CHAPTER II

THE MODENA-FERRARA LINK

THE CAMPIONESE SCHOOL AT MODENA

----+---------+----------------------------+----------------------------- 1. | 1050 | Magister Ersati di Ligorno | | | | 2. | 1099 | M. Lanfranco, son of | Chief architect at Modena in | | Ersati | 1099. His son Ubertino | | | forms a link with Padua, | | | where he worked at the | | | church of S. Antonio in | | | 1263. 3. | 1130 | M. Guglielmo or Vigilelmo }| Sculptors on the façades of 4. | | M. Ambroxius, his son }| Modena and Ferrara 5. | | M. Nicolaus }| cathedrals. | | | | | |{ Assist in the façade of | | |{ Ferrara cathedral. There 6. | 12th | M. Meo di Cecco, and |{ was a Marco di Frixone da 7. | century | M. Antonio di Frix of Como |{ Campione at Milan a century | | |{ later in 1300, probably a | | |{ descendant of this one. | | | 8. | 1209 | M. Anselmo da Campione | Sculptured the porch of | | | Modena cathedral; was chief | | | architect in 1181. | | | 9. | 1244 | M. Ottaccio } Sons of | The office of head architect | | } Anselmo da | was made hereditary in the | | } Campione, | family. 10. | | M. Alberto } who was | | | } also called | Jacopo is supposed to be the 11. | | M. Jacopo } Anselmo | Jacopo Tedesco, reputed | | } Tedesco. | father of Arnolfo. | | | 12. | " | M. Arrigo, son of M. | Arrigo was head architect in | | Ottaccio | 1244. | | | 13. | 1322 | M. Enrico, grandson of M. | Built the tower and | | Arrigo | sculptured the pulpit at | | | Modena. ----+---------+----------------------------+-----------------------------

At Modena, which was once a prosperous Roman colony, and then an independent commune, we find a most interesting family of Comacines, who for more than two centuries worked at the cathedral there, son succeeding father, and nephews following their uncles as architects. The building of a worthy church was the first thought of the newly-made commune in 1099. In Muratori's copy of the _Acts of the translation of the body of S. Gemignano to Modena_, we read--"So then, in the year 1099, the inhabitants of the said city began to demand where they could find an architect for such a work, a builder for such a church; and at length, by the grace of God, a certain man named Lanfranco, a marvellous architect, was found, under the counsels of whom the foundations of the Basilica were laid."[143]

Lanfranco is a name very frequent in Lombardy, but this man, probably from his already acquired fame, was the same Magister Lanfrancus filius Dom. Ersatii de Livurno (Ligurno), who built the cloister of Voltorre, near Lake Varese, in the neighbourhood of the Antelami.[144] The fact remains that all his successors were Comacines, and from places near Ligurno. There is also a similarity of style between the cloister at Voltorre, and the older parts of S. Gemignano at Modena, both showing a grafting of Gothic on the Romano-Lombard style. A curious document exists, a kind of contract, quoted by Tiraboschi in his _Codice Diplomatico_ in the Appendix to the historical memorials of the building of the cathedral, long after Lanfranco's part was done. It runs, when Anglicized--"In the name of Christ, in the year of His nativity, 1244, in the second indiction, on the day of Mercury (Wednesday), the last of the month of November. It has been recorded that between Ser Alberto, once treasurer to the Opera et Fabbrica, and the late Master Anselmo da Campione in the episcopate of Como (_Magistrum Anselmum de Campilione, Episcopatus Cumani_), a contract was made, by which the said Magister and his heirs _in perpetuo_ should work at the said church of Modena, and either the said Master, or any other Master, his descendant, should receive every day, six imperials in the days of May, June, July, and August, but five imperials only in those of the other months, for their recompense and their work. Ser Ubaldino, now Administrator of the said _Fabbriceria_, seeing and considering that the said stipend or remuneration does not seem sufficient according to the course of these and succeeding times, has deliberated and taken counsel with the venerable Bishop Signor Alberto, and with Ser Giovanni, Archpriest of Modena, at the instance and petition of Magister Arrigo (Henry), son of Magister Ottaccio, who was the son of Anselmo aforesaid; and in the presence of the aforementioned Signori, Bishop, and Archpriest, and of the subscribing witnesses, promises and agrees that to the said Magister Arrigo, for himself and his sons and heirs, and for Magister Alberto and Magister Jacopo, his paternal uncles (_patruis suis_), and the sons and heirs of the same, shall be given over and above to them, and to their said sons, or successors, who shall be masters in that art (_qui magistri fuerint hujus artis_), eight imperials for each day they work, from the calends of April to the calends of October. In the days of the remaining months in which they shall have worked at the will of the Administrator of the building, they should, and shall have, only six imperials, receiving nevertheless their food from the said lodge, not only on festal days, but on all others, as they have from the beginning been accustomed to have. And if at the will of the said Administrator they shall bring other competent Masters necessary to the said works, these shall receive seven imperials for each day, from the said calends of April to those of October, but in other months only five imperials per diem."

This deed was drawn up in the Canonica of Modena, and duly signed by witnesses.

Tracing the predecessors of Arrigo of Campione, father and grandfather, back from 1244, we come very near the time of the first Lanfranco; and following his descendants from Arrigo, head architect in 1244, to his grandson, who finished the tower of the Dome,[145] and made the marble pulpit in the cathedral in 1322, we get a family line of builders lasting unbroken for nearly two hundred years. There still exists an inscription in bad Latin on the cornice of the pulpit, which says that Tomasino di Giovanni, treasurer of the _Fabbriceria_, S. Gemignano, had the pulpit carved, and the tower built by Arrigo or Enrico, the Campionese sculptor (_actibus Henrici sculptoris campionensis_). It would be difficult now to assign his due share to each of this long line of master-builders; but the Italian critic, Marchese Ricci, gives Lanfranco the credit of the interior, which is in pure Romano-Lombard style, with two aisles and a nave. The nave is much higher than the aisles, and is supported on columns with high Corinthian capitals from some ancient Roman temple. Lanfranco has given a clumsier Lombard air to them by a very large abacus. The crypt is supported on sixty columns, the capitals of which are all Lombard, and of endless variety of form and sculpture. In the centre is the ark (tomb) of S. Gemignano. The wall of the façade, with its little pillared gallery, is also of Lanfranco's time.

The porch, with its knotted pillars supported on lions, is adjudged by Ricci to be the work of Anselmo of Campione in 1209. The sculpture on the façade by Nicolaus and Guglielmo is said to date from early in the twelfth century, and probably belonged to Lanfranco's design before Anselmo put this doorway. They are to our eyes most naïve Bible stories told in rude sculpture--the one side representing the Creation, the other the first men as far as Noah. To contemporary eyes, however, they were great works, for an old grandiloquent low Latin inscription on the façade says--"Inter scultores quanto sis dignus honore Claret scultura nunc Viligelme tua." "Worthy of honour art thou among sculptors. So shines, O William, this thy sculpture." Marchese Ricci, from the peculiar spelling of Guglielmo, thinks that he might have been a German, but as in the Ferrara inscription he is spelt in the Italian way, I think the Viligelme may be only one of those queer reversals of consonants so common in illiterate Italians. If a poor Florentine has a son named Arturo, he will surely call him Alturo, or if Alfredo, he will always be Arfledo. In any way we can descry in this artist, as in many others of his age, the forerunner of Niccolò Pisano, and see in the art of Niccolò only a link in development, not a new art entirely. To Nicolaus and Guglielmo are also attributed the sculptures in the choir, representing the Passion. We shall find them again at Ferrara.

We see, then, that the family of Anselmo, hereditary sculptors and architects of Modena, were certainly the founders of the great school of the Campionese, which lasted some centuries, and to whose hands may be attributed nearly all the great churches in North Italy. The schools, _laborerium_, and _fabbricerie_ of Modena furnish another prototype of the threefold organization, which becomes so distinct in the Opera of Florence and the Lodges of Venice, Siena, and Orvieto. Tiraboschi publishes a notarial Act, dated January 7, 1261, which speaks of the _laborerium_ near the Duomo, where the stones for the fabric were carved; and that there was a covered way between the church and this building which must not be removed or changed.

Gerolamo Calvi, in his _Matteo de Campione, architetto e scultore_, says that nearly all the architecture and sculpture executed in and around Milan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be attributed to the Campionesi. He instances the Sala della Ragione at Padua, with its enormous span of roof, its characteristic arcades and galleries, and the Loggia degli Assi, or Loggia del Consiglio, once the Podestà's palace; the church of S. Agostino at Bergamo, built by Ugo da Campione and his son Giovanni, the castle of the Visconti at Pavia, and many others. Campione, though a place of importance in Roman times, and cited in Carlovingian documents, is now only a village on the side of a mountain, near Val d'Intelvi, containing 500 inhabitants. Calvi writes of it that from the earliest times before the renaissance of art,[146] the men of Campione dedicated themselves to building and sculpture, and diffused themselves throughout the north of Italy, working rudely at first, but gaining in style and experience till they produced great works worthy of eternal fame.

It seems probable that in this school we have a link with Florence. The Jacopo de Campione, who was mentioned in 1244 as uncle of the petitioner Arrigo, is named in other documents as a Campionese, is thought by Merzario and other authors to be that famous architect, Jacopo il Tedesco--or the Lombard, who was for centuries taken with certainty to be the father of Arnolfo. We shall speak of his pedigree in another chapter.

The builders of the Duomo of Ferrara were decidedly connected with the _laborerium_ at Modena, both lodges originating from the Campione school. The façade has the usual three perpendicular divisions formed by means of chiselled shafts, but each division is divided horizontally into three levels, each one enriched with Lombard galleries. Besides these is a wealth of ornamentation, figures, reliefs, _trafori_ (open work), and foliage of the most fantastic kind. This and the framework of the church are all that remain of the Comacine work, excepting the vestibule, which has all their signs on it. Four columns resting on four red marble lions support it; one of them guards a lamb, and another has a serpent beneath its paw. Here we have still the Comacine mysticism: the lion of Judah guarding the Paschal Lamb, and one of the House of Judah crushing the serpent. Over the porch are more sculptures, and an arched vestibule; over that a kind of Gothic gable, and above the gable a rose window. The whole speaks eloquently of its kinship with the churches of Verona, Parma, and Bergamo. Tradition says the interior and façade were built not much later than 1103. The inscription over the door runs--

"Il mille cento trempta nato. Fo questo templo a Zorzi (Giorgio) consacrato. Fo Nicolao scultore, e Ghelmo fo lo auctore." These are evidently the same Guglielmo and Nicolao who sculptured Lanfranco's front at Modena. Guglielmo was the leading man, and made the design (_auctore_); Nicolaus chiefly executed it.

But these two were not the only Comacines employed at Ferrara; a MS. copy of an ancient inscription on some old reliefs in the front of the church of St. George, records the names of Meo and Antonio of Como. "Da Meo di Checco, e da Antonio di Frix. da Como."[147]

Before the middle of the thirteenth century, Padua had become the shrine of a miraculous saint. St. Anthony had come over from Lisbon in 1220, and founded at Padua a new order of monks, called _Minori Conventuali_, under similar rules to the Franciscans. St. Anthony attracted great crowds of people by his preaching and miracles, and at his death in 1231 he was canonized, and his devotees desired to build a beautiful church over his tomb. The first attempt failed from not having means to pay a good architect, or competent builders, and in 1265 the commune set to work to remedy their mistake. They assigned four thousand lire a year to the re-edification, until such time as the church should be completed. By 1307 all was complete except the cupola, which was added a century later. Vasari attributes the design to Niccolò Pisano; but his able commentator, Milanesi, who lived all his life studying archives, asserts that neither document, inscription, nor tradition remain to prove Niccolò's connection with Padua, while the style of the building is utterly unlike the edifices known to be his.

Some documents in the archives of Padua, unearthed by Padre Gonzali, prove that in 1263, on May 11, there were working in the church as builders, Egidio, son of Magister Gracii; Ubertino, son of Lanfranco; Niccola, son of Giovanni; and Pergandi, son of Ugone of Mantua; and that, in 1264, a Zambono of Como and a Benedetto of Verona, who lived in the district of Rovina, are recorded as builders. There is no record of the architect who designed the church; but judging from the Moorish innovations of style it was very probably either planned by the monks, or designed by them. St. Anthony was a Portuguese. On his way here he would have passed through Spain, and may have been attracted by the Moorish architecture. He may have even brought a drawing or two of some many-domed building, and have given them to the Lombard architects to work from. Probably some of his monks were--like many Franciscans and Dominicans--members of the Guild of Freemasons, and so trained in the science of architecture.

In any case, the buildings at Padua are neither true Lombard nor true Gothic, and not even Oriental, but a mixture of all three. The Lombard has partly had his way in the façade, where the upper part is full of galleries and archlets; the lover of the new Gothic arches has put his mark on the lower part of the façade; and the monks, who remembered the native land of their saint, have put the seven domes and minarets; the domes, however, were beyond the Comacines of that time, and were not placed till the fifteenth century, when it is to be imagined that the Renaissance doorway and various pilasters and adjuncts were added. Altogether, for a church where Como Masters undoubtedly worked, St. Anthony of Padua is the most unlike their style. They seem to have taken so little interest in the outlandish plan, that they did not sanctify it by a bit of their biblical sculpture.

That monks at that era really did occupy themselves in architecture, we have consistent proofs in the monkish builders of fine churches; and that when they followed this branch, they were probably trained in, and became members of, the great Masonic Guild, is also indicated by the close connection between the _Magistri-frati_ and the secular _Magistri_. In the transactions of the guild, monks were frequently called into council by the _Opera_ or _Fabbriceria_; and they often worked at their churches in conjunction with the secular members.[148] In the church of S. Francesco at Lodi is an interesting old painting, representing S. Bernardino directing a group of monks engaged in building a convent. Beneath it is written--"Qualiter in ædificatione monasterii Bernardinus fratres hortatus fuerit."[149]

It is through this order at Padua that the link with Germany became strengthened. Albertus Magnus was a Dominican, born in Bavaria. He came to Padua for his studies in theology and the exact sciences, which evidently included the science of building. Merzario says that up to 1223 he taught publicly in Padua, and wrote a work on Perspective.[150]

Don Vincenzo Rossi, Prior of Settignano, however, writes to me, I believe on the authority of Montalembert, that Albertus Magnus attended the university at Padua, and some think also that at Pavia, but only as a student. He held a _cattedra_ at Cologne, where St. Thomas of Aquinas was his pupil.[151]

The name of Albertus Magnus is much connected with the Freemasonry of Germany; and soon after his stay in Padua we find Comacine Masters working in Germany. Some German _savant_ might work out this clue, and see if he did not start, or aid in establishing, a lodge at Cologne, for all authors agree that the architectural _Maestranze_ (as the Italians called the mixed clerical and lay Masonic Guilds) passed over the Alps from Italy, and flourished greatly in northern cities, such as Strasburg, Zurich, Cologne, etc., etc.

In the twelfth century the beautiful church and monastery of Chiaravalle, near Milan, were erected by the Campionese Masters, on the commission of the noble family of Archinto of Milan. It is a fine specimen of Italian Gothic, with the dome peculiar to that style.

The Visconti of Milan were large patrons of the Campionese school. The fine castle at Pavia, built in the time of Galeazzo II., shows by its style the Comacine hand. It has been assigned to Niccola Sella from Arezzo and Bernardo of Venice, but, as Merzario shows, these men only came to Pavia thirty years after it was finished.

The first stone was laid on March 27, 1360. The archives have been searched in vain to find the architect's name: it is, however, proved that Bonino da Campione was in Pavia in 1362, working at the Area di S. Agostino, so it is probable that some of his brethren of the Campionese school were also employed by Galeazzo. Unluckily, these are so individually sunk in the company, that one rarely gets a prominent name.

Merzario, quoting other writers, attributes to the Campionesi that sepulchral monument of Beatrice della Scala, now in the church of S. Maria at Milan; the mausoleum of Stefano Visconti in S. Eustorgio, and that of Azzo, son of Galeazzo I.; but beyond a tradition that Bonino da Campione sculptured the last, there is no positive proof.[152]

Great conjectures have been made as to the real author of the Arca di Agostino at Pavia. Vasari says--"La quale è di mano _secondo che a me pare_ di Agnolo e Agostino, scultori senesi." His expression, "As it seems to me," is not very decisive proof, truly. Cicognara is not more exact. He "wonders that this most grand and magnificent work is not more famous than it is--and thinks it shows the style of the Sienese brothers, but opines it is more likely to be by some pupil of theirs, if it is not by Pietro Paolo and Jacobello the Venetians." This is vague with a vengeance. Merzario, however, proves that there are no documents to show that the Sienese brother sculptors ever came to Pavia, and asserts that the style of the Arca is not at all Venetian.

The learned Difendente Sacchi[153] brings more logic and less imagination to bear on the point. The inscription on the monument proves that it was begun in 1362, placed in 1365, and that the accessory ornamentation was finished in 1370. The books of the administration show that the sums paid for its construction amounted in all to seventy-two thousand _lire italiane_.

As no artist in especial is named as having received this sum, I should myself imagine that as usual several Masters of the guild worked at it, but that one was _capo maestro_, and drew the design. Comparing it with the monument of Can della Scala at Verona, which is a certified work of Bonino da Campione, Sacchi argues that he was the designer and sculptor of this Arca. The style in both is semi-Gothic, the arches following the same curve and resting on columns; the friezes and ornaments are so much alike as to be in some parts identical in design; the crown of pyramids and _cupolini_ which finishes the monument on the top, the form of the pinnacles, and their floriations are more than similar.

The Arca di S. Agostino is, however, the more elaborate. It has ninety-five statues in its niches, not counting statuettes. One may count nearly three hundred distinct works of sculpture in the composition. (Would not this redundancy prove it the work of a school rather than one hand?) Sacchi justly observes that if Can Scaliger confided to Bonino the commission for his monument, it must have been because he had seen proofs of his skill; and where could this have been more probable than in the Arca at Milan?

A suggestive proof of the Arca di S. Agostino being the joint work of the Comacine Guild, is suggested by Merzario.[154] Over the colonnade of the Arca are twelve statues, but in front of these stand the _Quattro Santi Coronati_, the four artist martyrs. One of these is represented stooping to examine the base of a pillar; another trying the diminution of a column with the "T" square, and a third measures a reversed capital, and holds a scroll on which is written in Gothic letters, _Quatuor Coronatorum_; the fourth is working with hammer and chisel.

Now these four saints, being the special patrons of the Comacine Guild, would have little significance to any other artists.

The sepulchre of Can Signorio de Scaliger in Verona was begun in his lifetime, and on his own commission, and cost 10,000 gold florins. He died in 1375, so it must date slightly prior to that. _Bonino de Campiglione Mediolanensis_ has signed his name in marble on the frieze. It is a fine specimen of Gothic ornamentation, at the culmination of the Campionese school.

There were also earlier works of Bonino's at Cremona; one a sepulchre to Folchino de Schicci, a jurisconsult, in the chapel of St. Catherine in the Duomo, beautifully worked with friezes, etc., in bas-reliefs. It is signed in Gothic characters--

"Hoc sepulcrum est nobilis et Egregii militis et juris periti D Folchini de Schiciis qui obiit anno D,MCCCLVII Die Julii et heredum ejus Justitia, Temperantia Fortitudo Prudentia Magis. Bonino de Campilione me fec."[155]

The other one is the urn for the relics of S. Omobono, protector of Cremona. Unfortunately the urn, which is said to have been very rich and beautifully worked, has been ruined and dispersed. One slab only remains, bearing the inscription, _Magister Boninus de Campilione me fecit_, with the date, June 25, 1357. So Can Scaliger would have had also other famous monumental works to recommend his choice of Bonino.

FOOTNOTES:

[143] "Anno itaque MXCIX ab incolis præfatæ urbis quæstum est ubi tanti operis designator, ubi talis structuræ edificator invenire posset: et tandem Dei gratia inventus est vir quidam nomine Lanfrancus mirabilis ædificator, cujus concilio indicatum est ejus basilicæ fundamentum."--From Muratori, quoted by Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. iv. p. 168.

[144] See chapter headed "Troublous Times."

[145] This tower, which is almost as light and elegant as that of Giotto in Florence, became historically famous in the wars between Modena and Bologna in 1325, when the famous Secchia was hidden there--the subject of that curious heroi-comic poem _La Secchia rapita_.

[146] Calvi, _Notizie sulla vita e sulle opere dei principali architetti, pittori e scultori_, etc., vol. i. p. 39.

[147] Frix is an abbreviation of Frixones, a name we find two centuries later in an artist of the same guild, working at Milan cathedral, Marco da Frixone a Campione. Another Frix worked at Ferrara a century later.

[148] See chapter on "The Florentine Lodge."

[149] _Artisti Lombardi del Secolo XV_, di Micheli Caffi.

[150] _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. iv. p. 161.

[151] The silence of that learned St. Thomas was so proverbial that his fellow-students called him the "Bue muto" (the dumb bull). Apropos of this, Albertus Magnus made his famous witty prophecy--"Tomaso may be a dumb bull, but the day will come when his bellowing will be heard throughout the world."

[152] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. viii. p. 243.

[153] Difendente Sacchi, _L' arca di S. Agostina illustrata_, etc.

[154] Merzario, _I Maestri Comacini_, Vol. I. chap. viii. p. 248.

[155] V. Vairina, _I Scriptiones Cremonenses Universæ_, p. 14, N. 53.