623. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED.
Girolamo da Treviso (Venetian: 1497-1544).
Girolamo, the son and pupil of Piermaria Pennachi, was born at Treviso. He painted at Venice, Genoa, Trent, Faenza, and Bologna, at which latter place several of his frescoes and paintings remain. Between the years 1535 and 1538 he returned to Venice and became intimate with Titian, Sansovino, and Aretino. "In 1542," says Vasari, "he repaired to England, where he was so favoured by certain of his friends, who recommended him to the king (Henry VIII.), that he was at once appointed to the service of that monarch. Presenting himself to the English sovereign accordingly, Girolamo was employed, not as painter, but as engineer, and having given proofs of his ability in various edifices, copied from such as he had seen in Tuscany and other parts of Italy, the king admired them greatly. Nay, furthermore, his majesty rewarded the master with large gifts, and ordained him a stipend of four hundred crowns a year, giving him at the same time opportunity and permission to erect an honourable abode for himself, the cost of which was borne by the king." Girolamo had, however, to erect also some bastions at Boulogne, and there "he was struck by a cannon-ball, which came with such violence that it cut him in two as he sat on his horse. And so were his life and all the honours of this world extinguished together, all his greatness departing in a moment." His works are now scarce. No. 218 in this gallery may be the copy made by Girolamo from Peruzzi's drawing, No. 167.
This picture, formerly the altar-piece of the Boccaferri chapel in S. Domenico at Bologna, is signed by the painter and is mentioned by Vasari (iii. 287) as "the best of his works: it represents the Madonna with numerous saints (Joseph, James, and Paul), and contains the portrait of the person by whom the painter was commissioned to execute the work." Girolamo, who, as we have seen, was a man of travel, "did not remain faithful to the tradition of art as professed at Venice and Treviso, and might be called rather a forerunner of the eclectic schools.... The head of St. Paul is apparently copied from Raphael's picture of St. Cecilia in Bologna. In the types of other figures, in the colouring and in the landscape, we perceive the influence of Dosso Dossi and of Garofalo" (Richter's Italian Art, etc. p. 87).