By these means the country became enriched with beautiful works, and began to turn itself to a more perfect style, which it attained with a celerity unknown to any other school. The transition from the style of Brea, which was that of the thirteenth century, to that of Raffaello, occupied but a few years; and even the scholars of Nizzardo, as we have observed, very soon became worthy imitators of the first of modern masters. These principles were sure to make the most prosperous advances amongst a people rich in genius and industry; and amidst a nobility that abounded in wealth, and who in no way lavished it more freely than in raising splendid sanctuaries to religion, and sumptuous habitations for themselves, which in grandeur, decorations, tapestries, and in other kinds of luxuries, scarcely yielded to royalty. From munificence like this, the School of Genoa derived aid and encouragement, though not much known abroad, as her artists were sufficiently occupied at home. Its characteristic excellence, in the opinion of Mengs, consisted in the number of its excellent fresco painters; so that a church or palace of any antiquity is scarcely to be named which does not possess the most beautiful works, or at least the memory of them. And it is a remarkable fact, when we consider how exposed the city is to the sea air, that so many works in fresco, executed by early artists, should have remained in so perfect a state. Nor did the school of Genoa want celebrity in oil paintings, particularly in the qualities of truth and force of colouring, which excellences, derived first from Perino and afterwards from the Flemish, it always retained; not yielding in this respect to any school of Italy, except the Venetian. It has produced also noble designers; although some, like other mannerists, have debased the pencil by hasty and negligent performances. Not having in public many examples of ideal excellence, it has supplied the deficiency by the study of the natural; and in the figure it has rather adopted the healthy, and the robust, and the energetic, than the delicate and the elegant. The study of portraits, in which this school had excellent masters and most lucrative practice, had a great influence on the figures of its first epoch; those of its last, if they have more beauty, have less spirit. There existed a talent for extensive composition, but in middle size rather than in great. In these they had not epic masters, like Paolo and other Venetians; they did not, however, so often violate decorum and costume. This was, perhaps, the result of the attachment to literature entertained by many of the Genoese painters, amongst whom are enumerated a greater number of men of letters, and especially gentlemen, than in any other school. This latter circumstance was, in a great measure, owing to Paggi, who, in a treatise of considerable length, defended the nobility of the art,[64] and obtained a public decree,[65] declaring the art honourable, and worthy of cultivation by men of the noblest birth; an event from which the art derived the greatest dignity. We now return to particulars.
The first who attached themselves to Perino for instruction, were Lazzaro and Pantaleo Calvi, the sons and scholars of an Agostino Calvi, a good painter in the old style, and one of the first in Genoa who forsook the gold ground for one of colour. Lazzaro was at that time twenty-five years of age, his brother somewhat more; nor did the latter rise in reputation, except in lending to the works of Lazzaro his aid and his name. These works abounded in Genoa and her territories, at Monaco and at Naples, in every variety of composition, arabesques, and stuccos with which are decorated palaces and churches. Some of these are excellent, as the façades of the palace Doria, (now Spinola,) with prisoners in various attitudes, considered as a school of design; and several historical compositions in colours and chiaroscuro, in the best taste.[66] In the palace Pallavicini, at Zerbino, is a composition of theirs commonly called the Continence of Scipio; a remark which I owe to Sig. Ratti, who not having included it in his edition of 1768, obligingly communicated it to me for this work. To this they also added naked figures, with so happy an imitation of Perino that, in the opinion of Mengs, they might be adjudged to that master. Moreover, we know that Perino was liberal to them in designs and cartoons; whence, in these better works, we may always presume on the aid of the master's hand. However it might be, Lazzaro indulged in a self-conceit of his own powers, and left behind some specimens of an extravagance which no painter has since followed, except Corenzio. He was particularly jealous of any young artist, who he thought might interfere with his fame or interests, and to gratify his envy had recourse to the blackest arts. One of these rivals, Giacomo Bargone, he took off by poison; and to depress the others he drew around himself a crowd of adherents and hirelings, who influenced the opinion of the vulgar, by praising the works of Lazzaro to the skies, and depreciating those of his competitors. These cabals were more strongly instanced in the chapel Centurioni, where he painted the Birth of St. John, in competition with Andrea Semini and Luca Cambiaso, who there also painted other pictures from the history of that saint. This work was one of his happiest efforts, and the most approaching to the style of his master; but he could not crush the genius of Cambiaso, which after this occasion appeared more brilliant than his own; whence the Prince Doria selected that artist to execute a very considerable work in fresco for the church of S. Matteo. This so enraged Calvi, that he gave himself up to a sea life, and abandoned the pencil for twenty years. He ultimately resumed it, and continued, though with a hardness of style, to paint till his eighty-fifth year. One of his last works is to be seen on the walls and in the cupola of S. Catherine; but it is cold, meagre, and bears all the marks of senility. Indeed after his return to the art, and particularly after the death of Pantaleo, who had assiduously assisted him in every work, Lazzaro was only memorable for the extreme protraction of his life, which extended to 105 years.
Of the two Semini, Andrea and Ottavio, it is not ascertained that they had in Genoa any other master than their father Antonio; but after the example of their father, they deferred much to Perino, as did also Luca their contemporary. In confirmation of which it is said, that Perino having found them engaged with a print of Titian, and hearing them remarking on some incorrectness in the drawing, reproved them by observing, that in the works of the great masters we ought to pass over their faults and extol their excellence. But the two brothers, enchanted by the style of Raffaello, became ambitious of drinking at the fountain of the art, and, repairing to Rome, applied themselves to the diligent study of the works of that master, and the remains of antiquity, particularly the Trajan column. They were afterwards employed both at Genoa and in Milan, where they painted many works, both in conjunction and separately, all in the Roman style, particularly in their early career. Andrea discovered less talent than Ottavio; and was, perhaps, more tenacious than he in his imitation of Raffaello, especially in the contours of his faces. He sometimes wants delicacy, as in a crucifixion lately come into the possession of the Duke of Tuscany; and sometimes correctness, as in the Presepio, in the church of St. Francis in Genoa, which is in other respects very Raffaellesque, and may be reckoned among his best works. Ottavio, an unprincipled man, was an eminent artist, and succeeded so well in the imitation of his master, as is scarcely credible to those who have not seen his works. He painted the façade of the palace Doria, now Invrea, and there displayed so fine a taste in the architecture, and decorated it with busts and figures of such relief, and particularly with a Rape of the Sabines, that Giulio Cesare Procaccini took it for a performance of Raffaello, and asked if that great master had left any other works in Genoa. Of equal merit, or nearly so, were many of his frescos, painted for the nobility, until, as is often the case with fresco painters, he ended his career in a freer but less finished style. Of these latter he left many specimens at Milan, where he passed the latter years of his life. In that city the entire decoration of the chapel of S. Girolamo at S. Angelo is painted by him, the chief composition of which is the funeral group which accompanies the saint to the sepulchre. It possesses, if not a noble design, yet great fertility of invention, great spirit, and a strong and beautiful colour, as he possessed that part of the art in an eminent degree in works of fresco; for in oils he was either unwilling or unable to colour well.
Luca Cambiaso, called also Luchetto da Genoa, did not quit his native country to obtain instruction, nor did he frequent any other school than that of his father; obscure indeed, but of a good method, and sufficient to a mind of genius. Giovanni his father, a tolerable quattrocentista, and a great admirer of Vaga and Pordenone, after having exercised him in copying the designs of Mantegna, a master of chasteness of contour, and having instructed him in the art of modelling, so useful in relief and foreshortening, carried him to the palace Doria, and there pointed out to his attention those great prototypes of art, with the addition of his own instruction. The study of these performances, by a youth who was born a painter, awakened in him such emulation, that he began in his fifteenth year to produce works of his own invention; and gave promise of one day ranking, as he did, with the first painters of his age. He displayed facility, fire, and grandeur of design, and was on that account adduced by Boschini as an example of fine contours, and held in high esteem in the cabinets of the dilettanti. He embodied his ideas with such despatch and success, that Armenini affirms that he had seen him paint with two pencils at a time, and with a touch not less free, and more correct than Tintoretto. He was, moreover, fertile and novel in his designs, skilful in introducing the most arduous foreshortenings, and in surmounting the difficulties of the art. He was deficient at first in the true principles of perspective; but he soon acquired the theory from Castello, his great friend and companion, as we shall shortly see. Through him he improved both his colouring and his style of composition. In conjunction with Castello he executed several works, so much alike, that one hand can scarcely be distinguished from the other. These, however, were not his best performances. He must be seen where he painted alone; and he shines no where more than in Genoa, nor beyond a period of twelve years, within which space Soprani circumscribes his best time. Let it not appear strange to those who hear this opinion of that writer. Luca had not the good fortune to benefit from those great masters who, with a word, put their scholars in the right path; he went on, however, improving from his own resources, a long and laborious course, in which a thousand wishes are formed before the goal is reached. But Cambiaso attained it, and held it until an ungovernable passion, as we shall see in the sequel, threw him back again.
Confining ourselves to the works of the best twelve years of his practice, we see in him a man who possessed a high predilection for the Roman School; deriving instruction from prints, and impelled by his own genius to attempt I know not what of originality. Where this originality appears, we should not wish Cambiaso other than himself, and where it does not appear, we should not wish him any thing but an imitator. Of the first kind is the Martyrdom of St. George in the church of that saint, which for the noble character of the sufferer, the sympathy of the spectators, the composition, variety, and force of chiaroscuro, is considered his chef d'œuvre. Of the second kind there are, perhaps, more specimens to be found; as the picture at the Rocchettini, of S. Benedetto with John the Baptist and St. Luke, very much in the style of Perino and Raffaello; and above all, the Rape of the Sabines in Terralba, a suburb of Genoa, in the palace of the Imperiali. Every thing combines to please in this work; the magnificence of the buildings, the beauty of the horses, the alarm of the virgins, the ardour of the invaders, the several episodes which, in various compartments, crown the principal subject, and, as it were, continue the story. It is related that Mengs, after having viewed this picture, said, that out of Rome he had not seen any thing that more strongly brought to his recollection the loggie of the Vatican, than these works. He also executed other works of singular merit, particularly for private collections, among which I have found more pictures of a free than of a devout description. Being left a widower, he became enamoured of a female relative, whom he in vain endeavoured to obtain permission from the Pope to marry. This disappointment induced the neglect of his art. He then repaired to the court of Madrid, with the view of facilitating his wishes, and when he found himself deprived of all hope in this object, he fell sick and died. He left many works in the Escurial, and amongst these the subject of Paradise, in the vault of the church, a large composition, and a work very much praised by Lomazzo, but not equally so by Mengs, who had seen and examined it for several successive years.
Gio. Batista Castello, the companion of Cambiaso, is commonly called in Genoa Il Bergamasco, to distinguish him from Gio. Batista Castello, a Genoese, a scholar of Cambiaso, and the most celebrated miniature painter of his age. Our present subject, born in Bergamo, and brought, when a youth, to Genoa, by Aurelio Buso, (v. [ vol. iii. page 184]) was, on his sudden departure, left by him in that city. In this state of desertion he found a patron in one of the Pallavicini family, who gave him a friendly reception, and assisted him with the means of prosecuting his studies; sending him to Rome, from whence he returned to Genoa an accomplished architect, sculptor, and painter, not inferior to Cambiaso. His taste, formed by studying at Rome, was similar to that of Luca, as I have already observed; and in the church of S. Matteo are works painted by them in concert. We may observe in these the style of Raffaello already verging on mannerism, but not so much so as that which prevailed in Rome in the time of Gregory and Sixtus. Connoisseurs discover in Cambiaso a greater genius and more elegance of design; in the Bergamese more care, a deeper knowledge, and colour occasionally partaking more of the school of Venice than of Rome. It is however very probable that when so friendly an intercourse subsisted they may have aided each other, even in those places where they worked in competition, where each claimed his own work, and distinguished it by his name. Thus at the Nunziata di Portoria Luca represented on the walls the final state of the blest and the rejected in the last judgment; while Gio. Batista, in the vault, painted the Supreme Judge in the midst of the angelic choir, calling the elect to bliss. He appears in the attitude of uttering the words Venite benedicti, appended in capital letters. It is a highly finished performance, and of so exalted a character that we should think that Luca, when he painted the laterals to it, was asleep, so inferior are they in composition and expression. On many other occasions he painted alone, as the S. Jerome surrounded by monks terrified at a lion, in S. Francesco in Castelletto; and the S. Sebastian in the church of that saint, receiving the crown of martyrdom; a picture rich in composition, studied in execution, and far beyond any commendation of mine. He painted in Genoa other pictures, and always discovered an air of life in the countenances, a magnificence in the architecture, a strength of colour and chiaroscuro, which makes one regret that he was so little known in Italy; and possibly he was prevented from being known as an oil painter by the numerous works in fresco which he executed in Genoa; the largest of which is in the Palazzo Grillo. We there see a portico painted in arabesque, and a saloon, in the ceiling of which is represented the banquet given by Dido to Æneas; a beautiful work, particularly the arabesques, but not sufficiently studied. This artist, in his latter years, was painter to the court at Madrid, whither, on his death, Luca Cambiaso was called to finish the larger historical subjects; but the grotesques, and the ornamental parts interspersed with figures, were continued by the two sons of Gio. Batista, whom he had carried with him to Madrid as his assistants. Palomini makes honourable mention of them, and the Padre de' Santi Teresiani, and the Padre Mazzolari Girolamino, in their description of the Escurial, enumerate their works, commending their variety, singularity, and beauty of colour. One was called Fabrizio, the other Granello; and the latter, as Ratti conjectures, was the son of Nicolosio Granello, an able fresco painter of the school of Semini, whose widow was married to Castelli, and probably brought with her this son of her first marriage.
Painters have in general been found to impart instruction more freely to native scholars than to strangers; and yet the latter have always profited more than the former, so that it rarely happened that on the death of the chief of a school the reputation of that school has been continued by a son or a nephew. Such was the case with the Genoese, where Calvi, the Semini, and Cambiaso, had each a numerous progeny, and a progeny too attached to the art; and yet amongst so many there was not one who passed the bounds of mediocrity, except perhaps Orazio, the son of Luca Cambiaso, of whom Soprani merely says that he followed in a praiseworthy manner his father's style, and initiated some pupils in the art. It was therefore to his better scholars that Cambiaso was indebted for assistance in his profession; one of whom, Lazzaro Tavarone, followed him even into Spain, and remained there for some years after his master's death. He afterwards returned to Genoa, stored with the designs of Luca, and loaded with riches and honours. Luca seemed to live again in his scholar, so fully did he possess his style. He moreover distinguished himself by a method of colouring in fresco, which, if I mistake not, raised him above all his predecessors in this school, and above all who succeeded him, except Carloni. This peculiarity consisted in a richness, brightness, and variety of colour, which brings distant objects vividly to the sight, the whole composition appearing brilliantly illuminated, and the tints splendidly and harmoniously blended. One may perhaps occasionally wish in them more softness, but in general they have all the richness of oil paintings. The tribune of the Duomo, where the patron saints of the city are represented, particularly S. Lorenzo, from whose history some passages are selected, is the chef d'œuvre of his public works. The façade of the palace of the doge is also a considerable performance, representing St. George slaying the dragon; around it and above are other numerous figures of citizens of eminence, of the virtues, of genii with nautical weapons and the spoils of the enemy, some of which might pass for the work of Pordenone. This grand work is exposed to the sea, the spray of which has affected, but not destroyed it. In many other churches and palaces also are to be found the works of Tavarone; histories, fables, and imaginary compositions, often so well preserved that the scaffolding and the steps by which the artists ascended and descended, appear as if just removed. Fortunate, had his works been fewer in number, and finished with equal care. Some pictures in oil are mentioned by him, but more rare and of less merit than his frescos.
Cesare Corte was of Pavian extraction. Valerio, his father, who was born in Venice, was the son of a gentleman of Pavia, and became, under the instruction of Titian, an excellent portrait painter; and his talents insuring him a favourable reception in Genoa, he settled there. He remained in that city for the rest of his life, and died in poverty, his means being all consumed in fruitless experiments in alchemy. He was the intimate friend of Cambiaso, whose life he wrote; and to him he committed the instruction of his son Cesare. This son did not indeed equal his father, but he surpassed the greater number of his fellow scholars. In the church of S. Piero he painted the tutelar saint at the foot of the Madonna, surrounded by angels; a picture of chaste design and of a true and harmonious colouring. His historical pictures and his portraits are found in many collections: one of the former, in the Casa Pallavicino, on a subject from the Inferno of Dante, was celebrated by Chiabrera in an elegant sonnet. The fame of this artist was tarnished by his heretical opinions, imbibed by the perusal of some pernicious work, as often happens to the half informed, who read every thing, understand little, and finally believe nothing. He however abjured his errors, though never released from his prison, where he died. David, his son, restricted himself to the limits of a copyist; and in this so highly distinguished himself, that his pictures are placed in some collections at the side of the originals as wonders of art.
Bernardo Castello frequented the school of Andrea Semini more than that of Cambiaso; in his principles he inclined more to the latter, and in practice he followed both indifferently. Travelling afterwards through Italy he saw other works, and formed a style not devoid of grace, nor of correctness, when he worked with care; as in the Martyrdom of St. Clement and St. Agatagnolo, in the church of S. Sebastian, and the St. Anne at S. Matteo. He had a fertile invention, in which he was aided by the poets of the age, whose friendship he assiduously cultivated.[67] He was eulogized by Lionardo Spinola, D. Angiolo Grillo, Ceva, Marino, Chiabrera, and by Tasso, for whose Jerusalem he made the designs which were in part engraved by Agostino Caracci. His reputation raised him not only to the rank of one of the first masters of his school, but of Italy itself; and he was thus selected to work in the Vatican, as has been mentioned. He there painted St. Peter called to the apostleship, a picture which was soon afterwards removed, and one by Lanfranco substituted in its place, either because it was injured by damp, or had not given satisfaction. Castello indeed did not possess that vigorous style which Rome at this time demanded, refusing her applause to the Vasaris and Zuccaris. He had much of their style of colour, nor was he exempt from their despatch; and, like them, he opened the way in his school to facility instead of correctness. Genoa is filled, or rather glutted, with his works, yet they still maintain their reputation, as they are all sustained by a certain vigour and grace of style. He sometimes appears in foreign collections, and in that of the Colonna in Rome I saw a Parnassus by him with Poussin figures and a beautiful landscape, which may be ranked amongst his most finished works. Soprani informs us that he was again invited to Rome, to paint a picture of St. Peter, and that he died whilst he was preparing himself for this journey, aged seventy-two. But at so advanced a period of life one may doubt the truth of this report. He had three sons, painters, of whom Valerio alone is deserving of commemoration, and we shall notice him in his place.
Among his foreign scholars Simon Barabbino deserves remembrance, whose rare genius created so strong a jealousy in Castello as to induce him to expel him from his school. He retired from it, and afterwards painted at the Nunziata del Guastato the S. Diego, which Soprani almost prefers to the best work of Castello. But he did not obtain any great celebrity among his countrymen. Milan rendered him that honour which his own native place denied; in consequence of which he settled there, and worked in the palaces and churches. There is by him, at S. Girolamo, a Madonna with a dead Christ, accompanied by S. Michael and S. Andrew. The colour is true, the heads are correctly drawn, the naked figure well understood, the contours sufficiently accurate and well relieved. He would have attained still greater perfection, but he turned to merchandize, where instead of wealth he found only his ruin, and died in gaol.