Lorenzo Costa (1460–1535), who had been a pupil of Francesco Cossa at Ferrara, worked for the Bentivogli family in Bologna until 1509. In that year he was induced to fix his abode in Mantua at the instance of the Marquis Francesco Gonzaga and his wife Isabella d’Este, whose court painter, Andrea Mantegna, had died three years earlier. Costa there painted about 1510 his Court of Isabella d’Este in the Garden of the Muses (No. 1261), which is signed
L. COSTA F.
This famous canvas shows a weakness of drawing and a “want of force that mars what is meant for grace.” Costa’s Mythological Scene (No. 1262) is not now exhibited, but in it, as in the majority of his works, the figures have no real existence. The heads are usually “screwed on—not always at the proper angle—to crosspoles hung about with clothes.” His landscapes, however, “without being in any sense serious studies, are among the loveliest painted in his day.”
Costa’s shortcomings were to dominate to the end the school of Bologna, which was essentially, almost from its incipience, one of Decadence. He became the first direct master of Francesco Francia (1450–1517), the typical Renaissance painter in Bologna who seems to have taken to painting at the relatively advanced age of thirty-five. Francia had matriculated in the Goldsmiths’ Guild in 1482 and was Master of the Guild in 1483, the year of Costa’s arrival; but until he came under the influence of Costa he had worked only as an engraver of paci in niello-work, a die-sinker, and a medallist. They soon went into partnership, the upper storey of their joint workshop being used for the painting of pictures, while metal-work was executed below. Francia is not seen to the best advantage in the Louvre. His Christ on the Cross (No. 1436) is somewhat unusual in treatment, as a nude figure of St. Job, a plague saint, is painted in the foreground. This large picture bears the characteristic signature
FRANCIA AURIFABER,
and shows his practice of demonstrating the versatility of his many talents. The small Nativity (No. 1435) is an authentic work. The Madonna and Child, with St. George, St. Sebastian, St. Francis, and St. John the Baptist (No. 1436a), is known as the Guastavillani Madonna from the inscription to the effect that Filippo Guastavillani, a Bolognese senator, ordered the picture of Francia. Nevertheless, this large panel appears to have been executed by his son, Giacomo. A Madonna and Child (No. 1437) and a Holy Family with St. Francis d’Assisi (No. 1437a) are only by pupils.
The Louvre contains no example of the work of the Umbrian artist, Timoteo Viti (1467–1524), who was a pupil of Costa, and from July 1490 to April 1495 worked in the studio of Francia. There are no other sixteenth-century Bolognese paintings in this collection.
THE SCHOOL OF CREMONA
THIS small and unimportant school includes Boccaccio Boccaccino (fl. 1460–1518?), who was formed on various Venetian and Milanese influences. The Holy Family (No. 1168) which is credited to him, but not now exhibited, seems to be an unattributable panel by some artist of the Lombard school. This school includes an early-sixteenth-century imitator who has received the significant name of “Pseudo-Boccaccino,” but is not here represented.