Vasari on technique

by Giorgio Vasari

[88]. The Farnese Palace is in the main the work of Antonio da San Gallo, the younger, who at his death in 1546 had carried up the façade nearly to the cornice and completed the ground story and half the second story of the cortile. Michelangelo finished the second or middle story of the cortile, as far as the architecture went, according to San Gallo’s design, and added the third story from his own. His are also the enrichments of the frieze of the second order in the cortile, and he has the chief credit for the noble external cornice, of which Vasari writes in this section. It is now rather the fashion to criticize severely Michelangelo’s architectural forms, and G. Clausse, Les San Gallo, Paris, 1901, condemns his third story of the cortile and says of his frieze (p. 85), ‘Michelange fit ajouter dans la frise ces guirlandes et ces mascarons en stuc qui enlèvent à ce beau portique le caractère de grandeur simple et d’harmonieuse majesté dû à ses proportions mêmes.’ It will not escape notice that Vasari regards these ornaments as not in stucco but in the travertine itself. On the question thus raised Monseigneur Duchesne, the distinguished Director of the French School at Rome which is housed in the Farnese, has had the kindness in reply to our inquiry to say that so far as can be ascertained without the use of scaffolding the ornaments of the frieze are in stucco, with the exception of the Fleur-de-lys which occur in the position of key-stones above the centre of each window arch. These are in travertine, as are the ornaments (trophies of arms etc.) carved on the metopes of the frieze of the order of the ground story in the cortile. The point has some interest in connection with the travertine carvings by the French artist at S. Luigi dei Francesi (see postea, p. 131), and the suggestion of M. Marcel Reymond (loc. cit.) that the Italians of the first half of the fifteenth century were not accustomed, as the French were, to execute decorative carvings in soft stone.

[89]. The exterior of St. Peter’s is built of travertine, and a walk round it gives an opportunity for a study of the fine effect of the stone when used on a vast scale. The details of construction in the interior, which are lauded by Vasari, are now concealed under the decoration that covers all the interior surfaces.

[90]. Lavagna is on the coast about half way between Genoa and Spezzia. The slate of the district is pronounced by Mr Brindley to be of poor quality and liable to bleach to a dirty ochre colour like that of brown paper. In the Official Catalogue of the Italian section of the International Exhibition of 1862 it is stated that in modern times also ‘large jars or reservoirs for containing oil, made of this slate, are employed in Liguria, as well as in the principal maritime dépôts of the oil trade.’

[91]. Peperino is a volcanic product in origin quite distinct from travertine. It consists of ashes and fragments of different materials compacted together and is called ‘pepper stone’ from the black grains that occur in it. It was one of the two old traditional building stones at Rome before the introduction of travertine from the quarries by Tibur, the other being the coarser and commoner tufa of which the wall of Servius Tullius was built. The most interesting monument in the material is the sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican, dating from the third century B.C. A characteristic piece, with the black ‘pepper’ marks, is shown as Q on the Frontispiece.

[92]. Istrian stone is a fine-grained limestone of a warm yellowish grey tint; it is capable of taking a polish, and is obtainable in large pieces. It is broken at various points of the coast from Merlera near Pola to the island of Lesina off the coast by Spalato, and was largely used in the buildings of Venice, and generally in north-eastern Italy. A considerable amount has been recently employed in the monumental buildings of the Ring at Vienna. See L on the Frontispiece.

[93]. ‘The Doric edifice of the Panattiera’ sounds a very curious description of Sansovino’s famous and magnificent Library of S. Marco, the finest late Renaissance building in Italy, but this seems to be what Vasari had in his mind. Dr Robertson of Venice has been kind enough to explain in a letter the history of the site which he has ascertained from the archives. The ground where the Library now stands was occupied up to 1537 by a government grain and bread store, the ‘Panattiera’ (or more properly ‘Panatteria’). The shops for the sale of bread were then removed and grouped round the base of the Campanile, where they were replaced a little later by Sansovino’s Loggetta. Vasari visited Venice in 1542, and at that time if the shops and store had themselves been removed their name would still cling to the place and explain his words. We should hardly call the Library a ‘Doric edifice,’ as only the lower Order is ‘Doric,’ but we must remember that it was only this lower Order that would be completed at the date of Vasari’s visit.

[94]. The Tuscan Zecca. The original Zecca or mint was at the Rialto, and it was afterwards transferred to the Piazzetta, where Sansovino in 1535 erected for it the present edifice, in the rusticated or Tuscan style. The situation of it is between the Library and the quay. The façade shows an arcaded lowest story in rusticated masonry, with two stories above, one in the Doric the other in the Ionic Order, and the columns in both cases are themselves rusticated; that is to say they have projecting horizontal courses of stone that appear to mark them with a series of bands or bars.

[95]. ‘Macigno’ is a green grey sandstone of the lower tertiary formation in Italy.

[96]. Pietra Serena is a very fine sedimentary sandstone, and Vasari does not say too much in its praise. Baldinucci in his Vocabolario repeats much of what Vasari has said, but mentions also a ‘pietra bigia’ or grey stone, which lies outside the ‘serena,’ and is inferior to it.

The quarries of pietra serena are abundant along the southern slopes of Monte Ceceri, to the south east of Fiesole, overhanging Majano. The blue colour Vasari ascribes to it is the cause of its name, the epithet ‘sereno’ being specially applicable to the clear blue sky. See G on the Frontispiece. Vasari’s account of the stones dealt with in §§ 16, 17, is not very clear, as he returns to the epithet ‘serena’ at the close of § 16 for a stone that he makes to differ essentially from the ‘serena’ of the beginning of the section in that it is weather-resisting. Cellini in his second Treatise, Della Scultura, ed. Milanesi, 1893, p. 201, is clearer. He distinguishes three kinds, (1) ‘pietra serena,’ azure in hue and only good for work in interiors; (2) a stone of a brownish hue (tanè) that he calls ‘pietra morta.’ The lexicographers fight shy of this term, but it seems to mean a stone without any lime in it and therefore unchangeable by the action of fire, while a limestone would be ‘pietra viva.’ See Cellini, loc. cit., p. 187. This is suitable for figure carving, and it resists ‘wind and rain and all violence of the weather.’ It is evidently the stone Vasari writes of as the material of Donatello’s ‘Dovizia.’ (3) The third kind is the pietra forte, also brownish in hue, and useful for decorative carvings on exteriors. Cellini notes as Vasari does that it is only found in small pieces.