completion his Palace of Caprarola, with Vignuola as architect, of whom
there will be an account in a short time, gave the charge of painting it
all to Taddeo, on these conditions: that, since Taddeo did not wish to
abandon his other works in Rome, he should be obliged to make all the
cartoons, designs, divisions, and arrangements for the works in painting
and in stucco that were to be executed in that place; that the men who
were to carry them into execution should be chosen by Taddeo, but paid
by the Cardinal; and that Taddeo should be obliged to work there himself
for two or three months in the year, and to go there as many times as it
might be necessary to see how things were progressing, and to retouch
all that was not to his satisfaction. And for all these labours the
Cardinal promised him a salary of two hundred crowns a year. Whereupon
Taddeo, having so honourable an appointment and the support of so great
a lord, determined that he would give himself some peace of mind, and
would no longer accept any mean work in Rome, as he had done up to that
time; desiring, above all, to avoid the censure that many men of art
laid upon him, saying that from a certain grasping avarice he would
accept any kind of work, in order to gain with the arms of others that
which would have been to many of them an honest means to enable them to
study, as he himself had done in his early youth. Against which
reproaches Taddeo used to defend himself by saying that he did it on
account of Federigo and the other brothers that he had on his shoulders,
desiring that they should learn with his assistance.
Having thus resolved to serve Farnese and also to finish the chapel in
S. Marcello, he obtained for Federigo from M. Tizio da Spoleti, the
master of the household to the above-named Cardinal, the commission to
paint the facade of a house that he had on the Piazza della Dogana, near
S. Eustachio; which was very welcome to Federigo, for he had never
desired anything so much as to have some work altogether for himself.
On one part of the facade, therefore, he painted in colours the scene of
S. Eustachio causing himself to be baptized with his wife and children,
which was a very good work; and on the centre of the facade he painted
the same Saint, when, while hunting, he sees Jesus Christ on the Cross
between the horns of a stag. Now since Federigo, when he executed that
work, was not more than twenty-eight[22] years of age, Taddeo, who
reflected that the work was in a public place, and that it was of great
importance to the credit of Federigo, not only went sometimes to see him
at his painting, but also at times insisted on retouching and improving
some part. Wherefore Federigo, after having had patience for a time,
finally, carried away on one occasion by the anger natural in one who
would have preferred to work by himself, seized a mason's hammer and
dashed to the ground something (I know not what) that Taddeo had
painted; and in his rage he stayed some days without going back to the
house. Which being heard by the friends of both the one and the other of
them, they so went to work that the two were reconciled, on the
understanding that Taddeo should be able to set his hand on the designs
and cartoons of Federigo and correct them at his pleasure, but never the
works that he might execute in fresco, in oils, or in any other medium.
[Footnote 22: An error of the copyist or printer for
eighteen.]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
(_After the panel by =Federigo Zucchero=. Florence: Uffizi, 270_)
_Alinari_]
Federigo having then finished the work of that house, it was universally
extolled, and won him the name of an able painter. After that, Taddeo
was ordered to repaint in the Sala de' Palafrenieri those Apostles which
Raffaello had formerly executed there in terretta, and which had been
thrown to the ground by Paul IV; and he, having painted one, caused all
the others to be executed by his brother Federigo, who acquitted himself
very well. Next, they painted together a frieze in fresco-colours in one
of the halls of the Palace of the Araceli. Then, a proposal being
discussed, about the same time that they were working at the Araceli, to
give to Signor Federigo Borromeo as a wife the Lady Donna Virginia, the
daughter of Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, Taddeo was sent to take her
portrait, which he did excellently well; and before he departed from
Urbino he made all the designs for a credence, which that Duke
afterwards caused to be made in clay at Castel Durante, for sending to
King Philip of Spain. Having returned to Rome, Taddeo presented to the
Pope that portrait, which pleased him well enough; but such was the
discourtesy of that Pontiff, or of his ministers, that the poor painter
was not recompensed even for his expenses.
In the year 1560 the Pope expected in Rome the Lord Duke Cosimo and the
Lady Duchess Leonora, his consort, and proposed to lodge their
Excellencies in the apartments formerly built by Innocent VIII, which
look out upon the first court of the Palace and that of S. Pietro, and
have in front of them loggie that look out on the piazza where the
Benediction is given; and Taddeo received the charge of painting the
pictures and some friezes that were to be executed there, and of
overlaying with gold the new ceilings that had been made in place of the
old ones, which had been consumed by time. In that work, which was
certainly a great and important undertaking, Federigo, to whom his
brother Taddeo gave the charge of almost the whole, acquitted himself
very well; but he incurred a great danger, for, as he was painting
grotesques in those loggie, he fell from a staging that rested on the
main part of the scaffolding, and was near coming to an evil end.
No long time passed before Cardinal Emulio, to whom the Pope had given
the charge of the matter, commissioned many young men, to the end that
the work might be finished quickly, to paint the little palace that is
in the wood of the Belvedere, which was begun in the time of Pope Paul
IV with a most beautiful fountain and many ancient statues as ornaments,
after an architectural design by Pirro Ligorio. The young men who worked
(with great credit to themselves) in that place, were Federigo Barocci
of Urbino, a youth of great promise, and Leonardo Cungi and Durante del
Nero, both of Borgo San Sepolcro, who executed the apartments of the
first floor. At the head of the staircase, which was made in a spiral
shape, the first room was painted by Santi Titi, a painter of Florence,
who acquitted himself very well; the larger room, which is beside the
first, was painted by the above-named Federigo Zucchero, the brother of
Taddeo; and the Sclavonian Giovanni dal Carso, a passing good master of
grotesques, executed another room beyond it. But, although each of the
men named above acquitted himself very well, nevertheless Federigo
surpassed all the others in some stories of Christ that he painted
there, such as the Transfiguration, the Marriage of Cana in Galilee, and
the Centurion kneeling before Christ. And of two that were still
wanting, one was painted by Orazio Sammacchini, a Bolognese painter, and
the other by a certain Lorenzo Costa of Mantua. The same Federigo
Zucchero painted in that place the little loggia that looks out over the
fish-pond. And then he painted a frieze in the principal hall of the
Belvedere (to which one ascends by the spiral staircase), with stories
of Moses and Pharaoh, beautiful to a marvel; the design for which work,
drawn and coloured with his own hand in a most beautiful drawing,
Federigo himself gave not long since to the Reverend Don Vincenzio
Borghini, who holds it very dear as a drawing by the hand of an
excellent painter. In the same place, also, Federigo painted the Angel
slaying the first-born in Egypt, availing himself, in order to finish it
the quicker, of the help of many of his young men. But when those works
came to be valued by certain persons, the labours of Federigo and the
others were not rewarded as they should have been, because there are
among our craftsmen in Rome, as well as in Florence and everywhere else,
some most malignant spirits who, blinded by prejudice and envy, are not
able or not willing to recognize the merits of the works of others and
the deficiency of their own; and such persons are very often the reason
that the young men of fine genius, becoming dismayed, grow cold in their
studies and their work. After these works, Federigo painted in the
Office of the Ruota, about an escutcheon of Pope Pius IV, two figures
larger than life, Justice and Equity, which were much extolled; thus
giving time to Taddeo, meanwhile, to attend to the work of Caprarola and
the chapel in S. Marcello.
In the meantime his Holiness, wishing at all costs to finish the Hall of
Kings, after the many contentions that had taken place between Daniello
and Salviati, as has been related, gave orders to the Bishop of Forli as
to all that he wished him to do in the matter. Wherefore the Bishop
wrote to Vasari (on the 3rd of September in the year 1561), that the
Pope, wishing to finish the work of the Hall of Kings, had given him
the charge of finding men who might once and for all take it off his
hands, and that therefore, moved by their ancient friendship and by
other reasons, he besought Giorgio to consent to go to Rome in order to
execute that work, with the good pleasure and leave of his master the
Duke, for the reason that, while giving satisfaction to his Holiness, he
would win much honour and profit for himself; praying him to answer as
soon as possible. Replying to which letter, Vasari said that, finding
himself very well placed in the service of the Duke, and remunerated for
his labours with rewards different from those that he had received from
other Pontiffs in Rome, he intended to remain in the service of his
Excellency, for whom he was at that very time to set his hand to a hall
much greater than the Hall of Kings; and that there was no want in Rome
of men who might be employed in that work. The above-named Bishop having
received that answer from Vasari, and having conferred with his Holiness
of the whole matter, Cardinal Emulio, immediately after receiving from
the Pontiff the charge of having that Hall finished, divided the work,
as has been related, among many young men, some of whom were already in
Rome, and others were summoned from other places. To Giuseppe Porta of
Castelnuovo della Garfagnana, a disciple of Salviati, were given two of
the largest scenes in the Hall; to Girolamo Siciolante of Sermoneta, one
of the large scenes and one of the small; to Orazio Sammacchini of
Bologna one of the small scenes, to Livio da Forli a similar one, and to
Giovan Battista Fiorini of Bologna yet another of the small scenes.
Which hearing, Taddeo perceived that he had been excluded because it had
been said to the above-named Cardinal Emulio that he was a person who
gave more attention to gain than to glory and working well; and he did
his utmost with Cardinal Farnese to obtain a part of that work. But the
Cardinal, not wishing to move in the matter, answered him that his
labours at Caprarola should content him, and that it did not seem to him
right that his own works should be neglected by reason of the rivalry
and emulation between the craftsmen; adding also that, when a master
does well, it is the works that give a name to the place, and not the
place to the works. Notwithstanding this, Taddeo so went to work by
other means with Emulio, that finally he was commissioned to execute
one of the smaller scenes over a door, not being able, either by
prayers or by any other means, to obtain the commission for one of the
large scenes; and, in truth, it is said that Emulio was acting with
caution in the matter, for the reason that, hoping that Giuseppe
Salviati would surpass all the others, he was minded to give him the
rest, and perchance to throw to the ground all that might have been done
by the others. Now, after all the men named above had carried their
works well forward, the Pope desired to see them all; and so, everything
being uncovered, he recognized (and all the Cardinals and the best
craftsmen were of the same opinion) that Taddeo had acquitted himself
better than any of the others, although all had done passing well. His
Holiness, therefore, commanded Signor Agabrio that he should cause
Cardinal Emulio to commission him to execute one of the larger scenes;
whereupon the head-wall was allotted to him, wherein is the door of the
Pauline Chapel. And there he made a beginning with the work, but he did
not carry it any farther, for, the death of the Pope supervening,
everything was uncovered for the holding of the Conclave, although many
of those scenes had not been finished. Of the scene that Taddeo began in
that place, we have the design by his hand, sent to us by him, in the
book of drawings that we have so often mentioned.
Taddeo painted at the same time, besides some other little things, a
picture with a very beautiful Christ, which was to be sent to Caprarola
for Cardinal Farnese; which work is now in the possession of his brother
Federigo, who says that he desires it for himself as long as he lives.
The picture receives its light from some weeping Angels, who are holding
torches. But since the works that Taddeo executed at Caprarola will be
described at some length in a little time, in discoursing of Vignuola,
who built that fabric, for the present I shall say nothing more of them.
Federigo was meanwhile summoned to Venice, and made an agreement with
the Patriarch Grimani to finish for him the chapel in S. Francesco della
Vigna, which had remained incomplete, as has been related, on account of
the death of the Venetian Battista Franco. But, before he began that
chapel, he adorned for that Patriarch the staircase of his Palace in
Venice, with little figures placed with much grace in certain ornaments
of stucco; and then he executed in fresco, in the above-named chapel,
the two stories of Lazarus and the Conversion of the Magdalene, the
design of which, by the hand of Federigo, is in our book. Afterwards, in
the altar-piece of the same chapel, Federigo painted the story of the
Magi in oils. And then he painted some pictures in a loggia, which are
much extolled, at the villa of M. Giovan Battista Pellegrini, between
Chioggia and Monselice, where Andrea Schiavone and the Flemings,
Lamberto and Gualtieri, have executed many works.
After the departure of Federigo, Taddeo continued to work in fresco all
that summer in the chapel of S. Marcello; and for that chapel, finally,
he painted in the altar-piece the Conversion of S. Paul. In that picture
may be seen, executed in a beautiful manner, the Saint fallen from his
horse and all dazed by the splendour and voice of Jesus Christ, whom he
depicted amid a Glory of Angels, in the act, so it appears, of saying,
"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" His followers, who are about him,
are likewise struck with awe, and stand as if bereft of their senses. On
the vaulting, within certain ornaments of stucco, he painted in fresco
three stories of the same Saint. In one he is being taken as a prisoner
to Rome, and disembarks on the Island of Malta; and there may be seen
how, on the kindling of the fire, a viper strikes at his hand to bite
it, while some mariners, almost naked, stand in various attitudes about
the barque; in another is the scene when a young man, having fallen from
a window, is brought to S. Paul, who by the power of God restores him to
life; and in the third is the Beheading and Death of the Saint. On the
walls below are two large scenes, likewise in fresco; in one is S. Paul
healing a man crippled in the legs, and in the other a disputation,
wherein he causes a magician to be struck with blindness; and both the
one and the other are truly most beautiful. But that work having been
left incomplete by reason of his death, Federigo has finished it this
year, and it has been thrown open to view with great credit to him. At
this same time Federigo executed some pictures in oils, which were sent
to France by the Ambassador of that kingdom.
The little hall in the Farnese Palace having remained unfinished on
account of the death of Salviati (wanting two scenes, namely, at the
entrance, opposite to the great window), Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, of the
Farnese family, gave them to Taddeo to execute, and he carried them to
completion very well. But nevertheless he did not surpass or even equal
Francesco in the works executed by him in the same apartment, as certain
envious and malignant spirits went about saying throughout Rome, in
order to diminish the glory of Salviati by their foul calumnies; and
although Taddeo used to defend himself by saying that he had caused the
whole to be executed by his assistants, and that there was nothing in
that work by his hand save the design and a few other things, such
excuses were not accepted, for the reason that a man who wishes to
surpass another in any competition, must not entrust the credit of his
art to the keeping of feeble persons, for that is clearly the way to
perdition. Thus Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, a man of truly supreme judgment in
all things, and of surpassing goodness, recognized how much he had lost
by the death of Salviati; for, although he was proud and even arrogant,
and ill-tempered, in matters of painting he was truly most excellent.
However, since the best craftsmen had disappeared from Rome, that lord,
for want of others, resolved to entrust the painting of the Great Hall
in that Palace to Taddeo, who accepted it willingly, in the hope of
being able to prove by means of every effort how great were his ability
and knowledge.
The Florentine Lorenzo Pucci, Cardinal Santiquattro, had formerly caused
a chapel to be built in the Trinita, and all the vaulting to be painted
by Perino del Vaga, with certain Prophets on the outer side, and two
little boys holding the arms of that Cardinal. But the chapel remaining
unfinished, with three walls still to be painted, when the Cardinal
died, those fathers, without any regard for what was just and
reasonable, sold that chapel to the Archbishop of Corfu; and it was
afterwards given by that Archbishop to Taddeo to paint. Now although,
out of respect for the church and from other reasons, it may have been
well to find means of finishing the chapel, at least they should not
have allowed the arms of the Cardinal to be removed from the part that
was finished, only in order to place there those of the above-named
Archbishop, which they could have set up in another place, instead of
offering so manifest an affront to the memory of that good Cardinal.
Having thus so many works on his hands, Taddeo was every day urging
Federigo to return from Venice. That Federigo, after having finished the
chapel for the Patriarch, was negotiating to undertake to paint the
principal wall of the Great Hall of the Council, where Antonio Viniziano
had formerly painted; but the rivalry and the contentions that he
suffered from the Venetian painters were the reason that neither they,
with all their interest, nor he, likewise, obtained it.
Meanwhile Taddeo, having a desire to see Florence and the many works
which, so he heard, Duke Cosimo had carried out and was still carrying
out, and the beginning that his friend Giorgio Vasari was making in the
Great Hall; Taddeo, I say, pretending one day to go to Caprarola in
connection with the work that he was doing there, went off to Florence
for the Festival of S. John, in company with Tiberio Calcagni, a young
Florentine sculptor and architect. There, to say nothing of the city, he
found vast pleasure in the works of the many excellent sculptors and
painters, ancient as well as modern; and if he had not had so many
charges and so many works on his hands, he would gladly have stayed
there some months. Thus he saw the preparations of Vasari for the
above-named Hall--namely, forty-four great pictures, of four, six,
seven, or ten braccia each--in which he was executing figures for the
most part of six or eight braccia, with the assistance only of the
Fleming Giovanni Strada and Jacopo Zucchi, his disciples, and Battista
Naldini, in all which he took the greatest pleasure, and, hearing that
all had been executed in less than a year, it gave him great courage.
Wherefore, having returned to Rome, he set his hand to the above-named
chapel in the Trinita, with the resolve that he would surpass himself in
the stories of Our Lady that were to be painted there, as will be
related presently.
Now Federigo, although he was pressed to return from Venice, was not
able to refuse to stay in that city for the Carnival in company with the
architect Andrea Palladio. And Andrea, having made for the gentlemen of
the Company of the Calza a theatre in wood after the manner of a
Colosseum, in which a tragedy was to be performed, caused Federigo to
execute for the decoration of the same twelve large scenes, each seven
feet and a half square, with innumerable other stories of the actions
of Hyrcanus, King of Jerusalem, after the subject of the tragedy; in
which work Federigo gained much honour, from its excellence and from the
rapidity with which he executed it. Next, Palladio going to Friuli to
found the Palace of Civitale, of which he had previously made the model,
Federigo went with him in order to see that country; and there he drew
many things that pleased him. Then, after having seen many things in
Verona and in many other cities of Lombardy, he finally made his way to
Florence, at the very time when festive preparations, rich and
marvellous, were being made for the coming of Queen Joanna of Austria.
Having arrived there, he executed, after the desire of the Lord Duke, a
most beautiful and fanciful Hunt in colours on a vast canvas that
covered the stage at the end of the Hall, and some scenes in chiaroscuro
for an arch; all which gave infinite satisfaction. From Florence he went
to Sant' Agnolo, to revisit his relatives and friends, and finally he
arrived in Rome on the 16th of the January following; but he was of
little assistance to Taddeo at that time, for the reason that the death
of Pope Pius IV, followed by that of Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, interrupted
the work of the Hall of Kings and that of the Farnese Palace. Whereupon
Taddeo, who had finished another apartment of rooms at Caprarola, and
had carried almost to completion the chapel in S. Marcello, proceeded to
give his attention to the work of the Trinita, much at his leisure, and
to execute the Passing of Our Lady, with the Apostles standing about the
bier.
In the meantime, also, Taddeo had obtained for Federigo a chapel to be
painted in fresco in the Church of the Reformed Priests of Jesus at the
Obelisk of S. Mauro; and to that Federigo straightway set his hand.
Taddeo, feigning to be angry because Federigo had delayed too long to
return, appeared to care little for his arrival; but in truth he
welcomed it greatly, as was afterwards seen from the result. For he was
much annoyed by having to provide for his house (of which annoyance
Federigo had been accustomed to relieve him), and by the anxious care of
that brother who was employed as a goldsmith; but when Federigo came
they put many inconveniences to rights, in order to be able to attend to
their work with a quiet mind. The friends of Taddeo were seeking
meanwhile to give him a wife, but he, being one who was accustomed to
living free, and feared that which generally happens (namely, that he
would bring into his house, together with the wife, a thousand vexatious
cares and annoyances), could never make up his mind to it. Nay,
attending to his work in the Trinita, he proceeded to make the cartoon
of the principal wall, on which there was going the Ascension of Our
Lady into Heaven; while Federigo painted a picture of S. Peter in Prison
for the Lord Duke of Urbino; another, wherein is a Madonna in Heaven
with some Angels about her, which was to be sent to Milan; and a third
with a figure of Opportunity, which was sent to Perugia.
The Cardinal of Ferrara had kept many painters and masters in stucco at
work at the very beautiful villa that he has at Tivoli, and finally he
sent Federigo there to paint two rooms, one of which is dedicated to
Nobility, and the other to Glory; in which Federigo acquitted himself
very well, executing there beautiful and fantastic inventions. That
finished, he returned to the work of the above-mentioned chapel in Rome,
which he has carried to completion, painting in it a choir of many
Angels and various Glories, with God the Father sending down the Holy
Spirit upon the Madonna, who is receiving the Annunciation from the
Angel Gabriel, while about her are six Prophets, larger than life and
very beautiful. Taddeo, meanwhile, continuing to paint the Assumption of
the Madonna in fresco in the Trinita, appeared to be driven by nature to
do in that work, as his last, the utmost in his power. And in truth it
proved to be his last, for, having fallen ill of a sickness which at
first appeared to be slight enough, and caused by the great heat that
there was that year, and which afterwards became very grave, he died in
the month of September in the year 1566; having first, like a good
Christian, received the Sacraments of the Church, and seen the greater
part of his friends, and leaving in his place his brother Federigo, who
was also ill at that time. And so in a short time, Buonarroti, Salviati,
Daniello, and Taddeo having been taken from the world, our arts have
suffered a very great loss, and particularly the art of painting.