Albano too, here deserves a conspicuous place as a master of the Roman School. Giambatista Speranza, a Roman, learned from him the principles of the art, and became a fresco painter of the best taste in Rome. If we inspect his works at S. Agostino, and S. Lorenzo in Lucina, and in other places where he painted religious subjects, we immediately perceive that his age is not that of the Zuccari, and that the true style of fresco still flourished. From Albano too, and from Guercino, Pierfrancesco Mola di Como derived that charming style, which partook of the excellences of both these artists. He renounced the principles of Cesari, who had instructed him for many years; and after having diligently studied colouring at Venice, he attached himself to the school of the Caracci, but more particularly to Albano. He never, however, equalled his master in grace, although he had a bolder tone of colour, greater invention, and more vigour of subject. He died in the prime of life whilst preparing for his journey to Paris, where he was appointed painter to the court. Rome possesses many of his pictures, particularly in fresco, in the churches; and in the Quirinal palace, is Joseph found by his Brethren, which is esteemed a most beautiful piece. There are also many of his pictures to be found in private collections; and in his landscapes, in which he excelled, it is doubted whether the figures are by him or Albano. He had in Rome three pupils, who, aspiring to be good colourists, frequented the same fountains of art as their master had done, and travelled through all Italy. They were Antonio Gherardi da Rieti, who on the death of Mola frequented the school of Cortona; and painted in many churches in Rome with more despatch than elegance;[[76]] Gio. Batista Boncuore, of Abruzzo, a painter in a grand though somewhat heavy style;[[77]] and Giovanni Bonatti, of Ferrara, whom we shall reserve for his native school.
Virgilio Ducci, of Città di Castello, is little known among the scholars of Albano, though he does not yield to many of the Bolognese in the imitation of their common master. Two pictures of Tobias, in a chapel of the Duomo, in his native place, are painted in an elegant and graceful style. An Antonio Catalani, of Rome, is mentioned to us by Malvasia, and with him Girolamo Bonini, of Ancona, the intimate friend of Albani. These artists resided in Bologna, and were employed there, as we shall see in our history of that school. Of the second we are told that he painted both in Venice and in Rome; and Orlandi praises his works in the Sala Farnese, which either no longer exist, or are neglected to be mentioned in the Guida of Titi.
Lastly, from the studio of Albani issued Andrea Sacchi, after its chief the best colourist of the Roman School, and one of the most celebrated in design, in the practice of which he continued until his death. Profoundly skilled in the theory of art, he was yet slow in the execution. It was a maxim with him that the merit of a painter does not consist in giving to the world a number of works of mediocrity, but a few perfect ones; and hence his pictures are rare. His compositions do not abound with figures, but every figure appears appropriate to its place; and the attitudes seem not so much chosen by the artist, as regulated by the subject itself. Sacchi did not, indeed, shun the elegant, though he seems born for the grand style—grave miens, majestic attitudes, draperies folded with care and simplicity; a sober colouring, and a general tone, which gave to all objects a pleasing harmony, and a grateful repose to the eye. He seems to have disdained minuteness, and, after the example of many of the ancient sculptors, to have left some part always unfinished; so at least his admirers assert. Mengs expresses himself differently, and says, that Sacchi's principle was to leave his pictures, as it were, merely indicated, and to take his ideas from natural objects, without giving them any determinate form: on this matter the professors of the art must decide. His picture of S. Romualdo surrounded by his monks, is ranked among the four best compositions in Rome; and the subject was a difficult one to treat, as the great quantity of white in the vestures tends to produce a sameness of colour. The means which Sacchi adopted on this occasion have always been justly admired. He has placed a large tree near the foreground, the shade of which serves to break the uniformity of the figures, and he thus introduced a pleasing variety in the monotony of the colours. His Transito di S. Anna at S. Carlo a' Catinari, his S. Andrea in the Quirinal, and his S. Joseph at Capo alle Case, are also beautiful pictures. Perugia, Foligno, and Camerino, possess altarpieces by him which are the boast of these cities. He enjoyed the reputation of an amiable and learned instructor. One of his lectures, communicated by his celebrated scholar, Francesco Lauri, may be read in the life of that artist, written by Pascoli, who, as I have before remarked, collected the greater part of his information from the old painters in Rome. He has probably engrafted on them some sentiments either of his own or of others, as often happens in a narrative when the related facts are founded more in probability than in certainty; but the maxims there inculcated by Sacchi are worthy of an artist strongly attached to the true, the select, and the grand; and who, to give dignity to his figures, seems to have had his eyes on the precepts of Quintilian respecting the action of his orator. He had a vast number of scholars, among whom we may reckon Giuseppe Sacchi, his son, who became a conventual monk, and painted a picture in the sacristy, in the church of the Apostles. But his most illustrious disciple was Maratta, of whom, and of whose scholars, we shall speak in another epoch.
We find a follower of the Caracci, though we know not of what particular master, in Giambatista Salvi, called from the place in which he was born, Sassoferrato,[[78]] and whom we shall notice further when we speak of Carlo Dolci, and his very devotional pictures. This artist excelled Dolci in the beauty of his Madonnas, but yielded to him in the fineness of his pencil. Their style was dissimilar, Salvi having formed himself on other models; he first studied in his native place under Tarquinio, his father,[[79]] then in Rome and afterwards in Naples; it is not known precisely under what masters, except that in his MS. Memoirs we read of one Domenico. The period in which Salvi studied corresponds in a remarkable manner with the time in which Domenichino was employed in Naples, and his manner of painting shews that he adopted the style of that master, though not exclusively. I have seen in the possession of his heirs many copies from the first masters, which he executed for his own pleasure. I observed several of Albano, Guido, Barocci, Raffaello, reduced to a small size, and painted, as one may say, all in one breath. There are also some landscapes of his composition, and a vast number of sacred portraits; several of S. John the Baptist, but more than all of the Madonna. Though not possessing the ideal beauty of the Greeks, he has yet a style of countenance peculiarly appropriate to the Virgin, in which an air of humility predominates, and the simplicity of the dress and the attire of the head corresponds with the expression of the features, without at the same time lessening the dignity of her character. He painted with a flowing pencil, was varied in his colouring, had a fine relief and chiaroscuro; but in his local tints he was somewhat hard. He delighted most in designing heads with a part of the bust, which frequently occur in collections; his portraits are very often of the size of life, and of that size, or larger, is a Madonna, by him, with the infant Christ, in the Casali palace at Rome. The picture of the Rosario, that he painted at S. Sabina, is one of the smallest pictures in Rome. It is, however, well composed, and conducted with his usual spirit, and is regarded as a gem. In other places the largest picture by him which is to be seen, is an altarpiece in the cathedral of Montefiascone.
A follower of the Caracci also, though of an uncertain school, was Giuseppino da Macerata, whom a dubious tradition has assigned to Agostino. His works are to be seen in the two collegiate churches of Fabriano; an Annunciation, in oils, in S. Niccolò, and at S. Venanzio two chapels, painted in fresco, in one of which, where he represented the miracles of the apostles, he surpassed himself in the beauty of the heads and in the general composition; in other respects he is somewhat hasty and indecisive. Two of his works remain in his native place; at the Carmelites the Madonna in Glory, with S. Nicola and S. Girolamo on the foreground; and at the Capucins, S. Peter receiving the Keys. Both these pictures are in the Caracci style, but the second is most so; corresponding in a singular manner with one of the same subject which the Filippini of Fano have in their church, and which is an authentic and historical work of Guido Reni. The second, therefore, is probably a copy. There is written on it Joseph Ma. faciebat 1630, but the figures of the year are not very legible. Marcello Gobbi, and Girolamo Boniforti,[[80]] a tolerable good imitator of Titian, lived at this time in Macerata. Perugia presents us with two scholars of the Caracci, Giulio Cesare Angeli and Anton. Maria Fabrizzi, the one the pupil of Annibale in Rome, the other of Lodovico in Bologna. They were attracted by the fame of their masters, and secretly leaving their native place for about the space of twelve years, they obtained admission for some time into their school, if we may rely on Pascoli. Fabrizzi, who is also said to have worked under Annibale, does not shew great correctness; and the cause may be ascribed to his too ardent temperament, and the want of more mature instruction; for Annibale dying after three years, from a scholar he became a master, and was celebrated for his vigorous colouring, his composition, and the freedom of his pencil. Angeli was more remarkable for expression and colour than design, and excelled rather in the draped than in the naked figure. There is a vast work by him in fresco in the oratory of the church of S. Agostino in Perugia, and in part of it a limbo of saints, certainly not designed by the light of Lodovico's lamp, if indeed it ought not to be considered that this lunette is by another hand. This branch of the Bolognese School, which was constantly degenerating from the excellence of its origin, being at such a distance from Bologna as not to be able to be revivified by the pictures of the Caracci, still survived for a long time. Angeli instructed Cesare Franchi, who excelled in small pictures, which were highly prized in collections; and Stefano Amadei also, who was formed more on the Florentine School of that age than on the School of Bologna. Stefano was also attached to letters, and opened a school, and by frequent meetings and instructive lectures improved the minds of the young artists who frequented it. One of the most assiduous of these was Fabio, brother of the Duke of Cornia, of whom some works are mentioned in the Guida di Roma, and who entitled himself to a higher rank than that of a mere dilettante.
Besides the Bolognese, a number of Tuscans who were employed by Paul V. in the two churches of S. Peter and S. M. Maggiore, also contributed to the melioration of the Roman School; and some others who, deprived of that opportunity of distinguishing themselves, are yet memorable for the scholars they left behind them. Of the diocese of Volterra was Cristoforo Roncalli, called Il Cav. delle Pomarance, cursorily noticed by us among the Tuscans. I now place him in this school, because he both painted and taught for a considerable time in Rome; and I assign him to this epoch, not from the generality of his works, but from his best having been executed in it. He was the scholar of Niccolò delle Pomarance, for whom he worked much with little reward; and from his example he learnt to avail himself of the labour of others, and to content himself with mediocrity. Yet there are several pictures by him, in which he appears excellent, except that he too often repeats himself in his backgrounds, his foreshortened heads, and full and rubicund countenances. His style of design is a mixture of the Florentine and Roman. In his frescos he displayed fresh and brilliant colours; in his oil pictures, on the contrary, he adopted more sober tints, harmonized by a general tone of tranquillity and placidness. He frequently decorated these with landscapes gracefully disposed. Among his best labours is reckoned the death of Ananias and Sapphira, which is at the Certosa, and which was copied in mosaic in S. Peter's. Other mosaics also in the same church were executed after his cartoons, and in the Lateranense is his Baptism of Constantine, a grand historical composition. But his most celebrated work is the cupola of Loreto, very rich in figures, but injured by time, except some prophets, which are in a truly grand style. He painted considerably in the treasury of that church; and there are some histories of the Madonna not conducted with equal felicity, particularly in the perspective. He obtained this vast commission through the patronage of the Cardinal Crescenzi, in competition with Caravaggio, who, to gratify his revenge, hired an assassin to wound him in the face; and in rivalship too with Guido Reni, who retaliated in a more laudable manner, by proving his superiority by his works. Roncalli from this time was in great request in the cities of Picenum, which in consequence abound with his pictures. There is to be seen at the Eremitani at S. Severino, a Noli me tangere; at S. Agostino in Ancona, a S. Francis praying; and at S. Palazia in Osimo, a picture of a saint, one of his most finished productions. In the same city, in the Casa Galli, he painted di sotto in su the Judgment of Solomon; and this is perhaps the best fresco that he ever executed. He could vary his manner at will. There is an Epiphany in the possession of the Marquis Mancinforti in Ancona, quite in the style of the Venetian School.
There were two artists who approached this master in style, the Cav. Gaspare Celio, a Roman, and Antonio, the son of Niccolò Circignani. Celio was the pupil of Niccolò, according to Baglione, but of Roncalli, if we are to believe Titi. He designed and engraved antique statues, and painted in a commendable manner whilst young, after the designs of P. Gio. Bat. Fiammeri, at the Gesù, and at a more mature age after his own, in numerous churches. The S. Francis, on the altar of the Ospizio, at Ponte Sisto, is by him; and he also painted the history of S. Raimondo at the Minerva, and the Moses passing the Red Sea, in a vault of the Mattei gallery, where he competed with other first rate artists. Antonio is not well known in Rome, where he worked with his father, after whose death he decorated by himself a chapel at the Traspontina, another at the Consolazione, and painted also in private houses. Città di Castello, where he passed some of the best years of his life, possesses many of his pictures, and amongst the rest, that of the Conception, at the Conventuals, which may be called a mixture of Barocci and Roncalli, from whom he probably learned to improve the style he had inherited from his father.
The Cav. delle Pomarance instructed the Marchese Gio. Batista Crescenzi, who became a great patron of the fine arts, and who was so much skilled in them, that Paul V. appointed him superintendent of the works which he was carrying on in Rome; and Philip III., the Catholic, also availed himself of his services in the Escurial. He did not execute many works, and his chief talent lay in flower painting. His house was frequented by literary men, and particularly by Marino; he formed in it a gallery containing an extensive collection of pictures and drawings, of which he himself says, "I believe I may indeed safely affirm that there is not a prince in Europe that does not yield to me in this respect." (Lett. p. 89.) There the artists were always to be found, one of whom, his disciple, was called Bartolommeo del Crescenzi, of the family of Cavarozzi of Viterbo. He was a most correct artist, a follower first of Roncalli, and afterwards became the author of a captivating natural style. There exist many excellent pictures by him in collections, and in the church of S. Anna, a picture of that saint, executed, says Baglione, in his best taste, and with a vigorous pencil.
Among the scholars of Roncalli may also be ranked Giovanni Antonio, father of Luigi Scaramuccia, who also saw and imitated the Caracci. His works are often met with in Perugia. The spirit and freedom of his pencil are more commended than his tints, which are too dark, and which in the churches easily distinguish him amidst a crowd of other artists. It is probable that he used too great a quantity of terra d'ombra, like others of his day. Girolamo Buratti, of the same school, painted in Ascoli the beautiful picture of the Presepio at the Carità, and some subjects in fresco, highly commended by Orsini. Of Alessandro Casolani, who belongs to this master, we spoke in the Sienese School. With him, too, was included Cristoforo his son, who, with Giuseppe Agellio of Sorrento, may be ranked with the inferior artists.
Francesco Morelli, a Florentine, demands our notice only as having imparted the rudiments of the art to the Cav. Gio. Baglione of Rome. His pupil, however, did not remain with him for any length of time, but formed a style for himself from a close application to the works of the best masters, and was employed by Paul V., by the Duke of Mantua, and by persons of distinction. He is less vigorous in design and expression, than in colour and chiaroscuro. We meet with his works, not only in Rome, where he painted much, but also in several provincial towns, as the S. Stephen in the Duomo of Perugia, and the S. Catherine at the Basilica Loretana. In his colours he resembled Cigoli, but was far behind him in other respects. The picture which procured him great applause in the Vatican, the Resuscitation of Tabitha, is defaced by time; but both there and at the Cappella Paolina in S. Maria Maggiore, which was the most considerable work of Paul V., his pieces in fresco still remain, and are not unworthy of their age. He is not often found in collections, but in that of the Propaganda I saw a S. Rocco painted by him with great force of colour. He lived to a considerable age, and left behind him a compendium of the lives of professors of the fine arts, who had been his contemporaries in Rome from 1572 to 1642. He wrote in an unostentatious manner, and free from party spirit, and was on all occasions more disposed to commend the good than to censure the bad. Whenever I peruse him, I seem to hear the words of a venerable teacher, inclined rather to inculcate precepts of morals, than maxims on the fine arts. Of the latter, indeed, he is very sparing, and it would almost lead one to suppose that he had succeeded in his profession, more from a natural bias, and a talent of imitation, than from scientific principles and sound taste. It was, perhaps, in order that he might not be tied to treat of the art theoretically, and to write profoundly, that he distributed his work in five dialogues, in the course of which we do not meet with professors of art, but are introduced to a foreigner and to a Roman gentleman, who act the respective parts of master and scholar. Dialogues, indeed, were never composed in a more simple style, in any language. The two interlocutors meet in the cloisters of the Minerva, and after a slight salutation, one of them recounts the lives of the masters of the art, to the number of eighty, which are commenced, continued, and ended, in a style sufficiently monotonous, both as to manner and language; the other listens to this long narrative, without either interrupting or answering, or adding a word in reply: and thus the dialogue, or rather soliloquy, concludes, without the slightest expression of thanks on the part of the auditor, or even the ceremony of a farewell. We shall now return to the Tuscan scholars.