afterwards made a Cardinal, being a person who delighted in our arts,
made up his mind to beautify the Castle, and rebuilt loggie, chambers,
halls, and apartments in a very handsome manner, in order to be able to
receive His Holiness more worthily when he went there. Many rooms and
other ornaments were executed from the designs and under the direction
of Raffaello da Montelupo, and then in the end by Antonio da San Gallo,
and a loggia was wrought in stucco under the supervision of Raffaello,
who also made the Angel of marble, a figure six braccia high, which was
placed on the summit of the highest tower in the Castle. Tiberio then
caused the said loggia, which is the one facing the meadows, to be
painted by Girolamo Sermoneta; which finished, the rest of the rooms
were entrusted in part to Luzio Romano, and finally the halls and other
important apartments were finished partly by Perino with his own hand,
and partly by others after his cartoons. The principal hall is very
pleasing and beautiful, being wrought in stucco and all filled with
scenes from Roman history, executed for the most part by Perino's young
men, and not a few by the hand of Marco da Siena, the disciple of
Domenico Beccafumi; and in certain rooms there are most beautiful
friezes.
Perino, when he could find young men of ability, was wont to make use of
them willingly in his works; but for all that he never ceased to execute
any commonplace commission. He very often painted pennons for trumpets,
banners for the Castle, and those of the fleet of the Militant Order;
and he executed hangings, tabards, door-curtains, and the most
insignificant works of art. He began some canvases from which tapestries
were to be woven for Prince Doria, and he painted a chapel for the very
reverend Cardinal Farnese, and a writing-study for the most illustrious
Madama Margherita of Austria. He caused an ornamental frame to be made
round the Madonna in S. Maria del Pianto, and also another ornamental
frame round the Madonna in Piazza Giudea; and he executed many other
works, of which, by reason of their number, I will not now make any
further mention, particularly because he was accustomed to accept any
sort of work that came to his hand. This disposition of Perino's, which
was well known to the officials of the Palace, was the reason that he
always had something to do for one or another of them, and he did it
willingly, in order to bind them to himself, so that they might be
obliged to serve him in the payment of his allowances and in his other
requirements. In addition to this, Perino had acquired such authority
that all the work in Rome was allotted to him, for the reason that,
besides the circumstance that it appeared to be in a certain sense his
due, he would sometimes execute commissions for the most paltry prices;
whereby he did little good, nay rather, much harm, to himself and to
art. That these words are true is proved by this, that if he had
undertaken to paint the Hall of Kings in the Palace on his own account,
and had worked at it together with his own assistants, he would have
saved several hundreds of crowns, which all went to the overseers who
had charge of the work and paid the daily wages to those who worked
there.
Thus, having undertaken a burden so heavy and so laborious, and being
infirm and enfeebled by catarrh, he was not able to endure such
discomforts, having to draw day and night and to meet the demands of the
Palace, and, among other things, to make the designs of embroideries, of
engravings for banner-makers, and of innumerable ornaments required by
the caprice of Farnese and other Cardinals and noblemen. In short,
having his mind incessantly occupied, and being always surrounded by
sculptors, masters in stucco, wood-carvers, seamsters, embroiderers,
painters, gilders, and other suchlike craftsmen, he had never an hour of
repose; and the only happiness and contentment that he knew in this life
was to find himself at times with some of his friends at a tavern, which
was his favourite haunt in all the places where it fell to his lot to
live, considering that this was the true blessedness and peace of this
world, and the only repose from his labours. And thus, having ruined his
constitution by the fatigues of his art and by his excesses in eating
and in love, he was attacked by asthma, which, sapping his strength
little by little, finally caused him to sink into consumption; and one
evening, while talking with a friend near his house, he fell dead of an
apoplectic seizure in his forty-seventh year. At this many craftsmen
felt infinite sorrow, it being a truly great loss that art suffered; and
he received honourable burial from his son-in-law, M. Gioseffo Cincio,
the physician of Madama, and from his wife, in the Chapel of S. Giuseppe
in the Ritonda at Rome, with the following epitaph:
PERINO BONACCURSIO VAGÆ FLORENTINO, QUI INGENIO ET ARTE
SINGULARI EGREGIOS CUM PICTORES PERMULTOS, TUM PLASTAS OMNES
FACILE SUPERAVIT, CATHERINA PERINI CONJUGI, LAVINIA BONACCURSIA
PARENTI, JOSEPHUS CINCIUS SOCERO CARISSIMO ET OPTIMO FECERE.
VIXIT ANN. 46, MEN. 3, DIES 21. MORTUUS EST 14 CALEND. NOVEMB.
ANN. CHRIST. 1547.
The place of Perino was filled by Daniello of Volterra, who had worked
much with him, and who finished the two other Prophets that are in the
Chapel of the Crocifisso in S. Marcello. Daniello has also adorned a
chapel in S. Trinità most beautifully with stucco-work and painting, for
Signora Elena Orsina; with many other works, of which mention will be
made in the proper place.
Perino, then, as may be seen from the works described and from many
others that might be mentioned, was one of the most versatile painters
of our times, in that he assisted the craftsmen to work excellently in
stucco, and executed grotesques, landscapes, animals, and all the other
things of which a painter can have knowledge, using colours in fresco,
in oils, and in distemper. Whence it may be said that he was the father
of these most noble arts, seeing that his talents live in those who are
continually imitating him in every honourable field of art. After
Perino's death were published many prints taken from his drawings, such
as the Slaying of the Giants that he executed in Genoa, eight stories of
S. Peter taken from the Acts of the Apostles, of which he made designs
for the embroidering of a cope for Pope Paul III, and many other things,
which are known by the manner.
Perino made use of many young men, and taught the secrets of art to many
disciples; but the best of them all, and the one of whom he availed
himself more than of any other, was Girolamo Siciolante of Sermoneta, of
whom there will be an account in the proper place. His disciple,
likewise, was Marcello Mantovano, who executed on a wall at the entrance
of the Castello di S. Angelo, after the design and under the direction
of Perino, a Madonna with many Saints in fresco, which was a very
beautiful thing; but of his works as well there will be an account
elsewhere.
Perino left many designs at his death, some by his hand and some by
others; among the latter, one of the whole Chapel of Michelagnolo
Buonarroti, drawn by the hand of Leonardo Cungi of Borgo a San Sepolcro,
which was an excellent work. All these designs, with other things, were
sold by his heirs; and in our book are many drawings done by him with
the pen, which are very beautiful.
FOOTNOTE:
[27] Or Perino.
[28] Vasari sometimes groups under this name all the male
figures that appear in a picture of the Deposition from the Cross.
GIORGIO VASARI TO THE CRAFTSMEN IN DESIGN
TO THE CRAFTSMEN IN DESIGN
GIORGIO VASARI
EXCELLENT AND WELL-BELOVED BROTHER-CRAFTSMEN--
So great has always been the delight, to say nothing of the profit and
honour, that I have derived from practising my hand to the best of my
ability in this most noble art of ours, that I have not only had a
burning desire to exalt and to celebrate her, and to honour her in every
manner open to me, but have also been full of affection for all those
who have taken the same pleasure in her and have succeeded in practising
her more happily than I, perhaps, have been able to do. And from this my
good will, so full of the most sincere affection, it appears to me that
I have gathered hitherto fruits that are an ample reward, for I have
been always loved and honoured by you all, and we have been united in
the most perfect intimacy or brotherhood, I know not which to call it;
mutually showing our works to one another, I to you and you to me, and
helping one another with counsel and assistance whenever the occasion
has presented itself. Wherefore I have always felt myself deeply bound
by this loving fellowship, and much more by your excellent abilities,
and no less, also, by this my inclination, by nature, and by a most
powerful attraction, to assist and serve you in every way and every
matter wherein I have considered myself able to bring you pleasure or
advantage. To this end I published in the year 1550 the Lives of our
best and most famous Craftsmen, moved by a cause that has been mentioned
in another place, and also, to tell the truth, by a generous indignation
that so much talent should have been for so long a time, and should
still remain, buried in oblivion. And this my labour appears not to have
been in any way unwelcome; on the contrary, so acceptable, that, not to
mention what has been said and written to me from many quarters, out of
the vast number that were printed at that time, there is not one single
volume to be found at the booksellers.
Thus, therefore, receiving every day requests from many friends, and
understanding no less clearly the unexpressed desires of many others,
once more, although in the midst of most important undertakings, I have
applied myself to the same labour, with the intention not only of adding
those masters who have passed to a better world between that time and
the present, thus giving me the opportunity of writing their Lives in
full, but also of supplying that which may have been wanting to the
perfection of my first work. For since then I have had leisure to come
to a better knowledge of many matters, and to re-examine others, not
only by the favour of these my most illustrious Lords, whom I serve, the
true refuge and protection of all the arts, but also through the
facilities that they have given me to search the whole of Italy once
again and to see and understand many things which had not before come
under my notice. I have been able, therefore, not merely to make
corrections, but also to add so many things, that many of the Lives may
be said to have been almost written anew; while some, indeed, even of
the old masters, which were not there before, have been added. Nor, the
better to revive the memory of those whom I so greatly honour, have I
grudged the great labour, pains and expense of seeking out their
portraits, which I have placed at the head of their Lives. And for the
greater satisfaction of many friends not of our profession, who are yet
devoted lovers of art, I have included in a compendium the greater part
of the works of those who are still living and are worthy to be for ever
renowned on account of their abilities; for that scruple which formerly
restrained me can have no place here in the opinion of any thoughtful
reader, since I deal with no works save those that are excellent and
worthy of praise. And this may perchance serve as a spur to make every
craftsman continue to labour worthily and advance unceasingly from good
to better; insomuch that he who shall write the rest of this history,
may be able to give it more grandeur and majesty, having occasion to
describe those rarer and more perfect works which, begun from time to
time through the desire of immortality, and finished by the loving care
of intellects so divine, the world in days to come shall see issuing
from your hands. And the young men who follow with their studies,
incited by hope of glory (if hope of gain has not enough force), may
perchance be inspired by such an example to attain to excellence.
And to the end that this work may prove to be in every way complete, and
that there may be no need to seek anything outside its pages, I have
added a great part of the works of the most celebrated craftsmen of
antiquity, both Greek and of other nations, whose memory has been
preserved down to our own day by Pliny and other writers, without whose
pens they would have been buried, like many others, in eternal oblivion.
And this consideration, also, may perchance increase the willingness of
men in general to labour valiantly, and may impel and inspire us all, as
we behold the nobility and greatness of our art, and how she has always
been prized and rewarded by all nations, and particularly by the most
lofty minds and the most powerful Princes, to leave the world adorned by
works infinite in number and unsurpassed in excellence; whence, rendered
beautiful by us, it may give to us that rank which it has given to those
ever marvellous and celebrated spirits.
Accept, then, with a friendly mind, these my labours, which, whatever
they may be, have been lovingly carried to conclusion by me for the
glory of art and for the honour of her craftsmen, and take them as a
sure token and pledge of my heart, which is desirous of nothing more
ardently than of your greatness and glory, in which, seeing that I also
have been received by you into your company (for which I render my
thanks to you, and congratulate myself not a little on my own account),
I shall always consider myself in a certain sense a participator.
DOMENICO BECCAFUMI
LIFE OF DOMENICO BECCAFUMI OF SIENA
PAINTER AND MASTER OF CASTING
That same quality, the pure gift of nature, which has been seen in
Giotto and in some others among those painters of whom we have spoken
hitherto, has been revealed most recently in Domenico Beccafumi, the
painter of Siena, in that he, while guarding some sheep for his father
Pacio, the labourer of the Sienese citizen Lorenzo Beccafumi, was
observed to practise his hand by himself, child as he was, in drawing
sometimes on stones and sometimes in other ways. It happened that the
said Lorenzo saw him one day drawing various things with a pointed stick
on the sand of a small stream, where he was watching his little charges,
and he asked for the child from his father, meaning to employ him as his
servant, and at the same time to have him taught. The boy, therefore,
who was then called Mecherino, having been given up by his father Pacio
to Lorenzo, was taken to Siena, where Lorenzo caused him for a while to
spend all the spare time that he had after his household duties in the
workshop of a painter who was his neighbour. This painter, who was no
great craftsman, caused Mecherino to learn all that he could not himself
teach him from designs by eminent painters that he had in his
possession, of which he availed himself for his own purposes, as those
masters are wont to do who are not very able in design. Exercising his
hand, therefore, in this manner, Mecherino gave promise of being
destined to become an excellent painter.
During this time Pietro Perugino, then a famous painter, came to Siena,
where, as has been related, he painted two altar-pieces; and his manner
pleased Domenico greatly, so that he set himself to study it and to copy
those altar-pieces, and no long time passed before he had caught that
manner. Then, after the Chapel of Michelagnolo and the works of
Raffaello da Urbino had been thrown open in Rome, Domenico, who desired
nothing so much as to learn, and knew that he was losing his time in
Siena, took leave of Lorenzo Beccafumi, from whom he acquired the family
name of Beccafumi, and made his way to Rome. There he placed himself
under a painter, who gave him board and lodging, and executed many works
in company with him, giving his attention at the same time to studying
the works of Michelagnolo, Raffaello, and other eminent masters, and the
marvellous statues and sarcophagi of antiquity. No long time passed,
therefore, before he became a bold draughtsman, fertile in invention,
and a very pleasing colourist; but during this period, which did not
exceed two years, he did nothing worthy of record save a façade in the
Borgo with an escutcheon of Pope Julius II in colour.
Meanwhile, there had been brought to Siena by a merchant of the
Spannocchi family, as will be related in the proper place, the painter
Giovanni Antonio of Vercelli, a young man of passing good ability, who
was much employed, particularly in making portraits from life, by the
gentlemen of that city, which has always been the friend and patron of
all men of talent. Domenico, who was very desirous of returning to his
own country, having heard this news, made his way back to Siena; and
when he saw that Giovanni Antonio was very well grounded in drawing,
which he knew to be the essence of the excellence of a craftsman, not
resting content with what he had done in Rome, he set himself with the
utmost zeal to follow him, devoting himself much to anatomy and to
drawing nudes; which helped him so much, that in a short time he began
to be greatly esteemed in that most noble city. Nor was he beloved less
for his goodness and his character than for his art, for the reason
that, whereas Giovanni Antonio was coarse, licentious, and eccentric,
being called Il Sodoma because he always mixed and lived with beardless
boys, and answering willingly enough to that name, Domenico, on the
other hand, was a pattern of good conduct and uprightness, living like a
Christian and keeping very much to himself. But such persons as are
called merry fellows and good companions are very often more esteemed by
men than the virtuous and orderly, and most of the young men of Siena
followed Sodoma, extolling him as a man of originality. And this
Sodoma, being an eccentric, and wishing to please the common herd,
always kept at his house parrots, apes, dwarf donkeys, little Elba
horses, a talking raven, barbs for running races, and other suchlike
creatures; from which he had won such a name among the vulgar, that they
spoke of nothing but his follies.
Sodoma, then, had painted with colours in fresco the façade of the house
of M. Agostino Bardi, and Domenico at the same time, in competition with
him, painted the façade of a house of the Borghese, close to the
Postierla column, near the Duomo, with which he took very great pains.
Below the roof, in a frieze in chiaroscuro, he executed some little
figures that were much extolled; and in the spaces between the three
ranges of windows of travertine that adorn that palace, he painted many
ancient gods and other figures in imitation of bronze, in chiaroscuro
and in colour, which were more than passing good, although the work of
Sodoma was more extolled. Both these façades were executed in the year
1512.
Domenico afterwards painted for S. Benedetto, a seat of Monks of Monte
Oliveto, without the Porta a Tufi, an altar-piece of S. Catharine of
Siena in a building receiving the Stigmata, with a S. Benedict standing
on her right hand, and on her left a S. Jerome in the habit of a
Cardinal; which altar-piece, being very soft in colouring and strong in
relief, was much praised, as it still is. In the predella of this
picture, likewise, he painted some little scenes in distemper with
incredible boldness and vivacity, and with such facility of design, that
they could not be more graceful, and yet they have the appearance of
having been executed without the slightest effort in the world. In one
of these little scenes is the Angel placing in the mouth of that same S.
Catharine part of the Host consecrated by the priest; in another is
Jesus Christ marrying her, in a third she is receiving the habit from S.
Dominic, and there are other stories.
For the Church of S. Martino the same master painted a large altar-piece
with Christ born and being adored by the Virgin, by Joseph, and by the
Shepherds; and above the hut is a most beautiful choir of Angels
dancing. In this work, which is much extolled by craftsmen, Domenico
began to show to those who had some understanding that his works were
painted with a different foundation from those of Sodoma. He then
painted in fresco, in the Great Hospital, the Madonna visiting S.
Elizabeth, in a manner very pleasing and very natural. And for the
Church of S. Spirito he executed an altar-piece of the Madonna holding
in her arms the Child, who is marrying the above-mentioned S. Catharine
of Siena, and at the sides S. Bernardino, S. Francis, S. Jerome, and S.
Catharine the Virgin-Martyr, with S. Peter and S. Paul upon some marble
steps in front, on the polished surface of which he counterfeited with
great art some reflections of the colour of their draperies. This work,
which was executed with fine judgment and design, brought him much
honour, as did also some little figures painted on the predella of the
picture, in which is S. John baptizing Christ, a King causing the wife
and children of S. Gismondo to be thrown into a well, S. Dominic burning
the books of the heretics, Christ presenting to S. Catharine of Siena
two crowns, one of roses and the other of thorns, and S. Bernardino of
Siena preaching on the Piazza of Siena to a vast multitude.
[Illustration: DOMENICO BECCAFUMI: S. CATHARINE BEFORE THE CRUCIFIX
(_Siena_: _Pinacoteca_, 420. _Canvas_)]
Next, by reason of the fame of these works, there was allotted to
Domenico an altar-piece that was to be placed in the Carmine, in which
he had to paint a S. Michael doing vengeance on Lucifer; and he, being
full of fancy, set himself to think out a new invention, in order to
display his talent and the beautiful conceptions of his brain. And so,
seeking to represent Lucifer and his followers driven for their pride
from Heaven to the lowest depths of Hell, he began a shower of nude
figures raining down, which is very beautiful, although, from his having
taken too great pains with it, it appears if anything rather confused.
This altar-piece, which remained unfinished, was taken after the death
of Domenico to the Great Hospital and placed at the top of some steps
near the high-altar, where it is still regarded with marvel on account
of some very beautiful foreshortenings in the nudes. In the Carmine,
where this picture was to have been set up, was placed another, in the
upper part of which is counterfeited a God the Father above the clouds
with many Angels round Him, painted with marvellous grace; and in the
centre of the picture is the Angel Michael in armour, flying, and
pointing to Lucifer, whom he has driven to the centre of the earth,
where there are burning buildings, rugged caverns, and a lake of fire,
with Angels in various attitudes, and nude figures of lost souls, who
are swimming with different gestures of agony in that fire. All this is
painted with such beauty and grace of manner, that it appears that this
marvellous work, in its thick darkness, is illuminated by the fire;
wherefore it is held to be a rare picture. Baldassarre Peruzzi of Siena,
an excellent painter, could never have his fill of praising it, and I
myself, one day that I saw it uncovered in his company, while passing
through Siena, was struck with astonishment by it, as I also was by the
five little scenes that are in the predella, painted with distemper in a
judicious and beautiful manner. For the Nuns of Ognissanti in the same
city Domenico painted another altar-piece, in which is Christ on high in
the heavens, crowning the Glorified Virgin, and below them are S.
Gregory, S. Anthony, S. Mary Magdalene, and S. Catharine the
Virgin-Martyr; and in the predella, likewise, are some very beautiful
little figures executed in distemper.