SCHOOL OF CREMONA.
EPOCH I.
_The Ancients._
I have never perused the history of Bernardino, and the rest of the
pictoric family of the Campi, written some time since by Baldinucci, and
more recently by Giambatista Zaist, without thinking that I see in the
school which these artists established at Cremona, a sketch of that which
was subsequently formed by the Caracci in Bologna. In both these cities a
single family projected the formation of a new style of painting, which
should partake of all the Italian schools, without committing plagiarism
against any; and from each family in its respective city sprung a numerous
series of excellent masters, who partly by themselves and partly by means
of their disciples, adorned their country with their works, the art by
their example, and history itself with their names. Why the Cremonese
School did not keep pace with that of Bologna in reputation, nor continue
so long as the Caracci's, and why the latter completed in a manner what the
other only essayed, was occasioned by a variety of causes which I shall
gradually explain in the course of the present chapter. In the outset,
agreeably to my usual plan, I mean to investigate the origin and principles
of this school, nor shall we need to go farther back than the foundation of
the magnificent cathedral in 1107, which as speedily as possible was
decorated with all that sculpture and painting could afford. Its specimens
of both are such as to gratify the eye of the antiquary, who may wish to
trace through what channels, and by what degrees, the arts first began to
revive in Italy. The sculpture there does not indeed present us with any
works that may not likewise be found in Verona, in Crema, and other places;
whereas the paintings remaining in the ceiling of the two lateral naves,
may be considered uniques, and deserve the trouble of examining them more
nearly, on account of the smallness of the figures and the want of light.
They consist of sacred histories; the design is extremely dry, the colours
are strong, and their drapery wholly novel, except that some of them still
continue to be seen in the modern masks and theatres of Italy. Some
specimens of architecture are introduced, presenting only right lines, like
what we see in our oldest wood engravings, and explanations are also
inserted, indicating the principal figures, in the manner of the more
ancient mosaic-workers, when the eye, yet unaccustomed to behold pictoric
histories, required some such illustration of the subject. Yet we can
gather no traces of the Greek mosaics; the whole is Italian, national, and
new. The characters leave us in doubt whether we ought to ascribe them to
the age of Giotto, or to that preceding him, but the figures attest that
their author was indebted neither to Giotto nor his master for what he
knew. I can learn nothing of his name from the ancient historians of the
school, neither from Antonio Campi, Pietro Lamo, nor Gio. Batista Zaist,
whom I have already cited, and who compiled two volumes of memoirs of the
old artists of Cremona, edited by Panni in the year 1774.
I may, however, safely assert that there were painters who flourished in
the Cremonese as early as 1213; for on occasion of the city obtaining a
victory over the people of Milan, the event was commemorated in a picture,
in the palace of Lanfranco Oldovino, one of the leaders of the Cremonese
army, and for this we have the testimony of Flameno in his History of
Castelleone.[34] There is also recorded by the Ab. Sarnelli, in his
"Foreigner's Guide to Naples," as well as by the Can. Celano, in the
"Notices of the Beauties of Naples," a M. Simone of Cremona, who, about
1335, painted in S. Chiara, and is the same mentioned by Surgente, author
of the "Naples Illustrated," as Simon da Siena, and by Dominici as Simone
Napolitano. In a former volume I adhered to the opinion of Dominici,
inasmuch as he cites Criscuolo and his archives; but let the authority rest
with them. Other names might be added, which Zaist has in part collected
from MSS., and in part from published documents, such as Polidoro Casella,
who flourished about 1345, Angelo Bellavita in 1420, Jacopino Marasca,
mentioned in 1430, Luca Sclavo, named by Flameno, subsequent to 1450, among
excellent painters, and among the friends of Francesco Sforza, besides
Gaspare Bonino, who became celebrated about the year 1460. Hence it may be
perceived that this school was not destitute of a series of artists, during
a long period, although no specimens of their art survive to confirm it.
Footnote 34: See Zaist, p. 12.
The earliest that is to be met with bearing a name and certain date, is a
picture which belonged to Zaist, representing Julian (afterwards the saint)
killing his father and mother, whom he mistakes for his wife and her
paramour. Below the couch on which they are found, are inscribed the two
following verses:--
Hoc quod Manteneae didicit sub dogmate clari,
Antonii Cornae dextera pinxit opus.--MCCCCLXXVIII.
The name of Antonio della Corna is handed down to us by history, and from
this monument he is discovered to have been a pupil of Mantegna, and a
follower of the first rather than the second style of his master. But he
does not appear to have flourished a sufficient time, or he was not in
repute enough to have a place among the painters of the cathedral, in the
fourteenth century, who left there a monument of the art that may vie with
the Sistine chapel; and if I mistake not the figures of those ancient
Florentines are more correct, those of the cathedral more animated. There
is a frieze surrounding the arches of the church, divided into several
squares, each of which contains a scriptural history painted in fresco.
Upon this work a number of Cremonese artists, all of high repute, were
successively employed.
The first in this list, subscribed in one of these compartments, _Bembus
incipiens_, and in the other compartment 14-- ... under his paintings of
the Epiphany and the Purification. The remaining figures after the above,
have long been concealed by a side wing of the organ. But the sense is very
clear, the name and the date of the centuries appearing together; nor are
we at a loss to perceive that the artist, in an undertaking to be conducted
by many, and during many years, was desirous of commemorating his name, as
the first who commenced it, and in what year. Some, nevertheless, have
wished to infer, by detaching the words _Bembus incipiens_ from the rest,
that the artist meant to inform us he was then first entering upon his
profession; as if the people of Cremona, in the decoration of their finest
temple, which was long conducted by the most celebrated painters, would
have selected a novice to begin. It is, however, a question whether the
inscription refers to Bonifazio Bembo, or to Gianfrancesco his younger
brother; but apparently we ought to give it, with Vasari, to the former, a
distinguished artist who was employed by the court of Milan as early as
1461, while Gio. Francesco flourished later, as we shall shortly have
occasion to shew. In the two histories with which Bembo commenced his
labours, as well as in those that follow, he shews himself an able artist,
spirited in his attitudes, glowing in his colours, magnificent in his
draperies, although still confined within the sphere of the naturalists,
and copying from the truth without displaying much selection, if he does
not occasionally transgress it by want of correctness. Both our
dictionaries of artists and Bottari have confounded this Bonifazio with a
Venetian of the same name, whom we have mentioned in his place.
Opposite to those of Bembo is a painting, a history of the Passion,
representing our Redeemer before his judges, painted by Cristoforo
Moretti,[35] the same, according to Lomazzo, who was employed with Bembo in
the court of Milan, and also painted at the church of S. Aquilino. One of
his Madonnas is still to be seen there, seated amid different saints, and
upon her mantle I was enabled to decipher, _Christophorus de Moretis de
Cremona_, in characters interweaved in the manner of gold lace. Cremonese
writers call him the son of Galeazzo Rivello, and father and grandfather to
several other Rivelli, all artists, Moretti being only an assumed
appellation. From the inscription I have adduced, there appears some
difficulty in the way of such a tradition, since _de Moretis_ is an
expression importing a family name, not an acquired one. Whatever may be
thought on this head, it is certain that he was one of the reformers of the
art in Lombardy, and particularly in the branches of perspective and
design; and in this history of the Passion, in which he excluded all kind
of gilding, he is seen to approach the moderns.
Footnote 35: See Lomazzo, Treatise on Painting, p. 405.
Somewhat later, and not before 1497, Altobello Melone and Boccaccio
Boccaccino, two Cremonese artists, were employed in completing the frieze
of the cathedral. The former, according to Vasari, painted several
histories of the Passion, truly beautiful and deserving of commendation.
But he was the least consistent in point of style, introducing, as it has
been observed, figures of small and large proportions in the same piece,
and also least excellent in his frescos, colouring them in a manner that
now gives them the look of tapestry. But he excelled in his oil paintings,
as we gather from his altar-piece of Christ descending into Limbo, which is
preserved in the sacristy of the Sacramento, a piece for which the canons
refused to receive a large sum that was offered for it. The figures are
very numerous, of somewhat long proportions, but coloured with equal
softness and strength. His knowledge of the naked figure is beyond that of
his age, combined with a grace of features and of attitudes that conveys
the idea of a great master. In the Notizia of Morelli, his picture of
Lucretia, painted for private ornament, is mentioned. It is executed in the
Flemish style, and he is said to have been the pupil of Armanino, perhaps
an artist of that nation.
Boccaccio Boccaccino bears the same character among the Cremonese as
Grillandaio, Mantegna, Vannucci, and Francia, in their respective schools,
the best modern among the ancients, and the best of the ancients in the
list of the moderns. He had the honour of instructing Garofolo during two
years previous to his visiting Rome in 1500. In the frieze of the
cathedral, Boccaccino painted the Birth of the Virgin, along with other
histories, relating to her and the Divine Infant. The style is in part
original, and in part approaches that of Pietro Perugino, whose pupil
Pascoli says he was. But he is less regular in his composition, less
beautiful in the air of his heads, and less powerful in his chiaroscuro,
though richer in his drapery, with more variety of colours, more spirit in
his attitudes, and scarcely less harmonious or less pleasing in his
architecture and landscape. He is, perhaps, least attractive in some of his
figures, which are somewhat coarse, owing to their having a fulness of
drapery, and not being sufficiently slender, a defect carefully avoided by
the ancient statuaries, as I have formerly observed.[36] It is remarked by
Vasari that he visited Rome, in which I agree with him, both because it is
in some degree alluded to by Antonio Campi, and because there are evident
traces of his imitation of Pietro, as in his Marriage of the Virgin Mary,
and in a very magnificent temple, that appears erected upon lofty steps, a
subject repeated by Pietro several times. It has been also noticed that his
Madonna at S. Vincenzo, with the titular Saint and S. Antonio, seems like
the work of Vannucci, and he certainly approaches very near him in other
figures. I can easily believe, therefore, that Boccaccino was at Rome; but
I also believe that what is written of him by Vasari and by Baldinucci, if
not fictitious, is at least wide of the mark.
Footnote 36: Chapter iii.
Let us briefly examine this matter. It is said that he there attempted to
depreciate the works of Michelangiolo, and that after exhibiting his own
productions at the Traspontina, which met with ridicule from the Roman
professors, in order to escape from the hisses they excited on all sides,
he was compelled to return to his native place. This story, added to others
of a like nature, irritated the Lombard artists. Hence Scanelli in his
Microcosm, Lamo in his Discourse on Painting, and Campi in his History,
renewed the complaints of the other schools against Vasari. These are
recorded by Zaist (p. 72) with the addition of his own refutation of this
account. The refutation rests upon the epochs which Vasari himself points
out, and which of themselves, say his opponents, afford a decided negative
to the story of Boccaccino's journey to Rome in time to have cast
reflections upon the paintings of Michelangiolo. It is the custom of less
accurate historians, when they give the substance of a fact, to add to it
circumstances of time, of place, or of manner, that had really no
existence. Ancient history is full of such examples, and the severest
criticism does not presume to discredit facts on the strength of some
interpolated circumstance, provided there be others sufficiently strong to
sanction them. In this instance, the historian, and a great friend of
Michelangiolo, narrates an affair relating to that friend, and which is
supposed to have taken place at Rome, only a short period before the author
wrote. We can hardly then believe it to have been a mere idle report
without any foundation in truth. I would reject indeed some of its
accessaries, and in particular condemn those unwarranted reflections in
which Vasari indulges at the expense of one of the most distinguished
artists who at that time flourished in Lombardy.
Next to the four historical paintings just mentioned, follow those
conducted by Romanino di Brescia and by Pordenone, two master spirits of
their age, who left examples of the Venetian taste at the cathedral, which
were not neglected by the Cremonese, as will be seen. We ought in justice
to add, that their city has always shewn a laudable wish to preserve these
ancient productions from the effects of age, as far as in her power. When
towards the close of the sixteenth century they began to exhibit marks of
decay, they were instantly ordered to be examined and restored by a painter
and architect of some reputation, called Il Sabbioneta, his real name being
Martire Pesenti. The same degree of care and attention has been shewn them
in the present day by the Cav. Borroni.
Two other citizens exhibited specimens in the same place, of the style
which is now called _antico moderno_. Alessandro Pampurini, as it is said,
drew some figures of cherubs, round a _cartellone_, or scroll for
inscriptions, together with a kind of arabesques, bearing the date of 1511;
and in the subsequent year Bernardino Ricca, or Ricco, produced a similar
work opposite to it, which owing to its having been executed with too much
dryness, perished in a few years, and was renewed by a different hand. But
there still exists his picture of a Pieta at S. Pietro del Po, with some
specimens likewise by his companion, sufficient to prove that both are
worthy of commemoration for their time.
Having thus described the series of artists who decorated the cathedral,
there remain a few other names unconnected with that great undertaking, but
which, nevertheless, enjoyed considerable celebrity in their day. Such are
Galeazzo Campi, the father of the three distinguished brothers, and Tommaso
Aleni. This last so nearly resembled Campi in his manner, that their
pictures can with difficulty be distinguished, as may be seen at S.
Domenico, where they painted in competition with each other. It is loosely
conjectured by many that they were the pupils of Boccaccino, an opinion
which I cannot entertain. The disciples of the best masters in the
fourteenth century continued to free themselves, the longer they
flourished, from the dry manner of their early education. Galeazzo, on the
other hand, the only one we need here mention, approaches less closely to
the modern style than his supposed master, as we perceive in the suburban
church of S. Sebastiano, where he painted the tutelar saint and S. Rocco
standing near the throne of the Virgin with the Infant Christ. The picture
bears the date of 1518, when he was already a finished master, and
nevertheless he there appears only a weak follower of the Perugino manner.
His colours are good and natural, but he is feeble in chiaroscuro, dry in
design, cold in his expression; his countenances have not a beam of
meaning, while that of the holy infant seems as if copied from a child
suffering under an obliquity of the eyes, those of the figure are so badly
drawn. The observation, therefore, of Baldinucci, or of his continuator,
that he "had rendered himself celebrated even beyond Italy," would seem in
want of confirmation; nor do I know whence such confirmation can be
derived. Certainly not from the ancients, for even his own son Antonio
Campi only remarks of Galeazzo, that he was "a tolerable painter for his
age."
Nor did some others of Galeazzo's contemporaries rise much above
mediocrity. To this class belonged Antonio Cigognini and Francesco Casella,
a few of whose productions remain in their native place; Galeazzo Pesenti,
called Il Sabbioneta, a painter and sculptor; Lattanzio of Cremona, who
having painted at the school of the Milanese in Venice, has been recorded
by Boschini in his _Miniere della Pittura_, besides Niccolo da Cremona, who
was employed, according to Orlandi, in 1518 at Bologna. There are two,
however, who merit a larger share of consideration, having produced works
of a superior character which still exist, and belong in some degree to the
golden period of the art. The name of the first is Gio. Batista Zupelli, of
whom the Eremitani possess a fine landscape with a Holy Family. His taste,
although dry, is apt to surprise the eye by its originality, and attracts
us by a natural and peculiar grace, with which all his figures are designed
and animated, as well as by a certain softness and fulness of colouring. If
Soiaro had not acquired the principles of his art from Coreggio, we might
suppose that this Zupelli had instructed him in regard to the strong body
of his colouring, which is remarkable both in him and in his school. The
second is Gianfrancesco Bembo, the brother and disciple of Bonifazio,
highly commended by Vasari, if, indeed, he be, as is supposed, the same
Gianfrancesco, called Il Vetraro, who is recorded by the historian in his
Life of Polidoro da Caravaggio. It appears certain that he must have
visited Lower Italy, from the style which he displays in one of his
altar-pieces, representing saints Cosma and Damiano, at the Osservanti, to
which his name with the date of 1524 is affixed. I have not observed any
thing in a similar taste, either in Cremona or in its vicinity. It retains
very slight traces of the antique, much as may be observed in those of F.
Bartolommeo della Porta, whom he greatly resembled in point of colouring,
however inferior in the dignity of his figures and his draperies. A few
more of his specimens are met with in public places and the houses of
noblemen, which exhibit him as one of those painters who added dignity to
the style of painting in Lombardy, and improved upon the ancient manner.
SCHOOL OF CREMONA.
EPOCH II.
_Camillo Boccaccino, Il Soiaro, The Campi._
After the time of Vetraro, nothing occurs worthy of putting on record until
we reach the moderns; and here we ought to commence with the three
distinguished artists, who, according to Lamo, were employed in Cremona in
the year 1522. These were Camillo Boccaccino, son of Boccaccio, Soiaro,
recorded in the preceding chapter, and Giulio Campi, who subsequently
became the head of a numerous school. Other Cremonese artists, it is true,
flourished about the same period, such as the two Scutellari, Francesco and
Andrea, who have been referred by some writers to the state of Mantua; but
as few of their works remain, and those of no great merit, we shall proceed
at once to the great masters of the school whom we have mentioned above.
The grand undertaking of the cathedral proved useful likewise in the
advancement of these artists, and in particular the church of S.
Sigismondo, already erected by Francesco Sforza at a little distance from
the city, where these artists and their descendants, painting as it were in
competition, rendered it a noble school for the fine arts. We may there
study a sort of series of these artists, their various merit, their
prevailing tastes in the Coreggio manner, their different style of adapting
it, and their peculiar skill in fresco compositions. With these they not
only decorated temples, but by applying them to the facades of palaces and
private houses they gave an appearance of splendour to the state, which
excited the admiration of strangers. They were surprised, on first entering
Cremona, to behold a city arrayed as if for a jubilee, full of life, and
rich in all the pride of art. Strange then that Franzese, who wrote the
Lives of the best painters (in four volumes) should have compiled nothing
relating to the Cremonese, far more deserving of commemoration than many
others in his collection whom he has greatly praised.
Camillo Boccaccino was the leading genius of the school. Grounded in the
ancient maxims of his father, though his career was short, he succeeded in
forming a style at once strong and beautiful, insomuch that we are at a
loss to say which is the prevailing feature of his character. Lomazzo
pronounces him, "very able in design, and a noble colourist," placing him,
as a model for the graceful power of his lights, for the sweetness of his
manner, and for his art of drapery, on a level with da Vinci, Coreggio,
Gaudenzio, and the first painters in the world. According to the opinion of
Vasari, against whom the Cremonese have so bitterly inveighed, Camillo was
"a good mechanical hand, and if he had flourished for a longer period would
have had extraordinary success, but he produced few works except such as
are small, and of little importance." In respect to his paintings at S.
Sigismondo, he adds, not that they are, but are only "believed by the
Cremonese to be, the best specimens of the art they have to boast." They
are still to be seen in the cupola, in the grand recess, and on the sides
of the great altar. The most distinguished pieces are the four Evangelists
in a sitting posture, excepting the figure of S. John, who, standing up in
a bending attitude, with an expression of surprise, forms a curved outline
opposed to the arch of the ceiling, a figure greatly celebrated, no less on
account of the perspective than the design. It is truly surprising how a
young artist who had never frequented the school of Coreggio, could so well
emulate his taste, and carry it even farther within so short a period; this
work, displaying such a knowledge of perspective and foreshortening, having
been executed as early as the year 1537.
The two side pictures are also highly celebrated, both in Cremona and
abroad. One of these represents the Raising of Lazarus, the other the Woman
taken in Adultery, both surrounded with very elegant ornaments,
representing groups of cherubs, which are seen in the act of playing with
the mitre, the censer, and other holy vessels in their hands. In these
histories, as well as in their decorations, the whole of the figures are
arranged and turned in such a way, as scarcely to leave a single eye in the
figures visible, a novelty in respect to drawing by no means to be
recommended. But Camillo was desirous of thus proving to his rivals that
his figures were not, as they asserted, indebted for their merit to the
animated expression of the eyes, but to the whole composition. And truly in
whatever way disposed, they do not fail to please from the excellence of
the design, their fine and varied attitudes, the foreshortening, the
natural colouring, and a strength of chiaroscuro which must have been drawn
from Pordenone, and which makes the surrounding paintings of the Campi
appear deficient in relief. Had he exhibited a little more choice in his
heads of adults, with a little more regularity in his composition, there
would, perhaps, have been nothing farther to desire. We may, moreover,
mention his painting on a facade in one of the squares of Cremona, where,
not long ago, were to be seen the remains of figures which Camillo executed
so as to excite the admiration of Charles V. and obtain the highest
commendations. There remain likewise two of his altar-pieces, one at
Cistello and the other at S. Bartolommeo, both extremely beautiful.
The name of Bernardino, or Bernardo Gatti, for he subscribed both to his
pictures, was mentioned at length among the pupils of Parma; and I have now
to record it among the best masters of Cremona. Both Campi and Lapi refer
him without scruple to Cremona, though he is given by others to Vercelli,
and supposed to be the same Bernardo di Vercelli who succeeded Pordenone in
painting S. Maria di Campagna at Piacenza, as we find related in Vasari. By
others he is supposed again to have come from Pavia, where he was employed
in the cupola of the cathedral, and according to the testimony of Count
Carasi, mentioned before with commendation, he there subscribed his name
_Bernardinus Gatti Papiensis_, 1553. I leave the question to others, though
it seems hardly credible that two contemporary historians, who wrote
shortly after the death of Bernardino, while the public recollection of his
native place must have been yet fresh, and ready to refute them, should
have each fallen into error. We might add that Cremona is in possession of
many of Soiaro's paintings from his earliest age until he became an
octogenarian, and owing to a paralytic affection was in the habit of
painting with his left hand. At that advanced period he produced for the
cathedral his picture of the Assumption, fifty hands in height, and which,
although he never lived to complete it, is a work, as is justly observed by
Lamo, that excites our wonder. Moreover he left his possessions and a
family at Cremona, from which sprung two artists deserving of record, one
of whom is celebrated in history, the other never before noticed. As there
still remains some degree of foundation for attributing him to Pavia, upon
the authority also of Spelta, who wrote the Lives of the Pavese Bishops,
and was almost contemporary with Bernardino, and what is more, he himself
thinks that the difference might be thus reconciled, we may agree with him
in stating that our artist was either derived from, or a citizen of Pavia,
and at the same time a citizen and a resident at Cremona.
Gervasio Gatti, Il Soiaro, nephew to Bernardino, was initiated by him in
the same maxims and principles which he had himself imbibed, by studying
and copying the models left by Coreggio at Parma. The advantage he derived
from them may be known from his S. Sebastiano, which was painted for S.
Agatha, at Cremona, in 1578, a piece that appears designed from the
antique, and coloured by one of the first figurists and landscape painters
in Lombardy. In the same city is his Martyrdom of S. Cecilia, at S. Pietro,
surrounded with angels, in the Coreggio manner, a picture nobly coloured,
and finished with exquisite care. In composition it resembles those of his
uncle, for one of which it might be mistaken, did we not find the name of
Gervasio and the date of 1601. But he was not always equally diligent, and
sometimes betrays a mechanical hand, while there is often a monotony in his
countenances, and a want of selection in his heads, no unusual fault in
portrait-painters, among whom he held a high rank. It is most probable that
he saw the works of the Caracci, traces of which I have discovered in some
of his productions, and particularly in those at S. S. Pietro and
Marcellino. Perhaps it was a brother of this artist who left a picture of a
Crucifixion, surrounded by different saints, at S. Sepolcro in Piacenza,
bearing an inscription of _Uriel de Gattis dictus Sojarius_, 1601. It
boasts great strength of colouring, combined with no little elegance, but
the manner is insignificant and it is feeble in chiaroscuro. This, if I
mistake not, is the same _Uriele_ who, on the testimony of the Cav.
Ridolfi, had been selected for some undertaking at Crema in preference to
Urbini, as I formerly observed. Bernardino likewise instructed Spranger, a
favourite artist of the Emperor Rodolph II. as well as the Anguissole, of
both of whom we shall give some account shortly. What more peculiarly
distinguishes him is his title to be considered the great master of the
Cremonese School, which, benefitted by his presence and guided by his
precepts and examples, produced during so long a period such a variety of
admirable works. To speak frankly what I think, Cremona would never have
seen her Campi, nor her Boccaccino rise so high, if Soiaro had not
exhibited his talents in that city.
The remaining portion of our chapter will be devoted almost wholly to the
Campi, a family that filled Cremona, Milan, and other cities of the state,
both in private and public, with their paintings. They consisted of four
individuals, all of whom devoted themselves indefatigably to the art until
they reached an extreme old age. They were by some denominated the Vasari
and the Zuccari of Lombardy, a comparison founded on some degree of truth
in regard to the extent and the vast mechanism of their compositions; but
not just, as far as intended to be applied to any desire of achieving much,
rather than what was excellent in its kind. Giulio and Bernardino, the most
accomplished of their family, were accused of too great rapidity and want
of accuracy; but they are not very often liable to the charge, and many of
their faults must be ascribed to their assistants. They generally produced
good designs, which were invariably well coloured, and these still remain
entire, while those of Vasari and Zuccari stand in need of continual
restoration and retouching from the fading of their colours. Of both these
masters, however, as well as the rest of the Campi, we must now proceed to
treat in their individual character.
Giulio may be pronounced the Lodovico Caracci of his school. The eldest
brother of Antonio and Vincenzo, and the relation, or the instructor at
least, of Bernardino, he formed the project of uniting the best qualities
of a number of styles in one. His father, who was his first preceptor,[37]
not conceiving himself equal to perfecting him in the art, sent him to the
school of Giulio Romano, established at that period in Mantua, and which
had begun, according to Vasari, to propagate the taste imbibed by its
master from the most distinguished ornament of the art. Romano, too,
instructed his pupils in the principles of architecture, painting, and
modelling, and rendered them capable of directing and conducting all the
branches of a vast and multiplied undertaking with their own hands. Such an
education was enjoyed by the eldest Campi, and by his brothers, owing to
his care. The church of S. Margherita was wholly decorated by him; and the
chapels at S. Sigismondo were all completed by him and his family. They
contain almost every variety of the art, large pictures, small histories,
cameos, stuccos, chiaroscuros, grotesques, festoons of flowers, pilasters,
with gold recesses, from which the most graceful forms of cherubs seem to
rise with symbols adapted to the saint of the altar; in a word, the whole
of the paintings and their decorations are the work of the same genius, and
sometimes of the same hand. This adds greatly to their harmony and in
consequence to their beauty, nothing in fact being truly beautiful that has
not perfect unity. It is a real loss to the arts that these various talents
should be divided, so as to compel us to seek a different artist for works
of different sorts; whence it arises that in a number of halls and churches
we meet with collections, histories, and ornaments of every kind, so
extremely opposite, that not only one part fails to remind us of the other,
but sometimes repels it, and seems to complain of its forced and
inharmonious union. But we must again turn our attention to Giulio Campi.
Footnote 37: We may here correct the mistake of Orlandi, who
assigns the death of Galeazzo to the year 1536, and Giulio's
birth to 1540, when it is known that he began his labours as
early as 1522.
It appears then that he laid the foundation of his taste and principles
under Giulio Romano. From him he derived the dignity of his design, his
knowledge of anatomy, variety and fertility of ideas, magnificence in his
architecture, and a general mastery over every subject. To this he added
strength when he visited Rome, where he studied Raffaello and the antique,
designing with a wonderful degree of accuracy the column of Trajan,
universally regarded as a school of the ancients always open to the present
day. Either at Mantua or elsewhere he likewise studied Titian, and imitated
him in an equal degree with any other foreign artist. In his native state
he met with two more models in Pordenone and Soiaro, in whose style,
according to Vasari, he exercised himself, before he became acquainted with
the works of Giulio. From such preparatory studies, combined with imitating
whatever he met with in Raffaello and Coreggio, he acquired that style
which is found to partake of the manner of so many different artists. On
visiting the church of S. Margherita just alluded to, in company with an
able professor of the art, we there noticed several of his heads, each
drawn after a different model, insomuch that on viewing the works of this
artist we feel inclined to pronounce the same opinion on him, as Algarotti
did on the Caracci, that in one of their pictures one kind of taste
prevails, and in another an opposite manner. Thus in his S. Girolamo, in
the cathedral at Mantua, and in his Pentecost at S. Gismondo in Cremona, we
meet with all the strength of Giulio, though his most successful imitation
is to be found in the castle of Soragno in the territory of Parma, where he
represented the labours of Hercules in a grand hall, which might be
pronounced an excellent school for the study of the naked figure. In the
larger picture at the church of S. Gismondo, where the duke of Milan is
seen with his duchess in the act of being presented by the patron saints to
the Holy Virgin, and also in that of saints Pietro and Marcellino at the
church bearing their name, Campi displays so much of the Titian manner as
to have been mistaken for that artist. One of his Histories of the Passion,
in the cathedral, representing Christ before Pilate, was also supposed to
be from the hand of Pordenone, though ascertained to be his. Finally in a
Holy Family, painted at S. Paolo in Milan, particularly in the figure of
the child seen caressing a holy prelate, who stands lost in admiration, we
are presented with all the natural grace, united to all the skill that can
be required in an imitator of Coreggio. The picture is exquisitely
beautiful, and an engraving of it in large folio was taken by Giorgio
Ghigi, a celebrated artist of Mantua.
Nor did Giulio's admiration of great painters lead him to neglect the study
of nature. It was nature he consulted, and selected from; a study which he
inculcated likewise upon the rest of the Campi. A choice is thus
perceptible in their heads, more especially in those of their women,
evidently drawn from nature, and I may add from national truth, inasmuch as
they express ideas and attitudes that are not usually met with in other
artists; the hair and temples often appearing bound with a ribbon, as was
then customary in the city, and is still in use in some of the villages.
The colouring of the heads approaches near that of Paul Veronese, and in
the whole of their paintings the Campi were accustomed to make use of the
distribution of colours that had prevailed before the time of the Caracci,
though in their manner of disposing and animating them they acquired a
peculiar beauty which Scaramuccio pronounces wholly original. Judging,
therefore, from their colours, and the air of their heads, it is difficult
to discern the individual hands of the Campi; but if we examine the design
we shall more easily distinguish them. Giulio surpasses the rest in point
of dignity; and he likewise aims at displaying more knowledge, both of the
human frame and of the effects of lights and shadows. In correctness too he
is superior to his two brothers, though he is not equal to Bernardino.
The Cav. Antonio Campi was instructed by his brother in architecture and
painting, in the former of which he employed himself more than Giulio. This
was useful to him in the distribution of his large works, where he often
introduced perspective views of great beauty, and displayed great skill in
foreshortening. A fine specimen of his powers is to be seen in the sacristy
of S. Pietro, with that beautiful colonnade, above which appears the
chariot of Elias in the distance. Antonio was also a modeller, an engraver,
and the historian of his native state, whose annals, enriched with many of
his copper-plates, he published in 1585. In the Campi family, therefore, he
will be found to occupy the same place as Agostino among the Caracci, an
artist of great versatility, conversant with polite letters. He was well
known and appreciated by Agostino, who engraved one of his most beautiful
productions, the Apostle of the Gentiles in the act of raising a person
from the dead. It is placed at S. Paolo in Milan, a noble church, where all
the Campi, in the same manner as at S. Sigismondo, are seen in competition
with each other. Antonio there appears to great advantage, no less in the
forementioned picture than in that of the Nativity, though the frescos
adorning the chapels, ascribed to him, are deficient in accuracy. Thus he
also produced works of unequal merit at S. Sigismondo, as if he wished to
shew that he knew more than he was ambitious of expressing. His most
familiar model, as is remarked also by Lomazzo, was Coreggio, and the
feature that he most aimed at expressing was that of grace. To this he
often attained in point of colouring, but was less happy in design, where,
owing to his study of elegance, he at times becomes disproportionately
thin, and at others, in order to display his power, he exhibits a
foreshortening somewhat out of place. He is still more mannered in his more
robust subjects, and occasionally borders upon heaviness and vulgarity,
into which his imitation of Coreggio's grandeur, more difficult, perhaps,
than his grace, doubtless betrayed him. There are many of these exceptions,
however, along with his incorrectness of design, so often discernible,
which are to be attributed to his numerous assistants, employed in these
vast undertakings. But this will not apply to his over-grouping, which is
so remarkable in some of his compositions, nor to the introduction of
caricatures into his holy histories, which is a sort of jesting out of
season. In a word his genius was vast, spirited, resolute, but often in
want of the rein; and in this respect, and generally in what relates to
pictorial learning, we should do wrong to put him in competition with
Lodovico Caracci.
In the church of S. Paolo, at Milan, there is an inscription by Vincenzio
Campi, in which he mentions Giulio and Antonio as his younger brothers.
Most probably, however, it has been inserted there by some other hand,
being quite contradictory to what is established by history. For he is
represented by Antonio as the youngest of the brothers, and by others as an
indefatigable assistant in their labours, and little more worthy of being
compared with them than Francesco Caracci with his brother Annibal or
Agostino. His portraits, however, are held in esteem, as well as his fruit
pieces, which he painted on a small scale for private rooms in a very
natural manner, and they are by no means rare at Cremona. In the colouring
of his figures he was equal to his brothers, but in point of invention and
design greatly inferior to them. He appears to have imitated Antonio rather
than Giulio, as far as we can judge from the few works he has left, which
are now known to be his. He painted a few altar-pieces for his native
place, four of which consist of Descents from the Cross. That in the
cathedral extorted the praise of Baldinucci; and truly in the figure of
Christ his foreshortening deceives the eye like that of Pordenone in his
Dead Christ, while his heads and his colouring have likewise been
commended. I cannot, however, think that the attitude of the Virgin mother,
who is seen grasping his face with both her hands, is very becoming; nor do
I approve of the saints Antonio and Raimondo, who lived at a period so
remote from that of Christ, being here introduced, the one supporting his
arm, the other kissing his hand. It moreover betrays several errors, of a
kind which Baldinucci, so familiar with a more learned and severe school,
would not so easily have forgiven had he happened to have beheld this
picture. Vincenzio seems to have possessed greater skill in small than in
large figures, in common indeed with a great number of artists. Mention is
made in his Life of six little pictures which he executed on slate, and
which were sold after his death for three hundred ducats. Zaist, whom I
follow in my index, has presented us with the epochs applying to these
three artists in such a manner as to leave them in considerable doubt. The
inscription at S. Paolo in Milan, recorded in the Guide (p. 152) is as
follows:--_Vincentius una cum Julio et Antonio fratribus pinxerunt an._
MDLXXXVIII. Now Bianconi does not seem inclined to credit the authenticity
of this; nor is it improbable but it may have been written some years
subsequent to the painting, and by another hand.
Bernardino Campi, perhaps some way related to the other three Campi,
occupied the same place in his family as Annibal Caracci amongst his
brothers. Receiving his first instructions from the eldest Campi, he
entered into similar views of forming a style which should include that of
many other artists, and in a short time he rivalled, and in the opinion of
many surpassed his master. He had at first attached himself to the
goldsmith's art by the advice of his father; but happening to behold two
tapestries, copied by Giulio Campi from Raffaello, he resolved to change
his profession, and devoting himself to the school of Campi at Cremona, and
next to that of Ippolito Costa at Mantua, he began to profess the art at
the age of nineteen, and acquired a great proficiency in it at that early
age. At Mantua he cultivated an acquaintance with Giulio Romano and his
school, and we may infer, that from the study of his works he was enabled
to enlarge his views and his capacity for great undertakings. But the love
of Raffaello was fixed in his heart, and he took delight in nothing so much
as his pictures, his designs, and his engravings; while in Giulio and the
rest he was only anxious to emulate those portraits which appeared to him
to bear some resemblance to his Raffaello. There too he applied himself to
the study of Titian's series of the Caesars, eleven in number; and after
having copied them he added a twelfth in a style so perfectly consistent,
as to exhibit no traces of imitation. By the liberality of one of his
patrons he was enabled also to visit Parma, Modena, and Reggio, in order to
become acquainted with the manner of Coreggio; and the advantage he thence
derived, his pictures at S. Gismondo sufficiently display. From these first
principles, with such as he studied in his native place, he derived one of
the most original styles that is to be met with in the list of imitators.
His imitation is never, like that of so many others, apparent to the eye,
but rather resembles our poet Sannazzaro's, of the best Roman writers, who
colours with them every line, but that line is still his own. In so great a
variety of models, the most beloved and the most honoured, as Virgil was by
Sannazzaro, was Raffaello by Bernardino; but it was unfortunate for him
that he did not see Rome, and the originals which that great pictoric
genius there produced. The want of this he supplied with ability, and
formed for himself several maxims drawn from nature and simplicity, which
serve to distinguish him from the rest of his school. By the side of the
other Campi he perhaps appears the most timid artist, but the most correct;
he has not the magnificence of Giulio, but he has more ideal beauty, and
much more captivates the heart. He resembles Antonio rather than Giulio in
the length of his proportions; but not so in other points, for he
occasionally borders upon dryness, as in his Assumption at the cathedral,
in order to avoid falling into mannerism.
But it is the church of S. Sigismondo which inspires us with the loftiest
ideas of this artist, in every view. We can imagine nothing more simply
beautiful, and more consistent with the genius of the best age, than his
picture of St. Cecilia, in the act of playing on the organ, while St.
Catherine is seen standing near her, and above them a group of angels,
apparently engaged with their musical instruments and with their voices, in
pouring forth in concert with the two innocent virgins, strains worthy of
Paradise. This painting, with its surrounding decoration of cherub figures,
displays his mastery in grace. Still he appears to no less advantage in
point of strength in his figures of the Prophets, grandly designed, for the
same place; although he seems more anxious to invest them with dignity of
feature and of action, than to give strength and muscle to their
proportions. Above all, he shone with most advantage in the grand cupola,
with which few in Italy will bear a comparison, and still fewer can be
preferred for the abundance, variety, distribution, grandeur, and gradation
of the figures, and for the harmony and grand effect of the whole. In this
empyrean, this vast concourse of the blessed, belonging to the Old and New
Testament, there is no figure that may not be recognised by its symbols,
and that is not seen in perfection from its own point of view, whence all
appear of the natural proportion, although they are on a scale of seven
braccia in height. Such a work is one of those rare monuments which serve
to prove, that it is possible for a great genius to execute rapidly and
well; it was wholly conducted by him in seven months; and to satisfy the
workmen, who were more sensible of the brevity of the time than the merit
of the work, he obtained a written acknowledgment from Soiaro and Giulio
Campi, that he had achieved a laudable task. Bernardino was younger than
either of them, or than Boccaccino, and the citizens took pleasure in
placing him in competition with one or the other of them in their public
works, in order that a noble emulation might call forth all their powers,
nor suffer them to slumber. Nevertheless, the Nativity of our Lord, at S.
Domenico, has been pronounced his masterpiece; a kind of abstract, in
which he aimed at comprehending the various excellences of the art. This,
at least, is the opinion of Lamo, who composed a diffuse life of this
artist; such as to render his information far the most copious we possess
upon the subject. He also compiled a correct catalogue of his works,
executed both in his native place and at Milan, where he passed a great
part of his time, and of those he painted in foreign parts. We find a great
number of portraits of princes, as well as of private persons, enumerated;
his skill in this branch of the art, in which very few equalled him,
greatly adding to his fame and fortune. The precise period of his decease
is not known, though it must have been somewhere towards 1590, at which
time the art assumed quite a new aspect at Cremona.
SCHOOL OF CREMONA.
EPOCH III.
_Decline of the School of the Campi. Trotti and other
Artists support it._
From the brief description already given, it will easily be perceived how
far the Campi School was a sort of sketch of that of the Caracci; and what
were the causes which contributed to the superiority of the latter,
although they had both the same original outline. The Caracci were all
excellent designers, and invariably aimed at appearing such; they were
likewise united by affection, no less than by their place of residence, and
were continually engaged in assisting each other. Finally, they supported
an academy, much frequented, the object of which was, not so much to study
the various manners of different artists, as to examine the different
effects produced by nature, so as to render their works her real offspring,
as it were, and not her more distant relations. The Campi, on the other
hand, did not so uniformly aspire to the same excellence, nor did they
reside, and unite together in forming so methodical and well-established an
academy; each maintaining a separate school and residence, and teaching, if
I mistake not, rather how their pupils should imitate them, than how they
should paint. Hence it arose, that while Domenichino, Guido, Guercino, and
others of the Caracci School, distinguished themselves by their novelty and
originality of manner, the scholars of the Campi were confined to the
sphere of imitating, as nearly as lay in their power, the painters of their
own city, either severally or in a select number. And thus, as man is every
where the same, it here ensued, as in the rest of the Italian schools, that
having acquired a tolerable degree of skill in imitating their
predecessors, artists began to slacken their industry. The first had
accustomed themselves to copy only from the life; they drew cartoons, they
modelled in wax, and carefully arranged all the divisions of their folds,
with every accessary; but the second contented themselves with making a few
sketches, and some heads taken from nature, executing the rest of their
work in a mere mechanical manner, and as they judged to be most convenient.
Thus by degrees this great school degenerated, and it happened also about
the same period, when the disciples of Procaccini observed the same method
at Milan. From this cause, during the seventeenth century, Lombardy was
filled with the sectarists of the art, among whom the followers of Zuccheri
themselves would have appeared in the rank of masters. A few there were who
struggled to free themselves from the herd of imitators; and Caravaggio
afforded them an opportunity. Born in the vicinity of Cremona, he was
partly considered their compatriot, and the more willingly followed by the
Cremonese; more particularly as it became popular to cry down the style of
the last masters as feeble, and to demand one of a more vigorous character.
The attempt succeeded admirably in a few; while others, on the contrary, as
it occurred in Venice, at Cremona also became only coarse and sombre. I
have not been very anxious to cultivate an acquaintance with the artists of
this period; though I shall take care to make mention of such as succeeded
in raising themselves above the crowd.
Each of the Campi, therefore, claims his own disciples, though they have
not always been distinguished in history, being described under the general
designation of pupils of the Campi; as the two Mainardi, Andrea and Marc
Antonio, by Orlandi. The two pupils of Giulio, best entitled to
commendation, namely, Gambara of Brescia, and Viani of Cremona, having
flourished in other schools, have been recorded by us, the first among the
Venetians; and the second among the Mantuan artists.
Antonio Campi has left us an account of three of his own disciples:
Ippolito Storto, Gio. Batista Belliboni, and Gio. Paolo Fondulo, who passed
into Sicily. All of them remained in obscurity, however, in Lombardy, and
are omitted in the painters' Dictionaries. Towards the close of his life,
he instructed one Galeazzo Ghidone, an artist of weak health, who employed
himself only at intervals, but with success; as we may judge from his
picture of the Preaching of St. John the Baptist, at S. Mattia, in Cremona,
which has been highly commended by good connoisseurs. Another, is Antonio
Beduschi, who, in his twenty-sixth year, produced a Pieta for S. Sepolcro,
in Piacenza, and a still superior painting of the Martyrdom of S. Stefano;
he is referred to the school of the Campi, and strongly partakes of the
style of Antonio; I esteem him one of his imitators, if not in the list of
his pupils. He was unknown to the historian Zaist, and is indebted for
commemoration to the Sig. Proposto Carasi.
Luca Cattapane was initiated in the art by Vincenzio, and devoted much time
to copying the works of the Campi family. He succeeded in this by
exhibiting a rare boldness of hand, so as to give his pieces the air of
originals, and they continue to impose upon the most experienced, even to
the present day. He likewise counterfeited the style of Gambara in a Pieta
of his, at the church of S. Pietro, in Cremona; and in order to enlarge the
picture, he added three figures in a taste agreeable to the former. For the
rest, being misled by his ambition to form a new style, or to approach
nearer Caravaggio, he became even more sombre than the Campi, with still
less taste. Many of his altar-pieces yet remain. In S. Donato, at Cremona,
he represented the Beheading of St. John; one of his most successful works,
in which the effect is superior either to the design or to the expression.
To these we may add a number of his fresco paintings, though inferior to
those he executed in oil.
Bernardino, however, was the favourite master, and the most frequented of
any belonging to the school. His successors have continued to flourish
longer, and even reached the confines of the present age. I first propose
to enumerate a few of his most distinguished scholars, who either did not
teach, or taught the art only to a few; and I shall afterwards treat of
Malosso and his school, which, about the year 1630, held the chief sway in
Cremona, and became one of the most celebrated throughout Lombardy.
Coriolano Malagavazzo, who is erroneously called Girolamo Malaguazzo, in
the "Painters' Dictionary," assisted in the labours of his master, insomuch
as to render it uncertain whether Cremona possesses any painting designed
and executed by himself; for it is supposed that he drew his fine
altar-piece, in S. Silvestro, representing the Virgin with S.S. Francesco
and Ignazio, the martyr, from one of Bernardino's designs. Nothing,
likewise, that has not been questioned, remains of Cristoforo Magnani da
Pizzichettone, a young artist of great promise, as we are informed by
Antonio Campi, who laments the shortness of his career. Lamo, too,
complains of his loss, when he mentions him and Trotti as the two greatest
geniuses of the school. His chief talent lay in portraits; though he was
also well skilled in compositions. I have seen one of his productions,
consisting of Saints Giacomo and Giovanni, at S. Francesco, in Piacenza, an
early effort, but very well conceived and executed. Andrea Mainardi, called
Chiaveghino, employed himself both singly and with Marcantonio, his nephew,
in painting for the city, and more especially for its environs. By
Baldinucci, he is pronounced a weak painter; and such indeed he appears
wherever he worked in haste, and for a small sum. But several of his
altar-pieces, laboured with more care, tend to redeem his character; there
he shews himself a successful disciple of Bernardino, both in his minute
style, as in his Marriage of S. Anne, at the Eremites, and in his loftier
manner, as in his large picture of the Divin Sangue, or divine blood. He
exhibits that prophetic idea, _torcular calcavi solus_, and the Redeemer is
seen standing upright under a wine-press, and, crushed by the Divine
Justice, emitting from his holy body, through the open wounds, whole
streams of blood, which are received into sacred vessels by S. Agostino,
and three other Doctors of the church; and are afterwards shed for the
benefit of an immense crowd of the Faithful, who are seen gathered round.
The same subject I saw in one of the churches of Recanati, and in some
others, but no where so appropriately expressed. It is a picture that would
reflect credit on any school; exhibiting fine forms, rich draperies, warm
and lively colouring. In the distribution of his small and frequent lights
he might, indeed, have been more happy, as well as in the grouping of his
figures; a fault, however, common to many of his school.
The best, however, of these disciples of Bernardino, with a number of
others whom I omit, were all surpassed by a fair votary of the art named
Sofonisba Angussola, sprung from a noble family at Cremona. Along with her
younger sister, Elena, who afterwards took the veil, she received his
instructions at her father's request, in his own house. Upon his going to
Milan, Soiaro was selected to supply the place of Bernardino, and Sofonisba
soon attained to such a degree of excellence, more particularly in
portraits, as to be esteemed one of the most finished painters of her age.
She at first superintended the pictorial education of her four younger
sisters, whose names were Lucia and Minerva, who died young; Europa and
Anna Maria, of whom the former married, and died in the flower of her age;
and of the second, likewise married, there remains no further account.
Vasari bestows the highest commendations upon Sofonisba, and upon the other
sisters, with whom he was acquainted at Cremona, when they were young. At
that period Sofonisba had already been invited as court painter, by Philip
II. into Spain, where, besides the portraits she took of the royal family
and of Pope Pius IV., she painted several other princes and lords of rank,
all ambitious of the same honour, insomuch that we might apply to her the
words of Pliny: "Illos nobilitans quos esset dignata posteris tradere."
Entering afterwards into matrimony with one Moncada, she resided with him
some years at Palermo, and after his death again married a gentleman of the
name of Lomellino. She died at Genoa, at a very advanced age, infirm and
blind; though she continued to converse and give her advice upon the art
until her last moments; insomuch that Vandyck was heard to say, that he had
acquired more knowledge from her, than from any one else he knew. Her
portraits are greatly esteemed in Italy; and in particular, two which she
took of herself; one of which is in the ducal gallery at Florence, and the
other in possession of the Lomellini family at Genoa.
I next approach that celebrated pupil of Bernardino, whom I promised to
mention at the close of the chapter; and this is the Cavalier Gio. Batista
Trotti, who published his master's life, during his lifetime, written by
Lamo. None of Campi's pupils was so much attached to him as this artist,
who married his niece, and was left heir to his valuable studio. On his
competing at Parma with Agostino Caracci, and being more applauded at
court, it was said by Agostino, with pleasantry, that they had given him a
hard bone to gnaw. Hence he acquired the surname of Malosso, which he
adopted, and sometimes made use of in signing his name, besides
transmitting it, as an hereditary appellation, to his nephew. Thus he
converted into a source of applause, the satiric trait launched against him
by Caracci, meant to convey, that the people of Parma had preferred to him
an artist of inferior worth. Nor indeed was Malosso his equal either in
design or in solid judgment; though he could boast pictoric attractions
which made him appear to advantage when opposed to other artists. He
displayed little of Bernardino's taste, except in a few of his first
efforts; he afterwards studied Coreggio, and, most of all, aimed at
resembling Soiaro, whose gay, open, and brilliant style, varied
shortenings, and spirited attitudes, he exhibited in the chief part of his
works. But he carried it too far, making an extravagant display of his
white and other clear colours, without sufficiently tempering them with
shade, insomuch that I have heard his paintings compared to those on
porcelain; while he has been accused of want of relief, or according to
Baldinucci, of some degree of harshness. His heads are, however, extremely
beautiful, smiling with loveliness, and of a graceful roundness, not unlike
Soiaro's; though he is too apt to repeat them on the same canvass, nearly
alike in features, colours, and attitude. Here his rapidity of hand alone
was in fault, as he was in no want of fertility of ideas. When he pleased
he could give variety to his lineaments, as we gather from his Beheading of
St. John, at S. Domenico, in Cremona, as well as to his compositions;
having represented at S. Francesco and at S. Agostino, in Piacenza, and if
I mistake not, elsewhere, a picture of the Conception of the Virgin, in
every instance abounding with fresh ideas. Nor do we often meet with any of
his paintings throughout the numerous cities in which he was employed, that
have much resemblance in point of invention. He was equally varied in his
imitations when he pleased, as appears from his Crucifixion, surrounded by
saints, in the cathedral of Cremona, executed in the best Venetian taste;
while his S. Maria Egiziaca driven from the Temple, to be seen at S. Pietro
in the same town, partakes as much of the Roman. There is also a Pieta of
his at S. Abbondio, which shews that he was occasionally happy in catching
the Caracci manner.
His most esteemed works in fresco, for which he was honoured with the title
of cavaliere, were exhibited in the palace called del Giardino, at Parma.
His labours in the Cupola of S. Abbondio, before-mentioned, were on a
magnificent scale, though designed from Giulio Campi. But they display a
mastery of hand, and strength of colouring, fully equal, if not superior,
to the invention of the work. For Giulio, indeed, did not possess the same
skill in varying his groups of angels as the Caracci; inasmuch as both he
and his family were accustomed to arrange them like the horses we see in
the ancient chariots, all drawn up in a line, or in some other manner
unusual in the best schools. The Cremonese historian endeavours, in some
degree, to defend Trotti from the charge of harshness, casting it upon his
assistants and disciples, whose altar-pieces have been attributed to
Malosso, by Baldinucci. This may be the case with some, but there are
others inscribed with the name of Trotti, especially at Piacenza, which
more or less exhibit the same fault. Nor ought we to cast reflections upon
an artist of a secondary character, on account of some errors, as these are
precisely the cause of his exclusion from the rank of the very first
masters.
Trotti educated a number of artists who flourished about the year 1600,
devoted to his manner, although in course of time the method of preparing
grounds becoming corrupted throughout Italy, and the age attached to a more
sombre style of colouring, they were induced to abandon much of that
clearness which forms a chief characteristic of his colouring. Baldinucci
gives some account of Ermenegildo Lodi, as well as Orlandi, who could not
discern which of two paintings belonged to the master, and which to the
scholar. This, I conjecture, arose from painting under the eye of his
preceptor, whom he assisted in many of his labours, together with his
brother Manfredo Lodi. When we consult the few which he executed alone,
particularly at S. Pietro, they discover nothing to have excited the
jealousy of Agostino Caracci, nor to have gained for the artist the
appellation of Malosso. The productions likewise of Giulio Calvi, called Il
Coronaro, might be mistaken for the least perfect of those of Trotti, says
Zaist, where they are not inscribed with his name. The same may be averred
of two other artists, Stefano Lambri and Cristoforo Augusta, a youth of
great promise, cut off in the flower of his age; and both excellent
disciples of the school. These, no less than Coronaro, may be seen and
compared with each other in the church and convent of the Padri
Predicatori, which possess specimens of each.
Of Euclide Trotti, before-mentioned, there remains in his native place no
work clearly ascertained to be his, except two history-pieces of St. James
the Apostle, at S. Gismondo. These too were sketched by Calvi, and
completed by Euclide, with a very able imitation of his uncle Gio.
Batista's style. The altar-piece of the Ascension, however, at S. Antonio,
in Milan, is wholly ascribed to him; and displays much beauty, and a more
serious manner than is generally to be met with in the works of the elder
Malosso. No other painting is attributed to him, nor was he capable of
executing many. For while yet young, he was tried and found guilty of
felony against the prince. Being thrown into prison, he is there supposed
to have died by poison, which was administered by his friends, in order to
avoid the disgrace of a public execution. In conclusion, we must not omit
the name of Panfilo Nuvolone. He was attached to Malosso, whom he imitated
from the outset; but he afterwards followed a more solid and less
attractive style. One of his works, which is omitted in the account of his
life, is his S. Ubaldo giving his benediction to the sick, at S. Agostino,
in Piacenza. Mention will be made of this painter also in the Milanese
School, where he flourished, together with his two sons, Giuseppe and
Carlo, who obtained the appellation of the Guido of Lombardy.
SCHOOL OF CREMONA.
EPOCH IV.
_Foreign Manners introduced into Cremona._
Among the descendants of Malosso the Cremonese School continued to decline;
and here, as in the instance of so many others, it was compelled to resort
to foreign sources, in order to restore its somewhat aged and exhausted
powers. Carlo Picenardi, of a patrician family, was the first to lead the
way, an artist who had ranked among the favourite pupils of Lodovico
Caracci. He was very successful in burlesque histories, and likewise
exhibited to the public some of his paintings, executed for churches, which
were imitated by another Carlo Picenardi, called the younger, who had
formed his style in Venice and at Rome. Other artists of the city attached
themselves to other schools, insomuch, that before the middle of the
seventeenth century many new manners had arisen which assumed the place of
more native styles. In the train of Malosso Zaist enumerates Pier Martire
Neri, or Negri, a good portrait-painter and composer, though, adds the
historian, he procured from a foreign source a character of more boldness
and strength of shadow, at the same time adducing as an instance, his great
picture of the Man born Blind receiving his sight from our Saviour, which
is preserved at the hospital of Cremona. He painted likewise a S. Giuseppe
at the Certosa, in Pavia, a work which, if I mistake not, is superior in
point of taste to the former, and there are others to be met with in Rome,
where the artist's name is found among the academicians of S. Luke.
Andrea Mainardi opened school simultaneously with Malosso; and two of his
pupils, Gio. Batista Tortiroli and Carlo Natali, became particularly
distinguished. Both abandoned their native place, Gio. Batista going first
to Rome and thence to Venice, where he formed a style which partakes most
of the younger Palma, united to an evident imitation of Raffaello. Such it
appears in his picture of the Slaughter of the Innocents, at S. Domenico,
commendable in point of composition, and extremely well coloured. This, and
a few other productions, are regarded however only as specimens of his
powers, the artist dying in his thirtieth year, leaving behind him a pupil
of the name of Gio. Batista Lazzaroni. This last flourished at Piacenza and
in Milan, was an excellent portrait-painter, and much employed by the
princes of Parma and other personages of high rank. Carlo Natali, surnamed
Il Guardolino, attended the school of Mainardi, and afterwards that of
Guido Reni, to which he added a long residence at Rome and Genoa, observing
all that was most valuable, and exerting his own talents in the art. It was
while engaged in executing a frieze in the Doria palace at Genoa, that he
instructed Giulio Cesare Procaccini in the principles of painting, who had
previously devoted himself to sculpture, and in him he presented us with
one of the most successful imitators of Coreggio. Carlo's attachment to
architecture, however, permitted him to produce few specimens, which are
highly esteemed in his native state, in particular his Santa Francesca
Romana, painted for S. Gismondo, a piece, which if not perfect, is
certainly above mediocrity.
He had a son named Giambatista, whom he instructed in both these arts;
though he was desirous that he should acquire a more perfect knowledge of
them under Pietro da Cortona at Rome. There he pursued his studies and left
some specimens of altar-pieces, producing works upon a still more extensive
scale upon his return to Cremona, where he opened school and introduced the
Cortona manner, although with little success. There is a large picture of
his at the P. Predicatori, displaying some skilful architecture, and in
which the holy patriarch is seen in the act of burning some heretical
books; nor is it at all unworthy of a disciple of Pietro. In the archives
of the royal gallery at Florence I discovered, at the period I was drawing
up my index, some letters addressed by Gio. Batista to the Card. Leopoldo
de' Medici, one of which was written from Rome, dated 1674, wherein he
states that he was then engaged in collecting notices respecting the
artists of his native place. Hence we may gather the real origin of their
lives, as contained in the work of Baldinucci, for whom the Cardinal, who
patronized him, likewise procured other materials for his history from
different places. Had Zaist been informed of this he would rather have
directed both his eulogies and his complaints to Natali, than to Baldinucci
or his continuator. The pupils of Natali were Carlo Tassone, who became, on
the model of Lovino, a painter of portraits, much admired at Turin and
other courts; Francescantonio Caneti, afterwards a Capuchin Friar, and a
pretty good miniature-painter in his day, and who left a fine painting in
the church of his own order at Como; with Francesco Boccaccino, the last of
that pictoric family, who died about the year 1760. Having familiarized
himself at Rome, first with the school of Brandi, and next with that of
Maratta, he acquired a manner that came into some repute in private
collections, for which he employed himself more than for churches. He
resembles Albano, and was fond of portraying mythological subjects. A few
of his altar-pieces still adorn Cremona, which may be esteemed good for the
period at which they were produced.
While the Cremonese artists left their native state in search, as we have
observed, of more novel methods, a foreigner took up his residence, and not
only studied, but taught at Cremona. This was Luigi Miradoro, commonly
called Il Genovesino, from his native city of Genoa, whence, after being
initiated in the principles of his art, he appears to have gone, while
young, to Cremona, towards the beginning of the seventeenth century. There
he began to study the works of Panfilo Nuvolone, and afterwards formed a
manner partaking of the Caracci, though neither so select nor studied, but
bold, large, correct in colouring, harmonious, and productive of fine
effect. This artist, equally unknown in his native place and in foreign
cities, as well as passed over by Orlandi and his continuator, is
nevertheless held in high repute in Lombardy, and particularly in Cremona,
where his pictures adorn several churches, among which that of his S. Gio.
Damasceno, at S. Clemente, has been most highly commended. The Merchants'
College likewise at Piacenza possesses a very beautiful painting of a Pieta
from his hand. In all subjects he was successful, and remarkably so in
those of a terrific cast. In the Casa Borri at Milan there is a piece
representing a variety of punishments inflicted upon some accomplices in a
conspiracy, a magnificent production of its kind. Others are to be met
with, though not very frequently, in collections belonging to the above
mentioned cities, on one of which I read the date of 1639.
Agostino Bonisoli was pupil to Tortiroli, and subsequently, for the space
of a year, to Miradoro, though he was more indebted to his own genius than
to any master, with the aid of studying excellent models, more especially
that of Paul Veronese. From him he borrowed his grace and spirit, his
design from other artists. He painted little for churches, and Cremona
possesses scarcely any other specimen than the Dialogue of S. Antonio with
the tyrant Ezzelino, which is preserved at the church of the Conventuali.
His portraits and history-pieces are to be met with in private houses, for
the most part taken from sacred records, and intended for the decoration of
rooms. Many of these passed into Germany and other foreign parts; for,
having been in the service of Gio. Francesco Gonzaga, prince of Bozolo, in
which he remained twenty-eight years, his paintings were frequently
presented as gifts, or requested by foreigners of rank. As long as he
continued in his native state he maintained an academy for the study of
naked figures, in which he gave instructions to youth.
Two other artists flourished after him in Cremona, of whom their biographer
observes that they must have drunk at the same fountain, from the great
resemblance of their paintings, at least during a certain period, though
they differed greatly in point of colouring. One is Angelo Massarotti, a
native of Cremona, the other Roberto La Longe, born at Brussels, ranked
among those artists who have been denominated Fiamminghi, or Flemish, in
Italy, an appellation which has given rise to frequent mistakes in history.
Angelo was undoubtedly pupil to Bonisoli, and though he studied many years
with Cesi at Rome, where he painted at S. Salvatore in Lauro, he exhibits
very little of the Roman, except a more regular kind of composition than
belongs to the Cremonese style. For the rest he was fonder of introducing
portraits than ideal forms into his canvass, nor was he sufficiently
careful to shun the faults of the naturalists; owing to which, more
particularly in his draperies, he sometimes became heavy. He boasts
moreover a more rich and oily colouring than was then prevalent at Rome,
which gives his pictures an appearance of fulness and roundness, while it
adds to their preservation. Perhaps his masterpiece is to be seen at S.
Agostino, a vast production, in which the saint is represented giving rules
to various religious orders, which form a body militant under his banners,
and in such a crowd of figures, the ideas, the attitudes, and the draperies
are all well varied.
Most probably Roberto la Longe frequented the academy of Bonisoli, and
occasionally, as we have observed, conformed to the manner of Massarotti.
But both there and at Piacenza, where he long resided and closed his days,
he painted in a variety of styles, yet always soft, clear, and harmonious;
much as if he had never ventured beyond the confines of Flanders. At times
he emulates Guido, as in some histories of S. Teresa, painted for S.
Sigismondo at Cremona; and in some histories of S. Antonio Martire, at
Piacenza, he approaches Guercino, while at others he displays a mixture of
strength, delicacy, and beauty, as in his picture of S. Saverio, in the
cathedral at Piacenza, seen in the act of dying, and supported by angels.
His landscapes give singular attraction to his figures, though the latter
might be better designed, and more gradation may be desired in his
landscape, as well as in other parts of his works.
Both these last masters had for their pupil Gian Angiolo Borroni, who,
being taken under the patronage of the noble house of Crivelli, was
retained many years at Bologna, during the period the Creti rose into
repute. Monti and Giangioseffo del Sole, to whose style he most attached
himself, were then likewise flourishing at the same place. He was
particularly employed in ornamenting the palaces of his patrons, who were
desirous of having him with them, both at Cremona and at Milan, and in this
last city he spent the best part of his life, dying very infirm in the year
1772. There too he left the chief portion of his works, some of which are
upon a very large scale, distributed throughout its temples and palaces,
besides others in different cities of the Milanese, more especially in his
native place. In the cathedral remains his picture of S. Benedetto, in the
act of offering up prayers for the city, of which he is the patron, to
paint which the Cav. Borroni exerted his utmost degree of industry and art.
Its success was sufficient indeed to have placed it upon an equality with
the best of its age, had the draperies been folded with a degree of skill
at all corresponding to the rest of the work; but in this he certainly was
not happy. A little subsequent to him began to flourish Bottani, an artist
who has been mentioned also in the Mantuan School; for, though a native of
Cremona, he resided elsewhere. Good artists continue to flourish at Cremona
to this day, whose merits, however, according to my plan, I leave untouched
to the judgment of posterity.
Professors of minor branches of painting were not wanting in this school,
one of whom, named Francesco Bassi, who had fixed his residence at Venice,
was there called Il Cremonese da' Paesi. His powers were extremely varied
and pleasing, united to great polish, powerful in his shadows, warm in his
airs, while he often added to his pieces figures of men and animals in a
pretty correct taste. They enrich many collections both in Italy and
elsewhere, and some, as we find from the catalogue published in Venice,
were included in Algarotti's. We must be cautious to avoid mistaking this
painter for another Francesco Bassi, also a Cremonese, who is in that city
called the younger. He was a pupil of the former in the art of landscape,
and although much inferior to him, is not unknown in different collections.
But a still higher rank in the same class is occupied by Sigismondo Benini,
a scholar of Massarotti, the inventor of beautiful methods in his
landscapes, with well retiring grounds, and with all the accidents of light
well portrayed. His composition is polished, distinct, and coloured with
equal harmony and vigour, though to continue agreeable he ought not to have
transgressed the limits of landscape; for, by the addition of his figures,
he diminished the value of his works.
About the same period a family, sprung from Casalmaggiore in the Cremonese,
distinguished itself in the line of architectural and ornamental painting.
Giuseppe Natali, the elder, impelled by his natural inclination for this
art, entered upon it notwithstanding the opposition of his father, which,
being at length overcome, he was permitted to visit Rome, and to remain
some time at Bologna in order to qualify himself. He flourished precisely
at the period which the architectural painters are fond of considering as
the happiest for their art. It had very recently been improved by Dentone,
by Colonna, by Mitelli, and boasted, from its attractive novelty, a number
of young geniuses, whom it inspired with the dignity of masters, and with
the prospect of rewards, a subject on which I shall treat more particularly
in the Bolognese School. He formed a style at once praiseworthy for the
architectural, and judiciously pleasing for the ornamental parts. He
gratifies the eye by presenting it with those views which are the most
charming, and gives it repose by distributing them at just distances. In
his grotesques he retains much of the antique, shunning all useless
exhibition of modern foliages, and varying the painting from time to time,
with small landscapes, which he also executed well in little oil pictures,
which were in the highest request. The softness and harmony of his tints
extorted great commendation. He did not permit his talents to remain idle,
ornamenting a number of halls, chambers, chapels, and churches throughout
Lombardy, often with a rapidity that appears almost incredible. He more
particularly distinguished himself at San Sigismondo, and in the palace of
the Marchesi Vidoni.
He had three brothers who followed in his footsteps, and all of whom he had
himself instructed. Francesco, the second, approached nearest to Giuseppe
in point of merit, and even surpassed him in dignity. He was employed in
works on a large scale for the churches of Lombardy and Tuscany, as well as
for the courts of the dukes of Massa, of Modena, and of Parma, in which
city he closed his days. Lorenzo, the third, chiefly assisted his brothers,
or if he had the misfortune to execute any works alone, he was rather
pitied than applauded. Pietro, the fourth brother, died young and
uncommemorated. There were two sons, the one of Giuseppe, the other of
Francesco, who were initiated by their parents in the same art. The first,
named Giambatista, became court-painter to the elector of Cologne; and the
second, who bore the same name, honourably occupied a similar rank at the
court of Charles, King of the two Sicilies, and in that of his son, a
station in which he died. Giuseppe educated a pupil of merit in Gio.
Batista Zaist, a name to which we have frequently referred. Memoirs of him
were collected by Sig. Panni, both his pupil and relation. To him also we
are indebted for the publication of the work of Zaist, by which we have
been guided in this account. It is a guide, however, not to be followed by
a reader who is in haste, inasmuch as he is found to proceed very
leisurely, and is very apt to go over the same ground again.