THE MIRACLE OF S. ANTHONY
(After the relief by Jacopo Sansovino. Padua: S. Antonio)
Alinari
[View larger image]

A disciple of Sansovino, also, was Jacopo Colonna, who died at Bologna thirty years ago while executing a work of importance. This Jacopo made for the Church of S. Salvadore in Venice a nude S. Jerome of marble, still to be seen in a niche near the organ, which was a beautiful figure and much extolled, and for S. Croce della Giudecca he made a Christ also nude and of marble, who is showing His Wounds, a work of beautiful artistry; and likewise for S. Giovanni Nuovo three figures, S. Dorothy, S. Lucia, and S. Catharine. In S. Marina may be seen a horse with an armed captain upon it, by his hand; and all these works can stand in comparison with any that are in Venice. In Padua, for the Church of S. Antonio, he executed in stucco the said Saint and S. Bernardino, clothed. Of the same material he made for Messer Luigi Cornaro a Minerva, a Venus, and a Diana, larger than life and in the round; in marble a Mercury, and in terra-cotta a nude Marzio as a young man, who is drawing a thorn from his foot, or rather, showing that he has drawn it out, he holds the foot with one hand, looking at the wound, and with the other hand seems to be about to cleanse it with a cloth; which last work, because it is the best that Jacopo ever did, the said Messer Luigi intends to have cast in bronze. For the same patron he made another Mercury of stone, which was afterwards presented to Duke Federigo of Mantua.

Another disciple of Sansovino was Tiziano da Padova, a sculptor, who carved some little figures of marble in the Loggia of the Campanile of S. Marco at Venice; and in the Church of the same S. Marco there may be seen, likewise fashioned and cast in bronze by him, a large and beautiful cover for a basin in bronze, in the Chapel of S. Giovanni. This Tiziano had made a statue of S. John, with which were the four Evangelists and four stories of S. John, wrought with beautiful artistry for casting in bronze; but he died at the age of thirty-five, and the world was robbed of an excellent and valiant craftsman. And by the same hand is the vaulting of the Chapel of S. Antonio da Padova, with a very rich pattern of compartments in stucco. He had begun for the same chapel a grating of five arches in bronze, which were full of stories of that Saint, with other figures in half-relief and low-relief; but this, also, by reason of his death and of the disagreement of those who had the charge of having it done, remained unfinished. Many pieces of it had already been cast, which turned out very beautiful, and many others were made in wax, when he died, and for the said reasons the whole work was abandoned. The same Tiziano, when Vasari executed the above-described decorations for the gentlemen of the Company of the Calza in Canareio, made for that work some statues in clay and many terminal figures. And he was employed many times on ornaments for scenic settings, theatres, arches, and other suchlike things, whereby he won much honour; having executed works all full of invention, fantasy, and variety, and above all with great rapidity.

Pietro da Salò, also, was a disciple of Sansovino; and after having toiled at carving foliage up to the age of thirty, finally, assisted by Sansovino, who taught him, he set himself to make figures of marble. In which he so delighted, and studied in such a manner, that in two years he was working by himself; to which witness is borne by some passing good works by his hand that are in the tribune of S. Marco, and the statue of a Mars larger than life that is in the façade of the Palazzo Pubblico, which statue is in company with three others by the hands of good craftsmen. He also made two figures for the apartments of the Council of Ten, one male and the other female, in company with two others executed by Danese Cattaneo, a sculptor of highest renown, who, as will be related, was likewise a disciple of Sansovino; which figures serve to adorn a chimney-piece. Pietro made, in addition, three figures that are at S. Antonio, in the round and larger than life; and these are a Justice, a Fortitude, and a statue of a Captain-General of the Venetian forces, all executed with good mastery. He also made a statue of Justice in a beautiful attitude and with good design, which was placed upon a column in the Piazza of Murano, and another in the Piazza del Rialto in Venice, as a support for that stone where public proclamations are made, which is called the Gobbo[13] di Rialto; and these works have made him known as a very good sculptor. For the Santo, in Padua, he made a very beautiful Thetis; and a Bacchus who is squeezing a bunch of grapes into a cup, which figure, the most difficult that he ever executed, and the best, he left at his death to his children, who have it still in their house, seeking to sell it to him who shall best recognize and reward the labour that their father endured for it.

Likewise a disciple of Jacopo was Alessandro Vittoria of Trento, a most excellent sculptor and much the friend of study, who with a very beautiful manner has shown in many works that he has executed, as well in stucco as in marble, that he has a ready brain and a lovely style, and that his labours are worthy to be held in estimation. By the hand of this Alessandro, in Venice, at the principal door of the Library of S. Marco, are two great women of stone, each ten palms high, which are full of grace and beauty and worthy to be much extolled. He has made four figures for the tomb of the Contarini in the Santo of Padua, two slaves, or rather, captives, with a Fame and a Thetis, all of stone; and an Angel ten feet high, a very beautiful statue, which has been placed upon the Campanile of the Duomo in Verona. And to Dalmatia he sent four Apostles also of stone, each five feet high, for the Cathedral of Traù. He made, also, some figures in silver for the Scuola of S. Giovanni Evangelista in Venice, which were all in full-relief and rich in grace, and a S. Teodoro of two feet in silver, in the round. For the Chapel of the Grimani, in S. Sebastiano, he wrought two figures in marble, each three feet high; and then he made a Pietà, with two figures of stone, held to be good, which are at S. Salvadore in Venice. He made a Mercury, held to be a good figure, for the pulpit of the Palazzo di S. Marco, which looks out over the Piazza; and for S. Francesco della Vigna he made three figures large as life—S. Anthony, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco—all of stone and full of beauty and grace, and well wrought. For the Church of the Crocicchieri he made in stucco two figures each six feet high, very beautiful, which are placed on the high-altar; and of the same material he made, as has been already told, all the ornaments that are in the vaulting of the new staircase of the Palazzo di S. Marco, with various patterns of compartments in stucco, where Battista Franco afterwards painted in the spaces the scenes, figures, and grotesques that are there. In like manner, Alessandro executed the ornaments of the staircase of the Library of S. Marco, all works of great mastery; and a chapel for the Friars Minors, and in the altar-piece of marble, which is very large and very beautiful, the Assumption of Our Lady in half-relief, with five great figures at the foot which have in them something of the grand and are made with a beautiful manner, a lovely and dignified flow of draperies, and much diligence of execution; which figures of marble—S. Jerome, S. John the Baptist, S. Peter, S. Andrew, and S. Leonardo—each six feet high, are the best of all the works that he has done up to the present. And as a crown to that chapel, on the frontispiece, are two figures likewise of marble, each eight feet high and very graceful. The same Vittoria has executed many portraits in marble and most beautiful heads, which are good likenesses, such as that of Signor Giovan Battista Feredo, placed in the Church of S. Stefano, that of Camillo Trevisano, the orator, placed in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Polo; the most illustrious Marc'Antonio Grimani, likewise placed in the Church of S. Sebastiano; and in S. Gimignano, the rector of that church. He has also portrayed Messer Andrea Loredano. M. Priano da Lagie, and two brothers of the Pellegrini family—M. Vincenzio and M. Giovan Battista—both orators. And since Vittoria is young and a willing worker, talented, amiable, desirous of acquiring name and fame, and, lastly, very gentle, we may believe that if he lives, we are destined to see most beautiful works come from him from day to day, worthy of his name of Vittoria, and that, if his life endures, he is like to be a most excellent sculptor and to win the palm from all the others of that country.

There is also one Tommaso da Lugano, a sculptor, who likewise has been many years with Sansovino, and has made with the chisel many figures in the Library of S. Marco, very beautiful, in company with others. And then, having left Sansovino, he has made by himself a Madonna with the Child in her arms, and at her feet a little S. John, which are all three figures of such beautiful form, attitude, and manner, that they can stand among all the other beautiful modern statues that are in Venice; which work is placed in the Church of S. Bastiano. And a portrait of the Emperor Charles V, which he made from the breast upwards, of marble, has been held to be a marvellous thing, and was very dear to his Majesty. And since Tommaso has delighted to work rather in stucco than in marble or bronze, there are innumerable most beautiful figures by his hand and works executed by him in that material in the houses of various gentlemen of Venice. But it must suffice to have said this much of him.

Of the Lombards, finally, it remains for us to make record of Jacopo Bresciano, a young man of twenty-four, who has not long parted from Sansovino. He has given proof at Venice, in the many years that he has been there, of being talented and likely to prove excellent, as he has since shown in the works that he has executed in his native Brescia, and particularly in the Palazzo Pubblico, and if he lives and studies, there will be seen from his hand, also, things greater and better, for he has a fine spirit and most beautiful gifts.

Of our Tuscans, one of the disciples of Sansovino has been the Florentine Bartolommeo Ammanati, of whom record has already been made in many places in this work. This Bartolommeo, I say, worked under Sansovino in Venice; and then in Padua for Messer Marco da Mantova, a most excellent doctor of medicine, in whose house he made an immense giant from more than one piece of stone for his court, and his tomb, with many statues. Afterwards, Ammanati having gone to Rome in the year 1550, there were allotted to him by Giorgio Vasari four statues of marble, each of four braccia, for the tomb of the old Cardinal di Monte, which Pope Julius III had allotted to Giorgio himself in the Church of S. Pietro a Montorio, as will be related; which statues were held to be very beautiful. Wherefore Vasari, having conceived an affection for him, made him known to the said Julius III, who, having ordained what he wanted done, caused him to be set to work; and so both of them, Vasari and Ammanati, worked together for a time at the Vigna. But not long afterwards, when Vasari had gone to serve Duke Cosimo in Florence, the above-named Pope being dead, Ammanati, who found himself without work and badly recompensed by that Pontiff for his labours in Rome, wrote to Vasari, praying him that, even as he had assisted him in Rome, so he should assist him in Florence with the Duke. Whereupon Vasari, occupying himself with fervour in this matter, introduced him into the service of the Duke, for whom he has executed many statues in marble and in bronze that are not yet in position. For the garden of Castello he has made two figures in bronze larger than life—namely, a Hercules who is crushing Antæus, from which Antæus, in place of his spirit, there issues from the mouth water in great abundance. Finally, Ammanati has executed in marble the colossal figure of Neptune that is in the Piazza, ten braccia and a half in height; but since the work of the fountain, in the centre of which the said Neptune is to stand, is not finished, I shall say nothing more of it. The same Ammanati, as architect, is giving his attention with much honour and praise to the fabric of the Pitti, in which work he has a great opportunity to show the worth and grandeur of his mind, and the magnificence and great spirit of Duke Cosimo. I could tell many particulars of this sculptor, but since he is my friend, and another, so I hear, is writing his history, I shall say no more, in order not to set my hand to things that may be related by another better than I perhaps might be able.

It remains for us to make mention, as the last of Sansovino's disciples, of Danese Cattaneo, the sculptor of Carrara, who was already with him in Venice when still a little boy. Parting from his master at the age of nineteen, he made by himself a boy of marble for S. Marco, and a S. Laurence for the Church of the Friars Minors; for S. Salvadore another boy in marble, and for SS. Giovanni e Polo the statue of a nude Bacchus, who is grasping a bunch of grapes from a vine which twines round a trunk that he has behind his legs, which statue is now in the house of the Mozzenighi at S. Barnaba. He has executed many figures for the Library of S. Marco and for the Loggia of the Campanile, together with others of whom there has been an account above; and, in addition to those named, the two that have been mentioned already as being in the apartments of the Council of Ten. He made portraits in marble of Cardinal Bembo and Contarini, the Captain-General of the Venetian forces, which are both in S. Antonio at Padua, with rich and beautiful ornaments about them. And in the same city of Padua, in S. Giovanni di Verdara, there is by the same hand the portrait of Messer Girolamo Gigante, a most learned jurist. And for S. Antonio della Giudecca, in Venice, he has made a very lifelike portrait of Giustiniano, the Lieutenant of the Grand Master of Malta, and that of Tiepolo, who was three times General; but these have not yet been set in their places. But the greatest work and the most distinguished that Danese has ever executed is a rich chapel of marble, with large figures, in S. Anastasia at Verona, for Signor Ercole Fregoso, in memory of Signor Jano, once Lord of Genoa, and then Captain-General of the Venetians, in whose service he died. This work is of the Corinthian Order, in the manner of a triumphal arch, and divided by four great columns, round and fluted, with capitals of olive-leaves, which rest upon a base of proportionate height, making the space in the centre as wide again as one of those at the sides; with an arch between the columns, above which there rest on the capitals the architrave and cornice, and in the centre, within the arch, a very beautiful decoration of pilasters, with cornice and frontispiece, and with a ground formed by a tablet of most beautiful black basanite, where there is the statue of a nude Christ, larger than life and in the round, a very good figure; which statue stands in the act of showing the Wounds, with a piece of drapery bound round the flanks and reaching between the legs to the ground. Over the angles of the arch are Signs of His Passion, and between the columns that are on the right side there stands upon a pedestal a statue in the round representing Signor Jano Fregoso, fully armed after the antique save that he shows the arms and legs nude, and he has the left hand upon the pommel of the sword at his girdle, and with the right hand he holds the general's baton; having behind him as a pendant, within the space between the columns, a Minerva in half-relief, who, poised in the air, holds with one hand a Ducal staff, such as that of the Doges of Venice, and with the other a banner containing the device of S. Mark. Between the two other columns, as the other pendant, is Military Valour in armour, on her head the helmet-crest with the house-leek upon it, and on her cuirass the device of an ermine that stands upon a rock surrounded by mire, with letters that run—"Potius mori quam fœdari," and with the device of the Fregosi; and above is a Victory, with a garland of laurel and a palm in the hands. Above the columns, architrave, frieze and cornice, is another range of pilasters, upon the crowns of which stand two figures of marble in the round, and two trophies likewise in the round and of the same size as the figures. Of these two statues, one is Fame in the act of taking flight, pointing with the right hand to Heaven, and with a trumpet that she is sounding; and this figure has light and most beautiful draperies about the body, and all the rest nude. The other, representing Eternity, is clothed in heavier vestments, and stands in majesty, holding in the left hand a round on which she is gazing, and with the right hand she grasps a hem of her garment wherein are globes that signify the various ages, with the celestial sphere encircled by the serpent that seizes the tail in the mouth. In the central space above the great cornice, which forms and separates those two other spaces, are three steps upon which are seated two large nude boys, who hold a great shield with the helmet above it, containing the devices of the Fregosi; and below those steps is an epitaph of basanite with large gilded letters. That whole work is truly worthy to be extolled, for Danese executed it with great diligence, and gave beautiful proportion and grace to the composition, and made each figure with great study. And Danese is not only, as has been described, an excellent sculptor, but also a good and much extolled poet, as his works clearly demonstrate, on which account he has always had intercourse and strait friendship with the greatest men and choicest spirits of our age; and of this may serve as a proof the work described above, executed by him with much poetic feeling. By the hand of Danese is the nude statue of the Sun above the ornament of the well in the courtyard of the Mint, at Venice; in place of which those Signori desired a Justice, but Danese considered that in that place the Sun is more appropriate. This figure has a bar of gold in the left hand, and in the right hand a sceptre, at the end of which he made an eye, and about the head the rays of the sun, and above all the globe of the world encircled by the serpent that holds the tail in the mouth, with some little mounds of gold about the globe, generated by him. Danese would have liked to make two other statues, that of the Moon for silver and another for copper, with that of the Sun for gold; but it was enough for those Signori that there should be that of gold, as the most perfect of all the metals. The same Danese has begun another work in memory of Prince Loredano, Doge of Venice, wherein it is hoped that in invention and fantasy he is to surpass by a great measure all his other labours; which work is to be placed in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Polo in Venice. But, since this master is alive and still constantly at work for the benefit of the world and of art, I shall say nothing more of him; nor of other disciples of Sansovino. I will not omit, however, to speak briefly of some other excellent craftsmen, sculptors and painters, from that dominion of Venice, taking my opportunity from those mentioned above, in order to make an end of speaking of them in this Life of Sansovino.