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"'Art thou not Oderigi? Art not thou Agobbio's glory, glory of that art Which they of Paris call the limner's skill?' 'Brother,' said he, 'with tints that gayer smile, Bolognian Franco's pencil lines the leaves: His all the honour now, my light obscured. In truth I had not been thus courteous to him The whilst I lived, though eagerness of zeal For that pre-eminence my heart was bent on. Here of such pride the forfeiture is paid; Nor were I even here, if, able still To sin, I had not turned me unto God. O powers of man! how vain your glory, nipt E'en in its height of verdure, if an age Less bright succeed not. Cimabue thought To lord it over painting's field, and now The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclipsed.'"[129] |
Baldinucci has written a life of this master, chiefly in confirmation of his theory that all modern painting was produced from the personal influence of Cimabue, a dogma combated by Lanzi. His death is placed in 1299, which would make him contemporary with that Florentine artificer, and Vasari calls him the friend of Giotto, who was much his junior. The preservation of his name is perhaps chiefly owing to Dante's notice, though the antiquaries of Gubbio now reject the lapidary inscription which claims for the latter a residence in their town. There is in truth a sad deficiency of facts regarding Oderigi, and no work from his hand being now known, speculation as to his style would be useless.[130] That the painters connected with Gubbio in the following generation may have been formed under his instructions, is however a conjecture fairly admissible.
Of these Cecco and Puccio were employed, probably as mosaicists, in 1321, upon the cathedral of Orvieto, whence they may have brought back to Umbria enlarged principles of art. But, abandoning conjectural grounds, let us notice the earliest Eugubinean painter whose works have survived to our own time. Guido Palmerucci is said to have been born about the time of Oderigi's death, while others consider him as his pupil. Assuredly the observation of Lanzi, which appears to rank him with the Giottists, is not borne out by the frescoes in his native town attributed to him, for these have nothing of the dramatic action which Giotto introduced, and their details, as well as their general manner, resemble colossal miniatures. This is especially the case in a figure of S. Antonio, the only remains of some mural paintings which covered the exterior of a chapel[*131] belonging to the college of painters, founded at Gubbio in the thirteenth century. The character of the saint is grand, the attitude solemn, the expression spiritualised; and an Ecce Homo still in the Church of S. Maria Nuova there, exhibits a similar style. Among the few fragments of mouldering frescoes to be seen at Gubbio, I have found no others ascribed to Palmerucci, but Passavant tells us he wrought in the town-hall about 1345. At Cagli two interesting frescoes in the church of S. Francesco have been lately brought to light from behind a great altar picture, and successfully moved to the adjoining wall. They represent two miracles of St. Anthony of Padua, and I am inclined to ascribe them to Palmerucci, or some able contemporary. The actors and bystanders are equally remarkable for heads of staid devout composure, which under Giottesque treatment would have been in a far higher degree animated and dramatic. In the beautiful art of pictorial glass, Gubbio has also a notable name in Angioletto, who embellished the chapel-window of St. Louis at Assisi, and enriched the cathedrals of Orvieto and Siena with his gem-like decorations.
To the same city belongs the little we know of the Nelli family,[*132] yet that little is well calculated to call forth our regrets for their lost works. Martino Nelli was a junior contemporary of Palmerucci. In his fresco over the gate of S. Antonio, representing the Madonna enthroned, with elaborate architectural accessories, there may be traced an approach to the mild devotional abstraction with which the purist Christian artists tempered the
"Maternal lady with the virgin grace."
But in a smaller work of his son Ottaviano, the church of S. Maria Nuova possesses the very finest existing specimen of the Umbrian school, exempt from injury or restoration. The lovely and saint-like Madonna, the seraphic choir that forms a glory around her, the Almighty crowning the "highly favoured among women," have perhaps never been equalled among the happiest embodyings of devotional genius; nor are the rich colouring, the accessory saints, and the portraits of the Peroli family, who, in 1403, commissioned this grand work, inferior in merit. He is supposed to have been born about 1375, and, after executing in Assisi, Urbino, and other circumjacent towns, works long perished, to have died in 1444. Of the mural paintings by his brother Tomaso, in S. Domenico and under the Piazzone of his native town, it is impossible to say more than that whatever of the family inspiration may have guided his pencil has been nearly obscured by cruel restorations.
Alinari
MADONNA DEL BELVEDERE