There is no doubt that the art of mosaic was in full practice in Italy at this period, and was not, as has been supposed, confined to the Greeks. There is a curious passage in the work of the Abbé Montfaucon[18] who made an extensive tour through Italy in 1695, to the effect that in the cathedral of Spoleto above the front entrance, he saw a piece of mosaic work made in the year 1207, with the following inscription:—
"Hic est pictura quam fecit sat placitura,
Doctor Solfernus hac summo in arte modernus.
Annis inventis cum septem mille ducentis
Operarij Palmenus," &c., &c.
Translation of the above inscription—
"This picture, which will please well, was made by Doctor Solfernus, the ablest of the moderns in this art, in the year 1207. The workmen were Palmenies," &c., &c.
I can find no other record of this Doctor Solfernus, but there can be little doubt that the art was at this time generally known throughout Italy.
We need not pause here to examine the question of whether Kugler is right in asserting that towards the close of the ninth century the art of mosaic had almost ceased in Italy; that it had done so at Rome appears certain; but at Venice, and also in southern Italy and Sicily, the art, if discontinued, was soon revived by the importation of Greek artists, and continued in full practice from the eleventh to the end of the fifteenth century, when it may be considered to have received its death-blow from the hand of oil painting.[19] It may, I think, be assumed that the arts of mosaic and painting were carried on at Rome during the tenth century, but were probably in a very declining state, and were quite superseded by the superior skill of the Greek artists.
There was a school of painting at Pisa as early, according to Lanzi, as the beginning of the twelfth century, and he gives an account of "a parchment containing the exultet, as usually sung upon Sabbato Santo (which) is in the cathedral, and we may here and there observe painted on it figures in miniature with plants and animals: it is a relique of the early part of the twelfth century, yet a specimen of art not altogether barbarous. There are likewise some other paintings of that century in the same cathedral, containing figures of our Lady, with the Holy Infant on her right arm: they are rude, but the progress of the same school may be traced from them to the time of Giunta." We may notice that Crowe and Cavalcaselle give the eleventh century as the date of the earliest pictures (crucifixes) at Pisa, but their only authority for this is the negative one of the Saviour's upright position, which, as we have mentioned above, was always observed up to the eleventh century. There is, however, no sufficient ground for believing that after this date the erect position was invariably departed from. Giunta of Pisa painted in the first half of the thirteenth century, and was the best of the Pisan school as far as is at present known. It is, however, supposed by some who are most conversant with early Italian painting, that this school subsequently developed some great artists whose works are still to be seen, though their names have unfortunately perished; this would, however, be denied by Cavalcaselle.