Part 3

Up to this period I have described the merits of the artists of the city and of the state, who appeared in the early part of the century; but I have not yet recorded its greatest master; I mean Squarcione, of Padua, who from his ability in bringing up pupils, was pronounced by his followers the first master of painters, and continued to educate them until they amounted to 137. Ambitious of seeing more of the world, he not only traversed the whole of Italy, but passing into Greece, he took designs of the best specimens, both in painting and sculpture, of every thing he met with, besides purchasing several. On returning to his native place, he began to form a studio, which proved the richest of any known at that period, not merely in designs, but in statues, torsos, bassi relievi, and funereal urns. Thus devoting himself to the instruction of students, with such copies, aided by his precepts, rather than by his own example, he continued to live in comparative affluence, and divided many of the commissions which he received among his different pupils. In the church of the Misericordia is preserved a book of anthems, illustrated with very beautiful miniatures, commonly ascribed to Mantegna, the ornament of that school: but so great is the variety of the different styles, that the most competent judges conclude it to be one of the works committed to Squarcione, and by him distributed among his disciples. Of these we are not yet prepared to treat, the chief part of whom are known to have flourished subsequent to the introduction of painting in oils, while little can be said of the productions of Squarcione himself, though much in respect to his labours as a master. And, indeed, he may be considered the stock, as it were, whose branches we trace, through Mantegna, in the grand school of Lombardy; through Marco Zoppo in the Bolognese; while it extended some degree of influence over that of Venice itself. For Jacopo Bellini, having come to exercise his talents in Padua, it would appear that he took Squarcione for his model, as before stated.

There is nothing remaining from the hand of Squarcione, in Padua, that can be relied upon with certainty, except an altarpiece, formerly to be seen at the Carmelitani, but now in possession of the accomplished Conte Cav. de' Lazara. It is drawn in different compartments; the chief place is occupied by the figure of San Girolamo. Around him appear other saints; but the work is in parts re-touched, though there is sufficient of what is original to establish the character of the painter. Rich in colouring, in expression, and above all in perspective, it may be declared one of the best specimens of the art produced in those parts. The painting of the altarpiece, here alluded to, was assigned him by the noble family of the Lazara, of which the contract is still preserved by them, dated 1449, the salary being paid in 1452, the period at which it was completed. The artist subscribes himself _Francesco Squarcione_, whence we are enabled to correct the mistake of Vasari, who, invariably unfortunate in his nomenclature of the Venetians, announces his name as Jacopo, an error repeated also in the dictionaries of artists. Besides this specimen, there still exist, in a cloister of San Francesco Grande, some histories of that saint in _terra verde_, which are to be referred to the early part of his life, there being good authority for believing them to be by the same hand, though with the assistance of his school, as the more and less perfect parts render sufficiently apparent. Near them were placed some other pieces of Squarcione also in _terra verde_, which were defaced in the time of Algarotti, who regrets their loss in one of his elegant and pleasing letters. Their style is altogether analogous to that of his school; animated figures, neat in the folds, foreshortenings not usual in works of that age, and attempts, though yet immature, at approaching towards the style of the ancient Greeks.

Proceeding from Padua, in the direction of Germany, we meet with some anonymous paintings, in the districts of Trevigi and Friuli, which ought, apparently, to be referred to this epoch; so far removed are they in style from the nobler method, we shall shortly have to describe. The name of Antonio is well known in Treviso, an artist who produced a S. Cristoforo, of gigantic stature, tolerably well executed, in San Niccolo, and that of Liberale da Campo, author of a _Presepio_, which is placed in the cathedral. Superior to both of these must have been Giorgio da Trevigi, if we are to believe Rossetti, where he mentions his introduction into Padua, in 1437, in order to paint the celebrated tower of the Horologe. There exist other pictures of the fourteenth century, more or less perfect, interspersed throughout the Marca Trevigiana, and more particularly in Serravalle. Other places in Italy, indeed, bear the same name, derived from the inclosed form of the mountains; this, however, is the largest of the whole, being a rich and ornate city, where Titian was in the habit of spending some months in the year at the house of his son-in-law, by way of amusement, and has left there several memorials of his art. But the whole of the church of the Battuti appears ornamented in a more antique taste, executed in such a manner, that I was assured, by a person who witnessed it, that it most of all resembled a sacred museum of art. The whole must have been the work of the same artists that we have just been recording in other cities, inasmuch as the names of no natives are known beyond the single one of Valentina. He, indeed, verged upon the improved age; but in Ceneda, that boasts various altarpieces of his hand, as well as in Serravalle itself, where he painted another, with some saints of the Holy Family, he still appears a disciple of the ancients, and a copyist of Squarcione, of Padua. We shall soon discover more celebrated artists rising up in this province, after the introduction into the Trevigiana, of the method of the Bellini.

The artists of Friuli availed themselves of it less early, not having sufficiently imbibed the principles of modern taste, even as late as the year 1500, either, in the opinion of Rinaldis, from the secluded situation of the place, or from the disturbed and revolutionary character of the times. Hence it is that the provincial painters of that period are to be referred wholly to this, not to the subsequent era of the art. To such belongs Andrea Bellunello, of San Vito, whose masterpiece is a Crucifixion, among various saints, with the date of 1475, exhibited in the great council chamber at Udine. It has some merit in regard to the size, and the distribution of its figures; but displays neither beauty of forms, nor colour, and we might almost pronounce it an ancient piece of tapestry, when placed by the side of a beautiful picture. Nevertheless, in his own district, he was considered the Zeuxis and Apelles of his age.[23] Contemporary with him, was Domenico di Tolmezzo, who painted an altarpiece in various compartments for the cathedral of Udine; a Madonna, in the taste of those times, with some saints, figures which all partake of the ancient Venetian style, even to the colouring, insomuch that one might believe him to have been a disciple of that school. He has attached his name and the year, 1479, and it would appear that there belonged to the same piece, exhibiting a figure of the blessed Bertrando, Patriarch of Aquileja, two oblong tablets, one of which represents his offering of alms, the other the circumstances of the death he suffered. The whole of these paintings, which I have noticed, are tolerably executed, in particular the two histories, and are preserved in two chambers of the Canonica. Not far from the same place is seen a figure of the saint, in fresco, painted by Francesco de Alessiis, in 1494, and placed over the door of a house, formerly the college of S. Girolamo.

While the schools of the state thus continued to advance, a knowledge of design became more general in Venice; and in the latter part of the century, its artists, for the most part, had acquired a taste similar to what I have already described as influencing those of other places--a taste rather removed from the antique coarseness, than adorned with the elegance of the moderns. Although the use of canvass had been already adopted in Venice, like that of boards elsewhere, a circumstance for which Vasari accounts, in treating of the Bellini, there was no composition besides water colours, or distemper; excellent, indeed, for the preservation of tints, as we perceive from unfaded specimens in the present day, but unfriendly to the production of union, smoothness, and softness. At length appeared the secret of colouring in oils from Flanders, a discovery conferring a happier era upon the Italian Schools, and in particular upon that of Venice, which availed itself of it above every other, and apparently the very first of all. In the Florentine School I have described the origin of this invention, ascribing it, along with Vasari, to Giovanni Van Eych, and both there and in the Neapolitan, I have also shewn that the first who communicated it to Italy was Antonello da Messina, having been instructed in it by Giovanni himself in Flanders. The historical account of this Messinese, as I have repeatedly before observed, has never been sufficiently elucidated. Vasari and Ridolfi state such facts respecting him as are not easily reconcilable to the period of life in general assigned to him, reaching only to forty-nine years; and I have proved, in collecting memorials, to which they had no access, alluded to in the Neapolitan School, that there were two distinct visits made by Antonello to Venice. The first, it appears to me, must have taken place soon after his return into Italy; at which time he concealed the discovery from every one, except it were Domenico Veneziano, who is known to have availed himself of it for many years, both in Venice and elsewhere. During that period Antonello visited other places, and more especially Milan, whence he returned to Venice for the second time, and as it is said, _received a public salary_, and then he divulged the method of painting in oils to the Venetian professors; a circumstance which, according to the superscriptions attached to his pictures, appears to have taken place about the year 1474. Other signatures are to be met with as late as 1490, insomuch that he must have run a longer career than that which has above been assigned him. And we are here arrived at an era, at once the happiest and most controverted of any. But of the Venetians we shall treat presently, after alluding to the works of this foreign artist apart. Two altarpieces by his hand are recorded, which were painted for the two churches of the Dominante, besides several Madonnas, and other holy pieces intended for private houses, together with some few productions in fresco. There is no doubt but he also produced many others, both at the instance of natives and of foreigners, relieving himself from the multiplicity of his commissions by the aid of Pino di Messina, the same who is commended in the memoirs of Hackert, as the pupil and companion of Antonello's labours at Venice. It is not mentioned whether he produced any specimens of his art in Sicily, nor am I certain whether he returned thither. In many Venetian collections, however, they are still preserved, and display a very correct taste, united to a most delicate command of the pencil; and among others is a portrait in the possession of the family Martinengo, bearing the inscription _Antonellus Messaneus me fecit, 1474_.

In the council hall of the Ten is also to be seen one of his pictures of a Pieta, half-length, subscribed, _Antonius Messinensis_. The features of the countenances, though animated, are not at all select, nor have much of the Italian expression; and his colours in this and other of his productions that I have seen, are less vivid than in some Venetian artists of that age, who carried the perfection of colouring to its highest pitch.

There is good authority for believing that, together with Antonello, or very near the same period, there flourished in Venice one of the best Flemish disciples of Giovanni Van Eych; called by Vasari, Ruggieri da Bruggia. There appears, in the Palazzo Nani, adorned by its present owner in the hereditary taste of his noble family, with the most splendid monuments of antiquity, a San Girolamo between two holy virgins, a picture, as is shewn from the following inscription, by his hand,--_Sumus Rugerii manus_. It is drawn with more merit in point of colouring than of design, upon Venetian pine wood, not upon Flemish oak; and for this reason it is considered by Zanetti, as the production of a native artist. But if the Venetians had really possessed a painter of so much merit, towards the year 1500, how is it possible that he should be distinguished only by this solitary specimen of his powers. Even the very imposing formula he made use of in subscribing his name, contrary to the usual practice of those times, without mention either of family or of place, is it not altogether like that of an artist who feels and displays his own celebrity?[24] To me it does not appear at all improbable that Ruggieri, on arriving in Italy,[25] sought to employ his talents upon some subject, in the same way as Ausse,[26] his disciple, Ugo d'Anversa, and other Flemish painters of that period, whose names are commemorated along with his by Vasari, in the twenty-first chapter of his introduction.

Reverting to Antonello, we are told by Borghini and Ridolfi, that Gian Bellini, having assumed the dress and character of a Venetian gentleman, for the pretended purpose of having his portrait taken, penetrated by this disguise into the studio of the Messinese; and watching him while he painted, discovered the whole secret of the new method, which he speedily applied. But Zanetti conjectures that Antonello was not very jealous of his secret, by which means it was quickly diffused among the different professors of the art. And this is clearly shewn by a picture of Vivarini, coloured in oil, as early as 1473, no less than by others from different hands in the years following. Argenville even goes farther; for he asserts that such was the generosity with which Antonello taught in Venice, that he drew a crowd of pupils, who assisted in spreading a knowledge of the discovery through all parts. And among these we find several foreigners, such as Theodore Harlem, Quintinus Messis, along with several others mentioned in the preface to the third volume, p. iii. This we are likewise inclined to admit during the period of his public instructions in the city.

All that now remains before we reach the times of Titian and Giorgione, is comprised in that last stage of the art which, in every school, has opened a path to the golden period which ensued. The masters who were to distinguish the stage alluded to, in Venice, as in almost all other parts, are found to retain traces of the ancient stiffness of manner, and sometimes exhibit, like the naturalists, imperfect forms copied from the life; as, for instance, in those extravagantly long and spare figures which we noticed in Pisanello. In Venice such forms were in high repute with Mansueti, Sebastiani, and other of their contemporaries, nor were they disliked by the Bellini themselves. And, indeed, where they selected good proportions, they are apt to arrest the attention by that simplicity, purity, care, and, as it were timidity of design, which attempts to avoid every approach to exaggeration. Such artists we might suppose to have been educated by the more ancient Greek sculptors, in whose works the exhibition of truth attracts the spectator, like that of grandeur in others. Their heads, more particularly, are correct and fine; consisting of portraits taken from the life, both among the populace, and among persons of superior birth, whether distinguished for learning, or for their military exploits. And to this practice, familiar also to artists of the thirteenth century, we are indebted for many likenesses which were copied at the instance of Giovio, for his museum. Thence they were again multiplied both by painting and engraving, in different parts of the world. Often also the artist of those times inserted his own portrait in his composition; a circumstance so favourable to Vasari's history; but this species of ostentation was gradually abandoned as real cultivation in Italy advanced. But then, as in the heroic and still more uncivilized times, such species of boasting was not esteemed offensive: and surely, if the literati of the fourteenth century were in the habit of extolling themselves in their own works; if the typographers were so fond of exalting themselves and their editions by superb titles, and more vaunting epigrams, even to a ridiculous degree; the more modest ambition of sometimes handing down their own features to posterity, may be excused in our painters.

The colours of these artists are likewise simple and natural, though not always in union, more especially with the ground, nor sufficiently broken by the chiaroscuro. But above all, they are most remarkable for the extreme simplicity of the composition of their pieces. It was very seldom they inserted histories, it being sufficient for the ambition of those times to give a representation of our Lady upon a throne, surrounded with a number of saints, such as the devotion of each was supposed to require. Nor were those drawn in the manner they had before been, all erect at equal distances, and in the least studied motions; but their authors attempted to give them some degree of contrast, so that while one was drawn gazing upon the Virgin, another appeared reading a book; if this were in a kneeling attitude, that is seen standing erect. The national genius, always lively and joyous, even then sought to develop itself in more brilliant colours than those of any other school. And, perhaps, in order that the figures, of such glowing tints, might stand in bolder relief, they kept the colour of the airs most generally pale and languid. They aimed, indeed, as much as lay in their power, at enlivening their compositions with the most pleasing images; freely introducing into their sacred pieces, sportive cherubs, drawn as if vieing with each other in airy grace and agility; some in the act of singing, some of playing: and not unfrequently bearing little baskets of fruit and flowers so exquisitely drawn as to appear moist with recent dew. In the drapery of their figures they were simple and natural; the most exempt perhaps from that trite and exact folding, as well as from that manner of bandaging the bodies so common in Mantegna, and which infected some other schools.

Nor did they lay small stress upon certain accessaries of their art, such as the thrones, which they composed in the richest and most ostentatious manner; and the landscapes, which they drew with an astonishing degree of truth from nature, besides the architecture frequently constructed in the forms of porticos or tribunes. It may sometimes be observed, also, that adapting themselves to the workmanship and to the design of the altar, they feigned a continuation of it within the painting, so that by the resemblance of colour and of taste, the eye is deceived, the illusion produced rendering it doubtful where the exterior ornament[27] terminates, and where the picture begins. We ought not, therefore, easily to give credit to certain writers who have undervalued the merits of such masters, pronouncing their labours mechanical, as those of mere practical artificers, inasmuch as Serlio is known to have supplied several of them with architectural designs.[28] We ought rather to subscribe to the opinion of Daniel Barbaro, whose extensive learning did not prevent him, in his work entitled _Pratica di Prospettiva_, from expressing his admiration of them, even from the commencement, as follows: "In this art they left many fine remnants of excellent works, in which we behold not only landscapes, mountains, woods, and edifices, all admirably designed; but even the human form, and other animals, with lines drawn to the eye, as if to a centre placed in the most exact perspective. But in what manner, and by what rules they proceeded, no author of whom I am aware, has left any account to instruct us."