The History of Italian Painting. Luigi Lanzi
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Название: The History of Italian Painting

Автор: Luigi Lanzi

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

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isbn: 4064066382186

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СКАЧАТЬ goldsmiths, was speedily practised there with success; I might even add, was greatly improved. For both the press and printer's ink being well known there, artists were enabled to add to the mechanic part of the art, improvements with which Italy was unacquainted; I will produce an example of what I mean, that cannot fail to convince. Printing of books was discovered in Germany: history and monuments alike confirm it, which are to be traced gradually from tabular prints to moveable types, still of wood, and from these to characters of metal. In such state was the invention brought to Italy, where, without passing through these intermediate degrees, books were printed not only in moveable characters of metal, but with tables cut in copper, thus adding to the art a degree of perfection which it wanted. Heineken objects that the Germans at that period had very little correspondence with the cities of Italy, with the exception of Venice, (p. 139). To this I answer that our universities of Pisa and Bologna, besides several others, were much frequented by young men from Germany, at that period; and that for the convenience both of strangers and of natives, a Dictionary of the German language was printed at Venice, in 1475, and in 1479, at Bologna; a circumstance sufficient of itself to prove that there was no little communication between the two nations. There are, besides, so many other reasons to believe that a great degree of intercourse subsisted, more particularly between Germany and Florence,[115] during the period we treat of; that we ought not to be at all surprised at the arts belonging to the one being communicated to the other. Hitherto I have pleaded, as far as lay in my power, the cause of my country; though without having been able, I fear, to bring the question to a close. Some time, it is possible, that those earliest essays and proofs of the art, which have hitherto eluded research, may be discovered: it is possible that some one of their writers, who are at once so truly learned and so numerous, may improve upon the hint thrown out by Heineken (p. 139), that the Germans and the Italians, without any kind of corresponding knowledge on the subject, struck out simultaneous discoveries of the modern art. However this may chance to be, it is my part to write from the information and authorities which I have before me.

      In my account of the second state of engraving, I shall not make mention of the German masters, in regard to whom I have not dates that may be thought sufficient; I shall confine my attention to those of Italy. I shall compare the testimony of Vasari and Lomazzo; one of whom supposes the art to have originated in Upper, the other in Lower Italy. In his Life of Marc Antonio, Vasari observes, that Finiguerra "was followed by Baccio Baldini, a Florentine goldsmith, who being little skilled in design, every thing he executed was after designs and inventions of Sandro Botticello. As soon as Andrea Mantegna learned this circumstance at Rome, he first began to turn his attention to the engraving of his own works." Now in the life of Sandro he makes particular mention of the time when he applied himself to the art, which was at the period he had completed his labours in the Sistine chapel. Returning directly after to Florence, "he began to comment upon Dante, he drew the Inferno, and engraved it, which occupying a large portion of his time, was the occasion of much trouble and inconvenience in his future life." Botticelli is here considered an engraver from about 1474, at the age of thirty-seven years; and Baldini, who executed every thing from the designs of Sandro, also practised the art. At the same period flourished Antonio Pollaiuolo, who acquired a higher reputation than either of the last. Few of his impressions remain, but among these is the celebrated battle of the naked soldiers, approaching nearest in point of power to the bold style of Michelangiolo. The epoch of these productions is to be placed about 1480, because having acquired great celebrity by them, he was invited to Rome towards the close of 1483, to raise the monument of Sixtus IV., who died in that year.