A history of Italian painting

by Frank Jewett Mather

CHAPTER VI.

The High Renaissance. The indispensable books are, for leading ideas, J. C. Burckhardt, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, New York, 1890; for the stylistic development in Art, H. Wölfflin, The Art of the Italian Renaissance, New York, 1913. Very valuable for history and biography are J. Addington Symonds’s The Renaissance in Italy, 5 Vols., London; and H. O. Taylor’s Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century, New York, 1920. For Renaissance ideals of nobility and moderation the capital contemporary work is Il Cortegiano, by Baldassare Castiglione, translated as The Courtier by L. E. Opdycke, New York, 1905. For stylistic analysis Berenson’s introductions to Florentine Painters, and to Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, are suggestive and important.

[61]. Gentile da Fabriano. A. Colasanti, Gentile da Fabriano. Bergamo, 1909. Also my Essay review. The Nation, Vol. 89 (1909) pp. 168–170.

[62]. Andrea da Bologna. The Nation (N. Y.) Vol. 95. (1912) p. 392.

[63]. Fifteenth Century Umbrians. Walter Rothes, in Anfänge ... der Alt-Umbrischen Malerschulen, Strassburg, 1908, gives excellent illustrations for the Early Umbrian Artists. Also for cuts, U. Gnoli, La Mostra Umbra, Bergamo.

[64]. Melozzo da Forlì. A. Schmarsow, Melozzo da Forlì, Berlin, 1886, and C. Ricci, Melozzo da Forlì, Rome, 1911, are the standard works.

[65]. Luca Signorelli. Maud Crutwell, Luca Signorelli, London, 1901. See Venturi, vii, as usual.

[66]. Pietro Perugino. Venturi, Storia, Vol. VII, pt. 2, ch. v, makes Perugino the direct pupil of Piero della Francesca, ascribing to Perugino many pictures formerly ascribed to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. The view while attractive is not wholly convincing to me. All of Perugino’s works are published in Klassiker der Kunst, No. XXV, Stuttgart, 1914. The best general estimate of Perugino is that of Wölfflin and of Berenson, in Central Italian Painters.

[67]. The Cambio frescoes. While it is inherently likely that Raphael worked on these frescoes, Prof. Venturi’s plea for Raphael’s authorship of God, the Prophets and Sibyls, Storia, Vol. VII, pt. 2, p. 828 ff. depends largely on the shaky evidence of drawings attributed arbitrarily to Raphael.

Raphael and Michelangelo. From the point of view of pure style the best treatment of these artists and of the High Renaissance is that of Heinrich Wölfflin in The Art of the Italian Renaissance, New York, 1913. It is a book that every student should read and if possible own. Mr. Berenson’s treatment of space composition, in the introduction to Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, is perhaps his finest achievement in criticism.