[36] In vol. iii. ed. Rom. p. 427, it is written by mistake Mantegna, where it says that he, Speranza, and Veruzio, studied design under Mantegna.
[37] Padre Faccioli, in his third volume of the Inscrizioni della Città e territorio di Vicenza, records the following epigraph, Jo. Sperantiæ de Vangeribus me pinxit, in which Vangeribus may, perhaps, apply to some small village in the territory of Vicenza. He is wholly silent respecting Veruzio, thus confirming the suspicion that his name is a mere mistake of Vasari, whom it is hoped our posterity will still continue to correct, and yet leave sufficient employment for their children. The following is my conjecture. P. Faccioli gives an account of a picture that remains in S. Francesco di Schio; it is composed in the manner usually adopted in the composition of the marriage of S. Catherine; and there are also other saints well executed in the Mantegna style, as is observed by the Cav. Gio. de Lazara, whose authority I esteem excellent. It bears the inscription, "Franciscus Verlus de Vicentia pinxit xx. Junii. M. D. XII.;" and to this is added by Faccioli another old painting by the same hand, remaining at Sercedo. Now I contend that the name of this painter, being reported to Vasari, with its diminutive termination, like many others, borrowed either from the stature or the age, (in the Venetian dialect it was Verlucio or Verluzo) it was afterwards given by him in his history as Veruzio. The critics of the Greek writers will know how to do me justice in this, for this mode of discovering and correcting names I have derived from them.
[38] To judge from some pictures at Bergamo, we might suppose him educated in the style of the fourteenth century; but he afterwards approached nearer to the modern, as we perceive at Padua, where he resembles Palma Vecchio; and this is sufficiently conspicuous also in Friuli, where we make mention of him at a more cultivated era.
[39] In this character is the larger picture at S. Niccolo, a church of the Dominicans in Treviso, in which the cupola, the columns, and the perspective, with the throne of the virgin seated with the infant Jesus, and surrounded by saints standing, the steps ornamented by a harping seraph, all discover Bellini's composition; but I had not seen the work, until after the former edition of my history at Bassano. It was painted in 1520, by P. Marco Pensaben, assisted by P. Marco Maraveia, both Dominican priests, engaged for the purpose from Venice. They remained there until July, 1521, when the first of them secretly fled from the convent, and the altarpiece of Treviso was completed in a month by one Gian-Girolamo, a painter invited from Venice; supposed to be Girolamo Trevisano, the younger. This artist is not, however, mentioned, as I am aware, either, by the citizens, or by foreigners, by any other name than Girolamo, and calculating from the chronology of Ridolfi, he must then have been thirteen years of age. Until this subject be more clearly investigated, I must confess my ignorance of such a Gian-Girolamo. But I am better acquainted with the name of Pensaben, who was afterwards found, and in 1524 was, as before, a Dominican friar at Venice; but a few years after, in 1530, is mentioned in authentic books belonging to the order, being registered among those who had either left the order or were dead. P. Federici believes him to have been the same as F. Bastiano del Piombo, an untenable supposition, as I have elsewhere shown. I believe Pensaben to have been an excellent artist in the Bellini manner, though not commemorated in history, nor by his order. In an order so prolific with genius, and in an age abounding with great names, he is by no means a solitary instance of this: the present work being found to contain many other examples.
[40] As early as the eleventh century, or thereabouts, it would appear that some similar kind of art was in repute in Germany. The monk Theophilus, in the works before mentioned, "De omni scientiâ artis pingendi," alluding, at the commencement, to the most esteemed productions of every country, observes: "quidquid in fenestrarum varietate preciosâ diligit Francia; quidquid in auri, argenti, cupri, ferri, lignorum, lapidumque subtilitate sollers laudat Germania." Codice Viennese.
VENETIAN SCHOOL.
SECOND EPOCH.
Giorgione, Titian, Tintoret, Jacopo da Bassano, Paolo Veronese.
Behold us at length arrived at the golden period of the Venetian School, which like the others of Italy, produced its most distinguished ornaments about the year 1500; artists who at once eclipsed the fame of their predecessors, and the hopes of attaining to equal excellence on the part of their successors. In reaching this degree of eminence, it is true they pursued different paths, though they all aimed at acquiring the same perfection of colouring; the most natural, the most lively, and the most applauded of any single school of the age; a distinction they likewise conferred upon their posterity, forming the distinguishing characteristic of the Venetian painters. The merit of this has been attributed to the climate by some, who assert, that in Venice, and the adjacent places, nature herself has bestowed a warmer and deeper colour upon objects than elsewhere; a frivolous supposition, and undeserving of much of our attention, inasmuch as the artists of Holland and Flanders, in climates so extremely opposite, have obtained the same meed of praise. Neither is it to be attributed to the quality of the colours; both Giorgione and Titian having been known to make use of few, and these, so far from being selected or procured elsewhere, exposed to sale in all the public shops in Venice. If it should again be objected, that in those days the colours were sold purer and less adulterated, I admit there may be some degree of truth in this, inasmuch as Passeri, in his life of Orbetto, complained at that time of the early decay of many pictures, "owing to the quality of the colours fraudulently sold by the retailers." But I would merely inquire, if it were possible, that materials thus pure and uncontaminated should so often fall into the hands of the Venetians and their Flemish imitators, yet be so seldom met with in the rest of the schools. The cause of their superiority is to be sought, therefore, in their mechanism and art of colouring; in regard to which the best Venetian painters conformed, in some points, to the most celebrated artists of Italy. In other points, however, they differed from them. It was a common practice at that period, to prepare with a chalk surface the altarpieces and pictures which were intended to be executed; and that white ground, favourable to every variety of tint the painter could lay upon it, equally favoured the production of a certain polish, floridity, and surprising transparency; a custom which, being laid aside out of indolence and avarice, I am happy to perceive seems about to be renewed. But in addition to this the Venetians were in possession of an art that may be considered peculiar to themselves. For it may be observed, that the chief part of them during these three centuries, produced the effect of their paintings, not so much by a strong layer of colours, as by separate strokes of the pencil; and each colour being thus adapted to its place, without much repeating or refining it, they still continued augmenting the work, by which the tints were preserved clear and virgin; a result which requires no less promptness of hand than of intellect, besides education, and a taste cultivated from the earliest period. Hence the artist Vecchia was accustomed to say, that by dint of copying pictures executed with diligence, a painter will acquire the same quality; but to succeed in copies from a Titian or a Paolo, and to imitate their stroke, is a task surmounted only by the Venetians, whether natives or educated in their school. (Boschini, p. 274.)