The History of Painting in Italy. Luigi Lanzi

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The painters that remain to be noticed, approach the golden age of the art, of which their works in some degree participate, notwithstanding the dryness of their design, and the general want of harmony in their colouring. The vehicle of their colours was commonly water, very rarely oil. They flourished in the time of Sixtus IV., who, having erected the magnificent chapel that retains his name, invited them from Florence. Their names are Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli, Luca da Cortona, and D. Bartolommeo d'Arezzo; whom I shall here introduce, together with their followers. Manni, the historian of some of these artists,[79] conjectures that this work was executed about the year 1474. They were desired to pourtray the history of Moses on one part of the chapel, and that of Christ on the other: thus the old law was confronted by the new, the shade by the light, and the type by the person typified. The pontiff was unskilled in the fine arts, but covetous of the glory they confer on the name and actions of princes. To superintend the work, he made choice of Sandro Filipepi, from his first master, a goldsmith, surnamed Botticelli, and the pupil of F. Filippo; a celebrated artist at that time, and distinguished by his pictures containing a great number of small figures in which he strongly resembled Andrea Mantegna; though his heads were less beautiful. Vasari says, that his little picture of the Calumny of Apelles, is as fine a production as possible, and he pronounces the Assumption, painted for the church of S. Pier Maggiore, to be so excellent, that it ought to silence envy. The former is in the royal gallery, the latter in a private house. What he painted in the Sistine Chapel, however, surpasses all his other works. Here we scarcely recognize Sandro of Florence. The Temptation of Christ, embellished with a magnificent temple, and a crowd of devotees in the vestibule; Moses assisting the daughters of Jethro against the Midianite shepherds, in which there is great richness of drapery, coloured in a new manner; and other subjects, treated with vigour and originality, exhibit him in this place greatly superior to his usual manner. The same observation applies to the painters we are about to notice: such were the effects produced by their emulation; by the sight of a city that is calculated to enlarge the ideas of those who visit it, and by the judgment of a public that is scarcely to be satisfied by what is above mediocrity, because its eye is habituated to what is wonderful.

      History does not point out the portion of this work that was performed by Filippino Lippi; the son, as we have already observed, of F. Filippo. It is however highly probable that he assisted; because he was his father's pupil from a very early age, and because the taste of Lippi, that delighted in portraying the usages of antiquity in his pictures, appears to have been formed while he was still young, and engaged in his studies at Rome. In the life which Cellini has written of himself, he tells us that he had seen several books of antiquities drawn by Lippi; and Vasari gives him credit for being the first who decorated modern paintings by the introduction of grotesques, trophies, armour, vases, edifices and drapery, copied from the models of antiquity; but this I cannot confirm, because it was before attempted by Squarcione. It is true that he excelled in those ornaments, in his landscape and in minute particulars. The S. Bernard of the Abbey, the Magi of the royal museum, and the two frescos in S. Maria Novella; the one the history of S. John, the other of S. Philip, the apostles, please more perhaps by these accessaries of the art than by the countenances, which, indeed, have not the beauty and grace of the elder Lippi. They are faithful portraits, but shew no discrimination. He was invited to Rome to ornament a chapel of the Minerva, in which there is an Assumption by his hand, and some histories of Thomas Aquinas, amongst which the Disputation is the best. In this chapel he shews great improvement in his heads, but was nevertheless surpassed in this respect by his pupil Raffaellino del Garbo, who painted a choir of angels on the ceiling, that would alone suffice to justify the name by which he was distinguished. In Monte Oliveto at Florence, there is a Resurrection by Raffaellino, where the figures are small, but so graceful withal, so correct in attitude, and so finely coloured, that we can scarcely rank him inferior to any master of that age. There is mention made by the learned Moreni, in the concluding part of his "Memorie Istoriche," (p. 168) of another of his beautiful altar-pieces, still in existence at S. Salvi, with the grado entire. Some early pictures are in a similar state; but becoming the father of a numerous family, he gradually degenerated in his style, and died in poverty and obscurity.

The second whom I have mentioned among the artists in the Sistine Chapel, is Domenico Corradi, surnamed Del Ghirlandaio, from the profession of his father.[80] He was a painter, an excellent worker in mosaic, and even contributed to the improvement of these arts. He painted in the Sistine Chapel the Resurrection of Christ, which has perished; and the Call of S. Peter and S. Andrew, which still remains. He is that Ghirlandaio, in whose school, or on whose manner, not only Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, his son, but also Bonarruoti, and the best artists of the succeeding era, formed their style. He possessed clearness and purity of outline, correctness of form, and variety of ideas, together with facility and uncommon diligence; he was the first Florentine, who, by means of true perspective, attained a happy method of grouping, and depth of composition.[81] He was among the first to reject the deep golden fringes to the drapery, that the old masters introduced; who, unable to render their figures beautiful, endeavoured, at least, to make them gaudy. Some of his pictures, however, yet remain, moderately illuminated with gold; as for instance, the Epiphany in the church of the Innocents at Florence. It is a fine work, as is also his chapel in the Holy Trinity, with the actions of S. Francis, and his Nativity, in the sacristy of that church. His most celebrated work is the choir of S. Maria Novella, on one side of which he designed the history of John the Baptist, on the other that of our Lady, and on another part the murder of the Innocents, so much commended by Vasari. It contains a vast many portraits of literary men, and noble citizens, and almost every head is from the life; but they are dignified, and judiciously selected. The hands and feet of the figures, however, do not correspond, and attention to this circumstance is the peculiar merit of Andrea del Sarto, who seems to have carried the manner of Ghirlandaio to perfection. Many works of the latter are scattered over Italy, in Rome, in Rimini, and at Pisa, at the Eremitani di Pietra Santa, and the Camaldolesi of Volterra; where besides the paintings in the refectory, there is in the church a figure of S. Romualdo, carved by Diana of Mantua. The pictures of this master should not be confounded with those of his scholars, as happens in many instances. Thus the holy families painted by his brothers or his scholars, frequently pass for his; but they are very far from meriting the praise we have justly bestowed on him. Davide, one of his brothers, became very eminent in mosaic; another, Benedetto, painted more in France than in Italy; Bastiano Mainardi, their brother-in-law, was rather the assistant of Domenico, than a painter of originality. Baldino Bandinelli, Niccolo Cieco, Jacopo del Tedesco, and Jacopo Indaco, are little known; except that the last is recorded as having assisted with Pinturicchio, at Rome, and was the brother of Francesco, better known as a painter at Montepulciano than in Florence.

      Cosimo Rosselli, whose noble family has produced several other artists, also wrought in the Sistine Chapel. Few of his works remain in public places in his own country, besides the miracle of the sacrament in the church of S. Ambrose, a fresco picture, full of portraits; in which we discover variety, character, and truth. Vasari praises his labours at Rome, less than those of his fellow artists. Being unable to rival his competitors in design, he loaded his pictures with brilliant colours and gilded ornaments, which, though it was at that time condemned by an improving taste, yet pleased the pontiff, who commended and rewarded him beyond all the other artists. Perhaps his best work there, is Christ preaching on the mount, in which the landscape is said to be the work of Pier di Cosimo, a painter likewise more remarkable for his colouring than his design; as is evident from a picture in the church of the Innocents, and his Perseus in the royal gallery. They are both, however, celebrated in history; the one as the master of del Porta, the other of Andrea del Sarto.

      No other Florentine was employed to paint in the Sistine Chapel; but Piero and Antonio Pollaiuoli, who were both statuaries and painters, came there not long afterwards and wrought in bronze the tomb of Sixtus IV. Some of their paintings may yet be seen in the church of S. Miniato, without the walls of Florence, and the altar-piece was transferred to the royal СКАЧАТЬ