ONE
Today we think of Italy as one united country. For that reason it is difficult for many of us to realize the Italy of Melozzo da Forlì's (mel-ot´-so day for-lee´) time. Then there was no union—practically no Italy. The country was rent by the strivings of many tiny principalities, each jealous of the other, each trying to outdo the other, each quick to seize an opportunity to work its neighbor harm.
Every one of the petty princes was seeking to beautify his capital city, to have his court outshine those of his rivals. If he desired to be known as a patron of art and letters, poets, architects, and philosophers were invited to associate themselves with him. Artists, like the scholars, had to rely on the favor of such princes for their living.
In later years the introduction of oil painting made easy the sending of a panel or a canvas as the gift of one lord to another. But before that time, instead of sending the painter's work, it would have been necessary to send the painter; for most of the work was done in another way. In fresco painting the artist was obliged to work directly on the wall on which the picture was to be seen when finished. Often he himself applied the wet plaster, and after smoothing it laid on the color. He had to work rapidly; for when the plaster had dried every addition or correction showed.
But before becoming sufficiently generous to give away their artist's work most of the nobles first employed their artists to decorate their own chapels or palaces for them. It was under the patronage of one of the cardinals, a nephew of Pope Pius IV, that Melozzo da Forlì painted his angels. Pius IV did not wish to be behind his neighbors in the encouragement of the fine arts. He wanted Rome to be the finest city in the world, and set about making it so. Those who wished to please him were not slow to follow his leading.
The angels reproduced in The Mentor are but a portion of the entire fresco, which showed the Ascension of Christ, and formerly decorated the dome of the Church of the Apostles at Rome. These fragments escaped destruction when the church was reconstructed in 1711. They are now in the Sacristy of Saint Peter's.
Almost nothing is known of the life of Melozzo. We should not have known when he was born if his epitaph had not recorded his age. His name indicates that he came from Forlì, a small town not far from Ravenna. His fame rests almost entirely on these fragments; but so well were they done that they give this man high rank among the artists of Italy.