Another distinguished poet came to Verona in 1348, and indeed visited the town several times. This was no other than Petrarch; and it was on the occasion of his first visit to his friend Guglielmo da Pastrengo that he dreamed the dream which came only too true, of Laura’s death (April 6). This does not seem however to have given him a distaste for Verona, where he had many friends, and from where he wrote in ecstasies of the beauty of the Lake of Garda and of the country around.
The wives of the lords of Verona, with but one exception, were not given to literature or the arts. The only one who endeavoured in any way to attract men of letters to her court was Samaritana, wife of Antonio della Scala. This daughter of the house of da Polenta of Ravenna was in reality too vain and frivolous to care for learning for its own sake. She thought it would redound to her glory to collect round her men whose studies or writings would add to the lustre of her name, and for this cause it came to pass that late in the fourteenth century the court of the Scaligers was again frequented by “litterati.” The most conspicuous among them was Gidino da Somma Campagna, who dedicated a book entitled Trattato dei Ritmi Volgari to Antonio della Scala. The original manuscript of the Trattato is preserved in the Biblioteca Capitolare, and the beautiful designs and scrolls that adorn the margins of its pages are an example of the miniature drawing of the day, deserving both of study and admiration. Besides Gidino da Somma Campagna, mention may be made of Leonardo da Quinto, a learned jurisconsult, astrologer, and man of letters. He was, as Guglielmo da Pastrengo had been before him, an ardent bibliophile, and both men were possessed of libraries as fine as any which existed in private houses at that time. When Antonio della Scala was in straits for money in 1386, Leonardo da Quinto was one of the two emissaries whom he sent to Venice to sell his jewels. Marzagaia and Matteo da Orgiano can also be added to the above literary set; the former was Antonio’s tutor; and the latter, really of Vicenza, was a Humanist of high repute who became chancellor at the court of Verona. The possession of a fine library in those days was by no means the privilege of the few. Not only did many of the churches own libraries of no mean order, but most of the private individuals of note in Verona had collections that were at once numerous and costly. The noble houses of Ottolini, Trevisani, Pelligrini, Pindemonte, Moscardo, Maffei, and Muselli had all famous libraries, while English readers will be interested to learn that the great Ashburnham collection had its origin in Verona. This collection was begun by the Marchese Giovanni Saibante of Verona, who devoted many years of arduous and loving devotion to the formation of this unique library. In 1734 it contained 5189 volumes, and 1321 manuscripts, of which 102 were Greek and 70 were Hebrew. The larger part of this collection was sold in Paris; from there it passed into the Earl of Ashburnham’s hands, and in 1884 the Italian Government bought it back for the sum of £23,000.
To set down here the names of the Veronese whose fame in connection with letters has added to the glory of their native land would be beside the mark. Suffice it for the present purpose to mention the following:—Guarino dei Guarini, the student of Greek and of Greek science; Girolamo Fracastoro, whose statue by Danese Cattaneo in the Loggia of the Palazzo del Consiglio, set up only two years after his death, shows how generally his talents were recognised as a poet, a philosopher, and an astronomer; Fra Giocondo, whose fame as an architect was widely spread through France and Italy, and was so great as to leave but little room wherein to speak of him as a writer and a scientist; Giovanni Antonio Panteo, an author of various works in Latin, and a friend of all the learned men of his day; Torello Saraina, whose book De Origine et amplitudine Urbis Veronæ, published in folio at Verona in 1540, and printed in 1586, is one of the first histories of Verona both as to date and merit; Onofrio Panvinio, a finished Latin scholar, and an elegant writer on all the Roman remains in his native town; Giulio Cesare Bordoni, surnamed Scaligero, as famous as a doctor as he was as a writer and man of science, who is universally known by the name which he added to his own, and which was taken for the purpose of deluding those who knew no better that he was a descendant of the Scaligers. He was without doubt one of the most learned and scientific men of his age, and was honoured and welcomed in every country in which he set foot.
This list must not draw to its close without including the name of Scipione Maffei, whose work Verona Illustrata, in eight volumes, and often consulted in the construction of these pages, is one of the most trustworthy and complete histories of Verona as far as it goes. Other writings by Maffei confirmed his celebrity, and his fellow-citizens gave expression to his merits, and to the esteem and affection in which they held him, when they set up, during his lifetime, his statue in the Piazza de’ Signori, where it stands to this day close to the Volto Barbaro. Among modern writers, or rather poets, mention must be made of Girolamo Pompei, Ippolito Pindemonte, and Aleardo Aleardi, all poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and all of them belonging to patrician families of Verona. Pompei and Pindemonte were apt translators of the great classic poets of Rome; while Aleardi’s muse was attuned to songs of love and patriotism.
The rôle of notable writers and men of letters is by no means exhausted in this list, which has no pretence to do more than give an idea of Verona’s chief literary sons, and to raise her renown in the scholastic world, as well as in that of art and history.
The school of painting in Verona dates from the reign of Cangrande. There were it is true paintings and frescoes in the town prior to the Scaligers, but they could not come under the classification of a “school,” and are of too remote and uncertain a character to be placed as pertaining to a given date. The patronage bestowed by Cangrande on learning and letters was extended also to painting, and Vasari tells how that “Giotto did some pictures for Messer Cane in his palace; and specially the portrait of that lord.” That Giotto came to Verona at the bidding of this greatest of the Scaligers is well known, as it is also known that he worked there to a considerable extent. Nothing remains, however, of his work in the “Big Dog’s” Palace; and only small and generally “restored” examples are to be found in a few of the churches.
The influence of Giotto is felt though markedly in Verona, where the strong impetus given to painting by Cangrande developed steadily under the rule of his descendants. A German critic (Jules von Schlosser) has indeed said that Verona at that period was the centre of pictorial art in Northern Italy; and were all else wanting, the wonderful miniature painting of that time testifies in itself to the truth of such a statement.
The actual founder of the Veronese school was Altichiero, born about 1300, and of whom some frescoes are to be seen in the church of St Anastasia, and in that of S. Fermo Maggiore, though on this latter point there is some doubt. Together with Altichiero must be mentioned his friend and contemporary Jacopo d’Avanzo, for they frequently worked together, and their dual work on the same picture is not easy to dissever. It cannot be denied that they were greatly inspired by Giotto but, on the other hand, they were by no means blind followers or even pupils of the Florentine master, for they maintained a character in all ways distinct from him, and portrayed their art in fuller, deeper, richer colouring. They were also superior as draughtsmen, conveying too a greater sense of life and movement in their figures, and presenting all through their work a strong and marked individuality. Both artists can really be studied better at Padua than in their native city where little exists that can give a true idea of their talent.
With them may also be mentioned Martini of Verona; who though inferior to Altichiero and d’Avanzo, lived and worked at the same time, and prepared the way for the far greater Vittor Pisano or Pisanello, who was born at S. Vigilio near the Lake of Garda in 1380. The doubt as to who was Pisanello’s master remains unsolved to the present day. Morelli inclines to the opinion that he was a pupil of Altichiero—an opinion not shared by Crowe and Cavalcaselle. He doubtless derived much from a study of Altichiero’s work, and from drawing from the antique; but his own personality is revealed in his paintings, and more still in his medals and in his treatment of portraits where he represented his sitters “en profile,” and obtained a striking and lasting success from this style of portraiture—till then untried and absolutely original. His skill as a medallist caused him to find patrons in almost every court in Italy and to be welcomed at them all in turn. He worked too in conjunction with Gentile da Fabriano in the Ducal Palace at Venice, decorating and restoring that princely building, and imbibing probably much of Gentile’s feeling for finish, colour, and brilliancy. “But it is in Verona,” says Mr Selwyn Brinton,[37] “that the best of his work in fresco remains—damaged, almost ruined, but attesting to his vigorous art, to his wonderful grasp of animal life.” This latter trait is very marked in Pisanello, and shows that his love of animals, his study of them, as well as of nature