This turn for novelty at length led his fine genius astray; insomuch that Mengs is brought to lament that the Bolognese School should approach its close in the capricious Crespi, (vol. ii. p. 124). In his heroic pieces, and even in scriptural subjects, he left room occasionally for caricature. Wishing to exhibit novelty in his shadows and in his draperies he fell into mannerism; and varying his first method of colouring similar to the old painters, he adopted another more lucrative but less excellent. It consists of few colours, selected chiefly for effect, and very common and oily; gums applied by him to colouring, as other artists use them for a veil, or varnish; few strokes, employed indeed with judgment, but too superficial and without strength or body. Such was the method which we see pursued in so many of his pictures; or to speak more correctly, which are no longer to be seen, the tints having decayed or disappeared, so as to require them to be newly copied by another hand. His son did not attempt to conceal this fault, though he wished to excuse it. The reader may peruse the defence in his Felsina Pittrice, p. 225; and should he feel convinced by it, with similar benignity he may apologize for Piazzetta, who acquired his method of colouring from Crespi; with others who more or less pursued the same practice, at this period extinct.
As a specimen of his more solid style, the picture of the BB. Fondatori, at the church of the Servi, appears to much advantage; our Lord's Supper, also, in Casa Sampieri; a few pieces in the royal Pitti palace, where he was long employed by the great Prince Ferdinando; besides a few other of his first productions. In his other style are various pictures conducted for the galleries of the Roman nobility; the SS. Paolo and Antonio as eremites, for the Princes Albani; the Magdalen for the Chigi palace; the Seven Sacraments for the Card. Ottoboni, of which I have seen copies in the Albani palace at Urbino. The whole of these seven pictures display certain bold coruscations and contrasts which dazzle the eye; all shew novelty of idea; in particular that of the Spousals between a young girl and an octogenarian, to the visible mirth of the spectators. Spagnuolo lived to advanced age, honoured by the pope with the insignia of cavaliere, esteemed among the first of his age, while his paintings everywhere abounded. Different houses, both in and beyond Bologna, possess them in great number; histories, fables, and familiar pieces. He received most part of his commissions from the Signori Belloni, who decorated various chambers with his historical pieces, remunerating him with one hundred crowns each, though they contained but few figures, and all of an ell's length.
Spagnuolo's manner was not one that could be pursued by every pupil with applause. Those artists who were unable to direct it with equal imagination, power of design, spirit and facility, produced very trifling results. Even his own sons, D. Luigi the canon, and Antonio, who painted for various churches, did not wholly follow their father's style, but appear invariably more studied. The canon wrote much upon the art, as the lives of the Bolognese artists, or the third volume of the Felsina Pittrice, edited in 1769; notices of the painters of Ferrara and Romagna, still unpublished; various treatises; with numerous letters inserted by Bottari in the pictoric collection. To few of his age is the history of painting so much indebted, although in certain national subjects he failed to satisfy the whole of his fellow citizens. The authors of the new Guide of Bologna require from him more diligence in examining documents; greater fidelity as a public instructor; more justice to the real merit of Ercole Lelli. The four dialogues in defence of his Felsina Pittrice, written by a friend, were published by Bottari in the seventh volume of the work just cited, and are worth perusal. In the same volume ((p. 143) we also meet with a letter of Crespi, in which he confesses his different errors, declaring that he would correct them in the fourth volume of his Felsina, which he was then composing, and which I am uncertain whether he ever completed. From these notices we gather, that, notwithstanding his violent temper, he was not wanting in fidelity as an historian, and in that readiness to retract his own errors, without which none can pretend to maintain the true literary or historical character.
For the rest, he must have afforded occasion for those clamours against his Felsina and other writings by some satirical strokes, which are assuredly severe, accompanied by many personal reflections on his contemporaries. Concerning that very respectable academy he relates some observations of his deceased father, which had better have been consigned to oblivion. He disapproves the methods introduced into his school, and laments, that owing to the failure of good masters, Bologna was no longer frequented as formerly by students. He detects, too, certain little impositions introduced into the art; such for instance as displaying in the studio a number of pictures prepared for colouring, to convey an idea of possessing abundance of commissions; pronouncing in a breath a number of anatomical terms on the bones and muscles, to inspire a high opinion of the artist's learning; publishing eulogiums on some particular painting in an article of the day, which only the artist himself could have conceived, and written, paid for, and believed to be true. Such, or similar details, which must have sufficed to recognize particular individuals, doubtless provoked many replies from persons not publicly known, as the author gave no contemporary names, but deeply offended and provoked to retaliate upon him.
Among the pupils of Crespi was Gionima, who survived only, as I have stated, to his thirty-fifth year. Nor did Cristoforo Terzi reach a much more advanced age, the pupil also of different masters. From his outset he boasted a decision of hand, able to sketch at few strokes very spirited heads, which, however, by dint of excessive retouching, he deprived of much of their expression. This defect he remedied under Crespi, and improved himself by residing several years at Rome. Many collections at Bologna possess some of his half-length figures and heads of old men, which are mistaken by less experienced judges for those of Lana. In the list of Crespi's pupils, too, are Giacomo Pavia of Bologna, who flourished in Spain; Gio. Morini d'Imola; Pier Guarienti, a Veronese, who flourished at Venice, and was afterwards appointed director of the Dresden gallery; and the same who wrote the additions to Orlandi's dictionary. Francesco l'Ange of Savoy, a pupil of Crespi, became a Philippine monk at Bologna. His chief merit lay in small scriptural pictures, some of which I saw in Vercelli, in possession of his Eminence Martiniana, bearing the author's name, and quite deserving, by their design and colouring, of a place in that collection.
Besides Franceschini and Crespi, many others were educated by Cignani. Their names have been given by Zannelli, who published their lives; a book I have vainly endeavoured to obtain while engaged in writing the present work. By Crespi we have an account of some pupils whom he instructed in perspective and landscape, as well as in flowers; this skilful preceptor being accustomed to ascertain the young artists' talents, and confine them to the inferior, when not competent to the higher branches of art, and even to direct them to other professions when unequal to these. Such pupils as he retained, ought not, then, to be lightly contemned, although little celebrated, either because they died young, were dispersed abroad, or obscured by brighter names. Among such are Baldassare Bigatti, Domenico Galeazzi, Pietro Minelli, known in history by a few altar-pieces. Matteo Zamboni died young, leaving in some private houses a few specimens of his works, as much in Cignani's style as those of any artist. I am uncertain what public works he conducted in Bologna; but he acquitted himself well, for his age, in two histories at S. Niccolo in Rimini; the one representing St. Benedict, the other S. Pier Celestino. Antonio Castellani is included by Guarienti in the school of Cignani, though I think by mistake, as he belongs to that of the Caracci. Not so Giulio Benzi, also mentioned in the Guide of Bologna, and to be distinguished from the Genoese of that name. I may observe the same of Guido Signorini, recorded by Crespi, and not to be confounded with another Guido Signorini, heir to Guido Reni. So far of the artists of Bologna.
Federigo Bencovich was a foreigner of a Dalmatian family, and I give his name as he himself wrote it.[51] In the Dictionaries it is spelt Boncorich and Bendonich; and by Zannelli, Benconich; so that foreigners may be well excused for often mistaking the names of Italian painters. Federigo, commonly called in his own time, Federighetto, acquired more of Cignani's solidity than amenity of style; correct in his design, strong in his execution, and well informed in the best principles of his art. Some of his altar-pieces are at Milan, Bologna, and Venice; though most of his productions adorn collections, even in Germany, where he resided many years. In that of the Signori Vianelli of Chioggia, mention is made of his S. Jacopo Sedente; and in another collection, of Count Algarotti, at Venice, his landscape, with a village girl, to which Piazzetta added another figure. Occasionally, his manner is somewhat too much loaded with shadows, but by no means to be pronounced contemptible, as asserted by Zanetti, (p. 450) in opposition to the opinion of Guarienti.
Girolamo Donnini also resided out of his country; born at Coreggio, he lived at Bologna; and being inclined to that school, was first treated of by Crespi, next by Tiraboschi. He had studied under Stringa at Modena, and under Giangioseffo dal Sole at Bologna. Thence he went to Forli, at the instigation of Cignani, not so much to become a machinist and a painter in fresco, as in order to treat less difficult subjects in oil. His chief merit lay in painting for private ornament, and Orlandi, then living, bore testimony that his pictures were held in high request for the decoration of houses. He excelled also on a larger scale; one of his altar-pieces of S. Antonio, at the Filippini in Bologna, being conducted in a very masterly style; as well as others, dispersed about Romagna, at Turin, in his native place, and elsewhere, the manner of which, as is remarked by Crespi, clearly displays the hand of Cignani's disciple. A favourite pupil of Donnini, and whom he assisted in a variety of circumstances, was Francesco Boni, termed also il Gobbino[52] de' Sinibaldi, from being in the service of those lords. He was from Faenza, and left several good pictures in his native place; among others, a S. Teresa, with S. Gio. della Croce, at the Carmelitani; a Noli me tangere, and the Meeting of S. Domenico and S. Francesco, in the church which formerly belonged to the Domenicans. Pietro Donzelli, of Mantua, placed an altar-piece in the cathedral of Pescia, in which he represented S. Carlo administering to the sick of the plague, displaying the style of a pupil of Cignani; and this constitutes all the information I could obtain respecting him.
The other foreign pupils of the Cav. Carlo, who diffused his manner through the Italian schools, are commemorated in the places where they flourished; as Lamberti, for instance, at Rome, and Parolini at Ferrara. Here I shall add a brief sketch of the artists of Romagna, whom I unite to those of Bologna. Antonio Santi was an Ariminese, whose school only is mentioned by Crespi; but in the Guide of Rimini, where a few of his works remain, he is extolled as one of its best pupils, though he died young. The same Guide makes mention of some paintings in oil and fresco, particularly in the church of the Angioli, attributed to Angiolo Sarzetti, pupil to Cignani; from whom, also, he obtained a design for an altar-piece at S. Colomba. Innocenzio Monti is included by Crespi among the Bolognese, and by Orlandi among the painters of Imola, where he left some works. One, of the Circumcision of our Lord, at the Gesù of Mirandola, executed in 1690, is extolled in a little book of poems. He was more industrious than ingenious, and more successful in Germany and in Poland than in Italy. Gioseffo Maria Bartolini, also of Imola, is esteemed, in his native place, for a Miracle of S. Biagio, and for other works at S. Domenico, and in other churches. He was employed a good deal at Imola, where he opened school, and throughout Romagna; an artist of great facility, and partaking, in some degree, of the manner of Pasinelli, his first master.
The artists of Forli, among whom Cignani lived during some years, are not a few. Filippo Pasquali was colleague to Franceschini, whose grand altar-piece at Rimini he surrounded with a very pleasing ornament. Some of his earliest efforts are met with in Bologna, at the portico of the Serviti; but not equal to the altar-piece in the church of S. Vittore at Ravenna, which he painted at a more advanced age, and which does him great credit. Andrea and Francesco Bondi, two brothers, are recorded by Guarienti; though, in the Guides of Pesaro and Ravenna only one is alluded to, whose name is not given; and what pieces I saw at Forli itself would seem to have proceeded from one hand; such as the chapel of S. Antonio, at the Carmelites, the Crucifixion at S. Filippo, besides others. He boasts the fine execution of Cignani; but the forms and expressions are not equally select. Among other artists of Forli, instructed by Cignani, was the priest Sebastiano Savorelli, employed in some church paintings even in the adjacent cities. To him we may add Mauro Malducci, and Francesco Fiorentini, both priests, too, of Forli; of all of whom there is found some account in the life of Cignani.