and his copies still continue to attract the admiration of the greatest
professors. In Venice he persevered in his assiduous attention to the
same incomparable master, penetrating so far by degrees into his
peculiar character, as to be preferred by many to any of Titian's other
disciples. But comparison is invariably disagreeable, and I am inclined
to think that those who personally received from the lips of great
artists a few brief and sound rules, as to what ought to be avoided or
achieved in order best to resemble them, are entitled to a high degree
of respect: all the speculations of the finest genius upon their works
are not half so valuable; for the second century is fast passing away,
since the oral tradition of the best colourists wholly ceased, and we
have been attempting to attain their method, in which we cannot succeed.
Padovanino was always equal to the task of handling any subject that had
before been treated by Titian; his softer ones with grace, his more
powerful with strength, his heroic pieces with dignity; in which last,
if I mistake not, he surpassed every other disciple of this master. "Le
donne, i cavalier, l'armi, e gli Amori," these, and let us add to them
his boys, were the favourite subjects of his pencil, which he exhibited
to most advantage, and which he most frequently introduced into his
compositions. And he knew how to treat landscape as well; which, in some
of his small pictures, he has succeeded in admirably. He was familiar
with the science of the sotto in su,[80] of which he gave the most
favourable specimen in the church of San Andrea di Bergamo, in three
admirable histories of that saint. It is a work embellished with
beautiful architecture, and replete with graces in every part. He has
approached equally near his model in the sobriety of his composition, in
the very difficult use of his middle tints, in his contrasts, in the
colour of his fleshes, in smoothness and facility of hand. But Titian
was still to remain unequalled in his art; and Varotari is not a little
inferior to him in animation, and in the expression of truth. Nor can I
believe that his method of preparing his canvass, and of colouring it,
was the same as that pursued by Titian's disciples, many of his pieces
being much darkened, with the shades either deepened or altered. This is
very perceptible even in Varotari's Dead Christ, at Florence, a painting
which the prince not very long since purchased for his gallery there.
In other points he appears to me to have observed the same method, in
regard to his model, as Poussin, who aimed at Raffaello's manner,
without reaching it, either from want of ability, or from a dread of
falling into servility. His masterpiece is said to be the Supper of
Cana, a piece that has been engraved by Patina, among the _Select
Paintings_. It was formerly in Padua, and is now at Venice in the
Chapter of La Carita; with few figures in proportion to the place; a
rich display of costume and ornament; dogs that appear like those of
Paul, full of life; grand attendance, women of the most exquisite forms
warmed with more ideal beauty than those of Titian, and drawn in the
most graceful attitudes. Still it is not every one who will approve of
his introduction of them for the service of such a table, in preference
to men, as is the more general custom. The above picture cannot,
however, boast such fresh and lucid tints as his four histories of the
Life of San Domenico, which are to be seen in a Refectory of Santi
Giovanni and Paolo, containing as it were the flower of Padovanino's
best style. This very elegant artist spent his time between the capital
and his native province, where alone his pictures abound in public; in
other cities they are more rarely met with, and are scarce even in
private collections.
In forming a judgment of his productions, it is necessary to be upon our
guard against a variety of copies, many of his disciples having so
happily imitated him, that Venetian professors themselves with
difficulty distinguish their hand from that of their master.
Bartolommeo Scaligero ranks among the most celebrated pupils and
imitators of Padovanino, an artist enumerated by the people of Padua
among their fellow citizens, although they can boast little from his
pencil; while the Venetians are in possession of his pictures in various
churches, the most beautiful, perhaps, at the _Corpus Domini_. Gio.
Batista Rossi, from Rovigo, produced one of his pictures for San
Clemente at Padua; subsequently he flourished at Venice, executing few
things for public exhibition, but which are much extolled by Boschini.
Giulio Carpioni was accounted also among the pupils of Varotari, and
acquired a reputation rather for his small than his larger compositions;
but we shall have occasion to allude to him again. Maestri and Leoni are
names recorded in the _Guida_ of Venice, distinguished for their works
in fresco, exhibited at the Conventuali. The former was most probably a
foreigner, as well as the latter, whom we shall find at Rimino. Were
Boschini somewhat of a less profuse panegyrist, we might here add to
this list the name of Dario, a son of Padovanino, uniting the character
of the physician, the poet, the painter, and engraver. In the index to
the _Carta del Navegar_, we find him placed in the rank of Dilettanti,
from the circumstance of his producing little in the art, and this more
with the object of presenting his pictures as gifts than of gain.
Nevertheless we meet with an encomium upon them,[81] sufficient to
satisfy the claims even of a good professor; besides which, several of
his virtues and portraits, with an excellent body of colouring, are
equally extolled for the spirit of their attitudes, and exquisite taste
in the Giorgione manner.
We have next to treat of Pietro Liberi, an artist who succeeded
Padovanino in sustaining the honour of his native place. He ranks among
the great men of his art, and is esteemed by many the most learned in
point of design, of all who adorned the Venetian School. From his early
studies of the antique at Rome, of Michelangiolo, and of Raffaello, of
Coreggio at Parma, and of all the most excellent masters in the city of
Venice, he was led to form a style partaking of every school; a style
that pleased in Italy, but far more in Germany, and which obtained for
him the titles of Count and Cavalier, with wealth to support them
handsomely in Venice. And, in fact, to estimate his merits rightly, we
ought not to consider him as a painter in one style, but in many. For
according to his own confession, he employed for the eye of true judges
a free and rapid pencil, not very studious of finish; for the less
intelligent he worked with a very careful one, which bestowed the last
touch upon every part, distinguishing the very hairs in such a manner
that one might number them; and these paintings he executed on panels of
cypress wood. Most probably the fire of this man's genius became
quenched whenever he attempted to paint slowly, and his pieces were
certainly less perfect, which is known to have occurred to several
painters in fresco. But with the exception of these enthusiasts, who are
extremely rare, and always adduced by the indolent in defence of their
haste, an observing diligence is the perfection of every artist; and
even those two thunderbolts, let us call them, of art, Tintoretto and
Giordano, where they most practised it, succeeded most in charming the
eye of taste. The style of this artist may also be distinguished into
the sublime and beautiful. He produced fewer specimens, however, in the
former, of which Venice boasts a Slaughter of the Innocents, Vicenza a
Noah just landed from the Ark, Bergamo the Great Deluge, in which the
shore is said to have been the work of M. Montagne; the whole of them
painted for churches, robust in their design, displaying fine variety of
foreshortenings and of attitudes, with naked parts in grand character,
and more in emulation of the Caracci than of Michelangiolo. He even
abused the singular skill that he thus displayed; drawing the Supreme
Deity by an unprecedented example, without the least drapery, in the
church of Santa Caterina at Vicenza, an error of judgment which detracts
from the worth of one of his most beautiful productions. In a lighter
character he produced several pictures for private ornament, sometimes
consisting of fables familiar to us, and sometimes of _capricci_ and
allegorical subjects, too obscure even for OEdipus himself to unravel.
Most frequently he drew naked figures of Venus, in the taste of Titian;
and these are esteemed his masterpieces, which have acquired for him,
indeed, the name of Libertino. It is asserted, that being unequal to the
formation of the folds of his draperies, for the most part ill disposed
and vague, he the more willingly exercised himself in these schools. We
meet with a great number in different collections, and after beholding
one, we are at no loss to recognize the remainder, both from the heads
which are often repetitions of each other, and from the rosy tinge of
his fleshes, and of the general tone of his pictures. He was
extravagantly fond indeed of this last colour; which he often misapplied
in regard to the hands and the extremities of the fingers. For the rest
the composition of his colours was sweet; his shades delicate, in the
Correggio manner, and his profiles often borrowed from the antique,
while his whole handling was free and elevated.
Marco Liberi, his son, was not in any way comparable to his father,
either in point of dignity or beauty, when left to his own invention.
His forms are either caricatures, in a manner, of those of his father,
or are very inferior where they are original. This striking difference
may be observed in numerous collections, where their paintings of Venus
are placed together, as we see in that of Prince Ercolani at Bologna.
Still he was an excellent copyist of his father's works, a talent
possessed by many others of the same school, whose imitations are easily
mistaken for originals, even by professors themselves.
An excellent foreign artist ought not to be omitted in this place, one
who flourished during a long period, and taught and died in Padua. His
name is Luca Ferrari, from Reggio, fully deserving of being enrolled in
the _Abbeccedario Pittorico_. Although Guido's pupil, his style became
rather lofty than delicate; so that judging by the pictures that he
produced for Santa Maria della Ghiaja in Reggio, Scannelli pronounced
him a disciple of Tiarini. In some of the airs of his heads, however,
and in certain graceful motions, he shews himself not unworthy of the
character of the former master. In Padua there is a _Pieta_ of his at
San Antonio, of a very masterly kind, a picture that displays the rarest
beauty of colouring. In his pieces abounding with figures, like that of
the Plague of 1630, painted for the Domenicani, he does not appear to so
much advantage; nor had Guido, indeed, offered him any great examples in
this line, being accustomed rather to weigh than to number his figures.
Minorello and Cirello, two of his pupils and followers, continued to
support in Padua some relish of the Bolognese School. Their names might
be added to the dictionary above mentioned, as Rosetti seemed to wish,
and the former, who might sometimes be confounded with Luca, ought to
hold a higher place in it than the latter. Francesco Zanella deserves
likewise to be recorded there, as an artist of spirit, though neither
very diligent nor very learned in his art. He is esteemed almost the
Giordano of this city, from the great number of his works conducted in a
short time, and may be computed almost as the last of the school; for
Pellegrini, who flourished during the same age, was not a native, though
tracing his origin to Padua; nor did he reside there many years.
The city of Vicenza produced nothing original during this epoch; though
it possessed a school, sprung from that of Paul Veronese and from
Zelotti, of which I promised the reader a series in a more appropriate
part of the work. In regard to its style, this school, in part, belongs
to a better age; but its productions are chiefly so very indifferent,
and so much the result of mechanic art, that it may rather be ascribed
to the present. Vicenza indeed might have had reason to boast, had it
possessed artists at all equal in point of genius to its architects. I
shall first commence with the name of Lucio Bruni, whether a native of
the state or a foreigner is uncertain, an artist who produced, for San
Jacopo, a little altarpiece, representing the marriage of S. Catherine,
executed in 1585, and partaking of the genius of a better age. I have
met with no other notice of him; for as he was probably little known in
times when Italy abounded with the choicest artists, he found no
historian who might have rescued his reputation from oblivion. Yet this
I would willingly do, if not by giving him a rank in this school, at
least including him in the list of artists of the city, where I find
mention of his name. Giannantonio Fasolo received the instructions of
Paul, and for a longer period those of Zelotti; still adhering, however,
to Paul as his first example. At San Rocco there is one of his pictures,
a Probatica, so beautifully decorated with perspective, and so finely
filled with sick figures, in various groups and distances, that Paul
Veronese would not have disclaimed it for his own. There are likewise
three Roman histories in the ceiling of the prefectory palace; Mutius
Scaevola before Porsenna, Horatius at the Bridge, and Curtius before the
Gulf; the whole of them nobly executed. By some strange mistake Orlandi
mentions Verona as the place of his birth, and where he exercised his
talents.
Among his pupils was Alessandro Maganza, son of the same Giambatista
whose name I recorded among Titian's followers. Fasolo inspired him with
his own taste; and we may likewise consider him a fine imitator of
Zelotti and of Paul Veronese; as he has shown in his Epiphany, at San
Domenico; and in his Martyrdom of S. Giustina, at San Pietro. In his
architecture he was excellent, judicious in his composition, very
pleasing in his countenances; in his fleshes inclining towards white; in
his folds somewhat hard and monotonous; and for the most part wanting in
expression. Vicenza has an abundance of his paintings, both private and
in public; besides the provinces and the adjacent cities, to such an
amount, that we have no difficulty in believing that he flourished till
his seventy-fourth year; that he painted for good prices, and with
little trouble. A few of his pictures, such as we meet with at Vicenza,
are amply sufficient to give us an idea of the rest; not unfrequently
presenting us with the same features and the same attitudes and motions.
We are to look for the cause of this, not so much in his genius, which
he shows in many of his works to have been excellent, as in his domestic
anxieties, occasioned by a numerous family for whom he had to provide.
This artist was extremely unfortunate as a father. Giambatista, the
eldest of his sons, emulated him in knowledge; and if we may venture to
judge from one of his histories, of San Benedetto, at the church of S.
Giustina, in Padua, he was superior to him in point of elegance. But the
support he derived from this young man's talents was soon cut off by his
early death, leaving a young family of his own to the care of their
grandfather. His second son, Girolamo, who had also to make provision
for his own children, and Marcantonio, quite a youth, afterwards
assisted their father in his productions, and already began to acquire
some degree of reputation from their own. When, in the year 1630, their
native place was ravaged by the plague, Alessandro had the grief to
witness the death of his two sons, and, one by one, of the whole of his
grandchildren; until left "the last of his race," to lament over the
destruction of his kindred, he shortly followed them to the tomb,
closing with his death that noble school which the two illustrious
Veronese had founded in Vicenza.
Yet it did not altogether perish; but was continued by Maffei, by
Carpioni, and by Cittadella, three artists who, compared with the
Maganza, sometimes appear to have sprung from the same academy, either
from having studied in Vicenza the models they imitated, or because the
style, which partakes both of that of Paul and Palma, was then in high
repute, as that of Cortona at another period among us. They were all
three, like Alessandro himself, rapid in their composition; and were
their pictures, even belonging to the city, to be enumerated, they would
most likely be found to equal those of all the other foreign or native
artists employed there. Francesco Maffei, from Vicenza, had been the
pupil of Peranda, some of whose unfinished pieces he completed. He next
undertook to imitate Paul Veronese, with a tolerable degree of spirit
and learning. His style is on a lofty scale; in so much that Boschini
entitles him the great mannerist, extolling him as the painter of
giants. Nor is he wanting in a certain grace peculiarly his; which
distinguishes him from the mannerists. His picture of St. Anna, at San
Michele di Vicenza, besides many works produced at the same place for
the public palace, and elsewhere, extremely poetical, full of fine
portraits, and coloured in the best Venetian taste, show that he was
able to compete with more skilful artists than Carpioni and Cittadella,
his contemporaries. And as he, perhaps, did not consider them very
formidable rivals, he did not finish his pieces with much care, leaving
many of his heads, besides other portions of his figures, incomplete;
scanty in his colouring, employing dark grounds, and altogether painting
rather for years than for ages. At San Francesco, in Padua, there is a
grand picture of his "Paradise," which, owing to this method, has lost
almost every trace of colour. This result extinguishes the praise which
Boschini bestows upon him, that with four touches of his pencil he could
make the observer raise his eyebrows with admiration, and is a very
excellent warning, we think, for over expeditious artists. Their
pictures may be said, indeed, to resemble certain children, the
offspring of unhealthy parents, who sometimes exhibit a florid
countenance in youth, accompanied with every other symptom of health,
but, declining as they advance, their constitution becomes exhausted in
a few years.
Giulio Carpioni, a pupil to Padovanino, and for the same reason familiar
with the composition of Paul Veronese, has assuredly more vivacity,
power of expression, and poetry than Maffei. He was not, however,
equally inclined to grand proportions, and works upon an extensive
scale. His figures do not usually exceed the size of those of Bassano;
and they are more frequently met with in collections than in churches,
throughout the whole Venetian state. In many noble houses we also find
pictures consisting of bacchanals, dreams, fables, and capricci, or
fancy pieces, as well as histories, all touched with a spirit and a
taste in his tints, which his master himself might have thought worthy
of his pencil. He appears to have produced others for the people, if
indeed they are not the work of his pupils, or of his son Carlo, who is
supposed to have followed, in all points, the example of his father;
though I never met with any piece that was positively genuine. He was,
likewise, a good portrait painter; and in the public Council Hall at
Vicenza, as well as in the church of the Servi at Monte Berico, appear
the portraits of several of the magistrates in that government,
accompanied by their trains; in which, to singular correctness of
feature, we meet with much ideal beauty in his representation of the
Virtues, that he introduced with appropriate and noble inventions. Such
an artist ought to be well known in Venice and Vicenza, where he
flourished during many years. He passed his latter days in Verona, where
his contemporary, Bartolommeo Cittadella, had likewise taken up his
residence; last of the three whom I have just before mentioned. It is
uncertain whether he was a pupil, or only a companion of Carpioni; but
he is indisputably his inferior in point of genius and ability. To the
same school we may add the name of Niccolo Miozzi, of Vicenza, recorded
in the _Gioielli Pittoreschi_ of Boschini; and, though more doubtful,
that of Marcantonio Miozzi, known by his superscription attached to a
sacred subject, in possession of the house of Muttoni, at Rovigo.
Towards the close of the century, one of the artists in most request was
Menarola, whose style approaches nearer to the modern. He was pupil to
Volpato, though chiefly following the manner of Carpioni. Next to him
was Costantin Pasqualotto, more distinguished for colouring than for
design; and Antonio de' Pieri, called Zoppo, of Vicenza, who possessed a
rapid, but less decided hand; along with some others who may be
recognized in this description. Still higher in repute than these was
Pasquale Rossi, little of whom remains in Vicenza, having chiefly
attached himself to the Roman School, where he will be found mentioned.
Gio. Bittonte, leaving Vicenza, established himself, and painted a good
deal at Castelfranco; where, from the circumstance of founding a school
both of painting and of dancing, he acquired the surname of Ballerino.
Melchiori represents him as pupil to Maffei, and master of Melchiore,
his father, who lived also in Castelfranco, where he was much employed,
although engaged also at Venice, in the Casa Morosini, where he competed
with the Cavalier Liberi.
When the ancient school had become wholly extinct at Bassano, there
appeared a Gio. Batista Volpati, who produced many pictures for his
native state; somewhat resembling Carpioni in his capricci and in his
style, but more common, perhaps, in his features and whole design. His
pupils are said to have been one Trivellini, and one Bernardoni, both
still inferior to their master. He left behind him several treatises
upon the pictoric art, which are yet existing in MS. in the rich and
select library of Count Giuseppe Remondini. In the preface to these he
asserts that he had no master, though he is said, in a MS. at
Castelfranco, to have been a pupil of Novelli. The work is interspersed
with good remarks, such as to lead us to suppose him a tolerable
theorist; and Algarotti took a copy of it, as we learn from the index of
his works upon the fine arts, already before the public.
We have above alluded to a branch of the Veronese School, transplanted
to Padua, where it flourished with extraordinary success. Referring to
its origin, and to those Veronese artists who lived contemporary with
Palma, and until the close of the 17th century, it must be observed,
that they maintained the national reputation no less than those of
Padua, and were even more constant in the good old method of managing
their grounds and their style of colouring. I have noticed the name of
Claudio Ridolfi[82] in a former school, from the circumstance of his
having flourished in the pontifical state. He did not, however, desist
from his labours in the Venetian state, some of which appear in the
capital and the adjacent cities, particularly in his native place, and
Padua. In the celebrated church of S. Giustina, there is a very fine
piece, representing the honours of the Benedictine order, professed by
princes, adorned by martyrs, and the nurse of the most distinguished
pastors of the holy church. The invention is very appropriate, the
execution altogether elegant and well finished, and the ornaments
equally rich as in any of his other works. He presented his country with
a good disciple of his style, in Gio. Batista Amigazzi, though his chief
talent seemed to consist in the excellence of his copies. In San Carlo,
at Verona, there is one taken from a Supper by Paul Veronese, not only
finely drawn, but exhibiting colours fresh and vivid even at the present
day. Still superior to him, and almost equal to his master, we meet with
Benedetto Marini, of Urbino, an artist unheard of in his own country,
though greatly distinguished at Piacenza.[83]