[44] This picture has been confounded with another of the same subject
by the same master, and the addition of the Donor's portrait, Frate
Elia, which exists no more. The mutilated inscription on that mentioned
above, has been thus restored by Lanzi,
JuNTA PISanus
JunTINI Me fecit.
[45] Born 1240, died 1300.
[46] "Oh che dolce cosa è questa prospettiva!" Oh what a dulcet thing is
this perspective! This exclamation, usual with Paolo nodding over his
compasses when his wife called him to bed, though too late to furnish
the hint of a Novel to Boccaccio, has been fondly repeated by some grave
writers from Vasari to the author of Lorenzo de' Medici, and has
contributed to place Paolo, with the mystic help of his surname, in
rather a ludicrous light.
[47] Maffei's Verona Illustrata, t. iii. p. 277.
[48] He was the precursor of Michael Agnolo, and deserved the motto by
which Borghini marked some of their designs in the portfolio of Vasari,
(Vita di Donato.) viz.
Ἠ Δωνατος Βοναρρωτιζει,
Ἠ Βοναρρωτος Δωνατιζει.
[49] "Vi è un monacho vecchio con due grucce sotto le braccia, nel qual
si vide un affetto mirabile, e forse speranza di riaver la
sanità."--Vasari, Vita di P. Uccello, t. ii. p. 56.
[50] Born in 1401.
[51] "Opera Terribilissima--impresa chi arebbe giustamente fatto paura a
una legione di pittori." On the whole, Vasari seems to lay more stress
on the quantity than the quality of Benozzo's works.
[52] 1478.
[53] 1478, when by the conspiracy of the Pazzi and their adherents,
Giuliano de' Medici was assassinated in S. Maria del Fiore, and his
brother Lorenzo wounded, it was resolved by the Signoria that paintings
of the conspirators, hung by their feet, should be exposed in front of
the Governor's palace; and the commission being given to Andrea, he
executed it with such felicity of resemblance, such variety of hanging
attitudes, and so much to the contentment of connoisseurs, that from
that instant he lost the name of Andrea dal Castagno in that of "Andrea
degli Impiccati," or of the hanged.--_Vasari._ Of this exhibition the
loss may be regretted, as it would have showed us Andrea in his element.
[54] 1439-40--1521.
[55] There is to the old edition in folio, of Dante, by Niccolo della
Magna, a print of the Inferno annexed, which bears the name of Sandro
Botticelli; Vasari in his Life says, that he commented a part of Dante
and figured his Inferno and published it.
[56] He was the nephew of Lazzaro Vasari, a helper of Pietro della
Francesca, and great uncle of Giorgio the biographer; who in the Life of
Luca, with not less fondness than vanity, relates the admonition and
encouragement he gave to his father and himself, in a visit which he
paid in his old age to their family at Arezzo.--Vita di L. Signorelli,
t. iii. p. 9.
[57] His father, who was a goldsmith, invented and first manufactured
the garlands which were at that time the fashionable head-dress of the
Florentine girls.--Vasari, Vita di D. Ghirlandajo, vol. ii. p. 410.
[58] Among the uncertainties of dates, those relative to the birth of
illegitimate children, for obvious reasons the most frequent, are the
most perplexing. The birth of Lionardo has been fixed at various dates,
viz. 1443; Lett. Pittor. t. ii. p. 192; 1445, according to the
computation of Vasari; 1455, by Dargenville; 1467, by Padre Resta; with
more probability 1444, by D.V. Pagave of Milano, followed by Fiorillo;
but with most at 1452, by Durazzini, adopted by Lanzi. It seems
improbable that Verocchio, the friend of Ser Piero, should have been
only twelve years older than his pupil. Lionardo died in 1519.
[59] In the figure of the Angel, conceived and executed by him, in the
Baptism of the Saviour, at St. Salvi, which excelled the work of
Verocchio so much, that indignant to be outdone by a boy, he dropped the
pencil, and for ever abandoned painting. The statues of St. Thomas, in
Orsanmichele at Florence, and of the Horse of Collevere at Venice, prove
that Verocchio's real talent was sculpture: but the models of the three
statues cast in bronze, by Rustici, for S. Giov. at Florence, and that
of the great horse at Milano, place the pupil at least upon a level with
the master in that branch of art.
[60] "E non avendo egli, si può dir nulla, e poco lavorando, del
continuo tenne servitori, e cavalli, &c." For all this it is the more
difficult to account, as an attempt to possess himself of the
philosopher's stone has never been mentioned among Lionardo's
eccentricities, though he was familiar with alchymists.
[61] Lorenzo de' Medici occurs not in the Life of Lionardo, and his
acquaintance with Leo X. and Giuliano de' Medici relates to the latter
periods of it.