Chapter XVIII: Book V: Genoese School (2)

The young artists of Genoa, thus enriched in the course of a few years by fresh examples, entered on a new career, and adopted a more vigorous and grander style than they had before practised. And not a few of them, after receiving the rudiments of instruction in their native place, repaired to Parma, or Florence, or Rome, to finish their studies; and from these and other sources added celebrity to their country. Thus the seventeenth century did not possess in Genoa so decided a character as the preceding, nor so select or ideal: it had however an abundance of excellent artists, and particularly of the best portrait painters and colourists, sufficient indeed to supply Venice with at her least happy epoch. It would also have attained a higher pitch of repute, if the plague of 1657 had not swept off a vast number of promising artists; the names of some of whom, cut off at an early period of life, may be found mentioned in Soprani. The primary cause of this revival of the art in Genoa may be ascribed to the riches and to the taste of her nobility, who invited and supported these eminent foreign artists. And in the next place much of this merit is due to Paggi. There was at one time great danger of these excellent colourists being negligent designers; and it is indeed a common opinion, adopted also by Algarotti, that the best colourists are seldom correct in design. Paggi, in this important point, supported the credit of the school. He had studied design among the Florentines, the best masters in Italy; and he composed for the instruction of youth a small treatise, entitled _Diffinizione o sia Divisione della Pittura_, which he published in 1607. Soprani considers it a useful compendium, and containing, in plain and unaffected language, the principles of the art. It is mentioned with particular commendation in a letter of the younger Vasari, which must make us regret the loss of it; and it would be desirable to search the libraries where papers of this description are preserved, to ascertain whether it may be still in existence. All that we at present possess by Paggi is the Treatise mentioned by us a few pages back. In the mean time we shall commence a new epoch with him and his school.

Domenico Fiasella is called il Sarzana, from being born in the city of that name, where he obtained the rudiments of his style. He devoted himself to the study of the noble picture of Andrea del Sarto, which was then in the church of the Predicatori; and where there is at this day a beautiful copy of it. After being instructed for some time by Paggi he repaired to Rome, and studied Raffaello, and imbibed also other favourite styles. He there spent ten years, and became an eminent master, much praised by Guido Reni, and employed as an assistant by the Cav. d'Arpino and Passignano. He finally returned to Genoa, and in that city and in others of higher Italy, executed numerous works. A very considerable part of them he left imperfect, being in the habit of neglecting them, or leaving them to be finished by his scholars, as is the tradition of his native place. Independent of this impatience he was a great artist, and possessed many eminent qualities, a felicity in grand compositions, a style of design often worthy of the Roman School, great life in the heads; an admirable colour in his oil pictures, and an easy imitation of various styles. He is very Raffaellesque in a S. Bernardo, which is to be seen at S. Vincenzio in Piacenza; Caravaggesque in a S. Tommaso di Villanova, at S. Agostino in Genoa; in the Duomo of Sarzana, where he painted the Slaughter of the Innocents, and in the archiepiscopal gallery of Milan, in an infant Christ, he is a follower of Guido; and in other places an imitator of Annibal Caracci and his school. He can command our admiration when he pleases, and has left a stupendous work in the church of the Augustines in Genoa, representing St. Paul, the first hermit, for whose body, discovered in a lonely forest by St. Antony the Abbot, a lion is in the act of scooping a grave. Many of his pictures are found in private collections. I have met with specimens at Sarzana, in the house of his Excellency the Marquis Remedi, a house celebrated for the cordial and generous hospitality of the owner; and in others too there and in the state. His Madonnas have for the most part a similarity of features; not so ideal as those of Raffaello, but still agreeable and prepossessing.

On the death of Paggi, Fiasella became the principal instructor in Genoa, and I shall mention his most conspicuous scholars. We may commence with his relative, Gio. Batista Casone, changed by Orlandi into Carlone, who did not paint much in Genoa. If we may judge from the altar-piece delle Vigne, representing the Virgin surrounded by saints, he retained the style of Fiasella, the colouring of which he endeavoured to invigorate. Gio. Paol Oderico, a noble Genoese, painted always with great care, was select in his forms, and possessed a strong and rich colouring. The PP. Scolopi have a picture by him of the S. Angiolo Custode, the work of a young hand, but bearing promise of great talents. His historical compositions are also to be found in galleries, but they are rare, according to Soprani, and placed among the most precious possessions. His portraits are not of such rare occurrence, and in these he displayed great talents, and had numerous commissions. We find but few public works of Francesco Capuro, in consequence of his being engaged by the court and individuals in Modena, where he passed a great part of his life, at a distance from his own country. He was among the stricter followers of Fiasella in regard to design and composition, but in his colouring he partakes of Spagnoletto, under whom he studied in Naples; and in the style of that painter he executed some pictures of half-size, which probably procured him his highest reputation. We have still fewer public works by the young Luca Saltarello; but a S. Benedetto, in the church of S. Stefano, in the act of restoring a dead person to life, a picture of sober colouring, beautifully harmonized, and full of expression and knowledge, sufficiently denotes his early maturity, and his capacity, if he had lived, of forming an epoch in his school. Being desirous of adding to his other accomplishments the advantages to be derived from the ancient marbles, he repaired to Rome, and died there through excess of study.

Gregorio de' Ferrari of Porto Maurizio received from Sarzana instructions conformable to his principles, but which did not correspond with the genius of the scholar, which was naturally disposed to a style of greater freedom and grandeur. He repaired to Parma to study the works of Coreggio, and there made a most careful copy of the great cupola, which was purchased many years after by Mengs; and he returned home with a very different style to his first. Coreggio was his only prototype, and he imitated him most happily in the air of the countenances, and in many individual figures; but not in the general style of composition, in which he is not so ideal; nor in the colouring, as in his frescos he is somewhat languid. He is in general negligent in his drawing; so that, with the exception of the two pictures at the Theatines of S. Pier d'Arena, this censure attaches to all his works. In his foreshortenings and in his draperies he sometimes falls into affectation. He possesses however considerable attractions: he is ingenious and novel, and displays a vigorous, rich, and correct colouring, particularly in the fleshes. By these qualities his S. Michele, at the church of the Madonna delle Vigne, predominates amongst the pictures of that church: and it may be justly ranked with those Venetian productions in which the spirit and noble colourings atone for the inaccuracy of the drawing. He was much employed in Turin and in Marseilles; and still more so in the principal palaces in his own country, particularly in that of the Balbi. There however the great names of that celebrated collection, both foreign and native, wage against him, as we may say, a continual war.

Valerio Castello is one of the greatest members of the Genoese School. He no sooner made his appearance amongst his fellow scholars than he distanced the oldest of them, and soon afterwards even rivalled his masters. The son of Bernardo, and the scholar of Fiasella, he followed neither the style of the one nor the other, but selected other prototypes more consonant to his genius, the Procaccini in Milan, and Coreggio in Parma; and from the study of these, and a grace wholly his own, he formed a style unique and peculiarly belonging to himself. If it is not the most correct, it seems to deserve pardon for its select composition, for its beautiful colouring and chiaroscuro, and for the spirit, facility, and expression, which always distinguish his pencil. He excelled in frescos, so as to please even by the side of Carloni; and is perhaps sometimes, as in S. Marta, even superior to him. In his perspectives he occasionally employed Gio. Maria Mariani d'Ascoli, who also lived in Rome. Nor was he inferior in oil pictures. He painted in the oratory of S. Jacopo the baptism of that saint, in competition with the chief of his contemporaries, and eclipsed them all, with the exception perhaps of Castiglione. He worked also for collections; and in the royal gallery of Florence his Rape of the Sabines is highly prized, a subject which, on a more extended scale, but yet with some resemblance both of figures and architecture, he repeated in the palace Brignole. He is not however frequently met with, as he died early, and from the great celebrity he acquired, his works were in much request in all the first collections, and thus his productions were dispersed. He taught Gio. Batista Merano, and, after his own example, sent him to study at Parma, in which city he met with sufficient employment both from the prince and private individuals. The Slaughter of the Innocents, at the Gesù in Genoa, is pointed out to us as one of his best pictures, and is a copious and careful composition, extremely well arranged. We must not confound this artist with Francesco Merano, called, from his first employ, Il Paggio, a scholar and a respectable follower of Fiasella.

Returning to the scholars of Gio. Batista Paggi, one of them, who was himself the educator of a generous race to his country, was Gio. Domenico Cappellino. He had an extraordinary talent for imitation, whence, in his first works, he came very near his master. There was not in him that air of nobility that in Paggi and Bordone seems to have been derived from their birth and education. He possessed nevertheless other qualities of art which fail not to interest the spectator. This is evident in the Death of S. Francesco, placed in S. Niccolò; and at S. Stefano in the S. Francesca Romana, who to a dumb girl imparts the powers of speech. They are works which possess in the whole a peculiar originality, and in the separate figures a natural charm, and an expression of the affections and a delicacy of colouring highly attractive. He afterwards changed his style, as may be seen in two pictures of the Passion at S. Siro, and in many others at Genoa, always vigorous, but less spirited than at first, rather obscure in tints, and removed from the manner of Paggi. He aimed at originality, and, finding her, pursued her without a rival.

He had the good fortune to be the instructor of a foreigner, one of those men of genius who in themselves illustrate a whole school. This artist was of the family of Pioli, which had already produced an excellent miniature painter called Gio. Gregorio, who died in Marseilles, and a Pier Francesco, a scholar of Sofonisba, who died young, with the reputation of being one of the best imitators of Cambiaso. Pellegro Piola, of whom we have now to treat, enjoyed a still shorter period of life, being assassinated at the age of twenty-three, by an unknown hand; and, as it is believed, through envy of his rare talents. It is not easy to describe very precisely the style of this young man; for, as a student, he studied all the best works and formed himself upon them, and willingly inclined to the more beautiful. He then tried a wider flight, and pursued it always with exquisite diligence, and a taste which charms us; and whatever style he adopted he seemed to have grown grey in it. A Madonna by him, which is now in the great collection of the Marchese Brignole, was considered by Franceschini an original of Andrea del Sarto. His S. Eligio, in the street of the goldsmiths, was by Mengs ascribed to Lodovico Caracci. He however aspired at something far beyond mere imitation, and said that he had a mental conception of the beautiful, which he did not despair to attain if his life should be spared. But he was prematurely cut off, as I have stated, and his works in consequence are very rarely met with.

The rarity of the productions of Pellegro was compensated for by a brother, who filled the city and the state with his works. This was Domenico Piola, a scholar of Pellegro and Cappellini, the associate of Valerio Castelli in many works, and for some time an imitator of that master, afterwards of Castiglione; and, finally, the founder of a style bordering on that of Cortona. There is not in it a sufficient contrast; the forms are various, ideal for the most part, nor without beauty; the chiaroscuro is generally little finished; the design partakes of the Roman. There is, however, a considerable resemblance to Pietro in the distribution of the colours, and in his facility and despatch. He had a singular talent for the representation of children, and he refined it by the imitation of Fiammingo. He enlivened every composition by their introduction, and in some palaces he interwove them in elegant friezes. From this soft and easy manner, examples of which are to be met with in every part of the Genoese territories, he could occasionally depart, as in the picture of the Miracle of St. Peter at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, painted at Carignano, where the architecture, the fleshes, the gestures, are highly studied; and there is a force of effect which seems to emulate the Guercino, which is opposed to it. He also departs from his ordinary style in the Repose of the Holy Family at the Gesù. Of three sons whom Domenico instructed, Paolo will be mentioned among the most excellent artists of a future epoch; Antonio commendably followed his father's style in his youth, but afterwards changed his profession. Gio. Batista could copy or follow the designs of others, but nothing beyond. This latter had a son, Domenico, who, whilst he was beginning to emulate the glory of his family, was cut off by death, and with him was extinguished a family which, for the course of nearly two centuries, had conferred honour on the profession.

Giulio Benso, the scholar of Paggi, excelled all his school in architecture and perspective. Genoa, perhaps, does not possess any work in this department superior to that of Benso in the Nunziata del Guastato; in the choir of which he represented one of those perspective pictures with balustrades and colonnades, in which Colonna and Mitelli so much excelled. These two artists were great admirers of this work of Giulio, but to us it may perhaps appear too much loaded with ornament. He there represented the Glorification of the Virgin, and added some histories, in which he rigorously observed the laws of the _sotto in su_; an art then little practised in his school. Giovanni and Batista Carloni, who painted so much in this church, are surpassed by him in this department; nor do they much exceed him in composition and colour. Benso left but few oil paintings in Genoa; that of S. Domenico in the church of that saint is one of the best, and partakes more of the School of Bologna than that of Genoa.

Castellino Castello possessed a sober style of composition, like that of Paggi his master, and, as far as we may judge from various pictures, was a correct and elegant artist. He highly distinguished himself in the picture of the Pentecost, placed on the great altar of the church of the Spirito Santo. He, however, like many others of this period, is indebted for his celebrity to his success in portrait painting; in confirmation of which it is sufficient to state, that Vandyck was desirous of being commemorated by him, and painted him in return. This fact exalts his reputation even more than the commendations he received from contemporary poets, among whom were Chiabrera and Marino, whose features he also preserved for posterity. He was appointed portrait painter to the court of Savoy, and in this department he had a rival in his own family, in Niccolo his son, who was in high reputation in Genoa when Soprani wrote. Some others of the school of Paggi, distinguished in landscape or in other branches of painting, are reserved for the conclusion of this epoch.

Paggi had a rival in Sorri of Siena. His style is a mixture of Passignano and Paol Veronese; and, if I err not in my judgment, of Marco da Siena also, whose Deposition from the Cross in Araceli was, in a manner, repeated by Sorri at S. Siro in Genoa. He there instructed Carlone and Strozzi, two luminaries of this school. Gio. Carlone repaired soon to Rome, and afterwards to Florence, where he was taught by Passignano, the father-in-law and master of Sorri. Passignano was not so remarkable for his colouring as for his design and grandeur of composition; but we have already observed, that the style of colour is that portion of the art least influenced by precept, and which is formed more than any other by the individual genius of the painter. Carlone possessed as great talents for composition as any of his contemporaries; correct and graceful in design, decided and intelligent in expression; and above all, he had an extraordinary brilliancy of colour in his frescos. In this branch he was anxious to distinguish himself; and although he saw eminent examples at Florence and in Rome, he did not adhere to them so much as, if I am not wrong in my conjecture, he attempted to follow, or rather to surpass and to reduce to a more pleasing practice, the style exhibited by Tavarone, in the histories of S. Lorenzo. I have already described that style; the vigour, beauty, and freshness with which it prepossesses the spectator, and approximates the most distant objects. If, in respect of Giovanni, we wish to add any greater praise, it is that he surpassed Tavarone in these gifts; and besides, he is more correct in his contours, and more varied and copious in composition. But in all these qualities they were both excelled by Gio. Batista Carlone, a scholar also of Passignano, and a student in Rome, afterwards the associate of Giovanni, his elder brother, in principle and practice, whom he survived fifty years, as if to carry their style to the highest pitch of perfection.

The church of the Nunziata del Guastato, a splendid monument of the piety and the riches of the noble family of Lomellini, and an edifice which confers honour on the city, which has enlarged and ornamented it as its cathedral, possesses no work more astonishing than the three naves, almost nearly the whole of which are decorated by the two brothers. In the middle one the elder brother represented the Epiphany of our Lord, his Entrance into Jerusalem, the Prayer at Gethsemane, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption of the Virgin, and other passages of the New Testament. In one of the smaller naves, the younger brother painted St. Paul preaching to the Multitude, St. James baptizing the Neophytes, St. Simon and St. Jude in the Metropolis of Persia; and in the opposite nave three histories from the Old Testament, Moses striking the Rock, the Israelites passing the Jordan, and Joseph, on a high seat, giving Audience to his Brethren. All these stories seem to be adopted as giving scope to a fancy rich in invention, and capable of peopling these immense compositions with figures almost innumerable. It is not easy to mention a work on so vast a scale executed with so much zeal and care; compositions so copious and novel, heads so varied and so animated, contours so well expressed and so strongly relieved, colours so enchanting, so lucid and fresh after such a lapse of years. The reds (which perhaps are too frequent) are as deep as purple, the blues appear sapphires, and the green, above all, which is a wonder to artists, is bright as an emerald. In viewing the brilliancy of these colours we might almost mistake them for paintings on glass or enamel; nor do I recollect to have seen in any other artists of Italy so original, beautiful, and enchanting a style of colour. Some persons who have compared these colours with those of Raffaello, Coreggio, or Andrea del Sarto, have thought them too near bordering on crudeness; but in matters of taste, where the sources of pleasing are so many, and where there are so many gradations in the merits of artists, who can possibly gratify all? The similitude of style would lead the unskilled to believe them the works of the same master; but the more experienced are able to ascertain the composition of Gio. Batista from a peculiar delicacy of tints and of chiaroscuro, and from a grander style of design. It has been attempted to ascertain more minutely his method of colouring; and it has been discovered, "that in decorating the ceilings and walls of rooms, he previously laid on the dry wall a colour ground, to protect his work from the action of the lime. These paintings were executed with the most delicate gradations, and the most surprising harmony; hence his frescos have all the richness of oil colours." These are the words of Ratti, and Mengs joins him in the encomium.

I have only enumerated the paintings which these artists exhibited in the Guastato, but Giovanni left numerous works in the same style and on similar subjects, at the Gesù and at S. Domenico in Genoa, and at S. Antonio Abate in Milan, where he died; without mentioning the many fables and stories with which he adorned various palaces in his native city. Of the other brother it is not equally easy to recount all that he painted in private houses, and in the before-mentioned churches, and at S. Siro and elsewhere. The histories of the chapel in the Palazzo Reale are amongst his most original and delightful works; Columbus discovering the Indies; the Martyrdom of the Giustiniani at Scio; the Remains of the Baptist brought to Genoa, and other Ligurian subjects. Nor is it easy to enumerate his many altar-pieces and oil pictures to be found in the churches. I shall limit myself here to the three histories of S. Clemente Ancirano at the Guastato; pictures, characterised by such congruity, such truth, and such a peculiar horror, as to force us to withdraw our eyes from the inhumanity of the scene. Some persons may, perhaps, be indisposed to give full credit to all that I have written of Gio. Batista; as it seems incredible that an artist should be so little known, who united in himself the most opposite qualities; a wonderful skill both in oil and fresco; equal excellence in colour and design; facility and correctness; an immense number of works, and a diligence shewn by few fresco painters. But they who have viewed the works I have mentioned, with unprejudiced eyes, will not, I feel confident, differ far from me in opinion. He lived to the age of eighty-five, and lost neither his vigour of invention nor his genius for grand composition; nor the freedom of hand, and incomparably fine pencil with which he treated them. I shall allude, in another epoch, to his sons Andrea and Niccolo; but I must not neglect to observe, that both Pascoli and Orlandi have written of this family with little accuracy.

The other great colourist and scholar of Sorri was Bernardo Strozzi, better known under the name of the Capuchin of Genoa, from his professing that order. He is also called _il Prete Genovese_, because he left the cloister, when a priest, to contribute to the support of an aged mother and a sister; but the one dying and the other marrying, he refused to return to his order; and being afterwards forcibly recalled to it and sentenced to three years of imprisonment, he contrived to make his escape, fled to Venice, and there passed the remainder of his days as a secular priest. The larger compositions of this artist are only to be seen in Genoa, in the houses of the nobility, and in San Domenico, where he executed the great picture of the Paradiso, which is one of the best conceived that I have seen. There too, in Novi and in Voltri, are various altar-pieces; and above all, an admirable Madonna in Genoa, in a room of the Palazzo Reale. Some of his works are also to be seen in Venice, where Strozzi was preferred to every other artist, to replace a _Tondo_, executed in the best age of Venetian art, in the library of St. Mark, and there painted a figure of Sculpture.

He, however, left few public works. Whoever wishes to see admirable productions, must observe his pictures in eminent collections; as the St. Thomas Incredulous, in the Palazzo Brignole. When placed in a room of excellent colourists he eclipses them all by the majesty, copiousness, vigour, nature, and harmony of his style. His design is not very correct, nor sufficiently select; we there see a naturalist who follows neither Sorri nor any other master; but one who, after the example of that ancient master, derives instruction from the multitude. There is a deep expression of force and energy in the heads of his men, and of piety in those of his saints. In the countenances of his women and his youths he has less merit; and I have seen some of his Madonnas and angels vulgar and often repeated. He was accustomed to paint portraits, and in his compositions derived all his knowledge from the study of nature; and often painted half figures in the style of Caravaggio. The royal gallery at Florence has a Christ by him, called _della Moneta_; the figures half-size, and exhibiting great vivacity. He is esteemed the most spirited artist of his own school; and in strong impasto, in richness and vigour of colour, has few rivals in any other; or rather, in this style of colouring he is original and without example. His remains were deposited at S. Fosca in Venice, with this inscription: _Bernardus Strozzius Pictorum splendor, Liguriæ decus_; and it is his great praise to have merited this encomium in the seat and near the ashes of the greatest colourists.

Gio. Andrea de' Ferrari perfected himself under this master, having been previously the scholar of Castelli, whose feeble style may be detected in the Theodosius, painted by Ferrari as an altar-piece in the Gesù. In many works he is a respectable follower of Strozzi; as in the Nativity in the Duomo of Genoa, and in the Nativity of the Virgin, in a church of Voltri, full of figures which seem inspired with life. Although little known, and perhaps too little commended by Soprani, he is one of the first Genoese artists; and, to establish his reputation, it is sufficient to state, that he was the master of Gio. Bernardo Carbone, the chief of this school of portrait painters. Even by the more experienced his portraits were often mistaken for those of Vandyke, or purchased at prices little inferior to those given for a true Vandyke. He also composed well, as may be seen in his picture of the King S. Louis at the Guastato. But this picture did not please the person who gave the commission, and a second was ordered in Paris, and afterwards a third, which successively superseded each other on the altar. But they did not prove satisfactory, and that of Carbone was restored to its place, and the other two were added as laterals, as if to attend on it.

Another deserving scholar of Strozzi resided a considerable time in Tuscany, and there distinguished himself; Clemente Bocciardo, from his great size called Clementone. He first studied in Rome, afterwards in Florence, and practising much with Castiglione, he formed a style more correct and ideal than that of his master, to whom, however, he is inferior in truth of colour. Pisa was his theatre of art, where, in the Duomo and elsewhere, he left some highly respectable works; over all of which, in his life, the preference is given to S. Sebastian, placed in the church of the Carthusians. He painted his own portrait for the royal gallery of Florence, which has had a better fate than those of many common artists, and remains there to the present day.

A third pupil of this school resided a considerable time in Venice, afterwards in Mirandola. This was Gio. Francesco Cassana, a soft and delicate colourist, and master of Langetti. By the Venetians he was but little esteemed, and painted only for private collections. He afterwards repaired to the court of Mirandola, and painted a S. Jerome for the Duomo of that city, and other pictures in various churches, which enhanced his reputation. He was the founder of a family that conferred honour on the art. Niccolo, his eldest son, who became one of the most celebrated portrait painters of his age, passed the chief part of his life at Florence, and died at the court of London. The Grand Duke possesses some of his historical compositions, and some portraits full of expression, in the royal gallery, amongst which are two half figures of two court buffoons, admirably executed. It is said that his style, which nearly approaches to Strozzi, cost him great trouble, and that, when painting, he was so intent on his work as not to hear a person addressing him; and sometimes, in a rage, he would throw himself on the ground, exclaiming against his work as deficient both in colour and spirit, till snatching his pencil again he brought it to his wishes. Gio. Agostino, called l'Abate Cassana, from the clerical dress which he always wore, was a good portrait painter, but distinguished himself more in the representation of animals. There are many of his pictures in the collections of Florence, Venice, and Genoa, and Italy in general, and they often indeed pass under the name of Castiglione. The third brother was Gio. Batista, and excelled in flowers and fruits, which he painted with great effect. They had also a sister, of the name of Maria Vittoria, who painted sacred figures for private collections, and who died in Venice at the beginning of the last century. In all I have said of the Cassana family I have adhered to Ratti, as to a native and correct author. Some who have written on the gallery of Florence, where the portraits of the three first are found, differ in some particulars, ascribing to the one works belonging to the other. Niccolo was in fact the one that there enjoyed the highest favour of Prince Ferdinand; and he it is who is mentioned in the note to Borghini (p. 316) where it is said that the picture by Raffaello, transferred from Pescia to the Pitti palace, was finished by Cassana. But with respect to this notice, and others regarding the Cassani, we may consult the Catalogo Vianelli, p. 97, where we find described a remarkable portrait of a young man studying, painted by Niccolò; and it is succeeded by a long memoir, which throws additional light on the history of this family.

I must now speak of another celebrated Ligurian, but neither a scholar of Paggi, nor of Sorri, nor indeed of any other considerable master, and almost self-instructed; for the elements of the art, which he learned from Orazio Cambiaso, a painter of mediocrity, could not carry him far. He was born in Voltri, his name Gio. Andrea Ansaldo. He is the only one of the school who contested precedency in perspective with Giulio Benso, by whom, in a quarrel, prompted by jealous feelings of his talents, he was wounded: an attempt which was repeated by an unknown hand, after an interval of some years. Near the choir of the Nunziata, painted by Benso, we behold the cupola of Ansaldo, injured by damp, yet notwithstanding remarkable for a most beautiful division and grandeur of the architecture, and for many figures which remain uninjured. When we survey this fine work, we cannot refuse to this artist a great talent for the decoration of cupolas, which may be esteemed the summit of the art of painting, as the colossal is of sculpture. His other works in fresco, in churches and in private houses, are very numerous; and he is particularly admired for his works in the palace Spinola at S. Pier d'Arena, where he has represented the military exploits in Flanders of the Marchese Federico, the boast of this family. Amongst his oil pictures a St. Thomas baptizing three Kings in a church, is celebrated. It is placed in the chapel of that saint, and exhibits much vigour of design, a brilliant decoration of scenery and persons, and a display of graceful and delightful harmony. Such is his prevailing character, which is in part his own, acquired by an unwearied application, and in part derived from the Venetians, and especially Paolo. Ansaldo is one of those masters who painted both much and well.

Of his scholars, the one who followed him the closest was Orazio de' Ferrari, his countryman and kinsman. He painted well in fresco, but better in oil. We need only inspect the Last Supper in the oratory of S. Siro, to form a most favourable idea of this young artist. Giovacchino Assereto profited more from the design than the colour of Ansaldo; in general he attempted his chiaroscuro in the manner of Borzone, his first master, as in the picture of S. Rosario at S. Brigida. Giuseppe Badaracco was ambitious of introducing a new style into his native place, and repaired to Florence, where he remained many years copying and imitating Andrea del Sarto. He left many works there in private collections, and I imagine they are there still; but, as always happens to copyists and imitators, his name is never mentioned, and his works pass as belonging to the school of Andrea. In Genoa itself his name is almost lost. It is known that he in general painted for collections; but not for what houses. I found in the house of a gentleman of Novi an Achilles in Scyros, with the name of Badaracco, and with the date of 1654. In this work the artist seems to have forgotten Andrea, and to have followed the naturalists of his own country. There is no public work by him except a S. Philip, which is preserved in the sacristy of S. Niccolò in _Voltri_.

To the foregoing masters we may add Gio. Batista Baiardo, of I know not what school, but certainly commendable for the talents displayed in his pictures at the portico of S. Pietro, and in the convent of S. Agostino, painted with vigour, freedom, and grace. The inferior works in that convent are certainly by another hand. Baiardo, Badaracco, Oderico, Primi, Gregorio de' Ferrari, and others in this school, were carried off by the plague in 1657. But we have now spoken sufficiently of the higher class of works, and shall here pass to those of another kind, completing the notices which we have occasionally interspersed before.

We have often spoken of portrait painting, a lucrative branch of the art in every capital, and more cultivated in Genoa than in most cities. Besides the noble models of art left, as we have before mentioned, by the best Flemish artists, those of Del Corte, a scholar of Titian, and of his son Cesare, were of great service. From the school of this master arose a succession of noble portrait painters, instructed by Luciano Borzone, who in the time of Cerano and Procaccini also studied in the Milanese School, and derived benefit from it; an artist highly esteemed by Guido Reni. He is entitled to a place in the higher walks of art for his numerous paintings for the churches and for collections; where however his greatest merit is the expression, which as a good portrait painter, or rather naturalist, he gives to his heads, which partake more of natural truth than of select beauty. The folds of his drapery are true and simple, and his style on the whole is not so strong as that of Guercino, but sufficiently so to please the eye. The Presentation at S. Domenico, and the B. Chiara at S. Sebastiano, are of this character. But his best works are at S. Spirito, where he painted six pictures, and amongst them the Baptism of Christ, which is much extolled. He initiated in his own profession two sons, Gio. Batista and Carlo, who on his death finished some of his pictures in a manner not to be distinguished from his own hand. Carlo surpassed his brother in small portraits; and with him Gio. Batista Mainero, Gio. Batista Monti, Silvestro Chiesa, all scholars of Borzone, all worthy of commemoration, and all of whom shared the same fate, being carried off by the pestilence of the year 1657.

The first who distinguished himself in the lower branch of the art in the Genoese School was Sinibaldo Scorza, born in Voltaggio, who, guided by a natural genius, and directed by Paggi, proved an excellent painter of landscapes enlivened by figures of men and animals in the style of Berghem. It would be difficult to name an artist in Italy who so successfully engrafted the Flemish style on his own. I have seen a picture of cattle passing a stream, in the collection of the illustrious Carlo Cambiaso, where the animals rival those of Berghem, and the human figures appear painted by a superior artist. Other collections possess specimens of him in sacred subjects and classical fables; in which he rises far above the Flemish artists. He also painted in miniature, if indeed his oil paintings, from the care bestowed on them, ought not themselves to be called miniatures. His works were celebrated by the poets of the age, particularly by Marini, who introduced him to the court of Savoy. He was engaged, and employed there until hostilities took place between the governments of Piedmont and Genoa, which obliged him to return home. He was then denounced to the government by some malicious rivals as a partizan of Savoy, and passed two years in exile between Massa and Rome. From thence he returned much improved, whence his latter pictures far exceed the first in invention and copious composition.

Antonio Travi, more commonly called Il Sestri, or Il Sordo di Sestri, from being a grinder of colours in the studio of Strozzi, and a friend of the Flemish artist Waals, soon emulated both the one and the other. He learned from the latter the art of painting landscape, with buildings in perspective, and ruins; and he afterwards copied from nature the beautiful country of the Riviera, with avenues of trees and rich orchards. But as Waals was a feeble painter of figures, Travi availed himself of the instructions of Strozzi to enliven his landscapes with beautiful and spirited figures, not so much painted as sketched with a few strokes by a master's hand, to gratify the eye when viewed at a distance. Thus, although his landscapes are not highly finished, they please us by their agreeable disposition, by their azure skies, the verdure of the trees, and their freedom of touch. The state abounds with his pictures; but a great proportion of those that bear his name are by his sons, who succeeded him in his profession, but not with their father's talents.

Ambrogio Samengo and Francesco Borzone deserve also to be enumerated among the landscape painters. Ambrogio was the scholar of Gio. Andrea Ferrari, a painter of flowers and fruit; and his works are rare in consequence of his early death. Francesco, after a miraculous escape from the plague, applied himself to the composition of marine subjects and landscapes in the style of Claude and Dughet; and his pictures, from their clearness, sweetness, and fine effect, attracted the notice of Louis XIV., who invited him to his court, where he remained many years; and this is the reason of the scarcity of his works in Italy. We might here mention Raffaele Soprani, the biographer of the Genoese artists, and many noble Genoese with him; but in a work where the names of many painters themselves are omitted, it will not be expected that we should record all the amateurs of the art.

I may place in this class of artists Gio. Benedetto Castiglione; not that he wanted talents for larger works, as many altar-pieces in Genoa, and particularly the very beautiful Nativity in St. Luke, one of the most celebrated pictures in the city, sufficiently prove, but because the great reputation which he has acquired in Europe has been derived from his cabinet pictures, where he has represented in a wonderful manner animals, either alone or as accessories to the subject. In this department of the art he is, after Bassano, the first in Italy; and between these two the same difference exists as between Theocritus and Virgil; the first of whom is more true to nature and more simple, the second more learned and more finished. Castiglione, the scholar of those accomplished artists Paggi and Vandyke, ennobles the fields and woods by the fertility and novelty of his invention, by his classical allusions, and his correct and natural expression of the passions. He displays a freedom of design, a facility, grace, and generally a fulness of colour; but in some pictures a greater richness is desired by Maratta. The general tone is cheerful, and often reddish. We find by him in collections large pictures of animals with figures, as in that belonging to his Excellency the Doge Agostino Lomellino; at other times sacred subjects, among which the most celebrated are those from Genesis, the creation of animals, and their entry into the ark; and the return of Jacob with a numerous body of servants and cattle, a stupendous performance in the Palazzo Brignole Sale. Sometimes we find fabulous compositions, as the Transformations of Circe, in the collection of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; at other times hunting pieces, as that of the Bull in the collection of the Marchesi Riccardi at Florence; often markets and shews of cattle in the Flemish manner, and always more finished and more gay when painted on a smaller scale. Such is a Tobias in the act of recovering his sight, a most elegant picture, which I saw in possession of the Gregori family at Foligno. It would require a volume, as Soprani observes, to describe all his pictures in Genoa; but there is an abundance of them, not to mention those abroad, in every part of Italy, as he studied both at Rome and Venice, and a longer time at Mantua, where he died in the service of the court. He there, for the correctness and beauty of his colouring, obtained the name of Grechetto; and, for his peculiar style of etching, he was also called a second Rembrandt. In that city are to be found some pictures in his manner by his son Francesco and his brother Salvatore, in which they often make near approaches to him. Francesco repaired afterwards to Genoa, where he employed himself in painting animals, which less experienced connoisseurs sometimes ascribe to Gio. Benedetto. No Genoese, except Francesco, rivalled him in this branch; for Gio. Lorenzo Bertolotti, who studied under him for some time, dedicated himself to the painting of altar-pieces; and in that of the church of the Visitation he highly distinguished himself. Anton Maria Vassallo was a reputable painter of landscape, flowers, fruits, and animals. His chief merit is in his colouring, which he learned from Malò, the scholar of Rubens. He excelled also in figures; but his short life did not allow him to obtain a more extended celebrity.

GENOESE SCHOOL.

EPOCH IV.

_The Roman and Parmesan succeed to the Native Style.
Establishment of an Academy._

Many masters of this school being cut off by the plague in the year 1657, others deceased in the course of nature, not a few incapacitated from age, and some also turned to mannerism, the Genoese School fell into such a state of decline, that most of the young artists had recourse to other cities for instruction, and in most instances repaired to Rome. In consequence, from the beginning of this century to our own days, the Roman style has predominated among these painters, varying, according to the schools from which it descended, and according to the scholars that practised it. Few of them have preserved the style unmixed; and some have formed from the Roman and the Genoese a third manner, deserving of commendation. On this account my readers should be cautioned not to judge of these artists from works which some of them left when studying in Rome, as I have known to be sometimes the case. Artists ought to be estimated by their mature works, which, in this art, are like the corrected editions of a work in letters, by which every author wishes to be judged.

I noticed, in a former volume, Gio. Batista Gaulli. This artist, after many years practice under Luciano Borzone, unwilling to remain in a city depopulated by the plague, went to Rome; and there, by studying the best masters and by the direction of Bernino, made himself master of a new style, grand, vigorous, full of fire, his children gracefully drawn, and altogether enchanting. He contributed some pupils to the Roman School, and two of them he educated for their native school; Gio. Maria delle Piane, called, from his father's profession, II Molinaretto, and Gio. Enrico Vaymer. Their pictures were composed in a good style, and there are some of their works in the churches of Genoa; particularly of the first, by whom there is at Sestri di Ponente a Decollation of St. John the Baptist, highly celebrated. But they owed both their fame and their fortune to portrait painting. The accomplishments of their master in that respect, above all other artists, insured them a reputation, whence they abounded in commissions, both in Genoa, which on that account is full of portraits painted by them, and also in foreign countries. Vaymer was three times called to Turin to paint the king and royal family; and was invited by very considerable offers to remain there, which he, however, always rejected. Molinaretto, after several visits to Parma and Piacenza, where he furnished the court with portraits, and left some pictures in the churches, was invited by King Charles of Bourbon to Naples, where he died, in a good old age, painter to the court.

Pietro da Cortona also contributed some good scholars to Genoa. A doubtful celebrity remains to Francesco Bruno of Porto Maurizio, who left in his native country some altar-pieces in the style of Pietro, and a copy of one of the pictures of that master. He is an unequal painter, if, indeed, we may not conclude, with Sig. Ratti, that some inferior works are improperly ascribed to him by common report. With still less foundation Francesco Rosa of Genoa is conjectured to have sprung from this school, who studied about the same time in Rome. The frescos and oil pictures which he left in that city, at S. Carlo al Corso, and particularly at the churches of S. Vincenzio and Anastasio, evince him a follower of a different style. He there approaches Tommaso Luini and the dark mannerists of that period. He painted in a much better style, at Frari in Venice, a Miracle wrought by S. Antonio; a large composition, in which besides a most beautiful architecture he displays much knowledge of the naked figure, good effect of chiaroscuro, great vivacity in the heads; in the latter, however, little select, and in the general effect partaking more of Caracci than Cortona.

There is no doubt that Gio. Maria Bottalla was instructed by Cortona. The Cardinal Sacchetti, his patron, from his happy imitation of Raffaello surnamed him Raffaellino; an appellation which I am not sure was confirmed to him in Rome, and it certainly was refused to him in Genoa. In both those cities he left very considerable works, in which he did not go so far in his imitation of Pietro, as to neglect the style of Annibal Caracci. A large composition of Jacob, by his hand, is to be seen in the collection of the Campidoglio, formerly in the Sacchetti; and there exists in the Casa Negroni in Genoa, a picture in fresco by him. Both are very considerable works for a painter who had not passed his thirty-first year. Another undoubted scholar of Pietro was Gio. Batista Langetti, although in his colouring he adhered more to the elder Cassana, his second master. Langetti is one of the foreign painters who, after 1650, flourished in Venice, and excited the poetic genius of Boschini. He extols him as an artist eminent in design and execution;[69] and this commendation is confirmed by Zanetti; with an understanding, however, that this extends only to his more studied pictures; as, for instance, his Crucifixion in the church delle Terese. As to the rest he generally painted for profit; painting heads of old men, philosophers, and anchorets, for which he is very remarkable in Venetian and Lombard collections. It is said that he was accustomed to paint one a day; his portraits were always drawn with truth, without adding that ideal grandeur which we so much admire in the Greek sculptures in similar subjects. He animated these countenances, however, with a strength of colour and with a vigour of pencil that caused them to be highly sought after; often receiving for them not less than fifty ducats a-piece. His name is not found in the Abbeccedario, which is not to be wondered at, for in so vast a work it is impossible to notice every individual artist.

Footnote 69:
L'opera con bon arte, e colpi franchi,
L'osserva el natural con bon giudizio,
In l'atizar l'atende al bon ofizio,
Che i movimenti sia vivi e nò stanchi.
_Carta del Navegar Pittoresco_, p. 538.

But the greater number of scholars that Genoa sent to Rome attached themselves to Maratta. Gio. Stefano Robatto of Savona repaired twice to his school, and remained in it several years. He matured his genius, by visiting other schools of Italy, and went also into Germany, and at a mature age settled in his own country. He there executed some works that confer honour on her; as the St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, painted in fresco in the cloister of the Cappuchins. Others of these, his first works, have obtained unqualified praise, especially for their colouring, which excited even the admiration of the professors of Genoa, accustomed to study the first works of art. But he afterwards gave himself up to gaming, and, losing all desire of distinction, he degraded both his pencil and his name, producing, like a mechanic, works of mediocrity at a trifling price. Hence it may be said, that Savona had not a better nor a worse painter than Robatto.

Gio. Raffaello Badaracco, the son of Giuseppe, who is mentioned in a former epoch, passed from the school of his father to that of Maratta; and afterwards, aspiring to a freer style, he became in a great measure Cortonesque, very soft in execution, of a good impasto, with an abundance of the finest ultramarine, which has conferred on his pictures both durability and celebrity. His historical subjects are very numerous in collections; the Certosa of Polcevera possesses two of the largest, from the history of the patron saint. A Rolando Marchelli was a fine scholar of Maratta; but, attaching himself to merchandise, he left few works.