The Umbrian school of painting, its scholars and
influence--Fra Angelico da Fiesole--Gentile da
Fabriano--Pietro Perugino--Artists at Urbino--Piero della
Francesca--Fra Carnevale--Francesco di Giorgio.
The Umbrian art, of which we have attempted to trace the origin,
has not hitherto met with the notice which it merits. Lanzi allowed
it no separate place among the fourteen schools under which he has
arranged Italian painting, and, by scattering its most important
names, has lost sight of certain characteristics which, rather
than any common education, link its masters together. Nor was this
omission wonderful, for the Umbrian painters and their works were
dispersed over many towns and villages, none of which could be
considered the head-quarters of a school, and to visit these distant
localities would have been a task of difficulty and disappointment.
The patronage of princes and communities seems to have been sparingly
bestowed in that mountain-land. Assisi, adorned by many Florentine
strangers, was mother rather than nurse of its native art, and
other religious houses wanted the means or the spirit to follow her
brilliant example. Hence the comparatively few opportunities afforded
to the Christian painters of Umbria of executing great works in
fresco, the peculiar vehicle of pictorial grandeur; and alas! of
these few, a considerable proportion has been lost to us under the
barbarism of whitewash.[122] The revival of feeling for religious
art, of late commenced by the Germans, and their persevering zeal in
illustrating its neglected monuments, have established the existence
of an Umbrian school in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but
its history remains to be written.[*123] The task would carry us too
far from the leading subject of these volumes, yet we shall endeavour
in a few pages to sketch its development, from the dreamy anchorites
whose rude pencils embodied the visions of their favourite St.
Francis, to Raffaele, whose high mission it was to perfect devotional
painting,[*124] apart from the alloy of human passions, and to
withstand for a time that influx of pagan and naturalist corruptions,
which after his premature death overwhelmed it.
[Footnote 122: In 1843, I saw fragments of fine frescoes in two
churches at Cagli which had just been cleared of this abomination;
and I was assured that the small church of Monte l'Abbate near Pesaro
has but recently been subjected to it, by order of its ignorant
curate. The abbey church of Pietra Pertusa at the Furlo is another of
many similar instances.]
[Footnote *123: It still remains to be written; but see the Essay of
BERENSON, _Central Italian Painting_ (Putnams, 1904), and
the valuable list of pictures appended to it.]
[Footnote *124: This is an example of the taste of our fathers,
almost inexplicable to-day. To consider Raffaele as a greater
"devotional" painter than Duccio, Simone Martini, Fra Angelico,
Sassetta, or Perugino might almost seem impossible.]
Two fanes were commenced in the thirteenth century near the Tiber,
which became conspicuous as shrines equally of Christian devotion
and Christian art. The cathedral of Orvieto for two hundred years
attracted from all parts of Italy many of the best artificers in
sculpture and painting, some of whom, arriving from Umbria, carried
back new inspirations to their homes. The sanctuary of St. Francis,
at Assisi, coeval with the dawn of Italian art, borrowed its earliest
embellishments from Tuscany,[*125] where Giotto and his followers
were ingrafting on design two novel ingredients--dramatic composition
and allegorical allusion. The former of these elements distinguished
the Florentine from contemporary schools, and carried it beyond
them in variety and effect, preparing a way for the pictorial power
which Raffaele and Michael Angelo perfected. To the inspirations of
Dante it owed the latter element, and to the enthusiastic though
tardy admiration which his fellow-citizens indulged for his wildly
poetical mysticism, may be ascribed the abiding impress of a tendency
which not only authorised but encouraged new and varied combinations.
The rigid outlines, monotonous conventional movements, and soulless
countenances of Byzantium gradually were mellowed into life and
beauty; but it is curious to observe how much sooner genius caught
the spirit than the form,--how it succeeded in embodying expression
long before it could master the more technical difficulties of
design, action, and shadow. The credit claimed for Giotto of
introducing physiognomical expression is, however, only partially
true. Compared with the Greek works, or even with those of his
immediate antecedents, Cimabue, Guido, and Margaritone, his heads,
indeed, beam with animated intelligence, and feel the movement which
he first communicated to his groups. Yet not less was the still and
unimpassioned, but deep-seated emotion which the Umbrian painters
embodied in their miniatures and panels, an improvement upon the
lifeless and angular mechanism of the Byzantine artificers, although
these very opposite qualities are generally condemned to the same
category of contemptible feebleness by our pretended connoisseurs,
glibly discussing masters whose real works they never saw, or are
unable from ignorance and prejudice to appreciate. Such a state
of art could not, however, remain wedded to a few fixed types. It
was inherently one of transition, and necessarily led to a gradual
abandonment of the Giottist manner of representation, while it
enlarged the principles of composition introduced by Giotto. Beato
Angelico, the first Florentine who successfully departed from that
style, reawakening the old religious spirit, and embodying in it
forms of purity never before or since attained, forsook not wholly
the Dantesque spirit. His passing influence yielded to a manner more
in unison with the times, which was formed and nearly perfected by
Masaccio; but still Dante was not left behind. Luca Signorelli,
issuing from his Umbrian mountains and his Umbrian master, imbibed at
Florence the lofty images of "the bard of hell," and energetically
reproduced them in the duomo of Orvieto, in startling contrast with
the works of Angelico, and other devoted masters, who had previously
decorated that museum of art.
[Footnote *125: The Roman school was painting at Assisi in the Upper
Church before Giotto. Cf. CROWE & CAVALCASELLE, _op. cit._,
vol. II., p. 4.]
There, too, had been wrought some choice productions of the Pisan
sculptors,[*126] but their tendency to clothe nature in the forms
of antique design met with little sympathy, and no imitation, from
students whose minds were preoccupied by tales of St. Francis, and
thus it is unnecessary here to notice them further. The Sienese
school is in an entirely different category. Without encumbering
ourselves at present by the definitions and distinctions of German
æsthetic criticism, we shall merely remark that the painters of
Siena, from Guido until late in the fifteenth century, never lost
sight of that sentimental devotion which we have already described
as the soul of Christian art, and which so curiously pervades the
statutes of their guild formerly quoted. The cathedral of Orvieto was
founded in 1290 by a Sienese architect, who, as we may well suppose,
brought some of his countrymen to assist in its embellishment, and
to infuse these principles among the native students, who, from
assistants, became master-artificers of its decorations. Nor was
this the only link which connected Sienese art with the confines
of Umbria. The scattered townships in the Val di Chiana preserve
in their remaining early altar-panels clear evidence that these
were supplied from Siena; and Taddeo Bartolo, repairing thence in
1403 to Perugia, and perhaps to Assisi, left proofs that the bland
sentimentalism of his native school might be united with a tranquil
majesty, to which the Giottists had scarcely attained.[*127]
[Footnote *126: The Pisan sculptors were for the most part Maitani,
the Sienese. Cf. L. DOUGLAS, in _Architectural Review_,
June, 1903.]
[Footnote *127: Dennistoun says nothing of the magnificent work of
Simone Martini, the Sienese, in S. Francesco, at Assisi.]
Having thus briefly touched upon foreign influences which told on
the pictorial character of Umbria, we are prepared to consider the
most remarkable artificers whom it has produced, especially in the
duchy of Urbino. Of these the first place is due on many accounts
to ODERIGI DA GUBBIO,[*128] for, besides his claim to be
founder of the schools of Gubbio and Bologna, he is celebrated among
the most excellent miniaturists of his time by Dante, who has placed
him in purgatory, a sentence justly deemed by Ticozzi somewhat severe
for "the head and front of his offending," that of over-zeal in his
art.
"'Art thou not Oderigi? Art not thou
Agobbio's glory, glory of that art
Which they of Paris call the limner's skill?'
'Brother,' said he, 'with tints that gayer smile,
Bolognian Franco's pencil lines the leaves:
His all the honour now, my light obscured.
In truth I had not been thus courteous to him
The whilst I lived, though eagerness of zeal
For that pre-eminence my heart was bent on.
Here of such pride the forfeiture is paid;
Nor were I even here, if, able still
To sin, I had not turned me unto God.
O powers of man! how vain your glory, nipt
E'en in its height of verdure, if an age
Less bright succeed not. Cimabue thought
To lord it over painting's field, and now
The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed.'"[129]
[Footnote *128: Cf. VENTURI, _Storia dell'Arte Italiana_
(Milano, 1907), vol. V., 837, 1003-4, 1014, 1022.]
[Footnote 129: CAREY'S _Dante_, Purg. XI., 76.]
Baldinucci has written a life of this master, chiefly in confirmation
of his theory that all modern painting was produced from the
personal influence of Cimabue, a dogma combated by Lanzi. His death
is placed in 1299, which would make him contemporary with that
Florentine artificer, and Vasari calls him the friend of Giotto, who
was much his junior. The preservation of his name is perhaps chiefly
owing to Dante's notice, though the antiquaries of Gubbio now reject
the lapidary inscription which claims for the latter a residence in
their town. There is in truth a sad deficiency of facts regarding
Oderigi, and no work from his hand being now known, speculation as
to his style would be useless.[130] That the painters connected with
Gubbio in the following generation may have been formed under his
instructions, is however a conjecture fairly admissible.
[Footnote 130: The Ordo Officiorum Senensis Ecclesiæ, a MS. of 1215,
in the library of Siena, has been ascribed to him, by confusion
with another Oderico, a canon there; it possesses no artistic merit
whatever.]
Of these Cecco and Puccio were employed, probably as mosaicists,
in 1321, upon the cathedral of Orvieto, whence they may have
brought back to Umbria enlarged principles of art. But, abandoning
conjectural grounds, let us notice the earliest Eugubinean painter
whose works have survived to our own time. GUIDO PALMERUCCI
is said to have been born about the time of Oderigi's death, while
others consider him as his pupil. Assuredly the observation of Lanzi,
which appears to rank him with the Giottists, is not borne out by the
frescoes in his native town attributed to him, for these have nothing
of the dramatic action which Giotto introduced, and their details,
as well as their general manner, resemble colossal miniatures.
This is especially the case in a figure of S. Antonio, the only
remains of some mural paintings which covered the exterior of a
chapel[*131] belonging to the college of painters, founded at Gubbio
in the thirteenth century. The character of the saint is grand, the
attitude solemn, the expression spiritualised; and an Ecce Homo still
in the Church of S. Maria Nuova there, exhibits a similar style.
Among the few fragments of mouldering frescoes to be seen at Gubbio,
I have found no others ascribed to Palmerucci, but Passavant tells
us he wrought in the town-hall about 1345. At Cagli two interesting
frescoes in the church of S. Francesco have been lately brought to
light from behind a great altar picture, and successfully moved to
the adjoining wall. They represent two miracles of St. Anthony of
Padua, and I am inclined to ascribe them to Palmerucci, or some able
contemporary. The actors and bystanders are equally remarkable for
heads of staid devout composure, which under Giottesque treatment
would have been in a far higher degree animated and dramatic. In the
beautiful art of pictorial glass, Gubbio has also a notable name in
ANGIOLETTO, who embellished the chapel-window of St. Louis
at Assisi, and enriched the cathedrals of Orvieto and Siena with his
gem-like decorations.
[Footnote *131: He refers to S. Antonio Abate, I suppose. There is
nothing by Palmerucci in S. Maria Nuova, but a Madonna and Saints and
Gonfaloniere kneeling are attributed to him in the Prefettura.]
To the same city belongs the little we know of the Nelli
family,[*132] yet that little is well calculated to call forth
our regrets for their lost works. MARTINO NELLI was a junior
contemporary of Palmerucci. In his fresco over the gate of
S. Antonio, representing the Madonna enthroned, with elaborate
architectural accessories, there may be traced an approach to the
mild devotional abstraction with which the purist Christian artists
tempered the
"Maternal lady with the virgin grace."
But in a smaller work of his son OTTAVIANO, the church
of S. Maria Nuova possesses the very finest existing specimen of
the Umbrian school, exempt from injury or restoration. The lovely
and saint-like Madonna, the seraphic choir that forms a glory
around her, the Almighty crowning the "highly favoured among women,"
have perhaps never been equalled among the happiest embodyings of
devotional genius; nor are the rich colouring, the accessory saints,
and the portraits of the Peroli family, who, in 1403, commissioned
this grand work, inferior in merit. He is supposed to have been
born about 1375, and, after executing in Assisi, Urbino, and other
circumjacent towns, works long perished, to have died in 1444. Of the
mural paintings by his brother Tomaso, in S. Domenico and under the
Piazzone of his native town, it is impossible to say more than
that whatever of the family inspiration may have guided his pencil
has been nearly obscured by cruel restorations.
[Footnote *132: Cf. MAZZATINTI, _Documenti per la storia
delle Arti a Gubbio_, in _Arch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria_,
vol. III., p. 1-48. Ottaviano was living certainly after 1444.]
[Illustration: _Alinari_
MADONNA DEL BELVEDERE
_After the fresco by Ottaviano Nelli in S. Maria Nuova, Gubbio_]
Among the pupils of Ottaviano,
"Who on high niche or cloister wall,
Inscribed their bright-lined lays,"
about Gubbio, are PITALI, DOMENICO DI CECCHI, and
BERNARDINO DI NANNI: to these may be added GIACOMO
BEDI, a name that has escaped the historians of Italian art,
by whom were painted in the church of S. Agostino four scenes in
the life of the saint, which retain a freshness and force of colour
equal to any productions of the age. With these the influence of
Oderigi seems to have become extinct in his native town, before the
close of the fifteenth century, long ere which it had, however, been
transported elsewhere by Gentile da Fabriano, who, emerging from his
Apennine home, reproduced in Florence and in Rome the characteristics
of that master, amid universal applause, and, carrying them to
Venice, founded there the religious feeling which the Bellini,
Vivarini, and Cima di Conegliano sustained, imparting at the same
time that taste for luxuriant colouring which Titian brought to
perfection. But, ere we turn to the school of Fabriano, we may here
translate from the original quaint Italian a letter from Ottaviano,
illustrative of the early patronage of art by the Montefeltrian
family. No trace of the works there mentioned now remains.[133]
[Footnote 133: _Carteggio d'Artisti_, I., p. 131. Countess Caterina,
to whom it is addressed, was wife of Count Guidantonio, mentioned
in vol. I., p. 42. For some notices of Ottaviano, I am indebted to
a short account of him by Signor Luigi Bonfatti of Gubbio, whose
zealous researches will, it is to be hoped, soon enable him to
illustrate as it deserves the hitherto neglected art of Umbria. His
theory that Gentile was a pupil of Ottaviano may be redargued by
their ages being nearly equal, but an examination of the surviving
frescoes at Gubbio has inclined me to believe that the former drew
from the same school of Oderigi, as represented by the Nelli,
some of those inspirations of holy pathos, and something of that
playful brilliancy of tints, which he subsequently combined with new
principles.]
"To the illustrious and lofty Lady, the Lady Caterina,
Countess of Montefeltro, and my special Lady.
"My special Lady, illustrious and lofty Madam, after due
commendation, &c. I have received your benign letter,
reminding me of the figures which I promised to make for
your Ladyship. When your servant Pietro found me, I was on
horseback, going upon certain business of my own, and so
could not well tell him all my reasons, which I now expose
to your Ladyship. When your Ladyship left Gubbio, I was, as
you know, to furnish the _palliotto_;[134] after I had done
it, I went from Gubbio to execute a small job which I had
promised above a year past; for they would wait no longer,
and I should have lost it had I not forthwith commenced.
But I trusted that your Ladyship's kindness would hold me
excused, for I counted that your commission, and that of my
Lord, your son, would be completed against your Ladyship's
return to Gubbio. In order, however, that your piety may be
satisfied, I shall set myself warmly and fervently to do it
quickly, and thus your intention will take effect. There
is no one at S. Erasimo, so I must cause lime and sand be
carried thither, and get them ground down, and also wood
for the framework. If your Ladyship would but write to the
friars of S. Ambrogio, or indeed to your factor, to prepare
these things for me: but if not, I shall do my best; for
you, my special Lady, never had servant more willing to
do your Ladyship's commands than myself, and so you may
count upon me as a faithful servant to the utmost of my
power. I believe I have instructions for the work you wish
in S. Erasimo [representing] your son, my Lord, kneeling
with his servant and horse before that patron saint. Thus
I recollect everything your Ladyship wishes of me, and God
grant me grace to perform it all. Prepared for whatever
your Ladyship wills; your most faithful,
"OTAVIANO, painter of Gubbio.
"From Urbino, the last of June, 1434."
[Footnote 134: Palliotto was the painting or wood-carving
occasionally placed on the altar-front in early times, for which a
hanging of brocade or muslin was afterwards substituted.]
In a sketch having no pretensions to a history, we need not pause
upon names now known only from old records, and must keep strictly to
those whose genius has left a decided impress upon the development of
art in Umbria. We therefore pass over artificers belonging to various
communities along the Apennines who appear on the rolls of Orvieto,
including several from Fabriano. About the middle of the fourteenth
century, the latter town boasted an ALLEGRETTO NUZIO, some
of whose altar-panels may still be traced in La Marca, embodying
a sentimentalism of expression, combined with a richness in the
accessories, which remind one strongly of the finest productions of
Memmi, and lead us to suspect an infusion of the Sienese style.[*135]
But the renown of Allegretto rests more on that of his pupil
Gentile, whom we have already named as the first who carried the
characteristics and fame of the Umbrian manner beyond the seclusion
of its highland cradle.
[Footnote *135: Some magnificent works by Allegretto Nuzi of a most
surprising loveliness may be seen in Fabriano.]
FRANCESCO DI GENTILE was born at Fabriano about 1370, and,
after maturely studying all that was best there and at Gubbio,
he set forth to enlarge his field of observation. Florence was
perhaps his first point of attraction, for nowhere else could he see
such beautiful art. But resisting those seductions which the vast
compositions of the Gaddi, Orcagna, and other Giottists held out to
an ardent and youthful ambition, he preserved in their purity the
holy inspirations of the fatherland, and meeting little sympathy for
these among the fraternity of St. Luke, he sought for himself a more
suitable companionship in the cloister of S. Domenico. There it was
his good fortune to discover a man whose rare character realised
those transcendental qualities, of which we read in the saintly
legends of pristine times, without regarding them as real ingredients
in human character.
FRA GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE had spent the years which other
youths wasted on stormy pleasures in acquiring the art of miniature
painting, and its sacred representations took such hold of his
feelings, that, abjuring the world, he assumed the habit of St.
Dominic. But finding that his art, far from interfering with the
holy sentiments which a tender conscience considered as inseparable
from his new profession, tended directly to spiritualise them,
the neophyte continued to exercise it; and upon settling himself
in the convent of S. Marco, he extended his style to fresco, ever
adhering to those pure forms of celestial bliss which no one before
or since has equalled. It is related of him that, regarding his
painting in the light of a God-gift, he never sat down to exercise
it without offering up orisons for divine influence, nor did he
assume his palette until he felt these answered by a glow of holy
inspiration. His pencil thus literally embodied the language of
prayer; his compositions were the result of long contemplation on
mystic revelations; his Madonnas borrowed their sweet and sinless
expression from ecstatic visions; the passion of our Saviour was
conceived by him in tearful penitence, and executed with sobs
and sighs. Deeming the forms he thus predicted to proceed from
supernatural dictation, he never would alter or retouch them; and
though his works are generally brought to the highest attainable
finish, the impress of their first conception remains unchanged. To
the unimaginative materialism of the present day, these sentences
may seem idle absurdities, but they illustrate the character of Fra
Giovanni, and no painter ever so thoroughly instilled his character
into his works. Those who have not had the good fortune to see
any of these cannot form an idea of the infantine simplicity, the
immaculate countenances, the unimpassioned pathos apparent in his
figures, nor of the transparent delicacy of his flesh-tints, and the
gay and cheerful colouring which he introduces into the details,
without injury to the angelic grace of the whole. These qualities
procured for their author the epithet of Angelico; his personal
virtues were acknowledged by an offer of the see of Fiesole, which
his humility declined and by the posthumous honour of beatification;
his paintings, to borrow the words of Vasari, elevated the utmost
perfection to the ideal of art, by improving without abandoning
its original type; and, in the characteristic language of Michael
Angelo, he must have studied in heaven the faces which he depicted on
earth.[136]
[Footnote 136: Such testimony, from artists so antipathic to his
practice, is a curious tribute at once to his merit and influence.]
Such was the instructor with whom, although his junior, Gentile
thought it no disparagement to place himself,[*137] and his works
testify to his having caught much of the spirit as well as the
elaborate finish of his master. But whilst Angelico passed his
time in decorating the cells of his convent with frescoes, whose
holy beauties have confirmed the faith and purified the secret
contemplations of many a recluse, his pupil returned to the world,
to follow up a successful career. Called to Orvieto about 1423,
he there painted two altars, which, though not his best works, are
peculiarly interesting in contrast with the grand productions which
at a later period his master executed for that cathedral.[*138] In
the registers of the fabric, he is, in 1425, designated as "master
of the masters"; and the fame which he thus acquired brought him
successive commissions at Florence and Siena, after which he was
extensively employed in enriching the cities of Umbria and La Marca
with works of which no trace now exists.[*139] Among these towns
were Gubbio and Urbino; but still more interesting to our immediate
subject,--the development of art under the Feltrian dukes,--is
the altar-piece executed by him at Romita, near Fabriano, and now
plundered and scattered by the French, part of which adorns the
Brera Gallery at Milan. The Madonna is crowned by her Son, the Dove
fluttering between them, the Father rising pyramidally behind, amid a
choir of cherubim; below, in the empyrean void, is an arch spanning
the sun and moon, on which stand eight angels, making melody of
praise on various instruments. So extended was the reputation of this
work, that Raffaele is believed to have been attracted thither in
his youth, to imbibe that devotional sentiment which he was destined
to advance to its culminating point of excellence. Another fountain
of his early inspiration was the famous, but now defaced, Madonna of
Forano, near Osimo, whose angelic beauty is described as well-fitted
to have left an indelible charm upon minds less pure and enthusiastic
than his. On the mere evidence of its ecstatic loveliness, it was
generally ascribed to Beato Angelico; but as there is no account of
the Frate having visited La Marca, it may probably have been produced
by Gentile, when his return to his native mountains had freed him
for a season from mundane impressions, and had restored him to the
sanctifying influence of its legendary abstractions.
[Footnote *137: Gentile da Fabriano was the pupil of Allegretto Nuzi,
not of Fra Angelico.]
[Footnote *138: There is only one fragment of Gentile's work in the
Duomo of Orvieto: a Madonna, painted in 1425.]
[Footnote *139: A fine work still remains at Perugia, No. 39, in Sala
V., Pinacoteca.]
[Illustration: _Alinari_
MADONNA DEL SOCCORSO
_After the gonfalone by a pupil of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo in S.
Francesco Montone_]
From thence he proceeded to Venice, where many of his most brilliant
performances were achieved; but these, too, are nearly all lost to
us. There, in contact with the busy world, and sharing its honours,
distracted, it may be, by the bright tints and smiling landscapes
just then imported from northern lands, his devotional inspirations
were gradually tinged by naturalism. His principal commission was
a fresco of the naval victories of the Republic; and I have seen
a small picture by him of the rape of the Sabines, whose feeble
paganism belongs, no doubt, to his later years, and sadly proves how
essential were these inspirations to his success. At Venice he opened
a school, which enjoyed high reputation, and which probably numbered
among its pupils Pisanello, the Vivarini, and Bellini, although
chronology throws a doubt upon some of Vasari's assertions as to this
point. A new field of glory opened before Gentile, when invited by
Eugene IV. to decorate with mural paintings the since rebuilt church
of the Lateran, where he painted four prophets in chiaroscuro, and
placed below them the life of the Baptist,--works unfinished at his
death in 1450, and now destroyed, but which Michael Angelo, little
qualified as he was to appreciate the delicacies of religious art,
characterised as worthy the _gentle_ name of their author.
On quitting the cloister of S. Marco, Gentile had carried with him
a portion of the devotional feeling which hung around the studio of
Fra Giovanni, and along with it much of the taste for rich ornaments,
for gold and brocades, for fruit and flowers, in which both of his
instructors delighted. But whilst Allegretto and Angelico kept such
foreign aids in subservience to the predominating sentiment of their
works, their pupil caught from the great world, in which he freely
mingled with credit and applause, an admiration of mundane grandeur
which, in his later compositions, is singularly combined with the
spirit of religious art. His immaculate Madonnas are worshipped
less by angelic choirs of cherubim and seraphim, than by the great
ones of the earth in their trappings of dignity; and of all sacred
themes, the Epiphany, or adoration of the Magi kings at the stable
of Bethlehem, was his choice. Such is the magnificent altar-panel
which he wrought in 1423, for the church of the S. Trinità at
Florence, now one of the most precious monuments in the Belle Arti
there. Still more gorgeous is his crowded composition painted for
the Zeni of Venice; but there he has contaminated the purist spirit
of Christian painting, for in the suite of the eastern kings is
portrayed the patron of the picture, with all the gallant company who
attended his embassy from the Republic to Usamkassan, sovereign of
Persia. The unequalled variety of groups, the elaborate splendour of
oriental costumes, the crowd of horsemen in contrasted attitudes, the
lavish adoption of gold, form a dazzling but harmonious whole, which
has scarcely any parallel in painting. It is not improbable that
this and similar works, besides introducing a new element into the
semi-Byzantine practice of the Venetian school, may have spread to
Albert Durer and other Germans, who long after visited that
"Ruler of the waters and their powers,"
an influence carried by them to Nuremberg and Cologne, to enrich
the already gaudy tendencies of ultramontane taste. But Gentile da
Fabriano possesses another claim upon the student of early painting,
hitherto inadequately noticed. To the lessons of his father, a
learned mathematician, he may have owed the linear perspective which,
in many of his productions, anticipated the improvements of Piero
della Francesca. This is observable in the Zeno picture, and still
more in a small predella in my possession, where his favourite theme,
the Epiphany, is completed by a background accurately laid out in
lines and compartments, such as we see in the Dutch gardens of the
seventeenth century. But to this question we must return.
Among the artists who maintained in Umbria the influences left
by Ottaviano and Gentile, two were of special merit, NICOLÒ
ALUNNO, of Foligno, and BENEDETTO BONFIGLI, of Perugia. Their works
have been often confounded, but with the latter only have we to do,
for, besides being nearer to Gentile both in age and in manner, he
is generally considered as the master of PIETRO PERUGINO,[*140] and
thus forms a link in the artistic chain which we are endeavouring to
establish, through the best Umbrian painters, from ODERIGI OF GUBBIO
to RAFFAELE OF URBINO. Of Bonfigli there are several interesting and
well-preserved specimens in his native town, dated about 1466, but
it must be owned that none of the earliest known works of Perugino
exhibit much trace of his style. These, however, are all supposed
posterior to Pietro's first visit to Florence, where his ideas must
have undergone vast development from the examples of Masaccio and
other masters, who there formed a galaxy of talent about the middle
of the fifteenth century.[*141] In that city he formed his early
friendship with Leonardo da Vinci, which Sanzi says was cemented
by parity of age as of affection; and it is singular how little
such sympathy can be traced in their genius or works. When, on the
other hand, we contrast the placid features which Vannucci uniformly
limned, rarely ruffled by sorrow, never clouded by sin, with the
furious mien and restless energy of Michael Angelo's creations, we
may well credit Vasari's story of their quarrel, and can account
for the scrimp justice accorded to the painter of Città della Pieve
by his Florentine biographer. They pretend not, indeed, to the
bold character of Signorelli, nor even to the severity of Mantegna,
or Piero della Francesca; but those who criticise them as stiff,
timid, and monotonous, in contrast with the performances of the next
generation, would arrive at more just conclusions did they include in
the comparison those painters who had preceded him, and whose example
was his early guide.
[Footnote *140: We do not know who Perugino's Perugian master was;
but it was more likely to be Fiorenzo di Lorenzo than Bonfigli.]
[Footnote *141: There is no trace of Masaccio's influence in
Perugino's work. He was influenced by Signorelli, and slightly by
Verrocchio.]
* * * * *
Let us turn to Urbino. Lanzi tells us that Giotto, Gentile da
Fabriano, and their respective followers, left works in that little
capital; where Pungileone has shown that Ottaviano Nelli exercised
his profession from 1428 to 1433, and Paolo Uccello of Florence in
1468, with other artists detected by the same zealous antiquary. Of
such works, however, nothing can now be traced. The oldest paintings
I could discover there were those in the oratory of St. John Baptist
by Lorenzo and Giacomo di San Severino, Lanzi's blunders regarding
whom have been corrected by the Marchese Ricci. The principal
composition is the Crucifixion, with a dramatic action influenced by
Giottesque feeling: the three other walls seem to have been occupied
by a history of the titular saint, two passages of which are almost
destroyed. Those remaining, though not exempt from retouching, are
sufficiently preserved to enable us to detect a masterly and novel
arrangement, and a character of devotion more consistent with the
Umbrian manner, though marred by hard colouring. The date 1416 is
added to the painter's epigraph. We learn from an old chronicle that
Antonio da Ferrara painted the Montefeltro chapel in the church of
S. Francesco in 1430, a fact scarcely reconcileable with Vasari's
assertion that he was a pupil of Angelo Gaddi. He is also said to
have executed an _ancona_ for the church of S. Bernardino, portions
of which may probably be recognised in some figures still in the
sacristy. In that of S. Francesco at Mercatello, among several
memorials of a similar period, are {1843} two frescoes characterised
by grand design, ample draperies, and full colouring, but deficient
in delicacy. The _lunette_ of the marriage of St. Catherine outside
the door is somewhat later, and very superior, and may be from the
pencil of Pietro della Francesca. Of none of these works, nor of
two good panel pictures in the same church, have I been able to
find any account. In the hospital of S. Angelo in Vado is a panel
altar picture in utter ruin, which has possessed surpassing beauty.
The martyrdom of St. Sebastian is there powerfully conceived, and
executed with the finest feeling. The inscription seems to have been,
_Hieronymus Nardia Vicentis fecit_; the date probably towards the
close of the fifteenth century. Such is the beggarly account we have
to offer of early art in the country of Raffaele, and thus might we
dismiss the speculations of those who would fondly trace its primary
influences on his dawning genius.
But though time and whitewash have combined to narrow this branch of
our inquiry, we must not overlook an artist who ranks high among the
reformers of painting, and upon whom the patronage of Duke Federigo
was specially lavished. His family name has not come down to us, but
he is generally known by the matronymic of Piero della Francesca,
from the Christian name of his mother, though sometimes designed
Pietro del Borgo, or Il Borghese, from Borgo S. Sepolcro, his native
town. His life has unfortunately been left in much obscurity by his
only biographer Vasari, who might have well bestowed somewhat more
pains upon the career of one born in a neighbouring town, who left
his finest works at Arezzo, and whose merits he is more inclined to
magnify than to slight. The loose assertions of this author have
been adopted by most succeeding writers, without addition and with
little investigation; but of the school in which Pietro acquired the
rudiments of his art, and of the earlier period of his career, we
remain still uninformed, though his age and Apennine origin favour
the conjecture that he may have imbibed his first lessons from works
of Ottaviano Nelli the contemporary Umbrian master.[*142] Beyond
question two very different manners appear in the productions of his
pencil; the first, crudely composed and laboriously frittered into
detail, with much of the contracted ideas and bright tinting of the
old miniaturists; the second, broad and masterly in conception, and
executed with a flowing pencil, though retaining an elaborate finish.
Both styles are united in a little picture at Urbino, which we shall
presently describe, the Flagellation being in the earlier, the three
portraits in the larger manner. If born, as Vasari incorrectly
states, in the last years of the fourteenth century,[*143] Piero,
instead of being patronised by Guidobaldo I., must have reached at
least eighty-four in that Duke's time; indeed, he would have been
past middle life ere Federigo, whom, as we shall presently see, he
calls his chief patron, succeeded to that state in 1443. "Guidobaldo
Feltro" may, however, probably be a mistake of Vasari for Count
Guidantonio, in which case a solution would be afforded for several
of his manifold contradictions; and at that court, if not in earlier
life, our artist might have been the associate or pupil of Nelli.
Passing over works now lost which del Borgo is stated on the same
authority to have executed at Pesaro, Ferrara, Ancona, and Loreto,
we find him called by Nicholas V. to Rome, where his frescoes appear
to have been destroyed in the many alterations made on the Vatican
Palace before that century closed.
[Footnote *142: Piero della Francesca was the pupil of Domenico
Veneziano.]
[Footnote *143: Piero was born in 1416.]
Piero della Francesca is also asserted by Vasari to have been
one of the most profound mathematicians of his day, and to have
improved perspective and the management of light by an adaptation
of geometrical principles to painting. The latter of these opinions
has been received, and constitutes the highest claim of this
master upon the historians of art. The point has not as yet been
illustrated by any writer competent to pronounce with accuracy
upon such pretensions,[*144] but the merit of having shown how to
ameliorate perspective, especially in architectural design, is
generally granted to Piero. Pascoli and others have regarded him as
its father. Lanzi thinks him the first who revived the ancient Greek
notion of rendering geometry subject to painting in general, although
Brunelleschi, Paolo Uccelli, and others had already applied the same
principles with less science to architectural details; and he combats
the priority in these respects asserted by Lomazzo for Foppa of
Brescia. The claims of Leon Battista Alberti,[*145] the architect,
seem to have been settled by Vasari's opinion that distance was
better described by his pen than delineated by his pencil. The same
author enlists our sympathy in favour of Il Borghese, representing
him as defrauded of his fame by an unscrupulous scholar, Fra Luca
Pacioli, a Franciscan, who, after learning from him mathematics,
availed himself of his instructor's after blindness to plagiarise his
manuscripts, and eventually published them as his own.[*146] Into
this controverted matter we need not enter, further than to pronounce
with Tiraboschi, Rosini, and Gaye a verdict of _not proven_, and to
observe that the celebrity attained by the friar's scientific works
ought to reflect some merit upon his instructor. Yet justice to both
parties requires us to extract the generous testimony volunteered to
the painter by his pupil, in dedicating to Duke Guidobaldo his Summa
de Arithmetica, Geometria, &c.: "Perspective, if closely looked into,
would certainly be nothing without the aid of geometry, as has been
fully demonstrated by Pietro di Franceschi, our contemporary, and
the prince of modern painting. During his assiduous service in your
Excellency's family, he composed his short treatise on the art of
painting and the power of linear perspective, which is now deservedly
placed in your library, rich with books in every branch." These,
surely, are not the words of a literary pirate; indeed, Vasari's
whole account is vague and confused. After telling us that Pacioli
had appropriated the matter of Piero's many MSS., then existing at
Borgo San Sepolcro, he adds that most of his writings were deposited
in the Urbino library, where it is obvious that neither he nor
those who have repeated his assertions ever sought them. After
every possible search, I have reason to believe that that library
now contains but two treatises by Il Borghese, nor have I found any
evidence of others having ever been there. Both are in Latin, and are
fairly transcribed on vellum in contemporary hands, with diagrams
upon the margin.[147] The former is entitled _De Perspectiva_, but
the subject is, in fact, Light,[*148] and its effect upon objects
and colours. In place of a general title, it sets out with a dictum
that "light is to philosophical inquiry what demonstrative certainty
is to mathematics." The volume, bearing the arms and initials of
Duke Federigo, must have been written for his library: though
anonymous, it is clearly the work referred to in a dedication which
we shall presently quote, the only other MS. upon perspective in the
collection being that by Vitellioni (No. 265).
[Footnote *144: Cf. PICHI, _La Vita e le Opere di Piero
della Francesca_ (Borgo S. Sepolcro, 1893); WITTING, _Piero
dei Franceschi_ (Strassburg, 1898); CROWE & CAVALCASELLE,
_op. cit._, vol. III. BERENSON, _op. cit._, p. 69, says:
"The pupil of Domenico Veneziano in characterisation, of Paolo
Uccello in perspective, himself an eager student of this science, as
an artist he [Piero] was more gifted than either of his teachers."
Fra Luca Pacioli, one of the finest mathematicians of his day,
praises Piero, and speaks of his renowned treatise on perspective,
"now in the library of our illustrious Duke of Urbino."]
[Footnote *145: Cf. on this point MUNTZ, _Precursori e
propugnatori del Rinascimento_ (Firenze, 1902), p. 59 _et seq._ For
his life _Vita Leonis Baptistae de Albertis_, by an anonymous author,
believed to be Alberti himself, in MURATORI _R.I.S._, vol.
XXV., partly translated in EDWARD HUTTON, _Sigismondo Malatesta_
(Dent, 1906), pp. 163-9. Cf. also MANCINI, _Vita di L.B.A._ (Firenze,
1882), and _Nuovi documenti e notizie sulla vita e gli scritti di
L.B.A._, in _Arch. St. It._, Series IV., vol. XIX.; also SCIPIONI, in
_Giornale St. d. Lett. Ital._, vol. II., p. 156 _et seq._, and vol.
X., p. 255 _et seq._]
[Footnote *146: This is a tale like so much in Vasari. Piero
was never blind at all it seems. BOSSI, in his work on Leonardo's
_Cenacolo_ (Milan, 1810), deals minutely with this libel.]
[Footnote 147: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1374 and 632. The manuscripts
by him, mentioned in No. 131 of the _Quarterly Review_, as in the
possession of his descendant, Count Marini, of Borgo S. Sepolcro, no
longer exist; and a small portrait there of himself does not appear
to be by his hand. As a further specimen of the Friar's ideas on
this matter, we may offer an extract from his _De Divina Proportione
Epistola_ (Venice, 1509), wherein he compares perspective to music,
ranking both with the geometrical sciences, since just as "the former
refreshes the mind with harmony, the latter delights it greatly by
correct distance and variety of colours." "Who, indeed, is there
that, seeing an elegant figure with its exact outlines well defined,
and seeming to want nothing but breath, would not pronounce it
something rather divine than human? And painting imitates nature as
nearly as can be told, which is proved to our eyes in the exquisite
representation, so worthily composed by the graceful hand of our
Leonardo, of the ardent desire after our salvation; wherein it is
impossible to imagine greater attention than that of the apostles,
aroused on hearing, in the words of infallible truth, 'One of you
shall betray me,'--when, interchanging with each other attitudes and
gestures, they seem to converse in startled and sad astonishment."]
[Footnote *148: "He was perhaps the first," says Mr. Berenson, "to
use effects of light for their direct tonic or subduing or soothing
qualities." He uses light as the "plein air" school of France uses
it. See a chapter devoted to his work in my _Cities of Umbria_
(Methuen, 1904).]
The other volume has for title _Petri Pictoris Burgensis de Quinque
Corporibus Regularibus_. The five bodies discussed in it are, the
triangle of four bases, the cube with six faces, the octagon with
eight faces and as many triangles, the duodecahedron with twelve
faces and as many pentagons, the icosahedron with twenty faces and as
many triangles. We shall extract from the dedication to Guidobaldo I.
a passage relating to the essay and its author: "And as my works owe
whatever illustration they possess solely to the brilliant star of
your excellent father, the most bright and dazzling orb of our age,
it seemed not unbecoming that I should dedicate to your Majesty this
little work, on the five regular bodies in mathematics, which I have
composed, that, in this extreme fraction of my age, my mind might not
become torpidly inactive. Thus may your splendour reflect a light
upon its obscurity: and your Highness will not spurn these feeble and
worthless fruits, gathered from a field now left fallow, and nearly
exhausted by age, from which your distinguished father has drawn
its better produce; but will place this in some corner, as a humble
handmaid to the numberless books of your own and his copious library,
near our other treatise on Perspective, which we wrote in former
years. For it is usual to admit, at the most luxurious and festive
banquets, fruits culled by a rude and unpolished peasant. Indeed, its
novelty may ensure its proving not unpleasing; for though the subject
was known from Euclid and other geometers, it is now [first] applied
by me to arithmetical science. At all events, it will be a token and
memorial of my long-cherished attachment and continual devotion to
yourself and your illustrious house."
This must have been written after 1482, when, if Vasari's dates be
accurate, Piero was at least eighty-four years old, and had been
blind during five lustres; a circumstance which, though not entirely
inconsistent with his cultivation of the exact sciences, would
occasion an impediment not likely to be passed over by him, when
pleading as an apology the disabilities of age. The researches of
Abbé Pungeleoni have, however, established that no such calamity
had befallen our painter in 1469, when he was the guest of Giovanni
Sanzi, at Urbino; and it is no way referred to in Pacioli's
dedication, written in 1494, while he was still alive. Altogether,
it may be questioned whether that alleged bereavement was not one
of Vasari's many inaccuracies, the most valuable portion of whose
account of this master is a notice of the frescoes executed by
him in the choir of S. Francesco, at Arezzo, wherein are depicted
the Discovery and Exaltation of the true Cross, and the Vision
and Victory of Constantine. These noble works, uniting a happy
application of his favourite studies on perspective and light, with
a grandeur and movement unknown to most of his compositions, are
now mere wrecks,[*149] in which, however, may be traced not a few
ideas subsequently appropriated by more celebrated artists. The
most remarkable of them is the Vision, the original drawing for
which has been published by Mr. Young Ottley. In the play of light
and the management of chiaroscuro, there is far more profound study
than was usual among his contemporaries, and in no other work of so
early a date have these been as successfully treated. By a not very
intelligible juxtaposition, the companion compartment is occupied
by an Annunciation, grave, solemn, almost severe, as are most of
his later paintings. The lowest and largest space on either side
of the choir, is filled by the Battle, whilst Constantine prays in
a corner, surrounded by his courtiers. These may have suggested to
Raffaele the same subject for the Stanze, but they afford no details
calculated to animate his pencil. Soldiers, horses, and banners are,
indeed, mingled together with a bustle and energy of action hitherto
unattempted; but the effect is neutralised by an all-prevailing
confusion, and by a want of groups or episodes to concentrate
the spectator's scattered interest or admiration. The design is
generally good; the modelling and character of the heads are, as
usual, excellent; the costumes are richly varied; and the horses
remind us, by their action, of Pisano's pictures and medals. If it be
true that Raffaele has repeated some of the noble ideas here freely
lavished, it seems more probable that, in his Liberation of St.
Peter, he wished to excel the tent scene, than that he bore in mind
the crowded men-at-arms when composing the Victory of Constantine.
The elements have conspired against this _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Pietro
del Borgo. Its walls were frightfully riven during last century by
an earthquake, and its menacing cracks have since been shaken by
thunderbolts. Although the repairs have been judiciously limited
to securing the plaster, without attempting any restoration of the
frescoes, several compartments are almost wholly defaced. Some female
groups, however, remain, which yield to nothing that Masaccio has
left for the plaudits of posterity.
[Footnote *149: They are in quite fair preservation as things go.]
In much better preservation is a hitherto unnoticed painting on
the wall of a chapel in the cathedral of Rimini, dated 1448. It
represents Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, whom we have so often
named in the first volume of this work, kneeling in prayer before
his patron saint, Sigismondo, king of Hungary. The wide and once
beautifully graduated landscape has unfortunately suffered; but the
favourite dog,[*150] crouching behind, is evidently as striking
a likeness as his master, whose dignified character and serious
pose give to what is but a laboriously accurate portrait, the
spiritualised grandeur of a noble devotional composition. It embodies
the verity of nature, exempt from the vulgarity of naturalism.
[Footnote *150: There are two greyhounds lying side by side facing
opposite ways.]
We have to lament the disappearance of whatever works in fresco
Pietro del Borgo may have executed for Urbino, unless we attribute
to him, on an already noticed lunette over the outer doorway of S.
Francesco, at Mercatello, a beautiful half-length Marriage of St.
Catherine. Of the small pictures, which he is said by Vasari to have
painted for that court, one only remains; it is in the sacristy
of the Urbino cathedral, and is a monument of great interest as
regards the master and his patrons. On one side is the Flagellation
of Christ before Pilate, in an open court enriched with a beautiful
perspective of colonnades and architectural ornament. On the other
is introduced a detached group of three figures in conversation,
magnificently attired, who are generally called at Urbino the
successive sovereigns Oddantonio, Federigo, and Guidobaldo I.; but
their ages, compared with that of the painter, are irreconcileable
with such a supposition. The Abbé Pungeleoni, in his _Life of
Sanzi_, considers them to represent Count Guidantonio and his
successors, Oddantonio and Federigo; or they may more probably be
portraits of Oddantonio and the two evil counsellors who led him and
themselves to destruction, as narrated in our third chapter.[151]
In the graphic character and fine modelling of their features is
displayed one of those peculiar excellences which Il Borghese was
able, from his knowledge of perspective and light, to introduce into
the practice of pictorial art, and which he is said to have carried
out by making finished figures of clay, and draping them with various
materials. This precious little picture is signed _Opus Petri de
Borgo Sci. Sepulcri_, and we have already quoted it as illustrative
of both his first and second manner. I have been so fortunate as to
trace three more of the Urbino pictures of this master, hitherto
unnoticed. At the devolution of the duchy to the Holy See, they
found their way into the possession of Urban VIII., and now adorn
the private apartment of his successor, Prince Barberini, at Rome,
where they pass under the name of Mantegna. The first, a portrait
of Duke Federigo and his son, has been already described. Having
been executed about 1478, when Guidobaldo was five or six years
old, and when the painter, according to Vasari, was above eighty,
it would afford conclusive evidence against the hitherto received
date of Pietro's birth.[152] The other two are companion pictures,
and though hung too high, appear in excellent preservation. Both
are architectural designs on panel, one representing the court of a
palace, the other a basilicon-like interior, with elaborate plastic
decorations and very clever perspective; a variety of figures are
introduced, but the subjects are not known.[*153] To these, and
still more to some of his earlier productions, may be applied the
observation of Fra Castiglione, that "the works of Pietro, and those
of his contemporary, Melozzo da Forlì, with their perspective effects
and intricacies of art, are appreciated by connoisseurs rather than
admired by the uninitiated."[*154]
[Footnote 151: Passavant conjectures this group to be a satire upon
three neighbouring princes who were Duke Federigo's enemies, and
seems to consider the picture influenced by some Flemish master. If
painted after the visit of Justis of Ghent, it can hardly represent
Oddantonio. See below, ch. xxx.]
[Footnote 152: It is very unsatisfactorily engraved in
BONNARD'S _Costumes du Treizième au Quinzième Siècle_.]
[Footnote *153: None of these three belongs to Piero.]
[Footnote *154: It is a curious comment on this that a man like Mr.
E.V. Lucas, certainly not "a connoisseur," tells us in his book,
_A Wanderer in London_ (Methuen, 1906), that he "once startled and
embarrassed a dinner table of artists and art critics by asking
which was the best picture in the National Gallery. On my modifying
this terrible question to the more human form--Which picture would
you choose if you might have one? and limiting the choice to the
Italian masters, the most distinguished mind present named at
once Tintoretto's _Origin of the Milky Way_.... After very long
consideration," he continues, "I have come to the conclusion that
mine would be Francesca's _Nativity_. Take it for all in all, I am
disposed to think that Francesca's _Nativity_ appeals to me as a work
of compassionate beauty and charm before any Italian picture in the
National Collection."]
The important influence of Pietro del Borgo upon Umbrian art is
confirmed by Vasari, in naming among his scholars Perugino and
Signorelli, the latter of whom worked at Urbino in 1484, and again,
ten years later. But were our information as to his pupils more
ample, we might probably find among them Melozzo da Forlì, to whom,
and to other names connected with the duchy we shall return in our
thirty-first chapter. Prominently among its painters, Lanzi has
enumerated Bartolomeo Corradi, who became a predicant friar by the
title of FRA CARNEVALE. Nothing is known of this talented
limner beyond the fact that he combined his art with the duties of
parish priest, at Castel Cavellino, and died soon after 1488. His
best known work was executed for the great altar of S. Bernardino,
near Urbino, as an _ex voto_ commemoration of Federigo's piety on
the birth of his son in 1472. In it the Duke's portrait, and those
of several of his children, are said to be introduced. Indeed, there
are not wanting old authorities who regard the Madonna and Child as
likenesses of Countess Battista and her infant Guidobaldo. I receive
with caution a conjecture which, repugnant to the ideas of Umbrian
art at that period, would fasten a charge of profane naturalism upon
one whom I should gladly consider as a purely Christian painter.
Pungeleoni ascribes to him a small devotional picture preserved in
the church of the Zoccolantines at Sinigaglia, in which two accessory
figures probably represent the Prefect Giovanni della Rovere and his
wife, the sister of Duke Guidobaldo I.; but their marriage only took
place about the supposed time of this painter's death; and, at all
events, had the Abbé ever seen it, he could not have mistaken it for
a sketch of the altar-piece of S. Bernardino. The latter remains in
the Brera, at Milan, among the unrestored French plunder; and I have
sought in vain for other identified works of Carnevale in the duchy,
although inclined to attribute to him more than one fine but nameless
altar-picture which I have found there.[155]
[Footnote 155: Such is the magnificent Annunciation in a small chapel
three miles west from Pesaro, known as the Madonna del Monte, but
properly the oratory dedicated in 1505 to the Madonna dell'Annunziata
di Calibano, by Ludovico del Molino, _alias_ degli Agostini. Its pure
and beautiful countenances are less beatified in expression than
earlier Umbrian works, but in composition and draperies it yields to
none, and excels all others in gorgeous effect. The gilding is freely
laid on in broad masses, and a scintillation in solid gold streams
from the Almighty upon the Madonna's bosom, while the angels' wings
are starred with peacock's plumage. Yet, as in Gentile da Fabriano's
best works, all this glitter is subdued by an earnest and solemn
feeling becoming the theme. The panel is inscribed "_Ludovicho di
Jachomo Aghostini merchatanti da Pesaro a fato [fare] deta tavola a
di xxiv. di Decienbre, mdx._" How unfortunate that the pious donor
had not recorded the artist's name as well as his own! I was unable
to visit an altar-piece at Montebaroccio ascribed to Fra Carnevale's
pencil.]
Our description of Duke Federigo's palaces has made us acquainted
with the name of FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO, a painter and sculptor, as well
as an architect and engineer. In the two former of these capacities
he can be appreciated only in his native Siena, where two of his
very rare pictures remain in the Belle Arti.[*156] His tendency
to Umbrian feeling is obvious, and had Padre della Valle been
acquainted with the productions of Fabriano and della Francesca,
he would have detected in him a nearer approach to their manner
than to that of Signorelli. But his fame depends on his numerous
creations in architecture and fortification; whilst his inventions
in military engineering were important additions to the art of war,
as then conducted. Vasari's brief and blundering notice of him was
supplemented by the researches of Padre della Valle, whose greedy
patriotism maintained for him the merit of the Urbino palace, a
claim of which we have formerly disposed.[157] Gaye, and the editor
of the Florentine edition of Vasari {1838}, have added many new and
interesting notices;[*158] but his name has of late received still
more ample illustration at the hands of Carlo Promis, of Turin, by
whom his life and principal writings have been edited, at the expense
of the Chevalier Saluzzi. Francesco, son of Giorgio, son of Martino
of Siena, was born in a humble rank about 1423; and, our earliest
notice of his professional labours is in 1447, when we find he was
one of the architects of the Orvieto cathedral. In 1447, we find him
in Duke Federigo's service, which Promis supposes him to have entered
shortly before; and there he appears to have remained until the death
of that prince in 1482. The palace of Urbino having been already
many years in progress, and not being mentioned by him, there is no
reason to suppose he was much occupied upon it; and we find his own
pen attesting the onerous duty imposed upon him by Federigo, as his
military engineer. In July 1478 he was attached to the allied army,
which the Duke commanded; and, in his autograph MS. speaks of having
a hundred and thirty-six "edifices" on hand at once by his order.
Among these, doubtless, there were many strongholds in the duchy; and
he has left descriptive plans of Cagli, Sasso Feretro, Tavoletta, and
Serra di S. Abondio. From various authorities cited by Promis, we may
add, as probably of his construction, Castel Durante, S. Angelo in
Vado, Orciano, S. Costanzo, S. Agata, Pietragutola, Montecirignone,
S. Ippolito, Montalto, La Pergola, Cantiano, Fossombrone,
Sassocorbaro, Mercatello, Costaccioro, Mondavio, and Mondolfo,
besides numerous churches which he certainly planned for Federigo.
The fortresses of Urbino have been estimated at nearly three hundred,
a number which must seem at once superfluous and incredible, but
for the entire change which the arts of war and defence were then
undergoing, consequent on a general introduction of artillery.[*159]
Federigo, perceiving the importance of strengthening his castles and
citadels against
"The cannon-ball, opening with murderous crash
The way to blast and ruin,"
not only kept in active employment the most able engineer whom Italy
then possessed, but, according to that artist's testimony, by his own
experience and judicious suggestions, greatly facilitated the tasks
which he imposed upon Francesco di Giorgio.
[Footnote *156: There is a predella picture by him at S. Domenico,
in Siena, and another in the Uffizi Gallery. He was the pupil of
Vecchietta.]
[Footnote 157: See vol. I., pp. 147-50, 161-3; _Lettere Sanesi_,
III., p. 79; _Carteggio d'Artisti_, _passim_, I., pp. 255-316.]
[Footnote *158: Cf. also BORGHESE & BANCHI, _Nuovi Documenti
per la Storia dell'Arte Senese_ (Siena, 1898).]
[Footnote *159: On the fortresses of the Marche generally, see
GASPARI, _Fortezze Marchigiane e Umbre_, in _Arch. St. per
le Marche e per l'Umbria_, vol. III., p. 80 _et seq._]
Nor was it his professional services alone which the Sienese artist
placed at his patron's disposal. The documents published by Gaye and
Promis show him accredited on various occasions as the Duke's envoy
to the government of his native city; and his _Liber de Architectura_
is dedicated to Federigo, at whose request, probably, it was
composed. Vasari adds that he portrayed him both in painting and on
a medal; and, in return perhaps for these diversified labours, that
prince thus interceded for his admission into the magistracy of Siena.
"Mighty and potent Lords and beloved Brethren;
"I have here in my service Francesco di Giorgio, your
fellow-citizen and my most favourite architect, who desires
to be placed in your magnificent magistracy, as the
ambition of his genius, excellence, prudence, and worth. I
therefore pray your Highnesses that you will be pleased to
elect him thereto, and to admit him into the number of your
public men, which I shall regard as a special boon, as will
be more fully stated to you on my behalf by your mighty
ambassador. And your Lordships may be assured that were I
not convinced that only good, faithful, and useful service
is to be looked for from him, I should not propose him, nor
intercede in his favour. And nothing more gratifying could
I ever receive from your Lordships, to whom I offer and
commend myself.
"From Durante, the 26th July, 1480.
"FEDERICUS DUX URBINI AC DURANTIS COMES, et Regius
Capit. Gener., et S. Ro. Ecclesie Gonfalonierus."[160]
[Footnote 160: MSS. in Public Library at Siena; printed in Bottari,
Lettere Pittoriche I. App. No. 36, and in Gualandi, Memorie
Artistiche.]
Although this request was unsuccessful, so well was Francesco
appreciated at home, that on several occasions Duke Guidobaldo vainly
applied to the magistracy for his services. Yet he was frequently
employed in the duchy from 1484 to 1489, the palace at Gubbio
affording him partial employment. His military reputation being now
widely spread, he had commissions from various princes, especially
the sovereigns of Milan and Naples; but through these labours we need
not follow him. The time of his death is not known; he, however,
outlived most of the fortresses he had raised for Federigo, which
were dismantled by order of his son, on abandoning his state in
1502, a policy suggested by confident reliance on his subjects'
attachment, as the best guarantee of his eventual restoration.
Francesco's MSS., dispersed in various libraries, are described in
Promis's first volume. One of them, on architecture, transcribed for
Guidobaldo II., was presented by him to Emanuel Filibert, Duke of
Savoy, in 1568, and now ornaments the Royal Library at Turin. The
invention of that variety of bastion called in Italy _baluardo_, and
in Germany _bollwerk_, has been claimed for several engineers, among
whom are three names belonging to Urbino,--Duke Francesco Maria I.,
Centogatti the painter, and Commandino the mathematician. Promis, in
the second volume of his work already quoted, disposes of all these
pretensions in favour of Francesco di Giorgio. His learned discussion
may be allowed to decide this point, to which little interest
now attaches, as well as the question of explosive mines for the
destruction of military defences. Such an application of gunpowder
had already been partially resorted to, but the Sienese engineer
first established its importance and methodised its application.