Giulio Bruni, a Piedmontese, was a clever pupil of the Genoese School, first under Tavarone, then under Paggi, and remained painting in Genoa, until he was expelled by war. His works there, though not very finished, and too darkly coloured, were well designed, harmonious, and well composed. Such is, in the church of St. James, his St. Thomas of Villanova giving alms. History also mentions one Gio. Batista, his brother and scholar.
Giuseppe Vermiglio, although born in Turin, is not named in the Guide of that city. We find pictures by him in Piedmont, as at Novara and Alessandria; and beyond that dominion, in Mantua and Milan, in which last city is a work which is perhaps his masterpiece. The subject is a Daniel amidst Lions, in the library of the Passione, a large composition, well disposed, with fine architectural decorations, in the Paolesque style. The king and people are seen on a balcony admiring the prophet, untouched by the ferocious animals, while his accusers are, at the same instant, precipitated amidst the ravenous beasts, and torn to pieces. In the same composition is also represented the other prophet, borne through the air by an angel, by the hair of his head. We cannot exactly commend the design, which thus unites events incongruous in point of time. But with this exception, this is one of the most valuable pictures painted in Milan, after Gaudenzio, for correctness, beautiful forms, expression highly studied, and colours warm, varied, and lucid. From the imitative style of the heads, it is evident that he studied the Caracci, and was not a stranger to Guido; but in the colouring it seemed as if he had imitated the Flemish artists. It is reported in Milan, perhaps from the resemblance of the style, that he instructed Daniel Crespi; a circumstance very improbable, since Vermiglio continued to work to the year 1675. For we find this date at the foot of a large picture of the Woman of Samaria, in the refectory of the PP. Olivetani, in Alessandria, which must be one of his last works, decorated with a beautiful landscape, and a magnificent view of the city of Samaria in the distance. I consider him the finest painter in oil that the ancient state of Piedmont can boast, and as one of the best Italian artists of his day. Why he painted so near Turin, and yet had no success in that city, and why he was not distinguished by his own sovereign, though well received at the court of Mantua, I have not been able to discover. We find one Rubini, a Piedmontese, certainly not of equal merit with the last artist, who, about the time of Vermiglio, worked in the church of S. Vito, in Trevigi, and whom we find mentioned in the MSS. of that city, or in the description of its pictures.
Giovenal Boetto, celebrated amongst the engravers in Turin, deserves a place amongst superior artists, from a saloon painted by him in Fossano, his native place. It is in the Casa Garballi, and contains four pictures in fresco. The subject is the illustration of various arts and sciences. Theology is represented by a dispute between the Thomists and Scotists; and in that piece, and in the others, we must admire the truth of nature in the portraits, and the powerful chiaroscuro, as well as the design. Little else of him remains.
Gio. Moneri, some of whose descendants were also painters, was born near Acqui, and being instructed by Romanelli, he brought with him from Rome the style of that school. The first proofs of his art were given in Acqui, in 1657, where he painted in the cathedral the picture of the Assumption, besides a Paradiso in fresco, much commended. He continued to advance in his art, as we see both in the Presentation in the church of the Capuchins, and in other pictures of him remaining in the neighbourhood, exhibiting a greater copiousness, a finer expression, and a stronger relief. It is known that he worked in Genoa and Milan and their dependencies, and in several places in Piedmont; but among these we cannot include Turin; nor could it be easy for a provincial painter to find commissions, when the capital had artists in sufficient number to form an academy.
Until the year 1652 the professors of the art in Turin did not possess the form of a society, much less the appearance of an academy. In the above year they first began to form themselves into a company, which had the name of St. Luke given to it; and which, in a few years, grew into the academy of Turin. We may consult, on this subject, the Memorie Patrie, published by the Baron Vernazza. The court, in the mean time, continued their salaries to the foreign painters, who were the ornament and support of the academy. They were about this time engaged in embellishing the palace, and afterwards that delightful residence, which was built from the design of the same Duke Charles Emanuel II., and had the name of the Veneria Reale. Their frescos, portraits, and other works, remain to the present day. After one Baldassar Matthieu of Antwerp, by whom there is a highly prized Supper of our Lord in the refectory of the Eremo, Gio. Miel, also from the neighbourhood of Antwerp, a scholar, first of Vandyk, and afterwards of Sacchi, was appointed painter to the court; a man of a delightful genius, extolled in Rome for his humorous, and in Piedmont for his serious subjects. In the soffitto of the great hall, where the body guard of the king is stationed, are some pictures of Miel, in which, under the fabulous characters of the heathen divinities, are represented the virtues of the royal house; he executed some others, and perhaps more beautiful ones, in the above named villa; and there is an altar-piece by him at Chieri, with the date of 1654. We trace in all his works his study of the Italian School; a grandeur and sublimity of ideas, an elevation beyond his countrymen, an accurate knowledge of the sotto in su, and a fine chiaroscuro, not unaccompanied by great delicacy of colour, particularly in his cabinet pictures. The talent which he possessed in an extraordinary manner in figures of a smaller size, he exhibited more especially in the Veneria Reale, where he painted a set of Huntings of wild Beasts, in eight pieces, which are amongst the finest of his works in this department of the art. After him we read of one Banier, a painter to the court; in whose time, about the year 1678, the company of St. Luke, united since the year 1675 to that of Rome, was, with the royal assent, erected into an academy; and from this year may be dated the birth of that professional society so much enlarged in our own days. But of all who were at that time or afterwards in the service of the royal house, the most celebrated was Daniel Saiter, or Seiter, of Vienna. I have mentioned him as well as Miel in the Roman School, nor have I passed him over in the Venetian, in which he learnt his art, perfecting his style by the study of all the schools of Italy. His works are found in the palace and in the villas; nor has he occasion to fear the proximity of Miel himself. He yields to the latter, indeed, in grace and beauty, but is superior both to him and others in the force and magic of his colouring. Nor in Turin do we find in him that incorrect design which Pascoli attributes to him in Rome. But his oil pictures are by far the most highly finished of his works; as for example, a Pieta in the court, which we should say was designed in the academy of the Caracci. He also painted the cupola of the great hospital, and it is one of the finest frescos of the capital. We also meet with him in the churches in various places in the state; and we find his works in many private collections out of Piedmont, as he painted considerably in Venice and in Rome.
Another foreigner, Carlo Delfino, a Frenchman, also flourished at this time; an artist of very considerable merit. From the registers of the archives we learn that he was painter to Prince Philibert; and from an inspection of his works we may conjecture that he was more employed in the churches than at the court, where we find him an animated and lively portrait painter and colourist. He painted some altar-pieces for the city, in which is displayed a genius more disposed to the natural than to the ideal, and a fire which gives life to the gestures and composition; but sometimes, if I do not estimate him wrongly, his ideas seem forced. Thus at the church of S. Carlo, wishing to paint a S. Agostino overpowered by the love of God, he represented a S. Joseph holding in his arms the infant Christ, who from a cross-bow directs an arrow against the breast of the saint. The saint struck, falls into the arms of angels, who employ themselves in supporting and comforting him. Delfino had a scholar in Gio. Batista Brambilla, who painted at S. Dalmazio a large picture on canvass, of the Martyrdom of that saint, and was an artist of a correct style and a good colourist.
There were other painters employed by the court from the middle to the end of the century: some as portrait painters, as Monsieur Spirito, the Cav. Mombasilio, Theodore Matham of Haerlem, and others employed in larger works in oils and fresco. Giacinto Brandi, already mentioned among the scholars of Lanfranc, painted in the palace a sfondo, in competition with some others painted there by Saiter. Agostino Scilla of Messina, whom we have elsewhere noticed, painted some Virtues there, conjointly with Saiter. He was a fine artist, of more talent than industry. Gio. Andrea Casella of Lugano, a scholar of Pietro da Cortona, and one of his best followers, and sometimes in design an imitator of Bernino, painted in the Veneria Reale some fables, assisted by Giacomo, his nephew. Gio. Paolo Recchi da Como worked there in the same way in fresco, with the assistance of his nephew Giannandrea. Gio. Peruzzini, of Ancona, a scholar of Simon da Pesaro, was also patronised by the court, and was created a cavalier, and contributed by his lectures to the instruction of youth.
Casella, Recchi, and Peruzzini, repaired to Turin and united their talents in the embellishment of the churches of that city; and we may observe that, towards the close of the century, a great part of the commissions were executed by foreigners. To those already recorded we may add Triva, Legnani, Cairo, and also a Gio. Batista Pozzi, who not succeeding to his wishes in his own country, as I believe, decorated with frescos a vast number of walls in Turin, and through all the Piedmontese. He was a hasty practitioner, but sometimes produced a good general effect, as in the S. Cristoforo of Vercelli. We find another, and a better artist of the same name in P. Andrea, a Jesuit, who resided for a long time in Turin, where, in the Congregazione de' Mercanti, he left four histories from the life of the Saviour, painted in oil in his best manner, a manner derived from Rubens, chequered by those beautiful and playful lights which may be said to irradiate the composition. He also painted in fresco, in the church of his order, but he was not satisfied with that work; and having afterwards also to ornament the vault of the church of his order at Mondovi, he repeated the subject, and executed it more to his satisfaction. There also we find Il Genovesino, so called from his native place, not so well known in Turin as in the state, particularly at Alessandria; a painter by no means deficient in grace and colour, whence he is much esteemed in cabinets. The PP. Predicatori have a S. Domenico by him, and a S. Thomas in two altars of their church; the Sig. Marchese Ambrogio Ghilini, a Christ praying in the Garden; the Marchese Carlo Guasco, two Madonnas, with the holy infant sleeping, two different designs. The name of this artist was Giuseppe Calcia, who in consequence of living in a foreign country, is not noticed in his native history, and in the Notizia delle Pitture d'Italia, he is confused with Marco Genovesini, a Milanese mentioned by Orlandi. This artist was a considerable machinist, of whom there are no remains in Milan, except what he painted in the church of the Augustines; the genealogical tree, or history of that order, in the gallery, and two grand lateral compositions, in which the figures are finely varied and coloured, but not disposed and put into action with equal art. It would occupy too much time to enumerate all the foreigners who worked at that time in Turin, or throughout the state; and some of whom we have occasionally noticed in the various schools of Italy.
The native painters of reputation were not numerous at this time; and the most considerable, if I mistake not, were Caravoglia and Taricco. Bartolommeo Caravoglia, a Piedmontese, was said to be the scholar of Guercino: he followed his master's footsteps at a distance, affecting a contrast of light and shade; but his lights are much less clear than those of Guercino, and the shadows not so strong; a thing which does not occur in the works of the genuine scholars of that master. Notwithstanding this feebleness, he pleases us by a certain modest harmony which pervades his pictures, and governs also the invention, the design, the architecture, and the other decorative parts of his composition. In Turin is to be seen the Miracle of the Eucharist, painted in the church of the Corpus Domini, which, to perpetuate the occurrence of that event in Turin in 1453, was erected in a sumptuous manner, and magnificently decorated.
"Sebastiano Taricco was born in Cherasco, a city of Piedmont, in the year 1645; and it clearly appears from his works that he studied with Guido and with Domenichino in the great school of the Caracci." Thus far his historian. I have endeavoured, but in vain, to find any record of the residence of these two great masters in Bologna in the year 1645, when Taricco was born; they were at that time both dead. I therefore conjecture that the writer meant to say, that Taricco studied in Bologna the works of the Caracci, as Guido and Domenichino had done before him. That he acquired the principles of his art in that city is believed in Piedmont; and his manner does not contradict this supposition. The truth is, that at that time all Italy, as it were, was turned to the imitation of the Bolognese; and Turin, as I have previously observed, had already a few specimens. Above all they possessed specimens of Guido, and of his followers, Carlo Nuvolone and Gio. Peruzzini; and all might influence the style of Sebastiano, which was select in the heads, and sufficiently pleasing in general, but of too great facility, and without that refinement which distinguishes the classic painters. This I say after seeing the picture of the Trinity, and others of his oil pictures at Turin: but I have heard that the Sala of the Sig. Gotti, painted by him in fresco in his native place, and various other works by him interspersed through that vicinity, inspire a higher opinion of his talents. In the seventh volume of the Lettere Pittoriche there is mention made of a picture of S. Martino Maggiore at Bologna; where are represented the Saints Giovacchino and Anna, and where there is subscribed the initials tar, probably Taricco, as has been elsewhere conjectured. But the style of this picture is like that of Sabbatini, which is in fact a more ancient style than that which Taricco has exhibited in his authenticated works.