Francesco Michelangeli, called l'Aquilano, is known to posterity from a letter written by Luti himself, (Lett. Pitt. tom. vi. p. 278,) where the annotator informs us, that his master frequently employed him in copying his works, and that he died young. This notice is not without its use, as it acquaints us with the origin of the beautiful copies of Luti which are so frequently met with.
We may lastly notice an artist of mediocrity of this school, who is nevertheless said to be the painter of some beautiful pictures; the two pictures of S. Margaret, in Araceli; S. Gallicano, in the church of that saint; and the Nativity, in the church of the Infant Jesus. His name was Filippo Evangelisti, and he was chamberlain to the Cardinal Corradini, through whose influence he obtained many commissions. Being himself incapable of executing these well, (if we may rely on a letter in the Pittoriche) he engaged Benefial, whom we shall shortly notice, to assist him. They thus painted in partnership, the gain was divided between them, but the celebrity was the portion of the principal; and if any piece came out under the name of the assistant, it was rather censured than praised. The poor artist at last became impatient of this treatment, and disdaining any longer to support a character which did him no honour, he left his companion to work by himself; and it was then that Evangelisti, in his picture of S. Gregory, in the church of the Saints Peter and Marcellino, appeared in his true colours, and the public thus discovered that he was indebted to Benefial for genius as well as labour.
The school of Sacchi may boast of one of the first artists of the age in Francesco Lauri, of Rome, in whom his master flattered himself he had found a second Raffaello. The disciple himself, in order to justify the high expectation which the public had conceived of him, before opening a school in Rome, travelled through Italy, and from thence visited Germany, Holland, and Flanders, and resided for the space of a year in Paris; thus adding greatly to the funds of knowledge and experience already obtained by him in his native place. He was, however, cut off very early in life, leaving behind him, in the Sala de' Crescenzi, three figures of Goddesses painted in the vault in fresco; but no other considerable work, as far as my knowledge extends. This artist must not be confounded with Filippo, his brother, and scholar in his early years, who was afterwards instructed by Caroselli, who espoused his sister. He was not accustomed to paint large compositions; and the Adam and Eve, which are seen in the Pace, it should seem, he represented on so much larger a scale, lest any one should despise his talent, as only capable of small works, on which he was always profitably employed. We meet with cabinet pictures by him in the Flemish style, touched with great spirit, and coloured in good taste, evincing a fund of lively and humorous invention. He sometimes painted sacred subjects, and at S. Saverio, in the collection of the late Monsignor Goltz, I saw an enchanting picture by him, a perfect gem, and greatly admired by Mengs. He painted in the Palazzo Borghese some beautiful landscapes in fresco, in which branch his family was already celebrated, as his father, Baldassare, of Flanders, who had been a scholar of Brill, and lived in Rome in the time of Sacchi, was ranked among the eminent landscape painters, and is commemorated by Baldinucci.
The immature death of Lauri was compensated for by the lengthened term of years accorded to Luigi Garzi and Carlo Maratta, who continued to paint to the commencement of the eighteenth century; enemies to despatch, correct in their style, and free from the corrupt prejudices which afterwards usurped the place of the genuine rules of art. The first, who is called a Roman by Orlandi, was born in Pistoja, but came while yet young to Rome. He studied landscape for fifteen years under Boccali, but being instructed afterwards by Sacchi, he discovered such remarkable talents, that he became highly celebrated in Naples and in Rome in every class of painting. In the former city, his decoration of two chambers of the royal palace is greatly extolled; and in the latter, where he ornamented many churches, he seemed to surpass himself in the Prophet of S. Giovanni Laterano. He is praised in general for his forms and attitudes, and for his fertile invention and his composition. He understood perspective, and was a good machinist, though in refinement of taste he is somewhat behind Maratta. In his adherence to the school of Sacchi we may still perceive some imitation of Cortona, to whom some have given him as a scholar, as well in many pictures remaining in Rome, as in others sent to various parts; among which is his S. Filippo Neri, in the church of that saint at Fano, which is a gallery of beautiful productions. But on no occasion does he seem more a follower of Cortona, or rather of Lanfranco, than in the Assumption in the Duomo of Pescia, an immense composition, and which is considered his masterpiece. It is mentioned in the Catalogo delle migliori Pitture di Valdinievole, drawn up by Sig. Innocenzio Ansaldi, and inserted in the recent History of Pescia. Mario, the son of Luigi Garzi who is mentioned twice in the Guida di Roma, died young. We may here also mention the name of Agostino Scilla of Messina, whom we shall hereafter notice more at length.
Carlo Maratta was born in Camurano, in the district of Ancona, and enjoyed, during his life, the reputation of one of the first painters in Europe. Mengs, in a letter "On the Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Art of Design," assigns to Maratta the enviable distinction of having sustained the art in Rome, where it did not degenerate as in other places. The early part of his life was devoted to copying the works of Raffaello, which always excited his admiration, and his indefatigable industry was employed in restoring the frescos of that great master in the Vatican and the Farnesina, and preserving them for the eyes of posterity; a task requiring both infinite care and judgment, and described by Bellori. He was not a machinist, and in consequence neither he nor his scholars distinguished themselves in frescos, or in large compositions. At the same time he had no fear of engaging in works of that kind, and willingly undertook the decoration of the Duomo of Urbino, which he peopled with figures. This work, with the Cupola itself, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1782; but the sketches for it are preserved in Urbino, in four pictures, in the Albani palace. He was most attached by inclination to the painting of cabinet pictures and altarpieces. His Madonnas possess a modest, lively, and dignified air; his angels are graceful; and his saints are distinguished by their fine heads, a character of devotion, and are clothed in the sumptuous costume of the church. In Rome his pictures are the more prized the nearer they approach to the style of Sacchi, as the S. Saverio in the Gesù, a Madonna in the Panfili palace, and several others. Some are found beyond the territories of the church, and in Genoa is his Martyrdom of S. Biagio, a picture as to the date of which I do not inquire, but only assert that it is worthy of the greatest rival of Sacchi. He afterwards adopted a less dignified style, but which for its correctness is worthy of imitation. Though he had devoted the early part of his life to the acquisition of a pure style of design, he did not think himself sufficiently accomplished in it, and again returned, when advanced in years, to the study of Raffaello, of whose excellences he possessed himself, without losing sight of the Caracci and Guido. But many are of opinion that he fell into a style too elaborate, and sacrificed the spirit of his compositions to minute care. His principal fault lay in the folding of his drapery, when through a desire of copying nature he too frequently separates its masses, and neglects too much the naked parts, which takes away from the elegance of his figures. He endeavoured to fix his principal light on the most important part of his composition, subduing rather more than was right, the light in other parts of his picture, and his scholars carried this principle afterwards so far as to produce an indistinctness which became the characteristic mark of his school.
Though not often, he yet painted some few pictures of an extraordinary magnitude, as the S. Carlo in the church of that saint at the Corso, and the Baptism of Christ in the Certosa, copied in mosaic in the Basilica of S. Peter. His other pictures are for the most part on a smaller scale; many are in Rome, and amongst them the charming composition of S. Stanislaus Kostka, at the altar where his ashes repose; not a few others in other cities, as the S. Andrea Corsini in the chapel of that noble family in Florence, and the S. Francesco di Sales at the Filippini di Forli, which is one of his most studied works. He contributed largely, also, to the galleries of sovereigns and private individuals. There is not a considerable collection in Rome without a specimen of his pencil, particularly that of the Albani, to which family he was extremely attached. His works are frequently met with in the state. There is a valuable copy of the Battle of Constantine, in possession of the Mancinforti family in Ancona. It is related, that, being requested to copy that picture, he proposed the task to one of his best scholars, who disdained the commission. He therefore undertook the work himself, and on finishing it, took occasion to intimate to his pupils, that the copying such productions might not be without benefit to the most accomplished masters. He had a daughter whom he instructed in his own art; and her portrait, executed by herself, in a painting attitude, is to be seen in the Corsini gallery at Rome.
Maratta, in his capacity of an instructor, is extolled by his biographer, Bellori (p. 208); but is by Pascoli accused of jealousy, and of having condemned a youth of the most promising talents in his school, Niccolo Berrettoni di Montefeltro, to the preparation of colours. This artist, however, from the principles which he imbibed from Cantarini, and from his imitation of Guido and Coreggio, formed for himself a mixed style, delicate, free, and unconstrained, and the more studied, as that study was concealed under the semblance of nature. He died young, leaving very few works behind him, almost all of which were engraved, in consequence of his high reputation. The Marriage of the Virgin Mary, which he executed for S. Lorenzo in Borgo, was engraved by Pier Santi Bartoli, a very distinguished engraver of those times, an excellent copyist, and himself a painter of some merit.[[86]] Another of his pictures, a Madonna, attended by saints at S. Maria di Monte Santo, and the lunettes of the same chapel, were engraved by Frezza. An account of this artist may be found in the Lettere Pitt. tom. v. p. 277.
Giuseppe Chiari of Rome, who finished some pictures of Berrettoni and of Maratta himself, was one of the best painters of easel pictures of that school. Many of his works found their way to England. He painted some pictures for the churches of Rome, and probably the best is the Adoration of the Magi in the church of the Suffragio, of which there is an engraving. He also succeeded in fresco. Those works in particular, which he executed in the Barberini palace, under the direction of the celebrated Bellori, and those also of the Colonna gallery, will always do him credit; he was sober in his colours, careful and judicious; rare qualities in a fresco painter. He did not inherit great talents from nature, but by force of application became one of the first artists of his age. Tommaso Chiari, a pupil also of Maratta, and whose designs he sometimes executed, did not pass the bounds of mediocrity. The same may be observed of Sigismond Rosa, a scholar of Giuseppe Chiari.
To Giuseppe Chiari, who was the intimate friend of Maratta, we may add two others, who were, according to Pascoli, the only scholars whom he took a pleasure in instructing; Giuseppe Passeri, the nephew of Giambatista, and Giacinto Calandrucci of Palermo. Both were distinguished as excellent imitators of their master. Passeri worked also in the state. In Pesaro is a S. Jerome by him, meditating on the Last Judgment, which may be enumerated among his best works. In the church of the Vatican, he painted a pendant to the Baptism of Maratta, S. Peter baptizing the centurion, which after being copied in mosaic, was sent to the church of the Conventuals in Urbino. This picture, which was executed under the direction of Maratta, is well coloured; but in many of his works his colouring is feeble, as in the Conception at the church of S. Thomas in Parione, and in other places in Rome. Calandrucci, after having given proof of his talents in the churches of S. Antonio de' Portoghesi, and S. Paolino della Regola, and in other churches of Rome, and after having been creditably employed by many noble persons, and by two pontiffs, returned to Palermo, and there, in the church del Salvatore, placed his large composition of the Madonnas, attended by S. Basil and other saints, which work he did not long survive. He left behind him in Rome a nephew, who was his scholar, called Giambatista; and he had also a brother there of the name of Domenico, a disciple of Maratta and himself; but there are no traces of their works remaining.
Andrea Procaccini and Pietro de' Petri, also hold a distinguished place in this school, although their fortunes were very dissimilar. Procaccini, who painted in S. Giovanni Laterano, the Daniel, one of the twelve prophets which Clement XI. commanded to be painted as a trial of skill by the artists of his day, obtained great fame, and ultimately became painter to the court of Spain, where he remained fourteen years, and left some celebrated works. Petri on the contrary continued to reside in Rome, and died there at a not very advanced age. He was employed there in the tribune of S. Clement, and in some other works. He did not, however, obtain the reputation and success that he deserved, in consequence of his infirm health and his extreme modesty. He is one of those who engrafted on the style of Maratta, a portion of the manner of Cortona. Orlandi calls him a Roman, others a Spaniard, but his native place in fact was Premia, a district of Novara. Paolo Albertoni and Gio. Paolo Melchiorri, both Romans, flourished about the same time; less esteemed, indeed, than the foregoing, but possessing the reputation of good masters, particularly the second.