But the greater number of scholars that Genoa sent to Rome attached themselves to Maratta. Gio. Stefano Robatto of Savona repaired twice to his school, and remained in it several years. He matured his genius, by visiting other schools of Italy, and went also into Germany, and at a mature age settled in his own country. He there executed some works that confer honour on her; as the St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, painted in fresco in the cloister of the Cappuchins. Others of these, his first works, have obtained unqualified praise, especially for their colouring, which excited even the admiration of the professors of Genoa, accustomed to study the first works of art. But he afterwards gave himself up to gaming, and, losing all desire of distinction, he degraded both his pencil and his name, producing, like a mechanic, works of mediocrity at a trifling price. Hence it may be said, that Savona had not a better nor a worse painter than Robatto.
Gio. Raffaello Badaracco, the son of Giuseppe, who is mentioned in a former epoch, passed from the school of his father to that of Maratta; and afterwards, aspiring to a freer style, he became in a great measure Cortonesque, very soft in execution, of a good impasto, with an abundance of the finest ultramarine, which has conferred on his pictures both durability and celebrity. His historical subjects are very numerous in collections; the Certosa of Polcevera possesses two of the largest, from the history of the patron saint. A Rolando Marchelli was a fine scholar of Maratta; but, attaching himself to merchandise, he left few works.
The most remarkable in this band are the sons of three celebrated masters; Andrea Carlone, Paolgirolamo Piola, and Domenico Parodi. The first was son of Giambatista, from whose style and that of Rome, and afterwards from that of Venice, he formed a mixed manner, which, if I mistake not, is more pleasing in oil than in fresco. He painted much in Perugia and the neighbouring cities; far from the finish and grace of his father, and less happy in composition; but displaying a Venetian style of freedom, vigour, and spirit; particularly in some histories of S. Feliciano, painted at Foligno, in the church of that saint. Returning to Rome, he improved his manner; and his works after that period are much his best. Such are some passages from the life of S. Xavier, at the Gesù in Rome; and many poetical subjects at Genoa, in the palaces Brignole, Saluzzo, and Durazzo. This painter affords an excellent admonition to writers on art, not to form their judgment too hastily on the merit of artists, without having first seen their best productions. Whoever judged of Carlone from the picture he painted at the Gesù in Perugia, would not persuade himself that he could, in Genoa, have left so many fine works as to be ranked, according to Ratti, among the painters of Genoa most worthy of commemoration. Niccolò, his brother, may be also added as his scholar. He is the least celebrated of the family; not that he wanted talent, but it was not of a transcendant kind.
Piola, the son of Domenico, as I have noticed in a former place, is one of the most cultivated and finished painters of this school; a true disciple of Maratta, as regards his method of carefully studying and deliberately executing his works, but otherwise not his close imitator. In this respect it should seem he attached himself more to the Caracci, whom he very much copied in Rome; and traces of this style may be seen in his beautiful picture of S. Domenico and Ignazio, in the church of Carignano, and in every place where he painted. It is known that he was rebuked by his father for slowness; but by this he was not moved; intent on a more exalted walk than his father, and exhibiting more selection, grandeur, tenderness, and truth. He had singular merit in works in fresco; and being a man of letters, he designed extremely well fables and historical subjects, in decorating many noblemen's houses. His Parnassus, painted for Sig. Gio. Filippo Durazzo, has been much praised; and it is added, that that nobleman said, that he was glad he had not sent for Solimene from Naples, whilst Genoa possessed such an artist. Had he painted less on walls and more on canvass, his merit would have become known also to foreigners.
Domenico Parodi was, like his father, a sculptor, and moreover an architect; but he owed his reputation to painting. Less equal to himself than Piola, he enjoyed a greater fame; as he had a more enlarged genius, a more extended knowledge of letters and the arts, a more decided imitation of the Greek design, and a pencil more pliable to every style. He first studied in Venice under Bombelli, and there remain, in a casa Durazzo, some excellent copies of Venetian pictures made at that period; nor did he forsake this style during the many succeeding years that he studied in Rome. He painted, in a good Marattesque style, the noble picture of S. Francesco di Sales at the Filippini, and several other pictures; but of him, as well as of the Caracci, we find works partaking in an extraordinary manner of the style of Tintoretto or Paolo, and which are described in his life. His most celebrated work is the Sala of the palace Negroni. Some professors have expressed their opinion, that there is not so fine a performance in all Genoa; and it is a fact, that Mengs's attention was there arrested for several hours by a painter that he had never before heard of. A correct design, a vigour and harmony of colour, a mode of decorating the walls peculiarly his own, attempted by many, but not understood by any, render this a most remarkable production; nor is it a little aided by the poetical invention and the beautiful distribution and grouping of the figures. The whole is devoted to the glory of this noble family, whose escutcheon is crowned by Prudence, Continence, and other virtues, expressed by their several symbols; and there are also fables of Hercules slaying the Lion, and Achilles instructed by Chiron, which indicate the honours acquired by this family in letters and in arms. Portraits are added to these decorations, and every part is so well connected, and so well varied, and so enriched by vestures, drapery, and other ornaments, that, though many noble families may boast of being more highly celebrated by the muse, few have obtained such distinguished honours from the sister art. Other noble houses were also ornamented by him in fresco; and the gallery of the Sig. Marcello Durazzo, decorated with stories, and fables, and chiariscuri, which might be taken for bassi-relievi, is a work much resembling the one just described. In some pictures, as in the S. Camillo de' Lellis, he does not seem the same; and probably some of his scholars had the greater share in them. His most celebrated scholar was the priest Angiolo Rossi, one of the best imitators, in humorous subjects, of Piovan Arlotto; and in painting a good follower of Maratta, though he left but few works. Batista Parodi was the brother of Domenico, but not the scholar; he partook of the Venetian School; expeditious, free, fertile in invention, and brilliant in colouring, but not sufficiently select, nor equal to the better artists. He lived for some time in Milan and Bergamo. Pellegro, the son of Domenico, resided in Lisbon, and was a celebrated portrait painter in his day.
The Abate Lorenzo, the son of Gregorio Ferrari, though educated in Genoa, had much of the Roman style. He was one of the most elegant painters of this school, and an imitator of the foreshortenings and the graces of Coreggio, as was his father, but more correct than he, and a good master of design. In refining on delicacy he sometimes falls into languor; except when he painted in the vicinity of the Carloni, (as in the palace Doria, at S. Matteo), or some other lively colourist. He then invigorated his tints, so that they possess all the brilliancy of oil, and yield the palm to few. He excelled in fresco, like most of this school, and is almost unrivalled in his chiaroscuro ornaments. The churches and palaces abound with them; and in the palace of the noble family of Carega is a gallery, his last work, decorated with subjects from the Æneid, and ornamented with arabesques, stuccos, and intaglios, by artists under his direction. He also painted historical subjects. In his first public works he painted from his father's designs; afterwards, as in the picture of various saints of the Augustine order, at the church of the Visitation, he trusted to his own genius, and enriched his school with the best examples. He too was a painter whose reputation was not equal to his merits.
In Bartolommeo Guidobono, or Prete di Savona, we find the delicate pencil of Ferrari, and an imitation of Coreggio, but with less freedom of style. This artist, who was in the habit of painting earthenware with his father, at that time in the employ of the royal court of Savoy, established the first rudiments of the art in Piedmont; and I have seen, in Turin, some pictures by him partaking of the Neapolitan style of colour, which was at one time in favour there. He afterwards went to Parma and Venice, and by copying and practising became a very able painter, and had an abundance of commissions in Genoa and the state. He is not so much praised for correctness of design in his figures, as for his skill in the ornamental parts, as flowers, fruits, and animals; and this excellence is particularly seen in some fabulous subjects in the Palazzo Centurioni. He had diligently studied the style of Castiglione, and made many copies of him, which are with difficulty distinguished from the originals. He is not, however, a figurist to be despised; and it is his peculiar praise to unite a great sweetness of pencil with a fine effect of chiaroscuro; as in the Inebriation of Lot, and in three other subjects in oil, in the palace Brignole Sale. In Piedmont too there remain many works by him, and by his brother Domenico, also a delicate and graceful painter, by whom there is in the Duomo of Turin a glory of angels, which might belong to the school of Guido. He would have been preferred to Prete if he had always painted in this style; but this he did not do, and in Genoa there remain of his, amongst a few good, many very indifferent pictures.
Before I quit the followers of the school of Parma, I shall return to the Cav. Gio. Batista Draghi, to whom I alluded in the third book. He was a scholar of Domenico Piola, from whom he acquired his despatch; and was the inventor of a new style, which I know not where he formed, but which he practised very much in Parma, and more in Piacenza, where he long lived and where he died. We may trace in it the schools of Bologna and Parma; but in the character of the heads and in the disposition of the colours there is a novelty which distinguishes and characterizes him. Though he painted with extraordinary celerity, yet we cannot accuse him of negligence. To a vivacity and fancy that delight us, he added an attention to his contours and colouring, and a powerful relief, particularly in his oil pictures. There are many pictures by him in Piacenza, and amongst them the Death of St. James in the church of the Franciscans, in the Duomo his St. Agnes, in S. Lorenzo his picture of the titular saint, and the great picture of the Religious Orders receiving their regulations from S. Augustin; a subject painted already in the neighbouring town of Cremona by Massarotti, and well executed, but inferior to Draghi. The Sig. Proposto Carasi particularly praises the picture he painted at Busseto, in the palace Pallavicino. In Genoa he painted, I believe, only some pictures for private collections.
Orlandi, who does not even notice this excellent painter, places among the first artists of Europe Gioseffo Palmieri, who, together with the preceding artist, flourished in the early part of the eighteenth century. This praise seems exaggerated, and he probably refers only to the merit which Palmieri exhibited in his pictures of animals, which he was employed to paint even for the court of Portugal. Still in the human figure he is a painter of spirit, and of a magic and beautiful style of colour; very harmonious and pleasing in those pictures where the shades do not predominate. He is, however, reprehended for his incorrect drawing, although he studied under a Florentine painter, who seems to have initiated him well; for in the Resurrection at the church of St. Dominic, and in other pictures more carefully painted, judges of the art find little to reprove.
A Pietro Paolo Raggi obtained also celebrity in invention and colouring. I know not to what school to assign him, but he was certainly a follower of the Caracci in a S. Bonaventura contemplating a Crucifix; a large picture in the Guastato. There are Bacchanal subjects by him in some collections, which partake of the style of Castiglione, as Ratti has observed, and also of that of Carpioni, as we read in one of the Lettere Pittoriche, inserted in the fifth volume. We there find him highly extolled. Nor is he any where better known than in Bergamo; where, amongst other works which he executed for the church of St. Martha, a Magdalen borne to Heaven by Angels is particularly esteemed. He is described as a man of a restless disposition, irascible, and dissatisfied with every place he inhabited. This truant disposition carried him to Turin, then to Savona, then afresh to Genoa, now to Lavagna, now to Lombardy, and last to Bergamo, where death put an end to his wanderings. About this time died in Finale, his native place, Pier Lorenzo Spoleti, formerly a scholar of Domenico Piola. His favourite occupation was to copy in Madrid the pictures of Morillo and Titian. By this practice he was prevented from distinguishing himself by any works of invention; but he became a very accomplished portrait painter, and was employed in that branch of the art at the courts of Spain and Portugal. He had also the habit of copying the compositions of others, and of transferring them with remarkable ability from the engraving to the canvass, enlarging the proportions and expressing them with a colouring worthy of his great originals. A copyist like this painter has a better claim to our regard than many masters, whose original designs serve only to remind us of our ill fortune in meeting with them.