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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ■yh'
 
 A HISTORY OF PAINTING
 
 A 
 
 HISTORY OF PAINTING 
 
 BY HALDANE MACFALL 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 FRANK BRANGWYN
 
 ^he Renaissance (Edition 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HISTORY OF PAINTING 
 
 LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND NUMBERED 
 COPIES, OF WHICH THIS IS NUMBER 
 
 ...G.fc...^
 
 XXII 
 
 {Frontispiece) 
 
 RAPHAEL 
 
 1483- 1520 
 
 UMBRIAN SCHOOL 
 
 "THE MADONNA OF THE TOWER" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 The Virgin is seated behind a parapet ; she is holding the Infant Christ 
 with her right arnfi. In the distance is seen a tower, from which the 
 picture takes its name. 
 
 Painted on canvas — possibly transferred from wood(?). 2 ft. 6 in. h. x 
 2 ft. I in. w, (0762 xo'635).
 
 A 
 
 HISTORY OF PAINTING 
 
 BY HALDANE MAC FALL 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 FRANK BRANGWYN 
 
 IN EIGHT VOLUMES. ILLUSTRATED WITH 
 TWO HUNDRED PLATES IN COLOUR 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY 
 
 DANA ESTES AND GO. 
 BOSTON
 
 Art 
 Lilirary 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Although I have little practice with the pen, I feel 
 impelled to say a few words upon this History of 
 Painting, and upon the man who has written it. Here 
 is a book on painting in which the writer comes into 
 the art and tries to appreciate it, instead of dishing up 
 hackneyed laws and recipes for the making of it. 
 
 All arts are akin ; and Haldane Macfall realises this 
 vital fact. If the writers upon art would only hesitate at 
 times, and remember that those who practise it have been 
 through the difficulties of the perplexing business in their 
 apprenticeship to their craft, and have accepted or rejected 
 most of the theories that they pour forth as discoveries, 
 there would be less hidebound talk about painting. 
 
 I take it that Haldane Macfall has done what we do : 
 he has been through the toil of apprenticeship to his craft ; 
 he has found all the bookish theories to be dead stuff; 
 and then he has gone straight to life, come to grips with 
 life, and discovered that living art is only to be found in 
 the interpretation of Life — in the personal expression of the 
 impressions that life has made upon him. That, it seems 
 to me, is the foundation of the whole thing ; and that is 
 what he here states it to be. 
 
 But it is easier to say that art should interpret life than 
 it is to create art. The artist has to go through a mighty 
 labour of craftsmanship before the hand answers at will to 
 the brain. The eye runs ahead of the fingers. And the 
 
 V
 
 PREFACE 
 
 temptation comes, after a while, to mistake the craft of the 
 fini^ers for the impression or the moods that, however 
 blundering our hands, we try to arouse in our fellow-men 
 by our art. It is a healthy thing, then, to find a man 
 stepping out of his art of literature, and understanding the 
 motives that the painters have given, and are giving, their 
 lives and careers to create, instead of trying to shackle the 
 feet of the artist with cast-iron laws that artists do not 
 understand, and that the writers of the next generation 
 will scrap. 
 
 No artist of power works, or has worked, on bookish 
 systems. No master drags out a canvas and says : By 
 thunder ! I '11 achieve the Pyramidal ; here goes for Unity, 
 inspired by Vitality, brushed in with Infinity, and qualified 
 by Repose. This is all very well if you are trying to teach 
 a student to become an artist in twelve lessons. I do not 
 say that no man so paints ; for one sees work at times that 
 could have been created in no other way. But it is not 
 the way of the masters, if it is the way of the schoolmasters. 
 The methods and aims of an artist are deeper and more 
 profound ; they are beyond the reach of explanation and 
 outside all recipe. No man has yet explained how to 
 create a work of art ; and, thank God, no man ever will. 
 I do not say that the critics cannot invent a system to 
 fathom it ; I go much further, and say that the artists 
 cannot. 
 
 Here is a book in which the writer has not concerned 
 himself with the fact whether one master is greater than 
 another ; but has sought to understand what each artist 
 has given his strength to express. The writers on the 
 history of art as a rule give too much importance to the 
 greatness of one artist over another ; here we have an 
 endeavour to find in the works of so-called lesser men those 
 vi
 
 PREFACE 
 
 qualities of sincerity and truth that are as vital as the 
 greater efforts of men more richly endowed. 
 
 Here we have a history, whether we agree with 
 it or disagree with it, which is an estimate of painting 
 by a man who, instead of slavishly accepting cast-iron 
 tradition, has challenged tradition from its beginnings ; 
 who has always looked upon works of art from the point 
 of view of the artist ; who has always questioned the 
 merely scholarly verdicts on art wheresoever he has found 
 them. 
 
 I can quite understand that the exact date at which an 
 artist's pictures were painted, the documentary evidence as 
 to what pictures can be attributed with certainty to him, 
 and the complicated scientific rules and theories for deciding 
 the authority of paintings, have an antiquarian value. But 
 all this leaves the vital facts of art untouched. 
 
 The value of the Old Masters is enormous if we look 
 upon their works as a superb expression of their age ; more 
 valuable still if they inspire modern painters to try and 
 express their own age with the same power ; but they are 
 disastrous if we only try to mimic them. 
 
 There is one note in particular in these volumes that 
 is struck again and again, and cannot be sounded too often. 
 The moment that an artist ceases to interpret life and 
 thinks in terms of pictures by other men instead, his 
 creation withers, however much his craftsmanship may 
 gain. The moment that a painter becomes a mimic of a 
 dead Master, and only strives to repeat what has been 
 already said with unmatchable skill, he becomes an 
 imitator, and ceases to be an artist. This loss of origin- 
 ality in the endeavour to paint like others has been the 
 chief cause of decay in every school in the past. Haldane 
 Mactall points to this cause of decay as he reviews school 
 
 vii
 
 PREFACE 
 
 after school. It is a warning note that cannot be too 
 strongly insisted upon to-day ; for it is unfortunately only 
 too often the proportion of his skill in imitation that draws 
 the acclaim of critics to the work of a painter. But 
 personality is the supreme triumph of an artist, though 
 originality is the very thing for which he has often to 
 suffer neglect. 
 
 In these volumes the reader is led through the great 
 achievement of the Masters in the past, with no lack of 
 reverence for their splendid and immortal genius ; but I 
 am glad to see this constant warning raised against the mere 
 imitation of the dead. These Masters expressed their age 
 once and for all. A writer to-day might just as well imi- 
 tate the language and spelling of Chaucer and think that 
 thereby he was creating art, as a painter to-day imitate 
 the great Italians. The age that produced them is dead 
 and gone. We live in a new age, in a changed atmosphere, 
 and see things in a wholly different way. 
 
 We can never call back the dead past with the skill and 
 truth with which it was recorded by the men who lived in 
 the past, whose blood tingled with the enthusiasms and 
 hopes and ambitions of their day. But we can learn the 
 mighty lesson from the dead Masters to see life true. And 
 we are fortunate to have the vast heritage of hundreds of 
 masterpieces which, had they perished, would have left us 
 worlds the poorer. 
 
 The man who cannot understand the relation of art to 
 life in his own day, is little likely to understand that relation 
 in the past. But if he has been granted this gift, it will 
 enable him to appreciate all that is significant in the art 
 of the past. 
 
 Frank Brangwyn. 
 
 Vlll
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 That man who is without the arts is little above the beasts of the 
 Jield, Tet, there is no question about it, your ordinary man 
 dreads the word Art. To him Art means Babble of strange 
 sounds, of weird phrases ; to him it stands for a little coterie of men 
 who give themselves exclusive airs of " being in the know " — men 
 who preen themselves upon being of a cult to which in some mysterious 
 way they have been admitted, or the inner sanctuary of which, by 
 some profound gifts, they have usurped, but to which the ordinary 
 man may never even hope to attain. Indeed, it is the chief source 
 of pride of these self-constituted elect that art is only for the few 
 — the Chosen Souls — meaning themselves. Tour ordinary man 
 is easily convinced of his limitations ; and straightway takes the 
 apologetic attitude ; avers that he " does not know anything about 
 art " ; shrugs his shoulders ; and fie s at the sound of the word. 
 
 As one who has essayed to create art in letters and painting, 
 
 I have read the effusions and listened to the loud talk and 
 
 dogged dogmas of the Cult ; and I soon discovered that they knew 
 
 far less of the real significance of art than many of the hundreds 
 
 of youngsters who have taken a canvas and brush and paint and 
 
 tried to create art. I soon discovered even more than this ; I 
 
 found that the creators of this exclusive cult, not only do not 
 
 understand the full significance of art, but they create a wordy 
 
 code of laws and rules, and try to explain by long-winded efforts, 
 
 the facts of art which they do not fully understand, and they 
 
 thereby set up a tajigle of misleading futilities that impress the 
 
 ordinary man, and drive him still farther away from art. I 
 
 VOL. I — b ix
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 will go much further. I say that the ordinary man who comes 
 before a painting, frankly and generously ready to yield himself up 
 to the impression that the artist has sought to arouse in his senses 
 through his vision, will feel the signifcatjce of that art much more 
 purely and fully than the critic who has set up for himself an 
 elaborate code of laws founded on the achievement of one or 
 two great masters, which standard he applies to every work 
 of art in a calculated and death-dealing manner which destroys 
 his capacity to receive its real significance. 
 
 In short, the expert, by book-learning and by science, may come 
 to a wide knowledge of the history of a painting and of its maker ; 
 but he has no gifts whereby he senses the real significance of that 
 work of art a whit better than the ordinary man, who is often 
 endowed with superb and exquisite perception of the music that is 
 in colour and line and mass. 
 
 It is as fatuous to measure the art of a Boucher or a Char din 
 by the art of a Michelangelo or a Rembra?idt, as it is to measure 
 the art of a Velazquez by the art of a 'Turner. The sole signifi- 
 cance is as to whether an artist, by the wizardry of his skill, has 
 created the impression upon our senses that he desired to create. 
 If he shall have done so, then for us who sense it, he is a creator ; 
 if he shall have failed, then for us whom he fails to reach he does 
 not exist as an artist. 
 
 Asked to write a general impression of the Art of Painting 
 throughout the Ages, the which is to gather together an hundred 
 thousand of such impressions — some vaguely enough realised — and 
 to set them down in the deliberate and clear testament of the pens 
 black ink — surely no light task I — it came to me that it were as 
 well for an artist to essay the business and thereby perhaps bring 
 art nearer to the ordinary man. To rid the artistic endeavour as 
 much as possible from the Museum habit and the Museum attitude 
 towards it ; surely this was worth the while I 
 
 X
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 For, mark you^ the artist does not create a work of art to 
 please the experts. He does not say to himself , I will build this 
 composition so that the professor shall say I have achieved the 
 pyramidal ; he does not employ colour-harmonics to escape the 
 censure or win the praise of the critics. He deliberately paints 
 the work of art so that his fellow-men may be moved by the sensa- 
 tions that he desires to arouse in their senses through the gift of 
 vision. He deliberately and only creates the masterpiece in order 
 that the ordinary man shall be roused to a sense of dignity., or 
 horror., or sublimity., or tragedy., or laughter., or tears, or the like 
 emotion, through the sense of colour and form. All the craftsman- 
 ship and tricks of thumb whereby he achieves this result, are but as 
 the chips of his workshop. He does not create a work of art that 
 the experts may say, this is done by this, or that done by that. 
 He looks to the impression of the whole. The moment he paints 
 only to show his cleverness, he is a second-rate, and his creative 
 force has departed. But it is his business to master every detail 
 and trick of craftsmanship, to employ every gift, to the utterance 
 of the poetry that is in him. And the expert has only too often 
 the habit of missing the significance in spying out the details and 
 tricks of thumb. 
 
 In these pages I have simply written of the greater men of 
 genius who have contributed to the art of painting ; and I have 
 touched upon their more famous works rather than attempted an 
 exhaustive list of all their endeavour, the which has no value 
 except to the dealer in antiques. The volumes are an attempt to 
 place before the ordinary man the chief achievement of the years 
 in the Art of Painting ; and to hint at something of the real signifi- 
 cance of that achievef}ient. 
 
 I have avoided all the clap-trap of so-called criticism ; you 
 shall find no such pedantries as bottegay^r " workshop,'' a good 
 sound English word ; the ghastly epigoni or bastard epigones 
 
 xi
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 you shall Jind used never for " imitators " or ''copyists,'' the more 
 so since " disciples " better Jits many followers of a great artist, for 
 they are often much more than copyists or imitators. I give you 
 no fantastic pedant's balderdash about " tactile values " or 
 " space composition" ; about your "vasomotor system" or "the 
 materially significant " or jc//r "ideated sensations." Each 
 year brings forth a further crop of these futilities. I am wholly 
 unconcerned with discovering little mediocre men because they worked 
 in the Italian Renaissance, and are long since deservedly dead. 
 When works of art are torn from the place that they were created 
 to adorn, ana are set up in Museums, they have already passed into 
 the graveyard of their significance. A Crucifixion in a dining- 
 room has lost its savour, its essential meaning, and its authority. 
 
 When I speak of an Illustration, 1 mean an illustration, 
 whether it be by Raphael or by a hack-artist on the Illustrated 
 London News ; / do not split logic to define the difference — 
 there is none. When I speak of Beauty, / mean beauty ; when 
 I say Decoration, / mean decoration — as any ordinary man 
 conceives these words. It is far more simple than explaining 
 Decoration to be something else, which, though it may prove the 
 cleverness of the critic, were as though one held that a chalk-pit 
 were a Spanish onion. 
 
 Let me add here a truth that has been convincingly borne m 
 upon me in the presence of all master-work in whatsoever art. 
 The elaborate laws and technique-monger ing of the academies and 
 of the critics had small concern for the creative artist. The 
 artist bends every means to his end that may help to utter the 
 emotion he desires to express. He, as often as not, does the thing 
 half unwitting of the law of craft he is setting up, bent wholly on 
 the perfecting of the impression. Take so profound a master as 
 Leonardo da Vinci. When he paints maidenhood, he is con- 
 cerned with its modesty, its timidities, its untried experience about 
 xii
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 to be essayed^ the mystery of virginity — when he paints the 
 sovereign woman, sure of her spell, he utters her sphinx-like 
 exultation, as La Forgue uttered it in his triumphant '"'• I am 
 Woman ! " Whatsoever was the significance of the thing he 
 desired to create, that he wrought with all his strength, to that he 
 brought his compelling will ; and, the moment he had achieved it, 
 the thing interested him no more, and he left it in order to get 
 him to other conquests. 
 
 The whole history of life, of man, and of art, is a tale of 
 Development — 'Evolution, as the professors have it. So, too, in 
 Painting. We see the artist first drawing the outline of things ; 
 then he fills the space with flat colour ; he conquers the flatness of 
 the painted surface. Then he essays to conquer the depth of 
 things seen, as in a mirror. He moves always towards realism 
 — towards uttering the sensations by means of colour and form 
 that compel the mind at once to grasp the significance of the 
 painted objects. The realm of the Art of Painting, so far from 
 being exhausted, increases its domain in every century — at times 
 by such small advances as almost to show no advance. But 
 steadily, as mans sensations of the experience of life increase, so 
 increases his generosity of soul to share those sensations of 
 experiences with his fellows. His path thereto is through the 
 faculty of the arts. Therefore it is by the arts alone that man 
 shall reach to the fulness of life. 
 
 I cannot let these volumes go forth from the printing-press 
 without acknowledgment of a heavy debt to the aid which I 
 have received from my friend, T. Leman Hare, in the pro- 
 curing of illustrations in colour from masterpieces scattered 
 abroad throughout Europe. The publishers have only been 
 balked in reaching a few supreme masterpieces by such rare 
 difliculties as the bad lighting of works which are rigidly fixed 
 in position, or otherwise beyond the reach of the colour camera; 
 
 xiii
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 and without Harems dogged efforts to reach certain f?iasterpieces 
 herein displayed, and without his keen supervision of the pro- 
 duction of the plates^ a large part of the intention of this History 
 must have failed. To the many private owners my gratitude is, 
 in poor fashion enough, here expressed; and I cannot lay down 
 the pen without thanks to the Editor of Th^ Studio y^r the use of 
 several colour-blocks in the last volume. 
 
 Haldane Macfall. 
 
 XIV
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGX 
 
 Preface by Frank Brangwyn . . . . v 
 
 Foreword ....... ix 
 
 Author's Introduction — 
 
 I. The Ultimate Significance of all Art . . I 
 
 II. Wherein is attempted a survey of the Art of 
 Antiquity — and an explanation of the terms 
 Classic, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Re- 
 naissance, and Humanism . . .8 
 
 THE DAWN OF MODERN PAINTING 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Of the Cradle of the Renaissance in Italy . .31 
 
 II. The Renaissance dawns over Central Italy . . 36 
 
 III. Of the Italy into which the Renaissance came . 39 
 
 IV. Of the Italy in which the Renaissance blossomed . 45 
 
 THE PAINTERS OF CENTRAL ITALY 
 
 V. Wherein we see the Renaissance flit through Siena . 63 
 VI. Of the Coming of Art into Florence . . 68 
 
 1400 
 
 VII. Of the Tale of the Saintly Dominican , . 73 
 
 VIII. Which tells of the Might of Hulking Tom . 77 
 
 IX. Which is chiefly concerned with Perspective . 81 
 
 X. Wherein we are introduced to a Friar with a 
 
 Roving Eye . . . . .86 
 
 XV
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I + S o 
 
 THE GOLDSMITH-PAINTERS OF FLORENCE 
 
 CHAPTIH PAGt 
 
 XL Which shows the Kinship of Painting and Sculpture 95 
 XII. Wherein we are introduced to the Poet of the 
 
 Springtime of the Renaissance . . .98 
 
 XIII. Of an exquisite Maker of Garlands . . .111 
 
 XIV. Of the son of a Friar and a Nun . . • ^^S 
 XV. Of the Deeps of Poetry that may be within the 
 
 rough outer man . . . .121 
 
 XVI. Of the Gentle Soul of him who created the Lay 
 
 Figure and his Friend the Fire-eating Tapster . 126 
 
 XVII. Of a dandified Stiggins of vast hand's skill . • ^3^ 
 
 XVIII. Of a Gentle Soul incapable of tragedy . . 135 
 
 1500 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 XIX. Wherein we meet the Giant of the Springtime of 
 
 the Renaissance . . . -139 
 
 XX. Wherein we see the Mighty Genius of Leonardo 
 
 da Vinci create the School of Milan . • ^59 
 
 XXI. Wherein we see Art flit into the Umbrian hills . 169 
 
 XXII. Wherein we walk with Raphael, the Radiant Child 
 
 of Fortune and Apostle of Grace . .184 
 
 XXIII. Wherein there passes by, in the streets of Rome, 
 
 unbailed, the Giant of the Renaissance . . 205 
 
 XXIV. Wherein the Renaissance in Italy perishes amidst 
 
 the Ruins . . . . .241 
 
 XVI
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Raphael — The Virgin of the Tower 
 
 TLATZ 
 
 XXiI. 
 
 I. Margaritone — Virgin and Child ^ with lives of the 
 
 Saints .... 
 
 II. Simon E Martini — Christ bearing His Cross 
 
 III. Fra Angelico — Virgin and Child 
 
 IV. Ucello — Rout of San Romano 
 V. PiETRo DEI Franceschi — Nativity 
 
 VI. FiLipPO Lippi — Annunciation 
 VII. Pollaiuolo — St. Sebastian 
 VIII. Verrocchio — Virgin and Child 
 IX. Botticelli — Fresco : Giovanna degli Albizzi and 
 
 the Three Graces 
 X. Botticelli — Spring 
 XI. Botticelli — Mars and Venus 
 XII. Botticelli — The Crowning of the Virgin 
 
 XIII. School of Ghirlandaio — Head of a Girl 
 
 XIV. FiLippiNO LiPPi — Virgin and Child with St. Jerome 
 
 and St. Dominic 
 XV. Piero di Cosimo — Death of Pro cr is 
 XVI. Fra Bartolommeo — Virgin and Child with Saints 
 XVII. Leonardo da Vinci — The Virgin of the Rocks 
 XVIII. Leonardo da Vinci — The Last Supper . 
 XIX. Leonardo da Vinci — Head of Christ 
 XX. Leonardo da Vinci — Mona Lisa, or La Joconde 
 XXI. LuiNi — The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine 
 XXIII. Raphael — Ansidei Madonna 
 
 VOL. I — c xvii 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 AT PAGE 
 
 24 
 64 
 
 72 
 80 
 84 
 
 88 
 92 
 94 
 
 94 
 96 
 
 98 
 
 100 
 
 no 
 
 112 
 120 
 122 
 144 
 146 
 146 
 148 
 158 
 182
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FLATE AT f^^^* 
 
 XXIV. Raphael — La Belle Jardiniere . . .184 
 
 XXV. Michelangelo — T/ie Entombment . . 204 
 
 XXVI. Andrea del Sarto — Portrait of a Sculptor . 242 
 
 XXVII. Bronzing— 5tfj . . . . .248 
 
 Map of Italy ...... xxiii 
 
 CHARTS 
 
 School of Siena . . . . . .62 
 
 The Renaissance in Florence . . . -72 
 
 The so-called School of Milan . . • "^SS 
 
 School of Umbria . . . . .178 
 
 XVlll
 
 LIST OF PAINTERS 
 
 Alba, Macrino d', i6i. 
 Albertinelli, 129, 130, 245. 
 Allori, Angelo, 246. 
 Angclico, Fra, 72, 73, 74, 75, 86, 
 
 87, 89, 90, 91, 99, 141, 172, 
 
 252. 
 
 Bacchiacca, II, 183. 
 Baldovinetti, Alcssio, iii. 
 Bandinelli, Baccio, 215. 
 Bartolo, Taddeo di, 65, 66. 
 Bartolommeo, Fra, 126, 127, 128, 
 
 129, 130, 136, 167, 169, 188, 194, 
 
 230, 241. 
 Bazzi (called "II Sodoma"), 164, 
 
 165, 166, 167, 168, 191, 202. 
 Beccafumi, Domenico, 167. 
 Bertucci, Giovanni Battista, 182. 
 Bctto, Bernardino di, 173. 
 Bigordi, Benedetto, 1 14. 
 Bigordi, David, 114. 
 Boccaccino, Boccaccio, 162. 
 Boccatis, Giovanni, 172. 
 Boltraffio, Giovanni Antonio, 162-3. 
 Bonfigli, Benedetto, 172. 
 Borgognone, 161, 163. 
 Botticelli, 98-1 ii, 115, 119, 121, 
 
 122, 127, 132, 141, 144, 145, 248, 
 
 252. 
 Botticini, Francesco, 109. 
 " Braghettone, II," 226. 
 Bramante, 193, 218, 227, 228. 
 Bramantino, 161, 191. 
 Brescianino, 193. 
 Bronzino, 246-9, 250- 1. 
 BufFalmaco, Buonamico, 71. 
 Buttinone, Bernardino, 161. 
 
 Capanna, Puccio, 71. 
 Capponi, Raffaelo de', 117. 
 
 Carii, RafFaelo de', 117. 
 
 Carucci, Jacopo, 245. 
 
 Castagno, Andrea dal, 81, 82, 83, 84, 
 
 86, 99, 142. 
 Cimabue, 25, 26, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69. 
 Civerchio, Vincenzo, 161. 
 Condivi, 205. 
 
 Conti, Bernardino dc', 161. 
 Correggio, 139, 224. 
 Cosimo, Piero di, 12 1-7, 169, 241, 
 
 244, 245. 
 Credi, Lorenzo di, 97, 117, I22, 
 
 135, 136, 147- 
 
 Daddi, Bernardo, 71. 
 
 Diamante, Fra, 94. 
 
 Duccio, 25, 63, 64, 65, 68, 167, 170. 
 
 Fabriano, Gentile da, 170, 171. 
 Fabriano, Gritto da, 170. 
 Ferrari, Gaudenzio, 161, 166. 
 Fiorentino, Rosso, 245-9. 
 Foligno, Niccolo da, 172. 
 Foppa, 159, 160, 161. 
 Fossano, Ambrogio de, 161. 
 Francesca (;^^ Franceschi). 
 Franceschi, 84, 85, 86,99, 131, 132, 
 
 142, 186, 191. 
 Francia, 184, 186, 232. 
 Franciabigio, 244-5. 
 Fungai, Bernardino, 168, 
 
 Gaddi of Florence, 71. 
 
 Gaddi, Taddeo, 71. 
 
 Ghibcrti, Lorenzo, 76, 77, 78, 95. 
 
 Ghirlandaio, 106, 107, no, in, 112, 
 
 113, 114, 115, 127, 136, 141, 188, 
 
 191, 206, 207, 221, 252. 
 Gianpetrino, 162. 
 Gione, Andrea di, 71. 
 
 xix
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 Giottino, 71. 
 
 Giotto, 26, 63, 64, 68, 70, 71, 72, 
 
 79, 80, 82, 86, 89. 
 Giovanni, Matteo di, 167. 
 Giovcnonc, Girolamo, 166. 
 Gozzoli, Benozzo, 90, 91, 99, 1 14, 
 
 172. 
 Granacci, Francesco, 114, 206, 207. 
 
 Landi, Neroccio di, 167. 
 Lanini, Bernardino, 166. 
 Lippi, Filippino, 88, 102, 107, no, 
 
 115, 116, 117, 118, 121, 127, 141, 
 
 252. 
 Lippi, Fra Filippo, 86, 87, 88, 89, 
 
 90, 91,99, 102, 115, 141, 252. 
 Lippi, Fra Lippo [see Filippo Lippi). 
 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 65, 66, 72. 
 Lorenzetti, Pietro, 65, 66. 
 Lorenzo, Fiorenzo di, 172, 173, 177. 
 Lorenzo, San, 207, 208. 
 Luini, Bernardino, 161, 163. 
 
 Macchiavelli, Zenobio, 91. 
 
 Magaritone, 24, 26. 
 
 Magnano, 24. 
 
 Mainardi, Bastiano, 114. 
 
 Manni, Giannicola, 181. 
 
 Martini, Simone, 65, 167. 
 
 Masaccio, 75-90, 99, ill, 116, 141, 
 
 142, 188, 208, 252. 
 Masolino, 78, 79. 
 Mazzola, Filippo, 162. 
 Melozzo da Forli, 131. 
 Melzi, 162, 163. 
 Memmi, Lippo, 65. 
 Michelangelo, 34, 78, 80, 92, 1 12, 
 
 117, 122, 127, 133-41, 155, 167, 
 
 169, 174, 175,1775 178, 183, 184, 
 
 189, 192, 202-53. 
 Milano, Giovanni da, 71. 
 Mini, Antonio, 223, 237. 
 Monaco, Lorenzo, 71, 75, 87. 
 
 Nelli, Martino, 170. 
 Nuzi, Allegretto, 170. 
 
 XX 
 
 Oderigo, 170. 
 
 Oderisi, 170. 
 
 Oggiono, Marco d', 152, 162-3. 
 
 Orcagna, 71, 72. 
 
 Pacchia, Girolamo del, 167. 
 
 Pacchiarotto, Jacopo, 167. 
 
 Palmerucci, Guide, 172. 
 
 Palmezzano, Marco, 131. 
 
 Penni, 192, 198. 
 
 Perugino, 118, 135, 145, 166, 172- 
 
 80, 182, 186, 191, 232. 
 Peruzzi, 167, 168, 191. 
 Pesellino, Francesco, 91. 
 Pesello, Giuliano, 91. 
 Pinturicchio, 168, 177-82, 186, 191. 
 Piombo, Sebastian del, 240. 
 Pippi, Giulio, 192, 203. 
 Pisanello, 171. 
 Pisano, Andrea, 72. 
 Pisano, Giovanni, 69. 
 PoUaiuolo, 92, 93, 96, 98, 121, 122, 
 
 132, 142, 172, 252. 
 Pontormo, 245-9. 
 Predis, Ambrogio da, 147, 148, 149. 
 
 RafFaellino del Garbo, 117. 
 
 Raphael, in, 114, 128, 131, 139, 
 161, 166-9, 176-^9, 190-204, 215, 
 224, 227, 230, 232, 235, 245, 252. 
 
 Robbia, Andrea della, 188, 
 
 Romano, Giulio, 192, 198, 203, 230. 
 
 Rosselli, Cosimo, 121, 126, 169. 
 
 Salaino, 162-3. 
 
 Salviati, Rossi de, 245-9. 
 
 Sangallo, 228. 
 
 Sanseverino, Lorenzo da, 170. 
 
 Santi, Giovanni, 131, 185. 
 
 Sarto, Andrea del, 125, 184, 194, 224, 
 
 241, 242, 243, 244, 245. 
 Sassi;':ta, 167. 
 Sellajo, Jacopo del, 91. 
 Sesto, Cesare da, 162-3. 
 Sever ino, Lorenzo di San, 171, 172. 
 Siena, Benvenuto da, 167. 
 "Sodoma, II" [see Bazzi).
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 Sogliani, Giovanni Antonio, 136. 
 
 Solario, Andrea da, 162. 
 
 Solario, Antonio da, 162. 
 
 Spagna, Lo, 182. 
 
 SpincUi, 71. 
 
 Stamina, 78. 
 
 Suardi, Bartolommeo, 161. 
 
 Tintoretto, 251. 
 Titian, 243-7, 251. 
 
 Ubcrtini, Francesco, 183. 
 
 Uccello, 81, 82, 84, 86, 93, 99, 131, 
 
 142. 
 Urbino, Francesco, 229. 
 Urbino, Pietro, 222. 
 
 Vaga, Perino del, 198. 
 
 Vannucci, Pietro, 173. 
 
 Vasari, 205, 227, 245, 247. 
 
 Vecchietta, 167. 
 
 Veneziano, Antonio, 71, 81-84, 99, 
 
 131, 142. 
 Venusti, Marcello, 240. 
 Verrocchio, 93, 94, 121, 126, 135, 
 
 136, 142, 145, 173, 252. 
 Vinci, Leonardo da, 37, 80, 97, 106, 
 
 121, 123, 127, 128, 135', 139-67, 
 
 188, 203, 214, 221, 224, 241, 243, 
 
 245, 252, 253. 
 Viti, Timoteo, 185, 186, 202. 
 Volterra, Daniele da, 225, 240, 
 Volterra, Francesca da, 71. 
 
 Zenale, Bernardo, 161. 
 Zingaro, Lo, 162. 
 
 XTCl
 
 NOTE 
 
 A Maesta is the Christ or the Virgin in glory. 
 
 A Pieta is the dead Christ mourned by the Virgin. 
 
 A Tondo is a circular picture. 
 
 A Predella is the panel at the base of an altarpiece.
 
 A HISTORY OF PAINTING 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. The Ultimate Significance of all Art 
 
 He who would understand the Art of Painting must first INTRO- 
 understand the significance of all Art, of which Painting DUCTION 
 is but a part. 
 
 The most vastly interesting thing to man is Life. 
 
 Whence it comes, whither it goes — these are a part of 
 the Eternal Mystery. But we can, and ought to know 
 all of life 'twixt its coming and its going. 
 
 Now, we can only know life in two ways — either by 
 Personal Experience of it ; or, at second hand, through its 
 transference to us by Communion with our fellow-men. 
 But our Personal adventures in life, even though we should 
 be granted the destiny to bestride the world like a Napoleon, 
 can at best be but a small and parochial affair, after all 's 
 said, when set against the multitudinous experience of our 
 generation. Shut off from communion with our fellows, 
 we should walk but in a blind man's parish. But it is 
 given to us to know of life through our fellows by their 
 communion to us of their Thoughts and their Sensations. 
 And so, just as by Speech we communicate our thoughts and 
 ideas to others ; so by Art we may communicate our sensa- 
 tions, the emotions we feel, through the gift of being able 
 to arouse in their senses what our senses have felt — whether 
 into their hearing by sounds, as in Music ; or by the 
 emotional employment of words, as in the poetry of prose, 
 
 VOL. I — A I
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- or of verse, or of oratory ; or through the sight by the 
 DUCTJON rhythmic use of colour and forms, as in Painting ; or by 
 form, as in Sculpture ; or by the union of these, as in the 
 drama, or architecture, or the like. 
 
 Art, then, is the Emotional Utterance of Life. Art 
 is our emotional means of communion with our fellows. 
 
 And just as Speech must be an intelligent utterance of 
 Thought ; so must Art be an intelligent utterance of 
 Emotion — of Things Felt quite apart from Reason or 
 Intellect. 
 
 Now, it is not enough to have uttered a Thought to 
 account it Speech ; it is essential that the Thought shall 
 be so uttered as to arouse the like thought in the hearer — 
 otherwise are we in a Babel of Strange Sounds. 
 
 So, it is not enough to have uttered Emotion to account 
 it Art ; it is essential that the Emotion shall have been so 
 uttered as to arouse the like Emotion in the onlooker — 
 otherwise are we but in a tangled whirl of confusion. 
 
 Therefore, just as Thought is the more perfectly and 
 swiftly understood as it is deftly expressed ; so is Emotion 
 the more powerfully felt as it is most perfectly uttered. In 
 other words, the Craftsmanship of Art will generally be 
 beautiful ; but it must be compelling — it must arouse the 
 subtle thing called Sensation in our emotions before it can 
 create Art. Craftsmanship, then, is the grammar or tool 
 of Art. 
 
 Now we have arrived at the fact that Speech is the 
 means of communion of the Intellect; Art is the means of 
 communion of the Senses. There is the marked difference. 
 
 A confusion, created by the Greeks, and repeated by 
 the pedants of the centuries, has arisen in confusing Art 
 with Beauty. That Art is Beauty, or has any concern 
 
 2
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 with Beauty, is wholly untenable. If not, then the greatest INTRO- 
 masterpieces of the ages must be wholly rejected ; and DUCTION 
 small things that have no concern whatever with Art must 
 be raised to masterpieces of Art. 
 
 This confusion has largely arisen owing to the confusion 
 of Art with its tool, Craftsmanship. 
 
 A poker may be a beautiful thing — it is not art. A 
 photograph may be beautiful — it is not art. A woman 
 may be beautiful — she is not necessarily a work of art. 
 
 Art must create — it must transfer Sensation from the 
 creator of it to us. 
 
 The Greek genius set up Beauty as the ultimate goal 
 of Life — it therefore set up Beauty as the ultimate goal of 
 Art. The Greeks really did mean that beauty of crafts- 
 manship alone was not enough — that Art must always create 
 Beauty. This absolute aim to achieve Beauty was the 
 cause of the triumph of Greece in Art — a greatly over- 
 rated triumph when set against the whole meaning of life, 
 and one of which the professors tell us much ; it was also 
 the cause of her limitations and of her eventual failure to 
 achieve the supreme mastery of the world, of which we 
 hear little. For, splendid as was the mighty achievement 
 of Greece, she never reached to the majesty and the grandeur 
 of that masterpiece of sculpture that stands upon the edge 
 of Africa, head and shoulders above her achievement, in the 
 wondrous thing that is called the Sphinx. The genius of 
 Egypt spent itself upon the majesty and the mystery of 
 life — and it moved thereby to a higher aim. 
 
 Craftsmanship — that skill of cunning whereby the artist 
 so employs the clay of the sculptor, the colours of the 
 painter, the words of the poet in prose, or verse, or oratory, 
 and bends and compels these things into such rhythmic 
 
 3
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- forms and combinations that they create a thrill in our 
 
 DUCTION senses and arouse the desired emotion — this craftsmanship 
 
 is so fascinating to the mind of man that it, not unnaturally, 
 
 looms out of place in the eyes of such as do not create Art, 
 
 yet become inquisitive as to why they are moved by Art. 
 
 When a school arose, but a little while ago, that had 
 for its battle-cry the still smaller aim of Art for Art's sake, 
 it really meant that Art was for Craft's sake — that the aim 
 of Art lay solely in the beauty of its craftsmanship. They 
 would have the play of Hamlet without the Prince of 
 Denmark. In the deeps of their confusion, what they said 
 was this : that if a master-hand painted a wall white very 
 beautifully, by his mastery of thumb he created Art ! 
 Otherwise there were no need to say that Art was for Art's 
 sake. Of course. Art is for Art's sake. But it were well 
 to know what is Art. This narrow-eyed school of theorists 
 whittled away the whole function of Art until they reduced 
 it to craft — exactly what it is not. And in proportion as 
 their folly grew, their arrogance mounted. So that they 
 made of a Truth an utter Falsity — simply in that they did 
 not know what Art was ! 
 
 Whistler would have had us believe that it is the 
 province of Art to say Nothing very Beautifully ; his 
 instincts and his genius made no such mistake. He is 
 the master of a subtle emotional statement that, in its 
 realm, has never been surpassed. He vowed that Art 
 was the Science of the Beautiful — which were no mean 
 definition of Craft, and had been no bad definition of Art, 
 but that Art is not Science, and is not Beauty. It was of 
 the wisdom of that wiseacre who defined a Crab as a scarlet 
 reptile that walks backwards — which were not so bad, were 
 it a reptile, were it scarlet, and did it walk backwards. 
 
 Neither Whistler, nor Flaubert, nor another has the 
 4
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 right to narrow the acreage of the garden of hfe. What INTRO- 
 
 concern had Shakespeare with Beauty ? In the Book of DUCTION 
 
 Life that Shakespeare wrote, Beauty is not his god — Beauty 
 
 is not his ultimate aim. Is jealousy beautiful ? Yet Othello 
 
 is great art. Is man's ineffectual struggle against destiny 
 
 beautiful ? Yet Hamlet is rightly accounted a masterpiece 
 
 of the ages. Are hate and despair and fear and remorse 
 
 beautiful ? It has been written of late that Millet's Killing 
 
 of a Hog is beautiful ! It is wholly unbeautiful. Had 
 
 Millet made it beautiful he had uttered the stupidest of 
 
 lies. Nevertheless, the statement of it is art. Indeed, 
 
 Millet's aim in art, a large part of his significance in art, 
 
 is a protest against the pettiness of mere beauty. He took 
 
 the earth, this great-soul'd man, and he wrought with a 
 
 master's statement the pathos and the tragedy and the 
 
 might and the majesty of the earth and of them that 
 
 toil upon the earth. The Sower and the Man with the Hoe 
 
 are far more than beautiful — they hold the vast emotions 
 
 and wondrous sensations of man's destiny to labour, and 
 
 of man's acceptance of that destiny ; they utter the gloom 
 
 and the ugliness as loudly as the beauty of the earth and 
 
 of toil ; and they most rightly utter these things, so that 
 
 they take equal rank, and thereby add to our knowledge 
 
 of the emotions of life through the master's power, and 
 
 the skill and cunning of his craftsmanship, whereby he so 
 
 solemnly uttered the truth. 
 
 Art is not an oil-painting on canvas in a gilt frame. 
 Art is not the exclusive toy of a few prigs — nor the pass- 
 word of a cult. Art is universal, eternal — not parochial. 
 Every man is an artist in his degree — every man is moved 
 by art in his degree. For one act of our day to which we 
 are moved by reason, we are moved to a score by our 
 emotions — by instinct. 
 
 5
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- If the artist's revelation of life be true, then by and 
 
 DUCTION through his art we live the emotions of life ; it becomes 
 a part of our life for ever. If the revelation be ennobling, 
 we are ennobled ; if base, we are debased thereby. 
 
 And surely it is a splendid thing to be made to thrill 
 with the higher emotions of man and to know lofty enthu- 
 siasms ! The brightest path by which man may reach to 
 great goals and a larger concept of life is through the arts. 
 Whether by the oratory of the Christ, or by the drama of 
 the masters, or whatsoever pathway, the road that reaches 
 to the Splendid Wayfaring must be through the garden of 
 the Arts. 
 
 Whether he will it or not, every man must walk in that 
 garden of the Arts. 
 
 No man may know the Splendid Wayfaring of Life, 
 nor indeed know of Life outside a madhouse, without Art. 
 Art is absolutely necessary to all civilised life. It is with us 
 from the cradle to the grave. We cannot escape it. The 
 moment a child essays to tell of its joy or its pain, its 
 sorrows or its delights, at once Art is created. 
 
 So far from being the little exclusive preciosity that the 
 so-called Elect pride themselves alone on understanding, if 
 you would realise what your life would be without the 
 means to commune with your fellow-men so as to be 
 partakers of their sensations and their emotions, try to think 
 of a man in that awful solitude that is never broken by con- 
 tact with any other human soul ; and you scarce exaggerate 
 what a man's punishment would be without the arts. 
 
 Now it follows that as a people become ignoble, their 
 utterance of life becomes ignoble, therefore their art becomes 
 ignoble. 
 
 There has ever been in all religions, in all states, a 
 6
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 tendency of narrow-eyed men to a curious form of Puritan- INTRO- 
 ism that looks askance at all works of art as being bad, DUCTION 
 because bad art is bad. Whether it be a Savonarola in the 
 Catholic church who sets the people in hysterical fervour 
 to burning all the precious works of art in the bonfires of 
 the public market-place ; or the Roundheads who disfigure 
 and destroy works of art in childish wantonness and blatant 
 vulgarity ; whether it be the Mohammedan who denies the 
 human figure to art ; or what not ; yet, so vital a necessity 
 is art to the human being in his wayfaring to the heights 
 and majesty of sublime living, that the blackest Puritans 
 employ it even whilst they destroy it. 
 
 The Mohammedans are forbidden the carving of figures 
 in or on their mosques; forbidden the portraiture of men, 
 lest the faithful shall fall to the worship of images — yet the 
 True Believer flings away his life in battle, like some great 
 bronze god, urged to it by the emotional oratory of his 
 faith ; and, where he falls, you shall ever find about his 
 neck, worn as a little charm to keep his quaint fantastic 
 soul from harm, sewn into exquisitely wrought leather- 
 work, fragments of the mighty literature of the Koran ! 
 An art within an art ! 
 
 So the Roundheads, thundering against the arts lest they 
 should turn men's eyes to graven images, made the land 
 hideous with sculptures overthrown, statues mutilated, works 
 of art destroyed ; yet, even as they committed this scandalous 
 and childish wantonness, in the name of the Lord, they 
 listened with bowed heads of reverence to works of fiction, 
 some amongst the supreme works of art the world has 
 known — the parables of the Man of Sorrows — and went 
 into battle shouting the poetry of the psalms, their nerves 
 athrill to the music of words wrought by the master-skill of 
 the great Elizabethan translators of the Bible ! 
 
 7
 
 INTRO- II. Wherein is attempted a survey of the Art of Antiquity — and 
 DUCTION an explanation of the terms Classic, Byzantine, Roman- 
 
 esque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Humanism. 
 
 It is the habit of the professor to begin his theories on 
 art by some such statement as that the first need of the 
 human being was to clothe himself, and fashion tools and 
 weapons and shelter against the fury of the elements and 
 wild nature — that he had to become industrious before he 
 became an artist. 
 
 The professor says this because he mistakes Art to be 
 a painting on a canvas in a gold frame, or a piece of 
 sculpture, or the like. In such case his platitudes would be 
 true enough. As a matter of fact. Art was as overwhelming 
 a need of the human being from the very first as was his 
 need for industry. Man, as an intelligent being, has created 
 Art from the beginning — probably as soon as he discovered 
 the need for industry. From the day that, having stepped 
 down from the branch of a tree and stood up, on his hind 
 legs, and discovered himself the Thinking Thing, Art was 
 at its dawning. From the tree to his wild cave, whence 
 he slowly began to forgather in the valley to his tribal 
 councils against wild animals and other enemies, and to 
 rally for his hunting ; from the moment that he desired com- 
 munion with his fellows, then Art was born. For, just as 
 by his rude speech he sought communion with their 
 thoughts, so by means of his rude arts he essayed to make 
 his fellows feel what he had felt by getting to their senses 
 what his own senses had experienced. 
 
 'Twas like enough that song and dance and the telling 
 of tales were his first forms of art ; but early in his rude 
 days he scratched upon the reindeer's bone and upon the 
 8
 
 PAINTING 
 
 walls of his cave the impressions of life as he felt them ; INTRO- 
 
 and decorated himself and his belongings to impress others DUCTION 
 
 with his barbaric dignities and ambitions. And just as in 
 
 tale-telling and song and dance he roused his fellows to feel 
 
 what he felt ; so he soon came to putting colours upon the 
 
 rude drawings and sculpturings that his hand essayed, so that 
 
 his fellows should feel through their sense of vision what 
 
 his own eyes experienced. And the art of painting was 
 
 born. 
 
 Therefore, when the professors, splitting hairs, tell us 
 that art has this difference from man's other activities, in 
 that it is not for utility^ he is thinking of palaces and 
 gorgeous paintings in elaborate frames, and the like ; but 
 art is deeper than this, and is not only an utility but an 
 absolute necessity of life. To the luxurious, art may be 
 made a luxury ; but luxurious art is not the highest form 
 of art. And to conceive of Art as a luxury or a diversion 
 is to miss its whole significance. The moment Art becomes 
 a luxury or a mere diversion it is in decay ; and the signifi- 
 cance has gone out of it. One might as wisely say that 
 Cleopatra dead is as significant as Cleopatra alive — the 
 beautiful body is there, but the wondrous miracle has 
 departed from it. The whole falsity about art is created 
 by the fact that the professors only seem to discover works 
 of art when they are in decay. 
 
 So, it is likely enough, our first rude ancestors came to 
 apply the recording of their emotions, the utterance of their 
 sensations, to the glorification of those deep and awful feel- 
 ings of man that seek utterance in religion ; and the carved 
 and moulded gods were raised upon the rude altars of their 
 fantastic faiths, and colours were plastered upon wall and 
 god and idol to enhance the wild emotions of awe roused 
 by their faith. 
 
 VOL. I B V 9
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- For painting, mark you, was not of necessity a flat art, 
 
 DUCTION but employed in the round as well. 
 
 Thence through the Stone Age, when man knew no 
 metals, but lived in lake-dwellings, and built the mighty 
 stone blocks upon the earth, and began to know the sowing 
 of corn and the reaping and harvesting, and the taming of 
 animals that went to make his flocks and herds, and forth- 
 with discovered flax for the weaving of his garments ; thence 
 he came to the moulding of gold and copper, the first metals 
 he employed ; thence to tin ; on until he discovered how to 
 fuse tin and copper into bronze, which thrust him forward on 
 his upward wayfaring ; until he stood but a thousand years 
 before the coming of the Christ, the arts were increasing 
 with the increasing range of man's upward striving. 
 
 The Egyptians, long before they used bronze and iron, 
 were turning pots and painting them; and before the 
 Pharaohs came, bringing to the banks of the Nile the use of 
 metals, Egypt was painting the human figure and animals, 
 in rude fashion. The Pharaohs came to govern the land 
 some four thousand five hundred years before Christ, and 
 under them Egypt became the first people of the earth to 
 raise great buildings of stone, and employed therein and in 
 sculpture a skill that has never been surpassed. And the 
 walls of their ancient tombs were wrought with paintings, 
 essaying to utter every phase of life — royal victories, re- 
 ligious adoration and rites, the acts of daily life, the soul's 
 journeying to the place of the dead. Landscape is used for 
 backgrounds, if rude enough and lacking as to perspective. 
 Painting was mere colouring, 'tis true, without sense of light 
 and shade. But to the Egyptian the vast mystery of Eternity 
 ever loomed before all else — for Eternity he wrought his 
 arts, whether the mighty pyramids, the sculptured sphinxes, 
 and vasty temples ; for Eternity he embalmed his dead. 
 lo
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Side by side with Egypt the Chaldeans wrought by the INTRO- 
 waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, and their peoples, the DUCTION 
 Babylonians and Assyrians, after them, wrought paintings 
 and coloured friezes glorifying strength and power and brute 
 force, that found their outlet in cruel delights, bloody 
 butcheries in war, brutal revenges, barbarous huntings and 
 slayings. And it was from Chaldasa — from these Assyrians 
 — that the Greeks, and from the Greeks the modern world, 
 received the winged bodies of men and animals so dear to 
 the decorative instinct of the ages. 
 
 It was in Chaldaea and Egypt, then, that what art of 
 painting there was, flourished before the Greek. 
 
 To the early Greeks came the aim of Beauty, perfection 
 of form, and above all the beauty of the Human. These 
 early Greeks of the islands and sea-coasts of the ^Egean 
 created a civilisation that had passed and was but a memory 
 when Homer struck his lyre some eight hundred years 
 before the coming of the Christ — three thousand years 
 before Salome danced before Herod, these seafaring folk had 
 been using copper, which they found in large quantities in 
 their island of Cyprus — does not indeed the very name of 
 copper come from this same Kupros ? And always the 
 aim is to fashion the human form — and what is more, the 
 habit of Egypt and Chaldasa is swept aside, and the nude 
 is ever in the vogue — the very jugs and the jars being 
 modelled on the human design. When Troy was unburied, 
 six cities deep, one upon another, the painting habit appears 
 in the sixth, the uppermost buried one, vases being dis- 
 covered with paintings upon them, as Priam's artists 
 had painted them before Achilles dragged the body of 
 Hector round the walls ; whilst, hard by, at Tiryns, a 
 palace revealed its walls painted and decorated. At Cnossus, 
 in Crete, in that ' Palace of the Axe ' where king Minos 
 
 II
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- ruled, and which from its confusion of paths and passages 
 DUCTION gave us the word "labyrinth," is much painting on the walls, 
 and wondrously modern in feeling. Thus was art rapidly 
 advancing in Mycenae when the northern barbarians fell 
 upon and swept away the first Greek civilisation, before 
 Homer. But the Greeks, fleeing before the onrush, spread 
 their art to Chios and Cyprus and the coasts of Asia Minor 
 and Syria — and it was the descendants of these who, after 
 three hundred years, took back to the barbarians of Greece 
 the seed of the Renaissance of art which was to be there 
 planted again and to blossom to such splendid flowering. 
 
 The new Greek civilisation advanced with giant strides. 
 Unlike all other peoples before them or of their time, the 
 Greek loved liberty — he looked to beauty as his aim in life 
 — and the earth on which he stood held the stone best 
 fitted for his artistry : marble abounded in the land, and 
 some of the islands, such as the famed Paros, were little 
 else. Liberty was in his blood, it was his very instinct ; 
 progress was his breath ; and the human entity his god. 
 From Egypt and Assyria he caught the fashioning of 
 sculpture, but soon left all tradition behind in his aim to 
 glorify the human in marble. Five hundred years before 
 the Christ, the Greeks were sculpturing winged goddesses, 
 the woman appears in natural form, and the smile ripples 
 across the face of the human — and not only does the 
 passing mood of the human take possession of the face, but 
 the figures are painted. What wall-paintings there were 
 have perished ; but the earlier vases with black figures and 
 the later ones with red figures show astounding sense of 
 design. Rapidly the arts developed. Pindar sang; and 
 ^schylus wrote his tragedies ; and soon Myron and 
 Polyclitus and Phidias were creating their masterpieces, 
 glorifying human beauty and athletic strength ; with the 
 
 12
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 figure leaning on one foot instead of the stolid Egyptian INTRO- 
 and Assyrian art that ever set the human with both feet DUCTION 
 firm planted on the earth — and the ideal woman was the 
 Amazon or huntress. So it came that Pericles, the lover 
 of the beautiful, and dictator of beauty as of all else to the 
 Greece of his day, called Phidias to the beautifying of 
 Athens, raising the famed Parthenon upon her heights, one 
 of the achievements of the ages. Here were paintings 
 upon the walls, but they have vanished, as has the gold and 
 ivory statue of Athene, the masterpiece of Phidias. Yet one 
 cannot but think that the high gifts that created the mighty 
 masterpiece of the Venus of Milo, whether wrought immedi- 
 ately after Phidias or within three hundred years thereafter, 
 must have been highly skilled also in painting forms. 
 
 The serene temper of the Greece of the four hundreds 
 before Christ came to an end with the Peloponnesian War 
 which Pericles had begun, and which, twenty-five years 
 after Pericles died of the plague, saw Athens fall in 404 B.C. 
 The disaster that saw Athens conquered and humiliated by 
 the Spartans roused that deep religious and political reaction 
 which sent Socrates to his death in 399 B.C. and changed 
 the Greek character. Plato carried on the thought of 
 Socrates — and Greece knew self-examination, and brooded 
 upon the deep problems of the soul. Adversity taught its 
 lesson. The three hundreds before Christ were years of 
 deep meditation, and Art, grappling with the utterance of 
 the new emotions, brought forth Praxiteles and Scopas, and 
 Praxiteles created the beautiful and spiritual head of his 
 famed Hermes. Here we have the sculptor ridding his 
 art of hardnesses, employing the eff^ects of the differences of 
 texture, as in the hair and flesh, and softening the edges of 
 the flesh until a painter's sense of impressionism in light 
 and shade diffuses the sculptured surface and makes the 
 
 13
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- marble live. Therefrom we may judge that painting in 
 DUCTION Hellas, lauded by the ancient writers as equal to her 
 sculptures, must have been astounding — but in how great 
 degree we shall never know, since all sign of these wonders 
 has passed away. Yet we may trust the ancient writers, 
 since they clearly state that whilst Polygnotus, the supreme 
 painter of the century of Phidias, was famed for his drawing 
 rather than for his colour, the masters of the century of 
 Praxiteles were famed as colourists. Parrhasius, Zeuxis, 
 and Apelles, therefore, had they carried painting to the 
 degree of melting their light and shade and colour as far 
 as Praxiteles had softened the surfaces of his sculptured 
 marble, must have reached a power in uttering feeling in 
 painting far greater than any primitive painters of whatso- 
 ever later schools. And when we remember how Scopas 
 went even beyond the emotional statement of revery of the 
 marbles carved by Praxiteles, and gave utterance to the 
 passions in his haunting shadows about eyes and mouth, it 
 is unlikely that the painters did not grasp the skill with 
 which Scopas modelled those wondrous shadows. 'Tis true 
 a younger sculptor than these, one Lysippus, essayed to put 
 back the hands of Greek art by a reactionary trying back 
 to the sterner and less subtle emotional days of the century 
 of Phidias, mistaking sentiment for sentimentality, and 
 fearing effeminacy and sensuality ; but he only ran to the 
 academic by trying to see the human as eight heads high, 
 and whilst rejecting emotion to the degree of passion, only 
 ended in elegance, refinement, and nervousness in the 
 bronzes which he preferred to cast instead of employing 
 the marble preferred by Praxiteles and Scopas ; Lysippus 
 was sculptor to Alexander the Great, and his mastery of 
 drapery strongly suggests the influence of the painters. But 
 it is in the greatest draped statue in movement left by
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 antiquity, the famed winged Nike {Victory) of Samothrace^ INTRO- 
 poised on the prow of a galley, her robes fluttering in the DUCTION 
 breeze, that the influence of Scopas is seen in supreme 
 fashion ; and the influence of great painting is astoundingly 
 suggested in the years on the eve of the two hundreds 
 before Christ. 
 
 The year of 336 B.C. struck; and its striking was full of 
 a strange destiny for the wide world. Young Alexander, a 
 youth of twenty, stepped to his father's throne in Macedonia, 
 and began his short, swift, all-compelling and wondrous 
 career. Swiftly he laid waste Thebes, overwhelmed 
 Athens, moved out across the face of the world with his 
 conquering Greeks, overthrowing kings, marching from 
 victory to victory through Asia Minor, on through Syria, 
 winning Egypt, overthrowing Persia, and sweeping over 
 the north of India — to die in Babylon at thirty-three 1 
 The conquered world fell to his generals, and the Greek 
 order stood supreme from the waters of the Nile to the 
 far Indus. To India she gave her lesson in the arts, that 
 had begun to dawn out of Persia. From Greece the art of 
 painting passed into India with Alexander the Great ; and 
 later on to China, whither bastard Greek art spread from 
 the Black Sea through Siberia and Central Asia in our own 
 " mediaeval " days some hundred years after Christ. 
 
 But the Greek thought and the Greek art passed out 
 of Athens and spread over the conquered lands — and made 
 their throne in Alexandria with the Ptolemies, in Syrian 
 Antioch, and in Pergamum in Asia Minor. The small 
 Greek states, with their free cities, now became oriental 
 monarchies under absolute tyrants. These two hundred 
 years, from the death of Alexander to the conquest by Rome 
 are spoken of by the academic as a decadence. They were 
 instead a forward moving of the human soul. The ancient 
 
 15
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- spirit of Greece was gone, it is true ; but a new and 
 DUCTION compelling spirit was abroad. Greek art, faced now by 
 the tumult and anguish of the human soul amidst the 
 chaos of change, uttered Itself In heroic admiration of pity 
 for the sufferings of man. Heretofore, art had evaded 
 character ; portraiture was now born. At Pergamum and 
 Rhodes and Alexandria, the Greek artist began to look 
 upon the barbarians as fit subjects for sympathy and wonder, 
 and the Gaul Slaying Himself after Slaying his Wife, and The 
 Dying Gaul [Gladiator) were created, in which last the 
 Greek sculptor, Epigonus, shows the pathos of the brave 
 fellow whose blood ebbs from him as he lies far away from 
 his *' small barbarians at play." This emotional statement 
 of the agonies, that would have shocked the earlier Greeks, 
 perhaps best known to literature through the fame of 
 Laocoon and his Sons, greatly enlarged the province and 
 realm of art, and Increased its function and significance, 
 thereby adding to the breadth of its appeal. It is a 
 merely childish and academic thing to compare one phase 
 of art with the art of another age ; for art has no concern 
 with such things. The art of The Dying Gaul and of the 
 Laocoon is concerned with another phase of the human 
 emotions than that of older Greece. Pity and the 
 significance of suffering have now forced themselves as a 
 significance upon the human feelings, where before was 
 little or none. The technical powers of the artists may 
 not be as astounding as those of a Phidias, a Praxiteles, or 
 a Scopas, but there Is freedom from the mere imitation of 
 their skill of hand as there Is from slavery to their thought 
 and intention. And there are qualities dawning which are 
 to ripen in after centuries Into majestic achievement — life 
 is looked full in the face, character and truth stand forth, 
 and landscape receives homage. 
 i6
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 The masterpieces of the great Greek painters are but a INTRO- 
 legend. But the Romans, as they made their conquests in DUCTION 
 Greece, brought back a taste for Greek works of art, and 
 were early attracting Greek artists to Rome. The empire 
 increased the collecting of Greek works. In Pompeii and 
 Herculaneum, two seaside pleasure resorts, overwhelmed by 
 Vesuvius in the year 79 after Christ, have been found a goodly 
 number of wall-paintings which, allowing for the second- 
 rate taste that would prevail in a pleasure-resort not too famous 
 for the nobility of its high living or aims, prove a wide and 
 remarkable activity in painting. And from Egypt have come 
 the famous portraits in encaustic painting from the first cen- 
 turies of the Roman Empire, and known as the encaustic por- 
 traits of the Grsco-Roman period, which show high artistry. 
 
 Now, it is well to note that whilst Rome took much 
 from the tradition of ancient Greece, she also had latent 
 artistic gifts which were created partly out of the Italian 
 soil, and partly out of the Eastern Mediterranean whence 
 she largely came. She built temples, baths, triumphal 
 arches, columns, and the like, which had no outside in- 
 fluence. The " arenas " or circuses, such as the Coliseum, 
 were new. She employed the dome and the arch, of which 
 Greece knew nothing — but which came to Rome out of 
 Assyria and the East, and thereby produced Romanesque 
 architecture, and thereby partly produced Byzantine. Her 
 sculpture never reached to Greek heights; but her archi- 
 tecture took on the vastness of Eastern ambitions ; and the 
 sculpture of the Empire at least put forth strength in 
 character and thereby produced fine portraiture. In paint- 
 ing there was latent genius, and some of the paintings at 
 Pompeii show an astounding affinity to the French work of 
 the seventeen hundreds ; whilst, in the catacombs, Christian 
 art had its beginnings. 
 
 VOL. I — c 17
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- Throughout the Middle Ages, the innate Italian im- 
 
 DUCTION petus towards Realism in painting struggled hard to evolve 
 itself against the Byzantine-Greek spirit that ever threatened 
 from the East ; but it was not until the close of the Middle 
 Ages, in the thirteen hundreds, that at last Italian Realism 
 shook off the Eastern pattern of Byzantine, crept out over the 
 land, and, fired by the Gothic realism of France, dawned in 
 the Renaissance. 
 
 To get a thorough grip upon the fact of the Renaissance, 
 it is well to understand exactly what is meant by Byzantine. 
 The early Christian paintings were made by a persecuted 
 people who, to practise their religion, had to meet together 
 in the underground tunnels, called catacombs, of Rome, 
 where they also buried their dead. These catacombs were 
 the church and burial-place of the early Christians from 
 about one hundred years to about four hundred years after 
 Christ. 
 
 When Christianity came above ground and became the 
 religion of the State, burial and worship also came to the 
 surface. 
 
 Now the chief craft employed in the catacombs was 
 painting ; thus Christianity was destined to produce a 
 great achievement in painting from its very beginnings. 
 Sculpture in the round was repugnant to the early Christians, 
 as being the craft employed in making the gods of their 
 pagan masters, and thereby associated with the worship of 
 idols ; and even in painting, the same intention created a 
 repugnance to representing their own God — indeed, even 
 the crucified Christ only began to be treated in the art of 
 the catacombs towards the very end. Symbols arose, such 
 as the peacock for eternity ; but, except that painting 
 shrank from the nude, and created certain symbols and 
 i8
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 motives in the spirit of its own revelation, the painters all INTRO- 
 along employed pagan imagery and forms, and you shall DUCTION 
 find in their design the Orpheus, Cupids, the Medusa head, 
 and the like paganisms, just as the state Christianity later 
 took from paganism its pagan altars and symbols, such as 
 the lights ; whilst the style and treatment are akin to the 
 wall-paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum. 
 
 Byzantium (Constantinople) became the capital of 
 Eastern Christendom in 330 after Christ. The Roman 
 Court went to Ravenna, on the east side of Italy, in 404. 
 About 500 Theodoric, the king of the Goths, settled his 
 residence thereat, and from some thirty to forty years there- 
 after, for more than two centuries, Ravenna belonged to 
 Byzantium — thus the spirit of Byzantium (Constantinople) 
 hung upon the edge of Italy. 
 
 Now, when Christianity arose from its underground life 
 in the catacombs, and came to the surface, it built for itself, 
 or took possession of, the large marts or places of assembly, 
 a long rectangular hall, flat-roofed, often with side aisles, 
 and called a basilica — just as to-day it might take for use 
 the town-hall ; for the Christian church was a place of 
 assembly for worship, differing vastly therein from the 
 pagan temple, which was the place of residence of the god. 
 
 To this square, flat-roofed Italian basilica, the Eastern 
 spirit of the Christian church at Byzantium brought the 
 domed roofing of the East ; of which the world-famed 
 church of St. Sophia in Constantinople is the great 
 example — built in the mid five hundreds by Asiatic archi- 
 tects, and for long the cathedral of the Eastern Christians, 
 until Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, when in 
 Italy the Renaissance was in its full flowering. Now, we 
 have already seen the Romans of the Empire employing 
 the dome, as in the Pantheon. But the Byzantine art held 
 
 19
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- the love of sumptuous splendour of colouring, brought from 
 DUCTION the East ; and concerned itself with gorgeous colouring and 
 much use of gold and gilding — its whole spirit was Asiatic 
 and luxurious, and shows its design in the oriental carpet, far 
 removed from the severe achievement of Greek and Roman 
 art — it abhors the human figure, and concerns itself with 
 geometrical and conventional pattern. This orientalised 
 art of the Eastern Christianity of Byzantium was further 
 accentuated by the fanatical movement of the ascetic Icono- 
 clasts (Image-Breakers) in the seven and eight hundreds, 
 when, throughout the Eastern world of Christianity, vast 
 numbers of works of art were destroyed as tending towards 
 idolatry. The sculptors and artists fled west, and many 
 reached the court of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle. On 
 the overthrow of the Iconoclasts about 850, the arts had 
 a mighty renaissance in the Byzantine Empire, lasting 
 throughout the nine hundreds and much of the ten 
 hundreds, until about the years that William the Conqueror 
 came to rule over us in the West. This great Byzantine 
 achievement, in arms and general prosperity and intellect, 
 saw much painting on parchment and enamelling, besides 
 superb goldsmith's work ; but its chief glory was in the 
 mosaic. Yet its theatricality, its poverty of means to utter 
 art, and its rigid and hidebound limits, could not be wholly 
 hidden under its love of sumptuous splendour of colouring ; 
 and it early became petrified even in its majestic intention. 
 Then the Arab invasion swept across the sea out of Asia, 
 overthrowing the Eastern Christianity, but stealing much 
 of its art, and creating the elaborate patterns that are called 
 arabesques. To Russia the Byzantine art fled, and lives to 
 this day in her church and religion. To Southern Italy also 
 Byzantium was long dictator; she dominated Ravenna in 
 Eastern Italy, and her vast wealth, her wide-ranging com- 
 20
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 merce, and her sumptuous splendour appealed to Venice, INTRO- 
 
 which built in iioo her famous Byzantine Church of St. DUCTION 
 
 Mark's ; and even the artistry of mediaeval Europe was 
 
 tinged with the Byzantine spirit. The pomp and splendour 
 
 of the Byzantine, hiding its emptiness of high emotion and a 
 
 noble feeling under a gorgeous formality, threatened to fall 
 
 on Italy, standing ghoul-like, a nightmare ever looming 
 
 upon her Eastern frontiers, to be dissolved and banished at 
 
 last by the innate love of truth and reality latent in the soil 
 
 of Italy, that found its mouthpiece at last in Duccio and 
 
 Giotto, who found a new revelation in art, seeing life with 
 
 fresh eyes, and seeking skill of hand to state what they saw, 
 
 thereby bringing the mighty re-birth of the Renaissance 
 
 into the land. 
 
 Whilst the Eastern Christian church was developing 
 Byzantinism, the Western Christian church, after Charle- 
 magne's death, proceeded to build upon its basilicas the 
 domed roof, and to add the towers of what is called 
 Romanesque architecture. The Romanesque in turn gave 
 way to the Gothic. Now, the large wall spaces of the heavily 
 built, round-arched, Romanesque churches did not call out 
 for painting, since they were ill lit ; whilst the pointed- 
 arched, high, widely fretted and fragile tracery of the 
 Gothic architecture, nearly all windows and little wall 
 space, did not leave room for wall paintings. Thus wall- 
 painting, so intrinsic an art of early Christianity in the 
 catacombs, fell away when Christianity came out of the 
 earth and built her domed basilicas of the Romanesque 
 period, and later her many-windowed fretted traceries of 
 the Gothic years. But the Gothic windows had to be 
 filled in with glass ; and this glass came to be beautifully 
 coloured — creating the great Gothic art of glass-painting, 
 the bright colouring of which had so profound an influence 
 
 21
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- upon the painting of the Renaissance. Side by side with 
 DUCTION this glass-painting went the exquisite illumination of 
 manuscripts. The Gothic had also another, a vital, quality 
 that raised it above the Romanesque — it rejected con- 
 vention and went to nature for its sculpturing — so that you 
 shall find recorded on Gothic architecture the fulness of life 
 as the Middle Ages knew it ; the moods of the passing 
 seasons, the life of the fields, or the life of the craftsman 
 and of the buyers, and of the warrior and the like. The 
 aim of Gothic art is not beauty nor pleasure, but to teach. 
 It is true that the teaching of the Middle Ages was austere 
 enough, concerned more with the harsh and greyer virtues 
 of the fear of damnation rather than with the tender 
 humanities, appealing to the reason rather than to the 
 heart — an age in which the poet, such as Dante, brooded 
 on hells and punishments, and saw life a sombre affair — an 
 age when " opinions," except such as the Church approved, 
 meant burning at the stake or the like hellishness. 
 
 But out of Gothic art was born the glorification of 
 character — the great art of portraiture — in those recumbent 
 effigies of the dead, lying carved in stone upon their tombs. 
 The nude is almost wholly absent ; and, strange to say, 
 whether in carving or aught else, Gothic art failed to 
 create a Christ, even an infant Christ, of supreme achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 At last the Renaissance dawned over Italy and France 
 and Flanders. Re-birth it truly was not, for Art never dies. 
 But a new spirit was passing across the face of Europe. 
 Life, and with it Art, was evolving, stepping to further 
 fulfilment. And Humanism was lagely responsible for it. 
 The Church had been teacher since Rome fell ; but she 
 had become alarmed at her own teaching, and was harshly 
 punishing all such teaching as she did not herself approve. 
 
 22
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 It was too late. Humanism, an inquisitive eagerness to INTRO- 
 dip into the history and arts and achievement of antiquity, DUCTION 
 above all, the grandeur of Greece, arose to bring a splendid 
 discontent to men. 
 
 Just as the Greek fugitives, before the Homeric years, 
 had fled to the south carrying their ancient arts with them, 
 and these arts had returned again in after centuries to the 
 barbarian conquerors of Greece, and created the Greek 
 masters ; so in the thirteen-hundreds, at the ending of the 
 Middle Ages called Dark, the descendants of the old 
 Roman days of greatness, inspired by the Greeks, brought 
 back to Italian soil the traditions of a pagan and heroic 
 past, and planted the same in Florence and Rome, to the 
 fertilising and blossoming and fruition of the Renaissance. 
 
 The state of the art of painting from the decline of 
 Hellenic art in the years of Christ to the end of the Dark 
 Ages, is perhaps best grasped by taking such portraits from 
 mummy-cases as were discovered in Egypt by Professor 
 Flinders Petrie, and now in the National Gallery in London, 
 wherein we see the Grseco-Roman protraiture of the first 
 two or three hundred years after Christ, if not of the days 
 of Christ — these are in the wax medium of ancient Greece 
 known as " encaustic " — and then looking upon the painting 
 of a Tuscan painter, working in the neighbourhood of 
 Florence at the end of the Dark Ages a thousand years 
 afterwards, when Christianity, come above ground from 
 its hiding-places, had taken to itself much of the pagan 
 thought and forms and had absorbed them, and had, for its 
 decorative symbols, developed Byzantine formality into such 
 splendour as the rigid forms and bright colouring of mosaic 
 yielded. This glowing but stiff formalism of Byzantine 
 decoration, whether in the " miniatures," as the illumina- 
 tions of its elaborate documents are called, or in its richly 
 
 23
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- coloured, much be-gilt mosaics, was wholly given up to 
 DUCTION the service of the Church, which ever grew in power ; 
 and, as it so increased, the Church demanded increasing 
 splendour to impose upon the mind of man ; and just as 
 the religion of the Church set into a splendid formality 
 and elaborate convention, so the Byzantine art set with it, 
 and answered to it astounding well ; and exactly as the 
 Church strangled all individual thought and action, so the 
 Byzantine art, with its narrow scope, suited the Church 
 which it adorned and expressed with rigorous narrowness 
 and sumptuous splendour, uttered in formal schemes which 
 strangled all individual statement and repeated set forms. 
 Byzantium sent forth her painters throughout Italy and 
 the wide Christian world, and set her vogue upon Italy. 
 And we shall find in Tuscany, in the neighbourhood of 
 Florence, at the end of the Dark Ages, on the edge of the 
 dawn of the Renaissance, no better example of the Byzan- 
 tine art than in such a painter as the Tuscan Margaritone 
 d'Arezzo, or di Magnano, born about 1216, and dying in 
 1293, °" ^^^ ^^^ of the thirteen hundreds. 
 
 MARGARITONE 
 
 1216 - 1293 
 Magaritone, painter, sculptor, and architect, shows in 
 his Madonna and Child, with scenes from the Lives of the 
 Saints, no hint of the new spirit of the coming art of 
 the Renaissance. The Virgin is a swarthy Roman-Greek, 
 the Child-Christ a manikin — all is formal convention — 
 the infant, like all else, must not commit the sin of being 
 like nature. The decoration is a pattern-like scheme — 
 the Virgin and Child in an almond-shape, with four small 
 pictures on each side, as though taken from a Byzantine 
 " miniature " ; over all is the manner of Byzantium, or, as 
 
 24
 
 MARGARITONE 
 1216? - 1293 
 
 TUSCAN SCHOOL 
 
 "THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SCENES FROM 
 THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 In tlie centre is seated the Virgin holding before her on her lap the 
 Christ, who blesses in the Greek manner. The Virgin is placed in a 
 raandorla. On either side are : 
 
 1. The Nativity. 
 
 2. St. John the Evangelist liberated by Angels from the caldron of 
 
 boiling oil. 
 
 3. The Martyrdom of St. Catherine and her Burial on Mount 
 
 Sinai. 
 
 4. St. Nicholas exhorting the Sailors to throw overboard a vase of 
 
 oil given to them by the Devil. 
 
 5. St. John raising Drusiana. 
 
 6. St. Benedict, haunted by the recollection of a beautiful woman 
 
 he had seen in Rome, plunging himself into a thicket of 
 briars and nettles to mortify the flesh. 
 
 7. St. Nicholas preventing the execution of three innocent men. 
 
 8. St. Margaret swallowed and disgorged again by the Dragon, 
 
 unhurt. 
 
 The picture bears the signature, in Latin, of the artist : " Margaritone 
 of Arezzo made me." 
 
 Painted in tempera on linen affixed to wood. 2 ft. 9 in. h. x 5 ft. 9 in. w. 
 (C-839X 1-753).
 
 1
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 the Italians called it, Alia Greca. The thing is scarce a INTRO- 
 work of art at all, but rather sumptuous craftsmanship — DUCTION 
 the artist essays to state little that he has sensed through 
 his own vision. Yet Margaritone was one of the most 
 distinguished of Tuscan painters of his age, and one of the 
 earliest painters of Italy. 
 
 CIMABUE 
 
 1240 .'' - 1302 
 
 Of a generation later than Margaritone, but working 
 within Margaritone's years, in Florence hard by to the 
 south-west, was Giovanni Cenni de' Pepi, more famous as 
 CiMABUE. Born about 1240, and dying in 1302, Cimabue 
 was for long acclaimed ' the father of modern painting ' ; 
 and a famous altar-piece, said to have been painted by this 
 Florentine, and known as the Rucellai Madonna^ at S. Maria 
 Novella in Florence, was long held to have been borne in 
 procession through Florence amidst public rejoicing ; but 
 research has proved that, so far from this altar-piece being 
 by Cimabue, it was painted by a painter of Siena, one 
 Duccio, and that Cimabue worked in mosaic in the 
 Byzantine manner, no painting by his brush being known. 
 However that may be, Cimabue, alas, neither painted the 
 Rucellai Madonna nor was it carried in public procession, 
 as we shall see. The pretty story is due to the gossip of 
 Vasari in later years, the Florentine historian of the lives 
 of the Italian painters, who but filched another city's 
 credit and another painter's glory to bring fame to his 
 own Florence. The legend of Cimabue's altar-piece rests 
 solely on the witness of Vasari, who filched the incident 
 from the undoubted and fully recorded incident of the rival 
 city of Siena. Yet it is with some regret that one parts 
 from the pretty old legend of that Rucellai Madonna, set 
 VOL. I — D 25
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 INTRO- up amidst public rejoicing in the dark transept of S. Maria 
 DUCTION Novella, hard by the garden where the youths and maidens 
 met on that Tuesday morning in the year of the Plague, 
 sitting round about Boccaccio to hearken to tales that should 
 keep their minds from the death that stalked the streets of 
 the stricken city without. But the city's records contain 
 no hint of the gift, or painting, or public procession ; and 
 the city's records are very full. No such important event 
 could have passed by unrecorded. 
 
 Dante writes of Cimabue as a painter, 'tis true ; but 
 his phrase rather points to the fact that Cimabue's artistry 
 was as purely Byzantine as that of Magaritone. " Cimabue," 
 says Dante, " thought to hold the field in painting, but 
 to-day Giotto is hailed by the public." A new art had 
 arisen — Cimabue's style, once in the fashion, had departed 
 — a new style had taken its place. 
 
 Cimabue, the last of the great Byzantine painters, 
 seems, however, to have been the master of Giotto, the 
 first great Florentine painter of the Renaissance ; but the 
 gulf between these two generations of master and pupil 
 yawns wide indeed. 
 
 So far, the Byzantine painters had only seen flat — they 
 only attempted to set figures on the flat surface of the 
 wall as flat decorations, with height and breadth but without 
 depth. The New Art, about to come into Italy, was to see 
 the figure as a rounded thing — was to try and make the 
 flat painted surface yield the illusion of depth, as of things 
 seen in a flat mirror. 
 
 But even as Margaritone wrought in tempera, upon the 
 
 linen fixed to a panel, his swarthy Roman-Greek Virgin 
 
 with her Child, and signed upon it, " Margaritone of Arezzo 
 
 made me," the fairy Prince of Gothic Art had stepped 
 
 26
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 across the Alps of the North, and, passing by him, kissed INTRO- 
 
 the Princess of Italian realism as she lay in her long sleep ; DUCTION 
 
 and she awoke to find herself a new creature, a-thrill 
 
 with a strange wonder, for the virtue of the North had 
 
 gone out to her, and her blood tingled with the spirit of 
 
 northern romance. For the feet of the Prince had trodden 
 
 the green fields and woodlands of France; his apparel was 
 
 fragrant of the fresh winds that blew across the face of 
 
 the world ; his eyes had seen the blue heavens and had 
 
 mirrored the grey clouds, and gazed upon the hills and 
 
 waters of the Rhine. In his ears was the music of the 
 
 voices of men and women ; and his arms had held children 
 
 that were mere babes. He had walked amidst adventures, 
 
 and to him the hot-house languor of the East was but a 
 
 sultry weariness of days. He had faced life, and gloried 
 
 in the pursuit of it. And he had seen that God's heaven 
 
 was blue as lapis-lazuli, and that the miles of air were 
 
 between, bathing the world in wondrous radiance and 
 
 casting an indefinable glamour over all things ; that the 
 
 heavens were not made of cubes of gilt glass or stones 
 
 set into rigid patterns, but were aerial, and filled with the 
 
 living breath of nature. Thus, redolent of life, the North 
 
 stooped and kissed Italy upon the mouth ; and she arose, 
 
 with a long-drawn sigh, and burst into song — and that 
 
 song pedantic men call the Renaissance, that had better 
 
 been called the Awakening. 
 
 27
 
 THE DAWN OF MODERN PAINTING 
 
 THE RENAISSANCE IN 
 CENTRAL ITALY
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OF THE CRADLE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY 
 
 In Italy, and in France on that side that lies hard by THE DAWN 
 northern Italy, as well as in northern France, where she OF 
 reaches to the flood of the Rhine, there began to dawn in MODERN 
 the twelve hundreds a new meaning in life, a new revelation PAINTING 
 of the significance of life ; and with the dawn was to be 
 created what is somewhat foolishly called a re-birth, a 
 Renaissance, of the arts — for the arts evolve, as all life 
 evolves, and dead things are re-born never. There was at 
 any rate a new-found intimacy with nature ; men began to 
 see life freshly; and there followed a marked outburst of 
 artistry which sounded a new note. 
 
 In France the Gothic arts had developed a keen effort 
 to express the reality of living things. The character of all 
 Gothic art had been its direct inspiration from, and its 
 affectionate intimacy with, nature. It had concerned itself 
 with teaching ; and Gothic architecture is covered with 
 ornament intensely interested in all that was known and 
 felt of nature. The mediaeval church was the school of 
 mediaeval Europe. 
 
 As the mediaeval years ran out, everywhere, on all sides, 
 was a strange stirring in men's hearts — everywhere amongst 
 the Gothic peoples was this sense of awakening — every- 
 where men were thinking and seeing and stating what they 
 saw in a manner that the world had never before known. 
 The Dark Ages were near spent. The nations were arising. 
 The air was redolent of the coming of Spring. 
 
 31
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN Now, as this Gothic interest in nature, in the joy of life, 
 OF stole into Italy, and, like the Prince of Faery, stealthily 
 
 MODERN makingits way through the briery woods and thorn-entangled 
 PAINTING ways of scholasticism and Byzantinism, came to the sleeping 
 Princess, and kissing Italy upon the mouth, awoke Italian 
 realism from its long slumber, and set astir a new life in the 
 land, it so chanced that there came to Italy soon there- 
 after, out of Greece, a sudden interest in the great dead 
 past of antique Rome and ancient Hellas — a widespread 
 searching into the Greek ideal of life that had insisted upon 
 man as being the chiefest significance to man — a keen desire 
 to learn, from the literature and history and arts of antique 
 days, what had been the source of his glory and his 
 greatness — that inquisitiveness into the ideals of the men of 
 antique days which the philosophic folk call Humanism. 
 
 At once sprang up a taste for Greek and Roman litera- 
 ture and art ; and architecture took on forms that were a 
 tribute to Athens — the Renaissance architecture was born. 
 The men of the Renaissance no doubt thought they were 
 bringing Athens to Italy ; but there was that in their blood 
 which made an academic restoration impossible — they were 
 working out a new growth of the soul of man, and were but 
 disciplining Gothic art to Greek forms, creating the mixed 
 and complex art of the Renaissance that had no real like- 
 ness to that of Athens, however much it aimed to imitate 
 antique Greece. 
 
 Certain fine qualities the Italians caught from Greece — 
 love of independence, a republican ideal of liberty. And 
 just as Greece inspired these ideals, so also she put upon 
 Italy that lack of nationality, the petty conception of the 
 city's greatness above the unity of the race, which was to 
 be the curse of Italy throughout the splendid years of her 
 Renaissance ; which was to split the land into warring 
 32
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 elements and petty states ; which was at last to lose Italy OF THE 
 
 her independence for hundreds of years. And, as with her CRADLE OF 
 
 life, so with her art — the Greek spirit was to set up a living THE RE- 
 
 ideal of humanism ; to set up also a false ideal, the ideal of NAISSANCE 
 
 Beauty as the aim of Art, which was to hamper her com- 
 
 plete expression, and eventually to fall like a blight upon 
 
 her artistic endeavour — and to balk the endeavour of all 
 
 lands that came under her after-influence. For nothing has 
 
 balked the full utterance of the arts in the succeeding ages, 
 
 and hampered their achievement so wantonly, as this Greek 
 
 falsity that Art is Beauty. 
 
 Italy, then, since the fall of Rome, had been building 
 the Italy of the Middle Ages, mediaeval Italy, using her 
 ancient Roman buildings for quarries wherefrom to take the 
 stone for that building — ^just as her life had filched parts 
 from the life of ancient Rome. Then, towards 1300, came 
 the Gothic love of nature stealing across the Alps out of 
 France and from the Rhine. For he who looks upon the 
 art of Renaissance Italy feels at once that here is something 
 pouring into his sense of vision that no other age had 
 aforetime brought forth. 
 
 To realise the significance of Italian art, it is well also to 
 remember that, at the close of the Middle Ages, the life 
 beyond the death of the body — otherworldliness — the Day 
 of Judgment, or rather, as the Middle Ages grimly put it, 
 the Day of Wrath, " Dies Irae," filled the vision of the 
 Italian. Dante's whole genius was founded upon it — his 
 art thunders it. The theatres made Hell the subject of 
 their dramas. Tortures and the agonies of burning cauldrons 
 drew crowds to the pageant and the play ! So you shall 
 find the art of Florence, from beginning to end, steeped in 
 the inquisitive survey of the emotions in the Day of Wrath; 
 VOL. I — E 33
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN Michelangelo putting the crown to his and Italy's achieve- 
 OF ment in a vast Day of Judgment. The several circles of hell 
 
 MODERN roused the painters to continued illustration. And the very 
 PAINTING Christ loomed to them as the Judge to whom even the 
 Madonna kneels at the dread bar of Final Justice. 
 
 It was the monkish habit that upheld the ascetic over 
 the worldly life — as though to discipline men's passions 
 with the fear of death ever before their eyes. Thus, side 
 by side, even whilst Boccaccio's tales and Petrarch's sonnets 
 sound the blithe note of the coming era, the Italian genius 
 is weighed down by the desolate nightmare that was the 
 gift of the Middle Ages — Death busy with his sickle 
 amongst young men and maids, rich and poor, with the 
 wrath of God beyond and inevitable. Surely Boccaccio in 
 the garden, beguiling the youths and damsels amidst the 
 roses, while the plague roams outside the gates, bears 
 something of the symbol of the Renaissance in Italy ! It 
 was a dramatic age — and the drama uttered itself in 
 painting. 
 
 The grim and savage sternness of the Middle Ages 
 burst through the gates of the dawn of the Renaissance, 
 joined hands with Romance and antique Paganism, and ran 
 riot through the Renaissance. 
 
 So, too, the Church. The Middle Ages left a heritage 
 of two vast contending forces to the Renaissance. On the 
 one hand the sweet bequest of Saint Francis of Assisi, 
 beautiful and exquisite, gentle and tender, loving beast and 
 flower and all created things, redolent of charity and 
 mildness, generosity and love ; on the other Saint Dominic, 
 the remorseless foe of all heresies, the warlike and aggressive 
 lord of dogma, " the holy athlete, gentle to his own, and 
 to his foes cruel " of Dante's phrase — he who dealt out 
 butcheries and burnings to save the soul of man. For 
 
 34
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 St. Francis, love ; for St. Dominic, wrath — the old conflict OF THE 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Gospels, the CRADLE OF 
 eternal problem. So the punning monks did call the THE RE- 
 Dominicans Domini canes — the black and white hounds J^^ISSANCE 
 hunting heretic wolves. 
 
 Again, it must be borne in mind that the Italians of 
 the Renaissance expressed their genius, their hopes, their 
 aims, their ambitions, their life, in terms of art — above all, 
 in the art of painting. The Italian peoples, their habits, 
 their manners, their everyday life, uttered themselves forth 
 artistically. The land was ablaze with splendid ceremonial; 
 magnificence paraded itself everywhere ; the heads of the 
 great families kept vast armies of retainers arrayed in fine 
 armour and gorgeous liveries, their houses sumptuously 
 built and decorated, their furniture elaborate ; every article 
 of domestic use aimed at the beautiful — cups, tankards, 
 platters, door-handles, knockers, beds, coverlets, trunks, 
 tables, everything. From the Pope upon St. Peter's chair 
 to the clerk in the city, all played at the splendid pageant 
 of life — each was picturesque. Wars were waged as a 
 mighty pageant, with elaborate laws and formalities and 
 etiquette — and marchings and countermarchings hither and 
 thither, drums beating, banners flying, trumpets sounding. 
 
 35
 
 PAINTING 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE RENAISSANCE DAWNS OVER CENTRAL ITALY 
 
 THE DAWN He who would grasp the significance of the Renaissance 
 OF of the arts in Italy would do well first to set the shape of 
 
 MODERN Italy in the mirror of his mind. As schoolboys have it, 
 Italy lies like a long jack-boot upon the waters of the 
 Mediterranean. The Alps, sweeping round the northern 
 boundaries of Italy, curve down southwards to separate 
 France from Her ; turn eastwards, skirting the edge of the 
 Gulf of Genoa ; then strike southwards to make the backbone 
 of Italy as the Apennines, no longer hugging the shore, but 
 running towards the heel of Italy athwart the land, then 
 having near touched the eastern coast at the boot's ankle, 
 they change their intention, and run down to the toe of 
 the boot. This backbone of Italy divides the northern 
 lowlands of Lombardy and Venice from the Tuscan 
 lowlands of western mid-Italy ; and to the cities of these 
 two lowlands, north and south of the Apennines, came the 
 wondrous blossoming and flowering of the arts of the 
 Renaissance. Of a truth, this shaping of her surface not 
 only influenced her arts, but largely affected her troublous 
 and strenuous history, and shaped her destinies. 
 
 The history of Renaissance Italy is a very intricate 
 affair, since it is the history of rival towns and rival 
 families — not the history of a people. The art of the time 
 has fallen into this complexity and become as a puzzle, 
 largely due to the utterly false system of attributing to each 
 town an art of its own. The art of Italy, as a matter of 
 fact, is but the art of three great movements — the art of 
 
 36
 
 PAINTING 
 
 Venice in the north, and the art of Central Italy, which THE RE- 
 
 had its two homes, the one in Florence and the other NAISSANCE 
 
 alongside in Siena, which spread to neighbouring Umbria, DAWNS 
 
 making its home in Perugia. All other Italian art arose out OVER 
 
 of these three great centres — Venice, Florence, and Umbria. ^-^^ ^ KAL 
 • • ITALY 
 
 Sometimes the issue is confused by talk of " the school 
 
 of Milan," but this was simply, as we shall see, the school 
 
 of Florence, taken thither by Leonardo da Vinci. And so 
 
 with the others. 
 
 Another source of confusion is the idea that the art 
 of the Renaissance arose in Italy out of Greece ; that it 
 flourished in Italy ; then passed to the north and west. It 
 did no such thing. The Renaissance began along the 
 Rhine at the same time as in Italy. The Flemish and 
 Italian Renaissance acted and counteracted the one on the 
 other, and both had their roots not in Hellas but in the 
 Middle Ages ; both were essentially children of the Middle 
 Ages, but both were affected in the schoolroom by the 
 antique governess. 
 
 Unless this essential fact be grasped and held, no man 
 shall understand the significance either of the Renaissance 
 or of its artistic utterance. 
 
 What fairy godmother watched over Venice and 
 Florence, over Siena and Perugia, who shall tell .? We 
 can but shrug the shoulder of surprise that Genoa, despite 
 her wide sea-intercourse with the world, and situate near 
 Carrara's famed marble quarries — that Rome, the centre of 
 the age and the shrine of the art-student and the traveller 
 — that Piedmont and Liguria, Naples and the South, 
 remained wholly barren of the creators of art. Whilst 
 Venice sang the glory of the world and the splendour of 
 life in oil-painting, Florence gave forth in fresco the tragic 
 intensity of life, founded on the grim and stern spirit of the 
 
 37
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE DAWN prophets, felt with an almost Greek fatalism ; and pietistic 
 OF Siena and Umbria, stirred by the gentle and gracious spirit 
 
 MODERN of St. Francis from Assisi, hymned the religious fervour 
 rAlNllJNCj ^^^^ comes from spiritual contemplation and the consolation 
 of the Gospels. 
 
 To Tuscany, then, it were well first to turn. Painting 
 began as the servant of the Church — her sole theme the 
 thought of the mediasval church. The painters, employing 
 nature to give visual form to their art, became masters of 
 natural forms ; mere vague mystic dreams gave way to 
 realism. The artist began early to find that there were far 
 wider emotions than such as were aroused by worship ; he 
 speedily became secular. The rapid increase of the power 
 of the great families soon saw the artists adorning the 
 palaces. The classical revival and interest in antique thought 
 that began to grip the imagination of men about the 
 middle fourteen-hundreds, still further increased the secular 
 aim of the painter. As the fourteen-hundreds ran out, 
 politics and social life, to the very inmost sanctuaries of 
 the great Church itself, rapidly lost religious fervour and 
 the simple mediaeval faith ; the old sense of morality was 
 loosened, and took on the more pagan ideals of the antique 
 Greek ; and a humane paganism and State-Christianity 
 went to their wedding. By the year 1500 the mightiest 
 masters of the art of painting in the Renaissance wrought 
 a splendid art, that proved the age to be neither wholly 
 Christian nor wholly heathen, but learned and intensely 
 human. Yet even as she uttered her supreme song, the end 
 was near for Italy. She flung away her liberty in the false 
 glamour of the splendour of her great families, who, under 
 the forms of liberty, reduced her to slavery and filched her 
 strength. 
 
 38
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OF THE ITALY INTO WHICH THE RENAIS- 
 SANCE CAME 
 
 Out of the vast confusion and tangle of the end of the OF THE 
 
 Middle Ages rises this Renaissance — an era not over easy ITALY IN- 
 
 exactly to define. If by the Middle Ages we mean the TO WHICH 
 
 period which follows the breaking up of the Roman Empire THE RE- 
 
 bv the invasion of the Germanic barbarian hordes from the AlbbANLhi 
 
 . . O A IVIT'' 
 
 north, and the forming, out of these barbarian peoples, of the 
 
 great nationalities that we now call Europe, then let us grasp 
 
 the main ideas which constitute medievalism. First of all, 
 
 the modern nations — the French, English, Spanish, and the 
 
 like — only became conscious of their unity at the end of 
 
 the Middle Ages. Christendom in the Middle Ages was 
 
 a single state under two great heads, the Pope and the 
 
 Emperor. And Christendom was in practice a huge Feudal 
 
 system, founded on the tenure of the land and on military 
 
 service, whereby each class had rights and duties to the 
 
 other — industry had small place in it — and the code of 
 
 conduct consisted in the fantastic and romantic rules and 
 
 customs called Chivalry. This Chivalry was as universal 
 
 as Christianity, and so little national was it, that a French or 
 
 Italian knight were more akin, and had more in common, 
 
 than they had with the citizen or peasant of their own land. 
 
 Then, the individual was not the social unit, which was 
 
 rather a corporation, either of the manor, or the municipal 
 
 body, or the guild — the individual had no outlet for his 
 
 activities outside these. Then, it was an age of ignorance. 
 
 39
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN The clergy alone were learned, and that learning was 
 OF severely restricted as to what it uttered forth. Not that 
 
 MODERN the clergy withheld education ; printing was unknown ; 
 PAJNllNCj ^^^ ^YiQ small literature produced was written in Latin 
 on parchments. The learned themselves were therefore 
 grossly given up to superstition. 
 
 The Renaissance saw the whole fabric of the Middle Ages 
 come to an end — it set a file to cut the fetters from liberty 
 of thought and liberty of inquiry. It dawned in the twelve- 
 hundreds, and shed its light over the thirteen-hundreds and 
 fourteen-hundreds, and reached its fulness in the fifteen- 
 hundreds in the wide upheaval of a vast religious struggle. 
 It saw the decay of the Empire and of the Papacy — and 
 with them went the whole tradition, laws, and habits of the 
 Middle Ages. It saw the growth of nationalities. It wit- 
 nessed the rise of national literatures and national churches. 
 It beheld the rise of industry breaking up feudalism 
 and chivalry, and the assailing of aristocratic and ecclesi- 
 astical power by the people. It was racked by the fierce 
 wars of monarchies which founded themselves upon the 
 support of the people, even if, except in England, the 
 monarchs kicked away that support as soon as they had 
 established their power. It was an age of inventions and 
 discoveries — the compass and the astrolabe led the sea-dogs 
 to mighty adventure upon the great waters, so that the 
 keels thrashed out a new water-way to India, and man's 
 daring found a new world across the terrors of the Atlantic, 
 thereby changing the trade-routes of the universe. The 
 discovery of gunpowder blew not only the picturesque 
 armour to pieces but upset the whole art of war, and over- 
 threw the whole system on which feudalism was built — 
 changing the whole form of society, that had heretofore 
 been founded on military service. Printing spread literature 
 40
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 and knowledge across the land. Copernicus overthrew the OF THE 
 
 whole belief in the position of the earth, and brought down ITALY IN- 
 
 the vast structure of superstition with a crash. And mighty TO WHICH 
 
 as was the upheaval, its chief source of inspiration was in THE RE- 
 
 its revival of letters and the utterance of its awakeninp- ^-^I^^ANLh 
 
 CAME 
 energies in the so-called re-birth of Art. 
 
 The recovery of ancient literature fired the ambition of 
 man, arising from the long sleep of the Middle Ages, to 
 desire for individual liberty. Man began to look upon 
 himself as man — Humanism became a god. He read his 
 new needs in the achievements of republican Rome and 
 ancient Greece. Italy, by her position in the waters of 
 the Mediterranean, became the mart of commerce. Her 
 citizens grew to prodigious wealth. And, what is far too 
 much overlooked, she received from the East, through 
 Arabia and Persia, the vast teachings of the great Eastern 
 thought. 
 
 The Church, having its seat in their very midst, by 
 very contact with the Italian peoples, had not the dread 
 terror for them that its commands and threats held for more 
 distant peoples. No man is a hero to his own valet. The 
 thunders that frightened the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria into 
 submission had no terrors for an Italian prince. The legates 
 that bore the papal bull of excommunication to Bernabo 
 Visconti had to eat the parchment and swallow the leaden 
 seal ! But the Pontiffs, so far from checking the new learn- 
 ing and the antique thought, encouraged it and gloried in it. 
 On the other hand, the same familiarity with the Papacy 
 which prevented the Italians from being overawed by the 
 Papal fulminations made them so used to the abuses of the 
 Papal court which set in, that they were not scandalised by 
 them, and took no part in flinging off the yoke, as did the 
 northern peoples. The Popes, also, had added temporal 
 VOL. I — F 4^
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE DAWN splendour to their spiritual supremacy, and vied with the 
 OF great Italian princes in the splendour of their courts and 
 
 MODERN churches and palaces. They became eager patrons of the 
 Renaissance, thereby, unwitting of it, adding force to the 
 movement that was to overthrow the wide authority of 
 Rome over Christendom — just as the nobles of France were, 
 later, to play with philosophy that had popular rights and 
 liberty for its very essence, and, together with the French 
 monarchy, aided the revolt of Britain's American colonists, 
 thereby creating the French Revolution. 
 
 Dante stands in the twilight of the Middle Ages, utter- 
 ing the first new national literature. Dante was essentially 
 of the Middle Ages ; he clung to its faith and its ideals. 
 But by his example he almost set foot on the threshold of 
 the new era. Petrarch, following after, sets the fashion of 
 the sonnet, and his song is passionate with the antique love 
 of liberty and the significance of man as man, which makes 
 him the first of the so-called Humanists. But there wrought 
 side by side with Petrarch a far more significant genius in 
 letters, Boccaccio of the immortal tales of the Decameron. 
 From that garden where the youths and maidens sat and 
 listened to him, whilst he turned their thoughts from the 
 Black Plague that raged through the city, Boccaccio brought 
 the spirit of antique Greece into Italy, and from Italy it 
 spread across the face of the world — for he uttered there a 
 contempt of superstition and a joy of life that meant death 
 to the sombre spirit of the Middle Ages. In far England 
 Chaucer caught the refrain, and brought to birth the 
 Canterbury Tales. Thus the fashion for the ancient literature 
 and works of art grew into a vogue ; and it so chanced that 
 a worthy and somewhat ambitious usurer and banker of 
 Florence, of a house to grow famous as the de' Medici, 
 gathered the learned and the poets and painters and archi- 
 42
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 tects and sculptors about him, and made the City of the OF THE 
 Lilies to blossom with the supreme art of the Italian ITALY IN- 
 Renaissance, so that her fame lives throughout the ages. TO WHICH 
 
 The early fourteen-hundreds saw the collections of THE RE- 
 works of antique literature and art pouring into the land ; ^^ISSANCE 
 the end of the fourteen-hundreds saw men reading and 
 studying them, and forthwith they got to interpreting them 
 and applying them to the problems of their own age. Italy 
 and the world beyond Italy broke asunder. Italy was filled 
 with destructive criticism. Lorenzo Valla attacked the 
 title-deeds of the Popes to worldly power, and the whole 
 church system. Destructive criticism led to the denials of 
 pure negation — and, as ever with mere denial, licence and 
 lack of ideals arose in the land. Beyond Italy, the love of 
 Freedom led to constructive ideals, and created the Reforma- 
 tion. But both the leaders of the Reformation in the north, 
 and the leaders of the chaos in Italy, once established, grew 
 alarmed for themselves, and hurriedly turned against the 
 very spirit of liberty that had created them ; they steeped 
 themselves in a bitter and black Puritanism. Protestantism 
 became extreme, and turned to a Puritanism bitterly opposed 
 to Humanism. Savonarola, the guiding spirit of Catholic 
 Puritanism, as fiercely assailed Humanism. So Florence saw 
 that fantastic festival when the youths and maidens of the 
 city brought out their pictures and jewels and personal 
 decorations, their precious books, and priceless works of art, 
 and flung them into the public bonfires; just as the EngHsh 
 and Dutch Puritans denounced art as the mere love of 
 beauty and carnal pleasure, and, though they had founded 
 their faith in freedom of thought and of soul and of worship, 
 were soon raising as cast-iron a dogma and setting up a 
 State-church as violently intolerant as that against which 
 they had revolted themselves, to become as bitter persecutors 
 
 43
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE DAWN as their persecutors. But, spite of this reaction, the 
 OF Renaissance had added a forward step to man's empire ot 
 
 MODERN liberty of mind, of act, of body and of soul. The 
 PAINTING school arose in every city, whereby became wedded the 
 
 discipline of the free mind and the conscience of the 
 
 individual man. 
 
 +4
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OF THE ITALY IN WHICH THE RENAISSANCE 
 BLOSSOMED 
 
 In the year 962 after Christ, the Roman Empire had OF THE 
 become one with the German crown. It thereby destroyed ITALY IN 
 both realms of its sovereignty. The universal authority WHICH 
 of the Emperor became shadowy, and swiftly passed into THE RE- 
 unreality. The Empire was torn into shreds amidst that T^fTw? 
 tangle of warring princes who created the puzzled night- cniviFn 
 mare of history called the Middle Ages. 
 
 The other great centre of mediaeval power, the Papacy, 
 also declined, even whilst it increased in worldly splendour, 
 losing its world-power by being localised in a little state in 
 Central Italy. Claiming certain lands in Central Italy by 
 virtue of real or pretended donations from the Emperors 
 and others, the Popes made the fatal mistake, backed by 
 the house of Anjou that sat upon the throne of Naples to 
 the south, to temporal dominion over the Romagna, the 
 Pentapolis, the March of Ancona, with the city of Rome 
 and the Campagna. In doing so, they became lords of a 
 little kingdom instead of lords of Christendom. Their 
 alliance with the house of Anjou soon became a masked 
 servitude to the patronage of that house. The troubles of 
 temporal rule plunged the Popes into secular affairs, to the 
 loss of their spiritual power. The Popes were always old 
 men, and their tenure of office was brief. Not only did 
 secular affairs take their interest from high spiritual affairs, 
 but it lowered them in the eyes of Europe. Thus, they 
 
 45
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN became associated with the mere lordship of a petty Italian 
 OF state, and their great position was wholly degraded by it, 
 
 MODERN exactly as the Empire was degraded the moment it became 
 a mere German monarchy. I am now using the term 
 " degraded " as meaning degradation of power. We shall 
 see how the Pontiffs, in proportion as they became little 
 kings of Central Italy, also became degraded in ethics 
 during the Renaissance. 
 
 This loss of a great central power by the retirement of 
 the Emperor to a little German court, and by the ambition 
 of the Popes to found a little Central Italian kingdom, 
 broke Italy into a large number of warring states, out of 
 which emerged Naples to the south, with the house of 
 Anjou as its sovereign ; the duchy of Milan in Lombardy 
 to the north, with its dominant family of the Visconti ; the 
 republic of Florence, with its dominant family of the 
 merchant princes of the Medici ; the great Republic of 
 Venice, and the lesser Republic of Genoa ; and the domina- 
 tion of lesser states by great families, such as the House of 
 Este in Ferrara, the della Scala in Verona, the Gonzaga 
 in Mantua, the Montefeltri in Urbino, with all their constant 
 broils and everlasting quarrels. 
 
 And by no means the least fantastic paradox of the 
 Renaissance in Italy, which was one vast paradox, is the 
 pathetic fact that whilst Italy created the art of writing 
 history again with reasoned grip of the action and counter- 
 action of policies, whilst she taught all Europe the science 
 of politics, as well as the arts of letters and painting, whilst 
 she rid human thought of superstition and scholasticism, 
 she was herself wholly unable to benefit from the lessons 
 that she taught. France, England, and Spain were born 
 out of the nationalism she taught, and became strong ; 
 whilst Italy remained a chaos — the cockpit of the wars. 
 
 46
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 The causes were many. The long quarrels between OF THE 
 Pope and Emperor had split Italy into the party feuds of ITALY IN 
 Guelf and Ghibelline. These feuds became hereditary. A WHICH 
 more deadly cause of disunion was the fact of the city being THE RE- 
 the unit of poHtical life. For when a great city brought NAISSANCE 
 others into its realm, the lesser cities did not become a part cpjivrc-pj 
 of, or share the equal rights of, the dominant commune — 
 they became essentially a conquered people, not fellow- 
 citizens. Thus the Italians, a proud people, proud of 
 liberty, became a hotbed of discontent, eagerly flocked 
 to the standard of the soldier-adventurers, called condottiert^ 
 who raised mercenary armies for the services of such princes 
 or republics as offered the highest wage ; and it was 
 exactly this population which eagerly welcomed all foreign 
 invasion as a means of escape from domestic tyranny — thus 
 the sense of nationality simply was not. 
 
 The house of Anjou, lords of Naples, the head of the 
 Guelfs, looked like dominating Italy, when, in Sicily, the 
 brutal insult to a woman by a French soldier during the 
 procession of Easter Monday, on the 30th of March 1282, 
 provoked a sudden rising at Palermo, and the people, with 
 shouts of " Death to the French ! " massacred over four 
 thousand men, women, and children that evening in the 
 terrible tragedy known as the Sicilian Vespers, which lost 
 Sicily to the House of Anjou. 
 
 So far for the kingdom of Naples to the south. The 
 Papal States need not detain us long. With the de- 
 parture of the Popes to Avignon, and the seventy years of 
 their so-called " Babylonish Captivity," we are not here con- 
 cerned. It is enough to realise that the Popes, now being 
 petty potentates of Central Italy, and hereditary succession 
 to their lordship being impossible owing to their vow of 
 celibacy, the vice of nepotism became rife, and the Popes, 
 
 47
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN being old men on election, had to make the most of a short 
 OF tenure of power for the aggrandisement of their families. 
 
 MODERN Nicolas iii. (i 277-1 280) increased the power of his great 
 PAINTING House of the Orsini ; Honorius iv. (1285-1287) exalted 
 his family, the Savelli, at the cost of the Orsini ; Nicolas iv. 
 (i 288-1 292) raised the Colonna. The thirteen-hundreds 
 saw Rome torn with the bitter feuds of these great baronial 
 houses ; the effect on the spiritual and temporal dignity of 
 the Popes was wholly disastrous. The Conclave of Cardinals 
 henceforth became the cockpit of their intrigues. The 
 Popes, in their quarrels with the Emperors, had nursed the 
 growth of nationalities in the north-west, only thereby to 
 forge the deadliest weapons against their successors. Boni- 
 face VIII. (i 294-1 303), the ablest pontiff of his times, 
 unable to see the overwhelming force that was being born 
 in nationalisation, found himself treated with contempt by 
 Edward i. of England, backed by his Parliament — and by 
 Philip IV. of France, backed by his States-General. The 
 French king seized the Pope, whose humiliation broke his 
 pride in death. Then began the withdrawal of the Popes 
 from Rome, which ended in the exile of seventy years to 
 Avignon, and their subjection to French policy. 
 
 Tuscany, lying to the north-west of the Papal States, 
 was a group of city-states, mostly republics, subject to 
 despots. Of these by far the greatest was Florence, 
 destined to become queen of all Tuscany. To the 
 south was Siena. The great port of Pisa was declining, 
 owing to her defeat by Genoa in 1284. Lucca showed 
 plucky resistance from time to time to the tyranny of 
 Florence. 
 
 Florence was to become the hub of Central Italy's great 
 achievement in art and letters in the Renaissance, her only 
 rival the great republic of Venice in the north. No city 
 
 48
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 had suffered more from the wrangles of Guelf and OF THE 
 GhibeUine ; and in Florence their bitterness and hatred was ITALY IN 
 increased by the fact that they tallied with class hatred. The WHICH 
 feudal nobles were GhibeUine ; the merchant princes Guelf, '^^^ RE- 
 siding therefore with the Popes. On the defeat of Manfred r/^q!^^^^^ 
 in 1266, Florence became Guelf for the rest of her career, comfd 
 The Guelf sway, at first moderate and pacific, was changed 
 by the news of the Sicihan Vespers of 1282 — the Guelfs 
 taking alarm and changing the constitution, out of which 
 arose four orders in Florence — (i) the nobles, (2) the seven 
 greater guilds, (3) the fourteen lesser guilds, and (4) the 
 ordinary citizens, who were without machinery for self- 
 government or influence on public afi^airs. The nobles 
 could come to office by joining a guild ; but had to practise 
 the trade or craft — otherwise they were shut out of office, 
 and sufi^ered many humiliations. The head officer of the 
 state, called gonfalonier, was elected by the signory of the 
 guilds, was in command of a large force of infantry, and 
 was elected for two months. The harshest penalty there- 
 fore was to ennoble a citizen ; the greatest honour to a noble 
 was to degrade him to citizen. The signory were given a 
 fortified Public Palace. 
 
 Though the actual conduct of affairs was in the hands 
 of a plutocracy, real power was with all the citizens in 
 mass meeting in the great piazza called a parlamento. 
 
 The disastrous war of 1321 with Lucca showed the 
 weaknesses of a two-months government ; and a system of 
 secret ballots was soon created, and the squittino, or scrutiny 
 every two years, was applied. A list of all citizens qualified 
 for office was drawn up ; their names put to the ballot 
 by the committee of the signory for the time being, the 
 black and white beans fell, and such names as received two- 
 thirds black beans were put in the bags from which vacancies 
 VOL. I — G 49
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN were filled as they arose. It followed that the committee 
 OF of signory in power largely controlled the names in the 
 
 MODERN bags. By 1323, then, Florence was governed by a gon- 
 PAINTING falonier of justice, six priors, and twelve buonuomini, who 
 were the privy council to the signory. But it was com- 
 plicated by a series of subordinate magistracy who greatly 
 confused all issues. 
 
 Genoa played but a small part in the Renaissance, taken 
 up with its incessant family feuds of the Doria and Spinola, 
 and chiefly concerned in creating its vast sea-borne wealth 
 by eastern trading. 
 
 Milan, fast losing its republican independence, was 
 racked with class feuds and cross-racked with family feuds. 
 In 1259 the Guelfs, under their great leader, Martino della 
 Torre, overthrew the Ghibelline nobles, and became lord of 
 the great Lombard city, bringing Lodi, Como, Vercelli, 
 and Bergamo into subjection to him. But the Ghibelline 
 revolution of 1277, under the Archbishop Otto Visconti, 
 set Visconti in the seat of lordship ; from him it passed, 
 on his death, to his nephew Matteo Visconti, founder of 
 the Visconti dynasty of Dukes of Milan, which, however, 
 was not yet to be, the Guelfs first, for a short while, restoring 
 their line, bringing Guido della Torre to rule in Milan. 
 
 The fortunes of Venice we will follow later, in her 
 great art achievement — such worlds apart from that of 
 Florence. 
 
 So for some sixty years the affairs of Italy had drifted 
 towards the rule of local despots, when the Emperor, 
 Henry vii., decided on his hopeless scheme of restoring 
 the empire throughout Italy. He but clutched at a 
 shadow. His policy of moderation was carried out. As 
 he passed through the cities of Lombardy, he recalled all 
 50
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 exiles of whatever party. On receiving the Iron Crown OF THE 
 
 of Lombardy at Milan, on the 6th of January 1311, he ITALY IN 
 
 recalled Matteo Visconti without setting aside Guido della WHICH 
 
 Torre. But his moderation fell upon stonv ground in ^"^^ ^^~ 
 
 NAISSANCP 
 Italy. Milan rose against his levy for money ; it ended 
 
 in disaster, and Guido della Torre and his house were cqaafd 
 driven into exile, the Guelfs were put down with a stern 
 hand, and Matteo Visconti was again established as lord 
 of Milan, thus creating the dynasty of the Visconti, which 
 ruled Milan for a century and a half. 
 
 Thenceforth the dream of Henry vii. vanished into 
 smoke. On his southward journey the Guelf city of 
 Florence refused to admit him or his troops, and he had 
 to pass aside on his wayfaring to Rome. Finding Rome 
 in possession of the Guelf Orsini, and seeing that a battle 
 must be fought before he could be crowned in St. Peter's, 
 he was crowned instead at St. John Lateran, on the 29th 
 of June 1 3 1 2. Convinced now that Italy could only be 
 reduced by war, his line of communication with Germany 
 threatened by the Guelfs in the north, Henry decided to 
 strike at the Guelf cause in Florence. But he arrived 
 before the city's walls in the September of 1312, to find 
 them too strong. He withdrew to Pisa to await reinforce- 
 ments, as the king of Naples was advancing to the support 
 of Florence. He had commenced his march to attack 
 the Neapolitan army when he died suddenly of fever at 
 Buonconvento, twelve miles from Siena, on August 24, 
 131 3, supposed to have been poisoned by a Dominican 
 monk in giving him the sacrament. So vanished the 
 Emperor's and Dante's dream of the Holy Roman Empire. 
 For several years the Popes had departed to the banks of 
 the Rhone. Italy, freed from her two great masters, fell 
 apart, and the thirteen-hundreds show the rise of the 
 
 51
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN despots — the lesser states fell under the dominion of their 
 
 OF more powerful neighbours, and thus arose the five great 
 
 MODERN powers whose fierce motives create the story of the century. 
 
 The later invasions from the north, first of Lewis of Bavaria 
 
 and then of John of Bohemia, with their German legions, 
 
 to establish the empire, equally failed. 
 
 The despot Visconti in Milan, and Delia Scala in 
 Verona, overthrew republican independence in the cities 
 of Lombardy. The Papal States were governed by legates 
 of the Popes, though these were constantly assailed by 
 Ghibelline despots in the several cities. 
 
 Florence remained republican. It must be remembered 
 that to an Italian patriotism meant nothing. A Florentine 
 was a Florentine only. Outside that, Italy meant nothing 
 to him. A man of Milan or Venice was as much a 
 foreigner to him as was a Frenchman. He had no sense 
 of shame in calling in the French to assist him against 
 another Italian city. 
 
 The humiliating defeat of Florence by Pisa in 1341, 
 and the loss of Lucca, made the citizens in an evil moment 
 call in the foreigner Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, 
 as dictator. But ten months of despotism roused the 
 liberty-loving Florentines. The fall of the Duke of 
 Athens led to the further democratisation of Florence. 
 
 Unfortunately, the martial vigour that overthrew the 
 Duke of Florence was not common in Italy, and was soon 
 also to pass from Florence herself. The thirteen-hundreds 
 saw a change come over the military training of Italy, 
 which was to be disastrous to her liberties. During the 
 two centuries just past, the whole of the male population 
 had been trained as a militia. It was a citizen army, and 
 was the finest security for political liberty. Directly the 
 despots arose, their first concern was to disarm the citizen, 
 
 52
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 and to hire alien troops who had no sympathy with the OF THE 
 people whatsoever. The invasions of Henry vii., Lewis of ITALY IN 
 Bavaria, and John of Bohemia had left a horde of German WHICH 
 adventurers behind, willing to take Italian wage ; and these THE RE- 
 men passed into the bodyguards of the despots. The NAISSANCE 
 republics found themselves compelled to do the same, as ^^^^" 
 their citizen infantry were no match for these heavily 
 armed cavalry. Wars were become elaborate affairs — the 
 short sharp city fight was gone, and citizens could not 
 afford the time for campaigning. The Florentines followed 
 the fashion. Thus, until gunpowder came to blow the 
 business to pieces, great hired armies of heavy cavalry 
 became the fashion. The leaders of these mercenaries 
 soon became conscious of the power that they held ; they 
 created armies and lived upon the unwarlike states, reach- 
 ing to wealth and power by hiring their services to the 
 highest bidder. One of the most picturesque of these 
 warriors who poured into Italy to the great looting was 
 the famous Englishman, John Hawkwood, whom the 
 Florentines called Giovanni Acuto, and who, with his 
 White Company, was famed for his high honour and good 
 faith, to which the Florentines bore handsome witness by 
 giving him a tomb and monument in the Duomo. 
 
 The later thirteen-hundreds saw the Italians themselves 
 taking to the game oi condottieri. Thus in 1379 was formed 
 the famous company of St. George by Alberigo da Barblano, 
 a noble of Romagno, to which only Italians were admitted, 
 and which produced Braccio and Sforza, the two great 
 Italian commanders of the fourteen-hundreds. 
 
 The thirteen-hundreds beheld Florence rent with con- 
 tinual strife of class against class, and family against family, 
 for power. The expulsion of the Duke of Athens saw 
 
 SI
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN the Ghibelline nobles of Florence deprived of all power, 
 3F which passed to the two orders of the Greater and the 
 
 MODERN Lesser guilds. The Greater guilds decided to seize power 
 PAINTING i^y stealth. By the law of 1301, any person accused of 
 being a Ghibelline was not to hold office. To carry this 
 out, the Ostracism was created in Florence, whereby a 
 charge brought against any man, supported by six wit- 
 nesses, compelled the priors to strike the name of the 
 accused from public service. The wealthy burgess class 
 of the greater guilds forthwith systematically struck off 
 the names of all men of the lesser guilds who came up 
 for office. But the plutocrats had no sooner won to 
 power than the family feud of the Albizzi and the Ricci 
 broke out. The Albizzi got the whip hand of the Ricci 
 by applying the " admonition " of Ghibellinism against 
 them ; until, by 1 378, the rejected had grown into so 
 strong a party that they were becoming dangerous. The 
 Albizzi had become reckless. In May, Salvestro de' Medici, 
 of the Ricci faction, was drawn as gonfalonier ; but retired 
 on the outburst of a revolt of the people, headed by the 
 Ricci ; the mob swept all before it, under the leadership of 
 the noble-hearted and great-souled Michel Lando, a poor 
 woolcomber of the people, who was made gonfalonier, 
 restored order, extended democracy, and having proved 
 himself a statesman, modestly retired from office. A violent 
 reaction in 1382, however, undid all the good, and brought 
 the Albizzi back to power. 
 
 From 1382, for fifty years, Florence came under the 
 power of an ever-narrowing oligarchy. Under the resolute 
 guidance of this oligarchy, however, Florence heroically 
 fought Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan, and saved the 
 city. She added to her dominions. 
 
 54
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 The vital essence of the Florentine's life was his love OF THE 
 of liberty. A large body of the rejected merchants, to- ITALY IN 
 gether with the whole people, bitterly resented the pluto- WHICH 
 cratic manipulation of the government by lot under the ^^,,„ ^~ 
 Albizzi. The burden of taxation fell terribly upon the 
 people — as it always does upon the governed. The cause cQjyiFD 
 of the people grew to be associated with the family of the 
 Medici. In the fourteen-hundred-and-twenties, Giovanni 
 de' Medici, a money-changer and rich banker, was grown 
 to be regarded as the leader of the popular party. He was 
 the richest man in Florence. He bought popularity with 
 astute caution. He died in 1429, leaving two sons, Cosimo 
 and Lorenzo. 
 
 The defeat of the Florentines under Malatesta at 
 Zagonara in 1424, shook the Albizzi influence. Rinaldo 
 degli Albizzi's disastrous and unjust attack on Lucca failed, 
 and further discredited the plutocrats. Cosimo de' Medici 
 boldly came forward as his rival. In the September of 
 1432, Rinaldo determined on violence, seized Cosimo de* 
 Medici, and tried him for his life. The Medici moneys 
 bought the magistracy ; he was exiled for ten years to 
 Padua, and Lorenzo for five years to Venice. But Rinaldo 
 alienated the plutocrats by fearing to abolish the Medicean 
 income-tax of a seventh of all incomes, which hit the rich 
 as much as the poor. His disastrous defeats in war brought 
 about a rising of the people ; the Medici were recalled ; 
 and Rinaldo and his son and about seventy partisans were 
 banished — few ever saw Florence again. 
 
 COSIMO DE' MEDICI 
 
 Cosimo de' Medici entered Florence on the 6th of 
 October 1434; and from that day the history of the city, 
 for three hundred years, is the history of the Medici. 
 
 55
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN Cosimo de' Medici was a man of infinite craft. He 
 OF slowly and stealthily acquired supreme power, by every 
 
 MODERN outward show of democracy. All outward pride of 
 PAINTING despotism he carefully avoided. He lived in his old 
 residence, nor put on richer apparel nor employed more 
 sumptuous forms of living. He won powerful families to 
 his personal service. His policy was a calculated scheme 
 of proscription, but he saw to it that all harsh proposals 
 came not from him but from his followers. He hounded 
 the Albizzi like vermin. He used the taxes, as assassins 
 use the knife, to destroy his enemies. He saw through 
 the conceit of Luca Pitti, employed him to overthrow the 
 liberty of the people, knowing that his elation at the act 
 would ruin him. By the grim irony of events, Pitti built 
 his famous palace on the hill of San Giorgio, south of the 
 Arno, which was to become the home of the Grand Dukes 
 of Tuscany ! He set aside the ancient enmity of Milan by 
 financing Francesco Sforza, who thus came to the lordship 
 of Milan in 1450. 
 
 PIERO DE' MEDICI 
 
 Cosimo de* Medici's death in 1464 left his only 
 surviving son, Piero, in power. Piero was middle-aged 
 and in feeble health ; and his five years of rule saw the 
 split in the Medicean party, whereby Pitti, Veroni, 
 Acciaiuoli, and Soderini withdrew from Piero's support. 
 From Pitti's huge palace this party was nicknamed the 
 Mountain^ the Medici party the Plain. But Piero's son, 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, was early to prove his capacity. 
 Saving his father from an ugly ambush, the opposing party 
 were overthrown by astute statecraft, and 1468 saw the 
 Medici established in possession of Florence. On the 
 death of Piero de' Medici, on the 3rd of December 1469, 
 
 56
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, his son, only in his twenty-first year, OF THE 
 was acclaimed fit to exercise the power of his father and ITALY IN 
 grandfather ; and, after a becoming show of modesty, WHICH 
 accepted the burden. He was now as much Duke of THE RE- 
 
 Florence as though he bore the title. NAISSANCE 
 
 ^ BLOS- 
 
 LORENZO DE' MEDICI SOMED 
 
 Lorenzo boldly assumed the bearing of a prince, married 
 into the princely Roman family of the Orsini, and estab- 
 lished a magnificent court. He became a patron of art 
 and letters. He foolishly broke with the tradition of his 
 house, and made overtures to his ancient enemy, Venice; 
 the which alienated his old ally, the king of Naples. His 
 rapid seizure of offices of state aroused the rivalry of the noble 
 house of the Pazzi. In 1478 a conspiracy was headed by 
 Jacopo Pazzi, and secretly supported by Pope Sixtus iv. and 
 the king of Naples, whereby Lorenzo de' Medici and his 
 brother Giuliano de' Medici, beloved of the people, were 
 to be assassinated. Mercenaries were hired, headed by 
 Giovanni Battista da Montesecco, to slay the brothers and 
 seize the magistracy. It was essential to kill both brothers. 
 At last the chance came on Sunday the 26th of April 1478, 
 when, both brothers being present in the cathedral, the 
 elevation of the Host was made the signal to strike. 
 Montesecco refused to commit sacrilege by shedding blood 
 in a church ; and two priests took his place. They had 
 not the skill. At the tinkling of the altar-bell, Giuliano 
 was struck down, Francesco Pazzi dealing the death-blow. 
 But Lorenzo, wounded in the shoulder, escaping in the 
 scuffle, reached the sacristy, where his followers slammed 
 the bronze doors in the face of the murderers. Archbishop 
 Salviati, who had gone to the Palazzo to direct the seizure 
 of the magistrates, showed such eagerness that he was 
 VOL. I — H 57
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE DAWN suspected and bound, with his followers. Vengeance was 
 OF swift and terrible. Jacopo Pazzi, rushing into the street, 
 
 MODERN led a procession shouting "Liberty! "; but the people turned 
 PAlNTlNCj Qj^ ^j^j seized the leaders and hustled them to the palace. 
 News arriving that Giuliano was dead, ropes were put about 
 the necks of Francesco Pazzi, the Archbishop of Pisa, and 
 the other prisoners, and they were hanged forthwith from 
 the windows. The family of the Pazzi, except Guglielmo, 
 who had married Lorenzo's sister, were blotted out. The 
 two priests were dragged forth from the sanctuary of a 
 monastery to which they had fled, and were barbarously 
 murdered by the mob. Montesecco, who had hurried 
 from Florence, was overtaken, and after giving evidence of 
 the Pope's complicity, was executed. Not one of the 
 murderers escaped. One who had fled to Constantinople 
 was t"acked by a spy, brought back, and publicly executed. 
 The dastardly affair established Lorenzo in the hearts 
 of the people. But Rome and Naples hurled their vast 
 resources against him and Florence. In spite of a splendid 
 resistance, Florence lay at the mercy of the investing troops, 
 when Lorenzo decided on an heroic act. In the December 
 of 1479, he determined to save the city that had fallen 
 upon evil days for his sake. He set out for Naples, to 
 make his peace with Ferdinand, the king, hoping to show 
 that he repented of his Venetian folly. He was com- 
 pletely successful. 
 
 Thence, Lorenzo never looked back. He became for 
 twelve years the first statesman in Italy. 
 
 In 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici died. It was the year of 
 the discovery of America ; the year of the conquest of 
 Granada ; the year that Alexander vi. was elected Pope of 
 Rome — one of the most momentous years in the history 
 of the world. 
 S8
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 THE FOLLIES OF THE SECOND 
 PIERO DE' MEDICI 
 
 The fate of all Italy hung in the balance, OF THE 
 
 And there succeeded to Lorenzo the Magnificent his ITALY IN 
 vulgar, foolish, and brutish son, Piero de' Medici. The WHICH 
 
 despotism of the Medici rested on statecraft alone — no ^^^ ^^" 
 
 • u } A ^u ' .u -. D- J J u NAISSANCE 
 
 armies backed their authority. riero was dowered by r>T ^v^ 
 
 every gift of folly to ruin his house ; and he did his best. SOMED 
 
 Swaggering as prince, arrogantly disdainful of citizenship, 
 
 he played the prince with a rattle. An Orsini by his 
 
 mother, and mated to an Orsini, he became the tool of 
 
 Naples, thereby alienating Ludovico Sforza of Milan, and 
 
 driving Sforza into his desperate appeal to France which 
 
 brought Charles viii. and his Frenchmen swarming into 
 
 Lombardy. 
 
 At the coming of the French, our second Piero proved a 
 
 cur ; his flight from Florence brought back a few troublous 
 
 years of republicanism to the city, before she relapsed again 
 
 under the sway of the Medici. 
 
 59
 
 THE PAINTERS OF CENTRAL ITALY
 
 SCHOOL OF SIENA 
 
 D U C C I O 
 
 Before J255 ? _ 131^ 
 
 SiMONE MaRTINX 
 1283 - 1344 
 
 The Lorenzetti Zippo Memmi 
 
 ^- 1357 
 TADDEO DI BARTOLO 
 
 Lorenzo D m e n i c 
 
 Vecchietta di B ar t lo 
 
 1412-1480 1400 - 1449 
 
 ,, I . „ i I Matteo da Siena 
 
 Neroccto Benvenuto Francesco 1435 - UQS 
 
 da Land t da Giovanni di Giorgio 
 
 1447-1500 i436?-i5i9 ,439_,502 
 
 Bernardino 
 
 F U N G A I 
 
 1460-1516 
 
 BAZZI arrives in Sic 
 
 Girolamo Paccliieretto 
 
 delPacchia 1474- 1540 | ' 
 
 '^""-'535-^ Baldassare Domenico 
 
 Peruzzi Beccafumi 
 
 1481-1537 1485-1531
 
 FLIT 
 THROUGH 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WHEREIN WE SEE THE RENAISSANCE FLIT 
 THROUGH SIENA 
 
 Legend long gave to Florence the first Italian painter of WHEREIN 
 genius. Some Byzantine painters, so 'twas vowed, had WE SEE 
 been called to Florence about 1260, and set aflame the THE RE- 
 genius of Cimabue, who created the Italian art ; and he, J^^j^^^^"^^^^ 
 wandering amongst the hills about Florence, found a 
 shepherd lad, Giotto, scratching the forms of sheep upon ctVma' 
 a rock, and straightway brought him to his house and 
 taught him the ways and craft and mysteries of an artist. 
 Part of these pretty tales is fabled romance. Cimabue was 
 a w^orker in mosaic, working in the manner of the Byzan- 
 tines to make pictures by setting small cubes of coloured 
 stones together into a mortared surface of walls and pave- 
 ments. And if, as Dante bears witness, he painted pictures, 
 none have come down to us. At any rate, if they exist, 
 the Rucellai Madonna is not one of them. 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF SIENA 
 
 Early Sienese painting brought forth the first Italian 
 genius. 'Tis true, the first real painter of genius in 
 Florence was Giotto ; but he was not the first genius 
 of painting in Italy. We must go a little farther back, 
 if not greatly farther afield, tu neighbouring Siena, the 
 southern rival city to Florence ; and seek in Siena for 
 Italy's beginnings in the art of painting and for her first 
 genius in Duccio. For, v^hilst Duccio's feet are still 
 
 63
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 firm set on Byzantine ground, his head is raised into the 
 
 Renaissance. 
 
 DUCCIO 
 i255?-i3i9 
 
 It will be remembered that the famed altar-piece of 
 the Rucellai Madonna at S. Maria Novella in Florence 
 was said to have aroused the enthusiasm of the city, but so 
 far from its being the work of Cimabue, it is undoubtedly 
 the work of the Sienese painter, Duccio di Buoninsegna, 
 of the next generation, and but some ten years older than 
 Giotto. This work had a large influence on Florentine 
 painting, and a very considerable influence on the art of 
 the younger man Giotto. 
 
 Duccio di Buoninsegna, who lived from about 1255 
 to 1 3 19, who at any rate was working from about 1280 
 to his death in 13 19, not only was the first master of the 
 Sienese school, but its supreme painter ; and in age the 
 " father of modern painting," since both in Florence as well 
 as his native Siena his influence was very great. He had 
 undoubtedly studied and been trained in the Byzantine 
 tradition of painting. But, fettered as he was, by Byzan- 
 tinism, he was the first Italian to create the picture as 
 a whole, to make figures into pictorial groups — and he 
 did these things with something of grandeur in style, and 
 a certain breadth of handling as regards his use of line 
 and draughtsmanship. Duccio, it may be said, was the 
 first painter to step from the painted illuminations of the 
 Dark Ages, and to employ painting to larger and fuller 
 ends. He put from him the gilt Byzantine backgrounds, 
 and painted in their place architecture and landscape. He 
 made his figures human ; and rid figure and apparel of 
 their Byzantine rigidity. 
 
 Duccio's most famous work is the huge altar-piece, 
 
 64
 
 ri 
 
 SliMONE MARTINI 
 1283 - 1344 
 
 SIENESE SCHOOL 
 
 "CHRIST BEARING HIS CROSS" 
 (Jesus-Christ marchant au Calvaire) 
 
 (Louvre) 
 
 Christ, preceded by the executioner, soldiers, and two children, is bearinor 
 His Cross to Calvary. He is attended by a large crowd, in which may be 
 recognised the Virgin Mary, in blue robes, supported by St. John ; St. 
 Mary Magdalene in red, with her long hair falling over her shoulders, 
 raises her hands in grief. 
 
 Painted in tempera on panel. 10 in. x 4 in. (o"25 x 010).
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 the Maesta, painted on the panels of the reredos for the WHEREIN 
 
 cathedral, to-day in the Opera del Duomo of Siena, which, WE SEE 
 
 being completed in 131 1, was carried through the streets THE RE- 
 
 to be placed in the cathedral on the oth of the Tune of NAISSANCE 
 
 • • . . FLIT 
 
 that year in solemn procession, to the ringing of bells, 
 
 the city making public holiday, all shops and offices closed, cypT^aa 
 and the people turning out in gala dress. And it is likely 
 enough that this event was stolen by Florentine Vasari to fix 
 upon Florence the credit of the Rucellai Madonna^ and, for 
 the same reason, the Florentine probably filched the credit of 
 Duccio, in order to put the picture upon his fellow-towns- 
 man Cimabue. It is at least strange that there is no record 
 of so great an event in the Florentine chronicles of the 
 day — no hint of so important an event amidst the archives 
 that record far lesser things ; still more strange that the 
 procession is repeated detail by detail in Vasari's stolen 
 story. 
 
 After Duccio, Siena brought forth several painters of 
 consequence, of whom his tw^o pupils, Simone Martini, 
 Segna di Buonaventura, the Lorenzetti, and Taddeo di 
 Bartolo are the most famous. 
 
 Simone Martini, born at Siena in 1283, and dying at 
 Avignon in 1344, is best known by his Maesth fresco in 
 the Council Room of the Communal Palace of Siena, and 
 by the equestrian portrait of Guidoriccio da Fogliano. We 
 know from Petrarch that he painted Laura. His fame 
 was wide in his day; and Siena, Pisa, Assisi, Orvieto, 
 Naples, and Avignon hold his work. 
 
 Simone Martini was long confused with his wife's 
 brother Lippo Memmi (dying about 1357), his follower 
 and assistant, who was also the pupil of Duccio. 
 
 Of the two brothers, Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, 
 VOL. I — I 65
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 the last of the Sienese painters of its golden early period, 
 little is known — when they were born or when died — and 
 the influence of Florence is strong upon their artistry. 
 Both wrought their art in Pisa as well as in Florence and 
 Siena. The elder brother Pietro's name is first known in 
 1335; he painted many frescoes, but most have vanished, 
 except in the lower church of S. Francesco at Assisi. 
 Several easel pictures remain. The younger brother, 
 Ambrogio, comes down to us with his masterpiece of the 
 allegorical frescoes of Good and Bad Government in the Hall 
 of Peace at the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, begun in 1337, 
 and completed a couple of years after. 
 
 Of Taddeo di Bartolo (about 1362 to 1422) his 
 most famed painting is the fresco of the Apostles visiting 
 the Virgin in the church of S. Francesco at Pisa, remark- 
 able for its poetic conception of loving adoration, and its 
 movement of floating figures. 
 
 There is something astounding — if aught can astound 
 in Italy of the Renaissance — that Siena, notorious for its 
 vanity, its constant family brawls, its delicate living, should 
 have uttered through its art a passionate piety, a constant 
 religious fervour, were it not that the people were im- 
 pressionable, highly emotional, quickly roused to passion 
 whether of hate or love, whether fierce pietistic ardour 
 or factional violence. 
 
 Siena was to be a bitter rival to Florence; but to 
 fade away before the rapidly increasing greatness of that 
 city. And as with the beautiful old city, so with her 
 workers, who never came to the same splendour as the 
 genius of Florence. But though they fell short of the 
 power of the great Florentines, the rare poetic fervour of 
 the works of genius that her sons brought forth outshines 
 the achievement of Florence in tenderness, exquisiteness, 
 66
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 and passion — in a sense of elegance and a feeling for human WHEREIN 
 
 beauty. They had the decorative vision and instinct for WE SEE 
 
 splendour. And sensitive art, founded on the habit of narra- THE RE- 
 
 tive illustration, which had grown out of the biblical habit -^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 . FLIT 
 
 of the mediaeval church, was theirs always in abundance. 
 
 But they never won to the Florentine grip on the human cipx-A 
 
 figure. They had always a feeling for colour that was 
 
 alien to and lacking in Florence. Her sons essaved to 
 
 utter the greater emotions without disciplining their hand's 
 
 skill to the perfecting of their craftsmanship, and winning 
 
 to command of form ; and the school early fell into decay, 
 
 more concerned with violence of feeling and sentimentality 
 
 than with their power to utter their emotions, so that by 
 
 1400 the genius of Siena had shot its bolt, and had naught 
 
 more to utter. 
 
 Siena, although a Tuscan city like Florence, showed 
 
 from the first an art quite different from that of her great 
 
 rival. Her sense of colour and her pietistic fervour were 
 
 alien to Florence. And the two cities wrought side by side 
 
 a strangely different art, which had as strange influences. 
 
 67
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 OF THE COMING OF ART INTO FLORENCE 
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 To get back to Florence : the Florentines were made of 
 far different stuff from the Sienese. Of the Sienese ecstasies 
 and spiritual exaltation they knew nothing. A sober, sane, 
 and level-headed — indeed calculating — people, they left 
 mysticism to Siena, and prided themselves on knowledge 
 and intellect. 
 
 GIOTTO 
 1266-1337 
 That Giotto was the first Florentine painter of genius 
 there is no question. Some ten years younger than Duccio, 
 whether he were influenced by his Sienese contemporary is 
 not known, but that Rucellai Madonna hotly suggests the 
 likelihood. Whether so or not, the Byzantine influence 
 which Duccio could not wholly rid from himself, Giotto 
 absolutely put from him ; and, by consequence, Giotto, as 
 claimed by the Florentines, may be said to be the first true 
 painter of the Renaissance. Born at Colle, by Florence, in 
 1266, Giotto di Bondone died in 1337. A shepherd's boy 
 he was, and that his gifts were discovered by Cimabue, and 
 that Cimabue took him into his studio, seem to have been 
 true enough, though the influence is hard to discover. He 
 resisted all Byzantine habits and tricks of style ; his life in 
 the open with the flocks he tended had revealed nature to 
 him as his supreme master, and the moods of the hillsides 
 guided him in his art's utterance. In Giotto we have 
 the first clear note of the new spirit that was being breathed 
 68
 
 PAINTING 
 
 across the land. In the work of his hands is seen that grasp OF THE 
 of the figure as a real form, individual and capable of move- COMING 
 ment — to him was revealed the craft to display the body OF ART 
 as being more than a flat decorative surface. Whatsoever ^NTO 
 his v^eaknesses of drawing, if his heads be vulgar and his FLORENCE 
 draperies heavy, at least his direct habit of going straight 
 to nature instead of founding his vision upon, and enslaving 
 his hands to, the tricks of thumb of the Byzantine con- 
 vention, led him to a vigorous and poetic statement and a 
 grip of the essential fact that art is the utterance of life — 
 and his> frescoes of the Lfe of St. Francis at Assisi, as well as 
 the frescoes in the church of Santa Croce at Florence and 
 at Padua, are famous. What he owed to this Cimabue of 
 legend it would indeed be difficult to say ; but what is 
 certain is that he was deeply indebted to the Gothic 
 workers, particularly to the Pisan sculptor Giovanni Pisano, 
 a realist steeped in the Gothic spirit of France and the 
 Rhine, who died in 1329. 
 
 Now, strange as it may seem, the sculptures known as 
 low-reliefs by Giovanni Pisano affected the new revelation 
 in painting more easily than might at first appear. Paint- 
 ing until the end of the Byzantine years, 1300, had con- 
 cerned itself with the flat surface decoration alone. The 
 low-reliefs of Pisano's sculpture, and the daily communion 
 with nature, turned Giotto's eyes to the fact that figures and 
 objects in nature have depths as well as the height and width 
 of the flat surface on which he painted, and the low-reliefs 
 by their play of shadows revealed forms ; and these truths 
 forthwith convinced him that if sculpture in a next-to-flat 
 employment of it could be made to suggest the roundness 
 of the fully sculptured forms, so also could painting on a flat 
 surface be made to suggest depth. 
 
 At once he created the endeavour of painters to paint 
 
 69
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 the figure and the objects in nature, instead of merely being 
 flat to the eye, so that they looked as if one could pass the 
 hand round and about them. In fact, he put forth his 
 cunning of craftsmanship to try and paint on the flat wall or 
 panel in such a way as to suggest the depth of things as 
 they are seen in that equally flat surface, a mirror, and so 
 aroused the illusion as if one could touch the forms, and feel 
 out into the deeps of atmosphere about them. 
 
 Whatever the influences that trained his skill of hand, 
 Giotto's supreme master was Nature. To nature he turned 
 for the forms and colours wherewith to clothe the works of 
 his imagination and whereby to utter that which he felt. 
 
 And now we realise the significance of Dante's oft- 
 quoted couplet, which, whether Dante himself realised its 
 full significance or not, gives just the exact fact that the 
 Middle Ages, and Byzantine Art with them, were flown, 
 and a new and real Art was born. 
 
 Giotto struck at once the wide gamut of art which 
 became so marked a feature of the great Florentines. 
 Dowered with a large intellect, and fitted by strength of 
 body for sustained toil, enthusiastic for his art, he ranged 
 through its several realms, filling Italy with the work of his 
 hands, and creating a vigorous standard for those that came 
 after him. From Padua, where he painted the Legend of 
 Mary and the Life of Christy to Rome, his frescoes adorn near 
 upon every great city. In Florence he designed her beauti- 
 ful bell-tower, and painted the Stories of St. Francis and 
 St. John in the chapel of S. Croce. 
 
 His sound common-sense and genial temper, his wide 
 humour, directed an unwearying energy to astounding 
 achievement, and rid the Florentine genius at its very 
 beginnings from ascetic formalism, taught it to go direct 
 to life for inspiration, and rooted it deep in the dramatic 
 70
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 sense. Thus his greatest gift to Florence was the very OF THE 
 essence of all art — vitality. At once the Madonna is above COMING 
 all things maternal — she smiles upon her babe. He made ^^ ART 
 
 T TVT T^ /~\ 
 
 art human ; and, in the doing, humanised religion. He „ 
 
 . . . ° . FLORENCE 
 
 saw that action and spacing were vital to the pictured 
 
 surface ; he painted before his simple faith had been 
 
 touched by classic doublings ; he painted for a people who 
 
 had no books, who, indeed, could not read — who learnt 
 
 through their vision from pictured things. 
 
 Sculptor, painter, and architect — he designed the 
 
 Campanile in Florence — ranged widely, creating his art 
 
 in Rome, Padua, Verona, Arezzo, Milan, and elsewhere, 
 
 as well as in Florence, his influence became supreme 
 
 throughout the greater part of Italy, and dominated Italian 
 
 art until about 1400. 
 
 THE GIOTTESQUES 
 
 On the death of Giotto, his large empire of the arts fell 
 away amongst his brilliant but less gifted followers, known 
 to history as the Giottesques. Of these the Gaddi of 
 Florence, Giottino, Giovanni da Milano, Bernardo 
 Daddi, Antonio Veneziano, Puccio Capanna, Francesco 
 DA Volterra, Buonamico Buffalmaco, the Spinelli family, 
 Lorenzo Monaco, and the rest, not only show by their names 
 his wide influence, but they carried his message throughout 
 all Italy. They pushed forward his achievement no whit, 
 nor reached to his heights of artistry. Taddeo Gaddi, his 
 favourite pupil and godson, is perhaps the best type of a 
 Giottesque. 
 
 ORCAGNA 
 1308 - 1368 
 
 The greatest of them all was the richly gifted Andrea 
 di Cione, better known as Orcagna, born about 1308, and 
 
 71
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 PAINTING 
 
 dying in 1368, goldsmith, sculptor, architect, and painter, 
 who, a pupil of Andrea Pisano, founded his style of painting 
 on Giotto. Orcagna's altarpiece and frescoes of The Last 
 Judgment and Paradise in S. Maria Novella at Florence 
 prove him also to be not w^ithout a debt to Ambrogio 
 Lorenzetti of Siena by their Sienese sense of beauty and 
 elegance. For Orcagna vv^ould paint Paradise as well as 
 Hell — the beauty of his faces, and his employment of faces 
 in profile, face after face, is very characteristic, giving an 
 effect as of petals of flowers. 
 
 However, if Giotto's influence after his death, during the 
 remaining thirteen-hundreds, saw a tendency to break up 
 into a decadence, if brilliant decadence — that is to say that 
 his followers but developed his manner and saw only 
 through his spectacles instead of going to Nature herself 
 — Giotto's influence must not be dismissed with the 
 Giottesques. The Giottesques, spread thoughout Italy, 
 were ingenious illustrators of the Scriptures, men of con- 
 siderable invention ; but, concentrating their attention on 
 narrative or story, instead of upon life as they saw it, and 
 steeped in the mere tricks of thumb of Giotto, they made 
 no advance upon the art of their master. Nevertheless 
 Giottism, though it looked as though it were to dwindle 
 away in the Giottesques, was to inspire one great artist 
 before it passed away — the monk Fra Angelico da 
 FiESOLE — though in some ways he put back his hand an 
 hundred years into the spirit of Byzantine art, of which 
 Giotto had rid the Italian genius. 
 
 72
 
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 Daniele da Volterra 
 1509 - 1566 
 
 Giorgia Vasari 
 1512 - 1574 
 
 
 
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 FRA ANGELICO 
 1387 - 1455 
 
 "VIRGIN AND CHILD" 
 
 (Uffizi) 
 
 Here we see the gentle friar's simple faith treated with childlike sim- 
 plicity j and it will be noticed that the Child is still treated as a manikin, 
 not as an infant.
 
 4 
 
 o o 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 OF THE TALE OF THE SAINTLY DOMINICAN 
 
 FRA ANGELICO 
 
 1387 - 1455 
 The saintly Dominican, Era Angelico of Fiesole, born in OF THE 
 1387, and dying in 1455, covered by his working life the TALE OF 
 first half century of the fourteen-hundreds. Dominican THE 
 though he was, the gentle and pious art of Era Angelico SAINTLY 
 was superbly fitted to guide painting into the utterance of -^^^^^1- 
 the gentle Christianity preached by St. Francis of Assisi. 
 The simple joys of belief, the very sense of happiness there 
 is in the suffering for one's faith, the exquisite comfort of 
 being of the chosen, these emotions and sensations found 
 their artist in Era Angelico. His was a cloistral soul, rapt 
 in the mystic beatitude of reverent and undisturbed faith in 
 his creed. He accounted it sin to paint from the nude ; 
 and whilst the whole artistry of his age was bent on realism, 
 Angelico sought only to express the soul of man. 'Tis true 
 that his genius is not without insipidity, his sweetness tends 
 to cloy ; his soul remains the soul of a child, and is not 
 above puerility ; and his eyes ranged ever within the 
 narrow parish of the sheltered cloister. But Era Angelico 
 must not be judged solely by the simple little figures of 
 angels and the like, who sing to fragile lutes, winging their 
 simple flight across a peaceful background of gold. He 
 painted demure virgins and angels incapable of sin, until 
 we grow weary of their very goodness ; but he painted also 
 VOL. I — K 73
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 the superb frescoes with which he is far too little associated — 
 his Flight into Egypt is one of the masterpieces of his age ; 
 his exquisite Arinunciation in the Church of Cortona set the 
 style for many a masterpiece of the years to follow ; indeed, 
 The Flight into Egypt proves the good monk a painter of 
 such considerable gifts as are all too often overlooked, both 
 as to the treatment of the human form and of landscape, 
 in both of which he pushed beyond the achievement of 
 Giotto, even if he lacked the power of the greater man. 
 
 Fra Angelico is therefore not a painter lightly to be 
 disposed of as the mere saintly person of the Italian 
 chronicler Vasari. To understand the early dawning of the 
 Renaissance in Italy, it is well to study the significance of 
 the saintly Dominican. 
 
 Fra Angelico is held by some to be the connecting link 
 between the Gothic or Giottesque period of Italian painting 
 and the dawn of the Renaissance. As a matter of fact, the 
 first low light of dawn had flashed across Italian skies over 
 Florence with the coming of Giotto; a century later, 1400, 
 saw Fra Angelico at work in the ever-growing light of that 
 dawn. And his achievement is an epitome of that dawn. 
 That Fra Angelico could rise to the dramatic from his 
 exquisite choirs of angels, he proved in his sublime Trans- 
 figuration in San Marco. 
 
 Born in 1387 at Vicchio, and baptized as Guido, he 
 changed his name to Giovanni (John) on entering the 
 convent at Fiesole as a Dominican in 1407, in his twentieth 
 year. But neither his parents nor he himself were to give 
 him the name by which he was to come to fame. Men 
 called him Fra Angelico — as Vasari's gossip pages hand 
 down to us — in that " he gave his whole life to God's 
 service, and to the doing of good works for mankind and 
 for his neighbour " ; and, adds Vasari, " he was entirely free 
 
 74
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 from guile, and holy in his acts." He " never took a brush OF THE 
 in his hand until he had first offered a prayer ; nor painted TALE OF 
 a Crucifixion without tears streaming down his cheeks." THE 
 
 CAT TVT T* T "V 
 
 Youn? as he was, on joinin? the Dominican order, Fra __, , 
 
 . . DOMINI- 
 
 Angelico had clearly begun his career as painter, probably pAxj 
 
 under the Giottesque painter and miniaturist Lorenzo 
 Monaco. In that pupilage is a large significance. Lor- 
 enzo Monaco (i370?-i425) was a Sienese ; and to such 
 must largely be attributed the Sienese tendency of Fra 
 Angelico's art. It accounts for much in the art of An- 
 gelico that created a side stream in the achievement of 
 Florence, as we shall see ; not only his early work as 
 miniaturist and painter, but his simplicity of colouring and 
 handling of the brush, reveal the style of the illuminators. 
 It was soon after joining the monastery that he painted the 
 frescoes at Cortona and Foligno, going back to Fiesole in 
 his thirty-first year (141 8). 
 
 It was on the edge of his fiftieth year that Fra Angelico 
 went to Florence to the convent of S. Marco, which, at the 
 desire of Cosimo de' Medici, had been given by the Church 
 to the Dominicans ; and here it was, on the walls of the 
 cloisters and cells and chapter-house, that Fra Angelico 
 painted his masterpieces in the great series of frescoes 
 which are a part of the glory of that wonderful city. 
 Ever deeply interested in the art activity of his age, he had 
 now come under the influence of Donatello and Masaccio, 
 and a larger, broader style had entered into his craftsman- 
 ship, though he had not the vigour nor strength to develop 
 his art to their greater range. Just as he had in his heart 
 a hunger for the older miniaturists, so also his sensitive soul 
 made him more akin to the Sienese masters in his tender- 
 ness and his eagerness to catch purity and beauty of form. 
 To spiritual exaltation of an almost feminine intensity he 
 
 7S
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 devoted all his subtle gifts, so that his name is interwoven 
 with the phrases, " angelic choirs " and " beatific visions." 
 The more robust passions and more compelling emotions 
 knew him not — so that when he dares to state a martyrdom, 
 the dramatic sense hangs back and refuses to answer his 
 call. But a vast gulf divides his early from his later work ; 
 and his eager interest in the sculpture of Ghiberti and 
 Donatello, and in the paintings of the Brancacci Chapel by 
 Masaccio, which were about to take Italian art forward in 
 a giant stride, had their effect upon his later years, wherein 
 we see the saintly Dominican step into the light of the 
 increasing dawn of the Renaissance and leave Giottism 
 behind him. 
 
 We shall see Fra Angelico's most famous pupil, Benozzo 
 GozzoLi (born in 1420, and dying near the end of the 
 century, in 1496), prove himself by his frescoes in the 
 Palazzo Riccardi at Florence, and at San Gimignano and 
 at Montefalco in Umbria, one of the most exquisite story- 
 tellers of the Renaissance ; but his naivety could yield only 
 the golden dreams of childhood, and his limits made the 
 boundaries of too slender a world for the adventure of a 
 great artist. 
 
 Indeed, Giottism threatened to end the art of Florence 
 in charming and delicate decadence, as the art of her rival 
 Siena evaporated in mere pietistic illustrations, had it not 
 been for the rise of two Florentine sculptors, Ghiberti and 
 Donatello, and the great genius of the youthful painter 
 Masaccio, steeped in naturalism — going to the vigorous 
 school of nature herself for inspiration, and giving them- 
 selves up to the impressions of nature. 
 
 76
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WHICH TELLS Of THE MIGHT OF HULKING TOM 
 
 The Renaissance has dawned. The smoky twilight still WHICH 
 lingers in the departing shadows of the night of the Middle TELLS OF 
 Ages. But the sun of the Renaissance touches the edge of THE 
 the world with light. MIGHT OF 
 
 We shall see the artists striving henceforth to master ^'^^^^^G 
 the forms of nature — first to utter the depth as of things 
 seen in the mirror of the vision, the roundness of things — 
 and the perspective of things that helps to give this illusion of 
 depth — then the life of the day, dress, portraiture, character. 
 They essay landscape and architecture for backgrounds ; 
 and flowers of the field, beasts and birds, and living things. 
 The Scriptures have to share a place with the legends of 
 ancient Greece and Rome, seen and felt in a romantic mood 
 wholly alien to Greece or Rome. The first half of the 
 fourteen-hundreds prepares the way for the Golden Age of 
 the Renaissance. 
 
 Petrarch in verse had brought humanism into the 
 thirteen-hundreds. The fourteen-hundreds became more 
 worldly. 
 
 MASACCIO 
 
 1401 - 1428 
 Florentine sculpture had its beginnings in Lorenzo 
 Ghiberti (i 378-1465), who was twenty-two when 1400 
 struck. He it was who wrought the bas-reliefs which decorate 
 the famous bronze doors of the Baptistry at Florence, upon 
 which he worked between 1405 and 1452 — one of which 
 
 11
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE doors it was that Michelangelo said was worthy to adorn 
 
 PAINTERS the gates of Paradise. These low-reliefs on the gates of 
 
 OF the Baptistry were to have a wide effect on the whole of 
 
 CENTRAL Florentine art. Some eight years younger than Ghiberti, 
 
 came Donatello (i 386-1466), raising his great statues of 
 
 saints, creating his astounding portraits and low-reliefs, 
 
 and modelling his exquisite busts of childhood with a sense 
 
 of character, and a pure reference to nature, that proved 
 
 his Gothic inspiration. This '* naturalism " breathed the 
 
 breath of life into bronze and marble under his cunning 
 
 of hand ; and his achievement is very Florence in spirit 
 
 and ideals — slender, lithe, sinewy, energetic, and quick 
 
 with expression. In him was an aim the very opposite to 
 
 the classic ideal of antiquity ; and he gave to modern 
 
 sculpture its inspiration. 
 
 Now, it so chanced that there was born in 1401, one 
 Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Guidi, who was to become 
 an astounding genius in painting by his nickname of 
 Masaccio — as we should say, " Hulking Tom " — though 
 his all too short life of twenty-seven years (he died in 1428), 
 and the fact that he wrought his genius in fresco upon 
 the walls, make his mighty art little known outside of 
 Florence. 
 
 Masaccio apprenticed himself to his art very early as a 
 pupil to Masolino. This Masolino (i 384-1435) had been 
 under the Giottesque Starnina, but had rejected the 
 stiffness and stilted action of the Giottesques for a freer 
 naturalness ; indeed, Masolino's Eve, in the Fall of Man at 
 the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, is said to be the first nude 
 female figure painted from the life in modern art. Masolino, 
 however, was unable to rid himself wholly of the medieval 
 shyness to state the full significance of the human figure. 
 For Masaccio was reserved that mighty first endeavour. 
 
 78
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 The naturalism in Hulking Tom, Masaccio, aroused by WHICH 
 Masolino, was set ablaze by the example in sculpture of TELLS OF 
 Donatello ; and, in the famed Brancacci Chapel of the THE 
 Church of the Carmine at Florence, the youthful Masaccio MIGHT OF 
 wrought those world-important frescoes that became the j^h^^ 
 
 virile and far-reaching source of inspiration to the whole 
 of that wonderful Florentine achievement in painting 
 during the fourteen-hundreds. Henceforth the golden 
 dreams of the pietistic illustrators gave way to vigour 
 of handling and unflinching communion with nature. 
 Masaccio was to die in his twenty-seventh year ; but those 
 frescoes of his in the Church of the Carmine at Florence 
 became the school for the astounding achievement of the 
 century. Masaccio, by his forthright vision, by his grasp 
 of form, by his mastery of the human figure, and his sense 
 of depth and volume of the pictured thing, thrust forward 
 the artistry of painting, as revealed to Giotto, in as large a 
 stride as had marked the advance of Giotto out of the 
 formality of Byzantinism. In the full dawning, therefore, 
 of the Renaissance of painting in Italy, stands out the burly 
 figure of Masaccio. In Masaccio the sun of the Renaissance 
 has arisen. 
 
 Suddenly Masaccio left Florence for Rome, whilst at 
 work upon the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel, and he 
 went to his death, for he passed away at Rome in 1428, 
 but in his twenty-seventh year. 
 
 That so young a man should, in the short span of 
 his years, have achieved a master-work of such astounding 
 power as T^e Expulsion from Paradise at the Brancacci 
 Chapel of the Church of the Carmine in Florence is one 
 of the wonders of genius. The superb modelling of the 
 nude Adam and Eve, the sense of flesh and life, the reality 
 of the movement, the dramatic Tightness and force of 
 
 79
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 PAINTING 
 
 gesture and expression, the glowing and mysterious effect 
 of atmosphere, thrust the art of painting forward as by a 
 miracle. The intensity of the sensed thing, the grip of 
 the emotional significance of art, are equalled by the 
 mature skill of hand to utter these subtle significances. 
 Here is no formal illustration of an incident ; but a 
 dramatic transmission into our senses of the tragic intensity 
 of a prodigious art. Through the skilfully created figures, 
 by their action, movement, gesture, and atmosphere, 
 wrought with rare power and cunning of hand, is brought 
 into our sensing the spiritual significance of the greatness of 
 the fall of man. Masaccio, scarce out of his youth, reveals 
 himself a supreme master, gifted with the power to state 
 grandeur and dignity by his arrangements, by his superb 
 draughtmanship and modelling of form, by his consummate 
 selection in gesture, gifted with the skill to do these things 
 in paint as though he were a sculptor of colour, and 
 impelled to his art by a sublime sense of drama. In him 
 is prophecy of the grandeur of Leonardo da Vinci, of the 
 awful sublimity of Michelangelo ; into his hands has been 
 delivered the sceptre that is to make Florence, this city of 
 the lily, the queen of the Italian Renaissance. He took 
 from Giotto the art that had begun to decline through the 
 Giottesques, and he increased its tragic intensity and vigour 
 and truthfulness, and handed it to Italy — a sublime heritage 
 that was to bring to full flower the sombre splendour of 
 Tuscan art. Before his burly figure all insipidity fled ; and 
 in the presence of his majestic genius, at grips with the 
 realities and intensities of life, fragile pietism and the narrow 
 convent ideals were swept away as though they departed 
 into nunneries. 
 
 80
 
 IV 
 
 PAOLO UCCELLO 
 
 1397 - M75 
 
 TUSCAN SCHOOL 
 
 "THE ROUT OF SAN ROMANCE 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 Niccolo da Tolentino, the leader of the Florentine forces, is represented 
 on horseback directing the attack on the Sienese. He wears a rich damask 
 headdress, his helmet being carried by his armour-bearer. These are the 
 only two persons whose heads are bare. 
 
 The second and third of this series of battle pictures are in the Uffizi 
 Gallery at Florence and in the Louvre. 
 
 Painted in tempera on wood. 6 ft. h. x 10 ft. 5 in. w. (1-829 x 3-i74)- 
 
 1 It has long ago been shown by Mr. H. P. Home thai this picture doei no 
 represent the Battle of Sant' Egidio.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 WHICH IS CHIEFLY CONCERNED WITH PERSPECTIVE 
 
 DOMENICO VENEZIANO 
 
 1400? - 1 46 1 
 
 Masaccio, short as was his life, revealed his art to two WHICH IS 
 painters — whose names are linked together in a murder CHIEFLY 
 invented by the tongue of Vasari — Domenico Veneziano CON- 
 
 and Andrea dal Castagno. ^^,5,^^?^^ 
 
 r^ • J- r> . 1 k .. 1 T-^ WITH PER- 
 
 Domenico di Bartolommeo, better known as Domenico 
 
 Veneziano, the Venetian, born about 1400 and dying in 
 1 46 1, had learnt his craft in Venice, where he had received 
 the secret of painting in oils. Thence he went southwards 
 over the mountains into Tuscany, and was working at 
 Perugia in 1438, on the edge of forty, when Cosimo de' 
 Medici called him to Florence. Here he at once came 
 under the thrall of Masaccio's Brancacci frescoes, which 
 were a revelation to him, and caused a marked development 
 in his artistry. Of his few known works, the most famous 
 are the fresco of "John the Baptist and St. Francis in S. Croce 
 at Florence, a Madonna and Saints in the Uffizi, and the 
 signed fresco of the Madonna and Child Enthroned, painted 
 in a niche at the Canto de' Carnesecchi in Florence, but 
 which has been removed on to canvas, and belongs to the 
 National Gallery in London. 
 
 UCCELLO 
 
 1397 - 1475 
 Domenico Veneziano in turn strongly influenced Paolo 
 
 di Dono, better known as Uccello, his contemporary. 
 
 VOL. I — L 81
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 Paolo Uccello — nicknamed " Paul of the Birds," from his 
 fondness for them — is famous as being the first Florentine 
 painter who set himself to the conquest of foreshortening 
 and perspective. Indeed, his art teems with the sense of 
 his challenge to the difficulties of this scientific side of the 
 craftsmanship of art. His battle-pieces, of which the Rout 
 of San Romano in tempera on wood at the National Gallery 
 in London, is so fine an example both in its Venetian sense 
 of colour, in its movement, and its scientific exultation in 
 linear perspective and foreshortening, gave him also the 
 scope for his delight in animal forms, even though his 
 science be too insistent. The second of this series of battle- 
 pictures of S. Romano by Uccello is at the Uffizi in Florence, 
 and the third is at the Louvre. Uccello's admiration for 
 the art of Giotto — in his grave sixty years before Uccello 
 was born — is marked throughout his work ; but he 
 advanced his style under the influence of his contemporary, 
 Domenico Veneziano ; and his personal friendship for 
 Donatello and the architect Brunelleschi was not without 
 results on his keen and scientific brain. His sense of colour 
 proved him wise in choosing painting as his chief activity 
 in the arts. But, whilst Donatello influenced Masaccio, 
 and Masaccio and Donatello afl^ected the art of Domenico 
 Veneziano, Uccello does not seem to have been directly 
 greatly influenced by Masaccio himself. 
 
 ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO 
 
 1390? - 1457 
 
 But both the virile art of Masaccio and the art of 
 Uccello, combined with the sculpture of Donatello, had 
 an enormous eff^ect upon the art of Andrea dal Castagno, 
 who was born about 1390 and died in 1457. -^^ passed 
 his youth near the hamlet of Castagno, watching his uncle's 
 82
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 cattle. The artistic instinct in him was set aflame by seeing WHICH IS 
 a painter at work on a tabernacle ; thereafter he began to CHIEFLY 
 scratch figures of animals on walls with his knife's point, ^ON- 
 and to draw with pieces of charcoal, in such remarkable ^^^NED 
 fashion that it became the gossip and wonder of the Jl ^^ 
 
 neighbours. The gossip came to the ears of one of the 
 Medici, who sent the youth to be trained in Florence. Thus 
 Vasari retails the story ; but the more ugly tale of Vasari, 
 that Andrea's fierce jealousy of his rival, the Venetian 
 Domenico, ended in his slaying Domenico Veneziano with 
 a knife, has been proved a slander — not the lightest part of 
 the proof being that the victim outlived his murder some 
 four years — yet the slander hints, at any rate, of his violent 
 temper and uncouth character. He was born into an age 
 well-fitted to his rugged habits. And his grim vision, his 
 rugged and harsh style, prove the quality of the man, who 
 found his glory in painting rude and uncouth types, and 
 whose unflinching interest in character and forthright com- 
 munion with reality sent him to his art as much concerned 
 with ugliness as with beauty, so long as the thing seen 
 appealed to his feelings. For Castagno, neither Masaccio 
 nor Donatello had lived in vain. Mere beauty, as beauty, 
 had no concern for him. His art is given to rugged 
 strength in terms of grandeur almost as of sculpture. And 
 his vigorous art never found more congenial subject than 
 in that lusty, swaggering portrait of Pippo Spano, at 
 S. Apollonia in Florence, in which we see the mailed 
 soldier-adventurer of his days, straddling with defiant and 
 careless bearing, his broad sword-blade gripped across the 
 thighs in his two strong hands. It is one of the first of 
 the great portraits of the Renaissance. From this master- 
 piece breathes the reckless spirit, the careless laugh, the 
 swashbuckling habit that filled all Italy with soldier- 
 
 83
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 ITALY 
 
 THE adventurers, who came at last to her many thrones and 
 
 PAINTERS seats of power, and held the people in the hollow of their 
 OF hands. As famed are Castagno's Last Supper in the 
 
 ^-^n™^ Church where the truculent Pippo Spano stands astride; 
 
 and in the cathedral of the city is Castagno's equestrian 
 portrait of Niccolo da TokntinOy all fine examples of his 
 vigorous art. And it is easily understood why, when it 
 was decided to have the picture painted of the gibbeted 
 bodies of the partakers in the Albizzi conspiracy of 14-35, 
 Castagno was hailed to the painting of it. 
 
 FRANCESCHI 
 
 1415 - 1492 
 
 Working as pupil to Domenico Veneziano, and being 
 admitted thereby into the secrets and mysteries of painting in 
 oils, was PiERo DELLA pRANCESCA, or, as he should be called, 
 PiERo DEI Franceschi (141 5 ?-i 492) . From Domenico 
 Veneziano also he got his grip of character, but it was from 
 Uccello that he caught his keen delight in perspective. 
 
 It is wont to class Franceschi as an early master of the 
 school of Umbria — he was born in the little mountain 
 town of Borgo San Sepolcro, and thither he returned at the 
 end of his days to die. Whatsoever by birth, Tuscan he was 
 by artistry, and a very Florentine of Tuscans. Though little 
 of his work is known to-day, he wrought much, ranging 
 over Italy to do the will of his patrons. The frescoes that 
 he painted of the Legends of the Cross stand to-day where he 
 wrought them in the Church of San Francesco at Arezzo. 
 The scientific bent of his mind — even as a boy he was a 
 mathematician — shows itself in close observation, a grip of 
 anatomy, and a skill in perspective ; indeed, his Treatise on 
 Perspective, dedicated to the Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, 
 was a guide to the painters of his age. But he was rather 
 
 84
 
 PIERO DEI FRANCESCHI 
 141 5? - 1492 
 
 UMBRIAN SCHOOL 
 
 "THE NATIVITY" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 The Infant Christ lies on the ground on the comer of the Virgin's 
 mantle ; she kneels beside him in adoration. To the right St. Joseph is 
 seen sitting on the pack saddle of the ass ; near him are two shepherds. 
 In the distance a view of a hilly landscape and the towers of the city of 
 Arezzo. 
 
 Painted on wood. + ft. 4^ in. h. x 4 ft. w. (1-333 ^ i'2is)-
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 a forerunner to the greater genius of Florence that came WHICH IS 
 after him, than a great achiever himself; though it must be CHIEFLY 
 remembered that Franceschi was the first painter to display CON- 
 a calculated skill in the painting of objects seen in the value ^^'^J^-^^ 
 created by their distance in atmosphere — what is called 
 tone-values — that is to say, the subtle effect produced by 
 perspective of colour in relation to its distance from the 
 eye. 
 
 Piero dei Franceschi died blind on the 1 2th of October 
 1492, and was buried in the cathedral of his native town. 
 
 85
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 WHEREIN WE ARE INTRODUCED TO A FRIAR 
 WITH A ROVING EYE 
 
 It is now necessary to call attention to the fact that there 
 were two currents of Florentine art flowing side by side. 
 We have seen the sombre realistic art, so typical of her 
 genius, arising in the practice of Giotto, create the genius of 
 Masaccio, and flow in the blood of Castagno and Franceschi. 
 Alongside of this was the art of Fra Angelico, with hint of 
 Siena in his blood. And now came 
 
 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI 
 
 1406 - 1469 
 
 The great Florentine art of Giotto had threatened to 
 lapse into insipidity in the hands of the Giottesques ; and 
 Fra Angelico had arisen as the genius to complete its passing 
 into an exquisite golden dreaminess, when Masaccio came, 
 urged to it by the great art of the sculptor Donatello, and 
 brought back the stern tragic intensity of Florentine art into 
 its native vigour again. Uccello and Andrea dal Castagno 
 completed the conquest, and disgusted the Florentines with 
 the insipid. But the pietistic revelation of Fra Angelico 
 did not go under. He himself, at the end of his days, had 
 put forth a more vigorous artistic utterance ; and out of his 
 art was to be born a style that ran beside the more vigorous 
 work of Masaccio and his successors. 
 
 It was a strange and perplexing age that brought forth 
 the stern and virile art of Masaccio and Andrea dal Castagno, 
 86
 
 PAINTING 
 
 fiercely concerned with character and strength and tragic WHEREIN 
 intensity, on the one hand, and, on the other, the winsome WE ARE 
 and exquisite search for beauty of Fra FiHppo Lippi, the INTRO- 
 worldly CarmeUte. But there they grew, side by side. ^^^^^ ^^ 
 Fra Filippo Lippi, the son of a butcher, has left us no tally ,,^t^tt a 
 
 c 1 ' A ' ' ' T r 1 . WITH A 
 
 01 his early training as artist. Lett an orphan at a tender oQviNr 
 age, it came about that at eight he was in the care of the gyE 
 Carmelite monastery, hard by his old home, and thereby 
 became steeped in the atmosphere of the best Florentine 
 painting. The Giottesque painter and miniaturist Lorenzo 
 Monaco, Fra Angelico, and Masaccio were famous, and the 
 lad's eyes at least dwelt upon their achievement. Growing 
 up to youth in the precincts of the Carmine Church, he 
 must often have loitered to watch Masaccio painting upon 
 his frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel. Masaccio ended 
 his short twenty-seven years of life in 1428, when Fra 
 Filippo Lippi was twenty-two years of age ; and three 
 years thereafter (143 1) the friar left the convent, for which 
 he had shown but sorry vocation ; and though he kept the 
 friendship of the friars, and signed his pictures with his 
 monastic name, he entered upon that stormy and romantic 
 life, filled with worldly adventure and wild living, which 
 was to make of him so strange a son of Holy Church. 
 The Church secured him appointments and good pay for 
 the work of his hands ; but though his art was soon in 
 wide demand, he launched himself upon a sea of money- 
 troubles, was ever in want, entangled in violent quarrels 
 with his patrons, careless and neglectful of his work, and 
 hunted by creditors. Nor did he keep very strictly his 
 vows of chastity — the flip of a petticoat ever caught his 
 eye. 
 
 Filippo Lippi was turned fifty when he came to the 
 Convent Church of San Margherita in Prato to paint a 
 
 87
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 CENTRAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 Madonna for the Abbess. He had asked the Abbess to let 
 one of the nuns, the beautiful, seventeen-year-old novice 
 Lucrezia Buti, sit to him as the model. But the friar's 
 blood burnt hot. He fell violently enamoured of the 
 beautiful girl ; and love grew up between them. The 
 passionate friar took advantage of the solemn public festival 
 of the display of the Holy Girdle to steal away with her to 
 his house. Lucrezia Buti became in 1457 ^^ mother of 
 Filippo Lippi's son, who was in after years to rise to fame 
 as Filippino Lippi. It was several years before the Pope, 
 Pius II., absolved the friar and his nun from their vows to 
 the Church, at the suit of Cosimo de' Medici, and made 
 Lucrezia the lawful wife of the painter. Fra Filippo Lippi 
 did not long live to play the wedded husband, dying at 
 Spoleto on the 4th of October 1469, after a sharp and 
 sudden illness, and leaving unfinished in the Cathedral 
 Choir of Spoleto the frescoes of the Life of the Virgin that 
 he had there gone to paint. 
 
 The lunette of T'he Assumption^ painted by Filippo 
 Lippi in tempera on a panel for Cosimo de' Medici, whose 
 crest, three feathers held by a ring, is seen upon the design 
 — a picture now at the National Gallery in London — is an 
 exquisite example, and typical, of the friar's beauty of 
 colouring and tenderness, and displays his gift of expressing 
 the winsome sweetness for which his Madonnas are famous 
 — the whole set in a glowing colour-harmony, and treated 
 with wondrous finesse. This design of the Archangel 
 Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mary that she has been 
 chosen to be the Mother of the Christ, became a favourite 
 subject of the painters of the Renaissance. Fra Filippo 
 Lippi, or Lippo Lippi as he is called for short, revealed 
 such a beautiful sense of colour, that one regrets his early 
 training for the Church. He was at heart a romantic poet. 
 88
 
 VI 
 
 FRA FILIPPO LIPPI 
 1406? - 1469 
 
 TUSCAN SCHOOL 
 "THE ANNUNCIATION" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 The Archangel Gabriel is seen in the act of announcing to the Virgin 
 that she shall be the Mother of the Christ. 
 
 A lunette-shaped picture painted for Cosimo de' Medici and marked 
 with his crest, three feathers tied together in a ring. 
 
 Painted in tempera on wood. 2 ft. 2 in. h, x 4 ft. ii| in. w. (o-66i x 
 1-51).
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 His decorations in the choir of the cathedral (Duomo) at WHEREIN 
 Prato, wherein he painted the Legends of John the Baptist and WE ARE 
 Saint Stephen^ reveal his grasp of portraiture, his gift of INTRO- 
 character, and harmonious skill in grouping. In the dance -^^CED TO 
 of Salome before Herod, all his poetic sense is displayed. TTTTrprr ^ 
 Here are the movement of the dance, dramatic force, and Royrvrp 
 beauty of form. Here Lippo Lippi discovered the oneness eyE 
 of the arts of colour and music. 
 
 Filippo Lippi's place in the development of the art of 
 painting is difficult to set down clearly unless as a parallel 
 growth of Fra Angelico*s artistry and significance — what 
 may be called the Francis of Assisi mood — side by side with 
 the tragic intensity of the growth of Masaccio's art. He owed 
 his chief inspiration to Fra Angelico and the cloister that bred 
 the soul of Fra Angelico ; but his art, whilst it displays a 
 fuller development of the craft of painting, lacks, as his life 
 lacked, the tenderness and rarity of spiritual feeling of the 
 saintly Dominican. Of Masaccio's strength he shows small 
 sign, yet he did not gaze at Masaccio working upon the 
 Brancacci frescoes in vain. But he had a vision that both 
 his forerunners lacked. Apart from the charm of his work, 
 apart from the sensuous revelling in beauty of form, he 
 came to the utterance of glowing and rich colour, and his 
 painted surfaces knew the light of the sun ; his generous 
 temperament revelled in the forms of flowers, and his eyes 
 delighted in the mother's love and tender care of babes ; to 
 him the fresh babies' faces and the delicate fragile beauty 
 of the Madonna were an eternal inspiration. His in- 
 fluence on the Church painters was very great ; and 
 he stands out as increaser of the development of Fra 
 Angelico's spirit in Florentine painting, as Masaccio does 
 towards the more vigorous and tragic Florentine art of 
 Giotto. 
 
 VOL. I — M 89
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 CENTRAL 
 ITALY 
 
 THE BENOZZO GOZZOLI 
 
 PAINTERS 1420 - 1497 
 
 5^,,^^ , r We have already seen that Era Angelico's most famous 
 
 pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, carried on his master's tradition. 
 Like Eilippo Lippi, he could not wholly escape the knowledge 
 of the increase of the painter's gamut through the revela- 
 tions of Masaccio. But, like Eilippo Lippi, or perhaps even 
 more so, he was astoundingly little moved by it, and wrought 
 almost wholly in the atmosphere of his master Era Angelico, 
 whom he aided in the making of the frescoes at Orvieto. 
 But Benozzo Gozzoli shook himself free at last from the 
 monastic influence of the saintly Dominican (for, be it 
 remembered, he lived into the second half, indeed almost 
 through the second half, of the fourteen-hundreds, which 
 saw a very marked increase of artistic genius), and the 
 art of his later life concerned itself with what was his 
 chief achievement and inclination — the painting of the life 
 of his day, which is clumsily known as genre. It is true that 
 Benozzo Gozzoli continued to paint stories from Scripture 
 as the subjects of his frescoes ; but these stories were the 
 excuse for the recording of the habits and life of his day, 
 and of the costumes and personalities of that day. Whether 
 he paint the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa with the Build- 
 ing of the Tower of Babel ^ or the more famous frescoes in the 
 chapel of the Riccardi Palace in Florence with the Procession 
 of the Magi and Angels^ wherein the Medici family are shown 
 at the head of the richly arrayed cavalcade, Benozzo 
 Gozzoli stands revealed as a charming chronicler, stating 
 with naive grace and beauty the habits of his age. A pro- 
 digious and facile worker, Benozzo Gozzoli uttered the 
 love of nature, a bhthe delight in the idyllic life of the 
 day — the vintage, the marriage-dance, the squabbles of 
 90
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 small boys, the jocularity of ser^-'ants, children cam'ing WHEREIN 
 
 their books to school — it all holds the romantic music of ^'^ ARE 
 
 jocund life. He enjoyed the intimate friendship of the l^^TRO- 
 
 princelv house of the Medici; and one of his greatest ^'^^^^ ^^ 
 
 • \ FRI A.R 
 
 achievements is the equestrian portrait of Lorenzo de' * ,_ * 
 
 Medici, Lorenzo the M^.gnincent, as one of the Ma^i in -Dovyvr 
 
 the fresco of the Riccardi Palace at Fbrence — indeed, the £ye 
 
 whole of this fresco is redolent of the life of Florence 
 
 in the fourteen-hundreds. And if he lack his master's 
 
 simple faith and religious emotion, he but accentuates the 
 
 fact of the increasing public interest in v:::lzW splendour and 
 
 fading religious fer\-our, just as Filippo Lippi's art shows 
 
 a more sensuous and worldly rehgious spirit in marked 
 
 contrast with the earlier, simpler, and more childlike faith 
 
 of Era Angelico. 
 
 Benozzo Gozzoli (and probablv Era Lippo Lippi) trained 
 a pupil of whose life and work but little is known, Zenobio 
 Machiavelli .1413-14-9^ and there wrought also in 
 Florence a rollower ot Filiopo Liooi. and pu^il to Giuliano 
 Pesello, Francesco Pesellino (1422-1^;-. who is re- 
 markable for his decorative gifts in colour, and famed for 
 his paintings of cassone panels. 
 
 Of Eiliopo Lippi's pupils and followers also were Fra 
 Diamante and Jacopo del Sell^jo. 
 
 91
 
 vir 
 
 ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO 
 1429 - 1498 
 
 AND 
 
 PIERO POLLAIUOLO 
 1443 - 1496 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 «THE MARTYRDOM OF ST SEBASTIAN" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 St. Sebastian bound to the trunk of a tree, his body pierced with arrows. 
 Painted in oil on wood. 9 ft. 6 in. h. x 6 ft. 7^ in. w. (2"895 x 2*019).
 
 THE GOLDSMITH -PAINTERS OF 
 FLORE.XCE
 
 VIII 
 
 VERROCHIO 
 
 1435 - 1488 
 
 "VIRGIN AND CHILD" 
 
 When it is remembered that Verrochio was the master of Leonardo da 
 Vinci, amongst other great pupils, it will be realised how prodigious an 
 influence he had upon the men who came after him.
 
 IX 
 
 BOTTICELLI 
 
 1444 - 1510 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 
 "GIOVANNA DEGLI ALBIZZI AND THE THREE 
 
 GRACES" 
 
 (Giovanna Albizzi et les Trois Graces ou les Vertus) 
 
 (Louvre) 
 
 To the right Giovanna, a young woman in a red-brown dress, wearing 
 a white veil on her golden hair and a necklace of pearls round her neck, 
 advances towards four maidens clad in delicately-tinted robes. She holds 
 in her outstretched hands a white linen cloth into which the four maidens 
 throw flowers symbolic of the Virtues. 
 
 Fresco painting detached from the wall. 7 ft. 3 in. x 9 ft. 4 in. 
 (2-12 X 2-84).
 
 -J. » SL_ -^ -4
 
 4 5 o 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 WHICH SHOWS THE KINSHIP OF PAINTING AND 
 
 SCULPTURE 
 
 There arose in Florence, about the middle fourteen- WHICH 
 hundreds, a group of painters who had served their earlv SHOWS 
 apprenticeship in the goldsmiths' shops. THE KIN- 
 
 SHIP OF 
 ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO and PIERO POLLAIUOLO p^ixjixq 
 
 1429 - 1498 1443 - 1496 .:^>;j) 
 
 The two brothers Pollaiuolo were born in Florence ; SCULP- 
 the elder, Antonio Pollaiuolo, being apprenticed bv his tURE 
 father to a goldsmith, one Bartoluccio, who was stepfather 
 to the famous sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, him who wrought 
 the gates to the Baptistery of Florence which were to win 
 Michelangelo's praise in the years to come, as being "worthy 
 to set at the entrance to Paradise"; and it was to assist in 
 the modelling of some of the ornaments ot these gates that 
 young Antonio Pollaiuolo was employed. Antonio Pollaiuolo 
 was soon a goldsmith working on his own account, and 
 was to become a famous sculptor in bronze. To that fame 
 Cellini paid his weighty tribute that Pollaiuolo's designs 
 were of such excellence and beauty that all the goldsmiths 
 and many sculptors and painters made use of them. 
 Antonio, strongly intluenced as a sculptor by Donatello 
 
 95
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 THE GOLD- and as a painter by Uccello, is said to have been the first 
 artist to dissect the dead in order to study anatomy. It 
 was in the latter end of his life that he took to painting ; 
 and was one of the earliest of the Florentine artists to 
 employ oils. Older than his brother by fourteen years, he 
 survived him a couple of years. 
 
 PiERo PoLLAiuoLO ( 1 443- 1 496) was 3. painter from the 
 beginning of his career. Indeed, he is reputed to have 
 worked as quite a child in the studios of Baldovinetti and 
 Andrea dal Castagno ; but he must have been little more 
 than a mere child under Castagno, since that rugged and 
 forceful man died when the boy was thirteen. 
 
 The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian at the National Gallery 
 in London is vastly interesting not only on its own account, 
 as showing the Masaccio tradition of forceful realism in 
 which the Pollaiuoli were bred, but as having been painted 
 by both brothers. The elder Antonio's sculpturesque 
 quality is seen in the vigorous and severe drawing of the 
 sculptor, reared in Donatello's atmosphere, and his know- 
 ledge of anatomy is fully revealed in his grip of the human 
 form and his skill in stating the human movement, just as 
 the younger Piero's colour-faculty reveals the painter. 
 
 VERROCCHIO 
 
 1435 - 1488 
 The most famous pupil of the two Pollaiuoli was 
 Andrea del Verrocchio. But it was to his pupilage under 
 Donatello that Verrocchio was most deeply indebted for his 
 mastery. Most famous as a sculptor — he is immortal as 
 the creator of one of the great equestrian statues of the 
 Renaissance, the world-known figure of the great condottiere 
 CoUeone at Venice (1479) — he also came to high repute 
 as a painter ; and as such had a far-reaching and strong 
 
 96
 
 X 
 
 BOTTICELLI 
 
 1444 - 1510 
 
 " SPRING " 
 
 (In the Florence Academy) 
 
 The date of this painting is much debated. It may probably be about 
 1478, before the Roman visit. Reading from the left the figures are 
 Mercury, the Three Graces, Venus, Primavera the Spring-maiden, Flora, 
 and Zephyrus. 
 
 Painted in tempera on wood.
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 influence upon the great art of Florence. And no less WHICH 
 famous than as sculptor and painter was he as master. SHOWS 
 Leonardo da Vinci, Lorenzo di Credi, and many others THE KIN- 
 who came to high fame were his pupils. SHIP Oh 
 
 Verrocchio reveals an exquisite sense of the values of 
 light and shade, which added prodigiously to the develop- 
 ment of the Florentine achievement in the mastery of the XURE 
 depth in painting — or the mirrored design. 
 
 Of the rare paintings from his hand that have come 
 down to us, is the celebrated Baptism of Christ at the 
 Academy of Florence, in which the angel was painted by 
 Verrocchio's greatest pupil, Leonardo da Vinci. 
 
 Verrocchio has been held to be the first of the Florentines 
 who understood landscape ; of a truth he realised the part 
 played in landscape by light and air, and their influence on 
 forms. But the Italian genius for landscape must ever 
 be spoken of with reservations. Twenty years before 
 Verrocchio was born, as we shall see, the Van Eycks had 
 painted landscape in exquisite fashion in Flanders ; and 
 had created a spirit in art which was to achieve, in the 
 lowlands to the south of France, landscape of a power 
 undreamed of by the whole Italian genius. 
 
 It has been neatly said of late that " Italian art was the 
 favoured child, but not the eldest child, of the Renaissance " ; 
 and it is well to remember this always in surveying the 
 achievement of Italy and of the Renaissance. 
 
 With what exquisite sense Verrocchio painted landscape 
 you shall see in his Annunciation in the Uffizi, where he 
 essayed the difficult problem of twilight with a poetic 
 intensity that was rarely excelled in the whole Italian 
 achievement. 
 
 VOL. I — N 97
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHEREIN WE ARE INTRODUCED TO THE POET OF 
 THE SPRINGTIME OF THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 THE GOLD- The Turk took Constantinople in 1453, ^^^ ^^"^ ^^^ 
 
 SMITH- scholars fleeing out of the land. To Florence came a 
 
 PAINTERS brilliant group, bearing with them the Platonic love of 
 
 OF Love and Beauty that created the Neo-Platonism. The 
 
 FLORENCE ^^^^ ^j^^^ Constantinople fell, there was a tanner's son, a 
 
 boy of nine, in Florence, who was to become the head and 
 
 front of her Neo-Platonism, and create it into terms of line 
 
 and colour, his nickname Botticelli. 
 
 BOTTICELLI: "The Reanimate Greek" 
 1444 - ^ 1 5 10 
 
 Nine years younger than Verrocchio was a young gold- 
 smith, Botticelli, destined to a great career, destined also 
 to come into his own again through a renewed vogue by 
 the strange means of an afl^ected " aesthetic " cult that passed 
 over England like a plague of culture in the late eighteen- 
 hundreds. 
 
 Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni dei Filipepi, bettei 
 known and world-famous as Sandro Botticelli (1444- 
 15 10), is so individual, so original in his art, master of so 
 fascinating and personal a style, that he stands out as 
 creating almost a new development of painting — and, as 
 a matter of fact, he and his contemporaries do reveal an 
 atmosphere in their art which was attune to new and 
 marked developments throughout Italian life in the last half 
 of the fourteen-hundreds. 
 
 98
 
 XI 
 
 SANDRO BOTTICELLI 
 
 1444 - 1510 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 
 "MARS AND VENUS" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 The goddess, clothed in -.vhite and gold, is awake ; Mars lies asleep. 
 Four infant i-atyrs are playing about him ; one of them tries to rouse him 
 by blowing on a shell. 
 
 Painted in tempera on wood. 2 ft. 3^ in. h. x 5 ft. 8 in. w. 
 (0-698 X 1727).
 
 PAINTING 
 
 We have seen that Florentine art from the beginning of WHEREIN 
 the century had received two nev^ impulses that had rapidly WE ARE 
 urged it forward to fresh achievement. On the one hand, INTRO- 
 Masaccio, powerfully impressed by the sculptor Donatello, ^UCED TO 
 had raised a school of intensely realistic painting, rugged i ruti^i 
 
 and forthright, that had brought forth Domenico Veneziano, cpoTXTp 
 Andrea dal Castagno, Uccello, Dei Franceschi ; on the other xiME OF 
 hand, the Giottesques had bred the tender and beauty-seeking THE RE- 
 aims of Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Benozzo NAISSANCE 
 Gozzoli. The latter half of the century saw the rise of the 
 goldsmith-painters, of whom the brothers Pollaiuoli were 
 steeped in the severer and dramatic tradition of the realists 
 born out of the art of Donatello and Masaccio. The 
 beauty-seeking and religiously tender side of Florentine 
 art was also to create a school akin to it in these latter 
 fourteen-hundreds, and out of the soul of Fra Filippo Lippi 
 was to be born Botticelli. But with a difference. As the 
 spiritual and monastic soul of Fra Angelico was usurped by 
 the sensuous and more mundane religiosity of Fra Filippo 
 Lippi, so in turn was the Greek soul of Botticelli to usurp 
 the throne of Filippo Lippi. And in the fact was a vast 
 significance — not only for Florentine art but for all Italy. 
 
 From the moment that Christianity had ventured above- 
 ground out of the catacombs and spread throughout the 
 land, it had lost its essential communism and become a 
 part of the Roman state. Its whole intention became 
 Romanised and imperial. It dreamed of the kingdom of 
 the earth. The end of the Dark Ages saw the church in 
 Italy awakening, like all else in Italy, to the classic 
 Renaissance that was stirring throughout the land. 
 
 By the middle fourteen-hundreds the classic imagery 
 and classic concepts of antique Greece had arisen in the 
 land, and taken possession of the Christian church in Italy. 
 
 99
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE GOLD- This bastard classicism and paganised Christianity mated 
 SMITH- and brought forth a strange and beautiful child — Renaissance 
 
 PAINTERS Christianity — a stately edifice of worldly Christianity, 
 ^^ wrought, through and through its sumptuous splendours, 
 
 with the gold thread of Athenian ideals and forms and 
 intention. Italy, from end to end of her, was a Splendid 
 Sham. The republics, republican in name and form, were 
 passing into the hands of rich families, such as the banker 
 Medici in Florence, rich merchant-princes as in Venice, 
 powerful soldier-adventurers {condottiert) as in Milan. And 
 Christianity, in like fashion, jealously preserving the name 
 and forms, was wholly Athenianised, and become a part of 
 statecraft. By the middle of the fourteen-hundreds the 
 revival of learning had completely triumphed. And the 
 man who most exquisitely and most perfectly uttered this 
 Hellenism of Christianity was " the reanimate Greek," 
 Sandro Botticelli. In his hand's skill was the very incarna- 
 tion of the Greek perfection of line, the haunting and 
 visionary Greek sense of the joy of beauty in the human 
 being. His art utters the complete triumph of paganism 
 over Christianity. At his call Pan comes peeping through 
 the bosky groves, his fluting is heard in the meadows, and 
 the music of his reeden pipes is breathed from behind the 
 very altars. Pan has been converted to Christianity, but 
 his legs arc the legs of the goats wont to skip to the 
 Bacchanalian revels. The gods have descended from 
 Olympus, and walk in procession with the saints to solemn 
 church music ; and one is hard put to it to discover which 
 is saint and which antique god. The spirit of the Greeks 
 and the spirit of the Christ are as poles apart, but Italy of 
 the fourteen-hundreds essayed to weld them into a splendid 
 and sumptuous whole. The result was an astounding 
 freshening of the human aims and an awakening of human 
 
 ICG
 
 XII 
 
 BOTTICELLI 
 
 1444 - 1510 
 
 'THE MADONNA OF THE MAGNIFICAT" 
 
 known also as 
 
 "THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN" 
 
 (From the Tondo in the Uffizi) 
 
 Probably painted about 1+79. This painting is world-famous for the 
 beauty of the head of the Madonna. The Virgin is writing her song of 
 the Magnificat ; the Child holds a symbolic pomegranate. 
 
 The tondo is 44. inches in diameter.
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 DUCED TO 
 
 aspirations amidst a widespread debauchery, racked with WHEREIN 
 crimes and villainies and treacheries such as make of the WE ARE 
 Renaissance years one vast shame. And this strange INTRO- 
 paradox stands out in nothing more skilfully revealed than 
 in the art of painting that was the glory of this perplexing ^^ twf 
 age, and in none more hauntingly than in the beautiful qpdt>j(- 
 and wistful art of Sandro Botticelli. TIME OF 
 
 The son of a tanner of Florence, Sandro Botticelli, the THE RE- 
 youngest of four brothers, was dubbed his nickname of NAISSANCE 
 Botticelli, or " Little Cask," after the little barrel that hung 
 as a sign outside his elder brother Giovanni's shop. The 
 family name was dei Filipepi, but Botticelli always signed 
 himself " Sandro di Mariano." He seems to have been 
 the son of a second marriage, since he was young enough 
 to be his elder brother Giovanni the tanner's child. 
 Apprenticed as a boy of fifteen to a goldsmith, his brother 
 Antonio, Botticelli had, soon thereafter, about the age of 
 sixteen, stepped from the goldsmithing into the studio of 
 Fra Filippo Lippi at Prato (1460), and for some years he 
 worked under that master ; but by the time Filippo Lippi 
 left for Spoleto (1468), Botticelli at twenty-four returned 
 to Florence and was working for the brothers Pollaiuolo, 
 and was already making a name for himself in Florence, 
 indeed was come to considerable fame. But though 
 Botticelli's artistry is founded deep upon the artistry of 
 Filippo Lippi, he was at the same time enormously in- 
 fluenced by Antonio Pollaiuolo, who revealed to him his 
 knowledge of anatomy, which until his day had not been 
 of the most marked interest to the painters. The long 
 panel of the Adoration at the National Gallery in London, 
 once given to Filippino Lippi, was painted by Botticelli 
 whilst with Fra Lippo Lippi. 
 
 How closely akin was the artistry of Botticelli to his 
 
 lOI
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE GOLD- 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 contemporaries is seen in the fact that in the National 
 Gallery in London, Botticelli's two early pictures of the 
 Adoration of the Magi still remain officially attributed to 
 Filippino Lippi. The well-known Portrait of a Toung Man, 
 in the same Gallery, is a superb work of about 1482, his 
 thirty-eighth year. And he made his religious paintings 
 an excuse for the portraiture of the celebrities of his day, 
 as was become the fashion of his generation. But it is in 
 the world-famous FrimaverUy or Allegory of Spring, in the 
 Academy at Florence, painted in 1478, his thirty-fourth 
 year ; the Mars and Venus, now in the National Gallery, 
 painted about 1485, his forty-first year; and the Birth of 
 Venus in the Uffizi, painted in the following, his forty- 
 second year, that Botticelli's supreme achievement is seen 
 in all its poetic intensity, its exquisite imagination, its 
 haunting sweet-sad melancholy, its wistfulness, its superb 
 sense of colour, its mastery of line, and above all in its 
 Hellenism as seen through Italian eyes. 
 
 The Birth of Venus might well stand for the revelation 
 of Botticelli and the age of Botticelli — as though paganised 
 angels wafted rude Hellenism over fair seas, amidst showers 
 of roses, to the shores of Italy, into the arms of the spring- 
 time of the Renaissance. And the Primavera, that allegory 
 of springtime, might well stand for the triumph of Hellen- 
 ism in Italy, re-clothed and transplanted to a new world. 
 
 The Mars and Venus is the complete conquest of the 
 new Hellenism. It is also known as Alexander and his 
 bride Roxana, and, indeed, would seem to illustrate the lines 
 wherein Lucian tells of the nuptials of Alexander and 
 Roxana, even to the doings of the little goat-legged infant 
 satyrlings who frolic with the stripped Alexander's armour. 
 Nor was it the only time that Lucian's writings inspired 
 102
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 the fantastic genius of Botticelli, as his Calumny of Apelles WHEREIN 
 
 at the Uffizi proves. Whether Alexander or Mars is at WE ARE 
 
 best a formality — the sleeping warrior is said to be Giuliano ^NTRO- 
 
 de' Medici, dreamin? of his beloved Simonetta who reclines ^^CED TO 
 
 THF POFX 
 at his feet — La Bella Simonetta, the beautiful young wife of ^^ thf 
 
 Marco Vespucci ; she, who was the reigning beauty of the SPRING 
 age, inspired the genius of "the reanimate Greek"; she who, TIME OF 
 when she died in 1476, was borne to her grave through the THE RE- 
 streets of Florence with her face uncovered that the world NAISSANCE 
 might see the last of her wondrous and much-hymned 
 beauty. La Bella Simonetta was the most famed queen in 
 that reign of passion, made exquisite in picture and fashion 
 and song, called the " epidemic of love," that held Florence 
 as in a splendid dream during Lorenzo de' Medici's mag- 
 nificent reign. Much argument has been lavished upon 
 the dates of the creation of works by Botticelli's genius ; 
 but the pretty business is largely academic guesswork and 
 the froth of wiseacres ; it is difficult to believe that this 
 great picture, tingling with the passion of desire, if it give 
 us the presentment of Giuliano and La Bella Simonetta, 
 was painted except from the life ; yet by all the authorities 
 and experts it is held to have been painted in 1485, nine 
 years after the beauty was carried to her grave with face 
 uncovered, and seven years after Giuliano, romantic idol of 
 Florence, and knight of her chivalry and gallantry, had been 
 struck down by the assassins of the Pazzi conspiracy as he 
 knelt at mass, and himself borne to his grave a couple 
 of years after his beloved Simonetta. 
 
 It is here, as always in his classic mood, that Botticelli 
 is seen in the supreme exercise of his genius — here that he 
 makes us feel the true atmosphere of his age. It was an 
 atmosphere of exquisiteness, and Neo-Platonism was in full 
 flower — Neo-Platonism, the Greek spirit in its decline, the 
 
 103
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 THE GOLD- Greek spirit rubbing eyes of wonder at the new gospel of 
 pity and love that was coming to her from the East, to 
 change her standards of heroism and her ideals. It was 
 only this Platonic Hellenism that could be welded into the 
 Christian system ; and all the culture of Italy was essaying 
 so to weld it. And of that essaying, Botticelli is the 
 supreme and consummate spirit, in the years that Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent was lord of the destinies of Florence. 
 
 It is interesting to note how the artists are now em- 
 ploying the groups in sacred subjects to paint the portraits 
 of the famous folk of the times. Art is passing from the 
 patronage of the church to the palaces of the great. And 
 it was a rare and handsome discovery that revealed, in the 
 private apartments of the Pitti Palace in Florence, that 
 Pallas and the Centaur^ only some dozen years gone by, 
 which Botticelli painted for the Medici family to com- 
 memorate the success of Lorenzo de' Medici's daring 
 diplomatic success in winning back the friendship of the 
 King of Naples in 1479. 
 
 In his church pictures, Botticelli is not generally seen 
 in the same freedom of artistry ; some trammel that he was 
 never wholly able to shake from him, checked his full 
 genius, even in his most exquisite Madonna pieces, though 
 it was in his Madonnas that he created masterwork which 
 holds the poetic atmosphere of his age, that haunting sense 
 of beauty and of mystic wonder that never deserts his 
 sensing, and to the interpretation of which his hand's 
 skill brought such astounding craftsmanship. What more 
 beautiful face does the whole Renaissance reveal to us than 
 Botticelli's Madonna in the Magnificat, or, as it is also 
 known, The Coronation of the Virgin ? that circular picture 
 which he is said to have founded upon an unfolded 
 rose. 
 
 104
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 The genius of Botticelli is so remarkable, that critics WHEREIN 
 have come to look upon all he wrought as of prime value ; WE ARE 
 and the Nativity at the National Gallery has received by INTRO- 
 consequence inordinate praise ; but his faults stand out ^^^ED TO 
 therein perhaps in emphasised fashion, for all its many fine irr,^^ 
 qualities ; and the picture, like many of his Roman frescoes, cddtxt/- 
 shows ialtermg and hesitation and some lack of unity, both xiME OF 
 in handling and arrangement and conception. At the foot THE RE- 
 of the design, painted on canvas, are three young men, NAISSANCE 
 Savonarola and his fellow-martyrs, Fra Silvestro and Fra 
 Domenico, embraced by rejoicing angels, the devils creeping 
 away to hide behind rocks. The faults of the Renaissance 
 and the limitations of the Renaissance reveal themselves. 
 He was in his fifty-sixth year when he painted it ; his 
 gaiety of spirit and rejoicing in the fresh harmonies of 
 nature, seen in the paganism of his classic pieces, has given 
 way to the more sombre religious resentment at the de- 
 struction and death of Savonarola ; and there breathes from 
 the work not only the new and tragic note of the collapse 
 of early Christianity under the classic spirit of Neo- 
 Platonism, but the base form, of Greek, in which he wrote 
 his testament above it, holds something of a grim desire to 
 affirm his resentment against his dread : — " I, Alessandro, 
 painted this picture at the end of the year 1500, during 
 the troubles in Italy, in the half-time after the time during 
 the fulfilment of the Eleventh Chapter of St. John, in the 
 second woe of the Apocalypse, in the loosening on Earth of 
 the Devil for three and a half years. After which he shall 
 be chained, and we shall see him trodden under foot as in 
 this picture." There is revealed the rank superstition that 
 betrays the narrow advance of Savonarola and Botticelli and 
 the world. 
 
 Botticelli had early come to favour with the Medici 
 VOL. I — o 105
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE GOLD- 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 princes ; he was a pleasant jovial man, if a man of moods, 
 and loved good talk. The young Leonardo da Vinci 
 became his friend, amongst others — and, like Leonardo, 
 Botticelli never married. 
 
 Botticelli had been called to Rome, with Ghirlandaio 
 and others, by Pope Sixtus iv. in 1482, his thirty-eighth 
 year, to take part in the decoration of the famous Sistine 
 Chapel ; and three frescoes were wrought by him that are 
 a part of its glory, though they do not reach to the fulfil- 
 ment of his great Hellenic pieces. However, his fame 
 greatly increased, money poured in, and he squandered it 
 with his wonted recklessness. He was now the supreme 
 painter of his age. To this period is said to belong his 
 great achievement — The Birth of Venus. 
 
 Then loomed up the tragedy of Savonarola for all 
 Florence. It was in 1490 that the tragic figure of the 
 Dominican prior of San Marco entered into the tangled 
 history of the age, for, in that year, Savonarola made his 
 home in Florence, and forthwith filled the air thereof with 
 black prophecies and bitter denunciations of the corruption 
 of the Church and of the Republic. Lorenzo the Mag- 
 nificent was only to know the beginning of it, for he died 
 in 1492, the year that saw a Borgia seated upon the chair 
 of St. Peter. For a few years Savonarola held the Republic 
 together, inspiring Florence by his great personality — by 
 1496 he was foul of the Pope, and not only a Pope but a 
 Borgia. The end was inevitable. The craft of the 
 Borgias failed. Alexander vi. struck. On the last day of 
 the carnival of 1497, an immense pile of the most glorious 
 works of art, pictures, statues, miniatures, went up in the 
 smoke of wanton religious mania, amidst the exultation of 
 the people. In a couple of years Savonarola had lost his hold 
 upon the city — the Borgia had triumphed. After ghastly 
 106
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 torments upon the rack, he was hanged over a fire on the WHEREIN 
 23rd of May 1498. WE ARE 
 
 Botticelli had looked up to Savonarola with the en- INTRO- 
 thusiasm of an artistic nature ; the fall and execution of DUCED TO 
 the friar, and the fierce and passionate resentment of IT^J^^ 
 Savonarola's followers, known as the Piagnoni, turned his cpT^T1^^p 
 always wistful and sweet-sad spirit to a profound spiritual xjjyiE qF 
 melancholy. Vasari's gossip pen tells us that he gave up XHE RE- 
 all endeavour. It is certain that his artistic utterance lost NAISSANCE 
 its calm and wistful exultation, and became restless and 
 brooding. He was already old and broken beyond his 
 years ; he was to live a decade longer, and to his workshop 
 came the many out-of-work artists who had suff^ered for 
 the broken cause — foregathering there in the evenings and 
 talking of the past days when " Christ was king over 
 Florence.*' Ghirlandaio, and Botticelli's pupil Filippino 
 Lippi, went to the grave before him; Botticelli, hobbling 
 on crutches, went to his gloomy end, passing away on the 
 17th of May 1 5 10, in his sixty-sixth year, a broken man — 
 broken in spirit, broken in fortune, broken in health — the 
 supreme genius of his age, and the recognised champion of 
 its achievement in painting. The springtime of the Greek 
 spirit in Italy was come and gone — that spirit so wondrously 
 expressed in pure poetic ecstasy of line and form and 
 colour in the Primavera and Birth of Venus. A sombre and 
 brooding age was to follow, of which his spirit had no 
 understanding nor his art any conception. The real and 
 full significance of the New Learning passed him by, as it 
 was to pass by all Italy ; it was too great for his conception 
 or his strength — he came of a people too heavily overborne 
 by tradition to shake off the shackles of the past. It was 
 to set the North aflame, and bring the peoples of the north 
 into their heritage. Rouse Italy it did, but only to end 
 
 107
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE GOLD- therein in a wistful sadness. Its full significance was to pass 
 
 SMITH- over the mountains to the north and seek fulfilment in the 
 
 PAINTERS ^ygsi- in that strange destiny that would seem to make 
 
 ^^ nroeress hunger to march towards the end of the earth 
 
 where the setting sun sinks in a golden promise of the 
 
 days to come. For there are mightier, vaster things than 
 
 beauty and dreams ; and strength and vigour and freedom 
 
 are of first need to the body that would essay the mighty 
 
 adventure of the fulness of life — and Botticelli had not 
 
 even dreamed of these necessities in his exquisite visions. 
 
 Savonarola could denounce the Pope even where he sat on 
 
 the chair of Christendom — his eyes foresaw the new 
 
 spirit that was to come over that church and over all Italy 
 
 — but he shrank from Luther's daring to burn the bulls of 
 
 Rome or to break from her authority. 
 
 Indeed, Botticelli and Botticelli's age were turning 
 longing sad eyes backwards, glorifying what had been, and 
 intent on the false gods that were seizing at the reins of 
 tyrannies and little despotisms, instead of the welding of a 
 great people into a vigorous brotherhood. 
 
 Yet he brought to his art, to the utterance of his age, a 
 sense of line and form that recalled the genius of Athenian 
 days ; and his hand's skill found an exquisite craftsmanship 
 that revealed with consummate mastery the desire of his 
 emotions. He was, like all great artists, a visionary ; he 
 employed the dangerously parochial tricks of symbolism 
 without weakening his power of suggesting mystic sensa- 
 tions into our sensing even in an age that has passed beyond 
 the conceptions and ideals of his day. That he was keenly 
 sensitive to the gloomy and morose art of Dante, and that 
 his feet were still firmly planted upon the harsh ground of 
 the Middle Ages, his drawings in illustration of Dante's 
 poems abundantly prove, as one may see at Berlin. But 
 io8
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 though his spiritual sense reveals a haunting and wondrous WHEREIN 
 
 vision, it is ever the questioning of life ; it bathes all his WE ARE 
 
 art in sweet sadness as of the twilieht ; and in nothing is it 1-^TRO- 
 
 more exquisitely eiven forth than in the exhalation as of a ^^"^^^ ^^ 
 
 THF POET 
 delicate fragrance that breathes from his nervous haunted ti^v 
 
 Madonnas, sighing at the strange destiny that has beckoned -pT^T^^-^ 
 to them to bear the sublime honour of being the Mother ji\,i£ qF 
 of God. Botticelli created a new type of beauty of which jhE RE- 
 Athens knew naught — even as he essayed to grasp the NAISSANCE 
 significance of Hellenism and bring it into the flower- 
 carpeted Italian meadows. But the Madonna has heard 
 the pipes of Pan, if only by the distant woodlands ; and her 
 eyes are held by the ghostly and twilight vision that is in 
 the eves of the pallid goddesses who dance like shadows in 
 the pale springtime of his great design, or step out of the 
 tender-hued and stormless seas ot his dreams on to the 
 gentle grassy shores of his Italv. 
 
 Of all who ever wrought art, no man, whether Greek 
 or Japanese, employed line with such astounding musical 
 utterance as Botticelli. The only man of modem times 
 who approached him was Aubrey Beardsley. His line 
 gives forth rhythm to the sense of sight as of viols and 
 lutes played by the wizardy of genius into our hearing. 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF BOTTICELLI 
 
 Modern research has done much to wi.-: bic.-: 3 ::::ceUi s 
 name to his many usurped masterpieces, ar.i :: :ii r.is name 
 from the works of lesser men. A nameless •• .\:-::c: di 
 Sandro" — Friend of Sandro — has been brought back to 
 nameless honour. And tc Francesco Botticini, of con- 
 fusing name, has been given back much work for long 
 filched of his credit and attributed tc Botticelli. Mr. 
 
 109
 
 THE GOLD- 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 PAINTING 
 
 Berenson, the authority on the Italian Schools, has done 
 yeoman service in unravelling the tangled knot. 
 
 Of Botticelli's pupils, the most famous was Filippino 
 Lippi, the son of Botticelli's master, Fra Filippo Lippi and 
 of his nun wife ; but another goldsmith-painter, Ghirlandaio, 
 first claims a tribute, who wrought and lived within the 
 years of Botticelli, and beside him, and with him, and died 
 before him. Ghirlandaio had not the superb genius of his 
 great fellow-artist ; his art gave forth but in narrower 
 fashion the conception of the age ; but he wrought, with 
 delightful colour-sense and remarkable style, an art that 
 was worthy of his times and a significance, of a temper 
 gracious and amiable, and of a pleasing achievement as 
 musical as his name. 
 
 no
 
 XIII 
 
 SCHOOL OF 
 DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO 
 1449 - 1494 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 
 « PORTRAIT OF A GIRL " 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 Note. — This picture is probably by Bastiano Mainardi, the brother-in- 
 law and assistant of Domenico Ghirlandaio. 
 
 The exquisite colour-scheme is particularly remarkable for the beauty 
 of the painting of the hair, and its freshness of quality. 
 
 Painted in tempera on wood, i ft. 4 in. x 10^ in. (0*405 m. x o"26).
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OF AN EXQUISITE MAKER OF GARLANDS 
 
 GHIRLANDAIO 
 
 1449 - 1494 
 To a silk-weaver of Florence, one Tomasso Bigordi, was OF AN 
 born in 1449 his eldest son Domenico del Ghirlandaio. EXQUISITE 
 The child was therefore some five years younger than MAKhR Oi:< 
 Botticelli. Ghirlandaio, the eldest of the three sons of our GARLANDS 
 worthy silk-merchant, was apprenticed to a goldsmith, 
 famous in the Florence of these days as the maker of the 
 jewelled coronals called ghirlande, worn by the ladies of this 
 city — and thereby Bigordi's eldest lad came to the name 
 which has made him immortal. Like so many of the 
 jewel-workers, Ghirlandaio was early using the brush 
 also, became the pupil of Alessio Baldovinetti, and was 
 soon so well known that he was painting' panel-pictures and 
 frescoes as far away as Rome and Lucca, Pisa and San 
 Gimignano. Ghirlandaio's art is perhaps more obviously 
 and easily seen than that of Botticelli ; he reveals the more 
 trivial side of the Florentine temperament, with its love of 
 colours and innate sense of design, not without formality. 
 But few who sense the significance of art would to-day dub 
 him " the connecting link between the frescoes of Masaccio 
 and of Raphael." He is said to have scolded his apprentices 
 roundly for not carrying out trivial orders for patrons which 
 would have filled his pockets with gold ; and his art is not 
 without the hint of a somewhat commonplace mind. He 
 wholly lacks the poetic genius of Botticelli. 
 
 Ill
 
 THE GOLD- 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 Ghirlandaio's frescoes painted in the Sassetti Chapel in 
 the Church of S. Trinita at Florence in 1485, his thirty- 
 sixth year, are well known ; but it is to the Church of 
 Santa Maria Novella in Florence that one must go to see 
 the supreme achievement of Ghirlandaio's art in fresco, in 
 that series which he painted, along with his brother David, 
 for Giovanni Tornabuoni, of scenes from the Lives of St. "John 
 the Baptist and the Virgin Mary — and to which, after five 
 years of labour upon them, he in 1490 set his signature 
 Bighordi Grillandai. 
 
 There had entered Ghirlandaio's workshop in 1484, the 
 year before he finished the frescoes in the Sassetti Chapel, 
 a boy of nine who was to win to a stupendous position in 
 the art of all time as Michelangelo ; and 'tis likely enough 
 that the wonderful boy gazed upon the making of these 
 frescoes and of the greater ones at Santa Maria Novella also 
 in his youth, for Ghirlandaio wrote his Jinis to the foot of 
 his great masterpieces when his pupil was in his fifteenth 
 year — likely enough the lad ground and mixed the paints 
 for their making as he was admitted to the secrets and 
 mysteries of the craft which he himself was to employ in 
 the years close at hand in supreme fashion. Indeed, the 
 precocious lad had already astonished his master with his 
 wondrous gift of draughtmanship, and was not above cor- 
 recting that master's drawing. 
 
 It was whilst Ghirlandaio was at his five years of work 
 upon his great frescoes at the Church of Santa Maria 
 Novella for Giovanni Tornabuoni, that he came to paint, 
 in 1488, on the edge of forty, his superb Portrait of 
 Giovafina Tornabuoni, the year in which that beautiful 
 woman died. Giovanna degli Albizzi, at the time she 
 was married to Lorenzo Tornabuoni, had been painted by 
 Botticelli, and her features immortalised thereby in superb 
 112
 
 XIV 
 
 FILIPPINO LIPPI 
 
 1457 - 1504 
 
 TUSCAN SCHOOL 
 
 "THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ST. JEROME AND 
 ST. DOMINIC" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 This, the centre panel, shows the Virgin seated in the midst of a land- 
 scape, with the Infant Christ at her breast. On the left kneels St. Jerome 
 clasping in his upraised hands a stone, with which he is about to beat his 
 bare breast ; on the right kneels St. Dominic reading in a book and holding 
 his emblem the lily. In the background are various incidents from the life 
 of St. Jerome. The predella is a Pi&ta with half figures of the Magdalen 
 and St. Francis at either side. At the extreme ends are the arms ol the 
 Rucellal family, for whom the picture was painted. 
 
 Painted in tempera on wood. Centre panel 6 ft. 9 in. h. x 6 ft. i in. w. 
 (2-056 X 1-853). 
 
 Predella 8 in. h. x 7 ft. 9 in. w. (0-203 >^ 2-361),
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 frescoes wrought by him for the Villa Lemmi, and passed OF AN 
 
 out of sight under the whitewash of neglect until some EXQUISITE 
 
 thirty years or so ago, when they were discovered, on the MAKER OF 
 
 whitewash being taken away, and were removed to the ^■^i^^-^'^-L'i> 
 
 Louvre, where they are now one of France's most prized 
 
 treasures. Giovanna Tornabuoni was fortunate indeed in 
 
 her limners, for her portrait by Ghirlandaio, that used to 
 
 hang on loan in the National Gallery in London, and has 
 
 now passed into the possession of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, is 
 
 one of the supreme achievements in the whole portraiture 
 
 of the Italian Renaissance. The pure and exquisite profile, 
 
 marked with all that strange grace and haunting distinction 
 
 so inherent to the age, shows the ideal lady of quality who 
 
 called forth the Florentine poet's praises when the fourteen- 
 
 hundreds were at their full. 
 
 Amongst what were destined to be the last works from 
 Ghirlandaio's hand, was the large panel of the Visitation at 
 the Louvre, painted for Lorenzo Tornabuoni the year after 
 his beautiful Giovanna died — for it is dated 1491 — impres- 
 sive in its simplicity, and treated with rare and noble 
 grandeur of conception. 
 
 In the Louvre also is the panel of the famous Portrait of a 
 Bottle-nosed Man and Child, painted by Ghirlandaio as though 
 to prove that a poet could paint ugliness with realistic 
 force, and yet convey the exquisite tenderness that lies in 
 the affection of a child, blind to the defects of the thing it 
 loves ; and with what exquisite gifts Ghirlandaio achieved 
 his art, the wide world has proved by its homage to the 
 grace and charm whereby the winsome child wins its way 
 into our affections with its love for the tender-hearted man 
 whose affectionate eyes peep through so plain a mask. 
 
 It has been charged against Ghirlandaio that his art is 
 weak in religious sentiment and in poetic imagination. 
 VOL. I — p 1 1 3
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE GOLD- 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 The word " poetic " is all too much an affair of cheapness. 
 No man is an artist unless he be a poet. Poet is but the 
 label for an artist in words ; artist but the label for a poet 
 in colour or form. But in imagination Ghirlandaio, though 
 he may not have been compelling, was certainly not lacking, 
 as his colour-sense fully reveals. His decorative sense was 
 glowing and most markedly personal, and there is in all he 
 did the well-bred sense of elegance. He, like Botticelli, 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, and the painters of his age, has left us 
 a rich store of portraiture of the great folk of the late 
 fourteen-hundreds. 
 
 Ghirlandaio was to be cut off in the height of his 
 career. He died suddenly, falling a victim to the plague 
 of 1494, in his forty-fifth year, and his dust rests in the 
 church of Santa Maria Novella, which his hand's skill did 
 so much to adorn. 
 
 GHIRLANDAIO'S ARTIST KINSMEN 
 
 There is a charming painting, Portrait of a Girl^ in 
 the National Gallery in London, delightfully tinged with 
 Ghirlandaio's quaint fancy, and long set down to Ghir- 
 landaio's credit ; it is now challenged as more likely to 
 have been the work of Bastiano Mainardi, Ghirlandaio's 
 brother-in-law ; — whether so or not, the painting of the 
 girl's fair hair is exquisite. Both of Domenico del Ghir- 
 landaio's brothers, David and Benedetto Bigordi, were 
 painters and assistants to Ghirlandaio, though they never 
 reached to his gifts. And Ghirlandaio's son Ridolfo (1483- 
 1561) is said to have completed the painting of the 
 draperies on Raphael's La Belle yardiniere. This Ridolfo 
 learnt his craft as pupil to Francesco Granacci, who had 
 been pupil to his father Ghirlandaio. 
 
 114
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 OF THE SON OF A FRIAR AND A NUN 
 
 But to get back to the masters of the age, the con- OF THE 
 temporaries of Botticelli and Ghirlandaio ; the greatest of SON OF A 
 Botticelli's pupils was FRIAR AND 
 
 FILIPPINO LIPPI 
 
 1457 - 1504 
 
 Filippino Lippi, " Little Philip Lippi," the love-child of 
 Fra Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, the nun, was born 
 at Prato in 1457, amidst the scandal of the place. The 
 worldly friar died when the child was but twelve years old, 
 the boy passing to the care of Fra Diamante, who had 
 been the friar's fellow-worker and humble partner in his 
 artistry. The reckless friar seems, indeed, to have kept the 
 affection of the scandalised monks of his order. The lad 
 Filippino Lippi soon thereafter was working in the studio 
 of Botticelli, and the art of Botticelli reveals its influence 
 over all that the son of his own master was to give to the 
 world. Filippino Lippi*s early work is so absolutely 
 founded upon the art of his master, that his name has 
 undoubtedly been given to several of Botticelli's paintings 
 — and is still so given even in one or two of the great 
 galleries, though there is much disputing thereon by the 
 scientific writers upon art. Several paintings by Botticelli 
 are given to Filippino Lippi in the National Gallery in 
 London. 
 
 In 1480, his twenty-third year, Filippino Lippi was 
 
 115 
 
 A NUN
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 THE GOLD- appointed to paint his Vision of St. Bernard in the Badia at 
 Florence, and had thus early made considerable reputation 
 — his achievement greatly increased it ; for, four years there- 
 after, in 1484, his twenty-seventh year, FiHppino Lippi 
 was appointed to finish the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel 
 of the Carmine Church which had been left incomplete 
 by Masaccio at his early death half a century before, 
 and the young fellow adapted his gifts with astonishing 
 judgment to utter an art in tune with that of the great 
 dead master. 
 
 Three years after he began his work upon the Brancacci 
 Chapel, in 1487, his thirtieth year, Filippino Lippi had won 
 the approval of Filippo Strozzi, who chose him to paint 
 the famous and superb, if flamboyant, frescoes in the Chapel 
 of the Strozzi Family at Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 
 which have for motive the lives of St. John the Baptist and 
 of St. Philip, his patron's patron-saint. 
 
 He wrought upon these frescoes for fifteen years, until 
 he was forty-five, a couple of years before his death, on the 
 1 8th of April 1504. 
 
 The world-famous painting of the Virgin and Child, with 
 St. Jerome and St. Dominic^ in the National Gallery in 
 London, is of the supreme achievement of Filippino Lippi's 
 art. Beautiful and gracious in treatment, glowing and 
 golden in colour, it advances the art of painting in its depth 
 and exquisite harmonies. Painted for the Rucellai Chapel, 
 in the church of San Pancrazio at Florence, it was after- 
 wards taken to the Palazzo Rucellai, where it hung until 
 sold to Britain in 1857, in its complete form, including its 
 Predella^ on the ends of which are the arms of the Rucellai 
 family, whence it is sometimes known as the Rucellai 
 Madonna. The golden landscape, painted with a glorious 
 sense of atmosphere, tells the story of the lion and the ass, 
 116
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 holding the legend of St. Jerome in exquisitely rendered OF THE 
 restraint. The whole conception reveals Filippino Lippi SON OF A 
 at the height of his powers, thrusting forward the art of FRIAR AND 
 the last years of the fourteen-hundreds towards its modern ^UN 
 development. 
 
 He thrice again reached nearly to this astounding accom- 
 plishment — in the Vision of St, Bernard 2it the Badia ; in the 
 tondo of the Virgin and Child^ with St. John, St. Joseph, and 
 St. Margaret, now in the Warren collection at Boston in 
 the United States ; and in the Altarpiece in the Church of 
 S. Spirito at Florence. 
 
 In the year 1504, that was to see the death of Filippino 
 Lippi at forty-seven, there had just been finished the statue 
 of David by Michelangelo, now grown to ever-increasing 
 fame, on the edge of his thirtieth year. 
 
 That Filippino Lippi was held in high honour in the 
 Florence of his day is proved by the fact that he was one 
 of the jury called together to settle the site on which 
 Michelangelo's great statue of David was to stand. 
 
 In the church of S. Maria Sopra Minerva at Rome, 
 where Galileo was later to sign his famous recantation, 
 Filippino Lippi painted a Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 Of Filippino Lippi's pupils, two were of the name of 
 Raffaelo, and a third Raffaelo of the same time adds con- 
 fusion, especially as all three were sons of Bartolommeos. 
 Raffaelo, called Raffaellino del Garbo (1466- 15 24), has 
 much of the delicacy and charm of Lorenzo di Credi ; and 
 several of Filippino Lippi's works have been credited to 
 him. His chief works are a Virgin and Child at Berlin ; an 
 altarpiece at S. Spirito, Florence ; and a Resurrection in 
 the Academy at Florence. Raffaelo de' Capponi, another 
 pupil of Filippino Lippi, is best known by his altarpiece 
 in S. Maria Nuova at Florence. Raffaelo de' Carli was 
 
 117
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE GOLD- a painter of a style akin to that of Perugino, and is best 
 known by his altar-piece (1502) in the Corsini Palace at 
 Florence. 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 Filippino Lippi, whose face we know from his well- 
 known self-portrait at the Uffizi, shows in his features 
 much of the significance of his art. Already, as the bells 
 of Florence rang out the fourteen-hundreds, the astounding 
 achievement of Florence in art was showing hints of that 
 love of the flamboyant that men call baroque, that tendency 
 to over-ornamentation and elaboration of detail inherent in 
 the Florentine liking for detail even in its superb genius. 
 This elaboration is a threat that easily overbalances into 
 vulgarity, and much of the work of Filippino Lippi, as in 
 the great frescoes at the Santa Maria Novella, held even 
 more than a threat, with their over-insistence on details of 
 draperies and Roman trophies upon over-elaborate buildings 
 in his backgrounds. Already that danger of the baroque is 
 come into Italy, led thereto by the hand of this greatly 
 gifted man. It is when he paints his exquisite landscapes 
 for scenery that the beautiful lands of Tuscany bring him 
 to his supreme endeavour. He showed rare gifts of design 
 and spacing, and he could paint his figures therein with 
 large and dignified skill ; but he was all too prone to 
 forsake the large and simple breadth so beloved of the 
 genius of his century, and to reject the winsome, delicate 
 and ethereal types for less spiritual ideals, and to get lost in 
 a restless and bizarre confusion of elaborate ornament and 
 arrangement. 
 
 Therein he but voiced the Florence of his day. As the 
 
 Renaissance in Italy reached towards 1500, the Greek spirit, 
 
 that had brought doubt into the land, had triumphed, and 
 
 worldly ideals of worldly success had wrecked the simpler 
 
 118
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 ideals of an earlier faith. The saints and madonnas still held OF THE 
 the centre of the canvas, but swiftly the simplicity was SON OF A 
 going out of them, and a new significance, the breath of FRIAR AND 
 science, was withering their ancient freshness. Sincerity in ^ NUN 
 art was flitting from the church, to be replaced by sumptuous 
 splendour in the palaces of the great, leaving a handsome 
 husk behind — for the Great demanded magnificence and 
 the strut before the people. The artist was losing touch 
 with the people, clambering out of the church, and glorify- 
 ing the sumptuous homes of the greatly rich. 
 
 The United Italy of which Dante dreamed, under an 
 Italian Emperor at Rome, was not to be. The people were 
 never united — never aimed at union. And their several 
 arts were as far apart as though they had been alien nations. 
 The art of Florence is the mirror of the age. Cosimo de* 
 Medici was its great patron. The merchant princes were 
 its nurses. They were the puppets of their age. The 
 Medici encouraged the sensual and worldly tastes of the 
 people, lured them away from sacred to profane subjects, 
 impelled by the desire to lull them into love of splendour 
 and glory of their chiefs rather than to brood on stern 
 republicanism. It was their deliberate and calculated policy 
 to enslave Florence. Lorenzo de' Medici flaunted his 
 magnificence, deliberately enfeebling the people by luxury, 
 enjoying voluptuous living himself, finding wide popularity 
 therein, and seeing that, beside its glamour, stern re- 
 publicanism looked grey to the people. The artists were 
 not backward in suiting their art to the questionable taste 
 of their patrons. It is true that Botticelli became in the end 
 a " pious one," but " in many houses he painted roundels 
 with his own hand, and of naked women plenty." It was 
 against the decay of the public spirit by paganism, and the 
 loss of republicanism in Florence, that Savonarola fought 
 
 119
 
 THE GOLD- 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 PAINTING 
 
 the tyrants in his own church, defied the very Pope, scorned 
 the princes of Florence, attacked works of art, and died at 
 the stake for it. The " prophet of S. Marco " may have 
 seen with narrow eyes when he misjudged the real 
 significance of Art and of the Renaissance ; but he made 
 no mistake when he attacked the debasing influences of 
 the Renaissance, even whilst he missed its mighty impulses 
 — for the Medici approved the debasing influences, and 
 came to tyranny thereby. 
 
 120
 
 XV 
 
 PIERO DI COSIMO 
 1462 - 1521 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 "THE DEATH OF PROCRIS" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 Ccphalus kneels at the head of Procris, whom he has accidentally shot. 
 Painted in tempera on poplar, z ft. ij in. h. x 6 ft. vv. (0647 x 1-828).
 
 *s
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 OF THE DEEPS OF POETRY THAT MAY BE WITHIN 
 THE ROUGH OUTER MAN 
 
 Working at the same time in Florence as Verrocchio was OF THE 
 a painter, Cosimo Rosselli, now chiefly known to fame I^EEPS OF 
 as the master of the artists, Piero di Cosimo and Fra POETRY 
 Bartolommeo. But Cosimo RosselH was an artist of fine ^^^^ m/\i 
 gifts, who was employed under Botticelli on work for the tt^T7 
 Sistine Chapel, in which he painted several frescoes. Cosimo ROTirH 
 Rosselli ( 1 439-1 507) came of artist forefathers. OUTER 
 
 PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 1462 - 1521 
 
 Of about the same age as Filippino Lippi, Lorenzo di 
 Credi, and Leonardo da Vinci, was Piero di Cosimo, whose 
 picturesque and tuneful name was a tribute to his master, 
 Cosimo Rosselli. Piero di Cosimo was the son of Lorenzo, 
 an auger-maker of Florence ; at twenty (1482) he went with 
 his master, Cosimo Rosselli, to aid him in his work on the 
 frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. But though the direct pupil 
 of Cosimo Rosselli, he became an eager student of the art of 
 Antonio Pollaiuolo, to whom he owed his knowledge of the 
 nude, and was strongly affected by the work of Luca Signo- 
 relli, of Filippino Lippi, and of Leonardo da Vinci, which was 
 being wrought about him, and he owes tribute to Botticelli. 
 His paintings, being scattered throughout the great public 
 galleries of Europe and the great private collections — more 
 particularly in England — are widely known. His fine Venus^ 
 VOL. I — Q 121 
 
 MAN
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 THE GOLD- Mars^ and Cupid at Berlin proves that his eyes had beheld 
 Botticelli's masterpiece now in London, and his equally 
 celebrated portrait of La Bella Simonetta at Chantilly reveals 
 that not only had his eyes lingered upon Botticelli's crafts- 
 manship, but that the beauty of the golden age of Florence 
 and her queen of love had sat to him — this portrait used to 
 be known as Cleopatra, and bore the credit of PoUaiuolo's 
 name. 
 
 Piero di Cosimo was one of the famous jury appointed 
 to decide on the site for Michelangelo's statue of David in 
 Florence, and he pays tribute to the fact by painting the 
 much-talked-of statue into the background of his Portrait 
 of a Warrior in London. 
 
 Contemporary of Lorenzo di Credi, but of what different 
 stuff, was Piero di Cosimo. For him was no smug painting 
 of formal devotions ; for him no mere imitations, no mimi- 
 cries. His art utters the spirit of the age in consummate 
 fashion. All the glamour of the new learning is there ; 
 the gods of antique days have come out of hiding and frisk 
 abroad. Piero di Cosimo was a very Florentine of Floren- 
 tines, the republican blood in him, a live individual, 
 frank of tongue, witty, arrogant, whimsical, odd, his quaint 
 soul sensitive to the subtlest delicacies of colour, grim of 
 character, exquisitely sympathetic to sorrow and pain. No 
 more perfect example of his skill of artistry has come down 
 to us than the glowing harmonies of his Death of Procris at 
 the National Gallery in London. Here we have very 
 Florence of the late fourteen-hundreds. Here are the 
 pagan gods stepping out of their long hiding in the shady 
 groves, and careering abroad in Italian landscape. Within 
 the space of the long narrow span of the painted surface, 
 Piero di Cosimo has uttered his poem of love and jealousy, 
 of death and remorse, in lyric fashion. The whispered 
 
 122
 
 XVI 
 
 FRA BARTOLOMMEO 
 1475 - 1517 
 
 (Louvre) 
 "VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS"
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 slander that has sent the jealous Procris into her hiding- OF THE 
 place in the thicket to watch her lover's meeting with an DEEPS OF 
 Unknown One, has also sent her to her death, when, leaping POETRY 
 from hiding to confess her false suspicion, she is slain by ^^^^ '^^- 
 the arrow of her lover as he quickly lets fly, startled by the .^ trf 
 rustle of what he took to be a wild beast in the bush ; and rqUGH 
 as the life flows scarlet from her wounded throat, she tells OUTER 
 her tale — and unseen Jupiter, bending his ear to hear the MAN 
 piteous tragedy, did well to change her into a star. 'Tis a 
 literary theme, it 's true enough, and the pictured sonnet 
 needs a book of the words to explain it — therein the art is 
 faulty enough, as indeed was much of the art of the 
 Florentines — but, apart from this, what an exquisite thing 
 it is ! the pity of it, shown in the bereaved satyr and 
 mourning dog, the wondrous landscape bathed in the 
 glamour of that strange unheeding Nature which hesitates 
 or halts a moment never, even to shed a tear, though death 
 strike out of the blue at one of her myriad children. The 
 sun shines on, the storks hie them across the heavens to 
 their own wayfaring, all Nature heedless of the pitiful 
 tragedy. How wondrous well the grim vision of this 
 Piero di Cosimo has caught the cruelty and the pity of it ! 
 and with what exquisite poetry his hand has uttered what 
 he has felt ! 
 
 Here is the eternal question that is stirring the hearts 
 of thinking men in this Florence of the end of the fourteen- 
 hundreds — that question writ across the art of Leonardo da 
 Vinci in such masterly fashion. They were at grips with life, 
 these men. And Piero di Cosimo not the least of them. 
 
 A solitary man, careless of the world's opinion of him, 
 he had little but contempt for the things that men call the 
 prizes of life. He was concerned only with uttering life as 
 he saw and felt it. Shutting himself up to brood over his 
 
 123
 
 THE GOLD- 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 own ideas, and detesting to let others see him at his work, 
 the world judged him eccentric. Sensitive and irritable, 
 with nerves that jarred at the crying of babes or coughing 
 of men that passed by ; fretted to madness by flies ; and 
 loathing the dark ; when the humdrum folk saw him go by 
 in the street they tapped their skulls significantly. But 
 Piero di Cosimo lived in a world of dreams. People winked 
 and nodded at each other, jerking the thumb of disdain at 
 the untended, unpruned fruit-trees in his garden. A virile, 
 odd fellow, full of arrogance and self-will, careless of 
 comfort — his meals were of the hard-boiled eggs which he 
 could cook as he boiled his glue, thereby saving fuel, and 
 needed little elaborate dishing. He had the tricks and 
 habits of the absent-minded — they said he talked overmuch, 
 repeated the things he said to weariness ; but they would 
 laugh themselves to tears at times, for his thinking was 
 wide and various, and in a good vein he was splendid 
 company — a waggish soul, dry with the Florentine grim 
 humour. But the doctors had no love for him ; nor he for 
 the doctors — he scoffed at physician or apothecary, and 
 would have none of their nostrums, whereby he suffered no 
 little, for, in his last years he fretted and fumed at the 
 maiming paralysis that numbed his hands as he doddered 
 about his studio, cursing the ill-luck that thwarted his 
 hand's skill from giving utterance to the will of his brain, and 
 reviling the plague that had fallen upon him, which would 
 not even let him scratch his own irritating hands. But the 
 grimness of the man never knew paralysis ; at the last he 
 would scoff at the idea of degradation in capital punishment, 
 praising it instead as " a fine thing to go to death in the 
 open air amidst a throng of people." His dramatic vision 
 rose supreme, even as he gazed at the end of things. 
 
 Poetic, of infinite invention and exquisite imagination, 
 124
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 sensitive and quick to all the moods of life, he saw visions OF THE 
 in the clouds and evolved poems out of the stained surfaces DEEPS O? 
 of walls. With a fine contempt for wordy philosophies, POETRY 
 
 Tr*T T A T"* 7V/T A \' 
 
 he concerned himself solely with life ; and though all he \x7txw 
 
 wrought, whether portrait or religious picture or pagan ,^ twf 
 mythology, was done with consummate skill, it was with rqUGH 
 the pagan gods in their wild sport and tragedies amidst OUTER 
 the woods and meadows and by the seashore that he found MAN 
 his chief delight. 
 
 He was fond of the long, wide panel of little height. 
 The Battle of the Centaurs a?jd the Lapithae shows him in 
 his love of wild creatures, whether real or imaginary — 
 proves, as does all his art, his passion for the wildness of 
 Nature, Nature unspoiled by man's ordering, that Nature 
 which, as he affirmed, " ought not to be interfered with." 
 
 Piero di Cosimo died in 1521, at Florence. 
 
 Of his pupils, one was to come to great fame, for there 
 came from his training the genius of a tailor's son, whom 
 the world knows as Andrea del Sarto. 
 
 125
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 OF THE GENTLE SOUL OF HIM WHO CREATED THE 
 
 LAY FIGURE 
 
 THE GOLD- We have seen a well-nigh forgotten painter of Florence in 
 SMITH- Verrocchio's day, one Cosimo Rosselli, training a student to 
 
 PAINTERS create superb art as Piero di Cosimo. This Cosimo Rosselli 
 ^^ must have had a rich sense of colour, since not only did 
 
 Piero di Cosimo bring into Florentine art a v^ondrous rich 
 and glow^ing colour, markedly golden as against the silvery 
 tradition of Florentine painting ; but there also came from 
 Cosimo Rosselli's studio — or, as some hold, from his pupil 
 Piero di Cosimo's studio — a boy of nine, son of a muleteer of 
 Suffignano, settled in Florence, a gentle, timid, yielding boy, 
 who was gravely industrious. He starts with grinding the 
 colours, sweeping the shop, running errands — becomes the 
 bosom friend of another lad, one Mariotto Albertinelli, who 
 is far from industrious or timid or shy — but our industrious 
 apprentice is destined to bring a Venetian warmth of 
 colouring to the Florentine achievement of the fifteen- 
 hundreds, his name Baccio della Porta, to become more 
 famous as Fra Bartolommeo. 
 
 FRA BARTOLOMMEO 
 
 1475 - 1517 
 
 Some thirteen years younger than Piero di Cosimo, but 
 
 dying before him, was Era Bartolommeo. There is a 
 
 tendency in present-day criticism, which is concerning itself 
 
 far too much with the superficialities of technique, and the 
 
 126
 
 PAINTING 
 
 antique-dealer's attitude towards works of art, which indeed OF THE 
 is taken to be the essential significance of art, rather than GENTLE 
 with the inner significance of art, to underrate the work of SOUL OF 
 Fra Bartolommeo. He cannot be dismissed as a mere pom- ^^'^ WHO 
 pous painter of monumental altar-pieces. Bartolommeo was ,, 
 not a poet, say, like Piero di Cosimo ; his lack of grip on FjpTiRp 
 character hampered his achievement ; and the very source 
 of his strength, a sense of dignified composition, largely 
 trended to harden his grouping into a somewhat heavy 
 formula. But he was a forerunner of no mean order. He 
 brought to painting a sense of sculpture and a grip of 
 modelling which are attune to the artistry of Michelangelo, 
 who was born in the same year. But he revealed qualities 
 that had far greater influence upon the Florentine art of the 
 fifteen-hundreds. The art of painting amongst the great 
 Florentines of the fourteen-hundreds — developing through 
 Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi — had thrust its 
 innate domain of colour forward to increase of emotional 
 utterance by mellowing the crude qualities of the Byzantine 
 illuminators into harmonies expressed in tones, so that, as 
 with the more tragic exponents of Florentine art, the 
 illusion of depth in the picture had been aimed at, giving 
 the sense of the roundness of objects, as though they stood 
 in atmosphere. The Florentines had reached towards this 
 by keen study of the relations of light and shade — called by 
 artists chiaroscuro — tentatively it is true, until Leonardo da 
 Vinci came and compelled the painted surface to yield the 
 mysteries of atmosphere by a power of representing by light 
 and shade an almost living quality as though ;:he breath 
 stirred within the figures, bathed in their volume of 
 atmosphere. But Leonardo compelled chiaroscuro to the 
 supreme place in rendering the pictured thing ; he made 
 colour subordinate to light and shade ; and aimed at melting 
 
 127
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 THE GOLD- colour into this light and shade rather than stating colour 
 in its values as colour. He did not realise the modern 
 vision of the aerial perspective of colour as colour, v^hat 
 one may call the musical utterance of colour against colour 
 that creates colour in distance of its depth. 
 
 The first of the Florentines to attempt the use of 
 brilliant colour in the rich harmonies v^hich are the very 
 essence of Venetian painting, was Bartolommeo. He did 
 not achieve to greatness therein ; but at least he essayed it. 
 He struck the new note of the fifteen-hundreds in the 
 Florentine accomplishment. 
 
 I have said that Bartolommeo had a marked instinct for 
 the large and rhythmic composition, but it was an instinct 
 heavily qualified and weighted by scientific theories of 
 balance ; and science is ever a hampering burden on the 
 back of instinct in art. It ran to pyramidalisms and the 
 like pomposities. And it created that elaborate scheme of 
 laws, and invented that style, which were afterwards to have 
 so strong an influence on a youth called Raphael, as indeed 
 also were his gaiety of colouring and his rich and golden 
 harmonies. 
 
 Bartolommeo also invented the lay figure ; and it is exactly 
 in a certain effect as of lay figures in his art, of a scientific 
 spirit rather than an instinct and emotion dictating his 
 arrangements and the actions of his figures in those arrange- 
 ments, that Bartolommeo fell short of greatness. Of a 
 nature pliant and sensitive, he was influenced by Leonardo 
 da Vinci, then by Raphael, who was subject to him, then, 
 at the end, making the final effort and failure in attempting 
 to catch the majesty and force of Michelangelo which 
 were wholly alien to the charm of his gracious art. To 
 build sublimity on gentle grace were to break both. 
 
 Bartolommeo was a passionate disciple of Savonarola, 
 128
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 of whom he painted two well-known portraits. It was on OF THE 
 hearing the Dominican thunders against worldliness and GENTLE 
 immorality that Bartolommeo gathered together his studies SOUL OF 
 from the nude and burnt them upon the public "pyre ^^^ WHO 
 of vanities." A monk he was to become, but, strangely ^Trp r , y 
 enough, neither he nor that other pure and gentle follower jrjGURE 
 of Savonarola, Lorenzo di Credi, had the fire in his art to 
 utter the rage of Savonarola. 
 
 Bartolommeo was deeply humiliated by the failure of 
 the monk and his public execution by burning and hanging. 
 On the fall of Savonarola, Bartolommeo retired from the 
 world, entering the Dominican Order, and withdrawing into 
 the convent of S. Marco. 
 
 His masterpieces are the Raphaelesque Madonna, with 
 Saints and Angels^ in the cathedral of Lucca, and the Virgin 
 appearing to St. Bernard in the Academy at Florence. Bar- 
 tolommeo's art is a development far beyond the art of the 
 fourteen-hundreds — he is the connecting link between it 
 and the coming Golden Age. 
 
 Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-15 1 5), the friend and 
 fellow-worker of Bartolommeo, has largely lost his in- 
 dividuality, swamped in the art of Bartolommeo, perhaps 
 in that he it was who carried out the pictures left incom- 
 plete when the friar retired from the world. It is certain 
 that many of Albertinelli's paintings are set down to 
 Bartolommeo ; but that he was an artist of power is proved 
 by his serene and masterly Visitation at the Uffizi, marked 
 by rare nobility and dignity. 
 
 The friendship of these two opposite souls, in boyhood 
 and manhood, is one of the charming pictures of the 
 Renaissance, little given to fidelities. The sweet and gentle 
 spirit of Bartolommeo shines serenely through it all. Bar- 
 tolommeo early became a disciple of Savonarola, and a 
 VOL. I — R 129
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE GOLD- piagnone ; Mariotto Albertinelli, wilful and noisy, was, for 
 the Medici party, a loose liver, an uproarious partisan. He 
 ended by leaving art and becoming an innkeeper. Yet the 
 two ever remained firm friends. Contrast the gentle and 
 timid soul of Bartolommeo, whose weapon drops from his 
 hand at sound of the first onrush of the besiegers upon the 
 convent of S. Marco, vowing to become a monk if heaven 
 should spare him I with the rollicking, swashbuckling tap- 
 ster Albertinelli. 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 130
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 OF A DANDIFIED STIGGINS OF VAST HAND'S SKILL 
 
 We must go back for a moment to Piero della Francesca, OF A 
 
 or Dei Franceschi, whom we saw as pupil to Domenico DANDIFIED 
 
 Veneziano and under the influence of Uccello, and with a STIGGINS 
 
 keen scientific eagerness for perspective and desire to create ^ VAST 
 
 • HAND'S 
 
 depth in painting, writmg a Treatise on Perspective. Piero 
 
 del Franceschi is often classed amongst the Umbrians, but 
 
 Umbrian he was not by birth or temperament. 
 
 Franceschi's teaching brought forth two pupils who were 
 to reach to mastery — Melozzo da Forli and Luca Signorelli. 
 
 Of the life of Melozzo da Forli (143 8- 1494) little is 
 known. Born at Forli in the Romagna, he worked at 
 Rome about 1472 for Cardinal Riario, nephew to Pope 
 Sixtus IV., and for him painted frescoes in the church of 
 the SS. Apostoli, of which some fragments remain, now 
 in the sacristy of St. Peter's and on the staircase of the 
 Quirinal ; but all such works of his as are known show his 
 mastery of movement and depth of space learnt from 
 Franceschi, and his own personal intensity of emotional 
 statement. Melozzo was made one of the original mem- 
 bers of the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, when founded 
 by Pope Sixtus iv. 
 
 Of Melozzo da Forli's pupils was Giovanni Santi 
 (1435 P-I494), to become the father of the greater Santi, 
 the renowned Raphael ; and the prolific painter Marco 
 Palmezzano (1456 ?-i 543), the last of the short-lived 
 Romagnoli school. 
 
 131
 
 THE GOLD- 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 Franceschi's second and greatest pupil, Luca Signorelli, 
 was to come to wide distinction, and was to have as wide 
 influence. 
 
 LUCA SIGNORELLI 
 1441 - 1523 
 
 Luca d'Egidio di Ventura, to be better known to fame 
 as Luca Signorelli, born at Cortona, was apprenticed to 
 Piero dei Franceschi at Arezzo ; he became strongly im- 
 pressed by the art of the brothers Pollaiuoli. Luca Signo- 
 relli is — on the tense and dramatic side of the Florentine 
 achievement, as is Botticelli on the spiritual side — intensely 
 moved by the Greek spirit that was overwhelming the 
 Florentine genius — is indeed, perhaps, more really " the 
 reanimate Greek" — for his aim is even more the Greek 
 aim of pure beauty than is Botticelli's ; but he adds to 
 it the high Florentine dramatic sense, caught from his 
 Florentine masters. 
 
 Cortona is but just without the southern boundary of 
 Tuscany, on the road to Rome; and along that road to 
 Rome the Florentine genius was about to travel in ever- 
 increasing stream, even while Signorelli lived, and in the 
 doing was to come to a sudden ultimate glory, reaching to 
 majestic heights of achievement, thereafter to wither like 
 a garden smitten by the blasting breath of the desert. 
 
 Signorelli was to become a master of the nude. His 
 astounding skill in painting the figure and of expressing 
 movement in the nude, from the natural swing of the body 
 to its most violent actions, his wonderful sense of the glow 
 of flesh, and his fascinating sense of rhythm in composition, 
 make him one of the great masters of the Florentine 
 Renaissance. 
 
 Of Signorelli's earlier work is the superb Pan at Berlin, 
 a masterpiece marked by spaciousness, and a severity almost 
 132
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 as of sculpture. Here we see the type of woman he created OF A 
 
 — with powerful chin, full forehead, and stern mouth. DANDIFIED 
 
 Signorelli has the dramatic power and tragic sadness of the STIGGINS 
 
 Florentine genius in great abundance, a fierceness of energy, ^^ 
 
 through which runs a strange tenderness ; he has, besides, „ 7^ 
 
 a feeling for pure beauty and grace more than Florentine. 
 
 In his frescoes at Orvieto, wrought between 1499 and 1502, 
 
 he seems to have set himself the task of painting the human 
 
 body in every conceivable position, as though the problem 
 
 of movement were his whole aim — a Dantesque desire to 
 
 state the most violent emotions, they are rated as being of 
 
 his supreme achievement ; the fresco of the En J of the World 
 
 produced a profound effect on the art of Michelangelo, in 
 
 whose fresco of The Last yudgment^ at the Sistine Chapel in 
 
 Rome, the influence of Signorelli is most marked. 
 
 Vasari's statement that Signorelli himself painted two 
 frescoes from the History of Moses in the Sistine Chapel at 
 Rome has been challenged by modern criticism, which 
 attributes them to Pinturicchio — though Vasari, for all his 
 rambling gossip, is often wonderfully correct. There is no 
 challenge as to Signorelli having painted the frescoes in the 
 Santa Casa of Loreto and the cloisters of Monte Oliveto 
 Maggiore o^ Scenes from the Life of St. Benedict. 
 
 Luca Signorelli came to high honour in his native city 
 of Cortona, where he was made a Member of the Council 
 of Eighteen, and held other high offices as Prior, Member 
 of the General Council, Prior of the Fraternity of St. Mark, 
 and Syndic. His later years were lived amidst great afflu- 
 ence and splendour. His mortal remains were laid to rest 
 in Cortona, where he died, in 1523, in his eighty-second 
 year. 
 
 Signorelli's mother was sister to Lazzaro, great-grand- 
 father of Giorgio Vasari, the famous chronicler of the lives
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE GOLD- of the Italian artists. He seems to have been a sincere 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 friend, fond of society, and socially ambitious — not above 
 an hypocrisy, ever ready to turn aside enmity vv^ith a pretty, 
 sometimes a Stiggins-like compliment. A dandy in his 
 habits, dressing handsomely, he lived in splendour, and his 
 own city and the world at large consequently honoured 
 him. 
 
 An iron will and profound sensing were the abundant 
 gifts of Luca Signorelli. His effect on the Florentine 
 achievement was prodigious. His significance in art is the 
 daring and boldness with which he thrust forward the 
 range of utterance of the instrument of painting to express 
 sublime and tragic intensity. He largely forestalled Michel- 
 angelo, not only in his expression of the nude, but in his 
 resolute and forceful desire to give utterance to the sublime 
 emotions and the tragic passions in terms of pure form, 
 reckless of the suave qualities of colour. To this grip upon 
 the human figure he bent all his powers — from the grave- 
 yard and the gibbet he took subjects for dissection ; and 
 his art was as marked for its audacity in seeking into the 
 emotions as was his will in getting subjects for his training. 
 His firm and true line never deserts him. In an age of 
 pedantry and ornamentation he sternly set his great powers 
 to the utterance of mighty tragedies, playing upon the 
 forms of the human body to render the significance of 
 life. 
 
 His son, a youth of great personal beauty, whom he 
 greatly loved, being killed in a duel at Cortona, was 
 brought to the grief-stricken father. Signorelli uttered no 
 word of woe or complaint. Without a tear he ordered 
 them to strip the seventeen-years-old lad naked, and, where 
 he lay, he painted him, so that he might have with him 
 always the beauty of his beloved son. 
 
 134
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 OF A GENTLE SOUL INCAPABLE OF TRAGEDY 
 
 There were working together in Verrocchio's workshop in OF A 
 Florence three youths who were destined to become famous GENTLE 
 as painters — Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, and Lorenzo di SOUL 
 Credi. Of these the least entitled to a great name was INCAPABLE 
 Lorenzo di Credi. 
 
 TRAGEDY 
 
 LORENZO DI CREDI 
 
 1459 - 1537 
 
 Lorenzo di Credi, however, must not be judged by his 
 paintings, which have brought him far higher repute than 
 they ought, for it is almost certain that he must have 
 achieved something approaching the masterpiece in sculp- 
 ture, since a sculptor of Verrocchio's genius was little likely 
 otherwise to leave instructions in his will that Lorenzo 
 di Credi was to be entrusted with the finishing of his 
 superb equestrian monument of Colleoni at Venice. Un- 
 fortunately no sculpture by Lorenzo di Credi has come 
 down to us whereby to judge him. But that, even as 
 a sculptor, Verrocchio estimated his gifts too highly is 
 proved by the fact that the completion of the Colleoni 
 statue was given to Leopardi, Lorenzo being adjudged 
 incompetent to carry it through. 
 
 Careful, painstaking, and gifted with a sense of graceful- 
 ness, Lorenzo di Credi's paintings are little more than an 
 echo of the religious picture which was becoming a set 
 formality of the studios. One looks in vain for that forceful 
 
 ^35
 
 PAINTING 
 
 SMITH- 
 PAINTERS 
 OF 
 FLORENCE 
 
 THE GOLD- personal note that marks the compelHng achievement of 
 the Florence of these years. Lorenzo di Credi neithei 
 revealed a personal vision nor won to great accomplishment 
 in craftsmanship — his feeling for form and his powers in 
 uttering colour were neither remarkable nor vigorous nor 
 subtle. About the year 1470 the Flemish (Zeelander) 
 painter, Hugo van der Goes, painted at Bruges for Tommaso 
 Portinari, the agent of the Medici, a huge Nativity which 
 Portinari presented to the hospital at Florence. This 
 Flemish work had a very large effect upon the art of 
 Florence ; Ghirlandaio, Lorenzo di Credi, and others 
 copied or adapted many of its details. But Lorenzo di 
 Credi's imitative nature could do little more than imitate. 
 
 Di Credi assisted his master Verrocchio in the painting 
 of the large The Madonna with Two Saints which stands in 
 Pistoia Cathedral. He is seen at his best in his Annunciation 
 and his Adoration of Christ in the Uffizi, and in the Nativity 
 and Adoration in the Academy at Florence. His was, like 
 Fra Bartolommeo's, a gentle soul, deeply impressed by 
 Savonarola's fiery preaching, but unable by force or vision 
 to give utterance to the violences of life, its vigours, or its 
 tragedies. 
 
 Giovanni Antonio Sogliani (1492-1544) was a pupil 
 and imitator of Lorenzo di Credi. 
 
 136
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 VOL. I- 
 
 ^Z7
 
 5 
 
 o o 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WHEREIN WE MEET THE GIANT OF THE SPRINGTIME 
 OF THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 Now dawns the Golden Age of the Renaissance — so men WHEREIN 
 
 label the years. The striving of the Florentine genius to WE MEET 
 
 utter itself in painting has brought forth command of the THE GIANT 
 
 hand over the tools of painting that enables the hand to do "^ 
 
 • • • SPRINC 
 
 what the eye wills. The Florentines bent their will to the rpx,^,-, ^^ 
 
 mastery of form, above all the human shape. They are ^Trp op 
 mastering depths by perspective of line, and by the aerial naISSANCE 
 perspective, employing light and shadow to give the distance 
 of objects bathed in their varying deeps of atmosphere. 
 Leonardo da Vinci comes and completes that conquest. 
 
 It is the habit of the writers to speak of the giants of 
 the Golden Age as being Leonardo da Vinci the Magician 
 of the Age, Raphael the Melodist, Correggio the Fawn, 
 and Michelangelo the Prophet. The tags fit well enough. 
 But Leonardo da Vinci is rather the culmination and 
 supreme genius of the great middle achievement of the 
 Renaissance, its splendid blossom. However, 'tis all some- 
 what a vain affair and futile — this docketing into classes. 
 The significance of Leonardo lies in this, that in him we 
 are to see one who by his vigorous will, his abounding 
 strength, and the keen inquisitiveness of his age, made his 
 hand facile to state the human form, to yield its sense of 
 
 139
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE movement, to place it in the deeps of its surrounding 
 
 GOLDEN atmosphere, and to envelope it in that mysterious sense of 
 "^^■^ life that is poetry, so that, even as we gaze upon his work 
 
 it seems to give forth life. For, mark this well, the whole 
 effort of Florence has been to create reality — to compel the 
 sense of vision to utter itself in such consummate fashion 
 that its works of art shall arouse, as fully and completely as 
 skill can do it, the emotion of life in all who behold the 
 pictured surface. The achievement of his hand, like the 
 achievement of all Florence, is to be akin to the vision of 
 the sculptor rather than of the painter — for the essential 
 significance of the painter is colour ; and Florence failed in 
 colour — failed, that is to say, to make the hand's skill facile 
 to utter the thing seen in the resonant terms of rhythmic 
 colour. 
 
 Until, and to some extent even in, Leonardo da Vinci's 
 skill, there is the feeling of the artist struggling with his 
 skill of hand to utter the music of his vision — the hand 
 does not quite achieve except by dogged labour. 
 
 Henceforth the hand's skill is to become more facile, 
 leaps to the eye's desire. Michelangelo employs the 
 significant phrase in one of his sonnets — " the hand obedient 
 to the brain." The hand leaps to utter the artist's desire ; 
 the dragging sense of endeavour departs from it. Art 
 conceals art. All that the Florentine genius is capable 
 of doing within the limits of its skill of hand, it is now 
 about to achieve — and in superb fashion. 
 
 I repeat : up to, and in a large degree including, the 
 art of Leonardo da Vinci, there is in all Florentine art the 
 sense of toil to create the impression. After Leonardo this 
 sense of labour is flown. There is in Leonardo's art, for all 
 its supreme force, a feeling akin to the century that created 
 him, rather than to the century that followed. And it is 
 140
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 for this reason that I would class him as the supreme singer WHEREIN 
 of the springtime of the Renaissance rather than one of the WE MEET 
 stars of the Golden Age. But the world has ordered THE GIANT 
 otherwise ; therefore, so let it be. And, of a truth, the ^^ THE 
 genius of Leonardo da Vinci was so compelling that the ^"^I^G- 
 inquisition of his profound vision sought out the secrets of ^Tip pVr 
 the later age — to that age he was a mighty forerunner ; and xtatccaxt^p 
 he stands, thereby, straddling like a giant between the two. 
 It was given to only one man of the Golden Age to surpass 
 him in intensity of power and sublimity of conception; yet 
 even Michelangelo was unable to touch some of the chords 
 of Leonardo's astounding art. 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 
 1452 - 1519 
 
 We have seen the Florentine genius develop along 
 two paths, side by side. On the one hand, through the 
 fourteen-hundreds, the spiritual and tenderly pietistic art 
 of Fra Angelico passed into the more worldly piety of 
 Fra Lippo Lippi, who went a-courting the beautiful nun, 
 Lucrezia Buti ; then Lippo Lippi's pupil, Botticelli, " the 
 reanimate Greek," brought the pagan gods dancing and 
 piping within the precincts of the church, with Ghirlandaio 
 working alongside of him; and Lippo Lippi's love-child, 
 Filippino Lippi, completed the conquest of the great world 
 over the simple faith of the forerunner, Fra Angelico. 
 Then, it will be seen, the goldsmith-painters — since 
 Filippino Lippi, though not a goldsmith, was of them 
 by birth and blood and tradition and training — largely 
 wrought out the pietistic development of Florentine art 
 that aimed at beauty. 
 
 On the other hand, the tragic and sombre realism that 
 Donatello and Masaccio created, wrought out the Florentine 
 
 141
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE spirit on its realistic side in broad and majestic fashion, with 
 
 GOLDEN fearless eyes for the truth, and reahsing ugliness as well as 
 AGE beauty to be a significance ; seeing life more whole, and 
 
 not flinching from it. From Masaccio and Donatello, 
 through Andrea dal Castagno and Domenico Veneziano 
 and Uccello, and Dei Franceschi, the tragic flame was 
 handed on to the brothers Pollaiuoli, who as goldsmiths 
 had turned their eyes to the sculptured form of the human 
 nude, from whom the tradition passed to their pupil 
 Verrocchio, likewise pupil to Donatello, whose superb 
 equestrian statue of Gattamelata in bronze at Padua this 
 Verrocchio rivalled with his famed equestrian statue of the 
 condottiere Colleoni at Venice — two amongst the greatest 
 works of man's hands. 
 
 In Verrocchio's painting was knit together something 
 of the two Florentine temperaments in art and in life ; and 
 it was fitting that out of Verrocchio's studio should come 
 the youth who was still further to knit together her full 
 significance, as he was also to create in his own person the 
 sculpture and the painting of his century, gathering together, 
 as unto a mighty flowering, the sap and tree of that 
 century as Leonardo da Vinci. 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci was to express in his art, as he 
 held in his genius, the full significance of his age — the 
 triumphs of the scientific spirit of the Renaissance that 
 arose to full honour under the mantle of the church. Over 
 all that he wrought is the inscrutable smile of the Sphinx, 
 the eternal question of the significance of life. Did he solve 
 it ? For answer we can only turn to that baffling, question- 
 ing smile. Here is the Renaissance stated in terms of Art. 
 In the realm of colour he was not the greatest painter 
 of Italy of the fourteen-hundreds ; but in his complete 
 utterance as artist his achievement is prodigious. All that 
 142
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 had gone before, all that was being wrought about him, he WHEREIN 
 made his own ; and his hand gave forth the impression of WE MEET 
 a vigorous and keen brain that saw, and of a quick in- THE GIANT 
 quisitive temperament that felt, the mystery of the miracle ^^ THE 
 of Reality and its oneness with Spirituality. He employed 
 colour with the prodigious restraint that was a part of all 'prrp up 
 his restless, feverish activity — he employed it but to en- >s^AISSANCE 
 hance the harmony of his deeply conceived impressions of 
 things, so that it becomes resonant and deeply musical, 
 compelling the eyes to the deeps of what he saw and felt. 
 It is rather in the vibrant atmosphere which he creates 
 about his figures, chiefly by a consummate employment of 
 light and shade (what is called chiaroscuro^ or the blackness 
 and whiteness of darkness and light), so that his line and 
 form lose their linear classical aim, that Leonardo moves 
 the craftsmanship of art forward towards its vaster powers 
 of impressionism ; that is to say, by the employment of 
 masses in their relation to each other, he becomes the fore- 
 runner of a mighty advance in artistry. He was too steeped 
 in, too much a child of, his age, wholly to rid himself of its 
 exquisite classical sense of the rhythm of line ; but his 
 inquisitive and keen searching eyes had beheld in sculpture 
 the play of light and shade upon the surfaces, giving the 
 living sense of movement and mystery ; and he bent all his 
 compelling genius to create by draughtsmanship and paint- 
 ing this illusion of life upon the painted object, held in the 
 play of atmosphere. There is revealed by his art at once 
 a power never before known in painting ; but for which 
 the age of Praxiteles had striven in ancient Greece — the 
 effort to express the subtlety of life in the painted flesh. 
 
 He who gazes at the all too rare masterpieces of 
 Leonardo da Vinci will be touched by the sense of this 
 subtle movement, as though the objects painted on the flat 
 
 H3
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE surface were in a deep mirror, stirring and looming and 
 
 GOLDEN rhythmic as though they were attune to sound, affecting 
 AGE the senses like some haunting music. Botticelli's exquisite 
 
 sense of line and colour have vanished into lineless massing 
 that holds an intensity of life and moves in one's senses as 
 though the breath stirred their surfaces. Not only have 
 we now the height and width of a flat decorated surface ; 
 not only the depth of vision of things seen as though in a 
 mirror; but a strange subtlety of atmosphere that surrounds 
 each living thing. 
 
 In the mid-century of the fourteen-hundreds, 1452, 
 Leonardo da Vinci was born, as his name tells us, in the 
 little village of Vinci, set high on the top of a hill amidst 
 the hills that lie by Empoli in the valley of the Arno. He 
 was one of the world's great illegitimates. The natural son 
 of Ser Piero, a notary of Vinci — this Ser Piero's forefathers 
 had been notaries for four generations before him — and of 
 one Caterina, who afterwards married Accattabriga di Piero 
 del Vaccha of Vinci, he is first mentioned as being five 
 years of age in a taxation return made in 1457 ^7 ^^^ 
 grandfather, Antonio da Vinci ; nor is his birth likely to 
 have been recorded with elaborate care. This grandfather 
 seems to have been a true gentleman, for the boy was 
 brought up and educated in his house ; and the father 
 seems to have had the boy legitimised in his early youth. 
 This Ser Piero was much given to marrying as well as to 
 affairs of the heart, for he was four times a bridegroom, and 
 by his third and fourth wives had eleven lawful children — 
 which probably caused considerable friction in youth for 
 Leonardo. 
 
 In youth his personal beauty was renowned, his speech 
 fascinating, and his charm of manner as remarkable. Of 
 such prodigious strength that he could bend an iron ring or 
 144
 
 XVII 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 1452 - 1519 
 
 FLORENTINE AND MILANESE SCHOOLS 
 
 "THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 The Virgin kneels amid flowers beneath dark basaltic rocks. She places 
 her right hand on the shoulder of St. John the Baptist; her left held out 
 in benediction over the Infant Christ seated on the ground beside an 
 angel. 
 
 Painted on wood, arched at the top. 6 ft. o| in. h. x 3 ft. 9^ in. w. 
 (1-841 X 1-155).
 
 .^J^
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 horse-shoe with his fingers, his touch was so delicate that WHEREIN 
 
 he was famed for his mastery of the lute. He composed WE MEET 
 
 music, wrote sonnets. His researches into science and art THE GIANT 
 
 were profound ; his philosophy forestalled most modern -IHli 
 
 r r y SPRINP- 
 
 thought — he stated Will as the energy of life. He lifted X^p\t> >.p 
 
 the veil from many secrets of science. Yet, the pursued T-rrp pp. 
 
 object once discovered, he seemed content, and passed to NAISSANCE 
 
 other things. The only portrait known of Leonardo was 
 
 painted in his old age, and gives small hint of the splendid 
 
 physique of the man. 
 
 At eighteen, in 1470, Leonardo joined the studio of the 
 sculptor-painter Andrea del Verrocchio, where he was to 
 meet gentle Lorenzo di Credi, genial Botticelli, and scoun- 
 drelly Perugino. His abundant and astounding genius 
 soon revealed itself; and he early surpassed his master in 
 painting. It was whilst Verrocchio was at work on his 
 Baptism of Christ, to-day at the Academy in Florence, that 
 Leonardo, as we have seen, was set to paint one of the 
 angels ; and Verrocchio was so astonished at the power and 
 the gifts displayed by his pupil that he straightway vowed 
 never again to take brush in hand. 
 
 Leonardo's twentieth year, 1472, saw his name enrolled 
 in the Company of Painters in Florence ; and small wonder, 
 since he painted about that time the little Assumption now 
 at the Louvre, long attributed to Lorenzo di Credi. 
 
 The 31st of December 1479 was the day of the public 
 execution of Bernardo Bandini for his part in the slaying 
 of Giuliano de' Medici during High Mass in Florence 
 Cathedral, when Lorenzo so narrowly escaped — the attempt 
 at the destruction of the house of the Medici known as the 
 Pazzi Conspiracy. Leonardo da Vinci made a fine drawing 
 of Bandini, dated upon that day. 
 
 This also was the year of Leonardo's unfinished St, 
 
 VOL. I T 145
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE 'Jerome in the Desert^ now at the Vatican, which Cardinal 
 
 GOLDEN Fesch found, part being used as a box-lid in a shop in 
 AGE Rome, and the other part in a shoemaker's shop some time 
 
 afterwards. 
 
 The unfinished cartoon of The Adoration of the Magi 
 at the Uffizi was done for the monks of S. Donato at 
 Scopeto in Leonardo's twenty-eighth year (1480). 
 
 It was about his thirtieth year, in 1482 or 1483, that 
 Leonardo da Vinci's restless and untiring spirit caused him 
 to turn his eyes towards Milan, then the most important and 
 magnificent Court in the north ; and he started on that 
 fateful series of moves that were to have so profound an 
 effect on Italy and France ; and to narrow perhaps the wide 
 creation that should have been the fruit of his vast energy 
 and intellect. 
 
 To Milan then he went, about 1482, to enter the service 
 of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, as scientist, architect, 
 sculptor, painter, military engineer, or what-you-will ; and 
 in Milan he made his restless home for close on seventeen 
 of the best years of his life, until in his forty-seventh year, 
 1499, on the edge of the fifteen-hundreds, he returned to 
 Florence. Those seventeen years in Milan were strenuous 
 years of unbounded energy and achievement in almost every 
 intellectual and artistic and scientific activity. The vast 
 range of his interests and his work is well-nigh incredible. 
 In his thirtieth year, with full knowledge of his great 
 powers, and no mean estimate of them, his abilities to carry 
 out his wide-ranging talents were unbounded. The field 
 of his industry and endeavour was limitless. To every 
 activity of the human understanding, so far as learning had 
 then developed these activities, he turned his keen eyes, 
 increasing the aim, and thrusting forward the outposts and 
 enlarging the conquest and domain of each. 
 146
 
 XVIII 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 1452 - 1519 
 
 "THE LAST SUPPER" 
 
 Refectory of St. Maria delle Grazie, Milan. This, the world-reputed 
 masterpiece upon which Leonardo da Vinci's fame chiefly rests, was painted 
 in oils upon a stucco ground, which caused its rapid decay. The monks 
 pierced the lower part with a doorway ; and Napoleon's cavalry, stabled in 
 the Refectory, came wellnigh to ending it. 
 
 About 13 ft. 8 in, h. x 26 ft. 7 in. w. (+16 x 8'G9).
 
 XIX 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI 
 1452 - 1519 
 
 "THE HEAD OF CHRIST" 
 
 In the Brera Gallery (Milan) 
 
 This, the wonderful study made by Leonardo for his great masterpiece 
 of The Last Suffer, reveals him as pure poet. 
 
 I ft. o^ in. X I ft. 4 in. (0-52 x 0-40).
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Leonardo, in his letter to Sforza of Milan giving the WHEREIN 
 list of services that he w^ould render to any potentate, v^ith WE MEET 
 no shy or uncertain estimate of his w^orth, does not set THE GIANT 
 himself dow^n as artist above all, but as scientist. Nor ^^ THE 
 w^ere his gifts greater in artistry, whether of design or painting ^P'^^^G- 
 or sculpture or music, v^hether in that mighty activity of ^^j^ pr> 
 architecture that is science and art united, than v^^as his xTATccAMr-T? 
 astonishing knowledge or engineering, geology, mathe- 
 matics, the science of war and the engines of war, or in 
 human anatomy and in worldly philosophy. His writings 
 on the theory and practice of art are profound. He could 
 find time, amid prodigious intellectual pursuits such as might 
 have wearied a score of great brains, to plan and design the 
 Court pageants of the Duke of Milan. And to the invention 
 of a flying-machine he brought his untiring genius with 
 dogged insistence. His restless and active imagination 
 dreamed no vague dreams ; the cunning of his hands, above 
 all of his wonderful left hand, itched ever to bring to reality 
 the prodigious schemings of his scientific and practical 
 brain. 
 
 Leonardo could scarce have settled in Milan when he 
 began to paint in oils his famous La Vierge aux Rochers — 
 " the Virgin of the Rocks " — the work of 1482, his thirtieth 
 year. The painting remained in Milan some twelve years, 
 when, about 1494, it was sold to the king of France. A 
 petition was presented to the Duke of Milan by the artists 
 Ambrogio da Predis and Leonardo da Vinci, " the Floren- 
 tine," begging him to be judge of a dispute that had broken 
 out between the aforesaid artists on the one side, and the 
 Brotherhood of the Conception at S. Francesco in Milan 
 on the other, as to the moneys to be paid for " a picture in 
 oils of the Madonna." This painting is held to be the 
 
 147
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Vierge aux Rochers, to-day in the Louvre ; the which Leon- 
 
 GOLDEN ardo da Vinci had painted some ten years earlier, in 1482, 
 A-GE as we have seen. At the same time, it is difficult to see 
 
 why Ambrogio da Predis should have been mixed up in 
 the squabble, unless he too had had a hand in the painting 
 of the Louvre picture. However that may be, the picture 
 is said to have been sold about 1495 ^°^ ^^^ amount de- 
 manded by the painters to another buyer, supposed to have 
 been acting for the king of France. The two artists then 
 wrought another version of this Vierge aux Rochers, the 
 Virgin of the Rocks, reputed to have been painted by Am- 
 brogio da Predis under the guidance of Leonardo da Vinci 
 for the smaller price which the Brotherhood were ready to 
 pay, to be set up in the Chapel of the Conception. This 
 picture was brought to England some three hundred years 
 later by Gavin Hamilton in 1777, who sold it to the then 
 Marquess of Lansdowne, by whom it was exchanged for 
 another picture at Charlton Park, in Wiltshire, belonging to 
 the Earl of Suffolk, from whom it was bought by the 
 National Gallery for nine thousand pounds in 1880. 
 
 The differences between the Louvre version of the 
 Vierge aux Rochers and the National Gallery Virgin of the 
 Rocks in general arrangement are so slight as to prove that 
 one is at least an intended replica of the other ; but in spite 
 of the fact that the Louvre painting, if by Leonardo, is 
 obviously earlier and less mature than the London Virgin of 
 the Rocks, considerable doubt must hang about the greater 
 claim to authentic certainty as regards the Louvre picture. 
 We have seen that Ambrogio da Predis was partner in 
 Leonardo's appeal concerning the payment for it, the which 
 establishes da Predis's handiwork upon the Louvre picture 
 for a certainty. It may be that both paintings were wrought 
 by the two painters. But not a doubt can remain in the 
 148
 
 XX 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCT 
 1452 - 1519 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 
 "MONA LISA" 
 (La Joconde) 
 
 (Louvre) 
 
 The portrait of Lisa di Anton Maria di Noldo Gherardini, third wife 
 of Francesco di Bartolommeo de Zenobi del Giocondo. This picture is 
 world -renowned for the sphinx-like smile of Mona Lisa. 
 
 Painted in tempera on panel, and restored in oil. 2 it. 6^ in. x i ft. 9 in. 
 
 (079x0-53).
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 mind of such as have a real sense of art, that the Virgin of WHEREIN 
 the Rocks is by far the more profound work of genius. And WE MEET 
 if Ambrogio da Predis only worked upon it under THE GIANT 
 Leonardo's guidance, then Ambrogio da Predis must be ^^ THE 
 acclaimed the greater artist. There can be no shadow of -pyj^p T^t- 
 doubt that the Virgin of the Rocks is in greater and most -pTrp j^p 
 important part the work of Leonardo da Vinci ; and, not XAISSANCE 
 only so, but it is about his supreme achievement in painting 
 that has come down to us. The dozen years or so of 
 difference in the time of the creation of the two master- 
 pieces would account for the enormous increase of power 
 revealed in the Virgin of the Rocks — if Leonardo chiefly 
 painted it. There are unimportant details in the picture 
 which, by their comparative weakness of handling, may 
 admit of Ambrogio da Predis's workmanship, though even 
 these are open to grave question. That the gilt halos, the 
 cross of the little Baptist, and certain retouchings on the 
 left hand of the Virgin, the right arm of the child Christ, 
 and the forehead of the little St. John the Baptist, are not 
 Leonardo's original handiwork, may be likely enough. But 
 the masterly arrangement of the whole scheme, the pro- 
 found harmony with which it is uttered, giving forth the 
 resounding orchestration of light and shade as of majestic 
 musical sounds, the haunting melody of the piece created 
 by the subtle play of light and shadow upon the features 
 and figures which create a sense as of moving living things, 
 the wondrous impressionism aroused by the massing of these 
 lights and shadows, the vibrant depth of the landscape, and 
 the almost awful reverence of the exquisite simple protecting 
 love of motherhood for childhood, for all its tender passion, 
 holding a tragic threat even whilst that sphinx-like smile 
 wreathes the lips of mother and guardian angel, all this 
 vast gamut of the sensed emotions that are roused in the 
 
 149
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE presence of this wondrously destined Child as Son of God, 
 
 GOLDEN and of the tragic destiny that stands in the deep shadows of 
 ^^^ the rocks for that Mother, are stated with a dramatic in- 
 
 tensity that the art of painting heretofore had never 
 approached, and has never surpassed. The naive, simple 
 faith of an earlier church has departed, the elaborate pagan- 
 ised Christianity of Florence of the fourteen-hundreds is 
 swept aside, and a man has arisen who sees in the great 
 world-story a compelling and dramatic significance that has 
 an intensity that is Greek in its inevitable tragedy, but 
 giving forth a philosophy of which Greece knew nothing, 
 which even the Italy of his own day is unable to understand. 
 There, on the stroke of 1500, the republic of Florence 
 has brought forth a man who rises above the mere worldly 
 ambitions and mere social success that rack the age, who 
 leaps from one endeavour to another, reckless of the accumu- 
 lation of mere wealth, bent only on so exercising his vast 
 gifts that he may move forward to largest experience of 
 life and enable mankind, by the wizardy of his art, to 
 partake of that vaster emotional experience. 
 
 And this intense and eager gaze wherewith he saw life, 
 with all its subtlety, balked at every step by all its baffling 
 enigma, all this keen sense of the profundity of life and 
 created things, he bent his whole powers to express in his 
 art. He was not content to make of painting a beautiful 
 decorative design ; he compelled all his intense powers to 
 the passionate endeavour to make his art reveal the mystic 
 significance of things — he essayed to realise the type and 
 character and significance of everything. He was not 
 content merely to range the realm of colour in order to 
 play elaborate five-fingered exercises in it; he but employed 
 it as part of a great whole, as no more important, nor 
 less important, than the play of light and shade, than form 
 ISO
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 and depth and space and arrangement, to utter forth the WHEREIN 
 profound sense of life. He used painting with plastic WE MEET 
 power, as though to unite the strength of sculptured forms THE GIANT 
 with it. He created a style, bendin? all the crafts to it, ^^ THE 
 so that they would but give forth the music that was '^^^^^^'^- 
 ;n u;r^ TIME OF 
 
 '" ^'"'- THE RE- 
 
 From the year 1483, being thirty-one, to 1487, all x-ATccAvrF 
 
 record, gossip, and report of him are silent throughout 
 Italy ; and the silence lends force to the tradition that he 
 went abroad to the East as engineer in the service of the 
 Sultan of Egypt. To Milan he came back in his thirty- 
 fifth year, and by 1490 was writing his Treatise on Paintings 
 getting to work again also on the famed colossal equestrian 
 statue of Francesco Sforza in plaster, which was set up in 
 Milan, but was destined never to be completed in bronze; 
 for it was never cast in metal, owing to the disasters that 
 fell, as out of the blue, upon Milan in 1500, when, in the 
 April of 1500, after the defeat of Ludovico, then Duke of 
 Milan, at the battle of Novara, the French bowmen brought 
 down the plaster figure in ruins. 
 
 But before these black days were to fall on Milan and 
 send Leonardo packing, he was at work upon the huge 
 painting on which his greatest fame as a painter rests — the 
 world-reputed masterpiece of The Last Supper. Painted in 
 oils upon the stucco surface of the wall of the Refectory in 
 the Dominican Convent of S. Maria delle Grazie at Milan, 
 Leonardo put the last touch of his brush upon it in 1498, 
 his forty-sixth year. The use of oil upon a stucco ground 
 caused the rapid decay of the great work within a couple of 
 generations of its painting ; and neglect and ill-use — the 
 monks damaged the lower part by piercing it with the top 
 of a doorway through the wall ; and Napoleon's cavalry, 
 being stabled in the Refectory against his strict orders.
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE pelted dirt at the heads of the figures — came well-nigh to 
 
 GOLDEN ending it. Yet the splendid ghost of it remains. A copy, 
 AGE t}^g size of the original, now in the Diploma Gallery of the 
 
 Royal Academy at Burlington House, said to have been 
 painted by Marco d'Oggiono, one of Leonardo's pupils, 
 gives with crude sense of colour and form some poor idea 
 of it. But the ghost of what it once was, where it is still 
 to be seen in Milan, holds far more hint of the original. 
 The composition yields a sense of grandeur, and the whole 
 is instinct with dramatic and tragic intensity. It is told of 
 Leonardo that the prior of the convent, complaining to 
 Ludovico Sforza that the artist was idling over the fresco, 
 Leonardo silenced him by threatening to paint the prior's 
 portrait into the face of Judas. How the painting has 
 escaped its many vicissitudes — it was long used for storing 
 hay, and has been flooded more than once — is a marvel. 
 In detail it must have contained superb qualities. The 
 study for the Head of the Christ at the Brera in Milan 
 reveals the intense dramatic insight and astounding faculty 
 for character, the supreme grip in the creation of types 
 fitted to express the idea, and the exquisite poetic vision of 
 Leonardo da Vinci in consummate fashion. 
 
 Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, had married the 
 fifteen-year-old Beatrice d'Este in 1491. The extravagant 
 girl refused to wear a certain handsome gown of woven 
 gold — she possessed eighty-four — which Ludovico had 
 given to her, if Cecilia Gallerani wore hers, which was 
 exactly like it, and which Ludovico had given to the fair 
 charmer. Ludovico gave up both the beauty and her gown, 
 getting the lady married off to Count Ludovico Bergamini 
 within a year of his own marriage with Beatrice d'Este. 
 But Milan's eyes got wandering again full soon ; and five 
 years later, in 1496, Ludovico Sforza was deeply enamoured 
 152
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 of Duchess Beatrice's lady-in-waiting, Lucrezia Crevelli. WHEREIN 
 Leonardo painted Lucrezia Crevelli's picture, but it is WE MEET 
 certainly not the portrait attributed to him in the Louvre. THE GIANT 
 
 However, Beatrice d'Este's jealousies were near at an end. THE 
 
 On the 2nd of the January of 1497, ^^^^^ spending three ^twc- ni? 
 hours in prayer in the Church of S. Maria delle Grazie, -prrp ^t^ 
 which Leonardo's Last Supper adorns, she gave birth that vaiSSANCE 
 night to a still-born child, and a few hours later breathed 
 her last. It made Ludovico a changed man ; broken with 
 grief, he visited her tomb every day. 
 
 But stormy days were coming for Milan. In the 
 September of 1499 Ludovico left Milan for the Tvrol to 
 raise an army against the French invasion ; in his absence, 
 on the 14th of the month, Bernardino di Corte sold the 
 city to the French ; Louis xii. entered it in triumph on the 
 6th of October — the French holding the city for twelve 
 years. 
 
 By some strange chance, the Diploma Gallery of the 
 Royal Academy also possesses Leonardo's fine cartoon for 
 his Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John, upon which 
 he wrought in the autumn of 1499, destined therefore to 
 be the last work of his hands in Milan; for the Duke 
 Ludovico had to flee the city, into which Louis xii. of 
 France made his triumphant entry. 
 
 Leonardo had hurriedly left Milan also, and the spring 
 of 1500 saw him at Mantua, where he met Isabella d'Este, 
 the beautiful sister of the dead Beatrice — his portrait of her 
 in chalk is now at the Louvre. 
 
 Leonardo went from Mantua to Venice; thence, about 
 the Easter of 1500, back to Florence. The cartoon which 
 he made for his second Virgin and Child with Saint Anne in 
 the April of 150 1 has vanished ; but the oil painting is now 
 at the Louvre, said to show also the partnership of a pupil. 
 VOL. I — u 153
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE It was soon after his return to Florence that Leonardo 
 
 GOLDEN began to paint his world-famous Mona Lisa, the third wife 
 AGE of Francesco del Giocondo, hence its name La 'Joconde. We 
 
 have Vasari's gossip for it, that Leonardo '* loitered over the 
 picture for four years," and that " whilst he was painting the 
 portrait, Leonardo took the precaution to keep some one 
 ever near her, to sing or play on instruments, or to jest and 
 otherwise amuse her, to the end that she might continue 
 cheerful." The haunting smile of Mona Lisa, and her intent 
 rapt gaze as of one listening to music, were caught and 
 fixed with all the mature skill and wizardry of Leonardo's 
 genius. The picture, after its many and merciless cleanings, 
 remains a ghost of its once self; yet what a wondrous and 
 haunting ghost it is ! 
 
 But during its painting Leonardo did many things. He 
 visited Umbria, acting as engineer and architect to Cesare 
 Borgia. 
 
 The pedant critics, straining every masterpiece into their 
 eternal cult of beauty, label her as beautiful. Well ; 'tis 
 an affair of taste, and matters little ! It is far greater and 
 more compelling than mere beauty. Its strange and haunt- 
 ing sense of life — one can hear the breath stirring in the 
 languorous body, feel the peculiar charm of the sphinx-like 
 smile — its complete immersion in the atmosphere that holds 
 the figure, make it one of the supreme works of man's 
 hand. 
 
 The Mona Lisa was bought by Francis i. of France, and 
 remained in the possession of the kingly house of France, 
 until it passed to the French nation, one of the most precious 
 possessions of the Louvre. 
 
 In the January of 1504, the year he finished the Mona 
 Lisa, being fifty-two, Leonardo was called as one of the jury 
 of artists by the Signoria of Florence to settle the site for 
 
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 o
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 the setting up of Michelangelo's great statue o^ David \ and WHEREIN 
 
 about the same time he was given the decoration of one of WE MEET 
 
 the walls of the Council Hall at the Palazzo Vecchio, for THE GIANT 
 
 which he took as subject a Skirmish between the Florentine and I HE 
 
 • • SPRINC- 
 
 Milanese troops at Anghiari, which had taken place in 1440, ^t»>jt7 /^r? 
 
 some sixty years before. He made the magnificent cartoon, -pTrp np 
 
 but finding the oil-paint impossible on the plaster ground, nAISSANCE 
 
 after working upon it for eight months he abandoned it in 
 
 despair. The cartoon, as long as it existed, roused the 
 
 enthusiastic admiration of Florence, and was said to have 
 
 been one of his supreme achievements in art ; but of it we 
 
 can only now judge by some of his original studies. 
 
 In his fifty-fourth year, 1506, he was back in Milan, 
 now in the service of the French king; but 1507 drew 
 him to Florence again to defend a lawsuit ; the next year, 
 1508, he was again in Milan. 
 
 It was in 15 16, in his sixty-fourth year, that the ageing 
 and vigorous painter was persuaded by Francis i. of France, 
 victor of Marignano, to go with him to France on a princely 
 income ; and he never looked upon the land of his own 
 people again. It was in these last years that he drew the 
 only portrait of himself, as an old man, that has come down 
 to us. Three years afterwards, on the 2nd of the May of 
 1 5 19, at his residence in Cloux, near Amboise, by Tours, 
 his restless spirit passed away — just forty-five years before 
 the birth of Shakespeare. 
 
 It has been claimed that in that mighty passing, there 
 departed the greatest intellect the world has ever seen. 
 Leonardo da Vinci was not wholly that, prodigious as was 
 his genius. He was not the world's greatest artist, stupend- 
 ous master though he was ; nor its greatest thinker, powerful 
 thinker though he was ; nor its greatest scientist. Yet, when 
 
 155
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE all his vast gifts are summed together, and set in one man's 
 
 GOLDEN being, he stands forth a very giant. Sovereign master of 
 
 AGE Sentiment he was not ; sovereign master of Thought he was 
 
 not ; sovereign master of Beauty he certainly was not. But 
 
 sovereign of a profound and prodigious achievement he was, 
 
 which perhaps was as great as these. 
 
 Embarrassing his teachers in childhood by profound 
 mathematics beyond their solving, by the time he reached 
 manhood he was the finest master of anatomy in Italy. In- 
 venting machinery for water-mills and aqueducts ; making 
 engines of war ; discovering the conical rifle-bullet ; making 
 the paddle-wheel for boats ; conducting deep researches into 
 optics ; an architect, he raised churches and buildings ; an 
 engineer, he planned the piercing of mountains by tunnels, 
 the connecting of rivers by canals ; there was scarce a 
 region of science that he did not master. He fore- 
 stalled Copernicus's theory of the movement of the earth ; 
 Lamarck's classification of animals into vertebrate and 
 invertebrate — the laws of gravitation, of friction, of heat, 
 of light ; he discovered steam as a motive force in naviga- 
 tion, magnetic attraction, the use of the stone-saw, the 
 circulation of the blood ; he invented canals, breech-loading 
 cannon, the wheelbarrow, the swimming-belt, the com- 
 position of explosives, the smoke-stack, and the mincing- 
 machine. Gifted with prodigious patience, unflagging 
 industry, he never allowed his quickness of surmise to be 
 content without practical test. 
 
 Over all he wrought he wrote that inscrutable smile, 
 sphinx-like, that baffles us in our survey of the man 
 himself. 
 
 And of all his profound insight into life, perhaps the 
 most profound result of his deep inquisitions was his dis- 
 covery that art is not beauty. He found that art was the 
 
 156
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Utterance of the emotions. " Tears," said he, " come from WHEREIN 
 
 the heart, not from the brain." Sensitive to beauty as he WE MEET 
 
 was — he would walk the streets of Florence and of Milan THE GIANT 
 
 learnins: a beautiful face by heart, then home and set it -LWE 
 
 . SPRING- 
 
 down on paper — but not for its mere beauty of the flesh, ^j^^p ^c- 
 
 seeking rather to search its emotional significance, its char- -pHF RF 
 
 acter, its spiritual essence. But with equal inquisition he is[AISSANCE 
 
 sought to utter the significance of ugliness. He assailed 
 
 the habit of painters in isolating the human figure from 
 
 landscape ; he had a profound feeling for the oneness of 
 
 nature and of life. " The eye," said he, " is the window 
 
 of the soul." 
 
 He is in many ways the supreme spirit of the Renais- 
 sance — he had unlimited passion for discovery. 
 
 But, for Leonardo, mere discovery was not enough ; 
 it had to be based on mastery of detail. In painting he 
 essayed to realise the completeness on the painted surface 
 of that which was mirrored in the eye and created the 
 impression on the senses. All the advances in craftsman- 
 ship to his day — chemistry of colours, science of composi- 
 tion, perspective, the illusion created by light and shadow, 
 he perfected and thrust forward to mighty achievement. 
 The Virgin of the Rocks holds it completely. To deceive 
 the eye to the utmost became, as it was the aim of all 
 Florentine art from the beginning, his goal. But he knew 
 that impression, not imitation, created the work of art. 
 Look upon the supreme works of art before Leonardo da 
 Vinci, then upon his hand's skill — see with what astound- 
 ing draughtsmanship his drawing of a lip, of the curve 
 of a cheek, of the hardness of a rock, the limpid deeps of 
 atmosphere, are rendered ! How the rest falls back into 
 mere effort by contrast! How his profound love of life 
 and all living things comes forth ! This great powerful, 
 
 ^S7
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE handsome giant would buy birds in the market-place that 
 
 GOLDEN he might let them go. 
 
 ^^^ Oddly enough, Leonardo was left-handed, and wrote 
 
 from right to left. He spent himself remorselessly — on dis- 
 covering flight for man, on puzzles, on making flat corks 
 wherewith to walk on the waters ; always for Leonardo 
 the Riddle of the Universe. 
 
 His achievement is a vast multitude of incomplete 
 endeavour. He would make vast preparations, and com- 
 plete nothing. So that men cried out upon him that he 
 could not complete. The Prior of S. Maria delle Grazie 
 bitterly complained that Leonardo would stand gazing for 
 days at the fresco upon which he should have been at work, 
 and for weeks would not come near it. He had ever the 
 quick retort to an accusation, " The man of genius works 
 most when his hands are idle." 
 
 The fourteen-hundreds came to an end in a sea of 
 cynicism and doubt — men's eyes bent on material things. 
 Turning his back to it all, Leonardo stands out, seeking 
 to solve the infinite. He detested convention — the estab- 
 lished and completed thing. In his Last Supper he flings 
 aside the timidities, flings away the halos of the apostles ; 
 takes instead a dramatic moment — the moment when 
 Christ announces, '* One of you shall betray me " ; makes 
 it dramatic ; makes each apostle a human character ; and, 
 in the doing, for the first time in Italian art, creates a 
 beautiful head of the Christ. 
 
 *' Miserable men," wrote Leonardo, " how often do you 
 enslave yourselves to gain money." He put will and 
 freedom of the individual above all things. 
 
 .58
 
 XXI 
 
 L U 1 N I 
 
 i475?-i532 
 
 "THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE" 
 
 In the Brera (Milan) 
 
 The Child Christ may be seen placing the ring upon the finger of St. 
 Catherine.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 WHEREIN WE SEE THE MIGHTY GENIUS OF LEONARDO 
 DA VINCI CREATE THE SCHOOL OF MILAN 
 
 Leaving all that was mortal of the dead Leonardo da Vinci WHEREIN 
 
 in France, to return to the Florence that bred him, it were WE SEE 
 
 well to stay our feet at Milan on the southward journeying, THE 
 
 and gaze on the large endeavour that essayed to create the MIGHTY 
 
 art of what is known as the Milanese School, under the SENILIS OF 
 
 magic sway of Leonardo, therefore but a part of the r^ , .rTx-rJi 
 
 l_ • ^ r T^i I^A VliSCl 
 
 achievement of rlorence. „^t- a^-t- 
 
 _, CREATE 
 
 Leonardo was a very Florentme, created by the spirit of xhE 
 
 Florence, the consummation of her genius in the fourteen- SCHOOL 
 hundreds. Yet he created the greater part of his art, OF MILAN 
 realised the fulness of his genius, outside Florence ; and it 
 was in Milan that he came to his supreme fulfilment. 
 Over Milan he cast all the glamour of his renown. His 
 colossal personality dominated Milan, and was to cast its 
 atmosphere over Florence, but over Milan he stood a very 
 giant, and Lombardy grew to claim him as her own. 
 
 It is usual for writers to begin a dissertation upon the 
 so-called School of Lomdardy, or of Milan, by vaunting it 
 against the schools of Padua or Verona. As a matter of 
 fact, what little school there was before Leonardo da Vinci 
 made it but a part of the Florentine achievement, came out 
 of Padua, the cradle of Venetian painting. Out of the 
 famous Paduan school of Squarcione came a pupil to found 
 a school of Milan, and known to fame as Foppa. 
 
 159
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE FOPPA 
 
 GOLDEN 1427?-! 502 
 
 ^^^ The founder of the so-called Milanese School of Paint- 
 
 ing, at any rate the head of the school, when Leonardo 
 da Vinci came to the splendid Court of Ludovico il Moro, 
 Duke of Milan, was one Vincenzo Foppa, whose art was 
 founded upon that of the antique-loving Squarcione, 
 creator of the great school of Padua — Squarcione, collector 
 of antiques, who was largely instrumental in creating the 
 academic desire to copy antique art. Lombardy, 'tis true, 
 had had her primitives before Foppa, mere mediocrities of 
 Giottesques, yet, by reason of their being Giottesques, 
 steeped in the Florentine atmosphere of Tuscany rather 
 than what one might have expected, the rich-hued art of 
 neighbouring Venice to their immediate east, strangely 
 enough, since the Venetians were of the north, and 
 separated as were the Lombards, from middle Italy by 
 Italy's backbone of the Apennines. 
 
 Foppa was a fine colourist, and his art showed wide 
 advance on the Milanese painters of his day, seeking to 
 state atmospheric values in silvery harmonies instead of the 
 more pattern-like employment of colours in spaced masses. 
 In his later years he had the advantage of seeing the work 
 of the great architect Bramante, who was also a painter, 
 and had come to Milan out of Tuscany, still further bend- 
 ing the Milanese taste towards Florentine ideals in artistry. 
 Bramante's chief fame is as architect, and his artistry is 
 rather revealed through the genius of his follower Braman- 
 tino than by any of the very rare paintings by his own 
 hand that have survived. 
 
 Foppa painted a large number of frescoes in Milan and 
 its neighbourhood, but they have perished. The National 
 160
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Gallery in London has, however, a large panel, the WHEREIN 
 Adoration of the Magi^ by him, which is an important WE SEE 
 painting long attributed to Bramantino, but now considered THE 
 as characteristic of Foppa. MIGHTY 
 
 Foppa's pupil, Ambrogio da Fossano, better known as t T^pvxTARpjrw 
 BoRGOGNONE (bom about 1450 and dying in 1523), showed .^_. VFNTI 
 also the subtle sense of cool, grey harmonies, and his art CREATE 
 has the distinction that comes of deep spirituality and THE 
 tenderness, wrought with a sense of beauty. SCHOOL 
 
 Foppa and Borgognone both, in the fulness of their OF MILAN 
 powers, fell under the wizardry of Leonardo da Vinci's 
 commanding genius. Borgognone's greatest works are to 
 be seen in Milan and Pavia. His greatest pupil was 
 Bernardino Luini. 
 
 Another pupil of Foppa who came to distinction was 
 Bartolommeo Suardi (1450- 1 526 ?), who afterwards went 
 to the great architect and painter Bramante, whence he 
 came to be known by the name of Bramantino. His art 
 sometimes rises to great heights, but he was a most unequal 
 painter. On Leonardo da Vinci's departure from Milan in 
 1499, ^^ ^^s Bramantino who most influenced the further 
 achievement of Milan, and both his pupil Gaudenzio 
 Ferrari and Luini owed heavy tribute to him. Unfor- 
 tunately, his frescoes at the Vatican were destroyed by order 
 of Pope Julius II., to make way for Raphael. 
 
 Others of Foppa's pupils who came to repute were 
 ViNCENzo CivERCHio of Crcma, Bernardino de' Conti of 
 Pavia, Bernardino Buttinone, and Bernardo Zenale. 
 
 Of Macrino d'Alba little is known, except that he was 
 painting in Milan when Foppa was the great painter of the 
 city ; a few of the works of his hand are to be seen 
 in Alba, his native town, in the Certosa of Pavia, and 
 in Turin. 
 
 VOL. I — X 161
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Andrea da Solario, born about 1460, and dying in 
 
 GOLDEN i^i^ (who, by the way, must not be confounded with 
 ■^GE Antonio da Solario, more famous as Lo Zingaro), was born 
 
 at Solario by Milan, and went with his elder brother and 
 master, Christofano, to Venice in 1490, where he became 
 a follower of the Vivarini School of Venice. Of this 
 Venetian period his Portrait of a Senator, in the National 
 Gallery in London, is an example. Three years later 
 (1493) Solario went back to Milan, and immediately came 
 under the spell of Leonardo da Vinci. This, his later 
 work, is seen at its best in the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum at 
 Milan. 
 
 Of the men of this time, amongst whom perhaps the 
 ablest were Filippo Mazzola of Parma, who caught much 
 of the Venetian influence, and the two Tacconi, was an 
 artist from Cremona, one Boccaccio Boccaccino (1460- 
 1524), who combined the Lombard and Venetian styles 
 with considerable skill; his gaiety of colour, his poetic 
 landscape, and his best qualities are displayed in his fine 
 Marriage of St. Catherine at the Academy in Venice. 
 
 So far, the Milanese contemporaries of Leonardo are 
 seen to have passed completely under Leonardo's influence. 
 The school that Leonardo founded by direct teaching 
 brought forth a more or less brilliant group of pupils, but 
 whose art cannot be said to have reached to the highest 
 achievement. The most prominent were Giovanni An- 
 tonio BoLTRAFFio (1467-1516), Marco d'Oggiono or 
 d'Oggionno (born about 1470, died 1530), Cesare da 
 Sesto (1477-1523), Salaino, Gianpetrino, and Melzi 
 — that Melzi who went with his master into France. 
 They caught the tricks of thumb, the manner and style of 
 their great master, but of his genius they could secure little. 
 They ran to exhaustive finish, and their aim was prettiness ; 
 162
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 they had small vision for character; and they were not WHEREIN 
 above tediousness. But Boltraffio came to considerable WE SEE 
 distinction as portrait painter ; and his Head of Christ, in THE 
 the Morelli collection at Bergamo, reveals his highest MIGHTY 
 reach of achievement. He had brilliant colour if some- y ^i-JxTTVRnn 
 what hard in its brilliancy. He who looks upon Boltraffio's ^. viNCT 
 Madonna and Child in the National Gallery in London, rRRATE 
 must be struck by the overwhelming influence that -pHE 
 Leonardo exerted upon Boltraffio's vision, for the pupil sees SCHOOL 
 the Virgin's features through Leonardo's borrowed spec- OF MILAN 
 tacles. Indeed, the whole group of these painters may be 
 aptly described as fine Leonardesques. Melzi had much of 
 the refined quality of a miniaturist ; Salaino had exquisite 
 delicacy of handling ; d'Oggiono had a somewhat bizarre 
 sense of beauty ; Cesare da Sesto a feminine sweetness ; 
 Marco d'Oggiono is very fully represented in the public 
 and private collections at Milan. At least they served 
 their great master one vast good turn by their many copies 
 of Leonardo's lost or perished works, thereby leaving us 
 a clumsy idea of what these perished works might have 
 been like. 
 
 LUINI 
 
 i475?-i532 
 
 Of Leonardo's followers, as apart from his directly 
 taught pupils, one of the most attractive artists was 
 Bernardino Luini (1475 ?-i532)) even though he lack 
 force. 
 
 Born at Luini, on the Lago Maggiore, Bernardino 
 Luini studied his craft under Borgognone, from whom he 
 caught a spiritual sense which gave forth dreamy serenity 
 and mystic charm, wedded to a feeling for beauty of a 
 winsome and tender quality displayed in his many works in 
 fresco and oils. But Luini, like all the Milanese painters, 
 
 163
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE fell at last under the compelling influence of Leonardo, and, 
 
 GOLDEN without the force to be benefited by converse with the 
 
 AGE great, he became thenceforth little more than an imitator 
 
 of the other, wholly lost his own vision, and sank into a 
 
 Leonardesque. 
 
 Of his large and most important works — and he was a 
 prolific painter — the frescoes from the Villa Felucca, mostly 
 now in the Brera at Milan and in the Louvre, though 
 several were in the Kann collection, are the finest 
 examples of his earlier and personal art, showing his gifts 
 at their full, at the same time betraying his wonted lack of 
 cohesion in composing. Of his later Leonardesque years, 
 the Christ disputing with the Doctors or Christ arguing with 
 the Pharisees in the National Gallery is a typical example, 
 and was long attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. 
 
 Luini reached to brilliancy in his frescoes, employing 
 rich and luminous colour, that utters well his joy in youth. 
 His naive grace brought freshness to religious themes, 
 as in his charming Mary with the Espalier of Roses. 
 
 BAZZI, NICKNAMED " IL SODOMA" 
 1477 - 1549 
 
 Of all Leonardo da Vinci's followers, beyond question 
 the most gifted was Bazzi, known from his flagrant life 
 by the grim and awful name of " II Sodoma." Bazzi, from 
 repute (and Vasari's gossip is likely enough true), gave 
 himself up to flagrant and vicious living, and whether 
 the tale of his transgressions be over-coloured or not, he at 
 any rate by his eccentric, indolent habits, and above all by 
 his lack of sustained effort, dragged down his very remark- 
 able and great powers to a lesser achievement than should 
 have been his. The unequal artistry and obvious careless- 
 ness of much of his work in his authentic pieces would 
 164
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 seem to prove at least that the repute of his sluggish and WHEREIN 
 uncertain ways is justified. WE SEE 
 
 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi was the son of a shoemaker. THE 
 Born at Vercelli in 1477, ^^ ^^^ early apprenticed to an 'EIGHTY 
 insignificant painter of the place, called Spanzotto ; but, ^^NIUS OF 
 whilst still in his youth, he wandered to Milan, and, as a ^. viNCF 
 consequence, fell under the spell of Leonardo da Vinci ; CREATE 
 and was probably painting in Milan when catastrophe fell XHE 
 upon the Ducal house. In 1 501, at twenty-four, he moved SCHOOL 
 southwards and settled in Siena ; and it was at Siena that OF MILAN 
 he chiefly created his masterpieces, and in the doing brought 
 back life to the decaying art of that city. 
 
 Bazzi had been at work in Siena some six years when 
 he was called to Rome in 1507 by Pope Julius 11., to paint 
 a series of frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura of the 
 Vatican; but there had arisen the genius of a youth called 
 Raphael, whose friend he became ; and all that remains 
 of Bazzi's commission is the ceiling decoration round 
 Raphael's /oW/ in the room that Bazzi was to have painted. 
 But Rome possesses, in the Farnesina, a series of frescoes of 
 remarkable beauty, painted for the banker Agostino Chigi 
 when he again visited Rome seven years afterwards (15 14). 
 
 In the cloisters of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, and in the 
 Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, are fine frescoes that show Bazzi's 
 remarkable powers. At the Uffizi Gallery is his most 
 celebrated picture, the St. Sebastian Banner. 
 
 The Pope knighted Bazzi for a painting of Lucretia — 
 which has vanished. Bazzi is at his best when dealing 
 with simple arrangements. Dowered with an exquisite 
 feeling for the beauty of the nude, he was always at his 
 best when painting a single figure, as in his ^S". Sebastian at 
 the Uffizi, which combines a Greek sense of beauty with 
 a pathos that is wholly Christian. 
 
 165
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 AGE 
 
 THE Bazzi created a considerable school in Siena, where 
 
 GOLDEN he lived his rollicking life amidst his horses and many 
 eccentricities. 
 
 Raphael placed Bazzi very high as an artist, and painted 
 his portrait next to himself in his famous School of Athens 
 fresco — the figure in the white cap and gown, long said to 
 be Perugino ; but Perugino was then a much older man. 
 
 GAUDENZIO FERRARI 
 
 1470? - 1546 
 
 The mediocre painter Spanzotto must have been a better 
 teacher than artist ; from his studio at Vercelli came an- 
 other pupil to Milan, Gaudenzio Ferrari, born about 
 1470, and therefore some seven years older than Bazzi; and 
 he, too, found a revelation in the art of Leonardo da Vinci ; 
 but he, like Bazzi, was too virile a painter to fall into flat 
 mimicry and thus lapse into a Leonardesque, with mere 
 prettiness as his aim. Gaudenzio had shown from youth a 
 strength and originality, as in his paintings at the Sacro 
 Monte of Varallo, which stood him in good stead ; and he 
 never allowed the stupendous genius of Leonardo to over- 
 whelm his personal vision. He painted superb frescoes, 
 twenty-one scenes from The Life of Christ, at S. Maria delle 
 Grazie at Varallo, which are of remarkable power ; and 
 his frescoes at Vercelli bear witness to his forceful style 
 and personal art. 
 
 Of the two best followers and fellow-townsmen of 
 Gaudenzio, Girolamo Giovenone (1490?- 15 55) never 
 came to Gaudenzio's gifts, though a good colourist ; and 
 Gaudenzio's pupil, Bernardino Lanini (1511 .?-i58i), is 
 best known by his many frescoes in his native town of 
 Vercelli and the neighbourhood. 
 
 The whole lake-district of Italy is rich in works of 
 166
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Leonardo's school ; and it had this advantage over the WHEREIN 
 
 schools of Raphael and Michelangelo, that the neo-pagan- ^^'E SEE 
 
 ism of Rome and Florence did not touch the northern THE 
 
 valleys of Lombardy ; the worldly patronage of splendour- EIGHTY 
 
 loving popes and cardinals wsls unkown to the Milanese ^Si:!Hx.PJ 
 1 LEONARDO 
 
 ^"^^^^^- DA VINCI 
 
 CREATE 
 
 THE LATER SIENESE SCHOOL ™^^. 
 
 oLHOOL 
 We have seen how the art of the Itahan Renaissance OF MILAN 
 had arisen rather in Siena than in Florence, brought to 
 birth by the genius of Duccio. But, astounding as was 
 its early strength, as seen in its development in the hands 
 of Simone Martini, Segna, the Lorenzetti, the Golden 
 Age of art in Siena had early passed, flown by 1400, with 
 the Lorenzetti and the conquering force of Florence. 
 Thenceforth Sienese art had moved along in the tradition 
 it had created for itself, with Tuscan influence entering into 
 it. It had produced Vecchietta, Sassetta, Matteo di 
 Giovanni (1435 ?-i495, by far the greatest of them), 
 Benvenuto da Siena, Neroccio di Landi, and Bernardino 
 
 FUNGAI. 
 
 Fungai's two pupils, Jacopo Pacchiarotto (1474- 1540) 
 and GiROLAMO del Pacchia (born in 1477 ^"^ living in 
 1535), came under the influence of Raphael and Fra Bar- 
 tolommeo ; but of these the arrival in Siena of Bazzi 
 turned the art of Girolamo del Pacchia into the new 
 manner created by Bazzi under the influence of Leonardo 
 da Vinci, as indeed Bazzi's arrival influenced the further, 
 if short-lived, endeavour of Siena. 
 
 Bazzi revealed their art to the architect and painter Bal- 
 DASSARE Peruzzi (1481-1537) and to DoMENico Beccafumi 
 (1485-1551), who is celebrated as the designer of the famous 
 
 167
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE pavement of Siena Cathedral. There had come to Siena in 
 
 GOLDEN I ^03, two years after Bazzi, the Umbrian painter, famed as 
 
 ^^^ Pinturicchio, to begin his great frescoes in the Library of 
 
 the Duomo, and to Pinturicchio became assistant Baldassare 
 Peruzzi, who later thereafter became a follower of Raphael. 
 Thus Sienese art lost all its character, and passed into 
 and became a part of the art of the later Renaissance as 
 Florence and Rome created it. Just as Siena became over- 
 whelmed by her greater rival Florence, so her exquisite, 
 tender, decorative sense in art, her sense of elegance and 
 human beauty, more passionate but less disciplined than 
 the art of Florence, passing into a mere aim of beauty, 
 roused again for a brief effort under the shadow of Bazzi, 
 and collapsed under the eventual and overwhelming outburst 
 that created the giants in Florence ; at the same time she 
 infected the Umbrian School and greatly influenced the 
 Golden Age. 
 
 168
 
 HILLS 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 WHEREIN WE SEE ART FLIT INTO THE 
 UMBRIAN HILLS 
 
 We now come to the stupendous achievement of Florence WHEREIN 
 in the fifteen-hundreds, and we shall find a strange element WE SEE 
 enter thereinto that Florence has not before known. ART FLIT 
 
 Florentine art was to reach to its complete grandeur in ^^■'^^ THE 
 the genius of Michelangelo ; but Michelangelo was not 
 to stand alone, pure Florentine though he was in his 
 achievement. There was to enter into the art of Florence 
 another influence, quite alien to her spirit ; and the invasion 
 was to come from out the sunny genius of Venice — diluted 
 and simplified, it is true — nevertheless, in its love of golden 
 colours, Venetian at its source. 
 
 To the warmth of colour that came with Piero di 
 Cosimo and Era Bartolommeo out of Cosimo RosselH's 
 studio, came also light warm airs blowing from the south. 
 
 If you shall turn to the map of Italy, It will be seen 
 that in Tuscany, Siena lies due south of Florence. To the 
 south of Tuscany, where her southern borders reach towards 
 the Apennines, lies Umbria amongst the hills. 
 
 The Umbrlan towns were to create an art very different 
 from that of Florence — dlff^erent In spirit, in significance, 
 in handling and treatment — as different as was the art of 
 Siena and akin to the art of Siena. To understand the 
 achievement of this school, and of its supreme genius 
 Raphael, it Is well to trace its growth and its blossoming. 
 
 Painting in Umbria arose in a miniaturist, famed in 
 
 VOL. I- 
 
 169
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 Dante*s day, one Oderigo or Oderisi ; and careful finish 
 and flat brilliancy, wedded to smiling gaiety of colour, 
 became the utterance of the tribe. One of his pupils was 
 GuiDO Palmerucci (i 280-1 345), whose pupil Martino 
 Nelli, a mediocre fellow, became father to the chief painter 
 of this early Umbrian achievement, Ottaviano di Martino 
 Nelli. Of about Nelli's day were the brothers Giacomo 
 and Lorenzo da Sanseverino, whose younger kinsman 
 Lorenzo da Sanseverino ii. was painting as late as 1496. 
 Allegretto Nuzi, known as Gritto da Fabriano, pre- 
 pared the way for the genius of that Umbrian town of 
 Fabriano in the person of Gentile di Niccolo di Giovanni 
 Massi, known to fame as Gentile da Fabriano. 
 
 GENTILE DA FABRIANO 
 
 1360 - 1428 
 
 The Umbrian School was an offspring of the Sienese, 
 which we have already seen, under Duccio, greatly affected 
 early Florentine endeavour, to fall away from Florence 
 again into an achievement wholly apart. As the art of 
 Umbria was to be akin to the art of Siena, so we have the 
 people of Perugia akin to the people of Siena — pietistic, 
 passionate, hotly emotional, quick to love or hate. Perugia, 
 too, was torn with the quarrels of the factions — the savage 
 and brutal feuds of the Oddi and Baglioni — at war with 
 Assisi, exhausted at last by discord. Art revealed itself to 
 Umbria towards the close of the thirteen-hundreds through 
 the personality and genius of Gentile da Fabriano (1360- 
 1428), and, above all, in his Adoration of the Magi, at the 
 Academy in Florence, which has all the freshness of youth, 
 gay and debonair colour, and blithe narrative, and in his 
 Madonna in Glory at the Brera in Milan. 
 
 Now Gentile da Fabriano had been to Venice, and 
 170
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 there had worked with his friend Pisanello, of Verona, the WHEREIN 
 famed engraver of medals, a superb draughtsman, and quick WE SEE 
 of eve, who was the first ItaUan to catch and hold and truly ART FLIT 
 g-ive forth the movements of animals. From the Rhine ^^-'-'^ irtii 
 
 u J ^r ■ u . .u • . u A UMBRIAN 
 
 had come to Venice, about 1450, the pamter Roger van der 
 
 Weyden, who saw and sang the praises of Pisanello and 
 Gentile da Fabriano, seeing in them both gifts akin to his 
 own. How much of Gothic joy in nature and love of life 
 the great Northerner gave to them, and how much of 
 Venetian colour and pomp and circumstance he took back 
 with him to Flanders, who may tell ? Verona, too, was in 
 close touch with the Court of Burgundy ; indeed, as early 
 as 1400, Philip the Bold had bought Italian medals. The 
 forerunners of the Van Eycks, even Hubert Van Eyck 
 himself, learned many lessons from Venice and the northern 
 cities near the lagoons ; but their travels thereto had brought 
 Flemish art also into Italy. 
 
 Gentile da Fabriano seemed destined to rise and achieve 
 his blithe record of the bright and pleasant life of his day, 
 and to die, and Umbrian art to die with him, scarce stepping 
 out of its half-Gothic beginnings, and his joy of life and 
 glorious colour to be doomed to arouse no further achieve- 
 ment amongst the Umbrian hills. Lorenzo da San Severing 
 seems alone to have come to any distinction after him. But 
 there came to the Umbrian towns, above all to Perugia, 
 some impetus that, in the latter half of the fourteen-hundreds, 
 created a school of painting wholly unlike that of Florence. 
 Already stimulated by the blithe and colourful genius of 
 Venice, through Gentile da Fabriano, Umbria took to her- 
 self something of the Sienese tradition, and uttered herself 
 with a suave and generous faculty of colour and emotion 
 in marked contrast, as though in deliberate challenge, to 
 the austere grace of the Florentines. Fresh of vision, poetic 
 
 171
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE and splendid, with something of Sienese limitation in the 
 
 GOLDEN range of their art, the Umbrians frankly passed by the in- 
 AGE tellectual and tragic grandeur of the genius of Florence. 
 
 There had come to Orvieto with Fra Angelico, as his 
 assistant, Benozzo Gozzoli ; and Benozzo Gozzoli stayed 
 behind and worked amongst the Umbrian cities. He 
 brought new spirit into the declining life of Umbrian 
 painting ; revealing the more colourful side of the Florentine 
 genius to Benedetto Bonfigli (i425?-i496), Niccolo da 
 Foligno (1430 ?- 1 502), and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (1440- 
 1522). Of these, Benedetto Bonfigli was clearly indebted to 
 Lorenzo da San Severino, through one Giovanni Boccatis ; 
 born in Perugia, where most of his work is to be seen, 
 he caught from Benozzo Gozzoli his taste for painting 
 into his works the facts and habits of the life of his day. 
 Benozzo Gozzoli's influence is even more marked in the 
 art of Niccolo da Foligno ; but in him was strongly 
 developed that sincere and marked emotionalism of the 
 Umbrian and Sienese schools, exaggerated from the tender- 
 ness and gentleness typical of these schools into more violent 
 passion. In was, however, in Fiorenzo di Lorenzo that 
 Perugia found her first master of mark, though little is 
 known of his life, and he is only mentioned by Vasari, 
 unnamed, as Perugino's first master. Whether, as his work 
 would seem to show, he learnt his craft under Benedetto 
 Bonfigli, and afterwards came under the influence of Benozzo 
 Gozzoli and then of Antonio Pollaiuolo, or not, he reveals 
 a vision for depth of atmosphere and for painting his land- 
 scape backgrounds in tune with his figures, perhaps com- 
 pelled upon his eyes by the clear air of the Umbrian hills, 
 which were to have such a marked eff^ect on the style of 
 Perugino and the Umbrian School. He had, besides, a 
 firm grip of character, and a strong feeling for creating it. 
 172
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Fiorenzo is seen at his best in his Annunciation upon the WHEREIN 
 
 wall of the church of S. Maria degli Angeli at Assisi, WE SEE 
 
 and in The Nativity and Adoration of the Magi^ and the ART FLIT 
 
 small lunette, amongst several paintings, at the Gallery in ^^TO THE 
 
 Perugia. UMBRIAN 
 
 • HI I LS 
 Fiorenzo's most brilliant pupils, Pietro Vannucci and 
 
 Bernardino di Betto, were to be known in after years as 
 
 Perugino and Pinturicchio, who developed their master's 
 
 fine style and brought immortal fame to the picturesque 
 hill-city of Umbria. 
 
 PERUGINO 
 
 1446 - 1523 
 
 Pietro Vannucci, to become world-renowned as 
 Perugino, was born in 1446 in a small mountain-town 
 of Umbria, called Citta della Pieve, near by Perugia. One 
 of a large and very poor family, Pietro Vannucci was 
 sent off, a mere child of nine, to the studio of Fiorenzo 
 di Lorenzo in Perugia, to learn the craft and mystery of 
 painting, wherefore his name of " il Perugino." Grown to 
 youth, he went to Florence to complete his training, and 
 thus came to work side by side with Leonardo da Vinci in 
 the workship of Verrocchio. 
 
 Perugino early rose to repute, and his work to wide 
 demand ; he was soon so overwhelmed with orders that 
 he could not even attempt to carry out many of them, 
 though he had workshops both in Florence and Perugia, 
 employing a large number of pupils and assistants. This 
 accounts for much in the limitation of Perugino's promise, 
 for Perugino was an astoundingly prolific worker; his art 
 inevitably sufi^ered both from the wide demand for it and 
 his rapid production. Pressed by his popularity, he repeated 
 the same types until he wrecked the freshness and allure of 
 
 173
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE his design ; he as inevitably became mannered to affecta- 
 
 GOLDEN tion, and ended in being wearisome. It is easy to under- 
 AGE stand a virile and dramatic artist of stupendous genius like 
 
 Michelangelo speaking with contempt of Perugino as " that 
 blockhead {goffo) in art," in the presence of the stream of 
 work which poured out in his later years from his hand ; 
 indeed, from the year 1500 his art rapidly deteriorated. 
 But Perugino's best work is of very high achievement. It 
 has been said that his art is rarely inspired; and perhaps 
 this is so — the effort to appear inspired is so dogged and 
 insistent; but he uttered most exquisitely and subtly a 
 mystic and idealistic note that is the very soul of the 
 Umbrian character, and is rarely wholly absent from his 
 devotional paintings — and he uttered it as no other painter 
 ever did. His art knows no struggles of the soul ; it is 
 serene, contemplative, with a sense of dignity that is not 
 without impressiveness, though it is tinged with the formal 
 acceptance of the ideals of the devout. The presence of 
 the Madonna rouses in him a sweet and tender regard; 
 she appears ever as one held by a surprise of wonder 
 that she, the wife of a well-to-do burgess of the city of 
 Perugia, should have been chosen as the mother of God. 
 Of dramatic sense he had none; and his figures thereby 
 know little action — they are thrilled with no human 
 passions, know no suffering, but rather give forth a 
 fragrance that is sweetly devotional — they know the 
 peace of a quiet and undisturbed mind. A certain and 
 unquestioning creed, taught by the tradition of the big 
 church in the town, holds them ; and serenity exhales 
 like incense from the works of his skill. " Fervour, not 
 faith," it has been said, *' is the keynote of Perugino's art " ; 
 but Perugino was almost incapable of so much artistic 
 violence even as fervour — the fragrance of his art is
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 of a more subtle and elusive kind, which is perhaps best WHEREIN 
 expressed by such a phrase as the sense of peacefulness WE SEE 
 aroused bv an oft-repeated prayer or hymn of praise. ARl bLll 
 
 Michelangelo's was a hard saying, but it was the con- rj^/ruriTAM 
 tempt of a world-force, of a very tornado, for a still lake. Trrr ^ c 
 rerugino s instinct lor airy composition gives largeness to 
 his design, and greatly enhances the serenity of mood that 
 was his eternal aim and delight ; and the beautiful, gem- 
 like transparency of his colour further enhances his exquisite 
 sense of reverie and sweet ecstasies. Perugino created for 
 the soul a resting-place peopled with mild and saintly 
 beings, where the pomps and vanities of the world are 
 not thrust upon the attention, but only as an echo float in 
 the air like an ethereal whisper. The worldly folk receive 
 no shock of admonition — no hint of the day of wrath, nor, 
 indeed, of the end of days. 
 
 It will be noticed that the colour-scheme of Perugino's 
 paintings is nearly always dominated by blue — a limpid 
 blue as of southern seas, pure and luminous as the tender 
 blue of still waters, which he employs with strange allure 
 to arouse a tense sense of serenity. And he ever sets his 
 beautiful contemplative Madonnas and rapt saints against 
 a serene mountain landscape, under a luminous peaceful 
 blue of the high heavens that melt away into an horizon of 
 cool pallor as of the glassy shallows of a pool, to meet the 
 pale blue of the distant mountains in the leagues beyond at 
 the edge of the hushed world. 
 
 The National Gallery in London possesses a superb 
 example of his art at its highest achievement — the triptych 
 (or triple picture) of The Virgin adoring the Infant Christy 
 with the wing panels of the Archangel Michael , and the Arch- 
 angel Raphael and the young Tobias , which was once part of 
 an altarpiece in the Certosa at Pavia, but, being replaced by
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE a copy there, this once votive offering against blindness was 
 
 GOLDEN sold to the National Gallery by the Melzi family of Milan. 
 
 AGE At the Louvre is a very beautiful circular picture, or tondo, 
 
 of the Virgin and Child with Saints and Angels. 
 
 Of Perugino's many pupils there v^as one that came to 
 him in Perugia v^^ho was destined to immortal fame — a 
 handsome youth of seventeen years, whom they called 
 Raphael Sanzio, but whom all men now call Raphael. 
 When the youth came to him in 1500, Perugino was at 
 the very height of his career and reputation ; the master 
 was soon to see his pupil preferred before him, rising by 
 leaps to the giddiest heights of public acclaim — and Perugino 
 suffering much travail of heart thereby. 
 
 Whilst at work on a fresco at Fontignano in the 
 February of 1523, his fame wholly dimmed by his pupil's 
 splendour, though that pupil was already dead some three 
 years gone by, Perugino caught the plague and died. It is 
 interesting to know that this fresco on which his hand was 
 busy when death took him in his seventy-seventh year is 
 now at the National Gallery in London. 
 
 There is something fantastic in the pietism of Perugino's 
 art amidst a world rapidly falling into scepticism and social 
 corruption ; yet there is a sense of formalism in that art 
 which gives hint of the painting that is " lucrative." 
 
 Perugino's keen eye for the money-bags early taught 
 him that eyes raised in ecstasy of sweet adoration, the 
 upturned oval face, the head swung in humility of tender- 
 ness towards the shoulder, the exquisitely and daintily-robed 
 figures, would win his art to the walls of the convent and 
 the palace. But when he came to paint the Greek or 
 Roman legend, or history of antique days, his pietistic 
 sentimentality betrayed its limits — it fitted ill a Cato who 
 held liberty above life. Like many of the pietistic, his 
 176
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 body held a sordid soul. His hard face does not belie him. WHEREIN 
 
 Unfaithful, money-grubbing, dastardly in vengeance — he WE SEE 
 
 found the pietistic to pay, so he created pietisms. In the ART FLIT 
 
 December of i486 he hired a notorious assassin, Aulista di ^'^ ^^ iMii 
 
 A 1 fp • A ■ u- ir 1 . UMBRIAN 
 
 Angelo ot rerugia, and, armmg himself also, set out to way- tttt t o 
 
 lay and beat an enemy near S. Pietro Maggiore at Florence. 
 
 The tale of the Church refusing his body burial after death 
 
 was as likely enough due to panic of the plague — of which 
 
 he died — though the story goes that he refused to confess 
 
 as he lay dying, vowing that he wished to know how an 
 
 unrepentant soul would fare in the other world. 
 
 Marrying a beautiful girl, he loved to dress her out in 
 fine array and costly jewellery with his own hands. He 
 treated Art as a trade — sought and obtained a large amount 
 of orders, which his two great workshops and many 
 apprentices turned out wholesale, and he thereby came 
 to considerable estate. He suffered bitter jealousy of 
 Michelangelo and his young pupil Raphael ; indeed, there 
 is something pathetic in the grey-haired old man retiring 
 from Rome to make place for the gifted boy Raphael. 
 But it seems to have made no difference to the demand for 
 his works. 
 
 PINTURICCHIO 
 1454 - 1513^ 
 
 From the studio of this same Fiorenzo di Lorenzo's 
 came also another pupil who was to know a wide fame. 
 Bernardino di Betto, to become celebrated as Pinturicchio 
 or Pintorichio, the " little painter," was born in Perugia in 
 1454, and was therefore eight years younger than Perugino. 
 Being sent as pupil to Fiorenzo, he rapidly came to the 
 front, and seems to have passed into Perugino's workshop 
 in Perugia as his manager or foreman. By twenty-six he 
 was engaged, together with Perugino, for about three years 
 VOL. I — z 177
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE in decorating the Sistine Chapel at Rome, painting therein 
 
 GOLDEN his frescoes of the Journey of Moses and the Baptism of 
 
 AGE Christ, in which Baptism of Christ he shows the marked 
 
 influence of Perugino, as seen in Perugino's Baptism of Christ 
 
 at the Rouen Museum. Pinturicchio was afflicted with 
 
 deafness. 
 
 At Rome, Pinturicchio won to great favour, and was 
 engaged upon and painted a large number of important 
 works, of which were the famous frescoes in the Bufalim 
 Chapel of the Church of Ara Cceii, the frescoes in the Colonna 
 Palace, and the frescoes in the Church of Santa Maria del 
 Popolo. About 1 49 1 he started upon the decoration of 
 the Borgia Rooms in the Vatican for the Borgian Pope 
 Alexander vi. Pinturicchio was back in Perugia again 
 by 1500, when the youth Raphael, at seventeen, entered 
 Perugino's workshop there, and his art greatly influenced 
 the eager and sensitive young fellow. 
 
 It was in 1502, Pinturicchio's forty-eighth year, when 
 at the height of his maturity and powers and in the full 
 utterance of his exquisite colour faculty, that he began his 
 superb series of frescoes for Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini 
 in the Library of the Cathedral at Siena of the Lfe of 
 Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who had reigned as Pope Pius 11., 
 on which Pinturicchio was employed for five years, until 
 
 Shortly after completing these great frescoes, Pinturicchio 
 painted the famous and far-famed Return of Ulysses to 
 Penelope, now at the National Gallery in London, wrought 
 in fresco, as a wall decoration for the Palace of Pandolfo 
 Petrucci at Siena, but removed with astounding skill on to 
 canvas in 1 844, and bought some thirty years later by the 
 National Gallery. 
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 OF PAINTING 
 
 Pinturicchio brought to the art of Umbria a rich faculty WHEREIN 
 for colour. His naive design has something fantastically WE SEE 
 and charmingly primitive in it. It were as though he ART FLIT 
 harked back to a style before the achievement of his master ^^ ^ U 1 iriri. 
 rerugmo, compared w^itn whom he is in some ways almost 
 as a primitive. He fills his space with detail from end to 
 end of it, yet he does it with something akin to the 
 consummate skill of the East, so that his work is rarely 
 congested or overloaded. One stands before it marvelling 
 that it escapes confusion. By some subtle skill of design he 
 arrives at an effect as of massing, or that takes the place of 
 masses, who had no capacity whatever for massing. It is 
 true that his anatomy and feeling for form are vague and 
 uncertain, but he has a sense of action and a glowing and 
 rich habit of colour in which he steeps his elaborate design 
 with true painter's skill that is much more Venetian than 
 Tuscan. There is a delightful piquancy in the almost 
 childlike and uncalculated scheme of that design ; but his 
 unerring instinct wrought consummate design in all he did, 
 scarce knowing what he did, as a bird's instinct makes a 
 bird's song, regardless of the laws of counterpoint. It is 
 wholly vain to measure that design with the rule and 
 plummet of pedantic laws, and complain that he overcrowds 
 it — he never afflicts one's senses with the discomforting im- 
 pression of overcrowding ; and until that sense of ill-ease is 
 created there is no overcrowding. A space may be over- 
 crowded with a single figure. Pinturicchio had an instinct 
 for design and for colour all his own ; he had as unerring 
 an instinct for landscape, which he painted with exquisite 
 vision. He could never resist birds, and you shall ever 
 find him bringing one into his scheme wheresoever he can 
 perch one ; the freedom and airiness of the life of singing 
 birds were in fact closely akin to the airy fancies of the 
 
 179
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE man's soul — indeed, the flight of his quick and blithe 
 
 GOLDEN invention was as the flight of singing birds. He was a 
 AGE very poet of colour, which he wrought with intense lyrical 
 
 qualities into an exquisite art. 
 
 It has been complained of Pinturicchio that he lacked 
 the religious emotions and poetic feelings of Perugino. In 
 the religious sense he is certainly not gifted, if the devotional 
 sense of the Church be religion ; but he had a lyrical sense 
 which Perugino never approached, and he employed the 
 chief significance of a painter, the music that is in colour, 
 with a skill of hand which is astounding. 
 
 Bookish men have also blamed Pinturicchio in that the 
 colours of his frescoes are too rich ! and the illusion of 
 plastic life too complete for the requirements of wall decora- 
 tion ! — that, instead of accentuating the flatness of the wall- 
 surface, he aimed at making his paintings like glimpses of 
 life seen through an open window ! This is an age of 
 strange accusations. All painting is upon flat surfaces ; and 
 why the flat surface of a wall should not give forth the 
 illusion of depth, any more than a flat picture upon the 
 wall, is quaint hair-splitting. To thrust aside as bad art all 
 the wall paintings and huge canvases employed for wall 
 paintings that contain the illusion of depth and do not 
 accentuate the flatness of the wall, would mean the rejection 
 of some of the world's mightiest masterpieces. Such laws 
 are the veriest fribble. The artist is not concerned with 
 announcing the flatness of a wall, otherwise the wall were 
 better unpainted. It is the artist's province to create the 
 illusion of life. And whether he state that illusion upon 
 a wall in terms of flatness, or whether he create the illusion 
 of the roundness of form here called the plastic life, is a 
 matter of utter indifference. The painter's realm is to 
 employ colour, and to accuse him of employing colour too 
 i8o
 
 INTO THE 
 
 UMBRIAN 
 
 HILLS 
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 well or too richly is as though one said that Shakespeare WHEREIN 
 made Hamlet too like Hamlet. WE SEE 
 
 Pinturicchio has another claim to fame : he created the ART FLIT 
 type of Madonna that became the ideal of Raphael, and is 
 so distinctive of Umbria. 
 
 Strangely enough, though Pinturicchio wrought his art 
 in several towns throughout Umbria and Tuscany, and 
 ranged as far as Rome, yet he never seems to have set foot 
 in Florence. 
 
 He brought his wanderings to a close towards the end 
 of his life by settling in Siena, the scene of his greatest 
 triumphs ; and in Siena he laid him down and died, a 
 starving and neglected man, broken in spirit by the brutal 
 negligence of his infamous wife, Grania di Niccolo, whose 
 intrigue with a soldier of the Sienese guard was an affair 
 of public notoriety and shame. 
 
 One of Pinturicchio's ablest pupils was Matteo Bal- 
 
 DUCCI. 
 
 MANN I 
 I4..P-I544 
 
 Besides Raphael, there had been pupils in Perugino's 
 workshops who were to win to considerable repute. 
 
 In the little town of Citta della Pieve, that gave birth 
 to Perugino, was also born Giannicola Manni — who, like 
 Raphael, learnt the craft and mystery of his art under 
 Perugino and Pinturicchio, and who became assistant to 
 Perugino ; his earlier work is steeped in Perugino's 
 tradition. 
 
 Manni appears to have settled in Perugia and begun 
 to work on his own account about 1493. ^^ ^^^^ strongly 
 under the influence of his master, Perugino, he thereafter 
 came under the influence of Raphael, Bazzi, and eventually, 
 it is supposed, Andrea del Sarto. In 151 5 he began to 
 
 181
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE paint his chief works, the frescoes of the Sala del Cambio, 
 
 GOLDEN which, being wrought in desultory fashion, reveal the 
 
 AGE various changes and influences which came over his later 
 
 style. He was elected a Decemvir of Perugia in 1527, 
 
 where he died on the 27th of October 1 544. 
 
 LO SPAGNA 
 
 Giovanni di Petro, better known as Lo Spagna or 
 Lo Spagnolo — " the Spaniard " — was another pupil of the 
 same masters in Perugia ; indeed, next to Raphael, is 
 Perugino's most distinguished pupil. In his earlier work 
 is to be seen the strong influence of his master, and later 
 that of his fellow-student Raphael. Little is known of 
 Lo Spagna's life, except that he was probably making his 
 mark by 1503 and certainly by 1507. He is now credited 
 with having painted the famous Caen Sposalizio, long held 
 to be by Perugino. He was made a citizen of Spoleto in 
 1 5 1 6, and the year after he was elected head of the Society 
 of Painters of that town, and is known to have been 
 alive in 1530. The Madonna Enthronedy painted in the 
 year that he was made a citizen of Spoleto, now in the 
 chapel of San Stefano in the lower church of San Francesco 
 at Assisi, is one of his best-known works ; but it is likely 
 that many paintings to-day attributed to Perugino and to 
 Raphael in his youth, are really the work of Lo Spagna's 
 hand. 
 
 Giovanni Battista Bertucci, born at Faenza, and 
 working in the early years of the fifteen-hundreds, was 
 reared under the influence of the same masters, Perugino 
 and Pinturicchio ; and his works were also wont to be 
 given to Perugino and Pinturicchio, or to Lo Spagna. 
 But he, like Raphael, came under the influence of the 
 Bologna painters, Costa and Francia, of the school of Padua 
 182
 
 XXIII 
 
 RAPHAEL 
 
 1483 - 1520 
 
 UMBRIAN SCHOOL 
 
 "THE VIRGIN AND CHILD ATTENDED BY ST. JOHN 
 
 THE BAPTIST AND ST. NICHOLAS OF BARI" 
 
 (Commonly known as the " Ansidei Madonna ") 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 The Virgin is seated holding the Infant Christ on an elevated throne 
 with three steps. To the left stands St. John the Baptist. On the right 
 stands St. Nicholas of Bari, wearing his episcopal robes and mitre ; in the 
 foreground, at his feet, are the three golden balls, representing the three 
 purses of gold, which are his attributes. 
 
 Painted in oil, on thick, poplar wood j arched at the top. 7 tt. i in. h. 
 X 4 ft. ic^ in. w. (2"i 59 X 1-485).
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 and Venice. Of Perugino's pupils also was Francesco WHEREIN 
 Ubertini, better known as II Bacchiacca (1494- 1557). WE SEE 
 
 We have seen the Umbrian School of Painters display- ART FLIT 
 ing a rich sense of colour, and a style and significance in I^i^ IHE 
 art, akin to that of Venice and of Siena. They are H!f ^s^^^ 
 receptive to many influences, and eagerly adopt them. 
 They are inclined to be what the pedants call eclectic — 
 " borrowers," choosers of the best out of everything, makers 
 of fine mixtures. The art of Florence of the fifteen- 
 hundreds is henceforth, also, to become " eclectic," borrow- 
 ing from the best that has gone before, both in Florence and 
 in Venice and in Umbria — except only one majestic genius, 
 a very giant, Michelangelo, who stands out alone, head 
 and shoulders above the whole magnificent achievement of 
 Tuscany. But of the splendid borrowers, the mightiest 
 and largest was Raphael, lord of the school of Umbria — 
 indeed, for several centuries he was to be hailed as " king 
 of painters." 
 
 183
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 WHEREIN WE WALK WITH RAPHAEL, THE RADIANT 
 CHILD OF FORTUNE AND APOSTLE OF GRACE 
 
 THE There lived, side by side, and wrought their art in those 
 
 GOLDEN early fifteen-hundreds, Raphael and Michelangelo, with 
 
 AGE Andrea del Sarto for splendid company ; and rounded off 
 
 the significance of the Renaissance in Tuscany in its 
 
 supreme flight of achievement. 
 
 Raphael created little, initiated little, but he rathei 
 gathered into his single personality the whole and varied 
 activities of the men who had gone before ; and forthwith 
 selected from all such their supreme qualities, and wrought 
 them into a wondrous whole, as though in him were to be 
 gathered their varied design that it might be given forth 
 in a glorious flowering. 
 
 Raphael and Michelangelo changed the scene of the 
 triumphs of the Renaissance from Florence to Rome ; but 
 Florentine and Umbrian it was, nevertheless. 
 
 To understand the significance of Raphael and his art, 
 it is necessary to glance back awhile. 
 
 The artistic school of Venice had thrown out many 
 offshoots throughout the north of Italy ; and one of her 
 colonies, Bologna, had bred a goldsmith-painter of dis- 
 tinction, his name Francia — born in the mid-fourteen- 
 hundreds (1450) — who had founded his artistry upon the 
 practice of Giovanni Bellini. In Francia's workshop, first 
 as pupil, then as foreman, was a young Umbrian from 
 184
 
 XXIV 
 
 RAPHAEL 
 1483- 1520 
 
 UMBRIAN SCHOOL 
 '«LA BELLE JARDINIERE" 
 
 (Louvre) 
 
 The Virgin is seated in a flowery meadow. She looks down to the left 
 at the Infant Jesus, who leans against her knee and draws her attention to 
 the little St. John the Baptist who kneels to the right, his reed cross in his 
 right hand. 
 
 The signature seems to be: — "vrb. raphaello mdvii." 
 
 Painted in oil on panel. 3 ft. 8 in. x 2 ft. 7^ in. (I'zz x o-8o).
 
 PAINTING 
 
 Urbino, one Timoteo Viti — and out of this partnership WHEREIN 
 was to be born a strange destiny. WE WALK 
 
 WITH 
 RAPHAEL RAPHAEL, 
 
 1483 - 1520 '^^^ 
 
 On the Low Sunday of 1483, which fell on the ptttt ta q^ 
 6th of April, there was born in the Umbrian town of FORTUNE 
 Urbino, to one Giovanni Santi, poet and painter of no AND 
 mean gifts at the Court of Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, APOSTLE 
 and to Magia Ciarla, his wife, a man-child whom they OF GRACE 
 christened Raphael Santi, or Raffaelle Sanzio, who was 
 to reach to mighty immortality as Raphael. 
 
 The father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter of consider- 
 able gifts, as is proved by his Madonna and Child at the 
 National Gallery in London ; but he died when his son 
 was only eleven years old — the lad's mother having died 
 when he was eight. 
 
 The boy Raphael was no infant wonder ; however, he 
 was eager to learn, whensoever and wheresoever he could 
 find the chance, and showed a keen desire to absorb all 
 that came into his way from the very beginning ; also he 
 was endowed with a prodigious industry, a dogged and 
 persistent will, and gave himself up to heavy and laborious 
 training. He had little confidence in his own powers, even 
 when well set into youth. It is little likely that a boy of 
 eleven, of no precocious habit, should have learnt much 
 from his courtier father. It is said that his mother had 
 that spiritual beauty which the boy wrought about his 
 Madonnas ; but a boy of eight would visualise little of 
 such subtleties. His bent tov/ards an artistic career, how- 
 ever, was likely enough due to his father's habits ; and he 
 may have acquired some little of his early training from 
 him. He is said to have been much influenced by the 
 VOL. I — 2 A 185
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE work of Piero della Francesca, but to what degree it would 
 
 GOLDEN be idle to say to-day ; certainly not by the artist himself, 
 AGE since, though Francesca had been the guest of Raphael's 
 
 father at Urbino in 1469, it was fourteen years before 
 Raphael was born. His work, and that of many others, 
 no doubt was a part of Raphael's eager "eclectic" borrowing; 
 but an eleven-year-old boy's borrowings must have been of 
 the vaguest. 
 
 The year after his father died — in 1495, the boy R^aphael 
 being then twelve, Timoteo Viti, his five years of service 
 to Francia at Bologna done, came back to Urbino, steeped 
 in the artistry, and seeing with the vision, of Francia. 
 To him the boy was apprenticed ; and the eager lad leaped 
 to borrow his craftsmanship from the revelation of Francia 
 that Timoteo Viti brought into Umbria. From him he 
 learned to draw the rounded and opulent forms, and to 
 paint the rich and sensuous colour, so utterly alien to the 
 Florentine spirit. At sixteen or seventeen Raphael went 
 to Perugia and entered the studio of Perugino, some say as 
 pupil, more likely as assistant in the workshop. The little 
 St. Michael at the Louvre, painted for the Duke Guidobaldo 
 on the back of a chessboard, must also be early work. 
 When Raphael went to Perugino's workshop at Perugia, 
 that master, overwhelmed with orders, was at Florence, 
 and Pinturicchio was the foreman of his Perugian studio ; 
 from whom and from Perugino the sensitive and borrowing 
 youth almost wholly drew his art for the four years that he 
 wrought with persistent address in the great Umbrian 
 workshop. Pictures were painted by him during these 
 years from the cartoons and studies of both masters ; and, 
 by consequence, his art whilst he painted in Perugia was a 
 blend of the styles created by Francia and Perugino, not 
 untouched bv the colour faculty of Pinturicchio— his first 
 186
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 revelation of his habit of taking all that was best from WHEREIN 
 
 others and creating a composite style out of them. The WE WALK 
 
 Solly Madonna and a Crucifixion were painted between 1 500 WITH 
 
 and 1502, his seventeenth and eighteenth years; his Vision of ^-^"^AEL, 
 
 a Knight and Coronation of the Virgin for the Oddi family RArAjAvrT 
 
 between 1502 and 1504, his nineteenth and twenty-first rHII D OF 
 
 years, together with the Diatalevi Madonna, the Madonna FORTUNE 
 
 with SS. Francis and Jerome. And with what rapid strides AND 
 
 his industry and catholic taste urged forward his hand's APOSTLE 
 
 skill, you may see in the exquisite Httle painting of The OF GRACE 
 
 Vision of a Knight, wrought by the youth when seventeen, 
 
 and now at the National Gallery in London. It was 
 
 at Perugia that he painted the small Conestahile Madonna 
 
 now at St. Petersburg, once belonging to the Conestabile- 
 
 Staffa family ; and at the end of his four years thereat, 
 
 in 1 504, he painted, and for the first time signed and dated 
 
 his work, in the Sposalizio or Betrothal of the Virgin, now at 
 
 the Brera in Milan. He has not yet wholly found himself 
 
 — he is forming his style, out of the various styles of 
 
 others. 
 
 It was in the October of 1504, in his twenty-first year, 
 already famous at the edge of manhood, that Raphael, bear- 
 ing a letter of introduction from the Duchess della Rovere, 
 sister of the art-loving Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, to the 
 Gonfaloniere Pietro Soderini, took his way to Florence, and 
 for the next four years, advancing from success to success, 
 and rapidly rising to increased fame, he wrought the 
 beautiful Madonnas that are the talk of the wide world. 
 
 Raphael painted in Florence, shortly after his arrival, 
 the famous Madonna del Gran Duca, which is one of the 
 treasures of the Pitti Palace in that city of treasures. It 
 came by its name and to its present home in quaint fashion. 
 Towards the end of the sixteen-hundreds it was in the 
 
 187
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE possession of an old woman, from whom a dealer bought 
 
 GOLDEN it for four pounds, and was sold by him to the Grand Duke 
 AGE of Tuscany — hence its name. The beautiful Madonna del 
 
 GardeUino of the Uffizi Gallery was painted some couple of 
 years thereafter, by Raphael for his friend Lorenzo Nasi, as 
 a wedding-present to his bride — this is the painting in 
 which the boy John the Baptist offers a goldfinch {cardel- 
 lino) to the infant Christ, the goldfinch being a symbol of 
 the Divine Sacrifice from the blood-red marks upon it. 
 Like all of Raphael's Madonna pictures, except the Sistine 
 ■ Madonna and the Madonna of the Tower, this Madonna del 
 CardelUno was painted on wood, and was broken to pieces 
 in the earthquake of 1 547 ; but the pieces were put to- 
 gether again by Nasi's son with such skill and care that 
 the breaks are only to be found by keen scrutiny. 
 
 A couple of years in Florence, with its vast artistic 
 achievement, were not lost upon the eager ken of the 
 impressionable Raphael — from Masaccio's frescoes in the 
 Carmine, and Donatello's sculptured marble, and Luca and 
 Andrea della Robbia's modelled terra-cottas, to Michel- 
 angelo's colossal statue oi David (which was set up in 1504) 
 and his Holy Family in the Uffizi, to the paintings of 
 Domenico Ghirlandaio and of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra 
 Bartolommeo, which were in the full freshness of their 
 splendour, he took all that he could weld into his Umbrian 
 vision — selected, annexed, dissolved, and re-wrought into 
 his own personal concept, without losing that personal 
 vision or abjectly surrendering it; and by consequence of 
 his wide gleanings he became enslaved by none. Master 
 of a new sense of modelling and of grouping, he now 
 evolved a marked style, which is seen in his world-famous 
 Madonna degli Ansidei or Ansidet Madonna, one of the great 
 treasures of the National Gallery in London, and taking its 
 188
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 name from the family chapel of Filippo di Simoni Ansldei, WHEREIN 
 in the insignificant little church of San Fiorenzo at Perugia. WE WALK 
 The Ansidei Madonna was given to the third Duke of WITH 
 Marlborough by his brother, Lord Robert Spencer, at the RAPHAEL, 
 
 end of the seventeen-hundreds ; and on its becoming known, .. , ^^r a xt^ 
 oo i_ u • t- V J 1 11 , • 11 • RADIANT 
 
 in 1004, that the eighth duke was to sell his collection, rniLD OF 
 
 and the Director of the National Gallery, Sir Frederick poRTUNE 
 
 Burton, valuing the picture to the Treasury at 11 0,00c AND 
 
 guineas, Gladstone, being Chancellor of the Exchequer, APOSTLE 
 
 offered the Duke ^70,000 from the nation, to whom, by OF GRACE 
 
 Special Act of Parliament, then passed, in splendid condition, 
 
 one of Raphael's highest achievements. Its predella, as the 
 
 frieze is called that runs along the foot of an altarpiece, had 
 
 been kept by Lord Robert Spencer — of its three panels 
 
 two have disappeared, but the third, St. 'John the Baptist 
 
 Preachings is in the collection of the Marquess of Lansdowne 
 
 at Bowood. Other early Madonnas are his Madonna of the 
 
 Palm Tree, the Madonna of the Meadow, now in Vienna, the 
 
 Madonna Canigiani, the Madonna delta Casa Tempi, the 
 
 Orleans Madonna, the two Cowper Madonnas at Pansh anger, 
 
 and the Madonna del Baldacchino at the Pitti. To his period 
 
 in Florence also belong his charming portrait of himself at 
 
 the Uffizi, the St. George and the Apollo and Marsyas, all 
 
 three painted in 1506. 
 
 Close on the completion of the Ansidei Madonna was 
 painted, in 1507, the Entombment at the Borghese Palace in 
 Rome, in which, in spite of its pathos and beauty of hand- 
 ling, Raphael reveals his laborious efforts to blend the 
 styles of Perugino, Mantegna, and Michelangelo, not 
 without weakness and the crov/ding of its composition. 
 
 About the time he painted the Entombment, he was at 
 work upon the large Madonna di Sanf Antonio, bought by 
 Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. Painted for the nuns of Sant' 
 
 189
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Antonio of Padua for their convent in Perugia, they sold it 
 
 GOLDEN in 1 677 for a small sum — the five panels of its great centre 
 AGE picture had shrunk apart, leaving fissures, and the colour 
 
 was beginning to flake off — Antonio Bagazzini, the noble- 
 man of Perugia who bought it, promising a copy as 
 substitute. The nuns of St. Anthony had already sold the 
 five little panel pictures of its predella in 1663 to Queen 
 Christina of Sweden. Thence the Madonna passed to 
 Prince Colonna — thence in 1825 to Francis i., King of the 
 Two Sicilies — thence to Francis 11., King of Naples, whose 
 bedroom it adorned, until the Revolution of i860 sent him 
 flying, and the picture with him, into his Spanish exile. 
 In 1867 the Director of the National Gallery, Sir William 
 Boxall, was in treaty for it for the State, but Disraeli had 
 to abandon the intention owing to its going to Pans to be 
 offered to France instead, where it lay, packed in a case, 
 during the war with Germany of 1 870. It was again offered 
 to England — then, after purchase by Colnaghi the dealer, 
 from whom it went to M. Sedelmeyer of Paris, it came to 
 Mr. Pierpont Morgan for ^100,000 in 1901. The five 
 panels of its predella are now, two of them, St. Francis of 
 Assist and St. Anthony of Padua, in the Dulwich College 
 Gallery ; the third. The Agony in the Garden, belongs to 
 Mr. Burdett-Coutts ; the fourth, Christ bearing the Cross, 
 belongs to the Earl of Plymouth ; and the fifth, the Pieta, 
 is in Mrs. J. L. Gardiner's collection at Fenway Court in 
 Boston in the United States. Of the picture of the 
 Madonna itself, it must be remembered that it has under- 
 gone much restoration, from which it has suffered con- 
 siderably, but it was probably never as fine a work as the 
 An side i Madonna. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Raphael was at work on the cele- 
 brated La Belle Jardiniere, now at the Louvre, which was 
 190
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 bought by Francis i. of France. The name is founded on WHEREIN 
 a legend that a "gardener's daughter" sat as model for the WE WALK 
 Madonna, but it is as likely that the gardener's daughter WITH 
 was invented to fit the title. At any rate it is but a legend, l^APHAEL, 
 which would easily spring up about the Madonna, who sits oAniAMT 
 on a hillock, flowers at her feet. Raphael was painting the /-tttt ^ rye 
 panel when he was called to Rome in 1508, and forthwith poRTUNE 
 obeyed the summons, leaving the blue drapery of the AND 
 Madonna to be finished by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, the son APOSTLE 
 of the famous Ghirlandaio. OF GRACE 
 
 Raphael in Rome, 1508 
 
 Pope Julius II. called the young Raphael to Rome in 
 1508, and the young fellow came on the tide of fortune. 
 Julius had hated the dead Pope Alexander vi., one of the 
 vilest of the Borgias. He detested to live in the same rooms 
 that the Borgian had used at the Vatican. He determined, 
 in the year that followed Raphael's arrival, to move to the 
 upper room which Piero dei Franceschi and Bramantino 
 had decorated. Julius, not approving the decorations, had 
 set Perugino, Pinturicchio, Peruzzi, Bazzi, and Signorelli 
 to work upon that part called the Stanze^ or Library. 
 Raphael's work so pleased Julius that he forthwith decreed 
 that he should obliterate the work of the others and paint 
 it again. It is to Raphael's eternal credit that at any rate 
 he saved the work of Perugino, Peruzzi, and Bazzi from 
 destruction, and though his entreaties could not save the 
 series of heads by Bramantino, he had them copied by his 
 assistants before they were destroyed. 
 
 When Raphael alighted at Rome in the summer of 
 1508, he was but twenty-five years of age, with a great 
 reputation, and such master-work as the Madonna del Gran 
 Duca, the Madonna del Cardellino, the Ansidei Madonna^ and 
 
 191
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE La Belle Jardiniere behind him. He came to find Michel- 
 
 GOLDEN angelo at work on his great ceiling-paintings of the Sistine 
 AGE Chapel for Pope Julius ii. 
 
 The two men — Michelangelo being thirty-three, Raphael 
 twenty-five — so different in character, in art, in their signifi- 
 cance and their vision, were soon embarked upon a hot 
 rivalry. The one with noble blood in him, a grim and 
 overwhelming giant of a man — compelling and creative — 
 the other a born courtier, the son of a courtier. The art of 
 Michelangelo, so vast and sublime that little men could scarce 
 see it, the art of the other so easy to see. With the aged Pope, 
 Julius II., whose greybearded features are so familiar to us 
 through the young Raphael's famous portrait of him, Raphael 
 was early a favourite. Treated with the greatest pomp and 
 ceremony, honours showered upon him, and orders for work 
 flowing in upon him, the young fellow's genius expanded 
 in the sunshine, and his skill of hand brought forth master- 
 pieces that are an astounding achievement in one so young. 
 He became the centre of a very court. He surrounded 
 himself with pupils, and henceforth furnished only the 
 cartoons for his frescoes and for many of the pictures attri- 
 buted to him — his pupils carrying them out, Raphael 
 putting the finishing touches upon them where necessary. 
 Of these pupils, the most gifted and best-beloved was Giulio 
 Pippi, better known as Giulio Romano, who, with Gian- 
 FRANCESCo Penni, painted most of the frescoes at the 
 Vatican after Raphael's designs. Giulio Romano's work is 
 marked by that preference for brick-red in his carnation 
 tones which is seen also in these Raphael frescoes — a defect 
 eagerly imitated by generations of artists who, dazzled by 
 the fame of Raphael's reputation, fervently sought to repeat 
 what they took to be his mastery in colour, but of which 
 Raphael was wholly innocent ! 
 192
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 By his great patron, Pope Julius ii., Raphael was WHEREIN 
 employed in the decoration at the Vatican of certain rooms WE WALK 
 called the Stanze, and in the long covered gallery round WITH 
 the courtyard of San Damasio called the Loggie. For RAPHAEL, 
 the Stanze he painted vast religious, historical, and ^ 
 allegorical compositions. His first large fresco in the CHILD^OF 
 Stanze w^as the famed Disputa del Sacramento^ better described PORTUNF 
 as The Triumph of the Churchy a v^^ork in which he reached AND 
 an astounding power of arrangement that gives a profound APOSTLE 
 sense of dignity and immensity. He takes from all that OF GRACE 
 has gone before, but he blends the genius of his fore- 
 runners into a masterpiece of which none had been capable. 
 At once his skill in arrangement of masses is seen to have 
 matured as at a stroke. Of several others in the Stanze 
 were The School of Athens^ the Parnassus^ the Heliodorus 
 driven from the Temple^ the Pope Leo checking the advance oj 
 Attila, and Ulncendio del Borgo. Of these, the Parnassus, 
 painted in 151 1, is one of his earliest and finest pagan 
 frescoes. These great frescoes have the added inestimable 
 value of containing portraits of many of Raphael's great 
 contemporaries and forerunners — the famed Dante portrait, 
 Savonarola, Fra Angelico, Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, 
 Castiglione, Federigo Gonzaga, Bazzi il Sodoma, Raphael 
 himself, and many others, not forgetting the Pope, Julius 11. 
 For the Loggie he designed a series of frescoes of scenes 
 from sacred history, generally known as RaphaeTs Bible, and 
 directed a profusion of elaborate decorations founded on 
 the paintings of ancient Rome. Living a life of pleasure, 
 with a retinue worthy of a prince, the lover of a lady of 
 whom he has left a fine portrait, the Donna Velata, at the 
 Pitti Palace, in twelve years he wrought this stupendous work 
 which alone might have filled the full life of any industrious 
 man ; he found time, besides, to paint Madonna pieces that 
 VOL. I — 2 B 193
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 AGE 
 
 THE would make the reputation of the greatest masters, and to 
 
 GOLDEN paint portraits of superb achievement. Between the years 
 1508 and 15 12 he wrought the Madonna of Foligno, now at 
 the Vatican, the Garvagh, Diadem and Casa d' Abba Madonnas, 
 and the Madon?ia of the Tower, so called from the small 
 tower seen in the landscape of the background, a picture 
 lately given to the National Gallery in London by a 
 member of the family of Mr. R. J. Mackintosh, who 
 bought it at the sale of Samuel Rogers, the poet, who 
 bought it from Mr. Henry Hope's sale, who had it from 
 the Orleans collection — its possession by Rogers accounting 
 for its long-time name of the Rogers Madonna, and it will 
 sometimes be found under the name of the Madonna with 
 the Standing Child. It has suffered much restoration and 
 over-cleaning — indeed this, one of the only two Madonnas 
 painted on canvas by Raphael, is challenged as being the 
 work of Raphael's hands ; and even the cartoon for it, in 
 the Print Room of the British Museum, is set down to 
 Brescianino, Fra Bartolommeo, and Andrea del Sarto, as 
 well as to Raphael, by the doubters. The drawing and 
 modelling may have been rendered weak by the many 
 over-cleanings ; but if by Raphael, this picture reveals 
 his colour-sense profoundly enhanced by the Venetian 
 achievement ; for in it he displays a faculty for colour 
 which he never again approached. 
 
 The death of Julius 11. in 15 13, and the election of 
 Pope Leo x., saw the labours of Raphael largely extended 
 in Rome ; and the death of Bramante, the architect 
 of St. Peter's, the following year, saw Raphael appointed 
 in his stead. The year that followed he was made In- 
 spector of the Antiquities and Monuments of Rome, with 
 the supervision of the excavation of Rome, which had 
 grown into a keen pursuit. This year of 15 15, Raphael, 
 194
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 at thirty-two, painted the great portrait of Baidassare WHEREIN 
 
 Castiglione^ once the property of Charles i. of England, WE WALK 
 
 but now at the Louvre. It was on his coming to Rome WITH 
 
 that Raphael began to work on his superb portraits ; and ^^"HAEL, 
 
 this one reveals him at the height of his powers. „ Am amt 
 
 About this time also he made his famous Cartoons : --tttt t^ ^r- 
 • 1 11 r CHILD OF 
 
 broadly drawn m chalk on stout sheets of paper, and highly FORTUNE 
 
 coloured in distemper, as cartoons for the weavers of AND 
 tapestries at Arras, designed to be hung in the Sistine Chapel, APOSTLE 
 and which were woven and placed therein in 1 5 1 9 ; the OF GRACE 
 cartoons were left at Arras where the tapestries were 
 wrought, and lay there long forgotten, until Rubens found 
 them — and it was on his shrewd advice that Charles the 
 First of England bought them. Each of the cartoons had 
 been cut up ; and they were joined together and restored, 
 but in spite of their mutilation they retain their broad and 
 simple grandeur of design and arrangement, and display 
 consummate draughtsmanship. Of these Raphael Cartoons^ 
 seven are to-day amongst the supreme treasures of the 
 British Crown, and are to be seen at the South Ken- 
 sington Museum, whither they were taken from Hampton 
 Court some years ago. 
 
 It was in the next year, 15 16, that Raphael painted 
 a very popular picture of the Madonna, his charming 
 Madonna della Sedia (the Madonna of the Chair). Here 
 again, though the hand of the restorer has done its work, 
 the comely peasant-girl is painted with rare charm, and 
 the colour-faculty is considerable ; and, as usual with 
 Raphael, both the sturdy child in her arms and the 
 Madonna herself are rather a straightforward picture of a 
 countrywoman folding her boy in her arms than the Divine 
 Infant in the care of the appointed Mother of God — the 
 range of the imagination is of the most limited kind. But 
 
 195
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE it is just that simple, homely appeal, which has sent the 
 
 GOLDEN crude reproductions of this masterpiece broadcast into 
 AGE thousands of homes. 
 
 Of the great Madonna pieces on which Raphael's wide 
 popularity is built, the supreme masterpiece of the world- 
 famed Sistine Madonna, now at Dresden — and sometimes 
 known as the Dresden Madonna — was painted a couple of 
 years afterwards, about 15 18 — and, contrary to Raphael's 
 habit, upon canvas. Painted for the monks of the monas- 
 tery of San Sisto at Piacenza, to be set above the high altar 
 of their church there, where it stood until 171 5, it was 
 sold, under the temptation of the then huge bribe of £9000, 
 to the Elector Augustus 11. of Saxony. This was to be 
 but the beginning of its dramatic adventures. It became 
 part of Napoleon's splendid loot, and hung in the Louvre 
 until 1 8 14, when, on the fall of the Corsican, it was sent 
 back to Dresden, where it now is. What need to describe 
 the masterpiece which engravings and colour-prints and the 
 photograph have made familiar to every civilised being ! 
 In painting the Virgin in Glory, standing in the heavens, 
 her Infant Son held in her arms. Pope Sixtus 11., Saint 
 Barbara, and the two famous little cherubim adoring, 
 Raphael created a work which is infused with dignity and 
 majesty in spite of its poverty of skill in arrangement, in 
 spite of its stupid curtains in the high heavens, in spite of 
 the clumsy arrangement of the two saints, and the scattered 
 and broken interest — and in nothing is this innate dignity 
 seen more fully than when, as is usual in reproductions, the 
 central figures of the Virgin and Child are torn from their 
 surroundings and are seen in the full splendour of their 
 achievement, withdrawn from all conflicting elements. 
 
 Raphael has been as undeservedly belittled and out of 
 the fashion of late, as he was for centuries grossly overrated. 
 196
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 The latest claim, wherein he has been hailed in ecstatic WHEREIN 
 fashion as " the greatest master of space-composition," could WE WALK 
 only have been made by writers on art who are not them- WITH 
 selves artists. This new cult of " space composition " has ^^APHAEL, 
 no significance for an artist, who means by composition r,A-pjTAK'T 
 and by space quite other things. It is a literary cult, chub OF 
 meaning the arrangements of composition in relation to the FORTUNE 
 depth of a picture. In this faculty Raphael was no more AND 
 a supreme master than many another painter. In the more APOSTLE 
 vital faculty of arrangement and spacing, as artists under- OF GRACE 
 stand it, in that power of arranging and filling the painted 
 ground with such skill that the largeness of the composition 
 creates and arouses, through our sense of vision, emotions 
 such as the deep phrasing of great music creates in our 
 hearing, Raphael more than once proved himself a master. 
 But he was not particularly gifted in the power of creating 
 space music. His art depends always on its utterance of 
 gracefulness, uttered in the manner called grandiose. He 
 developed certain fine spacings, 'tis true — but he repeated 
 them overmuch. 
 
 The portrait of his great patrons, the bearded Pope 
 'Julius II. seated in a Chair., and the clean-shaven Pope Leo X, 
 at the Pitti Palace in Florence, are of the finest examples 
 of that portraiture which Raphael practised after his coming 
 to Rome. The Prado holds his fine Cardinal Bibbiena ; the 
 Pitti his Angiolo Doni and Maddalena Doni ; the S. Luca 
 Gallery at Rome his so-called Violin-Player ; and the 
 Borghese his so-called Perugino^ the authorship of which 
 is challenged, but which is, if by Raphael, his greatest 
 portrait. 
 
 Raphael was now rich and greatly courted. Cardinal 
 Bibbiena had proposed an "advantageous match" with his 
 niece Maria, to which Raphael pledged himself, with what 
 
 197
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE intention of redeeming the pledge we shall never know — 
 
 GOLDEN he was a tactful soul. He was living at the time with the 
 
 AGE beautiful daughter of a baker from Siena, his famed mistress 
 
 the *' Bella Fornarina." His ardent love-sonnets hint at 
 
 many affairs of the heart. 
 
 During the last few years of his life in Rome, Raphael, 
 as he had earlier done with his frescoes, handed over the 
 greater part of his paintings to his pupils and assistants, of 
 whom the most important were now Giulio Romano, 
 Francesco Penni, and Perino del Vaga. But he himself 
 painted, for Agostino Chigi's Villa Farnesina, the fresco 
 of Galatea^ and for the same merchant-prince \}!\& frescoes of 
 the Chigi Chapel in S. Maria della Pace. 
 
 Raphael was at work upon his great Transfiguration^ 
 now at St. Peter's in Rome, when he caught fever whilst 
 superintending some excavations, and died on the Good 
 Friday of 1520, which happened to fall on his thirty- 
 seventh birthday, the 6th of April. The beautiful 
 Margaret, " La Fornarina," was with him as he lay dying ; 
 but was put out of the room by the messenger of the Pope, 
 who refused the dying man the benediction in her presence. 
 The Transfiguration was finished, after Raphael's death, 
 by his favourite pupil, Giulio Romano. 
 
 Four months after Raphael died, the " Fornarina," 
 Margaret Luti, daughter of Francesco Luti of Siena, was 
 received into the congregation of Sant' Apollonia in 
 Trastevere, a home for repentant Magdalenes — she whose 
 face lives immortal in the Sistine Madonna^ in the Donna 
 Velata, and the St. Cecilia as well as other Madonna pieces. 
 
 Raphael, the sunny child of Fortune, basking ever in 
 the warm rays of Success, was a born courtier. He saw 
 life as a courtier. He read the gospels like a courtier. 
 198
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 His Madonnas, his infant-Christs, his saints, are the crea- WHEREIN 
 
 tions of a courtier. His superb Dispute of the Sacrament WE WALK 
 
 is a mighty significance as seen by a courtier. His chief WITH 
 
 friend. Count Baldassare Castidione, was a courtier, and RAPHAEL, 
 
 THF 
 wrote The Book of the Courtier. Raphael is, and always o AnTAXT-p 
 
 will be, the literary man's ideal of a painter, "the most n\J^^ t^ r^T- 
 
 beloved or artists. FORTIJNF 
 
 He has been hailed as " the most classically perfect AND 
 student of pure beauty " — whatever that may mean. How APOSTLE 
 he could be so without creating the greatest types of beauty, OF GRACE 
 it were difficult to say; and to say that he did so, were to 
 ride for a fall. 
 
 Raphael is the painter of Grace, of gentle Temperance, 
 of Sweetness — a sunny soul living in brightness, unruffled 
 by tragedies or terrors ; radiant as the sun-god, smiling, 
 blind to all discomforting things. He is the painter-poet 
 of Loveliness. His brief life was a pageant of success. He 
 was at least faithful to his mistress. His wealth of achieve- 
 ment is a world-wonder. He is the type of that part of 
 the sumptuous life of Florence that went calmly along a 
 flower-strewn way whilst the streets on every hand were 
 racked with vice and suffering and violence. He was akin 
 in spirit to the French court-painters of the years before 
 the Revolution, except that he ever turned his eyes from 
 naughtiness, and refused even to suspect the lords of the 
 people of adulteries. Of the essential Renaissance Raphael 
 spoke no word, uttered no indiscretion. 
 
 The art of Raphael, greatly honoured in the days when 
 he wrought it in all the splendour of his brief and success- 
 ful life, was grossly overrated for centuries as the supreme 
 achievement of the Renaissance, and so continued almost 
 into our own day. He was acclaimed the " king of painters," 
 " the divine painter," who was none of these. All men who 
 
 199
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE took pen in hand, and desired to be considered cultured, 
 
 GOLDEN all men who did the Grand Tour, every man who desired 
 AGE ^Q acquire the reputation of learned or fashionable bloods — 
 
 the professor of history or dictator of taste, the moralist and 
 the scientist and the philosopher, grew to look upon 
 Raphael as the lord of art — they fashioned their theories 
 on it, floated their schemes of the works of man's brain 
 upon it, made it the groundwork of their researches into 
 what they falsely mistook to be art, and generally called 
 by some such phrase as the Sublime and the Beautiful. 
 The artists also, when they wrote of their art, or spoke of 
 it, or theorised about it, bowed to this sorry conception 
 of it. Reynolds knew that Raphael was not the greatest 
 of artists, but he dared not say so. 
 
 The end was inevitable. A violent reaction followed, 
 Raphael was flung from his pedestal — as the achievement 
 of all Italy must and will be flung from its ridiculous 
 pedestal — but, as inevitably, he has been grossly underrated 
 and reviled and sneered at. 
 
 Raphael is a great significance in art — if not the 
 mighty significance he was once declared to be. In the 
 glamour that the intellectual snobbery of the ^Esthete and 
 the Cultured cast about him, he was hailed as uttering in 
 his Madonnas and child-Christs a wondrously reverent and 
 spiritual significance which is exactly what his whole 
 achievement lacks. His art is devoid of that wondrous 
 and exquisite and subtle mystic religious fervour that 
 marked the art of the great painters of the fourteen- 
 hundreds. Florence, in his day, was herself wholly devoid 
 of it — and Rome even more void. Raphael wrought his 
 grandiose and graceful art for beauty's sake alone ; and for 
 such beauty as expressed the aristocratic ideal of beauty 
 that was the sumptuous and splendid aim in the palaces of 
 200
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 the great. He painted country-girls for Madonnas — they WHEREIN 
 are neither country-girls nor Madonnas, but the country- WE WALK 
 girl as the courtiers in palaces would see her, dressed for WITH 
 the part, elegantly graceful, and as nice as possible for her l^APHAEL, 
 majestic and awful destiny. itit. 
 
 Raphael is the type of his age. Italy had spent herself pTT,r p. ^rp 
 in the feverish and astounding activities of the Renaissance porttjnF 
 to lead the world in the New Learning, to stand in the j^^y) 
 New Dawn as the lord of the great advance of the human APOSTLE 
 soul. Italy arose like a splendid young giant from the sloth OF GRACE 
 of the past, who arrays himself in the splendour and know- 
 ledge of past ages, but has no vision beyond the edge of his 
 narrow world. She was too steeped in her ancient glory, 
 too weighted with the armour of her ancient beliefs, to 
 arise out of the wreckage that her awakening wrought. 
 The new life, the new revelation, was to pass to a more 
 vigorous breed, less weighted by ancient traditions, more 
 stern of purpose, more disciplined of will, that hated 
 the sham forms of liberty without freedom as much as the 
 aesthetic Italians adored them — to a race that had its heart 
 in its home, not in an awestruck delight in the splendour 
 of the palaces of its lords. 
 
 Raphael was what the pedants called " eclectic," a 
 borrower and user of other men's splendour — and a Mighty 
 Borrower he was. He took the best from all that the art 
 of Italy had wrought in his native land of Umbria, with 
 the art that he found in Florence and Rome, the lands of 
 his adoption ; he selected from the great ones, and welded 
 their artistry into his hand's skill, wrought a style of his 
 own out of their various achievements, and employed it to 
 utter his own vision in so far as he had a vision. But his 
 was a receptive genius, nearer to woman than man ; he 
 created but little, he gave forth of the abundance of the 
 VOL. I — 2 c 20 1
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE vision of others, as he saw their various artistries and the 
 
 GOLDEN craft of their hands. But he added little more. He 
 AGE summed up their essayings and advances along the develop- 
 
 ment of art into a final completeness by creating a complex 
 style that should combine all their splendours. He v^^as 
 the very child of the Italy of the age, v^hich stood calcula- 
 ting her advance, and making an account of her achieve- 
 ment. He v^^as in that measure greatly an academical — 
 his vision was the vision of the Renaissance that created 
 him as its collector of her significances. His genius and 
 exquisite sensitiveness to his atmosphere made him a superb 
 instrument. 
 
 I have said that he was receptive rather than creative, 
 of the feminine rather than the masculine in his sensing. 
 His portraits, whether by himself, or Viti, or Bazzi il 
 Sodoma, or others, show him frail and delicate of feature to 
 effeminacy. A great authority on the study of the human 
 being as an animal, that they call by the heathenish name 
 of anthropologist, on being handed a cast of Raphael's 
 skull, took it to be the skull of a woman. 
 
 So did his art fitly give utterance to sweetness and 
 grace rather than strength and dramatic power. In the 
 frescoes of the Stanze and Loggie at the Vatican he gave 
 forth all the greatest that was in him ; and proved himself 
 a superb illustrator. If any painter's art was " literary " it 
 was Raphael's ; he proved that great art has nothing to do 
 with illustration or lack of illustration. He came into an 
 Italy as pagan as it was Christian, and wholly neither ; but 
 rather Italy herself essaying to see herself, but unable to 
 hear herself for the clap-trap of the ages. 
 
 Neither a supreme colourist nor a supreme draughts- 
 man, his craftsmanship often smudgy and nerveless, the 
 moment he attempted to rival the majesty of Michelangelo, 
 
 202
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 as in his Entombment in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, he WHEREIN 
 revealed his innate academic vision and lack of life — his WE WALK 
 unvirile grip of the intensity and reality of life. WITH 
 
 Raphael is a marked contrast to Leonardo da Vinci. R-f^"HAEL, 
 
 If Leonardo's achievement be not as ereat as his eenius, 
 
 D u r w . • u- f 11 . V D 1, RADIANT 
 
 Raphael s achievement is his fullest capacity. Raphael ptttt t-j ott 
 
 knevs^ naught of the mysteries. His gifts w^ere exactly poRTUNF 
 
 fitted to what genius he had. He always sang in tune — AND 
 
 the tune dominates all his work. He is the master of APOSTLE 
 
 Grace — Grace was his god. Of the sublime he rarely OF GRACE 
 
 gives a hint. He was incapable of terror, of sternness, of 
 
 the tragic, of drama. He was the lord of Virginity. In 
 
 his sedate and graceful work is no hint that the Baglioni 
 
 were fighting in the streets of Perugia, no hint that the 
 
 plains of Ravenna were red with blood. Raphael sees life 
 
 as a May Day festival in a sumptuous church. His quality 
 
 is Sweetness. He uttered not his age, but himself. A 
 
 gentle, modest man, free from jealousies, obliging and 
 
 kindly of habit, he bound all men to him by his blithe 
 
 courtesy. 
 
 GiULio PiPPi, better known as Giulio Romano (1492- 
 1546), whose works are often credited to his master, as in 
 the Madonna with the Infant Christ and St. John at the 
 National Gallery in London, developed all those qualities 
 of decline which threatened Renaissance art even in 
 Raphael's achievement. Going to Mantua three years 
 after the death of Raphael, he painted the frescoes in 
 Federigo Gonzaga's palace which are his finest works. 
 Raphael himself had little to add to the creative develop- 
 ment of art ; he was a mighty gleaner, with superb genius 
 for gathering into one statement the varied activities of his 
 forerunners. But Giulio Romano and his fellow-pupils 
 brought no new vision to art whatsoever ; they but em- 
 
 203
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE ployed the prescription that Raphael had written, and were 
 
 GOLDEN wholly academic, which is to say decadent. 
 ^GE It is the habit of the literary, of those who essay to 
 
 understand the significance of art from the historic or 
 aesthetic or other theoretic attitude, as the professor and the 
 critic, to see only in the achievement of the ages certain 
 technical superficialities. The most pronounced and dogged 
 conclusion, by constant reiteration now passed into an 
 aesthetic creed, is that Raphael and Michelangelo having 
 completed the utterance of art in Italy, Italian art fell 
 into utter decadence. 
 
 It happened to do no such thing, as we shall see. 
 As a matter of fact, the academic vision which formed 
 so large a part of Raphael's art, and which is the only real decay 
 in art, did become the sole gift to his pupils. It is true also, 
 though not fully recognised, that this evil, largely due to 
 Raphael, did exert a baleful influence throughout the 
 coming ages. The stupendous genius of Michelangelo, 
 and the vogue which grew about the weaker art of 
 Raphael, became a curse for centuries to all artistic en- 
 deavour — a curse compelled upon the artists by the critics 
 and " esthetic " writers, as I shall show. But of that more 
 later. 
 
 We are come to the art of one who stands for all that 
 is sublime, gigantic, stupendous in Italian art — who by the 
 grandeur of his conception, of his design, and his mastery 
 of the human form, for the high emotions aroused by the 
 sense of immensity, stands head and shoulders above the 
 whole achievement of his race — Michelangelo Buonarroti. 
 
 204
 
 XXV 
 MICHELANGELO 
 
 "THE ENTOMBMENT" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 This masterly work Is of enormous interest to the art-world as showing 
 the methods by which the giant of Italy wrought his undying master- 
 pieces. The darkness of the Sistine Chapel makes it difficult to reproduce 
 in colour the supreme works of his genius in painting.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 WHEREIN THERE PASSES BY, IN THE STREETS OF ROME, 
 UNHAILED, THE GIANT OF THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 MICHELANGELO 
 1475 - 1564 
 
 Michelangelo was the son of Ludovico Buonarroti WHEREIN 
 Simone, a Florentine of consequence, since he was Governor THERE 
 (podesta) of Chiusi and Caprese, thereto appointed by PASSES BY, 
 Lorenzo de' Medici but a few months before his child was ^-^^ THE 
 
 born, as Messer Ludovico Buonarroti's own diarv bears ^^^^-^^^ 
 
 % • .u u^ J u u OF ROME, 
 
 witness in the year 1475 : "To-day there was born unto ' 
 
 me a male child, whom I have named Michelagnolo. He -THE 
 
 saw the light at Caprese, whereof I am Podesta, on Monday GIANT OF 
 
 morning, 6th March, between four and five o' the clock." THE RE- 
 
 So it came by a strange whim of fortune that the child, NAISSANCE 
 
 destined to become the supreme giant of the Renaissance, 
 
 was born under the shadow of the Sasso della Verna, where 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi had seen visions, not in the Florence 
 
 that was the Athens of the Renaissance, wherein Paganism 
 
 was a-riot and triumphant. 
 
 Michelangelo was reputed by his pupils, Vasari and 
 
 Condivi, to be close kin of the noble house of the Counts 
 
 of Canossa, and he shared their belief in his aristocratic 
 
 birth; gentle he was by blood, of ancient Florentine stock 
 
 through both father and mother, if no kin of the Canossas. 
 
 Ludovico Buonarroti, the father, held his post for a year, 
 
 after which he returned to Settignano village, which over- 
 
 205
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE looks Florence from amidst its vines, to the ancient home 
 
 GOLDEN of the Buonarroti amid the olives. The small child's 
 ^GE horoscope vv^as cast before the move, the astrologer prophesy- 
 
 ing that the stars had revealed for the little fellov^'s destiny 
 that he w^as "to perform w^onders with mind and hands." 
 
 Now Settignano was the home of the stone-masons and 
 workers in marble, and Michelangelo himself, in after years, 
 used to jest that from his foster-mother, a stone-mason's 
 wife, he had sucked the craving for sculpture in his milk 
 as a babe. The mallet and chisel and bits of marble were 
 the toys of his childhood. By ten he could employ his 
 tools with skill that outdid his foster-father, and his play- 
 time was given to chalk and charcoal and the copying of 
 such decorations in stone as he could find — those were busy 
 days for the stone-carvers of Settignano, where her hundreds 
 of workers in stone were hard put to it to carry out the 
 orders of the merchant-princes who were rivalling Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent in the raising of splendid palaces in 
 Florence. 
 
 The sight of the stone being hewn into living shapes 
 fired the art in the lad. But the father, Ludovico 
 Buonarroti, had the modern genteel contempt of the 
 Respectable towards the practice of art. Young Michel- 
 angelo, torn out of the village, was sent to a grammar- 
 school in Florence, out of sound of the music of hammer 
 and chisel ringing upon marble. But the schoolmaster, 
 like the father, found the rod of no avail — the boy sought 
 his comrades amongst the pupils of the Florentine artists, 
 bending all his will to the joying in art. Of his chief 
 bov-friends was Francesco Granacci, who was working in 
 Ghirlandaio's studio, who lent the eager lad drawings to 
 copy, and would take him to the great man's studio to see 
 the latest sensation. The pursuit of learning was soon a 
 206
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 farce, though the art-despising father flogged the lad to WHEREIN 
 
 keep him from straying into art's ways. However, THERE 
 
 Ludovico at last shrugged his shoulders at his son's vulgar PASSES BY, 
 
 tastes, and at thirteen Michelangelo entered the studio of ^^ THE 
 
 ST"REPXS 
 the most highly reputed painter in Florence of that day, '^^^^^^^ 
 
 being apprenticed to Ghirlandaio on the ist of April 1488. TivrTTATTt-n 
 
 As he was to receive a small wage during his three years, -r^rrp 
 
 he was probably already a capable lad. He at once began qjaNT OF 
 
 to astound his master by his realistic force, grew rapidly in THE RE- 
 
 craftsmanship, and soon the " child of such tender years " NAISSANCE 
 
 drew from Ghirlandaio the famous remark : " This boy 
 
 knows more than I do." Whether he learnt much from 
 
 his master, who is reputed early to have grown jealous of 
 
 him, he varied the menial duties of an artist's apprentice 
 
 by re-drawing Ghirlandaio's cartoons on to the walls of 
 
 the Church of Santa Maria Novella, painting draperies, 
 
 and courageously correcting his master's drawing as he 
 
 re-drew from the cartoons on to the wall. When it is 
 
 realised that the unfinished Madonna and Child with the 
 
 infant "John the Baptist and Angels at the National Gallery 
 
 was wrought by this boy between the age of thirteen and 
 
 sixteen, during his apprenticeship, it is small wonder that 
 
 Ghirlandaio realised that he had nothing to teach the lad. 
 
 Now it so chanced that Lorenzo the Magnificent had 
 collected into the gardens of the Medici at San Marco 
 much antique sculpture with the intention of raising the 
 Florentine achievement from the neglect that had fallen 
 since Donatello had passed away, and he made Donatello's 
 foreman, one Bertoldo, keeper, to instruct such youths as 
 cared to study there. Ghirlandaio, asked by Lorenzo to 
 choose from his apprentices such as he considered the most 
 promising, sent his two most brilliant pupils, Francesco 
 
 207
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Granacci and Michelangelo. And here it was that Michel- 
 
 GOLDEN angelo discovered his career. Steeped in the Hellenic spirit, 
 AGE the art of sculpture was revealed to him through the 
 
 tradition of Donatello ; for Bertoldo, his teacher in sculpture, 
 though old and unable to work, had had the high gifts to 
 finish the great pulpits of San Lorenzo, begun by Donatello. 
 Under Bertoldo, and in such an atmosphere, the lad 
 increased rapidly in skill; his first sculpture, The Mask of 
 a grinning Fann, caught the eye of Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 who forthwith persuaded the lad's father to let the youth 
 go to his palace, where he gave him a good room, and 
 treated him like a son. Living the life of the courtier, 
 in intimate friendship with the family of the reigning 
 sovereign of Florence, the young fellow was soon the prey 
 to a secret, hopeless, but overwhelming passion for the 
 beautiful Luigia de' Medici, who was to live so short a span, 
 dying in 1494. Seated at the prince's table, where the lad 
 heard the converse of the greatest of the age, the poet 
 Angelo Poliziano one day suggested the Battle of the 
 Centaurs and Lapithae to the fifteen-year-old youngster, who 
 thereupon set to work upon the low-relief, his first master- 
 piece, revealing a power, a freedom and originality, a sense 
 of life and action, and a keen knowledge of the human 
 body, that are close upon a miracle. His bold vision and 
 his original genius at once asserted themselves. 
 
 It was about this time that the serious youth was much 
 impressed by the preaching of Savonarola. 
 
 The youth was now definitely bent on the career of 
 a sculptor, but he gave many hours of his day to drawing 
 — working, like most of his comrades, from the frescoes of 
 Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel of the church of the 
 Carmine ; and there it was that, being frankly criticised by 
 Michelangelo, one of his fellow-students — the proud and 
 208
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 ill-conditioned Piero Torrigiani — became so furious that he WHEREIN 
 
 savagely struck Michelangelo a brutal blow upon the nose, THERE 
 
 which smashed the cartilage and disfigured him for life, PASSES BY, 
 
 adding ru^gedness to Lis already ru2:?ed countenance. IHl^ 
 
 . SXRFFTS 
 But under the young fellow's outer ruggedness and grim- pnivrT? 
 
 ness lurked an exquisite and sensitive soul. The bully tttsjijatt -pA 
 
 Torrigiani was banished from Florence, only to be recalled fp^g 
 
 on Michelangelo's earnest pleading to Lorenzo on his GIANT OF 
 
 behalf. THE RE- 
 
 The blow was the beginning of uglier blows by Fortune. NAISSANCE 
 The young fellow had scarce completed his Battle of the 
 Centaurs and Lapitbae when, on the 8th of April 1492, to 
 his overwhelming grief, his beloved friend and generous 
 patron, Lorenzo the Magnificent, died — a grief not only to 
 Michelangelo but to all Italy, to whom his death was a 
 public calamity. The youth, overborne with grief, left his 
 three-years home and returned to his father's house. His 
 art saved him. Buying a large piece of marble, he hewed 
 a Hercules from it, which was set up in the Strozzi Palace, 
 until the siege of Florence in 1530, when, bought by 
 Giovanni Battista della Palla, it was sent as a gift to 
 Francis i.. King of France — and has now wholly vanished. 
 
 Setting himself doggedly to a knowledge of anatomy, 
 he won the friendship of the Prior of Santo Spirito, who 
 gave him a room wherein he dissected the bodies of executed 
 criminals. 
 
 Michelangelo's boy-companion, Piero de' Medici, on 
 succeeding his father, Lorenzo the Magnificent, called 
 Michelangelo back to the palace. But the proud and 
 insolent son had none of his father's great gifts. His 
 coarse manners and vulgar tastes soon had him foul of the 
 people. Michelangelo was the last to bear with him. A 
 tasteless boast of the young prince that he had two powerful 
 
 VOL. I 2 D 209
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE men in his service, Michelangelo and a Spanish groom, 
 
 GOLDEN deeply humiliated the artist, who found himself classed 
 AGE with such a fellow; and, too proud to suffer such treatment, 
 
 and foreseeing the early fall of Piero, Michelangelo left 
 Florence early in 1494 for Venice. Unable to get work, 
 he went on to Bologna, which town he entered only to 
 find himself charged with the offence of being without a 
 passport, under a heavy fine, and with empty pockets. He 
 was saved out of the trouble by Gian Francesco Aldovrandi, 
 a gentleman of the town, who not only paid the fine but 
 took him to his home and treated him with great honour. 
 In the November of this year Piero de' Medici had to fly 
 from Florence. It was whilst with Aldovrandi that 
 Michelangelo completed an unfinished statue of San 
 Petronio, and carved the statuette of a kneeling angel 
 holding a candlestick for the shrine of the saint in the 
 church of San Domenico, which works were to prove 
 so disastrous to his stay in Bologna; for the craftsmen of 
 the place, bitterly complaining that the young fellow was 
 taking the bread out of their mouths, became threatening, 
 and Michelangelo hurriedly returned to Florence in the 
 spring of 1495. Michelangelo came back to Florence to 
 find the beautiful Luigia de' Medici dead some months 
 past, to find also that the fiery and passionate preaching of 
 Savonarola had set up popular government. The Dominican 
 was a man after the young artist's heart. Overwhelming 
 in energy, fiercely confident in his faith, violent in act, the 
 priest's gloomy forebodings and eloquence roused the young 
 fellow to enthusiasm. Michelangelo, but twenty, was made 
 a member of the General Council of Citizens. He was 
 soon at work on a statue of the Youthful St. John the Baptist^ 
 by some said to be the one at Berlin, which he wrought for 
 Lorenzo di Pier Francesco, cousin to the fugitive Piero de* 
 210
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Medici. He thereby won the admiration of Lorenzo, and WHEREIN 
 his close friendship ; and it was Lorenzo who, finding Michel- THERE 
 angelo at work on his famous Sleeping Cupid, and struck PASSES BY, 
 by its Greek spirit, persuaded him to bury it, and thereby ^^ THE 
 
 complete its antique aspect. Michelangelo, to test its like- STREETS 
 
 • • o ' QP j?oMF 
 
 ness to the antique achievement, did so. Thereafter sent to ttt^tta tt t-n 
 Rome, it was bought by Raffaelo Riario, Cardinal di San T-rrp ' 
 
 Giorgio, as a perfect example of the Greek genius. The jest GIANT OF 
 was to lead Michelangelo to Rome. The Cardinal, finding THE RE- 
 out the facts, which the young artist took small pains to NAISSANCE 
 hide, was furious at being befooled; but, on cooling, came 
 to the shrewd decision that the artist who could so deceive 
 him by his skill was no mean sculptor, and forthwith sent 
 one of his gentlemen to Florence to bring him back with 
 him to Rome. The messenger, finding his way to 
 Michelangelo, soon had the story of the Greek master- 
 piece, and found the young sculptor eager to leave for 
 Rome — he was living suspect of his fellows in Florence, 
 as was inevitable from his close friendship with the Medici. 
 So, on a day at the end of the June of 1496, in his twenty- 
 first year, he entered the Rome of his desire for the first 
 time. The last heard of the Sleeping Cupid was at the sack 
 of Urbino in 1592, when it became a part of the booty 
 of Caesar Borgia, who gave it to the Marchioness of 
 Mantua. 
 
 Michelangelo was to find disappointment in coming to 
 Rome. The Cardinal's sole order was for a cartoon of 
 Saint Francis receiving the Stigmata, that the Cardinal's barber 
 might paint it ! As luck would have it, a wealthy Roman, 
 one Jacopo Galli, ordered a Bacchus, now at Florence, and 
 a Cupid, said to be the one at the South Kensington 
 Museum. The half-drunken Bacchus was to lead to a 
 
 211
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Strange commission. Vastly admired, it drew the envoy 
 
 GOLDEN of the King of France, Cardinal De la Groslaye de Villiers, 
 AGE to order the group of Our Lady holding the dead Christ in her 
 
 Arms^ as the contract made on the 26th of August 1498 
 shows, and " that the said Michelangelo shall furnish the 
 said work within one year." This would seem to be the 
 superb Fieta at St. Peter's in Rome. The terms of the 
 contract — and contracts are not greatly given to flattery — 
 prove that Michelangelo's repute in this, his twenty-third 
 year, was already very great. 
 
 But the young fellow's troubles and embarrassments 
 were begun. His father became involved in heavy money 
 difficulties. Michelangelo's affection for and generosity to 
 his family glow in his letters. He pinched and wanted that 
 he might send home every piece of money he earned. He 
 provided for his three younger brothers — one of whom, 
 Giovan Simone Buonarroti, was a ne'er-do-weel who was to 
 give him continual anxiety. Behind the rugged and stern 
 outer man, Michelangelo hid a tender and unselfish soul. 
 The poor way in which he lived — that every letter home 
 might carry money with it — not only was a sad drain on his 
 body, but compelled upon the rising sculptor a poverty of 
 appearance that did him no good amongst his patrons. It 
 even drew from his father the famous letter in which he is 
 urged not to stint himself, since " if you fall ill (which God 
 forbid), you are a lost man. Above all things, never wash ; 
 have yourself rubbed down, but never wash ! " 
 
 It was the spring of 1501, he being twenty-six, that 
 Michelangelo again set foot in Florence, famous, and hailed 
 as the first sculptor of his age. Of the orders that poured 
 in upon him was that from Cardinal Piccolomini, after- 
 wards Pope Pius III., for fifteen statues of saints for the 
 212
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Duomo of Siena. But the young fellow had set eyes upon WHEREIN 
 
 a huge block of marble which had been abandoned as use- THERE 
 
 less, after some work upon it by a mediocre fellow, in the PASSES BY, 
 
 Opera del Duomo at Florence; and Michelangelo flunp- ^^ IHE 
 . • SXRKFXS 
 
 himself with wonted energy at the task of hewing a colossal ^^ t^^»,^ 
 
 OF ROME 
 statue from it. Two years of strenuous work saw the -.^-^t- . ,,. „' 
 
 • J ui • ij r u r I. • u • UNHAILED, 
 
 maimed marble yield forth one oi the mightiest master- j^jq-p 
 
 pieces of sculpture — the immortal David. The colossal GIANT OF 
 
 statue, // Gigante as they called it, was, on the 14th day THE RE- 
 
 of the May of 1504, Michelangelo's twenty-ninth year, NAISSANCE 
 
 dragged to the Piazza della Signoria, and set up there by 
 
 the Florentines ; and there it stood until 1873, when it was 
 
 taken into the Academy. In the riots of 1527 the left 
 
 arm was broken by a stone, but Vasari and Cecchino de' 
 
 Rossi gathered the pieces, and restored them to the arm 
 
 some sixteen years later. 
 
 A gigantic 'David by Michelangelo was also wrought in 
 bronze, in 1502, which the Florentine Republic gave to the 
 French statesman Florimon Robertet ; which, though it 
 stood a hundred years in the chateau of Bury, near Blois, 
 has wholly vanished. 
 
 It was whilst at work at the great David that Michel- 
 angelo also wrought the two circular marble low-reliefs of 
 the Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John, now, the 
 one at Florence, the other at the Royal Academy in 
 London. 
 
 Of the twelve colossal statues of the Apostles that he 
 started upon in the April of 1503, one to be finished each 
 year, Michelangelo only worked upon the incomplete 
 6"/. Matthew, now in the Academy at Florence. But he 
 painted the round panel {tondo) of The Holy Family for a 
 merchant-prince of Florence, one Agnolo Doni (that same 
 Doni whose portrait was painted by Raphael), now at the 
 
 213
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE UffizI — the only easel picture which can with certainty 
 
 GOLDEN be said to be by him, unless it be the unfinished 'Entombment 
 
 AGE in the National Gallery in London, not only a superb 
 
 treasure, but vastly interesting as showing his method of 
 
 painting in tempera on panel — revealing his underpainting 
 
 on a green ground. 
 
 It was in the August of 1504, the year of the David 
 being set up in Florence, that the Gonfaloniere of the 
 Republic, his friend and protector Piero Soderini, paid the 
 young artist the high compliment of setting him to the 
 decoration of a wall in the Sala del Gran Consiglio of the 
 Palazzo Vecchio, opposite to the wall on which the great 
 Leonardo da Vinci was engaged. Leonardo da Vinci, at 
 the very height of his career, was making the cartoon of the 
 Fight for the Standard at the battle of Anghiari, at which, 
 in 1440, Florence overthrew Niccolo Piccinino. Michel- 
 angelo chose an event in the war with Pisa. We have 
 Benvenuto Cellini's evidence, who copied the cartoon in 
 1 5 1 3, nine years later — for he writes of it, and his witness 
 is of supreme value : " Michelangelo showed a number of 
 foot-soldiers, who, the season being summer, had gone to 
 bathe in the Arno. He drew them at the moment that 
 the alarm is sounded ; and the men, all naked, rush to 
 arms. So superb is their action, that nothing of ancient or 
 of modern art lives which touches the same lofty height of 
 excellence ; and, as I have already said, the design of the 
 great Leonardo was also most admirably beautiful. These 
 two cartoons stood, one in the Palace of the Medici, the 
 other in the hall of the Pope. So long as they remained, 
 they were the school of the world." 
 
 As cartoons they began and ended ; they were destined 
 never to be painted upon the walls. Leonardo da Vinci 
 began painting a group of horsemen on the wall, but 
 214
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 abandoned its further painting for other schemes. Michel- WHEREIN 
 
 angelo was called to Rome in the early part of 1505 by THERE 
 
 Pope Julius II., and eagerly departed. Benvenuto Cellini PASSES BY, 
 
 copied Michelangelo's cartoon just in time ; for, almost ^^ THE 
 
 immediately afterwards, a jealous and wretched painter, ^^R-t!^^!^ 
 
 one Baccio BandinelH, destroyed it. VZr.. rV^^ 
 
 ^u A1U • o 1 I, ij 1 u r • • UNHAILED, 
 
 The Albertina Gallery holds a sketch or it amongst its r^rjr^ 
 
 famous treasures ; and a fine copy of it, in monochrome qt a xj'r qF 
 
 painting, is at Holkham Hall, the seat of the Earl of XHE RE- 
 
 Leicester. NAISSANCE 
 
 The day that Michelangelo left Florence on his eager 
 
 second journey to Rome, at the call of the Pope, he bade 
 
 farewell for ever to such peace of mind and happiness as 
 
 had been his. 
 
 Michelangelo went back to Rome to meet, in Pope 
 Julius II., a man in many ways his own equal — in astound- 
 ing energy, boundless ambition, each proud in his own 
 strength, passionate in temper, brooking no opposition, 
 prone to sudden outbursts of fury when thwarted, generous, 
 forthright, and of great essence. 
 
 Raphael has left us his famous portrait of the grey- 
 bearded old Pope, seated in his chair. The portrait of 
 Michelangelo at the Uffizi holds hint that the Pope had 
 met his match. 
 
 Julius II. galled the young sculptor by months of delay, 
 then decided upon a magnificent monument to himself, to 
 be raised during his lifetime. So, at thirty, in an astound- 
 ingly rapid time, Michelangelo placed the design before the 
 delighted Pope, who straightway sent him off to Carrara 
 to quarry the marble ; and so eager was the sculptor to 
 begin upon his huge task, that, in the eight months at 
 Carrara, he blocked out two of the figures for the Tomb. 
 
 215
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Back in Rome by November, he started upon the great 
 
 GOLDEN Tomb in the large workshop of the home by the Vatican 
 A-GE that the Pope put at his service, vs^ho had a drav^bridge 
 
 thrown across from the Corridore to the sculptor's rooms 
 that he might visit him whilst at work, and who poured 
 favours upon him. The Tomb was never to be completed 
 in its vast original design ; indeed, source as it was of many 
 of Michelangelo's great masterpieces, it was to become a 
 curse in his life. 
 
 The huge monument, on a base of 34 by 23 feet, and 
 raised, roughly speaking, as a cube and a half, was too large to 
 set into St. Peter's Church, whereupon the dauntless Julius 
 promptly ordered the rebuilding of the church on a vast 
 and magnificent scale by Bramante. All looked smiling 
 for Michelangelo, who flung himself into his beloved task 
 with hot enthusiasm. But he was to suffer chill. There 
 came a day when a load of marble being sent from Carrara, 
 and the Pope being engaged in affairs of State, Michel- 
 angelo paid the freight and porterage out of his own pocket. 
 His efforts to see the Pope, and to get the money repaid, 
 were met by cunning evasions of the Pope to see him, and 
 at last by an order that Michelangelo was not to be allowed 
 into the presence of His Holiness, who was deeply involved 
 in money difficulties over his wars. The sculptor was not 
 of the temper to brook the treachery. His pride deeply 
 wounded, Michelangelo burst into a fury of passion, and 
 with a contemptuous " henceforward the Pope must look 
 for me elsewhere if he wants me," he got to horse and made 
 for Florence, where he brooded on his wrongs, disdainful 
 of the five pursuing messengers sent in hot pursuit by the 
 Pope. 
 
 Thus the curtain came down on the first act of that 
 " tragedy of the tomb " that was to darken Michelangelo's 
 216
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 life. Well might Michelangelo write, " I am thy drudge, WHEREIN 
 and have been from my youth . . . yet of my dear time's THERE 
 waste thou think'st no ill ; the more I toil, the less I move PASSES BY, 
 thy pity. Once 'twas my hope to raise me by thy height." ^^ THE 
 Neither the threats of the Pope nor the anxious ursine: of ^■'^KlitLlb 
 
 .u 1 . ' f • ^ p- Q A ■ ■ u .u ki OF ROME, 
 
 the sculptors rriend, riero boderini, who was thoroughly TTT^TTATTi^n 
 
 alarmed by the repeated orders of the Pope to send back 'r-rrp ' 
 
 the artist by fair means or by force, could move Michel- qIANT OF 
 
 angelo. But, meanwhile, Julius ii., having subdued Perugia, THE RE- 
 
 entered Bologna in triumph on the iith of the November NAISSANCE 
 
 of 1506 ; and was scarce settled in the town before he sent 
 
 to the Signoria of Florence demanding that Michelangelo 
 
 should be sent to Bologna. Michelangelo went, "like a 
 
 man with a halter about his neck " ; only to find himself 
 
 hailed with rejoicing by the Pope, who straightway, before 
 
 he left for Rome, set him to work upon the great bronze 
 
 statue of himself to be set up in front of the church of San 
 
 Petronio — that statue, finished in the February of 1508, 
 
 which showed the Pope seated, with one hand raised, and 
 
 of which the Pope asked, when it was set up, whether he 
 
 was supposed to be blessing or cursing the people of 
 
 Bologna, and was met by Michelangelo's deft reply : " Your 
 
 Holiness is threatening this people, if it be not wise " — 
 
 that statue which, wrought out of a year and a half of 
 
 Michelangelo's genius, was flung down by the Bolognese 
 
 when Bentivogli drove the Papal Legate out of the town, 
 
 when the bronze was melted down and cast into a huge 
 
 cannon that the jesting citizens nicknamed "La Giulia." 
 
 Michelangelo, back in Florence in March, and relieved 
 
 by his father on the 13th of that month in 1508, his 
 
 thirty-third year, from parental authority, was for settling 
 
 in his native city, and orders were pouring in upon him, 
 
 when the Pope again called him to Rome. 
 
 VOL. I — 2 E 217
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Michelangelo set foot in Rome for the second time, his 
 
 GOLDEN heart fixed on the completion of the great Tomb, only to 
 AGE find that cunning rivals had worked upon the aged Pontiff's 
 
 superstition of the ill-luck in having a tomb made during 
 his lifetime — covering all risk of being considered 
 jealous by maliciously suggesting Michelangelo's painting 
 the vault of the Sistine Chapel instead — not realising his 
 hidden great qualities as painter. It is grown into a habit 
 to pooh-pooh the likelihood of this motive. But there 
 is not a shred of solid evidence to disprove it. The whole 
 Renaissance was befouled through and through with bitter 
 rivalries, that flinched neither from scruple nor murder to 
 attain the vilest ends. And in no place was this vileness 
 more murderous and deadly than in the home of the Popes. 
 It reached to, and sullied, the very High Altar of its 
 beautiful creed. Michelangelo stated the truth mildly 
 when he wrote that " all the disagreements which I have 
 had with Pope Julius have been brought about by the envy 
 of Bramante and of Raphael of Urbino," who were the cause 
 of his monument not being finished during his lifetime. 
 
 Michelangelo hesitated. He did not consider himself 
 a painter. He knew nothing of the craft of fresco- 
 painting. He felt unfitted for the task. But the Pope 
 doggedly pressed. So it came that on the loth of the May 
 of 1508, with great reluctance, Michelangelo entered upon 
 the work of painting the Decorations of the Sistine Chapel^ 
 which are amongst the supreme artistic achievements of 
 the hand and brain of mortal men. 
 
 The Sistine Chapel was built for the especial use of the 
 Popes ; in it takes place the scrutiny of the ballot for the 
 election of the Pope by the Conclave of Cardinals. 
 
 He faced a colossal task ; and once having entered upon 
 it, he flinched from nothing. To aid him in the craftsman- 
 218
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 ship of fresco, he called in six Florentine painters, among WHEREIN 
 them his friends Francesco Granacci and Giuliano Bugiardini, THERE 
 who, however, could not reach the majestic ideals that PASSES BY, 
 Michelangelo set them ; he bore with them until the ^^ THE 
 January of 1509 ; sent them away ; and, blotting out what ^^KJiElb 
 painting they had done, shut himself up in the chapel to ttt^ttatt trn 
 tackle with his own hands his vast enterprise. Alone, t-ttt- ' 
 
 painting upwards upon the great vault of the ceiling in a GIANT OF 
 strained position, the fresco dripping on to his face, dis- THE RE- 
 tressed in mind and with terrible fatigue of the cramped NAISSANCE 
 body, without a friend with whom to hold communion, 
 scarce giving himself time for food, he had created by the 
 end of the October of 1509, in about nine months, hundreds 
 of figures, some ten feet in stature ; since we know that 
 the impetuous Pope insisted on having this portion of the 
 work uncovered on the ist of November 1 509, that he might 
 see it, though not complete ; and three years afterwards, 
 on the ist of November 15 12, at the hot insistence of the 
 Pope, who had already threatened to have him flung down 
 from the scaffolding if he did not hasten the work, and at 
 last struck him with his cane, Michelangelo uncovered it, 
 though unfinished, to the Pope's wild admiration. The 
 whole of Rome, led by the Pope, who indeed rushed to the 
 chapel " before the dust raised by the taking down of the 
 scaffolding had settled," flocked to see the great achieve- 
 ment which is the supreme work of the Italian Renaissance, 
 the sublime and majestic utterance of its art. 
 
 Michelangelo complained that the impatience of the 
 Pope prevented his finishing his work as he would have 
 desired. Yet the vast performance could scarce have been 
 bettered. Taking a stupendous subject, this man, who 
 alone in all his age had the power to utter that subject 
 with art prodigious enough to pronounce its sublime music, 
 
 219
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE wrought the full intensity of it all with a tragic force with 
 
 GOLDEN which no other man has ever been gifted. In those few 
 AGE years, working alone, he achieved an intensity of emotional 
 
 utterance in which he gave forth the significance of the 
 Creation of the World, the Fall of Man, the Flood, the 
 Second Entry of Sin into the World, in nine great spaces 
 upon the centre of the ceiling, which have only been 
 equalled in sustained power and dignity of utterance by the 
 English translators of the Bible. Continuing his vast 
 drama, he uttered the need for Salvation, foretold by the 
 Prophets and Sibyls, the majestic dignity of whose figures 
 are the wonder of the ages ; and he wrought throughout 
 his scheme the great groups of the ancestors of the Mother 
 of Christ. He painted twenty superb nude figures of 
 Athletes, of which any one would have established the 
 genius of any painter. He had set his heart on the 
 creation of the great Tomb : baffled in his vast ambition, he 
 put forth his hand to do in painting what he had been 
 denied in sculpture, and, treating the vaulted ceiling of the 
 Sistine Chapel as though he carved it with the chisel of his 
 astounding craftsmanship in sculpture, he raised in paint 
 a mighty temple towards the heavens — the simplicity of 
 sculpture is over it all, the human figure he glorified in 
 paint employed with a hand that wrought the will of a 
 sculptor's eyes. And he who looks upon this wondrous 
 work of a man's hand may realise, as though Michelangelo 
 had created it in solid marble, what that Tomb would have 
 been which he was thwarted in wholly achieving — may 
 guess in some fashion what were the deeps of the grief that 
 tortured the soul of this genius of a man whose mighty 
 poem in carven marble was buried like a splendid dream in 
 the baffled hopes that were flung to the ground in the 
 " tragedy of the tomb." 
 220
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Pupil of Ghirlandaio he may have been, but one cannot WHEREIN 
 help but be struck by the fact that it was to Leonardo da THERE 
 Vinci, and above all to Signorelli, that Michelangelo owed PASSES BY, 
 the largest debt of what revelation in painting had been ^N THE 
 vouchsafed to him. STREETS 
 
 In ICI2 Soderini, the old friend of Michelangelo in ROME, 
 
 Florence, fled from that city, leaving the gates open to ^ riAiLiLU, 
 Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici. ptamt htt 
 
 Pope Julius II. must have had foreboding of the coming T-rrp i^p 
 of the Great Reaper, as he impatiently hurried Michel- NAISSANCE 
 angelo to that uncovering of his masterwork in the 
 November of 1512 : within four months his violent spirit 
 and fierce energy of will lay serene and stilled, on the 
 2 1 St of the following February of 15 13. Mayhap he felt 
 the Reaper near : just before death came to him he ordered 
 Michelangelo to finish the great Tomb, appointing his 
 nephew. Cardinal Aginense, and Cardinal Santi Quattro, to 
 see to the completion of the great design ; but they, baffled 
 by the expense, caused Michelangelo to reduce the scheme, 
 who thereupon recast it, and with feverish eagerness and 
 delight set himself to its completion. It was not to be. 
 Michelangelo's friend and playfellow at the Court of the 
 Medici, Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, was elected Pope 
 after Julius 11. ; and as soon as the great celebrations of his 
 enthronement as Pope Leo x. were done, he set Michel- 
 angelo, to whose bitter protests he would not listen, to 
 decorate the fa9ade of San Lorenzo in Florence with 
 sculptures ; so " Michelangelo left the Tomb, and betook 
 himself, weeping, to Florence." 
 
 Indeed, his grief must have been great. By the June 
 of this year of 15 15, he had finished the Moses and the 
 Captives in marble, and the "reHef" panels were ready for 
 the casting in bronze. The two years of his precious life 
 
 221
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE and genius that were now wasted to the world in sending 
 
 GOLDEN him to quarry the marble for the fa9ade of San Lorenzo 
 AGE would have seen the making of the great Tomb. Nor was 
 
 the fafade to reach completion. The Pope's only brother, 
 Giuliano de' Medici, and his nephew, Lorenzo, dying, he 
 freed Michelangelo on the loth of the March of 1520 
 from his bond to decorate the facade, and ordered him 
 instead to build a new sacristy to their memory, and raise a 
 monument to them therein. 
 
 Seizing the opportunity to fulfil a seven-years old 
 promise to a Roman patron, Metello Vari, for a nude 
 Christ bearing the Cross, he sent to Rome in the summer 
 of 1 52 1 the majestic Risen Christy now in the church of the 
 Minerva, the hands and feet being left in the rough to 
 prevent damage during transport — which were finished by 
 the crude workmanship of Pietro Urbino, and mauled in 
 the doing. But Leo x.'s great patronage of art was to last 
 all too short a while — he died on the ist of December in 
 1 52 1, being succeeded by the pious Dutchman who vowed 
 the Sistine Chapel " nothing but a room full of naked 
 people." His secret desire to have it whitewashed was 
 balked by death; and 1523 saw Giulio de' Medici reign 
 in his stead as Clement vii. The following year, Michel- 
 angelo, having finished the new sacristy at San Lorenzo, 
 began the Medicean tombs to be placed therein, harassed 
 the while by the building of a library, also, that the Pope 
 urged upon him. 
 
 Then fell a blow upon Rome. The disaster of the 
 battle of Pavia saw Francis i. make a league with the 
 Sforza of Milan, Venice, Florence, and Pope Clement vii. 
 against Charles v., which bred nothing but further disasters, 
 ending in the renegade Connetable de Bourbon, with his 
 horde of German and Spanish soldiers-of-fortune, taking 
 222
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 and pillaging Rome in 1527 — the Pope being besieged for WHEREIN 
 
 nine months in the Castle of Saint Angelo. The Floren- THERE 
 
 tines promptly shook off the rule of the Medici. Michel- PASSES BY, 
 
 angelo flung himself with hot enthusiasm into the struggle ^^ THE 
 
 for liberty. In the following year of 1528 he lost his STREETS 
 
 favourite and beloved brother, Buonarroto, in the plague. \ ROME, 
 
 A year thereafter Charles v. concluded the Peace of Barce- ^^^^ ' 
 
 . TriE 
 
 lona with Pope Clement vii., making it a condition that pjAxr'p Qp 
 
 the Pope should again set up the rule of the Medici over xHE RE- 
 
 Florence. The citizens, preparing for a desperate resistance, NAISSANCE 
 
 made Michelangelo the Commissary-General of Defence, 
 
 and it was the skill with which he fortified the city that 
 
 enabled Florence to defy the attacks of the Imperial troops 
 
 for a whole year, until the August of 1530, when the 
 
 treachery of Malatesta Baglioni, their commander, brought 
 
 about the fall of the city. On the return of Alessandro de' 
 
 Medici in triumph to Florence, Michelangelo only saved 
 
 his head by hiding in the bell-tower of San Nicolo beyond 
 
 the Arno, until the fury of revenge was quieted. During 
 
 the siege he had worked upon the tombs of the Medici for 
 
 the sacristy, besides painting the panel of LeJa and the Swan, 
 
 which he gave to his pupil Antonio Mini, with many 
 
 cartoons and drawings, as a dowry for his two sisters. 
 
 Being sold to the King of France, it hung at Fontainebleau 
 
 until Louis xiii.'s day, when one of the ministers ordered 
 
 its destruction as an indecent picture, but it was said to 
 
 have been hidden away. 
 
 The Pope's anger at the rebel sculptor soon cooled, and, 
 
 thanks to the Papal envoy at Florence, Baccio Valori, to 
 
 whom the grateful sculptor gave his statue of Apollo, now 
 
 at Florence, Michelangelo was soon at work again upon 
 
 the Medicean tombs. But, vexed by the troubles that ever 
 
 dogged his sublime art, torn between Julius the Second's 
 
 223
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE nephew, the Duke of Urbino, who demanded the comple- 
 
 GOLDEN tion of the great Tomb, on the one hand, and Pope 
 AGE Clement vii., who vowed excommunication if he ceased 
 
 work upon the Medicean tomb in the sacristy at Florence, 
 he at any rate first finished the wondrous statue of the 
 Madonna nursing the Child Christy who is seen straddling 
 across her knee. 
 
 The superb tombs of Giuliano and horenzo de' Medici for 
 the sacristy at Florence, each of the princes arrayed like 
 warriors of antiquity, seated in a niche above a sarcophagus 
 on which two figures recline — Lorenzo in sorrowful medita- 
 tion above the great reclining Evening and Dawn (the 
 Dawn being finished in 1531, soon after the fall of 
 Florence), Giuliano seated above the great reclining Night 
 and Day — are amongst the mightiest achievements of all art. 
 At their ending, in 1534, Michelangelo was to leave 
 Florence, never to return. The figures of the Medicean 
 tombs give forth his passionate love of liberty, his tragic 
 longing for it, and his gloomy resentment at its loss to 
 Florence, clear as though some vasty music sounded the 
 tragic intensity of his feeling. His unfinished bust of 
 Brutus in the Bargello repeats it — his proud and wide- 
 ranging spirit, his independent and lofty soul irked by the 
 petty tyrannies of Alessandro de' Medici. 
 
 Michelangelo was now on the edge of his sixtieth year. 
 Raphael was dead fourteen years, Leonardo fifteen years, 
 Andrea del Sarto three years, Correggio was to die in the 
 following year. Michelangelo saw Italy in wreckage. 
 He was to live through thirty more years and see worse 
 befall. He saw Florence iSlotted out. He saw the In- 
 quisition set up and the Italian spirit die under the heel of 
 Spain. 
 
 He set foot in Rome again, to find that Pope 
 224
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Clement vii. had been dead a couple of days, and that a WHEREIN 
 Farnese, Paul iii., had been elected in his stead. Michel- THERE 
 aneelo came to Rome under the bond to make the tomb of PASSES BY, 
 Julius II. of one fa9ade only, using the marble already ^n.rL 
 
 carved for the cube of the tomb, carving six statues by his ^^ domt? 
 own hand, and employing other artists to complete the rest rjMHAir FD 
 of the work. Again he was to be balked. Paul iii. — he XHE 
 of the cunning of a fox, who made himself infamous to GIANT OF 
 indulge his vicious bastard son — at once made him chief THE RE- 
 architect, sculptor, and painter to the Vatican, and heedless NAISSANCE 
 of his prayers and beseechings, set him to the task of paint- 
 ing the end wall of the Sistine Chapel. The doors of the 
 Sistine Chapel closed again upon Michelangelo, not to 
 open again until the Christmas of 1541, when "to the 
 admiration of Rome and the whole world " was uncovered 
 his great Last 'Judgment. Baffled thirty-three years gone 
 by, at thirty-three, in the full strength of early manhood, 
 he had begun the painting of the great ceiling in the 
 Sistine with the Creation ; at sixty-four, after seven or eight 
 years' prodigious toil, he gave to the world, as the last act 
 of the vast drama, the Doom of all created things — the 
 Destiny that leads to the awful majesty of the Day of 
 Wrath and Judgment, wrought with the gloomy tragic 
 intensity of a Dante. 
 
 There is a grim irony in the fact that whilst the work 
 was received with enthusiasm by the greatest artists of the 
 age, the base and indecent scribbler, Pietro Aretino, should 
 have led the enemies of the mighty genius to condemn it 
 as indecent, owing to the number of its nudities ! Michel- 
 angelo refused to paint any draperies. And it is not the 
 smallest part of the gross hypocrisy of the times that, a few 
 years later, Paul iv. got Michelangelo to allow Daniele da 
 Volterra partly to drape many of the figures — whereby that 
 VOL. I — 2 F 225
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE worthy man rendered himself immortal by the nickname of 
 
 GOLDEN "The Maker of Breeches— II Braghettone." The smoke 
 
 AGE of altar-candles has done its best to blacken the master's 
 
 work, and blot out the shame of " The Maker of Breeches," 
 but even though the majesty of it all shall perish, our 
 Breeches Maker shall live — the slave of the hypocrisies of 
 a wondrous age and as wondrous a people. So, as ever, we 
 see society grow prude as it grows vicious. Yet one 
 remembers with a thrill of pleasure how, the Pope's 
 master of the ceremonies, one Biagio, playing the shocked 
 censor, Michelangelo painted him into the Hell, and, the 
 indignant man complaining, the Pope wittily replied that, 
 had it been Purgatory, he might have helped him, but in 
 Hell was no redemption. 
 
 Luigia de' Medici had been dead forty years when 
 Michelangelo, in his sixties, met the second woman who 
 was to leave a profound impression upon his life and soul. 
 Vittoria Colonna was the first woman of her age. The 
 friendship of these two great spirits, lofty in their ideals, 
 impelled by mutual admiration and liking, was the source 
 of much of Michelangelo's song — to her he poured out 
 his passion in several of his finest sonnets, as at her death, 
 when he wrote, " Her soul that quickened mine hath 
 sought the skies." It was a strange platonic passion — 
 strange as the life of the man. Vittoria Colonna was the 
 daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, and the inconsolable widow 
 of the Marquis of Pescara, and about forty-two years of 
 age. She formed a circle of celebrities about her. 
 
 The Last Judgment done, its mighty significance prob- 
 ably lost on all who beheld it beyond the mere talking 
 about it, Paul in. hustled the artist to the painting of the 
 side- walls of the Cappella Paolina. Close on seventy when 
 he started upon it, and seventy-four when on the two 
 226
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 frescoes of The Conversion of St. Paul and The Martyrdom ^WHEREIN 
 
 St. Peter he used the brush for the last time, he owned at THERE 
 
 last that his powerful frame was surrendering: its prodig-ious PASSES BY, 
 
 energy and strength — he confessed to Vasari that he did his ^^ 
 
 . STREETS 
 
 last fresco "with great effort and fatigue." It may be that T)r\j</f-c 
 
 something of the fire had gone out of his body's force, as TivruATT -pA 
 out of the wondrous significance of his mastery in art ; but -yYIE 
 even whilst he painted these frescoes, he finished at last, GIANT OF 
 forty years after he first designed its splendid intention, the THE RE- 
 modified design of the great tomb of Pope Julius ii., in the NAISSANCE 
 church of San Pietro in Vincoli, that had been the tragedy 
 of his artistic life. It was a sad belittling of his great 
 design, but it gave us the great Moses, and the two astound- 
 ingly fine female figures of Active and Contemplative Life. 
 
 His solemn pledge to the dead Pope fulfilled, Michel- 
 angelo fell into a heavier gloom ; a profound Melancholy 
 took him for her own. Wearied by the fierce plaguings 
 of his career and destiny, wracked with religious gloom, 
 yearning for peace and rest, but unable to thrust aside his 
 innate energy, his famed sonnet proves that his art no 
 longer satisfied him : " Painting nor sculpture now can lull 
 to rest my soul, that turns to His great love on high." He 
 was not to be allowed rest. The great church of St. Peter's, 
 to the magnificent rebuilding of which the Pope Julius ii. 
 had set Bramante — to hold, with fitting splendour, Michel- 
 angelo's vast monument to him — had, at the death of 
 Bramante, passed under the design of Raphael, at whose 
 death it had passed to Antonio da Sangallo, who died in 
 the October of 1546, the year after Michelangelo finished 
 Julius II. 's reduced tomb. Michelangelo, still at work on 
 the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina, was, in spite of his 
 refusal, and his plea that architecture was not his art, so 
 bullied and pestered into the business by Paul in., that he 
 
 227
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE consented to become the architect of the great church of 
 
 GOLDEN Catholic Christendom on condition of receiving no pay- 
 AGE ment for it, since he was henceforth only desirous to 
 
 practise his art as a devotional act. 
 
 It w^as shortly after his appointment as architect of 
 St. Peter's that, in 1 547, the romantic and beautiful friend- 
 ship of Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna w^as brought to 
 an end by her death, w^hich left Michelangelo " dazed as 
 one bereft of sense." 
 
 Cancelling the alterations that had been made to 
 Bramante's original design, Michelangelo designed, on 
 absolute symmetry, Bramante's original Greek cross, so that 
 the vast dominant note from vvrithin and without should be 
 a great cupola. Destroying Sangallo's work, he put down 
 all jobbery with a stern hand — increasing thereby the swarm 
 of his enemies, who thenceforth intrigued night and day 
 against him. But Paul iii., who died in 1 549, and Julius iii. 
 who reigned in his stead, knew full well that Michelangelo's 
 art meant immortality for them. The vast pile rapidly 
 arose under the mighty will of Michelangelo ; all intrigues 
 were brushed aside ; and by 1557 the rugged old artist of 
 eighty-two saw the huge cupola itself come to its beginnings. 
 But at eighty-two, even the body of a Michelangelo knows 
 the vigour of youth no longer. Unable now to direct the 
 actual building, he set up the wooden model which may 
 still be seen at the Vatican ; and whilst his assistants 
 worked from it, the rugged old man, from the windows 
 of his house, watched by the hour together the mighty 
 cupola begin to swell to roundness against the blue of the 
 heavens. 
 
 But the twilight of his life was to bring gloom and 
 bitter sorrow to Michelangelo. His two brothers died in 
 Florence, and his nephew Lorenzo, son of his beloved 
 228
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 brother Buonarroto, alone remained to him of all his near WHEREIN 
 
 kin. Then the loss of his faithful servant, Francesco THERE 
 
 Urbino, filled him with erief. But his restless and ener- PASSES BY, 
 
 eetic will drove his hand to prodigious creation still — he AniL 
 
 STREETS 
 planned the improvements on the Capitol — designed the ponat? 
 
 church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini — designed the rjKrfTAjT pr^ 
 
 monument to Giangiacomo de' Medici that Leone Leoni -rHE 
 
 raised in Milan Cathedral — planned the changing of the GIANT OF 
 
 Baths of Diocletian into the Church of Santa Maria degli THE RE- 
 
 Angeli — poured out sketches of palaces, statues, and the NAISSANCE 
 
 like for others to carry out. However, he knew joy in his 
 
 nephew and that nephew's marriage. He was at least 
 
 wealthy, and his habits were frugal. Sleeping little, and 
 
 working at night upon his sculpturings, wearing a cap with 
 
 a candle stuck in the front of it whereby to give him light, 
 
 he lived his lonely life, dreaming art. Princes courted his 
 
 society, the Count of Canossa was proud to claim him kin. 
 
 The twilight of his old age was serene ; he knew the 
 
 affection that he had poured upon his kin. Yet his will 
 
 was irked by the smallness of his endeavour — he poured 
 
 forth in his famed sonnet his lament at the loss of his once 
 
 vigorous creative force. The restless power of the man 
 
 fought his ninety years. On the edge of ninety the old giant 
 
 took his walks abroad careless of all weather. To his old 
 
 friend Tiberio Calcagni's protest, meeting him on the 14th 
 
 of February 1564 in the street, rain-drenched, he replies 
 
 fiercely, " Let me be. I am ill, and can nowhere find rest." 
 
 The next four days saw him crouched by the fire in an 
 
 arm-chair, "oppressed with continual drowsiness." At last 
 
 the old Adam rebels within him. He must shake off this 
 
 sluggardy. He will go for a ride — he calls for his horse 
 
 and tries to mount — he fails. He has not the strength. 
 
 Without a word, he goes back again to the arm-chair, where, 
 
 229
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE in the afternoon of the i8th day of the February of 1564, 
 
 GOLDEN a little before five of the clock, the giant of the Italian 
 
 AGE Renaissance yielded up his mighty spirit, as though he slept, 
 
 into eternity. Peace came to his troubled life only at its 
 
 ending. 
 
 But the poor body was to be vexed with strife even 
 dead. His nephew, Leonardo Buonarroti, reaching Rome 
 some three days after Michelangelo's death, found Rome, 
 which had made the dead man a citizen, passionately set 
 upon his burial there. Michelangelo's dying wish, to be 
 buried in his own city of Florence, they flatly refused, and 
 would not allow his body to be moved. It is said that 
 Michelangelo dead was smuggled out of Rome in a bale 
 of merchandise, and so brought to Florence, to be buried 
 amidst great pomp and solemnity in the church of Santa 
 Croce. But the sublime group of the Pieta, wrought by 
 Michelangelo's hand with intent for his own tomb, was 
 never set thereon. 
 
 It was through the sublime genius of Michelangelo that 
 the late Renaissance in Central Italy, which had found its 
 chief home in Florence, discovered its supreme and mighty 
 utterance. Michelangelo was the complete voice of the 
 Florentine achievement. With Michelangelo and Raphael, 
 the early fifteen-hundreds were to see art depart from 
 Florence into Rome, and take up her habitation amongst 
 the ruins ; and, at the passing of Michelangelo, the ruins 
 engulfed her, blotting her out. 
 
 Born in the same year as Fra Bartolommeo, he died on 
 the edge of ninety, in 1564, forty-four years after Raphael 
 had been laid in his grave, eighteen years after Raphael's 
 chief disciple, Giulio Romano, died. When death took 
 this giant of the Renaissance, the fifteen-hundreds had 
 230
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 passed into their second half-century. The Renaissance in WHEREIN 
 Central Italy was dead. THERE 
 
 Michelangelo ever claimed the bays as a sculptor alone. PASSES BY, 
 Though poet, architect, and painter of astounding achieve- THE 
 
 ment, and reaching to vast significance in all things that ^^J^'^^^^ 
 he essayed, he signed his letters, even whilst he wrought TjT^rr a tt pA 
 the mighty masterpiece of his ceiling-paintings in the -pHE 
 Sistine Chapel, as though in very arrogance of the know- GIANT OF 
 ledge of that in which lay his supreme power and his THE RE- 
 immortal fame, as Michelangelo^ sculptor. NAISSANCE 
 
 He stands forth, rugged, uncompromising, stern, honest, 
 virile, as the mighty Seer of the Renaissance, like some 
 ancient Hebrew prophet, reckless of all authority, bent on 
 rousing mankind to the vast dignities with which the 
 Creator has endowed them, scorning his fellows for con- 
 cerning themselves with petty toys and vulgar brawls, 
 when the heights lay before them for the conquering. 
 He felt the grandeur of life, its sublime powers, its vast 
 experience ; and he uttered these majestic significances, 
 gifted with an astounding craftsmanship that created a vast 
 and awe-compelling art attune to the prodigious emotions 
 that stirred within him, and which he wrought with a 
 resonant and mighty music that compels homage. 
 
 Over all he wrought is a tragic gloom that utters itself 
 in his sonnets as in his vasty art, whatsoever the craft he 
 employed to utter that art — for his stern eyes saw the 
 failure of Italy to reach to the splendid realm of Liberty 
 that had stirred her to life. His eighty-nine years of storm- 
 tossed living saw Italy a land of slaves, tied and bound 
 under the heels of contemptible tyrannies ; he saw his 
 beloved Florence blotted out ; he saw the arts decay ; and 
 he died in the bitter knowledge that sacerdotal despotism 
 had slain liberal thought in the Church which was so dear 
 
 231
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE to him, and which had created the knowledge it now 
 
 GOLDEN feared. 
 
 AGE Italy had been first amongst the nations in the new 
 
 Awakening ; and his dying eyes beheld that she was become 
 the last — lying prostrate, her eager life gone out of her, at 
 the gates of the New Life that she had unlocked to the 
 world. He looked upon his people, seeing that the light 
 shone before them, but they could not understand. 
 
 Steeped in the text of the Bible, the discourses of Plato, 
 and the poems of Dante ; brooding over the fiery sermons 
 of Savonarola ; he found Solitude his best companion for 
 mighty thinking. Entertaining few friends, and shunning 
 the society which was the joy of Raphael, his solitary 
 work upon the Sistine Chapel stands out in strange con- 
 trast with Raphael at work amongst a crowd of assistants. 
 To his eager soul. Liberty was the flame, his country was 
 his child, his passionate love of justice a stern incentive. 
 Grim and biting of speech he was — and, likely enough, 
 folk flinched from his critical eye. Perugino he bluntly 
 pushed aside as goffo^ a dunderhead in art. Looking upon 
 a handsome youth, when told that he was the artist Francia's 
 son, he grimly answered, "Your father makes better men 
 by night than by day.'* 
 
 So, Michelangelo, an intensely devoted son of his 
 Church, stepped beyond the limits of the thinking from 
 which that Church now shrank, and boldly accepted 
 ancient philosophy with his faith. His art is the full 
 utterance of what the Renaissance should have been to 
 Italy — but Italy flinched from it. In the great upheaval 
 of the Reformation, the Church entered into a struggle 
 with the North and lost ; but she awoke to the more astute 
 policies of the Counter Reformation, and saved the Latin 
 peoples to herself. The schism of the North drove the 
 232
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Papacy, which had aforetime led thought, into blind enmity WHEREIN 
 to advancing ideals ; and the vast dome of St. Peter's, that is THERE 
 Michelangelo's supreme achievement in architecture, w^hich PASSES BY, 
 should have been the home of the union of faith with the THE 
 
 leaders of the new culture, welcoming progress and science ^„ t> 
 that its pontiffs created by their fostering care, lost its wider tjvttta tt pfA 
 significance as the shrine of the Christian world, and nar- XHE ' 
 
 rowed its dominion over the hearts of man. GIANT OF 
 
 Yet the pontiffs of the Church might well shrink from THE RE- 
 the state of affairs into which the new Paganism was NAISSANCE 
 leading the old and simple faith. The overwhelming 
 genius of Michelangelo is blamed as having been so vast 
 that it left nothing but hordes of imitators to debauch its 
 significance. To say this is wholly to misunderstand the 
 age. Michelangelo's supreme gifts uttered themselves in 
 an age wherein decay was on every side. Literature was 
 sunk into mere academic pedantries and frivolities, or into 
 the obscenities of such as Aretino. Michelangelo dwarfs 
 such men in the eyes of history ; but once his splendour 
 was removed, there was nothing but the mediocre or vicious 
 ineptitude of the Italy of the age to take its place. In the 
 realm of painting, these mediocre artists naturally essayed 
 to employ Michelangelo's methods ; but like all academic 
 effort, they only exaggerated his faults, and were too puny 
 to understand his significance. Their Michelangelesque 
 efforts, however, are not to be mistaken for the real effort 
 that, throughout Italy, during the next century, was made 
 to develop the range of painting, but has been flung into 
 the middle of the Decadence by the muddled incapacity of 
 the writers to grasp its artistic significance. But of that, 
 later. 
 
 Michelangelo compelled the art of Sculpture to its 
 utmost powers along the limits of line, which the Greeks 
 
 VOL. I 2 G 233
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE had developed, until he made it utter his passionate sensing 
 
 GOLDEN and profound imagination. He compelled painting, so far 
 AGE as the genius of Central Italy had developed its gamut of 
 
 utterance — that is to say, in the realm of drav^ing and line 
 — until he could employ the whole v\ride gamut of the 
 Central Italian orchestration to give forth his imagery in 
 terms of paint employed in the spirit of sculpture. With 
 such sublime powder and august vision did he achieve this 
 sombre splendour, that his majestic art completely ex- 
 hausted the whole potentialities of the Florentine genius 
 and craftsmanship, and left it nothing more to say. In the 
 very act of his supreme endeavour and accomplishment, 
 Michelangelo revealed the limitations of the Florentine 
 genius, even whilst he proved what a Titan could do within 
 those limitations. 
 
 It is for this very reason that all after-endeavour of the 
 succeeding years, all attempt to-day — and the folly is wide- 
 spread — to go back to the Florentines for the craftsmanship 
 of painting, is bound to failure ; for not only has the Italian 
 genius uttered itself once for all in supreme fashion, and 
 therefore made modern rivalry of it absurd, but the artist of 
 to-day can never hope to surpass in an artificial effort what 
 was achieved by the giants in a language that was their 
 natural speech. 
 
 And even whilst we stand amazed and in homage 
 before the mighty masterpieces of the Florentine achieve- 
 ment in art, it is ever well to keep in mind that, great as it 
 was, the art of painting has developed and advanced to 
 heights of emotional utterance, of which even Michel- 
 angelo never dreamed. What the Italians were digging 
 out of craftsmanship with prodigious labour, is now the 
 possession of any gifted student. And he who looks upon 
 the masterpieces of the great dead, and considers them the 
 
 234
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 complete and ultimate achievement of art, is wholly in- WHEREIN 
 capable of receiving the thrill of artistic impression, and is THERE 
 
 simply the product of the pedant and the book-learned PASSES BY, 
 
 • • IN THF 
 
 critic. ^^^ ^ "^ 
 
 STREETS 
 
 A/r- 1 1 1 , . .1 . , • OF ROME, 
 
 Michelangelo stands out a giant amidst giants — his tjnHAILED 
 
 terrible and sublime art towering above the achievement of XHE 
 
 his age. He is the mighty tragedian, the great dramatist GIANT OF 
 
 of Italy. He had the virile brain and strong right hand to THE RE- 
 
 save his people, but they could not and would not under- NAISSANCE 
 
 stand him. Just as the frivolous spirit of the people was 
 
 content with sacerdotalism as their religion, and found 
 
 Raphael's pleasing and genial art "divine," and stood aside 
 
 in homage when the young gallant, arrayed like a prince 
 
 and with a princely retinue, passed in the streets of Rome ; 
 
 so they looked askance at the grim and deep-soul'd man 
 
 who went by in lonely moodiness, his eyes troubled with 
 
 the loss of real liberty under the trappings of splendour. 
 
 So bookish men find " beauty " in Raphael's prettier art, and 
 
 miss the awful significance of Michelangelo's far mightier 
 
 essence. 
 
 It is easy to understand how Michelangelo, when the 
 Laocoon was discovered in 1506, greeted it as "a miracle of 
 art." Here was a work of art that fitted his own Italy. 
 He employed the nude human figure as the supreme design 
 of God's hand ; and it was significant of the real state of 
 Italy that the censure of an indecent and trivial poet should 
 have led to the "purification " of Michelangelo's art by the 
 " Maker of Breeches." The human form was his delight — 
 " Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere more 
 clearly than in human forms sublime, which, since they 
 image Him, alone I love." He bent his strong will to 
 master its every detail, dissecting the dead, though " it turned 
 
 235
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE his stomach so that he could neither eat nor drink with 
 
 GOLDEN benefit." The human form he employed for every decora- 
 ■^^^ tion — indeed, it was the whole symbol through which he 
 
 uttered the emotions ; whether he felt the profound 
 tragedy of life, its sublime essence, its majestic possibilities, 
 the vast significance and terrible mystery of it all, it was in 
 terms of the human body that he uttered these things. 
 
 His eye and hand were so creative, his skill so certain, 
 his calculation so sure, that he saw at once what a block of 
 marble would yield to his wondrous chisel ; as though the 
 masterpiece lay entombed therein but awaiting its release at 
 his hands, he set to work upon the rough-hewn block with 
 forthright will that never hesitated ; the splinters flew 
 under his reckless skill, as he cut down to the figure that 
 came to life under his astounding wizardry. There is 
 witness that in his old age he would cut away more waste 
 marble from the block in a quarter of an hour than three 
 younger men in a couple of hours ; and, as he sang, " when 
 my rude hammer to the stubborn stone gives human 
 shape," his daring chisel would so closely follow the forms 
 of the figure that rapidly came into being, that the slightest 
 error would have wrecked the whole. It need only be 
 remembered that the great David was hewn straight from 
 the marble without any model of clay whatsoever. So 
 with his painting. We know that he entered upon his 
 work in the Sistine Chapel on the loth of the May of 
 1508 — and had finished the ceiling on the ist of November 
 1509 — but even this colossal achievement of a large number 
 of figures, many ten feet high, was done within these 
 eighteen months, for it is said that he dismissed all pupils, 
 destroyed the work, and started alone on the January of 
 that year — if so, creating this vast work in ten months. 
 Fresco can only be worked upon whilst wet, so that every 
 236
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 day's painting reveals itself — Sir Charles Holroyd, on WHEREIN 
 making careful examination of the sublime figure of Adam THERE 
 in the Creation, found that it was painted in three days' PASSES BY, 
 work. IN THE 
 
 STRPPXS 
 His body's strength must have been prodigious. So ^„ pp,A*T- 
 
 cramped w^as his pow^erful frame by painting the vast tj^h a jj pf) 
 
 ceiling above his face in the Sistine Chapel, that, for some XHE 
 
 time afterwards, he had to place a book or manuscript GIANT OF 
 
 above his head to read it. " I 've grown a goitre by dwell- THE RE- 
 
 ing in this den " — his sonnet runs : "... My beard NAISSANCE 
 
 turns up to heaven ; my nape falls in, fixed on my spine. 
 
 ... A rich broidery bedews my face from brush-dips 
 
 thick and thin ; my loins into my paunch like levers grind. 
 
 . . . False and quaint, I know, must be the fruit of 
 
 squinting brain and eye ; for, ill can aim the gun that 
 
 bends awry. . . . Foul I fare, and painting is my shame." 
 
 Michelangelo was a supreme draughtsman. He pro- 
 duced out of sheer line an intensity of feeling that is akin 
 to the deep resonance of a mighty organ. His whole art 
 was founded on form — on line. Well might he write on 
 the drawing of his pupil Antonio Mini : " Draw, Antonio ; 
 draw, Antonio ; draw, and waste no time " ; his urging to 
 his pupils, like Donatello's, was ever, " I give you the 
 whole art of sculpture when I tell you — draw ! '* 
 
 Tragic and forceful ; stating his senses with a sublime 
 intensity, largeness of conception, grandeur of form, and a 
 noble and dignified breadth of style ; concerning himself 
 with majestic types rather than with character, he was a 
 true son of Italy. He was a Greek in the love of 
 liberty, in the love of the nude whereby to utter his art ; 
 he was Italian in his instincts, his vision, and his soul. 
 His art was as a gulf apart from the art of Greece — a gulf 
 of Hebraic and Christian feeling, but above all Hebraic. 
 
 237
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Whilst the Borgias were turning the Vatican into a den of 
 
 GOLDEN thieves and home of harlots, Michelangelo, resenting the 
 AGE inevitable doom and destruction that awaits all wicked 
 
 things, urged a noble and strenuous life that should meet 
 the inevitable with fearless courage, careless of the con- 
 sequences. To everything to which he put his hand he 
 brought the fire of genius, and achieved it with rare dis- 
 tinction ! He pleaded ever that he was only a sculptor — 
 he created in painting sublime masterpieces. He demurred 
 to being appointed an architect — he achieved the great 
 cupola-crowned temple of Christendom, and in the doing 
 stands a giant above all the architects of his age. 
 
 Steeped in the tradition of the Hebrew writers, holding 
 communion with the thought of Dante, of Plato, and of 
 the Christ — and, like them, a lonely figure and an alien 
 amongst his own people — " To me they portioned darkness 
 for a dower; dark hath my lot been since I was a man " — 
 Michelangelo brooded on the doom of his fellow-men, taken 
 up with foolish things. This homage to Dante is seen in 
 the fact that when, in 151 8, the Florentines petitioned 
 Leo X. to transport the bones of Dante from Ravenna to 
 Florence, the artist offered to raise a statue worthy of the 
 poet. How deeply he was influenced by the poet his Last 
 'Judgment proves. He stood dismayed at the corruption 
 about him everywhere. In the capital of Christendom 
 he saw holy things sold for money to be employed for 
 Julius II. 's wars. " Here helms and swords are made of 
 chalices; the blood of Christ is sold so much the quart: 
 . . . and short must be the time ere even His patience 
 cease." Alone, a gloomy soul apart, in an age given up to 
 sensuality and vice, and hypocrisy, and sham, Michelangelo 
 saw in the human form the divine that lay bound and 
 imprisoned therein. 
 
 238
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Savonarola struggled and died in order that he might WHEREIN 
 
 stay the demoralisation of society by the pagan invasion ; THERE 
 
 he strove with all his strength to prevent the enslaving of PASSES BY, 
 
 the liberties of the people by her astute and crafty THE 
 
 STRFFTS 
 bureess-tyrants. He died and failed. For these aims ^^ ^^^.^^ 
 . . . OF ROwIE 
 
 also Michelangelo lived and wrought and died — and failed, .tx-tt mt t^^^ 
 
 rr.1 TV>r 1- • 1 UN HAILED, 
 
 The Medici conquered. THE 
 
 Savonarola, Dante, and Michelangelo all saw the GIANT OF 
 dangers inherent in the fickleness of their race — all saw THE RE- 
 the dangers inherent in the paganism of the New Culture NAISSANCE 
 — but they were all men of gloomy soul, who saw life like 
 the Hebrews of old, not in the spirit of the Gospels. 
 For them the tragic Puritanism that sees the Day of 
 Judgment like a mighty threat hang over all human 
 endeavour — for them the ascetic denials — for them the 
 law Thou Shalt Not. The vast charity of the Christ, the 
 deep pity, the blithe humanity had little significance. 
 
 But the awakening life that pulsed throughout the 
 world was young and eager for experience. Italy was 
 corrupt on the one hand, ascetic and gloomy on the 
 other. Of his age, Michelangelo was the mightiest. 
 And it must ever be remembered that much of what he 
 painted was forced upon him. What he desired to do, 
 when he did it, reveals a loftier and more creative sense of 
 the fulfilling of life. He fills his august figures with the 
 sense of mastery — they stand out as gods amongst men. 
 Critics and writers are wont to urge that the great painters 
 of the Renaissance wrought their art in an age wholly 
 sympathetic to that art. We know that it was not so. 
 What did the courtiers and ladies of the Borgias about the 
 Papal Court understand, or care for, in the superb Pieta of 
 Michelangelo's genius .? In intellect he was a good son of 
 the Church ; in the sensing that creates art he was wholly 
 
 239
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE unchristian. Pity and humility, gentleness and hope, are 
 
 GOLDEN wholly alien to him. It is when his genius ranges un- 
 
 ^^^ trammelled that his utter contempt for his age is revealed, 
 
 and he sounds as with a mighty trumpet the power and 
 
 will of man, his destiny to conquer the earth, the forthright 
 
 forcefulness and energy that are his. 
 
 The Fairy Prince of the New Thought had tripped 
 into Italy and kissed the Sleeping Beauty; and she, arising, 
 breathing the fragrant air of Liberty, finding the garden of 
 Italy too close and tropical, departed with him into the 
 West, where Freedom was blossoming over the land, and 
 mediasvalism crumbling away before the forthright will of 
 men inspired by the discovery of a new world to wider 
 conquest of life, and urged by a new inquisitiveness to 
 achieve a fuller experience. 
 
 Of Michelangelo's direct pupils and assistants were 
 Marcello Venusti (died 1579), Sebastian del Piombo, 
 and Daniele Ricciarelli known as Daniele da Volterra 
 (1509-1566). 
 
 240
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 WHEREIN THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY PERISHES 
 AMIDST THE RUINS 
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 i486 - 1531 
 
 We have seen that in Piero di Cosimo's studio was a youth WHEREIN 
 
 called Andrea d'Agnalo, who was to become famous THE RE- 
 
 as Andrea del Sarto — he being the son of a tailor NAISSANCE 
 
 (sarto) of Florence. Pupil of Piero di Cosimo he became, ^^ ITALY 
 
 but caught little of his master's manner. He looked upon ^-^^^^^-t^^ 
 
 • • . AMIDST 
 
 the art of Era Bartolommeo, and it remained with him. ^^^^ t^ttt^t^ 
 TT 1 1 1 1- 1 11 r ' THE RUINS 
 
 rle also, alas ! listened too much to the pasans or praise 
 
 poured out upon Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo — 
 indeed, these giants might well have been sent to overthrow 
 Italian art by the very majesty of their greatness. 
 
 Andrea del Sarto had studied Michelangelo's cartoon of 
 the Battle of Pisa; and through it, and through Michel- 
 angelo's master work, was revealed to him that sculptor- 
 feeling for, and sculptor-treatment of, the human figure, 
 and its arrangement in his design. The brilliant young 
 fellow won early to repute by his facile touch, breadth of 
 handling, and capacity for stating the depth of atmosphere 
 surrounding the figure, for his mellow colouring, and his 
 command of greys. He brought into the achievement of 
 Florence a new revelation — essentially of the fifteen- 
 hundreds — that marked advance in the skill of painting 
 towards a fuller expression of the impression upon the 
 vision. 
 
 VOL. I — 2 H 241
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE There has been for several generations a vogue to speak 
 
 GOLDEN with contempt of the art of this true painter. He was 
 AGE wont to be called by the fatuous name of " the faultless 
 
 painter," and his faultlessness is now dubbed the " perfection" 
 of superficiality. He who can see but superficiality in 
 Andrea del Sarto's superb Portrait of a Sculptor at the 
 National Gallery in London, rather than one of the supreme 
 portraits of the whole Italian Renaissance, must be strangely 
 lacking in the faculty to sense Art. This superb Portrait 
 of a Sculptor^ loi^g held to be a portrait of himself, shows 
 not only his mastery of brushing and his command of state- 
 ment in giving the light and shade on flesh seen through 
 its varying depths of atmosphere, but his supreme power of 
 seizing the melody that is in greys. Another famous 
 masterpiece is the Portrait of a Lady^ who seems to have 
 been his wife, with a volume of Petrarch in her hands. 
 His superb portraits of himself, which have been neatly 
 described as one of the greatest of autobiographies in the 
 world, hold the grim and tragic tale of the mighty promise 
 of his career, wrecked by the girl Lucretia del Fede, the 
 extravagant and black-hearted jade, who roused a mad 
 infatuation in him which was as disastrous to him as artist 
 as his marriage with her was to him as man. Her face 
 appears in his several Madonnas, in The Holy Family at the 
 Borghese Gallery in Rome, in the Madonna delle Arpie at 
 the Ufiizi in Florence — a long, handsome face, that drew 
 him to dishonours manifold, to villainies, and to self- 
 contempt. For her vile soul he flung his talents into the 
 mere making of money. Her heartless extravagances and 
 vile conceit kept him in a state of perpetual money-troubles. 
 At last he flung up his handsome and lucrative employment 
 by Francis i., King of France, whose confidence and 
 trust he foully betrayed, filching the large sums of gold 
 242
 
 XXVI 
 
 ANDREA DEL SARTO 
 
 i486 - 1531 
 
 "THE SCULPTOR" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 This, one of the most haunting portraits of the whole Italian achieve- 
 ment, was long supposed to be the portrait of Andrea Del Sarto himself. 
 It displays the master's art in its most perfect form.
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 entrusted to him by the king for the purchase of works WHEREIN 
 of art. THE RE- 
 
 The genius of Andrea del Sarto must be judged by his NAISSANCE 
 portraits ; and so judged he stands amongst the great painters. ^^ ITALY 
 But he can also take hi^h place with his larger work. He PERISHES 
 was harassed by the neighbourhood of the vast genius of ^l^^zr 
 Michelangelo ; in dreading comparison by the side of the 
 other, he allowed his eyes to see, and his hand to create, the 
 academic thing; — instead of being content to be great and 
 express himself, he compelled his hand to employ the brush, 
 and his eyes to see through the vision first of Leonardo da 
 Vinci and then of Michelangelo — and the habit of aping 
 the grand manner grew upon him. Michelangelo's manner 
 of drawing draperies compelled him to follow ; and his 
 efforts to rival their sculpturesque sense led him to the 
 statuesque posings which slowly overwhelmed the signifi- 
 cance of his own vigorous hand and the reality of things as 
 discovered to his own subtle seeing. So he lost his gaiety 
 and joy in life, and gave his strength to painting poses and 
 draperies. The spiritual and significant things departed 
 from his studio, and pose and draperies became the tricks 
 of a mere clever painter. But the inborn vigour and 
 strength of vision would not let him sink wholly into the 
 academic habit. Even when the burden of Michelangelo 
 was heaviest upon him, he roused himself at times and 
 painted a figure with astounding power. His Last Supper 
 is a masterpiece. 
 
 When Andrea del Sarto paints at his best, as in his 
 portraits, he stands in achievement beside Giorgione and 
 Titian, reaching, indeed, in some strange fashion, as near as 
 the Florentine temperament and tradition allowed him, into 
 a silvery-keyed rivalry with their vision and utterance. Of 
 this searching sense of colour and forms he gave also 
 
 243
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE abundant proof in his Dispute concerning the Trinity, Amongst 
 
 GOLDEN his greatest works are the frescoes in the Church of SS. 
 AGE Annunxiata^ gay, bHthe, filled with the joy of life, in which, 
 
 however, his frank vision gives way as he paints each new 
 fresco to the aim of grandeur that is forcing itself into the 
 fashion, until in the other famous frescoes of the Life of 
 St. John the Baptist in the Chiostro dello Scalzo at Florence, 
 he is torn this way and that between his innate and superb 
 gift of painting the figure in its depth of atmosphere, and 
 the overwhelming of this high artistry by the new grand 
 manner in empty draperies. 
 
 But Andrea del Sarto's silver-grey harmonies, his trans- 
 lucent liquid blendings of lustrous cool colours, these are 
 purely himself; nowhere else in Italy shall you find the like, 
 and he wrought them with exquisite skill of craftsmanship. 
 These and his large sense of the resonance of light and 
 shade created in the subtle play of the atmosphere upon 
 the object which it surrounds, will make his work live — 
 and one day bring him back his bays. His lack of deep 
 emotion, his absence of inspiration, these will ever hold him 
 back from the seats of the mightiest ; but at least he can stand 
 on the steps to the throne. He never fell to the triviality of 
 prettiness ; his taste is balanced, he condescends to no mere 
 tricks of thumb — yet his very skill of hand must have 
 sorely tempted him — his hand hesitates or errs never ; his 
 craftsmanship is solid. Strong, tranquil, serene, his 
 thoroughness was not shaken even when he heard Lucretia's 
 lover whistle for her at the twilight's ending of the day, 
 saw her restless eagerness to be rid of posing for the 
 Madonna. 
 
 At the studio of Piero di Cosimo was a lad from Milan, 
 one Franciabigio (1482-1525), who became not only the 
 244
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 fellow-Student but the faithful friend of Andrea del Sarto, WHEREIN 
 
 who greatly influenced his art. He is remembered as a THE RE- 
 
 portrait-painter and for his frescoes, of which frescoes are NAISSANCE 
 
 two in the Chiostro dello Scalzo that display the strong ^^ ITALY 
 
 influence of Andrea del Sarto. It is interesting to note that PERISHES 
 
 AMIDST 
 Vasari's judgment proclaimed Franciabigio as his favourite ^^^ ptitn<; 
 
 painter in fresco. Franciabigio, or Francia Bigio or 
 
 BiGi, painted many of the portraits long given to Andrea 
 
 del Sarto and to Raphael. 
 
 Amongst Andrea del Sarto's direct pupils were Pontormo 
 
 and Rosso Rossi, or Rossi de' Salviati or Rosso Fioren- 
 
 TiNO (1494-1541), strongly afl^ected by Michelangelo and 
 
 by Pontormo. This Rosso was a friend of Vasari's. He 
 
 spent the greater part of his life, and died, in France at 
 
 the Court of the French king, where he was known as 
 
 Maitre Roux, 
 
 PONTORMO 
 
 1494 - 1556 
 
 Jacopo Carucci, more widely known as Jacopo da 
 Pontormo, was born at Pontormo, or Puntormo, in the 
 May of 1494, the son of a painter Bartolommeo Carucci. 
 The lad lost his father at five and his mother at ten, and 
 was placed, if we are to go by Vasari's gossip, under 
 Leonardo da Vinci, then under Albertinelli, then under 
 Piero di Cosimo, from whom he passed to the care of 
 Andrea del Sarto in 15 12, in his eighteenth year. 
 
 Pontormo was a man of genius, who wrought portraits 
 and wall-paintings which prove him possessed of qualities 
 which might have lifted him to very high achievement ; 
 but who fell under the spell, and thence to imitation, of 
 Michelangelo, to end as an academic who saw high art in 
 vast nudes. As a portrait-painter, however, he came to 
 
 245
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE greatness, as is shown in his famous panel of Cosimo dei 
 
 GOLDEN Medici at San Marco, and his Lady with a Dog at Frankfurt. 
 AGE When Pontormo thrust the vision of his masters from 
 
 him and uttered his own impressions, he painted upon the 
 wall the blithe, fresh fancy of the fresco of Vertumnus^ 
 Pomona^ and Diana, a lunette painted round a window at 
 the Royal Villa near Florence, Poggio a Caiano, with a 
 sense of colour and design that set him amongst the fore- 
 most artists of his day. Such achievements, and his great 
 portraiture, blot out the riots of fantastic nudes in the 
 Michelangelesque imitation which led him along the road to 
 meaningless falsities. The ambitious design, on which he 
 spent eleven years of his life, in his Michelangelesque style, 
 the huge frescoes in the church of San Lorenzo at Florence, 
 of The Deluge and The Last judgment, have long been 
 covered with whitewash. Happily, his powerful por- 
 traits did not tempt him to sink his own individuality, 
 and their rich colour and lively air are his best hostages to 
 fame. He died in Florence at the end of 1556, being 
 buried in the church of the Annunziata there, on the 
 2nd of January 1557, his fresco of the Visitation in the 
 court of the Annunziata standing as his fine epitaph. 
 
 In Pontormo's studio was trained a pupil, afterwards to 
 come to fame as Bronzino, who assisted him in many of 
 his works, and finished Pontormo's huge frescoes in the 
 church of San Lorenzo, before the whitewash swallowed 
 them. 
 
 BRONZINO 
 
 1502 - 1572 
 
 Angelo Allori, called Bronzino, was born near Florence, 
 
 at Monticelli, in 1502, and, as has been seen, became pupil 
 
 to Pontormo, and assistant and completer of his unfinished 
 
 designs. Bronzino is also sometimes confusingly called 
 
 246
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Angiolo di Cosimo. Born when Michelangelo was twenty- WHEREIN 
 seven, and at the height of his powers ; growing to man- THE RE- 
 hood when Michelangelo's compelling genius and gigantic NAISSANCE 
 achievement wholly overwhelmed the art of Florence and ^^ ITALY 
 Rome, Bronzino died some eight years after the giant of PARISHES 
 the Renaissance was laid in his grave. He lived, therefore, ^^^ ditins 
 in the supreme years of the Florentine achievement ; and 
 his dying eyes beheld the complete collapse of that achieve- 
 ment. In Venice, beyond the mountains, the Venetian 
 achievement was at its highest pitch of splendour, Titian 
 being but a youth when Bronzino first saw the light. 
 
 Bronzino was, like Rosso or Rossi de' Salviati, a close 
 friend of Vasari, the interesting writer of art gossip and 
 biography of the Italian Renaissance. 
 
 It is the present fashion to decry the art of Bronzino ; 
 and perhaps the exaggerated estimate of his day has been 
 answerable for the injustice. In Bronzino was born to the 
 later years of the Renaissance of Italy a portrait-painter of 
 marked power, and one w^ho was to have a prodigious 
 influence throughout Europe in the years to come. So 
 markedly influenced by his master, Pontormo, that it would 
 be difficult to say where the master's hand finishes and the 
 assistant takes up the brush in the work they wrought 
 together ; and so closely akin in their qualities that the 
 experts are hard put to it to-day sometimes to decide 
 whether master or pupil painted certain portraits. 
 
 Bronzino was poet as well as painter, running much to 
 burlesques, not devoid of naughtiness ; and the poems of 
 his pen reveal a questionable laxity in affairs of sex not 
 wholly absent from his painted allegories. But when John 
 Addington Symonds, an astoundingly clear-sighted critic 
 of the art of the Renaissance when we consider the atti- 
 tude towards art in the eighteen-seventies, condemns 
 
 247
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE Bronzino's fine "Allegory " of Venus and Cupid with Time and 
 
 GOLDEN Foliy^ at the National Gallery in London, as "detestable," 
 AGE one suspects his " propriety," and questions his taste. It 
 
 was the Victorian censor of all the moralities burning in a 
 strange vessel. Nor is it easy to discover therein the " defects 
 of Raphael's and Michelangelo's imitators," for it recalls 
 neither the one nor the other ; Bronzino had been looking 
 upon a far different master of the allegory, called Botticelli. 
 And the last charge that can be laid against it is that it 
 shows either "want of thought" or of "feeling," or is 
 " combined with the presumptuous treatment of colossal 
 and imaginative subjects," nor that this combination 
 "renders it inexpressibly chilling." He who finds this 
 somewhat hot work of art to be " chilling " must lack the 
 sense of temperature. Bronzino understood the French 
 King, for whom he painted it — Francis the First — better 
 than the critics have understood the significance of art. 
 Indeed, whether the lack of " chill " in this design be an 
 affair of bad art or good art, according to Symonds is of 
 little account. In it is much good art, whatever the 
 morals, for we see therein the real significance of the artist 
 uttering with truth the emotion that was in him — it is 
 a fine achievement. It is, besides, significant of his age. 
 Bronzino, essaying the religious picture — as in his large 
 and dull " Limbo " or Descent of Christ into Hell — is seen 
 affecting the religiosities without conviction — employing 
 a subject which has small place in his senses, in order to 
 create a turmoil of the nudes with what he took to be the 
 grand manner of Michelangelo — painting the nude for the 
 sake of showing off his academic capacity for painting 
 the naked, wholly without spiritual significance, lacking 
 largeness of design, poverty-stricken in the colour-sense. 
 It was exactly in his pagan allegories that he came nearest 
 248
 
 XXVII 
 
 SCHOOL OF 
 
 BRONZING 
 
 1502 - 1572 
 
 FLORENTINE SCHOOL 
 "PORTRAIT OF A BOY" 
 
 (National Gallery) 
 
 This portrait of a noble fledgling gives no full idea of the superb 
 achievement of Bronzino in portraiture. His Venus-piece in the same 
 gallery is one of the most valuable treasures in this great collection. 
 
 Painted on wood. 4 ft. 2^ in. h. x 2 ft. w. (1-282 x 0*609).
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 to Striking fire from the rigid, cold, hard anvil of his art. WHEREIN 
 It is interesting to note how a certain quaint trick of placing THE RE- 
 the legs in a sideways slant of somewhat charming awk- NAISSANCE 
 wardness prevailed with him — it is seen in this allegory of ^^ ITALY 
 Venus and Cupid that shocked Symonds ; it recurs in his PERISHES 
 fine St. John the Baptist at the Borghese Gallery in Rome, ^^^D^T 
 where again there is no spiritual atmosphere but con- 
 siderable power ; it is seen at its worst in the Dead Christ 
 at the Uffizi, though he realises an astounding sense of the 
 limpness of the dead thereby ; and it is even employed 
 with considerable grace in the Venus and Cupid at Buda- 
 Pesth. Indeed, Venus and Cupid ever brought out the best 
 qualities of his art — struck fire from the steel that his cold 
 colouring was otherwise liable to suggest — as the picture at 
 the Colonna Palace in Rome again proves. In all is a 
 frank delight in lusty passion that runs to naughtiness. In 
 The Holy Family at the Pitti in Florence is considerable 
 charm, if little religious atmosphere ; but the religious 
 picture as a rule brought out all Bronzino's worst defects ; 
 and in The Virgin at the Uffizi he uses his favourite awk- 
 wardness of the leg to a degree that is vile bad drawing, and 
 causes discomfort through the vision to the senses, as 
 though a bully twisted one's arms. 
 
 But the moment Bronzino stands before a portrait, he 
 braces himself to remarkable achievement. The Portrait of 
 a Boy at the National Gallery in London is not his, though 
 the most widely known of his accounted works, and by no 
 means to be compared with his finest portraiture — indeed, 
 we here have the critics attributing it now to Pontormo, 
 now to Rosso Fiorentino (Salviati), and then to others — pro- 
 bably because it is richer in colour than Bronzino's usual 
 painting. Bronzino left us an astoundingly fine gallery ot 
 the personages of the Florentine Court of his day, being for- 
 voL. I — 2 I 249
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE tunately employed to that end by the Grand Duke Cosimo i. 
 
 GOLDEN — most of these are to be seen in Florence. Not only 
 AGE are his portraits searching works of art, and marked by 
 
 rare distinction ; not only do they display keen sense of 
 character and insight into personality, though the painting 
 be hard enough at times, and the colour somewhat chill ; but 
 they had a wide-reaching effect in setting the style and man- 
 ner of portrait-painting throughout almost every Court in 
 Europe ; and it is impossible to avoid the conviction that 
 Velasquez, directly or indirectly, owed a heavy debt to 
 them. Velasquez was so original and virile a realist, that 
 whatever convention he employed must have been a very 
 overwhelming one in his day ; and to the influence of 
 Bronzino much of that convention guides. Even Mr. 
 Berenson, a most astute observer of the comparative rela- 
 tions of the artistry of painters, seems to have been struck 
 by this ; and it is impossible to look upon the portraits by 
 Bronzino of Eleanor a da Toledo^ of Prince Ferdinand^ and of 
 the girlish Princess Maria de* Medici at the Uffizi in 
 Florence, without thinking of the great Spaniard. 
 
 Of Bronzino's famous renderings of Cosimo /., himself, 
 in armour, his hand upon his helmet, and of the head of 
 Cosimo I. alone, the Uffizi, the Pitti, the Royal Gallery in 
 Berlin, hold superb examples ; besides the Duke Cosimo I. 
 with the Sprig of Myrt/e, Berlin possesses also a good Eleanor 
 of Toledo^ as does the Uffizi this same Eleanor of Toledo 
 and her child^ Don Garcia. The little Medici Garcia, 
 Bronzino painted several times, from the fat, laughing little 
 fellow holding the goldfinch, to bigger boyhood. The 
 Uffizi contains also the superb portrait of little Mary de* 
 Medici as a little girl, and another of the head of the same 
 Mary de* Medici as a girl, as well as the Mary de* Medici 
 head and bust with hand on breast. There also are the 
 250
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 Lucretia Panciatichl — the head and bust of A Toung Lady, WHEREIN 
 her hand holding a book — the Man in Armour ; whilst at THE RE- 
 the Borghese is the half-nude bust of Lucretia with dagger NAISSANCE 
 held upwards in her slender fingers, which Morelli vows ^^ ITALY 
 to the art of Bronzino. PERISHES 
 
 AMIDST 
 Dying in Florence on the 23rd of the November of ^Trp rtttnto 
 
 1572, on the edge of seventy, as the fifteen-hundreds 
 reached their twilight, the last mighty spirit of the Floren- 
 tine Renaissance, the great heart and vigorous body of 
 Michelangelo eight years in the grave, Bronzino was the 
 last master of significance in the art of Florence. With 
 him the Renaissance wholly ends in Tuscany and the south. 
 In Venice, across the mountains to the north, the Re- 
 naissance still brought forth splendour ; the Renaissance 
 came to later birth in Venice, but was even now also well- 
 nigh spent. Titian was near his ending, with but five 
 years to live ; Paolo Veronese died sixteen years later ; 
 Tintoretto was not to see the fifteen-hundreds out, dying 
 twenty years after. 
 
 The fifteen-hundreds were the Golden Age of the 
 Renaissance in Italy ; the first fifty years of the century 
 saw the Renaissance in Tuscany at its full flowering — the 
 last half saw it wholly wither and die. When 1600 
 struck, the Renaissance throughout Italy was at an end ; 
 and a far vaster and mighter art was about to be born. 
 
 Italy, making one final and colossal effort through the 
 sublime personality of Michelangelo, essayed to utter the 
 full significance of the New Thought ; but Michelangelo, 
 for all his almost superhuman powers, balked and flung 
 back by the utter corruption throughout the land, baffled 
 most of all by the utter corruption of Rome, as you shall 
 read in the despair of his sonnets, like his own Italy, 
 
 251
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 THE unable wholly to rid himself and his soul from the shackles 
 
 GOLDEN and dead weight of a great historic past, reeled back even 
 AGE as he created the mightiest artistic achievements of his age, 
 
 cursing Beauty, which he found, for all its sublime splen- 
 dour, to be but Dead Sea Apples in his mouth, whilst the 
 deeper man in him craved for mightier adventures of the 
 soul. 
 
 To the Italians of the After-Renaissance we will return 
 again ; but before betaking us over the Apennines to our 
 Venetian journey, let us estimate the endeavour of the 
 genius of Tuscany and the peoples lying adjacent thereto, 
 to utter the revelation of their age through their senses. 
 
 It will be seen that the Florentine genius broke into 
 two streams, the one largely tributary to Siena, that con- 
 cerned itself with a suave beauty rooted in mysticism — 
 through Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Ghir- 
 landaio, and Filippino Lippi, culminating in Raphael ; the 
 other concerned with tragic power, deep rooted in realism 
 and the human form — through Donatello, Masaccio, the 
 Pollaiuoli, Verrocchio, and Leonardo da Vinci, culminating 
 in Michelangelo. And he who puts aside the worn-out 
 theories, rigid classifications, and labels of the professors 
 and museum-masters, which have no relation whatever to 
 art, and are but a rough and ready way of dealing with 
 schools, and who instead gazes at the Florentine achieve- 
 ment throughout the Renaissance, allowing his whole 
 senses to surrender themselves to the impression created 
 upon him by the works of that achievement, will notice 
 simply this : The early endeavour of the men of the 
 Renaissance, wearied of mere illumination, was to paint on 
 flat surfaces the visions aroused in their senses by the new 
 life that was surging through their world — the first eflx)rt 
 is always to draw in outline and to fill in this outline with 
 252
 
 OF PAINTING 
 
 flat colours ; then the painter bends his will to try and WHEREIN 
 
 overcome mere flatness of height and 'width by so painting THE RE- 
 
 objects that they express depths or, to put it perhaps more NAISSANCE 
 
 simply, to paint things as they would appear in a mirror. ^^ ITALY 
 
 To this seemin? simple problem the whole effort of the "ERISHES 
 
 AMIDST 
 Renaissance craftsmanship bent its will — first by essaying ^ttt? rthm*; 
 
 to paint objects as they saw that low reliefs in sculpture 
 uttered them, by winning to mastery of light and shade. 
 And Michelangelo, for all his gigantic strength and 
 vigorous will, was able to thrust the craft of painting no 
 farther than this intention, which Leonardo da Vinci had 
 already conquered. With their craftsmanship of painting 
 developed to this advance, however, the vast genius of 
 Florence employed it to astounding purpose, compelling 
 it to express a mighty gamut of human emotion that 
 reaches from the most exquisite and subtle shades of 
 mystery to the stupendous and awful heights that create 
 the sense of the sublime. 
 
 But with colour as colour — with the employment of 
 colour to do what the Florentines compelled light and 
 shade to do, the whole genius of Tuscany achieved but 
 little. Florence employed colour with exquisite sense of 
 its rhythm ; but of its vast values in uttering the orchestra- 
 tion of the musical thrill that colour arouses in the senses, 
 of the relations of colour to colour bathed in the depth of 
 the atmosphere that surrounds each object before the 
 vision, they knew scarce aught at all. They were feeling 
 dumbly for it, but could get no nearer than to state the 
 light and shade of things with intense and exquisite in- 
 quisitiveness, and to play colour thereabout. 
 
 One of the sadnesses of the fact of life is the shortness 
 of its duration ; but an even more pathetic fact is the short 
 
 253
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE duration of the greatness of a people. The Italian peoples 
 
 GOLDEN roused like a young giant to inhale the breath of the New 
 AGE Thought. With eager desire they leaped forward to grasp 
 
 it. It took but three hundred years completely to exhaust 
 them. The full significance they would not realise. And 
 the New Ambitions of Man, the New Virility, folded its 
 cloak and silently flitted over the northern fastnesses of the 
 Alps, and departed to other peoples. Italy reeled back, a 
 slave under the heels of servile polities ; her literary 
 endeavour a mere feeble and academic scholarship ; her art 
 grown into mere futile imitations of her former greatness. 
 
 THE END OF VOLUME I. 
 
 PrintcH by T. and A. Constable, Printer* to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Preai
 
 
 
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