Passignano was at Rome many times, without, however, leaving there any scholars, at least of any name. We may indeed mention Vanni, and he left there, too, a Gio. Antonio, and a Gio. Francesco del Vanni, who are mentioned in the Guida di Roma. The school of Cigoli produced two Roman artists of considerable reputation; Domenico Feti, who distinguished himself in Mantua, and Gio. Antonio Lelli, who never left his native place. They painted more frequently in oil, and for private collections, than in fresco, or in churches. Of the first, no public work remains except the two Angels at S. Lorenzo in Damaso; of the second some pictures, and some histories on the walls, among which the Visitation in the choir of the Minerva is much praised.
Comodi and Ciarpi are said to have been the successive masters of Pietro di Cortona; and on that account, and from his birthplace, he has by many been placed in the school of Florence; although others have assigned him to that of Rome. It is true, indeed, that he came hither at the age of fourteen only, bringing with him from Tuscany little more than a well-disposed genius; and he here formed himself into an excellent architect, and as a painter became the head of a school distinguished for a free and vigorous style, as we have mentioned in our first book. Whoever wishes to observe how far he carried this style in fresco, and in large compositions, must inspect the Sala Barberina in Rome; although the Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, presents us with works more elegant, more beautiful, and more studied in parts. Whoever, too, wishes to see how far he carried it in his altarpieces, must inspect the Conversion of S. Paul at the Capucins in Rome, which, placed opposite the S. Michael of Guido, is, nevertheless, the admiration of those who do not object to a variety of style in art: nor am I aware that we should reject this principle in what we designate the fine arts; as it is invariably acknowledged in eloquence, in poetry, and history, where we find Demosthenes and Isocrates, Sophocles and Euripides, and Thucydides and Xenophon, equally esteemed, though all dissimilar in style.
The works of Pietro in Rome, and in the states of the church, are not at all rare. They are to be found also in other states of Italy, and those pieces are the most attractive in which he had the greatest opportunity of indulging his love of architecture. His largest compositions, which might dismay the boldest copyist, are S. Ivo at the Sapienza of Rome, and the S. Charles in the church of that saint, at Catinari, in the act of relieving the infected. The Preaching of S. James in Imola, in the church of the Domenicans, is also on a vast scale. The Virgin attended by S. Stephen, the Pope, and other saints in S. Agostino, in Cortona, is a picture of great research, and is considered one of his best performances. There is an enchanting picture of the Birth of the Virgin, in the Quirinal palace; and the Martyrdom of S. Stephen, at S. Ambrogio, in Rome, and Daniel in the Den of Lions, in the church of that saint, in Venice, are most beautiful works, superior to those of most of his competitors in this school, in regard to composition, and equal to them in colour. His historical subjects are not met with in the galleries of the Roman nobility. In that of the Campidoglio, is the battle between the Romans and the Sabines, full of picturesque spirit; and in possession of the Duke Mattei, is the Adultery, half figures, more studied and more highly finished than was customary with him. This brief notice of him may suffice for the present. Of the scholars whom he formed in the Roman School, I shall speak more opportunely in the subsequent epoch.
At this period we find three Veronese artists, Ottini, Bassetti, and Turchi, studying in Rome; and we shall speak of them more at length in the Venetian School. The first returned home without executing any public work. The second left, in the church dell'Anima, in Rome, two pictures in fresco, the Birth, and the Circumcision of Christ. The third, known under the name of Orbetto, took up his residence, and died in that capital; but I am not aware that he left there any disciples of merit, except some of his own countrymen, who returned to their native place. This engaging and elegant painter, who possessed great originality and beauty of colour, worked still more in Verona than in Rome, and we ought to see his works in the former city, in order justly to appreciate them. But he is not on that account held in the less esteem in Rome for his cabinet pictures, which are highly prized, as the Sisara de' Colonnesi, and for his scriptural subjects, as the Flight into Egypt, in the church of S. Romualdo, and the S. Felice Cappuccino, at the Conception, where, as we before observed, the Barberini family employed the most eminent artists.
Many other Italians worked in Rome in the time of the Caracci, but their schools, as well as the places of their birth, are uncertain; and of these, in a city so abounding in pictures, a slight notice will suffice. In the Guida di Roma, we find only a single notice of Felice Santelli, a Roman, in the church of the P. P. Spagnuoli del Riscatto Scalzi, where he painted in competition with Baglione; he is a painter full of truth, and one of his pictures in Viterbo, in the church of S. Rosa, is inscribed with his name. In Baglione, we read of Orazio Borgianni, a Roman, the rival of Celio, and we find pictures and portraits by him in a good natural style. Gio. Antonio Spadarino, of the family of Galli, painted in S. Peter's, a S. Valeria, with such talent, that Orlandi complains of the silence of biographers respecting him. He had a fellow disciple in Matteo Piccione, of the March, and Titi mentions their peculiar style. Nor is Grappelli much known, whose proper name or country I cannot accurately ascertain; but his Joseph Recognized, which is painted in fresco, in the Casa Mattei, commands our admiration. Mattio Salvucci, who obtained some reputation in Perugia, came to Rome, and although he was graciously received by the Pope, yet, from his inconstant temper, he did not remain there, nor does Pascoli, his fellow countrymen and biographer, mention any authentic pictures by him. Domenico Rainaldi, nephew of the architect, Cav. Carlo Rainaldi, who was employed by Alexander VII., is mentioned in the Roman Guida, as also Giuseppe Vasconio, praised too by Orlandi. In the same description of books, and particularly in those which treat of the pictures of Perugia, mention is made in this epoch of the Cav. Bernardino Gagliardi, who was domiciled for many years in that city, though born in Città di Castello. Although a scholar of Avanzino Nucci, he adopted a different style, after having seen in his travels the best works of every school of Italy, from Rome to Turin. In historical composition he particularly followed the Caracci and Guido, but in what I have seen of him, both in his own and his adopted city, he appears exceedingly various. The noble house of Oddi, in Perugia, amongst some feeble productions of his, have a Conversazione of young people, half figures, and truly beautiful. In the Duomo of Castello is a Martyrdom of S. Crescenziano, a picture of fine effect, though inferior in other respects. He there appears more studied and more select in the two pictures of the young Tobias, which are included among his superior works. His best is perhaps the picture of S. Pellegrino, with its accompaniments, in the church of S. Marcello in Rome. I do not recollect any other provincial painters of this period whom I have not assigned to one or other of the various masters.
A more arduous task than recording the names of the Italian artists now awaits us in the enumeration of strangers. About the beginning of the century Peter Paul Rubens came young to Rome, and left some oil pictures at the Vallicella, and in S. Croce in Gerusalemme. Not many years afterwards Antonio Vandyck arrived there also, with an intention of remaining for a long period; but many of his fellow countrymen, who were there studying, became offended at his refusing to join them in their convivial tavern parties and dissipated mode of life; he in consequence left Rome. Great numbers too of that nation who professed the lower school of art, remained in Italy for a considerable period, and some are mentioned in their classes. Others were employed in the churches of Rome, and the ecclesiastical state. The master is unknown who painted at S. Pietro in Montorio, the celebrated Deposition, which is recommended to students, as a school of colour in itself; by some he is called Angiolo Fiammingo. Of Vincenzio Fiammingo there is at the Vallicella a picture of the Pentecost; of Luigi Gentile, from Brussels, the picture of S. Antonio at S. Marco, and others in various churches in Rome; he painted also at the church of the Capucins, at Pesaro, a Nativity and a S. Stephen, pictures highly finished and of a beautiful relief. He executed others at Ancona, and in various cities, with his usual taste, which is still more to be admired in his easel pictures. He excelled, says Passeri, who was very sparing in his praise of artists, in small compositions; since besides finishing them with great diligence, he executed them in an engaging style, and he concludes with the further encomium, that he equalled, if not surpassed, most artists in portrait painting.
About the year 1630, Diego Velasquez, the chief ornament of Spanish art, studied in Rome and remained there for a year. He afterwards returned thither under the pontificate of Innocent X., whose portrait he painted, in a style which was said to be derived from Domenico Greco, instructed by Titian, at the court of Spain. Velasquez renewed in this portrait the wonders which are recounted of those of Leo X. by Raffaello, and of Paul III. by Titian; for this picture so entirely deceived the eye as to be taken for the Pope himself. At this time too a number of excellent German artists were employed in Rome, as Daniel Saiter, whom I shall notice in the school of Piedmont, and the two Scor, Gio. Paolo, called by Taja, Gian. Paolo Tedesco, whose Noah's Ark, painted in the Quirinal palace, has excited the most enthusiastic encomiums; and Egidio, his brother, who worked there for a considerable time in the gallery of Alexander VII. There were also in Rome Vovet, as we have observed, and the two Mignards, Nicolas, an excellent artist, and Pierre, who had the surname of Romano, and who left some beautiful works at S. Carlino and other places; and a master who claims more than a brief notice, Nicolas Poussin, the Raffaello of France.
Bellori, who has written the Life of Poussin, introduces him to Rome in 1624, and informs us that he was already a painter, and had formed his style more after the prints of Raffaello than the instruction of his masters. At Rome he improved, or rather changed his style, and acquired another totally different, of which he may be considered the chief. Poussin has left directions for those who come to study the art in Rome: the remains of antiquity afforded him instruction which he could not expect from masters. He studied the beautiful in the Greek statues, and from the Meleager of the Vatican (now ascertained to be a Mercury) he derived his rule of proportions. Arches, columns, antique vases, and urns, were rendered tributary to the decoration of his pictures. As a model of composition, he attached himself to the Aldobrandine Marriage; and from that, and from basso-relievos, he acquired that elegant contrast, that propriety of attitude, and that fear of crowding his picture, for which he was so remarkable, being accustomed to say, that a half figure more than requisite was sufficient to destroy the harmony of a whole composition.
Leonardo da Vinci, from his sober and refined style of colour, could not fail to please him; and he decorated that master's work Su la Pittura with figures designed in his usual fine taste. He followed him in theory and emulated him in practice. He adopted Titian's style of colour, and the famous Dance of Boys, which was formerly in the Villa Lodovisi, and is now in Madrid, taught him to invest with superior colours the engaging forms of children, in which he so much excelled. It should seem that he soon abandoned his application to colouring, and his best coloured pictures are those which he painted on first coming to Rome. He was apprehensive lest his anxiety on that head might distract his attention from the more philosophical part of his picture, to which he was singularly attentive; and to this point he directed his most serious and assiduous care. Raffaello was his model in giving animation to his figures, in expressing the passions with truth, in selecting the precise moment of action, in intimating more than was expressed, and in furnishing materials for fresh reflection to whoever returns a second and a third time to examine his well conceived and profound compositions. He carried the habit of philosophy in painting even further than Raffaello, and often executed pictures, whose claim to our regard is the poetical manner in which their moral is inculcated. Thus, in that at Versailles, which is called Memoria della morte, he has represented a group of youths, and a maid visiting the tomb of an Arcadian shepherd, on which is inscribed the simple epitaph, "I also was an Arcadian."
He did not owe this elegant expression of sentiment to his genius alone, but was indebted for it, as well to the perusal of the first classic authors, as the conversation of literary men, and his intercourse with scholars. He deferred much to the Cav. Marini, and might do so with advantage where poetry was not concerned. In the art of modelling, in which he excelled, he accomplished himself under Fiammingo; he consulted the writings of P. Zaccolini for perspective; he studied the naked figure in the academy of Domenichino and in that of Sacchi; he made himself acquainted with anatomy; he exercised himself in copying the most beautiful landscapes from nature, in which he acquired an exquisite taste, which he communicated to his relative Gaspar Dughet, of whom we shall speak in a short time. I think it may be asserted without exaggeration, that the Caracci improved the art of landscape painting, and that Poussin brought it to perfection.[[81]] His genius was less calculated for large than small figures, and he has generally painted them a palm and a half, as in the celebrated sacraments, which were in the Casa Boccapaduli: sometimes of two or three palms size, as in the picture of the Plague in the Colonna gallery, and elsewhere. Other pictures of his are seen in Rome, as the Death of Germanicus in the Barberini palace, the Triumph of Flora in the Campidoglio, the Martyrdom of S. Erasmus, in the Pope's collection at Monte Cavallo, afterwards copied in mosaic in S. Peter's. Although he had established himself in Rome, he afterwards left that city for Paris, where he was appointed first painter to the court; after two years time, however, he again returned to Rome, but had his appointment confirmed, and, though absent, enjoyed the same place and stipend. He remained in Rome for twenty three years, and there closed his days. It is not long since his bust in marble, with an appropriate eulogy, was placed in the church of the Rotonda, at the suggestion and generous expense of the Sig. Cav. d'Agincourt.