The first among the Vivarini mentioned by historians is Luigi, of whom a painting at Santi Giovanni e Paolo, has been cited by them, which represents our Redeemer bearing the cross upon his shoulders. The work has been a good deal retouched, and there has been added to it another portion, which gives the name of the author, dated 1414. Not being an autograph, we are led to suspect some kind of mistake attaching either to the name or the date; there having been another Luigi Vivarini, as we shall shew, towards the close of the century. The one in question, then, might probably be an ancestor of the latter, though it be difficult to persuade ourselves of it, as there remains no other superscription, or notice of any of that name so ancient.
Next to this artist, according to Ridolfo and Zanetti, are to be enumerated Giovanni and Antonio Vivarini, who flourished about the year 1440. The authority they adduce for this, is an altarpiece in San Pantaleone, which bears the inscription of Zuane e Antonio da Muran pense 1444. But this Giovanni,[[16]] if I mistake not, is the same who signs his name on another picture in Venice, Joannes de Alemania et Antonius de Muriano pinxit; or as it is thus written in Padua, Antonio de Muran e Zohan Alamanus pinxit. Giovanni, therefore, was a companion of Antonio, a German by birth; and traces of a foreign style are clearly perceptible in his paintings. The reason of his omitting to insert his birthplace in the picture at San Pantaleone, arose, I suspect, from the fact of his name and acquaintance with Antonio being too well known to admit of doubt. After the year 1447 there is no more mention made of Giovanni, but only of Antonio; sometimes alone, sometimes together with some other of the Vivarini. Thus, his name is subscribed alone in San Antonio Abate di Pesaro, upon an altarpiece of the titular saint, surrounded by the figures of three young martyrs, with some smaller paintings attached; the production of a very animated colourist, and displaying forms inferior to none in the school of Murano. I have seen two other specimens, in which he is mentioned together with a second Vivarino. The least excellent of these is to be found in San Francesco Grande, at Padua, consisting of a Madonna, with some saints, in various compartments; and, at the foot of it, is the following memorandum, Anno 1451, Antonius et Bartholomeus fratres de Murano pinxerunt hoc opus. Similar to this, the two brothers had produced another the year preceding, in the Certosa of Bologna, where it is still in a high state of preservation, beyond any other specimen I have seen belonging to this family. There is much worthy of commendation in each figure of the whole piece; features dignified and devout; appropriate dresses; care in the disposition of the hair and beards, united to a colouring warm and brilliant.
According to what appears, Bartolommeo must have been held of less account than Antonio, until the discovery of painting in oil being introduced into Venice, he became one among the first to profit by it, and, towards the period in which the two Bellini appeared, was held in pretty high repute.
The first specimen of his painting in oil exists at S. Giovanni e Paolo, not far from the gate, and exhibits, among other saints, P. San Agostino, with an indication of the year 1473. From that period he continued to distinguish himself, producing a great number of pieces both in oil and in water colour, sometimes with more, and sometimes with less care, but always in the ancient taste for subdividing the altarpiece into several parts, in each of which he represented separate heads or entire figures. In these he often marked the name of Vivarino, with the year of their production; and occasionally he has added a finch or linnet by way of allusion to his family name. His last work, bearing the date of the year, is a Christ risen from the dead, at San Giovanni, in Bragora, where Boschini read the date of 1498, which is now no longer apparent; but it is a piece which, in every part, may be said to vie with that of the best Venetian artists who flourished during the same period.
Contemporary with him was a Luigi of the same name, one of whose productions was seen by Zanetti, in a collection of paintings, with the date of 1490, and as appeared to him, strongly approaching, in point of taste, to the best style of Bartolommeo. To Luigi, also, must undoubtedly be ascribed the altarpiece, which, in San Francesco di Trevigi, bears his name. There is another at the Battuti, in Belluno, representing the saints Piero, Girolamo, and some others, a work which cost that school 100 gold ducats, besides the expenses of the artist, who has attached to it his name. But superior to every other of his existing specimens, is that fine picture in the school of San Girolamo, at Venice, in which he represented a history of the titular saint, in emulation of Giovanni Bellino, whom he here equalled, and of Carpaccio, whom he surpassed. He has drawn the saint in the act of caressing a lion, while several monks are seen flying in terror at the sight. The composition is very fine; the passions are tolerably well pourtrayed, the colours as soft and delicate as in any other of the Vivarini; the architecture solid, and in the ancient taste, while the epoch is more modern than that which could be ascribed to the supposed Luigi, the elder. Such is our exposition of the whole series of the School of Murano, up to the period of its greatest improvement, so as to bring it under one point of view. I shall now, therefore, resume the thread of my narrative, relating to the elder artists of the fourteenth century, who competed with the oldest of the school of Murano, until the era of painting in oil; and I shall afterwards proceed to treat apart of the more modern.
In the early part of the century, an artist of the name of Gentile da Fabriano, had been employed in the public palace at Venice, highly distinguished in his time, but of whom I must not here repeat what has been said in the first volume of this work. He there depicted a naval battle scene, a production greatly extolled in former times, which has long since perished. He produced, also, some disciples, as we find mention of a Jacopo Nerito, from Padua, who, in a painting at San Michele di Padova, according to Rossetti, subscribes himself one of his pupils. Nasocchio di Bassano, the elder, is to be ranked also, either as one of his scholars or his imitators, if, indeed, a small picture pointed out to me by the late Signor Verci was by his hand.
Among other Venetians, Jacopo Bellini, at once the father and the master of Gentile and Giovanni of the same name, of whom more hereafter, was certainly a pupil of Gentile da Fabriano. Jacopo, however, is better known by the celebrity of his sons, than by his own works, at this time either destroyed or unknown. He had painted in the school of S. Giovanni Evangelista at Venice, and in the chapel of the Gatta Melata, at the Santo di Padova, about 1456; but these labours survive only in history, nor have I met with any other specimen besides a Madonna, discovered by Sig. Sasso, bearing the signature of its author. The style appears taken from that of Squarcione, to which he is supposed to have applied himself in his more advanced years.
There was also another Jacopo in very high repute,[[17]] called Jacobello del Fiore, who has been falsely accused by Vasari, of having drawn his figures all resting on the tip of their toes, in the manner of the Greeks. His father, Francesco, was considered in the light of a Coryphæus of the art, and his tomb is still to be seen at Santi Giovanni e Paolo, with a figure of him in his toga, and a commendatory epitaph in Latin verse. No works of his, however, are to be seen in Venice,[[18]] a dittico, or small altar, with his name having been conveyed to London, bearing the date of 1412. It was obtained by the Chevalier Strange, together with some other productions of the old Venetian artists. The son of Francesco rose to a still higher degree of celebrity. He began to make himself known as early as 1401, by producing an altarpiece at San Cassiano di Pesaro, in which city I discovered another, with the date of 1409, and both bear the signature of Jacometto de Flor. A much nobler work is a coronation of the Virgin, in the cathedral of Ceneda, extremely rich in figures, insomuch as to have deserved the name of the "Painting of Paradise," in a MS. of the lives of the bishops of that place, which is preserved in the episcopal residence, and declares the work to have been executed, ab eximio illius temporis pictore Jacobello de Flore, 1432, at the expense of the bishop, Ant. Correr. There is a Madonna, indisputably by his hand, in possession of Sig. Girolamo Manfrini, painted in 1436, besides the Giustizia, drawn between two archangels, in the Magistrato del Proprio, bearing the date of 1421. I may venture to say that few artists of that time equalled him; both on account of his having few rivals who had so early ventured to attempt drawing figures as large as the life, and because of his power of conferring upon them a certain grace and dignity, and, where called for, a vigour and ease rarely to be met with in other paintings. The two lions which he represented as symbols of his Giustizia (Justice), are truly grand, though the rest of the figures would have appeared to more advantage had they been less loaded with ornaments, and in particular the draperies glowing with gold lace, according to the custom of his age. He had a rival in Giacomo Morazone, known by an altarpiece seen in the island of St. Elena, of which I shall have to speak elsewhere.
Two pupils of Jacobello are recorded by Ridolfi, one of whom, Donato, is superior to his master in point of style, and the other, Carlo Crivelli, of whom the capital can boast only one or two pieces, and of whom little mention is made in Venetian history. It would appear that he long resided out of his native place, and in the Marca Trevigiana, from which circumstance we find him repeatedly named in the Storia Picena, in the Guida di Ascoli, and in the catalogue of Fabrianese paintings. At San Francesco di Matelica, I saw an altarpiece and grado by his hand, with his name in the following inscription—Carolus Crivellus Venetus miles pinxit, as well as another with his name at the Osservanti, in Macerata, and a third which bears the year 1476, in possession of the Cardinal Zelada. He is an artist more remarkable for his force of colouring than for his correctness of design: and his principal merit consists in those little history pieces, in which he has represented beautiful landscapes, and given to his figures grace, motion, and expression, with some traces of the colouring of the School of Perugia. Hence his productions have occasionally been taken for those of Pietro, as in the instance of that in Macerata; and if I mistake not, such an opinion was entertained, even by the learned Father Civalli, (p. 60). In Piceno, likewise, in Monsanmartino, or in Penna S. Giovanni, there remain altarpieces by Vittorio Crivelli, a Venetian, most probably of the same family, and produced in the years 1489 and 90, from which period I lose sight of him, whether owing to his early decease, or his having set out in pursuit of better fortune into foreign parts.
Hitherto we have examined only the productions of the capital and of the annexed island. But in each of the other cities, now comprehended in the state, there flourished painters during the same period, guided by maxims differing both from those of Venice and of Murano. The School of Bergamo had even then made distinguished progress under the direction of the two Nova, who died at the commencement of the century; and mention is made of a Commenduno, one of their pupils, besides some other contemporaries, whose works, however, cannot, with any degree of certainty, be pointed out. The same may be said of those in the adjacent city of Brescia, which could then, also, boast of possessing some excellent artists. Of these, there is nothing more than the name now remaining, yet Brandolin Testorino and Ottaviano Brandino are names placed in competition with that of Gentile di Fabriano, and, perhaps, they are preferred to him. The former was supposed to have been engaged along with Altichiero, in ornamenting the great hall in Padua, entitled Sala de' Giganti.[[19]]