the most difficult problems of art, insomuch that he reduced to
perfection the method of drawing perspectives from the ground-plans of
houses and from the profiles of buildings, carried right up to the
summits of the cornices and the roofs, by means of intersecting lines,
making them foreshortened and diminishing towards the centre, after
having first fixed the eye-level either high or low, according to his
pleasure. So greatly, in short, did he occupy himself with these
difficulties, that he introduced a way, method, and rule of placing
figures firmly on the planes whereon their feet are planted, and
foreshortening them bit by bit, and making them recede by a
proportionate diminution; which hitherto had always been done by chance.
He discovered, likewise, the method of turning the intersections and
arches of vaulted roofs; the foreshortening of ceilings by means of the
convergence of the beams; and the making of round columns at the salient
angle of the walls of a house in a manner that they curve at the corner,
and, being drawn in perspective, break the angle and cause it to appear
level. For the sake of these investigations he kept himself in seclusion
and almost a hermit, having little intercourse with anyone, and staying
weeks and months in his house without showing himself. And although
these were difficult and beautiful problems, if he had spent that time
in the study of figures, he would have brought them to absolute
perfection; for even so he made them with passing good draughtsmanship.
But, consuming his time in these researches, he remained throughout his
whole life more poor than famous; wherefore the sculptor Donatello, who
was very much his friend, said to him very often--when Paolo showed him
mazzocchi[10] with pointed ornaments, and squares drawn in perspective
from diverse aspects; spheres with seventy-two diamond-shaped facets,
with wood-shavings wound round sticks on each facet; and other
fantastic devices on which he spent and wasted his time--"Ah, Paolo,
this perspective of thine makes thee abandon the substance for the
shadow; these are things that are only useful to men who work at the
inlaying of wood, seeing that they fill their borders with chips and
shavings, with spirals both round and square, and with other similar
things."
[Footnote 10: Mazzocchi are probably coronets placed on the arms of
noble families; also caps of a peculiar shape, such as those worn by
Taddeo Gaddi and others in the portraits placed by Vasari at the
beginning of each Life; and possibly, also, the wooden hoops placed
inside these caps to keep them in shape.]
The first pictures of Paolo were in fresco, in an oblong niche painted
in perspective, at the Hospital of Lelmo--namely, a figure of S. Anthony
the Abbot, with S. Cosimo on one side and S. Damiano on the other. In
the Annalena, a convent of nuns, he made two figures; and within the
Church of S. Trinita, over the left-hand door, he painted stories of S.
Francis in fresco--namely, the receiving of the Stigmata; the supporting
of the Church, which he is upholding with his shoulders; and his
conference with S. Dominic. In S. Maria Maggiore, also, in a chapel near
the side-door which leads to S. Giovanni, where there are the panel and
predella of Masaccio, he wrought an Annunciation in fresco, wherein he
made a building worthy of consideration, which was something new and
difficult in those times, seeing that it was the first possessing any
beauty of manner which was seen by craftsmen, showing them with grace
and proportion how to manage the receding of lines, and how to give so
great an extent to a level space which is small and confined, that it
appears far distant and large; and when to this, with judgment and
grace, men can add shadows and lights by means of colours in their
proper places, there is no doubt that they cause an illusion to the eye,
so that it appears that the painting is real and in relief. And not
being satisfied with this, he wished to demonstrate even greater
difficulties in some columns, which, foreshortened in perspective, curve
round and break the salient angle of the vaulting wherein are the four
Evangelists; which was held something beautiful and difficult, and, in
truth, in that branch of his profession Paolo was ingenious and able.
In a cloister of S. Miniato without Florence, also, he wrought the lives
of the Holy Fathers, chiefly in terra-verde, and partly in colour;
wherein he paid little regard to effecting harmony by painting with one
colour, as should be done in painting stories, for he made the fields
blue, the cities red, and the buildings varied according to his
pleasure; and in this he was at fault, for something which is meant to
represent stone cannot and should not be tinted with another colour. It
is said that while Paolo was labouring at this work, the Abbot who was
then head of that place gave him scarcely anything to eat but cheese.
Wherefore Paolo, having grown weary of this, determined, like the shy
fellow that he was, to go no more to work there; whereupon the Abbot
sent to look for him, and Paolo, when he heard friars asking for him,
would never be at home, and if peradventure he met any couples of that
Order in the streets of Florence, he would start running and flying from
them with all his might. Now two of them, more curious than the rest and
younger than Paolo, caught him up one day and asked him for what reason
he did not return to finish the work that he had begun, and why he fled
at the sight of a friar; and Paolo answered: "You have murdered me in a
manner that I not only fly from you, but cannot show myself near any
carpenter's shop or pass by one, and all because of the thoughtlessness
of your Abbot, who, what with pies and with soups always made of cheese,
has crammed so much cheese into me that I am in terror lest, being
nothing but cheese, they may use me for making glue. And if it were to
go on any longer, I would probably be no more Paolo, but cheese." The
friars, leaving him with peals of laughter, told everything to the
Abbot, who made him return to his work, and ordered him some other fare
than cheese.
After this, he painted the dossal of S. Cosimo and S. Damiano in the
Carmine, in the Chapel of S. Girolamo (of the Pugliesi). In the house of
the Medici he painted some scenes on canvas and in distemper,
representing animals; in these he ever took delight, and in order to
paint them well he gave them very great attention, and, what is more, he
kept ever in his house pictures of birds, cats, dogs, and every sort of
strange animal whereof he could get the likeness, being unable to have
them alive by reason of his poverty; and because he delighted in birds
more than in any other kind, he was given the name of "Paolo of the
Birds" (Paolo Uccelli). In the said house, among other pictures of
animals, he made some lions, which were fighting together with movements
and a ferocity so terrible that they appeared alive. But the rarest
scene among them all was one wherein a serpent, combating with a lion,
was showing its ferocity with violent movements, with the venom spurting
from its mouth and eyes, while a country girl who is present is looking
after an ox made with most beautiful foreshortening. The actual drawing
for this ox, by the hand of Paolo, is in my book of drawings, and
likewise that of the peasant girl, all full of fear, and in the act of
running away from those animals. There are likewise certain very
lifelike shepherds, and a landscape which was held something very
beautiful in his time. In the other canvases he made some studies of
men-at-arms of those times, on horseback, with not a few portraits from
the life.
[Illustration: PAOLO UCCELLO: THE BATTLE OF S. EGIDIO
(_London: National Gallery, 583. Panel_)]
Afterwards he was commissioned to paint some scenes in the cloister of
S. Maria Novella; and the first, which are at the entrance from the
church into the cloister, represent the Creation of the animals, with an
infinite number and variety of kinds belonging to water, earth, and air.
And since he was very fanciful and took great delight, as it has been
said, in painting animals to perfection, he showed in certain lions, who
are seeking to bite each other, the great ferocity that is in them, and
swiftness and fear in some stags and fallow-deer; not to mention that
the birds and fishes, with their feathers and scales, are most lifelike.
He made there the Creation of man and of woman, and their Fall, with a
beautiful manner and with good and careful execution. And in this work
he took delight in making the trees with colours, which the painters of
those times were not wont to do very well; and in the landscapes,
likewise, he was the first among the old painters to make a name for
himself by his work, executing them well and with greater perfection
than the painters before him had done; although afterwards there came
men who made them more perfect, for with all his labour he was never
able to give them that softness and harmony which have been given to
them in our own day by painting them in oil-colours. It was enough for
Paolo to go on, according to the rules of perspective, drawing and
foreshortening them exactly as they are, making in them all that he
saw--namely, ploughed fields, ditches, and other minutenesses of
nature--with that dry and hard manner of his; whereas, if he had picked
out the best from everything and had made use of those parts only that
come out well in painting, they would have been absolutely perfect. This
labour finished, he worked in the same cloister below two stories by the
hand of others; and lower down he painted the Flood, with Noah's Ark,
wherein he put so great pains and so great art and diligence into the
painting of the dead bodies, the tempest, the fury of the winds, the
flashes of the lightning, the shattering of trees, and the terror of
men, that it is beyond all description. And he made, foreshortened in
perspective, a corpse from which a raven is picking out the eyes, and a
drowned boy, whose body, being full of water, is swollen out into the
shape of a very great arch. He also represented various human emotions,
such as the little fear of the water shown by two men who are fighting
on horseback, and the extreme terror of death seen in a woman and a man
who are mounted on a buffalo, which is filling with water from behind,
so that they are losing all hope of being able to save themselves; and
the whole work is so good and so excellent, that it brought him very
great fame. He diminished the figures, moreover, by means of lines in
perspective, and made mazzocchi and other things, truly very beautiful
in such a work. Below this story, likewise, he painted the drunkenness
of Noah, with the contemptuous action of his son Ham--in whom he
portrayed Dello, the Florentine painter and sculptor, his friend--with
Shem and Japhet, his other sons, who are covering him up as he lies
showing his nakedness. Here, likewise, he made in perspective a cask
that curves on every side, which was held something very beautiful, and
also a pergola covered with grapes, the wood-work of which, composed of
squared planks, goes on diminishing to a point; but here he was in
error, since the diminishing of the plane below, on which the figures
are standing, follows the lines of the pergola, and the cask does not
follow these same receding lines; wherefore I marvel greatly that a man
so accurate and diligent could make an error so notable. He made there
also the Sacrifice, with the Ark open and drawn in perspective, with the
rows of perches in the upper part, distributed row by row; these were
the resting-places of the birds, many kinds of which are seen issuing
and flying forth in foreshortening, while in the sky there is seen
God the Father, who is appearing over the sacrifice that Noah and his
sons are making; and this figure, of all those that Paolo made in this
work, is the most difficult, for it is flying, with the head
foreshortened, towards the wall, and has such force and relief that it
seems to be piercing and breaking through it. Besides this, Noah has
round him an infinite number of diverse animals, all most beautiful. In
short, he gave to all this work so great softness and grace, that it is
beyond comparison superior to all his others; wherefore it has been
greatly praised from that time up to our own.
[Illustration: THE DELUGE
(_After the fresco by_ Paolo Uccello. _Florence: S. Maria Novella_)
_Alinari_]
In S. Maria del Fiore, in memory of Giovanni Acuto, an Englishman,
Captain of the Florentines, who had died in the year 1393, he made in
terra-verde a horse of extraordinary grandeur, which was held very
beautiful, and on it the image of the Captain himself, in chiaroscuro
and coloured with terra-verde, in a picture ten braccia high on the
middle of one wall of the church; where Paolo drew in perspective a
large sarcophagus, supposed to contain the corpse, and over this he
placed the image of him in his Captain's armour, on horseback. This work
was and still is held to be something very beautiful for a painting of
that kind, and if Paolo had not made that horse move its legs on one
side only, which naturally horses do not do, or they would fall--and
this perchance came about because he was not accustomed to ride, nor
used to horses as he was to other animals--this work would be absolutely
perfect, since the proportion of that horse, which is colossal, is very
beautiful; and on the base there are these letters: PAULI UCCELLI OPUS.
At the same time, and in the same church, he painted in colours the
hour-dial above the principal door within the church, with four heads
coloured in fresco at the corners. He wrought in terra-verde, also, the
loggia that faces towards the west above the garden of the Monastery of
the Angeli, painting below each arch a story of the acts of S. Benedict
the Abbot, and of the most notable events of his life, up to his death.
Here, among many most beautiful scenes, there is one wherein a monastery
is destroyed by the agency of the Devil, while a friar is left dead
below the stones and beams. No less notable is the terror of another
monk, whose draperies, as he flies, cling round his nude form and
flutter with most beautiful grace; whereby Paolo awakened the minds of
the craftsmen so greatly, that they have ever afterwards followed that
method. Very beautiful, also, is the figure of S. Benedict, the while
that with dignity and devoutness, in the presence of his monks, he
restores the dead friar to life. Finally, in all these stories there are
features worthy of consideration, and above all in certain places where
the very tiles of the roof, whether flat or round, are drawn in
perspective. And in the death of S. Benedict, while his monks are
performing his obsequies and bewailing him, there are some sick men and
cripples, all most beautiful, who stand gazing on him; and it is
noticeable, also, that among many loving and devout followers of that
Saint there is an old monk with crutches under his arms, in whom there
is seen a marvellous expression, with even a hope of being made whole.
In this work there are no landscapes in colour, nor many buildings, nor
difficult perspectives, but there is truly great design, with no little
of the good.
In many houses of Florence there are many pictures in perspective by the
hand of the same man, for the adornment of couches, beds, and other
little things; and in Gualfonda, in particular, on a terrace in the
garden which once belonged to the Bartolini, there are four
battle-scenes painted on wood by his hand, full of horses and armed men,
with very beautiful costumes of those days; and among the men are
portraits of Paolo Orsino, Ottobuono da Parma, Luca da Canale, and Carlo
Malatesti, Lord of Rimini, all captains-general of those times. And
these pictures, since they were spoilt and had suffered injury, were
restored in our own day by the agency of Giuliano Bugiardini, who did
them more harm than good.
Paolo was summoned to Padua by Donato, when the latter was working
there, and at the entrance of the house of the Vitali he painted some
giants in terra-verde, which, as I have found in a Latin letter written
by Girolamo Campagnola to Messer Leonico Tomeo, the philosopher, are so
beautiful that Andrea Mantegna held them in very great account. Paolo
wrought in fresco the Volta de' Peruzzi, with triangular sections in
perspective, and in the angles of the corners he painted the four
elements, making for each an appropriate animal--for the earth a mole,
for the water a fish, for the fire a salamander, and for the air a
chameleon, which lives on it and assumes any colour. And because he had
never seen a chameleon, he painted a camel, which is opening its mouth
and swallowing air, and therewith filling its belly; and great, indeed,
was his simplicity in making allusion by means of the name of the camel
to an animal that is like a little dry lizard, and in representing it by
a great uncouth beast.
[Illustration: PORTRAITS
(_After the panel by_ Paolo Uccello. _Paris: Louvre, 1272_)
_Mansell_]
Truly great were the labours of Paolo in painting, for he drew so much
that he left to his relatives, as I have learnt from their own lips,
whole chests full of drawings. But, although it is a good thing to draw,
it is nevertheless better to make complete pictures, seeing that
pictures have longer life than drawings. In our book of drawings there
are many figures, studies in perspective, birds, and animals, beautiful
to a marvel, but the best of all is a mazzocchio drawn only with lines,
so beautiful that nothing save the patience of Paolo could have executed
it. Paolo, although he was an eccentric person, loved talent in his
fellow-craftsmen, and in order that some memory of them might go down to
posterity, he painted five distinguished men with his own hand on a long
panel, which he kept in his house in memory of them. One was Giotto, the
painter, standing for the light and origin of art; the second was
Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, for architecture; Donatello, for sculpture;
himself, for perspective and animals; and, for mathematics, Giovanni
Manetti, his friend, with whom he often conferred and discoursed on the
problems of Euclid.
It is said that having been commissioned to paint, over the door of S.
Tommaso in the Mercato Vecchio, that Saint feeling for the wound in the
side of Christ, Paolo put into that work all the effort that he could,
saying that he wished to show therein the full extent of his worth and
knowledge; and so he caused a screen of planks to be made, to the end
that no one might be able to see his work until it was finished.
Wherefore Donato, meeting him one day all alone, said to him: "And what
sort of work may this be of thine, that thou keepest it screened so
closely?" And Paolo said in answer: "Thou shalt see it. Let that suffice
thee." Donato would not constrain him to say more, thinking to see some
miracle, as usual, when the time came. Afterwards, chancing one morning
to be in the Mercato Vecchio buying fruit, Donato saw Paolo uncovering
his work, whereupon he saluted him courteously, and was asked by Paolo
himself, who was curious and anxious to hear his judgment on it, what he
thought of that picture. Donato, having studied the work long and well,
exclaimed: "Ah, Paolo, thou oughtest to be covering it up, and here thou
art uncovering it!" Whereupon Paolo was much aggrieved, feeling that he
was receiving much more by way of blame than he expected to receive by
way of praise for this last labour of his; and not having courage,
lowered as he was, to go out any more, he shut himself up in his house,
devoting himself to perspective, which kept him ever poor and depressed
up to his death. And so, growing very old, and having but little
contentment in his old age, he died in the eighty-third year of his
life, in 1432, and was buried in S. Maria Novella.
He left a daughter, who had knowledge of drawing, and a wife, who was
wont to say that Paolo would stay in his study all night, seeking to
solve the problems of perspective, and that when she called him to come
to bed, he would say: "Oh, what a sweet thing is this perspective!" And
in truth, if it was sweet to him, it was not otherwise than dear and
useful, thanks to him, to those who exercised themselves therein after
his time.
LORENZO GHIBERTI
LIFE OF LORENZO GHIBERTI
[_LORENZO DI CIONE GHIBERTI OR LORENZO DI BARTOLUCCIO GHIBERTI_]
PAINTER OF FLORENCE
There is no doubt that in every city those who, by reason of any talent,
come into some fame among men, are a most blessed light and example to
many who are either born after them or live in the same age, not to
mention the infinite praise and the extraordinary rewards that they
themselves gain thereby while living. Nor is there anything that does
more to arouse the minds of men, and to render the discipline of study
less fatiguing to them, than the honour and profit which are afterwards
won by labouring at the arts, for the reason that these make every
difficult undertaking easy to them all, and give a greater stimulus to
the growth of their talents, when they are urged to greater efforts by
the praises of the world. Wherefore infinite numbers of men, who feel
and see this, put themselves to great fatigues, in order to attain to
the honour of winning that which they see to have been won by some
compatriot; and for this reason in ancient times men of talent were
rewarded with riches, or honoured with triumphs and images. But since it
is seldom that talent is not persecuted by envy, men must continue to
the best of their power, by means of the utmost excellence, to assure it
of victory, or at least to make it stout and strong to sustain the
attacks of that enemy; even as Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti, otherwise
called Di Bartoluccio, was enabled to do both by his own merits and by
fortune. This man well deserved the honour of being placed before
themselves by the sculptor Donato and by the architect and sculptor
Filippo Brunelleschi, both excellent craftsmen, since they recognized,
in truth, although instinct perchance constrained them to do the
contrary, that Lorenzo was a better master of casting than they were.
This truly brought glory to them, and confusion to many who, presuming
on their worth, set themselves to work and occupy the place due to the
talents of others, and, without producing any fruits themselves, but
labouring a thousand years at the making of one work, impede and oppress
the knowledge of others with malignity and with envy.
Lorenzo, then, was the son of Bartoluccio Ghiberti, and from his
earliest years learnt the art of the goldsmith from his father, who was
an excellent master and taught him that business, which Lorenzo grasped
so well that he became much better therein than his father. But
delighting much more in the arts of sculpture and design, he would
sometimes handle colours, and at other times would cast little figures
in bronze and finish them with much grace. He also delighted in
counterfeiting the dies of ancient medals, and he portrayed many of his
friends from the life in his time.
Now, while he was working with Bartoluccio and seeking to make progress
in his profession, the plague came to Florence in the year 1400, as he
himself relates in a book by his own hand wherein he discourses on the
subject of art, which is now in the possession of the Reverend Maestro
Cosimo Bartoli, a gentleman of Florence. To this plague were added civil
discords and other troubles in the city, and he was forced to depart and
to go in company with another painter to Romagna, where they painted for
Signor Pandolfo Malatesti, in Rimini, an apartment and many other works,
which were finished by them with diligence and to the satisfaction of
that Lord, who, although still young, took great delight in matters of
design. Meanwhile Lorenzo did not cease to study the arts of design, and
to work in relief with wax, stucco, and other similar materials, knowing
very well that these small reliefs are the drawing-exercises of
sculptors, and that without such practice nothing can be brought by them
to perfection. Now, when he had been no long time out of his own
country, the pestilence ceased; wherefore the Signoria of Florence and
the Guild of Merchants--since at that time sculpture had many excellent
craftsmen, both foreign and Florentine--determined that there should be
made, as it had been already discussed many times, the other two doors
of S. Giovanni, a very ancient temple, indeed, the oldest in that city;
and they ordained among themselves that instructions should be sent to
all the masters who were held the best in Italy, to repair to Florence
in order that their powers might be tested by a specimen scene in
bronze, similar to one of those which Andrea Pisano had formerly made
for the first door.
Word of this determination was written to Lorenzo, who was working at
Pesaro, by Bartoluccio, urging him to return to Florence in order to
give a proof of his powers, and saying that this was an occasion to make
himself known and to demonstrate his genius, not to mention that he
might gain such profit that neither the one nor the other of them would
ever again need to labour at making ear-rings.