Bologna, at an early period of the fifth century, appears to have been considered as a nursery of sciences and arts; the foundation of its University is dated up to Petronius, its bishop at that period; afterwards, under the successive invasions of barbarians, when the alternate prey of clerical and secular rapacity, as a powerful republic, or oppressed by civic usurpation, and at last reduced to a Papal province, Bologna never lost its predilection for sciences and arts.
Of the progress made in painting anterior to the time of Cimabue, some monumental relics still remain, though by far the greater part were ignorantly destroyed at the beginning of the last century. Some that escaped the whitewasher's hand are ascribed to an artist who marked his work with the letters P.F. Of these, one which represents a Maria, is preserved in the Church della Baroncella, and was done about 1120. Two others are in the Basilica of S. Stephano.
Baldi, a collector of antique pictures, in a MS. quoted by Malvasia, mentions some of Guido da Bologna, painted in 1178 and 1180, and others executed by Ventura da Bononia in 1197. Of this last something still remains, especially one picture with the date 1217, and the inscription Ventura pinsit: and the name of Urso, or Ursone, a contemporary of Guido da Siena, is found on a picture inscribed Urso f. 1226; and some others ascribed to him have dates of 1242 and 1244. In those times painting, sculpture, architecture, chasing, were frequently exercised by one man. A certain Manno, contemporary with Cimabue, is mentioned as the painter of a Madonna by Baldi, and as the sculptor of Pope Bonifazio VIII. by Ghirardacci who calls him likewise a goldsmith. His dates are from 1260 to 1301. Some remains or rather ruins of these masters are still visible in the palace Malvezzi.
The age of Giotto and Dante gives Art an air of greater certainty. Tradition and monument go hand in hand. Franco of Bologna, with his supposed master Oderigi of Gubbio, are celebrated in the poet's poem of the Purgatory. Franco was called to Rome by Bonifazio VIII. to decorate the books and missals of the Vatican library with miniature; and on his return to Bologna founded a school which numbered among its scholars Vitale, Lorenzo, Simone, and Jacopo d'Avanzi, whose works, especially what remains of the two last, make it probable that Vasari is correct when he asserts that Franco excelled in large as well as in miniature painting. Michael Agnolo and the Carracci are said to have been struck with the fire of conception and the tone of colour in the pictures still preserved of Simone and Jacopo d'Avanzi, at the Madonna di Mezzaratta, and to have advised a careful restoration of the decaying parts. Simone, who loved to paint the crucifix, from the number which he executed obtained the surname of "de' Crocefissi;" and Jacopo, smitten with the love of Maria, was marked by the title "dalle Madonne." He excelled, however, in subjects of a martial kind, if the conflict in the Chapel of S. Jacopo del Santo at Padova, and the Capture of Jugurtha, with the Triumph of Marius, in a saloon at Verona, be his performances: works which excited the wonder of Mantegna. As he sometimes subscribed "Jacobus Pauli," it has been surmised that he was of Venetian extraction, and perhaps the son and assistant of that Paolo who painted the Ancona of S. Marc.
Of the artists who at that period painted in Mezzaratta, Cristoforo, whether of Ferrara, Modena, or Bologna, for he is claimed by all, seems to have shared the highest repute. He had the commission of the principal altar, where he painted on panel the Madonna with the Infant between her knees, and some figures kneeling before her; it still exists, marked with his name Christofano, 1380. A most copious work of his, divided into ten compartments of saints, rudely designed, languid in colour, but of original style, is preserved among the fragments of the house Malvezzi.
Lippo di Dalmatio,—who was supposed to have been a Carmelite, till Bianconi, in Piacenza's edition of Baldinucci, produced proofs of his wife and family,—came from the school of Vitale, and from his predilection for the Mother of Christ acquired, like Jacopo d'Avanzi, the byname of "Lippo dalle Madonne." There goes a tale that he gave instruction to Saint Catherine Vigri, of whom certain miniatures and an Infant Christ on panel still remain. A better union of tints, and some easier arrangement in the folds of his draperies, though with a profusion of gold lace, is all that discriminates him from the crudeness and exility of the ancient style. Such, however, was his felicity in the character of Madonnas, that they captivated Guido Reni,[167] who used to repeat that Lippo, in expressing at once the majesty, the sanctity, and the mildness of the divine mother, must have been assisted by a celestial power. Some of these Madonnas are said to be in oil colours, with dates of 1376, 1405, and 1407. Guido is likewise the guarantee of certain frescoes representing facts of Elia, painted with great spirit by the same master.
After 1409, the last date of Lippo's pictures, the School of Bologna somewhat declined, nor could it be otherwise: no vigorous school ever sprang from the timid precepts of a portrait painter, and Dalmatio possessed more of that than of historic power: this, rather than the supposed imitation of certain images imported from Constantinople, was the cause of that insignificance which consigned, with few exceptions, his school and successors to oblivion. Of Pietro Lianori, Michele di Matteo, Bombologno, Severo and Erçole Bologna, Catherina di Vigri, Giacopo Ripanda, Marco Zoppo, time has left little but the names, and of that little, enough not to regret the loss of what vanished. Let us not, however, be too fastidious to repeat what tradition has persevered to report of some; if Bombologno may be left to the votaries of the crucifix, and Catherina to the rubric that saints her, Michele Lambertini claims the attention of artists for a mellowness of tints which Albano judged superior to the tints of Francia; Giacopo Ripanda for the dangers which he braved in designing the groups of the Trajan pillar;[168] and Marco Zoppo as no despicable competitor of Andrea Mantegna, and the reputed master of Francesco Francia.
Francesco Raibolini, surnamed Francia, born in 1450, may be considered as the head of the Bolognese school, because his works appear to have been framed on that collective principle which became its leading feature in the sequel, and was probably the result of the long theory that preceded his practice, assisted by that readiness in design which distinguished him as a goldsmith, chaser,[169] and die-cutter, professions to which he had been trained up from his infancy, and which he raised to celebrity before he attained complete manhood.
Francia was fortunate in contemporaries; the School of Squarcione had furnished him with style and form; the genius of Lionardo da Vinci, with effect and chiaroscuro; Pietro Vanucchi with arrangement if not composition, and though not beauty, with amenity of aspect; and Bellino with tone, breadth of drapery and colour. Ardour of mind, energy of application and dexterity, supplied the want of early practice, and we find him in the palace of Giov. Bentivoglio on a par with the most expert Frescanti conscribed from Ferrara and Modena, and soon after intrusted with the commission of painting the altar-piece of his chapel at S. Jacopo, a work of great subtlety of execution; though modestly inscribed "Opus Francia Aurificis," and a pledge of that superior style at which he aimed and in the sequel attained.
If from what has been premised of Bolognese artists anterior to Cimabue, it is evident that the germs of art belong to their own soil, their claim to originality in the progress of style has been and still is matter of dispute between the champions of the Tuscan school and those of their own. The Florentines insist on having taught the Bolognese, what the Bolognese deny to have learnt from the Florentines.[170] As in a dispute of this kind, candour is often sacrificed to the fervour of patriotic vanity, and the obstinacy of local attachment, the real state of the question is better learnt from those monuments of the fourteenth century, which still remain scattered over Romagna or collected and more classically arranged in Bologna itself. Among all these some specimens will be found evidently Greek, others as evidently Giottesque; some in a Venetian style, and not a few in a manner peculiar to Bologna only. These have a body of colour, a taste in perspective, a mode of design in figures, and a choice of forms and hues in draperies, which no other school practised. From all which it appears, that if Giotto during his stay at Bologna raised pupils, and formed imitators, his own school had no influence on, nor dislodged, that aboriginal one which continued to disseminate and to improve the principles imbibed from the antique mosaics and the painters of miniature.