The History of Painting in Italy. Luigi Lanzi

in 1537.

      Don Bartolommeo della Gatta executed none of his own designs in the Sistine Chapel; he lent assistance to Signorelli and to Perugino. He had been educated in the monastery of the Angeli, at Florence, rather as a painter of miniatures than of history. On being appointed Abbot of S. Clement, in Arezzo, he exercised both; and was also skilled in music and in architecture. There is of his works only a S. Jerome, executed in the chapel of the cathedral, as we find from a MS. guide to the city, and which was transferred into the sacristy in 1794. The abbot instructed Domenico Pecori and Matteo Lappoli, two gentlemen of Arezzo, who improved themselves in the art on other models, especially the first, as is evident from a picture in the parish church, in which the Virgin receives under her mantle the people of Arezzo, who are recommended to her protection by their patron saints. In it are heads in the style of Francia, good architecture, judicious composition, and a moderate use of gold.

Two miniature painters, according to Vasari, learned much from the precepts, or rather from the example of the abbot. These were Girolamo, also named by Ridolfi, as a pupil of the Paduan school, at the same time with Lancilao; and Vante, or as he subscribed himself, Attavante Fiorentino. Two of his letters are inserted in the third volume of the Lettere Pittoriche; and it may be collected from Vasari and Tiraboschi,[82] that Vante ornamented with miniatures many books for Matthias, king of Hungary, which afterwards remained in the Medicean and Estensean libraries. The learned Sig. Ab. Morelli, who has the direction of the library of S. Mark at Venice, shewed me one in that place. It is a work of Marziano Capella, where the subject is poetically expressed by the painter. The assembly of the Gods, the emblems of the arts and sciences, the grotesque ornaments here and there set off with little portraits, discover in Vante a genius that admirably seconded the ideas of the author. The design resembles the best works of Botticelli; the colouring is gay, lively, and brilliant; the excellence of the work ought to confer on the artist greater celebrity than he enjoys. In the life of D. Bartolommeo, Vasari, or his printers, have confounded Attavante with Gherardo, the miniature painter, who at the same time was a worker in mosaic, an engraver in the style of Albert Durer, and a painter; of him there are some remains in each of these arts; but they were certainly different individuals, as is demonstrated by Sig. Piacenza.

Having a little before named Pietro Perugino, who long taught in Tuscany, we may here mention the pupils who retained his manner. These were Rocco Zoppo, whose Madonnas remain in many private houses in Florence, I believe, to this day, and are in the manner of Pietro; Baccio Ubertini, a great colourist, and on that account willingly adopted as an assistant of his master; Francesco, the brother of Baccio, surnamed Bacchiacca, known at S. Lorenzo by the martyrdom of S. Arcadius, executed in small figures, in which, as well as in the grotesque, he was very eminent, and nearly approached the modern style. To these artists who lived in Florence, their native country, we may add Niccolo Soggi, likewise a Florentine, but who, to shun the concourse of more able painters, fixed his residence in Arezzo, where he had sufficient employment. His accuracy, his studious habits, and his high finish, may be there contemplated in the Christ in the Manger, in the church of Madonna delle Lagrime, and in many other places in the city and its environs. It would have been fortunate had he possessed more genius, but this gift of nature, which, to use the words of a poet,[83] confers immortality on books, and I would add pictures, was not granted to Soggi. Vasari has given this character of a diligent, but meagre, and frigid painter, also to Gerino da Pistoia, in which place one of his pictures, now in the royal gallery, was painted for the monks of S. Pier Maggiore; several others are in the city of S. Sepulcro, and some even in Rome, where he assisted Pinturicchio. With the two preceding, I class Montevarchi, a painter so named from his own country, beyond which he is almost unknown. Among these artists, though they were scholars of Pietro, we find imitators of the Florentines of the fourteenth century. I omit the name of Bastiano da S. Gallo, who continued with him only a short time, and left him on account of the aversion he had conceived to the dryness of his style. In the Florentine history, by Varchi (book 10), we find mention of a Vittorio di Buonaccorso Ghiberti, who on occasion of the siege of Florence by the family of the Medici, in 1529, painted the figure of the Pontiff, Clement VII. on the façade of the principal chamber of the Medici, in the last act of hanging from the gallows. But neither of this, nor of any other production from so infamous a hand, do there remain any traces in Florence, at least that I have been able to discover, from which to judge either of the manner or the master of Vittorio.

      I close the catalogue of old Tuscan painters with an illustrious native of Lucca, named the elder Zacchia, who was educated at Florence, though not invariably adhering to the taste of that ancient school, either in design, which was his chief excellence, or in an outline somewhat harsh and cutting, which was his greatest defect. He obtained the name of the elder, to distinguish him from another Zacchia, who, on the other hand, shewed more softness of contour, and more strength of colouring, but in design, and in every other respect, was held in less estimation. I know only of one picture by the latter artist, which is in the chapel of the Magistrates; but several altar-pieces by the former, are to be seen in the churches of Lucca, and among them an Assumption in that of S. Augustine; a picture displaying much study and elegance, and among his last works, as I am led to believe by its bearing the date 1527. One of his Madonnas, surrounded by saints, formerly in the parish church of S. Stefano, is now in the house of Sig. March. Jacopo Sardini, which is enriched by other paintings, by a valuable collection of drawings, and still more by the presence of its learned possessor, to whom I am indebted for many notices interspersed throughout this work.

      Such was the state of the art in Tuscany, about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Much was then attained, because nature began to be imitated, especially in the heads, to which the artists imparted a vivacity, that even at this day is surprising. On viewing the figures and portraits of those times, they actually appear to look at, and to desire to enter into conversation with the beholder. It still remained, however, to give ideal beauty to the figure, fulness to design, and harmony to colouring, a true method to aerial perspective, variety to composition, and freedom to the pencil, which on the whole was still timid. Every circumstance conspired to this melioration of the art in Florence as well as in other places. The taste for magnificent edifices had revived throughout Italy. Many of the finest churches, many public edifices, and ducal palaces, which still remain at Milan, Mantua, and Venice, in Urbino, Rimini, Pesaro, and Ferrara, were executed about this period; not to mention those buildings in Florence and in Rome, where magnificence contended with elegance. It became necessary to ornament them, and this produced that noble emulation among artists, that grand fermentation of ideas, which invariably advances the progress of art. The study of poetry, so analogous to that of painting, had increased to a degree which conferred on the whole age the epithet of Golden; a name which it certainly did not merit on the score of more severe studies. The design of the artists of that period, though something dry, was yet pure and correct, and afforded the best instruction to the succeeding age. It is very justly observed, that scholars can more easily give a certain fulness to the meagre outline of their models, than curtail the superfluity of a heavy contour. On this account, some professors of the art are inclined to believe, that it would be much more advantageous to habituate students in the beginning, to the precision characteristic of the fifteenth century, than to the exuberance introduced in after-times. Such circumstances produced the happiest era that distinguishes the annals of painting. The schools of Italy, owing to mutual imitation, before that period strongly resembled each other; but having then attained maturity, each began to display a marked and peculiar character.

      That of the Florentine school I shall describe in the next Epoch; but I first propose to treat of several other arts analogous to that of painting, and in particular of engraving upon copper, the discovery of which is ascribed to Florence. To this the art is indebted for an accession of new aids; the work of an artist, before confined to a single spot, was diffused through the world, and gratified the eyes of thousands.

[61] "The number of artists of whom, by consulting old authors, I can collect nothing more than the time they lived, their name and occupation, and their death, (I speak of those who lived about the year 1300,) amounts in the city of Florence alone