the house of his ancestors, which is in Florence, below the Church of S.
Barnaba; and therein he was honestly brought up until he had learnt not
only to read and write but also to cast accounts, in so far as it was
likely to be needful, after the custom of most Florentines. And
afterwards he was placed by his father to learn the art of the goldsmith
with Leonardo di Ser Giovanni, who was then held the best master of that
art in Florence. Now, having learnt under this man to make designs and
to work in wax, Luca grew in courage and applied himself to making
certain things in marble and in bronze, which, seeing that he succeeded
in them well enough, brought it about that he completely abandoned his
business of goldsmith and applied himself to sculpture, insomuch that he
did nothing but ply his chisel all day and draw all night; and this he
did with so great zeal, that, feeling his feet very often freezing at
night, he took to keeping them in a basket full of shavings, such as
carpenters strip from planks when they shape them with the plane, in
order to warm them without giving up his drawing. Nor do I marvel in any
way at this, seeing that no one ever became excellent in any exercise
whatsoever without beginning from his childhood to endure heat, cold,
hunger, thirst, and other discomforts; wherefore those men are entirely
deceived who think to be able, at their ease and with all the comforts
of the world, to attain to honourable rank. It is not by sleeping but by
waking and studying continually that progress is made.
Luca was barely fifteen years of age when he was summoned, together with
other young sculptors, to Rimini, in order to make some figures and
other ornaments in marble for Sigismondo di Pandolfo Malatesti, Lord of
that city, who was then having a chapel made in the Church of S.
Francesco, and a tomb for his wife, who had died. Luca had given an
honourable proof of his knowledge in some low-reliefs in this work,
which are still seen there, when he was recalled by the Wardens of Works
of S. Maria del Fiore to Florence, where, for the campanile of that
church, he made five little scenes in marble, which are on the side that
faces the church, and which were wanting, according to the design of
Giotto, to go with that wherein are the Sciences and Arts, formerly
made, as it has been said, by Andrea Pisano. In the first Luca made
Donato teaching grammar; in the second, Plato and Aristotle, standing
for philosophy; in the third, a figure playing a lute, for music; in the
fourth, a Ptolemy, for astrology; and in the fifth, Euclid, for
geometry. These scenes, in perfection of finish, in grace, and in
design, were far in advance of the two made, as it has been said, by
Giotto, in one of which Apelles, standing for painting, is working with
his brush, while in the other Pheidias, representing sculpture, is
labouring with his chisel. Wherefore the said Wardens of Works--who,
besides the merits of Luca, were persuaded thereunto by Messer Vieri de'
Medici, then a great citizen and a friend of the people, who loved Luca
dearly--commissioned him, in the year 1405, to make the marble ornament
for the organ which the Office of Works was then having made on a very
grand scale, to be set up over the door of the sacristy of the said
church. In certain scenes at the base of this work Luca made the singing
choirs, chanting in various fashions; and he put so much zeal into this
labour and succeeded so well therein, that, although it is sixteen
braccia from the ground, one can see the swelling of the throats of the
singers, the leader of the music beating with his hands on the shoulders
of the smaller ones, and, in short, diverse manners of sounds, chants,
dances, and other pleasing actions that make up the delight of music.
Next, on the great cornice of this ornament Luca placed two figures of
gilded metal--namely, two nude angels, wrought with a high finish, as is
the whole work, which was held to be something very rare, although
Donatello, who afterwards made the ornament of the other organ, which is
opposite to the first, made his with much more judgment and mastery
than Luca had shown, as will be told in the proper place; for Donatello
executed that work almost wholly with bold studies and with no
smoothness of finish, to the end that it might show up much better from
a distance, as it does, than that of Luca, which, although it is wrought
with good design and diligence, is nevertheless so smooth and highly
finished that the eye, by reason of the distance, loses it and does not
grasp it well, as it does that of Donatello, which is, as it were, only
sketched.
[Illustration: TOMB OF BISHOP FEDERIGHI
(_After_ Luca della Robbia. _Florence: S. Trinita_)
_Alinari_]
To this matter craftsmen should pay great attention, for the reason that
experience teaches us that all works which are to be viewed from a
distance, whether they be pictures, or sculptures, or any other similar
thing whatsoever, have more vivacity and greater force if they are made
in the fashion of beautiful sketches than if they are highly finished;
and besides the fact that distance gives this effect, it also appears
that very often in these sketches, born in a moment from the fire of
art, a man's conception is expressed in a few strokes, while, on the
contrary, effort and too great diligence sometimes rob men of their
force and judgment, if they never know when to take their hands off the
work that they are making. And whosoever knows that all the arts of
design, not to speak only of painting, are similar to poetry, knows also
that even as poems thrown off by the poetic fire are the true and good
ones, and better than those made with great effort, so, too, the works
of men excellent in the arts of design are better when they are made at
one sitting by the force of that fire, than when they go about
investigating one thing after another with effort and fatigue. And he
who has from the beginning, as he should have, a clear idea of what he
wishes to do, ever advances resolutely and with great readiness to
perfection. Nevertheless, seeing that all intellects are not of the same
stamp, there are some, in fact, although they are rare, who cannot work
well save at their leisure; and to say nothing of the painters, it is
said that the most reverend and most learned Bembo--among the
poets--sometimes laboured many months, perchance even years, at the
making of a sonnet, if we can believe those who affirm it; wherefore it
is no great marvel that this should happen sometimes to some of the
masters of our arts. But for the most part the rule is to the contrary,
as it has been said above, although the vulgar think more of a certain
external and obvious delicacy that proves to lack the essential
qualities, which are made up for by diligence, than of the good, wrought
with reason and judgment, but not so highly finished and polished on the
outside.
But to return to Luca; the said work being finished and giving great
satisfaction, he was entrusted with the bronze door of the said
sacristy, which he divided into ten squares--namely, five on either
side, making the head of a man at every corner of each square, in the
border; and he varied the heads one from another, making young men, old,
and middle-aged, some bearded and some shaven, and, in short, each one
beautiful of its kind in diverse fashions, so that the framework of that
door was beautifully adorned. Next, in the scenes in the squares--to
begin at the upper part--he made the Madonna with the Child in her arms,
with most beautiful grace; and in the one beside it, Jesus Christ
issuing from the Sepulchre. Below these, in each of the first four
squares, is the figure of an Evangelist; and below these, the four
Doctors of the Church, who are writing in different attitudes. And the
whole of this work is so highly finished and polished that it is a
marvel, and gives us to know that it was a great advantage to Luca to
have been a goldsmith.
But since, on reckoning up after these works how much there had come to
his hand and how much time he spent in making them, he recognized that
he had gained very little and that the labour had been very great, he
resolved to abandon marble and bronze and to see whether he could gather
better fruits from another method. Wherefore, reflecting that clay could
be worked easily and with little labour, and that it was only necessary
to find a method whereby works made with it might be preserved for a
long time, he set about investigating to such purpose that he found a
way to defend them from the injuries of time; for, after having made
many experiments, he found that by covering them with a coating of
glaze, made with tin, litharge, antimony, and other minerals and
mixtures fused together in a special furnace, he could produce this
effect very well and make works in clay almost eternal. For this
method of working, as being its inventor, he gained very great praise,
and all the ages to come will therefore owe him an obligation.
[Illustration: THE MADONNA OF THE ROSES
(_After_ Luca della Robbia. _Florence: Bargello._)]
Having then succeeded in this as much as he could desire, he resolved
that his first works should be those that are in the arch over the
bronze door which he had made for the sacristy, below the organ of S.
Maria del Fiore; and therein he made a Resurrection of Christ, so
beautiful for that time that it was admired, when placed in position, as
something truly rare. Moved by this, the said Wardens of Works desired
that the arch over the door of the other sacristy, where Donatello had
made the ornament of the other organ, should be filled by Luca in the
same manner with similar figures and works in terra-cotta; wherefore
Luca made therein a very beautiful Jesus Christ ascending into Heaven.
Now, not being yet satisfied with this beautiful invention--so lovely
and so useful, above all for places where there is water, and where,
because of damp or other reasons, there is no scope for paintings--Luca
went on seeking further progress, and, instead of making the said works
in clay simply white, he added the method of giving them colour, with
incredible marvel and pleasure to all. Wherefore the Magnificent Piero
di Cosimo de' Medici, one of the first to commission Luca to fashion
coloured works in clay, caused him to execute the whole of the round
vaulting of a study in the Palace--built, as it will be told, by his
father Cosimo--with various things of fancy, and likewise the pavement,
which was something singular and very useful for the summer. And seeing
that this method was then very difficult, and that many precautions were
necessary in the firing of the clay, it is certainly a marvel that Luca
could execute these works with so great perfection that both the
vaulting and the pavement appear to be made, not of many pieces, but of
one only. The fame of these works spreading not only throughout Italy
but throughout all Europe, there were so many who desired them that the
merchants of Florence, keeping Luca, to his great profit, continually at
this labour, sent them throughout the whole world. And because he could
not supply the whole, he took his brothers, Ottaviano and Agostino, away
from the chisel, and set them to work on these labours, wherein the
three of them together gained much more than they had done up to then
with the chisel, for the reason that, besides those of their works that
were sent to France and Spain, they also wrought many things in Tuscany;
and in particular, for the said Piero de' Medici, in the Church of S.
Miniato al Monte, the vaulting of the marble chapel, which rests on four
columns in the middle of the church, and which they divided most
beautifully into octagons. But the most notable work of this kind that
ever issued from their hands was the vaulting of the Chapel of S.
Jacopo, where the Cardinal of Portugal is buried, in the same church. In
this, although it has no salient angles, they made the four Evangelists
in four medallions at the corners, and the Holy Spirit in a medallion in
the middle of the vaulting, filling the other spaces with scales which
follow the curve of the vaulting and diminish little by little till they
reach the centre, insomuch that there is nothing better of that kind to
be seen, nor anything built and put together with more diligence.
Next, in a little arch over the door of the Church of S. Piero
Buonconsiglio, below the Mercato Vecchio, he made the Madonna with some
angels round her, all very vivacious; and over a door of a little church
near S. Piero Maggiore, in a lunette, he made another Madonna with some
angels, which are held very beautiful. And in the Chapter-house of S.
Croce, likewise, built by the family of the Pazzi under the direction of
Pippo di Ser Brunellesco, he made all the glazed figures that are seen
therein both within and without. And Luca is said to have sent some very
beautiful figures in full-relief to the King of Spain, together with
some works in marble. For Naples, also, he made in Florence the marble
tomb for the infant brother of the Duke of Calabria, with many glazed
ornaments, being assisted by his brother Agostino.
After these works, Luca sought to find a way of painting figures and
scenes on a level surface of terra-cotta, in order to give long life to
pictures, and made an experiment in a medallion which is above the
shrine of the four saints without Orsanmichele, on the level surface of
which, in five parts, he made the instruments and insignia of the Guilds
of the Masters in Wood and Stone, with very beautiful ornaments. And he
made two other medallions in the same place, in relief, in one of which,
for the Guild of Apothecaries, he made a Madonna, and in the other, for
the Mercatanzia, a lily on a bale, which has round it a festoon of
fruits and foliage of various sorts, so well made, that they appear to
be real and not of painted terra-cotta. In the Church of S. Brancazio,
also, he made a tomb of marble for Messer Benozzo Federighi, Bishop of
Fiesole, and Federighi himself lying on it, portrayed from nature, with
three other half-length figures; and in the ornament of the pilasters of
this work, on the level surface, he painted certain festoons with
clusters of fruit and foliage, so lifelike and natural, that nothing
better could be done in oil and on panel with the brush. Of a truth,
this work is marvellous and most rare, seeing that Luca made the lights
and shades in it so well, that it scarcely appears possible for this to
be done by the action of fire. And if this craftsman had lived longer
than he did, even greater works would have been seen to issue from his
hands, since, a little before he died, he had begun to make scenes and
figures painted on a level surface, whereof I once saw some pieces in
his house, which lead me to believe that he would have easily succeeded
in this, if death, which almost always snatches the best men away just
when they are on the point of conferring some benefit on the world, had
not robbed him of life before his time.
Luca was survived by Ottaviano and Agostino, his brothers, and from
Agostino there was born another Luca, who was very learned in his day.
Now Agostino, pursuing the art after the death of Luca, made the facade
of S. Bernardino in Perugia in the year 1461, with three scenes in
low-relief therein and four figures in the round, executed very well and
with a delicate manner; and on this work he put his name in these words,
AUGUSTINI FLORENTINI LAPICIDAE.
Of the same family was the nephew of Luca, Andrea, who worked very well
in marble, as it is seen in the Chapel of S. Maria delle Grazie, without
Arezzo, where he made for the Commune, in a great ornament of marble,
many little figures both in the round and in half-relief; which ornament
was made for a Virgin by the hand of Parri di Spinello of Arezzo. The
same man made the panel in terra-cotta for the Chapel of Puccio di
Magio, in the Church of S. Francesco in the same city, and that
representing the Circumcision for the family of the Bacci. In S. Maria
in Grado, likewise, there is a very beautiful panel by his hand with
many figures; and on the high-altar of the Company of the Trinita there
is a panel by his hand containing a God the Father, who is supporting
Christ Crucified in His arms, surrounded by a multitude of angels, while
S. Donatus and S. Bernard are kneeling below. In the church and in other
parts of the Sasso della Vernia, likewise, he made many panels, which
have been well preserved in that desert place, where no painting could
have remained fresh for even a few years. The same Andrea wrought all
the figures in glazed terra-cotta which are in the Loggia of the
Hospital of S. Paolo in Florence, and which are passing good; and
likewise the boys, both swathed and nude, that are in the medallions
between one arch and another in the Loggia of the Hospital of the
Innocenti, which are all truly admirable and prove the great talent and
art of Andrea; not to mention many, nay, innumerable other works that he
made in the course of his life, which lasted eighty-four years. Andrea
died in the year 1528, and I, while still a boy, talked with him and
heard him say--nay, boast--that he had taken part in bearing Donato to
the tomb; and I remember that the good old man showed no little pride as
he spoke of this.
[Illustration: ALTAR-PIECE
(_After_ Andrea della Robbia. _Arezzo: S. Maria in Grado_)
_Alinari_]
But to return to Luca; he was buried, with the rest of his family, in
their ancestral tomb in S. Piero Maggiore, and in the same tomb there
was afterwards buried Andrea, who left two sons, friars in S. Marco,
where they received the habit from the Reverend Fra Girolamo Savonarola,
to whom that Della Robbia family was ever devoted, portraying him in
that manner which is still seen to-day in the medals. The same man,
besides the said two friars, had three other sons: Giovanni, who devoted
himself to art and had three sons, Marco, Lucantonio, and Simone, who
died of plague in the year 1527, having given great promise; and Luca
and Girolamo, who devoted themselves to sculpture. Of these two, Luca
was very diligent in glazed works, and he made with his own hand,
besides many other things, the pavements of the Papal Loggie which Pope
Leo X caused to be made in Rome under the direction of Raffaello da
Urbino, and also those of many apartments, wherein he put the insignia
of that Pontiff. Girolamo, who was the youngest of all, devoted himself
to working in marble, in clay, and in bronze, and had already
become an able man, by reason of competing with Jacopo Sansovino, Baccio
Bandinelli, and other masters of his time, when he was brought by
certain Florentine merchants to France, where he made many works for
King Francis at Madri, a place not far distant from Paris, and in
particular a palace with many figures and other ornaments, with a kind
of stone like our Volterra gypsum, but of a better quality, for it is
soft when it is worked, and afterwards with time becomes hard. He also
wrought many things in clay at Orleans and made works throughout that
whole kingdom, acquiring fame and very great wealth. After these works,
hearing that he had no relative left in Florence save his brother Luca,
and being himself rich and alone in the service of King Francis, he
summoned his brother to join him in those parts, in order to leave him
in credit and good circumstances, but it fell out otherwise, for in a
short time Luca died there, and Girolamo once more found himself alone
and without any of his kin; wherefore he resolved to return, in order to
enjoy in his own country the riches that his labour and sweat had
brought him, and also to leave therein some memorial of himself, and he
was settling down to live in Florence in the year 1553, when he was
forced to change his mind, as it were, for he saw that Duke Cosimo, by
whom he was hoping to be honourably employed, was occupied with the war
in Siena; whereupon he returned to die in France. And not only did his
house remain closed and his family become extinct, but art was deprived
of the true method of making glazed work, for the reason that, although
there have been some after them who have practised that sort of
sculpture, nevertheless they have all failed by a great measure to
attain to the excellence of the elder Luca, Andrea, and the others of
that family. Wherefore, if I have spoken on this subject at greater
length, perchance, than it appeared to be necessary, let no man blame
me, seeing that the fact that Luca discovered this new form of
sculpture--which, to my knowledge, the ancient Romans did not have--made
it necessary to discourse thereon, as I have done, at some length. And
if, after the Life of the elder Luca, I have given some brief account of
his descendants, who have lived even to our own day, I have done this in
order not to have to return to this subject another time.
[Illustration: THE ANNUNCIATION
(_After_ Andrea della Robbia. _La Verna_)
_Alinari_]
Luca, then, while passing from one method of work to another, from
marble to bronze, and from bronze to clay, did this not by reason of
laziness or because he was, as many are, capricious, unstable, and
discontented with his art, but because he felt himself drawn by nature
to new things and by necessity to an exercise according to his taste,
both less fatiguing and more profitable. Wherefore the world and the
arts of design became the richer by a new, useful, and most beautiful
art, and he gained immortal and everlasting glory and praise. Luca was
an excellent and graceful draughtsman, as it may be seen from some
drawings in our book with the lights picked out with white lead, in one
of which is his portrait, made by him with much diligence by looking at
himself in a mirror.
[Illustration: THE VISITATION
(_After_ Giovanni della Robbia. _Pistoia: S. Giovanni Fuorcivitas_)
_Alinari_]
PAOLO UCCELLO
LIFE OF PAOLO UCCELLO
PAINTER OF FLORENCE
Paolo Uccello would have been the most gracious and fanciful genius that
was ever devoted to the art of painting, from Giotto's day to our own,
if he had laboured as much at figures and animals as he laboured and
lost time over the details of perspective; for although these are
ingenious and beautiful, yet if a man pursues them beyond measure he
does nothing but waste his time, exhausts his powers, fills his mind
with difficulties, and often transforms its fertility and readiness into
sterility and constraint, and renders his manner, by attending more to
these details than to figures, dry and angular, which all comes from a
wish to examine things too minutely; not to mention that very often he
becomes solitary, eccentric, melancholy, and poor, as did Paolo Uccello.
This man, endowed by nature with a penetrating and subtle mind, knew no
other delight than to investigate certain difficult, nay, impossible
problems of perspective, which, although they were fanciful and
beautiful, yet hindered him so greatly in the painting of figures, that
the older he grew the worse he did them. And there is no doubt that if a
man does violence to his nature with too ardent studies, although he may
sharpen one edge of his genius, yet nothing that he does appears done
with that facility and grace which are natural to those who put each
stroke in its proper place temperately and with a calm intelligence full
of judgment, avoiding certain subtleties that rather burden a man's work
with a certain laboured, dry, constrained, and bad manner, which moves
those who see it rather to compassion than to marvel; for the spirit of
genius must be driven into action only when the intellect wishes to set
itself to work and when the fire of inspiration is kindled, since it is
then that excellent and divine qualities and marvellous conceptions are
seen to issue forth.