[134] Thus in an order of the Justiziarii we read: "MCCCXXII. Indicion
Sexta die primo de Octub. Ordenado e fermado fo per Misier Piero Veniero
& per Miser Marco da Mugla Justixieri Vieri, lo terzo compagno vacante.
Ordenado fo che da mo in avanti alguna persona si venedega come
forestiera non osa vender in Venexia alcuna _Anchona_ impenta, salvo li
empentori, sotto pena, &c. Salvo da la sensa, che alora sia licito a
zaschun de vinder _anchone_ infin chel durerà la festa," &c. And a
picture in the church of S. Donato at Murano, has the following
inscription: "Corendo MCCCX. indicion viii. in tempo de lo nobele homo
Miser Donato Memo honorando Podestà facta fo questa _Anchona_ de Miser
S. Donato."
[135] In the church at Cassello di Sesto, which has an abbey founded in
762, there are pictures of the ninth century.
[136] Gelasio di Nicolo della Masuada di S. Giorgio, was of Ferrara, and
flourished about 1242. Vid. Historia almi Ferrariensis Gymnasii,
Ferraria, 1735.
[137] At that time he painted in the palace of Cari della Scala at
Verona, and at Padoua a chapel in the church 'del Sarto;' he repeated
his visit in the latter years of his life to both places. Of what he did
at Verona no traces remain, but at Padoua the compartments of Gospel
histories round the Oratorio of the Nunziata all' Arena, by the
freshness of the fresco and that blended grace and grandeur peculiar to
Giotto, still surprise.
[138] Fiorillo has confounded this questionable name with the real one
of Luigi, who painted about 1490.--See Fiorillo Geschichte, ii. p. 11.
[139] In S. Giorgio Maggiore is a St. Stephen and Sebastian, with the
inscription:
1445.
Johannes de Alemania
et Antonius de Muriano.
P.
from which, another picture at Padova, inscribed "Antonio de Muran e
Zohan Alamanus pinxit," and some traces of foreign style where his name
occurs, Lanzi suspects that the inscription in S. Pantaleone, "Zuane, e
Antonio da Muran, pense 1444," on which the existence of Giovanni is
founded, means no other than the German partner of Antonio.
[140] In no instance seems Vasari to have given a more decisive proof of
his attachment to the Florentine school, than by building the fame of
Pisano on having been the pupil of Andrea del Castagno, and having been
allowed to terminate the works which he had left unfinished behind him
about 1480; an anachronism the more absurd as the Commendator del Pozzo
was possessed of a picture by Pisano, inscribed 'Opera di Vittor
Pisanello de San V. Veronese, MCCCCVI.' a period at which probably
Castagno was not born. The truth is, that Vasari, whose rage for
dispatch and credulity kept pace with each other, composed the first
part of Pisano's life nearly without materials, and the second from
hearsay.
[141] What Vasari says of the dog of S. Eustachio and the horse of St.
Giorgio, though on the authority of Frà Marco de' Medici, warrants the
assertion; and still more the foreshortened horse on the reverse of a
medal struck in 1419, in honour and with the head of John Palæologus.
The horse, like that of M. Antoninus, has an attitude of parallel
motion. The medal has been published by Ducange in the appendix to his
Latin Glossary, by Padre Banduri, Gori and Maffei.
[142] See their lists in _Descrizione delle Architetture, Pitture e
Sculture di Vicenza con alcune osservazioni, &c._ Vicenza, 1779, 8vo. p.
I. II.
[143] Ridolfi, i. 68. Vasari, who treats his art with contempt, calls
him Jacopo; and Orlandi, afraid of choosing between them, used both, and
made two different artists.
[144] Vasari dates his birth 1480.
[145] Liruti, Notizie de' Letterati del Friuli, t. ii. p. 285.
[146] Sebastiano Zuccati of Trevigo, flourished about 1490. He had two
sons, Valerio and Francesco, celebrated for mosaic about and beyond the
middle of the sixteenth century. Flaminio Zuccati, the son of Valerio,
who inherited his father's talent and fame, flourished about 1585. See
Zanetti.
[147] See Ridolfi. The original went to Dresden; but Italy abounds in
copies of it. Lanzi mentions one which he saw at S. Saverio in Rimini,
with Tiziano's name written on the fillet of the Pharisee, a performance
of great beauty, and by many considered less a copy than a duplicate.
The most celebrated copy, that of Flaminio Torre, is preserved at
Dresden with the original.
[148] "Si può quasi dire, che il vizio sia la virtù della Scuola
Veneziana, poichè fa pompa della sollecitudine nel dipingere; e perciò
fa stima di Tintoretto, che non avea altro merito." Mengs, Opere, t. i.
p. 175. ed. Parm.
[149] It has supplanted, was probably perpetuated in allusion to his
rapidity of execution, and remains familiar to ears that never heard of
Robusti.
[150] See Varie Pitture a fresco de' principali Maestri Veneziani, &c.
Venez. fol. 1760. Tab. 8, 9, p. viii. No one who has seen the original
figures of the Aurora and Creposcolo in S. Lorenzo, can mistake their
imitation, or rather transcripts, in these.
[151] The frequent want of equilibration found in Tintoretto's figures,
even where no violence of action can palliate or account for it, has not
without probability been ascribed to his method of studying foreshortening
from models loosely suspended and playing in the air; to which he at last
became so used that he sometimes employed it even for figures resting on
firm ground, and fondly sacrificed solidity and firmness to the affected
graces of undulation.
[152] It would be mere waste of time to recapitulate what has been said
on the efficient beauties of this astonishing work in the lectures on
colour and chiaroscuro, and in the article of Tintoretto, in the last
edition of Pilkington's Dictionary. It has been engraved on a large
scale by Agostino Carracci, if that can be called engraving which
contents itself with the mere enumeration of the parts, totally
neglecting the medium of that tremendous twilight which hovers over the
whole and transposes us to Golgotha. If what Ridolfi says be true, that
Tintoretto embraced the engraver when he presented the drawing to him,
he must have had still more deplorable moments of dereliction as a man
than as an Artist, or the drawing of Agostino, must have differed
totally from the print.
[153] It is engraved by Pietro Monaco, as that of Tiziano, by Le Fevre,
but in a manner which makes us lament the lot of those who have no means
to see the original.