The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, Volume 3 (of 3)

27

See the sonnet of Agostino Carracci, which begins "Chi farsi un bon Pittor cerca e desia," &c. which the author himself seems to ridicule by the manner in which he concludes.

28

Οὐκ ἀγαθον πολυκοιρανιη εἱς κοιρανος ἐστω.

Il. ii. 204.

The conception of every great work must originate in one, though it may be above the power or strength of one to execute the whole.

29

Pliny, l. xxxiv. c. 8.

30

In the Letter to C.B. Castiglione. Ideal is properly the representation of pure human essence.

31

Raffaelle and the best of his pupils; their successors, commonly known by the name of the Roman school, followed principles diametrically opposite.

32

"Macinava carne," said Annibale Carracci.

33

Ægidius Sadeler sculpsit ex Prototypo Alberti Dureri.

34

"Elumbis," as applied by the author of the Dialogue on Orators to the style of Brutus, will nearly suit all imitators of Michael Angelo.

35

In the Sacristy of St. Giovanni in Laterano, painted from the cartoon by Marcello Venusti.

36

This and the foregoing picture are in the Scuola di S. Rocco at Venice. The skeleton of the former is known by an etching of Le Fevre.

37

"Whoever looks at a picture by Correggio of a glorified Madonna with a St. Sebastian and other figures, at Dresden, is instantly surprised by the light of the glory, which has all the splendour of a sun, though painted with a low-toned yellow, and dim at the extremities."

Opere di R. Mengs, t. ii. p. 161.

38

John, called da Bologna, showed a model to Michael Angelo smoothly polished; Michael Angelo took, and, heedless of its finish, twisted it about; then giving it back to the student, "Learn," said he, "to sketch before you attempt to finish."

39

Such was the proud answer of Frà Sebastian del Piombo, grown fat by the signet of St. Peter, when asked why he had entirely resigned all exercise of his art.

40

Said Michael Angelo, when asked whether the copy of the Laocoon by Baccio Bandinelli was not equal or superior to the original. Titiano, with more mordacity though surely with less discrimination, ridiculed the copyist by a caricature in which the Trojan with his sons were changed to baboons.

41

"Sineret se plebeculam pascere," said Vespasian to the artist who had contrived a machine to convey some large columns with a trifling expense to the Capitol, and rewarded him without accepting his offer.

42

Cosmo Rosselli, one of the Tuscan painters who preceded Michael Angelo in decorating the Chapel of Sixtus IV.

43

This is the Madonna painted for Angelo Doni, now in the Tribuna of Florence, and probably the only existing oil-picture of Michael Angelo, though Lanzi rejects its title to that. Vasari mentions it with his usual extravagance of praise, but appears ignorant of the real meaning of the figures.

44

This picture has been confounded with another of the same subject by the same master, and the addition of the Donor's portrait, Frate Elia, which exists no more. The mutilated inscription on that mentioned above, has been thus restored by Lanzi,

JuNTA PISanus

JunTINI Me fecit.

45

Born 1240, died 1300.

46

"Oh che dolce cosa è questa prospettiva!" Oh what a dulcet thing is this perspective! This exclamation, usual with Paolo nodding over his compasses when his wife called him to bed, though too late to furnish the hint of a Novel to Boccaccio, has been fondly repeated by some grave writers from Vasari to the author of Lorenzo de' Medici, and has contributed to place Paolo, with the mystic help of his surname, in rather a ludicrous light.

47

Maffei's Verona Illustrata, t. iii. p. 277.

48

He was the precursor of Michael Agnolo, and deserved the motto by which Borghini marked some of their designs in the portfolio of Vasari, (Vita di Donato.) viz.

Ἠ Δωνατος Βοναρρωτιζει,Ἠ Βοναρρωτος Δωνατιζει.

49

"Vi è un monacho vecchio con due grucce sotto le braccia, nel qual si vide un affetto mirabile, e forse speranza di riaver la sanità." – Vasari, Vita di P. Uccello, t. ii. p. 56.

50

Born in 1401.

51

"Opera Terribilissima – impresa chi arebbe giustamente fatto paura a una legione di pittori." On the whole, Vasari seems to lay more stress on the quantity than the quality of Benozzo's works.

52

1478.

53

1478, when by the conspiracy of the Pazzi and their adherents, Giuliano de' Medici was assassinated in S. Maria del Fiore, and his brother Lorenzo wounded, it was resolved by the Signoria that paintings of the conspirators, hung by their feet, should be exposed in front of the Governor's palace; and the commission being given to Andrea, he executed it with such felicity of resemblance, such variety of hanging attitudes, and so much to the contentment of connoisseurs, that from that instant he lost the name of Andrea dal Castagno in that of "Andrea degli Impiccati," or of the hanged. —Vasari. Of this exhibition the loss may be regretted, as it would have showed us Andrea in his element.

54

1439-40 – 1521.

55

There is to the old edition in folio, of Dante, by Niccolo della Magna, a print of the Inferno annexed, which bears the name of Sandro Botticelli; Vasari in his Life says, that he commented a part of Dante and figured his Inferno and published it.

56

He was the nephew of Lazzaro Vasari, a helper of Pietro della Francesca, and great uncle of Giorgio the biographer; who in the Life of Luca, with not less fondness than vanity, relates the admonition and encouragement he gave to his father and himself, in a visit which he paid in his old age to their family at Arezzo. – Vita di L. Signorelli, t. iii. p. 9.

57

His father, who was a goldsmith, invented and first manufactured the garlands which were at that time the fashionable head-dress of the Florentine girls. – Vasari, Vita di D. Ghirlandajo, vol. ii. p. 410.

58

Among the uncertainties of dates, those relative to the birth of illegitimate children, for obvious reasons the most frequent, are the most perplexing. The birth of Lionardo has been fixed at various dates, viz. 1443; Lett. Pittor. t. ii. p. 192; 1445, according to the computation of Vasari; 1455, by Dargenville; 1467, by Padre Resta; with more probability 1444, by D.V. Pagave of Milano, followed by Fiorillo; but with most at 1452, by Durazzini, adopted by Lanzi. It seems improbable that Verocchio, the friend of Ser Piero, should have been only twelve years older than his pupil. Lionardo died in 1519.

59

In the figure of the Angel, conceived and executed by him, in the Baptism of the Saviour, at St. Salvi, which excelled the work of Verocchio so much, that indignant to be outdone by a boy, he dropped the pencil, and for ever abandoned painting. The statues of St. Thomas, in Orsanmichele at Florence, and of the Horse of Collevere at Venice, prove that Verocchio's real talent was sculpture: but the models of the three statues cast in bronze, by Rustici, for S. Giov. at Florence, and that of the great horse at Milano, place the pupil at least upon a level with the master in that branch of art.

60

"E non avendo egli, si può dir nulla, e poco lavorando, del continuo tenne servitori, e cavalli, &c." For all this it is the more difficult to account, as an attempt to possess himself of the philosopher's stone has never been mentioned among Lionardo's eccentricities, though he was familiar with alchymists.

61

Lorenzo de' Medici occurs not in the Life of Lionardo, and his acquaintance with Leo X. and Giuliano de' Medici relates to the latter periods of it.

62

1433 – 1527. They underwent three banishments in less than a century.

63

1472 – 1492. Most splendid period of Florence this.

64

Nardi Storia, lib. 1. Bernardo Rucellai de Bello Italico, Lond. 1733, 4to. p. 52. Pauli Jovii Histor. sui temporis, lib. 1. Memoires de Philippe de Comines, l. vii. c. 9.

65

Vasari, Vita di B. Bandinelli, Ed. del Bottari, t. ii. p. 576; e Vita del Torrigiano, t. ii. p. 75.

66

Nardi, Storia di Firenze, lib. ii. Vasari, Vita di Frà Bartolomeo; but chiefly the Life of Savonarola, by Burlamachi, inserted in Balusii Miscell. ed. Mansi, t. i. p. 558, &c.

67

Giovanni dalle Carniole, a celebrated engraver on stone, was an adherent of Savonarola; there is a portrait of that reformer by him, on a cornelian of uncommon size, in the Museo Flor. with this inscription,

Hieronymus Ferrariensis Ord. Præd.Propheta Vir et Martyr

It is known from impressions in paste and bronze. In politics, at least, Michael Angelo was a votary of Frà Girolamo, although the nursling of the Medici.

68

Vasari, Vita di B.B. t. ii. p. 557.

69

Varchi, Storia Fiorent. p. 36.

70

"The two masters of Michael Angelo," says Fiorillo, "descend in equidistant degrees from the School of Cimabue and Giotto: the following scale shows the technic pedigree of M. Angelo at one glance:

Cimabue.

Giotto.

Taddeo Gaddi.

M.A. Buonarroti."

What pity that this laboured scale, which has all the air of an astrologic conceit of Vasari, and gives to chance the sanction of predestination, could not be extended to Architecture! As the notion of a writer who dates the subversion of Art from the epoch and style of M. Angelo, it must appear ludicrous even to the most declared votary of that great name on this side of idolatry.

71

The mask of an antique Satyr, and the basso-relievo of the Centaurs, undertaken at the suggestion of Poliziano.

72

One has been preserved, and as a document of the relation in which power at that time stood with art, may interest the reader.

"Julius P.P. II. Dilectis Filiis Prioribus Libertatis, et Vexillifero Justitiae Populi Florentini.

"Dilecti filii, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Michael Angelus sculptor, qui a nobis leviter et inconsulte discessit, redire, ut accepimus, ad nos timet, cui nos non succensemus: Novimus hujusmodi hominum ingenia. Ut tamen omnem suspicionem deponat, devotionem vestram hortamur, velit ei nomine nostro promittere, quod si ad nos redierit, illæsus inviolatusque erit, et in ea gratia apostolica nos habiturus, quâ habebatur ante discessum. Datum Romæ, 8 Julii, 1506, Pontificatûs nostri Anno iii."

73

There went a tale that Michael Angelo proposed to demolish the palace of the Medicis, like that of the Bentivogli at Bologna, and to call the site "Piazza de' Muli," the place of Bastards, in allusion to the illegitimacy of Clemente VII. Alessandro, and others of that family. "A feature," says Fiorillo, "if true, as characteristic of his natural ferocity as disgraceful to his heart, after the benefits heaped on him from his infancy by that family. Varchi, however, defends him against this charge."170 Whether this tale confutes itself or not, may be left to the reader; but on an estimate of his private and public conduct, as man and artist during the long course of his life, it must be owned, that this is the period which offers the most specious opportunity to a sceptic in morals, of fixing some doubts on the integrity of his principles. His earliest actions prove that he drew a severe line between the duty which he owed to his country, and gratitude imposed by private obligations. He left the family of Pier de' Medici on finding his principles incompatible with the laws of a free state; and on the expulsion of the petty tyrants, without lending a hand to the devastation of their property, felt it his duty to act as a free man on the re-establishment of liberty, and to obey the laws of a state whose right to legislate for itself had been acknowledged by all Italy. It will not be said, that it is palliating duplicity to assert, that as a private individual he had a right to accept the behests of Leo X. and Clemente VII. for decorating a sacred edifice; but when he became a leader of the revolution, the trustee of his country's safety, the main defender of the city, did he not more than degrade himself, by forgetting the patriot in the artist, and "secretly" sacrificing time to raise monuments to men whose titles he opposed and whose principles he detested? Thus, whilst his conduct may prove the absurdity of the tale, that he publicly, and with illiberal sarcasms, advised the demolition of palaces belonging to a family whose memory he secretly laboured to perpetuate in monuments inspired by the most amorous phantasy; it certainly does not screen his character from the imputation of a duplicity to which no other period of his life offers a parallel.

74

"Lavorava," says Vasari, "le statue per le sepolture di S. Lorenzo segretamente," – p. 224, ed. B. And again, "Lavorando egli con sollecitudine e con amore grandissimo tali opere, crebbe (che pur troppo gli impedi il fine) lo assedio." – p. 229. Impossible as the secrecy of his labours for the Chapel of S. Lorenzo may appear, the publicity of his situation considered, it must be admitted, to account for the confidence placed in him by the City.

75

Of the Fall of Lucifer and his Host, which was to face the altar-piece of the Last Judgement, no sketch that could give an idea of the whole has yet been discovered; its place over the grand door of the Chapel was reserved for the sacrilegious 'bravura' of the Neapolitan Matteo da Lecca, under the pontificate of Gregorio XIII.: his composition, if impudence of grouping deserve that name, must be supposed to bear infinitely less analogy to the original conception of Michael Angelo, than the tumultuary fresco of the Sicilian; who, says Vasari, having lived many months with Michael Angelo as a servant and colour-grinder, became possessed of some design of his for that subject, and painted it in fresco in a chapel of the Trinità del Monte. Notwithstanding the incompetence of the adventurer to manage such materials, the naked groups showering from Heaven, and the hubbub of transformed fiends grappling below in the abyss, struck the beholder with terror and surprise; – a mass of Dantesque images, and in Dantesque language described by the biographer. – V. di M.A. t. vi. 237.

76

This pompous visit appears to have been made for the purpose of inspecting the Cartoon; to remove the obstacles to its completion which the unfinished state of the Giulian monument still presented; and to convince the artist of the value he set on the exclusive service of his genius. But, besides the obligation of fulfilling his contract with the House of De Rovere, Vasari seems to think that one principal reason of Michael Angelo's tardiness to comply with the wishes of the Pope, was the Pontiff's age, (vedendolo tanto vecchio,) i. e. apprehension, if he lived long enough to prevent the termination of the monument, of his dying too soon for the completion of the fresco, and thus leaving him exposed to the revenge of the Duke of Urbino: a conjecture not countenanced by the Pontiff's age, who, at his accession, was only eight years older than the artist.

77

Bastiano, says Vasari, was a favourite of Michael Angelo, but a disagreement took place between them about the best method of painting the Last Judgement. Frà Bastiano had persuaded the Pontiff to give the preference to oil, but Michael Angelo resolved to execute it only in fresco. On seeing the Frate's preparation adopted, without agreeing to it or opposing it, he remained inactive for several months; till, on being pressed, he finally declared, that he would either do it in fresco or not at all; that oil paint was a woman's art, and the refuge of idlers at their ease like Frà Bastiano. In consequence of which, the Frate's incrustation being dashed to the ground, and the wall duly prepared for fresco, he set about the work, but never forgot the insult he fancied to have received from the friar during life. – Vasari, Vita di F.S.

78

Michael Angelo had finished more than three-fourths of the work, when the Pontiff visited the Chapel, and on inspection, turning to Messer Biagio, of Cesena, then master of ceremonies, in his train, asked him what he thought of the work? The scrupulous prelate replied, that so daring an aggregate of shameless nudities in a sacred place was obscene profanation, and an exhibition fitter for a tavern or a brothel than a papal chapel. Michael Angelo, indignant, and eager to revenge the affront, only waited for his departure, and then, from memory, drew him in the character of Dante's Minos, with a snake encircling his body and gnawing his middle, in the midst of a hillock of fiends. In vain did Messer Biagio supplicate the Pontiff and Michael Angelo to take him out; he remained, and is there still. So far Vasari; but tradition adds, that on Biagio's application, the Pope asked in what part of the picture he was placed, and being answered, in Hell, replied, had you been lodged in Purgatory, you might perhaps have been dismissed, "sed ex Inferno nulla est redemptio." Condivi notices the story not at all.

In the Diary of Paris de' Grassi, Messer Biagio is said to have been appointed master of ceremonies by Leo X. 1518, in the room of Nicola da Viterbo, and, if we believe Ducange, (Table des Auteurs dans le Supplement du Glossaire,) he has written a diary himself. – See Fiorillo, i. p. 389.

79

Blaise de Vigenere, the translator of Philostratus and Callistratus, tells us, in his observations on the latter, page 855, that "he saw M. Angelo, at the age of sixty, strike off more marble from a block in one quarter of an hour, than four stonemasons usually did in three or four hours." If this happened in 1550, as will appear from the following passage, M. Angelo was then in his seventy-sixth year. – "L'entrepris aussi de Michel l'Ange estoit hautaine et fort hardie, sentant bien sa main assurée, le quel commança l'an 1550, que j'estois à Rome, un Crucifiement où il y avoit de dix à douze personnages, non pas moindres que le naturel, le tout d'une seule pièce de marbre, qui était un chapiteau de l'une de ces huict grandes colomnes du temple de la Paix de Vespasian, dont il s'en void encore une toute entière et debout, mais la mort – "

80

Vol. vi. p. 272.

81

Vasari's account of both pictures is sufficiently curious to be communicated in his own words. "Alfonso D'Avalo, Marchese del Guasto, having obtained from Michael Angelo, by means of Frà Nicolo della Magna, a cartoon of Christ appearing to Magdalen in the Garden, made every exertion to have it executed in painting by Puntormo, as he had been told by Michael Angelo that no one could serve him better. Jacopo undertook the work, and succeeded to a degree of excellence, which made Alessandro Vitelli, captain of the Florentine guards, bespeak a second copy of him, which he placed in his house at Cività di Castello."

"Michael Angelo, to oblige his intimate friend Bartolomeo Bettini, made him a Cartoon of Venus naked and Cupid kissing her, to be executed by Puntormo in oil, for the centre piece of an apartment, on the sides of which Bronzino had begun to paint Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio, to be followed by the rest of Tuscan love-songsters. The picture of Puntormo was miraculous, but instead of being given to Bettini for the price stipulated, was, by some favour-hunters, his enemies, nearly extorted from Jacopo, and carried off as a present to Duke Alessandro, returning the cartoon to Bettini. A transaction which, when he heard it, irritated Michael Angelo, who loved his friend, and made him dislike Jacopo for it." – Vasari, Vita di Jacopo da, P.V.

82

They had been fellow-scholars in the garden of Lorenzo de' Medici.

83

Lettere della Beata Vergine, S. Caterina da Siena. Venez. 1562., 4to. p. 286, 242. The last was written at the period of Vanni's dignity.

84

1481-1554.

85

1484-1549?

86

Fiorillo, i. 335.

87

1481-1536.

88

Bramante.

89

Lett. Perug. V.

90

"Cervello di porfido."

91

See Vasari on Michael Angelo's observations on Tizian.

92

"Fece li Schizzi e i Cartoni di tutte le Istorie."

Vita di Pinturicchio.

"Fece alcuni de' disegni e Cartoni di quell' opera."

Vita di Raffaello.

93

In the picture on the facciata, Bottari says, "Si vede non solo il disegno, ma in molte teste anche il colore di Raffaello."

94

Essendo con Pinturicchio a Siena – messo da parte quell' opera, e ogni utile e commodo suo, se ne venne a Fiorenza. Morta la Madre, partì e andò a Urbino, e accomodate le cose sue, ritornò a Perugia. Prima che partisse, &c. – Così venuto a Firenze, fece il cartone per il quadro di Madonna Atalanta Baglioni; dipinse per A. Doni e Dom. Canigiani; studiò le cose vecchie di Masaccio; acquistò miglioramento dai lavori di Lionardo e di Michelagnolo; ebbe stretta domestichezza con Frà Bartolomeo di S. Marco; ma in su la maggior frequenza di questa pratica fu richiamato a Perugia, dove finì l'opera della gia detta Madonna Atalanta Baglioni, &c. – Finito questo lavoro e tornato a Fiorenza, gli fu dai Dei cittadini Fiorentini allegata una tavola, &c. ma chiamato da Bramante si trasferì a Roma. – Vasari, Vita di Raffaello da Urbino, ed. Firenze, 1771. p. 163, 167, 172.

According to this account of Vasari, Raffaelle went three times to Florence; the first time, when roused by the fame of Lionardo and Michael Angelo, he left Pinturicchio 1504, and continued at Florence till he was called away by the death of his mother to Urbino, from whence, having settled his affairs, and painted certain things, he went to Perugia, and after some public works there, returned again to Florence with a commission from A. Baglioni. This is the period fixed by Vasari of his acquaintance with Bartolomeo di S. Marco, the progressive improvements of his style, and his pictures for A. Doni and D. Canigiani, and must have been his longest stay in that capital, though interrupted by a new call to Perugia, during which he finished the picture of the Burial of Christ, now in the Borghese Palace, for the Chapel Baglioni, and then returned for the third time to Florence.

95

From the "Annalen der bildenden Künste für die Osterreichischen Staaten, Von Hans Rudolph Füessli." Erster theil. Wien. 1801. Annals of the Plastic Arts in Austria.

96

1515. Raffahell di Urbin, who was so highly esteemed by the Pope, has made these naked figures, and has sent them to Albrecht Durer at Nornberg, to show him his hand.