Convent of the Nuns of Foligno, and the Madonna and some saints that are
over the door of the church of that convent, among whom is a S. Francis
who is espousing Poverty. In the Church of the Order of Camaldoli in
Florence, also, he painted for the Company of the Martyrs some scenes of
the martyrdom of some saints, and two chapels in the church, one on
either side of the principal chapel. And because these pictures gave
universal pleasure to the whole city, after he had finished them he was
commissioned by the family of the Salvestrini--which to-day is almost
extinct, there being to my knowledge none left save a friar of the
Angeli in Florence, called Fra Nemesio, a good and worthy churchman--to
paint a wall of the Church of the Carmine, whereon he made the scene
when the martyrs, being condemned to death, are stripped naked and made
to walk barefoot over spikes strewn by ministers of the tyrants, while
they were going to be placed on the cross; and higher up they are seen
placed thereon, in various extravagant attitudes. In this work, which
was the largest that had ever been made up to that time, everything is
seen to have been done, according to the knowledge of those times, with
much mastery and design, for it is all full of those various emotions
that nature arouses in those who are made to die a violent death;
wherefore I do not marvel that many able men have contrived to avail
themselves of certain things that are seen in this picture. After these
he made many other figures in the same church, and particularly in two
chapels in the tramezzo.[6] And about the same time he painted the
shrine of the Canto alla Cuculia, and that which is on the house-front
in the Via de' Martelli; and, over the Martello door in S. Spirito, a S.
Augustine in fresco presenting the Rule to his friars. In S. Trinita, in
the Chapel of Neri Compagni, he painted in fresco the life of S.
Giovanni Gualberto; and, in the principal chapel of S. Lucia in the Via
de' Bardi, some scenes in fresco of the life of that Saint, for Niccolo
da Uzzano, who was portrayed by him there from the life, together with
some other citizens.
[Footnote 6: See note on p. 57, Vol. I.]
This Niccolo, with the direction and model of Lorenzo, built a palace
for himself near the said church, and a magnificent beginning for a
university, or rather, a school, between the Convent of the Servi and
that of S. Marco--namely, where there are now the Lions. This work,
truly most praiseworthy and rather that of a magnanimous prince than of
a private citizen, was never finished, for the very large sums of money
that Niccolo left at the Monte[7] in Florence for the building and
maintenance of this school, were spent by the Florentines in certain
wars or for other necessities of the city. And although Fortune will
never be able to obscure the memory and the greatness of soul of Niccolo
da Uzzano, it is none the less true that the public interest suffered
very great harm from the fact that this work was not finished.
Wherefore, if a man desires to benefit the world in similar ways, and to
leave an honourable memorial of himself, let him do it by himself while
he has life, and let him not put his trust in the good faith of
posterity and of his heirs, since anything that has been left to be done
by successors is rarely seen brought to perfect completion.
[Footnote 7: Treasury of public funds.]
But returning to Lorenzo: he painted, besides what has been said, a
Madonna and certain saints in fresco, passing good, in a shrine on the
Ponte Rubaconte. And no long time after, Ser Michele di Fruosino, being
Director of the Hospital of S. Maria Nuova in Florence--which hospital
was founded by Folco Portinari, citizen of Florence--determined that,
even as the wealth of the hospital had increased, so its church,
which was then without Florence and very small, dedicated to S. Egidio,
should be enlarged. Whereupon, having taken counsel thereon with Lorenzo
di Bicci, who was very much his friend, on September 5, in the year
1418, he began the new church, which was finished in a year in the
manner wherein it stands to-day, and was then solemnly consecrated by
Pope Martin V at the request of the said Ser Michele, who was the eighth
Director of the Hospital, and of the men of the family of Portinari.
This consecration Lorenzo afterwards painted, according to the wish of
Ser Michele, on the facade of that church, portraying there from life
that Pope and some Cardinals; and this work, as something new and
beautiful, was then much praised. Wherefore he obtained the honour of
being the first to paint in the principal church of his city--that is,
in S. Maria del Fiore, where, beneath the windows of each chapel, he
painted that Saint to whom it is dedicated, and then, on the pilasters
and throughout the church, the twelve Apostles with the crosses of
consecration; for that church had been most solemnly consecrated in that
same year by Pope Eugenius IV, the Venetian. In the same church the
Wardens of Works, by order of the State, caused him to paint in fresco,
on one wall, a tomb in imitation of marble, in memory of Cardinal
Corsini, who is portrayed there from nature on the sarcophagus; and
above that he made a similar one in memory of Maestro Luigi Marsili, a
very famous theologian, who went as ambassador, with Messer Luigi
Guicciardini and Messer Guccio di Gino, most honourable cavaliers, to
the Duke of Anjou.
[Illustration: LORENZO DI BICCI: MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH A DONOR
(_Empoli: Gallery. Panel_)]
Lorenzo was then summoned to Arezzo by Don Laurentino, Abbot of S.
Bernardo, a monastery of the Order of Monte Oliveto, in the principal
chapel of which he painted in fresco, for Messer Carlo Marsuppini,
stories of the life of S. Bernard. But while planning to paint the life
of S. Benedict in the cloister of the convent (I mean, after having
painted for the elder Francesco de' Bacci the principal chapel of the
Church of S. Francesco, where he wrought by himself the vaulting and
half of the arch) he fell sick of a pleurisy; wherefore, having himself
carried to Florence, he left directions that Marco da Montepulciano, his
disciple, should paint the scenes of the life of S. Benedict in the said
cloister, from the design that he had made and left with Don
Laurentino; and this Marco did as best he knew, delivering the whole
work finished in chiaroscuro on April 24, in the year 1448, as it may be
seen written by his hand in verses and words that are no less rude than
the pictures. Having returned to his country and being restored to
health, Lorenzo painted, on the same wall of the Convent of S. Croce
whereon he had made the S. Christopher, the Assumption into Heaven of
Our Lady, surrounded by a choir of angels, and below her a S. Thomas,
who is receiving the Girdle. In the execution of this work, being
indisposed, Lorenzo caused Donatello, then a youth, to help him;
wherefore, with assistance so able, it was finished in the year 1450, in
such wise that I believe that it is the best work, both in design and in
colouring, that was ever made by Lorenzo, who, no long time after, being
old and worn out, died at the age of about sixty, leaving two sons who
applied themselves to painting; one of whom, named Bicci, gave him
assistance in making many works, while the other, who was called Neri,
portrayed his father and himself in the Chapel of the Lenzi in
Ognissanti, in two medallions with letters round them, which give the
name of both one and the other. In this chapel the same man, in painting
some stories of the Madonna, strove to counterfeit many costumes of
those times, both of men and of women; and he made the panel in
distemper for the chapel. In like manner, he made some panels for the
Abbey of S. Felice in Piazza at Florence, belonging to the Order of
Camaldoli, and one for the high-altar of S. Michele in Arezzo, a church
of the same Order. And at S. Maria delle Grazie without Arezzo, in the
Church of S. Bernardino, he made a Madonna that has under her mantle the
people of Arezzo, and on one side that S. Bernardino kneeling with a
wooden cross in his hand, such as he was wont to carry when he went
preaching through Arezzo, and on the other side and about her S.
Nicholas and S. Michelagnolo; and on the predella are painted stories of
the acts of the said S. Bernardino, and of the miracles that he wrought,
particularly in that place. The same Neri made the panel of the
high-altar of S. Romolo in Florence; and in S. Trinita, in the Chapel of
the Spini, he painted in fresco the life of S. Giovanni Gualberto, and
in distemper the panel that is over the altar. From these works it is
recognized that if Neri had lived, and had not died at the age of
thirty-six, he would have made more numerous and better works than did
Lorenzo, his father, whose Life, seeing that he was the last of the
masters of the old manner of Giotto, will also be the last of this First
Part, which with the aid of the blessed God we have brought to
conclusion.
THE SECOND PART OF THE LIVES OF THE SCULPTORS, PAINTERS, AND ARCHITECTS,
WHO HAVE LIVED FROM CIMABUE TO OUR OWN DAY. WRITTEN BY MESSER GIORGIO
VASARI, PAINTER AND ARCHITECT OF AREZZO
PREFACE TO THE SECOND PART
When first I undertook to write these Lives, it was not my intention to
make a list of the craftsmen, and an inventory, so to speak, of their
works, nor did I ever judge it a worthy end for these my labours--I will
not call them beautiful, but certainly long and fatiguing--to discover
their numbers, their names, and their countries, and to tell in what
cities, and in what places exactly in those cities, their pictures, or
sculptures, or buildings were now to be found; for this I could have
done with a simple table, without interposing my own judgment in any
part. But seeing that the writers of history--those of them who, by
common consent, are reputed to have written with the best judgment--have
not only refused to content themselves with the simple narration of the
succession of events, but, with all diligence and with the greatest
power of research at their disposal, have set about investigating the
methods, the means, and the ways that men of mark have used in the
management of their enterprises; and seeing that they have striven to
touch on their errors, and at the same time on their fine achievements
and on the expedients and resolutions sometimes wisely adopted in their
government of affairs, and on everything, in short, that these men have
effected therein, sagaciously or negligently, or with prudence, or
piety, or magnanimity; which these writers have done as men who knew
history to be truly the mirror of human life, not in order to make a
succinct narration of the events that befell a Prince or a Republic, but
in order to observe the judgments, the counsels, the resolutions, and
the intrigues of men, leading subsequently to fortunate and unfortunate
actions; for this is the true soul of history, and is that which truly
teaches men to live and makes them wise, and which, besides the pleasure
that comes from seeing past events as present, is the true end of that
art; for this reason, having undertaken to write the history of the most
noble craftsmen, in order to assist the arts in so far as my powers
permit, and besides that to honour them, I have held to the best of my
ability, in imitation of men so able, to the same method, and I have
striven not only to say what these craftsmen have done, but also, in
treating of them, to distinguish the better from the good and the best
from the better, and to note with no small diligence the methods, the
feeling, the manners, the characteristics, and the fantasies of the
painters and sculptors; seeking with the greatest diligence in my power
to make known, to those who do not know this for themselves, the causes
and origins of the various manners and of that amelioration and that
deterioration of the arts which have come to pass at diverse times and
through diverse persons. And because at the beginning of these Lives I
spoke of the nobility and antiquity of these arts, in so far as it was
then necessary for our subject, leaving on one side many things from
Pliny and other authors whereof I could have availed myself, had I not
wished--contrary, perhaps, to the judgment of many--to leave each man
free to see the fantasies of others in their proper sources; it appears
to me expedient to do at present that which, in avoidance of tedium and
prolixity (mortal enemies of attention), it was not permitted me to do
then--namely, to declare more diligently my mind and intention, and to
demonstrate to what end I have divided this book of the Lives into Three
Parts.
Now it is true that greatness in the arts springs in one man from
diligence, in another from study, in this man from imitation, in that
man from knowledge of the sciences, which all render assistance to the
arts, and in some from all the aforesaid sources together, or from the
greater part of them; yet I, none the less, having discoursed
sufficiently, in the Lives of the individuals, of their methods of art,
their manners, and the causes of their good, better, and best work, will
discourse of this matter in general terms, and rather of the
characteristics of times than of persons; having made a distinction and
division, in order not to make too minute a research, into Three Parts,
or we would rather call them ages, from the second birth of these arts
up to the century wherein we live, by reason of that very manifest
difference that is seen between one and another of them. In the first
and most ancient age these three arts are seen to have been very distant
from their perfection, and, although they had something of the good, to
have been accompanied by so great imperfection that they certainly do
not merit too great praise; although, seeing that they gave a beginning
and showed the path and method to the better work that followed later,
if for no other reason, we cannot but speak well of them and give them a
little more glory than the works themselves have merited, were we to
judge them by the perfect standard of art.
Next, in the second, it is manifestly seen that matters were much
improved, both in the inventions and in the use of more design, better
manner, and greater diligence, in their execution; and likewise that the
rust of age and the rudeness and disproportion, wherewith the grossness
of that time had clothed them, were swept away. But who will be bold
enough to say that there was to be found at that time one who was in
every way perfect, and who brought his work, whether in invention, or
design, or colouring, to the standard of to-day, and contrived the sweet
gradation of his figures with the deep shades of colour, in a manner
that the lights remained only on the parts in relief, and likewise
contrived those perforations and certain extraordinary refinements in
marble statuary that are seen in the statues of to-day? The credit of
this is certainly due to the third age, wherein it appears to me that I
can say surely that art has done everything that it is possible for her,
as an imitator of nature, to do, and that she has climbed so high that
she has rather to fear a fall to a lower height than to ever hope for
more advancement.
Having pondered over these things intently in my own mind, I judge that
it is the peculiar and particular nature of these arts to go on
improving little by little from a humble beginning, and finally to
arrive at the height of perfection; and of this I am persuaded by seeing
that almost the same thing came to pass in other faculties, which is no
small argument in favour of its truth, seeing that there is a certain
degree of kinship between all the liberal arts. Now this must have
happened to painting and sculpture in former times in such similar
fashion, that, if the names were changed round, their histories would be
exactly the same. For if we can put faith in those who lived near those
times and could see and judge the labours of the ancients, it is seen
that the statues of Canachus were very stiff and without any vivacity or
movement, and therefore very distant from the truth; and the same is
said of those of Calamis, although they were somewhat softer than those
aforesaid. Then came Myron, who was no very close imitator of the truth
of nature, but gave so much proportion and grace to his works that they
could be reasonably called beautiful. There followed in the third degree
Polycletus and the other so famous masters, who, as it is said and must
be believed, made them entirely perfect. The same progress must have
also come about in painting, because it is said, and it is reasonable to
suppose that it was so, that in the works of those who painted with only
one colour, and were therefore called Monochromatists, there was no
great perfection. Next, in the works of Zeuxis, Polygnotus, Timanthes,
and the others who used only four colours, there is nothing but praise
for their lineaments, outlines, and forms; yet, without doubt, they must
have left something to be desired. But in Erion, Nicomachus, Protogenes,
and Apelles, everything is perfect and most beautiful, and nothing
better can be imagined, seeing that they painted most excellently not
only the forms and actions of bodies, but also the emotions and passions
of the soul.
But, passing these men by, since for knowledge of them we must refer to
others, who very often do not agree in their judgments on them, or even,
what is worse, as to the dates, although in this I have followed the
best authorities; let us come to our own times, wherein we have the help
of the eye, a much better guide and judge than the ear. Is it not
clearly seen how great improvement was acquired by architecture--to
begin with one starting-point--from the time of the Greek Buschetto to
that of the German Arnolfo and of Giotto? See the buildings of those
times, and the pilasters, the columns, the bases, the capitals, and all
the cornices, with their ill-formed members, such as there are in
Florence, in S. Maria del Fiore, in the external incrustations of S.
Giovanni, and in S. Miniato sul Monte; in the Vescovado of Fiesole, in
the Duomo of Milan, in S. Vitale at Ravenna, in S. Maria Maggiore at
Rome, and in the Duomo Vecchio without Arezzo; wherein, excepting that
little of the good which survived in the ancient fragments, there is
nothing that has good order or form. But these men certainly improved it
not a little, and under their guidance it made no small progress, seeing
that they reduced it to better proportion, and made their buildings not
only stable and stout, but also in some measure ornate, although it is
true that their ornamentation was confused and very imperfect, and, so
to speak, not greatly ornamental. For they did not observe that measure
and proportion in the columns that the art required, or distinguish one
Order from another, whether Doric, Corinthian, Ionic, or Tuscan, but
mixed them all together with a rule of their own that was no rule,
making them very thick or very slender, as suited them best; and all
their inventions came partly from their own brains, and partly from the
relics of the antiquities that they saw; and they made their plans
partly by copying the good, and partly by adding thereunto their own
fancies, which, when the walls were raised, had a very different
appearance. Nevertheless, whosoever compares their works with those
before them will see in them an improvement in every respect, although
he will also see some things that give no little displeasure to our own
times; as, for example, some little temples of brick, wrought over with
stucco, at S. Giovanni Laterano in Rome.
The same do I say of sculpture, which, in that first age of its new
birth, had no little of the good; for after the extinction of the rude
Greek manner, which was so uncouth that it was more akin to the art of
quarrying than to the genius of the craftsmen--their statues being
entirely without folds, or attitudes, or movement of any kind, and truly
worthy to be called stone images--when design was afterwards improved by
Giotto, many men also improved the figures in marble and stone, as did
Andrea Pisano and his son Nino and his other disciples, who were much
better than the early sculptors and gave their statues more movement and
much better attitudes; as also did those two Sienese masters, Agostino
and Agnolo, who made the tomb of Guido, Bishop of Arezzo, as it has been
said, and those Germans who made the facade at Orvieto. It is seen,
then, that during this time sculpture made a little progress, and that
there was given a somewhat better form to the figures, with a more
beautiful flow of folds in the draperies, and sometimes a better air in
the heads and certain attitudes not so stiff; and finally, that it had
begun to seek the good, but was nevertheless lacking in innumerable
respects, seeing that design was in no great perfection at that time and
there was little good work seen that could be imitated. Wherefore those
masters who lived at that time, and were put by me in the First Part of
the book, deserve to be thus praised and to be held in that credit which
the works made by them merit, if only one considers--as is also true of
the works of the architects and painters of those times--that they had
no help from the times before them, and had to find the way by
themselves; and a beginning, however small, is ever worthy of no small
praise.