UC-NRLF B 3 ISfl 3DM VSt t^^-'^^^'^^/J'^.^ RS o ^.ARLY ITALIAN Painters %2 3"^ v>a LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA/ Received S^-'^^ >_ 188 -S. Accessions N^o.^^/^%S~y3 Shelf No. 08- ^ -30 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/earlyitmemoirsofOOjamerich OTritingsf of ^x^* anna '^^mt^on. Mrs. Jameson has probably done more than anj' other writer to familiarize the ]Dublic mind with the principles of art ; and her per- ception of the inner spirit of a great work was so thorough that its mere statement was eloquence. Her style has a richness, en- ergy, and vividness corresponding to the clearness and fullness of her intellect and the earnestness and warmth of her heart. — Bos- toii Traiiscript. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN : Moral, Po- etical. a;id Historical. J'rom the last Loudon Edition. i8mo, $1-50 THE pi A RYOFAN ENNUYEE. From the last London Edition. iSmo ^150 MEMOIRS OF THE LOVES OF THE POETS. 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Containing the Legends of the Patron Saints, the Martyrs, the Early Bishops, the Hermits, and the Warrior Saints of Christendom, as represented in the Fine Arts. iSmo..$3.oo LEGENDS OF THE I\IONASTIC ORDERS ^s repre- sented in the Fine Arts. Forming the Second Series of Sacred and Legendary Art. Corrected and enlarged edition. iSmo, = $i-50 The ten volumes in box, cloth $it;.oo In half calf 25.00 In morocco, or tree calf 35-oo *** Sent, post-paid, 071 receipt 0/ price by the Publishers, HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, Boston, Mass. MEMOIRS OF THE EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. BY MRS. JAMESON. FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION. NINTH EDITION. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 3 :^^s/3 CONTENTS. aiOVANNI CIMABUS 7 GIOTTO 25 LORENZO GniBERTI 64 MASACCIO ' 75 FILIPPO LirPI AND ANGELICO DA FIESOLE 84 BENOZZO GOZZOLI 95 ANDREA CASTAGNO AND LUCA SIGNORELLI . • • . . 102 DOMENICO DAL GHIRLANDAJO 106 ANDREA MAKTEGNA 113 THE BELLINI . 134 PIETRO PERUGINO 141 FRANCESCO RAIBOLINI, CALLED XL FRANCIA .... 149 FRA BARTOLOMEO, CALLED ALSO BACCIO DELL.\. PORTA AND IL FRATE 159 UONARDO DA VINCI 170 MICILIEL ANGELO 191 ANDREA DEL SARTO 223 &AFnAj:L SANZIO d'urbino 228 (5) VI CONTENTS. FAUB THE SCHOLARS OF RAPnAEL 280 COEREC'GIO AND GIORGIOXE, AND THEIR SCHOLARS . 290 rAR:\nGiAxo 302 GIORGIONE 310 TITIAN , 319 TINTORETTO . 339 PAUL VERONESE , • , ...... 347 JAOOrO BASSASO • 850 MEMOIES OF THE EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. GIOVANNI CBIABUE, Bom at Florence, 12i0 } died about 1302. To Cimabue for three centuries had been awarded the lofty title of " Father of jNIodern 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 liglit out of darkness, form and beauty out of chaos. The error or gross exaggeration of Yasari in making these claims for his countryman 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 from painting being a lost art in the thirteenth c?entury, and the race of artists annihilated, as Ya- (7) 8 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTEI.S. Bari would lead us to believe, several contemporary painters were living and working in the cities ana churclies of Italy previous to 1240 ; and it ia possible to trace back an uninterrupted series of pictorial remains and names of painters 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. Ilis name has stood too long, too conspicuously, too justly, as a landmark in the history of art, to be now thrust back under the waves of oblivion. A rapid glance over the progress of painting before his time will enable us to judge of his truo 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 emblems. Thus, the Cross signified Redemption ; 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 GIOVANNI CIMABrE, 9 gradnallj moulded and modified. The Christiana found the shell of ancient art remaining ; the tra- ditionary handicraft still existed ; certain modela 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 cf a purer faith. From the beginning, the figures selected to typify our redemption were those of the Saviour and the Blessed Virgin, first separately, and then conjointly as the Mother and Infant. The earliest monuments of Christian art remaining are to be found, nearly effaced, on the walls and ceil- ings of the catacombs at Rome, to which the perse* cuted martyrs of the faith had fled for refuge. The first recorded 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 Rome, a head of Christ was discovered, the most ancient of Avhich any copy has come down to us. The figure is co- lossal ; the face a long oval ; the countenance mild, grave, melancholy ; the long hair parted on the brow, falling in tAvo masses on either shoulder ; the beard not thick, but short and divided. Here, Uien, obviously imitated from some traditional de- scription (probably the letter of Lentulus to the Roman Senate, supposed to be a fabrication of the 10 EAKLy JT/LIVA PAIHTrRr third century), v^e have the type, ilr ^ %(*». x^- character, since adiieied to it the re,>resentaiion8 of the Redeemer. 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. A controversy arose afterwards in the early Christian church, which had a most important in- fluence 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 bo 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 pope, Adrian I., thrcAV his infallibility into the scale ; and from the eighth century we find it irrevocably decided, and confirmed by a papal bull, that the Redeemer should be represented with all the attributes of divine beauty which art, in its then rude state, could lend him. Tho most ancient representations of the Virgin Mary now remaining are the old mosaics, which are referred to the latter half of the fifth century.* * In the churches of Rome, Pisa, and Venice. GIOVANNI CIMABUE. 11 Iq these she is represented as a colossal figure, majastically draped, standing, one hand on hel breast, and her eves raised to heaven ; then suc- ceeded her image in her maternal character, seated on a throne, -with the infant Saviour in her arms. We must bear in mind, once for all, that from the earliest ages of Christianity the Virgin Mother has been selected as the allegorical type of Religion, in the abstract sense ; and to this, her symbolical character, must be referred those representations of later times, in Avhich she appears as trampling on the Dragon ; as folding her votaries within tho skirts of her ample robe ; as interceding for sinners ; as crowned between heaven and earth by the Father and the Son. Besides the representations of Christ and the Virgin, some of the characters and incidents of the Old Testament were selected as pictures, generally with reference to corresponding characters and in- cidents in the Gospel ; thus, St. Augustin, in the latter half of the fourth century, speaks of the sacrifice of Isaac as a common subject, typical, of course, of the Great Sacrifice. The elevation of the brazen serpent signified the Crucifixion ; Jonah and the whale, the Resurrection, &e This system of corresponding subjects, of type and anti-type, was afterwards, as we shall see, carried much further. In the seventh century, painting, as it existed in Europe, may be divided into two great schools oJ 12 EARLY ITALIAN lAlNTERS. Btjles : the Western, or Roman, of which the cen- tral point was Rome, and which was distinguished, amid great rudeness of execution, by a certain dig- nity of expression and solemnity of feeling ; and the Eastern, or Byzantine school, of which Con- stantinople was the head-quarters, and which wag distinguished by greater mechanical skill, by ad- herence to Hie old classical forms, by the use of gilding, and by the mean, vapid, spiritless concep- tion of motive and character. From the seventh to the ninth 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 tenth and eleventh centuries Italy fell into a state of complete barbarism and con- fusion, which almost extinguished the practice of art in any shape. Of this period only a few works of extreme rudeness remain. In the Eastern em- pire painting still survived. It became, indeed, more and more conventional, insipid, and incorrect, , but the technical methods were kept up ; and thus I it happened that when, in 1204, Constantinoiile \ was taken by the Crusaders, and that the inter- course between the east and west of Europe was resumed, several B3^zantine painters passed into Italy and Germany, where they were employed to * Particularly those in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, al Bcxne, and in the church of St. Mark, at Venice. GIOVANNI CDIABTJE. 13 deccrate the churches ; and taught the practice of their art, tb.^ir manner of pencilling, mixing and using colors, and gilding ornaments, to such aa chose to learn of them. They brought over the Byzanline types of form and color, the long, lean limbs Df 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. Speci- mens of this early art remain, and in these latei times have been diligently sought and collected into museums as curiosities, illustrating the history and progress of art. As such they are, in the high- est degree, interesting ; but it must be confessed that, otherwise, they are not attractive. In the Berlin Gallery, and in that of the fine arts at Flor- ence, the best specimens have been brought to- gether, and there are a few in the Louvre.* The subject is generally the Madonna and Child, throned ; sometimes alone, sometimes with angela 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 extended in act to bless ; the left hand holding a globe, a scroll, or a book. With regard to the ex- • Nos. 980, 981, 982. 14 EARLY ITALIAN TAINTERS. ocution, the ornaments of the throne and I)ord?rs of the draperies, and frequently the background, are ehiborately gilded ; the local colors are gene- rally vivid; there is little or no rcli'^f: the hand- ling is streaky ; the flesh-tints are blackish or green- ish. At this time, and for two hundred years aftervrards (before the invention of oil painting) , pictures were painted either in fresco, — an art never wholly lost, — or on seasoned board, and the colors 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 tempera, by the French en detrcmpe, and in English distemper ; and in this manner all movable pictures were executed previous to 1440. It is clear that, before the birth of Cimabue, that is, from 1200 to 1240, there existed schools of painting in the Byzantine style, and under Greek teachers, at Sienna and at Pisa. 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 Rossini's " Storia della Pittura," on the same page with a Madonna by Cimabue, to which it appears superior in draAving, attitude, expression, and drapery. Pisa produced^ about the same time, Giunta de Pisa, of whom there remain works with the date 1230. One of these is a Crucifixion, engraved in Ottley's " Italian School of Design," and, on a smaller scale, in llo8' GIOVANNI CIMABUE. 15 Mni's " Storia della Pittura," in which the cxpres- Bion of grief in the hovering angels, who are wring- ing their hands and weeping, is very earnest and striking. But undoubtedly the greatest man of that time, he who gave the grand impulse to mod |ern art, was the sculptor Nicola 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 em- ployed in 123G. Thus Cimabue can scarcely claim to be the " flxther of modern painting," even in his own city of Florence. We shall now proceed to the facts on which his traditional celebrity has been founded. Giovanni of Florence, of the noble family of the Cimabue, 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 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 boen 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 dtcorate the church of the convent in Avhich he was a scliolar. It seems doubtful whether Cimabue did study under 16 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. the identical painters alluded to bj Yasari, 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 mentioned by Vasari still exists, — a St. Cecilia, painted for the altar of that saint, but now preserved in the church of San Stefano. 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 ol St. Francis at Assisi, which had been begun by Greek painters, and continued by Giunta Pisano. The decoration of this celebrated church is mem- orable in the history of painting. It is known that many of the best artists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were employed there ; but only fragments of the earliest pictures exist, and the authenticity of those ascribed to Cimabue has been disputed by a great authority.* Lanzi, however, and Dr. Kugler agree in attributing to him the paintings on the roof of the nave, representing, in medallions, the figures of Christ, the Madonna, St * Rumohr, " Italienische Forsctiungeii." GIOVANNI CIMABUE. 1'/ John tho Baptist, St. Francis, and the four Evan- gelists. " The ornaments which surround these medallions are, however, more interesting than tho medallions themselves. In the lower corners of tho 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 m'onotony of his Gteek models. He executed many other pictures in this famous church, " con diligenza infinita,^'' from the Old and New Testament, in which, judging from the fragments which remain, he showed a decided improvement in drawing, in dignity of attitude, and in the expression of life, but still the figures have only just so much of animation and signifi- cance as are absolutely necessary to render the story or action intelligible. There is no variety, no express imitation of nature. Being recalled by his afiairs to Florence, about 1270, he painted there the most celebrated of all his works, tho Madonna and Infant Christ, for 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 in- terest among his fellow-citizens ; for Cimabue re- fused to uncover it to public view. But it happened * Kugler, *' Hand book »♦ 2 18 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 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 received and feasted by the nobles of that city ; and, among other entertainments, they con- ducted him to visit the atelier of Cimabue, -which v,as in a garden near the Porta San Piero. On this festive occasion the jNladonna was uncovered, and the people in joyous crowds hurried thither to look upon it, rending the air with exclamations of delight and astonishment, whence this quarter of the city obtained and has kept ever since the name of the Borgo Allegri. The i\ladonna, when fin- ished, was carried in great pomp from the atelier of the painter to the church for which it was des- tined, 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 venerable charm to the picture, which is yet to be seen in the church of Santa jNIaria Novella , but it is difficult in this advanced state of art to sympathize in the naive enthusiasm it excited in "Jie 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 eithei Bide have a certain elegance and dignity, and th« coloring in its first freshness and delicacy had n •jharm hitherto unknown. After thi.s. Cima])ii.« GIOVANNI CIMABUE. IS Decame famoas in all Italy. He had a school of painting at Florence, and many pupils; amcng them one-svho was destined to take the sceptre from his hand, and fill all Italy Avith 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. Cimabuo^ besides being a painter, was a worker in mosaic and an architect. He was employed, in conjunction with Arnolfo Lapi, in the building of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, at Florence. Finally, having lived for more than sixty years in great honor and renown, he died at Florence about the year 1302, while emplo^^ed on the mosaics of the Duomo of Pisa, and was carried from his house, in the Via del Cocomero, to the church of Santa Ma,ria del Fiore, Avhere he was buried. The following epitaph was inscribed above his tomb : " Credidit vt Cimabos picture castra texere ; Sic texuit vivexs — nitxc texet astra Poll" * Besides the undoubted works of Cimabue pre* Borved in the churches of San Domenico, la Trinitk, and Santa Maria Novella, at Florence, and in the Academy of Arts in the same city, there are two Madonnas in the Gallery of the Louvre (Nos. 950, 951), recently brought there ; one as large as lifoj * Cimabue thought himself master of the field of rait ting 5 While living he was so — now he holds his place among tht stars of heaven. - truccio Castricani, the warlike tyrant of Lucca, also employed him ; but how Giotto was inducei 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 ap parently enrolled himself, appeared in the light of a friend rather than an enemy. However this may be, a picture which Giotto painted for Castruccio, and in which he introduced the portrait of tho tyrant, with a falcon on his fist, is still preserved m the Lyceum at Lucca. For Guido da Polento, the father of that hapless Francesca di Rimmi, GIOTTO. 83 whose story is so beautifully told by Dante, he painted the interior of a church ; and forMalatesta di Rimini (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 with his hand before his face, is in the act of spitting in the sea, so life- like as to strike the beholders w'ith 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 expression of natural actions and feelings, to which painting had never yet ascended or de- • scended. This leaning to the actual and the real has been made a subject of reproach, to which wo shall hereafter refer. It is said — but this does not rest on very satis- factory evidence — that Giotto also visited Avig- non, in the train of Pope Clement V., and painted there the portraits of Petrarch and Laura. About the year 1327, King Robert 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 accord- \ ingly travelled to the court of Naples, stopping on \^ his way in several cities, where he left specimens of his skill. lie also visited Orvieto for the pur- a 34 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. poso of viewing the sculpture with which the brothers Agostino and Agnolo were decorating the cathedral ; and not only bestowed on it high com- mendation, but obtained for the artists the praise and patronage they merited. 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 introduc- tion of portraiture into a subject so awful was another innovation, not so praiseworthy as soma of his alterations. Giotto's feeling for truth and propriety of expression is particularly remarkable .and commeudable in the alteration of the dreadful (but popular subject of the crucifix. In the Byzan- I tine school, the sole aim seems to have been torep- I resent physical agony, and to render it, by every species of distortion and exaggeration, as terrible and repulsive as possible. Giotto was the first to poften this awful and painful figure by an expres- sion of divine resignation, and by greater attention to beauty of form. A Crucifixion painted by him became the model for his scholars, and was multi- plied by imitation through all Italy; so that a famous painter of crucifixes after the Greek fash- ion, Margaritone, who had been a friend and con- temporary of Cimabue, confounded by the intro duction 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 GTOITO. 35 nis bed ^^ infastidito'''' (through Texation) , and so died. Bat to return to Giotto, •whom we left on the road to Naples. King Robert received him with great honor and rejoicing, and, being a monarch of singular accomiDlishments, and fond of the society of learned and distinguished men, he soon found that Giotto w^as not merely a painter, but a man of the world, a man of various acquirements, whose general reputation for wit and vivacity was not un- merited. He would sometimes visit the painter at his w^ork, 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 1, sire," replied the painter, " if I were yow.'" The king, in a playful mood, desired him to paint his kingdom ; 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 allusim. While at Naples Giotto painted in the church of the Incoronati a series of frescoes representing the Seven Sacraments according to the Roman ritual. These still exist, and are among the most authentic 86 EARLY ITiLlAN PAINTERS. and best preserved of his ^A'orks. The Sacrament of Marriage contains many female figures, beauti- fully designed and grouped, with graceful heads and flowing draperies. This picture is tradition- ally 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 that truth of imitation which made Giotto the wonder of his day. His paintings from the Apoc- alypse, in the church of Santa Chiara, were white- washed over, about two centuries age, by a certain prior of the convent, because, in the opinion of this barbarian, they made the church look dark ! Giotto quitted Naples about the year 1328, and returned to his native city with great increase of riches and fame. He continued his works with un- abated application, assisted by his pupils ; for his school was now the most famous in Italy. Liko most of the early Italian artists, he was an archi- tect and sculptor, as well as a painter ; and his last public work was the famous 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 sculpture on the three lower divisions. According to Kugler, they form a regular series of subjects, illustrating the develop GIOTTO. 37 ment of human culture, through rsligion and laws, " conceived," says the same authority, "with pro-j 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 ap- propriate expression. In these and similar repre- sentations we trace distinctly the influence of the genius of Dante. A short time before his death he was invited to Milan by Azzo Visconti. He exe- cu ted some admirable frescoes in the ancient palace of the Dukes of jNIilan ; but these have perished, Fxnally, having returned to Florence, he soon after- wards died, "yielding up his soul to God in the year 1336; and having been," adds Vasari, "no less a good Christian than an excellent painter." rie was honorably interred in the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, where his master Cimabue had been laid with similar honors, 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 descendants became disthiguished in art or otherwise.* * In the foregoing sketch some disputed points in the life of Oiotti) ai'e, foi- obvious reasons, left at rest •, and the order of events has bien somewhat changed, in accordance with more exact cbvon Iclers than Vasari 38 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Before we proceed to give some account of the personal 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 revohi- tion in art, which originated with him, — which seized at once on all imaginations, 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 dune 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 mithod. The Greek- ish types were everywhere seen, more or less modi- fied, — a Madonna in the middle, with a couple of lank saints or angels stuck on each side ; or sainta, 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 other as suf- ficed to make a story intelligible, the arrangement being generally traditional and arbitrary. Such Beems to have been the limit to which painting had advanced previous tn 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. GIOTTO. 39 lie not only improved — he changed; he placed himself on wholly new ground. He took up those principles which Nicola Pisano had applied to sculpture, and went to the same sources, — to nature, and to those remains :>f pure antique art which showed him how to look at nature. His residence at Home while yet young, and in all the first glow- ing development of his creative powers, must have had an incalculable influence on his after-works. Deficient to the end of his life in the knowledge of form, he wi'? deficient in that kind of beauty which depends on form , but his feeling for grace and har -nony 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 natural character and emotion, in order to render intelligible his newly- invented scenes of action and his religious allego- ries. A \ATiter 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 hia 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. Tho hands are rather delicately drawn, but he could not design the feet well, for which reason we generally find those of his men clothed in shoes or sandala wherever it is possible, and those of his women gov- 40 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. ered with flowing drapery. The management of his draperies is, indeed, particularly characteristic ; distinguished by a certain lengthiness and narrow- ness in the folds, in which, however, there is much taste and simplicity, though, in point of style, aa far from the antique as from the complicated mean- ness of the Byzantine models ; and it is curious that this peculiar treatment of the drapery, these long perpendicular folds, correspond in character with the principles of Gothic architecture, and with it rose and declined. For the stiff, wooden limlDS, and motionless figures, of the Byzantine school, he sub- stituted life, movement, and the look, at least, of flexibility. His notions of grouping and arrange- ment he seems to have taken from the ancient basso- relievos ; there is a statuesque grace and simplicitj in his compositions which reminds us of them. Ilia style of coloring and execution was, like all the rest, an innovation on received methods ; his colors were lighter and more roseate than had ever been known, the fluid by Avhich 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 liave been for ages covered up from light and air, in a dry, sandy climate. Those of Giotto have been exposed to all the vicissitudes of weather and of underground damp, have been whitewashed and every way ill-treated, yet the fragments which GIOTTO. 41 remain have still a surjirising freshness, and his distemper pictures are still wonderful. It is to bo regretted that the reader cannot be referred to anv collection in England for an example of the char- acteristics here enumerated. We have not in the National Gallery a single example of Giotto or his Bcholars ; the earliest picture we have is dated nearly two hundred years after his death. The only one in the Louvre (a St. Francis, as large as life) is dubious and unworthy of him. In the Flor- entine 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 (the best works of Giotto lire on a small scale — these measure about a foot in height). Two of the same series are at Berlin, all representing subjects from the life and acts of Christ, of the Virgin, or St. Francis. Those who are curi- ous may consult the engravings after Giotto, in the plates to the " Storia della Pittura," of Rosini ; those in D'Agincourt's " Histoire de I'Art par lea Monumens ; " and in Ottley's " Early Italian School," a copy of which is in the British Museum. Giotto's personal character and disposition had no small part in the revolution he effected. In the union of endowments which seldom meet tocether ai the same individual — extraordinary inventive and poetical genius, with sound, practical, ener- petio sense, and untiring activity and energy — 42 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Giotto resembled Rubens ;' and only this rare com- bination could have enabled him to fling off so com- pletely 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 waa as independent in other matters as in liis own art. He seems to have had little reverence for received opinions about anything, and was singularly free from the superstitious enthusiasm of the times in which he lived, although he lent his powers to em- bodying 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 Pov- erty," 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 Glorifi- cation 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 "Patri- arch of Poverty." Giotto was celebrated, too, foi his joyous temper, for his witty and satirical repar- tees, and seems to have been as careful of his worldly goods as he was diligent in acquiring them. Boc- caccio relates an anecdote of him, not very import- ant, but, as it contains several traits which are divert.ingly characteristic, we will give it here .• -J^ GIOTTO. \\ ^ 43 ** Fair and dear ladies ! " (Thus ttreNaovellst is wont to address his auditory.) ' It is a ^tT'n4£QS|^. thing to see how oftentimes nature hath been pleased to hide within the most misshapen forms the most wondrous treasures of soul, which is evi- dent in the persons of two of our fellow-citizens, of whom I shall noAv 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 {ricac/nato) physiognomy ; and Messer Giotto, who was not in face or person one whit better favored 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 liglit 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 littl« in person, and, as I have said, ill-favored enough 44 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. NoAY, it happened that Messer Forese and Giotto had possessions in land in Mugello, which is on th€ road leading from Florence to Bologna, and thither they rode one day on their respective a£fairs, Messer 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 haf^tened 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 pil- grim-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 various 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 alongside ; 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 account, he laughed aloud. * 0, Giotto,' said he, jeeriugly, ' if a stranger were now to meet us, could he, looking on you, believe it possible that 70U were the greatest painter in the whole w^orld ? — ' Certainly,' quoth Giotto, with a side glance at GIOTTO. 45 his companion, ' certainly, if, looking upon your WDi'ship, 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." Thit is one of many humorous repartees which tradition has preserved, and an instance of that readiness of wit — that prontczza — for Avhich Gi- otto was admired ; in fact, he seems to have pre- sented in himself, in the union of depth and liveli- ness, of poetical fancy and worldly sense, of inde- pendent 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 sur- prise which Giotto's imitation of life caused in hia imaginative contemporaries, and wdiich 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 133G, his friend Dante had been dead fifteen 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, ap a most precious legacy, " a wonderful piece of work, of which the ignorant might overlook the beauties, but which the learned must regard with 46 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. amazement." All writers who treat of the ancient glories of Florence, — Florence the beautiful, Flor- encG the free, — from Villani down to Sismondi, count Giotto in the roll of her greatest men. An- tiquaries and connoisseurs in art search out and etudy the relics which remain to us, and recognize in them the dawn of that splendor Avhich reached its zenith in the beginning of the sixteenth century ; while to the philosophic observer Giotto appears as one of those few heaven-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 deliglit through the expansion of their own facul- ties, make unawares a step forward in human cul- ture, lend a new impulse to human aspirations, and, like the " bright morning star, day's harbin- ger," may be merged in the succeeding radiance, but never forgotten. Before we pass on to the scholars and imitatora of Giotto, w^ho during the next century filled all Italy with schools of art, we may here make men- tion of one or two of his contemporaries, not so much for any performances left behind them, but because they have been commemorated by men more celebrated than themselves, and survive em- balmed in their works as " flies in amber." Dante has mentioned, in his " Purgatorio," two painters of the time, famous for their miniature illustrationa of Missals and MSS. Before the invention of print. GIOTTO. 47 ing, 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 honor as well as riches to the lay- men who practised it. Many, liowever, of the most beautiful specimens of illuminated manuscripts are the work of the nameless Benedictine monks, who labored in the silence and seclusion of their con vents, and who yielded to tlieir community must of the honor and all the profit. Tliis was not the case with Oderigi, whom Dante has represented as ex- piating in purgatory his excessive vanity as a painter, and humbly giving the palm to another, Franco Bolognese, of whom there remains no relic but a Madonna, engraved in Rosin i's '• Storia della Pittura." lie 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 Calandrino, 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 honor and sufficient employment, bu"*, * An elegant little figure of St. Catherine, attributed to Buffal ma.'co, is engraved in Kosini, p. 52. A picture of St. Ursula, an early work of the same painter, is quite Byzantine in style. The Frescoes in the Campo Santo, at Pisa, so long attributed to him. art by another hand. (See Kugler and Rutnohr.) 48 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. having been more intent on spending than earnings ho died miserably poor in 1340. Cavallini studied under Giotto, at Rome, bui 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 Madonnas before which he had knelt in prayer. This feeling of earnest piety ho communicated to all his works. There is by him a picture of the Annunciation preserved in th«» church of St. Mark, at Florence, in which the ex pression of piety and modesty in the Virgin , and ol reverence in the kneeling angel, is perfectly beau tiful. The same devout feeling enabled him to ris( to the sublime in a grand picture of the Crucifixioxi which he painted in the church of Assisi, and which is reckoned one of the most important monuments of the Giotto school. 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 Avonderful for the tims. Engravings after Cavallini may be found m Ot- tley's *' Early Italian School," and in Rosini (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, afterward? so illustrious. Among the contemporaries of Giotto we must refer once more to Duccio of Sienia. GIOTTO. 49 fhough an established painter in ais native cit'y when (jiotto wds a child, his later works show thaJ the influence of that young and daring spirit had given a new impulse to his mind. His best picture, itill preserved, and described with enthusiasm in Kugler's "Handbook," was painted in 1311. Duccio died very old, about 133U. The scholars and imitators of Giotto, who adopted the ne'' / method {il nuovo meiodo), as it was then called, and who collectively are distinguished as ihe Scuola Gioltesca, may be divided into two classes : 1. Those who were merely his assistants and imitators, who con^ned themselves to the re- production of tlie models left by their master. 2. Those who, gifted with original genius, followed 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 succeeding century. Of the first it is not necessary to speak. Among the men of great and original genius who immedi- ately succeeded 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 Taddeo Gaddi. The first of these, Andrea Cioni, commonly called Andrea Orcacxa, did not study under Giotto, but owed much indirectly to that vivifying influence 4 50 EAPvLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. which he breathed through art. Andrea was the Bon 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 appar- ently learned design under the tuition of his father. Rosini places his birth previous to the year 1310. In the year 1332 he had already ac- quired so much celebrity, that he was called upon tc continue the decoration of the Campo Santo at Pisa. This seems the proper place to give a more de- tailed account of one of the most extraordinary and interesting monuments of tlie middle ages. The Campo Santo of Pisa, like the cathedral at Assisi, was an arena in which the bust artists of the time were summoned to try their powers ; but the in- fluence 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, or the " Holy Field," 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, something like the clois- ters 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 pray era GIOTTO. 51 and masses are celebrated for the repose of tho 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 it? com- mercial splendor. 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 luxuri- ant bower. The beautiful Gothic arcade was de- signed and built about 1283 by Giovanni Pisano, the son of the great Nicola Pisano already men- tioned. This arcade, on the side next the burial- ground, is pierced by sixty-two windows of elegant tracery, divided from each other by slender pilas- ters ; 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 th© Greek Isles. Here also is seen the famous sarcoph- agus which first inspired the genius of Nicola Pisano, and in which had been deposited the body of Beatrix, mother of the famous Countess Matilda. The walls opposite to the windows were painted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with scrip- tural subjects. Most of these are half ruined by time, neglect, and damp ; some only present frag- •nents — here an arm, there a head ; and the best 52 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS preserved are faded, discolored, ghastly m appear- ance, 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 con- nected with its sacred purpose and its history rise upon the fancy, has in its silence and solitude and religious destination, something inexpressibly strange, dreamy, solemn, almost awful. Seen in the broad glare of noonday, the place and the pic- tures lose something of their power over the fancy, and that which last night haunted us as a vision, to-day we examine, study, criticize. The building of the Campo Santo was scarcely finished when the best painters of the time were summoned to paint the alls all round the interioi with appropriate subjects. This was a work of many years. It was indeed continued at intervals through two centuries ; and thus we have a series of illustrations of the progress of art during its first development, of the religious influences of the age, and even of the habits and manners of the people, which are faithfully exhibited in some of these most extraordinary compositions. Those first executed, in the large chapel and on the walls of the cloisters, at the end of the thir- teenth and in the very beginning of the fourteenth century, have perished wholly ; the earliest in date GIOTTO. 53 \fhich still exist represent the Passion of our Saviour in a rude but solemn style. We find here the accompaniments usual in this subject from the earliest time, and which, from their perpetual rep- etition down to a late period, appear to be tra, ditional — the lamenting angels, the sorrowing vromen, the Virgin fainting at the foot of the cross. Two angels at the head of the repentant thief pre- pare to carry his soul into Paradise ; two demong perched on the cross of the reprobate thief are ready to seize his spirit the moment it is released, and bear it to the regions below. This fresco and another have been traditionally attributed to the- Buffalmacco of facetious memory, already men- tioned ; but this is now supposed to be an error. A series of subjects from the Book of Job was painted by Giotto. Of these only fragments remain. Then followed A.xdrea Orcagxa ; and the subjects selected by him were such as harmonized peculiarly with the destination of these sacred precincts. They were to represent in four great compartments what the Italians call " I quattro novissi?ni,' that is, the four last or latest things — Death, Judg- ment, Hell, or Purgatory, and Paradise ; but only three were completed. The first is styled the Triumph of Death {11 Tri- on/o del/a Morte). It is full of poetry, and abound- ing lu 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 54 EAllLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. from the chase. They are seated under oiange- 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 fearful-looking woman, with wild stream- ing 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 mow- ing down the joys of the company. (This female impersonation of Death is supposed 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 recognized 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 demons 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 devils have the semblance of beasts of prey or of disgust- ing reptiles. They fight with each other. On the right the angels ascend to heaven with those they nave saved, while the demons drag their prey to a fiery mountain, visible on the left, and hurl the GIOTTO. 55 Bouls down iiifcj the flames. Next to these corpses is a crowd of beggars and cripples, who with oiit- Btretched arms call upon Death to end their sor- rows ; but she heeds not their prayer, and has already passed them in her flight. A rock sepa- rates this scene from another, in which is repre- sented a second hunting party descending the moun- tain by a hollow path ; here again are richly-attired princes and dames on horses splendidly caparisoned, and a train of hunters with falcons and dogs. The path has led them to three open sepulchres in the loft corner of the picture ; in them lie the bodies of three princes, in difierent 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 indifierence, 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 con- tract 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 ; an- other 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 D6 early ITALIAN TAINTERS. the personages in these pictures are many portra'fe' of the artist's contemporaries. The second representation is the Last Judgmonc ^boYC, 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 witli a menacing gesture, his countenance full of majestic wrath. The Virgin, on the right of her Son, is tho picture of heavenly mercj ; and, as if terrified at the words of eternal condemnation, she turns away. On either side are ranged the prophets of the Old Testament, the Apostles and other saints — severe, solemn, dignified figures. Angels, holding the in- istruments of the Passion, hover over Christ and the Virgin ; under them is a group of archangels. The archangel jNIichael stands in tlie midst, holding a scroll in each hand ; immediately before him an- other archangel, supposed to represent Raphael, the guardian angel of humanity, cowers down, shudder- ing, while two others sound the awful trumpets of doom. Lower down is the earth, where men are 3een rising from their graves ; armed angels direct them to the right and left. Here is seen King Sol- omon, who, whilst he rises, seems doubtful to which fiido 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 awaj to Paradise. There is wonderful and even terrible GIOTTO. 57 power of expression in some of the heads ; and it ia Bsiid tluit among tljem are many portraits of con- tomporarics, bat unfortunately no circumstantial traditions as to particular figures have reached us. The attitudes of Christ and the Virgin ^vere after- wards borro\Yed by Michael Angelo, in his celo- brated Last Judgment; but, notwithstanding the perfection of his forms, he stands far below the dio-nified grandeur of the old master. Later paint- prs have also borrowed from his arrangement of the patriarchs and apostles — particularly Fra Barto- lomeo and Raphael. 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. [t is altogether inferior to the preceding represent- ations in execution, and even in the composition. Here, the imagination of the painter, unrestrained by any just rules of taste, degenerates into the monstrous and disgusting, and even th'^ grotesque and ludicrous. Hell is here represented as a great locky caldron, divided into four compartments ris ijo- 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 v.hich sinners are consumed or crushed. In other J arts, the condemned are seen spitted like fowls, and roasted and basted by demons, with other sucD atrocious fancies, too horrible and sickening foi description. The lower part of the picture was 58 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. baaly painted over and altered according to the taste of the day, in the sixteenth century ; certainly not for the better.* Andrea Orcagna is supposed to have painted cnese frescoes about 1335, and he died about 1370. Simone Martini, usually called Simone Memmi, was a painter of Sienna, of whom very few works remain ; but the friendship of Petrarch has ren- dered his name illustrious. Simone Memmi was employed at Avignon, when it was the seat of the popes (about 1340) , and there he painted the por- trait 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, which may still be seen there. It repre- sents the church militant and triumphant — with a great number of figures, among which are the portraits of Cimabue, Petrarch, and Laura. lie also painted in the Campo Santo, and his pictures there are among the finest in expression and in grouping. He died about 1345. There is a picture m the Louvre, at Paris, No. 1115, attributed to him . It represents the Virgin crowned in Heaven amid a chorus of angels, a subject frequently treated by Giotto and his scholars. Pietro Lorenzetti painted in the Campo Santo the Hermits in the Wilderness. They are repre- * Tlie foregoing account of the paintings of Andrea Orcagna il taken, with alterations, from Kugler's " Handbuch." GIOTTO. 59 seated as dwelling in caves and chapels, upon rocks and niDuntains ; some studying, others meditating, others tempted by demons in various horrible or alluring forms, for such Avere 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. Antonio Yeneziano 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. A certain Spinello of Arezzo was next employed, about 1380. He painted the story of St. Ephesus. Spinello seems to have been a man of genius, but of most unregulated mind. Yasari 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 labored to render the figure of Satan as terrible, as deformed, as re volting, 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 di» tracted, and so died, about the year 1400. 60 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. But the great painter of this time, the third al- luded to above, was Taddeo Gaddi, the favorite pupil of Giotto, and his godson. His pictures are considered the most important works of the four- teenth century. They resemble the manner of Giotto in the feeling for truth, nature, and sim- plicity ; 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 ; none, that we know of, in England. In Ottley's engravings of the early Italian school are three grand seated figures of the Fathers of the Church, from Taddeo's most famous picture, the fresco in the Spanish chapel at Florence, usually entitled the Arts and Sciences. Between Taddeo Gaddi and Simone Memmi there existed an ardent friendship and a mutual admiration, which did honor to both. All that Taddeo painted in the Campo Santo is destroyed. At Paris, in the Louvre, are four small pictures attributed to him ; and at Berlin four others larger, more important, and more authentic. 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. Towards the close of this century, the decoration of the Campo Santo was interrupted by the politi- cal misfortunes and internal dissensions which dis- tracted the city of Pisa, and were not resumed fo> GIOTTO. tjl nearly a hundred years. Tne paintings in the church of Assisi were carried on by Giottino and by Giovanni di Melano, but were also interruptec? towards the close of this century. We have mentioned here but a few of the most prominent names among the multitude of painter? 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 carrying out the principles of Giotto in expression and in imitation. Taddeo Gaddi and Simone ex- celled in the first ; the imitation of form and of natural objects was so improved by Stefano Fioren- tino, that he was styled by his contemporaries II Scimia della Natura, " the ape of Nature." Giot- tino, the son of this Stefano, and others, improved in color, in softness of execution, and in the means and mechanism of the art ; but oil-painting was not yet invented, and linear perspective was un- known. Engraving on copper, cutting in wood, and printing, were the inventions of the next cen- tury. Portraits were seldom painted, and then only of very distinguished persons, introduced into large compositions. The imitation of natural scen- ery, that is, landscape paintinf/, as a branch of art, now such a flimiliar source of pleasure, was as yet unthought of. When landscape was? introduced into pictures as a background, or accessory, it wau 62 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. merely to indicate the scene of the story. A rock represented a desert ; some formal trees*, yery like brooms set on end, indicated a wood ; a bluish space, sometimes with fishes in it, signified a river or a sea. Yet in the midst of this ignorance, this imperfect execution, and limited --'ange of power, how exquisitely beautiful are some of the remains of this early time ! affording in their simple, gen- uine grace, and lofty, earnest, and devout feeling, Dxamples of excellence which our modern painters are beginning to feel and to understand, and which the great Raphael himself did not disdain to study^ and even to copy. As yet the purposes to which painting was ap- plied were almost wholly of a religious character. No sooner was a church erected, than the walls were covered with representations of sacred sub- jects, either from scriptural history or the legends of saints. Devout individuals or families built and consecrated chapels ; and then, at great cost, em- ployed painters either to decorate the walls or to paint pictures for the altars ; the Madonna and Child, or the Crucifixion, were the favorite subjects — the donor of the picture or founder of the chapel being often represented on his knees in a corner of tho picture, and sometimes (as more expressive of humility) of most diminutive size, out of all proper tion to the other figures. The doors of the sacris ties, and of the presses in which the priests' vest- ments were kent, were often covered with smaL GIOTTO. C3 pictv./es of scriptural subjects ; as were also the chests in which were deposited the utensils for the Holy Sacrament. Almost all the small movable pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which have come down to us are either the altar- pieces of chapels and oratories, or have been cut from ths panels of doors, from the covers of cheete, or other pieces of ecclesiastical furniture. IT1:T r7 EH, ST Ty' LORENZO GHIBERTI. THE GATES OF SAN GIOVANNI. We are now to enter on a view of the progresft of painting in the fifteenth century — a period per- haps the most remarkable in the whole history of mankind ; distinguished by the most extraordinary mental activity, by rapid improvement in the arts of life, by the first steady advance in philosophicaJ inquiry, by the restoration of classical learning and by two great events, of which tlie results li'' almost beyond the reach of calculation — the inven tion of the art of printing, and the discovery o7 America. The progressive impulse which characterized thi» memorable period was felt not less in the fine arts. In painting, the adoption of oils in the mixing of colors, instead of the aqueous and glutinous vehi- cles formerly used for the purpose, led to some most important results. But long before the gene- ral adoption of this and other improvements in the materials employed, there had been a strong impulse given to the mental development 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. (64> LORENZO GHIBERTI. 65 During the fourteenth century we find all Italy filled M'ith the scholars and imitators of Giotto. But in the fifteenth there was a manifest striving after originality of style ; a branching off into particular schools, distinguished by the predominance of some particular characteristic in the mode of treatment : as expression, form, color, 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 characterized ; but from 1-100 to 1450 we still find the Tuscan schools in advance of all the rest in power, inven- tion, 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 Nicola Pisano, so in the fifteenth century we find the influence of another sculptor, Lorenzo Ghiberti, producing an effect on his contemporaries, more especially his fellow-citizens, which, by developing and perfecting the princijDles of imitation on which Giotto had worked, stamped that peculiar charac- ter on Florentine art which distinguished it all through the century of which we have now to speak, and the beginning of the next. For these reasons, the story of Ghiberti, and the casting of the famous gates of San Giovanni, may be considered as an epoch in the history of paint- ing. We shall find, as we proceed, almost every 5 tjt) EARLl ITALIAN PAINTERS. great name, and every important advance in art, connected with it directly or indirectly ; while the competition which is about to take place among our own artists, with a view to the decoration of the houses of Parliament, lends, at the present mo- ment, 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 democratic in spirit and form ; every class and interest in the state — the aristocracy, the military, merchants, tradesmen, and mechanics — had each a due share of power, and served to balance each other. The fiimily of the Medici, who a century later seized on the sovereignty, were at this time only among the most distinguished citi- zens, and members of a great mercantile house, at the head of which was Giovanni, the fiither of Cosmo de' Medici. The trades were divided into guilds or companies, called Arti, which were rep- resented in the government by twenty-four Con- soli, or consuls. It was these consuls of the guihi of merchants who, in th^ year 1401, undertook to erect a second gate or door of bronze to the Bap- tistery of St. John, which should form a pendant ta the first, executed in the preceding century (1330), by Andrea Pisano, from the designs of Giotto, and representing in rich sculpture the various events of LORENZO GHIBERTl. 67 the life of St. John the Baptist.* To equal or {sur- pass this beautiful gate, which had been for half a century the admiration of all Italy, Avas the object proposed, and no expense was to be spared in ita attainment. The Signoria, or members of the chief govern- ment, acting in conjunction \Yith the Consoli, mado known their munificent resolve through all Italy, and, in consequence, not only the best artists of Florence, but many from other cities, particularly Siena 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 in- demnity for his labor 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 compartments of the old gate, 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 • A Baptistery, as its name imports, 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 side! are entrances. It is an appendage of the cathedral, though sep» rate fron it. 68 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS, at the same time the reasons by which his vote was iustified. The names of the seven competitors, as given by Vasari, were Jacopo della Quercia, of Siena ; Nicolo d'Arezzo, his pupil ; Simon da Colle, celebrated already for his fine workmanship in jronze, from which he was surnamed Simon dei Bronzi ; Francesco di Valdambrina ; Filippo Bru- nelleschi ; Donato, better known as Donatello ; and Lorenzo Ghiberti. Lorenzo was at this time about twenty-threo He was the son of a Florentine named Clone, and of a fiimily which had attained to some distinction in Florence. The mother of Lorenzo, left a wido-v^ at an early age, married a worthy man named Bar- toluccio, known for his skill as a goldsmith. Thft goldsmiths of those days were not merely artisans^ but artists in the high sense of the word ; thej generally wrought their own designs, consisting of figures and subjects from sacred or classical story exquisitely chased in relief, or engraved or enam- elled on the shrines or chalices used in the church service ; or vases, dishes, sword-hilts, and othoi implements. The arts of drawing and modelling, then essen- tial to a goldsmith, as well as practical skill in chiselling, and founding and casting metals, wera taught to the young Lorenzo by his father-in-lavr ; and his progress was so rapid, that at the age of nineteen or twenty he had already secured to him. self the patronage of the Prince Pandolfo Mala* LORENZO GHIBERTI. 6^ teeta, Lord of Pesaro, and was employed in the dec- oratijn of his pakce, when Bartoluccio sent him notice of the terms of the competition for tlie^e- cution of the gates of San Giovanni. Lorenzo im- mediately hastened to present himself as one of the competitors, and, on giving evidence of his acquired skill, he was accepted among the elected seven They had each their workshop and furnace apart, ^nd it is related that most of them jealously kept iheir designs secret from the rest. But Lorenzo, V ho had all the modest self-assurance of conscious genius, did not ; on the contrary, he listened grate- idWj to any suggestion or criticism which was offered, admitting his friends and distinguished rtrangers to his atelier while his work was going forward. To this candor he added a persevering courage ; for when, after incredible labor, he had ^/jmpleted his models, and m[\de his preparations f.T casting, some flaw or accident in the process f)-^liged him to begin all over again, he supplied t'jis loss of time by the most unremitting labor, and at the end of the year he was not found behind his o^mpetitors. When the seven pieces were exhibited together in public, it was adjudged that the work of Qucrcia was wanting in delicacy and finish ; that that of Valdambrina was confused in com- position ; that of Simon da Colle well cast, but ill drawn ; that of Xicolo d'Arezzo heavy and ill-pro- portioned in the figures, though well composed : in short, but three amono; the number united the vari JO EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. ous 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 with- drew, generously agreeing and proclaiming aloud that Lorenzo had excelled them all, that to him alone belonged the prize ; and this judgment, as honorable to themselves as to their rival, was con- firmed amid the acclamations of the assembly. The citizens of Florence were probably not loss desirous than we should be in our day to behold the completion of a work begun with so much so- lemnity. But the great artist who had undertaken it was not hurried into carelessness by their im- patience 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 r/randissimo amore, " 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 gate was finished and erected in its place. As in the first gate Andrea Pisano had chosen for Ins theme the life of John the Baptist, the precursor of the Saviour, and the patron saint of the Bap* LORENZO GHIBERTI. 71 kisterv, Lorenzo continued the history of the Re- demption in a series of subjects, from the Annunci- ation to the Descent of the Holy Ghost. These he represented in twenty panels or compartments, ten on each of the folding-doors ; and below those eight others, containing the full-length effigies of the four evangelists and the four doctors of the Latin church — grand, majestic figures; and all around a border of rich ornaments — fruit, and foli- age, and heads of the prophets and the sibyls inter- mingled, 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 con- ferred not only on Lorenzo himself, but the whole city of Florence, that he was regarded as a public benefactor, and shortly afterAvards the same com- pany confided to him the execution of the third gate of the same edifice. The gate of Andrea Pi- sano, formerly the principal entrance, was removed to the side, and Lorenzo was desired to construct a central gate 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 Ghib3rti in ten compartments, each two and a half feet squaro, Deginning with the Creation, and ending with the Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Slioba ; aud 72 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. he enclosed the whole in an elaborate border o? frame, composed of intermingled fruits and foliage, and full-length jGgures of the heroes and prophets 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 deli- cacy of workmanship. This gate, of the same material and weight as the former, was commenced in 1428 and finished about 1444.* It is especially worthy of remark that the only fault of these otheY\xi8e fauliiess works was precisely that character of st3^1e which rendered them so in- fluential as a school of imitation and emulation for painters. The subjects 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 much more in ac- cordance with the principles of painting than Avith those of sculpture. We have here groups of numer- ous figures, near or receding from the eye in just gradations of size and relief, according to the rules of perspective ; difierent actions of the same story represented on different planes ; buildings of elabo- rate architecture ; landscape, trees, and animals ; in short, a dramatic and scenic style of conception * Authorities differ as to dates. Those cited above are from the tsctes to the last Florence edit, of Yasari (1838). Sec also Rumohr *'Italienische Forschungen," vol. ii. ; and Cicognara. "Stcriad''U3 Bcultura Moderna.'' LORENZO GHIBERTI. 73 and effect wholly opposed to the severe simplicity of classical sculpture. Ghiberti's genius, notwith- standing the inflexible material in which he em- bodied his conceptions, was in its natural bent pic- torial rather than sculptural ; and each panel cf his beautiful gates is, in fact, a picture in relief, and must be considered and judged as such. Re- garding them in this point of view, and not subject- ing them to those rules of criticism which apply to sculpture, we shall be able to appreciate the aston- ishing 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 luxuri- ant fancy displayed in the ornaments, and the per- fection with which the whole is executed ; — and to echo the energetic praise of ISIichael Angelo, who pronounced these gates " worthy to he the Gates of Paradise ! ' ' Complete sets of casts from these celebrated com- positions are not commonly met with, but they are to be found in most of the collections and acade mies on the continent. King Louis Philippe has munificently presented a set to our government School of Design, and they are now placed at the upper end of the tliird room, and cemented together with the surrounding frieze, so as to give a perfect idea of the arrangement in the original gates. Among the casts and models in the School of Design at Somerset House is an exquisite little basso-rilievo, 74 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. representing the Triumph of Ariadne, so perfect, so pure, so ckissical in taste, that it might easily be mistaken for a fragment of the finest Greek sculp- ture.* These are the only specimens of Ghiberti's skill to which the writer can refer as accessible in this country. Engraved outlines of the subjects on the three gates were published at Florence in 1821, by G. P. Lasinio.f There is also a large set of engravings from the ten subjects on the principal gate, executed in a good bold style by Thomas Patch, and pub- lished by him at Florence in 1771. | Lorenzo Ghiberti died about 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 Heaven ! " • This cast (which formed part of the collection in the time of Mr. Tyce, the late director) was not to be found when the writer of this note visited the School of Design in 1845. It was designed to orna- ment a pedestal for an antique statue of Bacchus. t " Le tre Porte del Battistero di San Giovanni di Eii-enze, Incise fcd illustrate." + The bronze doors of the church De la IMadeleine, at Paris, wero executed, a few years ago, in imitation of the Gates of Ghiberti, by M. Henri de Triqueti, a young sculptor of singular merit and genius The subjects are the Ten Commandments. MASACCIO. IT is easily conceivable that, during the forty years which Lorenzo Ghiberti devoted to his great work, and others on which he was employed at in- tervals, the assistance he required in completing his own designs, in drawing, modelling, casting, pol- ishing, 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 em- ployed gave these young men great superiority in the knowledge of the human form, and in effects of relief, light and shade, &c. The application of the sciences of anatomy, mathematics, and geometry, to the arts of design, began to be more fully under- stood. This early school of painters was favorably distinguished above the later schools of Italy by a generous feeling of mutual aid, emulation, and ad- miration, among the youthful students, far removed from the detestable jealousies, the stabbings, poison- ings, and conspiracies, 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 un- wearied assiduity, that it had nearly turned his (75) V6 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. brain, and it was for his use and that of Brunel- leschi that Manetti, one of the earliest Greek scholars and mathematicians in modern Europe, translated the " Elements of Euclid ; " Maso Fini- guerra, who invented the art of engraving en copper ; Pollajuolo, the first painter who studied anatomy by dissection, and who became the in- structor of Michael xVngelo ; and JNlasolino, who had been educated under Stamina, the best colorist of *--hat time. There was also a young boy, scarcely in his teons, who learned to draw and model by studymg the works of Ghiberti, and who, though not co-jsidered as his disciple, after a while left all the regular pupils far behind him. He had come from a littk village about eighteen miles from Florence, called San Giovanni, and of his parentage and early yeara little is recorded, and that little doubtful. His name was properly Tommaso Guido, or, from the place of his birth, Maso di San Giovanni ; but from his abstracted air, his utter indifference to the usual sports and pursuits of boyhood, his negligent dress and manners, his companions called him Masaccio, which might be translated ugly or slovenly Tom , and by this reproachful nickname one of the mosi illustrious of painters is now known throughout thft world and to all succeeding generations. Masaccic was one of those rare and remarkable men whose vocation, is determined beyond recall almost from MASACCIO. 77 infancy. He made his first essays as a child in hia native village ; and in the house in which he wad born they long preserved the efSgy 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 thir- teen, he studied (according to Vasari) under Maso- lino, who was then employed on the frescoes of the chapel of the Brancacci family, in the church of the Carmelites. Masolino died soon after, leaving hia work unfinished ; but Masaccio still continued hia studies, acquiring the principles of design under Ghiberti and Donatello, and the art of perspective under Brunelleschi. The passionate energy, and forgetfulness of all the common interests and pleas- ures of life, with which he pursued his favorite 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 ardor, and with all the advantages afforded by the remains of ancient art collected there. While at Rome, Masaccio painted in the church of San Clemen te a Crucifixion, and some scene*- from the life of St. Catherine of Alexandria ; but, unhappily, these have been so coarsely painted over, that every vestige of ]Masaccio"s hand has dis- appeared, — only the composition remains; and 78 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. from the engravings which exist some idea mhf iM formed of their beauty and simplicity.* Cosmo de' Medici ^A'a8 recalled from banishment in 1433 ; and soon afterAvards, probably through his patronage and influence, the completion of the chapel in the church of the Carmine, left unfinished by Masolino, was intrusted to Masaccio. This chapel is on the right hand as you enter the church. It 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 immediately on each side as you enter — the Fall, and the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Of the twelve compartments, two had been painted by Masolino previous to 1415 : the Preaching of St. Peter, one of the small com- partments, 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 another to complete his undertaking, had not that other been Masaccio. * In Ottley's "Early Italian School" there is an engraving of St Catherine disputing with the Heathen Philosophers. In Rosinj are others. Both these works may be consulted in the British lliseum. MASACCIO. 79 Six of the compartments, two large and four small anes, were executed by ^lasaccio. These represent tho Tribute Money ; St. Peter raising a Youth to Life ; Peter baptizing tho Converts ; Peter and John healing the Sick and Lame ; the same Apostles dis- tributing Alms ; and the Expulsion of Adam ^nd Eve from Paradise. The scene represented in one of the compartments is one of the incidents 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 kinsman or nephew of the Roman emperor. The sorcerer fails, of course. The Apos- tles resuscitate the youth, who kneels before them. The skull and bones near him represent the pre- vious state of death. A crowd of spectators stand around beholding the miracle. All the figures are half the size of life, and quite wonderful for the truth of expression, the variety of character, the eimple dignity of the forms and attitudes. Masac- cio died while at work on this grand picture, and the central group was painted some years later by Filippino Lippi. 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 Ouicciardini, father of the great historian ; Luigi Pulci, the poet, author of the " Morgante Mag- giore ; " Pollajuolo, the painter, Michael Angelo'* master, and others. so EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. The portrait of Masaccio usually giveu is frija the head introduced into the fresco of the two Apostles before Nero — the finest of all, and tho chef-d'oeuvre of the painter. It appears that the grand figure of St. Paul standing before the Prison of St. Peter, which Raphael transferred Avith little alteration into his Car'ioon of St. Paul preaching at Athens, is now attributed to Filippino Lippi.* The four remaining compartments were added many- years later (about 1470), by the same Filippino Lippi, who seems to have been inspired by the greatness of his predecessors. But to return to Masaccio. In considering hia works, their superiority over all that painting had till then achieved or attempted is such, and so sur- prising, that there seems a kind of break in the progression of the art — as if Masaccio had over leaped suddenly the limits which his predecessorv had found impassable ; but Ghiberti and his Gatew explain the seeming wonder. The chief excellences 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 knowl- edge of form, but the effects of light and shade i\ giving relief and roundness to his figures, which, in * See Mr. Eastlake'g notes to Kugler's " ILandbuch." " home \rriters on art seem to have attributed all these frescoes indiscrimi- nately to Masaojio ; others have considered only the best portions to be his ; the accuracy of German investigation has perhaps finally i^ttled the distribution as above." rP. 108. > MASACCIU. 81 comjarison to those of his predecessors, seemed to Btart from the canvas. He was the first who suc- cessfully foreshortened the extremities. In most of the older pictures the figures appeared to stand on the points of their toes (as in the Angel of Orcag- na) ; the foreshortening of the foot, though often attempted with more or less success, seemed to pre- sent insurmountable difficulties. ( Masaccio added a precision in the drawing of the naked figure, and a softness and, harmony in coloring the flesh, never attained before his time, nor since surpassed till the days of Raphael 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 shiv- ering with sudden cold. " This figure," says Lanzi, ** formed an epoch in art." Add the animation and variety of character in his heads — so that it was said, of him that he painted souls as well as bodies — and his free-flowing draperies, quite dif- ferent 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 contempora- ries. The Chapel of the Brancacci was for half a century what the Camere of Raphael in tlie Vatican have since become — a school for young artists. Vasari enumerates by name twenty painters who wore accustomed to study there ; among them, Le« 6 b2 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS onardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Andrea iel Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, Pevugino, Baccio Bandinelli, and the divine Raphael 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. Wouldst thou behold his monument ? Look round, And know that where we stand stood oft and long, Oft till the day was gone, Raphael himself, 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. It is strange that so little should be known of Masaccio's history — that he should have passed through life so little noted, so little thought of : Bcarce any record remaining of him but his works, and those so few, and yet so magnificent, that one of his heads alone would have been suflficient to im- mortalize him, and to justify the enthusiasm of hia compears in art. We are told that he died sud- denly, so suddenly that there were suspicions of po'^on ; and that he was buried within the precincts * Michael Angelo. MASACCIO. 88 of the chapel he had adorned, but -vrithout tomb )r inscription. There is not a more vexed question m biography than the date of Masaccio's birth and death. According to Rosini, the most accurate of modern "writers on art, he was born in 1417, ana died in 1443, at the age of twenty-six. Vasari also Bays expressly that he died before he was twenty- seven ; in that case he could not have been, as the same writer represents him, the pupil of Masolino, who died in 1415. According to other authorities, he was born in 1401, and died at the age of forty- two. It seems most probable that, if he had lived to such a mature age, something more would have been known of his life and habiis, and he would have left more behind him. His death at the age of twenty-six renders clear and credible many facts and dates otherwise inexplicable ; and as to his early attainment of the most wonderful skill in art, we may recollect several other examples of preco- cious excellence; for instance, Ghiberti, already mentioned, and Raphael, who was called to Romo to paint the Vatican in his twenty-seventh yenr. The head of Masaccio, painted by himself, in the Chapel of the Brancacci, at most two years before his death, represents him as a young man appar- antly about four or five and twenty. PILIPPO LIPPI, Born 1400, died 1469 ; AND ANGELICO DA FIESOLE, Born 1387, died 1455. Contemporary with Masaccio lived two painters, Doth gifted with surpassing genius, both of a reli- gious order, being professed monks ; in all other respects the very antipodes of each other ; and we find the very opposite impulses given by these r^ markable men prevailing through the rest of Vne century at Florence and elsewhere. Froj-a this period we date the great schism in modem art, though the seeds of this diversity of feeling and purpose were sown in the preceding century. Wo now find, on the one side, a race of painters who cultivated with astonishing success all the mental and mechanical aids that could bo brought to bear on their profession ; profoundly versed in the knovrl- edgeof the human form, and intent on studying aiid imitating the various efiects of nature in color and in light and shade, without any other aspiration than the representation of beauty for its own sake and the pleasure and the triumph of difficulties over- (84) LIPPI AND DA FIESOLE. 85 POPie : en the other hand, we find a race of paintersi 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 em- bodying whatever we can conceive or reverence as highest, holiest, purest in heaven and earth, in such forms as should best connect them with our intelli- gence and with our sympathies. 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 influ- ence exercised by those who pursued their art with such very different objects — with such very differ- ent 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 has painted his famous frescoes, was a young monk who, instead of employing himself in the holy offices pass<^d whole days and hours gazing on those works 86 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. md trying to imitate them. He was one whom poy« erty had driven, as a child, to take refuge there, and who had afterwards taken the habit from necessity rather than from inclination. Ilis name was Filippo Lippi (which may be translated Philip the son of Philip) , but he is known in the history of art as Fra Filippo (Friar Philip) . In him, as in Masaccio, the bent of the genius was early decided ; nature had made him a painter. lie studied from morning to night the models he had before him ; but, restless, ardent, and abandoned to the pursuit of pleasure, he at length broke from the convent and escaped to Ancona. The rest of his life is a romance. On an excursion to sea he was taken by the African pirates, sold as a slave in Barbary, and remained in captivity eighteen months. With a piece of charcoal he drew his master's picture on a wall, and so excited his ad- miration that he gave him his freedom, and dismissed him with presents. Fra Filippo then returned to Italy, and at Naples and at Rome gained so much celebrity by the beauty of his performances, that his crime as a runaway monk was overlooked, and, un- der the patronage of the JNIedici family, he ventured to return to Florence. There he painted a great number of admirable pictures, and was called upon to decorate many convents and churches in the neigh- borhood. His life during all this time appears to have been most scandalous, even without considera- tion of his religious habit ; and the sums of money he obtained by the practice of his art were squan- LIPPI AND DA FIESOLE. 87 derod in profligate pleasures. Being called upon to paint a Madonna for the convent of St. Margaret at Prato, he persuaded the sisterhood to allow a beau- tiful novice, whose name was Lucretia Buti, to sit to him for a model. In the end he seduced this girl, and carried her oflP from the convent, to the great scandal of the community, and the inexpressible grief and horror of her father and family. Filippo was then an old man, nearly sixty ; but for his great fame and the powerful protection of the Medici, he would have paid dearly for this offence against mor- als and religion. His friends Cosmo and Lorenzo de' Medici obtained from the pope a dispensation from his vows, to enable him to marry Lucretia ; but he does not seem to have been in any haste to avail himself of it ; the family of the girl, unable to obtain any public reparation for their dishonor, contrived to avenge it secretly, and Era Filippo died poisoned, at the age of sixty-nine. This libertine monk was undoubtedly a man of extraordinary genius, but his talent was degraded by his immorality. He adopted and carried on all the improvements of Masaccio, and was the first who invented that particular style of grandeur and breadth in the drawing of his figures, the grouping, and the contrast of light and shade, afterAvards car- ried to such p2rfection by Andrea del Sarto. IIo was one of the earliest painters who introduced landscape backgrounds, painted with some feeling for the truth of nature ; but the expression he gav« 88 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. to his personages, though always energetic waa 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 intro- ducing 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 at Florence ; 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 rep- resents the Madonna standing, and holding the Infant Saviour in her arms ; on each side are angela and a kneeling monk. The attitude of the VirgiL is grand; the head commonplace, or worse; the countenance of the Infant Cln-ist heavy ; the angels, with crisped hair, have the faces of street urchins ; but the adoring monks are wonderful for the natural dignity of their figures and 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. The writer does not know of any pic- ture by Fra Filippo now in England. He left a son, Flippo Lippi, called Filippino (to distinguish him from his ' father) , who became in after years an ex- cellent painter, and Avhose frescoes in the Chapel of the Brancacci, which emulated those of Masaccio have been already mentioned. LIPPI AND DA FIESOLE. 89 Contemporary with Fra Filippo, or rather earlier ia point of date, lived the other painter-monk, pre- senting in his life and character the strongest pos- sible contrast to the former. He was, as Vasari 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 devotion, retired from it at the age of twenty to bury himself within the walls Df a cloister ; a man with whom the ]*ractice of a oeautiful art was thenceforth a hymn of praise, and every creation of his pencil an act of piety and sharity, and who, in seeking only the glory of God, Barned an immortal glory among men. This was Fra Ciiovanni Angelico da Fiesole, whose name, before he entered the convent, was Guido Petri de iMugeilo.* lie has since obtained, from the holi- ness of his life, the title of // Beato, " the Blessed," by Avhich he is often mentioned in Italian histories of art. He was born in 1387, at Fiesole, a beaut' ful toAvn situated on a hill overlooking Florenct, and in 1407, being then twenty, and already skilled in the art of painting, particularly miniature illu- minations of Mi^als and choral-books, he 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 Ijeen taught by Stamina, the best colorist of that time. The rest of his long life of seventy yeara presents only one unbroken tranquil stream of placid ' Notea to the last Florence edition of Vasari, p. 303. 90 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. contentment and pious labors. Except on one oc casion, when called to Rome by Pope Nicholas V. to paint in the Vatican, he never left his convent, and then only yielded to the express command of the pontiiF. While he was at Rome the Arch bishopric of Florence became vacant, and the pope, Btruck 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. Angelicc refused it from excess of modesty, pointing out at the same time to the notice of the pope a brother of his convent as much more worthy of the honor, and by his active talents more fitted for the office. The pope listened to his recommendation ; Frate Antonio was raised to the see, and became cele- brated as the best Archbishop of Florence that had been known for two centuries. Meantime 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 pictures, Bome in distemper and on a small scale, to which he gave all the delicacy and finish of miniature ; and in the churches of Florence 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 re- neived with humility the order or the permission to LlPPI AND DA riESOLE. 91 execute it, and thus the brotherhood was at once enriched by his talent and edified by his virtue. To Angelico the art of painting a picture devoted to religious purposes vras an act of religion, for vrhich he prepared himself by fasting and prayer, implor- ing on bended knees the benediction of heaven on his work. He then, under the impression that ho 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 singular 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 har- mony with this gentle, devout, enthusiastic spirit. They are not remarkable for the usual merits of the Florentine school. They are not addressed to the taste of connoisseurs, but to the faith of Avorship- pers. Correct drawing of the human figure could not be expected from one who regarded the exhibi- tion of the undraped form as a sin. In the learned distribution of light and shade, in the careful imi- tation 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 fervor which he threw into his heads of saints and Madonnas. Power is not the character 92 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. istic of Angolico. "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 are anything but devil- ish ; while, on the other hand, the pathos of suf- fering, of pity, O'f divine resignation — the exprcs- Bion of ecstatic faith and hope, or serene contempla- tion — have never been placed before us as in hia 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 Raphael. The principal works of Angelico are the frescoes m the church of his own convent of St. Mark, at Florence, in the church of Santa JNIaria Novella, and at Rome in the chapel of Nicholas V., in the Vatican. His small easel pictures are numerous, and to be found in most of the foreign collections, though unhappily the writer can point out none that are accessible in England. There is one in the Louvre, of surpassing beauty. The subject is the Coronation of the Virgin Mary by her Son the Re- deemer, 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 deli- LIPPI AND DA FIESOLE. 93 cately 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 cro\m on her head. On each side are twelve angels, who are playing a heavenly concert with guitars, tambourines, trumpets, viols, and othei musical instruments. Lower than these, on each Bide, are forty holy 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 prin- cipal picture there is a row of seven small ones, forming a border, and representing various inci- dents in the life of St. Dominic. The whole meas- ures 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 colors are the most delicate and vivid im- aginable, and the ample draperies have the long folds which recall the school of Giotto ; the gayety and harmony of the tints, the expression of the various heads, the divine rapture of the angels, witli 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 enjo3^ed for more than four centuries. It was painted by Frate Angelico for the church of St. Dominic, at Ficsole where it remained till the beginning of the present 94 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. century. How obtained it does not appeal, but it was purchased by the French government in 1812, and exhibited for the first time in the long gallery of the Louvre in 1815. It is now placed in the gallery of drawings at the upper end. 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 would convey some faint idea of tho composition, and of the exquisite and benign beauty of the angelic heads. 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 persona were aware of their existence, fewer still set any value on them. In 1709 those who wished to see them were obliged to enter by a window. Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole died at Ptome, in 1455, and is buried there in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. BENOZZO GOZZOLI. Born 1406, died 14T8. Fra Giovanni Angelico possessed, among his other amiable qualities, one true characteristic of a generous mind, the willingness to impart what- ever he knew to others ; and, notAvithstanding 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 incom- municable except to a kindred spirit. Hence it is that this 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. Oosimo Roselli, a very distinguished artist of that time, is supposed to have studied under Angelico, and certainly began by imitating his manner. Afterwards he painted like Masaccio. His best work, a large fresco in the chapel of St. Ambrogio, at Florence, is engraved in Lasinio's collection from the old Florentine masters. It was executed about 1456. A much more celebrated name is tliut OfBENOZZO GOZZOLI. (95) 90 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. We know very little of the life of this extraordi nary man ; but that little shows him to have beer worthy of the particular love of his master, whost favorite pupil and companion he was, and, during the last years of Angelico's life, his assistant. Ac- cording to Vasari, Benozzo was an excellent man, and a good and pious Christian, but he had no vo- cation 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 lie had little time for other pursuits. He succeeded to the popularity of xVngelico as a painter of sacred subjects, into which he introduced much more orna- ment, 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 compositions, and mingled with hia grace a certain ga^^ety 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 Bome frescoes in the cathedral at Orvieto, and in the churches of the little town of jNIontefalco, near Foligno, and also at Rome, in the church of the Ara-celi. The former remain, but those in the Ara-celi have long since been destroyed. All these BENOZZO GOZZOLI 97 were more or less in the style of his master. After the death of Angelico, Benozzo was employed to paint the church at San Geminiano, a little city on the road from Florence to Sienna ; and here some of his own peculiar characteristics were first dis- played ; here he painted the Death of St. Sebas- tian, and the history of St. Augustin ; and for Pietro de' Medici he painted a chapel in the palace of the Medici (now the Palazzo Pticardi, at Flor- ence), the subject being the Adoration of the Magi, which still exists in the Ricardi Palace, but so built up that it can only be viewed by torch-light. 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 belong- ing 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 Buch, if properly considered. Benozzo carried this and other characteristics of his own original stylo still further in his greatest work, the decoration of the Campo Santo 7 98 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. When the troubles of war, famine, plague, and intestine divisions, which had distracted Pisa dur- ing the first half of the fifteenth century, had sub- Bided, the citizen-s of that rich and active republic resumed those works of peace which had been inter rupted for nearly a century, and resolved to com- plete the painting of their far-famed cemetery, tho Campo Santo. One whole side, the north wall, waa 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 expression, was nothing less than " terrihilissima,''^ and enough " to frighten a whole legion of paint- ers." 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 composi- tions ; the pastoral beauty of some of the scenes, the scriptural sublimity 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 Raphael ; the ample draperies, the gay, rich colors, the profusion of accessories, as build ings, 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 ex. BENOZZO GOZZOLI. 99 traordinary, it would have been miraculous, had it been executed in the space of two 3'ears, as Lan^i relates — trusting to a popular tradition, whict a moment's reflection would have shown to be incred- ible. It appears, from authentic records still exist- inf, in the city of Pisa, that Benozzo was engaged on ^his great work not less than sixteen years, from 14d8 to 1484, 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. The original frescoes are still in wonderful pres- ervation. Three out of the twenty-four are almost entirely destroyed ; the others have peeled off in some parts, but in general the expression of the features and the lucid harmony of the colors have remained. Each compartment contains many inci- dents and events artlessly grouped together. Thus we have Hagar's presumption, her castigation 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 Benozzo 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 bas- ket for more — which are perfect models of pasto- ral grace and simplicity. In the Building of the Tower of Babel, a crowd of spectators have aseem- 100 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. bled to witness the work ; among them are intro- duced the figures of Cosmo de' Medici, the Fathei of his country, and his two grandsons, Lorenzo and Giuliano, with Poliziano and other person a^es, all in the costume of that time. In the Marriage Feast of Jacob and Rachel he has in- troduced two graceful dancing figures. In tho Recognition of Joseph he has painted a profusion of rich architectural decoration — palaces, colon- nades, balconies, and porticoes, in the style of thg time ; and in the distance we have, instead of the Egyptian Pyramids, a view of the Cathedral of Pisa ! Soon after the completion of the last compart ment, the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon (ol which, unhappily, scarce a fragment remains). Be nozzo Gozzoli died, at Pisa, in his seventy-eigh(h year. The grateful and admiring Pisans, amorg whom he had resided for sixteen years in great honor 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 inscription purporting that his best monument consists in the works around. Benozzo left an only daughter, who after his death inherited tne modest little dwelling which he had purchased for himself on the Carraia di San Francesco. Benozzo's principal works, being in fresco, re main attached to the walls on which they were BENOZZO GOZZOLI. IQl painted. Those only of the Campo Santo arc en- graved. A picture in distemper of St. Thomas Aquinas is in the Louvre (No. 1033), and is the same mentioned by Yasari as having been painted for the Cathedral of Pisa. ANDREA CASTAGNO, Born 1403, died 1477 } AND LUCA SIGNORELLI, Born 1440, died 1521. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, we find Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnijicent, master of the Florentine republic, as it was still denomi- nated, though now under the almost absolute power of one man. The mystic and spiritual school of An- gelico 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 cultivation and development of a style wholly different ; the paint ers, instead of confining themselves to scriptural 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 colors, and all the technical appli- ances of the art, prepared the way for the appear- ance 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. ^ (102) CASTAGNO AND SIGNORELLI. 103 About 14G0, a certain Neapolitan painter, named Antoxello da Messina, having travelled into the Netherlands, learned there from Johan v. Eyk and his scholars the art of managing oil-colors. 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 considerable reputation, was called to Flor- ence 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 tfme, and a favorite 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 execution — "fit subject for fit hand;" and he succeeded so well, that he obtained the surname of Andrea degV Impiccati, which may be translated Andrea the hanrjman. He afterwards earned a yet more infamous designation — Andrea the assassin. Envious of the reputation which Domenico had ac- quired by the beauty and brilliance of his colors, ho first, by a show of the most devoted friendship, ob- tained his secret, and then seized the opportunity when he accompanied Domenico one night to sere- nade his mistress, and stabbed him to the heart. He contrived to escape suspicion, and allowed one or two innocent persons to suller for his crime ; but 104 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 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. Four are in the Berlin Museum ; they are much praised by Lanzi, but, however great their merit, it is difficult to get rid jf the associations of disgust and horror connected w^ith the character of the man. It is remarkable ihat none of his remaining pictures are painted in 3il-colors, but all are in distemper, as if he had feared io avail himself of the secret acquired by such flagi- tious means, and the knowledge of which, though net 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 patronage had diffused the fashion, if not the feeling, throughout all Italy; and having built that beau- tiful 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 history of Christ ; the old law and the new law, the Hebrew and the Christian iispensation, thus placed in contrast and illustrat mg each other. As there were no distinguished painters at that time in Rome, Sixtus invited from Florence those of the Tuscan artists who had the greatest reputation in their native country. The Brst of these was Sandro (that is, Alessandro) Bot- ncELLi, remarkable for being one of the earliest CASTAGNO AND SIGNORELLT. IOD painters -vvho treated mythological subjects on a Bmall scale as decorations for furniture, and the first who made drawings for the jDurpose of being engraycd. These, as well as his religious pictures, he treated in a fanciful, capricious style. Six of his pictures are in the Museum at Berlin — one an undraped Venus ; and two are in the Louvre. San- dro was a pupil of the monk Fra Filippo already mentioned, and after his death took charge of hia young son Fiiippino Lippi, who excelled l)oth hia father and his preceptor, and became one of the greatest painters of his time.* Another painter employed by Pope Sixtus was Luca Sigxorelli, 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 his figures, that his great work, the frescoes of the Cathedral of Crvieto, representing the Last Judgment, were studied and even imitated by Michael x\ngelo. This painter was apparently a favorite of Fuseli, whose compositions frequently remind us of the long limbs and animated, but sometimes exaggerated, action of Signorelli. • ne completed the frescoes in the Chapel of the Carmine at Florence, left unfinished by ilasaccio, as already related at pag» 79. DOMENICO DAL GHIRLANDAJO, Born 1451, died 1495. DoMExico 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 productions, that we do not recognize 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 Flor- ence 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 ( Ghirlanda) which became a fashion with the Florentine women, and from which he obtained the name of Ghirlandajo, 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 (106^ GHIRLANDAJO. 107 80 rapidly, and with so much liveliness and truth, as to astonish every one. The exact drawing and modelling of forms, the inventive fancy exercised in his mechanical art, and the turn for portraiture, are displayed in all his subsequent productions These were so many in number, so various in sub- iect, and so admirable, that only a few of them can be noticed here. After he returned from Rome hia 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 por trait of Amerigo Vespuccio the navigator, who afterwards gave his name to a new world. Ghirlandajo painted a chapel for a certain Flor- entine 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 tra- ditions, 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 concep- tion. 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 chanting the litanies, with spectacles on hia 108 EAHLT ITALIAN PAINTFilS. nose, which is the earliest known representatic n of these implements, then recently invented. On one side of the pictnre is the kneeling figure of Fran- cesco Sassetti, and on the other jMadonna Nera, hia wife. All these histories of St. Francis are engraved in Lasinio's " Early Florentine Masters," as are also the magnificent frescoes in the choir of Santa Maria Novella, his greatest work. This he under- took for a generous and public-spirited citizen of Florence, Giovanni Tornabuoni, who agreed to re- pair 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 Baptist, and on the left various incidents from the life of the Virgin. One of the most beau- tiful represents the Birth of the Virgin. Female attendants, charming graceful 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 handkerchief 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 attend- ants in the Visit of the Virgin to St. Elizabeth. In the other pictures he has introduced the figures of GHIRLANDAJO. 109 Lorenzo de' Medici, Poliziano, Demetrio Greco, Marsilio Ficino, and other celebrated persons (of whom there are notices in Roscoe's " Life of Lo- renzo de' Medici "), besides his own portrait, and those of many other persons of that time. The idea of crowding these sacred and mystical subjects with portraits of real persons and repre- sentations of familiar objects may seem, on first view, shocking to the taste, ridiculous anachro- nisms, and destructive of all solemnity and unity of feeling. Such, however, is not the case, but the reverse. In the first place, the sacred and ideal per sonages aro never portraits from nature, and are very loftily conceived in point of expression and significance. In the second place, the real person- ages introduced are seldom or never actors, merely attendants and spectators in events which may be conceived to belong to all time, and to have nc especial locality ; and they have so much dignity m 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^ de- clared himself well pleased ; but, at the same time, expressed a wish that Ghirlandajo would be content with the sum first stipulated, and forego the ad- ditional two hundred ducats. The high-minded painter, who esteemed glory and honor much more 110 EARLY ITALIAN I'AINTERS. than riches, immediately withdrew his claim, say- ing that he cared far more to have satisfied hia employer than for any amount of payment. Besides his frescoes, Ghirlandajo painted many easel pictures in oil and in distemper. There is one of great beauty in the Louvre — the Visitation (1022) , about four feet in height. But the subject he most frequently repeated was the Adoration of the ;Magi. In the Florence Gallery are two pic- tures of this subject ; another of a circular form, which had been painted for the Tornabuoni family, was in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte. In the Munich Gallery there is one picture by Ghirlan- dajo, and in the Museum at Berlin there are six ; one of them a beautiful portrait of a young girl of the Tornabuoni family, whom lie has also intro- duced into his frescoes. 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 imitation of life and nature as exhibited in feature and countenance. He also carried the mechanical and technical part of his art to a perfection it had not before attained. He was the best colorist in fresco who had yet appeared, and his colors have stood extremely well to this day. Another characteristic which renders Ghirlandajo very interesting as an artist was his diligent and progressive improvement ; every successive produc- tion was better than the last. He was also an GHIULANDAJO. 11 excellent worker in mosaic, which, from its dura bility, he used to call '•'■ painting for eternity.''^ To his rare and various accomplishments as au artist, Ghirlandajo added the most amiable quali- ties as a man, — qualities which obtained him the lovo 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 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, Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, became afterwards an excellent artist, but he be- longs to a later period. Ghirlandajo formed many scholars ; among them was the great JNIichael Angelo. Contemporary with Ghirlandajo lived an artist, memorable for having aided with his instructions both Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Yinci. This was Andrea VERROCcnio (born 1432, died 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 admirably, and is celebrated 112 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. through the celebrit}^ of the artists formed in his Bchool. Among them Avas Lionardo da Vinci. He is said to have been the first who took casts in plaster from life as aids in the study of form. In the collection of Miss Rogers, the sister of the poet, there is a portrait in profile, by Verrocchio, of a Florentine lady of rank, rather hard and severe in the execution and drawing, yet with a certain simple elegance — a look of high breeding — which is very striking. ANDREA ]\LVNTEGNA. Born 1430, 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 IMantegxa, particularly interesting to English readers, as his most celebrated work, the Triumph of Julius Cassar, 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 Mantegxa was the son of very poor and obscure parents, and born near Padua in 1430.* All we learn of his early childhood amounts to tbis : * Tlie dates of Mantegna's birth and death vrere lon^ subjects of Qncertaiiity and controversy. According to some authors, he was born in 1451, and died in 1517 ; but the best and latest authoritiei are now agreed upon the dates as given in the text. 8 ai3) 114 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 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 this century, from which time we date the revival of letters in Europe, the Btudy 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 correctly, to understand the allusions of the best authors, to learn the rudiments at least of Greek, were the objects of every cultivated mind." Classical literature was particularly studied at tho University of Padua. Squarcione, a native of that city, and by profession a painter, was early smit- ten 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 Italy. Squarcione numbered one hundred and thirty-seven pupils, and was considered the best teacher of his time. Yet of all this crowd of students the names of three only arc preserved, and of these only one has attained lasting celebrity. By Squarcione himself we hear only of one undoubted picture displaying great talent ; but it appears that he painted little, em MANTEGNA. /' *' lit) jyloyed his scholars to execute w^a|'i works wore^^^. confided to him, and gave himself up tQ^iihe-bus'y ness of instruction. Andrea Maxtegna was only known in the acad- emy of Squarcione as a poor boy, whose talent and docility rendered him a favorite with his master. He worked early and late, copying with assiduity the models which were set before him, drawing from the fragments of statues, the busts, the bas- reliefs, ornaments, and vases, with which Squarcione had enriched his academy. At the age of nineteen Andrea painted his first great picture, in which he represented 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 consid- ered as the rival of Squarcione, both as a painter and teacher. Andrea was captivated by the talents and conversation of the Venetian ; and yet more attracted by the charms of his daughter Nicolasa, 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 Btill poor and but little known, and the Bellini fam 116 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. ily already rich and celebrated, he did not hesitate to bestow his daughter on the youthful and modest suitor. This marriage, and what he regarded aa the revolt of his favorite disciple, so enraged Squar- cione that he never forgave the offence. Andrea having soon after completed a picture which ex- celled his first, his old master attacked it with the most merciless severity, and publicly denounced ita faults. The figures, he said, were stiff, were cold — without life, without nature ; and observed sar- castically that Andrea should have painted them white, like marble, and then the color would have harmonized with the drawing. This criticism came with a particularly ill grace from him Avho 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 medioc- rity, 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 hia old master ; but he knew that much of his criticism was just. Instead of showing any sense of injury or di530uragement, he set to work with fresh ardor. He drew and studied from nature, instead of con- fining himself to the antique ; he imitated the fresher and livelier coloring of his new relations, the Bellini MANTEGNA. 117 and liis next picture, which represented a legend of St. Christopher, "was so superior to the last, that it silenced the open cavilling of Squareione, though it crAd not extinguish his animosity, perhaps rather added to it ; for Andrea had introduced among the numerous figures in his fresco that of Squareione 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, ihe enmity of his old master seems to have rendered Padua intolerable as a residence. Andrea therefore 5vent to Verona, where he executed several frescoes and some smaller pictures ; and , being invited to Mantua by Ludovico Gonzaga, he finally entered th3 service of that prince. The native courtesy of Andrea's manners, as well as his acquired knowl- adge and his ability in his profession, recommended him to his new patron, who loaded him with honors «tTid favors. 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 Rome by P .pe Innocent YIII., to paint for him a chapel m thd Belvedere. The Marquis of Mantua permitted him to depart but for a time only ; the permission v^as accompanied by gifts and by letters of recom- mfindation to the pontiff; and, the more to shoAvthe esteem in which the painter was held, he bestowed on him the honor of knighthood. 118 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Mantegna, on his arrival in Rome, set himself to rrork Tvith his characteristic diligence and enthusi- asm, and covered the walls and the ceiling with a multiplicity of subjects, executed, says Vasari, with the delicacy of miniatures. These beautiful paint- ings 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 Home by Pope Innocent, a pleasant and characteristic incident occurred, which does honor both to him and to the pope. His holiness was at this time much occupied and disturbed by state affairs ; and it 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 he was painting. Andrea replied, with a signijBcant look, that he was trying to repre- sent Patience. The pope, vmderstanding him at once, replied, " If you would place Patience in fit- ting company, you should paint Discretion 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 rcAvarded him munificently besides. About the year 1487 he returned to Mantua, where he built himself a mag- nificent house, painted inside and outside by his own hand, and in which he resided, in great esteem and honor, until his death in 150G. Ho was buried in the church of his patron saint, St. Andrew, whera MANTEGNA. 119 &1S monument in bronze and several of his pictures may yet be seen. The existing Avorks of Andrea Mantegna are so numerous, that we must content ourselves Tvith recording only the most remarkable, and the occa- Bions on which they were painted. In the year 147G, Andrea executed for his friend and patron, the Marquis Ludovico Gonzaga, the famous frieze representing in nine compartments the triumjjh of Julius Ciesar after his conquest of Gaul. These were placed round the upper part of a hall in the palace of San Sebastiano, at Mantua, which Ludovico had lately erected. They hung in this palace for a century and a half. "When Mantua was sacked and pillaged, in 1G29, 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 ovrn time, sold his gallery of pictures to our King Charles I. for tAventy thousand pounds ; and these and other Avorks of Andrea Mantegna came to Eng- land with the rest of the Mantuan collection. When King Charles' pictures were sold by the Parliament after his death, the Triumph of Julius Caesar Avas purchased for one thousand pounds ; 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 Hamp- ton Court. They are painted in distemper on twilled linen, which has been stretched on frames 120 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. and originally placed against the Avail with orna* mentcd pilasters dividing the compartments. In their present faded and dilapidated condition, hur- ried and uninformed visitors will probably pasa them over with a cursory glance ; yet, if we except the Cartoons of Raphael, Hampton Court contains nothing so curious and valuable as this old frieze of Andrea Mantegna, which, notwithstanding the frailty of the material on which it is executed, haa cow existed for three hundred and sixty-seven years, and, having been frequently engraved, is celebrated ali 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 agree- able in itself nor in harmony with pictorial illusion ; but in the Triumph of Julius Csesar the combina- tion 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 pur- pose, and executed with wonderful success ; the in- numerable figures move one after another in a lonw and splendid procession, as in an ancient bas-relief, but colored lightly, in a style resembling the an- tique paintings at Pompeii. Originally it appears that the nine compartments were separated from each other by sculptured pilasters. In the first picture, or compartment, we have the opening of the procession ; trumpets, incense burning, stand' MANTEGNA. 121 (irds borne aloft by the victorious soldiers. In the second picture, we have the statues of the gods car- ried off from the temples of the enemy ; battering- rams, implements of war, heaps of glittering armor carried on men's shoulders, or borne aloft in char- iots. 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 sacri- fice. 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 bear- ing vases, and others displaying the arms of the vanquished. The seventh picture shows us the unhappy captives, who, according to the barbarous Roman 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 her little boy, who lifts up his foot as if he had hurt it ; this group is particularly pointed out by Yasari, who praises it for its nature and its grace. In the eighth picture, we have a group oi Bingers 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 tamboiirine is 'distinguished by singula! 122 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. spirit and grace. In the last picture appears the conqueror, Julius Cassar, in a sumptuous chariot richly adorned with sculptures in the antique style He is surrounded and followed by a crowd of fig- ures, and among them is seen a youth bearing aloft a standard, on which is inscribed Ccesar's memora- ble words, Veni, Vidi, Vici — "I came, I saw, I conquered." The inconceivable richness of fancy displayed iu this triumphal procession, the numbers of figures and objects of every kind, the propriety of the antique costumes, ornaments, armor, &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 sur- faces of the objects are alone visible (as would be the case when viewed from below) , the upper sur- faces vanishing into air ; all these merits combined render this series of pictures one of the grandest works of the fifteenth century, worthy of the atten- tion and admiration of all beholders.* When the great Flemish painter, Rubens, was at Mantua in 1G06, he was struck with astonishment on viewing these works and made a fine copy in a reduced form of the fifth compartment. Copy, how- ever, it cannot properly be called ; it is rather a version in the manner of Rubens, the style of the * In the British Museum there is a fine set of the wood-cuts in chiaro-scuro, executca hy Andrea Andreani, about 1599, when the anginal frieze still kept its place in the palace at Mantua. MANTEGNA. 123 whole, and even some of the circnrastances, being altered. This fine picture is now in the possessioii of Mr. Rogers, the poet. Another of the most celebrated of Mantegna's works is the great picture now in the Louvre, at Paris, and called by the Italians "/a Madonna della Vittoria,'" the Madonna of Yictory. 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 in- stigated by revenge, by policy, or by rapacious thirst of dominion, this invasion of Italy, in 1495, was the most flagitious in its injustice, its folly, and its cru- elty ; 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 Avas met by Gian- Francesco, Marquis of Mantua, the son and suc- cessor of Frederigo, at the head of an army. On the part of the Italians it was rather a victory missed than a victory won ; for the French con- tinued 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 occa- Bion, the French must have had a particular and 124 EARLY ITALIAN POINTERS. malicious pleasure in placing this picture in th« Louvre, where it now hangs, at the upper end of that immense gallery. It represents in the centre, under a canopy oi arbor composed of garlands of foliage and fruit, and Beated 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 completo armor. On the left are the patron saints of Man- tua, St. Longinus and St. Andrew, with the infant St. John. More in front, on each side, are the Mar- quis of Mantua and his wife, the celebrated and accomplished Isabella d'Este, who, kneeling, return thanks for the so-called victory over the French. The figure of the JNIarchesa Isabella is still, in the French catalogue of the Louvre, styled St. Eliza- beth, 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 conception of the whole, the grand- eur of the saints, and the expression in the coun- tenance of Gonzaga as he gazes upwards in a trans- port of devotion, it is worthy of his best years. In the Louvre are three other pictures by Andrea Man- tegna. One is the Crucifixion of our Saviour, a small picture, remarkable for containing his own portrait in the figure of the soldier seen half-lengtb in front. Another, an allegorical subject, repre- sents the Vices flying before Wisdom, Chastity, and MANTEGNA. 125 Philosophy, "vvhile Justice, Fortitude, and Temper- ance, 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 Pluses are designed with exquisite taste and feel- ing. 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 Squar- cione had fitted him. In general his religious pic- tures are not pleasing ; and many of his classical subjects have a tasteless meagreness in the forms, which is quite opposed to all our conceptions of beauty and greatness of style ; but he has done grand things. Besides the works already men tioned, there are 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. Tliey 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," cxxxiii., St. 2), in which he has commemorated all 126 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. the leading painters of his own time, places tha name of Andrea Mantegna between tliose of Leon- ardo da Yinci 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 seulpe, o colora Michel piu che mortal Angel divino ; Bastiano, Rafifael, Titian ch' honora Non men Cador, che quei Yenezia 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, Raphael, three that grace Cadora, Venice, and Urbino's race : Each genius that can past events recall In living figures on the storied wall." The Invention of Engraying on "Wood and Coi per: 1423—1452. Andrea Mantegna was not only eminent a^ a painter ; he owed much of his celebrity and hia influence over the artists of that age to the multi- plication and diffusion of his designs by copper- plate engraving, an art unknown til) his time lie was one of the first who practised it— -certainly the first painter who engraved his own design?. In these days, when we cannot walk throu^'h the MANTEGNA. 127 Btreats even of a third-rate town without passing shops with their windows filled with engravings and prints ; when not our books only, but the newspapers that lie on our tables, are illustrated ; when ihe 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 hun- dreds and thousands of copies; when the talk is rife of wondrous inventions by which such copies shall reproduce themselves to infinitude, without change or deterioration, 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. It is interesting to re- member that three inventions to which we owe such infinite instruction and delight were almost simul- taneous. The earliest known impression of an en- graving on wood is dated 1423 ; the earliest im- pression from an engraved metal plate was made about 1452; and the first printed book, properly so called, bears date, according to the best author^' 'ties, 1455. Stamps for impressing signatures and characters on paper, in which the required forms wera cut 128 EARLY ITALIAI? PAINTERS. upou 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 prov- ince 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 ; and 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 wood-cut known is a coarse figure of St. Christopher, dated 1423. This curiosity exists in the library of Earl Spencer, at Althorpe. Another impression, which is declared by connoisseurs to be a little later, is in the Royal Library at Paris, where it is framed and hung up for the inspection of the curious. Rude, ill-drawn, grotesque, — printed with some brownish fluid, on the coarsest ill-colored paper, — still it is impos- sible to look at it without some of the curiosity, interest, and reverence, with which we regard tin first printed book, though it must be allowed that, in comparison with this first sorry specimen of a MANTEGNA. 129 wood -cut, the first book was a beautiful perform- ance. Up to a late period, the origin of engraving on copper Avas involved in a like obscurity, and vcl- umcs of controversy have been written on the sub- ject ; some claiming the invention for Germany, others for Italy. At length, however, the indefati- gable researches of antiquarians and connoisseurs, aided by the accidental discovery in 179-i of the first impression from a metal plate, have set the matter at rest. If to Germany belongs the inven- tion of engraving on wood, the art of copper-plate engraving was beyond all doubt first introduced and practised at Florence ; yet here again the in- vention 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 Flor- ence, 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, some- times single figures, sometimes elaborate and com- plicated designs from sacred and profane history. The .ines thus cut or scratched Avere filled up with a black mass of sulphate of silver, so that the design traced appeared very distinct, contrasted with the white metal. In Italy the substance used in filling \ip the lines was called from its black color, in 130 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. hsiimni(/eUu7n, and in Italian niello. In this man- ner church plate, as chalices and reliquaries, also dagger-sheaths, sword-hilts, clasps, buttons, and many other small silver articles, were ornamented. In Sir John Soane's Museum there is an old MS. book, of which the binding exhibits some beautiful specimens of niello-work of the fifteenth century. Those who practised the art were called niellatori. According to Vasari's account, Maso Finiguerra was a skilful goldsmith, living in Florence. He became celebrated for the artistic beauty of his designs and workmanship in niello. Finiguerra is said to be the first to whom it accidentally occurred to try the effect of his work, and preserve a memo- randum 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 pressing 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 efiect of the work is mare 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 church of S. Giovanni * A pax, or pix, is the name given to the vessel in which the con •^crated bread or wafer of the sacrament was deposited. This vesse/ ras usually of the richest workmanship, often enriched with gems. MANTEGNA. 131 at Flc/ence executed by Finiguerra, and represetiL- ing the sabjoct we have often alluded to — tlie Cor onation of 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 preserved in the Royal Library at Paris, where it was discovered 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 (thirty-two pounds sterling) to Maso Finiguerra for this iden- tical pax still exists, dated 1452. The only existing impression from it must have been made previously, perhaps a few weeks or months before. It is now, like the first wood-cut, framed and hung up in the Royal Library at Paris for the inspection of the curious. Another method of trying the efiect of niello- work before it was quite completed was by taking the impression of the design, not on paper, but on sulphur, of which some curious and valuable speci- mens 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. In our own time, this art, after having been forgotten since the sixteenth century, when it fell into disuse, has been very successfully revived by Mr. Wagner, a gold- smith of Berlin, now residing at Paris. We h«.ve no evidence that it occurred to Maso 132 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Finiguerra, or any other niello- worker, tc 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 pro- fession was Baccio Baldini, who, about 14G7, em- ployed several painters, particularly Sandro Botti- celli 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 ex- periment when about sixty, and, according to Lanzi , he engraved, during the sixteen remaining 3^ears ol 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 tht Triumph of Julius Ccesar (the fifth, sixth, and seventh compartments only) . Familiar as we now are with all kinds of copper plate and wood engraving, there are persons who dc not understand clearly the difference between them. Independent of the difference of the material on which they are executed, the grand distinction be- tween the two arts is this : that the copper-plate engraver cuts out the lines by which the impression is produced, which are thus left hollow, and after- wards filled up with ink ; the impression is produced by laying a piece of Avet 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 sur- rounding surface of the block of wood, and leaves MANTEGNA. 183 the lines ■which are to produce the impression prominent. They are afterwards bkckened witn ink like a stamp, and the impression taken Tvith a common printing-press. When Andrea Mantegna made his tirst essays in engraving on copper, he does not seem to have used a press or roller. Perhaps he Avas unacquainted with that implement. At all events, the early impres- sions of his plates have evidently heen taken by merely laying the paper on the copper-plate, and then rubbing it over wdth the hand ; and they are very fliint and spiritless, compared with the latei impressions taken with a press 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 Bpoken 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 chris- tened 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 patriarchal authority over all the painters of north- ern 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 by other iiiflu. (134) THE BELLINI. 135 euices . The commercial intercourse between 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, Avho had carried on the art of painting from generation to generation, and who had associated with them some of the early Flem- ings. Thus it was that the painters of the first Venetian school became familiarized with a style of coloring 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 knowl- edge of drawing and perspective taught in the Paduan school, and the religious and spiritual feel- ing which they derived from the example and in- struction of Gentile da Fabriano. In these com- bined 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 importance and its object to the contemplated dec- oration of our houses of parliament. They were commanded to paint the Hail of Council in the palace of the Doge, with a series of pictures repre- senting the principal events (partly legendary and fictitious, partly authentic) of the Venetian wars with the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa (1177) ; the combats and victories on the Adriatic, the rocon- 136 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.. ciliation of the Emperor with Pope Alexander III. in the Phice of St. Mark, when Frederic held the Btirrup of the pope's mule ; the Doge Ziaui re- ceiving from the pope the gold ring with which ho espoused the Adriatic in token of perpetual domin- ion over it ; and other memorable 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 bj fire in 1577. In 1452 Constantinople Avas taken by the Turks, an event which threw the whole of Christendom into consternation, not unmixed with shame. The Venetians were the first to resume their commercial relations with the Levant ; the}'- sent an embassy to the Turkish Sultan to treat for the redempticji of the Christian prisoners, and negotiate a peace. This was happily concluded in 1454, under the aus- pices 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 de- liberation, selected for this service Gentile Bellini, who took his departure accordingly in one of the * 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 th« most beautiful tragedies of Joanna Baillie. THE BELLINI. 137 itate galleys, and on arriving at Constant! Loplo was received with great honor. During his resi- dence there he painted the portrait of the Sultan and one of his favorite sultanas ; and he took an opportunity of presenting to the Sultan, as a token of homage from himself, a picture of the head of John the Baptist after decapitation. The Sultan admired it much, but criticized, with the air of a connoisseur, the ai3.pearance of the neck. lie ob- served that the shrinking of the severed nerves was not properly expressed. As Gentile Bellini did not appear to feel the full force of thia criticism, the Saltan called in one of his slaves, commanded the wretch to kneel down, and, drawing his sabre, cut oS his head Avith a stroke, and thus gave the aston- ished and terrified painter a practical lesson in .anatomy. It may be easily believed that after thia Qorrible scene Gentile became uneasjr till he had obtained leave of departure; and the Sultan at length dismissed him, with a letter of strong recom- mendation to his own government, a chain of gold, and other rich presents. After his return to Venice be painted some remarkable pictures ; among them i>ne representing St. Mark preaching at Alexandria, in which he has painted the men and women of Alexandria in rich Turkish costumes, such as he aad seen at Constantinople. This curious picture is now in the Academy at Milan, and is engravca in Rosini's " Storia della Pittura." A portrait of Mohammed II., painted by Gentile Bellini, is said X38 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. to be in England. All the early engravings of tlia grim Turkish conqueror which now exist are from the portraits painted by Bellini. lie died in 1501, at the age of eighty. A much more memorable artist in all respecta 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 of expression, with, however, a certain timidity and dryness of manner ; in the latter w^e have a foretaste of the rich Venetian coloring, without any diminution of the grave simple dignity and melancholy sweetness of expression which distinguished his earlier works. Between 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 Antonella da Messina when he was painting at Venice, and stole from him the newly-discovered secret of mixing the colors with oils instead of water. It is a consola- tion to think that this story does not rest on any evidence worthy of credit. Antonella had divulged his secret to several of his friends, particularly tc Domenico Veneziano, afterwards murdered by An drea Castaguo. Besides, the character of Bellin\ THE CELLINI. lo9 renders it milikely 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 likenesses 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 pic- ture—generally the head only, or half-length. Their houses were filled with fiimily portraits, and it be- came a custom to have the effigies of their doges and those who distinguished themselves in the service of their country painted by order of the 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 coun- trymen only religious pictures or portraits, or sub- jects 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 Fer- rara to paint in the palace of the duke a dance of bacchanals. On this occasion he made the acquaint- ance of Ariosto, who mentions him with honor among the painters of his time (see p. 126). There is at the palace of Hampton Court a very <»uriou8 little head of Bellini, certainly genuine, though much injured. It is inscribed underneath, Johanes Bellini ipse. We have lately acquired foi 140 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. our National Galleiy a most curious and genaine portrait of one of the old doges, painted by Bellini. It is somewhat hard in the execution, but we can- not 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 hia 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 Constanti- nople. 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. Gian Bellini died in 151G. He had formed many disciples, and among them two whose glory in these later times had almost eclipsed that of their great teacher and precursor — Giorgione and Titian. Another, far less famous, but of whom some beau- tiful pictures still exist at Venice, was Cima da (Jornegliano. THE U3IBKIAN SCHOOL PIETRO PERUGINO. Born 1446, died 1524. The fame of Ferugixo rests more on his having been the master and instructor of Raphael, than on his own ^Yorks or worth. Yet he was a great and remarkahle man in his own day : interesting in ours as the representative of a certain school of art immediately preceding that of Raphael. Francesco Francia has left behind him a name perhaps less known and celebrated, but far more revered. The territory of Umbria in Italy comprises that mountainous region of the Ecclesiastical States now called the Duchy of Spoleto. Perugia, Foligno, Assisi, and Spoleto, were among its principal towns ; and the whole country, with its retired valleys and isolated cities, was distinguished in the middle ages as the peculiar seat of religious enthusiasm. It wag here that 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 (lin 142 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. % particular influence. No less than thirteen oi fourteen Umbrian painters, who flourished between the time of Gentile and that of Kaphael, are men- tioned in Passavant's " Life of Raphael." Thia mystical and spiritual direction of art extended itself to Bologna, and found a worthy interpreter in Francesco Francia. We shall, however, speak tirst of Perugino. Pietro Vannucci was born at a little town in Um- bria, 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, lie 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 Nicole 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 tells us that Pietro was excited to industry by being constantly told of the great rewards and honors which the professors of painting had earned in ancient and in modern times, and also by the pressure of poverty. He left Perugia in a state of absolute want, and reached Florence, where he pur- sued liis studies for inany months with unwearied PERUGTNO. 14b liligence, but so poor meanwhile that he had not 3ven a bed to sleep on. He studied in the chapel of Masaccio in the Carmine, which has been already mentioned ; received some instruction in draAving and modelling from Andrea Verrocchio ; and waa a friend and fellow-pupil of Lionardo da Vinci, They are thus mentioned together in a contempo- rary poem written by Giovanni Santi, the father Oi the great Raphael : " Due giovui piir d' etate e par d' amori, Lionardo da Vinci e '1 Perusino Pier della Pieve, che sou divin Pittori." fhat is, " Two youths, equal in years, equal in aifection, Lionardo da Vinci and the Perugian Peter della Pieve, both divine painters." But, though " par d' etate e par d' amori,'' they certainly were not equal in gifts. Perugino dwin- dles into insignificance when we think of the tri- umphant and universal powers of Lionardo. But this is anticipating. There can be no doubt that Perugino possessed genius and feeling, but confined and shadowed by certain moral defects ; it was as if the brightness of his genius kept up a continual struggle with the meanness of his soul, to be in the end overpowered and licld down by the growing weakness and debase- ment. Yet when young in his art a pure and gentle feeling guided his pencil ; and in the desire to learn 144 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. in tiie fixed determination to improve and to excel, his calm sense and his calculating spirit stood him in good stead. There was a famous convent neai Florence, in which the monks — not lazy nor igno- rant, as monks are usually described — carried on several arts successfully, particularly 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 colors 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 coloring. lie grad- ually rose in estimation ; painted a vast number o^ pictures and frescoes for the churches and chapel* of Florence, and particularly an altar-piece of grea t beauty for the famous convent of Vallombrosa. Li this he represented the Assumption of the Virgin , who is soaring to heaven in the midst of a choir of angels, while the twelve Apostles beneath look up- wards with adoration and astonishment. This ex- cellent picture is preserved in the Academy of th3 Fine Arts at Florence, and near it is the portrait of the Abbot of Vallombrosa by whose order it wao painted. Ten years after Perugino had first entered Florence a poor, nameless youth, he was called to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV, to assist with most of tho distinguishel painters of that time in painting thi famous SiFti - ^ Chapel. All the frescoes of Peru gino excep' ' wo were afterwards efi'aced to mako PERUGINO. 145 room for Michael Angclo's Last Judgment. Those which remain show that the style of Perugino at this time was decidedly Florentine, and quite dis- tinct from his earlier and later works. They repre- Bent the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan, and Christ delivering the Keys to St. Peter. While at Rome 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 coloring, and his best pic- tures were painted betAveen 1490 and 1502. His principal work, however, Avas the hall of the Col- lege del Canibio (that is. Hall of Exchange) at Pe- rugia, most richly and elaborately painted with frescoes, which still exist. The personages intro- duced exhibit a strange mixture of the sacred and proftine. John the Baptist and other saints, Isaiah, Moses, Daniel, David, and other prophets, are fig- ured on the walls with Fabius jMaximus, Socrates, Pythagoras, Pericles, Horatius Codes, and other Greek and Roman worthies. Other pictures painted in Perugia are remarkable for the simplicity, grace, and dignity, of his Virgins, 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 century, was certainly the most popular painter of his time; a circumstance which, considering that Raphael, Francia, and Lionardo da Vinci, were all working at the same time, would surprise us, did 10 146 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTEES, we not know that contemporary popularity is i.ot generally the recompense of the most distinguished genius. In fact, Perugino has produced some of the weakest and worst, as well as some of the most pxquisite pictures in the world. He undertook an immense number of works, and employed his schol- ars 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, had taken possession of his soul. He was no longer excited to labor by a spirit of piety or the generous ambition to excel, but by a base and 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, arid to earn his money with as little expense of time and trouble as possible ; he became more and more feeble, mannered, and monotonous, continually re- peating 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 neir arte^'*'' that is, a mere bungler; for whioh affront Pietro summoned him before the magistrates, but came off with little honor. He was nor 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 occa eion robbed of a largo sum, he fell ill, and was like PERUGINO. 147 to die of grief. It seems, however, hardly consist- ent with the mean and avaricious spirit imputed to him, that, having married a beautiful girl of Peru- gia, he took great delight in seeing her arrayed, at home and abroad, in the most costly garments, and sometimes dressed her with his own hands. To the reproach of avarice — too well founded — some writ- ers have added that of irreligion ; nay, two centu- ries 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 sacraments. This accusation has been re- futed ; and in truth there is sucli a divine beauty in some of the best pictures of Perugino, such ex- quisite purity and tenderness in his Madonnas, such an expression of enthusiastic faith and devotion in Bome of the heads, that it would be painful to be- lieve that there was no corresponding feeling in his heart. In one or two of his pictures he had reached a degree of sublimity worthy of him w^ho was the master of Raphael, but the instances are few. In our National Gallery there is a little Madonna and Child by Perugino. The Virgin is seen half- length, holding the infant Christ, who is standing in front and grasps in his little hand one of the tresses of her long, fair hair ; the young St. John is seen half-length on the left, looking up with joined hands. It is an early picture, painted before his first residence at Florence and before he had made his first essays in oil. It is very feeble and finical 148 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERb. in the execution, but very sweet and simple in the expression. In the Louvre at Paris there is a curious allegor- ical 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 Raphael four years ; and he may be said, during the last twenty-five years of his life, to have sur vived 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 PiNTURiccnio, was rather an assistant than a pupil lid has left some excellent works. FRANCESCO RAIBOLIXI, called IL FRANCIA. Born 1-150, died 1517. There existed throughout the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries a succession of painters in Bologna, known in the history of Italian art as the early Bo- lognese school, to distinguish it from the lata- school, which the Carracci founded in the same city — a Bchool altogether dissimilar in spirit and feeling. The chief characteristic of the former was the fer- vent piety and devotion of its professors. In the sentiment of tbeir works they resembled the Umbri- an school, but the manner of execution is different. 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 dalh Madonne. 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 tender- ness, 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 Raibolixi. (149) loO EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. He was born in 1450 ; being just four years punger 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 correctly. Francesco's master in the arts of working in gold and niello * was a certain Francia, whose name, in affectionate grati- tude 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 exquisite 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 awak- ened the dormant talent ; that he learned drawing from Marco Zoppo, one of the numerous pupils of Squarcione, and that for many months he enter- tained in his house certain artists who initiated him into the use of colors, &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 * For an account of the art of working in niello, and th» invention lo which it led, see p. 129. At Bologna, and represents his favont^, suhjetcti '^fljlj \'^Jl ofVan repeated, a Madonna and Child, enthre and surrounded by saints and martyrs. This pic- tuie, which, if it be a first production, may well be termed wonderful as well as beautiful, excited BO much admiration, that Giovanni Bentivoglio, then lord of Bologna, desired him to paint an altar- piece for his family chapel in the church of San Giacomo. This second essay of his powers excited in the strongest degree the enthusiasm of his fellow- citizens. The people of Bologna were distinguished among the other states of Italy for their patronage of native talent ; they now exulted in having pro- duced an artist who might vie with those of Flor- ence, or Perugia, or Venice. The vocation of Francia was henceforth deter- mined. He abandoned his former employment of goldsmith and niullo-worker, and became a painter by choice and by profession. During the next ten years he improved progressively in composition and in color, still retaining 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 concep- tion ana a breadth and rapidity of execution for which his laborious and diminutive works in gold and niello could never have prepared his mind or nand^ he appears to have succeeded at once. Ha was first epiplo^'ed by Bentivoglio to decorate ona 1D2 early ITALIAN PAINTERS. of tho chambers in his pahico ^Yith the stor^? ot Judith and Ilolofernes ; 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 extreinelj simple, without any superfluous figures ; the action dramatic and well conceived. We have here the most noble figures, the most beautiful and graceful heads, a pure taste in the drapery, and masterly backgrounds." II Bhould seem that the merits here enumerated in- clude 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 works of Perugino there is a melancholy verging frequently on sourness and harshness, or fading into insipidity. Francia, in his richer and deeper coloring, 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 hia native city, but Parma, jNIodena, Cesena, and Fcr- rara, were emulous to possess his Avorks. 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 yeai IL fRANCIA. 133 1841 -svas painted at the desire of a nobleman of Lucca This altar-piece is composed of two separate pic- tures. 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. x\nne. 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 In flint Christ, to whom St. Anne is presenting a peach. The expression of the Virgin is exceedingly pure, calm, and saintly, yet without the seraph-like refinement which Ave see in Eomeof Raphael's Madonnas. The head of the aged St. Anne is simply dignified and maternal. At the fjot of the throne stands the little St. John, hold- ing 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 arrowp. On the left, St. Lawrence with the emblematical gridiron and palm-branch, and another saint, prob- ably St. Frediano. 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 (54 EAELY ITALIAN PAINTERS. a glimpse of a beautiful landscape. The draperies are grand and ample ; the coloring, 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. (that is, 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 now hangs on the opposite side of the room. It represents the subject called in Italian a Picta, — 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 feet. Grief in the face of the sorrowing mother — in the countenances of the angels reverential Borrow and pity — are most admirably expressed. This altar-piece 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 four thousand pounds; after some negotiation, our government obtained them for the National Gallery at the price of three thousand five hundred pounds. The works of Francia were, until lately, confined to the churches of Bologna and other cities of Lombardy ; now thej^ are to be found in all tha IL FRANCIA. 155 great collections of Europe, that of the Louvre ex- cepted, which does not contain a single specimen The Bologna Gallery contains six, the Berlin Mu seum three, of his pictures.* In the Florentine Gallery is an admirable portrait of a man holding a letter in his hand. In the Imperial Gallery at Vienna there is a most exquisite altar-piece, the same size and style as the one in the National Gallery, but still mere beautiful and poetical. The Virgin and Child are seated on the throne in the midst of a charming landscape ; St. Francis stand- ino- on one side, and St. Catherine on the other. The Gallery at Munich contains a picture by him., perhaps the most charming he ever painted. It represents the Infant Saviour lying on the grass amid roses and flowers ; the Virgin stands before him, looking down with clasped hands, and in an ecstasy of love and devotion, on her divine Son The figures are rather less that life. A small but very beautiful picture by Francia, a Madonna and Child, is now in the possession of Mr. Frankland Lewis. It is pleasant to be assured that the life and char- acter of Francia were in harmony with his genius. Vasari describes him as a man of comely aspect, of exemplary morals, of amiable and cheerful man- ners ; in conversation so witty, so wise, and so agreeable, that in discourse with him the saddest * Oue of these (No. 253) is a repetition of the Pieta in oul ^atIonal Gallery. l56 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. man would liave felt his melancholy dissipated, his cares forgotten ; adding that he was loved and ven erated 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 corres pondence with the youthful Raphael, who waE thirty-four years younger than himself. There is extant a letter which Raphael addressed to Francia in the year 1508. In this letter, which is expressed with exceeding kindness and deference, Raphael excuses himself 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 discreetly, to the grief which Francia must have felt when his patron Bentivoglio was exiled from Bologna by Pope Julius II., and he concludes, affectionately, " Con- tinue to love me as I love you, with all my heart." Raphael 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 151G Raphael sent to Bologna * This drawing is said to exist in the collection of the Archduke Charles, at Vienna. See Passavant IL FRANCIA. 157 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 jhurch of St. Cecilia, the same church in which Francia had painted the frescoes already mentioned. Raphael, in a modest and affectionate letter, rec- ommended 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 transports of admiration and delight, placing it far above all that he had himself accom- plished. 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, and so inconsistent with the sentiments which for many years he had cher- ished and avowed for Raphael, that we may set it aside as unworthy of all belief. The date of Francia 's death has Ijcen a matter of dispute ; but it appears certain, from state documents lately dis- covered at Bologna, that he died Master of the Mint; 158 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS in that city, on the Gth of January, .1517, being then in his sixty-eighth year. His son Giacomo became an esteemed painter in his father's style. In the Berlin Gallery there are six pictures by big hand ; and one by Giulio Francia, a cousin and Dupil of the elder Francia. FRA BARTOLOxMEO, called also BACCIO BELLA PORTA and IL FRATE. Born 1469, died 1517. Before we enter on the golden age of painting, — that splendid era 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, as we shall shoAV, by a wholly different spirit. They contributed in some degree to the perfection of their great contemporaries and successors, but they owed the sentiment which in- spired 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 o/ (159) 160 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS design, he was placed under the tuition of Cosimc Rpselli, a very good Florentine painter ; 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 firs! thirty years of his life, he was known among his companions by the name of Baccio della Porta ; Baccio being the Tuscan diminutive of Bartolomeo. While studying in the atelier of Cosimo Roselli. Baccij formed a friendship with Mariotto Alberti- nelli, a young painter about his own age. It was on both sides an attachment almost fraternal They painted together, sometimes on the same piC' ture, and in style and sentiment were so similai that it has become difl&cult to distinguish theii works. Baccio was, however, more particularly distinguished by his feeling for softness and har mony of color, and the tender and devout ex pression of his religious pictures. From his earli est years he appears to have been a religious enthu Blast ; and this turn of mind not only characterized all the productions of his pencil, but involved him in a singular manner with some of the most remark- able events and characters of his time. Lorenzo de' Medici, called Lorenzo the Mag- nificent, was then master of the liberties of Flor- ence. The revival of classical learning, the study of the antique sculptures (diffused, as we have re- lated, by the school of Padua, and rendered stili more a fashion by the influence and popularity of FRA BARTOLOMEO. 161 Andrea Mantegna, already old, and ^Michael An- gelo, then a young man), was rapidly corrupting the simple and pious taste which had hitherto pre- vailed in art, even while imparting to it a moro universal direction, and a finer feeling for 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 license of conduct, and a disregard of all sacred things, such as had never, even in the dark- est 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 fiir from this luxurious and licentious court ; but he had acquired great reputation by the exquisite beauty and tenderness of his Madon- nas, and he was employed by the Dominicans of tlio 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 11 162 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. fervor and eloquence which his hearers aid 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 re- morse, caused by an eloquent sermon of Savonarola, he joined Avith many others in making a sacrifice of ail the books and pictures which related to heathen poetry and art on which they could lay their hands. Into this funeral pyre, Avhich was kindled in sight of the people in one of the prin- cipal streets of Florence, Bartolomeo flung all those of his designs, drawings, and studies, which repre- sented 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 massa- cred, and Savonarola himself carried off" to torture and to death. Our pious and excellent painter was not remarkable for courage. Terrified by tho tumult and horrors around him, he hid himself, vowing, if he escaped the danger, to dedicate him FRA BARTOLOMEO. - 163 self to a religious life. Within a few weeks the unhappy Savonarola, after suffering the torture was publicly burned in the Grand Piazza of Flor- ence ; and Bartolomeo, struck with horror at the fate of his friend, — a horror which seemed to paralyze all his faculties, — took the vows and be- came a Dominican friar, leaving to his friend Alber- tinelli 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 und commands of his Superior induced Bartolomeo tc resume the 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 religious scruples, he at first returned to his easel with lan- guor and reluctance; but an incident occurred which reawakened all his genius and enthusiasm. Young Raphael, then in his twenty-first year, and already celebrated, arrived in Florence. He visited the Frate in his cell, and between these kin- dred spirits a friendship ensued which ended only with death, and to which we partly owe the finest works of both. Raphael, who was a perfect master 3f perspective, instructed his friend in the mor« complicated rules of the science, and Fra Bartolo 164 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. meo in return initiated Raphael into some of hia methods of coloring. It was not, however, in the merely mechanical processes of art that these two great painters owed most to each other. It is evident, on examining his works, that Fra Bartolomeo's greatest improve- ment dates from his acquaintance with Raphael ; that his pictures from this time display more energy of expression — a more intellectual grace: while Raphael imitated his friend in the softer blending of his colors, and learned from him the art of ar- ranging 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 JNIadonna del Balda- chino, in the Palazzo Pi tti) might be at the first glance mistaken for a composition of the Frate. Richard- son, 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 Raphael, had not Fortune been determined in favor of the other." It is not, however. Fortune alone which determines these things ; and of Raphael 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 leava 5f the Superior of his convent to visit Rome He FRA BARTOLOMEO. 165 had heard so much of the grand works on which Raphael 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 wonder- ful productions. He was also engaged to paint in the church of St. Sylvester, on Monte Cavallo, But the air of Rome did not agree with him. He, in- deed, renewed his friendship with Raphael, and they spent many hours and days in each other's society ; but Raphael had by this time so far out- run him in every kind of excellence, and what he 8aw around him in the Vatican and in the Sistine Chapel so far surpassed his previous conceptions, that admiration and astonishment seemed to swal- low up the feeling of emulation. There was no envy in his gentle and pious mind ; but he could not pxint, he could not apply himself. A cloud fell ipon his spirits, which was attributed partly to indisposition ; and he returned to Florence, leaving at Rome only two unfinished pictures — figures of St, Peter and St. Paul, which Raphael undertook 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 car- dinals, and not remarkable for the sanctity of their lives, stood conversing with him, and thought either to compliment him, or perhaps r juse him to contradiction, by criticizing the work of Bartolo- meo. One of them observed that the coloring was 16G EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERSS. much too red. To which Raphael replied, v^ith that graceful gayety which blunts the edge cf a sar casm, " 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 re- sumed his pencil, and showed that his journey to Rome had not been in vain. His finest works, the St. JMark, now in the Pitti Palace, and the famous Madonna di Misericordia at Lucca, were executed after his return. Every picture subsequently painted displayed increasing vigor ; 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 im- pressed on all his works. He was deficient, as we have seen, in physical courage and energy ; but in his disposition enthusiastic, devout, and affection- ate. Tenderness and a soft regular beauty charac- terize his female heads ; his saints have a mild and serious dignity. He is very seldom grand or sub- lime in conception, or energetic in movement and expression ; the pervading sentiment in all his best pictures is holiness. He particularly excelled in the figures of boy -angels, which he introduced into FRA B.\RTOLOMEO. 16 1 most of his groups, sometimes plaj ng on musi- cal instruments, seated at the feet of the Virgin, or bearing a canopy over her head, but, hcwever em- ployed, always full of infantine grace and candor. He is also famed for the rich architecture he intro- duced 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 arrange- ment 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. His pictures are not commonly met with. Lucca, Florence, and Vienna, possess the three finest. The first of these, at Lucca, is perhaps the most important of all his works. It is called the Ma- donna della ]Misericordia, and represents the Virgin, •1 grand and beautiful figure, standing on a raised platform with outstretched arms, pleading for mercy for mankind ; around her are groups of sup- pliants, who look up to her as she looks up to heaven, where, throned in judgment, is seen her divine Son. AVilkie, in one of his letters from Italy (1827), dwells upon the beauty of this noble picture, and says that it combines the merits of Raphael, of Titian, of Rembrandt, and of Rubens ! "Here,-' he sa3-s, "a monk in the retirement of his cloister, shut out from the taunts and criticism of the world, seems to have anticipated in his earlj 168 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. time all that his art could arrive at in its most ad- vanced 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 Rosini's " Storia della Pittura " will show the beauty of the composition ; and the testimony of Wilkie with regard to the magical coloring is suf- ficient. The St. jMark in the Pitti Palace is a single figure, seated, and holding his Gospel in his hand. It is so remarkable for its grandeur and simplicity as to have been frequently compared with the re- mains of Grecian art. For this picture a Grand- Duke of Tuscany (Ferdinand II.) paid twelve hun- dred pounds, nearly two hundred years ago ; which, according to the present value of money, would be equal to about three thousand pounds. In the Imperial Gallery at Vienna is the Present- ation in the Temple, a picture of wonderful dignity and beauty, and well known by the fine engravinga 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, which was painted as an altar-piece for hia own convent of St. Mark, and afterwards sent as a » Life of Sir David Wilkie, vol. u., p. 451. FRA BAKTOLOMEO. 1^9 present to Francis I. ; the other is an Annuncia- tion. In the Grosvenor Gallery there is a divme 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 pic tures ; the Dresden Gallery, not one. His works are best studied 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 mon- astery of St. Catherine, known as Suor Plautilla, who very successfully imitated his style, and ha« left some beautiful pictures. LIONARDO DA VIXCI. 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 mechanical means through which these con- ceptions were embodied in the noblest forms. With- in a short period of about thirty years, that is, be- tween 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 precursors, 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 pecu- liar ; though exercising in some sort a reciprocal influence, this influence never interfered with the most decided originality. These wonderful artists who Avould have been remarkable men in their time, (170> LIONARDO DA VIXCI. 1"! Cliough they had never touched a pencil, ^ere Li- onardo da Yinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Correg- gio, Giorgione, Titian, in Italy ; and in Germany, Albert Durer. Of these men, we might say, as of Homer and Shakspeare, that they belong to no par- ticular 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 commencement 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 Btirrin etra e matematico 5 egrcgio architetto ; esimio idraulico ; eaelentt plasticatore e sommo pittore.' * " History of the /iiterature of Europe. " LIONARDO DA VlNCl. 173 matism, he lirst laid down the grand piociple of Bacon, that experiment and observation must be the guides to just theory in the investigation ol nature. If any doubt could be harbored, not as to the right of Lionardo da Vinci to stand as the first name of the fifteenth century, which is beyond all doubt,* but as to his originality in so many discov- eries, wliich probably no one man, especially in such circumstances, 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'xVrno, on the borders of the terri- tory of Pistoia. His father, Piero da Vinci, was * When we think of Lionardo's contemporary, Columbus, we feel inclined, if not to dispute this fiat of the great hist'Yian, at least to ponder on it, and those pouderings lead us far. 174 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. au advocate of Florence — not rich, but in inde- pendent 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 him- self by his proficiency in arithmetic and mathe- matics. Music he studied early, as a science as well as an art. He invented a species of lyre for himself, and sung his ovrn poetical compositions to his own music — both being frequently extempora- neous. But his favorite 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 An- drea Verrocchio (of whom we have already given Bome account),* famous as a sculptor, chaser in metal, and painter. Andrea, who was an excellent and correct designer, but a bad and hard colorist, was soon after engaged to paint a picture of the Baptism of our Saviour. He employed Lionardo, then a youth, to execute one of the angels. This he did with so much softness and richness of color that it far surpassed the rest of the picture ; and Verocchio from that time threw away his palette, and confined himself wholly to his works in sculp- ture and design; "enraged," says Vasari, "that a child should thus excel him." f * See p. 111. t This picture is now preserved in the Academy at Florence. Th« first angel on the right is that which was painted by Lionardo. LIONARDO DA VINCI. 175 The 3'outli of Lionardo thus passed away in the pursuit of science and of art. Sometimes he was deeply engaged in astronomical calculations and investigations ; sometimes ardent in the study of natural history, botany, and anatomy ; sometimes intent on new eJBTects of color, light, shadow, or expression, in representing objects animate or inan- imate. Versatile, yet persevering, he varied his pursuits, but he never abandoned any. He Avas quite a young man when he conceived and demon- strated the practicability of two magnificent proj- ects. 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 defi- cient elevation ;* the other project was, to form the Arno into a navigable canal, as far as Pisa, which would have added greatly to the commercial advan- tages 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 espe- cial favorite, Piero desired his son Lionardo to grat- * Wild as this project must have appeared, it was not perhaps Impossible. In our days, the Sunderland Light-house was lifted from its foundations, and removed to a distance of several yards. t This project was carried into execution two hundred yeaor later. 176 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. ify his request ; and Lionardo, inspired by that wildness of fancy which was one of his character- istics, took the panel into his own room, and re- solved to astonish his father by a most unlooked-for proof of his art. He determined to compose some thing which should have an effect similar to that of the jMedusa on the shield of Perseus, and almost petrify beholders. Aided by his recent studies in natural history, he collected together from the neighboring swamps and the river-mud all kinds of hideous reptiles, as adders, lizards, toads, ser- pents ; insects, as moths, locusts ; and other crawl- ing and flying, obscene and obnoxious things ; and out of these he compounded a sort of monster, or chimera, which he represented as about to issue from the shield, with eyes flashing fire, and of an aspect so 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 suc- cess of his attempt. This production, afterwards known as the Ptotello del Fico,* from the material on which it was 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 hun- dred. To the poor peasant thus cheated of his Rotello, Piero gave a wooden shield, on which was painted a heart transfixed by a dart ; a device bet- ter suited to his taste and comprehension. In th« * Rotello means a shield or buckler ; Fico, a fig-tree. LIONARDO DA VINCI. 177 subsequent troubles of ^lilan, Lionardo'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 Ro- tello Avas wholly different from the Medusa, after- wards painted by Lionardo, and now existing in the Florence Gallery. It represents the severed head of Medusa, seen foreshortened, lying on a fragment of rock. The features are beautiful and regular ; the Lair already metamorphosed into serpents — " which curl and flow, And their long tangles in each other lock, And with unending involutions show Their mailed radiance." Those who havo once seen this terrible and fascinat- ing picture can never forget it. The ghastly head seems to expire, and the serpents to crawl into glit- tering life, as we look upon it. During this first period of his life, which waa wholly passed in Florence and its neighborhood. Lionardo painted several other pictures, of a very different character, 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 less a part of his mind, than that eccentricity and almost perversion of fancy which made him delight in sketching ugly, 12 178 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. exaggerated caricatures, and representing the de- formed and the terrible. Lionardo da Vinci 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 20 lossal equestrian statue of his ancestor Francesco Sforza. Here begins the second period of his artis- tic 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 musician and performer on the lyre, and as the greatest singer and improvisatore of his time ; ' ' but this is improbable. Lionardo, in his long letter to that prince, in which he recites his OAvn qualifications for employment, 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 difierent modes of sculpture in marble, bronze, and terra-cotta. In painting, also, 1 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 hand LIONARDO DA VINCI. a70 some person, his %Yinning address, his wit and elo- quence, recommended him to the notice of the prince, by whom he was greatly beloved, and in whose service he remained for about seventeer years. It is not necessary, nor would it be possible here, to give a particular account of all the work/ 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 inclina- tion ; for instance, the invasion of Italy by Charle/ VIII. of France, and the subsequent invasion of Milan by Louis XII., which ended in the destruc- tion of the Duke Ludovico. We shall only men- tion a few of the pictures he executed. One of these, the portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, is now in the Louvre (No. 1091). Another was the Nativity of our Saviour, in the imperial collection at Vienna ; but the greatest work of all, and by far the grand- est picture which, up to that time, had been exe- cuted in Italy, was the Last Supper,painted on the wall of the refectory, or dining-room, of the Do- minican convent of the Madonna delle Grazie. It occupied the painter about two years. Of thia magnificent creation of art only the mouldering remains are now visible. It has been so often repaired, that almost every vestige of the original painting is annihilated ; but, from the multiplicity • Of these, the canal of the ^Nlartesana, as well from its utility aa from the difficulties he surmounted in its execution, would hay* been sufficient to immortalize him. ISO EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. of descriptions, engravings, and copies that exist no picture is more universally known and cele- brated. The moment selected by the painter is described in the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew, twenty- first and twenty-second verses : " And as they did eat, ho said, Verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me : and they were exceeding sor- rovrful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I ? " The knowledge of character displayed in the heads of the difierent apostles is even more wonderful than the skilful arrangement of the figures and the amazing beauty of the work- manship. The space occupied by the picture is a wall twenty-eight feet in length, and the figures are larger than life. The best judgment we can now form of its merits is from the fine copy exe- cuted by one of Lionardo's best pupils, Marco Ug- gione, for the Certosa at Pavia, and now in London, in the collection of the Royal 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 difierent churches and coUec- ticns. Of the grand equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, Lionardo never finished more than the model in clay, which was considered a master- piece. Some years afterwards (in 1499), when Milan was invaded by the French, it was used as a LIONARDO LA VINCI 'Vc . , targiit by the Gascon bowmen, and co^j|^iktely44^ stroyed. The profound anatomical studies 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 r©. turned to his native Florence, where he hoped to reestablish his broken fortunes, and to find employ- ment. 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. 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, sen- sitivfe, 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 all their admiration of each other's genius, their mutual frailties prevented any real good- will on either side. The two painters com- peted for the honor of painting in fresco one side of the great Council-hall in the Palazzo Yecchio at 182 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Florence. Each prepared his cartoon ; each, emu lous 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 Floren- tine army in 1440. One of the finest groups repre- sented a combat of cavalry disputing the possession of a standard. "It was so wonderfully executed, that the horses themselves seemed animated by the came fury as their riders ; nor is it possible to de- scribe the variety of attitudes, the splendor of the dresses and armor of the warriors, nor the incred- ible 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 Bound 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 experiments, 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 aban- doned. 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 Angela's com LIONARDO DA VINCI. 183 position only one small copy exists ; of Lionardo's not one. From a fragment which existed in his time, but which has since disappeared, Eubens made a fine drawing, which was engraved by Ede- linck, 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. Th's may be a subject of regret, but it is unjust to maka 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 him- self 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 pic- tures now attributed to him were wholly or in part painted by his scholars and imitators from his car- toons. One of the most famous of these was de- Bigned for the altar-piece of the church of the con- vent 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 Avith a tender smile, rejoices in her divine offspring. The figures were drawn with Buch skill, and the various expressions proper to each conveyed with such inimitable truth and grace, 184 MRLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. that, when exhibited in a chamber of the convent the inhabitants of the city flocked to see it, and foi two days the streets were crowded with people, " as if it had been some solemn festival ; " but the picture was never painted, and the monks of the Nunziata, after waiting long and in vain for theii altar-piece, were obliged to employ other artists The cartoon, or a very fine repetition of it, is no"w in the possession of our Royal Academy, and it must not be confounded with the St. Anna in the Louvre, a more fantastic and apparently an earliei composition. Lionardo, during his stay at Florence, painted the portr.iit of Ginevra Benci, already mentioned, in the memoir of Ghirlandajo, as the reigning beauty of her time ; and also the portrait of Mona Lisa del Giocondo, sometimes called La Joconde, On this last picture he worked at intervals for foui years, but was still unsatisfied. It was purchased by Francis 1. for four thousand golden croAvns, and is now in the Louvre. We find Lionardo also en- gaged by Csesar Borgia to visit and report on the fortifications of his territories, and in this office he was employed for two years. In 1514 he was in- vited to Rome by Leo X., but more in hie Gharactei of philosopher, mechanic, and alchemist, than as a painter. Here he found Raphael at the height of his fiime, and then engaged in his greatest worka — the frescoes of the Vatican. Two pictures which Lionardo painted while at Rome — the Madonna lilONARDO DA VINCI. 185 of St. On)frio, and the Holy Family, painted for Filiberta of Savoy, the pope's sister-in-law (which is now at St. Petersburg) — show that even this veteran in art felt the irresistible influence of the genius of his young rival. They are both Raffael lesque in the subject and treatment. It appears that Lionardo was ill-satisfied with his sojourn at Rome. He had long been accustomed to hold the first rank as an artist wherever he re- sided ; whereas at Eome he found himself only one among many who, if they acknowledged his great- ness, afiected to consider his day as past. He was conscious that many of the improvements in the arts which were now brought into use, and which enabled tlie painters of the day to produce such ex- traordinary effects, were invented or introduced by himself. If he could no longer assert that measure- less superiority over all others Avhich 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 an- noyed by his speculative and dilatory habits in ex- ecuting the works intrusted to him, all added to his irritation and disgust, lie left Rome, and set out for Pavia, where the French king Francis I. .;hen held his court. lie was received by tlie young monarch with every mark of respect, loaded with favors, and a pension of seven hundred gold crowns settled on him for life At the famous conference 186 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. between Francis I. and Leo X. at Bologna, Lion- ardo attended his new patron, and was of essential Bervice 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 pic- ture. 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 dis tribution by will of all his worldly possessions to his relatives and friends. At length, after pro- tracted suffering, this great and most extraordinary^ man died at Cloux, near Amboise, on the 2d of May, 1519, being then in his sixty-seventh year. It is to be regretted that Ave cannot wholly credii the beautiful story of his dying in the arms of Francis I., who, as it is said, had come to visit him on his death-bed. It would, indeed, have been, as Fuseli expressed it, "an honor to the king, by which Destiny would have atoned to that monarch for his future disaster at Pavia," had the incident really happened, as it has been so often related bj 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 ordinances are dated, renders the story, unhappily, very doubtfv.l LIONARDO DA VIISCl. 187 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 pic- tures attributed to him and bearing his name were the production of his oayu 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 Gal- lery of Christ disputing with the Doctors, though undoubtedly designed by Lionardo, is supposed by Bome to be executed by his best scholar, Bernardino Luini ; by others it is attributed to Francesco INIelzi. Those ruined pictures which bear his name at Wind- sor and at Hampton Court are from the Milanese school.* Of nine pictures in the Louvre attributed to Lion- ardo, 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 cer- tainly genuine ; but the famous Ilerodias holding the dish to receive the head of John the Baptist was probably painted from his cartoon by Luini. * The Falconer, at Windsor, I believe to be by Holbein, and it ia carious that this is not the first n.ir only Holbein which has been attributed to Lionardo. There is one ir the Liverrool Institute, and I have known others. 188 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. His own portrait, in the same gallery (in the Salle des Peintres) , is wonderfully fine ; indeed, the finest of all, and the one which at once attracts and fixea attention. In the Milan collections are many pictures at' tributed 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 there is a small Madonna in Lord Shrewsbury's gallery at Alton Towers. But it is the MS. notes and designs left behind him that give us the best idea of the indefatigablo industry 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, chem- istry, mathematics, &c. ; one of them contains a collection of anatomical drawings, which the cele- brated 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 fig- ures ; fine anatomical studies of horses ; a battle of elephants, full of spirit ; drawings in optics, hydraulics, and perspective ; plans of military ma- chines, maps and surveys of rivers ; beautiful and accurate drawings of plants and rocks, to be intro- duced into his pictures ; musical airs noted in his LIONARDO DA VINCI. 189 jwa hand, perhaps his own compositions ; anatom- ical subjects, with elaborate notes and explanations. In the Royal Library at Paris there is a volume of philosophical treatises, from which extracts have been published by Yenturi. In the Ilolkham Col- lection is a MS. treatise on hydraulics. The " Trea- tise on Painting," by Lionardo da Yinci, 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 w^as his reason for this singularity has not been explained. The scholars of Lionardo da Yinci, and those artists 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 distin- guished by a lengthy and graceful style of draw- ing, a particular amenity and sweetness of expres- sion (which in the inferior painters degenerated into affectation and a sort of vapid smile), and particularly by the transparent lights and shadows — the chiaroscuro , of which Lionprdo was the in- ventor or discoverer. The most eminent painters were Bernardino Luini ; Marco Uggione, or D'Og- gioni ; Antonio Beltraffio ; Francesco Melzi ; and 190 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Andrea Salai. All these studied under the imme- diate tuition of Lionardo, and painted most of the pictures ascribed to him. Gaudenzio Ferrari and Cesare da Sesto imitated him, and owed their celebrity to his influence. MICHAEL ANGELO. Born 1474, died 1564. We have spoken of Lionardo da Vinci. Michael Angelo, the other great luminary of art, \^as twen- ty-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 jNIichael Angelo Avith Raphael, but he is more aptly compared with Lionardo da Vinci. All the great artists of that time, even Raphael 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 differ- ent as their respective characters. It would be very curious and interesting to carry out the comparison in detail ; to show the contrast in organization, in temper, in talent, in taste, which existed between men so highly and so equally endowed ; but our iimits forbid this indulgence. We shall, therefore, only observe liere that, considered as artists, they emulated each other in variety of power, but that Lionardo was more the painter than the sculptor 192 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. and architect, Michael Angelo was more the sculp- tor and architect than the painter. Both sought true inspiration in Nature, but they beheld her with different eyes. Lionardo, who designed ad- mirably, appears to have seen no ovlline in objects and labored all his life to convey, by color and liglit and shade, the impression of beauty and the illusivo 1 effect of rotundity. He preferred the use of oil to fresco, because the mellow smoothness and trans- parency of the vehicle was more capable of giving the effects he desired. Michael Angelo, on the contrary, turned his whole attention to the defini- tion 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 women and children. Considered as men, both were as high-minded and generous as they were gifted and original ; but the former was as remarkable for his versatile and social accomplish- ments, 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 Buonaroti was born at Settig- nano, 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 Canossa ; but that branch of it rep- resented by his father, Luigi Lionardo Buonaroti Simoni, had for some generations become poorer MICHA-EL ANGELO. 193 and poorer, until the last descendant Tvas thankful to accept an office in the law, and had been nomi Dated magistrate or mayor (Podesia) 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 showed the utmost distaste for the studies allotted to him, and was continually escaping from his home and from his desk to haunt the ateliers of the painters, particularly 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 des- tined some of his sons for commerce (it will be recollected that in Genoa and Florence the most powerful nobles Avere merchants or manufacturers), and others for civil or diplomatic employments. But the fine arts, as being at that time productive of little honor 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, hoAvever, had formed some friend- ships among the young painters, and particularly with Francesco Granacci, one of the best pupils of Ghirlandajo ; he contrived to borrow models and drawings, and studied them in secret with such persevering assiduity and consequent improvement that Ghirlandajo, captivated by his genius, under- took to plead his cause to his father, and at length 13 194 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. prevailed over the old man's family pride and prej udices. At the age of fourteen, Michael Angelo was received into the studio of Ghirlandajo as u, 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, Ghirlan- dajo undertook to pay the father, Lionardo Buoiia- roti, for the first, second, and third years, six, eight, and twelve golden florins, as payment for the advantage he expected to derive from the labor of the son. Thus was the vocation of the young artisl decided for life. At that time Lorenzo the Magnificent reigneo over Florence. He had formed in his palace ana gardens a collection of antiqvie 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 recommendation of Ghirlandajo, was received into this new acade- my, 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 ; but now, fired by the beauties he beheld around him, and by the examplo and success of a fellow-pupil, Torregiano, 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 individuality, his copies MICHAEL ANGELO. lUO became not so much imitations of form as original emhodyings of the leading idea, and Lorenzo de' Medici, struck by his extraordinary power, sent foi his itither and oflered to attach the boy to his own particular service, and to undertake the entire care of his education. The father consented, on condi- tion of receiving for himself an ofSce under the government ; and thenceforth Michael Angelo waa lodged in the palace of the Medici, and treated by Lorenzo as his son. Such sudden and increasing favor excited the envy and jealousy of his companions, particularly of Torregiano, 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 flat- tened to his face, and Torregiano, having by this "sacrilegious stroke" gratified his hatred, waa banished from Florence. It is fair, however, to give Torregiano's own ac- count of this incident as he related it to Benvenuto Cellini, many years afterwards. " This Buonaroti and I, when we were young men, went to study in the church of the Carmelites, in the chapel of Ma- saccio. It was customary with Buonaroti to rally those who were learning to draw there. One day, among others, a sarcasm of his having stung me te 196 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. the quii k, I ATas 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 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 unpro- voked, and that Michael Angelo, even at the age of sixteen, indulged in that contemptuous arro- gance 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, continued to extend his favor to the young artist, but with so little comprehension of his genius and character, that on one occasion, during a severe winter, he sent him to form a statue of snoAV 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 Avith all that fervor which belonged to his character. His attention was at the same time directed to literature, by the counsels and conver- sations 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 MICHAEL ANGELO. l97 by his own studies, he was scarcely aware of what was passino; around him, nor of the popuhir in- trigues which were preparing the ruin of the Medici. Suddenly this powerful family wero flung from sovereignty to temporary disgrace and exile; and Michael 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 exe- cuted 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 in- vited 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, Avhich added to his reputation ; and the group of the dead Christ on the knees of his Virgin Mother (called the Pieia), tvhich is now in the church of St. Peter's, at Rome.* * This PietA is the only work whereon Michael Angelc inscribed his name, which he has carved distinctly on the girdle of the Virgin, 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 Oue of them, who was a Bologuese, insisted that it was by a sculptoi A98 EiRLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. This last, being frequently copied and imitated, ob fcained him so much applause and reputation, that he ^yas recalled to Florence, to undertake several public works, and found himself once more estab- lished in his native city about the year 1504. Hitherto we have seen Michael Angelo wholly devoted to the study and practice of sculpture ; but soon after his return to Florence he was called upon to compete with Lionardo da Vinci in executing the cartoons for the frescoes with which it was intended to decorate the walls of the Palazzo Yecchio, or town-hall of Florence. The cartoon of Lionardo has been already described. That of Michael An- gelo represented an incident which occurred during the siege of Pisa, — a group of Florentine soldiers bathing in the Arno hear the trumpet which pro- claims a sortie of the enemy, and spring at once :o the combat. He chose this subject, perhaps, as affording ample opportunitj'- 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 armor — rushing forward, hurriedly, eagerly. There are, altogether, about thirty figures, the size of life, of Bologna, whom he named. Michael Angelo listened in silence^ and the next night, when all slept, he entered the church, and hy ihe light of a lantern engraved his name, in deep, indelible oharao ters, where it might best be seen. MICnAEL ANGELO. 199 drawr with black chalk, and relieved with white. This cartoon was regarded by his contemporaries as the most perfect of his Avorks ; 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 admirablo and lifelike energy and the most consummate knowledge of form, there was only one expression throughout, and that the least intellectual, majes- tic, 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 ; 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. The next work in which Michael Angelo was en- gaged was the tomb of Pope Julius 11. , who, while living, had conceived the idea of erecting a most splendid monument to perpetuate his memory. Foi this work, which was never completed, Michael Angelo executed the famous statue of Mo.jes, seated. 200 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. grasping his flowing beard with one hand, dud 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 Sistine 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 Roselli, Perugino, and Ghirlandajo, to decorate the interior. But down to the year 1508 the ceiling remained with- out any ornament ; and Michael Angelo was called upon to cover this enormous vault, a space of ono hundred and fifty feet in length by fifty in breadth, with a series of subjects, representing the most im- portant events connected, either literally or typi- cally, with the fall and redemption of mankind. No part of Michael Angelo 's long life is so inter- esting, so full of characteristic incident, as the his tory 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 im- patient of contradiction, 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 jeal- ousy and alarm the increasing fame of Michael MICHAEL ANGELO. 201 Angelo and his influence with the pontiff, and set himself by indirect means to lessen both. He in- sinuated to Julius that it was ominous to erect his own mausoleum during his lifetime, and the pope gradually fell off in his attentions to Michael An- gelo, and neglected to supply him with the neces- sary funds for carrying on the work. On one occasion, Michael Angelo, finding it difficult to ob- tain access to the pope, sent a 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 dispatched five couriers after him with threats, persuasions, promises, — but in vain. He \ATote 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 refused. Three months were spent in vain negotiations. Soderini, 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 between the high contending powers. The pope was then at Bologna, and at the moment when jNJichael 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 com- mands and coming to us, thou hast waited till we 202 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. came in search of thee! " (Bologna bemg much nearer to Florence than to Rome.) Michael An gelo 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 Cardi- nal Soderini, thinking to mend the matter, inter- fered with excuses, representing that " Michael Angelo — poor man ! — had erred through igno- rance ; that artists were 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 honor. 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 favor and protection. This extraordinary scene took place in November, 1506. The work on the tomb was not, however, imme- diately resumed. Michael Angelo was commanded to execute a colossal statue of the pope, to be erected in front of the principal church of Bologna MICHAEL ANGELO. 20^3 He tlire\^' into the figure and attitude so iLiich of the haughty and resolute character of the original, that Julius, on seeing the model, asked him, "v\\th a smile, whether he intended to represent him as blessing or as cursing. To which jNIichael 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 SATord. Thou knowest I am no scholar." The fiite of this statue, however we may lament it, was fitting and characteristic. A few years after- wards, 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 GiuUana. On his return to Rome, 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 admiration of all Rome. Michael Angelo, who had never exercised himself in the mechanical part of the art of fresco, invited from Florence several painters of eminence, to ex- 204 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTEIlJs. ecute his designs under his own superintendence , but they could not reach the grandeur of his con- ceptions, 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 per- severance and energy to accomplish his task alone ; he even prepared his own colors 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 fall efiect from below, — a fault which he corrected in those executed subse- quently. When almost half the work was com- pleted, the iDope 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 progress, however, was not rapid enough to suit the impatient temper of the pontiff. On one occasion, he demanded of the artist ivhen he meant to finish it, to which Michael Angelo replied, calmly, "When I can." "When thou canst! " exclaimed the fiery old pope. " 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 MICHAEL ANGELO. 20el the paint". ng only, without reckoning the time spent in preparing the cartoons, twentj-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 immensity to say that it contains in all up- wards 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 suc- cessive ages. In the centre of the ceiling are four large compartments and five small ones. In the former are -represented the Creation of the Sun an*l Moon ; the Creation of Adam, perhaps the mosi majestic design that was ever conceived by the genius of man ; the Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise ; the Deluge. In the five small compart- ments are represented the Gathering of the Waters (Gen. 1:9); 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 Sil)yls who foretold the birth of Christ. These are among the most wonderful forms that modern art has called into life. They are all seated and em- ployed in contemplating books or antique rolls of manuscript, Avith genii in attendance. Tliese mighty beings sit before us, looking down with solemn med- itative aspects, or U2:)Avard8 with inspired looks that see into futurity All their forms are massive and 206 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. sublime, all are full of varied and individual char acter. Beneath these again are a series of groups repre- senting the earthly genealogy of Christ, in which the figures have a repose, a contemplative grace and tenderness, which place them among the most inter- esting 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 fre- quently disdained to avail himself of it. In the four corners of the ceiling are representations of the miraculous deliverance of the people of Israel, in allusion to the general redemption of man by the Saviour, namely, Holofernes vanquished by Judith, David overcoming Goliath, the Brazen Serpent, and the Punishment of Haman. There is a small print in Kugler's Hand-book, 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 bet- ter. In our National School of Design, at Somerset House, there is an admirable colored drawing lately bro light from Rome by Mr. L. Gruner, which will convey a very correct idea not merely of the ar- rangement of the subjects and figures, but of the harmonious disposition of the colors — a merit not usually allowed to Michael Angelo. The collection of engravings after Michael Angelc in the British Museum is very imperfect, but it con MICHAEL ANGELO. 207 tains 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 Reynolds said that " to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambi tious man ! ' ' AVhen 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 natu- rally have expected that he would have gloried in patronizing and employing Michael Angelo ; but such was not the case. There was something in the stern, unbending character, *and retired and abstemious habits of Michael Angelo, repulsive to the temper of Leo, Avho preferred the graceful and amiable Piaphael, then in the prime of his life and \ genius. Hence arose the memorable rivalry between Michael Angelo and Raphael, which on the part of the latter was merely generous emulation, while it Kiust be confessed that something like bitterness and envy, or at least scorn, mingled with the feel- ings of Michael Angelo. The pontificate of Leo X., an interval of ten years, was the least productive period of his life. He was sent to Florence, to superintend the building of the church of San Lo- 20b EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. renzo and the completion of Santa Croce ; but ha differed Avitli 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 Giuliano de' Medici who was assassinated by the Pazzi in 1478. He had conceived the idea of con secrating 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 splendors of art. Michael Angelo planned and built the chapel, and for its interior decoration designed and exe- cuted six of his greatest works in sculpture. Two are seated statues : one representing Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, who died young, in 1519, living only to be the fother of Catherine de' Medici (and, as it has been well said, " had an evil spirit assumed the human shape to propagate mischief, he could not have done better ") ; the other, oppo- site, 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 intro- duced in such a situation — what was the inten- tion, the meaning of tlie artist — does not seem to be understood by any of the critics on art who have written on the subject. The statue of Lorenzo i? almost awful in its sullen grandeur. He look? down in a contemplative attitude ; hence the ap- MICHAEL ANGELO. 209 pellation by "svhich 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 hia 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 Xight and Day, Turned into stone, rest everlastingly. There from age to age Two ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres. That is the Duke Lorknzo. 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 Michael Angelo was engaged in these works liis progress was interrupted by events which threw all Italy into commotion. Rome was taken and sacked by the Constable de Bourbon, in 1537. The Medici were once more expelled from Florence, and Michael Angelo, in the midst of these strange vicis- situdes, 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 14 210 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 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 Clement VII. was too sensible of his merit to allow him to remain long in disgrace and exile. He was par- doned, and continued ever afterwards in high favor with the pope, who employed him on the sculptures in the chapel of San Lorenzo during the remainder of his pontificate. 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 anxious to immortalize his name b}^ 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 An- gelo, who endeavored 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 con- Bented 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, ISIichael MICHAEL ANGELO. 211 A.ngelo only adhered to the original plan as it had been adopted by Julius II., and afterwards hy Clement VII. In the centre of this vast composition he has placed the figure of the Messiah in the act of pro- nouncing the sentence of condemnation, " Depart from me, ye accursed, 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 further down another group of angels holding the book of life, and sounding the eiwful trumpets which call up the dead to judg- ment. Below, on one side, the resurrection and ascent of the blessed ; and, on the other, demons drag down the condemned 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'a l^ast Judgment is the grandest picture that ever was painted — 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 conception of the principal personage, the Messiah as judge. The figure, expression, attitude, are alJ 212 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. unworthy — one might almost say vulgar in tha worst sense ; for is there not both profaneness and vulgarity in representing the merciful Redeemer of mankind, even when he " comes to judgment," aa inspired merely by wrath and vengeance ? — 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. Id the groups of the pardoned, 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 passion human efforts ; we see no choir of solemn, tranquil forms — no harmonious unity of clear, grand lines produced by ideal draperies ; but in their stead a confused crowd of naked bodies in violent attitudes, unaccompanied by any of the characteristics made sacred by holy tradition." On the other hand, the groups of the condemned, and the astonishing en- ergy and variety of the struggling and suspended forms, are most fearful ; and it is quite true that when contemplated from a distance the whole rep- resentation fills the mind with wonder and myrteri ous horror. It was intended to represent the dsfeat and fall of the rebel angels on the opposite wali MICHAEL ANGEL^ ^^ ^ ^]fj ^ ^ 'ff < ^above and on each side of the princ this was never done ; and the intention Angelo in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel mains incomplete. The picture of the Last Judg ment was finished and first exhibited to the peoplt oL Christmas day, 1?^, under the pontificate of Paul III. Miofcael Angelo was then, in his sixty- seventh year, and had been employed on the paint- ing and cartoons nearly nine years. The same Pope Paul III. had, in the mean time, constructed 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. But these fine paintings — of which existing old engravings (to be found in the British Museum) give a better idea than the blackened and faded remains of the origin^A frescoes — were from the first ill-disjDOsed as to the locality, and badly lighted, and at present they excite little interest compared with the more famous works in the Sistine. Daring the period that Michael Angelo waa 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 church of 214 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Santa Croce. It is full of tragic grandeur and expression.* With the frescoes in the Pauline Chapel ends Michael Angelo's career as a painter. During the remainder 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 com- pletion 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 of the universal and majestic intellect of the man who reared it ? There is a striking anecdote of Mrs. SiddonSj 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, " Hoav great must be the Being who treated the genius which produced such a form as this ! " — a thought characteristic of her mind, but * An eye-witness has 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 Bixty, and with a body announcing weakness, make more chips of marble fly about in a quarter of an hour than would three ol the strongest young sculptors in an hour, — a thing almost incredible to him who has not beheld it. He went to work with such impetu- jsity 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 Jdea of greatness which inspired him, this great man attacked with A species of fury the marble which concealed the statue." — Blaisi ie Vigenire. MICHAEL ANGELO. 215 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 character of great- ness, of durability, of sublimity of invention, and consummate skill in contrivance, Tvhich fills the con- templative 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. In the year 1544, being then in his seventy-second year, he was appointed to the office of chief architect of St. Peter's by Pope Paul III., and he continued to discharge it through the pontificates of Julius III., Pius IV., and Pius V. He accepted the office with reluctance, pleading 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 oflacials. 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 re- fusing any salary or remuneration. Notwithstand- ing the difficulties he encountered, the provocations and the disgusts most intolerable to his haughty and impatient spirit, he held on his way with a stern perseverance till he had seen his great designs so far carried out that they could not be wholly abandoned or perverted by his successors.* * This, however, applies only to the stupendous dome. His deaifa 216 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS, When his sovereign the Grand Duke ot Florence endeavored, by the most munificent offers and prom- ises, to attract him to his court, he constantly pleaded that to leave his great work unaccom- plished 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 honor and the honor of God," he refused all emolument. It appears, from the evidence of contemporary writers, that in the last years of his life the ac knowledged 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 dignity. 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, prelates, ambassadors, were standing round at humble distance, carried on the confer- ence, as equal with equal. The Grand Duke Cosmo I. alwaj^s uncovered in his presence, and stood with his hat in his hand while speaking to him. 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 for the facjade, and even the origmal form of the church, having been •ubsequently altered. MICHAEL ANGELO. 217 strong and generous attachment to liis old servant Urbino. One day, as Urbino stood by liim -svhile ho worked, he said to him, " My poor Urbino ! what wilt thou do w^hen I am gone? "— " Alas ! " replied Urbino, "T 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 independent of himself and others. Urbino, however, continued in his service ; and when seized with his last illness, Michael xVngelo, the stern, the sarcastic, the over- bearing Michael Angelo, nursed him Avith the ten- derness and patience of a mother, sleeping in his clothes on a coucli that he might be ever near him. The old man died,at last, leaving liis master almost Inconsolable. " My Urbino is dead," lie 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. Ho was too proud to be vain. He had placed his stan- dard of perfection so high, that to the latest hour of his life he considered himself as striving after that ideal excellence which had been revealed to him, but to which he conceived that others were blind or m- differcnt. In allusion to his own imperfections, he made a drawing, since become famous, which repre 218 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Bents an aged man in a go-cart, and underneath the words ^''Ancora impara " (still learning) He continued to labor unremittingly, and with the same resolute energy of mind and purpose, till the gradual decay of his strength warned him of his approaching end. He did not suifer from any par- ticular malady, and his mind was strong and clear to the last. He died at Rome, on the ITth of Feb- ruary, 15G3, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. A few days before his death, he dictated his will in these few, simple words : "I bequeath my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my possessions to my nearest relations." His nephew, Lionardo Bu- onaroti, who was his principal heir, by the orders of the Grand Duke Cosmo had his remains secretly conveyed out of Rome and brought to Florence ; they were with due honors 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, tnd Architecture. They might have added Poetry ; for Michael Angelo was so fine a poet that his pro- ductions would have given him fame, though he had never peopled the Sistine with his giant creations, nor '''■suspended the Pantheon in the air,^''* The * The dome of the Pantheon, which appears self-sustained, had, from the time of Augustus Cajsar, attracted the wonder and admira- tion of all beholders, as a marvl of scientific architecture. Michael MICHAEL ANGELO. 219 object to which his poems are chiefly addressed, V^ittoria Colonna, jMurchioness 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 trans- lated 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 pic- ture galleries are in every instance copies made by his scholars from his designs and models. Only one easel picture is acknowledged as the genuine pro- duction of his hand. It is a lioly Family in the Florentiue gallery-, Avhich as a composition is very exaggerated and ungraceful, and in color hard and violent. It is painted in distemper, varnished ; not in oils, as some have supposed. Marcello Venusti was continually employed in executing small pictures from celebrated cartoons of Llichael 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 sub- jects is the Virgin seated at the foot of the Cross, Angelo had said, on some occasion, " I will take the Pantheon and .suspend it in air ; " and he did so. 22U EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. holdiug on her lap the dead Redeemer, whose arms are supported by two angels : innumerable dupli- cates and engravings exist of this composition (one exquisite example is in the Queen's gallery in Buck- ingham Palace) ; also of the Christ on the Cross, with the Virgin and St. John standing and two an- o-els looking out of the sky behind, with an expres- sion of intense anguish (one of these, a very fine example, was lately sold in the Lucca gallery). An- other is 11 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 varia- tions, 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 Gallery. " Sebastian," says Lanzi, " was without the gift of invention, and in compo- sitions of many figures slow and irresolute ; " but he was a consummate portrait painter, and a most admirable colorist. A Venetian by birth, he had learned the art of coloring under Giorgione. On 3oming to Rome in 1518, he formed a close intimacy MICHAEL ANGELO. 221 with Michael Angelo ; the tradition is, that Michael Angelo associated Sebastiano with liimself, and gave him the cartoons of his grand designs, to Avhich tlie Venetian was to lend the magical hues of iiis pallette for the purpose of crushing Raphael. If this tradi- tion be 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 Gallery, and of which the cartoon, by Michael Angelo, is in our Royal Academy. But the most celebrated and the most independent among the scholars and imitators of Micliael Angelo was Daniel da Volterra, whose most famous work is the Taking down the Saviour from the Cross, with a number of figures full of energy and movement. Giorgio Vasari was a pupil and especial favorite of Michael Angelo ; he was a painter and architect of second-rate merit. He has, however, earned him- self an immortality by his admirable biography of the painters, sculptors, and architects of Italy, from the earliest times to the death of jNlichael 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 cen- tury, and in the lifetime of Michael Angehj, imi *J22 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. tated his manner. They ATere mere journeymen, and, indeed, imitated him most abominably ; mis- taking extravagance for sublimity, exaggeration for grandeur, and distortion and affectation for energy and passion, — a Avretched set ! But, before wo leave Florence, we must speak of one more artist, whose proper place is here, because he was a Flor- entine, and because he combined in a singular man- ner the characteristics 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 waa Andrea del Sarto, a great artist ; but who would have been a far greater artist had he been a ])ettei man. ANDREA DEL SARTO. Born 1488, died 1530. Ai>DREx\ Vanxuciii was the son of a tailor (in ftalian Sarto) ; hence the appellation by which ho was early known, and has since become celebrated. He was born in 147^, and, like many others, began life as a goldsmith and chaser in metal, but, soon turning his attention to painting, and studying in- defatigably, 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 sentiment and expression. It would be difficult to point out any picture of Andrea del Sarto which has either simplicity or devotional feeling. A man possessed of genius and industry, loving his art, and crowned with early fame and success, ought to have been tlirough 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 (223^ 224 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. woman of infamous character, who was the wife of a hatter ; and on the death of her husband, iu spite of her bad reputation and the warnino;s of hia best friends, he married her. From that hour he never had a quiet heart, or home, or conscience. lie liad hitherto supported his old father and mother. She prevailed on him to forsake them. His friends stood aloof, pitying and despising hia degradation. His scholars (and formerly the most promising of the young artists of that time had been emulous for the honor of his instructions) now fell off, unable to bear the detestable temper of the woman who governed his house. Tired of this ex- istence, he accepted readily an invitation from Francis I., who, on his arrival at Paris, loaded him with favor and distinction ; but after a time, hia 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 position, and promised, and even took an oath on the Gospel, that he would re- turn in a few months, bringing with him his wife, the king gave him license to depart, and even in- trusted him with a large sum of money to be ex- pended 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 ANDHEA DEL SARTO. IJ^U keep liiiJ oath and engagements. E»at, though he had been weak and Avicked enough to commit this crime, he had sufficient sensibility to feel acutely tho disgrace which was the consequence. It preyed on his mind, and embittered the rest of his life. The avarice and infidelity of his wife added to his sufferings. He continued to paint, however, and improved to the last in correctness of style and beauty of color. In the year 1530 he was attacked by a conta- gious disorder. Abandoned on his death-bed by the woman to whom he had sacrificed lionor, 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 have visited Florence. Fine as are his oil-pictures, his paintings in fresco are still finer. One of these, a Repose of the Holy Family, has been celebrated, for the last two cen- turies, under the title of the Madonna del SaccOf 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, and a building called the Scalzo, at Florence, contain his most admired works. His finest picture in oil is in the Florence Gallery, in the cabinet called the Tribune, where it hangs behind the Yenus de* Medici. It represents the Virgin seated on a 15 226 EARiiY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 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 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 featuras in every face he drew, whether Vir- gin, or saint, or goddess. Pictures by Anurea del Sarto are to be found in almost all galleries, but very fine examples of his art are rare out of Flor- ence. The picture in our National Gallery at- tributed to him is very unworthy of his reputation. Those at Hampton Court are not better. Thore 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 Fon- tainebleau in 1518, and three others. Lord West- minster, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Munroe of Park- street, and Lord Cowper in his collection at Pan- shanger, possess the finest examples of Andrea del Sarto which are in England. At Panshanger there is a 7ery fine portrait of Andrea del Sarto by him- self. He is represented as standing by a table at which he has been writing, and looking up from ANDREA DEL SARTO. 227 the letter which lies before him. The figure is half, length, and the countenance noble, but profoundly melancholy. One might fancy that he had been writino; to his wife. RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. Boru 1483, died 1520. Vi s 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 Vinci and Michael Angelo. The third and greatest name was that of Raphael. In speaking of this wonderful man we 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 Shakspeare 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 excel lence and beauty, more or less defined, to that- familiar name ; but it is necessary to have studied profoundly the history of art, and to have an inti- mate acquaintance with the productions of contem- porary and succeeding artists, to form any just idea of the Avido and lasting influence exercised by this harmonious and powerful genius. His works have been an inexhaustible storehouse of ideas to paint- (228) RAPHAEL SANZIO d'URBINO 229 e^ and to poets. Everywhere ii> art avl End his tfsgCBS. Everywhere we recognize his forms and lines, borrowed or stolen, reproduced, varied, imi- •]tated — never improved. Some critic once said, *' Show me any sentiment or feeling in any poet, ancient or modern, and I will show you the samo thing either as well or better expressed in Shak- Bpeare." In the same manner one might say, " Show me in any painter, ancient or modern, any especial beauty of form, expression, or sentiment, and iu some picture, drawing, or print, after Raphael, I will show you the same thing as well or better done, and that accomplished which others have oaly sought or attempted." To complete our idea of this rare union of greatness and versatility as an artist wj^h all that could grace and dignify the man, we mnst add such personal qualities as very seldom meet in the same individual — a bright, generous, genial, gentle spirit ; the most attractive manners, the most w^inning modesty, " His heavenly face the mirror pf' 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 resembling that of an antique divinity, a young Apollo, than a real human being. There was a vulgar idea at one time prevalent'that Raphael was a man of vicious and dissipated habits, and even died a victim to his excesses. This slaDder ha* 230 EARLY ITALIAN PA ENTERS. been silenced forever by indisputable evidence to the contrary, and now we may reflect with pleasure that nothing rests on surer evidence than the ad- mirable qualities of Raphael ; that no earthly re- nown was ever so unsullied by reproach, so justi- fied by merit, so confirmed by concurrent opinion, so established by time. The short life of Raphael ■was one of incessant and persevering study. 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 colors the rich creations of his Avonderful 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 moment, 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 ex- act and cunning hand. "An author," as Rich- ardson 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 mechanic's hand must be exquisite ; but his thoughts maybe at liberty." The painter must think and invent with his fancy, and what hia itAPHAEL SAN2I0 d'URBINO. 231 fanoy invents his hand must acquire the povjer td execute, or vain is his power of creative thought. It has been observed — though Raphael was un- happily an exception — that painters are generally long-lived and healthy ; and that, of all the profess- ors 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 tho opposite faculties of the excursive fancy and me- chanic skill, — head and hand balancing each other, — a sort of harmony in their alternate or coefficient exercise is preserved habitually, which reacts on the whole moral and physical being. As Raphael carried to the highest perfection the union of thoso 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 step-mother, caressed and idolized in his loving innocence, was the same being whom we see in ilie prime of man- hood subduing and reigning overall hearts, so that, to borrow the words of a contemporary^, " not only all men, but the very brutes, loved him : " the only very dintinguished man of whom- we read who lived and died without an enemy or a detractor ! 2i52 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Eapliael 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 Fred- erigo 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'a mother was Magia, and the house in which he was born ifl 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 plnf'e. and loved him and tended him as if he had been Ker own son. His father was his first instructor, and very soon the young pupil was not only able to aissist him in his works, but showed such extraor- dinary 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 hii> RAPHAEL SANzio d'urbino. 233 master. A few pictures painted between liis six- teenth and twentieth year have been authenticated by careful research, and are very interesting from being essentially characteristic. There is, of course, the manner of his master Perugino, but mingled with some of those qualities which were particu- larly liis own, and which his after life de\xdoped into excellence ; and nothing in these early pictures is 80 remarkable as the gradual improvement of his style, and his young predilection fur his favorite sub- ject, 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 common in Italian art, and called Lo Sposalizio (the Espou- sals). Tliis beautiful picture is preserved in the Gallery at INIilan. There is a large and tine engrav- ing 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 recom- mendation from Giovanna, Duchess of Sora, and sister of the Duke of Urbino, to Soderini, who had Bucceaded the exiled Medici in the government of Florence. In this letter the duchess styles hiiQ " 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 favor and aid him in liis pursuits. Raphael did not ro- main Lug at Florence in this first visit, but hemada 234 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. the acquaintance of Fra Bartolomeo and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, and saw some cartoons by Lionardc da Vinci and Michael Angelo, which filled his mind with new and bold ideas both of form and compo- eition. In the following year he was employed in execu ting several large pictures for various churches at Perugia. One of these, a large altar-piece, 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 Lans- downe. About the same time he painted for him- self a lovely little miniature called the Dream of the Young Knight, in which he represents a youth armed, who sees in a vision two female figures, one alluring him to pleasure, the other, with a book and sword, inviting him to study and to strive for excellence. This is now in England, in the possev eion of Lady Sykes. It has been lately engraved in an exquisite style by Mr. L. Griiner. When he had finished these and other works, he returned to Florence, and remained there till 1508. Some of the most exquisite of his works may be referred to this period of his life, that is, before ho was five-and-twenty. One of these is the Madonna sitting under the Palm-tree, while Joseph presents flowers ta the In- fant Christ. This may be seen in the Bridgev/atel Gallery. A second is the Madonna in the posses- iion of Earl Cowper, and now at Panshanger IIAPUAEL SANZIO d'URBINO. 235 A.nother is the famous Madonna in the Florentine Gallery, called the ^ladonna del Cardellino (the Virgin of the Goldfinch), because the little St. John is presenting a goldfinch to tiie 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 standicg at her knee. The St. Catherine in our National Gallery was also painted about the same period ; and the little picture of St. George and the Dragon, which Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, sent as a present to Henry VIL, 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 nial y pense." There is anotlier 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 altar- pieces and some beautiful portraits ; in all about thirty pictures painted during the three years he spent at Florence. RAPHAEL AT ROME. In his twenty-fifth year, when Fra Bartolomoo, Lionardo da Vinci, and INIichael Angelo, were all at the height of their fame, and many years older than himself, the young Raphael had already be- come celebrated from one end of Italy to the other. A.t this time Julius II. was pope. Of his extraor dinary and energetic character we have already 286 £ARLY ITALIAN PaINTERS. spoken at length, in the life of Michael Angclo At the age of seventy he was revolving plans foi the aggrandizement of his power and the embellish- ment of the Vatican which it would have taken a long life to realize. Conscious that the time before him was to be measured by months rather than by years, and ambitious to concentrate in his own per- son all the glory tliat must ensue from such mag- nificent Avorks, he listened to no obstacles, he would endure no delays, he spared no expense, in his un- dertakings. 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 Pope 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 peremptory, that Raphael hurried from Florence, •eaving 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 Vat- ican. 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, on points of costume or chronol- ogy. But when he began his paintings in thg RAPHAEL SANZIO D'UEBINO. 2B7 Vatican he was Avhollj unassisted, and the plan which he hiid before the pope, and which was im- mediately approved and adopted, shows that the grasp and cultivation of his mind equalled hi? powers as a painter. lie dedicated this first sa- loon, called in Italian the Camera della Segnatura, t ) the glory of those high intellectual pursuits which may be said to embrace in some form or other all human culture — he represented Theol- ogy, Poetry, Philosophy, and Jurisprudence. 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 inspira- tion. 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 called La Disputa, that is, the ar- gument concerning the holy sacrament. In the upper part is the heavenly glory, the Redeemer in the centre, beside him the Virgin mother. On the rjofht and left, arranged in a semicircle, patriarchs, apostles, and saints, all seated ; all full of charac- ter, dignity, and a kind of celestial repose befitting their beatitude. Angels are hovering round ; four of them, surrounding the emblematic Dove, hold \\\Q Gospels. In the lower half of the picture are 288 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. assembled the celebrated doctors and teacherb of tha Church, grand, solemn, meditative figures ; some searching their books, some lost in thought, some engaged in colloquy sublime. And on each side, a little lo^Ye^, groups of disciples and listeners, every head and figure a study of character and expression, »— all diflferent, all full of nature, animation, and significance ; and thus the two parts of this magnifi- cent composition, the heavenly beatitude above, the mystery of faith below, combine into one compre- hensive whole. This picture contains about fifty full-length figures. Under Poetry we have IMount Parnassus. Apollo and the ]\luses are seen on the summit. On one side, near them, the epic and tragic poets. Homer, Virgil, 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 arrange- ment, grouping, and character, are most admirable and graceful ; but Raphael's original design for this composition, as we have it engraved by jNIarc Antonio, is finer than the fresco, in which there are many alterations which cannot be considered aa 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 intellectual philosophers, Plato KAPHAEL SANZiO D UKBINO 1239 Aristotle, Socrates : Plato characteristically point- ing upwards to heaven ; Aristotle pointing to tho earth ; Socrates impressively discoursing to the lis- teners near him. Then, on a lower plan, we have the Sciences and Arts, represented by Pythagoras and Archimedes ; Zoroaster, and Ptolemy the geographer ; while alone, as if avoiding and avoided by all, sits Diog- enes the Cynic. Pvaphael has represented the art of painting by the figure of his master Perugino, and has introduced a portrait of liimself humbly following him. The group of Archimedes (whose head is a portrait of Bramante, the architect) sur- rounded by his scholars, who are attentively watch- ing him as he draAvs a geometrical figure, is one of the finest things which Raphael ever conceived ; and the whole composition has in its regularity and grandeur a variety and dramatic vivacity which relieve it from all formality. This picture also contains not less than fifty figures. liaw, or Jurisprudence, from the particular con- struction of the wall on which the subject is painted, is represented with less completeness, and is broken up into divisions. Prudence, Fortitude, and Tem- perance, are above ; below, on one side, is Pope Gregory delivering the ecclesiastical law ; and on tho other, Justinian promulgating his famous code of civil law. The whole decoration of this cliambor forms a grand allegory of the domain of human 240 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. intellect, shadowed forth in creations of surpassing beauty and dignity. The description here given is necessarily brief and imperfect. "We advise our readers to 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 person- ages introduced and the appropriate characters of each. About this time Raphael painted that portrait of Julius II., of which a duplicate is in our National Gallery. No one who has studied the history of this extraordinary old man, and his relations with Michael Angelo and Raphael, can look upon it without interest. Another fine duplicate is in the gallery of Mr. Miles, at Leigh. Court, near Bris- tol. The original is in the Pitti Palace at Flor ence. Also at this time Raphael painted the portrait of himself, which is preserved in the Gallery of Painters at Florence ; it represents him as a very handsome young man, with luxuriant hair and dark eyes, full lips, and a pensive yet benign counte- nance.* To this period we may also refer a num- ber of beautiful Madonnas ; Lord Garvagh's, called the Aldobraudini Madonna ; the Virgin of the * 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 Mvxnich. RAPHAEL SANZIO D'DRBINO 241 Bridgewater Gallery ; the Vierge au Diadcme in the Louvre ; and the yet more flimous Madonna di Foligno, now at Rome in the Vatican. Wliile employed for Pope Julius in executing the frescoes already described, Raphael found a mu- nificent friend and patron in Agostino Chigi, a rich banker and merchant, who was then living at Rome in great splendor. 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 grandeur and inspiration ; and, on the wall of a chamber in his palace, that fresco the Triumph of Galatea, well knoAvn from the numerous engravings. About the year 1510 Raphael began the decora- tion of the second chamber of the Vatican. In this series of compositions he represented the power and glory of the Church, and her miraculous deliverances from her secular enemies : all these being an in- direct honor paid to, or rather claimed by Julius II., Avho 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 scrupu- lous means. On the ceiling of this room are four beautiful pictures — the promses of God to the four Patriarchs, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses. On the four side walls, the Expulsion of Ileliodorus from the Temple at Jerusalem ; tha Miracle of Bolsena, by which, as it was said, here- tics were silenced ; Attila, King of the Huns, ter- 242 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. rifled bj the apparition of St. Peter and St. Paul ; and St. Peter delivered from Prrson. Of these tha Ileliodorus is one of the grandest and most poetical of all Raphael's creations : the group of the celes- tial "warrior trampling on the prostrate Ileliodorus, with the avenging spirits rushing, floating alongs air-borne, to scourge the despoiler, is "wonderful for its supernatural powers ; 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 difierent from that of Julius, he was not less a patron of Raphael than his predecessor had been ; and certainly the number of learned and ac- complished men whom he attracted to his court, and the enthusiasm for classical learning which prevailed among them, strongly influenced those productions of Raphael wdiich date from the acces- sion of Leo. They became more and more allied to the antique, and less and less imbued with that pure religious spirit which we find in his earlier works. Cardinal Bembo, Cardinal Bibiena, Count Cas- tiglione, the poets Ariosto and Sanazzaro, ranked at this time among Raphael's intimate friends. With his celebrity his riches increased ; he built himself a fine house in that part of Rome called the Borgo, betvreen St. Peter's and the Castle of St. Angelo ; he had numerous scholars from all part« BAPHAEL SANZIO d'URBINO. 243 of Italy, who attended on him with a love and reverence and duty far beyond the lip-and-knea homage which waits on princes ; and such was tho influence of his benign and genial temper, that all these young men lived in the most entire union and friendship with him and with each other, and hia Bchool was never disturbed by those animosities and jealousies which before and since have disgraced the schools of art of Italy. All the other paint- ers of that time were the friends rather than tho 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 Vinci came to Rome, by the invitation 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 Ra- phael at this time on terms of the tenderest friend- ship with Francia, and in correspondence with Albert Durer, for whom he entertained the highest admiration. Under Leo X. Raphael continued his great works in the Vatican. He began the third hall or camerd. in 1515. The ceiling of this chamber had been painted by his master Perugino for Sixtus IV. ; and Raphael, from a feeling of respect for his old 244 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. master., ^vould not remove or paint over his V7ork. On the sides of the room he represented the prin- cipal 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 Italipn L'Incendio del Borgo (the Fire in the Borgo). The story says that this populous part of Rome was on fire in the time of Leo IV., and that the con- flagration was extinguished by a miracle. In the hurr}-, confusion, and tumult, of the scene ; in the men escaping half naked ; in the terrified groups assembled in the foreground ; in the women car- rying 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 colored of the whole series ; the best in point of color 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 whol-e of these frescoea having been executed by the scholars of Raphael, from his designs and cartoons, we shall not dwell on them here, only observing that an excellent reduced copy of the finest of all, the Battle of Con- stantino and Maxentius, may be seen at ITamptoa Court. RAPHAEL SANZIO D'UKBINO. 245 VVhile Raphael, assisted by his scholars , -was de- Bigning and executing the large frescoes in the Vati- can, 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 won- derful man, and the rapidity with which they suc- ceeded each other, are quite unexampled. Among his most celebrated and popular compositions is the series of subjects from the Old Testament, called " Eaphael's Bible;" these were comparatively small pictures, adorning the thirteen cupolas of the " Loggie " of the Vatican. These " Loggie " are open galleries, running round throe sides of an open court ; and the gallery on the second story is the one painted under Raphael's direction. Up the Bides and round the windows are arabesque orna • ments, festoons of fruit, flowers, animals, all com- bined and grouped together with the most exquisite and playful fancy. They have been much injured by time, yet more by the barbarous treatment of the French soldiery when Rome was sacked in 1527, and worst of all by unskilful attempts at restora- tion. The pictures in the cupolas, being out of reach, are better preserved. Sacred subjects were never represented in so beautiful, so poetical, and BO intelligible a manner as by Raphael ; but, as the copies and engravings of these works are innumer- able, and easily met with, we shall not enter into a particular description of them ; very good copies 246 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. of several may be seen at the National School o> Design at Somerset House.* There was still another great work for the Vati- can intrusted to Raphael. The interior of the Sis- tine Chapel had been ornamented round the lower walls with paintings in imitation of tapestries Leo X. resolved to substitute real draperies of tho 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 in the Royal Gallery at Hampton Court. As they rank among the greatest productions of art, and have been for some time freely thrown open to the public, we shall give a detailed account of them here from various sources,! and add some remarks * A set of excellent engravings from the series, in a fine free Btyle, and of a large size, and all executed at Rome after the original frescoes, is now publishing by Parker, in the Strand, at the extraor- dinary low price of six engravings for nine shillings. The subjects, the size, and the fine taste of the execution, render them admirabla ornaments for the walls of a school-room or study. t See Passavant's " Rafael ; " Kugler's " Handbuch ; " Bm> len's " Stadt Rom ; " Murray's " Handbook to the Public Ual HAPHAEL SANZIO d'URBINO. 247 which may enable tlio uninitiated to form a judg- ment of their characteristic merits, as ^Yoll as to appreciate duly the privilege which in a wise, as well as a right royal and grac.us spirit, has lately been conceded to the people. The intention in the whole series of subjects was *-o express the mission, the sufferings, and the tri- umph, of the Christian church. The Death of the First Martyr, and the Acts of the two great Apos- tles, St. Peter and St. Paul, were ranged along the Bides to the right and left of the high altar ; while over the altar was the Coronation of the Virgin, a subject which, as we have already seen, was always symbolical of the triumph of religion. In the original arrangement the tapestries hung in the following order : * On the left of the altar — 1. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (that is, the Calling of Peter) ; 2. The Charge to Peter ; 3. The Stoning of Ste- phen ; 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. Elymas struck Blind ; 3. Paul and (erics of Ai t j " and a very clever account of the Cartoons whicb 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. * Subsequently, when the whole of the wall was painted bj Ui6iael Angelo with the Last Judgment, this order was changed, and the tapestry of the Crowning of the Virgin entirely removed. 'ZiS EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Barnabas at Lystra ; 4. Paul preaching at Athens* 5. Paul in Prison. All along underneath ran a rich border in chiaro'scuro, of a bronze color, re- lieved -with goldj representing on a smaller scale incidents in the life of Leo X., ^Yith ornamental arabesques, groups of sporting genii, fruits, flowers, &c. ; and the pilasters between the tapestries were also adorned with rich arabesques. Old engravinga exist of some of these designs, which are among the most beautiful things in Italian art ; as full of grandeur and grace as thej 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 Hampton Court without any regard either to their original arrangement or to chronological order. Beginning at the door by which we enter, they suc- ceed each other thus : 1. The Death of Ananias. *' Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." — Acts 6. Nine of the Apostles stand together on a raised platform; St. Peter in the midst, Avith uplifted \iands, is in the act of speaking ; on the right Ananias lies prostrate on the earth, while a young man ani Avoman, on the left, are starting back, RAPHAEL SANZIO d'URBINO. 249 ♦^ith ghastly horror and wonder in every feature ; in tbo background, to the left, is seen Sapphira, who, unaware of the catastrophe of her husband and the terrible fate impending over her, is paying Bome money with one hand, while she withholda Bome 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 ex- ceeded it : only Raphael himself, in some of his other works, has equalled it in the wondrous adapt- ation of the means employed to 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 aro brought at once to sight. The elevated position of Peter and James, though standing back from the foreground, and their dignified figures, contrast Btrongly with the abject form of Ananias, struck dowa by the hand of God, helpless, and, as it Beeras, quivering in every limb. Those of the spec- tators who are near Ananias express their horror and astonishment by tlie most various and appro- priate 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 probably the most expressive of a person 250 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. overwhelmed by, and in the grasp of, divine Ten* geance. This is in some measure the secret of Raphael's success. Most painters, in studying an attitude, puzzle themselves to find o,:.t what will bo picturesque, and Avhat will be fine, and never dis- cover it. Raphael only thought how a person would stand or fall under such or such circum- stances, 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 circumstances." We have here an instance of that truly Shak- Bpearian art by which Raphael always softens and heightens the effect of tragic terror. St. John, at the very instant when this awful judgment has fallen on the hypocrite and unbeliever, has benignly turned to bestow alms and a blessing on the poor good man before him.* * " 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 awaita Vier, but wholly unconscious of those judgments, and absorbed in tounting that gold by which both she and her partner had beea betrayed to their fate." RAniAEL SANZIO d'CRBINO. 251 2. Eltjias the Sorcerer struck with Blind- ness. " And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou Shalt D<. blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness 5 and he went about seeking Bome to lead him by the hand." — Acts 13 : 11. The Proconsul Sergius, seated on his throne, be- holds 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 ar'^ all occu- pied 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 remarkable 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.* The manner in which tlie im- pression is graduated from terror down to indif- ferent curiosity, while one person explains the event to another by means of gesture, are among * 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, desired Garrick to shut his eyes and walk across the room, when ha instantly stretched out his hand and began to feel his way w'.th the exact attitude and expression here represented. 252 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. the most spirited dramatic effects Raphael ever produced. 3. The IIealixg of the Lame Man at the Beau TiFCL Gate of the Temple. " Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give uuto thee. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up." — Acts 3 : 6, 7. Under the portico of the Temple of Jerusalem stand the two Apostles Peter and John : the forme- is holding by the hand a miserable, deformed crip pie, who gazes up in his face with joyful, eager wonder ; another cripple is seen on the left. Among the people are seen conspicuous a woman with an infant in her arms, and another leading tAvo naked boys, one of whom is carrying two doves as an offer- ing. The wreathed and richly-adorned columns are imitated from those which have been preserved for ages in the church of St. Peter, as relics of the Temple of Jerusalem. With regard to the compo Bition, Raphael has been criticized for breaking it up into parts by the introduction of the pillars ; yet, if properly considered, this very management is a proof of the exquisite taste of the painter, and his attention to the ol)ject he had in view. Adher- ing to the sense of the passage in Scripture, he 90uld not make all the figures refer to one princi- pal action, the healing of the cripple ; he has therefore, framed it in a manner between the two eolunins ; and by the groups introduced into tha EAPHAEL SANZIO d'URBINO. 253 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, thatliad the shafts been perfectly straight, accord- ing to the severest law of good taste in architecture, tlie effect would have been extremely disagreeable to the eye ; by their winding form thcsy harmonize with the manifold forms of the moving figures around, and they illustrate, by their elaborate ele- gance, the Scripture phrase, "the gate which is called Beautiful." The misery, the distortion, the ugliness of the cripple, are made as striking as pos- sible, and contrasted 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 col- umns harmonizes with the lightness, cheerfulness, and happy expression, of these figures. In the compartment where the miracle is taking place, there is the same correspondence of effect with sen- timent ; the subdued light of the lamps burning in the depth of the recess accords well with the rev- erential 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 att now extant. 254 early italian painters. 4. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. "When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, sayiny Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Loi-d." — Luke 5 : 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 wonderfully 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, humility, and love, in the attitude and countenance of St. Peter, are wonder fully expressive. The masterly drawing in the figures of the apostles in the second boat conveys most strongly the impression of the weight they aro 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, black birds have here a grazid effect V RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. 253 •' There is a certain sea-^vildness about them, and, &£ their food was fsh, they contribute mightily to express the affiiir in hand ; they arc a fine part :f the scene. They serve also to prevent the heavi- ness which that part Avould otherwise have had, by breaking the parallel lines wdiich would have been made by the boats and base of the picture." * * " 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 malie 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 elTect ; and to have made his figures small enough for a vessel of that size, would have rendered them unsuitable 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, therefore, wisely chose this lesser inconvenience, this seeming error, which he knew the judicious would know was none, and for the rest he was above being solicitous for his reputatioD 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 .^st incomparable man, which he learned in his great school, the antique, where this liberty is commonly taken in an eminent man ner in the Trajan and Antoninian columns, and on many other occasions, in the finest bas-reliefs. And to note it, by the by, it •eems to be a strange rashness 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 favor of a man we have always known to act with wisdom and propriety on every occasion, to sus- pend at least our criticism, and cast off illiberal triumph over him, %nd to suppose it at least possible that he might have had reasona that we are not aware of." — Richardson, p. 27. 256 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 5. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra. "Then the priest of Jupiter which was before their city brougtt 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 14 : 13, 14. On the left Paul and Barnabas are standing be- neath a portico, and appear to recoil from the in- tention of the townsmen to offer sacrifice to them ; the first is rending his garment and rebuking a man who is bringing a ram to be ofi"ered. On the right, near the centre, is seen a group of the people bring- ing forward two oxen ; a man is raising an axe to strike one of them down ; his arm is held back by a youth, who, having observed the abhorrent 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 expres- eion 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 ha was the chief speaker." As a composition this cartoon is an instance of the consummate skill with which Raphael has con- trived to bring together a variety of circiimstar/cea BO combined as to make the story perfectly intelli- gible as a passing scene, linking it at the same RAPHAEL SANZIO D'URBINO. 257 time -with the past and the succeeding lime. We have the foregone moment in the appearance of the healed cripple, and the wonder he excites ; in the furious looks directed aojainst the apostles by Bome of the spectators we see foreshadowed the persecution which immediately followed this act of mistaken adoration. Every part of the group- ing, the figures, the head, both in drawing and expression, are wonderful, and have an infusion of the antique and classical spirit most proper to the subject. The sacrificial group of the ox, with the figure holding its head and the man lifting the axe, was taken from a Roman bas-relief which in Raphael s time was in the Villa Medici, and ^-hi idea varied and adapted to his purpose with in- finite skill. The boys piping at the altar are full of beauty, and most gracefully contrasted in char- acter. 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 mM of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altal with this inscription, To the unknown God." — Acts 17 : 22, 23. Paul, standing on some elevated steps, is preach- ing to the Athenians in the Areopagus ; behind hira 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 Dionysiuf 17 258 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. the Areopagite and the wcman Damaris, of whoia it is expressly said that they " believed and clave unto him." On the same side, in the background, is seen the statue of Mars, in front of a circular temple. In point of pictorial composition, this car- toon is one of the finest in the series. St. Paul, elevated above his auditors, grandly dignified in bearing, as one divinely inspired, lofty in staturs and position, " stands like a tower." This figure of St. Paul has been imitated from the fresco of JSfasaccio 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 ap- pears the form of St. Peter. Raphael has taken 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 surround him are not to be considered a mere promiscuous as- semblage of individuals ; among them Sv.veral fig- ures-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 fabricatmg objections ; there the Stoic, leaning OR his staff, giving a steady but scornful attention, and fixed in obstinate incredulity ; there the dis- ciples of Plato, not conceding a full belief, but pleased at least with the beauty of the doctrine, and listening with gratified attention. Further on RAPniEL SANZio d'uhbino. 259 18 a promiscuous group of disputants, sophists, and freethinkers, engaged in vehement discussion, but a}»parent\y more bent on exhibiting their own in- genuity than anxious to elicit truth or acknowledge conviction. At a considerable distance in the back- ground 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 pos- sible ; particularly the man who has wrapped hia robe around him, and appears buried in thought. *' This figure also is borrowed from Masaccio. The closed eyes, which in Masaccio might be easily mis- taken for sleeping, are not in the least ambiguous in the cartoon ; his eyes, indeed, are closed, but they are closed with such vehemence that the agita- tion of a mind perplexed in the extreme is seen at the first glance. But what is most extraordinary, 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 muflQf about him that even his hands are not seen. By this happy correspondence between the expression of the countenance and the disposition of the parts, the figure appears to think from head to foot.'' * * Sir Joshua Reynoldg. 260 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 7. The Charge to St. Peter. " Feed my sheep." — John 21 : 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 M^ith 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 between Christ and St. Peter only, there was little room for dramatic effect. Richardson praises the introduction of the sheep, as the only means of making the incident intelligible ; but I agree with Dr. Waagen that herein Raphael 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 merely a figurative expression, and thus produced an ambi- guity of another and of a more unpleasant kind. The figure of Christ is wonderfully noble in con- ception and treatment ; the heads of the apostles finely diversified : in some we see only affectionate acquiescence, duteous submission ; in others won- der, displeasure, and jealous discontent The RAPHAEL SANZIO d'URBINO. 261 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 tha heavy effect of the composition when studied through the ^graving only. These are the subjects of the famous Cartoons of Raphael. To describe the effect of the light and sketchy treatment, so easy, and yet so large and grand in style, we shall borrow the words of an elo- quent writer. " Compared with these," says Ilazlitt, as finely as truly, " all other pictures look like oil and var- nish ; Ave are stopped and attracted by the color- ing, the pencilling, the finishing, the instrument- alities 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 freedom of manner about them which brings preternatural characters and situations home to us with the familiarity of every-day occurrences ; jind while the figures fill, raise, and satisfy the mind, they seem to have cost the painter nothing. Everywhere else we see the means ; here W6 arrive «t the end apparently without any means. There 262 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. is a spirit at work in the divine creation before us * we are unconscious of any steps taken, of any prog ress made ; we are aware only of comprehensive results — of whole masses of figures : the sense of pDwer supersedes the appearance of eifort. 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 de- caying and dilapidated state of the pictures them- selves. They are the more majestic for being in ruins. "We are stru'^k chiefly with the truth of proportion, and the rj^nge of conception — all made spiritual. The corru otible has put on incorrup- tion ; and, amidst the Teck of color and the mould- aring of material bej vty, nothing is left but a universe of thought, r-^. the broad imminent shad- ows of' calm contemplation and majestic pains.' " There exist two sets of copies of the same size a« the originals : one executed by Sir James Thorn- hiil, and presented by the Duke of Bedford to the Koyal Academy; and another set presented by fche Duke of ^Marlborough to the University of Oxford. It is a mitter of regret, but hardly of surprise RAPHA^EL SANZiO d'URBI A CT^' 263^5^,^^ A that the cartoons have never yet been adequately. •* engraved. The first complete series which ap^.t^^^ wa's by Simon Gribolin, a Frencli engraver, who*^ came over in 1680, and was published in the reign of Queen Anne. The prints are small , neat memo- randa of the compositions, nothing more. The second set was executed by Sir Nicholas Dorigny, who undertook the work under tho 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 hundred guineas, and, at the request of the Duke of Devonshire, 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. There are two small sets in mezzotinto, and another small set by Filtler. The set of large engravings by Thomas Ilolloway was begun by him in 1800, and was not quite com- pleted °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 car- toons, they are altogether false in point of style. They are too metallic, too mechanical, too labored ; 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 264 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. the idea of being done from highly-finished, deeply colored 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 rato. Lastly, a set has been commenced by Mr. L. Griiner, whose exquisite taste and classical style of engraving, as well as his profound acquaintance with the works and genius of Raphael, render him particularly fit for the task. 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 colored in distemper. He received for his designs four hundred and thirty-four gold ducats (about six hundred and fifty pounds), which were paid to him, three 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, Bilk, and gold, Avere completed at Arras, and sent to Rome, in 1519. For these the pope paid to the manufacturer at Arras fifty thousand gold ducats ; they were exhibited for the first time on St. Ste- phen's Day, December 26. 1519. Raphael 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 subsequent fate was very curious and event- ful. In the sack of Rome, in 1527, they were i*ar fcftPHAEL SANZIO d'URBINO. 265 fied away by the French soldiery ; but were re- Btored, in 1553, daring 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 con- tained 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 tapes- tries 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 of the same Bet was exhibited in London about a year ago, and has since been sold to the King of Prussia. "While all Rome was indulging in ecstasies over the rich and dearly-paid tapestries, which were not hen, and are still less now, worth one of the car- toons, these precious productions of the artist's own mind were lying in the warehouse of the weaver at Arras, neglected and forgotten. Some were torn into fragments, and parts of them exist in various collections. Seven still remained in some garret or cellar, when Rubens, just a century afterwards, mentioned their existence to Charles I., and advised 266 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. him to purchase them for the use of a tapestry manufactory which King James I. had established at Morthike. The purchase was made. They had been cut into long slips about two feet wide, for the convenience of the workmen, and in this state they arrived in England.* On Charles' death, Cromwell bought them, at the sale of the royal effects, for three hundred pounds. "We had very nearly lost them again in the reign of Charles II. ; for Louis XIV. having intimated, through his am- bassador Bariilon, 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, however, neg- lected in one of the lumber-rooms at Whitehall till the reign of William III., and narrowly escaped being destroyed by fire when Whitehall was burned, in 1G98. It must have been shortly after that King William ordered them to be repaired, the frag- ments pasted together, and stretched upon linen ; * There can be no doubt of the purpose for which Charles I ac- quired them. The entry in the king's catalogue runs thus : ' In K slit wooden case some two cartoons of Raphael Urbino's, for harKjings to be made by ; and the other five are, by the king's ap- pointment, delivered to Mr. Francis Cleyne, at Mortlake, to make hanr/infjs byy It appears that Cromwell had some intentioj of continuing the manufactory of tapestry at Mortlake as a national undertaking, and retained the cartoons for purposes connected With it. RAPHAEL SANZIO d'DRBINO. 267 and being just at that time occupied with the alterations and improvements at liumpton 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 tapes- tries, for which Raphael 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. It is very different in the style of execu- tion from the cartoons 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 Slaughter of the Innocents. 2. The Adoration of the Shepherds. 3. The Adoration of the Magi. 4. The Presentation in the Temple. 5. The Resurrection. 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 The tapestries of these subjects still hang in the Vatican, and all have been engraved. The fame of Raphael had by this time spread to 268 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. other -countries. Horace Walpoie, in the " Aneugh engravings and the copies made by Annibal Carracci, which are pre- served at Naples. For this Avork Correggio received five hundred gold crowns, equal to about fifteen hundred pounds at the present day. About the year 1525, Correggio was invited to Wantua, where he painted for the reigning Duke, Federigo Gonzaga, 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 lo, 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 tb.o cathedral of Parma, which is dedicated to tlie Vir- gin ;Mary. In the centre of the dome he represented the Assumption — the Madonna soaring into heaven, while Clii'ist descends from his throne in bli.ss to meet her. An innumerable host of saints and an- gels, rejoicing and singing hymns of triumph, sur- * The lo and Vie Leda are in the Berlm qallery ; the Da/iae, in Ihe Borghese Gallery ; and the Autiope, in the Louvre. The latta once belonged to King Charles. ^4 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. round these principal personages. Lower down in a circle stand the Apostles, and, lower still, Genii Ijearing candohibra and swinging censers. In lu- nettes below ara the four Evangelists, the figure of St. John being one of the finest. The whole coin- position is full of j.Tlcyious life ; wonderful for ihe relief, the bold and perfect foreshortening, the man- agement of the chitvxo'searo ; but, from the innu- merable figures, and ths plaj of the limbs seen from below, — legs and arras boiL^ <^ore conspicuous than bodies, — the great artist v; as vbproached in his life- time with having painted " viu gut^zzetto di rane " (a fricassee of frogs).* Thor^ &yb several engrav- ings of this magnificent work , biit ^hoso who would form a just idea of Correggio's SLbiim^ conception and power of drawing should see son^e of the car- toons prepared for the frescoes and di.Nwn in chalk by Correggio's own hand. A few of these, repre- senting chiefly angels and cherubim, weje discov- ered a few years ago at Parma, rolled up i.i a gar- ret. They were conveyed to Rome, thence broi.:ght to England by Dr. Braun, and are now in the British Museum, having been lately purchiised by the trustees. These heads and forms are gigantic, nearly twice the size of life ; yet such is the excel- lence of the drawing, and the perfect grace and Bweetness of the expression, that they strike the fancy as sublimely beautiful, without giving th« * In cookery only the hind-legs of the frogs are used •• the bodiet fcre thrown away. CORREGGIO. 295 slightest impression of exaggeration or effort. Our artists ^vho are preparing cartoons for "works on a large scale could have no finer studies than these grand fragments, emanations of the mind and crea- tions of the hand of one of the most distinguished masters in art. Thej show his manner of setting to "work, and are in this respect an invaluable les- son to young painters. Correggio finished the dome of the cathedral of Parma in 1530, and returned to his native to"wn, where he resided for the remainder of his life. "Wo find that in the year 1533 he was one of the "wit- nesses to a marriage "W'hich "was celebrated in the castle of Correggio, between Ippolito, Lord of Cor- reggio, and son of Veronica Gambara, the illustri ous poetess (widow of Ghiberto da Correggio) , and Chiara da Correggio, his cousin. Correggio's pres- ence on this occasion, and his signature to the mar- riage-deed, proved the estimation in which he 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 Boon 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 Ida family sepulchre in the Franciscan convent at 296 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Correggio, and a few words placed over his tomb merely record the day of his death, and his name and profession — " Maestro Antonio Allegri, de PINTORE." There is a tradition th.at Correggio was a self educated painter, unassisted except by his own transcendent genius ; that he lived in great obscur- ity and indigence, and that he was ill remunerated for his works. And it is further related, that hav> ing 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 circum- stances of the last years of his life related above, yet the impression that Correggio died miserably and in indigence prevailed to a late period.* From whatever cause it arose, it was early current. An- nibal Carracci, writing from 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 " The death of Correggio is the subject of a very beautiful tragedy by (Ehlenschlftger, of which there is a critical account, with traiula* UoDS, in one of the early volumes ol Blackwood''^ Magazine. CORREGfilO. 297 of tlie Cathedral of Parina, and who stood by aa one of the chosen "svitnesses of the marriage of his Bovercign, could not have lived unknown and unre- garded ; and we have no just reason to suppose that this gentle, amiable, and unambitious man died unhappily. AVith regard to his deficient education, it appears certain that he studied anatomy under Lombard!, a famous physician of that time ; and his works exhibit not only a classical and cultivated tate, but a knowledge of the sciences — ^^of optics, mathematics, perspective, and chemistry— as far as they were then carried. His use and skilful pre- ptimtion of rare and expensive colors 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 reti- nue of scholars to spread his name and contend for the supremacy of their master. Whether CorreggiD ever visited Rome is a point undecided by any evi- dence 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, " And I too am a painter (anch'io sono pittore) ! " — an anecdoti- which shows that, if unambitious and unprcsum- ing, lie was not without a consciousness of his own .•nerit. 298 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. The father of Correggio, Pellegrino Allegri, who survived 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 Correg- gio, Pomponio Quirino Allegri, became a painter, but never attained to any great reputation, and appears to have been of a careless, restless dispo- sition. We shall now give some account of Correggio 'e works. His two greatest performances, the dome of the San Giovanni and that of the Cathedral of Parma, have been mentioned. His smaller pic- tures, though not numerous, are diffused through 80 many galleries, that they cannot 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 fres- coes, are supposed to have formed part of the com- position in the San Giovanni, which, as already re- lated, was destroyed. The other three are amo'jg his most celebrated works. The first, ^Mercury teach- ing Cupid to read in the presence of Venus, is an epitome of all the qualities which characterize thp oil-painter ; that peculiar smiling grace which is the expression of a kind of Elysian happiness, and that flowing outline, that melting softness of tona CORREGGIO. 299 wnich ara quite illusive. " Those who may not perfectly understand what artists and critics mean when they dwell with rapture on Correggio's won- derful chiaro'scuro, should look well into this pic- ture. They will perceive that in the painting of the limbs they can look through the shadows into the substance, as it might be into the flesh «nd blood ; the shadows seem mutable, accidental, and aerial, as if between the eye and the colors, and not incorporated with them. In this lies the inimitable excellence of Correggio." * This picture was painted for Federigo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. It was brought to England in 1G29, when the Mantua Gallery was bought by our Charles I., and hung in his apartment at Whitehall ; afterwards it passed into the posses- sion 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 sufiering and degradation of her Son ; the dying away of sense and sensation under the influence of mental pain is expressed with ad- mirable and affecting truth. The rest of the pio tare is perhaps rather feeble, and the head of * " Public Galleries of Art," Murray, 1841, in which th^re Is • history of the pict irf, too long to be inserted here. 300 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. Christ not to be compared to one crowned witA 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, knoAvn as the Vierge au Pa?iier, from the little basket in front of the picture. The Vir- gin, seated, holds the infant 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 see) I in the background. This, though called a Holy Family, is a simple domestic scene ; and Correggio probably in this, as in other in- stances, 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 coi^y, perhaps a duplicate, of an original picture now in the possession of the Duke of Wellington. In the gallery of Parma are five of the most im- portant and beautiful pictures of Correggio. The most celebrated 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 ol Correggio. It contains six pictures, of which four are large altar-pieces, bought out of churches in Modena. Among these is the famous picture of the Nativity, called the Notte, or Night, of Correggio CORREGGIO. becau«»e it is illuminated only b; Eplcndor -whicii beams round the lieac flint Saviour ; and the still more famous Magdt 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 these is the Madonna on her knees, adoring with ecstasy her Infant, who lies before her on a portion of her garment. In the Louvre are two of his works— the Marriage 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 Gypsy. In the Vienna Gallery are two ; and at Berlin three —r among them the lo and the Leda. There is in the British Museum a complete collec- tion of engravings after Correggio. Correggio had no school of painting, and all his authentic works, except his frescoes, were executed Bolely by his own hand. In the execution of his fres- coes he had assistants, but they could hardly bo called his pupils. lie had, however, a host of imi- tators, who formed what has been called the School of Parma, of which he is considered the head. The most famous of these imitators was Francesco Maz- Bola, of whom we are now to speak. S02 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. PARMIGIANO. Born 1503, died 1540. Francesco Mazzola, or IMazzuoli, called Parmi* GiANO, and, by the Italians, II Parmigianino (to express by this endearing diminutive the love as •well as the admiration he inspired even from hia 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 earl}'^ initiated into Bome knowledge of designing, though he could have owed little else to them, both being very mediocre artists. Endowed with a most precocious genius, ardent in every pursuit, he studied indeftitigably, 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 an-ived there, four years after- wards, 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 foot- steps of another, however great. Though not greal PARMIGIANO. 303 enough himself 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 vras, feeling the impossibility of rising above such men as jMichael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio, yet feeling also the consciousness of his own poAver, he endeavored to be original by combining Avhat has not yet been harmonized in nature, therefore could hardly succeed in art — the grand drawing of Mi- chael Angelo, the antique grace of Raphael, and the melting tones and sv\-eetness of Correggio. Per- haps, had he been sutistiedto look at nature through his own soul and eyes, he would have done better ; had he trusted himself more, he would have escaped Bome 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. Am- bitious, versatile, accomplished, generally admired for his handsome person and graceful manners, Par- migiano would have been spoiled by vanity, if he had not been a man of strong ^sensibility and of almost fastidious sentiment and refinement. When these are added to genius, the result is generally a tinge of that melancholy, of that dissatisfaction aa ith all that is achieved or acquired, which seem to have entered largely into the temperament of this painter, ▼endering his character and life extremely interest- ing, while it strongly distinguishes him from the serenely mild and equal-tempered Raphael, to whom he was afterwards compared. 804 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. When Parmigiano Avas in his twentieth year, he set off for Rome. The recent accession of Clement VII., a deckired patron of art, and the death of Raphael, had opened a splendid vista of glory and success to his imagination. He carried with him to Rome three pictures. One of these was an ex- ample of his graceful genius. It represented tho Infant Christ seated on his mother's knee, and tak- ing 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 in- stance 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 harmony of the coloring. This last he presented to the pope, who received both the young painter and his offering most graciously. He became a favorite at Rome, and, as he studiously imitated while there the works of Raphael, and resembled him in the elegance of his person and manners, and the generosity of his disposition, the poets complimented him by saying, or singing, that the late-lost and lamented Raphael had revived in the likeness of Parmigiano. We can now measure more justly the distance which separated them. While at Rome, Francesco was greatly patron PARMIGIAXO. '6JD ized by the Cardinal Ippolito de Medici, and painted for him several beautiful pijtures ; 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 ladj, a certain Donna jMaria BufFalini, he painted a grand altar-piece to adorn the chapel of her fiimily at Citta di Castello. This is the cele- brated Vision of St. Jerome, now in our National Gal- lery. 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 delicate manage- ment, 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 uncomfort- ally distorted. Notwithstanding these faults, the picture has always been much celebrated. "When the church in which it stood was destroyed by an earthquake, the picture was purchased from among the ruins, and afterwards sold to the ^Marquis of Abercorn for fifteen hundred guineas; subsequently it passed through tlie handtjof two great collectors, 20 806 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS 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 Rome was taken by assault, and pillaged by the barbarous soldiery of the Constable de Bourbon, at the very time that Parmigiano waa painting on this picture ; and that he was so ab- sorbed 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 from Rome, now a scene of ind©- Bcribable horrors, and reached Bologna barefoot and penniless. But the man of genius has at least this high privilege, 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 ofetchinr/, — that is, of-corroding, or, as it is tech- nically termed, biii?ir/ the lines on the copper-plate by means of nitrous acid, instead of cutting them with the graver. By this new-found art he was PARMIGIANO. 307 relieved from the immediate pressure of poverty, and very soon found himself, as a painter, in full em- ployment. He executed at Bologna some of his most celebrated works : the Madonna della Rosa of the Dresden Gallery, and the Madonna delV collo lunfjo (or long-necked Madonna) in the Pitti Palace at Florence ; also, a famous altar-piece called the St. iNIargaret. Of all these there are numerous engravings. After residing nearly four years at Bologna, Par- migiano returned, rich and celebrated, to his native city. lie reached Parma in 1531, and was imme- diately engaged to paint in fresco a new church which had recently been erected to the honor of the Virgin Mary, and called the Steccata. There were, however, some delays on the side of his em- ployers, and more on his own, and 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 there- upon presented to his friend his picture of Cupid framing his Bow, a lovely composition, so beauti- ful 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 exe3uted at the time, so much did it do- light all who saw it. Engravings and copies like* 308 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. wise abound ; a yery good copy is in the Bridge* water Gallery. The picture which is regarded aa the original is in the gallery of the Belvedere at Vienna. 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 concep- tion ; we have few examples in art of equal grandeui of character and drawing. The poet Gray ac- knowledged 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 himselt up to the pursuit of the philosopher's stone, with o hope of repairing his losses. One of his biographerii has taken pains to disprove these imputations ; but that he was improvident, restless, and fond of pleas- ure, is admitted. Whatever might have been the cause, he 1)roke his contract, and was thrown into prison. To obtain his freedom, he entered into a new engagement, but was no sooner at liberty than PARMIGIANO 309 ho escaped to the territory of Crercona. Here his ■•.onstitutional. mekmcholj seized him ; and though he lis-ed, or rather hmguished, long enough to paint Bome 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. lie died just twenty years after Raphael, 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. Ilis children, cupids, and angels, are in general exquisite ; his portraits are noble, and are perhaps his finest and most faultless produc- tions, — 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 lengthened 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 jMichael Angelo, the result conveys an impression of something quite incongru- ous in nature and in art. Then his Madonnas have in general a mannered grandeur and elegance, something between goddesses and duchesses; and his female saints are something between nymphs and maids of honor. For instance, none of hia dlO EARLY ITALIAN PAINTEES. compositions, not even the Cupid shaping his Bow, nas been more popuhir than his Marriage 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 Gros- venov 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 tho ring with the air of a lady-bride ? — and most of the sacred pictures of Parmigiano are liable to the game censure. Annibal Carracci, in a famous son- net, in which he pointed out what was most wor- thy of imitation in the «lder painters, recommends, significantly, "a little" of the grace of Parmi- 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;, lie was essentially a poet, and a subjective poet, who fused his own being With all he performed and cre- ated. If Raphael be the Shakspeare, then Gior- gione may be styled the Byron, of painting. He was born at Castel Franco, a small town Ji GIORGIONB. 311 the territory of Treviso, and his proper name ^aa Giorgio Barbarelli. Nothing is known of his family or of his younger years, except that, having Bhown a strong disposition to art, he wa* brought, when a boy, to Venice, and placed under the tui- tion of Gian Bellini. As he grew up he was dis- tinguished by his tall, noble figure, and the dignity of his deportment ; and his companions called him Giorgione, or George the Great, by which nick- name 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. lie was famous as a player and composer on the lute, to which he sung his own verses. In his works two characteristics prevail — sentiment and color, both tinged by the peculiar temperament of the man. The sentiment is noble, but melancholy ; and the color decided, intense, and glowing. His execu- tion had a freedom, a careless mastery of hand, or, to borrow the untranslatable Italian word, a sprezzatura, unknown before his time. The idea that he founded his style on that of Lionardo da Vinci c-annot be entertained by those who have studied the works of both. Nnhing can be more distinct in character 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 312 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. passionate sensibility of a poet should h{i\e ])eon employed chiefly in decorative painting, and that too confined to the outsides of the Venetian palaces. These creations have been destroyed ])y fire, ruined by time, or effaced by the damps of the Lagune. lie appears to have early acquired fame in his art, and we find him in 1504 employed, together with Titian, in painting with frescoes the exterior of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (the hall of Exchange belong- ing to the German merchants). That part in- trusted to Giorgione he covered with the most beautiful and poetical figures; but the significance of the whole was soon after the artist's death for- gotten, and Vasari tells us that in his time no one could interpret it. It appears to have been a sort of arabesque on a colossal scale. Giorgione delighted in fresco as a vehicle, be- cause it gave him ample scope for that largeness and freedom of outline which characterized his manner. Unhappily, of his numerous works, only the me-rest fragments remain. We have no evi- dence 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, cos- tumes, are all stamped with the Venetian cliarac- ter. He had no school, though, induced by his Docial and affectionate nature, he freely imparted what he knew, and often worked in conjunction with others. Ilis love of music and his love of pleasurPi sometimes led him astray from his art GIORGIOXE. 313 but were ofteLei" his inspircrs. Both are embodiLxl in his pictures, particuhirly his exquisite pastorals and concerts, over which, however, he has breathed that cast of thoughtfuluess 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 Morta da Feltri, and mentioned by Yasari as the in- ventor, or rather reviver, of arabesque painting in the antique style, which he had studied amid the dark vaults of the Roman ruins. This Morto, as Ridolfi relates, was the friend of Giorgione, and lived under the same roof with him. lie took advantage of Giorgione 's confidence to seduce and carry ofif from his house a girl Avhom he passionately loved. Wounded doubly by the falsehood of his mistress and the treachery of his friend, Giorgione sank into despair, and soon afterwards died, at the early age of thirty-three. iMorto da Feltri afterwards fled from Venice, entered the arm}'-, and was killed at the bat- tle 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 we're painted by Pietro della Vecchia, a Venetian, who had a peculiar talent for imitating Giorgione's manner of execution and style of coloi. These imitations deceive picture-dealers and collect 314 EARLY ITALIAN PAI^TEKS. ors : they could not for one moment deceive those who had looked into the feeling impressed on Gior- gione's works. The only picture which could have imposed on the true lover of Giorgione is that in the possession of Lord Francis Egerton, 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 wdien ho was the friend and daily companion of Giorgione, and under the imme- diate influence of his feelings and genius. We may divide the undoubted and existing pic- tures of Giorgione into three classes. I. The historical subjects, which are very uncom- mon ; such seem to have been principally confined to his frescoes, and have mostly perished. Of the few w^hich remain to us, the most fiimous is a pic- ture in the Brera at Milan, the Finding of Moses. It may be called rather a romantic and poetical ver- Bion than an historical representation of the scene. It would shock Sir Gardner Wilkinson. Id 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 coloring is splendid, and the grace and harmony of the whole composi GIORGIONE. 315 tioii is even the more enciianting frcim the naiveti of the conception. 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 light tournaments in honor of ladies' eyes and the "blessed Virgin." They must be tried by their own aim and standard, not by the severity of anti- quarian criticism. In the Academy of Venice is preserved another historical picture, yet more wildly poetical in con- ception. It commemorates a flict — a dreadful tem- pest which occurred in 1340, and threatened to over- whelm the whole city of Venice. In Giorgione'a picture the demons are represented in an infernal bark exciting the tempest, while St. Mark, St. Nich- olas, and St. George, the patron saints of Venice, seated in a small vessel tossed amid the waves, op- pose with spiritual arms the powers of hell, and prevail against them. In our National Gallery there is a small histori- cal picture, the death of Peter, the Dominican friar and inquisitor, called St. Peter the Martyr, who was assassinated. This picture is not of much value, and a very inferior work of tlie 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 Giorgion« 316 EARLY ITALlAiX PAINTERS. represented with peculiar grace and felicity. The^ are in painting Avhat 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 goner- ally represent groups of cavaliers and ladies seated in beautiful landscapes under the shade of trees, conversing or playing on musical instruments. Such pictures are not unfrequent, and have a par- ticular charm, arising from the union of melan- choly feeling with luxurious and festive enjoyment, and a mysterious allegorical significance now only to be sarmised. In the collection of Lord North- wick, at Cheltenham, there is" a most charming pic- ture in this style, and in the possession of Mr. Cunningham there is another. To this class may also be referred the exquisite pastoral group of Jacob and Rachel, in the Dresden Gallery. III. His portraits are magnificent. They have all, with the strongest resemblance to general na- ture, a grand ideal cast ; for it was in the character of the man to idealize everything he touched. Very few of his portraits are now to be identified. Among the finest and most interesting may be mentioned his ^wn 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 representing a young man crowned with a garland of vine-leaves ; another comes behind him with a concealed dagger, and appears to watch GIORGIONE. 317 t^eraoment to strike. The expression in the two heads can never be forgotten bj those \vho have looked on them. The fine portrait of a cavalier, with a page riveting his armor, is well known. It is in the possession of the Earl of Carlisle, and Btyled, without much probability, Gaston de Foix. A beautiful little full-length figure in armor, now in the collection of Mr. Rogers, bears the same name, and is probably a study for a St. Michael or a St. George. Lord Byron has celebrated in some beautiful lii^es the impression made on his mind by a picture in the Manfrini Palace, at Venice ; but the poet errs in styling it the " portraits of his son: and wife, and self." • Giorgione never had eithei Bon or wife. The picture alluded to represents & Venetian lady, a cavalier, and a page, — portraits evidently, but the names are unknown. The striking characteristic of all Giorgione's pic tures, whether portraits, ideal heads, or composi tions, is the ineffaceable impression they leave oi the memory — the impression oi reality. In the ap parent simplicity of the means through which thL effect is produced, the few yet splendid colors, the vigorous decision of touch, the depth and tenderncsi of the sentiment, they remind us of the old religious music to which we have listened in the Italian churches — a few siinple notes, long sustained, deli- ciously blended, swelling into a rich, full, and per- fect harmony, and melting into the soul. Though Giorgione left no scholars, properly bo 318 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. called, he had many imitators, and no artist of hia time exercised a more extensive and long-felt influ- ence. He diffused that taste for vivid and \varm color which we see in contemporary and succeeding artist-, and he tinged with his manner and feeling the whole Venetian school. Among those who were inspired by this powerful and ardent mind, may be mentioned Sebastian del Piombo, of whom some ac- count has already been given (see p. 220) ; Jacopo Palma, called Old Palma, b. 1518, d. 1543 ; Paris Bordone, b. 1500, d. 1570 ; Pordenone, b. 148G, d. 1540 ; and, lastly, Titian, the great representative of the Venetian school. The- difference between Giorgione and Titian, as col(?i-ists, seems to be this, that the colors of Giorgione appear as if lighted up from wdthin, and those of Titian as if lighted from without. The epithet ^try oy glowing would apply to Giorgione ; the epithet golden would express tht predominant hues of Titian. TITIAN. Bom 1477, died 1576. TiZLANO Vecelli was born at Cadore In the Pii- aii, a district to the north of Venice, where the UQcient family of the Yecelli had been long settled. There is something very amusing and characteristic in the first indication 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 fiincy, we are told that the infant Titian, with an instinctive feeling prophetic of his future excellence as a colorist, used the expressed juice of certain flowers to paint a figure of a Ma- donna. When he was a boy of nine years old hia father, Gregorio, carried him to Venice and placed him under the tuition of Sebastian Zuccato, a painter and worker in mosaic. lie left this school for that of the Bellini, where the friendship and fellowship of Giorgione seems early to have awak- ened his mind to new ideas of art and color. Al- bert Durer, Avho was at Venice in 149-4, 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 (319) H20 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. painting the frescoes of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. The preference 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 together ; but at this time, and for some years afterwards, the influence of Giorgione on the mind and the style of Titian was such that it be- came 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 youth without a rival. We find him for a few years chiefly employed in decorating the palaces of the Venetian nobles, both in the city and on the mainland. The first of his historical compositions which is celebrated by his biographers is the Pre- sentation of the Virgin in the Temple, a large pic- ture, now in the Academy of Arts at Venice ; and the first portrait recorded is that of Catherine, Queen of Cyprus, of Avhich numerous repetitions 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 favor of the Venetian state, was at this time living in a sort of honorable 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 celeln-ated. TITIAN. 321 It appears that Titian was married about 1512, but of his wife Ave do not hear anything more. It is paid that her name was Lucia, and we know thfit sne 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 Titiar was eno-afrcd was the decoration of the convent of St. Antony, at Padua, in which he executed a series of_ frescoes from the life of St. Antony. 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 represents on a small scale an epitome of all the beauties which characterize Titian, in the rich, picturesque, ani- mated composition, in the ardor of Bacchus, who flings Iiimself from his car to pursue Ariadne ; the dancing bacchanals, the frantic grace of the bac- chante, and the little joyous satyr in front, trailing the head of the sacrifice, lie 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 21 322 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTEKS. arrows or embracing each other. This picture la known as the Sacrifice to the Goddess of Fertility. While it remained in Italy it was a study for tiia first painters, — for Poussin, the Carracci, Albano, and Flamingo the sculptor, so famous for his modela of children.* At Ferrara, Titian also painted the portrait of the first wife of Alphonso, the famous and infamous Lucrezia Borgia ; and here also he formed a friendship with the poet Ariosto, whose portrait he painted. At this time he was invited to Rome by Leo X., for whom Pvaphael, then in the zenith of hie powers, was executing some of his finest works. It is curious to speculate what influence these two distinguished men might have exercised on each other had they met ; but it was not so decreed. Titian was strongly attached to his home and hia 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 Rome to swell the luxurious state of Leo X. , he returned to Venice and remained there stationary for tlie next few years, enriching its palaces and churches with his magnificent works. These were so numer* ous that it would be in vain to attempt to give an account even of those considered as the finest among * These two pictures are now at Madrid. A good copy of th« fcist used to hang ia the dark at Hampton Court, and his beeo lately removed to Wmdsor. TITIAN. 323 them. Two, however, must be pointed out as pro- eminent in beauty and celebrity. First, the Aa- Bumption of the Virgin, painted for the church of Santa Maria de' Frari, and now in the Academy of the Fine Arts at Venice, and well knoAvn from the magnificent engraving of Schiavone — the A'irgin is soaring to heaven amid groups of angels, while the apostles gaze upwards; and, secondly, the Death of St, Peter Martyr when attacked by assassins at the entrance of a wood ; the resignation of the prostrate victim and the ferocity of the murderer, the attendant flying " in the agonies of cowardice," with the trees waving their distracted boughs amid the violence of the tempest, have rendered this pic- ture famous as a piece of scenic poetry as well as of dramatic expression. The next event of Titian's life was his journey to Bologna in 1530. In that year 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 his friend 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 por- traits of Clement VII., painted at this time, is now in the Bridgewatcr Gallery. Charles V. was sc satisfied with his portrait, that he became the zeal ous friend and patron of the painter. It is not pre 3^4 EAULY ITALIAN PAINTERS ciselj known winch of several portraits of the emperor painted by Titian was the one executed at Bologna on this memorable occasion, bat it is sup- posed to be that which represents him on horseback charging with his lance, now in the Royal Gallery at Madrid, and of which j\Ir. Rogers possesses the original study. The two portraits of Ippolito de' Medici in the Pitti Palace and the T;Ouvre were also painted at this period. After a sojourn of some months at Bologna, Titian returned to Venice loaded with honors and rewards. There Avas no potentate, prince, or poet, or reigning beauty, who did not covet the honor of being immortalized by his pencil. He had, up to this time, managed his worldly affairs with great economy ; but noAV he purchased for himself a house opposite to jMurano, and lived splendidly, combin- ing with the most indefatigable industry the liveli- est enjoyment of existence ; his flivorite companions Were the architect Sansovino and the witty profli- gate Pietro Aretino. Titian has often been re- proached with his friendship for Aretino, and nothing can be said in his excuse, except that the proudest prmces 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." One of the finest of Titian's portraits is that of Aretino, in the Munich Gallery. Thus in the practice of his art, in the society of TITIAN. 325 his friends, and in the enjoyment of the pleasures of life, did Titian pass several years. The only painter of his time who was deemed worthy of com- peting with him was Licinio Regillo, better known as Pordenone. Between Titian and Pordenone there existed not merely rivalry, but a personal hatred, so bitter that Pordenone affected to think his life in danger, and when at Venice painted with his shield and poniard lying beside him. As long as Pordenone lived, Titian had a spiu- to exertion, ' to emulation. All the other good painters of the time, Palma, Bonifazio, Tintoretto, were his pupils or his creatures ; Pordenone would never owe any- thing to him ; and the picture called the St. Jus- tina, at Vienna, shows that he could equal Titian on his own ground. After the death of Pordenone at Ferrara, in 1530, Titian was left without a rival. Everywhere in Italy art was on the decline : Lionardo, Raphael, Correggio, had all passed away. Titian himself, at the age of sixty, was no longer young, but he still retained all the vigor and the freshness of youth ; neither eye nor hand, nor creative energy of mind, had foiled him yet. lie was again invited to Ferrara, and painted there the portrait of the old pope Paul III. He tlien visited Urbino, Avhcro he painted for the duke the fiimous Venus which hangs in the Tribune of the Florence Gallery, and many other pictures. lie again, by order of Charles V. repaired to Bologna, and paintod the emperor, S2b EARLY ITALIAN rAINTERS. Btanding and by his side a favorite Irish Avolf-dog. This picture Avas given by Philip IV. to oul Charles I., but after his death was sold into Spain, and is now at Madrid. Pope Paul III. invited him to Rome, whither lie repaired in 1548. There he painted that wonder- iul picture of the old pope with his two nephews, the Duke Ottavio and Cardinal Farnese, which is now at Vienna. 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 itself ! — and the pope had either so little or so much vanity as to be per- fectly satisfied. lie rewarded the painter munifi- cently ; he even offered to make his son Pomponio Bishop of Ceneda, which Titian had tlie good sense to refuse. While at Rome he jjainted several pic- tures for the Farnese family, among them the Venus and Adonis, of which a repetition is in our National Gallery, and a Danae which excited the iidmiration of Michael Angelo. At this time Titian was seventy-two. He next, by command of Charles V., repaired tc Aiigsburgh, 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 gov- ernment, — far older at fifty than the painter at Beventy-two. It was at Augsburgh that the inci- dent occurred which has been so often related TITIAN. 327 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 Ctesar." This pretty anecdote is not without its parallel in modern times. When Sir Thomas Lawrence was painting at Aix-la-Chapelle, as he si^oped to place a picture on his easel, the Emperor of Russia anti- cipated him, and, taking it up, adjusted it himself; but we do not hear that he made an}" speech on the occasion. When at Augsburgh, Titian was en- nobled 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 favor with his suc- cessor Philip II., for whom he painted several pic- tures. It is not true, however, that Titian visited Spain. The assertion that he did so rests on the sole authority of Palomino, a Spanish Avi'iter 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, Avith 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 1530 to his death. Notwithstanding Nhe compliments and patronage and nominal re- wards he received from the Spanish court, Titian 528 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS was worse off under Philip II. than he had been under Charles V. : bis pension was constantly in arrears; the payments for his pictures evaded by the officials ; and we find the great painter con- stantly presenting petitions and complaints in moving terms, Avhich always obtained gracious bat 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 tue time of his death. For our Queen Mary of England, who wished to patronize one favored by her husband, Titian painted several pictures, scoie of Avhich were in the possession of Charles I. : others had been carried to Spain after the death of Mary, and are now in the Royal Gallery at Maar id. Besides the pictures painted by command for royal and noble patrons, Titian, who was unceas- ingly occupied, had always a great number of pic- tures in his house which he presented to his friends, or to the officers and attendants of the court, as a means of procuring their favor. There is extant a letter of Aretino, in which he describes the scene which took place when the emperor summoned his favorite painter to attend tha court at Augsburgli. " It was," he sa^-s, " the m.ost flattering testimony to his excellence to behold. £.s soon as it was kno'^n that the divine painter wp/ sent for, the crowds of people running to obtain . if possible, the produo. tions of his art ; and ho . they endeavored to pui- TITIAN. 828 ehase the pictures, great and small, and every tiling (hat was in the house, at any price ; for everybody Beems assured that his august majesty -will so treat his Apelles that he will no longer condescend to exercise his pencil except to oblige him.'^ Years passed on, and seemed to have no powei to quench the ardor of this Avonderful old man. He was eighty-one when he painted the Martyrdom of St. Laurence, one of his largest and grandest compositions. Tlie ]Magdalen, the half-length figure with uplifted streaming eyes, which he sent to Philip II., was executed even later; and it was not till he Wiis 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 la^t. The death of many friends, the companions of his convivial hours, left him " alone in his glory." He found in his beloved art the only refuge from grief. His son Pomponio was still the same worthless profligate in age that he had been in 3-outh. His son Orazio attended upon him with truly filial duty and affection, and under his father's tuition had l)ecome an accomplished artist ; but as they always worked together, and on the eamo canvas, his works are not to be distinguished from iiis father's. Titian was likewise surrounded by painters who, without being precisely his schol- ars, had assembled from every part of Europe tj Ii80 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTEKo. profit Ly his instructions.* The early morning and the evening hour found him at his easel ; or linger- ing in his little garden (where he had feasted ^Yith Aretino and Sansovino, and Bembo and Ariosto, and " the most gracious Virginia," and " the most beautiful Violante"), and gazing on the setting Bun, 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 mag- nificently entertained by the Republic. On this occasion the king visited Titian at his own house, attended by a numerous suite of princes and nobles. Titian entertained them with splendid hospitality ; and Avhen 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 was the eye 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 Bpread, and Titian and his son were among those Wlio perished. Every one had fled, and before life * It seems, however, generally admitted that Titian, either from Impatience or jealousy, or both, was a very bad instx-uctor in hi! TITIAN. 331 was extinct some riifEans entered his chamber and carried oft', before his eyes, his money, jewels, and Bome of his pictures. His death took pUxce on the 9th of September, 1575. A law had been made dur- ing the plague that none should be buried in the churches, but that all the dead bodies should be car- ried beyond the precincts of the city ; an exception, however, even in that hour of terror and anguish, was made in favor of Titian. His remains wero borne with honor to the tomb, and deposited in the church of Santa Maria de' Frari, for which he had painted his famous Assumption. There he lies be- neath a plain black marble slab, on which is simply inscribed " TIZIAXO YECELLIO." In the year 1794 the citizens of Venice resolved to erect a noble and befitting monument to his memory. Canova made the design ; — but the troubles which intervened, and the extinction of the Republic, prevented the execution of this project. Canova's magnificent model was appro- priated to another purpose, and now forms the cenotaph of the Archduchess Christina, in the church of the Augustines at Vienna. This was the life and death of the famous Titian, He was preeminently 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 subjectff 332 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. he has been riYalled and surpassed, l3ut as a por* trait painter never ; and his portraits of celebrated persons Lave 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 gal- leries are his. JMany are by Palma, Bonifuzio, and others his contemporaries, Avho imitated his manner with more or less success. As almost every gallery in Europe, public and private, cont^.'ns pictures attributed to him, we shall not attempt to enu- merate even the acknowledged chefs d'auvr-e. 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 an^ Ariadne, the Venus and Adonis, and the Ganymede, are fair examples of his poAver in the poetical department of his art. But we 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, Avith 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 catalogues Alessandro de' Medici, and has been engraved under the name of Boccaccio ; * but it has no pretensions to either * The engraving, which is most admirable, was executed by Cor- oelius Vischer when the picture was in Holland, in the possession TITIAN. 333 name. It is a wonderful piece of life, llicro 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 rohes that she might fall with decorum. She holds with her left hand a red veil over her face, and in the right a dagger Avith Avhich she is about to stab herself. This picture belonged to Charles I., and came to England with the Mantua Gallery, in 1G20 ; it was sold in 1G50, after the king's death, for two hundred pounds (a large price foi the time) , and afterAvards restored. In the collec- tion at AYindsor there are the portraits of Titian and Andrea Franceschiui, half-length, in the same picture. Franceschiui Avas Chancellor of the Re- public, and distinguished for his literary attain- monts ; 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 features have that expression of mental poAver which Titian, without any apparent effort, could throAV into a head. The fine old flice and flowing beard of Titian appear behind. This picture belonged to Charles I., and was sold after his death for one hundred and tAvelve pounds ; it has been called in various catalogues Titian and x\retino, AA-hich is an obvious mistake. The Avell-knoAvn portraits of Aretino of a prcat collpctor of that time, named A'an Keynst ; from whom Ihe states of Holland purchased it with several oLherii, aud pre- aentcd them to Charles I. 334 £AB.Li ITALIAN PAINTERS. have all a fall beard and thick lips, a physiog- nomy quite distinct from that of the Venetian sen- ator in this picture, which is identical vrith the engraved portraits of Franceschini. In the Louvre there are twenty-two pictures by Titian ; in the Vienna Gallery, fifty-two. Tlia Madrid Gallery contains most of the fine pictures painted for Charles V. and Philip II. Before we quit the subject of Titian, we may remark that a collection of his engraved portraits would form a complete historical gallery, illustra- tive of the times in which he lived. Not only was his art at the service of princes and their favorite beauties, but it was ever ready to immortalize the features of those who Avere 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 glori- ous heads he ever painted remain to this hour un- known. 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, but they look at us life-like, grandly, calmly, like beings of another world ; they seem to recognize us and we can never recognize them. Only we feel the certainty that just as they now look, so tliey lived and looked in long past times. Such a por- trait is that in the Hampton Court gallery ; that TITIAN. 335 grave, dark man, — in ligure and attitude so tran- quil, so contemplative, but in his eyes and on his lips a revelation of feeling and eloquence. And Buch a picture is that of the lady in the Sciarra Palace at Home, called expressively " Titian's Bella Donna." It has no other name, but no one ever looked at it Avithout the wish to carry it avvay ; and no anonymous portrait has ever been so multiplied by copies. But, leaving these, Ave will subjoin here a short list of those great and ccleljrated person- ages who are known to have sat to Titian, and whose portraits remain to us, a precious legacy, and forming the truest commentary on their lives, deeds, and works. Charles V. : Titian painted this Emperor several times, with and without his armor, lie 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 de- formity in his descendants. His wife, the Empress Is,'xbella, holding flowers in her hand. Philip II. : like his father, but uglier, more mel- ancholy, less intellectual. The Duke of Devonshire has a fine full-length, in rich armor. There is a very good one at Florence in the Pitti Palace ; and another at Madrid. In tlie Fitzwilliam Museum, at Cam- bridge, is the picture called " Philip II. and thePrin- caes Eboli," of which there are several repetitions. B38 EARLY ITALIAN I'AINTERS. Francis I. : half-length, in profile ; now in th„ 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 Rudolph II. The Sultan Solyman II. His wife Roxana. Theso are engraved after Titian, but from what originals vre know not. They cannot be from nature. The Popes Julius II. (doubtful), Clement M^I., Paul III., and Paul IV. All the Doges of Venice of his time. Francesco, Duke of Urbino, and his Duchess Ele onora ; two wonderful portraits, now in the Florenco 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,.and his first wife, Lucrezia Borgia. In the Dresden Gallery there is a picture by Titian, in which Alphonso is present- ing his wife Lucrezia to the Madonna. Ca3sar Borgia. Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus. TITIAN. 337 The Poet Ariosto : in the Manfrini Palace, at Venice. Bernardo Tasso. Cardinal Bcmbo. Cardinal Sforza. Cardinal Farncse. Count Castiglione. Pietro Aretino : several times ; the finest is at Florence ; another 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 Venetian architect. The Cornaro flimily : in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland. Fracastaro, a famous Latin poet. Irene da Spilemborgo, a young girl who had dis- tinguished herself as a musician, a poetess, and to whom Titian himself had given lessons in painting. She died at the a«;e of eif!;hteen. Andrea Yesalio, who has been called the father of anatomical science — the particular friend of Titian, and his instructor in anatomy. lie was accused falsely of having put a man to death for anatomical purposes, and condemned. Philip II., unwilling to sacrifice so accomplished a man to mere popular prejudice, commuted his punishment to a forced pilgrimage to the Holy Land. lis obeyed the sentence ; but on his return he waa wrecked on the island of Zante, and died there of hunger in 15G4. This magnificent portrait, which T^ 22 338 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 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 por- trait at Florence he is about fifty ; and in the other known representations he is an old man, with an aquiline nose, and long, flowing beard. Of hia daughter Lavinia there are many portraits. She was her fiither's favorite model, being very beau- tiful in face and form. In a famous picture, now at Berlin, she is represented lifting with both handa a dish filled with fruits. There are four repetitions of this subject : in one the fruits are changed into a casket of jewels ; 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 coun- try whom Titian did not paint was Cosmo I., Grand Duke of Florence. In passing through Florence, in 1548, Titian requested the honor of painting the Grand Duke. The offer was declined. It is worthy of remark that Titian had painted, many years be- fore, the father of Cosmo, Giovanni de' Medici, the tknious captain of the Bande Neri, THE VENETIAN PAINTERS OF THB SIXTEENTH CENTURY. TI VTOKETTO PAUL VERONESE JACOPO BASSANO. Titian was the last great name of the earlier schools of Italy — the last really fjrcat painter which she produced. After him came many who were good artists, excellent artificers ; but, com- pared with the heaven-endowed creators 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 Ange- los, 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 Shak- Bpcaro. There was, however, an intervening period between the death of Titian and the foundation of the Caracci school, a sort of interregnum, during which the art of painting sank to the lowest depths of labored inanity and inflated mannerism. In tho middle of the sixteenth century Italy swarmed with painters. These go under the general name of the ynanneriits, because they all imitated the manner of (339) S40 EARLY ITALIA> PAINTERS. Bome one of the great masters who had gone befcra them. There were imitators of Michael Angelo, of Raphael, of Correggio : — Yasari and Bronzino, at Florence ; the two brothers Taddeo and Federigo Zuccaro, and the Cavalier d'Arpino, at Rous ; 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 Oi worn-yut subjects. And patrons were not wanting, nor industry, nor science ; nothing but original ard elevated feeling, — " the inspiration and the poet' J dream." But in the Venetian school still survived this in' spiration, this vital and creative power, Avhen it seemed extinct everywhere besides. From 154U 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 looking 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 indi- viduality was retained even in the decline of the Ert. There were some who tried to look at Nature in the same point of view as Titian, and these are generally included under the general denomination TINTORETTO. 841 of tlie School of Titian, though in fact he had no school proferly so called. MoROXE was a portrait painter who in some of his heads equalled Titian. AV'e have in England only one known picture by him, but it is a master- piece, — the portrait of a Jesuit, in the gallery of the Duke of Sutherland, 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 ; hia 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 ej'e has motion in't, And \ye are mocked by art ! BoNiFAzro, who had studied under Palma and Titian, painted many pictures which are fre- quently attributed to both these masters. Superior to Bonifazio was Alessandro Bonvicino, by Avhom there are several exquisite pictures in tho Milan Gallery. Andrea ScniAvoxE, whose elegant pictures are often met with in collections, was a poor boy, who began the Avorld 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. lie painted numerous pictures 342 EARLY ITAIIAN PAINTERS. which others obtained, and sold again for high prices, enriching themselves at the expense of his toil of hand and head. At length he died, and in Buch wretched circumstances that he was buried by the charity of a few friends. In general the Venetian painters were joyous beings ; Schiavono was a rare and melancholy exception. Very differ ent was the temper and the fate of Paris Bordone. of Treviso, a man without much genius, weak in drawing, capricious or commonplace in inventionj without fire or expression, but a divine colorist, 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 per- sonal instruction as did Tintoretto, Bordone, and others of the school. The date of his birth has been rendered uncertain by the mistakes of various authors, who confounded the elder and the younger Palma ; but it appears that he was born between 1500 and 1515. He resembled in his manner both Titian and Giorgione. In some pictures he has shown the dignity of Titian, in others a touch of the melancholy sentiment of Giorgione. But not half the pictures attributed to Palma Vecchio are by him We have not one in our National Gallery TINTORETTO. 343 and those at Hampton Court which are attributed to hiin arc not genuine — mere third-rate pictures of the Venetian schoul. This painter had threo daughters of remarkable beauty. VioUinte, the eldest and most beautiful, is said to have been loved by Titian, and to be the original of some of his most exquisite female portraits. One called Flora, because she has flowers in her hand ; and another in the Pitti Palace, in a rich dress. We have the three daughters of Palma, painted by him- self, 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 really great men, 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, born in 1512 ; his real name was Jacopo Robusti. Ilis father was a dyer (in Italian, Tinlore) ; hence he received in childhood the diminutive nickname II Tintoretto^ by which ho is best known to us. He began, like many other painters whose genius we have recorded, by draw- ing all kinds of objects and figures on the walls of his father's house. The dyer, being a man of sense, 344 EARLY ITALIAN PAINIER3 did not attempt to opposo his son's predilection for art, but procured for him the best instruction his means would allow, and even sen^. him to study under Titian. Tiiis did not avail him much, for tJiat most excellent painter Avas hyno means a good instructor, and it is said that he became jealous of the progress of Tintoretto, or perhaps required more docility. "Whatever migiit be the cause, he expelled him from his academy, saying, somewhat rashly, that " he would never be anything but a dauber." Tintoretto did not lose courage ; ho pur- sued his studies, and after a few years set up an academy of his own, and on the wall of his paint- ing-room he placed the following inscription, as being expressive of the principles he intended to follow : " // diser/no di Michael Agnolo : il colorito di Tiziano " (the drawing of Michael Angelo, and the coloring of Titian). Tintoretto was a man of extraordinary talent, unequalled for the quickness of his invention and the facility and rapidity of his execution. 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 j^aint- ing them in at once, with wonderful 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 i;v;i.Nii!;ii\ \vith the highest beauty riNTOllETTO. 345 rfow he would paint a jdcture almost equal to Titian; then produce one so coarse and carelcsp 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 wondepful talent redeemed him, and he would enchant his fellow-citizens by the grandeur, the dramatic vivacity, the gorgeous colors, 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 gjod. His portraits in general are mag nifjcent ; less refined and dignified than those of Titian, less intellectual, but quite as full of life. Tintoretto painted an amazing number of pic- tures, and of an amazing size, — one of them is seventy- four feet in length and thirty feet in height. One edifice of his native city, the school of St, Roch, contains fifty-seven large compositions, each containing many figures the size of life. The two most famous of his pictures are, a Cruci- fixion, in which the Passion of our Saviour is represented like a vast theatrical scene, crowded with groups of figures on foot, on horseback, ex- hibiting the greatest variety of movement and ex pression ; and a large picture, called the ^liracle of St. !Mark, in the Academy of Venice, of which Mr. liogers possesses the first sketch : a certain Blavo having become a Christian, and having -per-, severed in paying his devotions at the shrine of St 81G EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. 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 ; tho executioner is seen raising the broken instruments of torture, and a crowd of people look on in vari- ous attitudes of wonder, pity, interest. The whole picture glows with color and movement. In our National Gallery we have only one small, unimportant work by Tintoretto, but there are ten or eleven in the Royal Galleries. He was a favor- ite painter of Charles I., who purchased many of his works from Venice. Two pictures, once really fine, which belonged to this king, are now at Hampton Court, — Esther fainting before Ahaau- erus, and the Nine JMuses. They have suffered ter- ribly from audacious restorers ; but in this last picture 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. Tintoretto died in 1588. Ilis daughter. Marietta Robusti, whose talent for painting was sedulously cultivated by her father, has left some excellent portraits ; and in her own time obtained such celeb- rity 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. She died at the age of thirty. PAUL VERONESE. 347 Paul Cajliari of Verona, better known as Paul Veronese, was born in that city in 1530, the son of a scul2')tor, who tauglit him early to draw and to model ; but the genius of the pupil was so dia- metrically 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 manner so consum- mate and so characteristic. At that time Verona, like all the other cities of Italy, could boast of a crowd of painters ; and Paul Oagliari, finding thaJ he could not stand against so many competitors, repaired to Venice, where^ he remained for some time, studying tlie works of Titian and Tintoretti, but without attracting much attention himself, till he had painted, in the church of St. Sebastian, the history of Esther. This was a subject well cal- culated to call forth his particular talent in depict- ing the gay ; the sumptuous accessories of courtly pomp, banquet scenes, processions, &c. ; and from this time he was continually employed by the splendor-loving citizens of Venice, who delighted ia his luxuriant magnificence, and overlooked, or per- haps 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 aston- ishing painter. We must shut our eyes to the vio- lation of all proprieties of chronology and costume. d48 EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS. and see only the abounding life, the woudrouB variery of dignified and expressive figures crowded into his scenes, — Ave may a little marvel how they got there, — and the prodigality of light and colors, all harmonized by a mellowness of tone which ren- ders them most attractive to the eye. To give an idea of Paul Veronese's manner of treating a subject, \YQ Avill take one of his finest and most character- istic 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 ia 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 citi- zen is represented with a pomp worthy of" Ormuz cr of Ind : " a sumptuous hall of the richest archi- tjcture; lofty columns, long lines of marble balus- trades rising against the sky ; a crowd of guesta splendidly attired, some wearing orders of knight- hood, are seated at tables covered with gorgeous rases of gold and silver, attended by slaves, jesters, pages, and musicians. In the midst of all this dazzling pomp, this display of festive enjoyment, those moving figures, these lavish colors m glowing approximation, we begin after a while to distin- guish the principal personages, — our Saviour, the Virgin Mary, the Twelve Apostles, mingled with Venetian senators, and ladies clothed in the rich costume of the sixteenth century, — monks, friars, poets Artists, all portraits of personages existing PAUL VERONESE. 349 in his own time ; wliile in a group of musicians ho nas introdaeed liimseU" and Tintoretto playing the violoncello, while Titian plays the bass. The bride m this picture is said to be the portrait of EL-anor of Austria, the sister of Charles V., and second wife of Francis I., of whom there is a most beautiful portrait at ILinipton 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 lancy, invention, and coloring. Christ entertained by Levi, now in the Academy of Venice ; the Supper in the house of Simon the Pharisee, with ]Mary Magdalen at the feet of our Saviour, now in the Durazzo Palace at Genoa, of Avhieh the first sketch, a magnificent piece of color, is in the possession of Mr. Rogers ; and the Supper at Emmaus, in which he has introduced his wife and others of his family as spectators. 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 colors. For that stupendous picture in