for many generations in my husband’s family. It comes from the family
of the Marquises de Villafranca who lived in Italy in the Sixteenth
Century and of which several members were Viceroys of Naples (Alvarez
de Toledo). The Marquis of Romana, having acquired the Palace of the
Prince d’Anglona in Madrid, assembled all the pictures and works of art
inherited from his ancestors which were in the Palaces of Valencia,
Palma de Mallorque, and in Italy, thus forming a fine and important
Collection in which were paintings by Goya, Cameron, Ribera, Velasquez,
and many paintings of the Italian, Flemish, and French Schools. On the
death of the Marquis de la Romana, his son, the Marquis de Villamajor,
received a part of this Collection (which was divided between him and
his brothers), and this Perugino comes from the Marquis de Villamajor’s
heritage.”
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay_
MADONNA AND CHILD
--_Perugino_]
Perugino was born at Città della Pieve, near Perugia, about 1446, and
died (probably of the Plague), at Castello di Fontignano, also near
Perugia, in 1523. His real name was Pietro Vannucci and he was also
called Pier della Pieve; but he is known always and everywhere as
Perugino from Perugia, where he spent his early life and learned his
art. It is uncertain under whom he studied before he went to Florence,
but he certainly assisted Piero della Francesca at Arezzo. At Florence,
he worked in Verrocchio’s studio, having Leonardo da Vinci and Lorenzo
di Credi for fellow-students. Then in 1475 he was commissioned to
paint in the Palazzo Pubblico, Perugia. In 1481–1482 he was working
in Rome in the Sistine Chapel with Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo
Rosselli, and Signorelli. Of his four frescoes here only one remains,
_Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter_; the other three were destroyed to
make room for Michelangelo’s _Last Judgment_. Perugino also painted
in the Vatican and remained about ten years in Rome. Then he returned
to Florence and had a studio there and also in Perugia. Besides, he
travelled about a great deal to execute commissions in various cities.
In 1490, for instance, he was in Rome again painting for Cardinal
della Rovere an altar-piece now in the Villa Albani; in 1494 he was in
Venice and Cremona; and in 1496 in Pavia, working for “Il Moro,” Duke
of Milan. The three principal pictures of the beautiful altar-piece
that Perugino painted for the Certosa, or Carthusian Convent near
Pavia--_The Virgin adoring the Infant Christ_; _Tobias and the Angel
Raphael_; and the _Archangel Michael_--are now in the National Gallery,
London.
In 1495 Perugino was again working in Perugia; and it was then that
Raphael, a boy of about twelve, became his pupil. At this time Perugino
was the most celebrated of all the Umbrian painters. His best work
was accomplished between 1490 and 1505. To this period belongs _The
Marriage of the Virgin_, now in the Museum of Caen, Normandy, a picture
that Raphael very closely followed, but eclipsed in beauty, in his
_Sposalizio_, now in the Brera, Milan.
About 1590 Perugino painted his famous frescoes in the Sala di Cambio,
Perugia, in which he introduced his own portrait; and in 1505 he
painted The _Triumph of Chastity_ for the Marchese Isabella of Mantua,
which is now in the Louvre.
After another visit to Rome he worked principally in churches in the
neighborhood of Perugia, the last of which is supposed to be _The
Nativity_, painted for the Church of Fontignano (where he died), and
which is now in the South Kensington Museum.
Perugino was one of the earliest of the Italians who mastered the use
of oil, then a new medium. In his constant moving around and visiting
so many important cities, Perugino had every opportunity of seeing what
the other artists of his day were doing. However, although he worked
with the latest materials, Perugino remained faithful to the style
of art known as the Quattrocento, which before his death was being
rapidly superseded by the Cinquecento, of which Leonardo da Vinci and
Michelangelo were the chief exponents. Like Piero della Francesca he
also advanced the science of perspective. For a time Perugino adopted
the Florentine style, especially with regard to composition; but
eventually he developed his own manner of grace, softness, delicacy,
tenderness of color, great expression in faces and figures, and his
unusually charming landscapes.
Berenson speaks particularly of Perugino’s “space composition:”[12]
and in this art “Perugino surpassed all who ever came before him, and
indeed all who came after him, excepting, however, his own pupil,
Raphael, by whom even he was left far behind. Perugino had a feeling
for beauty in women, charm in young men, and dignity in the old, seldom
surpassed before or since. Then there is a well-ordered seemliness, a
sanctuary aloofness in all his people which makes them things apart,
untouched, and pure. Great reserve also does much for him. Violent
action he doubtless avoided because he felt himself unequal to the
task--indeed, so little did he ever master movement that his figures
when walking dance on tiptoe and on their feet they never stand; but
he as carefully kept away from unseemly expression of emotion. How
refreshingly quiet are his _Crucifixions_ and _Entombments_! The still
air is soundless and the people wail no more; a sigh inaudible, a look
of yearning, and that is all. How soothing must such paintings have
been after the din and turmoil and slaughter of Perugia, the bloodiest
town in Italy! Can it be wondered that men, women, and children ran to
see them? Nor yet is life so free from sordid cares and meaningless
broils that we can forego such balm for the soul as Perugino brings.”
THE NICCOLINI MADONNA.
_Raphael
(1483–1520)._
_Collection of
Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._
This picture came directly from the Niccolini Palace where it was
purchased in 1780 by George Nassau, third Earl Cowper, who was at that
time His Majesty’s Ambassador to the Court of Tuscany; and it was so
prized that in order to get the picture out of Florence without any
disturbance it had to be hidden in the lining of the Ambassador’s
carriage. Another name for the picture is _The Cowper Madonna of
1508_. The picture now comes from the Collection of Lady Desborough,
of Panshanger, Hertfordshire, who inherited it from her brother,
Francis Thomas, seventh Earl Cowper.
The painting, an oil on panel (30½ × 22 inches), represents the Madonna
seated in the open air in a dark, rose-red robe with long close-fitting
undersleeves of yellow-green, ultramarine-blue mantle, and diaphanous
veil. Around the neck of the dress and the hem of the mantle what
appears to be a decorative band of golden embroidery is really the
signature of the painter “M(D or CCCC)VIII. R. U. Pin,” meaning 1508
Raphael of Urbino Pinxit. And, by the way, is it not possible that
Sir Joshua Reynolds got the idea from this picture of painting his
name on the robe of _Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse_? It will be
remembered that Mrs. Siddons sat for that magnificent portrait in
1784. The _Niccolini Madonna_ was bought by Earl Cowper in 1780 and,
undoubtedly, Sir Joshua was very familiar with it. Moreover, at this
date, Raphael’s masterpiece was also very fresh in the mind of the
English picture-world.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart._
THE NICCOLINI MADONNA
--_Raphael_]
The Holy Child is seated on a white cushion in the Virgin’s lap
gently supported by her hand, which also lightly holds an end of her
floating veil. The suggestion of a light breeze rippling the veil is an
exquisite thought. The _nimbi_ of both Mother and Child are very
delicate. The background consists of a blue sky.
It is very interesting to compare this picture with the other _Cowper
Madonna_ and on doing so we find that the same model was used for the
Child, although the women are different. The hand of the _Small Cowper
Madonna_ is noticeably more refined than the hand in the _Niccolini
Madonna_, yet, on the whole, the model used for the _Niccolini Madonna_
seems to be of a slightly higher social status. In the latter, we find
the plucked eyebrows and forehead which Raphael’s taste has softened by
the hair, lightly blown about, like the veil, by the breeze.
The _Niccolini Madonna_ was one of the last pictures painted by Raphael
in Florence, as he went to Rome in 1508, the date given on this
painting. It may be noted here that the _Madonna del Granduca_ (which
belonged to the Grand Duke Ferdinand III, who carried it with him
wherever he went), was the first picture Raphael painted in Florence.
The _Madonna del Cardellino_ (of the Goldfinch), in the Uffizi, and
_La Belle Jardinière_ (in the Louvre), also date from the Florentine
period--painted when Raphael was about twenty-five,--which seems almost
incredible.
THE SMALL COWPER MADONNA.
_Raphael
(1483–1520)._
_Collection of
Mr. Joseph E. Widener._
This Madonna was painted in 1505, soon after the _Granduca Madonna_
(now in the Pitti). It was purchased in Florence about 1780 by Lord
Cowper and was one of the ornaments of his Collection at Panshanger.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Joseph E. Widener_
THE SMALL COWPER MADONNA
--_Raphael_]
The Madonna is seated on a stone bench and wears a red dress and a
mantle of blue lined with green. The Holy Child throws His arms
lovingly around His mother’s neck and steadies Himself by planting His
left foot against her right hand. The hair of both mother and Child
are blonde and encircled by a thin golden _nimbus_. The eyes are,
in both subjects, of a warm and deep brown. A lovely Umbrian landscape
carries us many miles away to the left; and nearer the figures on
the right, there appears a building, identified as San Bernardino, a
Franciscan Convent near Urbino.
The picture is painted on wood (23 × 17 inches). The original drawing
is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
“And now we are face to face with the most famous and beloved name
in modern art--Raphael Sanzio. Raphael was endowed with a visual
imagination, which has never even been rivalled for range, sweep,
and sanity. When it has been surpassed, it has been at single points
and by artists of more concentrated genius. Thus gifted and coming
at a time when form had, for its own sake, been recovered by the
Naturalists and the essential artists, when the visual imagery, of at
least the Italian world, had already suffered along certain lines, the
transformation from the Mediæval into what ever since has been for all
of us the _modern_, when the ideals of the Renaissance were for an
ineffable instant standing complete, Raphael, filtering and rendering
lucid and pure all that had passed through him to make him what he
was, set himself the task of dowering the modern world with the images
that to this day, despite the turbulent rebellion and morose secession
of recent years, embody for the great number of cultivated men their
spiritual ideals and their spiritual aspirations. ‘_Belle comme une
madonne de Raphael_’ is, among the most artistic people in Europe,
still the highest praise that can be given to female beauty. And, in
sooth, where shall one find greater purity, more utter loveliness than
in the _Granduca Madonna_, or a sublimer apparition of woman than
appeared to St. Sixtus?
“When looking at the _Granduca Madonna_, has it ever occurred to
you to note that the whole of her figure was not there? So perfect is
the arrangement that the attention is entirely absorbed by the grouping
of the heads, the balance of the Virgin’s draped arm and the Child’s
body. You are not allowed to ask yourself how the figure ends. And
observe how it holds its own, easily poised, in the panel which is just
large enough to contain it without crowding, without suggesting room
for aught besides.
“But great as is the pleasure in a single group perfectly filling a
mere panel, it is far greater when a group dominates a landscape.
Raphael tried several times to obtain this effect--as in the _Madonna
del Cardellino_, or the _Madonna del Prato_, but he attained to supreme
success once only--in the _Belle Jardinière_. Here you have the full
negation of the _plein-air_ treatment of the figure. The Madonna is
under a domed sky, and she fills it completely, as subtly as in the
_Granduca_ panel, but here it is the whole out-of-doors, the universe,
and a human being _supereminent_ over it. What a scale is suggested!
Surely the spiritual relation between man and his environment is here
given in the only way man--unless he becomes barbarized by decay or
non-humanized by science--will ever feel it. And not what man knows but
what man feels, concerns art. All else is science.”
Raphael Santi--everybody’s Raphael,--best beloved of all painters, was
born in Urbino in 1483, the day unknown. He was the son of Giovanni
Santi, a painter, and was first taught by him. Then it is supposed that
he studied under Evangelista di Pian di Meleto, with whom he painted
an altar-piece and worked afterwards with Evangelista’s partner,
Timoteo Viti. Next we find him assisting Perugino at Perugia and also
Pintoricchio. In 1504 he went to Florence and fell under the influence
of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolommeo. During his four years in
Florence, Raphael painted a number of important works including the
_Terranuova Madonna_ (Berlin Museum); the _Small Cowper Madonna_ and
the _Niccolini Madonna_ (on page 87 and page 85); the _Madonna del
Cardellino_ (Uffizi); the _Madonna in the Meadow_ (Belvedere, Vienna);
_La Belle Jardinière_ (Louvre); and a number of portraits including
the famous self-portrait (Uffizi). He was but twenty-five! Called to
Rome in 1508 to decorate the Stanze in the Vatican this immense work
occupied him until 1514. In the meantime, he was given the decoration
of the Loggia, but while he made the designs, the actual painting of
“Raphael’s Bible” was done by his pupils. In the pressure of all this
stupendous work he found time to paint _The Triumph of Galatea_ for
Agostino Chigi in the Farnesina Palace, _The Madonna della Seggiola_
(Pitti), the _Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami_ and many portraits. In
1516 he painted _Baldassare Castiglione_ (Louvre); in 1517 the _Madonna
di San Sisto_, for the convent of San Sisto at Piacenza (Dresden
Gallery) and the _St. Cecilia_ (Bologna Gallery). In 1518 he began _The
Transfiguration_, which was unfinished at the time of his death and
which was placed beside his bier.
All this magnificent work which expresses such high creative power and
such vast technical knowledge is the performance of a young man of
twenty-seven! Had he painted but three pictures, _La Belle Jardinière_,
the _Madonna of the Chair_, and the _Sistine Madonna_, Raphael’s place
would have been with the greatest of the immortals. Taking his entire
list of works into consideration Raphael, perhaps, comes nearer than
any other painter to the term “inspired.”
AGONY IN THE GARDEN.
_Raphael
(1483–1520)._
_Collection of
Mr. Clarence H. Mackay._
This panel (9½ × 11 inches), was one of four belonging to the Predella
of the large altar-piece representing the _Madonna Enthroned with
Saints_, painted by Raphael in 1505 for the Nuns of S. Antonio,
Perugia. It is, therefore, one of Raphael’s early works.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Clarence H. Mackay_
AGONY IN THE GARDEN
--_Raphael_]
The Saviour in a grey robe kneels in prayer at the right near a tree
and towards him an Angel holding a chalice descends from the clouds.
The other characters are sleeping: St. John the Evangelist in a green
and red robe lies upon a grassy bank at the left; St. Peter reclines
against a grassy mound at the right; and St. James, in a green and
yellow robe, has propped himself against the tree in the centre. Trees
and low-lying hills form the background. All four panels forming
the Predella were purchased from the Nuns of St. Anthony in 1663 by
Christina, Queen of Sweden. This particular panel--_The Agony in the
Garden_--passed from the Queen of Sweden’s possession into that
of Cardinal Azzolini, and thence into the Collection of Don Livio
Odescalchi, whose heirs sold it to the Regent, the Duc d’Orleans. The
Orleans Collection was sold in London in 1798 and _The Agony in the
Garden_ then went into the Bryant Collection. Lord Eldin bought it
next and subsequently the poet, Samuel Rogers, at whose sale in 1856
the panel was purchased by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. After the
sale of the W. Burdett-Coutts Collection at Christie’s in 1917, the
panel found its way to New York. The other three panels are: _St.
Anthony of Padua and St. Francis_ (now in the Dulwich Gallery); the
_Procession to Calvary_ (in the National Gallery, London); and a
_Pietà_ (in the Gardner Collection, Boston).
The altar-piece--_The Madonna Enthroned with Saints_--was
presented to the Metropolitan Museum by the late Mr. J. Pierpont
Morgan.
_NORTH ITALIAN_
The greatest painters of Northern Italy were Altichiero Altichieri
(1330?–1395), Pisanello (1397–1455), Domenico Morone (1442–1503),
Liberale (1451–1536), Girolamo dai Libri (1474–1503), and Paolo
Veronese (1528–1588), in Verona; Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), in
Padua; and Cosimo Tura (1420?–1495), in Ferrara; Vincenzo Foppa
(1427?–1515–16), Bramante da Milano (died about 1470), Bartolommeo
Suardi, called Bramantino (1450?–1536), and Bernardino Luini
(1475?–1531–2), in Milan; Lorenzo Costa (1460?–1535), and Francesco
Francia (1450?–1517), in Bologna; Moretto da Brescia (1498–1554), and
Giambattista Moroni (1520–5–1578), in Brescia; and Antonio Allegri,
better known as Correggio (1494–1534), in Parma.
The towns of Northern Italy were more or less influenced by Florentine
artists who worked in various towns and who naturally attracted pupils
and local assistants. Painters travelled too, a great deal, wishing, as
they do now, to see the famous works of painters both living and dead
and of learning the newest and latest technique. Lords and dukes also
attracted celebrated painters to their courts; and, if they liked them,
bestowed lavish orders for portraits, for their relatives and friends;
small devotional pictures for their own cabinets; wall-paintings for
their villas; and altar-pieces and frescoes for their local churches or
cathedrals.
Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, sent to Lorenzo de’ Medici on two or
three occasions to recommend painters from Florence for work that he
wished to have done. The great intellectual and artistic activity of
Lombardy at the end of the Fifteenth Century was largely owing to
Lodovico Sforza, whose Court was one of the most brilliant of the
day. “Here,” an enthusiastic contemporary exclaimed, “here the muses
of poetry and the masters of sculpture reigned supreme; here came the
most distinguished painters from distant regions; here, night and day,
were heard sounds of such sweet singing and such delicious harmonies of
music that they seemed to descend from heaven itself.”
New churches and palaces arose in Milan, Pavia, Como, Cremona,
Piacenza, Lugano, and other places, and artists were necessary for
decorating them. In 1496, Leonardo having all he could do, Lodovico
wrote to Florence for a description of the best painters of the day.
This is what he received; and it is very interesting as showing the
estimation of the men mentioned while they were living:
“Sandro de Botticello--a most excellent master, both in panel and
wall-painting. His figures have a manly air and are admirable in
conception and proportion.
“Filippino di Frati Filippo--an excellent disciple of the above-named
and a son of the rarest master of our times. His heads have a gentler
and more suave air; but, we are inclined to think, less art.
“Il Perugino--a rare and singular artist, most excellent in
wall-painting. His faces have an air of the most angelic sweetness.
“Domenico de Girlandaio--a good master in panels and a better one in
wall-painting. His figures are good and he is an industrious and active
master who produces much work.
“All of these masters have given proof of their excellence in the
Chapel of Pope Sixtus, excepting Filippino, and also in the Spedaletto
of the Magnificent Laurentio, and their merit is almost equal.[13]
The glimpse Leonardo da Vinci has given us of his life charms us across
the long shadow of four centuries and more:
“The painter describes himself as living in a fine house, full of
beautiful paintings and choice objects surrounded by musicians and
poets. Here he sits at his work, handling a brush full of lovely
color, never so happy as when he can paint listening to the sound of
sweet melodies. The spacious _atélier_ is full of scholars and
apprentices employed in carrying out their master’s ideas, or making
chemical experiments, but careless of the noise of tools and hammers,
the fair-haired boy, Angelo, sings his golden song, and, Serafino, the
wondrous _improvisatore_, chants his own verses to the sound of
the lyre. Visitors come and go freely--Messer Jacopo of Ferrara, the
architect, who was so dear to Leonardo as a brother, the courtly poet,
Gaspare Visconti, and Vincenzo Calmeta, Duchess Beatrice’s secretary,
or, it may be, the great Messer Galeaz himself, whose big jennet and
Sicilian horse the master has been drawing as models for the great
equestrian statue standing outside in the Corte Vecchia. There, among
them all, the painter bends over his canvas seeking to perfect the
glazes and scrumbles of his pearly tints, or trying to realize some
dream of a face that haunts his fancy with its exquisite smile. He
has, it is true, many labors--(_a tanta faccenda!_) as he wrote
to the councillors of Piacenza--and at times he hardly knows which way
to turn; but he is his own master, free to work as he will, now at
one, now at another. He has no cares nor anxiety. He can dress as he
pleases, wear rich apparel if he is so minded, or don the plain clothes
and sober hues that he prefers. He has gold enough and to spare; he can
help a poorer friend and educate a needy apprentice, or save his money
for a rainy day; and, above all, he has plenty of books and leisure
to meditate on philosophical treatises, or ponder over the scientific
problems in which his soul delights. He can find time to jot down his
thoughts on many things, to write his great treatise on painting, and
to draw the wonderful interlaced patterns inscribed with the strange
words which have puzzled so many generations of commentators. And he
has friends, too, dear to his heart--Messer Jacopo and the wise Lorenzo
da Pavia, that master of organs whose hands were as deft in fashioning
lyres and viols as in drawing out sweet sounds--with whom he loved to
commune of musical instruments and eternal harmonies, and the boy,
Andrea Salai, with the beautiful, curling hair, whom he loved to dress
up in green velvet mantles and shoes with rose-colored ribbons and
silver buckles. ‘Such,’ he tells us ‘was I, Leonardo the Florentine, at
the Court of the most illustrious Prince, Signor Lodovic.’”[14]
In such surroundings Leonardo da Vinci spent sixteen happy years,
during which he exercised all his talents as architect, engineer,
sculptor, musician, and painter, also designing ingenious settings for
masques and tournaments and superintending decorations for weddings and
for other festivities. Here, too, he painted the _Last Supper_
in the refectory of the Dominican Friars of S. Maria delle Grazie,
which “Il Moro” had taken under his special protection; the _Virgin
of the Rocks_ (now in the Louvre), originally for the Church of S.
Francesco of Milan, and many portraits, including those of Ludovico
Sforza and of his talented young wife, Beatrice d’Este. When the French
entered Milan in 1499 Leonardo returned to Italy.
The presence of the supreme and superlative Leonardo in Milan for so
long a time naturally stimulated art and artists of all kinds and even
more particularly that of painting and painters. His style dominated
the Milanese School of painters just as Richard Wagner dominated the
musical composers of the Nineteenth Century; and we find, particularly
in the case of Luini, some of the Master’s most engaging qualities
appreciated and imitated (see page 110).