Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3

Monti-The School of Raphael-Nothing left but Imitation-Unwholesome Influences of Rome-Giulio Romano-Michael Angelesque Mannerists-Misconception of Michael Angelo-Correggio founds no School-Parmigianin

gamo-The Decadence in the second half of the Sixteenth Century

possible. What they had achieved was so transcendent that imitation satisfied their successors; and if they refused imitation, originality had to be sought by deviating into extravagances. Meanwhile no new stock of thoughts had been acquired; and students of history are now well aware that for really great art ideas common to the nation are essential. The motives suggested by medi?val Christianity, after passing through successive stages of treatment in the quattrocento, had received the gra

le of this rich legacy of masterpieces, projected, but not executed, was characterised by a feeling for beauty which has fallen to no other painter. When we examine the sketches in the Royal Collection at Windsor, we perceive that the exceeding sense of loveliness possessed by Lionardo could not have failed to animate his pupils with a high spirit of art. At the same time the extraordinary variety

lready received consummate treatment, Lionardo's successors were able to execute what he had planned but had not carried to completion. Nor was the prestige of his style so oppressive through the mass of pictures painted by his hand as to check individuality or to prevent the pupil from working out such portions of the master's vein as suited his own talent. Each found enough suggested,

acy of execution; d'Oggiono, wild and bizarre beauty; Melzi, the refinements of a miniaturist; Beltraffio, hard brilliancy of light and colour; Cesare da Sesto, somewhat of effeminate sweetness; and thus the qualities of many men emerge, to blend themse

frescanti realised a higher quality of brilliancy without gaudiness, by the scale of colours he selected and by the purity with which he used them in simple combinations. His frescoes are never dull or heavy in tone, never glaring, never thin or chalky. He knew how to render them both luminous and rich, without falling into the extremes that render fresco-paintings often less attractive than oil-pictures. His feeling for loveliness of form was original and exquisite. The joy of youth found in Luini an interpreter only less powerful and even more tender than in Raphael. While he shared with the Venetians their sensibility to nature, he had none of their sensuousness or love of pomp. In idyllic painting of a truly great type I know of nothing more delightful than his figures of young musicians going to the marriage feast of Mary, nothing more graceful than the genius ivy-

le details are either eliminated, or so softened that the general impression, as in Pergolese's music, is one of profoundest and yet sweetest sorrow. Luini's genius was not tragic. The nearest approach to a dramatic motive in his work is the figure of the Magdalen kneeling before the cross, with her long yellow hair streaming over her s

aronno, are beautiful; but the whole picture is clumsily constructed; and what is true of this, may be said of every painting in which he attemp

s to be regretted that a painter of such singular ability, almost unrivalled at moments in the expression of intense feeling and the representation of energetic movement, should have lacked a simpler training, or have been unable to adopt a manner more uniform. There is a strength of wing in his imaginative flight, a swiftness and impetuosity in his execution, and a dramatic force in his conception, that almost justify Lomazzo's choice of the eagle for his emblem.

bove the altar of S. Maria delle Grazie at Varallo, covering the wall from basement to ceiling. The prodigality of power displayed by Ferrari makes up for much of crudity in style and confusion in aim; nor can we refuse the tribute of warmest admiration to a master, who, when the schools of Rome and Florence were sinking into emptiness and bombast, preserved the fire of feeling for serious themes. What was deadly in the neo-paganism o

mes that can be mentioned-Giulio Romano, of whom more hereafter; Perino del Vaga, the decorator of Genoese palaces in a style of overblown but gorgeous Raphaelism; Andrea Sabbatini, who carried the Roman tradition down to Naples; Francesco Penni, Giovanni da Udine, and Polidoro da Caravaggio. Their work, even while superintended by Raphael himself, began to show the signs of decadence. In his Roman manner the dramatic element was con

and at a cheap rate. Painters, familiarised with the execution of such undertakings, forgot that hitherto the conception had been not theirs but Raphael's. Mistaking hand-work for brain-work, they audaciously accepted commissions that would have taxed the powers of the master himself. Meanwhile moral earnestness and technical conscientiousness were both extinct. The patrons required show and sensual magnificence far more than thought and substance. They were not, therefore, deterred by the vacuity and poor conceptive faculty of the artists from employing them. What the age demanded was a sumptuous parade of superficial ornament, and t

ay be justly censured in his works. To heighten and enlarge their style was reckoned a chief duty of aspiring craftsmen; and it was thought that recipes for attaining to this final perfection of the modern arts might be extracted without trouble from Michael Angelo's masterpieces. Unluckily, in proportion as his fame increased, his peculiarities grew with the advance of age more manneristic and defined; so that his imitators fixed precisely upon that which sober critics now regard as a deduction from his greatness. They failed to perceive that he owed his grandeur to his personality; and that the audacities which fascinated them, became mere whimsic

empty exhibitions of muscular anatomy misunderstood, and by a braggadocio display of meaningless effects-crowding their compositions with studies from the nude, and painting agitated groups without a discernible cause for agitation-the crime surely lay with the patrons who liked such decoration, and with the journeymen who provided it. Michael Angelo himself always made his manner serve his thought. We may fail to appreciate his manner and may be incapable of comprehending his thought;

e called for a new kind of decoration. Every cupola throughout the length and breadth of Italy began then to be painted with rolling clouds and lolling angels. What the wits of Parma had once stigmatised as a rago?t of frogs, now seemed the only possible expression for celestial ecstasy; and to delineate the joy of heaven upon those multitudes of domes and semi-domes was a point of religious etiquette. False lights, dubious foreshortenings, shallow colourings, ill-studied forms, and motiveless agitation suited the tast

ing, composition, handling of fresco and oils, disposition of draperies, and feeling for light and shadow, he was above criticism. As a colourist he went further and produced more beautiful effects than any Florentine before him. His silver-grey harmonies and liquid blendings of hues cool, yet lustrous, have a charm peculiar to himself alone. We find the like nowhere else in Italy. And yet Andrea del Sarto cannot take rank among the greatest Renaissance painters. What he lacked was precisely the most precious gift-inspiration, depth of emotion, energy of thought. We are apt to feel that even his best pictures were designed with a view to solving an ?sthetic problem. Very few have the poetic charm belonging to the "S. John" of the Pitti or the "Madonna" of the Tribune. Beautiful as are many of his types, like the Magdalen in the large picture of the "Pietà"[400]

independently of Michael Angelo and Lionardo. Angelo Bronzino, the pupil of Pontormo, is chiefly valuable for his portraits. Hard and cold, yet obviously true to life, they form a gallery of great interest for the historian of Duke Cosimo's reign. His frescoes and allegories illustrate the defects that have been pointed out in those of Raphael's and Buonarroti's imitators.[40

f fair girlish faces into a region of pure poetry. These frescoes are superior to Sodoma's work in the Farnesina. Impressed, as all artists were, by the monumental character of Borne, and fired by Raphael's example, he tried to abandon his sketchy and idyllic style for one of greater majesty and fulness. The delicious freshness of his earlier manner was sacrificed; but his best efforts to produce a grandiose composition ended in a confusion of individually beautiful but ill-assorted motives. Like Luini, Sodoma was never successful in pictures requiring combination and arrangement. He lacked some sense of symmetry and sought to achieve massiveness by crowding figures in a given space. When we compare his group of "S. Catherine Fainting under the Stigmata" with the medley of agitated forms that make up his picture of the same saint at Tuldo's execution, we see plainly that he ought to have confined h

be said that Pacchia's paintings in the Oratory of S. Bernardino, though they lacked his siren beauty, are more powerfully composed; while Peruzzi's fresco of "Augustus and the Sibyl," in the church of Fontegiusta, has a monumental dignity unknown to Sodoma. Beccafumi is apt to leave the spectator of his paintings cold. From inventive powers so rich and technical e

his found little scope for exercise in the dry and laboured style he affected. Dosso Dossi fared better, perhaps through having never experienced the seductions of Rome. His glowing colour and quaint fancy give the attraction of romance to many of his pictures. The "Circe," for example, of the Borghese Palace, is worthy to rank with the

d within the influence of Venice, producing work of nearly first-rate quality in Moretto, Romanino, and Lorenzo Lotto. Moroni, the pupil of Moretto, was destined to become one of the most powerful character painters of the modern world, and to enrich the studies of historians and artists with a se

e sense of the word. The force of the Renaissance was exhausted, and a time of relaxation had to be passed through, before the reaction known as the Counter-Reformation could make itself felt in art. Then, and not till then, a new spiritual impulse produced a new style. This secondary growth of painting

s gradual rise and determining its culmination. He must follow its spent force, and watch it slowly sink with ever dwindling impetus to earth. Intellectual movements, when we isolate them in a special country, observing the causes that set them in motion and calculating their retarding influences, may, not unreasonably, b

TNO

3

the Brera an

3

creen, inner church.

3

donna, with Infant Christ, S.

3

es are, in my opinion, Luini's very best. The who

3

xion" at

3

the cathedral of Como, so fascinating i

3

he B

3

o and in the Sacro

3

One of these sites deserves special mention. Just at the point where the pathway of the Colma leaves the chestnut groves and meadows to join the road leading to Varallo, there stands a little chapel, with an open loggia of round Renaissance arches, designed and painted, according to tradition, by Ferra

3

at I have said above, the "Battle of Constantine," planned by Raphael, and execute

3

in the seventeenth century, when the cu

4

i Pa

4

Annunziata at Florence. Pontormo's portraits of Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici in t

4

ce, and the detestable picture of "Time, Beau

4

che, vol. ii

4

a series of twenty-four subject

4

h of S. Dome

4

Isaac" in the cathedral of Pisa, and the "Chri

4

ona, is very interesting for the unity of

END

END

s of Pisa

tured in 1272 by Niccola di Bartolommeo da Foggia, they suggest that a school of stone-carvers may have flourished at Foggia, and that Niccola Pisano, in spite of his signing himself Pisanus on the Baptistery pulpit, may have been an Apulian trained in that school. The arguments adduced in favour of that hypothesis are that Niccola's father, though commonly believed to have been Ser Pietro da Siena, was perhaps called Pietro di Apulia,[409] and that meritorious artists certainly existed at Foggia and Trani. Yet the resemblance of style between the pulpits at Ravello [1272] and Pisa [1260], if that indeed exists (whereof hereafter more must be said), might be used to prove that Niccola da Foggia learned his art from Niccola Pisano, instead of the c

with his own hypothesis. Yet something can be said with regard to the Ravello pulpit that plays so important a part in the argument of the learned hi

st on lions, three on lionesses, admirably carved in different attitudes. A small projection on the north side of the pulpit sustains an eagle standing on a pillar, and spreading out his wings to bear an open book. On the arch over the entrance to the staircase projects the head of Sigelgaita, wife of Niccola Rufolo, the donor of the pulpit to the church, sculptured in the style of the Roman decadence, between two profile med

instance, in Amalfi and Ravello; while the distinctive features of Niccola Pisano's work-the combination of classically studied bas-reliefs with Gothic principles of construction, the feeling for artistic unity in the composition of groups, the mastery over plastic form, and the detached allegorical figures-are noticeable only by thei

ombines the Romanesque mannerism with the na?veté of medi?val fancy. I might point in particular to two knights seated on one horse in what I take to be the company of Pharaoh crossing the Red Sea, as an instance of a successful attempt to escape from the formalism of a decayed style. At the same time the general effect of the embossed work of this font is fine; nor do we fail to perceive that the artist retained some portion of the classic feeling for grandiose and monumental composition. Far less noteworthy, yet still not utterly despicable, is the bas-relief of Biduinus over the side-door of S. Salvatore at Lucca. What Niccola added of indefeasibly his own to the style of these continuators of a dead tradition, was feeling f

TNO

4

ting in Italy,

4

t. p. 1

4

cit.

4

, is inclined to think that this head represents, not Sigelgaita, but Joanna II. of Naples, an

END

Angelo's

do they descended to his son, Michael Angelo, who was himself a poet of some mark. This grand-nephew of the sculptor prepared them for the press, and gave them to the world in 1623. On his redaction the commonly received version of the poems re

ranspose, and mutilate according to his own ideas of syntax, taste, and rhetoric. On the Dantesque ruggedness of Michael Angelo he engrafted the prettiness of the seventeenth Petrarchisti; and where he thought the morality of the poems was questionable, especially in the case of those addressed to Cavalieri, he did not hesitate to introduce such alterations as destroyed their o

difficulty of comprehending the sense is rather increased than diminished, and the obstacles to a translator become still more insurmountable than Wordsworth found them.[413] This being undoubtedly the case, the value of Guasti's edition for students of Michael Angelo is nevertheless inestimable. We read now for the first time what the greatest man of the sixteenth century actually wr

just resentment. Still there is no certainty that they belong to 1495; for throughout his long life Michael Angelo was occupied with Dante. A story told of him in 1506, together with the dialogues reported by Donato Giannotti, prove that he was regarded by his fellow-citizens as an authority upon the meaning of the "Divine Comedy."[415] In 1518, when the Florentine Academy petitioned Leo X. to transport the bones of Dante from Ravenna to Florence, Michael Angelo subscribed the document and offered to

IEL D

spirit came, a

justice and

living man t

ake the truth a

tar that bright

ving nest whe

world would be

Maker can due

nte, whose hi

oured by that

just men den

Born for like l

xile coupled

nge the world'

DIRNI

ell of him what

s his splendour

blame those who w

east praise with

the place of

God, to teach o

n oped to bear

st desire his

all her, and

l mischance; for

he best she de

and proofs le

s fortune more

his better ne

ius. The second, composed at Rome, is interesting as the only proof we possess of the impression made upon his mind by the anomalies of the Papal rule. Here, in the capital of Ch

R, SE

ver ancient s

saith: Who can,

ent thine ear t

e who hate the

e and have bee

rays which the s

ime's waste thou

l, the less I

ope to raise me

alance and the

ot false Echo

eems, plants vi

arth, if this

uit on trees t

SI F

swords are ma

rist is sold so

ns are spears and

e ere even his

me no more to

sacrilege b

lays and sells H

closed to virtue

me for me to sc

rk and gain ar

robe, is my

eaven poverty

tter life what

banner leads to

t was written while Michael Angelo was painting the roof of the Sistine, and was sent to his friend Giovanni da Pistoja. The effect of this work, as Vasari tells us,

à FATTO

oitre by dwell

tagnant stream

ther land th

e belly close b

up to heaven; m

pine: my brea

harp: a ric

from brush-drop

my paunch like

e a crupper be

uided wande

n grows loose a

becomes more t

rain me like

se and qua

it of squinting

im the gun th

n, Giova

dead picture

are and painti

t sixty years of age; and though we do not know for certain to whom they were in every case addressed, they may be used in confirmation of what I have said about his admiration for Vittoria Colon

O ROZZO

hammer to the

pe, now that, n

nd who wields an

on another'

s in heaven all

y pure motion

ashion tools whic

ll that lives wi

every stroke e

the forge it

ckened mine hath

ind my toil w

great arti

ch was my onl

lo addressed himself to the worship of intellectual beauty. He alone, in that age of sensuality

ITORN

ll reseek her

ortal to thi

like an ang

s and make the wh

hralls my heart

r face of be

ours virtue, st

ther years nor d

er with things

sweat of natu

birth the bless

igned to show H

than in human

hey image Him,

slightly varied in the tw

O BEN

n whom, as in

hy pure form

heaven and nat

of all their

n whom love,

ome, as from t

d, and are so

rn none other

captive; beaut

cy with thei

rt a hope that

destiny, what

, or late or

ld spare perfec

OLCE

nts to bitter j

brief and h

len!--when 'ti

ives our reason

my heart bre

pleasing grows w

e, thine eyes,

Paradise da

no mortal th

high to make ou

h wasting, burni

ht what could

lf thus rule

e, can lay the

nly remembered as what used to be. Yet in form and feeling this is quite one o

MI AL

time when blind

in too loose to

uried face, onc

arth all comely

e journeys ta'e

w to him whose

flames that in o

nce more take

se it true that

ter honey-d

hast thou of

ard the other sh

rts with shafts

ill on brands n

of all Michael Angelo's poems.[426] The thought is this: just as a sculptor hews from a block of marble the fo

L'OTTIM

tists hath no

stone in its s

de: to break t

that serves th

n, the good I

r lady, prou

but the art I

to my wish, an

ove, nor thy tr

nor fortune

ance, nor fate

rt thou carriest

ther, and my

h only death

and beauty of an excellent young man. The two sonnets I intend to quote next[427] were written, according to Varchi's direct testimony, for Tommaso Cavalieri, "in whom"-the words are Varchi's-"I discovered, besides incomparable personal beauty, so much charm of nature, such excellent abilities, and such a graceful manner, that he deserved, and still deserves, to be the better loved the more he is known." The play of words upon Cavalieri's name in the last line of the first sonnet, the evidence of Varchi, and t

PIù DE

seek to ease

tears and wind

late or soon,

ove hath robed

ching heart t

die? Nay, deat

would be both

um of woes al

ause I cannot

say who must

en her gladne

and bands can

if alone a

's captive and

' BEI VOS

eyes a charmi

n blind eyes wo

r feet the bu

eet find all to

your pinions

spirit stirret

ll, I blush an

sun, burn 'nea

udes and is th

ghts within you

to breathe up

oon am I, tha

our eyes see

e living sun

o the Cavalieri series is more doubtful. They seem, howeve

CAST

aste, if virt

nd both lover

the other's g

erned by one l

ies one soul

in from earth t

one blow and

mitten breasts to

her love, hims

ght, such savo

e sole end thei

hese thoughts all

part of their f

angry spite th

I CH

d, when first

not before c

nd gave the s

ne, the moon

changeful chance

ment down on

tioned darknes

lot been sinc

er mine own

ht grows still

more mis-doi

solace to my

ght doth make mo

irth was given

can only do so by drawing you, in whom he still lives." Here, again, we trace the Platonic conception of love as nothing if not spiritual, and of beauty as a form that finds its immortality within the lover's soul. This

NA P

en for the firs

iving eyes are

last in death's

hem on God

I weep, too

t not mine; for

ire of that s

better memo

uigi, if the

ue Cecchino

that earth hat

ed within th

hout him cann

rve to tell th

place the following address to Night-one, certainly, of Michael Angelo's most beautif

, O DOL

t though sombre

rest upon thei

sed thee, well

urs thee, hath

u canst to qu

rkness are of p

e in dreams

aven, where yet

th, through whom

sadness hosti

ind their last

e our suffering

ars, assuages

irits of the p

we did not bear in mind the piety expressed throughout his correspondence, their ascetic tone, and the remorse they seem to indicate, would convey a painful sense of cheerlessness and disappointment. As it is, they strike me as the natural utterance of a p

IO è

life across

k reached that w

e the final j

vil deeds to

ell how that

soul the worsh

rt, is vain;

all men seek

ughts which were

when the doubl

w for sure, t

culpture now c

rns to His grea

asp us on the cr

OLE DE

the world ha

ad for think

uried deep 'neat

an evil-crop

other wise, l

rn the bad pa

still desire a

om self-love,

y my road to he

cannot even h

elp me on thi

te the world s

vely things I

fe, not death,

ollowing, which breathes the spi

CO D

years and full

ustom grown

read that close

t on poisonous t

find in mine

life or love

enly guidance c

ps and stays o

h, dear Lord,

tial home, whe

, and not, as e

trip her mortal

d the steep as

e Thy face she

s for a picture of the Crucifixion, which he never executed, though he gave a drawing of Christ upon the cross

D' UN I

urden sore and

from this weary

bark I turn m

ce storm to a

nails, and eithe

gentle piteous

lp and mercie

yet my soul se

holy eyes be

Thy chastene

e arm of judgm

only lave an

perfect pardon

I grow with l

UR ME

e than smitte

em but Thee b

t souls, when T

y dying, men t

reedom from al

t fault for Ada

ince in torment

ts on the cru

knew Thee, who Tho

yes above the

embled and the s

hers from hell'

f the damned f

, who gained b

yet another sonnet in the same lofty strain

M' AT

and woe I fi

of the past,

and my sins

nse of days t

making, ere I

f what men de

e to think ho

mercies in lif

y promises ou

man shall vent

l condone our

lood poured forth

asure was Thy

ss the gifts

Angelo's sonnets has carried us. In communion with these highest souls Michael Angelo habitu

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4

rrote, Firenzi, 1863, p. 189. The future

4

aning has been put by Michael Angelo into so little room, and that meaning sometimes so excellent in itself, that I found

4

ove, p

4

tti's works (Firenze, Le Monnier, 1

4

to Gotti's

4

i's Life

4

, pp.

4

pp. 15

4

i, p.

4

ve, pp.

4

i, p.

4

i, p.

4

p. 18

4

i, p.

4

173, for the sonnet, and p. lxxv. for the dissertation. See al

4

pp. 18

4

arroti; and above

4

, p.

4

Life, pp

4

, pp.

4

p.

4

i, p.

4

, pp.

4

pp. 24

4

p. 24

4

i, p.

NDIX

the Principal Artists

included the more prominent names; and these I have placed in the order of their occurrence in the foregoing pages. In compiling them, I have cons

HIT

orn Di

Cambio 12

Bondone 12

agna - abo

nelleschi 1

a Alberti 1

Michellozzi

da Majano

San Gallo

San Gallo 1

ilarete -

Lazzari 1

ro Rocch

Vitoni

Santi 14

omano 14

Peruzzi 1

nsovino 1

nmicheli 1

Agnolo 14

lo Buonarrot

lladio 15

arozzi 15

camozzi 15

Alessi 15

Ammanati 1

LPT

orn Di

ano after 1

sano about

Maitani

o about 1273

Bondone 12

no - abou

ccio about 130

alendario

agna - abo

hiberti 1

la Quercia

nelleschi 1

lo 1366

occhio 143

eopardi - af

llajuolo 1

ajuolo 144

Robbia 14

Duccio - a

sellino 142

vitali 14

iesole 14

Settignano

zzoni -

relli 1479 a

deo 1447? a

ntucci 14

sovino 147

o Buonarroti

Montelupo 1

lo Montorsoli

dinelli 14

Ammanati 1

Cellini 15

ogna 152

IN

orn Di

imabue 124

Bondone 12

agna - abo

enzetti - ab

nzetti - ab

di about 1

raini - aft

oninsegna -

rtini 128

rtolo about

Aretino -

Panicale 1

o 1402

ello 1397

Castagno 13

Francesca 14

orli about 1

quarcione 1

iano about 1370

lico 138

ozzoli 14

ppi 1412

Lippi 14

ticelli 14

osimo 1462

landajo 1449

ntegna 14

elli about

rugino 14

nturicchio

Francia 14

lommeo 14

bertinelli

a Vinci 14

Santi 14

i da Correggio

o Buonarroti

Vivarini - a

lini 1400?

ellini 14

paccio - af

ellini 142

ne 1478

ecelli 14

onese 153

to 1512

nio Beltraffi

iono about 1

Sesto - ab

ni about 1460

Ferrari 14

mano 1499

a Udine 14

l Vaga 14

nusti - abo

el Piombo 1

lterra about

ianino 15

aroccio 15

Sarto 148

ntormo 14

onzino 15

ma 1477

Peruzzi 1

eccafumi 1

Garofalo 1

i about 14

bout 1500 af

tista Moroni

Vasari 1