Chapter IV: Introduction (2)

In our attempt to unravel the skein of Italian art in this collection and to sketch its history in strict chronological order we may now consider two small predella panels of (_a_) _St. Francis receiving the Stigmata_ and (_b_) _An Incident in the Life of St. Cosmo and St. Damian_ (No. 1414) by Francesco Pesellino (1422-1457). The former deals with a subject we have already met with in this Gallery (No. 1312); the latter is a new theme. St. Cosmo and St. Damian were wealthy men and spent their time in doing charitable works as doctors without monetary reward, and are thus sometimes known as “the Holy Money-despisers.” According to the legend here represented, a Christian was one day praying to these saints in the church dedicated to them in Rome in the fervent hope that he might be healed of cancer in the leg. While thus at prayer he imagined that his leg was amputated and replaced by that of a dead Moor. In this small panel the saints are shown in the act of placing the black man’s limb on the body of the Christian, who, no doubt, will before long be healed. St. Cosmo and St. Damian being patron saints of the Medici family are often met with in Florentine art. We have already in this collection looked at a picture (No. 1293) by Fra Angelico illustrating their martyrdom. Pesellino, who studied the art of Fra Angelico, Masaccio, and Domenico Veneziano, and followed somewhat closely in the steps of Fra Filippo Lippi, can hardly have painted the small three-panel picture officially ascribed to him of (_a_) _The Dead Christ_, (_b_) _A Cardinal supporting the Bodies of Two Men who have been hanged_, and (_c_) _A Cardinal appearing in a Vision to a Bishop_. This small work (No. 1415), which was formerly in the Campana collection, has been claimed by Dr. Venturi and Mr. Berenson to be by the Umbrian artist, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo.

The _Madonna and Child and St. Augustin, St. John the Baptist, St. Anthony, and St. Francis_ (No. 1661), which is officially catalogued as being by an Unknown Florentine artist, and has been variously attributed to Andrea del Castagno, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Andrea Verrocchio, may be assigned to that nameless contemporary of Pesellino whose artistic personality was a few years ago constructed by Mrs. Berenson under the name of “Compagno di Pesellino.”

The art of the Umbrian artist, Piero dei Franceschi (1415?-1492), who is so well represented in the National Gallery, is not seen at the Louvre, where, however, a _Madonna and Child_ passes under his name. This panel (the official number of which is given in the Catalogue as 1300B and on the frame as 1300A) was formerly in the Duchâtel collection before passing into that of the Duc de la Trémoïlle, from whom it was purchased in 1898 for £5200 by the _Société des Amis du Louvre_. It was recognised over twelve years ago by M. Ary Renan as the work of Alessio Baldovinetti (14271499), who, like Piero dei Franceschi, was formed on Domenico Veneziano, and was also influenced by the discoveries and methods of Uccello.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle also had made that attribution before the question was taken up by Mr. Berenson, who on morphological and æsthetic grounds unhesitatingly ascribes it to Baldovinetti. “Compared with Baldovinetti,” writes Mr. Berenson, “Piero dei Franceschi is sterner and harder and more monumental. Piero’s Madonnas have a fixed and severe physiognomy, massive structure and immobile pose; never a smile, never a touch of tenderness.” How different from all this is the _Madonna_ by Baldovinetti before us, with her “refined features and her pensive gaze of adoration—a look that unveils her inner life, a look that will soon develop into the mystery which we feel in the face of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.” Vasari tells us that Baldovinetti was “extremely careful and exact in his work, and of all the minutiæ which Mother Nature is capable of presenting, he took pains to be the close imitator. He delighted in the representation of landscape, which he depicted with the utmost exactitude; thus we find in his pictures rivers, bridges, rocks, herbs, fruits, paths, fields, cities, castles, sands, and objects innumerable of the same kind.” A goodly number of these are included in the background of this picture.

With Antonio Pollaiuolo (1429-1498) and his brother Piero (1443-1496) we enter on a more scientific era in Florentine art. Masaccio had already advanced the study of the nude, and the influence of Donatello (1386-1466) and other sculptors had drawn the attention of all art-workers to the fuller significance of the human form. A more serious attempt was now made by the rising generation of sculptors and painters, among whom Antonio Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio (1435-1488) now played the leading parts, to impart to the human figure a more exact physiological accuracy and so give it greater effectiveness. The advance made by Baldovinetti in landscape tended also to a more real sense of movement in a natural environment. The Louvre catalogues no picture under the name of either of the Pollaiuoli, but a _Madonna_ (No. 1367A) here credited to Bastiano Mainardi was probably executed by Piero, who frequently worked on his elder brother’s designs.

The influence of Alessio Baldovinetti is reflected in the pictures of Cosimo Rosselli (1437-1507). Nothing is officially ascribed to him in this collection, but the _Annunciation, with St. John the Baptist, St. Anthony, St. Catherine, and St. Peter Martyr_ (No. 1656), which is here catalogued as by an Unknown fifteenth-century Florentine painter, is apparently his work. It is inscribed with the date A.D.M.CCCCLXXIII.

THE GOLDSMITH PAINTERS

During the generation which preceded the activity of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494) (who appears in the official Catalogue under the name of Grillandaio) the art of the painter had often been combined with that of the architect and sculptor. In time the influence of the goldsmith is seen in the inclination of the more prosaic painters, among whom Ghirlandaio holds an important place, to subordinate the pictorial qualities of their compositions to the gold-worker’s love of ornamental detail and fanciful jewellery. Paintings carried out in the goldsmith’s shop thus contained in the action of the figures, the treatment of the draperies, and the fanciful head-dresses, imitations of silver and bronze work. Domenico Bigordi owed the name of Ghirlandaio, by which he is now generally known, to his having been apprenticed to a goldsmith who acquired fame as a maker of the jewelled coronals (_ghirlande_) that became fashionable. This pupil of Alessio Baldovinetti, who was a craftsman quite as much as a painter, is to-day best known by the large number of frescoes he painted in Tuscany.

(1449-1494)

FLORENTINE SCHOOL

No. 1322.—PORTRAIT OF AN OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON
(“THE BOTTLE-NOSED MAN”)

(Portrait d’un Vieillard et de son petit-fils)

An old man, wearing a red robe edged with fur, looks down tenderly
at his golden-haired little grandson who lifts up his face to be
kissed. Through an open casement is seen a landscape.

Painted in tempera on panel.

2 ft. 0½ in. × 1 ft. 6¼ in. (0·62 × 0·46.)]

In Ghirlandaio’s _Visitation_ (No. 1321) the Virgin, her conventional robes fastened by a morse such as this goldsmith-painter repeatedly introduced into his pictures, stoops to greet St. Elizabeth. On the left is Mary Cleophas, and from the right Mary Salome trips lightly on to the scene. As always in a painting of this subject, the principal figures are silhouetted against the arch in the background, through which the sky is seen. Characteristic of Ghirlandaio’s paintings is the jewelled architecture which bears the date 1491, three years previous to his death. The Catalogue suggests that this large picture was finished by either Davide or Benedetto, the brothers and assistants of Domenico, but it is possible that his brother-in-law, Bastiano Mainardi, may have worked on it. The French, having pointed out to the Duke of Tuscany in 1815 that Florence possessed many better examples of this painter’s art, were allowed to retain this panel picture, which had been brought in 1806 from the Church of S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi at Florence.

The delightful _Portrait of an Old Man and his Grandson_ (No. 1322, Plate III.), which is usually known as _The Bottle-nosed Man_, is an admirable study from life. The winsome attitude of the little boy and the refined expression of the old man are very pleasing. It is an incontrovertible, but perhaps not obvious, fact that mere physiological ugliness can in the hands of an accomplished artist be transformed into a medium of beauty. The picture has unfortunately been damaged, notably in the forehead of the principal figure. The certainty of touch and the delicacy of the modelling indicate that this panel belongs to the last period of the artist’s activity, when he also executed the magnificent _Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi_, now in the collection of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.

One of Domenico’s brothers, Benedetto Ghirlandaio (1458-1497) is credited with a _Christ on the Way to Calvary_ (No. 1323). His own son, Ridolfo (1483-1561), painted the _Coronation of the Virgin_ (No. 1324) in 1503, the date being inscribed on the panel. Mainardi (fl. 1482-1513), the brother-in-law, pupil, and imitator of Domenico, painted many pictures which usually pass under the name of his more illustrious relation. This pupil has painted in the tondo of the _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1367) a morse somewhat similar to that seen in the _Visitation_ (No. 1321). In this same group of artists must be placed a nameless assistant of Domenico. His pictures have been grouped by Mr. Berenson, who calls him by the descriptive name of “Alunno di Domenico,” and tentatively identifies him with Bartolommeo di Giovanni, of whom very little is known. Alunno di Domenico is thus credited with having executed the companion pictures (No. 1416A and No. 1416B) of the _Nuptials of Thetis and Peleus_, a pagan subject which suggests the advent of the decadence in Florentine art. These two panels are officially catalogued under the name of Piero di Cosimo.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

We now have to pass from the mediocre artists who worked in the school of Domenico Ghirlandaio to that great master, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), whose work in the oil medium can nowhere be studied so profitably as in the Louvre. This many-sided genius was the natural and first-born son of a country notary, and became a pupil of the sculptor-painter, Andrea del Verrocchio, in whose workshop he met Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and many less distinguished Florentine painters. His interests and occupations were so various that a detailed study of his life-work reveals him as scientist, philosopher, architect, sculptor, military engineer, mathematician, botanist, and musician. The _Annunciation_ (catalogued as No. 1602A and labelled No. 1265), which in the official Catalogue is now only attributed to him after having long passed under the name of Lorenzo di Credi, is doubtless an early work of about 1472 by Leonardo. Some ten years later Leonardo entered the service of Lodovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, in which city he shortly afterwards painted the _Virgin of the Rocks_ (No. 1599). This fine painting—whose virtues are concealed under a thick coat of chilled varnish—is reputed to have been in the collection of François I., although it has no continuous pedigree earlier than the year 1625, when it was in the royal collection at Fontainebleau. It is very similar to the painting of the same subject which the National Gallery (No. 1093) purchased in 1880 for £9000. The points of difference between the two versions are numerous but trifling. The nimbi in the National Gallery picture were added much later and are not found in the Louvre panel, which in the greater perfection of detail, in the treatment of the foreground and the brushwork, prove it to be an earlier and more authentic work. A careful examination of the documents which came to light in the year 1893 shows that a dispute arose as to the price to be paid by the Brotherhood of the Conception of Milan for the picture now in the Louvre, and that Ambrogio da Predis and Leonardo da Vinci petitioned the Duke of Milan to intervene. It would seem that the National Gallery picture was executed in great part by Ambrogio, who worked under the supervision of the great Florentine master, in 1494, about twelve years later than the version in this collection. Leonardo’s greatest contribution to Florentine art consisted in his practice of the science of _chiaroscuro_, the laws of which he was the first to fully investigate.

Having begun his celebrated “Treatise on Painting” and recommenced his work on the colossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, which at the moment of its destruction by the French bowmen in 1500 had earned him lasting fame as a sculptor, Leonardo undertook his _chef d’œuvre_, _The Last Supper_, at Milan. Executed in tempera on a badly prepared stucco ground, the painting unfortunately soon began to perish, and although it was restored in 1908 with great success by Professor Cavenaghi, only a faint idea of its pristine beauty remains. The Louvre possesses a contemporary copy (No. 1603A) of this fresco by Marco d’Oggiono, which was commissioned by the Constable de Montmorency and long hung in the Château d’Ecouen. A similar copy of Leonardo’s _Last Supper_ was purchased from a grocer in Milan in 1793 for £600, and is now in the Royal Academy, London.

MONA LISA

When Lodovico Sforza was conquered by the French and his city occupied by them, Leonardo set out for Mantua and Florence. It may have been in the spring or summer of 1500 that he began to work on the _Portrait of Mona Lisa_ (No. 1601, Plate IV.) which officially passes under the title of _La Joconde_. Vasari says that Leonardo worked on this picture for four years, and finally left it unfinished. The words of Vasari must not be taken too literally. We know, in fact, that Leonardo did not work in Florence for four consecutive years during the period to which the Louvre’s treasured picture belongs, but in 1502 visited Orvieto, Pœsaro, and Rimini, acting as engineer to Cesare Borgia. He probably began it in 1500, resumed work on it in 1503, and did not complete it until the following year. This would make Vasari’s statement substantially correct. The subject of this world-famous portrait was Lisa di Anton Maria di Noldo Gherardini, the third wife of Francesco di Bartolommeo de Zenobi del Giocondo, whom she married in 1495. It is from the surname of her husband that she derives the name of “_La Joconde_” by which her portrait is now officially known. (The title has nothing to do with any reference to her jocund outlook on life.) A French critic has shown that Mona Lisa’s child died while this portrait was being painted. “Whoever shall desire to see how far Art can imitate Nature,” says Vasari, “may do so to perfection in this head, wherein every peculiarity that could be depicted by the utmost subtlety of the pencil has been faithfully reproduced. The eyes have the lustrous brightness and moisture which is seen in life, and around them are those pale, red, and slightly livid circles also proper to Nature. The nose, with its beautiful and delicately roseate nostrils, might be easily believed to be alive; the mouth, admirable in its outline, has the lips uniting the rose tints of their colour with those of the face, in the utmost perfection, and the carnation of the cheek does not appear to be painted, but truly flesh and blood.” This eulogistic criticism may seem to-day to be somewhat excessive, but allowance must be made for the drastic restorations to which the panel has been subjected from time to time. As early as 1625 it is recorded to have been in a bad condition. Tradition says that it was purchased by François I. for 4000 _écus d’or_, equal to-day to about £1800, and hung in the _Cabinet doré_ at Fontainebleau. Cassiano del Pozzo has left it on record that the Duke of Buckingham, in 1625, when he was sent to escort Henrietta Maria to England as the bride of Charles I., expressed the hope that he might be permitted to take the picture back with him as a present from Henri IV. of France, who was with difficulty prevented by his courtiers from acting on the suggestion. The picture was at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV.., and appeared in the Louvre for the first time at the Revolution. In recent years it has been placed in an excellent frame of the period.

By May 1506 Leonardo had returned to Milan, and there entered the service of the French king. About 1508-12 he seems to have worked upon the _Madonna, Infant Christ, and St. Anne_ (No. 1598), which appears to have been in part executed by an assistant, possibly Salaino. This large panel was purchased by Cardinal Richelieu in 1629. A sketch by Leonardo for part of this picture is in the Louvre (Drawing No. 391); other sketches are in the Venice Academy and in the Royal Library, Windsor. The name of Andrea Salaino (fl. 1495-1515) has been put forward as the painter of the mysterious picture entitled _St. John the Baptist_ (No. 1597), which was evidently painted from a female model. It is difficult to accept the view put forward by Théophile Gautier that in this androgynous figure we have “another portrait of _La Joconde_, more mysterious, more strange, freed from material likeness, and showing the soul through the veil of the body.” The picture passed into the collection of Charles I. from Louis XIII. in exchange for Holbein’s _Portrait of Erasmus_ (No. 2715, Plate XXIV.) and a now unrecognisable _Holy Family_ by Titian, but on the dispersal of the English king’s collection was purchased for £140 by Jabach, from whom it ultimately passed to Louis XIV. It is a Milanese production, but not, in all probability, from the hand of Leonardo himself, although officially so regarded. The same criticism applies to the so-called _Portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli_ (No. 1600). Lucrezia was a lady-in-waiting to Beatrice d’Este, and in 1496 Lodovico Sforza became enamoured of her, a historical event which has no bearing on the identity of this portrait or on its official, although uncertain, claim to strict authenticity. It has also been described under the misleading title of _La Belle Ferronnière_, apparently in reference to the wife of one Ferron, a blacksmith, who had according to tradition been the mistress of François I., but was already dead when Leonardo passed into the service of that king and came to France in 1516. The picture’s pedigree cannot be traced further back than 1645, and the theories put forward in connection with it are largely conjectural. It is, however, a Milanese production of the school of Leonardo. _The Profile Portrait of a Woman_ (No. 1605) was also a century ago loosely described as the _Portrait of La Belle Ferronnière_; it is catalogued as a school picture, but is regarded by Mr. Berenson as the work of Bernardino de’ Conti. The same critic is of the opinion that the _Bacchus_ (No. 1602) is “based no doubt on a drawing by Leonardo,” but the Catalogue accepts it unhesitatingly. It seems to have been originally intended as a St. John the Baptist with a staff, and subsequently altered into a Bacchus with a thyrsus. The _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1603A), an attributed work, is only an old Flemish copy of a slightly warped panel picture of the _Madonna with the Carnation_ (No. 1040A) at Munich. The _Madonna of the Scales_ (No. 1604), which still passes as a school picture, has long been regarded by responsible critics as being by Cesare da Sesto, a pupil of Leonardo. _The Holy Family_ (No. 1606), which was formerly in the His de la Salle collection, is not now exhibited.

In 1516, within three years of his death, the great Florentine left Italy for the Manor House of Cloux, near Amboise, in Touraine, to enter the service of the French king. His right hand was paralysed—he was left-handed and wrote from right to left—and his health was failing fast. The end of that great life came on May 2, 1519, when every one lamented the loss of a man and a painter “whose like Nature cannot produce a second time.”

The _Madonna and Child, St. Julian, and St. Nicholas_ (No. 1263) is perhaps the masterpiece of Lorenzo di Credi (1456?-1537), who was another pupil of Verrocchio. He also painted the _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene_ (No. 1264). The _Annunciation_ (No. 1602A), which was formerly assigned to Lorenzo in the Catalogue (No. 1265), is, as has already been pointed out, an early work by Leonardo da Vinci.

BOTTICELLI

The ever-increasing regard in which pictures by Botticelli (1444-1510) are held is traceable to the fact that they show the mystic spirit of mediæval times mingled with a fantasy that is almost modern. He was a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi, and studied the more scientific methods which Antonio Pollaiuolo adopted in his treatment of the human figure. Painting in an age when poets penned canzones to many mistresses, and lovelorn gallants spoke in impassioned verse of the great platonic emotions which stirred them to the depth of their love-tormented souls, Botticelli stands forward as the representative of the later years of the Medicean age. The mystic tendency of his genius, his poetic imagination, his highly developed sense of linear design, and the charm of his colour impart to his works a delicacy and refinement which distinguish them from the works of his contemporaries, pupils, and imitators. His fame had long been in eclipse when half a century ago Ruskin rescued it from oblivion. Botticelli, who now has become the object of a cult at the hands of fervent enthusiasts, is, however, not to be ranked as a supreme master. He cannot be placed on the same plane as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Giorgione.

Botticelli is inadequately represented at the Louvre, which possesses only two authentic paintings from his hand. Neither of these is on panel or canvas, but in fresco. He was commissioned in 1486, the year following his _Mars and Venus_ in the National Gallery (No. 915), to execute two wall paintings (No. 1297, Plate V., and No. 1298) in the hall on the _piano nobile_ of the Villa Lemmi, at Chiasso Macerelli, between Fiesole and Florence, to commemorate the marriage of Lorenzo Tornabuoni and Giovanna degli Albizzi. These exquisite, but much injured, frescoes were covered over with whitewash until 1873, and in 1882 they were removed from the wall and sold to the Louvre for £1860. In the first (No. 1298) of the series _Lorenzo Tornabuoni, as Bridegroom, is admitted into the Circle of the Liberal Arts_, who give a gracious welcome to this friend of all the Muses. This fresco, curiously enough, is in the official Catalogue regarded as only a school picture. The second of these wonderful creations depicts _Giovanna Tornabuoni and the Three Graces_ (No. 1297, Plate V.). We see the Three Graces bringing to Giovanna their gifts of Chastity, Beauty, and Love, depicted symbolically as flowers. A tragic fate awaited the loving pair, as Giovanna died within a few years in childbirth, while Lorenzo was condemned to death in 1497 for conspiracy.

(1444-1510)

FLORENTINE SCHOOL

No. 1297.—GIOVANNA DEGLI ALBIZZI AND THE THREE GRACES

(Giovanna Albizzi et les Trois Grâces ou les Vertus)

To the right Giovanna, a young woman in a red-brown dress,
wearing a white veil on her golden hair and a necklace of pearls
round her neck, advances towards four lovely maidens clad in
delicately-tinted robes. She holds in her outstretched hands
a white linen cloth into which the four maidens throw flowers
symbolic of the Virtues.

Fresco painting detached from the wall.

7 ft. 3 in. × 9 ft. 4 in. (2·12 × 2·84.)]

The _Madonna and Child and St. John_ (No. 1296), which was formerly put forward by one critic as a “work of Botticelli’s early years, but showing collaboration,” and which is still catalogued as being by the master himself, is now generally recognised as a school picture only. The background is formed by cypresses and rosebushes. The circular panel (No. 1295), which is still credited officially to Sandro, is only a copy of the _Madonna of the Magnificat_ now in the Uffizi at Florence (No. 1267 _Bis_).

Authenticity cannot be claimed for the _Fragment of a Predella_ (No. 1300), containing the figures of St. Peter Martyr, the Virgin, St. Elizabeth, Christ and the Magdalene, David, St. Francis, St. Dominic, and St. John the Baptist. The _Scene from the History of Virginia_ (No. 1662A or No. 1662 _Bis_), a cassone front, and the _Portrait of a Young Man_ (No. 1663), which was purchased in 1882 for £600, are catalogued as being by an unknown Florentine painter. These have, however, been included by Mr. Berenson among the numerous pictures painted by the nameless imitator of Botticelli, whom the eminent critic has identified under the significant name of “Amico di Sandro,” _i.e._ “The friend of Sandro Botticelli.” The _Madonna and Child adored by Angels_ (No. 1300A), bequeathed by the Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild, is regarded by the same high authority as a copy by Jacopo del Sellaio (1442?-1493), a pupil of Fra Filippo Lippi and an imitator of Botticelli, of a lost picture by “Amico di Sandro.” The unbeautiful _Venus_ (No. 1299) from the Cardinal Fesch and Campana collections (which is very similar to a picture (No. 916) in the National Gallery), the _Esther crowned by Ahasuerus_ (No. 1643A), and the _St. Jerome_ (No. 1658), must also be included among the mediocre works of Sellaio. In the same group of Florentine painters is placed Francesco Botticini (1446-1497), who worked under and was influenced by Cosimo Rosselli (1437?-1507); _the Virgin in Glory between the Magdalene and St. Bernard_ (No. 1482) is by Botticini although placed under the name of Rosselli in the Catalogue. Many pictures by Botticini pass in public galleries under the more illustrious name of Botticelli.

From Cosimo Rosselli we naturally pass to his pupil Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521), who derived great pleasure from the painting of such scenes from classic fable as enabled him to depict grotesque monsters, strange animals, and fantastic costume. At first sight it might be assumed that the _Nuptials of Thetis and Peleus_ (No. 1416A and No. 1416B) were from his brush; but although these two panels pass under his name in the Catalogue, they are, as we have seen, by “Alunno di Domenico.” Piero is represented in the Louvre exclusively by religious pictures, the most imposing of which is the _Coronation of the Virgin, with St. Jerome, St. Francis, St. Bonaventura, and St. Louis of Toulouse_ (No. 1416). An unpleasing _Madonna_ (No. 1662) has long ago been assigned to Piero di Cosimo, who is also the author of a _St. John the Baptist as a Child_ (No. 1274), which is labelled with the name of Uccello. The two last pictures hang in the Long Gallery on either side of the door leading into Room VII.

The authorities catalogue as the work of Raffaelino del Garbo (1466-1524) the large _Coronation of the Virgin, with St. Benedict, St. Salvi, St. John Gualberto, and St. Bernard degli Uberti_ (No. 1303), which is in reality the centre part of a large altarpiece by Raffaelle dei Carli (1470-1526?), who worked with Garbo and his group.

The great French Museum does not possess one of the only three easel paintings which are now assigned by the safest critics to Michelangelo (1475-1564), who as a painter is best known for his fresco paintings in Rome. This collection is, however, fortunate enough to own the two sculptures of the _Slaves_, represented as fettered and overcome by grief at the death of Pope Julius II., for whose tomb they were intended.

ALBERTINELLI

By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence had become the æsthetic capital of Italy, and painters innumerable were plying their trade within her walls. As they worked in close contact and unconsciously reflected the influences which beset them on every side, it becomes increasingly difficult to assign to any given artist the execution of certain works. The task becomes even more difficult, and indeed thankless, when one is brought face to face with such a composite picture as the _Madonna and Child, St. Jerome and St. Zenobius_ (No. 1114), which is officially ascribed to Albertinelli (1474-1515). The leading authority on Italian art has given it as his opinion that this large canvas, which is inscribed:

MARIOCTI DEBERTINELLIS OPUS
Ā. D̄. M̊. DVI,

was “begun by Filippino Lippi, who laid in the St. Jerome, while Albertinelli was assisted by Bugiardini in the execution of the rest, especially in the child and landscape.” Albertinelli was the intimate friend of Fra Bartolommeo, whose partner he eventually became. When it is remembered that Albertinelli worked in the studio of Cosimo Rosselli with Piero di Cosimo, who was the master of Fra Bartolommeo and had some influence on Filippino Lippi, it will be recognised that it is only the discerning critic of wide experience and consummate _flair_ that can detect the hand of various painters in a composite picture of this kind, as Mr. Berenson has done.

The _Christ appearing to the Magdalene_ (No. 1115), which passes officially as the work of Albertinelli, was most probably an early picture by Fra Bartolommeo (1472-1517), who, having like Botticelli come under the spell of Savonarola, took the vows of a Dominican in July 1500, and temporarily relinquished the professional activity of a painter. The Frate took up his brush again and, while working between 1509 and 1512 as the partner of Albertinelli, achieved the large and imposing _Holy Family, with St. Peter, St. Vincent, St. Stephen, and St. Catherine of Siena on the left, and St. Dominic, St. Francis, and St. Bartholomew on the right_ (No. 1154). It is signed on the base of the throne, in characteristic manner:

ORATE PRO PICTORE
MDXI
BARTHOLOME FLOREN̄.
OR. PRAE.

Four years later he also completed his Annunciation (No. 1153), which is inscribed:

_F. Bartᵒ_ Florenˢ orⁱˢ pre.
_1515._

The introduction of St. Paul, St. John the Baptist, and St. Margaret on the left, and St. Mary Magdalene and St. Francis on the right, tends to destroy the full significance of the principal theme. Fra Bartolommeo’s pictures helped to emancipate Raphael from the mannerisms he had acquired from Perugino; they mark a late period in the Renaissance art of Florence. He lived until 1517, when Florentine painting was on the verge of a fast approaching decadence.

Equally influential in the art of this period was Filippino Lippi (1457-1504), whose tendency to over-ornamentation became more advanced in his later years. In his fascinating pictures spiritual significance is at times sacrificed to a love of mere display, the baroque flutterings of his draperies and the air of affectation that he sometimes imparted to his figures. The Louvre exhibits no example of the art of Filippino which in its latest phase shows the early, although unmistakable, signs of decline.

ANDREA DEL SARTO

The highly technical skill and mellow colouring of Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) have long been known in France, where he was invited by François I. For that monarch he executed the _Charity_ (No. 1514), which, having been transferred from panel to canvas by Picault in 1750 when the process was little understood, suffered accordingly. In its present state we can get little idea of the former brilliance of the picture which secured to the “faultily faultless painter” in 1518—the year he arrived in France—a very considerable income. It is inscribed:

ANDREAS SARTUS
FLORENTINTUS ME PINXIT
MDXVIII.

A _Holy Family_ (No 1515), by the same facile painter, has been said by some to portray in the features of the Virgin those of his own infamous wife Lucrezia del Fede. It has been enlarged, and has suffered in the operation. Less authentic are the _Holy Family_ (No. 1516), which is said to bear the inscription:

ANDREA DEL SARTO FLORENTINO FACIEBAT

followed by a monogram, and a lunette of the _Annunciation_ (No. 1517). The _Portrait of Andrea Fausti_, which is given in the Catalogue under the name of Sarto, and described as being the work of a pupil, is held by some critics to have been painted by Franciabigio (1482-1525), who came under the influence of Andrea.

The insignificant _Portrait of a Young Man_ (No. 1506), which since 1709 has passed under the quite fictitious title of the _Portrait of Raphael_, and is indeed still catalogued under his name, is an ill drawn and badly coloured production. It seems to issue from the influences we have just outlined. Morelli regarded it as the work of Bacchiacca (1494-1557), who churned up reminiscences of Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, and Perugino. Mr. Berenson has tentatively assigned it to Sogliani, who imitated Albertinelli and many other Florentines.

An unattributed Florentine _Portrait of a Young Man_ (No. 1644), which has been enlarged about three inches all round, had at one time or another been ascribed without much discrimination to Raphael, Giorgione, Sebastiano del Piombo, Francesco Francia, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, and Franciabigio! It is apparently from the hand of Giuliano Bugiardini (1475-1554), a mediocre artist who endeavoured to appropriate all the conflicting influences that he came under. It has long been hung to the left of Raphael’s _La Belle Jardinière_.

A Florentine painter of no great accomplishment or originality in the first half of the sixteenth century was Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1557), who painted the _Portrait of an Engraver of Precious Stones_ (No. 1241) and the large _Holy Family_ (No. 1240). The _Visitation_ (No. 1242) is a copy by a pupil of his fresco in the Annunziata, Florence. By another pupil, Agnolo Bronzino (1502-1572), are the _Christ and the Magdalene_ (No. 1183), not now exhibited, and the _Portrait of a Sculptor_ (No. 1184); the _Holy Family_ (No. 1183A or No. 1183B) which was formerly in the Vandeuil collection is only a copy. Giovanni Battista Rosso (1496-1541), who is called Rosso Fiorentino to distinguish him from Francesco Rosso (Il Salviati), came to work at the French Court about 1530; he painted a _Pietà_ (No. 1485), and a _Challenge of the Pierides_ (No. 1486), which are hung among the French pictures. _The Portrait of a Musician_ (No. 1608), by Paolo Zacchia; the _Madonna, St. John and St. Stephen_ (No. 1133), by Michelangelo Anselmi; the _David overcoming Goliath_ (No. 1462), a repulsive production painted by Daniele da Volterra (Ricciarelli) on both sides of a large piece of slate; a _Flight into Egypt_ (No. 1209), by Lodovico Cardi (Il Cigoli), and Matteo Rosselli’s _Triumph of David_ (No. 1483), are unworthy of comment. They show unmistakably the characteristics of the Decadence in full operation.

THE LATER SIENESE SCHOOL

We have already sketched the earliest period of the art of Siena, and seen how for a brief space of time it dominated that of Tuscany. The greater precision of the Florentine technique, and the wider mental outlook of its artists in the fifteenth century, placed it in the van before long.

Sano di Pietro (1406-1481), a pupil of Sassetta, undoubtedly painted the five small characteristic panels (No. 1128-32), which illustrate scenes from the _Life of St. Jerome_, and at one time formed the predella of a large altarpiece. St. Jerome, with others of his order who run away, kneels under a portico of the monastery he founded at Bethlehem, and is extracting a thorn from the lion’s paw. According to the legend, the lion was afterwards placed in charge of an ass which the monks employed to carry wood; we see here that while the lion was asleep in the heat of the day under a clump of trees, the ass was stolen by merchants. St. Jerome naturally believed that the ass had not been carried off by a passing caravan, but eaten by the lion, who subsequently saw his old friend the ass in the possession of the same merchants that chanced to pass that way again. The lion is here seen (No. 1130) in the act of compelling, one might almost say pushing, the ass and the other beasts of burden laden with provisions back into the monastery, while the merchants flee away in terror.

The Louvre does not contain any work by Vecchietta (1412-1480), who was architect as well as painter. A _Birth of the Virgin_ (No. 1660), catalogued as being by an unknown Florentine artist, is most probably from the hand of Matteo di Giovanni (1435?-1495), who was most likely at one time a pupil of Vecchietta. Another of the latter’s pupils, Francesco di Giorgio (1439-1502), perhaps executed the panel of the _Rape of Europa_ (No. 1640A or No. 1640 _Bis_), which the cataloguer relegates to the lengthy list of unattributed Florentine works.

From these influences spring Girolamo di Benvenuto (1470-1524), whose _Judgment of Paris_ (No. 1668) passes in the Catalogue as a late fifteenth century Bolognese picture. Bernardino Fungai (1460-1516), who trod in the steps of Giovanni di Paolo, Francesco di Giorgio, and the Umbrian artist Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and yet evinced no real signs of development from within, is unrepresented in this collection.

This rapid survey of the School of Siena shows that it is not well exemplified in the Louvre. The third-rate painters, Pacchiarotto (1474-1540) and Beccafumi (1486-1551), will not detain us. Another accomplished late Sienese eclectic, Girolamo del Pacchia (1477-1535?), has been credited with a _Crucifixion_ (No. 1642), but not by the official cataloguer. Sodoma (1477-1551) also worked in Siena. Towards the year 1501 other artists of the various schools of Central Italy, including Pinturicchio, Signorelli, and Perugino, visited the city, their advent bringing about an artistic revolution. Before long the religious fervour, the delicate ornamentation, the gesso-embellishment, the drawing in the flat, and the miniature-like delicacy of an earlier age became extinct. The artistic glory of Siena was dimmed, and rapidly passed into a period of decadence.

Among the last Sienese artists of any distinction were Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536), an architect and painter, and Matteo Balducci (fl. 1509-1553), to whom we may perhaps ascribe the _Judgment of Solomon_ (No. 1571) and the _Judgment of Daniel_ (No. 1572). In any case these pictures belong to the Umbro-Sienese period of Central Italian art; they are officially regarded as being by Perugino himself. When all originality had passed out of Sienese painting, Francesco Vanni (1563?-1609) produced his _Repose on the Flight into Egypt_ (No. 1561) and the _Martyrdom of St. Irene_ (No. 1562).

THE UMBRIAN SCHOOL

At the head of the various local centres of painting which form the school of Umbria we must place Alegretto Nuzi (died 1385), whose works are very rarely met with in museums north of Italy. He inherited the best Giottesque traditions, and became the teacher of Gentile da Fabriano (1360?-1428), an early master whose influence was more far-reaching and inspiring than we can to-day trace in any detail. The Louvre has the good fortune to contain a precious little predella panel of the _Presentation in the Temple_ (No. 1278), which is very decorative and exhibits a strongly marked appreciation of architecture. It is the only separated panel from the predella of Gentile’s large and magnificent altarpiece of the _Adoration of the Magi_, of 1423, which was seized by Napoleon but was returned in 1815. It is now in the Accademia at Florence.

The _Miracle of St. Nicholas giving a Dowry to the Three Daughters of a Nobleman_ (No. 1659), which is officially classed among the unattributable works of the Florentine school, is now considered to be by Giovanni Francesco da Rimini, while the _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1300A or 1300B) which is officially ascribed to Piero dei Franceschi, the leading painter of his generation in the school of Umbria, must, as we have seen, be given to Alessio Baldovinetti of the Florentine school.

Again, the three-panel picture (No. 1415) which is credited to Pesellino of Florence is in reality from the hand of the Umbrian artist Fiorenzo di Lorenzo (1440-1521). The collection is not rich in the works of the earliest painters of this school, but the _Birth of the Virgin_ (No. 1525), a detached panel from a lost or unidentified altarpiece by Luca Signorelli (1441-1523), gives us some idea of the great power of this influential master, whose knowledge of composition and anatomy is best seen in his frescoes at Orvieto. Signorelli’s sense of complicated movement and crowded action mark an epoch in the art of Umbria. The _Fragment of a Large Picture_ (No. 1527) seems to be imbued with his spirit, but the large _Adoration of the Magi_ (No. 1526) which comes from Città di Castello, and a _Madonna and Child with St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Catherine, and other Saints_ (No. 1528), contain none of the vigorous originality of that master from whom even Michelangelo did not disdain to borrow on occasion. Three predella panels (No. 1120) have been dismembered from a large altarpiece by Niccolò da Foligno, and were originally painted for a side altar in the Church of S. Niccolò at Foligno. In the art of this over-emotional Umbrian, what is meant for deep religious feeling is by exaggeration almost transformed into grimacing passion.

PERUGINO

Niccolò’s most illustrious contemporary in this school was Pietro Perugino (1446-1523). Over fifty of the religious pictures of this influential and accomplished master were carried off from Central Italy by Napoleon. He is well represented in this Gallery. The contemplative and deeply impressive pictures of his less mannered style are among the best pictures which Umbria has given us, but there is a tendency, notably towards the end of his career, to repeat his compositions, only altering the attitude of a single figure, and so exhibiting a marked lack of originality. His early _Holy Family with St. Rose and St. Catherine_ (No. 1564), painted about 1491, is a little cramped; the tondo hardly provides sufficient space to contain the rather stiff figures, and the treatment is unpleasantly conventional. It also recalls the art of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. The _St. Sebastian_ (No. 1566A, Plate VI.), which is inscribed:

SAGITTÆ TVÆ INFIXÆ SVNT MICHI,

is a favourite subject with this master, who painted it at least eight times on a large scale, as well as in a miniature now lent to the National Gallery by Mr. H. Yates Thompson. The _Holy Family with St. Catherine_ (No. 1565) is said to bear the characteristic signature:

PETRUS PERVSINUS PINXIT.

The _Combat of Love and Chastity_ (No. 1567) was commissioned by Isabella d’Este, Duchess of Mantua, in 1505, and removed at the sack of that city in 1630 to the Château of Richelieu, where it remained down to the Revolution. The _St. Paul_ (No. 1566) is a very late and not very attractive work. In his best pictures Perugino loved to paint a purist landscape with its buoyant spaciousness of view, but too frequently his figures are insufficiently dramatic and have a tendency towards sentimentality. A very late _St. Sebastian_ (No. 1668A), which is on a much smaller scale than the subject of our illustration (Plate VI.), is officially catalogued as being by an Unknown Umbrian painter. The _Apollo and Marsyas_ (No. 1509), which was purchased at Christie’s in 1850 for £70 by Morris Moore, with an ascription to Mantegna, was in 1883 sold to the Louvre for £8000. It long hung in the Salon Carré as a Raphael, but is now only attributed to him by the cataloguer. This gem of Umbrian art has successively been ascribed by critics to Pintoricchio, Timoteo Viti, Francesco Francia, and others, but is to-day generally regarded as a very fine example of the art of Perugino. Two pictures (No. 1573 and No. 1573A) of the _Madonna and Child_ are by unidentifiable pupils of Perugino.

One of the most recent acquisitions is a _Madonna_ by Antoniazzo Romano (1440?-1508), the gift of M. Lucien Delamarre. The art of Pintoricchio (1454-1513) is shown in the _Madonna and Child with St. Gregory and another Saint_ (No. 1417), while Lo Spagna (1475?-1528?), a pupil of Perugino, is represented by a _Nativity_ (No. 1539), a _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1540), and by three small pictures illustrating the _Dead Christ, the Virgin, and St. John_ (No. 1568), _St. Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata_ (No. 1569), and _St. Jerome in the Desert_ (No. 1570).

A mediocre pupil of Perugino and Pintoricchio, Giannicola Manni (fl. 1493-1544), is doubtless responsible for the _Baptism of Christ_ (No. 1369), the _Assumption_ (No. 1370), the _Adoration of the Magi_ (No. 1371), and the _Holy Family_ (1372) which pass under his name. The last-mentioned panel was attributed by Villot, apparently without much reason, to L’Ingegno.

RAPHAEL

The majority of the thirteen pictures which in the Louvre are unreservedly catalogued under the great name of Raphael (1483-1520) certainly belong to his third or Roman period, and in many of them he obviously received a large amount of assistance from his pupil, Giulio Romano. It is this fact, no doubt, which has led the compiler of the Catalogue to place the “Divine Urbinate” in the Roman school. It will, however, be readily admitted that such a classification is both arbitrary and misleading.

(1446-1523)

UMBRIAN SCHOOL

No. 1566A.-ST. SEBASTIAN

(Saint Sébastien)

The Saint stands with his hands behind his back bound to a pillar,
with his head raised towards heaven. An arrow pierces his right arm
and another his left breast. The body is nude, but for a white loin
cloth striped with red and blue. In the background is a rounded
arch supported by two highly ornamented pillars. Through the
archway is seen a beautiful landscape.

Painted in tempera on panel.

Signed:—“SAGITTÆ TVÆ INFIXÆ SVNT MICHI.”

5 ft. 7 in. × 3 ft. 10 in. (1·70 × 1·17.)]

Although he lived but thirty-seven years, Raphael gave to the world a vast amount of art treasure. Brought up in Urbino, where his father, Giovanni Santi, was poet as well as painter, he passed before he was fifteen under the direct influence of Timoteo Viti, who had worked at Bologna under Francesco Francia. Raphael became the pupil of Perugino at Perugia about 1500, and also worked as the assistant of Pintoricchio. His art being thus formed on the best Umbrian tradition, Raphael in October 1504 left Perugia for Florence, and it was only at that date that he began to acquire a distinctive style of his own. During his second or Florentine period he painted the _St. George and the Dragon_ (No. 1503), in which is seen the chivalrous knight mounted on a pure white steed; his lance is broken in his combat with the monster, and he is forced to use his sword, while the little Princess Cleodolinda flees in abject terror into the background. The very small panel of _St. Michael_ (No. 1502), which is a chessboard on the back, was painted for Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, and eventually passed into the collections of Cardinal Mazarin and Louis XIV. The _Madonna and Child_ which has come to be known as _La Belle Jardinière_ (No. 1496, Plate VII.) is rather later than the _Madonna del Gran’ Duca_ in the Pitti Palace, the _Cardellino Madonna_ in the Uffizi, and the _Ansidei Madonna_ in the National Gallery. It is one of the most famous of Raphael’s saintly and ideal Madonnas; the pose of the figures is easy, the treatment simple, the colour exquisite. The landscape background is poetic in feeling, and conveys the mood which makes this one of Raphael’s most pleasing creations. The thin feathery trees and the treatment of the Virgin’s hair are still Peruginesque, but the superiority of the pupil to the master is gradually making itself felt. The Infant Christ is standing on the right foot of His mother. Tradition says that Raphael entrusted to Ridolfo Ghirlandaio the task of painting in the blue of the Virgin’s garment. The drapery is apparently inscribed:

VRB. RAPHAELLO MDVII.

After working for four years in Florence, Raphael went in the summer of 1508 to Rome, where he achieved such a vast amount of work for Popes Julius II. and Leo X. His work was increased by his appointment, on the death of Bramante in 1514, as Architect of St. Peter’s and Inspector of Antiquities.

About 1515-16 Raphael delighted to paint the _Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione_ (No. 1505, Plate VIII.), who was his lifelong friend and adviser as well as the author of _Il Cortegiano_. This picture, which is eloquent testimony to Raphael’s skill as a portrait painter, was originally on wood, but it was long ago transferred to canvas, which has unfortunately abraded, the paint having peeled off the hands. After the death of Castiglione in Spain, this picture which he had taken with him passed into the possession of the Duke of Mantua, and thence into the collection of Charles I., where it seems to have been copied by Rubens. It subsequently became the property of a Dutch amateur named Van Asselen, and was copied by Rembrandt. Later, it was sold for 3500 florins to Don Alfonso Lopez, a collector at Amsterdam, and after figuring in the collection of Mazarin was acquired by Louis XIV.

The _Holy Family of Francis I._ (No. 1498) was commissioned by Lorenzo de’ Medici and presented to the Queen of François I. by Pope Leo X. It was originally painted on wood, and was forwarded to Lyons on April 19, 1518. During the reign of Louis XIV. it hung in the _grand appartement_ at Versailles, and having been placed near a fireplace had to be relined. It then had wings, but they were destroyed at the time of the Revolution. Although it is very ostentatiously signed

RAPHAEL VRBINAS PINGEBAT MDXVIII

on the edge of the robe of the kneeling Madonna, there can be no question that it was only designed by Raphael, the execution being wholly or in great part carried out by the master’s best pupil, Giulio Romano. In the _Sistine Madonna_ and such works as Raphael painted at this period entirely with his own hand we see that his technique had become masterly and his powers of composition had developed to the utmost. Compared with _La Belle Jardinière_ of a decade earlier, a greater knowledge of craftsmanship has been accompanied by a loss of purity and simplicity.

(1483-1520)

UMBRIAN SCHOOL

No. 1496.—LA BELLE JARDINIÈRE

(_La Vierge_ dite _La Belle Jardinière_)

The Virgin is seated in a flowery meadow. She wears a red tunic
edged with black, yellow sleeves and a blue mantle; a book is on
her knees; her fair hair is confined under a transparent veil. She
looks down to the left at the Infant Jesus, who leans tenderly
against her knee and draws her attention to the little St. John the
Baptist who kneels to the right, his reed cross in his right hand.
The background shows a landscape containing a small town with its
church, and a lake surrounded by mountains.

Painted in oil on panel.

The signature seems to be:—“VRB. RAPHAELLO MDVII.”

3 ft. 8 in. × 2 ft. 7½ in. (1·22 × 0·80.)]

Two years before his death Raphael had designed the large but by no means imposing _St. Michael overcoming Satan_ (No. 1504), the execution of which on panel was certainly due to Giulio Romano. It was a gift from Lorenzo de’ Medici to François I., the original cartoon being presented by Raphael to the Duke of Ferrara. This picture, like the _Holy Family of Francis I._, was originally protected by folding wings, the inner sides of which were lined with green velvet, while the outer were gilded and painted with arabesques. The two pictures arrived at Fontainebleau in July 1518, having been carried on the back of mules by way of Florence and Lyons. As early as 1530 the _St. Michael_ was restored by Primaticcio and by many others subsequently, notably in 1752. The picture was transferred to canvas by Picault, who received for his labours the large sum of 11,500 _livres_, a sum quite out of proportion to its æsthetic or financial value to-day. It was again restored in 1776, 1800, and 1850. It is signed in gilt characters on the edge of the Archangel’s tunic:

RAPHAEL VRBINAS PINGEBAT MDXVIII.

The Demon is not shown, as in the early and small picture of the same subject (No. 1502), as a dragon, but as a half-human monster with horns and tail. The foreshortening is undoubtedly clever, but the picture is too instantaneous in its dramatic action. In the course of time the high lights have gone down and the shadows darkened in the metallic-looking figure of the Archangel.

The _Virgin with the Blue Diadem_ or the _Virgin with the Veil_ (No. 1497) is one of at least ten pictures in this collection which were carried out by Giulio Romano (1492?-1546). It is here credited to Raphael. It has been repeatedly restored. A very large number of replicas, variants, and old copies of this panel exist. The following “Raphaels” may be regarded as the work of Giulio: the _Small Holy Family with St. Elizabeth_ (No. 1499); the much restored _Saint Margaret_ (No. 1501); the _Portrait of Joan of Arragon_ (No. 1507), whom Raphael apparently never saw; and the _Portraits of Two Men seen to the Bust_ (which has been called _Raphael and his Fencing Master_) (No. 1508). Giulio certainly painted the _Triumph of Titus and Vespasian_ (No. 1420), the _Venus and Vulcan_ (No. 1421), and the _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 1422), which are catalogued under his name, and in all probability the three large Cartoons entitled _A Triumph_, _The Triumph of Scipio_, and _The Taking and Burning of a City_, which hang on the Escalier Daru. The _Circumcision_ (No. 1438) which figures officially under the name of the Bolognese painter Bartolommeo Ramenghi (Il Bagnacavallo) (1484-1542) is by Giulio Romano.