hall of the Palace of M. Agnolo Massimi, with many divisions in stucco
and other ornaments, and stories of the actions of Fabius Maximus, he
bore himself so well, that Signora Elena Orsina, having seen that work
and hearing the ability of Daniello much extolled, commissioned him to
paint her chapel in the Church of the Trinita in Rome, on the hill,
where the Friars of S. Francesco di Paola have their seat. Wherefore
Daniello, putting forth all possible effort and diligence, in order to
produce a rare work which might make him known as an excellent painter,
did not shrink from devoting to it the labour of many years. From the
name of that lady, the title given to the chapel being that of the Cross
of Christ Our Saviour, the subject chosen was that of the actions of S.
Helen; and so in the principal altar-piece Daniello painted Jesus Christ
taken down from the Cross by Joseph, Nicodemus, and other disciples, and
the Virgin Mary in a swoon, supported on the arms of the Magdalene and
the other Maries, in all which he showed very great judgment, and gave
proof of very rare ability, for the reason that, besides the composition
of the figures, which has a very rich effect, the figure of Christ is
very fine and most beautifully foreshortened, with the feet coming
forward and the rest backwards. Very beautiful and difficult, likewise,
are the foreshortenings in the figures of those who, having removed Him
from the Cross, support Him with some bands, standing on some ladders
and revealing in certain parts the nude flesh, executed with much
grace. Around that altar-piece he made an ornament in stucco-work of
great beauty and variety, full of carvings, with two figures that
support the pediment with their heads, while with one hand they hold the
capital, and with the other they seek to place the column, which stands
at the foot on the base, below the capital to support it; which work is
done with extraordinary care. In the arch above the altar-piece he
painted two Sibyls in fresco, which are the best figures in the whole
work; and those Sibyls are one on either side of the window, which is
above the centre of the altar-piece, giving light to the whole chapel.
The vaulting of the chapel is divided into four compartments by bizarre,
well varied, and beautiful partitions of stucco-work and grotesques made
with new fantasies of masks and festoons; and in those compartments are
four stories of the Cross and of S. Helen, the mother of Constantine. In
the first is the scene when, before the Passion of the Saviour, three
Crosses are constructed; in the second, S. Helen commanding certain
Hebrews to reveal those Crosses to her; in the third, the Hebrews not
consenting to reveal them, she causes to be cast into a well him who
knows where they are; and in the fourth he reveals the place where all
three are buried. Those four scenes are beautiful beyond belief, and
executed with great care. On the side-walls are four other scenes, two
to each wall, and each is divided off by the cornice that forms the
impost of the arch upon which rests the groined vaulting of the chapel.
In one is S. Helen causing the Holy Cross and the two others to be drawn
up from a well; and in the second is that of the Saviour healing a sick
man. Of the pictures below, in that on the right hand is the same S.
Helen recognizing the Cross of Christ because it restores to life a
corpse upon which it is laid; to the nude flesh of which corpse Daniello
devoted extraordinary pains, searching out all the muscles and seeking
to render correctly all the parts of the body, as he also did in those
who are placing the Cross upon it, and in the bystanders, who are all
struck with amazement by the sight of that miracle. And, in addition,
there is a bier of bizarre shape painted with much diligence, with a
skeleton embracing it, executed with great care and with beautiful
invention. In the other picture, which is opposite to the first, he
painted the Emperor Heraclius walking barefoot and in his shirt, and
carrying the Cross of Christ through the gate of Rome, with men, women,
and children kneeling, who are adoring it, many lords in his train, and
a groom who is holding his horse. Below each scene, forming a kind of
base, are two most beautiful women in chiaroscuro, painted in imitation
of marble, who appear to be supporting those scenes. And under the first
arch, on the front side, he painted on the flat surface, standing
upright, two figures as large as life, a S. Francesco di Paola, the head
of the Order that administers the above-named church, and a S. Jerome
robed as a Cardinal, which are two very good figures, even as are those
of the whole work, which Daniello executed in seven years, with
incalculable labour and study.
But, since pictures that are executed in that way have always a certain
hard and laboured quality, the work is wanting in the grace and facility
that give most pleasure to the eye. Wherefore Daniello, himself
confessing the fatigue that he had endured in the work, and fearing the
fate that did come upon him (namely, that he would be censured), made
below the feet of those two Saints, to please himself, and as it were in
his own defence, two little scenes of stucco in low-relief, in which he
sought to show that, although he worked slowly and with effort,
nevertheless, since Michelagnolo Buonarroti and Fra Sebastiano del
Piombo were his friends, and he was always imitating their works and
observing their precepts, his imitation of those two men should be
enough to defend him from the biting words of envious and malignant
persons, whose evil nature must perforce be revealed, although they may
not think it. In one of these scenes, then, he made many figures of
Satyrs that are weighing legs, arms, and other members of figures with a
steelyard, in order to put on one side those that are correct in weight
and satisfactory, and to give those that are bad to Michelagnolo and Fra
Sebastiano, who are holding conference over them; and in the other is
Michelagnolo looking at himself in a mirror, the significance of which
is clear enough. At two angles of the arch, likewise, on the outer side,
he painted two nudes in chiaroscuro, which are of the same excellence as
the other figures in that work. When it was all uncovered, which was
after a very long time, it was much extolled, and held to be a very
beautiful work and a triumph over difficulties, and the painter a most
excellent master.
After that chapel, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese caused him to execute in
a room in his Palace--namely, at the corner, under one of those very
rich ceilings made under the direction of Maestro Antonio da San Gallo
for three large chambers that are in a line--a very beautiful frieze in
painting, with a scene full of figures on each wall, the scenes being a
very beautiful triumph of Bacchus, a Hunt, and others of that kind.
These much pleased the Cardinal, who caused him to paint, in addition,
in several parts of that frieze, the Unicorn in various forms in the lap
of a Virgin, which is the device of that most illustrious family. Which
work was the reason that that lord, who has ever been the friend of all
talented and distinguished men, always favoured him, and even more would
he have done it, if Daniello had not been so dilatory over his work; but
for that Daniello was not to blame, seeing that such was his nature and
genius, and he was content to do little well rather than much not so
well. Now, in addition to the affection that the Cardinal bore him,
Signor Annibale Caro worked on his behalf in such a manner with his
patrons, the Farnesi, that they always assisted him. And for Madama
Margherita of Austria, the daughter of Charles V, he painted in eight
spaces in the study of which mention has been made in the Life of
Indaco, in the Palace of the Medici on the Piazza Navona, eight little
stories of the actions and illustrious deeds of the above-named Emperor
Charles V, with such diligence and excellence, that it would be almost
impossible to do better in that kind of work.
In the year 1547 Perino del Vaga died, leaving unfinished the Hall of
Kings, which, as has been related, is in the Papal Palace, in front of
the Sistine and Pauline Chapels; and by the mediation of many friends
and lords, and in particular of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, Daniello was
set in his place by Pope Paul III, with the same salary that Perino had
received, and was commanded to make a beginning with the ornaments of
the walls that were to be executed in stucco, with many nudes in the
round over certain pediments. Now, since the walls of that Hall are
broken by six large doors in variegated marble, and only one wall is
left unbroken, Daniello made over each door what is almost a tabernacle
in stucco, of great beauty. In each of these he intended to execute in
painting one of those Kings who have defended the Apostolic Church, and
then to continue on the walls with stories of those Kings who have
benefited the Church with tributes or victories, so that in all there
were to be six stories and six niches. After those niches, or rather,
tabernacles, Daniello with the aid of many assistants executed all the
other very rich decorations in stucco that are to be seen in that Hall,
studying at the same time over the cartoons for all that he had proposed
to do in that place in the way of painting. Which done, he made a
beginning with one of the stories, but he did not paint more than about
two braccia of it, and two of the Kings in the tabernacles of stucco
over the doors. For, although he was pressed by Cardinal Farnese and by
the Pope, not reflecting that death very often spoils the designs of
men, he carried on the work so slowly that when in the year 1549 the
death of the Pope took place, there was nothing done save what has been
described; and then, the Conclave having to be held in the Hall, which
was full of scaffolding and woodwork, it became necessary to throw
everything to the ground and uncover the work. The whole being thus seen
by everyone, the works in stucco were vastly extolled, as they deserved,
but not so the two Kings in painting, for it was thought that they were
not equal in excellence to the work at the Trinita, and that with all
those fine allowances and advantages he had gone rather backward than
forward.
Julius III having been created Pontiff in the year 1550, Daniello put
himself forward by means of friends and interests, hoping to obtain the
same salary and to continue the work of that Hall, but the Pope, not
having any inclination in his favour, always put him off; indeed,
sending for Giorgio Vasari, who had been his servant from the time when
he was Archbishop of Siponto, he made use of him in all matters
concerned with design. Nevertheless, his Holiness having determined to
make a fountain at the head of the corridor of the Belvedere, and not
liking a design by Michelagnolo (in which was Moses striking the rock
and causing water to flow from it) because it was a thing that could not
be carried out without a great expenditure of time, since Michelagnolo
wished to make it of marble; his Holiness, I say, preferring the advice
of Giorgio, which was that the Cleopatra, a divine figure made by the
Greeks, should be set up in that place, the charge of that work was
given by means of Buonarroti to Daniello, with orders that he should
make in the above-named place a grotto in stucco-work, within which that
Cleopatra was to be placed. Daniello, then, having set his hand to that
work, pursued it so slowly, although he was much pressed, that he
finished only the stucco-work and the paintings in that room, but as for
the many other things that the Pope wished to have done, seeing them
delayed longer than he had expected, he lost all desire for them, so
that nothing more was done and everything was left in the condition that
is still to be seen.
In a chapel in the Church of S. Agostino Daniello painted in fresco,
with figures of the size of life, S. Helen causing the Cross to be
found, and in two niches at the sides S. Cecilia and S. Lucia, which
work was painted partly by him and partly, after his designs, by the
young men who worked with him, so that it did not prove as perfect as
his others. At this same time there was allotted to him by Signora
Lucrezia della Rovere a chapel in the Trinita, opposite to that of
Signora Elena Orsina. In that chapel, having divided it into
compartments with stucco-work, he had the vaulting painted with stories
of the Virgin, after his own cartoons, by Marco da Siena and Pellegrino
da Bologna; on one of the walls he caused the Nativity of the Virgin to
be painted by the Spaniard Bizzerra, and on the other, by Giovan Paolo
Rossetti of Volterra, his disciple, the Presentation of Jesus Christ to
Simeon; and he caused the same Giovan Paolo to execute two scenes that
are on the arches above, Gabriel bringing the Annunciation to the Virgin
and the Nativity of Christ. On the outer side, at the angles, he painted
two large figures, and on the pilasters, at the foot, two Prophets. On
the altar-front Daniello painted with his own hand the Madonna ascending
the steps of the Temple, and on the principal wall the same Virgin
ascending into Heaven, borne by many most beautiful Angels in the forms
of little boys, and the twelve Apostles below, gazing on her as she
ascends. And since the place would not hold so many figures, and he
desired to use a new invention in the work, he made it appear as if the
altar of that chapel were the sepulchre, and placed the Apostles around
it, making their feet rest on the floor of the chapel, where the altar
begins; which method of Daniello's has pleased some, but others, who
form the greater and better part, not at all. And although Daniello
toiled fourteen years over executing that work, it is not a whit better
than the first. On the last wall of the chapel that remained to be
finished, on which there was to be painted the Massacre of the
Innocents, having himself made the cartoons, he had the whole executed
by the Florentine Michele Alberti, his disciple.
The Florentine Monsignor M. Giovanni della Casa, a man of great learning
(to which his most pleasing and learned works, both in Latin and in the
vulgar tongue, bear witness), having begun to write a treatise on the
matters of painting, and wishing to enlighten himself as to certain
minute particulars with the help of men of the profession, commissioned
Daniello to make with all possible care a finished model of a David in
clay. And then he caused him to paint, or rather, to copy in a picture,
the same David, which is very beautiful, from either side, both the
front and the back, which was a fanciful notion; and that picture now
belongs to M. Annibale Rucellai. For the same M. Giovanni he executed a
Dead Christ with the Maries; and, on a canvas that was to be sent to
France, AEneas disrobing in order to go to sleep with Dido, and
interrupted by Mercury, who is represented as speaking to him in the
manner that may be read in the verses of Virgil. And he painted for the
same man in another picture, likewise in oils, a most beautiful S. John
in Penitence, of the size of life, which was held very dear by that lord
as long as he lived; and also a S. Jerome, beautiful to a marvel.
Pope Julius III having died, and Paul IV having been elected Supreme
Pontiff, the Cardinal of Carpi sought to persuade his Holiness to give
the above-mentioned Hall of Kings to Daniello to finish, but that Pope,
not delighting in pictures, answered that it was much better to fortify
Rome than to spend money on painting it. And so he caused a beginning to
be made with the great portal of the Castle, after the design of
Salustio, the son of Baldassarre Peruzzi of Siena and his architect, and
ordained that in that work, which was being executed all in travertine,
after the manner of a sumptuous and magnificent triumphal arch, there
should be placed in niches five statues, each of four braccia and a
half; whereupon Daniello was commissioned to make an Angel Michael, the
other statues having been allotted to other craftsmen. Meanwhile
Monsignor Giovanni Riccio, Cardinal of Montepulciano, resolved to erect
a chapel in S. Pietro a Montorio, opposite to that which Pope Julius had
caused to be built under the direction of Giorgio Vasari, and he
allotted the altar-piece, the scenes in fresco and the statues of marble
that were going into it, to Daniello; and Daniello, by that time
completely determined that he would abandon painting and devote himself
to sculpture, went off to Carrara to have the marble quarried both for
the S. Michael and for the statues that he was to make for the chapel in
S. Pietro a Montorio. With that occasion, coming to see Florence and the
works that Vasari was executing in the Palace for the Duke, and the
other works in that city, he received many courtesies from his
innumerable friends, and in particular from Vasari himself, to whom
Buonarroti had recommended him by letter. Abiding in Florence, then, and
perceiving how much the Lord Duke delighted in all the arts of design,
Daniello was seized with a desire to attach himself to the service of
his most illustrious Excellency. Many means being therefore employed,
the Lord Duke replied to those who were recommending him that he should
be introduced by Vasari, and so it was done; and Daniello offering
himself as the servant of his Excellency, the Duke answered graciously
that he accepted him most willingly, and that after he had fulfilled the
engagements that he had in Rome, he should come when he pleased, and he
would be received very gladly.
Daniello stayed all that summer in Florence, where Giorgio lodged him in
the house of Simon Botti, who was much his friend. There, during that
time, he cast in gesso nearly all the figures of marble by the hand of
Michelagnolo that are in the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo; and for the
Fleming Michael Fugger he made a Leda, which was a very beautiful
figure. He then went to Carrara, and from there, having sent the marble
that he desired in the direction of Rome, he returned once again to
Florence, for the following reason. Daniello had brought with him, when
he first came from Rome to Florence, a young disciple of his own called
Orazio Pianetti, a talented and very gentle youth; but no sooner had he
arrived in Florence, whatever may have been the reason, than he died.
At which feeling infinite grief and sorrow, Daniello, as one who much
loved the young man for his fine qualities, and was not able to show his
affection for him in any other way, returning that last time to
Florence, made a portrait of him in marble from the breast upwards,
which he copied excellently well from one moulded from his dead body.
And when it was finished, he placed it with an epitaph in the Church of
S. Michele Berteldi on the Piazza degli Antinori; in which Daniello
proved himself, by that truly loving office, to be a man of rare
goodness, and a different sort of friend to his friends from the kind
that is generally seen at the present day, when there are very few to be
found who value anything in friendship beyond their own profit and
convenience.
After these things, it being a long time since he had been in his native
city of Volterra, he went there before returning to Rome, and was warmly
welcomed by his relatives and friends. Being besought to leave some
memorial of himself in his native place, he executed the story of the
Innocents in a small panel with little figures, which was held to be a
very beautiful work, and placed it in the Church of S. Piero. Then,
thinking that he would never return, he sold the little that he
possessed there by way of patrimony to Leonardo Ricciarelli, his nephew,
who, having been with him in Rome, and having learned very well how to
work in stucco, afterwards served Giorgio Vasari for three years, in
company with many others, in the works that were executed at that time
in the Palace of the Duke.
When Daniello had finally returned to Rome, Pope Paul IV having a desire
to throw to the ground the Judgment of Michelagnolo on account of the
nudes, which seemed to him to display the parts of shame in an unseemly
manner, it was said by the Cardinals and by men of judgment that it
would be a great sin to spoil them, and they found a way out of it,
which was that Daniello should paint some light garments to cover them;
and the business was afterwards finished in the time of Pius IV by
repainting the S. Catherine and the S. Biagio, which were thought to be
unseemly.
[Illustration: THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS
(_After the painting by =Daniello Ricciarelli=. Florence: Uffizi, 1107_)
_Anderson_]
In the meantime he began the statues for the Chapel of the above-named
Cardinal of Montepulciano, and the S. Michael for the great portal; but
none the less, being a man who was always going from one notion to
another, he did not work with the promptitude that he could and should
have used. About this time, after King Henry of France had been killed
in a tournament, Signor Ruberto Strozzi being about to come to Italy and
to Rome, Queen Caterina de' Medici, having been left Regent in that
kingdom, and wishing to erect some honourable memorial to her dead
husband, commanded the said Ruberto to confer with Buonarroti and to
contrive to have her desire in that matter fulfilled. Wherefore, having
arrived in Rome, he spoke long of the matter with Michelagnolo, who, not
being able, because he was old, to accept that undertaking himself,
advised Signor Ruberto to give it to Daniello, saying that he would not
fail to give him all the counsel and assistance that he could. To that
offer Strozzi attached great importance, and, after they had considered
with much deliberation what should be done, it was resolved that
Daniello should make a horse of bronze all in one piece, twenty palms
high from the head to the feet, and about forty in length, and that upon
it there should then be placed the statue of King Henry in armour,
likewise of bronze. Daniello having then made a little model of clay
after the advice and judgment of Michelagnolo, which much pleased Signor
Ruberto, an account of everything was written to France, and in the end
an agreement was made between him and Daniello as to the method of
executing that work, the time, the price, and every other thing.
Whereupon Daniello, setting to work with much study on the horse, made
it in clay exactly as it was to be, without ever doing any other work;
and then, having made the mould, he was proceeding to prepare to cast
it, and, the work being of such importance, was taking advice from many
founders as to the method that he ought to pursue, to the end that it
might come out well, when Pius IV, who had been elected Pontiff after
the death of Paul, gave Daniello to understand that he desired, as has
been related in the Life of Salviati, that the work of the Hall of Kings
should be finished, and that therefore every other thing was to be put
on one side. To which Daniello answered that he was fully occupied and
pledged to the Queen of France, but would make the cartoons and have the
work carried forward by his young men, and, in addition, would also do
his own part in it. The Pope, not liking that answer, began to think of
allotting the whole to Salviati; wherefore Daniello, seized with
jealousy, so went to work with the help of the Cardinal of Carpi and
Michelagnolo, that the half of that Hall was given to him to paint, and
the other half, as we have related, to Salviati, although Daniello did
his utmost to obtain the whole, in order to proceed with it at his
leisure and convenience, without competition. But in the end the matter
of that work was handled in such a manner, that Daniello did not do
there one thing more than what he had done before, and Salviati did not
finish the little that he had begun, and even that little was thrown to
the ground for him by certain malicious persons.
Finally, after four years, Daniello was ready, so far as concerned him,
to cast the above-mentioned horse, but he was obliged to wait many
months more than he would otherwise have done, for want of the supplies
of iron instruments, metal, and other materials that Signor Ruberto was
to give him. But in the end, all these things having been provided,
Daniello embedded the mould, which was a vast mass, between two furnaces
for founding in a very suitable room that he had at Monte Cavallo. The
material being melted and the orifices unstopped, for a time the metal
ran well enough, but at length the weight of the metal burst the mould
of the body of the horse, and all the molten material flowed in a wrong
direction. At first this much troubled the mind of Daniello, but none
the less, having thought well over everything, he found a way to remedy
that great misfortune; and so after two months, casting it a second
time, his ability prevailed over the impediments of Fortune, so that he
executed the casting of that horse (which is a sixth, or more, larger
than that of Antoninus which is on the Campidoglio) perfectly uniform
and equally delicate throughout, and it is a marvellous thing that a
work so large should not weigh more than twenty thousand (libbre).
But such were the discomforts and fatigues that were endured in the work
by Daniello, who was rather feeble in constitution and melancholy than
otherwise, that not long afterwards there came upon him a cruel catarrh,
which much reduced him; indeed, whereas Daniello should have been happy
at having surmounted innumerable difficulties in so rare a casting, it
seemed that he never smiled again, no matter what good fortune might
befall him, and no long time passed before that catarrh, after an
illness of two days, robbed him of his life, on the 4th of April, 1566.
But before that, having foreseen his death, he confessed very devoutly,
and demanded all the Sacraments of the Church; and then, making his
will, he directed that his body should be buried in the new church that
had been begun at the Baths by Pius IV for the Carthusian Monks,
ordaining also that at his tomb, in that place, there should be set up
the statue of the Angel that he had formerly begun for the great portal
of the Castle. And of all this he gave the charge to the Florentine
Michele degli Alberti and to Feliciano of San Vito in the district of
Rome, making them executors of his will in those matters, and leaving
them two hundred crowns for the purpose. Which last wishes of Daniello's
the two of them executed with diligence and love, giving him honourable
burial in that place, according as he had directed. To the same men he
left all his property pertaining to art, moulds in gesso, models,
designs, and all the other materials and implements of his work;
wherefore they offered themselves to the Ambassador of France, saying
that they would deliver completely finished, within a fixed time, the
work of the horse and the figure of the King that was to go upon it.
And, in truth, both of them having practised many years under the
instruction and discipline of Daniello, the greatest things may be
expected from them.
Disciples of Daniello, likewise, have been Biagio da Carigliano of
Pistoia, and Giovan Paolo Rossetti of Volterra, who is a very diligent
person and of most beautiful genius; which Giovan Paolo, having retired
to Volterra many years ago, has executed, as he still does, works worthy
of much praise. Another who also worked with Daniello, and made much
proficience, was Marco da Siena, who, having made his way to Naples and
chosen that city as his home, lives there and is constantly at work. And
Giulio Mazzoni of Piacenza has likewise been a disciple of Daniello;
which Giulio received his first instruction from Vasari, when Giorgio
was executing in Florence an altar-piece for M. Biagio Mei, which was
sent to Lucca and placed in S. Piero Cigoli, and when the same Giorgio
was painting the altar-piece of the high-altar and a great work in the
refectory of Monte Oliveto at Naples, besides the Sacristy of S.
Giovanni Carbonaro and the doors of the organ in the Piscopio, with
other altar-pieces and pictures. Giulio, having afterwards learned from
Daniello to work in stucco, in which he equalled his master, has adorned
with his own hand all the interior of the Palace of Cardinal
Capodiferro, executing there marvellous works not only in stucco, but
also of scenes in fresco and in oils, which have won him infinite
praise, and that rightly. The same master has made a head of Francesco
del Nero in marble, copying it so well from the life, that I do not
believe that it is possible to do better; wherefore it may be hoped that
he is destined to achieve a very fine result, and to attain to the
greatest excellence and perfection that a man can reach in these our
arts.