The History Of Painting In Italy Volume Ii Part 7

Francesco Morelli, a Florentine, demands our notice only as having imparted the rudiments of the art to the Cav. Gio. Baglione of Rome. His pupil, however, did not remain with him for any length of time, but formed a style for himself from a close application to the works of the best masters, and was employed by Paul V., by the Duke of Mantua, and by persons of distinction. He is less vigorous in design and expression, than in colour and chiaroscuro. We meet with his works, not only in Rome, where he painted much, but also in several provincial towns, as the S. Stephen in the Duomo of Perugia, and the S. Catherine at the Basilica Loretana. In his colours he resembled Cigoli, but was far behind him in other respects. The picture which procured him great applause in the Vatican, the Resuscitation of Tabitha, is defaced by time; but both there and at the Cappella Paolina in S. Maria Maggiore, which was the most considerable work of Paul V., his pieces in fresco still remain, and are not unworthy of their age. He is not often found in collections, but in that of the Propaganda I saw a S. Rocco painted by him with great force of colour. He lived to a considerable age, and left behind him a compendium of the lives of professors of the fine arts, who had been his contemporaries in Rome from 1572 to 1642. He wrote in an unostentatious manner, and free from party spirit, and was on all occasions more disposed to commend the good than to censure the bad. Whenever I peruse him, I seem to hear the words of a venerable teacher, inclined rather to inculcate precepts of morals, than maxims on the fine arts. Of the latter, indeed, he is very sparing, and it would almost lead one to suppose that he had succeeded in his profession, more from a natural bias, and a talent of imitation, than from scientific principles and sound taste. It was, perhaps, in order that he might not be tied to treat of the art theoretically, and to write profoundly, that he distributed his work in five dialogues, in the course of which we do not meet with professors of art, but are introduced to a foreigner and to a Roman gentleman, who act the respective parts of master and scholar. Dialogues, indeed, were never composed in a more simple style, in any language. The two interlocutors meet in the cloisters of the Minerva, and after a slight salutation, one of them recounts the lives of the masters of the art, to the number of eighty, which are commenced, continued, and ended, in a style sufficiently monotonous, both as to manner and language; the other listens to this long narrative, without either interrupting or answering, or adding a word in reply: and thus the dialogue, or rather soliloquy, concludes, without the slightest expression of thanks on the part of the auditor, or even the ceremony of a farewell. We shall now return to the Tuscan scholars.

Pa.s.signano was at Rome many times, without, however, leaving there any scholars, at least of any name. We may indeed mention Vanni, and he left there, too, a Gio. Antonio, and a Gio. Francesco del Vanni, who are mentioned in the _Guida di Roma_. The school of Cigoli produced two Roman artists of considerable reputation; Domenico Feti, who distinguished himself in Mantua, and Gio. Antonio Lelli, who never left his native place. They painted more frequently in oil, and for private collections, than in fresco, or in churches. Of the first, no public work remains except the two Angels at S. Lorenzo in Damaso; of the second some pictures, and some histories on the walls, among which the Visitation in the choir of the Minerva is much praised.

Comodi and Ciarpi are said to have been the successive masters of Pietro di Cortona; and on that account, and from his birthplace, he has by many been placed in the school of Florence; although others have a.s.signed him to that of Rome. It is true, indeed, that he came hither at the age of fourteen only, bringing with him from Tuscany little more than a well-disposed genius; and he here formed himself into an excellent architect, and as a painter became the head of a school distinguished for a free and vigorous style, as we have mentioned in our first book.

Whoever wishes to observe how far he carried this style in fresco, and in large compositions, must inspect the Sala Barberina in Rome; although the Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, presents us with works more elegant, more beautiful, and more studied in parts. Whoever, too, wishes to see how far he carried it in his altarpieces, must inspect the Conversion of S. Paul at the Capucins in Rome, which, placed opposite the S. Michael of Guido, is, nevertheless, the admiration of those who do not object to a variety of style in art: nor am I aware that we should reject this principle in what we designate the fine arts; as it is invariably acknowledged in eloquence, in poetry, and history, where we find Demosthenes and Isocrates, Sophocles and Euripides, and Thucydides and Xenophon, equally esteemed, though all dissimilar in style.

The works of Pietro in Rome, and in the states of the church, are not at all rare. They are to be found also in other states of Italy, and those pieces are the most attractive in which he had the greatest opportunity of indulging his love of architecture. His largest compositions, which might dismay the boldest copyist, are S. Ivo at the Sapienza of Rome, and the S. Charles in the church of that saint, at Catinari, in the act of relieving the infected. The Preaching of S. James in Imola, in the church of the Domenicans, is also on a vast scale. The Virgin attended by S. Stephen, the Pope, and other saints in S. Agostino, in Cortona, is a picture of great research, and is considered one of his best performances. There is an enchanting picture of the Birth of the Virgin, in the Quirinal palace; and the Martyrdom of S. Stephen, at S. Ambrogio, in Rome, and Daniel in the Den of Lions, in the church of that saint, in Venice, are most beautiful works, superior to those of most of his compet.i.tors in this school, in regard to composition, and equal to them in colour. His historical subjects are not met with in the galleries of the Roman n.o.bility. In that of the Campidoglio, is the battle between the Romans and the Sabines, full of picturesque spirit; and in possession of the Duke Mattei, is the Adultery, half figures, more studied and more highly finished than was customary with him. This brief notice of him may suffice for the present. Of the scholars whom he formed in the Roman School, I shall speak more opportunely in the subsequent epoch.

At this period we find three Veronese artists, Ottini, Ba.s.setti, and Turchi, studying in Rome; and we shall speak of them more at length in the Venetian School. The first returned home without executing any public work. The second left, in the church dell'Anima, in Rome, two pictures in fresco, the Birth, and the Circ.u.mcision of Christ. The third, known under the name of Orbetto, took up his residence, and died in that capital; but I am not aware that he left there any disciples of merit, except some of his own countrymen, who returned to their native place. This engaging and elegant painter, who possessed great originality and beauty of colour, worked still more in Verona than in Rome, and we ought to see his works in the former city, in order justly to appreciate them. But he is not on that account held in the less esteem in Rome for his cabinet pictures, which are highly prized, as the Sisara de' Colonnesi, and for his scriptural subjects, as the Flight into Egypt, in the church of S. Romualdo, and the S. Felice Cappuccino, at the Conception, where, as we before observed, the Barberini family employed the most eminent artists.

Many other Italians worked in Rome in the time of the Caracci, but their schools, as well as the places of their birth, are uncertain; and of these, in a city so abounding in pictures, a slight notice will suffice.

In the Guida di Roma, we find only a single notice of Felice Santelli, a Roman, in the church of the P. P. Spagnuoli del Riscatto Scalzi, where he painted in compet.i.tion with Baglione; he is a painter full of truth, and one of his pictures in Viterbo, in the church of S. Rosa, is inscribed with his name. In Baglione, we read of Orazio Borgianni, a Roman, the rival of Celio, and we find pictures and portraits by him in a good natural style. Gio. Antonio Spadarino, of the family of Galli, painted in S. Peter's, a S. Valeria, with such talent, that Orlandi complains of the silence of biographers respecting him. He had a fellow disciple in Matteo Piccione, of the March, and t.i.ti mentions their peculiar style. Nor is Grappelli much known, whose proper name or country I cannot accurately ascertain; but his Joseph Recognized, which is painted in fresco, in the Casa Mattei, commands our admiration.

Mattio Salvucci, who obtained some reputation in Perugia, came to Rome, and although he was graciously received by the Pope, yet, from his inconstant temper, he did not remain there, nor does Pascoli, his fellow countrymen and biographer, mention any authentic pictures by him.

Domenico Rainaldi, nephew of the architect, Cav. Carlo Rainaldi, who was employed by Alexander VII., is mentioned in the Roman Guida, as also Giuseppe Vasconio, praised too by Orlandi. In the same description of books, and particularly in those which treat of the pictures of Perugia, mention is made in this epoch of the Cav. Bernardino Gagliardi, who was domiciled for many years in that city, though born in Citta di Castello.

Although a scholar of Avanzino Nucci, he adopted a different style, after having seen in his travels the best works of every school of Italy, from Rome to Turin. In historical composition he particularly followed the Caracci and Guido, but in what I have seen of him, both in his own and his adopted city, he appears exceedingly various. The n.o.ble house of Oddi, in Perugia, amongst some feeble productions of his, have a Conversazione of young people, half figures, and truly beautiful. In the Duomo of Castello is a Martyrdom of S. Crescenziano, a picture of fine effect, though inferior in other respects. He there appears more studied and more select in the two pictures of the young Tobias, which are included among his superior works. His best is perhaps the picture of S. Pellegrino, with its accompaniments, in the church of S. Marcello in Rome. I do not recollect any other provincial painters of this period whom I have not a.s.signed to one or other of the various masters.

A more arduous task than recording the names of the Italian artists now awaits us in the enumeration of strangers. About the beginning of the century Peter Paul Rubens came young to Rome, and left some oil pictures at the Vallicella, and in S. Croce in Gerusalemme. Not many years afterwards Antonio Vandyck arrived there also, with an intention of remaining for a long period; but many of his fellow countrymen, who were there studying, became offended at his refusing to join them in their convivial tavern parties and dissipated mode of life; he in consequence left Rome. Great numbers too of that nation who professed the lower school of art, remained in Italy for a considerable period, and some are mentioned in their cla.s.ses. Others were employed in the churches of Rome, and the ecclesiastical state. The master is unknown who painted at S. Pietro in Montorio, the celebrated Deposition, which is recommended to students, as a school of colour in itself; by some he is called Angiolo Fiammingo. Of Vincenzio Fiammingo there is at the Vallicella a picture of the Pentecost; of Luigi Gentile, from Brussels, the picture of S. Antonio at S. Marco, and others in various churches in Rome; he painted also at the church of the Capucins, at Pesaro, a Nativity and a S. Stephen, pictures highly finished and of a beautiful relief. He executed others at Ancona, and in various cities, with his usual taste, which is still more to be admired in his easel pictures. He excelled, says Pa.s.seri, who was very sparing in his praise of artists, in small compositions; since besides finis.h.i.+ng them with great diligence, he executed them in an engaging style, and he concludes with the further encomium, that he equalled, if not surpa.s.sed, most artists in portrait painting.

About the year 1630, Diego Velasquez, the chief ornament of Spanish art, studied in Rome and remained there for a year. He afterwards returned thither under the pontificate of Innocent X., whose portrait he painted, in a style which was said to be derived from Domenico Greco, instructed by t.i.tian, at the court of Spain. Velasquez renewed in this portrait the wonders which are recounted of those of Leo X. by Raffaello, and of Paul III. by t.i.tian; for this picture so entirely deceived the eye as to be taken for the Pope himself. At this time too a number of excellent German artists were employed in Rome, as Daniel Saiter, whom I shall notice in the school of Piedmont, and the two Scor, Gio. Paolo, called by Taja, Gian. Paolo Tedesco, whose Noah's Ark, painted in the Quirinal palace, has excited the most enthusiastic encomiums; and Egidio, his brother, who worked there for a considerable time in the gallery of Alexander VII. There were also in Rome Vovet, as we have observed, and the two Mignards, Nicolas, an excellent artist, and Pierre, who had the surname of Romano, and who left some beautiful works at S. Carlino and other places; and a master who claims more than a brief notice, Nicolas Poussin, the Raffaello of France.

Bellori, who has written the Life of Poussin, introduces him to Rome in 1624, and informs us that he was already a painter, and had formed his style more after the prints of Raffaello than the instruction of his masters. At Rome he improved, or rather changed his style, and acquired another totally different, of which he may be considered the chief.

Poussin has left directions for those who come to study the art in Rome: the remains of antiquity afforded him instruction which he could not expect from masters. He studied the beautiful in the Greek statues, and from the Meleager of the Vatican (now ascertained to be a Mercury) he derived his rule of proportions. Arches, columns, antique vases, and urns, were rendered tributary to the decoration of his pictures. As a model of composition, he attached himself to the Aldobrandine Marriage; and from that, and from ba.s.so-relievos, he acquired that elegant contrast, that propriety of att.i.tude, and that fear of crowding his picture, for which he was so remarkable, being accustomed to say, that a half figure more than requisite was sufficient to destroy the harmony of a whole composition.

Leonardo da Vinci, from his sober and refined style of colour, could not fail to please him; and he decorated that master's work _Su la Pittura_ with figures designed in his usual fine taste. He followed him in theory and emulated him in practice. He adopted t.i.tian's style of colour, and the famous Dance of Boys, which was formerly in the Villa Lodovisi, and is now in Madrid, taught him to invest with superior colours the engaging forms of children, in which he so much excelled. It should seem that he soon abandoned his application to colouring, and his best coloured pictures are those which he painted on first coming to Rome. He was apprehensive lest his anxiety on that head might distract his attention from the more philosophical part of his picture, to which he was singularly attentive; and to this point he directed his most serious and a.s.siduous care. Raffaello was his model in giving animation to his figures, in expressing the pa.s.sions with truth, in selecting the precise moment of action, in intimating more than was expressed, and in furnis.h.i.+ng materials for fresh reflection to whoever returns a second and a third time to examine his well conceived and profound compositions. He carried the habit of philosophy in painting even further than Raffaello, and often executed pictures, whose claim to our regard is the poetical manner in which their moral is inculcated. Thus, in that at Versailles, which is called _Memoria della morte_, he has represented a group of youths, and a maid visiting the tomb of an Arcadian shepherd, on which is inscribed the simple epitaph, "I also was an Arcadian."

He did not owe this elegant expression of sentiment to his genius alone, but was indebted for it, as well to the perusal of the first cla.s.sic authors, as the conversation of literary men, and his intercourse with scholars. He deferred much to the Cav. Marini, and might do so with advantage where poetry was not concerned. In the art of modelling, in which he excelled, he accomplished himself under Fiammingo; he consulted the writings of P. Zaccolini for perspective; he studied the naked figure in the academy of Domenichino and in that of Sacchi; he made himself acquainted with anatomy; he exercised himself in copying the most beautiful landscapes from nature, in which he acquired an exquisite taste, which he communicated to his relative Gaspar Dughet, of whom we shall speak in a short time. I think it may be a.s.serted without exaggeration, that the Caracci improved the art of landscape painting, and that Poussin brought it to perfection.[81] His genius was less calculated for large than small figures, and he has generally painted them a palm and a half, as in the celebrated sacraments, which were in the Casa Boccapaduli: sometimes of two or three palms size, as in the picture of the Plague in the Colonna gallery, and elsewhere. Other pictures of his are seen in Rome, as the Death of Germanicus in the Barberini palace, the Triumph of Flora in the Campidoglio, the Martyrdom of S. Erasmus, in the Pope's collection at Monte Cavallo, afterwards copied in mosaic in S. Peter's. Although he had established himself in Rome, he afterwards left that city for Paris, where he was appointed first painter to the court; after two years time, however, he again returned to Rome, but had his appointment confirmed, and, though absent, enjoyed the same place and stipend. He remained in Rome for twenty three years, and there closed his days. It is not long since his bust in marble, with an appropriate eulogy, was placed in the church of the Rotonda, at the suggestion and generous expense of the Sig. Cav.

d'Agincourt.

In the cla.s.s of portrait painters, we find at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Antiveduto Grammatica, and Ottavio Lioni of Padua, who engraved the portraits of the painters; and, on his death, Balda.s.sare Galanino was preeminent. It must however be remarked, that these artists were also designers; and that even those who were held the first masters in composition were employed in portrait painting, as Guido for example, who executed for the Cardinal Spada one of the finest portraits in Rome.

Thus far of historical painters. We may now recur to landscape and other inferior branches of the art, whose brightest era may be said to have been in the reign of Urban VIII. Landscape, indeed, never flourished so greatly as at that period. A little time before this pontificate, died in Rome, Adam Elzheimer, or Adam of Frankfort, or Tedesco, who had already, under the pontificate of Paul V., established a school (in which David Teniers was instructed); an artist of an admirable fancy, who in an evening committed to the canva.s.s, with singular fidelity, the scenery which he had visited in the early part of the day, and he so refined his style in Rome, that his pictures, which generally represented night scenes, were there held in the greatest request. Only a short time too had elapsed since the death of Giovanni Batista Viola in Rome, one of the first artists who, profiting from the instructions of Annibal Caracci, reformed the old, dry style of the Flemish, and introduced a richer mode of touching landscape. Vincenzio Armanno had also promoted this branch of art, adding to his landscapes a similitude to nature, which without much selection of ground, or trees, or accompaniments, charms us by its truth, and a certain stilness of colour, pleasingly chequered with lights and shades. He is highly to be commended too in his figures, and is copious in his invention. But the three celebrated landscape painters, whose works are so much sought after in the collections of princes, appeared under Urban; Salvator Rosa, a Neapolitan, and a poet of talent; Claude Gellee, of Lorraine; and Gaspar Dughet, also called Poussin, the relative of Niccolas, as I have already mentioned. That kind of fas.h.i.+on, which often aspires to give a tone to the fine arts, alternately exalted one or other of these three, and thus also obliged the painters in Rome to copy in succession, and to follow their various styles.

Rosa was the most celebrated of this cla.s.s at the commencement of this century. A scholar of Spagnoletto, and the son, as one may say, of Caravaggio, as in historical composition he attached himself to the strong natural style and dark colouring of that master, so in landscape he seems to have adopted his subject without selection, or rather to have selected the least pleasing parts. _Le selve selvagge_, to speak with Dante, savage scenery, Alps, broken rocks and caves, wild thickets, and desert plains, are the kind of scenery in which he chiefly delighted; his trees are shattered, torn, and dishevelled; and in the atmosphere itself he seldom introduced a cheerful hue, except occasionally a solitary sunbeam. He observed the same manner too in his sea views. His style was original, and may be said to have been conducted on a principle of savage beauty, as the palate of some persons is gratified with austere wines. His pictures too were rendered more acceptable from the small figures of shepherds, mariners, or banditti, which he has introduced in almost all his compositions; and he was reproached by his rivals with having continually repeated the same ideas, and in a manner copied himself.

Owing to his frequent practice, he had more merit in his small than in his large figures. He was accustomed to insert them in his landscapes, and composed his historical pictures in the same style as the Regulus, so highly praised in the Colonna palace, or fancy subjects, as the Witchcrafts, which we see in the Campidoglio, and in many private collections. In these he is never select, nor always correct, but displays great spirit, freedom of execution, and skill and harmony of colour. In other respects he has proved, more than once, that his genius was not confined to small compositions, as there are some altarpieces well conceived, and of powerful effect, particularly where the subject demands an expression of terror, as in a Martyrdom of Saints at S. Gio.

de' Fiorentini at Rome; and in the Purgatory, which I saw at S. Giovanni delle Case Rotte in Milan, and at the church del Suffragio in Matelica.

We have also some profane subjects by him, finely executed on a large scale; such is the Conspiracy of Catiline, in the possession of the n.o.ble family of Martelli, in Florence, mentioned also by Bottari, as one of his best works. Rosa left Naples at the age of twenty, and established himself in Rome, where he died at the age of about sixty.

His remains were placed in the church degli Angeli, with his portrait and eulogy; and another portrait of him is to be seen in the Chigi gallery, which does not seem to have been recognised by Pascoli; the picture represents a savage scene; a poet is represented in a sitting att.i.tude, (the features those of Salvator,) and before him stands a satyr, allusive to his satiric style of poetry, but the picture is described by the biographer as the G.o.d Pan appearing to the poet Pindar.

He had a scholar in Bartol. Torregiani, who died young, and who excelled in landscape, but was not accomplished enough to add the figures.

Giovanni Ghisolfi, of Milan, a master of perspective, adopted in his figures the style of Salvator.

Gaspar Dughet, or Poussin, of Rome, or of the Roman School, did not much resemble Rosa, except in despatch. Both these artists were accustomed to commence and finish a landscape and decorate it with figures on the same day. Poussin, contrary to Salvator, selected the most enchanting scenes, and the most beautiful aspects of nature; the graceful poplar, the spreading plane trees, limpid fountains, verdant meads, gently undulating hills, villas delightfully situated, calculated to dispel the cares of state, and to add to the delights of retirement. All the enchanting scenery of the Tusculan or Tiburtine territory, and of Rome, where, as Martial observes, nature has combined the many beauties which she has scattered singly in other places, was copied by this artist. He composed also ideal landscapes, in the same way that Torquato Ta.s.so, in describing the garden of Armida, concentrated in his verses all the recollections of the beautiful which he had observed in nature.

Notwithstanding this extreme pa.s.sion for grace and beauty, it is the opinion of many, that there is not a greater name amongst landscape painters. His genius had a natural fervour, and as we may say, a language, that suggests more than it expresses. To give an example, in some of his larger landscapes, similar to those in the Panfili palace, we may occasionally observe an artful winding of the road, which in part discovers itself to the eye, but in other parts, leaves itself to be followed by the mind. Every thing that Gaspar expresses, is founded in nature. In his leaves he is as varied as the trees themselves, and is only accused of not having sufficiently diversified his tints, and of adhering too much to a green hue. He not only succeeded in representing the rosy tint of morning, the splendour of noon, evening twilight, or a sky tempestuous or serene; but the pa.s.sing breeze that whispers through the leaves, storms that tear and uproot the trees of the forest, lowering skies, and clouds surcharged with thunder and rent with lightning, are represented by him with equal success. Niccolas, who had taught him to select the beauties of nature, instructed him also in the figures, and the accessary parts of the composition. Thus in Gaspar every thing displays elegance and erudition, the edifices have all the beautiful proportions of the antique; and to these may be added arches and broken columns, when the scene lay in the plains of Greece or Rome; or, if in Egypt, pyramids, obelisks, and the idols of the country. The figures which he introduces are not in general shepherds and their flocks, as in the Flemish pictures, but are derived from history, or cla.s.sic fables, hawking parties, poets crowned with laurel, and other similar decorations, generally novel, and finished in a style almost as fine as miniature. His school gave birth to but few followers. By some Crescenzio di Onofrio is alone considered his true imitator, of whom little remains in Rome; nor indeed is he much known in Florence, although he resided there many years in the service of the ducal house.

It is said that he executed many works for the ducal villas; and that he painted for individuals may be conjectured from some beautiful landscapes which the Sig. Cancelliere Scrilli possesses, together with the portrait of Sig. Angelo, his ancestor, on which the artist has inscribed his name and the year 1712, the date of his work. After him we may record Gio. Domenico Ferracuti, of Macerata, in which city, and in others of Piceno, are to be found many landscapes painted by him, chiefly snow pieces, in which kind of landscape he was singularly distinguished.

Claude Lorraine is generally esteemed the prince of landscape painters, and his compositions are indeed, of all others, the richest and the most studied. A short time suffices to run through a landscape of Poussin or Rosa from one end to the other, when compared with Claude, though on a much smaller surface. His landscapes present to the spectator an endless variety; so many views of land and water, so many interesting objects, that like an astonished traveller, the eye is obliged to pause to measure the extent of the prospect, and his distances of mountains or of sea are so illusive, that the spectator feels, as it were, fatigued by gazing. The edifices and temples, which so finely round off his compositions, the lakes peopled with aquatic birds, the foliage diversified in conformity to the different kinds of trees,[82] all is nature in him; every object arrests the attention of an amateur, every thing furnishes instruction to a professor; particularly when he painted with care, as in the pictures of the Altieri, Colonna, and other palaces of Rome. There is not an effect of light, or a reflection in the water, or in the sky itself, which he has not imitated; and the various changes of the day are no where better represented than in Claude. In a word, he is truly the painter, who in depicting the three regions of air, earth, and water, has embraced the whole universe. His atmosphere almost always bears the impress of the sky of Rome, whose horizon is, from its situation, rosy, dewy, and warm. He did not possess any peculiar merit in his figures, which are insipid, and generally too much attenuated; hence he was accustomed to observe to the purchasers of his pictures, that he sold them the landscape, and presented them with the figures gratis. The figures indeed were generally added by another hand, frequently by Lauri. A painter of the name of Angiolo, who died young, deserves to be mentioned as the scholar of Claude, as well as Vandervert. Claude also contributed to the instruction of Gaspar Poussin.

To the preceding may be added those artists who particularly distinguished themselves by sea views and s.h.i.+pping. Enrico Cornelio Vroom is called Enrico di Spagna, as he came to Rome immediately from Seville, although born in Haerlem in Holland. He was a pupil of the Brills, and seems rather to have aimed at imitating the national art of s.h.i.+pbuilding, than the varying appearances of the sea and sky. No one is more diligent, or more minute in fitting up the vessels with every requisite for sailing; and some persons have purchased his pictures, for the sole purpose of instructing themselves in the knowledge of s.h.i.+ps, and the mode of arming them. Sandrart relates that he returned to Spain, and there painted landscapes, views of cities, fis.h.i.+ng boats, and seafights. He places his birth in 1566, whence he must have flourished about the year 1600. Guarienti makes a separate article of Enrico Vron of Haerlem, as if he had been a different artist. Another article is occupied upon _Enrico delle Marine_, and on the authority of Palomino, he says, that that artist was born in Cadiz, and coming to Rome, there acquired that name; and that, without wis.h.i.+ng ever to return to Spain, he employed himself in painting in that city s.h.i.+pping and sea views until his death, at the age of sixty in 1680. I have named three writers, whose contradictions I have frequently adverted to in this work, and whose discordant notices require much examination to reconcile or refute. What I have advanced respecting Enrico was the result of my observations on several pictures in the Colonna gallery, six in number, and which, as far as I could judge, all partake of a hard and early style, and generally of a peculiar reddish tone, often observed in the landscapes of Brill. Any other Enrico di Spagna, a marine painter, or of a style corresponding with that of him who died in 1680, I have not met with in any collection, nor is any such artist to be found in the works of Sig. Conca, as any one may ascertain by referring to the index of his work. Hence, at present, I can recognize the Dutch artist alone, and shall be ready to admit the claims of the Cadiz painter whenever I am furnished with proofs of his having really existed.

Agostino Ta.s.si, of Perugia, whose real name was Buonamici, a man of infamous character, but an excellent painter, was the scholar of Paul Brill, though he was ambitious of being thought a pupil of the Caracci.

He had already distinguished himself as a landscape painter, when he was condemned to the galleys at Leghorn, where through interest the laborious part of his sentence was remitted, and in this situation he prosecuted his art with such ardour, that he soon obtained the first rank as a painter of sea views, representing s.h.i.+ps, storms, fis.h.i.+ng parties, and the dresses of mariners of various countries with great spirit and propriety. He excelled too in perspective, and in the papal palace of the Quirinal and in the palace de' Lancellotti displayed an excellent style of decoration, which his followers very much overcharged. He painted many pictures in Genoa, in conjunction with Salimbeni and Gentileschi, and was a.s.sisted by a scholar of his born in Rome, and domiciled in Genoa, where he died. This scholar is called by Raffaello Soprani, Gio. Batista Primi, and he eulogizes him as an esteemed painter of sea views.

Equal to Ta.s.si in talent, and still more infamous in his life, was Pietro Mulier, or Pietro de Mulieribus, of Holland, who, from his surprising pictures of storms, was called Il Tempesta. His compositions inspire a real terror, presenting to our eyes death, devoted s.h.i.+ps overtaken by tempests and darkness, fired by lightning, or driving helpless before the demons of the storm; now rising on the mountain waves, and again submerged in the abyss of ocean. His works are more frequently met with than those of Ta.s.si, as he almost always painted in oil. He was a.s.sisted in Rome by a young man, who in consequence obtained the name of Tempestino, though he often exercised his genius in landscape in the style of Poussin. He afterwards married a sister of this young artist, and subsequently procured her a.s.sa.s.sination, for which he was sentenced to death in Genoa, but his sentence was commuted for five years imprisonment. His pictures of storms, which he painted in his dungeon, seem to have acquired an additional gloom from the horrors of his prison, his merited punishment, and his guilty conscience. These works were very numerous, and were considered his best performances. He excelled also in the painting of animals, for which purpose he kept a great variety of them in his house. Lastly, he acquired celebrity from his landscapes, in some of which he has shewn himself not an unworthy follower of Claude in invention, enriching them with a great variety of scenery, hills, lakes, and beautiful edifices, but he is still far behind that master in regard to tone of colour and finis.h.i.+ng. He was however superior to Claude in his figures, to which he gave a mixed Italian and Flemish character, with lively, varied, and expressive countenances. There are more specimens of his talents in Milan than in any other place, as he pa.s.sed his latter years in that and the neighbouring cities, as in Bergamo, and particularly in Piacenza. His epitaph is given in the Guida di Milano, page 129.

Il Montagna, another artist from Holland, was also a painter of sea views, which may almost indeed be called the landscapes of the Dutch. He left many works in Italy, more particularly in Florence and in Rome, where he is sometimes mistaken for Tempesta in the galleries and in picture sales; but Montagna, as far as I can judge, is more serene in his skies, and darker in his waves and the appearance of the sea. A large picture of the Deluge, which is at S. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, placed there in 1668, in which the figures are by the Cav. Liberi, is supposed to be by Montagna, from the tone of the water. This however is an error, for the Montagna of whom we speak, called by Felibien (tom.

iii. p. 339,) Montagna di Venezia, certainly died in Padua; and in a MS.

by a contemporary author, where he is mentioned as a distinguished sea painter, he is said to have died in 1644. I apprehend this is the same artist whom Malvasia (tom. ii. p. 78,) calls Mons. Rinaldo della Montagna, and states that he was held in esteem by Guido for his excellence in sea views. I also find a Niccolo de Plate Montagna, favourably mentioned by Felibien, also a marine painter, who died about 1665; and I formerly imagined that this might be the artist who painted so much in Italy, but I now retract that opinion.

Tempesti was the first to introduce the custom of decorating landscapes with battles and skirmishes. A Flemish artist of the name of Jacopo succeeded to him in this branch, but his fame was eclipsed by his own scholar Cerquozzi, a Roman, who from his singular talent in this respect, was called Michelangiolo delle Battaglie. He was superior to Tempesti in colouring, but inferior to him in designing horses. In the human figure, too, he is less correct, and more daring in the style of his master Cesari. It must however be remembered, that when Cerquozzi painted battles he was not in his prime, and that his chief merit lay in subjects on which I shall presently make some remarks.

Padre Jacopo Cortese, a Jesuit, called from his native country Il Borgognone, carried this branch of the art to a height unknown before or since. M. A. Cerquozzi discovered his genius for this department, and persuaded him to abandon the other branches of painting which he cultivated, and to confine himself to this alone. The Battle of Constantine, by Giulio Romano in the Vatican, was the model on which he founded his style. His youth had been dedicated to arms, and his military spirit was not to be extinguished by the luxury of Rome, or the indolence of the cloister. He imparted a wonderful air of reality to his compositions. His combatants appear before us courageously contending for honour or for life, and we seem to hear the cries of the wounded, the blast of the trumpet, and the neighing of the horses. He was indeed an inimitable artist in his line, and his scholars were accustomed to say that their own figures seemed to fight only in jest, while those of Borgognone were the real occupants of the field of battle. He painted with great despatch, and his battle pieces are in consequence very frequent in collections; his touch was rapid, in strokes, and his pencil flowing, so that the effect is heightened by distance; and this style was probably the result of his study of Paolo at Venice, and of Guido in Bologna. From whatever cause it may be, his colouring is very different from that of Guglielmo Baur, who is considered his master, and of whom there are some works in the Colonna gallery. There also may be seen several specimens of his scholars, Bruni, Graziano, and Giannizero, who adopted from Borgognone their colouring, and the selection of a distant point of view for their subject. Others of his scholars occur in various schools.

It was also during the pontificate of Urban, about the year 1626, that the burlesque style was first brought into notice in Rome. It had been practised by Ludius in the time of Augustus, and was not wholly unknown to our early artists; but I am not aware that any one had exercised this branch as a profession, or on so small a scale as was practised by Pietro Laar, who was called Bamboccio, from his deformity, as well as from the subjects of his pencil; and the appellation of _bambocciate_ is generally applied to these small pictures, which represent the festivities of the vintage, dances, fights, and carnival masquerades.

His figures are usually of a span in size, and the accompanying landscape and the animals are so vividly coloured, that we seem, says Pa.s.seri, to see the very objects themselves from an open window, rather than the representation on canva.s.s. The great painters frequently purchased the pictures of Pietro, in order to study his natural style of colour, though at the same time they lamented that so much talent should be misapplied to such low subjects.[83] He resided many years in Rome, and then retired to Holland, where he died at an advanced age, and not a young man, as Pa.s.seri has imagined.

His place and his employ in Rome were soon filled up by Cerquozzi, who had for some time past exchanged the name of M. A. delle Battaglie, for that of M. A. delle Bambocciate. Although the subjects which he represents are humourous, like those of Laar, the incidents and the characters are for the most part different. The first adopted the Flemish boors, the other the peasantry of Italy. They had both great force of colour, but Bamboccio excels Cerquozzi in landscape, while the latter discovers more spirit in his figures. One of Cerquozzi's largest compositions is in the Spada palace at Rome, in which he represented a band of insurgent Lazzaroni applauding Maso Aniello.

Laar had another excellent imitator in Gio. Miel, of Antwerp, who having imbibed a good style of colouring from Vand.y.k.e, came to Rome and frequented the school of Sacchi. From thence, however, he was soon dismissed, as his master wished him to attempt serious subjects, but he was led both by interest and genius to the burlesque. His pictures pleased from their spirited representations and their excellent management of light and shade, and brought high prices from collectors.

He afterwards painted on a larger scale, and besides some altarpieces in Rome, he left some considerable works in Piedmont, where we shall notice him again. Theodore Hembreker, of Haerlem, also employed himself on humourous subjects, and scenes of common life, although there are some religious pieces attributed to him in the church della Pace in Rome, and a number of landscapes in private collections. He pa.s.sed many years in Italy, and visited most of the great cities, so that his works are frequently found not only in Rome, where he had established himself, but in Florence, Naples, Venice, and elsewhere. His style is a pleasing union of the Flemish and Italian.

Many artists of this period attached themselves to the painting of animals. Castiglione distinguished himself in this line, but he resided for the most part of his time in another country. M. Gio. Rosa, of Flanders, is the most known in Rome and the State, for the great number of his paintings of animals, in which he possessed a rare talent. It is told of him, that dogs were deceived by the hares he painted, thus reviving the wonderful story of Zeuxis, so much boasted of by Pliny. Two of his largest and finest pictures are in the Bolognetti collection, and there is attached to them a portrait, but whether of the painter himself, or some other person, is not known. We must not confound this artist with Rosa da Tivoli, who was also an excellent animal painter, but not so celebrated in Italy, and flourished at a later period, and whose real name was Philip Peter Roos. He was son-in-law of Brandi, and his scholar in Rome, and rivalled his hasty method in many pictures which I have seen in Rome and the states of the church; but we ought not to rest our decision of his merits on these works, but should view the animals painted by him at his leisure, particularly for the galleries of princes. These are to be found in Vienna, Dresden, Monaco, and other capital cities of Germany; and London possesses not a few of the first value in their way.[84]

After Caravaggio had given the best examples of flowers in his pictures, the Cav. Tommaso Salini, of Rome, an excellent artist, as may be seen in a S. Niccola at S. Agostino, was the first that composed vases of flowers, accompanying them with beautiful groups of corresponding foliage, and other elegant designs. Others too pursued this branch, and the most celebrated of all, was Mario Nuzzi della Penna, better known by the name of Mario da' Fiori; whose productions during his life were emulously sought after, and purchased at great prices; but after the lapse of some years, not retaining their original freshness, and acquiring, from a vicious mode of colouring, a black and squalid appearance, they became much depreciated in value. The same thing happened to the flower pieces of Laura Bernasconi, who was his best imitator, and whose works are still to be seen in many collections.

Orsini informs us, that he found in Ascoli some paintings of flowers by another of the fair s.e.x, to whose memory the Academy of S. Luke in Rome erected a marble monument in their church, not so much in compliment to her talents in painting, as in consequence of her having bequeathed to that society all her property, which was considerable. In her epitaph she is commemorated only as a miniature painter, and Orlandi describes her as such, adding, that she resided for a long time in Florence, where she left a large number of portraits in miniature of the Medici, and other princes of that time, about the year 1630. She also painted in other capitals of Italy, and died at an advanced age in Rome, in 1673.

Michelangiolo di Campidoglio of Rome, was greatly distinguished for his masterly grouping of fruits. Though almost fallen into oblivion from the lapse of years, his pictures are still to be met with in Rome, and in other places. The n.o.ble family of Fos...o...b..oni in Arezzo, possess one of the finest specimens of him that I have ever seen. More generally known is Pietro Paolo Bonzi, called by Baglione, Il Gobbo di Cortona, which was his native place; by others, Il Gobbo de' Caracci, from his having been employed in their school; and by the vulgar, Il Gobbo da' Frutti, from the natural manner of his painting fruit. He did not pa.s.s the bounds of mediocrity in historical design, as we may see from his S.

Thomas, in the church of the Rotonda, nor in landscapes; but he was unrivalled in painting fruits, and designing festoons, as in the ceiling of the Palazzo Mattei; and in his elegant grouping of fruit in dishes and baskets, as I have seen in Cortona, in the house of the n.o.ble family of Velluti, in the Olivieri gallery in Pesaro, and elsewhere. The Marchesi Venuti, in Cortona, have a portrait of him painted, it is believed, by one of the Caracci, or some one of their school, and it is well known, that the drawing of caricatures was a favourite amus.e.m.e.nt of that academy.

At this brilliant epoch, the art of perspective too was carried to a high degree of perfection in deceiving the eye of the spectator. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, it had made great advances by the aid of P. Zaccolini, a Theatine monk of Cesena, in whose praise it is sufficient to observe, that Domenichino and Poussin were instructed by him in this art. S. Silvestro, in Montecavallo, possesses the finest specimen of this power of illusion, in a picture of feigned columns, and cornices and other architectural decorations. His original drawings remain in the Barberini library. Gianfrancesco Niceron de' P. P. Minimi added to this science by his work ent.i.tled _Thaumaturgus opticus_, 1643; and in a gallery of his convent at Trinita de' Monti, he painted some landscapes, which, on being viewed in a different aspect, are converted into figures. But the most practised artist in the academy of Rome, was Viviano Codagora, who drew from the ruins of ancient Rome, and also painted compositions of his own invention in perspective. He engaged Cerquozzi and Miel, and others in Rome, to insert the figures for him, but he was most partial to Gargiuoli of Naples, as we shall mention in our account of that school. Viviano may he called the Vitruvius of this cla.s.s of painters. He was correct in his linear perspective, and an accurate observer of the style of the ancients. He gave his representations of marble the peculiar tint it acquires by the lapse of years, and his general tone of colour was vigorous. What subtracts the most from his excellence is a certain hardness, and too great a quant.i.ty of black, by which his pictures are easily distinguished from others in collections, and which in the course of time renders them dark and almost worthless. His true name is unknown to the greater number of the lovers of art, by whom he is called Il Viviani; and who seem to have confounded him with Ottavio Viviani of Brescia, who is mentioned by the Dictionaries; a perspective painter also, but in another branch, and in a different style, as we shall hereafter see.

[Footnote 71: He excelled chiefly in architecture, although he had given a proof of his talents in painting, in some subjects in the gallery, executed under Gregory XIII.]

[Footnote 72: In the, not very accurate, catalogue of the pictures in Fabriano, besides the above mentioned fourteen, seven more are mentioned by the same master.]

[Footnote 73: Mention is also made of one Basilio Maggieri, an excellent painter of portraits.]

[Footnote 74: V. Le Pitture pubbliche di Piacenza, p. 81.]

[Footnote 75: In a letter of the Oretti correspondence, written in 1777, from Andrea Zanoni to the Prince Ercolani, I find Marini cla.s.sed in the school of Ferrau da Faenza, and there still remain many pictures by him in the style of that master.]

[Footnote 76: Pascoli has restored to him the picture of S. Rosalia at the Maddalena, which t.i.ti had ascribed to Michele Rocca, called _Il Parmigianino_, an artist of repute, and proper to be mentioned, as by those who are not acquainted with his name and style, he might be mistaken for Mazzuola, or perhaps Scaglia. The same author, soon afterwards, mentions Grecolini, and thereby renders any further notice of that artist on my part unnecessary.]

[Footnote 77: We ought to judge of him from the Visitation, at the church of the Orfanelli, rather than from the picture of various Saints, in _Ara Coeli_. This kind of observation may be extended to many other artists, who are commemorated for the sake of some superior work.]

[Footnote 78: Memoirs of this painter have been long a desideratum, as may be seen from the Lett. Pitt. tom. v. p. 257. I give such information as I have been able to procure in his native place, a.s.sisted by the researches of the very obliging Monsignore Ma.s.sajuoli, Bishop of Nocera.

Gio. Batista was born in Sa.s.soferrato on the 11th July, 1605, and died in Rome on the 8th August, 1685. And I may here correct an error of my first edition, where it is printed 1635.]