these moneys, to set his hand to the fitting up of his house, he made
a beginning with his building, but did nothing of much importance.
Indeed, although some persons declare that he had it in mind to spend
largely, according to his position, and to make a commodious dwelling
and one that might have some design, it is nevertheless evident that
what he did, whether this came from his not having the means to spend
or from some other reason, has rather the appearance of a building
erected by an eccentric and solitary creature than of a well-ordered
habitation, for the reason that to the room where he used to sleep and
at times to work, he had to climb by a wooden ladder, which, after he
had gone in, he would draw up with a pulley, to the end that no one
might go up to him without his wish or knowledge. But that which most
displeased other men in him was that he would not work save when and
for whom he pleased, and after his own fancy; wherefore on many
occasions, being sought out by noblemen who desired to have some of
his work, and once in particular by the Magnificent Ottaviano de'
Medici, he would not serve them; and then he would set himself to do
anything in the world for some low and common fellow, at a miserable
price. Thus the mason Rossino, a person of no small ingenuity
considering his calling, by playing the simpleton, received from him
in payment for having paved certain rooms with bricks, and for having
done other mason's work, a most beautiful picture of Our Lady, in
executing which Jacopo toiled and laboured as much as the mason did in
his building. And so well did the good Rossino contrive to manage his
business, that, in addition to the above-named picture, he got from
the hands of Jacopo a most beautiful portrait of Cardinal Giulio de'
Medici, copied from one by the hand of Raffaello, and, into the
bargain, a very beautiful little picture of a Christ Crucified, which,
although the above-mentioned Magnificent Ottaviano bought it from
the mason Rossino as a work by the hand of Jacopo, nevertheless is
known for certain to be by the hand of Bronzino, who executed it all
by himself while he was working with Jacopo at the Certosa, although
it afterwards remained, I know not why, in the possession of Pontormo.
All these three pictures, won by the industry of the mason from the
hands of Jacopo, are now in the house of M. Alessandro de' Medici, the
son of the above-named Ottaviano.
Now, although this procedure of Jacopo's and his living solitary and
after his own fashion were not much commended, that does not mean that
if anyone wished to excuse him he would not be able, for the reason
that for those works that he did we should acknowledge our obligation
to him, and for those that he did not choose to do we should not blame
or censure him. No craftsman is obliged to work save when and for whom
he pleases; and, if he suffered thereby, the loss was his. As for
solitude, I have always heard say that it is the greatest friend of
study; and, even if it were not so, I do not believe that much blame
is due to him who lives in his own fashion without offence to God or
to his neighbour, dwelling and employing his time as best suits his
nature.
But to return, leaving these matters on one side, to the works of
Jacopo: Duke Alessandro had caused to be restored in some parts the
Villa of Careggi, formerly built by the elder Cosimo de' Medici, at a
distance of two miles from Florence, and had carried out the
ornamentation of the fountain and the labyrinth, which wound through
the centre of an open court, into which there opened two loggie, and
his Excellency ordained that those loggie should be painted by Jacopo,
but that company should be given him, to the end that he might finish
them the quicker, and that conversation with others, keeping him
cheerful, might be a means of making him work without straying so much
into vagaries and distilling away his brains. Nay, the Duke himself
sent for Jacopo and besought him that he should strive to deliver that
work completely finished as soon as possible. Jacopo, therefore,
having summoned Bronzino, caused him to paint a figure on each of five
spandrels of the vaulting, these being Fortune, Justice, Victory,
Peace, and Fame; and on the other spandrel, for they are in all six,
Jacopo with his own hand painted a Love. Then, having made the design
for some little boys that were going in the oval space of the
vaulting, with various animals in their hands, and all foreshortened
to be seen from below, he caused them all, with the exception of one,
to be executed in colour by Bronzino, who acquitted himself very well.
And since, while Jacopo and Bronzino were painting these figures, the
ornaments all around were executed by Jacone, Pier Francesco di
Jacopo, and others, the whole of that work was finished in a short
time, to the great satisfaction of the Lord Duke. His Excellency
wished to have the other loggia painted, but he was not in time, for
the reason that the above-named work having been finished on the 13th
of December in the year 1536, on the 6th of the January following that
most illustrious lord was assassinated by his kinsman Lorenzino; and
so this work and others remained without their completion.
The Lord Duke Cosimo having then been elected, and the affair of
Montemurlo having passed off happily, a beginning was made with the
works of Castello, according as has been related in the Life of
Tribolo, and his most illustrious Excellency, in order to gratify
Signora Donna Maria, his mother, ordained that Jacopo should paint the
first loggia, which one finds on the left hand in entering the Palace
of Castello. Whereupon, setting to work, Jacopo first designed all the
ornaments that were to be painted there, and had them executed for the
most part by Bronzino and the masters who had executed those of
Careggi. Then, shutting himself up alone, he proceeded with that work
after his own fancy and wholly at his leisure, studying with all
diligence, to the end that it might be much better than that of
Careggi, which he had not executed entirely with his own hand. This he
was able to do very conveniently, having eight crowns a month for it
from his Excellency, whom he portrayed, young as he was, in the
beginning of that work, and likewise Signora Donna Maria, his mother.
Finally, after that loggia had been closed for five years, no one
being able to have even a glance at what Jacopo had done, one day the
above-named lady became enraged against him, and commanded that the
staging and the screen should be thrown to the ground. But Jacopo,
having begged for grace and having obtained leave to keep it covered
for a few days more, first retouched it where it seemed to him to be
necessary, and then caused a cloth of his own contriving to be made,
which should keep that loggia covered when those lords were not there,
to the end that the weather might not, as it had done at Careggi, eat
away those pictures, which were executed in oils on the dry plaster;
and at last he uncovered it, amid the lively expectation of everyone,
all thinking that in that work Jacopo must have surpassed himself and
done something altogether stupendous. But the effect did not
correspond completely to the expectations, for the reason that,
although many parts of the work are good, the general proportion of
the figures appears very poor in form, and certain distorted attitudes
that are there seem to be wanting in measure and very strange. But
Jacopo excused himself by saying that he had never worked very
willingly in that place, for the reason that, being without the city,
it seemed much exposed to the fury of the soldiery and to other
suchlike dangers; but there was no need for him to be afraid of that,
seeing that time and the weather, from the work having been executed
in the manner already described, are eating it away little by little.
In the centre of the vaulting, then, he painted a Saturn with the Sign
of Capricorn, and a Hermaphrodite Mars in the Sign of the Lion and of
the Virgin, and some little Angels who are flying through the air,
like those of Careggi. He then painted in certain gigantic women,
almost entirely nude, Philosophy, Astrology, Geometry, Music,
Arithmetic, and a Ceres; with some little scenes in medallions,
executed with various tints of colour and appropriate to the figures.
Although this work, so fatiguing and so laboured, did not give much
satisfaction, or, if a certain measure of satisfaction, much less than
was expected, yet his Excellency declared that it pleased him, and
availed himself of Jacopo on every occasion, chiefly because that
painter was held in great veneration by the people on account of the
very good and beautiful works that he had executed in the past.
The Lord Duke then brought to Florence the Flemings, Maestro Giovanni
Rosso and Maestro Niccolo, excellent masters in arras-tapestries, to
the end that the art might be learned and practised by the
Florentines, and he ordained that tapestries in silk and gold should
be executed for the Council Hall of the Two Hundred at a cost of
60,000 crowns, and that Jacopo and Bronzino should make the cartoons
with the stories of Joseph. But, when Jacopo had made two of them, in
one of which is the scene when the death of Joseph is announced to
Jacob and the bloody garments are shown to him, and in the other the
Flight of Joseph from the wife of Potiphar, leaving his garment
behind, they did not please either the Duke or those masters who had
to put them into execution, for they appeared to them to be strange
things and not likely to be successful when executed in woven
tapestries. And so Jacopo did not go on to make any more cartoons, but
returned to his usual labours and painted a picture of Our Lady, which
was presented by the Duke to Signor Don ..., who took it to Spain.
Now his Excellency, following in the footsteps of his ancestors, has
always sought to embellish and adorn his city; and he resolved, the
necessity having come to his notice, to cause to be painted all the
principal chapel of the magnificent Temple of S. Lorenzo, formerly
built by the great Cosimo de' Medici, the elder. Whereupon he gave the
charge of this to Jacopo da Pontormo, either of his own accord, or, as
was said, at the instance of Messer Pier Francesco Ricci, his
major-domo; and Jacopo was very glad of that favour, for the reason
that, although the greatness of the work, he being well advanced in
years, gave him food for thought and perhaps dismayed him, on the
other hand he reflected how, in a work of such magnitude, he had a
fair field to show his ability and worth. Some say that Jacopo,
finding that the work had been allotted to him notwithstanding that
Francesco Salviati, a painter of great fame, was in Florence and had
brought to a happy conclusion the painting of that hall in the Palace
which was once the audience-chamber of the Signoria, must needs
declare that he would show the world how to draw and paint, and how to
work in fresco, and, besides this, that the other painters were but
ordinary hacks, with other words equally insolent and overbearing. But
I myself always knew Jacopo as a modest person, who spoke of everyone
honourably and in a manner proper to an orderly and virtuous
craftsman, such as he was, and I believe that these words were
imputed to him falsely, and that he never let slip from his mouth any
such boastings, which are for the most part the marks of vain men who
presume too much upon their merits, in which manner of men there is no
place for virtue or good breeding. And, although I might have kept
silent about these matters, I have not chosen to do so, because to
proceed as I have done appears to me the office of a faithful and
veracious historian; it is enough that, although these rumours went
around, and particularly among our craftsmen, nevertheless I have a
firm belief that they were the words of malicious persons, Jacopo
having always been in the experience of everyone modest and
well-behaved in his every action.
Having then closed up that chapel with walls, screens of planks, and
curtains, and having given himself over to complete solitude, he kept
it for a period of eleven years so well sealed up, that excepting
himself not a living soul entered it, neither friend nor any other. It
is true, indeed, that certain lads who were drawing in the sacristy of
Michelagnolo, as young men will do, climbed by its spiral staircase on
to the roof of the church, and, removing some tiles and the plank of
one of the gilded rosettes that are there, saw everything. Of which
having heard, Jacopo took it very ill, but took no further notice
beyond closing up everything with greater care; although some say that
he persecuted those young men sorely, and sought to make them regret
it.
Imagining, then, that in this work he would surpass all other
painters, and perchance, so it was said, even Michelagnolo, he painted
in the upper part, in a number of scenes, the Creation of Adam and
Eve, the Eating of the Forbidden Fruit, their Expulsion from Paradise,
the Tilling of the Earth, the Sacrifice of Abel, the Death of Cain,
the Blessing of the Seed of Noah, and the same Noah designing the plan
and the measurements of the Ark. Next, on one of the lower walls, each
of which is fifteen braccia in each direction, he painted the
inundation of the Deluge, in which is a mass of dead and drowned
bodies, and Noah speaking with God. On the other wall is painted the
Universal Resurrection of the Dead, which has to take place on the
last and final day; with such variety and confusion, that the real
resurrection will perhaps not be more confused, or more full of
movement, in a manner of speaking, than Pontormo painted it. Opposite
to the altar and between the windows--that is, on the central
wall--there is on either side a row of nude figures, who, clinging to
each other's bodies with hands and legs, form a ladder wherewith to
ascend to Paradise, rising from the earth, where there are many dead
in company with them, and at the end, on either side, are two dead
bodies clothed with the exception of the legs and also the arms, with
which they are holding two lighted torches. At the top, in the centre
of the wall, above the windows, he painted in the middle Christ on
high in His Majesty, who, surrounded by many Angels all nude, is
raising those dead in order to judge them.
But I have never been able to understand the significance of this
scene, although I know that Jacopo had wit enough for himself, and
also associated with learned and lettered persons; I mean, what he
could have intended to signify in that part where there is Christ on
high, raising the dead, and below His feet is God the Father, who is
creating Adam and Eve. Besides this, in one of the corners, where are
the four Evangelists, nude, with books in their hands, it does not
seem to me that in a single place did he give a thought to any order
of composition, or measurement, or time, or variety in the heads, or
diversity in the flesh-colours, or, in a word, to any rule,
proportion, or law of perspective; for the whole work is full of nude
figures with an order, design, invention, composition, colouring, and
painting contrived after his own fashion, and with such melancholy and
so little satisfaction for him who beholds the work, that I am
determined, since I myself do not understand it, although I am a
painter, to leave all who may see it to form their own judgment, for
the reason that I believe that I would drive myself mad with it and
would bury myself alive, even as it appears to me that Jacopo in the
period of eleven years that he spent upon it sought to bury himself
and all who might see the painting, among all those extraordinary
figures. And although there may be seen in this work some bit of a
torso with the back turned or facing to the front and some attachments
of flanks, executed with marvellous care and great labour by Jacopo,
who made finished models of clay in the round for almost all the
figures, nevertheless the work as a whole is foreign to his manner,
and, as it appears to almost every man, without proportion, the torsi
for the most part being large and the legs and arms small, to say
nothing of the heads, in which there is not a trace to be seen of that
singular excellence and grace that he used to give to them, so greatly
to the satisfaction of those who examine his other pictures. Wherefore
it appears that in this work he paid no attention to anything save
certain parts, and of the other more important parts he took no
account whatever. In a word, whereas he had thought in this work to
surpass all the paintings in the world of art, he failed by a great
measure to equal his own works that he had executed in the past;
whence it is evident that he who seeks to strive beyond his strength
and, as it were, to force nature, ruins the good qualities with which
he may have been liberally endowed by her. But what can we or ought we
to do save have compassion upon him, seeing that the men of our arts
are as much liable to error as others? And the good Homer, so it is
said, even he sometimes nods; nor shall it ever be said that there is
a single work of Jacopo's, however he may have striven to force his
nature, in which there is not something good and worthy of praise.
He died shortly before finishing the work, and some therefore declare
that he died of grief, ending his life very much dissatisfied with
himself; but the truth is that, being old and much exhausted by making
portraits and models in clay and labouring so much in fresco, he sank
into a dropsy, which finally killed him at the age of sixty-five.
After his death there were found in his house many designs, cartoons,
and models in clay, all very beautiful, and a picture of Our Lady
executed by him excellently well and in a lovely manner, to all
appearance many years before, which was sold by his heirs to Piero
Salviati. Jacopo was buried in the first cloister of the Church of the
Servite Friars, beneath the scene of the Visitation that he had
formerly painted there; and he was followed to the grave by an
honourable company of the painters, sculptors, and architects.
Jacopo was a frugal and sober man, and in his dress and manner of life
he was rather miserly than moderate; and he lived almost always by
himself, without desiring that anyone should serve him or cook for
him. In his last years, indeed, he kept in his house, as it were to
bring him up, Battista Naldini, a young man of fine spirit, who took
such care of Jacopo's life as Jacopo would allow him to take; and
under his master's discipline he made no little proficiency in design,
and became such, indeed, that a very happy result is looked for from
him. Among Pontormo's friends, particularly in this last period of his
life, were Pier Francesco Vernacci and Don Vincenzio Borghini, with
whom he took his recreation, sometimes eating with them, but rarely.
But above all others, and always supremely beloved by him, was
Bronzino, who loved him as dearly, being grateful and thankful for the
benefits that he had received from him.
Pontormo had very beautiful manners, and he was so afraid of death,
that he would not even hear it spoken of, and avoided having to meet
dead bodies. He never went to festivals or to any other places where
people gathered together, so as not to be caught in the press; and he
was solitary beyond all belief. At times, going out to work, he set
himself to think so profoundly on what he was to do, that he went away
without having done any other thing all day but stand thinking. And
that this happened to him times without number in the work of S.
Lorenzo may readily be believed, for the reason that when he was
determined, like an able and well-practised craftsman, he had no
difficulty in doing what he desired and had resolved to put into
execution.
SIMONE MOSCA
LIFE OF SIMONE MOSCA
SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT
From the times of the ancient Greek and Roman sculptors to our own, no
modern carver has equalled the beautiful and difficult works that they
executed in their bases, capitals, friezes, cornices, festoons,
trophies, masks, candelabra, birds, grotesques, or other carved
cornice-work, save only Simone Mosca of Settignano, who in our own
days has worked in such a manner in those kinds of labour, that he has
made it evident by his genius and art that all the diligence and study
of the modern carvers who had come before him had not enabled them up
to that time to imitate the best work of those ancients or to adopt
the good method in their carvings, for the reason that their works
incline to dryness, and the turn of their foliage to spikiness and
crudeness. He, on the other hand, has executed foliage with great
boldness, rich and abundant in new curves, the leaves being carved in
various manners with beautiful indentations and with the most lovely
flowers, seeds and creepers that there are to be seen, not to speak of
the birds that he has contrived to carve so gracefully in various
forms among his foliage and festoons, insomuch that it may be affirmed
that Simone alone--be it said without offence to the others--has been
able to remove from the marble that hardness which craftsmen are wont
very often to leave in their sculptures, and has brought his works by
his handling of the chisel to such a point that they have the
appearance of things real to the touch, and the same may be said of
the cornices and other suchlike labours, executed by him with most
beautiful grace and judgment.
This Simone, having given his attention to design in his childhood
with much profit, and having then become well-practised in carving,
was taken by Maestro Antonio da San Gallo, who recognized his genius
and noble spirit, to Rome, where he caused him to execute, as his
first works, some capitals and bases and several friezes of foliage
for the Church of S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini, and some works for the
Palace of Alessandro, the first Cardinal Farnese. Simone meanwhile
devoting himself, particularly on feast-days, and whenever he could
snatch the time, to drawing the antiquities of that city, no long time
passed before he was drawing and tracing ground-plans with more grace
and neatness than did Antonio himself, insomuch that, having applied
himself heart and soul to the study of designing foliage in the
ancient manner, of giving a bold turn to the leaves, and of
perforating his works in such a way as to make them perfect, taking
the best from the best examples, one thing from one and one from
another, in a few years he formed a manner of composition so beautiful
and so catholic, that afterwards he did everything well, whether in
company or by himself. This may be seen in some coats of arms that
were to be placed in the above-named Church of S. Giovanni in the
Strada Giulia; in one of which coats of arms, making a great lily, the
ancient emblem of the Commune of Florence, he carved upon it some
curves of foliage with creepers and seeds executed so well that they
made everyone gasp with wonder. Nor had any long time passed when
Antonio da San Gallo--who was directing for Messer Agnolo Cesis the
execution of the marble ornaments of a chapel and tomb for himself and
his family, which were afterwards erected in the year 1550 in the
Church of S. Maria della Pace--caused part of certain pilasters and
socles covered with friezes, which were going into that work, to be
wrought by Simone, who executed them so well and with such beauty,
that they make themselves known among the others, without my saying
which they are, by their grace and perfection; nor is it possible to
see any altars for the offering of sacrifices after the ancient use
more beautiful and fanciful than those that he made on the base of
that work. Afterwards the same San Gallo, who was superintending the
execution of the mouth of the well in the cloister of S. Pietro in
Vincula, caused Mosca to make the borders with some large masks of
great beauty.