Even pictures for rooms were fashioned by the carvers into triangular and square forms, which they surrounded with heavy borders, with rude foliage, lace, or Arabesque ornaments around them. In that age, pictures were rarely committed to canvass alone, though some such are to be seen at Florence, and more among the Venetians and people of Bologna; but panels were most frequently employed. The borders often inclosed portions of canvass, not unfrequently of parchment, and sometimes of leather, which, in all probability, were prepared by those who usually wrought in such materials; and this is the reason why such artists, and even in some instances saddlers, were sometimes associated with painters.
History informs us that shields for war, or the tournament, and also various equestrian accoutrements, as the saddles and trappings of horses, were ornamented with painting, a custom which was retained till the time of Francia, as Vasari mentions in his life; hence, armourers and saddlers became associated with painters. Among them in like manner might be included those who prepared walls for painting in fresco, and who covered them with a reddish ground, which not unfrequently is still discovered in the flaws. On this colour the figures were designed, and such walls were the cartoons of the old masters. The stucco workers also assisted them in those relieved ornaments we see in fresco paintings. I believe they used moulds in those works, which seem nothing else than globules, flowerets, and little stars, formed with a stamp, such as we see on gilt plaister, on leather, on board, and on playing-cards. On whatever substance they painted, some gold was usually added; with it they ornamented the ground of their pictures, the glories of their saints, their garments, and fringes. Although painters themselves were skilled in such labours, it appears that they sought the assistance of gilders, and therefore gilders were classed with painters, and like them inscribed works with their names.
This was the practice of Cini and Saracini, just before recorded, and particularly of a native of Ferrara, who, in the pictures of the Vivarini, at Venice, subscribes his name before theirs. (See Zanetti, Pittura Ven. p. 15.) And in the cathedral of Ceneda, below an Incoronation of the Virgin, in which the artist did not care to exhibit himself to posterity, the engraver, already noticed, left the following inscription, which Signor Lorenzo Giustiniani, a Venetian patrician of great taste and cultivation of mind, has very politely communicated to me; "1438, a di 10. Frever Christofalo da Ferara intajo."
Towards the end of the fourteenth century, when the gothic style was disappearing from architecture, the design of the carvers improved, and they began to erect over altars oblong panels, divided by partitions, which were fashioned into pilasters, or small columns, and often between these last feigned gates or windows, so that the ancona or altar bore some resemblance to the façade of a palace or a church; over them was placed a frieze, and above the frieze was a place like a stage with some figures. The saints were placed below, and their histories were painted in the compartments; and often there appeared their histories painted upon some little form, or upon the steps. The partitions were gradually removed, the proportions of the figures enlarged, and the saints were disposed in a single piece around the throne of our Lord, not so erect as formerly, after the manner of statues, but in different actions and positions, a custom which prevailed even in the sixteenth century. The practice of gilding grounds declined towards the end of the fifteenth century, but it was increased on the garments, and fringes were never so deep as at that period. About the close of that century gold was more sparingly employed, and it was almost wholly abandoned in the following. No little benefit would be conferred upon the art by any one who would undertake to point out with accuracy what were the colours, gums, and other mixtures employed by the Greeks. They were undoubtedly in possession of the best methods transmitted to them by a tradition, which though in some measure corrupted, was confessedly derived from their ancestors. Even subsequent to the invention of oils, their colouring is in some degree deserving of our admiration. In the Medicean Museum there is a Madonna, subscribed with the following Latin inscription, Andreas Rico de Candia pinxit, the forms of which are stupid, the folds inelegant, and the composition coarse; but with all this, the colour is so fresh, vivid, and brilliant, that there is no modern work that would not lose by a comparison; indeed, the colouring is so extremely strong and firm, that when tried with the iron, it does not liquefy, but rather scales off, and breaks in minute portions. The frescos, likewise, of the earliest Greek and Italian painters, are surprisingly strong, and more particularly in upper than in lower Italy. There are some figures of saints upon the pilasters of the church of San Niccolo, at Trevigi, quite remarkable for their durability, an account of which is given in the first volume of Padre Federici, (p. 188). I have understood from professors that such a degree of consistency must have been produced by a certain portion of wax, which was employed at that period, as will be explained in the subsequent chapter, on the subject of painting in oil. It must, however, be admitted, that we are very little advanced in these inquiries into the ancient methods of preparing colour. Were they once satisfactorily explored, it would prove highly useful in the restoration of ancient pictures, nor superfluous in regard to the adoption of that firm, fused, and lucid colouring, which we shall have occasion to commend in various Lombard and Venetian pictures, and more especially in those of Coreggio.
These observations will not be useless to the connoisseur, who doubts the age of a picture on which there are no characters. Where there are letters he may proceed with still greater certainty. The letters vulgarly called gothic, began to be used after the year 1200, in some places more early than in others; and characters were loaded with a superfluity of lines, through the whole of the fourteenth, until about the middle of the fifteenth century, when the use of the Roman alphabet was revived. What forms were adopted by artists in subscribing their names, will be more conveniently explained in the course of a few pages further. I have judged it proper to give here a sort of paleology of painting; because inattention to this has been, and still is, a fruitful source of error. The reader, however, may observe, that though the rules here proposed, afford some light to resolve doubtful points, they are not to be considered as infallible and universal, and he may further recollect, that in matters of antiquity nothing is more dangerous and ridiculous, than to form general rules, which a single example may be sufficient to overthrow.
[26] See Tiraboschi, Storia della Litterat. Italiana, towards the end of tom. iv. See also the Dissertation of Lami on the Italian painters and sculptors who flourished from the year 1000 to 1300; in the Supplement to Vinci's Trattato della Pittura, printed at Florence in 1792; and see Moreni, P. iv. p. 108.
[27] See the Oration of Mon. Francesco Carrara Delle Lodi delle belle Arti, Roma, 1758, 4to. with the accompanying Notes, in which the two Bianchini, Marangoni, and Bottari, their illustrators, are cited.
[28] Pointed out to me by Sig. D'Agincourt, a gentleman deeply versed in antiquities of this sort.
[29] There were similar remains in the choir, the design of which I have seen. They were covered over in 1733. Among other curiosities was the portrait of the patriarch Popone, of the Emperor Conrad, and his son Henry; the design, action, and characters, like the mosaics at Rome; executed about the year 1030. See Bartoli, Antichità di Aquileja, p. 369; and Altan, Del vario Stato, &c. p. 5.
[30] The figure of our Lady is retouched; but two miniatures attached to it, are better preserved; the one represents a man, the other a woman: and their drapery is in the costume of that period. The figures are reversed in the engraving of them, which is published.