The History of Painting in Italy. Luigi Lanzi

his scholar; a man less known in his own country than at Florence, where he executed a picture, seen on the gate of San Giorgio (See Moreni, lib. v. p. 5.); as was also Parri, the son of Spinello, who modernised his style somewhat on the manner of Masolino. The latter excelled in the art of colouring, but he was barbarous in the drawing of his figures, which he made extravagantly long and bending, in order, as he was used to say, to give them greater spirit. One may see some remains of them at Arezzo in S. Domenico, and other places. Lorenzo di Bicci of Florence, another scholar of Spinello, was the Vasari of his time, for the multiplicity, celerity, and easy self-complacency, shewn in his labours. The first cloister of the church of S. Croce retains several specimens, consisting of the legends of S. Francis; and there is an Assumption on the front, in which he was assisted by Donatello, while still a young man. Perhaps his best work is the fresco, ornamenting the sanctuary of S. Maria Nuova, built by Martin V. about the year 1418. His son Neri is reckoned among the last followers of Giotto. He lived but a short time; he left, in S. Romolo, a picture which would not have disgraced his father, and which is certainly more carefully executed than was usual with the latter.

During the fourteenth century, sculpture was cultivated at Pisa by as many artists as painting was at Florence; but Pisa was not on that account destitute of painters worthy of being recorded. Vasari mentions one Vicino, who finished the mosaic begun by Turrita, assisted by Tafi and Gaddi, and adds, that he was also a painter. Sig. da Morrona says, that he retained the old style of his school; which was the case with many others, as appears from several old Madonnas upon panels, both of anonymous and of ascertained painters. Of this sort is that in the old church of Tripalle, and that at S. Matthew's in Pisa. On the first is this inscription, Nerus Nellus de Pisa me pinxit, 1299: on the second we read, Jacopo di Nicola dipintore detto Gera mi dipinse. The mode of expression is derived from the μ'εποιησε of the Greeks; to which the old Pisans closely adhered in their paintings, their sculptures, and their bronzes.[67] Like the other Italians they at length reformed their style, and there, as well as at Florence and Siena, families of painters arose, in which the fathers were excelled by their sons, and they by their children. Thus, from Vanni, who flourished in 1300, sprung Turino di Vanni, who flourished about 1343, and Nello di Vanni, who painted in the Campo Santo, whose son Bernardo was the disciple of Orcagna, and furnished many pictures for the palace of the primate. There was also in that city one Andrea di Lippo, who is noticed in the Academical Discourse on the literary history of Pisa, in the year 1336; the same, I believe, with that Andrea da Pisa, mentioned among the artists that ornamented the cathedral of Orvieto in 1346. A work by one Giovanni di Niccolo remains in the monastery of S. Martha, and, perhaps, he painted the fine trittico of the Zelada museum at Rome, which represents our Saviour with S. Stephen, S. Agatha, and other saints, and which has this inscription, Jo. de Pisis pinxit. This is a picture of great labour, by some ascribed to Gio. Balducci; which, if it was ascertained, would confer honour on that great man, as a professor of the three sister arts. Towards the end of the century the power of the Pisans declined, rather from civil discord than from other misfortunes; till at length the city fell into the hands of the Florentines in 1406, and lay for a long time prostrate and humbled, deprived, not only of her artists, but almost of her citizens; and fully glutted the ancient hatred of her hostile neighbours. She at length rose again, not, indeed, to command, but to more dignified subjection.

      The spirit of the Florentines in the mean time increasing with their power, they became chiefly solicitous to suit the magnificence of their capital to the grandeur of the state. Cosmo, at once the father of his country and of men of genius, gave stability to public affairs. Lorenzo the Magnificent, and others of the house of Medici, followed, whose hereditary taste for literature and the fine arts is celebrated in a multitude of books, and most copiously in the histories written by three eminent authors, Monsignor Fabroni, the Signor Ab. Galluzzi, and Mr. Roscoe. Their house was at once a lyceum for philosophers, an arcadia for poets, and an academy for artists. Dello, Paolo, Masaccio, the two Peselli, both the Lippi, Benozzo, Sandro, the Ghirlandai, enjoyed the perpetual patronage of this family, and as constantly rendered it whatever honour they could bestow. Their pictures are full of portraits, according to the custom of the times, and continually presented to the people the likenesses of the Medici, and often represented them with regal ornaments in their pictures of the Epiphany, as if gradually to prepare the people to behold the sceptre and royal robe securely established in that house. The good taste of the Medici was seconded by that of other citizens, who were then distributed into various corporations, according to their place of residence and profession, each of which strove with reciprocal emulation to decorate their houses and their churches. Besides the desire of public ornament, they were animated by religion, which, in what relates to divine worship, is so widely spread, not only among the great, but also among the lower orders of people, that those have a difficulty in believing who have not beheld it. Their cathedral, a vast fabric, was already reared for the ceremonies of religion, and here and there some other churches arose; these and the more ancient, in emulation of each other, they adorned with paintings, a luxury unknown to their ancestors, and less common in the other cities of Italy. This disposition gave rise, after the conclusion of the century, to that prodigious number of painters already mentioned; and hence sprang, in the century we now treat of, that crowd of artists in marble, bronze, and silver, who transferred pre-eminence in sculpture, the ancient inheritance of the Pisans, to the people of Florence. The Florentines were desirous of ornamenting the new cathedral and baptistery, the church of Orsanmichele, and other sacred places, with statues and basso-relievos. These brought forward Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Filarete, Rossellini, Pollajuoli, and Verrocchio, and produced those noble works in marble, in bronze, and in silver, which sometimes appear to have attained the perfection of the art, and to have rivalled the ancients. The rising generation was instructed in design by those celebrated men, and the universality of the principles they taught, made the transition from one art to another easy. The same individuals were often statuaries, founders in bronze, in gold, lapidaries, painters, or architects, talents that appear enviable to this age, in which an artist with difficulty acquires a competent knowledge in a single art. Such was the course of instruction at Florence in the Studies, and such the subsequent encouragement without, from which it will not appear wonderful to the reader that this city was the foremost to attain the perfection of the art. But let us trace the steps by which it advanced in Florence, and in the rest of Italy.

The followers of Giotto had now carried painting beyond the period of its infancy, but it continued to give proofs of its infant faculties, especially in chiaroscuro, and still more in perspective. Figures sometimes appeared as if falling or slipping from the canvass; buildings had not a true point of view; and the art of foreshortening was yet very rude. Stefano Fiorentino perceived rather than removed the difficulty; others for the most part sought either to avoid or to compensate for the deficiency. Pietro della Francesca, whom we have elsewhere noticed, appears to have been the first who revived the Grecian practice of rendering geometry subservient to the painter. He is celebrated by Pascoli,[68] and by authors of greater note, as the father of perspective. Brunelleschi was the first Florentine who saw the method of bringing it to perfection, "which consisted in drawing it in outline by the help of intersections;"[69] and in this manner he drew the square of St. John, and other places, with true diminution and with receding points. He was imitated in mosaic by Benedetto da Maiano, and in painting by Masaccio, to both of whom he was master. About the same period Paolo Uccello, having studied under Gio. Manetti, a celebrated mathematician, applied to it with assiduity; and even so dedicated himself to the pursuit, that in labouring to excel in this, he never acquired celebrity in the other branches of painting. He delighted in it far beyond his other studies, and used to say that perspective was the most pleasant of all; so true is it that novelty is a great source of enjoyment. He executed no work that did not reflect some new light on that art, whether it consisted of edifices and colonnades, in which a great space was represented in a small compass, or of figures foreshortened with a skill unknown to the followers of Giotto. Some of his historic pictures of Adam, and of Noah, in which he indulged in his favourite taste for the novel and whimsical, remain in the cloisters of S. Maria Novella; and there are also landscapes with trees and animals so well executed,