[61] See the Encyclopedia, at the Art. Encaustique.
[62] See the Discorso della Cera Punica, by the Cav. Lorgna, Verona, 1785. Also Osservazioni intorno alla Cera Punica, by Count Luigi Torri, Verona, 1785. In the work of Federici is an account of another little production by Gio. Maria Astorri of Treviso, edited in Venice, 1786; in which Spanish honey is much praised for the purpose of preparing and whitening the wax; and being a painter he relates several experiments he made with this and other methods, which succeeded well. Gio. Fabroni, keeper of the royal cabinet at Florence, likewise wrote concerning it. See the Roman Anthology for the year 1797.
[63] Vasari.
BOOK V.
GENOESE SCHOOL.
EPOCH I.
The Ancients.
Last among the ancient schools of Italy is to be enumerated the Genoese, in regard to the period in which it flourished, not to its merit, which I consider as being equal to that of many others. In Liguria the first revival of painting appeared tardy; not so its progress, which was rapid and distinguished. In Genoa and Savona, as well as in other cities situated on the sea-shore, there remain some ancient paintings by unknown hands, one of which, over the gate of Savona, is distinguished by the date of 1101. The first artist known by any extant production, is one Franciscus de Oberto, as he signs himself on the edge of a painting of the Virgin between two angels, which is in the church of S. Domenico, at Genoa, displaying nothing of the Giottesque, and executed in 1368. It cannot be ascertained that he was altogether a native artist, as may be confidently asserted of the Monk of Ieres, and of Niccolo da Voltri, names known to history though not by any surviving works. The Monk of the Isole d'Oro, or of Ieres, or Stecadi, where he long resided, was not pointed out to us by name by any ancient writer. His surname was Cybo, and historians place him in the genealogical tree of Innocent VIII. Besides being a good Provençal poet, and historian, it is said that he became an excellent miniaturist, and on this account, a favourite with the King and Queen of Aragon, to whom he presented several of his illuminated books. He also delighted in representing in his paintings birds, fish, quadrupeds, trees with fruits, ships of various forms, perspectives of cities and edifices, objects, in short, which he beheld in the islands around him. It is conjectured by Baldinucci that Giotto's models, in an age thronged with miniaturists, and not wanting in painters, had influenced the efforts of this isolated artist. How this assertion can be confirmed I know not, the more so as history describes him as having devoted himself late in life to design, and in the island of Lerino, where it is not known there were any followers of Giotto. Voltri was also a figure painter; some of his altar-pieces survived to the time of Soprani, who extols them, without, however, pointing out with precision the peculiarities of his taste or school.
During the fifteenth century, and part of the following, the capital city, and those depending on it, were supplied, for the most part, with foreign painters, almost all unknown to their native schools on account of their having, as it appears, resided in Liguria. Some account remains of a German called Giusto di Alemagna, in a cloister of S. Maria di Castello, at Genoa. He there painted in fresco an Annunciation in 1451, a precious picture of its sort, finished in the manner of miniaturists, and which seems to promise for Germany the style of an Albert Durer. At the same period Jacopo Marone, of Alessandria, painted an altar-piece at S. Jacopo in Savona, in distemper, consisting of various compartments, and in the midst of it a Nativity with a landscape, a work conducted with exquisite care in every part. At S. Brigida, in Genoa, too, are seen, by the same hand, two altar-pieces, one with the date of 1481, the other of 1484. The author was one Galeotto Nebea, of Castellaccio, a place not far from Alexandria. The three principal Archangels in the first, and S. Pantaleone with other martyrs in the second, are represented on a gold ground, very tolerably executed, both in forms and draperies, which are extremely rich, with stiff and regular foldings, not borrowed from any other school. It exhibits also the grado or step, with minute histories, a work somewhat crude, but displaying diligence.