His son Giovanni built, in 1509, the fine chapel of the Macellai in the church of S. Eligio, and the "Confession" of S. Gennaro under the tribune of the cathedral of Naples, where the yearly miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of S. Gennaro takes place. Even the beautiful Royal Palace at Capodimonte was built by a Lombard, Domenico Fontana of Melide, near Como, whose family we have seen was more famous in Rome than in Naples? Domenico, however, died in Naples in 1607, and was buried in S. Anna dei Lombardi, where his sons Sebastian and Julius Cæsar (Giulio Fontana) wrote on his tomb—"Patritius Romanus, Summus Romae Architectus. Summus Neapolis." Like so many of his predecessors in the guild, he had been given the citizenship of the towns he had embellished. It is this which makes it so difficult to trace the artists—the same man may appear successively as being a citizen of Rome, of Orvieto and Siena, and yet have been born at Como in spite of all.
Enough has been said to show that at Rome and Naples, as well as in other cities, the great Lombard Guild led the way. The guild, which may be looked on as the flower of the Renaissance, had, however, reached the period when its blossoming time was over; its many petals, too much spread, were falling from all its branches. Some had dropped off long since, and new suckers formed in the painting academies, and the sculptors' companies, at Siena, Florence, Venice, and other parts. These suckers had, by the fifteenth century, grown into independent plants, that threatened to overshadow and choke the ancient trunk. Art knowledge of all kinds had now become dispersed outside the jealous custody of the once secret Freemasonry, and the Cinque-cento artist stood alone on his own merit, without needing the cachet of the Masonic title of Magister. There were, after this time, Masters in every other art or trade guild, the nomenclature of this most ancient and universal of guilds having been adopted by all other guilds whatsoever; so that even in our own England we find Master Humphrey the iron-worker, or Master Ambrose the cloth-weaver; and in Italy Maestro Giorgio the maker of majolica, and Maestro Pollajuolo the metal-worker; and in Germany the "Little Masters," who, I opine, were a German group of painters, who, like their brethren of the South, seceded from the Masters par excellence, i.e. the great Masonic Guild.
EPILOGUE
When I began writing this work, my object was to prove that the Comacine Masters were the true mediæval link between Classic and Renaissance Art. The results have been greater than I then foresaw. In attaching this link in its true place, the chain of Art History takes a new and changed aspect, and instead of several loose strands with here and there detached links, it becomes one continuous whole, from early Christian Rome to the Rome of Raphael and Michael Angelo.
The famous artists who formed the rise of the different schools of the Renaissance, were not each a separate genius inspired from within, but brethren of one Guild, whose education was identical, and whose teachers passed on to them what they received from their predecessors—the accumulated art-teaching of ages.
I am aware that in tracing the progress of this great Guild, the weak points are the derivation of the Comacines of Lombard times from the Roman public architects, who built for Constantine and Pope Adrian; and the connection of this Lombard Guild with the early Cathedral builders of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Between each of these transitions there lies a century or two of decadence, during the barbaric invasions and general demoralization which I have indicated in the earlier chapters. But I think I have given arguments enough to prove these affinities. For the first, we have the identity of form and ornamentation in their works, and the similarity of nomenclature and organization between the Roman Collegio and the Lombard Guild of Magistri. Besides this, the well-known fact that the free republic of Como was used as a refuge by Romans who fled from barbaric invasion, makes a strong argument.
For the second, we may plead again the same identity of form and ornamentation, and a like similarity of organization and nomenclature. Just as King Luitprand's architects were called Magistri, and their grand master the Gastaldo, so we have found the great architectural Guild in Venice, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, using the very same titles, and having the same laws.
In the Tuscan schools which have been traced direct from Lombard times, we have the same offices with the titles translated into a more mediæval Italian—or late Latin—form; the Gastaldo here becomes Arch Magister. In some Lodges it is more significant still, the ancient Roman Superstans is modified into Soprastante, thus forming a very suggestive connection between early Christian Rome and Tuscany. Again, the hereditary descent is marked by the patron saints of the Lombard and Tuscan Lodges, being four martyr brethren from a Roman Collegio. All these and other indications are surely as strong as documental proof.
The lists of the Comacine Guild begin with a few masters, who are seemingly members of three or four families only, the men of the Buoni, Antelami, and Campione schools forming the aristocracy of the Guild.