can be relied upon with certainty, except an altarpiece, formerly to be
seen at the Carmelitani, but now in possession of the accomplished Conte
Cav. de' Lazara. It is drawn in different compartments; the chief place
is occupied by the figure of San Girolamo. Around him appear other
saints; but the work is in parts re-touched, though there is sufficient
of what is original to establish the character of the painter. Rich in
colouring, in expression, and above all in perspective, it may be
declared one of the best specimens of the art produced in those parts.
The painting of the altarpiece, here alluded to, was assigned him by the
noble family of the Lazara, of which the contract is still preserved by
them, dated 1449, the salary being paid in 1452, the period at which it
was completed. The artist subscribes himself _Francesco Squarcione_,
whence we are enabled to correct the mistake of Vasari, who, invariably
unfortunate in his nomenclature of the Venetians, announces his name as
Jacopo, an error repeated also in the dictionaries of artists. Besides
this specimen, there still exist, in a cloister of San Francesco Grande,
some histories of that saint in _terra verde_, which are to be referred
to the early part of his life, there being good authority for believing
them to be by the same hand, though with the assistance of his school,
as the more and less perfect parts render sufficiently apparent. Near
them were placed some other pieces of Squarcione also in _terra verde_,
which were defaced in the time of Algarotti, who regrets their loss in
one of his elegant and pleasing letters. Their style is altogether
analogous to that of his school; animated figures, neat in the folds,
foreshortenings not usual in works of that age, and attempts, though yet
immature, at approaching towards the style of the ancient Greeks.
Proceeding from Padua, in the direction of Germany, we meet with some
anonymous paintings, in the districts of Trevigi and Friuli, which
ought, apparently, to be referred to this epoch; so far removed are they
in style from the nobler method, we shall shortly have to describe. The
name of Antonio is well known in Treviso, an artist who produced a S.
Cristoforo, of gigantic stature, tolerably well executed, in San
Niccolo, and that of Liberale da Campo, author of a _Presepio_, which is
placed in the cathedral. Superior to both of these must have been
Giorgio da Trevigi, if we are to believe Rossetti, where he mentions his
introduction into Padua, in 1437, in order to paint the celebrated tower
of the Horologe. There exist other pictures of the fourteenth century,
more or less perfect, interspersed throughout the Marca Trevigiana, and
more particularly in Serravalle. Other places in Italy, indeed, bear the
same name, derived from the inclosed form of the mountains; this,
however, is the largest of the whole, being a rich and ornate city,
where Titian was in the habit of spending some months in the year at the
house of his son-in-law, by way of amusement, and has left there several
memorials of his art. But the whole of the church of the Battuti appears
ornamented in a more antique taste, executed in such a manner, that I
was assured, by a person who witnessed it, that it most of all resembled
a sacred museum of art. The whole must have been the work of the same
artists that we have just been recording in other cities, inasmuch as
the names of no natives are known beyond the single one of Valentina.
He, indeed, verged upon the improved age; but in Ceneda, that boasts
various altarpieces of his hand, as well as in Serravalle itself, where
he painted another, with some saints of the Holy Family, he still
appears a disciple of the ancients, and a copyist of Squarcione, of
Padua. We shall soon discover more celebrated artists rising up in this
province, after the introduction into the Trevigiana, of the method of
the Bellini.
The artists of Friuli availed themselves of it less early, not having
sufficiently imbibed the principles of modern taste, even as late as the
year 1500, either, in the opinion of Rinaldis, from the secluded
situation of the place, or from the disturbed and revolutionary
character of the times. Hence it is that the provincial painters of that
period are to be referred wholly to this, not to the subsequent era of
the art. To such belongs Andrea Bellunello, of San Vito, whose
masterpiece is a Crucifixion, among various saints, with the date of
1475, exhibited in the great council chamber at Udine. It has some merit
in regard to the size, and the distribution of its figures; but displays
neither beauty of forms, nor colour, and we might almost pronounce it an
ancient piece of tapestry, when placed by the side of a beautiful
picture. Nevertheless, in his own district, he was considered the Zeuxis
and Apelles of his age.[23] Contemporary with him, was Domenico di
Tolmezzo, who painted an altarpiece in various compartments for the
cathedral of Udine; a Madonna, in the taste of those times, with some
saints, figures which all partake of the ancient Venetian style, even to
the colouring, insomuch that one might believe him to have been a
disciple of that school. He has attached his name and the year, 1479,
and it would appear that there belonged to the same piece, exhibiting a
figure of the blessed Bertrando, Patriarch of Aquileja, two oblong
tablets, one of which represents his offering of alms, the other the
circumstances of the death he suffered. The whole of these paintings,
which I have noticed, are tolerably executed, in particular the two
histories, and are preserved in two chambers of the Canonica. Not far
from the same place is seen a figure of the saint, in fresco, painted by
Francesco de Alessiis, in 1494, and placed over the door of a house,
formerly the college of S. Girolamo.
While the schools of the state thus continued to advance, a knowledge of
design became more general in Venice; and in the latter part of the
century, its artists, for the most part, had acquired a taste similar to
what I have already described as influencing those of other places--a
taste rather removed from the antique coarseness, than adorned with the
elegance of the moderns. Although the use of canvass had been already
adopted in Venice, like that of boards elsewhere, a circumstance for
which Vasari accounts, in treating of the Bellini, there was no
composition besides water colours, or distemper; excellent, indeed, for
the preservation of tints, as we perceive from unfaded specimens in the
present day, but unfriendly to the production of union, smoothness, and
softness. At length appeared the secret of colouring in oils from
Flanders, a discovery conferring a happier era upon the Italian Schools,
and in particular upon that of Venice, which availed itself of it above
every other, and apparently the very first of all. In the Florentine
School I have described the origin of this invention, ascribing it,
along with Vasari, to Giovanni Van Eych, and both there and in the
Neapolitan, I have also shewn that the first who communicated it to
Italy was Antonello da Messina, having been instructed in it by Giovanni
himself in Flanders. The historical account of this Messinese, as I have
repeatedly before observed, has never been sufficiently elucidated.
Vasari and Ridolfi state such facts respecting him as are not easily
reconcilable to the period of life in general assigned to him, reaching
only to forty-nine years; and I have proved, in collecting memorials, to
which they had no access, alluded to in the Neapolitan School, that
there were two distinct visits made by Antonello to Venice. The first,
it appears to me, must have taken place soon after his return into
Italy; at which time he concealed the discovery from every one, except
it were Domenico Veneziano, who is known to have availed himself of it
for many years, both in Venice and elsewhere. During that period
Antonello visited other places, and more especially Milan, whence he
returned to Venice for the second time, and as it is said, _received a
public salary_, and then he divulged the method of painting in oils to
the Venetian professors; a circumstance which, according to the
superscriptions attached to his pictures, appears to have taken place
about the year 1474. Other signatures are to be met with as late as
1490, insomuch that he must have run a longer career than that which has
above been assigned him. And we are here arrived at an era, at once the
happiest and most controverted of any. But of the Venetians we shall
treat presently, after alluding to the works of this foreign artist
apart. Two altarpieces by his hand are recorded, which were painted for
the two churches of the Dominante, besides several Madonnas, and other
holy pieces intended for private houses, together with some few
productions in fresco. There is no doubt but he also produced many
others, both at the instance of natives and of foreigners, relieving
himself from the multiplicity of his commissions by the aid of Pino di
Messina, the same who is commended in the memoirs of Hackert, as the
pupil and companion of Antonello's labours at Venice. It is not
mentioned whether he produced any specimens of his art in Sicily, nor am
I certain whether he returned thither. In many Venetian collections,
however, they are still preserved, and display a very correct taste,
united to a most delicate command of the pencil; and among others is a
portrait in the possession of the family Martinengo, bearing the
inscription _Antonellus Messaneus me fecit, 1474_.
In the council hall of the Ten is also to be seen one of his pictures of
a Pieta, half-length, subscribed, _Antonius Messinensis_. The features
of the countenances, though animated, are not at all select, nor have
much of the Italian expression; and his colours in this and other of his
productions that I have seen, are less vivid than in some Venetian
artists of that age, who carried the perfection of colouring to its
highest pitch.
There is good authority for believing that, together with Antonello, or
very near the same period, there flourished in Venice one of the best
Flemish disciples of Giovanni Van Eych; called by Vasari, Ruggieri da
Bruggia. There appears, in the Palazzo Nani, adorned by its present
owner in the hereditary taste of his noble family, with the most
splendid monuments of antiquity, a San Girolamo between two holy
virgins, a picture, as is shewn from the following inscription, by his
hand,--_Sumus Rugerii manus_. It is drawn with more merit in point of
colouring than of design, upon Venetian pine wood, not upon Flemish oak;
and for this reason it is considered by Zanetti, as the production of a
native artist. But if the Venetians had really possessed a painter of so
much merit, towards the year 1500, how is it possible that he should be
distinguished only by this solitary specimen of his powers. Even the
very imposing formula he made use of in subscribing his name, contrary
to the usual practice of those times, without mention either of family
or of place, is it not altogether like that of an artist who feels and
displays his own celebrity?[24] To me it does not appear at all
improbable that Ruggieri, on arriving in Italy,[25] sought to employ his
talents upon some subject, in the same way as Ausse,[26] his disciple,
Ugo d'Anversa, and other Flemish painters of that period, whose names
are commemorated along with his by Vasari, in the twenty-first chapter
of his introduction.
Reverting to Antonello, we are told by Borghini and Ridolfi, that Gian
Bellini, having assumed the dress and character of a Venetian gentleman,
for the pretended purpose of having his portrait taken, penetrated by
this disguise into the studio of the Messinese; and watching him while
he painted, discovered the whole secret of the new method, which he
speedily applied. But Zanetti conjectures that Antonello was not very
jealous of his secret, by which means it was quickly diffused among the
different professors of the art. And this is clearly shewn by a picture
of Vivarini, coloured in oil, as early as 1473, no less than by others
from different hands in the years following. Argenville even goes
farther; for he asserts that such was the generosity with which
Antonello taught in Venice, that he drew a crowd of pupils, who assisted
in spreading a knowledge of the discovery through all parts. And among
these we find several foreigners, such as Theodore Harlem, Quintinus
Messis, along with several others mentioned in the preface to the third
volume, p. iii. This we are likewise inclined to admit during the period
of his public instructions in the city.
All that now remains before we reach the times of Titian and Giorgione,
is comprised in that last stage of the art which, in every school, has
opened a path to the golden period which ensued. The masters who were to
distinguish the stage alluded to, in Venice, as in almost all other
parts, are found to retain traces of the ancient stiffness of manner,
and sometimes exhibit, like the naturalists, imperfect forms copied from
the life; as, for instance, in those extravagantly long and spare
figures which we noticed in Pisanello. In Venice such forms were in high
repute with Mansueti, Sebastiani, and other of their contemporaries, nor
were they disliked by the Bellini themselves. And, indeed, where they
selected good proportions, they are apt to arrest the attention by that
simplicity, purity, care, and, as it were timidity of design, which
attempts to avoid every approach to exaggeration. Such artists we might
suppose to have been educated by the more ancient Greek sculptors, in
whose works the exhibition of truth attracts the spectator, like that of
grandeur in others. Their heads, more particularly, are correct and
fine; consisting of portraits taken from the life, both among the
populace, and among persons of superior birth, whether distinguished for
learning, or for their military exploits. And to this practice, familiar
also to artists of the thirteenth century, we are indebted for many
likenesses which were copied at the instance of Giovio, for his museum.
Thence they were again multiplied both by painting and engraving, in
different parts of the world. Often also the artist of those times
inserted his own portrait in his composition; a circumstance so
favourable to Vasari's history; but this species of ostentation was
gradually abandoned as real cultivation in Italy advanced. But then, as
in the heroic and still more uncivilized times, such species of boasting
was not esteemed offensive: and surely, if the literati of the
fourteenth century were in the habit of extolling themselves in their
own works; if the typographers were so fond of exalting themselves and
their editions by superb titles, and more vaunting epigrams, even to a
ridiculous degree; the more modest ambition of sometimes handing down
their own features to posterity, may be excused in our painters.
The colours of these artists are likewise simple and natural, though not
always in union, more especially with the ground, nor sufficiently
broken by the chiaroscuro. But above all, they are most remarkable for
the extreme simplicity of the composition of their pieces. It was very
seldom they inserted histories, it being sufficient for the ambition of
those times to give a representation of our Lady upon a throne,
surrounded with a number of saints, such as the devotion of each was
supposed to require. Nor were those drawn in the manner they had before
been, all erect at equal distances, and in the least studied motions;
but their authors attempted to give them some degree of contrast, so
that while one was drawn gazing upon the Virgin, another appeared
reading a book; if this were in a kneeling attitude, that is seen
standing erect. The national genius, always lively and joyous, even then
sought to develop itself in more brilliant colours than those of any
other school. And, perhaps, in order that the figures, of such glowing
tints, might stand in bolder relief, they kept the colour of the airs
most generally pale and languid. They aimed, indeed, as much as lay in
their power, at enlivening their compositions with the most pleasing
images; freely introducing into their sacred pieces, sportive cherubs,
drawn as if vieing with each other in airy grace and agility; some in
the act of singing, some of playing: and not unfrequently bearing little
baskets of fruit and flowers so exquisitely drawn as to appear moist
with recent dew. In the drapery of their figures they were simple and
natural; the most exempt perhaps from that trite and exact folding, as
well as from that manner of bandaging the bodies so common in Mantegna,
and which infected some other schools.
Nor did they lay small stress upon certain accessaries of their art,
such as the thrones, which they composed in the richest and most
ostentatious manner; and the landscapes, which they drew with an
astonishing degree of truth from nature, besides the architecture
frequently constructed in the forms of porticos or tribunes. It may
sometimes be observed, also, that adapting themselves to the workmanship
and to the design of the altar, they feigned a continuation of it within
the painting, so that by the resemblance of colour and of taste, the eye
is deceived, the illusion produced rendering it doubtful where the
exterior ornament[27] terminates, and where the picture begins. We ought
not, therefore, easily to give credit to certain writers who have
undervalued the merits of such masters, pronouncing their labours
mechanical, as those of mere practical artificers, inasmuch as Serlio is
known to have supplied several of them with architectural designs.[28]
We ought rather to subscribe to the opinion of Daniel Barbaro, whose
extensive learning did not prevent him, in his work entitled _Pratica di
Prospettiva_, from expressing his admiration of them, even from the
commencement, as follows: "In this art they left many fine remnants of
excellent works, in which we behold not only landscapes, mountains,
woods, and edifices, all admirably designed; but even the human form,
and other animals, with lines drawn to the eye, as if to a centre placed
in the most exact perspective. But in what manner, and by what rules
they proceeded, no author of whom I am aware, has left any account to
instruct us."
As this progress of style was more greatly promoted by Gian Bellini than
by any other master, with him I shall commence my account, afterwards
proceeding to treat of his contemporaries, and such of his scholars as
more or less resembled him. Nor, I flatter myself, will it be unpleasing
to the reader, to find mention of the imitation of Giorgione and of
Titian, as it were anticipated, inasmuch as it happens with the
professors of the art of painting, as occasionally with those writers
who have flourished on the confines of two ages; that their style to a
certain degree seems to partake of the colour of both. Thus Giovanni
Bellini himself will afford us, in his numerous productions, which
commence before 1464, and continue down to the year 1516, a sort of
regular gradation of his progress, that may be considered, at the same
time, the progress of his school. Even in his earliest pictures, we
trace the ambition of the artist to ennoble and to enlarge the national
manner. The noble house of their Excellencies Corner, which at the time
of the Queen of Cyprus, gave frequent commissions to his hand, possesses
several specimens of his first style, proceeding gradually to others
appearing always to grow more beautiful. Among these last is a San
Francesco drawn amidst a thick wood; a piece that might well excite the
envy of the best landscape masters themselves. Having reached the period
of 1488, in which he produced an altarpiece still preserved in the
sacristy of the Conventuali, we find he extorts the praises of Vasari,
no less as a good mannerist than a fine designer. With still greater
success he executed other works from the examples afforded by Giorgione.
It was then he conceived his subjects more boldly, gave rotundity to his
forms, and warmth to his colours; he passed more naturally from
contrasted tints, his naked figures became more select, his drapery more
imposing; and if he had succeeded in acquiring a more perfect degree of
softness and delicacy in his contours, he might have been held up as one
of the most finished examples of the modern style. Neither Pietro
Perugino, Ghirlandajo, nor Mantegna attained to it in an equal degree.
The lover of art will find various specimens of him, both in Venice and
elsewhere. His altarpiece, painted for San Zaccaria, in 1505, is well
worthy his attention, as well as that of S. Giobbe, of the date of 1510.
To these we may add a Bacchanal, in the villa Aldobrandini, at Rome,
dated 1514, which, on account of the artist's advanced age, was left
imperfect. I have seen other pictures by his hand, without date, but of
striking merit; more especially a Virgin in the cathedral of Bergamo; a
Baptism of our Lord at Santa Corona, of Vicenza, a Holy Child slumbering
on the lap of the Virgin, between two angels, a production that lies
treasured up in a chest at the Capuchins, in Venice, and which truly
fascinates the eye of the beholder. It displays a striking union of that
beauty, grace, and expression, of which, in this school, he may be said
to have set the example. It would appear that he continued to employ his
talents to an extreme old age, there remaining, in the select gallery of
Santa Giustina, at Padua, one of his Madonnas, painted in 1516.[29] Such
figures, together with those of the Dead Christ, are the most frequent
paintings of his hand that we meet with. Should any one, not content
with the commendations I have bestowed, feel inclined to prefer a
Bellini to a Raffaello, because he was his superior in architectural
design, let him consult the opinion of Boschini, p. 28, of his _Carta da
Navigare_, but let him recollect that the same writer possesses nothing
of the poet beyond the measure of the verse, and the exaggeration of his
praises.
The name of Giovanni ought not to go down unaccompanied by that of his
brother Gentile, who preceded him, alike in the period of his birth and
of his death. Though living apart, in regard to family, they were of
congenial mind and disposition, esteeming one another as friends and
brethren, mutually encouraging and respecting each other, as superior in
merit. But in Giovanni this was modesty, in Gentile only truth. For the
latter had a more confined genius; but by diligence, that sometimes
compensates the neglect of nature, he was enabled to attain an
honourable station among his contemporaries. He was employed by the
republic upon an equal footing with his brother, to adorn the hall of
the great council; and when the Grand Turk sent to Venice in search of
an eminent portrait painter, he was commissioned by the senate to go to
Constantinople, where in the exercise of his profession he added glory
to the Venetian name. Besides his works in painting, he there struck a
fine medallion for Mahomet II., bearing the head of the emperor, with
three crowns on the reverse; a rare work, of which, however, I learn
there is a specimen in possession of his Excellency, Theodore Corer.
However inferior we are to consider him to his brother, and tenacious of
that ancient harshness in many of his works, there are still several of
a more beautiful description, such as his histories of the Holy Cross at
San Giovanni, and the Preaching of S. Mark, at the college of that
saint; a piece, which, placed near that of a Paris Bordone, does no
discredit to its author. He shews himself a faithful copyist, inasmuch
as every thing he remarked in a concourse of people, is faithfully
pourtrayed. The features of the audience, and the peculiar conformations
of the body are as diversified as we see them in nature, including even
instances of deformity, into which through her own general laws, nature
is known to fall; and we are thus presented with caricatures, with bald,
and lean, and pursy, and, what is more remarkable, the auditors of S.
Mark are drawn without regard to times, in the costume of Venetians or
of Turks. Yet from its exact imitation of the truth, its arrangement,
and its animated style, the work does not fail to please and strike the
beholder. I shall even go further; for there are pictures on a smaller
scale, by the same hand, executed with so much taste, that they may be
esteemed not unworthy of the name of his brother. Such is a Presentation
of the infant Jesus at the Temple, in half length, which adorns the
Palazzo Barbarigo, at San Polo, a duplicate of which was painted for
that of the Grimani, with still more delicacy and care. Opposite to this
of Gentile is a fine picture of Gian Bellini, which, however, superior
in the softness of its tints, is considered scarcely equal in point of
beauty and other qualities of the art.