In Trevigi, Ascanio Spineda, a noble of that city, is held in some estimation, and included among the disciples of Palma; from whom he is sometimes with difficulty distinguished. One of the most exact in point of design, he also colours with much sweetness and grace of tints; an artist deserving to be known in his native district, which abounds with the best of his works. He employed himself there, for many churches, succeeding perhaps better at San Teonisto than at any other place. No one surpassed him in the number of his pieces for public exhibition, if we except indeed one Bartolommeo Orioli, who, about the same period, displayed the talent of a good practiser, though with less repute. This last belonged to that numerous tribe who, in Italy, were ambitious of uniting in themselves the powers of poetry and painting; but who, not having received sufficient polish either in precept or in art, gave vent to their inspiration in their native place, covering the columns with sonnets, and the churches with pictures, without exciting the envy of the adjacent districts. Father Federici praises him for his portraits; a valued ornament, at that period, of large pictures, and well introduced by Orioli, in the church of St. Croce, where a numerous procession of the people of Trevigi appears, taken from the life. Burchiellati, a contemporary historian of the place, adds, as a companion to the foregoing, the name of Giacomo Bravo, a painter of figures and ornamental works, which are still held in some degree of estimation.
Paolo Piazza, of Castelfranco, who afterwards became a Capuchin by the name of Father Cosimo, is enumerated by Baglione among the good practisers, and the pupils of Palma. Yet he bears little resemblance to him, having formed a style of his own, not powerful indeed, but free and pleasing, which attracted the eye of Paul V., the Emperor Rodolph II., and the Doge Priuli; all of whom availed themselves of his ability. Both the capital and the state boast many of his pieces in fresco, and some altarpieces: nor is Rome without them, where, in the Palazzo Borghese, he painted those very fanciful ornaments in friezes, for various chambers, as well as histories of Cleopatra for the Great Hall, and in the Campidoglio at the Conservatori, a celebrated picture of Christ taken from the Cross. While residing in Rome he attended to the instruction of Andrea Piazza, his nephew, who in course of time entered the service of the Duke of Lorraine, by whom he had the honour of being made a cavalier. Upon returning to his own state, he produced his great picture of the Marriage of Cana, for the church of Santa Maria; one of the best pieces that adorn the place.
Matteo Ingoli, a native of Ravenna, resided from early youth, until the period of his immature decease, in the city of Venice. He sprung from the school of Luigi del Friso, and proposed for himself, says Boschini, Paul Veronese and Palma as his models. If I mistake not, however, he aspired to a more solid, but less beautiful style, as far as we can gather from one of his pictures at the Corpus Domini, from his Supper of our Lord at San Apollinare, and from others of his works; in all which we trace the hand of precision and assiduity. He was also a good architect, and terminated his days during one of those awful periods in which the Venetian state was visited by the plague, adding another instance of loss to the fine arts, similar to those which we have noticed in other schools.
Another victim to the same contagion was Pietro Damini, of Castelfranco, who, it is averred, had he survived a little longer, would have displayed the powers of a Titian; an expression we are to receive as somewhat hyperbolical. He acquired the art of colouring from Gio. Batista Novelli, a good scholar of Palma, who, more for amusement than for gain, ornamented Castelfranco and the adjacent places with several well executed pieces. Damini next devoted much time to the theory of the art, and to the study of the best engravings, upon which he modelled his design. By this method, it is said, that he freed himself from the shackles of the mannerists, though it gave to his colours a degree of crudity; and in truth this is a defect that strikes the eye in many of his productions. Numerous specimens remain at Padua, where he established himself at the age of twenty; several at Vicenza, at Venice, and still more in Castelfranco, where his altarpiece of the Blessed Simone Stoch at Santa Maria, is highly estimated, as well as the Tabernacle surrounded with twelve histories, from both the Old and New Testaments; a novel idea, and executed with real taste. His style is elegant and pleasing, but not uniformly excellent. He is observed to have frequently changed his manner, in aspiring to reach a higher degree of perfection in his art. We might, in some instances, pronounce him an excellent naturalist; in others more of an adept in ideal beauty, as we gather from his picture of the Crucifixion at Santo di Padova, which displays rare beauty and harmony combined, though he did not live long enough to produce others of equal merit. He died early, and at a short interval his brother Giorgio, seized by the same disorder, followed him to the tomb, an artist excellent in portrait, and pictures with small figures.
Subsequent to this period, (1630, 1631,) in which the deaths of a number of artists occur, the traces of the old Venetian style, in its best school, began still more to disappear; and the Venetian paintings produced after the middle of the century, display for the most part a different character. It is remarked by Signor Zanetti, that several foreign artists established themselves about this period in the city, and held sway over the art at their own discretion. Attached to various schools, and chiefly admirers of Caravaggio, in his plebeian manner, they agreed amongst themselves in nothing, perhaps, except two points. One of these was, to consult truth in a greater degree than had before been done; an extremely useful idea to render art, now degenerated into a paltry trade, once more real art. But the plan was not well executed by many, who were either incapable of selecting what was natural, or of ennobling it when found; while, at all events, they were too apt to mannerize it with an excessive use of strong shades. The other plan was to avail themselves of very dark and oily grounds, which were as favourable to despatch as injurious to the duration of paintings, as we have more than once had occasion to observe. Indeed this had so far come into vogue, in most places, as even to infect, in some degree, the great school of the Caracci. Hence it has arisen that in many of those pictures the lights only have remained durable, and the masses of shade, the middle tints having disappeared; insomuch that posterity has distinguished this class of artists by the new appellation of the sect of Tenebrosi, or the dark colourists. Boschini, who first put forth his Carta del Navegar Pitoresco in 1660, is very severe, as we have before stated, upon the sect of mere naturalists, stigmatizing them generally, and upbraiding them for coming to seek their bread at Venice; while, at the time that they employed themselves in crying down the taste, the spirit, and the rapid hand of the Venetians, their own productions bore ample witness to the pitiable efforts by which they were produced. He gives no names; but it is not difficult to gather from the whole his aversion to the Roman and Florentine artists, of whom we shall shortly give an account. Upon these he certainly does not bestow encomiums, as he does upon all others at that period engaged in Venice, his commendations being sometimes extremely vague, and at others extravagant.
If we wish to avoid forming erroneous judgments, then, we must abandon his Painter's Chart of Navigation, and attach ourselves to the Pittura Veneziana, a very different guide to that of Boschini. In this the author takes care to distinguish, with the precision of a good historian, such as were followers of Caravaggio, like Saraceni; excellent pupils of Guercino, like Triva; fine colourists, however much accustomed to copy rather than invent, like Strozza, and though less select, his scholar Langetti; to whom we may add a third Genoese artist, who flourished during those times at Venice, though he left no public specimen of his labours; this was Niccolo Cassana. Of these, as well as of a few others, I shall treat in the schools to which they respectively belong. Several other names are omitted by the author, either on account of such artists having produced little in the city, or from his being unacquainted with their education and the place of their birth. Among these is Antonio Beverense, an artist who painted for the college of the Nunziata, the Marriage of the Virgin Mary, a picture that displays accuracy of design, superiority of forms, and a very fine chiaroscuro. He was, for the most part, a disciple of the Bolognese, and from his united taste and diligence fully deserving of being more generally known. I suspect, however, that he ought to be named a native of Bavaria, and to the circumstance of his speedy return into his own country, we are, perhaps, to ascribe the little notice he seems to have attracted. Returning to the authority of Zanetti, we find, that besides giving a favourable opinion of the authors just mentioned, he bestows equal commendation upon those who are soon to follow; explaining their respective excellences and defects, and detecting such as belonged to the class of Tenebrosi through their own fault, and such as became so owing to the bad priming of those times; in treating of whom I follow the path he has pointed out.
Pietro Ricchi was an artist who resided for a long period at Venice, where he left a great number of works, and is generally known by the name of il Lucchese. It remains doubtful whether he deserves to be accused of having introduced the oily and obscure method of painting already mentioned. It is at least certain, that besides having made use of bad priming, he was in the habit of covering his canvass with oil whenever he applied his pencil, which has occasioned the loss of so many of his works that once produced an excellent effect, but which are now either defaced or perished. This is the case with those that remained in Venice, in Vicenza, Brescia, Padua, and Udine; some of which, indeed, are not greatly to be regretted; the production of mere mechanic skill, and that not always executed correctly. A few, however, are conducted with much care, as we find in his S. Raimond, at the Dominicans of Bergamo, and his Epiphany at the patriarchal church in Venice, both highly deserving of commemoration, no less for the union of their colours, than for the taste displayed in the whole composition. We may easily perceive that they are the productions of a scholar, or at least of an imitator of Guido; of one accustomed to consult the pictures of Tintoretto, and of the most celebrated Venetians. Another artist equal to Ricchi in the handling of his pencil, and more accurate in the union of his colours, will be found in Federigo Cervelli of Milan, who, on opening his school at a somewhat later period in Venice, obtained the celebrated Ricci for one of his pupils. At the school of San Teodoro, we meet with a history piece of that saint, from the hand of Cervelli; and in this we may trace all the features of the same style, that was afterwards continued by Ricci, who added dignity, however, to its forms, and executed them upon canvass and upon grounds better calculated to bear the effects of age.
The other artists to be enumerated in the same class, are Francesco Rosa, a pupil rather than follower of Cortona, for an account of whom we must refer the reader to the fifth book of the fifth volume; and Giovanni Batista Lorenzetti, whose composition, bold, rapid, and magnificent, displays a powerful and correct hand. The merit of the second is conspicuous in his frescos, exhibited at Santa Anastasia, in his native city of Verona, for which he received twelve hundred ducats, including only the decoration of the chapel. Add to these the name of Ruschi, or Rusca, a Roman, and a disciple of Caravaggio in his forms, and of his age in the mixture of his colours. He was wholly unknown at Rome, though he acquired some degree of reputation in the cities of Venice, of Vicenza, and of Trevigi. His paintings are admitted into collections, where several of his oblong pieces are to be met with in pretty good preservation. Contemporary with him was Girolamo Pellegrini, a native, of the same place, not mentioned in the Guide of Rome, but commemorated in that of Venice for some works, chiefly executed in fresco upon a large scale, in which he appears neither a very select, various, nor spirited painter, though of a sufficiently elevated character. Bastiano Mazzoni, a Florentine, is another artist unknown in his native city, belonging to the class of the naturalists, though possessed of a certain delicacy, roundness of style, and ease of handling. He was also an excellent architect, of whose talents the Cavalier Liberi availed himself in the erection of his fine palace at Venice, which appears to exceed the fortune of a painter. Count Ottaviano Angarano, a Venetian noble, if he did not altogether avoid the style then current, avoided at least its extravagance; and the Nativity which he placed at San Daniele, confers upon him double honour, having been both painted and engraved by his hand. Stefano Pauluzzi, a citizen of Venice, has been enumerated among the best belonging to this sect, if indeed he is to be included in it, as the deterioration of his pictures may be rather attributed to the badness of his grounds than to the artist. Niccolo Renieri Mabuseo also flourished at the same period, an artist, who at Rome, under Manfredi, a follower of Caravaggio, formed a taste partaking of his early Flemish and of his Italian education; very pleasing in the opinion of Zanetti, and in general displaying much strength of hand. He had four daughters who inherited their father's talents, all of whose productions were highly admired in Venice. Two of these, of the name of Angelica and Anna, remained with their parent; Clorinda entered into an union with Vecchia, and Lucrezia with Daniel Vandych, a Frenchman, who afterwards entered into the service of the Duke of Mantua, as the keeper of his gallery of pictures; himself a fine portrait painter, and by no means despicable in his histories. To his I add the name of D. Ermanno Stroifi, a Paduan, first a pupil, and an excellent imitator of Prete the Genoese, and afterwards of Titian though occasionally, owing to an excessive attention to the chiaroscuro, he deviated too much from the right path. We are informed by Boschini that he travelled for the purpose of observing other schools, and that on returning to Venice, he still continued to rise in the estimation of the Venetians. A Madonna from his hand is to be seen at the great altar of the Carmini in that city; and in Padua, his Pietà, placed at San Tommaso Cantuariense. I conclude this list with one Matteo, a Florentine artist, not commemorated in his own state, from the circumstance of having resided abroad; better known by the name of Matteo da' Pitocchi. He displayed most talent in his representation of Mendicants, heads of which class are to be met with in Venice, in Verona, in Vicenza, and elsewhere, as well as several burlesques and other fanciful pieces, in the galleries of many Italian nobles. He painted likewise for churches, more particularly in Padua, where he most probably died; and the Serviti are in possession of some on a larger scale, designed in the character of a mere naturalist. These names we trust will be found sufficient, however various and unequal both in point of style and merit, as affording examples of the taste of that age.
But inasmuch as it is difficult, as I have before observed, for an entire age to become wholly corrupt, so among the mannerists, who mark the character of this epoch, there nourished some good imitators of Titian, of Paul Veronese, and of Raffaello himself, both in the capital and its adjacent provinces. In the last, indeed, they were more numerous, because the artists of the terra firma did not so greatly abound in those masterpieces of the art, of which the Venetians themselves were enabled so easily to become the plagiarists, to the serious deterioration of the art. In the first rank then of supporters of the solid style, I must mention Giovan Contarino, who flourished in the time of Palma, a companion of Malombra, and an exact imitator of Titian's method. He did not always succeed in improving and embellishing the nature which he copied, though, at the same time, he displayed a soundness of taste that was truly that of Titian. He shewed exquisite skill in his foreshortening from above (di sotto in sù), and in the church of San Francesco di Paola, he exhibited a Resurrection in the entablature, or ceiling, along with other mysteries and figures, so beautifully coloured, so distinct, and so finely expressed, as to be considered some of the most perfect of which the city can boast. He employed himself much for collections, even extending to Germany, by which he obtained from the Emperor Rodolph II., the collar of the order of cavaliers. His favourite subjects were such as he drew from mythology, being possessed of sufficient learning to treat them with classic propriety, and of these, in the Barbarigo collection, I saw a considerable number. He was so extremely accurate in his portraits, that on sending home one which he had taken of Marco Dolce, his dogs, the moment it appeared, began to fawn upon it, mistaking it for their master. His fame was nevertheless eclipsed in portrait by Tiberio Tinelli, at first his scholar, afterwards an imitator of Leandro Bassano, and raised to the rank of cavalier by the King of France. Pietro da Cortona, on beholding one of his portraits, exclaimed that Tiberio had not merely infused into it the whole soul of the original, but added his own also. I have met with several at Rome, bearing a very high price, and still more are to be seen in the Venetian state. Sometimes they are left unfinished, at the desire of the parties for whom they were taken, in order to diminish their price; sometimes they are thrown into an historical character; and a Venetian Lord, for instance, will appear as Marc Antony—his wife, as Cleopatra. Many of this artist's pieces for private ornament, of the portrait size, are very highly estimated: they are alternately borrowed from scripture and from fable. Such is that of his Iris, belonging to the Conti Vicentini, at Vicenza, simple in point of composition, very natural and pleasing; and what is still more surprising, quite original. He did not display equal facility in more copious compositions, requiring a larger portion of time and leisure than he ever enjoyed, in order to leave behind him a work which could give him full satisfaction.
Succeeding him, appears Girolamo Forabosco, a distinguished portrait painter, of Venetian origin according to Orlandi, though believed by the Paduans, to have been one of their fellow citizens. Two of the most celebrated schools contended for the honour of adding him to their respective ranks. He flourished in the time of Boschini, who bestowed upon him and Liberi the precedency over all other Venetians of the age. In order better to commend him in the spirit of his age, he puns upon his name, declaring Forabosco one of those who emerged fuor del bosco, or out of the wood, into full day; in other words that he rose out of obscurity into considerable note. We are to forgive similar conceits upon the part of Boschini, in consideration of the notices he handed down to us; and we may add likewise with Zanetti, that Forabosco possessed a noble and penetrating genius; a genius delighting the professed artist by its display of judgment; arresting the observer by its beauty; and which unites sweetness with refinement, beauty with force, studious in every part, but particularly in the airs of its heads, that appear endued with life. To form an adequate idea of these, we ought not so much to direct our inquiries to churches, which rarely boast any of his altarpieces, as to those collections which preserve his portraits; his half-length figures of saints, and his little history pieces, of which three are recorded in the catalogue of the Dresden gallery. Resembling Forabosco in diligence and delicacy of finish, though inferior to him in genius, we may mention his pupil Pietro Bellotti. By some he is reproached for his minuteness and dryness of style, which leads him to distinguish almost every hair, though always an exact and faithful transcriber of nature. Boschini considers him in the light of a prodigy, for having succeeded in uniting to so much diligence, a most exquisite delicacy in his tints, to a degree never before known. His compositions, more particularly his portraits and his caricatures, which are to be met with in galleries, are held in much esteem. Several I have seen in different places, even out of the limits of the state; two of them very excellent—portraits of an old man and an old woman, in possession of the Cavalier Melzi, at Milan, and such as are not to be exceeded by the most polished and exquisite specimens of Flemish art.