FOOTNOTES
[27] See the account of this in Vasari; vita di P. Brunelleschi, tom. ii. 114. It is of wood, and still exists in the chapel of the family Gondi, in the church of S. Maria Novella. I know that near a century before Donato, Giotto is said to have worked in marble two basso-relievoes on the campanile of the cathedral of Florence; they probably excel the style of his pictures as much as the bronze works executed by Andrea Pisani, from his designs, at the door of the Battisterio.
[28] Masaccio da S. Giovanni di Valdarno born in 1402, is said to have died in 1443. He was the pupil of Masolino da Panicale.
[29] Andrea Mantegna died at Mantoua, 1505. A monument erected to his memory in 1517, by his sons, gave rise to the mistake of dating his death from that period.
[30] Luca Signorelli died at Cortona 1521, aged 82.
[31] Lionardo da Vinci is said to have died in 1517, aged 75, at Paris.
[32] The flying birds of paste, the lions filled with lilies, the lizards with dragons' wings, horned and silvered over, savour equally of the boy and the quack. It is singular enough that there exists not the smallest hint of Lorenzo de Medici having employed or noticed a man of such powers and such early celebrity; the legend which makes him go to Rome with Juliano de Medici at the access of Leo X., to accept employment in the Vatican, whether sufficiently authentic or not, furnishes a characteristic trait of the man. The Pope passing through the room allotted for the pictures, and instead of designs and cartoons, finding nothing but an apparatus of distillery, of oils and varnishes, exclaimed, Oimè, costui non è per far nulla, da che comincia a pensare alla fine innanzi il principio dell' opera! From an admirable sonnet of Lionardo, preserved by Lomazzo, he appears to have been sensible of the inconstancy of his own temper, and full of wishes, at least, to correct it.
Much has been said of the honour he received by expiring in the arms of Francis I. It was indeed an honour, by which destiny in some degree atoned to that monarch for his future disaster at Pavia.
[33] Frà Bartolomeo died at Florence 1517, at the age of 48.
[34] Michael Angelo Buonarotti, born at Castel-Caprese in 1474, died at Rome 1564, aged 90.
[35] Like Silanion—'Apollodorum fecit, fictorem et ipsum, sed inter cunctos diligentissimum artis et inimicum sui judicem, crebro perfecta signa frangentem, dum satiare cupiditatem nequit artis, et ideo insanum cognominatum. Hoc in eo expressit, nec hominem ex ære fecit sed Iracundiam.' Plin. l. xxxiv. 7.
[36] When M. Angelo pronounced oil-painting to be Arte da donna e da huomini agiati e infingardi, a maxim to which the fierce Venetian manner has given an air of paradox, he spoke relatively to fresco: it was a lash on the short-sighted insolence of Sebastian del Piombo, who wanted to persuade Paul III. to have the Last Judgement painted in oil. That he had a sense for the beauties of oil-colour, its glow, its juice, its richness, its pulp, the praises which he lavished on Titiano, whom he called the only painter, and his patronage of Frà Sebastian himself, evidently prove. When young, M. Angelo attempted oil-painting with success; the picture painted for Angelo Doni is an instance, and probably the only entire work of the kind that remains. The Lazarus, in the picture destined for the cathedral at Narbonne, rejects the claim of every other hand. The Leda, the cartoon of which, formerly in the palace of the Vecchietti at Florence, is now in the possession of W. Lock, Esq. was painted in distemper (a tempera); all small or large oil-pictures shown as his, are copies from his designs or cartoons, by Marcello Venusti, Giacopo da Pontormo, Battista Franco, and Sebastian of Venice.
[37] Raphael Sanzio, of Urbino, died at Rome 1520, at the age of 37.
[38] Giorgio Barbarelli, from his size and beauty called Giorgione, was born at Castel Franco, in the territory of Venice, 1478, and died at Venice, 1511.
[39] Titiano Vecelli, or, as the Venetians call him, Tiziàn, born at Cador in the Friulese, died at Venice, 1576, aged 99.
[40] The birth and life of Antonio Allegri, or, as he called himself, Læti, surnamed Correggio, is more involved in obscurity than the life of Apelles. Whether he was born in 1490 or 1494 is not ascertained; the time of his death in 1534 is more certain. The best account of him has undoubtedly been given by A. R. Mengs in his Memorie concernenti la vita e le opere di Antonio Allegri denominato il Correggio. Vol. ii. of his works, published by the Spaniard D. G. Niccola d'Azara.
[41] Pelegrino Tibaldi died at Milano in 1592, aged 70.
[42] Sebastiano, afterwards called Del Piombo from the office of the papal signet, died at Rome in 1547, aged 62.
[43] Daniel Ricciarelli, of Volterra, died in 1566, aged 57.
[44] Now the first ornament of the exquisite collection of J. J. Angerstein, Esq.—Since purchased for the National Gallery.—Editor.
[45] Giorgio Vasari, of Arezzo, died in 1584, aged 68.
[46] Julio Pipi, called Romano, died at Mantoua in 1546, aged 54.
[47] Francesco Primaticcio, made Abbé de St. Martin de Troyes, by Francis, I., died in France 1570, aged 80.
[48] Polydoro Caldara da Caravaggio was assassinated at Messina in 1543, aged 51.
[49] Michael Angelo Amerigi, surnamed Il Caravaggi, knight of Malta, died 1609, aged 40.
[50] Nicolas Poussin, of Andely, died at Rome 1665, aged 71.
[51] Salvator Rosa, surnamed Salvatoriello, died at Rome 1673, aged 59.
[52] Of the portraits which Raphael in fresco scattered over the compositions of the Vatican, we shall find an opportunity to speak. But in oil the real style of portrait began at Venice with Giorgione, flourished in Sebastian del Piombo, and was carried to perfection by Titiano, who filled the masses of the first without entangling himself in the minute details of the second. Tintoretto, Bassan, and Paolo of Verona, followed the principle of Titiano. After these, it migrated from Italy to reside with the Spaniard Diego Velasquez; from whom Rubens and Vandyck attempted to transplant it to Flanders, France, and England, with unequal success. France seized less on the delicacy than on the affectation of Vandyck, and soon turned the art of representing men and women into a mere remembrancer of fashions and airs. England had possessed Holbein, but it was reserved for the German Lely, and his successor Kneller, to lay the foundation of a manner, which, by pretending to unite portrait with history, gave a retrograde direction for near a century to both. A mob of shepherds and shepherdesses in flowing wigs and dressed curls, ruffled Endymions, humble Junos, withered Hebes, surly Allegroes, and smirking Pensierosas, usurped the place of truth, propriety and character. Even the lamented powers of the greatest painter whom this country and perhaps our age produced, long vainly struggled, and scarcely in the eve of life succeeded to emancipate us from this dastard taste.
[53] Francesco Mazzuoli, called Il Parmegiano, died at Casal Maggiore in 1540, at the age of 36. The magnificent picture of the St. John, we speak of, was begun by order of the Lady Maria Bufalina, and destined for the church of St. Salvadore del Lauro at Città di Castello. It probably never received the last hand of the master, who fled from Rome, where he painted it, at the sacking of that city, under Charles Bourbon, in 1527; it remained in the refectory of the convent della Pace for several years, was carried to Città di Castello by Messer Giulio Bufalini, and is now in England. The Moses, a figure in Fresco at Parma, together with Raphael's figure of God in the vision of Ezekiel, is said, by Mr. Mason, to have furnished Gray with the head and action of his bard: if that was the case, he would have done well to acquaint us with the poet's method of making 'Placidis coire immitia.'
[54] Lodovico Carracci died at Bologna 1619, aged 64.
[55] Agostino Carracci died at Parma in 1602, at the age of 44. His is the St. Girolamo in the Certosa, near Bologna; his, the Thetis with the nereids, cupids, and tritons, in the gallery of the palace Farnese. Why, as an engraver, he should have wasted his powers on the large plate from the Crucifixion, painted by Tintoretto, in the hospitio of the school of St. Rocco, a picture, of which he could not express the tone, its greatest merit, is not easily unriddled. Annibale Carracci died at Rome in 1609, at the age of 49.
[56] SONNET OF AGOSTINO CARRACCI.
Chi farsi un buon Pittor cerca, e desia,
Il disegno di Roma habbia alla mano,
La mossa coll' ombrar Veneziano,
E il degno colorir di Lombardia,
Di Michel' Angiol la terribil via,
Il vero natural di Tiziano,
Del Correggio lo stil puro, e sovrano,
E di un Rafel la giusta simetria.
Del Tibaldi il decoro, e il fondamento,
Del dotto Primaticcio l'inventare,
E un po di gratia del Parmigianino.
Ma senza tanti studi, e tanto stento,
Si ponga l'opre solo ad imitare,
Che qui lasciocci il nostro Niccolino.
Malvasia, author of the Felsina Pittrice, has made this sonnet the text to his drowsy rhapsody on the frescoes of Lodovico Carracci and some of his scholars, in the cloisters of St. Michele in Bosco, by Bologna. He circumscribes the 'Mossa Veneziana,' of the sonnet, by 'Quel strepitoso motivo e quel divincolamento' peculiar to Tintoretto.
[57] Guido Reni died in 1642, aged 68. Giov. Lanfranco died at Naples in 1647, aged 66. Franc. Albani died in 1660, aged 82. Domenico Zampieri, called Il Domenichino, died in 1641, aged 60. Franc. Barbieri of Cento, called Il Guercino, from a cast in his eye, died in 1667, aged 76.
[58] Pietro Berretini, of Cortona, the painter of the ceiling in the Barberini hall, and of the gallery in the lesser Pamphili palace, the vernal suavity of whose fresco tints no pencil ever equalled, died at Rome in 1669, aged 73. Luca Giordano, nicknamed Fa-presto, or Dispatch, from the rapidity of his execution, the greatest machinist of his time, died in 1705, aged 76.
[59] We are informed by the Editor of the Latin translation of Albert Durer's book, on the symmetry of the parts of the human frame, (Parisiis, in officina Caroli Perier in vico Bellovaco, sub Bellerophonte, 1557, fol.) that, during Albert's stay at Venice, where he resided for a short time, to procure redress from the Signoria for the forgery of Marc Antonio, he became familiar with Giovanni Bellini: and that Andrea Mantegna, who had heard of his arrival in Italy, and had conceived a high opinion of his execution and fertility, sent him a message of invitation to Mantoua, for the express purpose of giving him an idea of that form of which he himself had obtained a glimpse from the contemplation of the antique. Andrea was then ill, and expired before Albert, who immediately prepared to set out for Mantoua, could profit by his instructions. This disappointment, says my author, Albert never ceased to lament during his life. How fit the Mantouan was to instruct the German, is not the question here; but Albert's regret seems to prove that he felt a want which his model could not supply; and that he had too just an idea of the importance of the art to be proud of dexterity of finger or facility of execution, when employed on objects essentially defective or comparatively trifling. The following personal account of Albert deserves to be given in the Latin Editor's own words:
'E Pannonia oriundum accepimus—Erat caput argutum, oculi micantes, nasus honestus et quem Greci Τετράγωνον vocant; proceriusculum collum, pectus amplum, castigatus venter, femora nervosa, crura stabilia: sed digitis nihil dixisses vidisse elegantius.'
Albert Durer was the scholar of Martin Schön and Michael Wolgemuth, and died at Nuremberg in 1528, aged 57.
[60] Lucas Jacob, called Lucas of Leyden, and by the Italians, Luca d'Ollanda, died at Leyden in 1533.
[61] Peter Paul Rubens, of Cologne, the disciple of Adam Van Ort and Otho Venius, died at or near Antwerp in 1641, aged 63.
See the admirable character given of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds, annexed to his journey to Flanders, vol. ii. of his Works.
[62] Anthony Vandyck died in London, 1641, at the age of 42.—The poetic conception of Abraham Diepenbeck may be estimated from the Temple des Muses of Mr. de Marolles; re-edited but not improved by Bernard Picart.
[63] Rembrandt died, at Amsterdam ? in 1674, aged 68.
[64] Hans Holbein, of Basle, died in London, 1544, at the age of 46. Peter Francis Mola, the scholar of Giuseppe d'Arpino and Franc. Albani, was born at the village of Coldre, of the diocese of Balerna, in the bailliage of Mendrisio, in 1621, and died at Rome in 1666.
[65] Eustache le Sueur, bred under Simon Voüet, died at Paris in 1655, at the age of 88. His fellow-scholar and overbearing rival, Charles le Brun, died in 1690, aged 71.
[66] For the best account of Spanish art, see Lettera di A. R. Mengs a Don Antonio Ponz. Opere di Mengs, vol. ii. Mengs was born at Ausig, in Bohemia, in 1728, and died at Rome in 1779.
THIRD LECTURE.
INVENTION.
PART I.
——ΤΙ Τ' ΑΡ ΑΥ ΦΘΟΝΕΕΙΣ, ΕΡΙΗΡΟΝ ΑΟΙΔΟΝ
ΤΕΡΠΕΙΝ, ΟΠΠΗ ΟΙ ΝΟΟΣ ΟΡΝΥΤΑΙ; ΟΥ ΝΥ Τ' ΑΟΙΔΟΙ
ΑΙΤΙΟΙ, ΑΛΛΑ ΠΟΘΙ ΖΕΥΣ ΑΙΤΙΟΣ, ὉΣΤΕ ΔΙΔΩΣΙΝ
ΑΝΔΡΑΣΙΝ ΑΛΦΗΣΤΗΣΙΝ, ΟΠΩΣ ΕΘΕΛΗΣΙΝ ΕΚΑΣΤΩΙ.
Homer. Odyss. A. 346.