CHAPTER VI
_Men of Letters_--_School of Painting_
A love of letters and a regard for men of learning has ever been a marked characteristic throughout the history of Verona, and stamped the early and after days of her existence with a special and distinctive note.
The first name on a long and honoured roll is that of Valerius Catullus, who was born at Verona about B.C. 84. As all classical students know he owned a villa at Sirmione, where the ruins of an old mansion are pointed out as the abode of the “tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago”--the poet who might well be called the Heine of his age.
The province of Verona claims Cornelius Nepos as one of her sons, though the actual town in which he was born has never been satisfactorily determined. Cornelius Nepos was the contemporary and friend of Catullus, who addressed some of his poems to him, and together they passed most of their lives in Rome, where Cicero formed one of their circle.
Æmilius Macer, a well-known poet and philosopher, the friend of Virgil and of Ovid, was also a Veronese. There is a work in verse “treating of the virtues of herbs and of the qualities and instincts of reptiles and birds,” by one Macer, but opinions are divided as to whether the author hailed from Verona or was another writer of the same name.
During the Augustan age in which the above named
authors lived, Verona also claimed among her citizens the celebrated architect Vitruvius Cerdone; a claim not always, nor very generally, recognised. His statue however stands among those of her greatest men outside the Palazzo del Consiglio, and perpetuates the fame of the man who designed the once glorious Arco de’ Gavi, that arch which formed one of Verona’s greatest monuments up till 1805, when it was wantonly taken down. Other writers who were natives of Verona, or of the surrounding province, were Pomponius Secundus (a writer of tragedies, and who, in his capacity of Veronese consul at Rome, gave a great supper to the Emperor Titus, when according to Pliny who was one of the guests, some wine one hundred and sixty years old was drunk); Cassius or Catius Severus; Pliny the Elder, the famous naturalist whose misplaced zeal led him to meet with his death by too close and too curious an investigation of the eruption of Vesuvius, A.D. 81. Pliny the younger, though born at Como, may almost rank as a Veronese. His mother was the elder Pliny’s sister, his uncle looked upon him and loved him as his own son, and much of his time was spent at or near Verona.
Verona too was early endowed with a University, or as it was termed in those days, a “Cathedral School.” The great impetus given by Charlemagne to public instruction in Italy is one of the traits which redounds most to his honour, and Verona which had always been considered as a spot where learning had met with encouragement, was one of the first towns to profit by the French monarch’s generosity. Indeed it is declared that she has done more for Italy with regard to learning than ever Greece or Athens did. This assertion can easily be believed when we read that only nine years after Charlemagne’s death an Imperial decree ordained that a public school or college should be founded there, a decree that was endorsed by the Emperor Louis XI. in 824. A bull of Pope Benedict XI. in 1339 sanctions this “University,” or more properly, public school, and confirms to it the right of conferring degrees in law, in medicine, and in the arts.
A goodly list could be given of several other writers, many of them bishops and men of saintly lives, whose erudition added to the fame of Verona and spread her renown as a centre of learning into ever-widening circles. Nor were minstrels and troubadours excluded from the list, especially at the beginning of the twelfth century. We read of singers known in the history of minstrelsy, such as Hugues de St Cyr, Pietro Villems, and Sordello, all coming to Verona and finding a welcome there.
All names however pale before that of Dante Alighieri, who, though in no sense a Veronese, found here a haven in his day of adversity and exile, and whose acknowledgment of the hospitality accorded him is of world-wide renown. The causes that brought Dante to Verona have been much discussed. It may be that the strong Ghibelline feelings which predominated in the city made the Florentine exile certain of being understood there--at least as far as his political sentiments were concerned. The renown too possessed by Verona as to the encouragement given within her walls to learning and men of letters may have attracted him. Or more probably still, the knowledge that at the court of the Scaligers he would find not a welcome only, but also a home where his talents would be recognised and appreciated, may have induced him to come to Verona. This last hypothesis may to some extent be borne out by the opening words of the “epistola” written by Dante to Cangrande della Scala at the time he dedicated the _Paradiso_ to him. This letter, whose authenticity has given rise to much discussion, but which in these latter times is generally accepted as being his, begins by saying: “I heard the praise of your celebrated magnificence; I came to Verona to assure myself of the same. There I saw your magnanimous doings; I saw, I experienced your benefactions; and while I had at first believed that the fame of them was superior to the deeds, I became convinced that the deeds were superior to the fame.”
Dante’s choice of Verona was a wise one; and he found there a reception and a refuge that must have soothed to some extent the angry wounded susceptibilities of that “spirito sdegnoso.”
The first of the princely house of della Scala to receive Dante was Bartolomeo, who, though he is not mentioned by name by the poet, was without doubt the “grand Lombard” spoken of by Dante’s ancestor Cacciaguida in _Paradiso_, canto xvii. 70. For Bartolomeo and Cangrande della Scala Dante has only words of praise; but some other members of their family come in for the full force of the poet’s wrath, and he speaks in scathing terms of Alberto and Alboino, the former the predecessor, the latter the successor of Bartolomeo. Nor is he less bitter against an illegitimate son of Alberto della Scala, whom his father had made abbot of S. Zeno, and who exercised that office from 1291 to 1314. Speaking of this deformed priest he says,
“ ... in his whole body, sick And worse in mind, and who was evil born”
( ... mal del corpo intero--E della mente peggio, e che mal nacque. _Purg._ xviii. 124, etc.), and how his father “with one foot in the grave” (con un piè dentro la fossa) had “put him in the place of the true pastor” (ha posto in loco di suo pastor vero).
The reason of Dante’s dislike for Alboino, who he must have known intimately, has never come to light. The man’s want of energy, his indifference as to the Ghibelline cause, his inefficiency as a warrior, may perhaps have aroused that contempt for him which Dante expresses most openly in the _Convito_, iv. 16. Cangrande on the other hand calls forth his admiration; and that Dante dedicated to him the last part of the _Divine Comedy_ is proof enough of the esteem and affection in which he held him. Another proof too is forthcoming in the fact adduced by Boccaccio and Giovanni Querini that Dante was wont to send the cantos of the _Paradiso_ as he wrote them, and before submitting them to any other eye, to the lord of Verona. The poet recognises too the renown of Cangrande’s deeds by putting into the mouth of Cacciaguida the prophecy as to “how notable his works shall be” (che notabile fien l’opere sue); words so concise and so forcible in their depth and truth that they are introduced in the epitaph above Cangrande’s tomb in a Latin form.
“Little is known for certain of Dante’s actual residence in Verona,” says Cipolla; though he quotes from Ampère’s _Voyage Dantesque_ to show the favourable impression that the town made on this pilgrim not generally prone to be satisfied, nor minded to refrain from a sharp and unfriendly criticism. “Here at last is an Italian city of which Dante has said nothing injurious. She owes this almost unique exception to the hospitality which she offered him.”
Dante alludes several times to the town itself in his writings. He speaks so graphically of the game of the Palio (_Inf._ xv. 121) as to make one fancy he must have witnessed it in person. It has been said that his idea of the “bolgie” of the _Inferno_ came to him from the shape of the arena at Verona, and that standing on the summit of that vast building he conceived the notion of creating his Hell on the same lines as those presented before his eyes. Whether this is really so or not cannot be definitely affirmed, but it is certain that no other poet has mapped out an Inferno on the same lines as that of Dante, while the form he has given it resembles very closely that of the amphitheatre of Verona.
Other memories than those which spoke to him only of the town were also present to Dante’s mind when he was writing his great poem. The country in the heart of the valley of the Adige is depicted by him at the opening of the twelfth canto of the _Inferno_; and the surroundings of the Lake of Garda are spoken of equally in the _Inferno_ at canto XX. 64, etc.
It was at Verona that the remarks as to Dante’s powers of visiting the Infernal regions first arose. As his “melancholy, pensive” form walked silently through the streets and byeways of the city, the women of the lower classes pointed him out one to another as “he who went to Hell and returned when he listed, and brought news up above of those who were there below.” It may be that such unsolicited fame would bring a smile to the solemn, set features, and prove more acceptable than the applause vouchsafed by Cangrande’s herd of courtiers.
Another distinguished poet came to Verona in 1348, and indeed visited the town several times. This was no other than Petrarch; and it was on the occasion of his first visit to his friend Guglielmo da Pastrengo that he dreamed the dream which came only too true, of Laura’s death (April 6). This does not seem however to have given him a distaste for Verona, where he had many friends, and from where he wrote in ecstasies of the beauty of the Lake of Garda and of the country around.
The wives of the lords of Verona, with but one exception, were not given to literature or the arts. The only one who endeavoured in any way to attract men of letters to her court was Samaritana, wife of Antonio della Scala. This daughter of the house of da Polenta of Ravenna was in reality too vain and frivolous to care for learning for its own sake. She thought it would redound to her glory to collect round her men whose studies or writings would add to the lustre of her name, and for this cause it came to pass that late in the fourteenth century the court of the Scaligers was again frequented by “litterati.” The most conspicuous among them was Gidino da Somma Campagna, who dedicated a book entitled _Trattato dei Ritmi Volgari_ to Antonio della Scala. The original manuscript of the _Trattato_ is preserved in the Biblioteca Capitolare, and the beautiful designs and scrolls that adorn the margins of its pages are an example of the miniature drawing of the day, deserving both of study and admiration. Besides Gidino da Somma Campagna, mention may be made of Leonardo da Quinto, a learned jurisconsult, astrologer, and man of letters. He was, as Guglielmo da Pastrengo had been before him, an ardent bibliophile, and both men were possessed of libraries as fine as any which existed in private houses at that time. When Antonio della Scala was in straits for money in 1386, Leonardo da Quinto was one of the two emissaries whom he sent to Venice to sell his jewels. Marzagaia and Matteo da Orgiano can also be added to the above literary set; the former was Antonio’s tutor; and the latter, really of Vicenza, was a Humanist of high repute who became chancellor at the court of Verona. The possession of a fine library in those days was by no means the privilege of the few. Not only did many of the churches own libraries of no mean order, but most of the private individuals of note in Verona had collections that were at once numerous and costly. The noble houses of Ottolini, Trevisani, Pelligrini, Pindemonte, Moscardo, Maffei, and Muselli had all famous libraries, while English readers will be interested to learn that the great Ashburnham collection had its origin in Verona. This collection was begun by the Marchese Giovanni Saibante of Verona, who devoted many years of arduous and loving devotion to the formation of this unique library. In 1734 it contained 5189 volumes, and 1321 manuscripts, of which 102 were Greek and 70 were Hebrew. The larger part of this collection was sold in Paris; from there it passed into the Earl of Ashburnham’s hands, and in 1884 the Italian Government bought it back for the sum of £23,000.
To set down here the names of the Veronese whose fame in connection with letters has added to the glory of their native land would be beside the mark. Suffice it for the present purpose to mention the following:--Guarino dei Guarini, the student of Greek and of Greek science; Girolamo Fracastoro, whose statue by Danese Cattaneo in the Loggia of the Palazzo del Consiglio, set up only two years after his death, shows how generally his talents were recognised as a poet, a philosopher, and an astronomer; Fra Giocondo, whose fame as an architect was widely spread through France and Italy, and was so great as to leave but little room wherein to speak of him as a writer and a scientist; Giovanni Antonio Panteo, an author of various works in Latin, and a friend of all the learned men of his day; Torello Saraina, whose book _De Origine et amplitudine Urbis Veronæ_, published in folio at Verona in 1540, and printed in 1586, is one of the first histories of Verona both as to date and merit; Onofrio Panvinio, a finished Latin scholar, and an elegant writer on all the Roman remains in his native town; Giulio Cesare Bordoni, surnamed Scaligero, as famous as a doctor as he was as a writer and man of science, who is universally known by the name which he added to his own, and which was taken for the purpose of deluding those who knew no better that he was a descendant of the Scaligers. He was without doubt one of the most learned and scientific men of his age, and was honoured and welcomed in every country in which he set foot.
This list must not draw to its close without including the name of Scipione Maffei, whose work _Verona Illustrata_, in eight volumes, and often consulted in the construction of these pages, is one of the most trustworthy and complete histories of Verona as far as it goes. Other writings by Maffei confirmed his celebrity, and his fellow-citizens gave expression to his merits, and to the esteem and affection in which they held him, when they set up, during his lifetime, his statue in the Piazza de’ Signori, where it stands to this day close to the Volto Barbaro. Among modern writers, or rather poets, mention must be made of Girolamo Pompei, Ippolito Pindemonte, and Aleardo Aleardi, all poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and all of them belonging to patrician families of Verona. Pompei and Pindemonte were apt translators of the great classic poets of Rome; while Aleardi’s muse was attuned to songs of love and patriotism.
The rôle of notable writers and men of letters is by no means exhausted in this list, which has no pretence to do more than give an idea of Verona’s chief literary sons, and to raise her renown in the scholastic world, as well as in that of art and history.
* * * * *
The school of painting in Verona dates from the reign of Cangrande. There were it is true paintings and frescoes in the town prior to the Scaligers, but they could not come under the classification of a “school,” and are of too remote and uncertain a character to be placed as pertaining to a given date. The patronage bestowed by Cangrande on learning and letters was extended also to painting, and Vasari tells how that “Giotto did some pictures for Messer Cane in his palace; and specially the portrait of that lord.” That Giotto came to Verona at the bidding of this greatest of the Scaligers is well known, as it is also known that he worked there to a considerable extent. Nothing remains, however, of his work in the “Big Dog’s” Palace; and only small and generally “restored” examples are to be found in a few of the churches.
The influence of Giotto is felt though markedly in Verona, where the strong impetus given to painting by Cangrande developed steadily under the rule of his descendants. A German critic (Jules von Schlosser) has indeed said that Verona at that period was the centre of pictorial art in Northern Italy; and were all else wanting, the wonderful miniature painting of that time testifies in itself to the truth of such a statement.
The actual founder of the Veronese school was Altichiero, born about 1300, and of whom some frescoes are to be seen in the church of St Anastasia, and in that of S. Fermo Maggiore, though on this latter point there is some doubt. Together with Altichiero must be mentioned his friend and contemporary Jacopo d’Avanzo, for they frequently worked together, and their dual work on the same picture is not easy to dissever. It cannot be denied that they were greatly inspired by Giotto but, on the other hand, they were by no means blind followers or even pupils of the Florentine master, for they maintained a character in all ways distinct from him, and portrayed their art in fuller, deeper, richer colouring. They were also superior as draughtsmen, conveying too a greater sense of life and movement in their figures, and presenting all through their work a strong and marked individuality. Both artists can really be studied better at Padua than in their native city where little exists that can give a true idea of their talent.
With them may also be mentioned Martini of Verona; who though inferior to Altichiero and d’Avanzo, lived and worked at the same time, and prepared the way for the far greater Vittor Pisano or Pisanello, who was born at S. Vigilio near the Lake of Garda in 1380. The doubt as to who was Pisanello’s master remains unsolved to the present day. Morelli inclines to the opinion that he was a pupil of Altichiero--an opinion not shared by Crowe and Cavalcaselle. He doubtless derived much from a study of Altichiero’s work, and from drawing from the antique; but his own personality is revealed in his paintings, and more still in his medals and in his treatment of portraits where he represented his sitters “en profile,” and obtained a striking and lasting success from this style of portraiture--till then untried and absolutely original. His skill as a medallist caused him to find patrons in almost every court in Italy and to be welcomed at them all in turn. He worked too in conjunction with Gentile da Fabriano in the Ducal Palace at Venice, decorating and restoring that princely building, and imbibing probably much of Gentile’s feeling for finish, colour, and brilliancy. “But it is in Verona,” says Mr Selwyn Brinton,[37] “that the best of his work in fresco remains--damaged, almost ruined, but attesting to his vigorous art, to his wonderful grasp of animal life.” This latter trait is very marked in Pisanello, and shows that his love of animals, his study of them, as well as of nature
in every possible form, was deep and true. He introduces some phase of animal life into most of his pictures, and in the care and finish bestowed on every bird or beast that he sets before us, we feel we have to do with an artist who loves and understands his subject.
Pisanello is perhaps even more famous as a medallist than as a painter, and speaking of his medallions, the author quoted above says: “They are a gallery of contemporary portraits, priceless to the student of Renaissance history. Leonello d’Este (who was his special friend and patron), lord of Ferrara, with his strong, ugly face; Cecilia Gonzaga, the delicate, refined head poised on the long swan-like neck; Inigo d’Avalos, Marquis of Pescara; Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the lord of Rimini, the cultured tyrant, the lover of the fair Isotta degli Atti ...; Filippo Maria Visconti, so conscious of his appearance that he lived hid in secret chambers, the last of the Visconti tyrants, his brocaded cap pressed down on the coarse, heavy face; Alfonso of Aragon, the patron of the Humanists; Gian Francesco Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua; Johannes Palæologus, with pointed beard and strange Eastern head attire--all these move before us; names of which Italian history is full, and show in the living bronzes their very life and character. And, lastly, the artist himself, a strong, good-tempered, square-set face, clean shaved and cap on head, his broidered jacket just showing; he is proud of his position as painter, and inscribes almost every medal--‘Opus Pisani Pictoris.’ ”[38]
Pisanello was followed by pupils, who though never attaining to their master’s height, were good painters, and have left some beautiful and valuable work in the churches and gallery of Verona. The chief of these were Stefano da Zevio (born 1393); Giovanni Oriolo; Giovanni Badile; Girolamo, and Francesco Benaglio. In these painters the feeling for religious art as interpreted from the Veronese point of view was maturing ever more and more till it reached its consummation in the works of Francesco Morone; Girolamo dai Libri; Paolo Morando or Cavazzola; Liberale da Verona; and in those of Liberale’s great pupils: Francesco Bonsignori; Gian Francesco Caroto; Francesco Torbido; and Domenico del Riccio, or Brusasorci.
Francesco Morone, the son of Domenico Morone, surnamed Pelacani (dogskinner) himself a painter of considerable merit, was born at Verona in 1473. His work bears the impress of deep religious feeling, rendered always with marvellous sweetness and refinement, and set in tones of fine rich colouring. His frescoes in the Sacristy of Sta. Maria in Organo are declared by Vasari to be among the most beautiful in Italy. In the same church stands his famous Madonna and Child, with S. Augustine and S. Martin below; a very beautiful composition, with its graceful details of canopy flowers and angels. Morone, who died at Verona in 1529, is best studied in his native town, though examples of his work are to be found in the Brera at Milan, and in the National Gallery in London.
Girolamo dai Libri, born at Verona in 1474, was a friend of Morone and a fellow-worker with him at Sta. Maria in Organo. He was brought up, as his father had been before him and as his son was after him, as a miniaturist. This art followed by three generations gave its name to the family, and this surname “of the books” might well be assumed by those whose work had lain so constantly among them. Girolamo’s pictures often abound with fruits, flowers, festoons, and backgrounds with architectural details, while through
them all runs the soft rich colouring peculiar to the Veronese school and which was inspired largely by the great miniature painters who helped to form that school. The faces in his pictures breathe a spirit of glad yet sober serenity, and the finished detail of trellis-work, lemon trees heavy with their golden fruit, and blossoming flowers which often surround the Madonna and Child bear witness to the training and taste of a skilled miniaturist. Many of his miniatures are in the Picture Gallery of Verona, where there are besides several of his pictures, others being in the churches of that town, others in London, in Berlin, and at Hamilton Palace in Scotland. Girolamo dai Libri died in 1556.
Liberale da Verona, born in Verona in 1451, was like Girolamo dai Libri educated as a miniaturist. Endowed perhaps with greater power than Girolamo he does not always possess such poetic feeling, nor is his colouring so harmonious and pleasant. His manner however underwent a marked change when he came under the influence of Andrea Mantegna. A broader and more forcible tone of feeling then makes itself apparent, and though intense finish and detail are still evident they are subservient to the subject represented in the picture, and in no way detract from the grand lines and colours that now employ his brush. The greater number of his paintings are to be found at Verona; but there is a grand S. Sebastian--perhaps his masterpiece--in the Brera, and other works by him in London, in several towns in Germany, and at Vienna. Liberale had also the merit of forming a goodly array of followers or pupils, whose talents carried on to all time the fame and honour of their master.
Before enlarging on them however it would be well to pause for a moment to speak of Paolo Morando, better known as Cavazzola, who was absolutely distinct from Liberale and Girolamo dai Libri, though living and working at the same time and in the same city. He was born at Verona in 1486, and died when only thirty-six years old. His early death cut short a career of great promise, for Cavazzola had little in common with the simple grave manner of the early Veronese masters, he moved along lines of his own creating, and showed as Burckhardt says in speaking of him a “transition from the realism of the fifteenth century to the noble free character of the sixteenth.” As a colourist Cavazzola is cold and hard; and though his tints are glowing as to brilliancy there is little in them that delights the eye or excites pathos or devotion. His drawing though is vigorous, his touch free, untrammelled and broad, with a power and grasp of treatment that caused his contemporaries to speak of him as the Veronese Raphael. Very fine are a series of his pictures, five in number, which treat of the Passion of our Lord in the gallery at Verona. There is in them a serious conception as to composition and vigour in the technique that cause one to realise a master’s thought and execution, and to feel what possibilities lay within his grasp when death cut short his career. Nearly all Cavazzola’s work is in Verona, though the National Gallery possesses two examples, and one is to be found at Dresden.
To return to Liberale’s pupils, Francesco Bonsignori, also called Francesco da Verona, is one of the first, being born at Verona in 1455. His early education, begun in his native town, was continued at Mantua, where he was patronised by the Gonzaghi, and where Mantegna’s influence developed his style considerably. He is chiefly known as a portrait painter, a fact that impressed Cosmo Monkhouse, who, ignoring or forgetting Torbido’s work in the same direction, speaks thus of Bonsignori: “At Verona, alone almost of all the cities of Italy, there seems to have been little demand for portraits. It produced no portrait painter of eminence, and though the fact does not prove much, it may be noted that the only fine portrait by a Veronese in the National Gallery (that by Bonsignori), is of a Venetian Senator.”
Most of his work is at Verona, though some is in Florence, some at Milan, and as already stated one fine portrait is in London. Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s criticism on Bonsignori is as follows: “We are reminded of Masaccio by the breadth of the modelling, of Ghirlandajo by the precision of form, of Mantegna there is no trace.” This judgment, slightly modified at the close, is endorsed by Morelli who says: “Let anyone study the signed work of Bonsignori (in the churches of S. Fermo, S. Bernardino, S. Paolo and the Municipal Gallery of Verona), and I have no doubt that every connoisseur will see therein the influence of Gian Bellini, and of Alvise Vivarini, but certainly not of Mantegna. Later, no doubt, when at Mantua, Bonsignori learned a good deal from his great colleague.” Bonsignori died at Mantua in 1519.
Gian Francesco Caroto, another of Liberale’s pupils though influenced besides by Fr. Morone and Mantegna, was born in 1470. He is a delightful and graceful painter, recalling Luini at times; and Morelli speaking of his early works (cir. 1500) writes thus: “The student of the early works of Caroto in the galleries of Modena, of Maldura at Padua, and at Frankfort, will admit that these small Madonnas of his in drawing and modelling recall quite as much his master Liberale as Mantegna.”
Caroto is a forcible and striking master; his colouring is warm and soft and harmonious, his drawing powerful. To show in what category his pictures were ranked it is enough to relate how the fine Madonna and Child with angels carrying large lilies, by him at Dresden was received at that gallery with a forged signature of Leonardo. It passed as such for years, though Morelli first, and now the director of the gallery have restored it to Caroto. Selwyn Brinton considers this picture to be “one of the loveliest paintings which all Italian art has bequeathed to us.”[39]
Some traces of his fresco painting may yet be seen on the exterior of several Veronese palaces, especially in the neighbourhood of St Thomas of Canterbury, but much of that style of decoration--in which Liberale and Morone also delighted--has perished beneath the ravages of time. In common with the majority of his colleagues, the greater part of Caroto’s paintings exist at Verona (his masterpiece there being at S. Fermo), while Modena, Padua, Frankfort, Dresden and London all possess examples of his skill. Gian Francesco had a brother Giovanni Caroto, who was not only a painter but also an engraver. He is though very inferior to his brother.
Francesco Torbido, surnamed Il Moro, is no whit inferior to Liberale’s other pupils. Vasari has it that Torbido went first to Venice to study under Giorgione, but that master and pupil did not get on together. From words they came to blows, and Torbido left Venice, and at the same time abandoned his art. He withdrew to Verona, where Liberale not only persuaded him to resume his brush, but he taught him, loved him, and finally made him his heir. His time in Venice had not however been fruitless. Torbido combines a Giorgionesque feeling in his paintings that has sometimes led his work to be ascribed to the great master himself. He maintains at the same time the Veronese manner which he knows how to blend in a most effective way with the Venetian, or as Crowe and Cavalcaselle expresses it, “the double character of Venetian art engrafted on the Veronese.” The much discussed portrait in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, called alternately a “Knight of Malta,” and “Gattamelata and his Esquire,” and assigned generally to Giorgione, is pronounced by the art-critics cited above as the unmistakable work of Torbido. These same critics say: “This is the unmistakable work of Torbido, illustrated by his strong and unmannered outline, effective enough in chiaroscuro, but sharp in contrast of tints ... wanting the power and modulation of the Venetian.” That this portrait hails from Verona there can be little doubt, for besides Torbido, it has sometimes been put down to Caroto, while Morelli assigns it to another and less famous pupil of Liberale, Michele da Verona. Morelli though states that Torbido has not received his lawful meed of praise from Vasari and later writers, and speaks of him as “a personality that deserves to be more closely studied.” He recognises how Torbido was influenced by Giorgione and the elder Bonifazio, but adds, that in spite of all “he remained faithful to his first master, Liberale.”
The last of Liberale’s greater pupils is Domenico del Riccio, whose quaint surname of Brusasorci (burner of rats) has so far met with no explanation. This artist’s love of rich glowing colour, of pageants, of gorgeous robes and draperies was ever leading the way--soon to be followed by Paolo Veronese--to the fusion of the art of Verona into that of Venice. His paintings are nearly all at Verona, where the most celebrated is the great fresco in the Palazzo Ridolfi, which has for its subject the meeting of the Emperor Charles V. with Pope Clement VII. at Bologna in 1530. Lanzi, speaking of this painting, says: “One could not see a finer sight.... A great mass of people, effective grouping of figures, animated faces, beautiful movements of men and of horses, variety of raiment, pomp, splendour, dignity, and the joyousness befitting the occasion.”
A drawing that Morelli considers to have been the preparatory sketch for this fresco is in red chalk in the Dresden Gallery, and with regard to it he remarks: “Before this drawing one easily discovers how many things Paolo Veronese may have learned from his elder countryman.”
Domenico had a son, Felice Brusasorci, of whom several paintings exist in the churches of Verona, and some are also in Milan and at the Louvre; but he is inferior to his father who was at the same time his master.
A short account must be given of a few of Liberale’s lesser pupils, who while far from equalling those already mentioned yet deserve to be included among the painters of the Veronese school. One of these is Giovanni Maria Falconetto, whose love of architecture is apparent in nearly all his pictures, for he introduces buildings wherever it is possible to do so, bestowing ever much care on this evident labour of love. He lived to a good old age, and as years drew on he renounced painting and became an architect.
Niccolŏ and Paolo Giolfino, who were brothers were also Liberale’s pupils. They were friends of Mantegna who lodged with Niccolŏ (the elder brother and the better painter) when he came to Verona, and decorated the exterior of the house (close to the Porta de’ Borsari) with frescoes, few of which have withstood the ravages of time.
Paolo Farinato and Antonio Badile, though influenced by Liberale were not under his tutelage, but they belonged to the great school which he founded, and they helped to the best of their ability to carry it on worthily. Farinato can generally be recognised by the snail which he introduces into his pictures, and which he would seem to adopt as his badge. Badile’s glory lies almost exclusively in having been the uncle and master of Paolo Cagliari, surnamed “Il Veronese.” This great genius belongs so absolutely to Venice, where he lived and worked and where all his masterpieces are to be found, that he cannot be included in the Veronese school of painting. His surname though reminds everyone that Verona gave him birth, and that he himself was proud to own his sonship, and to subscribe himself to all time as “Paul of Verona.”
Speaking of the Veronese school Layard says of it: “No school in Italy, except the Florentine, shows so regular and uninterrupted a development, and none is consequently more deserving of the attention of the student who seeks in art a phase of the human intellect, influenced by local and special circumstances. Nowhere can this school be better studied and understood than in the public gallery and churches of Verona.”[40]