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LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO
VASARI:
VOLUME X. BRONZINO TO VASARI & GENERAL INDEX 1915
NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED
ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES
[Illustration: 1511-1574]
PHILIP LEE WARNER, PUBLISHER TO THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LIMITED 7 GRAFTON
ST. LONDON, W. 1912-15
CONTENTS OF VOLUME X
PAGE
ACADEMICIANS OF DESIGN, PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS 3
DESCRIPTION OF THE FESTIVE PREPARATIONS FOR THE NUPTIALS
OF THE PRINCE DON FRANCESCO OF TUSCANY 37
GIORGIO VASARI 171
INDEX OF NAMES 227
GENERAL INDEX, VOLUMES I TO X 233
ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME X
PLATES IN MONOCHROME
FACING PAGE
AGNOLO BRONZINO
Bartolommeo Panciatichi
Florence: Uffizi, 159 4
AGNOLO BRONZINO
Eleanora de Toledo and her Son
Florence: Uffizi, 172 6
AGNOLO BRONZINO
Christ in Limbo
Florence: Uffizi, 1271 8
ALESSANDRO ALLORI
Giuliano de' Medici
Florence: Uffizi, 193 12
BENVENUTO CELLINI
Perseus
Florence: Loggia de' Lanzi 22
GIOVANNI BOLOGNA
Fountain of Neptune
Bologna 24
GIOVANNI BOLOGNA
Mercury
Florence: Museo Nazionale 26
VINCENZIO DANTI
The Brazen Serpent
Florence: Museo Nazionale 28
VINCENZIO DANTI
Bronze Relief
Florence: Museo Nazionale 30
GIORGIO VASARI
Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Ambassadors
Florence: Palazzo Vecchio 208
GIORGIO VASARI
Fresco in the Hall of Lorenzo the Magnificent
Florence: Palazzo Vecchio 214
OF THE ACADEMICIANS OF DESIGN, PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS, AND
OF THEIR WORKS, AND FIRST OF BRONZINO
Having written hitherto of the lives and works of the most excellent
painters, sculptors, and architects, from Cimabue down to the present
day, who have passed to a better life, and having spoken with the
opportunities that came to me of many still living, it now remains that
I say something of the craftsmen of our Academy of Florence, of whom up
to this point I have not had occasion to speak at sufficient length. And
beginning with the oldest and most important, I shall speak first of
Agnolo, called Bronzino, a Florentine painter truly most rare and worthy
of all praise.
Agnolo, then, having been many years with Pontormo, as has been told,
caught his manner so well, and so imitated his works, that their
pictures have been taken very often one for the other, so similar they
were for a time. And certainly it is a marvel how Bronzino learned the
manner of Pontormo so well, for the reason that Jacopo was rather
strange and shy than otherwise even with his dearest disciples, being
such that he would never let anyone see his works save when completely
finished. But notwithstanding this, so great were the patience and
lovingness of Agnolo towards Pontormo, that he was forced always to look
kindly upon him, and to love him as a son. The first works of account
that Bronzino executed, while still a young man, were in the Certosa of
Florence, over a door that leads from the great cloister into the
chapter-house, on two arches, one within and the other without. On that
without is a Pieta, with two Angels, in fresco, and on that within is a
nude S. Laurence upon the gridiron, painted in oil-colours on the wall;
which works were a good earnest of the excellence that has been seen
since in the works of this painter in his mature years. In the Chapel of
Lodovico Capponi, in S. Felicita at Florence, Bronzino, as has been said
in another place, painted two Evangelists in two round pictures in oils,
and on the vaulting he executed some figures in colour. In the Abbey of
the Black Friars at Florence, in the upper cloister, he painted in
fresco a story from the life of S. Benedict, when he throws himself
naked on the thorns, which is a very good picture. In the garden of the
Sisters called the Poverine, he painted in fresco a most beautiful
tabernacle, wherein is Christ appearing to the Magdalene in the form of
a gardener. And in S. Trinita, likewise in Florence, may be seen a
picture in oils by the same hand, on the first pilaster at the right
hand, of the Dead Christ, Our Lady, S. John, and S. Mary Magdalene,
executed with much diligence and in a beautiful manner. And during that
time when he executed these works, he also painted many portraits of
various persons, and other pictures, which gave him a great name.
[Illustration: BARTOLOMMEO PANCIATICHI
(_After the painting by =Angelo Bronzino=. Florence: Uffizi, 159_)
_Alinari_]
Then, the siege of Florence being ended and the settlement made, he
went, as has been told elsewhere, to Pesaro, where under the protection
of Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, besides the above-mentioned
harpsichord-case full of figures, which was a rare thing, he executed
the portrait of that lord and one of a daughter of Matteo Sofferoni,
which was a truly beautiful picture and much extolled. He also executed
at the Imperiale, a villa of the said Duke, some figures in oils on the
spandrels of a vault; and more of these he would have done if he had not
been recalled to Florence by his master, Jacopo Pontormo, that he might
assist him to finish the Hall of Poggio a Caiano. And having arrived in
Florence, he painted as it were by way of pastime, for Messer Giovanni
de Statis, Auditor to Duke Alessandro, a little picture of Our Lady
which was a much extolled work, and shortly afterwards, for Monsignor
Giovio, his friend, the portrait of Andrea Doria; and for Bartolommeo
Bettini, to fill certain lunettes in a chamber, the portraits of Dante,
Petrarca, and Boccaccio, half-length figures of great beauty. Which
pictures finished, he made portraits of Bonaccorso Pinadori, Ugolino
Martelli, Messer Lorenzo Lenzi, now Bishop of Fermo, and Pier Antonio
Bandini and his wife, with so many others, that it would be a long work
to seek to make mention of them all; let it suffice that they were all
very natural, executed with incredible diligence, and finished so well,
that nothing more could be desired. For Bartolommeo Panciatichi he
painted two large pictures of Our Lady, with other figures, beautiful to
a marvel and executed with infinite diligence, and, besides these,
portraits of him and his wife, so natural that they seem truly alive,
and nothing is wanting in them save breath. For the same man he has
painted a picture of Christ on the Cross, which is executed with much
study and pains, insomuch that it is clearly evident that he copied it
from a real dead body fixed on a cross, such is the supreme excellence
and perfection of every part. For Matteo Strozzi he painted in fresco,
in a tabernacle at his villa of S. Casciano, a Pieta with some Angels,
which was a very beautiful work. For Filippo d' Averardo Salviati he
executed a Nativity of Christ in a small picture with little figures, of
such beauty that it has no equal, as everyone knows, that work being now
in engraving; and for Maestro Francesco Montevarchi, a most excellent
physicist, he painted a very beautiful picture of Our Lady and some
other little pictures full of grace. And he assisted his master
Pontormo, as was said above, to execute the work of Careggi, whereon the
spandrels of the vaults he painted with his own hand five figures,
Fortune, Fame, Peace, Justice, and Prudence, with some children, all
wrought excellently well.
Duke Alessandro being then dead and Cosimo elected, Bronzino assisted
the same Pontormo in the work of the Loggia of Castello. For the
nuptials of the most illustrious Lady, Leonora di Toledo, the wife of
Duke Cosimo, he painted two scenes in chiaroscuro in the court of the
Medici Palace, and on the base that supported the horse made by Tribolo,
as was related, some stories of the actions of Signor Giovanni de'
Medici, in imitation of bronze; all which were the best pictures that
were executed in those festive preparations. Wherefore the Duke, having
recognized the ability of this man, caused him to set his hand to
adorning a chapel of no great size in the Ducal Palace for the said Lady
Duchess, a woman of true worth, if ever any woman was, and for her
infinite merits worthy of eternal praise. In that chapel Bronzino made
on the vault some compartments with very beautiful children and four
figures, each of which has the feet turned towards the walls--S.
Francis, S. Jerome, S. Michelagnolo, and S. John; all executed with the
greatest diligence and lovingness. And on the three walls, two of which
are broken by the door and the window, he painted three stories of
Moses, one on each wall. Where the door is, he painted the story of the
snakes or serpents raining down upon the people, with many beautiful
considerations in figures bitten by them, some of whom are dying, some
are dead, and others, gazing on the Brazen Serpent, are being healed. On
another wall, that of the window, is the Rain of Manna; and on the
unbroken wall the Passing of the Red Sea, and the Submersion of Pharaoh;
which scene has been printed in engraving at Antwerp. In a word, this
work, executed as it is in fresco, has no equal, and is painted with the
greatest possible diligence and study. In the altar-picture of this
chapel, painted in oils, which was placed over the altar, was Christ
taken down from the Cross, in the lap of His Mother; but it was removed
from there by Duke Cosimo for sending as a present, as a very rare work,
to Granvella, who was once the greatest man about the person of the
Emperor Charles V. In place of that altar-piece the same master has
painted another like it, which was set over the altar between two
pictures not less beautiful than the altar-piece, in which pictures are
the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin receiving from him the Annunciation;
but instead of these, when the first altar-picture was removed, there
were a S. John the Baptist and a S. Cosimo, which were placed in the
guardaroba when the Lady Duchess, having changed her mind, caused the
other two to be painted.
[Illustration: ELEANORA DE TOLEDO AND HER SON
(_After the painting by =Angelo Bronzino=. Florence: Uffizi, 172_)
_Alinari_]
The Lord Duke, having seen from these and other works the excellence of
this painter, and that it was his particular and peculiar field to
portray from life with the greatest diligence that could be imagined,
caused him to paint a portrait of himself, at that time a young man,
fully clad in bright armour, and with one hand upon his helmet; in
another picture the Lady Duchess, his consort, and in yet another
picture the Lord Don Francesco, their son and Prince of Florence. And no
long time passed before he portrayed the same Lady Duchess once again,
to do her pleasure, in a different manner from the first, with the
Lord Don Giovanni, her son, beside her. He also made a portrait of La
Bia, a young girl, the natural daughter of the Duke; and afterwards all
the Duke's children, some for the first time and others for the
second--the Lady Donna Maria, a very tall and truly beautiful girl, the
Prince Don Francesco, the Lord Don Giovanni, Don Garzia, and Don
Ernando, in a number of pictures which are all in the guardaroba of his
Excellency, together with the portraits of Don Francesco di Toledo,
Signora Maria, mother of the Duke, and Ercole II, Duke of Ferrara, with
many others. About the same time, also, he executed in the Palace for
the Carnival, two years in succession, two scenic settings and
prospect-views for comedies, which were held to be very beautiful. And
he painted a picture of singular beauty that was sent to King Francis in
France, wherein was a nude Venus, with a Cupid who was kissing her, and
Pleasure on one side with Play and other Loves, and on the other side
Fraud and Jealousy and other passions of love. The Lord Duke had caused
to be begun by Pontormo the cartoons of the tapestries in silk and gold
for the Sala del Consiglio de' Dugento; and, having had two stories of
the Hebrew Joseph executed by the said Pontormo, and one by Salviati, he
gave orders that Bronzino should do the rest. Whereupon he executed
fourteen pieces with the excellence and perfection which everyone knows
who has seen them; but since this was an excessive labour for Bronzino,
who was losing too much time thereby, he availed himself in the greater
part of these cartoons, himself making the designs, of Raffaello dal
Colle, the painter of Borgo a San Sepolcro, who acquitted himself
excellently well.
Now Giovanni Zanchini had built a chapel very rich in carved stone, with
his family tombs in marble, opposite to the Chapel of the Dini in S.
Croce at Florence, on the front wall, on the left hand as one enters the
church by the central door; and he allotted the altar-piece to Bronzino,
to the end that he might paint in it Christ descended into the Limbo of
Hell in order to deliver the Holy Fathers. Agnolo, then, having set his
hand to it, executed that work with the utmost possible diligence that
one can use who desires to acquire glory by such a labour; wherefore
there are in it most beautiful nudes, men, women, and children, young
and old, with different features and attitudes, and portraits of men
that are very natural, among which are Jacopo da Pontormo, Giovan
Battista Gello, a passing famous Academician of Florence, and the
painter Bacchiacca, of whom we have spoken above. And among the women he
portrayed there two noble and truly most beautiful young women of
Florence, worthy of eternal praise and memory for their incredible
beauty and virtue, Madonna Costanza da Sommaia, wife of Giovan Battista
Doni, who is still living, and Madonna Camilla Tedaldi del Corno, who
has now passed to a better life. Not long afterwards he executed another
large and very beautiful altar-picture of the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ, which was placed in the Chapel of Jacopo and Filippo Guadagni
beside the choir in the Church of the Servites--that is, the Nunziata.
And at this same time he painted the altar-piece that was placed in the
chapel of the Palace, whence there had been removed that which was sent
to Granvella; which altar-piece is certainly a most beautiful picture,
and worthy of that place. Bronzino then painted for Signor Alamanno
Salviati a Venus with a Satyr beside her, so beautiful as to appear in
truth Venus Goddess of Beauty.
[Illustration: CHRIST IN LIMBO
(_After the panel by =Angelo Bronzino=. Florence: Uffizi, 1271_)
_Anderson_]
Having then gone to Pisa, whither he was summoned by the Duke, he
executed some portraits for his Excellency; and for Luca Martini, who
was very much his friend, and not of him only, but also attached with
true affection to all men of talent, he painted a very beautiful picture
of Our Lady, in which he portrayed that Luca with a basket of fruits,
from his having been the minister and proveditor for the said Lord Duke
in the draining of the marshes and other waters that rendered unhealthy
the country round Pisa, and for having made it in consequence fertile
and abundant in fruits. Nor did Bronzino depart from Pisa before there
was allotted to him at the instance of Martini, by Raffaello del
Setaiuolo, the Warden of Works of the Duomo, the altar-picture for one
of the chapels in that Duomo, wherein he painted a nude Christ with the
Cross, and about Him many Saints, among whom is a S. Bartholomew flayed,
which has the appearance of a true anatomical subject and of a man
flayed in reality, so natural it is and imitated with such diligence
from an anatomical subject. That altar-picture, which is beautiful in
every part, was placed, as I have said, in a chapel from which they
removed another by the hand of Benedetto da Pescia, a disciple of
Giulio Romano. Bronzino then made for Duke Cosimo a full-length portrait
of the dwarf Morgante, nude, and in two ways--namely, on one side of the
picture the front, and on the other the back, with the bizarre and
monstrous members which that dwarf has; which picture, of its kind, is
beautiful and marvellous. For Ser Carlo Gherardi of Pistoia, who from
his youth was a friend of Bronzino, he executed at various times,
besides the portrait of Ser Carlo himself, a very beautiful Judith
placing the head of Holofernes in a basket, and on the cover that
protects that picture, in the manner of a mirror, a Prudence looking at
herself; and for the same man a picture of Our Lady, which is one of the
most beautiful things that he has ever done, because it has
extraordinary design and relief. And the same Bronzino executed the
portrait of the Duke when his Excellency was come to the age of forty,
and also that of the Lady Duchess, both of which are as good likenesses
as could be. After Giovan Battista Cavalcanti had caused a chapel to be
built in S. Spirito, at Florence, with most beautiful variegated marbles
conveyed from beyond the sea at very great cost, and had laid there the
remains of his father Tommaso, he had the head and bust of the father
executed by Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, and the altar-piece Bronzino
painted, depicting in it Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the form
of a gardener, and more distant two other Maries, all figures executed
with incredible diligence.
Jacopo da Pontormo having left unfinished at his death the chapel in S.
Lorenzo, and the Lord Duke having ordained that Bronzino should complete
it, he finished in the part where the Deluge is many nudes that were
wanting at the foot, and gave perfection to that part, and in the other,
where at the foot of the Resurrection of the Dead many figures were
wanting over a space about one braccio in height and as wide as the
whole wall, he painted them all in the manner wherein they are to be
seen, very beautiful; and between the windows, at the foot, in a space
that remained there unpainted, he depicted a nude S. Laurence upon a
gridiron, with some little Angels about him. In that whole work he
demonstrated that he had executed his paintings in that place with much
better judgment than his master Pontormo had shown in his pictures in
the work; the portrait of which Pontormo Bronzino painted with his own
hand in a corner of that chapel, on the right hand of the S. Laurence.
The Duke then gave orders to Bronzino that he should execute two large
altar-pictures, one containing a Deposition of Christ from the Cross
with a good number of figures, for sending to Porto Ferraio in the
Island of Elba, for the Convent of the Frati Zoccolanti, built by his
Excellency in the city of Cosmopolis; and another altar-piece, in which
Bronzino painted the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the new
Church of the Knights of S. Stephen, which has since been built in Pisa,
together with their Palace and Hospital, after the designs and
directions of Giorgio Vasari. Both these pictures have been finished
with such art, diligence, design, invention, and supreme loveliness of
colouring, that it would not be possible to go further; and no less,
indeed, was required in a church erected by so great a Prince, who has
founded and endowed that Order of Knights.
On some little panels made of sheet-tin, and all of one same size, the
same Bronzino has painted all the great men of the House of Medici,
beginning with Giovanni di Bicci and the elder Cosimo down to the Queen
of France, in that line, and in the other from Lorenzo, the brother of
the elder Cosimo, down to Duke Cosimo and his children; all which
portraits are set in order behind the door of a little study that Vasari
has caused to be made in the apartment of new rooms in the Ducal Palace,
wherein is a great number of antique statues of marble and bronzes and
little modern pictures, the rarest miniatures, and an infinity of medals
in gold, silver, and bronze, arranged in very beautiful order. These
portraits of the illustrious men of the House of Medici are all natural
and vivacious, and most faithful likenesses.
It is a notable thing that whereas many are wont in their last years to
do less well than they have done in the past, Bronzino does as well and
even better now than when he was in the flower of his manhood, as the
works demonstrate that he is executing every day. Not long ago he
painted for Don Silvano Razzi, a Camaldolite monk in the Monastery of
the Angeli at Florence, who is much his friend, a picture about one
braccio and a half high of a S. Catharine, so beautiful and well
executed, that it is not inferior to any other picture by the hand of
this noble craftsman; insomuch that nothing seems to be wanting in her
save the spirit and that voice which confounded the tyrant and confessed
Christ her well-beloved spouse even to the last breath; and that father,
like the truly gentle spirit that he is, has nothing that he esteems and
holds in price more than that picture. Agnolo made a portrait of the
Cardinal, Don Giovanni de' Medici, the son of Duke Cosimo, which was
sent to the Court of the Emperor for Queen Joanna; and afterwards that
of the Lord Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, which was a picture very
like the reality, and executed with such diligence that it has the
appearance of a miniature. For the nuptials of Queen Joanna of Austria,
wife of that Prince, he painted in three large canvases which were
placed at the Ponte alla Carraia, as will be described at the end, some
scenes of the Nuptials of Hymen, of such beauty that they appeared not
things for a festival, but worthy to be set in some honourable place for
ever, so finished they were and executed with such diligence. For the
same Lord Prince he painted a few months ago a small picture with little
figures which has no equal, and it may be said that it is truly a
miniature. And since at this his present age of sixty-five he is no less
enamoured of the matters of art than he was as a young man, he has
undertaken recently, according to the wishes of the Duke, to execute two
scenes in fresco on the wall beside the organ in the Church of S.
Lorenzo, in which there is not a doubt that he will prove the excellent
Bronzino that he has always been.
This master has delighted much, and still delights, in poetry; wherefore
he has written many capitoli and sonnets, part of which have been
printed. But above all, with regard to poetry, he is marvellous in the
style of his capitoli after the manner of Berni, insomuch that at the
present day there is no one who writes better in that kind of verse, nor
things more fanciful and bizarre, as will be seen one day if all his
works, as is believed and hoped, come to be printed. Bronzino has been
and still is most gentle and a very courteous friend, agreeable in his
conversation and in all his affairs, and much honoured; and as loving
and liberal with his possessions as a noble craftsman such as he is
could well be. He has been peaceful by nature, and has never done an
injury to any man, and he has always loved all able men in his
profession, as I know, who have maintained a strait friendship with him
for three-and-forty years, that is, from 1524 down to the present year,
ever since I began to know and to love him in that year of 1524, when he
was working at the Certosa with Pontormo, whose works I used as a youth
to go to draw in that place.
[Illustration: GIULIANO DE' MEDICI
(_After the painting by =Alessandro Allori=. Florence: Uffizi, 193_)
_Alinari_]
Many have been the pupils and disciples of Bronzino, but the first (to
speak now of our Academicians) is Alessandro Allori, who has been loved
always by his master, not as a disciple, but as his own son, and they
have lived and still live together with the same love, one for another,
that there is between a good father and his son. Alessandro has shown in
many pictures and portraits that he has executed up to his present age
of thirty, that he is a worthy disciple of so great a master, and that
he is seeking by diligence and continual study to arrive at that rarest
perfection which is desired by beautiful and exalted intellects. He has
painted and executed all with his own hand the Chapel of the Montaguti
in the Church of the Nunziata--namely, the altar-piece in oils, and the
walls and vaulting in fresco. In the altar-piece is Christ on high, and
the Madonna, in the act of judging, with many figures in various
attitudes and executed very well, copied from the Judgment of
Michelagnolo Buonarroti. About that altar-piece, on the same wall, are
four large figures in the forms of Prophets, or rather, Evangelists, two
above and two below; and on the vaulting are some Sibyls and Prophets
executed with great pains, study, and diligence, he having sought in the
nudes to imitate Michelagnolo. On the wall which is at the left hand
looking towards the altar, is Christ as a boy disputing in the midst of
the Doctors in the Temple; which boy is seen in a fine attitude
answering their questions, and the Doctors, and others who are there
listening attentively to him, are all different in features, attitudes,
and vestments, and among them are portraits from life of many of
Alessandro's friends, which are good likenesses. Opposite to that, on
the other wall, is Christ driving from the Temple those who with their
buying and selling were making it a house of traffic and a market-place;
with many things worthy of consideration and praise. Over those two
scenes are some stories of the Madonna, and on the vaulting figures
that are of no great size, but passing graceful; with some buildings and
landscapes, which in their essence show the love that he bears to art,
and how he seeks the perfection of design and invention. And opposite to
the altar-piece, on high, is a story of Ezekiel, when he saw a great
multitude of bones reclothe themselves with flesh and take to themselves
their members; in which this young man has demonstrated how much he
desires to master the anatomy of the human body, and how he has studied
it and given it his attention. And, in truth, in this his first work of
importance, as also in the nuptials of his Highness, with figures in
relief and stories in painting, he has proved himself and given great
signs and promise, as he continues to do, that he is like to become an
excellent painter; and not in this only, but in some other smaller
works, and recently in a small picture full of little figures in the
manner of miniature, which he has executed for Don Francesco, Prince of
Florence, a much-extolled work; and other pictures and portraits he has
painted with great study and diligence, in order to become practised and
to acquire a grand manner.
Another young man, likewise a pupil of Bronzino and one of our
Academicians, called Giovan Maria Butteri, has shown good mastery and
much dexterity in what he did, besides many other smaller pictures and
other works, for the obsequies of Michelagnolo and for the coming of the
above-named most illustrious Queen Joanna to Florence.
And another disciple, first of Pontormo and then of Bronzino, has been
Cristofano dell' Altissimo, a painter, who, after having executed in his
youth many pictures in oils and some portraits, was sent by the Lord
Duke Cosimo to Como, to copy many pictures of illustrious persons in the
Museum of Monsignor Giovio, out of the vast number which that man, so
distinguished in our times, collected in that place. Many others, also,
the Lord Duke has obtained by the labours of Vasari; and of all these
portraits a list[1] will be made in the index of this book, in order not
to occupy too much space in this discourse. In the work of these
portraits Cristofano has exerted himself with such diligence and pains,
that those which he has copied up to the present day, and which are in
three friezes in a guardaroba of the said Lord Duke, as will be
described elsewhere in speaking of the decorations of that place, are
more than two hundred and eighty in number, what with Pontiffs,
Emperors, Kings, Princes, Captains of armies, men of letters, and, in
short, all men for some reason illustrious and renowned. And, to tell
the truth, we owe a great obligation to this zeal and diligence of
Giovio and of the Duke, for the reason that not only the apartments of
Princes, but also those of many private persons, are now being adorned
with portraits of one or other of those illustrious men, according to
the country, family, and particular affection of each person.
Cristofano, then, having established himself in this manner of painting,
which is suited to his genius, or rather, inclination, has done little
else, as one who is certain to derive from it honour and profit in
abundance.
[Footnote 1: Given in the original Italian edition of 1568.]
Pupils of Bronzino, also, are Stefano Pieri and Lorenzo della Sciorina,
who have so acquitted themselves, both the one and the other, in the
obsequies of Michelagnolo and in the nuptials of his Highness, that they
have been admitted among the number of our Academicians.
From the same school of Pontormo and Bronzino has issued also Battista
Naldini, of whom we have spoken in another place. This Battista, after
the death of Pontormo, having been some time in Rome and having applied
himself with much study to art, has made much proficience and become a
bold and well-practised painter, as many works demonstrate that he has
executed for the very reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, who has made
great use of him and assisted him, together with Francesco da Poppi, a
young man of great promise and one of our Academicians, who has
acquitted himself well in the nuptials of his Highness, and other young
men, whom Don Vincenzio is continually employing and assisting. Of this
Battista, Vasari has made use for more than two years, as he still does,
in the works of the Ducal Palace of Florence, where, by the emulation of
many others who were working in the same place, he has made much
progress, insomuch that at the present day he is equal to any other
young man of our Academy; and that which much pleases those who are good
judges is that he is expeditious, and does his work without effort.
Battista has painted in an altar-picture in oils that is in a chapel of
the Black Friars' Abbey of Florence, a Christ who is bearing the Cross,
in which work are many good figures; and he has other works constantly
in hand, which will make him known as an able man.
Not inferior to any of these named above in talent, art, and merit, is
Maso Manzuoli, called Maso da San Friano, a young man of about thirty or
thirty-two years, who had his first principles from Pier Francesco di
Jacopo di Sandro, one of our Academicians, of whom we have spoken in
another place. This Maso, I say, besides having shown how much he knows
and how much may be expected of him in many pictures and smaller
paintings, has demonstrated this recently in two altar-pictures with
much honour to himself and full satisfaction to everyone, having
displayed in them invention, design, manner, grace, and unity in the
colouring. In one of these altar-pieces, which is in the Church of S.
Apostolo at Florence, is the Nativity of Jesus Christ, and in the other,
which is placed in the Church of S. Pietro Maggiore, and is as beautiful
as an old and well-practised master could have made it, is the
Visitation of Our Lady to S. Elizabeth, executed with judgment and with
many fine considerations, insomuch that the heads, the draperies, the
attitudes, the buildings, and all the other parts are full of loveliness
and grace. This man acquitted himself with no ordinary excellence in the
obsequies of Buonarroti, as an Academician and very loving, and then in
some scenes for the nuptials of Queen Joanna.
Now, since not only in the Life of Ridolfo Ghirlandajo I have spoken of
his disciple Michele and of Carlo da Loro, but also in other places, I
shall say nothing more of them here, although they are of our Academy,
enough having been said of them. But I will not omit to tell that other
disciples and pupils of Ghirlandajo have been Andrea del Minga, likewise
one of our Academicians, who has executed many works, as he still does;
Girolamo di Francesco Crocifissaio, a young man of twenty-six, and
Mirabello di Salincorno, both painters, who have done and continue to do
such works of painting in oils and in fresco, and also portraits, that a
most honourable result may be expected from them. These two executed
together, now several years ago, some pictures in fresco in the Church
of the Capuchins without Florence, which are passing good; and in the
obsequies of Michelagnolo and the above-mentioned nuptials, also they
did themselves much honour. Mirabello has painted many portraits, and in
particular that of the most illustrious Prince more than once, and many
others that are in the hands of various gentlemen of Florence.
Another, also, who has done much honour to our Academy and to himself,
is Federigo di Lamberto of Amsterdam, a Fleming, the son-in-law of the
Paduan Cartaro, working in the said obsequies and in the festive
preparations for the nuptials of the Prince, and besides this he has
shown in many pictures painted in oils, both large and small, and in
other works that he has executed, a good manner and good design and
judgment. And if he has merited praise up to the present, he will merit
even more in the future, for he is labouring constantly with much
advantage in Florence, which he appears to have chosen as his country,
that city being one where young men derive much benefit from competition
and emulation.
A beautiful genius, also, universal and abundant in fine fantasies, has
been shown by Bernardo Timante Buontalenti, who had his first principles
of painting in his youth from Vasari, and then, continuing, has made so
much proficiency that he has now served for many years, and still serves
with much favour, the most illustrious Lord Don Francesco de' Medici,
Prince of Florence. That lord has kept him continually at work; and he
has executed for his Excellency many works in miniature after the manner
of Don Giulio Clovio, such as many portraits and scenes with little
figures, painted with much diligence. The same Bernardo has made with a
beautiful architectural design, by order of the said Prince, a cabinet
with compartments of ebony and columns of heliotrope, oriental jasper,
and lapis-lazuli, which have bases and capitals of chased silver; and
besides this he has filled the whole surface of the work with jewels and
most lovely ornaments of silver and beautiful little figures, within
which ornaments are to be miniatures, and, between terminals placed in
pairs, figures of silver and gold in the round, separated by other
compartments of agate, jasper, heliotrope, sardonyx, cornelian, and
others of the finest stones, to describe all which here would make a
very long story. It is enough that in this work, which is near
completion, Bernardo has displayed a most beautiful genius, equal to any
work. Thus that lord makes use of him for many ingenious fantasies of
his own of cords for drawing weights, of windlasses, and of lines;
besides that he has discovered a method of fusing rock-crystal with ease
and of purifying it, and has made with it scenes and vases of several
colours; for Bernardo occupies himself with everything. This, also, will
be seen in a short time in the making of vases of porcelain with all the
perfection of the most ancient and most perfect; in which at the present
day a most excellent master is Giulio da Urbino, who is in the service
of the most illustrious Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara, and does stupendous
things in the way of vases with several kinds of clay, and to those in
porcelain he gives the most beautiful shapes, besides fashioning with
the same earth little squares, octagons, and rounds, hard and with an
extraordinary polish, for making pavements counterfeiting the appearance
of variegated marbles; of all which things our Prince has the methods of
making them. His Excellency has also caused a beginning to be made with
the executing of a study-table with precious stones, richly adorned, as
an accompaniment to another belonging to his father, Duke Cosimo. And
not long ago he had one finished after the design of Vasari, which is a
rare work, being of oriental alabaster all inlaid with great pieces of
jasper, heliotrope, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, and agate, with other
stones and jewels of price that are worth twenty thousand crowns. This
study-table has been executed by Bernardino di Porfirio of Leccio in the
neighbourhood of Florence, who is excellent in such work, and who made
for Messer Bindo Altoviti an octagon of ebony and ivory inlaid likewise
with jaspers, after the design of the same Vasari; which Bernardino is
now in the service of their Excellencies. But to return to Bernardo: in
painting, also, beyond the expectation of many, he showed that he is
able to execute large figures no less well than the small, when he
painted for the obsequies of Michelagnolo that great canvas of which we
have spoken. Bernardo was employed, also, with much credit to him, for
the nuptials of his and our Prince, in certain masquerades, in the
Triumph of Dreams, as will be told, and in the interludes of the comedy
that was performed in the Palace, as has been described exhaustively by
others. And if this man, when he was a youth (although even now he is
not past thirty), had given his attention to the studies of art as he
gave it to the methods of fortification, in which he spent no little
time, he would be perchance now at such a height of excellence as would
astonish everyone; none the less, it is believed that he is bound for
all that to achieve the same end, although something later, for the
reason that he is all genius and art, to which is added this also, that
he is continually employed and exercised by his sovereign, and in the
most honourable works.
Of our Academy, also, is Giovanni della Strada, a Fleming, who has good
design, the finest fantasy, much invention, and a good manner of
colouring; and, having made much proficience during the ten years that
he has worked in the Palace in distemper, fresco, and oils, after the
designs and directions of Giorgio Vasari, he can bear comparison with
any of the many painters that the said Lord Duke has in his service. But
at the present day the principal task of this man is to make cartoons
for various arras-tapestries that the Duke and the Prince are having
executed, likewise under the direction of Vasari, of divers kinds in
accordance with the stories in painting that are on high in the rooms
and chambers painted by Vasari in the Palace, for the adornment of which
they are being made, to the end that the embellishment of tapestries
below may correspond to the pictures above. For the chambers of Saturn,
Ops, Ceres, Jove, and Hercules, he has made most lovely cartoons for
about thirty pieces of tapestry; and for the upper chambers where the
Princess has her habitation, which are four, dedicated to the virtues of
woman, with stories of Roman, Hebrew, Greek, and Tuscan women (namely,
the Sabines, Esther, Penelope, and Gualdrada), he has made, likewise,
very beautiful cartoons for tapestries. In like manner, he has done the
same for ten pieces of tapestry in a hall, in which is the Life of Man;
and also for the five lower rooms where the Prince dwells, dedicated to
David, Solomon, Cyrus, and others. And for twenty rooms in the Palace of
Poggio a Caiano, for which the tapestries are even now being woven, he
has made after the inventions of the Duke cartoons of the hunting of
every kind of animal, and the methods of fowling and fishing, with the
strangest and most beautiful inventions in the world; in which variety
of animals, birds, fishes, landscapes, and vestments, with huntsmen on
foot and on horseback, fowlers in various habits, and nude fishermen, he
has shown and still shows that he is a truly able man, and that he has
learned well the Italian manner, being minded to live and die in
Florence in the service of his most illustrious lords, in company with
Vasari and the other Academicians.
Another pupil of Vasari, likewise, and also an Academician, is Jacopo di
Maestro Piero Zucca, a young Florentine of twenty-five or twenty-six
years, who, having assisted Vasari to execute the greater part of the
works in the Palace, and in particular the ceiling of the Great Hall,
has made so much proficience in design and in the handling of colours,
labouring with much industry, study, and assiduity, that he can now be
numbered among the first of the young painters in our Academy. And the
works that he has done by himself alone in the obsequies of
Michelagnolo, in the nuptials of the most illustrious Lord Prince, and
at other times for various friends, in which he has shown intelligence,
boldness, diligence, grace, and good judgment, have made him known as a
gifted youth and an able painter; but even more will those make him
known that may be expected from him in the future, doing as much honour
to his country as has been done to her by any painter at any time.
In like manner, among other young painters of the Academy, Santi Titi
may be called ingenious and able, who, as has been told in other places,
after having practised for many years in Rome, has returned finally to
enjoy Florence, which he regards as his country, although his elders are
of Borgo a San Sepolcro and of a passing good family in that city. This
Santi acquitted himself truly excellently in the works that he executed
for the obsequies of Buonarroti and the above-mentioned nuptials of the
most illustrious Princess, but even more, after great and almost
incredible labours, in the scenes that he painted in the theatre which
he made for the same nuptials on the Piazza di S. Lorenzo, for the most
illustrious Lord Paolo Giordano Orsino, Duke of Bracciano; wherein he
painted in chiaroscuro, on several immense pieces of canvas, stories of
the actions of various illustrious men of the Orsini family. But how
able he is can be perceived best from two altar-pieces by his hand that
are to be seen, one of which is in Ognissanti, or rather, S. Salvadore
di Fiorenza (as it is now called), once the church of the Padri
Umiliati, and now of the Zoccolanti, and contains the Madonna on high
and at the foot S. John, S. Jerome, and other Saints; and in the other,
which is in S. Giuseppe, behind S. Croce, in the Chapel of the Guardi,
is a Nativity of Our Lord executed with much diligence, with many
portraits from life. Not to speak of many pictures of Our Lady and
various portraits that he has painted in Rome and in Florence, and
pictures executed in the Vatican, as has been related above.
There are also certain other young painters of the same Academy who have
been employed in the above-mentioned decorations, some of Florence and
some of the Florentine States. Alessandro del Barbiere, a young
Florentine of twenty-five, besides many other works, painted for the
said nuptials in the Palace, after the designs and directions of Vasari,
the canvases of the walls in the Great Hall, wherein were depicted the
squares of all the cities in the dominion of the Lord Duke; in which he
certainly acquitted himself very well, and proved himself a young man of
judgment and likely to achieve any success. In like manner, Vasari has
been assisted in these and other works by many other disciples and
friends; Domenico Benci, Alessandro Fortori of Arezzo, his cousin
Stefano Veltroni, and Orazio Porta, both of Monte Sansovino, and Tommaso
del Verrocchio.
In the same Academy there are also many excellent craftsmen who are
strangers, of whom we have spoken at length in various places above; and
therefore it shall suffice here to make known their names, to the end
that they may be numbered in this part among the other Academicians.
These, then, are Federigo Zucchero; Prospero Fontana and Lorenzo
Sabatini, of Bologna; Marco da Faenza, Tiziano Vecelli, Paolo Veronese,
Giuseppe Salviati, Tintoretto, Alessandro Vittoria, the sculptor Danese,
the painter Battista Farinato of Verona, and the architect Andrea
Palladio.