called Melozzo, who came from Forli; and many who know no more than
this, having found the name of Melozzo written and having compared the
dates, have believed that Melozzo stands for Benozzo; but they are
mistaken, for the said painter was one who lived at the same time and
was a very zealous student of the problems of art, devoting particular
diligence and study to the making of foreshortenings, as may be seen in
S. Apostolo at Rome, in the tribune of the high-altar, where, in a
frieze drawn in perspective, as an ornament for that work, there are
some figures picking grapes, with a cask, which show no little of the
good. But this is seen more clearly in the Ascension of Jesus Christ, in
the midst of a choir of angels who are leading him up to Heaven, wherein
the figure of Christ is so well foreshortened that it seems to be
piercing the ceiling, and the same is true of the angels, who are
circling with various movements through the spacious sky. The Apostles,
likewise, who are on the earth below, are so well foreshortened in their
various attitudes that the work brought him much praise, as it still
does, from the craftsmen, who have learnt much from his labours. He was
also a great master of perspective, as is demonstrated by the buildings
painted in this work, which he executed at the commission of Cardinal
Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, by whom he was richly rewarded.
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF S. AUGUSTINE
(_After the fresco by =Benozzo Gozzoli=. San Gimigano: S. Agostino_)
Brogi]
But to return to Benozzo; wasted away at last by length of years and by
his labours, he went to his true rest, in the city of Pisa, at the age
of seventy-eight, while dwelling in a little house that he had bought in
Carraia di San Francesco during his long sojourn there. This house he
left at his death to his daughter; and, mourned by the whole city, he
was honourably buried in the Campo Santo, with the following epitaph,
which is still to be read there:
HIC TUMULUS EST BENOTII FLORENTINI, QUI PROXIME HAS PINXIT
HISTORIAS. HUNC SIBI PISANOR. DONAVIT HUMANITAS, MCCCCLXXVIII.
Benozzo ever lived the well-ordered life of a true Christian, spending
all his years in honourable labour. For this and for his good manner and
qualities he was long looked upon with favour in that city. The
disciples whom he left behind him were Zanobi Macchiavelli, a
Florentine, and others of whom there is no need to make further
record.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] In the heading to the Life Vasari calls him simply Benozzo.
FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO AND LORENZO VECCHIETTO
[Illustration: FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO: S. DOROTHY
(_London: National Gallery_, 1682. _Panel_)]
LIVES OF FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO
SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT OF SIENA
AND LORENZO VECCHIETTO
SCULPTOR AND PAINTER OF SIENA
Francesco di Giorgio of Siena, who was an excellent sculptor and
architect, made the two bronze angels that are on the high-altar of the
Duomo in that city. These were truly very beautiful pieces of casting,
and he finished them afterwards by himself with the greatest diligence
that it is possible to imagine. This he could do very conveniently, for
he was endowed with good means as well as with a rare intelligence;
wherefore he would work when he felt inclined, not through greed of
gain, but for his own pleasure and in order to leave some honourable
memorial behind him. He also gave attention to painting and executed
some pictures, but these did not equal his sculptures. He had very good
judgment in architecture, and proved that he had a very good knowledge
of that profession; and to this ample testimony is borne by the palace
that he built for Duke Federigo Feltro at Urbino, which is commodiously
arranged and beautifully planned, while the bizarre staircases are well
conceived and more pleasing than any others that had been made up to his
time. The halls are large and magnificent, and the apartments are
conveniently distributed and handsome beyond belief. In a word, the
whole of that palace is as beautiful and as well built as any other that
has been erected down to our own day.
Francesco was a very able engineer, particularly in connection with
military engines, as he showed in a frieze that he painted with his own
hand in the said palace at Urbino, which is all full of rare things of
that kind for the purposes of war. He also filled some books with
designs of such instruments; and the Lord Duke Cosimo de' Medici has the
best of these among his greatest treasures. The same man was so zealous
a student of the warlike machines and instruments of the ancients, and
spent so much time in investigating the plans of the ancient
amphitheatres and other things of that kind, that he was thereby
prevented from giving equal attention to sculpture; but these studies
brought him and still bring him no less honour than sculpture could have
gained for him. For all these reasons he was so dear to the said Duke
Federigo, whose portrait he made both on medals and in painting, that
when he returned to his native city of Siena he found his honours were
equal to his profits.
For Pope Pius II he made all the designs and models of the Palace and
Vescovado of Pienza, the native place of the said Pope, which was raised
by him to the position of a city, and called Pienza after himself, in
place of its former name of Corsignano. These buildings were as
magnificent and handsome as they could be for that place; and he did the
same for the general form and the fortifications of the said city,
together with the palace and loggia built for the same Pontiff.
Wherefore he ever lived in honour, and was rewarded with the supreme
magistracy of the Signoria in his native city; but finally, having
reached the age of forty-seven, he died. His works date about 1480. He
left behind him his companion and very dear friend, Jacopo Cozzerello,
who devoted himself to sculpture and architecture, making some figures
of wood in Siena, and a work of architecture without the Porta a
Tufi--namely, S. Maria Maddalena, which remained unfinished by reason of
his death. To him we are also indebted for the portrait of the aforesaid
Francesco, which he made with his own hand; to which Francesco much
gratitude is due for his having facilitated the art of architecture, and
for his having rendered to it greater services than any other man had
done from the time of Filippo di Ser Brunellesco to his own.
[Illustration: THE RISEN CHRIST
(_After the bronze by =Lorenzo Vecchietto=. Siena: S. Maria della
Scala_)
_Alinari_]
A Sienese and also a much extolled sculptor was Lorenzo, the son of
Piero Vecchietti who, having first been a highly esteemed goldsmith,
finally devoted himself to sculpture and to casting in bronze; which
arts he studied so zealously that he became excellent in them, and was
commissioned to make a tabernacle in bronze for the high-altar of the
Duomo in his native city of Siena, together with the marble ornaments
that are still seen therein. This casting, which is admirable, acquired
very great fame and repute for him by reason of the proportion and grace
that it shows in all its parts; and whosoever observes this work well
can see that the design is good, and that the craftsman was a man of
judgment and of practised ability. For the Chapel of the Painters of
Siena, in the great Hospital of the Scala, the same man made a beautiful
metal casting of a nude Christ, of the size of life and holding the
Cross in His hand; which work was finished with a love and diligence
worthy of the beautiful success of the casting. In the pilgrim's hall in
the same place there is a scene painted in colours by Lorenzo. Over the
door of S. Giovanni he painted an arch with figures wrought in fresco;
and in like manner, since the baptismal font was not finished, he
wrought for it certain little figures in bronze, besides finishing, also
in bronze, a scene formerly begun by Donatello. In this place two scenes
in bronze had been already wrought by Jacopo della Fonte, whose manner
Lorenzo ever imitated as closely as he was able. This Lorenzo brought
the said baptismal font to perfect completion, adding to it some bronze
figures, formerly cast by Donato but entirely finished by himself, which
are held to be very beautiful.
For the Loggia of the Ufficiali[16] in Banchi Lorenzo made two life-size
figures in marble of S. Peter and S. Paul, wrought with consummate grace
and executed with fine mastery. He disposed the works that he made in
such a manner that he deserves as much praise for them after death as he
did when alive. He was a melancholic and solitary person, ever lost in
contemplation; which was perchance the reason that he did not live
longer, for he passed to the other life at the age of fifty-eight. His
works date about the year 1482.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The officials of the Mercanzia.
GALASSO FERRARESE
LIFE OF GALASSO FERRARESE[17]
[_GALASSO GALASSI_]
PAINTER
When strangers come to do work in a city in which there are no craftsmen
of excellence, there is always some man whose intelligence is afterwards
stirred to strive to learn that same art, and to bring it about that
from that time onwards there should be no need for strangers to come and
embellish his city and carry away her wealth, which he now labours to
deserve by his own ability, seeking to acquire for himself those riches
that seemed to him too splendid to be given to foreigners. This was made
clearly manifest by Galasso Ferrarese, who, seeing Piero dal Borgo a San
Sepolcro rewarded by the Duke of Ferrara for the works that he executed,
and also honourably received in Ferrara, was incited so strongly by such
an example, after Piero's departure, to devote himself to painting, that
he acquired the name of a good and excellent master in Ferrara. Besides
this, he was held in all the greater favour in that place for having
gone to Venice and there learnt the method of painting in oil, which he
brought to his native place, for he afterwards made an infinity of
figures in that manner, which are scattered about in many churches
throughout Ferrara.
Next, having gone to Bologna, whither he was summoned by certain
Dominican friars, he painted in oil a chapel in S. Domenico; and so his
fame increased, together with his credit. After this he painted many
pictures in fresco in S. Maria del Monte, a seat of the Black Friars
without Bologna, beyond the Porta di S. Mammolo; and the whole church of
the Casa di Mezzo, on the same road, was likewise painted by his hand
with works in fresco, in which he depicted the stories of the Old
Testament.
His life was ever most praiseworthy, and he showed himself very
courteous and agreeable; which arose from his being used to live and
dwell more out of his native place than in it. It is true, indeed, that
through his being somewhat irregular in his way of living, his life did
not last long; for he left it at the age of about fifty, to go to that
life which has no end. After his death he was honoured by a friend with
the following epitaph:
GALASSUS FERRARIENSIS.
SUM TANTO STUDIO NATURAM IMITATUS ET ARTE
DUM PINGO RERUM QUAE CREAT ILLA PARENS;
HAEC UT SAEPE QUIDEM NON PICTA PUTAVERIT A ME,
A SE CREDIDERIT SED GENERATA MAGIS.
In these same times lived Cosme, also of Ferrara. Works by his hand that
are to be seen are a chapel in S. Domenico in the said city, and two
folding-doors that close the organ in the Duomo. This man was better as
a draughtsman than as a painter; indeed, from what I have been able to
gather, he does not seem to have painted much.
[Illustration: THE MADONNA ENTHRONED
(_After the tempera panel by =Cosme= [Cosimo Tura]. Berlin: Kaiser
Friedrich Museum, 86_)
_Hanfstaengl_]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] This Life appears only in Vasari's first edition.
ANTONIO AND BERNARDO ROSSELLINO
LIVES OF ANTONIO ROSSELLINO, SCULPTOR OF FLORENCE
[_ROSSELLINO DAL PROCONSOLO_]
AND BERNARDO, HIS BROTHER
It has ever been a truly laudable and virtuous thing to be modest and to
be adorned with that gentleness and those rare qualities that are easily
recognized in the honourable actions of the sculptor Antonio Rossellino,
who put so much grace into his art that he was esteemed by all who knew
him as something much more than man, and adored almost as a saint, for
those supreme virtues that were united to his talent. Antonio was called
Rossellino dal Proconsolo, because he ever had his shop in a part of
Florence called by that name. He showed such sweetness and delicacy in
his works, with a finish and a refinement so perfect, that his manner
may be rightly called the true one and truly modern.
For the Palace of the Medici he made the marble fountain that is in the
second court; in which fountain are certain children opening the mouths
of dolphins that pour out water; and the whole is finished with
consummate grace and with a most diligent manner. In the Church of S.
Croce, near the holy-water basin, he made a tomb for Francesco Nori,
with a Madonna in low-relief above it; and another Madonna in the house
of the Tornabuoni, together with many other things sent to various
foreign parts, such as a tomb of marble for Lyons in France. At S.
Miniato al Monte, a monastery of White Friars without the walls of
Florence, he was commissioned to make the tomb of the Cardinal of
Portugal, which was executed by him so marvellously and with such great
diligence and art, that no craftsman can ever expect to be able to see
any work likely to surpass it in any respect whatsoever with regard to
finish or grace. And in truth, if one examines it, it appears not
merely difficult but impossible for it to have been executed so well;
for certain angels in the work reveal such grace, beauty, and art in
their expressions and their draperies, that they appear not merely made
of marble but absolutely alive. One of these is holding the crown of
chastity of that Cardinal, who is said to have died celibate; the other
bears the palm of victory, which he had won from the world. Among the
many most masterly things that are there, one is an arch of grey-stone
supporting a looped-back curtain of marble, which is so highly-finished
that, what with the white of the marble and the grey of the stone, it
appears more like real cloth than like marble. On the sarcophagus are
some truly very beautiful boys and the dead man himself, with a Madonna,
very well wrought, in a medallion. The sarcophagus has the shape of that
one made of porphyry which is in the Piazza della Ritonda in Rome. This
tomb of the Cardinal was erected in 1459; and its form, with the
architecture of the chapel, gave so much satisfaction to the Duke of
Malfi, nephew of Pope Pius II, that he had another made in Naples by the
hand of the same master for his wife, similar to the other in every
respect save in the figure of the dead. For this, moreover, Antonio made
a panel containing the Nativity of Christ and the Manger, with a choir
of angels over the hut, dancing and singing with open mouths, in such a
manner, that he truly seems to have given them all possible movement and
expression short of breath itself, and that with so much grace and so
high a finish, that iron tools and man's intelligence could effect
nothing more in marble. Wherefore his works have been much esteemed by
Michelagnolo and by all the rest of the supremely excellent craftsmen.
In the Pieve of Empoli he made a S. Sebastian of marble, which is held
to be a very beautiful work; and of this we have a drawing by his hand
in our book, together with others of all the architecture and the
figures in the said chapel in S. Miniato al Monte, and likewise his own
portrait.
Antonio finally died in Florence at the age of forty-six, leaving a
brother called Bernardo, an architect and sculptor, who made a marble
tomb in S. Croce for Messer Lionardo Bruni of Arezzo, who wrote the
History of Florence and was a very learned man as all the world knows.
This Bernardo was much esteemed for his knowledge of architecture by
Pope Nicholas V, who loved him dearly and made use of him in very many
works that he carried out in his pontificate, of which he would have
executed even more if death had not intervened to hinder the works that
he had in mind. He caused him, therefore, according to the account of
Giannozzo Manetti, to reconstruct the Piazza of Fabriano, in the year
when he spent some months there by reason of the plague; and whereas it
was narrow and badly designed, he enlarged it and brought it to a good
shape, surrounding it with a row of shops, which were useful, very
commodious, and very beautiful. After this he restored and founded anew
the Church of S. Francesco in the same district, which was going to
ruin. At Gualdo he rebuilt the Church of S. Benedetto; almost anew, it
may be said, for he added to it good and beautiful buildings. At Assisi
he made new and stout foundations and a new roof for the Church of S.
Francesco, which was ruined in certain parts and threatened to go to
ruin in certain others. At Civitavecchia he built many beautiful and
magnificent edifices. At Civita Castellana he rebuilt more than a third
part of the walls in a good form. At Narni he rebuilt the fortress,
enlarging it with good and beautiful walls. At Orvieto he made a great
fortress with a most beautiful palace--a work of great cost and no less
magnificence. At Spoleto, likewise, he enlarged and strengthened the
fortress, making within it dwellings so beautiful, so commodious, and so
well conceived, that nothing better could be seen. He restored the baths
of Viterbo at great expense and in a truly royal spirit, making certain
dwellings there that would have been worthy not merely of the invalids
who went to bathe there every day, but of the greatest of Princes. All
these works were executed by the said Pontiff without the city of Rome,
from the designs of Bernardo.
In Rome he restored, and in many places renewed, the walls of the city,
which were for the greater part in ruins; adding to them certain towers,
and enclosing within these some new fortifications that he built without
the Castle of S. Angelo, with many apartments and decorations that he
made within. The said Pontiff also had a project in his mind, of which
he brought the greater part nearly to completion, of restoring or
rebuilding, according as it might be necessary, the forty Churches of
the Stations formerly instituted by the Saint, Pope Gregory I, who
received the surname of Great. Thus he restored S. Maria Trastevere, S.
Prassedia, S. Teodoro, S. Pietro in Vincula, and many other minor
churches. But it was with much greater zeal, adornment, and diligence
that he did this for six of the seven greater and principal
churches--namely, S. Giovanni Laterano, S. Maria Maggiore, S. Stefano in
Celio Monte, S. Apostolo, S. Paolo, and S. Lorenzo extra muros. I say
nothing of S. Pietro, for of this he made an undertaking by itself.
The same Pope was minded to make the whole of the Vatican into a
separate city, in the form of a fortress; and for this he was designing
three roads that should lead to S. Pietro, situated, I believe, where
the Borgo Vecchio and the Borgo Nuovo now are; and on both sides of
these roads he meant to build loggie, with very commodious shops,
keeping the nobler and richer trades separate from the humbler, and
grouping each in a street by itself. He had already built the Great
Round Tower, which is still called the Torrione di Niccola. Over these
shops and loggie were to be erected magnificent and commodious houses,
built in a very beautiful and very practical style of architecture, and
designed in such a manner as to be sheltered and protected from all the
pestiferous winds of Rome, and freed from all the inconveniences of
water and garbage likely to generate unhealthy exhalations. All this the
said Pontiff would have finished if he had been granted a little longer
life, for he had a great and resolute spirit, and an understanding so
profound, that he gave as much guidance and direction to the craftsmen
as they gave to him. When this is so, and when the patron has knowledge
of his own and capacity enough to take an immediate resolution, great
enterprises can be easily brought to completion; whereas an irresolute
and incapable man, wavering between yes and no in a sea of conflicting
designs and opinions, very often lets time slip past unprofitably
without doing anything. But of this design of Nicholas there is no need
to say any more, since it was not carried into effect.
[Illustration: TOMB OF CARDINAL JACOPO OF PORTUGAL
(_After =Antonio Rossellino=. Florence: S. Miniato_)
_Brogi_]
Besides this, he wished to build the Papal Palace with so much
magnificence and grandeur, and with so many conveniences and such
loveliness, that it might be in all respects the greatest and most
beautiful edifice in Christendom; and he intended that it should not
only serve for the person of the Supreme Pontiff, the Chief of all
Christians, and for the sacred college of Cardinals, who, being his
counsellors and assistants, had always to be about him, but also that it
should provide accommodation for the transaction of all the business,
resolutions, and judicial affairs of the Court; so that the grouping
together of all the offices and courts would have produced great
magnificence, and, if such a word may be used in such a context, an
effect of incredible pomp. What is infinitely more, it was meant for the
reception of all Emperors, Kings, Dukes, and other Christian Princes who
might, either on affairs of their own or out of devotion, visit that
most holy apostolic seat. It is incredible, but he proposed to make
there a theatre for the crowning of the Pontiffs, with gardens, loggie,
aqueducts, fountains, chapels, libraries, and a most beautiful building
set apart for the Conclave. In short, this edifice--I know not whether I
should call it palace, or castle, or city--would have been the most
superb work that had ever been made, so far as is known, from the
Creation of the world to our own day. What great glory it would have
been for the Holy Roman Church to see the Supreme Pontiff, her Chief,
gather together, as into the most famous and most holy of monasteries,
all those ministers of God who dwell in the city of Rome, to live there,
as it were in a new earthly Paradise, a celestial, angelic, and most
holy life, giving an example to all Christendom, and awakening the minds
of the infidels to the true worship of God and of the Blessed Jesus
Christ! But this great work remained unfinished--nay, scarcely begun--by
reason of the death of that Pontiff; and the little that was carried out
is known by his arms, or the device that he used as his arms, namely,
two keys crossed on a field of red. The fifth of the five works that the
same Pope intended to execute was the Church of S. Pietro, which he had
proposed to make so vast, so rich, and so ornate, that it is better to
be silent than to attempt to speak of it, because I could not describe
even the least part of it, and the rather as the model was afterwards
destroyed, and others have been made by other architects. If any man
wishes to gain a full knowledge of the grand conception of Pope Nicholas
V in this matter, let him read what Giannozzo Manetti, a noble and
learned citizen of Florence, has written with the most minute detail in
the Life of the said Pontiff, who availed himself in all the aforesaid
designs, as has been said, as well as in his others, of the intelligence
and great industry of Bernardo Rossellino.
Antonio, brother of Bernardo (to return at length to the point whence,
with so fair an occasion, I digressed), wrought his sculptures about the
year 1490; and since the more men's works display diligence and
difficulties the more they are admired, and these two characteristics
are particularly noticeable in Antonio's works, he deserves fame and
honour as a most illustrious example from which modern sculptors have
been able to learn how those statues should be made that are to secure
the greatest praise and fame by reason of their difficulties. For after
Donatello he did most towards adding a certain finish and refinement to
the art of sculpture, seeking to give such depth and roundness to his
figures that they appear wholly round and finished, a quality which had
not been seen to such perfection in sculpture up to that time; and since
he first introduced it, in the ages after his and in our own it appears
a marvel.
[Illustration: TOMB OF LEONARDO BRUNI
(_After =Bernardo Rossellino=. Florence: S. Croce_)
_Brogi_]
DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO
LIFE OF DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO
SCULPTOR