BOOK III.

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THE

HISTORY OF PAINTING

IN

ITALY.

VOL. V.

THE

HISTORY OF PAINTING

IN

ITALY,

FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REVIVAL OF

THE FINE ARTS

TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY:

TRANSLATED

From the Original Italian

OF THE

ABATE LUIGI LANZI.

BY THOMAS ROSCOE.

_IN SIX VOLUMES._

VOL. V.

CONTAINING THE SCHOOLS OF BOLOGNA, FERRARA, GENOA,

AND PIEDMONT.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

W. SIMPKIN AND R. MARSHALL,

STATIONERS'-HALL COURT, LUDGATE STREET.

1828

J. M'Creery, Tooks Court,

Chancery Lane, London.

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIFTH VOLUME.

HISTORY OF PAINTING IN UPPER ITALY.

BOOK THE THIRD.

BOLOGNESE SCHOOL.

Page

EPOCH I. _The ancient masters_ 6

EPOCH II. _Various styles, from the time of Francia

to that of the Caracci_ 50

EPOCH III. _The Caracci, their scholars and their

successors, until the time of Cignani_ 96

EPOCH IV. _Pasinelli, and in particular Cignani,

cause a change in the style of Bolognese

painting. The Clementine academy and its

members_ 217

BOOK THE FOURTH.

SCHOOL OF FERRARA.

EPOCH I. _The ancient masters_ 281

EPOCH II. _Artists of Ferrara, from the time of Alfonso

I. till Alfonso II., last of the Este family in

Ferrara, who emulate the best Italian styles_ 301

EPOCH III. _The artists of Ferrara borrow different

styles from the Bolognese school--Decline

of the art, and an academy instituted in its

support_ 328

BOOK THE FIFTH.

EPOCH I. _The ancient masters_ 359

EPOCH II. _Perino and his followers_ 369

EPOCH III. _The art relapses for some time, and is

re-invigorated by the works of Paggi and

some foreigners_ 392

EPOCH IV. _The Roman and Parmesan succeed to

the native style--Establishment of an academy_ 424

BOOK THE SIXTH.

HISTORY OF PAINTING IN PIEDMONT AND THE

ADJACENT TERRITORY.

EPOCH I. _Dawn and progress of the art until the sixteenth

century_ 447

EPOCH II. _Painters of the seventeenth century, and

first establishment of the academy_ 466

EPOCH III. _School of Beaumont, and restoration of

the academy_ 483

HISTORY OF PAINTING

IN

UPPER ITALY.

BOOK III.

BOLOGNESE SCHOOL.

During the progress of the present work, it has been observed that the fame

of the art, in common with that of letters and of arms, has been

transferred from place to place; and that wherever it fixed its seat, its

influence tended to the perfection of some branch of painting, which by

preceding artists had been less studied, or less understood. Towards the

close of the sixteenth century, indeed, there seemed not to be left in

nature, any kind of beauty, in its outward forms or aspect, that had not

been admired and represented by some great master; insomuch that the

artist, however ambitious, was compelled, as an imitator of nature, to

become, likewise, an imitator of the best masters; while the discovery of

new styles depended upon a more or less skilful combination of the old.

Thus the sole career that remained open for the display of human genius was

that of imitation; as it appeared impossible to design figures more

masterly than those of Bonarruoti or Da Vinci, to express them with more

grace than Raffaello, with more animated colours than those of Titian, with

more lively motions than those of Tintoretto, or to give them a richer

drapery and ornaments than Paul Veronese; to present them to the eye at

every degree of distance, and in perspective, with more art, more fulness,

and more enchanting power than fell to the genius of Coreggio. Accordingly

the path of imitation was at that time pursued by every school, though with

very little method. Each of these was almost wholly subservient to its

prototype; nor was it distinguished in any other portion of the art than

that by which its master had surpassed all competitors. Even in this

portion, the distinction of these followers consisted only in copying the

same figures, and executing them in a more hasty and capricious manner, or

at all events, in adapting them out of place. Those devoted to Raffaello

were sure to exaggerate the ideal in every picture: the same in regard to

anatomy in those of Michelangiolo: while misplaced vivacity and

foreshortening were repeated in the most judicious historic pieces of the

Venetians and the Lombards.

A few, indeed, there were, as we have noticed, in every place, who rose

conspicuous above those popular prejudices and that ignorance which

obscured Italy, and whose aim was to select from the masters of different

states the chief merit of each; a method of which the Campi of Cremona more

especially furnished commendable examples. Yet these artists being unequal

in point of genius and learning, broken into different schools, separated

by private interests, accustomed to direct their pupils only in the exact

path they themselves trod, and always confined within the limits of their

native province, failed to instruct Italy, or at least to propagate the

method of correct and laudable imitation. This honour was reserved for

Bologna, whose destiny was declared to be the art of teaching, as governing

was said to be that of Rome; and it was not the work of an academy, but of

a single house. Gifted with genius, intent upon attaining the secrets more

than the stipends of their art, and unanimous in their resolves, the family

of the Caracci discovered the true style of imitation. First, they

inculcated it through the neighbouring state of Romagna, whence it was

communicated to the rest of Italy; so that in a little while nearly the

whole country was filled with its reputation. The result of their learning

went to shew that the artist ought to divide his studies between nature and

art, and that he should alternately keep each in view, selecting only,

according to his natural talents and disposition, what was most enviable in

both. By such means, that school, which appeared last in the series that

flourished, became the first to instruct the age; and what it had acquired

from each it afterwards taught to all: a school which, until that period,

had assumed no form or character to distinguish it from others, but which

subsequently produced almost as many new manners, as the individuals of the

family and their pupils. The mind, like the pen, would gladly arrive at

that fortunate epoch; aiming at the most compendious ways to reach it, and

studiously avoiding whatever may impede or divert its course. Let Malvasia

exclaim against Vasari as much as he pleases: let him vent his indignation

upon his prints, in which Bagnacavallo appears with a goat's physiognomy,

when he was entitled to that of a gentleman: let him farther vituperate his

writings, in which Bolognese professors are either omitted, dismissed with

faint praise, or blamed, until one Mastro Amico and one Mastro Biagio fall

under his lash:--to attempt to reconcile or to aggravate such feuds will

form little part of my task. Concerning this author I have sufficiently

treated in other places; though I shall not scruple to correct, or to

supply his information in case oaf need, on the authority of several modern

writers.[1] Nor shall I fail to point out in Malvasia occasional errors in

sound criticism, which seem to have escaped him in the effervescence of

that bitter controversy. The reader will become aware of them even in the

first epoch; in treating which, agreeably to my own method, I shall

describe the origin and early progress of this eminent school. Together

with the Bolognese, I shall also give an account of many professors of

Romagna, reserving a few, however, for a place in the Ferrarese School, in

which they shone either as disciples or as masters.

Footnote 1: No Italian school has been described by abler

pens. The Co. Canon. Malvasia was a real man of letters; and

his life has been written by Crespi. His two volumes,

entitled _Felsina Pittrice_, will continue to supply an

abundance of valuable information, collected by the pupils

of the Caracci, to whom he was known, and by whom he was

assisted in this work; charged, however, with a degree of

patriotic zeal at times too fervid.

Crespi and Zanotti were his continuators, whose merits are

considered in the last epoch. To these volumes is added the

work entitled, "Pitture, Sculture, e Architetture di

Bologna," of which the latest editions have been supplied

with some very valuable notices, (drawn also from MSS.) by

the Ab. Bianconi, already commended by us, and by Sig.

Marcello Oretti, a very diligent collector of pictoric

anecdotes, as well as by other persons. I cite this work

under the title of the _Guide_ of Bologna; in addition to

which I mention in Romagna that of Ravenna by Beltrami, that

of Rimini by Costa, and of Pesaro by Becci, which is farther

illustrated by observations upon the chief paintings at

Pesaro, and a dissertation upon the art; both very ably

treated by the pen of Sig. Canon. Lazzarini.

BOLOGNESE SCHOOL.

EPOCH I.

_The Ancients._

The new Guide of Bologna, published in the year 1782, directs our attention

to a number of figures, in particular those of the Virgin, which, on the

strength of ancient documents, are to be assigned to ages anterior to the

twelfth century. Of some of these we find the authors' names indicated; and

it forms, perhaps, the peculiar boast of Bologna to claim three of them

during the twelfth century: one Guido, one Ventura, and one Ursone, of whom

there exist memorials as late back as 1248. Most part, however, are from

unknown hands, and so well executed, that we are justified in suspecting

that they must have been retouched about the times of Lippo Dalmasio, to

whose style a few of them bear considerable resemblance. Yet not so with

others; more especially a specimen in San Pietro, which I consider to be

one of the most ancient preserved in Italy. But the finest monument of

painting possessed by Bologna, at once the most unique and untouched, is

the _Catino_ of San Stefano, on which is figured the Adoration of the Lamb

of God, described in the Apocalypse; and below this are several scriptural

histories; as the Birth of our Lord, his Epiphany, the Dispute, and similar

subjects. The author was either Greek, or rather a scholar of those Greeks

who ornamented the church of St. Mark in Venice with their mosaics; the

manner much resembling theirs in its rude design, the spareness of the

limbs, and in the distribution of the colours. It is besides, certain, that

these Greeks educated several artists for Italy, and among others the

founder of the Ferrarese School, of whom more in its appropriate place.

However this may be, the painter exhibits traces that differ from those

mosaic workers, such as the flow of the beard, the shape of the garments,

and a taste less bent on thronging his compositions. And in respect to his

age, it is apparent it must have been between the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries, from the form of the characters, collated with other writings

belonging to the same period.

Entering upon the age of Giotto, the most disputed of all, on account of

the Florentines having declared themselves the tutors of the Bolognese, and

the aversion of the latter to admit that they have been instructed by the

Florentines;--I decline to dwell upon their writings, in which the heat of

controversy has effectually obscured the candour of real history. I shall

rather gather light from the figures of the _trecentisti_ dispersed

throughout the city and all parts of Romagna, and from the ample

collections which are to be seen in various places. Such is that of the

Padri Classensi at Ravenna, that of the Institute at Bologna, and in the

same place one at the Malvezzi palace, where the pictures of the ancient

masters are exhibited in long series, with their names; not always

inscribed, indeed, in ancient character, nor always equally genuine; but

still calculated to reflect honour upon the noble family that made the

collection. In all these I discovered paintings, some manifestly Greek;

some indisputably Giottesque; certain others of Venetian style; and not a

few in a manner which I never saw, except in Bologna. They possess a body

of colouring, a taste in perspective, a method of designing and draping the

figures, not met with in any other cities; as for instance, in several

places I saw scripture histories, where the Redeemer invariably appears

arrayed in a red mantle; while other characters appear in garments trimmed

in a certain novel style with gilt borders; trifles in themselves, yet not

apparent in any other school. From similar observations we seem to be

justified in concluding that the Bolognese of that age likewise had a

school of their own, not indeed so elegant, nor so celebrated, but

nevertheless peculiar, and so to say, municipal, derived from ancient

masters of mosaic, and also from those in miniature.

On this head, notwithstanding our proposed brevity, I must here refer to

the words of Baldinucci in his notices of the miniature painter, Franco:

"After Giotto, that very celebrated Florentine painter, had discovered his

novel and fine method by which he gained the name of the first restorer of

the art of painting, or rather to have raised it from utter extinction; and

after he had acquired with industrious diligence that fine mode of painting

which is called _di minio_,[2] which for the most part consists in

colouring very diminutive figures; many others also applied themselves to

the like art, and soon became illustrious. One of these was Oderigi

d'Agubbio, concerning whom we have spoken in his proper place among the

disciples of Cimabue. We discovered that this Oderigi, as we are assured by

Vellutello in his comment upon Dante, in the eleventh canto of the

Purgatorio,[3] was master in the art to Franco Bolognese, which assertion

acquires great credit from his having worked much in miniature in the city

of Bologna, according to these words that I find said of him by Benvenuto

da Imola, a contemporary of Petrarch, in his comment upon Dante: 'Iste

Odorisius fuit magnus miniator in civitate Bononiae, qui erat valde vanus

jactator artis suae.' From this Franco, according to the opinion of

Malvasia, the most noble and ever glorious city of Bologna received the

first seeds of the beautiful art of painting."

Footnote 2: _Di minio_, a peculiar red colour, used also in

oil painting, and well known to the ancients, who on festal

days were accustomed to ornament with it the face of Jove's

statue, as also that of the victors on days of triumph.

Pliny and others explain the ancient method of employing it.

The term, in its simple acceptation, means here the art of

designing and colouring in miniature, (from _di minio_)

early applied to the ornamenting and illuminating of ancient

works and MSS. R.

Footnote 3:

"Oh dissi lui non se' tu Oderisi,

L'onor d'Agubbio, e l'onor di quell'arte

Che alluminar e chiamata a Parisi?

Frate, diss'egli, piu ridon le carte

Che pennellegia Franco Bolognese:

L'onor e tutto or suo, e mio in parte.

Ben non sarei stato si cortese

Mentre ch'io vissi per lo gran disio

Dell'eccellenza, ove mio cor intese.

Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio."

With this narrative does the author proceed, like a careful culturist,

gently sprinkling with refreshing drops his pictoric tree, whose seed he

had shortly before planted, in order to trace the whole derivation of early

artists from the leading stock of Cimabue. It has elsewhere been observed

that this famous tree can boast no root in history; that it sprung out of

idle conjectures, put together as an answer to the _Felsina Pittrice_ of

Malvasia, in which the Bolognese School is made to appear, as it were,

_autoctona_, derived only from itself. Now Baldinucci, in order to give its

origin to Florence, would persuade us that Oderigi, a miniaturist, and

master of Franco, the first painter at Bologna on the revival of the arts,

had actually been a disciple of Cimabue. His argument amounts to this: that

Dante, Giotto, and Oderigi, being known to have lived on the most intimate

terms together, and all three greatly devoted to the fine arts, must have

contracted their friendship in the school of Cimabue; as if such an

intimacy might not have sprung up at any other time or place amongst three

men who travelled. It is besides difficult to believe that Oderigi,

ambitious of the fame of a miniaturist in ornamenting books, should have

applied to Cimabue, who in those times was not the best designer of

figures, though the most eminent painter in fresco, and of grand figures.

A more probable supposition, therefore, is that Oderigi acquired the art

from the miniaturists, who then greatly abounded in Italy, and carried it

to further perfection by his own design. Neither are the epochs themselves,

fixed upon by Baldinucci, in favour of his system. He would have it that

Giotto, at ten years of age, being about the year 1286, began to design in

the school of Cimabue, when the latter had attained his forty-sixth year;

nor could Oderigi have been any younger, whose death happened about 1299,

one year before that of Cimabue, his equal in reputation, and in the

dignity of the pupil, who already surpassed the master. How difficult then

to persuade ourselves that a genius, described by Dante as lofty and full

of vaunting, should demean himself by deigning to design at the school of a

contemporary, near the seat of a mere child; and subsequently surviving

only thirteen years, should acquire the fame of the first miniaturist of

his age, besides forming the mind of a pupil superior to himself. It is no

less incredible that Oderigi, after having seen Giotto's specimens in

miniature, "_should in a short time become famous_." Giotto, in 1298, when

twenty-two years of age, was at Rome in the service of the pope; where,

observes Baldinucci, he also illuminated a book for the Car. Stefaneschi; a

circumstance not mentioned by Vasari, nor supported by any historical

document. Yet taking all this for granted, what length of time is afforded

for Oderigi to display his powers, on the strength of seeing Giotto's

models; for Oderigi, who having been already some time before deceased, was

found by Dante in purgatory, according to Baldinucci's computation, in the

year 1300?

I therefore refer this miniaturist to the Bolognese School, most probably

as a disciple, assuredly as a master; and, on the authority of Vellutello,

as the master of Franco, both a miniaturist and a painter. Franco is the

first among the Bolognese who instructed many pupils; and he is almost

deserving the name of the Giotto of this school. Nevertheless he approached

only at considerable distance, the Giotto of Florence, as far as we can

judge from the few relics which are now pointed out as his in the Malvezzi

museum. The most undoubted specimen is one of the Virgin, seated on a

throne, bearing the date of 1313; a production that may compare with the

works of Cimabue, or of Guido da Siena. There are also two diminutive

paintings, displaying much grace, and similar miniatures, ascribed to the

same hand.

The most eminent pupils educated by Franco in his school, according to

Malvasia, are by name, Vitale, Lorenzo, Simone, Jacopo, Cristoforo;

specimens of whose paintings in fresco are still seen at the Madonna di

Mezzaratta. This church, in respect to the Bolognese, exhibits the same

splendor as the Campo Santo of Pisa, in relation to the Florentine School;

a studio in which the most distinguished trecentisti who flourished in the

adjacent parts, competed for celebrity. They cannot, indeed, boast all the

simplicity, the elegance, the happy distribution, which form the excellence

of the Giottesque; but they display a fancy, fire, and method of colouring,

which led Bonarruoti and the Caracci, considering the times in which they

lived, not to undervalue them; insomuch that, on their shewing signs of

decay, these artists took measures for their preservation. In the

forementioned church, then, besides the pupils of Franco already named,

Galasso of Ferrara, and an unknown imitator of the style of Giotto,

asserted by Lamo in his MS. to have been Giotto himself, painted, at

different times, histories from the Old and New Testament. I am inclined

rather to pronounce the unknown artist to be Giotto's imitator; both

because Vasari, in Mezzaratta, makes no mention of Giotto, and because, if

the latter had painted, he would have ranked with the most eminent, and

would have been selected to pursue his labours, not in that corner

ornamented with paintings in the Florentine style, but in some more

imposing situation.

I ought not to omit to mention in this place, that Giotto employed himself

at Bologna. There is one of his altar-pieces still preserved at San Antonio

with the superscription of MAGISTER IOCTUS DE FLORENTIA. We, moreover,

learn from Vasari that Puccio Capanna, a Florentine, and Ottaviano da

Faenza, with one Pace da Faenza, all pupils of Giotto, pursued their

labours more or less at Bologna. Of these, if I mistake not, there are

occasional specimens still to be met with in collections and in churches.

Nor are there wanting works of the successors of Taddeo Gaddi, one of the

school of Giotto, which, as I have seen great numbers in Florence, I have

been able to distinguish with little difficulty among specimens of this

other school. Besides this style, another was introduced into Bologna from

Florence, that of Orcagna, whose Novissimi of S. Maria Novella were almost

copied in a chapel of San Petronio, painted after the year 1400; the same

edifice which Vasari on the strength of popular tradition, has asserted,

was ornamented by Buffalmacco. From this information, we are brought to

conclude that the Florentines exercised an influence over the art, even in

Bologna; nor can I commend Malvasia, who, in recounting the progress of his

school, gives them no place, nor makes them any acknowledgment. Their

models, which at that period were the most excellent in the art, there is

reason to suppose, may in those times have afforded assistance to the young

Bolognese artists, as those of the school of Caracci, in another age,

instructed the youth of Florence. It is time, however, to return to the

pictures of Mezzaratta.

The authors of those just recorded, were, some of them, contemporary with

the disciples of Giotto; others flourished subsequent to them; nor is there

any name more ancient than that of Vital da Bologna, called _dalle

Madonne_, of whom there are accounts from 1320 till the year 1345. This

artist, who painted for that church a picture of the Nativity, and from

whose hand one of S. Benedetto with other saints is seen in the Malvezzi

palace, had more dryness of design than belonged to the disciples of Giotto

at that period; and he employed compositions that differed from that

school, so extremely tenacious of Giotto's ideas. If Baldinucci ventured to

assert of him that his style, in every particular, agrees with that of his

Florentine contemporaries, he wrote on the faith of others; a sufficient

reason with him for affirming that he was pupil to Giotto, or to some one

of his disciples. I would not venture so far; but rather, to judge from the

hand of Vitale, which Baldi, in his Biblioteca Bolognese, entitles "manum

elimatissimam," from the dryness of design, and from his almost exclusive

custom of painting Madonnas, I argue that he had not departed much from the

example set by Franco, more of a miniaturist than a painter, and that his

school could not have been that school more elevated, varied, and rich in

ideas, formed by Giotto.

Lorenzo, an artist, as is elsewhere observed, of Venice more probably than

of Bologna,[4] who produced the history of Daniel, on which he inscribed

his name, painted during the same period, and attempted copious

compositions. He was greatly inferior to the Memmi, to the Laurati, to the

Gaddi, though he is represented as their equal in reputation by Malvasia.

He betrays the infancy of the art, no less in point of design than in the

expressions of his countenances, whose grief sometimes provokes a smile;

and in his forced and extravagant attitudes in the manner of the Greeks.

Hence it is here out of the question to mention Giotto, in whose school,

cautiously avoiding every kind of extravagance, there predominates a

certain gravity and repose, occasionally amounting to coldness; described

by the author of the Bolognese Guide as the statuary manner; and it is one

of those marks by which to distinguish that school from others of the same

age.

Footnote 4: Vol. iii. p. 16.

At a later period flourished Galasso, who is to be sought for in the list

of artists of Ferrara, along with the three supposed disciples of Vitale;

namely, Cristoforo, Simone, and Jacopo; all of whom, in mature age, were

engaged in pictures to decorate the church at Mezzaratta, which were

completed in 1404. Vasari writes that he is uncertain whether Cristoforo

belonged to Ferrara, or da Modena; and whilst the two cities were disputing

the honour, the Bolognese historians, Baldi, Masini, and Bumaldo, adjusted

the difference by referring him to their own Felsina. For me his country

may remain matter of doubt, though not so the school in which he

flourished; inasmuch as he certainly resided, and painted a great deal,

both on altar-pieces and on walls, at Bologna. At that period, he must have

attracted the largest share of applause; since to him was committed the

figure of the altar, which is still in existence, with his name. The

Signori Malvezzi, likewise, are in possession of one of his altar-pieces,

abounding with figures of saints, and divided into ten compartments. The

design of these figures is rude, the colouring languid; but the whole

displays a taste assuredly not derived from the Florentines, and this is

the principal difficulty in the question.

Simone, most commonly called in Bologna Da Crocifissi, was eminent in these

sacred subjects. At S. Stefano, and other churches, he has exhibited

several fine specimens, by no means incorrect in the naked figure, with a

most devotional cast of features, extended arms, and a drapery of various

colours. They resemble Giotto's in point of colouring, and in the posture

of the feet, one of which is placed over the other, but in other respects

they approach nearer the more ancient. I have seen also some Madonnas

painted by him; sometimes in a sitting posture, at others in half-size,

with drapery and with hands in the manner of the Greek paintings. In

features, however, and in the attitudes, they are both carefully studied

and commendable for those times; a specimen of which is still to be seen at

S. Michele in Bosco.

Among the Bolognese trecentisti Jacopo Avanzi is the most distinguished. He

produced the chief part of the histories at the church of Mezzaratta, many

in conjunction with Simone, and a few of them alone; as the miracle of the

Probation, at the bottom of which he wrote _Jacobus pinxit_. He appears to

have employed himself with most success in the chapel of S. Jacopo al

Santo, at Padua, where, in some very spirited figures, representing some

exploit of arms, he may be said to have conformed his style pretty nearly

to the Giottesque; and even in some measure to have surpassed Giotto, who

was not skilful in heroic subjects. His masterpiece seems to have been the

triumphs painted in a saloon at Verona, a work commended by Mantegna

himself as an excellent production. He subscribed his name sometimes

_Jacobus Pauli_; which has led me to doubt whether he was not originally

from Venice, and the same artist who, together with Paolo his father, and

his brother Giovanni, painted the ancient altar-piece of San Marco at that

place. The time exactly favours such a supposition; the resemblance between

the countenances in the paintings at S. Marco and at the Mezzaratta,

farther confirms it; nor can I easily persuade myself that Avanzi would

have entitled himself _Jacobus Pauli_, had there flourished another artist

at the same period, likely, from similarity of signatures, to create a

mistake. In the _Notizia_ of _Morelli_, p. 5, he is called _Jacomo Davanzo,

a Paduan, or Veronese, or as some maintain a Bolognese_, words which may

create a doubt of the real place of his birth. Without entering on such a

question, I shall only observe, that I incline to believe that his most

fixed domicile, at least towards the close of his days, was at Bologna; and

it has already been remarked, that some artists were accustomed to assume

their place of residence for a surname. It would seem that two painters of

this age derive their parentage from him: one who on an altar-piece at S.

Michele in Bosco signs himself _Petrus Jacobi_, and the same Orazio di

Jacopo mentioned by Malvasia. At all events it is observable in each

school, that, where an artist was the son of a painter, he gladly adopted

his father's name as a sort of support and recommendation of his own. One

Giovanni of Bologna, unknown in his own country, has left at Venice a

painting of S. Cristoforo, in the school of the Merchants at S. Maria

dell'Orto, to which he adds his name, though without date; and, from his

ancient manner, we are authorized to believe that he really belongs to the

place which is here assigned him.

Lippo di Dalmasio, formerly believed to be a Carmelite friar, until the

Turin edition of Baldinucci proved that he had died married, sprung from

the school of Vitale, and was named Lippo dalle Madonne. It is not true, as

reported, that he instructed the Beata Caterina Vigri in the art, by whom

there remain some miniatures, and an infant Christ painted on panel.

Lippo's manner scarcely varies from the ancient, except perhaps in better

harmony of tints and flow of drapery; to which last, however, he adds

fringes of gold lace tolerably wide, a practice very generally prevalent in

the early part of the fifteenth century. His heads are beautiful and novel,

more particularly in several Madonnas, which Guido Reni never ceased to

admire, being in the habit of declaring that Lippo must have been indebted

to some supernatural power for his exhibition in one countenance of all the

majesty, the sanctity, and the sweetness of the holy mother, and that in

this view he had not been equalled by any modern. Such is the account given

by Malvasia, who relates it, he adds, as he heard it. He moreover assures

us, on the authority of Guido, that Lippo painted several histories of

Elias in fresco, with great spirit; while, on the experience of Tiarini, he

would persuade us that he painted in oil at S. Procolo in via S. Stefano,

and in private houses; on which point he impugns the commonly received

opinion respecting Antonello, examined by us more than once. Contemporary

with Lippo must have flourished Maso da Bologna, painter of the ancient

cupola of the cathedral.

Subsequent to 1409, the latest epoch of the paintings of Lippo, the

Bolognese School began to decline; nor could it well be otherwise.

Dalmatio, an instructor of youth, was not by profession a painter of

history; and, as portrait painters never particularly promoted the progress

of any school, so on his part he conferred little benefit on his own. This

decline has been attributed to some specimens of art brought from

Constantinople, overcharged with dark lines in the contours and folds, and

in the remaining parts resembling rather the dryness and inelegance of the

Greek mosaic-workers, than the softness and grace then sought to be

introduced by the most eminent Italians in the art. Copies of these were

eagerly inquired for in Bologna, and in all adjacent cities, which produced

that abundance of them, still to be seen in the sale shops and private

houses throughout those districts, besides several in the city and state of

Venice.[5] But, in these instances, they were only copied; in Bologna they

were imitated likewise by several pupils of Lippo, who, either in part or

altogether, adopted that style in their own compositions. One Lianori,

usually inscribing his name _Petrus Joannis_, and known by some works

interspersed in different churches and collections, is most accused of this

extravagance; an Orazio di Jacopo, (perhaps dell'Avanzi) of whom there

remains a portrait of S. Bernardino, at the church of the Osservanza; a

Severo da Bologna, to whom is ascribed a rude altar-piece, in the Malvezzi

Museum; with several others, either little known or unmentioned, whose

names I am not surprised should be omitted by Vasari, who, in the same way,

passes over the least distinguished of his own country. It is true, he

makes mention of one Galante da Bologna, who, he avers, designed better

than Lippo, his master; but in this he is still taken to task by Malvasia,

who includes Galante among the inferior pupils of Dalmasio.

Footnote 5: The Greeks, during the earliest periods, having

uniformly represented the Virgin in so rude a style, were

always pleased with similar paintings. I state this to

remove a very prevalent error, that every Madonna of Greek

style, with distended eyes, long fingers, and dark

complexion, in the style of that of Pisa, called _Degli

Organi_, or those of Cimabue, is to be referred to the

remotest dates. Indeed I have seen specimens of the

sixteenth, seventeenth, and even eighteenth centuries,

particularly in the Classe Museum, in that of Cattaio, and

in the palaces of Venetian nobles. One in the possession of

the E. E. Signori Giustiniani Recanati, has, notwithstanding

its very antique air, red letters inscribed on a gold

ground, expressing, CHEIR EMMANOUEL IEREOS ..... a ... lx,

_Manus Emanuelis Sacerdotis_. an. 1660. From the hand of the

same Greek priest, well known to Venetian artists, there are

other altar-pieces with a similar inscription; and it is

still customary in that city to reproduce specimens of a

similar kind, to satisfy the continual inquiries of the

Greek merchants. To judge correctly, then, of the age of

such images, we must look for other indications besides

their design, such as the _letters_, (see vol. i. p. 49),

the fashion of the cornice, the method of colouring, or

those cherubs, holding a gold crown over the head of the

Virgin, in the edges and the folds of whose drapery are

imprinted marks of ages nearer to our own.

Nevertheless, the germ of good painting was not wanting, as far as the

times permitted it to exist, both in Bologna and throughout Romagna.

Malvasia commends one Jacopo Ripanda, who long flourished at Rome, where,

as is commemorated by Volterrano, he began to design the bassi-relievi of

the Trajan Column; one Ercole, a Bolognese, who somewhat improved the

symmetry of the human figure; one Bombologno, a carver of crucifixes, like

Simone, but of more refined composition. He more particularly celebrates a

Michel di Matteo, or Michel Lambertini; in whose commendation it may be

enough to state, that Albano praised one of his pictures, supposed to be in

oil, completed in 1443, for the fish-market, and even preferred it for its

softness to those of Francia. The few which we still possess in our own

times, both at the churches of S. Pietro and S. Jacopo, might be put in

competition with the contemporary works of almost any master.

But the artist who produced an epoch in his school is Marco Zoppo, who

having transferred his education under Lippo to the studio of Squarcione,

rose to equal eminence with Pizzolo and Dario da Trevigi; and, like them,

vied with the genius of Mantegna, and gave a farther spur to his exertions.

He also studied some time in the Venetian School, where he painted for the

Osservanti, at Pesaro, a picture of the Virgin on a Throne, crowned, with

S. Giovanni the Baptist, San Francesco, and other saints, and signed it

_Marco Zoppo da Bologna Dip. in Vinexia_, 1471. This is the most celebrated

production which he left behind him; from which, and a few other pieces in

the same church, and at Bologna, we may gather some idea of his style. The

composition is that common to the quattrocentisti, particularly the

Venetians, and which he probably introduced into Bologna, a style which

continued to the time of Francia and his school, for the most part

unvaried, except in the addition of some cherub to the steps of the throne,

sometimes with a harp, and sometimes without. It is not a free and graceful

style, like that of Mantegna, but rather coarse, particularly in the

drawing of the feet; yet less rectilinear in the folds, and bolder, and

more harmonious, perhaps, in the selection of the colours. The fleshes are

as much studied as in Signorelli, and in others of the same age; while the

figures and the accessories are conducted with the most finished care.

Marco was, likewise, a fine decorator of facades, in which kind of painting

he was assisted by his companion and imitator, Jacopo Forti, to whose hand

is ascribed a Madonna, painted on the wall, at the church of S. Tommaso, in

Mercato. In the Malvezzi collection there is also attributed to Jacopo a

Deposition of the Saviour from the Cross; a work which does not keep pace

with the progressive improvements of that age. The same remark will apply

to a great number of others, produced about the same period, in the same

city, which, towards the close of the century, displayed a striking

deficiency in good artists. It was owing to this circumstance that Gio.

Bentivoglio, then master of Bologna, wishing to ornament his palace, which,

had fortune favoured him, would one day have become that of all Romagna,

invited a number of artists from Ferrara and Modena, who introduced a

better taste into Bologna, besides affording an occasion for the grand

genius of Francia to develop itself likewise in the art of painting, as we

shall proceed to shew.

This artist, whose real name was Francesco Raibolini, _was_, according to

Malvasia, _esteemed and celebrated as the first man of that age_; and he

might have added, _in Bologna_, where many so considered him; being there,

as is attested by Vasari, _held in the estimation of a god_. The truth is,

that he had a consummate genius for working in gold; on which account the

medals and coins taken with his moulds rivalled those of Caradosso, the

Milanese; and he was also an excellent painter, in that style which is

termed modern antique, as may be gathered from a great number of

collections, where his Madonnas rank at the side of those of Pietro

Perugino and Gian Bellini. Raffaello, too, compares him with them, and even

greater artists, in a letter dated 1508, edited by Malvasia, in which he

praises his Madonnas, "never having beheld any more beautiful, more

devotional in their expression, and more finely composed by any artist."

His manner is nearly between that of these two heads of their schools, and

participates in the excellence of both; it boasts Perugino's choiceness and

tone of colours; while, in the fulness of its outlines, in the skill of the

folding, and ample flow of the draperies, it bears greater resemblance to

Bellini. His heads, however, do not equal the grace and sweetness of the

former; though he is more dignified and varied than the latter. In the

accessories of his landscapes he rivals both; but in landscape itself, and

in the splendor of his architecture, he is inferior to them. In the

composition of his pictures he is less fond of placing the divine infant in

the bosom of the Virgin than upon a distinct ground, in the ancient manner

of his school; and he sometimes adds to them some half figures of saints,

as was customary with the Venetians of that period. On the whole, however,

he approaches nearer to the Roman School; and, not unfrequently, as is

noticed by Malvasia, his Madonnas have been ascribed by less expert judges

to Pietro Perugino. He likewise produced works in fresco at Bologna,

commended by Vasari; and both there and elsewhere are many of his

altar-pieces yet remaining, displaying figures of larger dimensions than

those usually painted by Bellini and Perugino; the peculiar merit of the

Bolognese School, and by degrees extended to others, augmenting at once the

grandeur of painting and of the temples it adorned.

But the chief praise due to him yet remains to be recorded, and this is,

that he did not begin to exercise his pencil until he had arrived at

manhood, and, in the course of a few years, displayed the rare example of

becoming a scholar and a master, able to compete with the best artists of

Ferrara and Modena. These, as we have mentioned, were invited by Gio.

Bentivoglio, in order to decorate his palace. There, too, Francia was

employed; and he was afterwards commissioned to paint the altar-piece of

the Bentivogli chapel, in 1490, where he signed himself _Franciscus Francia

Aurifex_, as much as to imply that he belonged to the goldsmith's art, not

to that of painting. Nevertheless, that work is a beautiful specimen,

displaying the most finished delicacy of art in every individual figure and

ornament, especially in the arabesque pilasters, in the Mantegna manner. In

process of time he enlarged his style; a circumstance that induced

historians to make a distinction between his first and second manner.

Cavazzoni, who wrote respecting the Madonnas of Bologna, wishes to persuade

us that Raffaello himself had availed himself of Francia's models, in order

to dilate that dry manner which he imbibed from Perugino. We shall award

this glory to the genius of Raffaello, whose youthful performances at San

Severo of Perugia, display a greater degree of softness than those of his

master and of Francia; and after his genius, to the examples of F.

Bartolommeo della Porta, and of Michelangiolo; leaving, we fear, no room to

include the name of Francia. When Raffaello, at Rome, was regarded rather

in the light of an angel than a man, and had already executed some works at

Bologna, he began a correspondence with Francia, urged to it by his

letters; Raffaello became his friend; and, on sending to Bologna his

picture of S. Cecilia, he intreated him, on discovering any error in it, to

correct it; an instance of modesty in our Apelles, more to be admired even

than his paintings. This occurred in 1518, in which year Vasari closes his

life of Francia, who he declares died with excess of passion, on first

beholding that grand performance. Malvasia, however, refutes him, by

proving Francia to "have lived many years afterwards, and when aged and

declining, even to have changed his manner;" and in what way, except upon

the models of Raffaello? In his new manner he painted and exhibited, in a

chamber of the Mint, his celebrated piece of S. Sebastian, which, according

to a tradition handed from the Caracci to Albano, and from the latter to

Malvasia, served as a studio for the Bolognese pupils, who copied its

proportions with as much zeal as the ancients would have done those of a

statue of Polycletes, or the moderns of the Apollo, or of the supposed

Antinous of Belvidere. Albani has added that Francia, on perceiving the

concourse of people increase round his picture, and diminish round the St.

Cecilia of Raffaello, then dead, apprehensive lest they should suspect him

of having executed and exhibited his own in competition with such an

artist, instantly removed and placed it in the church of the Misericordia,

where, at this time, there remains a copy of it. The precise year of his

decease, hitherto unknown, has been communicated to me by the Sig. Cav.

Ratti, who found on an ancient drawing of a female saint, now in possession

of Sig. Tommaso Bernardi, a noble of Lucca, a memorandum of this event

having occurred on the seventh day of April, 1533.

Francia, in addition to his cousin Giulio, who devoted himself but little

to painting, gave instructions in the art to his own son of the name of

Giacomo. It is often doubtful, as we find in the Gallery of the princes

Giustiniani, whether such a Madonna is by the hand of Francesco Francia, or

by that of his son, who, in similar pictures imitated closely his father's

style, although, in Malvasia's judgment, he never equalled it. In works on

a larger scale too, he is sometimes to be pronounced inferior, in

comparison with his father, as in S. Vitale, at Bologna, where Francesco

painted the cherubs round a Madonna, in his first manner, somewhat meagre,

perhaps, but still beautiful and full of animated movements, while Giacomo

drew the figures, representing a Nativity of our Lord, more soft in point

of design, but with features less beautiful, and in attitudes and

expressions bordering on extravagance. At other times, the son seems to

have surpassed the father, as at S. Giovanni, of Parma, where there is no

artist who would not wish to have produced that fine picture by Giacomo,

marked with the year 1519, rather than the Deposition from the Cross, by

Francesco. Elsewhere too, as in the picture of S. Giorgio, at the church of

San Francesco in Bologna, he rivals, perhaps, the finest works by his

father; insomuch that this specimen was ascribed to the latter, until there

was recently noticed the signature I., (meaning _Jacobus_) _Francia_, 1526.

He appears, from the first, to have practised a design approaching that of

the moderns; neither have I observed in his paintings such splendid

gildings, nor such meagre arms, as for some time distinguished the elder

Francia. He rather, in progress of time, continued to acquire a more free

and easy manner, insomuch that a few of his Madonnas were more than once

copied and engraved by Agostino Caracci. His heads were extremely animated,

though generally less select, less studied, and less beautiful, than his

father's. He had a son, named Giambatista, by whom there remains, at S.

Rocco, an altar-piece, and a few other specimens, displaying mere

mediocrity.

Among the foreign pupils of Francia, the Bolognese enumerated Lorenzo

Costa, and, indeed, he thus ranks himself, by inscribing under the portrait

of Gio. Bentivoglio, _L. Costa Franciae discipulus_. True it is, that such

inscriptions, as I have frequently found, might come from another hand; or

that, granting he wrote it, he may have done so more out of regard to such

a man, than for the sake of acquainting the world, as Malvasia contends,

that he had been his sole master. Vasari is of a different opinion,

introducing him to us at Bologna as an established artist, already employed

in several considerable cities, and bestowing the highest eulogium on his

earliest production, the S. Sebastiano at the church of S. Petronio,

declaring it the best specimen in water-colours that had, till then, been

seen in the city. Add to this, that Francia exhibited his first altar-piece

in the Bentivogli chapel in 1490, a few years after he had devoted himself

to the art; and there Costa placed the two lateral pictures, tolerably

excellent in point of composition, and filled with those very spirited

portraits of his in 1488. Now had he boasted only Francia for his master,

of what rapid improvement must we suppose him to have been capable!

Besides, would not his style almost invariably resemble that of Francia, at

least in the works he produced at Bologna? Yet the contrary is the case;

and from his less free, and sometimes ill drawn figures; from the coarser

expression of his countenances, his more hard and dull colouring, and his

abundance of architecture, with the taste shewn in his perspective, it is

evident he must have studied elsewhere. Still I believe that he received

the rudiments of his education in his own country; that then passing into

Tuscany, he formed himself, not by _the voice_, but, as Vasari avers, upon

the pictures of Lippi and Gozzoli; and that finally seeking Bologna, he

painted for the Bentivogli, and resided also with Francia rather in quality

of an assistant than a pupil. A farther proof I gather from Malvasia

himself; that in the journals of Francesco, in which he read the names of

two hundred and twenty pupils, he found no mention of Costa. In the rest,

however, I concur; as to his having availed himself of the works of

Francia, in imitation of whom a number of Madonnas are seen in the

collections at Bologna, much inferior to the paintings of the supposed

master; but occasionally not unworthy of being compared with them. Such is

an altar-piece, divided into several compartments, removed from Faenza into

the Casa Ercolani; a production characterized by Crespi, in his annotations

to Baruffaldi, as being executed "with a fervour, a refinement, softness,

and a warmth which may be pronounced altogether Raffaellesque." He

particularly shone in his countenances of men, as may be seen from those of

the apostles at S. Petronio, and from his San Girolamo, which there offers

the finest specimen of his art. He was less employed in his own country

than in Bologna, though he gave several pupils to the former; among others

the celebrated Dosso and Ercole of Ferrara. He mostly resided at Mantua, at

which court he was highly appreciated, although Mantegna had been his

immediate predecessor, and Giulio Romano succeeded him. I may refer to what

I there wrote respecting this artist.

A less doubtful pupil of Francia's was Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola. His

portraits are much praised by Vasari, but his compositions much less so. He

was by no means happy in all; and in particular one which he produced at

Rimini, is severely criticised by the historian. There are various

altar-pieces by him at Bologna and elsewhere, all of the usual composition

of the quattrocentisti, which goes to redeem his fault. One of these,

exhibiting very beautiful perspective, is in possession of the Serviti at

Pesaro, where the Virgin is seen on a throne, before which, in a kneeling

posture, is the Marchesa Ginevra Sforza, with her son Constantius II.; nor

is this the only specimen of his works conducted in the service of royal

houses. The design is rather dry, but the colour very pleasing; the heads

grand, the draperies well disposed; and in short, were it the only

production of his hand, he would well deserve to rank among the most

illustrious painters in the old style. That he obtained no reputation at

Rome, or Naples, as Vasari observes, was owing to his arriving in those

cities too late, namely, in the pontificate of Paul III.; so that his style

being then regarded merely in the light of an article out of fashion, he

was unable to make his way. He died during the same pontificate, between

the interval of 1534 and 1549. Orlandi, who brings in the decease of

Cotignola as early as 1518, is not only refuted by the above dates marked

by Vasari, and, with slight difference, by Baruffaldi, but moreover by a

picture of S. Girolamo at the church of the conventual friars of S. Marino,

executed in 1520.

Amico Aspertini is enrolled by Malvasia (pp. 58, 59) in the school of

Francia, a fact that Vasari did not choose to notice, being wholly bent on

amusing posterity with a portrait of the person and manners of "Mastro

Amico," who was indeed a compound of pleasantry, eccentricity, and madness.

He had adopted a maxim in painting, which in regard to literature, was

commonly received in that age; to wit, that every individual ought to

impress upon his works the image of his own genius; and, like Erasmus, who

exposed to ridicule Cicero's imitators in writing, this artist was fond of

deriding those of Raffaello in painting. It was his leading principle to

take the tour of Italy, to copy here and there, without discrimination,

whatever most pleased him, and afterwards to form a style of his own, "like

an experienced inventor," to preserve an expression of Vasari. Conducted on

this plan is a Pieta by him, in the church of S. Petronio, which may be

compared with the trecentisti in point of forms, the attitudes, and the

grouping of the figures. We may add, however, with Guercino, that this

artist seemed to handle two pencils; with one of which he painted for low

prices, or out of despite, or for revenge; and this he made use of in S.

Petronio and several other pieces; the other he practised only on behalf of

those who remunerated him honourably for his labours, and were cautious how

they provoked him; and with this he displayed his art in various facades of

palaces, commended by Vasari himself; in the church of S. Martino; and in

many other works cited by Malvasia, who describes him as a good imitator of

Giorgione.

He had an elder brother of the name of Guido, a youth who employed uncommon

diligence and care, carried perhaps to excess, in his art. He died at the

age of thirty-five, and was lamented by his more poetical fellow citizens

in elegiac strains. Malvasia is of opinion, that, had he survived, he would

have equalled the fame of Bagnacavallo; such was the promise held forth by

a painting of the Crucifixion under the portico of S. Pietro, and by his

other works. According to the same biographer, it was Vasari's malice which

led him to assign Ercole of Ferrara for Guido's master, being jealous of

affording M. Amico the fame of forming such a pupil. I feel persuaded, with

Vasari, no less from the age of Guido than from his taste, and from the

date of 1491, which he inscribed on this highly commended picture, that

assuredly it cannot belong to the pupil of a pupil formed by Francia.

Similar critical errors we have already noticed in Baldinucci; and they are

not very easily to be avoided where a party spirit is apt to prevail.

Gio. Maria Chiodarolo, a rival of the preceding, and subsequently of

Innocenzo da Imola, in the palace of Viola, left behind him a name above

the generality of this school. Malvasia mentions twenty-four other scholars

of Francesco Francia, in which he was followed by Orlandi, when treating of

Lorenzo Gandolfi. By some mistake these pupils are referred by him to

Costa; while Bottari, misled by Orlandi, fell into the same error, although

he laments "that men, in order to spare trouble, are apt to follow one

another like sheep or cranes." Yet in very extensive and laborious works it

is difficult sometimes not to nod; nor should I occasionally note down

others' inequalities, except in the hope of finding readers considerate

enough to extend the same liberality towards mine. The forementioned names

will prove of much utility to those who, in Milan, in Pavia, in Parma, and

other places in Italy, may turn their attention to works in the ancient

Bolognese style, and may hear them attributed, as it often happens, to

Francia, instead of the pupils formed by him to practice in those

districts, and invariably tenacious of his manner. He had also others, who

from their intercourse with more modern artists, claim place in a better

epoch; and for such we shall reserve them.

We must previously however take a survey of some cities of Romagna, and

select what seems to belong to our present argument. We shall commence with

Ravenna, a city that preserved design during periods of barbarism better

than any other in Italy. Nor do we elsewhere meet with works in mosaic so

well composed, and in ivory, or in marble, cut in so able a manner; all

vestiges of a power and grandeur worthy of exciting the jealousy of Rome,

when the seat of her princes and exarchs was removed to Ravenna. This city

too having fallen from its splendour, and after many vicissitudes being

governed by the Polentani, was no less indebted to them for an illustrious

poet in the person of Dante, than a great painter in Giotto.[6] This artist

painted in the church called Porto di Fuori, several histories from the

evangelists, which still remain there; and at S. Francesco and other places

in the city, we may trace reliques of his pencil, or at least of his style.

The Polentani being expelled, and the state brought under the subjection of

Venice, from this last capital the city of Ravenna derived the founder of a

new school.

Footnote 6: It is remarkable that, a century previous to the

arrival of Giotto, we find in Ravenna one _Johannes Pictor_;

a fact supplied by the learned Count Fantuzzi, to whom both

Ravenna and the public owe so much valuable information. See

his "_Monumenti Ravennati_, during the middle ages, for the

most part inedited," vol. i. p. 347. In vol. ii. p. 210,

there is mention of a parchment of 1246, in which one

Graziadeo, a notary, orders that in the Portuense church

there be made "imagines magnae et spatiosae ad aurum," which

means mosaic, or painting upon a gold ground, a custom so

much practised in those times.

This was Niccolo Rondinello, mentioned by Vasari as one "who, above all

others, imitated Gian Bellini, his master, to whom he did credit, and

assisted him in all his works." In the life of Bellini, and in that of

Palma, Vasari gives a list of his best paintings, exhibited in Ravenna. In

these his progress is very perceptible. He displays most of the antique in

his picture of S. Giovanni, placed in that church, for which he also

executed one of the Virgin, upon a gold ground. His taste is more modern in

the larger altar-piece of San Domenico; whose composition rises above the

monotony of the age, giving a representation of saints in great variety of

attitudes and situations. The design is exact, though always inclining to

dryness, the countenances less select, and the colouring less vivid than

those of his master; with equal care in his draperies, richly ornamented

with embroidery in the taste of those times. It is, however, uncertain

whether he had obtained any idea of the last and most perfect style of

Bellini. He had a pupil and successor in his labours at Ravenna in

Francesco da Cotignola, whom Bonoli, in his history of Lugo, and that of

Cotignola, as well as the describer of the Parmese paintings, agree in

surnaming Marchesi, while in the Guide to Ravenna, he is denominated

Zaganelli. Vasari commends him, as a very pleasing colourist; although

inferior to Rondinello in point of design, and still more of composition.

In this he was not happy, if we except his celebrated Resurrection of

Lazarus, which is to be seen at Classe; his extremely beautiful baptism of

Jesus Christ, at Faenza, and a few other histories, where he checks his

ardour, and more carefully disposes his figures, for the most part fine and

well draped; occasionally whimsical, and in proportions less than life. One

of his most extraordinary productions is a large altar-piece at the church

of the Osservanti, in Parma, where he represented the Virgin between

several Saints, enlivened by several portraits in the background. He never,

in my opinion, produced any work more solid in conception, nor more

harmoniously disposed, nor more ingenious in the colonnade, and the other

accessary parts. Here he preserved the most moderate tints, contrary to his

usual practice, which was glowing and highly animated, and distributed more

in the manner of Mantegna, than of any other master. He had a brother named

Bernardino, with whom, in 1504, he painted a very celebrated altar-piece,

representing the Virgin between S. Francesco and the Baptist, placed in the

interior chapel of the Padri Osservanti, in Ravenna; and another to be seen

at Imola, in the church of the Riformati, with the date 1509. Bernardino,

likewise, displayed tolerable ability alone, and among the paintings at

Pavia, there is one at the Carmine, inscribed with his name; a fact that

may correct an error of Crespi, who names the elder brother Francesco

Bernardino, making the two into one artist.

Contemporary with him, Baldassare Carrari was employed at Ravenna along

with his son Matteo, both natives of that state. They painted for San

Domenico the celebrated altar-piece of S. Bartolommeo, with the grado,

containing very elegant histories of the Holy Apostle. Such is its merit,

as hardly to yield to the gracefulness of Luca Longhi, who placed one of

his own pictures near it. It was one of the earliest which was painted in

oil in Ravenna; and it deserved the eulogium bestowed by Pope Julius II.,

who on beholding it, in 1511, declared, that the altars of Rome could boast

no pieces which surpassed it in point of beauty. The painter there left his

portrait in the figure of S. Pietro, and that of Rondinello in the S.

Bartolommeo, somewhat older; an observance shewn in those times by the

pupils towards their masters. Yet I should not here pronounce it such, as

Vasari is not only wholly silent as to his school, but omits even his name.

At Rimini, where the Malatesti spared no expense to attract the best

masters, the art of painting flourished. It was at this time that the

church of San Francesco, one of the wonders of the age, was nobly erected,

and as richly decorated. A number of artists at Rimini had succeeded Giotto

in his school; and it is to them the author of the Guide ascribes the

histories of the B. Michelina, which Vasari conceived were from Giotto's

own hand.[7] At a later period one Bitino, whose name I am happy to rescue

from oblivion, was employed at the same place; an artist not perhaps

excelled in Italy, about the year 1407, when he painted an altar-piece of

the titular saint, for the church of S. Giuliano. Around it he represented

the discovery of his body, and other facts relating to the subject;

extremely pleasing in point of invention, architecture, countenances,

draperies, and colouring.[8] Another noble production is a S. Sigismondo,

at whose feet appears Sigismondo Malatesta, with the inscription,

_Franciscus de Burgo_, _f._ 1446; and by the same hand there is the

Scourging of our Saviour. Both these paintings are seen on the wall of S.

Francesco; abounding in perspectives and _capricci_, with character

approaching so nearly to the taste of Pietro della Francesca, then living,

as to induce me to believe, that they are either by him, and that he has

thus Latinized the name of his house, or by some one of his pupils, whose

name has perished. Not such has been the fate of Benedetto Coda, of

Ferrara, who flourished at Rimini, as well as his son Bartolommeo, where

they left a number of their works. Vasari, in his life of Gio. Bellini,

makes brief mention of them, describing Benedetto as Bellini's pupil,

"though he derived small advantage from it." Yet the altar-piece

representing the Marriage of the Virgin, which he placed in the cathedral,

with the inscription of _Opus Benedicti_, is a very respectable production;

while that of the Rosary, in possession of the Dominicans, is even in

better taste, though not yet modern. This, however, cannot be said of the

son, one of whose pictures I saw at S. Rocco da Pesaro, painted in 1528,

with such excellent method, as almost to remind us of the golden age. It

represents the titular saint of the church along with S. Sebastiano,

standing round the throne of the Virgin, with the addition of playful and

beautiful cherubs. Another pupil of Gio. Bellini is noticed by Ridolfi.

Lattanzio da Rimino, or Lattanzio della Marca, referred by others to the

school of Pietro Perugino, which, perhaps too, produced Gio. da Rimino, one

of whose pictures, bearing his signature, belongs to the grand Ercolani

collection at Bologna.[9]

Footnote 7: To this period belonged that _Joannes Rimerici

Pictor Arimini_, who is pointed out to us in 1386 by Count

Marco Fantuzzi, in his _Monumenti Ravennati_, vol. vi.

edited in the year 1804.

Footnote 8: In the above named volume (vi) we find mention

of the son of this distinguished man: "_Magister Antonius

Pictor quondam Mag. Bictini Pictoris de Arimino_, 1456."

Footnote 9: I made a mistake in my former edition in

supposing him to have been a pupil of Bellino, who died in

1516. Concerning this Gio. who subscribed himself likewise

Gio. Francesco, we observe that Oretti, in his _Memorie_,

_MSS._, points out two pictures with the dates of 1459 and

1461. He adds, that there are accounts of his having been

living in 1470.

Forli, as far as I can learn, boasts no artist earlier than Guglielmo da

Forli, a pupil of Giotto. His paintings in fresco, conducted at the

Francescani, no longer survive, nor in the church of that order could I

meet with any specimen of the thirteenth century, besides a Crucifix by

some unknown hand. From that period, perhaps, a succession of artists

appeared, there being no scarcity of anonymous paintings from which to

conjecture such a fact; but history is silent until the time of Ansovino di

Forli, who has already been included among the pupils of Squarcione. I have

my doubts whether this artist could be the master of Melozzo, a name

venerated by artists, inasmuch as he was the first who applied the art of

foreshortening, the most difficult and the most severe, to the painting of

vaulted ceilings. Considerable progress was made in perspective after the

time of Paolo Uccello, with the aid of Piero della Francesca, a celebrated

geometrician, and of a few Lombards. But the ornamenting of ceilings with

that pleasing art and illusion, which afterwards appeared, was reserved for

Melozzo. It is observed by Scannelli, and followed by Orlandi, that in

order to acquire the art he studied the works of the best ancient artists,

and though born to fortune, he did not refuse to lodge with the masters of

his times, in quality of attendant and compounder of their colours. Some

writers give him as a pupil to Pietro della Francesca. It is at least

probable, that Melozzo was acquainted with him and with Agostino

Bramantino, when they were employed at Rome by Nicholas V., towards the

year 1455. However this may be, Melozzo painted on the ceiling of the great

chapel, at Santi Apostoli, the Ascension of our Lord, where, says Vasari,

"the figure of Christ is so admirably foreshortened as to appear to pierce

the vault; and in the same manner the angels are seen sweeping through the

field of air in two opposite directions." This painting was executed for

Card. Riario, nephew to Pope Sixtus IV. about the year 1472; and when that

edifice required to undergo repairs, it was removed and placed in the

Quirinal palace in 1711; where it is still seen, bearing this inscription:

"Opus Melotii Foroliviensis, qui summos fornices pingendi artem vel primus

invenit vel illustravit." Several heads of the apostles which surrounded

it, and were likewise cut away, were deposited in the Vatican palace. Taken

as a whole, he approaches Mantegna and the Paduan School nearer than any

other in point of taste; finely formed heads, fine colouring, fine

attitudes, and almost all as finely foreshortened. The light is well

disposed and graduated, the shadows are judicious, so that the figures seem

to stand out and act in that apparent space; dignity and grandeur in the

principal figure, and white drapery that encircles it; with delicacy of

hand, diligence and grace in every part. What pity that so rare a genius,

pronounced by his contemporaries "an incomparable painter, and the

splendour of all Italy,"[10] should not have had a correct historian to

have described his travels and his pursuits, which must have been both

arduous and interesting, before they raised him to the eminence he

attained, in being commissioned by Card. Riario to execute so great a work.

At Forli, there is still pointed out the facade of an apothecary's shop,

displaying Arabesques in the first style; and over the entrance appears a

half-length figure, well depicted, in the act of mixing drugs, said to have

been the work of Melozzo. Vasari states, that in the villa of the Dukes of

Urbino, named the Imperial, Francesco di Mirozzo, from Forli, had been

employed a long while previous to Dosso; and it would appear that we are

here to substitute the name of Melozzo, to correct one of those errors

which we have so frequently before remarked in Vasari. In the lives of the

Ferrarese painters there is named a Marco Ambrogio, detto Melozzo di

Ferrara, who seems to be confounded with the inventor of foreshortening;

but it is my opinion that this was quite a different artist, of which his

name itself gives us reasons to judge. Melozzo di Forli was still alive in

1494: since F. Luca Paccioli, publishing the same year his "Summa

d'Aritmetica e Geometria," ranks him among painters in perspective, "_men

famous and supreme_," who flourished in those days.

Footnote 10: Morelli Notizie, p. 109.

Towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, or shortly afterwards,

Bartolommeo di Forli flourished in the same city, a pupil of Francia,

noticed by Malvasia, whose style was more dry than that of the generality

of his fellow pupils. Next to him I place Palmegiani, transformed by Vasari

into Parmegiano; a good, yet almost unknown artist, of whom, in books upon

the art, I have found mention only of two works, although I have myself

seen a great number. He was cautious too that posterity should not forget

him, for the most part inscribing his name and country upon his

altar-pieces, and upon pictures for private ornament, as follows: _Marcus

Pictor Foroliviensis_: or _Marcus Palmasanus P. Foroliviensis pinsebat_. He

seldom adds the year, as in two in possession of prince Ercolani, on the

first of which we find the date of 1513, and on the second that of 1537. In

the forementioned pictures, and more particularly in those of Forli, we may

perceive that he practised more than one style. His earliest was in common

with that of the quattrocentisti, in the extremely simple position of the

figures, in the gilt ornaments in study of each minute part, as well as in

the anatomy, which in those times consisted almost wholly in drawing with

some skill a S. Sebastian, or some holy anchorite. In his second manner he

was more artificial in his grouping, fuller in his outlines, and greater in

his proportions; though at times more free and less varied in his heads. He

was accustomed to add to his principal subject some other unconnected with

it, as in his picture of the Crucifixion, at S. Agostino di Forli, where he

inserted two or three groups on different grounds; in one of which is seen

S. Paul visited by S. Antony; in another, S. Augustine convinced by the

angel on the subject of the incomprehensibility of the Supreme Triad; and

in these diminutive figures, which he inserted either in the altar-pieces

or on the steps, he displays an art extremely refined and pleasing. His

landscape is likewise animated, and his architecture beautiful, while his

Madonnas and other portraits are superior in point of beauty to those of

Costa, but not equal to Francia, whose style of colouring he less resembles

than that of Rondinello; a circumstance which led Vasari to attribute to

the artist of Ravenna an altar-piece in the cathedral, undoubtedly from the

hand of Palmegiani. The works of the latter are very numerous in Romagna;

and exist in the state of Venice. One of his Madonnas was in possession of

the Ab. Facciolati, in Padua, and mentioned by Bottari; and another belongs

to the Sig. Dottore Antonio Larber, at Bassano. The select gallery of Count

Luigi Tadini, at Crema, possesses a third; the going up of Jesus to Mount

Calvary; and I saw a Dead Christ, between Nicodemus and Joseph, in the

Vicentini palace at Vicenza; a very beautiful picture, in which the dead

has truly the appearance of death, and those living of real life. I had

long entertained a curiosity to learn whose pupil so considerable an artist

could have been; until I was gratified by finding that Paccioli, in his

dedication of the above cited volume, addressed to Guidubaldo, Duke of

Urbino, calls him the "attached disciple of Melozzo."

I was made acquainted with an artist of Forli, who flourished at the period

of Palmegiani, by his Eminence Card. Borgia, who in the church of S. Maria

dell'Orto, at Velletri, transcribed the following inscription: "Jo.

Baptista de Rositis de Forlivio pinxit, I. S. O. O. de Mense Martii." The

picture is on panel, and displays both good design and good colouring. It

represents the Virgin, with the holy child in her arms, seated in a round

temple supported by four columns, and each of these columns is clasped by

an angel, as if bearing the temple in procession through the air. The

angels are wholly arrayed in heroic dress. For this description I am

indebted to the very worthy cardinal.

In respect to the other cities of Romagna, I can easily suppose that I am

rather in want of materials, than that these have had no artists to boast.

I have recorded, not long since, one Ottaviano, and also one Pace da

Faenza, pupils of Giotto; and there was pointed out to me as the production

of the latter, an ancient figure of our Lady, in a church of the same city,

an edifice formerly belonging to the Templars. Giacomo Filippo Carradori is

included, from his style, among the ancients; in other points it is hardly

possible that he could have reached the fifteenth century. There are more

especially two pictures, in which he exhibits a change of style, although

he never displayed the powers of a superior artist. One of them bears the

date of 1580; the other that of 1582.

Another artist of Faenza better deserved mention in the first edition, but

I had then no account of him. This was Giambatista da Faenza, one of whose

pictures is preserved in the Communal Collection of the Lyceum, with the

author's name, and dated 1506. It exhibits the Holy Virgin; on whose right

two angels support the mantle, and on the steps of the throne appear St.

John the Baptist, a youth, and another cherub, in the act of playing on the

harp. It is correct in point of design, the tints are very pleasing, and

the folds something similar to those of Albert Durer; in other respects,

equal to Costa, and perhaps, also, not inferior to Francia. He was the

father of Jacopone da Faenza, and of his brother, Raffaello, from whom

descended Gio. Batista Bertuzzi, likewise an artist.

There is a Francesco Bandinelli da Imola, a pupil of Francia, pointed out

by Malvasia; and one Gaspero, also of Imola, was employed in painting at

Ravenna. In his native state, there is to be seen, at the Conventual

friars, a picture of our Lady, between Saints Rocco and Francis, in a style

inclining to the modern, accompanied with two portraits, very animated in

point of expression.

SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA.

EPOCH II.

_Various styles from the time of Francia to that of the

Caracci._

Subsequent to the discovery of the new style, when every school of Italy

was devoted to its cultivation in the track of one of its masters, the

Bolognese artists having none at home from whom to acquire it, either

removed elsewhere to study it under the eye of living masters, or, if

remaining in their native place, they contrived to attain it from such

foreigners as had there conducted, or at least sent thither their works. Of

these they possessed, besides the St. Cecilia, and a few small paintings by

Raffaello, other productions by his pupils, such as the St. John, coloured

by Giulio, and the St. Zacchary, a work by Garofolo. Nor was it long before

the Lombard style was introduced into Bologna, Parmigianino having there

produced his St. Rocco and his St. Margaret, pictures which are enumerated

among his happiest efforts, and Girolamo da Carpi, and Niccolo dell'Abate

having long resided, and left there many fine specimens of their mixed

style, between the Lombard and the Roman. Another artist sojourning there

was Girolamo da Trevigi, an imitator of Raffaello, not without some mixture

of Venetian taste, some of whose productions are still seen at Bologna. A

still more constant resident there was Tommaso Laureti, a Sicilian, a

pupil, according to Vasari, of Sebastian del Piombo, and assuredly a more

powerful colourist than most of his age. He there conducted a number of

works, and among others the painting of a recess _di sotto in su_, for the

house of Vizzani, which Father Danti, commending Vignola's perspective,

pronounces perfectly unique in its kind. At the same place he left

compositions abounding in figures, displaying much fancy, not however to be

placed in competition with the history of Brutus, which he afterwards

completed, along with several more in the Campidoglio at Rome, where he

long resided and taught. At Bologna is also the altar-piece of Boldraffio,

pupil to Vinci, and various other pieces by a Florentine, who signs himself

_Iul. Flor._ read by some for _Julius_, and by others _Julianus_. Possibly

he might be that Giulian Bugiardini, poor both as inventor and composer,

but excellent in point of copying and colouring. Whoever he may have been,

the whole of his productions, particularly his St. John, which adorns the

Sacristy of St. Stephen's, shew him to have been an imitator of Vinci,

almost on a par with the Luini, and the best known Milanese artists.

Michelangiolo shone there in the character of a statuary in the time of

Julius II., but neither produced any paintings, nor left behind him, among

artists, any wish for his return, having for some little indiscreet word

treated Francia and Costa with the most sovereign contempt, in the same

manner as at another period he criticised Pietro Perugino. His style,

nevertheless, took root in Bologna within a very few years, no less from

the studies pursued by Tibaldi at Rome, as will be seen, than from the

examples left by Giorgio Vasari at San Michele in Bosco, in Bologna, in

Michelangiolo's style. Nor did these examples prove more useful to the

Bolognese than they had done to the Florentine artists; and here also they

opened the path to a less correct style. It is known that Vasari's works

were much commended there, and copied by young artists; that he had,

moreover, assistants among the Bolognese, such as Bagnacavallo, the

younger, and Fontana, who instructed not a few of his fellow citizens in

the art. To these causes we may attribute the circumstance, that those

Bolognese artists, nearest to the Caracci, were accustomed to colour, for

the most part, like the Florentines of the third epoch, that several were

extremely careless of the chiaroscuro, and frequently pursued the ideal and

the practical, more than nature and truth. Yet these complaints do not

apply either to so great a number of Bolognese, or to so long a period, as

to give a different aspect to the whole epoch. The one which we are now

about to describe, abounds with excellent artists; and to this shortly

succeeded the epoch of the Caracci, which improved the good, and brought

many extravagant artists into a correct method.

The earliest founders of the new school were Bartolommeo Ramenghi, called

Bagnacavallo, being sprung from thence, and Innocenzio Francucci da Imola.

Both educated by Francia, the former subsequently went to Rome, where we

have given an account of him among Raffaello's assistants; the latter to

Florence, where he attached himself to the school of Albertinelli, besides

studying very accurately, if I mistake not, the works of Frate and Andrea

del Sarto. Both, on returning to Bologna, met with rivals, though less with

the pencil than the tongue, in Aspertini and Cotignuola, artists whose

works present no instance of a style wholly modern. One master, Domenico, a

Bolognese, then flourished, equal to compete with the first names, but who

resided out of his native place. His name, lost during two or more

centuries, was brought to light, a few years ago, from the archives of S.

Sigismondo of Cremona, in whose church he executed, upon the ceiling, a

picture of Jonah ejected from the whale, which, in respect of the _di sotto

in su_, is most admirable. It was completed in 1537, when this art was yet

new in Italy; and I am at a loss to say whether Domenico acquired it from

Coreggio, or, as is more likely, from Melozzo, whose style he most

resembles of the two. I have seen no other work, nor met with any other

notice of this artist, unknown even to the Bolognese historians, perhaps on

account of his constant residence out of the place.

The first artist, therefore, who introduced a new style into Bologna, and

established it there, was Bagnacavallo, who had practised at Rome under

Raffaello, and not without advantage. He had not the depth of design

possessed by Giulio Romano, or Perino; but he nearly approached to the

latter, and was perhaps equal to him in taste of colouring, while, in the

gracefulness of his countenances, at least of the infantine and boyish, he

surpassed him. In his composition he most affected Raffaello, as may be

gathered from the celebrated Dispute of St. Augustine at the Scopetini,

where the maxims of the School of Athens, and of other copious and noble

conceptions of Sanzio, are apparent. Indeed in those subjects, treated by

the latter, Bagnacavallo contented himself with being a mere copyist,

declaring that it was madness to attempt to do better; in which it would

seem he followed Vida's opinion, and that of other poets of his age, who

inserted in their pages fragments of Virgil, because they despaired of

excelling him. Such a maxim, which, whatever truth it may contain, opens a

wide field for indolence and plagiarism, very probably injured him in the

eyes of Vasari, who confers on him the praise due to a good practitioner

rather than to a master grounded in the theory of his art. Still he

conducted some paintings, on the strength of his own invention, at S.

Michele in Bosco, at S. Martino, and at S. Maria Maggiore, which absolve

him from such an accusation; nor can I believe that the Caracci, Albano,

and Guido, would have copied from him and imitated his works, had they not

recognized in them the hand of a master.

There was a son of Bagnacavallo, named Gio. Batista, who was employed as an

assistant to Vasari in the palace of the chancery at Rome, and to

Primaticcio in the court of France. He likewise left various original works

in Bologna, more nearly inclining, if I judge rightly, to the decline of

the art in his own time, than to the examples of his father. In addition to

his son, mention ought here to be made of Bagnacavallo's companion, called

Biagio Pupini, and sometimes Maestro Biagio dalle Lamme, who, having been

at Rome with Ramenghi, contracted with him at Bologna a community of

labours and of interests, and assisted him in the Dispute just before

mentioned, as well as in other works. He formed the same connexion with

Girolamo da Trevigi and others, uniformly acquiring, if we are to credit

Vasari, more money than reputation, and at times injuring that of his

companion by his eagerness to finish. Whatever opinion we may entertain

regarding such facts, this artist by no means merits contempt; and perhaps

Vasari might have treated him with more lenity, had there not existed

between them mutual rivalship and disgust. In Pupini's style, where he

exerted his powers, we trace the manner of Francesco Francia, his master,

though a good deal enlarged, with the relief, and the various other

characteristics of the good age. Of this taste is a Nativity of our Lord

which he painted at Bologna, and which now adorns the institution of that

place.

Innocenzio, born at Imola, but residing always in Bologna, was admitted

into the school of Francia in 1506; from which we are not to infer, with

Malvasia, that he did not spend some years at Florence in company with

Albertinelli. This is attested by Vasari, and confirmed by the resemblance

of his style to that of the most distinguished Florentines of the age. He

produced several altar-pieces, composed in the taste of the fourteenth

century; but following the example of Frate and of Andrea, he placed the

Virgin above, without the ancient gildings, and with great art he grouped

and disposed the saints who attend her; while, with equal novelty, he

distributed the train of cherubs over the steps and through the surrounding

space. Sometimes, as in the extraordinary picture displayed in the

cathedral of Faenza, and another in possession of prince Ercolani, he added

some noble architecture, bold and drawn from the antique. In other

instances, as in the church of the Osservanti, at Pesaro, we observe the

most attractive landscape, combined with an aerial perspective, sufficient

to remind us of Vinci. He was accustomed too to insert little histories, as

in S. Giacomo at Bologna, where, at the foot of the picture, he painted a

Christ in the manger, of which it is enough to add, that it is perfectly

Raffaellesque. This, indeed, was the style to which he invariably aspired,

and so nearly attained, that very few of Raffaello's own pupils could equal

him. Those who may be desirous of convincing themselves, may examine the

altar-piece at Faenza in all its parts, and that of S. Michele in Bosco; to

say nothing of his Madonnas and his Holy Families, interspersed throughout

the Bolognese collections, and in the adjacent cities. He is preferred to

Francia and to Bagnacavallo, in all that relates to erudition, majesty, and

correctness. I am not aware that he executed compositions very new, or

subjects requiring fire and vigour, nor would they have been consistent

with his genius, which is described as of a gentle and tranquil cast.

The fame of the two masters, just celebrated, did not then extend far

beyond their native districts, being eclipsed by the celebrity of many

contemporaries, who swayed the regions of the art; in the list of whom was

Giulio Romano. His reputation drew to Mantua Francesco Primaticcio,

instructed in design by Innocenzio, and by Bagnacavallo in colouring. Under

Giulio he afterwards became a painter on a great scale, and a very copious

composer of large histories, as well as a decorator in wood and stucco in a

magnificent style suitable only for a palace. In this way, having studied

six years in Mantua, he was sent by Giulio to the court of the French king

Francis, and there, though Rosso the Florentine had arrived a year before,

and executed a variety of works, yet we learn that "the first stuccos and

the first works in fresco of any consideration in France, took their rise

from Primaticcio," in the words of Vasari. Nor has he omitted to mention,

that the king bestowed upon this artist the abbey of St. Martin, though he

did not add that it brought him an annual income of eight thousand crowns,

while Rosso possessed only a canonship worth one thousand. In regard to

this last omission he is severely taxed with malice by Malvasia, with what

reason the reader will best judge for himself. We farther learn from Vasari

that this artist employed himself, as well as his young assistants, in

decorating a number of the halls and chambers at Fontainebleau, that he

supplied the court with many ancient marbles, and many moulds of excellent

sculpture, from which he had casts afterwards taken in bronze; in a word,

that he was like another Giulio, if not in architecture, at least in every

other kind of knowledge appertaining to the arts. The works conducted by

him in France have been described by Felibien, and from the same pen is

that appropriate eulogy--"that the geniuses of France are indebted to

Primaticcio and to M. Niccolo, (dell'Abate) for many exquisite productions,

and that they are entitled to the fame of having been the first who

introduced Roman taste into France, with all the beau ideal of ancient

painting and sculpture." At the Te of Mantua there remains the frieze of

stuccos, so highly commended by Vasari, from Primaticcio's own hand, as

well as a few pictures, which last, however, are not so assuredly his. His

pictures indeed are objects of the utmost rarity in Italy, and in Bologna

itself. In the grand Zambeccari gallery there is a concert by him, with

three female figures, altogether enchanting; the forms, the motions, the

colouring, the taste of the lines and folding so easy and chaste, all

combined with a certain originality pervading the whole, are well

calculated to attract and rivet the eye at the first moment. When dying, he

assigned Niccolo Abati, called too dell'Abate, to continue his grand works,

because he had brought him from Bologna, and laid the ground-work of his

fortunes. An account of this delightful painter may be found in the

Modenese School. He was not Primaticcio's pupil, but one Ruggiero Ruggieri

was, and conducted by him into France, he left few paintings in his own

country; to whom we may perhaps add one Francesco Caccianemici, called by

Vasari his disciple, from whose hand, at Bologna, there only remain a few

doubtful specimens.

Much under the same circumstances as Primaticcio and Abati appeared

Pellegrino Pellegrini, whose patronymic was Tibaldi, a native of Valdelsa

in the Milanese; though residing from his childhood, educated, and

established at Bologna. He next filled the same situation at the court of

Spain, as the two preceding had done at that of France; he decorated it

with his paintings, improved its taste in architecture, formed pupils, and

rose in fortune until he at length became Marquess of that Valdelsa, where

his father and uncle had resided as poor masons before they went to

Bologna. It is not known who first imbued his liberal spirit with the

elements of learning; but Vasari traces his progress from some pictures of

his in the refectory of S. Michele in Bosco, copied by Tibaldi when young,

along with other select pieces at Bologna. From this place he follows him

to Rome in 1547, eager to study the finest works in that capital, where,

after three years' residence, he re-conducts him to Bologna, still very

young, but advanced in the knowledge of his art. His style was in great

part formed upon the models of Michelangiolo--vast, correct in drawing,

bold, and happy in his foreshortenings; yet, at the same time, tempered

with so much mellowness and softness, as to induce the Caracci to

denominate him the reformed Michelangiolo. The first work which he

conducted, subsequent to the year 1550, is in the Bolognese Institution,

and it is the most perfect, in Vasari's opinion, ever executed by him. It

contains in particular various stories from the Odyssey, and this work,

with that by Niccolino, mentioned elsewhere,[11] both executed for the

Institution, were afterwards finely engraved by Sig. Antonio Buratti of

Venice, accompanied with the lives of the two painters, written by Zanotti.

Both there, and in the great merchants' hall at Ancona, where he

subsequently represented Hercules, the monster-slayer, Tibaldi exhibited

the true method of imitating the terrible in the style of Michelangiolo,

which consisted in a fear of too nearly approaching him. Although Vasari

greatly commends these works, the Caracci, to whose judgment we would

rather defer, have bestowed higher praises on those executed by Pellegrino

for the church of S. Jacopo; and it was on these pictures that both the

Caracci and their pupils bestowed most study. In one is represented the

preaching of St. John in the desert; in another the separation of the elect

from the wicked, where, in the features of the celestial messenger

announcing the tidings, Pellegrino displayed those of his favourite

Michelangiolo. What a school for design and for expression is here! What

art in the distribution of such a throng of figures, in varying and in

grouping them! In Loreto too, and in different adjacent cities, he produced

other histories, less celebrated perhaps, but all nearly as deserving of

the burin as those executed at Bologna. Such is the Entrance of Trajan into

Ancona, in possession of the Marchese Mancinforte; and various exploits of

Scipio, belonging to the accomplished nobleman, Marchese Ciccolini, which

decorate one of his halls, where he himself pointed them out to me. It is a

work conceived in a more refined and graceful taste than we meet with in

other compositions of Tibaldi; and of the same composition I have seen some

of his pictures on a very small scale; but rare, like all his pieces in

oil; wrought with the exquisite finish of a miniaturist; mostly rich in

figures, full of fine spirit, vivid colouring, and decorated with all the

pleasing perspectives that architecture could afford. This indeed was his

favourite art; which, after he had afforded some beautiful specimens of it

in Piceno, and next at Milan, procured him an appointment from Philip II.

to superintend the engineers at the Spanish Court. There again, after the

lapse of twenty years, during which he never touched the easel, he resumed

the art of painting; and we meet with a list of his works in the Escurial

of Mazzolari.

Footnote 11: In vol. iv. p. 47.

Domenico Tibaldi de' Pellegrini, once conjectured to be the son, was the

pupil and brother of Pellegrino; and his name is in great repute among the

architects and engravers of Bologna. His epitaph at San Mammolo states him

also to have been a distinguished painter; but we must receive the

authority of epitaphs with some caution; and not even a portrait from his

hand is to be met with. Faberio speaks less highly of his powers, and in

the funeral oration upon Agostino Caracci, whose master he had been, he

mentions him as an able designer, engraver, and architect. Pellegrino's

pupils in painting, and no obscure artists, were Girolamo Miruoli,

commended by Vasari among the artists of Romagna, who left one of his

frescos at the Servi, in Bologna, and several other pieces at Parma, where

he filled the office of court-painter, and there died; and secondly, Gio.

Francesco Bezzi, called Nosadella, who painted a great deal at Bologna and

in other cities, in the style of his master, exaggerating it in point of

power, but not equalling it in care, and in short, reducing it to mere

mechanic labour and despatch.

Vasari, in his life of Parmigianino, has mentioned with praise Vincenzio

Caccianemici, of a good family in Bologna, respecting whom there have been

some discussions, to avoid confounding him with Francesco, who bore the

same surname. The correctors of the old _Guide_ suppose him to be the

author of a Decollation of St. John, placed at S. Petronio, in the family

chapel; a picture well designed and better coloured, and executed, as they

observe, in the style of Parmigianino.

Whilst the three great geniuses of the Bolognese School were residing

abroad, the two first mentioned in France, and the third in Milan, and

afterwards in Spain, the art continued stationary, or, more correctly,

declined in Bologna. In the year 1569 three masters are pointed out by

Vasari, namely, Fontana, Sabbatini, and Sammachini, whom he calls

Fumaccini. For what reason he excluded Ercole Procaccini, an artist, if not

of great genius, at least of finished execution, I am unable to say.

Certain it is that Lomazzo, whilst he resided with him in Milan, mentioned

him in the highest terms, and enumerated in the list of his pupils

Sabbatini, and Sammachini too. I shall not here repeat what I have detailed

in the Milanese School respecting Ercole and his sons; but, passing on to

the others, I shall begin with Fontana, the principal cause of the decline

above alluded to.

The long protracted life of this artist comprehended the whole of the

period now under our view, and even extended beyond it. Born in the time of

Francia, educated by Imola, who at his death selected him to finish one of

his pictures, and subsequently employed for a long period as the assistant

of Vaga, and of Vasari, he continued to labour and to teach without

intermission, until the Caracci, once his disciples, drew all his

commissions and followers to themselves. For this result he was indebted to

his own conduct. Devoted to pleasure (the most fatal enemy to an artist's

reputation) he could only provide the means of gratification by burthening

himself with works, and executing them with little care. He possessed a

fertility of ideas, a vehemence, and a cultivation of mind, well adapted

for works of magnitude. Abandoning, therefore, the careful finish of

Francucci, he adopted the method of Vasari, and like him covered with his

works a vast number of walls in a short space of time, and nearly in the

same taste. In design he is more negligent than Vasari, in his motions more

energetic; his colours have the same yellow cast, but rather more delicacy.

In Citta di Castello a hall of the noble family of Vitelli is filled with

family histories, painted by him in a few weeks, as Malvasia informs us,

and the work confirms the assertion. Similar specimens, or but little

superior, are met with in Rome, at the Villa Giulia, and at the Palazzo di

Toscana, in the Campo Marzio, and in various houses in Bologna. Yet in

other places he appears an artist of merit for a declining age; as in his

Epiphany, at the Grazie, where he displays a facility, a pomp of drapery,

and a magnificence nearly approaching the style of Paul Veronese. This work

bears the name of the painter written in letters of gold. But his best

claim to distinction is founded on his portraits, which are more highly

prized in cabinets than are his compositions in the churches. It was this

talent which induced Michelangiolo to present him to Julius III. by whom he

was pensioned as one of the Palatine painters of his time.

He had a daughter and a pupil in Lavinia Fontana, named also Zappi, from

the family of Imola, into which she was married. This lady executed several

altar-pieces at Rome and at Bologna in the paternal style, as far as

regards colouring; but less successful in point of design and composition.

She felt the inferiority, as is observed by Baglione, and sought reputation

from portrait-painting, a branch in which she is preferred by some to

Prospero. It is certain that she wrought with a sort of feminine

perseverance, in order that her portraits should more faithfully express

every line and feature of nature in the countenances, every refinement of

art in the drapery. She became painter to Pope Gregory XIII., and was more

particularly applied to by the Roman ladies, whose ornaments she displayed

more perfectly than any male artist in the world. She attained to so high a

degree of sweetness and softness in the art, especially after knowing the

works of the Caracci, that one or two of her portraits have been attributed

to Guido. With equal ability she produced a number of cabinet pictures,

such as that Holy Family for the Escurial, so much commended by Mazzolari,

and her Sheba at the throne of Solomon, which I saw in the collection of

the late Marchese Giacomo Zambeccari. She has there expressed, in the form

of allegory, the Duke and Duchess of Mantua, surrounded by many lords and

ladies of their court, arrayed in splendid style; a painting that would

reflect credit on the Venetian School. Gifted with such genius, she was by

no means chary of her own likenesses executed by herself, which ornament

the royal gallery of Florence and other collections. But there remains no

specimen more truly speaking and delightful than the one belonging to the

Conti Zappi, at Imola, where it is accompanied by the portrait of Prospero

in his declining days, also painted by her.

Lorenzo Sabbatini, called likewise Lorenzin di Bologna, was one of the most

graceful and delicate painters of his age. I have heard him enumerated

among the pupils of Raffaello by keepers of the galleries, deceived

doubtless by his Holy Families, designed and composed in the best Roman

taste, although invariably more feebly coloured. I have also seen some of

his Holy Virgins and Angels painted for private ornament, which resemble

Parmigianino. Nor were his altar-pieces inferior; the most celebrated of

which is that of St. Michael, engraved by Agostino Caracci, from an altar

of S. Giacomo Maggiore; and this he held up as an example of gracefulness

and beauty, to his whole school. He was, moreover, a fine fresco painter,

correct in design, of copious invention, universal master in the subjects

of the piece, and what is still more remarkable, most rapid in point of

execution. Endowed with such qualities, he was engaged by many noble houses

in his native place; but on proceeding to Rome in the pontificate of

Gregory XIII., according to Baglione, he there met with success; insomuch,

that even his fleshes and naked figures were highly commended, though this

was by no means a branch of his pursuits at Bologna. In the Capella

Paolina, he represented the histories of St. Paul; in the royal hall, the

picture of Faith, shewn in triumph over Infidelity; in the gallery and the

lodges a variety of other pieces, always in competition with the best

masters, and always with equal applause. Hence, in the immense list of

artificers at that period congregated at Rome, he was selected to preside

over the labours of the Vatican, in the enjoyment of which honourable post

he died at an early age in 1577.

It is difficult to believe, as asserted by some writers, that Giulio

Bonasone was his pupil, an artist who practised engraving in copper as

early as 1544. On reaching a more mature age, he seems to have devoted

himself to painting, leaving several paintings on canvass, but feeble and

varying in their style. At S. Stefano there is one of Purgatory, in the

style of Sabbatini, extremely fine, and composed, as it is conjectured,

with the assistance of Lorenzino. The productions, also, of Cesare Aretusi,

of Felice Pasqualini, and of Giulio Morina, are in existence, though the

name of Sabbatini might perhaps be justly substituted for theirs; such was

the part he took in their labours. The latter, with Girolamo Mattioli,

after the celebrity gained by the Caracci, became their eager followers.

The labours of Mattioli, who died young, were distributed among different

private houses, particularly in that of the noble family of Zani: those of

Morina are seen in various churches at Bologna, and for the most part

betray a degree of affectation of the style of Parma, at which city he some

time painted in the service of the duke.

Orazio Samacchini, the intimate friend of Sabbatini, his contemporary, and

who followed him at a short interval to the tomb, began his career by

imitating Pellegrino and the Lombards. Proceeding next to Rome, and

employed in painting for the royal hall, under Pius IV.; he succeeded in

catching the taste of the Roman School, for which he was praised by Vasari,

(who calls him Fumaccini) and afterwards by Borghini and Lomazzo. In the

display of this his new style, however, he contrived to please others more

than himself; and returning to Bologna, he was accustomed to lament that he

had ever removed from upper Italy, where he might have carried his early

manner to greater perfection, without deviating in search of a new. Still

he had no reason to feel dissatisfied with that which he had thus formed of

various others, and so moulded by his own genius, as to exhibit something

singular in its every character. In his altar-piece of the Purification, at

S. Jacopo, it is all exquisite delicacy, in which the leading figures

enchant us with at once a majestic and tender expression of piety; while

those infant figures seen conversing near the altar, and that of the young

girl holding a little basket with two doves, gazing on them in so peculiar

a manner, delight us with their mingled simplicity and grace. Skilful

judges even can take no exceptions but to the display of too great

diligence, with which, during several years, he had studied and polished

this single painting. This, however, as one of the most celebrated of its

school, was engraved by Agostino, and it would seem that even Guido availed

himself of it in his Presentation, painted for the cathedral of Modena, yet

he was an equally powerful artist where his subjects required it of him.

His chapel, of which we gave an account in the Parmese School, is highly

commended, though his most vigorous effort is shewn in the ceiling of S.

Abbondio, at Cremona. The grand and the terrible seem to strive for mastery

in the figures of the prophets, in all their actions and positions; the

most difficult from confinement of space, yet the best arranged and

imagined. There is, moreover, a truth in the shortenings, and a skilful use

of the _sotto in su_,[12] which appears in this instance to have selected

the most difficult portion of the art, in order to triumph over it. His

forte is believed to have consisted in grand undertakings in fresco, on

which he impressed, as it were, the seal of a vast spirit, at once resolute

and earnest, without altering it by corrections and retouches, with which

he laboured his paintings in oil, as we have stated.

Footnote 12: Foreshortening figures; here meant on a ceiling.

Bartolommeo Passerotti has been commended by Borghini and Lomazzo; and he

is casually named also by Vasari among the assistants of Taddeo Zuccaro;

indeed, it may rather be said, this is the artist with whom Vasari ceases

to write, and Malvasia to inveigh.[13] He possessed excellent skill in

designing with his pen; a gift which drew to his school Agostino Caracci,

and which assisted the latter as a guide in the art of engraving. He

likewise wrote a book, from which he taught the symmetry and anatomy of the

human body, essential to the artist; and was the first who, to make a

grander display, began to vary scriptural histories at Bologna by drawing

the naked torsi. The finest of these specimens are, the Beheading of St.

Paul, at Rome, in the Tre Fontane; and at S. Giacomo, of Bologna, a picture

of the Virgin among various saints; a work meant to compete with the

Caracci, and embellished by their praise. One of his pictures too of

"Tizio" was much celebrated, which, being exhibited to the public, was

supposed by the professors of Bologna to have been the work of

Michelangiolo. This exquisite degree of diligence and refinement he rarely

used; most generally he was bold and free, somewhat resembling Cesare, only

more correct. In his portraits, however, he is by no means a common

painter. After Titian, Guido included him among the very first, not

preferring before him the Caracci themselves, whose name, indeed, in

several galleries, is attached to the portraits of Passerotti. The most

commendable of all however, are those he executed for the noble family

Legnani--entire figures extremely varied in costume, in action, and

attitudes; it being his usual custom to compose portraits, such as Ridolfi

described of Paris, which should appear ideal pictures. By means of such a

talent, which made him agreeable to the great, by his polite and refined

manners and malicious strictures, he became a match for the Caracci; for

whom he also prepared rivals in a number of his sons, whom he carefully

instructed in the art. Among these, Tiburzio possessed real merit, of which

his fine picture of the Martyrdom of St. Catherine, conducted in the taste

of his father, displays sufficient proof. Passerotto and Ventura, however,

were below mediocrity. Aurelio was a good miniaturist, and in the same

branch Gaspero, a son of Tiburzio, also met with success. In the works of

Bartolommeo we often meet with a sparrow, the symbol of his own name; a

custom derived from the ancients, and followed by many of our own artists.

It is a well-known fact relating to two sculptors, Batraco and Sauro, that

for their proper names they substituted, the former a frog, and the latter

a lizard.