The days were nearly over when genius loved to master several branches of art; and it would have been better had our painter limited his labours to the palette, and to spirited etchings from his own compositions. At the command, however, of his sovereign, he, in 1603, undertook to supply designs for a long-contemplated statue of Duke Federigo; and Gaye gives us several of his letters regarding the difficulties of this commission, which baffled him for six months. His great aim was to retain the peculiar character of the head, without rendering prominent the unseemly defect in the eye and nose,—an object hitherto effected by portraying the old warrior only in profile. He worked chiefly from the bas-relief over the library door in the palace, and that at the church of S. Giovanni.[224] The execution of his design was committed to Girolamo Campagna at Venice, a sculptor of note, who cannot justly be held accountable for this poor and awkward performance. It was placed, in 1606, on the palace stairs at Urbino, where it remains.
But for the misfortune of his broken health, Baroccio would have been as happy as his estimable character deserved. He was fortunate in his temper, in his extended reputation, in his easy circumstances, in his multiplied orders, and in his many scholars. His infirmities prevented him from accepting flattering invitations to the courts of Austria, Spain, and Tuscany, but the friendship of his own sovereign never failed him. Having fitted up in his house at Urbino a sort of exhibition room for his works, it was repeatedly visited by Francesco Maria, whose Diary not only mentions this, but notes his death and that of his brother Simone, "an excellent maker of compasses." On the 1st of October, 1612, is this entry: "Federigo Baroccio of Urbino died, aged seventy-seven, an excellent painter, whose eye and hand served him as well as in his youth." His real age seems to have been eighty-four, and there can be no doubt that he retained his faculties, painting without spectacles, until struck at the last by apoplexy, a remarkable triumph of mind over protracted bodily infirmities. Yet the deterioration of his later works, which may still be seen at Urbino and Pesaro, sadly belies the Duke's tribute to his green old age. A list of many of those which he executed for that kind patron will be found in the [last number of our Appendix]. At his funeral in S. Francesco, a church standard, painted by himself, with a Crucifixion, was placed at the foot of his bier: the tablet inscribed to his memory has been excluded in rebuilding the nave, but remains in the adjoining corridor.
The popularity of Baroccio, both personally and as a painter, recruited to his studio many young artists, eager to enter the path which he had successfully trodden. But the faults of his style were of a sort which imitation was sure to exaggerate, and the absence of solid qualities in the master prevented the felicitous development of such talent as nature had granted to his pupils. We accordingly search in vain among his many scholars for a single name of eminence; and we might pass over the Baroccisti without further notice, but that a considerable proportion of them claim a passing word as natives of the duchy. Antonio Viviani, son of a baker at Urbino, was a favourite of his master, though probably not his nephew, as supposed by Lanzi. In early life, his productions imitated those of Baroccio with great success, as may be seen at Fano and in various parts of the duchy, but on proceeding to Rome his style rapidly deteriorated. Emulating the flimsy and faulty manner of the Cavaliere d'Arpino, by which high art was then fatally degraded, he painted against time in the Vatican and Lateran palaces, as well as on many altar commissions. These, when compared with other contemporary trash, obtained a degree of applause which sounder criticism is compelled to withhold from il Sordo, the nickname by which their author was generally known. But he sacrificed his art without improving his fortune; and an old age, passed in poverty, was closed in disappointment and want. His brother Ludovico, "wicked, graceless, and disobedient, unworthy the name of son," had from his father's will five farthings in lieu of his patrimony, and his career maintained the prestige of this sad outset, both in his character and works.
Alessandro Vitale, born at Urbino in 1580, so completely caught the amenity of his instructor's manner, as to be employed during his advanced years to copy many of his works, which, with a few finishing touches, passed as originals. Antonio Cimatorio, alias il Visacci or the Ugly, was chiefly employed on festive and scenic decorations, aided by Giulio Cesare Begni of Pesaro: the latter went afterwards to Venice, and, devoting himself to better things, left not a few good pictures in the March of Treviso. Giorgio Pinchi of Castel Durante, and Andrea Lillio of Ancona, both approached the Baroccesque manner with considerable success, and shared the labours of il Sordo on the pontifical frescoes in Rome. Among those who carried the same style to a distance, may be named Antonio Antoniano of Urbino, who, after aiding Baroccio with his great picture of the Crucifixion, was sent by him with it to Genoa, and there settled. Giovanni and Francesco, two brothers of Urbino, and probably offsets of this school, emigrated to Spain, and painted in the Escurial, under the patronage of Philip II. Filippo Bellini, a native of the same city, though a pupil of Baroccio, adopted a more vigorous manner, but his works are scarcely met with out of Umbria. To this catalogue it is enough to add the names of Francesco Baldelli, Lorenzo Vagnarelli, Ventura Marza, Cesare Maggieri, Bertuzzi, and Porino, all born in the duchy; and those of Bandiera and the Pellegrini of Perugia, the Malpiedi of La Marca, and the Cavaliere Francesco Vanni of Siena, the latter of whom, though not among his scholars, so thoroughly adopted the peculiarities of Baroccio, as to be perhaps the happiest of his imitators. Terenzio Terenzi of Urbino, known by the soubriquet of Rondinello, earned a dishonourable reputation by his successful imitations of the older masters, which he passed off as originals; and having fallen into merited disgrace with his kind patron, the Cardinal of Montalto, in consequence of pawning upon him one of his forgeries as a Raffaele, he died of vexation in the first years of the seventeenth century, aged thirty-five.
Claudio Ridolfi, though born in Verona in 1560, may be considered a subject of Urbino. His family was noble, but not rich, so adopting painting as a profession, he studied its principles under Paul Veronese, at Venice. But the temptations to idleness which beset him at home so interfered with success that he resolved to escape from them. On his way to Rome he stayed some time at Urbino with Baroccio, in whose glittering style he lost somewhat of the better manner of his early master. But his journey to the "mother of arts and arms" was interrupted by more powerful fascinations; for he married a noble lady of Urbino, and settled at Corinaldo, some miles above Sinigaglia, attracted by the beauty of its site, and fain to enjoy, in provincial retirement, exemption from the jealousies and struggles which often beset artists in a city life, where tact or fortune are apt to confer a success denied to merit. Though he returned for a time to his native city, and painted many excellent works in it, and in the principal towns of the Venetian state, the charms of Corinaldo and his wife's influence induced him to spend there the greater part of a long life. He died in 1644, aged, according to his namesake Carlo Ridolfi, eighty-four, or to Ticozzi, seventy years. To the glowing tints of the Lombard school he eventually added the merit of more accurate design; but his principal excellences were a chastened composition, and a close attention to the proprieties of costume, as contributing to a proper intelligence of the subject. A vast number of his productions are scattered over Umbria and La Marca, and there issued from his studio not a few pupils of provincial eminence, most of whom tended considerably towards the Baroccesque manner. Of those belonging to Urbino the most conspicuous was Benedetto Marini, who, though scarcely known at home, produced many important works in Lombardy, and excelled in the management of crowded compositions, such as his immense Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, painted at Piacenza in 1625. Patanazzi and Urbinelli belong to a less distinguished category, and though Girolamo Cialderi is ranked with them by Lanzi, he seems referable to a subsequent period.
Gubbio continued in the sixteenth century to maintain a school which, though acquiring little more than a provincial reputation, was not without merit. Benedetto Nucci was born there about 1520, and, imbibing from Raffaelino del Colle certain inspirations of the golden age, left in his native town many respectable church pictures. He died in 1587, having seen his son Virgilio escape from his studio to place himself under Daniel di Volterra at Rome. Among his pupils, but of ever progressive mediocrity, were Felice Damiano and Cesare di Giuseppe Andreoli, the latter an offset of a family whose eminence in the art of majolica will be mentioned in our [fifty-fifth chapter].