, and so agreeable, that in discourse 
 with him the saddest man would have felt his melan- 
 choly dissipated, his cares forgotten; adding that he 
 was loved and venerated not only by his family and 
 fellow-citizens, but by strangers and the princes in 
 whose service he was employed. A most interesting 
 circumstance in the life of Francia was his friendship 
 and correspondence with the youthful Eaphael, who 
 was thirty-four years younger than himself. There is 
 extant a letter which Eaphael addressed to Francia in 
 the year 1508. In this letter, which is expressed with 
 exceeding kindness and deference, Eaphael excuses him- 
 self for not having painted his own portrait for his 
 friend, and promises to send it soon ; he presents him 
 with his design for the Nativity, and requests to have 
 in return Francia's design for the Judith,* to be placed 
 among his most precious treasures ; he alludes, but dis- 
 creetly, to the grief which Francia must have felt when 
 
 * This drawing is said to exist in the collection of the Archduke 
 Charles, at Vienna. — See Passavant. 
 
150 IL FRANCIA. [Born 1450. 
 
 his patron Bentivoglio was exiled from Bologna by Pope 
 Julius II. ; and he concludes affectionately, " continue to 
 love me as I love you, with all my heart." Eaphael 
 afterwards, according to his promise, sent his portrait 
 to his friend, and Francia addressed to him a very pretty 
 sonnet, in which he styles him, as if prophetically, the 
 " painter above all painters : " 
 
 " Tu solo il Pittor sei de' Pittori." 
 
 About the year 1516 Eaphael sent to Bologna his 
 famous picture of the St. Cecilia surrounded by other 
 Saints, which had been commanded by a lady of the 
 house of Bentivoglio, to decorate the church of St. 
 Cecilia, the same church in which Francia had painted 
 the frescoes already mentioned. Eaphael, in a modest 
 and affectionate letter, recommended the picture to the 
 care of his friend Francia, entreating him to be present 
 when the case was opened, to repair any injury it might 
 have received in the carriage, and to correct anything 
 which seemed to him faulty in the execution. Francia 
 zealously fulfilled his wishes : and when he beheld this 
 masterpiece of the divinest of painters, burst into tran- 
 sports of admiration and delight, placing it far above all 
 that he had himself accomplished. As he died a short 
 time afterwards, it was said that he had sickened of envy 
 and despair on seeing himself thus excelled, and, in his 
 native city, his best works eclipsed by a young rival. 
 Vasari tells this story as a tradition of his own time ; 
 his expression is " come alcuni credono " (as some believe) ; 
 but it rests on no other evidence, and is so contrary to 
 all we know of the gentle and generous spirit of Francia, 
 
Died 1517.] HIS DEATH. 151 
 
 and so inconsistent with the sentiments which for many- 
 years he had cherished and avowed for Eaphael, that we 
 may set it aside as unworthy of all belief. The date of 
 Francia's death has been a matter of dispute, but it 
 appears certain, from state documents lately discovered 
 at Bologna, that he died Master of the Mint in that city, 
 on the 6th of January, 1518, being then in his sixty- 
 eighth year. His son Gracomo became an esteemed 
 painter in his father's style : in the Berlin Gallery there 
 are six pictures by his hand ; and one by Giulio Francia, 
 a cousin and pupil of the elder Francia. 
 
( 152 ) 
 
 FBA BAKTOLOMEO, 
 
 Called also BACCIO DELLA POKTA and IL FRATE. 
 
 Bokn 1469, DIED 1517. 
 
 Before we enter on the golden age of painting — that 
 splendid sera which crowded into a brief quarter of a 
 century (between 1505 and 1530) the greatest names 
 and most consummate productions of the art — we must 
 speak of one more painter justly celebrated. Perugino 
 and Francia, of whom we have spoken at length, and 
 Fra Bartolomeo, of whom we are now to speak, were 
 still living at this period; but they belonged to a 
 previous age, and were informed by a wholly different 
 spirit. They contributed in some degree to the per- 
 fection of their great contemporaries and successors, but 
 they owed the sentiment which inspired their own 
 works to influences quite distinct from those which 
 prevailed during the next half- century. The last of 
 these elder painters of the first Italian school was Fra 
 Bartolomeo. 
 
 He was born in the little town of Savignano, in the 
 territory of Prato, near Florence. Of his family little 
 is known, and of his younger years nothing, but that, 
 having shown a disposition to the art of design, he was 
 placed under the tuition of Cosimo Koselli (of whom J 
 
30.— Fra Bartolomeo della Porta di San Marco, 
 called il frate. 
 
 By himself. 
 Engraved in the 1568 edition of Vasari. 
 
 Page 152. 
 

 
 9t 
 
 CsJiibjMU 
 
Died 1517.] FRA BARTOLOMEO. 153 
 
 have already spoken) ; and that while receiving his 
 instructions he resided with some relations who dwelt 
 near one of the gates of the city (la Porta San Piero). 
 Hence for the first thirty years of his life he was known 
 among his companions by the name of Baccio della 
 Porta; Baccio being the Tuscan diminutive of Bar- 
 tolomeo. While studying in the atelier of Cosimo Eoselli, 
 Baccio formed a friendship with Mariotto Albertinelli, 
 a young painter about his own age. It was on both 
 sides an attachment almost fraternal. They painted 
 together, sometimes on the same picture, and in style 
 and sentiment were so similar that it has become 
 difficult to distinguish their works. Baccio was, how- 
 ever, more particularly distinguished by his feeling 
 for softness and harmony of colour, and the tender and 
 devout expression of his religious pictures. From his 
 earliest years he appears to have been a religious 
 enthusiast, and this turn of mind not only characterised 
 all the productions of his pencil, but involved him in 
 a singular manner with some of the most remarkable 
 events and characters of his time. 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, called Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 was then master of the liberties of Florence. The re- 
 vival of classical learning, the study of the antique 
 sculptures (diffused, as we have related, by the school 
 of Padua, and rendered still more a fashion by the 
 influence and popularity of Andrea Mantegna, already 
 old, and Michael Angelo, then a young man), was 
 rapidly corrupting the simple and pious taste which 
 had hitherto prevailed in art, even while imparting to 
 it a more universal direction, and a finer feeling for 
 
154 FRA BARTOLOMEO. [Born 1469 
 
 beauty and sublimity in the abstract. At the same 
 time, and encouraged for their own purposes by the 
 Medici family, there prevailed with this pagan taste in 
 literature and art a general laxity of morals, a licence 
 of conduct, and a disregard of all sacred things, such 
 as had never, even in the darkest ages of barbarism, 
 been known in Italy. The papal chair was during 
 that period filled by two popes, the perfidious and cruel 
 Sixtus IV., and the yet more detestable Alexander VI. 
 (the infamous Borgia). Florence, meantime, under the 
 sway of Lorenzo and his sons, became one of the most 
 magnificent, but also one of the most dissolute of cities. 
 The natural taste and character of Bartolomeo placed 
 him far from this luxurious and licentious court; but 
 he had acquired great reputation by the exquisite beauty 
 and tenderness of his Madonnas, and he was employed 
 by the Dominicans of the convent of St. Mark to paint a 
 fresco in their church, representing the Last Judgment. 
 At this time Savonarola, an eloquent friar in the convent, 
 was preaching against the disorders of the times, the 
 luxury of the nobles, the usurpation of the Medici, 
 and the vices of the popes, with a fearless fervour and 
 eloquence which his hearers and himself mistook for 
 direct inspiration from heaven. The influence of this 
 extraordinary man increased daily ; and among his most 
 devoted admirers and disciples was Bartolomeo. In a 
 fit of perplexity and remorse, caused by an eloquent 
 sermon of Savonarola, he joined with many others in 
 making a sacrifice of all the books and pictures which 
 related to heathen poetry and art on which they could 
 lay their hands; into this funeral pyre, which was 
 
Died 1517.] HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH SAVONAROLA. 155 
 
 kindled in sight of the people in one of the principal 
 streets of Florence, Bartolomeo flung all those of his 
 designs, drawings, and studies which represented either 
 profane subjects or the human figure undraped, and he 
 almost wholly abandoned the practice of his art for 
 the society of his friend and spiritual pastor. But the 
 talents, the enthusiasm, the popularity of Savonarola had 
 marked him for destruction. He was excommunicated 
 by the pope for heresy, denounced by the Medici, and 
 at length forsaken by the fickle people who had followed, 
 obeyed, almost adored him as a saint. Bartolomeo 
 happened to be lodged in the convent of St. Mark when 
 it was attacked by the rabble and a party of nobles. 
 The partisans of Savonarola were massacred, and Sa- 
 vonarola himself carried off to torture and to death. 
 Our pious and excellent painter was not remarkable for 
 courage. Terrified by the tumult and horrors around 
 him, he hid himself, vowing, if he escaped the danger, 
 to dedicate himself to a religious life. Within a few 
 weeks the unhappy Savonarola, after suffering the 
 torture, was publicly burned in the Grand Piazza of 
 Florence ; and Bartolomeo, struck with horror at the fate 
 of his friend — a horror which seemed to paralyse all 
 his faculties — took the vows and became a friar in the 
 Dominican convent of San Marco, leaving to his friend 
 Albertinelli the task of completing those of his frescoes 
 and pictures which were left unfinished. 
 
 He passed the next four years of his life without 
 touching a pencil, in the austere seclusion of his convent. 
 At the end of this period the entreaties and commands 
 of his Superior induced Bartolomeo to resume the 
 
156 FRA BARTOLOMEO. [Born 1469. 
 
 
 
 practice of his art, and from this time he is known as 
 Fra Bartolomeo di San Marco, and by many writers he 
 is styled simply II Frate (the Friar) ; in Italy he is 
 scarcely known by any other designation. 
 
 Timid by nature, and tormented by religions scruples, 
 he at first returned to his easel with languor and re- 
 luctance ; but an incident occurred which re-awakened 
 all his genius and enthusiasm. Young Eaphael, then 
 in his twenty-first year, and already celebrated, arrived 
 in Florence. He visited the Frate in his cell, and 
 between these kindred spirits a friendship ensued which 
 ended only with death, and to which we partly owe 
 the finest works of both. Eaphael, who was a perfect 
 master of perspective, instructed his friend in the more 
 complicated rules of the science, and Fra Bartolomeo 
 in return initiated Raphael into some of his methods of 
 colouring. 
 
 It was not, however, in the merely mechanical pro- 
 cesses of art that these two great painters owed most to 
 each other. It is evident, on examining his works, that 
 Fra Bartolomeo's greatest improvement dates from his 
 acquaintance with Eaphael ; that his pictures from this 
 time display more energy of expression— a more intel- 
 lectual grace ; while Eaphael imitated his friend in the 
 softer blending of his colours, and learned from him the 
 art of arranging draperies in an ampler and nobler style 
 than he had hitherto practised ; in fact, he had just at 
 this time caught the sentiment and manner of Bartolomeo 
 so completely, that the only great work he executed at 
 Florence (the Madonna del Baldachino in the Palazzo 
 Pitti) might be at the first glance mistaken for a com- 
 
Died1517.J HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH RAPHAEL. 157 
 
 position of the Frate. Eichardson, an excellent writer 
 and first-rate authority, observes that "at this time 
 Fra Bartolomeo seems to have been the greater man, 
 and might have been the Eaphael, had not Fortune been 
 determined in favour of the other." It is not, however, 
 Fortune alone which determines these things ; and of 
 Eaphael we might say, as Constance said of her son, 
 that " at his birth Nature and Fortune joined to make 
 him great." But this is digressing, and we must now 
 return to the personal history of the Frate. 
 
 About the year 1513 Bartolomeo obtained leave of the 
 Superior of his convent to visit Eome. He had heard 
 so much of the grand works on which Eaphael and 
 Michael Angelo were employed by Leo X., that he 
 could no longer repress the wish to behold and judge 
 with his own eyes these wonderful productions. He 
 was also engaged to paint in the church of St. Sylvester 
 on .Monte Cavallo : but the air of Eome did not agree 
 with him. He indeed renewed his friendship with 
 Eaphael, and they spent many hours and days in each 
 other's society; but Eaphael had by this time so far 
 outrun him in every kind of excellence, and what he 
 saw around him in the Vatican and in the Sistine 
 Chapel so far surpassed his previous conceptions, that 
 admiration and astonishment seemed to swallow up the 
 feeling of emulation. There was no envy in his gentle 
 and pious mind, but he could not paint, he could not 
 apply himself ; a cloud fell upon his spirits, which was 
 attributed partly to indisposition ; and he returned to 
 Florence, leaving at Eome only two unfinished pictures, 
 figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, which Eaphael under- 
 
158 FRA BARTOLOMEO. [Born 1469. 
 
 took to finish for him, and, in the midst of his own 
 great and multifarious works, found time to complete. 
 It is said that while Raphael was painting on the head 
 of St. Peter, two of his friends, who were cardinals, and 
 not remarkable for the sanctity of their lives, stood 
 conversing with him, and thought either to compliment 
 him, or perhaps rouse him to contradiction, by criti- 
 cising the work of Bartolomeo : one of them observed 
 that the colouring was much too red. To which Eaphael 
 replied with that graceful gaiety which blunts the edge 
 of a sarcasm, " May it please your Eminences, the holy 
 apostle here represented is blushing in heaven, as he 
 certainly would do were he now present, to behold the 
 Church he founded on earth governed by such as you !" 
 
 On returning to Florence, Fra Bartolomeo resumed 
 his pencil, and showed that his journey to Eome had 
 not been in vain. The St. Mark, now in the Pitti 
 Palace, and the famous Madonna di Misericordia at 
 Lucca, were executed after his return, Every picture 
 subsequently painted displayed increasing vigour, and 
 he was still in the full possession of his powers when he 
 was seized with a fever and dysentery, caused, it is said, 
 by eating too many figs, and died in his convent October 
 8, 1517, being then in his forty-eighth year. 
 
 The personal character of Fra Bartolomeo is impressed 
 on all his works. He was deficient, as we have seen, in 
 physical courage and energy ; but, in his disposition, 
 enthusiastic, devout, and affectionate. Tenderness and 
 a soft regular beauty characterise his female heads ; his 
 saints have a mild and serious dignity. He is very 
 seldom grand or sublime in conception, or energetic in 
 
Died 1517.] HIS PRINCIPAL WORKS. 159 
 
 movement and expression ; the pervading sentiment in 
 all his best pictures is holiness. He parti cularly excelled 
 in the figures of boy-angels, which he introduced into 
 most of his groups, sometimes playing on musical instru- 
 ments, seated at the feet of the Virgin, or bearing a 
 canopy over her head, but, however employed, always 
 full of infantine grace and candour. He is also famed 
 for the rich architecture he introduced into his pictures, 
 and for the grand and flowing style of his draperies. It 
 was his opinion that every object should be painted, if 
 possible, from nature; and for the better study and 
 arrangement of the drapery, he invented those wooden 
 figures with joints (called lay-figures) which are now to 
 be found in the studio of every painter, and which have 
 been of incalculable service in art. 
 
 We have not, as yet, any picture by Fra Bartolomeo 
 in our National Gallery. Lucca, Florence, and Vienna 
 possess the three finest. 
 
 The first of these, at Lucca, is perhaps the most im- 
 portant of all his works. It is called the Madonna della 
 Misericordia, and represents the Virgin, a grand and 
 beautiful figure, standing on a raised platform with 
 outstretched arms : beneath her ample robe, which is 
 held open by two angels, are groups of suppliants, who 
 look up to her as she looks up to heaven, where, hovering 
 in a glory of light, is seen her divine Son. Wilkie, in 
 one of his letters from Italy (1827), dwells upon the 
 beauty of this noble picture, and says that it combines 
 the merits of Eaphael, of Titian, of Eembrandt, and of 
 Kubens ! " Here," he says, " a monk in the retirement 
 
 of his cloister, shut out from the taunts and criticism ol 
 
 * 
 
160 FKA BARTOLOMEO. [Born 14G9. 
 
 the world, seems to liave anticipated in his early time 
 all that his art could arrive at in its most advanced 
 maturity ; and this he has been able to do without the 
 usual blandishments of the more recent periods, and 
 with all the higher qualities peculiar to the age in 
 which he lived." * 
 
 This is very high praise, particularly from such a 
 man as Wilkie. The mere outline engraving in Eosini's 
 ' Storia della Pittura' will show the beauty of the com- 
 position ; and the testimony of Wilkie with regard to 
 the magical colouring is sufficient. 
 
 The St. Mark in the Pitti Palace is a single figure> 
 seated, and holding his Gospel in his hand. For this 
 picture a grand-duke of Tuscany (Ferdinand II.) paid 
 1200/. nearly two hundred years ago, which, according 
 to the present value of money, would be equal to about 
 3000/. Much finer, though less celebrated than the 
 figure of St. Mark, is a Deposition from the Cross, also 
 in the Pitti Palace, in which the Virgin gazing on the 
 face of her dead Son, and the Magdalene bowed down 
 with anguish over his feet, are remarkable for depth 
 of pathetic expression. 
 
 In the Imperial Gallery at Vienna is the Presenta- 
 tion in the Temple, a picture of wonderful dignity 
 and beauty, and well known by the fine engravings 
 which exist of it. The figures are rather less than 
 life. 
 
 In the Louvre at Paris are two very fine pictures ; 
 a Madonna enthroned, with several figures, life size, 
 
 * Life of Sir David Wilkie, vol. ii. p. 451. 
 
Died 1517.] HIS WORKS. 161 
 
 which was painted as an altarpiece for his own con- 
 vent of St. Mark, and afterwards sent as a present to 
 Francis I. ; the other is an Annunciation. 
 
 In the Gallery of Lord Westminster there is a divine 
 little picture, in which the infant Christ is represented 
 reclining on the lap of the Virgin, and holding the 
 cross, which the young St. John, stretching forth his 
 arms, appears anxious to take from him. 
 
 The Berlin Gallery contains only one of his pictures ; 
 the Dresden Gallery not one. His works are best 
 studied at Lucca and in his native city of Florence, to 
 which they are chiefly confined. 
 
 Fra Bartolomeo had several scholars, none of whom 
 were distinguished except a nun of the monastery of St. 
 Catherine, known as Suor Plautilla, who imitated his 
 style, and has left some beautiful pictures. 
 
( 162 ) 
 
 LICNAKDO DA VINCI. 
 
 Born 1452, died 1519. 
 
 We now approach, the period when the art of painting 
 reached its highest perfection, whether considered with 
 reference to poetry of conception, or the mechanica 
 means through which these conceptions were embodied 
 in the noblest forms. Within a short period of about 
 thirty years, i. e. between 1490 and 1520, the greatest 
 painters whom the world has yet seen were living and 
 working together. On looking back we cannot but feel 
 that the excellence they attained was the result of the 
 efforts and aspirations of a preceding age ; and yet these 
 men were so great in their vocation, and so individual 
 in their greatness, that, losing sight of the linked chain 
 of progress, they seemed at first to have had no pre- 
 cursors, as they have since had no peers. Though 
 living at the same time, and most of them in personal 
 relation with each other, the direction of each mind 
 was different — was peculiar ; though exercising in some 
 sort a reciprocal influence, this influence never interfered 
 with the most decided originality. These wonderful 
 artists, who would have been remarkable men in their 
 time though they had never touched a pencil, were 
 Lionardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Eaphael, Correggio, 
 
31. — LlONAFDO DA VTNCI. 
 
 From a Portrait by himself, at Florence. 
 Engraved in the 1568 edition of Vamri. 
 
 Page 162. 
 
Library* j 
 
Died 1519.] LIONARDO DA VINCI. 163 
 
 Giorgione, Titian, in Italy ; and in Germany, Albert 
 Durer. Of these men we might say, as of Homer and 
 Shakspere, that they belong to no particular age or 
 country, but to all time, and to the universe. That 
 they flourished together within one brief and brilliant 
 period, and that each carried out to the highest degree 
 of perfection his own peculiar aims, was no casualty : 
 nor are we to seek for the causes of this surpassing 
 excellence merely in the history of the art as such. 
 The causes lay far deeper, and must be referred to the 
 history of human culture. The fermenting activity of 
 the fifteenth century found its results in the extraor- 
 dinary development of human intelligence in the com- 
 mencement of the sixteenth century. We often hear 
 in these days of "the spirit of the age;" but in that 
 wonderful age three mighty spirits were stirring society 
 to its depths: — the spirit of bold investigation into 
 " truths of all kinds, which led to the Eeformation ; the 
 spirit of daring adventure, which led men in search of 
 new worlds beyond the eastern and the western oceans ; 
 and the spirit of art, through which men soared even 
 to the " seventh heaven of invention." 
 
 Lionakdo da Vinci seems to present in his own person 
 a resume of all the characteristics of the age in which 
 he lived. He was the miracle of that age of miracles. 
 Ardent and versatile as youth ; patient and persevering 
 as age; a most profound and original thinker; the 
 greatest mathematician and most ingenious mechanic of 
 his time; architect, chemist, engineer, musician, poet, 
 painter ! — we are not only astounded by the variety of 
 his natural gifts and acquired knowledge, but by the 
 
164 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Born 1452. 
 
 practical direction of his amazing powers.* The extracts 
 which have been published from MSS. now existing in 
 his own handwriting show him to have anticipated by 
 the force of his own intellect some of the greatest dis- 
 coveries made since his time. These fragments,, says 
 Mr. Hallam,-|" " are, according to our common estimate 
 of the age in which he lived, more like revelations of 
 physical truths vouchsafed to a single mind, than the 
 superstructure of its reasoning upon any established 
 basis. The discoveries which made Galileo, Kepler, 
 Castelli, and other names illustrious — the system of 
 Copernicus — the very theories of recent geologists, are 
 anticipated by Da Vinci within the compass of a few 
 pages, not perhaps in the most precise language, or on 
 the most conclusive reasoning, but so as to strike us 
 with something like the awe of preternatural knowledge. 
 In an age of so much dogmatism he first laid down the 
 grand principle of Bacon, that experiment and observa- 
 tion must be the guides to just theory in the investiga- 
 tion of nature. If any doubt could be harboured, not 
 as to the right of Lionardo da Vinci to stand as the 
 first name of the fifteenth century, which is beyond all 
 doubt, :f but as to his originality in so many discoveries, 
 which probably no one man, especially in such cir- 
 
 * The Italian writers thus sum up the qualifications of Lionardo 
 with an array of discriminative epithets not easily translated : — 
 ** Valente musico e poeta; ingegnoso mecanico; profondo geometra e 
 matematico; egregio architetto; esimio idraulico; eccelente plastica- 
 tore e sommo pittore." 
 
 + ' History of the Literature of Europe.' 
 
 % When we think of Lionardo's contemporary, Columbus, wc 
 feel inclined, if not to dispute this fiat of the great historian, at 
 least to ponder on it, and those ponderings lead us far. 
 
Died 1519.] HIS YOUTHFUL STUDIES. 165 
 
 cumstances, has ever made— it must be by an hypothesis 
 not very untenable, that some parts of physical science 
 had already attained a height which mere books do not 
 record." 
 
 It seems at first sight almost incomprehensible that, 
 thus endowed as a philosopher, mechanic, inventor, 
 discoverer, the fame of Lionardo should now rest on the 
 works he has left as a painter. We cannot, within these 
 limits, attempt to explain why and how it is that as the 
 man of science he has been naturally and necessarily 
 left behind by the onward march of intellectual progress, 
 while as the poet-painter he still survives as a presence 
 and a power. We must proceed at once to give some 
 account of him in the character in which he exists to us 
 and for us — that of the great artist. 
 
 Lionardo was born at Vinci, near Florence, in the 
 Lower Val d'Arno, on the borders of the territory of 
 Pistoia. His father, Piero da Vinci, was an advocate of 
 Florence — not rich, but in independent circumstances, 
 and possessed of estates in land. The singular talents of 
 his son induced Piero to give him, from an early age, 
 the advantage of the best instructors. As a child, he 
 distinguished himself by his proficiency in arithmetic 
 and mathematics. Music he studied early, as a science 
 as well as an art. He invented a species of lyre for 
 himself, and sung his own poetical compositions to 
 his own music — both being frequently extemporaneous. 
 But his favourite pursuit was the art of design in all 
 its branches ; he modelled in clay or wax, or attempted 
 .to draw every object which struck his fancy. His father 
 sent him to study under Andrea Verrocchio (of whom 
 
166 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Bokn 1452. 
 
 we have already given some account), famous as a 
 sculptor, chaser in metal, and painter. Andrea, who 
 was an excellent and correct designer, but a bad and 
 hard colourist, was soon after engaged to paint a 
 picture of the Baptism of our Saviour. He employed 
 Lionardo, then a youth, to exeoute one of the angels : 
 this he did with so much softness and richness of colour, 
 that it far surpassed the rest of the picture ; and Verroc- 
 chio from that time threw away his palette, and confined 
 himself wholly to his works in sculpture and design ; 
 " enraged," says Vasari, " that a child should thus excel 
 him."* 
 
 The youth of Lionardo thus passed away in the pursuit 
 of science and of art : sometimes he was deeply engaged 
 in astronomical calculations and investigations; some- 
 times ardent in the study of natural history, botany, 
 and anatomy ; sometimes intent on new effects of colour, 
 light, shadow, or expression, in representing objects 
 animate or inanimate. Versatile, yet persevering, he 
 varied his pursuits, but he never abandoned any. He 
 was quite a young man when he conceived and demon- 
 strated the practicability of two magnificent projects : 
 one was, to lift the whole of the church of San Lorenzo, 
 by means of immense levers, some feet higher than it 
 now stands, and thus supply the deficient elevation ;f 
 the other project was, to form the Arno into a navigable 
 
 * This picture is now preserved in the Academy at Florence. The 
 first angel on the right is that which was painted by Lionardo. 
 
 f Wild as this project must have appeared, it was not perhaps 
 impossible. In our days the Sunderland lighthouse was lifted from 
 its foundations, and removed to a distance of several yards. 
 

 Died 1519.J THE ROTELLO DEL FICO. 167 
 
 canal as far as Pisa, which would have added greatly 
 to the commercial advantages of Florence.* 
 
 It happened about this time that a peasant on the 
 estate of Piero da Vinci brought him a circular piece of 
 wood, cut horizontally from the trunk of a very large 
 old fig-tree, which had been lately felled, and begged to 
 have something painted on it as an ornament for his 
 cottage. The man being an especial favourite, Piero 
 desired his son Lionardo to gratify his request; and 
 Lionardo, inspired by that wildness of fancy which was 
 one of his characteristics, took the panel into his own 
 room, and resolved to astonish his father by a most 
 unlooked-for proof of his art. He determined to com- 
 pose something which should have an effect similar to 
 that of the Medusa on the shield of Perseus, and almost 
 petrify beholders. Aided by his recent studies in natural 
 history, he collected together from the neighbouring 
 swamps and the river-mud all kinds of hideous reptiles, 
 as adders, lizards, toads, serpents — insects, as moths, 
 locusts — and other crawling and flying obscene and 
 obnoxious things ; and out of these he composed a sort 
 of monster or chimera, which he represented as about 
 to issue from the shield, with eyes flashing fire, and of 
 an aspect sp fearful and abominable that it seemed to 
 infect the very air around. When finished, he led his 
 father into the room in which it was placed, and the 
 terror and horror of Piero proved the success of his 
 attempt. This production, afterwards known as the 
 Rotello del Fico^ from the material on which it was 
 
 * This project was carried into execution 200 years later. 
 f Rotello means a shield or buckler ; Fico, a fig-tree. 
 
168 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Born 1452. 
 
 painted, was sold by Piero secretly for one hundred 
 ducats to a merchant, who carried it to Milan, and sold 
 it to the duke for three hundred. To the poor peasant 
 thus cheated of his Eotello Piero gave a wooden shield, 
 on which was painted a heart transfixed "by a dart-; a 
 device better suited to his taste and comprehension. 
 In the subsequent troubles of Milan, Leonardo's picture 
 disappeared, and was probably destroyed as an object 
 of horror by those who did not understand its value as a 
 work of art. 
 
 The anomalous monster represented on the Rotello 
 was wholly different from the Medusa, afterwards painted 
 by Lionardo, and now existing in the Florence Gallery. 
 This represents the severed head of Medusa, seen fore- 
 shortened, lying on a fragment of rock: the features 
 aro beautiful and regular; the hair already metamor- 
 phosed into serpents — 
 
 ♦ " which curl and flow, 
 
 And their long tangles in each other lock, 
 And with unending involutions show 
 Their mailed radiance." 
 
 Those who have once seen this terrible and fascinating 
 picture can never forget it. The ghastly head seems to 
 expire, and the serpents to crawl into glittering life, as 
 we look upon it. 
 
 During this first period of his life, which was wholly 
 passed in Florence and its neighbourhood, Lionardo 
 painted several other pictures of a very different cha- 
 racter, and designed some beautiful cartoons of sacred 
 and mythological subjects, which showed that his sense 
 of the beautiful, the elevated, and the graceful, was not 
 
Died 1519.1 INVITED TO MILAN. 169 
 
 less a part of his mind than that eccentricity and almost 
 perversion of fancy which made him delight in sketching 
 ugly, exaggerated caricatures, and representing the de- 
 formed and the terrible. 
 
 Lionardo da Yinci was now about thirty years old, in 
 the prime of his life and talents. His taste for pleasure 
 and expense was, however, equal to his genius and 
 indefatigable industry ; and anxious to secure a certain 
 provision for the future, as well as a wider field for the 
 exercise of his various talents, he accepted the invitation 
 of Ludovico Sforza il Moro, then regent, afterwards 
 Duke of Milan, to reside in his court, and to execute 
 a colossal equestrian statue of his ancestor Francesco 
 Sforza. Here begins the second period of his artistic 
 career, which includes his sojourn at Milan, that is, 
 from 1483 to 1499. 
 
 Vasari says that Lionardo was invited to the court of 
 Milan for the Duke Ludovico's amusement, " as a musi- 
 cian and performer on the lyre, and as the greatest 
 singer and improvisatore of his time;" but this is im- 
 probable. Lionardo, in his long letter to that prince, 
 in which he recites his own qualifications for employ- 
 ment, dwells chiefly on his skill in engineering and 
 fortification ; and sums up his pretensions as an artist 
 in these few brief words : — " I understand the different 
 modes of sculpture in marble, bronze, and terra-cotta. 
 In painting, also, I may esteem myself equal to any 
 one, let him be who he may." Of his musical talents 
 he makes no mention whatever, though undoubtedly 
 these, as well as his other social accomplishments, his 
 handsome person, his winning address, his wit and 
 
170 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Born 1452. 
 
 eloquence, recommended him to the notice of the prince, 
 by whom he was greatly beloved, and in whose service 
 he remained for about seventeen years. It is not 
 necessary, nor would it be possible here, to give a 
 particular account of all the works in which Lionardo 
 was engaged for his patron,* nor of the great political 
 events in which he was involved, more by his position 
 than by his inclination ; for instance, the invasion of 
 Italy by Charles VIII. of France, and the subsequent 
 invasion of Milan by Louis XII., which ended in the 
 destruction of the Duke Ludovico. The greatest work 
 of all, and by far the grandest picture which, up to that 
 time, had been executed in Italy, was the Last Supper, 
 painted on the wall of the refectory, or dining-room, of 
 the Dominican convent of the Madonna delle Grazie. It 
 occupied Lionardo about two years, from 1496 to 1498. 
 
 The moment selected by the painter is described in 
 the 26th chapter of St. Matthew, 21st and 22nd verses : 
 " And as they did eat, he said, Verily, I say unto you, 
 that one of you shall betray me : and they were exceed- 
 ing sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto 
 him, Lord, is it I ?" The knowledge of character dis- 
 played in the heads of the different apostles is even more 
 wonderful than the skilful arrangement of the figures 
 and the amazing beauty of the workmanship. The 
 space occupied by the picture is a wall 28 feet in length, 
 and the figures are larger than life. 
 
 Of this magnificent creation of art only the moulder- 
 
 * Of these, the canal of the Martesana. as well from its utility as 
 from the difficulties he surmounted in its. execution, would have 
 been sufficient to immortalize him. 
 
Died 1519.] THE LAST SUPPER. 171 
 
 ing remains are now visible. It has been so often re- 
 paired, that almost eveiy vestige of the original painting 
 is annihilated ; but from the multiplicity of descriptions, 
 engravings, and copies that exist, no picture is more 
 universally known and celebrated. Perhaps the best 
 judgment we can now form of its merits is from the fine 
 copy executed by one of Lionardo's best pupils, Marco 
 Uggione, for the Certosa at Pavia, and now in London, 
 in the collection of the Koyal Academy. Eleven other 
 copies, by various pupils of Lionardo, painted either 
 during his lifetime or within a few years after his death, 
 while the picture was in perfect preservation, exist in 
 different churches and collections. 
 
 While engaged on the Cenacolo, Lionardo painted the 
 portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, now in the Louvre (No. 
 483). It has been engraved under the title of La Belle 
 Ferroniere, but later researches leave no doubt that it 
 represents Lucrezia Crivelli, a beautiful favourite of 
 Ludovico Sforza, and was painted at Milan in 1497. It 
 is, as a work of art, of such extraordinary perfection that 
 all critical admiration is lost in wonder. 
 
 Of the grand equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, 
 Lionardo never finished more than the model in clay, 
 which was considered a masterpiece. Some years 
 afterwards (in 1499), when Milan was invaded by the 
 French, it was used as a target by the Gascon bowmen, 
 and completely destroyed. The profound anatomical 
 studies which Lionardo made for this work still exist. 
 
 In the year 1500, the French being in possession of 
 Milan, his patron Ludovico in captivity, and the affairs 
 of the state in utter confusion, Lionardo returned to his 
 
172 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Born 1452. 
 
 native Florence, where lie hoped to re-establish his 
 broken fortunes, and to find employment. Here begins 
 the third period of his artistic life, from 1500 to 1513, 
 that is, from his forty-eighth to his sixtieth year. He 
 found the Medici family in exile, but was received by 
 Pietro Soderini (who governed the city as " Gonfaloniere 
 perpetuo"} with great distinction, and a pension was 
 assigned to him as painter in the service of the republic. 
 One of his first works after his return to Florence was 
 the famous portrait of Madonna Lisa del Giocondo, called 
 in French La Joconde, and now in the Louvre (484), which 
 after the death of Lionardo was purchased by Francis I. 
 for 4000 gold crowns, equal to 45,000 francs or 1800?., 
 an enormous sum in those days, yet who ever thought 
 it too much ? 
 
 Then began the rivalry between Lionardo and Michael 
 Angelo, which lasted during the remainder of Lionardo's 
 life. The difference of age (for Michael Angelo was 
 twenty-two years younger) ought to have prevented all 
 unseemly jealousy : but Michael Angelo was haughty, 
 and impatient of all superiority, or even equality; 
 Lionardo, sensitive, capricious, and naturally disinclined 
 to admit the pretensions of a rival, to whom he could 
 say, and did say, " I was famous before you were born !" 
 With ail their admiration of each other's genius, their 
 mutual frailties prevented any real good-will on either 
 side. The two painters competed for the honour of 
 painting in fresco one side of the great Council-hall in 
 the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. It was to have been 
 adorned with the great deeds of the Florentine republic, 
 by two of the greatest men that republic had ever pro- 
 
Died 1519.] RIVALRY WITH MICHAEL ANGELO. 173 
 
 duced. We now see it covered with the ostentatious 
 misdeeds of the tyrant Cosmo, executed by the servile 
 painters of the sixteenth century. Each prepared his 
 cartoon ; each, emulous of the fame and conscious of the 
 abilities of his rival, threw all his best powers into his 
 work. Lionardo chose for his subject the Defeat of the 
 Milanese general Niccolo Piccinino by the Florentine 
 army in 1440. One of the finest groups represented a 
 combat of cavalry disputing the possession of a standard. 
 " It was so wonderfully executed, that the horses them- 
 selves seemed animated by the same fury as their riders ; 
 nor is it possible to describe the variety of attitudes, the 
 splendour of the dresses and armour of the warriors, nor 
 the incredible skill displayed in the forms and actions of 
 the horses." 
 
 Michael Angelo chose for his subject the moment 
 before the same battle, when a party of Florentine 
 soldiers bathing in the Arno are surprised by the sound 
 of the trumpet calling them to arms. Of this cartoon 
 we shall have more to say in treating of his life. The 
 preference was given to Lionardo da Vinci. But, as 
 Vasari relates, he spent so much time in trying experi- 
 ments, and in preparing the wall to receive oil-painting, 
 which he preferred to fresco, that in the interval some 
 changes in the government intervened, and the design 
 was abandoned about 1505. The two cartoons remained 
 for several years open to the public, and artists flocked 
 from every part of Italy to study them. Subsequently 
 they were cut up into separate parts, dispersed, and lost. 
 It is curious that of Michael Angelo's composition only 
 one small copy exists ; of Lionardo's, not one. From a 
 
174 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Born 1452. 
 
 fragment which existed in his time, but which has since 
 disappeared, Rubens made a fine drawing, which was 
 engraved by Edelinck, and is known as the Battle of 
 the Standard. 
 
 It was a reproach against Lionardo, in his own time, 
 that he began many things and finished few ; that his 
 magnificent designs and projects, whether in art or 
 mechanics, were seldom completed. This may be a 
 subject of regret, but it is unjust to make it a reproach. 
 It was in the nature of the man. The grasp of his mind 
 was so nearly superhuman, that he never, in anything 
 he effected, satisfied himself or realized his own vast 
 conceptions. The most exquisitely finished of his works, 
 those that in the perfection of the execution have excited 
 the wonder and despair of succeeding artists, were put 
 aside by him as unfinished sketches. Most of the 
 pictures now attributed to him were wholly or in part, 
 painted by his scholars and imitators from his cartoons. 
 One of the most famous of these was designed for the 
 altarpiece of the church of the convent called the 
 Nunziata. It represented the Virgin Mary seated in 
 the lap of her mother St. Anna, having in her arms the 
 infant Christ, while St. John is playing with a lamb at 
 their feet ; St. Anna, looking on with a tender smile, 
 rejoices in her divine offspring. The figures were drawn 
 with such skill, and the various expressions proper to 
 each conveyed with such inimitable truth and grace, 
 that, when exhibited in a chamber of the convent, the 
 inhabitants of the city flocked to see it, and for two days 
 the streets were crowded with people, " as if it had been 
 some solemn festival ;" but the picture was never 
 
Died 1519.] VISITS ROME. 175 
 
 painted, and the monks of the Nunziata, after waiting 
 long and in vain for their altarpiece, were obliged to 
 employ other artists. The cartoon, or a very fine repe- 
 tition of it, is now in the possession of onr Eoyal 
 Academy, and it must not be confounded with the St. 
 Anna in the Louvre, a more fantastic and apparently an 
 earlier composition. 
 
 Lionardo, during his stay at Florence, painted the 
 portrait of Ginevra Benci, already mentioned in the 
 memoir of Ghirlandajo as the reigning beauty of her 
 time. 
 
 We find that in 1502 he was engaged by Csesar Borgia 
 to visit and report on the fortifications of his territories, 
 and in this office he was employed for two years. In 
 1503 he formed a plan for turning the course of the 
 Arno, and in the following year he lost his father. In 
 1505 he modelled the group which we now see over the 
 northern door of the San Giovanni at Florence. In 1514 
 he was invited to Eome by Leo X., but more in his 
 character of philosopher, mechanic, and alchemist, than 
 as a painter. Here he found Eaphael at the height of 
 his fame, and then engaged in his greatest works — the 
 frescoes of the Vatican. Two pictures which Lionardo 
 painted while at Eome — the Madonna of St. Onofrio, 
 and the Holy Family, painted for Filiberta of Savoy, 
 the pope's sister-in-law (which is now at St. Peters- 
 burg) — show that even this veteran in art felt the 
 irresistible influence of the genius of his young rival. 
 They are both Raffaellesque in the subject and treat- 
 ment. 
 
 It appears that Lionardo was ill satisfied with his 
 
176 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Born 1452. 
 
 sojourn at Eome. He had long been accustomed to hold 
 the first rank as an artist wherever he resided; whereas 
 at Rome he found himself only one among many who, if 
 they acknowledged his greatness, affected to consider his 
 day as past. He was conscious that many of the im- 
 provements in the arts which were now brought into 
 use, and which enabled the painters of the day to 
 produce such extraordinary effects, were invented or 
 introduced by himself. If he could no longer assert 
 that measureless superiority over all others which, he 
 had done in his younger days, it was because he himself 
 had opened to them new paths to excellence. The 
 arrival of his old competitor Michael Angelo, and some 
 slight on the part of Leo X., who was annoyed by his 
 speculative and dilatory habits in executing the works 
 intrusted to him, all added to his irritation and disgust. 
 He left Eome, and set out for Pavia, where the French 
 king Francis I. then held his court. He was received 
 by the young monarch with every mark of respect, 
 loaded with favours, and a pension of 700 gold crowns 
 settled on him for life. At the famous conference 
 between Francis I. and Leo X. at Bologna, Lionardo 
 attended his new patron, and was of essential service to 
 him on that occasion. In the following year, 1516, he 
 returned with Francis I. to France, and was attached to 
 the French court as principal painter. It appears, 
 however, that during his residence in France he did not 
 paint a single picture. His health had begun to decline 
 from the time he left Italy ; and feeling his end approach, 
 he prepared himself for it by religious meditation, by 
 acts of charity, and by a most conscientious distribution 
 
Died 1519.] HIS DEATH. 177 
 
 by will of all his worldly possessions to his relatives 
 and friends. At length, after protracted suffering, this 
 great and most extraordinary man died at Cloux, near 
 Amboise, on the 2nd of May, 1519, being then in his 
 sixty-seventh year. It is to be regretted that we cannot 
 wholly credit the beautiful story of his dying in the 
 arms of Francis I., who, as it is said, had come to visit 
 him on his deathbed. It would indeed have been, as 
 Fuseli expressed it, " an honour to the king, by which 
 Destiny would have atoned to that monarch for his 
 future disaster at Pavia," had the incident" really hap- 
 pened, as it has been so often related by biographers, 
 celebrated by poets, represented with a just pride by 
 painters, and willingly believed by all the world; 
 but the well-authenticated fact that the court was on 
 that day at St. Germain-en-Laye, whence the royal ordi- 
 nances are dated, renders the story, unhappily, very 
 doubtful. 
 
 We have mentioned a few of the genuine works of 
 Lionardo da Vinci; they are exceedingly rare. It 
 appears certain that not one-third of the pictures attri- 
 buted to him and bearing his name were the production 
 of his own hand, though they were the creation of his 
 mind, for he generally furnished the cartoons or designs 
 from which his pupils executed pictures of various 
 degrees of excellence. 
 
 Thus the admirable picture in our National Gallery, 
 of Christ disputing with the Doctors, though undoubtedly 
 designed by Lionardo, is supposed by some to be exe- 
 cuted by his best scholar, Bernardino Luini ; by others 
 it is attributed to Francesco Melzi. Those ruined pic- 
 
 N 
 
178 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Born 1452 
 
 tures which bear his name at Windsor and at Hampton 
 Court are from the Milanese school.* 
 
 Of nine pictures in the Louvre attributed to Lionardo, 
 three only — the St. John, and the two famous portraits 
 of the Mona Lisa and Lucrezia Crivelli — are considered 
 genuine. The others are from his designs and from his 
 school. 
 
 In the Florentine Gallery the Medusa is certainly 
 genuine ; but the famous Herodias, holding the dish to 
 receive the head of John the Baptist, was probably 
 painted from his cartoon by Luini. His own portrait, 
 in the same gallery (in the Salle des Peintres), is won- 
 derfully tine— indeed the finest of all, and the one which 
 at once attracts and fixes attention. 
 
 In the Milan collections are many pictures attributed 
 to him : a few are in private collections in England : 
 Lord Ashburton has an exquisite group of the infant 
 Christ and St. John playing with a lamb ; and Lord 
 Suffolk has a picture of the Virgin and Child, with the 
 little St. John adoring, with a rocky background, cele- 
 brated for the perfect execution.f 
 
 But it is the MS. notes and designs left behind him 
 that give us the best idea of the indefatigable industry 
 
 * The Falconer at Windsor I believe to be by Holbein, and it is 
 curious that this is not the first nor only Holbein which has been 
 attributed to Lionardo. There is one in the Liverpool Institute, 
 and at Dresden another — the wonderful portrait of a man with a 
 gold medal in his cap. We have an idea of Holbein's style in 
 England diametrically opposite to that of Lionardo. 
 
 f The story of this precious picture is one of the romances in 
 the history of art. It was stolen from Lord Suffolk's country 
 seat in 1857, and all trace of it lost for many months, during which 
 time it was hidden behind an old cupboard in the House of Lords. 
 
Died 1519.] HIS LITERARY WORKS. 179 
 
 of this " myriad-minded man," and the almost incredible 
 extent of his acquirements. In the Ambrosian Library 
 at Milan there are twelve huge volumes of his works, 
 relative to arts, chemistry, mathematics, &c. ; one of 
 them contains a collection of anatomical drawings, which 
 the celebrated anatomist Dr. Hunter described as the 
 most wonderful things of the kind for accuracy and 
 beauty that he had ever beheld. In the Royal Library 
 at Windsor there are three volumes of MSS. and drawings, 
 containing a vast variety of subjects — portraits, heads, 
 groups, and single figures; fine anatomical studies of 
 horses ; a battle of elephants, full of spirit ; drawings in 
 optics, hydraulics, and perspective; plans of military 
 machines, maps and surveys of rivers; beautiful and 
 accurate drawings of plants and rocks, to be introduced 
 into his pictures ; musical airs noted in his own hand, 
 perhaps his own compositions ; anatomical subjects, with 
 elaborate notes and explanations. In the Eoyal Library 
 at Paris there is a volume of philosophical treatises, from 
 which extracts have been published by Venturi. In the 
 Holkham Collection is a MS. treatise on hydraulics. The 
 1 Treatise on Painting,' by Lionardo da Vinci, has been 
 translated from the original Italian into French, English, 
 and German, and is the foundation of all that has since 
 been written on the subject, whether relating to the 
 theory or to the practice of the art. His MSS. are 
 particularly difficult to read or decipher, as he had a 
 habit of writing from right to left, instead of from left to 
 right. What was his reason for this singularity has 
 not been explained. 
 
 The scholars of Lionardo da Vinci, and those artists 
 
180 LIONARDO DA VINCI. [Born 1452. 
 
 formed in the academy which he founded in Milan, 
 under the patronage of Ludovico il Moro, comprise that 
 school of art known as the Milanese or Lombard school. 
 They are distinguished by a lengthy and graceful style 
 of drawing, a particular amenity and sweetness of ex- 
 pression (which in the inferior painters degenerated 
 into affectation and a sort of vapid smile), and par- 
 ticularly by the transparent lights and shadows — the 
 chiaroscuro, of which Lionardo was the inventor or 
 discoverer. The most eminent painters were Bernardino 
 Luini; Marco Uggione, or D'Oggioni; Antonio Bel- 
 traffio ; Francesco Melzi ; and Andrea Salai. All these 
 studied under the immediate tuition of Lionardo, and 
 painted most of the pictures ascribed to him. Gau- 
 denzio Ferrari and Cesare da Sesto imitated him, and 
 owed their celebrity to his influence. 
 
Library. 
 
 Of Califoia^ 
 
32.— Michael Angelo Buonarroti. 
 
 Engraved by Buonasone. 
 
 rage Mi \. 
 
( 181 ) 
 
 M1CHAEL-ANGEL0 BUONABEOTI. 
 
 Born 1474; died 1564. 
 
 We have spoken of Lionardo da Vinci. Michael 
 Angelo, the other great luminary of art, was twenty- 
 two years younger ; but the more severe and reflective 
 cast of his mind rendered their difference of age far less 
 in effect than in reality. It is usual to compare Michael 
 Angelo with Eaphael, but he is more aptly compared 
 with Lionardo da Vinci. All the great artists of that 
 time, even Eaphael himself, were influenced more or 
 less by these two extraordinary men, but they exercised 
 no influence on each other. They started from opposite 
 points ; they pursued throughout their whole existence, 
 and in all they planned and achieved, a course as dif- 
 ferent as their respective characters. It would be very 
 curious and interesting to carry out the comparison in 
 detail ; to show the contrast in organisation, in temper, 
 in talent, in taste, which existed between men so highly 
 and so equally endowed, but our limits forbid this indul- 
 gence. We shall therefore only observe that, considered 
 as artists, they emulated each other in variety of power, 
 but that Lionardo was more the painter than the sculp- 
 tor and architect ; Michael Angelo was more the sculptor 
 and architect than the painter. Both sought true in- 
 spiration in Nature, but they beheld her with different 
 
182 • MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 eyes : Lionardo, who designed admirably, appears to 
 have seen no outline in objects, and laboured all his 
 life to convey, by colour and light and shade, the 
 impression of beauty and the illusive effect of rotundity. 
 He preferred the use of oil to fresco, because the mellow- 
 smoothness and transparency of the vehicle was more 
 capable of giving the effects he desired. Michael 
 Angelo, on the contrary, turned his whole attention to 
 the definition of form, and the expression of life and 
 power through action and movement ; he regarded the 
 illusive effects of painting as meretricious and beneath 
 his notice, and despised oil-painting as a style for wo- 
 men and children. Considered as men, both Lionardo 
 and Michael Angelo were as high-minded and generous 
 as they were gifted and original ; but the former was as 
 remarkable for his versatile and social accomplishments, 
 his love of pleasure and habits of expense, as the latter 
 for his stern inflexible temper, and his temperate, frugal, 
 and secluded habits. 
 
 Michael Angelo Buonarroti was born at Settignano, 
 near Florence, in the year 1474. He was descended 
 from a family once noble— even amongst the noblest of 
 the feudal lords of northern Italy — the Counts of Ca- 
 nossa ; but that branch of it represented by his father, 
 Luigi Lionardo Buonarroti Simoni, had for some gene- 
 rations become poorer and poorer, until the last de- 
 scendant was thankful to accept an office in the law, and 
 had been nominated magistrate or mayor (Podesta) of 
 Chiusi. In this situation he had limited his ambition 
 to the prospect of seeing his eldest son a notary or 
 advocate in his native city. The young Michael Angelo 
 
Dikd1564.] APPRENTICED TO GHIRLANDAJO. 133 
 
 showed the utmost distaste for the studies allotted to 
 him, and was continually escaping from his home and 
 from his desk to hannt the atteliei s of the painters, par- 
 ticularly that of Ghirlandajo, who was then at the 
 height of his reputation, and of whom some account has 
 been already given. 
 
 The father of Michael Angelo, who found his family 
 increase too rapidly for his means, had destined some of 
 his sons for commerce (it will be recollected that in 
 Genoa and Florence the most powerful nobles were 
 merchants or manufacturers), and others for civil or 
 diplomatic employments : but the fine arts, as being at 
 that time productive of little honour or emolument, he 
 held in no esteem, and treated these tastes of his eldest 
 son sometimes with contempt and sometimes even with 
 harshness. Michael Angelo, however, had formed some 
 friendships among the young painters, and particularly 
 with Francesco Granacci, one of the best pupils of 
 Ghirlandajo ; he contrived to borrow models and draw- 
 ings, and studied them in secret with such persevering 
 assiduity and consequent improvement that Ghirlan- 
 dajo, captivated by his genius, undertook to plead his 
 cause to his father, and at length prevailed over the 
 old man's family pride and prejudices. At the age of 
 fourteen Michael Angelo was received into the studio of 
 Ghirlandajo as a regular pupil, and bound to him for 
 three years ; and such was the precocious talent of 
 the boy, that, instead of being paid for his instruction, 
 Ghirlandajo undertook to pay the father, Lionardo 
 Buonarroti, for the first, second, and third years, six, 
 eight, and twelve golden florins, as payment for the 
 
184 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 advantage lie expected to derive from the labour of the son. 
 Thus was the vocation of the young artist decided for life. 
 At that time Lorenzo the Magnificent reigned over 
 Florence. He had formed in his palace and gardens a 
 collection of antique marbles, busts, statues, fragments, 
 which he had converted into an academy for the use of 
 young artists, placing at the head of it as director a 
 sculptor of some eminence named Bertoldo. Michael 
 Angelo was one of the first who, through the recom- 
 mendation of Ghirlandajo, was received into this new 
 academy, afterwards so famous and so memorable in the 
 history of art. The young man, then not quite sixteen, 
 had hitherto occupied himself chiefly in drawing j but 
 now, fired by the beauties he beheld around him, and 
 by the example and success of a fellow-pupil, Torre- 
 giano, he set himself to model in clay, and at length 
 to copy in marble what was before him ; but, as was 
 natural in a character and genius so steeped in indivi- 
 duality, his copies became not so much imitations of 
 "form as original embodyings of the leading idea. For 
 example : his first attempt in marble, when he was 
 about fifteen, was a copy of an antique mask of an old 
 laughing Faun : he treated this in a manner so different 
 from the original and so spirited as to excite the asto- 
 nishment of Lorenzo de' Medici, who criticised it, how- 
 ever, saying, " Thou shouldst have remembered that 
 old folks do not retain all their teeth ; some of them are 
 always wanting." The boy struck the teeth out, giving 
 it at once the most grotesque expression ; and Lorenzo, 
 infinitely amused, sent for his father and offered to 
 attach his son to his own particular service, and to 
 
Died 1564.] AFFRAY WITH TORREGIAN, 185 
 
 undertake the entire care of his education. The father 
 consented, on condition of receiving for himself an office 
 nnder the government, and thenceforth Michael Angelo 
 was lodged in the palace of the Medici and treated by- 
 Lorenzo as his son.* 
 
 Such sudden and increasing favour excited the envy 
 and jealousy of his companions, particularly of Torre- 
 giano, who, being of a violent and arrogant temper 
 (that of Michael Angelo was by no means conciliating), 
 sought every means of showing his hatred. On one 
 occasion a quarrel having ensued while they were at 
 work together, Torregiano turned in fury and struck his 
 rival a blow with his mallet, which disfigured him for 
 life. His nose was flattened to his face, and Torregiano, 
 having by this " sacrilegious stroke " gratified his 
 hatred, was banished from Florence, 
 
 It is fair, however, to give Torregiano's own account 
 of this incident as he related it to Benvenuto Cellini 
 many years afterwards. — " This Buonarroti and I, when 
 we were young men, went to study in the church of the 
 Carmelites, in the chapel of Masaccio : it was customary 
 with Buonarroti to rally those who were learning to 
 draw there. One day, among others, a sarcasm of his 
 having stung me to the quick, I was extremely irritated, 
 and, doubling my fist, gave him such a violent blow on 
 the nose that I felt the bone and cartilage yield as if 
 
 * This mask, which is really admirable in its way, is now in the 
 Florentine Gallery, where it hangs in the Gabinetto del Ermafrodito, 
 over the unfinished bust of Brutus, a later and celebrated work of 
 the same Michael Angelo : the manner in which the teeth had been 
 struck from the jaw of the old Faun I certified myself by a close 
 examination of the mask in the winter of 1858. 
 
130 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 they had been made of paste, and the mark I then gave 
 him he will carry to his grave." 
 
 Thus it appears that the blow was not unprovoked, 
 and that Michael Angelo, even at the age of sixteen, 
 indulged in that contemptuous arrogance and sarcastic 
 speech which, in his maturer age, made him so many 
 enemies. But to return. 
 
 Michael Angelo continued his studies under the 
 auspices of Lorenzo ; but just as he had reached his 
 eighteenth year he lost his generous patron, his second 
 father, and was thenceforth thrown on his own resources. 
 It is true that the son of Lorenzo, Piero de' Medici, con- 
 tinued to extend his favour to the young artist, but with 
 so little comprehension of his genius and character, that 
 on one occasion, during the severe winter of 1494, he 
 set him to form a statue of snow for the amusement of 
 his guests. 
 
 Michael Angelo, while he yielded, perforce, to the 
 caprices of his protector, turned the energies of his mind 
 to a new study — that of anatomy — and pursued it with 
 all that fervour which belonged to his character. His 
 attention was at the same time directed to literature, by 
 the counsels and conversations of a very celebrated 
 scholar and poet, then residing in the court of Piero — 
 Angelo Poliziano; and he pursued at the same time 
 the cultivation of his mind and the practice of his art. 
 Engrossed by his own studies, he was scarcely aware of 
 what was passing around him, nor of the popular in- 
 trigues which were preparing the ruin of the Medici ; 
 suddenly this powerful family were flung from sove- 
 reignty to temporary disgrace and exile ; and Michael 
 
Died 1564.] VISITS ROME. 187 
 
 Angelo, as one of their retainers, was obliged to 
 fly from Florence, and took refuge in the city of 
 Bologna. During the year he spent there he found a 
 friend, who employed him on some works of sculpture ; 
 and on his return to Florence he executed a Cupid in 
 marble, of such beauty that it found its way into the 
 cabinet of the Duchess of Mantua* as a real antique. 
 On the discovery that the author of this beautiful statue 
 was a young man of two-and-twenty, the Cardinal San 
 Giorgio invited him to Rome, and for some time lodged 
 him in his palace. Here Michael Angelo, surrounded 
 and inspired by the grand remains of antiquity, pursued 
 his studies with unceasing energy : he produced a statue 
 of Bacchus, which added to his reputation; and in 
 1500, at the age of five-and-twenty, he produced the 
 famous group of the dead Christ on the knees of his 
 Virgin Mother (called the Pieta), which is now in the 
 church of St. Peter's at Eome ; | this last, being fre- 
 
 * Isabella d'Este, Marchesana of Mantua, was not only the first 
 woman, but the first European sovereign, who made a collection of 
 beautiful objects of art, including gems, antiques, pictures, sculpture, 
 and curiosities of every kind. 
 
 t This Pieta is the only work whereon Michael Angelo inscribed 
 his name. The circumstance which induced him to do this is 
 curious. Some time after the group was fixed in its place, he was 
 standing before it considering its effect, when two strangers entered 
 the church, and began, even in his hearing, to dispute concerning 
 the author of the work, which they agreed in exalting to the skies 
 as a masterpiece. One of them, who was a Bolognese, insisted that 
 it was by a sculptor of Bologna, whom he named. Michael Angelo 
 listened in silence, and the next night, when all slept, he entered 
 the church, and by the light of a lantern engraved his name, in 
 deep indelible characters, where it might best be seen — on the band 
 which confines the drapery of the Virgin. There is a fine cast in 
 the Crystal Palace. 
 
188 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Boen 1474. 
 
 quently copied and imitated, obtained him so much 
 applause and reputation, that he was recalled to Flo- 
 rence, to undertake several public works, and we find 
 him once more established in his native city in the year 
 1502. 
 
 Hitherto we have seen Michael Angelo wholly de- 
 voted to the study and practice of sculpture ; but soon 
 after his return to Florence he was called upon to com- 
 pete with Lionardo da Yinci in executing the cartoons 
 for the frescoes with which it was intended to decorate 
 the walls of the Palazzo Vecchio, or town-hall, of 
 Florence (1504). The cartoon of Lionardo has been 
 already described : that of Michael Angelo represented 
 an incident which occurred during the siege of Pisa, — a 
 group of Florentine soldiers bathing in the Arno hear 
 the trumpet which proclaims a sortie of the enemy, and 
 spring at once to the combat. He chose this subject 
 perhaps as affording ample opportunity to exhibit his 
 peculiar and wonderful skill in designing the human 
 figure. All is life and movement. The warriors, some 
 already clothed, but the greater part undressed, hasten 
 to obey the call to battle ; they are seen clambering up 
 the banks — buckling on their armour — rushing forward, 
 hurriedly, eagerly. There are, altogether, about thirty 
 figures, the size of life, drawn with black chalk, and 
 relieved with white. This cartoon was regarded by his 
 contemporaries as the most perfect of his works ; that 
 is, in respect to the execution merely : as to subject, 
 sentiment, and character, it would not certainly rank 
 with the finest of his works ; for, with every possible 
 variety of gesture and attitude, exhibited with admirable 
 
Died 1564.] EMPLOYED BY POPE JULIUS II. 189 
 
 and lifelike energy and the most consummate know- 
 ledge of form, there was only one expression throughout, 
 and that the least intellectual, majestic, or interesting — 
 the expression of hurry and surprise. While this great 
 work existed, it was a study for all the young artists of 
 Italy ; but Michael Angelo, who had suffered in person 
 from the jealousy of one rival, was destined to suffer yet 
 more cruelly from the envy of another. It is said that 
 Bandinelli, the sculptor, profited by the troubles of 
 Florence to tear in pieces this monument of the glory 
 and genius of a man he detested j but in doing so he has 
 only left an enduring stain upon his own fame. A small 
 old copy of the principal part of the composition exists 
 in the collection of the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham, 
 and has been finely engraved by Schiavonetti. 
 
 In 1506 Michael Angelo was summoned to Rome by 
 Pope Julius II., who, while living, had conceived the 
 idea of erecting a most splendid monument to perpetuate 
 his memory. For this work, which was never completed, 
 Michael Angelo executed the famous statue of Moses, 
 seated, grasping his flowing beard with one hand, and 
 with the other sustaining the tables of the Law.* While 
 employed on this tomb, the . pope commanded him to 
 undertake also the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistime 
 
 * Now in S. Pietro in Vincula, at Rome. Other fragments of the 
 design for this sumptuous tomb are a group representing a warrior 
 overcoming another, called La Vittoria, and now placed in the great 
 hall of the Palazzo Vecchio ; six unfinished statues of prisoners 
 or slaves, representing the provinces subjected by Julius II. ; 
 two now in the Louvre (of the finest there is a cast in the Crystal 
 Palace) ; and four others preserved in the Boboli Gardens at 
 Florence. 
 
190 MICHAEL ANGELO. • [Born 1474. 
 
 Chapel. The reader may remember that Pope Sixtus 
 IV., in the year 1473, erected his famous chapel, and 
 summoned the best painters of that time, Signorelli, 
 Cosimo Eoselli, Perugino, and Ghirlandajo, to decorate 
 the interior : but down to the year 1 508 the ceiling re- 
 mained without any ornament ; and Michael Angelo was 
 called upon to cover this enormous vault, a space of one 
 hundred and fifty feet in length by fifty in breadth, with 
 a series of subjects representing the most important 
 events connected, either literally or typically, with the 
 fall and redemption of mankind. 
 
 No part of Michael Angelo's long life is so interesting, 
 so full of characteristic incident, as the history of his 
 intercourse with Pope Julius II., which began in 1505, 
 and ended only with the death of the pope in 1513. 
 
 Michael Angelo had at all times a lofty idea of his 
 own dignity as an artist, and never would stoop either 
 to flatter a patron or to conciliate a rival. Julius II., 
 though now seventy-four, was as impatient of contra- 
 diction, as fiery in temper, as full of magnificent and 
 ambitious projects, as if he had been in the prime of 
 life ; in his service was the famous architect Bramante, 
 who beheld with jealousy and alarm the increasing 
 fame of Michael Angelo, and his influence with the 
 pontiff, and set himself by indirect means to lessen both. 
 He insinuated to Julius that it was ominous to erect his 
 own mausoleum during his lifetime, and the pope gra- 
 dually fell off in his attentions to Michael Angelo, and 
 neglected to supply him with the necessary funds for 
 carrying on the work. On one occasion Michael Angelo, 
 finding it difficult to obtain access to the pope, sent a 
 
Died 1564.] HIS QUARREL WITH THE POPE. 191 
 
 message to him to this effect, " that henceforth, if his 
 holiness desired to see him, he should send to seek him 
 elsewhere ;" and the same night, leaving orders with 
 his servants to dispose of his property, he departed for 
 Florence. The pope despatched five couriers after him 
 with threats, persuasions, promises — but in vain. He 
 wrote to the Gonfaloniere Soderini, then at the head^ of 
 the government of Florence, commanding him, on pain 
 of his extreme 'displeasure, to send Michael Angelo 
 back to him; but the inflexible artist absolutely re- 
 fused : three months were spent in vain negotiations. 
 Sodeiini, at length, fearing the pope's anger, prevailed 
 on Michael Angelo to return, and sent with him his 
 relation Cardinal Soderini to make up the quarrel be- 
 tween the high contending powers. The pope was then 
 at Bologna, and at the moment when Michael Angelo 
 arrived "he was at supper ; he desired him to be brought 
 into his presence, and on seeing him exclaimed in a 
 transport of fury, " Instead of obeying our commands 
 and coming to us, thou hast waited till we came in 
 search of thee ! " (Bologna being much nearer to Florence 
 than to Eome). Michael Angelo fell on his knees, and 
 entreated pardon with a loud voice. "Holy father," 
 said he, " my offence has not arisen from an evil nature ; 
 I could no longer endure the insults offered to me in 
 the palace of your holiness ! " He remained kneeling, 
 and the pope continued to bend his brows in silence ; 
 when a certain bishop, in attendance on the Cardinal 
 Soderini, thinking to mend the matter, interfered with 
 excuses, representing that " Michael Angelo — poor 
 man! — had erred through ignorance ; that artists were 
 
192 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 wont to presume too much on their genius," and so 
 forth. The irascible pope, interrupting him with a 
 sharp blow across the shoulders with his staff, exclaimed, 
 "It is thou that art ignorant and presuming, to insult 
 him whom we feel ourselves bound to honour; take 
 thyself out of our sight ! " And as the terrified prelate 
 stood transfixed with amazement, the pope's attendants 
 forced him out of the room. Julius then, turning to 
 Michael Angelo, gave him his forgiveness and his 
 blessing, and commanded him never again to leave 
 him, promising him on all occasions his favour and 
 protection. This extraordinary scene took place in 
 November, 1506. It was some time after this (about 
 1512) that Julius II., in speaking of Michael Angelo to 
 Sebastian del Piombo, again showed, in the midst of his 
 anger, his entire appreciation of the man and the artist. 
 " Look," he said, " at the work of Eaphael ! (the 
 fresco of the Heliodorus). He no sooner saw the work 
 of Michael Angelo (the ceiling of the Sistine) than he 
 threw aside the manner of Perugino and tried to imi- 
 tate that of Michael Angelo, who is, notwithstanding 
 (here he burst into a rage), a terrible fellow ! There is 
 no getting on with him ! " 
 
 The work on the tomb was not, however, immediately 
 resumed. Michael Angelo was commanded to execute 
 a colossal statue of the pope to be erected in front of 
 the principal church of Bologna. He threw into the 
 figure and attitude so much of the haughty and resolute 
 character of the original, that Julius, on seeing the 
 model, asked him, with a smile, whether he intended to 
 represent him as blessing or as cursing? To which 
 
Died 1564.] STATUE OF JULIUS II. 193 
 
 Michael Angelo prudently replied, that he intended to 
 represent his holiness as admonishing the inhabitants of 
 Bologna to obedience and submission. " And what," 
 said the pope, well pleased, " wilt thou put in the other 
 hand?" "A book, may it please your holiness." " A 
 book, man ! " exclaimed the pope, " put rather a sword ; 
 thou knowest I am no scholar." The fate of this statue, 
 however we may lament it, was fitting and characteristic : 
 a few years afterwards, in 1511, the populace of Bologna 
 rebelled against the popedom, flung down the statue of 
 Julius, and out of the fragments was constructed a 
 cannon, which from its origin was styled La Giuliana. 
 
 On his return to Kome, Michael Angelo wished to 
 have resumed his work on the mausoleum; but the 
 pope had resolved on the completion of the Sistine 
 Chapel : he commanded Michael Angelo to undertake 
 the decoration of the vaulted ceiling; and the artist 
 was obliged, though reluctantly, to obey. At this time 
 the frescoes which Raphael and his pupils were painting 
 in the chambers of the Vatican had excited the admira- 
 tion of all Eome. Michael Angelo, who had never 
 exercised himself in the mechanical part of the art of 
 fresco, invited from Florence several painters of emi- 
 nence, to execute his designs under his own superin- 
 tendence ; but they could not reach the grandeur of his 
 conceptions, which became enfeebled under their hands, 
 and one morning, in a mood of impatience, he destroyed 
 all that they had done, closed the doors of the chapel 
 against them, and would not thenceforth admit them to 
 his presence. He then shut himself up, and proceeded 
 with incredible perseverance and energy to accomplish 
 
 o 
 
194 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 his task alone ; he even prepared his colours with his 
 own hands. He began with the end towards the door ; 
 and in the two compartments first painted (though not 
 first in the series), the Deluge, and the Vineyard of 
 Noah, he made the figures too numerous and too small 
 to produce their full effect from below, a fault which 
 he corrected in those executed subsequently. When 
 almost half the work was completed, the pope insisted 
 on viewing what was done, and the astonishment and 
 admiration it excited rendered him more and more 
 eager to have the whole completed at once. The pro- 
 gress, however, was not rapid enough to suit the impa- 
 tient temper of the pontiff. On one occasion he de- 
 manded of the artist when he meant to finish it ; to 
 which Michael Angelo replied calmly, " When I can." 
 "When thou canst!" exclaimed the fiery old pope: 
 M thou hast a mind that I should have thee thrown from 
 the scaffold ! " At length, on the day of All Saints, 
 1512, the ceiling was uncovered to public view. Michael 
 Angelo had employed on the painting only, without 
 reckoning the time spent in preparing the cartoons, 
 twenty-two months, and he received in payment three 
 thousand crowns. 
 
 To describe this grand work in all its details would 
 occupy many pages. It will give some idea of its im- 
 mensity to say that it contains in all upwards of two 
 hundred figures, the greater part of colossal size ; and 
 that, with regard to invention, grandeur, and expression, 
 it has been a school for study, and a theme for wonder, 
 during three successive ages. In the centre of the 
 ceiling are four large compartments and five small ones. 
 
Died 1564.] FRESCOES OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL. 195 
 
 In the former are represented the Creation of the Sun 
 and Moon; the Creation of Adam, perhaps the most 
 majestic design that was ever conceived by the genius 
 of man ; the Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise ; the 
 Deluge. In the five small compartments are represented 
 the Gathering of the Waters (Gen. i. 9) ; the Almighty 
 separating Light from Darkness ; the Creation of Eve ; 
 the Sacrifice of Noah ; and Noah's Vineyard : around 
 these, in the curved part of the ceiling, are the Prophets 
 and the Sibyls who foretold the birth of Christ. These 
 are among the most wonderful forms that modem art 
 has called into life. They are all seated and employed 
 in contemplating books or antique rolls of manuscript, 
 with genii in attendance. These mighty beings sit 
 before us, looking down with solemn meditative aspects, 
 or upwards with inspired looks that see into futurity. 
 All their forms are massive and sublime, all are full of 
 varied and individual character. 
 
 Beneath these again is a series of groups representing 
 the earthly genealogy of Christ, in which the figures 
 have a repose, a contemplative grace and tenderness, 
 which place them among the most interesting of all the 
 productions of Michael Angelo. These and the figure 
 of Eve in the Fall show how intense was his feeling of 
 beauty, though he frequently disdained to avail himself 
 of it. In the four corners of the ceiling are representa- 
 tions of the miraculous deliverance of the people of 
 Israel, in allusion to the general Redemption of man by 
 the Saviour, viz. Holofernes vanquished by Judith, 
 David overcoming Goliath, the Brazen Serpent, and the 
 Punishment of Hainan. 
 
196 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 There is a small print in Kugler's Handbook which 
 will give a general idea of the arrangement of this 
 famous ceiling : there is one on a large scale by Piroli, 
 and a still larger one by Cunego, which, if accessible, 
 will answer the purpose better. In our National School 
 of Design there is an admirable coloured drawing lately 
 brought from Eome by Mr. L. Gruner, which will con- 
 vey a very correct idea not merely of the arrangement 
 of the subjects and figures, but of the harmonious dis- 
 position of the colours — a merit not usually allowed to 
 Michael Angelo. This has been published in colours 
 at the expense of Mr. Holford of Blaise Castle, the 
 author of a Life of Michael Angelo. 
 
 The collection of engravings after Michael Angelo in 
 the British Museum is very imperfect, but it contains 
 some fine old prints from the Prophets which should be 
 studied by those who wish to understand the true merit 
 of this great master, of whom Sir Joshua Eeynolds said 
 that "to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the 
 slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinc- 
 tion enough for an ambitious man ! " 
 
 When the Sistine Chapel was completed Michael 
 Angelo was in his thirty ninth year ; fifty years of 
 a glorious though troubled career were still before 
 him. 
 
 Pope Julius II. died in 1513, and was succeeded by 
 Leo X., the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. As a 
 Florentine and his father's son, we might naturally have 
 expected that he would have gloried in patronising and 
 employing Michael Angelo ; but such was not the case. 
 There was something in the stern, unbending character, 
 
Died 1564.] RIVALRY WITH RAPHAEL. 197 
 
 and retired and abstemious habits of Michael Angelo, 
 repulsive to the temper of Leo, who preferred the 
 graceful and amiable Eaphael, then in the prime of his 
 life and genius : hence arose the memorable rivalry be- 
 tween Michael Angelo and Eaphael, which on the part 
 of the latter was merely generous emulation, while it 
 must be confessed that something like scorn mingled 
 with the feelings of Michael Angelo. The pontificate 
 of Leo X., an interval of ten years, was the least pro- 
 ductive period of his life. In the year 1519, when the 
 Signoria of Florence was negociating with Eavenna for 
 the restoration of the remains of Dante, he petitioned 
 the pope that he might be allowed to execute at his 
 own labour and expense a monument to the " Divine 
 Poet." In the" same year (he was then at Florence) 
 Sebastian del Piombo writes to him concerning the 
 success of his great picture, the Eaising of Lazarus, now 
 in our National Gallery. Michael Angelo had been sent 
 to Florence to superintend the building of the church 
 of San Lorenzo and the completion of Santa Croce ; but 
 he differed with the pope on the choice of the marble, 
 quarrelled with the officials, and scarcely anything was 
 accomplished. Clement VII., another Medici, was 
 elected pope in 1523. He was the son of that Giu- 
 liano de' Medici who was assassinated by the Pazzi in 
 1478. He had conceived the idea of consecrating a 
 chapel in the church of San Lorenzo, to receive the 
 tombs of his ancestors and relations, and which should 
 be adorned with all the splendour of art. Michael 
 Angelo planned and built the chapel, and for its in- 
 terior decoration designed and executed six of his 
 
198 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 greatest works in sculpture. There are casts of these 
 likewise in the Crystal Palace, in the Italian Court. 
 Two are seated statues : one representing Lorenzo de' 
 Medici, Duke of Urbino, who died young, in 1519, 
 living only to be the father of Catherine de' Medici 
 (and, as it has been well said, " had an evil spirit as- 
 sumed the human shape to propagate mischief, he could 
 not have done worse ") ; the other, opposite, his cousin 
 Giuliano de' Medici, who was as weak as Lorenzo was 
 vicious. The other four are colossal recumbent figures, 
 entitled the Night, the Morning, the Dawn, and the 
 Twilight ; though why so called, and why these figures 
 were introduced in such a situation — what was the in- 
 tention, the meaning of the artist — does not seem to be 
 understood by any of the critics on art who have written 
 on the subject. The statue of Lorenzo is almost awful in 
 its sullen grandeur. He look's down in a contemplative 
 attitude ; hence the appellation by which the figure is 
 known in Italy — II Pensiero (Thought or Meditation). 
 But there is mischief in the look — something vague, 
 ominous — difficult to be described. Altogether it well 
 nigh realizes our idea of Milton's Satan brooding over 
 his infernal plans for the ruin of mankind. Mr. Rogers 
 styles it truly " the most real and unreal thing that ever 
 came from the chisel." And his description of the whole 
 chapel is as vivid as poetry, and as accurate as truth, 
 could make it : — 
 
 " Nor then forget that chamber of the dead 
 Where the gigantic shades of Night and Day, 
 Turn'd into stone, rest everlastingly. 
 
 There from age to age 
 Two ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres. 
 
Died 1564.] HIS DEFENCE OF FLORENCE. 199 
 
 That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well ! 
 
 He meditates ; his head upon his hand. 
 
 What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls? 
 
 Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull ? 
 
 'Tis lost in shade— yet, like the basilisk, 
 
 It fascinates and is intolerable." * 
 
 While Michaei Angelo was engaged in these works 
 his progess was interrupted by events which threw all 
 Italy into commotion. Rome was taken and sacked by 
 the Constable de Bourbon in 1527. The Medici were 
 once more expelled from Florence ; and Michael Angelo, 
 in the midst of these strange vicissitudes, was employed 
 by the republic to fortify his native city against his 
 former patrons. ' Great as an engineer, as in every other 
 department of art and science, he defended Florence for 
 nine months. At length the city was given up by 
 treachery, and, fearing the vengeance of the conquerors, 
 Michael Angelo fled and concealed himself; but Cle- 
 ment VII. was too sensible of his merit to allow him to 
 remain long in disgrace and exile. He was pardoned, 
 and continued ever afterwards in high favour with the 
 pope, who employed him on the sculptures in the 
 chapel of San Lorenzo during the remainder of his pon- 
 tificate. 
 
 In the year 1531 he had completed the statues of 
 Night and Morning, and Clement, who heard of his 
 incessant labours, sent him a brief, commanding him, 
 on pain of excommunication, to take care of his health, and 
 
 * Mr. Rogers possessed the small sketch or model (Michael 
 Angelo's first thought) for this wonderful figure. It used to stand 
 on a pedestal in the corner of his breakfast-room, looking ominous. 
 At the sale of his collection it was sold for 21 J. I know not who is 
 now the fortunate possessor. 
 
200 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Bokn 1474. 
 
 not to accept of any other work but that which his 
 holiness had assigned him. 
 
 Clement VII. was succeeded by Pope Paul III., of the 
 Farnese family, in 1534. This pope, though nearly 
 seventy when he was elected, was as anxioup to im- 
 mortalize his name by great undertakings as any of his 
 predecessors had been before him. His first wish was 
 to complete the decoration of the interior of the Sistine 
 Chapel, left unfinished by Julius II. and Leo X. He 
 summoned Michael Angelo, who endeavoured to excuse 
 himself, pleading other engagements; but the pope 
 would listen to no excuses which interfered with his 
 sovereign power to dissolve all other obligations ; and 
 thus the artist found himself, after an interval of twenty 
 years, most reluctantly forced to abandon sculpture for 
 painting ; and, as Vasari expresses it, he consented to 
 serve Pope Paul only because he could not do otherwise. 
 
 In representing the Last Judgment on the wall of the 
 upper end of the Sistine Chapel, Michael Angelo only 
 adhered to the original plan as it had been adopted by 
 Julius II., and afterwards by Clement VII. 
 
 In the centre of this vast composition he has placed 
 the figure of the Messiah in the act of pronouncing the 
 sentence of condemnation, " Depart from n*e, ye ac- 
 cursed, into everlasting fire ;" and by his side the Virgin 
 Mary : around them, on each side, the apostles, the 
 patriarchs, the prophets, and a company of saints and 
 martyrs : above these are groups of angels bearing the 
 cross, the crown of thorns, and other instruments of the 
 passion of our Lord ; and farther down another group 
 
Died 15S4.] THE LAST JUDGMENT. 201 
 
 of angels holding the book of life, and sounding the 
 awful trumpets which call up the dead to judgment. 
 Below, on one side, the resurrection and ascent of the 
 blessed ; and on the other, demons drag down the con- 
 demned to everlasting fire. The number of figures is 
 at least two hundred. Those who wish to form a correct 
 idea of the composition and arrangement should consult 
 the engravings : several of different sizes and different 
 degrees of excellence are in the British Museum. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Michael Angelo's Last 
 Judgment is the greatest effort of human skill, as a 
 creation of art ; yet is it full of faults in taste and 
 sentiment ; and the greatest fault of all is in the concep- 
 tion of the principal personage, the Messiah as judge. 
 The figure, expression, attitude, are all unworthy — one 
 might almost say vulgar in the worst sense ; for is there 
 not both profaneness and vulgarity in representing the 
 merciful Eedeemer of mankind, even when he " comes 
 to judgment," as inspired merely by wrath and ven- 
 geance ? — as a thick-set athlete, who, with a gesture of 
 sullen anger, is about to punish the wicked with his 
 fist ? It has been already observed that Michael Angelo 
 borrowed the idea of the two figures of the Virgin and 
 Christ from the old fresco of Orcagna in the Campo 
 Santo ; but in improving the drawing he has wholly lost 
 and degraded the sentiment. In the groups of the par- 
 doned, as Kugler has well observed, we look in vain for 
 "the glory of heaven — for beings bearing the stamp of 
 divine holiness and renunciation of human weakness : 
 everywhere we meet with the expression of human 
 
202 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 passion, human efforts ; we see no choir of solemn tran- 
 quil forms— no harmonious unity of clear grand lines 
 produced by ideal draperies ; but in their stead a con- 
 fused crowd of naked bodies in violent attitudes, imac- 
 companied by any of the characteristics made sacred by 
 holy tradition." On the other hand, the groups of the 
 condemned, and the astonishing energy and variety of 
 the struggling and suspended forms, are most fearful : 
 and it is quite true that when contemplated from a 
 distance the whole representation fills the mind with 
 wonder and mysterious horror. It was intended to 
 represent the defeat and fall of the rebel angels on the 
 opposite wall (above and on each side of the principal 
 door), but this was never done ; and the intention of 
 Michael Angelo in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel 
 remains incomplete. The picture of the Last Judg- 
 ment was finished and first exhibited to the people on 
 Christmas-day, 1451, under the pontificate of Paul III. 
 Michael Angelo was then in his sixty-seventh year, and 
 had been employed on the painting and cartoons nearly 
 nine years. 
 
 The same Pope Paul III. had in the mean time con- 
 structed a beautiful chapel, which was called after his 
 name the chapel Paolina, and dedicated to St. Peter and 
 St. Paul. Michael Angelo was called upon to design the 
 decorations. He painted on one side the Conversion of 
 St. Paul, and on the other the Crucifixion of St. Peter, 
 which were completed in 1549. But these fine paintings 
 — of which existing old engravings (to be found in the 
 British Museum) give a better idea than the blackened 
 
Died 1564.] ARCHITECT OF ST. PETER'S. 203 
 
 and faded remains of the original frescoes — were from 
 the first ill-disposed as to the locality, and badly lighted, 
 and at present they excite little interest compared with 
 the more famous works in the Sistine. 
 
 During the period that Michael Angelo was engaged 
 in the decoration of the Pauline Chapel, he executed a 
 group in marble — the Virgin with the dead Redeemer 
 and two other figures — which was never completely 
 finished. It is now at Florence, behind the high altar 
 of the Cathedral. It is full of tragic grandeur and 
 expression.* 
 
 With the frescoes in the Pauline Chapel ends Michael 
 Angelo's career as a painter. He had been appointed 
 chief architect of St. Peter's in 1547 by Paul III. He 
 was then in his seventy-second year ; and during the re- 
 mainder of his life, a period of sixteen years, we find him 
 wholly devoted to architecture. His vast and daring 
 genius finding ample scope in the completion of St. 
 Peter's, he has left behind him in his capacity of architect 
 yet greater marvels than he had achieved as painter and 
 sculptor. Who that has seen the cupola of St. Peter's 
 soaring into the skies, but will think almost with awe 
 
 * An eyewitness lias left us a very graphic description of the 
 energy with which, even in old age, Michael Angelo handled his 
 chisel: — " I can say that I have seen Michael Angelo at the age of 
 sixty, and with a body announcing weakness, make more chips of 
 marble fly about in a quarter of an hour than would three of the 
 strongest young sculptors in an hour,— a thing almost incredible to 
 him who has not beheld it. He went to work with such impetuosity 
 and fury of manner that I feared almost every moment to see the 
 block split into pieces. It would seem as if, inflamed by the idea 
 of greatness which inspired him, this great man attacked with a 
 species of fury the marble which concealed the statue." — Blaise de 
 Vigenere. 
 
204 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 of the universal and majestic intellect of the man whc 
 reared it ? 
 
 There is a striking anecdote of Mrs. Siddons, which at 
 this moment comes back upon the mind. When standing 
 before the Apollo Belvedere, then in the gallery of the 
 Louvre, she exclaimed, after a long pause, "How great 
 must be the Being who created the genius which pro- 
 duced such a form as this ! " — a thought characteristic 
 of her mind, but more fitly inspired by the works of 
 Michael Angelo than by those of any artist the world 
 has yet seen. They bear impressed upon them a cha- 
 racter of greatness, of durability, of sublimity of inven- 
 tion and consummate skill in contrivance, which fills 
 the contemplative mind, and leads it irresistibly from 
 the created up to the Creator. 
 
 As our subject is painting, not architecture, we shall 
 not dwell much on this period of the life of Michael 
 Angelo. He filled the office of chief architect of St. 
 Peter's through the pontificates of Julius III., Pius IV., 
 and Pius Y. He accepted the office with reluctance, plead- 
 ing his great age and the obstacles and difficulties he was 
 likely to meet with from the jealousies and intrigues of 
 his rivals and the ignorance and intermeddling of the 
 pope's officials. He solemnly called Heaven to witness 
 that it was only from a deep sense of duty that he 
 yielded to the pope's wishes ; and he proved that this 
 was no empty profession by constantly refusing any 
 salary or remuneration. Notwithstanding the diffi- 
 culties he encountered, the provocations and the dis- 
 gusts most intolerable to his haughty and impatient 
 spirit, he held on his way with a stern perseverance 
 
Died 1564.] HIS RECEPTION BY JULIUS III. 205 
 
 till he had seen his great designs so far carried out that 
 they could not be wholly abandoned or perverted by his 
 successors.* 
 
 When his sovereign the Grand Duke of Florence 
 endeavoured, by the most munificent offers and pro- 
 mises, to attract him to his court, he constantly pleaded 
 that to leave his great work unaccomplished would be 
 on his part "a sin, a shame, and the ruin of the greatest 
 religious monument in Christian Europe. " Michael 
 Angelo considered that he was engaged in a work of 
 piety, and for this reason, " for his own honour and the 
 honour of God," he refused all emolument. 
 
 It appears, from the evidence of contemporary writers, 
 that in the last years of his life the acknowledged worth 
 and genius of Michael Angelo, his wide-spread fame, 
 and his unblemished integrity, combined with his 
 venerable age and the haughtiness and reserve of his 
 deportment to invest him with a sort of princely dig- 
 nity. It is recorded that, when he waited on pope 
 Julius III. to receive his commands, the pontiff rose 
 on his approach, seated him, in spite of his excuses, 
 on his right hand ; and while a crowd of cardinals, pre- 
 lates, ambassadors, were standing round at humble dis- 
 tance, carried on the conference, as equal with equal. 
 When the Grand Duke Cosmo was in Rome in 1560 he 
 visited Michael Angelo, uncovered in his presence, and 
 stood with his hat in his hand while speaking to him ; 
 but from the time when he made himself the tyrant of 
 
 * This, however, applies only to the stupendous dome : his de- 
 sign for the facade, and even the original form of the church, having 
 been subsequently altered and spoiled. 
 
206 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 Florence he never could persuade Michael Angelo to 
 visit, even for a day, his native city. 
 
 One of the most beautiful anecdotes recorded of 
 Michael Angelo in his later years, and one of the very 
 few amiable traits in his character, was his strong and 
 generous attachment to his old servant Urbino. One 
 day, as Urbino stood by him while he worked, he said to 
 him, " My poor Urbino ! what wilt thou do when I am 
 gone ? ' '" Alas !" replied Urbino, " I must then seek 
 another master !" " No," replied Michael Angelo, " that 
 shall never be ! " and he immediately presented him 
 with two thousand crowns, thus rendering him" inde- 
 pendent of himself and others. Urbino, however, con 
 tinned in his service, and, when seized with his last ill- 
 ness, Michael Angelo, the stern, the sarcastic, the over- 
 bearing Michael Angelo, nursed him with the tenderness 
 and patience of a mother, sleeping in his clothes on 
 a couch that he might be ever near him. The old man 
 died at last, leaving his master almost inconsolable. 
 " My Urbino is dead," he writes to Vasari, " to my 
 infinite grief and sorrow. Living, he served me truly, 
 and in his death he taught me how to die. I have now 
 no other hope than to rejoin him in Paradise !" 
 
 The arrogance imputed to Michael Angelo seems 
 rather to have arisen from a contempt for others than 
 from any overweening opinion of himself. He was too 
 proud to be vain. He had placed his standard of per- 
 fection so high, that to the latest hour of his life he con- 
 sidered himself as striving after that ideal excellence 
 which had been revealed to him, but to which he con- 
 ceived that others were blind or indifferent. In allusion to 
 
Died 1564.] HIS TOMB. 207 
 
 his own imperfections, he made a drawing, sinoe become 
 famous, which represents an aged man in a go-cart, and 
 underneath the words " Ancora impara "(" still learning "). 
 
 He continued to labour unremittingly, and with the 
 same resolute energy of mind and purpose, till the gra- 
 dual decay of his strength warned him of his approach- 
 ing end. He did not suffer from any particular malady, 
 and his mind was strong and clear to the last. He died 
 at Kome, on the 18th of February, 1564, in the eighty- 
 eighth year of his age. A few days before his death he 
 dictated his will in these few simple words: "I be- 
 queath my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my 
 possessions to my nearest relations." His nephew, 
 Lionardo Buonarroti, who was his principal heir, by the 
 orders of the Grand Duke Cosmo had his remains secretly 
 conveyed out of Eome and brought to Florence ; they 
 were with due honours deposited in the church of Santa 
 Croce, under a costly monument, on which we may see 
 his noble bust surrounded by three very commonplace 
 and ill-executed statues representing the arts in which 
 he excelled — Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. 
 They might have added Poetry ; for Michael Angelo was 
 so fine a poet that his productions would have given 
 him fame, though he had never peopled the Sistine with 
 his giant creations, nor " suspended the Pantheon in the 
 air"* The object to whom his poems are chiefly ad- 
 
 * The dome of the Pantheon, which appears self-sustained, had, 
 from the time of Augustus Caesar, attracted the wonder and admi- 
 ration of all beholders, as a marvel of scientific architecture. Michael 
 Angelo said, on some occasion, " I will take the Pantheon and sus- 
 pend it in the air ;" and he did so. 
 
208 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 dressed, Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, was 
 the widow of the celebrated commander who overcame 
 Francis I. at the battle of Pavia ; herself a poetess, and 
 one of the most celebrated women of her time for beauty, 
 talents, virtue, and piety. She died in 1547. Several 
 of Michael Angelo's sonnets have been translated by 
 Wordsworth, and a selection of his poems, with a very 
 learned and eloquent introduction, has been published 
 by Mr. John Edward Taylor, in a little volume entitled 
 ' Michael Angelo a Poet.' 
 
 It must be borne in recollection that the pictures 
 ascribed to Michael Angelo in catalogues and picture 
 galleries are in every instance copies made by his 
 scholars from his designs and models. Only one easel 
 picture is acknowledged as the genuine production of 
 his hand. It is a Holy Family in the Florentine Gallery, 
 which as a composition is very exaggerated and ungrace- 
 ful, and in colour hard and violent; it is painted in 
 distemper, varnished ; not in oils, as some have sup- 
 
 Marcello Venusti was continually employed in exe- 
 cuting small pictures from celebrated cartoons of 
 Michael Angelo ; and the diminutive size, and soft, neat, 
 delicate execution, form a singular contrast with the 
 sublimity of the composition and the grand massive 
 drawing of the figures. One of these subjects is the 
 Virgin seated at the foot of the Cross, holding on her 
 lap the dead Kedeemer, whose arms are supported by 
 two angels : • innumerable duplicates and engravings 
 exist of this composition (one exquisite example is in 
 the Queen's gallery in Buckingham Palace) ; also of the 
 
33. — Marcbllo Venusti. 
 
 Page 208. 
 
Library. 
 
34.— Sesastiano Lucini, called Fra Sebastian 
 
 DEL PlOMBO. 
 
 From Vasari's History. 
 
 Page 2f,9. 
 
Died 1564.] HIS SCHOLARS. 209 
 
 Christ on the Cross, with the Virgin and St. John stand- 
 ing, and two angels looking out of the sky behind with 
 an expression of intense anguish (one of these, a very 
 fine example, was lately sold in the Lucca gallery). 
 These two, the Pieta and the Crucifixion, were painted 
 from drawings which he had made for Vittoria Colonna. 
 Another is II Silenzio, The Silence : the Virgin is repre- 
 sented with the infant Christ lying across her knee, with 
 his arm hanging down; she has a book in one hand: 
 behind her on one side is the young St. John in the 
 panther's skin, with his finger on his lips ; on the other, 
 St. Joseph. The Annunciation, in which the figure of 
 the Virgin is particularly majestic, is a fourth. Copies 
 of these subjects, with trifling variations, are to be found 
 in many galleries, and the engravings of all are in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 Sebastian del Piombo was another artist who painted 
 under the direction and from the cartoons of Michael 
 Angelo, and the most famous example of this union of 
 talent is the Raising of Lazarus, in our National Gal- 
 lery. "Sebastian," says Lanzi, "was without the gift 
 of invention, and in compositions of many figures slow 
 and irresolute;" but he was a consummate portrait 
 painter and a most admirable colourist. A Venetian by 
 birth, he had learned the art of colouring under Gior- 
 gione. On coming to Eome in 1518 he formed a close 
 intimacy with Michael Angelo : the tradition is, that 
 Michael Angelo associated Sebastiano with himself, and 
 gave him the cartoons of his grand designs, to which the 
 Venetian was to lend the magical hues of his palette, for 
 the purpose of crushing Raphael. If this tradition be 
 
210 MICHAEL ANGELO. [Born 1474. 
 
 true, the failure was signal and deserved ; but luckily 
 we are not obliged to believe it : it' rests on no authority 
 worthy of credit. 
 
 Giacopo Pontormo painted the Venus and Cupid now 
 at Hampton Court, from a famous cartoon of Michael 
 Angelo ; and also a Leda, which is in the National Gal- 
 lery, and of which the cartoon, by Michael Angelo, is 
 in our Eoyal Academy.* 
 
 But the most celebrated and the most independent 
 among the scholars and imitators of Michael Angelo was 
 Da.nikl da Volterra, whose most famous work is the 
 Taking down the Saviour from the Cross, with a num- 
 ber of figures full of energy and movement. It is in 
 the church of the Monte di Trinita at Eome. 
 
 Giorgio Vasari was a pupil and especial favourite of 
 Michael Angelo ; he was a painter and architect of 
 second-rate merit. He has, however, earned himself an 
 immortality by his admirable biography of the painters, 
 sculptors, and architects of Italy, from the earliest times 
 to the death of Michael Angelo, whom he survived only 
 ten years. A large picture by Vasari, representing the 
 six great poets of Italy, is in the gallery of Mr. Hope. 
 
 It is not necessary to say anything here of the painters 
 who, in the middle of the sixteenth century, and in the 
 lifetime of Michael Angelo, imitated his manner ; they 
 were mere journeymen, and, indeed, imitated him most 
 abominably ; mistaking extravagance for sublimity, exag- 
 geration for grandeur, and distortion and affectation for 
 energy and passion : — a wretched set. But before we 
 leave Florence we must speak of one more artist, whose 
 * The Leda is not exhibited in the National Gallery. 
 
35.— Giacopo Caeucci da Pontormo. 
 
 From Vasari's History. 
 
 Page 210. 
 
36.— Daniele da Volterra (Ricciarelli). 
 
 From Vasari's History. 
 
 rage 210. 
 
37. — Giorgio Vasaei. 
 
 Painted by himself. 
 
 Page 210. 
 
Library* )) 
 
 Of Califot" 1 ^ 
 
Died 1564.] HIS IMITATORS. 211 
 
 proper place is here, because he was a Florentine, and 
 because he combined in a singular manner the charac- 
 teristics of the three great men. of whom we have 
 last spoken — Lionardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, and 
 Michael Angelo — without exactly imitating or equalling 
 any one of them. This was Andrea del Sarto, a great 
 artist ; but who would have been a far greater artist had 
 he been a better man. 
 
( 212 ) 
 
 ANDKEA DEL SAKTO. 
 
 Born 1488, died 1530. 
 
 Andrea Vannuchi was the son of a tailor (in Italian 
 Sarto) ; hence the appellation by which he was early 
 known and has since become celebrated : he was born 
 in 1478, and, like many others, began life as a goldsmith 
 and chaser in metal, but soon turning his attention to 
 painting, and studying indefatigably, he attained so 
 much excellence that he was called in his own time 
 " Andrea senza errori," that is, Andrea the Faultless. He 
 is certainly one of the most fascinating of painters, but 
 in all his pictures, even the finest, while we are struck 
 by the elegance of the heads and the majesty of the 
 figures, we feel the want of any real elevation of senti- 
 ment and expression. It would be difficult to point out 
 any picture of Andrea del Sarto which has either sim- 
 plicity or devotional feeling. 
 
 A man possessed of genius and industry, loving his 
 art, and crowned with early fame and success, ought to 
 have been through life a prosperous and a happy man. 
 Andrea was neither : — he was miserable, unfortunate, 
 and contemned, through his own fault or folly. He 
 loved a beautiful woman of infamous character, who 
 was the wife of a hatter : and on the death of her hus- 
 
38. — Andrea Vannucchi, called Andrea del Sarto. 
 
 From a Portrait by himself, in the Ujfizi Gallery. 
 
 Page 212. 
 
Died 1530.] ANDREA DEL SARTO. 213 
 
 band, in spite of her bad reputation and the warnings 
 of his best friends, he married her : from that hour he 
 never had a quiet heart, or home, or conscience. He had 
 hitherto supported his old father and mother : she pre- 
 vailed on him to forsake them. His friends stood aloof, 
 pitying and despising his degradation. His scholars 
 (and formerly the most promising of the yoxmg artists 
 of that time had been emulous for the honour of his 
 instructions) now fell off, unable to bear the detestable 
 temper of the woman who governed his house. Tired 
 of this existence, he accepted readily an invitation from 
 Francis I., who, on his arrival at Paris, loaded him with 
 favour and distinction ; but after a time, his wife, finding 
 she had no longer the same command over his purse 
 or his proceedings, summoned him to return. He had 
 entered into such engagements with Francis I. that this 
 was not easy; but as he pleaded his domestic posi- 
 tion, and promised, and even took an oath on the Gospel, 
 that he would return in a few months, bringing with 
 him his wife, the king gave him licence to depart, and 
 even intrusted him with a large sum of money to be 
 expended in certain specified objects. 
 
 Andrea hastened to Florence, and there, under the 
 influence of his infamous wife, he embezzled the money, 
 which was wasted in his own and her extravagance ; 
 and he never returned to France to keep his oath and 
 engagements. But though he had been weak and 
 wicked enough to commit this crime, he had sufficient 
 sensibility to feel acutely the disgrace which was the 
 consequence ; it preyed on his mind and embittered the 
 rest of his life. The avarice and infidelity of his wife 
 
214 ANDREA DEL SARTO. [Born 1488. 
 
 added to his sufferings. He continued to paint, how- 
 ever, and improved to the last in correctness of style 
 and beauty of colour. 
 
 In the year 1530 he was attacked by a contagious 
 disorder ; abandoned on his deathbed by the woman to 
 whom he had sacrificed honour, fame, and friends, he 
 died miserably, and was buried, hastily and without 
 the usual ceremonies of the Church, in the same convent 
 of the Nunziata which he had adorned with his works. 
 
 Andrea del Sarto can only be estimated as a painter 
 by those who Jiave visited Florence. Fine as are his 
 oil-pictures, his paintings in fresco are still finer. One 
 of these, a Eepose of the Holy Family, has been cele- 
 brated for the last two centuries under the title of the 
 Madonna del Sacco, because Joseph is represented leaning 
 on a sack. There are engravings of it in the British 
 Museum. The cloisters of the convent of the Nunziata, 
 containing scenes from the history of the Virgin Mary, 
 and a court or cloister once belonging to the Campagnia 
 dello Scalzo, painted with scenes from the life of John 
 the Baptist (the tutelary saint of Florence), are his 
 greatest works. His finest picture in oil is in the 
 Florence Gallery, in the cabinet called the Tribune, 
 where it hangs behind the Venus de' Medici. It repre- 
 sents the Virgin seated on a throne, with St. John the 
 Baptist standing on one side, and St. Francis on the 
 other ; a picture of wonderful majesty and beauty. In 
 general his Madonnas are not pleasing ; they have, with 
 great beauty, a certain vulgarity of expression, and in 
 his groups he almost always places the Virgin on the 
 ground, either kneeling or sitting. His only model for 
 
Died 1530.] HIS WORKS. 215 
 
 all his females was his wife ; and even when he did 
 not paint from her, she so possessed his thoughts that 
 unconsciously he repeated the same features in every 
 face he drew, whether Virgin, or saint, or goddess. 
 Pictures by Andrea del Sarto are to be found in almost 
 all galleries, but very fine examples of his art are rare . 
 out of Florence. The picture in our National Gallery 
 attributed to him is very unworthy of his reputation.' 
 Those at Hampton Court are not better. There is a 
 fine portrait at Windsor, called the Gardener of the 
 Duke of Florence, attributed to him, and a female head, 
 a sketch full of nature and power. In the Louvre is the 
 picture of Charity, No. 85, painted for Francis I. when 
 Andrea was at Fontainebleau in 1518, and three others. 
 Lord Westminster, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Munroe of 
 Park Street, and Lord Cowper in his collection at 
 Panshanger, possess the finest examples of Andrea del 
 Sarto which are in England. At Panshanger there is a 
 very fine portrait of Andrea del Sarto by himself ; he is 
 represented as standing by a table at which he has been 
 writing, and looking up from the letter which lies 
 before him : the figure is half-length, and the counte- 
 nance noble, but profoundly melancholy. One might 
 fancy that he had been writing to his wife. 
 
( 216 ) 
 
 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. 
 
 Born 1483, died 1520. 
 
 I have spoken at length of two among the great men 
 who influenced the progress of art in the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century — Lionardo da Yinci and Michael 
 Angelo. The third and greatest name was that of 
 Raphael. 
 
 In speaking of this wonderful man I shall be more 
 diffuse and enter more into detail than usual. How can 
 we treat in a small compass of him whose fame has filled 
 the universe ? In the history of Italian art he stands 
 alone, like Shakspere in the history of our literature ; 
 and he takes the same kind of rank, a superiority not 
 merely of degree, but of quality. Everybody has heard 
 of Raphael ; every one has attached some associations 
 of excellence and beauty, more or less defined, to that 
 familiar name : but it is necessary to have studied pro- 
 foundly the history of art, and to have an intimate 
 acquaintance with the productions of contemporary and 
 succeeding artists, to form any just idea of the wide 
 and lasting influence exercised by this harmonious and 
 powerful genius. His works have been an inexhaust- 
 ible storehouse of ideas to painters and to poets. 
 Everywhere in, art we find his traces. Everywhere we 
 
39. — Eaphael Sanzio d' Ukbino. 
 
 From a Portrait by himself, in the Uffizi Gallery. 
 
 Page 216. 
 
Died 1520.] RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. 217 
 
 recognise his forms and lines, borrowed or stolen, 
 reproduced, varied, imitated — never improved. Some 
 critic once said, " Show me any sentiment or feeling in 
 any poet, ancient or modern, and I will show you the 
 same thing either as well or better expressed in Shak- 
 spere; in the same manner one might say, "Show me 
 in any painter, ancient or modern, any especial beauty 
 of form, expression, or sentiment, and in some picture, 
 drawing, or print after Eaphael, I will show you the 
 same thing as well or better done, and that accomplished, 
 which others have only sought or attempted." To 
 complete our idea of this rare union of greatness and 
 versatility as an artist with all that could grace and 
 dignify the man, we must add such personal qualities 
 as very seldom meet in the same individual — a bright, 
 generous, genial, gentle spirit ; the most attractive 
 manners, the most winning modesty — - 
 
 " His heavenly face the mirror of his mind ; 
 His mind a temple for all lovely things 
 To flock to, and inhabit " — 
 
 and we shall have a picture in our fancy more resem- 
 bling that of an antique divinity, a young Apollo, than 
 a real human being. There was a vulgar idea at one 
 time prevalent that Eaphael was a man of vicious and 
 dissipated habits, and even died a victim to his ex- 
 cesses; this slander has been silenced for ever by 
 indisputable evidence to the contrary, and now we may 
 reflect with pleasure that nothing rests on surer evi- 
 dence than the admirable qualities of Eaphael ; that no 
 earthly renown was ever so unsullied by reproach, so 
 justified by merit, so confirmed by concurrent opinion, 
 
218 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 so established by time. The short life of Raphael was 
 one of incessant and persevering stndy : he spent one- 
 half of it in acquiring that practical knowledge and 
 that mechanical dexterity of hand which were necessary 
 before he could embody in forms and colours the rich 
 creations of his wonderful mind ; and when he died, at 
 the age of thirty-seven, he left behind him two hundred 
 and eighty-seven pictures and five hundred and seventy- 
 six drawings and studies. If we reflect for one mo- 
 ment we must be convinced that such a man could not 
 have been idle and dissipated : for we must always take 
 into consideration that an excelling painter must be not 
 only a poet in mind, but a ready and perfect artificer ; 
 and that, though nature may bestow the " genius and 
 the faculty divine," only time, practice, assiduous 
 industry, can give the exact and cunning hand. " An 
 author," as Richardson observes, " must think, but it is 
 no matter what character he writes ; he has no care about 
 that, if what he writes be legible. A curious me- 
 chanic's hand must be exquisite ; but his thoughts may 
 be at liberty :" while the painter must think and invent 
 with his fancy, and what his fancy invents his hand 
 must acquire the power to execute, or vain is his power 
 of creative thought. It has been observed — though 
 Raphael was unhappily an exception — that painters are 
 generally long lived and healthy, and that, of all the 
 professors of science and art, they are the least liable to 
 alienation of mind or morbid effects of the brain. One 
 reason may be, that through the union of the opposite 
 faculties of the excursive fancy and mechanic skill — 
 head and hand balancing each other — a sort of harmony 
 
Died 1520.] HIS PARENTS. 219 
 
 in their alternate or coefficient exercise is preserved 
 habitually, which reacts on the whole moral and phy- 
 sical being. As Eaphael carried to the highest per- 
 fection the union of those faculties of head and hand 
 which constitute the complete artist, so this harmony 
 pervaded his whole being, and nothing deformed or 
 discordant could enter there. In all the portraits 
 which exist of him, from infancy to manhood, there is 
 a divine sweetness and repose ; the little cherub face of 
 three years old is not more serene and angelic than the 
 same features at thirty. The child whom father and 
 mother, guardian and stepmother, caressed and idolised 
 in his loving innocence, was the same being whom we 
 see in the prime of manhood subduing and reigning 
 over all hearts, so that, to borrow the words of a con- 
 temporary, "not only all men, but the very brutes 
 loved him :" the only very distinguished man of whom 
 we read who lived and died without an enemy or a 
 detractor ! 
 
 Eaphael Sanzio or Santi was born in the city of 
 Urbino, on Good Friday in the year 1483. His father, 
 Giovanni Santi, was a painter of no mean talent, who 
 held a respectable rank in his native city, and was 
 much esteemed by the Dukes Frederigo and Guidobaldo 
 of Urbino, both of whom played a very important part 
 in the history of Italy between 1474 and 1494. The 
 name of Raphael's mother was Magia, and the house in 
 which he was born is still standing, and regarded by 
 the citizens of Urbino with just veneration. He was 
 only eight years old when he lost his mother, but his 
 father's second wife, Bernardina, well supplied her 
 
 % 
 
220 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 place, and loved him and tended him as if he had been 
 her own son. His father was his first instructor, and 
 very soon the young pupil was not only able to assist 
 him in his works, but showed such extraordinary talent 
 that Giovanni deemed it right to give him the advantage 
 of better teaching than his own. Perugino was the 
 most celebrated master of that time, and Giovanni 
 travelled to Perugia to make arrangements for placing 
 Raphael under his care, but before these arrangements 
 were completed this good father died, in August, 1494. 
 His wishes were however carried into execution by his 
 widow, and by his wife's brother, Simone Ciarla, and 
 Raphael was sent to study under Perugino in 1495, 
 being then twelve years old. 
 
 He remained in this school till he was nearly twenty, 
 and was chiefly employed in assisting his master. A few 
 pictures painted between his sixteenth and twentieth 
 year have been authenticated by careful research, and 
 are very interesting from being essentially charac- 
 teristic. There is, of course, the manner of his master 
 Perugino, but mingled with some of those qualities 
 which were particularly his own, and which his after 
 life developed into excellence ; and nothing in these 
 early pictures is so remarkable as the gradual improve- 
 ment of his style, and his young predilection for his 
 favourite subject, the Madonna and Child. The most 
 celebrated of all his pictures painted in the school of 
 Perugino was one representing the Marriage of the 
 Virgin Mary to Joseph — a subject which is very com- 
 mon in Italian art, and called Lo Sposalizio (the Espou- 
 sals). This beautiful picture is preserved in the Gallery 
 
Died 1520.] THE BLENHEIM ALTARPIECE. 221 
 
 at Milan. There is a large and fine engraving of it by 
 Longhi, which can be seen in any good print-shop. In 
 the same year that he painted this picture (1504) 
 Raphael visited Florence for the first time. He carried 
 with him a letter of recommendation from Giovanna, 
 Duchess of Sora and sister of the Duke of Urbino, to 
 Soderini, who had succeeded the exiled Medici in the 
 government of Florence. In this letter the duchess 
 styles him " a discreet and amiable youth," to whom 
 she was attached for his father's sake and for his own 
 good qualities, and she requests that Soderini will 
 favour and aid him in his pursuits. Eaphael did not 
 remain long at Florence in this first visit, but he made 
 the acquaintance of Fra Bartolomeo and Eidolfo Ghii- 
 landajo, and saw some cartoons by Liornardo da Yinci 
 and Michael Angelo, which filled his mind with new 
 and bold ideas both of form and composition. In the 
 following year he was employed in executing several 
 large pictures for various churches at Perugia. One of 
 these, a large altarpiece, painted for the church of the 
 Servite, is now at Blenheim : it is full of beauty and 
 dignity ; beneath it was a little picture of St. John 
 preaching in the Wilderness, which is in the possession 
 of Lord Lansdowne. The Blenheim altarpiece has 
 lately been engraved in a perfect style by Louis Gruner. 
 It represents the enthroned Virgin and Child, with 
 John the Baptist and St. Nicholas. About the same 
 time he painted for himself a lovely little miniature 
 called the Dream of the Young Knight, in which he re- 
 presents a youth armed, who sees in a vision two female 
 figures, one alluring him to pleasure, the other, with a 
 
222 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 book and sword, inviting him to study and to strive for 
 excellence. It is now in the National Galley : this 
 also has been engraved in an exquisite style by Gruner. 
 
 When he had finished these and other works he re- 
 turned to Florence, and remained there till 1508. 
 Some of his finest works may be referred to this period 
 of his life, that is, before he was five-and-twenty. 
 
 One of these is the Madonna sitting under the Palm- 
 tree, while Joseph presents flowers to the infant Christ. 
 This may be seen in the Bridgewater Gallery. A second 
 is the Madonna in the possession of Earl Cowper, and 
 now at Panshanger. Another is. the famous Madonna 
 in the Florentine Gallery, called the Madonna del Car- 
 dellino (the Virgin of the Goldfinch), because the little 
 St. John is presenting a goldfinch to the infant Christ. 
 Another, as famous, now in the Louvre, called La Belle 
 Jardiniere, because the Madonna is seated in a garden 
 amid flowers, with Christ standing at her knee. The St. 
 Catherine in our National Gallery was also painted about 
 the same period j and the little picture of St. George 
 and the Dragon, which Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, 
 sent as a present to Henry VII., and which is now at 
 St. Petersburg. In this picture St. George is armed 
 with a lance, and has the Garter round his knee, with 
 the inscription " Honi soit qui mal y pense." There is 
 another little St. George in the Louvre, in which the 
 saint is about to slay the dragon with a sword. And 
 there are besides two or three large altarpieces and 
 some beautiful portraits ; in all about thirty pictures 
 painted during the three years he spent at Florence. 
 
 In his twenty-fifth year, when Fra Bartolomeo, Lio- 
 
Died 1520.] EMPLOYED BY JULIUS II. 223 
 
 nardo da Vinci, and Michael Angelo were all at the 
 height of their fame, and many years older than himself, 
 the young Raphael had already become celebrated from 
 one end of Italy to the other. At this time Julius IT. was 
 pope. Of his extraordinary and energetic character I 
 have already spoken at length in the Life of Michael 
 x^ngelo. At the age of seventy he was revolving plans 
 for the aggrandizement of his power and the embellish- 
 ment of the Vatican, which it would have taken a long 
 life to realise ; conscious that the time before him was 
 to be measured by months rather than by years, and 
 ambitious to concentrate in his own person all the glory 
 that must ensue from such magnificent works, he 
 listened to no obstacles, he would endure no delays, he 
 spared no expense in his undertakings. Bramante, the 
 greatest architect, and Michael Angelo, the greatest 
 sculptor in Italy, were already in his service. Lionardo 
 da Vinci was then employed in public works at Florence, 
 and could not be engaged, and he therefore sent for 
 Raphael to undertake the decoration of those halls in 
 the Vatican which Popes Nicholas V. and Sixtus IV. had 
 begun and left unfinished. The invitation, or rather 
 order, of the pope was as usual so urgent and so peremp- 
 tory, that Raphael hurried from Florence, leaving his 
 friends Bartolomeo and Ghirlandajo to complete his 
 unfinished pictures, and immediately on his arrival at 
 Rome he commenced the greatest of his works, the 
 Chambers (Camere) of the Vatican. 
 
 In general, when Raphael undertook any great work 
 illustrative of sacred or profane history, he did not 
 hesitate to ask advice of his learned and literary friends 
 
224 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483 
 
 on points of costume or chronology : but when he 'began 
 his paintings in the Vatican he was wholly unassisted, 
 and the plan which he laid before the pope, and which 
 was immediately approved and adopted, shows that the 
 grasp and cultivation of his mind equalled his powers 
 as a painter. He dedicated this first saloon, called in 
 Italian the Camera della Segnatura, to the glory of those 
 high intellectual pursuits which may be said to em- 
 brace in some form or other all human culture — he 
 represented Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Juris- 
 prudence. 
 
 And first on the ceiling he painted in four circles four 
 allegorical female figures with characteristic symbols, 
 throned amid clouds, and attended by beautiful genii. 
 Of these the figure of Poetry is distinguished by superior 
 grandeur and inspiration. Beneath these figures and on 
 the four sides of the room he painted four great pictures, 
 each about fifteen feet high by twenty or twenty-five 
 feet wide, the subjects illustrating historically the four 
 allegorical figures above. Under Theology he placed the 
 composition improperly called La Disputa del Sacramento, 
 which represents rather the whole system of Eevelation, 
 like a grand poem combining heaven and earth. In the 
 upper part is the heavenly glory, the Eedeemer in the 
 centre, beside him the Virgin-mother. On the right and 
 left, arranged in a semicircle, patriarchs, apostles, and 
 saints, all seated ; all full of character, dignity, and a kind 
 of celestial repose befitting their beatitude. Angels are 
 hovering round : four of them, surrounding the emblem- 
 atic Dove, hold the Gospels. In the lower half of the 
 picture are assembled the celebrated doctors and teachers 
 
Died 1520.] CAMERE OF THE VATICAN. 225 
 
 of the Church, grand, solemn, meditative figures ; some 
 searching their books, some lost in thought, some engaged 
 in colloquy sublime. And on each side, a little lower, 
 groups of disciples and listeners, every head and figure a 
 study of character and expression, all different, all full 
 of nature, animation, and significance : and thus the two 
 parts of this magnificent composition, the heavenly beati- 
 tude above, the mystery of faith below, combine into 
 one comprehensive whole. This picture contains about 
 fifty full-length figures. 
 
 Under Poetry we have Mount Parnassus. Apollo and 
 the Muses are seen on the summit. On one side, near 
 them, the epic and tragic poets Homer, Yirgil, Dante. 
 (Ariosto had not written his poem at this time, and 
 Milton and Tasso were yet unborn.) Below, on each 
 side, are the lyrical poets Petrarch, Sappho, Corinna, 
 Pindar, Horace. The arrangement, grouping, and char 
 racter are most admirable and graceful ; but Raphael's 
 original design for this composition, as we have it en- 
 graved by Marc Antonio, is finer than the fresco, in 
 which there are many alterations which cannot be con- 
 sidered as improvements. 
 
 Under Philosophy he has placed the School of Athens. 
 It represents a grand hall or portico, in which a flight 
 of steps separates the foreground from the background. 
 Conspicuous, and above the rest, are the elder intellec- 
 tual philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates ; Plato cha- 
 racteristically pointing upwards to heaven; Aristotle 
 pointing to the earth ; Socrates impressively discoursing 
 to the listeners near him. Then, on a lower plan, we 
 have the Sciences and Arts, represented by Pythagoras 
 
 Q 
 
226 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 and Archimedes; Zoroaster, and Ptolemy the geographer; 
 while alone, as if avoiding and avoided by all, sits Dio- 
 genes the Cynic. Raphael has represented the art of 
 painting by the figure of his master Perugino, and has 
 introduced a portrait of himself humbly following him. 
 The group of Archimedes (whose head is a portrait of 
 Bramante the architect) surrounded by his scholars, 
 who are attentively watching him as he draws a geo- 
 metrical figure, is one of the finest things which 
 Eaphael ever conceived, and the whole composition has 
 in its regularity and grandeur a variety and dramatic 
 vivacity which relieve it from all formality. This pic- 
 ture also contains not less than fifty figures. 
 
 Law, or Jurisprudence, from the particular construc- 
 tion of the wall on which the subject is painted, is 
 represented with less completeness, and is broken up 
 into divisions. Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance 
 are above ; below, on one side, is Pope Gregory deliver- 
 ing the ecclesiastical law ; and on the other, Justinian 
 promulgating his famous code of civil law. 
 
 The whole decoration of this chamber forms a grand 
 allegory of the domain of human intellect, shadowed 
 forth in creations of surpassing beauty and dignity. 
 The description here given is necessarily brief and im- 
 perfect. The reader should consult the engravings of 
 these frescoes, and with the above explanation they will 
 probably be intelligible ; at all events, the wonderfully 
 prolific genius of the painter will be appreciated, in the 
 number of the personages introduced and the appro- 
 priate characters of each. 
 
 About this time Raphael painted that portrait of 
 
Died 1520.] MADONNAS. 227 
 
 Julius II. of which a duplicate is in our National Gal- 
 lery. No one who has studied the history of this ex- 
 traordinary old man, and his relations with Michael 
 Angelo and Eaphael, can look upon it without interest. 
 The original is in the Pitti Palace at Florence. 
 
 Also at this time Eaphael painted the portrait of him- 
 self which is preserved in the Gallery of Painters at 
 Florence ; it represents him as a very handsome 3 T oung 
 man with luxuriant hair and dark eyes, full lips, and a 
 pensive yet benign countenance.* To this period we 
 may also refer a number of beautiful Madonnas : Lord 
 Garvagh's, called the Aldobrandini Madonna ; the Virgin 
 of the Bridgewater Gallery ; the Yierge au Diademe in 
 the Louvre -, and the yet more famous Madonna di 
 Foligno, now at Eome in the Vatican. 
 
 While employed for Pope Julius in executing the 
 frescoes already described, Eaphael found a munificent 
 friend and patron in Agostino Chigi, a rich banker and 
 merchant who was then living at Eome in great splen- 
 dour. He painted several pictures for him : the four 
 Sibyls in the chapel of the Chigi family, in the church 
 of Santa Maria della Pace, sublime figures, full of gran- 
 deur and inspiration ; and, on the wall of a chamber in 
 his palace, now called the Farnesina, that elegant fresco 
 the Triumph of Galatea, well known from the numerous 
 engravings. 
 
 About the year 1510 Eaphael began the decoration of 
 the second chamber of the Vatican. In this series of 
 
 * There is an engraving by Pontius. The head engraved by 
 Raphael Morghen as the portrait of Raphael is now considered to 
 be the portrait of Bindo Altoviti. It is at Munich. 
 
228 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483 
 
 compositions he represented the power and glory of the 
 Church and her miraculous deliverances from her se- 
 cular enemies : all these being an indirect honour paid 
 to, or rather claimed by, Julius II., who made it a 
 subject of pride that he had not only expelled all 
 enemies from the Papal territories, but also enlarged 
 their boundaries — by no scrupulous means. On the 
 ceiling of this room are four beautiful pictures — the 
 promises of God to the four Patriarchs, Noah, Abraham, 
 Jacob, and Moses. On the four side walls, the Expulsion 
 of Heliodorus from the Temple at Jerusalem ; the Miracle 
 of Bolsena, by which, as it was said, heretics were 
 silenced ; Attila, King of the Huns, terrified by the 
 apparition of St. Peter and St. Paul; and St. Peter 
 delivered from Prison. Of these the Heliodorus is one 
 of the grandest and most poetical of all Eaphael's crea- 
 tions : the group of the celestial warrior trampling on 
 the prostrate Heliodorus, with the avenging spirits rush- 
 ing, floating along, air-borne, to scourge the despoiler, 
 is wonderful for its supernatural power : it is a vision 
 of beauty and terror. 
 
 Before this chamber was finished Julius II. died, and 
 was succeeded by Leo X. in 1513. 
 
 Though the character of Pope Leo X. was in all 
 respects different from that of Julius, he was not less a 
 patron of Eaphael than his predecessor had been, and 
 certainly the number of learned and accomplished men 
 whom he attracted to his court, and the enthusiasm for 
 classical learning which prevailed among them, strongly 
 influenced those productions of Eaphael which date 
 from the accession of Leo. They became more and 
 
Died 1520.] HIS SCHOLARS. 229 
 
 more allied to the antique, and less and less embued 
 with that pure religious spirit which we find in his 
 earlier works. 
 
 Cardinal Bembo, Cardinal Bibiena, Count Castiglione, 
 the poets Ariosto and Sanazzaro, ranked at this time 
 among Eaphael's intimate friends. With his celebrity 
 his riches increased ; he built himself a fine house in 
 that part of Rome called the Borgo, between St. Peter's 
 and the Castle of St. Angelo ; he had numerous scholars 
 from all parts of Italy, who attended on him with a love 
 and reverence and duty far beyond the lip and knee 
 homage which waits on princes; and such was the 
 influence of his benign and genial temper, that all these 
 young men lived in the most entire union and friend- 
 ship with him and with each other, and his school was 
 never disturbed by those animosities and jealousies 
 which before and since have disgraced the schools of 
 art in Italy. All the other painters of that time were 
 the friends rather than the rivals of the supreme and 
 gentle Raphael, with the single exception of Michael 
 Angelo. 
 
 About the period at which we are now arrived, the 
 beginning of the pontificate of Leo X., Michael Angelo 
 had left Rome for Florence, as it has been related in his 
 Life. Lionardo da Yinci came to Rome, by the invita- 
 tion of Leo, attended by a train of scholars, and lived 
 on good terms with Raphael, who treated the venerable 
 old man with becoming deference. Fra Bartolomeo 
 also visited Rome about 1513, to the great joy of his 
 friend. We find Raphael at this time on terms of the 
 tenderest friendship with Francia, and in correspondence 
 
230 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'UKBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 with Albert Durer, for whom lie entertained the highest 
 admiration. 
 
 Under Leo X. Eaphael continued his great works in 
 the Vatican. He began the third hall or camera in 
 1515. The ceiling of this chamber had been painted by 
 his master Perugino for Sixtus IV. ; and Eaphael, from 
 a feeling of respect for his old master, would not remove 
 or paint over his work. On the sides of the room he 
 represented the principal events in the lives of Pope 
 Leo III. and Pope Leo IV., shadowing forth under their 
 names the glory of his patron Leo X. Of these pictures, 
 the most remarkable is that which is called in Italian 
 l'lncendio del Borgo (the Fire in the Borgo). The 
 story says that this populous part of Eome was on fire 
 in the time of Leo IV., and that the conflagration was 
 extinguished by a miracle. In the hurry, confusion, 
 and tumult of the scene ; in the men escaping half 
 naked; in the terrified groups assembled in the fore- 
 ground ; in the women carrying water ,• we find every 
 variety of attitude and emotion, expressed with a perfect 
 knowledge of form ; and some of the figures exhibit the 
 influence of Michael Angelo's ceiling of the Sistine 
 Chapel already described. This fresco, though so fine 
 in point of drawing, is the worst coloured of the whole 
 series ; the best in point of colour are the Heliodorus 
 and the Miracle of Bolsena. 
 
 The last of the chambers in the Vatican is the Hall of 
 Constantine, painted with scenes from the life of that 
 emperor. The whole of these frescoes having been exe- 
 cuted by the scholars of Eaphael, from his designs and 
 cartoons, we shall not dwell on them here, only ob- 
 
Died 1520.] LOGGIE OF THE VATICAK 231 
 
 serving that an excellent reduced copy of the finest of 
 all, the Battle of Constantino and Maxentius, may be 
 seen at Hampton Court. It is attributed to Giulio 
 Romano. 
 
 While Raphael, assisted by his scholars, was designing 
 and executing the large frescoes in the Vatican, he was 
 also engaged in many other works. His fertile mind 
 and ready hand were never idle, and the number of 
 original creations of this wonderful man, and the rapidity 
 with which they succeeded each other, are quite un- 
 exampled. Among his most celebrated and popular 
 compositions is the series of subjects from the Old 
 Testament, called ' Eaphael's Bible ;' these were com- 
 paratively small pictures adorning the thirteen cupolas 
 of the " Loggie " of the Vatican. These " Loggie " are 
 open galleries running round three sides of an open 
 court ; and the gallery on the second story is the one 
 painted under Raphael's direction. Up the sides and 
 round the windows are arabesque ornaments, festoons 
 of fruit, flowers, animals, all combined and grouped 
 together with the most exquisite and playful fancy ; they 
 have been much injured by time, yet more by the bar- 
 barous treatment of the French soldiery when Rome was 
 sacked in 1527, and worst of all by unskilful attempts at 
 restoration. The pictures in the cupolas, being out of 
 reach, are better preserved. Sacred subjects were 
 never represented in so beautiful, so poetical, and so 
 intelligible a manner as by Raphael ; but as the copies 
 and engravings of these works are innumerable and 
 easily met with, I shall not enter into a particular 
 description of them ; very good copies of several may 
 
232 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 be seen at the National School of Design at Ken- 
 sington* 
 
 There was still another great work for the Vatican 
 intrusted to Raphael. The interior of the Sistine 
 Chapel had been ornamented round the lower walls 
 with paintings in imitation of tapestries. Leo X. 
 resolved to substitute real draperies of the most costly 
 material ; and Raphael was to furnish the subjects and 
 drawings, which were to be copied in the looms of 
 Flanders, and worked in a mixture of wool, silk, 
 and gold. Thus originated the famous Cartoons of 
 Raphael. 
 
 They were originally eleven in number, to fit the ten 
 compartments into which the wall was divided by as 
 many pilasters, and the space over the altar. Eight 
 were large, one larger than the rest, and two small. Of 
 the eleven cartoons designed by Raphael, four are lost, 
 and seven remain, which are now removed to the South 
 Kensington Museum from Hampton Court. As they 
 rank among the greatest productions of art, and are 
 freely thrown open to the public, I shall give a detailed 
 account of them here from various sources,f and add 
 
 * A set of excellent engravings from the series, in a fine free style, 
 and of a large size, and all executed at Rome after the original 
 frescoes, was published by Parker in the Strand, at the extraordi- 
 narily low price of six engravings for nine shillings. The subjects, 
 the size, and the fine taste of the execution, render them admirable 
 ornaments for the walls of a school-room or study. 
 
 f See Passavant's ' Rafael ;' Kugler's ' Handbuch ;' Bunsen's ( Stadt 
 Romj' Murray s 'Handbook to the Public Galleries of Art ;' and a 
 very clever account of the Cartoons which appeared in the ' Penny 
 Magazine ' some years ago. From all these works extracts have been 
 freely taken, and put together so as to form a correct and complete 
 description both of the Cartoons and the Tapestries. 
 
Died 1520.] THE CARTOONS. 233 
 
 some remarks which, may enable the uninitiated to 
 form a judgment of their characteristic merits.* 
 
 The intention in the whole series of subjects was to 
 express the mission, the sufferings, and the triumph of 
 the Christian Church. The Death of the First Martyr, 
 and the acts of the two great Apostles St. Peter and St. 
 Paul, were ranged along the sides to the right and left 
 of the high altar ; while over the altar was the Corona- 
 tion of the Virgin, a subject which, as I have already 
 observed, was always symbolical of the triumph of reli- 
 gion. In the original arrangement the tapestries hung 
 in the following order : *} — 
 
 On the left of the altar — 1. The Miraculous Draught 
 of Fishes (l e. the Calling of Peter) ; 2. The Charge to 
 Peter ; 3. The Stoning of Stephen ; 4. The Healing of 
 the Lame Man ; 5. The Death of Ananias. 
 
 On the right of the altar — 1. The Conversion of St. 
 Paul ; 2. Elymus struck Blind ; 3. Paul and Barnabas 
 at Lystra; 4. Paul preaching at Athens; 5. Paul in 
 Prison. All along underneath ran a rich border in 
 chiaroscuro, of a bronze colour, relieved with gold, 
 representing on a smaller scale incidents in the life of 
 Leo X., with ornamental arabesques, groups of sporting 
 genii, fruits, flowers, &c. ; and the pilasters between the 
 tapestries were also adorned with rich arabesques. Old 
 engravings exist of some of these designs, which are 
 among the most beautiful things in Italian art ; as full 
 
 * At this time (1858) a series of photographs has been taken from 
 the Cartoons. 
 
 f Subsequently, when the whole of the wall was painted by 
 Michael Angelo with the Last Judgment, this order was changed, 
 and the tapestry of the Crowning of the Virgin entirely removed. 
 
234 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Borx 1483. 
 
 of grandeur and grace as they are exquisitely fanciful 
 and luxuriant. 
 
 The large cartoons of this series which are lost are, 
 the Stoning of Stephen; the Conversion of St. Paul; 
 Paul in his Dungeon at Philippi ; and the Crowning of 
 the Virgin. 
 
 The seven which remain to us are arranged at Hamp- 
 ton Court without any regard either to their original 
 arrangement or to chronological order. Beginning at 
 the door by which we enter, they succeed each other 
 thus : — 
 
 1. The Death of Ananias. 
 
 ** Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." — Acts v. 
 
 Nine of the Apostles stand together on a raised plat- 
 form ; St. Peter in the midst, with uplifted hands, is in 
 the act of speaking ; on the right Ananias lies prostrate 
 on the earth, while a young man and woman, on the left, 
 are starting back, with ghastly horror and wonder in 
 every feature ; in the background, to the left, is seen 
 Sapphira, who, unaware of the catastrophe of her hus- 
 band and the terrible fate impending over her, is paying 
 some money with one hand, while she withholds some 
 in the other ; St. John and another Apostle are on the 
 left, distributing alms. The figures are altogether twenty- 
 four in number. Size, seventeen feet six inches by eleven 
 feet four inches. 
 
 As a composition, considered artistically, this cartoon 
 holds the first place ; nothing has ever exceeded it : only 
 Raphael himself, in some of his other works, has equalled 
 it in the wondrous adaptation of the means employed tc 
 
Died 1520.] THE CARTOONS. 235 
 
 the end in view. By the circular arrangement of the 
 composition, and by elevating the figures behind above 
 those in front, the whole of the personages on the scene 
 are brought at once to sight. The elevated position of 
 Peter and James, though standing back from the fore- 
 ground, and. their dignified figures, contrast strongly 
 with the abject form of Ananias, struck down by the 
 hand of God, helpless, and, as it seems, quivering in 
 every limb. Those of the spectators who are near 
 Ananias express their horror and astonishment by the 
 most various and appropriate expression. 
 
 " He falls," says Hazlitt, " so naturally, that it seems 
 as if a person could fall no other way ; and yet, of all 
 the ways in which a human figure could fall, it is pro- 
 bably the most expressive of a person overwhelmed by, 
 and in the grasp of, Divine vengeance. This is in some 
 measure the secret of Eaphael's success. Most painters, 
 in studying an attitude, puzzle themselves to find out 
 what will be picturesque, and what will be fine, and 
 never discover it. Eaphael only thought how a 'person 
 would stand or fall under such or such circumstances, 
 and the picturesque and the fine followed as a matter 
 of course. Hence the unaffected force and dignity 
 of his style, which are only another name for truth 
 and nature under impressive and momentous circum- 
 stances." 
 
 We have here an instance of that truly Shaksperian 
 art by which Eaphael always softens and heightens the 
 effect of tragic terror. St. John, at the very instant 
 when this awful judgment has fallen on the hypocrite 
 
236 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 and unbeliever, has "benignly turned to bestow alms and 
 a blessing on the poor good man before him.* 
 
 2. Ely mas the Sorcerer struck with Blindness. 
 
 " And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou 
 shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately 
 there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seek- 
 ing some to lead him by the hand." — Acts xiii. 11. 
 
 The Proconsul Sergius, seated on his throne, beholds 
 with astonishment Elymas struck blind by the word of 
 the Apostle Paul, who stands on the left ; an attendant 
 is gazing with wonder in his face, while eight persons 
 behind him are all occupied with the miraculous event 
 which is passing before their eyes ; two lictors are on 
 the left ; in all fourteen figures. Size, fourteen feet seven 
 inches by eleven feet four inches. 
 
 This cartoon, as a composition, is particularly remark- 
 able for the concentration of the effect and interest in 
 the one action. The figure of St. Paul is magnificent ; 
 while the crouching abject form of Elymas, groping his 
 way, and blind even to his finger-ends, stands in the 
 midst, and on him all eyes are bent.f The manner in 
 
 * "It has been questioned whether the woman who is advancing 
 from behind was meant for Sapphira, as it is stated in the sacred 
 record that three hours had elapsed after the death of Ananias before 
 she entered the place. Notwithstanding this objection, it is most 
 probable that Raphael intended this figure for the wife of Ananias ; 
 and the slight inaccuracy is more than atoned for by the sublime 
 moral, which shows the woman approaching the spot where her 
 husband had met his doom, and where her own death awaits her, 
 but wholly unconscious of those judgments, and absorbed in count- 
 ing that gold by which both she and her partner had been betrayed 
 to their fate." 
 
 t A story is told of Garrick objecting to the truth of this action 
 in the hearing of Benjamin West, who, in vindication of the painter, 
 
Died 1520.] THE CARTOONS. 237 
 
 which the impression is graduated from terror down to 
 indifferent curiosity, while one person explains the event 
 to s another by means of gesture, are among the most 
 spirited dramatic effects Eaphael ever produced. 
 
 3. The Healing of the Lame Man at the Beautiful 
 Gate of the Temple. 
 
 " Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have 
 I give unto thee. And he took him by the right hand and lifted 
 him up." — Acts iii. 6, 7. 
 
 Under the portico of the Temple of Jerusalem stand 
 the two Apostles Peter and John ; the former is holding 
 by the hand a miserable deformed cripple, who gazes up 
 in his face with joyful, eager wonder ; another cripple 
 is seen on the left. Among the people are seen con- 
 spicuous a woman with an infant in her arms, and another 
 leading two naked boys, one of whom is carrying two 
 doves as an offering. The wreathed and richly adorned 
 columns are imitated from those which have been pre- 
 served for ages in the church of St. Peter as relics of the 
 Temple of Jerusalem. With regard to the composition, 
 Eaphael has been criticised for breaking it up into parts 
 by the introduction of the pillars ; yet, if properly con- 
 sidered, this very management is a proof of the exquisite 
 taste of the painter, and his attention to the object he 
 had in view. Adhering to the sense of the passage in 
 Scripture, he could not make all the figures refer to one 
 principal action, the healing of the cripple ; he has there- 
 desired Garrick to shut his eyes and walk across the room, when he 
 instantly stretched out his hand, and began to feel his way with the 
 exact attitude and expression here represented. 
 
238 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 fore framed it in a manner between the two columns ; 
 and by the groups introduced into the other two divisions 
 he has intimated that the people were entering the 
 temple " at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour." 
 It is evident, moreover, that had the shafts been per- 
 fectly straight, according to the severest law of good 
 taste in architecture, the effect would have been ex- 
 tremely disagreeable to the eye ; by their winding form 
 they harmonise with the manifold forms of the moving 
 figures around, and they illustrate, by their elaborate 
 elegance, the Scripture phrase, " the gate which is called 
 Beautiful." The misery, the distortion, the ugliness of 
 the cripple, are made as striking as possible, and con- 
 trasted with the noble head and form of St. Peter and 
 the benign features of St. John. The figure of the young 
 woman with her child is a model of feminine sweetness 
 and grace; it is eminently, perfectly Raphaelesque, 
 stamped with his peculiar sentiment and refinement. 
 The bright open sky seen between the interstices of the 
 columns harmonises with the lightness, cheerfulness, 
 and happy expression of these figures. In the compart- 
 ment where the miracle is taking place there is the same 
 correspondence of effect with sentiment ; the subdued 
 light of the lamps burning in the depth of the recess 
 accords well with the reverential feeling excited by the 
 sacred transaction. Many parts of this cartoon have 
 unfortunately been injured, and much of the harmony 
 destroyed, yet it remains one of the most wonderful 
 relics of art now extant. 
 
Died 1520.] THE CARTOONS. 239 
 
 4. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. 
 
 "When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, 
 Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord." — Luke v. 8. 
 
 On the left Christ is seated in a bark, in the act of 
 speaking to St. Peter, who has fallen on his knees before 
 him ; behind him is a youth, and a second bark is on 
 the right. Two men are busied drawing up the nets 
 miraculously laden, while a third steers. On the shore, 
 in the foreground, stand three cranes ; and in the distance 
 are seen the people to whom Christ had been preaching 
 out of the ship or boat. In this cartoon the composition 
 is very beautiful ; and the execution, from its mingled 
 delicacy, power, and precision, is supposed to be almost 
 entirely from Raphael's own hand. The effect is wonder- 
 fully bright. In the broad clear daylight, and against 
 the sky, the figures stand out in strong relief. The 
 clear lake ripples round the bark, and the figure of the 
 Saviour, in the pale blue vest and white mantle, appears 
 all light, and radiant with beneficence. The awe, hu- 
 mility, and love in the attitude and countenance of St. 
 Peter are wonderfully expressive. The masterly drawing 
 in the figures of the Apostles in the second boat conveys 
 most strongly the impression of the weight they are 
 attempting to raise. In the fish and the cranes, all 
 painted with exquisite and minute fidelity to nature, we 
 trace the hand of Giovanni da Udine. These strange 
 bla.ck birds have here a grand effect. " There is a 
 certain sea-wildness about them, and, as their food was 
 fish, they contribute mightily to express the affair in 
 hand : they are a fine part of the scene. They serve 
 also to prevent the heaviness which that part would 
 
240 RAPHAEL SANZ10 D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 otherwise have had, by breaking the parallel lines which 
 would have been made by the boats and base of the 
 picture." * . . 
 
 5. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra. 
 
 "Then the priest of Jupiter which was before their city brought 
 oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice 
 with the people, which when the apostles Barnabas and Paul 
 heard of, they rent their clothes."— Acts xiv. 13, 14. 
 
 On the left Paul and Barnabas are standing beneath 
 a portico, and appear to recoil from the intention of the 
 
 * "A painter is allowed sometimes to depart even from natural 
 and historical truth. Thus, in the cartoon of the Draught of Fishes, 
 Raphael has made a boat too little to hold the figures he has placed 
 in it; and this is so visible that some are apt to triumph over that 
 great man, as having nodded on that occasion, while others have 
 pretended to excuse it by saying it was done to make the miracle 
 appear greater; but the truth is, had he made the boat large enough 
 for those figures, his picture would have been all boat, which would 
 have had a disagreeable effect ; and to have made his figures small 
 enough for a vessel of that size would have rendered them unsuit- 
 able to the rest of the set, and have made those figures appear less 
 considerable. It is amiss as it is, but would have been worse any 
 other way, as it frequently happens in other cases. Raphael, there- 
 fore, wisely chose this losses inconvenience, this seeming error, 
 which he knew the judicious world know was none; and for the 
 rest, he was above being solicitous for his reputation with them. 
 So that, upon the whole, this is so far from being a fault, that it is 
 an instance of the consummate judgment of that most incomparable 
 man, which he learned in his great school, the antique, where this 
 liberty is commonly taken in an eminent manner in the Trajan and 
 Antoninian columns, and on many other occasions, in the finest bas- 
 reliefs. And to note it, by the by, it seems to be a strange rash- 
 ness and self-sufficiency in a spectator or a reader when he thinks he 
 sees an absurdity in a great author to take it immediately for granted 
 it is such. Surely it is a most reasonable and just prejudice in 
 favour of a man we have always known to act with wisdom and 
 propriety on every occasion, to suspend at least our criticism, and 
 cast off illiberal triumph over him, and to suppose it at least possible 
 that he might have had reasons that we are not aware of." — Richard- 
 son, p. 27. 
 
Died 1520. J THE CARTOONS. 241 
 
 townsmen to offer sacrifice to them ; the first is rending 
 his garment and rebuking a man who is bringing a ram 
 to be offered. On the right, near the centre, is seen a 
 group of the people bringing forward two oxen ; a man 
 is raising an axe to strike one of them down ; his aim 
 is held back by a youth who, having observed the ab- 
 horrent gesture of Paul, judges that the sacrifice will 
 be offensive to him. In the foreground appears the 
 cripple, no longer so, who is clasping his hands with an 
 expression of gratitude ; his crutches lie useless at his 
 feet ; an old man, raising part of his dress, gazes with 
 a look of astonishment on the restored limbs. In the 
 background, the forum of Lystra, with several temples. 
 Towards the centre is seen a statue of Mercury, in 
 allusion to the words in the text : " And they called 
 Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker." 
 
 As a composition this cartoon is an instance of the 
 consummate skill with which Eaphael has contrived to 
 bring together a variety of circumstances so combined 
 as to make the story perfectly intelligible as a passing 
 scene, linking it at the same time with the past and 
 the succeeding time. We have the foregone moment in 
 the appearance of the healed cripple, and the wonder 
 he excites; in the furious looks directed against the 
 apostles by some of the spectators we see foreshadowed 
 the persecution which immediately followed this act of 
 mistaken adoration. Every part of the grouping, the 
 figures, the heads, both in drawing and expression, are 
 wonderful, and have an infusion of the antique and 
 classical spirit most proper to the subject. The sacrifi- 
 cial group of the ox, with the figure holding its hea d 
 
 R 
 
242 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483 
 
 and the man lifting the axe, was taken from a Roman 
 bas-relief, which in Raphael's time was in the Villa 
 Medici, and the idea varied and adapted to his purpose 
 with infinite skill. The boys piping at the altar are 
 full of beauty, and most gracefully contrasted in cha- 
 racter. The whole is full of movement and interest. 
 
 6. St. Paul Preaching at Athens. 
 
 " Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of 
 Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For 
 as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with 
 this inscription, To the unknown God." — Acts xvii. 22, 23. 
 
 Paul, standing on some elevated steps, is preaching 
 to the Athenians in the Areopagus; behind him are 
 three philosophers of the different sects, the Cynic, the 
 Epicurean, and the Platonic ; beyond, a group of sophists 
 disputing among each other. On the right are seen the 
 half-figures of Dionysius the Areopagite and the woman 
 Damaris, of whom it is expressly said that they " believed 
 and clave unto him." On the same side, in the back- 
 ground, is seen the statue of Mars, in front of a circular 
 temple. In point of pictorial composition this cartoon 
 is one of the finest in the series. St. Paul, elevated 
 above his auditors, grandly dignified in bearing, as one 
 divinely inspired, lofty in stature and position, " stands 
 like a tower." This figure of St. Paul has been imitated 
 from the fresco by Filippino Lippi, in the Carmine at 
 Florence. There Paul is represented as visiting St. 
 Peter in prison ; one arm only is raised, the forefinger 
 pointing upward ; he is speaking words of consolation 
 to him through the grated bars of his dungeon, behind 
 which appears the form of St. Peter. Raphael has taken 
 
Died 1520.] THE CARTOONS. 243 
 
 the idea of the figure, raised the two arms, and given 
 the whole an air of inspired energy wanting in the 
 original. The persons who surronnd him are not to 
 be considered a mere promiscuous assemblage of indi- 
 viduals : among them several figures may each be said 
 to personify a class, and the different sects of Grecian 
 philosophy may be easily distinguished. Here the 
 Cynic, revolving deeply, and fabricating objections ; 
 there the Stoic, leaning on his staff, giving a steady but 
 scornful attention, and fixed in obstinate incredulity ; 
 there the disciples of Plato, not conceding a full belief, 
 but pleased at least with the beauty of the doctrine, 
 and listening with gratified attention. Farther on is 
 a promiscuous group of disputants, sophists, and free- 
 thinkers, engaged in vehement discussion, but ap- 
 parently more bent on exhibiting their own ingenuity 
 than anxious to elicit truth or acknowledge conviction. 
 At a considerable distance in the background are seen 
 two doctors of the Jewish law. The varied groups, the 
 fine thinking heads among the auditors, the expression 
 of curiosity, reflection, doubt, conviction, faith, as 
 revealed in the different countenances and attitudes, are 
 all as fine as possible : particularly the man who has 
 wrapped his robe around him, and appears buried in 
 thought. " This figure also is borrowed from a fresco 
 in the Carmine. The closed eyes, which in the fresco 
 might be easily mistaken for sleeping, are not in the 
 least ambiguous in the cartoon; the eyes indeed are 
 closed, but they are closed with such vehemence that 
 the agitation of a mind perplexed in the extreme is seen 
 at the first glance. But what is most extraordinary, 
 
244 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483 
 
 and I think particularly to be admired, is that the same 
 idea is continued through the whole figure, even to the 
 drapery, which is so closely muffled about him that 
 even his hands are not seen ; by this happy correspond- 
 ence between the expression of the countenance and 
 the disposition of the parts, the figure appears to think 
 from head to foot." * 
 
 7. The Charge to St. Petes. 
 
 " Feed my sheep." — Acts xxi. 16. 
 
 Christ is standing and pointing with the right hand 
 to a flock of sheep ; his left hand is extended towards 
 Peter, who, holding the key, kneels at his feet. The 
 other ten apostles stand behind him, listening with 
 various gestures and expression to the words of the 
 Saviour. In the background a landscape, and on the 
 right the Lake of Gennesareth and a fisher's bark. In 
 the tapestry the white robe of our Saviour is strewed 
 with golden stars, which has a beautiful effect, and 
 doubtless existed in the cartoon, though no trace of 
 this is now visible. 
 
 As the transaction here represented took place be- 
 tween Christ and St. Peter only, there was little room 
 for dramatic effect. Eichardson praises the introduction 
 of the sheep, as the only means of making the incident 
 intelligible ; but I agree with Dr. Waagen that herein 
 Eaphael has perhaps, in avoiding one error, fallen into 
 another, and, not able to give us the real meaning of 
 the words, has turned into a palpable object what was 
 
 * Sir Joshua Reynold 
 

 Died 1520.] THE CARTOONS. 245 
 
 merely a figurative expression, and thus produced an 
 ambiguity of another and of a more unpleasant kind. 
 
 The figure of Christ is wonderfully noble in concep- 
 tion and treatment; the heads of the apostles finely 
 diversified ; in some we see only affectionate acquies- 
 cence, duteous submission; in others wonder, displea- 
 sure, and jealous discontent. The figures of the apostles 
 are in the cartoon happily relieved from each other by 
 variety of local tint, which cannot be given in a print, 
 and hence the heavy effect of the composition when 
 studied through the engraving only. 
 
 These are the subjects of the famous Cartoons of 
 Eaphael. To describe the effect of the light and sketchy 
 treatment, so easy and yet so large and grand in style, 
 I shall borrow the words of an eloquent writer. 
 
 " Compared with these," says Hazlitt, as finely as 
 truly, " all other pictures look like oil and varnish ; we 
 are stopped and attracted by the colouring, the pencil- 
 ling, the finishing, the instrumentalities of art ; but 
 here the painter seems to have flung his mind upon the 
 canvas. His thoughts, his great ideas alone, prevail ; 
 there is nothing between us and the subject ; we look 
 through a frame and see Scripture histories, and are 
 made actual spectators in miraculous events. Not to 
 speak it profanely, they are a sort of a revelation of the 
 subjects of which they treat ; there is an ease and free- 
 dom of manner about them which brings preternatural 
 characters and situations home to us with the familiarity 
 of every-day occurrences; and while the figures fill, 
 raise, and satisfy the mind, they seem to have cost the 
 
246 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 painter nothing. Everywhere else we see the means, 
 here we arrive at the end apparently without any 
 means. There is a spirit at work in the divine creation 
 before us ; we are unconscious of any steps taken, of 
 any progress made ; we are aware only of comprehen- 
 sive results — of whole masses of figures: the sense of 
 power supersedes the appearance of effort. It is as if 
 we had ourselves seen these persons and things at some 
 former state of our being, and that the drawing certain 
 lines upon coarse paper by some unknown spell brought 
 back the entire and living images, and made them pass 
 before us. palpable to thought, feeling, sight. Perhaps 
 not all this is owing to genius • something of this 
 effect may be ascribed to the simplicity of the vehicle 
 employed in embodying the story, and something to 
 the decaying and dilapidated state of the pictures them- 
 selves. They are the more majestic for being in ruins. 
 We are struck chiefly with the truth of proportion, and 
 the range of conception — all made spiritual. The cor- 
 ruptible has put on incorruption ; and, amidst the wreck 
 of colour and the mouldering of material beauty, nothing 
 is left but a universe of thought, or the broad imminent 
 shadows of ' calm contemplation and majestic pains.' " 
 
 It is matter of regret, but hardly of surprise, that the 
 cartoons have never yet been adequately engraved. 
 The first complete series which appeared was by Simon 
 Gribelin, a French engraver, who came over in 1680, 
 and was published in the reign of Queen Anne. The 
 prints are small neat memoranda of the compositions, 
 nothing more. 
 
 The second set was executed by Sir Nicholas Dorigny, 
 
Died 1520.] ENGRAVINGS OF THE CARTOONS. 247 
 
 who undertook the work under the patronage of the 
 government, and presented to the king, George I., in 
 1719, two sets of the finished engravings, on which 
 occasion the king bestowed on him a purse of one hun- 
 dred guineas, and, at the request of the Duke of Devon- 
 shire, knighted him. These engravings are large, and 
 tolerably but coarsely executed, and are preferred by con- 
 noisseurs ; but on the whole they are poor as works of art. 
 
 The set of large engravings by Thomas Holloway was 
 begun by him in 1800, and was not quite completed at 
 his death in 1826. These engravings have been praised 
 for the " finished and elaborate style in which they have 
 been executed," and they deserve this praise ; but, as 
 transcripts of the cartoons, they are altogether false in 
 point of style. They are too metallic, too mechanical, 
 too laboured : a set of masterly etchings would better 
 convey an impression of the slight free execution, the 
 spiritual ease of the originals. These engravings give 
 one the idea of being done from highly finished, deeply 
 coloured oil-pictures. 
 
 Since 1837 a large set has been commenced by John 
 Burnett, in a mixed, rather coarse style, but effective 
 and spirited : they are sold at a cheap rate. 
 
 Lastly, a set of photographs has been recently pub- 
 lished (1858). 
 
 Raphael finished these cartoons in 1516. They are all 
 from fourteen to eighteen feet in length, and about twelve 
 feet high ; the figures above life size, drawn with chalk 
 upon strong paper, and coloured in distemper. He 
 received for his designs four hundred and thirty-four 
 gold ducats (about Q50L), which were paid to him, three 
 
248 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483- 
 
 hundred on the 15th of June, 1515, and one hundred 
 and thirty-four in December, 1516. The rich tapestries 
 worked from these cartoons, in wool, silk, and gold, were 
 completed at Arras, and sent to Eome in 1519. For 
 these the Pop 3 paid to the manufacturer at Arras fifty 
 thousand gold ducats ; they were exhibited for the first 
 time on St. Stephen's Day, December 26, 1519. Eaphael 
 had the satisfaction, before he died, of seeing them hung 
 in their places, and of witnessing the wonder and applause 
 they excited through the whole city. Their subse- 
 quent fate was very curious and eventful. In the sack 
 of Rome, in 1527, they were carried away by the French 
 soldiery ; but were restored in 1553, during the reign of 
 Pope Julius III., by the Due de Montmorenci, all but the 
 piece which represented the Coronation of the Virgin, 
 which is supposed to have been burned for the sake of 
 the gold thread. Again, in 1798, they made part of the 
 French spoliations, and were actually sold to a Jew at 
 Leghorn, who burnt one of them for the purpose of 
 extracting the precious metal contained in the threads. 
 As it was found, however, to furnish very little, the 
 proprietor judged it better to allow the others to retain 
 their original shape, and they were soon afterwards 
 repurchased from him by the agents of Pius VII., and 
 reinstated in the galleries of the Vatican. Several sets 
 of tapestries were worked from the cartoons : one was 
 sent as a present to Henry VIII., and after the death of 
 Charles I. sold into Spain; another or the same set was 
 exhibited in London a few years ago, and has since been 
 sold to the King of Prussia. At present these tapestries 
 are hung in the Museum at Berlin. 
 
Died 1520.] VICISSITUDES OF THE CARTOONS. 249 
 
 While all Eome was indulging in ecstasies over the 
 rich and dearly paid tapestries, which were not then, and 
 are still less now, worth one of the cartoons, these precious 
 productions of the artist's own mind were lying in the 
 warehouse of the weaver at Arras, neglected and for- 
 gotten. Some were torn into fragments, and parts of 
 them exist in various collections. Seven still remained 
 in some garret or cellar, when Eubens, just a century 
 afterwards, mentioned their existence to Charles I., and 
 advised him to purchase them for the use of a tapestry 
 manufactory which King James I. had established at 
 Mortlake. The purchase was made. They had been 
 cut into long slips about two feet wide, for the conve- 
 nience of the workmen, and in this state they arrived in 
 England.* On Charles's death, Cromwell bought them 
 at the sale of the royal effects for 300?. We had very 
 nearly lost them again in the reign of Charles II., for 
 Louis XIV. having intimated through his ambassador, 
 Barillon, a wish to possess them at any price, the needy, 
 careless Charles was on the point of yielding them, and 
 would have done so but for the representations of the 
 Lord Treasurer Danby, to whom, in fact, we owe it that 
 they were not ceded to France. They remained, how- 
 ever, neglected in one of the lumber-rooms at Whitehall 
 till the reign of William III., and narrowly escaped 
 
 * There can be no doubt of the purpose for which Charles I. 
 acquired them. The entry in the king's catalogue runs thus : — M In 
 a slit wooden case some two cartoons of Kaphael Urbino's, for hang- 
 ings to be made by ; and the other five are, by the king's appointment, 
 delivered to Mr. Francis Cleyne, at Mortlake, to make hangings by" 
 It appears that Cromwell had some intention of continuing the ma- 
 nufactory of tapestry at Mortlake as a national undertaking, and 
 retained the cartoons for purposes connected with it. 
 
250 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 being destroyed by fire when Whitehall was burned in 
 1698. It must have been shortly afterwards that King 
 William ordered them to be repaired, the fragments 
 pasted together and stretched upon linen; and being 
 just at that time occupied with the alterations and im- 
 provements at Hampton Court, Sir Christopher Wren 
 had his commands to plan and erect a room expressly to 
 receive them — the room in which they now hang. 
 
 In the Vatican there is a second set of ten tapestries, 
 for which Eaphael gave the original designs, but he did 
 not execute the cartoons, and the style of drawing in 
 those fragments which remain is not his. A very fine 
 fragment of one of these cartoons, The Massacre of the 
 Innocents, is in our National Gallery. According to the 
 best authorities, this is not by the hand of Eaphael. It 
 is very different in the style of execution from the car- 
 toons at Hampton Court, and has been painted over in 
 oil, when or by whom is not known, but certainly before 
 1730. The subjects of the second set were all from the 
 life of Christ, and were as follows : — 
 
 1. The Massacre of the Innocents. 
 
 2. The Adoration of the Shepherds. 
 
 3. The Adoration of the Magi. 
 
 4. The Presentation in the Temple. 
 
 5. The Eesnrrection. 
 
 6. The Noli me Tangere. 
 
 7. The Descent into Purgatory. 
 
 8. Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus. 
 
 9. The Ascension. 
 
 10. The Descent of the Holy Ghost. 
 
Died 1520.] ST. MICHAEL AND SATAN. 251 
 
 The tapestries of these subjects still hang in the 
 Vatican, and all have been engraved. 
 
 The fame of Eaphael had by this time spread to other 
 countries. Horace Walpole, in the * Anecdotes of Paint- 
 ing,' assures us that Henry VHL, who on coming to the 
 throne was desirous of emulating Francis I. as a patron 
 of art, invited Eaphael to his court ; but he does not say 
 on what authority he states this as a fact. At all events, 
 the young king was obliged to content himself with the 
 little St. George sent to him by the Duke of Urbino, as 
 a specimen of Raphael's talent ; and with Holbein, whom 
 he soon after engaged in his service, as his court painter 
 — perhaps the best substitute for Eaphael in point of 
 original genius then to be obtained by offers of gold or 
 patronage. Francis I. was also most anxious to attract 
 Eaphael to his court, and, not succeeding, he desired to 
 have a picture by his hand, leaving him the choice of 
 subject. As Eaphael had chosen St. George as the fittest 
 subject for the King of England, he now, with equal 
 propriety and taste, chose St. Michael, the patron saint 
 of the most celebrated military order in France, as likely 
 to be the most acceptable subject for the French king, 
 and represented the archangel as victorious over the 
 Spirit of Evil. The figures are as large as life. St. 
 Michael, beaming with angelic beauty and power, stands 
 with one foot on the Evil One, and raises his lance to 
 thrust him down to the deep. Satan is so represented 
 that very little of his hideous and prostrate form is 
 visible, the grand victorious Spirit filling the whole 
 canvas and the eye of the spectator. The king expressed 
 
252 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 his satisfaction in a right royal and graceful fashion, and 
 rewarded the artist munificently. Raphael, considering 
 himself overpaid, and not to be outdone in generosity, 
 sent to the king his famous Holy Family (called the 
 large Holy Family, because the figures are life-size), in 
 which the infant Christ is seen in act to spring from 
 the cradle into his mother's arms, while angels scatter 
 flowers from above. Engravings and copies without 
 number exist of this famous picture : the original is in 
 the gallery of the Louvre. Raphael sent also his St. 
 Margaret overcoming the Dragon, a compliment appa- 
 rently to the king's favourite sister, Margaret, queen of 
 Navarre : this also is in the Louvre. When they were 
 placed before Francis I. he ordered his treasurer to 
 count out twenty-four thousand livres (about 3000/. 
 according to the present value of money), and sent it to 
 the painter with the strongest expressions of his appro- 
 bation. At a later period he purchased the beautiful 
 portrait of Joanna of Arragon, vice-queen of Naples, 
 which is also in the Louvre. 
 
 About the same period (that is, between 1517 and 
 1520) Eaphael painted for the convent of St. Sixtus at 
 Piacenza one of the grandest and most celebrated of all 
 his works, called, from its original destination, the 
 Madonna di San Sisto. It represents the Virgin standing 
 in a majestic attitude; the infant Saviour enthroned in 
 her arms ; and around her head a glory of innumerable 
 cherubs melting into light. Kneeling before her we see 
 on one side St. Sixtus, on the other St. Barbara, and 
 beneath her feet two heavenly cherubs gaze up in ado- 
 ration. In execution, as in design, this is probably the 
 
Died 1520.] FRESCOES OF THE FARNESINA. 253 
 
 most perfect picture in the world. It is painted through- 
 out by Eaphael's own hand ; and as no sketch or study 
 of any part of it was ever known to exist, and as the 
 execution must have been, from the thinness and delicacy 
 of the colours, wonderfully rapid, it is supposed that he 
 painted it at once on the canvas — a creation rather than 
 a picture. In the beginning of the last century the 
 Elector of Saxony, Augustus III., purchased this picture 
 from the monks of the convent for the sum of sixty 
 thousand florins (about 6000?.), and it now forms the 
 chief boast and ornament of the Dresden Gallery.* 
 
 For his patron Agostino Chigi, Eaphael painted in 
 fresco the history of Cupid and Psyche. The palace 
 which belonged to the Chigi family is now the Villa 
 Farnesina, on the walls of which these famous frescoes 
 may still be seen in very good preservation. In Gruner's 
 admirable work on the ' Decoration of the Palaces and 
 Churches in Italy ' there is a perspective view of the 
 saloon in the Farnesina, showing how this beautiful 
 series of compositions is arranged on the ceiling and 
 walls. In the same palace he painted the Triumph of 
 Galatea : in this fresco he was greatly assisted by Giulio 
 Eomano. 
 
 During the last ten years of his life the fame of 
 Kaphael was very much extended by means of the en- 
 
 * The engraving by Miiller is celebrated; but good impressions 
 are now extremely rare, the plate having been often retouched. The 
 engraving by Steinla is not less fine — superior, perhaps, in the head 
 of the Virgin — and may be more easily procured. There is also a very 
 good and faithful lithograph by Hofstangel, and hundreds of indif- 
 ferent and bad engi-avings, of all sizes. One of the worst is the 
 French print by Desnoyers. 
 
254 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483 
 
 graver Marc Antonio Kaiinondi, who, after studying 
 design in the school of Francia at Bologna, betook him- 
 self to Eome, and gained the admiration and goodwill 
 of Kaphael by the perfect engravings he made from some 
 of his beautiful works. Marc Antonio lived for some 
 time in Raphael's own house, and engraved for. him and 
 under his direction most of those precious and exquisite 
 compositions, the most wonderful creations of the mind 
 of Eaphael, of which there exist no finished pictures, 
 and in some cases no drawings nor memoranda. Among 
 these may be mentioned a few which are to be found in 
 the Print-room of the British Museum : — 1 . The Lucretia, 
 a single figure, wonderfully beautiful. 2. The Massacre 
 of the Innocents. 3. Eve presenting to Adam the for- 
 bidden fruit. 4. The Last Supper. 5. The Mater Dolo- 
 rosa, the Virgin lamenting over the dead body of our 
 Saviour. 6. Another of the same subject, containing 
 several figures. These are only a few of the most pre- 
 cious, for within the present limits it is impossible to go 
 into detail. Some time after the death of Eaphael, Marc 
 Antonio was very deservedly banished from Rome by 
 Clement VII. Tempted by gold, he had lent his un- 
 rivalled skill to shameful purposes. According to Mal- 
 vasia, he was afterwards assassinated at Bologna. 
 
 The last great picture which Eaphael undertook, and 
 which at the time of his death was not quite completed, 
 was the Transfiguration of our Saviour on Mount Tabor. 
 This picture is divided into two parts. The lower part 
 contains a crowd of figures, and is full of passion, 
 energy, action. In the centre is the demoniac boy, 
 convulsed and struggling in the arms of his father. 
 
Died 1520.] THE TRANSFIGURATION. 255 
 
 Two women, kneeling, implore assistance ; others are 
 seen crying aloud and stretching out their arms for aid. 
 In the disciples of Jesus we see exhibited, in various 
 shades of expression, astonishment, horror, sympathy, 
 profound thought. One among them, with a benign 
 and youthful countenance, looks compassionately on the 
 father, plainly intimating that he can give no help. 
 The upper part of the picture represents Mount Tabor : 
 the three apostles lie prostrate, dazzled, on the earth ; 
 above them, transfigured in glory, floats the divine form 
 of the Saviour, with Moses and Elias on either side. 
 " The two-fold action contained in this picture, to 
 which shallow critics have taken exception, is explained 
 historically and satisfactorily merely by the fact that 
 the incident of the possessed boy occurred in the ab- 
 sence of Christ ; but it explains itself in a still higher 
 sense, when we consider the deeper universal meaning 
 of the picture. For this purpose it is not even neces- 
 sary to consult the books of the New Testament for the 
 explanation of the particular incidents : the lower por- 
 tion represents the calamities and miseries of human 
 life, the rule of demoniac power, the weakness even of 
 the faithful when unassisted, and directs them to look 
 on high for aid and strength in adversity. Above, in 
 the brightness of divine bliss, undisturbed by the suffer- 
 ings of the lower world, we behold the source of our 
 consolation and of our redemption from evil." 
 
 At this time the lovers of painting at Eome were 
 divided in opinion as to the relative merits of Michael 
 Angelo and Eaphael, and formed two great parties, that 
 of Eaphael being by far the most numerous. 
 
256 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. l Born 1483 
 
 Michael Angelo, with characteristic haughtiness, dis- 
 dained any open rivalry with Eaphael, and put forward 
 the Venetian, Sebastian del Piombo, as no unworthy 
 competitor of the great Eoman painter. Eaphael bowed 
 before Michael Angelo, and, with the modesty and can- 
 dour which belonged to his character, was heard to 
 thank Heaven that he had been born in the same age 
 and enabled to profit by the grand creations of that 
 sublime genius: but he was by no means inclined to 
 yield any supremacy to Sebastian; he knew his own 
 strength too well. To decide the controversy, the Car- 
 dinal Giulio de' Medici, afterwards Pope Clement VII., 
 commissioned Eaphael to paint this picture of the Trans- 
 figuration, and at the same time commanded from Sebas- 
 tian del Piombo the Eaising of Lazarus, which is no'w 
 in our National Gallery j both pictures were intended by 
 the cardinal for his cathedral at Narbonne, he having 
 lately been created Archbishop of Narbonne by Francis I. 
 Michael Angelo, well aware that Sebastian was a far 
 better colourist than designer, furnished him with the 
 cartoon for his picture, and, it is said, drew some of the 
 figures (that of Lazarus, for example) with his own 
 hand on the panel ; but he was so far from doing this 
 secretly, that Eaphael heard of it, and exclaimed joy- 
 fully, " Michael Angelo has graciously favoured me, in 
 that he has deemed me worthy to compete with himself, 
 and not with Sebastian ! " But he did not live to enjoy 
 the triumph of his acknowledged superiority, dying 
 before he had finished his picture, which was afterwards 
 completed by the hand of Giulio Eomano. 
 
 During the last years of his life, and while engaged 
 
Died 1520.] HIS LATER WORKS. 257 
 
 in painting the Transfiguration, Raphael's active mind 
 was employed on many other things. He had been ap- 
 pointed by the pope to superintend the building of St. 
 Peter's, and he prepared the architectural plans for that 
 vast undertaking. He was most active and zealous in 
 carrying out the pope's project for disinterring and pre- 
 serving the remains of art which lay buried beneath the 
 ruins of ancient Eome. A letter is yet extant addressed 
 by Eaphael to Pope Leo X., in which he lays down a 
 systematic, well-considered plan for excavating by de- 
 grees the whole of the ancient city ; and a writer of 
 that time has left a Latin epigram to this purpose — 
 that Raphael had sought and found in Rome " another 
 Rome :" " To seek it," adds the poet, " was worthy of a 
 great man; to reveal it, worthy of a god." He also 
 made several drawings and models for sculpture, par- 
 ticularly for a statue of Jonah, now in the church of 
 Santa Maria del Popolo. The beautiful group of the 
 Dead Child and the Dolphin is also attributed to him. 
 Nor was this all. With a princely magnificence he had 
 sent artists at his own cost to various parts of Italy and 
 into Greece, to make drawings from those remains of 
 antiquity which his numerous and important avocations 
 prevented him from visiting himself. He was in close 
 intimacy and correspondence with most of the celebrated 
 men of his time ; interested himself in all that was going 
 forward; mingled in society, lived in splendour, and 
 was always ready to assist generously his own family, 
 and the pupils who had gathered round him. The 
 Cardinal Bibbiena offered him his niece in marriage, 
 
258 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. fBoRN 1483. 
 
 with a dowry of three thousand gold crowns ; but the 
 early death of Maria di Bibbiena prevented this union, 
 for which it appears that Eaphael himself had no great 
 inclination. In possession of all that ambition could 
 desire, for him the cup of life was still running over 
 with love, hope, power, glory — when, in the very prime 
 of manhood, and in the midst of vast undertakings, he 
 was seized with a violent fever, caught, it is said, in 
 superintending some subterranean excavations, and ex- 
 pired after an illness of fourteen days. His death took 
 place on Good Friday (his birthday), April 6, 1520, 
 having completed his thirty-seventh year. Great was 
 the grief of all classes ; unspeakable that of his friends 
 and scholars. The pope had sent every day to inquire 
 after his health, adding the most kind and cheering 
 messages ; and when told that the beloved and admired 
 painter was no more, he broke out into lamentations on 
 his own and the world's loss. The body was laid on a 
 bed of state, and above it was suspended the last work 
 of that divine hand, the glorious Transfiguration. From 
 his own house, near St. Peter's, a multitude of all ranks 
 followed the bier in sad procession, and his remains 
 were laid in the church of the Pantheon, near those of 
 his betrothed bride, Maria di Bibbiena, in a spot chosen 
 by himself during his lifetime. 
 
 Several years ago (in the year 1833) there arose 
 among the antiquarians of Eome a keen dispute concern- 
 ing a human skull, which, on no evidence whatever, 
 except a long-received tradition, had been preserved 
 and exhibited in the Academy of St. Luke as the skull 
 
Died 1520.] HIS SECOND FUNERAL. 259 
 
 of Eaphael. Some even expressed a doubt as to the 
 exact place of his sepulchre, though upon this point the 
 contemporary testimony seemed to leave no room for 
 uncertainty. To ascertain the fact, permission was ob- 
 tained from the papal government, and from the canons 
 of the church of the Eotunda (£ e. of the Pantheon), to 
 make some researches ; and on the 14th of September 
 in the same year, after five days spent in removing the 
 pavement in several places, the remains of Eaphael were 
 discovered in a vault behind the high altar, and certified 
 as his by indisputable proofs. After being examined, 
 and a cast made from the skull and from the right hand, 
 the skeleton was exhibited publicly in a glass case, and 
 multitudes thronged to the church to look upon it. On 
 the 18th of October, 1833, a second funeral ceremony 
 took place. The remains were deposited in a pine- wood 
 coflin, then in a marble sarcophagus, presented by the 
 pope (Gregory XVI.), and reverently consigned to their 
 former resting-place, in presence of more than three 
 thousand spectators, including almost all the artists, the 
 officers of government, and other persons of the highest 
 rank in Eome. 
 
 Besides his grand compositions from the Old and 
 New Testament and his frescoes and arabesques in the 
 Vatican, Eaphael has left about one hundred and twenty 
 pictures of the Virgin and Child, all various — only re- 
 sembling each other in the peculiar type of chaste and 
 maternal loveliness which he has given to the Virgin, 
 
 and the infantine beauty of the Child. The most cele- 
 I 
 
260 RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. [Born 1483. 
 
 brated of his Madonnas, in the order in which they were 
 painted, are : — 1. The Madonna di Foligno, in the 
 Vatican. 2. The Madonna of the Fish, at Madrid. 
 3. The Madonna del Cardellino, at Florence. 4. The 
 Madonna di San Sisto, at Dresden. 5. The Madonna 
 called the Pearl, at Madrid. Eight of his Madonna 
 pictures are in England, in private galleries. 
 
 There are but few pictures taken from mythology 
 and profane history, the Cupid and Psyche and the 
 Galatea being the most important-; but a vast number 
 of drawings and compositions, some of them of con- 
 summate beauty. 
 
 He painted about eighty portraits, of which the most 
 famous are Julius II. ; Leo X. (the originals of both 
 these are at Florence); Cardinal Bibbiena; Cardinal 
 Bembo ; and Count Castiglione (the last at Paris) : the 
 Youth with his Violin, in the Sciarra Palace, at Eome ; 
 Bindo Altoviti (supposed for a long time to be his own 
 portrait), now at Munich; the beautiful Joanna of 
 Arragon, in the Louvre. The portrait called the For- 
 narina had long been supposed to represent a young girl 
 to whom Eaphael had attached himself soon after his 
 arrival in Eome ; but this appears very doubtful ; Passa- 
 vant supposes it to represent Beatrice Pio,. a celebrated 
 improvisatrice of that time. Besides these we have 
 seventeen architectural designs for buildings, public 
 and private, and several designs for sculpture, orna- 
 ments, &c. But it is not any single production of his 
 hand, however rarely beautiful, nor his superiority in 
 any particular department of art ; it is the number and 
 
Died 1520.] HIS ARTISTIC QUALITIES. 261 
 
 the variety of his creations, the union of inexhaustible 
 fertility of imagination with excellence of every kind — 
 faculties never combined in the same degree in any 
 artist before or since — which have placed Eaphael at 
 the head of his profession, and have rendered him the 
 wonder and delight of all ages. 
 
 We shall now proceed to give an account of some of 
 Eaphael's most famous scholars. 
 
( 262 ) 
 
 THE SCHOLAES OF EAPHAEL. 
 
 We have already had occasion to observe the great 
 number of scholars, some of them older than himself, 
 who had assembled round Eaphael, and the unusual 
 harmony in which they lived together ; Vasari relates 
 that, when he went to court, a train of fifty painters 
 attended on him from his own house to the Vatican. 
 They came from every part of Italy ; from Florence, 
 Milan, Venice, Bologna, Ferrara, Naples, and even from 
 beyond the .Alps, to study under the great Eoman 
 master. Many of them assisted, with more or less skill, 
 in the execution of his great works in fresco ; some 
 imitated him in one thing, some in another; but the 
 unrivalled charm of Eaphael's productions lies in the 
 impress of the mind which produced them ; this he 
 could not impart to others. Those who followed ser- 
 vilely a particular manner of conception and drawing, 
 which they called " Eaphael's style," degenerated into 
 insipidity and littleness. Those who had original 
 power deviated into exaggerations and perversities. 
 Not one among them approached him. Some caught a 
 faint reflection of his grace, some of his power; but 
 they turned it to other purposes ; they worked in a 
 different spirit ; they followed the fashion of the hour. 
 

 
 
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 40. — Gian Francesco Penni, called 
 
 II Fattore. 
 
 From Vasari's 
 
 History. 
 
 Pa<7e 263. 
 
GIAN AND LUC A PENNI. 263 
 
 While lie lived, his noble aims elevated them, but when 
 he died they fell away one after another. The lavish 
 and magnificent Pope Leo X. was succeeded in 1521 
 by Adrian VI., a man conscientious even to severity, 
 sparing even to asceticism, and without any sympathies 
 either for art or artists ; during his short pontificate of 
 two years all the works in the Vatican and St. Peter's 
 were suspended ; the poor painters were starving ; and 
 the dreadful pestilence which raged in 1 523 drove many 
 from the city. Under Clement VII., one of the Medici, 
 and nephew of Leo X., the arts for a time revived ; but 
 the sack of Rome by the barbarous soldiery of Bourbon 
 in 1527 completed the dispersion of the artists who had 
 flocked to the capital :. each, returning to his native 
 country or city, became also a teacher ; and thus what 
 was called " Eaphael's School," or the " Roman School," 
 was spread from one end of Italy to the other. 
 
 Raphael had left by his will his two favourite scholars, 
 Gian Francesco Penni and Giulio Romano, as executors, 
 and to them he bequeathed the task of completing his 
 unfinished works. 
 
 Gian Francesco Penni, called II Fattore, was his be- 
 loved and confidential pupil, and had assisted him 
 much, particularly in preparing his cartoons ; but every- 
 thing he executed from his own mind and after Raphael's 
 death has, with much tenderness and Raffaelesque grace, 
 a sort of feebleness more of mind than hand ; his pictures 
 are very rare. He died in 1528. 
 
 His brother Luca Penni was in England for some 
 years in the service of Henry VIII., and employed by 
 Wolsey in decorating his palace at Hampton Court; 
 
264 SCHOLARS OF RAPHAEL. 
 
 some remains of his performances there were still to be 
 seen in the middle of the last century; but Horace 
 Walpole's notion that Luca Penni executed those three 
 singular pictures, the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the 
 Battle of the Spurs, and the Embarkation of Henry 
 VIII., appears to be quite unfounded. 
 
 Giulio Pippi, surnamed from the place of his birth II 
 Romano, and generally styled Giulio Romano, was also 
 much beloved by Eaphael, and of all his scholars the 
 most distinguished for original power. While under 
 the influence of Raphael's mind, he imitated his manner 
 and copied his pictures so successfully, that it is some- 
 times difficult for the best judges to distinguish the dif- 
 ference of hand. The Julius II. in our National Gallery 
 is an instance. After Raphael's death he abandoned 
 himself to his own luxuriant genius. He lost the sim- 
 plicity, the grace, the chaste and elevated feeling which 
 had characterised his master. He became strongly em- 
 bued with the then reigning taste for classical and 
 mythological subjects, which he treated not exactly in a 
 classical spirit, but with great boldness and fire, both in 
 conception and execution. He did not excel in religious 
 subjects : if he had to paint the Virgin, he gave her the 
 air and form of a commanding Juno ; if a Saviour, he 
 was like a Roman emperor ; the apostles in his pictures 
 are like heathen philosophers ; but when he had to deal 
 with gods and Titans he was in his element. 
 
 For four years after the death of Raphael he was 
 chiefly occupied in completing his master's unfinished 
 works ; at the end of that time he went to Mantua and 
 entered the service of the Duke Gonzaga, as painter and 
 
41.— GlULTO PlPPI, CALLED GlULIO ROMANO. 
 
 From the Uffizi Gallery. 
 Engraved in the 1568 edition of Vasari. 
 
 Page 
 
GIULIO ROMANO. 265 
 
 architect. He designed for him a splendid palace called 
 the Palazzo del Te, which he decorated with frescoes 
 in a grand bnt coarse style. In one saloon he repre- 
 sented Jupiter vanquishing the giants ; in another, the 
 history of Psyche : everywhere we see great luxuriance 
 of fancy, wonderful power of drawing, and a bold large 
 style of treatment ; but great coarseness of imagination, 
 red heavy colouring, and a pagan rather than a classical 
 taste. 
 
 In character Giulio Eomano was a man of generous 
 mind ; princely in his style of living ; an accomplished 
 courtier, yet commanding respect by a lofty sense of his 
 own dignity as an artist. He amassed great riches in 
 the service of the Duke Gonzaga, and spent his life at 
 Mantua : his most important works are to be found in 
 the palaces and churches of that city. 
 
 When Charles I. purchased the entire collection of 
 the Dukes of Mantua in 1629, there were among them 
 many pictures by Giulio Romano ; one of these was the 
 admirable copy of Raphael's fresco of the battle between 
 Constantine and Maxentius, now in the guard-room at 
 Hampton Court ; in the same gallery are seven others, 
 all mythological, and characteristic certainly, but by 
 no means favourable specimens of his genius; they 
 have besides been coarsely painted over by some re- 
 storer, so as to retain no trace of the original workman- 
 ship. The most important picture which came into the 
 possession of King Charles was a Nativity, a large altar- 
 piece, which after the king's death was sold into 
 France : it is now in the Louvre (293). A very pretty 
 little picture is the Venus persuading Vulcan to forge 
 
266 SCHOLARS OF RAPHAEL. 
 
 the arrows of Cupid; also in the Louvre (296), from 
 which the group of Cupids in the illustration has been 
 taken. Engravings after Giulio Romano are very com- 
 monly met with. 
 
 Giulio Romano was invited by Francis I. to undertake 
 the decoration of his palace at Fontainebleau, but, not 
 being able to leave Mantua, he sent his pupil Prima- 
 ticcio, who covered the walls with frescoes and ara- 
 besques, much in the manner of those in the Palazzo 
 del Te ; that is to say, with gods and goddesses, fauns, 
 satyrs, nymphs, Cupids, Cyclops, Titans, in a style as 
 remote from that of Raphael as can well be imagined, 
 and yet not destitute of a certain grandeur. 
 
 Primaticcio, Niccolo del Abate, Rosso, and others who 
 worked with them, are designated in the history of art 
 as the " Fontainebleau School," of which Primaticcio is 
 considered the chief. 
 
 Giovanni da Udine, who excelled in painting animals, 
 flowers, and still life, was Raphael's chief assistant in 
 the famous arabesques of the Vatican. 
 
 Perino del Yaga, another of Raphael's scholars, 
 carried his style to Genoa, where he was chiefly em- 
 ployed ; and Andrea di Salerno, a far more charming 
 painter, who was at Rome but a short time, has left 
 many pictures at Naples, nearer to Raphael in point of 
 feeling than those of other scholars who had studied 
 under his eye for years : Andrea seems also to have 
 been allied to his master in mind and character, for 
 Raphael parted from him with deep regret. 
 
 Polidoro Caldara, called from the place of his birth 
 Polidoro da Caravaggio, was a poor boy who had been 
 
42. — Michael-Angelo Amerighi da Caravaggio. 
 
 By himself, in the Ufflzi Gallery, Florence. 
 
Library, 
 
 Of CalifoJt^. 
 
CARAVAGGIO. 26^ 
 
 employed by the fresco-painters in the Vatican to carry 
 the wet mortar and afterwards to grind their colours : 
 he learned to admire, then to emulate what he saw, and 
 Eaphael encouraged and aided him by his instructions. 
 The bent of Polidoro's genius as it developed itself 
 was a curious and interesting compound of his two 
 vocations. He had been a mason, or what we should 
 call a bricklayer's boy, for the first twenty years of his 
 life. From building houses he took to decorating them, 
 and from an early familiarity with the remains of anti- 
 quity lying around him, the mind of the uneducated 
 mechanic became unconsciously imbued with the very 
 spirit of antiquity ; not one of Eaphael's scholars was so 
 distinguished for a classical purity of taste as Polidoro. 
 He painted, chiefly in chiaro'scuro (that is, in two 
 colours, light and shade), friezes, composed of proces- 
 sions of figures, such as we see in the ancient bas-reliefs, 
 sea and river gods, tritons, bacchantes, fauns, satyrs, 
 Cupids. At Hampton Court there are six pieces of a 
 small narrow frieze, representing boys and animals, 
 which apparently formed the top of a bedstead or some 
 other piece of furniture ; these will give some faint idea, 
 of the decorative style of Polidoro. This painter was 
 much employed at Naples, and afterwards at Messina, 
 where he was assassinated by one of his servants for the 
 sake of his money. 
 
 Pellegrino da Modena, an excellent painter, and one 
 of Eaphael's most valuable assistants in his Scriptural 
 subjects, carried the " Eoman School " to Modena. 
 
 At this time there was in Ferrara a school of painters 
 
268 SCHOLAES OF RAPHAEL. 
 
 very peculiar in style, distinguished chiefly by extreme 
 elegance of execution, a miniature-like neatness in the 
 details, and deep, vigorous, contrasted colours — as in- 
 tense crimson, vivid green, brilliant white, approxi- 
 mated ; — a little grotesque in point of taste, and rather 
 like the very early German school in feeling and 
 treatment, but with more grace and ideality. Dosso 
 Dossi and Battista Dossi of Ferrara were two brothers, 
 whose fate has been peculiar; for while during their 
 lives they were divided by such a bitter and burning 
 enmity that they would not speak to or look at each 
 other, they were obliged to work together, are always 
 named together, and it has become almost impossible to 
 distinguish them in name or works. Ariosto mentions 
 them simply as " Due Dossi " — Two Dossi. Of a pic- 
 ture in the Louvre (No.. 185), the catalogue says that 
 it is u positivement Vouvrage de Vun des deux fret es Dossi ; 
 and all writers on art find it difficult to allot their 
 respective claims to pictures which bear the name. It 
 seems that Battista Dossi excelled in landscape back- 
 grounds, and had a thorough and poetical feeling for 
 nature. Two fine pictures I remember, one in the 
 Dresden Gallery (the Predestination of the Virgin *), 
 and one in the Borghese Gallery (which is rich in 
 pictures of the Ferrara school) representing Circe in a 
 wild landscape. This last I should attribute to Battista. 
 That two beings so divided in life, who hated each other 
 as only kindred hate, should be in their genius and in 
 their renown so indivisible, is very striking. 
 
 Another of these Ferrarese painters, Benvenuto Ga- 
 * See p. 148. 
 
43.— Dosso Dossi. 
 By himself, in the Uffizi Gallery. 
 
 Page 268 
 
;. 
 
 / 
 
• J 
 
44. — Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisio). 
 
 Engraved in the 1568 edition of Vasari. 
 
 /'age '269. 
 
. I 
 
 ft 
 
 ^ - 
 
45. — Giulio Clovio. 
 
 Page 269. 
 
GAROFALO— CLOVIO. 269 
 
 eofalo, studied for some time at Eome in the school of 
 Raphael, but it does not appear that he assisted, like 
 most of the other students, in any of his works. He 
 was older than Eaphael, and already advanced in his 
 art before he went to Eome ; but while there he knew 
 how to profit by the higher principles which were laid 
 down, and studied assiduously ; with a larger, freer 
 style of drawing, and a certain elevation in the expres- 
 sion of his heads acquired in the school of Eaphael, he 
 combined the glowing colour which characterised the 
 first painters of his native city. There is a small pic- 
 ture by Garofalo in our National Gallery, and also a 
 picture by Mazzolino da Ferrara, which will give some 
 idea of this school, with its characteristic beauty of colour 
 and singularity of treatment. 
 
 Another painter who must not be omitted was Giulio 
 Clovio. He was originally a monk, and began by imi- 
 tating the miniatures in the illuminated missals and 
 psalm-books used in the Church. He then studied at 
 Eome, and was particularly indebted to Michael Angelo 
 and Giulio Eomano. His works are a proof that great- 
 ness and correctness of style do not depend on size and 
 space ; for into a few inches square, into the arabesque 
 ornaments round a page of manuscript, he could throw 
 a feeling of the sublime and beautiful worthy of the 
 great masters of art. The vigour and precision of his 
 drawing in the most diminutive figures, the imaginative 
 beauty of some of his tiny compositions (for Giulio was 
 no copyist), is almost inconceivable. His works were 
 enormously paid, and executed only for sovereign 
 princes and rich prelates. Fifteen years of his life were 
 
270 SCHOLARS OF RAPHAEL. 
 
 spent in the service of Pope Paul III. (1534-1549), for 
 whom his finest productions were executed. He died 
 in 1578, at the age of eighty. 
 
 Besides the Italians, Innocenza da Imola, Timoteo 
 della Vite of Bologna, and Andrea di Salerno of Naples, 
 many painters came from beyond the Alps to place 
 themselves under the tuition of Eaphael ; among these 
 were Bernard von Orlay from Brussels ; Michael Coxcis 
 from Mechlin ; and George Penz from Nuremberg. But 
 the influence of Eaphael's mind and style is not very 
 apparent in any of these painters. 
 
 On the whole we may say that, while Michael Angelo 
 and Eaphael displayed in all they did the inspiration of 
 genius, their scholars and imitators inundated all Italy 
 with mediocrity : — 
 
 " Art with hollow forms was fed, 
 But the soul of art lay dead." 
 
' \\ 
 
 I 
 
 ■:;fr,U ^ 
 
46. — Antonio Allegri, called Correggio. 
 From a Portrait in the Vienna Gallery. 
 
 Page 271. 
 
( 271 ) 
 
 CORKEGGIO AND GIORGIONE, 
 
 AND 
 
 THEIR SCHOLARS. 
 
 While the great painters of the Florentine school, with V 
 Michael Angelo at their head, were carrying ont the 
 principle of form, and those of Rome — the followers 
 and imitators of Raphael — were carrying out the prin- 
 ciple of expression — and the first school deviating into 
 exaggeration, and the latter degenerating into manner- 
 ism — there arose in the north of Italy two extraordi- 
 nary and original men, who, guided by their own 
 individual genius and temperament, took up different 
 principles and worked them out to perfection: one 
 revelling in the illusions of chiaro'scuro, so that to him 
 all nature appeared clothed in a soft transparent veil of 
 lights and shadows ; the other delighting in the luxu- 
 rious depth of tints, and beholding all nature steeped 
 in the glow of an Italian sunset. They chose each their 
 world, and " drew after them a third part of heaven." 
 
 Of the two, Giorgione appears to have been the most 
 original — the most of a creator and inventor. Correggio 
 may possibly have owed his conception of melting, 
 vanishing outlines and transparent shadows, and his 
 peculiar feeling of grace, to Lionardo da Vinci, whose 
 
272 CORREGGIO. [Born 1493. 
 
 pictures were scattered over the whole of the north 
 of Italy. Giorgione found in his own fervid melan- 
 choly character the mystery of his colouring — warm, 
 glowing, yet subdued — and the noble yet tender senti- 
 ment of his heads ; characteristics which, transmitted 
 to Titian, became in colouring more sunshiny and bril- 
 liant, without losing depth and harmony; and in expres- 
 sion more cheerful, still retaining intellect and dignity. 
 We will speak first of Correggio, so styled from his 
 birthplace, a small town not far from Modena, now 
 called Eeggio. His real name was Antonio Allegri, 
 and he was born towards the end of the year 1493. 
 Raphael was at this time ten years old, Michael Angelo 
 twenty, and Lionardo da Vinci in his fortieth year. 
 The father of Antonio was Pellegrino Allegri, a trades- 
 man possessed of moderate property in houses and land. 
 He gave his son a careful education, and had him in- 
 structed in literature and rhetoric, as well as in the 
 rudiments of art, which he imbibed at a very early age 
 from an uncle, Lorenzo Allegri, a painter of little merit. 
 Afterwards he studied for a short time under Andrea 
 Mantegna ; and although, when this painter died in 
 1506, Antonio was but thirteen, he had so far profited 
 by his instructions and those of Francesco Mantegna, 
 who continued his father's school, that he drew well 
 and caught that taste and skill in foreshortening which 
 distinguished his later works; it was an art which 
 Mantegna may almost be said to have invented, and 
 which was first taught in his academy; but the dry, 
 hard, precise, meagre style of the Mantegna school, 
 Correggio soon abandoned for a manner entirely his 
 
Died 1534.] THE ASCENSION. 273 
 
 own, in which movement, variety, and, above all, the 
 most delicate gradation of light and shadow, are the prin- 
 cipal elements. All these qualities are apparent in the 
 earliest of his authenticated pictures, painted in 1512, 
 when he was about eighteen. It is one of the large altar- 
 pieces in the Dresden gallery, called the Madonna di 
 San Francesco, because St. Francis is one of the principal 
 figures. The influence of the taste and manner of Lio- 
 nardo da Vinci is very conspicuous in this picture. 
 
 In 1519, having acquired some reputation and fortune 
 in his profession, Correggio married Girolama Merlini ; 
 and in the following year, being then six-and-twenty, 
 he was commissioned to paint in fresco the cupola of 
 the church of San Giovanni at Parma. He chose for 
 his subject the Ascension of Christ, who in the centre 
 appears soaring upwards into heaven, surrounded by 
 the Twelve Apostles, seated around on clouds, and who 
 appear to be watching his progress to the realms above ; 
 below are the four Evangelists in the four arches, with 
 the four Fathers of the Church. The figures in the 
 upper part are of course colossal, and foreshortened 
 with admirable skill, so as to produce a wonderful 
 effect when viewed from below. In the apsis of the 
 same church, over the high altar, he painted the Coro- 
 nation of the Virgin, but this was destroyed when the 
 church was subsequently enlarged, and is now only 
 known through engravings and the copies made by 
 Annibal Carracci, which are preserved at Naples. For 
 this work Correggio received five hundred gold crowns, 
 equal to about 1 500Z. at the present day. 
 
 About the year 1525 Correggio was invited to Mantua, 
 
 T 
 
274 CORREGGIO. [Born 1493. 
 
 where he painted for the reigning Duke, Federigo Gon- 
 zaga, the Education of Cupid, which is now in our 
 National Gallery. For the same accomplished but 
 profligate prince he painted the other mythological 
 stories of Io, Leda, Danae, and Antiope.* 
 
 Passing over, for the present, a variety of works which 
 Correggio painted in the next four or five years, we 
 shall only observe that the cupola of San Giovanni 
 gave so much satisfaction that he was called upon to 
 decorate in the same manner the cathedral of Parma, 
 which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In the centre 
 of the dome he represented the Assumption — the Ma- 
 donna soaring into heaven, while Christ descends from 
 his throne in bliss to meet her : an innumerable host 
 of saints and angels, rejoicing and singing hymns of 
 triumph, surround these principal personages. Lower 
 down in a circle stand the Apostles, and, lower still, 
 Genii bearing candelabra and swinging censers. In 
 lunettes below are the four Evangelists, the figure 
 of St. John being one of the finest. The whole compo- 
 sition is full of glorious life ; wonderful for the relief, 
 the bold and perfect foreshortening, the management of 
 the chiaro'scuro ; but from the innumerable figures, 
 and the play of the limbs seen from below — legs and 
 arms being more conspicuous than bodies — the great 
 artist was reproached in his lifetime with having painted 
 " un guazzetto di rane " (a fricassee of frogs). f There 
 
 * The Io and the Leda are in the Berlin Gallery; the Danae in 
 the Borghese Gallery; and the Antiope in the Louvre: the latter 
 once belonged to King Charles. 
 
 •f In cookery only the hind legs of the frogs are used ; the bodies 
 are thrown away. 
 
Died 1534.] CARTOONS. 275 
 
 are several engravings of this magnificent work ; but 
 those who would form a just idea of Correggio's sub- 
 lime conception and power of drawing should see some 
 of the cartoons prepared for the frescoes and drawn in 
 chalk by his own hand. A few of these, representing 
 chiefly angels and cherubim, were discovered a few 
 years ago at Parma, rolled up in a garret : they were 
 conveyed to Kome, thence brought to England by Dr. 
 Emil Braun, and are now in the British Museum, having 
 been lately purchased by the trustees. These heads 
 and forms are gigantic, nearly twice the size of life ; 
 yet such is the excellence of the drawing, and the 
 perfect grace and sweetness of the expression, that they 
 strike the fancy as sublimely beautiful, without giving 
 the slightest impression of exaggeration or effort. Our 
 artists who are preparing cartoons for works on a large 
 scale could have no finer studies than these grand frag- 
 ments, emanations of the mind and creations of the 
 hand of one of the most distinguished masters in art. 
 They show his manner of setting to work, and are in 
 this respect an invaluable lesson to young painters. 
 
 Correggio finished the dome of the cathedral of Parma 
 in 1530, and returned to his native town, where he 
 resided for the remainder of his life. We find that in 
 the year 1 533 he was one of the witnesses to a marriage 
 which was celebrated in the castle of Correggio, between 
 Ippolito, Lord of Correggio (son of Veronica Gambara, 
 the illustrious poetess, who was the widow of Ghiberto 
 da Correggio), and Chiara da Correggio, his cousin. 
 Correggio's presence on this occasion, and his signature 
 to the 'marriage-deed, prove the estimation in which he 
 
276 CORREGGIO. [Born 1493. 
 
 was held by his sovereigns. In the following year he 
 had engaged to paint for Alberto Panciroli an altar- 
 piece ; the subject fixed upon is not known, but it is 
 certainly known that he received in advance, and before 
 his work was commenced, twenty-five gold crowns. It 
 was destined never to be begun, for soon after signing 
 this agreement Correggio was seized with a malignant 
 fever, of which he died after a few days' illness, March 
 5, 1534, in the forty -first year of his age. He was 
 buried in his family sepulchre in the Franciscan con- 
 vent at Correggio, and a few words placed over his 
 tomb merely record the day of his death, and his name 
 and profession — " Maestro Antonio Allegri, depintore." 
 There is a tradition that Correggio was a self-educated 
 painter, unassisted except by his own transcendent 
 genius ; that he lived in great obscurity and indigence ; 
 and that he was ill remunerated for his works. And it 
 is further related, that, having been paid in copper coin 
 a sum of sixty crowns for one of his pictures, he carried 
 home this load in a sack on his shoulders, being anxious 
 to relieve the wants of his family ; and stopping, when 
 heated and wearied, to refresh himself with a draught 
 of cold water, he was seized with a fever, of which he 
 died. Though this tradition has been proved to be false, 
 and is completely refuted by the circumstances of the 
 last years of his life related above, yet the impression 
 that Correggio died miserably and in indigence pre- 
 vailed to a late period.* From whatever cause it arose, 
 it was early current. Annibal Carracci, writing from 
 
 * The popular tradition of the death of Correggio is the subject 
 of a very beautiful tragedy by (Ehlenschlager. 
 
Died 1534.] TRADITIONS CONCERNING HIM. 277 
 
 -Parma fifty years after the death of Correggio, says, " I 
 rage and weep to think of the fate of this poor Antonio • 
 so great a man — if, indeed, he were not rather an angel 
 in the flesh — to be lost here, to live unknown, and 
 to die unhappily !" Now he who painted the dome of 
 the cathedral of Parma, and who stood by as one of the 
 chosen witnesses of the marriage of his sovereign, could 
 not have lived unknown and unregarded ; and we 
 have no just reason to suppose that this gentle, 
 amiable, and unambitious man died unhappily. With 
 regard to his deficient education, it appears certain that 
 he studied anatomy under Lombardi, a famous physician 
 of that time, and his works exhibit not only a classical 
 and cultivated taste, but a knowledge of the sciences — 
 of optics, mathematics, perspective, and chemistry, as 
 far as they were then carried. His use and skilful pre- 
 paration of rare and expensive colours imply neither 
 poverty nor ignorance. His modest, quiet, amiable 
 temper and domestic habits may have given rise to 
 the report that he lived neglected and obscure in his 
 native city; he had not, like other great masters of 
 his time, an academy for teaching, and a retinue of 
 scholars to spread his name and contend for the supre- 
 macy of their master. Whether Correggio ever visited 
 Eome is a point undecided by any evidence for or 
 against, and it is most probable that he did not. It is 
 said that he was at Bologna, where he saw Raphael's 
 St. Cecilia, and, after contemplating it for some time 
 with admiration, he turned away, exclaiming, " AncK io 
 sono pittore ! " (And I too am a painter !) — an anecdote 
 which shows that, if unambitious and unpresuming, he 
 was not without a consciousness of his own merit. 
 
^F 
 
 278 CORREGGIO. [Born 1493. 
 
 The father of Correggio, Pellegrino Allegri, who sur- 
 vived him, repaid the twenty-five gold crowns which his 
 son had received in advance for work he did not live to 
 complete. The only son of Correggio, Pomponio Quirino 
 Allegri, became a painter, but never attained to any 
 great reputation, and appears to have been of a careless, 
 restless disposition. 
 
 I will now give some account of Correggio's works. 
 His two greatest performances— the dome of the San 
 Giovanni and that of the cathedral of Parma — have been 
 mentioned. His smaller pictures, though not numerous, 
 are dispersed through so many galleries that they can- 
 not be said to be rare. It is remarkable that they are 
 very seldom met with in the possession of individuals, 
 but, with few exceptions, are to be found in royal and 
 public collections. 
 
 In our National Gallery are five pictures by Cor- 
 reggio : two are studies of angels' heads, which, as they 
 are not found in any of the existing frescoes, are sup- 
 posed to have formed part of the composition in the San 
 Giovanni, which, as already related, was destroyed. 
 The other three are among his most celebrated works. 
 The first, Mercury teaching Cupid to read in the pre- 
 sence of Yenus, is an epitome of all the qualities which 
 characterise the oil painter ; that peculiar smiling grace 
 which is the expression of a kind of Elysian happiness, 
 and that flowing outline, that melting softness of tone, 
 which are quite illusive. " Those who may not per- 
 fectly understand what artists and critics mean when 
 they dwell with rapture on Correggio's wonderful chiard'- 
 scuro should look well into this picture. They will per- 
 ceive that in the painting of the limbs they can look 
 
Died 1534.] HIS WORKS. 279 
 
 through the shadows into the substance, as it might be 
 into the flesh and blood ; the shadows seem mutable, 
 accidental, and aerial, as if between the eye and the 
 colours, and not incorporated with them. In this lies 
 the inimitable excellence of Correggio." * 
 
 This picture was painted for Federigo Gronzaga, Duke 
 of Mantua; it was brought to England in 1629, when 
 the Mantua Gallery was bought by our Charles I., and 
 hung in his apartment at Whitehall ; afterwards it 
 passed into the possession of the Duke of Alva ; then, 
 during the French invasion of Spain, Murat secured it 
 as his share of the plunder ; and his widow sold it to the 
 Marquess of Londonderry, from whom it was purchased 
 by the nation. The Ecce Homo was purchased at the 
 same time : it is chiefly remarkable for the fine head of 
 the Virgin, who faints with anguish on beholding the 
 suffering and degradation of her Son ; the dying away 
 of sense and sensation under the influence of mental 
 pain is expressed with admirable and affecting truth: 
 the rest of the picture is perhaps rather feeble, and 
 the head of Christ not to be compared to one crowned 
 with thorns which is in the possession of Lord Cowper, 
 nor with another in the Bridgewater collection. The 
 third picture is a small but most exquisite Madonna, 
 known as the Vierge au Panier, from the little basket in 
 front of the picture. The Virgin, seated, holds the in- 
 fant Christ on her knee, and looks down upon him with 
 the fondest expression of maternal rapture, while he 
 gazes up in her face : Joseph is seen in the background. 
 
 * ' Public Galleries of Art,' Murray, 1841 ; in which there is a 
 history of the picture, too long to be inserted here. 
 
280 CORREGGIO. [Born 1493. 
 
 This, though called a Holy Family, is a simple do- 
 mestic scene; and Correggio probably in this, as in 
 other instances, made the original study from his wife 
 and child. Another picture in our gallery ascribed 
 to Correggio, the Christ on the Mount of Olives, is 
 a very fine old copy, perhaps a duplicate, of an ori- 
 ginal picture now in the possession of the Duke of 
 Wellington. 
 
 In the gallery of Parma are five of the most important 
 and beautiful pictures of Correggio. The most cele- 
 brated is that called the St. Jerome. It represents the 
 saint presenting to the Virgin and Child his translation 
 of the Scriptures, while on the other side the Magdalen 
 bends down and kisses with devotion the feet of the 
 infant Saviour. 
 
 The Dresden Gallery is also rich in pictures of Cor- 
 reggio : it contains six pictures, of which four are large 
 altarpieces, bought out of churches in Modena ; among 
 these is the famous picture of the Nativity, called the 
 Notte, or Night, of Correggio, because it is illuminated 
 only by the unearthly splendour which beams round the 
 head of the infant Saviour ; and the still more famous 
 Magdalene, who lies extended on the ground intently 
 reading the Scriptures. No picture in the world has 
 been more universally admired and multiplied through 
 copies and engravings than this little picture. 
 
 In the Florence Gallery are three pictures ; one of 
 them, the Madonna on her knees, adoring with ecstacy 
 her Infant, who lies before her on a portion of her gar- 
 ment, is given in our illustration. 
 
 In the Louvre are two of his works — the Marriage 
 
47.— Francesco Mazzuola, called II Parmeggiano. 
 
 By himself, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 
 
 Page2H\. 
 
Died 1534.] HIS IMITATORS. 281 
 
 of St. Catherine, and the Antiope, painted for the Duke 
 of Mantua. 
 
 In the Naples Gallery there are three ; one of them a 
 most lovely Madonna, called, from the peculiar head- 
 dress, the Zingarella, or Gipsy. 
 
 In the Vienna Gallery are two ; and at Berlin three — 
 among them the Io and the Leda. 
 
 There are in the British Museum a complete collec- 
 tion of engravings after Correggio, and a great number 
 of his original drawings. 
 
 Correggio had no school of painting, and all his 
 authentic works, except his frescoes, were executed 
 solely by his own hand : in the execution of his frescoes 
 he had assistants, but they could hardly be called his 
 pupils. He had, however, a host of imitators who formed 
 what has been called the School of Parma, of which he 
 is considered the head. The most famous of these imi- 
 tators was Francesco Mazzola, of whom we are now to 
 speak. 
 
 PARMIGIANO. 
 
 Born 1503, died 1540. 
 Francesco Mazzoia, or Mazzuoli, called Parmigiano, and, 
 by the Italians, II Parmigianino (to express by this en- 
 dearing diminutive the love as well as the admiration 
 he inspired even from his boyhood), was a native of 
 Parma, born on the 11th of January, 1503. He had 
 two uncles who were painters, and by them he was early 
 initiated into some knowledge of designing, though he 
 could have owed little else to them, both being very 
 
282 PARMIGIANO. [Born 1503. 
 
 mediocre artists. Endowed with a most precocious 
 genius, ardent in every pursuit, he studied indefatig- 
 ably, and at the age of fourteen he produced a picture 
 of the Baptism of Christ, wonderful for a boy of his age, 
 exhibiting even thus early much of that easy grace which 
 he is supposed to have learned from Correggio ; but 
 Correggio had not then visited Parma. When he arrived 
 there four years afterwards, for the purpose of painting 
 the cupola of San Giovanni, Francesco, then only 
 eighteen, was selected as one of his assistants, and he 
 took this opportunity of imbuing his mind with a style 
 which certainly had much analogy with his own taste 
 and character : Parmigiano, however, had too much 
 genius, too much ambition, to follow in the footsteps of 
 another, however great. Though not great enough him- 
 self to be first in that age of greatness, yet, had his rivals 
 and contemporaries been less than giants, he must have 
 overtopped them all ; as it was, feeling the impossibility 
 of rising above such men as Michael Angelo, Eaphael, 
 Correggio, yet feeling also the consciousness of his own 
 power, he endeavoured to be original by combining what 
 has not yet been harmonised in nature, therefore could 
 hardly succeed in art — the grand drawing of Michael 
 Angelo, the antique grace of Eaphael, and the melting 
 tones and sweetness of Correggio. Perhaps, had he been 
 satisfied to look at nature through his own soul and eyes, 
 he would have done better; had he trusted himself more, 
 he would have escaped some of those faults which have 
 rendered many of his works unpleasing, by giving the 
 impression of effort, and of what in art is called mannerism. 
 Ambitious, versatile, accomplished, generally admired for 
 
Died 1540.] ' VISITS ROME. 283 
 
 his handsome person and graceful manners, Parmigiano 
 would have been spoiled by vanity, if he had not been 
 a man of strong sensibility and of almost fastidious senti- 
 ment and refinement ; when these are added to genius, 
 the result is generally a tinge of that melancholy, of that 
 dissatisfaction with all that is achieved or acquired, which 
 seem to have entered largely into the temperament o± 
 this painter, rendering his character and life extremely 
 interesting, while it strongly distinguishes him from the 
 serenely mild and equal-tempered Raphael, to whom he 
 was afterwards compared. 
 
 When Parmigiano was in his twentieth year he set 
 off for Eome. The recent accession of Clement VII., a 
 declared patron of art, and the death of Eaphael, had 
 opened a splendid vista of glory and success to his ima- 
 gination. He carried with him to Eome three pictures. 
 One of these was an example of his graceful genius ; it 
 represented the infant Christ seated on his mother's 
 knee, and taking some fruit from the lap of an angel. 
 The second was a proof of his wonderful dexterity of 
 hand : it was a portrait of himself seated in his atelier 
 amid his books and musical instruments ; but the whole 
 scene represented on the panel as if viewed in a convex 
 mirror. The third picture was an instance of the success 
 with which he had studied the magical effects of chiaro'- 
 scuro in Correggio — torchlight, daylight, and a celestial 
 light being all introduced without disturbing the har- 
 mony of the colouring. This last he presented to the 
 pope, who received both the young painter and his 
 offering most graciously. He became a favourite at 
 Eome ; and as he studiously imitated while there the 
 
284 PARMIGIANO. [Born 1503. 
 
 works of Kaphael, and resembled him in the elegance of 
 his person and manners and the generosity of his dispo- 
 sition, the poets complimented him by saying, or singing, 
 that the late-lost and lamented Raphael had revived in 
 the likeness cf Parmigiano : we can now measure more 
 justly the distance which separated them. 
 
 While at Kome, Francesco was greatly patronised by 
 the Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, and painted for him 
 several beautiful pictures; for the pope also, several 
 others, and the portrait of a young captain of his guard, 
 Lorenzo Cibo, which is supposed to be the fine portrait 
 now at Windsor. For a noble lady, a certain Donna 
 Maria Buffalini, he painted a grand altarpiece to adorn 
 the chapel of her family at Citta di Castello. This is 
 the celebrated Vision of St. Jerome, now in our National 
 Gallery : it represents the Virgin holding a book, with 
 the infant Christ leaning on her knee, as seen above in 
 a glory, while St. John the Baptist points to the celestial 
 vision, and St. Jerome is seen asleep in the background. 
 This picture is an eminent example of all the beauties 
 and faults of Parmigiano. The Madonna and the Child 
 are models of dignity and grace ; the drawing is correct 
 and elegant ; the play of the lights and shadows, in deli- 
 cate management, worthy of Correggio : on the other 
 hand, the attitude of St. John the Baptist is an attempt 
 at singularity in drawing, which is altogether forced and 
 theatrical ; while the foreshortened figure of St. Jerome 
 in the background is most uncomfortably distorted. Not- 
 withstanding these faults, the picture has always been 
 much celebrated. When the church in which it stood 
 was destroyed by an earthquake, the picture was pur- 
 
Died 1540.] H^S POVERTY. 285 
 
 chased from among the ruins, and afterwards sold to the 
 Marquis of Abercorn for fifteen hundred guineas ; subse- 
 quently it passed through the hands of two great col- 
 lectors, Mr. Hart Davis and Mr. Watson Taylor, and 
 was at length purchased by the members of the British 
 Institution, and by them generously presented to the 
 nation. 
 
 It is related that Eome was taken by assault and pil- 
 laged by the barbarous soldiery of the Constable de 
 Bourbon at the very time that Parmigiano was painting 
 on this picture, and that he was so absorbed by his 
 work, that he heard nothing of the tumult around him 
 till some soldiers, with an officer at their head, broke into 
 his atelier. * As he turned round in quiet surprise from 
 his easel, they were so struck by the beauty of his 
 work, as well as by the composure of the artist, that 
 they retired without doing him any injury. But 
 another party afterwards seized him, insisted on ransom, 
 and robbed him of all he possessed. Thus reduced to 
 poverty, he fled Irom Borne, now a scene of indes- 
 cribable horrors, and reached Bologna barefoot and 
 penniless. 
 
 But the man of genius has at least this high pri- 
 vilege, that he carries with him everywhere two things 
 of which no earthly power can rob him — his talent 
 and his fame. On arriving at Bologna he drew and 
 etched some beautiful compositions. He is said by 
 some to have himself invented the art of etching, — that 
 is, of corroding, or, as it is technically termed, biting the 
 lines on the copper-plate by means of nitrous acid, instead 
 of cutting them with the graver. By this new-found 
 
286 PARMIGIANO. [Born 1503. 
 
 art he was relieved from the immediate pressure of 
 poverty, and very soon found himself, as a painter, in 
 full employment. He executed at Bologna some of his 
 most celebrated works : the Madonna della Kosa of the 
 Dresden Gallery, and the Madonna deW collo lungo (or 
 long-necked Madonna) in the Pitti Palace at Florence; 
 also, a famous altarpiece called the St. Margaret : of all 
 these there are numerous engravings. 
 
 After residing nearly four years at Bologna, Parmi- 
 giano returned, rich and celebrated, to his native city. 
 He reached Parma in 1531, and was immediately en- 
 gaged to paint in fresco a new church which had 
 recently been erected to the honour of the Virgin Mary, 
 and called the Steccata. There were, however, some 
 delays on the side of his employers, and more on his 
 own, arid four years passed before he set to work. 
 Much indignation was excited by his dilatory conduct ; 
 but it was appeased by the interference of his friend 
 Francesco Boiardo, who offered himself as his surety 
 for the completion of his undertaking within a given 
 time. A new contract was signed, and Parmigiano 
 thereupon presented to his friend his picture of Cupid 
 framing his Bow, a lovely composition; so beautiful, 
 that it has been again and again attributed to Correggio, 
 and engraved under his name, but it is undoubtedly by 
 Parmigiano. Several repetitions of it were executed at the 
 time, so much did it delight all who saw it. Engravings 
 and copies likewise abound ; a veiy good copy is in the 
 Bridgewater Gallery : the picture which is regarded 
 as the original is in the gallery of the Belvedere at 
 Vienna. 
 
Died 1540.] HIS DEATH. 287 
 
 At last he began his works in the Steccata, and there 
 he executed his figure of Moses in act to break the 
 Tables of the Law, and his Eve in act to pluck the 
 forbidden fruit : the former is a proof of the height he 
 could aspire to in sublime conception ; we have few 
 examples in art of equal grandeur of character and 
 drawing : the poet Gray acknowledged that when he 
 pictured his Bard, — 
 
 " Loose his beard and hoary hair 
 Streamed like a meteor on the troubled air," — 
 
 he had this magnificent figure full in his mind. The 
 Eve, on the other hand, is a perfect example of that 
 peculiar grace in which Parmigiano excelled. 
 
 After he had painted these and a few other figures in 
 the church, more delays ensued. It is said by some 
 that Parmigiano had wasted his money in gambling and 
 dissipation, and now gave himself up to the pursuit of 
 the philosopher's stone, with a hope of repairing his 
 losses. One of his biographers has taken pains to dis- 
 prove these imputations ; but that he was improvident, 
 restless, and fond of pleasure, is admitted. Whatever 
 might have been the cause, he broke his contract, and 
 was thrown into prison. To obtain his freedom, he 
 entered into a new engagement, but was no sooner at 
 liberty than he escaped to the territory of Cremona. 
 Here his constitutional melancholy seized him; and 
 though he lived, or rather languished, long enough to 
 paint some beautiful pictures, he died in a few months 
 afterwards, and was, at his own request, laid in the 
 earth without any coffin or covering, only a cross of 
 cypress-wood was placed on his breast. He died just 
 
288 PARMIGIANO. [Born 1503. 
 
 twenty years after Baphael, and at the same age, having 
 only completed his thirty-seventh year. 
 
 Parmigiano, in his best pictures, is one of the most 
 fascinating of painters — dignified, graceful, harmonious. 
 His children, Cupids, and angels, are, in general, ex- 
 quisite; his portraits are noble, and are perhaps his 
 finest and most faultless productions — the Moses and 
 the Eve excepted. It was the error of Parmigiano that 
 in studying grace he was apt to deviate into affectation, 
 and become what the French call maniere : all studied 
 grace is disagreeable. In his female figures he length- 
 ened the limbs, the necks, the fingers, till the effect 
 was not grace, but a kind of stately feebleness ; and as 
 he imitated at the same time the grand drawing and 
 large manner of Michael Angelo, the result conveys an 
 impression of something quite incongruous in nature 
 and in art. Then his Madonnas have in general a man- 
 nered grandeur and elegance, something between god- 
 desses and duchesses ; and his female saints are some- 
 thing between nymphs and maids of honour. For 
 instance, none of his compositions, not even the Cupid 
 shaping his Bow, has been more popular than his Mar- 
 riage of St. Catherine, of which there are so many 
 repetitions ; a famous one in the collection of Lord 
 Normanton ; another, smaller and most exquisite, in the 
 Grosvenor Gallery— not to speak of an infinitude of 
 copies and engravings : but is not the Madonna , with 
 her long slender neck and her half-averted head, far 
 more aristocratic than divine ? and does not St. Catherine 
 hold out her pretty finger for the ring with the air of a 
 lady-bride ? — and most of the sacred pictures of Parmi- 
 
4H.— Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, called 
 
 GlORGIONE. 
 
 From Vasaris History. 
 
 Page 28t>. 
 
Died 1540.] HIS STYLE. 289 
 
 giano are liable to the same censure. Annibal Carracci, 
 in a famous sonnet, in which he pointed out what was 
 most worthy of imitation in the elder painters, recom- 
 mends, significantly, " a little" of the grace of Parnii- 
 giano ; thereby indicating, what we feel to be the truth, 
 that he had too much. 
 
 GIORGIONE. 
 
 Born 1478, died 1511. 
 This painter was another great inventor; one of those 
 who stamped his own individuality on his art. He was 
 essentially a poet, and a subjective poet, who fused his 
 own being with all he performed and created: — if 
 Eaphael be the Shakspere, then Giorgione may be styled 
 the Byron, of painting. 
 
 He was born at Castel Franco, a small town in the 
 territory of Treviso, and his proper name was Giorgio 
 Barbarelli. Nothing is known of his family or of his 
 younger years, except that, having shown a strong dis- 
 position to art, he was brought, when a boy, to Venice, 
 and placed under the tuition of Gian Bellini. As he 
 grew up he was distinguished by his tall noble figure 
 and the dignity of his deportment ; and his companions 
 called him Giorgione, or George the Great, by which 
 nickname he has, after the Italian fashion, descended 
 to posterity. 
 
 Giorgione appears to have been endowed by nature 
 with an intense love of beauty and a sense of harmony 
 which pervaded his whole being. He was famous as a 
 
 u 
 
200 GIORGIONE. [Born 1478. 
 
 player and composer on the lute, to which he sung 
 his own verses. In his works two characteristics pre- 
 vail, sentiment and colour ; both tinged by the peculiar 
 temperament of the man : the sentiment is noble, but 
 melancholy, and the colour decided, intense, and glow- 
 ing. His execution had a freedom, a careless mastery 
 of hand, or, to borrow the untranslateable Italian word, 
 a sprezzatura, unknown before his time. The idea that 
 he founded his style on that of Lionardo da Vinci 
 cannot be entertained by those who have studied the 
 works of both : nothing can be more distinct in cha- 
 racter and feeling. 
 
 It is to be regretted that of one so interesting in 
 his character and his works we know so little ; yet 
 more to be regretted that a being gifted with the 
 passionate sensibility of a poet should have been em- 
 ployed chiefly in decorative painting, and that too con- 
 fined to the outsides of the Venetian palaces. These 
 oreations have been destroyed by fire, ruined by time, 
 or effaced by the damps of the Lagune. He appears to 
 have early acquired fame in his art, and we find him in 
 1 504 employed, together with Titian, in painting with 
 frescoes the exterior of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (the 
 hall of Exchange belonging to the German merchants). 
 That part intrusted to Giorgione he covered with the 
 most beautiful and poetical figures ; but the significance 
 of the whole was soon after the artist's death forgotten ; 
 and Vasari tells us that in his time no one could inter- 
 pret it. It appears to have been a sort of arabesque on 
 a colossal scale. 
 
 Giorgione delighted in fresco as a vehicle, because 
 
Died 1511.] TRADITION OF HIS LIFE. 291 
 
 it gave him ample scope for that largeness and freedom 
 of outline which characterised his manner ; unhappily, 
 of his numerous works, only the merest fragments 
 remain. We have no evidence that he exercised his 
 art elsewhere than at Venice, or that he ever resided 
 out of the Venetian territory : in his pictures the heads, 
 features, costumes, are all stamped with the Venetian 
 character. He had no school, though, induced by his 
 social and affectionate nature, he freely imparted what 
 he knew, and often worked in conjunction with others. 
 His love of music and his love of pleasure sometimes 
 led him astray from his art, but were oftener his in- 
 spirers : both are embodied in his pictures, particularly 
 his exquisite pastorals and concerts, over which, how- 
 ever, he has breathed that cast of thoughtfulness and 
 profound feeling which, in the midst of harmony and 
 beauty, is like a revelation or a prophecy of sorrow. 
 All the rest of what is recorded concerning the life 
 and death of Giorgione may be told in a few words. 
 Among the painters who worked with him was Pietro 
 Luzzo, of Feltri, near Venice, known in the history 
 of art as Morto da Feltri, and mentioned by Vasari as 
 the inventor, or rather reviver, of arabesque painting, 
 in the antique style, which he had studied amid the 
 dark vaults of the Eoman ruins. This Morto, as Eidolfi 
 relates, was the friend of Giorgione, and lived under 
 the same roof with him. He took advantage of Gior- 
 gione's confidence to seduce and carry off from his 
 house a girl whom he passionately loved. Wounded 
 doubly by the falsehood of his mistress and the trea- 
 chery of his friend, Giorgione sank into despair, and 
 
292 G10RGI0NE. [Born 1478. 
 
 soon afterwards died, at the early age of thirty-three. 
 Morto da Feltri afterwards fled from Venice, entered 
 the army, and was killed at the battle of Zara in 1519. 
 Such is the Venetian tradition. 
 
 Giorgione's genuine pictures are very rarely to be 
 met with ; of those ascribed to him the greater number 
 were painted by Pietro della Vecchia, a Venetian, who 
 had a peculiar talent for imitating Giorgione's manner 
 of execution and style of colour. These imitations de- 
 ceive picture dealers and collectors ; they could not for 
 one moment deceive those who had looked into the 
 feeling impressed on Giorgione's works. The only pic- 
 ture which could have imposed on the true lover of 
 Giorgione is that in Lord Ellesmere's Gallery, the Four 
 Ages, by Titian, in which the tone of sentiment as well 
 as the manner of Giorgione are so happily imitated 
 that for many years it was attributed to him. It was 
 painted by Titian when he was the friend and daily 
 companion of Giorgione, and under the immediate 
 influence of his feelings and genius. 
 
 We may divide the undoubted and existing pictures of 
 Giorgione into three classes. 
 
 I. The historical subjects, which are very uncommon ; 
 such seem to have been principally confined to his 
 frescoes, and have mostly perished. 
 
 In the Academy of Venice is preserved a so-called 
 historical picture, wildly poetical in conception. It 
 commemorates a fact — a dreadful tempest which oc- 
 curred in 1340, and threatened to overwhelm the whole 
 city of Venice. In Giorgione's picture the demons are 
 represented in an infernal bark exciting the tempest, 
 
Died 1511.] LANDSCAPES AND PASTORALS. 293 
 
 while St. Mark, St. Nicholas, and St. George, the patron 
 saints of Venice, seated in a small vessel tossed amid 
 the waves, oppose with spiritual arms the powers of 
 hell, and prevail against them.* 
 
 In our National Gallery there is a small historical 
 picture, the Death of Peter, the Dominican friar and in- 
 quisitor, called St. Peter the Martyr, who was assassin- 
 ated. This picture is not of much value, and a very 
 inferior work of the master. 
 
 Sacred subjects of the usual kind were so seldom 
 painted by Giorgione, that there are not perhaps half a 
 dozen in existence. 
 
 II. There is a class of subjects which Giorgione re- 
 presented with peculiar grace and felicity: they are 
 in painting what idyls and lyrics are in poetry, and 
 seem like' direct inventions of the artist's own mind, 
 though some are supposed to be scenes from Venetian 
 tales and novels now lost. These generally represent 
 groups of cavaliers and ladies seated in beautiful land- 
 scapes under the shade of trees, conversing or playing 
 on musical instruments. Such pictures are not unfre- 
 quent, and have a particular charm, arising from the 
 union of melancholy feeling with luxurious and festive 
 enjoyment, and a mysterious allegorical significance 
 now only to be surmised. In the collection of Lord 
 Northwick, at Cheltenham, there is a most charming 
 picture in this style : and in the possession of Mr. Cun- 
 ningham there is another. To this class may also be 
 referred the exquisite pastoral group of Jacob and Eachel 
 
 * This is the legend of the Fisherman and the Ring, which is 
 given at full length in * Sacred and Legendary Art,' 3rd edit., p. 151. 
 
294 GIORGIONE. [Born 1478 
 
 in the Dresden Gallery ; and the three Wise Men of the 
 East watching for the Star, in the Belvedere at Vienna.* 
 III. His portraits are magnificent. They have all, 
 with the strongest resemblance to general nature, a 
 grand ideal cast ; for it was in the character of the man 
 to idealise everything he touched. Very few of his 
 portraits are now to be identified. Among the finest and 
 most interesting may be mentioned his own portrait 
 in the Munich Gallery, which has an expression of the 
 profoundest melancholy. In the Imperial Gallery at 
 Vienna — rich in his works — there is a picture repre- 
 senting a young man crowned with a garland of vine- 
 leaves; another comes behind him with a concealed 
 dagger, and appears to watch the moment to strike : the 
 expression in the two heads can never be forgotten by 
 those who have looked on them. The fine portrait 
 of a cavalier, with a page riveting his armour, is well 
 known : it is in the possession of the Earl of Carlisle, 
 and styled, without much probability, Gaston de Foix. 
 A beautiful little full-length figure in armour, now in 
 the National Gallery, bears the same name; and is 
 probably a study for a St. Michael or a St. George. 
 Lord Byron has celebrated in some beautiful lines the 
 impression made on his mind by a picture in the Man- 
 frini Palace at Venice ; but the poet errs in styling it 
 the "portraits of Giorgione's son, and wife, and self:" 
 Giorgione never had either son or wife. The picture 
 alluded to represents a Venetian lady, a cavalier, and a 
 page ; — portraits evidently, but the names are unknown. 
 
 * Called the " Astrologi" and " Die Feldmesser." Vide ' Legends 
 of the Madonna,' 2nd edition, p. 222. 
 
 
Died 1511.] REALITY OF HIS PICTURES. 295 
 
 The striking characteristic of all Giorgione's pictures, 
 whether portraits, ideal heads, or compositions, is the 
 ineffaceable impression they leave on the memory — the 
 impression of reality. In the apparent simplicity of the 
 means through which this effect is produced, the few yet 
 splendid colours, the vigorous decision of touch, the 
 depth and tenderness of the sentiment, they remind us 
 of the old religious music — a few simple notes, long sus- 
 tained, deliciously blended, swelling into a rich, full, 
 and perfect harmony, and melting into the soul. 
 
 Though Giorgione left no scholars, properly so called, 
 he had many imitators, and no artist of his time exer- 
 cised a more extensive and long-felt influence. He 
 diffused that taste for vivid and warm colour which we 
 see in contemporary and succeeding artists; and he 
 tinged with his manner and feeling the whole Venetian 
 school. Among those who were inspired by this power- 
 ful and ardent mind may be mentioned Sebastian del 
 Piombo, of whom some account has already been given ; 
 Jacopo Palma, called Old Palma {Palma Vecchio) ; Paris 
 Bordone; Pordenone; and, lastly, Titian, the great 
 representative of the Venetian school. The difference 
 between Giorgione and Titian, as colourists, seems to be 
 this, that the colours of Giorgione appear as if lighted 
 up from within, and those of Titian as if lighted from 
 without. The epithet jie?-y or glowing would apply to 
 Giorgione; the epithet golden would express the pre- 
 dominant hues of Titian. 
 
( 296 ) 
 
 TITIAN. 
 
 Bobn 1477, died 1576. 
 
 Tiziano Vecelli was born at Cadore in the Friuli, a 
 district to the north of Venice, where the ancient family 
 of the Vecelli had been long settled. There is some- 
 thing very amusing and characteristic in the first indi- 
 cation of his love of art ; for while it is recorded of other 
 young artists that they took a piece of charcoal or a 
 piece of slate to trace the images in their fancy, we are 
 told that the infant Titian, with an instinctive feeling 
 prophetic of his future excellence as a colourist, used 
 the expressed juice of certain flowers to paint a figure 
 of a Madonna. When he was a boy of nine years old his 
 father Gregorio carried him to Venice and placed him 
 under the tuition of Sebastian Zuccato, a painter and 
 worker in mosaic. He left this school for that of the 
 Bellini, where the friendship and fellowship of Giorgione 
 seems early to have awakened his mind to new ideas of 
 art and colour. Albert Durer, who was at Venice in 
 1494, and again in 1507, also influenced him. At this 
 time, when Titian and Giorgione were youths of eighteen 
 and nineteen, they lived and worked together. It has 
 been already related that they were employed in paint- 
 ing the frescoes of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi ; the pre- 
 ference being given to Titian's performance, which 
 represented the story of Judith, caused such a jealousy 
 between the two friends, that they ceased to reside to- 
 gether ; but at this time and for some years afterwards 
 
49.— Tiziano Vecellio da Cadoke, called Titian. 
 
 Agostino Carracci. 
 Engraved in Carlo Ridolfts ' Maraviglie dell' Arte.' 
 
Died 1576.] PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE CORNARO. 297 
 
 the influence of Giorgione on the mind and the style of 
 Titian was such that it became difficult to distinguish 
 their works ; and on the death of Giorgione, Titian was 
 required to complete his unfinished pictures. This 
 great loss to Venice and the world left him in the prime 
 of life without a rival. We find him for a few years 
 chiefly employed in decorating the palaces of the Vene- 
 tian nobles, both in the city and on the mainland. The 
 first of his historical compositions which is celebrated 
 by his biographers is the Presentation of the Virgin in 
 the Temple, a large picture, now in the Academy of 
 Arts at Venice ; and the first portrait recorded is that 
 of Catherine, Queen of Cypress, of which numerous re- 
 petitions and copies were scattered over all Italy : there 
 is a fine original in the Dresden Gallery. This un- 
 happy Catherine Cornaro, the "daughter of St. Mark," 
 having been forced to abdicate her crown in favour of 
 the Venetian State, was at this time living in a sort of 
 honourable captivity at Venice. She had been a widow 
 for forty years, and he has represented her in deep 
 mourning holding a rosary in her hand — the face still 
 bearing traces of that beauty for which she was cele- 
 brated. 
 
 It appears that Titian was married about 1512 ; but of 
 his wife we do not hear anything more : we know that 
 her name was Cecilia (not Lucia, as she is sometimes 
 called), and that she bore him three children, two sons, 
 and a daughter called Lavinia. It seems probable, on a 
 comparison of dates, that she died about the year 1530. 
 
 One of the earliest works on which Titian was en- 
 gaged was the decoration of the convent of St. Antony 
 
298 TITIAN. [Born 1477. 
 
 at Padua, in which he executed a series of frescoes from 
 the life of St. Antony. Perugino was at Venice in 
 1515 : he was then an old man ; and looking round him 
 at what the Venetian painters were achieving, he seems 
 to have been raluctant to enter the lists with them, and 
 went away without doing anything. In fact, Titian 
 finished in the next year (1516) his famous Assumption 
 of the Virgin for the Frari* — a picture of dazzling 
 splendour. He was next summoned to Ferrara by the 
 Duke Alphonso I., and was employed in his service for 
 at least two years. He painted for this prince the 
 beautiful picture of Bacchus and Ariadne, which is now 
 in our National Gallery, and which presents on a small 
 scale an epitome of all the beauties which characterise 
 Titian, in the rich, picturesque, animated composition 
 — in the ardour of Bacchus, who flings himself from his 
 car to pursue Ariadne — in the dancing bacchanals, the 
 frantic grace of the bacchante, and the little joyous 
 satyr in front, trailing the head of the sacrifice.! He 
 
 * It is now in the Academy at Venice ; well known from innu- 
 nerable copies, and the fine engraving by Schiavone. 
 
 f This picture was suggested by a passage in Catullus. The 
 poet, in the ' Marriage of Peleus and Thetis,' describes the couch of 
 the goddess-bride as covered with rich tapestry "embroidered with 
 fio-ures in gorgeous colours, portrayed with wondrous art." It re- 
 presents the story of Ariadne. In one part she is seen wandering 
 on the shore of Naxos, after she has been abandoned by Theseus, 
 broken-hearted, and appealing to all the gods against the perfidy of 
 her lover. In another part Bacchus is seen approaching : — 
 " Young Iacchus, flushed 
 With bloom of youth, comes flying from above 
 With choirs of satyrs and Sileni born 
 In Indian Nyse : seeking thee he comes, 
 Ariadne ! with thy love inflamed ! 
 They, blythe, from every side come revelling on, 
 Distraught with jocund madness, with a buret 
 Of Bacchic outcries, and with tossing heads! 
 
 Some 
 
Died 1576.] FESTIVE PIECES. 299" 
 
 painted for the same prince two other festive subjects : 
 one in which a nymph and two men are dancing, while 
 another nymph lies asleep ; and a third in which a 
 number of children and Cupids are sporting round a 
 statue of Venus : there are here upwards of sixty figures 
 in every variety of attitude, some fluttering in the air, 
 some climbing the fruit-trees, some shooting arrows, or 
 embracing each other. This picture is known as the 
 Sacrifice to the Goddess of Fertility : while it remained 
 in Italy it was a study for the first painters, for Poussin, 
 the Carracci, Albano, and Fiamingo the sculptor, so 
 famous for his models of children.* At Ferrara, Titian 
 also painted the welf-known picture • in the Louvre, 
 called Titian and his Mistress, but which I have no doubt 
 represents the Duke Alphonso and his second wife 
 Laura ; and here also he formed a friendship with the poet 
 Ariosto, whose portrait he painted, and who, in return, 
 consecrated to him two lines of the Orlando Furioso. 
 In 1519 he was invited to Eome by Leo X., for whom 
 
 Some shake their ivy-shrouded spears ; and some 
 From hand to hand, in wild and fitful feast, 
 Snatch the torn heifer's limbs : some gird themselves 
 With twisted serpents; others bear along, 
 In hollow arks, the mysteries of the god. 
 
 On timbrels others smite 
 
 With tapering hands, or from smooth orbs of brass 
 Clank forth a tinkling sound ; and many blow 
 On the hoarse horn ; and the barbaric pipe 
 Brays harsh upon the ear its dinning tune." 
 
 We have only to read this fancied description of a fancied picture 
 in presence of the real picture to feel how Titian has animated the 
 words into hues and forms, and rendered the whole scene, literally, 
 line for line. 
 
 * These two pictures are now at Madrid. A good copy of the 
 last used to hang in the dark at Hampton Court, and has been lately 
 removed to Windsor. 
 
300 TITIAN, [Born 1477. 
 
 Raphael, then in the zenith of his powers, was executing 
 some of his finest works. It is curious to speculate 
 what influence these two great and gifted men might 
 have exercised on each other had they met ; hut it was 
 not so decreed. Titian was strongly attached to his 
 home and his friends at Venice ; and to his birthplace, 
 the little town of Cadore, he paid an annual summer 
 visit. His long absence at Ferrara had wearied him of 
 courts and princes; and, instead of going to Eome to 
 swell the luxurious state of Leo X., he returned to 
 Venice and remained there stationary for the next few 
 years, enriching its palaces and churches with his mag- 
 nificent works. These were so numerous that it would 
 be in vain to attempt to give an account even of those 
 considered as the finest among them. 
 
 The next event of Titian's life was his journey to 
 Bologna in 1530. His wife had died in the early part 
 of this year, leaving him a little daughter, and he pro- 
 bably needed some change to revive his cheerfulness. 
 The Emperor Charles V. and Pope Clement VII. met at 
 Bologna, each surrounded by a brilliant retinue of the 
 most distinguished soldiers, statesmen, and scholars of 
 Germany and Italy. Through the influence of Aretino, 
 Titian was recommended to the Cardinal Ippolito de' 
 Medici, the Pope's nephew, through whose patronage 
 he was introduced to the two potentates, who sat to him ; 
 one of the portraits of Clement VII., painted at this 
 time, is now in the Bridgewater Gallery. Charles V. 
 was represented in complete armour on horseback, and 
 he was so satisfied with his portrait, that he became the 
 zealous friend and patron of the painter. The portrait 
 
Died 1576.] HIS LIFE IN VENICE. 301 
 
 of the Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, in the Hungarian 
 costume, now in the Pitti Palace, and that of Aretino in 
 the same collection, belong to this period ; both are 
 masterpieces. 
 
 After a sojourn of some months at Bologna, Titian 
 returned to Venice loaded with honours and rewards. 
 There was no potentate, prince, or poet, or reigning 
 beauty, who did not covet the honour of being im- 
 mortalized by his pencil. He had up to this time ma- 
 naged his worldly affairs with great economy, but now 
 he purchased for himself a house opposite to Murano, 
 and lived splendidly, combining with the most inde- 
 fatigable industry the liveliest enjoyment of existence ; 
 his favourite companions were the architect Sansovino 
 and the witty profligate Pietro Aretino. Titian has often 
 been reproached with his friendship for Aretino, and 
 nothing can be said in his excuse, except that the 
 proudest princes in Europe condescended to flatter and 
 caress this unprincipled literary ruffian, who was pleased 
 to designate himself as the " friend of Titian, and the 
 scourge of princes." * 
 
 Thus in the practice of his art, in the society of his 
 friends, and in the enjoyment of the pleasures of life, 
 did Titian pass several years. In the year 1537 he 
 painted for the Dominicans the Death of St. Peter 
 Martyr J when attacked by assassins at the entrance of 
 a wood ; the resignation of the prostrate victim and the 
 
 * Titian's house and garden were near that part of Venice which 
 is now called the Fondamente Nuove, with a vineyard stretching 
 down to the shore. The house, though now blocked up with build- 
 ings, is still standing. See, in ' Memoirs and Essays, by Mrs. Jame- 
 son,' the Essay on the House of Titian. 
 
 + Unfortunately destroyed by fire,, 1866. 
 
302 TITIAN. [Born 1477. 
 
 ferocity of the murderer, the attendant flying "in the 
 agonies of cowardice," with the trees waving their dis- 
 tracted boughs amid the violence of the tempest, have 
 rendered this picture famous as a piece of scenic poetry 
 as well as of dramatic expression. 
 
 In the middle of this century he was without a rival 
 in his art. Lionardo, Raphael, Correggio, Andrea del 
 Sarto, had all passed away. Titian himself, at the age 
 of sixty, was no longer young, but he still retained all 
 the vigour and the freshness of youth ; neither eye nor 
 hand, nor creative energy of mind, had failed him yet. 
 He was again invited to Ferrara, and painted there the 
 portrait of the old pope Paul III. He then visited 
 Urbino, where he painted for the duke the famous Venus 
 which hangs in the Tribune of the Florence Gallery, and 
 many other pictures. He again, by order of Charles V., 
 repaired to Bologna, and painted the emperor, standing, 
 and by his side a favourite Irish wolf-dog : this picture 
 was given by Philip IV. to Our Charles I., but after his 
 death was sold into Spain, and is now at Madrid. 
 
 Pope Paul III. invited him to Rome, whither he re- 
 paired in 1545. There he painted that wonderful picture 
 of the old pope with his two nephews (the Duke Ottavio 
 and Cardinal Farnese) which is now in the Museo at 
 Naples.* The head of the pope is a miracle of character 
 and expression : a keen-visaged, thin little man, with 
 meagre fingers like birds' claws, and an eager cunning 
 look, riveting the gazer like the eye of a snake — nature 
 
 * There are two alike in treatment. The finest is the one un 
 finished, which appears to be the first sketch from life. Another 
 of Paul III. is in the Belvedere at Vienna. 
 
Died 1576.] ANECDOTE OF CHARLES V. ' • 303 
 
 itself! — and the pope had either so little or so much 
 vanity as to be perfectly satisfied : he rewarded the 
 painter munificently ; he even offered to make his son 
 Pomponio Bishop of Ceneda, which Titian had the good 
 sense to refuse. While at Rome he painted several 
 pictures for the Farnese family, among them the Venus 
 and Adonis, of which a repetition is in our National 
 Gallery; a Danae which excited the admiration of 
 Michael Angelo ; and the portrait of Aretino which is 
 now in the Pitti Palace, a marvel of life and character. 
 At this time Titian was in his seventieth year. 
 
 He next, by command of Charles Y., repaired to 
 Augsburgh, where the emperor held his court : eighteen 
 years had elapsed since he first sat to Titian, and he 
 was now broken by the cares of government — far older at 
 fifty than the painter at seventy. It was at Augsburgh 
 that the incident occurred which has been so often 
 related : Titian dropped his pencil, and Charles, taking 
 it up and presenting it, replied to the artist's excuses 
 that " Titian was worthy of being served by Caesar." 
 This pretty anecdote is not without its parallel in 
 modern times. When Sir Thomas Lawrence was paint- 
 ing at Aix-la-Chapelle, as he stooped to place a picture 
 on his easel, the Emperor of Eussia anticipated him, 
 and taking it up adjusted it himself ; but we do not hear 
 that he made any speech on the occasion. When at 
 Augsburgh, Titian was ennobled and created a count of 
 the empire, with a pension of two hundred gold ducats, 
 and his son Pomponio was appointed canon of the 
 cathedral of Milan. After the abdication and death of 
 Charles V., Titian continued in great favour with his 
 
304 TITIAN. [Born 1477. 
 
 successor Philip II., for whom he painted several 
 pictures. It is not true, however, that Titian visited 
 Spain : the assertion that he did so rests on the sole 
 authority of Palomino, a Spanish writer on art, and, 
 though wholly unsupported by evidence, has been 
 copied from one book into another. Later researches 
 have proved that Titian returned from Augsburgh to 
 Venice ;* and an uninterrupted series of letters and 
 documents, with dates of time and place, remain to 
 show that, with the exception of this visit to Augsburgh 
 and another to Vienna, he resided constantly in Italy, 
 and principally at Venice, from 1550 to his death. 
 Notwithstanding the compliments and patronage and 
 nominal rewards he received from the Spanish court, 
 Titian was worse off under Philip II. than he had been 
 under Charles V. : his pension was constantly in arrears ; 
 the payments for his pictures evaded by the officials ; 
 and we find the great painter constantly presenting 
 petitions and complaints in moving terms, which 
 always obtained gracious but illusive answers. Philip 
 II., who commanded the riches of the Indies, was for 
 many years a debtor to Titian for at least two thousand 
 gold crowns ; and his accounts were not settled at the 
 time of his death. For our Queen Mary of England, 
 who wished to patronize a man favoured by her hus- 
 band, Titian painted several pictures, some of which 
 were in the possession of Charles I. ; others had been 
 
 * It appears that the wonderful picture of Christ and the Pharisee 
 (II Cristo della Moneta) , now at Dresden, was painted during this 
 visit to Augsburgh, in 1548. The picture of the same subject in 
 our National Gallery is a coarse and immeasurably inferior work, 
 and, as I suppose, of a later period. 
 
Died 1576.] WORKS OF HIS OLD AGE. 305 
 
 carried to Spain after the death of Mary, and are now 
 in the Koyal Gallery at Madrid. 
 
 Besides the pictures painted by command for royal 
 and noble patrons, Titian, who was unceasingly occu- 
 pied, had always a great number of pictures in his 
 house which he presented to his friends, or to the officers 
 and attendants of the court, as a means of procuring 
 their favour. There is extant a letter of Aretino, in 
 which he describes the scene which took place when 
 the emperor summoned his favourite painter to attend 
 the court at Augsburgh in 1550. "It was," he says, 
 "the most nattering testimony to his excellence to 
 behold, as soon as it was known that the divine painter 
 was sent for, the crowds of people running to obtain, 
 if possible, the productions of his art ; and how they 
 endeavoured to purchase the pictures, great and small, 
 and everything that was in the house, at any price ; for 
 everybody seems assured that his august majesty will so 
 treat his Apelles that he will no longer condescend to 
 exercise his pencil except to oblige him." 
 
 The " Venus and Adonis" now in our National Gal- 
 lery was painted by Titian for Philip II. in 1554, when 
 he was in his seventy-eighth year, and the Cenacolo 
 now at Madrid in 1565, when he was in his eighty-ninth 
 year; but time passed on, and seemed to have no 
 power to quench the ardour of this wonderful old man. 
 He was eighty-one when he painted the Martyrdom of 
 St. Lawrence, one of his largest and grandest composi- 
 tions. The Magdalene, the half-length figure with 
 uplifted streaming eyes, which he sent to Philip II., 
 was executed even later : and it was not till he was 
 
 x 
 
306 TITIAN. y$ORS 1477> 
 
 approaching his ninetieth year that he showed in his 
 works symptoms of enfeebled powers ; and then it 
 seemed as if sorrow rather than time had reached him 
 and conquered him at last. He had lost his daughter 
 Lavinia, who had been his model for many beautiful 
 pictures. The death of many friends, the companions of 
 his convivial hours, left him " alone in his glory ;" and 
 he found in his beloved art the only refuge from grief. 
 His son Pomponio was still the same worthless profli- 
 gate in age that he had been in youth : his son Orazio 
 attended upon him with truly filial duty and affection, 
 and under his father's tuition had become an accom- 
 plished artist ; but as they always worked together, and 
 on the same canvas, his works are not to be distin- 
 guished from his father's. Titian was likewise sur- 
 rounded by painters who, without being precisely his 
 scholars, had assembled from every part of Europe to 
 profit by his instructions.* The early morning and the 
 evening hour found him at his easel ; or lingering in 
 his little garden (where he had feasted with Aretino 
 and Sansovino, and Bembo and Ariosto, and " the most 
 gracious Virginia," and "the most beautiful Violante"), 
 and gazing on the setting sun, with a thought perhaps 
 of his own long and bright career fast hastening to its 
 close ; — not that such anticipations clouded his cheerful 
 spirit — buoyant to the last ! In 1574, when he was in 
 his ninety-seventh year, Henry III. of France landed 
 at Venice on his way from Poland, and was magni- 
 
 * It seems, however, generally admitted that Titian, either from 
 impatience or jealousy, or both, was a very bad instructor in his 
 art. 
 
Died 1576.J HIS DEATH. 307 
 
 ficently entertained by the Republic. On this occasion 
 the king, attended by a numerous suite of princes and 
 nobles, visited Titian at his own house. Titian enter- 
 tained them with splendid hospitality ; and when the 
 king asked the price of some pictures which pleased 
 him, he presented them as a gift to his majesty, and 
 every one praised his easy and noble manners and his 
 generous bearing. 
 
 Two years more passed away, and the hand did not 
 yet tremble, nor did the eye wax dim. When the plague 
 broke out in Venice, in 1576, the nature of the distemper 
 was at first mistaken, and the most common precautions 
 neglected ; the contagion spread, and Titian and his son 
 were among those who perished : every one had fled, 
 and before life was extinct some ruffians entered his 
 chamber and carried off, before his eyes, his money, 
 jewels, and some of his pictures. His death took place 
 on the 9th of September, 1576. A law had been made 
 during the plague that none should be buried in the 
 churches, but that all the dead bodies should be carried 
 beyond the precincts of the city ; an exception, however, 
 even in that hour of terror and anguish, was made in 
 favour of Titian : his remains were borne with honour 
 to the tomb and deposited in the church of Santa Maria 
 de' Frari, for which he had painted his famous Assump- 
 tion. There he lies beneath a plain black marble slab, 
 on which is simply inscribed 
 
 " TIZIANO VECELL10." 
 
 In the year 1794 the citizens of Venice resolved to 
 erect a noble and befitting monument to his memory. 
 
308 TITIAN. [Born 1477. 
 
 Canova made the design; — but the troubles which 
 intervened, and the extinction of the Republic, pre- 
 vented the execution of this project. Canova' s mag- 
 nificent model was appropriated to another purpose, 
 and now forms the cenotaph of the Archduchess Chris- 
 tina, in the church of the Augustins at Vienna. 
 
 This was the life and death of the famous Titian. 
 He was pre-eminently the painter of nature ; but to 
 him nature was clothed in a perpetual garb of beauty, 
 or rather, to him nature and beauty were one. In 
 historical compositions and sacred subjects he has been 
 rivalled and surpassed, but as a portrait-painter never ; 
 and his portraits of celebrated persons have at once the 
 truth and the dignity of history. It would be in vain 
 to attempt to give any account of his works ; numerous 
 as they are, not all that are attributed to him in various 
 galleries are his : many are by Palma, Bonifazio, and 
 others his contemporaries, who imitated his manner 
 with more or less success. As almost every gallery in 
 Europe, public and private, contains pictures attributed 
 to him, I shall not attempt to enumerate even the 
 acknowledged chefs-d'oeuvre. It will be interesting, 
 however, to give some account of those of his works 
 contained in our national and royal galleries. In our 
 National Gallery there are five, of which the Bacchus 
 and Ariadne, the Venus and Adonis, and the Ganymede, 
 are fair examples of his power in the poetical depart- 
 ment of his art. The lovely little picture of Christ 
 appearing to Mary Magdalene, which belonged to Mr. 
 Rogers, and used to hang in the poet's drawing-room, he 
 
Died 1576.] HIS PICTURES IN ENGLAND. 309 
 
 bequeathed to the National Gallery in 1855 : but we 
 still want one of his inestimable portraits. In the 
 gallery at Hampton Court there are seven or eight 
 pictures attributed to him, most of them in a miserably 
 ruined condition. The finest of these is a portrait of a 
 man in black, with a white shirt seen above his vest up 
 to his throat ; in his right hand a red book, his fore- 
 finger between the leaves : it is called in the old cata- 
 logues Alessandro de' Medici, and has been engraved 
 under the name of Boccaccio ;* but it has no preten- 
 sions to either name : it is a wonderful piece of life. 
 There is also a lovely figure of a standing Lucretia, 
 about half-life size, with very little drapery — not at all 
 characteristic of the modest Lucretia who arranged her 
 robes that she might fall with decorum : she holds with 
 her left hand a red veil over her face, and in the right a 
 dagger with which she is about to stab herself. This 
 picture belonged to Charles I., and came to England 
 with the Mantua Gallery in 1629 ; it was sold in 1650, 
 after the king's death, for 200?. (a large price for the 
 time), and afterwards restored. In the collection at 
 Windsor there are the portraits of Titian and Andrea 
 Franceschini, half-length, in the same picture. Frances- 
 chini was chancellor of the Republic, and distinguished 
 for his literary attainments ; he is seen in front in a robe 
 of crimson (the habit of a cavaliero of St. Mark), and 
 holds a paper in his hand. The acute and refined 
 
 * The engraving, which is most admirable, was executed by Cor- 
 nelius Vischer, when the picture was in Holland, in the possession 
 of a great collector of that time, named Van Keynst, from whom 
 the States of Holland purchased it with several others, and pre- 
 sented them to Charles I. 
 
310 TITIAN. [Born 1477. 
 
 features have that expression of mental power which 
 Titian, without any apparent effort, could throw into a 
 head : the fine old face and flowing beard of Titian 
 appear behind. This picture belonged to Charles I., 
 and was sold after his death for 1121. ; it has been called 
 in various catalogues Titian and Aretino, which is an 
 obvious mistake, and yet in all the catalogues remains 
 uncorrected. 
 
 In the Louvre there are twenty-two pictures by Titian ; 
 in the Vienna Gallery fifty-two. The Madrid Gallery 
 contains most of the fine pictures painted for Charles V. 
 and Philip II. 
 
 Before I quit the subject of Titian, I may remark that 
 a collection of his engraved portraits would form a com- 
 plete historical gallery illustrative of the times in which 
 he lived. Not only was his art at the service of princes 
 and their favourite beauties, but it was ever ready to 
 immortalize the features of those who were the objects 
 of his own affection and admiration. Unfortunately it 
 was not his custom to inscribe on the canvas the names 
 of those who sat to him : many of the most glorious 
 heads he ever painted remain to this hour unknown. 
 Amid all their reality (and nothing in painting ever so 
 conveyed the idea of a presence) they have a particular 
 dignity which strikes us with respect ; we would fain 
 interrogate them, while they look at us lifelike, grandly, 
 calmly, like beings of another world; they seem to 
 recognise us, but we can never recognise them : only 
 we feel the certainty that just as they now look, so they 
 lived and looked in long past times. Such a portrait is 
 
Died 1576.] HIS PORTRAITS. 311 
 
 that in the Hampton Court Gallery ; that grave dark 
 man, — in figure and attitude so tranquil, so contem- 
 plative, but in his eyes and on his lips a revelation of 
 feeling and eloquence. And such a picture is that of 
 the lady in the Sciarra Palace at Rome, called expressly 
 " La Bella di Tiziano." It has no other name, but no 
 one ever looked at it without the wish to carry it away ; 
 and no anonymous portrait has ever been so multiplied 
 by copies. But leaving these, I will subjoin here a short 
 list of those great and celebrated personages who are 
 known to have sat to Titian, and whose portraits remain 
 to us, a precious legacy, and forming the truest com- 
 mentary on their lives, deeds, and works. 
 
 Charles V. Titian painted this emperor several times : 
 the first time in 1530, in a full suit of armour, when he 
 was a young man full of health and conscious of power ; 
 the last time in 1550, when he was a broken-down and 
 feeble old man, seated in an arm-chair in a velvet dress- 
 ing gown. He has always a grave, even melancholy, 
 expression ; very short hair and beard ; a large square 
 brow ; and the full lips and projecting under-jaw which 
 became a deformity in his descendants. 
 
 His wife, the Empress Isabella, holding flowers in her 
 hand. 
 
 Philip II. : like his father, but uglier, more melan- 
 choly, less intellectual. The Duke of Devonshire has a 
 fine full-length, in rich armour. There is a very good one 
 at Florence, in the Pitti Palace ; and another at Madrid. 
 In the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge is the picture 
 called " Philip II. and the Princess Eboli," of which 
 there are several repetitions. 
 
312 . TITIAN. [Bokn 1477. 
 
 Francis I. : half-length, in profile ; now in the Louvre. 
 Titian did not paint this king from nature, but from a 
 medal which was sent to him to copy. 
 
 The Emperor Ferdinand I. 
 
 The Emperor Eudolph II. 
 
 The Sultan Solyman II. His wife Eoxana. (These 
 are engraved after Titian, but from what originals we 
 know not : they cannot be from nature.) 
 
 The Popes Julius II. (doubtful), Clement VII., Paul 
 III., and Paul IV. 
 
 All the Doges of Venice of his time. 
 
 Francesco, Duke of Urbino, and his Duchess Eleonora : 
 two wonderful portraits, now in the Florence Gallery. 
 
 The Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici (in the Louvre, and 
 in the Pitti Palace). 
 
 The Constable de Bourbon. 
 
 The famous and cruel Duke of Alva. 
 
 Andrea Doria, Doge of Genoa. 
 
 Ferdinand Leyva, who commanded at the battle of 
 Pavia. 
 
 Alphonso d'Avalos (in the Louvre). 
 
 Isabella d' Este, Marchioness of Mantua. 
 
 Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara; his first wife, Lucrezia 
 Borgia; and his second wife, Laura Eustochia.* (In 
 the Dresden Gallery there is a picture by Titian, in 
 which Alphonso is presenting his wife Lucrezia to the 
 Madonna.) 
 
 Cesar Borgia. Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus. 
 
 The poet Ariosto, once in the Manfrini Palace at 
 Venice ; now in England. 
 
 Bernardo Tasso. 
 
 * Vide ' Sacred and Legendary Art/ 3rd edition, p. 573. 
 
Died 1576.] HIS PORTRAITS. 313 
 
 Cardinal JBembo. Cardinal Sforza. Cardinal Famese. 
 
 Count Castiglione. 
 
 Pietro Aretino : several times. (The finest is at Flo- 
 rence in the Pitti Palace ; another is at Munich. The 
 engravings by Bonasone of Aretino and Cardinal Bembo 
 rank among the most exquisite works of art. There are 
 impressions of both in the British Museum.) 
 
 Sansovino, the famous Yenetian architect. 
 
 The Cornaro family (in the possession of the Duke 
 of Northumberland) 
 
 Fracastaro, a famous Latin poet. 
 
 Irene da Spilemborgo, a young girl who had distin- 
 guished herself as a musician, a poetess, and to whom 
 Titian himself had given lessons in painting. She died 
 at the age of eighteen. 
 
 Andrea Yesalio, who has been called the father of 
 anatomical science — the particular friend of Titian, and 
 his instructor in anatomy. _ He was accused falsely of 
 having put a man to death for anatomical purposes, and 
 condemned. Philip II., unwilling to sacrifice so accom- 
 plished a man to mere popular prejudice, commuted his 
 punishment to a forced pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 
 He obeyed the sentence ; but on his return he was 
 wrecked on the island of Zante, and died there of hunger 
 in 1564. (This magnificent portrait, which Titian seems 
 to have painted with enthusiasm, is in the Pitti Palace 
 at Florence.) 
 
 Titian painted several portraits of himself, but none 
 which represent him young. In the fine portrait at 
 Florence he is about fifty, and in the other known repre- 
 
314 TITIAN. [Bors 1477. 
 
 sentations he is an old man, with an aquiline nose and 
 long flowing beard. Of his daughter Lavinia there are 
 many portraits. She was her father's favourite model, 
 being very beautiful in face and form. In a famous 
 picture, now at Berlin, she is represented lifting with 
 both hands a dish filled with fruits. There are four 
 repetitions of this subject : in one the fruits are changed 
 into a casket of jewels (in the collection of Lord de 
 Grey) ; in another she becomes the daughter of Herodias, 
 and the dish bears the head of John the Baptist. All 
 are striking, graceful, full of animation. 
 
 The only exalted personage of his time and country 
 whom Titian did not paint was Cosmo I., Grand-Duke 
 of Florence. In passing through Florence, in 1548, 
 Titian requested the honour of painting the Grand- 
 Duke : the offer was declined. It is worthy of remark 
 that Titian had painted, -many years before, the father of 
 Cosmo, Giovanni de' Medici, the famous captain of the 
 Bande Neri ; but this appears to have been from a mask 
 in plaster sent to him after the death of Giovanni. 
 
( 315 ) 
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTEES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Titian was the last great name of the earlier schools of 
 Italy — the last really great painter whom she produced. 
 After him came many who were good artists, excellent 
 artificers; but, compared with the heaven-endowed cre- 
 ators in art — the poet-painters who had gone before them 
 — they were mere mechanics, the best of them. No more 
 Raphaels, no more Titians, no more Michael Angelos, 
 before whom princes stood uncovered ! but very good 
 painters, bearing the same relation to their wondrous 
 predecessors that the poets, wits, and. playwrights of 
 Queen Anne's time bore to Shakspere. There was, 
 however, an intervening period between the death of 
 Titian and the foundation of the Carracci school, a sort 
 of interregnum, during which the art of painting sank 
 to the lowest depths of laboured inanity and inflated 
 mannerism. In the middle of the sixteenth century 
 Italy swarmed with painters : these go under the gene- 
 ral name of the mannerists, because they all imitated the 
 manner of some one of the great masters who had gone 
 before them. There were imitators of Michael Angelo, 
 of Raphael, of Correggio : — Vasari and Bronzino, at 
 
316 MORONE. 
 
 Florence ; the two brothers Taddeo and Federigo Zuc- 
 caro, and the Cavalier d'Arpino, at Eome ; Federigo 
 Barroccio, of Urbino ; Luca Cambiasi, of Genoa ; and 
 hundreds of others, who covered with frescoes the walls 
 of villas, palaces, churches, and produced some fine and 
 valuable pictures, and many pleasing and graceful ones, 
 and many more that were mere vapid or exaggerated 
 repetitions of worn-out subjects. And patrons were not 
 wanting, nor industry, nor science ; nothing but ori- 
 ginal and elevated feeling — " the inspiration and the 
 poet's dream." 
 
 But in the Venetian school still survived this inspira- 
 tion, this vital and creative power, when it seemed 
 extinct everywhere besides. From 1540 to 1590 the 
 Venetians were the only painters worthy the name in 
 Italy. This arose from the elementary principle early 
 infused into the Venetian artists — the principle of look- 
 ing to Nature, and imitating her, instead of imitating 
 others and one another. Thus, as every man who looks 
 to Nature looks at her through his own eyes, a certain 
 degree of individuality was retained even in the decline 
 of the art. There were some who tried to look at 
 Nature in the same point of view as Titian, and these 
 are generally included under the denomination of the 
 " School of Titian," though in fact he had no school 
 properly so called. 
 
 Morone was a portrait-painter who in some of his 
 heads equalled Titian. We have in England only one 
 known picture by him, but it is a masterpiece —the por- 
 trait of a Jesuit, in the gallery of the Duke of Suther- 
 
50.— G. Battjsta Morone. 
 From an old Engraving. 
 
 Pa#e 316. 
 
Libraru 
 
Lib 
 
 °* Calif r' 
 
 fyry . 
 
51. — BONIFAZIO. 
 
 Carlo Ridolfi. 
 
 Page 317. 
 
BONIFAZIO. 317 
 
 land, which for a long time went by the name of Titian's 
 Schoolmaster ; it represents a grave, acute-looking man, 
 holding a book in his hand, which he has just closed ; 
 his finger is between the leaves, and, leaning from his 
 chair, he seems about to address you. 
 
 " The very life is warm upon that lip, 
 The fixture of the eye has motion in't, 
 And we are mock'd by art ! " 
 
 Boxifazio, who had studied under Palma and Titian, 
 painted many pictures which are frequently attributed 
 to both these masters. For example, the "Finding of 
 Moses," in the Brera at Milan, was long attributed to 
 Giorgione ;■* the beautiful Holy Family in the Louvre 
 (82) was generally supposed to be by Palma ; and many 
 of his pictures pass under the name of Titian. Very 
 little is known of this painter. Eidolfi mentions that in 
 his time six long pictures by Bonifazio were carried to 
 England, representing the Triumph of Love J of Chastity, 
 of Time, of Fame, of Death, and, last, the Triumph of 
 Religion ; forming a series suggested by the well-known 
 
 . * It may be called rather a romantic and poetical version than an 
 historical representation of the scene. It would shock Sir Gardner 
 Wilkinson. In the centre sits the princess .under a tree ; she looks 
 with surprise and tenderness on the child, which is brought to her 
 by one of her attendants: the squire or seneschal of the princess, 
 with knights and ladies, stand around; on one side two lovers are 
 seated on the grass; on the other are musicians and singers, pages 
 with dogs. All the figures are in the Venetian costume ; the co- 
 louring is splendid, and the grace and harmony of the whole com- 
 position is even the more enchanting from the naivete of the concep- 
 tion. This picture, like many others of the same age and style, 
 reminds us of those poems and tales of the middle ages in which 
 David and Jonathan figure as "preux chevaliers" and Sir Alexander 
 of Macedon and Sir Paris of Troy fight tournaments in honour of 
 ladies' eyes and the " blessed Virgin." They must be tried by their 
 own aim and standard not by the severity of antiquarian criticism. 
 
318 SCHIAVONE. 
 
 ' Trionfi' of Petrarcli, and often represented by the Italian 
 painters, — but I can find no account of these pictures. 
 
 A much finer painter was Alessandro Bonvicino, 
 called II Morftto, who also studied under Titian, but, 
 by uniting with Venetian colour and sentiment some- 
 thing of the dignity of the Eoman school and a depth 
 of religious feeling which seems to have belonged to 
 his individual character, he surpassed in some of his 
 pictures every painter of his time except Titian. Very 
 little is known of his life, except that he chiefly worked 
 in his native city Brescia and its neighbourhood. There 
 is a rich purple glow over his pictures, which distin- 
 guishes them from all others I have seen. The Santa 
 Giustina, at Vienna, long attributed to Pordenone, and 
 a magnificent altarpiece in the possession of Lord 
 Northwick, are the finest I can remember, besides those 
 in the churches at Brescia. 
 
 Andrea Schiavone, whose elegant pictures are often 
 met with in collections, was a poor boy who began the 
 world as an assistant mason and house-painter, and who 
 became an artist from the love of art; but by some 
 fatality, or some quality of mind which we are wont 
 to call a fatality, he remained always poor. He painted 
 numerous pictures, which others obtained and sold 
 again for high prices, enriching themselves at the ex- 
 pense of his toil of hand and head. At length he died, 
 and in such wretched circumstances, that he was buried 
 by the charity of a few friends. In general the Vene- 
 tian painters were joyous beings ; Schiavone was a rare 
 and melancholy exception. Very different was the temper 
 
52. — Alessandbo Bonvicino — II Mobetto. 
 
 Engraved in Carlo Ridoljis ' Maraviglie dell Arte.' 
 
53. — Andrea Schiavone. 
 
 Engraved in Carlo Ridolfi's ' Maraviglie delV Arte. 
 
 Page 318. 
 
r 
 
54. — Paris Bordone. 
 
 Engraved by Picinns. in Carlo Ridoljis ' Maraviglie delV Arte. 
 
 Page 319. 
 
Library, 
 
55.— Jacopo Palma, called Palm a Vecchio. 
 
 Engraved in Carlo RidoljVs ' Maraviglie delV Arte' 
 
PALM A VECCHIO. 319 
 
 and the fate of Paris Bordone of Treviso, a man without 
 much genius, weak in drawing, capricious or common- 
 place in invention, without fire or expression, but a 
 divine colourist, and stamping on his pictures his own 
 buoyant, life-enjoying nature ; in this he was like Titian, 
 but utterly inferior in all other respects. Some of his 
 portraits are very beautiful, particularly those of his 
 women, which have been often mistaken for Titian's. 
 
 The elder Palma is also considered as a scholar of 
 Titian, though deriving as little from his personal in- 
 struction as did Tintoretto, Bordone, and others of the 
 school. The date of his birth has been rendered uncer- 
 tain by the mistakes of various authors, who confounded 
 the elder and~ the younger Palma ; but it appears that 
 he was bom between 1473 and 1480, — that he was, in 
 fact, about the same age as Titian. In some pictures he 
 has shown the dignity of Titian, in others a touch of the 
 melancholy sentiment of Giorgione. Xot half the pic- 
 tures attributed to Palma Vecchio are by him. ^'e 
 have not one in our National Gallery; and those at 
 Hampton Court which are attributed to him are not 
 genuine — mere third-rate pictures of the Venetian school. 
 On the whole he was a most charming painter, and his 
 religious subjects in that pastoral style which belonged to 
 the Venetian school are beyond expression lovely — one 
 in the Louvre (277) and one at Dresden are examples. 
 This painter had three daughters of remarkable beauty. 
 Violante, the eldest and most beautiful, is said to have 
 been loved by Titian. She was frequently painted by 
 her father, and it is a tradition that she was the 
 model of his St. Barbara, in the S. Maria-Formosa at 
 
320 TINTORETTO. 
 
 V T enice ; his masterpiece — and one of the finest pictures 
 in the world. We have the three daughters of Palma, 
 painted by himself, in the Vienna gallery ; one, a most 
 lovely creature, with long light-brown hair, and a violet 
 in her bosom, is without doubt Titian's Violante. In 
 the Dresden gallery are the same three beautiful girls 
 in one picture, the head in the centre being the Violante. 
 
 It remains to give some account of two remarkable 
 Venetian painters, who were contemporaries of Titian, 
 but could hardly be called his rivals, his equals, or his 
 imitators. They were both inferior to him, but original 
 men in their different styles. 
 
 The first was Tintoretto, bom in 1512 ; his real 
 name was Jacopo Robusti. His father was a dyer (in 
 Italian, Tintore) ; hence he received in childhood the 
 diminutive nickname 11 Tintoretto, by which he is best 
 known to us. He began, like many other painters 
 whose genius we have recorded, by drawing all kinds of 
 objects and figures on the walls of his father's house. The 
 dyer, being a man of sense, did not attempt to oppose his 
 son's predilection for art, but procured for him the best 
 instruction his means would allow, and even sent him 
 to study under Titian. This did not avail him much, for 
 that most excellent painter was by no means a good 
 instructor. Tintoretto, however, did not lose courage ; 
 he pursued his studies, and after a few years set up an 
 academy of his own, and on the wall of his painting-room 
 he placed the following inscription, as being expressive 
 of the principles he intended to follow : " 11 disegno di 
 Michel Agnolo: it colorito di Tiziano" (the drawing of 
 Michael Angelo, and the colouring of Titian). Tinto- 
 retto was a man of extraordinary talent, unequalled for 
 
56.— Jacopo Eobusti, called II Tintoretto. 
 
 By himself, in the Uffizi Gdllery. 
 
 Pag* 320. 
 
TINTORETTO. 321 
 
 the quickness of his invention and the facility and 
 rapidity of his execution; with an original, often eccentric, 
 way of treating his subjects which set religious conven- 
 tionalities at nought. I remember, as instances, an An- 
 nunciation, in which the Angel Gabriel, instead of 
 approaching in the usual manner, comes rushing down 
 from Heaven into the presence of the Virgin Mary with 
 a whole host of attendant spirits ; and no one who has 
 seen his Christ before Pilate, in the chapel of St. Eoch 
 at Venice, will ever forget that pale pathetic figure. It 
 frequently happened that he would not give himself the 
 trouble to make any design or sketch for his picture, 
 but composed as he went along, throwing his figures on 
 the canvas, and painting them in at once, with wonder- 
 ful power and truth, considering the little time and 
 pains they cost him. But this want of study was fatal to 
 his real greatness. He is the most unequal of painters. 
 In his compositions we find often the grossest faults in 
 close proximity with the highest beauty. Now he would 
 paint a picture almost equal to Titian ; then produce one 
 so coarse and careless, that it seemed to justify Titian's 
 expression of a " dauber." He abused his mechanical 
 power by the utmost recklessness of pencil ; but then, 
 again, his wonderful talent redeemed him, and he would 
 enchant his fellow-citizens by the grandeur, the dra- 
 matic vivacity, the gorgeous colours, and the luxuriant 
 invention displayed in some of his vast compositions. 
 The larger the space he had to fill, the more he seemed 
 at home ; his small pictures are seldom good. His por- 
 traits in general are magnificent; less refined and dig- 
 nified than those of Titian, less intellectual, but quite as 
 full of life. 
 
322 TINTORETTO. 
 
 Tintoretto painted an amazing number of pictures, 
 and of an amazing size — one of them, the great Cruci- 
 fixion, at Venice, is seventy-four feet in length and 
 thirty feet in height : here the Passion of our Saviour is 
 represented like a vast theatrical scene, crowded with 
 groups of figures on foot and' on horseback, exhibiting the 
 greatest variety of movement and expression. Another 
 very large picture, called the Miracle of St. Mark, is in 
 the Academy of Venice : a certain slave having become 
 a Christian, and having persevered in paying his devo- 
 tions at the shrine of St. Mark, is condemned to the 
 torture by his heathen lord ; but just as he is bound and 
 prostrate St. Mark descends from above to aid his votary ; 
 the executioner is seen raising the broken instruments 
 of torture, and a crowd of people look on in various 
 attitudes of wonder, pity, interest. The whole picture 
 glows with colour and movement.* 
 
 In our National Gallery we have only one small un- 
 important work by Tintoretto, but there are ten or 
 eleven in the Eoyal Galleries ; he was a favourite painter 
 of Charles I., who purchased many of his works from 
 Venice. Two pictures which belonged to this ' king 
 are now at Hampton Court, — Esther fainting before 
 Ahasuerus, and the Nine Muses. They have suffered 
 terribly from audacious restorers ; but in this last pic- 
 ture the figure of the Muse on the right, turning her 
 back, is in a grand style, not unworthy, in its large, 
 bold, yet graceful drawing, of the hand of Michael 
 Angelo himself. In the same collection are three very 
 fine portraits. 
 
 * The beautiful study for this picture once belonged to the poet 
 Rogers, and is now in the possession of Miss Burdett Coutts. 
 
57.— Paolo Caliari, called Paul Vekonesk 
 
 Carlo Bidolfi. 
 
 Page 323. 
 
PAUL VERONESE. 323 
 
 Tintoretto died in 1588. His daughter, Marietta 
 Kobusti, whose talent for painting was sedulously culti- 
 vated by her father, has left some excellent portraits ; 
 and in her own time obtained such celebrity that the 
 kings of France and Spain invited her to their courts 
 with the most tempting offers of patronage, but she 
 would never leave her father and her native Venice. 
 Eidolfi speaks also of her rare skill in music. She died 
 at the age of thirty. 
 
 Paul Cagliari of Verona, better known as Paul 
 Veronese, was born in that city in 1530, the son of a 
 sculptor, who taught him early to draw and to model ; 
 but the genius of the pupil was so diametrically opposed 
 to this style of art, that he soon quitted the studio of 
 his father for that of his uncle Antonio Badile, a very 
 good painter, from whom he learned that florid grace in 
 composition which he afterwards carried out in a man- 
 ner so consummate and so characteristic. At that time 
 Verona, like all the other cities of Italy, could boast of 
 a crowd of painters ; and Paul Cagliari, finding that he 
 could not stand against so many competitors, repaired 
 to Venice, where he remained for some time, studying 
 the works of Titian and Tintoret, but without attract- 
 ing much attention himself till he had painted on 
 the roof of the church of St. Sebastian the history of 
 Esther. This was a subject well calculated to call 
 forth his particular talent in depicting the gay, the 
 sumptuous accessories of courtly pomp — banquet scenes, 
 processions, &c. ; and from this time he was continually 
 employed by the splendour-loving citizens of Venice, 
 who delighted in his luxuriant magnificence, and over- 
 
324 PAUL VERONESE. 
 
 looked, or perhaps did not perceive, his thousand sins 
 against fact, probability, costume, time, and place. We 
 are obliged to do the same thing in these days, if we 
 would duly appreciate the works of this astonishing 
 painter. We must shut our eyes to the violation of all 
 proprieties of chronology and costume, and see only the 
 abounding life, the wondrous variety of dignified and 
 expressive figures crowded into his scenes (we may a 
 little marvel how they got there), and the prodigality 
 of light and colours, all harmonised by a mellowness of 
 tone which renders them most attractive to the eye. To 
 give an idea of Paul Veronese's manner of treating a 
 subject, we will take one of his finest and most cha- 
 racteristic pictures, the Marriage of Cana, which was 
 painted for the refectory of the convent of San Giorgio 
 at Venice, and is now in the Louvre. It is not less 
 than thirty feet long and twenty feet high, and contains 
 about one hundred and thirty figures, life size. The 
 Marriage Feast of the Galilean citizen is represented 
 with a pomp worthy of " Ormuz or of Ind :" a sump- 
 tuous hall of the richest architecture; lofty columns, 
 long lines of marble balustrades rising against the sky ; 
 a crowd of guests splendidly attired, some wearing 
 orders of knighthood, are seated at tables covered with 
 gorgeous vases of gold and silver, attended by slaves, 
 jesters, pages, and musicians. In the midst of all this 
 dazzling pomp, this display of festive enjoyment, these 
 moving figures, these lavish colours in glowing approxi- 
 mation, we begin after a while to distinguish the prin- 
 cipal personages, our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, the 
 Twelve Apostles, mingled with Venetian senators and 
 ladies clothed in the rich costume of the sixteenth cen- 
 
PAUL VERONESE. 325 
 
 tury — monks, friars, poets, artists, all portraits of per- 
 sonages existing in his own time ; while in a group of 
 musicians he has introduced himself and Tintoretto 
 playing the violoncello, while Titian plays the bass. 
 The bride in this picture is said to be the portrait of 
 Eleanor of Austria, the sister of Charles V., and second 
 wife of Francis I., of whom there is a most beautiful 
 portrait at Hampton Court. There is a series of these 
 Scriptural banquet-scenes, painted by Paul Veronese, 
 all in the same extraordinary style, but varied with the 
 utmost richness of fancy, invention, and colouring: 
 Christ entertained by Levi, now in the Academy of 
 Venice ; the Supper in the house of Simon the Pha- 
 risee, with Mary Magdalene at the feet of our Saviour, 
 now in the Turin Gallery, of which the first sketch, a 
 magnificent piece of colour, was in the possession of 
 Mr. Eogers ;* and the Supper at Emmaus, in which he 
 has introduced his wife and others of his family as spec- 
 tators. 
 
 The Companions of St. Sebastian, Marcus and Marcel - 
 linus, preparing for their Martyrdom, which is now in 
 the church of San Sebastiano at Venice, is, for the 
 expression of life, passion, and dramatic power, one of 
 the grandest pictures in the world : it is esteemed the 
 masterpiece of the painter. 
 
 Paul Veronese died in 1588. He was a man of 
 amiable manners, of a liberal, generous spirit, and 
 extremely pious. When he painted for churches and 
 convents, he frequently accepted very small prices, 
 sometimes merely the value of his canvas and colours : 
 
 * It is now in the possession of Miss Burdett Coutte. 
 
326 PAUL VERONESE. 
 
 for that stupendous picture in the Louvre, the Marriage 
 of Cana, he received not more than 401. of our money. 
 
 He had sons and relations who were educated in his 
 atelier and assisted in painting his great pictures, and 
 who after his death continued to carry on a sort of ma- 
 nufactory of pictures in the same magnificent ornamental 
 style ; but they were far inferior painters, and had not, 
 like him, the power of redeeming gross faults of judg- 
 ment and taste by a vivid imagination and strong feeling 
 of character. 
 
 Almost all galleries and collections contain specimens 
 of the works of this splendid and popular painter ; but 
 the finest are in the churches at Venice, in the Louvre, 
 and in the Dresden gallery, where there are fifteen of 
 his pictures. 
 
 In our National Gallery we may now boast of possess- 
 ing one of his grandest and most celebrated works, " The 
 Family of Darius at the feet of Alexander," once the 
 glory of the Pisani Palace at Venice, and which was in 
 the possession of the family from the hour it was painted 
 till it passed into our possession. It is easy to criticise 
 the anachronisms in this picture ; but Paul Veronese did 
 not think about anachronisms, and its excellence is such 
 that, in the words of a great critic, " in its presence we 
 forget for a time all other. productions in painting." We 
 have also a fine picture of the Consecration of St. Nicho- 
 las as Bishop of Myra ;• and a Jarge altarpiece of the 
 Worship of the Magi. The little sketch of Europa is a 
 study for the splendid picture now at Verona. 
 
 Before we close the list of the elder painters of Italy 
 * Vide ' Sacred and Legendary Art,' 3rd edition, p. 450. 
 
58. — Bassano— Jacopo da Ponte. 
 
 Engraved in Carlo Ridolfi's ' Maraviglie delV Arte. 
 
JACOPO BASSANO. 327 
 
 we must mention as flourishing at this time the Da 
 Ponte family of Bassano. Giacomo or Jacopo da Ponte, 
 called Old Bassano, was the head of it. His father had 
 been a painter before him, and he, with his four sons, 
 Leandro, Francesco, Gian Battista, and Girolamo, set 
 up in their native town of Bassano a kind of manufac- 
 tory of pictures which were sold in the fairs and mar- 
 kets of the neighbouring cities, and became popular all 
 over the north of Italy. The Bassani were among the 
 earliest painters of the genre style ; they treated sacred 
 and solemn subjects in a homely familiar manner which 
 was pleasing and intelligible to the people, and, at the 
 same time, with a power of imitation, a light and spi- 
 rited execution, and, in particular, a gem-like radiance 
 of colour which fascinates even judges of art. There are 
 pictures of the elder Bassano which at the first glance 
 remind one of a handful of rubies and emeralds. His 
 best and largest works are at Bassano ; his small pic- 
 tures are numerous, and scattered through most galle- 
 ries. He painted sheep, cattle, and poultry well, and 
 was fond of introducing them in the pastoral scenes of 
 the Old Testament, where they are appropriate : some- 
 times, unhappily, where they are least appropriate they 
 are the principal objects. His scenery and grouping 
 have a rural character ; and his personages, even sacred 
 and heroic, look like peasants. They are not vulgar, 
 but rustic. The same kind of spirit informed the Bas- 
 sani that afterwards informed the Dutch school — the 
 imitation of familiar objects without elevation and with- 
 out selection ; but the nature of Italy was as different 
 from that of Holland as Bassano is different from Jan 
 Steen. 
 
328 JACOPO BASSANO. 
 
 Like all the Venetians, the Bassani were good portrait- 
 painters. We have a fine portrait by Jacopo Bassano in 
 our National Gallery, and at Hampton Court several 
 very fine and characteristic pictures, which will give 
 an excellent idea of his general manner ; the best are 
 Jacob's Journey and the Deluge. Mr. Eogers possessed 
 the two best pictures of this artist now in England ; 
 they are small, but most beautiful, vivid as gems in 
 point of colour, with more dignity and feeling than is 
 usual : the subjects are, the Good Samaritan, and La- 
 zarus at the door of the Kich Man. Nothing could tempt 
 Bassano from the little native town where he flourished, 
 grew rich, and brought up a numerous family : he died 
 in 1592. 
 
 All these men had original genius and that individu- 
 ality of character which lends a vital interest to all 
 productions of art, whether the style be elevated and 
 ideal or confined to the imitation of common nature : but 
 to them succeeded a race of mannerists and imitators, so 
 that about the close of the sixteenth century all origin- 
 ality seemed extinguished at Venice, as well as every- 
 where else : and here we close the history of the 
 earlier painters of Italy. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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