In Venice, he seemed to surpass all he had before done. The competition, or rather enmity subsisting between him and Titian, served as a spur both by day and night, to actuate him to fresh exertions. He was at times even accustomed to paint with arms at his side; and it is the opinion of many, that such emulation was of no less advantage to Titian, than was the rivalship of Michelangiolo to Raffaello. In this instance, also, the one excelled in strength, the other in grace of hand; or, as it has been observed by Zanetti, nature prevailed in Titian in a superior degree to manner, while in Pordenone both shone with an equal degree of excellence. To have competed with Titian is a circumstance not a little honourable to his name, and has acquired for him in the Venetian School the second rank at least, in a period so prolific in excellent artists. A portion of the people, indeed, then preferred him to Titian; for, as I have elsewhere observed, there is nothing so well calculated to surprise the multitude as the production of fine effect and of the chiaroscuro, in which art he is known to have first preceded Guercino. Pordenone was highly favoured, and presented with the title of cavalier by Charles V.; and being subsequently invited to the court of Ercole II. duke of Ferrara, he died there shortly after, not without suspicion of having been poisoned. We have in the next place to give an account of his school.
Bernardino Licinio, from his surname probably a relation of the foregoing, was an artist who is here deserving of mention. We gather from history, as well as from his manner, that he was also a pupil of Pordenone; and there remains at the Conventuali, in Venice, an altarpiece of the usual antique composition, quite in the style of the other Licinio, from his hand. It is reported, likewise, that some of his portraits are preserved in different collections which have been erroneously ascribed to the elder Pordenone. Sandrart makes mention of Giulio Licinio da Pordenone, a nephew and scholar to Gio. Antonio, adding that he employed himself in Venice; thence transferred his residence to Augusta, where he left behind him some truly surprising specimens in fresco, which obtained for him with some a higher reputation than his uncle. He would appear to be the same Giulio Lizino, who, in competition with Schiavone, Paul Veronese, and other artists, produced the three tondi, in the library of St. Mark, in the year 1556. By Zanetti he is considered of Roman origin,[[46]] but this is a mistake, arising from Giulio's having assumed the title of Romano during his residence in the capital; while he retained it in Venice, the better to distinguish him from the other Licinj, in the same manner as we have already observed of one of the Trevisani, about the same period.
Giannantonio Licinio the younger, was a brother to Giulio, and more commonly named Sacchiense, an artist who has been highly commended, but whose works are no longer to be seen, not even in Como, as far as we can learn, where he died.
After the Licinj we ought next to record the name of Calderari, a distinguished pupil of Gio. Antonio, who has succeeded in sometimes imposing upon the most acute judges. Thus it has occurred in the parish church of Montereale, where he produced many scripture histories in fresco, which had been uniformly ascribed to the hand of Pordenone, until the discovery of a document establishing the contrary. He is even little known in his native place of Pordenone, and his frescos in the cathedral were attributed to the pencil of Amalteo. Pordenone may also boast of another disciple in Francesco Beccaruzzi da Conigliano. For this we have the authority of Ridolfi, confirmed by the artist's own work, ornamenting his native place, of St. Francis in the act of receiving the stigmata, or marks of Christ, a figure more striking in point of relief than of colouring. To the same school has been added by Orlandi, the name of Gio. Batista Grassi, a good painter, but more excellent as an architect, and the same from whom Vasari drew his notices of the painters of Friuli. I should be inclined, however, to refer him to some other school, both on account of Vasari's silence on a point so creditable to him, and his resemblance to the manner of Titian in such of the few pieces as have been well preserved, and are exempt from modern retouches of art. Of this kind are his pictures of the Annunciation; the Translation of Elias; and the Vision of Ezekiel, in the cathedral of Gemona, on the doors of the organ there.
The last name to be enumerated in this class, is that of Pomponio Amalteo, a native of San Vito, and of a noble family which yet boasts its descendants at Uderzo. He was one of the most excellent of Giannantonio's pupils, and introduced his master's style into the Friuli, for which reason we shall here give him a place, together with the whole of his followers. He was son-in-law to Pordenone, and the artist who succeeded him in his school at Friuli. Both there and in other places he employed himself in works of distinguished merit. He preserved the manner of his father-in-law, as has been observed by Ridolfi, who erroneously ascribes to Licinio the Three Judgments, indisputably the production of Amalteo, which he represented in a gallery at Ceneda, in which causes are decided. They consist of the Judgment of Solomon, of that of Daniel, and a third of Trajan; the whole completed in the year 1536. It is everywhere evident that he aspired to originality of manner; his shading is less strong, his colours are brighter, and the proportions of his figures, and all his ideas are upon a less elevated scale than those of his father-in-law. Some faint idea of his works may be gathered from Vasari and Ridolfi, who omitted, however, many of them, among others the five pictures of Roman histories adorning the Hall of the Notaries at Belluno: but it is only some faint idea, inasmuch as neither these two writers, nor Altan, who collected memorials of him in a little work, were at all enabled to do full justice to the labours of an artist who continued to occupy himself, assisted by various other hands, until the latest period of his life. Hence it is that the bulk of his works can by no means boast the same degree of excellence as the Three Judgments we have mentioned, or the picture of S. Francis, at the church of that name, in Udine, esteemed one among the valuable pieces belonging to the city. Still, wherever or upon whatever subject he employed himself, he displayed the powers of a great master, educated by Pordenone; and one who not only shewed himself, with the generality of Venetians, a splendid colourist, but designed far more accurately. The same merit continued, for some period, to characterize his successors, who, however, if I mistake not, were greatly inferior to him in genius; excepting only his brother, with whom we shall commence the history of Pomponio's School.
His name was Girolamo, and, receiving the instructions of his brother, he is supposed to have assisted him in his labours, giving proofs of a noble genius, which he more peculiarly manifested in works of design; in small pictures, which appeared like miniature, in several fables executed in fresco, and in an altarpiece which he painted in the church of San Vito. Ridolfi commends him highly for his spirited manner, and another of the old writers, as we learn from Rinaldis, gives his opinion, that if he had flourished for a longer period, he would, perhaps, have proved no way inferior to the great Pordenone. Hence I find reason to conclude that Girolamo continued, during life, the exercise of his art; and that the report transmitted to us through Ridolfi, about a century after his death, of his brother Pomponio having devoted him out of jealousy of his genius to mercantile pursuits, as was certainly the case with a brother of Titian's, must have been wholly without foundation.
Pomponio likewise availed himself of the aid of Antonio Bosello in the paintings he produced at Ceneda, as well as for the Patriarch within the gallery just before recorded, and for the canons in the Organ of the cathedral. This artist must assuredly have arrived at some degree of perfection, inasmuch as we are in possession of the particulars of various salaries paid to him, distinct from such as were paid to the principal. As I find mention in Bergamo of an Antonio Boselli, memorials of whom subsist there between the period of 1509 and that of 1527, it is extremely probable that he was the same painter, who, being unable to contend with the fame of Lotto, and so many other of his contemporaries in that celebrated school, sought for better fortune beyond his native place. It is certain he exercised his talents in Padua, and thence he might easily penetrate into Friuli, and give his assistance to Pomponio, whilst employed at Ceneda during the years 1534, 1535, and 1536.
In the course of time, Amalteo, having bestowed two of his daughters in marriage, appears to have obtained the assistance of his sons-in-law, both painters, and promoted by him in the progress of their art. Quintilia, who had the reputation of a fine genius, familiar with the principles both of painting and engraving, and more particularly excellent in portraits, became united to Gioseffo Moretto, of Friuli, although there remains only a single altarpiece of his in the Friuli, in the province of San Vito, bearing the following inscription: Inchoavit Pomponius Amalteus, perfecit Joseph Moretius, anno 1588; a short time previous to which date, his father-in-law had resigned his profession with his life. The other daughter espoused Sebastiano Seccante, mentioned by Ridolfi, and esteemed in Udine for his two grand pictures embellished with fine portraits, with which he ornamented the castle of the city; and still more so for several of his altarpieces. Of these there is one at San Giorgio, representing the Redeemer, suffering under the cross, between various figures of cherubs, holding other instruments of his passion; a piece that displays all the excellent maxims derived from his education. This artist may be pronounced the last of the great school, whose productions do credit to a good collection. His brother, Giacomo, who did not apply himself to painting until he had attained his fiftieth year; Sebastiano, the son of Giacomo, who became early initiated in the art, without even equalling his father, with their relative Seccante, who lived at the same period, were none of them esteemed, even in Udine, beyond mediocrity in their respective lines. Two natives, however, of San Vito, named Pier Antonio Alessio, and Cristoforo Diana, were much commended by Cesarini, one of Amalteo's contemporaries. They were employed in their studies at the very period that the former wrote his dialogue; though there remain no memorials of Pier Antonio, similar to those of Cristoforo, of whom Altan discovered several specimens at San Vito, in a very good style, besides one preserved in the monastery of Sesto, bearing traces of his name, which he had inscribed upon it. We shall close this catalogue with the name of another disciple of Amalteo, belonging to San Daniele, where, among some other remains, there is a tolerably good fresco, preserved in the façade of one of the inns in the suburbs of the place. It represents the Virgin, seated with the divine child, her throne surrounded by S. Thomas the Apostle, and S. Valentine, along with other saints; and it bears the inscription, Opus Julii Urbanis, 1574; it partakes of the taste of Amalteo, and of Pordenone, the succession of whose school we have just completed, history affording us no farther materials for description.
Whilst the school of Amalteo continued to embellish various cities, provinces, and villas of the Friuli, another from the same place started into competition with it, first introduced by Pellegrino, of which mention has been made at page 66, though I reserved its description for this place. The whole of Pellegrino's disciples followed him at a very unequal pace, and few of their works can be pointed out which appear to catch the spirit of his fresco of S. Daniel, or his altarpiece at Cividale, already mentioned with praise. Luca Monverde was an artist who flourished but for a short period, nor ever advanced beyond the Bellini manner, imbibed from his master at a very early age. In this, however, he arrived at so high a degree of perfection, that his picture, adorning the great altar of the Grazie at Udine, a church dedicated to S. Gervasio and S. Protasio, which is there placed around the throne of the Virgin, was highly commended previous to its being retouched. And we are elsewhere informed that Luca, while he flourished, was regarded as a sort of prodigy of genius. Girolamo d'Udine, supposed also to come under this standard, has been omitted by Grassi, in his sketch of the painters transmitted to Vasari, and is not otherwise known than for his little picture of the Coronation of our Lady, remaining in San Francesco at Udine, with his name attached. The vigour of its colours is striking, the invention novel, but rather strained; and, if I mistake not, the whole betrays an artist educated with other maxims. I pass over Martini, though I am aware Altan maintains him to have been a scholar, rather than a fellow pupil of Pellegrino; but the authority of Vasari, combined with his own beautiful picture at S. Mark's, so nearly simultaneous with that of Pellegrino, induce me to retain my own opinion. I should hardly venture to decide to which of the two preceding masters Bernardino Blaceo ought to be referred; an artist who appears, from the great altarpiece of S. Lucia, with his name attached, to have retained the ancient style of composition, while in other points his manner is sufficiently graceful and modern. Another artist who has been with more certainty given as a pupil to Pellegrino, was by birth a Greek, of singular merit in his art, but who has retained only his national appellative of N. Greco. Thus the number of disciples from San Daniele, at all worthy of such a master, is reduced to two, Florigerio and Floriani. The labours of the former in Udine, executed in fresco, have however perished, though his picture of S. George, in the church of the same name, still survives, of itself sufficient to constitute an artist's fame. It is esteemed by many the best specimen in the city, displaying both in the figures and the landscape a strength of hand which appears to rival Giorgione, more than any other model we could mention. He painted, likewise, with equal spirit, though scarcely perhaps with equal softness, in the city of Padua; and there he subscribed his name to one of his frescos, Florigerio, as it has been read by the Guida of Padua, in which I agree; and not Flerigorio, as he has been called by some historians. Francesco Floriani, together with his brother Antonio, though devoting his talents to the service of Maximilian II., at Vienna, boasts, nevertheless, a high reputation in Udine. He was more particularly excellent in portrait, a specimen of which is in possession of Signor Gio. Batista de Rubeis; being a portrait of Ascanio Belgrado, which might almost be placed in competition with Moroni or Tinelli. He produced several altarpieces for churches, the most highly admired of which was, perhaps, that placed at Reana, a village near Udine. It has recently been purchased and divided into as many small pictures as the number of saints which it contained, and which now belong to a private collection.
But it is at length time to proceed to Tiziano Vecellio, a name the reader has probably long wished to greet. Yet I fear I shall hardly gratify his expectations; for where we have formed enlarged ideas of an artist's worth, every attempt to do justice to the splendid merits we admire, appears not only inferior, but in some measure derogatory to the character we would exalt. But if in treating on the qualities of artists, we may consider a particular estimation of their characteristic talents preferable to warm commendations, I shall avail myself of the judgment of an excellent critic, who was accustomed to say that Titian observed and drew nature in all her truth, better than any other artist. To this I might add the testimony of another, that of all painters he was most familiar with nature, in all her forms; the universal master, who, in every subject he undertook, whether figures, elements, landscape, or other pieces, imprinted upon all that lively nature, constituting the great charm of his genius. He was gifted, likewise, with a peculiarly sound judgment, tranquil, penetrative, and decidedly studious of what was true, rather than what was novel and specious; a character no less essential to the production of true painters than of true writers.