in the two churches of S. Peter and S. M. Maggiore, also contributed to
the melioration of the Roman School; and some others who, deprived of
that opportunity of distinguishing themselves, are yet memorable for the
scholars they left behind them. Of the diocese of Volterra was
Cristoforo Roncalli, called Il Cav. delle Pomarance, cursorily noticed
by us among the Tuscans. I now place him in this school, because he both
painted and taught for a considerable time in Rome; and I assign him to
this epoch, not from the generality of his works, but from his best
having been executed in it. He was the scholar of Niccolo delle
Pomarance, for whom he worked much with little reward; and from his
example he learnt to avail himself of the labour of others, and to
content himself with mediocrity. Yet there are several pictures by him,
in which he appears excellent, except that he too often repeats himself
in his backgrounds, his foreshortened heads, and full and rubicund
countenances. His style of design is a mixture of the Florentine and
Roman. In his frescos he displayed fresh and brilliant colours; in his
oil pictures, on the contrary, he adopted more sober tints, harmonized
by a general tone of tranquillity and placidness. He frequently
decorated these with landscapes gracefully disposed. Among his best
labours is reckoned the death of Ananias and Sapphira, which is at the
Certosa, and which was copied in mosaic in S. Peter's. Other mosaics
also in the same church were executed after his cartoons, and in the
Lateranense is his Baptism of Constantine, a grand historical
composition. But his most celebrated work is the cupola of Loreto, very
rich in figures, but injured by time, except some prophets, which are in
a truly grand style. He painted considerably in the treasury of that
church; and there are some histories of the Madonna not conducted with
equal felicity, particularly in the perspective. He obtained this vast
commission through the patronage of the Cardinal Crescenzi, in
competition with Caravaggio, who, to gratify his revenge, hired an
assassin to wound him in the face; and in rivalship too with Guido Reni,
who retaliated in a more laudable manner, by proving his superiority by
his works. Roncalli from this time was in great request in the cities of
Picenum, which in consequence abound with his pictures. There is to be
seen at the Eremitani at S. Severino, a _Noli me tangere_; at S.
Agostino in Ancona, a S. Francis praying; and at S. Palazia in Osimo, a
picture of a saint, one of his most finished productions. In the same
city, in the Casa Galli, he painted _di sotto in su_ the Judgment of
Solomon; and this is perhaps the best fresco that he ever executed. He
could vary his manner at will. There is an Epiphany in the possession of
the Marquis Mancinforti in Ancona, quite in the style of the Venetian
School.
There were two artists who approached this master in style, the Cav.
Gaspare Celio, a Roman, and Antonio, the son of Niccolo Circignani.
Celio was the pupil of Niccolo, according to Baglione, but of Roncalli,
if we are to believe Titi. He designed and engraved antique statues, and
painted in a commendable manner whilst young, after the designs of P.
Gio. Bat. Fiammeri, at the Gesu, and at a more mature age after his own,
in numerous churches. The S. Francis, on the altar of the Ospizio, at
Ponte Sisto, is by him; and he also painted the history of S. Raimondo
at the Minerva, and the Moses passing the Red Sea, in a vault of the
Mattei gallery, where he competed with other first rate artists. Antonio
is not well known in Rome, where he worked with his father, after whose
death he decorated by himself a chapel at the Traspontina, another at
the Consolazione, and painted also in private houses. Citta di Castello,
where he passed some of the best years of his life, possesses many of
his pictures, and amongst the rest, that of the Conception, at the
Conventuals, which may be called a mixture of Barocci and Roncalli, from
whom he probably learned to improve the style he had inherited from his
father.
The Cav. delle Pomarance instructed the Marchese Gio. Batista Crescenzi,
who became a great patron of the fine arts, and who was so much skilled
in them, that Paul V. appointed him superintendent of the works which he
was carrying on in Rome; and Philip III., the Catholic, also availed
himself of his services in the Escurial. He did not execute many works,
and his chief talent lay in flower painting. His house was frequented by
literary men, and particularly by Marino; he formed in it a gallery
containing an extensive collection of pictures and drawings, of which he
himself says, "I believe I may indeed safely affirm that there is not a
prince in Europe that does not yield to me in this respect." (Lett. p.
89.) There the artists were always to be found, one of whom, his
disciple, was called Bartolommeo del Crescenzi, of the family of
Cavarozzi of Viterbo. He was a most correct artist, a follower first of
Roncalli, and afterwards became the author of a captivating natural
style. There exist many excellent pictures by him in collections, and in
the church of S. Anna, a picture of that saint, executed, says Baglione,
in his best taste, and with a vigorous pencil.
Among the scholars of Roncalli may also be ranked Giovanni Antonio,
father of Luigi Scaramuccia, who also saw and imitated the Caracci. His
works are often met with in Perugia. The spirit and freedom of his
pencil are more commended than his tints, which are too dark, and which
in the churches easily distinguish him amidst a crowd of other artists.
It is probable that he used too great a quantity of _terra d'ombra_,
like others of his day. Girolamo Buratti, of the same school, painted in
Ascoli the beautiful picture of the Presepio at the Carita, and some
subjects in fresco, highly commended by Orsini. Of Alessandro Casolani,
who belongs to this master, we spoke in the Sienese School. With him,
too, was included Cristoforo his son, who, with Giuseppe Agellio of
Sorrento, may be ranked with the inferior artists.
Francesco Morelli, a Florentine, demands our notice only as having
imparted the rudiments of the art to the Cav. Gio. Baglione of Rome. His
pupil, however, did not remain with him for any length of time, but
formed a style for himself from a close application to the works of the
best masters, and was employed by Paul V., by the Duke of Mantua, and by
persons of distinction. He is less vigorous in design and expression,
than in colour and chiaroscuro. We meet with his works, not only in
Rome, where he painted much, but also in several provincial towns, as
the S. Stephen in the Duomo of Perugia, and the S. Catherine at the
Basilica Loretana. In his colours he resembled Cigoli, but was far
behind him in other respects. The picture which procured him great
applause in the Vatican, the Resuscitation of Tabitha, is defaced by
time; but both there and at the Cappella Paolina in S. Maria Maggiore,
which was the most considerable work of Paul V., his pieces in fresco
still remain, and are not unworthy of their age. He is not often found
in collections, but in that of the Propaganda I saw a S. Rocco painted
by him with great force of colour. He lived to a considerable age, and
left behind him a compendium of the lives of professors of the fine
arts, who had been his contemporaries in Rome from 1572 to 1642. He
wrote in an unostentatious manner, and free from party spirit, and was
on all occasions more disposed to commend the good than to censure the
bad. Whenever I peruse him, I seem to hear the words of a venerable
teacher, inclined rather to inculcate precepts of morals, than maxims on
the fine arts. Of the latter, indeed, he is very sparing, and it would
almost lead one to suppose that he had succeeded in his profession, more
from a natural bias, and a talent of imitation, than from scientific
principles and sound taste. It was, perhaps, in order that he might not
be tied to treat of the art theoretically, and to write profoundly, that
he distributed his work in five dialogues, in the course of which we do
not meet with professors of art, but are introduced to a foreigner and
to a Roman gentleman, who act the respective parts of master and
scholar. Dialogues, indeed, were never composed in a more simple style,
in any language. The two interlocutors meet in the cloisters of the
Minerva, and after a slight salutation, one of them recounts the lives
of the masters of the art, to the number of eighty, which are commenced,
continued, and ended, in a style sufficiently monotonous, both as to
manner and language; the other listens to this long narrative, without
either interrupting or answering, or adding a word in reply: and thus
the dialogue, or rather soliloquy, concludes, without the slightest
expression of thanks on the part of the auditor, or even the ceremony of
a farewell. We shall now return to the Tuscan scholars.
Passignano was at Rome many times, without, however, leaving there any
scholars, at least of any name. We may indeed mention Vanni, and he left
there, too, a Gio. Antonio, and a Gio. Francesco del Vanni, who are
mentioned in the _Guida di Roma_. The school of Cigoli produced two
Roman artists of considerable reputation; Domenico Feti, who
distinguished himself in Mantua, and Gio. Antonio Lelli, who never left
his native place. They painted more frequently in oil, and for private
collections, than in fresco, or in churches. Of the first, no public
work remains except the two Angels at S. Lorenzo in Damaso; of the
second some pictures, and some histories on the walls, among which the
Visitation in the choir of the Minerva is much praised.
Comodi and Ciarpi are said to have been the successive masters of Pietro
di Cortona; and on that account, and from his birthplace, he has by many
been placed in the school of Florence; although others have assigned him
to that of Rome. It is true, indeed, that he came hither at the age of
fourteen only, bringing with him from Tuscany little more than a
well-disposed genius; and he here formed himself into an excellent
architect, and as a painter became the head of a school distinguished
for a free and vigorous style, as we have mentioned in our first book.
Whoever wishes to observe how far he carried this style in fresco, and
in large compositions, must inspect the Sala Barberina in Rome; although
the Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, presents us with works more elegant,
more beautiful, and more studied in parts. Whoever, too, wishes to see
how far he carried it in his altarpieces, must inspect the Conversion of
S. Paul at the Capucins in Rome, which, placed opposite the S. Michael
of Guido, is, nevertheless, the admiration of those who do not object to
a variety of style in art: nor am I aware that we should reject this
principle in what we designate the fine arts; as it is invariably
acknowledged in eloquence, in poetry, and history, where we find
Demosthenes and Isocrates, Sophocles and Euripides, and Thucydides and
Xenophon, equally esteemed, though all dissimilar in style.
The works of Pietro in Rome, and in the states of the church, are not at
all rare. They are to be found also in other states of Italy, and those
pieces are the most attractive in which he had the greatest opportunity
of indulging his love of architecture. His largest compositions, which
might dismay the boldest copyist, are S. Ivo at the Sapienza of Rome,
and the S. Charles in the church of that saint, at Catinari, in the act
of relieving the infected. The Preaching of S. James in Imola, in the
church of the Domenicans, is also on a vast scale. The Virgin attended
by S. Stephen, the Pope, and other saints in S. Agostino, in Cortona, is
a picture of great research, and is considered one of his best
performances. There is an enchanting picture of the Birth of the Virgin,
in the Quirinal palace; and the Martyrdom of S. Stephen, at S. Ambrogio,
in Rome, and Daniel in the Den of Lions, in the church of that saint, in
Venice, are most beautiful works, superior to those of most of his
competitors in this school, in regard to composition, and equal to them
in colour. His historical subjects are not met with in the galleries of
the Roman nobility. In that of the Campidoglio, is the battle between
the Romans and the Sabines, full of picturesque spirit; and in
possession of the Duke Mattei, is the Adultery, half figures, more
studied and more highly finished than was customary with him. This brief
notice of him may suffice for the present. Of the scholars whom he
formed in the Roman School, I shall speak more opportunely in the
subsequent epoch.
At this period we find three Veronese artists, Ottini, Bassetti, and
Turchi, studying in Rome; and we shall speak of them more at length in
the Venetian School. The first returned home without executing any
public work. The second left, in the church dell'Anima, in Rome, two
pictures in fresco, the Birth, and the Circumcision of Christ. The
third, known under the name of Orbetto, took up his residence, and died
in that capital; but I am not aware that he left there any disciples of
merit, except some of his own countrymen, who returned to their native
place. This engaging and elegant painter, who possessed great
originality and beauty of colour, worked still more in Verona than in
Rome, and we ought to see his works in the former city, in order justly
to appreciate them. But he is not on that account held in the less
esteem in Rome for his cabinet pictures, which are highly prized, as the
Sisara de' Colonnesi, and for his scriptural subjects, as the Flight
into Egypt, in the church of S. Romualdo, and the S. Felice Cappuccino,
at the Conception, where, as we before observed, the Barberini family
employed the most eminent artists.
Many other Italians worked in Rome in the time of the Caracci, but their
schools, as well as the places of their birth, are uncertain; and of
these, in a city so abounding in pictures, a slight notice will suffice.
In the Guida di Roma, we find only a single notice of Felice Santelli, a
Roman, in the church of the P. P. Spagnuoli del Riscatto Scalzi, where
he painted in competition with Baglione; he is a painter full of truth,
and one of his pictures in Viterbo, in the church of S. Rosa, is
inscribed with his name. In Baglione, we read of Orazio Borgianni, a
Roman, the rival of Celio, and we find pictures and portraits by him in
a good natural style. Gio. Antonio Spadarino, of the family of Galli,
painted in S. Peter's, a S. Valeria, with such talent, that Orlandi
complains of the silence of biographers respecting him. He had a fellow
disciple in Matteo Piccione, of the March, and Titi mentions their
peculiar style. Nor is Grappelli much known, whose proper name or
country I cannot accurately ascertain; but his Joseph Recognized, which
is painted in fresco, in the Casa Mattei, commands our admiration.
Mattio Salvucci, who obtained some reputation in Perugia, came to Rome,
and although he was graciously received by the Pope, yet, from his
inconstant temper, he did not remain there, nor does Pascoli, his fellow
countrymen and biographer, mention any authentic pictures by him.
Domenico Rainaldi, nephew of the architect, Cav. Carlo Rainaldi, who was
employed by Alexander VII., is mentioned in the Roman Guida, as also
Giuseppe Vasconio, praised too by Orlandi. In the same description of
books, and particularly in those which treat of the pictures of Perugia,
mention is made in this epoch of the Cav. Bernardino Gagliardi, who was
domiciled for many years in that city, though born in Citta di Castello.
Although a scholar of Avanzino Nucci, he adopted a different style,
after having seen in his travels the best works of every school of
Italy, from Rome to Turin. In historical composition he particularly
followed the Caracci and Guido, but in what I have seen of him, both in
his own and his adopted city, he appears exceedingly various. The noble
house of Oddi, in Perugia, amongst some feeble productions of his, have
a Conversazione of young people, half figures, and truly beautiful. In
the Duomo of Castello is a Martyrdom of S. Crescenziano, a picture of
fine effect, though inferior in other respects. He there appears more
studied and more select in the two pictures of the young Tobias, which
are included among his superior works. His best is perhaps the picture
of S. Pellegrino, with its accompaniments, in the church of S. Marcello
in Rome. I do not recollect any other provincial painters of this period
whom I have not assigned to one or other of the various masters.
A more arduous task than recording the names of the Italian artists now
awaits us in the enumeration of strangers. About the beginning of the
century Peter Paul Rubens came young to Rome, and left some oil pictures
at the Vallicella, and in S. Croce in Gerusalemme. Not many years
afterwards Antonio Vandyck arrived there also, with an intention of
remaining for a long period; but many of his fellow countrymen, who were
there studying, became offended at his refusing to join them in their
convivial tavern parties and dissipated mode of life; he in consequence
left Rome. Great numbers too of that nation who professed the lower
school of art, remained in Italy for a considerable period, and some are
mentioned in their classes. Others were employed in the churches of
Rome, and the ecclesiastical state. The master is unknown who painted at
S. Pietro in Montorio, the celebrated Deposition, which is recommended
to students, as a school of colour in itself; by some he is called
Angiolo Fiammingo. Of Vincenzio Fiammingo there is at the Vallicella a
picture of the Pentecost; of Luigi Gentile, from Brussels, the picture
of S. Antonio at S. Marco, and others in various churches in Rome; he
painted also at the church of the Capucins, at Pesaro, a Nativity and a
S. Stephen, pictures highly finished and of a beautiful relief. He
executed others at Ancona, and in various cities, with his usual taste,
which is still more to be admired in his easel pictures. He excelled,
says Passeri, who was very sparing in his praise of artists, in small
compositions; since besides finishing them with great diligence, he
executed them in an engaging style, and he concludes with the further
encomium, that he equalled, if not surpassed, most artists in portrait
painting.
About the year 1630, Diego Velasquez, the chief ornament of Spanish art,
studied in Rome and remained there for a year. He afterwards returned
thither under the pontificate of Innocent X., whose portrait he painted,
in a style which was said to be derived from Domenico Greco, instructed
by Titian, at the court of Spain. Velasquez renewed in this portrait the
wonders which are recounted of those of Leo X. by Raffaello, and of Paul
III. by Titian; for this picture so entirely deceived the eye as to be
taken for the Pope himself. At this time too a number of excellent
German artists were employed in Rome, as Daniel Saiter, whom I shall
notice in the school of Piedmont, and the two Scor, Gio. Paolo, called
by Taja, Gian. Paolo Tedesco, whose Noah's Ark, painted in the Quirinal
palace, has excited the most enthusiastic encomiums; and Egidio, his
brother, who worked there for a considerable time in the gallery of
Alexander VII. There were also in Rome Vovet, as we have observed, and
the two Mignards, Nicolas, an excellent artist, and Pierre, who had the
surname of Romano, and who left some beautiful works at S. Carlino and
other places; and a master who claims more than a brief notice, Nicolas
Poussin, the Raffaello of France.
Bellori, who has written the Life of Poussin, introduces him to Rome in
1624, and informs us that he was already a painter, and had formed his
style more after the prints of Raffaello than the instruction of his
masters. At Rome he improved, or rather changed his style, and acquired
another totally different, of which he may be considered the chief.
Poussin has left directions for those who come to study the art in Rome:
the remains of antiquity afforded him instruction which he could not
expect from masters. He studied the beautiful in the Greek statues, and
from the Meleager of the Vatican (now ascertained to be a Mercury) he
derived his rule of proportions. Arches, columns, antique vases, and
urns, were rendered tributary to the decoration of his pictures. As a
model of composition, he attached himself to the Aldobrandine Marriage;
and from that, and from basso-relievos, he acquired that elegant
contrast, that propriety of attitude, and that fear of crowding his
picture, for which he was so remarkable, being accustomed to say, that a
half figure more than requisite was sufficient to destroy the harmony of
a whole composition.
Leonardo da Vinci, from his sober and refined style of colour, could not
fail to please him; and he decorated that master's work _Su la Pittura_
with figures designed in his usual fine taste. He followed him in theory
and emulated him in practice. He adopted Titian's style of colour, and
the famous Dance of Boys, which was formerly in the Villa Lodovisi, and
is now in Madrid, taught him to invest with superior colours the
engaging forms of children, in which he so much excelled. It should seem
that he soon abandoned his application to colouring, and his best
coloured pictures are those which he painted on first coming to Rome. He
was apprehensive lest his anxiety on that head might distract his
attention from the more philosophical part of his picture, to which he
was singularly attentive; and to this point he directed his most serious
and assiduous care. Raffaello was his model in giving animation to his
figures, in expressing the passions with truth, in selecting the precise
moment of action, in intimating more than was expressed, and in
furnishing materials for fresh reflection to whoever returns a second
and a third time to examine his well conceived and profound
compositions. He carried the habit of philosophy in painting even
further than Raffaello, and often executed pictures, whose claim to our
regard is the poetical manner in which their moral is inculcated. Thus,
in that at Versailles, which is called _Memoria della morte_, he has
represented a group of youths, and a maid visiting the tomb of an
Arcadian shepherd, on which is inscribed the simple epitaph, "I also was
an Arcadian."
He did not owe this elegant expression of sentiment to his genius alone,
but was indebted for it, as well to the perusal of the first classic
authors, as the conversation of literary men, and his intercourse with
scholars. He deferred much to the Cav. Marini, and might do so with
advantage where poetry was not concerned. In the art of modelling, in
which he excelled, he accomplished himself under Fiammingo; he consulted
the writings of P. Zaccolini for perspective; he studied the naked
figure in the academy of Domenichino and in that of Sacchi; he made
himself acquainted with anatomy; he exercised himself in copying the
most beautiful landscapes from nature, in which he acquired an exquisite
taste, which he communicated to his relative Gaspar Dughet, of whom we
shall speak in a short time. I think it may be asserted without
exaggeration, that the Caracci improved the art of landscape painting,
and that Poussin brought it to perfection.[81] His genius was less
calculated for large than small figures, and he has generally painted
them a palm and a half, as in the celebrated sacraments, which were in
the Casa Boccapaduli: sometimes of two or three palms size, as in the
picture of the Plague in the Colonna gallery, and elsewhere. Other
pictures of his are seen in Rome, as the Death of Germanicus in the
Barberini palace, the Triumph of Flora in the Campidoglio, the Martyrdom
of S. Erasmus, in the Pope's collection at Monte Cavallo, afterwards
copied in mosaic in S. Peter's. Although he had established himself in
Rome, he afterwards left that city for Paris, where he was appointed
first painter to the court; after two years time, however, he again
returned to Rome, but had his appointment confirmed, and, though absent,
enjoyed the same place and stipend. He remained in Rome for twenty three
years, and there closed his days. It is not long since his bust in
marble, with an appropriate eulogy, was placed in the church of the
Rotonda, at the suggestion and generous expense of the Sig. Cav.
d'Agincourt.
In the class of portrait painters, we find at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, Antiveduto Grammatica, and Ottavio Lioni of Padua,
who engraved the portraits of the painters; and, on his death,
Baldassare Galanino was preeminent. It must however be remarked, that
these artists were also designers; and that even those who were held the
first masters in composition were employed in portrait painting, as
Guido for example, who executed for the Cardinal Spada one of the finest
portraits in Rome.