Chapter X: Section III (3)

I find that Albani rendered justice to the merit of Michelangiolo; he reckoned not three great masters in painting only, as is now commonly done; but he added a fourth, and thought that Bonarruoti surpassed Raffaello, Tiziano, and Coreggio, "in form and in grandeur."[156] We may here observe, that when Michelangiolo was so inclined, he could obtain distinction for those endowments in which the others excelled. It is a vulgar error to suppose that he had no idea of grace and beauty; the Eve of the Sistine Chapel turns to thank her maker, on her creation, with an attitude so fine and lovely, that it would do honour to the school of Raffaello. Annibale Caracci admired this, and many other naked figures in this grand ceiling, so highly, that he proposed them to himself as models in the art, and according to Bellori,[157] preferred them to those of the Last Judgment, that appeared to him too anatomical. In chiaroscuro Michelangiolo had not the skill and delicacy of Coreggio; but the paintings of the Vatican have a force and relief much commended by Renfesthein, an eminent connoisseur, who, on passing from the Sistine Chapel to the Farnesian gallery, remarked how greatly in this respect the Caracci themselves were eclipsed by Bonarruoti. Dolce speaks less favourably of his colouring,[158] for this author was captivated by Tiziano and the Venetian school: no one, however, can deny that the colouring of Michelangiolo in this chapel is admirably adapted to the design,[159] and the same, also, would have been the case with his two pictures in the Pauline Chapel, the Crucifixion of S. Peter and the Conversion of S. Paul, but they have sustained great injury from time.

None of his paintings are to be seen in public, except in those two chapels; and those described as his in collections, are almost all the works of other hands. During his residence at Florence he painted an exquisite Leda for Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara, to whom however it was not sold. Michelangiolo, offended at the manner in which it was demanded by one of the courtiers of that prince, refused to let him have it: but made a present of it to his pupil, Antonio Mini, who carried it to France. Vasari describes it as "a grand picture, painted in distemper, that seemed as if breathed on the canvass;" and Mariette affirms, in his notes on Condivi, that he saw the picture in a damaged state, and that it appeared as if Michelangiolo had there forgot his usual style, and "approached the tone of Tiziano." This expression inclines one to suspect that he is describing a copy taken in oil by some able painter; especially as D'Argenville informs us that this painting was burnt in the reign of Louis XIII. It is said there is also one of his pictures, representing the Virgin and the Divine Infant, in an upright position, standing near the cradle upon a rock, a figure drawn of the size of nature, formerly in possession of the noble house of Mocci (Mozzi) at Florence; and afterwards transferred to the cathedral of Burgos, where it still remains.[160] Michelangiolo executed likewise a circular Holy Family, with some naked figures in the distance, for Agnol Doni. It is now in the tribune of the Florentine gallery, in a high state of preservation. It is praised by Richardson and some others for the vigour of its tints, and is painted in distemper. Placed among the works of the greatest masters of every school that vie with each other in this theatre of art, it appears the most scientific, but the least pleasing picture: its author seems the most powerful designer, but the feeblest colourist among them all. In it aerial perspective is neglected, inasmuch as the figures are not indistinct in proportion to their diminution, a fault not uncommon in that age. I cannot so readily decide whether his style appears in certain pictures that are described as his in several collections in Florence, Rome, and Bologna, as well as in the catalogue of the imperial gallery at Vienna, and in the royal collections in Spain, that represent the subjects of the Crucifixion,[161] the Pieta,[162] the Infant Jesus asleep, and the Prayer in the Garden. They resemble the design of Michelangiolo, but their execution betrays another pencil. This is rendered probable by the silence of Vasari; their high finish seems incredible in an artist, who, even in sculpture, very rarely attempted it; and our scepticism is confirmed by the opinion of Mengs, and other competent judges, whom I have consulted to elucidate this point. Some of them, in which the distribution of the tints was perhaps originally made under his inspection, resemble his style. These may have been copied by Fiamminghi, as the tints of some of them indicate, or by other Italian artists of the various schools, since they differ so much in their mode of colouring. Some copies may be the work of the scholars of Michelangiolo, though Vasari informs us they were all but feeble artists. He gives us the names of those who dwelt in his house; Pietro Urbano of Pistoia, a man of genius, but very indolent; Antonio Mini of Florence, and Ascanio Condivi da Ripatransone, both eager in their profession, but of little talent, and therefore the authors of no work worthy of record. The people of Ferrara include their countryman Filippi in this school, an artist unknown to Vasari, but worthy of notice. Lomazzi mentions Marco da Pino as one of the number. To these Palomino adds Castelli of Bergamo, (whose master, while he was in Rome, is not noticed by any of our writers) and Gaspar Bacerra, of Andalusia, a celebrated Spanish painter. We may likewise add Alonzo Berrugese, who is reckoned by Vasari only among those that studied the cartoon of Michelangiolo, at Florence, with Francia, and other strangers, who were not among his disciples. In the history of Spanish painting, there is mentioned by all the writers a Roman, of the name of Matteo Perez d'Alessio, or d'Alessi. They recount that he lived many years at Seville, and produced many works there, among which his S. Cristoforo, in the cathedral, which cost 4,000 crowns, is by far the grandest. They add, that Luigi Vargas, a very able disciple of Perino del Vaga, having returned from Rome, Alessi was glad to leave the field open to him, and to return into Italy; where Preziado finds him. Indeed he rather finds him at Rome, and at the Sistine Chapel, where two histories, painted "opposite to the Last Judgment of his master," are ascribed to him; these however are the production of Matteo da Leccio, who aimed at imitating Michelangiolo and Salviati; but he is only despised by Taia, and by every one who has a grain of sense. He executed this work in the time of Gregory XIII.; and neither he nor the supposititious Alessio,[163] an imaginary name, had any connexion with Michelangiolo. The rest we refer to the note, in order to proceed without delay to names which may boast a better title to such a connexion.

Many other figures and historic compositions were designed by Michelangiolo, and painted at Rome by F. Sebastiano del Piombo, an excellent colourist of the Venetian school. The Pieta in the church of S. Francis of Viterbo,[164] the Flagellation, and Transfiguration, with some other pieces at S. Pietro in Montorio, are of this number. Two Annunciations, designed by Bonarruoti, were coloured for altar-pieces by Marcello Venusti of Mantua, a scholar of Perino, who adopted the style of Michelangiolo, without apparent affectation. The one was put up in the church of S. Giovanni Laterano, the other in the Della Pace. He is said to have painted also some cabinet pictures after designs of Bonarruoti; as the Limbo,[165] in the Colonna palace; the Christ going to Mount Calvary, and some other pieces in the Borghese; also the celebrated copy of the Last Judgment, which he painted for Cardinal Farnese, that still exists in Naples. Although a good designer, and the author of many pieces described by Baglione, he obtained greater celebrity by clothing the inventions of Michelangiolo in exquisite beauty, especially in small pictures, of which, Vasari says, he executed a great many. This writer, and Orlandi following him, have erroneously named him Raffaello, not Marcello. Batista Franco coloured the Rape of Ganymede, after a design of Bonarruoti, which was also done by the artist who painted the small picture which D'Argenville describes in France; and another on a larger scale, to be seen at Rome in the possession of the Colonna family: it was also painted in oil by Giulio Clovio. Pontormo employed himself in a similar manner at Florence, on the design of Venus and Cupid; and on the cartoon of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen, a work which was re-executed by him for Citta di Castello, Bonarruoti having said, that none could perform it better. Francesco Salviati painted another of his designs, and Bugiardini, as we have already noticed, executed some figures designed by him. Such is the information transmitted to us by Vasari; and he would have been justly reprehensible if he had written with such minuteness on the drawings of Michelangiolo, and of those employed to finish them, and had neglected to inform us as to those pieces which Michelangiolo himself executed. Hence it is not easy to avoid scepticism on the genuineness of the Annunciation, the Flagellation, or any other oil painting ascribed to Bonarruoti by Bottari, D'Argenville, or the describers of collections. We have noticed his aversion to this method of painting. We are informed that during his lifetime he employed others in this branch; and we know that after his death artists availed themselves of his designs; as Sabbatini did in a Pieta for the sacristy of the Church of S. Peter, a work copied by some other artist for the Madonna de' Monti, and some others made known to us by Baglione. Can we then hesitate as to the originality of any picture, if we give credit to the oil paintings of Michelangiolo? The portraits of Bonarruoti ascribed to his own hand, are also, in my opinion, supposititious. Vasari knew of no likeness of him except the figure cast in bronze by Ricciarelli, and two portraits, the one painted by Bugiardini, the other by Jacopo del Conte. From these are derived the very old and well known portraits, preserved in the ducal gallery, in the collection of the Capitol, in the Caprara palace at Bologna, and that in the possession of Cardinal Zelada at Rome.

Franco, Marco da Siena, Tibaldi, and other foreign artists, who have imitated Michelangiolo, shall be noticed under their respective schools. The Florentine school abounded in them, and these we shall consider all together in the succeeding epoch. I shall here only notice two, who lived on intimate habits with him, who executed works under his own eye, and for a long time received directions from his own lips; circumstances which cannot be said of Vasari, of Salviati, nor of any other able artist of his school. One of these was Francesco Granacci of Florence, characterized by Vasari as an excellent artist, who derived much of his merit from his early intimacy with Michelangiolo. He was the fellow student of the latter, under Domenico Ghirlandaio, and also in the garden of Lorenzo; and from his precepts, and by studying his cartoon, he enlarged his own manner, and approached near the modern style. After the death of his master, he remained with the brothers of that artist, to complete some of the works of the deceased, and was employed in painting some Holy Families, and cabinet pictures, in distemper, which might easily pass under another name, as they resemble the best productions of that school. In his new style he never entirely abandoned the simplicity of the old manner; but there is a specimen in the church of S. Jacopo without-the-walls, more studied in design, and more determined in the colouring. In this picture S. Zanobi and S. Francis appear near our Lady under a lofty canopy; a subject then familiar in every school. His style seems more matured in an Assumption which was in S. Pier Maggiore, a church now suppressed: here he inserted, between two other figures, a S. Thomas, wholly in the manner of Michelangiolo. Few other considerable paintings can be ascribed to this artist, who was left in easy circumstances by his father, and painted rather as a commendable amusement than from necessity.

Ricciarelli, usually known in history by the name of Daniele di Volterra, enjoys a greater name, and is generally described as the most successful follower of Michelangiolo. Educated in Siena, according to report, by Peruzzi and Razzi, he became the assistant of Perino del Vaga, and acquired an astonishing talent for imitating Bonarruoti, who greatly esteemed him, appointed him his substitute in the labours of the Vatican, brought him into notice, and assisted and enriched him with designs. It is known that Michelangiolo was often with Daniele when he painted in the Farnese palace, and it is said that Bonarruoti, during his absence, "O vero o falso che la fama suoni," mounted the scaffold, and sketched with charcoal a colossal head that is still seen there. Volterra let it remain, that posterity might judge of the powers of Bonarruoti, who without pre-meditation and in mere jest, had finished a work in such proportion, and so perfect. Nor did Daniele execute, without the assistance of Michelangiolo, the wonderful Descent from the Cross in the Trinita de' Monti, which, together with the Transfiguration by Raffaello, and the S. Girolamo of Domenichino, may be reckoned among the finest paintings in Rome.[166] We seem to behold the mournful spectacle, and the Redeemer sinking with the natural relaxation of a dead body in descending: the pious men engaged in various offices, and thrown in different and contrasted attitudes, appear assiduously occupied with the sacred remains which they seem to venerate; the mother of Jesus having fainted between the sorrowing women, the beloved disciple extends his arms and bends over her. There is a truth in the naked figures that seems perfect nature; a colouring in the faces and the whole piece that suits the subject, and is more determined than delicate; a relief, a harmony, and, in a word, a skill that might do honour to the hand of Michelangiolo himself, had the picture been inscribed with his name. To this the artist, I believe, alluded, when he painted Bonarruoti with a mirror near it; as if in this picture he might behold a reflection of himself. Volterra painted some other Crucifixions in the Orsini Chapel, where he was employed for seven years; but they are inferior to that described above. He employed his pupils in another chapel of that church, (Michele Alberti, according to the Guide to Rome, and Gio. Paolo Rossetti,) and supplied them with designs; one of which he himself executed in a picture, with figures of a moderate size. The subject is the Murder of the Innocents, and it is now deposited in the Tribune of the Royal Gallery of Florence; an honour that speaks more for it than my eulogy. The Grand Duke Leopold purchased it at a high price from a church in Volterra, where there is now no other public specimen of this master. The Ricciarelli family possess a fine Elijah, as an inheritance and memorial of this great man; and a beautiful fresco remains in a study in the house of the Dottor Mazzoni, relating to which we may refer the reader to the excellent historiographer of Volterra, (tom. i. p. 177).

There was a youth of Florence, named Baccio della Porta, because his study was near a gate of that city; but having become a Dominican, he obtained that of Fra Bartolommeo di S. Marco, from the convent where he resided, or, more shortly, that of Frate. Whilst he studied under Rosselli, he became enamoured of the grand _chiaro-scuro_ of Vinci, and emulated him assiduously. We read that his friend Albertinelli studied modelling, and copied ancient basso-relievos, from a desire of obtaining correctness in his shadows; and we may conjecture the same of Baccio, although Vasari is silent on this head. The Prince has a Nativity and Circumcision of Christ in his early manner; most graceful little pictures, resembling miniatures. About this period he also painted his own portrait in the lay habit, a full-length figure, most skilfully inclosed in a small space, and now in the splendid collection of the Signori Montecatini at Lucca. He entered the cloister in 1500, at the age of thirty-one, and for four years never handled the pencil. The execution of Savonarola, whom he knew and respected, preyed upon his mind; and, like Botticelli and Credi, he gave up the art. When he again resumed it, he seems to have advanced daily in improvement, during the last thirteen or fourteen years of his life; so that his earlier productions, though very beautiful, are inferior to his last. His improvement was accelerated by Raffaello, who came to Florence to pursue his studies in 1504, contracted a friendship for him, and was at the same time his scholar in colouring, and his master in perspective.[167] Having gone to Rome some years after, to see the works of Bonarruoti and Raffaello, if I am not deceived, he greatly elevated his style; but his manner was at all times more conformable to that of his friend than of his fellow citizen, uniting dignity with grace in his heads and in his general design. The picture in the Pitti palace is a proof of this, which Pietro da Cortona imagined to be the work of Raffaello, though Frate had painted it before he went to Rome. In that place he appeared with diminished lustre, says the historian, in the presence of those two great luminaries of the art, and speedily returned to Florence; a circumstance which also happened to Andrea del Sarto, to Rosso, and to other truly eminent masters, whose modesty was equal to the confidence of innumerable artists of mediocrity, who frequently enjoyed at Rome much ill placed patronage. Frate left there two figures of the Chief Apostles, that are preserved in the Quirinal palace; the S. Peter, which was not finished, had its last touches from the hand of Raffaello. One of his pictures is also in the Vatican palace, where it was deposited by Pius VI., with many other choice paintings. A Holy Family exists in the Corsini collection by the same hand, and is perhaps his finest and most graceful performance.

His most finished productions are in Tuscany, which boasts various altar-pieces, and all of them very valuable. Their composition is in the usual style of the age, which may be observed in the production of every school, not even excepting Raffaello, and which continued in the Florentine until the time of Pontormo; viz. a Madonna seated, with an infant Jesus, and accompanied by saints. But in this hackneyed subject, Frate distinguished himself by grand architecture, by magnificent flights of steps, and by the skilful grouping of his saints and cherubims. He introduces them, one while seated in concert, another time poised on their wings to minister to their king and queen; of whom some support the drapery, others have charge of the pavilion, a rich and happily conceived ornament, which he readily connected with such thrones, even in cabinet pictures. He departed from this mode of composition in a picture that he left at S. Romano of Lucca, called Madonna della Misericordia, who sits in an attitude full of grace, amid a crowd of devotees, shielding them with her mantle from the wrath of heaven. His rivals occasioned the production of two more altar-pieces: according to the example of other eminent men, he answered their sneers by his classic performances; a retort the most galling to the invidious. They had stigmatized him as unequal to large proportions; and he filled a large piece with a single figure of S. Mark, which is admired as a prodigy of art in the ducal gallery, and is described by a learned foreigner as a Grecian statue transformed into a picture. He was accused of being ignorant of the anatomy of the human figure; and to refute this calumny he introduced a naked S. Sebastian in another picture, which was so perfect in drawing and in colouring, that "it received the unbounded applause of artists;" but becoming too much the admiration of the female devotees of that church, it was first removed by the fathers into a private room, and was afterwards sold, and sent into France.

To sum up all, he knew how to excel at pleasure, in every department of painting. His design is most chaste, and his youthful faces are more full and fleshy than was usual with Raffaello; and according to Algarotti, they are but little elevated above the standard of ordinary men, and approach to vulgarity. His tints at one period abounded with shadows produced by lamp black or ivory black, which impairs the value of some of his pictures; but he gradually acquired a better manner, and, as we have related, was able to instruct Raffaello. In firmness and clearness he yields not to the best of the school of Lombardy. He was the inventor of a new method of casting draperies; having taught the use of the wooden figure, with moveable joints, that serves admirably for the study of the folds of drapery. None of his school painted them more varied and natural, with more breadth, or better adapted to the limbs. His works are to be seen in several private collections in Florence; but they are rare beyond the precincts of that city: they are there eagerly sought after by foreigners, but are very rarely to be sold. One of his Madonnas was procured within these few years by his Excellency the Major-Domo of the ducal household, whose collection may be reckoned another Florentine Gallery in miniature, consisting of about thirty pictures of the best masters of different schools. The Fathers of S. Mark have a considerable number of his paintings in their private chapel, and among these is a S. Vincenzo, said by Bottari to resemble a work of Tiziano or Giorgione. His best and rarest performances are in the possession of the Prince, in whose collection the last work of Fra Bartolommeo remains, a large picture in chiaroscuro, representing the patron saints of the city surrounding the Virgin Mary. The Gonfalonier Soderini intended this piece for the Hall of the Council of State; but it was left only as a design at the death of its author, in 1517, like the projected works of Vinci and Bonarruoti. It would seem as if some fatality attended the decoration of this building, which ought to have employed the pencil of the greatest native artists. Among this number Frate must undoubtedly be included; and Richardson remarks, that had he possessed the happy combinations of Raffaello, he, perhaps, would not have been second to that master.[168] The last mentioned production, though imperfect, is looked upon as a model in the art. The method of this artist was first to draw the figure naked, then to drape it, and to form a chiaroscuro, sometimes in oils, that marked the distribution of the light and shadow, which constituted his great study, and the soul of his pictures. This large picture demonstrates such preparatives; and it has as high a value in painting, as the antique plaster models have in sculpture, in which Winckelmann discovers the stamp of genius and compass of design better than in sculptured marbles.

Mariotto Albertinelli, the fellow student and friend of Baccio, the sharer of his labours and his concerns, emulated his first style, and approaches to his second in some of his works; but they may be compared to two streams springing from the same source; the one to become a brook, the other a mighty river. Some pictures in Florence are supposed to be their joint performances; and the Marquis Acciaiuoli possesses a picture of the Assumption, in the upper part of which are the Apostles, by Baccio, and the lower is deemed the work of Mariotto. He is somewhat dry in several of his pictures, as in the S. Silvestro, in Monte Cavallo at Rome; where he also painted a S. Domenick, and a S. Catharine of Siena, near the throne of the Virgin Mary. He should likewise be known at Florence. He executed two pictures for the church of S. Giuliano, remarkable for the force of colouring, and the many imitations of the style of Frate. The best of all and the nearest to his model is the Visitation, transferred from the Congregazione de' Preti to the Ducal gallery, and even to its most honoured place, the Tribune. Albertinelli obtained great credit by his two pupils, Franciabigio and Innocenzio da Imola, of whom I shall speak in the proper place as ornaments of their school. I find Visino praised beyond them both: he painted but little in Florence, and that in private; but he was much employed in Hungary.

Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabriele Rustici, and Cecchin del Frate, who inherited his master's name, were the scholars of Fra Bartolommeo in his best time; but they are no longer known by any undoubted works. Fra Paolo da Pistoia, his colleague, who was honoured in his own country with a medal, which I have seen, with those of many eminent men of Pistoia, in the possession of the Sign. Dottor Visoni, obtained the richest inheritance in all the studies of Baccio; and from his designs this artist painted many pictures at Pistoia, one of which may be seen in the parochial church of S. Paul, over the great altar. Those designs were afterwards carried to Florence, and in the time of Vasari there was a collection of them at the Dominican convent of S. Catharine, in the hands of Sister Plautella Nelli. The noble family of this lady possesses a Crucifixion painted by her, in which there is a multitude of small figures most highly finished. She seems on the whole a good imitation of Frate; but she also followed other styles, as may be seen in her convent. A Descent from the Cross is there shewn, said to be the design of Andrea del Sarto, but the execution is by her; and likewise an Epiphany, entirely her own, in which the landscape would do honour to the modern, but the figures savour of the old school.

Andrea Vannucchi, called Andrea del Sarto, from the occupation of his father, is commended by Vasari as the first artist of this school, "for being the most faultless painter of the Florentines, for perfectly understanding the principles of chiaroscuro, for representing the indistinctness of objects in shadow, and for painting with a sweetness truly natural: he, moreover, taught how to give a perfect union to frescos, and in a great measure obviated the necessity of retouching them when dry, a circumstance which gives all his works the appearance of having been finished in one day." He is censured by Baldinucci, as barren in invention; and undoubtedly he wanted that elevation of conception, which constitutes the epic in painting as well as in poetry. Deficient in this talent, Andrea is said to have been modest, elegant, and endued with sensibility; and it appears that he impressed this character on nature wherever he employed his pencil. The portico of the Nunziata, transformed by him into a gallery of inestimable value, is the fittest place to judge of this. Those chaste outlines that procured him the surname of _Andrea the Faultless_, those conceptions of graceful countenances, whose smiles remind us of the simplicity and grace of Correggio,[169] that appropriate architecture, those draperies, adapted to every condition, and cast with ease, those popular expressions of curiosity, of astonishment, of confidence, of compassion, and of joy, that never transgress the bounds of decorum, which are understood at first sight, and gently affect the mind without agitating it, are charms that are more readily felt than expressed. He who feels what Tubules is in poetry, may conceive what Andrea is in painting.

This artist demonstrates the ascendancy of native genius over precept. When a boy he was put under the tuition of Giovanni Barile, a good carver in wood, employed on the ceilings and doors of the Vatican, after the designs of Raffaello, but a painter of no celebrity. While still a youth, he was consigned to Pier di Cosimo, a practical colourist, but by no means skilled in drawing or in composition: hence the taste of Andrea in these arts was formed on the cartoons of Vinci and Bonarruoti; and, as many circumstances indicate, on the frescos of Masaccio and of Ghirlandaio, in which the subjects were more suited to his mild disposition. He went to Rome, but I know not in what year; that he was there, appears not to me to admit of dispute, as in the case of Correggio. I do not argue this from his style approaching near to that of Raffaello, as it appeared also to Lomazzo and other writers, though with less of ideal beauty. Raffaello and Andrea had studied the same originals at Florence; and nature might have given them corresponding ideas for the selection of the beautiful. I ground my opinion entirely on Vasari. He informs us, that Andrea was at Rome, that seeing the works of the scholars of Raffaello, timidity induced him to despair of equalling them, and to return speedily to Florence. If we credit so many other stories of the pusillanimity of Andrea, why should we reject this? or what faith shall we give to Vasari, if he was erroneous in a circumstance relating to one who was his master, and which was written in Florence soon after the death of Andrea, while his scholars, his friends, and even his wife, were still living, an assertion, too, uncontradicted in the second edition, in which Vasari retracted so much of what he had affirmed in the first?

His improvement and his progress from one perfection in art to another was thus not sudden, as has happened to some other artists; but was gradually acquired during many years residence at Florence. There, "by reflecting on what he had seen, he attained such eminence that his works have been esteemed, and admired, and even more imitated after his death, than in his lifetime:" so says the historian. This implies that he improved at Rome; chiefly, however, by his own genius, which led him, as it were, by the hand, from one step to another, as may be observed in the Compagnia dello Scalzo, and in the convent of the Servi, where some of his pictures, executed at different periods, are to be seen. At the Scalzo, he painted some stories from the life of S. John in chiaroscuro, the cartoons for which are in the Rinuccini palace: in this work we may notice some palpable imitations, and even some figures borrowed from Albert Durer. We may trace his early style in the Baptism of Christ; his subsequent progress, in some other pictures, as in the Visitation, painted some years after; and his greatest excellence and broadest manner in others, especially in the Birth of the Baptist. In like manner, the pictures from the life of S. Filippo Benizi, in the lesser cloister of the Servi, are very beautiful productions, though they are among the first efforts of Andrea's genius. The Epiphany of our Saviour, and the Birth of the Virgin in the same place, are more finished works; but his finest piece is that Holy Family in Repose, which is usually called _Madonna del Sacco_, from the sack of grain on which S. Joseph leans, than which few pictures are more celebrated in the history of the art. It has frequently been engraved; but after two centuries and a half, it has at length employed an engraver worthy of it in Morghen, who has recently executed it, and also a similar composition after Raffaello. Both prints are in the best collections; and to those who have not seen either Rome or Florence, Andrea appears rather a rival than an inferior to the prince of painters. On examining this picture narrowly, it affords endless scope for observation: it is finished as if intended for a cabinet; every hair is distinguished, every middle tint is lowered with consummate art, every outline marked with admirable variety and grace: and amid all this diligence a facility is conspicuous, that makes the whole appear natural and unconstrained.

In the ducal palace at Poggio a Caiano, there is a fresco picture of Caesar, seated in a hall, ornamented with statues, on a lofty seat, to whom a great variety of exotic birds and wild animals are presented as the tribute of his victories; a work of itself sufficient to mark Andrea as a painter eminent in perspective, in a knowledge of the antique, and in every excellence of painting. The order for ornamenting that palace came from Leo X.; and Andrea, who had there to contend with Franciabigio and Pontormo, exerted all his energy to please that encourager of art, and to surpass his competitors. The other artists seem to have been discouraged, and did not proceed: some years after Alessandro Allori put a finishing hand to the hall. The royal palace possesses a treasure in the oil pictures of Andrea. Independent of the S. Francis, the Assumption, and other pictures, collected by the family of the Medici, the Grand Duke Leopold purchased a very fine _Pieta_ from the nuns of Lugo, and placed it in the Tribune as an honour to the school. The introduction of S. Peter and S. Paul in that piece, contrary to historical facts, is not the error of the painter who represented them so admirably, but of those who commissioned the picture. Critics have remarked a slight defect in the dead Christ, which they think sustains itself more, and has a greater fulness of the veins, than is suitable to a dead body: but this is immaterial in a picture the other parts of which are designed, coloured, and composed, so as to excite astonishment. A Last Supper, if it were not confined to the cloisters of the monastery of S. Salvi, would, perhaps, be equally admired. The soldiers who besieged Florence in 1529, and destroyed the suburbs of the city, undoubtedly admired it: after demolishing the belfry, the church, and part of the monastery, they were astonished on beholding this Last Supper, and had not resolution to destroy it; imitating that Demetrius who, at the siege of Rhodes, is said to have respected nothing but a picture by Protegenes.[170]

Andrea painted a great deal; and on this account is well known beyond the limits of his own country. Perhaps his best performance in the hands of strangers is a picture translated to a palace in Genoa from the church of the Domenicans of Sarzana, who possess several others, very beautiful. It is composed in the manner of F. Bartolommeo; and besides the Saints distributed around the Virgin, or on the steps, four of whom are standing and two on their knees, there are two large figures in the foreground that seem to start from the lower part of the picture, and are seen as high as the knee. I am aware that this disposition of the figures displeases the critics; yet it gives variety in the position of so many figures, and introduces a great distance between the nearest and most remote, by which the space seems augmented, and every figure produces effect. The best collections are not deficient in his Holy Families. The Marquis Rinuccini, at Florence, possesses two; and some of the illustrious Romans have even a greater number; but all different, except that the features of the Virgin, which Andrea usually copied from his wife, have always some resemblance. Many others may be seen in Rome and in Florence, and not a few in Lombardy, besides those noticed in the catalogues of foreign nations.

So much genius merited success: and yet if one was to write a book on the misfortunes of painters, as has already been done on those of authors, nothing would awaken more compassion than the lot of Andrea. The poverty of Correggio is exaggerated, or perhaps untrue; the misery of Domenichino had a termination; the Caracci were ill rewarded, but lived in easy circumstances. Andrea, from his marriage with Lucrezia del Fede until his death, was almost always pressed with griefs. In his first edition, Vasari says, that he was despised by his friends, and abandoned by his employers, from the time of his marriage with this woman; that, the slave of her will, he left his father and mother to starve; that through her arrogance and violence none of the scholars of Andrea could continue long with him; and this must have happened to Vasari himself. In the second edition he omitted this censure, either because he repented of it, or was appeased; but did not, however, conceal that she was a perpetual source of misfortune to her husband. He there repeated that Andrea was invited to the French court by Francis I. where, caressed and rewarded, he might have excited the envy of every artist; but influenced by the womanish complaints of Lucrezia, he returned to Florence; and remained in his own country, in violation of his faith solemnly pledged to that monarch. He afterwards repented and was anxious to regain his former situation; but his efforts were ineffectual. He dragged out a miserable existence, amid jealousy and domestic wretchedness, until, infected with the plague, and abandoned by his wife and every other individual, he died, in 1530, in the forty-second year of his age, and had a very mean funeral.

The two who approximated most nearly to the style of Andrea were Marco Antonio Francia Bigi, as he is named by Baldinucci, called also Franciabigio, or Francia, as Vasari denominates him, and Pontormo. Francia was the scholar of Albertinelli for a few months, and then appears to have formed himself on the best models of the school; and few are commended so highly by Vasari for a knowledge of anatomy, for perspective, for the daily habit of drawing the naked figure, and the exquisite finish of all his performances. One of his Annunciations was formerly in S. Pier Maggiore; the figures were small and highly finished, accompanied by good architecture, but not without a certain degree of dryness. Andrea, his friend, and the associate of his studies, helped him to a more elevated style. From a companion Francia became his enthusiastic follower; but, inferior in talents, he never attained the art of representing such sweetness of disposition, affection so true, and grace so natural. A semicircular piece of his, representing the Marriage of the Virgin, may be seen near the works of Andrea, in the cloister of the Nunziata, where we recognize him as a painter who sought to attain by labour what the other accomplished by genius. This work was never completed. Some of the monks having uncovered it before it was finished, the artist was so offended that he struck the work some blows with a hammer, in order to deface it; and though they prevented his accomplishing this, he never after could be prevailed on to complete it, and no other dared to undertake the task. He was a competitor with Andrea also in the Scalzo, where he executed two histories that are not much eclipsed by the pictures in their vicinity. He imitated his friend likewise at Poggio a Caiano, in a picture of the return of Cicero from exile: a work of merit, though never finished. It is the great glory of his pencil, that it was so often employed in contending with Andrea, in whom it awakened emulation and industry, from the fear of being surpassed.

Jacopo Carrucci, called Pontormo, from the place of his nativity, was a man of rare genius, whose early productions obtained the admiration of Raffaello and Michelangiolo. He got a few lessons from Vinci, and was afterwards under the care of Albertinelli, and Pier di Cosimo, but he finally became the pupil of Andrea. He excited the jealousy of this master, was induced by unhandsome treatment to withdraw from his school, and afterwards became not only the imitator of Andrea, but his rival in many undertakings. The Visitation in the cloister of the Servi, the picture of several saints at S. Michelino, the two pictures of the History of Joseph, represented in minute figures, in an apartment of the ducal gallery, shew that he trod without difficulty in the footsteps of his master, and that congeniality of talent led him into a similar path. I use the term similar; for he is not a copyist, like those who borrow heads or whole figures, but invariably retains a peculiar originality. I saw one of his Holy Families in the possession of the Marquis Cerbone Pucci, along with others by Baccio, by Rosso, and Andrea: the picture by Pontormo vied with them all; but yet was sufficiently characteristic.

He had a certain singularity of disposition, and readily abandoned one style to try a better; but he was often unsuccessful; as likewise happened to Nappi, of Milan; to Sacchi, of Rome; and to every other artist who has made this attempt, at an age too far advanced for a change of manner. The Carthusian Monastery at Florence has some of his works, from which connoisseurs have inferred the three styles attributed to him. The first is correct in design, vigorous in colouring, and approaches the manner of Andrea. In the second the drawing is good, but the colouring somewhat languid; and this style became the model for Bronzino and the artists of the succeeding epoch. The third is a close imitation of Albert Durer, not only in the composition but in the heads and draperies; a manner certainly unworthy of so promising an outset. It is difficult to find specimens of Pontormo in this style, except some histories of the Passion, which he servilely copied from the prints of Albert Durer, for the cloister of that monastery, where he trifled away several years. We might perhaps notice a fourth manner, if the Deluge and Last Judgment, on which he spent eleven years at S. Lorenzo, had still existed: but this his last performance, with the tacit consent of every artist, was whitewashed. Here he attempted to imitate Michelangiolo, and like him to afford a model of the anatomical style, which at this time began to be extolled at Florence above every other: but he taught us a different lesson, and only succeeded in demonstrating that an old man ought not to become the votary of fashion.

Andrea pursued the custom of Raffaello and other artists of that age, in conducting his works with the assistance of painters experienced in his style, whether they were friends or scholars; a remark not useless to those who may trace in his pictures the labours of another pencil. It is known that he gave Pontormo some pieces to finish, and that he retained one Jacone, and a Domenico Puligo; two individuals who possessed a natural turn for painting, ready and willing to try every species of imitation, and more desirous of recreation than of fame. The facade of the Buondelmonte Palace, at S. Trinita, by the former, was highly extolled. It was in chiaroscuro; the drawing, in which department he excelled, was very beautiful, and the whole conducted in the manner of Andrea. He also executed some oil pictures at Cortona, which are much commended by Vasari. Domenico Puligo was less skilled in design than in colouring: his tints were sweet, harmonious, and clear, but he apparently aimed at covering the outline, to relieve him from the necessity of perfect accuracy. By this mark he is sometimes recognized in Madonnas and in cabinet pictures, (his usual occupation) which having been perhaps designed by Andrea, at first sight pass for the work of that master. Domenico Conti was likewise very intimate with Andrea, was his scholar and the heir to his drawings; and that great artist was honoured with a tomb and epitaph designed by Conti, in the vicinity of his own immortal works in the Nunziata. Excepting this circumstance, Vasari notices nothing praiseworthy in Conti, and therefore I shall take no more notice of him. He gives a more favourable opinion of Pierfrancesco di Jacopo di Sandro, on account of his three pictures in the church of S. Spirito. He makes honourable mention of two other artists, who lived long in France, viz. Nannoccio and Andrea Squazzella, who always retained a similarity to the style of Andrea del Sarto. It is not our present business to notice those who abandoned it; for in this work it is my wish to keep sight rather of the different styles than of the masters.

The fine copies that so often pass for originals, in Florence and other places, are chiefly the work of the above mentioned artists; nor does it seem credible that Andrea copied so closely his own inventions, and reduced them with his own hand from the great scale to small dimensions. I have seen one of his Holy Families, in which S. Elizabeth appears, in ten or twelve collections; and other pictures in three or four private houses. I found the S. Lorenzo surrounded by other saints, at the Pitti Palace, in the Albani gallery; the Visitation, in the Giustiniani palace; the Birth of our Lady, in the convent of the Servi, in the possession of Sig. Pirri, at Rome: all these are beautiful little pictures, all on small panels, all of the old school, and all believed the work of Andrea. It seems to me not improbable that the best of these were at least painted in his studio, and retouched by him, a practice adopted by Tiziano, and even by Raffaello.

Rosso, who contended in the cloisters of the Nunziata, with the best masters, and who appears in his Assumption to have aimed at a work not so much superior in beauty as in size to the productions of the other artists, is among the greatest painters of his school. Endowed with a creative fancy, he disdained to follow any of his countrymen or strangers; and indeed one recognizes much originality in his style: his heads are more spirited, his head dresses and ornaments are more tasteful, his colouring more lively, his distribution of light and shade broader, and his pencilling more firm and free, than had been hitherto seen in Florence. He appears in short to have introduced into that school a peculiar spirit, that would have been unexceptionable, had it not been mingled with something of extravagance. Thus, in the Transfiguration at Citta di Castello, instead of the Apostles he introduced a band of gypsies at the bottom of the picture. His picture in the Pitti palace, however, is far removed from any such fault. It exhibits various saints, grouped in so excellent a manner, that the chiaroscuro of one figure contributes to the relief of another; and it has such beautiful contrasts of colour and of light, such energy of drawing and of attitude, that it arrests attention by its originality. He likewise painted for the State: an unfinished Descent from the Cross may be seen in the oratory of S. Carlo, in Volterra; and another in the church of S. Chiara at Citta S. Sepolcro; in the cathedral of which there are many old pictures. Its great merit consists in the principal group, and that twilight, or almost nocturnal tint, that gives a tone to the whole piece, sombre, true, and worthy of any Flemish artist. The works of this painter are very scarce in Italy; for he went to France into the employment of Francis I. during his best time, and superintended the ornamental painting and plaster work then going on at Fontainebleau. Whilst engaged in this work, he unhappily put an end to his existence by poison; and in the enlargement of the building many of his works were defaced by Primaticcio, who was a rival, but not a follower, as is pretended by Cellini.[171] Thirteen pictures, dedicated to the fame and actions of Francis I. have escaped, and are described by Abbe Guget, in his Memoir on the Royal Academy of France.[172] Among these is the remarkable one of Ignorance Banished by that monarch; a picture that has been three different times engraved. He was assisted in those works by several artists, amongst whom were three Florentine painters, Domenico del Barbieri, Bartolommeo Miniati, and Luca Penni, the brother of that Gianfrancesco, called Il Fattore in the school of Raffaello.

Ridolfo di Domenico Ghirlandaio lost his father in his infancy; but was so well initiated in the art, first by his paternal uncle Davide, and afterwards by Frate, that when Raffaello d'Urbino came to Florence, he became his admirer and his friend. On his departure from that city he left with him a Madonna, intended for Siena, that it might be completed by him; and having soon after gone to Rome, he invited him to assist in the decorations of the Vatican. Ridolfo declined this, unfortunately for his own name, which might thus have rivalled that of Giulio Romano. He undoubtedly possessed a facility, elegance, and vivacity of manner, to enable him to follow closely the style of his friend. That he was ambitious of imitating him, may be inferred from the pictures in his early manner, preserved in the church of S. Jacopo di Ripoli, and S. Girolamo, that bear some resemblance to the manner of Perugino, like the early productions of Raffaello. His taste is displayed to more advantage in two pictures, filled with many moderate sized figures, which were transferred from the Academy of Design to the Royal Gallery. They represent two stories of S. Zenobi, and perhaps approach nearer to the two pictures by Pinturicchio, in the cathedral of Siena, that were painted under the direction, and partly by the assistance of Raffaello, than to any other model; with this exception, that they retain more traces of the old school. We may remark, in the pictures of Ridolfo, some figures strikingly like those of Raffaello; and in the whole there appears a composition, an expression, and skill in improving nature to the standard of ideal beauty, apparently proceeding from principles conformable to the maxims of that great master. That he did not afterwards perfect them, is to be attributed to his not having seen the best productions of his friend, and to his study of the art having been retarded by his commercial pursuits.