PART I.
SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO.
Of these, little more than the names have come down to us. Vasari speaks
of Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabbriele Rustici, and Fra Paolo Pistojese;
Padre Marchese mentions two monks, Fra Andrea and Fra Agostino. Of
these, the two first never became proficient, and have left no works
behind them. Fra Andrea seems to have been more a journeyman than
scholar, being employed to prepare the panels and lay on the gilding.
Fra Agostino assisted his master, and Fra Paolo in the subordinate parts
of a few frescoes, especially at Luco in the Mugnone. Fra Paolo is
the most known, but chiefly as a far-off imitator of Fra Bartolommeo,
without his mellowness of execution. His pictures are mostly from his
master's designs, which were left him as a legacy, and this ensures a
good composition.
He was born at Pistoja in 1490; his father, Bernardino d' Antonio del
Signoraccio, a second-rate artist, taught him the first principles
of art. His knowledge of drawing caused him to be noticed by Fra
Bartolommeo, when at a very early age he entered the order. He was
removed from Prato to San Marco, Florence, in 1503; and here he found
another friend who assisted his artistic tendencies. This was Fra
Ambrogio della Robbia, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in.
chap. ii. p. 246.] who taught him to model in clay; a specimen of his
work exists in the Church of Sta. Maddalena in Pian di Mugnone, where
are two statues of S. Domenico and Mary Magdalen by his hand.
His best work is a _Crucifixion_ at Siena, dated 1516, which has been
thought to be Fra Bartolommeo's; but though that master was asked to go
and paint it as a memorial of a certain Messer Cherubino Ridolfo,
his many occupations prevented his accepting the commission, and his
disciples, Fra Paolo and Fra Agostino, went in his place. [Footnote:
Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in. chap. ii. p. 251.] Possibly the
master supplied the design, which is very harmonious. The Virgin and S.
John stand on each side of the cross, and Saint Catherine of Siena and
Mary Magdalen are prostrate before it. One or two of the female saints
are pleasing, but the nude figure of Christ is hard, exaggerated, and
faulty in drawing.
The artists got thirty-five lire for the work, though the record in the
archives allows that it was worth more. There is an _Assumption_ in the
Belle Arti of Florence, of which the design is Fra Bartolommeo's, but
the colouring Fra Paolo's. It was painted for the Dominican monks at
Santa Maria del Sasso, near Bibbiena. The colouring is hard and weak,
the shadows heavy, and not fused well in the half tints. Two monks on
the left are tolerably life-like, probably they were drawn from living
models; the S. Catherine on the right is very inferior.
The Belle Arti also possesses a _Deposition from the Cross_, which Fra
Bartolommeo had sketched out and left uncoloured at Pian di Mugnone. In
1519 Fra Paolo finished it, and it presents the usual disparity between
the composition and colouring, the former being good, the latter weak
and crude. His best known works are a Nativity in the Palazzo Borghese,
a _Madonna and Child with S. John Baptist_ in the Sciarra Colonna, also
in Rome; a _Madonna and Child with S. John_ in the Corsini Gallery,
Florence, and another of the same subject in the Antinori Palace. He
painted also at San Gimignano, Pian di Mugnone, and Pistoja, and died of
sunstroke in 1547.
He had as a follower a Suor Plautilla Nelli, born 1523, daughter of a
noble Florentine, Piero di Luca Nelli. She took the vows at the age
of fourteen, in the convent of S. Caterina di Siena, in Via Larga (now
Cavour), Florence. Her sister, Suor Petronilla, in the same convent,
was a writer, and her life of Savonarola is still extant. Suor Plautilla
taught herself to paint. Legend says, that in order to study the nude
for a Christ, she drew from the corpse of a nun--which might account for
the weak stiffness of her design. Fra Paolo, though there is no record
of his having taught her, left her as a legacy the designs and cartoons
of Fra Bartolommeo, one of which, the _Pietà_, she has evidently made
use of in the painting in the Belle Arti. The grouping is that of the
_Pietà_ of Fra Bartolommeo, now in the Pitti, of which she must have
had the original sketch, for she has put in the two saints in the
background, which have been painted out in that of the Frate, but we
will give her the entire credit of the colouring, which is extremely
crude; the contrasting blues and yellows are in inharmonious tones, the
shading harsh, and the whole picture wanting in chiaroscuro. The Corsini
Gallery, Florence, has a _Virgin and Child_ by her.
PART II.
The scholars of Mariotto Albertinelli were much more important in the
annals of art, the principal ones being Bugiardini, Francia Bigio,
Visino, and Innocenza d' Imola.
Giuliano Bugiardini should be called the assistant rather than the
scholar of Albertinelli, being older than his master. He was born in
1471 in a suburb outside the Via Faenza, Florence, and was placed in
the shop of Domenico Ghirlandajo, where his acquaintance with
Michelangelo--begun in the Medici Gardens--ripened into intimacy, and
he was employed by him in the Sistine Chapel. Giuliano had that happily
constructed mind which, with an ineffable content in its own works,
will pass through life perfectly happy in the feeling that in reaching
mediocrity it has achieved success. Not only wanting talent to produce
better works, he lacked also the faculty of perceiving where his own
were faulty, and having a great aptitude for copying the works of
others, he felt himself as great as the original artists. Michelangelo
was always amused with his naïve self-conceit, and kept up a friendship
with him for many years. He even went so far as to sit to Bugiardini for
his likeness, at the request of Ottaviano de' Medici. Giuliano, having
painted and talked nonsense for two hours, at last exclaimed, to his
sitter's great relief, "Now, Michelangelo, come and look at yourself; I
have caught your very expression." But what was Michelangelo's horror to
see himself depicted with eyes which were neither straight nor a pair!
The worthy artist looked from his work to the original, and declared he
could see no difference between them, on which Michelangelo, shrugging
his shoulders, said, "It must be a defect of nature," and bade his
friend go on with it. This charming portrait was presented to Ottaviano
de' Medici, with that of _Pope Clement VII._, copied from Sebastian del
Piombo, and is now in the Louvre. Bugiardini's works always take the
style of other masters. There is a _Madonna_ in the Uffizi, and one
in the Leipsic Museum, both in Leonardo's style, with his defects
exaggerated. The former is a sickly woman in a sentimental attitude,
the child rather heavy, the colouring is bright and well fused; he has
evidently adopted the method which he had seen Albertinelli use in his
studio.
During a stay in Bologna he painted a _Madonna and Saints_ as an
altar-piece for the church of S. Francesco, besides a _Marriage of S.
Catherine_, now in the Bologna Pinacoteca. The composition of this is
not without merit; the child Jesus seated on his mother's knees, gives
the ring to S. Catherine, little S. John stands at the Virgin's feet, S.
Anthony on her left. The colouring is less pleasing, the flesh tints too
red and raw.
A round picture in the Zambeccari Gallery, Bologna, shows him in
Michelangelo's style. The Virgin is reading on a wooded bank, but looks
up to see the infant Christ greet the approaching S. John Baptist; this
is carefully, if rather hardly, painted. The lights in the Saviour's
hair have been touched in with gold. The time of his stay in Bologna is
uncertain, but in 1525 he was in Florence, and drawing designs for the
Ringhiera with Andrea del Sarto. There is a document in the archives,
proving that on October 5th, 1526 Bugiardini was paid twenty florins
in gold for his share of the work. He obtained some rank as a portrait
painter, in spite of his failure in that of Michelangelo; and had
commissions from many of the celebrities of Florence. It was in original
composition that his powers failed him. Messer Palla Rucellai ordered a
picture from him of the _Martyrdom of S. Catherine_, which he began with
the intention of making it a very fine work indeed. He spent several
years in representing the wheels, the lightnings and fires in a
sufficiently terrible aspect, but had to beg Michelangelo's assistance
in drawing the men who were to be killed by those heavenly flames; his
design was to have a row of soldiers in the foreground, all knocked down
in different attitudes. His friend took up the charcoal and sketched
in a splendid group of agonised nude figures; but these were beyond his
power to shade and colour, and Tribolo made him a set of models in clay,
in the attitudes given by Michelangelo, and from these he finished the
work; but the great master's hand was never apparent in it. Bugiardini
died at the age of seventy-five.
Of Francesco Bigi, commonly called Francia Bigio or Franciabigio, so
much is said in the following life of Andrea del Sarto, that a slight
sketch will suffice here. He was the son of Cristofano, and was born in
1482. His early studies were made in the Brancacci Chapel, and the
Papal Hall--where he drew from the cartoons in 1505-6, and the studio
of Mariotto Albertinelli, from which he passed to his partnership with
Andrea del Sarto in 1509. Thus it is that his first style was marked by
the influence of Mariotto and Fra Bartolommeo, while in his later works
he approximated more to Andrea del Sarto.
Two of his early paintings were placed in the church of S. Piero
Maggiore, one a _Virgin and Child_ of great beauty. The infant clasps
its arms round its mother's neck--a charming attitude--which suggests
a playful effort to hide from the young S. John, who is running towards
him, by nestling closer to the dearer resting place. The picture is now
in the Uffizi and has been long known as _Raphael's Madonna del Pozzo_.
[Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, vol. iii.
chap. xv. p. 501.] No greater testimony to Francia Bigio's excellence
can be given than the frequency of his works being mistaken for those of
Raphael, but the influence of his contemporaries was always strong upon
him. The _Annunciation_, painted for the same church, is also described
by Vasari as a carefully designed work, though somewhat feeble in
manner. The angel is lightly poised in air, the Virgin kneeling before a
foreshortened building. The picture was lost sight of in the demolition
of the church, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Crowe and
Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, Vol. iii. p. 500.] believe they
have discovered it in a picture at Turin, the authorship of which is
avowedly doubtful. They mention, however, a celestial group of the
Eternal Father in a cherub-peopled cloud, sending his blessing in the
form of a dove, with a ray of glory. Surely if this be the one described
by Vasari [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 336] so minutely, he would not
have omitted a part of the subject so important to the picture.
In 1509 we may presumably date the partnership with Andrea del Sarto,
that being about the time when they began to work together in the
Scalzo. Francia Bigio painted some frescoes in the church of S. Giobbe,
behind the Servite Monastery. A _Visitation_ was in a tabernacle at the
corner of the church, and subjects from Job's life on a pilaster within
it: these have long ago disappeared. The altar-piece of the _Madonna
and Job_, which he painted in oil for the same church, has been more
fortunate, as it still exists in the Tuscan School in the Uffizi. Though
much injured, it shows his earlier style. The _Calumny of Apelles_ in
the same gallery is a curious picture. It is hard and dull in colouring,
the prevailing tone being a heavy drab; there are several nude figures,
of doubtful forms as to beauty of drawing, the flesh is painted in a
smooth glazed style, without relief or tenderness.
Francia Bigio shines more in fresco than in oil; his hardness is less
apparent, and he gains in freedom and brilliance of colouring in the
more congenial medium. The finest of his frescoes is, unfortunately,
spoiled by his own hand, and remains as a memorial of his genius and
hasty temper. I allude to the _Sposalizio_ (A.D. 1513) in the courtyard
of the Servite church, where Andrea did his series of frescoes from the
life of Filippo Benizzi. The composition is grand and carefully thought
out, the colouring bright and pleasing; perhaps in emulating Andrea's
luxurious style of drapery he has gone a little too far, and crowded
the folds. The bridegroom is a noble figure, and shows in his face his
gladness in the blossoming rod. A man in the foreground breaks a
stick across his knees. The commentators of Vasari have taken this to
emblematize the Roman Catholic legend of the Virgin having given rods to
each of her suitors, and chosen him whose rod blossomed. Graceful women
surround the Virgin, but there is perhaps a too marked sentimentality
about these which suggests a striving after Raphael's style. There is,
however, a great touch of nature in a mother with a naughty child, who
sits crying on the ground, much to the mother's distress. Francia Bigio
commenced this in Andrea's absence in France, which so excited his
former comrade's emulation that he did his _Visitation_ in great haste,
to get it uncovered as soon as Francia Bigio's. In fact, Andrea's works
were ready by the date of the annual festa of the Servites, and the
monks, being anxious to uncover all the new frescoes for that day, took
upon them to remove the mattings from that of Francia Bigio as well,
without his permission, for he wished to give a few more finishing
touches. So angry was he, on arriving in the cloister, to see a crowd of
people admiring his work in what he felt to be an imperfect condition,
that in an excess of rage he mounted on the scaffolding which still
remained, and, seizing a hammer, beat the head of the Madonna to pieces,
and ruined the nude figure breaking the rod. The monks hastened to the
scene in an uproar of remonstrance, the frantic artist's destructive
hand was stayed by the bystanders, but so deep was his displeasure that
he refused to restore the picture, and no other hand having touched
it, the fresco remains to this day a fine work mutilated. It shows him
artistically in his very best, and morally, at his worst, phase. In
1518, while Andrea was in France, the monks of the Scalzo employed
Francia Bigio to fill two compartments in their pretty little cloister,
where Andrea had commenced his _Life of S. John Baptist_. These are
spoken of more at length in the life of that master, who on his return
took the work again in his own hands. In 1521 Bigio competed with Andrea
and Pontormo, in the Medici Villa at Poggio a Cajano; Andrea's _Cæsar
receiving Tribute_ occupies one wall of the hall, and Francia Bigio's
_Triumph of Cicero_ another. The subjects were selected by the
historian, Messer Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera; it only remained for
the artists to make the most of the chosen themes. Francia Bigio filled
his background with a careful architectural perspective, and a crowd of
muscular Romans are grouped before it. This also was left unfinished
at the Pope's death, and Allori completed it in 1582. Francia Bigio,
however, did many of the gilded decorations of the hall.
In the Dresden Gallery is a work, Scenes from the Life of David, signed
A. S., MDXXIII., and his monogram, a painting very much in the style of
Andrea del Sarto's _Life of Joseph_. Reumont [Footnote: Life of Andrea
del Sarto, p. 138 et seq.] claims it as the joint work of Andrea and
Francia Bigio, founding his opinion on the letters A. S. before the
date; but the letters mean only _Anno salutis_, and are used in very
many of Francia Bigio's signed paintings. He had the commission from Gio
Maria Benintendi in 1523. It is one of those curious pictures which have
many scenes in one--a style which militates greatly against artistic
unity. On the right is David's palace, on the left Uriah's; David is at
his door watching Bathsheba and her maidens bathing. In the centre
is the siege of Rabbah; another well-draped group represents David
receiving Uriah's homage. In the foreground David gives wine to Uriah
at a banquet. There is careful painting and ingenious composition, but
a less finished manner of colouring than in Andrea's Joseph, which was
painted about the same time for Pier Borgherini.
Like Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Francia Bigio fell off in his later style,
partly because his ambition failed him, and also because he began to
look on art as a means of livelihood--a motive which is certain death to
high art.
He was especially celebrated as a portrait painter, several of his works
having been attributed to Raphael. Among these are one at the Louvre and
one at the Pitti Palace, both portraits of a youth in tunic and black
cap, with long hair flowing over his shoulders; one in the National
Gallery, formerly in Mr. Fuller Maitland's collection; the portrait of a
jeweller, dated A. S., MDXVI. in Lord Yarborough's gallery; that in the
Berlin Museum, of a man sitting at a desk, dated 1522; and the likeness
of Pier Francesco de Medici at Windsor--all of which bear Francia
Bigio's monogram, often with the letters A. S. (_Anno salutis_) before
the date. He died on January 14th, 1525.
CHAPTER X.
RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO. A.D. 1483--1560.
RIDOLFO (DI DOMENICO) BIGORDI, called GHIRLANDAJO, &c., was born on the
4th of January, 1483. Although not strictly a scholar, he is one of
Fra Bartolommeo's principal followers. When quite a child he lost his
father, the famous Domenico, who died of fever, on January 11th,
1494; his mother and uncle Benedetto only lived a few years after;
and Ridolfo, with his three sisters and two brothers, was left to the
guardianship of his uncle Davide.
Ridolfo was the only one who chose the family profession, and he became
the fourth painter of the name of Ghirlandajo.
Davide was not a perfect artist, although a good mosaicist, as his works
in the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence show, but he was
for many years Ridolfo's only instructor. As the boy grew up Ridolfo
frequented those public schools of art before spoken of, the Brancacci
Chapel, and the study of the cartoons in the Papal Hall. Here he secured
the friendship not only of Granacci and Pier di Cosimo, but of Raphael
himself, with whom he visited Fra Bartolommeo in his convent.
Raphael permitted Ridolfo to assist him in a Madonna for Siena, and
tried to persuade him to accompany him to Rome; but Ridolfo, like a true
Florentine, declined to go "beyond sight of the Duomo."
His first great picture was done in 1504 for the church of San Gallo.
The subject was _Christ Searing His Cross_. His uncle Benedetto had
laboured on a similar picture, now in the Louvre, but Ridolfo's is a
great improvement on this; the composition is well balanced, full
of force and animation, the weeping figures of the Maries and the
solicitude of S. Veronica are very lifelike, although he has not
entirely abolished his uncle's coarseness in the scowling, low-typed
men. The Christ and the Virgin are, on the contrary, so refined as to
induce the supposition that this force of contrast was intentional; the
landscape is rather hard and crude in tone, the flesh tints smooth, and
the handling similar to that of Credi.
The original is now in Palazzo Antinori, Florence, but a replica, in
which he was assisted by Michele, his favourite pupil and adopted son,
is in Santo Spirito.
Vasari speaks of a _Nativity_, painted for the Cistercian monks of
Cestello; a beautiful composition, in which the Madonna adores the holy
child, S. Joseph standing near her; S. Francis and S. Jerome kneel in
adoration; the landscape was sketched from the hills near "La Vernia,"
where S. Francis received the stigmata.
Maselli says the picture was lost when the monastery changed hands, but
Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: History of fainting, vol. in.
chap. xvi. pp. 523, 524.] believe they have found it in the Hermitage at
S. Petersburg, under Granacci's name. It is possible that the favourite
pupil of his father and Ridolfo's own friend may have assisted him. The
landscape is Raphaelesque, and might mark the time when that master
and Fra Bartolommeo influenced his style. His best manner approached so
nearly to that of the Frate, that had he continued he would have very
nearly rivalled his excellence.
His two masterpieces are now in the Uffizi; they were painted for
the Brotherhood of S. Zenobio, 1510, to stand one on each side of
Albertinelli's _Annunciation_. One is _S. Zenobio_ (the first bishop and
patron saint of Florence) _restoring a dead child to life_; the other
the _Funeral Procession of the Saint passing the Baptistery_, where an
elm tree, which had been withered, put forth fresh leaves as the coffin
of the bishop touched it. A marble column, with a bronze tree in relief
on it, stands on the spot as a memorial of this miracle. In these two
works Ridolfo Ghirlandajo proved the power which was in him, but they
are the culmination of his art; he never surpassed, or indeed equalled
them again. His richness of colouring and deep relief equalled that of
the Frate, the animation and expression rivalled Andrea del Sarto. In
the first picture, the eagerness of the crowd, the intense feeling of
the mother, in whom grief for the dead child seems almost greater
than the hope of his resuscitation, the sturdy, solid character of the
Florentines of the Republic, are all given with a masterly hand, while a
rich blending of colour fuses the animated crowd in a harmonious unison.
In the latter, grandeur and dignity mark the group of ecclesiastics
which surrounds the archbishop's bier, the full solid falls of their
drapery show that he had well studied his father's works.
Ridolfo's brothers became monks, Don Bartolommeo lived in the
Camaldoline Monastery of the Angeli, which Ridolfo beautified with many
works. Paolo Uccelli had adorned the Loggia with frescoed stories from
the life of S. Benedict. Ridolfo added two to the series. In one the
Saint is at table with two angels, waiting for S. Romano to send his
bread from the grotto, but the devil has cut the cord and taken it.
Another is _S, Benedict investing a youth with the habit of the order_.
In the church of the same monastery he painted a beautiful _Madonna and
Child, with Angels_, above the holy water vase, and _S. Romualdo with
the Camaldolese Hermitage in his Hand_, in a lunette in the cloister.
All these were done as a brotherly gift, and after they were finished,
the abbot, Don Andrea Dossi, gave him a commission to paint a _Last
Supper_ in the refectory, which he did, placing the portrait of the
abbot in the corner.
Ridolfo, like his father, regarded art rather as a means of livelihood
than with any aesthetic feelings, and this is probably the reason of his
never attaining true excellence. His "bottega" was really a shop where
any one might order a work of art, or of artisanship, and he gave as
much attention to painting a banner for a procession as to composing an
altar-piece. He had a great many assistants, whom he called on for help
in various undertakings. They assisted him to prepare the Medici
Halls for the reception of Pope Leo X., and later for the marriages
of Giuliano and Lorenzo, not disdaining to paint scenes for the dramas
which were then given. He painted banners, and designed costumes for the
processions of the "potenze," a festive company, the origin of which is
uncertain, but dating certainly from the Middle Ages. Each quarter of
the city had an emperor, lords, and dignitaries, each of whom carried
his banner or emblazonment. Grand processions, tournaments, and feasts
were held once a year, on S. John's Day, by the potenze.
Having assisted at the triumphs and marriages of the Medici princes, he
also furnished the funeral pomp and magnificence on the deaths of the
brothers, that of Giuliano occurring in 1516, of Lorenzo 1519.
Lucratively it answered his purpose; the Medici gave him great honour;
he was well paid by them, and got the commission to decorate the Chapel
of the Palazzo Vecchio--a very good specimen of his fresco painting, in
which he never reached his father's excellence, although in oil he far
surpassed him. The chapel is small; the groined roof is covered with
emblematical designs on a blue ground, a Trinity in the midst with
angels bearing symbols of the passions around. The apostles and
evangelists surround this, and the principal wall has a larger fresco of
the _Annunciation_--a rather conventional rendering.
Commissions flowed in on him to such a degree, that although he
had fifteen children, he lived to amass money and lands, to see his
daughters well married, and his sons prosperous merchants trading to
distant lands. He died on the 6th of June, 1561, and lies with his
forefathers in the church of S. Maria Novella.
ANDREA D'AGNOLO,
CALLED ANDREA DEL SARTO.
CHAPTER I.
YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511.
Andrea Del Sarto is a curious instance of the vital power of art, which,
like a flower forcing its way to the light through walls or rocks, will
find expression in spite of obstacles.
Andrea the painter, "senza errori," was an artist in spite of lowering
home influences, of want of encouragement in his patrons--for his
greatest works only brought the smallest remuneration--and even in
spite of his own nature, which was material, wanting in high aims, and
deficient in ideality; yet his name lives for ever as a great master,
and his works rank close to those of the leaders of the Renaissance.
In looking at them one sighs even in the midst of admiration, thinking
that if the hand which produced them had been guided by a spark of
divine genius instead of the finest talent, what glorious works they
would have been! The truth is that Andrea's was a receptive, rather
than an original and productive mind. His art was more imitative than
spontaneous, and this forms perhaps the difference between talent and
genius. The art of his time sunk into his mind, and was reproduced.
He lived precisely at the time of the culmination of art, when all the
highest masters were bringing forth their grandest works; therefore he
could not do otherwise than to follow the best examples.
He gathered the experience of all--the force of Michelangelo, the
handling of Leonardo, the sentiment of Raphael, so blending them as to
form a style seemingly his own, and in execution following closely on
their excellence.
In Giotto's or Masaccio's case the master created the art; in Andrea's
it was the art of the age which made the artist.
The question of Andrea del Sarto's birth is a mooted one. Biadi dates
it 1478, but the register he quotes is both vague and doubtful. He
also tells a curious story of his Flemish origin. Signor Milanesi has
deduced, from the archives of Florence, an authentic pedigree from which
we learn that his remote ancestors were peasants, first at Buiano,
near Fiesole, and later at S. Ilario, near Montereggi. His grandfather,
Francesco, being a linen weaver, came to live nearer Florence; his
father, Agnolo, son of Francesco, followed the trade of a tailor--hence
Andrea's sobriquet, "del Sarto"--he took a house in Via Gualfonda, in
Florence, about 1487, with his wife Constanza, and here Andrea was born,
he being the eldest of a family of five--three girls and two boys. From
the tax papers of a few years later it is proved that Andrea was born
in 1487. His full name is Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco. It is by mistake
that he has been called Vannucchi.
His parents were young, his father being only twenty-seven years of
age at Andrea's birth. They lived at that time in Val Fonda, where
Albertinelli had his shop, but in 1504 they removed to the popolo, or
parish, of S. Paolo. Boys were not allowed to be idle in those days, but
were apprenticed at an early age; thus Andrea, like most artists of his
time, was bound to a goldsmith. It would be interesting to investigate
the great influence of the guild of goldsmiths on the art of the
Renaissance. The reason why youths who showed a talent for design were
entered in that guild is easy to assign--it was one of the "greater"
guilds, that of the painters being a lesser one, and merged in the "Arte
degli Speziali." At seven years old he left the school where he had
learned to read and write, and entered his very youthful apprenticeship;
but he showed so much more aptitude for the designing than for the
executive part of his profession that _Giovanni Barile_, who frequented
the bottega, was induced to counsel his being trained especially as
a painter, offering himself as instructor. If Andrea, a contadino by
birth, an artisan by education, was not originally of the most refined
nature, his artistic training did not go far towards refining him.
Giovanni Barile was a coarse painter and a rough man; he had, however,
generosity enough to see that the boy was worthy of better teaching, and
got him entered in the bottega of Piero di Cosimo, who had attained
a good rank as a colourist, his eccentricities possibly adding to his
reputation.
Accordingly in 1498, Andrea being then eleven years of age, a life of
earnest study began. Piero di Cosimo, odd and misanthropic as he was,
had yet a true appreciation of talent, and showed an earnest interest
in his pupil, giving him--with plenty of queer treatment--a thorough
training. "He was not allowed to make a line which was not perfect"
[Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. 40.] while
in Piero's school. But excellent as his art teaching may have been, the
boy's morale could not have been raised more here than under the rough
but good-natured Barile. We have seen Piero di Cosimo in his youth, the
serious, absent young man, who never joked with his juniors in Cosimo
Roselli's shop; we see him now, with his youthful oddities hardened into
eccentricities, and his reserve deepened to misanthropy. No woman's hand
softened and refined his house, no cleansing broom was allowed within
his door, and no gardener's hand cleared the weeds or pruned the vines
in his garden. He so believed in nature unassisted that he took his
meals without the intervention of a cook. When the fire was lighted to
boil his size or glue he would cook fifty or sixty eggs and set them
apart in a basket, to which he had recourse when the pangs of hunger
compelled him. All this was morally very bad for a boy so young. And
then woe betide the poor little fellow if he whistled, sneezed, or made
any other noise! his nervous master would be out of temper for a day
afterwards. On wet days Piero was merrier, for he would watch the drops
splashing into the pools, and laugh as if they were fairies. Sometimes
he would take Andrea for a walk, and all at once stop and gaze at a heap
of rubbish, or mark of damp on a lichened wall, picturing all kinds of
monsters and weird scenes in its discolourations.
No doubt he was literally carrying out Leonardo da Vinci's advice,
headed, in his treatise, "A new Art of Invention." "Look at some old
wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some old streaked
stones; you may discover several things like landscapes, battles,
clouds, humorous faces, &c., to furnish the mind with new designs."
[Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, _Treatise on Painting_.] Cosimo's mind
being fantastic, the pictures he saw were incomparably grotesque. He
delighted in drawing sea monsters, dragons, wonderful adventures, and
heathen scenes; in fact the boy could have learned neither Christian
art nor manners from him. He learned how to use his brush, however, and,
leaving Piero to his minotaurs and dragons, went off at every spare hour
to study at more congenial shrines. He copied Masaccio at the Brancacci
Chapel, and drew so earnestly from the cartoons in the Hall of the Pope
that his achievements reached the ears of Piero himself, who was not
sorry that his pupil surpassed the rest, and gave him more time for
study away from the bottega. Rosini tells us that "Fra Bartolommeo
taught him the first steps." [Footnote: _Storia della Pittura_, chap,
xxvii. p. 2.] The influence of the Frate may have reached him in two
ways. It is not unlikely that Piero di Cosimo kept up an interest in his
old fellow-pupil; and then again, as Andrea lived in Val Fonda, it is
probable he often visited Albertinelli's studio in that street, and the
friendship with Francia Bigio began before the cartoons of Michelangelo
ripened there.
The evidence of style goes to show that the works of Albertinelli and
Fra Bartolommeo influenced him more than those of Piero. Yet though
his sphere was devotional, it was "impelled more by a material sense of
beauty than by the deep religious feeling which inspired the Frate."
As time went on the youth in strange old Piero's studio became more
famous than his master, and felt that he could do greater things away
from the stiff method which cramped him, and the whimsicalities which
annoyed him. His friend, Francia Bigio, Mariotto's pupil, having
just then lost his master, who was giving more attention to his
father-in-law's business of innkeeper than his own, was willing to enter
into partnership, and the two youths began life together in 1509 or
1510, in a room near the Piazza del Grano, in the first house in Via del
Moro, which still remains in its old state.
The first bit of patronage recorded is the commission for the frescoes
in the Scalzo; that they had work before is proved by the words in
the contract of the Barefoot Friars, "dettero ad Andrea pittore
_celeberrimo_ il dipingere nel Chiosto." The "celebrated" presupposes
works already done.
The Scalzo was a name given to the "Compagnia dei Disciplinati di S.
Giovanni Battista," because they went barefoot when they carried the
cross in their processions. They lived in a convent in Via Larga (now
Cavour), opposite San Marco. A new cloister had been erected there--an
elegant little cortile, thirty-eight feet by thirty-two, adorned with
lovely Corinthian pillars--and the Brethren were anxious to fill the
lunettes of the arches with frescoes at the least possible expense,
wisely judging that a young artist on his way to fame would be the best
to employ.
The frescoes, of which there would be twelve large, and four small ones
in the upright spaces by the doors, were to be done in "terretta," or
brown earth, and to be paid fifty-six lire (eight scudi) for the large,
and twenty-one lire (three scudi) each for the lesser frescoes. The
small ones were four figures of the Virtues, _Faith_, _Hope_, _Justice_,
and _Charity_. _Hope_ is exquisitely expressed, and _Charity_ a charming
group, the children most tenderly drawn. The subjects, though not all
finished till many years later, stand now in the following order; the
second row of figures, with the dates, show the order in which they were
painted:--
1. Gabriel appearing to Zacharias Andrea del Sarto 9 1523.
2. Visitation Andrea del Sarto 10 1523.
3. Birth of S. John Andrea del Sarto 4 1514.
4. Zacharias blessing John before going Francia Bigio.
to the desert
5. S. John meets the Virgin and Infant Francia Bigio.
Christ
6. Baptism of Christ Andrea del Sarto 1 1509.
7. Preaching of S. John Andrea del Sarto 2 1514.
8. Baptism of the Gentiles Andrea del Sarto 3 1514.
9. S. John bound in the presence of Herod Andrea del Sarto 5 1522.
10. Dance of Herodias Andrea del Sarto 6 1522. 11. Beheading of S.
John Andrea del Sarto 7 1522. 12. Herodias receives the head of S. John
Andrea del Sarto 8 1522.
Of these, No. 6 was the first executed, and it is probable that Francia
Bigio assisted him, for it has not the finished drawing nor careful
handling of any of Andrea's other frescoes. Possibly this is the cause
of the partners never working together afterwards, each taking his own
subjects and signing his own name. The composition, in the _Baptism of
Christ_, is not original, being very similar to that of Verocchio's,
especially in the two angels kneeling on the left bank; the landscape
and figures, however, are far in advance of that master.
It will be well to speak of the whole set of frescoes in this place, for
although they belong to different times and styles, they are a complete
work, and might be taken almost as an epitome of Andrea's career;
from the one above mentioned in which Piero de Cosimo's influence is
apparent, to the Nos. 7 and 8, which very nearly approach Michelangelo's
power and freedom.
In No. 1 the expression of muteness about the mouth of Zacharias, as he
stands by the altar, is wonderfully given; you feel sure he could not
speak if he would. The other figures are superfluous to the motive,
though adding grandeur to the work as a whole.
In composition Andrea differs widely from Fra Bartolommeo. The latter
delighted in building up a single form, every figure in the whole
picture adding its hue and weight to perfect this pyramid or circle.
Andrea spreads his figures more widely; he likes a double composition,
dividing his pictures into two separate groups, connected by one central
figure, or divided entirely. This is seen in Nos. 3, 10 and 12, which
are all double groupings, the last completely divided in the centre by a
table and an archway behind it. Nos. 7 and 9 are pyramidal compositions.
The _Preaching of S. John_ is one of the best works, and shows his most
forcible style. S. John on a rock stands like a pillar in the centre,
the hearers are dressed in the "lucco" (a Florentine cloak of the 15th
century), the grouping following the lines of the landscape. At the
back Jesus kneels on a rising ground. Vasari says the figures are from
Albrecht Dürer, whose works had made a great impression on the southern
world of art; but it is more probable that they only show his influence,
for the dress and style are Florentine.
No. 8, the _Baptism of the Gentiles_, is another of his best style,
and is, in the drawing of the nude figures, almost Michelangelesque
in power. This is one of his favourite "echo" subjects, a group in the
background of _John answering the Pharisees _forming an echo to the
principal subject. The muscular life of the spirited crowd of nude
figures is beautifully contrasted by the graceful draped forms in the
background. One of the baptized is the same child whom he had modelled
in the _Madonna_ of S. Francisco.
Nos. 4 and 5 are by Francia Bigio, and were done during Andrea's absence
in France, showing that he had so far learned from his friend as almost
to rival him in power. The subjects, although not scriptural, are
conjecturally true.
In the _Zacharias blessing John before he goes to the Desert_, the
sitting figure of S. Elizabeth and the kneeling one of the child are
very lovely; the action of Zacharias is not so well defined, the
great force in the uplifted arm betokens anger more than blessing. The
grouping follows the lines of a flight of steps in the background, and
is triangular.
The same form of composition is apparent in the next group (No. 5), only
the lines form an angle receding from the one just mentioned. The Virgin
is charmingly posed and draped, the children less pleasing.
This elegant little cloister is a true shrine of art, although the
frescoes are all in monochrome. So much were they admired at the time,
that an order was issued prohibiting artists to copy them without the
permission of Duke Cosimo. Cardinal Carlo de' Medici had them covered
with curtains, [Footnote: Richa, _Delle Chiese_] but, in spite of care,
they are very much injured, the under parts almost lost. The precaution
of covering the cloister with a glass roof has only been taken in modern
times, and too late.
Andrea's next patrons were the Eremite monks of S. Agostino, at San
Gallo, who ordered of him two pictures for their church. In 1511 he
painted _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_, and an _Annunciation_ in
1512. The former is said to have had much softness and delicacy, the
latter is to be seen in the Hall of Mars at the Pitti, and is a very
pleasing picture. The Virgin kneels at her prayer desk, S. Joseph behind
her--a rather unusual rendering of the subject--her attitude is graceful
and decorous, the angel calm and gentle, floats in mid air, two other
angels stand on the left. The colouring is varied in the extreme, and
the lights well defined.
These two pictures, and the _Disputa_, painted later, were removed to
the church of S. Jacopo tra Fossi, when the convent was demolished in
1529. They were still there in 1677, when Bocchi wrote his _Bellezze di
Firenze_, but the _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_ is said to be now
in the church of the Covoni in the Casentino.
CHAPTER II.
THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512.
The next great works were the frescoes in the Court of S. Annunziata, if
indeed they were not carried on simultaneously with those in the Scalzo.
This famous series of Andrea's works was obtained by cunning, and
painted in emulation. While the two partners, who had differed from the
beginning, and had since become rivals, were engaged in the Scalzo, a
certain astute Fra Mariano, the keeper of the wax candle stores at the
Servite Convent--to which the church of the S. Annunziata belonged--had
watched well those two young painters. Fra Mariano understood human
nature, as priests often do; he had seen the envious rivalship growing
between them, as the friends, who should have worked together, took
separate compartments, and cast jealous criticising glances on each
other's designs and method of work. Having ambition of his own, he knew
how to work on that of others to further his own aspirations, which
were, to be considered a patron of art and a benefactor to his convent.
Reading Andrea's heart, he played on all his strongest feelings, placed
before him the glory he would win by covering the lunettes of the arches
in the court of the fine church with frescoes which would carry his
name down to posterity; he said that any other artist would pay much
to obtain leave to paint upon historical walls like those, and how they
would all envy the man who should obtain the coveted honour! Then, with
a half-whispered hint that for one, Francia Bigio was dying to get the
commission for nothing, the wily Frate went his way victorious. Andrea,
scorning to make any pecuniary bargain, only stipulated that no one else
should paint in that courtyard, and forthwith began the _Stories from
the Life of S. Filippo Benizzi_, having only old Alesso Baldovinetti's
_Nativity_, and Cosimo Roselli's _Miracle of S. Filippo_, as foils to
his own. These two works were on the walls on each side of the church
door; there were therefore three entire sides of the cloister to cover,
excepting only the entrance into the courtyard from the Piazza, and
no doubt he felt like Ghirlandajo, when "he wished he had the entire
circuit of the city walls to paint."
On the 16th of June, 1511, he began to paint with such vigour that in a
few months the first three were uncovered.
1. _S. Philip at Viterbo with the Court, dressing a naked leper in his
own cloak_.
2. _S. Philip going from Bologna to Modena_. He rebukes some gamblers,
telling them the vengeance of God is near. A sudden thunderstorm and
lightning destroy them, thus fulfilling the prediction. There is a
great deal of fine action in this composition; the horror and disbelief
struggling in the faces of the men, and the stormy landscape are all
well rendered. A horse leaps away with strong, terrified action, there
is a masterly grasp of his vivid subject, and a rugged strength in the
execution which gives great life to it.
3. _S. Philip exorcises a Girl possessed of a Demon_. Here the
composition is very tender, the mother and father support the sick girl,
and form a very pleasing group; the figures of the spectators are full
of life without exaggeration.
These works have suffered much from exposure, but the colouring is still
good. The praise that Andrea obtained for them was so great that he
followed them up by the two in the next series.
4. _A Child brought to life by touching the bier of S. Philip_. This is
a kind of double composition, the child being represented in a twofold
condition in the foreground, first as dead, and then revived at the
touch of the bier. The grouping around the dead saint is very suggestive
of Ghirlandajo, and shews a deep study of his frescoes in the Sassetti
Chapel. The colouring is peculiarly his own; there is the mingling of
a great variety of bright tints of equal intensity, which by some
necromancy are made to relieve each other, instead of being relieved by
the art of chiaroscuro as in the handling of other masters.
5. _Children healed by the garments of S. Philip_, which are held by a
priest, standing before an altar, the women and their children kneeling
in front of him. The grouping is symmetrical, the figures lifelike, but
not refined, round-cheeked buxom women, and rough, human men's faces,
bespeak Andrea as the painter of reality rather than ideality; there is
vivid life in every attitude, but the life is not high caste. A fine old
man, leaning on his staff, is a portrait of Andrea della Robbia, whose
son Luca stands near.
For all these Fra Mariano paid only ten scudi each, and Andrea, feeling
the remuneration not equal to the merit of the work, would have left off
here, but the Frate held him to his bond. Two more lunettes yet remained
to finish, but as these were of a later date, we will reserve them for
a future chapter. He also painted in the _orto_, or garden, of the
convent, the now perished fresco of the _Parable of the Vineyard_.
Meanwhile, the rival friends had changed lodgings; they left the Piazza
del Grano, and took rooms in the Sapienza, a street between the Piazza
San Marco and the S. Annunziata. Andrea chose this because it was near
his work, and also because his great friends, Sansovino and Rustici,
already lived there. Commissions began to pour in on him, which he
fulfilled, while still at work at the Servi. Judging from the style of
his early manner, we may date at this time a _Virgin and Child, with
S. John and S. Joseph_, now in the Pitti. It is painted "alla prima,"
_i.e._ a quick method of giving the effect in the first painting,--and
is probably the one spoken of by Vasari as painted for Andrea Santini;
it formerly belonged to Francesco Troschi. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea
del Sarto_, vol iii, p. 193.]
A _S. Agnes_, in the palace of the Prince Palatine, at Düsseldorf, is
in this early style. He also painted some frescoes at San Salvi, _SS.
Giovanni Gualberto and Benedict resting on clouds_; they ornamented the
recess where the _Last Supper_ was placed at a later period.
In a narrow alley, behind the church of Or San Michele, is a tabernacle
on the wall beneath an ancient balcony. Here the architect, Baccio
d'Agnolo, commissioned Andrea del Sarto to paint an _Annunciation_. It
is so much injured as to be almost indistinguishable now, but was much
admired at the time, though some say it was too laboured, and so wanting
in ease and grace. [Footnote: Biadi, 26; Vasari, vol. iii, p 189.] It
is more likely that it was one of his early works, and should be classed
before the frescoes of the Scalzo, for it is said that he was living at
the time with his father, whose shop was over the archway, and that
he had adorned the inner walls of the house with two frescoed angels.
[Footnote: _Firenze antica e moderna_ Ed. Flor. 1794, vol. vi, p. 216.]
These have perished completely.
CHAPTER III.
SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516.
This chapter will speak of the _man_, and not of the _artist_. As it is
now understood that history is not a dry record of battles and laws, but
the story of the inner life of a people, so the biography of a painter
ought not to consist wholly in a list and description of his works, but
a picture of his life and inner mind, that we may know the character
which prompted the works.
First, as to personal appearance. There are two portraits of Andrea
del Sarto in his youth; one in the Duke of Northumberland's collection
represents him as a young man with long hair, and a black cap, writing
at a table. It is painted in a soft, harmonious style, but not masterly
as regards chiaroscuro. It might be by Francia Bigio, as it has
something of the manner of his master, Albertinelli.
Another now in the Uffizi is a most life-like portrait of sombre
colouring, but not highly finished. Here we have the same black cap and
long hair; the dress is a painter's blouse of a blue-grey, which well
brings out the flesh tints. The face is intelligent, but not refined;
the clear dark eyes bespeak the artist spirit, but the full mobile mouth
tells the material nature of the man. In looking at this one can solve
the riddle of the dissonance between his art and his life. As a young
man Andrea was full of spirit; he loved lively society, and knew almost
all the young artists who lived very much as students now. They met each
other in the art schools, and dined and feasted together in the wine
shops. Sometimes they formed private clubs, meeting in certain rooms for
purposes of youthful merriment.
Of this kind was the "Society of the Cauldron" ("Società del Paiuolo"),
held at the apartment of the eccentric sculptor, Rustici, which was in
the same street as that of Andrea himself.
Sansovino, who also lived near, was not a member of this rollicking
club; he was one of Andrea's more serious friends, and served as
companion when his most exalted moods were upon him. Perhaps Rustici's
rooms did not please Sansovino, for strange inmates were there--a
hedgehog, an eagle, a talking raven, snakes and reptiles, in a kind
of aquarium; besides all these gruesome familiar spirits, Rustici was
addicted to necromancy. The Society of the Cauldron seems only a natural
outgrowth from such a character. It consisted of twelve members, all
artists, goldsmiths, or musicians, each of whom was allowed to bring
four friends to the supper, and bound to provide a dish. Any two members
bringing similar dishes were fined, but the droll part of it was that
the suppers were eaten in a huge cauldron large enough to put table and
chairs into; the handle served as an arched chandelier, the table was
on a lift, and when one course was finished it disappeared from their
midst, and descended to be replenished. As for the viands, the sculptors
displayed their talents in moulding classical subjects in pastry, and
turning boiled fowls into figures of Ulysses and Laertes. The architects
built up temples and palaces of jellies, cakes, and sausages; the
goldsmith, Robetta, produced an anvil and accoutrements made of a
calf's head, the painters treated roast pig to represent a scullery-maid
spinning.
Andrea del Sarto built up the model of the Baptistery with all kinds of
eatables, with a reading desk of veal, and book with letters inlaid with
truffles, at which the choristers were roast thrushes with open beaks,
while the canons were pigeons in red mantles of beetroot--an idea more
droll than reverential.
After this, in 1512, another club, called that of the "Trowel," was
instituted, of which Andrea was not a member, but was chosen as an
associate. The first supper was arranged by Giuliano Bugiardini, and was
held on the _aja_ or threshing floor of S. Maria Nuova, where the bronze
gates of the Baptistery had been cast.
In this no two members were allowed to wear the same style of dress
under penalty of a fine. The members were in two ranks, the "lesser" and
the "greater," a parody on the guilds of the city. They were shown the
plan of a building, and the "greater" members, furnished with trowels,
were obliged to build it in edibles, the "lesser" acting as hodmen, and
bringing materials. Pails of ricotta or goat's milk cheese served for
mortar, grated cheese for sand, sugar plums for gravel, cakes and pastry
for bricks, the basement was of meats, the pillars fowls or sausages.
Some suppers were classical scenes, others allegorical representations,
always in the same edible form. We can imagine the wit which sparkled
round these strange tables, the jokes of the artists, the songs of the
musicians. Andrea del Sarto is said to have recited an heroi-comic poem
in six cantos called the "Battle of the frogs and mice." Biadi gives it
entire; it seems a kind of satire on Rustici's tastes, with perhaps
a hit at the government, and shows no lack of wit of rather unrefined
style; but the authorship is not proved. Some say Ottaviano de Medici
assisted Andrea in it.
It would have been well for Andrea if this innocent jollity had sufficed
for him, but unfortunately he admired a woman whose beauty was greater
than her merits. Probably he began by mere artistic appreciation of her
personal charms, for she sat to him for the _Madonna of the Visitation_,
which was painted in 1514, two years before their marriage. This
Lucrezia della Fede was the wife of a hatter who lived in Via San Gallo.
Her husband dying after a short illness, Andrea del Sarto married her,
and whatever were her faults, she retained his life-long love. Biadi and
Reumont give the date 26th of December, 1512, as that of the death of
her husband, but Signor Milanesi, from more authentic sources, proves it
to have been in 1516.
A great deal has been said and written of the evil influence this woman
had on him, and his very house bears an inscription recording his fame
together with "affanni domestici," but it would seem that posterity
has taken for truth more than the facts of the time imply. That she was
proud, haughty, exacting, and not of a high moral nature, that she was
selfish, and begrudged his helping his own family, her every action
proves. That her manners were not conciliating to the pupils is
possible, perhaps their manners savoured too much of familiarity for a
woman who believed in her own charms; but that she was faithless, which
her biographers assert on the strength of Vasari's phrase, "that Andrea
was tormented by jealousy," there is literally nothing to show.
In the first place Vasari--who was one of the scholars she offended and
put down--gives vent to his private pique in his first edition, and in
the second, which only contains a slight mention of her, omits almost
all he had previously said. Now, if the first assertions were true why
should he retract them? Secondly, the sixteenth century was an age of
license in writing and speaking, and had any immoralities been laid to
her charge, not a biographer would have scrupled to particularize them;
but no! her name is never mentioned, except with her husband's, even by
her greatest enemies, who say she was as haughty as she was beautiful.
Thirdly, a faithless woman could never have kept her husband's devoted
love, and had she been so, would that affectionate though exaggerated
letter of hers, recalling him from France, have been written? That a
man who thinks his wife the most lovely creature living may be tormented
with jealousy without wrong doing on her part is more than possible.
Let us then place Lucrezia's character where it ought to stand in Andrea
del Sarto's life--as a powerful influence, lowering his moral nature,
weaning him from his duties as a son and brother, by fixing all his care
and affection on herself; she, however, not allowing her own family to
be losers by her marriage, although causing him to slight his own. Even
this much-spoken-of neglect of his own family seems disproved by his
will, which, after a very little more than her own dot left to his wife,
makes his brother and niece heirs of all his estate.
Except that she cared more for her own pleasure than his true
advancement, she was not any great hindrance to his artistic career; he
painted an incredible number of pictures, and she was willing to sit
for him over and over again. Indeed if she were his model for all the
Madonnas in which her features are recognisable, she must have had
either inexhaustible patience or great love for the artist.
In fact she was thoroughly selfish; as long as she reaped the benefit
of his work she furthered his art; where she was left out of his
consideration he must be brought back to her side at any sacrifice to
him. This is not the stuff of which an artist's wife ought to be made;
the influence of a strong-willed selfish nature on his weak and material
one was not good, and his _morale_ became lowered.
He felt this deterioration less than his friends felt it for him; even
Vasari says that "though he lived in torment, he yet accounted it a high
pleasure." It was one of those unions in which the man gives everything,
and the woman receives and allows every sacrifice. Her family were kept
at his expense, her daughter loved as his own, and if she were haughty
or exacting, he suffered with a Socratic patience, thinking life with
her a privilege.
It is to be supposed that a member of the societies of the Cauldron
and the Trowel would appreciate good living. He was so devoted to
the pleasures of the table that he went to market himself early every
morning and came home laden with delicacies. [Footnote: Biadi, _Notixie
inedite_, &c., chap. xix. p. 62.] A curious confirmation of this is to
be found in his house, the dining-room of which is beautifully frescoed,
the arched roof in Raphaelesque scrolls and grotesques; while the
lunettes of one wall have two large pictures, one of a woman roasting
birds over a fire, the other of a servant preparing the table for
dinner. This love of good living, however, in the end shortened his
life, according to Biadi.
After his marketing was over he turned his attention to art, going to
his fresco painting followed by his scholars, or superintending their
work in the "bottega." He was always a kind and thorough master, his
manner just and fatherly.
Sometimes he and Sansovino or other friends lounged away an hour in the
neighbouring shop of Nanni Unghero, where their mutual friend, Niccolò
Tribolo, did all the hard work, fetching and carrying blocks and saws
grumblingly. Tribolo often begged Sansovino to take him as his pupil,
which he did afterwards, and he became a famous sculptor. One of
Andrea's acquaintances was Baccio Bandinelli, who, as he thought he
could equal Michelangelo in sculpture, imagined that only a knowledge
of Andrea del Sarto's method of colouring was necessary to enable him
to surpass him in painting. To gain this knowledge he proposed to sit to
Andrea for his portrait. His friend, discovering his motive, succeeded
in frustrating it by mixing a quantity of colours in seeming confusion
on his palette, and yet getting from this chaos exactly the tints he
required. So Baccio never rivalled his friend in colouring after all,
not being able to understand his method.
CHAPTER IV.
WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515.
From 1511 to 1514 Andrea was employed on the two last frescoes in the
courtyard of the SS. Annunziata the _Epiphany_ and the _Nativity of the
Virgin_. The sum fixed for these was ninety-eight lire, but the Servite
brothers augmented it by forty-two lire more, seeing the work was
"veramente maravigliosa"; thus these two were paid at the same rate as
the other five of S. Filippo--seventy lire or ten scudi each.
In the _Nativity_, one of the finest of his frescoes, we see his
favourite double grouping, the interest in the mother being kept to one
side, that of the child and its attendants to the other-a balance of
form united by Joachim, a stern, finely moulded figure in the centre.
The attitudes are natural, the draperies free and graceful. Old Vasari
justly remarks "pajono di carne le figure." The woman standing in the
centre of the room is Lucrezia della Fede; this is the first known
likeness of her. There is a richness of colour without impasto, a
modulation of shade giving full relief without startling contrast, a
clear air below and celestial haze in the angel-peopled clouds above.
This might well be classed as on the highest level ever reached in
fresco. Nearly fifty years after it was painted, while Jacopo d'Empoli
was copying this fresco, an old woman came through the courtyard to
mass, and, stopping to watch the young artist at his work, began to talk
of the days of her youth and beauty when she sat for the likeness of
that natural figure in the midst, no doubt sighing as she looked at
the freshness of the fresco, and thought of her many wrinkles and aged
limbs, she being nearly fourscore at the time.
The _Epiphany_ is also a remarkable work, more lively than the last;
it is also less carefully painted, the graceful feminine element
is wanting; there is plenty of activity, a crowded composition,
and richness of colour. Three figures are especially interesting as
likenesses; that of the musician Francesco Ajolle--a great composer of
madrigals, who went to France in 1530, and spent the remainder of his
life there; Sansovino, on the right of Ajolle; and near him Andrea
himself--the same face as the portrait in the Uffizi already spoken of.
The _Madonna del Sacco_, over the door of the entrance to the church
from the cloister, would seem to have been painted in the same year,
1514, judging from Biadi's extract from the MS. account books of the
Servite Fathers existing in the archives, where is an entry "Giugno,
1514, ad Andrea del Sarto, per resto della Madonna del Sacco, lire 56."
This term _resto_ (remainder) would imply a previous payment. The money
was a thank-offering from a woman for having been absolved from a vow by
one of the Servite priests. Like all his other frescoes of this church,
Andrea only gained ten scudi for this masterpiece. The date of MDXXV.
and the words "Quem genuit adoravit" on the pilasters of this work have
led most writers to suppose it painted in that year; but it is probable
they were added by a later hand. Biadi [Footnote: Biadi, _Notizie_, &c.,
p. 42 note.] says the letters are of the style of nearly two centuries
later, that Andrea would have signed it, like all his other and works,
with his monogram of the crossed A's (i.e. Andrea d' Agnolo). For
charming soft harmonies of colour, simplicity, and grace of design, this
surpasses all his other frescoes. The Madonna has an imposing grandeur
of form, there is a boyish strength and moulding in the limbs of the
child which is very expressive, the dignity of Joseph and majesty of the
Virgin are not to be surpassed; and yet the whole is given in a space so
cramped that all the figures have to be reclining or sitting.
[Illustration of Monogram]
After this Andrea returned to the Scalzo, the Barefoot Brothers offering
better pay than the Servites. Here he did the allegory of _Justice_
and the _Sermon of S. John_ in monochrome. In these he took a fancy to
retrograde his style, for they have the rugged force and angular form
that recalls the more stern old Italian masters, or that Titan of
northern art, Albrecht Dürer.
Of his works in oil at this era we may class--
1. The _Story of Joseph_, painted for Zanobi Girolami Bracci, which
Borghini judges a beautiful picture. The figures were small, but the
painting highly finished. It came afterwards into the possession of the
Medici family.
2. A _Madonna_, with decorations and models surrounding it like a frame,
was painted for Sansovino's patron, Giovanni Gaddi, afterwards clerk
of the chamber to Ferdinand I. It was existing in the collection of the
Gaddi Pozzi family in Borghini's time.
3. _Annunciation_, for Giovanni di Paolo Merciajo, now in the Hall
of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. It is a pretty composition, the Virgin
sitting, yet half kneeling, the angel on his knees before her. There is
a yellowish light in the sky between two looped dark green curtains; the
angel's yellow robe takes the light beautifully.
4. _Madonna and Child_, in the "Hall of the Education of Jupiter" in the
Pitti Palace, one of his most pleasing groups. This is supposed by the
commentators of Vasari to be the altarpiece painted for Giovanni di
Paolo Merciajo, but Biadi traces it through the possession of Antonio,
son of Zanobi Bracci, to its present possessors. The mistake arises
from Vasari often confusing the names Annunciations and Assumptions with
Madonnas.
5. A _Holy Family_, for Andrea Santini, which awakened great admiration
in Florence. It was in the possession of Signer Alessandro Curti Lepri,
by whose permission Morghen's print was taken.
6. The _Head of our Saviour_, over the altar of the SS. Annunziata,
ordered by the sacristan of the order. A magnificent head, full of
grandeur and expression, and very clear in the flesh tints. Empoli made
several copies of it.
7. The _Madonna di San Francesco_, Andrea's masterpiece among easel
pictures. It was a commission from a monk of the order of "Minorites of
Santa Croce," who was intendant of the nuns of S. Francesco, and
advised them to employ Andrea. In grandiose simplicity this surpasses
Albertinelli's _Visitation_, in soft gradations and rich mellowness
of colour it equals Fra Bartolommeo at his best, for tenderness in the
attitude of the child it is quite Raphaelesque. The Madonna is standing
on a pedestal adorned with sculptured harpies. She holds the Divine
Child in one arm; its little hands are twined tenderly round her neck,
and it seems to be climbing closer to her. The two children at her feet
give a suggestive triangular grouping, while the dignified figures of S.
Francis and S. John the Evangelist form supports on each side, and
rear up a pyramid of beauty. Rosini's term "soave" just expresses this
picture, so fused and soft, rich yet transparent in the colouring. The
olive-brown robe of one saint is balanced by the rich red of the other.
In the Virgin, a deep blue and mellow orange are combined by a crimson
bodice. The price paid to the painter for this was low because he asked
little; but a century or two later, Ferdinando de' Medici, son of Cosmo
III., spent 20,000 scudi to restore the church, and had a copy of the
picture made in return for a gift of the original, which is now the gem
of the Tribune in the Uffizi.
8. The _Disputa, di S. Agostino_ is another masterpiece, showing as much
power as the last-named work displays of softness. It was painted at the
order of the Eremite monks of San Gallo for their church of San Jacopo
tra Fossi, where it was injured by a flood in 1557, and removed later
to the Hall of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. The composition is level, the
four disputing saints standing in a row, the two listeners, S. Sebastian
and Mary Magdalen, kneeling in front. S Agostino, with fierce vehemence,
expounds the mystery of the Trinity; S. Stephen turns to S. Francesco
interrogatively, S. Domenico (whom Vasari, by the way, calls S. Peter
Martyr) has a face full of silent eloquence--he seems only waiting his
turn to speak. In S. Sebastian we have a good study from the nude, and
in Mary Magdalen's kneeling figure--a charming portrait of Lucrezia--is
concentrated the principal focus of colour.
9. _Four Saints_, SS. Gio. Battista, Gio. Gualberto, S. Michele, and
Bernardo Cardinale, a beautifully-painted picture, once in the Hermitage
of Vallombrosa. There were originally two little angels in the midst
dividing the saints, as in our illustration. When the picture was
transferred to the Gallery of the Belle Arti, where it now is, the
angels were taken out and the divided saints brought into a more compact
group. The angels are in a frame between two frescoed Madonnas of Fra
Bartolommeo.
By this time the fame of Andrea del Sarto, both as a fresco and oil
painter, had risen to the highest point. Michelangelo only echoed the
opinion of others when he said to Raphael, "There is a little fellow in
Florence who will bring the sweat to your brow if ever he is engaged in
great works." His style of composition was important, his figures varied
and life-like, his draperies dignified. "The main excellence, however,
in which Andrea stands unique among his contemporaries rests in the
incomparable blending of colour, in the soft flesh tints, in the
exquisite chiaroscuro, in the transparent clearness even of his
deepest shadows, and in his entirely new manner of perfect modelling."
[Footnote: _Lübke History of Art_, vol. ii. p. 241.] His method, as
shown in an unfinished picture of the _Adoration of the Magi_ in the
Guadagni Palace, was to paint on a light ground; the sketch was a
black outline, the features and details not defined, but often roughly
indicated. He finished first the sky and background. The flesh tints,
draperies, &c., were all true in tone from the first laying in.
[Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for History of Oil Fainting_.] He did
not place shades one over the other, and fuse them together glaze by
glaze as Leonardo did, but used an opaque dead colouring which allowed
of correction; the system was rapid, but deficient in depth and
mellowness; "the lights are fused and bright," but "the shadows, owing
to their viscous consistency, imperfectly fill the outlines." [Footnote:
Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. in. chap. xvii. p. 670.] In a _Holy Family_
in the Louvre, S. Elizabeth's hand is painted across S. John, and shows
the shadow underneath it, being grey at that part. Though more solid,
he could not paint light over dark without injuring his brilliance of
colour.
Albertinelli, on the contrary, when he painted and repainted his
_Annunciation_, washed out the under layer with essential oil before
making his "pentimenti" or corrections, and in this way the thinness was
kept.
In Andrea's early style this thinness is apparent, especially in the
Joseph series, painted for Pier Francesco Borgherini.
Biadi classes Andrea's works in three styles. The first showing the
influence of Piero di Cosimo, the second--to which the best works in the
Servi cloisters belong--is a larger and more natural style, after the
study of Michelangelo and Leonardo.
The third is the natural development in his own practice of a perfect
knowledge of art, and a just appreciation of nature. The _Birth of
the Baptist_ and the _Cenacolo_, of San Salvi, belong to his last and
greatest manner. In 1515 the Florentine artists were employed on more
perishable works than frescoes. Leo X., the Medici Pope who had been
elected in 1513, made his triumphal entry into Florence on the 3rd of
September, 1515, on his way to meet Francis I. of France at Bologna.
All the guilds and ranks of Florence vied with each other to make his
reception as artistic as possible. He and his suite were obliged to stay
three days in the Villa Gianfigliazzi at Marignolle while the triumphal
preparations were being completed. The churches had temporary _façades_
of splendid architecture in fresco; arches were erected at the Porta
Romana and Piazza San Felice, covered with historical paintings;
Giuliano del Tasso adorned the Ponte Santa Trinità with statues;
Antonio San Gallo made a temple on the Piazza della Signoria, and
Baccio Bandinelli prepared a colossus in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Various
decorations adorned other streets, and Andrea del Sarto surpassed them
all with a _façade_ to the Duomo, painted in monochrome on wood. His
friend Sansovino designed the architecture, and he painted the sculpture
and adornments with such effect that the Pope declared no work in marble
could have been finer.
Andrea lent his talent to another kind of decorative art. The guild
of merchants were desirous of inaugurating a festa for the day of S.
Giovanni, and had ten chariots made from the model of the ancient Roman
ones, to institute chariot races in the piazza. Andrea painted several
of these with historical subjects, but they have long been lost. The
chariot races were revived under the Grand Dukes, but not with any
success.
CHAPTER V.
GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519.
Meanwhile fate was working Andrea del Sarto on to what might have been
the culminating point of his fame, had not his weakness rendered it
a blot on his honour; i.e. his journey to France. His fame was rising
high; a picture of the _Dead Christ surrounded by Angels_, weeping over
the body they support, having been sent to France, [Footnote: It was
engraved by the Venetian, Agostino, before it went to France; the
engraving is signed 1516. It did not please Andrea, who never allowed
any others to be engraved.] the king was so pleased with it that he
wished another work by the same artist. Andrea painted a very beautiful
_Madonna_, for which, however, he only obtained a quarter of the price
which the king paid to the merchants. The king was so delighted with it
that he sent the artist an invitation to come to Paris in his employ,
promising to pay all his expenses. In the Pitti Palace there is a
portrait of Andrea and his wife, in which he has commemorated the
reception of this letter. He is looking very interested over it, while
his wife has the blankest expression possible.
In the summer of 1518 he started with his pupil, Andrea Sguazzella,
called Nanoccio. Such a journey was in those days considered as little
less than a parting for life. It is plain that Lucrezia's family
looked on her as almost a widow, for they made him sign a deed of
acknowledgement for the 150 florins of her _dote_. Some authors have
taken this document as a proof of their marriage in that year, but it
was merely a precaution against loss by her family; the Italian law
being that the husband is obliged to render the portion obtained with
his wife to her family if she dies without issue, and in case of his own
death, the widow is entitled to it.
He was well received in Paris, and employed immediately on a likeness
of the infant Dauphin Henri II., then only a few months old. For this he
obtained 300 scudi: and a monthly salary was allowed him. What a mine of
gold the French court must have seemed to him after working for years at
large frescoes for ten scudi each!
He did no less than fifty works of art while there, most of which have
been engraved by the best French artists.[Footnote: See _Catalogue of
Royal Pictures in France_, by M. Lepiscié.] The _Carità_ is signed
1518, and is in Andrea's best style--perhaps with a leaning towards
Michelangelo. The _S. Jerome in Penitence_, which he painted for the
king's mother, and obtained a large price for, cannot be traced. His
life in Paris was a new revelation, and not without its effect on his
character, always alive to substantial pleasure.
The king and his courtiers frequented his atelier, and delighted to
watch him paint, vieing with each other in the richness of their gifts,
among which were splendid brocade dresses and beautiful ornaments and
jewels, in which he longed to adorn his wife. While he was engaged in
painting the _S. Jerome_ for the queen-mother, a letter from Lucrezia
aroused his longings for home to the uttermost; she--the wife who has
been branded by the name of faithless--wrote that she was disconsolate
in his absence, and that if he did not soon return he would find her
dead with grief.
Vasari, quoting this exaggerated letter, says in his first edition that
she only wanted money to give her friends, but this also he retracts in
the second. Whether it expressed her feelings truly or not, the letter
had such an effect on Andrea's mind that he decided to return home at
any cost.
During Andrea's absence the house in Via S. Sebastiano, behind the
Annunziata, was being prepared under her superintendence and with
his sanction. His scholars had decorated the walls and ceilings with
frescoes, and no doubt Lucrezia was as anxious for him to see the new
house as he was to adorn her with Parisian brocades and jewellery.
Being able to satisfy her ambitious soul, Andrea too readily flung away
all his brilliant prospects to return, and willingly take again the yoke
of the burden of his wife and her family. He made promises that he would
bring her back to Paris with him, and the king in all faith allowed
him to depart, confiding to him large sums of money for the purchase of
works of art to be sent to France.
Sguazzella, wiser than his master, preferred to stay in Paris under the
patronage of Cardinal de Tournon. He painted a great many works, much in
the style of Andrea, but with less excellence. It is possible that some
of M. Lepiscié's long list are, in fact, the work of the pupil rather
than the master. When Benvenuto Cellini went to France in 1537 he lodged
in Sguazzella's house, with his three servants and three horses, at a
weekly rate of payment (_a tanto la settimana_).
But to return to Andrea: this is an episode in his life which we would
gladly pass over if it were possible, for it forms the moral blot on a
great artistic career.
Returning home he fell once more under the strong will of his wife, but
with his principles weakened by the effect of a luxury and prosperity
which has always a greater deteriorating effect on a nature such as
his than on a finer mind. Bringing grand ideas from the palaces of the
French nobles, he not only fell in with Lucrezia's plans for beautifying
the new house, but even surpassed her wildest schemes. The staircase was
embellished with rich oaken balustrades, the rooms were all frescoed.
Cupids hide in the Raphaelesque scrolls on the arches, classic
divinities rest on the ceilings, but in the dining room the homely
nature of the man who did his own marketing, creeps out. It is a
charming room, the windows opening on a garden courtyard, where a vine
trellis leads round to what used to be the side door of his studio which
has its entrance in another street.
The roof is vaulted and covered with exquisite decorative frescoes, but
in the lunettes of the two largest arches are the domestic scenes of
cooking and laying the cloth, spoken of at page 90. Two or three of the
up stairs rooms are very fine, especially the one in which Andrea is
said to have died. [Footnote: This description is due to the kindness of
the present resident in the house, who kindly showed it to the writer,
pointing out all the unrestored portions.] It is probable the furniture
matched the style of the rooms, and that much money was spent on
carved chairs and _cassoni_. Certain it is that the King of France's
commissions were unfulfilled, and his money misappropriated.
Andrea would have returned to France, but his wife, who had an Italian
woman's dread of leaving her own country, put every obstacle in his way,
adding entreaties to tears which the uxorious Andrea could not resist.
As usual he tried to please her, and she only cared to please herself.
He fell greatly in the estimation of the King, who was justly angry;
albeit the artist salved his own too easy conscience by sending a few
of his own paintings to Francis I., one of which, the _Sacrifice of
Abraham_, still remains in France, and another a half length figure of
_S. John the Baptist_. The place of this picture is much disputed; it is
said to be at present in the Pitti Palace. Argenville speaks of it among
the French pictures as if it had returned subsequently to Florence,
while Vasari asserts that it never went there, but was sold to Ottaviano
de' Medici. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea, del Sarto_, vol. in. p. 212.]
As Andrea painted no less than five pictures of this subject, of which
Argenville mentions that there were two in France, one of which was sold
to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it is probable that the Pitti one is not
that painted for Francis I.
CHAPTER VI.
ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523.
The Medici, always patrons of art, did not neglect to enrich their
palaces with the works of Andrea del Sarto. Ottaviano de' Medici, a
cousin of the reigning branch, was an especial friend of his, from
the time that Andrea began the fresco of _Caesar receiving tribute of
animals_ in the Hall of Poggio a Cajano. The commission came really from
Pope Leo X., who deputed Cardinal Giulio, his cousin, to have the hall
of the favourite family villa adorned with frescoes. He in turn handed
over the direction to Ottaviano, who was a great amateur of art. It was
designed that Andrea del Sarto should cover a third of the Hall, the
other two-thirds being given to Pontormo and Francia Bigio. The payment
of thirty scudi a month was arranged. In this Andrea has shown his
genius in a style entirely new, the composition being crowded, the
perspective intricate, the background a building adorned with statues.
The subject being allegorical, he has given the reins to his fancy and
produced a wonderful assemblage of strange beasts and stranger human
beings, Moors, Indians, and dwarfs. There are giraffes, lions, and
all kinds of animals, which he had an opportunity of studying in the
Serraglio of Florence. The drawing is true and free, the figures and
animals full of life, the colouring as usual well harmonised and bright.
The Pope died about this time in 1522, and the picture was left to be
finished by Allori in 1580.
Ottaviano de' Medici, being a great lover of art, was often a patron
on his own account; for him Andrea painted the _Holy Family_ now in the
Pitti Palace. It is a most charmingly natural group: the Virgin seated
on the ground dances the divine child astride on her knee, he is turning
his head to the infant S. John who struggles to escape from his mother's
arms to get to him. The fresh youth of the Virgin and the saintly age of
S. Elizabeth are well contrasted. By the time this picture was finished
the siege of Florence had begun, and when the painter took it to
Ottaviano, he, having other claims on his means, excused himself from
buying it, and recommended Andrea to offer it elsewhere. But the artist
replied, "I have laboured for you, and the work shall be always yours."
"Sell it and get what you can for it," again replied Ottaviano. Andrea
carried the painting home again and would never sell it to any one. A
few years after, the siege being over, and the Medici re-instated, he
again took the _Holy Family_ to Ottaviano, who was so delighted that he
paid him double the price for it.
Ottaviano also bought from Carlo Ginori a _Madonna_ and _S. Job_, a nude
half figure, which were by Andrea's hand. He it was who commissioned him
to paint the portrait of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Pope Clement VII.,
and it was also at his instance that the imitation Raphael was painted
for the Duke of Mantua. The Duke had set his heart on obtaining the
picture painted by Raphael representing _Leo X. between the Cardinals
Giulio and Rossi_, and got a promise of it as a gift from Pope Clement.
His Holiness wrote to Ottaviano desiring him to have it sent to Mantua.
But Ottaviano, appreciating the treasure as much as the Duke of Mantua,
determined to secure it to the house of Medici. Under the pretence of
having a new frame made he gained time, and meanwhile employing Andrea
del Sarto secretly to make an exact copy of it, he sent that to the Duke
instead of the original. So well had Andrea imitated the great master's
style that every one in Mantua, even Giulio Romano, Raphael's own
scholar, was deceived, and it was only some years later that George
Vasari divulged the secret and showed Andrea's monogram on the side of
the panel beneath the frame. This copy is now at Naples.
The fresco at Poggio a Cajano abandoned, Andrea returned to the Scalzo,
where he painted the _Dance of Herodias, Martyrdom of S. John Baptist,
Presentation of the Head, Allegory of Hope_, and the _Apparition of the
Angel to Zacharias_. The last was paid for August 22nd, 1523.
About this time there was a great wedding in Florence. Pier Francesco
Borgherini espoused Margherita Accajuoli, and Salvi, the bridegroom's
father, determined to prepare for his son's bride a wedding chamber
which should be famous in all ages.
Baccio d' Agnolo had carved wonderful coffers, chairs, and bedsteads
in walnut wood. Pontormo painted beautiful cabinets and _cassoni_, and
Granacci, Francesco d' Ubertini Verdi, called Bacchiacca, and Andrea
were all employed on the walls. Andrea furnished two pictures; the one
tells the story of Joseph in Canaan, the other gives his life in Egypt.
The style is that of Piero di Cosimo, but with greater excellence and
more dignified figures. The landscape is highly finished and minute, and
has a part of the story in every nook of it.
The centre group, where Joseph leaves his father and mother to go to his
brethren, is very dignified, although fine enough to be a miniature. In
the second Pharaoh's palace is [Footnote: Reumont (_Life of Andrea del
Sarto_, p. 134) dates these works 1523; the style, which is very much
that of Piero di Cosimo, would seem to place them earlier.] represented
as a medieval Italian castle, the dresses are all Italian, and as an
instance of Andrea's versatility of talent they are very interesting
paintings.
During the siege of Florence, Borgherini was absent, and the picture
dealer, Giovanni Battista della Palla, who prowled like a harpy to carry
off treasures for the King of France, made an effort to obtain these
paintings by inducing the government to confiscate them and sell them to
him. But Margherita was equal to the occasion, and meeting the despoiler
at her door, she poured out such a torrent of indignation, exhortation,
and defiance as drove the broker away crestfallen.
On the Medici's return della Palla was imprisoned as a traitor, and
beheaded at Pisa. The paintings passed into the possession of the
Medici, by purchase, during Andrea's life. [Footnote: Biadi, _Notizie_,
&c., p. 146, note 2.]
CHAPTER VII.
THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D. 1525-1531.
From 1524 to 1528 the plague desolated Italy, never entirely leaving it.
During this time Andrea obtained a commission through Antonio Brancacci,
to paint some pictures in the convent of S. Piero at Luco in Mugello,
where he retired with his wife and her relations, and his pupil
Raffaelo. They spent a very pleasant summer: the nuns made much of his
wife and her sisters, and he passed his time in earnest painting. The
fruits of his labour are a _Pietà_, a _Visitation_, and a _Head of
Christ_--almost a replica of the one in the SS. Annunziata.
The _Pietà_ is full of expression and feeling, but more realistic and
less dignified than that of Fra Bartolommeo, which now hangs on the same
wall of the Hall of Apollo at the Pitti.
In colouring also there is a great contrast between the two, that of
Fra Bartolommeo being deep, rich, and mellow, while Andrea's is more
profuse, diffused, and wanting in depth of shadow.
S. John and the Virgin raise the dead Saviour, the Magdalen and S.
Catherine weep at his feet; S. Peter and S. Paul at the back express
their grief in the manner natural to their characters. S. Peter, in his
vehemence, flings up his arms in a madness of sorrow. S. Paul, with more
dignity, is half stupefied with the intensity of woe.
If those saints had been left in Fra Bartolommeo's _Pietà_, the
two pictures would have had the very same figures, in each: but how
different the composition, feeling, and expression! The Frate's group is
a compact triangle; that of Andrea a scattered arrangement. The Magdalen
of the Frate is overwhelmed with the very excess of love and grief, all
of which is expressed intensely, yet her face is hidden; that of Andrea
is a mere woman dressed in flying scarf and flowing garments, but with
very little soul in her face.
The characteristics of the two painters can be well studied in these
works, so near together, so similar, and yet so different.
For the three works painted at Luco Andrea was paid ninety florins in
gold. The _Pietà_, was bought in later years by the Grand Duke Leopold,
and now adorns the Pitti Palace.
The _Visitation_ was placed in the church of the convent over a
presepio. [Footnote: In 1818 it was restored by Luigi Scotti and sold.]
Biadi gives the following document:--"Io Andrea d'Angiolo del Sarto, à
di 11 Ottobre 1528 ho ricevuto fiorini 80 d' oro di quei larghi [_i.e._
of two scudi each] della Tavola dell' Altar grande e di una mezza tavola
della Visitazione, da Donna Caterina della Casa Fiorentina, Badessa di
Luco." [Footnote: 2 Vol. in. p, 571, note.]
Andrea was paid ten florins for the _Head of the Saviour_, through his
assistant, Raffaello. This receipt would prove either that he went to
Luco later than 1524, or that he returned there to finish the works in
the year 1528.
On their return to Florence in the autumn Andrea painted a fine work for
his friend, Beccuccio da Gambassi, a glass-worker. It is an apotheosis
of the _Madonna_, with four figures beneath--S. John Baptist, Mary
Magdalen, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco; not S. _Onofrio_, as Bottari has
named it. The predella, now lost, had portraits of the patron and his
wife. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of six saints in this picture, four
standing and two kneeling.
This description seems to point more certainly to the Sarzana _Madonna_,
which is now in the Hall of Apollo, in the Pitti Palace. That for
Beccuccio is described, with the four above-mentioned saints only, by
all the Italian authors.
The tabernacle, at the corner of the convent, outside the Porta Pinti,
Florence, was painted about this time. It is now quite destroyed by
age and weather; a good copy by Empoli, exists, however, in the western
corridor of the Uffizi. It is a charming _Holy Family, with the infant
S. John_,--a sweet laughing face. The Madonna is a portrait of Lucrezia.
In the siege when the convent of the Ingesuate--at the corner of which
it stood--was razed to the ground, this fresco, although loosened from
the wall, was spared by the soldiers, who had not courage to injure it.
The Grand Duke Cosimo was anxious to have it brought to Florence, and
often came with engineers and architects, but they never hazarded its
removal. [Footnote: Bocchi, _Bellezze di Firenze_, p. 482.]
The Duomo of Pisa has five saints painted by Andrea; they originally
formed one large picture in five compartments, and were painted for the
church of the now suppressed convent of S. Agnes; but in 1618 they
were divided into five pictures, and removed to the Duomo, where _S.
Catherine Martyr_, _S. Margaret_, _S. Peter_, and _S. John the Baptist_
hang on each side of the altar. _S. Agnes_, with her lamb by her
side, is placed on a pilaster towards the southern door. This and _S.
Margaret_ are especially graceful and expressive. There is much of
the feeling of Correggio, but with more natural grace and less
voluptuousness. The cutting and retouching had injured them greatly, but
in 1835 Antonio Garazalli took off the repainting and restored them more
delicately.
In 1525 Andrea had a commission to draw cartoons for painting the
balustrade of the Ringhiera--a kind of wide terrace in front of the
Palazzo della Signoria, from which speeches were made to the populace.
His designs were very beautiful and appropriate, the compartments being
emblematical of the different quarters of the city; besides which were
allegories of mountains, rivers, and virtues. The designs were left
unfinished at his death, and the Ringhiera was never painted.
In 1526-7 he worked at the fresco of the _Last Supper_, at S. Salvi,
which was intended to have been done when he began the four saints
there, in 1510, had not some misunderstanding between the rulers of the
order prevented their continuation. [Footnote: Vasari's _Lives_, vol.
iii. p. 224.] Even now he worked in a desultory manner, doing it bit by
bit, but in the end producing a marvellous work.
The refectory is a long vaulted hall, and the frescoed table, with its
life-size figures, fills the whole arch of the wall opposite the door.
One's natural impulse on entering it is to exclaim, "How life-like!"
There is a great and living animation in the figures; the characters of
the Apostles are written on their expressive faces. Judas is not placed
away alone, as in many renderings of the subject, but is next to Christ,
the contrast of the two faces being thus emphasized by proximity. S.
Peter, though old, has all the vehemence and intensity of his character.
Add to the feeling a brilliancy of colour of which Andrea alone had the
secret, for without deep shadows, and keeping up the same intensity of
tone throughout, he yet obtained great harmony and full relief where
others would have produced a clash and flatness. Messrs. Crowe and
Cavalcaselle say with justice, "From the contemplation of the _Cena_, at
Milan, we should say that the painter is high bred; looking at that of
S. Salvi, that he is accustomed to lowly company." [Footnote: _Hist. of
Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xvii. p. 574.] But in some subjects a rugged
strength is more important than a high refinement, and in the group of
humble fishermen who formed the first church this is not out of place.
If he could only have spiritualised Christ, nothing would be left to be
desired.
Andrea del Sarto was a member of a sacred company called the "Fraternità
del Nicchio," for which he painted a standard to be carried in their
processions. It is now in the Hall of the Old Masters in the Uffizi,
and is a charming group of _S. James, with two children dressed in white
surplices_--the habit of the company. The saint is caressing one,
who kneels at his feet; the other has an open book in his hand.
The draperies are especially graceful, and the expressions soft and
pleasing.
After finishing a portrait of the Intendant of the monks at Vallombrosa,
which the said monk afterwards placed in an arbour covered with vines,
regardless of the injuries of wind and rain--Andrea, having some colours
still left on his palette, took up a tile and called his wife to sit for
her portrait, that all might see how well she had kept her good looks
from her youth; but Lucrezia not being inclined to sit, he got a mirror
and painted _his own portrait_ on the tile instead. It was one of his
later works, and Lucrezia kept it till her death. It is now in the room
of portraits in the Uffizi, but much blackened by time; probably
also from the tile not having been properly prepared. [Footnote: This
portrait is given as a frontispiece.]
The next year or two were taken up in producing a number of large
altar-pieces, and in painting pictures for the dealer, Giovanni Battista
della Palla, who was still intent on supplying the King of France with
Italian works of art. For him he painted a _Sacrifice of Abraham_, which
Vasari thinks one of his most excellent works. The face of the patriarch
is full of faith, and yet self-sacrifice; the nude figure of Isaac,
bronzed in the parts which have been exposed to the sun, most tenderly
expresses a trembling dread, mingled with trust in his father; the
landscape is also very airy and beautiful, and a characteristic group of
a servant and the browsing ass is very effective in the background.
He also painted a lovely picture of _Charity with three Children_ for
Della Palla. Both these works were done with great care, for he hoped by
their means to regain the lost favour of the King of France. It was
too late for this, however; and, as it happened, neither of these works
reached its destination. The siege of Florence took place about this
time (1529); the dealer, Battista della Palla, had his head cut off in
his dungeon at Pisa, and all hope of his mediation with Francis I. was
at an end. The _Charity_ was sold to Domenico Conti, the painter, after
Andrea's death, and thence passed into the hands of the Antinori family.
The _Sacrifice of Abraham_ has had more vicissitudes. Filippo Strozzi
purchased and gave it to the Marchese del Vasto, who had it in his
castle at Ischia many years. Later it was sent from Florence to Modena
in exchange for a Correggio, and Augustus II. of Saxony becoming its
purchaser, placed it in the Dresden Gallery.
This seems to have been a favourite subject with Andrea del Sarto, who
repeated it five times.
1. The one done by himself for the King of France.
2. Also in France, having been purchased from the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
(See Argenville.)
3. The one mentioned above, done for G. B. della Palla.
4. A smaller one, painted for Paolo da Terra Rossa; a fine painting, for
which the artist asked so small a price that the purchaser was ashamed
to pay it. Paolo sent it to Naples.
5. An unfinished painting of _Abraham holding Isaac by the Hand_, now in
the possession of the Zonadari family, who obtained it from the Peruzzi.
During the siege, work was found for artists, but of an unpleasant
nature. Andrea was commissioned, in 1530, to paint the effigies of
some traitors on the palace of the Signoria. He dared not refuse,
but remembering that his namesake, Andrea del Castagno, who had been
similarly employed, gained the name of "Andrea degli Impiccati," he was
anxious that the same name should not attach to himself. Accordingly he
had an enclosed platform made, and giving out that his pupil, Bernardino
del Buda, was going to paint the effigies, he worked at them himself
secretly, till, on being uncovered, they seemed to be real persons
writhing on the gibbet.
No trace of them remains now, but the studies are in the collection of
drawings in the Uffizi.
A fine half-length figure of _S. Sebastian_, for the brotherhood of that
name, which had its head-quarters in the street in which Andrea lived,
was almost his last work in Florence.
The siege was now over, but the influx of soldiers from the camp
brought a return of the plague, which awakened great terror in the city.
Andrea's mode of life and love of good living did not conduce to his
safety; he was taken ill suddenly, and gave himself up for lost. Neither
Vasari nor Biadi says he was entirely deserted by his wife; they only
hint that she came to his room as little as she could, having a great
fear of the plague.
It is more than probable that Andrea himself kept her away from him, for
his love was always unselfish, and he thought only of her good. However
this be, he died, aged forty-two, on the 22nd of January, 1531, and was
buried very quietly by the "Brethren of the Scalzo" in the church of the
S. Annunziata. His tomb is beneath the pavement of the presbytery, on
the left hand. His older biographers seem to think this unostentatious
funeral a great slight to his merits, but if there were any doubts as
to his illness being the plague, it would only have been a natural
precaution to avoid spreading contagion by making his interment quite
private.
That Andrea had not wholly neglected his own family is proved by his
will, which left his property (after paying back Lucrezia's _dot_ of
100 scudi, and the money for the improvement of the new house in Via
Crocetta for her and her daughter) to his brother Domenico, with
the proviso that after his death half the bequest should be given to
Domenico's daughter as _dot_, the rest to accrue to the hospital of
the Innocenti (Foundlings). [Footnote: Ricordanze nel Archivio del E.
Spedate degli Innocenti di Firenze. Biadi, _Notizie_, p. 127.]
Lucrezia lived to a good old age, being nearly ninety when she died;
she seems to have lived a very quiet life, and to have kept Andrea's
paintings with great care, except a few only which she sold. The house
in Via Crocetta passed many years afterwards into the possession of
another painter, Zuccheri, who embellished the studio front with reliefs
in stone, representing the paraphernalia of an atelier; but it is
Andrea's name which lives in the house, as his memory does in the
hearts of the Florentine people, and his works in the cloisters of the
Florentine churches. The people of the city always seem to claim Del
Sarto as especially their own. He is always _nostro pittore_, or _nostro
maestro_-and indeed as a master of fresco he never was surpassed. In
colouring he was in his way unique; in modelling, original and graceful;
while the transparent clearness of his shadows and brilliant blending
of tints in the lights render his handling incomparable. A little more
refinement and aesthetic feeling would have placed him on a level with
the great leaders of the Renaissance.
CHAPTER VIII.
SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO.
Andrea's scholars were numerous, though only a few rose to any great
eminence. Of these, JACOPO CARRUCCI, "da Pontormo" (born 1494, died
1557), was by far the most talented. Left an orphan at an early age, the
charge of his sister devolved on him, and he placed her with a relation
while he was pursuing his art training. He studied under a diversity of
masters, including Leonardo da Vinci, Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo; and
finally, in 1512, he entered Andrea del Sarto's school, but did not
stay long there either. Some say Andrea was jealous of his success; he,
however, had generosity enough to praise and acknowledge his talent, and
to show his appreciation by giving him important work to do in his own
studio.
Pontormo did the predella to Andrea's altar-piece of the _Annunciation_
for the convent of S. Gallo. His hand is to be seen also in several
of his master's works. He drew public attention first by painting two
figures of _Faith_ and _Charity_ on the escutcheon of the Medici for
Andrea di Cosimo, who had obtained the commission, but did not feel
equal to executing it. Michelangelo, on seeing these figures, prophesied
great things for the youth, who was at that time only nineteen years of
age.
The people of Pontormo, his native town, were so proud of him, that they
sent for him to emblazon the arms of Pope Leo over the gate of their
city.
He was next employed by one of the festal companies of the age, called
the Company of the Diamond, to design cars, banners, and costumes for a
triumphal procession in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papal chair;
and he organised a very suggestive array of the ages of man, illustrated
historically. He decorated the Papal Hall for Leo X.'s entrance, and
later began to be employed on more serious and lasting works.
Some good frescoes of his existed in the convent of Santa Caterina, but
were destroyed when the building was reconstructed in 1688.
A very charming fresco of the _Visitation_ still exists in the court
of the SS. Annunziata. It shows him as a good pure colourist, the flesh
tints being especially tender; the composition is lively, full, and
effective.
In 1518 he painted a fine altar-piece for the church of S. Michele
Visdomini, Florence, by commission of Francesco Pucci. The _Madonna_,
seated, is showing the Child Jesus to S. Joseph, whose face is most
expressive and full of smiling admiration. S. John Baptist stands near,
at the sides are S. John Evangelist, S. James, and S. Francis, the
latter kneeling in ecstatic admiration.
In some cases he was placed in direct competition with his master,
Andrea del Sarto, being employed by Borgherini to paint the coffers and
cabinets in the same room for which Andrea did the _History of Joseph_;
and again later at Poggio a Cajano, where the ends of the great hall
were assigned to him to paint, Andrea and Francia Bigio taking the
larger walls at the sides. On one end he designed an allegory of
_Vertumnus_, with his husbandmen around him busy with their labours, and
on the other _Pomona, Diana, &c_. Perhaps in these last he has carried
his imitation of Andrea del Sarto rather too far in the matter of
draperies, which are too profuse and studied. Indeed the whole works
are overdone; he was so anxious to rival his master that he forced his
invention, altering and labouring till all spontaneity was taken out of
his work. Some of his frescoes were in the cloister of the Certosa, but
they are not fair specimens of his best style, as they were done when
the Florentine artists were smitten with the mania of imitating Albrecht
Dürer, and in these he has entirely followed the harder manner of that
artist without obtaining his strength. The frescoes are all scenes from
the _Life of Christ_, and he spent several years over them; after which
he painted an altar-piece.
Giovanni Battista della Palla commissioned him to paint a picture to be
sent to the King of France, and Pontormo returning wisely to his natural
style, painted one of his masterpieces, the _Resurrection of Lazarus_.
The Pitti Palace possesses a curious specimen of his work, the 11,000
martyrs crucified in a wood in the persecution under the Emperor
Diocletian.
He rose to renown as a portrait painter, but lost patronage in later
year by his capricious behaviour, refusing to work except for whom and
when he pleased. In company with his favourite pupil, Bronzino, he did
the frescoes in the Loggie of the Medici villa at Careggi; one Loggia
was soon completed, to the great delight of the Duke, but Jacopo shut
himself up in the second and allowed no one to see what he was doing
for five years; when at length he uncovered the frescoes general
disappointment was the result. He pursued much the same line of conduct
in the frescoes of the roof of the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo. He kept
the chapel closed with walls and planks for eleven years, no one seeing
his progress except some young men who removed one of the rosettes from
the ceiling to peep in on him, but he discovered their plan, and closed
the holes more assiduously than ever. The composition is as confused as
it is diffusive; he tried to embody the whole teaching of the Bible, but
becoming overwhelmed with the vastness of his subject, fell short even
of the excellence of his own previous works. He died before this work
was completed, of hydropsy, and was buried in the Servite Church.
GIORGIO VASARI, better known as the chronicler of the works of other
artists than for the excellence of his own, was born at Arezzo,
1512--died at Florence, 1574. His father was a painter, and the family
was connected by ties of relationship with Luca Signorelli of Cortona.
Among the many masters under whom he studied was Andrea del Sarto.
He did not remain long under his tuition, having contrived to offend
Lucrezia in some way. He painted a great many frescoes at Arezzo, where
he lived in his youth with his paternal uncle Don Antonio. Don Miniato
Pitti, prior of the convent of Monte Oliveti, near Siena, next employed
him to adorn the portico of his church. He had the good fortune to
attract the notice of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, who took him to Rome
in his suite, where he gained much advantage by the study of the works
of the great masters there. The Medici family, especially Andrea del
Sarto's patron, Ottaviano, were his constant friends: and their palaces
are profusely decorated by him. The Riccardi Palace has a room with
fresco scenes from the life of Cæsar. While painting these Duke
Alessandro gave him a salary of six crowns a month with a place at
his table, and board for his servant, &c. The palace has several oil
paintings by Vasari, amongst which are portraits of the Duke and his
sister. After the death of Duke Alessandro and Ottaviano he wandered
from city to city, painting so energetically that there are few of
the principal towns which do not possess some of his works, especially
Naples, Pisa, Bologna, and Arezzo. The Palazzo San Giorgio of the
Farnese family, in Rome, has a large hall richly frescoed by Vasari, but
the best of his works are to be seen on the walls of the great hall of
the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where he has illustrated the battles
of the Florentines, and in several other rooms of the same palace; he
having continued all the later years of his life in the service of Duke
Cosimo, by whom the palace was restored and decorated. His works are too
numerous and not sufficiently important to catalogue or describe,
his composition is overcrowded and wanting in perspective. There is
generally a superabundance of flesh; muscular limbs in all attitudes
form a great part of his pictures, but as the flesh tints he used were
wanting in mellowness and shadow, and have turned pink with age, they
compare disadvantageously with those of the more solid masters who
preceded him. After all, Vasari's name and fame rest principally on
the labours of his pen, not those of his brush. His "_Lives of the
Painters,_" although not a model of precision in facts or chronology, is
nevertheless the mine from which all subsequent art historians quarry to
obtain their information.
One of the most valuable books of the day is probably the new edition
of Vasari with corrections and notes taken from the archives by Signer
Gaetano Milanesi.
FRANCESCO ROSSI, DE' SALVIATI (born at Florence, 1510--died at Borne,
1563) was a great friend of Vasari; his real name was Rossi, his father
being a weaver of velvets, but he obtained the name of Salviati from
being the protégé of the Cardinal of that name. His first master was
Raffaello del Brescia, but in 1529 he, with his friend Nannoccio,
entered the school of Andrea del Sarto, with whom they stayed during
the siege. Becoming known by some paintings done for the friars of the
Badia, Cardinal Salviati took him into his house, gave him a stipend of
four crowns a month, and an apartment at the Borgo Vecchio, he painting
any works the Cardinal wished. Francesco was not idle, a great number
of frescoes, altar-pieces, and portraits, &c., &c., testifying to his
industry. In his later years he was employed with his friend Vasari in
the Palazzo Vecchio, where he painted the frescoes in the smaller Hall
of Audience. These are principally scenes from the _Life of Camillus_.
The story of the schoolmaster of Falerii is very spirited, and the
_Triumph of Camillus_ varied and pleasing in colouring. Although
melancholy and suspicious, often making enemies and losing patronage by
misunderstandings, Rossi and Vasari were always faithful to their first
boyish friendship, often working together, but never with any spirit
of rivalry. Salviati's style was bold and spirited; he was rich in
invention, but perhaps a little wild in the matter of draperies and
bizarre costumes. His colouring is more pleasing than that of Vasari,
but is diffusive and wanting in depth.
DOMENICO CONTI never became famous, but in spite of want of genius, he
was Andrea's favourite pupil. All his master's designs and cartoons came
into his possession at Andrea's death, but he was unfortunately robbed
of them soon afterwards. The inscription to Andrea del Sarto which once
existed in the church of SS. Annunziata was put up by Conti.
JACOPO DEL CONTE (1510-1598), who in Vasari's time lived in Rome, is
chiefly noted for his likenesses of several pontiffs and personages
of the Papal Court. There are a few altar-pieces by him in Rome, and a
_Deposition_ in the church of the Misericordia in Florence, but he was
almost exclusively a portrait painter.
ANDREA SGUAZZELLA, called NANNOCCIO, remained in France after having
accompanied Andrea del Sarto thither. Cardinal Tournon took him under
his patronage, and he painted a large number of works in the style of
Andrea.
JACOPO, called JACONE, was another of Andrea's favourite disciples. His
frescoes, of which some existed till of late years on the façade of the
Palazzo Buondelmonte, in Florence, were much in Del Sarto's manner.
He assisted his master in a great many of his works, while of his
independent paintings many were sent to France; no doubt some of these,
as well as Sguazzella's, figure under the master's name in that list of
fifty works given by Argenville. He was too idle and fond of pleasure
to rise to eminence, though he did some good frescoes in the Palazzo
Capponi at Florence, and in the Capponi Villa at Montici, and assisted
Jacopo da Pontormo in the Hall of the Medici villa at Careggi. He died
in 1553, in great poverty.
PIER FRANCESCO DI JACOPO DI SANDRO was said to have had some talent. He
and Domenico Conti were employed among others in decorating the court of
the Palazzo Vecchio on the occasion of Cosimo de' Medici's marriage with
Leonora di Toledo. There are some altar-pieces of his in the church of
Santo Spirito, Florence.
SOLOSMEO, RAFFAELLO, and BERNARDINO DEL BUDA were three _garzoni_ in
Andrea's studio. They were employed in the subordinate work and manual
labour, but were not trained as artists.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1886. G. GRUYER. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta and M. Albertinelli.
1903. F. KNAPP. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta.
1922. H. GABLENTZ. Fra Bartolommeo.
1902. M. E. JAMES. Fra Bartolommeo.
1899. H. GUINNESS. Andrea del Sarto. (The Great Masters Series.)
1905. MASTERPIECES OF ANDREA DEL SARTO. (Gowan's Art Books.)
1928. F. KNAPP. Andrea del Sarto.
1864-66. CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE. A New History of Painting in Italy
from the 2nd to the 16th Century. Three Volumes.