Octavianus, Cardinal, _227_.

Oil;

linseed, 230, 234;

walnut, 230, 236.

Oil colour, for printing from wood blocks, 283.

Oil painting, 225, 226 f.;

its first discovery, 226;

its artistic advantages, 230;

on stone, 55, 239.

Olmo, by Castello, 88.

Orders of Architecture, 63;

Composite, 80 f.;

Corinthian, 79 f.;

Doric, 68 f.;

Ionic, 78 f.;

Italic, 82;

Latin, 82;

Rustic, 65 f.;

Tuscan, 65 f., _132_.

Oseri, Osoli, the river, 50, _126_.

Pacheco, _7_;

on tempera, _292_.

Painting:

definition of, 208:

comparison of with sculpture, _179_:

history of, _225_, 226 f., _287_, _290_, _292_, _294_ f.:

Florentine and Italian compared with modern, _208_:

Greek, _239_:

painting grounds;

canvas, 236 f.;

glass, 267 f., _308_ f.;

ivory, _190_;

panels, 223 f., 230, 237;

plaster, 221 f., 223, _287_ ff.;

stone, 55, 239:

materials, _225_,

and ‘Introduction’ to Painting, _passim_:

pigments, 221, 224, 242:

processes;

encaustic, _190_, _292_;

fresco, _4_, _10_, _19_, 221 f., _287_ f.;

oil, _10_, _19_, 226 ff., _294_ f.;

tempera, _19_, 223 f., 240 f., _291_ f.

Palazzo;

dei Diamanti, Ferrara, _132_;

see also ‘Florence,’ ‘Rome,’ etc.

Palermo, Cathedral, _111_.

Palissy, _139_.

Palladio, _66_.

Palmo, as measure of length, viii.

Palomino, _7_.

Panels;

as painting grounds, 223 f., 230, 237;

disadvantages of, _237_, 239;

woods used for, _237_.

Paragon (touchstone), 42 f., _104_, _117_ f.

Parione, see ‘Rome.’

Paris;

as an art centre, 21;

Sainte Chapelle, _311_.

Parthenon, sculpture of, _183_, _199_.

Pasiteles, _194_.

Pastes;

coloured for rustic work, 89;

for first priming of canvas, 236.

Pastorino of Siena, _189_.

Patina, artificial;

for bronze, 166;

for silver, _273_.

Paul;

II, _40_;

III, _40_, _108_, _260_;

V, _39_.

Pavements;

breccia, 261;

mosaic, 90 f., 258;

tiled, 90, 260.

Paxes, 274 f.

Pear-tree wood, for wood-cuts, 281.

Pedestals, to columns; 65, 75, 78, 79, 82;

architectural use of them, _75_.

Pentelicus, Mount, quarries at, _44_, _194_.

Peperigno, Peperino, _51_, 55, 238.

‘Per forza di levare,’ ‘per via di porre’ (methods of sculpture), _179_

f., _197_ f.

Pergamon, smaller frieze from altar base, _197_.

Perino del Vaga, _14_, _53_.

‘Perseus,’ by Cellini, _164_, _201_ f.

Perspective, its study, _12_, _264_.

Perspectives, 214, _264_, _305_.

Perugino, Pietro, 230.

Peruzzi, _78_.

Petersburg, St., _304_.

Petrarch, figure of in tarsia, _307_.

Pheidias, _11_, _181_, _186_.

Piè di Lupo (Lugo), 87 f.

Piece-mould, 158 f., _202_.

Pier Maria da Pescia, _112_.

Pietà;

by Donatello, _156_;

by Michelangelo, _153_.

Pietra forte, 57, 60 f.

Pietra del fossato (fossataccio), 58.

Pietra morta, _57_.

Pietra serena, 57 f.

Pietrasanta, 46, 50, _120_ f., 261.

Pigments; 221, 224, 230, 242;

for glass-painting, 269, _310_.

Pinturicchio, _303_.

Piombino, _127_.

Piperno, see ‘Peperigno.’

Pisa:

Duke Cosimo’s care for, 50 f., _126_:

Baptistry, _41_:

Camposanto, 50:

Duomo; 50, 252;

‘Cimabue’ at, _252_.

Pisan mountains, _50_, _126_.

Pisano, Nicola, _197_.

Pistolesi, _Il Vaticano Descritto_, _53_, _108_.

Pius;

IV, _110_;

VI, _27_, _108_, _109_.

Plaster work, see ‘Stucco.’

Plato, _Sophist_, _181_.

Pliny, _Historia Naturalis_, _34_, _35_, _44_, _51_, _91_, _93_, _101_,

_117_, _225_, _236_, _237_, _273_, _291_.

Podium, of Roman temples, _75_, _78_.

Pointing machine, _191_.

Pola, arch at, 79.

Polishing;

breccias, 38;

bronze, 165;

enamels, 278;

marble mosaics, 260;

marble, statuary, 45, 47, 49, 152, _153_;

niellos, 274;

pietra serena, 58;

porphyry, 31, 34;

stucco, _171_;

‘touchstones,’ 42 f.

Pollaiuolo, A., _199_, _275_.

Polvaccio quarry, 46, _120_.

Pompeian;

style in ornament, _302_;

wall paintings, _225_.

Pomponius Gauricus, _199_.

Popes, see the individual names, ‘Clement,’ etc.

Porphyry; 26 ff., 101 ff.;

green, at S. Nicola in Carcere, Rome, _28_.

Porta, Giacomo della, _52_.

Portinari, the, 227 f.

‘Pot-metal,’ _270_, _311_.

Potters’;

clay, 240;

‘soap,’ _277_.

Pouncing, as method of transfer, _289_.

Pozzuoli, Pozzuolo, 66, _303_.

Prato, 42, _127_.

Praxiteles; 180;

his ‘Hermes,’ _44_.

Presses, decorated, _305_.

Primaticcio, _171_, _183_.

Priming, directions for, 230 ff.

‘Prisoners,’ porphyry figures in Boboli Gardens, 29.

Probert, _History of Miniature Art_, _190_.

_Proceedings_ of Huguenot Society, _189_.

Proportions of the human figure, 146, _180_ f.

Pulvinated frieze, 79.

Pumice stone, for polishing;

bronze, 165;

marble, 49, 152;

niellos, 274.

‘Puntelli,’ for measuring statues, _194_.

_Quellenschriften_, the Vienna, _2_, _6_, _92_.

Rabelais, his Abbey of Theleme, _139_.

Raffaello da Urbino, see ‘Raphael.’

_Ragionamenti_, see ‘Vasari, his writings.’

Rags covered with clay, for drapery, 150, 208.

Raimondi, Marc Antonio, _274_, _275_.

Raphael; _14_, _15_, _134_, _188_, 220, 230, 260;

the _Report_ on Roman Monuments, _134_.

Ravello, _111_.

Ravenna;

mosaics, 252;

stuccoes in Baptistry, _301_.

Recipes: _6_, _20_:

black;

filling for marble monochromes, 260;

for niellos, 274;

for transferring, 215:

bronzes and metal alloys, 163:

keeping clay soft, 150:

core for a bronze casting, 159:

‘egg-shell’ mosaic, _137_:

enamels, fluxes for, _277_:

envelope for a bronze casting, 161, 166:

gesso, ‘grosso’ and ‘sottile,’ _249_:

gilding, 248 f.:

glass;

gilding, 254;

painting on (burnt in), 269, _310_, (unburnt), 267;

yellow stain for, 270, _311_:

ink, drawing, 213:

preparing mosaic cubes, _254_:

mucilages, 173, 213:

oil paint, mixing, 230, _295_ f.:

patina, artificial;

for bronze, 166;

for silver, _273_:

priming, 230 ff.:

polishing, see ‘Polishing’:

retouching media for fresco, 222, _289_:

sgraffito, 243 f.:

stone, painting on, 238:

stucco;

for enriched vaults and ‘grotesques,’ 86, 170;

for setting glass mosaic, 255 f., _256_;

for setting mosaic pavements, 92;

for preparing a wall for oil painting, 232 f.;

retarding its setting, _150_:

temperas, for painting, 224, _293_ f.;

for decorative painting, etc., 240 f.:

tempering-baths for steel, 30, 32, _112_:

tiles, variegated, 260:

‘verdaccio,’ _242_:

vitreous pastes, coloured, _311_:

preparing walls for oil painting, 232 f.:

wax;

for bronze casting, 160;

for coloured effigies, _189_;

for modelling, 148:

white lime, (bianco Sangiovanni) _221_:

colouring woods for tarsia work, 262 f.

Reliefs;

origin of, 154;

influence of painting and perspective on, _196_ f.;

terminology of, _154_;

antique, 154, _196_;

flat (stiacciati), 156 f.;

low (bassi), 156;

pictorial or perspective, 154 f., _196_ f.;

in cast bronze, _197_ f.;

in baked clay, _197_ f.;

in marble, _197_ f.;

in metal repoussé, _198_;

Andrea Pisano’s, _199_;

Donatello’s, 156, _196_;

Etruscan, _197_;

Ghiberti’s, _196_;

Greek, _197_ f.;

Hellenistic, _197_, _301_;

mediaeval, _196_, _199_;

Roman, _197_.

St. Rémy, tomb of Julii at, _197_.

Renaissance;

the, _7_, _11_, _21_;

the man of the, _138_;

marbles, _153_;

the ‘proto-,’ _197_.

Repetti, _Dizionario_, _118_, _119_ f.

Repoussé process, _179_, _198_.

Restoration of antiques, _106_, _107_, _116_.

Retouching, on frescoes, 222, _289_.

Ring, the, at Vienna, _56_.

Robbia, della;

the, _114_, _260_;

Luca, _182_.

Robinson, G. T., _3_, _150_.

Rocaille, Rococo, style, _18_, 87, _89_.

Rocco, S., statue of, _18_, 174.

Roger, ‘of Bruges,’ ‘of Brussels,’ ‘van der Weyden,’ 227, _236_.

Romans, the;

their bronzes, _164_;

their reliefs, _197_;

their use of rustication, _132_;

their wooden stamps for bricks, _275_.

Rome:

Arch;

of Septimius Severus, _76_;

of Titus, 82, _184_, _197_;

Arco dei Pantani, _132_:

S. Angelo, Castle of, 260:

Basilica;

Aemilia, _76_;

of Constantine, _79_:

Bocca della Verità, _76_:

Campo;

di Fiore, 78, _299_;

Vaccino, _76_:

Capitol, _81_:

Carcer Mamertinus, _76_:

Churches;

S. Bernardo, _130_;

Ss. Cosma e Damiano, 52;

S. Costanza, _27_, _252_;

S. Giovanni in Laterano, 27;

S. Luigi dei Francesi, _41_, 52, _54_, _175_;

S. Marco, 39;

S. Maria,

(in Araceli) _76_,

(Maggiore) _79_,

(del Popolo) _267_,

(Sopra Minerva) _44_;

S. Nicola in Carcere, _28_, _78_;

S. Pietro in Montorio, _234_;

S. Pietro in Vaticano,

(the Constantinian basilica) 39, 263, _310_,

(the present church) _28_, _39_, 54, 81, 86, _217_;

S. Pietro in Vincola, 39, _40_;

S. Salvadore del Lauro, 39;

S. Stefano, _40_;

S. Tommaso in Parione, _103_:

Colosseum, 51, _53_, 74, 82:

Column;

of Marcus Aurelius, _183_ f.;

of Trajan, _183_ f.:

Corso Vittorio Emanuele, _103_, _105_:

Forum;

of Augustus, _132_;

Boarium, 76;

Olitorium, _78_;

Romanum, _49_, _76_;

Trajanic, _41_, _185_:

Monte Cavallo, Colossi of, 44:

Museum, Terme, _301_:

Palazzo;

dei Conservatori, _81_;

Farnese, 28, 53, 78, 81, _104_, _131_;

la Valle, 28;

Madama, _52_, _131_;

Massimi, _298_;

Ricci, _298_;

Spada, _299_:

Pantheon, _28_, 41, 79, 80:

Parione, 42, 93, _102_:

Piazza;

Campo di Fiore, 78, _299_;

Farnese, _40_;

S. Luigi dei Francesi, _128_ f.;

di S. Marco, _40_;

dei Massimi, _298_;

Navona, _52_, _102_;

della Rotonda, 27, _28_:

Plan of Rome, _105_:

Ritonda, Rotonda, see ‘Pantheon’:

Temple;

of Bacchus, 27, 93;

of Peace, 79:

Templum Sacrae Urbis, _52_:

Theatre;

of Marcellus, 76, 79;

of Pompeius, _102_:

Thermae;

of Agrippa, _106_;

of Caracalla, _110_;

of Constantine, _44_;

of Diocletian, _130_;

of Nero, _41_, _130_;

of Titus, _108_, _302_:

Tombs on Via Latina, _301_:

Torre Pignattara, _27_:

‘Treasury,’ the, 52:

Tullianum, 76:

Vatican;

Appartamento Borgia, _53_, _260_, _303_;

Belvedere, Cortile di, 36, 44, _108_, _115_ f.;

Braccio Nuovo, _116_;

Chapel of Nicholas V, _234_;

coloured windows, _266_;

Museo Pio-Clementino, _108_;

Museum of Sculpture, _115_;

Sala di Costantino, _233_;

Sala a Croce Greca, _27_, _116_;

Sala Regia, _53_, _267_;

Sala Rotonda, _32_, _108_;

Sistine Chapel, _53_, _216_:

Via;

de’ Banchi Vecchi, _299_;

del Governo Vecchio, _103_;

Latina, _301_;

Maschera d’Oro, _298_, _299_;

Parione, _103_;

Pellegrino, _298_:

Villa;

Farnesina, _171_, _301_;

Madama, _89_;

Medici, _40_, _105_, _107_, _109_;

Papa Giulio, _108_:

Wall of Servius Tullius, _55_.

Royal Institute of British Architects, _Transactions_ of, _29_, _35_,

_38_, _101_, _102_, _265_.

Ruby red, in glass, _270_.

Rucellai, the family, _30_.

Runkelstein, Schloss, _227_.

Rustication, rustic work, 52, _56_, _65_, 67, _87_, _132_.

Rye dough, mixed with plaster to retard its setting, _150_.

Salamander, carved, at S. Luigi, Rome, _130_ f.

‘Saligni’ marbles, 45, 50.

Salting collection, _189_.

Salviati, Francesco, _311_.

San Gallo;

Antonio da, 53, 76;

Giuliano da, _76_.

Sansovino, Jacopo, 56.

Sarcophagi, Sarcophagus;

of Hadrian, _28_;

the Marsuppini, _16_;

of the Medici, _112_;

of Nectanebes I, _38_;

at Palermo, _111_;

Roman, _197_;

of L. C. Scipio Barbatus, _55_;

of Piero Soderini, 42, _118_;

in Sala a Croce Greca, Vatican, 27, _109_.

Sassi, the family, _102_ f.

Sasso, Egidio e Fabio, 28, 93, _102_ f.

Scaling, of glass, 270.

_Schedula Diversarum Artium_, see ‘Theophilus.’

Schools of Art, _22_, _199_.

Science and Art Department, _22_.

Scopas, his sculpture at Tegea, _184_.

Sculpture:

its nature and conditions, 143 f., _179–188_:

compared with painting, _179_:

processes of, 148–153, _190–195_:

use of drawing in, 207:

imitated in painting, 240 f.:

relief sculpture, see ‘Reliefs’:

in bronze;

beaten, _179_, 198;

cast, _4_, _7_, _18_, 158 f., _199_ f.;

chased, 276, _313_;

stamped, 167 f.:

in free stone, 52, 59, 61, _131_, _299_:

in marble; 43 f.;

technique of, 48, 151 f.:

in porphyry and hard materials, 33, 42, _110_ f., 117 f., 174:

in wood, 173 f.

Seccatives, 230.

Semper, Gottfried, _244_, _303_.

Seravezza, 46, 50, _120_ f.

Serpentine, 35, _113_, _118_, _127_.

Sgraffiato, _243_.

Sgraffito, _19_, 243 f., _298_ f.

‘Sicilian’ marble, _49_.

Siena;

Duomo, pavement in, _94_, 258;

Baptistry, Donatello’s relief in, _196_.

Silio, a white wood, 263.

Silver;

as ground for enamels, _276_ f.;

for glass staining, _270_, _311_;

for niello work, 273;

work, antique, _273_.

Sixtus IV, _53_.

Size;

meaning of the word, _248_;

in grounds for gilding, _248_, 249;

as priming, 224, 230, 237, 238;

as a tempera, 222, _223_, 224, 241, _242_, _289_, _294_.

Sketches, 212.

Slate, 54, _238_.

‘Slave,’ the, of the Louvre, _195_.

‘Smerigli’ (emery veins), 47.

Soderini, Piero, his tomb, 42, _118_.

Springer, Anton, _112_.

Stalactites, 87 f.

Stamps, wooden, for bricks, _275_.

Stazzema, _125_, 261.

Steel, damascened, 279.

Stemmi, _61_, _299_.

‘Stiacciato’ relief, 156, _182_.

Stockholm;

Museum at, _30_;

Parliament buildings at, _72_.

Stone;

its hardening by exposure, _26_, 41;

as painting ground, 55, 238;

and _passim_.

Stucco; _171_;

antique, _287_;

as fresco ground, _288_;

over travertine, 53;

enriched vaults in, 85;

(recipes) 86;

modelled and stamped enrichments and grotesques (recipes), 170 f.,

244 f., _299_ ff.;

for fixing panels of slate, 239;

for preparing a wall for oil paint (recipes), 232, 234;

for piece-moulding, 158;

for rustic grottoes, etc., 89 f.;

for setting marble mosaic pavements (recipe), 92;

for setting glass mosaics, 255;

for sgraffito-work (recipe), 243.

Stylus, use of the;

in niello work, 273;

for sharpening lines in tempera, _293_;

in sgraffito-work, 243;

for transferring, 215, 231, _289_.

‘Subbia’ (tool for stone-working), 48, 152.

Sulphur;

in amalgam for niellos, _274_;

for casting niellos, 275.

Symonds, J. A., his translation of Michelangelo, _180_.

Tadda, Francesco del, 32 f., _66_, _110_ ff.

Targioni Tozzetti, _Viaggi in Toscana_, _126_.

Tarsia work, _196_, 262 f., _303_ f.

Tausia work, 279.

‘Tedesco,’ its meaning to the Italians, _134_.

Tempera;

meanings of the term, _223_;

advantages of tempera process, 224, _291_ f.;

its disadvantages, _293_ f.;

see also ‘Painting, tempera.’

Terminal figures, 82.

Terni, _88_.

‘Terre da Campane,’ _230_.

Teverone, the, 51, 79, 87.

Text, Vasari’s printed, possible mistakes in, viii, _79_, _88_, _228_,

_276_, _283_.

Theophilus, his _Schedula_, _6_, _8_, _20_, _92_, _173_, _268_, _270_,

_271_, _276_, _280_, _284_, _295_.

Theophrastus, Περὶ Λίθων, _34_, _117_.

Theseum, sculpture of, _184_.

‘Three block’ wood engraving, 281 f.

‘Tiber,’ statue of the, 36, _44_, _116_.

‘Tigris,’ statue of the, _36_, _116_.

Tiles, glazed, 90, 260.

‘Times, The,’ referred to, _29_.

Tin;

effect of on enamels, _277_, _311_;

as ingredient in bronze, _164_.

Tintoretto, _214_, _234_.

Tivoli, 51, 66, 79, 87, _303_.

Toledo, don Pietro di, 47.

Tools;

for working bronze, 165;

for glass cutting, 269;

for granite, etc., 41;

for marble, 48, 152;

for porphyry, 32;

for wax, 149.

‘Topo,’ a tool, 269.

Torcello, mosaics at, _255_.

‘Torso,’ the, _116_.

Touchstone, see ‘Paragon’;

of Prato, 43.

Trajan, sculpture connected with him, _197_.

_Transactions_, _R.I.B.A._, see ‘Royal Institute of British

Architects.’

Transparency in glass, 267, _308_.

Travertine; 51;

carving in, 52 f., _131_, _299_.

Triangle, equilateral, in Gothic architecture, _135_.

Tribolo, _42_, 88, _260_.

Tripoli earth, for polishing, 153, 278.

Tuscan style, _56_, 87.

Tzetzes, _181_, _186_.

Udine, Giovanni da, 89.

Urns, bathing or sepulchral, see ‘Conche.’

Valle, della;

family, collection, palace, etc., 28, _104_ f.;

Cardinal Andrea, _106_ f.

Varchi, Benedetto, _179_, _197_.

Varnish, 232, 239, 249, _293_, _294_ f., _309_.

‘Vasajo,’ origin of Vasari family name, _156_.

Vasari, the family, _156_.

Vasari, Giorgio, the elder (‘Vasajo’), _156_ f.

Vasari, Giorgio:

his character and gifts, _4_, _15_ f.:

his life and art, _5_, _7_, 33, 59, _106_, _291_:

his visits, _56_, _103_, _237_:

his method of mural painting in oil, 233 f.:

his writings;

_Letters_, _3_, _6_, _111_;

_Lives of the Artists_, _1_, _2_, _5_, _7_, and _passim_;

_Ragionamenti_, _3_;

Editions of, _1_, _2_, _7_;

Translations of, 2 f.;

Text, printed, possible mistakes in, see ‘Text.’

Vaults;

brick, 86;

stucco, 85, 170;

in St. Peter’s, 54.

Vellino, river, _88_.

Venetians, the, _14_, _212_.

Venice:

colour printing, _281_:

enamels of, _278_:

frescoes at, _234_:

glass work at, 268:

mosaics at, _252_, _254_, _268_:

Ducal Palace, _236_, 237:

Church of S. Marco, _111_, _112_;

mosaics at, _252_:

Library of S. Marco, _56_, _237_:

Palace of S. Marco, see ‘Ducal Palace’:

Panattiera, 56:

Piazza di S. Marco, 56:

Piazzetta, _56_:

Scuola di S. Rocco, _234_:

Zecca (Mint), 56, _65_.

Veniziano, Domenico, 229.

‘Venus’;

crouching, in Louvre, _194_;

Medici, _105_;

of Milo, _195_;

and Cupid, _112_.

‘Verdaccio,’ 242.

‘Verde’;

‘Antico,’ _35_;

‘di Prato,’ _35_, _118_, _127_.

Verdun, _266_.

Verhaecht, _227_.

Verona;

marble, 39;

S. Maria in Organo, _306_.

Verrocchio, _199_;

his ‘Boy with a Dolphin,’ _33_;

his sarcophagus in S. Lorenzo, _112_;

his Colleoni statue, _200_.

Versiglia, the, _125_.

‘Via dei Magistrati,’ see ‘Florence,’ ‘Uffizi.’

Victoria and Albert Museum, _136_, _156_, _189_, _311_, _313_.

Vignola, _81_.

Villa;

Careggi, _33_, 228;

Farnesina, _301_, _171_;

of Hadrian, _303_;

Madama, _89_;

Medici, _40_, _105_, _107_, _109_;

Papa Giulio, _108_;

Poggio Imperiale, _114_.

Villani, _Chronicle_, 34, _35_.

Vitreous pastes, coloured, _277_, _311_ f.

Vitruvius, 25, _51_, _65_, _66_, _68_, 75, 79, 80, _135_, _146_, _171_,

_220_, _225_, _287_, _291_.

Volterra, Daniele da, _53_.

‘Volterrano’ (Volterra gypsum plaster), _249_.

Walnut oil, see ‘Oil, nut.’

Walnut wood;

for carving, 174;

as ground for inlays, 262.

Wax;

its use by the modeller, 148, _188_ f.;

by the bronze founder, 160 f.;

coloured, its preparation and use, 148 f., _188_ f.;

as setting for portable mosaics, _136_.

Westminster Abbey, waxen effigies at, _188_.

Wheel, the, for working hard stones, _112_, 167, 168.

White;

of egg, 234, 249;

for fresco (bianco Sangiovanni), _221_;

lead white (biacca), _221_, 230, 236;

for tempera, 224.

Whitening, _241_, _242_, _294_.

Wilkinson, Sir Gardner, _102_.

Wilson, Charles Heath, _Life of Michelangelo_, _310_.

Winckelmann, _104_.

Wire-drawing plate, 280.

Wolf, porphyry, 28, _107_.

Wood;

carving, 173 f.;

engraving, 281 f.;

inlaying, see ‘Tarsia.’

Yellow stain for glass, 270, _311_.

‘Zeus,’ of Pheidias, _181_.

Zinc, ingredient in bronze, 164.

Zirkel, _Petrographie_, _49_.

Zobi, _Notizie ... dei Lavori ... in Pietre Dure_, _109_, _114_ f.

GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.

LTD.

-----

Footnote 1:

Berenson, _The Drawings of the Florentine Painters_, London, 1903, 1,

p. 18, says that Vasari ‘was an indifferent connoisseur and a poor

historian; but he was a great appreciator ... and a passionate

anecdote-monger. Now the Anecdote must have sharp contrasts....’

Footnote 2:

The materials for our knowledge of Vasari and his works are derived

from his own Autobiography and his notes on himself in the Lives of

other artists, as well as from the _Ragionamenti_ and from the

_Letters_, printed by Milanesi in the eighth volume of the Sansoni

edition of Vasari’s writings, or previously printed by Gaye in the

third volume of the _Carteggio_.

Footnote 3:

Before Vasari published his _Lives_, at least eight editions of

Vitruvius had appeared. The Editio Princeps, ‘curante Jo. Sulpitio

Verulano,’ is believed to have been issued at Rome about 1486, and in

1496 and 1497 reprints were published at Florence and at Venice. In

1511 appeared the important edition, with emendations and

illustrations, by the famous architect Fra Giocondo of Verona, and

this was reprinted in the Giunta edition at Florence in 1513. Other

editions saw the light in 1522, 1523, 1543, and 1550. An Italian

translation was published in 1521, a French one in 1547, and in 1548

one in German. The reverence of the architects of the Renaissance for

Vitruvius was unbounded, and Michelangelo is said to have remarked

that if a man could draw he would be able by the help of Vitruvius to

become a good architect.

Footnote 4:

Leon Battista Alberti shares with Brunelleschi the distinction of

representing in its highest form the artistic culture of the early age

of Humanism. His principal work _De Re Aedificatoria_, or, as it is

also called, _De Architectura_, was published after his death, in

1485. It is divided, like the work of Vitruvius, into ten books, and

is an exceedingly comprehensive treatise on the architectural art both

in theory and practice, and on the position of architecture in

relation to civilization and to society at large. It is written in a

noble and elevated style, and, as the title implies, in Latin. It was

translated into Italian by Bartoli and into English by J. Leoni (three

volumes, folio, 1726). Alberti also wrote shorter tracts on Sculpture

and Painting, as well as other works of a less specially artistic

order.

Footnote 5:

See Note on ‘Porphyry and Porphyry Quarries’ at the close of the

‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 101, and A on the

Frontispiece, which gives representations in colour of the stones

Vasari mentions in these sections, omitting those familiarly known.

Footnote 6:

If a stone be comparatively soft when quarried and become harder after

exposure to the air, this is due to the elimination in the air of

moisture that it held when in the earth. In a dry climate like that of

Egypt there is little or no moisture for stones to hold, and the

Egyptian porphyry, Mr W. Brindley reports, is quite as hard when

freshly quarried as after exposure. Vasari repeats this remark when he

is dealing with granite in § 6, postea, p. 41. He has derived it from

Alberti, who in _De Architectura_, bk. II, ch. vii, notices perfectly

correctly that the question is one of the comparative amount of

moisture in the stone.

Footnote 7:

‘Temple of Bacchus’ was the name given at the Renaissance to the

memorial chapel containing the tomb of Constantia, daughter of

Constantine the Great, on the Via Nomentana close to S. Agnese, and

now known as S. Costanza. The name was suggested by the mosaics with

vintage scenes on the barrel vault of the aisle, which are of great

interest and beauty. In Vasari’s time this still contained the

porphyry sarcophagus where Constantia was laid, and of this he goes on

to speak. In 1788 Pius VI transferred it to his new Sala a Croce Greca

in the Vatican, where it now stands.

Footnote 8:

This is the second of the two vast cubical porphyry sarcophagi in the

Croce Greca, and it is believed that it served once to contain the

mortal remains of Helena, mother of Constantine. It is much finer in

execution than the other, and exhibits a large number of figures in

high relief, though incoherently composed. The subject may be the

victories of Constantine. It was originally in the monument called

‘Torre Pignattara,’ the supposed mausoleum of Helena on the Via

Labicana, and was transported in the twelfth century by Anastatius IV

to the Lateran, whence Pius VI had it transferred to the Vatican. The

restoration of these huge sarcophagi cost an immense amount in money

and time. Massi (_Museo Pio-Clementino_, Roma, 1846, p. 157) states

that the second one absorbed the labour of twenty-five artificers, who

worked at it day and night for the space of nine years. Strzygowski,

_Orient oder Rom_, 1901, notices the sarcophagi.

Footnote 9:

Urns, or, as the Italians called them, ‘conche,’ of porphyry, basalt,

granite and marble existed in great abundance in the Roman Thermae

where they were used for bathing purposes. From the seventh century

onwards the Christians adopted these for sepulchral use and placed

them in the churches, where many of them are still to be seen

(Lanciani, _Storia degli Scavi_, Roma, 1902, I, 3, and Marangoni,

_Delle Cose Gentilesche_, etc., Roma, 1744). Hence Vasari speaks of

the porphyry urn of the Piazza della Rotonda (the Pantheon) as of

sepulchral origin, and it was indeed rumoured to have held the ashes

of Agrippa, and to have stood once on the apex of the pediment of the

Pantheon portico. It was however an ancient bath vessel, and was found

when Eugenius IV, 1431–39, first excavated and paved the piazza in

front of the Pantheon. It was placed with two Egyptian lions in front

of the portico, where it may be seen in the view of the Piazza della

Rotonda in G. F. Falda’s _Vedute delle Fabbriche_, etc., of 1665.

Clement XII, 1730–40, who was a Corsini, had it transported for his

own sepulchre to the Corsini chapel in the Lateran, where it now

stands, with a modern cover. Vasari evidently admired this urn, and he

mentions it again in the life of Antonio Rossellino, where he says of

the sarcophagus of the monument of the Cardinal of Portugal in S.

Miniato, ‘La cassa tiene il garbo di quella di porfido che è in Roma

sulla piazza della Ritonda.’ (_Opere_, ed. Milanesi, III, 95.) See

Lanciani, _Il Pantheon_, etc., Prima Relazione, Roma, 1882, p. 15,

where the older authorities are quoted. Of all the bath vases of this

kind now visible in Rome, the finest known to the writers is the urn

of green porphyry, a rare and beautiful stone, behind the high altar

of S. Nicola in Carcere. It is nearly six ft. long, and on each side

has two Medusa heads in relief worked in the same piece, with the

usual lion’s head on one side at the bottom for egress of water. The

workmanship is superb. It may be noted that the existing baptismal

font in St. Peter’s, in the first chapel on the left on entering, is

the cover of the porphyry sarcophagus of Hadrian turned upside down.

It measures 13 ft. in length by 6 ft. in width.

Footnote 10:

In chapter VI of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 93,

Vasari writes of the ‘casa di Messer Egidio et Fabio Sasso’ as being

‘in Parione.’ See Note at the end of the ‘Introduction’ to

Architecture on ‘The Sassi, della Valle, and other Collections of

Antiques of the early part of the sixteenth century,’ postea, p. 102

f.

Footnote 11:

This is the ‘Apollo’ at Naples, No. 6281. See Note as above.

Footnote 12:

See Note above mentioned.

Footnote 13:

Now lost.

Footnote 14:

Now in the Boboli Gardens at Florence. See Note on the Sassi, etc.,

Collections.

Footnote 15:

See Note on ‘The Revival of Sculpture in Porphyry,’ postea, p. 110 f.

Footnote 16:

Reciprocating saws of the kind Vasari mentions, mostly of soft steel

or iron, and also circular saws, are in use at the present day, the

abrasives being emery, or a new material called ‘carborundum.’ This

consists in minute crystals of intense hardness gained by fusing by an

electric current a mixture of clay and similar substances. See _The

Times_, Engineering Supplement, Oct. 31, 1906.

Footnote 17:

It needs hardly to be said that the ancients had no ‘secrets’ such as

Vasari hints at. Mr W. Brindley believes that the antique methods of

quarrying and working hard stones were ‘precisely the same as our own

were until a few years ago,’ that is to say that the blocks were

detached from the quarry and split with metal wedges, dressed roughly

to shape with large and small picks, and ‘rubbed down with flat stone

rubbers and sand, then polished with bronze or copper rubbers with

emery powder’ (_Transactions_, _R.I.B.A._, 1888, p. 25). At a very

early date in Egyptian history, even before the dynastic period, the

hardest stones (not excepting porphyry) were successfully manipulated,

and vases and bowls of these materials cut with exquisite precision.

Professor Flinders Petrie found evidence that at the epoch of the

great pyramids tubular drills and bronze saws set with gem-stones

(corundum) were employed by the Egyptians in hollowing basalt

sarcophagi and cutting the harder stones (_The Pyramids and Temples of

Ghizeh_, London, 1883, p. 173 f.). There is however no evidence of the

use of these advanced appliances by the Greeks or Romans. It must not

be forgotten that even before the age of metals the neolithic

artificers of western Europe could not only cut and bore, but also

ornament with patterns, stone hammer-heads of the most intractable

materials, with the aid only of pieces of wood twirled or rubbed on

the place and plentifully fed with sand and water. The stone axe- and

hammer-heads so common in pre-historic collections were bored with

tubular drills, made probably from reeds, which cut out a solid core.

Such cores can still be seen in partly-pierced hammer-heads in the

Museum at Stockholm, and elsewhere.

Footnote 18:

Fig. 1 shows the inscription of which Vasari writes and the situation

of it on the riser of the step is seen on Plate II. The porphyry slab

is 3 ft. 5 in. long and 5½ in. high. The tongues at the ends are in

separate pieces. The letters, nineteen not eighteen in number, are

close upon 2 in. in height and are cleanly cut with =V=-shaped

incisions. The illustration shows the form of the letters which Vasari

justly praises. The name ‘Oricellario’ or -us was derived by the

distinguished Florentine family that bore it from the plant Oricello,

orchil, which was employed for making a beautiful purple dye, from the

importation of which from the Levant the family gained wealth and

importance. The shortened popular form of the name ‘Rucellai’ is that

by which the family is familiarly known. Giovanni Rucellai gave a

commission to Alberti to complete the façade of S. Maria Novella,

which was carried out by 1470. The Bernardo Rucellai of the

inscription, the son of Giovanni, was known as a historian, and owned

the gardens where the Platonic Academy had at one time its place of

meeting. Fineschi, in his _Forestiero Istruito in S. Maria Novella_,

Firenze, 1790, says that Bernardo desired to be buried in front of the

church and had the inscription cut for sepulchral purposes. The

existence of sepulchral ‘avelli’ of distinguished Florentine families

at the front of the church makes this seem likely, and in this case

the lettering would be after Alberti’s time, though as Fineschi

believes, the earliest existing work of the kind in hard stone at

Florence. See Rev. J. Wood Brown, _S. Maria Novella_, Edinburgh, 1902,

p. 114.

Footnote 19:

After the fashion of an ordinary carpenter’s ‘brace.’

Footnote 20:

See Note on ‘The Porphyry Tazza of the Sala Rotonda of the Vatican,’

at the close of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 108.

Footnote 21:

See Note at the end of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p.

110 f., on ‘Francesco del Tadda and, the Revival of Sculpture in

Porphyry.’

Footnote 22:

About 4 ft. 9 in. In a letter of May 1557 in Gaye, _Carteggio_, II,

419, Vasari mentions the work as nearly finished.

Footnote 23:

The palace in question is the well-known Palazzo Vecchio at Florence,

which was adapted for the Grand-ducal residence largely by Vasari

himself under the Grand Dukes Cosimo and his successor Francesco. The

fountain is the one at present in the courtyard of the palace,

carrying the beautiful bronze figure of a boy with a dolphin, by

Verrocchio. This ‘putto’ was brought in from the famous Medicean Villa

at Careggi, the seat of the Platonic Academy, for the purpose of

completing the fountain of which Vasari here gives an account. The

porphyry work, both in design and execution, is worthy of the

beautiful bronze that surmounts it. The basin rests on a well-turned

dwarf pillar of porphyry and this on a square base of the same

material. The surfaces are true and the arrises sharp, and the whole

is carried out in a workmanlike manner, and by no means betrays a

‘prentice hand.’

Footnote 24:

See Vasari’s Life of Michelangelo, _Opere_, ed. Milanesi, VII, 260.

Footnote 25:

That is Cosimo ‘Pater Patriae,’ who died at Careggi in 1464. The

portrait in question is shown on Plate III. For what is known about

this and other works by Francesco del Tadda, see postea, p. 113 f.

Footnote 26:

See Note on ‘Porphyry and Porphyry Quarries,’ postea, p. 101.

Footnote 27:

This remark is evidently derived by Vasari from Leon Battista Alberti,

who writes as follows in _De Re Aedificatoria_, Lib. II, ‘At nos de

porphirite lapide compertum habemus non modo flammis non excoqui,

verum et contigua quaeque circumhereant saxa intra fornacem reddere ut

ignibus ne quidquam satis exquoquantur.’ The sense of ‘excoqui’ in

this passage, and of Vasari’s ‘cuocer,’ is somewhat obscure, but can

be interpreted by reference to old writings on stones, in which great

importance is given to their comparative power of resistance to fire.

See Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXVI, 22, etc., etc. Theophrastus, Περὶ

Λίθων, § 4, has the following: ‘Stones have many special

properties ... for some are consumed by fire and others resist it ...

and in respect of the action of the fire and the burning they show

many differences....’ The ‘excoqui’ of Alberti probably refers to the

resistance of porphyry to the fire as compared with the submission to

it of stones like limestone, which are ‘burnt out’ or calcined by the

heat. Vasari’s ‘non si cuoce’ is not an adequate translation of

Alberti’s word ‘_ex_coqui.’ With a blast heat porphyry fuses to a sort

of obsidian or slag, but a moderate heat only causes it to lose its

fine purple hue and become grey. This is the ‘rawness’ implied in

Vasari’s word ‘incrudelisce.’ To us rawness suggests raw meat which is

redder in colour than cooked, but the Italians, who are not great meat

eaters, would have in their minds the action of fire on cakes and

similar comestibles that darken when baked, and an Italian artist

would think too of the action of fire on clay, ‘che viene rossa quando

ella è cotta’ as he says in chapter XXV of the ‘Introduction’ to

Painting. See Frontispiece, where A^1, compared with A, shows the

effect of fire on the stone.

Footnote 28:

The two porphyry columns, that stand one on each side of Ghiberti’s

Old Testament gates at the eastern door of the Baptistry of Florence,

serve to point a moral about the untrustworthiness of popular sayings.

When these apply to monuments it usually happens that the monument

itself hopelessly discredits the saying. The porphyry columns in

question are perfectly normal in colour and show no recognizable trace

of the action of fire. Villani (_Chronicle_, bk. IV, ch. 31) says of

these columns ‘The Pisani sent them to Florence covered with scarlet

cloth, and some said that before they sent them they put them in the

fire for envy.’ If we rationalize a little we can imagine that the

scarlet cloth, the use of which by the Pisans in connection with

porphyry shows a most lamentable absence of taste in colour, would at

first sight seem to take the colour out of the porphyry and make it

look grey through contrast. Hence may have arisen the impression which

gave rise to the saying. Boccaccio, in his commentary on the passage

in Dante (_Inferno_, XV, 67), in which the ‘blindness’ of the

Florentines is referred to, notices this affair of the columns as one

explanation of this accusation against his countrymen.

Footnote 29:

On the subject of serpentine some misapprehension exists.

Mineralogists apply the term to a soft stone of a green hue with long

curling markings through it, which in their form suggest lacertine

creatures and account for the name of the stone. It derives its colour

from the presence of a large percentage of manganese in union with

silica, and contains twelve or so per cent. of water. A penknife

scores it easily. The ‘Verde di Prato,’ a dark stone used in bands on

Tuscan buildings, of which there is question in a subsequent section,

postea, p. 43, is a species of true serpentine.

On the other hand the word ‘serpentine’ is in common use for a dark

green stone of quite a different kind, that occurs very commonly in

ancient Roman tesselated pavements, and it is this false serpentine

that Vasari has in view. It is very hard indeed, and a penknife does

not mark it. Professor Bonney describes it as ‘a somewhat altered

porphyritic basalt,’ and it is full of scattered crystals of a paler

green composed of plagioclasic felspar. These crystals average about

the size of grains of maize and they sometimes cross each other, thus

justifying Vasari’s description of them. A specimen is B, on the

Frontispiece. This stone was found in Egypt, and it is probably the

‘Augustan’ and ‘Tiberian’ stone mentioned by Pliny, _Hist. Nat._,

XXXVI, 7. See _Transactions_, _R.I.B.A._, 1888, p. 9. The chief quarry

of it however was in the Peloponnesus to the south of Sparta, and the

produce of this is called by Pliny, loc. cit., ‘Lacedaemonium viride.’

It should be noted that ‘Verde Antico,’ a green marble of which the

chief quarries are in Thessaly, is distinct from both the true and the

false ‘serpentine.’

Footnote 30:

Cipollaccio. It is not clear what is the difference, if any exist,

between the stone thus called and the ‘Cipollino’ which Vasari

discusses in a later section, postea, p. 49. The latter is a name in

universal employment, but the term ‘Cipollaccio’ is not known to

Cavaliere Marchionni, the courteous Director of the Florentine State

Manufactory of Mosaics, nor is it recognized at Carrara. On the other

hand it is given as the name of a marble in Tomaseo’s _Dizionario_

(though probably only on the strength of this mention in Vasari) and a

stone worker at Settignano claimed to know and use the word. On the

material see the Note on ‘Cipollino,’ postea, p. 49. The terminations

‘-accio’ and ‘-ino’ are dear to the Florentines—Mas_accio_ and

Maso_lino_ will occur to everyone.

Footnote 31:

This is the ‘Cortile di Belvedere’ where the Laocoon and Apollo

Belvedere are located. See Note 30.

Footnote 32:

On Michelangelo’s niche and fountain see the Note on ‘The Cortile of

the Belvedere in the Vatican in the sixteenth century,’ at the end of

the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 115. The ‘river god’ is

the ‘Tigris’ of the Vatican.

Footnote 33:

Vasari’s description of the variegated stones called breccias is clear

and good. Corsi, _Delle Pietre Antiche_, Roma, 1845, p. 139, defines

breccias as ‘marbles formed of numerous fragments of other marbles

either of one colour or of different colours, embedded in a calcareous

cement.’ The mineralogist distinguishes breccias from conglomerates by

the fact that in the former the fragments embedded are angular, in the

latter round like pebbles. The fragments need not be of marble. These

breccias were greatly used at the Renaissance, as Vasari indicates,

for the framing of doorways and for chimney pieces, but it may be

questioned whether they are really suitable for such architectural

use. For door jambs and similar constructive members a self-coloured

stone, with its greater severity of effect, would be preferable. On

the other hand, for panels and inlays and decorative uses generally,

the variegated stones are quite in place. See C, D on the

Frontispiece.

Footnote 34:

See Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries’ postea, p. 119 f.

Footnote 35:

S. Giusto, commonly called S. Giusto a Monte Martiri, lies by Monte

Rantoli, between the valleys of the Ema and Greve, to the south of

Florence.

Footnote 36:

Breccia columns answering to this description are to be seen in the

lower part of the Boboli Gardens to the west of the ‘island basin’

with John of Bologna’s ‘Oceanus.’

Footnote 37:

The Egyptian breccia is found at Hamamat to the east of Luxor. It

consists, Mr Brindley writes, in rich-coloured silicious fragments

cemented together, and is very difficult to work and to polish, ‘owing

to the cementing matrix being frequently harder than the boulders.’

Its general colour is greenish and it is called sometimes ‘Breccia

Verde.’ The most important known work executed in this breccia is the

grand sarcophagus of Nectanebes I, about 378 B.C., now in the British

Museum. It is on the left in the large Hall a little beyond the

Rosetta stone. _Transactions_, _R.I.B.A._, 1888, p. 24 ff.

Footnote 38:

Signor Cornish, the courteous castellan of the Royal Palace, believes

this to be the urn that now serves as the basin of the fountain

surmounted with a figure of the Arno, near the Annalessa gate of the

Boboli Gardens. It has two masks carved on the front, as is common in

antique _conche_ of the kind.

Footnote 39:

On entering the porch or narthex of St. Peter’s by the central

archway, the visitor may note on each side of the external opening a

column of breccia, or strictly speaking of ‘pavonazzetto brecciato,’

over twenty-five feet in height. They are worn, patched, and

discoloured, and evidently come from some earlier building. It can be

reasonably conjectured that these are the two columns to which Vasari

refers, and that they were originally in the old basilica which was

being replaced in Vasari’s time by the existing structure. Vasari

would see them in their original position forming part of the

colonnade between nave and aisles, for the entrance part of the old

Constantinian basilica was still standing in the sixteenth century,

and the columns were only removed to their present position when Paul

V constructed the existing façade at the beginning of the century

following.

Footnote 40:

The familiar red Verona marble is not a true breccia, but a fossil

marble.

Footnote 41:

‘Granite’ is from the Italian ‘granito,’ which means the ‘grained’

stone.

Footnote 42:

The ‘grandissimi vasi de’ bagni,’ to which Vasari here refers, are

those vast granite bath-shaped urns, some twenty feet long, of which

the best known is probably the specimen that stands by the obelisk in

the centre of the amphitheatre of the Boboli Gardens at Florence.

This, with a fellow urn, that stands not far off in the Piazzale della

Meridiana, came from the Villa Medici at Rome, and they may have been

seen in Rome by Vasari before they were placed in that collection. No

such urns are now to be found in or about any of the three churches at

Rome here mentioned by Vasari. Documents however, recently published

in the first volume of Lanciani’s _Storia degli Scavi_, pp. 3–5, show

that there stood formerly in the Piazza S. Salvatore in Lauro, north

west from the Piazza Navona, a ‘conca maximae capacitatis,’ to which

Vasari no doubt refers. Two other such conchae were found in the

Thermae of Agrippa, and one was placed by Paul II, 1464–71, in the

Piazza di S. Marco, which was then called ‘Piazza della Conca di S.

Marco,’ while the other was located by Paul III (Farnese), 1534–49, in

front of his palace. Cardinal Odoardo Farnese afterwards united the

two and formed with them the two fountains now in the Piazza Farnese.

Lanciani also mentions a ‘conca di bigio in S. Pietro in Vinculis.’

There is a fine specimen, which may be one of those Vasari has

mentioned, in front of the little church of S. Stefano at the back of

St. Peter’s. We wish cordially to thank Signor Cornish, of the Royal

Palace, Florence, for information kindly given about the Boboli

monuments.

Footnote 43:

The quarries opened by the Romans in Elba are now practically

abandoned. The Catalogue to the Italian Section of the London

International Exhibition of 1862 speaks of the granites of Elba as

‘but little used, although blocks and columns of almost any size may

be had.’ In the late mediaeval and Renaissance period however, the

quarries of Elba were worked, and the granite columns of the Baptistry

of Pisa were cut there in the twelfth century, while Cosimo I

extracted thence the granite block out of which he cut the tazza of

the Boboli Gardens mentioned by Vasari a few sentences further on.

Jervis, _I Tesori Sotterranei dell’ Italia_, Torino, 1889, p. 315,

speaks of the remains of Roman quarrying works to be seen on the

Island. He believes that the grey columns of the Pantheon (see Note

infra) are Elban, and Cellini (_Scultura_, ch. vi) claims an Elban

origin for the granite column of S. Trinità, Florence, which is

certainly antique and of Roman provenance, see postea, p. 110 f.

Footnote 44:

The portico of the Pantheon is now supported by sixteen monoliths of

granite nearly 40 ft. high. Seven of these in the foremost row are of

grey granite, the eighth (that at the north-east angle) and all those

behind are of red granite. The present portico is a reconstruction by

Hadrian in octostyle form of the original decastyle portico built by

Agrippa. Agrippa’s portico had columns of a grey granite called

‘granito del foro,’ because it is the same kind that is used for the

columns of the Forum of Trajan (Basilica Ulpia). This according to

Corsi, _Delle Pietre Antiche_, Roma, 1845, is Egyptian from Syene, the

Lapis Psaronius of Pliny, and Professor Lanciani, who has kindly

written in reply to our question on the subject, endorses this

opinion, though Jervis, see above, thinks the grey Pantheon columns

are Elban. When Hadrian reconstructed the portico, he added columns of

red granite, which are admitted by all to be Egyptian. The two columns

at the east of the present portico were brought in in the year 1666 to

fill gaps caused by the fall of the two Hadrianic ones. They came from

the Baths of Nero and were found near S. Luigi dei Francesi. See

postea, p. 128 f.

Footnote 45:

See Note 4, ante, p. 26.

Footnote 46:

The form of the pick Vasari seems to have in his mind is given in the

sketch, C, Fig. 2, postea, p. 48. Among other tools figured in the

illustration, A and B are some that are employed at this day in Egypt

for the working of hard stones.

Footnote 47:

This tazza is still in evidence and serves as the basin of the great

fountain in the ‘island’ lake in the western part of the Boboli

Gardens. It is said that Duke Cosimo extracted a second tazza larger

than this one from the Elban quarry but it was unfortunately broken.

Signor Cornish says the fragments are still to be seen. The sculptor

Tribolo was sent to Elba to obtain the basins. Of the ‘tavola’ or

table nothing is known.

Footnote 48:

In this apparently innocent section Vasari has mixed up notices of

some half-dozen different kinds of stone, on most of which his ideas

are somewhat vague. Hence a separate Note is required, and this will

be found at the end of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p.

117 (‘Paragon and other Stones associated with it by Vasari’). The

letters (a), (b), etc., are referred to in the Note.

Footnote 49:

The ‘Apollo’ at Naples, in basalt, no. 6262. See Note, postea, p. 104.

Footnote 50:

The porphyry ‘Apollo’ at Naples, no. 6281. See Note, as above.

Footnote 51:

The five eastern window openings of S. Miniato are filled with slabs

of antique pavonazzetto with red-purple markings, nearly two inches

thick and measuring in surface about 9 ft. by 3 ft. The windows are

square headed. The slabs transmit the light unequally according to the

darker or lighter patches in their markings, but the effect is

pleasing. Similar window fillings are to be seen at Orvieto. ‘Almost

any marble,’ it has been said, ‘with crystalline statuary ground, an

inch thick, placed on the sunny side of a church in Italy would admit

sufficient light for worship, but it would not do in our variable

climate.’ The so-called Onyx marbles of Algeria and Mexico, as well as

Oriental alabasters, are specially suitable for the purpose here in

view. The ‘white and yellowish’ eastern marbles that Vasari writes of

were probably of this kind.

Footnote 52:

By ‘the same quarries’ Vasari means, no doubt, those of Egypt and

Greece, of Carrara, of Prato, etc., mentioned in § 7 in connection

with ‘paragon.’ On the subject see the Note on ‘Tuscan Marble

Quarries,’ postea, p. 119f.

Footnote 53:

The reference is to the two so-called ‘Horse-Tamers’ opposite the

Quirinal Palace at Rome, that probably once stood in front of the

Thermae of Constantine, which occupied the slope of the Quirinal. The

figures of the youths, perhaps representing the Dioscuri, are eighteen

feet high, and the material was long ago pronounced Thasian marble

(see Matz-Duhn, _Antike Bildwerke in Rom_, Leipzig, 1881, I, 268). The

works are Roman copies of Greek originals. They have recently been

overhauled, with very good result as regards their appearance. The

sculptor, Professor Ettore Ferrari, who superintended this work,

reports that the material is ‘marmo greco,’ which may be held to

settle the question in favour of Greek as against Luna marble.

Footnote 54:

The ‘Nile’ is now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, the

fellow-statue, the ‘Tiber,’ see ante, p. 36, in the Louvre at Paris.

They are said to have been discovered at Rome early in the sixteenth

century, near S. Maria Sopra Minerva where was the Temple of Isis and

Serapis, and Pope Leo X had them placed in the Cortile di Belvedere of

the Vatican. They were removed to Paris in ‘the year X’ by Napoleon,

and in 1815 the ‘Nile’ was sent back to Rome, the ‘Tiber’ remaining in

the Louvre. The ‘Nile’ is much the better work of art and is a copy or

a study from an Alexandrian original, perhaps the ‘Nilus’ in basalt,

which, according to Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXVI, 7, Augustus dedicated

in the Temple of Peace. Amelung, in his _Sculpturen des Vaticanischen

Museums_, only states that the ‘Nile’ is in ‘großkörnigem Marmor.’ The

material of the statue certainly differs from that of the restored

parts, and we should guess it as Pentelic marble repaired with

Carrara. About the ‘Tiber,’ Froener, in the Louvre Catalogue, states

that it is of Pentelic marble, and it is so labelled. Our measurements

show that both statues required blocks of the dimensions 10 ft. by 5

ft. by 5 ft. in height. It may be noted that the finest statuary

marble known, that of the island of Paros, is not to be obtained in

very large blocks. That out of which the Hermes of Praxiteles has been

carved must have measured about 8 ft. by 5 ft. by 3 ft. 6 in. and is

considered an exceptionally fine block. Pentelic and Carrara marble

can be obtained in much larger pieces. We saw not long ago in the

modern quarries behind Mount Pentelicus a block nearly 20 ft. in cube.

One seventeen feet long has recently been cut in the Monte Altissimo

quarries in the Carrara mountains for a copy of the ‘David’ of

Michelangelo. A piece of Monte Altissimo marble of the best quality is

shown as J on the Frontispiece.

Footnote 55:

This remark shows a just observation on the part of Vasari. The Greek

nose is markedly different from the Florentine. The latter, as may be

seen in the ‘St. George’ of Donatello, or the ‘David’ of Michelangelo,

has more shape than the classical nose. There is more difference

marked between the nasal bone and the cartilaginous prolongation

towards the tip, and there is more modelling about the nostril, which

the Italian sculptors make thinner and more sensitive.

Footnote 56:

The Carfagnana, or more properly Garfagnana, is the name applied to

the upper part of the valley of the Serchio, between the Apennines and

the Apuan Alps, on the western slopes of which the marble quarries are

situated. See Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries,’ postea, p. 119 f., for

the different marbles and their provenance.

Footnote 57:

Benvenuto Cellini, _Scultura_, ch. iv, mentions this black marble from

Carrara, which he says is very hard and brittle and difficult to work.

Black marble is still quarried in the Carrara district, but only to a

small extent.

Footnote 58:

The grey marble is that known now as ‘Bardiglio’; the grey-veined

‘Marmo-’ or ‘Bardiglio-’ ‘fiorito’; the red, ‘Breccia.’

Footnote 59:

For ‘Cipollino’ see footnote 70 on p. 49, postea.

Footnote 60:

The ‘Mischiati’ are the variegated stones we know as ‘Breccias,’

already noticed in § 5. Vasari explains the names ‘Saligni’ and

‘Campanini’ in § 10. The terms are not now in use.

Footnote 61:

The ‘David’ stood formerly on the left hand side as one entered the

gateway of the Ducal Palace, or Palazzo Vecchio. It is 15 feet high.

In 1873 it was removed, and is now in the Academy, but Bandinello’s

group still holds its original position to the right of the entrance,

on the side towards the Uffizi.

Footnote 62:

The existing figure of Neptune is the work of Ammanati, to whom

Florence owes the stately Ponte S. Trinità. The subsidiary figures of

sea-deities on the fountain are by other hands.

Footnote 63:

See Note, postea, p. 119 f.

Footnote 64:

On the subject of the Seravezza quarries and their exploitation by

Michelangelo see Note, as above. With regard to the Façade of S.

Lorenzo much might be said, as the project for its completion has now

again come forward into prominence. See articles by Sig. B. Supino in

_L’Arte_, Anno IV, fasc. 7, and M. Marcel Reymond in the _Revue

Archéologique_ for 1906. It is well known that Brunelleschi, who

reconstructed the basilica in the fifteenth century, left the façade

incomplete and with no indication of his design for it. As it was the

church of the Medici, the popes of this family, Leo X and Clement VII,

furthered by means of a competition a grand project for its

completion; and in this work Michelangelo was for many years involved.

Drawings of his for the proposed façade are to be seen in the Casa

Buonarroti, and he prepared marbles, as noticed in the Note, postea,

p. 119 f., but the preparations proved abortive.

What Vasari says about Michelangelo’s façade that it ‘è oggi abbozzata

fuor della porta di detta chiesa,’ and that there is one column on the

spot, is interesting but not very easy to understand. Milanesi, in a

note on this passage in his edition of Vasari, I, 119, going one

better than the Lemonnier editors, gives a circumstantial account to

the effect that ‘The preliminary work (abbozzata) which was outside

the church in the days of Vasari, was buried in the first years of the

seventeenth century, along with other architectural fragments, in a

trench excavated on the piazza along the left side of the church.’

Unfortunately among the authorities at S. Lorenzo this statement is

smiled at as a mere popular legend, but it is hoped that in connection

with the long-delayed completion, which is now again on the _tapis_,

the truth on this matter will come to light.

Footnote 65:

Milanesi remarks, ad loc., that for ‘Pietrasanta’ Vasari should have

written ‘Carrara,’ as the quarries at the latter place were actually

exploited by the ancients, whereas the Pietrasanta workings were only

opened up in the time of Michelangelo. See postea, p. 122. The

Pietrasanta people however do claim that the Romans were at work among

their hills.

Footnote 66:

There are abundant instances both from Greek and from Roman times of

statues, heads, architectural members, columns, and the like, blocked

out in the quarries, and still lying unfinished as they were left many

hundreds of years ago.

Footnote 67:

Vasari gives a notice of Giovanni da Nola, whose surname was Merliano,

in the _Lives_ of Alfonso Lombardi and other sculptors. See _Opere_,

ed. Milanesi, V, 94 f. He there describes the tomb mentioned above,

which was to have been transported to Spain, but owing to the death of

the viceroy, Don Pietro, Marquis of Villafranca, it has remained in S.

Giacomo at Naples.

Footnote 68:

Some of the tools of sculptors and masons referred to by Vasari are

shown in Fig. 2, E-J, above.

Footnote 69:

A worker in stones at Settignano knew of drills of the weight of about

twelve pounds each, and thought twenty pounds conceivable, for very

large work.

Footnote 70:

Vasari seems to refer to the common greyish marble popularly called

‘Sicilian.’ There are finer kinds of veined marble called ‘fioriti,’

‘flowered,’ including ‘marmi fioriti’ and ‘bardigli fioriti,’ the last

in two shades of grey.

Footnote 71:

i.e., the breccias noticed in § 5.

Footnote 72:

‘Cipollino’ marble, a very familiar material, receives its name from

‘cipolla,’ an onion, but there is a curious divergence of opinion as

to the reason of the appellation. (1) The onion colour the marble

shows in many specimens; (2) the onion-like shape of the large bossy

markings which occur in the marble; (3) the fact that it is disposed

to scale away under the influence of the weather like the coats of an

onion; and (4) the concentric curves in which the edges of these coats

are seen to lie in a section across the grain, have all been adduced

as explanatory of the name. Herrmann in his _Steinbruchindustrie_,

Berlin, 1899, p. 68, pronounces for the third, and this is also the

opinion of Corsi, who says, _Pietre Antiche_, p. 97, ‘gli scarpellini

lo conoscono sotto il nome di cipollino, per la ragione che,

trovandosi fra la sostanza calcare di tel marmo lunghi e spessi strati

di mica, facilmente su tali strati si divide a somiglianza della

cipolla.’ Zirkel however, in his _Lehrbuch der Petrographie_, Leipzig,

1894, III, 452, pronounces for the fourth, which seems on the whole

the one to be preferred. There are two cipollino columns standing in

the Roman Forum a little to the east of the temple of Antoninus and

Faustina, famous for its monoliths of this same marble, that in the

concentric wavy lines marking the alternate layers in the stone remind

us curiously of an onion cut in half. See for a specimen H on the

Frontispiece.

Footnote 73:

Vasari explains the name ‘saligno’ as ‘salt-like.’ The term is not

recognized at Carrara, nor in the Florentine manufactory of Mosaics.

Footnote 74:

The term ‘campanino’ for a kind of marble is not known now in the

Carrara district.

Footnote 75:

About 10 miles south east of Carrara.

Footnote 76:

Near Pietrasanta in the Apuan Alps.

Footnote 77:

On the promontory of Piombino, opposite Elba.

Footnote 78:

In the so-called Pisan Mountains between Pisa and Lucca. For these

places and their quarries see Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries,’

postea, p. 119 f.

Footnote 79:

See Note, as above, especially p. 126.

Footnote 80:

There are great quarries of this stone below Tivoli near the course of

the ancient Anio, now Teverone. The station Bagni on the Roma-Tivoli

railway is close to them. Those near the place called Barco were

exploited by the ancient Romans, while Bernini derived the stone for

the colonnades in front of St. Peter’s from the quarries called ‘Le

Fosse,’ a little to the north of the former. Vitruvius, _De Arch._,

II, vii, 2, writes of the ‘Tiburtina saxa’ as resisting all

destructive agencies save that of fire, and the remark is repeated by

Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXVI, 22. Vasari’s account of its origin is

correct. It is a deposit of lime in water, and the cavities in it are

partly caused by plants, moss, etc., round which the deposit has

formed itself and which of course have long ago decayed away. See O on

the Frontispiece. The stone did not come into use at Rome until about

the last century of the Republic, and it was not, like peperino, one

of the old traditional building materials.

Footnote 81:

Vasari evidently refers to the remains of the Templum Sacrae Urbis

behind the present church of Ss. Cosma e Damiano, to which was affixed

the ancient ‘Capitoline’ plan of Rome.

Footnote 82:

See the remarks on Rusticated masonry in § 20, and Notes, postea, pp.

65 and 132.

Footnote 83:

On the ‘round temple,’ and its designer, ‘Maestro Gian,’ see Note on

the subject, postea, p. 128 f.

Footnote 84:

S. Luigi dei Francesi is the national church of the French, and is

situated close to the Palazzo Madama, the meeting place of the Italian

Senate, near the Piazza Navona. The present edifice was built by

Giacomo della Porta and consecrated in 1589. See Note, postea, p. 128

f.

Footnote 85:

For which it offers in the cavities above spoken of an excellent key.

Footnote 86:

Traces of these stucco decorations are still to be seen in the public

entrance to the Colosseum next the Esquiline. They are said to have

been taken as models by some of the plaster-workers of the

Renaissance. See Vasari’s Life of Giovanni da Udine, _Opere_, VI, 553.

Footnote 87:

This is the so-called ‘Sala Regia’ which serves as a vestibule to the

Sistine Chapel. Sixtus IV planned it and San Gallo enlarged it and

began the adornment of the vault with plaster work, which was carried

on afterwards by Perino del Vaga and Daniele da Volterra (Pistolesi,

_Il Vaticano Descritto_, VIII, 89). It is the most richly decorated of

all the Vatican apartments, but is florid and overladen. The stucco

enrichment of the roof is heavy, and the figures in the same material

by Daniele da Volterra that are sprawling on the tops of the doorways

and on the cornices are of the extravagant later Renaissance type. The

contrast between this showy hall and the exquisitely treated

Appartamento Borgia of earlier date is very marked.

Footnote 88:

The Farnese Palace is in the main the work of Antonio da San Gallo,

the younger, who at his death in 1546 had carried up the façade nearly

to the cornice and completed the ground story and half the second

story of the cortile. Michelangelo finished the second or middle story

of the cortile, as far as the architecture went, according to San

Gallo’s design, and added the third story from his own. His are also

the enrichments of the frieze of the second order in the cortile, and

he has the chief credit for the noble external cornice, of which

Vasari writes in this section. It is now rather the fashion to

criticize severely Michelangelo’s architectural forms, and G. Clausse,

_Les San Gallo_, Paris, 1901, condemns his third story of the cortile

and says of his frieze (p. 85), ‘Michelange fit ajouter dans la frise

ces guirlandes et ces mascarons en stuc qui enlèvent à ce beau

portique le caractère de grandeur simple et d’harmonieuse majesté dû à

ses proportions mêmes.’ It will not escape notice that Vasari regards

these ornaments as not in stucco but in the travertine itself. On the

question thus raised Monseigneur Duchesne, the distinguished Director

of the French School at Rome which is housed in the Farnese, has had

the kindness in reply to our inquiry to say that so far as can be

ascertained without the use of scaffolding the ornaments of the frieze

are in stucco, with the exception of the Fleur-de-lys which occur in

the position of key-stones above the centre of each window arch. These

are in travertine, as are the ornaments (trophies of arms etc.) carved

on the metopes of the frieze of the order of the ground story in the

cortile. The point has some interest in connection with the travertine

carvings by the French artist at S. Luigi dei Francesi (see postea, p.

131), and the suggestion of M. Marcel Reymond (loc. cit.) that the

Italians of the first half of the fifteenth century were not

accustomed, as the French were, to execute decorative carvings in soft

stone.

Footnote 89:

The exterior of St. Peter’s is built of travertine, and a walk round

it gives an opportunity for a study of the fine effect of the stone

when used on a vast scale. The details of construction in the

interior, which are lauded by Vasari, are now concealed under the

decoration that covers all the interior surfaces.

Footnote 90:

Lavagna is on the coast about half way between Genoa and Spezzia. The

slate of the district is pronounced by Mr Brindley to be of poor

quality and liable to bleach to a dirty ochre colour like that of

brown paper. In the Official Catalogue of the Italian section of the

International Exhibition of 1862 it is stated that in modern times

also ‘large jars or reservoirs for containing oil, made of this slate,

are employed in Liguria, as well as in the principal maritime dépôts

of the oil trade.’

Footnote 91:

Peperino is a volcanic product in origin quite distinct from

travertine. It consists of ashes and fragments of different materials

compacted together and is called ‘pepper stone’ from the black grains

that occur in it. It was one of the two old traditional building

stones at Rome before the introduction of travertine from the quarries

by Tibur, the other being the coarser and commoner tufa of which the

wall of Servius Tullius was built. The most interesting monument in

the material is the sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus in

the Vatican, dating from the third century B.C. A characteristic

piece, with the black ‘pepper’ marks, is shown as Q on the

Frontispiece.

Footnote 92:

Istrian stone is a fine-grained limestone of a warm yellowish grey

tint; it is capable of taking a polish, and is obtainable in large

pieces. It is broken at various points of the coast from Merlera near

Pola to the island of Lesina off the coast by Spalato, and was largely

used in the buildings of Venice, and generally in north-eastern Italy.

A considerable amount has been recently employed in the monumental

buildings of the Ring at Vienna. See L on the Frontispiece.

Footnote 93:

‘The Doric edifice of the Panattiera’ sounds a very curious

description of Sansovino’s famous and magnificent Library of S. Marco,

the finest late Renaissance building in Italy, but this seems to be

what Vasari had in his mind. Dr Robertson of Venice has been kind

enough to explain in a letter the history of the site which he has

ascertained from the archives. The ground where the Library now stands

was occupied up to 1537 by a government grain and bread store, the

‘Panattiera’ (or more properly ‘Panatteria’). The shops for the sale

of bread were then removed and grouped round the base of the

Campanile, where they were replaced a little later by Sansovino’s

Loggetta. Vasari visited Venice in 1542, and at that time if the shops

and store had themselves been removed their name would still cling to

the place and explain his words. We should hardly call the Library a

‘Doric edifice,’ as only the lower Order is ‘Doric,’ but we must

remember that it was only this lower Order that would be completed at

the date of Vasari’s visit.

Footnote 94:

The Tuscan Zecca. The original Zecca or mint was at the Rialto, and it

was afterwards transferred to the Piazzetta, where Sansovino in 1535

erected for it the present edifice, in the rusticated or Tuscan style.

The situation of it is between the Library and the quay. The façade

shows an arcaded lowest story in rusticated masonry, with two stories

above, one in the Doric the other in the Ionic Order, and the columns

in both cases are themselves rusticated; that is to say they have

projecting horizontal courses of stone that appear to mark them with a

series of bands or bars.

Footnote 95:

‘Macigno’ is a green grey sandstone of the lower tertiary formation in

Italy.

Footnote 96:

Pietra Serena is a very fine sedimentary sandstone, and Vasari does

not say too much in its praise. Baldinucci in his _Vocabolario_

repeats much of what Vasari has said, but mentions also a ‘pietra

bigia’ or grey stone, which lies outside the ‘serena,’ and is inferior

to it.

The quarries of pietra serena are abundant along the southern slopes

of Monte Ceceri, to the south east of Fiesole, overhanging Majano. The

blue colour Vasari ascribes to it is the cause of its name, the

epithet ‘sereno’ being specially applicable to the clear blue sky. See

G on the Frontispiece. Vasari’s account of the stones dealt with in §§

16, 17, is not very clear, as he returns to the epithet ‘serena’ at

the close of § 16 for a stone that he makes to differ essentially from

the ‘serena’ of the beginning of the section in that it is

weather-resisting. Cellini in his second Treatise, _Della Scultura_,

ed. Milanesi, 1893, p. 201, is clearer. He distinguishes three kinds,

(1) ‘pietra serena,’ azure in hue and only good for work in interiors;

(2) a stone of a brownish hue (tanè) that he calls ‘pietra morta.’ The

lexicographers fight shy of this term, but it seems to mean a stone

without any lime in it and therefore unchangeable by the action of

fire, while a limestone would be ‘pietra viva.’ See Cellini, loc.

cit., p. 187. This is suitable for figure carving, and it resists

‘wind and rain and all violence of the weather.’ It is evidently the

stone Vasari writes of as the material of Donatello’s ‘Dovizia.’ (3)

The third kind is the pietra forte, also brownish in hue, and useful

for decorative carvings on exteriors. Cellini notes as Vasari does

that it is only found in small pieces.

Footnote 97:

Pietra del fossato. Signor Cellerini, of the Opera del Duomo,

Florence, says that the name ‘pietra del fossataccio’ is still used

among practical stone workers. It is stone gained by excavation.

Footnote 98:

The colour of the stone in the Library and New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo

is a brownish grey rather than ‘bluish.’ It tells as warm in hue

against the white walls, which are of marble in the Sacristy and in

the Library of plaster.

Footnote 99:

Dr A. Gherardi, Director of the State Archives at Florence, has been

so kind as to make researches in the documents under his charge for

the purpose of discovering Vasari’s authority for this statement.

These investigations have so far however proved without result. Among

the ‘Leggi e Bandi’ of the sixteenth century in Tuscany collected by

Cantini in the first volume of his _Legislazione Toscana_ there are

various regulations about trades, prohibitions against cutting timber

on the hills, measures facilitating the import of building materials

into certain localities, and the like, which show that an edict such

as Vasari refers to was quite possible in the early days of the Grand

Ducal régime. The nearest approach to it that we have been able to

discover are certain edicts of the end of the sixteenth century,

published by Mariotti, _La Legislazione delle Belle Arti_, Roma, 1892,

p. 246 f., that prohibit the exportation from the state of ‘pietre

mischie dure’ (agates, jaspers, and the like) of which the Grand Duke

had need for a certain chapel he was building, evidently the ‘Cappella

dei Principi’ at S. Lorenzo.

Footnote 100:

This is of course the well known ‘Uffizi,’ erected by Vasari between

1560 and 1574 for the accommodation of various state departments. The

expression ‘strada’ or ‘street’ has reference to the scheme of the

building, which is erected along the two sides and one end of a very

elongated, and indeed street-like, court, from which the various

entrances into the building open. In documents relating to its

construction it is sometimes referred to as ‘Via dei Magistrati.’ A

little later Vasari gives an interesting note on the scheme of

construction he employed in the lower order of the edifice. See

postea, p. 72 f.

Footnote 101:

The Mercato Vecchio at Florence was an open square that occupied the

northern portion of the site now covered by the new Piazza Vittorio

Emmanuele. On the side next the Via Calimara a granite column was

erected in 1431, and on this column was set up the statue by Donatello

representing ‘Abundance’ (‘Dovizia’). This stood till October 20,

1721, when in consequence of damage due to time and exposure it fell

to the ground and was dashed into pieces. In the following year, 1722,

Giov. Batt. Foggini carved another figure representing the same

allegorical personage, and this remained till our own time; and may be

seen _in situ_ in one of Alinari’s photographs. It is now in the

museum of S. Marco with other fragments from the demolitions in the

‘Centro.’ See Guido Carocci, _Il Mercato Vecchio di Firenze_, Firenze,

1884.

Footnote 102:

On ‘Pietra Forte,’ the Official Catalogue of the Italian Section of

the International Exhibition of 1862 reports, p. 62, as follows. ‘The

rock called _Pietraforte_ ... is very largely used in Florence; it is

very durable, as may be seen in the older palaces of the city. In

composition it is an arenaceous limestone, which is very hard and

unalterable, as its name implies.’ It has been extensively quarried by

Fiesole and to the north of Majano, and Monte Ripaldi, above the

valley of the Ema to the south of Florence, furnishes large supplies

of it. See M, N, on the Frontispiece.

Footnote 103:

The blocks used for the façade of the Pitti have been remarked on for

their great size, one of them, an exceptional one it is true, measures

28 ft. in length.

Footnote 104:

On this use of the word ‘Goth’ or ‘Gothic’ in the sense of

‘mediaeval,’ see Note on ‘Vasari’s Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture,’

postea, p. 133 f.

Footnote 105:

Or San Michele, as every visitor to Florence knows, is the church

occupying the lower story of a lofty building in the Via Calzaiuoli.

Constructively speaking the upper part is supported on the ground

story by piers between which are round headed arches, three on the

north and south sides and two on the east and west. The heads of these

are in every case filled with florid late Gothic tracery with

intersecting arches and rich cusping, and on all sides but the west

the openings below the heads are walled in. On the west the arches

contain the doorways of entrance, and the tracery above the doors,

about which Vasari is writing, is richer than on the other sides of

the building. It is curious to find Vasari calling this work ‘truly

admirable,’ whereas a page or two later we shall find him inveighing

against the ‘Goths’ (the mediaeval builders) and all their works and

ways.

Footnote 106:

Coats of arms. These ‘stemmi,’ as they are often called, are very

familiar objects on the exterior of Tuscan palaces, and the arms of

the Medici, six round balls or pellets, are constantly in evidence. In

the view of the Fortress in Fig. 3 a ‘stemma’ of the Medici is to be

seen displayed on the face of the wall. It is referred to by Vasari,

_Opere_, ed. Milanesi, IV, 544. Mariotti, _La Legislazione delle Belle

Arti_, Roma, 1892, p. 245, has printed an interesting edict of the

year 1571, in Tuscany, designed to protect these memorials of the

ancient Florentine families. The memory of those who built the houses,

it says, ‘is preserved and perpetuated by their Arms, Insignia,

Titles, Inscriptions, which are affixed or painted or carved or

suspended over the doors, arches, windows, projecting angles or other

places where they are conspicuously to be seen,’ and the edict,

re-enacting older regulations, reminds the citizens that no one who

purchases or becomes possessed of an old house on which there are

insignia of the kind is allowed to remove or in any way deface them.

No new owner is to presume to add his own arms or other memorial by

the side of the old ones of the founder and constructor of the house.

Only in cases where these are absent may the new owner put up his own

insignia. This regulation shows a historical sense and a care for the

tangible memorials of a city’s past which have been too often lacking

in more modern times. No doubt it is due to its enforcement that so

many of these ‘stemmi’ are left to add interest to the somewhat

modernized streets of the Florence of to-day.

Footnote 107:

‘In the times of the Goths;’ ‘German work.’ See Note on ‘Vasari’s

Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture,’ postea, p. 133 f.

Footnote 108:

It will be seen that in this section Vasari combines two quite

distinct things, the so-called ‘Tuscan,’ or as he calls it, the

‘Rustic’ Order, and rusticated masonry, which has nothing to do with

the Orders of Architecture, but is a method of treating wall-surfaces.

On this see the Note on ‘Rusticated Masonry,’ postea, p. 132. The

reason why the ‘Tuscan’ is called the ‘Rustic’ Order, is that, being

the simplest and, so to say, rudest of the Orders, it is most suitably

employed in connection with walling of a rough and bossy appearance.

The shafts of columns are sometimes rusticated to correspond with the

walling, as at the Venetian ‘Zecca,’ mentioned ante, p. 56, but the

expedient is of doubtful advantage, as the clear upright appearance of

the column is thereby sacrificed.

Footnote 109:

Vasari says here that the ‘Rustic’ or Tuscan column is six ‘heads’

high. What does he mean by this? There is evidently in his mind the

familiar comparison of different columns to human figures of different

proportions, a conceit found in Vitruvius (IV, i, 6 f.) and in writers

of the Renaissance (see Alberti, _De Re Aedificatoria_, Lib. IX, c.

7), and so he measures by ‘heads,’ which would apply to a figure but

not to a column. ‘Testa,’ ‘head,’ cannot, as the context shows, mean

the height of the capital of the column. It really means here the

lower diameter of the column. It is this lower diameter (or sometimes

half the lower diameter) that is the normal unit of measurement for

the proportions of a column. Thus the height of the Tuscan column is

given by Vitruvius and by Palladio and other moderns as six times the

lower diameter. Though ‘head’ may seem a very curious word with which

to describe this, there is no doubt that such is the meaning of it.

Alberti, in his tract on the Orders and their proportions, uses the

lower diameter as his measure but applies to it this very term

‘testa.’ There is a certain letter from Vasari to Duke Cosimo that

deals with the measurements of a column of granite presented to him by

the Pope and afterwards conveyed from Rome and set up in the Piazza di

S. Trinità, where it carries the porphyry statue by Francesco del

Tadda (postea, p. 111). Vasari gives the diameter of the ‘head’ of

this column, but notes afterwards that the shaft diminishes from the

‘head’ upwards towards the necking (collarino). Hence there is no

doubt about the interpretation of the word in question. See the letter

in _Opere_, ed. Milanesi, VIII, 352.

Footnote 110:

The Citadel of Florence. This is not the ‘Belvedere’ fortress on the

hill behind the Palazzo Pitti, but the so-called ‘Fortezza da Basso’

to the north of the town, now used as barracks, which the railway

skirts just before entering the station near S. Maria Novella. It

dates from 1534, and was built by Alessandro dei Medici with the

intention of overawing the citizens. It occupied the site of the

Faenza gate, and was partly within and partly outside the enceinte of

the city. The ‘principal façade’ of which Vasari writes, is still well

preserved in the middle of the southern face, opposite the town, and a

sketch of it is shown in Fig. 3, but nothing else of interest is said

to remain from the Renaissance period.

The masonry of the façade is an excellent example of elaborate

rustication, and is very carefully executed in pietra forte. The

illustration, Fig. 4, bears out Vasari’s description, and exhibits in

alternation round bosses 18 in. in diameter and 4 in. in salience, and

oblong diamonds about 3 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. There are worked borders

about 1 in. in width round all the lines of juncture, and the scheme

is worth noticing.

Footnote 111:

Vitruvius in his first book (I, ii, 5) gives directions as to the

Orders suitable for temples to different deities. Thus Minerva, Mars,

and Hercules are to have temples in the Doric style, etc.; while in

the eighteenth century Sir William Chambers, transferring the same

idea to modern times, says that Doric ‘may be employed in the houses

of generals, or other martial men, in mausoleums erected to their

memory, or in triumphal bridges and arches built to celebrate their

victories.’ The modern architect is disposed to smile at these

restrictions, but there underlies them a sound appreciation of the

aesthetic significance of architectural forms.

Footnote 112:

The building referred to is the well-known Uffizi palace at Florence.

See ante, p. 59.

Footnote 113:

The construction described by Vasari is evidently of the kind

indicated in the accompanying drawing, Fig. 5. The pieces of the

frieze are joggled one into the other so as to form a flat arch, but

the construction is kept to the inner part and the face shows vertical

joints between the pieces. As this passage in Vasari seems to have

escaped the notice of those interested in Renaissance construction,

the existence of the device he describes has remained unsuspected and

nothing is known about it at the Uffizi itself. The fact is that

Vasari’s system has succeeded in one way too perfectly for his

purpose. Everything has remained ‘safe and sound,’ and no one of the

architrave beams shows signs of failure, so that no technical

examination of the fabric has been called for. On the other hand,

neither the artificers nor the world at large seem to have benefitted

by Vasari’s kindness, for the books do not notice his device. There is

no mention of it even in the huge work on Tuscan Renaissance

architecture now just completed under the editorship of Baron Henri de

Geymüller, nor in Raschdorff’s _Palast-Architectur_, nor Durm’s

_Baukunst der Renaissance_, though references to it may possibly occur

in older books that have escaped our notice. Joggled lintels forming

flat arches are of course common enough. The new Parliament Building

at Stockholm shows them conspicuously with the actual joints appearing

on the face of the building. Mediaeval and Renaissance fireplaces

often have lintels of the kind, as in Coningsburgh Castle, Yorks, and

Linlithgow Palace.

Footnote 114:

i.e. width on the soffit, or, as it might be expressed, in depth from

the outer face inwards.

Footnote 115:

‘Sopra la colonna.’ This does not mean strictly the piece vertically

above the column, which is the die (dado quadro) already mentioned. It

is equivalent to the expression just below ‘sopra le colonne,’ and

means simply ‘in the upper part.’ The piece referred to is A, A, in

Fig. 5, the ‘pezzo del mezzo’ of the text as quoted below.

Footnote 116:

‘Cosi si faccia sopra la colonna, che il pezzo del mezzo di detto

fregio stringa di dentro, e sia intaccato a quartabuono infino a

mezzo; l’altra mezza sia squadrata e diritta e messa a cassetta,

perchè stringa a uso d’arco mostrando di fuori essere murata diritta.’

The sense of this sentence seems to be indicated by the drawing Fig.

5. The centre pieces A, A, will slip down into their places and in a

fashion key the flat arch. There is the same construction in the

cornice, see below.

Footnote 117:

The dimension here implied is not the width on the face from right to

left, but the soffit-width, or depth from the outer face inwards. The

dies and the cornice-pieces are of the same soffit-width as the

architrave, but the frieze pieces are so much narrower as to allow

space behind them for a flat arch of brick abutting at each end on

that part of the die that exceeds in soffit-width the frieze. See

plan, Fig. 5 (4), and section, Fig. 5 (5). The plan is at the level x,

y.

Footnote 118:

‘Sopra il dado del fregio’ see note on ‘Sopra la colonna.’ The middle

piece which goes ‘a cassetta,’ i.e. spanning a void, is at the centre

of the intercolumniation, not vertically over the die above the

column.

Footnote 119:

Fig. 5 (4) and (5) show the nature of the construction across from the

façade inwards. The corridor is spanned with a barrel vault that

conceals the back of the entablature. It starts from the top of the

architrave.

Footnote 120:

For this use of iron ties, which Vasari regards here as normal, see

the illustration on p. 25 of Professor Durm’s _Baukunst der

Renaissance in Italien_, in the _Handbuch der Architectur_, Stuttgart,

1903.

Footnote 121: