he refused, always praying that they should increase his kinsmen's
salaries instead of his own. In short, Michele was in his every action
so gentle, courteous, and loving, that he made himself rightly beloved
by innumerable lords; by Cardinal de' Medici, who became Pope Clement
VII, while he was in Rome; by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who became
Paul III; by the divine Michelagnolo Buonarroti; by Signor Francesco
Maria, Duke of Urbino; and by a vast number of noblemen and senators
of Venice. At Verona he was much the friend of Fra Marco de' Medici, a
man of great learning and infinite goodness, and of many others of
whom there is no need at present to make mention.
Now, in order not to have to turn back in a short time to speak of the
Veronese, taking the opportunity presented by the masters mentioned
above, I shall make mention in this place of some painters from that
country, who are still alive and worthy to be named, and by no means
to be passed over in silence. The first of these is Domenico del
Riccio, who has painted in fresco, mostly in chiaroscuro and partly in
colour, three facades of the house of Fiorio della Seta at Verona, on
the Ponte Nuovo--that is, the three that do not look out upon the
bridge, the house standing by itself. In one, over the river, are
battles of sea-monsters, in another the battles of the Centaurs and
many rivers, and in the third two pictures in colour. In the first of
these, which is over the door, is the Table of the Gods, and in the
other, over the river, is the fable of the nuptials between the
Benacus, called the Lake of Garda, and the Nymph Caris, in the person
of Garda, from whom is born the River Mincio, which in fact issues
from that lake. In the same house is a large frieze wherein are some
Triumphs in colour, executed in a beautiful and masterly manner. In
the house of Messer Pellegrino Ridolfi, also at Verona, the same
master painted the Coronation of the Emperor Charles V, and the scene
when, after being crowned in Bologna, he rides with the Pope through
the city in great pomp. In oils he has painted the principal
altar-piece of the church that the Duke of Mantua has built recently
near the Castello, in which is the Beheading and Martyrdom of S.
Barbara, painted with much diligence and judgment. And what moved the
Duke to have that altar-piece executed by Domenico was his having seen
and much liked his manner in an altar-piece that Domenico had painted
long before for the Chapel of S. Margherita in the Duomo of Mantua, in
competition with Paolino,[11] who painted that of S. Antonio, with
Paolo Farinato, who executed that of S. Martino, and with Battista del
Moro, who painted that of the Magdalene; all which four Veronese had
been summoned thither by Cardinal Ercole of Mantua, in order to adorn
that church, which had been reconstructed by him after the design of
Giulio Romano. Other works has Domenico executed in Verona, Vicenza,
and Venice, but it must suffice to have spoken of those named. He is
an honest and excellent craftsman, and, in addition to his painting,
he is a very fine musician, and one of the first in the most noble
Philharmonic Academy of Verona.
[Footnote 11: Paolo Caliari or Veronese.]
Not inferior to him will be his son Felice, who, although still young,
has proved himself a painter out of the ordinary in an altar-piece
that he has executed for the Church of the Trinita, in which are the
Madonna and six other Saints, all of the size of life. Nor is this any
marvel, for the young man learned his art in Florence, living in the
house of Bernardo Canigiani, a Florentine gentleman and a crony of his
father Domenico.
In the same Verona, also, lives Bernardino, called L'India, who,
besides many other works, has painted the Fable of Psyche in most
beautiful figures on the ceiling of a chamber in the house of Count
Marc'Antonio del Tiene. And he has painted another chamber, with
beautiful inventions and a lovely manner of painting, for Count
Girolamo of Canossa.
A much extolled painter, also, is Eliodoro Forbicini, a young man of
most beautiful genius and of considerable skill in every manner of
painting, but particularly in making grotesques, as may be seen in the
two chambers mentioned above and in other places where he has worked.
In like manner Battista da Verona, who is called thus, and not
otherwise, out of his own country, after having learned the first
rudiments of painting from an uncle at Verona, placed himself with the
excellent Tiziano in Venice, under whom he has become a very good
painter. When a young man, this Battista painted in company with
Paolino a hall in the Palace of the Paymaster and Assessor Portesco at
Tiene in the territory of Vicenza; where they executed a vast number
of figures, which acquired credit and repute for both the one and the
other. With the same Paolino he executed many works in fresco in the
Palace of the Soranza at Castelfranco, both having been sent to work
there by Michele San Michele, who loved them as his sons. And with
him, also, he painted the facade of the house of M. Antonio Cappello,
which is on the Grand Canal in Venice; and then, still together, they
painted the ceiling, or rather, soffit in the Hall of the Council of
Ten, dividing the pictures between them. Not long afterwards, having
been summoned to Vicenza, Battista executed many works there, both
within and around the city; and recently he has painted the facade of
the Monte della Pieta, wherein he has executed an infinite number of
nude figures in various attitudes, larger than life, with very good
design, and all in so few months, that it has been a marvel. And if he
has done so much at so early an age (for he is not yet past thirty),
everyone may imagine what may be expected of him in the course of his
life.
A Veronese, likewise, is one Paolino, a painter who is in very good
repute in Venice at the present day, in that, although he is not yet
more than thirty years of age, he has executed many works worthy of
praise. This master, who was born at Verona to a stone-cutter, or, as
they say in those parts, a stone-hewer, after having learned the
rudiments of painting from Giovanni Caroto of Verona, painted in
fresco, in company with the above-named Battista, the hall of the
Paymaster and Assessor Portesco at Tiene, in the Vicentino; and
afterwards at the Soranza, with the same companion, many works
executed with good design and judgment and a beautiful manner. At
Masiera, near Asolo in the Trevisano, he has painted the very
beautiful house of Signor Daniello Barbaro, Patriarch-elect of
Aquileia. At Verona, for the Refectory of S. Nazzaro, a monastery of
Black Friars, he has painted in a large picture on canvas the supper
that Simon the Leper gave to Our Lord, when the woman of sin threw
herself at His feet, with many figures, portraits from life, and very
rare perspective-views; and under the table are two dogs so beautiful
that they appear real and alive, and further away certain cripples
executed excellently well.
[Illustration: THE FEAST IN THE HOUSE OF LEVI
(_After the painting by =Paolo Veronese [Paolino _or_ Caliari]=. Venice:
Accademia, 203_)
_Anderson_]
By the hand of Paolino, in the Hall of the Council of Ten at Venice,
in an oval that is larger than certain others that are there, placed,
as the principal one, in the centre of the ceiling, is a Jove who is
driving away the Vices, in order to signify that that supreme and
absolute tribunal drives away vice and chastises wicked and vicious
men. The same master painted the soffit, or rather, ceiling of the
Church of S. Sebastiano, which is a very rare work, and the
altar-piece of the principal chapel, together with some pictures that
serve to adorn it, and likewise the doors of the organ; which are all
pictures truly worthy of the highest praise. In the Hall of the Grand
Council he painted a large picture of Frederick Barbarossa presenting
himself to the Pope, with a good number of figures varied in their
costumes and vestments, all most beautiful and representing worthily
the Court of a Pope and an Emperor, and also a Venetian Senate, with
many noblemen and Senators of that Republic, portrayed from life. In
short, this work is such in its grandeur and design, and in the beauty
and variety of the attitudes, that it is rightly extolled by everyone.
After this scene, Paolino painted the ceilings of certain chambers,
which are used by that Council of Ten, with figures in oils, which are
much foreshortened and very rare.
In like manner, he painted in fresco the facade of the house of a
merchant, which was a very beautiful work, on the road from S.
Maurizio to S. Moise; but the wind from the sea is little by little
destroying it. For Camillo Trevisani, at Murano, he painted a loggia
and an apartment in fresco, which were much extolled. And in S.
Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, at the head of a large apartment, he
painted in oils the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, which was a
marvellous work for its grandeur, the number of figures, the variety
of costumes, and the invention; and, if I remember right, there are to
be seen in it more than one hundred and fifty heads, all varied and
executed with great diligence.
The same Paolino was commissioned by the Procurators of S. Mark to
paint certain angular medallions that are in the ceiling of the Nicene
Library, which was left to the Signoria by Cardinal Bessarion, with a
vast treasure of Greek books. Now the above-named lords, when they had
the painting of that library begun, promised a prize of honour, in
addition to the ordinary payment, to him who should acquit himself
best in painting it; and the pictures were divided among the best
painters that there were at that time in Venice. When the work was
finished and the pictures painted had been very well considered, a
chain of gold was placed round the neck of Paolino, he being the man
who was judged to have done better than all the others. The picture
that gave him the victory and the prize of honour was that wherein he
painted Music, in which are depicted three very beautiful young women,
one of whom, the most beautiful, is playing a great bass-viol, looking
down at the fingerboard of the instrument, the attitude of her person
showing that her ear and her voice are fixed intently on the sound;
and of the other two, one is playing a lute, and the other singing
from a book. Near these women is a Cupid without wings, who is playing
a harpsichord, signifying that Love is born from Music, or rather,
that Love is always in company with Music; and, because he never parts
from her, Paolino made him without wings. In the same picture he
painted Pan, the God, according to the poets, of shepherds, with
certain pipes made of the bark of trees, as it were consecrated to him
as votive offerings by shepherds who have been victorious in playing
them. Two other pictures Paolino painted in the same place; in one is
Arithmetic, with certain Philosophers dressed in the ancient manner,
and in the other is Honour, seated on a throne, to whom sacrifices are
being offered and royal crowns presented. But, seeing that this young
man is at this very moment at the height of his activity and not yet
in his thirty-second year, I shall say nothing more of him for the
present.
[Illustration: VENICE ENTHRONED, WITH JUSTICE AND PEACE
(_After the painting by =Paolo Veronese [Paolino _or_ Caliari]=. Venice:
Ducal Palace_)
_Anderson_]
Likewise a Veronese is Paolo Farinato, an able painter, who, after
having been a disciple of Niccolo Ursino,[12] has executed many works
at Verona. The most important are a hall in the house of the
Fumanelli, which he filled with various scenes in fresco-colours at
the desire of Messer Antonio, a gentleman of that family, most famous
as physician over all Europe, and two very large pictures in the
principal chapel of S. Maria in Organo. In one of these is the story
of the Innocents, and in the other is the scene when the Emperor
Constantine causes a number of children to be brought before him,
intending to kill them and to bathe in their blood, in order to cure
himself of his leprosy. Then in the recess of that chapel are two
pictures, large, but smaller than the others, in one of which is
Christ receiving S. Peter, who is walking towards Him on the water,
and in the other the dinner that S. Gregory gives to certain poor men.
In all these works, which are much to be extolled, is a vast number
of figures, executed with good design, study, and diligence. By the
hand of the same master is an altar-picture of S. Martino that was
placed in the Duomo of Mantua, which he executed in competition with
others his compatriots, as has just been related.
[Footnote 12: Giolfino.]
And let this be the end of the Lives of the excellent Michele San
Michele and of those other able men of Verona, so truly worthy of all
praise on account of their excellence in the arts and their great
talents.
GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI, CALLED IL SODOMA
[Illustration: GIOVANNI ANTONIO (IL SODOMA): THE VISION OF S.
CATHARINE
(_Siena: S. Domenico. Fresco_)]
LIFE OF GIOVANNI ANTONIO BAZZI, CALLED IL SODOMA
PAINTER OF VERCELLI
If men were to recognize their position when Fortune presents to them
the opportunity to become rich, obtaining for them the favour of great
persons, and were to exert themselves in their youth to make their
merit equal to their good fortune, marvellous results would be seen to
issue from their actions; whereas very often the contrary is seen to
happen, for the reason that, even as it is true that he who trusts
only in Fortune generally finds himself deceived, so it is very clear,
as experience teaches us every day, that merit alone, likewise, if not
accompanied by Fortune, does not do great things. If Giovanni Antonio
of Vercelli, even as he had good fortune, had possessed an equal dower
of merit, as he could have done if he had studied, he would not have
been reduced to madness and miserable want in old age at the end of
his life, which was always eccentric and beastly.
Now Giovanni Antonio was taken to Siena by some merchants, agents of
the Spannocchi family, and his good fortune, or perhaps his bad
fortune, would have it that, not finding any competition for a time in
that city, he should work there alone; which, although it was some
advantage to him, was in the end injurious, for the reason that he
went to sleep, as it were, and never studied, but did most of his work
by rule of thumb. And, if he did study a little, it was only in
drawing the works of Jacopo della Fonte, which were much esteemed, and
in little else. In the beginning he executed many portraits from life
with that glowing manner of colouring which he had brought from
Lombardy, and he thus made many friendships in Siena, more because
that people is very kindly disposed towards strangers than because he
was a good painter; and, besides this, he was a gay and licentious
man, keeping others entertained and amused with his manner of living,
which was far from creditable. In which life, since he always had
about him boys and beardless youths, whom he loved more than was
decent, he acquired the by-name of Sodoma; and in this name, far from
taking umbrage or offence, he used to glory, writing about it songs
and verses in terza rima, and singing them to the lute with no little
facility. He delighted, in addition, to have about the house many
kinds of extraordinary animals; badgers, squirrels, apes, marmosets,
dwarf asses, horses, barbs for running races, little horses from Elba,
jays, dwarf fowls, Indian turtle-doves, and other suchlike animals, as
many as he could lay his hands on. But, besides all these beasts, he
had a raven, which had learned from him to speak so well, that in some
things it imitated exactly the voice of Giovanni Antonio, and
particularly in answering to anyone who knocked at the door, doing
this so excellently that it seemed like Giovanni Antonio himself, as
all the people of Siena know very well. In like manner, the other
animals were so tame that they always flocked round anybody in the
house, playing the strangest pranks and the maddest tricks in the
world, insomuch that the man's house looked like a real Noah's Ark.
[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE LIFE OF S. BENEDICT
(_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Monte
Oliveto Maggiore_)
_Alinari_]
Now this manner of living and his eccentric ways, with his works and
pictures, wherein he did indeed achieve something of the good, caused
him to have such a name among the people of Siena--that is, among the
populace and the common herd, for the people of quality knew him
better--that he was held by many to be a great man. Whereupon, Fra
Domenico da Lecco, a Lombard, having been made General of the Monks of
Monte Oliveto, Sodoma went to visit him at Monte Oliveto di Chiusuri,
the principal seat of that Order, distant fifteen miles from Siena;
and he so contrived with his persuasive words, that he was
commissioned to finish the stories of the life of S. Benedict, part of
which had been executed on a wall by Luca Signorelli of Cortona. This
work he finished for a small enough price, besides the expenses that
he incurred, and those of certain lads and colour-grinders who
assisted him; nor would it be possible to describe the amusement
that he gave while he was labouring at that place to those fathers,
who called him Il Mattaccio,[13] in the mad pranks that he played.
[Footnote 13: Madcap or buffoon.]
[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE LIFE OF S. BENEDICT
(_After the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=. Monte
Oliveto Maggiore_)
_Alinari_]
But to return to the work. Having executed there certain scenes, which
he hurried over mechanically and without diligence, and the General
complaining of this, Mattaccio said that he worked as he felt
inclined, and that his brush danced to the tune of money, so that, if
the General consented to spend more, he was confident that he could do
much better. The General having therefore promised that he would pay
him better for the future, Giovanni Antonio painted three scenes,
which still remained to be executed in the corners, with so much more
study and diligence than he had shown in the others, that they proved
to be much finer. In one of these is S. Benedict departing from Norcia
and from his father and mother, in order to go to study in Rome; in
the second, S. Mauro and S. Placido as children, presented to him and
offered to God by their fathers; and in the third, the Goths burning
Monte Cassino. For the last, in order to do despite to the General and
the Monks, he painted the story of the priest Fiorenzo, the enemy of
S. Benedict, bringing many loose women to dance and sing around the
monastery of that holy man, in order to tempt the purity of those
fathers. In this scene Sodoma, who was as shameless in his painting as
in his other actions, painted a dance of nude women, altogether lewd
and shameful; and, since he would not have been allowed to do it, as
long as he was at work he would never let any of the monks see it.
Wherefore, when the scene was uncovered, the General wished by hook or
by crook to throw it to the ground and utterly destroy it; but
Mattaccio, after much foolish talk, seeing that father in anger,
clothed all the naked women in that work, which is one of the best
that are there. Under each of these scenes he painted two medallions,
and in each medallion a friar, to represent all the Generals who had
ruled that congregation. And, since he had not their portraits from
life, Mattaccio did most of the heads from fancy, and in some he
portrayed old friars who were in the monastery at that time, and in
the end he came to paint the head of the above-named Fra Domenico da
Lecco, who was their General in those days, as has been related, and
was causing him to execute that work. But, after some of those heads
had lost the eyes, and others had been damaged, Fra Antonio
Bentivogli, the Bolognese, caused them all to be removed, for good
reasons.
Now, while Mattaccio was executing these scenes, there had gone
thither, to assume the habit of a monk, a Milanese nobleman, who had a
yellow cloak trimmed with black cords, such as was worn at that time;
and, after he had put on the monk's habit, the General gave that cloak
to Mattaccio, who, by means of a mirror, painted a portrait of himself
with it on his back in one of the scenes, wherein S. Benedict, still
almost a child, miraculously puts together and mends the corn-measure,
or rather, tub, of his nurse, which she had broken. At the feet of the
portrait he painted a raven, an ape, and others of his animals. This
work finished, he painted the story of the five loaves and two fishes,
with other figures, in the Refectory of the Monastery of S. Anna, a
seat of the same Order, distant five miles from Monte Oliveto; which
work completed, he returned to Siena. There, at the Postierla, he
painted in fresco the facade of the house of M. Agostino de' Bardi of
Siena, in which were some things worthy of praise, but for the most
part they have been consumed by time and the weather.
[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF ALEXANDER AND ROXANA
(_Detail, after the fresco by =Giovanni Antonio Bazzi [Il Sodoma]=.
Rome: Villa Farnesina_)
_Braun_]
During this time there arrived in Siena Agostino Chigi, a very rich
and famous merchant of that city, and he became acquainted with
Giovanni Antonio, both on account of his follies and because he had
the name of a good painter. Wherefore he took him in his company to
Rome, where Pope Julius II was then causing the Papal apartments in
the Palace of the Vatican, which Pope Nicholas V had formerly erected,
to be painted; and Chigi so went to work with the Pope, that some
painting was given also to Sodoma. Now Pietro Perugino, who was
painting the ceiling of an apartment that is beside the Borgia Tower,
was working at his ease, like the old man that he was, and was not
able to set his hand to anything else, as he had been at first
commanded to do: and there was given to Giovanni Antonio to paint
another apartment, which is beside the one that Perugino was painting.
Having therefore set his hand to it, he made the ornamentation of that
ceiling with cornices, foliage, and friezes; and then, in some large
medallions, he executed certain passing good scenes in fresco. But
this animal, devoting his attention to his beasts and his follies,
would not press the work forward; and therefore, after Raffaello da
Urbino had been brought to Rome by the architect Bramante, and it had
become known to the Pope how much he surpassed the others, his
Holiness ordained that neither Perugino nor Giovanni Antonio should
work any more in the above-named apartments; indeed, that everything
should be thrown to the ground. But Raffaello, who was goodness and
modesty in person, left standing all that had been done by Perugino,
who had once been his master; and of Mattaccio's he destroyed nothing
save the inner work and the figures of the medallions and scenes,
leaving the friezes and the other ornaments, which are still round the
figures that Raffaello painted there, which were Justice, Universal
Knowledge, Poetry, and Theology.
But Agostino, who was a gentleman, without paying any attention to the
affront that Giovanni Antonio had received, commissioned him to paint
in one of his principal apartments, which opens into the great hall in
his Palace in the Trastevere, the story of Alexander going to sleep
with Roxana. In that work, besides other figures, he painted a good
number of Loves, some of whom are unfastening Alexander's cuirass,
some are drawing off his boots, or rather, buskins, some are removing
his helmet and dress, and putting them away; others scattering flowers
over the bed, and others, again, doing other suchlike offices. Near
the chimney-piece he painted a Vulcan forging arrows, which was held
at that time to be a passing good and praiseworthy work; and if
Mattaccio, who had beautiful gifts and was much assisted by Nature,
had given his attention, after that reversal of fortune, to his
studies, as any other man would have done, he would have made very
great proficience. But he had his mind always set on his amusements,
and he worked by caprice, caring for nothing so earnestly as for
dressing in pompous fashion, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks all
adorned with cloth of gold, the richest caps, necklaces, and other
suchlike fripperies only fit for clowns and charlatans; in which
things Agostino, who liked the man's humour, found the greatest
amusement in the world.