Three epochs divide the history of painting in Bologna and the
neighbouring districts. The first is from its restoration to the time of
Francesco Raibolini, or Francia; the second reaches from him to the
Carracci, when it attained its height, and gradually decayed in the
variety of deviations which mark the third.
Bologna, at an early period of the fifth century, appears to have been
considered as a nursery of sciences and arts; the foundation of its
University is dated up to Petronius, its bishop at that period;
afterwards, under the successive invasions of barbarians, when the
alternate prey of clerical and secular rapacity, as a powerful republic,
or oppressed by civic usurpation, and at last reduced to a Papal
province, Bologna never lost its predilection for sciences and arts.
Of the progress made in painting anterior to the time of Cimabue, some
monumental relics still remain, though by far the greater part were
ignorantly destroyed at the beginning of the last century. Some that
escaped the whitewasher's hand are ascribed to an artist who marked his
work with the letters _P.F._ Of these, one which represents a Maria, is
preserved in the Church della Baroncella, and was done about 1120. Two
others are in the Basilica of S. Stephano.
Baldi, a collector of antique pictures, in a MS. quoted by Malvasia,
mentions some of _Guido da Bologna_, painted in 1178 and 1180, and
others executed by _Ventura da Bononia_ in 1197. Of this last something
still remains, especially one picture with the date 1217, and the
inscription _Ventura pinsit_: and the name of _Urso_, or _Ursone_, a
contemporary of _Guido da Siena_, is found on a picture inscribed _Urso
f. 1226_; and some others ascribed to him have dates of 1242 and 1244.
In those times painting, sculpture, architecture, chasing, were
frequently exercised by one man. A certain _Manno_, contemporary with
Cimabue, is mentioned as the painter of a Madonna by Baldi, and as the
sculptor of Pope Bonifazio VIII. by Ghirardacci who calls him likewise a
goldsmith. His dates are from 1260 to 1301. Some remains or rather ruins
of these masters are still visible in the palace Malvezzi.
The age of Giotto and Dante gives Art an air of greater certainty.
Tradition and monument go hand in hand. Franco of Bologna, with his
supposed master Oderigi of Gubbio, are celebrated in the poet's poem of
the Purgatory. Franco was called to Rome by Bonifazio VIII. to decorate
the books and missals of the Vatican library with miniature; and on his
return to Bologna founded a school which numbered among its scholars
_Vitale_, _Lorenzo_, _Simone_, and _Jacopo d'Avanzi_, whose works,
especially what remains of the two last, make it probable that Vasari is
correct when he asserts that Franco excelled in large as well as in
miniature painting. Michael Agnolo and the Carracci are said to have
been struck with the fire of conception and the tone of colour in the
pictures still preserved of Simone and Jacopo d'Avanzi, at the Madonna
di Mezzaratta, and to have advised a careful restoration of the
decaying parts. Simone, who loved to paint the crucifix, from the number
which he executed obtained the surname of "de' Crocefissi;" and Jacopo,
smitten with the love of Maria, was marked by the title "dalle Madonne."
He excelled, however, in subjects of a martial kind, if the conflict in
the Chapel of S. Jacopo del Santo at Padova, and the Capture of
Jugurtha, with the Triumph of Marius, in a saloon at Verona, be his
performances: works which excited the wonder of Mantegna. As he
sometimes subscribed "Jacobus Pauli," it has been surmised that he was
of Venetian extraction, and perhaps the son and assistant of that Paolo
who painted the Ancona of S. Marc.
Of the artists who at that period painted in Mezzaratta, Cristoforo,
whether of Ferrara, Modena, or Bologna, for he is claimed by all, seems
to have shared the highest repute. He had the commission of the
principal altar, where he painted on panel the Madonna with the Infant
between her knees, and some figures kneeling before her; it still
exists, marked with his name Christofano, 1380. A most copious work of
his, divided into ten compartments of saints, rudely designed, languid
in colour, but of original style, is preserved among the fragments of
the house Malvezzi.
Lippo di Dalmatio,--who was supposed to have been a Carmelite, till
Bianconi, in Piacenza's edition of Baldinucci, produced proofs of his
wife and family,--came from the school of Vitale, and from his
predilection for the Mother of Christ acquired, like Jacopo d'Avanzi,
the byname of "Lippo dalle Madonne." There goes a tale that he gave
instruction to Saint Catherine Vigri, of whom certain miniatures and an
Infant Christ on panel still remain. A better union of tints, and some
easier arrangement in the folds of his draperies, though with a
profusion of gold lace, is all that discriminates him from the crudeness
and exility of the ancient style. Such, however, was his felicity in the
character of Madonnas, that they captivated Guido Reni,[167] who used to
repeat that Lippo, in expressing at once the majesty, the sanctity, and
the mildness of the divine mother, must have been assisted by a
celestial power. Some of these Madonnas are said to be in oil colours,
with dates of 1376, 1405, and 1407. Guido is likewise the guarantee of
certain frescoes representing facts of Elia, painted with great spirit
by the same master.
After 1409, the last date of Lippo's pictures, the School of Bologna
somewhat declined, nor could it be otherwise: no vigorous school ever
sprang from the timid precepts of a portrait painter, and Dalmatio
possessed more of that than of historic power: this, rather than the
supposed imitation of certain images imported from Constantinople, was
the cause of that insignificance which consigned, with few exceptions,
his school and successors to oblivion. Of Pietro Lianori, Michele di
Matteo, Bombologno, Severo and Erçole Bologna, Catherina di Vigri,
Giacopo Ripanda, Marco Zoppo, time has left little but the names, and of
that little, enough not to regret the loss of what vanished. Let us not,
however, be too fastidious to repeat what tradition has persevered to
report of some; if Bombologno may be left to the votaries of the
crucifix, and Catherina to the rubric that saints her, Michele
Lambertini claims the attention of artists for a mellowness of tints
which Albano judged superior to the tints of Francia; Giacopo Ripanda
for the dangers which he braved in designing the groups of the Trajan
pillar;[168] and Marco Zoppo as no despicable competitor of Andrea
Mantegna, and the reputed master of Francesco Francia.
Francesco Raibolini, surnamed Francia, born in 1450, may be considered
as the head of the Bolognese school, because his works appear to have
been framed on that collective principle which became its leading
feature in the sequel, and was probably the result of the long theory
that preceded his practice, assisted by that readiness in design which
distinguished him as a goldsmith, chaser,[169] and die-cutter,
professions to which he had been trained up from his infancy, and which
he raised to celebrity before he attained complete manhood.
Francia was fortunate in contemporaries; the School of Squarcione had
furnished him with style and form; the genius of Lionardo da Vinci, with
effect and chiaroscuro; Pietro Vanucchi with arrangement if not
composition, and though not beauty, with amenity of aspect; and Bellino
with tone, breadth of drapery and colour. Ardour of mind, energy of
application and dexterity, supplied the want of early practice, and we
find him in the palace of Giov. Bentivoglio on a par with the most
expert Frescanti conscribed from Ferrara and Modena, and soon after
intrusted with the commission of painting the altar-piece of his chapel
at S. Jacopo, a work of great subtlety of execution; though modestly
inscribed "Opus Francia Aurificis," and a pledge of that superior
style at which he aimed and in the sequel attained.
If from what has been premised of Bolognese artists anterior to Cimabue,
it is evident that the germs of art belong to their own soil, their
claim to originality in the progress of style has been and still is
matter of dispute between the champions of the Tuscan school and those
of their own. The Florentines insist on having taught the Bolognese,
what the Bolognese deny to have learnt from the Florentines.[170] As in
a dispute of this kind, candour is often sacrificed to the fervour of
patriotic vanity, and the obstinacy of local attachment, the real state
of the question is better learnt from those monuments of the fourteenth
century, which still remain scattered over Romagna or collected and more
classically arranged in Bologna itself. Among all these some specimens
will be found evidently Greek, others as evidently Giottesque; some in a
Venetian style, and not a few in a manner peculiar to Bologna only.
These have a body of colour, a taste in perspective, a mode of design
in figures, and a choice of forms and hues in draperies, which no other
school practised. From all which it appears, that if Giotto during his
stay at Bologna raised pupils, and formed imitators, his own school had
no influence on, nor dislodged, that aboriginal one which continued to
disseminate and to improve the principles imbibed from the antique
mosaics and the painters of miniature.