Part 9

The city of Trevigi may boast of two artists belonging to the same class, though widely differing from each other. One of these is Rocco Marconi, distinguished by Zanetti among some of the best disciples of Bellini, and erroneously referred by Ridolfi to the school of Palma. He excelled in accuracy of design, taste of colouring, and diligence of hand, though not always sufficiently easy in his contours, and for the most part exhibiting a severity almost approaching to plebeian coarseness in his countenances. Even in the earliest production attributed to him, executed in the year 1505, and preserved in the church of San Niccolo, at Trevigi, Ridolfi detects that peculiar clearness of style, which may be traced also so strongly in his Three Apostles, at SS. Giovanni and Paolo, as well as in his few other pictures dispersed among the public places. Indeed half-length figures of this artist are by no means of rare occurrence in private collections, though he can boast no single specimen so beautiful, or so completely _Giorgionesque_ as his Judgment of the Adulteress, to be seen in the chapter of San Giorgio Maggiore, and of which there is either a duplicate or a copy at San Pantaleo, and in other places. The other of these two artists is Paris Bordone, the elevation of whose mind and genius seemed to correspond with that of his birth. After having been a pupil of Titian for a short period, he became an enthusiastic imitator of Giorgione, finally adopting an originality of manner, whose peculiar grace bears no resemblance to that of any other painter. His forms may truly be said to breathe, to glow, and even to laugh, with a force of colouring, which, incapable of displaying a greater degree of truth than that of Titian, aimed, nevertheless, at more variety and attraction; while, at the same time, they were not wanting in delicacy of design, novelty of drapery, propriety of composition, and a peculiarly lively air of the heads. In the church of S. Giobbe he produced a picture of S. Andrew embracing his Cross, with an angel seen hovering above, in the act of bestowing upon him the crown of martyrdom; while in one of the two saints, represented at the side, he drew the figure of S. Peter, in the act of gazing upon him with a kind of envy; an idea equally novel and picturesque. A similar method he adopted in other of his works, produced in great part for the ornament of his native place and its vicinity. Not a subject but is taken from the antique; yet each of them is treated with originality. Of such kind, is that picture of a true Paradise, seen in the Ognissanti at Trevigi, and those evangelical mysteries in the cathedral of the same city, represented in an altarpiece, divided into six different groups, at the request, it is presumed, of the person who engaged him to execute it. Here we behold, assembled in a small space, every thing of the most pleasing and beautiful kind, which he has elsewhere scattered throughout the whole of his works. In Venice, his representation of the restoration of the ring to the Doge by a fisherman, possesses a high reputation; and this, accompanied with that of the Tempest, shortly before described, by Giorgione, forms an admirable contrast in its beauty to the terrors abounding in the latter. Decorated with the finest specimens of architecture, and a profusion of animated and well adapted figures, as varied in their actions as in their draperies, it has been commended by Vasari as the masterpiece of his labours. The same artist is, likewise, highly prized in collections. Madonnas of his are to be met with, characterized by the uniformity of their countenance, as well as some of his portraits, often attired in the manner of Giorgione, and composed with fine and novel embellishments. Being invited to the court of Francis II., he acquired the favour of that monarch and of his successor, thus enriching himself by the exercise of his talents. He had a son who pursued the same branches of the art; but from his picture of Daniel, remaining at Santa Maria Formosa in Venice, it is evident how very inferior he must have been.

At the same time flourished one Girolamo da Trevigi, a different artist to his namesake already mentioned by us, who, induced probably by the example of his noble fellow citizen, and turning his attention to a more select style than the generality of the Venetian School, applied himself to the models of Raffaello, and the Romans. He is entitled by Padre Federici, upon the authority of Mauro, Pennacchi, and is considered by him the son of that Piermaria, of whom we made brief mention before, (page 62). There is little from his hand remaining at Venice, but more in Bologna, particularly at San Petronio, where he painted in oil the histories of S. Antony of Padua, with judgment and grace, combined with an exquisite degree of polish, which obtained for him the commendation of Vasari. It was here he happily succeeded in uniting the excellences of the two schools, though he did not flourish long enough to mature them, having devoted himself to the military occupation of an engineer, to which service he fell a victim in 1544, while in England; he was killed, according to Vasari, in his thirty-sixth year. On this last point we can scarcely admit the emendation offered us by the author of the Description of Vicenza, who would substitute for this earlier date the age of seventy-six years, a period of life when men seldom encounter their final doom in the field. In this instance, perhaps, the emendator was not aware that there exist signatures of a Girolamo da Treviso, met with upon pictures from the year 1472 to that of 1487, uniformly of ancient design; an artist, who could not, in the common course of life, have survived to become an excellent disciple of Raffaello, and the assistant of Pupini at Bologna, about the year 1530. He failed, therefore, to make a distinction between two painters of the same name, as it will be perceived we have done, followed by the authority of Padre Federici.

Finally, in this list must be enumerated Gio. Antonio Licinio, either Sacchiense, or Cuticello,[44] until such period, as happening to be wounded in the hand by his brother, he renounced all title to his family name, assuming the appellation of Regillo. He is commonly, however, called Pordenone, from his native place, formerly a province, and now a city of the Friuli. "In this province," it is observed by Vasari, "there flourished, during his time, a great number of excellent artists, who had never visited either Florence or Rome; but he stood pre-eminent above all, surpassing his predecessors in the conception of his pieces, in design, in boldness, in the use of his colours, in his frescos, in rapidity, in grandeur of relief; and, indeed, in every other attribute of the arts." It is uncertain whether he attended the School of Castelfranco, as it has been supposed by some, and much more so, whether he was a fellow student along with him and Titian, under Giovanni Bellini, a supposition started by Rinaldis, (p. 62). To me, the opinion reported by Ridolfi appears nearer the truth, that having first studied, in his youth, the productions of Pelligrino, at Udine, he subsequently adopted the manner of Giorgione, following the bias of his own genius, invariably the artist's safest guide in the formation of a style. Other disciples of Giorgione, more or less resembled him in manner, but Pordenone seemed to vie with him in spirit, a spirit equally daring, resolute, and great; surpassed by no other, perhaps, in the Venetian School. Yet in lower Italy he is little known beyond his name. The picture with the portraits of his family, preserved in the Palazzo Borghese, is the best production of his that I have met with in these parts. And elsewhere, indeed, we rarely behold such histories as his exquisite picture of the Raising of Lazarus, in possession of the Conti Lecchi, at Brescia. Nor does he abound in altarpieces, beyond the province of Friuli, which boasts of several in different places, though not all equally genuine. The few executed in Pordenone, are unquestionably his, inasmuch as he has himself described them in a memorial still extant.[45] The collegiate church possesses two of these; one consisting of a Holy Family, with S. Christopher, executed in 1515, very finely coloured, but not exempt from some inaccuracies. The other bears the date of 1535, representing S. Mark in the act of consecrating a bishop, along with other saints, and with perspective; a piece, says its author, _posta in opera, non finita_, begun, indeed, but not finished. A more complete specimen was to be seen at San Pier Martire di Udine, in his Annunciation, since re-touched and destroyed. Some there are who have preferred, before every other, that preserved in S. Maria dell'Orto, at Venice. It consists of San Lorenzo Giustiniani, surrounded by various saints; among whom S. John the Baptist appears naked according to the rules of the most learned schools; while the arm of S. Augustine is seen, as it were, stretched forth out of the picture, an effect of perspective this artist has repeated in various other places. The most beautiful of his pieces in Piacenza, where he had established himself, is his picture of the Marriage of S. Catherine, upon a dark ground, which gives a roundness to the whole of the figures; it is full of grace in those of a more tender character, and displays grandeur in the forms of S. Peter and S. Paul, represented on the two sides; in the last of whom, as well as in the S. Rocco of Pordenone, he gave a portrait of himself.

But his works in fresco display the highest degree of merit; great part of which he produced in the Friuli, besides numerous others scattered throughout castles and villas, no longer distinguished by strangers, except from the circumstance of possessing some painting of Pordenone. Such places are Castions, Valeriano, Villanova, Varmo, Pallazuolo, where he is with certainty known to have employed his talents. A few remnants are likewise preserved in Mantua, in the Casa de' Cesarei, and in the palazzo Doria, at Genoa; some at S. Rocco, and the cloisters of S. Stefano, in Venice, and many specimens in high preservation in the dome of Cremona, and at Santa Maria di Campagna, in Piacenza, where, in collections, and in the facades of houses, other pieces of his are pointed out. His labours in fresco, however, are not all equally studied and correct; more particularly those in his native Friuli, which he produced at an early age in great abundance, and for a small price. He is more select in his male forms than in those of his women, whose model he appears to have frequently taken from very robust rather than very beautiful subjects, most probably met with in the adjacent province of Carnia, where he is said to have indulged his early passions. But in every thing he undertook we may invariably trace the workings of a vigorous fancy, rich in conceiving, in varying, and developing his ideas; powerful in his exhibition of the passions, displaying the master-hand that encounters the difficulties of the art with the most novel combinations in the science of foreshortening, with the most laboured perspective, and with a power of relief which appears perfectly starting from the canvass.

In Venice, he seemed to surpass all he had before done. The competition, or rather enmity subsisting between him and Titian, served as a spur both by day and night, to actuate him to fresh exertions. He was at times even accustomed to paint with arms at his side; and it is the opinion of many, that such emulation was of no less advantage to Titian, than was the rivalship of Michelangiolo to Raffaello. In this instance, also, the one excelled in strength, the other in grace of hand; or, as it has been observed by Zanetti, nature prevailed in Titian in a superior degree to manner, while in Pordenone both shone with an equal degree of excellence. To have competed with Titian is a circumstance not a little honourable to his name, and has acquired for him in the Venetian School the second rank at least, in a period so prolific in excellent artists. A portion of the people, indeed, then preferred him to Titian; for, as I have elsewhere observed, there is nothing so well calculated to surprise the multitude as the production of fine effect and of the chiaroscuro, in which art he is known to have first preceded Guercino. Pordenone was highly favoured, and presented with the title of cavalier by Charles V.; and being subsequently invited to the court of Ercole II. duke of Ferrara, he died there shortly after, not without suspicion of having been poisoned. We have in the next place to give an account of his school.

Bernardino Licinio, from his surname probably a relation of the foregoing, was an artist who is here deserving of mention. We gather from history, as well as from his manner, that he was also a pupil of Pordenone; and there remains at the Conventuali, in Venice, an altarpiece of the usual antique composition, quite in the style of the other Licinio, from his hand. It is reported, likewise, that some of his portraits are preserved in different collections which have been erroneously ascribed to the elder Pordenone. Sandrart makes mention of Giulio Licinio da Pordenone, a nephew and scholar to Gio. Antonio, adding that he employed himself in Venice; thence transferred his residence to Augusta, where he left behind him some truly surprising specimens in fresco, which obtained for him with some a higher reputation than his uncle. He would appear to be the same Giulio Lizino, who, in competition with Schiavone, Paul Veronese, and other artists, produced the three tondi, in the library of St. Mark, in the year 1556. By Zanetti he is considered of Roman origin,[46] but this is a mistake, arising from Giulio's having assumed the title of Romano during his residence in the capital; while he retained it in Venice, the better to distinguish him from the other _Licinj_, in the same manner as we have already observed of one of the Trevisani, about the same period.

Giannantonio Licinio the younger, was a brother to Giulio, and more commonly named Sacchiense, an artist who has been highly commended, but whose works are no longer to be seen, not even in Como, as far as we can learn, where he died.

After the Licinj we ought next to record the name of Calderari, a distinguished pupil of Gio. Antonio, who has succeeded in sometimes imposing upon the most acute judges. Thus it has occurred in the parish church of Montereale, where he produced many scripture histories in fresco, which had been uniformly ascribed to the hand of Pordenone, until the discovery of a document establishing the contrary. He is even little known in his native place of Pordenone, and his frescos in the cathedral were attributed to the pencil of Amalteo. Pordenone may also boast of another disciple in Francesco Beccaruzzi da Conigliano. For this we have the authority of Ridolfi, confirmed by the artist's own work, ornamenting his native place, of St. Francis in the act of receiving the _stigmata_, or marks of Christ, a figure more striking in point of relief than of colouring. To the same school has been added by Orlandi, the name of Gio. Batista Grassi, a good painter, but more excellent as an architect, and the same from whom Vasari drew his notices of the painters of Friuli. I should be inclined, however, to refer him to some other school, both on account of Vasari's silence on a point so creditable to him, and his resemblance to the manner of Titian in such of the few pieces as have been well preserved, and are exempt from modern retouches of art. Of this kind are his pictures of the Annunciation; the Translation of Elias; and the Vision of Ezekiel, in the cathedral of Gemona, on the doors of the organ there.

The last name to be enumerated in this class, is that of Pomponio Amalteo, a native of San Vito, and of a noble family which yet boasts its descendants at Uderzo. He was one of the most excellent of Giannantonio's pupils, and introduced his master's style into the Friuli, for which reason we shall here give him a place, together with the whole of his followers. He was son-in-law to Pordenone, and the artist who succeeded him in his school at Friuli. Both there and in other places he employed himself in works of distinguished merit. He preserved the manner of his father-in-law, as has been observed by Ridolfi, who erroneously ascribes to Licinio the Three Judgments, indisputably the production of Amalteo, which he represented in a gallery at Ceneda, in which causes are decided. They consist of the Judgment of Solomon, of that of Daniel, and a third of Trajan; the whole completed in the year 1536. It is everywhere evident that he aspired to originality of manner; his shading is less strong, his colours are brighter, and the proportions of his figures, and all his ideas are upon a less elevated scale than those of his father-in-law. Some faint idea of his works may be gathered from Vasari and Ridolfi, who omitted, however, many of them, among others the five pictures of Roman histories adorning the Hall of the Notaries at Belluno: but it is only some faint idea, inasmuch as neither these two writers, nor Altan, who collected memorials of him in a little work, were at all enabled to do full justice to the labours of an artist who continued to occupy himself, assisted by various other hands, until the latest period of his life. Hence it is that the bulk of his works can by no means boast the same degree of excellence as the Three Judgments we have mentioned, or the picture of S. Francis, at the church of that name, in Udine, esteemed one among the valuable pieces belonging to the city. Still, wherever or upon whatever subject he employed himself, he displayed the powers of a great master, educated by Pordenone; and one who not only shewed himself, with the generality of Venetians, a splendid colourist, but designed far more accurately. The same merit continued, for some period, to characterize his successors, who, however, if I mistake not, were greatly inferior to him in genius; excepting only his brother, with whom we shall commence the history of Pomponio's School.

His name was Girolamo, and, receiving the instructions of his brother, he is supposed to have assisted him in his labours, giving proofs of a noble genius, which he more peculiarly manifested in works of design; in small pictures, which appeared like miniature, in several fables executed in fresco, and in an altarpiece which he painted in the church of San Vito. Ridolfi commends him highly for his spirited manner, and another of the old writers, as we learn from Rinaldis, gives his opinion, that if he had flourished for a longer period, he would, perhaps, have proved no way inferior to the great Pordenone. Hence I find reason to conclude that Girolamo continued, during life, the exercise of his art; and that the report transmitted to us through Ridolfi, about a century after his death, of his brother Pomponio having devoted him out of jealousy of his genius to mercantile pursuits, as was certainly the case with a brother of Titian's, must have been wholly without foundation.

Pomponio likewise availed himself of the aid of Antonio Bosello in the paintings he produced at Ceneda, as well as for the Patriarch within the gallery just before recorded, and for the canons in the Organ of the cathedral. This artist must assuredly have arrived at some degree of perfection, inasmuch as we are in possession of the particulars of various salaries paid to him, distinct from such as were paid to the principal. As I find mention in Bergamo of an Antonio Boselli, memorials of whom subsist there between the period of 1509 and that of 1527, it is extremely probable that he was the same painter, who, being unable to contend with the fame of Lotto, and so many other of his contemporaries in that celebrated school, sought for better fortune beyond his native place. It is certain he exercised his talents in Padua, and thence he might easily penetrate into Friuli, and give his assistance to Pomponio, whilst employed at Ceneda during the years 1534, 1535, and 1536.

In the course of time, Amalteo, having bestowed two of his daughters in marriage, appears to have obtained the assistance of his sons-in-law, both painters, and promoted by him in the progress of their art. Quintilia, who had the reputation of a fine genius, familiar with the principles both of painting and engraving, and more particularly excellent in portraits, became united to Gioseffo Moretto, of Friuli, although there remains only a single altarpiece of his in the Friuli, in the province of San Vito, bearing the following inscription: _Inchoavit Pomponius Amalteus, perfecit Joseph Moretius, anno 1588_; a short time previous to which date, his father-in-law had resigned his profession with his life. The other daughter espoused Sebastiano Seccante, mentioned by Ridolfi, and esteemed in Udine for his two grand pictures embellished with fine portraits, with which he ornamented the castle of the city; and still more so for several of his altarpieces. Of these there is one at San Giorgio, representing the Redeemer, suffering under the cross, between various figures of cherubs, holding other instruments of his passion; a piece that displays all the excellent maxims derived from his education. This artist may be pronounced the last of the great school, whose productions do credit to a good collection. His brother, Giacomo, who did not apply himself to painting until he had attained his fiftieth year; Sebastiano, the son of Giacomo, who became early initiated in the art, without even equalling his father, with their relative Seccante, who lived at the same period, were none of them esteemed, even in Udine, beyond mediocrity in their respective lines. Two natives, however, of San Vito, named Pier Antonio Alessio, and Cristoforo Diana, were much commended by Cesarini, one of Amalteo's contemporaries. They were employed in their studies at the very period that the former wrote his dialogue; though there remain no memorials of Pier Antonio, similar to those of Cristoforo, of whom Altan discovered several specimens at San Vito, in a very good style, besides one preserved in the monastery of Sesto, bearing traces of his name, which he had inscribed upon it. We shall close this catalogue with the name of another disciple of Amalteo, belonging to San Daniele, where, among some other remains, there is a tolerably good fresco, preserved in the facade of one of the inns in the suburbs of the place. It represents the Virgin, seated with the divine child, her throne surrounded by S. Thomas the Apostle, and S. Valentine, along with other saints; and it bears the inscription, _Opus Julii Urbanis, 1574_; it partakes of the taste of Amalteo, and of Pordenone, the succession of whose school we have just completed, history affording us no farther materials for description.