taken it into his head in the end to work in relief, began to give his
attention to casting in bronze, and went so far with this that he
executed, although with extraordinary labour, six Angels of bronze in
the round, little less than life-size, for the six columns nearest the
high-altar of the Duomo. These Angels, which are very beautiful, are
holding tazze, or rather little basins, which support candelabra
containing lights, and in the last of them he acquitted himself so well,
that he was very highly praised for them. Whereupon, growing in courage,
he made a beginning with figures of the twelve Apostles, which were to
be placed on the columns lower down, where there are now some of marble,
old and in a bad manner; but he did not continue them, for he did not
live long after that. And since he was a man of infinite ingenuity, and
succeeded well in everything, he engraved wood-blocks by himself in
order to make prints in chiaroscuro, and there are to be seen prints of
two Apostles engraved by him excellently well, of which we have one in
our book of drawings, together with some sheets drawn divinely by his
hand. He also engraved copper-plates with the burin, and he executed
with aquafortis some very fanciful little stories of alchemy, in which
Jove and the other Gods, wishing to congeal Mercury, place him bound in
a crucible, and Vulcan and Pluto make fire around him; but when they
think that he must be fixed, Mercury flies away and goes off in smoke.
Domenico, in addition to the works described above, executed many others
of no great importance, pictures of the Madonna and other suchlike
chamber-pictures, such as a Madonna that is in the house of the
Chevalier Donati, and a picture in distemper in which Jove changes
himself into a shower of gold and rains into the lap of Danaë. Piero
Catanei, likewise, has a round picture in oils of a very beautiful
Virgin by the hand of the same master. He also painted a most beautiful
bier for the Confraternity of S. Lucia, and likewise another for that of
S. Antonio; nor should anyone be astonished that I make mention of such
works, for the reason that they are beautiful to a marvel, as all know
who have seen them.
Finally, having come to the age of sixty-five, he hastened the end of
his life by toiling all by himself day and night at his castings in
metal, polishing them himself without calling in any assistance. He
died, then, on the 18th of May, 1549, and was given burial by his
dearest friend, the goldsmith Giuliano, in the Duomo, where he had
executed so many rare works. And he was carried to the tomb by all the
craftsmen of his city, which recognized even then the great loss that
she had suffered in the death of Domenico, and now, as she admires his
works, recognizes it more than ever.
Domenico was an orderly and upright person, fearing God and studious in
his art, although solitary beyond measure; wherefore he well deserved to
be honourably celebrated by his fellow-citizens of Siena, who have
always won great praise by their attention to noble studies and to
poetry, with verses both in Latin and in the vulgar tongue.
FOOTNOTE:
[29] Zaleucus.
[30] Here there is a blank in the text.
GIOVANNI ANTONIO LAPPOLI
LIFE OF GIOVANNI ANTONIO LAPPOLI
PAINTER OF AREZZO
Rarely does it happen that from an old stock there fails to sprout some
good shoot, which, growing with time, revives and reclothes with its
leaves that desolate stem, and reveals with its fruits to those who
taste them the same savour that was once known in the ancient tree. And
that this is true is proved in this present Life of Giovanni Antonio,
who, at the death of his father Matteo, who was a painter of passing
good repute in his day, was left with a good income under the
guardianship of his mother, and lived thus up to the age of twelve.
Having come to that period of his life, and not caring to choose any
other pursuit than that of painting, to which he was drawn, besides
other reasons, by a wish to follow the footsteps of his father in that
art, Giovanni Antonio began to learn the first rudiments of design under
Domenico Pecori, a painter of Arezzo, who had been, together with his
father Matteo, a disciple of Clemente,[31] and who was his first master.
Then, after having been some time with him, desiring to make greater
proficience than he was making under the discipline of that master and
in that place, where he was not able to learn by himself, although he
had a strong natural inclination, he turned his thoughts towards the
idea of settling in Florence. To this intention, not to mention that he
was left alone by the death of his mother, Fortune was favourable
enough, for a young sister that he had was married to Leonardo Ricoveri,
one of the first and richest citizens that there were at that time in
Arezzo; and so he went off to Florence.
There, among the works of many that he saw, the manner of Andrea del
Sarto and of Jacopo da Pontormo pleased him more than that of all the
others who had worked at painting in that city. Wherefore he resolved to
place himself under one of those two, and was hesitating as to which of
them he should choose as his master, when there were uncovered the Faith
and Charity painted by Pontormo over the portico of the Nunziata in
Florence, and he became fully determined to go to work under Pontormo,
thinking that his manner was so beautiful that it might be expected that
Jacopo, who was still a young man, was destined to surpass all the young
painters of his own age, as, indeed, was the firm belief of everyone at
that time. Lappoli, then, although he might have gone to work under
Andrea, for the said reasons attached himself to Pontormo, under whose
discipline he was for ever drawing, spurred to incredible exertions, out
of emulation, by two motives. One of these was the presence of Giovan
Maria dal Borgo a San Sepolcro, who was studying design and painting
under the same master, and who, always advising him for his own good,
brought it about that he changed his manner and adopted the good manner
of Pontormo. The other--and this spurred him more strongly--was the
sight of Agnolo, who was called Bronzino, being much brought forward by
Jacopo on account of his loving submissiveness and goodness and the
untiring diligence that he showed in imitating his master's works, not
to mention that he drew very well and acquitted himself in colouring in
such a manner, that he aroused hopes that he was destined to attain to
that excellence and perfection which have been seen in him, and still
are seen, in our own day.
Giovanni Antonio, then, being desirous to learn, and impelled by the
reasons mentioned above, spent many months in making drawings and copies
of the works of Jacopo da Pontormo, which were so well executed, so
good, and so beautiful, that it is certain that if he had persevered,
what with the assistance that he had from Nature, his wish to become
eminent, the force of competition, and the good manner of his master, he
would have become most excellent; and to this some drawings in red chalk
by his hand, which may be seen in our book, can bear witness. But
pleasure, as may often be seen to happen, is in young men generally the
enemy of excellence, and brings it about that their intellects are led
astray; wherefore he who is engaged in the studies of any faculty,
science, or art whatsoever should have no relations save with those who
are of the same profession, and good and orderly besides. Giovanni
Antonio, then, in order that he might be looked after, had gone to live
in the house of one Ser Raffaello di Sandro, a lame chaplain, in S.
Lorenzo, to whom he paid so much a year, and he abandoned in great
measure the study of painting, for the reason that the priest was a man
of the world, delighting in pictures, music, and other diversions, and
many persons of talent frequented the rooms that he had at S. Lorenzo;
among others, M. Antonio da Lucca, a most excellent musician and
performer on the lute, at that time a very young man, from whom Giovanni
learned to play the lute. And although the painter Rosso and some others
of the profession also frequented the same place, Lappoli attached
himself rather to the others than to the men of his art, from whom he
might have learned much, while at the same time amusing himself. Through
these distractions, therefore, the love of painting of which Giovanni
Antonio had given proof cooled off in great measure; but none the less,
being the friend of Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, who was a
disciple of Andrea del Sarto, he went sometimes with him to the Scalzo
to draw the pictures and nudes from life. And no long time passed before
he applied himself to colouring and executed pictures of Jacopo's, and
then by himself some Madonnas and portraits from life, among which were
that of the above-mentioned M. Antonio da Lucca and that of Ser
Raffaello, which are very good.
In the year 1523, the plague being in Rome, Perino del Vaga came to
Florence, and he also settled down to lodge with Ser Raffaello del
Zoppo; wherefore Giovanni Antonio having formed a strait friendship with
him and having recognized the ability of Perino, there was reawakened in
his mind the desire to attend to painting, abandoning all other
pleasures, and he resolved when the plague had ceased to go with Perino
to Rome. But this design was never fulfilled, for the plague having come
to Florence, at the very moment when Perino had finished the scene of
the Submersion of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, painted in the colour of
bronze in chiaroscuro for Ser Raffaello, during the execution of which
Lappoli was always present, they were forced both the one and the other
to fly from Florence, in order not to lose their lives there.
Thereupon Giovanni Antonio returned to Arezzo, and set himself, in order
to pass the time, to paint on canvas the scene of the death of Orpheus,
killed by the Bacchantes: he set himself, I say, to paint this scene in
chiaroscuro of the colour of bronze, after the manner in which he had
seen Perino paint the picture mentioned above, and when the work was
finished it brought him no little praise. He then set to work to finish
an altar-piece that his former master Domenico Pecori had begun for the
Nuns of S. Margherita: in which altar-piece, now to be seen in their
convent, he painted an Annunciation. And he made two cartoons for two
portraits from life from the waist upwards, both very beautiful; one was
Lorenzo d' Antonio di Giorgio, at that time a pupil and a very handsome
youth, and the other was Ser Piero Guazzesi, who was a convivial person.
The plague having finally somewhat abated, Cipriano d' Anghiari, a rich
man of Arezzo, who in those days had caused a chapel with ornaments and
columns of grey-stone to be built in the Abbey of S. Fiore at Arezzo,
allotted the altar-piece to Giovanni Antonio at the price of one hundred
crowns. Meanwhile, Rosso passed through Arezzo on his way to Rome, and
lodged with Giovanni Antonio, who was very much his friend; and, hearing
of the work that he had undertaken to do, he made at the request of
Lappoli a very beautiful little sketch full of nudes. Whereupon Giovanni
Antonio, setting his hand to the work and imitating the design of Rosso,
painted in that altar-piece the Visitation of S. Elizabeth, and in the
lunette above it a God the Father and some children, copying the
draperies and all the rest from life. And when he had brought it to
completion, he was much praised and commended for it, and above all for
some heads copied from life, painted in a good manner and with much
profit to himself.
Then, recognizing that if he wished to make greater proficience in his
art he must take his leave of Arezzo, he determined, after the plague
had ceased entirely in Rome, to go to that city, where he knew that
Perino, Rosso, and many others of his friends had already returned and
were employed in a number of important works. While of this mind, a
convenient occasion of going there presented itself to him, for there
arrived in Arezzo M. Paolo Valdambrini, the Secretary of Pope Clement
VII, who, in returning from France in great haste, passed through Arezzo
in order to see his brothers and nephews; and when Giovanni Antonio had
gone to visit him, M. Paolo, who was desirous that there should be in
his native city of Arezzo men distinguished in all the arts, who might
demonstrate the genius which that air and that sky give to those who are
born there, exhorted him, although there was not much need for
exhortation, that he should go in his company to Rome, where he would
obtain for him every convenience to enable him to attend to the studies
of his art. Having therefore gone with M. Paolo to Rome, he found there
Perino, Rosso, and others of his friends; and besides this he was able
by means of M. Paolo to make the acquaintance of Giulio Romano,
Sebastiano Viniziano, and Francesco Mazzuoli of Parma, who arrived in
Rome about that time. This Francesco, delighting to play the lute, and
therefore conceiving a very great affection for Giovanni Antonio and
consorting continually with him, brought it about that Lappoli set
himself with great zeal to draw and paint and to profit by the good
fortune that he enjoyed in being the friend of the best painters that
there were in Rome at that time. And he had already carried almost to
completion a picture containing a Madonna of the size of life, which M.
Paolo wished to present to Pope Clement in order to make Lappoli known
to him, when, as Fortune would have it, who often sets herself in
opposition to the designs of mankind, there took place on the 6th of
May, in the year 1527, the accursed sack of Rome. On that miserable day
M. Paolo galloped on horseback, and Giovanni Antonio with him, to the
Porta di S. Spirito in the Trastevere, in order to prevent the soldiers
of Bourbon for a time from entering by that gate; and there M. Paolo was
killed and Lappoli was taken prisoner by the Spaniards. And in a short
time, everything being given over to sack, the picture was lost,
together with the designs executed in the chapel and all that poor
Giovanni Antonio possessed. He, after having been much tormented by the
Spaniards to induce him to pay a ransom, escaped in his shirt one night
with some other prisoners, and, after suffering desperate hardships and
running in great danger of his life, because the roads were not safe,
finally made his way to Arezzo, where he was received by M. Giovanni
Pollastra, a man of great learning, who was his uncle; but he had all
that he could do to recover himself, so broken was he by terror and
suffering.
Then in the same year there came upon Arezzo the great plague in which
four hundred persons died every day, and Giovanni Antonio was forced
once more to fly, all in despair and very loth to go, and to stay for
some months out of the city. But finally, when that pestilence had
abated to such an extent that people could begin to mix together, a
certain Fra Guasparri, a Conventual Friar of S. Francis, who was then
Guardian of their convent in that city, commissioned Giovanni Antonio to
paint the altar-piece of the high-altar in that church for one hundred
crowns, stipulating that he should represent in it the Adoration of the
Magi. Whereupon Lappoli, hearing that Rosso, having also fled from Rome,
was at Borgo a San Sepolcro, and was there executing an altar-piece for
the Company of S. Croce, went to visit him; and after showing him many
courtesies and causing some things to be brought for him from Arezzo, of
which he knew him to stand in need, since he had lost everything in the
sack of Rome, he obtained for himself from Rosso a very beautiful design
of the above-mentioned altar-piece that he had to paint for Fra
Guasparri. And when he had returned to Arezzo he set his hand to the
work, and finished it within a year from the day of the commission,
according to the agreement, and that so well, that he was very highly
praised for it. That design of Rosso's passed afterwards into the hands
of Giorgio Vasari, and from him to the very reverend Don Vincenzio
Borghini, Director of the Hospital of the Innocenti in Florence, who has
it in his book of drawings by various painters.
Not long afterwards, having become surety for Rosso to the amount of
three hundred crowns, in the matter of some pictures that the said Rosso
was to paint in the Madonna delle Lagrime, Giovanni Antonio found
himself in a very evil pass, for Rosso went away without finishing the
work, as has been related in his Life, and Lappoli was constrained to
restore the money; and if his friends had not helped him, and
particularly Giorgio Vasari, who valued at three hundred crowns the part
that Rosso had left finished, Giovanni Antonio would have been little
less than ruined in his effort to do honour and benefit to his native
city. These difficulties over, Lappoli painted an altar-piece in oils
containing the Madonna, S. Bartholomew, and S. Matthew at the commission
of Abbot Camaiani of Bibbiena, for a chapel in the lower church at S.
Maria del Sasso, a seat of the Preaching Friars in the Casentino; and he
acquitted himself very well, counterfeiting the manner of Rosso. And
this was the reason that a Confraternity at Bibbiena afterwards caused
him to paint on a banner for carrying in processions a nude Christ with
the Cross on His shoulder, who is shedding blood into the Chalice, and
on the other side an Annunciation, which was one of the best things that
he ever did.
In the year 1534, Duke Alessandro de' Medici being expected in Arezzo,
the Aretines, with Luigi Guicciardini, the commissary in that city,
wishing to honour the Duke, ordained that two comedies should be
performed. The charge of arranging one of those festivals was in the
hands of a Company of the most noble young men in the city, who called
themselves the Umidi; and the preparations and scenery for this comedy,
which had for its subject the Intronati of Siena, were made by Niccolò
Soggi, who was much extolled for them, and the comedy was performed very
well and with infinite satisfaction to all who saw it. The festive
preparations for the other were executed in competition by another
Company of young men, likewise noble, who called themselves the Company
of the Infiammati. And they, in order to be praised no less than the
Umidi, performed a comedy by M. Giovanni Pollastra, a poet of Arezzo,
under his management, and entrusted the making of the scenery to
Giovanni Antonio, who acquitted himself consummately well; and thus
their comedy was performed with great honour to that Company and to the
whole city. Nor must I pass over a lovely notion of that poet's, who was
certainly a man of beautiful ingenuity. While the preparations for these
and other festivals were in progress, on many occasions the young men of
the two Companies, out of rivalry and for various other reasons, had
come to blows, and several disputes had arisen; wherefore Pollastra
arranged a surprise (keeping the matter absolutely secret), which was as
follows. When all the people, with the gentlemen and their ladies, had
assembled in the place where the comedy was to be performed, four of
those young men who had come to blows with one another in the city on
other occasions, dashing out with naked swords and cloaks wound round
their arms, began to shout on the stage and to pretend to kill one
another: and the first of them to be seen rushed out with one temple as
it were smeared with blood, crying out: "Come forth, traitors!" At which
uproar all the people rose to their feet, men began to lay hands on
their weapons, and the kinsmen of the young men, who appeared to be
giving each other fearful thrusts, ran towards the stage; when he who
had come out first, turning towards the other young men, said: "Hold
your hands, gentlemen, and sheathe your swords, for I have taken no
harm; and although we are at daggers drawn and you believe that the play
will not be performed, yet it will take place, and I, wounded as I am,
will now begin the Prologue." And so after this jest, by which all the
spectators and the actors themselves, only excepting the four mentioned
above, were taken in, the comedy was begun and played so well, that
afterwards, in the year 1540, when the Lord Duke Cosimo and the Lady
Duchess Leonora were in Arezzo, Giovanni Antonio had to prepare the
scenery anew on the Piazza del Vescovado and have it performed before
their Excellencies. And even as the performers had given satisfaction on
the first occasion, so at that time they gave so much satisfaction to
the Lord Duke, that they were afterwards invited to Florence to perform
at the next Carnival. In these two scenic preparations, then, Lappoli
acquitted himself very well, and he was very highly praised.
He then made an ornament after the manner of a triumphal arch, with
scenes in the colour of bronze, which was placed about the altar of the
Madonna delle Chiavi. After a time Giovanni Antonio settled in Arezzo,
fully determined, now that he had a wife and children, to go roaming no
more, and living on his income and on the offices that the citizens of
that city enjoy; and so he continued without working much. Not long,
indeed, after these events, he sought to obtain the commissions for two
altar-pieces that were to be painted in Arezzo, one for the Church and
Company of S. Rocco, and the other for the high-altar of S. Domenico;
but he did not succeed, for the reason that both those pictures were
allotted to Giorgio Vasari, whose designs, among the many that were
made, gave more satisfaction than any of the others. For the Company of
the Ascension in that city Giovanni Antonio painted on a banner for
carrying in processions Christ in the act of Resurrection, with many
soldiers round the Sepulchre, and His Ascension into Heaven, with the
Madonna surrounded by the twelve Apostles, which was all executed very
well and with diligence. At Castello della Pieve he painted an
altar-piece in oils of the Visitation of Our Lady, with some Saints
about her, and in an altar-piece that was painted for the Pieve a San
Stefano he depicted the Madonna and other Saints; which two works
Lappoli executed much better than the others that he had painted up to
that time, because he had been able to see at his leisure many works in
relief and casts taken in gesso from the statues of Michelagnolo and
from other ancient works, and brought by Giorgio Vasari to his house at
Arezzo. The same master painted some pictures of Our Lady, which are
dispersed throughout Arezzo and other places, and a Judith who is
placing the head of Holofernes in a basket held by her serving-woman,
which now belongs to Mons. M. Bernardetto Minerbetti, Bishop of Arezzo,
who loved Giovanni Antonio much, as he loves all other men of talent,
and received from him, besides other things, a young S. John the Baptist
in the desert, almost wholly naked, which is held dear by him, since it
is an excellent figure.
Finally, recognizing that perfection in this art consists in nothing
else but seeking in good time to become rich in invention and to study
the nude continually, and thus to render facile the difficulties of
execution, Giovanni Antonio repented that he had not spent in the study
of art the time that he had given to his pleasures, perceiving that what
can be done easily in youth cannot be done well in old age. But although
he was always conscious of his error, yet he did not recognize it fully
until, having set himself to study when already an old man, he saw a
picture in oils, fourteen braccia long and six braccia and a half high,
executed in forty-two days by Giorgio Vasari, who painted it for the
Refectory of the Monks of the Abbey of S. Fiore at Arezzo; in which work
are painted the Nuptials of Esther and King Ahasuerus, and there are in
it more than sixty figures larger than life. Going therefore at times to
see Giorgio at work, and staying to discourse with him, Giovanni Antonio
said: "Now I see that continual study and work is what lifts men out of
laborious effort, and that our art does not come down upon us like the
Holy Ghost."
Giovanni Antonio did not work much in fresco, for the reason that the
colours changed too much to please him; nevertheless, there may be seen
over the Church of Murello a Pietà with two little naked Angels by his
hand, executed passing well. Finally, after having lived like a man of
good judgment and one not unpractised in the ways of the world, he fell
sick of a most violent fever at the age of sixty, in the year 1552, and
died.