The History of Painting in Italy.
Vol. V.
by Luigi Antonio Lanzi.
BOOK III.
BOLOGNESE SCHOOL.
During the progress of the present work, it has been observed that the fame of the art, in common with that of letters and of arms, has been transferred from place to place; and that wherever it fixed its seat, its influence tended to the perfection of some branch of painting, which by preceding artists had been less studied, or less understood. Towards the close of the sixteenth century, indeed, there seemed not to be left in nature, any kind of beauty, in its outward forms or aspect, that had not been admired and represented by some great master; insomuch that the artist, however ambitious, was compelled, as an imitator of nature, to become, likewise, an imitator of the best masters; while the discovery of new styles depended upon a more or less skilful combination of the old.
Thus the sole career that remained open for the display of human genius was that of imitation; as it appeared impossible to design figures more masterly than those of Bonarruoti or Da Vinci, to express them with more grace than Raffaello, with more animated colours than those of t.i.tian, with more lively motions than those of Tintoretto, or to give them a richer drapery and ornaments than Paul Veronese; to present them to the eye at every degree of distance, and in perspective, with more art, more fulness, and more enchanting power than fell to the genius of Coreggio. Accordingly the path of imitation was at that time pursued by every school, though with very little method. Each of these was almost wholly subservient to its prototype; nor was it distinguished in any other portion of the art than that by which its master had surpa.s.sed all compet.i.tors. Even in this portion, the distinction of these followers consisted only in copying the same figures, and executing them in a more hasty and capricious manner, or at all events, in adapting them out of place. Those devoted to Raffaello were sure to exaggerate the ideal in every picture: the same in regard to anatomy in those of Michelangiolo: while misplaced vivacity and foreshortening were repeated in the most judicious historic pieces of the Venetians and the Lombards.
A few, indeed, there were, as we have noticed, in every place, who rose conspicuous above those popular prejudices and that ignorance which obscured Italy, and whose aim was to select from the masters of different states the chief merit of each; a method of which the Campi of Cremona more especially furnished commendable examples. Yet these artists being unequal in point of genius and learning, broken into different schools, separated by private interests, accustomed to direct their pupils only in the exact path they themselves trod, and always confined within the limits of their native province, failed to instruct Italy, or at least to propagate the method of correct and laudable imitation. This honour was reserved for Bologna, whose destiny was declared to be the art of teaching, as governing was said to be that of Rome; and it was not the work of an academy, but of a single house. Gifted with genius, intent upon attaining the secrets more than the stipends of their art, and unanimous in their resolves, the family of the Caracci discovered the true style of imitation. First, they inculcated it through the neighbouring state of Romagna, whence it was communicated to the rest of Italy; so that in a little while nearly the whole country was filled with its reputation. The result of their learning went to shew that the artist ought to divide his studies between nature and art, and that he should alternately keep each in view, selecting only, according to his natural talents and disposition, what was most enviable in both. By such means, that school, which appeared last in the series that flourished, became the first to instruct the age; and what it had acquired from each it afterwards taught to all: a school which, until that period, had a.s.sumed no form or character to distinguish it from others, but which subsequently produced almost as many new manners, as the individuals of the family and their pupils. The mind, like the pen, would gladly arrive at that fortunate epoch; aiming at the most compendious ways to reach it, and studiously avoiding whatever may impede or divert its course. Let Malvasia exclaim against Vasari as much as he pleases: let him vent his indignation upon his prints, in which Bagnacavallo appears with a goat"s physiognomy, when he was ent.i.tled to that of a gentleman: let him farther vituperate his writings, in which Bolognese professors are either omitted, dismissed with faint praise, or blamed, until one Mastro Amico and one Mastro Biagio fall under his lash:--to attempt to reconcile or to aggravate such feuds will form little part of my task. Concerning this author I have sufficiently treated in other places; though I shall not scruple to correct, or to supply his information in case oaf need, on the authority of several modern writers.[1] Nor shall I fail to point out in Malvasia occasional errors in sound criticism, which seem to have escaped him in the effervescence of that bitter controversy. The reader will become aware of them even in the first epoch; in treating which, agreeably to my own method, I shall describe the origin and early progress of this eminent school. Together with the Bolognese, I shall also give an account of many professors of Romagna, reserving a few, however, for a place in the Ferrarese School, in which they shone either as disciples or as masters.
Footnote 1: No Italian school has been described by abler pens. The Co. Canon. Malvasia was a real man of letters; and his life has been written by Crespi. His two volumes, ent.i.tled _Felsina Pittrice_, will continue to supply an abundance of valuable information, collected by the pupils of the Caracci, to whom he was known, and by whom he was a.s.sisted in this work; charged, however, with a degree of patriotic zeal at times too fervid.
Crespi and Zanotti were his continuators, whose merits are considered in the last epoch. To these volumes is added the work ent.i.tled, "Pitture, Sculture, e Architetture di Bologna," of which the latest editions have been supplied with some very valuable notices, (drawn also from MSS.) by the Ab. Bianconi, already commended by us, and by Sig.
Marcello Oretti, a very diligent collector of pictoric anecdotes, as well as by other persons. I cite this work under the t.i.tle of the _Guide_ of Bologna; in addition to which I mention in Romagna that of Ravenna by Beltrami, that of Rimini by Costa, and of Pesaro by Becci, which is farther ill.u.s.trated by observations upon the chief paintings at Pesaro, and a dissertation upon the art; both very ably treated by the pen of Sig. Canon. Lazzarini.
BOLOGNESE SCHOOL.
EPOCH I.
_The Ancients._
The new Guide of Bologna, published in the year 1782, directs our attention to a number of figures, in particular those of the Virgin, which, on the strength of ancient doc.u.ments, are to be a.s.signed to ages anterior to the twelfth century. Of some of these we find the authors" names indicated; and it forms, perhaps, the peculiar boast of Bologna to claim three of them during the twelfth century: one Guido, one Ventura, and one Ursone, of whom there exist memorials as late back as 1248. Most part, however, are from unknown hands, and so well executed, that we are justified in suspecting that they must have been retouched about the times of Lippo Dalmasio, to whose style a few of them bear considerable resemblance. Yet not so with others; more especially a specimen in San Pietro, which I consider to be one of the most ancient preserved in Italy. But the finest monument of painting possessed by Bologna, at once the most unique and untouched, is the _Catino_ of San Stefano, on which is figured the Adoration of the Lamb of G.o.d, described in the Apocalypse; and below this are several scriptural histories; as the Birth of our Lord, his Epiphany, the Dispute, and similar subjects. The author was either Greek, or rather a scholar of those Greeks who ornamented the church of St. Mark in Venice with their mosaics; the manner much resembling theirs in its rude design, the spareness of the limbs, and in the distribution of the colours. It is besides, certain, that these Greeks educated several artists for Italy, and among others the founder of the Ferrarese School, of whom more in its appropriate place.
However this may be, the painter exhibits traces that differ from those mosaic workers, such as the flow of the beard, the shape of the garments, and a taste less bent on thronging his compositions. And in respect to his age, it is apparent it must have been between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from the form of the characters, collated with other writings belonging to the same period.
Entering upon the age of Giotto, the most disputed of all, on account of the Florentines having declared themselves the tutors of the Bolognese, and the aversion of the latter to admit that they have been instructed by the Florentines;--I decline to dwell upon their writings, in which the heat of controversy has effectually obscured the candour of real history. I shall rather gather light from the figures of the _trecentisti_ dispersed throughout the city and all parts of Romagna, and from the ample collections which are to be seen in various places. Such is that of the Padri Cla.s.sensi at Ravenna, that of the Inst.i.tute at Bologna, and in the same place one at the Malvezzi palace, where the pictures of the ancient masters are exhibited in long series, with their names; not always inscribed, indeed, in ancient character, nor always equally genuine; but still calculated to reflect honour upon the n.o.ble family that made the collection. In all these I discovered paintings, some manifestly Greek; some indisputably Giottesque; certain others of Venetian style; and not a few in a manner which I never saw, except in Bologna. They possess a body of colouring, a taste in perspective, a method of designing and draping the figures, not met with in any other cities; as for instance, in several places I saw scripture histories, where the Redeemer invariably appears arrayed in a red mantle; while other characters appear in garments trimmed in a certain novel style with gilt borders; trifles in themselves, yet not apparent in any other school. From similar observations we seem to be justified in concluding that the Bolognese of that age likewise had a school of their own, not indeed so elegant, nor so celebrated, but nevertheless peculiar, and so to say, munic.i.p.al, derived from ancient masters of mosaic, and also from those in miniature.
On this head, notwithstanding our proposed brevity, I must here refer to the words of Baldinucci in his notices of the miniature painter, Franco: "After Giotto, that very celebrated Florentine painter, had discovered his novel and fine method by which he gained the name of the first restorer of the art of painting, or rather to have raised it from utter extinction; and after he had acquired with industrious diligence that fine mode of painting which is called _di minio_,[2] which for the most part consists in colouring very diminutive figures; many others also applied themselves to the like art, and soon became ill.u.s.trious. One of these was Oderigi d"Agubbio, concerning whom we have spoken in his proper place among the disciples of Cimabue. We discovered that this Oderigi, as we are a.s.sured by Vellutello in his comment upon Dante, in the eleventh canto of the Purgatorio,[3] was master in the art to Franco Bolognese, which a.s.sertion acquires great credit from his having worked much in miniature in the city of Bologna, according to these words that I find said of him by Benvenuto da Imola, a contemporary of Petrarch, in his comment upon Dante: "Iste Odorisius fuit magnus miniator in civitate Bononiae, qui erat valde va.n.u.s jactator artis suae." From this Franco, according to the opinion of Malvasia, the most n.o.ble and ever glorious city of Bologna received the first seeds of the beautiful art of painting."
Footnote 2: _Di minio_, a peculiar red colour, used also in oil painting, and well known to the ancients, who on festal days were accustomed to ornament with it the face of Jove"s statue, as also that of the victors on days of triumph.
Pliny and others explain the ancient method of employing it.
The term, in its simple acceptation, means here the art of designing and colouring in miniature, (from _di minio_) early applied to the ornamenting and illuminating of ancient works and MSS. R.
Footnote 3:
"Oh dissi lui non se" tu Oderisi, L"onor d"Agubbio, e l"onor di quell"arte Che alluminar e chiamata a Parisi?
Frate, diss"egli, piu ridon le carte Che pennellegia Franco Bolognese: L"onor e tutto or suo, e mio in parte.
Ben non sarei stato s cortese Mentre ch"io vissi per lo gran diso Dell"eccellenza, ove mio cor intese.
Di tal superbia qui si paga il fio."
With this narrative does the author proceed, like a careful culturist, gently sprinkling with refreshing drops his pictoric tree, whose seed he had shortly before planted, in order to trace the whole derivation of early artists from the leading stock of Cimabue. It has elsewhere been observed that this famous tree can boast no root in history; that it sprung out of idle conjectures, put together as an answer to the _Felsina Pittrice_ of Malvasia, in which the Bolognese School is made to appear, as it were, _autoctona_, derived only from itself. Now Baldinucci, in order to give its origin to Florence, would persuade us that Oderigi, a miniaturist, and master of Franco, the first painter at Bologna on the revival of the arts, had actually been a disciple of Cimabue. His argument amounts to this: that Dante, Giotto, and Oderigi, being known to have lived on the most intimate terms together, and all three greatly devoted to the fine arts, must have contracted their friendship in the school of Cimabue; as if such an intimacy might not have sprung up at any other time or place amongst three men who travelled. It is besides difficult to believe that Oderigi, ambitious of the fame of a miniaturist in ornamenting books, should have applied to Cimabue, who in those times was not the best designer of figures, though the most eminent painter in fresco, and of grand figures.
A more probable supposition, therefore, is that Oderigi acquired the art from the miniaturists, who then greatly abounded in Italy, and carried it to further perfection by his own design. Neither are the epochs themselves, fixed upon by Baldinucci, in favour of his system. He would have it that Giotto, at ten years of age, being about the year 1286, began to design in the school of Cimabue, when the latter had attained his forty-sixth year; nor could Oderigi have been any younger, whose death happened about 1299, one year before that of Cimabue, his equal in reputation, and in the dignity of the pupil, who already surpa.s.sed the master. How difficult then to persuade ourselves that a genius, described by Dante as lofty and full of vaunting, should demean himself by deigning to design at the school of a contemporary, near the seat of a mere child; and subsequently surviving only thirteen years, should acquire the fame of the first miniaturist of his age, besides forming the mind of a pupil superior to himself. It is no less incredible that Oderigi, after having seen Giotto"s specimens in miniature, "_should in a short time become famous_." Giotto, in 1298, when twenty-two years of age, was at Rome in the service of the pope; where, observes Baldinucci, he also illuminated a book for the Car. Stefaneschi; a circ.u.mstance not mentioned by Vasari, nor supported by any historical doc.u.ment. Yet taking all this for granted, what length of time is afforded for Oderigi to display his powers, on the strength of seeing Giotto"s models; for Oderigi, who having been already some time before deceased, was found by Dante in purgatory, according to Baldinucci"s computation, in the year 1300?
I therefore refer this miniaturist to the Bolognese School, most probably as a disciple, a.s.suredly as a master; and, on the authority of Vellutello, as the master of Franco, both a miniaturist and a painter. Franco is the first among the Bolognese who instructed many pupils; and he is almost deserving the name of the Giotto of this school. Nevertheless he approached only at considerable distance, the Giotto of Florence, as far as we can judge from the few relics which are now pointed out as his in the Malvezzi museum. The most undoubted specimen is one of the Virgin, seated on a throne, bearing the date of 1313; a production that may compare with the works of Cimabue, or of Guido da Siena. There are also two diminutive paintings, displaying much grace, and similar miniatures, ascribed to the same hand.
The most eminent pupils educated by Franco in his school, according to Malvasia, are by name, Vitale, Lorenzo, Simone, Jacopo, Cristoforo; specimens of whose paintings in fresco are still seen at the Madonna di Mezzaratta. This church, in respect to the Bolognese, exhibits the same splendor as the Campo Santo of Pisa, in relation to the Florentine School; a studio in which the most distinguished trecentisti who flourished in the adjacent parts, competed for celebrity. They cannot, indeed, boast all the simplicity, the elegance, the happy distribution, which form the excellence of the Giottesque; but they display a fancy, fire, and method of colouring, which led Bonarruoti and the Caracci, considering the times in which they lived, not to undervalue them; insomuch that, on their shewing signs of decay, these artists took measures for their preservation. In the forementioned church, then, besides the pupils of Franco already named, Gala.s.so of Ferrara, and an unknown imitator of the style of Giotto, a.s.serted by Lamo in his MS. to have been Giotto himself, painted, at different times, histories from the Old and New Testament. I am inclined rather to p.r.o.nounce the unknown artist to be Giotto"s imitator; both because Vasari, in Mezzaratta, makes no mention of Giotto, and because, if the latter had painted, he would have ranked with the most eminent, and would have been selected to pursue his labours, not in that corner ornamented with paintings in the Florentine style, but in some more imposing situation.
I ought not to omit to mention in this place, that Giotto employed himself at Bologna. There is one of his altar-pieces still preserved at San Antonio with the superscription of MAGISTER IOCTUS DE FLORENTIA. We, moreover, learn from Vasari that Puccio Capanna, a Florentine, and Ottaviano da Faenza, with one Pace da Faenza, all pupils of Giotto, pursued their labours more or less at Bologna. Of these, if I mistake not, there are occasional specimens still to be met with in collections and in churches.
Nor are there wanting works of the successors of Taddeo Gaddi, one of the school of Giotto, which, as I have seen great numbers in Florence, I have been able to distinguish with little difficulty among specimens of this other school. Besides this style, another was introduced into Bologna from Florence, that of Orcagna, whose Novissimi of S. Maria Novella were almost copied in a chapel of San Petronio, painted after the year 1400; the same edifice which Vasari on the strength of popular tradition, has a.s.serted, was ornamented by Buffalmacco. From this information, we are brought to conclude that the Florentines exercised an influence over the art, even in Bologna; nor can I commend Malvasia, who, in recounting the progress of his school, gives them no place, nor makes them any acknowledgment. Their models, which at that period were the most excellent in the art, there is reason to suppose, may in those times have afforded a.s.sistance to the young Bolognese artists, as those of the school of Caracci, in another age, instructed the youth of Florence. It is time, however, to return to the pictures of Mezzaratta.
The authors of those just recorded, were, some of them, contemporary with the disciples of Giotto; others flourished subsequent to them; nor is there any name more ancient than that of Vital da Bologna, called _dalle Madonne_, of whom there are accounts from 1320 till the year 1345. This artist, who painted for that church a picture of the Nativity, and from whose hand one of S. Benedetto with other saints is seen in the Malvezzi palace, had more dryness of design than belonged to the disciples of Giotto at that period; and he employed compositions that differed from that school, so extremely tenacious of Giotto"s ideas. If Baldinucci ventured to a.s.sert of him that his style, in every particular, agrees with that of his Florentine contemporaries, he wrote on the faith of others; a sufficient reason with him for affirming that he was pupil to Giotto, or to some one of his disciples. I would not venture so far; but rather, to judge from the hand of Vitale, which Baldi, in his Biblioteca Bolognese, ent.i.tles "manum elimatissimam," from the dryness of design, and from his almost exclusive custom of painting Madonnas, I argue that he had not departed much from the example set by Franco, more of a miniaturist than a painter, and that his school could not have been that school more elevated, varied, and rich in ideas, formed by Giotto.
Lorenzo, an artist, as is elsewhere observed, of Venice more probably than of Bologna,[4] who produced the history of Daniel, on which he inscribed his name, painted during the same period, and attempted copious compositions. He was greatly inferior to the Memmi, to the Laurati, to the Gaddi, though he is represented as their equal in reputation by Malvasia.
He betrays the infancy of the art, no less in point of design than in the expressions of his countenances, whose grief sometimes provokes a smile; and in his forced and extravagant att.i.tudes in the manner of the Greeks.
Hence it is here out of the question to mention Giotto, in whose school, cautiously avoiding every kind of extravagance, there predominates a certain gravity and repose, occasionally amounting to coldness; described by the author of the Bolognese Guide as the statuary manner; and it is one of those marks by which to distinguish that school from others of the same age.
Footnote 4: Vol. iii. p. 16.
At a later period flourished Gala.s.so, who is to be sought for in the list of artists of Ferrara, along with the three supposed disciples of Vitale; namely, Cristoforo, Simone, and Jacopo; all of whom, in mature age, were engaged in pictures to decorate the church at Mezzaratta, which were completed in 1404. Vasari writes that he is uncertain whether Cristoforo belonged to Ferrara, or da Modena; and whilst the two cities were disputing the honour, the Bolognese historians, Baldi, Masini, and b.u.maldo, adjusted the difference by referring him to their own Felsina. For me his country may remain matter of doubt, though not so the school in which he flourished; inasmuch as he certainly resided, and painted a great deal, both on altar-pieces and on walls, at Bologna. At that period, he must have attracted the largest share of applause; since to him was committed the figure of the altar, which is still in existence, with his name. The Signori Malvezzi, likewise, are in possession of one of his altar-pieces, abounding with figures of saints, and divided into ten compartments. The design of these figures is rude, the colouring languid; but the whole displays a taste a.s.suredly not derived from the Florentines, and this is the princ.i.p.al difficulty in the question.
Simone, most commonly called in Bologna Da Crocifissi, was eminent in these sacred subjects. At S. Stefano, and other churches, he has exhibited several fine specimens, by no means incorrect in the naked figure, with a most devotional cast of features, extended arms, and a drapery of various colours. They resemble Giotto"s in point of colouring, and in the posture of the feet, one of which is placed over the other, but in other respects they approach nearer the more ancient. I have seen also some Madonnas painted by him; sometimes in a sitting posture, at others in half-size, with drapery and with hands in the manner of the Greek paintings. In features, however, and in the att.i.tudes, they are both carefully studied and commendable for those times; a specimen of which is still to be seen at S. Michele in Bosco.
Among the Bolognese trecentisti Jacopo Avanzi is the most distinguished. He produced the chief part of the histories at the church of Mezzaratta, many in conjunction with Simone, and a few of them alone; as the miracle of the Probation, at the bottom of which he wrote _Jacobus pinxit_. He appears to have employed himself with most success in the chapel of S. Jacopo al Santo, at Padua, where, in some very spirited figures, representing some exploit of arms, he may be said to have conformed his style pretty nearly to the Giottesque; and even in some measure to have surpa.s.sed Giotto, who was not skilful in heroic subjects. His masterpiece seems to have been the triumphs painted in a saloon at Verona, a work commended by Mantegna himself as an excellent production. He subscribed his name sometimes _Jacobus Pauli_; which has led me to doubt whether he was not originally from Venice, and the same artist who, together with Paolo his father, and his brother Giovanni, painted the ancient altar-piece of San Marco at that place. The time exactly favours such a supposition; the resemblance between the countenances in the paintings at S. Marco and at the Mezzaratta, farther confirms it; nor can I easily persuade myself that Avanzi would have ent.i.tled himself _Jacobus Pauli_, had there flourished another artist at the same period, likely, from similarity of signatures, to create a mistake. In the _Notizia_ of _Morelli_, p. 5, he is called _Jacomo Davanzo, a Paduan, or Veronese, or as some maintain a Bolognese_, words which may create a doubt of the real place of his birth. Without entering on such a question, I shall only observe, that I incline to believe that his most fixed domicile, at least towards the close of his days, was at Bologna; and it has already been remarked, that some artists were accustomed to a.s.sume their place of residence for a surname. It would seem that two painters of this age derive their parentage from him: one who on an altar-piece at S.
Michele in Bosco signs himself _Petrus Jacobi_, and the same Orazio di Jacopo mentioned by Malvasia. At all events it is observable in each school, that, where an artist was the son of a painter, he gladly adopted his father"s name as a sort of support and recommendation of his own. One Giovanni of Bologna, unknown in his own country, has left at Venice a painting of S. Cristoforo, in the school of the Merchants at S. Maria dell"Orto, to which he adds his name, though without date; and, from his ancient manner, we are authorized to believe that he really belongs to the place which is here a.s.signed him.
Lippo di Dalmasio, formerly believed to be a Carmelite friar, until the Turin edition of Baldinucci proved that he had died married, sprung from the school of Vitale, and was named Lippo dalle Madonne. It is not true, as reported, that he instructed the Beata Caterina Vigri in the art, by whom there remain some miniatures, and an infant Christ painted on panel.
Lippo"s manner scarcely varies from the ancient, except perhaps in better harmony of tints and flow of drapery; to which last, however, he adds fringes of gold lace tolerably wide, a practice very generally prevalent in the early part of the fifteenth century. His heads are beautiful and novel, more particularly in several Madonnas, which Guido Reni never ceased to admire, being in the habit of declaring that Lippo must have been indebted to some supernatural power for his exhibition in one countenance of all the majesty, the sanct.i.ty, and the sweetness of the holy mother, and that in this view he had not been equalled by any modern. Such is the account given by Malvasia, who relates it, he adds, as he heard it. He moreover a.s.sures us, on the authority of Guido, that Lippo painted several histories of Elias in fresco, with great spirit; while, on the experience of Tiarini, he would persuade us that he painted in oil at S. Procolo in via S. Stefano, and in private houses; on which point he impugns the commonly received opinion respecting Antonello, examined by us more than once. Contemporary with Lippo must have flourished Maso da Bologna, painter of the ancient cupola of the cathedral.
Subsequent to 1409, the latest epoch of the paintings of Lippo, the Bolognese School began to decline; nor could it well be otherwise.
Dalmatio, an instructor of youth, was not by profession a painter of history; and, as portrait painters never particularly promoted the progress of any school, so on his part he conferred little benefit on his own. This decline has been attributed to some specimens of art brought from Constantinople, overcharged with dark lines in the contours and folds, and in the remaining parts resembling rather the dryness and inelegance of the Greek mosaic-workers, than the softness and grace then sought to be introduced by the most eminent Italians in the art. Copies of these were eagerly inquired for in Bologna, and in all adjacent cities, which produced that abundance of them, still to be seen in the sale shops and private houses throughout those districts, besides several in the city and state of Venice.[5] But, in these instances, they were only copied; in Bologna they were imitated likewise by several pupils of Lippo, who, either in part or altogether, adopted that style in their own compositions. One Lianori, usually inscribing his name _Petrus Joannis_, and known by some works interspersed in different churches and collections, is most accused of this extravagance; an Orazio di Jacopo, (perhaps dell"Avanzi) of whom there remains a portrait of S. Bernardino, at the church of the Osservanza; a Severo da Bologna, to whom is ascribed a rude altar-piece, in the Malvezzi Museum; with several others, either little known or unmentioned, whose names I am not surprised should be omitted by Vasari, who, in the same way, pa.s.ses over the least distinguished of his own country. It is true, he makes mention of one Galante da Bologna, who, he avers, designed better than Lippo, his master; but in this he is still taken to task by Malvasia, who includes Galante among the inferior pupils of Dalmasio.
Footnote 5: The Greeks, during the earliest periods, having uniformly represented the Virgin in so rude a style, were always pleased with similar paintings. I state this to remove a very prevalent error, that every Madonna of Greek style, with distended eyes, long fingers, and dark complexion, in the style of that of Pisa, called _Degli Organi_, or those of Cimabue, is to be referred to the remotest dates. Indeed I have seen specimens of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and even eighteenth centuries, particularly in the Cla.s.se Museum, in that of Cattaio, and in the palaces of Venetian n.o.bles. One in the possession of the E. E. Signori Giustiniani Recanati, has, notwithstanding its very antique air, red letters inscribed on a gold ground, expressing, CHEIR EMMANOUeL IEREoS ..... a ... lx, _Ma.n.u.s Emanuelis Sacerdotis_. an. 1660. From the hand of the same Greek priest, well known to Venetian artists, there are other altar-pieces with a similar inscription; and it is still customary in that city to reproduce specimens of a similar kind, to satisfy the continual inquiries of the Greek merchants. To judge correctly, then, of the age of such images, we must look for other indications besides their design, such as the _letters_, (see vol. i. p. 49), the fashion of the cornice, the method of colouring, or those cherubs, holding a gold crown over the head of the Virgin, in the edges and the folds of whose drapery are imprinted marks of ages nearer to our own.
Nevertheless, the germ of good painting was not wanting, as far as the times permitted it to exist, both in Bologna and throughout Romagna.
Malvasia commends one Jacopo Ripanda, who long flourished at Rome, where, as is commemorated by Volterrano, he began to design the ba.s.si-relievi of the Trajan Column; one Ercole, a Bolognese, who somewhat improved the symmetry of the human figure; one Bombologno, a carver of crucifixes, like Simone, but of more refined composition. He more particularly celebrates a Michel di Matteo, or Michel Lambertini; in whose commendation it may be enough to state, that Albano praised one of his pictures, supposed to be in oil, completed in 1443, for the fish-market, and even preferred it for its softness to those of Francia. The few which we still possess in our own times, both at the churches of S. Pietro and S. Jacopo, might be put in compet.i.tion with the contemporary works of almost any master.
But the artist who produced an epoch in his school is Marco Zoppo, who having transferred his education under Lippo to the studio of Squarcione, rose to equal eminence with Pizzolo and Dario da Trevigi; and, like them, vied with the genius of Mantegna, and gave a farther spur to his exertions.
He also studied some time in the Venetian School, where he painted for the Osservanti, at Pesaro, a picture of the Virgin on a Throne, crowned, with S. Giovanni the Baptist, San Francesco, and other saints, and signed it _Marco Zoppo da Bologna Dip. in Vinexia_, 1471. This is the most celebrated production which he left behind him; from which, and a few other pieces in the same church, and at Bologna, we may gather some idea of his style. The composition is that common to the quattrocentisti, particularly the Venetians, and which he probably introduced into Bologna, a style which continued to the time of Francia and his school, for the most part unvaried, except in the addition of some cherub to the steps of the throne, sometimes with a harp, and sometimes without. It is not a free and graceful style, like that of Mantegna, but rather coa.r.s.e, particularly in the drawing of the feet; yet less rectilinear in the folds, and bolder, and more harmonious, perhaps, in the selection of the colours. The fleshes are as much studied as in Signorelli, and in others of the same age; while the figures and the accessories are conducted with the most finished care.
Marco was, likewise, a fine decorator of facades, in which kind of painting he was a.s.sisted by his companion and imitator, Jacopo Forti, to whose hand is ascribed a Madonna, painted on the wall, at the church of S. Tommaso, in Mercato. In the Malvezzi collection there is also attributed to Jacopo a Deposition of the Saviour from the Cross; a work which does not keep pace with the progressive improvements of that age. The same remark will apply to a great number of others, produced about the same period, in the same city, which, towards the close of the century, displayed a striking deficiency in good artists. It was owing to this circ.u.mstance that Gio.
Bentivoglio, then master of Bologna, wishing to ornament his palace, which, had fortune favoured him, would one day have become that of all Romagna, invited a number of artists from Ferrara and Modena, who introduced a better taste into Bologna, besides affording an occasion for the grand genius of Francia to develop itself likewise in the art of painting, as we shall proceed to shew.
This artist, whose real name was Francesco Raibolini, _was_, according to Malvasia, _esteemed and celebrated as the first man of that age_; and he might have added, _in Bologna_, where many so considered him; being there, as is attested by Vasari, _held in the estimation of a G.o.d_. The truth is, that he had a consummate genius for working in gold; on which account the medals and coins taken with his moulds rivalled those of Caradosso, the Milanese; and he was also an excellent painter, in that style which is termed modern antique, as may be gathered from a great number of collections, where his Madonnas rank at the side of those of Pietro Perugino and Gian Bellini. Raffaello, too, compares him with them, and even greater artists, in a letter dated 1508, edited by Malvasia, in which he praises his Madonnas, "never having beheld any more beautiful, more devotional in their expression, and more finely composed by any artist."
His manner is nearly between that of these two heads of their schools, and partic.i.p.ates in the excellence of both; it boasts Perugino"s choiceness and tone of colours; while, in the fulness of its outlines, in the skill of the folding, and ample flow of the draperies, it bears greater resemblance to Bellini. His heads, however, do not equal the grace and sweetness of the former; though he is more dignified and varied than the latter. In the accessories of his landscapes he rivals both; but in landscape itself, and in the splendor of his architecture, he is inferior to them. In the composition of his pictures he is less fond of placing the divine infant in the bosom of the Virgin than upon a distinct ground, in the ancient manner of his school; and he sometimes adds to them some half figures of saints, as was customary with the Venetians of that period. On the whole, however, he approaches nearer to the Roman School; and, not unfrequently, as is noticed by Malvasia, his Madonnas have been ascribed by less expert judges to Pietro Perugino. He likewise produced works in fresco at Bologna, commended by Vasari; and both there and elsewhere are many of his altar-pieces yet remaining, displaying figures of larger dimensions than those usually painted by Bellini and Perugino; the peculiar merit of the Bolognese School, and by degrees extended to others, augmenting at once the grandeur of painting and of the temples it adorned.
But the chief praise due to him yet remains to be recorded, and this is, that he did not begin to exercise his pencil until he had arrived at manhood, and, in the course of a few years, displayed the rare example of becoming a scholar and a master, able to compete with the best artists of Ferrara and Modena. These, as we have mentioned, were invited by Gio.
Bentivoglio, in order to decorate his palace. There, too, Francia was employed; and he was afterwards commissioned to paint the altar-piece of the Bentivogli chapel, in 1490, where he signed himself _Franciscus Francia Aurifex_, as much as to imply that he belonged to the goldsmith"s art, not to that of painting. Nevertheless, that work is a beautiful specimen, displaying the most finished delicacy of art in every individual figure and ornament, especially in the arabesque pilasters, in the Mantegna manner. In process of time he enlarged his style; a circ.u.mstance that induced historians to make a distinction between his first and second manner.
Cavazzoni, who wrote respecting the Madonnas of Bologna, wishes to persuade us that Raffaello himself had availed himself of Francia"s models, in order to dilate that dry manner which he imbibed from Perugino. We shall award this glory to the genius of Raffaello, whose youthful performances at San Severo of Perugia, display a greater degree of softness than those of his master and of Francia; and after his genius, to the examples of F.