For two centuries there was a slow but always progressive improvement, owing to the industry of Buffamalco, Taddeo Gaddi, Orcagna, Spinello of Lucca, and Masolino of Panicale. With the fifteenth century appeared Fra Angelico of Fiesole ([Figs. 242] and [246]), and Benozzo Gozzoli; then Masaccio, Pisanello, Mantegna, Zingaro, Pinturicchio, and lastly Perugino, the Master of the divine Raphael. In the sixteenth century art attained its culminating point. At this epoch Raphael and his pupils painted the “Farnesina” and the “Stanze” and “Loggie” of the Vatican (it is known that the two first pictures of the “Loggie” ([Fig. 243]) were painted solely by the hand of Raphael); Michael Angelo alone executed the immense expanse of the “Last Judgment,” and Paul Veronese painted the ceilings of the palace of the Doges at Venice. Then Giulio Romano covered with his works the walls of the Te palace at Mantua; Andrea del Sarto, those of the “Annunziata” and “Dello Scalzo” at Florence. Daniel of Volterra painted his famous “Descent from the Cross” for the Trinité du Mont, Rome; at Parma, the Pencil of Correggio worked marvels on the circle of the dome of the cathedral. Leonardo da Vinci, besides the picture of the “Lord’s Supper,” which we before mentioned only to exclude it from the
“THE DREAM OF LIFE.”
FRESCO-PAINTING, BY ORCAGNA, IN THE CLOISTER OF THE CAMPO SANTO OF PISA. (FOURTEENTH CENTURY.)
This fresco is by Andrea Cione, called Orcagna, a Florentine painter of the fourteenth century, who executed for the Campo Santo of Pisa a series of paintings which are still admired, representing the four destinies of man:—“Death,” “Judgment,” “Hell,” and “Paradise.” Each of these large compositions embraces several scenes; that which we give belongs to the “Triumph of Death.”
Petrarch had just given to the world the concluding notes of his funereal song, and the wish of the painter seems to have been to call to life, in his fresco, the strange vision of the poet. The happy of this world are here represented gathered together under cool shades and upon carpets of verdure; gay lords are murmuring magic words into the ears of the young ladies of Florence. Even quiet falcons on the wrists of the lords seem captivated by this delicious music. Everything appears to invite forgetfulness of the miseries of life,—the richness of the vestments, the beautiful sky of Italy, the perfumes, the love-songs.... This is the “Dream of Life,” which “Death” is destined to dispel with one sweep of his mighty wing.
THE DREAM OF LIFE.
(After a Copy made for the Library of M Ambroise Firmin Didot.) From a fresco Painting by Orcagna, in the Cloister of the Campo Santo of Pisa. Fourteenth Century.