ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D. 1501-1510.
During the interval between the second and third partnership of this
incongruous pair of friends, the life of Albertinelli had been very
different from that of the Frate. So distressed was he at losing Baccio
that he was quite wild for a time. His passions being unruled, that of
grief took entire possession of him. In his despair he vowed to give up
painting; he declared that he would also become a monk, if it were not
that he now hated them more than ever; besides, he was a Pallesco, and
could not desert his party.
After a time, however, he calmed down, and, looking on his friend's
unfinished fresco of the _Last Judgment_ as a legacy from him, began
to work at it as a kind of obligation till the occupation wove its
own charm, and he steadily devoted himself to art again, much to the
satisfaction of good Gerozzi Dini, who was in great perturbation, and
declared there was not another hand but his in Florence which could
finish it; and also to the relief of Fra Bartolommeo himself, who,
having received money on account, was troubled in conscience lest it
should remain unfinished. There remained only some figures to put in the
terrestrial group, all the celestial portions having been finished by
the Frate; but they are very well drawn figures, with a good deal of
expression in them. Several are likenesses, amongst whom are Dini and
his wife, Bugiardini, the painter's pupil, and himself. Most of these
are now destroyed by the effects of damp.
Mariotto left Fra Bartolommeo's house in S. Pier Gattolini, and took
a room in Gualfonda--now Via Val Fonda--a street leading towards the
fortress, built by the Grand Duke Cosimo on the north of the city;
and here in time quite a school grew up under his tuition. Giuliano
Bugiardini was his head assistant rather than pupil; Francia Bigio, then
a boy, Visino, who afterwards went to Hungary, and Innocenzio da Nicola,
besides Piero, Baccio's brother, were all scholars. Albertinelli's
Bottega in Val Fonda gave some noble paintings to the world, works
independently his own, though Fra Bartolommeo's influence is traceable
in most of them. The finest of these is the _Salutation_, dated
1503--ordered for the Church of S. Martino, and now the gem of the hall
of the Old Masters in the Uffizi Gallery--a work which alone has been
able to mark him for all time as a great master.
So simple is the subject, and yet so grand the proportions, and in the
figures there is such majesty of maternity and dignity of womanhood! A
decorated portico, with the heavens behind it, forms the background to
the two noble women, in one of whom is expressed the gracious sympathy
of an elder matron with the awful, mysterious joy of the younger.
The colouring, perfectly harmonised, is the most masterly blending of
a subdued tone with soft yet brilliant and shows a deep study of the
method of Leonardo.
The predella has an _Annunciation_, _Nativity_, and _Circumcision_; all
showing the same able style, but more injured by time than the picture.
Another charming painting of this period is the _Nativity_ at the Pitti,
a round, on panel. The _Madonna_ is not quite so noble as that of the
_Salutation_, but the limbs of the child are beautifully rounded. There
is a pretty group of three angels singing in the sky; the landscape is
as minute in detail as those his old fellow-pupil Piero used to paint in
Cosimo's studio.
In 1504-5 Fra Bartolommeo called upon him for a deed of friendship,
which proves that, whatever biographers (building up theories on a word
or two in Vasari) may say of his want of steadiness, the friend who knew
him best had supreme trust in him. Santi Pagnini, having been removed to
Siena as prior, Fra Bartolommeo made Mariotto guardian and instructor
of his young brother Piero, signing a contract that Mariotto was to have
the use and management of all estates and possessions of Piero, which
included several _poderi_ in the country, as well as the house at the
Porta Romana (S. Pier Gattolini). In return Albertinelli was to keep
Piero in his house, teach, clothe, and provide for him, not, however,
being obliged to give him more than "sette (seven) soldi" a month.
Albertinelli was also to have a mass said yearly in the Church of S.
Pier Gattolini for the soul of Paolo the muleteer, and to use two pounds
of wax candles thereat. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii.
pp. 36, 37.] The contract was signed from 1st January, 1505, and was to
last till 1st January, 1511. It appears that this brother Piero was a
great trouble to the Frate, being of a bizarre disposition, and addicted
to squandering money; he sold some possessions for much less than their
worth, [Footnote: Private communication from Sig. G. Milanesi.] which
probably accounts for the singular contract of guardianship. He did not
show enough talent to become a painter, and took priests' orders later.
About this time Fra Bartolommeo recommenced work, and while he
was painting the triptych for Donatello's _Madonna_ (the miniature
_Nativity_ and _Circumcision_ in the Uffizi), Albertinelli was at
work in the convent of the Certosa, at a _Crucifixion_ in fresco.
The painting is extant in the chapterhouse, and is a very fair and
unrestored specimen of his best style. The Virgin and Magdalen are very
purely conceived figures; the idea of the angels gathering the blood
falling from the wounded hands of the crucified Saviour is very tender;
there is a great brightness of colouring, and a greenish landscape
almost Peruginesque in feeling. Some of his pupils worked with him at
the Certosa, and nearly brought their master into trouble.
They were not more content with convent fare than was Davide
Ghirlandajo, when the only delicacy supplied him at Vallombrosa was
cheese; and to revenge themselves, they stole round the cloister after
the circular sliding panels by which the rations were sent into the
monks' cells were filled, and feasted on the meals made ready for the
good brothers. Great confusion ensued in the convent, the monks accusing
each other of the theft; but when they found out the real culprits, they
made a compromise, promising double rations if the artists would hasten
their work and leave them their daily dole in peace.
The fresco is dated 1506. The same year produced the fine picture now
in the Louvre, which was painted for the church of S. Trinità on the
commission of Zanobio del Maestro.
The _Madonna_, stands on a pedestal, with S. Jerome and S. Zenobio
in front, while episodes from their lives are brought in like distant
echoes in the background. [Footnote: S. Zenobio was the first bishop of
Florence, and is the patron saint of that city.]
The nuns of S. Giuliano employed him to paint two pictures, both of
which are now in the Belle Arti. One is an altarpiece; the _Madonna
enthroned_, with the Divine Child in her arms. Era Bartolommeo's idea
of an angel-sustained canopy is here, but the angels hold it up from the
outside instead of the inside. Before her are S. John the Baptist,
S. Julian, S. Nicholas, and S. Dominic. The S. Julian has a great
similarity to the S. Michael of Perugino, and the S. John, by its good
modelling, shows the result of his studies from the antique in the
Medici garden.
For the same church he did the curious conventional painting of
the _Trinity_ on a gold ground. The subject is inartistic, because
unapproachable; the attempt to paint that which is a deep spiritual
mystery degrades both the art and the subject; the latter because it
lowers it to human grasp, the former because it shows its powerlessness
to shadow forth the infinite. There is beautiful painting in the heads
of the angels, at the foot of the Cross, but the brilliancy of the gold
ground is overpowering to the colours, albeit he has balanced it
by reproducing Cosimo Roselli's red-winged cherubs. Nothing but Fra
Angelico's delicate tints can bear such a background. No doubt
Piero, Baccio's brother, helped to lay on this gold, for one of the
stipulations in the contract with Mariotto was that he was to "metter
d' oro ed altre cose di mazoneria" (to put on gold and other articles of
emblazonment).
It has been a great subject of conjecture at what part of his life
Albertinelli took the rash step of throwing up his art and opening
a tavern at Porta S. Gallo. Some say it was in his despair at Fra
Bartolommeo having taken the vows, but this is disproved by his having
at that time finished the _Last Judgment_, and taken pupils in Val
Fonda. Others assert that it was at the breaking up of the last
partnership in 1513, but there is no hiatus in his work at that time,
existing paintings being dated in 1513 and the following years till his
death, three years after.
Vasari, though not to be depended on in regard to dates--chronology not
being his forte--is generally right in the gossip and stories of the
lives near his own time, and it is by collateral evidence from his pages
that we are able to fix with more certainty 1508 or 1509 as the time of
this episode in Albertinelli's life. In 1507 we find him as an artist
helping to value his friend's picture, and mediating between the convent
and Bernardo del Bianco. [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii.
chap. xvii. p. 544.] Now, in the 'Life of Andrea del Sarto,' we read
that Francia Bigio, Albertinelli's pupil, made the acquaintance of
Andrea while studying the Cartoons in the Hall of the Council (this was
from 1506 to 1508), and as their friendship increased, Andrea confided
to Francia Bigio that he could no longer endure the eccentricities of
Piero di Cosimo, and determined to seek a home for himself, and that
Francia Bigio being also alone--his master Mariotto Albertinelli _having
abandoned the art of painting_--they determined to share a studio
and rooms. [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 182.] The first works the
partners undertook were the frescoes of the Scalzo and the Servi, which
were begun in 1509. Thus the date is tolerably certain, especially as a
gap occurs in Albertinelli's works at this time.
Sig. Gaetano Milanesi's researches in the Archives have thrown a new
light on Mariotto's motives, which were not entirely connected with
art; it was not that he was discouraged by adverse criticism, nor wholly
that, as time divided him from his friend, he felt he could produce
no great work away from his influence, but it was partly that he had
married a wife named Antonia, whose father kept an inn at S. Gallo.
It is possible the tavern came to him by way of _dot_, and the above
reasons making him discontented with art for a time, might have induced
him to carry on the business himself. Sig. Milanesi says a document
exists of a contract in which Mariotto's name is connected with a
tavern, but that he has never been able to retrace it since the first
time he found it. It is his opinion that the whole story arose from the
fact of the wife's family possessing this wine shop, and his connection
with it in that way.
But though Albertinelli passed off his pseudo-hostdom with bravado,
talking very wittily about it, the artistic vein was too strong within
him to be subdued; he soon gave up the flask and returned to the brush,
for in 1509, when his quondam pupil, Francia Bigio, was busy at the
Servi, we again find Mariotto's hand in a painting of the _Madonna_. The
Virgin, holding a pomegranate in her hand, supports with the other the
Child, who stands on a parapet, and clings to the bosom of his mother's
dress for support, in a truly natural way; the infant Baptist stands
by. The painting, signed, and dated 1509, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, but has been injured by repainting. In spite of this, Messrs.
Crowe and Cavalcaselle believe they perceive Bugiardini's hand in it.
In 1510 Albertinelli began one of his masterpieces, the _Annunciation_
for the company of S. Zenobio, now in the Belle Arti. All his zeal for
art was reawakened, he flung himself _con amore_ into this work, which,
though in oil on panel, was painted on the spot where it was intended to
be placed, that the lights might be managed with the best effect. He was
imbued with Leonardo da Vinci's principle, that the greatest relief
and force are to be combined with softness, and wishing to bring this
combination to a perfection which never before had been reached, he
depended greatly on the natural light to further his design. [Footnote:
Vasari, vol. ii. p. 469.]
The picture, although a great work of art, and the most laboured of
all his paintings, failed to satisfy the artist. He tried various
experiments, painting in and painting out, but never reaching his own
ideal. According to Leonardo, he was proving himself a good artist, one
of his principles being, "when his (an artist's) knowledge and light
surpass his work so that he is not satisfied with himself or his
endeavours, it is a happy omen." [Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise
on Painting.]
The work as it stands is a noble one, though darkened by time having
brought out the black pigments used in the shades. The background is an
intricate piece of architecture with vaulted roof, showing that he
too had profited by Raphael's instructions in perspective to Fra
Bartolommeo.
The Virgin is a tender sweet figure; indeed no artist has given more
gracious dignity to womanhood than Albertinelli, although his detractors
say his life showed no great respect for it. Above, the Almighty is
seen in a yellow light with a circle of angels and seraphs around. It
is strange how the realistic painters stopped at nothing, not even the
representation of the eternal in a human form. Is not this the reason
why art ceased about this time to be the interpreter of religion, and
found its true mission in being the interpreter of nature? Who can draw
one soul? How much more impossible then to depict the incomprehensible
soul in which all others have their being? The utmost we can do is to
give the indication of the spirit in the expression of a face, and that
so imperfectly that not two beholders read it alike. Study Perugino and
Raphael, see how they raise human nature and etherealize it till we see
the divinity of soul in the faces of their saints and martyrs. But the
moment they try to depict the Almighty, or even his angels, they fall at
once below humanity.
But to return to the _Annunciation_ of Albertinelli. His impetuous
temper betrayed him even here; he fell into a dispute with his patrons,
who refused to pay the price he asked. The usual "trial by his peers"
was resorted to, Perugino, Granacci, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo were called
into council to value it according to its merits.
On completing this picture the events we have related in the last
chapter took place, Fra Bartolommeo returned from Venice with his
enterprise renewed, and the convent partnership was commenced.