From the brief description already given, it will easily be perceived how far the Campi School was a sort of sketch of that of the Caracci; and what were the causes which contributed to the superiority of the latter, although they had both the same original outline. The Caracci were all excellent designers, and invariably aimed at appearing such; they were likewise united by affection, no less than by their place of residence, and were continually engaged in assisting each other. Finally, they supported an academy, much frequented, the object of which was, not so much to study the various manners of different artists, as to examine the different effects produced by nature, so as to render their works her real offspring, as it were, and not her more distant relations. The Campi, on the other hand, did not so uniformly aspire to the same excellence, nor did they reside, and unite together in forming so methodical and well-established an academy; each maintaining a separate school and residence, and teaching, if I mistake not, rather how their pupils should imitate them, than how they should paint. Hence it arose, that while Domenichino, Guido, Guercino, and others of the Caracci School, distinguished themselves by their novelty and originality of manner, the scholars of the Campi were confined to the sphere of imitating, as nearly as lay in their power, the painters of their own city, either severally or in a select number. And thus, as man is every where the same, it here ensued, as in the rest of the Italian schools, that having acquired a tolerable degree of skill in imitating their predecessors, artists began to slacken their industry. The first had accustomed themselves to copy only from the life; they drew cartoons, they modelled in wax, and carefully arranged all the divisions of their folds, with every accessary; but the second contented themselves with making a few sketches, and some heads taken from nature, executing the rest of their work in a mere mechanical manner, and as they judged to be most convenient. Thus by degrees this great school degenerated, and it happened also about the same period, when the disciples of Procaccini observed the same method at Milan. From this cause, during the seventeenth century, Lombardy was filled with the sectarists of the art, among whom the followers of Zuccheri themselves would have appeared in the rank of masters. A few there were who struggled to free themselves from the herd of imitators; and Caravaggio afforded them an opportunity. Born in the vicinity of Cremona, he was partly considered their compatriot, and the more willingly followed by the Cremonese; more particularly as it became popular to cry down the style of the last masters as feeble, and to demand one of a more vigorous character. The attempt succeeded admirably in a few; while others, on the contrary, as it occurred in Venice, at Cremona also became only coarse and sombre. I have not been very anxious to cultivate an acquaintance with the artists of this period; though I shall take care to make mention of such as succeeded in raising themselves above the crowd.
Each of the Campi, therefore, claims his own disciples, though they have not always been distinguished in history, being described under the general designation of pupils of the Campi; as the two Mainardi, Andrea and Marc Antonio, by Orlandi. The two pupils of Giulio, best entitled to commendation, namely, Gambara of Brescia, and Viani of Cremona, having flourished in other schools, have been recorded by us, the first among the Venetians; and the second among the Mantuan artists.
Antonio Campi has left us an account of three of his own disciples: Ippolito Storto, Gio. Batista Belliboni, and Gio. Paolo Fondulo, who passed into Sicily. All of them remained in obscurity, however, in Lombardy, and are omitted in the painters' Dictionaries. Towards the close of his life, he instructed one Galeazzo Ghidone, an artist of weak health, who employed himself only at intervals, but with success; as we may judge from his picture of the Preaching of St. John the Baptist, at S. Mattia, in Cremona, which has been highly commended by good connoisseurs. Another, is Antonio Beduschi, who, in his twenty-sixth year, produced a Pietà for S. Sepolcro, in Piacenza, and a still superior painting of the Martyrdom of S. Stefano; he is referred to the school of the Campi, and strongly partakes of the style of Antonio; I esteem him one of his imitators, if not in the list of his pupils. He was unknown to the historian Zaist, and is indebted for commemoration to the Sig. Proposto Carasi.
Luca Cattapane was initiated in the art by Vincenzio, and devoted much time to copying the works of the Campi family. He succeeded in this by exhibiting a rare boldness of hand, so as to give his pieces the air of originals, and they continue to impose upon the most experienced, even to the present day. He likewise counterfeited the style of Gambara in a Pietà of his, at the church of S. Pietro, in Cremona; and in order to enlarge the picture, he added three figures in a taste agreeable to the former. For the rest, being misled by his ambition to form a new style, or to approach nearer Caravaggio, he became even more sombre than the Campi, with still less taste. Many of his altar-pieces yet remain. In S. Donato, at Cremona, he represented the Beheading of St. John; one of his most successful works, in which the effect is superior either to the design or to the expression. To these we may add a number of his fresco paintings, though inferior to those he executed in oil.
Bernardino, however, was the favourite master, and the most frequented of any belonging to the school. His successors have continued to flourish longer, and even reached the confines of the present age. I first propose to enumerate a few of his most distinguished scholars, who either did not teach, or taught the art only to a few; and I shall afterwards treat of Malosso and his school, which, about the year 1630, held the chief sway in Cremona, and became one of the most celebrated throughout Lombardy.
Coriolano Malagavazzo, who is erroneously called Girolamo Malaguazzo, in the "Painters' Dictionary," assisted in the labours of his master, insomuch as to render it uncertain whether Cremona possesses any painting designed and executed by himself; for it is supposed that he drew his fine altar-piece, in S. Silvestro, representing the Virgin with S.S. Francesco and Ignazio, the martyr, from one of Bernardino's designs. Nothing, likewise, that has not been questioned, remains of Cristoforo Magnani da Pizzichettone, a young artist of great promise, as we are informed by Antonio Campi, who laments the shortness of his career. Lamo, too, complains of his loss, when he mentions him and Trotti as the two greatest geniuses of the school. His chief talent lay in portraits; though he was also well skilled in compositions. I have seen one of his productions, consisting of Saints Giacomo and Giovanni, at S. Francesco, in Piacenza, an early effort, but very well conceived and executed. Andrea Mainardi, called Chiaveghino, employed himself both singly and with Marcantonio, his nephew, in painting for the city, and more especially for its environs. By Baldinucci, he is pronounced a weak painter; and such indeed he appears wherever he worked in haste, and for a small sum. But several of his altar-pieces, laboured with more care, tend to redeem his character; there he shews himself a successful disciple of Bernardino, both in his minute style, as in his Marriage of S. Anne, at the Eremites, and in his loftier manner, as in his large picture of the Divin Sangue, or divine blood. He exhibits that prophetic idea, torcular calcavi solus, and the Redeemer is seen standing upright under a wine-press, and, crushed by the Divine Justice, emitting from his holy body, through the open wounds, whole streams of blood, which are received into sacred vessels by S. Agostino, and three other Doctors of the church; and are afterwards shed for the benefit of an immense crowd of the Faithful, who are seen gathered round. The same subject I saw in one of the churches of Recanati, and in some others, but no where so appropriately expressed. It is a picture that would reflect credit on any school; exhibiting fine forms, rich draperies, warm and lively colouring. In the distribution of his small and frequent lights he might, indeed, have been more happy, as well as in the grouping of his figures; a fault, however, common to many of his school.
The best, however, of these disciples of Bernardino, with a number of others whom I omit, were all surpassed by a fair votary of the art named Sofonisba Angussola, sprung from a noble family at Cremona. Along with her younger sister, Elena, who afterwards took the veil, she received his instructions at her father's request, in his own house. Upon his going to Milan, Soiaro was selected to supply the place of Bernardino, and Sofonisba soon attained to such a degree of excellence, more particularly in portraits, as to be esteemed one of the most finished painters of her age. She at first superintended the pictorial education of her four younger sisters, whose names were Lucia and Minerva, who died young; Europa and Anna Maria, of whom the former married, and died in the flower of her age; and of the second, likewise married, there remains no further account. Vasari bestows the highest commendations upon Sofonisba, and upon the other sisters, with whom he was acquainted at Cremona, when they were young. At that period Sofonisba had already been invited as court painter, by Philip II. into Spain, where, besides the portraits she took of the royal family and of Pope Pius IV., she painted several other princes and lords of rank, all ambitious of the same honour, insomuch that we might apply to her the words of Pliny: "Illos nobilitans quos esset dignata posteris tradere." Entering afterwards into matrimony with one Moncada, she resided with him some years at Palermo, and after his death again married a gentleman of the name of Lomellino. She died at Genoa, at a very advanced age, infirm and blind; though she continued to converse and give her advice upon the art until her last moments; insomuch that Vandyck was heard to say, that he had acquired more knowledge from her, than from any one else he knew. Her portraits are greatly esteemed in Italy; and in particular, two which she took of herself; one of which is in the ducal gallery at Florence, and the other in possession of the Lomellini family at Genoa.
I next approach that celebrated pupil of Bernardino, whom I promised to mention at the close of the chapter; and this is the Cavalier Gio. Batista Trotti, who published his master's life, during his lifetime, written by Lamo. None of Campi's pupils was so much attached to him as this artist, who married his niece, and was left heir to his valuable studio. On his competing at Parma with Agostino Caracci, and being more applauded at court, it was said by Agostino, with pleasantry, that they had given him a hard bone to gnaw. Hence he acquired the surname of Malosso, which he adopted, and sometimes made use of in signing his name, besides transmitting it, as an hereditary appellation, to his nephew. Thus he converted into a source of applause, the satiric trait launched against him by Caracci, meant to convey, that the people of Parma had preferred to him an artist of inferior worth. Nor indeed was Malosso his equal either in design or in solid judgment; though he could boast pictoric attractions which made him appear to advantage when opposed to other artists. He displayed little of Bernardino's taste, except in a few of his first efforts; he afterwards studied Coreggio, and, most of all, aimed at resembling Soiaro, whose gay, open, and brilliant style, varied shortenings, and spirited attitudes, he exhibited in the chief part of his works. But he carried it too far, making an extravagant display of his white and other clear colours, without sufficiently tempering them with shade, insomuch that I have heard his paintings compared to those on porcelain; while he has been accused of want of relief, or according to Baldinucci, of some degree of harshness. His heads are, however, extremely beautiful, smiling with loveliness, and of a graceful roundness, not unlike Soiaro's; though he is too apt to repeat them on the same canvass, nearly alike in features, colours, and attitude. Here his rapidity of hand alone was in fault, as he was in no want of fertility of ideas. When he pleased he could give variety to his lineaments, as we gather from his Beheading of St. John, at S. Domenico, in Cremona, as well as to his compositions; having represented at S. Francesco and at S. Agostino, in Piacenza, and if I mistake not, elsewhere, a picture of the Conception of the Virgin, in every instance abounding with fresh ideas. Nor do we often meet with any of his paintings throughout the numerous cities in which he was employed, that have much resemblance in point of invention. He was equally varied in his imitations when he pleased, as appears from his Crucifixion, surrounded by saints, in the cathedral of Cremona, executed in the best Venetian taste; while his S. Maria Egiziaca driven from the Temple, to be seen at S. Pietro in the same town, partakes as much of the Roman. There is also a Pietà of his at S. Abbondio, which shews that he was occasionally happy in catching the Caracci manner.
His most esteemed works in fresco, for which he was honoured with the title of cavaliere, were exhibited in the palace called del Giardino, at Parma. His labours in the Cupola of S. Abbondio, before-mentioned, were on a magnificent scale, though designed from Giulio Campi. But they display a mastery of hand, and strength of colouring, fully equal, if not superior, to the invention of the work. For Giulio, indeed, did not possess the same skill in varying his groups of angels as the Caracci; inasmuch as both he and his family were accustomed to arrange them like the horses we see in the ancient chariots, all drawn up in a line, or in some other manner unusual in the best schools. The Cremonese historian endeavours, in some degree, to defend Trotti from the charge of harshness, casting it upon his assistants and disciples, whose altar-pieces have been attributed to Malosso, by Baldinucci. This may be the case with some, but there are others inscribed with the name of Trotti, especially at Piacenza, which more or less exhibit the same fault. Nor ought we to cast reflections upon an artist of a secondary character, on account of some errors, as these are precisely the cause of his exclusion from the rank of the very first masters.
Trotti educated a number of artists who flourished about the year 1600, devoted to his manner, although in course of time the method of preparing grounds becoming corrupted throughout Italy, and the age attached to a more sombre style of colouring, they were induced to abandon much of that clearness which forms a chief characteristic of his colouring. Baldinucci gives some account of Ermenegildo Lodi, as well as Orlandi, who could not discern which of two paintings belonged to the master, and which to the scholar. This, I conjecture, arose from painting under the eye of his preceptor, whom he assisted in many of his labours, together with his brother Manfredo Lodi. When we consult the few which he executed alone, particularly at S. Pietro, they discover nothing to have excited the jealousy of Agostino Caracci, nor to have gained for the artist the appellation of Malosso. The productions likewise of Giulio Calvi, called Il Coronaro, might be mistaken for the least perfect of those of Trotti, says Zaist, where they are not inscribed with his name. The same may be averred of two other artists, Stefano Lambri and Cristoforo Augusta, a youth of great promise, cut off in the flower of his age; and both excellent disciples of the school. These, no less than Coronaro, may be seen and compared with each other in the church and convent of the Padri Predicatori, which possess specimens of each.