Chapter XIII: of Charles Heath Wilson’s Life and Works of Michelangelo (3)

‘Sopra la colonna.’ This does not mean strictly the piece vertically
above the column, which is the die (dado quadro) already mentioned. It
is equivalent to the expression just below ‘sopra le colonne,’ and
means simply ‘in the upper part.’ The piece referred to is A, A, in
Fig. 5, the ‘pezzo del mezzo’ of the text as quoted below.

Footnote 116:

‘Cosi si faccia sopra la colonna, che il pezzo del mezzo di detto
fregio stringa di dentro, e sia intaccato a quartabuono infino a
mezzo; l’altra mezza sia squadrata e diritta e messa a cassetta,
perchè stringa a uso d’arco mostrando di fuori essere murata diritta.’
The sense of this sentence seems to be indicated by the drawing Fig.
5. The centre pieces A, A, will slip down into their places and in a
fashion key the flat arch. There is the same construction in the
cornice, see below.

Footnote 117:

The dimension here implied is not the width on the face from right to
left, but the soffit-width, or depth from the outer face inwards. The
dies and the cornice-pieces are of the same soffit-width as the
architrave, but the frieze pieces are so much narrower as to allow
space behind them for a flat arch of brick abutting at each end on
that part of the die that exceeds in soffit-width the frieze. See
plan, Fig. 5 (4), and section, Fig. 5 (5). The plan is at the level x,
y.

Footnote 118:

‘Sopra il dado del fregio’ see note on ‘Sopra la colonna.’ The middle
piece which goes ‘a cassetta,’ i.e. spanning a void, is at the centre
of the intercolumniation, not vertically over the die above the
column.

Footnote 119:

Fig. 5 (4) and (5) show the nature of the construction across from the
façade inwards. The corridor is spanned with a barrel vault that
conceals the back of the entablature. It starts from the top of the
architrave.

Footnote 120:

For this use of iron ties, which Vasari regards here as normal, see
the illustration on p. 25 of Professor Durm’s _Baukunst der
Renaissance in Italien_, in the _Handbuch der Architectur_, Stuttgart,
1903.

Footnote 121:

The expression is a little awkward, but the meaning evidently is that
the pedestal is half as high again as it is wide. There is some doubt
whether the clause ‘then above are placed’ to ‘as Vitruvius directs’
refers to the pedestal or the column itself. In the case of all the
other Orders Vasari mentions the upper and lower mouldings of the
pedestal, and it would be most natural to imagine him doing so here,
but the ‘torus and two fillets (bastone e due piani) as Vitruvius
directs’ sounds more like the ‘Attic’ base of the column, and the
reference to Vitruvius should be conclusive that it is _not_ the
pedestal of which there is question, for the good reason that
Vitruvius knows nothing of the pedestal under the single column of any
of the Orders. Such a feature does occur in classical work, as in the
temple at Assisi, but it is not a normal classical form, and
architectural purists in modern times reject it. Vitruvius is however
again referred to by Vasari in this connection, in § 25, and Giorgio
may have in his mind the sentence in Vitruvius, III, iv, 5, in which
there is a reference to the mouldings on the continuous podium that
serves as the substructure of the Roman temple, and forms one
difference between it and the Greek temple. The single pedestal was
often used in Renaissance work, and Vasari regards it as a matter of
course.

Footnote 122:

The metopes; these are always set back a little behind the face of the
triglyphs, which are here termed the projections. The metope offers a
suitable field for carved ornaments.

Footnote 123:

Vasari merely has in mind the familiar difference in form between the
Doric and Ionic flutes, the former being much shallower than the
latter, and not showing the plain strip or fillet which in the Ionic
column comes between every two of the flutes.

Footnote 124:

The reference probably is to the portion of the ancient Basilica
Aemilia, which in Vasari’s time still stood erect where recent
excavations have revealed the plan and part of the architectural
members of this famous structure. We must bear in mind that what
Vasari and his contemporaries called the ‘Forum Boarium’ was not the
part between the Capitol and the Palatine, near the ‘Bocca della
Verità’ which was the ancient Cattle Market and now has resumed its
antique name, but the Forum proper, which used even in the memory of
those now living to be called ‘Campo Vaccino.’ It seems to have
derived the name ‘Forum Boarium’ from this very fragment of the
Basilica Aemilia which Vasari has in his mind in this passage. The
fragment was figured by Giuliano da San Gallo in a drawing in the
Barberini Library, which is reproduced in _Monumenti dell’ Istituto_,
XII, T. 11, 12, and from this, by the kind permission of the Imperial
German Archaeological Institute, has been taken Fig. 6. The
destruction of this most interesting fragment, which stood over
against the arch of Septimius Severus, is one of the many almost
inconceivable acts of vandalism of which the men of the later
Renaissance period were guilty. The richness of which Vasari speaks
can be seen in the illustration.

Footnote 125:

Here again Renaissance and modern topographical nomenclature do not
agree. What Vasari knew as the ‘Tullianum’ was not the familiar
‘Carcer Mamertinus’ above the Forum on the way up to S. Maria in
Araceli, but certain antique structures under the church of S. Nicola
in Carcere, near the Piazza Montanara. These were the ‘favissae’ or
cells within the structure of the podium or platform of one of several
ancient Roman temples on this site, which was formerly the ‘Forum
Olitorium.’ These substructures are now accessible, and the worthy
sacristan of the church who shows them is still of opinion that he has
in charge the prison of the Tullianum. One of the travertine columns
of one of these temples is to be seen within the church, and this
though Doric is extremely simple, even rude, in its outline. Dr
Huelsen has however in a recent paper (_Mitteilungen d. k. deutschen
Archaeologischen Instituts_, XXI, 169 f.) shown that this column was
originally finished with stucco, in which somewhat elaborate mouldings
were worked. It was drawn by several of the Renaissance architects,
and Peruzzi notes it as being ‘in carcere Tulliano.’ Huelsen has drawn
out a scheme of the mouldings in profile and this is reproduced by
permission in Fig. 7. It will be seen that Vasari’s remark about its
richness in membering is quite justified.

Footnote 126:

Vasari probably refers to the great Corinthian column which was still
to be seen in his time in the interior of the Basilica of Constantine
(formerly called the Temple of Peace). The column was placed early in
the seventeenth century in the Piazza in front of S. Maria Maggiore,
where it is still in evidence.

Footnote 127:

‘Largo’ is the word in the text, but it must be merely a clerical
error for ‘alto.’

Footnote 128:

See Note 14, ante, p. 75.

Footnote 129:

See Note 86, ante, p. 53.

Footnote 130:

On Michelangelo’s use of architectural details M. Garnier had some
rather severe remarks in the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_ for Jan. 1,
1876. He denied to him an understanding of the grammar of the use of
such forms. It is generally admitted that for the details of the
Farnese cornice, the fittings and decoration of the Library of S.
Lorenzo, and other such works to which his name attaches, he was
indebted to professional architects, such as Vignola, whom he
employed. We must never forget however that we owe to Michelangelo the
dome of St. Peter’s, one of the greatest architectural creations of
its kind in the world. In mentioning the ‘siti storti’ (sites that
were irregular or out of the straight), Vasari probably had in view
the design for laying out the Capitol, which is another of
Michelangelo’s acknowledged successes. Here the existing Palazzo dei
Conservatori stood somewhat askew and the site was regularized to
correspond with the line of its façade. All this about Michelangelo
was added for the second edition, after Vasari had himself worked at
his master’s staircase at S. Lorenzo.

Footnote 131:

See Note on ‘Vasari’s Opinion on Mediaeval Architecture’ at the close
of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, postea, p. 133 f. The phrase
‘this manner was the invention of the Goths,’ etc., is historically
important as the first introduction into literature of the familiar
architectural term ‘Gothic.’

Footnote 132:

Vasari makes no provision for binding together the vault in stucco and
that in brick. Each is apparently independent of the other, though
they are in contact, and no keys are formed in the upper surface of
the stucco for the purpose of tieing it to the brickwork above.

Footnote 133:

This same subject is treated in the sixth chapter of the
‘Introduction’ to Sculpture and the thirteenth of that to Painting. In
connection with it see Note on ‘Stucco Grotesques’ at the close of the
‘Introduction’ to Painting, postea, p. 299.

Footnote 134:

The ‘Tuscan work’ referred to here is the same thing as the ‘lavoro
chiamato rustico’ of which Vasari writes at the beginning of the third
chapter (§ 20). The so-called Tuscan Order was the simplest and
heaviest of all, and so most suited for work that partook of the rough
and unpolished character of natural rock. For the same reason, as was
seen above, ante, p. 65, the Tuscan Order lends itself best to
association with bossy or ‘rusticated’ masonry.

Footnote 135:

Piè di Lupo. This is clearly a mistake for Piè di Lugo, for at the
lake of that name above the great Cascade of Terni, there are
appearances corresponding exactly with what Vasari says. It is
remarked in Hare’s _Days near Rome_, II, p. 141, that the waters of
the Vellino, which makes the fall, are ‘so strongly impregnated with
carbonate of lime, that they constantly tend to form a deposit of
travertine, and so to block up their own channel.’

Footnote 136:

The Elsa flows from the Apennines by Colle and Castelfiorentino to
join the Arno by S. Miniato, halfway between Florence and Pisa. The
valley was the birthplace of Cennino Cennini, the author of the
_Trattato_.

Footnote 137:

Monte Morello, 3065 ft., is the conspicuous height to the north of
Florence, which serves the populace for a weather-glass.

‘Quando Monte Morello
Ha il cappello
Prendi l’ombrello.’

Footnote 138:

A few miles to the north west of Florence.

Footnote 139:

These fanciful conceits have a significance for the history of
ornament which they hardly seem to deserve. Artificial grottoes of the
kind Vasari describes were very popular in the France of the
eighteenth century, and pleased the taste of the sophisticated society
of the time with an artificial ‘nature,’ that corresponded to the
affected pastoral style in literature. From the shell and stalactite
decoration of these grottoes was evolved the ornamental style
characteristic of the age of Louis XV, the shell-like forms of which
betray its origin. The name commonly given to this ornament, that
consists in little but a graceful play of curved forms, is ‘rococo,’
and this word is connected with ‘rocaille,’ a regular French term for
fantastic grotto-work of the kind here under notice.

Footnote 140:

The well-known ‘Villa Madama.’

Footnote 141:

One of the best existing examples of these ‘rustic’ grottoes and
fountains is that constructed by Buontalenti in the Boboli Gardens
near the eastern entrance. As part of its decoration there are built
in four marble figures, supposed to have been sketched out by
Michelangelo for the tomb of Julius. A view of the interior of this
grotto is given on Plate IV. The statue in the corner is one of the
four noticed above, while a little above it and to the left is one of
the grotesque figures incrusted with odds and ends, which Vasari
praises as so fascinating.

Footnote 142:

The ultimate derivation of the word ‘mosaic’ is a difficult problem.
Its immediate parent is the late-Latin ‘musivum’ which is generally
connected with the Greek μουσεῖον, meaning a ‘place of the Muses.’
With this significance, the Greek word in its Latinized form ‘museum’
is suitably applied to collections of works of art and similar objects
of aesthetic interest and value. A ‘place of the Muses’ may however be
of a different kind. The Muses, like other nymphs, were worshipped in
grottoes as guardian genii of fountains, and Pliny, _Hist. Nat._,
XXXVI, 21, writes of ‘erosa saxa in aedificiis, quae musaea vocant,
dependentia ad imaginem specus arte reddendam,’ where the suggestion
is of a rustic grotto like that in the Boboli Gardens. Such grottoes,
natural or artificial, might fittingly be decked with shells and
coloured stones and any bright inlay that offered itself. If
incrustations of the kind we call mosaic were actually met with in
these haunts of the Muses, the work might readily be called by a name
suggestive of these same nymphs, and this might be applied later on to
tesselated work in general. There is however no proof, either in Pliny
or elsewhere, that what we call mosaic was actually so used, and it
has been questioned by more than one authority whether there is really
any connection between the word ‘mosaic,’ in its various forms, and
the Muses. An oriental derivation has even been suggested for the
term.

Dr Albert Ilg, in an exceedingly learned paper on the subject in the
_Wiener Quellenschriften_, Neue Folge, V, 158 f., offered an entirely
new explanation of the word ‘mosaic,’ which he maintained had in its
original sense nothing to do with inlaid work at all, but rather with
gilding. He connected it with a root ‘mus’ or ‘mos,’ with a sense of
‘beating’ or ‘grinding,’ and instanced the mediaeval Latin term
‘mosnerium,’ which Ducange notices as equivalent to ‘molendinum,’
‘mill.’ ‘Musivum opus’ would refer on this view to the gilding process
in which the gold is ground to powder or beaten out; and Ilg affirmed
‘Musaicum im alten Sinne kann nur eigentlich Vergoldung, nicht das
moderne Mosaik, bezeichnen.’ If the word at first meant ‘gilded work’
it would later on be extended to what we know as ‘mosaic,’ because of
the use in mediaeval mosaics of the familiar gold background. The
argument of Dr Ilg is not convincing, and the question must be
considered still open. Theophilus, for example, Lib. II, c. 12, uses
‘musivum opus’ for inlaid work in which there is no question of gold.

Footnote 143:

Possibly what we call ‘mother of pearl.’

Footnote 144:

See Note on ‘The Sassi, della Valle, and other Collections,’ etc.,
postea, p. 102 f. The mosaic here noticed is unfortunately lost.
Lanciani, _The Golden Days of the Renaissance in Rome_, 1906, p. 234,
states that he has searched for it in vain.

Footnote 145:

See Note 5, ante, p. 27.

Footnote 146:

Mosaics made up of small cubes of coloured or gilded glass are
abundant in early Christian and Byzantine times, but were also used,
though sparingly, by the Romans from the time of Augustus downwards.
See Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XXXVI, 189, who fixes the time of their
introduction.

Footnote 147:

Egg-shell mosaic. See Note, postea, p. 136.

Footnote 148:

See Chapters XV and XVI of the ‘Introduction’ to Painting. The
pavement of the cathedral of Siena exhibits a large collection of such
mosaics in black and white executed in different technical processes.

Footnote 149:

See Note on ‘Ideal Architecture’ at the close of the ‘Introduction’ to
Architecture, postea, p. 138.

Footnote 150:

That is, about 4½ inches.

Footnote 151:

About 15½ inches.

Footnote 152:

See note on ‘The Nature of Sculpture,’ at the close of the
‘Introduction’ to Sculpture, postea, p. 179.

Footnote 153:

‘Working from manner.’ Vasari refers here to what artists call
‘treatment,’ which is a process of analysis and grouping, applied to
appearances in nature where the eye sees at first little more than a
confused medley of similar forms that are perhaps constantly changing.
Under such an aspect the hair as well as the folds of drapery on the
human figure presented themselves to the early Greek sculptor, and it
was a long time before he learned to handle them aright. In the case
of the hair he had no help in previous work, for in Egyptian statues
it is often covered, or is replaced by a formal wig, and in Assyrian
art the hair is very severely though finely conventionalized. It was
not until the age of Pheidias that the Greeks learned how to suggest
the soft and ample masses of the hair, and at the same time to
subdivide these into the distinct curls or tresses, each one ‘solid,’
as Vasari requires, but individually rendered with the minuter
markings which suggest the structure and ‘feel’ of the material. The
Italians started of course with this treatment or ‘manner’ already an
established tradition founded on antique practice. In the mediaeval
sculpture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in France and
England the hair is often very artistically rendered.

Footnote 154:

This paragraph opens up a subject of much artistic interest, on which
see Note on ‘Sculpture Treated for Position,’ at the close of the
‘Introduction’ to Sculpture, postea, p. 180 f.

Footnote 155:

For Vasari, a practical artist, to commit himself to the statement
that figures are made nine heads high, is somewhat extraordinary, for
eight heads, the proportion given by Vitruvius (III, 1) is the extreme
limit for a normal adult, and very few Greek statues, let alone living
persons, have heads so small. The recently discovered ‘Agias’ by
Lysippus, at Delphi, is very nearly eight heads high. The ‘Doryphorus’
at Naples not much more than seven. The ‘Choisseul Gouffier Apollo’
about seven and a half, etc. Vasari seems to have derived his curious
mode of reckoning from Filarete, who in Book 1 of his Treatise on
Architecture measures a man as follows: Head = 1 head, neck = ½,
breast = 1, body = 2, thighs = 2, legs = 2, foot = ½, total nine
heads. Alberti, Leonardo, Albrecht Dürer, and indeed almost all the
older writers on art, discourse on the proportions of the human
figure.

Footnote 156:

See Note on ‘Waxen Effigies and Medallions,’ at the close of the
‘Introduction’ to Sculpture, postea, p. 188.

Footnote 157:

One objection to an armature of wood is that the material may swell
with the damp of the clay and cause fissures. Iron is objectionable
because the rust discolours the clay. Modern sculptors often use
gas-piping in the skeletons of their models, as this is flexible and
will neither rust nor swell.

Footnote 158:

Baked flour used to be employed by plasterers to keep the plaster they
were modelling from setting too rapidly. See the Introduction by G. F.
Robinson to Millar’s _Plastering Plain and Decorative_, London, 1897.
The former used rye dough with good effect for the above purpose.

Footnote 159:

The tow or hay tied round the wood affords a good hold for the clay,
which is apt to slip on anything smooth.

Footnote 160:

This method of producing drapery is not very artistic.

Footnote 161:

See Note on ‘Proportionate Enlargement’ at close of the ‘Introduction’
to Sculpture, postea, p. 190.

Footnote 162:

See Note on ‘The Use of Full-sized Models’ at the close of the
‘Introduction’ to Sculpture, postea, p. 192.

Footnote 163:

The carvers’ tools described by Vasari are the same that appear to
have been in use in ancient Greece (see the article by Professor E.
Gardner already referred to), that are figured in the _Encyclopédie_
of the eighteenth century, and are now in use. Fig. 2, E to J, ante,
p. 48, shows a set of them actually employed in a stone carver’s
workshop at Settignano near Florence.

Footnote 164:

Actual polish of the surface of a marble figure is to be avoided, as
the reflections from it where it catches the light destroy the
delicacy of the effect of light and shade. Greek marbles were not
polished, save in some cases where the aim seems to have been to
imitate the appearance of shining bronze, but the Greeks finished
their marbles more smoothly than the sculptors of to-day, most of whom
prefer a ‘sensitive’ surface on which the marks of the last delicate
chiselling can be discerned. Michelangelo’s Dead Christ in the ‘Pietà’
of St. Peter’s, his most finished piece of marble work, may almost be
said to show polish, and Renaissance marbles generally are quite as
smoothly finished as antiques. In the case of coloured marbles, used
for surface decoration in plain panels, polish is of course necessary
in order that the colour and veining may appear, but it does not
follow from this that a self-coloured marble, carved into the
similitude of a face or figure, should be polished.

Footnote 165:

English terminology for the different kinds of reliefs, and for
sculpture generally, is very deficient, and many Italian terms are
employed. It may be noted that Vasari’s ‘half relief’ (mezzo rilievo)
is the highest kind he mentions, and would correspond to what is
called in English ‘high relief.’

Footnote 166:

See Note on ‘Italian and Greek Reliefs,’ at the close of the
‘Introduction’ to Sculpture, postea, p. 196.

Footnote 167:

Donatello’s flat, or ‘stiacciati’ reliefs are deservedly famous. The
difficulty here is to convey the impression of solid form of three
dimensions with the slightest possible actual salience. The treatment
of the torso of the Christ in the marble ‘Pietà’ of the Victoria and
Albert Museum is a good example.

Footnote 168:

The antique vessels of so-called ‘Arezzo’ ware are called Aretine
vases. Messer Giorgio was in duty bound to take some note of the
ancient pottery of his native city for it was from this that the
Vasari derived their family name. According to the family tree given
in a note to the Life of an ancestor of the historian (_Opere_, ed.
Milanesi, II, 561), the family came from Cortona, and the first who
settled in Arezzo was the historian’s great-grandfather, one Lazzaro,
an artist in ornamental saddlery. He had a son, Giorgio, who practised
the craft of the potter, and was especially concerned with the old
Roman Aretine vases the technique of which he tried to reproduce.
Hence he was called ‘Vasajo,’ ‘the vase maker,’ from which came the
family appellation Vasari.

This ancient Aretine ware ‘must be regarded as the Roman pottery par
excellence’ (Waters, _History of Ancient Pottery_, Lond., 1905, II,
480). It is practically the same ware that is known by the popular but
unscientific term ‘Samian,’ and consists in cups and bowls and dishes
usually of a small size of a fine red clay, ornamented with designs in
low relief, produced by the aid of stamps or moulds. It is these
relief ornaments that Vasari had in his mind when he wrote the words
in the text. Arezzo is noticed by Pliny and other ancient writers as a
great centre for the fabrication of this sort of ware, and Vasari
tells us how his grandfather, Giorgio the ‘vasajo,’ discovered near
the city some kilns of the ancient potters and specimens of their
work. Very good specimens of Aretine ware are to be seen in the Museum
at Arezzo, and the fabrique is represented in all important
collections of ancient pottery.

Footnote 169:

See Note on ‘The Processes of the Bronze Founder’ at the close of the
‘Introduction’ to Sculpture, postea, p. 199, which the reader who is
unacquainted with the subject, will find it useful to read forthwith.
The best commentary on Vasari’s and Cellini’s account of bronze
casting is to be found in the French _Encyclopédie_, where there is a
description, with numerous illustrations, of the casting in 1699 of
Girardon’s great equestrian statue of Louis XIV, destined for the
Place Vendôme. It was claimed at the time to be the largest known
single casting in the world, and represents in their utmost
elaboration the various processes described by Vasari. Some of the
illustrations are here reproduced, and will help to render clearer the
descriptions in the text.

Footnote 170:

Plate VII shows a section or two of a piece-mould round a portion of a
figure. It will be noticed that the pieces are so planned that they
will all come away easily from the model and not be held by any
undercut projections. The small pieces are then all enclosed in an
outer shell divided into two halves, and called in French ‘chape’
answering to the ‘cappa’ of Vasari’s text. Plate VIII, A, shows the
model of the Louis XIV statue as piece-moulded.

Footnote 171:

In the case of a heavy casting such an armature is necessary, and must
be carefully constructed to give support at all points. The armature
within the core of the horse of Louis XIV is shown in Plate VIII, D.

Footnote 172:

Vasari here describes a method of constructing the indispensable shell
of wax which is to be replaced by the bronze. The hollow piece-mould
is lined section by section with wax and a core is then formed to fill
the rest of the interior and touch the inner surface of the wax at
every point. The plaster mould is then removed and the wax linings of
each of its sections are applied, each in its proper place, to the
core, and fixed thereon by skewers. There is then a complete figure in
wax, but, as this is made up of very many pieces, it has to be gone
over carefully to smooth over the joins and secure unity of surface.
Cellini’s plan seems a better one. He lines his hollow mould with a
sort of paste or dough, and then fills up with the core. The dough is
then removed and wax is poured in in its place, thus forming a
continuous skin and securing a more perfect unity in the waxen shell.

Footnote 173:

On Plate VIII at B we see the core covered with the skin of wax and
carefully gone over and finished in every part. The system of pipes
with which it is covered are the ‘vents’ that Vasari notices in § 62,
and also the channels through which the melted wax is to escape and
the molten bronze to enter, as noticed in §§ 63, 64.

Footnote 174:

Vasari actually says that it must be put ‘al fuoco’ ‘to the fire,’ but
it is clear that he does not mean that heat is at once to be applied
to it. If this were done the wax would all be melted off the core too
soon, before it was covered by the outer skin. It is only when the wax
has been securely enclosed between the core and the outer skin that
heat is needed to melt it away and leave its place free for the molten
metal.

Footnote 175:

Plate VIII, C, shows this outer armature, with the ends of the
transverse rods holding core and envelope together.

Footnote 176:

‘Give passage to the metal.’ Their essential purpose is to allow for
the escape of air which would be dangerous if driven by the metal into
a confined space.

Footnote 177:

It should be understood that, in the process Vasari has in mind, the
melted metal is introduced at the _bottom_ of the mould so as to rise
in it and expel before it the air. It is not poured in at the top.
Hence the metal enters at the same orifice at which the wax flows out.

Footnote 178:

Plate VIII, D, gives a section through the model in the casting-pit,
when all is ready for the actual operation of introducing the molten
metal. The wax has all been run out, and the outline of the figure and
of the horse is marked by a double line with a narrow space between.
It is this space that will be filled by the bronze which will be
introduced through numerous channels so that it may be distributed
rapidly and evenly over the whole surface it is to cover. When in the
pit the mould is packed all round with broken bricks or similar
material, so that ‘the bronze may not strain it,’ nor cause it to
shift.

Footnote 179:

The wax has already been carefully weighed, and in order to estimate
how much bronze will be required for the cast a rough calculation is
made based on the amount of wax.

Footnote 180:

The subject of the composition of bronze and of other alloys of copper
is a complicated one, for the mixtures specified or established by
analysis are very varied. Normally speaking, bronze is a mixture of
copper with about ten per cent. of tin, brass of copper with twenty to
forty per cent. of zinc. Vasari’s proportions for bells and for cannon
are pretty much what are given now. In the _Manuel de Fondeur_
(Manuels Roret) Paris, 1879, II, p. 94, eight to fifteen per cent. of
tin are prescribed for cannon, fifteen to thirty per cent. for bell
metal, the greater percentage of tin with the copper resulting in a
less tough but harder and so sharper sounding metal. It will be noted
however that for statuary metal Vasari specifies a mixture not of
copper and tin but of copper and brass, that is, copper and zinc.
Brass is composed of, say, twenty-five per cent. of zinc and
seventy-five per cent. of copper, so that a mixture of two thirds, or
sixty-six per cent., of copper with one third, or thirty-three per
cent., of brass would work out to about ten parts of zinc to ninety of
copper, and this agrees with classical proportions. The Greeks used
tin for their bronzes, but various mysterious ingredients were
supposed to be mingled in to produce special alloys. The Romans used
zinc, or rather zinciferous ores such as calamine, with or in place of
tin, and this is the tradition that Vasari follows.

A recent analysis of the composition of the bronze doors at
Hildesheim, dating from 1015 A.D., gives about seventy-six parts
copper, ten lead, eight tin, four zinc; and of the ‘Bernward’ pillar
ascribed to about the same date, seventy copper, twenty-three tin, and
five lead. These differences may surprise us, but metal casting in
those days was a matter of rule of thumb, and we may recall Cellini’s
account of his cramming all his household vessels of pewter into the
melting pot to make the metal flow for casting his ‘Perseus.’

Footnote 181:

Vasari’s account of the making of dies for medals and of the process
of striking these is clear, and agrees with the more elaborate
directions contained in the seventh and following chapters of
Cellini’s _Trattato dell’ Oreficeria_. Cellini however, unlike Vasari,
was a practical medallist, and he goes more into detail. The process
employed was not the direct cutting of the matrices or dies with
chisels, nor, as gems are engraved, by the use of the wheel and emery
(or diamond) powder, but the stamping into them of the design required
by main force, by means of specially shaped hard steel punches on
which different parts of the design had been worked in relief. The
steel of the matrix or die had of course to be previously softened in
the fire, or these punches would have made no impression on it. When
finished it was again hardened by tempering. It may be noticed that
the dies from which Greek coins were struck were to all appearance
engraved as gems were engraved by the direct use of cutting tools or
tools that, like the wheel, wore away the material with the aid of
sand or emery.

The two matrices, or dies, for the obverse and reverse of the medal,
being now prepared, the medal is not immediately struck. In the case
of the Greek coin a bean-shaped piece, or a disk, of plain metal,
usually of silver, called a ‘blank’ or ‘flan,’ was placed between the
two dies and pressed into their hollows by a blow or blows of the
hammer, so that all that was engraved on them in intaglio came out on
the silver in relief. Vasari’s process is more elaborate. A sort of
trial medal is first struck from the matrices in a soft material such
as lead or wax, and this trial medal is reproduced by the ordinary
process of casting in the gold or silver or bronze which is to be the
material of the final medal. This cast medal has of course the general
form required, but it is not sharp nor has it a fine surface. It is
therefore placed between the matrices and forcibly compressed so as to
acquire all the finish of detail and texture desired.

Footnote 182:

Plaster, or stucco, is sometimes regarded as an inferior material only
to be used when nothing better can be obtained. It should not however
be judged from the achievements of the domestic plasterer of to-day,
who has to trust sometimes to the wall-paper to keep his stuff from
crumbling away. Plaster as used by the ancients, and through a good
part of the mediaeval and Renaissance periods up to the eighteenth
century, is a fine material, susceptible of very varied and effective
artistic treatment. It was made by the Greeks of so exquisite a
quality that it was equivalent to an artificial marble. It could be
polished, so Vitruvius tells us, till it would reflect the beholder’s
face as in a mirror, and he describes how the Roman connoisseurs of
his time would actually cut out plain panels of Greek stucco from old
walls and frame them into the plaster work of their own rooms, just as
if they were slabs of precious marble. (_De Architectura_, VII, iii,
10.) Vitruvius prescribes no fewer than six successive coats of
plaster for a wall, each laid on before the last is dry, the last coat
being of white lime and finely powdered marble.

By the Villa Farnesina at Rome some Roman, or more probably Greek,
plaster decoration was discovered a few years ago that surpassed any
work of the kind elsewhere known. We find there the moulded or stamped
ornament Vasari describes, as well as figure compositions modelled by
hand, while the plain surfaces are in themselves a delight to the
artistic eye.

Among the best and best known stucco work, in figures and ornaments,
of the later Italian Renaissance, may be ranked that at Fontainebleau
by Primaticcio and other artists from the peninsula who were invited
thither by François I, for the decoration of the ‘Galerie François I’
and the ‘Escalier du Roi.’

Footnote 183:

The composition of these two mucilages is given by Theophilus, in the
_Schedula_, Book one, chapter 17, and also by Cennini, _Trattato_,
chapters 110–112.

Soft cheese from cows’ milk must, according to the earlier recipe, be
shredded finely into hot water and braised in a mortar to a paste. It
must then be immersed in cold water till it hardens, and then rubbed
till it is quite smooth on a board and afterwards mixed with quick
lime to the consistency of a stiff paste. Panels cemented with this,
says Theophilus, will be held so fast when they are dry that neither
moisture nor heat will bring them apart. Vasari does not seem to have
such faith in the mucilage, and prefers that made from boiling down
shreds of parchment and other skins. The twelfth century writer knows
how to make this also. See chapter eighteen of the first Book of the
_Schedula_.

Footnote 184:

Every museum contains examples of these delicate German carvings in
hard materials.

Footnote 185:

In a Note to the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, ante, p. 128 f., an
account was given of some sculptures in travertine on the façade of
the church of S. Luigi dei Francesi at Rome by a ‘Maestro Gian’ who
has been conjecturally identified as a certain Jean Chavier or
Chavenier of Rouen who worked at Rome in the first quarter of the
sixteenth century. Vasari in this place introduces an artist of the
name of ‘Maestro Janni francese,’ and the question at once arises
whether he is the same person as the ‘Maestro Gian’ of Rome.

The statue here described is to be seen in the church of the
Annunziata at Florence, but not where Vasari saw it. It has been
placed for about the last half century in the spacious round choir,
where it occupies a niche in the wall of the second chapel to the left
as one faces the high altar. It has been painted white in the hope
that it may be mistaken for marble, and this characteristic
performance dates from about 1857. Certain fissures observable show
however that it is of wood, and one of the Frati remembers it when it
was as Vasari saw it ‘nello stesso colore del legname.’ The work is
shown on Plate IX. We have been unable to discover anything certain
about the artist. The figure, which is in excellent preservation,
speaks for itself. The Saint has a tight fitting cap over his head and
curling hair and beard. His eyes are almost closed as he looks down
with a somewhat affected air at his wounded leg to which the finger of
his right hand is pointing. The other hand holds a staff, round which
the drapery curls and over the top of which it is caught. This drapery
bears out Vasari’s description of it as ‘traforato’ ‘cut into.’ It is
floridly treated with the sharp angles common in the carving of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Germany, Flanders, and parts of
France. M. Marcel Reymond, who has kindly given his opinion on the
photographs submitted to him, has written about it as follows: ‘Le St.
Roch, par la surcharge de vêtements, l’excès de reliefs, l’agitation
des draperies, se rattache à l’art français tel qu’il s’était
constitué au xiv^{me} siècle, et tel qu’il s’était continué jusqu’au
xvi^{me} siècle, notamment dans le Bourgogne et la Champagne.’ He does
not consider the two ‘Maîtres Jean’ the same person. ‘Ce sont sans
doute deux artistes du xvi^{me} siècle, l’un travaillant la pierre, le
travertin, l’autre travaillant le bois. C’est leur aptitude à
travailler ces deux matières, que les artistes italiens travaillaient
moins bien que les français qui a retenu l’attention de Vasari sur eux
et qui leur a fait attribuer une place si importante dans les préfaces
de Vasari.’ Our study of the originals at Rome and Florence has led us
to the same opinion. The S. Rocco is Gothic in feeling, the
‘Salamander’ and other pieces at Rome are Renaissance. The Roman
‘Maestro Gian’ may be credited with an Italian style, but Vasari does
not show much critical acumen when he sees ‘la maniera italiana’ in
the S. Rocco of the Florentine Janni.

Footnote 186:

The first two sections, §§ 74, 75, of this chapter were added by
Vasari in the second edition. They contain his contribution to the
philosophy of the graphic art. It will be noted that his word
‘Disegno’ corresponds alike to our more general word ‘design’ and the
more special term ‘drawing.’

Footnote 187:

This remark of Vasari is significant of the change in architectural
practice between the mediaeval and modern epochs. That the architect
is a man that sits at home and makes drawings, while practical
craftsmen carry them out, is to us a familiar idea, but the notion
would greatly have astonished the builders of the French Gothic
cathedrals or the Florentines of the fourteenth century. In mediaeval
practice the architect was the master of the work, carrying the scheme
of the whole in his head, but busy all the time with the actual
materials and tools, and directing progress rather from the
scaffolding than from the drawing office. On the tombstone of the
French architect of the thirteenth century, Hughes Libergier, at
Reims, he is shown with the mason’s square, rule, and compasses about
him; while in the relief that illustrates ‘Building’ on Giotto’s
Campanile at Florence we see the master mason directing the operations
of the journeymen from a position on the structure itself. In the
present day there is a strong feeling in the profession that this
separation of architect and craftsman, which dates from the later
Renaissance, is a bad thing for art, and that the designer should be
in more intimate touch with the materials and processes of building.

Footnote 188:

It is characteristically Florentine to regard painting as essentially
the filling up of outlines, and to colour in staccato fashion with an
assorted set of tints arranged in gradation. To the eye of the born
painter outlines do not exist and nature is seen in tone and colour,
while colours are like the tones of a violin infinite in gradation,
not distinct like the notes of a piano. With the exception of the
Venetians and some other North Italians such as Correggio and Lotto,
the Italians generally painted by filling outlines with local tints
graded as light, middle, and dark, and the Florentines were
pre-eminent in the emphasis they laid on the well-drawn outline as the
foundation of the art. Since the seventeenth century the general idea
of what constitutes the art of painting has suffered a change and
Vasari’s account of Florentine practice, in which he was himself an
expert, is all the more interesting. Vasari’s point of view is that of
the frescoist. In that process, which, as we shall see, had to be
carried out swiftly and directly so as to be finished at one sitting,
it was practically necessary to have the various tints in their
gradations mixed and ready to hand. The whole method and genius of oil
painting, as moderns understand it, is different, and its processes
much more varied and subtle.

Footnote 189:

The innumerable sketches and finished drawings that have come down to
us from the hands of Florentine artists testify to the importance
given in the school to preliminary studies for painting, and any
collection will furnish examples of the different methods of execution
here described. Drawings by Venetian masters, who felt in colour
rather than in form, are not so numerous or so elaborate.

Footnote 190:

That is to say, by observation of aerial as well as linear
perspective.

Footnote 191:

This practice is noticed in the case of more than one artist of whom
Vasari has written the biography. Tintoretto is one. See also postea,
p. 216.

Footnote 192:

See the Note on ‘Fresco Painting’ at the close of the ‘Introduction’
to Painting, postea, p. 287.

Footnote 193:

Michelangelo’s greatest _tour de force_ in foreshortening, much lauded
by Vasari in his Life of the master, is the figure of the prophet
Jonah on the end wall of the Sistine chapel. It is painted at the
springing of the vault, on a surface that is inclined sharply towards
the spectator, but the figure is so drawn as to appear to be leaning
back in the opposite direction.

Footnote 194:

Correggio is responsible for many of the forced effects of drawing in
the decorative painting of vaults and ceilings in later times, but the
Umbrian Melozzo da Forlì in his painting of the Ascension of Christ,
now destroyed save for the fragments in the Quirinal and in the
sacristy of St. Peter’s at Rome, may have the doubtful honour of
beginning the practice of foreshortening a whole composition, so that
the scene is painted as it would appear were we looking up at it from
underneath.

Footnote 195:

This truth, about the mutual influence of colours in juxtaposition,
was well put by Sir Charles Eastlake when he wrote, in his _Materials
for a History of Oil Painting_, ‘flesh is never more glowing than when
opposed to blue, never more pearly than when compared with red, never
ruddier than in the neighbourhood of green, never fairer than when
contrasted with black, nor richer or deeper than when opposed to
white.’

Footnote 196:

Vitruvius describes the fresco process in his seventh Book. See Note
on ‘Fresco Painting’ at the end of the ‘Introduction’ to Painting,
postea, p. 287. This chapter is one of the most interesting in the
three ‘Introductions.’

Footnote 197:

Travertine, next to marble, makes when burnt the whitest lime (see §
30, ante, p. 86). From this lime the fresco white, called bianco
Sangiovanni, is made, and Cennini gives the recipe for its preparation
in his 58th chapter. The ordinary lead white (biacca) cannot be used
in fresco.

Footnote 198:

The word ‘tempera’ is used by Vasari and other writers as a noun
meaning (1) a substance mixed with another, as a medium with pigments
(2) a liquid in which hot steel is plunged to give it a particular
molecular quality (ante, p. 30) (3) the quality thus given to the
steel (ante, p. 32), while (4) it has come to mean in modern times, as
in the heading of this Note, a particular kind of painting. It is
really to be regarded as the imperative of the verb ‘temperare,’ which
alike in Latin and in Italian means ‘to divide or proportion duly,’
‘to qualify by mixing,’ and generally ‘to regulate’ or ‘to
discipline.’ ‘Tempera’ thus means strictly ‘mix’ or ‘regulate.’ It is
used in the latter sense in metallurgy, as the liquid which Vasari
calls (ante, p. 30) a ‘tempera’ (translated ‘tempering-bath’)
regulates the amount of hardness or elasticity required in the metal,
and the quality the steel thus receives is called (ante, p. 32) its
‘temper.’ In the case of painting the ‘tempera’ is the binding
material mixed with the pigment to secure its adhesion to the ground
when it is dry. The painting process is, in Italian, painting ‘a
tempera’ ‘with a mixture,’ and our expression ‘tempera painting’ is a
loose one. For the form of the word we may compare ‘recipe,’ also
employed as a substantive but really an imperative meaning ‘take.’

Strictly speaking any medium mixed with pigments makes the process one
‘a tempera.’ Many substances may be thus used, some soluble in water,
as size, gum, honey, and the like; others insoluble in water, such as
drying oils, varnishes, resins, etc., while the inside of an egg which
is in great part oleaginous may have a place between. It is not the
usage however to apply the term ‘tempera’ to drying oils or varnishes,
and a distinction is always made between ‘tempera painting’ and ‘oil
painting.’ See Note on ‘Tempera Painting,’ postea, p. 291.

Footnote 199:

This practice of covering wooden panels with linen and laying over
this the gesso painting ground was in use in ancient Egypt. In fact
the methods described by Cennini of preparing and grounding panels are
almost exactly the same as those used in ancient Egypt for painting
wooden mummy-cases. Even the practice, so much used in early Italian
art, of modelling details and ornaments in relief in gesso and gilding
them, is common on the mummy-cases. On the subject of gesso see Note 5
on p. 249.

Footnote 200:

Vasari’s expression ‘rosso dell’ uovo o tempera, la quale è questa’
calls attention to the fact, to which his language generally bears
testimony, that he looked upon the yolk of egg medium as the tempera
_par excellence_. When he uses the term ‘tempera’ alone he has the egg
medium in his mind, and the size medium is something apart. See this
chapter throughout.

Footnote 201:

Tempera painting has had a far longer history and more extensive use
than any other kind. The technique predominated for all kinds of
painting among the older Oriental peoples and in classical lands, and
was in use both on walls and on panels in Western Europe north of the
Alps during the whole mediaeval period, while south of the Alps and at
Byzantium it was to a great extent superseded for mural painting by
fresco, but remained in fashion for panels till the end of the
fifteenth century. After the fifteenth century the oil medium, as
Vasari remarks, superseded it entirely for portable pictures, and
partly for work on walls and ceilings, but in our own time there has
been a partial revival of the old technique. See Note on ‘Tempera
Painting,’ postea, p. 291.

The whole question of the different vehicles and methods used in
painting at various periods is a difficult and complicated one, and
too often chemical analysis fails to give satisfactory results owing
to the small amount of material available for experiment. Berger, in
his _Beiträge zur Entwicklungs-Geschichte der Maltechnik_, an
unfinished work that has already run to a thousand pages, goes
elaborately into the subject, but has to admit that many points are
still doubtful. It makes comparatively little difference what
particular medium is used in tempera painting, but it is of great
importance to decide whether a particular class of work is in tempera
or in fresco. In connection with this Berger has reopened the old
controversy as to the technique of Pompeian wall paintings, which have
been accepted as frescoes, on the authority of Otto Dönner, for a
generation past. There are difficulties about Pompeian work and it is
well that the question has again been raised, but Berger goes much too
far when he attempts to deny to the ancients the knowledge and use of
the fresco process. The evidence on this point of Vitruvius is quite
decisive, as he, and Pliny after him, refer to the process of painting
on wet plaster in the most unmistakeable terms. See Note on ‘Fresco
Painting, postea, p. 287.

Footnote 202:

This passage about the early painters of Flanders occurs just as it
stands, with some trifling verbal differences, in Vasari’s first
edition of 1550. The best commentary on it is, first, the account of
the same artists in Guicciardini’s _Descrittione di Tutti i Paesi
Bassi_, first published at Antwerp in 1567, and next, Vasari’s own
notes on divers Flemish artists which he added at the end of the
_Lives_ in the second edition of 1568 (_Opere_, ed. Milanesi, VII, 579
f.). He there made certain additions and corrections from
Guicciardini, the most noteworthy of which is the mention of Hubert
van Eyck, whom Vasari ignores in this passage of the Introduction, but
who is just referred to by Guicciardini at the end of his sentences on
the younger brother—‘A pari a pari di Giovanni andava Huberto suo
fratello, il quale viveva, e dipingeva continuamente sopra le medesime
opere, insieme con esso fratello.’ Vasari however in the notes of 1568
goes much farther than this, and, though he does not call Hubert the
elder brother, he seems to ascribe to him personally the supposed
‘invention’—‘Huberto suo fratello, che nel 1510 (_sic_) mise in luce
l’ invenzione e modo di colorire a olio’ (_Opere_, l.c.). ‘John of
Bruges’ is of course Jan van Eyck. Vasari writes of him at the end of
the _Lives_ as ‘John Eyck of Bruges.’ Vasari’s statement in this
sentence is of great historical importance, for it is the first
affirmation of a definite ‘invention’ of oil painting, and the first
ascription of this invention to van Eyck. As van Eyck’s own epitaph
makes no mention of this, and as oil painting was practised long
before his time, Vasari’s statement has naturally been questioned, and
on the subject the reader will find a Note at the close of the
‘Introduction’ to Painting, postea, p. 294.

Footnote 203:

It was long supposed that this picture was the ‘Epiphany’ preserved
behind the High Altar of the Church of S. Barbara, Naples, but Crowe
and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in North Italy_, II, 103,
pronounce this ‘a feeble and injured picture of the eighteenth
century.’

Footnote 204:

Frederick of Urbino (there were not two of the name as Vasari
supposes) seems to have had a bathroom decorated with secular
compositions by the Flemish master. Facio, whose tract _De Viris
Illustribus_, written in the middle of the fifteenth century, was
printed at Florence in 1745, writes, p. 46, of ‘Joannes Gallicus’ (who
can be identified as Jan van Eyck) who had painted certain ‘picturae
nobiles’ then in the possession of Cardinal Octavianus, with
‘representations of fair women only slightly veiled at the bath.’ Such
pictures were considered suitable decorations for bath chambers. There
is a curious early example of mediaeval date in the Schloss
Runkelstein near Botzen in the Tyrol, in the form of wall paintings
round a bathroom on one side of which nude figures are seen preparing
to enter the water, while on two other walls spectators of both sexes
are seen looking in through an open arcade. The pictures here referred
to by van Eyck are now lost, but by a curious coincidence attention
has just been directed to an existing copy of one of them, of which
Facio gives a special notice. The copy occurs in a painting by
Verhaecht of Antwerp, 1593–1637, that represents the picture gallery
of an Antwerp connoisseur at about the date 1615. There on the wall is
seen hanging the van Eyck, that corresponds closely to the full
description given by Facio. The painting by Verhaecht was shown at
Burlington House in the Winter Exhibition, 1906–7, and in the ‘Toison
d’Or’ Exhibition at Bruges in 1907. See also the _Burlington
Magazine_, February, 1907, p. 325. It may be added that the Cardinal
Octavianus mentioned above was a somewhat obscure prelate, who
received the purple from Gregory XII in 1408.

Footnote 205: