Cellini, to illustrate another aspect, is a different case. He can repair antiquities for his patron, Cosimo Medici, fairly well, but he, also, is too highly individual to make an excellent imitation of the antique. He tells us that he consented to repair his illustrious patron’s Ganymede because it was a fine Greek work, and, prone as he is to self-praise, he tells how stupendously he can do it; but he does not like such work, he calls it arte da Ciabattini (cobbler-work). The fact, however, is that he is too much alive to his time, has too strong an expression of his own art to be skilful in imitations. In fact it happened that he had to try his hand at a portrait of Cosimo I, in the guise of a Roman emperor. The portrait of the Grand Duke of Tuscany will never deceive any art simpleton, in spite of its elaborate cuirass fit for Augustus. Cellini is too delightfully cinquecentesque. The same may be said of him as a medallist. Yet in some of Cellini’s work, especially his medals, the idea of imitating the Romans must have been in his mind, and no doubt he was convinced of his success. Yet he belonged to the group that by their personality influenced others, and when trying his hand at imitation quite congenial to his own artistic temperament he makes something that is at least three-quarters Cellini.
These artists nevertheless admire the art of the past, though with no danger of infection. Michelangelo is entranced when the Laocoön is discovered in a vineyard near the Thermæ of Titus, and goes with his friend Sangallo to see that the precious statue be carefully unearthed. Partly for the sake of gain, and partly, maybe, for the love of art, Cellini often goes to the Roman Campagna to see what “certain Lombard yokels” have uncovered in their daily spading of the soil. Raphael protests, in a famous document addressed to Leo X, against the continual destruction of Roman relics. His words are worth repeating. After declaring that the Goths and Vandals have not done so much damage to Rome as his contemporaries, Raphael concludes by saying that far too many popes have allowed Roman edifices to be ruined simply by permitting the excavation of pozzolana (clay) from the ground upon which their foundations rest, that statues and marble ornaments are daily burned in ovens and turned into mortar, that Rome, in fact—the Rome of Raphael’s time—is built with naught but mortar made from old statues, the sacred marbles of past glories.
Characteristic also is the fact that this country sees the first protective laws against the exportation of antique art. This would seem to indicate the consideration in which relics of past art were held in Rome. Judging by the way it was applied, however, even this act serves to show that there was no more genuine a passion for old and precious antiques in the Cinquecento than in the century before. The Roman laws of the sixteenth century are severe, meting out punishments to all and sundry daring to carry the produce of excavations beyond the Papal domains; but otherwise destruction goes on gaily, there seems to be no discrimination as to what ought to be saved from the doom of destruction and what is not worth keeping. So while edict after edict is promulgated in order to safeguard the excavation of statues in Rome and elsewhere, edicts often full of old-fashioned magniloquence, “Prohibition concerning the exportation of marble or metal statues, figures, antiquities and suchlike,” the best buildings in Rome were allowed to fall into utter ruin without a protest. This state of things reached the climax of absurdity in the seventeenth century when Urban VIII, of the Barberini family, declared the Coliseum a public quarry, where the citizens might go for the stones they needed for new constructions—an act still commemorated in the protest of all lovers of art with the proverbial pun, Quod non fecerunt barbari fecerunt Barberini (What barbarians did not do, the Barberini did).
From this curious inconsistency in the appreciation of art even Tuscany, the cradle of the Renaissance, is not immune. A Medicean law intended, like the Roman one, to prevent the exportation of masterpieces and rare works of art, makes no mention of precious relics of Roman or Etruscan origin, nor even of the fine pieces of sculpture that were often excavated, but considers only the paintings of certain artists of the past school of the Renaissance and those of other contemporary artists, as being worth keeping, so the law declares, for the glory and dignity of Florence. The regulations are given in a second decree, along with a list of the names of the artists concerned, dead and living. Their work must not be taken out of Tuscany. The list is very instructive, for it passes over some of the best artists, such as Botticelli, Credi, the Pollaiolos and others, and prohibits the export of the work of artists that are either unknown to us or are of such mediocrity that it is surprising their work should have been esteemed above the average of their day. The following is one of these lists, the first that was made. 1. Michelangelo Buonarroti. 2. Raffaelo da Urbino. 3. Andrea del Sarto. 4. Mecherino (?). 5. Il Rosso Fiorentino. 6. Leonardo da Vinci. 7. Il Franciabigio. 8. Perino del Vaga. 9. Jacopo da Puntormo. 10. Tiziano. 11. Francesco Salviati. 12. Angelo Bronzino. 13. Daniello da Volterra. 14. Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco (Della Porta). 15. Fra Bast. Del Piombo. 16. Filippo di Fra Filippo. 17. Antonio da Correggio. 18. Il Parmigianino.
Without insisting upon a comment that might appear paradoxical, what kind of collectors of art can be expected from people who place in the same list of merit Leonardo, Michelangelo, Titian, with Cecchin Salviati, Perino del Vaga, to say nothing of the now forgotten Mecherino, a painter whose well-deserved oblivion saves us from judging his poor work. In another list other names are added. They are no less grotesque—Santi di Tito Ligozzi, Jacopo da Empoli, etc, in far too good company.
CHAPTER X
COLLECTING IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND
Passion for collecting art travels to France—The Florentine Republic and the fate of a statuette by Michelangelo—Italy supplies antiques to France and other countries—The fair of Frankfurt—A famous sale—In England the passion for collecting art and curios may have originated in France.
While the passion in Italy for collections of art still goes on enriching museums more through the impetus of the past than from a genuine cult, and produces occasionally, together with many illustrious patrons of contemporary art, some old type of collector fond of the antique with the characteristic greed for all kinds of rarities, France, and later almost every other nation of Europe, awakens to the passion for art and curios. It is no longer a question of monarchs and princes, as was the case in Italy, nobles and the bourgeois as well come to the fore. Even at the beginning of the sixteenth century, France may quote the names of Grolier and Robertet, both financiers employed at Court, both lovers of fine things. The former is a specialist in rare editions and fine bindings, the latter a keen-eyed, eclectic collector, as may be gathered from the inventory of his excellent collection kept in his castle of Bury.