Charles V, and another of King Philip. For the very reverend Bishop of
Arras, now Grand Cardinal, called Granvella, he has made some pieces
in bronze of an oval form, each of two braccia, with rich borders, and
containing half-length statues; in one is Charles V, in another King
Philip, and in the third the Cardinal himself, portrayed from life,
and all have bases with little figures of much grace. For Signor
Vespasiano Gonzaga he has made in a great bust of bronze the portrait
of Alva, which Gonzaga has placed in his house at Sabbionetto. For
Signor Cesare Gonzaga he has executed, likewise in metal, a statue of
four braccia, which has beneath it another figure that is entwined
with a Hydra, in order to denote his father Don Ferrante, who by his
worth and valour overcame the vicious envy that had sought to bring
him into disgrace with Charles V in the matter of the government of
Milan. This statue, which is clad in a toga and armed partly in the
ancient and partly in the modern fashion, is to be taken to Guastalla
and placed there in memory of that Don Ferrante, a most valorous
captain.
The same Leone has made, as has been told in another place, the tomb
of Signor Giovanni Jacopo Medici, Marquis of Marignano and brother of
Pope Pius IV, which stands in the Duomo of Milan, about twenty-eight
palms in length and forty in height. This tomb is all of Carrara
marble, and adorned with four columns, two of them black and white,
which were sent by the Pope as rare things from Rome to Milan, and two
others, larger, which are of a spotted stone similar to jasper; which
are all accommodated under one and the same cornice, an unusual
contrivance, by the desire of that Pope, who caused the whole work to
be executed after the directions of Michelagnolo, excepting only the
five figures of bronze that are there, which are by the hand of Leone.
The first of these, the largest of them all, is the statue of the
Marquis himself, standing upright and larger than life, which has in
the right hand the baton of a General, and the left hand resting on a
helmet that is on a very richly adorned trunk. On the left of this is
a smaller statue, representing Peace, and on the right another
signifying Military Virtue; and these are seated, and in aspect all
sad and sorrowing. Of the other two, which are on high, one is
Providence and the other Fame; and between them, on the same level, is
a most beautiful Nativity of Christ in bronze, in low-relief. At the
summit of the whole work are two figures of marble, which support that
lord's escutcheon of balls. For this work seven thousand and eight
hundred crowns were paid, according to the agreement made in Rome by
the most illustrious Cardinal Morone and Signor Agabrio Scierbellone.
The same master has made for Signor Giovan Battista Castaldo a statue
likewise in bronze, which is to be placed in I know not what
monastery, with some ornaments. For the above-named Catholic King he
has executed a Christ in marble, more than three braccia high, with
the Cross and with other Mysteries of the Passion, which is much
extolled. Finally, he has in hand the statue of Signor Alfonso
Davalos, the Marchese del Vasto of famous memory, which was entrusted
to him by the Marchese di Pescara, his son; four braccia high, and
likely to prove an excellent figure when cast, by reason of the
diligence that he is devoting to its execution, and the good fortune
that Leone has always had in his castings.
Leone, in order to display the greatness of his mind, the beautiful
genius that he has received from Nature, and the favour of Fortune,
has built at great expense and with most beautiful architecture a
house in the Contrada de' Moroni, so full of fantastic inventions,
that there is perhaps no other like it in all Milan. In the
distribution of the façade there are upon pilasters six captives each
of six braccia and all of pietra viva, and between these, in certain
niches, Fates in imitation of the antique, with little terminal
figures, windows, and cornices all different from the common use and
very graceful; and all the parts below correspond with beautiful order
to those above, and the frieze-ornaments are all of various
instruments of the arts of design. From the principal door one enters
by a passage into a courtyard, in the centre of which, upon four
columns, is the horse with the statue of Marcus Aurelius, cast in
gesso from the original which is in the Campidoglio. By means of that
statue he has intended that his house should be dedicated to Marcus
Aurelius; and as for the captives, that fancy is interpreted by
various persons in various ways. Besides the horse, he has in that
beautiful and most commodious habitation, as has been told in another
place, as many casts in gesso as he has been able to obtain of famous
works in sculpture and casting, both ancient and modern.
A son of Leone, called Pompeo, who is now in the service of King
Philip of Spain, is in no way inferior to his father in executing dies
of steel for medals and in casting figures that are marvellous.
Wherefore at that Court he has been a competitor of Giovan Paolo
Poggini, a Florentine, who also works in the service of that King and
has made most beautiful medals. But Pompeo, having served that King
many years, intends to return to Milan in order to enjoy his Aurelian
house and the other labours of his excellent father, the loving friend
of every man of talent.
And now to say something of medals, and of the steel dies with which
they are made. I believe that it may be affirmed with truth that our
modern intellects have achieved as much as the ancient Romans once did
in the excellence of the figures, and that in the lettering and in
other parts they have surpassed them. Which may be seen clearly in
twelve reverses--besides many others--that Pietro Paolo Galeotto has
executed recently in the medals of Duke Cosimo, and they are these;
Pisa restored almost to her pristine condition by means of the Duke,
he having drained the country round and dried the marshy places, and
having made many other improvements; the waters conducted to Florence
from various places, the ornate and magnificent building of the
Magistrates erected for the public convenience, the union of the
States of Florence and Siena, the building of a city and two
fortresses in Elba, the column conveyed from Rome and placed on the
Piazza di S. Trinita in Florence, the preservation, completion and
enlargement of the Library of S. Lorenzo for the public good, the
foundation of the Order of the Knights of S. Stephen, the resignation
of the government to the Prince, the fortifying of the State, the
militia or trained companies of his dominion, and the Pitti Palace
with its gardens, waters, and buildings, a work of such regal
magnificence; of which reverses I do not give here either the
lettering that they have around them, or their explanation, having to
treat of them in another place. All these twelve reverses are
beautiful to a marvel and executed with much diligence and grace, as
is also the head of the Duke, which is of perfect beauty; and medals
and other works in stucco, likewise, as I have said on another
occasion, are being made of absolute perfection at the present day.
And recently Mario Capocaccia of Ancona has executed with coloured
stucco, in little cases, heads and portraits that are truly most
beautiful; such as a portrait of Pope Pius V, which I saw not long
since, and that of Cardinal Alessandrino. I have seen, also, portraits
of the same kind by the hands of the sons of Polidoro, a painter of
Perugia, which are very beautiful.
But to return to Milan; looking again a year ago over the works of the
sculptor Gobbo, of whom mention has been made in another place, I did
not see anything that was otherwise than ordinary, excepting an Adam
and Eve, a Judith, and a S. Helena, in marble, which are about the
Duomo; with two other statues of dead persons, representing Lodovico,
called Il Moro, and Beatrice his wife, which were to be placed upon a
tomb by the hand of Giovan Jacomo della Porta, sculptor and architect
to the Duomo of Milan, who in his youth executed many works under the
said Gobbo; and those named above, which were to go on that tomb, are
wrought with a high finish. The same Giovan Jacomo has executed many
beautiful works for the Certosa of Pavia, and in particular on the
tomb of the Conte di Virtù and on the façade of the church. From him
one his nephew learned his art, by name Guglielmo, who in Milan, about
the year 1530, applied himself with much study to copying the works of
Leonardo da Vinci, which gave him very great assistance. Whereupon he
went with Giovan Jacomo to Genoa, when in the year 1531 the latter was
invited to execute the sepulchre of S. John the Baptist, and he
devoted himself with great study to design under Perino del Vaga; and,
not therefore abandoning sculpture, he made one of the sixteen
pedestals that are in that sepulchre, on which account, it being seen
that he was acquitting himself very well, he was commissioned to make
all the others. Next, he executed two Angels in marble, which are in
the Company of S. Giovanni; and for the Bishop of Servega he made two
portraits in marble, and a Moses larger than life, which was placed in
the Church of S. Lorenzo. And then, after he had made a Ceres of
marble that was placed over the door of the house of Ansaldo Grimaldi,
he executed for placing over the Gate of the Cazzuola, in that city, a
statue of S. Catharine of the size of life; and after that the three
Graces, with four little boys, of marble, which were sent into
Flanders to the Grand Equerry of the Emperor Charles V, together with
another Ceres of the size of life.
[Illustration: EVE
(_After =Cristofano Solari=. Milan: Duomo_)
_Brogi_]
Having executed these works in six years, Guglielmo in the year 1537
made his way to Rome, where he was much recommended by his uncle
Giovan Jacomo to the painter Fra Sebastiano Viniziano, his friend, to
the end that he might recommend him, as he did, to Michelagnolo
Buonarroti. Which Michelagnolo, seeing Guglielmo to be spirited and
very assiduous in labouring, began to conceive an affection for him,
and, before any other thing, caused him to restore some antique things
in the Farnese Palace, in which he acquitted himself in such a manner,
that Michelagnolo put him into the service of the Pope. Another proof
of his powers had been seen already in a tomb that he had executed at
the Botteghe Scure, for the most part of metal, for Bishop Sulisse,
with many figures and scenes in low-relief--namely, the Cardinal
Virtues and others, wrought with much grace, and besides these the
figure of the Bishop himself, which afterwards went to Salamanca in
Spain. Now, while Guglielmo was engaged in restoring the statues,
which are now in the loggia that is before the upper hall in the
Farnese Palace, there took place in the year 1547 the death of Fra
Sebastiano Viniziano, who, as has been told, had administered the
office of the Piombo. Whereupon Guglielmo, with the favour of
Michelagnolo and of others, so wrought upon the Pope, that he obtained
the said office of the Piombo, with the charge of executing the tomb
of Pope Paul III, which was to be placed in S. Pietro. For this he
availed himself in the model, with better design, of the scenes and
figures of the Theological and Cardinal Virtues that he had made for
the above-named Bishop Sulisse, placing at the corners four children
in four partitions, and four cartouches, and making in addition a
bronze statue of the said Pontiff seated, giving the benediction;
which statue was seventeen palms high. But doubting, on account of the
size of the casting, lest the metal might grow cold and the work
therefore not succeed, he placed the metal in the vessel below, in
such a way that it might be gradually sucked upwards. And with this
unusual method that casting came out very well, and as clean as the
wax, so that the very surface that came from the fire had no need at
all to be polished, as may be seen from the statue itself, which was
placed below the first arches that support the tribune of the new S.
Pietro. On this tomb, which according to a design by his hand was to
be isolated, were to be placed four figures, which he executed in
marble with beautiful inventions according as he was directed by M.
Annibale Caro, who had the charge of this from the Pope and Cardinal
Farnese. One was Justice, which is a nude figure lying upon some
draperies, with the belt of the sword across the breast, and the sword
hidden; in one hand she has the fasces of consular jurisdiction, and
in the other a flame of fire, and she is young in countenance, and has
the hair plaited, the nose aquiline, and the aspect full of
expression. The second was Prudence in the form of a matron, young in
aspect, with a mirror in the hand, and a closed book, and partly nude,
partly draped. The third was Abundance, a young woman crowned with
ears of corn, with a horn of plenty in one hand and the ancient
corn-measure in the other, and clothed in such a manner as to show the
nude beneath the draperies. The fourth and last was Peace, who is a
matron with a boy that has lost his eyes, and with the Caduceus of
Mercury. He made, likewise, a scene also of metal and after the
directions of the above-named Caro, which was to be placed in the
work, with two River Gods, one representing a lake and the other a
river that is in the domains of the Farnesi; and, besides all these
things, there was to be there a mount covered with lilies, and with
the rainbow of Iris. But the whole was not afterwards carried into
execution, for the reasons that have been given in the Life of
Michelagnolo. It may be believed that even as these parts are in
themselves beautiful and wrought with much judgment, so they would
have succeeded as a whole together; and yet it is the air of the
piazza[15] which gives the true light and enables us to form a correct
judgment of a work.
[Footnote 15: See last line on p. 112.]
[Illustration: TOMB OF POPE PAUL III
(_After =Guglielmo della Porta=. Rome: S. Peter's_)
_Alinari_]
The same Fra Guglielmo has executed during a period of many years
fourteen stories of the life of Christ, for casting in bronze; each of
which is four palms in breadth and six in height, excepting only one,
which is twelve palms high and six broad, wherein is the Nativity of
Jesus Christ, with most beautiful fantasies of figures. In the other
thirteen are, Mary going with the Infant Christ on the ass to
Jerusalem, with two figures in strong relief, and many in half-relief
and low-relief; the Last Supper, with thirteen figures well composed,
and a very rich building; the Washing of the Disciples' feet; the
Prayer in the Garden, with five figures, and at the foot a multitude
of great variety; Christ led before Annas, with six large figures,
many lower down, and one in the distance; the Scourging at the Column,
the Crowning with Thorns, the "Ecce Homo," Pilate washing his hands;
Christ bearing the Cross, with fifteen figures, and others in the
distance, going to Mount Calvary; Christ Crucified, with eighteen
figures; and Christ taken down from the Cross. All which scenes, if
they were cast, would form a very rare work, seeing that they have
been wrought with much study and labour. Pope Pius IV had intended to
have them executed for one of the doors of S. Pietro, but he had not
time, being overtaken by death. Recently Fra Guglielmo has executed
models in wax for three altars in S. Pietro; Christ taken down from
the Cross, Peter receiving the Keys of the Church, and the Coming of
the Holy Spirit, which would all be beautiful scenes.
In short, this man has had, and still has, the greatest opportunities
to exert himself and to execute works, seeing that the office of the
Piombo gives such a revenue that the holder can study and labour for
glory, which he who has not such advantages is not able to do; and yet
Fra Guglielmo has executed no finished work between 1547 and this year
of 1567. But it is the characteristic of those who hold that office to
become sluggish and indolent; and that this is true, a proof is that
this Guglielmo, before he became Friar of the Piombo, executed many
heads in marble and other works, besides those that we have mentioned.
It is true, indeed, that he has made four great Prophets in stucco,
which are in the niches between the pilasters of the first great arch
of S. Pietro. He also occupied himself much with the cars for the
feast of Testaccio and other masquerades, which were held now many
years ago in Rome.
A pupil of this master has been one Guglielmo Tedesco, who, among
other works, has executed a very rich and beautiful ornamentation of
little statues in bronze, imitated from the best antiques, for a
cabinet of wood (so it is called) which the Count of Pitigliano
presented to the Lord Duke Cosimo. Which little figures are these; the
horse of the Campidoglio, those of Monte Cavallo, the Farnese figures
of Hercules, the Antinous and the Apollo of the Belvedere, and the
heads of the Twelve Emperors, with others, all well wrought and very
similar to the originals.
Milan has also had another sculptor, dead this year, called Tommaso
Porta, who worked marble excellently well, and in particular
counterfeited antique heads in marble, which have been sold as
antiques; and masks he made so well that in them no one has equalled
him, of which I have one in marble by his hand, placed on the
chimney-piece of my house at Arezzo, which everyone takes for an
antique. This Tommaso made the heads of the Twelve Emperors in marble,
the size of life, which were the rarest things. These Pope Julius III
took, making him a present of an office of a hundred crowns a year in
the Segnatura; and he kept the heads I know not how many months in his
chamber, as choice things. But by the agency (so it is believed) of
the above-named Fra Guglielmo and others who were jealous of him, such
measures were taken against him, that, with no regard for the dignity
of the gift bestowed upon him by that Pontiff, they were sent back to
his house; where they were afterwards bought from him on better terms
by merchants, and then sent to Spain. Not one of our imitators of
antiques was superior to this Tommaso, of whom it has seemed to me
right that record should be made, and the rather as he has passed to a
better life, leaving name and fame for his ability.
Many works, likewise, have been executed in Rome by one Leonardo, a
Milanese, who has made recently two statues of marble, S. Peter and S.
Paul, for the Chapel of Cardinal Giovanni Riccio da Montepulciano,
which are much extolled and held to be good and beautiful figures. And
the sculptors Jacopo and Tommaso Casignuola have made in the Chapel of
the Caraffi, in the Church of the Minerva, the tomb of Pope Paul IV,
and, besides other ornaments, a statue formed of pieces which
represents that Pope, with a mantle of veined brocatello marble, and
the trimming and other things of veined marbles of various colours,
which render it marvellous. And so we see added to the other
industries of our modern intellects this new one, and that sculptors
proceed with colours in their sculpture to imitate painting. Which
tomb has been executed by means of the great saintliness, goodness and
gratitude of Pope Pius V, a Pontiff and Holy Father truly most
saintly, most blessed, and most worthy of long life.
Of Nanni di Baccio Bigio, a Florentine sculptor, besides what has been
said of him in other places, I have to record that in his youth, under
Raffaello da Montelupo, he applied himself in such a manner to
sculpture, that in some little things that he did in marble he gave
great promise that he would prove to be an able man. And having gone
to Rome, under the sculptor Lorenzetto, while he gave his attention as
his father had done also to architecture, he executed the statue of
Pope Clement VII, which is in the choir of the Minerva, and a Pietà of
marble, copied from that of Michelagnolo, which was placed in S. Maria
de Anima, the Church of the Germans, as a work that is truly very
beautiful. Another like it he made not long afterwards for Luigi del
Riccio, a Florentine merchant, which is now in S. Spirito at Florence,
in a chapel of that Luigi, who is no less extolled for such piety
towards his native city than is Nanni for having executed the statue
with much diligence and love. Nanni then applied himself under Antonio
da San Gallo with more study to architecture, and gave his attention,
while Antonio was alive, to the fabric of S. Pietro; where, falling
from a staging sixty braccia high, and shattering himself, he escaped
with his life by a miracle. Nanni has erected many edifices in Rome
and in the country round, and has sought to obtain even more, and
greater, as has been told in the Life of Michelagnolo. His work, also,
is the Palace of Cardinal Montepulciano on the Strada Giulia, and a
gate at Monte Sansovino built by order of Julius III, with a reservoir
for water that is not finished, and a loggia and other apartments of
the palace formerly built by the old Cardinal di Monte. And a work of
Nanni, likewise, is the house of the Mattei, with many other buildings
that have been erected or are still being constructed in Rome.
A famous and most celebrated architect, also, among others of the
present day, is Galeazzo Alessi of Perugia, who, serving in his youth
the Cardinal of Rimini, whose chamberlain he became, executed among
his first works, at the desire of that lord, the rebuilding of the
apartments in the Fortress of Perugia, with so many conveniences and
such beauty, that for a place so small it was a marvel, and many times
already they have accommodated the Pope with all his Court. Then,
after many other works that he executed for the said Cardinal, he was
invited by the Genoese with much honour into the service of that
Republic, for which the first work that he did was to restore and
fortify the port and the mole; nay rather, to make it almost entirely
different from what it was before. For, reaching out over a good space
into the sea, he caused to be constructed a great and most beautiful
port, which lies in a semicircle, very ornate with rustic columns and
with niches about them, at the extremities of which semicircle there
meet two little bastions, which defend that great port. On the piazza,
then, above the mole and at the back of the great port, towards the
city, he made a very large portico of the Doric Order, which
accommodates the Guard, and over it, comprising all the space that it
covers and likewise the two bastions and the gate, there is left a
platform arranged for the operations of artillery, which commands the
mole in the manner of a cavalier and defends the port both within and
without. And besides this, which is finished, arrangements are being
made for the enlargement of the city after his design, and his model
has already been approved by the Signoria; and all with much praise
for Galeazzo, who in these and other works has shown himself to be a
most ingenious architect. The same Galeazzo has executed the new
street of Genoa, with so many palaces built in the modern manner after
his designs, that many declare that in no other city of Italy is there
to be found a street more magnificent and grand than that one, nor one
more full of the richest palaces, all built by those Signori with the
persuasion and directions of Galeazzo, to whom all confess that they
owe a very great obligation, in that he has been the inventor and
executor of works which render their city, with regard to edifices,
incomparably more grand and magnificent than it was before. The same
master has built other streets without Genoa, and among others that
which starts from Ponte Decimo on the way to Lombardy. He has restored
the walls of the city towards the sea, and the fabric of the Duomo,
making therein the tribune and the cupola; and he has built, also,
many private edifices, such as the country palace of Messer Luca
Giustiniano, that of Signor Ottaviano Grimaldi, the Palaces of two
Doges, one for Signor Battista Grimaldi, and many others of which
there is no need to speak.
[Illustration: PALAZZO GRIMALDI
(_After =Galeazzo Alessi=. Genoa_)
_Alinari_]