THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D. 1475-1486.
Amongst the thousand arteries in which the life blood of the Renaissance
coursed in all its fulness, none were so busy or so important as the
"botteghe" of the artists. In these the genius of the great masters,
the Pleiades of stars at the culmination of art in Florence, was either
tenderly nursed, or sharply pruned into vigour by struggling against
discouragement and envy. In these the spirit of awakened devotion found
an outlet, in altarpieces and designs for church frescoes which were
to influence thousands. Here the spirit of poetry, brooding in the
mysterious lines of Dante, or echoing from past ages in the myths of the
Greeks, took form and glowed on the walls in mighty cartoons to be
made imperishable in fresco. Here the spirit of luxury was satisfied
by beautiful designs for ornaments, dress stuffs, tapestries, vases
and "cassoni," &c., which brought beauty into every life, and made each
house a poem. The soul, the mind, and the body, could alike be supplied
at those fountains of the beautiful, the artshops or schools.
Whilst Michelangelo as a youth was drawing from the cartoons of the
Sassetti chapel in the school of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Cosimo Roselli
was just receiving as a pupil a boy only a little behind him in genius.
A small, delicate-faced, spiritual-eyed boy of nine years, known as
Baccio della Porta, who came with a roll of drawings under his arm and
high hopes in his soul, no doubt trotting along manfully beside Cosimo's
old friend, Benedetto da Majano, the sculptor, who had recommended his
being placed in the studio.
By the table given in the note [Footnote: Pietro, a Genoese, came in
1400 to the parish of S. Michele, at Montecuccioli in Mugello; he was
a peasant, and had a son Jacopo, who was father of Paolo, the muleteer;
and three other sons, Bartolo, Giusto, and Jacopo, who had a _podere_
at Soffignano, near Prato. Paolo married first Bartolommea, daughter of
Zanobi di Gallone, by whom he had a son, Bartolommeo, known as Baccio
della Porta, born 1475. The first wife dying, Paolo married Andrea di
Michaele di Cenni, who had four sons, Piero, Domenico, Michele,
and Francesco; only Piero lived to grow up, and he became a priest.
[_Favoured by Sig. Milanesi._]] it will be seen that Baccio was the son
of Paolo, a muleteer, which no doubt was a profitable trade in those
days when the country roads were mere mule-tracks, and the traffic
between different towns was carried on almost entirely by horses and
mulepacks. There is some doubt as to the place of Baccio's birth, which
occurred in 1475. Vasari gives it as Savignano near Prato; Crowe and
Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 427.] assert it was
Suffignano, near Florence, where they say Paolo's brothers, Jacopo and
Giusto, were contadini or peasants.
But on consulting the post-office authorities we find no place called
Suffignano near Florence; it must therefore have been a village near
Prato called Soffignano, which from similarity of sound Vasari confused
with the larger place, Savignano. This is the more probable, for Rosini
asserts that "Benedetto da Majano, _who had bought a podere near Prato_,
knew him and took him into his affections, and by his means placed him
with Cosimo." [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p.
47.]
It is certainly probable that Paolo's wife lived with his family during
his wanderings, because it is the true Italian custom, and Baccio was
in that case born in his uncle's house; for it is not till 1480 that
we find Paolo retired from trade and set up in a house of his own in
Florence at the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, now the Porta Romana.
The friendship begun at Prato must have been continued in Florence,
for in 1480 Paolo not only owned that house at the gate of S. Pier
Gattolini, but was the proud possessor of a podere at Brozzi, which
yielded six barrels of wine. He is a merciful man too, for among his
possessions are two mules _disutili e vecchi_ (old and useless). At this
time Baccio was six years old, and his three stepbrothers quite babies.
[Footnote: Archives of Florence, Portate al Castato, 1480-1.] Paolo, as
well as his mules, had earned his repose, being certainly old, if not
useless, and was anxious for his little sons to be placed out in the
world as early as possible. Thus it came that in 1484 Baccio was taken
away from his brothers, who played under the shadow of the old gateway,
and was put to do the drudgery of the apprenticeship to art. He had to
grind colours for Cosimo--who, as we know, used a great deal of colour,
having dazzled the eyes of the Pope with the brilliancy of his blue and
gold in the Sistine Chapel some years before--he had to sweep out the
studio, no doubt assisted by Mariotto Albertinelli, a boy of his own
age, and to run errands, carrying designs for inspection to expectant
brides who wanted the chests painted to hold their wedding clothes, or
doing the messenger between his master and the nuns of S. Ambrogio, who
paid Cosimo their gold florins by the hand of the boy in 1484 and 1485.
[Footnote: Note to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p.
429.]
Whether his age made him a more acceptable means of communication with
the nuns, or whether Pier di Cosimo, the elder pupil, already displayed
his hatred of womankind, I know not; perhaps the boy already showed that
innate devotion and especial fitness for sanctity which marks his entire
art career. Truly everything in his youthful life combined to lead his
thoughts to higher things. The first fresco at which he assisted was in
this solemn cloister of St. Ambrogio, and the subject the _Miracle of
the Sacrament_; the saintly air of the place, the calm faces of the
white-hooded nuns, must all have had an influence in inspiring his
youthful mind with the spirit of devotion.
Baccio's fellow-students were not many, but they formed an interesting
group. Pier di Cosimo was the head man, and eldest of all; with such
ties was he bound to his master and godfather, that he was known better
as Cosimo's Peter than by his own patronymic of Chimenti. He was at
this time twenty-two years of age, his registry in the Florentine Guild
proves his birth in 1462, as the son of Lorenzo, son of Piero, son of
Antonio, Chimenti.
Being the eldest of five brothers, it is difficult to conceive how a
member of a large family grew up developing such eccentricities as are
usually the fruit of isolation.
In the studio Piero was industrious and steady, working earnestly,
whether he was assisting his master's designs or carrying out his own
fancies of monsters, old myths, and classic fairy stories. No doubt
the two boys, Mariotto and Baccio, found little companionship in this
abstracted young man always dreaming over his own ideas. If they told
him an anecdote, he would look up vacantly at the end not having heard a
word; at other times every little noise or burst of laughter would annoy
him, and he would be immoderately angry with the flies and mosquitos.
Piero had already been to Rome, and had assisted Cosimo in his fresco
of _Christ preaching on Lake Tiberias_; indeed most judges thought his
landscape the best part of that work, and the talent he showed obtained
him several commissions. He took the portraits of Virginio Orsini,
Ruberto Sanseverino and Duke Valentino, son of Pope Alessandro VI. He
was much esteemed as a portrait painter also in Florence, and from his
love of classical subjects, and extreme finish of execution, he ranked
as one of the best painters of "cassoni," or bridal-linen chests.
This fashion excited the indignation of Savonarola, who in one of his
sermons exclaimed, "Do not let your daughters prepare their 'corredo'
(trousseau) in a chest with pagan paintings; is it right for a Christian
spouse to be familiar with Venus before the Virgin, or Mars before the
saints?"
Thus Piero being a finished painter, was often Cosimo Roselli's
substitute in the instruction of the two boys, for Cosimo having come
home from Rome with some money, lived at his ease; but still continued
to paint frescoes in company with Piero.
Another pupil was Andrea di Cosimo, whose peculiar branch of art
was that of the grotesque. He no doubt drew designs for friezes and
fountains, for architraves and door mouldings, in which distorted faces
look out from all kinds of writhing scrolls; and lizards, dragons,
snakes, and creeping plants, mingle according to the artist's fancy.
Andrea was however often employed in more serious work, as the records
of the Servite Convent prove, for they contain the note of payment to
him, in 1510, for the curtains of the altarpiece which Filippino Lippi
had painted. These curtains were till lately attributed to Andrea del
Sarto, or Francia Bigio.
This is the Andrea Feltrini mentioned by Crowe and Cavalcaselle as
working in the cloister of the Servi with Andrea del Sarto and Francia
Bigio between 1509 and 1514.[Footnote: _History of Painting_, vol. iii.
chap. xvii. p. 546.]
But Baccio's dearest friend in the studio was a boy nearly his own age,
Mariotto Albertinelli, son of Biagio di Bindo, born October 13, 1474. He
had experienced the common lot of young artists in those days, and
had been apprenticed to a gold-beater, but preferred the profession of
painter. From the first these two lads, being thrown almost entirely
together in the work of the studio, formed one of those pure, lasting
friendships, of which so many exist in the annals of art, and so few in
the material world. They helped each other in the drudgery, and
enjoyed their higher studies together; but they did not draw all their
inspirations from the over-coloured works of Cosimo--although Mariotto
once reproduced his red-winged cherubim in after life [Footnote: In the
'Trinity' in the Belle Arti, Florence.]--nor from the hard and laboured
myths of Piero.
They went to higher founts, for scarcely a trace of these early
influences are to be found in their paintings. Vasari says they studied
the _Cose di Leonardo_. The great artist had at this time left the
studio of Verocchio, and was fast rising into fame in Florence, so it
is most probable that two youths with strong artistic tendencies would
study, not only the sketches, but also the precepts, of the great man.
Besides this there were two national art-schools open to students in
Florence: these were the frescoes of Masaccio and Lippi in the Carmine,
and the Medicean garden in the Via Cavour, then called Via Larga.