Ricciarelli, usually known in history by the name of Daniele di Volterra, enjoys a greater name, and is generally described as the most successful follower of Michelangiolo. Educated in Siena, according to report, by Peruzzi and Razzi, he became the assistant of Perino del Vaga, and acquired an astonishing talent for imitating Bonarruoti, who greatly esteemed him, appointed him his substitute in the labours of the Vatican, brought him into notice, and assisted and enriched him with designs. It is known that Michelangiolo was often with Daniele when he painted in the Farnese palace, and it is said that Bonarruoti, during his absence, "O vero o falso che la fama suoni," mounted the scaffold, and sketched with charcoal a colossal head that is still seen there. Volterra let it remain, that posterity might judge of the powers of Bonarruoti, who without pre-meditation and in mere jest, had finished a work in such proportion, and so perfect. Nor did Daniele execute, without the assistance of Michelangiolo, the wonderful Descent from the Cross in the Trinità de' Monti, which, together with the Transfiguration by Raffaello, and the S. Girolamo of Domenichino, may be reckoned among the finest paintings in Rome.[166] We seem to behold the mournful spectacle, and the Redeemer sinking with the natural relaxation of a dead body in descending: the pious men engaged in various offices, and thrown in different and contrasted attitudes, appear assiduously occupied with the sacred remains which they seem to venerate; the mother of Jesus having fainted between the sorrowing women, the beloved disciple extends his arms and bends over her. There is a truth in the naked figures that seems perfect nature; a colouring in the faces and the whole piece that suits the subject, and is more determined than delicate; a relief, a harmony, and, in a word, a skill that might do honour to the hand of Michelangiolo himself, had the picture been inscribed with his name. To this the artist, I believe, alluded, when he painted Bonarruoti with a mirror near it; as if in this picture he might behold a reflection of himself. Volterra painted some other Crucifixions in the Orsini Chapel, where he was employed for seven years; but they are inferior to that described above. He employed his pupils in another chapel of that church, (Michele Alberti, according to the Guide to Rome, and Gio. Paolo Rossetti,) and supplied them with designs; one of which he himself executed in a picture, with figures of a moderate size. The subject is the Murder of the Innocents, and it is now deposited in the Tribune of the Royal Gallery of Florence; an honour that speaks more for it than my eulogy. The Grand Duke Leopold purchased it at a high price from a church in Volterra, where there is now no other public specimen of this master. The Ricciarelli family possess a fine Elijah, as an inheritance and memorial of this great man; and a beautiful fresco remains in a study in the house of the Dottor Mazzoni, relating to which we may refer the reader to the excellent historiographer of Volterra, (tom. i. p. 177).
There was a youth of Florence, named Baccio della Porta, because his study was near a gate of that city; but having become a Dominican, he obtained that of Fra Bartolommeo di S. Marco, from the convent where he resided, or, more shortly, that of Frate. Whilst he studied under Rosselli, he became enamoured of the grand chiaro-scuro of Vinci, and emulated him assiduously. We read that his friend Albertinelli studied modelling, and copied ancient basso-relievos, from a desire of obtaining correctness in his shadows; and we may conjecture the same of Baccio, although Vasari is silent on this head. The Prince has a Nativity and Circumcision of Christ in his early manner; most graceful little pictures, resembling miniatures. About this period he also painted his own portrait in the lay habit, a full-length figure, most skilfully inclosed in a small space, and now in the splendid collection of the Signori Montecatini at Lucca. He entered the cloister in 1500, at the age of thirty-one, and for four years never handled the pencil. The execution of Savonarola, whom he knew and respected, preyed upon his mind; and, like Botticelli and Credi, he gave up the art. When he again resumed it, he seems to have advanced daily in improvement, during the last thirteen or fourteen years of his life; so that his earlier productions, though very beautiful, are inferior to his last. His improvement was accelerated by Raffaello, who came to Florence to pursue his studies in 1504, contracted a friendship for him, and was at the same time his scholar in colouring, and his master in perspective.[167] Having gone to Rome some years after, to see the works of Bonarruoti and Raffaello, if I am not deceived, he greatly elevated his style; but his manner was at all times more conformable to that of his friend than of his fellow citizen, uniting dignity with grace in his heads and in his general design. The picture in the Pitti palace is a proof of this, which Pietro da Cortona imagined to be the work of Raffaello, though Frate had painted it before he went to Rome. In that place he appeared with diminished lustre, says the historian, in the presence of those two great luminaries of the art, and speedily returned to Florence; a circumstance which also happened to Andrea del Sarto, to Rosso, and to other truly eminent masters, whose modesty was equal to the confidence of innumerable artists of mediocrity, who frequently enjoyed at Rome much ill placed patronage. Frate left there two figures of the Chief Apostles, that are preserved in the Quirinal palace; the S. Peter, which was not finished, had its last touches from the hand of Raffaello. One of his pictures is also in the Vatican palace, where it was deposited by Pius VI., with many other choice paintings. A Holy Family exists in the Corsini collection by the same hand, and is perhaps his finest and most graceful performance.
His most finished productions are in Tuscany, which boasts various altar-pieces, and all of them very valuable. Their composition is in the usual style of the age, which may be observed in the production of every school, not even excepting Raffaello, and which continued in the Florentine until the time of Pontormo; viz. a Madonna seated, with an infant Jesus, and accompanied by saints. But in this hackneyed subject, Frate distinguished himself by grand architecture, by magnificent flights of steps, and by the skilful grouping of his saints and cherubims. He introduces them, one while seated in concert, another time poised on their wings to minister to their king and queen; of whom some support the drapery, others have charge of the pavilion, a rich and happily conceived ornament, which he readily connected with such thrones, even in cabinet pictures. He departed from this mode of composition in a picture that he left at S. Romano of Lucca, called Madonna della Misericordia, who sits in an attitude full of grace, amid a crowd of devotees, shielding them with her mantle from the wrath of heaven. His rivals occasioned the production of two more altar-pieces: according to the example of other eminent men, he answered their sneers by his classic performances; a retort the most galling to the invidious. They had stigmatized him as unequal to large proportions; and he filled a large piece with a single figure of S. Mark, which is admired as a prodigy of art in the ducal gallery, and is described by a learned foreigner as a Grecian statue transformed into a picture. He was accused of being ignorant of the anatomy of the human figure; and to refute this calumny he introduced a naked S. Sebastian in another picture, which was so perfect in drawing and in colouring, that "it received the unbounded applause of artists;" but becoming too much the admiration of the female devotees of that church, it was first removed by the fathers into a private room, and was afterwards sold, and sent into France.
To sum up all, he knew how to excel at pleasure, in every department of painting. His design is most chaste, and his youthful faces are more full and fleshy than was usual with Raffaello; and according to Algarotti, they are but little elevated above the standard of ordinary men, and approach to vulgarity. His tints at one period abounded with shadows produced by lamp black or ivory black, which impairs the value of some of his pictures; but he gradually acquired a better manner, and, as we have related, was able to instruct Raffaello. In firmness and clearness he yields not to the best of the school of Lombardy. He was the inventor of a new method of casting draperies; having taught the use of the wooden figure, with moveable joints, that serves admirably for the study of the folds of drapery. None of his school painted them more varied and natural, with more breadth, or better adapted to the limbs. His works are to be seen in several private collections in Florence; but they are rare beyond the precincts of that city: they are there eagerly sought after by foreigners, but are very rarely to be sold. One of his Madonnas was procured within these few years by his Excellency the Major-Domo of the ducal household, whose collection may be reckoned another Florentine Gallery in miniature, consisting of about thirty pictures of the best masters of different schools. The Fathers of S. Mark have a considerable number of his paintings in their private chapel, and among these is a S. Vincenzo, said by Bottari to resemble a work of Tiziano or Giorgione. His best and rarest performances are in the possession of the Prince, in whose collection the last work of Fra Bartolommeo remains, a large picture in chiaroscuro, representing the patron saints of the city surrounding the Virgin Mary. The Gonfalonier Soderini intended this piece for the Hall of the Council of State; but it was left only as a design at the death of its author, in 1517, like the projected works of Vinci and Bonarruoti. It would seem as if some fatality attended the decoration of this building, which ought to have employed the pencil of the greatest native artists. Among this number Frate must undoubtedly be included; and Richardson remarks, that had he possessed the happy combinations of Raffaello, he, perhaps, would not have been second to that master.[168] The last mentioned production, though imperfect, is looked upon as a model in the art. The method of this artist was first to draw the figure naked, then to drape it, and to form a chiaroscuro, sometimes in oils, that marked the distribution of the light and shadow, which constituted his great study, and the soul of his pictures. This large picture demonstrates such preparatives; and it has as high a value in painting, as the antique plaster models have in sculpture, in which Winckelmann discovers the stamp of genius and compass of design better than in sculptured marbles.
Mariotto Albertinelli, the fellow student and friend of Baccio, the sharer of his labours and his concerns, emulated his first style, and approaches to his second in some of his works; but they may be compared to two streams springing from the same source; the one to become a brook, the other a mighty river. Some pictures in Florence are supposed to be their joint performances; and the Marquis Acciaiuoli possesses a picture of the Assumption, in the upper part of which are the Apostles, by Baccio, and the lower is deemed the work of Mariotto. He is somewhat dry in several of his pictures, as in the S. Silvestro, in Monte Cavallo at Rome; where he also painted a S. Domenick, and a S. Catharine of Siena, near the throne of the Virgin Mary. He should likewise be known at Florence. He executed two pictures for the church of S. Giuliano, remarkable for the force of colouring, and the many imitations of the style of Frate. The best of all and the nearest to his model is the Visitation, transferred from the Congregazione de' Preti to the Ducal gallery, and even to its most honoured place, the Tribune. Albertinelli obtained great credit by his two pupils, Franciabigio and Innocenzio da Imola, of whom I shall speak in the proper place as ornaments of their school. I find Visino praised beyond them both: he painted but little in Florence, and that in private; but he was much employed in Hungary.
Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabriele Rustici, and Cecchin del Frate, who inherited his master's name, were the scholars of Fra Bartolommeo in his best time; but they are no longer known by any undoubted works. Fra Paolo da Pistoia, his colleague, who was honoured in his own country with a medal, which I have seen, with those of many eminent men of Pistoia, in the possession of the Sign. Dottor Visoni, obtained the richest inheritance in all the studies of Baccio; and from his designs this artist painted many pictures at Pistoia, one of which may be seen in the parochial church of S. Paul, over the great altar. Those designs were afterwards carried to Florence, and in the time of Vasari there was a collection of them at the Dominican convent of S. Catharine, in the hands of Sister Plautella Nelli. The noble family of this lady possesses a Crucifixion painted by her, in which there is a multitude of small figures most highly finished. She seems on the whole a good imitation of Frate; but she also followed other styles, as may be seen in her convent. A Descent from the Cross is there shewn, said to be the design of Andrea del Sarto, but the execution is by her; and likewise an Epiphany, entirely her own, in which the landscape would do honour to the modern, but the figures savour of the old school.
Andrea Vannucchi, called Andrea del Sarto, from the occupation of his father, is commended by Vasari as the first artist of this school, "for being the most faultless painter of the Florentines, for perfectly understanding the principles of chiaroscuro, for representing the indistinctness of objects in shadow, and for painting with a sweetness truly natural: he, moreover, taught how to give a perfect union to frescos, and in a great measure obviated the necessity of retouching them when dry, a circumstance which gives all his works the appearance of having been finished in one day." He is censured by Baldinucci, as barren in invention; and undoubtedly he wanted that elevation of conception, which constitutes the epic in painting as well as in poetry. Deficient in this talent, Andrea is said to have been modest, elegant, and endued with sensibility; and it appears that he impressed this character on nature wherever he employed his pencil. The portico of the Nunziata, transformed by him into a gallery of inestimable value, is the fittest place to judge of this. Those chaste outlines that procured him the surname of Andrea the Faultless, those conceptions of graceful countenances, whose smiles remind us of the simplicity and grace of Correggio,[169] that appropriate architecture, those draperies, adapted to every condition, and cast with ease, those popular expressions of curiosity, of astonishment, of confidence, of compassion, and of joy, that never transgress the bounds of decorum, which are understood at first sight, and gently affect the mind without agitating it, are charms that are more readily felt than expressed. He who feels what Tubules is in poetry, may conceive what Andrea is in painting.
This artist demonstrates the ascendancy of native genius over precept. When a boy he was put under the tuition of Giovanni Barile, a good carver in wood, employed on the ceilings and doors of the Vatican, after the designs of Raffaello, but a painter of no celebrity. While still a youth, he was consigned to Pier di Cosimo, a practical colourist, but by no means skilled in drawing or in composition: hence the taste of Andrea in these arts was formed on the cartoons of Vinci and Bonarruoti; and, as many circumstances indicate, on the frescos of Masaccio and of Ghirlandaio, in which the subjects were more suited to his mild disposition. He went to Rome, but I know not in what year; that he was there, appears not to me to admit of dispute, as in the case of Correggio. I do not argue this from his style approaching near to that of Raffaello, as it appeared also to Lomazzo and other writers, though with less of ideal beauty. Raffaello and Andrea had studied the same originals at Florence; and nature might have given them corresponding ideas for the selection of the beautiful. I ground my opinion entirely on Vasari. He informs us, that Andrea was at Rome, that seeing the works of the scholars of Raffaello, timidity induced him to despair of equalling them, and to return speedily to Florence. If we credit so many other stories of the pusillanimity of Andrea, why should we reject this? or what faith shall we give to Vasari, if he was erroneous in a circumstance relating to one who was his master, and which was written in Florence soon after the death of Andrea, while his scholars, his friends, and even his wife, were still living, an assertion, too, uncontradicted in the second edition, in which Vasari retracted so much of what he had affirmed in the first?
His improvement and his progress from one perfection in art to another was thus not sudden, as has happened to some other artists; but was gradually acquired during many years residence at Florence. There, "by reflecting on what he had seen, he attained such eminence that his works have been esteemed, and admired, and even more imitated after his death, than in his lifetime:" so says the historian. This implies that he improved at Rome; chiefly, however, by his own genius, which led him, as it were, by the hand, from one step to another, as may be observed in the Compagnia dello Scalzo, and in the convent of the Servi, where some of his pictures, executed at different periods, are to be seen. At the Scalzo, he painted some stories from the life of S. John in chiaroscuro, the cartoons for which are in the Rinuccini palace: in this work we may notice some palpable imitations, and even some figures borrowed from Albert Durer. We may trace his early style in the Baptism of Christ; his subsequent progress, in some other pictures, as in the Visitation, painted some years after; and his greatest excellence and broadest manner in others, especially in the Birth of the Baptist. In like manner, the pictures from the life of S. Filippo Benizi, in the lesser cloister of the Servi, are very beautiful productions, though they are among the first efforts of Andrea's genius. The Epiphany of our Saviour, and the Birth of the Virgin in the same place, are more finished works; but his finest piece is that Holy Family in Repose, which is usually called Madonna del Sacco, from the sack of grain on which S. Joseph leans, than which few pictures are more celebrated in the history of the art. It has frequently been engraved; but after two centuries and a half, it has at length employed an engraver worthy of it in Morghen, who has recently executed it, and also a similar composition after Raffaello. Both prints are in the best collections; and to those who have not seen either Rome or Florence, Andrea appears rather a rival than an inferior to the prince of painters. On examining this picture narrowly, it affords endless scope for observation: it is finished as if intended for a cabinet; every hair is distinguished, every middle tint is lowered with consummate art, every outline marked with admirable variety and grace: and amid all this diligence a facility is conspicuous, that makes the whole appear natural and unconstrained.
In the ducal palace at Poggio a Caiano, there is a fresco picture of Cæsar, seated in a hall, ornamented with statues, on a lofty seat, to whom a great variety of exotic birds and wild animals are presented as the tribute of his victories; a work of itself sufficient to mark Andrea as a painter eminent in perspective, in a knowledge of the antique, and in every excellence of painting. The order for ornamenting that palace came from Leo X.; and Andrea, who had there to contend with Franciabigio and Pontormo, exerted all his energy to please that encourager of art, and to surpass his competitors. The other artists seem to have been discouraged, and did not proceed: some years after Alessandro Allori put a finishing hand to the hall. The royal palace possesses a treasure in the oil pictures of Andrea. Independent of the S. Francis, the Assumption, and other pictures, collected by the family of the Medici, the Grand Duke Leopold purchased a very fine Pietà from the nuns of Lugo, and placed it in the Tribune as an honour to the school. The introduction of S. Peter and S. Paul in that piece, contrary to historical facts, is not the error of the painter who represented them so admirably, but of those who commissioned the picture. Critics have remarked a slight defect in the dead Christ, which they think sustains itself more, and has a greater fulness of the veins, than is suitable to a dead body: but this is immaterial in a picture the other parts of which are designed, coloured, and composed, so as to excite astonishment. A Last Supper, if it were not confined to the cloisters of the monastery of S. Salvi, would, perhaps, be equally admired. The soldiers who besieged Florence in 1529, and destroyed the suburbs of the city, undoubtedly admired it: after demolishing the belfry, the church, and part of the monastery, they were astonished on beholding this Last Supper, and had not resolution to destroy it; imitating that Demetrius who, at the siege of Rhodes, is said to have respected nothing but a picture by Protegenes.[170]