The History Of Painting In Italy Volume I Part 15

Many landscapes, chiefly rural views, painted by Paolo Anesi, are dispersed through Florence, and there are also many of them in Rome.

Francesco Zuccherelli, a native of Pitigliano, born in the year 1702, was his scholar. On going to Rome, he resided there a long time, and first entered the school of Morandi, and afterwards of Pietro Nelli. His first intention was to study figures, but by one of those circ.u.mstances which discover the natural predilection, he applied himself to painting landscape; and pursued it in a manner that united strength and sweetness; and has been highly extolled not only in Italy, but over all Europe. His figures also were elegant, and these he was sometimes employed to introduce in the landscapes and architectural pieces of other artists. His princ.i.p.al field in Italy was Venice, where he was settled, until the celebrated Smith made him known in England, and invited him to that island, in which he remained many years, exercising his pencil for the court, and for the most considerable collections of pictures. He enjoyed the particular esteem of Count Algarotti; in the possession of whose heirs are two landscapes by Tesi, with figures by Zuccherelli: of the first artist I shall again speak in the school of Bologna. Algarotti was commissioned by the court of Dresden to procure the works of the best modern painters, and suggested to Zuccherelli subjects for two pictures, in which he succeeded admirably, and was employed to repeat them for the king of Prussia. In his old age he returned to Rome, and was employed there, at Venice and in Florence, where he died in 1788. These anecdotes of Zuccherelli I obtained along with many others from the Sig. Avvocato Lessi, a gentleman deeply versed in the fine arts.

The name of this artist brings to a fair conclusion the series of Florentine painters, which has been continued for little less than six centuries, in an uninterrupted succession of native artists, without the intervention of one foreign master in this school, at least one so eminent as to mark an era. With the exception of the last years, in which art was on the decline throughout Italy, the Florentine school, with all its merit, and that is undoubtedly very great, owes its progress to native genius. It was not unacquainted with foreign artists, but from them it disdained to borrow; and its masters never adopted any other style on which they did not engraft a peculiarity and originality of manner.

I might write much in praise of masters now living,[240] but I propose not to enter on their merits, and shall leave them wholly to the judgment of posterity. In other arts I indulge a greater lat.i.tude, but not frequently. I may add with truth, that during the course of six centuries, the artists of Florence have been fortunate in a government most auspicious to the fine arts. The last princes however of the Medicean family had shewn more inclination than activity in patronizing them; and the reign of the Emperor Francis I., though generally distinguished for enterprize,[241] was nevertheless that of an absent sovereign. The accession of the Grand Duke Peter Leopold to supreme power in Tuscany, in 1765, marked a new era in the history of the arts.

The palace and royal villas were repaired and embellished; and amid the succession of undertakings that attracted the best artists, painting was continually promoted. The improvement of the ducal gallery was most opportune for it; and afforded new commissions to painters, and new specimens of the art: for the Prince ordered all the inferior pieces to be removed from the collection, and their place to be supplied by vast numbers of choice pictures. Fine specimens of antique marbles were likewise added: to him Florence owes the Niobe of Praxiteles,[242] the Apollo, and other statues; the ba.s.so-relievos, and busts of the Caesars, which complete the grand series in the corridore: the cabinets of the gallery were then only twelve in number, and they contained a confused a.s.semblage of paintings, statues, bronzes, and drawings, antiquities and modern productions. He reduced this chaos to order; he separated the different kinds, a.s.signed separate apartments to each, made new purchases of what was before wanting, and increased the number of cabinets to twenty-one. This great work, one branch of which he was pleased to commit to my charge,[243] was worthy of record. I laid it before the public, in 1782, in a memoir, which was inserted also in the forty-seventh volume of the Journal of Pisa. Whoever compares this book with the Description of the Gallery, published in 1759, by Bianchi, will clearly perceive that Leopold was rather a second founder than a restorer of that emporium of the fine arts: so different is the arrangement, so remarkable are the additions to the building, to its ornaments, and to the articles it contains.[244] I have been diffuse in my description of the antiquities which appeared to me deserving of more particular elucidation; of the pictures I merely indicated the artist and the subject. Since that period, other descriptions of the gallery, by very able writers, have been given to the public, in which my nomenclature and expositions of the antiquities have been adopted; but a fuller and better catalogue of the paintings is given on the plan of that of the imperial cabinet of Vienna, and similar works.

Ferdinand III. who now for five years has promoted the welfare of Tuscany, succeeded no less to the throne of his august father, than to the protection of the fine arts. The new buildings already completed, as the right wing of the Pitti palace, or now begun, as the vestibule of the Laurentian library, which is to be finished upon a design of Michelangiolo, are matters foreign to my subject. Not so, however, are the additions made by the prince to the gallery and the academy of design. To the first he has added a vast number of prints and pictures of those schools in which it was formerly deficient; and the gallery is increased by a collection of Venetian and another of French masters, which are separately arranged in two cabinets.[245] The academy, since 1785, had been as it were created anew by his father; had obtained a new and magnificent edifice, new masters, and new regulations, circ.u.mstances already well known over Europe, and here unnecessary to be repeated.

This inst.i.tution, which required improvement in some particulars, has been at length completed, and its apartments and its splendour augmented by the son; seconded by the superintendence of those accomplished connoisseurs, the Marchese Gerini, the Prior Rucellai, and the Senator Alessandri. To the artists in every branch of the fine arts which were before in Florence, he has recently added the engraver Sig. Morghen, an ornament to the city and the state. The obligations of the fine arts to Ferdinand III., are eloquently stated by Sig. Cav. Puccini, a n.o.bleman of Pistoia, and superintendant of the ducal gallery, in an oration on the arts, p.r.o.nounced not long ago in this academy, of which he is the respected secretary, and since published, accompanied by engravings.[246]

[Footnote 229: Life of Matteo Rosselli, in tom. x. p. 72.]

[Footnote 230: Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Ital. (tom. viii. p. 258.) ed. Ven. "Pietro Berrettini, in addition to the letters pointed out by Mazzucch.e.l.li (Scritt. Ital. tom. ii. p. 925,) wrote also along with P.

Giandomenico Ottonelli da Fanano, a Jesuit, a 'Treatise upon painting and sculpture, their use and abuse; composed by a painter and a theologian.'" This work is become very rare.]

[Footnote 231: Lett. Pitt. tom. i. p. 44.]

[Footnote 232: In the Life of Luti. See Lett. Pitt. tom. i. p. 69.]

[Footnote 233: Lett. Pitt. tom. ii. p. 69.]

[Footnote 234: See Lett. Pitt. tom. ii. lett. 35.]

[Footnote 235: He was brother to Henry Hugford, a monk of Vallombrosa, to whom we owe, in a great measure, the progress of working in _Scagliola_, which was afterwards successfully practised in Florence by Lamberti Gori, his pupil; and at this day by the Signor Pietro Stoppioni, who receives numerous commissions. Although the portraits, and in general the figures, of a variety of colours, are very pleasing, yet the _dicromi_, or yellow figures upon a black ground, attract most notice, copied from ancient vases formerly called Etruscan, and these copies either form separate pictures, or are inserted for ornament in tablets. The tragic poet Alfieri caused his epitaph to be inscribed on one of these small tables covered with scagliola work. Being found after his death, it quickly spread abroad, but was not inscribed on his tomb.

Upon another of these he had written the epitaph of a great personage, whom he wished to be interred near him; and the two little tablets united together folded one upon another in the way of a _dittico_ or small altar, or of a book, on the side of which was written _Alfieri liber novissimus_. In this way others write, on tablets of scagliola, fine precepts from scripture, a philosophy that comes from and leads to heaven, intended to be placed in private sanctuaries, to aid meditation in sight of the crucifix. The silver tablets I have seen for the same purpose are more valuable, but less artificial.]

[Footnote 236: In his larger works (such as the altar-pieces at the Missionari and at the Monastero Nuovo,) it would appear that Conti aimed at approaching the style of Trevisani.]

[Footnote 237: See _Saggio Istorico della R. Galleria de Firenze_, tom.

ii. p. 72. This work, valuable for its learning and authenticity, is written by Sig. Giuseppe Bencivenni (formerly Pelli) a gentleman of Florence, and formerly director of the ducal gallery, who is also known by his other literary labours, on the lives of the most eminent painters, by the life of Dante, and by the learned dissertation on coins, appended to the lives of the followers of Cortona. He arranged the collection of modern coins, that of engravings and of drawings, and the paintings of the ducal gallery; of these, and also of the gems and medals, he has there left ma.n.u.script catalogues.]

[Footnote 238: See that work at p. 232.]

[Footnote 239: Tom iii. p. 113.]

[Footnote 240: It was necessary to confine myself thus in the preceding edition. In the present we may give free scope to our commendation of Tommaso Gherardini, a Florentine, and pupil to Meucci; and who, having completed his studies in the schools of Venice and Bologna, succeeded admirably in ba.s.so-relievo and chiaroscuro. He decorated a large hall in the Medicean gallery in fresco, and painted likewise much in oil for the imperial gallery of Vienna, for German and English gentlemen, and various countries that have ornamented their collections. He shewed, at least for his age, no less skill in fresco histories, which are seen in many Florentine palaces and villas. The best of these are such as he executed in mature age, or at his own suggestion; like his _Parnaso in Toscana_, placed in the Casa Martelli, one of his patrons from his early years; besides others in the n.o.ble houses of Ricciardi and Ambra. He died in 1797; the senator Martelli, on the decease of the Archbishop his uncle, and that of his father, continued his patronage to the artist, and considers him as one who has reflected the greatest degree of credit on his house. The clients of that family, from the time of Donatello, have been numerous, a taste for the fine arts being hereditary in the family. The master of the academy, Pietro Pedroni, ought not to be here omitted; an oil painter of merit, whose four pictures, executed subsequent to his studies at Parma and Rome, are an ornament to his native place. Owing to ill health, he produced little during his residence at Florence, which, added to other disappointments, induced him, always the best resource, to travel. If not a rare painter, he was at least an able master: profound in theory, and eloquent in conveying his knowledge to his pupils, of whom history will treat in the ensuing age. Their success, their affection and esteem for Pedroni, is the best eulogy on him which I can transmit to posterity.]

[Footnote 241: See _Il Saggio Istorico_ of Sig. Pelli, towards the conclusion.]

[Footnote 242: See _Le Notizie su la Scoltura degli antichi e i vari suoi stili_, p. 39. This short tract, ill.u.s.trative of many marbles in the ducal gallery, is inserted in the third volume of _Saggio di Lingua Etrusca_. It was intended as a preface to a full Description of the Museum, which was then in the press, but it was suspended in consequence of the numerous changes and additions made in that place.]

[Footnote 243: It was the cabinet of antiquities, not then arranged. In each cla.s.s I have noticed the additions of Leopold. To the busts of the Caesars I was able to add about forty, some of which had been purchased, and others removed from the royal palaces and villas. See the Description above quoted, p. 34. The collection of heads of philosophers and ill.u.s.trious men was almost all new. I give an account of it in p.

85. The series of busts of the Medicean family was completed at the same time, and Latin inscriptions were added, which are to be found in various descriptions of the gallery, with some errors, that are not to be attributed to me, but to the printers; and this remark applies to other royal epitaphs, as published in many books. The cabinet of antique bronzes is described in p. 55. For the collection of antique earthenware, see p. 157; of Greek and Latin inscriptions on stones, see p. 81. For the Hetruscan and carved cinerary urns, see p. 46. This cabinet I also endeavoured to ill.u.s.trate in _Saggio di Lingua Etrusca_, &c. published at Rome, in 1789. For the cabinet of antique medals, arranged by the celebrated Sig. Ab. Eckell, see p. 101; the others, arranged by Sig. Pelli, are mentioned a little before.]

[Footnote 244: After the departure of the prince, his bust in marble was erected, and beneath it the following inscription, of which he was pleased to approve:

PETRVS. LEOPOLDVS. FRANCISCI. AVG. F. AVSTRIACVS. M. D. E.

AD. VRBIS. SVAE. DECVS. ET. AD. INCREMENTVM. ARTIVM. OPTIMARVM

MVSEVM. MEDICEVM

OPERIBVS. AMPLIATIS. COPISQVE. AVCTIS

ORDINANDVM. ET. SPLENDIDIORE. CVLTV. EXORNANDVM. CVRAVIT

ANNO. M.DCC.Lx.x.xIX.

[Footnote 245: He employed in this work the highly esteemed Sig. Cav.

Puccini, from whom I understand, that almost a third of the pictures now in the gallery were placed there by the munificence of Ferdinand. Sig.

Puccini has arranged them in a manner so symmetrical and instructive as to form a model for all other collections.]

[Footnote 246: In 1801 Lodovico I. began his reign in Tuscany. Dying shortly after, he was succeeded by the infant Carlo I., under the regency of the Queen-mother Maria Louisa. From this period the arts have experienced new patronage and encouragement. The very copious and select Salvetti library has been appropriated for the use of the academy; a n.o.ble example to all parts of Italy, possessing similar inst.i.tutions. A new improvement also here made, is the reunion in one place of masters in scagliola, and mosaic work, gems, and the restoring of pictures, an occupation recently introduced; and in place of a master, who formerly presided, a director, with greater authority and emolument, has been appointed. Sig. Pietro Benvenuti, whom I dare not venture to commend as he deserves, for he is still living, was selected for this charge. The addition of casts also by our new rulers is of great utility, in particular those from the works of the celebrated Canova, who has been requested to produce a new statue of Venus, on the model of the Medicean, lost to us by the chance of war. The honour conferred by the queen regent upon the arts, deserves likewise a place in history; who, in the meeting of the academy, held in 1803, Sig. Alessandri being president, distributed rewards to the young students, and encouraged them to do well. It was upon this occasion that the same Cavaliere Puccini, secretary to the inst.i.tution, delivered another excellent discourse, intended to prove that the pursuit of the fine arts forms one of the most expeditious and least perilous paths to human glory;--a discourse that, equally for the credit of the writer and of the fine arts, was given to the world at Florence, in the year 1804.

BOOK II.

SIENESE SCHOOL.

EPOCH I.

_The old Masters._

The Sienese is the lively school of a lively people; and is so agreeable in the selection of the colours and the air of the heads, that foreigners are captivated, and sometimes even prefer it to the Florentine. But this gaiety of style forms not the only reason of this preference; there is another, which few have attended to, and none have ever brought forward. The choicest productions of the painters of Siena are all in the churches of that place; and he who wishes to become acquainted with the school, after having seen these, need not be very solicitous to visit the private collections, which are numerous and well filled. In Florence it is otherwise: no picture of Vinci, of Bonarruoti, of Rosso, is to be seen in public; none of the finest productions of Andrea, or of Frate, and few of any other master who has best supported the credit of the school: many of the churches abound in pictures of the third and fifth epochs; which are certainly respectable, but do not excite astonishment like the works of the Razzi, the Vanni, and other first rate artists, every where to be met with in Siena. They are, moreover, two different schools, and ought not to be confounded together in any work of art; possessing, for a long period of time, different governments, other heads of schools, other styles; and not affected by the same changes. A comparison between the two schools is drawn by P.

della Valle,[247] whom we have mentioned, and shall afterwards mention with respect; and his opinion appears to be, that the Florentine is most philosophical, the Sienese the most poetical. He remarks on this head, that the school of Siena, from its very beginning, displays a peculiar talent for invention; animating with lively and novel images the stories it represents; filling them with allegory, and forming them into spirited and well constructed poetic compositions. This originates in the elevated and fervid genius of the people, that no less aids the painter, whose poetry is addressed to the eye, than the bard who yields it to the ear. In the latter, and also in extemporary poets, the city abounds, and still maintains in public estimation, those laurels, which, after Petrarca and Ta.s.so, her Perfetti won in the capital. He likewise observes that those artists particularly attended to expression. Nor was this difficult, in a city so adverse to dissimulation as Siena, whose natural disposition and education have adapted the tongue and countenance to express the emotions of the heart. This vivacity of genius has perhaps prevented their attaining perfection in design, which is not the great attribute of those masters, as it is reckoned of the Florentines. To sum up all, the character of the school of Siena is not so original as that of some others; and we shall find, during its best period, that some of its artists distinctly imitated the style of other painters. With regard to the number of its artists, Siena has been prolific in the proportion of its population; its artists were numerous while it had many citizens; but on the decrease of the latter, its professors of the fine arts also diminished, until every trace of a school was lost.

The accounts of the early painters of Siena are rather confused during the three first centuries by the plurality of the Guidi, the Mini, the Lippi, the Vanni (abbreviations of Giacomo, Filippo, Giovanni), and such sort of proper names as are used without a surname: hence it is not sufficient to peruse only such accounts; we must reflect on them and compare them. They are scattered in many histories of the city, especially in Ugurgieri, who was pleased to ent.i.tle his work _Le Pompe Sanesi_; in the Diary of Girolamo Gigli; and in several works of the indefatigable Cav. Gio. Pecci, whom we have before noticed. Many ma.n.u.scripts, rich in anecdotes of painting, still remain in the libraries: of this number are the histories of Sigismondo Tizio, of Castiglione, who lived at Siena from 1482 to 1528; _the Cathedral of Siena_, minutely described by Alfonzo Landi; the _Treatise on old_ _Paintings_ of Giulio Mancini; and some _Memoirs_ of Uberto Benvoglienti, whom Muratori denominates _diligentissimus rerum suae patriae investigator_. From these, and other sources,[248] P. della Valle has drawn what is contained in the Lettere Sanesi, and repeated in the notes on Vasari concerning the school of Siena. By the work of Della Valle it has acquired a celebrity to which it has long been ent.i.tled. I take him for my guide in the doc.u.ments and anecdotes which he has given to the public;[249] in the older authorities I follow Vasari and Baldinucci in many circ.u.mstances, but dissent from them in others: and hostile to error, and anxious for the truth, I shall pursue the same plan with regard to the historians of the school of Siena. I shall omit many names of old masters, of whom no works now remain, and here and there shall add a few modern artists who have come to my knowledge, by the examination of pictures, or by the perusal of books.

The origin of the Sienese school is deduced either from the crusades in the east, whence some Grecian painter has been brought to Siena; or from Pisa, which, as we have seen, had its first artists from Greece. On such a question every one may judge for himself: to me the data necessary for resolving it appear to be wanting. I know that Italy was never dest.i.tute of painters, and artists who wrought in miniature; that from such, without any Grecian aid, or example, some Italian schools took their origin. Siena must have had them in the twelfth century. The _Ordo officiorum Senensis Ecclesiae_ which is preserved in the library of the academy at Florence, was written in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and exhibits initial letters, surrounded with illuminations of little stories and ornaments of animals. They are painted in vermilion, in a very hard and meagre style; but they are valuable on account of their era, 1213, in which they were executed by Oderico Canonico of Siena.[250] Similar books were ornamented by the same painter in the parchment of the leaves, and painted on the covers without;[251] and afford a proof that thus the art of ornamenting with miniatures might lead to large compositions. All, however, more or less, savour of the Greek design; either because the Italians were originally disciples of the Greeks, dispersed over Italy, or because they regarded the Grecian masters as models, and ventured not to attempt much beyond them.

The most ancient pictures in the city, the Madonna _of the Graces_, the Madonna of Tressa, the Madonna of Bethlehem, a S. Peter in the church dedicated to that saint, and a S. John the Baptist, surrounded by many small historical representations at S. Petronilla, are believed to be older than 1200; but it is by no means clear that they are the works of Italians, though often believed such from their initial characters, plaister, and design. On the two last the names of the saints near the figures are in Latin characters; a circ.u.mstance, however, which does not prove an Italian painter. On the mosaic works at Venice, on the Madonna of Camerino, brought from Smyrna,[252] and on other pictures executed by the Greeks for Italian cities, ignorant of their language, they wrote, or got others to write, inscriptions in Latin; and they did the same on statues.[253] The method of painting on gilt plaister, which we observe in some old pictures, decidedly Italian, is no argument; for I have several times observed a similar practice in what was unquestionably the work of a Greek artist. The drawing of the features in those pictures, the grimness of the aspect, and the composition of the stories, all accord with the productions of the Greeks. They may, therefore, have been painted by Greek artists, or by a scholar, or, at least, by an imitator of the Greeks. Who, then, can determine whence the artist came, whether he was a restorer of painting, and whether he executed those paintings at Siena, or sent them from some other place? This is certain, that painting quickly established itself at Siena, sent out roots, and rapidly multiplied its blossoms.

The series of painters known by name commences with Guido, or Guidone, already noticed in the beginning of this volume. He flourished before Cimabue of Florence saw the light; and seems to have been at the same time an illuminator of ma.n.u.scripts and a painter. The writers of Siena have declaimed against Vasari and Baldinucci for omitting this artist; notices of whom could not have escaped the former, who was many times at Siena; nor the latter, who was made acquainted with them before the publication of his _Decennali_. Cav. Marmi, a learned and celebrated Florentine, thus notices the omission in one of his letters.[254]

"Baldinucci laboured to make us credit the restoration of painting by Cimabue and Giotto; and to give stability to his hypothesis, it is probable that he omitted to make any mention of the painters who, independent of the two just named, departed from the raw and feeble manner of the Greeks." And Guido certainly left it not a little behind, in his picture of the Virgin, now hung up in the Malevolti chapel in the church of S. Domenico. On it he has thus inscribed his name and the date:

_Me Guido de Senis diebus depinxit amenis Quem Christus lenis nullis velit agere poenis_.

An. 1221.

And this example was often followed by the masters of this school, to the great benefit of the history of painting. The countenance of the Virgin is lovely, and partic.i.p.ates not in the stern aspect that is characteristic of the Greeks; we may discover some trace of a new style in the drapery. The Madonnas of Cimabue which are at Florence, the one in the church of the Trinity, the other in S. Maria Novella, are not, however, inferior. In them we may discern the improvement of the art; a more vivid colouring, flesh tints more true; a more natural att.i.tude of the head of the infant, while the accompaniments of the throne, and of the glory of angels, proclaim a superior style.