PALLADIO (ANDREW).
Andrew Palladio, the celebrated architect, was born in 1518, at Vicenza, in Lombardy. He learnt the principles of his art from Trissino; after which he studied at Rome, and on his return to Lombardy constructed a number of noble edifices. He was employed in various parts of Italy, particularly at Venice, where he built the palace Foscari. His treatise on Architecture was printed at Venice in 1570, folio; and again at London in 1715, in 3 vols. folio. In 1730, Lord Burlington published some of this architect’s designs, in one volume folio. Palladio used to relate an anecdote of an artist who dedicated the different apartments in a gentleman’s house to several moral virtues, as Chastity, Temperance, and Honesty; so that each guest might be appointed to the room sacred to his favourite virtue. The rich and young widow would be lodged in “Chastity,” the alderman in “Temperance,” and the prime minister in “Honesty,” etc. Palladio died in the year 1580. A monument was erected to his memory at Vicenza, in 1845, the Count G. Velo having bequeathed 100,000 livres for that purpose. It is thus described in The Builder in 1846:—
“The statue of Palladio stands on a pedestal, two storeys in height, with a genius by his side in the act of crowning him. Seated on the first story of the pedestal, against the angles of the upper portion, which is less in size than the lower, are two allegorical figures, one representing Vicenza with a wreath in her left hand, and looking up with pride at the artist; the other Architecture, depicting the history of the art on a scroll, by a representation of a primitive hut, and the Pantheon. Between these two figures on the upper part of the pedestal, is sculptured in bas-relief the baths of Caracalla, to express that it was by the study of the antique monuments that Palladio formed himself.
“At the foot of the whole is a sarcophagus, in imitation of that of Agrippa, containing the remains of the artist.
“The monument stands within an octagon chapel in the new public cemetery of the city, and is the work of M. Fabris, a sculptor of Vicenza. The material is Carrara marble.”
JACQUES CALLOT’S ETCHINGS.
“Etching is the writing by which the artist conveys his thoughts. With etching he can allow himself every liberty of touch and fantasy. Etching does not freeze his inspiration by its slow progress: it has all the qualities of a steed at full gallop. Callot, who was so varied, so original, so capricious, so fertile, and so ready, is the greatest master of the art of etching.
“The works of Callot consist of nearly sixteen hundred plates, including those of Israel. We must pass with the rapidity of a bird upon the wing almost all his small religious subjects. Callot, without fantasy, is not himself; it is plain that he grows tired with works where patience is required. The subjects in which he revels in all the luxury, in all the splendour, in all the originality, of his talent, are ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony,’ ‘The Fair della Madonna Imprunetta,’ ‘The Tortures,’ ‘The Massacre of the Innocents,’ ‘The Misfortunes and Horrors of War,’ and tatterdemalions of every form and every kind, from the hectoring bully to the beggar enveloped in his rags.
“He etched with marvellous facility, having finished on more than one occasion a plate in a single day. His magic hand, and his imagination so rich and so quick, often accomplished a feat of this description in playing, as it were. It often happened,—as, for instance, in his ‘Livre des Caprices’ (Book of Caprices), and in his fantastic and grotesque works,—to let his hand follow its own course. While chatting with his friends, he would give utterance to some joke at the same time that he made a stroke, and was himself lost in wonder at having produced a figure. His graver, too, was so fertile in resources, that in all his numerous creations he never repeated himself. He was, however, an artist who treated his art seriously, and who studied incessantly, full of his task, and fond of the glimmer of the midnight lamp. He had the passion of creating tatterdemalions, bullies, and mountebanks, as other men have the passion of play. Whenever he sat up to work, he used to tell his friends that he was going to pass the night in the bosom of his family.”