Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta, who adopted Raffaello's style, may be enumerated among the scholars of that great man, from his felicitous imitation of their common master. In the Sala de' Regi, in the Vatican, he painted Pepin, King of France, bestowing Ravenna on the church, after having made Astolfo, King of the Lombards, his prisoner. But he approached Raffaello more closely in some of his oil pictures than in his frescos, as in the martyrdom of S. Lucia, in the church of S. Maria Maggiore; in the Transfiguration in Ara Cœli, and in the Nativity in the church della Pace, a subject which he repeated in the most graceful style in the church of Osimo. His masterpiece is in Ancona on the great altar in the church of S. Bartolommeo, a vast composition, original and rich in invention, and commensurate with the grandeur of the subject, and the multitude of saints that are introduced in it. The throne of the Virgin is seen above, amidst a brilliant choir of angels, and on either side a virgin saint in the attitude of adoration. To this height there is a beautiful ascent on each side, and the picture is thus divided into a higher and lower part, in the latter of which is the titular saint, a half naked figure vigorously coloured, together with S. Paul and two other saints, the whole in a truly Raffaellesque style. This altarpiece possesses so much harmony, and such a force of colour, that it is esteemed by some persons the best picture in the city. If any thing be wanting in it, it is perhaps a more correct observance of the perspective. Sermoneta did not paint many pictures for collections. He excelled in portrait painting.
A similar manner, though more laboured, and formed on the styles of Raffaello and Andrea del Sarto, was adopted by Scipione Pulzone da Gaeta, who was educated in the studio of Jacopino del Conte. He died young in his thirty-eighth year, but left behind him a great reputation, partly in the painting of portraits, of which he executed a great number for the popes and princes of his day, and with so much success, that by some he is called the Vandyke of the Roman School. He was a forerunner of Seybolt in the high finishing of the hair, and in representing in the pupil of the eye the reflexion of the windows, and other objects as minute and exact as in real life. He also painted some pictures in the finest style, as the Crucifixion in the Vallicella, and the Assumption in S. Silvestro at Monte Cavallo, a composition of chaste design, great beauty of colouring, and brilliant in effect. In the Borghese collection is a Holy Family by him, and in the gallery in Florence, a Christ praying in the garden; and in other places are to be found some of his cabinet pictures, deservedly held in high esteem.
Taddeo and Federigo Zuccaro have been called the Vasaris of this school; for as Vasari trod in the steps of Michelangiolo, so these artists professed to follow Raffaello. They were the sons of an indifferent painter of S. Angiolo in Vado, called Ottaviano Zuccaro, and came to Rome one after the other, and in the Roman state executed a vast number of works, some good, some indifferent, and others, when they allowed their pupils to take a share in them, absolutely bad. A salesman, who dealt in the pictures of these artists, was accustomed, like a retailer of merchandize, to ask his purchasers whether they wished for a Zuccaro of Holland, of France, or of Portugal; intimating by this that he possessed them of all qualities. Taddeo, who was the elder of the two, studied first under Pompeo da Fano, and afterwards with Giacomone da Faenza. From the latter and other good Italian artists, whom he assiduously studied, he acquired sufficient talent to distinguish himself. He adopted a style which, though not very correct, was unconstrained and engaging, and very attractive to such as do not look for grandeur of design. He may be compared to that class of orators who keep the attention of their hearers awake, not from the nature of their subject, but from the clearness of their language, and from their finding, or thinking they find, truth and nature in every word. His pictures may be called compositions of portraits; the heads are beautiful, the hands and feet not negligently painted, nor yet laboured, as in the Florentine manner; the dress and ornaments, and form of the beard, are agreeable to the times; the disposition is simple, and he often imitates the old painters in shewing on the canvass only half figures in the foreground, as if they were on a lower plain. He often repeated the same countenance, and his own portrait. In his hands, feet, and the folds of his drapery, he is still less varied, and not unfrequently errs in his proportions.
In Rome are vast works of Taddeo, in fresco, and amongst the best may be ranked the history of the Evangelists, in the church of the Consolazione. He left few pictures in oil. There is a Pentecost by him in the church of the Spirito Santo in Urbino, which city also possesses some other of his works, though not in his best style. He is most pleasing in his small cabinet pictures, which are finished in the first style of excellence. One of the best of these, formerly possessed by the Duke of Urbino, is now in the collection of the noble family of Leopardi, in Osimo. It is a Nativity of our Lord, in Taddeo's best manner, but none of his productions have added so much to his celebrity as the pictures in the Farnese Palace of Caprarola, which were engraved by Preninner in 1748. They represent the civil and military history of the illustrious family of the Farnesi. There occur also other subjects, sacred and profane, of which the most remarkable is the Stanza del Sonno, the subject of which was executed in a highly poetical manner, from the suggestions of Caro in a delightful letter, which was circulated among his friends, and is reprinted in the Lettere Pittoriche, (tom. iii. l. 99). Strangers who visit Caprarola, often return with a higher opinion of this artist than they carried with them. It is true that a number of young artists, fully his equal, or perhaps superior to him, were employed there, both in conjunction with him and after his death, whose works ought not to be confounded with his, though it is not always easy to distinguish them. Like Raffaello, he died at the age of thirty-seven, and his monument is to be seen at the side of that illustrious master in the Rotunda.
Federigo, his brother and scholar, resembled him in style, but was not equal to him in design, having more mannerism than Taddeo, being more addicted to ornament, and more crowded in his composition. He was engaged to finish in the Vatican, in the Farnese Palace, in the church of La Trinità de' Monti, and other places, the various works which his brother had left incomplete at his death; and he thus succeeded, as it were, to the inheritance of his own house. He had the reputation of possessing a noble style, and was invited by the Grand Duke Francis I. to paint the great dome of the metropolitan church at Florence, which was commenced by Vasari, and left unfinished at his death. Federigo in that task designed more than three hundred figures, fifty feet in height, without mentioning that of Lucifer, so gigantic that the rest appeared like children, for so he informs us, adding, that they were the largest figures that the world had ever seen.[[61]] But there is little to admire in this work except the vastness of the conception,[[62]] and in the time of Pier da Cortona, there was an intention of engaging that artist to substitute for it a composition of his own, had not the apprehension that his life might not be long enough to finish it, frustrated the design. After the painting of this dome, every work on a large scale in Rome was assigned to Federigo, and the Pope engaged him to paint the vault of the Paolina, and thus give the last touch to a work commenced by Michelangiolo. About this period, in order to revenge himself on some of the principal officers of the Pope who had treated him with indignity, he painted, and exposed to public view, an allegorical picture of Calumny,[[63]] in which he introduced the portraits of all those persons who had given him offence, representing them with asses' ears. His enemies, on this, made such complaints, that he was compelled to quit the dominions of the Pope. He therefore left Rome and visited Flanders, Holland, and England, and was afterwards invited to Venice to paint the submission of the Emperor Federigo Barbarossa to Pope Alexander III., in the Palazzo Pubblico, and he was there highly esteemed and constantly employed. The Pontiff being by this time appeased, Federigo returned to finish the work he had left imperfect, and which is perhaps the best of all he executed in Rome, without the assistance of his brother. The larger picture also of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, and that of the Angels in the Gesù, and other of his works in various churches, are not deficient in merit. Federigo built for himself a house in the Monte Pincio, and decorated it with pictures in fresco, portraits of his own family, conversazioni, and many novel and strange subjects, which he painted with the assistance of his scholars, and at little expense; but on this occasion more than on any other, he appears an indifferent artist, and may be called the champion of mediocrity.
Federigo was afterwards invited to Madrid by Philip II.; but that monarch not being satisfied with his works, they were effaced, and their places supplied by Tibaldi, and he himself, with an adequate pension, was sent back to Italy. He undertook another journey late in life, visiting the principal cities of Italy, and leaving specimens of his art in every place where he was called to exercise his talents. One of the best of these is an Assumption of the Virgin, in an Oratory of Rimino, on which he inscribed his name, and the Death of the Virgin, at S. Maria in Acumine, with some figures of the Apostles, more finished than usual with him. A simple and graceful style is observable in his Presepio, in the cathedral of Foligno, and in two pictures from the life of the Virgin, in a chapel of Loreto, painted for the Duke of Urbino. The Cistercian monks, at Milan, possess two large pictures in their library on the Miracle della Neve, with a numerous assemblage of figures, the countenances in his usual lively manner, the colouring varied and well preserved. In the Borromei college, in Pavia, is a saloon painted in fresco, with subjects from the life of S. Carlo. The most admired of these is the saint at prayer in his retirement; the other pieces, the Consistory in which was his chapel, and the Plague of Milan, would be much better, if the figures were fewer. He returned to Venice, where his great picture remained, and which had not been so much injured by time, as by a sarcasm of Boschini on certain sugar [Zucchero] of very poor quality lately imported into Venice, in consequence of which he retouched his work, and wrote on it, by way of a memorial, Federicus Zuccarus f. an. sal. 1582, perfecit an. 1603. It is one of his best works, copious, and, agreeably to Zanetti, beautiful and well sustained. He then went to Turin, where he painted a S. Paul, for the Jesuits, and began to ornament a gallery for Charles Emanuel, Duke of Savoy; and it was in that city that he first published La idea de' Pittori, Scultori, e Architetti, which he dedicated to the Duke. He afterwards returned into Lombardy, where he composed two other works, the one intitled La Dimora di Parma del Sig. Cav. Federigo Zuccaro: the other, Il Passaggio per Italia colla dimora di Parma del Sig. Cav. Federigo Zuccaro, both printed in Bologna, in 1608. In the following year, on his return to his native place, he fell sick in Ancona, where he died. Baglione admired the versatility of talent in this artist, which extended to sculpture and architecture; but more than all he admired his good fortune, in which he exceeded all his contemporaries. This distinction he owed in a great measure to his personal qualities, to his noble presence, his encouragement of letters, his quality of attaching persons to him, and his liberality, which led him to expend in a generous manner the large sums he derived from his works.
He appears to have written with the intention of rivalling and excelling Vasari. Whatever was the cause, Vasari was disliked by him, as may be gathered from the notes to his Lives, occasionally cited by the annotator of the Roman edition; and is charged by him with spleen and malignity, particularly in the life of Taddeo Zuccaro. In order to excel Vasari, it seems he chose an abstruse mode of writing, in opposition to the plain style of that author. The whole work, printed in Turin, is involved in its design, and instead of precepts, contains speculative metaphysical opinions, which tend more to raise disputes than to convey information. The language is incongruous and affected, and even the very titles to the chapters are interwoven with many absurdities, as that of the 12th, Che la filosofia e il filosofare è disegno Metaforico similitudinario. This style may perhaps impose on the ignorant, but cannot deceive the learned.[[64]] The latter do not esteem a writer for pedantic expressions adopted from the Greek and Latin authors; but for a correct mode of definition, for an accuracy of analysis, for a sagacity in tracing effects to their true causes, and for a manner strictly adapted to the subject. These qualities are not to be found in the works of Federigo, where we find philosophical expressions mingled with puerile reflections, as in the etymology of the word disegno, which after much circumlocution, he informs us, owes its derivation to Segno di Dio; and instead of affording any instructive maxims to youth, he presents them with a mass of sterile and ill directed speculations. Hence we may be said to derive more information from a single page of Vasari, than from this author's whole work. Both Mariette and Bottari have shewn the little esteem in which they held this work, by their correspondence, inserted in the 6th volume of the Lettere Pittoriche. Nor are his other two works of greater utility, one of which contains some arguments in the same style, which are proposed as a theme for disputation in the Academy of the Innominati, in Parma.
It is generally thought that this treatise of Zuccaro was composed in Rome, where he presided in the Academy of S. Luke. That academy was instituted in the pontificate of Gregory XIII., who signed the brief for its foundation at the instance of Muziano, as Baglione relates in the life of that artist. He further states, that when the ancient church of S. Luke, on the Esquiline, was demolished, the seat I believe of the society of painters, the church of S. Martina was allotted to them, at the foot of the Campidoglio. But this brief does not seem to have been used until the return of Zuccaro from Spain, as according to the same writer, it was he who put it in execution. And this must have occurred in 1595, if the year which was celebrated by the painters of S. Luke in 1695, was the true centenary of the Academy. But the origin of the institution may be dated, agreeably to some persons, from the month of November, 1593, as mentioned by the Sig. Barone Vernazza, who, among the first promoters, or members, includes the Piedmontese Arbasia, on the relation of Romano Alberti. Baglione says that Federigo was declared president by common consent; and that that day was a sort of triumph to him, as he was accompanied on his return home by a company of artists and literary persons; and in a little time afterwards he assigned a saloon in his own house for the use of the academy. He wrote both in poetry and in prose in the Academy of S. Luke, which is referred to more than once in his greater work. He evinced an extraordinary affection for this institution, and according to the example of Muziano, he named it the heir of his estate, in the event of the extinction of his family. He was succeeded in the presidency by Laureti, and a series of eminent artists down to our own time. The sittings of the academy have now for a long time past been fixed in a house contiguous to the church of S. Martina, which is decorated with the portraits and works of its members. The picture of S. Luke, by Raffaello, is there religiously preserved, together with his own portrait; and there too is to be seen the skull of Raffaello, in a casket, the richest spoil ever won by death from the empire of art. Of this academy we shall speak further towards the conclusion of this third book. We will now return to Federigo.
The school of this artist received distinction from Passignano and other scholars, elsewhere mentioned by us. To these we may add Niccolo da Pesaro, who painted in the church of Ara Cœli; but whose best piece is a Last Supper in the church of the sacrament at Pesaro. It is a picture so well conceived and harmonized, and so rich in pictorial ornament, that Lazzarini has descanted on it in his lectures as one of the first of the city. It is said that Baroccio held this artist in great esteem. Baglione commended him for his early works, but it must be confessed that he did not persevere in his first style, and fell into an insipid manner, whence he suffered both in reputation and fortune. Another artist of Pesaro, instructed by Zuccaro, was Gio. Giacomo Pandolfi, whose works are celebrated in his native city, and do not yield the palm to those of Federigo, as the picture of S. George and S. Carlo in the Duomo. He ornamented the whole chapel in the Nome di Dio, with a variety of subjects in fresco, from the Old and New Testament; but as he was then become infirm from age and the gout, they did not add much to his fame. His greatest merit was the instilling good principles into Simon Canterini, of whom, as well as of the Pesarese artists his followers, we shall write at large in the school of Bologna. One Paolo Cespede, a Spaniard, called in Rome Cedaspe, also received his education from Zuccaro. He commenced his career in Rome, and excited great expectations from some pictures in fresco, which are still to be seen at the church of Trinità de' Monti, and other places. He had adopted a natural style, and was in a way to rise in his profession, when he obtained an ecclesiastical benefice in his native country, and retired to reside upon it. Marco Tullio Montagna accompanied Federigo to Turin as an assistant; and a small picture of S. Saverio and other saints in a church of that city, generally attributed to the school of Zuccaro, is probably by him. He painted in Rome in the church of S. Niccolo in Carcere, in the vaults of the Vatican, and in many other places, in a tolerable style, but nothing more.
After the above named artists a crowd of contemporaries present themselves, more particularly those who had the direction of the works under Gregory XIII. The Sala de' Duchi was entrusted to Lorenzino of Bologna, who was invited to Rome from his native city, where he enjoyed the reputation of an excellent painter, and deservedly so, as we shall see in his place. He undertook the decoration of the gallery of the Vatican, which, from the vast size of that building, forms a boundless field of art. Niccolò Circignani, or delle Pomarance, already mentioned in the first book, distributed the work amongst a number of young artists, who there painted historical subjects, landscapes, and arabesques. The Pope was desirous that the walls also should serve the cause of science, and ordered the compartments to be adorned with geographical delineations of ancient and modern Italy, a task which was assigned to Padre Ignazio Danti, a Domenican, a mathematician and geographer of his court, and who was afterwards promoted to the bishopric of Alatri. Ignazio was born in Perugia, of a family devoted to the fine arts, and had two brothers, painters; Girolamo, of whom there remain some works in S. Pietro, on the model of Vasari; and Vincenzio, who in Rome assisted Ignazio, and there died, and was a good fresco painter. Another grand work was also undertaken about this time, which was the continuation of the gallery of Raffaello, in an arm of the building contiguous to it, where, in conformity to the plan of Raffaello, it was intended to paint four subjects in every arcade, all from the New Testament. Roncelli, the scholar of Circignano, our notice of whom we shall reserve to a subsequent epoch, was charged with the execution of this plan, but was himself subject to the direction of Padre Danti, experience having shewn that the entire abandonment of a design to the direction of practical artists is injurious to its execution, as there are few that, in the choice of inferior artists, are not governed by influence, avarice, or jealousy. The selection, therefore, was reserved to Danti, who to an excellent practical knowledge of the art of design, united moral qualities that insured success: and under his direction the whole work was regulated and conducted in such a manner, that the spirit of Raffaello seemed to be resuscitated in the precincts of the Vatican. But the hand was no longer the same, and the imbecility which was apparent in the new productions, when compared with the old, betrayed the decline of the art, though we occasionally meet with subjects by Tempesti, Raffaellino da Reggio, the younger Palma, and Girolamo Massei, which reflect a ray of honour on the age.