Opposite to those of Bembo is a painting, a history of the Pa.s.sion, representing our Redeemer before his judges, painted by Cristoforo Moretti,[35] the same, according to Lomazzo, who was employed with Bembo in the court of Milan, and also painted at the church of S. Aquilino. One of his Madonnas is still to be seen there, seated amid different saints, and upon her mantle I was enabled to decipher, _Christophorus de Moretis de Cremona_, in characters interweaved in the manner of gold lace. Cremonese writers call him the son of Galeazzo Rivello, and father and grandfather to several other Rivelli, all artists, Moretti being only an a.s.sumed appellation. From the inscription I have adduced, there appears some difficulty in the way of such a tradition, since _de Moretis_ is an expression importing a family name, not an acquired one. Whatever may be thought on this head, it is certain that he was one of the reformers of the art in Lombardy, and particularly in the branches of perspective and design; and in this history of the Pa.s.sion, in which he excluded all kind of gilding, he is seen to approach the moderns.
Footnote 35: See Lomazzo, Treatise on Painting, p. 405.
Somewhat later, and not before 1497, Altobello Melone and Boccaccio Boccaccino, two Cremonese artists, were employed in completing the frieze of the cathedral. The former, according to Vasari, painted several histories of the Pa.s.sion, truly beautiful and deserving of commendation.
But he was the least consistent in point of style, introducing, as it has been observed, figures of small and large proportions in the same piece, and also least excellent in his frescos, colouring them in a manner that now gives them the look of tapestry. But he excelled in his oil paintings, as we gather from his altar-piece of Christ descending into Limbo, which is preserved in the sacristy of the Sacramento, a piece for which the canons refused to receive a large sum that was offered for it. The figures are very numerous, of somewhat long proportions, but coloured with equal softness and strength. His knowledge of the naked figure is beyond that of his age, combined with a grace of features and of att.i.tudes that conveys the idea of a great master. In the Notizia of Morelli, his picture of Lucretia, painted for private ornament, is mentioned. It is executed in the Flemish style, and he is said to have been the pupil of Armanino, perhaps an artist of that nation.
Boccaccio Boccaccino bears the same character among the Cremonese as Grillandaio, Mantegna, Vannucci, and Francia, in their respective schools, the best modern among the ancients, and the best of the ancients in the list of the moderns. He had the honour of instructing Garofolo during two years previous to his visiting Rome in 1500. In the frieze of the cathedral, Boccaccino painted the Birth of the Virgin, along with other histories, relating to her and the Divine Infant. The style is in part original, and in part approaches that of Pietro Perugino, whose pupil Pascoli says he was. But he is less regular in his composition, less beautiful in the air of his heads, and less powerful in his chiaroscuro, though richer in his drapery, with more variety of colours, more spirit in his att.i.tudes, and scarcely less harmonious or less pleasing in his architecture and landscape. He is, perhaps, least attractive in some of his figures, which are somewhat coa.r.s.e, owing to their having a fulness of drapery, and not being sufficiently slender, a defect carefully avoided by the ancient statuaries, as I have formerly observed.[36] It is remarked by Vasari that he visited Rome, in which I agree with him, both because it is in some degree alluded to by Antonio Campi, and because there are evident traces of his imitation of Pietro, as in his Marriage of the Virgin Mary, and in a very magnificent temple, that appears erected upon lofty steps, a subject repeated by Pietro several times. It has been also noticed that his Madonna at S. Vincenzo, with the t.i.tular Saint and S. Antonio, seems like the work of Vannucci, and he certainly approaches very near him in other figures. I can easily believe, therefore, that Boccaccino was at Rome; but I also believe that what is written of him by Vasari and by Baldinucci, if not fict.i.tious, is at least wide of the mark.
Footnote 36: Chapter iii.
Let us briefly examine this matter. It is said that he there attempted to depreciate the works of Michelangiolo, and that after exhibiting his own productions at the Traspontina, which met with ridicule from the Roman professors, in order to escape from the hisses they excited on all sides, he was compelled to return to his native place. This story, added to others of a like nature, irritated the Lombard artists. Hence Scanelli in his Microcosm, Lamo in his Discourse on Painting, and Campi in his History, renewed the complaints of the other schools against Vasari. These are recorded by Zaist (p. 72) with the addition of his own refutation of this account. The refutation rests upon the epochs which Vasari himself points out, and which of themselves, say his opponents, afford a decided negative to the story of Boccaccino"s journey to Rome in time to have cast reflections upon the paintings of Michelangiolo. It is the custom of less accurate historians, when they give the substance of a fact, to add to it circ.u.mstances of time, of place, or of manner, that had really no existence. Ancient history is full of such examples, and the severest criticism does not presume to discredit facts on the strength of some interpolated circ.u.mstance, provided there be others sufficiently strong to sanction them. In this instance, the historian, and a great friend of Michelangiolo, narrates an affair relating to that friend, and which is supposed to have taken place at Rome, only a short period before the author wrote. We can hardly then believe it to have been a mere idle report without any foundation in truth. I would reject indeed some of its accessaries, and in particular condemn those unwarranted reflections in which Vasari indulges at the expense of one of the most distinguished artists who at that time flourished in Lombardy.
Next to the four historical paintings just mentioned, follow those conducted by Romanino di Brescia and by Pordenone, two master spirits of their age, who left examples of the Venetian taste at the cathedral, which were not neglected by the Cremonese, as will be seen. We ought in justice to add, that their city has always shewn a laudable wish to preserve these ancient productions from the effects of age, as far as in her power. When towards the close of the sixteenth century they began to exhibit marks of decay, they were instantly ordered to be examined and restored by a painter and architect of some reputation, called Il Sabbioneta, his real name being Martire Pesenti. The same degree of care and attention has been shewn them in the present day by the Cav. Borroni.
Two other citizens exhibited specimens in the same place, of the style which is now called _antico moderno_. Alessandro Pampurini, as it is said, drew some figures of cherubs, round a _cartellone_, or scroll for inscriptions, together with a kind of arabesques, bearing the date of 1511; and in the subsequent year Bernardino Ricca, or Ricco, produced a similar work opposite to it, which owing to its having been executed with too much dryness, perished in a few years, and was renewed by a different hand. But there still exists his picture of a Pieta at S. Pietro del Po, with some specimens likewise by his companion, sufficient to prove that both are worthy of commemoration for their time.
Having thus described the series of artists who decorated the cathedral, there remain a few other names unconnected with that great undertaking, but which, nevertheless, enjoyed considerable celebrity in their day. Such are Galeazzo Campi, the father of the three distinguished brothers, and Tommaso Aleni. This last so nearly resembled Campi in his manner, that their pictures can with difficulty be distinguished, as may be seen at S.
Domenico, where they painted in compet.i.tion with each other. It is loosely conjectured by many that they were the pupils of Boccaccino, an opinion which I cannot entertain. The disciples of the best masters in the fourteenth century continued to free themselves, the longer they flourished, from the dry manner of their early education. Galeazzo, on the other hand, the only one we need here mention, approaches less closely to the modern style than his supposed master, as we perceive in the suburban church of S. Sebastiano, where he painted the tutelar saint and S. Rocco standing near the throne of the Virgin with the Infant Christ. The picture bears the date of 1518, when he was already a finished master, and nevertheless he there appears only a weak follower of the Perugino manner.
His colours are good and natural, but he is feeble in chiaroscuro, dry in design, cold in his expression; his countenances have not a beam of meaning, while that of the holy infant seems as if copied from a child suffering under an obliquity of the eyes, those of the figure are so badly drawn. The observation, therefore, of Baldinucci, or of his continuator, that he "had rendered himself celebrated even beyond Italy," would seem in want of confirmation; nor do I know whence such confirmation can be derived. Certainly not from the ancients, for even his own son Antonio Campi only remarks of Galeazzo, that he was "a tolerable painter for his age."
Nor did some others of Galeazzo"s contemporaries rise much above mediocrity. To this cla.s.s belonged Antonio Cigognini and Francesco Casella, a few of whose productions remain in their native place; Galeazzo Pesenti, called Il Sabbioneta, a painter and sculptor; Lattanzio of Cremona, who having painted at the school of the Milanese in Venice, has been recorded by Boschini in his _Miniere della Pittura_, besides Niccolo da Cremona, who was employed, according to Orlandi, in 1518 at Bologna. There are two, however, who merit a larger share of consideration, having produced works of a superior character which still exist, and belong in some degree to the golden period of the art. The name of the first is Gio. Batista Zupelli, of whom the Eremitani possess a fine landscape with a Holy Family. His taste, although dry, is apt to surprise the eye by its originality, and attracts us by a natural and peculiar grace, with which all his figures are designed and animated, as well as by a certain softness and fulness of colouring. If Soiaro had not acquired the principles of his art from Coreggio, we might suppose that this Zupelli had instructed him in regard to the strong body of his colouring, which is remarkable both in him and in his school. The second is Gianfrances...o...b..mbo, the brother and disciple of Bonifazio, highly commended by Vasari, if, indeed, he be, as is supposed, the same Gianfrancesco, called Il Vetraro, who is recorded by the historian in his Life of Polidoro da Caravaggio. It appears certain that he must have visited Lower Italy, from the style which he displays in one of his altar-pieces, representing saints Cosma and Damiano, at the Osservanti, to which his name with the date of 1524 is affixed. I have not observed any thing in a similar taste, either in Cremona or in its vicinity. It retains very slight traces of the antique, much as may be observed in those of F.
Bartolommeo della Porta, whom he greatly resembled in point of colouring, however inferior in the dignity of his figures and his draperies. A few more of his specimens are met with in public places and the houses of n.o.blemen, which exhibit him as one of those painters who added dignity to the style of painting in Lombardy, and improved upon the ancient manner.
SCHOOL OF CREMONA.
EPOCH II.
_Camillo Boccaccino, Il Soiaro, The Campi._
After the time of Vetraro, nothing occurs worthy of putting on record until we reach the moderns; and here we ought to commence with the three distinguished artists, who, according to Lamo, were employed in Cremona in the year 1522. These were Camillo Boccaccino, son of Boccaccio, Soiaro, recorded in the preceding chapter, and Giulio Campi, who subsequently became the head of a numerous school. Other Cremonese artists, it is true, flourished about the same period, such as the two Scutellari, Francesco and Andrea, who have been referred by some writers to the state of Mantua; but as few of their works remain, and those of no great merit, we shall proceed at once to the great masters of the school whom we have mentioned above.
The grand undertaking of the cathedral proved useful likewise in the advancement of these artists, and in particular the church of S.
Sigismondo, already erected by Francesco Sforza at a little distance from the city, where these artists and their descendants, painting as it were in compet.i.tion, rendered it a n.o.ble school for the fine arts. We may there study a sort of series of these artists, their various merit, their prevailing tastes in the Coreggio manner, their different style of adapting it, and their peculiar skill in fresco compositions. With these they not only decorated temples, but by applying them to the facades of palaces and private houses they gave an appearance of splendour to the state, which excited the admiration of strangers. They were surprised, on first entering Cremona, to behold a city arrayed as if for a jubilee, full of life, and rich in all the pride of art. Strange then that Franzese, who wrote the Lives of the best painters (in four volumes) should have compiled nothing relating to the Cremonese, far more deserving of commemoration than many others in his collection whom he has greatly praised.
Camillo Boccaccino was the leading genius of the school. Grounded in the ancient maxims of his father, though his career was short, he succeeded in forming a style at once strong and beautiful, insomuch that we are at a loss to say which is the prevailing feature of his character. Lomazzo p.r.o.nounces him, "very able in design, and a n.o.ble colourist," placing him, as a model for the graceful power of his lights, for the sweetness of his manner, and for his art of drapery, on a level with da Vinci, Coreggio, Gaudenzio, and the first painters in the world. According to the opinion of Vasari, against whom the Cremonese have so bitterly inveighed, Camillo was "a good mechanical hand, and if he had flourished for a longer period would have had extraordinary success, but he produced few works except such as are small, and of little importance." In respect to his paintings at S.
Sigismondo, he adds, not that they are, but are only "believed by the Cremonese to be, the best specimens of the art they have to boast." They are still to be seen in the cupola, in the grand recess, and on the sides of the great altar. The most distinguished pieces are the four Evangelists in a sitting posture, excepting the figure of S. John, who, standing up in a bending att.i.tude, with an expression of surprise, forms a curved outline opposed to the arch of the ceiling, a figure greatly celebrated, no less on account of the perspective than the design. It is truly surprising how a young artist who had never frequented the school of Coreggio, could so well emulate his taste, and carry it even farther within so short a period; this work, displaying such a knowledge of perspective and foreshortening, having been executed as early as the year 1537.
The two side pictures are also highly celebrated, both in Cremona and abroad. One of these represents the Raising of Lazarus, the other the Woman taken in Adultery, both surrounded with very elegant ornaments, representing groups of cherubs, which are seen in the act of playing with the mitre, the censer, and other holy vessels in their hands. In these histories, as well as in their decorations, the whole of the figures are arranged and turned in such a way, as scarcely to leave a single eye in the figures visible, a novelty in respect to drawing by no means to be recommended. But Camillo was desirous of thus proving to his rivals that his figures were not, as they a.s.serted, indebted for their merit to the animated expression of the eyes, but to the whole composition. And truly in whatever way disposed, they do not fail to please from the excellence of the design, their fine and varied att.i.tudes, the foreshortening, the natural colouring, and a strength of chiaroscuro which must have been drawn from Pordenone, and which makes the surrounding paintings of the Campi appear deficient in relief. Had he exhibited a little more choice in his heads of adults, with a little more regularity in his composition, there would, perhaps, have been nothing farther to desire. We may, moreover, mention his painting on a facade in one of the squares of Cremona, where, not long ago, were to be seen the remains of figures which Camillo executed so as to excite the admiration of Charles V. and obtain the highest commendations. There remain likewise two of his altar-pieces, one at Cistello and the other at S. Bartolommeo, both extremely beautiful.
The name of Bernardino, or Bernardo Gatti, for he subscribed both to his pictures, was mentioned at length among the pupils of Parma; and I have now to record it among the best masters of Cremona. Both Campi and Lapi refer him without scruple to Cremona, though he is given by others to Vercelli, and supposed to be the same Bernardo di Vercelli who succeeded Pordenone in painting S. Maria di Campagna at Piacenza, as we find related in Vasari. By others he is supposed again to have come from Pavia, where he was employed in the cupola of the cathedral, and according to the testimony of Count Carasi, mentioned before with commendation, he there subscribed his name _Bernardinus Gatti Papiensis_, 1553. I leave the question to others, though it seems hardly credible that two contemporary historians, who wrote shortly after the death of Bernardino, while the public recollection of his native place must have been yet fresh, and ready to refute them, should have each fallen into error. We might add that Cremona is in possession of many of Soiaro"s paintings from his earliest age until he became an octogenarian, and owing to a paralytic affection was in the habit of painting with his left hand. At that advanced period he produced for the cathedral his picture of the a.s.sumption, fifty hands in height, and which, although he never lived to complete it, is a work, as is justly observed by Lamo, that excites our wonder. Moreover he left his possessions and a family at Cremona, from which sprung two artists deserving of record, one of whom is celebrated in history, the other never before noticed. As there still remains some degree of foundation for attributing him to Pavia, upon the authority also of Spelta, who wrote the Lives of the Pavese Bishops, and was almost contemporary with Bernardino, and what is more, he himself thinks that the difference might be thus reconciled, we may agree with him in stating that our artist was either derived from, or a citizen of Pavia, and at the same time a citizen and a resident at Cremona.
Gervasio Gatti, Il Soiaro, nephew to Bernardino, was initiated by him in the same maxims and principles which he had himself imbibed, by studying and copying the models left by Coreggio at Parma. The advantage he derived from them may be known from his S. Sebastiano, which was painted for S.
Agatha, at Cremona, in 1578, a piece that appears designed from the antique, and coloured by one of the first figurists and landscape painters in Lombardy. In the same city is his Martyrdom of S. Cecilia, at S. Pietro, surrounded with angels, in the Coreggio manner, a picture n.o.bly coloured, and finished with exquisite care. In composition it resembles those of his uncle, for one of which it might be mistaken, did we not find the name of Gervasio and the date of 1601. But he was not always equally diligent, and sometimes betrays a mechanical hand, while there is often a monotony in his countenances, and a want of selection in his heads, no unusual fault in portrait-painters, among whom he held a high rank. It is most probable that he saw the works of the Caracci, traces of which I have discovered in some of his productions, and particularly in those at S. S. Pietro and Marcellino. Perhaps it was a brother of this artist who left a picture of a Crucifixion, surrounded by different saints, at S. Sepolcro in Piacenza, bearing an inscription of _Uriel de Gattis dictus Sojarius_, 1601. It boasts great strength of colouring, combined with no little elegance, but the manner is insignificant and it is feeble in chiaroscuro. This, if I mistake not, is the same _Uriele_ who, on the testimony of the Cav.
Ridolfi, had been selected for some undertaking at Crema in preference to Urbini, as I formerly observed. Bernardino likewise instructed Spranger, a favourite artist of the Emperor Rodolph II. as well as the Anguissole, of both of whom we shall give some account shortly. What more peculiarly distinguishes him is his t.i.tle to be considered the great master of the Cremonese School, which, benefitted by his presence and guided by his precepts and examples, produced during so long a period such a variety of admirable works. To speak frankly what I think, Cremona would never have seen her Campi, nor her Boccaccino rise so high, if Soiaro had not exhibited his talents in that city.
The remaining portion of our chapter will be devoted almost wholly to the Campi, a family that filled Cremona, Milan, and other cities of the state, both in private and public, with their paintings. They consisted of four individuals, all of whom devoted themselves indefatigably to the art until they reached an extreme old age. They were by some denominated the Vasari and the Zuccari of Lombardy, a comparison founded on some degree of truth in regard to the extent and the vast mechanism of their compositions; but not just, as far as intended to be applied to any desire of achieving much, rather than what was excellent in its kind. Giulio and Bernardino, the most accomplished of their family, were accused of too great rapidity and want of accuracy; but they are not very often liable to the charge, and many of their faults must be ascribed to their a.s.sistants. They generally produced good designs, which were invariably well coloured, and these still remain entire, while those of Vasari and Zuccari stand in need of continual restoration and retouching from the fading of their colours. Of both these masters, however, as well as the rest of the Campi, we must now proceed to treat in their individual character.
Giulio may be p.r.o.nounced the Lodovico Caracci of his school. The eldest brother of Antonio and Vincenzo, and the relation, or the instructor at least, of Bernardino, he formed the project of uniting the best qualities of a number of styles in one. His father, who was his first preceptor,[37]
not conceiving himself equal to perfecting him in the art, sent him to the school of Giulio Romano, established at that period in Mantua, and which had begun, according to Vasari, to propagate the taste imbibed by its master from the most distinguished ornament of the art. Romano, too, instructed his pupils in the principles of architecture, painting, and modelling, and rendered them capable of directing and conducting all the branches of a vast and multiplied undertaking with their own hands. Such an education was enjoyed by the eldest Campi, and by his brothers, owing to his care. The church of S. Margherita was wholly decorated by him; and the chapels at S. Sigismondo were all completed by him and his family. They contain almost every variety of the art, large pictures, small histories, cameos, stuccos, chiaroscuros, grotesques, festoons of flowers, pilasters, with gold recesses, from which the most graceful forms of cherubs seem to rise with symbols adapted to the saint of the altar; in a word, the whole of the paintings and their decorations are the work of the same genius, and sometimes of the same hand. This adds greatly to their harmony and in consequence to their beauty, nothing in fact being truly beautiful that has not perfect unity. It is a real loss to the arts that these various talents should be divided, so as to compel us to seek a different artist for works of different sorts; whence it arises that in a number of halls and churches we meet with collections, histories, and ornaments of every kind, so extremely opposite, that not only one part fails to remind us of the other, but sometimes repels it, and seems to complain of its forced and inharmonious union. But we must again turn our attention to Giulio Campi.
Footnote 37: We may here correct the mistake of Orlandi, who a.s.signs the death of Galeazzo to the year 1536, and Giulio"s birth to 1540, when it is known that he began his labours as early as 1522.
It appears then that he laid the foundation of his taste and principles under Giulio Romano. From him he derived the dignity of his design, his knowledge of anatomy, variety and fertility of ideas, magnificence in his architecture, and a general mastery over every subject. To this he added strength when he visited Rome, where he studied Raffaello and the antique, designing with a wonderful degree of accuracy the column of Trajan, universally regarded as a school of the ancients always open to the present day. Either at Mantua or elsewhere he likewise studied t.i.tian, and imitated him in an equal degree with any other foreign artist. In his native state he met with two more models in Pordenone and Soiaro, in whose style, according to Vasari, he exercised himself, before he became acquainted with the works of Giulio. From such preparatory studies, combined with imitating whatever he met with in Raffaello and Coreggio, he acquired that style which is found to partake of the manner of so many different artists. On visiting the church of S. Margherita just alluded to, in company with an able professor of the art, we there noticed several of his heads, each drawn after a different model, insomuch that on viewing the works of this artist we feel inclined to p.r.o.nounce the same opinion on him, as Algarotti did on the Caracci, that in one of their pictures one kind of taste prevails, and in another an opposite manner. Thus in his S. Girolamo, in the cathedral at Mantua, and in his Pentecost at S. Gismondo in Cremona, we meet with all the strength of Giulio, though his most successful imitation is to be found in the castle of Soragno in the territory of Parma, where he represented the labours of Hercules in a grand hall, which might be p.r.o.nounced an excellent school for the study of the naked figure. In the larger picture at the church of S. Gismondo, where the duke of Milan is seen with his d.u.c.h.ess in the act of being presented by the patron saints to the Holy Virgin, and also in that of saints Pietro and Marcellino at the church bearing their name, Campi displays so much of the t.i.tian manner as to have been mistaken for that artist. One of his Histories of the Pa.s.sion, in the cathedral, representing Christ before Pilate, was also supposed to be from the hand of Pordenone, though ascertained to be his. Finally in a Holy Family, painted at S. Paolo in Milan, particularly in the figure of the child seen caressing a holy prelate, who stands lost in admiration, we are presented with all the natural grace, united to all the skill that can be required in an imitator of Coreggio. The picture is exquisitely beautiful, and an engraving of it in large folio was taken by Giorgio Ghigi, a celebrated artist of Mantua.
Nor did Giulio"s admiration of great painters lead him to neglect the study of nature. It was nature he consulted, and selected from; a study which he inculcated likewise upon the rest of the Campi. A choice is thus perceptible in their heads, more especially in those of their women, evidently drawn from nature, and I may add from national truth, inasmuch as they express ideas and att.i.tudes that are not usually met with in other artists; the hair and temples often appearing bound with a ribbon, as was then customary in the city, and is still in use in some of the villages.
The colouring of the heads approaches near that of Paul Veronese, and in the whole of their paintings the Campi were accustomed to make use of the distribution of colours that had prevailed before the time of the Caracci, though in their manner of disposing and animating them they acquired a peculiar beauty which Scaramuccio p.r.o.nounces wholly original. Judging, therefore, from their colours, and the air of their heads, it is difficult to discern the individual hands of the Campi; but if we examine the design we shall more easily distinguish them. Giulio surpa.s.ses the rest in point of dignity; and he likewise aims at displaying more knowledge, both of the human frame and of the effects of lights and shadows. In correctness too he is superior to his two brothers, though he is not equal to Bernardino.
The Cav. Antonio Campi was instructed by his brother in architecture and painting, in the former of which he employed himself more than Giulio. This was useful to him in the distribution of his large works, where he often introduced perspective views of great beauty, and displayed great skill in foreshortening. A fine specimen of his powers is to be seen in the sacristy of S. Pietro, with that beautiful colonnade, above which appears the chariot of Elias in the distance. Antonio was also a modeller, an engraver, and the historian of his native state, whose annals, enriched with many of his copper-plates, he published in 1585. In the Campi family, therefore, he will be found to occupy the same place as Agostino among the Caracci, an artist of great versatility, conversant with polite letters. He was well known and appreciated by Agostino, who engraved one of his most beautiful productions, the Apostle of the Gentiles in the act of raising a person from the dead. It is placed at S. Paolo in Milan, a n.o.ble church, where all the Campi, in the same manner as at S. Sigismondo, are seen in compet.i.tion with each other. Antonio there appears to great advantage, no less in the forementioned picture than in that of the Nativity, though the frescos adorning the chapels, ascribed to him, are deficient in accuracy. Thus he also produced works of unequal merit at S. Sigismondo, as if he wished to shew that he knew more than he was ambitious of expressing. His most familiar model, as is remarked also by Lomazzo, was Coreggio, and the feature that he most aimed at expressing was that of grace. To this he often attained in point of colouring, but was less happy in design, where, owing to his study of elegance, he at times becomes disproportionately thin, and at others, in order to display his power, he exhibits a foreshortening somewhat out of place. He is still more mannered in his more robust subjects, and occasionally borders upon heaviness and vulgarity, into which his imitation of Coreggio"s grandeur, more difficult, perhaps, than his grace, doubtless betrayed him. There are many of these exceptions, however, along with his incorrectness of design, so often discernible, which are to be attributed to his numerous a.s.sistants, employed in these vast undertakings. But this will not apply to his over-grouping, which is so remarkable in some of his compositions, nor to the introduction of caricatures into his holy histories, which is a sort of jesting out of season. In a word his genius was vast, spirited, resolute, but often in want of the rein; and in this respect, and generally in what relates to pictorial learning, we should do wrong to put him in compet.i.tion with Lodovico Caracci.
In the church of S. Paolo, at Milan, there is an inscription by Vincenzio Campi, in which he mentions Giulio and Antonio as his younger brothers.
Most probably, however, it has been inserted there by some other hand, being quite contradictory to what is established by history. For he is represented by Antonio as the youngest of the brothers, and by others as an indefatigable a.s.sistant in their labours, and little more worthy of being compared with them than Francesco Caracci with his brother Annibal or Agostino. His portraits, however, are held in esteem, as well as his fruit pieces, which he painted on a small scale for private rooms in a very natural manner, and they are by no means rare at Cremona. In the colouring of his figures he was equal to his brothers, but in point of invention and design greatly inferior to them. He appears to have imitated Antonio rather than Giulio, as far as we can judge from the few works he has left, which are now known to be his. He painted a few altar-pieces for his native place, four of which consist of Descents from the Cross. That in the cathedral extorted the praise of Baldinucci; and truly in the figure of Christ his foreshortening deceives the eye like that of Pordenone in his Dead Christ, while his heads and his colouring have likewise been commended. I cannot, however, think that the att.i.tude of the Virgin mother, who is seen grasping his face with both her hands, is very becoming; nor do I approve of the saints Antonio and Raimondo, who lived at a period so remote from that of Christ, being here introduced, the one supporting his arm, the other kissing his hand. It moreover betrays several errors, of a kind which Baldinucci, so familiar with a more learned and severe school, would not so easily have forgiven had he happened to have beheld this picture. Vincenzio seems to have possessed greater skill in small than in large figures, in common indeed with a great number of artists. Mention is made in his Life of six little pictures which he executed on slate, and which were sold after his death for three hundred ducats. Zaist, whom I follow in my index, has presented us with the epochs applying to these three artists in such a manner as to leave them in considerable doubt. The inscription at S. Paolo in Milan, recorded in the Guide (p. 152) is as follows:--_Vincentius una c.u.m Julio et Antonio fratribus pinxerunt an._ MDLx.x.xVIII. Now Bianconi does not seem inclined to credit the authenticity of this; nor is it improbable but it may have been written some years subsequent to the painting, and by another hand.
Bernardino Campi, perhaps some way related to the other three Campi, occupied the same place in his family as Annibal Caracci amongst his brothers. Receiving his first instructions from the eldest Campi, he entered into similar views of forming a style which should include that of many other artists, and in a short time he rivalled, and in the opinion of many surpa.s.sed his master. He had at first attached himself to the goldsmith"s art by the advice of his father; but happening to behold two tapestries, copied by Giulio Campi from Raffaello, he resolved to change his profession, and devoting himself to the school of Campi at Cremona, and next to that of Ippolito Costa at Mantua, he began to profess the art at the age of nineteen, and acquired a great proficiency in it at that early age. At Mantua he cultivated an acquaintance with Giulio Romano and his school, and we may infer, that from the study of his works he was enabled to enlarge his views and his capacity for great undertakings. But the love of Raffaello was fixed in his heart, and he took delight in nothing so much as his pictures, his designs, and his engravings; while in Giulio and the rest he was only anxious to emulate those portraits which appeared to him to bear some resemblance to his Raffaello. There too he applied himself to the study of t.i.tian"s series of the Caesars, eleven in number; and after having copied them he added a twelfth in a style so perfectly consistent, as to exhibit no traces of imitation. By the liberality of one of his patrons he was enabled also to visit Parma, Modena, and Reggio, in order to become acquainted with the manner of Coreggio; and the advantage he thence derived, his pictures at S. Gismondo sufficiently display. From these first principles, with such as he studied in his native place, he derived one of the most original styles that is to be met with in the list of imitators.
His imitation is never, like that of so many others, apparent to the eye, but rather resembles our poet Sannazzaro"s, of the best Roman writers, who colours with them every line, but that line is still his own. In so great a variety of models, the most beloved and the most honoured, as Virgil was by Sannazzaro, was Raffaello by Bernardino; but it was unfortunate for him that he did not see Rome, and the originals which that great pictoric genius there produced. The want of this he supplied with ability, and formed for himself several maxims drawn from nature and simplicity, which serve to distinguish him from the rest of his school. By the side of the other Campi he perhaps appears the most timid artist, but the most correct; he has not the magnificence of Giulio, but he has more ideal beauty, and much more captivates the heart. He resembles Antonio rather than Giulio in the length of his proportions; but not so in other points, for he occasionally borders upon dryness, as in his a.s.sumption at the cathedral, in order to avoid falling into mannerism.
But it is the church of S. Sigismondo which inspires us with the loftiest ideas of this artist, in every view. We can imagine nothing more simply beautiful, and more consistent with the genius of the best age, than his picture of St. Cecilia, in the act of playing on the organ, while St.
Catherine is seen standing near her, and above them a group of angels, apparently engaged with their musical instruments and with their voices, in pouring forth in concert with the two innocent virgins, strains worthy of Paradise. This painting, with its surrounding decoration of cherub figures, displays his mastery in grace. Still he appears to no less advantage in point of strength in his figures of the Prophets, grandly designed, for the same place; although he seems more anxious to invest them with dignity of feature and of action, than to give strength and muscle to their proportions. Above all, he shone with most advantage in the grand cupola, with which few in Italy will bear a comparison, and still fewer can be preferred for the abundance, variety, distribution, grandeur, and gradation of the figures, and for the harmony and grand effect of the whole. In this empyrean, this vast concourse of the blessed, belonging to the Old and New Testament, there is no figure that may not be recognised by its symbols, and that is not seen in perfection from its own point of view, whence all appear of the natural proportion, although they are on a scale of seven braccia in height. Such a work is one of those rare monuments which serve to prove, that it is possible for a great genius to execute rapidly and well; it was wholly conducted by him in seven months; and to satisfy the workmen, who were more sensible of the brevity of the time than the merit of the work, he obtained a written acknowledgment from Soiaro and Giulio Campi, that he had achieved a laudable task. Bernardino was younger than either of them, or than Boccaccino, and the citizens took pleasure in placing him in compet.i.tion with one or the other of them in their public works, in order that a n.o.ble emulation might call forth all their powers, nor suffer them to slumber. Nevertheless, the Nativity of our Lord, at S.
Domenico, has been p.r.o.nounced his masterpiece; a kind of abstract, in which he aimed at comprehending the various excellences of the art. This, at least, is the opinion of Lamo, who composed a diffuse life of this artist; such as to render his information far the most copious we possess upon the subject. He also compiled a correct catalogue of his works, executed both in his native place and at Milan, where he pa.s.sed a great part of his time, and of those he painted in foreign parts. We find a great number of portraits of princes, as well as of private persons, enumerated; his skill in this branch of the art, in which very few equalled him, greatly adding to his fame and fortune. The precise period of his decease is not known, though it must have been somewhere towards 1590, at which time the art a.s.sumed quite a new aspect at Cremona.
SCHOOL OF CREMONA.
EPOCH III.
_Decline of the School of the Campi. Trotti and other Artists support it._
From the brief description already given, it will easily be perceived how far the Campi School was a sort of sketch of that of the Caracci; and what were the causes which contributed to the superiority of the latter, although they had both the same original outline. The Caracci were all excellent designers, and invariably aimed at appearing such; they were likewise united by affection, no less than by their place of residence, and were continually engaged in a.s.sisting each other. Finally, they supported an academy, much frequented, the object of which was, not so much to study the various manners of different artists, as to examine the different effects produced by nature, so as to render their works her real offspring, as it were, and not her more distant relations. The Campi, on the other hand, did not so uniformly aspire to the same excellence, nor did they reside, and unite together in forming so methodical and well-established an academy; each maintaining a separate school and residence, and teaching, if I mistake not, rather how their pupils should imitate them, than how they should paint. Hence it arose, that while Domenichino, Guido, Guercino, and others of the Caracci School, distinguished themselves by their novelty and originality of manner, the scholars of the Campi were confined to the sphere of imitating, as nearly as lay in their power, the painters of their own city, either severally or in a select number. And thus, as man is every where the same, it here ensued, as in the rest of the Italian schools, that having acquired a tolerable degree of skill in imitating their predecessors, artists began to slacken their industry. The first had accustomed themselves to copy only from the life; they drew cartoons, they modelled in wax, and carefully arranged all the divisions of their folds, with every accessary; but the second contented themselves with making a few sketches, and some heads taken from nature, executing the rest of their work in a mere mechanical manner, and as they judged to be most convenient.
Thus by degrees this great school degenerated, and it happened also about the same period, when the disciples of Procaccini observed the same method at Milan. From this cause, during the seventeenth century, Lombardy was filled with the sectarists of the art, among whom the followers of Zuccheri themselves would have appeared in the rank of masters. A few there were who struggled to free themselves from the herd of imitators; and Caravaggio afforded them an opportunity. Born in the vicinity of Cremona, he was partly considered their compatriot, and the more willingly followed by the Cremonese; more particularly as it became popular to cry down the style of the last masters as feeble, and to demand one of a more vigorous character.
The attempt succeeded admirably in a few; while others, on the contrary, as it occurred in Venice, at Cremona also became only coa.r.s.e and sombre. I have not been very anxious to cultivate an acquaintance with the artists of this period; though I shall take care to make mention of such as succeeded in raising themselves above the crowd.
Each of the Campi, therefore, claims his own disciples, though they have not always been distinguished in history, being described under the general designation of pupils of the Campi; as the two Mainardi, Andrea and Marc Antonio, by Orlandi. The two pupils of Giulio, best ent.i.tled to commendation, namely, Gambara of Brescia, and Viani of Cremona, having flourished in other schools, have been recorded by us, the first among the Venetians; and the second among the Mantuan artists.
Antonio Campi has left us an account of three of his own disciples: Ippolito Storto, Gio. Batista Belliboni, and Gio. Paolo Fondulo, who pa.s.sed into Sicily. All of them remained in obscurity, however, in Lombardy, and are omitted in the painters" Dictionaries. Towards the close of his life, he instructed one Galeazzo Ghidone, an artist of weak health, who employed himself only at intervals, but with success; as we may judge from his picture of the Preaching of St. John the Baptist, at S. Mattia, in Cremona, which has been highly commended by good connoisseurs. Another, is Antonio Beduschi, who, in his twenty-sixth year, produced a Pieta for S. Sepolcro, in Piacenza, and a still superior painting of the Martyrdom of S. Stefano; he is referred to the school of the Campi, and strongly partakes of the style of Antonio; I esteem him one of his imitators, if not in the list of his pupils. He was unknown to the historian Zaist, and is indebted for commemoration to the Sig. Proposto Carasi.
Luca Cattapane was initiated in the art by Vincenzio, and devoted much time to copying the works of the Campi family. He succeeded in this by exhibiting a rare boldness of hand, so as to give his pieces the air of originals, and they continue to impose upon the most experienced, even to the present day. He likewise counterfeited the style of Gambara in a Pieta of his, at the church of S. Pietro, in Cremona; and in order to enlarge the picture, he added three figures in a taste agreeable to the former. For the rest, being misled by his ambition to form a new style, or to approach nearer Caravaggio, he became even more sombre than the Campi, with still less taste. Many of his altar-pieces yet remain. In S. Donato, at Cremona, he represented the Beheading of St. John; one of his most successful works, in which the effect is superior either to the design or to the expression.
To these we may add a number of his fresco paintings, though inferior to those he executed in oil.
Bernardino, however, was the favourite master, and the most frequented of any belonging to the school. His successors have continued to flourish longer, and even reached the confines of the present age. I first propose to enumerate a few of his most distinguished scholars, who either did not teach, or taught the art only to a few; and I shall afterwards treat of Malosso and his school, which, about the year 1630, held the chief sway in Cremona, and became one of the most celebrated throughout Lombardy.
Coriolano Malagavazzo, who is erroneously called Girolamo Malaguazzo, in the "Painters" Dictionary," a.s.sisted in the labours of his master, insomuch as to render it uncertain whether Cremona possesses any painting designed and executed by himself; for it is supposed that he drew his fine altar-piece, in S. Silvestro, representing the Virgin with S.S. Francesco and Ign.a.z.io, the martyr, from one of Bernardino"s designs. Nothing, likewise, that has not been questioned, remains of Cristoforo Magnani da Pizzichettone, a young artist of great promise, as we are informed by Antonio Campi, who laments the shortness of his career. Lamo, too, complains of his loss, when he mentions him and Trotti as the two greatest geniuses of the school. His chief talent lay in portraits; though he was also well skilled in compositions. I have seen one of his productions, consisting of Saints Giacomo and Giovanni, at S. Francesco, in Piacenza, an early effort, but very well conceived and executed. Andrea Mainardi, called Chiaveghino, employed himself both singly and with Marcantonio, his nephew, in painting for the city, and more especially for its environs. By Baldinucci, he is p.r.o.nounced a weak painter; and such indeed he appears wherever he worked in haste, and for a small sum. But several of his altar-pieces, laboured with more care, tend to redeem his character; there he shews himself a successful disciple of Bernardino, both in his minute style, as in his Marriage of S. Anne, at the Eremites, and in his loftier manner, as in his large picture of the Divin Sangue, or divine blood. He exhibits that prophetic idea, _torcular calcavi solus_, and the Redeemer is seen standing upright under a wine-press, and, crushed by the Divine Justice, emitting from his holy body, through the open wounds, whole streams of blood, which are received into sacred vessels by S. Agostino, and three other Doctors of the church; and are afterwards shed for the benefit of an immense crowd of the Faithful, who are seen gathered round.
The same subject I saw in one of the churches of Recanati, and in some others, but no where so appropriately expressed. It is a picture that would reflect credit on any school; exhibiting fine forms, rich draperies, warm and lively colouring. In the distribution of his small and frequent lights he might, indeed, have been more happy, as well as in the grouping of his figures; a fault, however, common to many of his school.
The best, however, of these disciples of Bernardino, with a number of others whom I omit, were all surpa.s.sed by a fair votary of the art named Sofonisba Angussola, sprung from a n.o.ble family at Cremona. Along with her younger sister, Elena, who afterwards took the veil, she received his instructions at her father"s request, in his own house. Upon his going to Milan, Soiaro was selected to supply the place of Bernardino, and Sofonisba soon attained to such a degree of excellence, more particularly in portraits, as to be esteemed one of the most finished painters of her age.
She at first superintended the pictorial education of her four younger sisters, whose names were Lucia and Minerva, who died young; Europa and Anna Maria, of whom the former married, and died in the flower of her age; and of the second, likewise married, there remains no further account.