The Florentine Lorenzo Pucci, Cardinal Santiquattro, had formerly caused a chapel to be built in the Trinita, and all the vaulting to be painted by Perino del Vaga, with certain Prophets on the outer side, and two little boys holding the arms of that Cardinal. But the chapel remaining unfinished, with three walls still to be painted, when the Cardinal died, those fathers, without any regard for what was just and reasonable, sold that chapel to the Archbishop of Corfu; and it was afterwards given by that Archbishop to Taddeo to paint. Now although, out of respect for the church and from other reasons, it may have been well to find means of finishing the chapel, at least they should not have allowed the arms of the Cardinal to be removed from the part that was finished, only in order to place there those of the above-named Archbishop, which they could have set up in another place, instead of offering so manifest an affront to the memory of that good Cardinal. Having thus so many works on his hands, Taddeo was every day urging Federigo to return from Venice. That Federigo, after having finished the chapel for the Patriarch, was negotiating to undertake to paint the principal wall of the Great Hall of the Council, where Antonio Viniziano had formerly painted; but the rivalry and the contentions that he suffered from the Venetian painters were the reason that neither they, with all their interest, nor he, likewise, obtained it.
Meanwhile Taddeo, having a desire to see Florence and the many works which, so he heard, Duke Cosimo had carried out and was still carrying out, and the beginning that his friend Giorgio Vasari was making in the Great Hall; Taddeo, I say, pretending one day to go to Caprarola in connection with the work that he was doing there, went off to Florence for the Festival of S. John, in company with Tiberio Calcagni, a young Florentine sculptor and architect. There, to say nothing of the city, he found vast pleasure in the works of the many excellent sculptors and painters, ancient as well as modern; and if he had not had so many charges and so many works on his hands, he would gladly have stayed there some months. Thus he saw the preparations of Vasari for the above-named Hall—namely, forty-four great pictures, of four, six, seven, or ten braccia each—in which he was executing figures for the most part of six or eight braccia, with the assistance only of the Fleming Giovanni Strada and Jacopo Zucchi, his disciples, and Battista Naldini, in all which he took the greatest pleasure, and, hearing that all had been executed in less than a year, it gave him great courage. Wherefore, having returned to Rome, he set his hand to the above-named chapel in the Trinita, with the resolve that he would surpass himself in the stories of Our Lady that were to be painted there, as will be related presently.
Now Federigo, although he was pressed to return from Venice, was not able to refuse to stay in that city for the Carnival in company with the architect Andrea Palladio. And Andrea, having made for the gentlemen of the Company of the Calza a theatre in wood after the manner of a Colosseum, in which a tragedy was to be performed, caused Federigo to execute for the decoration of the same twelve large scenes, each seven feet and a half square, with innumerable other stories of the actions of Hyrcanus, King of Jerusalem, after the subject of the tragedy; in which work Federigo gained much honour, from its excellence and from the rapidity with which he executed it. Next, Palladio going to Friuli to found the Palace of Civitale, of which he had previously made the model, Federigo went with him in order to see that country; and there he drew many things that pleased him. Then, after having seen many things in Verona and in many other cities of Lombardy, he finally made his way to Florence, at the very time when festive preparations, rich and marvellous, were being made for the coming of Queen Joanna of Austria. Having arrived there, he executed, after the desire of the Lord Duke, a most beautiful and fanciful Hunt in colours on a vast canvas that covered the stage at the end of the Hall, and some scenes in chiaroscuro for an arch; all which gave infinite satisfaction. From Florence he went to Sant' Agnolo, to revisit his relatives and friends, and finally he arrived in Rome on the 16th of the January following; but he was of little assistance to Taddeo at that time, for the reason that the death of Pope Pius IV, followed by that of Cardinal Sant'Agnolo, interrupted the work of the Hall of Kings and that of the Farnese Palace. Whereupon Taddeo, who had finished another apartment of rooms at Caprarola, and had carried almost to completion the chapel in S. Marcello, proceeded to give his attention to the work of the Trinita, much at his leisure, and to execute the Passing of Our Lady, with the Apostles standing about the bier.
In the meantime, also, Taddeo had obtained for Federigo a chapel to be painted in fresco in the Church of the Reformed Priests of Jesus at the Obelisk of S. Mauro; and to that Federigo straightway set his hand. Taddeo, feigning to be angry because Federigo had delayed too long to return, appeared to care little for his arrival; but in truth he welcomed it greatly, as was afterwards seen from the result. For he was much annoyed by having to provide for his house (of which annoyance Federigo had been accustomed to relieve him), and by the anxious care of that brother who was employed as a goldsmith; but when Federigo came they put many inconveniences to rights, in order to be able to attend to their work with a quiet mind. The friends of Taddeo were seeking meanwhile to give him a wife, but he, being one who was accustomed to living free, and feared that which generally happens (namely, that he would bring into his house, together with the wife, a thousand vexatious cares and annoyances), could never make up his mind to it. Nay, attending to his work in the Trinita, he proceeded to make the cartoon of the principal wall, on which there was going the Ascension of Our Lady into Heaven; while Federigo painted a picture of S. Peter in Prison for the Lord Duke of Urbino; another, wherein is a Madonna in Heaven with some Angels about her, which was to be sent to Milan; and a third with a figure of Opportunity, which was sent to Perugia.
The Cardinal of Ferrara had kept many painters and masters in stucco at work at the very beautiful villa that he has at Tivoli, and finally he sent Federigo there to paint two rooms, one of which is dedicated to Nobility, and the other to Glory; in which Federigo acquitted himself very well, executing there beautiful and fantastic inventions. That finished, he returned to the work of the above-mentioned chapel in Rome, which he has carried to completion, painting in it a choir of many Angels and various Glories, with God the Father sending down the Holy Spirit upon the Madonna, who is receiving the Annunciation from the Angel Gabriel, while about her are six Prophets, larger than life and very beautiful. Taddeo, meanwhile, continuing to paint the Assumption of the Madonna in fresco in the Trinita, appeared to be driven by nature to do in that work, as his last, the utmost in his power. And in truth it proved to be his last, for, having fallen ill of a sickness which at first appeared to be slight enough, and caused by the great heat that there was that year, and which afterwards became very grave, he died in the month of September in the year 1566; having first, like a good Christian, received the Sacraments of the Church, and seen the greater part of his friends, and leaving in his place his brother Federigo, who was also ill at that time. And so in a short time, Buonarroti, Salviati, Daniello, and Taddeo having been taken from the world, our arts have suffered a very great loss, and particularly the art of painting.
Taddeo was very bold in his work, and had a manner passing soft and pastose, and very far removed from the hardness often seen. He was very abundant in his compositions, and he made his heads, hands, and nudes very beautiful, keeping them free of the many crudities over which certain painters labour beyond all reason, in order to make it appear that they understand anatomy and art; to which kind of men there often happens that which befell him who, from his seeking to be in his speech more Athenian than the Athenians, was recognized by a woman of the people to be no Athenian. Taddeo also handled colours with much delicacy, and he had great facility of manner, for he was much assisted by nature; but at times he sought to make too much use of it. He was so desirous of having something of his own, that he continued for a time to accept any sort of work for the sake of gain; but for all that he executed many, nay, innumerable works worthy of great praise. He kept a number of assistants in order to finish his works, for the reason that it is not possible to do otherwise. He was sanguine, hasty, and quick to take offence, and, in addition, much given to the pleasures of love; but nevertheless, although he was strongly inclined by nature to such pleasures, he contrived to conduct his affairs with a certain degree of decency, and very secretly. He was loving with his friends, and whenever he could help them he never spared himself.
At his death he left the work in the Trinita not yet uncovered, and the Great Hall in the Farnese Palace unfinished, and so also the works of Caprarola, but nevertheless these all remained in the hands of his brother Federigo, whom the patrons of the works are content to allow to give them completion, as he will do; and, in truth, Federigo will be heir to the talents of Taddeo no less than to his property. Taddeo was given burial by Federigo in the Ritonda of Rome, near the tabernacle where Raffaello da Urbino, his fellow-countryman, is buried; and certainly they are well placed, one beside the other, for the reason that even as Raffaello died at the age of thirty-seven and on the same day that he was born, which was Good Friday, so Taddeo was born on the first day of September, 1529, and died on the second day of the same month in the year 1566. Federigo is minded, if it should be granted to him, to restore the other tabernacle in the Ritonda, and to make some memorial in that place to his loving brother, to whom he knows himself to be deeply indebted.
Now, since mention has been made above of Jacopo Barozzi of Vignuola, saying that after his architectural designs and directions the most illustrious Cardinal Farnese has built his rich and even regal villa of Caprarola, let me relate that the same Jacopo Barozzi of Vignuola, a Bolognese painter and architect, who is now fifty-eight years of age, was placed in his childhood and youth to learn the art of painting in Bologna, but did not make much proficience, because he did not receive good guidance at the beginning. And also, to tell the truth, he had by nature much more inclination for architecture than for painting, as was clearly manifest even at that time from his designs and from the few works of painting that he executed, for there were always to be seen in them pieces of architecture and perspective; and so strong and potent in him was that inclination of nature, that he may be said to have learned almost by himself, in a short time, both the first principles and also the greatest difficulties, and that very well. Wherefore, almost before he was known, various designs with most beautiful and imaginative fantasies were seen to issue from his hand, executed for the most part at the request of M. Francesco Guicciardini, at that time Governor of Bologna, and for others of his friends; which designs were afterwards put into execution in tinted woods inlaid after the manner of tarsia, by Fra Damiano da Bergamo, of the Order of S. Domenico in Bologna. Vignuola then went to Rome to work at painting, and to obtain from that art the means to assist his poor family; and at first he was employed at the Belvedere with Jacopo Melighini of Ferrara, the architect of Pope Paul III, drawing some architectural designs for him. But afterwards, there being in Rome at that time an academy of most noble lords and gentlemen who occupied themselves in reading Vitruvius (among whom were M. Marcello Cervini, who afterwards became Pope, Monsignor Maffei, M. Alessandro Manzuoli, and others), Vignuola set himself in their service to take complete measurements of all the antiquities of Rome, and to execute certain works after their fancy; which circumstance was of the greatest assistance to him both for learning and for profit. Meanwhile Francesco Primaticcio, the Bolognese painter, of whom there will be an account in another place, had arrived in Rome, and he made much use of Vignuola in making moulds of a great part of the antiques in Rome, in order to take those moulds into France, and then to cast from them statues in bronze similar to the antiques; which work having been despatched, Primaticcio, in going to France, took Vignuola with him, in order to make use of him in matters of architecture and to have his assistance in casting in bronze the above-mentioned statues of which they had made the moulds; which things, both the one and the other, he did with much diligence and judgment. After two years had passed, he returned to Bologna, according to the promise made by him to Count Filippo Pepoli, in order to attend to the building of S. Petronio. In that place he consumed several years in discussions and disputes with certain others who were his competitors in the affairs there, without doing anything but design and cause to be constructed after his plans the canal that brings vessels into Bologna, whereas before that they could not come within three miles; than which work none better or more useful was ever executed, although Vignuola, the originator of an enterprise so useful and so praiseworthy, was poorly rewarded for it.
Pope Julius III having been elected in the year 1550, by means of Vasari Vignuola was appointed architect to his Holiness, and there was given to him the particular charge of conducting the Acqua Vergine and of superintending the works at the Vigna of Pope Julius, who took Vignuola into his service most willingly, because he had come to know him when he was Legate in Bologna. In that building, and in other works that he executed for that Pontiff, he endured much labour, but was badly rewarded for it. Finally Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, having recognized the genius of Vignuola, to whom he always showed much favour, desired, in carrying out the building of his Palace at Caprarola, that the whole work should spring from the fanciful design and invention of Vignuola. And, in truth, the judgment of that lord in making choice of so excellent an architect was no less than the greatness of his mind in setting his hand to an edifice so noble and grand, which, although it is in a place where it can be enjoyed but little by men in general, being out of the way, yet is none the less marvellous in its site, and very suitable for one who wishes at times to withdraw from the vexations and tumult of the city. This edifice, then, has the form of a pentagon, and is divided into four sets of apartments, without counting the front part, where the principal door is; in which front part is a loggia forty palms in breadth and eighty in length. On one side there curves in a round form a spiral staircase, ten palms wide across the steps, and twenty palms across the space in the centre, which gives light to the staircase, which curves from the base to the third or uppermost story; and these steps are all supported by double columns with cornices, which curve in a round in accordance with the staircase. The whole is a rich and well-varied work, beginning with the Doric Order, and continuing in the Ionic, the Corinthian, and the Composite, with a wealth of balusters, niches, and other fanciful ornaments, which make it a rare thing, and most beautiful. Opposite to this staircase—namely, at the other of the corners that are one on either side of the above-mentioned loggia of the entrance—there is a suite of rooms that begins in a circular vestibule equal in breadth to the staircase, and leads to a great hall on the ground floor, eighty palms long and forty broad. This hall is wrought in stucco and painted with stories of Jove—namely, his birth, his being nursed by the Goat Amaltheia, and her coronation, with two other stories on either side of the last-named, showing her being placed in the heavens among the forty-eight Heavenly Signs, and another similar story of the same Goat, which alludes, as also do the others, to the name of Caprarola. On the walls of this hall are perspective-views of buildings drawn by Vignuola and coloured by his son-in-law, which are very beautiful and make the room seem larger than it is. Beside this hall is a smaller hall of forty palms, which comes exactly at the next corner, and in it, besides the works in stucco, are painted things that are all significant of Spring. Continuing from this little hall towards the other angle (that is, towards the point of the pentagon, where a tower has been begun), one goes into three chambers, each forty palms broad and thirty long. In the first of these are various inventions executed in stucco and painting, representing Summer, to which season this first chamber is dedicated. In that which follows there is painted and wrought in the same manner the season of Autumn; and in the last, which is sheltered from the north, and decorated likewise in the same manner, there is represented in a similar kind of work the season of Winter.
So far we have spoken (with regard to the floor that is over the underground rooms of the basement, cut out of the tufa, where there are rooms for the servants, kitchens, larders, and wine-cellars) of the half of this pentagonal edifice—namely, of the part on the right hand. Opposite to that part, on the left hand, there are rooms exactly equal in number and of the same size. Within the five angles of the pentagon Vignuola has made a circular court, into which all the apartments of the edifice open with their doors; which doors, I mean, all open into the circular loggia surrounding the court, which is eighteen palms in breadth, while the diameter of the remaining space in the court is ninety-five palms and five inches. The pilasters of the loggia (which is divided up by niches), supporting the arches and the vaulting, are in couples, with a niche in the centre, and twenty in number; and each couple covers a breadth of fifteen palms, which is also the breadth of the space of the arches. Around the loggia, at the angles that form the shape of the round, are four spiral staircases, which lead from the basement of the palace up to the top, for the convenience of the edifice and of the rooms. And there are reservoirs that collect the rain-water, which feed a very large and beautiful cistern in the centre; to say nothing of the windows and innumerable other conveniences, which make this building appear to be, as indeed it is, a rare and most beautiful fabric. And, besides having the site and form of a fortress, it is furnished on the outer side with an oval flight of steps, with ditches all around, and with drawbridges made with beautiful invention and in a novel manner, which lead into gardens full of rich and well-varied fountains, graceful parterres of verdure, and, in short, all that is required for a truly regal villa.