Cristofano and his brother, painters of Brescia, painted the ceiling,
Tintoretto has painted--that is, on canvas and in oils--the two walls of
the principal chapel, which are twenty-two braccia in height from the
vaulting to the cornice at the foot. In that which is on the right hand
he has depicted Moses returning from the Mount, where he had received
the Laws from God, and finding the people worshipping the Golden Calf;
and opposite to that, in the other, is the Universal Judgment of the
last day, painted with an extravagant invention that truly has in it
something awesome and terrible, by reason of the diversity of figures of
either sex and all ages that are there, with vistas and distant views of
the souls of the blessed and the damned. There, also, may be seen the
boat of Charon, but in a manner so different from that of others, that
it is a thing beautiful and strange. If this fantastic invention had
been executed with correct and well-ordered drawing, and if the painter
had given diligent attention to the parts and to each particular detail,
as he has done to the whole in expressing the confusion, turmoil, and
terror of that day, it would have been a most stupendous picture. And
whoever glances at it for a moment, is struck with astonishment; but,
considering it afterwards minutely, it appears as if painted as a jest.
The same master has painted in oils in that church, on the doors of the
organ, Our Lady ascending the steps of the Temple, which is a
highly-finished work, and the best-executed and most gladsome picture
that there is in that place. In S. Maria Zebenigo, likewise on the doors
of the organ, he has painted the Conversion of S. Paul, but not with
much care. In the Carita is an altar-piece by his hand, of Christ taken
down from the Cross; and in the Sacristy of S. Sebastiano, in
competition with Paolo Veronese, who executed many pictures on the
ceiling and the walls of that place, he painted over the presses Moses
in the Desert and other scenes, which were continued afterwards by
Natalino, a Venetian painter, and by others. The same Tintoretto then
painted for the altar of the Pieta, in S. Giobbe, three Maries, S.
Francis, S. Sebastian, and S. John, with a piece of landscape; and, on
the organ-doors in the Church of the Servites, S. Augustine and S.
Philip, and beneath them Cain killing his brother Abel. At the altar of
the Sacrament in S. Felice, or rather, on the ceiling of the tribune, he
painted the four Evangelists; and in the lunette above the altar an
Annunciation, in the other lunette Christ praying on the Mount of
Olives, and on the wall the Last Supper that He had with His Apostles.
And in S. Francesco della Vigna, on the altar of the Deposition from the
Cross, there is by the same hand the Madonna in a swoon, with the other
Maries and some Prophets.
In the Scuola of S. Marco, near SS. Giovanni e Polo, are four large
scenes by his hand. In one of these is S. Mark, who, appearing in the
air, is delivering one who is his votary from many torments that may be
seen prepared for him with various instruments of torture, which being
broken, the executioner was never able to employ them against that
devout man; and in that scene is a great abundance of figures,
foreshortenings, pieces of armour, buildings, portraits, and other
suchlike things, which render the work very ornate. In the second is a
tempest of the sea, and S. Mark, likewise in the air, delivering another
of his votaries; but that scene is by no means executed with the same
diligence as that already described. In the third is a storm of rain,
with the dead body of another of S. Mark's votaries, and his soul
ascending into Heaven; and there, also, is a composition of passing good
figures. In the fourth, wherein an evil spirit is being exorcised, he
counterfeited in perspective a great loggia, and at the end of it a fire
that illumines it with many reflections. And in addition to those scenes
there is on the altar a S. Mark by the same hand, which is a passing
good picture.
These works, then, and many others that are here passed over, it being
enough to have made mention of the best, have been executed by
Tintoretto with such rapidity, that, when it was thought that he had
scarcely begun, he had finished. And it is a notable thing that with the
most extravagant ways in the world, he has always work to do, for the
reason that when his friendships and other means are not enough to
obtain for him any particular work, even if he had to do it, I do not
say at a low price, but without payment or by force, in one way or
another, do it he would. And it is not long since, Tintoretto having
executed the Passion of Christ in a large picture in oils and on canvas
for the Scuola of S. Rocco, the men of that Company resolved to have
some honourable and magnificent work painted on the ceiling above it,
and therefore to allot that commission to that one among the painters
that there were in Venice who should make the best and most beautiful
design. Having therefore summoned Joseffo Salviati, Federigo Zucchero,
who was in Venice at that time, Paolo Veronese, and Jacopo Tintoretto,
they ordained that each of them should make a design, promising the work
to him who should acquit himself best in this. While the others, then,
were engaged with all possible diligence in making their designs,
Tintoretto, having taken measurements of the size that the work was to
be, sketched a great canvas and painted it with his usual rapidity,
without anyone knowing about it, and then placed it where it was to
stand. Whereupon, the men of the Company having assembled one morning to
see the designs and to make their award, they found that Tintoretto had
completely finished the work and had placed it in position. At which
being angered against him, they said that they had called for designs
and had not commissioned him to execute the work; but he answered them
that this was his method of making designs, that he did not know how to
proceed in any other manner, and that designs and models of works should
always be after that fashion, so as to deceive no one, and that,
finally, if they would not pay him for the work and for his labour, he
would make them a present of it. And after these words, although he had
many contradictions, he so contrived that the work is still in the same
place. In this canvas, then, there is painted a Heaven with God the
Father descending with many Angels to embrace S. Rocco, and in the
lowest part are many figures that signify, or rather, represent the
other principal Scuole of Venice, such as the Carita, S. Giovanni
Evangelista, the Misericordia, S. Marco, and S. Teodoro, all executed
after his usual manner. But since it would be too long a task to
enumerate all the pictures of Tintoretto, let it be enough to have
spoken of the above-named works of that master, who is a truly able man
and a painter worthy to be praised.
[Illustration: THE APOTHEOSIS OF S. ROCCO
(_After the painting by =Jacopo Tintoretto=. Venice: Scuola di S.
Rocco_)
_Anderson_]
There was in Venice about this same time a painter called Brazzacco, a
protege of the house of Grimani, who had been many years in Rome; and he
was commissioned by favour to paint the ceiling in the Great Hall of the
Chiefs of the Council of Ten. But this master, knowing that he was not
able to do it by himself and that he had need of assistance, took as
companions Paolo Veronese and Battista Farinato, dividing between
himself and them nine pictures in oils that were destined for that
place--namely, four ovals at the corners, four oblong pictures, and a
larger oval in the centre. Giving the last-named oval, with three of the
oblong pictures, to Paolo Veronese, who painted therein a Jove who is
hurling his thunderbolts against the Vices, and other figures, he took
for himself two of the smaller ovals, with one of the oblong pictures,
and gave two ovals to Battista. In one of these pictures is Neptune, the
God of the Sea, and in each of the others two figures demonstrating the
greatness and the tranquil and peaceful condition of Venice. Now,
although all three of them acquitted themselves well, Paolo Veronese
succeeded better than the others, and well deserved, therefore, that
those Signori should afterwards allot to him the other ceiling that is
beside the above-named hall, wherein he painted in oils, in company with
Battista Farinato, a S. Mark supported in the air by some Angels, and
lower down a Venice surrounded by Faith, Hope, and Charity; which work,
although it was beautiful, was not equal in excellence to the first.
Paolo afterwards executed by himself in the Umilta, in a large oval of
the ceiling, an Assumption of Our Lady with other figures, which was a
gladsome, beautiful, and well-conceived picture.
Likewise a good painter in our own day, in that city, has been Andrea
Schiavone; I say good, because at times, for all his misfortunes, he has
produced some good work, and because he has always imitated as well as
he has been able the manners of the good masters. But, since the greater
part of his works have been pictures that are dispersed among the houses
of gentlemen, I shall speak only of some that are in public places. In
the Chapel of the family of Pellegrini, in the Church of S. Sebastiano
at Venice, he has painted a S. James with two Pilgrims. In the Church
of the Carmine, on the ceiling of the choir, he has executed an
Assumption with many Angels and Saints; and in the Chapel of the
Presentation, in the same church, he has painted the Infant Christ
presented by His Mother in the Temple, with many portraits from life,
but the best figure that is there is a woman suckling a child and
wearing a yellow garment, who is executed in a certain manner that is
used in Venice--dashed off, or rather, sketched, without being in any
respect finished. Him Giorgio Vasari caused in the year 1540 to paint on
a large canvas in oils the battle that had been fought a short time
before between Charles V and Barbarossa; and that work, which is one of
the best that Andrea Schiavone ever executed, and truly very beautiful,
is now in Florence, in the house of the heirs of the Magnificent M.
Ottaviano de' Medici, to whom it was sent as a present by Vasari.
GIOVAN FRANCESCO RUSTICI
LIFE OF GIOVAN FRANCESCO RUSTICI
SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE
It is in every way a notable thing that all those who were of the school
in the garden of the Medici, and were favoured by the Magnificent
Lorenzo the Elder, became without exception supremely excellent; which
circumstance cannot have come from any other cause but the great, nay,
infinite judgment of that most noble lord, the true Maecenas of men of
talent, who, even as he was able to recognize men of lofty spirit and
genius, was also both willing and able to recompense and reward them.
Thus Giovan Francesco Rustici, a Florentine citizen, acquitting himself
very well in drawing and working in clay in his boyhood, was placed by
that Magnificent Lorenzo, who recognized him as a boy of spirit and of
good and beautiful genius, to learn under Andrea del Verrocchio, with
whom there was also working Leonardo da Vinci, a rare youth and gifted
with infinite parts. Whereupon Rustici, being pleased by the beautiful
manner and ways of Leonardo, and considering that the expressions of his
heads and the movements of his figures were more graceful and more
spirited than those of any other works that he had ever seen, attached
himself to him, after he had learned to cast in bronze, to draw in
perspective, and to work in marble, and after Andrea had gone to work in
Venice. Rustici thus living with Leonardo and serving him with the most
loving submission, Leonardo conceived such an affection for him,
recognizing him to be a young man of good, true, and liberal mind,
patient and diligent in the labours of art, that he did nothing, either
great or small, save what was pleasing to Giovan Francesco, who, besides
being of a noble family, had the means to live honourably, and
therefore practised art more for his own delight and from desire of
glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those
craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit,
and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although
they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a
livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their
families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are
drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for
men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are
called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get
done without first having been well considered for a long time. And it
was on that account that Rustici used to say in his more mature years
that you must first think, then make your sketches, and after that your
designs; which done, you must put them aside for weeks and even months
without looking at them, and then, choosing the best, put them into
execution; but that method cannot be followed by everyone, nor do those
use it who labour only for gain. And he used to say, also, that works
should not be shown readily to anyone before they are finished, so that
a man may change them as many times and in as many ways as he wishes,
without any scruple.
Giovan Francesco learned many things from Leonardo, but particularly how
to represent horses, in which he so delighted that he fashioned them of
clay and of wax, in the round or in low-relief, and in as many manners
as could be imagined; and of these there are some to be seen in our book
which are so well drawn, that they bear witness to the knowledge and art
of Giovan Francesco. He knew also how to handle colours, and executed
some passing good pictures, although his principal profession was
sculpture. And since he lived for a time in the Via de' Martelli, he
became much the friend of all the men of that family, which has always
had men of the highest ability and worth, and particularly of Piero, for
whom, being the nearest to his heart, he made some little figures in
full-relief, and, among others, a Madonna with the Child in her arms
seated upon some clouds that are covered with Cherubim. Similar to that
is another that he painted after some time in a large picture in oils,
with a garland of Cherubim that form a diadem around the head of Our
Lady.
The Medici family having then returned to Florence, Rustici made himself
known to Cardinal Giovanni as the protege of his father Lorenzo, and was
received with much lovingness. But, since the ways of the Court did not
please him and were distasteful to his nature, which was altogether
simple and peaceful, and not full of envy and ambition, he would always
keep to himself and live the life as it were of a philosopher, enjoying
tranquil peace and repose. And although he did at times choose to take
some recreation, and found himself among his friends in art or some
citizens who were his intimate companions, he did not therefore cease to
work when the desire came to him or the occasion presented itself.
Wherefore, for the visit of Pope Leo to Florence in the year 1515, at
the request of Andrea del Sarto, who was much his friend, he executed
some statues that were held to be very beautiful; which statues, since
they pleased Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, were the reason that the
Cardinal caused him to make, for the summit of the fountain that is in
the great court of the Palace of the Medici, the nude Mercury of bronze
about one braccio in height, standing on a ball in the act of taking
flight. In the hands of that figure Rustici placed an instrument that is
made to revolve by the water that it pours down from above, in the
following manner: one leg being perforated, a pipe passes through it and
through the torso, and the water, having risen to the mouth of the
figure, falls upon that instrument, which is balanced with four thin
plates fixed after the manner of a butterfly, and causes it to revolve.
That figure, I say, for a small work, was much extolled. Not long
afterwards, Giovan Francesco made for the same Cardinal the model for a
David to be cast in bronze (similar to that executed by Donato, as has
been related, for the elder Cosimo, the Magnificent), for placing in the
first court, whence the other had been taken away. That model gave much
satisfaction, but, by reason of a certain dilatoriness in Giovan
Francesco, it was never cast in bronze; wherefore the Orpheus in marble
of Bandinelli was placed there, and the David of clay made by Rustici,
which was a very rare work, came to an evil end, which was a very great
loss. Giovan Francesco made an Annunciation in half-relief in a large
medallion, with a most beautiful perspective-view, in which he was
assisted by the painter Raffaello Bello and by Niccolo Soggi. This, when
cast in bronze, proved to be a work of such rare beauty, that there was
nothing more beautiful to be seen; and it was sent to the King of Spain.
And then he executed in marble, in another similar medallion, a Madonna
with the Child in her arms and S. John the Baptist as a little boy,
which was placed in the first hall in the residence of the Consuls of
the Guild of Por Santa Maria.
By these works Giovan Francesco came into great credit, and the Consuls
of the Guild of Merchants, who had caused to be removed certain clumsy
figures of marble that were over the three doors of the Temple of S.
Giovanni (made, as has been related, in the year 1240), after allotting
to Contucci of Sansovino those that were to be set up in place of the
old ones over the door that faces towards the Misericordia, allotted to
Rustici those that were to be placed over the door that faces towards
the canonical buildings of that temple, on the condition that he should
make three figures of bronze of four braccia each, representing the same
persons as the old ones--namely, S. John in the act of preaching,
standing between a Pharisee and a Levite. That work was much after the
heart of Giovan Francesco, because it was to be set up in a place so
celebrated and of such importance, and, besides this, by reason of the
competition with Andrea Contucci. Having therefore straightway set his
hand to it and made a little model, which he surpassed in the excellence
of the work itself, he showed all the consideration and diligence that
such a labour required. When finished, the work was held to be in all
its parts the best composed and best conceived of its kind that had been
made up to that time, the figures being wholly perfect and wrought with
great grace of aspect and also extraordinary force. In like manner, the
nude arms and legs are very well conceived, and attached at the joints
so excellently, that it would not be possible to do better; and, to say
nothing of the hands and feet, what graceful attitudes and what heroic
gravity have those heads!
[Illustration: S. JOHN PREACHING
(_After the bronze by =Giovan Francesco Rustici=. Florence: The
Baptistery_)
_Alinari_]
Giovan Francesco, while he was fashioning that work in clay, would have
no one about him but Leonardo da Vinci, who, during the making of the
moulds, the securing them with irons, and, in short, until the statues
were cast, never left his side; wherefore some believe, but without
knowing more than this, that Leonardo worked at them with his own hand,
or at least assisted Giovan Francesco with his advice and good judgment.
These statues, which are the most perfect and the best conceived that
have ever been executed in bronze by a modern master, were cast in three
parts and polished in the above-mentioned house in the Via de' Martelli
where Giovan Francesco lived; and so, also, the ornaments of marble that
are about the S. John, with the two columns, the mouldings, and the
emblem of the Guild of Merchants. In addition to the S. John, which is a
spirited and lively figure, there is a bald man inclined to fatness,
beautifully wrought, who, having rested the right arm on one flank, with
part of a shoulder naked, and with the left hand holding a scroll before
his eyes, has the left leg crossed over the right, and stands in an
attitude of deep contemplation, about to answer S. John; and he is
clothed in two kinds of drapery, one delicate, which floats over the
nude parts of the figure, and over that a mantle of thicker texture,
executed with a flow of folds full of mastery and artistry. Equal to him
is the Pharisee, who, having laid his right hand on his beard, with a
grave gesture, is drawing back a little, revealing astonishment at the
words of John.
While Rustici was executing that work, growing weary at last of having
to ask for money every day from those Consuls or their agents, who were
not always the same (and such persons are generally men who hold art or
any work of value in little account), he sold, in order to be able to
finish the work, a farm out of his patrimony that he possessed at San
Marco Vecchio, at a short distance from Florence. And yet,
notwithstanding such labours, expenses, and pains, he was poorly
remunerated for it by the Consuls and by his fellow-citizens, for the
reason that one of the Ridolfi, the head of that Guild, out of some
private spite, and perchance also because Rustici had not paid him
enough honour or allowed him to see the figures at his convenience, was
always opposed to him in everything. And so that which should have
resulted in honour for Giovan Francesco did the very opposite, for,
whereas he deserved to be esteemed not only as a nobleman and a citizen
but also as a master of art, his being a most excellent craftsman robbed
him, with the ignorant and foolish, of all that was due to his noble
blood. Thus, when Giovan Francesco's work was to be valued, and he had
chosen on his side Michelagnolo Buonarroti, the body of Consuls, at the
persuasion of Ridolfi, chose Baccio d'Agnolo; at which Rustici
complained, saying to the men of that body, at the audience, that it was
indeed something too strange that a worker in wood should have to value
the labours of a statuary, and he as good as declared that they were a
herd of oxen, but Ridolfi answered that, on the contrary, it was a good
choice, and that Giovan Francesco was a swollen bladder of pride and
arrogance. And, what was worse, that work, which deserved not less than
two thousand crowns, was valued by the Consuls at five hundred, and even
those were not paid to him in full, but only four hundred, and that only
with the help of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici.
Having met with such malignity, Giovan Francesco withdrew almost in
despair, determined that he would never again do work for public bodies,
or in any undertaking where he might have to depend on more than one
citizen or any other single person. And so, keeping to himself and
leading a solitary life in his rooms at the Sapienza, near the Servite
Friars, he continued to work at various things, in order to pass the
time and not to live in idleness; but also consuming his life and his
money in seeking to congeal mercury, in company with a man of like brain
called Raffaello Baglioni. Giovan Francesco painted a picture in oils
three braccia in breadth and two in height, of the Conversion of S.
Paul, full of different kinds of horses ridden by the soldiers of that
Saint, with various beautiful attitudes and foreshortenings; which
painting, together with many other works by the hand of the same master,
is in the possession of the heirs of the above-named Piero Martelli, to
whom he gave it. In a little picture he painted a hunting-scene full of
various animals, which is a very bizarre and pleasing work; and it now
belongs to Lorenzo Borghini, who holds it dear, as one who much delights
in the treasures of our arts. For the Nuns of S. Luca, in the Via di S.
Gallo, he executed in clay, in half-relief, a Christ in the Garden who
is appearing to Mary Magdalene, which was afterwards glazed by Giovanni
della Robbia and placed on an altar in the church of those sisters,
within an ornament of grey sandstone. For Jacopo Salviati the elder, of
whom he was much the friend, he made a most beautiful medallion of
marble, containing a Madonna, for the chapel in his palace above the
Ponte alla Badia, and, round the courtyard, many medallions filled with
figures of terra-cotta, together with other very beautiful ornaments,
which were for the most part, nay, almost all, destroyed by the soldiers
in the year of the siege, when the palace was set on fire by the party
hostile to the Medici. And since Giovan Francesco had a great affection
for that place, he would set out at times from Florence to go there just
as he was, in his lucco;[9] and once out of the city he would throw it
over his shoulder and slowly wander all by himself, lost in
contemplation, until he was there. One day among others, being on that
road, and the day being hot, he hid the lucco in a thicket of
thorn-bushes, and, having reached the palace, had been there two days
before he remembered it. In the end, sending his man to look for it,
when he saw that he had found it he said: "The world is too good to last
long."
[Footnote 9: A long gown worn by the Florentine citizens,
particularly on occasions of ceremony.]
Giovan Francesco was a man of surpassing goodness, and very loving to
the poor, insomuch that he would never let anyone leave him uncomforted;
nay, keeping his money, whether he had much or little, in a basket, he
would give some according to his ability to anyone who asked of him.
Wherefore a poor man who often went to him for alms, seeing him go
always to that basket, said, not thinking that he could be heard: "Ah!
God! if I had in my own room all that is in that basket, I would soon
settle all my troubles." Giovan Francesco, hearing him, said, after
gazing at him fixedly a while: "Come here, I will satisfy you." And
then, emptying the basket into a fold of his cloak, he said to him: "Go,
and may God bless you." And shortly afterwards he sent to Niccolo Buoni,
his dearest friend, who managed all his affairs, for more money; which
Niccolo, who kept an account of his crops and of his money in the Monte,
and sold his produce at the proper seasons, made a practice, according
to Rustici's own wish, of giving him so much money every week, which
Giovan Francesco then kept in the drawer of his desk, without a key, and
from time to time anyone who wished would take some to spend on the
requirements of the household, according as might be necessary.