Origin of the revival of Painting—Association and methods of the old Painters—Series of Tuscan Artists before the time of Cimabue and Giotto.
SECT. I.
That there were painters in Italy, even during the rude ages, is attested not only by historians,[26] but by several pictures which have escaped the ravages of time; Rome retains several ancient specimens.[27] Passing over her cemeteries, which have handed down to us a number of Christian monuments, part in specimens of painted glass, scattered through our museums, and part in those of parietal histories, or walled mosaic, it will be sufficient to adduce two vast works, unrivalled by any others, that I know of, in Italy. The first is the series of the Popes, which in order to prove the succession of the papal chair, from the prince of the Apostles down to the time of St. Leo, this last holy pontiff caused to be painted; a work of the fifth century, which was subsequently continued until our own times. The second is the decoration of the whole church of San Urbano, where there are several evangelical acts represented on the walls, along with some histories of the Titular Saint and St. Cecilia, a production which, partaking in nothing either of the Greek lineaments or style of drapery, may be attributed more justly to an Italian pencil, which has subscribed the date of 1011.[28] Many more might be pointed out, existing in different cities; as for instance the picture at Pesara, of the patron saints of the city, illustrated by the celebrated Annibale Olivieri, which is earlier than the year 1000; those in the vaults of the cathedral at Aquileja,[29] the picture at Santa Maria Primerana at Fiesole, which seems the work of that or the succeeding age;[30] and the picture at Orvieto which was formerly known by the name of S. Maria Prisca, but is now generally called S. Brizio.[31] I say nothing of the figures of the virgin formerly ascribed to St. Luke, and now supposed to be the production of the eleventh or twelfth century, as I shall have to treat of them at the opening of the third book. The painters of those times were, however, of little repute; they produced no illustrious scholars, no work worthy of marking an era. The art had gradually degenerated into a kind of mechanism, which, after the models afforded by the Greek workers in mosaic employed in the church of St. Mark, at Venice,[32] invariably exhibited the same legends, in which nature appeared distorted rather than represented. It was not till after the middle of the thirteenth century that any thing better was attempted; and the improvement of sculpture was the first step towards the formation of a new style.
The honour of this is due to the Tuscans; a nation that from very remote antiquity disseminated the benign light of art and learning throughout Italy; but it more especially belongs to the people of Pisa. They taught artists how to shake off the trammels of the modern Greeks, and to adopt the ancients for their models. Barbarism had not only overwhelmed the arts, but even the maxims necessary for their re-establishment. Italy was not destitute of fine specimens of Grecian and Roman sculpture; but she had long been without an artist who could appreciate their value, much less attempt to imitate them. Little else was executed in those dark ages but some rude pieces of sculpture, such as what remains in the cathedral of Modena, in San Donato at Arezzo, in the Primaziale at Pisa,[33] and in some other churches where specimens are preserved on the doors or in the interior. Niccola Pisano was the first who discovered and pursued the true path. There were, and still are, some ancient sarcophagi in Pisa, especially that which inclosed the body of Beatrice, mother of the Countess Matilda, who died in the eleventh century. A chase, supposed to represent that of Hippolytus, is sculptured on it in basso relievo, which must be the production of a good school; being a subject which has been often delineated by the ancients on many urns still extant at Rome.[34] This was the model which Niccola selected, from this he formed a style which participated of the antique, especially in the heads and the casting of the drapery; and when exhibited in different Italian cities "it inspired artists with a laudable emulation to apply to sculpture more assiduously than they had before done," as we are informed by Vasari. Niccola did not attain to what he aspired. The compositions are sometimes crowded, the figures are often badly designed, and shew more diligence than expression. His name, however, will always mark an era in the history of design, because he first led artists into the true path by the introduction of a better standard. Reform in any branch of study invariably depends on some rule, which, promulgated and adopted by the schools, gradually produces a general revolution in opinion, and opens a new field to the exertions of a succeeding age.
About 1231, he sculptured at Bologna the urn of San Domenico, and from this, as a remarkable event, he was named "Niccola of the Urn." He afterwards executed in a much superior style, the Last Judgment, for the cathedral of Orvieto, and the pulpit in the church of San Giovanni, at Pisa; works that demonstrate to the world that design, invention, and composition, received from him a new existence. He was succeeded by Arnolfo Florentino, his scholar, the sculptor of the tomb of Boniface VIII. in San Pietro at Rome; and by his son Giovanni, who executed the monuments of Urban IV. and of Benedict IX. in Perugia. He afterwards completed the great altar of San Donato, at Arezzo, the cost of which was thirty thousand gold florins; besides many other works which remain in Naples and in several cities of Tuscany. Andrea Pisano was his associate, and probably also his disciple in Perugia, who, after establishing himself in Florence, ornamented with statues the cathedral and the church of San Giovanni in that city; and in twenty-two years finished the great gate of bronze "to which we are indebted for all that is excellent, difficult, or beautiful in the other two, which are the workmanship of succeeding artists." He was, in fact, the founder of that great school that successively produced Orcagna, Donatello, and the celebrated Ghiberti, who fabricated those gates for the same church, which Michelagnolo pronounced worthy to form the entrance of Paradise. After Andrea, we may notice Giovanni Balducci, of Pisa, whose era, country, and style, all lead us to suppose him one of the same school. He was an excellent artist, and was employed by Castruccio, Lord of Lucca, and by Azzone Visconti, Prince of Milan; where he flourished, and left, among other monuments of his art, the tomb of San Pietro Martire, at S. Eustorgio, which is so highly praised by Torre, by Lattuada, and by various other learned illustrators of Milanese antiquities.[35] Two eminent artists, natives of Siena, proceeded from the school of Gio. Pisano, namely, the two brothers, Agnolo and Agostino, who are greatly commended by Vasari as improvers of the art. Whoever has seen the sepulchre of Guido, bishop of Arezzo, which is decorated with an infinity of statues and basso-relievos, representing passages of his life, will not only find reason to admire in them the design, which was the work of Giotto, but the execution of the sculpture. The brothers also executed many of their own designs in Orvieto, in Siena, and in Lombardy, where they brought up several pupils, who for a long period pursued their manner, and diffused it over Italy.
To the improvement of sculpture succeeded that of mosaic, through the efforts of another Tuscan, belonging to the order of minor friars, named Fra Jacopo, or Fra Mino da Turrita, from a place in the territory of Siena. It is not known whether he was instructed in his art by the Romans or by the Greek workers in mosaic,[36] but it is well ascertained that he very far surpassed them. On examining what remains of his works in Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, one can hardly be persuaded that it is the production of so rude an age, did not history constrain us to believe it. It appears probable that he took the ancients for his models, and deduced his rules from the more chaste specimens of mosaic, still remaining in several of the Roman churches, the design of which is less crude, the attitudes less forced, and the composition more skilful, than were exhibited by the Greeks who ornamented the church of San Marco, at Venice. Mino surpassed them in every thing. From 1225, when he executed, however feebly, the mosaic of the tribune of the church of San Giovanni, at Florence, he was considered at the head of the living artists in mosaic.[37] He merited this praise much more by his works at Rome, and it appears that he long maintained his reputation. Vasari has not been sufficiently just to the fame of Turrita, in noticing him only casually in the life of Tafi, but the verses he recites, and the commissions he mentions, demonstrate how greatly Turrita was esteemed by his contemporaries. It is maintained that he was also a painter, but this is a mistake which will be cleared up in the Sienese school, and both there and elsewhere I shall question the authority of any author who either greatly commends or underrates him.
From a deficiency of specimens, like those above recorded, painting long remained in a more rude state than mosaic, and was very far behind sculpture. But we must not imagine, that at the birth of Cimabue, in 1240, the race of artists was entirely extinct, as erroneously asserted by Vasari: this must be deemed an exaggeration, for he himself has recounted several sculptors, architects, and painters then living; and the general scope of his less cautious expressions, against which so many writers have inveighed, and still continue to declaim, favours this opinion. I shall be constrained to advert, in almost every book, to their accusations, and to produce the names of the artists who then lived. I shall commence with those who then flourished in Tuscany. The city of Pisa, at this time, had not only painters, but a school for each of the fine arts[38]. The distinguished Signor Morrona, who has illustrated the Pisan antiquities, deduces its origin immediately from Greece. The Pisans, already very powerful by sea and land, having resolved in 1063 to erect the vast fabric of their cathedral, had drawn thither artists in miniature, and other painters, at the same time with Buschetto the architect, and these men educated pupils for the city. The Greeks at that time were but ill qualified to instruct, for they knew little. Their first pupils in Pisa seem to have been a few anonymous artists, some of whose miniatures and rude paintings are still in existence. A parchment, containing the exultet, as usually sung on Sabbato Santo, is in the cathedral, and we may here and there observe, painted on it, figures in miniature, with plants and animals: it is a relique of the early part of the twelfth century, yet a specimen of art not altogether barbarous. There are likewise some other paintings of that century in the same cathedral, containing figures of our Lady, with the holy infant on her right arm: they are rude, but the progress of the same school may be traced from them to the time of Giunta. This artist lately received a fine eulogium, among other illustrious Pisans, from Signor Tempesta, and he was fully entitled to it from the more early historians. His country possesses none of his undoubted pictures, except a crucifixion with his name, which is believed to be among his earliest productions, a print from which may be found in the third volume of Pisa Illustrata. He executed better pictures in Assisi, where he was invited to paint by Frat' Elia di Cortona, superior of the Minori, about the year 1230. From thence we are furnished with notices of his education, which is thus described by P. Angeli, the Historian of that cathedral: "Juncta Pisanus ruditer à Græcis instructus, primus ex Italis, artem apprehendit circa An. Sal. 1210." In the church of the Angioli there is a better preserved work of the same master; it is a crucifixion, painted on a wooden cross; on the lateral edges and upper surface of which our Lady is represented, with two other half-length figures, and underneath the remains of an inscription are legible, which having copied on the spot, I do not hesitate to publish with its deficiencies now supplied:
ivnta pisanus ivntini me Fecit.
I supply Juntini, because Signor da Morrona asserts,[39] that about this time, a Giunta da Giuntino is mentioned in the records of Pisa, whom by the aid of the Assisi inscription, I conjecture to be the painter we have now under notice. The figures are considerably less than life; the design is dry, the fingers excessively long, but these are vitia non hominum sed temporum; in short, this piece shews a knowledge of the naked figure, an expression of pain in the heads, and a disposition of the drapery, greatly superior to the efforts of the Greeks, his contemporaries. The handling of his colours is strong, although the flesh inclines to that of bronze; the local tints are judiciously varied, the chiaroscuro even shews some art, and the whole is not inferior, except in the proportions, to crucifixions with similar half figures usually ascribed to Cimabue. He painted at Assisi another crucifixion, which is now lost, to which may be added, a portrait of Frat' Elia, with this inscription, "F. Helias fecit fieri. Jesu Christe pie miserere precantis Heliæ. Juncta Pisanus me pinxit, An. D. 1236. Indit. IX." The inscription has been preserved by P. Wadingo in his annals of the Franciscan order for that year, and the historian describes the crucifixion as affabre pictum. The fresco works of Giunta were executed in the great church of the Franciscans, and according to Vasari he was there assisted by certain Greeks. Some busts and history pieces still remain in the gallery and the contiguous chapels, among which is the crucifixion of San Pietro, noticed in the Etruria Pittrice. Some believe that those paintings have been here and there injudiciously retouched, and this may serve to excuse the drawing, which may have been altered in many places, but the feebleness of the colouring cannot be denied. When they are compared with what Cimabue executed there about forty years afterwards, it seems that Giunta was not sufficiently forcible in this species of painting; perhaps he might have improved, but he is not mentioned after 1235; and it is conjectured that he died while yet a young man, at a distance from his native country. I am induced to believe so from observing, that Giunta di Giuntino is noticed in the records of Pisa, in the early part of that century, but not afterwards; and that Cimabue was sent for to paint the altar-piece and portrait of San Francesco of Pisa, about the year 1265, before he went to Assisi. It is more likely that Giunta would have executed this, had he returned home from that city, where he had seen and perhaps painted the portrait of the Holy Father.[40]
From this school the art is believed to have spread in these early times over all Tuscany, although it must not be forgotten that there were miniature painters there as well as in the other parts of Italy, who, transferring their art from small to large works, like Franco of Bologna, betook themselves, and incited others to painting on walls and on panel. Whatever we may choose to believe, Siena, at this period, could boast her Guido, who painted from the year 1221, but not entirely in the manner of the Greeks, as we shall find under the Sienese school. Lucca possessed in 1235 one Bonaventura Berlingieri. A San Francesco painted by him still exists in the castle of Guiglia, not far from Modena, which is described as a work of great merit for that age.[41] There lived another artist about the year 1288, known by his production of a crucifixion which he left at San Cerbone, a short distance from the city with this inscription; "Deodatus filius Orlandi de Luca me pinxit, A. D. 1288." Margaritone of Arezzo was a disciple and imitator of the Greeks, and by all accounts he must have been born several years before Cimabue. He painted on canvas, and if we may credit Vasari, made the first discovery of a method of rendering his pictures more durable, and less liable to cracking. He extended canvas on the panel, laying it down with a strong glue, made of shreds of parchment, and covered the whole with a ground of gypsum, before he began to paint. He formed diadems and other ornaments of plaster, giving them relief from gilding and burnishing them. Some of his crucifixions remain in Arezzo, and one of them is in the church of the Holy Cross at Florence, near another by Cimabue; both are in the old manner, and not so different in point of merit, but that Margaritone, however rude, may be pronounced as well entitled as Cimabue to the name of painter.