In his Mantuan School there appeared several foreigners, among whom Primaticcio proved the most celebrated; an artist whom Giulio employed to work in stucco, and whom, on being invited into the service of the king of France, he sent to that country in his stead. But we shall take no further notice of him here, having to treat of him more fully in our account of the Bolognese. The Veronese, who are in possession of a beautiful fresco, in the Piazza delle Erbe, with the name of Alberto Cavalli Savonese, have supposed this painter a scholar of Giulio, but without any other foundation beyond a strong resemblance to the style of Pippi, in the naked parts. It is strange that no other specimen of such a distinguished hand should be known in Italy, nor any memorial of him, notwithstanding the great researches that have been made; nor is it very improbable that he also may have changed his country, and died in foreign parts. Benedetto Pagni from Pescia had already tried his abilities in Rome, together with Bartolommeo da Castiglioni, with Paparello da Cortona, and with Gio. da Leone; artists of whom I know not if there exist any thing beyond the name; while Pagni, who accompanied Giulio into Mantua, has been as highly esteemed by Vasari as any other name. From his hand, besides what remains in his native place, we possess a S. Lorenzo, painted in S. Andrea, at Mantua, which does credit to such a school. Companion to him in the numerous works of the Tè, we find Rinaldo Mantovano, considered by Vasari the most celebrated painter of the city, while he laments the untimely termination of his days. His altar-piece of S. Agostino, at the Trinità, proves him to have been great even in his youth, so much is the design beyond the expectation of such an age; and it has by some been pronounced the work of his master. Fermo Guisoni had a longer career; he painted in the cathedral the Vocation of S. Pietro and S. Andrea, copied from one of the most beautiful and studied cartoons of Giulio. Other pieces of his are extant, in part designed by Bertani, and in part from his own hand. Such is a picture of the Crucifixion at S. Andrea, which both in point of design and force of colouring is indeed admirable.
In this series Vasari has omitted to mention several others whom the Mantuans have enumerated as belonging to the school of Giulio, and as natives of their country. Among these is a Teodoro Ghigi, a Mantuan, as he subscribes himself, an excellent designer, and so familiar with the manner of the leader of his school, that on the decease of the latter, he was employed in the service of the prince, to complete his labours in the city, and in the country. Ippolito Andreasi also painted a good deal upon the cartoons of Giulio, and produced pictures of merit in S. Barbara as well as elsewhere. There are moreover two frescos in the dome, at the chapel of S. Lorenzo, attributed to one Francesco Perla; an altar-piece at S. Cristoforo by Gio. Batista Giacarolo, neither of them greatly celebrated in this class. Raffaello Pippi was a son of the head of the school; and there only remains of him the honourable recollection of the very promising efforts of his youthful genius, cut off in its happiest spring.
Following Giulio, his pupil, the cavalier Gio. Batista Bertani continued to labour, and to instruct the school. He had accompanied his master to Rome; he was a great architect, and an excellent writer on the subject, as well as a painter of no ordinary talent. Assisted by his brother of the name of Domenico, he ornamented several chambers in the castle of the court; and he committed various altar-pieces to different painters, in the dome erected by Giulio, in Sta. Barbara, which is the work of Bertani himself, and in other churches of the place. To some of these artists he gave his designs. He was esteemed almost as another Giulio by Duke Vincenzio, though very inferior to his predecessor. For what Vasari observes of him, that his knowledge did not equal that of his master, is no less true, than that the chief part of his own assistants surpassed him. His assistants were Gio. Batista del Moro, Geronimo Mazzuola, Paol Farinato, Domenico Brusasorci, Giulio Campi, Paol Veronese; whose works, displayed in that cathedral, do no less honour to the sanctuary than to the city. Yet let this be said without the least reflection upon his merit, which, particularly in design, was undoubtedly very great. This, indeed, we gather from his picture of the Martyrdom of Sta. Agata, which, executed from the design of Bertani by Ippolito Casta, approaches much nearer to the composition of Giulio than other works of Ippolito, drawn from his own invention.
There is reason to believe that Ippolito was of the family of Lorenzo Costa, together with Luigi, and another Lorenzo, both named Costa, and both Mantuans. Orlandi states Ippolito to have been a pupil of Carpi. Baldinucci includes him in the school of Giulio, either from his having frequented his academy, or in other ways having availed himself of his instructions and his models; and, indeed, his style betrays no slight traces of them. Lamo, who wrote an account of the artists of Cremona, describes him to us as a master, who about 1538 instructed Bernardino Campi; and moreover gives us reason to suppose that his brother Luigi was likewise initiated by him in the art. But he proved an inferior artist, and drew his chief celebrity from his surname. Among the assistants of Taddeo Zuccari, about 1560, Vasari mentions Lorenzo Costa, a Mantuan; and it seems likely that he sprung either from Luigi or from Ippolito; and had such name conferred upon him, as was usual, in memory of Lorenzo Costa, his grandfather, or from some other relationship to him. We frequently read in the Guide of Mantua, written by Cadioli, that such a painting is from the hand of Costa, without giving his proper name; and it appears probable, that pursuing their labours in the same studio, they may have contracted a sort of family style, not indeed very correct or learned, but of a practical kind. There is a pleasing air about the heads, and some care in the colours; for the rest it is minute; not exact, nor sufficiently shaded; and in fine, modelled upon the composition of one who aimed at imitating the grace, not of rivalling the power of Giulio. The Costa are esteemed in Mantua among the last disciples of the great school; nor do I know of their having produced any pupil besides Facchetti, who devoted himself altogether to portraits.
It will here be proper to state that Giulio in imitation of Raffaello gave rise, by the influence of his taste, to a great number of artificers, who ornamented other professions. He was possessed of those general ideas of beauty and proportion, from which he drew his rules for the particular direction of every work; an enviable distinction of that age, in which the leading men were at once painters, modellers, and architects, extending their influence even from the noblest works of art down to vases and plates of earthenware, and cornices of wood. I am not certain whether Giulio, like Raffaello, formed the taste of another Gio. da Udine, in drawing fruits and trees, &c.: but I know that Camillo, a Mantuan, declared by Vasari to be most excellent in point of landscape,[1] flourished about this period. Some specimens in fresco still continue to adorn his native place; but he chiefly produced his works in Venice, in Urbino, and at the ducal palace in Pesaro, where, in a chamber, since changed into an armour-room, he painted a grove, executed with so much taste and truth, that it would not be difficult to number every separate leaf upon the trees. It is certain that Giulio educated a pupil as his Perino, for his stuccos; and this was, besides Primaticcio, a Gio. Batista Briziano, commonly called Mantovano, who likewise became his Marc Antonio, engraving on copper many of the pictures of his master, as well as of other distinguished artists of his day. To him ought to be added Giorgio Ghisi, or Ghigi, who flourished at the same period; and to these succeeded Diana, daughter of Gio. Batista,[2] celebrated for her fine engravings; and this branch of art, introduced into Mantua by that eminent artist, continued to prosper there for a long course of years.
Another branch of the fine arts, that of miniature, seemed to attain its perfection under one of Giulio's scholars. His name was D. Giulio Clovio, of Croazia, a regular Scopetine Canon, afterwards becoming a layman by a dispensation from the Pope. He had first turned his attention to the higher branches of the art, but Giulio, who saw he possessed a peculiar talent for diminutive figures, prevailed upon him to apply himself to these; and taught him the first of any in Rome, the method of applying tints and colours in gum and water colours, while in miniature he obtained instructions from Girolamo da' Libri of Verona. He is esteemed at the head of his profession in this line. In his design he displays a good deal of study of Michelangiolo, and of the Roman School, though approaching nearer to the practice of a good naturalist, exquisitely graceful in his colours, and admirable in his exactness of drawing the minutest objects. Great part of his labours were undertaken for sovereigns and princes, in whose libraries may be found books ornamented by him in miniature with such a degree of truth and spirit, that we appear to view these diminutive objects rather through some camera-optica, than in a picture. It is related by Vasari, that in an Office of the Virgin, made for the Cardinal Farnese, there were figures which did not exceed the size of a small ant; and that each part was nevertheless distinctly drawn. It is worth while, indeed, to read the whole description given by that historian of the miniatures there inserted, in which he likewise selected subjects adapted for a multitude of figures, such as the procession of the Corpus Domini at Rome, and the feast of the Monte Testaceo: a labour of nine years, which was distributed into twenty-six little histories. He produced numerous small portraits painted for private people; (an art in which he is said by Vasari to have equalled Titian) besides a few little pictures. These are rarely to be met with in collections. There is one of the Deposizione, in the library of the Padri Cisterciensi, at Milan, a piece quite original in its composition, but which breathes altogether the taste of the golden period. Indeed, I am inclined to be of opinion that Giulio promoted this very study in Mantua; having myself seen there some exquisite miniatures, though by unknown hands. It is also worthy of notice, as Vasari remarks, that by means of Giulio, the art advanced towards perfection, not only in Mantua, but throughout all Lombardy, (a state which, in the native acceptation of the term, includes also a portion of the modern Venetian territories). This we have already in part seen; and in part shall continue to see more clearly in the course of this history.
[1] In the Life of Genga.
[2] She is also called Civis Volaterrana, from her connexion with that city; an instance that ought to be present to our recollection, when we find that different writers ascribe different countries to the same painter.