Valerio Castello is one of the greatest members of the Genoese School. He no sooner made his appearance amongst his fellow scholars than he distanced the oldest of them, and soon afterwards even rivalled his masters. The son of Bernardo, and the scholar of Fiasella, he followed neither the style of the one nor the other, but selected other prototypes more consonant to his genius, the Procaccini in Milan, and Coreggio in Parma; and from the study of these, and a grace wholly his own, he formed a style unique and peculiarly belonging to himself. If it is not the most correct, it seems to deserve pardon for its select composition, for its beautiful colouring and chiaroscuro, and for the spirit, facility, and expression, which always distinguish his pencil. He excelled in frescos, so as to please even by the side of Carloni; and is perhaps sometimes, as in S. Marta, even superior to him. In his perspectives he occasionally employed Gio. Maria Mariani d'Ascoli, who also lived in Rome. Nor was he inferior in oil pictures. He painted in the oratory of S. Jacopo the baptism of that saint, in competition with the chief of his contemporaries, and eclipsed them all, with the exception perhaps of Castiglione. He worked also for collections; and in the royal gallery of Florence his Rape of the Sabines is highly prized, a subject which, on a more extended scale, but yet with some resemblance both of figures and architecture, he repeated in the palace Brignole. He is not however frequently met with, as he died early, and from the great celebrity he acquired, his works were in much request in all the first collections, and thus his productions were dispersed. He taught Gio. Batista Merano, and, after his own example, sent him to study at Parma, in which city he met with sufficient employment both from the prince and private individuals. The Slaughter of the Innocents, at the Gesù in Genoa, is pointed out to us as one of his best pictures, and is a copious and careful composition, extremely well arranged. We must not confound this artist with Francesco Merano, called, from his first employ, Il Paggio, a scholar and a respectable follower of Fiasella.
Returning to the scholars of Gio. Batista Paggi, one of them, who was himself the educator of a generous race to his country, was Gio. Domenico Cappellino. He had an extraordinary talent for imitation, whence, in his first works, he came very near his master. There was not in him that air of nobility that in Paggi and Bordone seems to have been derived from their birth and education. He possessed nevertheless other qualities of art which fail not to interest the spectator. This is evident in the Death of S. Francesco, placed in S. Niccolò; and at S. Stefano in the S. Francesca Romana, who to a dumb girl imparts the powers of speech. They are works which possess in the whole a peculiar originality, and in the separate figures a natural charm, and an expression of the affections and a delicacy of colouring highly attractive. He afterwards changed his style, as may be seen in two pictures of the Passion at S. Siro, and in many others at Genoa, always vigorous, but less spirited than at first, rather obscure in tints, and removed from the manner of Paggi. He aimed at originality, and, finding her, pursued her without a rival.
He had the good fortune to be the instructor of a foreigner, one of those men of genius who in themselves illustrate a whole school. This artist was of the family of Pioli, which had already produced an excellent miniature painter called Gio. Gregorio, who died in Marseilles, and a Pier Francesco, a scholar of Sofonisba, who died young, with the reputation of being one of the best imitators of Cambiaso. Pellegro Piola, of whom we have now to treat, enjoyed a still shorter period of life, being assassinated at the age of twenty-three, by an unknown hand; and, as it is believed, through envy of his rare talents. It is not easy to describe very precisely the style of this young man; for, as a student, he studied all the best works and formed himself upon them, and willingly inclined to the more beautiful. He then tried a wider flight, and pursued it always with exquisite diligence, and a taste which charms us; and whatever style he adopted he seemed to have grown grey in it. A Madonna by him, which is now in the great collection of the Marchese Brignole, was considered by Franceschini an original of Andrea del Sarto. His S. Eligio, in the street of the goldsmiths, was by Mengs ascribed to Lodovico Caracci. He however aspired at something far beyond mere imitation, and said that he had a mental conception of the beautiful, which he did not despair to attain if his life should be spared. But he was prematurely cut off, as I have stated, and his works in consequence are very rarely met with.
The rarity of the productions of Pellegro was compensated for by a brother, who filled the city and the state with his works. This was Domenico Piola, a scholar of Pellegro and Cappellini, the associate of Valerio Castelli in many works, and for some time an imitator of that master, afterwards of Castiglione; and, finally, the founder of a style bordering on that of Cortona. There is not in it a sufficient contrast; the forms are various, ideal for the most part, nor without beauty; the chiaroscuro is generally little finished; the design partakes of the Roman. There is, however, a considerable resemblance to Pietro in the distribution of the colours, and in his facility and despatch. He had a singular talent for the representation of children, and he refined it by the imitation of Fiammingo. He enlivened every composition by their introduction, and in some palaces he interwove them in elegant friezes. From this soft and easy manner, examples of which are to be met with in every part of the Genoese territories, he could occasionally depart, as in the picture of the Miracle of St. Peter at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, painted at Carignano, where the architecture, the fleshes, the gestures, are highly studied; and there is a force of effect which seems to emulate the Guercino, which is opposed to it. He also departs from his ordinary style in the Repose of the Holy Family at the Gesù. Of three sons whom Domenico instructed, Paolo will be mentioned among the most excellent artists of a future epoch; Antonio commendably followed his father's style in his youth, but afterwards changed his profession. Gio. Batista could copy or follow the designs of others, but nothing beyond. This latter had a son, Domenico, who, whilst he was beginning to emulate the glory of his family, was cut off by death, and with him was extinguished a family which, for the course of nearly two centuries, had conferred honour on the profession.
Giulio Benso, the scholar of Paggi, excelled all his school in architecture and perspective. Genoa, perhaps, does not possess any work in this department superior to that of Benso in the Nunziata del Guastato; in the choir of which he represented one of those perspective pictures with balustrades and colonnades, in which Colonna and Mitelli so much excelled. These two artists were great admirers of this work of Giulio, but to us it may perhaps appear too much loaded with ornament. He there represented the Glorification of the Virgin, and added some histories, in which he rigorously observed the laws of the sotto in su; an art then little practised in his school. Giovanni and Batista Carloni, who painted so much in this church, are surpassed by him in this department; nor do they much exceed him in composition and colour. Benso left but few oil paintings in Genoa; that of S. Domenico in the church of that saint is one of the best, and partakes more of the School of Bologna than that of Genoa.
Castellino Castello possessed a sober style of composition, like that of Paggi his master, and, as far as we may judge from various pictures, was a correct and elegant artist. He highly distinguished himself in the picture of the Pentecost, placed on the great altar of the church of the Spirito Santo. He, however, like many others of this period, is indebted for his celebrity to his success in portrait painting; in confirmation of which it is sufficient to state, that Vandyck was desirous of being commemorated by him, and painted him in return. This fact exalts his reputation even more than the commendations he received from contemporary poets, among whom were Chiabrera and Marino, whose features he also preserved for posterity. He was appointed portrait painter to the court of Savoy, and in this department he had a rival in his own family, in Niccolo his son, who was in high reputation in Genoa when Soprani wrote. Some others of the school of Paggi, distinguished in landscape or in other branches of painting, are reserved for the conclusion of this epoch.
Paggi had a rival in Sorri of Siena. His style is a mixture of Passignano and Paol Veronese; and, if I err not in my judgment, of Marco da Siena also, whose Deposition from the Cross in Araceli was, in a manner, repeated by Sorri at S. Siro in Genoa. He there instructed Carlone and Strozzi, two luminaries of this school. Gio. Carlone repaired soon to Rome, and afterwards to Florence, where he was taught by Passignano, the father-in-law and master of Sorri. Passignano was not so remarkable for his colouring as for his design and grandeur of composition; but we have already observed, that the style of colour is that portion of the art least influenced by precept, and which is formed more than any other by the individual genius of the painter. Carlone possessed as great talents for composition as any of his contemporaries; correct and graceful in design, decided and intelligent in expression; and above all, he had an extraordinary brilliancy of colour in his frescos. In this branch he was anxious to distinguish himself; and although he saw eminent examples at Florence and in Rome, he did not adhere to them so much as, if I am not wrong in my conjecture, he attempted to follow, or rather to surpass and to reduce to a more pleasing practice, the style exhibited by Tavarone, in the histories of S. Lorenzo. I have already described that style; the vigour, beauty, and freshness with which it prepossesses the spectator, and approximates the most distant objects. If, in respect of Giovanni, we wish to add any greater praise, it is that he surpassed Tavarone in these gifts; and besides, he is more correct in his contours, and more varied and copious in composition. But in all these qualities they were both excelled by Gio. Batista Carlone, a scholar also of Passignano, and a student in Rome, afterwards the associate of Giovanni, his elder brother, in principle and practice, whom he survived fifty years, as if to carry their style to the highest pitch of perfection.
The church of the Nunziata del Guastato, a splendid monument of the piety and the riches of the noble family of Lomellini, and an edifice which confers honour on the city, which has enlarged and ornamented it as its cathedral, possesses no work more astonishing than the three naves, almost nearly the whole of which are decorated by the two brothers. In the middle one the elder brother represented the Epiphany of our Lord, his Entrance into Jerusalem, the Prayer at Gethsemane, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption of the Virgin, and other passages of the New Testament. In one of the smaller naves, the younger brother painted St. Paul preaching to the Multitude, St. James baptizing the Neophytes, St. Simon and St. Jude in the Metropolis of Persia; and in the opposite nave three histories from the Old Testament, Moses striking the Rock, the Israelites passing the Jordan, and Joseph, on a high seat, giving Audience to his Brethren. All these stories seem to be adopted as giving scope to a fancy rich in invention, and capable of peopling these immense compositions with figures almost innumerable. It is not easy to mention a work on so vast a scale executed with so much zeal and care; compositions so copious and novel, heads so varied and so animated, contours so well expressed and so strongly relieved, colours so enchanting, so lucid and fresh after such a lapse of years. The reds (which perhaps are too frequent) are as deep as purple, the blues appear sapphires, and the green, above all, which is a wonder to artists, is bright as an emerald. In viewing the brilliancy of these colours we might almost mistake them for paintings on glass or enamel; nor do I recollect to have seen in any other artists of Italy so original, beautiful, and enchanting a style of colour. Some persons who have compared these colours with those of Raffaello, Coreggio, or Andrea del Sarto, have thought them too near bordering on crudeness; but in matters of taste, where the sources of pleasing are so many, and where there are so many gradations in the merits of artists, who can possibly gratify all? The similitude of style would lead the unskilled to believe them the works of the same master; but the more experienced are able to ascertain the composition of Gio. Batista from a peculiar delicacy of tints and of chiaroscuro, and from a grander style of design. It has been attempted to ascertain more minutely his method of colouring; and it has been discovered, "that in decorating the ceilings and walls of rooms, he previously laid on the dry wall a colour ground, to protect his work from the action of the lime. These paintings were executed with the most delicate gradations, and the most surprising harmony; hence his frescos have all the richness of oil colours." These are the words of Ratti, and Mengs joins him in the encomium.
I have only enumerated the paintings which these artists exhibited in the Guastato, but Giovanni left numerous works in the same style and on similar subjects, at the Gesù and at S. Domenico in Genoa, and at S. Antonio Abate in Milan, where he died; without mentioning the many fables and stories with which he adorned various palaces in his native city. Of the other brother it is not equally easy to recount all that he painted in private houses, and in the before-mentioned churches, and at S. Siro and elsewhere. The histories of the chapel in the Palazzo Reale are amongst his most original and delightful works; Columbus discovering the Indies; the Martyrdom of the Giustiniani at Scio; the Remains of the Baptist brought to Genoa, and other Ligurian subjects. Nor is it easy to enumerate his many altar-pieces and oil pictures to be found in the churches. I shall limit myself here to the three histories of S. Clemente Ancirano at the Guastato; pictures, characterised by such congruity, such truth, and such a peculiar horror, as to force us to withdraw our eyes from the inhumanity of the scene. Some persons may, perhaps, be indisposed to give full credit to all that I have written of Gio. Batista; as it seems incredible that an artist should be so little known, who united in himself the most opposite qualities; a wonderful skill both in oil and fresco; equal excellence in colour and design; facility and correctness; an immense number of works, and a diligence shewn by few fresco painters. But they who have viewed the works I have mentioned, with unprejudiced eyes, will not, I feel confident, differ far from me in opinion. He lived to the age of eighty-five, and lost neither his vigour of invention nor his genius for grand composition; nor the freedom of hand, and incomparably fine pencil with which he treated them. I shall allude, in another epoch, to his sons Andrea and Niccolo; but I must not neglect to observe, that both Pascoli and Orlandi have written of this family with little accuracy.
The other great colourist and scholar of Sorri was Bernardo Strozzi, better known under the name of the Capuchin of Genoa, from his professing that order. He is also called il Prete Genovese, because he left the cloister, when a priest, to contribute to the support of an aged mother and a sister; but the one dying and the other marrying, he refused to return to his order; and being afterwards forcibly recalled to it and sentenced to three years of imprisonment, he contrived to make his escape, fled to Venice, and there passed the remainder of his days as a secular priest. The larger compositions of this artist are only to be seen in Genoa, in the houses of the nobility, and in San Domenico, where he executed the great picture of the Paradiso, which is one of the best conceived that I have seen. There too, in Novi and in Voltri, are various altar-pieces; and above all, an admirable Madonna in Genoa, in a room of the Palazzo Reale. Some of his works are also to be seen in Venice, where Strozzi was preferred to every other artist, to replace a Tondo, executed in the best age of Venetian art, in the library of St. Mark, and there painted a figure of Sculpture.