The Roman School comprises, besides the natives of the metropolis, those of the whole Ecclesiastic State, Bologna, Ferrara, and some part of Romagna excepted.
The origin of this school recedes into the earlier periods of modern art, if we consider Oderigi of Gubbio, a painter of miniature, contemporary with Cimabue, as one of its founders. His death, which preceded that of the Florentine at least one year, the branch of art he exercised, missal-painting, and what we know of his situation, make it extremely improbable that he owed the elements of design to that master, with whom he seems to have had little in common but the honour of rearing a pupil, who in the sequel eclipsed his name, and became the founder of another school.
Perhaps he made some scholars too at home: in 1321 we find Cecco and Puccio of Gubbio, engaged as painters to the Dome of Orvieto; and about 1324, Guido Palmerucci Eugubino, employed in the Town-hall of Gubbio; a few half figures yet remaining of this evanescent work are in a style not inferior to that of Giotto, at whose period we are now arrived.
Giotto, at Rome, gave instructions to Pietro Cavallini in painting and mosaic, and with what success we may form some idea from the wonder-working Christ in S. Paolo at Rome, the Salutation at S. Marco of Florence, and a Crucifixion at Assisi; a crowded composition of soldiers, mob, and horses, varied in dress and not ill discriminated by expression, with groups of angels hovering over them in sable robes. In vastness of conception and spirit it resembles Memmi, and in one of the crucified men, foreshortening is not unsuccessfully attempted; the colours have still a degree of freshness, especially the blue, which here and in other places of the church forms, in the metaphor of Lanzi, a ceiling of oriental sapphire.
After the demise of Cavallini, who, notwithstanding a life of eighty-five years, appears to have left taste nearly in the state he found it; a band of obscure and insignificant artists led the art in a style neither Giottesque nor Greek to the verge of the fifteenth century—that important period when the Popes, re-established at Rome, searched for the best hands to decorate its Vatican and temples. The first name that occurs, is that of Ottaviano Martis, whose Madonna in Sta. Maria Nuova at Gubbio, bears the date of 1403; she has a choir of stripling angels round her in attitudes not ungraceful, but with faces as like to each other as if they had all been cast in one mould.
The name of Gentile da Fabriano is of more consequence; it is he whose style Michael Angelo compared to his name (Gentile.) About 1417 we find him at Orvieto among the painters of its Dome, registered with the title of Magister Magistrorum. Under Martin V. he painted with Pisanello in the Lateran at Rome: what he did there perished, and so did his works in the public palace at Venice, where he resided, was pensioned, and raised to the rank of Patrician. "In that city," says Vasari, "he was the master and like a parent to Giacopo Bellini, the father of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini, founders of the Venetian school and masters of Giorgione and Tizian. Of his numerous works the remains are in the Marca d'Ancona, the state of Urbino, at Gubbio and Perugia: Florence still preserves two of his pictures, one in S. Nicolo with the image and histories of that bishop, another in the sacristy of the Trinità, with an Epiphany and the date of 1423. His style resembles that of Frà Angelico da Fiesole, with the exception of forms less elegant, less female grace, and more profusion of gold lace and brocade. Antonio da Fabriano, with the date 1454, and Bartholomæus Magistri Gentilis de Urbino, 1497 and 1508, are inscriptions on pictures at Matelica, Pesaro, and Monte Cicardo, that have no other claim to attention than the relation their names seem to indicate with Gentile.
Piero della Francesca, or Piero Borghese, an Umbrian, of Borgo S. Sepolcro, is a superior name. He must have been born about 1398, as, according to Vasari, his works were about 1458; he grew blind at sixty, and died eighty-five years old. He was instructed in painting at the age of fifteen, after having laid a foundation in mathematics, and distinguished himself in both. His beginnings were minute; his master has escaped search. The first scene of his talent was the Court of Guidobaldo Feltro the old, Duke of Urbino, where the perspective of a vase drawn by him, provokes the astonishment of his biographer; but besides perspective, Painting owes to him her first notions of the effects of light, of muscular precision, and the method of preparing clay models for the study of drapery.[89]
He painted much at Rome, and in the Floreria of the Vatican there still exists a large fresco reputed his, representing Niccolo V. with some cardinals and prelates, whose faces interest by a character of truth. At Arezzo, he seems to have improved even upon Giotto and his school, by the novelty of his foreshortenings, vigour of tone, and powers which attended by equal grace, would have set him on a level with Masaccio.
Nicolo Alunno of Foligno, advanced the art still farther; this is evident on comparing a picture of his painted 1480, with another at S. Nicolo of Foligno, dated 1492. The tone of his colour, even in distemper, has novelty and vigour; his heads have vivacity, though with trivial and sometimes caricatured characters: and in gilding he is moderate. Vasari, who places him in the time of Pinturicchio, praises above all a Pietà in a chapel of the Domo, in which, he says, "there are two angels who weep with such expression of grief, that, in my opinion, no other painter, however excellent, could have done much more."