Chapter 11

These works, then, and many others that are here passed over, it being enough to have made mention of the best, have been executed by Tintoretto with such rapidity, that, when it was thought that he had scarcely begun, he had finished. And it is a notable thing that with the most extravagant ways in the world, he has always work to do, for the reason that when his friendships and other means are not enough to obtain for him any particular work, even if he had to do it, I do not say at a low price, but without payment or by force, in one way or another, do it he would. And it is not long since, Tintoretto having executed the Passion of Christ in a large picture in oils and on canvas for the Scuola of S. Rocco, the men of that Company resolved to have some honourable and magnificent work painted on the ceiling above it, and therefore to allot that commission to that one among the painters that there were in Venice who should make the best and most beautiful design. Having therefore summoned Joseffo Salviati, Federigo Zucchero, who was in Venice at that time, Paolo Veronese, and Jacopo Tintoretto, they ordained that each of them should make a design, promising the work to him who should acquit himself best in this. While the others, then, were engaged with all possible diligence in making their designs, Tintoretto, having taken measurements of the size that the work was to be, sketched a great canvas and painted it with his usual rapidity, without anyone knowing about it, and then placed it where it was to stand. Whereupon, the men of the Company having assembled one morning to see the designs and to make their award, they found that Tintoretto had completely finished the work and had placed it in position. At which being angered against him, they said that they had called for designs and had not commissioned him to execute the work; but he answered them that this was his method of making designs, that he did not know how to proceed in any other manner, and that designs and models of works should always be after that fashion, so as to deceive no one, and that, finally, if they would not pay him for the work and for his labour, he would make them a present of it. And after these words, although he had many contradictions, he so contrived that the work is still in the same place. In this canvas, then, there is painted a Heaven with God the Father descending with many Angels to embrace S. Rocco, and in the lowest part are many figures that signify, or rather, represent the other principal Scuole of Venice, such as the Carità, S. Giovanni Evangelista, the Misericordia, S. Marco, and S. Teodoro, all executed after his usual manner. But since it would be too long a task to enumerate all the pictures of Tintoretto, let it be enough to have spoken of the above-named works of that master, who is a truly able man and a painter worthy to be praised.

There was in Venice about this same time a painter called Brazzacco, a protégé of the house of Grimani, who had been many years in Rome; and he was commissioned by favour to paint the ceiling in the Great Hall of the Chiefs of the Council of Ten. But this master, knowing that he was not able to do it by himself and that he had need of assistance, took as companions Paolo Veronese and Battista Farinato, dividing between himself and them nine pictures in oils that were destined for that place--namely, four ovals at the corners, four oblong pictures, and a larger oval in the centre. Giving the last-named oval, with three of the oblong pictures, to Paolo Veronese, who painted therein a Jove who is hurling his thunderbolts against the Vices, and other figures, he took for himself two of the smaller ovals, with one of the oblong pictures, and gave two ovals to Battista. In one of these pictures is Neptune, the God of the Sea, and in each of the others two figures demonstrating the greatness and the tranquil and peaceful condition of Venice. Now, although all three of them acquitted themselves well, Paolo Veronese succeeded better than the others, and well deserved, therefore, that those Signori should afterwards allot to him the other ceiling that is beside the above-named hall, wherein he painted in oils, in company with Battista Farinato, a S. Mark supported in the air by some Angels, and lower down a Venice surrounded by Faith, Hope, and Charity; which work, although it was beautiful, was not equal in excellence to the first. Paolo afterwards executed by himself in the Umiltà, in a large oval of the ceiling, an Assumption of Our Lady with other figures, which was a gladsome, beautiful, and well-conceived picture.

Likewise a good painter in our own day, in that city, has been Andrea Schiavone; I say good, because at times, for all his misfortunes, he has produced some good work, and because he has always imitated as well as he has been able the manners of the good masters. But, since the greater part of his works have been pictures that are dispersed among the houses of gentlemen, I shall speak only of some that are in public places. In the Chapel of the family of Pellegrini, in the Church of S. Sebastiano at Venice, he has painted a S. James with two Pilgrims. In the Church of the Carmine, on the ceiling of the choir, he has executed an Assumption with many Angels and Saints; and in the Chapel of the Presentation, in the same church, he has painted the Infant Christ presented by His Mother in the Temple, with many portraits from life, but the best figure that is there is a woman suckling a child and wearing a yellow garment, who is executed in a certain manner that is used in Venice--dashed off, or rather, sketched, without being in any respect finished. Him Giorgio Vasari caused in the year 1540 to paint on a large canvas in oils the battle that had been fought a short time before between Charles V and Barbarossa; and that work, which is one of the best that Andrea Schiavone ever executed, and truly very beautiful, is now in Florence, in the house of the heirs of the Magnificent M. Ottaviano de' Medici, to whom it was sent as a present by Vasari.

GIOVAN FRANCESCO RUSTICI

LIFE OF GIOVAN FRANCESCO RUSTICI

SCULPTOR AND ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE

It is in every way a notable thing that all those who were of the school in the garden of the Medici, and were favoured by the Magnificent Lorenzo the Elder, became without exception supremely excellent; which circumstance cannot have come from any other cause but the great, nay, infinite judgment of that most noble lord, the true Mæcenas of men of talent, who, even as he was able to recognize men of lofty spirit and genius, was also both willing and able to recompense and reward them. Thus Giovan Francesco Rustici, a Florentine citizen, acquitting himself very well in drawing and working in clay in his boyhood, was placed by that Magnificent Lorenzo, who recognized him as a boy of spirit and of good and beautiful genius, to learn under Andrea del Verrocchio, with whom there was also working Leonardo da Vinci, a rare youth and gifted with infinite parts. Whereupon Rustici, being pleased by the beautiful manner and ways of Leonardo, and considering that the expressions of his heads and the movements of his figures were more graceful and more spirited than those of any other works that he had ever seen, attached himself to him, after he had learned to cast in bronze, to draw in perspective, and to work in marble, and after Andrea had gone to work in Venice. Rustici thus living with Leonardo and serving him with the most loving submission, Leonardo conceived such an affection for him, recognizing him to be a young man of good, true, and liberal mind, patient and diligent in the labours of art, that he did nothing, either great or small, save what was pleasing to Giovan Francesco, who, besides being of a noble family, had the means to live honourably, and therefore practised art more for his own delight and from desire of glory than for gain. And, to tell the truth of the matter, those craftsmen who have as their ultimate and principal end gain and profit, and not honour and glory, rarely become very excellent, even although they may have good and beautiful genius; besides which, labouring for a livelihood, as very many do who are weighed down by poverty and their families, and working not by inclination, when the mind and the will are drawn to it, but by necessity from morning till night, is a life not for men who have honour and glory as their aim, but for hacks, as they are called, and manual labourers, for the reason that good works do not get done without first having been well considered for a long time. And it was on that account that Rustici used to say in his more mature years that you must first think, then make your sketches, and after that your designs; which done, you must put them aside for weeks and even months without looking at them, and then, choosing the best, put them into execution; but that method cannot be followed by everyone, nor do those use it who labour only for gain. And he used to say, also, that works should not be shown readily to anyone before they are finished, so that a man may change them as many times and in as many ways as he wishes, without any scruple.

Giovan Francesco learned many things from Leonardo, but particularly how to represent horses, in which he so delighted that he fashioned them of clay and of wax, in the round or in low-relief, and in as many manners as could be imagined; and of these there are some to be seen in our book which are so well drawn, that they bear witness to the knowledge and art of Giovan Francesco. He knew also how to handle colours, and executed some passing good pictures, although his principal profession was sculpture. And since he lived for a time in the Via de' Martelli, he became much the friend of all the men of that family, which has always had men of the highest ability and worth, and particularly of Piero, for whom, being the nearest to his heart, he made some little figures in full-relief, and, among others, a Madonna with the Child in her arms seated upon some clouds that are covered with Cherubim. Similar to that is another that he painted after some time in a large picture in oils, with a garland of Cherubim that form a diadem around the head of Our Lady.

The Medici family having then returned to Florence, Rustici made himself known to Cardinal Giovanni as the protégé of his father Lorenzo, and was received with much lovingness. But, since the ways of the Court did not please him and were distasteful to his nature, which was altogether simple and peaceful, and not full of envy and ambition, he would always keep to himself and live the life as it were of a philosopher, enjoying tranquil peace and repose. And although he did at times choose to take some recreation, and found himself among his friends in art or some citizens who were his intimate companions, he did not therefore cease to work when the desire came to him or the occasion presented itself. Wherefore, for the visit of Pope Leo to Florence in the year 1515, at the request of Andrea del Sarto, who was much his friend, he executed some statues that were held to be very beautiful; which statues, since they pleased Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, were the reason that the Cardinal caused him to make, for the summit of the fountain that is in the great court of the Palace of the Medici, the nude Mercury of bronze about one braccio in height, standing on a ball in the act of taking flight. In the hands of that figure Rustici placed an instrument that is made to revolve by the water that it pours down from above, in the following manner: one leg being perforated, a pipe passes through it and through the torso, and the water, having risen to the mouth of the figure, falls upon that instrument, which is balanced with four thin plates fixed after the manner of a butterfly, and causes it to revolve. That figure, I say, for a small work, was much extolled. Not long afterwards, Giovan Francesco made for the same Cardinal the model for a David to be cast in bronze (similar to that executed by Donato, as has been related, for the elder Cosimo, the Magnificent), for placing in the first court, whence the other had been taken away. That model gave much satisfaction, but, by reason of a certain dilatoriness in Giovan Francesco, it was never cast in bronze; wherefore the Orpheus in marble of Bandinelli was placed there, and the David of clay made by Rustici, which was a very rare work, came to an evil end, which was a very great loss. Giovan Francesco made an Annunciation in half-relief in a large medallion, with a most beautiful perspective-view, in which he was assisted by the painter Raffaello Bello and by Niccolò Soggi. This, when cast in bronze, proved to be a work of such rare beauty, that there was nothing more beautiful to be seen; and it was sent to the King of Spain. And then he executed in marble, in another similar medallion, a Madonna with the Child in her arms and S. John the Baptist as a little boy, which was placed in the first hall in the residence of the Consuls of the Guild of Por Santa Maria.

By these works Giovan Francesco came into great credit, and the Consuls of the Guild of Merchants, who had caused to be removed certain clumsy figures of marble that were over the three doors of the Temple of S. Giovanni (made, as has been related, in the year 1240), after allotting to Contucci of Sansovino those that were to be set up in place of the old ones over the door that faces towards the Misericordia, allotted to Rustici those that were to be placed over the door that faces towards the canonical buildings of that temple, on the condition that he should make three figures of bronze of four braccia each, representing the same persons as the old ones--namely, S. John in the act of preaching, standing between a Pharisee and a Levite. That work was much after the heart of Giovan Francesco, because it was to be set up in a place so celebrated and of such importance, and, besides this, by reason of the competition with Andrea Contucci. Having therefore straightway set his hand to it and made a little model, which he surpassed in the excellence of the work itself, he showed all the consideration and diligence that such a labour required. When finished, the work was held to be in all its parts the best composed and best conceived of its kind that had been made up to that time, the figures being wholly perfect and wrought with great grace of aspect and also extraordinary force. In like manner, the nude arms and legs are very well conceived, and attached at the joints so excellently, that it would not be possible to do better; and, to say nothing of the hands and feet, what graceful attitudes and what heroic gravity have those heads!

Giovan Francesco, while he was fashioning that work in clay, would have no one about him but Leonardo da Vinci, who, during the making of the moulds, the securing them with irons, and, in short, until the statues were cast, never left his side; wherefore some believe, but without knowing more than this, that Leonardo worked at them with his own hand, or at least assisted Giovan Francesco with his advice and good judgment. These statues, which are the most perfect and the best conceived that have ever been executed in bronze by a modern master, were cast in three parts and polished in the above-mentioned house in the Via de' Martelli where Giovan Francesco lived; and so, also, the ornaments of marble that are about the S. John, with the two columns, the mouldings, and the emblem of the Guild of Merchants. In addition to the S. John, which is a spirited and lively figure, there is a bald man inclined to fatness, beautifully wrought, who, having rested the right arm on one flank, with part of a shoulder naked, and with the left hand holding a scroll before his eyes, has the left leg crossed over the right, and stands in an attitude of deep contemplation, about to answer S. John; and he is clothed in two kinds of drapery, one delicate, which floats over the nude parts of the figure, and over that a mantle of thicker texture, executed with a flow of folds full of mastery and artistry. Equal to him is the Pharisee, who, having laid his right hand on his beard, with a grave gesture, is drawing back a little, revealing astonishment at the words of John.

While Rustici was executing that work, growing weary at last of having to ask for money every day from those Consuls or their agents, who were not always the same (and such persons are generally men who hold art or any work of value in little account), he sold, in order to be able to finish the work, a farm out of his patrimony that he possessed at San Marco Vecchio, at a short distance from Florence. And yet, notwithstanding such labours, expenses, and pains, he was poorly remunerated for it by the Consuls and by his fellow-citizens, for the reason that one of the Ridolfi, the head of that Guild, out of some private spite, and perchance also because Rustici had not paid him enough honour or allowed him to see the figures at his convenience, was always opposed to him in everything. And so that which should have resulted in honour for Giovan Francesco did the very opposite, for, whereas he deserved to be esteemed not only as a nobleman and a citizen but also as a master of art, his being a most excellent craftsman robbed him, with the ignorant and foolish, of all that was due to his noble blood. Thus, when Giovan Francesco's work was to be valued, and he had chosen on his side Michelagnolo Buonarroti, the body of Consuls, at the persuasion of Ridolfi, chose Baccio d'Agnolo; at which Rustici complained, saying to the men of that body, at the audience, that it was indeed something too strange that a worker in wood should have to value the labours of a statuary, and he as good as declared that they were a herd of oxen, but Ridolfi answered that, on the contrary, it was a good choice, and that Giovan Francesco was a swollen bladder of pride and arrogance. And, what was worse, that work, which deserved not less than two thousand crowns, was valued by the Consuls at five hundred, and even those were not paid to him in full, but only four hundred, and that only with the help of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici.

Having met with such malignity, Giovan Francesco withdrew almost in despair, determined that he would never again do work for public bodies, or in any undertaking where he might have to depend on more than one citizen or any other single person. And so, keeping to himself and leading a solitary life in his rooms at the Sapienza, near the Servite Friars, he continued to work at various things, in order to pass the time and not to live in idleness; but also consuming his life and his money in seeking to congeal mercury, in company with a man of like brain called Raffaello Baglioni. Giovan Francesco painted a picture in oils three braccia in breadth and two in height, of the Conversion of S. Paul, full of different kinds of horses ridden by the soldiers of that Saint, with various beautiful attitudes and foreshortenings; which painting, together with many other works by the hand of the same master, is in the possession of the heirs of the above-named Piero Martelli, to whom he gave it. In a little picture he painted a hunting-scene full of various animals, which is a very bizarre and pleasing work; and it now belongs to Lorenzo Borghini, who holds it dear, as one who much delights in the treasures of our arts. For the Nuns of S. Luca, in the Via di S. Gallo, he executed in clay, in half-relief, a Christ in the Garden who is appearing to Mary Magdalene, which was afterwards glazed by Giovanni della Robbia and placed on an altar in the church of those sisters, within an ornament of grey sandstone. For Jacopo Salviati the elder, of whom he was much the friend, he made a most beautiful medallion of marble, containing a Madonna, for the chapel in his palace above the Ponte alla Badia, and, round the courtyard, many medallions filled with figures of terra-cotta, together with other very beautiful ornaments, which were for the most part, nay, almost all, destroyed by the soldiers in the year of the siege, when the palace was set on fire by the party hostile to the Medici. And since Giovan Francesco had a great affection for that place, he would set out at times from Florence to go there just as he was, in his lucco;[9] and once out of the city he would throw it over his shoulder and slowly wander all by himself, lost in contemplation, until he was there. One day among others, being on that road, and the day being hot, he hid the lucco in a thicket of thorn-bushes, and, having reached the palace, had been there two days before he remembered it. In the end, sending his man to look for it, when he saw that he had found it he said: "The world is too good to last long."

[Footnote 9: A long gown worn by the Florentine citizens, particularly on occasions of ceremony.]

Giovan Francesco was a man of surpassing goodness, and very loving to the poor, insomuch that he would never let anyone leave him uncomforted; nay, keeping his money, whether he had much or little, in a basket, he would give some according to his ability to anyone who asked of him. Wherefore a poor man who often went to him for alms, seeing him go always to that basket, said, not thinking that he could be heard: "Ah! God! if I had in my own room all that is in that basket, I would soon settle all my troubles." Giovan Francesco, hearing him, said, after gazing at him fixedly a while: "Come here, I will satisfy you." And then, emptying the basket into a fold of his cloak, he said to him: "Go, and may God bless you." And shortly afterwards he sent to Niccolò Buoni, his dearest friend, who managed all his affairs, for more money; which Niccolò, who kept an account of his crops and of his money in the Monte, and sold his produce at the proper seasons, made a practice, according to Rustici's own wish, of giving him so much money every week, which Giovan Francesco then kept in the drawer of his desk, without a key, and from time to time anyone who wished would take some to spend on the requirements of the household, according as might be necessary.