Social refinements and elegance of taste in arts had shed their
splendour over the Hesperian colonies of Greece long before Rome had
learnt to value more than the ploughshare and the sword; Herculaneum,
Stabiæ, Pompeii, with their still remaining multitude and variety of
legitimate monuments, prove that a technic school of eminence flourished
in the Neapolitan states after they had been incorporated with the Roman
empire; and what time has spared or tradition recorded of the attempts
made by Goths, Greeks, Longobards, Saracens, and Normans, to repair
their waste of desolation, sufficiently shows, that though the art
itself at intervals vanished, the craft still subsisted during the gloom
of the middle ages.
But not to soil these pages with too much legend, we date the revival of
Neapolitan art from the name of Tommaso de' Stefani, born 1230, the
contemporary of Cimabue and Charles of Anjou, who, though on his passage
through Florence he had been led to visit that object of Tuscan dotage,
on his establishment at Naples employed Tommaso in his new-founded
church; a questionable honour, of which a native writer[103] avails
himself to insinuate the superiority of his countryman over Cimabue, as
if the suffrage of a prince could defeat the evidence of works, or stand
against the verdict of Marco da Siena,[104] who from them, judged him
inferior to the Florentine in grandeur of style and breadth.
The favours of Charles were continued to Tommaso by his successor, and
emulated by the principal families of the city; the chapel de' Minutoli,
named by Boccaccio, was storied by him with subjects drawn from the
Saviour's passion; and others from the life of S. Gennaro, and some
sainted bishops, by his hand, are said still to exist in a roomy chapel
of the ancient Episcopio. Some semblance of the same saint in S. Angelo
a Nido, formerly S. Michele, is considered as his work, and some
fragments have survived of others, with dates of 1270 and 1275. He was
the master of Filippo Tesauro, who painted in the church of S. Restituta
the life of S. Nicholas the Hermit, the only fresco of his which has
reached our time.[105]
About 1325, Giotto was invited by King Robert to Naples, for the purpose
of painting the church of Sta. Chiara; he came and filled it with
Gospel history, and apocalyptic mysteries, from inventions, said in the
time of Vasari to have been formerly communicated to him by Dante. These
works, because they darkened the church, were whitewashed in the
beginning of the last century, with the exception of a Madonna called
della Grazia, and some other sainted image, preserved by female piety.
Giotto conducted other works in Sta. Maria Coronata, and still others,
which no longer exist in the Castle dell' Uovo. Maestro Simone, a
Cremonese, according to some, but more probably a native of Naples, was
the chosen partner of these works, and from so distinguished a choice,
acquired some celebrity himself: from the resemblance of his style to
Tesauro and to Giotto, he might have been the pupil of either, and was
perhaps of both. Certain it is, that after the departure of Giotto, he
received from Robert and Queen Sancia, many important commissions for
various churches, and especially that of S. Lorenzo; there he painted
Robert receiving the crown from his brother Lewis, Bishop of Toulouse,
but died before he could finish the compartment of the chapel dedicated
to that prelate after his demise and canonization. Though confessedly
inferior in invention, character, and suavity of tone, he has nearly
reached Giotto in some of his works: such as the dead Christ supported
by his mother, in the church dell' Incoronata, and the Madonna with the
Infant, on a gold-ground, now in the convent of the church della Croce,
supposed by some to have been painted in oil.[106]
Simone had a son, Francesco di Simone, who died in 1360. His works are
not numerous, but what has reached our days in the Capitolo di S.
Lorenzo, is distinguished by an air of superior dignity and grace. Two
other pupils of Simone, Gennaro di Cola and Stefanone, a similarity of
manner associated in several public works, such as the chapel of S.
Lewis, begun by Simone, and what still exists in S. Giovanni da
Carbonara of subjects relative to our Lady. They are similar, however,
without monotony. Gennaro, impressed by the difficulties of his art, and
bent to overcome each obstacle by labour, appears precise, studied, and
hard. Stefanone, guided by a spirit which in better days might have been
called genius, boldly executed what he had conceived with warmth.
The pretended improvements of Colantonio del Fiore, (born 1352, died
1444,) a pupil of Francesco, neither appear to have been considerable
enough in themselves, nor sufficiently authenticated, to place him at
the head of a new epoch in style. Those barbarous relics of the middle
ages, that meagerness of contour, dryness of colour, and want of
perspective, which he is said to have abolished, had in a great measure
vanished before, at the glance of Giotto. The gold grounds continued
after both;[107] and if in enumerating some of his works his encomiast
is in doubt whether they may not rather belong to M. Simone, what is it
but a tacit confession, that the art had made no considerable progress
during the course of a century?
The life of Colantonio grasped nearly the half of two centuries, and the
refinements for which he has been extolled must be looked for in those
of his works, on whose authenticity there is no hesitation, produced on
the verge of life. Such is the Madonna, &c. in Sta. Maria Nuova, a
compound of harmonious hues, though painted on a gold ground; and still
more in S. Lorenzo, Saint Jerome drawing a thorn from the lion's foot,
the date 1436, a picture full of truth, in high esteem with foreigners,
and for its better preservation removed by the fathers of the convent
from the church itself to the sacristy. He had a scholar in Angiolo
Franco, who has obtained the praise of Marco di Siena, for having
invigorated the most successful imitation of Giotto by the tone and
chiaroscuro of his master.
But a name of far greater importance to art is that of Antonio Solario,
commonly called Lo Zingaro, the reputed son-in-law of Colantonio. His
story, still more romantic than that which in Quintin Metsis transformed
a blacksmith to a painter, tells that Solario, bred to the forge, became
enamoured of a daughter of Colantonio, forsook the anvil, and by
successful submission to a ten years' trial of painting, and the
mediation of a queen, obtained the idol of his soul. Let those who told
the tale vouch for its truth: what is less disputable, and interests
this history more, are his travels from Naples to Bologna, where for
several years he studied under Lippo Dalmasio, and from thence over
Italy, to become acquainted with the principles of other masters; those
of Vivarini at Venice; of Bicci at Florence; of Galasso at Ferrara; of
Pisanello and Gentile da Fabriano at Rome. These two, it is believed
that he assisted, and Luca Giordano asserted that some heads in their
pictures at the Lateran bore the legitimate marks of Solario's pencil.
In heads he excelled; he inspired them, according to Marco da Siena,
with the air of life. In perspective, if the times be weighed, his skill
was considerable; in composition not contemptible. There is variety in
his scenery; and if his dresses be not drapery, they are at least
naturally folded. In the design of the extremities he was less happy;
his attitudes often border on caricature, as his colour on crudeness. On
his return to Naples, nine years after his departure, applauded by
Colantonio and the public, he enjoyed the patronage of King Alfonso. His
greatest work is the Life of S. Benedetto, in the compartments of the
cloister of S. Severino,--frescoes filled with an incredible variety of
objects. Other churches possess some altarpieces by him: he left many
portraits and some very attractive Madonnas; but in the Dead Christ of
S. Domenico Maggiore, and the S. Vincent of S. Pier Martire, including
some stories of that Saint's life, he is said to have excelled himself.
Zingaro reared a school, which with more or less felicity disseminated
his principles for nearly half a century, and retained his name. Of its
pupils, Niccola di Vito, long forgot in his works, is barely remembered
as a buffoon; Simone Papa and Angiotillo di Roccadirame, scarcely
emerged to mediocrity; Pietro and Ippolito (Polito) del Donzello deserve
less transient attention. Sons-in-law of Angiolo Franco, and pupils of
Giuliano da Majano in architecture, they were, according to Vasari,[108]
employed by him to decorate with paintings the fabric of Poggio Reale,
which he had constructed for King Alfonso, where, continuing to operate
under his son and successor Ferdinand, they represented the story of the
Conspiracy formed in against him, a work celebrated by Jacopo
Sannazaro.[109] Ippolito, alone or with his brother, filled the
refectory of Sta. Maria Nuova with a number of subjects for the same
prince, and then retired to Florence, where, not long after, he died.
Piero remained at Naples distinguished and followed. Their style is that
of their master, but with more suavity of colour. The first successful
imitation of friezes, trophies, and storied basso-relievoes in
chiaroscuro, may with probability be dated from them. That Pietro
excelled in portraits, is evident from some animated heads saved among
the ruins of certain frescoes of his on a wall of the Palace Matalona.
Both were, however, surpassed in tone, and force of light and shade, and
mellowness of outline, by Silvestro de Buoni, their pupil, whose
pictures, scattered over the temples of Naples, have been enumerated by
Dominici. Silvestro himself yields to Tesauro of questionable name,[110]
whose works approach much nearer to the succeeding epoch than the united
labours of his predecessors in vigour of invention, in judgment,
propriety of attitude, truth of expression, and general harmony of the
whole, with a relief beyond what seems credible in an artist
unacquainted with other schools and other works than those of his
native place. Such was his power of execution, that it challenged the
wonder of Luca Giordano in the vigour of his career, when he
contemplated the ceiling of San Giovanni de' Pappacodi, where Tesauro
had painted the Seven Sacraments. They have been minutely described, and
the portraits of Alfonso II. and of Ippolita Sforza, whom he is said to
have represented, for the work itself is no more, in the Sacrament of
Matrimony, afford some light as to the time in which it was painted.
Another of his works, equally praised, in the Chapel Tocco of the
Episcopal church, which represented a series of subjects from the life
of Saint Asprenas, perished under the hands of one of Solimena's pupils.
He was the father or uncle of Raimo Epifanio Tesauro, a considerable
Frescante, who, according to Stanzioni, rekindled the evanescent spark
of Zingaro's principles. Some few vestiges of his works remain in Sta.
Maria Nuova and Monte Vergine. His dates reach from 1480 to 1501, and he
may be considered as the last of this school, for Gio. Antonio d'Amato
acquired fame by abandoning its style for that of Pietro Perugino.
Such were the masters that marked the first epoch of the Neapolitan
school; neither inconsiderable in number, nor contemptible in progress,
for a state nearly always perplexed by war: it derives, however, its
greatest lustre from having produced within the state the memorable
artist whose resolution and perseverance made Italy mistress of the
new-discovered method in oil-painting, and changed the face of art.[111]
Antoniello, a Messinese, of the Antonj family, universally known by the
name of Antoniello da Messina, educated, according to Vasari, to the art
at Rome, returned from that place to Sicily, and after some successful
practice at Palermo and Messina, sailed to Naples, where he saw an
historical picture painted in oil by John ab Eyk, which had been
presented or disposed of to king Alfonso, by some Florentine traders.
Charmed by the method, Antoniello forgot every other concern, passed
into Flanders, and by close attendance, and some presents of Italian
designs, captivated the heart of the old painter, who made him
completely master of the secret, and soon after died. Antoniello then
left Flanders, and after some months spent at Messina, repaired to
Venice, where he practised with general admiration of his new method;
communicated it to Domenico there, and he at Florence to the felon
Castagna, till by gradual progress it embraced all Italy. What remains
to be related of Antoniello, is reserved for the history of the Venetian
school, to which by residence and practice he properly belongs, and
which alone carried his new discovered method to the height it was
capable of.
The second epoch of Neapolitan art was auspicious. P. Perugino had
painted for the Cathedral an Assumption of the Virgin, now lost, a work
which led to a better taste. Already, Amato, as we observed, had
abandoned the manner of Zingaro to follow Pietro, though his style had
still too much of the former to form more than the connecting link
between the two epochs; when Raffaello and his school came into vogue,
Naples was the first of exterior towns to profit by them, and they,
about the middle of the century, were followed by some adherents of
Michael Angiolo; nor till near 1600, was any attention paid to other
masters, if we except Tiziano.
The new series begins with Andrea Sabbatini[112] of Salerno. Smitten
with the style of P. Perugino, Andrea set out for Perugia, to enter his
school; but hearing some painters at an inn on the road talk of
Raffaello and the Vatican, he altered his mind and route, and went to
Rome. Though not long under the guidance of Sanzio, being by the death
of his father, 1513, obliged to return to Naples, he returned another
man. He is said to have painted with Raffaello at the Pace and in the
Vatican. A good copyist, and what is rare, a better imitator, if he did
not soar with Giulio, he kept pace with the best of that school, and
excelled some in correctness, and a style equally remote from
affectation and manner, with depth of chiaroscuro, breadth of drapery,
and a colour which has defied time. His works in oil and fresco,
scattered over the metropolis and the kingdom at large, have been
celebrated as miracles of art, though now either lost or greatly
impaired.
Of his scholars all persevered not in his manner: thus Cesare Turco, as
commendable in oil as unsuccessful in fresco, drew nearer to P.
Perugino. More of Andrea was retained by Francesco Santafede, the father
and master of Fabrizio,--painters whom few of that school equal in
colour, and so uniform that their works can only be discriminated by the
superior tinge and chiaroscuro of the father. But the scholar who most
resembled Andrea was one Paolillo, whose works, nearly all ascribed to
his master, till restored to their real author by Dominici, leave little
doubt of his right to the first honours of that school, had his career
not been intercepted by a violent death, occasioned by intrigue.
Polidoro Caldara, of Caravaggio, escaped to Naples in 1527, from the
sack of Rome, but not, as Vasari with less information than credulity
relates, to starve. Received in the house of Andrea, formerly his fellow
scholar, he soon acquired acquaintance, commissions, and even formed
pupils before his departure for Sicily. He had been celebrated for his
chiaroscuros at Rome: at Naples and Messina he attempted colour. The
shadowy and pallid specimens he has left, leave a doubt whether he would
ever have arrived at a degree of strength or brilliancy worthy of
invention and style, though he has been praised with enthusiasm by
Vasari for the colour of the Christ led to Calvary, a numerous
composition, and the last before his assassination at Messina.
Gian Bernardo Lama left the school of Amato to attach himself to
Polidoro, whom he more than once imitated with sufficient success to
incur the suspicion of having been assisted by the master: he had,
however, more sweetness than energy, and, in the sequel, was noted for
his opposition to the vigorous inroads of the Tuscan style and the
prevalence of Marco di Pino.
Francesco Rubiales, a Spaniard, from his felicity of imitation called
Polidorino, is likewise named in Naples among the scholars of Caldara,
whom he assisted in painting for the Orsini, and singly conducted
several works at Monte Oliveto, and elsewhere, the greater part of which
are no more.
There are who class with the scholars of Polidoro, Marco Cardisco,
called Marco Calabrese.[113] Him Vasari prefers to all the natives of
that epoch, and admires as a plant sprung from a soil not its own: he
knew not, perhaps, that, of Magna Grecia, modern Calabria was the spot
most favoured by the arts. Possessed of a dextrous hand and florid
colour, Cardisco spread his labours over Napoli and the State: of what
remains, the most praised is the Dispute of Saint Augustine at Aversa.
Gio. Batista Crescione and Lionardo Castellani are slightly mentioned by
Vasari as his scholars.
Gio. Francesco Penni, called "Il Fattore," came to Naples some time
after Polidoro; and, during the short time which he lived, for he died
in 1528, contributed to the advancement of the art by leaving his great
copy of Raffaello's Transfiguration and his pupil Lionardo Grazia, of
Pistoia, behind him, a name more celebrated for colour, and far less for
design, than might have been expected from a nurseling of the Roman
School. He is said to have been one of the masters of Francesco Curia,
who went to Rome to study the style of Raffaello, but returned with the
manner of Zucchero. His composition is, however, praised for decorum and
suavity, his angels and female countenances for beauty, and his colour
for a tone of nature:--their full display distinguished that
Circumcision at the Church della Pietà, which Ribera, Giordano, and
Solimene placed among the masterpieces of Naples. Curia left a close
imitator in Ippolito Borghese, of whom little is seen at home, where he
seldom resided, but the Assumption of Maria at the Monte della
Pietà,--an extensive work, marked by equal vigour of execution.
Perino del Vaga, at Rome, instructed, and was assisted by, two
Neapolitans, Giovanni Corso and Gianfilippo Criscuolo. The best that
remains of Corso at Naples, is a Christ bearing his Cross, in S.
Lorenzo. Long a pupil of Sabbatini, Criscuolo, during the little time of
his stay at Rome, studied the works of Raffaello with a perseverance
which acquired him the name of the Studious Neapolitan; but without
native vigour, timid, correct, and dry, he remained fitter to teach than
to lead. Such were the principal followers of the Roman School at
Naples; for neither Francesco Imparato, who abandoned the dry precepts
of Criscuolo for the genial example of Tiziano, nor his son Girolamo,
who long after followed the same principles with more pretence and less
success, can properly be classed among the pupils of Rome. About
1544[114] a Tuscan introduced at Naples, what is as commonly as
impertinently called, the style of Michael Angiolo: a cold enumeration
of sesquipedalian muscles, groups uninspired by thought, feeble in
effect, and crude or faint in colour, methodized by manner and
despatched by practice. Thus Giorgio Vasari filled the Refectory of
Monte Oliveto, during one year of residence, with an enormous work,
which he considered as the electric stroke that was to animate that
indolent taste, till then vainly solicited by Raffaello and his school.
Whether he disgusted the national pride by such insolent civility, or
provoked the indignation of those who, in Andrea Sabbatini, venerated a
superior name, it appears that, so far from creating a school, he was
discountenanced by the public, and incurred the perpetual censure of
every Neapolitan writer on art. He ought to have known, that he who
challenges a nation, courts an eternal feud.
Another, less pompous, but more effectual follower of Michael Angiolo,
was Marco da Pino, or Marco da Siena: the date[115] of his arrival at
Naples ought probably to be placed after 1560. He was well received,
presented with the freedom of the city, and deserved the courtesy by the
amenity of his manners and sincerity of character. With the reputation
of the first artist, Marco was employed in the most conspicuous churches
of the city and the state. Though he sometimes repeated his inventions,
he approached Michael Angiolo nearer than any other Tuscan, because he
affected less to do it. His forms are appealed to by Lomazzo as
instances of just proportion, and, in keeping and aërial perspective, he
is ranked with Lionardo and Robusti. As his design is less charged, so
is his colour more vigorous and glowing than the usual tinge of the
Tuscan School: sometimes, however, he is unequal, trusts to practice,
and deviates into manner. He was an able architect, and of the good
writers on that art.
Of many pupils reared in his school, none was comparable to Gio. Angiolo
Criscuolo, brother of G. Filippo. Though bred a notary, he had practised
miniature from his youth; emulation with his brother prompted him to
attempt larger proportions; and, under the tuition of Marco, he became a
good imitator of his style.[116]
To dwell circumstantially on the crowd of artists that fill the
biographic pages of this period, humiliating as mere nomenclature may
appear, is below the dignity of an art, which, like poetry, admits not
of mediocrity. Reputation during life, the partiality of friends and
countrymen, some single work which escaped to excellence from the
insignificant productions of a long career, are but equivocal claims on
the homage of posterity: and more legitimate ones in oil or fresco, have
neither Silvestro Bruno, Simone del Papa, the younger Amato, Mazzolini,
Cola dell' Amatrice, Pompeo dell' Aquila, Giuseppe Valeriani, Marco
Mazzaroppi, Gio. Pietro Russo, Pietro Negrone of Calabria, nor the
Sicilian Gio. Borghese. Pirro Ligorio, the favourite architect of Pio
IV. in Rome, and the engineer of Alphonso II. at Ferrara, owes the
preservation of his name more to his Augean collections of antiquarian
lumber and the intrigues by which he perplexed the last years of M.
Angiolo, than to the flimsy exertions of his pencil.
Matteo da Leccè, of obscure education, displayed in Rome a perverse
attachment to the manner of M. Angiolo by the usual conglobation of
muscles and extravagance of action. He worked chiefly in fresco, and
with a relief, which, in the phrase of Baglioni, makes some of his
figures burst from the wall. Though many Florentines were then at Rome,
he alone appeared capable of completing the plan of Buonarroti, in the
Sistina, by facing the Last Judgement with the Fall of the Rebel Angels.
Matteo girt himself boldly for the work, and left it a lamentable proof
of the ridicule that must attend the presumption of a mere craftsman to
ally himself with a man of genius. He worked likewise in Malta and in
Spain, and, passing from thence to the Indies, became a thriving trader,
till duped by the rage of digging for treasures, he dissipated his
wealth, and died of penury and grief.
* * * * *
After the middle of the sixteenth century, the flame-like rapidity of
Tintoretto's style at Venice, and soon after, the powerful contrast of
Caravaggio's method at Rome, and the eclectic system of the Carracci, at
Bologna, spread general emulation over Italy, and divided Naples into
three parties, of nearly equal strength, led by Corenzio, Ribera, and
Caracciolo, differing from each other, but ready to unite against all
foreign competition. During their flourish, Guido, Domenichino,
Lanfranco, Artemisia Gentileschi were at Naples, and formed some
pupils;--a period as enviable in the number of excellent artists and the
progressive powers of execution, as disgraceful for the dark manœuvres
and the vile intrigues that fill it--intrigues and manœuvres too closely
interwoven with the history of Neapolitan art, and, unfortunately, too
well attested, merely to be dismissed with silence and contempt.
Belisario Corenzio,[117] an Achæan Greek, after passing five years in
the school of Tintoretto, fixed his abode at Naples about 1590. A native
stream of ideas and unparalleled celerity of hand placed him, perhaps,
on a level with his master in the dispatch of a prodigious number, even
of most extensive works; but his rage was too ungovernable often to
admit of more distinguished comparisons with Robusti; though few
excelled him in design, and his works abound in conceptions, attitudes,
and airs of heads confessedly inimitable to the Venetians themselves.
The work in which he has best succeeded as an imitator of Tintoretto, is
the Miraculous Feeding of the Crowd by the Saviour, in the Refectory of
the Benedictines, a huge performance, but, under his hands, a task of
forty days. Though generally too much of a mannerist to sacrifice the
readiest to the best, he still preserves a character of his own, an air
of originality, in glories especially, which he embosomed in darkness
and clouds pregnant with showers. With a decided turn for works of large
dimension in fresco, which seldom allowed him to submit to the finish of
oil colour, he contrived to please by various compositions of sacred
history, in small proportions, and is even said to have enlivened the
perspectives of the Frenchman Desiderio with diminutive figures
admirably toned and adapted to the scenery.
The native country of Giuseppe Ribera[118] was a subject of dispute
between the Spaniards and Neapolitans, till the production of an
extract from the baptismal register of Xativa (Antologia di Roma, 1795)
decided the claim in favour of Spain, and proved him a native of that
place, now "San Felipe," in the district of Valencia. If the date of his
birth, January 12, 1588, be correct, he must have come to Italy and
entered the school of Caravaggio at a very early period. From him Ribera
went to Rome, Modena, Parma, saw Raffaello, Annibale, Correggio, and in
imitation of their works attempted to form a more luminous and gayer
style, in which he had little success, dismissed it soon after his
return to Naples, and once more embraced the method of Caravaggio, as
more eminently calculated by its force, truth, and effect to fix the eye
of the multitude, the object of his ambition; he soon became painter to
the court, and by degrees the arbiter of its taste.
The studies he had pursued enabled him to go beyond Caravaggio in
invention, mellowness, and design: the grand Deposition from the Cross
at the Certosa proves the success of his emulation, a work, by the
verdict of Giordano, alone sufficient to form a painter: the Martyrdom
of S. Gennaro in the royal chapel, and the S. Jerome of the Trinità,
excel his usual style, and possess Titianesque beauties. S. Jerome was
among his darling subjects; S. Jerome he painted, he etched in numerous
repetition, in whole-length and in half figures. He delighted in the
representation of hermits, anchorets, apostles, prophets, perhaps less
to impress the mind with gravity of character and the venerable looks of
age, than to strike the eye with the imitation of incidental deformities
attendant on decrepitude, and the picturesque display of bone, veins,
and tendons athwart emaciated muscle. A shrivelled arm, a dropsied leg,
were to Ribera what a breast-plate and a gaberdine were to Rembrandt. As
in objects of imitation he courted meagreness or excrescence, so in the
choice of historic subjects he preferred to the terrors of ebullient
passions, features of horror or loathsomeness, the spasms of Ixion, St.
Bartholomew under the butcher's knife. Nor are the few ideas of gaiety
by which he endeavoured to soothe his exasperated fancy, less
disgusting: Bacchus and his attendants are grinning Lazaroni or bloated
wine-sacks; brutality under his hand distorts the feature of mirth.
Giambatista Caracciolo,[119] first attached to Franc. Imparato, then to
Caravaggio, grew to manhood before he had produced any work of
consequence: roused afterward by the fame and the impression made on his
mind by some picture of Annibale, he went to Rome, and by a pertinacious
study of the Farnese Gallery became one of the best imitators of that
style. This was the basis of his fame on his return to Naples, and by
this, whenever provoked to competition, he maintained it: such are the
Madonna of S. Anna de' Lombardi; S. Carlo, in the church of S. Agnello;
and the Christ under the Cross, at the Incurabili. The rest of his
performances, by their strength of chiaroscuro, betray the school of
Caravaggio. From so considerate and finished an artist, haste and
flimsiness were not to be feared, and yet there exist productions of his
so feeble that his biographer[120] is reduced to account for them from
the artist's wish of retaliating by paltry work for paltrier prices; or
from suffering them to be finished by Mercurio d'Aversa, no very
estimable pupil.
Such were the three leaders of that cabal which for some years
persecuted every stranger of eminence in the art who freely came, or was
invited to come, to Naples. Reputation, fiction, violence, had raised
Belisario to the tyranny of fresco; the most lucrative commissions he
considered as due to himself, the rest he distributed among his
dependants, the greater number of whom possessed little merit. Massimo
Santafede, though independent of him, remained neuter, afraid to
interfere with a man who, to obtain his purpose, would stop at neither
fraud nor crime; a proof of which he is said to have given, in
administering poison to the gentlest and best of his pupils, Luigi
Roderigo, whose growing powers he envied.
To maintain his primacy in fresco, the exclusion of every stranger who
excelled in that branch became, of course, his principal object.
Annibale Caracci arrived at Naples in 1609, to paint the churches "dello
Spirito Santo" and "di Gesu Nuovo," and produced a small picture as a
specimen of his style. The Greek and his associates, called upon to give
their opinion of it, unanimously condemned it as cold, and its master
far too tame to manage an extensive work. Thus baffled, Annibale
returned to Rome during the most oppressive heats of summer, and soon
after died. But the work most contested with strangers was the royal
chapel of S. Gennaro, which the deputies had reserved for Giuseppe
d'Arpino, then painting the choir of the Certosa. Belisario, leaguing
himself with Spagnoletto, not less fierce and arrogant, and with
Caracciolo, who both aspired to that commission, attacked Cesari with a
fury which forced him, before he could terminate his choir, to fly for
safety, first to Monte Cassino, and then back to Rome. The commission
was now given to Guido; but not long after, two men unknown cudgelled
his servant and dismissed him with a message to his master immediately
to depart or to prepare for death. Guido fled; but Gessi his pupil, not
intimidated, having demanded and obtained the grand commission, repaired
to Naples with two assistants, G. Batista Ruggieri and Lorenzo Menini;
both were decoyed on board a galley, that immediately slipped its cable
and transported them to some place which no researches could discover,
and Gessi was obliged to return with his disappointment to Rome.
Dispirited by the violence of these manœuvres, the deputies began to
give way to the cabal of the monopolists, allotting the frescoes to
Correnzio and Caracciolo, and flattering Spagnoletto with the hope of
being intrusted with the altar-pieces; when all at once, repenting of
their agreement, they ordered the two fresco painters to throw up their
work, and transferred the whole of the chapel to Domenichino, at the
splendid price of a hundred ducats for every entire, fifty for each half
figure, and twenty-five for every head.[121] They likewise took measures
for his personal safety, by obtaining the Viceroy's protection, but in
vain. The faction, not content with crying him down as a cold insipid
painter and discrediting him with those who see with their ears and fill
every place, alarmed him with anonymous letters, threw down what he had
painted, mixed ashes with his materials to crack the ground he had
prepared, and, by a stroke of the most refined malice, persuaded the
Viceroy to give him a commission of some pictures for the Court of
Spain. These, when little more than dead-coloured, they carried from
his study to court, where Ribera superciliously ordered what alterations
he thought proper, and then, without allowing him leisure to terminate
the whole, dispatched them to Spain. The insolence of the rival, the
complaints of the deputies on the successive interruptions of their
work, and hence the suspicion of mischief, induced Domenichino at last
secretly to depart for Rome, in hopes of being able from thence to bring
his affairs into a better train,--and not without success; the rumours
of his flight subsided, new measures for his safety were taken, he
returned to Naples, and, without more interruption, completed the
greater part of the frescoes, and considerably advanced the
altar-pieces.
Here death surprised him, accelerated, as some have suspected, by
poison, certainly by repeated causes of disgust from his relations,
competitors, and, above all, the arrival of his old adversary Lanfranco.
He succeeded to Domenichino in the remaining fresco, Spagnoletto in one
of the oil pictures, and Stanzioni in another. Caracciolo was dead;
Belisario, excluded by age from sharing in the spoil, soon after was
destroyed by a ruinous fall from a scaffold. Nor had Ribera, if the
prevailing fame be true,[122] a desirable end; dishonoured in his
daughter, gnawed by remorse for the vile persecutions in which he had
shared, odious to himself, and sick of light, he escaped to sea, and
none tells where he perished.
Opposed at its onset by these three, the School of Bologna triumphed
after their demise, and Naples was divided into its imitators; for the
mannered style of Cesari, which approached that of Belisario, terminated
with Luigi Roderigo, and his relative Gian Bernardino.
At the head of those who adopted Caracciesque principles with success,
may be placed Massimo Stanzioni[123] a scholar of Caracciolo, and, as he
himself asserts, of Lanfranco in fresco, in portrait of Santafede. At
Rome he strove to embody the forms of Annibale with the tints of Guido.
Thus equipped, he braved the foremost talents at Naples, and opposed at
the Certosa a Dead Christ among the Maries to Spagnoletto, who, to
escape comparisons, persuaded the friars to have the picture of his
rival washed to recover its somewhat darkened tone, and with a corrosive
liquor so defaced it, that Stanzioni, declaring so black a fraud ought
to remain an object of public indignation, refused to retouch it; he
left, however, other specimens of his powers at that repository of rival
talents, and above all the masterpiece of S. Bruno. The ceilings of Gesu
Nuovo and of S. Paolo give him a distinguished rank among fresco
painters. His gallery pictures, though not rare at Naples, are seldom
met with elsewhere. Whilst single, he sought and aimed at excellence,
and courted the art for its own sake; after his marriage, with a woman
of fashion, gain became necessary to maintain her in a state of
splendour, and he sunk by degrees to mediocrity.
The School of Massimo is celebrated for the number and excellence of its
pupils, but the two who promised most, Muzio Rossi and Antonio de
Bellis, perished in the bloom of life. The first, who had entered the
School of Guido at Bologna, was at the age of eighteen thought worthy
to face at the Certosa men of the first ability, and shrinks from no
comparison, but scarcely survived his work. The second, whose style is
nearly balanced between Guido and Guercino, began at the church of S.
Carlo various pictures from the life of that Saint, which he lived not
to finish.
Francesco di Rosa, called Pacicco, another pupil of that school, gave
himself up to the imitation of Guido, by Massimo's own advice. Pacicco
is one of the few artists mentioned by Paolo de Matteio in a MS. which
admits no name of mediocrity. His forms, his colour, the elegance of his
extremities, the grace and dignity of his characters, are equally
commended. He had models of beauty in three nieces, one of whom, Aniella
di Rosa, in charms, talents, and manner of death has been compared to
Elizabeth Sirani: poison, administered by the malignity of strangers,
swept the Bolognese--a dagger and a husband's jealousy, the Neapolitan:
he was Agostin Beltrano, her fellow pupil, and frequent partner of her
works.
The remaining scholars of this school, Paul Domenico Finoglia, Giacinto
de' Popoli, and Giuseppe Marullo, all three of Orta,--Andrea
Malinconico, and Bernardo Cavallino, were, if we except the last, with
more or less felicity, imitators of their master. Cavallino, more
original, is said to have provoked the jealousy of Massimo, who advised
him to paint in small: this ought to be admitted with hesitation, for it
is difficult to believe, that he who feels himself made for the grand,
could be persuaded to waste his life on trifles.
Another convert to the Caracci School, was Andrea Vaccaro,[124] the
friend and competitor of Massimo, a man made for imitation, says Lanzi,
and says too much; for, if he had no equal in that of Caravaggio, he
was, when imitating Guido, inferior to Massimo: nor did he, till after
the demise of Stanzioni, acquire that supremacy at Naples which remained
undisputed till the arrival of Giordano, young, vigorous, and fraught
with the novel style of Pietro Beretini. Both concurred for the great
altar-piece of Sta. Maria del Pianto, both presented their sketches, and
Vaccaro obtained preference by the verdict of Pietro da Cortona himself,
who declared him equally superior in experience and correctness of style
to his own scholar; but, when contending with Giordano in fresco, to
which he had not been trained by early practice, Vaccaro lost the
honours he had gained. The best of his school was Giacomo Farelli, whom
Luca found no contemptible antagonist: had he been content to follow the
style of his master, without aspiring at that of Domenichino, for which
he was unfit, he might have deserved the historian's notice for more
than one picture.
On the School of Domenichino, the Sicilians, Pietro, Giacomo, and Teresa
del Po, cannot confer much honour. The father had more theory than
practice, the son less evidence than ostentation, the daughter shone in
miniature. Nearer to the master, both in style and temper, was Francesco
di Maria: correct, slow, irresolute, author of few but eminent works,
especially the subjects relative to S. Lawrence, at the Conventuals of
Naples. He excelled in portraits, one of which, exhibited at Rome with
one of Vandyk and another by Rubens, was, by Poussin, Cortona, and
Sacchi, preferred to both. He often has been mistaken for his master,
and commands high prices: the want of grace alone betrays him--of grace
Nature had not been liberal to Francesco. Hence he became the proverb
of Giordano, "that sickening over bone and muscle, he rendered beauty
tame." He, in retort, held up Giordano's style as heresy in art, a
flowery medley of incoherent charms.
Though the reputed master, Lanfranco was not the model of Massimo; his
principal imitator was Giambatista Benaschi, or Bernaschi, numbered with
Roman artists by Orlandi, but who fixed his residence at Naples, and
opened a numerous school; a decided machinist, but with a grasp of fancy
which never suffered him to repeat a figure in the same attitude. His
points of sight from below upward, are correct, and his foreshortenings
dextrously contrived. None ever approached a master nearer, and forsook
him with less success.
Guercino never saw Naples, but Mattia Preti,[125] commonly called
Calabrese, smit with his novel style, went to study it at Cento; not
indeed exclusively, for no Italian school escaped the attention of
Preti. Unpractised in colour to his twenty-sixth year, he attended
solely to design, less to form beauty or trace characters of delicacy,
than to express robust and energetic ones: in such he often succeeded,
but sometimes sunk to heaviness. His colour resembled his line, not soft
and airy, but dense, cut into masses of chiaroscuro, and with a general
tone of ashy hues, tints of sorrow, contrition, anguish, the favourite
topics of his pencil. The frescoes of Calabrese at Modena, Naples,
Malta, have a stamp of grandeur. At Rome, in S. Andrea della Valle, he
appears to less advantage, too enormous for the place, and too ponderous
at the side of Domenichino. Italy is filled with his oil pictures, for
his life was long, his hand rapid, and every place he visited, a scene
of exercise: what he painted for galleries consisted commonly of half
figures, like those of Guercino. He long, and nearly alone, contested
the field with Giordano, to whose captivating airiness his weight was at
last forced to yield. He retired and died in Malta, a Knight of its
order, without leaving a pupil who rose above mediocrity.
After this survey of the Bolognese School at Naples, the native one of
Ribera claims attention. None ever swore more implicitly to a master's
dictates: the energy of his style absorbed their eye, the atrocity of
his character too often debauched their hearts. Inferiority alone
discriminates the works of Giovanni Do and Bartolommeo Passante from
those of Spagnoletto; though, in the advance of life, the first
attempted to tinge with less vulgarity, and the second now and then
affected a more select outline. Francesco Fracanzani had a certain
grandeur of execution and bloom of colour: his "Transito," or Death of
St. Joseph, at the Pellegrini, is among the first pictures of the city.
But, by the pressure of poverty, he first became a dauber, then a
criminal, and received sentence of death, which respect for his
profession, from the public ignominy of the halter, mitigated to secret
execution by poison.
Aniello Falcone[126] and Salvator Rosa, who is to be mentioned more at
large elsewhere, are the greatest boast of this school, though Rosa
frequented it for a short time only, and chiefly profited by the
instruction of Falcone. The strength of Falcone lay in battles, which he
painted in all dimensions, from the Sacred books, history, or poems.
Countenance, arms, dresses were in unison with the national character
of the combatants. His expression was vivid, the figures and movements
of his horses select and natural, and his tactics correct, though he had
neither served in, nor seen a battle. He drew with precision, everywhere
consulted the life, and laid his colour on with equal strength and
finish. That he instructed Borgognone is not probable. Baldinucci, who
published the Memoirs of that Jesuit, is silent on that head; but they
knew and esteemed each other. He had a numerous set of scholars, and
with them, and the assistance of some other painters, contrived to
revenge the murder of some relative and of a pupil assassinated by the
presidial Spaniards: for, at the revolutionary hubbub of Maso Aniello,
he and his gang formed themselves into a troop, which they called "the
Company of Death," and, protected by Ribera, who palliated their
proceedings at court, spread horrid massacre, till, scared by the return
of order, this band of homicides dispersed, and sought their safety in
flight. Falcone himself retired for some years to France, which has many
of his works; the rest escaped to Rome, or sought the usual asylums of
revenge and murder.
A numerous set of various but inferior artists, in power and pursuit,
fills the remaining period of this epoch and the Neapolitan catalogues
of art: the best of these issued from the desperate School of Falcone,
to whose method they adhered in all their diverging branches. Of these
Domenico Gargiuoli, nicknamed Micco Spadaro, a character as fierce as
pliant, leads the van--no contemptible figurist in large, but of endless
combination in groups of small proportion. The perspectives of Viviano
Codagora, his sworn brother, receive an exclusive lustre from his
figures. The battles of their fellow scholar, Carlo Coppola, might
sometimes be mistaken for those of Falcone, had he given less fulness to
his horses. Paolo Porpora left battles to paint quadrupeds, but chiefly
and best, fish and sea-shells: in fruit and flowers he was far surpassed
by Abraham Brueghel, who at that time had settled at Naples. Giuseppe
Recco and Andrea Belvedere, from the same school, excelled in game and
birds; and the last still more in flowers and fruit, so as to contest
superiority in that branch with Giordano, asserting that no figurist
could reach the polish, or give the finish required in minute objects.
Luca maintained, that the more implies the less, and, composing a
picture of game, fruit, and flowers, gave it such an air of illusion,
that Andrea, shrinking from his presence crestfallen, retired among the
literati of the day, of whom he was not the least.
After the middle of the seventeenth century, the revolutionary style of
Luca Giordano[127] reversed every preceding principle, and, by the
suavity of its ornamental magic, enchanted the public taste. A vast,
resolute, creative, talent attended him from infancy: in his eighth year
he is said to have painted, and not for the first time in fresco, two
infant angels, for the church of Sta. Maria La Nuova.[128] Struck with
wonder, the Vice Rè Duke Medina de Las Torres placed him with Ribera,
whose principles he studied for some time, but, aspiring to a more ample
theatre of art, escaped to Rome, followed by his father, Antonio, a weak
artist, but an unceasing monitor, and the more relentless because he
placed all his hopes on the rapid success of his son. To insure it, he
did not, if we believe one writer, suffer Luca to intermit his labours
by regular meals, but fed him whilst at work, as birds their callow
young, perpetually chirping into his ear, Luca, dispatch![129]--Luca,
dispatch! repeated his fellow-students, till the joke became nickname,
by which he is oftener distinguished than by his own.
So brutal a method would have excited in a mind less vigorous nothing
but weariness and despondency, but to the combining spirit of Luca gave
with portentous velocity of hand the rudiments of that varied power,
which, to a degree of deception, taught him to imitate the predominant
air of every master's style in line and colour, which he was set or
chose to copy,[130] and he had in nearly endless repetition, copied the
best of what Rome possessed of its own, the Lombard, Venetian, and
foreign schools, when he entered that of Pietro da Cortona, whose
wide-extended and ostentatious plans met most congenially his own.
No single master's manner did he, however, exclusively adopt. His first
works exhibit the pupil of Ribera, with evident aims at the energy of
that style; his subsequent and best manner is marked by the beauties and
the faults of Pietro da Cortona, the same contrast of composition, the
same masses of light, with equal monotony of expression, which in female
features was often supplied by his wife; a predilection for the
ornamental splendour of Paolo Veronese distinguishes with less advantage
a third class of his works--in this, stuffs are mixed with draperies,
the tints are less vigorous, the chiaroscuro less decided, the execution
heavier. It has been observed, that his works, when compared with the
finished masterpieces of the classic schools, are little better than
embryos, that he carried nothing to perfection, and that the delusive
power alone, by which he united a number of jarring parts in one
pleasing whole, can save him from sinking to the mediocrity which
overwhelmed his imitators. But it ought likewise to be considered, what
was the object of his exertions, and the end which he pursued;--they
were, by conquering the eye, to become the favourite of the public, and
he was made for both. Others see by degrees, arrange, reject,
select;--into the fancy of Giordano, the subject with its parts showered
at once; the picture stood complete before him. In colour, little
solicitous about the dictates of art, or the real hues of Nature, he
created an ideal and arbitrary tone, which represented the air of things
without diving into their substance, and, content with absolute dominion
over the eye, left it to others to inform the mind. If his method was
compendiary; none ever knew better how to improve an accident to a
beauty, and give to the random strokes of haste the look of deliberate
practice. That he knew the laws of design, we know, but debauched by
facility and the rage of gain, neglected the toil of correctness: hence
likewise the superficial manner in which he often laid on his colours,
diluted, unembodied, and unable to retain the fugitive imagery of his
pencil.
Naples is full of Giordano--few, if any in so vast a metropolis, are the
churches that want his hand. In that of the P.P. Girolamini, the
Expulsion of the Venders is one of his most admired works; but the best
of his frescoes, in which he seems to have concentrated his powers, are
those in the treasury of the Certosa. The cupola of S. Brigida, rapidly
painted in competition with Francesco di Maria, exhibits the first
specimens of that flattering tone which baffled the learning of his
rival, intoxicated the vulgar, and corrupted the growing taste. The
admired picture of St. Xavier, of copious composition and the most
seductive colour, was the work of one day and a half. Among the public
and private paintings at Florence, the chapel Corsini and the gallery
Riccardi are by the hand of Luca; nor was he unemployed by the
Sovereign; and Cosmo III., in whose presence he invented and coloured a
large composition with momentary velocity, declared him a painter
formed for princes. He obtained the same praise from Charles II. of
Spain, whom he served for thirteen years, but from the multitude of his
works might be supposed to have served during a long life. There he
continued the series of pictures begun by Cambiasi, in the church of the
Escurial, on the most extensive plan, but inferior in style and
execution to the frescoes of Buon-Ritiro. Of his oil pictures, that of
the Nativity, for the Queen Mother, has shared unlimited praise, as
combining with superior felicity of execution, a research and a depth of
study seldom found in his other works.
Grown old, he returned to Naples, loaded with riches and honours, and
soon after died, regretted as the first painter of his time.
Though Giordano did not propose his process as a model of imitation to
his scholars, it may easily be guessed that his success made a deeper
impression on them than his precepts, and that without previously
submitting to the labours of his education, they attempted to snatch
with the charms the profits of his manner. Hence a swarm of bold
craftsmen and mannerists was let loose upon the public, who with gay
mediocrity overwhelmed what yet was left of principles in art. Of these,
his favourites were Aniello Rossi, and Matteo Pacelli, who accompanied
him to Spain, returned well pensioned, and continued to live in obscure
ease. Niccolo Rossi, Giuseppe Simonelli, Andrea Miglionico and Ramondo
de Dominici, came nearer their master; and the Spaniard Franceschitto,
as he had raised the hopes, might have excited the jealousy of Luca, had
he not been intercepted by death. He left a specimen of his powers in
the picture of S. Pasquale, at Sta. Maria del Monte.
But the best of his pupils, and heir of his dispatch, was Paolo de'
Matteis, a name that ranks with the foremost of that day, not unknown to
France or Rome; his chief abode was, however, Naples, where his frescoes
are spread over churches, galleries, halls and ceilings; if unequal to
those of his master in merit, nearly always produced with equal speed.
It was his unexampled vaunt to have painted the enormous Cupola del Gesù
Nuovo in sixty-six days, a boast which Solimene checked with the cool
reply, that the work told its own tale without assistance: and yet it
possesses beauties, especially in the parts that imitate Lanfranco,
which excite wonder, considering the fury of execution. Nor, if he chose
to work with previous study and with diligence, as in the church of the
'Pii Operai,' in the gallery Matatona, and in many private pictures, was
he destitute of composition, grace of outline, or beauty of countenance,
though little varied. His colour at the onset was Giordanesque; in the
sequel he increased the force of his chiaroscuro, though not without
delicate gradation of tints: particularly in Madonnas and Infants, which
give an idea of Albano's suavity, and the Roman style. A school more
numerous than distinguished by talent, contributes little to his
celebrity.
Francesco Solimene,[131] called "L'Abate Ciccio," born at Nocera de'
Pagani, took the elements of art from his father Angelo, formerly a
pupil of Massimo, and went to Naples. He successively frequented the
schools of Francesco di Maria and of Giac. del Po, and left both to
follow his own inclination, which at first exclusively led him to
imitate the style of Pietro da Cortona, and even to adopt his figures.
He next formed a manner which, of all others, approached next to Preti;
the design, indeed, is less exact, the colour less true, but the faces
handsomer, now in imitation of Guido, then nearer to Maratta, and often
picked from life: hence the byname of "the Gentler Calabrese."[132] To
Preti he joined Lanfranco, whom he surnamed the "Master," and from him
borrowed and exaggerated that serpentine sweep of composition: his
chiaroscuro, balanced between both, lost some of its vigour and became
softer with the advance of life. He drew and revised his forms from
Nature with much accuracy before he painted, but often sacrificed his
outline to the fire of execution in the process. The facility and
elegance which distinguish him in poetry, mark his invention in
painting, to no branch of which he could be called a stranger, and might
have excelled singly in each. His works are scattered over Europe, for
he lived to the age of ninety, and yielded in velocity of hand to
Giordano only, his competitor and friend, at whose demise he succeeded
to the Primacy of taste.
Of the public works that most distinguish Solimene, are the stories of
the sacristy in S. Paolo Maggiore de' P.P. Teatini, nor less the
pictures substituted for those of Giacomo del Po on the arches of the
Chapels in the Church de' S.S. Apostoli. Specimens of his high finish
may be seen in the Chapel of S. Filippo in the Church dell' Oratorio; he
painted the principal altar-piece of the Nuns di "S. Gaudioso," and the
four large histories in the choir of the church at Monte Cassino. Of
private works, the gallery of Sanfelice is the most conspicuous at
Naples; at Rome, some stories in the Albani and Colonna palaces; and at
Macerata, in the Buonacorsi collection, among several mythologic
subjects, the Death of Dido, a picture of large dimensions and striking
effect. In the refectory of the Conventuals of Assisi, the Last Supper
of our Lord, a polished performance, is by his hand.
Of that most numerous band of pupils whom he let loose upon the public,
the most celebrated was, no doubt, Sebastiano Conca, a native of Gaeta,
generally classed with the Roman school, for Rome became his residence
and the theatre of his talent. After having served a pupilage of sixteen
years under Solimene, and persevered in the practice of that style for
several years at Rome, he ominously proved the futility of attempting at
an advanced period to escape from the tyranny of early habits. At forty
he dared to leave his brushes, became once more a student, and spent
five years in drawing after the antique and the masters of design: but
his hand and eye, debauched by manner, refused to obey his mind, till,
wearied by hopeless fatigue, he followed the advice of the sculptor Le
Gros, and returned to his former practice, though not without
considerable improvements, and nearer to Pietro da Cortona than to his
master. Conca had fertile brains, a rapid pencil, and a colour which at
first sight fascinated every eye by its splendour, contrast, and the
delicacy of its flesh-tints. His dispatch in fresco and in oil was equal
to his employment, and there is scarcely a collection of any consequence
without its Conca. He was courted by sovereigns and princes, and Pope
Clement XI. ennobled him at a full assembly of the academicians of St.
Luke. He was assisted in his labours by his brother Giovanni, a man of
similar taste, but less power, and an excellent copyist. The maxims of
Conca are considered[133] as having completed the ruin of art; but every
school had its own canker, and his influence did not extend to all.
Without deviating into a catalogue of mediocrity, it may be sufficient
to name three of his principal scholars, Gaetano Lapis of Cagli,
Salvator Monosilio, a Messinese, and Gaspero Serenari, a Palermitan.
Lapis had too much originality of conception and too much solidity of
taste to adopt the flowery style of his master. The public works he left
at home, and the Birth of Venus in a ceiling of the Borghese Palace, as
correct as graceful, deserved and would have attained more celebrity,
had not self-contempt and diffidence intercepted the fortune which his
talent might have commanded. The two Sicilians, complete machinists,
shared with the imitation the success of their master.
Next to Conca, the most successful pupil of Solimene was Francesco de
Mura, surnamed Franceschiello, born at Naples and greatly employed in
its churches and private galleries: the works, however, to which he owes
most of his celebrity, were the frescoes painted in various apartments
of the royal palace at Torino, in competition with Claudio Beaumont, who
was then at the height of his vigour. Mura ornamented the ceiling of
some rooms, chiefly filled with Flemish pictures, with subjects widely
different, Olympic games, and actions of Achilles.
Corrado Giaquinto of Molfetta, may conclude what yet deserves to be
recorded of this school. He too left Naples, came to Rome, and attached
himself to Conca, whose maxims he made nearly all his own; as resolute,
as easy, but less correct. Rome, Macerata, and other parts of the Roman
state, are acquainted with his works. He painted in Piemont, was
employed by Charles III. in Spain, appointed Director of the Academy of
S. Fernando, pleased and continued to please the greater part of the
public, even after the arrival of A.R. Mengs.