Chapter XIII: of Charles Heath Wilson’s Life and Works of Michelangelo (2)

Fig. 1 shows the inscription of which Vasari writes and the situation
of it on the riser of the step is seen on Plate II. The porphyry slab
is 3 ft. 5 in. long and 5½ in. high. The tongues at the ends are in
separate pieces. The letters, nineteen not eighteen in number, are
close upon 2 in. in height and are cleanly cut with =V=-shaped
incisions. The illustration shows the form of the letters which Vasari
justly praises. The name ‘Oricellario’ or -us was derived by the
distinguished Florentine family that bore it from the plant Oricello,
orchil, which was employed for making a beautiful purple dye, from the
importation of which from the Levant the family gained wealth and
importance. The shortened popular form of the name ‘Rucellai’ is that
by which the family is familiarly known. Giovanni Rucellai gave a
commission to Alberti to complete the façade of S. Maria Novella,
which was carried out by 1470. The Bernardo Rucellai of the
inscription, the son of Giovanni, was known as a historian, and owned
the gardens where the Platonic Academy had at one time its place of
meeting. Fineschi, in his _Forestiero Istruito in S. Maria Novella_,
Firenze, 1790, says that Bernardo desired to be buried in front of the
church and had the inscription cut for sepulchral purposes. The
existence of sepulchral ‘avelli’ of distinguished Florentine families
at the front of the church makes this seem likely, and in this case
the lettering would be after Alberti’s time, though as Fineschi
believes, the earliest existing work of the kind in hard stone at
Florence. See Rev. J. Wood Brown, _S. Maria Novella_, Edinburgh, 1902,
p. 114.

Footnote 19:

After the fashion of an ordinary carpenter’s ‘brace.’

Footnote 20:

See Note on ‘The Porphyry Tazza of the Sala Rotonda of the Vatican,’
at the close of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 108.

Footnote 21:

See Note at the end of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p.
110 f., on ‘Francesco del Tadda and, the Revival of Sculpture in
Porphyry.’

Footnote 22:

About 4 ft. 9 in. In a letter of May 1557 in Gaye, _Carteggio_, II,
419, Vasari mentions the work as nearly finished.

Footnote 23:

The palace in question is the well-known Palazzo Vecchio at Florence,
which was adapted for the Grand-ducal residence largely by Vasari
himself under the Grand Dukes Cosimo and his successor Francesco. The
fountain is the one at present in the courtyard of the palace,
carrying the beautiful bronze figure of a boy with a dolphin, by
Verrocchio. This ‘putto’ was brought in from the famous Medicean Villa
at Careggi, the seat of the Platonic Academy, for the purpose of
completing the fountain of which Vasari here gives an account. The
porphyry work, both in design and execution, is worthy of the
beautiful bronze that surmounts it. The basin rests on a well-turned
dwarf pillar of porphyry and this on a square base of the same
material. The surfaces are true and the arrises sharp, and the whole
is carried out in a workmanlike manner, and by no means betrays a
‘prentice hand.’

Footnote 24:

See Vasari’s Life of Michelangelo, _Opere_, ed. Milanesi, VII, 260.

Footnote 25:

That is Cosimo ‘Pater Patriae,’ who died at Careggi in 1464. The
portrait in question is shown on Plate III. For what is known about
this and other works by Francesco del Tadda, see postea, p. 113 f.

Footnote 26:

See Note on ‘Porphyry and Porphyry Quarries,’ postea, p. 101.

Footnote 27:

This remark is evidently derived by Vasari from Leon Battista Alberti,
who writes as follows in _De Re Aedificatoria_, Lib. II, ‘At nos de
porphirite lapide compertum habemus non modo flammis non excoqui,
verum et contigua quaeque circumhereant saxa intra fornacem reddere ut
ignibus ne quidquam satis exquoquantur.’ The sense of ‘excoqui’ in
this passage, and of Vasari’s ‘cuocer,’ is somewhat obscure, but can
be interpreted by reference to old writings on stones, in which great
importance is given to their comparative power of resistance to fire.
See Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXVI, 22, etc., etc. Theophrastus, Περὶ
Λίθων, § 4, has the following: ‘Stones have many special
properties ... for some are consumed by fire and others resist it ...
and in respect of the action of the fire and the burning they show
many differences....’ The ‘excoqui’ of Alberti probably refers to the
resistance of porphyry to the fire as compared with the submission to
it of stones like limestone, which are ‘burnt out’ or calcined by the
heat. Vasari’s ‘non si cuoce’ is not an adequate translation of
Alberti’s word ‘_ex_coqui.’ With a blast heat porphyry fuses to a sort
of obsidian or slag, but a moderate heat only causes it to lose its
fine purple hue and become grey. This is the ‘rawness’ implied in
Vasari’s word ‘incrudelisce.’ To us rawness suggests raw meat which is
redder in colour than cooked, but the Italians, who are not great meat
eaters, would have in their minds the action of fire on cakes and
similar comestibles that darken when baked, and an Italian artist
would think too of the action of fire on clay, ‘che viene rossa quando
ella è cotta’ as he says in chapter XXV of the ‘Introduction’ to
Painting. See Frontispiece, where A^1, compared with A, shows the
effect of fire on the stone.

Footnote 28:

The two porphyry columns, that stand one on each side of Ghiberti’s
Old Testament gates at the eastern door of the Baptistry of Florence,
serve to point a moral about the untrustworthiness of popular sayings.
When these apply to monuments it usually happens that the monument
itself hopelessly discredits the saying. The porphyry columns in
question are perfectly normal in colour and show no recognizable trace
of the action of fire. Villani (_Chronicle_, bk. IV, ch. 31) says of
these columns ‘The Pisani sent them to Florence covered with scarlet
cloth, and some said that before they sent them they put them in the
fire for envy.’ If we rationalize a little we can imagine that the
scarlet cloth, the use of which by the Pisans in connection with
porphyry shows a most lamentable absence of taste in colour, would at
first sight seem to take the colour out of the porphyry and make it
look grey through contrast. Hence may have arisen the impression which
gave rise to the saying. Boccaccio, in his commentary on the passage
in Dante (_Inferno_, XV, 67), in which the ‘blindness’ of the
Florentines is referred to, notices this affair of the columns as one
explanation of this accusation against his countrymen.

Footnote 29:

On the subject of serpentine some misapprehension exists.
Mineralogists apply the term to a soft stone of a green hue with long
curling markings through it, which in their form suggest lacertine
creatures and account for the name of the stone. It derives its colour
from the presence of a large percentage of manganese in union with
silica, and contains twelve or so per cent. of water. A penknife
scores it easily. The ‘Verde di Prato,’ a dark stone used in bands on
Tuscan buildings, of which there is question in a subsequent section,
postea, p. 43, is a species of true serpentine.

On the other hand the word ‘serpentine’ is in common use for a dark
green stone of quite a different kind, that occurs very commonly in
ancient Roman tesselated pavements, and it is this false serpentine
that Vasari has in view. It is very hard indeed, and a penknife does
not mark it. Professor Bonney describes it as ‘a somewhat altered
porphyritic basalt,’ and it is full of scattered crystals of a paler
green composed of plagioclasic felspar. These crystals average about
the size of grains of maize and they sometimes cross each other, thus
justifying Vasari’s description of them. A specimen is B, on the
Frontispiece. This stone was found in Egypt, and it is probably the
‘Augustan’ and ‘Tiberian’ stone mentioned by Pliny, _Hist. Nat._,
XXXVI, 7. See _Transactions_, _R.I.B.A._, 1888, p. 9. The chief quarry
of it however was in the Peloponnesus to the south of Sparta, and the
produce of this is called by Pliny, loc. cit., ‘Lacedaemonium viride.’
It should be noted that ‘Verde Antico,’ a green marble of which the
chief quarries are in Thessaly, is distinct from both the true and the
false ‘serpentine.’

Footnote 30:

Cipollaccio. It is not clear what is the difference, if any exist,
between the stone thus called and the ‘Cipollino’ which Vasari
discusses in a later section, postea, p. 49. The latter is a name in
universal employment, but the term ‘Cipollaccio’ is not known to
Cavaliere Marchionni, the courteous Director of the Florentine State
Manufactory of Mosaics, nor is it recognized at Carrara. On the other
hand it is given as the name of a marble in Tomaseo’s _Dizionario_
(though probably only on the strength of this mention in Vasari) and a
stone worker at Settignano claimed to know and use the word. On the
material see the Note on ‘Cipollino,’ postea, p. 49. The terminations
‘-accio’ and ‘-ino’ are dear to the Florentines—Mas_accio_ and
Maso_lino_ will occur to everyone.

Footnote 31:

This is the ‘Cortile di Belvedere’ where the Laocoon and Apollo
Belvedere are located. See Note 30.

Footnote 32:

On Michelangelo’s niche and fountain see the Note on ‘The Cortile of
the Belvedere in the Vatican in the sixteenth century,’ at the end of
the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 115. The ‘river god’ is
the ‘Tigris’ of the Vatican.

Footnote 33:

Vasari’s description of the variegated stones called breccias is clear
and good. Corsi, _Delle Pietre Antiche_, Roma, 1845, p. 139, defines
breccias as ‘marbles formed of numerous fragments of other marbles
either of one colour or of different colours, embedded in a calcareous
cement.’ The mineralogist distinguishes breccias from conglomerates by
the fact that in the former the fragments embedded are angular, in the
latter round like pebbles. The fragments need not be of marble. These
breccias were greatly used at the Renaissance, as Vasari indicates,
for the framing of doorways and for chimney pieces, but it may be
questioned whether they are really suitable for such architectural
use. For door jambs and similar constructive members a self-coloured
stone, with its greater severity of effect, would be preferable. On
the other hand, for panels and inlays and decorative uses generally,
the variegated stones are quite in place. See C, D on the
Frontispiece.

Footnote 34:

See Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries’ postea, p. 119 f.

Footnote 35:

S. Giusto, commonly called S. Giusto a Monte Martiri, lies by Monte
Rantoli, between the valleys of the Ema and Greve, to the south of
Florence.

Footnote 36:

Breccia columns answering to this description are to be seen in the
lower part of the Boboli Gardens to the west of the ‘island basin’
with John of Bologna’s ‘Oceanus.’

Footnote 37:

The Egyptian breccia is found at Hamamat to the east of Luxor. It
consists, Mr Brindley writes, in rich-coloured silicious fragments
cemented together, and is very difficult to work and to polish, ‘owing
to the cementing matrix being frequently harder than the boulders.’
Its general colour is greenish and it is called sometimes ‘Breccia
Verde.’ The most important known work executed in this breccia is the
grand sarcophagus of Nectanebes I, about 378 B.C., now in the British
Museum. It is on the left in the large Hall a little beyond the
Rosetta stone. _Transactions_, _R.I.B.A._, 1888, p. 24 ff.

Footnote 38:

Signor Cornish, the courteous castellan of the Royal Palace, believes
this to be the urn that now serves as the basin of the fountain
surmounted with a figure of the Arno, near the Annalessa gate of the
Boboli Gardens. It has two masks carved on the front, as is common in
antique _conche_ of the kind.

Footnote 39:

On entering the porch or narthex of St. Peter’s by the central
archway, the visitor may note on each side of the external opening a
column of breccia, or strictly speaking of ‘pavonazzetto brecciato,’
over twenty-five feet in height. They are worn, patched, and
discoloured, and evidently come from some earlier building. It can be
reasonably conjectured that these are the two columns to which Vasari
refers, and that they were originally in the old basilica which was
being replaced in Vasari’s time by the existing structure. Vasari
would see them in their original position forming part of the
colonnade between nave and aisles, for the entrance part of the old
Constantinian basilica was still standing in the sixteenth century,
and the columns were only removed to their present position when Paul
V constructed the existing façade at the beginning of the century
following.

Footnote 40:

The familiar red Verona marble is not a true breccia, but a fossil
marble.

Footnote 41:

‘Granite’ is from the Italian ‘granito,’ which means the ‘grained’
stone.

Footnote 42:

The ‘grandissimi vasi de’ bagni,’ to which Vasari here refers, are
those vast granite bath-shaped urns, some twenty feet long, of which
the best known is probably the specimen that stands by the obelisk in
the centre of the amphitheatre of the Boboli Gardens at Florence.
This, with a fellow urn, that stands not far off in the Piazzale della
Meridiana, came from the Villa Medici at Rome, and they may have been
seen in Rome by Vasari before they were placed in that collection. No
such urns are now to be found in or about any of the three churches at
Rome here mentioned by Vasari. Documents however, recently published
in the first volume of Lanciani’s _Storia degli Scavi_, pp. 3–5, show
that there stood formerly in the Piazza S. Salvatore in Lauro, north
west from the Piazza Navona, a ‘conca maximae capacitatis,’ to which
Vasari no doubt refers. Two other such conchae were found in the
Thermae of Agrippa, and one was placed by Paul II, 1464–71, in the
Piazza di S. Marco, which was then called ‘Piazza della Conca di S.
Marco,’ while the other was located by Paul III (Farnese), 1534–49, in
front of his palace. Cardinal Odoardo Farnese afterwards united the
two and formed with them the two fountains now in the Piazza Farnese.
Lanciani also mentions a ‘conca di bigio in S. Pietro in Vinculis.’
There is a fine specimen, which may be one of those Vasari has
mentioned, in front of the little church of S. Stefano at the back of
St. Peter’s. We wish cordially to thank Signor Cornish, of the Royal
Palace, Florence, for information kindly given about the Boboli
monuments.

Footnote 43:

The quarries opened by the Romans in Elba are now practically
abandoned. The Catalogue to the Italian Section of the London
International Exhibition of 1862 speaks of the granites of Elba as
‘but little used, although blocks and columns of almost any size may
be had.’ In the late mediaeval and Renaissance period however, the
quarries of Elba were worked, and the granite columns of the Baptistry
of Pisa were cut there in the twelfth century, while Cosimo I
extracted thence the granite block out of which he cut the tazza of
the Boboli Gardens mentioned by Vasari a few sentences further on.
Jervis, _I Tesori Sotterranei dell’ Italia_, Torino, 1889, p. 315,
speaks of the remains of Roman quarrying works to be seen on the
Island. He believes that the grey columns of the Pantheon (see Note
infra) are Elban, and Cellini (_Scultura_, ch. vi) claims an Elban
origin for the granite column of S. Trinità, Florence, which is
certainly antique and of Roman provenance, see postea, p. 110 f.

Footnote 44:

The portico of the Pantheon is now supported by sixteen monoliths of
granite nearly 40 ft. high. Seven of these in the foremost row are of
grey granite, the eighth (that at the north-east angle) and all those
behind are of red granite. The present portico is a reconstruction by
Hadrian in octostyle form of the original decastyle portico built by
Agrippa. Agrippa’s portico had columns of a grey granite called
‘granito del foro,’ because it is the same kind that is used for the
columns of the Forum of Trajan (Basilica Ulpia). This according to
Corsi, _Delle Pietre Antiche_, Roma, 1845, is Egyptian from Syene, the
Lapis Psaronius of Pliny, and Professor Lanciani, who has kindly
written in reply to our question on the subject, endorses this
opinion, though Jervis, see above, thinks the grey Pantheon columns
are Elban. When Hadrian reconstructed the portico, he added columns of
red granite, which are admitted by all to be Egyptian. The two columns
at the east of the present portico were brought in in the year 1666 to
fill gaps caused by the fall of the two Hadrianic ones. They came from
the Baths of Nero and were found near S. Luigi dei Francesi. See
postea, p. 128 f.

Footnote 45:

See Note 4, ante, p. 26.

Footnote 46:

The form of the pick Vasari seems to have in his mind is given in the
sketch, C, Fig. 2, postea, p. 48. Among other tools figured in the
illustration, A and B are some that are employed at this day in Egypt
for the working of hard stones.

Footnote 47:

This tazza is still in evidence and serves as the basin of the great
fountain in the ‘island’ lake in the western part of the Boboli
Gardens. It is said that Duke Cosimo extracted a second tazza larger
than this one from the Elban quarry but it was unfortunately broken.
Signor Cornish says the fragments are still to be seen. The sculptor
Tribolo was sent to Elba to obtain the basins. Of the ‘tavola’ or
table nothing is known.

Footnote 48:

In this apparently innocent section Vasari has mixed up notices of
some half-dozen different kinds of stone, on most of which his ideas
are somewhat vague. Hence a separate Note is required, and this will
be found at the end of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p.
117 (‘Paragon and other Stones associated with it by Vasari’). The
letters (a), (b), etc., are referred to in the Note.

Footnote 49:

The ‘Apollo’ at Naples, in basalt, no. 6262. See Note, postea, p. 104.

Footnote 50:

The porphyry ‘Apollo’ at Naples, no. 6281. See Note, as above.

Footnote 51:

The five eastern window openings of S. Miniato are filled with slabs
of antique pavonazzetto with red-purple markings, nearly two inches
thick and measuring in surface about 9 ft. by 3 ft. The windows are
square headed. The slabs transmit the light unequally according to the
darker or lighter patches in their markings, but the effect is
pleasing. Similar window fillings are to be seen at Orvieto. ‘Almost
any marble,’ it has been said, ‘with crystalline statuary ground, an
inch thick, placed on the sunny side of a church in Italy would admit
sufficient light for worship, but it would not do in our variable
climate.’ The so-called Onyx marbles of Algeria and Mexico, as well as
Oriental alabasters, are specially suitable for the purpose here in
view. The ‘white and yellowish’ eastern marbles that Vasari writes of
were probably of this kind.

Footnote 52:

By ‘the same quarries’ Vasari means, no doubt, those of Egypt and
Greece, of Carrara, of Prato, etc., mentioned in § 7 in connection
with ‘paragon.’ On the subject see the Note on ‘Tuscan Marble
Quarries,’ postea, p. 119f.

Footnote 53:

The reference is to the two so-called ‘Horse-Tamers’ opposite the
Quirinal Palace at Rome, that probably once stood in front of the
Thermae of Constantine, which occupied the slope of the Quirinal. The
figures of the youths, perhaps representing the Dioscuri, are eighteen
feet high, and the material was long ago pronounced Thasian marble
(see Matz-Duhn, _Antike Bildwerke in Rom_, Leipzig, 1881, I, 268). The
works are Roman copies of Greek originals. They have recently been
overhauled, with very good result as regards their appearance. The
sculptor, Professor Ettore Ferrari, who superintended this work,
reports that the material is ‘marmo greco,’ which may be held to
settle the question in favour of Greek as against Luna marble.

Footnote 54:

The ‘Nile’ is now in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, the
fellow-statue, the ‘Tiber,’ see ante, p. 36, in the Louvre at Paris.
They are said to have been discovered at Rome early in the sixteenth
century, near S. Maria Sopra Minerva where was the Temple of Isis and
Serapis, and Pope Leo X had them placed in the Cortile di Belvedere of
the Vatican. They were removed to Paris in ‘the year X’ by Napoleon,
and in 1815 the ‘Nile’ was sent back to Rome, the ‘Tiber’ remaining in
the Louvre. The ‘Nile’ is much the better work of art and is a copy or
a study from an Alexandrian original, perhaps the ‘Nilus’ in basalt,
which, according to Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXVI, 7, Augustus dedicated
in the Temple of Peace. Amelung, in his _Sculpturen des Vaticanischen
Museums_, only states that the ‘Nile’ is in ‘großkörnigem Marmor.’ The
material of the statue certainly differs from that of the restored
parts, and we should guess it as Pentelic marble repaired with
Carrara. About the ‘Tiber,’ Froener, in the Louvre Catalogue, states
that it is of Pentelic marble, and it is so labelled. Our measurements
show that both statues required blocks of the dimensions 10 ft. by 5
ft. by 5 ft. in height. It may be noted that the finest statuary
marble known, that of the island of Paros, is not to be obtained in
very large blocks. That out of which the Hermes of Praxiteles has been
carved must have measured about 8 ft. by 5 ft. by 3 ft. 6 in. and is
considered an exceptionally fine block. Pentelic and Carrara marble
can be obtained in much larger pieces. We saw not long ago in the
modern quarries behind Mount Pentelicus a block nearly 20 ft. in cube.
One seventeen feet long has recently been cut in the Monte Altissimo
quarries in the Carrara mountains for a copy of the ‘David’ of
Michelangelo. A piece of Monte Altissimo marble of the best quality is
shown as J on the Frontispiece.

Footnote 55:

This remark shows a just observation on the part of Vasari. The Greek
nose is markedly different from the Florentine. The latter, as may be
seen in the ‘St. George’ of Donatello, or the ‘David’ of Michelangelo,
has more shape than the classical nose. There is more difference
marked between the nasal bone and the cartilaginous prolongation
towards the tip, and there is more modelling about the nostril, which
the Italian sculptors make thinner and more sensitive.

Footnote 56:

The Carfagnana, or more properly Garfagnana, is the name applied to
the upper part of the valley of the Serchio, between the Apennines and
the Apuan Alps, on the western slopes of which the marble quarries are
situated. See Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries,’ postea, p. 119 f., for
the different marbles and their provenance.

Footnote 57:

Benvenuto Cellini, _Scultura_, ch. iv, mentions this black marble from
Carrara, which he says is very hard and brittle and difficult to work.
Black marble is still quarried in the Carrara district, but only to a
small extent.

Footnote 58:

The grey marble is that known now as ‘Bardiglio’; the grey-veined
‘Marmo-’ or ‘Bardiglio-’ ‘fiorito’; the red, ‘Breccia.’

Footnote 59:

For ‘Cipollino’ see footnote 70 on p. 49, postea.

Footnote 60:

The ‘Mischiati’ are the variegated stones we know as ‘Breccias,’
already noticed in § 5. Vasari explains the names ‘Saligni’ and
‘Campanini’ in § 10. The terms are not now in use.

Footnote 61:

The ‘David’ stood formerly on the left hand side as one entered the
gateway of the Ducal Palace, or Palazzo Vecchio. It is 15 feet high.
In 1873 it was removed, and is now in the Academy, but Bandinello’s
group still holds its original position to the right of the entrance,
on the side towards the Uffizi.

Footnote 62:

The existing figure of Neptune is the work of Ammanati, to whom
Florence owes the stately Ponte S. Trinità. The subsidiary figures of
sea-deities on the fountain are by other hands.

Footnote 63:

See Note, postea, p. 119 f.

Footnote 64:

On the subject of the Seravezza quarries and their exploitation by
Michelangelo see Note, as above. With regard to the Façade of S.
Lorenzo much might be said, as the project for its completion has now
again come forward into prominence. See articles by Sig. B. Supino in
_L’Arte_, Anno IV, fasc. 7, and M. Marcel Reymond in the _Revue
Archéologique_ for 1906. It is well known that Brunelleschi, who
reconstructed the basilica in the fifteenth century, left the façade
incomplete and with no indication of his design for it. As it was the
church of the Medici, the popes of this family, Leo X and Clement VII,
furthered by means of a competition a grand project for its
completion; and in this work Michelangelo was for many years involved.
Drawings of his for the proposed façade are to be seen in the Casa
Buonarroti, and he prepared marbles, as noticed in the Note, postea,
p. 119 f., but the preparations proved abortive.

What Vasari says about Michelangelo’s façade that it ‘è oggi abbozzata
fuor della porta di detta chiesa,’ and that there is one column on the
spot, is interesting but not very easy to understand. Milanesi, in a
note on this passage in his edition of Vasari, I, 119, going one
better than the Lemonnier editors, gives a circumstantial account to
the effect that ‘The preliminary work (abbozzata) which was outside
the church in the days of Vasari, was buried in the first years of the
seventeenth century, along with other architectural fragments, in a
trench excavated on the piazza along the left side of the church.’
Unfortunately among the authorities at S. Lorenzo this statement is
smiled at as a mere popular legend, but it is hoped that in connection
with the long-delayed completion, which is now again on the _tapis_,
the truth on this matter will come to light.

Footnote 65:

Milanesi remarks, ad loc., that for ‘Pietrasanta’ Vasari should have
written ‘Carrara,’ as the quarries at the latter place were actually
exploited by the ancients, whereas the Pietrasanta workings were only
opened up in the time of Michelangelo. See postea, p. 122. The
Pietrasanta people however do claim that the Romans were at work among
their hills.

Footnote 66:

There are abundant instances both from Greek and from Roman times of
statues, heads, architectural members, columns, and the like, blocked
out in the quarries, and still lying unfinished as they were left many
hundreds of years ago.

Footnote 67:

Vasari gives a notice of Giovanni da Nola, whose surname was Merliano,
in the _Lives_ of Alfonso Lombardi and other sculptors. See _Opere_,
ed. Milanesi, V, 94 f. He there describes the tomb mentioned above,
which was to have been transported to Spain, but owing to the death of
the viceroy, Don Pietro, Marquis of Villafranca, it has remained in S.
Giacomo at Naples.

Footnote 68:

Some of the tools of sculptors and masons referred to by Vasari are
shown in Fig. 2, E-J, above.

Footnote 69:

A worker in stones at Settignano knew of drills of the weight of about
twelve pounds each, and thought twenty pounds conceivable, for very
large work.

Footnote 70:

Vasari seems to refer to the common greyish marble popularly called
‘Sicilian.’ There are finer kinds of veined marble called ‘fioriti,’
‘flowered,’ including ‘marmi fioriti’ and ‘bardigli fioriti,’ the last
in two shades of grey.

Footnote 71:

i.e., the breccias noticed in § 5.

Footnote 72:

‘Cipollino’ marble, a very familiar material, receives its name from
‘cipolla,’ an onion, but there is a curious divergence of opinion as
to the reason of the appellation. (1) The onion colour the marble
shows in many specimens; (2) the onion-like shape of the large bossy
markings which occur in the marble; (3) the fact that it is disposed
to scale away under the influence of the weather like the coats of an
onion; and (4) the concentric curves in which the edges of these coats
are seen to lie in a section across the grain, have all been adduced
as explanatory of the name. Herrmann in his _Steinbruchindustrie_,
Berlin, 1899, p. 68, pronounces for the third, and this is also the
opinion of Corsi, who says, _Pietre Antiche_, p. 97, ‘gli scarpellini
lo conoscono sotto il nome di cipollino, per la ragione che,
trovandosi fra la sostanza calcare di tel marmo lunghi e spessi strati
di mica, facilmente su tali strati si divide a somiglianza della
cipolla.’ Zirkel however, in his _Lehrbuch der Petrographie_, Leipzig,
1894, III, 452, pronounces for the fourth, which seems on the whole
the one to be preferred. There are two cipollino columns standing in
the Roman Forum a little to the east of the temple of Antoninus and
Faustina, famous for its monoliths of this same marble, that in the
concentric wavy lines marking the alternate layers in the stone remind
us curiously of an onion cut in half. See for a specimen H on the
Frontispiece.

Footnote 73:

Vasari explains the name ‘saligno’ as ‘salt-like.’ The term is not
recognized at Carrara, nor in the Florentine manufactory of Mosaics.

Footnote 74:

The term ‘campanino’ for a kind of marble is not known now in the
Carrara district.

Footnote 75:

About 10 miles south east of Carrara.

Footnote 76:

Near Pietrasanta in the Apuan Alps.

Footnote 77:

On the promontory of Piombino, opposite Elba.

Footnote 78:

In the so-called Pisan Mountains between Pisa and Lucca. For these
places and their quarries see Note on ‘Tuscan Marble Quarries,’
postea, p. 119 f.

Footnote 79:

See Note, as above, especially p. 126.

Footnote 80:

There are great quarries of this stone below Tivoli near the course of
the ancient Anio, now Teverone. The station Bagni on the Roma-Tivoli
railway is close to them. Those near the place called Barco were
exploited by the ancient Romans, while Bernini derived the stone for
the colonnades in front of St. Peter’s from the quarries called ‘Le
Fosse,’ a little to the north of the former. Vitruvius, _De Arch._,
II, vii, 2, writes of the ‘Tiburtina saxa’ as resisting all
destructive agencies save that of fire, and the remark is repeated by
Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXVI, 22. Vasari’s account of its origin is
correct. It is a deposit of lime in water, and the cavities in it are
partly caused by plants, moss, etc., round which the deposit has
formed itself and which of course have long ago decayed away. See O on
the Frontispiece. The stone did not come into use at Rome until about
the last century of the Republic, and it was not, like peperino, one
of the old traditional building materials.

Footnote 81:

Vasari evidently refers to the remains of the Templum Sacrae Urbis
behind the present church of Ss. Cosma e Damiano, to which was affixed
the ancient ‘Capitoline’ plan of Rome.

Footnote 82:

See the remarks on Rusticated masonry in § 20, and Notes, postea, pp.
65 and 132.

Footnote 83:

On the ‘round temple,’ and its designer, ‘Maestro Gian,’ see Note on
the subject, postea, p. 128 f.

Footnote 84:

S. Luigi dei Francesi is the national church of the French, and is
situated close to the Palazzo Madama, the meeting place of the Italian
Senate, near the Piazza Navona. The present edifice was built by
Giacomo della Porta and consecrated in 1589. See Note, postea, p. 128
f.

Footnote 85:

For which it offers in the cavities above spoken of an excellent key.

Footnote 86:

Traces of these stucco decorations are still to be seen in the public
entrance to the Colosseum next the Esquiline. They are said to have
been taken as models by some of the plaster-workers of the
Renaissance. See Vasari’s Life of Giovanni da Udine, _Opere_, VI, 553.

Footnote 87:

This is the so-called ‘Sala Regia’ which serves as a vestibule to the
Sistine Chapel. Sixtus IV planned it and San Gallo enlarged it and
began the adornment of the vault with plaster work, which was carried
on afterwards by Perino del Vaga and Daniele da Volterra (Pistolesi,
_Il Vaticano Descritto_, VIII, 89). It is the most richly decorated of
all the Vatican apartments, but is florid and overladen. The stucco
enrichment of the roof is heavy, and the figures in the same material
by Daniele da Volterra that are sprawling on the tops of the doorways
and on the cornices are of the extravagant later Renaissance type. The
contrast between this showy hall and the exquisitely treated
Appartamento Borgia of earlier date is very marked.

Footnote 88:

The Farnese Palace is in the main the work of Antonio da San Gallo,
the younger, who at his death in 1546 had carried up the façade nearly
to the cornice and completed the ground story and half the second
story of the cortile. Michelangelo finished the second or middle story
of the cortile, as far as the architecture went, according to San
Gallo’s design, and added the third story from his own. His are also
the enrichments of the frieze of the second order in the cortile, and
he has the chief credit for the noble external cornice, of which
Vasari writes in this section. It is now rather the fashion to
criticize severely Michelangelo’s architectural forms, and G. Clausse,
_Les San Gallo_, Paris, 1901, condemns his third story of the cortile
and says of his frieze (p. 85), ‘Michelange fit ajouter dans la frise
ces guirlandes et ces mascarons en stuc qui enlèvent à ce beau
portique le caractère de grandeur simple et d’harmonieuse majesté dû à
ses proportions mêmes.’ It will not escape notice that Vasari regards
these ornaments as not in stucco but in the travertine itself. On the
question thus raised Monseigneur Duchesne, the distinguished Director
of the French School at Rome which is housed in the Farnese, has had
the kindness in reply to our inquiry to say that so far as can be
ascertained without the use of scaffolding the ornaments of the frieze
are in stucco, with the exception of the Fleur-de-lys which occur in
the position of key-stones above the centre of each window arch. These
are in travertine, as are the ornaments (trophies of arms etc.) carved
on the metopes of the frieze of the order of the ground story in the
cortile. The point has some interest in connection with the travertine
carvings by the French artist at S. Luigi dei Francesi (see postea, p.
131), and the suggestion of M. Marcel Reymond (loc. cit.) that the
Italians of the first half of the fifteenth century were not
accustomed, as the French were, to execute decorative carvings in soft
stone.

Footnote 89:

The exterior of St. Peter’s is built of travertine, and a walk round
it gives an opportunity for a study of the fine effect of the stone
when used on a vast scale. The details of construction in the
interior, which are lauded by Vasari, are now concealed under the
decoration that covers all the interior surfaces.

Footnote 90:

Lavagna is on the coast about half way between Genoa and Spezzia. The
slate of the district is pronounced by Mr Brindley to be of poor
quality and liable to bleach to a dirty ochre colour like that of
brown paper. In the Official Catalogue of the Italian section of the
International Exhibition of 1862 it is stated that in modern times
also ‘large jars or reservoirs for containing oil, made of this slate,
are employed in Liguria, as well as in the principal maritime dépôts
of the oil trade.’

Footnote 91:

Peperino is a volcanic product in origin quite distinct from
travertine. It consists of ashes and fragments of different materials
compacted together and is called ‘pepper stone’ from the black grains
that occur in it. It was one of the two old traditional building
stones at Rome before the introduction of travertine from the quarries
by Tibur, the other being the coarser and commoner tufa of which the
wall of Servius Tullius was built. The most interesting monument in
the material is the sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus in
the Vatican, dating from the third century B.C. A characteristic
piece, with the black ‘pepper’ marks, is shown as Q on the
Frontispiece.

Footnote 92:

Istrian stone is a fine-grained limestone of a warm yellowish grey
tint; it is capable of taking a polish, and is obtainable in large
pieces. It is broken at various points of the coast from Merlera near
Pola to the island of Lesina off the coast by Spalato, and was largely
used in the buildings of Venice, and generally in north-eastern Italy.
A considerable amount has been recently employed in the monumental
buildings of the Ring at Vienna. See L on the Frontispiece.

Footnote 93:

‘The Doric edifice of the Panattiera’ sounds a very curious
description of Sansovino’s famous and magnificent Library of S. Marco,
the finest late Renaissance building in Italy, but this seems to be
what Vasari had in his mind. Dr Robertson of Venice has been kind
enough to explain in a letter the history of the site which he has
ascertained from the archives. The ground where the Library now stands
was occupied up to 1537 by a government grain and bread store, the
‘Panattiera’ (or more properly ‘Panatteria’). The shops for the sale
of bread were then removed and grouped round the base of the
Campanile, where they were replaced a little later by Sansovino’s
Loggetta. Vasari visited Venice in 1542, and at that time if the shops
and store had themselves been removed their name would still cling to
the place and explain his words. We should hardly call the Library a
‘Doric edifice,’ as only the lower Order is ‘Doric,’ but we must
remember that it was only this lower Order that would be completed at
the date of Vasari’s visit.

Footnote 94:

The Tuscan Zecca. The original Zecca or mint was at the Rialto, and it
was afterwards transferred to the Piazzetta, where Sansovino in 1535
erected for it the present edifice, in the rusticated or Tuscan style.
The situation of it is between the Library and the quay. The façade
shows an arcaded lowest story in rusticated masonry, with two stories
above, one in the Doric the other in the Ionic Order, and the columns
in both cases are themselves rusticated; that is to say they have
projecting horizontal courses of stone that appear to mark them with a
series of bands or bars.

Footnote 95:

‘Macigno’ is a green grey sandstone of the lower tertiary formation in
Italy.

Footnote 96:

Pietra Serena is a very fine sedimentary sandstone, and Vasari does
not say too much in its praise. Baldinucci in his _Vocabolario_
repeats much of what Vasari has said, but mentions also a ‘pietra
bigia’ or grey stone, which lies outside the ‘serena,’ and is inferior
to it.

The quarries of pietra serena are abundant along the southern slopes
of Monte Ceceri, to the south east of Fiesole, overhanging Majano. The
blue colour Vasari ascribes to it is the cause of its name, the
epithet ‘sereno’ being specially applicable to the clear blue sky. See
G on the Frontispiece. Vasari’s account of the stones dealt with in §§
16, 17, is not very clear, as he returns to the epithet ‘serena’ at
the close of § 16 for a stone that he makes to differ essentially from
the ‘serena’ of the beginning of the section in that it is
weather-resisting. Cellini in his second Treatise, _Della Scultura_,
ed. Milanesi, 1893, p. 201, is clearer. He distinguishes three kinds,
(1) ‘pietra serena,’ azure in hue and only good for work in interiors;
(2) a stone of a brownish hue (tanè) that he calls ‘pietra morta.’ The
lexicographers fight shy of this term, but it seems to mean a stone
without any lime in it and therefore unchangeable by the action of
fire, while a limestone would be ‘pietra viva.’ See Cellini, loc.
cit., p. 187. This is suitable for figure carving, and it resists
‘wind and rain and all violence of the weather.’ It is evidently the
stone Vasari writes of as the material of Donatello’s ‘Dovizia.’ (3)
The third kind is the pietra forte, also brownish in hue, and useful
for decorative carvings on exteriors. Cellini notes as Vasari does
that it is only found in small pieces.

Footnote 97:

Pietra del fossato. Signor Cellerini, of the Opera del Duomo,
Florence, says that the name ‘pietra del fossataccio’ is still used
among practical stone workers. It is stone gained by excavation.

Footnote 98:

The colour of the stone in the Library and New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo
is a brownish grey rather than ‘bluish.’ It tells as warm in hue
against the white walls, which are of marble in the Sacristy and in
the Library of plaster.

Footnote 99:

Dr A. Gherardi, Director of the State Archives at Florence, has been
so kind as to make researches in the documents under his charge for
the purpose of discovering Vasari’s authority for this statement.
These investigations have so far however proved without result. Among
the ‘Leggi e Bandi’ of the sixteenth century in Tuscany collected by
Cantini in the first volume of his _Legislazione Toscana_ there are
various regulations about trades, prohibitions against cutting timber
on the hills, measures facilitating the import of building materials
into certain localities, and the like, which show that an edict such
as Vasari refers to was quite possible in the early days of the Grand
Ducal régime. The nearest approach to it that we have been able to
discover are certain edicts of the end of the sixteenth century,
published by Mariotti, _La Legislazione delle Belle Arti_, Roma, 1892,
p. 246 f., that prohibit the exportation from the state of ‘pietre
mischie dure’ (agates, jaspers, and the like) of which the Grand Duke
had need for a certain chapel he was building, evidently the ‘Cappella
dei Principi’ at S. Lorenzo.

Footnote 100:

This is of course the well known ‘Uffizi,’ erected by Vasari between
1560 and 1574 for the accommodation of various state departments. The
expression ‘strada’ or ‘street’ has reference to the scheme of the
building, which is erected along the two sides and one end of a very
elongated, and indeed street-like, court, from which the various
entrances into the building open. In documents relating to its
construction it is sometimes referred to as ‘Via dei Magistrati.’ A
little later Vasari gives an interesting note on the scheme of
construction he employed in the lower order of the edifice. See
postea, p. 72 f.

Footnote 101:

The Mercato Vecchio at Florence was an open square that occupied the
northern portion of the site now covered by the new Piazza Vittorio
Emmanuele. On the side next the Via Calimara a granite column was
erected in 1431, and on this column was set up the statue by Donatello
representing ‘Abundance’ (‘Dovizia’). This stood till October 20,
1721, when in consequence of damage due to time and exposure it fell
to the ground and was dashed into pieces. In the following year, 1722,
Giov. Batt. Foggini carved another figure representing the same
allegorical personage, and this remained till our own time; and may be
seen _in situ_ in one of Alinari’s photographs. It is now in the
museum of S. Marco with other fragments from the demolitions in the
‘Centro.’ See Guido Carocci, _Il Mercato Vecchio di Firenze_, Firenze,
1884.

Footnote 102:

On ‘Pietra Forte,’ the Official Catalogue of the Italian Section of
the International Exhibition of 1862 reports, p. 62, as follows. ‘The
rock called _Pietraforte_ ... is very largely used in Florence; it is
very durable, as may be seen in the older palaces of the city. In
composition it is an arenaceous limestone, which is very hard and
unalterable, as its name implies.’ It has been extensively quarried by
Fiesole and to the north of Majano, and Monte Ripaldi, above the
valley of the Ema to the south of Florence, furnishes large supplies
of it. See M, N, on the Frontispiece.

Footnote 103:

The blocks used for the façade of the Pitti have been remarked on for
their great size, one of them, an exceptional one it is true, measures
28 ft. in length.

Footnote 104:

On this use of the word ‘Goth’ or ‘Gothic’ in the sense of
‘mediaeval,’ see Note on ‘Vasari’s Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture,’
postea, p. 133 f.

Footnote 105:

Or San Michele, as every visitor to Florence knows, is the church
occupying the lower story of a lofty building in the Via Calzaiuoli.
Constructively speaking the upper part is supported on the ground
story by piers between which are round headed arches, three on the
north and south sides and two on the east and west. The heads of these
are in every case filled with florid late Gothic tracery with
intersecting arches and rich cusping, and on all sides but the west
the openings below the heads are walled in. On the west the arches
contain the doorways of entrance, and the tracery above the doors,
about which Vasari is writing, is richer than on the other sides of
the building. It is curious to find Vasari calling this work ‘truly
admirable,’ whereas a page or two later we shall find him inveighing
against the ‘Goths’ (the mediaeval builders) and all their works and
ways.

Footnote 106:

Coats of arms. These ‘stemmi,’ as they are often called, are very
familiar objects on the exterior of Tuscan palaces, and the arms of
the Medici, six round balls or pellets, are constantly in evidence. In
the view of the Fortress in Fig. 3 a ‘stemma’ of the Medici is to be
seen displayed on the face of the wall. It is referred to by Vasari,
_Opere_, ed. Milanesi, IV, 544. Mariotti, _La Legislazione delle Belle
Arti_, Roma, 1892, p. 245, has printed an interesting edict of the
year 1571, in Tuscany, designed to protect these memorials of the
ancient Florentine families. The memory of those who built the houses,
it says, ‘is preserved and perpetuated by their Arms, Insignia,
Titles, Inscriptions, which are affixed or painted or carved or
suspended over the doors, arches, windows, projecting angles or other
places where they are conspicuously to be seen,’ and the edict,
re-enacting older regulations, reminds the citizens that no one who
purchases or becomes possessed of an old house on which there are
insignia of the kind is allowed to remove or in any way deface them.
No new owner is to presume to add his own arms or other memorial by
the side of the old ones of the founder and constructor of the house.
Only in cases where these are absent may the new owner put up his own
insignia. This regulation shows a historical sense and a care for the
tangible memorials of a city’s past which have been too often lacking
in more modern times. No doubt it is due to its enforcement that so
many of these ‘stemmi’ are left to add interest to the somewhat
modernized streets of the Florence of to-day.

Footnote 107:

‘In the times of the Goths;’ ‘German work.’ See Note on ‘Vasari’s
Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture,’ postea, p. 133 f.

Footnote 108:

It will be seen that in this section Vasari combines two quite
distinct things, the so-called ‘Tuscan,’ or as he calls it, the
‘Rustic’ Order, and rusticated masonry, which has nothing to do with
the Orders of Architecture, but is a method of treating wall-surfaces.
On this see the Note on ‘Rusticated Masonry,’ postea, p. 132. The
reason why the ‘Tuscan’ is called the ‘Rustic’ Order, is that, being
the simplest and, so to say, rudest of the Orders, it is most suitably
employed in connection with walling of a rough and bossy appearance.
The shafts of columns are sometimes rusticated to correspond with the
walling, as at the Venetian ‘Zecca,’ mentioned ante, p. 56, but the
expedient is of doubtful advantage, as the clear upright appearance of
the column is thereby sacrificed.

Footnote 109:

Vasari says here that the ‘Rustic’ or Tuscan column is six ‘heads’
high. What does he mean by this? There is evidently in his mind the
familiar comparison of different columns to human figures of different
proportions, a conceit found in Vitruvius (IV, i, 6 f.) and in writers
of the Renaissance (see Alberti, _De Re Aedificatoria_, Lib. IX, c.
7), and so he measures by ‘heads,’ which would apply to a figure but
not to a column. ‘Testa,’ ‘head,’ cannot, as the context shows, mean
the height of the capital of the column. It really means here the
lower diameter of the column. It is this lower diameter (or sometimes
half the lower diameter) that is the normal unit of measurement for
the proportions of a column. Thus the height of the Tuscan column is
given by Vitruvius and by Palladio and other moderns as six times the
lower diameter. Though ‘head’ may seem a very curious word with which
to describe this, there is no doubt that such is the meaning of it.
Alberti, in his tract on the Orders and their proportions, uses the
lower diameter as his measure but applies to it this very term
‘testa.’ There is a certain letter from Vasari to Duke Cosimo that
deals with the measurements of a column of granite presented to him by
the Pope and afterwards conveyed from Rome and set up in the Piazza di
S. Trinità, where it carries the porphyry statue by Francesco del
Tadda (postea, p. 111). Vasari gives the diameter of the ‘head’ of
this column, but notes afterwards that the shaft diminishes from the
‘head’ upwards towards the necking (collarino). Hence there is no
doubt about the interpretation of the word in question. See the letter
in _Opere_, ed. Milanesi, VIII, 352.

Footnote 110:

The Citadel of Florence. This is not the ‘Belvedere’ fortress on the
hill behind the Palazzo Pitti, but the so-called ‘Fortezza da Basso’
to the north of the town, now used as barracks, which the railway
skirts just before entering the station near S. Maria Novella. It
dates from 1534, and was built by Alessandro dei Medici with the
intention of overawing the citizens. It occupied the site of the
Faenza gate, and was partly within and partly outside the enceinte of
the city. The ‘principal façade’ of which Vasari writes, is still well
preserved in the middle of the southern face, opposite the town, and a
sketch of it is shown in Fig. 3, but nothing else of interest is said
to remain from the Renaissance period.

The masonry of the façade is an excellent example of elaborate
rustication, and is very carefully executed in pietra forte. The
illustration, Fig. 4, bears out Vasari’s description, and exhibits in
alternation round bosses 18 in. in diameter and 4 in. in salience, and
oblong diamonds about 3 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. There are worked borders
about 1 in. in width round all the lines of juncture, and the scheme
is worth noticing.

Footnote 111:

Vitruvius in his first book (I, ii, 5) gives directions as to the
Orders suitable for temples to different deities. Thus Minerva, Mars,
and Hercules are to have temples in the Doric style, etc.; while in
the eighteenth century Sir William Chambers, transferring the same
idea to modern times, says that Doric ‘may be employed in the houses
of generals, or other martial men, in mausoleums erected to their
memory, or in triumphal bridges and arches built to celebrate their
victories.’ The modern architect is disposed to smile at these
restrictions, but there underlies them a sound appreciation of the
aesthetic significance of architectural forms.

Footnote 112:

The building referred to is the well-known Uffizi palace at Florence.
See ante, p. 59.

Footnote 113:

The construction described by Vasari is evidently of the kind
indicated in the accompanying drawing, Fig. 5. The pieces of the
frieze are joggled one into the other so as to form a flat arch, but
the construction is kept to the inner part and the face shows vertical
joints between the pieces. As this passage in Vasari seems to have
escaped the notice of those interested in Renaissance construction,
the existence of the device he describes has remained unsuspected and
nothing is known about it at the Uffizi itself. The fact is that
Vasari’s system has succeeded in one way too perfectly for his
purpose. Everything has remained ‘safe and sound,’ and no one of the
architrave beams shows signs of failure, so that no technical
examination of the fabric has been called for. On the other hand,
neither the artificers nor the world at large seem to have benefitted
by Vasari’s kindness, for the books do not notice his device. There is
no mention of it even in the huge work on Tuscan Renaissance
architecture now just completed under the editorship of Baron Henri de
Geymüller, nor in Raschdorff’s _Palast-Architectur_, nor Durm’s
_Baukunst der Renaissance_, though references to it may possibly occur
in older books that have escaped our notice. Joggled lintels forming
flat arches are of course common enough. The new Parliament Building
at Stockholm shows them conspicuously with the actual joints appearing
on the face of the building. Mediaeval and Renaissance fireplaces
often have lintels of the kind, as in Coningsburgh Castle, Yorks, and
Linlithgow Palace.

Footnote 114:

i.e. width on the soffit, or, as it might be expressed, in depth from
the outer face inwards.

Footnote 115: