Prominent among the masters who were influenced by Donatello, the
sculptor, and Lorenzo Ghiberti, the first metal-worker in elegant
forms, is Paolo di Dono, generally known as Uccello. His profound study
and ultimate discovery of the laws of linear perspective was enhanced
by the inquiries into the laws of aerial perspective that Fra Angelico
studied so deeply. Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) was a pupil and assistant
of Lorenzo Ghiberti, who made the bronze doors for the East Side of
the Baptistery at Florence. He gave himself up to the scientific study
of perspective, the principles of which he was one of the first to
apply to painting, thus rendering incalculable services to art. In his
_Battlepiece_ (No. 1273) is seen a mounted soldier in armour with his
sword drawn; on the left are horsemen about to charge with couchant
lances, while on the right cavalry-men are drawn up awaiting orders,
their lances in rest. The correctness of the perspective and the
justice of the foreshortenings and the movements of the foot-men in the
intervals of the cavalry mark an epoch in art. This is the third and
right-hand panel of the series of three battle-pictures which Uccello
painted for the Casa Medici (now the Riccardi Palace) in Florence
for Cosimo de’ Medici about the year 1457, and not, as the official
Catalogue asserts, for the Bartolini family. The best preserved of
these three large panel pictures illustrating the _Rout of San Romano
in 1432_ is that in the National Gallery (No. 583), while the second or
centre panel of the series is now in the Uffizi (No. 52). The Louvre
panel is in a deplorable condition, caused by long neglect.
Uccello’s _Portraits of Giotto, Paolo Uccello, Antonio Manetti, and
Filippo Brunelleschi_ (No. 1272), whose names are in this order on the
panel, is a work of considerable importance, as marking an early stage
in the development of portraiture. This picture, which is referred
to at some length by Vasari, constitutes a historical document. The
Italian chronicler tells us that Uccello “was a person of eccentric
character and peculiar habits, but he was a great lover of ability
in those of his own art, and, to the end that their memory should
remain to posterity, he drew with his own hand on an oblong picture
the portraits of five distinguished men, which he kept in his house
as a memorial of them. The first of these portraits was that of the
painter Giotto, as one who had given light and new life to the art;
the second was Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, for architecture; the third
was Donatello, for sculpture; the fourth was himself, for perspective
and animals; the fifth was his friend Giovanni (_sic_) Manetti, for
mathematics. With this philosopher Paolo conferred very frequently, and
held continual discourse with him concerning the problems of Euclid.”
Manetti’s real Christian name, Antonio, is correctly inscribed on the
panel, but is inaccurately given as Giovanni by Vasari and on the
official label.
The _St. John the Baptist as a Child_ (No. 1274), which hangs in the
Long Gallery, is labelled as a picture of the Florentine school, and
catalogued as being by Uccello. It is perhaps by Piero di Cosimo.
We enter on the first period of the coming Renaissance with Fra Filippo
Lippi (1406-1469), who was trained in the best school of Florentine
painting. He was a pupil of Lorenzo Monaco, came under the influence
of Fra Angelico, and was affected by the magic spell of Masaccio, whom
he must have seen at work in the Brancacci Chapel. In the latter half
of the Quattrocento the cult of love and beauty was rapidly dethroning
the more austere ideals of an earlier age. Filippo Lippi’s stormy and
romantic career passes into a new phase with his residence at Prato
in 1452. Four years later he was appointed Chaplain to the nuns of S.
Margherita in that town. The year before his arrival in Prato, Lucrezia
and Spinetta, the orphan daughters (aged eighteen and seventeen
respectively) of Francesco Buti, had, apparently much against their
will, been placed in the Convent, the abbess of which commissioned the
Frate to paint a picture of the _Madonna della Cintola_. Lucrezia posed
to the painter-chaplain for the figure of the Madonna in that picture.
On May 1, 1456, on the occasion of the exhibition of the Holy Girdle of
the Virgin, a precious relic still preserved at Prato, the painter bore
off Lucrezia out of the safe keeping of the convent. A short summary of
these well-known facts is suggested by the view which is put forward in
the official Catalogue of the Louvre, to the effect that the _Madonna
della Cintola_ is to be identified with the _Nativity_ (No. 1343)
in this Gallery. The weight of evidence is against this theory; in
fact, this large panel picture has little claim to be regarded as the
work of Fra Filippo. One critic has given it as his opinion that the
_Nativity_ was begun by Fra Filippo and completed by Fra Diamante, who
succeeded him as Chaplain at Prato. Others have attributed the picture
to Pesellino, Baldovinetti, and Stefano da Zevio respectively. It seems
to show the influence of Andrea del Castagno. The official Catalogue
does not indicate the _provenance_ of the picture, although it implies
that it came from the Convent at Prato at the time when it was brought
to Paris by Napoleon. There can be little doubt that the _Madonna della
Cintola_ is the painting thus named which still hangs in the place of
honour in the Municipal Gallery at Prato.
The Louvre does, however, possess in the _Madonna and Child with Angels
and Two Abbots_ (No. 1344, Plate II.) one of the best of the Frate’s
creations, although the colouring has suffered considerably. It is an
early work, and was painted about 1437 for the Barbadori Chapel
in Santo Spirito. It contains beauty of line, freshness of colour, and
much variety in the composition. The cast of the draperies is ample and
the motives are novel and bold, the Renaissance background throwing
into prominent relief the soulful and ideal figure of the Madonna. The
predella panels of this dismembered altarpiece, for which Fra Filippo
received forty gold florins, are now in the Accademia at Florence. They
depict (_a_) _St. Frediano deviating the Course of the River Serchio_;
(_b_) _The Virgin receiving the Announcement of her Coming Decease_;
and (_c_) _St. Augustine in his Study_. The _Madonna and Child_ (No.
1345) is only a school picture.
[Illustration:
PLATE II.—FRA FILIPPO LIPPI
(1406-1469)