of Arezzo, who wrought every kind of chasing very well but was
particularly excellent in making scenes in silver enamelled over fire,
to which witness is borne by a mitre with most beautiful adornments in
enamel, and a very beautiful pastoral staff of silver, which are in the
Vescovado of Arezzo. The same man wrought for Cardinal Galeotto da
Pietramala many works in silver that remained after his death with the
friars of La Vernia, where he wished to be buried. There, besides the
wall that was erected in that place by Count Orlando, Lord of Chiusi, a
small town below La Vernia, the Cardinal built the church, together with
many rooms in the convent and throughout that whole place, without
putting his arms there or leaving any other memorial. A disciple of
Maestro Cione, also, was Leonardo di Ser Giovanni, a Florentine, who
wrought many works in chasing and soldering, with better design than the
others before him had shown, and in particular the altar and panel of
silver in S. Jacopo at Pistoia; in which work, besides the scenes, which
are numerous, there was much praise given to a figure in the round that
he made in the middle, representing S. James, more than one braccio in
height, and wrought with so great finish that it appears rather to have
been made by casting than by chasing. This figure is set in the midst of
the said scenes on the panel of the altar, round which is a frieze of
letters in enamel, that run thus:
AD HONOREM DEI ET SANCTI JACOBI APOSTOLI, HOC OPUS FACTUM FUIT
TEMPORE DOMINI FRANC. PAGNI DICTAE OPERAE OPERARII SUB ANNO 1371
PER ME LEONARDUM SER JO. DE FLOREN. AURIFIC.
Now, returning to Agostino and Agnolo: they had many disciples who,
after their death, wrought many works of architecture and of sculpture
in Lombardy and other parts of Italy, and among others Maestro Jacopo
Lanfrani of Venice, who founded S. Francesco of Imola and wrought the
principal door in sculpture, where he carved his name and the date,
which was the year 1343. And at Bologna, in the Church of S. Domenico,
the same Maestro Jacopo made a tomb in marble for Giovanni Andrea
Calduino, Doctor of Laws and Secretary to Pope Clement VI; and another,
also in marble and in the said church, very well wrought, for Taddeo
Peppoli, Conservator of the people and of Justice in Bologna. And in the
same year, which was the year 1347, or a little before, this tomb being
finished, Maestro Jacopo went to his native city of Venice and founded
the Church of S. Antonio, which was previously of wood, at the request
of a Florentine Abbot of the ancient family of the Abati, the Doge being
Messer Andrea Dandolo. This church was finished in the year 1349.
Jacobello and Pietro Paolo, also, Venetians and disciples of Agostino
and Agnolo, made a tomb in marble for Messer Giovanni da Lignano, Doctor
of Laws, in the year 1383, in the Church of S. Domenico at Bologna.
All these and many other sculptors went on for a long space of time
following one and the same method, in a manner that with it they filled
all Italy. It is believed, also, that the Pesarese, who, besides many
other works, built the Church of S. Domenico in his native city, and
made in sculpture the marble door with the three figures in the round,
God the Father, S. John the Baptist, and S. Mark, was a disciple of
Agostino and Agnolo; and to this the manner bears witness. This work was
finished in the year 1385. But, seeing that it would take too long if I
were to make mention minutely of the works that were wrought by many
masters of those times in that manner, I wish that this, that I have
said of them thus in general, should suffice me for the present, and
above all because there is not any benefit of much account for our arts
from such works. Of the aforesaid it has seemed to me proper to make
mention, because, if they do not deserve to be discussed at length, yet,
on the other hand, they were not such as to need to be passed over
completely in silence.
STEFANO AND UGOLINO SANESE
LIFE OF STEFANO, PAINTER OF FLORENCE, AND OF UGOLINO SANESE
[_UGOLINO DA SIENA_]
Stefano, painter of Florence and disciple of Giotto, was so excellent,
that he not only surpassed all the others who had laboured in the art
before him, but outstripped his own master himself by so much that he
was held, and deservedly, the best of all the painters who had lived up
to that time, as his works clearly demonstrate. He painted in fresco the
Madonna of the Campo Santo in Pisa, which is no little better in design
and in colouring than the work of Giotto; and in Florence, in the
cloister of S. Spirito, he painted three little arches in fresco. In the
first of these, wherein is the Transfiguration of Christ with Moses and
Elias, imagining how great must have been the splendour that dazzled
them, he fashioned the three Disciples with extraordinary and beautiful
attitudes, and enveloped in draperies in a manner that it is seen that
he went on trying to do something that had never been done
before--namely, to suggest the nude form of the figures below new kinds
of folds, which, as I have said, had not been thought of even by Giotto.
Under this arch, wherein he made a Christ delivering the woman
possessed, he drew a building in perspective, perfectly and in a manner
then little known, executing it in good form and with better knowledge;
and in it, working with very great judgment in modern fashion, he showed
so great art and so great invention and proportion in the columns, in
the doors, in the windows, and in the cornices, and so great diversity
from the other masters in his method of working, that it appears that
there was beginning to be seen a certain glimmer of the good and perfect
manner of the moderns. He invented, among other ingenious ideas, a
flight of steps very difficult to make, which, both in painting and
built out in relief--wrought in either way, in fact--is so rich in
design and variety, and so useful and convenient in invention, that the
elder Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, availed himself of it in
making the outer staircase of the Palace of Poggio a Cajano, now the
principal villa of the most Illustrious Lord Duke. In the other little
arch is a story of Christ when he is delivering S. Peter from shipwreck,
so well done that one seems to hear the voice of Peter saying: "Domine,
salva nos, perimus." This work is judged much more beautiful than the
others, because, besides the softness of the draperies, there are seen
sweetness in the air of the heads and terror in the perils of the sea,
and because the Apostles, shaken by diverse motions and by phantoms of
the sea, have been represented in attitudes very appropriate and all
most beautiful. And although time has eaten away in part the labours
that Stefano put into this work, it may be seen, although but dimly,
that the Apostles are defending themselves from the fury of the winds
and from the waves of the sea with great energy; which work, being very
highly praised among the moderns, must have certainly appeared a miracle
in all Tuscany in the time of him who wrought it. After this he painted
a S. Thomas Aquinas beside a door in the first cloister of S. Maria
Novella, where he also made a Crucifix, which was afterwards executed in
a bad manner by other painters in restoring it. In like manner he left a
chapel in the church begun and not finished, which has been much eaten
away by time, wherein the angels are seen raining down in diverse forms
by reason of the pride of Lucifer; where it is to be noticed that the
figures, with the arms, trunks, and legs foreshortened much better than
any foreshortenings that had been made before, give us to know that
Stefano began to understand and to demonstrate in part the difficulties
that those men had to reduce to excellence, who afterwards, with greater
science, showed them to us, as they have done, in perfection; wherefore
the surname of "The Ape of Nature" was given him by the other craftsmen.
Next, being summoned to Milan, Stefano made a beginning for many works
for Matteo Visconti, but was not able to finish them, because, having
fallen sick by reason of the change of air, he was forced to return to
Florence. There, having regained his health, he made in fresco, in the
tramezzo[14] of the Church of S. Croce, in the Chapel of the Asini, the
story of the martyrdom of S. Mark, when he was dragged to death, with
many figures that have something of the good. Being then summoned to
Rome by reason of having been a disciple of Giotto, he made some stories
of Christ in S. Pietro, in the principal chapel wherein is the altar of
the said Saint, between the windows that are in the great choir-niche,
with so much diligence that it is seen that he approached closely to the
modern manner, surpassing his master Giotto considerably in
draughtsmanship and in other respects.
After this, on a pillar on the left-hand side of the principal chapel of
the Araceli, he made a S. Louis in fresco, which is much praised,
because it has in it a vivacity never displayed up to that time even by
Giotto. And in truth Stefano had great facility in draughtsmanship, as
can be seen in our said book in a drawing by his hand, wherein is drawn
the Transfiguration (which he painted in the cloister of S. Spirito), in
such a manner that in my judgment he drew much better than Giotto.
Having gone, next, to Assisi, he began in fresco a scene of the
Celestial Glory in the niche of the principal chapel of the lower Church
of S. Francesco, where the choir is; and although he did not finish it,
it is seen from what he did that he used so great diligence that no
greater could be desired. In this work there is seen begun a circle of
saints, both male and female, with so beautiful variety in the faces of
the young, the men of middle age, and the old, that nothing better could
be desired. And there is seen a very sweet manner in these blessed
spirits, with such great harmony that it appears almost impossible that
it could have been done in those times by Stefano, who indeed did do it;
although there is nothing of the figures in this circle finished save
the heads, over which is a choir of angels who are hovering playfully
about in various attitudes, appropriately carrying theological symbols
in their hands, and all turned towards a Christ on the Cross, who is in
the middle of this work, over the head of a S. Francis, who is in the
midst of an infinity of saints. Besides this, in the border of the
whole work, he made some angels, each of whom is holding in his hand one
of those Churches that S. John the Evangelist described in the
Apocalypse; and these angels are executed with so much grace that I am
amazed how in that age there was to be found one who knew so much.
Stefano began this work with a view to bringing it to the fullest
perfection, and he would have succeeded, but he was forced to leave it
imperfect and to return to Florence by some important affairs of his
own.
During that time, then, that he stayed for this purpose in Florence, in
order to lose no time he painted for the Gianfigliazzi, by the side of
the Arno, between their houses and the Ponte alla Carraja, a little
shrine on a corner that is there, wherein he depicted a Madonna sewing,
to whom a boy dressed and seated is handing a bird, with such diligence
that the work, small as it is, deserves to be praised no less than do
the works that he wrought on a larger and more masterly scale.
This shrine finished and his affairs dispatched, being called to Pistoia
by its Lords in the year 1346, he was made to paint the Chapel of S.
Jacopo, on the vaulting of which he made a God the Father with some
Apostles, and on the walls the stories of that Saint, and in particular
when his mother, wife of Zebedee, asks Jesus Christ to consent to place
her two sons, one on His right hand and the other on His left hand, in
the Kingdom of the Father. Close to this is the beheading of the said
Saint, a very beautiful work.
It is reputed that Maso, called Giottino, of whom there will be mention
below, was the son of this Stefano; and although many, by reason of the
suggestiveness of the name, hold him the son of Giotto, I, by reason of
certain records that I have seen, and of certain memoirs of good
authority written by Lorenzo Ghiberti and by Domenico del Ghirlandajo,
hold it as true that he was rather the son of Stefano than of Giotto. Be
this as it may, returning to Stefano, it can be credited to him that he
did more than anyone after Giotto to improve painting, for, besides
being more varied in invention, he was also more harmonious, more
mellow, and better blended in colouring than all the others; and
above all he had no peer in diligence. And as for those foreshortenings
that he made, although, as I have said, he showed a faulty manner in
them by reason of the difficulty of making them, none the less he who is
the pioneer in the difficulties of any exercise deserves a much greater
name than those who follow with a somewhat more ordered and regular
manner. Truly great, therefore, is the debt that should be acknowledged
to Stefano, because he who walks in darkness and gives heart to others,
by showing them the way, brings it about that its difficult steps are
made easy, so that with lapse of time men leave the false road and
attain to the desired goal. At Perugia, too, in the Church of S.
Domenico, he began in fresco the Chapel of S. Caterina, which remained
unfinished.
[Illustration: _Berlin Photo. Co._
SS. PAUL, PETER AND JOHN THE BAPTIST
(_After the painting by_ Ugolino Sanese [da Siena]. _Berlin: K.
Friedrich Museum, 1635_)]
There lived about the same time as Stefano a man of passing good repute,
Ugolino, painter of Siena, very much his friend, who painted many panels
and chapels throughout all Italy, although he held ever in great part to
the Greek manner, as one who, grown old therein, had wished by reason of
a certain obstinacy in himself to hold rather to the manner of Cimabue
than to that of Giotto, which was so greatly revered. By the hand of
Ugolino, then, is the panel of the high-altar of S. Croce, on a ground
all of gold, and also a panel which stood many years on the high-altar
of S. Maria Novella and is to-day in the Chapter-house, where the
Spanish nation every year holds most solemn festival on the day of S.
James, with other offices and funeral ceremonies of its own. Besides
these, he wrought many other works with good skill, without departing,
however, from the manner of his master. The same man made, on a
brick-pier in the Loggia that Lapo had built on the Piazza
d'Orsanmichele, that Madonna which worked so many miracles, not many
years later, that the Loggia was for a long time full of images, and is
still held in the greatest veneration. Finally, in the Chapel of Messer
Ridolfo de' Bardi, which is in S. Croce, where Giotto painted the life
of S. Francis, he painted a Crucifix in distemper on the altar-panel,
with a Magdalene and a S. John weeping, and two friars, one on either
side. Ugolino passed away from this life, being old, in the year 1349,
and was buried with honour in Siena, his native city.
But returning to Stefano, of whom they say that he was also a good
architect, which is proved by what has been said above, he died, so it
is said, in the year when there began the jubilee, 1350, at the age of
forty-nine, and was laid to rest in the tomb of his fathers, in S.
Spirito, with this epitaph:
STEPHANO FLORENTINO PICTORI, FACIUNDIS IMAGINIBUS AC COLORANDIS
FIGURIS NULLI UNQUAM INFERIORI, AFFINES MOESTISS. POS. VIX. AN.
XXXXIX.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: See note on p. 57.]
PIETRO LAURATI
[Illustration: _Alinari_
THE MADONNA ENTHRONED
(_After the polyptych_ by Pietro Laurati [Lorenzetti]. _Arezzo: S. Maria
della Pieve_)]
LIFE OF PIETRO LAURATI
[_PIETRO LORENZETTI_],
PAINTER OF SIENA
Pietro Laurati, an excellent painter of Siena, proved in his life how
great is the contentment of the truly able, who feel that their works
are prized both at home and abroad, and who see themselves sought after
by all men, for the reason that in the course of his life he was sent
for and held dear throughout all Tuscany, having first become known
through the scenes that he painted in fresco for the Scala, a hospital
in Siena, wherein he imitated in such wise the manner of Giotto, then
spread throughout all Tuscany, that it was believed with great reason
that he was destined, as afterwards came to pass, to become a better
master than Cimabue and Giotto and the others had been; for the figures
that represent the Virgin ascending the steps of the Temple, accompanied
by Joachim and Anna, and received by the priest, and then in the
Marriage, are so beautifully adorned, so well draped, and so simply
wrapped in their garments, that they show majesty in the air of the
heads, and a most beautiful manner in their bearing. By reason of this
work, which was the first introduction into Siena of the good method of
painting, giving light to the many beautiful intellects which have
flourished in that city in every age, Pietro was invited to Monte
Oliveto di Chiusuri, where he painted a panel in distemper that is
placed to-day in the portico below the church. In Florence, next,
opposite to the left-hand door of the Church of S. Spirito, on the
corner where to-day there is a butcher, he painted a shrine which, by
reason of the softness of the heads and of the sweetness that is seen in
it, deserves the highest praise from every discerning craftsman.
Going from Florence to Pisa, he wrought in the Campo Santo, on the wall
that is beside the principal door, all the lives of the Holy Fathers,
with expressions so lively and attitudes so beautiful that he equalled
Giotto and gained thereby very great praise, having expressed in certain
heads, both with drawing and with colour, all that vivacity that the
manner of those times was able to show. From Pisa he went to Pistoia,
where he made a Madonna with some angels round her, very well grouped,
on a panel in distemper, for the Church of S. Francesco; and in the
predella that ran below this panel, in certain scenes, he made certain
little figures so lively and so vivid that in those times it was
something marvellous; wherefore, since they satisfied himself no less
than others, he thought fit to place thereon his name, with these words:
PETRUS LAURATI DE SENIS.
[Illustration: PIETRO LORENZETTI: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH S.S. FRANCIS
AND JOHN
_(Assisi: Lower Church of S. Francesco. Fresco)_]
Pietro was summoned, next, in the year 1355, by Messer Guglielmo,
arch-priest, and by the Wardens of Works of the Pieve of Arezzo, who
were then Margarito Boschi and others; and in that church, built long
before with better design and manner than any other that had been made
in Tuscany up to that time, and all adorned with squared stone and with
carvings, as it has been said, by the hand of Margaritone, he painted in
fresco the apse and the whole great niche of the chapel of the
high-altar, making there twelve scenes from the life of Our Lady with
figures large as life, beginning with the expulsion of Joachim from the
Temple, up to the Nativity of Jesus Christ. In these scenes, wrought in
fresco, may be recognized almost the same inventions (the lineaments,
the air of the heads, and the attitudes of the figures) which had been
characteristic of and peculiar to Giotto, his master. And although all
this work is beautiful, what he painted on the vaulting of this niche is
without doubt better than all the rest, for in representing the Madonna
ascending into Heaven, besides making the Apostles each four braccia
high, wherein he showed greatness of spirit and was the first to try to
give grandness to the manner, he gave so beautiful an air to the heads
and so great loveliness to the vestments that in those times nothing
more could have been desired. Likewise, in the faces of a choir of
angels who are flying in the air round the Madonna, dancing with
graceful movements, and appearing to sing, he painted a gladness
truly angelic and divine, above all because he made the angels
sounding diverse instruments, with their eyes all fixed and intent on
another choir of angels, who, supported by a cloud in the form of an
almond, are bearing the Madonna to Heaven, with beautiful attitudes and
all surrounded by rainbows. This work, seeing that it rightly gave
pleasure, was the reason that he was commissioned to make in distemper
the panel for the high-altar of the aforesaid Pieve; wherein, in five
parts, with figures as far as the knees and large as life, he made Our
Lady with the Child in her arms, and S. John the Baptist and S. Matthew
on the one side, and on the other the Evangelist and S. Donatus, with
many little figures in the predella and in the border of the panel
above, all truly beautiful and executed in very good manner. This panel,
after I had rebuilt the high-altar of the aforesaid Pieve completely
anew, at my own expense and with my own hand, was set up over the altar
of S. Cristofano at the foot of the church. Nor do I wish to grudge the
labour of saying in this place, with this occasion and not wide of the
subject, that I, moved by Christian piety and by the affection that I
bear towards this venerable and ancient collegiate church, and for the
reason that in it, in my earliest childhood, I learnt my first lessons,
and that it contains the remains of my fathers: moved, I say, by these
reasons, and by it appearing to me that it was wellnigh deserted, I have
restored it in a manner that it can be said that it has returned from
death to life; for besides changing it from a dark to a well-lighted
church by increasing the windows that were there before and by making
others, I have also removed the choir, which, being in front, used to
occupy a great part of the church, and to the great satisfaction of
those reverend canons I have placed it behind the high-altar. This new
altar, standing by itself, has on the panel in front a Christ calling
Peter and Andrew from their nets, and on the side towards the choir it
has, on another panel, S. George slaying the Dragon. On the sides are
four pictures, and in each of these are two saints as large as life.
Then above, and below in the predella, there is an infinity of other
figures, which, for brevity's sake, are not enumerated. The ornamental
frame of this altar is thirteen braccia high, and the predella is two
braccia high. And because within it is hollow, and one ascends to it by
a staircase through an iron wicket very conveniently arranged, there are
preserved in it many venerable relics, which can be seen from without
through two gratings that are in the front part; and among others there
is the head of S. Donatus, Bishop and Protector of that city, and in a
coffer of variegated marble, three braccia long, which I have had
restored, are the bones of four Saints. And the predella of the altar,
which surrounds it all right round in due proportion, has in front of it
the tabernacle, or rather ciborium, of the Sacrament, made of carved
wood and all gilt, about three braccia high; which tabernacle is in the
round and can be seen as well from the side of the choir as from in
front. And because I have spared no labour and no expense, considering
myself bound to act thus in honour of God, this work, in my judgment,
has in all those ornaments of gold, of carvings, of paintings, of
marbles, of travertines, of variegated marbles, of porphyries, and of
other stones, the best that could be got together by me in that place.
But returning now to Pietro Laurati; that panel finished whereof there
has been talk above, he wrought in S. Pietro at Rome many works which
were afterwards destroyed in making the new building of S. Pietro. He
also wrought some works in Cortona and in Arezzo, besides those that
have been mentioned, and some others in the Church of S. Fiora e
Lucilla, a monastery of Black Friars, and in particular, in a chapel, a
S. Thomas who is putting his hand on the wound in the breast of Christ.
A disciple of Pietro was Bartolommeo Bologhini of Siena, who wrought
many panels in Siena and other places in Italy, and in Florence there is
one by his hand on the altar of the Chapel of S. Silvestro in S. Croce.
The pictures of these men date about the year of our salvation 1350; and
in my book, so many times cited, there is seen a drawing by the hand of
Pietro, wherein a shoemaker who is sewing, with simple but very natural
lineaments, shows very great expression and the characteristic manner of
Pietro, the portrait of whom, by the hand of Bartolommeo Bologhini, was
in a panel in Siena, when I copied it from the original in the manner
that is seen above.
[Illustration: _Anderson_
THE DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS
(_After the fresco of the_ Roman School. _Assisi: Upper Church of S.
Francesco_)]
ANDREA PISANO
LIFE OF ANDREA PISANO,
SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT