father when he was still a child of tender age, he was left to the care
of two uncles, brothers of his father, and both painters, who brought
him up with the greatest lovingness, teaching him all those praiseworthy
ways that befit a Christian man and a good citizen. Then, having made
some little growth, he had no sooner taken pen in hand in order to learn
to write, than he began, spurred by Nature, who had consecrated him at
his birth to design, to draw most marvellous things; and the master who
was teaching him to write, noticing this and perceiving to what heights
the genius of the boy might in time attain, persuaded his uncles to let
him give his attention to design and painting. Whereupon, being men of
good judgment in matters of art, although they were old and painters of
no great fame, and recognizing that God and Nature had been the boy's
first masters, they did not fail to take the greatest pains to make him
learn to draw under the discipline of the best masters, to the end that
he might acquire a good manner. And coming by degrees to believe that he
had been born, so to speak, with brushes in his fingers, on the one hand
they urged him on, and on the other, fearing lest overmuch study might
perchance spoil his health, they would sometimes hold him back. Finally,
having come to the age of sixteen, and having already done miracles of
drawing, he painted a S. John baptizing Christ, of his own invention, on
a panel, which he executed in such a manner that even now whoever sees
it stands marvelling that such a work should have been painted so well
by a boy. This picture was placed in the Nunziata, the seat of the Frati
de' Zoccoli at Parma. Not content with this, however, Francesco resolved
to try his hand at working in fresco, and therefore painted a chapel in
S. Giovanni Evangelista, a house of Black Friars of S. Benedict; and
since he succeeded in that kind of work, he painted as many as seven.
But about that time Pope Leo X sent Signor Prospero Colonna with an army
to Parma, and the uncles of Francesco, fearing that he might perchance
lose time or be distracted, sent him in company with his cousin,
Girolamo Mazzuoli, another boy-painter, to Viadana, a place belonging to
the Duke of Mantua, where they lived all the time that the war lasted;
and there Francesco painted two panels in distemper. One of these, in
which are S. Francis receiving the Stigmata, and S. Chiara, was placed
in the Church of the Frati de' Zoccoli; and the other, which contains a
Marriage of S. Catharine, with many figures, was placed in S. Piero. And
let no one believe that these are works of a young beginner, for they
seem to be rather by the hand of a full-grown master.
The war finished, Francesco, having returned with his cousin to Parma,
first completed some pictures that he had left unfinished at his
departure, which are in the hands of various people. After this he
painted a panel-picture in oils of Our Lady with the Child in her arms,
with S. Jerome on one side and the Blessed Bernardino da Feltro on the
other, and in the head of one of these figures he made a portrait of the
patron of the picture, which is so wonderful that it lacks nothing save
the breath of life. All these works he executed before he had reached
the age of nineteen.
Then, having conceived a desire to see Rome, like one who was on the
path of progress and heard much praise given to the works of good
masters, and particularly to those of Raffaello and Michelagnolo, he
spoke out his mind and desire to his old uncles, who, thinking that such
a wish was not otherwise than worthy of praise, said that they were
content that he should go, but that it would be well for him to take
with him some work by his own hand, which might serve to introduce him
to the noblemen of that city and to the craftsmen of his profession.
This advice was not displeasing to Francesco, and he painted three
pictures, two small and one of some size, representing in the last the
Child in the arms of the Madonna, taking some fruits from the lap of an
Angel, and an old man with his arms covered with hair, executed with art
and judgment, and pleasing in colour. Besides this, in order to
investigate the subtleties of art, he set himself one day to make his
own portrait, looking at himself in a convex barber's mirror. And in
doing this, perceiving the bizarre effects produced by the roundness of
the mirror, which twists the beams of a ceiling into strange curves, and
makes the doors and other parts of buildings recede in an extraordinary
manner, the idea came to him to amuse himself by counterfeiting
everything. Thereupon he had a ball of wood made by a turner, and,
dividing it in half so as to make it the same in size and shape as the
mirror, set to work to counterfeit on it with supreme art all that he
saw in the glass, and particularly his own self, which he did with such
lifelike reality as could not be imagined or believed. Now everything
that is near the mirror is magnified, and all that is at a distance is
diminished, and thus he made the hand engaged in drawing somewhat
large, as the mirror showed it, and so marvellous that it seemed to be
his very own. And since Francesco had an air of great beauty, with a
face and aspect full of grace, in the likeness rather of an angel than
of a man, his image on that ball had the appearance of a thing divine.
So happily, indeed, did he succeed in the whole of this work, that the
painting was no less real than the reality, and in it were seen the
lustre of the glass, the reflection of every detail, and the lights and
shadows, all so true and natural, that nothing more could have been
looked for from the brain of man.
[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF S. CATHARINE
(_After the painting by =Francesco Mazzuoli [Parmigiano]=. Parma:
Gallery, 192_)
_Anderson_]
Having finished these works, which were held by his old uncles to be out
of the ordinary, and even considered by many other good judges of art to
be miracles of beauty, and having packed up both pictures and portrait,
he made his way to Rome, accompanied by one of the uncles. There, after
the Datary had seen the pictures and appraised them at their true worth,
the young man and his uncle were straightway introduced to Pope Clement,
who, seeing the works and the youthfulness of Francesco, was struck with
astonishment, and with him all his Court. And afterwards his Holiness,
having first shown him much favour, said that he wished to commission
him to paint the Hall of the Popes, in which Giovanni da Udine had
already decorated all the ceiling with stucco-work and painting. And so,
after presenting his pictures to the Pope, and receiving various gifts
and marks of favour in addition to his promises, Francesco, spurred by
the praise and glory that he heard bestowed upon him, and by the hope of
the profit that he might expect from so great a Pontiff, painted a most
beautiful picture of the Circumcision, which was held to be
extraordinary in invention on account of three most fanciful lights that
shone in the work; for the first figures were illuminated by the
radiance of the countenance of Christ, the second received their light
from others who were walking up some steps with burning torches in their
hands, bringing offerings for the sacrifice, and the last were revealed
and illuminated by the light of the dawn, which played upon a most
lovely landscape with a vast number of buildings. This picture finished,
he presented it to the Pope, who did not do with it what he had done
with the others; for he had given the picture of Our Lady to Cardinal
Ippolito de' Medici, his nephew, and the mirror-portrait to Messer
Pietro Aretino, the poet, who was in his service, but the picture of the
Circumcision he kept for himself; and it is believed that it came in
time into the possession of the Emperor. The mirror-portrait I remember
to have seen, when quite a young man, in the house of the same Messer
Pietro Aretino at Arezzo, where it was sought out as a choice work by
the strangers passing through that city. Afterwards it fell, I know not
how, into the hands of Valerio Vicentino, the crystal-engraver, and it
is now in the possession of Alessandro Vittoria, a sculptor in Venice,
the disciple of Jacopo Sansovino.
But to return to Francesco; while studying in Rome, he set himself to
examine all the ancient and modern works, both of sculpture and of
painting, that were in that city, but held those of Michelagnolo
Buonarroti and Raffaello da Urbino in supreme veneration beyond all the
others; and it was said afterwards that the spirit of that Raffaello had
passed into the body of Francesco, when men saw how excellent the young
man was in art, and how gentle and gracious in his ways, as was
Raffaello, and above all when it became known how much Francesco strove
to imitate him in everything, and particularly in painting. Nor was this
study in vain, for many little pictures that he painted in Rome, the
greater part of which afterwards came into the hands of Cardinal
Ippolito de' Medici, were truly marvellous; and even such is a round
picture with a very beautiful Annunciation, executed by him for Messer
Agnolo Cesis, which is now treasured as a rare work in the house of that
family. He painted a picture, likewise, of the Madonna with Christ, some
Angels, and a S. Joseph, which are beautiful to a marvel on account of
the expressions of the heads, the colouring, and the grace and diligence
with which they are seen to have been executed. This work was formerly
in the possession of Luigi Gaddi, and it must now be in the hands of his
heirs.
Hearing the fame of this master, Signor Lorenzo Cibo, Captain of the
Papal Guard, and a very handsome man, had a portrait of himself painted
by Francesco, who may be said to have made, not a portrait, but a living
figure of flesh and blood. Having then been commissioned to paint for
Madonna Maria Bufolini of Città di Castello a panel-picture which was
to be placed in S. Salvatore del Lauro, in a chapel near the door,
Francesco painted in it a Madonna in the sky, who is reading and has the
Child between her knees, and on the earth he made a figure of S. John,
kneeling on one knee in an attitude of extraordinary beauty, turning his
body, and pointing to the Infant Christ; and lying asleep on the ground,
in foreshortening, is a S. Jerome in Penitence.
But he was prevented from bringing this work to completion by the ruin
and sack of Rome in 1527, which was the reason not only that the arts
were banished for a time, but also that many craftsmen lost their lives.
And Francesco, also, came within a hair's breadth of losing his, seeing
that at the beginning of the sack he was so intent on his work, that,
when the soldiers were entering the houses, and some Germans were
already in his, he did not move from his painting for all the uproar
that they were making; but when they came upon him and saw him working,
they were so struck with astonishment at the work, that, like the
gentlemen that they must have been, they let him go on. And thus, while
the impious cruelty of those barbarous hordes was ruining the unhappy
city and all its treasures, both sacred and profane, without showing
respect to either God or man, Francesco was provided for and greatly
honoured by those Germans, and protected from all injury. All the
hardship that he suffered at that time was this, that he was forced, one
of them being a great lover of painting, to make a vast number of
drawings in water-colours and with the pen, which formed the payment of
his ransom. But afterwards, when these soldiers changed their quarters,
Francesco nearly came to an evil end, because, going to look for some
friends, he was made prisoner by other soldiers and compelled to pay as
ransom some few crowns that he possessed. Wherefore his uncle, grieved
by that and by the fact that this disaster had robbed Francesco of his
hopes of acquiring knowledge, honour, and profit, and seeing Rome almost
wholly in ruins and the Pope the prisoner of the Spaniards, determined
to take him back to Parma. And so he set Francesco on his way to his
native city, but himself remained for some days in Rome, where he
deposited the panel-picture painted for Madonna Maria Bufolini with the
Friars of the Pace, in whose refectory it remained for many years,
until finally it was taken by Messer Giulio Bufolini to the church of
his family in Città di Castello.
Having arrived in Bologna, and finding entertainment with many friends,
and particularly in the house of his most intimate friend, a saddler of
Parma, Francesco stayed some months in that city, where the life pleased
him, during which time he had some works engraved and printed in
chiaroscuro, among others the Beheading of S. Peter and S. Paul, and a
large figure of Diogenes. He also prepared many others, in order to have
them engraved on copper and printed, having with him for this purpose
one Maestro Antonio da Trento; but he did not carry this intention into
effect at the time, because he was forced to set his hand to executing
many pictures and other works for gentlemen of Bologna. The first
picture by his hand that was seen at Bologna was a S. Rocco of great
size in the Chapel of the Monsignori in S. Petronio; to which Saint he
gave a marvellous aspect, making him very beautiful in every part, and
conceiving him as somewhat relieved from the pain that the plague-sore
in the thigh gave him, which he shows by looking with uplifted head
towards Heaven in the act of thanking God, as good men do in spite of
the adversities that fall upon them. This work he executed for one
Fabrizio da Milano, of whom he painted a portrait from the waist upwards
in the picture, with the hands clasped, which seems to be alive; and
equally real, also, seems a dog that is there, with some landscapes
which are very beautiful, Francesco being particularly excellent in this
respect.
He then painted for Albio, a physician of Parma, a Conversion of S.
Paul, with many figures and a landscape, which was a very choice work.
And for his friend the saddler he executed another picture of
extraordinary beauty, containing a Madonna turned to one side in a
lovely attitude, and several other figures. He also painted a picture
for Count Giorgio Manzuoli, and two canvases in gouache, with some
little figures, all graceful and well executed, for Maestro Luca dai
Leuti.
One morning about this time, while Francesco was still in bed, the
aforesaid Antonio da Trento, who was living with him as his engraver,
opened a strong-box and robbed him of all the copper-plate engravings,
woodcuts, and drawings that he possessed; and he must have gone off to
the Devil, for all the news that was ever heard of him. The engravings
and woodcuts, indeed, Francesco recovered, for Antonio had left them
with a friend in Bologna, perchance with the intention of reclaiming
them at his convenience; but the drawings he was never able to get back.
Driven almost out of his mind by this, he returned to his painting, and
made a portrait, for the sake of money, of I know not what Count of
Bologna. After that he painted a picture of Our Lady, with a Christ who
is holding a globe of the world. The Madonna has a most beautiful
expression, and the Child is also very natural; for he always gave to
the faces of children a vivacious and truly childlike air, which yet
reveals that subtle and mischievous spirit that children often have. And
he attired the Madonna in a very unusual fashion, clothing her in a
garment that had sleeves of yellowish gauze, striped, as it were, with
gold, which gave a truly beautiful and graceful effect, revealing the
flesh in a natural and delicate manner; besides which, the hair is
painted so well that there is none better to be seen. This picture was
painted for Messer Pietro Aretino, but Francesco gave it to Pope
Clement, who came to Bologna at that time; then, in some way of which I
know nothing, it fell into the hands of Messer Dionigi Gianni, and it
now belongs to his son, Messer Bartolommeo, who has been so
accommodating with it that it has been copied fifty times, so much is it
prized.
[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS
(_After the panel by =Francesco Mazzuoli [Parmigiano]=. Bologna:
Accademia, 116_)
_Brogi_]
The same master painted for the Nuns of S. Margherita, in Bologna, a
panel-picture containing a Madonna, S. Margaret, S. Petronio, S. Jerome,
and S. Michael, which is held in vast veneration, as it deserves, since
in the expressions of the heads and in every other part it is as fine as
all the other works of this painter. He made many drawings, likewise,
and in particular some for Girolamo del Lino, and some for Girolamo
Fagiuoli, a goldsmith and engraver, who desired them for engraving on
copper; and these drawings are held to be full of grace. For Bonifazio
Gozzadino he painted his portrait from life, with one of his wife, which
remained unfinished. He also began a picture of Our Lady, which was
afterwards sold in Bologna to Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo, who has it in
the new house built by himself at Arezzo, together with many other
noble pictures, works of sculpture, and ancient marbles.
When the Emperor Charles V was at Bologna to be crowned by Clement VII,
Francesco, who went several times to see him at table, but without
drawing his portrait, made a likeness of that Emperor in a very large
picture in oils, wherein he painted Fame crowning him with laurel, and a
boy in the form of a little Hercules offering him a globe of the world,
giving him, as it were, the dominion over it. This work, when finished,
he showed to Pope Clement, who was so pleased with it that he sent it
and Francesco together, accompanied by the Bishop of Vasona, then
Datary, to the Emperor; at which his Majesty, to whom it gave much
satisfaction, hinted that it should be left with him. But Francesco,
being ill advised by an insincere or injudicious friend, refused to
leave it, saying that it was not finished; and so his Majesty did not
have it, and Francesco was not rewarded for it, as he certainly would
have been. This picture, having afterwards fallen into the hands of
Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, was presented by him to the Cardinal of
Mantua; and it is now in the guardaroba of the Duke of that city, with
many other most noble and beautiful pictures.
After having been so many years out of his native place, as we have
related, during which he had gained much experience in art, without
accumulating any store of riches, but only of friends, Francesco, in
order to satisfy his many friends and relatives, finally returned to
Parma. Arriving there, he was straightway commissioned to paint in
fresco a vault of some size in the Church of S. Maria della Steccata;
but since in front of that vault there was a flat arch which followed
the curve of the vaulting, making a sort of façade, he set to work first
on the arch, as being the easier, and painted therein six very beautiful
figures, two in colour and four in chiaroscuro. Between one figure and
another he made some most beautiful ornaments, surrounding certain
rosettes in relief, which he took it into his head to execute by himself
in copper, taking extraordinary pains over them.
At this same time he painted for the Chevalier Baiardo, a gentleman of
Parma and his intimate friend, a picture of a Cupid, who is fashioning
a bow with his own hand, and at his feet are seated two little boys,
one of whom catches the other by the arm and laughingly urges him to
touch Cupid with his finger, but he will not touch him, and shows by his
tears that he is afraid of burning himself at the fire of Love. This
picture, which is charming in colour, ingenious in invention, and
executed in that graceful manner of Francesco's that has been much
studied and imitated, as it still is, by craftsmen and by all who
delight in art, is now in the study of Signor Marc' Antonio Cavalca,
heir to the Chevalier Baiardo, together with many drawings of every kind
by the hand of the same master, all most beautiful and highly finished,
which he has collected. Even such are the many drawings, also by the
hand of Francesco, that are in our book; and particularly that of the
Beheading of S. Peter and S. Paul, of which, as has been related, he
published copper-plate engravings and woodcuts, while living in Bologna.
For the Church of S. Maria de' Servi he painted a panel-picture of Our
Lady with the Child asleep in her arms, and on one side some Angels, one
of whom has in his arms an urn of crystal, wherein there glitters a
Cross, at which the Madonna gazes in contemplation. This work remained
unfinished, because he was not well contented with it; and yet it is
much extolled, and a good example of his manner, so full of grace and
beauty.
Meanwhile Francesco began to abandon the work of the Steccata, or at
least to carry it on so slowly that it was evident that he was not in
earnest. And this happened because he had begun to study the problems of
alchemy, and had quite deserted his profession of painting, thinking
that he would become rich quicker by congealing mercury. Wherefore,
wearing out his brain, but not in imagining beautiful inventions and
executing them with brushes and colour-mixtures, he wasted his whole
time in handling charcoal, wood, glass vessels, and other suchlike
trumperies, which made him spend more in one day than he earned by a
week's work at the Chapel of the Steccata. Having no other means of
livelihood, and being yet compelled to live, he was wasting himself away
little by little with those furnaces; and what was worse, the men of the
Company of the Steccata, perceiving that he had completely abandoned
the work, and having perchance paid him more than his due, as is often
done, brought a suit against him. Thereupon, thinking it better to
withdraw, he fled by night with some friends to Casal Maggiore. And
there, having dispersed a little of the alchemy out of his head, he
painted a panel-picture for the Church of S. Stefano, of Our Lady in the
sky, with S. John the Baptist and S. Stephen below. Afterwards he
executed a picture, the last that he ever painted, of the Roman
Lucretia, which was a thing divine and one of the best that were ever
seen by his hand; but it has disappeared, however that may have
happened, so that no one knows where it is.
By his hand, also, is a picture of some nymphs, which is now in the
house of Messer Niccolò Bufolini at Città di Castello, and a child's
cradle, which was painted for Signora Angiola de' Rossi of Parma, wife
of Signor Alessandro Vitelli, and is likewise at Città di Castello.
In the end, having his mind still set on his alchemy, like every other
man who has once grown crazed over it, and changing from a dainty and
gentle person into an almost savage man with long and unkempt beard and
locks, a creature quite different from his other self, Francesco went
from bad to worse, became melancholy and eccentric, and was assailed by
a grievous fever and a cruel flux, which in a few days caused him to
pass to a better life. And in this way he found an end to the troubles
of this world, which was never known to him save as a place full of
annoyances and cares. He wished to be laid to rest in the Church of the
Servite Friars, called La Fontana, one mile distant from Casal Maggiore;
and he was buried naked, as he had directed, with a cross of cypress
upright on his breast. He finished the course of his life on the 24th of
August, in the year 1540, to the great loss of art on account of the
singular grace that his hands gave to the pictures that he painted.
Francesco delighted to play on the lute, and had a hand and a genius so
well suited to it that he was no less excellent in this than in
painting. It is certain that if he had not worked by caprice, and had
laid aside the follies of the alchemists, he would have been without a
doubt one of the rarest and most excellent painters of our age. I do not
deny that working at moments of fever-heat, and when one feels
inclined, may be the best plan. But I do blame a man for working little
or not at all, and for wasting all his time over cogitations, seeing
that the wish to arrive by trickery at a goal to which one cannot
attain, often brings it about that one loses what one knows in seeking
after that which it is not given to us to know. If Francesco, who had
from nature a spirit of great vivacity, with a beautiful and graceful
manner, had persisted in working every day, little by little he would
have made such proficience in art, that, even as he gave a beautiful,
gracious, and most charming expression to his heads, so he would have
surpassed his own self and the others in the solidity and perfect
excellence of his drawing.