I believe that Bernardo Orcagna, who rivalled the fame of Buffalmacco, proceeded from some old school. He was the son of one Cione, a sculptor, and his brother Jacopo was of the same profession: but the other brother, Andrea, surpassed them all; and in himself so far united the attainments of the three sister arts, that he was by some reckoned second only to Giotto. He is known among architects for having introduced the circular arch instead of the acute, as may be seen in the gallery of the Lanzi, which he built and ornamented with sculpture. Bernardo taught him the principles of painting. They who have represented him as the pupil of Angiol Gaddi, do not appear attentive to dates. In the Strozzi chapel in the church of S. Maria Novella, he and Bernardo painted Paradise, and over against it the Infernal Regions; and in the Campo Santo of Pisa, Death and the Judgment were executed by Andrea, and Hell by Bernardo. The two brothers imitated Dante in the novel representations which they executed at those places; and that style was more happily repeated by Andrea in the church of Santa Croce, where he inserted portraits of his enemies among the damned, and of his friends among the blessed spirits. These pictures are the prototypes of similar pictures preserved in S. Petronio, at Bologna, in the cathedral of Tolentino, in the Badia del Sesto, at Friuli,[63] and some other places, in which hell is distinguished by abysses and a variety of torments, after the manner of Dante. Several pictures by Andrea remain, and his name is still on that in the Strozzi chapel, which is full of figures and of episodes. On the whole, he discovers fertility of imagination, diligence, and spirit, equal to any of his contemporaries. In composition he was less judicious, in attitudes less exact, than the followers of Giotto; and he yields to them in drawing and in colouring.
The same school produced Marinotto, a nephew of Andrea, and a Tommaso di Marco, whom I pass over, as well as others of little note, no longer known by existing works. Bernardo Nello di Gio. Falconi of Pisa merits consideration. He executed many pictures in that cathedral, and is supposed to be the same with that Nello di Vanni, who, with other Pisan artists, painted in the Campo Santo in the fourteenth century. Francesco Traini, a Florentine, is known as much superior to his master, by a large picture which is in the church of S. Catherine of Pisa, in which he has represented St. Thomas Aquinas in his own form, and also in his beatification. He stands in the middle of the picture, under the Redeemer, who sheds a glory on the Evangelists and him; and from them the rays are scattered on a crowd of listeners, composed of clergy, doctors, bishops, cardinals, and popes. Arius and other innovators are at the feet of the saint, as if vanquished by his doctrine; and near him appear Plato and Aristotle, with their volumes open, a circumstance not to be commended in such a subject. This work exhibits no skill in grouping, no knowledge of relief, and it abounds in attitudes which are either too tame, or too constrained; and yet it pleases by a marked expression in the countenances, an air of the antique in the draperies, and a certain novelty in the composition. Let us now pass on to the followers of Giotto.
The scholars of Giotto have fallen into an error common to the followers of all illustrious men; in despairing to surpass, they have only aspired to imitate him with facility. On this account the art did not advance so quickly as it might otherwise have done, among the Florentine and other artists of the fourteenth century, who flourished after Giotto. In the several cities abovementioned, Giotto invariably appears superior when seen in the vicinity of such painters as Cavallini, or Gaddi; and whoever is acquainted with his style, stands in no need of a prolix account of that of his followers, which, with a general resemblance to him, is less grand and less agreeable. Stefano Fiorentino alone is a superior genius in the opinion of Vasari, according to whose account he greatly excelled Giotto in every department of painting. He was the son of Catherine, a daughter of Giotto, and possessed a genius for penetrating into the difficulties of the art, and an insuperable desire of conquering them. He first introduced foreshortenings into painting, and if in this he did not attain his object, he greatly improved the perspective of buildings, the attitudes, and the variety and expression of the heads. According to Landino he was called the Ape of Nature, an eulogy of a rude age; since such animals, in imitating the works of man, always debase them: but Stefano endeavoured to equal and to embellish those of nature. The most celebrated of his pictures which were in the Ara Cœli at Rome, in the church of S. Spirito at Florence, and in other places, have all perished. As far as I know, his country does not possess one of his undoubted pictures; unless we mention as such, that of the Saviour in the Campo Santo of Pisa, which, indeed, is in a greater manner than the works of this master, but it has been retouched. A Pietà, by his son and disciple Tommaso, as is believed by some, exists in S. Remigi at Florence, which strongly partakes of the manner of Giotto; like his frescos at Assisi. He deserved the name of Giottino, given him by his fellow citizens, who used to say that the soul of Giotto had transmigrated, and animated him. Baldinucci alleges that there was another of the same name, who should not be confounded with him, and quotes the following inscription from a picture in the Villa Tolomei, "Dipinse Tommaso di Stefano Fortunatino de' Gucci Tolomei." But Cinelli, the strenuous opponent of Baldinucci, attributes it, perhaps justly, to Giottino. This artist left behind him one Lippo, sufficiently commended by Vasari, but who rather seems to have been an imitator than a scholar. Giovanni Tossicani of Arezzo, was a disciple of Giottino, employed in Pisa and over all Tuscany. He painted the St. Philip and St. James, which still remain on the baptismal font in Arezzo, and were repaired by Vasari while a young man, who acknowledges that he learned much from this work, injured as it was. With him perished the best branch of the stock of Giotto.
Taddeo Gaddi may be considered as the Giulio Romano of Giotto, his most intimate and highly favoured pupil. Vasari, who saw his frescos and easel pictures at Florence, in good preservation, prefers him to his master, in colouring and in delicacy; but the lapse of time at this day forbids our deciding this point, although several of his pictures remain, especially in the church of Santa Croce, which are scriptural histories, much in the manner of Giotto. He discovered more originality in the chapter house of the Spagnuoli, where he worked in competition with Memmi.[64] He painted some of the acts of the Redeemer on the ceiling, and the descent of the Holy Spirit in the refectory, which is among the finest specimens of art in the fourteenth century. On one of the walls he painted the Sciences, and under each some one of its celebrated professors; and demonstrated his excellence in this species of allegorical painting, which approaches so nearly to poetry. The brilliance and clearness of his tints are chiefly conspicuous in that chapter house. The royal gallery contains the taking down of Christ, the work of his hands, which was formerly at Orsanmichele, and by some ascribed to Buffalmacco, merely because it was unascertained. Taddeo flourished beyond the term assigned him by Vasari, and outlived most of those already named. This may be collected from Franco Sacchetti, a contemporary writer, who relates in his 136th Tale, that Andrea Orcagna proposed as a question, "who was the greatest master, setting Giotto out of the question?" Some answered Cimabue, others Stefano, some Bernardo, and some Buffalmacco. Taddeo Gaddi, who was in the company, said, "truly these were very able painters, but the art is decaying every day, &c." He is mentioned up to 1352, and he might possibly survive several years.
He left at his death several disciples, who became eminent teachers of painting in Florence, and other places. D. Lorenzo Camaldolese is mentioned with honour. He instructed pupils in the art; and several old pictures by him and his scholars are in the monastery of the Angeli. At that time the fraternity of Camaldulites furnished some miniature painters, one of whom, named D. Silvestro, ornamented missals, which still exist, and are amongst the best that Italy possesses. The most favoured pupils of Taddeo were Giovanni da Milano, whom I shall notice in the school of Lombardy, and Jacopo di Casentino, who also will find a place there, together with his imitators. To these two he recommended on his death-bed his two sons and disciples: Giovanni, who died prematurely, with a reputation for genius; and Angiolo, who being then very young, most needed a protector. The latter died, according to Vasari, at 63 years of age; in 1589, according to the date of Baldinucci. He did not improve the art in proportion to his abilities, but contented himself with imitating Giotto and his father, in which he was astonishingly successful. The church of S. Pancrazio possessed one picture by him, containing several saints, and some histories from the Gospel, which may still be seen in the monastery, divided into several pieces, and coloured in a taste superior to what was then usual. There is another in the same style in the sacristy of the Conventual friars, by whom he was employed in the choir of the church, to paint in fresco the story of the recovery of the Cross, and its transportation in the time of Heraclius; a work inferior to the others, because much larger, and to him somewhat new. He afterwards lived at Venice, as a merchant rather than as a painter; and Baldinucci, who seizes every opportunity of supporting his hypothesis, says, that if he was not the founder of that school, he, at least, improved it. But I shall demonstrate, in the proper place, that the Venetian school was advancing to a modern style, before Angiolo could have taught in that place; and in the many old pictures I saw at Venice, I was unable to recal to mind the delicate style of Angiolo. The Venetians owe to him the education of Stefano da Verona, whom I shall consider in the second volume; and he gave the Florentines Cennino Cennini, praised by Vasari as a colourist, of whom as a writer I shall soon make mention.
In the school of Angiolo Gaddi we may reckon Antonio Veneziano, concerning whom Vasari and Baldinucci disagree. The former makes him a Venetian, "who came to Florence to learn painting of Agnolo Gaddi:" the latter, a systematic writer, as we have seen, asserts that he was born in Florence, and that he obtained the surname of Veneziano, from his residence and many labours in Venice, on the authority of certain memoirs in the Strozzi library, which were, perhaps, doubted by himself; for had they been of high authority, he would not have omitted to proclaim their antiquity. However this may be, each of them is a little inconsistent with himself. As they assert that Antonio died of the plague in 1384, or, according to the correction of their annotators, in 1383, at the age of 74, it follows that he was born many years before Gaddi, whose disciple, therefore, we cannot easily suppose him. It is likewise rendered doubtful by his design in the legends of S. Ranieri,[65] which remain in the Campo Santo of Pisa, where there is a certain facility, care, and caprice in the composition, that savour of another school. Vasari, moreover, notices a method of painting in fresco, without ever re-touching it when dry, that would seem to have been introduced from other parts, different from what was employed by the Tuscan artists, his competitors, whose paintings, in the time of the historian, were not in as good a state of preservation as those of Antonio. In the same place he deposited his portrait, which the describers of the ducal gallery at Florence pretend still to find in the chamber of celebrated artists. This portrait is, however, painted in a manner so modern, that I cannot believe it the work of a painter so ancient. On this occasion I must observe that there was another Antonio Veneziano, whom this picture probably represents, and who, about the year 1500, painted, at Osimo, a picture of St. Francis, in the manner of that age, and inscribed it with his name. I learned this from the accomplished Sig. Cav. Aqua, who added, that this name had been erased, and that of Pietro Perugino inserted, who certainly gains no very great honour by such substitution.
We learn from history[66] that Antonio educated in Paolo Uccello, a great artist in perspective; and in Gherardo Starnina, a master in the gay style, of whom there are yet some remnants, in a chapel of the church of Santa Croce. They are among the last efforts of the school of Giotto, which succeeding artists abandoned, to adopt a better manner. One exception occurs in Antonio Vite, who executed some works in the old style, in Pistoia, his native city, and in Pisa. I may here observe, that Starnina and Dello Fiorentino shortly after introduced the new Italian manner in the court of Spain, and returned to Florence with honour and with affluence. The first remained to enjoy them in his native country, until the time of his death: the latter returned back to increase them; and, according to Vasari, he left no public work in Florence, except an historic design of Isaac, in green earth, in a cloister of the church of S. Maria Novella: perhaps he ought to have said, that he left various works, for several are there visible, all in the same taste, and so rude, as to induce us to reckon him rather a follower of Buffalmacco than of Giotto. But he excelled in small pieces; and there was none then living who could more elegantly ornament cabinets, coffers, the backs of couches, or other household furniture, with subjects from history and fable.
Among the disciples of Taddeo Gaddi I have named Jacopo del Casentino, of whom there are some remains in the church of Orsanmichele. Jacopo taught Spinello Aretino, a man of a most lively fancy, as may be gathered from some of his pictures in Arezzo, no less than from his life. He painted also at Florence, and was one of those who had the honour of ornamenting the Campo Santo of Pisa with historical paintings. His pictures of the martyrs S. Petito and S. Epiro, are noticed by Vasari as his best performances. He was, however, inferior to his competitors by the meanness of his design, and the style of his colouring, in which green and black are predominant, without being sufficiently relieved by other colours. The fall of the angels still remains in S. Angelo at Arezzo, in which Lucifer is represented so terrible, that it afterwards haunted the dreams of the artist, and, deranging both his mind and body, hastened his death. Bernardo Daddi was his scholar; a man less known in his own country than at Florence, where he executed a picture, seen on the gate of San Giorgio (See Moreni, lib. v. p. 5.); as was also Parri, the son of Spinello, who modernised his style somewhat on the manner of Masolino. The latter excelled in the art of colouring, but he was barbarous in the drawing of his figures, which he made extravagantly long and bending, in order, as he was used to say, to give them greater spirit. One may see some remains of them at Arezzo in S. Domenico, and other places. Lorenzo di Bicci of Florence, another scholar of Spinello, was the Vasari of his time, for the multiplicity, celerity, and easy self-complacency, shewn in his labours. The first cloister of the church of S. Croce retains several specimens, consisting of the legends of S. Francis; and there is an Assumption on the front, in which he was assisted by Donatello, while still a young man. Perhaps his best work is the fresco, ornamenting the sanctuary of S. Maria Nuova, built by Martin V. about the year 1418. His son Neri is reckoned among the last followers of Giotto. He lived but a short time; he left, in S. Romolo, a picture which would not have disgraced his father, and which is certainly more carefully executed than was usual with the latter.
During the fourteenth century, sculpture was cultivated at Pisa by as many artists as painting was at Florence; but Pisa was not on that account destitute of painters worthy of being recorded. Vasari mentions one Vicino, who finished the mosaic begun by Turrita, assisted by Tafi and Gaddi, and adds, that he was also a painter. Sig. da Morrona says, that he retained the old style of his school; which was the case with many others, as appears from several old Madonnas upon panels, both of anonymous and of ascertained painters. Of this sort is that in the old church of Tripalle, and that at S. Matthew's in Pisa. On the first is this inscription, Nerus Nellus de Pisa me pinxit, 1299: on the second we read, Jacopo di Nicola dipintore detto Gera mi dipinse. The mode of expression is derived from the μ'εποιησε of the Greeks; to which the old Pisans closely adhered in their paintings, their sculptures, and their bronzes.[67] Like the other Italians they at length reformed their style, and there, as well as at Florence and Siena, families of painters arose, in which the fathers were excelled by their sons, and they by their children. Thus, from Vanni, who flourished in 1300, sprung Turino di Vanni, who flourished about 1343, and Nello di Vanni, who painted in the Campo Santo, whose son Bernardo was the disciple of Orcagna, and furnished many pictures for the palace of the primate. There was also in that city one Andrea di Lippo, who is noticed in the Academical Discourse on the literary history of Pisa, in the year 1336; the same, I believe, with that Andrea da Pisa, mentioned among the artists that ornamented the cathedral of Orvieto in 1346. A work by one Giovanni di Niccolo remains in the monastery of S. Martha, and, perhaps, he painted the fine trittico of the Zelada museum at Rome, which represents our Saviour with S. Stephen, S. Agatha, and other saints, and which has this inscription, Jo. de Pisis pinxit. This is a picture of great labour, by some ascribed to Gio. Balducci; which, if it was ascertained, would confer honour on that great man, as a professor of the three sister arts. Towards the end of the century the power of the Pisans declined, rather from civil discord than from other misfortunes; till at length the city fell into the hands of the Florentines in 1406, and lay for a long time prostrate and humbled, deprived, not only of her artists, but almost of her citizens; and fully glutted the ancient hatred of her hostile neighbours. She at length rose again, not, indeed, to command, but to more dignified subjection.
The spirit of the Florentines in the mean time increasing with their power, they became chiefly solicitous to suit the magnificence of their capital to the grandeur of the state. Cosmo, at once the father of his country and of men of genius, gave stability to public affairs. Lorenzo the Magnificent, and others of the house of Medici, followed, whose hereditary taste for literature and the fine arts is celebrated in a multitude of books, and most copiously in the histories written by three eminent authors, Monsignor Fabroni, the Signor Ab. Galluzzi, and Mr. Roscoe. Their house was at once a lyceum for philosophers, an arcadia for poets, and an academy for artists. Dello, Paolo, Masaccio, the two Peselli, both the Lippi, Benozzo, Sandro, the Ghirlandai, enjoyed the perpetual patronage of this family, and as constantly rendered it whatever honour they could bestow. Their pictures are full of portraits, according to the custom of the times, and continually presented to the people the likenesses of the Medici, and often represented them with regal ornaments in their pictures of the Epiphany, as if gradually to prepare the people to behold the sceptre and royal robe securely established in that house. The good taste of the Medici was seconded by that of other citizens, who were then distributed into various corporations, according to their place of residence and profession, each of which strove with reciprocal emulation to decorate their houses and their churches. Besides the desire of public ornament, they were animated by religion, which, in what relates to divine worship, is so widely spread, not only among the great, but also among the lower orders of people, that those have a difficulty in believing who have not beheld it. Their cathedral, a vast fabric, was already reared for the ceremonies of religion, and here and there some other churches arose; these and the more ancient, in emulation of each other, they adorned with paintings, a luxury unknown to their ancestors, and less common in the other cities of Italy. This disposition gave rise, after the conclusion of the century, to that prodigious number of painters already mentioned; and hence sprang, in the century we now treat of, that crowd of artists in marble, bronze, and silver, who transferred pre-eminence in sculpture, the ancient inheritance of the Pisans, to the people of Florence. The Florentines were desirous of ornamenting the new cathedral and baptistery, the church of Orsanmichele, and other sacred places, with statues and basso-relievos. These brought forward Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Filarete, Rossellini, Pollajuoli, and Verrocchio, and produced those noble works in marble, in bronze, and in silver, which sometimes appear to have attained the perfection of the art, and to have rivalled the ancients. The rising generation was instructed in design by those celebrated men, and the universality of the principles they taught, made the transition from one art to another easy. The same individuals were often statuaries, founders in bronze, in gold, lapidaries, painters, or architects, talents that appear enviable to this age, in which an artist with difficulty acquires a competent knowledge in a single art. Such was the course of instruction at Florence in the Studies, and such the subsequent encouragement without, from which it will not appear wonderful to the reader that this city was the foremost to attain the perfection of the art. But let us trace the steps by which it advanced in Florence, and in the rest of Italy.