PREFACE.
When detached or individual histories become so numerous that they can neither be easily collected nor perused, the public interest requires a writer capable of arranging and embodying them in the form of a general historical narrative; not, indeed, by a minute detail of their whole contents, but by selecting from each that which appears most interesting and instructive. Hence it mostly happens, that the diffuse compositions of earlier ages are found to give place to compendiums, and to succinct history. If this desire has prevailed in former times, it has been, and now is, more especially the characteristic of our own. We live in an age highly favourable, in one sense at least, to the cultivation of intellect: the boundaries of science are now extended beyond what our forefathers could have hoped, much less foreseen; and we become anxious only to discover the readiest methods of obtaining a competent knowledge, at least, of several sciences, since it is impossible to acquire them all. On the other hand, the ages preceding ours, since the revival of learning, being more occupied about words than things, and admiring certain objects that now seem trivial to the generality of readers, have produced historical compositions, the separate nature of which demands combination, no less than their prolixity requires abridgment.
If these observations are applicable to other branches of history, they are especially so to the history of painting. Its materials are found ready prepared, scattered through numerous memoirs of artists of every school which, from time to time, have been given to the public: and additional articles are supplied by dictionaries of art, letters on painting, guides to several cities, catalogues of various collections, and by many tracts relating to different artists, which have been published in Italy. But these accounts, independent of want of connexion, are not useful to the generality of readers. Who, indeed, could form a just idea of painting in Italy by perusing the works of certain historians of latter ages, and some even of our own time, which abound in invectives, and in attempts to exalt favourite masters above the artists of all other schools; and which confer eulogies indiscriminately upon professors of first, second, or third-rate merit?[2] How few are there who feel interested in knowing all that is said of artists with so much verbosity by Vasari, Pascoli, or Baldinucci; their low jests, their amours, their private affairs, and their eccentricities? What do we learn by being informed of the jealousies of the Florentine artists, the quarrels of the Roman, or the boasts of the Bolognian schools? Who can endure the verbal accuracy with which their wills and testaments are recorded, even to the subscription of the notary, as if the author had been drawing up a legal document; or the descriptions of their stature and physiognomy, more minute than the ancients afford us of Alexander or Augustus?[3] Not that I object to the introduction of such particulars in the lives of the great luminaries of art: in a Raffaello or a Caracci minute circumstances derive interest from the subject; but how intolerable do they become in the life of an ordinary individual, where the principal incidents are but little interesting? Suetonius has not written the lives of his Cæsars and his grammarians in the same manner: the former he has rendered familiar to the reader; the latter are merely noticed and passed over.
The tastes of individuals, however, are different, and some people delight in minutiæ, as it regards both the present and the past; and since it may be of utility to those who may hereafter be inclined to give a very full and perfect history of every thing relating to Italian painting, let us view with indulgence those who have employed themselves in compiling lives so copious, and let those who have time to spare, beguile it with their perusal. At the same time, due regard should be paid to that very respectable class of readers, who, in a history of painting, would rather contemplate the artist than the man; and who are less solicitous to become acquainted with the character of a single painter, whose solitary and insulated history cannot prove instructive, than with the genius, the method, the invention, and the style of a great number of artists, with their characteristics, their merits, and their rank, the result of which is a history of the whole art.
To this object there is no one whom I know who has hitherto dedicated his pen, although it seems to be recommended no less by the passion indulged by princes for the fine arts, than by the general diffusion of a knowledge of them among all ranks. The habit of travelling, rendered more familiar to private persons by the example of many great sovereigns, the traffic in pictures, now become a branch of commerce important to Italy, and the philosophic genius of this age, which shuns prolixity in every study, and requires systematic arrangement, are additional incentives to the task. It is true that very pleasing and instructive biographical sketches of the most celebrated painters have been published by M. d'Argenville, in France; and various epitomes have since appeared, in which the style of painting alone is discussed.[4] But without taking into account the corruptions of the names of our countrymen in which their authors have indulged, or their omission of celebrated Italians, while they record less eminent artists of other countries, no work of this sort, and still less any dictionary, can afford us a systematic history of painting: none of these exhibit those pictures, if we may be allowed the expression, in which we may, at a glance, trace the progress and series of events; none of them exhibit the principal masters of the art in a sufficiently conspicuous point of view, while inferior artists are reduced to their proper size and station: far less can we discover in them those epochs and revolutions of the art, which the judicious reader most anxiously desires to know, as the source from which he may trace the causes that have contributed to its revival or its decline; or from which he may be enabled to recollect the series, and the arrangement of the facts narrated. The history of painting has a strong analogy to literary, to civil, and to sacred history; it too requires, from time to time, the aid of certain beacons, some particular distinction in regard to places, times, or events, that may serve to divide it into epochs, and mark its successive stages. Deprive it of these, and it degenerates, like other history, into a chaos of names more calculated to load the memory than to inform the understanding.
To supply this hitherto neglected branch of Italian history, to contribute to the advancement of the art, and to facilitate the study of the different styles in painting, were the three objects I proposed to myself when I began the work which I am now about to lay before the indulgent reader. My intention was to form a compendious history of all our schools, in two volumes; adopting, with little variation, Pliny's division of the country into Upper and Lower Italy. It was my design to comprehend in the first volume the schools of Lower Italy; because in it the reviving arts came earlier to maturity; and in the second to include the schools of Upper Italy, which were more tardy in attaining to celebrity. The first part of my work appeared at Florence in 1792: the second I was obliged to defer to another opportunity, and the succeeding years have so shaken my constitution, that I have scarcely been able to bring it to a conclusion, even with the assistance of many amanuenses and correctors of the press.[5] One advantage, however, has been derived from this delay; and that is, a knowledge of the opinion of the public, a tribunal from which no writer can appeal; and I have been thus enabled to prepare a new edition conformable to its decision.[6] I have understood through various channels, that an additional number of names and of notices were necessary to afford satisfaction to the public; and this I have accomplished, without abandoning my plan of a compendious history. Nor does the Florentine edition on this account become useless: it will even be preferred by many to that published at Bassano; the inhabitants, for instance, of Lower Italy will be pleased to possess a work on their most illustrious painters, without concerning themselves about accounts of other places.
To a new work, then, so much more extensive than the former, I prefix a preface almost entirely new. The plan is not wholly my own, nor altogether that of others. Richardson[7] suggested that some historian should collect the scattered remarks on art, especially on painting, and should point out its progress and decline through successive ages. He has not even omitted to give us a sketch, which he brought down to the time of Giordano. Mengs[8] accomplished the task more perfectly in the form of a letter, where he judiciously distinguished all the periods of the art, and has thus laid the foundations of a more enlarged history. Were I to follow their example, the chief masters of every school would be considered together, and we should be under the necessity of passing from one country to another, according as painting acquired a new lustre from their talents, or was debased by a wrong use of the great example of those artists. This method might be easily pursued, if the subject were to be treated in a general point of view, such as Pliny has considered and transmitted it to posterity; but it is not equally adapted to the arrangement of a history so fully particular as Italy seems to require. Besides the styles introduced by the most celebrated painters, such infinite diversities of a mixed character, often united with originality of manner, have arisen in every school, that we cannot easily reduce them to any particular standard: and the same artists at different periods, and in different pictures, have adopted styles so various, that at one time they appear imitators of Titian, at another of Raffaello, or of Correggio. We cannot, therefore, adopt the method of the naturalist, who having arranged the vegetable kingdom, for example, in classes more or less numerous, according to the systems of Tournefort or of Linnæus, can easily reduce a plant, wherever it may happen to grow, to a particular class, adding a name and description, at once precise, characteristic, and permanent. In a complete history it is necessary to distinguish each style from every other: nor do I know any more eligible method of performing this task, than by composing a separate history of each school. In this I follow Winckelmann, the best historian of ancient art in design, who specified as many different schools as the nations that produced them. A similar plan seems to me to have been pursued by Rollin, in his History of Nations, who has thus been enabled to record a prodigious mass of names and events within the compass of a few volumes, in the clearest order.
The method I follow in treating of each school is analogous to that prescribed to himself by Sig. Antonio Maria Zanetti,[9] in his Pittura Veneziana, a work of its kind highly instructive, and well arranged. What he has done, in speaking of his own, I have attempted in the other schools of Italy. I accordingly omit the names of living painters, and do not notice every picture of deceased artists, as it would interrupt the connexion of the narrative, and would render the work too voluminous, but content myself with commending some of their best productions. I first give a general character of each school; I then distinguish it into three, four, or more epochs, according as its style underwent changes with the change of taste, in the same way that the eras of civil history are deduced from revolutions in governments, or other remarkable events. A few celebrated painters, who have swayed the public taste, and given a new tone to the art, are placed at the head of each epoch; and their style is particularly described, because the general and characteristic taste of the age has been formed upon their models. Their immediate pupils, and other disciples of the school, follow their great masters; and without a repetition of the general character, reference is made to what each has borrowed, altered, or added to the style of the founder of the school, or at most such character is cursorily noticed. This method, though not susceptible of a strict chronological order, is, on account of the connexion of ideas, much better adapted to a history of art than an alphabetic arrangement, which too frequently interrupts the notices of schools and eras; or than the method pursued in annals, by which we are often compelled to make mention of the scholar before the master, should he survive the former; or that of separate lives, which introduces much repetition, by obliging the writer to bestow praises on the pupil for the same style which he also commends in the master, and to notice in each individual that which was the general character of the age in which he lived.
For the sake of perspicuity, I have generally separated from historical painters artists in inferior branches, such as painters of portraits, of landscape, of animals, of flowers and of fruit, of sea-pieces, of perspectives, of drolls, and all who merit a place in such classes. I have also taken notice of some arts which are analogous to painting, and though they differ from it in the materials employed, or the manner of using them, may still be included in the art; for example, engraving of prints, inlaid and mosaic work, and embroidering tapestry. Vasari, Lomazzo, and several other writers on the fine arts, have mentioned them; and I have followed their example; contenting myself with noticing, in each of those arts, only what has appeared most worthy of being recorded. Each might be the subject of a separate work; and some of them have long had their own peculiar historians, and in particular the art of engraving. By this method, in which I may boast such great examples, I am not without hopes of affording satisfaction to my readers. I am, however, more apprehensive in regard to my selection of artists; the number of whom, whatsoever method is adopted, may to some appear by far too limited, and to others too greatly extended. But criticism will not so readily apply to the names of the most illustrious artists, whom I have included, nor to those of very inferior character, whom I trust I have omitted; except a few that have some claim to be mentioned, from their connexion with celebrated masters.[10] The accusation then of having noticed some, and omitted others, will apply to me only on account of artists of a middle class, that can be neither well reckoned among the senate, the equestrian order, nor vulgar herd of painters; they constitute the class of mediocrity. The adjustment of limits is a frequent cause of legal contention; and the subject of art now under discussion, may be considered like a dispute concerning boundaries. It may often admit of doubt whether a particular artist approaches more nearly to the class of merit or of insignificance; which is, in other words, whether he should or should not obtain a place in a history of the art. Under such uncertainty, which I have several times encountered, I have more usually inclined to the side of lenity than of severity; especially when the artist has been noticed with a degree of commendation by former authors. We ought to bow to public opinion, which rarely blames us for noticing mediocrity, but frequently for passing it over in silence. Books on painting abound with complaints against Orlandi and Guarienti, for their omissions of certain artists. Still more frequently are authors censured, when the Guide to a city points out some altar-piece by a native artist, who is not named in our Dictionaries of Painting. The describers of collections repeat similar complaints in regard to every painting bearing the signature of an artist whose name appears in no work of art. Collectors of prints do the same when they discover the name of some designer, of whom history is silent, affixed to an engraving. Thus, were we to consult the opinion of the public, the majority would be inclined to recommend copiousness, rather than to express satisfaction at a more discriminating selection of names. Almost all artists and amateurs belonging to every city, would be desirous that I should commemorate as many of their second rate painters as possible; and our selection, therefore, in this respect, nearly resembles the exercise of justice, which is generally applauded as long as it visits only the dwellings of others, but is cried down by each individual when it knocks at his own door. Thus a writer who is bound to observe impartiality towards every city, can scarcely shew great severity to artists of mediocrity in any. This too is not without reason; for to pass mediocrity in silence may be the study of a good orator, but not the office of a good historian. Cicero himself, in his treatise De claris Oratoribus, has given a place to less eloquent orators, and it may be observed that, after this example, the literary history of every people does not merely include its most classic writers, and those who approached nearest to them; but it adds short and concise accounts of authors less celebrated; and in the Iliad, which is a history of the heroic age, there are a few eminent leaders, many valiant soldiers, and a prodigious crowd of others, whom the poet has transiently noticed. In our case, it is still more incumbent on the historian to give mediocrity a place along with the eminent and most excellent. Many books describe that class in terms so vague, and sometimes so discordant, that to form a proper estimate of their claims, we must introduce them among superior artists, as a sort of performers in third-rate parts. Such, however, I am not solicitous to exhibit very minutely, more especially when treating of painters in fresco, and generally of other artists, whose works are now unknown in collections, or add more to the bulk than the ornament of a gallery. Thus also in point of number, my work has maintained the character of a compendium: but if any of my readers, adopting the rigid maxim of Bellori, that, in the fine arts, as in poetry, mediocrity is not to be tolerated,[11] should disdain the middle class of artists, he must look for the heads of schools, and for the most eminent painters: to these he may dedicate his attention, and turn his regard from the others like one,