The History of Italian Painting. Luigi Lanzi

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СКАЧАТЬ which is now lost, to which may be added, a portrait of Frat' Elia, with this inscription, "F. Helias fecit fieri. Jesu Christe pie miserere precantis Heliæ. Juncta Pisanus me pinxit, An. D. 1236. Indit. IX." The inscription has been preserved by P. Wadingo in his annals of the Franciscan order for that year, and the historian describes the crucifixion as affabre pictum. The fresco works of Giunta were executed in the great church of the Franciscans, and according to Vasari he was there assisted by certain Greeks. Some busts and history pieces still remain in the gallery and the contiguous chapels, among which is the crucifixion of San Pietro, noticed in the Etruria Pittrice. Some believe that those paintings have been here and there injudiciously retouched, and this may serve to excuse the drawing, which may have been altered in many places, but the feebleness of the colouring cannot be denied. When they are compared with what Cimabue executed there about forty years afterwards, it seems that Giunta was not sufficiently forcible in this species of painting; perhaps he might have improved, but he is not mentioned after 1235; and it is conjectured that he died while yet a young man, at a distance from his native country. I am induced to believe so from observing, that Giunta di Giuntino is noticed in the records of Pisa, in the early part of that century, but not afterwards; and that Cimabue was sent for to paint the altar-piece and portrait of San Francesco of Pisa, about the year 1265, before he went to Assisi. It is more likely that Giunta would have executed this, had he returned home from that city, where he had seen and perhaps painted the portrait of the Holy Father.[40]

From this school the art is believed to have spread in these early times over all Tuscany, although it must not be forgotten that there were miniature painters there as well as in the other parts of Italy, who, transferring their art from small to large works, like Franco of Bologna, betook themselves, and incited others to painting on walls and on panel. Whatever we may choose to believe, Siena, at this period, could boast her Guido, who painted from the year 1221, but not entirely in the manner of the Greeks, as we shall find under the Sienese school. Lucca possessed in 1235 one Bonaventura Berlingieri. A San Francesco painted by him still exists in the castle of Guiglia, not far from Modena, which is described as a work of great merit for that age.[41] There lived another artist about the year 1288, known by his production of a crucifixion which he left at San Cerbone, a short distance from the city with this inscription; "Deodatus filius Orlandi de Luca me pinxit, AD 1288." Margaritone of Arezzo was a disciple and imitator of the Greeks, and by all accounts he must have been born several years before Cimabue. He painted on canvas, and if we may credit Vasari, made the first discovery of a method of rendering his pictures more durable, and less liable to cracking. He extended canvas on the panel, laying it down with a strong glue, made of shreds of parchment, and covered the whole with a ground of gypsum, before he began to paint. He formed diadems and other ornaments of plaster, giving them relief from gilding and burnishing them. Some of his crucifixions remain in Arezzo, and one of them is in the church of the Holy Cross at Florence, near another by Cimabue; both are in the old manner, and not so different in point of merit, but that Margaritone, however rude, may be pronounced as well entitled as Cimabue to the name of painter.

While the neighbouring cities had made approaches towards the new style, Florence, if we are to credit Vasari and his followers, was without a painter; but subsequent to the year 1250 some Greek painters were invited to Florence by the rulers of the city, for the express purpose of restoring the art of painting in Florence, where it was rather wholly lost than degenerated. To this assertion I have to oppose the learned dissertation of Doctor Lami, which I have just commended. Lami observes, that mention is made in the archives of the chapters of one Bartolommeo who painted in 1236, and that the picture of the Annunciation of our Lady, which is held in the highest veneration in the church of the Servi, was painted about that period. It is retouched in some parts of the drapery; it possesses, however, much originality, and for that age is respectably executed. When I prepared my first edition I had no knowledge of the work of Lami, which was not then published, and hence was unable to proceed further than to refute the opinion of those who ascribed this sacred figure to Cavallini, a pupil of Giotto. I reflected that the style of Cavallini appeared considerably more modern in his other works which I had examined at Assisi, and at Florence; yet, various artists whom I consulted, and among others Signor Pacini, who had copied the Annunciation, disputed with me this diversity of style. I further adduced the form of the characters written there in a book, Ecce Virgo concipiet, &c. which resemble those of the thirteenth century; nor have they that profusion of lines which distinguishes the German, commonly denominated the Gothic character, which Cavallini and other pupils of Giotto always employed. I rejoice that the opinion of Lami confirms my conjecture, and stamps its authenticity; and it seems to me highly probable that the Bartolommeo, whom he indicates, is the individual to whom the memorandums of the Servi ascribe the production of their Annunciation about the year 1250. The same religious fraternity preserve, among their ancient paintings, a Magdalen, which appears from the design and inscription, a work of the thirteenth century; and we might instance several coeval pictures that still exist in their chapter house, and in other parts of the city.[42]

      Having inserted these notices of ancient painters, and some others, which will be found scattered throughout the work, I turn to Vasari, and to the accusations laid to his charge. He is defended by Monsignor Bottari in a note at the conclusion of the life of Margaritone, taken from Baldinucci. He affirms, from his own observation, "That though each city had some painters, they were all as contemptible and barbarous as Margaritone, who, if compared to Cimabue, is unworthy of the name of painter." The examples already cited do not permit me to assent to this proposition; even Bottari himself will scarcely allow me to do so, as he observes, in another note on the life of Cimabue, "That he was the first who abandoned the manner of the Greeks, or at least who avoided it more completely than any other artist." But if others, such as Guido, Bonaventura, and Giunta, had freed themselves from it before his time, why are they not recorded as the first, in point of time, by Vasari? Did not their example open the new path to Cimabue? Did they not afford a ray of light to reviving art? Were they not in painting what the two Guidos were in poetry, who, however much surpassed by Dante, are entitled to the first place in a history of our poets? Vasari would therefore have acted better had he followed the example of Pliny, who commences with the rude designers, Ardices of Corinth, and Telephanes of Sicyon; he then minutely narrates the invention of Cleophantes the Corinthian, who coloured his designs with burnt earth; next, that of Eumarus the Athenian, who first represented the distinction of age and sex. Then comes that of Cimon of Cleonæ, who first expressed the various attitudes of the head, and aimed at representing the truth, even in the joints of the fingers and the folds of the garments. Thus, the merits of each city, and every artist, appear in ancient history; and it seems to me just, that the same should be done, as far as possible, in modern history. These observations may, at present, suffice in regard to a subject that has been made a source of complaint and dispute among many writers.

Nevertheless it cannot be denied that there is no city to which painting is more indebted than to Florence, nor any name more proper to mark an epoch, whatever may be the opinion of Padre della Valle,[43] than that of Cimabue. The artists whom I have before mentioned had few followers; their schools, with the exception of that of Siena, languished, and were either gradually dispersed, or united themselves to that of Florence. This school in a short time eclipsed every other, and has continued to flourish in a proud succession of artists, uninterrupted even down to our own days. Let us then trace it from its commencement.

Giovanni Cimabue, descended from illustrious ancestors,[44] was both an architect and a painter. That he was the pupil of Giunta is conjectured in our times, only because the Greeks were less skilful than the Italians. It ought to be a previous question, whether the supposed scholar and master ever resided in the same place, which it would seem, after the observations before adduced, can scarcely be admitted.[45] It appears from history, that he learnt the art from some Greeks who СКАЧАТЬ