he made many useful and beautiful improvements in his house at Florence;
although it is true that in the two ground-floor windows, supported by
knee-shaped brackets, which open out upon the street, Giuliano departed
from his usual method, and so cut them up with projections, little
brackets, and off-sets, that they inclined rather to the German manner
than to the true and good manner of ancient or modern times. Works of
architecture, without a doubt, must first be massive, solid, and simple,
and then enriched by grace of design and by variety of subject in the
composition, without, however, disturbing by poverty or by excess of
ornamentation the order of the architecture or the impression produced
on a competent judge.
Meanwhile Baccio Bandinelli, having returned from Rome, where he had
finished the tombs of Leo and Clement, persuaded the Lord Duke Cosimo,
then a young man, to make at the head of the Great Hall of the Ducal
Palace a façade full of columns and niches, with a range of fine marble
statues; and this façade was to have windows of marble and grey-stone
looking out upon the Piazza. The Duke having resolved to have this done,
Bandinelli set his hand to making the design; but finding that the hall,
as has been related in the Life of Cronaca, was out of square, and
having never given attention to architecture, which he considered an art
of little value, marvelling and even laughing at those who gave their
attention to it, he was forced, on recognizing the difficulty of this
work, to confer with Giuliano with regard to his model, and to beseech
him that he, as an architect, should direct the work. And so all the
stone-cutters and carvers of S. Maria del Fiore were set to work, and a
beginning was made with the structure. Bandinelli had resolved, with the
advice of Giuliano, to let the work remain out of square, following in
part the course of the wall. It came to pass, therefore, that he was
forced to make all the stones irregular in shape, preparing them with
great labour by means of the pifferello, which is the instrument
otherwise called the bevel-square; and this made the work so clumsy,
that, as will be related in the Life of Bandinelli, it has been
difficult to bring it to such a form as might be in harmony with the
rest. Such a thing would not have happened if Bandinelli had possessed
as much knowledge in architecture as he did in sculpture; not to mention
that the great niches in the side-walls at each end proved to be squat,
and that the one in the centre was not without defect, as will be told
in the Life of that same Bandinelli. This work, after having been
pursued for ten years, was abandoned, and so it remained for some time.
It is true that the profiled stones as well as the columns, both of
Fossato stone and of marble, were wrought with the greatest diligence by
the stone-cutters and carvers under the care of Giuliano, and were
afterwards so well built in that it would not be possible to find any
masonry better put together, all the stones being accurately measured.
In this respect Giuliano may be celebrated as most excellent; and the
work, as will be related in the proper place, was finished in five
months, with an addition, by Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo.
Giuliano, meanwhile, not neglecting his workshop, was giving his
attention, together with his brothers, to the execution of many carvings
and works in wood, and also to pressing on the making of the pavement
of S. Maria del Fiore; and since he was superintendent and architect of
that building, he was requested by the same Bandinelli to make designs
and models of wood, after some fantasies of figures and other ornaments
of his own, for the high-altar of that same S. Maria del Fiore, which
was to be constructed of marble; which Giuliano did most willingly,
being a good and kindly person and one who delighted in architecture as
much as Bandinelli despised it, and being also won over by the lavish
promises of profit and honour that Bandinelli made him. Setting to work,
therefore, on that model, Giuliano made it much after the simple pattern
formerly designed by Brunelleschi, save that he enriched it by doubling
both the columns and the arch above. And when he had brought it to
completion, and the model, together with many designs, had been carried
by Bandinelli to Duke Cosimo, his most illustrious Excellency resolved
in his regal mind to execute not only the altar, but also the ornament
of marble that surrounds the choir, following its original octagonal
shape, with all those rich adornments with which it has since been
carried out, in keeping with the grandeur and magnificence of that
temple. Giuliano, therefore, with the assistance of Bandinelli, made a
beginning with that choir, without altering anything save the principal
entrance, which is opposite to the above-mentioned altar; for which
reason he wished that it should be exactly similar to that altar, with
the same arch and decorations. He also made two other similar arches,
which unite with the entrance and the altar in forming a cross; and
these were for two pulpits, which the old choir also had, serving for
music and other ceremonies of the choir and of the altar. In this choir,
around the eight faces, Giuliano made an ornament of the Ionic Order,
and placed at every corner a pilaster bent in the middle, and one on
every face; and since each pilaster so narrowed that the extension-lines
of its side-faces met in the centre of the choir, from inside it looked
narrow and bent in, and from outside broad and pointed. This invention
was not much extolled, nor can it be commended as beautiful by any man
of judgment; and for a work of such cost, in a place so celebrated,
Bandinelli, if he despised architecture, or had no knowledge of it,
should have availed himself of someone living at that time with the
knowledge and ability to do better. Giuliano deserves to be excused in
the matter, because he did all that he could, which was not a little;
but it is very certain that one who has not strong powers of design and
invention in himself, will always be too poor in grace and judgment to
bring to perfection great works of architecture.
Giuliano made for Filippo Strozzi a couch of walnut-wood, which is now
at Città di Castello, in the house of the heirs of Signor Alessandro
Vitelli. For an altar-piece which Giorgio Vasari painted for the
high-altar of the Abbey of Camaldoli in the Casentino, he made a very
rich and beautiful frame, after the design of Giorgio; and he carved
another ornamental frame for a large altar-piece that the same Giorgio
executed for the Church of S. Agostino in Monte Sansovino. The same
Giuliano made another beautiful frame for another altar-piece by the
hand of Vasari, which is in the Abbey of Classi, a seat of the Monks of
Camaldoli, at Ravenna. He also executed the frames for the pictures by
the hand of the same Giorgio of Arezzo that are in the refectory of the
Monks of the Abbey of S. Fiore at Arezzo; and in the Vescovado in the
same city, behind the high-altar, he made a most beautiful choir of
walnut-wood, after the design of Giorgio, which provided for the
bringing forward of the altar. And, finally, a short time before his
death, he made the rich and beautiful Ciborium of the most Holy
Sacrament for the high-altar of the Nunziata, with the two Angels of
wood, in full-relief, which are on either side of it. This was the last
work that he executed, and he passed to a better life in the year 1555.
Nor was Domenico, the brother of that Giuliano, inferior to him in
judgment, seeing that, besides carving much better in wood, he was also
very ingenious in matters of architecture, as may be seen from the house
that was built for Bastiano da Montaguto in the Via de' Servi after his
design, wherein there are also many works in wood by Domenico's own
hand. The same master executed for Agostino del Nero, in the Piazza de'
Mozzi, the buildings that form the street-corner and a very beautiful
terrace for that house of the Nasi formerly begun by his father Baccio.
And it is the common belief that, if he had not died so young, he would
have surpassed by a great measure both his father and his brother
Giuliano.
VALERIO VICENTINO, GIOVANNI DA CASTEL BOLOGNESE, MATTEO DAL NASSARO OF
VERONA, AND OTHER EXCELLENT ENGRAVERS OF CAMEOS AND GEMS
LIVES OF VALERIO VICENTINO, GIOVANNI DA CASTEL BOLOGNESE, MATTEO DAL
NASSARO OF VERONA, AND OTHER EXCELLENT ENGRAVERS OF CAMEOS AND GEMS
Since the Greeks were such divine masters in the engraving of Oriental
stones and so perfect in the cutting of cameos, it seems to me certain
that I should commit no slight error were I to pass over in silence
those of our own age who have imitated those marvellous intellects;
although among our moderns, so it is said, there have been none who in
this present and happy age have surpassed the ancients in delicacy and
design, save perchance those of whom we are about to give an account.
But before making a beginning, it is proper for me to discourse briefly
on this art of engraving hard stones and gems, which was lost, together
with the other arts of design, after the ruin of Greece and Rome. Of
this work, whether engraved in intaglio or in relief, we have seen
examples discovered daily among the ruins of Rome, such as cameos,
cornelians, sardonyxes, and other most excellent intagli; but for many
and many a year the art remained lost, there being no one who gave
attention to it, and even if any work was done, it was not in such a
manner as to be worthy to be taken into account. So far as is known, it
is not found that anyone began to do good work or to attain to
excellence until the time of Pope Martin V and Pope Paul II; after which
the art continued to grow little by little down to the time of Lorenzo
de' Medici, the Magnificent, who greatly delighted in the engraved
cameos of the ancients. Lorenzo and his son Piero collected a great
quantity of these, particularly chalcedonies, cornelians, and other
kinds of the choicest engraved stones, which contained various fanciful
designs; and in consequence of this, wishing to establish the art in
their own city, they summoned thither masters from various countries,
who, besides restoring those stones, brought to them other works which
were at that time rare.
By these masters, at the instance of the Magnificent Lorenzo, this art
of engraving in intaglio was taught to a young Florentine called
Giovanni delle Corniole,[12] who received that surname because he
engraved them excellently well, of which we have testimony in the great
numbers of them by his hand that are to be seen, both great and small,
but particularly in a large one, which was a very choice intaglio,
wherein he made the portrait of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was adored
in Florence in his day on account of his preaching. A rival of Giovanni
was Domenico de' Cammei,[13] a Milanese, who, living at the same time as
Duke Lodovico, Il Moro, made a portrait of him in intaglio on a
balas-ruby greater than a giulio, which was an exquisite thing and one
of the best works in intaglio that had been seen executed by a modern
master. This art afterwards rose to even greater excellence in the
pontificate of Pope Leo X, through the talents and labours of Pier Maria
da Pescia, who was a most faithful imitator of the works of the
ancients; and he had a rival in Michelino, who was no less able than
Pier Maria in works both great and small, and was held to be a graceful
master.
These men opened the way in this art, which is so difficult, for
engraving in intaglio is truly working in the dark, since the craftsman
can use nothing but impressions of wax, as spectacles, as it were,
wherewith to see from time to time what he is doing. And finally they
brought it to such a condition that Giovanni da Castel Bolognese,
Valerio Vicentino, Matteo dal Nassaro, and others, were able to execute
the many beautiful works of which we are about to make mention.
Let me begin, then, by saying that Giovanni Bernardi of Castel
Bolognese, who worked in his youth in the service of Duke Alfonso of
Ferrara, made for him, in the three years of honourable service that he
gave him, many little works, of which there is no need to give any
description. Of his larger works the first was an intaglio on a piece of
crystal, in which he represented the whole of the action of Bastia,
which was very beautiful; and then he executed the portrait of that
Duke in a steel die for the purpose of making medals, with the Taking of
Jesus Christ by the Multitude on the reverse. Afterwards, urged by
Giovio, he went to Rome, and obtained by favour of Cardinal Ippolito de'
Medici and Cardinal Giovanni Salviati the privilege of taking a portrait
of Clement VII, from which he made a die for medals, which was very
beautiful, with Joseph revealing himself to his brethren on the reverse;
and for this he was rewarded by His Holiness with the gift of a Mazza,
an office which he afterwards sold in the time of Paul III, receiving
two hundred crowns for it. For the same Clement he executed figures of
the four Evangelists on four round crystals, which were much extolled,
and gained for him the favour and friendship of many prelates, and in
particular the good-will of Salviati and of the above-mentioned Cardinal
Ippolito de' Medici, that sole refuge for men of talent, whose portrait
he made on steel medals, besides executing for him on crystal the
Presentation of the Daughter of Darius to Alexander the Great.
After this, when Charles V went to Bologna to be crowned, Giovanni made
a portrait of him in steel, from which he struck a medal of gold. This
he carried straightway to the Emperor, who gave him a hundred pistoles
of gold, and sent to inquire whether he would go with him to Spain; but
Giovanni refused, saying that he could not leave the service of Clement
and of Cardinal Ippolito, for whom he had begun some work that was still
unfinished.
Having returned to Rome, Giovanni executed for the same Cardinal de'
Medici a Rape of the Sabines, which was very beautiful. And the
Cardinal, knowing himself to be much indebted to him for all these
things, rewarded him with a vast number of gifts and courtesies; but the
greatest of all was this, that the Cardinal, when departing for France
in the midst of a company of many lords and gentlemen, turned to
Giovanni, who was there among the rest, and, taking from his own neck a
little chain to which was attached a cameo worth more than six hundred
crowns, he gave it to him, telling him that he should keep it until his
return, and intending to bestow upon him afterwards such a recompense as
he knew to be due to the talent of Giovanni.
On the death of the Cardinal, that cameo fell into the hands of Cardinal
Farnese, for whom Giovanni afterwards executed many works in crystal,
and in particular a Christ Crucified for a Cross, with a God the Father
above, Our Lady and S. John at the sides, and the Magdalene at the foot;
and in a triangle at the base of the Cross he made three scenes of the
Passion of Christ, one in each angle. For two candelabra of silver he
engraved six round crystals. In the first is the Centurion praying
Christ that He should heal his son, in the second the Pool of Bethesda,
in the third the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, in the fourth the
Miracle of the five loaves and two fishes, in the fifth the scene of
Christ driving the traders from the Temple, and in the last the Raising
of Lazarus; and all were exquisite. The same Cardinal Farnese afterwards
desired to have a very rich casket made of silver, and had the work
executed by Manno, a Florentine goldsmith, of whom there will be an
account in another place; but he entrusted all the compartments of
crystal to Giovanni, who made them all full of scenes, with marble in
half-relief; and he made figures of silver and ornaments in the round,
and all with such diligence, that no other work of that kind was ever
carried to such perfection. On the body of this casket are the following
scenes, engraved in ovals with marvellous art by the hand of Giovanni:
The Chase of Meleager after the Calydonian Boar, the Followers of
Bacchus, a naval battle, Hercules in combat with the Amazons, and other
most beautiful fantasies of the Cardinal, who caused finished designs of
them to be executed by Perino del Vaga and other masters. Giovanni then
executed on a crystal the triumph of the taking of Goletta, and the War
of Tunis on another. For the same Cardinal he engraved, likewise on
crystal, the Birth of Christ and the scenes when He prays in the Garden;
when He is taken by the Jews; when He is led before Annas, Herod, and
Pilate; when He is scourged and then crowned with thorns; when He
carries the Cross; when He is nailed upon it and raised on high; and,
finally, His divine and glorious Resurrection. All these works were not
only very beautiful, but also executed with such rapidity, that every
man was struck with astonishment.
[Illustration: CASSETTA FARNESE
(_After_ Giovanni da Castel Bolognese (Giovanni Bernardi). _Naples:
Museo Nazionale_)
_Brogi_]
Michelagnolo had made for the above-mentioned Cardinal de' Medici a
drawing, which I forgot to mention before, of a Tityus whose heart was
being devoured by a vulture; and Giovanni engraved this beautifully on
crystal. And he did the same with another drawing by Buonarroti, in
which Phaethon, not being able to manage the chariot of the Sun, has
fallen into the Po, and his weeping sisters are transformed into trees.
Giovanni executed a portrait of Madama Margherita of Austria, daughter
of the Emperor Charles V, who had been the wife of Duke Alessandro de'
Medici, and was then the consort of Duke Ottavio Farnese; and this he
did in competition with Valerio Vicentino. For these works executed for
Cardinal Farnese, he received from that lord a reward in the form of the
office of Giannizzero, from which he drew a good sum of money; and, in
addition, he was so beloved by that Cardinal that he obtained a great
number of other favours from him, nor did the Cardinal ever pass through
Faenza, where Giovanni had built a most commodious house, without going
to take up his quarters with him. Having thus settled at Faenza, in
order to rest after a life of much labour in the world, Giovanni
remained there ever afterwards; and his first wife, by whom he had not
had children, being dead, he took a second. By her he had two sons and a
daughter; and with them he lived in contentment, being well provided
with landed property and other revenues, which yielded him more than
four hundred crowns, until he came to the age of sixty, when he rendered
up his soul to God on the day of Pentecost, in the year 1555.
Matteo dal Nassaro, who was born in Verona, and was the son of Jacopo
dal Nassaro, a shoemaker, gave much attention in his early childhood not
only to design, but also to music, in which he became excellent, having
had as his masters in that study Marco Carrà and Il Tromboncino, both
Veronese, who were then in the service of the Marquis of Mantua. In
matters of intaglio he was much assisted by two Veronese of honourable
family, with whom he was continually associated. One of these was
Niccolò Avanzi, who, working privately in Rome, executed cameos,
cornelians, and other stones, which were taken to various Princes; and
there are persons who remember to have seen a lapis-lazuli by his hand,
three fingers in breadth, containing the Nativity of Christ, with many
figures, which was sold as a choice work to the Duchess of Urbino. The
other was Galeazzo Mondella, who, besides engraving gems, drew very
beautifully.
After Matteo had learned from these two masters all that they knew, it
chanced that there fell into his hands a beautiful piece of green
jasper, marked with red spots, as the good pieces are; and he engraved
in it a Deposition from the Cross with such diligence, that he made the
wounds come in those parts of the jasper that were spotted with the
colour of blood, which caused that work to be a very rare one, and
brought him much commendation. That jasper was sold by Matteo to the
Marchioness Isabella d'Este.
He then went to France, taking with him many works by his own hand which
might serve to introduce him to the Court of King Francis I; and when he
had been presented to that Sovereign, who always held in estimation
every manner of man of talent, the King, after taking many of the stones
engraved by him, received him into his service and ordained him a good
salary; and he held Matteo dear no less because he was an excellent
musician and could play very well upon the lute, than for his profession
of engraving stones. Of a truth, there is nothing that does more to
kindle men's minds with love for the arts than to see them appreciated
and rewarded by Princes and noblemen, as has always been done in the
past, and is done more than ever at the present day, by the illustrious
House of Medici, and as was also done by that truly magnanimous
Sovereign, King Francis.
Matteo, thus employed in the service of that King, executed many rare
works, not only for His Majesty, but also for almost all the most noble
lords and barons of the Court, of whom there was scarcely one who did
not have some work by his hand, since it was much the custom at that
time to wear cameos and other suchlike gems on the neck and in the cap.
For the King he made an altar-piece for the altar of the chapel which
His Majesty always took with him on his journeys; and this was full of
figures of gold, partly in the round and partly in half-relief, with
many engraved gems distributed over the limbs of those figures. He also
engraved many pieces of crystal in intaglio, impressions of which in
sulphur and gesso are to be seen in many places, and particularly in
Verona, where there are marvellous representations of all the planets,
and a Venus with a Cupid that has the back turned, which could not be
more beautiful. In a very fine chalcedony, found in a river, Matteo
engraved divinely well the head of a Deianira almost in full-relief,
wearing the lion's skin, the surface being tawny in colour; and he
turned to such good advantage a vein of red that was in that stone,
representing with it the inner side of the lion's skin at its junction
with the head, that the skin had the appearance of one newly flayed.
Another spot of colour he used for the hair, and the white for the face
and breast, and all with admirable mastery. This head came into the
possession of King Francis, together with the other things; and there is
an impression of it at the present day in Verona, which belongs to the
goldsmith Zoppo, who was Matteo's disciple.