Baldassare Peruzzi,[88] born in the diocese of Volterra, but in the Sienese State, and of a citizen of Siena, with considerable talents for painting, possessed a decided genius in architecture. His style of design is temperate and correct, but quantity is the element of his composition, if indeed an aggregate of fortuitous figures deserve that name. The Adoration of the Magi, preserved in various coloured copies from his original chiaroscuro, embraces every fault of ornamental painting without its only charm: it is not exaggeration to say, that the principal figures are the least conspicuous, that the leaders are sacrificed to their equipage, that the architect every where crosses the painter, and that the quadrupeds, however brutally placed or impertinently introduced, for conception, chiaroscuro, spirit and style, give to the work what merit it can claim. The same principle prevails in his fresco of the Presentation at the Pace, and both are so evidently opposite to Raffaello's system of composition, that it is not easily understood how he could be supposed to have been a pupil or imitator of that master in propriety. If he resembles him any where, it is in single expressions, as in the Judgement of Paris at the Castello di Belcaro, according to Lanzi; and still more in the prophetic countenance of the celebrated Sibyl predicting the birth of the Virgin to Augustus, at Fonte Giusta, in Siena, whose divine enthusiasm no prophetess of Raffaello has excelled, and no Sibyl of Guido or Guercino approached.
FOOTNOTES
[84] Lettere della Beata Vergine, S. Caterina da Siena. Venez. 1562., 4to. p. 286, 242. The last was written at the period of Vanni's dignity.
[85] 1481-1554.
[86] 1484-1549?
[87] Fiorillo, i. 335.
[88] 1481-1536.
THE ROMAN SCHOOL.