Account of the Ancients until the time of Vinci.
If in each of our pictoric schools we have adhered to the plan of tracing back the memorials of more barbarous ages, and thence proceeding to more cultivated periods, Milan more especially as the capital of Lombardy, and the court of the Lombard kings, will afford us an epoch remarkable no less for its lofty character than for the grandeur of its monuments. When Italy passed from the dominion of the Goths to that of the Longobards, the arts, which invariably follow in the train of fortune, transferred their primary seat from Ravenna to Milan, to Monza, and to Pavia. Each of these places still retains traces of the sort of design now entitled, both on account of the place and the time, Longobardic, much in the same manner as in the diplomatic science we distinguish by the same name certain characters peculiar to that age, or rather to those ages, for after the Longobards were driven from Italy, the same taste in writing and sculpture continued to flourish during a great part of them. This style, as exhibited in works, both of metal and of marble, is coarse and hard beyond the example of any preceding age, and is seen most frequently and to most advantage in the representation of monsters, birds, and quadrupeds rather than of human figures. At the cathedral, at S. Michele, and at S. Giovanni in Pavia, appear some friezes over the gates, consisting of animals chained in a variety of ways to one another, sometimes in natural positions, and sometimes with the head turned behind. In the interior of the same churches, as well as in some others, we meet also with capitals, presenting similar figures, not unfrequently united to historical representations of men, differing so much from the human figure as to appear belonging to another species. The same kind of abuse of the art was practised in places under the sway of the Longobard dukes, one of which was the Friuli, which still preserves a number of these barbarous efforts. In Cividale there is a marble altar, first begun by Duke Pemmone, and completed by his son Ratchi, who lived during the eighth century. The bassi-relievi consist of Christ seated between different angels, his Epiphany, and the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin.[38] Art would appear scarcely capable of producing any thing more rude than these figures, yet whoever will be at the pains of examining the frieze on a gate at the same place, or the capitals of the pillars of S. Celso at Milan,[39] works of the tenth century, will admit that it was susceptible of still greater corruption when it added absurdity to its coarseness, and produced distorted and dwarfish figures, all hands and all heads, with legs and feet incapable of supporting them. There are an infinite number of similar marbles, and of like design, at Verona and other places. To these, nevertheless, are opposed other monuments which will not permit us to admit, as a general rule, that every trace of good taste was then extinct in Italy. I might easily adduce instances, drawn from different arts, and in particular from that of working in gold, which, during the tenth century, boasted its Volvino, who produced the very celebrated altar-piece at S. Ambrogio in Milan, a work which may be pronounced equal in point of style to the finest specimens of the dittici, or small ivory altar-pieces, that the museums of sacred art can boast.
Confining myself, however, to the subject before me, we know that Tiraboschi remarked in the palace of Monza, some of the most ancient pictures belonging to those ages, while other similar reliques are pointed out at S. Michele in Pavia, although placed in too elevated a situation to permit us to form an exact judgment of them. Others yet more extensive exist in Galliano, of which a description is given in the Opuscoli of P. Allegranza, (p. 193). Upon this point I may observe, that the Treatise upon Painting already mentioned, was discovered in a manuscript in the University of Cambridge to have had this title:—Theophilus Monachus (elsewhere qui et Rugerius), de omni scientiâ artis pingendi. Incipit Tractatus Lumbardicus qualiter temperantur colores, &c. This is a convincing proof, that if painting could then boast an asylum in Italy, it must have been more particularly in Lombardy. And in the church of S. Ambrogio, just mentioned, proofs of this are not wanting. Over the Confessional is seen a ceiling in terra cotta, with figures in basso-relievo, tolerably designed and coloured, resembling the composition of the best mosaic-workers in Ravenna and in Rome, supposed to be the work of the tenth century, or thereabouts. The figures of the Sleeping Saints are also seen near the gate, which must have been painted about the same time, and were at one time covered with lime, though they have since been brought to light and very carefully preserved by the learned ecclesiastics who are entrusted with the care of the temple. The portico has also a figure of the Redeemer, with a holy man worshipping at his feet, wholly in the Greek manner; besides a Crucifixion, which, to judge from the characters, might more suitably be ascribed to the thirteenth century than to the next. I omit the mention of several figures of the Crucified Saviour and of the Virgin, interspersed through the city and the state; contenting myself with referring to those of our Lady placed at S. Satiro and at Gravedona, which are of very ancient date.
From the period of these first efforts, I am of opinion that the art of painting continued to flourish throughout the state and city of Milan, though we are not fortunate enough to retain sufficient memorials of it to compile a full historical account. For little mention has been made by our oldest writers concerning the artists, except incidentally, as by Vasari in his Lives of Bramante, of Vinci, and of Carpi, and by Lomazzo, in his Treatise, and in his Temple, or Theatre[40] of Painting. As little likewise has been said by several of the more modern writers, nor that always with good authority, such as Torre, Latuada, Santagostini, whose narratives were collected by Orlandi, and inserted in his Dictionary. Some supplementary information has been supplied by Notices of the Paintings of Italy as to a variety of artists, and their exact age; and by the New Guide to Milan, truly new and unique until this period in Italy, and reflecting the highest credit upon the Ab. Bianconi, who not only points out every thing most rare in the city, but teaches us, by sound rules, how best to distinguish excellence from mediocrity and inferiority in the art. To this we may add the name of the Consiglier de' Pagave, who published very interesting notices relating to this school, in the third, fifth, and eighth volumes of the new Sienese edition of Vasari. I am also enabled to furnish considerable information in addition, politely transmitted to me in manuscript by the last writer, for the present work. From these I am happy to announce we may become acquainted with the names of new masters, along with much chronological information of a sounder kind, relating to those already known, frequently derived from the Necrologio of Milan, which had been carefully preserved by one of the public functionaries of that city.
By aid of these, and other materials I have to bring forward, I prepare to treat of the Milanese School from as early a date as 1335, when Giotto was employed in ornamenting various places in the city, which, down to the time of Vasari, continued to be esteemed as most beautiful specimens of the art. Not long subsequent to Giotto, an artist named Stefano Fiorentino was invited thither by Matteo Visconti, and is celebrated as one of the most accomplished pupils of the former. But he was compelled by indisposition to abandon the work he had undertaken in that city; nor do we know that at that period he had any successor in the Giotto manner. About the year 1370, Gio. da Milano, pupil to Taddeo Gaddi, arrived there, so able an artist that his master, at his death, entrusted to him the care of his son Angiolo, and another son, whom he was to instruct in a knowledge of the art. It is therefore evident that the Florentine early exercised an influence over the Milanese School. We are informed at the same time of two native artists, who, according to Lomazzo, flourished at the period of Petrarch and of Giotto. These are Laodicia di Pavia, called by Guarienti, pittrice, and Andrino di Edesia, also said to belong to Pavia, although both his name and that of Laodicia lead us to conjecture that they must have been of Greek origin. To Edesia and his school have been attributed some frescos which yet remain at S. Martino and other places in Pavia.[41] I cannot speak positively of the authors; their taste is tolerably good, and the colouring partakes of that of the Florentines of the age. Michel de Roncho, a Milanese, is another artist discovered by Count Tassi, at the same time that he gives some account of the two Nova who flourished at Bergamo. Michele is said to have assisted in their labours in the cathedral of that city, from the year 1376 to 1377, and remnants of these paintings survive, which shew that they approached nearer the composition of Giotto than the artists of Pavia. There are some pictures in Domodossola that also bring us acquainted with an able artist of Nova. They are preserved in Castello Sylva and elsewhere, and bear the following memorandum—Ego Petrus filius Petri Pictoris de Novariâ hoc opus pinxi, 1370. Without, however, going farther than Milan, we there find in the Sacristy of the Conventuali, as well as in different cloisters, paintings produced in the fourteenth century, without any indication of their authors, and most frequently resembling the Florentine manner, though occasionally displaying a new and original style, not common to any other school of Italy.
Among these anonymous productions in the ancient style, the most remarkable is what remains in the Sacristy of Le Grazie, where every panel presents us with some act from the Old or the New Testament. The author would appear to have lived during the latter part of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries; nor is it easy to meet with any other Italian production, conducted during that age by a single artist, so abundantly supplied with figures. The style is dry, but the colouring, where it has escaped the power of the sun, is so warm, so well laid on, so boldly relieved from its grounds, that it yields in nothing to the best Venetian or Florentine pieces of the time, insomuch that whoever be the artist he is fully entitled to all the praise of originality. Another Lombard artist, formerly believed to be a Venetian, is better known. His name has been incorrectly given by Vasari, in his life of Carpaccio, and in that of Gian Bellini, as well as by Orlandi and by Guarienti, in three articles inserted in the Dictionary of art. In one article, following Vasari, he is called by Orlandi, Girolamo Mazzoni, or Morzoni, and in the two others he is named Giacomo Marzone, and Girolamo Morzone, by Guarienti, a writer happier perhaps in adding to the errors and prejudices entertained about the old painters, than in correcting them. His real name is to be found upon an altar-piece which is still preserved at Venice, or in its island of S. Elena, a piece representing the Assumption of the Virgin, with the titular saint, S. Gio. Batista, S. Benedetto, and a holy Martyr, along with the following inscription—Giacomo Morazone à laurà questo lauorier. An. Dni. mccccxxxxi. The excellent critic Zanetti is persuaded, from its Lombard dialect, as well as from the fact of the artist having painted a good deal in different cities of Lombardy, as related by Vasari, that he does not belong to the Venetian, but to the Lombard School, and the more so as he took his name from Morazzone, a place in Lombardy. It is true, that granting this, there is no great sacrifice made, inasmuch as this Giacomo, who, when in Venice, was the competitor of Jacobello del Fiore, displayed little merit, at least in this picture, which cannot boast even a foot placed upon the ground according to the rules of perspective, nor any other merit that raises it much above the character of the thirteenth century.
Michelino was an artist who also retained the ancient style, and continued to the last the practice of making his figures large and his buildings small, a practice blamed by Lomazzo even in the oldest painters. He assigns to him a rank, however, among the best of his age on account of his designs of animals of every kind, which he painted, says Lomazzo, wonderfully well, and of the human figure, which he executed with effect, rather in burlesque than in serious subjects; and in this style was esteemed the model of his school. He would appear likewise to have been esteemed by foreigners, as we find in the Notizia Morelli, that in the house of the Vendramini at Venice there was preserved "a small book in 4to. bound in kid-skin, with figures of animals coloured" by this artist. At a little interval, according to Pagave, we are to place the period of Agostino di Bramantino, an artist unknown to Bottari, as well as to more recent investigators of pictorial history. I apprehend that an error committed by Vasari gave rise to an additional one in the mind of Pagave, a very accurate writer. Vasari, remarking that in a chamber of the Vatican, which was subsequently painted by Raffaello, the previous labours of Pier della Francesca, of Bramantino, of Signorelli, and of the Ab. di S. Clemente, were destroyed to accommodate the former, supposes that the two first of the artists, thus sacrificed, conducted them contemporaneously under Nicholas V. about 1450. Induced by the esteem he had for the same Bramantino, he collected notices also of his other works, and discovered him to be the author of the Dead Christ foreshortened, of the Family which deceived the horse at Milan, and of several perspectives; the whole of which account is founded in error, when attributed to a Bramantino, who flourished about 1450, yet the whole is true when we suppose them to have been the work of one Bramantino, pupil to Bramante, who lived in the year 1529. I cannot perceive, however, in what way the Consiglier Pagave could have detected Vasari's mistake in the Milanese works; whilst in those of the Vatican, which, according to Vasari himself, all belong to the same individual, he has taken occasion to repeat it. He had better have asserted that the historian had erred in point of chronology, in supposing that Bramantino painted under the pontificate of Nicholas V. than have ventured on the hypothesis of the existence of an ancient Bramantino, called Agostino, by whom a very beautiful work was to be seen in the papal palace, and no other specimen at Rome, at Milan, or elsewhere. I disclaim all belief then in this old artist until more authentic proofs are brought forward of his existence, and I shall be enabled to throw new light upon the subject before I conclude the present epoch.
In the time of the celebrated Francesco Sforza, and of the Cardinal Ascanio his brother, both desirous no less of enriching the city with fine buildings than these last with the most beautiful decorations; there sprung up a number of architects and statuaries, and, what is more to our purpose, of very able painters for the age. Their reputation spread through Italy, and induced Bramante to visit Milan, a young artist who possessed the noblest genius, both for architecture and painting, and who, after acquiring a name in Milan, taught the arts to Italy and to the world. The former had made little progress in point of colouring, which, though strong, was somewhat heavy and sombre, nor in regard to their drapery, which is disposed in straight, hard folds, until the time of Bramante, while they are also cold in their features and attitudes. They had improved the art, however, in regard to perspective, no less in execution than in writing on the subject; a circumstance that led Lomazzo to observe, that as design was the peculiar excellence of the Romans, and colouring of the Venetians, so perspective seemed to be the chief boast of the Lombards. It will be useful to report his own words, from his Treatise upon Painting, p. 405. "In this art of correctly viewing objects, the great inventors were Gio. da Valle, Costantino Vaprio, Foppa, Civerchio, Ambrogio and Filippo Bevilacqui, and Carlo, all of them belonging to Milan. Add to these Fazio Bembo da Valdarno, and Cristoforo Moretto of Cremona, Pietro Francesco of Pavia, and Albertino da Lodi;[42] who, besides the works they produced at other places, painted for the Corte Maggiore at Milan, those figures of the armed barons, in the time of Francesco Sforza, first duke of Milan:" that is to say, between the period of 1447 and 1466.
In treating of these artists, I shall observe nothing further in reference to the last four, having described those of Cremona in their own place, and not being aware that any thing more than the name of the other two survives at Milan; I say at Milan, because Pier Francesco of Pavia, whose surname was Sacchi, left, as we shall find, some fine specimens at Genoa, where he resided during some time. It is doubtful whether any altar-piece remains by the first of these, (Gio. della Valle,) it being impossible to ascertain the fact. Nor do I know of any genuine work belonging to Costantino Vaprio, though there is a Madonna painted by another Vaprio, surrounded by saints in different compartments, at the Serviti, in Pavia, with this inscription:—Augustinus de Vaprio pinxit 1498: a production of some merit.
Vincenzio Foppa, said by Ridolfi to have flourished about the year 1407, is esteemed almost the founder of the Milanese School, in which he distinguished himself during the sovereignty of Filippo Visconti, and that of Francesco Sforza. I alluded to his name in the Venetian School, to which he is referable from his being of Brescia, whatever Lomazzo may on the other hand contend. It is my wish to avoid all questions of nationality, and the compendious method of my work will be a sufficient apology in this respect, more particularly as far as relates to the names of less celebrated artists. But with the head of a school, such as Foppa, I cannot consider it a loss of time to investigate his real country, in particular as the elucidation of many confused and doubtful points in the history of the art is found to depend upon this. In Vasari's Life of Scarpaccia we find it mentioned, that about the middle of the century "Vincenzio, a Brescian painter, was held in high repute, as it is recounted by Filarete." And in the life of this excellent architect, as well as in that of Michelozzo, he says, that in some of their buildings, erected under Duke Francesco, Vincenzo di Zoppa (read Foppa), a Lombard artist, painted the interior, "as no better master was to be met with in the surrounding states." Now that there was a Vincenzo, a Brescian artist, who then and subsequently flourished, and who ranked among the best artists, is proved by Ambrogio Calepino, in his ancient edition of 1505, at the word pingo. There, after having applauded Mantegna beyond all other artists of his age, he adds:—Huic accedunt Jo. Bellinus Venetus, Leonardus Florentinus, et Vincentius Brixianus, excellentissimo ingenio homines, ut qui cum omni antiquitate de picturâ possint contendere. After so high a testimony to his merits, written, if I mistake not, while Foppa was still living, though edited after his decease, (as we noticed from the eulogy written by Boschini on Ridolfi, in its proper place); let us next attend to that found on his monument in the first cloister of S. Barnaba at Brescia, which runs as follows:—Excellentiss. ac. eximii. pictoris. Vincentii. de. Foppis. ci. Br. 1492. (Zamb. p. 32.) To these testimonials I may add that from the hand of the author, which I discovered in the Carrara Gallery at Bergamo, where, on a small ancient picture, conducted with much care, and a singular study of foreshortening, extremely rare for the period, representing Christ crucified between the two Thieves, is written:—Vincentius Brixiensis fecit, 1455.—What proof more manifest can be required for the identity of one and the same painter, recorded by various authors with so much contradiction with regard to name, country, and age?