A Florentine painter of no great accomplishment or originality in the first half of the sixteenth century was Jacopo da Pontormo (1494–1557), who painted the Portrait of an Engraver of Precious Stones (No. 1241) and the large Holy Family (No. 1240). The Visitation (No. 1242) is a copy by a pupil of his fresco in the Annunziata, Florence. By another pupil, Agnolo Bronzino (1502–1572), are the Christ and the Magdalene (No. 1183), not now exhibited, and the Portrait of a Sculptor (No. 1184); the Holy Family (No. 1183a or No. 1183b) which was formerly in the Vandeuil collection is only a copy. Giovanni Battista Rosso (1496–1541), who is called Rosso Fiorentino to distinguish him from Francesco Rosso (Il Salviati), came to work at the French Court about 1530; he painted a Pietà (No. 1485), and a Challenge of the Pierides (No. 1486), which are hung among the French pictures. The Portrait of a Musician (No. 1608), by Paolo Zacchia; the Madonna, St. John and St. Stephen (No. 1133), by Michelangelo Anselmi; the David overcoming Goliath (No. 1462), a repulsive production painted by Daniele da Volterra (Ricciarelli) on both sides of a large piece of slate; a Flight into Egypt (No. 1209), by Lodovico Cardi (Il Cigoli), and Matteo Rosselli’s Triumph of David (No. 1483), are unworthy of comment. They show unmistakably the characteristics of the Decadence in full operation.
THE LATER SIENESE SCHOOL
WE have already sketched the earliest period of the art of Siena, and seen how for a brief space of time it dominated that of Tuscany. The greater precision of the Florentine technique, and the wider mental outlook of its artists in the fifteenth century, placed it in the van before long.
Sano di Pietro (1406–1481), a pupil of Sassetta, undoubtedly painted the five small characteristic panels (No. 1128–32), which illustrate scenes from the Life of St. Jerome, and at one time formed the predella of a large altarpiece. St. Jerome, with others of his order who run away, kneels under a portico of the monastery he founded at Bethlehem, and is extracting a thorn from the lion’s paw. According to the legend, the lion was afterwards placed in charge of an ass which the monks employed to carry wood; we see here that while the lion was asleep in the heat of the day under a clump of trees, the ass was stolen by merchants. St. Jerome naturally believed that the ass had not been carried off by a passing caravan, but eaten by the lion, who subsequently saw his old friend the ass in the possession of the same merchants that chanced to pass that way again. The lion is here seen (No. 1130) in the act of compelling, one might almost say pushing, the ass and the other beasts of burden laden with provisions back into the monastery, while the merchants flee away in terror.
The Louvre does not contain any work by Vecchietta (1412–1480), who was architect as well as painter. A Birth of the Virgin (No. 1660), catalogued as being by an unknown Florentine artist, is most probably from the hand of Matteo di Giovanni (1435?–1495), who was most likely at one time a pupil of Vecchietta. Another of the latter’s pupils, Francesco di Giorgio (1439–1502), perhaps executed the panel of the Rape of Europa (No. 1640a or No. 1640 Bis), which the cataloguer relegates to the lengthy list of unattributed Florentine works.
From these influences spring Girolamo di Benvenuto (1470–1524), whose Judgment of Paris (No. 1668) passes in the Catalogue as a late fifteenth century Bolognese picture. Bernardino Fungai (1460–1516), who trod in the steps of Giovanni di Paolo, Francesco di Giorgio, and the Umbrian artist Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and yet evinced no real signs of development from within, is unrepresented in this collection.
This rapid survey of the School of Siena shows that it is not well exemplified in the Louvre. The third-rate painters, Pacchiarotto (1474–1540) and Beccafumi (1486–1551), will not detain us. Another accomplished late Sienese eclectic, Girolamo del Pacchia (1477–1535?), has been credited with a Crucifixion (No. 1642), but not by the official cataloguer. Sodoma (1477–1551) also worked in Siena. Towards the year 1501 other artists of the various schools of Central Italy, including Pinturicchio, Signorelli, and Perugino, visited the city, their advent bringing about an artistic revolution. Before long the religious fervour, the delicate ornamentation, the gesso-embellishment, the drawing in the flat, and the miniature-like delicacy of an earlier age became extinct. The artistic glory of Siena was dimmed, and rapidly passed into a period of decadence.
Among the last Sienese artists of any distinction were Baldassare Peruzzi (1481–1536), an architect and painter, and Matteo Balducci (fl. 1509–1553), to whom we may perhaps ascribe the Judgment of Solomon (No. 1571) and the Judgment of Daniel (No. 1572). In any case these pictures belong to the Umbro-Sienese period of Central Italian art; they are officially regarded as being by Perugino himself. When all originality had passed out of Sienese painting, Francesco Vanni (1563?–1609) produced his Repose on the Flight into Egypt (No. 1561) and the Martyrdom of St. Irene (No. 1562).