Invited by Philip II. he went to Madrid, but failed to please; his place was supplied by Tibaldi, and he sent back with a good pension to Italy. Towards the end of his life he made another journey, scouring the principal towns of Italy, and leaving his works wherever he could place them: of these the Assumption of the Madonna in an oratorio at Rimini on which he wrote his name, and her Death at Sta. Maria in Acumine of the same place, with figures more than usually studied, deserve notice. His Presepio in the Duomo of Foligno, has simplicity and grace; nor less have the two stories relative to the Madonna, painted for the Duke of Urbino in a chapel at Loretto. The Miracle of the Snow, in the library of the Cistercians at Milano, is a multitudinous composition filled with portraits as usual, variously coloured and well preserved. The Borromean College at Pavia, has a saloon painted in fresco from incidents in the life of S. Carlo: the most approved of these is the Saint praying in his recess: nor might the other two, that of the consistory in which he received the Cardinal's hat, and the Pest of Milano, want commendation had they overflowed less in figures. At Torino he painted for the Jesuits a St. Paul; began to ornament a gallery for the Duke, Charles Emanuel; published his Idea de' Pittori Scultori ed Architetti, and dedicated it to the Duke. This was followed, at his return to Lombardy, by two other treatises; "La dimora di Parma del Sig. Cav. Federico Zuccaro; and Il passaggio per Italia, colla dimora di Parma del Sig. Cav. Federigo Zuccari," both printed at Bologna 1608. Next year, on his return to Rome, he fell sick at Ancona, and there died. His talents, which extended to sculpture and architecture, were inferior to his fortune, which preceded that of all his contemporaries, and was in a great measure the effect of personal qualities; lordly aspect and demeanour, some literary culture, persuasive manners, and a liberality that absorbed the wealth which his hand had accumulated.

Emulation seems to have been his chief motive of writing: he longed to break a lance with Vasari, whom, from whatever cause, as appears from the postils tacked to the Vite, he disliked. They have been sometimes, especially in the Life of Taddeo, quoted and treated as effusions of envy and malignity by the annotator of the Roman edition. To prove his superiority over the Tuscan, he chose a style as obscure and inflated as that of Giorgio is diffuse and plain; the whole of the treatise printed at Torino reels in a round of internal and external design, and contains less precept than peripatetic speculation, which rendered the schools of that day more loquacious than learned. His language runs over in intellective[100] and formative conceits, in substantial substances and formal forms; even the titles of his chapters are larded with equal fulsomeness of phrase, like that of the XIIth., that "philosophy and to philosophize, is metaphoric and similitudinarious design." These are the bait of fools—for none but fools can hope to gather meaning from the bubbles of sophistry, or stoop to disentangle etymologies which derive disegno from "Dei signum," the sign of God!

This treatise was probably the offspring of his presidency in the Academy of St. Luke; for office gives insolence. The Academy dates its origin from the Pontificate of Gregorio XIII., who granted the brief of its foundation[101] to Muziano. It had not, however, its full effect till after the return of Zuccari from Spain, who put it in force and was unanimously declared "Principe," or President. That was his day of triumph; he returned from the inauguration in the church of S. Martino at the foot of the Campidoglio, accompanied by a great concourse of artists and litterators to his own house, where shortly after he built a saloon for the accommodation of the Academy, in whose praise he overflowed in prose and poems, more than once quoted in his larger treatise; and to seal his extreme affection, bequeathed like Muziano, in case his own line should fail, the bulk of his fortune to the establishment.

Giuseppe Cesari, sometimes distinguished by the name of Il Cavaliere d'Arpino,[102] his native place, was in art what Marino was in poetry—brilliancy without substance is the characteristic of both, and either proved the ancient observation, that Arts and Republics receive the greatest damage from the greatest capacities. The talent of Cesari bubbled up from his infancy, made him an object of admiration, procured him through F. Danti, the protection of Gregorio XIII., and in a short time the reputation of the first master at Rome. Less than the felicity with which he is said to have executed some pictures from certain designs of M. Agnolo, in the possession of Giacomo Rocca, his exuberance alone was sufficient to establish supremacy of name among a race who measured genius by quantity, and science by confidence of method. If his numbers were rabble, he arranged them with the skill of a general; if common-place furnished him with features, arrogance of touch brushed them into notice; and the horses which he drew with equal truth and fire, supplied the incorrectness or imbecility of the rider. The excellence of his colour in fresco, the gaiety which he spread over a vast surface, hid from the common eye monotony of manner, poverty of character, and want of finish in the detail of parts.

They were observed, reprobated and opposed by M.A. Caravaggio, A. Caracci, and the few who saw and thought with them. Quarrels arose, and challenges were given: that of Caravaggio, Cesari refused to accept, because he had not yet been knighted, and Annibale rejected that of Cesari, because, said he, "I know no other weapon than my pencil." They both experienced the difference of the difficulties that attend legislation and reform of taste, and were left ineffectually to struggle with an empiric, who outlived either upwards of thirty years, and then left a race worse than himself behind him.

FOOTNOTES

[89] Bramante.

[90] Lett. Perug. V.

[91] "Cervello di porfido."

[92] See Vasari on Michael Angelo's observations on Tizian.