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diff --git a/7222.txt b/7222.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60a0226 --- /dev/null +++ b/7222.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4286 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo, by Leader Scott + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo + +Author: Leader Scott + +Editor: Horace Shipp + Flora Kendrick + + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7222] +This file was first posted on March 27, 2003 +Last Updated: May 7, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRA BARTOLOMMEO AND ANDREA *** + + + + +Produced by Michelle Shephard, Tiffany Vergon, Charles +Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + +FRA BARTOLOMMEO and ANDREA D'AGNOLO + + +By Leader Scott + +Author Of "A Nook In The Apennines" + + +Re-Edited By Horace Shipp and Flora Kendrick, A.R.B.S. + + + + +_The reproductions in this series are from official photographs of the +National Collections, or from photographs by Messrs. Andersen, Alinari +or Braun._ + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: the three great names of the noblest +period of the Renaissance take our minds from the host of fine artists +who worked alongside them. Nevertheless beside these giants a whole +host of exquisite artists have place, and not least among them the +three painters with whom Mr. Leader Scott has dealt in these pages. Fra +Bartolommeo linking up with the religious art of the preceding period, +with that of Masaccio, of Piero de Cosimo, his senior student in the +studio of Cosimo Roselli, and at last with that of the definitely +"modern" painters of the Renaissance, Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo +himself, is a transition painter in this supreme period. Technique and +the work of hand and brain are rapidly taking the place of inspiration +and the desire to convey a message. The aesthetic sensation is becoming +an end in itself. The scientific painters, perfecting their studies of +anatomy and of perspective, having a conscious mastery over their tools +and their mediums, are taking the place of such men as Fra Angelico. + +As a painter at this end of a period of transition--a painter whose +spiritual leanings would undoubtedly have been with the earlier men, but +whose period was too strong for him--Fra Bartolommeo is of particular +interest; and Albertinelli, for all the fiery surface difference of his +outlook is too closely bound by the ties of his friendship for the Frate +to have any other viewpoint. + +Andrea del Sarto presents yet another phenomenon: that of the artist +endowed with all the powers of craftsmanship yet serving an end +neither basically spiritual nor basically aesthetic, but definitely +professional. We have George Vasari's word for it; and Vasari's blame +upon the extravagant and too-well-beloved Lucrezia. To-day we are so +accustomed to the idea of the professional attitude to art that we can +accept it in Andrea without concern. Not that other and earlier artists +were unconcerned with the aspect of payments. The history of Italian +art is full of quarrels and bickerings about prices, the calling in of +referees to decide between patron and painter, demands and refusals +of payment. Even the unworldly Fra Bartolommeo was the centre of such +quarrels, and although his vow of poverty forbade him to receive money +for his work, the order to which he belonged stood out firmly for the +_scudi_ which the Frate's pictures brought them. In justice to Andrea it +must be added that this was not the only motive for his activities; +it was not without cause that the men of his time called him "_senza +errori_," the faultless painter; and the production of a vast quantity +of his work rather than good prices for individual pictures made his art +pay to the extent it did. A pot-boiler in masterpieces, his works have +place in every gallery of importance, and he himself stands very close +to the three greatest; men of the Renaissance. + +Both Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli are little known in this country. +Practically nothing has been written about them and very few of their +works are in either public galleries or private collections. It is in +Italy, of course, that one must study their originals, although the +great collections usually include one or two. Most interesting from +the viewpoint of the study of art is the evolution of the work of the +artist-monk as he came under the influence of the more dramatic modern +and frankly sensational work of Raphael, of the Venetians and of +Michelangelo. In this case (many will say in that of the art of +the world) this tendency detracted rather than helped the work. The +draperies, the dramatic poses, the artistic sensation arrests the mind +at the surface of the picture. It is indeed strange that this devout +churchman should have succumbed to the temptation, and there are moments +when one suspects that his somewhat spectacular pietism disguised the +spirit of one whose mind had little to do with the mysticism of the +mediaeval church. Or perhaps it was that the strange friendship between +him and Albertinelli, the man of the cloister and the man of the world, +effected some alchemy in the mind of each. The story of that lifelong +friendship, strong enough to overcome the difficulties of a definite +partnership between the strict life of the monastery and the busy life +of the _bottega_, is one of the most fascinating in art history. + +Mr. Leader Scott has in all three lives the opportunity for fascinating +studies, and his book presents them to us with much of the flavour of +the period in which they lived. Perhaps to-day we should incline to +modify his acceptance of the Vasari attitude to Lucrezia, especially +since he himself tends to withdraw the charges against her, but leaves +her as the villainess of the piece upon very little evidence. The +inclusion of a chapter upon Ghirlandajo, treated merely as a follower +of Fra Bartolommeo, scarcely does justice in modern eyes to this fine +artist, whose own day and generation did him such honour and paid him +so well. But the author's general conclusions as to the place in art +and the significance of the lives of the three painters with whom he +is chiefly concerned remains unchallenged, and we have in the volume a +necessary study to place alongside those of Leonardo, of Michelangelo +and of Raphael for an understanding of the culmination of the +Renaissance in Italy. + + HORACE SHIPP. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +FRA BARTOLOMMEO. + + +CHAPTER + + I. THOUGHTS ON THE RENAISSANCE + II. THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D. 1475-1486 + III. THE GARDEN AND THE CLOISTER. A.D. 1487-1495 + IV. SAN MARCO. A.D. 1496-1500 + V. FRA BARTOLOMMEO IN THE CONVENT. A.D. 1504-1509 + VI. ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D. 1501-1510 + VII. CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510-1513 + VIII. CLOSE OF LIFE. A.D. 1514-1517 + IX. PART I.--SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO + PART II.--SCHOLARS OF MARIOTTO ALBERTINELLI + X. RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO + + +ANDREA DEL SARTO. + + +CHAPTER I. YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511 + II. THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512 + III. SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516 + IV. WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515 + V. GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519 + VI. ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523 + VII. THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D. 1525-1531 + VIII. SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO + +BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + +ADORATION. By BARTOLOMMEO PROCESSION TO CALVARY. By GHIRLANDAIO A +SCULPTOR. By ANDREA DEL SARTO MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SS. JOHN AND +ELIZABETH. By ANDREA DEL SARTO THE HOLY FAMILY. By BARTOLOMMEO THE +SAVIOUR. By ALBERTINELLI VIRGIN AND CHILD. By ANDREA DEL SARTO ECCE +HOMO. By BARTOLOMMEO + + + + +FRA BARTOLOMMEO. + + +CHAPTER I. + +THOUGHTS ON THE RENAISSANCE. + + +It seems to be a law of nature that progress, as well as time, should be +marked by periods of alternate light and darkness--day and night. + +This law is nowhere more apparent than in the history of Art. Three +times has the world been illuminated by the full brilliance of Art, and +three times has a corresponding period of darkness ensued. + +The first day dawned in Egypt and Assyria, and its works lie buried in +the tombs of prehistoric Pharaohs and Ninevite kings. The second day +the sun rose on the shores of many-isled Greece, and shed its rays over +Etruria and Rome, and ere it set, temples and palaces were flooded with +beauty. The gods had taken human form, and were come to dwell with men. + +The third day arising in Italy, lit up the whole western world with the +glow of colour and fervour, and its fading rays light us yet. + +The first period was that of mythic art; the world like a child +wondering at all around tried to express in myths the truths it could +not comprehend. + +The second was pagan art which satisfies itself that in expressing the +perfection of humanity, it unfolds divinity. The third era of Christian +art, conscious that the divine lies beyond the human, fails in aspiring +to express infinitude. + +Tracing one of these periods from its rise, how truly this similitude +of the dawn of day is carried out. See at the first streak of light +how dim, stiff, and soulless all things appear! Trees and objects bear +precisely the relation to their own appearance in broad daylight as the +wooden Madonnas of the Byzantine school do to those of Raphael. + +Next, when the sun--the true light--first appears, how it bathes the sea +and the hills in an ethereal glory not their own! What fair liquid tints +of blue, and rose, and glorious gold! This period which, in art, began +with Giotto and ended with Botticelli, culminated in Fra Angelico, who +flooded the world of painting with a heavenly spiritualism not material, +and gave his dreams of heaven the colours of the first pure rays of +sunshine. + +But as the sun rises, nature takes her real tints gradually. We see +every thing in its own colour; the gold and the rose has faded away with +the truer light, and a stern realism takes its place. The human form +must be expressed, in all its solidity and truth, not only in its +outward semblance, but the hidden soul must be seen through the veil of +flesh. And in this lies the reason of the decline; only to a few great +masters it was given to reveal spirituality in humanity--the others +could only emulate form and colour, and failed. + +It is impossible to contemplate art apart from religion; as truly as the +celestial sun is the revealer of form, so surely is the heavenly light +of religion the first inspirer of art. + +Where would the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan paintings and +sculptures have been but for the veneration of the mystic gods of the +dead, which both prompted and preserved them? + +What would Greek sculpture have been without the deified +personifications of the mysterious powers of nature which inspired +it? and it is the fact of the pagan religion being both sensuous and +realistic which explains the perfection of Greek art. The highest ideal +being so low as not to soar beyond the greatest perfection of humanity, +was thus within the grasp of the artist to express. Given a manly figure +with the fullest development of strength; a female one showing the +greatest perfection of form; and a noble man whose features express +dignity and mental power;--the ideal of a Hercules, a Venus, and a +Jupiter is fully expressed, and the pagan mind satisfied. The spirit +of admirers was moved more by beauty of form than by its hidden +significance. In the great Venus, one recognises the woman before +feeling the goddess. + +As with their sculpture, without doubt it was also with painting. Mr. +Symonds, in his _Renaissance of the Fine Arts_, speaks of the Greek +revival as entirely an age of sculpture; but the solitary glance into +the more perishable art of painting among the Greeks, to be seen at +Cortona, reveals the exquisite perfection to which this branch was also +brought. It is a painting in encaustic, and has been used as a door +for his oven by the contadino who dug it up--yet it remains a marvel +of genius. The subject is a female head--a muse, or perhaps only a +portrait; the delicacy and mellowness of the flesh tints equal those of +Raphael or Leonardo, and a lock of hair lying across her breast is so +exquisitely painted that it seems to move with her breath. The features +are of the large-eyed regular Greek type, womanly dignity is in every +line, but it is an essentially pagan face--the Christian soul has never +dawned in those eyes! With this before us, we cannot doubt that Greek +art found its expression as much in colour as in form and that the same +religion inspired both. + +In an equal degree Renaissance Art has its roots in Christianity; but +the religion is deeper and greater, and has left art behind. + +The early Christians must have felt this when they expressed everything +in symbols, for these are merely suggestive, and allow the imagination +full play around and beyond them; they are mere stepping-stones to the +ideal which exists but is as yet inexpressible. + +"Myths and symbols always mark the dawn of a religion, incarnation and +realism its full growth." So after a time when the first vague wonder +and ecstasy are over, symbols no longer content people; they want to +bring religion home to them in a more tangible form, to humanize it, +in fact. From this want it arises that nature next to religion inspires +art, and finally takes its place. For it follows as a matter of course +that as art is a realistic interpreter of the spiritual, so it is more +easy to follow nature than spirituality, nature being the outward or +realistic expression of the mind of God. + +It was a saying of Buffalmacco, who was _not_ one of the most devout +painters of the fourteenth century, "Do not let us think of anything but +to cover our walls with saints, and out of disrespect to the demons to +make men more devout." And Savonarola, though he has been accused +of being one of the causes of the decline, thus upheld the sacred +influences of art; when he exclaimed in one of his fervent bursts of +eloquence, "You see that Saint there in the Church and say, 'I will live +a good life and be like him.'" If these were the feelings of the least +devout and the religious fanatic, how hallowed must the influences of +Christian painting have been to the intermediate ranks. Mr. Symonds +beautifully expresses the tendency of that time: "The eyes of the +worshipper should no longer have a mere stock or stone to contemplate; +his imagination should be helped by the dogmatic presentation of the +scenes of sacred history, and his devotion quickened by lively images +of the passion of our Lord.... The body and soul moreover should be +reconciled, and God's likeness should be once more acknowledged in the +features and limbs of men." [Footnote: Symonds' _Renaissance of the Fine +Arts_, chap. i. p. 11.] + +The school of Giotto was the first to feel this need of the soul. He, +taking his ideas from nature, clothed the soul in a thin veil; the +Italians call his school that of poetic art; it reached sentiment and +poetry, but did not pass them. Yet the thirteenth century was sublime +for the expression of the idea; one only has to study the intense +meaning in the works of Giotto, and Orcagna, Duccio, and the Lorenzetti +of Siena to perceive this. The fourteenth century, on the contrary, +rendered itself glorious for manifestation of form. "Artists thought the +veil of ideality a poor thing, and wished to give the solidity of the +body to the soul; they stole every secret from nature; the senses were +content, but not sentiment." [Footnote: _Purismo nell' Arte_, da Cesare +Guasti.] + +The artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of whom we have +to speak, blended the two schools, and became perfection as far as +they went. Michelangelo drew more from the vigorous thirteenth-century +masters, and Raphael from the more sensuous followers of Masaccio and +Lippi. The former tried to put the Christian soul into his works, but +its infinite depth was unattainable. As his many unfinished works prove, +he always felt some great overwhelming meaning in his inmost soul, +which all his passionate artistic yearnings were inadequate to express. +Raphael tried to bring realism into religion through painting, and +to give us the scenes of our Lord's and the Apostles' lives in such a +humanized aspect, that we should feel ourselves of his nature. But the +incarnation of religion in art defeated its own ends; sensuousness was +introduced in place of the calm, unearthly spirituality of the earlier +masters. Compare the cartoon of S. Paul preaching at Athens, in which +he has all the majesty of a Caesar in the Forum, with the lowly spirit +of the Apostle's life! In truth, Raphael failed to approach nearer +to sublimity than Fra Angelico, with all his faulty drawing but pure +spirit. + +After him, artists loved form and colour for themselves rather than for +the spiritual meaning. Miss Owen [Footnote: _Art Schools of Medieval +Christendom_, edited by Ruskin.] accuses Raphael of having rendered Art +pagan, but this seems blaming him for the weakness of his followers, who +took for their type his works rather than his ideal. The causes of the +decline were many, and are not centred in one man. As long as Religion +slumbered in monasticism and dogma, Art seizing on the human parts, such +as the maternity of the Madonna, the personifications of saints who had +lived in the world, was its adequate exponent. The religion awakened by +the aesthetic S. Francis, who loved all kinds of beauty, was of the kind +to be fed by pictures. But when Savonarola had aroused the fervour of +the nation to its highest point, when beauty was nothing, the world +nothing, in comparison to the infinity of God;--then art, finding itself +powerless to express this overwhelming infinity, fell back on more +earthly founts of inspiration, the classics and the poets. + +Lorenzo de' Medici and Pope Nicholas V. had fully as much to do with the +decline as Savonarola. The Pope in Rome, and Lorenzo in Florence, led +art to the verge of paganism; Savonarola would have kept it on the +confines of purism; it was divided and fell, passing through the various +steps of decadence, the mannerists and the eclectics, to rise again +in this nineteenth century with what is after all its true aim, the +interpretation of nature, and the illustration of the poetry of a +nation. + +But with the decadence we have happily nothing to do; the artists of +whom we speak first, Fra Bartolommeo and Albertinelli, belong to the +culmination of art on its rising side, while Andrea del Sarto stands as +near to the greatest artists on the other side, and is the last of the +group before the decline. On Fra Bartolommeo the spirituality of Fra +Angelico still lingered, while the perfection of Raphael illumined him. +Andrea del Sarto, on the other side, had gathered into his hands +the gleams of genius from all the great artists who were his elder +contemporaries, and so blending them as to form seemingly a style of +his own, distinct from any, has left on our walls and in our galleries +hundreds of masterpieces of colour, as gay and varied as the tints the +orientals weave into their wondrous fabrics. + +It might be said with truth that Fra Bartolommeo painted for the soul, +and Andrea del Sarto for the eye. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE "BOTTEGA" OF COSIMO ROSELLI. A.D. 1475-1486. + + +Amongst the thousand arteries in which the life blood of the Renaissance +coursed in all its fulness, none were so busy or so important as the +"botteghe" of the artists. In these the genius of the great masters, +the Pleiades of stars at the culmination of art in Florence, was either +tenderly nursed, or sharply pruned into vigour by struggling against +discouragement and envy. In these the spirit of awakened devotion found +an outlet, in altarpieces and designs for church frescoes which were +to influence thousands. Here the spirit of poetry, brooding in the +mysterious lines of Dante, or echoing from past ages in the myths of the +Greeks, took form and glowed on the walls in mighty cartoons to be +made imperishable in fresco. Here the spirit of luxury was satisfied +by beautiful designs for ornaments, dress stuffs, tapestries, vases +and "cassoni," &c., which brought beauty into every life, and made each +house a poem. The soul, the mind, and the body, could alike be supplied +at those fountains of the beautiful, the artshops or schools. + +Whilst Michelangelo as a youth was drawing from the cartoons of the +Sassetti chapel in the school of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Cosimo Roselli +was just receiving as a pupil a boy only a little behind him in genius. +A small, delicate-faced, spiritual-eyed boy of nine years, known as +Baccio della Porta, who came with a roll of drawings under his arm and +high hopes in his soul, no doubt trotting along manfully beside Cosimo's +old friend, Benedetto da Majano, the sculptor, who had recommended his +being placed in the studio. + +By the table given in the note [Footnote: Pietro, a Genoese, came in +1400 to the parish of S. Michele, at Montecuccioli in Mugello; he was +a peasant, and had a son Jacopo, who was father of Paolo, the muleteer; +and three other sons, Bartolo, Giusto, and Jacopo, who had a _podere_ +at Soffignano, near Prato. Paolo married first Bartolommea, daughter of +Zanobi di Gallone, by whom he had a son, Bartolommeo, known as Baccio +della Porta, born 1475. The first wife dying, Paolo married Andrea di +Michaele di Cenni, who had four sons, Piero, Domenico, Michele, +and Francesco; only Piero lived to grow up, and he became a priest. +[_Favoured by Sig. Milanesi._]] it will be seen that Baccio was the son +of Paolo, a muleteer, which no doubt was a profitable trade in those +days when the country roads were mere mule-tracks, and the traffic +between different towns was carried on almost entirely by horses and +mulepacks. There is some doubt as to the place of Baccio's birth, which +occurred in 1475. Vasari gives it as Savignano near Prato; Crowe and +Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 427.] assert it was +Suffignano, near Florence, where they say Paolo's brothers, Jacopo and +Giusto, were contadini or peasants. + +But on consulting the post-office authorities we find no place called +Suffignano near Florence; it must therefore have been a village near +Prato called Soffignano, which from similarity of sound Vasari confused +with the larger place, Savignano. This is the more probable, for Rosini +asserts that "Benedetto da Majano, _who had bought a podere near Prato_, +knew him and took him into his affections, and by his means placed him +with Cosimo." [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. +47.] + +It is certainly probable that Paolo's wife lived with his family during +his wanderings, because it is the true Italian custom, and Baccio was +in that case born in his uncle's house; for it is not till 1480 that +we find Paolo retired from trade and set up in a house of his own in +Florence at the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, now the Porta Romana. + +The friendship begun at Prato must have been continued in Florence, +for in 1480 Paolo not only owned that house at the gate of S. Pier +Gattolini, but was the proud possessor of a podere at Brozzi, which +yielded six barrels of wine. He is a merciful man too, for among his +possessions are two mules _disutili e vecchi_ (old and useless). At this +time Baccio was six years old, and his three stepbrothers quite babies. +[Footnote: Archives of Florence, Portate al Castato, 1480-1.] Paolo, as +well as his mules, had earned his repose, being certainly old, if not +useless, and was anxious for his little sons to be placed out in the +world as early as possible. Thus it came that in 1484 Baccio was taken +away from his brothers, who played under the shadow of the old gateway, +and was put to do the drudgery of the apprenticeship to art. He had to +grind colours for Cosimo--who, as we know, used a great deal of colour, +having dazzled the eyes of the Pope with the brilliancy of his blue and +gold in the Sistine Chapel some years before--he had to sweep out the +studio, no doubt assisted by Mariotto Albertinelli, a boy of his own +age, and to run errands, carrying designs for inspection to expectant +brides who wanted the chests painted to hold their wedding clothes, or +doing the messenger between his master and the nuns of S. Ambrogio, who +paid Cosimo their gold florins by the hand of the boy in 1484 and 1485. +[Footnote: Note to Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. +429.] + +Whether his age made him a more acceptable means of communication with +the nuns, or whether Pier di Cosimo, the elder pupil, already displayed +his hatred of womankind, I know not; perhaps the boy already showed that +innate devotion and especial fitness for sanctity which marks his entire +art career. Truly everything in his youthful life combined to lead his +thoughts to higher things. The first fresco at which he assisted was in +this solemn cloister of St. Ambrogio, and the subject the _Miracle of +the Sacrament_; the saintly air of the place, the calm faces of the +white-hooded nuns, must all have had an influence in inspiring his +youthful mind with the spirit of devotion. + +Baccio's fellow-students were not many, but they formed an interesting +group. Pier di Cosimo was the head man, and eldest of all; with such +ties was he bound to his master and godfather, that he was known better +as Cosimo's Peter than by his own patronymic of Chimenti. He was at +this time twenty-two years of age, his registry in the Florentine Guild +proves his birth in 1462, as the son of Lorenzo, son of Piero, son of +Antonio, Chimenti. + +Being the eldest of five brothers, it is difficult to conceive how a +member of a large family grew up developing such eccentricities as are +usually the fruit of isolation. + +In the studio Piero was industrious and steady, working earnestly, +whether he was assisting his master's designs or carrying out his own +fancies of monsters, old myths, and classic fairy stories. No doubt +the two boys, Mariotto and Baccio, found little companionship in this +abstracted young man always dreaming over his own ideas. If they told +him an anecdote, he would look up vacantly at the end not having heard a +word; at other times every little noise or burst of laughter would annoy +him, and he would be immoderately angry with the flies and mosquitos. + +Piero had already been to Rome, and had assisted Cosimo in his fresco +of _Christ preaching on Lake Tiberias_; indeed most judges thought his +landscape the best part of that work, and the talent he showed obtained +him several commissions. He took the portraits of Virginio Orsini, +Ruberto Sanseverino and Duke Valentino, son of Pope Alessandro VI. He +was much esteemed as a portrait painter also in Florence, and from his +love of classical subjects, and extreme finish of execution, he ranked +as one of the best painters of "cassoni," or bridal-linen chests. + +This fashion excited the indignation of Savonarola, who in one of his +sermons exclaimed, "Do not let your daughters prepare their 'corredo' +(trousseau) in a chest with pagan paintings; is it right for a Christian +spouse to be familiar with Venus before the Virgin, or Mars before the +saints?" + +Thus Piero being a finished painter, was often Cosimo Roselli's +substitute in the instruction of the two boys, for Cosimo having come +home from Rome with some money, lived at his ease; but still continued +to paint frescoes in company with Piero. + +Another pupil was Andrea di Cosimo, whose peculiar branch of art +was that of the grotesque. He no doubt drew designs for friezes and +fountains, for architraves and door mouldings, in which distorted faces +look out from all kinds of writhing scrolls; and lizards, dragons, +snakes, and creeping plants, mingle according to the artist's fancy. +Andrea was however often employed in more serious work, as the records +of the Servite Convent prove, for they contain the note of payment to +him, in 1510, for the curtains of the altarpiece which Filippino Lippi +had painted. These curtains were till lately attributed to Andrea del +Sarto, or Francia Bigio. + +This is the Andrea Feltrini mentioned by Crowe and Cavalcaselle as +working in the cloister of the Servi with Andrea del Sarto and Francia +Bigio between 1509 and 1514.[Footnote: _History of Painting_, vol. iii. +chap. xvii. p. 546.] + +But Baccio's dearest friend in the studio was a boy nearly his own age, +Mariotto Albertinelli, son of Biagio di Bindo, born October 13, 1474. He +had experienced the common lot of young artists in those days, and +had been apprenticed to a gold-beater, but preferred the profession of +painter. From the first these two lads, being thrown almost entirely +together in the work of the studio, formed one of those pure, lasting +friendships, of which so many exist in the annals of art, and so few in +the material world. They helped each other in the drudgery, and +enjoyed their higher studies together; but they did not draw all their +inspirations from the over-coloured works of Cosimo--although Mariotto +once reproduced his red-winged cherubim in after life [Footnote: In the +'Trinity' in the Belle Arti, Florence.]--nor from the hard and laboured +myths of Piero. + +They went to higher founts, for scarcely a trace of these early +influences are to be found in their paintings. Vasari says they studied +the _Cose di Leonardo_. The great artist had at this time left the +studio of Verocchio, and was fast rising into fame in Florence, so it +is most probable that two youths with strong artistic tendencies would +study, not only the sketches, but also the precepts, of the great man. +Besides this there were two national art-schools open to students in +Florence: these were the frescoes of Masaccio and Lippi in the Carmine, +and the Medicean garden in the Via Cavour, then called Via Larga. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE GARDEN AND THE CLOISTER. A.D. 1487-1495. + + +The two boys left the studio of Cosimo Roselli at an early age. There +had been trouble in the house of Paolo the ex-muleteer, and Baccio's +already serious mind had been awed by the sight of death. His little +brother, Domenico, died in 1486 at seven years of age. His father, +Paolo, died in 1487; thus Baccio, at the age of twelve or thirteen, was +left the head of the family, and the supporter of his stepmother and her +babes. This may account for his leaving Cosimo so young, and setting up +his studio with Mariotto as his companion, in his own house at the gate +of S. Pier Gattolini; this partnership began presumably about the year +1490. + +Conscious that they were not perfected by Cosimo's teaching, they both +set themselves to undergo a strict discipline in art, and, friends as +they were, their paths began to diverge from this point. Their natural +tastes led them to opposite schools--Baccio to the sacred shrine of art +in the shadowed church, Mariotto to the greenery and sunshine of the +Medici garden, where beauty of nature and classic treasures were heaped +in profusion; whose loggie [Footnote: Arched colonnades.] glowed with +the finest forms of Greek sculpture, resuscitated from the tombs of ages +to inspire newer artists to perfection, but alas! also to debase the aim +of purely Christian art. + +Baccio's calm devotional mind no doubt disliked the turmoil of this +garden, crowded with spirited youths; the tone of pagan art was not in +accordance with his ideal, and so he learned from Masaccio and Lippi +that love of true form and harmonious composition, which he perfected +afterwards by a close study of Leonardo da Vinci, whose principles +of _chiaroscuro_ he seems to have completely carried out. With this +training he rose to such great celebrity even in his early manhood, that +Rosini [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. +48.] calls him "the star of the Florentine school in Leonardo and +Michelangelo's absence," and he attained a grandeur almost equal to the +latter, in the S. Mark and SS. Peter and Paul of his later years. + +Meanwhile Mariotto was revelling in the Eden of art, drawing +daily beneath the Loggie--where the orange-trees grew close to the +pillars--from the exquisite statues and "torsi," peopling the shades +with white forms, or copying cartoons by the older masters, which hung +against the walls. + +The _custode_ of all these treasures was Bertoldo, an old sculptor, who +boasted of having been the scholar of Donatello, and also heir to +his art possessions. He could also point to the bronze pulpits of San +Lorenzo, which he finished, as proof of his having inherited a portion +of his master's spirit. Bertoldo, having doubtless rendered to Duke +Cosimo's keeping his designs by Donatello, which were preserved in the +garden, obtained the post of instructor there; but his age may have +prevented his keeping perfect order, and the younger spirits overpowered +him. There were Michelangelo, with all the youthful power of passion +and force which he afterwards imparted to his works, and the audacious +Torrigiano, with his fierce voice, huge bulk, and knitted brows, who +was himself a discord like the serpent in Eden. Easily offended, he +was prompt in offering outrage. Did any other young man show talent or +surpass him, revenge deep and mean as that of Bandinelli to Michelangelo +was sure to follow, the envied work being spoiled in his rage. Then +there were the fun-loving Francesco Granacci, and the witty Rustici, as +full of boyish pranks as they were of genius--what could one old man +do among so many?--and now comes the impetuous Mariotto to add one more +unruly member to his class. + +How well one can imagine the young men--in loose blouses confined at the +waist, or in buff jerkins and close-fitting hose, with jaunty cloaks or +doublets, and little red or black caps, set on flowing locks cut square +in front--passing beneath the shadows of the arches among the dim +statues, or crossing the garden in the sunshine amid the orange-trees, +under the splendid blue Italian skies. + +We can see them painting, modelling, or drawing large cartoons in +charcoal, while old Bertoldo passes from easel to easel, criticising and +fault-finding, detailing for the hundredth time Donatello's maxims, and +moving on, heedless or deaf to the irreverent jokes of his ungrateful +pupils. + +Then, like a vision of power and grandeur, Lorenzo il Magnifico enters +with a group of his classic friends. Politian and the brothers Pulci +admire again the ancient sculptures which are to them as illustrations +of their readings, and Lorenzo notes the works of all the students who +were destined to contribute to the glory of the many Medicean palaces. +How the burly Torrigiano's heart burns within him when the Duke praises +his compeer's works! + +Sometimes Madonna Alfonsina, the mother of Lorenzo, and widow of Piero, +walked here, and she also took an interest in the studies of the +youths. Mariotto especially attracted her by his talent and zeal. She +commissioned him to paint some pictures for her to send as a present to +her own family, the Orsini of Rome. These works, of which the subjects +are not known, passed afterwards into the possession of Caesar Borgia. +She also sat to Mariotto for her own portrait. It is easily imagined how +elated the excitable youth became at this notice from the mother of the +magnificent Lorenzo. He had dreams of making a greater name than even +his master, Cosimo, whose handiwork was in the Sistine; of excelling +Michelangelo, of whose genius the world was beginning to talk; and, as +adhering to a party was the only way to success in those days, he became +a strong Pallesco, [Footnote: The Palleschi were the partizans of the +Medici, so called because they took as their standard the Palle, or +Balls, the arms of that family.] trusting wholly in the favour of +Madonna Alfonsina. + +He even absented himself almost constantly from the studio, which Baccio +shared with him, and worked at the Medici palace, [Footnote: This break +is signified by Baldinucci, _Opere_, vol. iv. p. 84, and by Vasari, who +says that after the exile of Piero he returned to Baccio.] but, alas! in +1494 this brilliant aspect of his fortunes changed. + +Lorenzo being dead, Piero de' Medici was banished, the great palace fell +into the hands of the republican Signoria, and all the painters were +left without patronage. + +Mariotto, very much cast down, bethought himself of a friend who never +failed him, and whose love was not affected by party; and, returning to +the house of Baccio, he set to work, most likely in a renewed spirit of +confidence in the comrade who stood by him when the princes in whom he +trusted failed him. Whatever his frame of mind, he began now to study +earnestly the works of Baccio, who, while he was seeking patronage +in the palace, had been purifying his genius in the Church. Mariotto +imbibed more and more of Baccio's style, till their works so much +resembled one another that indifferent judges could scarcely distinguish +them apart. It would be interesting if we could see those early pictures +done for Madonna Alfonsina, and compare them with the style formed after +this second adherence to Fra Bartolommeo. What his manner afterwards +became we have a proof in the _Salutation_ (1503), in which there is +grand simplicity of motive combined with the most extreme richness of +execution and fullest harmony of colour. + +This second union between the friends could not have been so +satisfactory to either as the first pure boyish love, when they had been +full of youthful hopes, and felt their hearts expand with the dreams +and visions of genius. Now instead of the mere differences between two +styles of art, there were differences which much more seriously affected +their characters; they were daily sundering, one going slowly towards +the cloister, the other to the world. Albertinelli had gained a greater +love of worldly success and luxury. + +Baccio's mind, always attuned to devotion, was now intensified by family +sorrows, which no doubt brought him nearer to heaven. Thus softened, +he had the more readily received the seeds of faith which Savonarola +scattered broadcast. + +Yet though every word of the one was a wound to the other, this +strangely assorted pair of friends did not part. Rosini well defined +their union as "a knot which binds more strongly by pulling contrary +ways." [Footnote: _Storia della Pittura,_ chap. xvii. p. 48] + +So when Albertinelli, while colouring with zeal a design of Baccio's, +would inveigh against all monks, the Dominicans in particular, and +Savonarola especially, his friend would argue that the inspired prophet +was not an enemy, but a purifier and reformer of art. Probably Baccio +was at the Duomo on that Sunday in Lent, 1495, and reported to Mariotto +those wondrous words of Savonarola, that "Beauty ought never to be +taken apart from the true and good," and how, after quoting the same +sentiments from Socrates and Plato, the preacher went on to say, "True +beauty is neither in form nor colour, but in light. God is light, and +His creatures are the more lovely as they approach the nearer to Him in +beauty. And the body is the more beautiful according to the purity of +the soul within it." Certain it is that this divine light lived ever +after in the paintings of Fra Bartolommeo. + +He frequented the cloisters of San Marco, where even Lorenzo de' Medici +used to go and hear the prior expound Christianity near the rose tree. +There were Lorenzo di Credi and Sandro Botticelli, both middle-aged men, +of a high standing as artists; there were the Delia Robbias, father and +son, and several others. Sandro, while listening, must have taken in the +inspired words with the scent and beauty of the roses, whose spirit he +gives in so many of his paintings. + +Young Baccio, on the contrary, feasted his eyes on the speaker's face, +till the very soul within it was imprinted on his mind, from whence he +reproduced it in that marvellous likeness, the year after the martyrdom +of Savonarola. + +This is the earliest known work of Fra Bartolommeo, and is a faithful +portrait; the deep-sunk eye-socket, and eye like an internal fire, +showing the preacher's powerful mind; the prominent aquiline nose and +dilating vehement nostril bespeaking his earnestness and decision; the +large full mouth alone shows the timorousness which none but himself +knew of, so overpowered was it by his excitable spirit. The handling is +Baccio's own able style, but Sig. Cavalcaselle thinks the influences +of Cosimo Roselli are apparent in the low tone and clouded translucent +colour; he signed it "Hieronymi Ferrariensis, a Deo missi prophetae +effigies," a legend which expresses the more than reverence which +Baccio cherished for the preacher. This portrait has only lately +been identified by its present possessor, Sig. Ermolao Rubieri, who +discovered the legend under a coat of paint. Its vicissitudes are +traceable from the time when Sig. Averardo (or, as Vasari calls him, +Alamanno) Salviati brought it back from Ferrara, where no doubt it had +been in the possession of Savonarola's family. Salviati gave it to +the convent of San Vincenzo at Prato, from which place Sig. Rubieri +purchased it in 1810. The likeness of the reformer in the Belle Arti of +Florence has been supposed to be this one, but it is more likely to be +the one done by Fra Bartolommeo at Pian di Mugnone in after years, when +he drew the friar as S. Peter Martyr, with the wound on his head. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +SAN MARCO. A.D. 1496-1500. + + +Padre Marchese, himself a Dominican, speaks thus of his convent:--"San +Marco has within its walls the Renaissance, a compendium in two artists. +Fra Angelico, the painter of the ideal, Fra Bartolommeo, of form. The +first closes the antique Tuscan school. He who has seen Fra Angelico, +has seen also Giotto, Cimabue, &c. The second represents the modern +school. In him are almost comprised Masaccio, Lorenzo di Credi, +Leonardo, Buonarroti, and Andrea del Sarto." + +The first, Fra Angelico, "sets himself to contemplate in God the fount +and architype of the beautiful, and, as much as is possible to mortal +hands, reproduces and stamps it in those works which a sensual mind +cannot understand, but which to the heavenly soul speak an eloquent +language. Fra Bartolommeo, with more analysis, works thoughtfully ... he +ascends from the effect to the cause, and in created things contemplates +a reflection of spiritual beauty." + +It is true the Dominican order has been as great a patron of arts as the +Franciscan of literature. It united with Niccolo Pisano to give form +to national architecture. It had sculptors, miniaturists, and glass +painters. As a building San Marco has been a shrine of art; since the +time that Michelozzi, with the assistance of the Medici, built the +convent for Sant' Antonino, and Fra Angelico left the impress of his +soul on the walls, a long line of artist monks has lived within +its cloisters. With San Marco our story has now to deal, for it is +impossible to write Fra Bartolommeo's life without touching on the +well-known history of Savonarola. The great preacher's influence in +these years, from 1492 to 1497, entered into almost every individual +in Florence, either to draw them to devotion, or to stir them up to the +greatest opposition. + +The artists, whose minds were probably the most impressional, were his +fervent adherents. He has been accused of being the ruin of art, but +"this cry has only arisen in our time; the silence of contemporaries, +although not friendly to him, proves that he was not in that century so +accused." [Footnote: Gino Capponi, _Storia delta Republica di Firenze_, +lib. vi. chap. ii.] The only mention of anything of artistic value is a +"tavoliere" [Footnote: A chess or draught board.] of rich work, spoken +of by Burlamacchi and Benivieni, in a "Canzone di un Piagnone sul +bruciamento delle Vanita." Savonarola himself was an artist and musician +in early life, the love of the beautiful was strong within him, only +he would have it go hand in hand with the good and true. His dominant +spirit was that of reform; as he tried to regenerate mind, morals, +literature, and state government, so he would reform art, and fling over +it the spiritual light which illumed his own soul. + +It was natural that such a mind should act on the devotional character +of Baccio. What could he do but join when every church was full of +worshippers, each shrine at the street corners had a crowd of devout +women on their knees before it--when thousands of faces were uplifted in +the vast expanse of the Duomo, and every face burned with fervour as the +divine flame from the preacher lit the lamp of each soul--when in the +streets he met long processions of men, women, and children, the echoes +of whose hymns (Laudi) filled the narrow streets, and went up to the +clear air above them? + +Then came that strange carnival when there were no maskers in the city, +but white-robed boys went from house to house to collect the vanities +for the burning--when the flames of the fires, hitherto saturnalian, +were the flames of a holocaust, wherein each one cast the sins and +temptations, even the pretty things which, though dear to himself, +withdrew him from God. And when the white-robed boys came to the studio +of the friends at the gate of S. Pier Gattolini, with what sighs and +self-immolation Baccio looked for the last time at some of his studies +which he judged to come under the head of _anathemata_, and handed them +over to the acolytes. How Mariotto's soul, warm to Pagan art, burned +within him at this sacrifice! And how he would talk more than ever +against the monks, and hang up his own cartoons and studies of the Greek +Venus in the studio for Baccio's behoof! + +In these years we have no notice of authentic works done by the youthful +partners, though biographers talk of their having commissions for +madonnas, and other works of art. + +In 1497 Francesco Valori, the grand-featured, earnest admirer of +Savonarola, became Gonfaloniere in the time of Piero de' Medici's exile, +[Footnote: Gino Capponi, _Storia delta Republica di Firenze_, lib. vi. +chap. xi. p. 233.] and the friar's party was in the ascendent. Rosini +[Footnote: _Storia delta Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. 48.] says that +belonging to a faction was a means of fame, and that the Savonarola +party was powerful, giving this as a reason for Baccio's partisanship; +but this we can hardly believe, his whole life proved his earnestness. +He was much beloved in Florence for his calm upright nature and good +qualities. He delighted in the society of pious and learned men, spent +much time in the convent, where he had many friends among the monks; yet +with all he kept still faithful to his early friend Mariotto, whose +life was cast so differently. Savonarola's faction was powerful, but the +Medici had still adherents who stirred up a strong party against him. + +His spirit of reform at length aroused the ire of the Pope, who forbade +him to preach. He disobeyed, and the sermons on Ezekiel were scenes +of tumult; no longer a group of rapt faces dwelling on his words, but +frowns, murmurs, and anathemas from a crowd only kept off him by a +circle of armed adherents round his pulpit. + +At length, on June 22nd, the excommunication by Pope Alessandro VI. +(Borgia) fell like a thunderclap, and the Medicean youths marched in +triumphant procession with torches and secular music to burlesque the +Laudi; no doubt Albertinelli was one of these, while Baccio grieved +among the awestruck friars in the convent. + +In 1498 Savonarola again lifted up his voice; the church was not large +enough, so he preached beneath the blue sky on the Piazza San Marco; +and Fra Domenico Buonvicini da Pescia, in the eagerness of partisanship, +said that his master's words would stand the ordeal of fire. Then came +that tumultuous day of April 7th, the "Sunday of the Olives," when the +Franciscans and Dominicans argued while the fire burnt out before +them, when Savonarola's great spirit quailed within him, and the ordeal +failed; a merciful rain quenching the flames which none dared to brave +save the undaunted Fra Domenico himself. + +There was no painting done in the studio on that day we may be sure. +Baccio was one of the surging, conflicting crowd gathered beneath the +mingling shadows of Orcagna's arches and Arnolfo's great palace, and at +eventide he was one of the armed partisans who protected the friar back +to his convent, menaced not only by rains from heaven, but by the stormy +wrath of an angry populace, defrauded of the sight they came to see. + +The next day was the one which determined the painter's future life. + +There was in the city a curious process of crystallisation of all the +particles held in solution round the fire the previous day. The Palazzo +Vecchio attracted about its doors the "Arrabiati." The "Compagnacci" +assembled, armed, by the Duomo. The streets were full of detached +parties of Piagnoni, treading ways of peril to their centre, San Marco. + +Passions raged and seethed all day, till at the hour of vespers a cry +arose, "_a San Marco_," and thither the multitude--500 Compagnacci, and +300 Palleschi--rushed, armed with picks and arquebusses, &c. They killed +some stray Piagnoni whom they found praying by a shrine, and placed +guards at the streets which led to the convent; then the assault began. + +The church was dimly lighted. Savonarola and Fra Domenico kneeled on the +steps of the altar, with many worshippers around them, singing tremulous +hymns; amongst these were Francesco Valori, Ridolfi, and Baccio della +Porta, but all armed, as Cronaca tells us. They still sang hymns when +the doors were attacked with stones; then leaving the priests and women +to pray for them the men rushed to the defence. + +Old Valori, with a few brave friends, guarded the door; others made +loop-holes of the windows and fired out; some went up the campanile, and +some on the roof. Baccio fought bravely among the rest. The Palleschi +were almost repulsed, but at length succeeded in setting fire to the +doors. The church was filled with smoke; a turbulent crowd rushed wildly +in. Savonarola saw his people fall dead beside him on the altar steps, +and, taking up the Sacrament, he fled to the Greek library, where +the messengers of the Signoria came and arrested both himself and Fra +Domenico. It was in the fierce fight that ensued when the enemies poured +in, laying hands sacrilegiously on every thing sacred, that Baccio made +the vow that if he were saved this peril, he would take the habit--a vow +which certainly was not made in a cowardly spirit, he fighting to the +death, and then espousing the losing cause. [Footnote: Gino Capponi, +lib. vi. chaps. i. and ii., and Padre Marchese, _San Marco_, p. 147 _et +seq._] + +Then came that sad 23rd of May, the eve of the Ascension, when three +martyrs went calmly to their death beneath the shadow of the old palace, +amidst the insults of an infuriated crowd, and Arno's yellow waters +received their ashes. [Footnote: Capponi, chap. ii. p. 253.] + +[Illustration: SAVONAROLO AS PETER MARTYR. BY FRA BARTOLOMMEO. _In the +Accademia delle Belle Arti, Florence_.] + +After the death of Savonarola the party had many defaulters; but +Baccio, the Delia Robbias, Credi, Cronaca, and many other artists, were +faithful, and even showed their grief by abandoning for a time the arts +they loved. "It almost seemed as if with him they had lost the sacred +flame from which their fervid imagination drew life and aliment." +[Footnote: Marchese, _San Marco_, lib. iii. p. 261.] + +While all these events had been taking place, Baccio had worked as often +as his perturbed spirit would allow, at a great fresco of the _Last +Judgment_, in a chapel of the cemetery of S. Maria Nuova. A certain +Gerozzi, di Monna Venna Dini, gave him the commission, and as far as he +had gone, the painter had given entire satisfaction. This fresco, his +first as far as is known, shows Baccio's style as fully as his later +ones. We have here his great harmony of form, and intense suggestiveness +in composition. The infinity of heaven is emblematised in circles of +saints and cherubim around the enthroned Christ. The cross, a link +between heaven and earth, is borne by a trinity of angels; S. Michael, +as the avenging spirit, stands a powerful figure in the foreground +dividing the saved from the lost; the whole composition forming a +heavenward cross on an earthly foundation. There are no caves and +holes of torture with muscular bodies writhing within them; but in the +despairing figures passing away on the right, some with heads bowed on +clasped hands, others lifting up faces and arms in a vain cry for mercy, +what suggestions there are of infinite remorse!--more dignified far than +the distorted sufferers in the torture pits of previous masters. These +are just indicated by two demons, and a subterranean fire behind the +unblest souls. Miss Owen, [Footnote: _Art Schools of Christendom_, +edited by Prof. Ruskin.] speaking Mr. Ruskin's sentiments, calls this +a great falling off from Giotto and Orcagna's conceptions; but though +theirs may be more powerful and terrible, a greater suggestion of +Christian religion is here. + +They, and later, Michelangelo, flung Dante's great struggling soul in +tangible forms upon the walls, and embodied his poem, awful, grand, and +earnest, with all the human passion intensified into human suffering. +Fra Bartolommeo shows the Christian spirit; his faces look beyond the +present judgment, and, instead of wrath, mercy is the predominating +idea. It is like the difference in spirit between the Old Testament and +the New. + +The painter's reverence of Fra Angelico, and estimation of the divinity +of art, is shown by Fra Angelico being placed among the saints of heaven +on the right of the Saviour. + +Leonardo's instructions for shading off a light sky will occur to any +one who studies the finely gradated tints mingling with the clouds +around the celestial group. But grand as the fresco is, and interesting +as it must have been to the artist at this time, when thoughts of +Savonarola mingled with every stroke, he felt he was not fulfilling his +true mission in the world. Drawn more and more to the convent, hallowed +to him by the memory of the martyr-friar, he was also more attuned to +thoughts of retirement by family bereavements--one young brother, Piero, +only being left to him out of the whole circle. The reluctance to leave +this youth alone may have deferred for a time his taking the monastic +vows; but having placed him under the guardianship of Santi Pagnini, a +Dominican, he consigned the _Last Judgment_ to Mariotto to finish, and +leaving his worldly goods to his brother, took the habit in the convent +of S. Domenico, at Prato, on July 26th, 1500, two years after first +making the resolution. His year of probation over, he took the final +vows and became Fra Bartolommeo. + +A document in S. Marco proves that he was possessed of worldly goods +when he entered, [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap xxvii.] +among which were the house of his father in S. Pier Gattolini, and +the podere at Brozzi. Having once given himself up to monasticism, Fra +Bartolommeo would offer no half-service, his brushes were left behind +with all other worldly things, and here closes Baccio della Porta's +first artistic career. + +His sun was set only to rise again to greater brilliance in the future +as Fra Bartolommeo, a name famous for ever in the annals of art. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +FRA BARTOLOMMEO IN THE CONVENT. A.D. 1504-1509. + + +Four years had passed, and the monk had never touched a pencil, but his +mission in art was not fulfilled, and events were working towards that +end, for the spirit of art once awakened could not die either in that +convent or in that age. + +His friend, Mariotto, kept him _au courant_ in all the gossip of art, +and told him of the great cartoons of Leonardo and Michelangelo, which +he too went to see. They might have inspired him afresh, or perhaps in +advising Albertinelli he himself felt impelled to paint, or possibly the +visits of Raphael in 1504 influenced him. + +Padre Marchese takes the conventional view, and says that Santi Pagnini, +the oriental scholar and lover of art, came back to S. Marco in 1504 as +prior, and used not only his entreaties, but his authority, to induce +Fra Bartolommeo to recommence painting. However this may be, it is +certain that when Bernardo del Bianco, who had built a beautiful chapel +in the Badia from Rovezzano's designs, wished for an altar-piece worthy +of its beauty, which he felt no hand could execute so well as that of +the Frate--he yielded to persuasion, and the _Vision of S. Bernard_ +was begun. The contract is dated 18th November, 1504; a part payment +of sixty florins in gold was made 16th of June, 1507. [Footnote: Padre +Marchese, _Memorie_, iii. vol. ii. p. 594.] + +This picture, now in the Belle Arti of Florence, is so much injured by +re-painting that some parts seem even crude. The saint is on his knees +writing, while the vision of the Virgin and Child stands poised in +air before him; she inspires his pen, and the infant Christ gives His +blessing on the work. There is great spirituality and ecstasy in St. +Bernard's face, his white robe contrasts well with two saints behind +him, which carry out Fra Bartolommeo's favourite triangular grouping, +and with a rich harmony of colour balance his white robe. + +The Virgin is drawn with great nobility and grace, her drapery admirably +majestic, yet airy, and a sweet, infantile playfulness renders the Child +charming. The angels beneath the Virgin's feet are lovely, but the group +of seraphs behind are the least pleasing of all. They are of the earth, +earthy, and seem reminiscences of the Florentine maidens the artist met +in the streets. Possibly this is the part most injured by the restorer's +hand. The colouring of the two saints behind S. Bernard-one in a green +robe with bronze-gold shades, and the other blue and orange-is very +suggestive of Andrea del Sarto, and seems to render probable Rosini's +assertion that the Frate "taught the first steps of this difficult +career to that artist who alone was called 'senz' errori.'" + +Having once retaken the brush, Fra Bartolommeo recovered his former +skill and fame; a beautiful specimen of this period is the _Meeting of +Christ with the Disciples of Emmaus_ (1506), a fresco in a lunette over +the door of the refectory at S. Marco; in which he combines a richness +of colouring rarely obtained in fresco, with a drawing which is almost +perfect. Fra Niccolo della Magna, who was prior in that year, and +left in 1507 to become Archbishop of Capua, sat for one of the saints. +Contemporory with this may be dated also the figure of the _Virgin_, +painted for Agnolo Doni, now in the Corsini gallery in Rome. Giovanni +de' Medici also gave him a commission. + +Meanwhile the _S. Bernard_ was not paid for. Fra Bartolommeo priced it +at 200 ducats, and the convent being the gainer by his works, took +his own valuation. Bernardo offered only eighty ducats; the Frati were +indignant, and called in the Abbot of the Badia as umpire; he being +unable to move Bernardo, retired from office; then a council of friends +was resolved on, in which Mariotto was for the painter, and Lorenzo de +Credi for the purchaser; but this also failed. + +It was next proposed to submit the question to the Guild of Druggists +(_arte degli speziali_), which included at that time also doctors and +painters; but the convent, refusing lay judgment, took the offer of +Francesco Magalotti, a relative of Bernardo, who priced it at 100 +ducats, and the monks had to be satisfied. The dispute ended July 17th, +1507. [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap, xxvii. p. 245, +and Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol. ii. pp. 42 to 45.] + +All writers agree as to the fact of Fra Bartolommeo's friendship +with Raphael, but very few are decided as to its date. Raphael was +in Florence in 1504, but then Fra Bartolommeo had not re-commenced +painting, and would have no works in the convent to excite his +admiration of the colouring. Padre Marchese, following Rosini and Padre +Luigi Pungeleoni, asserts that this intimacy was during Raphael's second +visit in 1506, when he might have seen the newly-finished fresco of +_The Disciples at Emmaus_. It is undoubted that their intercourse was +beneficial to both. Raphael studied anew Leonardo's principles of colour +under Fra Bartolommeo's interpretation of them, and the Frate improved +his knowledge of perspective and harmony of composition. It is said they +worked together at some pictures, of which one is in France, and another +at Milan; but there is not sufficient evidence to prove this. + +It is also thought that Fra Bartolommeo helped in the composition of +Raphael's famous _Madonna del Baldacchino_, which is truly very much in +his style. + +The year 1508 marks the Frate's first acquaintance with the Venetian +school, which was not without its influence upon him. Frequent +interchange of visits took place between the Dominicans in the different +parts of Italy; and Fra Bartolommeo took the opportunity then offered +him of going to visit his brethren at Venice. + +His namesake, Baccio di Monte Lupo, a sculptor who had fled from +Florence after the death of Savonarola, and who had fought side by side +with Baccio in the siege of S. Mark's church, was in Venice at that +time, working on the tomb of Benedetto da Pesaro in the church of the +Frati, and he was only too delighted to show the beauties of the Queen +of the Adriatic to an artistic mind. Tintoretto was not yet born; Titian +was only just rising into fame, though his style had not yet become what +it was after Giorgione's influence; but Fra Bartolommeo must have found +much that was sympathetic in the exquisite works of Giovanni Bellini and +his school, and much to admire in the glorious colouring of Giorgione. + +Father Dalzano, the vicar of the monastery of S. Peter Martyr at Murano, +gave the Florentine monk a commission for a picture of the value of +seventy or 100 ducats. Not having time to paint this during his stay, he +promised to execute it on his return to Florence, and the vicar paid him +in advance twenty-eight ducats in money and colours; the rest was to be +raised by the sale of some MS. letters from S. Catherine of Siena, which +a friend of Father Dalzano near Florence held in possession. + +Fra Bartolommeo, having brought home from the Venetian school a new +impulse for painting, and wishing to diffuse the religious influence of +art more widely, desired to enlarge his atelier and school at San Marco. +His only assistants in the convent were Fra Paolino of Pistoja, and one +or two miniaturists, who were only good at missals. Fra Paolino (born +1490) took the vows at a very early age, and was removed to Florence +from Prato with Fra Bartolommeo. He was the son of a painter, Bernardino +di Antonio, but though he learned the first principles from him, his +real art was imbibed from the Frate, under whom, together with Mariotto, +he worked for years. + +But this youthful scholar was not enough for Fra Bartolommeo's new +energies. He pined for his old friend, Mariotto, who could follow out +his designs in his own style so closely, that an unpractised eye could +not see the difference of hand; and such was his influence on the rulers +of the order, that they allowed a most unique partnership to be entered +into. + +The parties were, Albertinelli on one side, and the convent and Fra +Bartolommeo on the other. The partners to provide the expenses, and +the profits to be divided between the convent and Mariotto; the vow +of poverty not allowing Fra Bartolommeo as an individual any personal +share. This began in 1509 and lasted till 1512. The inventory of the +profits and the division made when the partnership was dissolved, given +entire by Padre Marchese, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., +vol. ii.] are very interesting. The two artists had separate monograms +to distinguish the pictures which were specially their own, besides +which the monk signed his with the touching petition, "_orate pro +pictore,_" his friend merely Latinising his name; the works painted +together were signed by the combined monograms. Before setting a hand to +anything else, the Frate fulfilled his engagement to the Venetian prior, +for whom he painted the _Eternal in Heaven_, surrounded by saints and +angels; but of this we will speak later. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +ALBERTINELLI IN THE WORLD. A.D. 1501-1510. + + +During the interval between the second and third partnership of this +incongruous pair of friends, the life of Albertinelli had been very +different from that of the Frate. So distressed was he at losing Baccio +that he was quite wild for a time. His passions being unruled, that of +grief took entire possession of him. In his despair he vowed to give up +painting; he declared that he would also become a monk, if it were not +that he now hated them more than ever; besides, he was a Pallesco, and +could not desert his party. + +After a time, however, he calmed down, and, looking on his friend's +unfinished fresco of the _Last Judgment_ as a legacy from him, began +to work at it as a kind of obligation till the occupation wove its +own charm, and he steadily devoted himself to art again, much to the +satisfaction of good Gerozzi Dini, who was in great perturbation, and +declared there was not another hand but his in Florence which could +finish it; and also to the relief of Fra Bartolommeo himself, who, +having received money on account, was troubled in conscience lest it +should remain unfinished. There remained only some figures to put in the +terrestrial group, all the celestial portions having been finished by +the Frate; but they are very well drawn figures, with a good deal of +expression in them. Several are likenesses, amongst whom are Dini and +his wife, Bugiardini, the painter's pupil, and himself. Most of these +are now destroyed by the effects of damp. + +Mariotto left Fra Bartolommeo's house in S. Pier Gattolini, and took +a room in Gualfonda--now Via Val Fonda--a street leading towards the +fortress, built by the Grand Duke Cosimo on the north of the city; +and here in time quite a school grew up under his tuition. Giuliano +Bugiardini was his head assistant rather than pupil; Francia Bigio, then +a boy, Visino, who afterwards went to Hungary, and Innocenzio da Nicola, +besides Piero, Baccio's brother, were all scholars. Albertinelli's +Bottega in Val Fonda gave some noble paintings to the world, works +independently his own, though Fra Bartolommeo's influence is traceable +in most of them. The finest of these is the _Salutation_, dated +1503--ordered for the Church of S. Martino, and now the gem of the hall +of the Old Masters in the Uffizi Gallery--a work which alone has been +able to mark him for all time as a great master. + +So simple is the subject, and yet so grand the proportions, and in the +figures there is such majesty of maternity and dignity of womanhood! A +decorated portico, with the heavens behind it, forms the background to +the two noble women, in one of whom is expressed the gracious sympathy +of an elder matron with the awful, mysterious joy of the younger. + +The colouring, perfectly harmonised, is the most masterly blending of +a subdued tone with soft yet brilliant and shows a deep study of the +method of Leonardo. + +The predella has an _Annunciation_, _Nativity_, and _Circumcision_; all +showing the same able style, but more injured by time than the picture. + +Another charming painting of this period is the _Nativity_ at the Pitti, +a round, on panel. The _Madonna_ is not quite so noble as that of the +_Salutation_, but the limbs of the child are beautifully rounded. There +is a pretty group of three angels singing in the sky; the landscape is +as minute in detail as those his old fellow-pupil Piero used to paint in +Cosimo's studio. + +In 1504-5 Fra Bartolommeo called upon him for a deed of friendship, +which proves that, whatever biographers (building up theories on a word +or two in Vasari) may say of his want of steadiness, the friend who knew +him best had supreme trust in him. Santi Pagnini, having been removed to +Siena as prior, Fra Bartolommeo made Mariotto guardian and instructor +of his young brother Piero, signing a contract that Mariotto was to have +the use and management of all estates and possessions of Piero, which +included several _poderi_ in the country, as well as the house at the +Porta Romana (S. Pier Gattolini). In return Albertinelli was to keep +Piero in his house, teach, clothe, and provide for him, not, however, +being obliged to give him more than "sette (seven) soldi" a month. +Albertinelli was also to have a mass said yearly in the Church of S. +Pier Gattolini for the soul of Paolo the muleteer, and to use two pounds +of wax candles thereat. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii. +pp. 36, 37.] The contract was signed from 1st January, 1505, and was to +last till 1st January, 1511. It appears that this brother Piero was a +great trouble to the Frate, being of a bizarre disposition, and addicted +to squandering money; he sold some possessions for much less than their +worth, [Footnote: Private communication from Sig. G. Milanesi.] which +probably accounts for the singular contract of guardianship. He did not +show enough talent to become a painter, and took priests' orders later. + +About this time Fra Bartolommeo recommenced work, and while he +was painting the triptych for Donatello's _Madonna_ (the miniature +_Nativity_ and _Circumcision_ in the Uffizi), Albertinelli was at +work in the convent of the Certosa, at a _Crucifixion_ in fresco. +The painting is extant in the chapterhouse, and is a very fair and +unrestored specimen of his best style. The Virgin and Magdalen are very +purely conceived figures; the idea of the angels gathering the blood +falling from the wounded hands of the crucified Saviour is very tender; +there is a great brightness of colouring, and a greenish landscape +almost Peruginesque in feeling. Some of his pupils worked with him at +the Certosa, and nearly brought their master into trouble. + +They were not more content with convent fare than was Davide +Ghirlandajo, when the only delicacy supplied him at Vallombrosa was +cheese; and to revenge themselves, they stole round the cloister after +the circular sliding panels by which the rations were sent into the +monks' cells were filled, and feasted on the meals made ready for the +good brothers. Great confusion ensued in the convent, the monks accusing +each other of the theft; but when they found out the real culprits, they +made a compromise, promising double rations if the artists would hasten +their work and leave them their daily dole in peace. + +The fresco is dated 1506. The same year produced the fine picture now +in the Louvre, which was painted for the church of S. Trinita on the +commission of Zanobio del Maestro. + +The _Madonna_, stands on a pedestal, with S. Jerome and S. Zenobio +in front, while episodes from their lives are brought in like distant +echoes in the background. [Footnote: S. Zenobio was the first bishop of +Florence, and is the patron saint of that city.] + +The nuns of S. Giuliano employed him to paint two pictures, both of +which are now in the Belle Arti. One is an altarpiece; the _Madonna +enthroned_, with the Divine Child in her arms. Era Bartolommeo's idea +of an angel-sustained canopy is here, but the angels hold it up from the +outside instead of the inside. Before her are S. John the Baptist, +S. Julian, S. Nicholas, and S. Dominic. The S. Julian has a great +similarity to the S. Michael of Perugino, and the S. John, by its good +modelling, shows the result of his studies from the antique in the +Medici garden. + +For the same church he did the curious conventional painting of +the _Trinity_ on a gold ground. The subject is inartistic, because +unapproachable; the attempt to paint that which is a deep spiritual +mystery degrades both the art and the subject; the latter because it +lowers it to human grasp, the former because it shows its powerlessness +to shadow forth the infinite. There is beautiful painting in the heads +of the angels, at the foot of the Cross, but the brilliancy of the gold +ground is overpowering to the colours, albeit he has balanced it +by reproducing Cosimo Roselli's red-winged cherubs. Nothing but Fra +Angelico's delicate tints can bear such a background. No doubt +Piero, Baccio's brother, helped to lay on this gold, for one of the +stipulations in the contract with Mariotto was that he was to "metter +d' oro ed altre cose di mazoneria" (to put on gold and other articles of +emblazonment). + +It has been a great subject of conjecture at what part of his life +Albertinelli took the rash step of throwing up his art and opening +a tavern at Porta S. Gallo. Some say it was in his despair at Fra +Bartolommeo having taken the vows, but this is disproved by his having +at that time finished the _Last Judgment_, and taken pupils in Val +Fonda. Others assert that it was at the breaking up of the last +partnership in 1513, but there is no hiatus in his work at that time, +existing paintings being dated in 1513 and the following years till his +death, three years after. + +Vasari, though not to be depended on in regard to dates--chronology not +being his forte--is generally right in the gossip and stories of the +lives near his own time, and it is by collateral evidence from his pages +that we are able to fix with more certainty 1508 or 1509 as the time of +this episode in Albertinelli's life. In 1507 we find him as an artist +helping to value his friend's picture, and mediating between the convent +and Bernardo del Bianco. [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii. +chap. xvii. p. 544.] Now, in the 'Life of Andrea del Sarto,' we read +that Francia Bigio, Albertinelli's pupil, made the acquaintance of +Andrea while studying the Cartoons in the Hall of the Council (this was +from 1506 to 1508), and as their friendship increased, Andrea confided +to Francia Bigio that he could no longer endure the eccentricities of +Piero di Cosimo, and determined to seek a home for himself, and that +Francia Bigio being also alone--his master Mariotto Albertinelli _having +abandoned the art of painting_--they determined to share a studio +and rooms. [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 182.] The first works the +partners undertook were the frescoes of the Scalzo and the Servi, which +were begun in 1509. Thus the date is tolerably certain, especially as a +gap occurs in Albertinelli's works at this time. + +Sig. Gaetano Milanesi's researches in the Archives have thrown a new +light on Mariotto's motives, which were not entirely connected with +art; it was not that he was discouraged by adverse criticism, nor wholly +that, as time divided him from his friend, he felt he could produce +no great work away from his influence, but it was partly that he had +married a wife named Antonia, whose father kept an inn at S. Gallo. +It is possible the tavern came to him by way of _dot_, and the above +reasons making him discontented with art for a time, might have induced +him to carry on the business himself. Sig. Milanesi says a document +exists of a contract in which Mariotto's name is connected with a +tavern, but that he has never been able to retrace it since the first +time he found it. It is his opinion that the whole story arose from the +fact of the wife's family possessing this wine shop, and his connection +with it in that way. + +But though Albertinelli passed off his pseudo-hostdom with bravado, +talking very wittily about it, the artistic vein was too strong within +him to be subdued; he soon gave up the flask and returned to the brush, +for in 1509, when his quondam pupil, Francia Bigio, was busy at the +Servi, we again find Mariotto's hand in a painting of the _Madonna_. The +Virgin, holding a pomegranate in her hand, supports with the other the +Child, who stands on a parapet, and clings to the bosom of his mother's +dress for support, in a truly natural way; the infant Baptist stands +by. The painting, signed, and dated 1509, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, +Cambridge, but has been injured by repainting. In spite of this, Messrs. +Crowe and Cavalcaselle believe they perceive Bugiardini's hand in it. + +In 1510 Albertinelli began one of his masterpieces, the _Annunciation_ +for the company of S. Zenobio, now in the Belle Arti. All his zeal for +art was reawakened, he flung himself _con amore_ into this work, which, +though in oil on panel, was painted on the spot where it was intended to +be placed, that the lights might be managed with the best effect. He was +imbued with Leonardo da Vinci's principle, that the greatest relief +and force are to be combined with softness, and wishing to bring this +combination to a perfection which never before had been reached, he +depended greatly on the natural light to further his design. [Footnote: +Vasari, vol. ii. p. 469.] + +The picture, although a great work of art, and the most laboured of +all his paintings, failed to satisfy the artist. He tried various +experiments, painting in and painting out, but never reaching his own +ideal. According to Leonardo, he was proving himself a good artist, one +of his principles being, "when his (an artist's) knowledge and light +surpass his work so that he is not satisfied with himself or his +endeavours, it is a happy omen." [Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise +on Painting.] + +The work as it stands is a noble one, though darkened by time having +brought out the black pigments used in the shades. The background is an +intricate piece of architecture with vaulted roof, showing that he +too had profited by Raphael's instructions in perspective to Fra +Bartolommeo. + +The Virgin is a tender sweet figure; indeed no artist has given more +gracious dignity to womanhood than Albertinelli, although his detractors +say his life showed no great respect for it. Above, the Almighty is +seen in a yellow light with a circle of angels and seraphs around. It +is strange how the realistic painters stopped at nothing, not even the +representation of the eternal in a human form. Is not this the reason +why art ceased about this time to be the interpreter of religion, and +found its true mission in being the interpreter of nature? Who can draw +one soul? How much more impossible then to depict the incomprehensible +soul in which all others have their being? The utmost we can do is to +give the indication of the spirit in the expression of a face, and that +so imperfectly that not two beholders read it alike. Study Perugino and +Raphael, see how they raise human nature and etherealize it till we see +the divinity of soul in the faces of their saints and martyrs. But the +moment they try to depict the Almighty, or even his angels, they fall at +once below humanity. + +But to return to the _Annunciation_ of Albertinelli. His impetuous +temper betrayed him even here; he fell into a dispute with his patrons, +who refused to pay the price he asked. The usual "trial by his peers" +was resorted to, Perugino, Granacci, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo were called +into council to value it according to its merits. + +On completing this picture the events we have related in the last +chapter took place, Fra Bartolommeo returned from Venice with his +enterprise renewed, and the convent partnership was commenced. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510--1513. + + +We now come to the studio of S. Marco, where the two friends, who had +dreamed together as boys, and worked together as youths, now laboured +jointly as men, bringing to light some of the finest works of art that +remain to us. During these three years Albertinelli's star seems merged +in that of his senior, his hand is to be recognised in the lower parts +of a few altarpieces; but it is always difficult to distinguish the two +styles. + +It was a very busy atelier, for they had many patrons. Bugiardini was +still Mariotto's head assistant, and Fra Paolino, and one or two other +monks, worked under Fra Bartolommeo, besides pupils of both, among whom +were Gabriele Rustici and Benedetto Cianfanini. + +The studio was on the part of the convent between the cloister and Via +del Maglio, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii. p. 69.] and +we can quite picture its interior. There stands the lay figure on which +Fra Bartolommeo draped the garments that take such majestic folds in his +works; [Footnote: Fra Bartolommeo was the inventor of the jointed lay +figure.] there are several casts and models in different parts of the +room; grand cartoons in charcoal hang on the walls, like those we see +to this day in the Uffizi and Belle Arti. So many of these masterly +sketches are the Frate's and so few are Mariotto's that we may presume +the former was in most instances the designer. And to what perfection he +carried design! Not a figure was drawn except its lines harmonised with +the geometric rhythm in the artist's mind. His groups fall by nature +into kaleidoscopic figures of circles, triangles, ellipses, crosses, &c. +Not a cartoon was sketched in which the lights and shadows were not as +gradated and finished as a painting, although they were merely drawn +with charcoal. The following was the method of work in the "bottega." +The panels were prepared with a coating of plaster of Paris, over +which, when dry, a coat of under colour, ground in oil, was passed. The +preparing of the panels fell to the work of one of the monk scholars, +Fra Andrea.[Footnote: The books of the convent have a note of payment to +Fra Bartolommeo for 20th March, 1512, "per parte di lavoro di Fra Andrea +converse per mettere d'oro, et ingessare alle tavole nella bottega in +diversi lavori" (Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, lib. ii. chap. in. p. 70).] +Then the master made his sketch in white, or "sgraffito" (i.e. graven +on the plaster), as in the architectural lines of the pictures of patron +saints in the Uffizi, and the _Marriage of S. Catherine_ in the Pitti +Palace; he also put in the shadows in monochrome. But the assistants, +who were skilled artists, were called to put broad level tints of local +colour on the buildings, &c., the master himself finishing the faces. No +doubt Albertinelli was often deputed to the study of the lay figure and +its drapery. Where he assisted, the monogram, a cross with two rings and +the joint names, marked the work, as en a panel of 1510 in Vienna, and +another at Geneva. + +Fra Bartolommeo only imitated Leonardo in his intense force and soft +gradations; the general thinness of colour is opposed to his system. He +followed him, however, in his method of painting his shadows with the +brush, instead of "hatching" them; he used the same yellowish ground, +and "sfumato," [Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for a History of Oil +Painting_, vol. ii. chap. iv.] _i.e._ the imperceptible softening of the +transition in half-lights and shadows; it was effected by glazes, and is +not adapted to a thin substance. The great mistake in Fra Bartolommeo's +system was the preparing his paintings like cartoons, and using +asphaltum or lamp-black for outlines and shadows; this in process of +time destroys the super-colour, and gives a general blackness to the +painting. + +The same kind of talk went on here as in modern studios. When the +frame-maker came, Fra Bartolommeo would be vexed to see how much of his +work was hidden beneath the massive cornice, and would vow to dispense +with frames altogether, which he did in his _S. Sebastian_ and _S. +Mark_, by painting an architectural niche round the subject like a +carving in relief. + +The first work begun at the convent studio was the picture for Father +Dalgano of Venice, the subject of which is the _Eternal Father in +Heaven_, surrounded by seraphs and angels. Perhaps in this we have the +source of the motive of Albertinelli's _Annunciation_. The colouring is +more brilliant than any of the Frate's works before his visit to Venice. +Vasari says that in this picture Giorgione himself could not have +surpassed him in brilliancy. The saints, although nearly level with the +ground, are given celestial rank by the cherubs and clouds below them. +Fra Bartolommeo was dissatisfied with his angels, which seemed merely +lovely children, and seeking other forms, he thought to picture them +better under shapes which at a distance seem only clouds, but nearer are +full of angels' faces, as in the _S. Bernard_. But this idea, not having +aesthetic beauty, was also abandoned. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _I +Puristi ed Accademici_.] + +The monks of S. Pietro at Murano did not hasten to claim their picture, +but sent two friars to negotiate about the price; they failed to agree, +and the work is now in the Church of S. Romano in Lucca. + +Lucca has another exquisite picture of the same year in the Cathedral +of S. Martino, a _Madonna and Child_--a lovely ideal of joyful +infancy--beneath a veil suspended above her head by two angels. S. John +Baptist and S. Stephen support this airy composition like pillars, their +figures showing in strong relief against the dark shades; the whole +picture is intensely soft, and yet the outlines are perfectly clear. +This is valued at sixty ducats in the Libri di San Marco. + +Next followed the _Virgin and Child with four Saints_, in S. Marco, +which is so fine that it has been taken for a Raphael, although, owing +to the use of lamp-black, it has now become very much darkened. + +The _Holy Family_ which he painted for Filippo di Averardo Salviati, +and which is now in Earl Cowper's collection at Panshanger, is an almost +Raphaelesque work, and attains the greatest excellence in art. The +composition is his favourite triangle, touched in with the flowing lines +of the mother seated on the ground with the two children before her. S. +Joseph is in the background. The greatest softness of flesh tints must +have been perceptible when new, for, "in spite of the abrasions produced +by time, the delicate tones brought out by transparent glazes fused one +over another are apparent." The landscape with an echo subject of +the flight into Egypt is thought by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to be by +Albertinelli. + +In 1510 the partners had a large order from Giuliano da Gagliano, who, +on the 2nd November, 1510, and 14th January, 1511, paid, in two rates, +the sum of 154 ducats. The picture, which is Fra Bartolommeo's own +painting, unfortunately cannot be traced. + +In 1511 a long list of works are enumerated--a _Nativity_, valued two +ducats, a _Christ bearing the Cross_, and an _Annunciation_, sold to the +Gonfaloniere for six ducats--pictures which are dispersed in England, +Pavia, &c.; but the masterpiece of the time is the _Marriage of S. +Catherine_, now in the Louvre. The Florentine government bought it for +300 ducats in 1512, to present to Jacques Hurault, Bishop of Autun, who +came to Florence as envoy of Louis XII. He left it to his cathedral +at Autun, from whence, at the Revolution, it passed to the Louvre. +[Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, lib. iii. ch. iv. p. 77. Crowe +and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 452.] +Before it was sent away, Fra Bartolommeo made a replica of it, which +is now in the Pitti Palace. There is his favourite canopy supported by +angels; in this case they are beautifully foreshortened. The Virgin is +seated on a pedestal, holding by one arm an exquisitely moulded child +Jesus of about four years old, who is espousing S. Catherine of Siena, +kneeling at His feet on the left. A semicircle of saints group on each +side of the Virgin, and two angels, with musical instruments, are at +her feet; the upturned face of one is exquisitely foreshortened. The +S. George in armour is a powerful figure; and in S. Bartholomew, on +the left, is the same grand feeling which he afterwards brought to +perfection in S. Mark. The grace of the Virgin's figure is not to be +surpassed; if Raphael's Madonnas have more sentiment, this has more +dignified grace. He has remembered Leonardo's precept, "that the two +figures of a group should not look the same way"; the contrast of the +flowing lines in these two forms is very lovely. The same contrast of +lines, and yet balance of form, is carried out in the two S. Catherines +who form the pyramid on each side of her, and in the varied characters +of the encircling group of saints. The deleterious use of lampblack has +spoiled the colouring; it, moreover, hangs in a bad light at the Pitti +Palace. + +The original subject at the Louvre differs only in a few particulars +from this--the Virgin's hand is on the child's head instead of his arm, +and there are trifling differences in the grouping of the saints, +the semicircle being more rigidly kept. In this the flesh is thin +and uncracked, seeming imbedded in the surrounding colours; the lake +draperies are laid so thinly on the light ground, that the sketch can be +seen through the colour. [Footnote: Eastlake, _Materials for a History +of Oil Painting_, vol. ii. chap. iv. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of the +two paintings as unconnected with each other, and mention the Pitti one +as having unaccountably returned there after having been given to some +bishop. Is it not possible that the gift to a bishop refers to the +painting in the Louvre, and that the other is the replica spoken of by +Vasari, vol. ii. p. 452?] + +There is a fine painting in the church of S. Caterina of Pisa, in +the chapel of the Mastiani family, Michele Mastiani having given the +commission, and paid thirty ducats, in October, 1511. It represents +the _Madonna and Child_ seated on a base; the action is quiet and +yet vivacious; she is supported on each side by S. Peter and S. Paul, +figures as large as life, and even more noble than the ones in Rome. The +colouring has been much injured by a fire in the seventeenth century, +but is robust and harmonious. It is dated 1511. + +On the 26th of November, 1510, Fra Bartolommeo had a commission from +Pier Soderini, then Gonfaloniere, to paint a picture for the Council +Hall. This was an unfortunate order; for Michelangelo and Leonardo da +Vinci had both been commissioned, neither of them finishing the works. +Fra Bartolommeo's forms the third uncompleted painting; it exists still +in the form of a half prepared picture, the design being only shadowed +in monochrome, and this in spite of the payment on account of 100 gold +ducats in October, 1513. [Footnote: See Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, +documenti 5 and 6, vol ii. p. 603.] The reason of this is difficult +to assign, but it might lie in the fact that in 1512 Pier Soderini was +deposed and exiled by Giuliano de' Medici, who assumed the government. +Another reason may have been the failure of Fra Bartolommeo's health +after his journey to Rome. + +In 1512 Santi Pagnini came back from Siena as prior of S. Marco, and he +having no love for Albertinelli, and perhaps a too jealous affection +for the artist Monk, caused the partnership to be dissolved, much to +Mariotto's sorrow. The stock, of which a full list is given by Padre +Marchese, was divided, each taking the pictures in which they had most +to do. The properties--amongst which were the lay figures, easels, +casts, sketches, blocks of porphyry to grind colours on, &c. [Footnote: +Padre Marchese, vol. ii. pp. 184, 185.]--were to be left for Fra +Bartolommeo's use till his death, when they were to be divided between +his heirs and Albertinelli. + +Mariotto returned disheartened to paint in his solitary studio. A +specimen of this period is the _Adam and Eve_, now at Castle Howard, +which is said to have been sketched in by Fra Bartolommeo. Eve stands +beneath the serpent-entwined tree, hesitating between the demon's +temptations and Adam's persuasions; the feeling and action are perfectly +expressed, the landscape is minute, but has plenty of atmosphere and +good colouring. In the same collection is a _Sacrifice of Abraham_, in +his best style. The drawing of the father, reluctantly holding his knife +to the throat of the boy, is extremely true. Munich possesses a fine +_Annunciation_. Characteristic saints support the composition on each +side, the nude S. Sebastian being a markworthy study; an angel at his +side presents the palm of martyrdom. The picture has suffered much from +bad cleaning. + +In March, 1513, Albertinelli was commissioned by the Medici to paint +their arms, in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papacy. He made a +fine allegorical circular picture, in which the arms were supported by +the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CLOSE OF LIFE. A.D. 1514--1517. + + +It is probable that the dissolution of partnership marked the time of +Fra Bartolommeo's visit to Rome. Fra Mariano Fetti, once a lay brother +of S. Marco, who had gone over to the Medici after Savonarola's death, +and had kept so much in favour with Pope Leo X. as to obtain the office +of the Seals (del Piombo), [Footnote: An office for appending seals +to papal documents. Fra Mariano Fetti was elected to it in 1514, after +Bramante, the architect; Sebastiano del Piombo succeeded him.] was +pleased to be considered a patron of art; and welcoming Fra Bartolommeo +to Rome, he gave him a commission for two large figures of S. Peter and +S. Paul for his church of S. Silvestro. The cartoons of these pictures +are now in the Belle Arti of Florence; they are grand and majestic +figures, admirably draped. S. Peter holds his keys and a book; S. +Paul rests on his sword. In executing them in colour, he made some +improvements, especially in the head and hand of S. Peter, but he did +not remain long enough in Rome to finish them. "The colour of the first +(S. Peter) is reddish and rather opaque, the shadows of the head being +taken up afresh, and the extremities being by another painter. The head +of the second (S. Paul) is corrected ... but the tone is transparent, +and the execution exclusively that of Fra Bartolommeo. Whoever may have +been employed on the S. Peter, we do not fancy Raphael to have been +that person." This is the opinion of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, [Footnote: +_History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 460.] who, however, seem +to have little faith in any works of the Frate at Rome. Against this we +have the chronicles of quaint old Vasari and Rosini; besides Baldinucci +(ch. iv. p. 83), who says, "Raphael gave great testimony of his esteem +when, in after years, he employed his own brush in Rome to finish a work +begun by Fra Bartolommeo in that city and left imperfect." + +His reason for leaving it imperfect was that of ill-health, the air of +Rome not agreeing with him. It seems he brought home _malaria_, which +never entirely left his system, the low fever returning every year, and +being only mitigated by a change to mountain air. He was well enough +at times to resume painting, but never in full health again. That very +summer he was sent to the Hospice of Sta. Maria Maddalena in Pian di +Mugnone, "dove pure non stette in ozio," [Footnote: Rosini, _Storia +della Pittura_, chap, xxvii. p. 245.] where he did not remain idle. +The Hospice stands on a high hill, just the place for Roman fever to +disappear as if by magic for a time, and the patient, relieved of +his lassitude, set to work with energy, aided by Fra Paolino and Fra +Agostino. Many of his frescoes still remain, one of which is a beautiful +_Madonna_, on the wall of the infirmary, which has since been sawn away +from the wall and placed in the students' chapel in San Marco, Florence. +[Footnote: A document of the Hospice records these paintings, and dates +them 10th of July, 1514. Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol. ii. p. +610.] + +He returned to Florence for the winter, and with renewed vigour produced +his _San Sebastian_, a splendid study from the nude, which shows the +influence upon him of Michelangelo's paintings in Rome. The picture +was hung in San Marco, but its influence not proving elevating to the +sensuous minds of the Florentines, it was removed to the chapter-house, +and Gio Battista della Palla, the dealer who bought so many of the best +pictures of the time, purchased it to send to the King of France. Its +subsequent fate is not known, although Monsieur Alaffre, of Toulouse, +boasts of its possession. He says his father bought three paintings +which, in the time of the Revolution, had been taken from the chapel of +a royal villa near Paris [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., vol. +ii. note p. 119.], one of which is the _S. Sebastian_. In design and +attitude it corresponds to the one described by Vasari, the saint being +in a niche, surrounded by a double cornice. The left arm is bound; the +right, with its cord hanging, is upraised in attitude of the faith, so +fully expressed in the beautiful face. Three arrows are fixed in the +body, which is nude except a slight veil across the loins; an angel, +also nude, holds the palm to him. Connoisseurs do not think this +painting equal in merit to the other works of Fra Bartolommeo. It is +true it may have been overrated at the time, for the Frate's chief +excellence lay in the grandeur of his drapery; the test of authenticity +for a nude study from him would lie more in the colouring and handling +than in form. + +In the early part of 1515 Fra Bartolommeo went to pay his old friend +Santi Pagnini, the Oriental scholar, a visit at the convent of San +Romano, in Lucca, of which he was now prior, passing by Pistoja on +February 17th to sign a contract for an altar-piece to be placed in the +church of San Domenico--a commission from Messer Jacopo Panciatichi. The +price was fixed at 100 gold ducats, and the subject to be the Madonna +and Child, with SS. Paul, John Baptist, and Sebastian. On his arrival +at Lucca he was soon busy with his great work, the _Madonna della +Misericordia_, for the church of San Romano. The composition of this +is full and harmonious. A populace of all ages and conditions, grouped +around the throne of the Madonna, beg her prayers; she, standing up, +seems to gather all their supplications in her hands and offer them up +to heaven, from which, as a vision, Christ appears from a mass of +clouds in act of benediction. Amongst the crowd of supplicants are some +exquisite groups. Sublime inspiration and powerful expression are shown +in the whole work. On his return he stayed again at Pistoja, where +he painted a fresco of a _Madonna_ on a wall of the convent of San +Domenico; this, which has since been sawn from the wall, is at present +in the church of the same convent, and though much injured, is a very +light and tender bit of colouring and expression. It would seem that the +altar-piece for the same church, spoken of above, was never finished, as +no traces of it are to be found. + +In October, 1515, we again find him at Pian di Mugnone; no doubt the +summer heats had induced a return of his fever. Here, again improving in +health, he painted a charming _Annunciation_ in fresco, full of life and +eagerness on the part of the angel, and joy on the Virgin. He did not +remain long, for before the end of the autumn he returned to visit the +home of his youth and see his paternal uncle, Giusto, at Lastruccio, +near Prato. We can imagine the meeting between him and his relatives, +and how the little Paolo, son of Vito, being told to guess who he was, +said, "Bis Zio Bartolommeo," [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, &c., +vol. ii. chap. vii. pp. 139, 140.] for which he was much applauded. +And when all the country relatives hoped to see him again soon, how the +Frate said that would be uncertain, because the King of France had sent +for him, and with what awe and family pride they would have looked +at him! But instead of going to France for the glory of art, he +was returning to Florence to sorrow. His life-long friend, Mariotto +Albertinelli, had been brought home on a litter from La Quercia, near +Viterbo, and now lay on his death-bed; and what his life had lacked in +religion, the prayers of his friend would go far to atone for at his +death. + +While Fra Bartolommeo had been ailing, Albertinelli had also paid his +visit to the great city, and seen the two great rivals there. He went +from Viterbo, where he had been to finish colouring a work of the +Frate's left unfinished, and also to paint some frescoes in the convent +of La Quercia, near that town. Being so near Borne, he was seized with a +great desire to see it, and left his picture for that purpose. Probably +Fra Bartolommeo had given him an introduction to his friend and +patron, for Fra Mariano Fetti gave Albertinelli a commission to paint a +_Marriage of S. Catherine_ for his church, which he completed, and then +left Rome at once. Nothing is known of the impressions made on him by +the works of the two great masters, and unfortunately his death occurred +too soon after for his own style to have given any evidence of their +influence. + +A Giostra, at Viterbo, proved a very strong attraction to his +pleasure-loving mind. This "Giostra," which the translators of Vasari +seem to find so "obscure," [Footnote: Vasari's _Lives_, vol. ii. p. +470.] was no doubt one of those festivals revived by the Medici, in +which mounted cavaliers ride with a lance at a suspended Saracen's head, +striking it at full gallop. Desirous of appearing to advantage before +the eyes of her whom he had elected his queen, he forgot his mature age, +and rushed into the jousts with all the energies of a youth, but alas! +fell ill from over-exertion. Fearing the malarious air was not good +for him, he had a litter made, and was taken to Florence, where Fra +Bartolommeo placed himself at his bedside, soothing his last moments, +and leading him as far heavenward as he could. When Albertinelli died, +on the 5th of November, 1515, his friend followed him to an honourable +interment in S. Piero Maggiore. + +After Albertinelli's death, the Frate soared to greater heights of +genius than before. + +The year 1516 marks the birth of his grandest masterpieces, first the +picture in the Pitti Palace called by Cavalcaselle a _Resurrection_, but +which is more truly an allegorical impersonation of the Saviour. It was +ordered by a rich merchant, Salvadore Billi, to place in a chapel +which Pietro Roselli had adorned with marbles in the church of the +"Annunciata." He paid 100 ducats in gold for it. + +In its original state the picture was a complete allegory of _Christ +as the centre of Religion_, between two prophets in heaven, and four +apostles, two at each side--beneath him two angels support the world. +The prophets have been removed, and are placed in the Tribune of the +Uffizi; thus the picture as it stands loses half its meaning. The Christ +is a fine nude figure standing in a niche, and in it Fra Bartolommeo has +solved the problem of obtaining complete relief almost in monochrome, so +little do the lights of the flesh tints, and the warm yellowish tinge of +the background differ from each other. All the positive colour is in +the drapery of the saints, one in red and green, and another in red and +blue. The two angels are exquisitely drawn, and contrast well in their +natural innocence with the sentimental pair in Raphael's _Madonna of the +Baldacchino_ on the same wall of the Pitti Palace. + +San Marco was rich in frescoes of the _Madonna and Child_, two of which +are still in the chapel of the convent, and two in the Belle Arti. Some +of these are charming in expression, the children clinging round the +mother's neck in a true childish _abandon_ of affection. What a tender +feeling these monk artists had for the spirit of maternity! Perhaps by +being debarred from the contemplation of maternal love in its humanity, +they more clearly comprehended its divinity. Look at the little +round-backed nestling child in Fra Angelico's _Madonna della Stella_, +imperfect as it is in form, the whole spirit of love is in it. He does +not give only the mother-love for the child, but the child-love for +the mother, which is more divine, and the same feeling is seen in the +_Madonna_ of Fra Bartolommeo. + +This year, 1516, also marks a journey to a hermitage of his order at +Lecceto, between Florence and Pisa. Here he painted a _Deposition from +the Cross_ on the wall of the Hospice, and two heads of Christ on two +tiles above the doors. + +A great many of his works are in private collections in Florence; one of +the most lovely is the _Pieta_, painted for Agnolo Doni, and now in the +Corsini Gallery at Rome. + +All this time the great painting of the _Enthronement of the Virgin_, +ordered by Pier Soderini, before his exile, was still unfinished. He +seems to have taken it in hand again about this time, but being attacked +with another access of fever, again left it, and the painting, shadowed +in with black, remains in the Uffizi. Lanzi writes of it that, imperfect +as it is, it may be regarded as a true lesson in art, and bears the +same relation to painting as the clay model to the finished statue, +the genius of the inventor being impressed upon it. Messrs. Crowe and +Cavalcaselle [Footnote: _History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii. +p. 455.] call this a _Conception_, but Vasari's old name of the _Patron +Saints of Florence_ seems to fit it best. S. John the Baptist, S. +Reparata, S. Zenobio, &c., stand in an adoring group around the heavenly +powers, S. Anna above the Virgin and infant Christ forming a +charming pyramidal group in the midst. The whole thing is one of Fra +Bartolommeo's richest compositions. The centre of the three monks on the +left is said to be a portrait of Fra Bartolommeo himself, and to be +the original from which the only known portrait of him is taken (_see +Frontispiece_). Fra Bartolommeo left another work also unfinished, an +apotheosis of a saint, which is now at Panshanger. This is supposed +to have been a small ideal prepared for a picture to celebrate the +canonisation of S. Antonino, which Leo X. had almost promised the +brethren of S. Marco on his triumphant entry in 1515. The work, if +it had been painted in the larger form, would have been a perfect +masterpiece of composition, "a very Beethoven symphony in colour," if +we may judge from the sketch at Panshanger, where a living crowd groups +round the bier of the archbishop, and life, earnestness, harmony, and +richness, are all intense. + +So ill was Fra Bartolommeo in 1517 that he was ordered to take the baths +at San Filippo, thence he went for the last time to Pian di Mugnone, +where he painted a _Vision of the Saviour to Mary Magdalen_, above the +door of the chapel. The two figures, nearly life-size, are at the door +of the cave sepulchre. Mary has just recognised her Lord, and in her +ecstasy flings herself forward on her knees before him. The Saviour is a +dignified figure semi-nude, with a white veil wrapped around him. + +In the Pitti Palace, a charming _Pieta_ of Fra Bartolommeo's occupies a +place near the _Pieta_ of Andrea del Sarto, the two pictures forming +a most interesting contrast of style. The kneeling Virgin and S. +John support the head of the prostrate Saviour, S. Catherine and Mary +Magdalen weep at his feet, the latter in an agony of grief crouches +prone on the ground hiding her face. The colouring is extremely rich, +broad masses of full-tone melting softly into deep shadows. The handling +in the flesh-tones of the dead Saviour, as well as the modelling of +form, are most masterly. It is generally supposed that this was the +picture which Bugiardini is said to have coloured after the master's +death; but there is much divergence among Italian authors both as to +whether this was the painting spoken of, and also as to the meaning +of Vasari's words, he using the phrase "finished" in one place, and +"coloured" in another. For charm of colouring and depth of expression, +the _Pieta_ is the most lovely of all the Frate's works; therefore +Bugiardini who was _mediocre_, could not have outdone his great master. +It was not _coloured_ by him. Bocchi [Footnote: Bocchi, _Bellezze di +Firenze_, p. 304.] says there were two other figures, S. Peter and S. +Paul, in the picture, where a meaningless black shadow stretches across +the background; but they were erased by the antique restorer because +they were "troppo deboli." Is it not likely that if Bugiardini had any +hand in the work, it was to finish these figures? + +Returning in the autumn to Florence, Fra Bartolommeo caught a severe +cold, the effects of which were heightened by eating fruit, and after +four days' extreme illness he died on October 8th, 1517, aged 42. + +The monks felt his death intensely, and buried him with great honour in +San Marco. + +He left to art the most valuable legacy possible--a long list of +masterpieces in which religious feeling is expressed in the very +highest language. In all his works there is not a line or tint which +transgresses against either the sentiment of devotion, or the rules of +art. He stands for ever, almost on a level with the great trio of the +culmination, "possessing Leonardo's grace of colour and more than +his industry, Michelangelo's force with more softness, and Raphael's +sentiment with more devotion;" yet with just the inexpressible want of +that supernatural genius which would have placed him above them all. His +legacy to the world is a series of lessons from the very first setting +of his ideal on paper to its finished development. The germ exists in +the charcoal sketches at the Belle Arti and Uffizi; the under-shadowing +of the subject is seen in the _Patron Saints_ at the Uffizi. + +Many of his drawings are not to be traced. Some were used by Fra +Paolino, his pupil, who at his death passed them to Suor Plautilla +Nelli, a nun in Sta. Caterina, Florence (born 1523, died 1587). When +Baldinucci wrote his work, he said 500 of these were in the possession +of Cavaliere Gaburri. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +PART I. + +SCHOLARS OF FRA BARTOLOMMEO. + + +Of these, little more than the names have come down to us. Vasari speaks +of Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabbriele Rustici, and Fra Paolo Pistojese; +Padre Marchese mentions two monks, Fra Andrea and Fra Agostino. Of +these, the two first never became proficient, and have left no works +behind them. Fra Andrea seems to have been more a journeyman than +scholar, being employed to prepare the panels and lay on the gilding. +Fra Agostino assisted his master, and Fra Paolo in the subordinate parts +of a few frescoes, especially at Luco in the Mugnone. Fra Paolo is +the most known, but chiefly as a far-off imitator of Fra Bartolommeo, +without his mellowness of execution. His pictures are mostly from his +master's designs, which were left him as a legacy, and this ensures a +good composition. + +He was born at Pistoja in 1490; his father, Bernardino d' Antonio del +Signoraccio, a second-rate artist, taught him the first principles +of art. His knowledge of drawing caused him to be noticed by Fra +Bartolommeo, when at a very early age he entered the order. He was +removed from Prato to San Marco, Florence, in 1503; and here he found +another friend who assisted his artistic tendencies. This was Fra +Ambrogio della Robbia, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in. +chap. ii. p. 246.] who taught him to model in clay; a specimen of his +work exists in the Church of Sta. Maddalena in Pian di Mugnone, where +are two statues of S. Domenico and Mary Magdalen by his hand. + +His best work is a _Crucifixion_ at Siena, dated 1516, which has been +thought to be Fra Bartolommeo's; but though that master was asked to go +and paint it as a memorial of a certain Messer Cherubino Ridolfo, +his many occupations prevented his accepting the commission, and his +disciples, Fra Paolo and Fra Agostino, went in his place. [Footnote: +Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in. chap. ii. p. 251.] Possibly the +master supplied the design, which is very harmonious. The Virgin and S. +John stand on each side of the cross, and Saint Catherine of Siena and +Mary Magdalen are prostrate before it. One or two of the female saints +are pleasing, but the nude figure of Christ is hard, exaggerated, and +faulty in drawing. + +The artists got thirty-five lire for the work, though the record in the +archives allows that it was worth more. There is an _Assumption_ in the +Belle Arti of Florence, of which the design is Fra Bartolommeo's, but +the colouring Fra Paolo's. It was painted for the Dominican monks at +Santa Maria del Sasso, near Bibbiena. The colouring is hard and weak, +the shadows heavy, and not fused well in the half tints. Two monks on +the left are tolerably life-like, probably they were drawn from living +models; the S. Catherine on the right is very inferior. + +The Belle Arti also possesses a _Deposition from the Cross_, which Fra +Bartolommeo had sketched out and left uncoloured at Pian di Mugnone. In +1519 Fra Paolo finished it, and it presents the usual disparity between +the composition and colouring, the former being good, the latter weak +and crude. His best known works are a Nativity in the Palazzo Borghese, +a _Madonna and Child with S. John Baptist_ in the Sciarra Colonna, also +in Rome; a _Madonna and Child with S. John_ in the Corsini Gallery, +Florence, and another of the same subject in the Antinori Palace. He +painted also at San Gimignano, Pian di Mugnone, and Pistoja, and died of +sunstroke in 1547. + +He had as a follower a Suor Plautilla Nelli, born 1523, daughter of a +noble Florentine, Piero di Luca Nelli. She took the vows at the age +of fourteen, in the convent of S. Caterina di Siena, in Via Larga (now +Cavour), Florence. Her sister, Suor Petronilla, in the same convent, +was a writer, and her life of Savonarola is still extant. Suor Plautilla +taught herself to paint. Legend says, that in order to study the nude +for a Christ, she drew from the corpse of a nun--which might account for +the weak stiffness of her design. Fra Paolo, though there is no record +of his having taught her, left her as a legacy the designs and cartoons +of Fra Bartolommeo, one of which, the _Pieta_, she has evidently made +use of in the painting in the Belle Arti. The grouping is that of the +_Pieta_ of Fra Bartolommeo, now in the Pitti, of which she must have +had the original sketch, for she has put in the two saints in the +background, which have been painted out in that of the Frate, but we +will give her the entire credit of the colouring, which is extremely +crude; the contrasting blues and yellows are in inharmonious tones, the +shading harsh, and the whole picture wanting in chiaroscuro. The Corsini +Gallery, Florence, has a _Virgin and Child_ by her. + + + + +PART II. + + +The scholars of Mariotto Albertinelli were much more important in the +annals of art, the principal ones being Bugiardini, Francia Bigio, +Visino, and Innocenza d' Imola. + +Giuliano Bugiardini should be called the assistant rather than the +scholar of Albertinelli, being older than his master. He was born in +1471 in a suburb outside the Via Faenza, Florence, and was placed in +the shop of Domenico Ghirlandajo, where his acquaintance with +Michelangelo--begun in the Medici Gardens--ripened into intimacy, and +he was employed by him in the Sistine Chapel. Giuliano had that happily +constructed mind which, with an ineffable content in its own works, +will pass through life perfectly happy in the feeling that in reaching +mediocrity it has achieved success. Not only wanting talent to produce +better works, he lacked also the faculty of perceiving where his own +were faulty, and having a great aptitude for copying the works of +others, he felt himself as great as the original artists. Michelangelo +was always amused with his naive self-conceit, and kept up a friendship +with him for many years. He even went so far as to sit to Bugiardini for +his likeness, at the request of Ottaviano de' Medici. Giuliano, having +painted and talked nonsense for two hours, at last exclaimed, to his +sitter's great relief, "Now, Michelangelo, come and look at yourself; I +have caught your very expression." But what was Michelangelo's horror to +see himself depicted with eyes which were neither straight nor a pair! +The worthy artist looked from his work to the original, and declared he +could see no difference between them, on which Michelangelo, shrugging +his shoulders, said, "It must be a defect of nature," and bade his +friend go on with it. This charming portrait was presented to Ottaviano +de' Medici, with that of _Pope Clement VII._, copied from Sebastian del +Piombo, and is now in the Louvre. Bugiardini's works always take the +style of other masters. There is a _Madonna_ in the Uffizi, and one +in the Leipsic Museum, both in Leonardo's style, with his defects +exaggerated. The former is a sickly woman in a sentimental attitude, +the child rather heavy, the colouring is bright and well fused; he has +evidently adopted the method which he had seen Albertinelli use in his +studio. + +During a stay in Bologna he painted a _Madonna and Saints_ as an +altar-piece for the church of S. Francesco, besides a _Marriage of S. +Catherine_, now in the Bologna Pinacoteca. The composition of this is +not without merit; the child Jesus seated on his mother's knees, gives +the ring to S. Catherine, little S. John stands at the Virgin's feet, S. +Anthony on her left. The colouring is less pleasing, the flesh tints too +red and raw. + +A round picture in the Zambeccari Gallery, Bologna, shows him in +Michelangelo's style. The Virgin is reading on a wooded bank, but looks +up to see the infant Christ greet the approaching S. John Baptist; this +is carefully, if rather hardly, painted. The lights in the Saviour's +hair have been touched in with gold. The time of his stay in Bologna is +uncertain, but in 1525 he was in Florence, and drawing designs for the +Ringhiera with Andrea del Sarto. There is a document in the archives, +proving that on October 5th, 1526 Bugiardini was paid twenty florins +in gold for his share of the work. He obtained some rank as a portrait +painter, in spite of his failure in that of Michelangelo; and had +commissions from many of the celebrities of Florence. It was in original +composition that his powers failed him. Messer Palla Rucellai ordered a +picture from him of the _Martyrdom of S. Catherine_, which he began with +the intention of making it a very fine work indeed. He spent several +years in representing the wheels, the lightnings and fires in a +sufficiently terrible aspect, but had to beg Michelangelo's assistance +in drawing the men who were to be killed by those heavenly flames; his +design was to have a row of soldiers in the foreground, all knocked down +in different attitudes. His friend took up the charcoal and sketched +in a splendid group of agonised nude figures; but these were beyond his +power to shade and colour, and Tribolo made him a set of models in clay, +in the attitudes given by Michelangelo, and from these he finished the +work; but the great master's hand was never apparent in it. Bugiardini +died at the age of seventy-five. + +Of Francesco Bigi, commonly called Francia Bigio or Franciabigio, so +much is said in the following life of Andrea del Sarto, that a slight +sketch will suffice here. He was the son of Cristofano, and was born in +1482. His early studies were made in the Brancacci Chapel, and the +Papal Hall--where he drew from the cartoons in 1505-6, and the studio +of Mariotto Albertinelli, from which he passed to his partnership with +Andrea del Sarto in 1509. Thus it is that his first style was marked by +the influence of Mariotto and Fra Bartolommeo, while in his later works +he approximated more to Andrea del Sarto. + +Two of his early paintings were placed in the church of S. Piero +Maggiore, one a _Virgin and Child_ of great beauty. The infant clasps +its arms round its mother's neck--a charming attitude--which suggests +a playful effort to hide from the young S. John, who is running towards +him, by nestling closer to the dearer resting place. The picture is now +in the Uffizi and has been long known as _Raphael's Madonna del Pozzo_. +[Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, vol. iii. +chap. xv. p. 501.] No greater testimony to Francia Bigio's excellence +can be given than the frequency of his works being mistaken for those of +Raphael, but the influence of his contemporaries was always strong upon +him. The _Annunciation_, painted for the same church, is also described +by Vasari as a carefully designed work, though somewhat feeble in +manner. The angel is lightly poised in air, the Virgin kneeling before a +foreshortened building. The picture was lost sight of in the demolition +of the church, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Crowe and +Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, Vol. iii. p. 500.] believe they +have discovered it in a picture at Turin, the authorship of which is +avowedly doubtful. They mention, however, a celestial group of the +Eternal Father in a cherub-peopled cloud, sending his blessing in the +form of a dove, with a ray of glory. Surely if this be the one described +by Vasari [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 336] so minutely, he would not +have omitted a part of the subject so important to the picture. + +In 1509 we may presumably date the partnership with Andrea del Sarto, +that being about the time when they began to work together in the +Scalzo. Francia Bigio painted some frescoes in the church of S. Giobbe, +behind the Servite Monastery. A _Visitation_ was in a tabernacle at the +corner of the church, and subjects from Job's life on a pilaster within +it: these have long ago disappeared. The altar-piece of the _Madonna +and Job_, which he painted in oil for the same church, has been more +fortunate, as it still exists in the Tuscan School in the Uffizi. Though +much injured, it shows his earlier style. The _Calumny of Apelles_ in +the same gallery is a curious picture. It is hard and dull in colouring, +the prevailing tone being a heavy drab; there are several nude figures, +of doubtful forms as to beauty of drawing, the flesh is painted in a +smooth glazed style, without relief or tenderness. + +Francia Bigio shines more in fresco than in oil; his hardness is less +apparent, and he gains in freedom and brilliance of colouring in the +more congenial medium. The finest of his frescoes is, unfortunately, +spoiled by his own hand, and remains as a memorial of his genius and +hasty temper. I allude to the _Sposalizio_ (A.D. 1513) in the courtyard +of the Servite church, where Andrea did his series of frescoes from the +life of Filippo Benizzi. The composition is grand and carefully thought +out, the colouring bright and pleasing; perhaps in emulating Andrea's +luxurious style of drapery he has gone a little too far, and crowded +the folds. The bridegroom is a noble figure, and shows in his face his +gladness in the blossoming rod. A man in the foreground breaks a +stick across his knees. The commentators of Vasari have taken this to +emblematize the Roman Catholic legend of the Virgin having given rods to +each of her suitors, and chosen him whose rod blossomed. Graceful women +surround the Virgin, but there is perhaps a too marked sentimentality +about these which suggests a striving after Raphael's style. There is, +however, a great touch of nature in a mother with a naughty child, who +sits crying on the ground, much to the mother's distress. Francia Bigio +commenced this in Andrea's absence in France, which so excited his +former comrade's emulation that he did his _Visitation_ in great haste, +to get it uncovered as soon as Francia Bigio's. In fact, Andrea's works +were ready by the date of the annual festa of the Servites, and the +monks, being anxious to uncover all the new frescoes for that day, took +upon them to remove the mattings from that of Francia Bigio as well, +without his permission, for he wished to give a few more finishing +touches. So angry was he, on arriving in the cloister, to see a crowd of +people admiring his work in what he felt to be an imperfect condition, +that in an excess of rage he mounted on the scaffolding which still +remained, and, seizing a hammer, beat the head of the Madonna to pieces, +and ruined the nude figure breaking the rod. The monks hastened to the +scene in an uproar of remonstrance, the frantic artist's destructive +hand was stayed by the bystanders, but so deep was his displeasure that +he refused to restore the picture, and no other hand having touched +it, the fresco remains to this day a fine work mutilated. It shows him +artistically in his very best, and morally, at his worst, phase. In +1518, while Andrea was in France, the monks of the Scalzo employed +Francia Bigio to fill two compartments in their pretty little cloister, +where Andrea had commenced his _Life of S. John Baptist_. These are +spoken of more at length in the life of that master, who on his return +took the work again in his own hands. In 1521 Bigio competed with Andrea +and Pontormo, in the Medici Villa at Poggio a Cajano; Andrea's _Caesar +receiving Tribute_ occupies one wall of the hall, and Francia Bigio's +_Triumph of Cicero_ another. The subjects were selected by the +historian, Messer Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera; it only remained for +the artists to make the most of the chosen themes. Francia Bigio filled +his background with a careful architectural perspective, and a crowd of +muscular Romans are grouped before it. This also was left unfinished +at the Pope's death, and Allori completed it in 1582. Francia Bigio, +however, did many of the gilded decorations of the hall. + +In the Dresden Gallery is a work, Scenes from the Life of David, signed +A. S., MDXXIII., and his monogram, a painting very much in the style of +Andrea del Sarto's _Life of Joseph_. Reumont [Footnote: Life of Andrea +del Sarto, p. 138 et seq.] claims it as the joint work of Andrea and +Francia Bigio, founding his opinion on the letters A. S. before the +date; but the letters mean only _Anno salutis_, and are used in very +many of Francia Bigio's signed paintings. He had the commission from Gio +Maria Benintendi in 1523. It is one of those curious pictures which have +many scenes in one--a style which militates greatly against artistic +unity. On the right is David's palace, on the left Uriah's; David is at +his door watching Bathsheba and her maidens bathing. In the centre +is the siege of Rabbah; another well-draped group represents David +receiving Uriah's homage. In the foreground David gives wine to Uriah +at a banquet. There is careful painting and ingenious composition, but +a less finished manner of colouring than in Andrea's Joseph, which was +painted about the same time for Pier Borgherini. + +Like Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Francia Bigio fell off in his later style, +partly because his ambition failed him, and also because he began to +look on art as a means of livelihood--a motive which is certain death to +high art. + +He was especially celebrated as a portrait painter, several of his works +having been attributed to Raphael. Among these are one at the Louvre and +one at the Pitti Palace, both portraits of a youth in tunic and black +cap, with long hair flowing over his shoulders; one in the National +Gallery, formerly in Mr. Fuller Maitland's collection; the portrait of a +jeweller, dated A. S., MDXVI. in Lord Yarborough's gallery; that in the +Berlin Museum, of a man sitting at a desk, dated 1522; and the likeness +of Pier Francesco de Medici at Windsor--all of which bear Francia +Bigio's monogram, often with the letters A. S. (_Anno salutis_) before +the date. He died on January 14th, 1525. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO. A.D. 1483--1560. + + +RIDOLFO (DI DOMENICO) BIGORDI, called GHIRLANDAJO, &c., was born on the +4th of January, 1483. Although not strictly a scholar, he is one of +Fra Bartolommeo's principal followers. When quite a child he lost his +father, the famous Domenico, who died of fever, on January 11th, +1494; his mother and uncle Benedetto only lived a few years after; +and Ridolfo, with his three sisters and two brothers, was left to the +guardianship of his uncle Davide. + +Ridolfo was the only one who chose the family profession, and he became +the fourth painter of the name of Ghirlandajo. + +Davide was not a perfect artist, although a good mosaicist, as his works +in the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence show, but he was +for many years Ridolfo's only instructor. As the boy grew up Ridolfo +frequented those public schools of art before spoken of, the Brancacci +Chapel, and the study of the cartoons in the Papal Hall. Here he secured +the friendship not only of Granacci and Pier di Cosimo, but of Raphael +himself, with whom he visited Fra Bartolommeo in his convent. + +Raphael permitted Ridolfo to assist him in a Madonna for Siena, and +tried to persuade him to accompany him to Rome; but Ridolfo, like a true +Florentine, declined to go "beyond sight of the Duomo." + +His first great picture was done in 1504 for the church of San Gallo. +The subject was _Christ Searing His Cross_. His uncle Benedetto had +laboured on a similar picture, now in the Louvre, but Ridolfo's is a +great improvement on this; the composition is well balanced, full +of force and animation, the weeping figures of the Maries and the +solicitude of S. Veronica are very lifelike, although he has not +entirely abolished his uncle's coarseness in the scowling, low-typed +men. The Christ and the Virgin are, on the contrary, so refined as to +induce the supposition that this force of contrast was intentional; the +landscape is rather hard and crude in tone, the flesh tints smooth, and +the handling similar to that of Credi. + +The original is now in Palazzo Antinori, Florence, but a replica, in +which he was assisted by Michele, his favourite pupil and adopted son, +is in Santo Spirito. + +Vasari speaks of a _Nativity_, painted for the Cistercian monks of +Cestello; a beautiful composition, in which the Madonna adores the holy +child, S. Joseph standing near her; S. Francis and S. Jerome kneel in +adoration; the landscape was sketched from the hills near "La Vernia," +where S. Francis received the stigmata. + +Maselli says the picture was lost when the monastery changed hands, but +Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: History of fainting, vol. in. +chap. xvi. pp. 523, 524.] believe they have found it in the Hermitage at +S. Petersburg, under Granacci's name. It is possible that the favourite +pupil of his father and Ridolfo's own friend may have assisted him. The +landscape is Raphaelesque, and might mark the time when that master +and Fra Bartolommeo influenced his style. His best manner approached so +nearly to that of the Frate, that had he continued he would have very +nearly rivalled his excellence. + +His two masterpieces are now in the Uffizi; they were painted for +the Brotherhood of S. Zenobio, 1510, to stand one on each side of +Albertinelli's _Annunciation_. One is _S. Zenobio_ (the first bishop and +patron saint of Florence) _restoring a dead child to life_; the other +the _Funeral Procession of the Saint passing the Baptistery_, where an +elm tree, which had been withered, put forth fresh leaves as the coffin +of the bishop touched it. A marble column, with a bronze tree in relief +on it, stands on the spot as a memorial of this miracle. In these two +works Ridolfo Ghirlandajo proved the power which was in him, but they +are the culmination of his art; he never surpassed, or indeed equalled +them again. His richness of colouring and deep relief equalled that of +the Frate, the animation and expression rivalled Andrea del Sarto. In +the first picture, the eagerness of the crowd, the intense feeling of +the mother, in whom grief for the dead child seems almost greater +than the hope of his resuscitation, the sturdy, solid character of the +Florentines of the Republic, are all given with a masterly hand, while a +rich blending of colour fuses the animated crowd in a harmonious unison. +In the latter, grandeur and dignity mark the group of ecclesiastics +which surrounds the archbishop's bier, the full solid falls of their +drapery show that he had well studied his father's works. + +Ridolfo's brothers became monks, Don Bartolommeo lived in the +Camaldoline Monastery of the Angeli, which Ridolfo beautified with many +works. Paolo Uccelli had adorned the Loggia with frescoed stories from +the life of S. Benedict. Ridolfo added two to the series. In one the +Saint is at table with two angels, waiting for S. Romano to send his +bread from the grotto, but the devil has cut the cord and taken it. + +Another is _S, Benedict investing a youth with the habit of the order_. +In the church of the same monastery he painted a beautiful _Madonna and +Child, with Angels_, above the holy water vase, and _S. Romualdo with +the Camaldolese Hermitage in his Hand_, in a lunette in the cloister. +All these were done as a brotherly gift, and after they were finished, +the abbot, Don Andrea Dossi, gave him a commission to paint a _Last +Supper_ in the refectory, which he did, placing the portrait of the +abbot in the corner. + +Ridolfo, like his father, regarded art rather as a means of livelihood +than with any aesthetic feelings, and this is probably the reason of his +never attaining true excellence. His "bottega" was really a shop where +any one might order a work of art, or of artisanship, and he gave as +much attention to painting a banner for a procession as to composing an +altar-piece. He had a great many assistants, whom he called on for help +in various undertakings. They assisted him to prepare the Medici +Halls for the reception of Pope Leo X., and later for the marriages +of Giuliano and Lorenzo, not disdaining to paint scenes for the dramas +which were then given. He painted banners, and designed costumes for the +processions of the "potenze," a festive company, the origin of which is +uncertain, but dating certainly from the Middle Ages. Each quarter of +the city had an emperor, lords, and dignitaries, each of whom carried +his banner or emblazonment. Grand processions, tournaments, and feasts +were held once a year, on S. John's Day, by the potenze. + +Having assisted at the triumphs and marriages of the Medici princes, he +also furnished the funeral pomp and magnificence on the deaths of the +brothers, that of Giuliano occurring in 1516, of Lorenzo 1519. + +Lucratively it answered his purpose; the Medici gave him great honour; +he was well paid by them, and got the commission to decorate the Chapel +of the Palazzo Vecchio--a very good specimen of his fresco painting, in +which he never reached his father's excellence, although in oil he far +surpassed him. The chapel is small; the groined roof is covered with +emblematical designs on a blue ground, a Trinity in the midst with +angels bearing symbols of the passions around. The apostles and +evangelists surround this, and the principal wall has a larger fresco of +the _Annunciation_--a rather conventional rendering. + +Commissions flowed in on him to such a degree, that although he +had fifteen children, he lived to amass money and lands, to see his +daughters well married, and his sons prosperous merchants trading to +distant lands. He died on the 6th of June, 1561, and lies with his +forefathers in the church of S. Maria Novella. + + + + +ANDREA D'AGNOLO, + +CALLED ANDREA DEL SARTO. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +YOUTH AND EARLY WORKS. A.D. 1487-1511. + + +Andrea Del Sarto is a curious instance of the vital power of art, which, +like a flower forcing its way to the light through walls or rocks, will +find expression in spite of obstacles. + +Andrea the painter, "senza errori," was an artist in spite of lowering +home influences, of want of encouragement in his patrons--for his +greatest works only brought the smallest remuneration--and even in +spite of his own nature, which was material, wanting in high aims, and +deficient in ideality; yet his name lives for ever as a great master, +and his works rank close to those of the leaders of the Renaissance. + +In looking at them one sighs even in the midst of admiration, thinking +that if the hand which produced them had been guided by a spark of +divine genius instead of the finest talent, what glorious works they +would have been! The truth is that Andrea's was a receptive, rather +than an original and productive mind. His art was more imitative than +spontaneous, and this forms perhaps the difference between talent and +genius. The art of his time sunk into his mind, and was reproduced. +He lived precisely at the time of the culmination of art, when all the +highest masters were bringing forth their grandest works; therefore he +could not do otherwise than to follow the best examples. + +He gathered the experience of all--the force of Michelangelo, the +handling of Leonardo, the sentiment of Raphael, so blending them as to +form a style seemingly his own, and in execution following closely on +their excellence. + +In Giotto's or Masaccio's case the master created the art; in Andrea's +it was the art of the age which made the artist. + +The question of Andrea del Sarto's birth is a mooted one. Biadi dates +it 1478, but the register he quotes is both vague and doubtful. He +also tells a curious story of his Flemish origin. Signor Milanesi has +deduced, from the archives of Florence, an authentic pedigree from which +we learn that his remote ancestors were peasants, first at Buiano, +near Fiesole, and later at S. Ilario, near Montereggi. His grandfather, +Francesco, being a linen weaver, came to live nearer Florence; his +father, Agnolo, son of Francesco, followed the trade of a tailor--hence +Andrea's sobriquet, "del Sarto"--he took a house in Via Gualfonda, in +Florence, about 1487, with his wife Constanza, and here Andrea was born, +he being the eldest of a family of five--three girls and two boys. From +the tax papers of a few years later it is proved that Andrea was born +in 1487. His full name is Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco. It is by mistake +that he has been called Vannucchi. + +His parents were young, his father being only twenty-seven years of +age at Andrea's birth. They lived at that time in Val Fonda, where +Albertinelli had his shop, but in 1504 they removed to the popolo, or +parish, of S. Paolo. Boys were not allowed to be idle in those days, but +were apprenticed at an early age; thus Andrea, like most artists of his +time, was bound to a goldsmith. It would be interesting to investigate +the great influence of the guild of goldsmiths on the art of the +Renaissance. The reason why youths who showed a talent for design were +entered in that guild is easy to assign--it was one of the "greater" +guilds, that of the painters being a lesser one, and merged in the "Arte +degli Speziali." At seven years old he left the school where he had +learned to read and write, and entered his very youthful apprenticeship; +but he showed so much more aptitude for the designing than for the +executive part of his profession that _Giovanni Barile_, who frequented +the bottega, was induced to counsel his being trained especially as +a painter, offering himself as instructor. If Andrea, a contadino by +birth, an artisan by education, was not originally of the most refined +nature, his artistic training did not go far towards refining him. +Giovanni Barile was a coarse painter and a rough man; he had, however, +generosity enough to see that the boy was worthy of better teaching, and +got him entered in the bottega of Piero di Cosimo, who had attained +a good rank as a colourist, his eccentricities possibly adding to his +reputation. + +Accordingly in 1498, Andrea being then eleven years of age, a life of +earnest study began. Piero di Cosimo, odd and misanthropic as he was, +had yet a true appreciation of talent, and showed an earnest interest +in his pupil, giving him--with plenty of queer treatment--a thorough +training. "He was not allowed to make a line which was not perfect" +[Footnote: Rosini, _Storia della Pittura_, chap. xvii. p. 40.] while +in Piero's school. But excellent as his art teaching may have been, the +boy's morale could not have been raised more here than under the rough +but good-natured Barile. We have seen Piero di Cosimo in his youth, the +serious, absent young man, who never joked with his juniors in Cosimo +Roselli's shop; we see him now, with his youthful oddities hardened into +eccentricities, and his reserve deepened to misanthropy. No woman's hand +softened and refined his house, no cleansing broom was allowed within +his door, and no gardener's hand cleared the weeds or pruned the vines +in his garden. He so believed in nature unassisted that he took his +meals without the intervention of a cook. When the fire was lighted to +boil his size or glue he would cook fifty or sixty eggs and set them +apart in a basket, to which he had recourse when the pangs of hunger +compelled him. All this was morally very bad for a boy so young. And +then woe betide the poor little fellow if he whistled, sneezed, or made +any other noise! his nervous master would be out of temper for a day +afterwards. On wet days Piero was merrier, for he would watch the drops +splashing into the pools, and laugh as if they were fairies. Sometimes +he would take Andrea for a walk, and all at once stop and gaze at a heap +of rubbish, or mark of damp on a lichened wall, picturing all kinds of +monsters and weird scenes in its discolourations. + +No doubt he was literally carrying out Leonardo da Vinci's advice, +headed, in his treatise, "A new Art of Invention." "Look at some old +wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some old streaked +stones; you may discover several things like landscapes, battles, +clouds, humorous faces, &c., to furnish the mind with new designs." +[Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, _Treatise on Painting_.] Cosimo's mind +being fantastic, the pictures he saw were incomparably grotesque. He +delighted in drawing sea monsters, dragons, wonderful adventures, and +heathen scenes; in fact the boy could have learned neither Christian +art nor manners from him. He learned how to use his brush, however, and, +leaving Piero to his minotaurs and dragons, went off at every spare hour +to study at more congenial shrines. He copied Masaccio at the Brancacci +Chapel, and drew so earnestly from the cartoons in the Hall of the Pope +that his achievements reached the ears of Piero himself, who was not +sorry that his pupil surpassed the rest, and gave him more time for +study away from the bottega. Rosini tells us that "Fra Bartolommeo +taught him the first steps." [Footnote: _Storia della Pittura_, chap, +xxvii. p. 2.] The influence of the Frate may have reached him in two +ways. It is not unlikely that Piero di Cosimo kept up an interest in his +old fellow-pupil; and then again, as Andrea lived in Val Fonda, it is +probable he often visited Albertinelli's studio in that street, and the +friendship with Francia Bigio began before the cartoons of Michelangelo +ripened there. + +The evidence of style goes to show that the works of Albertinelli and +Fra Bartolommeo influenced him more than those of Piero. Yet though +his sphere was devotional, it was "impelled more by a material sense of +beauty than by the deep religious feeling which inspired the Frate." + +As time went on the youth in strange old Piero's studio became more +famous than his master, and felt that he could do greater things away +from the stiff method which cramped him, and the whimsicalities which +annoyed him. His friend, Francia Bigio, Mariotto's pupil, having +just then lost his master, who was giving more attention to his +father-in-law's business of innkeeper than his own, was willing to enter +into partnership, and the two youths began life together in 1509 or +1510, in a room near the Piazza del Grano, in the first house in Via del +Moro, which still remains in its old state. + +The first bit of patronage recorded is the commission for the frescoes +in the Scalzo; that they had work before is proved by the words in +the contract of the Barefoot Friars, "dettero ad Andrea pittore +_celeberrimo_ il dipingere nel Chiosto." The "celebrated" presupposes +works already done. + +The Scalzo was a name given to the "Compagnia dei Disciplinati di S. +Giovanni Battista," because they went barefoot when they carried the +cross in their processions. They lived in a convent in Via Larga (now +Cavour), opposite San Marco. A new cloister had been erected there--an +elegant little cortile, thirty-eight feet by thirty-two, adorned with +lovely Corinthian pillars--and the Brethren were anxious to fill the +lunettes of the arches with frescoes at the least possible expense, +wisely judging that a young artist on his way to fame would be the best +to employ. + +The frescoes, of which there would be twelve large, and four small ones +in the upright spaces by the doors, were to be done in "terretta," or +brown earth, and to be paid fifty-six lire (eight scudi) for the large, +and twenty-one lire (three scudi) each for the lesser frescoes. The +small ones were four figures of the Virtues, _Faith_, _Hope_, _Justice_, +and _Charity_. _Hope_ is exquisitely expressed, and _Charity_ a charming +group, the children most tenderly drawn. The subjects, though not all +finished till many years later, stand now in the following order; the +second row of figures, with the dates, show the order in which they were +painted:-- + + 1. Gabriel appearing to Zacharias Andrea del Sarto 9 1523. + 2. Visitation Andrea del Sarto 10 1523. + 3. Birth of S. John Andrea del Sarto 4 1514. + 4. Zacharias blessing John before going Francia Bigio. + to the desert + 5. S. John meets the Virgin and Infant Francia Bigio. + Christ + 6. Baptism of Christ Andrea del Sarto 1 1509. + 7. Preaching of S. John Andrea del Sarto 2 1514. + 8. Baptism of the Gentiles Andrea del Sarto 3 1514. + 9. S. John bound in the presence of Herod Andrea del Sarto 5 1522. +10. Dance of Herodias Andrea del Sarto 6 1522. 11. Beheading of S. + John Andrea del Sarto 7 1522. 12. Herodias receives the head of S. John + Andrea del Sarto 8 1522. + +Of these, No. 6 was the first executed, and it is probable that Francia +Bigio assisted him, for it has not the finished drawing nor careful +handling of any of Andrea's other frescoes. Possibly this is the cause +of the partners never working together afterwards, each taking his own +subjects and signing his own name. The composition, in the _Baptism of +Christ_, is not original, being very similar to that of Verocchio's, +especially in the two angels kneeling on the left bank; the landscape +and figures, however, are far in advance of that master. + +It will be well to speak of the whole set of frescoes in this place, for +although they belong to different times and styles, they are a complete +work, and might be taken almost as an epitome of Andrea's career; +from the one above mentioned in which Piero de Cosimo's influence is +apparent, to the Nos. 7 and 8, which very nearly approach Michelangelo's +power and freedom. + +In No. 1 the expression of muteness about the mouth of Zacharias, as he +stands by the altar, is wonderfully given; you feel sure he could not +speak if he would. The other figures are superfluous to the motive, +though adding grandeur to the work as a whole. + +In composition Andrea differs widely from Fra Bartolommeo. The latter +delighted in building up a single form, every figure in the whole +picture adding its hue and weight to perfect this pyramid or circle. +Andrea spreads his figures more widely; he likes a double composition, +dividing his pictures into two separate groups, connected by one central +figure, or divided entirely. This is seen in Nos. 3, 10 and 12, which +are all double groupings, the last completely divided in the centre by a +table and an archway behind it. Nos. 7 and 9 are pyramidal compositions. +The _Preaching of S. John_ is one of the best works, and shows his most +forcible style. S. John on a rock stands like a pillar in the centre, +the hearers are dressed in the "lucco" (a Florentine cloak of the 15th +century), the grouping following the lines of the landscape. At the +back Jesus kneels on a rising ground. Vasari says the figures are from +Albrecht Duerer, whose works had made a great impression on the southern +world of art; but it is more probable that they only show his influence, +for the dress and style are Florentine. + +No. 8, the _Baptism of the Gentiles_, is another of his best style, +and is, in the drawing of the nude figures, almost Michelangelesque +in power. This is one of his favourite "echo" subjects, a group in the +background of _John answering the Pharisees _forming an echo to the +principal subject. The muscular life of the spirited crowd of nude +figures is beautifully contrasted by the graceful draped forms in the +background. One of the baptized is the same child whom he had modelled +in the _Madonna_ of S. Francisco. + +Nos. 4 and 5 are by Francia Bigio, and were done during Andrea's absence +in France, showing that he had so far learned from his friend as almost +to rival him in power. The subjects, although not scriptural, are +conjecturally true. + +In the _Zacharias blessing John before he goes to the Desert_, the +sitting figure of S. Elizabeth and the kneeling one of the child are +very lovely; the action of Zacharias is not so well defined, the +great force in the uplifted arm betokens anger more than blessing. The +grouping follows the lines of a flight of steps in the background, and +is triangular. + +The same form of composition is apparent in the next group (No. 5), only +the lines form an angle receding from the one just mentioned. The Virgin +is charmingly posed and draped, the children less pleasing. + +This elegant little cloister is a true shrine of art, although the +frescoes are all in monochrome. So much were they admired at the time, +that an order was issued prohibiting artists to copy them without the +permission of Duke Cosimo. Cardinal Carlo de' Medici had them covered +with curtains, [Footnote: Richa, _Delle Chiese_] but, in spite of care, +they are very much injured, the under parts almost lost. The precaution +of covering the cloister with a glass roof has only been taken in modern +times, and too late. + +Andrea's next patrons were the Eremite monks of S. Agostino, at San +Gallo, who ordered of him two pictures for their church. In 1511 he +painted _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_, and an _Annunciation_ in +1512. The former is said to have had much softness and delicacy, the +latter is to be seen in the Hall of Mars at the Pitti, and is a very +pleasing picture. The Virgin kneels at her prayer desk, S. Joseph behind +her--a rather unusual rendering of the subject--her attitude is graceful +and decorous, the angel calm and gentle, floats in mid air, two other +angels stand on the left. The colouring is varied in the extreme, and +the lights well defined. + +These two pictures, and the _Disputa_, painted later, were removed to +the church of S. Jacopo tra Fossi, when the convent was demolished in +1529. They were still there in 1677, when Bocchi wrote his _Bellezze di +Firenze_, but the _Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen_ is said to be now +in the church of the Covoni in the Casentino. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE SERVITE CLOISTER. A.D. 1511-1512. + + +The next great works were the frescoes in the Court of S. Annunziata, if +indeed they were not carried on simultaneously with those in the Scalzo. +This famous series of Andrea's works was obtained by cunning, and +painted in emulation. While the two partners, who had differed from the +beginning, and had since become rivals, were engaged in the Scalzo, a +certain astute Fra Mariano, the keeper of the wax candle stores at the +Servite Convent--to which the church of the S. Annunziata belonged--had +watched well those two young painters. Fra Mariano understood human +nature, as priests often do; he had seen the envious rivalship growing +between them, as the friends, who should have worked together, took +separate compartments, and cast jealous criticising glances on each +other's designs and method of work. Having ambition of his own, he knew +how to work on that of others to further his own aspirations, which +were, to be considered a patron of art and a benefactor to his convent. + +Reading Andrea's heart, he played on all his strongest feelings, placed +before him the glory he would win by covering the lunettes of the arches +in the court of the fine church with frescoes which would carry his +name down to posterity; he said that any other artist would pay much +to obtain leave to paint upon historical walls like those, and how they +would all envy the man who should obtain the coveted honour! Then, with +a half-whispered hint that for one, Francia Bigio was dying to get the +commission for nothing, the wily Frate went his way victorious. Andrea, +scorning to make any pecuniary bargain, only stipulated that no one else +should paint in that courtyard, and forthwith began the _Stories from +the Life of S. Filippo Benizzi_, having only old Alesso Baldovinetti's +_Nativity_, and Cosimo Roselli's _Miracle of S. Filippo_, as foils to +his own. These two works were on the walls on each side of the church +door; there were therefore three entire sides of the cloister to cover, +excepting only the entrance into the courtyard from the Piazza, and +no doubt he felt like Ghirlandajo, when "he wished he had the entire +circuit of the city walls to paint." + +On the 16th of June, 1511, he began to paint with such vigour that in a +few months the first three were uncovered. + +1. _S. Philip at Viterbo with the Court, dressing a naked leper in his +own cloak_. + +2. _S. Philip going from Bologna to Modena_. He rebukes some gamblers, +telling them the vengeance of God is near. A sudden thunderstorm and +lightning destroy them, thus fulfilling the prediction. There is a +great deal of fine action in this composition; the horror and disbelief +struggling in the faces of the men, and the stormy landscape are all +well rendered. A horse leaps away with strong, terrified action, there +is a masterly grasp of his vivid subject, and a rugged strength in the +execution which gives great life to it. + +3. _S. Philip exorcises a Girl possessed of a Demon_. Here the +composition is very tender, the mother and father support the sick girl, +and form a very pleasing group; the figures of the spectators are full +of life without exaggeration. + +These works have suffered much from exposure, but the colouring is still +good. The praise that Andrea obtained for them was so great that he +followed them up by the two in the next series. + +4. _A Child brought to life by touching the bier of S. Philip_. This is +a kind of double composition, the child being represented in a twofold +condition in the foreground, first as dead, and then revived at the +touch of the bier. The grouping around the dead saint is very suggestive +of Ghirlandajo, and shews a deep study of his frescoes in the Sassetti +Chapel. The colouring is peculiarly his own; there is the mingling of +a great variety of bright tints of equal intensity, which by some +necromancy are made to relieve each other, instead of being relieved by +the art of chiaroscuro as in the handling of other masters. + +5. _Children healed by the garments of S. Philip_, which are held by a +priest, standing before an altar, the women and their children kneeling +in front of him. The grouping is symmetrical, the figures lifelike, but +not refined, round-cheeked buxom women, and rough, human men's faces, +bespeak Andrea as the painter of reality rather than ideality; there is +vivid life in every attitude, but the life is not high caste. A fine old +man, leaning on his staff, is a portrait of Andrea della Robbia, whose +son Luca stands near. + +For all these Fra Mariano paid only ten scudi each, and Andrea, feeling +the remuneration not equal to the merit of the work, would have left off +here, but the Frate held him to his bond. Two more lunettes yet remained +to finish, but as these were of a later date, we will reserve them for +a future chapter. He also painted in the _orto_, or garden, of the +convent, the now perished fresco of the _Parable of the Vineyard_. + +Meanwhile, the rival friends had changed lodgings; they left the Piazza +del Grano, and took rooms in the Sapienza, a street between the Piazza +San Marco and the S. Annunziata. Andrea chose this because it was near +his work, and also because his great friends, Sansovino and Rustici, +already lived there. Commissions began to pour in on him, which he +fulfilled, while still at work at the Servi. Judging from the style of +his early manner, we may date at this time a _Virgin and Child, with +S. John and S. Joseph_, now in the Pitti. It is painted "alla prima," +_i.e._ a quick method of giving the effect in the first painting,--and +is probably the one spoken of by Vasari as painted for Andrea Santini; +it formerly belonged to Francesco Troschi. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea +del Sarto_, vol iii, p. 193.] + +A _S. Agnes_, in the palace of the Prince Palatine, at Duesseldorf, is +in this early style. He also painted some frescoes at San Salvi, _SS. +Giovanni Gualberto and Benedict resting on clouds_; they ornamented the +recess where the _Last Supper_ was placed at a later period. + +In a narrow alley, behind the church of Or San Michele, is a tabernacle +on the wall beneath an ancient balcony. Here the architect, Baccio +d'Agnolo, commissioned Andrea del Sarto to paint an _Annunciation_. It +is so much injured as to be almost indistinguishable now, but was much +admired at the time, though some say it was too laboured, and so wanting +in ease and grace. [Footnote: Biadi, 26; Vasari, vol. iii, p 189.] It +is more likely that it was one of his early works, and should be classed +before the frescoes of the Scalzo, for it is said that he was living at +the time with his father, whose shop was over the archway, and that +he had adorned the inner walls of the house with two frescoed angels. +[Footnote: _Firenze antica e moderna_ Ed. Flor. 1794, vol. vi, p. 216.] +These have perished completely. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +SOCIAL LIFE AND MARRIAGE. A.D. 1511-1516. + + +This chapter will speak of the _man_, and not of the _artist_. As it is +now understood that history is not a dry record of battles and laws, but +the story of the inner life of a people, so the biography of a painter +ought not to consist wholly in a list and description of his works, but +a picture of his life and inner mind, that we may know the character +which prompted the works. + +First, as to personal appearance. There are two portraits of Andrea +del Sarto in his youth; one in the Duke of Northumberland's collection +represents him as a young man with long hair, and a black cap, writing +at a table. It is painted in a soft, harmonious style, but not masterly +as regards chiaroscuro. It might be by Francia Bigio, as it has +something of the manner of his master, Albertinelli. + +Another now in the Uffizi is a most life-like portrait of sombre +colouring, but not highly finished. Here we have the same black cap and +long hair; the dress is a painter's blouse of a blue-grey, which well +brings out the flesh tints. The face is intelligent, but not refined; +the clear dark eyes bespeak the artist spirit, but the full mobile mouth +tells the material nature of the man. In looking at this one can solve +the riddle of the dissonance between his art and his life. As a young +man Andrea was full of spirit; he loved lively society, and knew almost +all the young artists who lived very much as students now. They met each +other in the art schools, and dined and feasted together in the wine +shops. Sometimes they formed private clubs, meeting in certain rooms for +purposes of youthful merriment. + +Of this kind was the "Society of the Cauldron" ("Societa del Paiuolo"), +held at the apartment of the eccentric sculptor, Rustici, which was in +the same street as that of Andrea himself. + +Sansovino, who also lived near, was not a member of this rollicking +club; he was one of Andrea's more serious friends, and served as +companion when his most exalted moods were upon him. Perhaps Rustici's +rooms did not please Sansovino, for strange inmates were there--a +hedgehog, an eagle, a talking raven, snakes and reptiles, in a kind +of aquarium; besides all these gruesome familiar spirits, Rustici was +addicted to necromancy. The Society of the Cauldron seems only a natural +outgrowth from such a character. It consisted of twelve members, all +artists, goldsmiths, or musicians, each of whom was allowed to bring +four friends to the supper, and bound to provide a dish. Any two members +bringing similar dishes were fined, but the droll part of it was that +the suppers were eaten in a huge cauldron large enough to put table and +chairs into; the handle served as an arched chandelier, the table was +on a lift, and when one course was finished it disappeared from their +midst, and descended to be replenished. As for the viands, the sculptors +displayed their talents in moulding classical subjects in pastry, and +turning boiled fowls into figures of Ulysses and Laertes. The architects +built up temples and palaces of jellies, cakes, and sausages; the +goldsmith, Robetta, produced an anvil and accoutrements made of a +calf's head, the painters treated roast pig to represent a scullery-maid +spinning. + +Andrea del Sarto built up the model of the Baptistery with all kinds of +eatables, with a reading desk of veal, and book with letters inlaid with +truffles, at which the choristers were roast thrushes with open beaks, +while the canons were pigeons in red mantles of beetroot--an idea more +droll than reverential. + +After this, in 1512, another club, called that of the "Trowel," was +instituted, of which Andrea was not a member, but was chosen as an +associate. The first supper was arranged by Giuliano Bugiardini, and was +held on the _aja_ or threshing floor of S. Maria Nuova, where the bronze +gates of the Baptistery had been cast. + +In this no two members were allowed to wear the same style of dress +under penalty of a fine. The members were in two ranks, the "lesser" and +the "greater," a parody on the guilds of the city. They were shown the +plan of a building, and the "greater" members, furnished with trowels, +were obliged to build it in edibles, the "lesser" acting as hodmen, and +bringing materials. Pails of ricotta or goat's milk cheese served for +mortar, grated cheese for sand, sugar plums for gravel, cakes and pastry +for bricks, the basement was of meats, the pillars fowls or sausages. + +Some suppers were classical scenes, others allegorical representations, +always in the same edible form. We can imagine the wit which sparkled +round these strange tables, the jokes of the artists, the songs of the +musicians. Andrea del Sarto is said to have recited an heroi-comic poem +in six cantos called the "Battle of the frogs and mice." Biadi gives it +entire; it seems a kind of satire on Rustici's tastes, with perhaps +a hit at the government, and shows no lack of wit of rather unrefined +style; but the authorship is not proved. Some say Ottaviano de Medici +assisted Andrea in it. + +It would have been well for Andrea if this innocent jollity had sufficed +for him, but unfortunately he admired a woman whose beauty was greater +than her merits. Probably he began by mere artistic appreciation of her +personal charms, for she sat to him for the _Madonna of the Visitation_, +which was painted in 1514, two years before their marriage. This +Lucrezia della Fede was the wife of a hatter who lived in Via San Gallo. +Her husband dying after a short illness, Andrea del Sarto married her, +and whatever were her faults, she retained his life-long love. Biadi and +Reumont give the date 26th of December, 1512, as that of the death of +her husband, but Signor Milanesi, from more authentic sources, proves it +to have been in 1516. + +A great deal has been said and written of the evil influence this woman +had on him, and his very house bears an inscription recording his fame +together with "affanni domestici," but it would seem that posterity +has taken for truth more than the facts of the time imply. That she was +proud, haughty, exacting, and not of a high moral nature, that she was +selfish, and begrudged his helping his own family, her every action +proves. That her manners were not conciliating to the pupils is +possible, perhaps their manners savoured too much of familiarity for a +woman who believed in her own charms; but that she was faithless, which +her biographers assert on the strength of Vasari's phrase, "that Andrea +was tormented by jealousy," there is literally nothing to show. + +In the first place Vasari--who was one of the scholars she offended and +put down--gives vent to his private pique in his first edition, and in +the second, which only contains a slight mention of her, omits almost +all he had previously said. Now, if the first assertions were true why +should he retract them? Secondly, the sixteenth century was an age of +license in writing and speaking, and had any immoralities been laid to +her charge, not a biographer would have scrupled to particularize them; +but no! her name is never mentioned, except with her husband's, even by +her greatest enemies, who say she was as haughty as she was beautiful. +Thirdly, a faithless woman could never have kept her husband's devoted +love, and had she been so, would that affectionate though exaggerated +letter of hers, recalling him from France, have been written? That a +man who thinks his wife the most lovely creature living may be tormented +with jealousy without wrong doing on her part is more than possible. + +Let us then place Lucrezia's character where it ought to stand in Andrea +del Sarto's life--as a powerful influence, lowering his moral nature, +weaning him from his duties as a son and brother, by fixing all his care +and affection on herself; she, however, not allowing her own family to +be losers by her marriage, although causing him to slight his own. Even +this much-spoken-of neglect of his own family seems disproved by his +will, which, after a very little more than her own dot left to his wife, +makes his brother and niece heirs of all his estate. + +Except that she cared more for her own pleasure than his true +advancement, she was not any great hindrance to his artistic career; he +painted an incredible number of pictures, and she was willing to sit +for him over and over again. Indeed if she were his model for all the +Madonnas in which her features are recognisable, she must have had +either inexhaustible patience or great love for the artist. + +In fact she was thoroughly selfish; as long as she reaped the benefit +of his work she furthered his art; where she was left out of his +consideration he must be brought back to her side at any sacrifice to +him. This is not the stuff of which an artist's wife ought to be made; +the influence of a strong-willed selfish nature on his weak and material +one was not good, and his _morale_ became lowered. + +He felt this deterioration less than his friends felt it for him; even +Vasari says that "though he lived in torment, he yet accounted it a high +pleasure." It was one of those unions in which the man gives everything, +and the woman receives and allows every sacrifice. Her family were kept +at his expense, her daughter loved as his own, and if she were haughty +or exacting, he suffered with a Socratic patience, thinking life with +her a privilege. + +It is to be supposed that a member of the societies of the Cauldron +and the Trowel would appreciate good living. He was so devoted to +the pleasures of the table that he went to market himself early every +morning and came home laden with delicacies. [Footnote: Biadi, _Notixie +inedite_, &c., chap. xix. p. 62.] A curious confirmation of this is to +be found in his house, the dining-room of which is beautifully frescoed, +the arched roof in Raphaelesque scrolls and grotesques; while the +lunettes of one wall have two large pictures, one of a woman roasting +birds over a fire, the other of a servant preparing the table for +dinner. This love of good living, however, in the end shortened his +life, according to Biadi. + +After his marketing was over he turned his attention to art, going to +his fresco painting followed by his scholars, or superintending their +work in the "bottega." He was always a kind and thorough master, his +manner just and fatherly. + +Sometimes he and Sansovino or other friends lounged away an hour in the +neighbouring shop of Nanni Unghero, where their mutual friend, Niccolo +Tribolo, did all the hard work, fetching and carrying blocks and saws +grumblingly. Tribolo often begged Sansovino to take him as his pupil, +which he did afterwards, and he became a famous sculptor. One of +Andrea's acquaintances was Baccio Bandinelli, who, as he thought he +could equal Michelangelo in sculpture, imagined that only a knowledge +of Andrea del Sarto's method of colouring was necessary to enable him +to surpass him in painting. To gain this knowledge he proposed to sit to +Andrea for his portrait. His friend, discovering his motive, succeeded +in frustrating it by mixing a quantity of colours in seeming confusion +on his palette, and yet getting from this chaos exactly the tints he +required. So Baccio never rivalled his friend in colouring after all, +not being able to understand his method. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +WORKS IN FLORENCE. A.D. 1511-1515. + + +From 1511 to 1514 Andrea was employed on the two last frescoes in the +courtyard of the SS. Annunziata the _Epiphany_ and the _Nativity of the +Virgin_. The sum fixed for these was ninety-eight lire, but the Servite +brothers augmented it by forty-two lire more, seeing the work was +"veramente maravigliosa"; thus these two were paid at the same rate as +the other five of S. Filippo--seventy lire or ten scudi each. + +In the _Nativity_, one of the finest of his frescoes, we see his +favourite double grouping, the interest in the mother being kept to one +side, that of the child and its attendants to the other-a balance of +form united by Joachim, a stern, finely moulded figure in the centre. +The attitudes are natural, the draperies free and graceful. Old Vasari +justly remarks "pajono di carne le figure." The woman standing in the +centre of the room is Lucrezia della Fede; this is the first known +likeness of her. There is a richness of colour without impasto, a +modulation of shade giving full relief without startling contrast, a +clear air below and celestial haze in the angel-peopled clouds above. + +This might well be classed as on the highest level ever reached in +fresco. Nearly fifty years after it was painted, while Jacopo d'Empoli +was copying this fresco, an old woman came through the courtyard to +mass, and, stopping to watch the young artist at his work, began to talk +of the days of her youth and beauty when she sat for the likeness of +that natural figure in the midst, no doubt sighing as she looked at +the freshness of the fresco, and thought of her many wrinkles and aged +limbs, she being nearly fourscore at the time. + +The _Epiphany_ is also a remarkable work, more lively than the last; +it is also less carefully painted, the graceful feminine element +is wanting; there is plenty of activity, a crowded composition, +and richness of colour. Three figures are especially interesting as +likenesses; that of the musician Francesco Ajolle--a great composer of +madrigals, who went to France in 1530, and spent the remainder of his +life there; Sansovino, on the right of Ajolle; and near him Andrea +himself--the same face as the portrait in the Uffizi already spoken of. + +The _Madonna del Sacco_, over the door of the entrance to the church +from the cloister, would seem to have been painted in the same year, +1514, judging from Biadi's extract from the MS. account books of the +Servite Fathers existing in the archives, where is an entry "Giugno, +1514, ad Andrea del Sarto, per resto della Madonna del Sacco, lire 56." +This term _resto_ (remainder) would imply a previous payment. The money +was a thank-offering from a woman for having been absolved from a vow by +one of the Servite priests. Like all his other frescoes of this church, +Andrea only gained ten scudi for this masterpiece. The date of MDXXV. +and the words "Quem genuit adoravit" on the pilasters of this work have +led most writers to suppose it painted in that year; but it is probable +they were added by a later hand. Biadi [Footnote: Biadi, _Notizie_, &c., +p. 42 note.] says the letters are of the style of nearly two centuries +later, that Andrea would have signed it, like all his other and works, +with his monogram of the crossed A's (i.e. Andrea d' Agnolo). For +charming soft harmonies of colour, simplicity, and grace of design, this +surpasses all his other frescoes. The Madonna has an imposing grandeur +of form, there is a boyish strength and moulding in the limbs of the +child which is very expressive, the dignity of Joseph and majesty of the +Virgin are not to be surpassed; and yet the whole is given in a space so +cramped that all the figures have to be reclining or sitting. + +[Illustration of Monogram] + +After this Andrea returned to the Scalzo, the Barefoot Brothers offering +better pay than the Servites. Here he did the allegory of _Justice_ +and the _Sermon of S. John_ in monochrome. In these he took a fancy to +retrograde his style, for they have the rugged force and angular form +that recalls the more stern old Italian masters, or that Titan of +northern art, Albrecht Duerer. + +Of his works in oil at this era we may class-- + +1. The _Story of Joseph_, painted for Zanobi Girolami Bracci, which +Borghini judges a beautiful picture. The figures were small, but the +painting highly finished. It came afterwards into the possession of the +Medici family. + +2. A _Madonna_, with decorations and models surrounding it like a frame, +was painted for Sansovino's patron, Giovanni Gaddi, afterwards clerk +of the chamber to Ferdinand I. It was existing in the collection of the +Gaddi Pozzi family in Borghini's time. + +3. _Annunciation_, for Giovanni di Paolo Merciajo, now in the Hall +of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. It is a pretty composition, the Virgin +sitting, yet half kneeling, the angel on his knees before her. There is +a yellowish light in the sky between two looped dark green curtains; the +angel's yellow robe takes the light beautifully. + +4. _Madonna and Child_, in the "Hall of the Education of Jupiter" in the +Pitti Palace, one of his most pleasing groups. This is supposed by the +commentators of Vasari to be the altarpiece painted for Giovanni di +Paolo Merciajo, but Biadi traces it through the possession of Antonio, +son of Zanobi Bracci, to its present possessors. The mistake arises +from Vasari often confusing the names Annunciations and Assumptions with +Madonnas. + +5. A _Holy Family_, for Andrea Santini, which awakened great admiration +in Florence. It was in the possession of Signer Alessandro Curti Lepri, +by whose permission Morghen's print was taken. + +6. The _Head of our Saviour_, over the altar of the SS. Annunziata, +ordered by the sacristan of the order. A magnificent head, full of +grandeur and expression, and very clear in the flesh tints. Empoli made +several copies of it. + +7. The _Madonna di San Francesco_, Andrea's masterpiece among easel +pictures. It was a commission from a monk of the order of "Minorites of +Santa Croce," who was intendant of the nuns of S. Francesco, and +advised them to employ Andrea. In grandiose simplicity this surpasses +Albertinelli's _Visitation_, in soft gradations and rich mellowness +of colour it equals Fra Bartolommeo at his best, for tenderness in the +attitude of the child it is quite Raphaelesque. The Madonna is standing +on a pedestal adorned with sculptured harpies. She holds the Divine +Child in one arm; its little hands are twined tenderly round her neck, +and it seems to be climbing closer to her. The two children at her feet +give a suggestive triangular grouping, while the dignified figures of S. +Francis and S. John the Evangelist form supports on each side, and +rear up a pyramid of beauty. Rosini's term "soave" just expresses this +picture, so fused and soft, rich yet transparent in the colouring. The +olive-brown robe of one saint is balanced by the rich red of the other. +In the Virgin, a deep blue and mellow orange are combined by a crimson +bodice. The price paid to the painter for this was low because he asked +little; but a century or two later, Ferdinando de' Medici, son of Cosmo +III., spent 20,000 scudi to restore the church, and had a copy of the +picture made in return for a gift of the original, which is now the gem +of the Tribune in the Uffizi. + +8. The _Disputa, di S. Agostino_ is another masterpiece, showing as much +power as the last-named work displays of softness. It was painted at the +order of the Eremite monks of San Gallo for their church of San Jacopo +tra Fossi, where it was injured by a flood in 1557, and removed later +to the Hall of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. The composition is level, the +four disputing saints standing in a row, the two listeners, S. Sebastian +and Mary Magdalen, kneeling in front. S Agostino, with fierce vehemence, +expounds the mystery of the Trinity; S. Stephen turns to S. Francesco +interrogatively, S. Domenico (whom Vasari, by the way, calls S. Peter +Martyr) has a face full of silent eloquence--he seems only waiting his +turn to speak. In S. Sebastian we have a good study from the nude, and +in Mary Magdalen's kneeling figure--a charming portrait of Lucrezia--is +concentrated the principal focus of colour. + +9. _Four Saints_, SS. Gio. Battista, Gio. Gualberto, S. Michele, and +Bernardo Cardinale, a beautifully-painted picture, once in the Hermitage +of Vallombrosa. There were originally two little angels in the midst +dividing the saints, as in our illustration. When the picture was +transferred to the Gallery of the Belle Arti, where it now is, the +angels were taken out and the divided saints brought into a more compact +group. The angels are in a frame between two frescoed Madonnas of Fra +Bartolommeo. + +By this time the fame of Andrea del Sarto, both as a fresco and oil +painter, had risen to the highest point. Michelangelo only echoed the +opinion of others when he said to Raphael, "There is a little fellow in +Florence who will bring the sweat to your brow if ever he is engaged in +great works." His style of composition was important, his figures varied +and life-like, his draperies dignified. "The main excellence, however, +in which Andrea stands unique among his contemporaries rests in the +incomparable blending of colour, in the soft flesh tints, in the +exquisite chiaroscuro, in the transparent clearness even of his +deepest shadows, and in his entirely new manner of perfect modelling." +[Footnote: _Luebke History of Art_, vol. ii. p. 241.] His method, as +shown in an unfinished picture of the _Adoration of the Magi_ in the +Guadagni Palace, was to paint on a light ground; the sketch was a +black outline, the features and details not defined, but often roughly +indicated. He finished first the sky and background. The flesh tints, +draperies, &c., were all true in tone from the first laying in. +[Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for History of Oil Fainting_.] He did +not place shades one over the other, and fuse them together glaze by +glaze as Leonardo did, but used an opaque dead colouring which allowed +of correction; the system was rapid, but deficient in depth and +mellowness; "the lights are fused and bright," but "the shadows, owing +to their viscous consistency, imperfectly fill the outlines." [Footnote: +Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. in. chap. xvii. p. 670.] In a _Holy Family_ +in the Louvre, S. Elizabeth's hand is painted across S. John, and shows +the shadow underneath it, being grey at that part. Though more solid, +he could not paint light over dark without injuring his brilliance of +colour. + +Albertinelli, on the contrary, when he painted and repainted his +_Annunciation_, washed out the under layer with essential oil before +making his "pentimenti" or corrections, and in this way the thinness was +kept. + +In Andrea's early style this thinness is apparent, especially in the +Joseph series, painted for Pier Francesco Borgherini. + +Biadi classes Andrea's works in three styles. The first showing the +influence of Piero di Cosimo, the second--to which the best works in the +Servi cloisters belong--is a larger and more natural style, after the +study of Michelangelo and Leonardo. + +The third is the natural development in his own practice of a perfect +knowledge of art, and a just appreciation of nature. The _Birth of +the Baptist_ and the _Cenacolo_, of San Salvi, belong to his last and +greatest manner. In 1515 the Florentine artists were employed on more +perishable works than frescoes. Leo X., the Medici Pope who had been +elected in 1513, made his triumphal entry into Florence on the 3rd of +September, 1515, on his way to meet Francis I. of France at Bologna. +All the guilds and ranks of Florence vied with each other to make his +reception as artistic as possible. He and his suite were obliged to stay +three days in the Villa Gianfigliazzi at Marignolle while the triumphal +preparations were being completed. The churches had temporary _facades_ +of splendid architecture in fresco; arches were erected at the Porta +Romana and Piazza San Felice, covered with historical paintings; +Giuliano del Tasso adorned the Ponte Santa Trinita with statues; +Antonio San Gallo made a temple on the Piazza della Signoria, and +Baccio Bandinelli prepared a colossus in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Various +decorations adorned other streets, and Andrea del Sarto surpassed them +all with a _facade_ to the Duomo, painted in monochrome on wood. His +friend Sansovino designed the architecture, and he painted the sculpture +and adornments with such effect that the Pope declared no work in marble +could have been finer. + +Andrea lent his talent to another kind of decorative art. The guild +of merchants were desirous of inaugurating a festa for the day of S. +Giovanni, and had ten chariots made from the model of the ancient Roman +ones, to institute chariot races in the piazza. Andrea painted several +of these with historical subjects, but they have long been lost. The +chariot races were revived under the Grand Dukes, but not with any +success. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +GOING TO FRANCE. A.D. 1518-1519. + + +Meanwhile fate was working Andrea del Sarto on to what might have been +the culminating point of his fame, had not his weakness rendered it +a blot on his honour; i.e. his journey to France. His fame was rising +high; a picture of the _Dead Christ surrounded by Angels_, weeping over +the body they support, having been sent to France, [Footnote: It was +engraved by the Venetian, Agostino, before it went to France; the +engraving is signed 1516. It did not please Andrea, who never allowed +any others to be engraved.] the king was so pleased with it that he +wished another work by the same artist. Andrea painted a very beautiful +_Madonna_, for which, however, he only obtained a quarter of the price +which the king paid to the merchants. The king was so delighted with it +that he sent the artist an invitation to come to Paris in his employ, +promising to pay all his expenses. In the Pitti Palace there is a +portrait of Andrea and his wife, in which he has commemorated the +reception of this letter. He is looking very interested over it, while +his wife has the blankest expression possible. + +In the summer of 1518 he started with his pupil, Andrea Sguazzella, +called Nanoccio. Such a journey was in those days considered as little +less than a parting for life. It is plain that Lucrezia's family +looked on her as almost a widow, for they made him sign a deed of +acknowledgement for the 150 florins of her _dote_. Some authors have +taken this document as a proof of their marriage in that year, but it +was merely a precaution against loss by her family; the Italian law +being that the husband is obliged to render the portion obtained with +his wife to her family if she dies without issue, and in case of his own +death, the widow is entitled to it. + +He was well received in Paris, and employed immediately on a likeness +of the infant Dauphin Henri II., then only a few months old. For this he +obtained 300 scudi: and a monthly salary was allowed him. What a mine of +gold the French court must have seemed to him after working for years at +large frescoes for ten scudi each! + +He did no less than fifty works of art while there, most of which have +been engraved by the best French artists.[Footnote: See _Catalogue of +Royal Pictures in France_, by M. Lepiscie.] The _Carita_ is signed +1518, and is in Andrea's best style--perhaps with a leaning towards +Michelangelo. The _S. Jerome in Penitence_, which he painted for the +king's mother, and obtained a large price for, cannot be traced. His +life in Paris was a new revelation, and not without its effect on his +character, always alive to substantial pleasure. + +The king and his courtiers frequented his atelier, and delighted to +watch him paint, vieing with each other in the richness of their gifts, +among which were splendid brocade dresses and beautiful ornaments and +jewels, in which he longed to adorn his wife. While he was engaged in +painting the _S. Jerome_ for the queen-mother, a letter from Lucrezia +aroused his longings for home to the uttermost; she--the wife who has +been branded by the name of faithless--wrote that she was disconsolate +in his absence, and that if he did not soon return he would find her +dead with grief. + +Vasari, quoting this exaggerated letter, says in his first edition that +she only wanted money to give her friends, but this also he retracts in +the second. Whether it expressed her feelings truly or not, the letter +had such an effect on Andrea's mind that he decided to return home at +any cost. + +During Andrea's absence the house in Via S. Sebastiano, behind the +Annunziata, was being prepared under her superintendence and with +his sanction. His scholars had decorated the walls and ceilings with +frescoes, and no doubt Lucrezia was as anxious for him to see the new +house as he was to adorn her with Parisian brocades and jewellery. + +Being able to satisfy her ambitious soul, Andrea too readily flung away +all his brilliant prospects to return, and willingly take again the yoke +of the burden of his wife and her family. He made promises that he would +bring her back to Paris with him, and the king in all faith allowed +him to depart, confiding to him large sums of money for the purchase of +works of art to be sent to France. + +Sguazzella, wiser than his master, preferred to stay in Paris under the +patronage of Cardinal de Tournon. He painted a great many works, much in +the style of Andrea, but with less excellence. It is possible that some +of M. Lepiscie's long list are, in fact, the work of the pupil rather +than the master. When Benvenuto Cellini went to France in 1537 he lodged +in Sguazzella's house, with his three servants and three horses, at a +weekly rate of payment (_a tanto la settimana_). + +But to return to Andrea: this is an episode in his life which we would +gladly pass over if it were possible, for it forms the moral blot on a +great artistic career. + +Returning home he fell once more under the strong will of his wife, but +with his principles weakened by the effect of a luxury and prosperity +which has always a greater deteriorating effect on a nature such as +his than on a finer mind. Bringing grand ideas from the palaces of the +French nobles, he not only fell in with Lucrezia's plans for beautifying +the new house, but even surpassed her wildest schemes. The staircase was +embellished with rich oaken balustrades, the rooms were all frescoed. +Cupids hide in the Raphaelesque scrolls on the arches, classic +divinities rest on the ceilings, but in the dining room the homely +nature of the man who did his own marketing, creeps out. It is a +charming room, the windows opening on a garden courtyard, where a vine +trellis leads round to what used to be the side door of his studio which +has its entrance in another street. + +The roof is vaulted and covered with exquisite decorative frescoes, but +in the lunettes of the two largest arches are the domestic scenes of +cooking and laying the cloth, spoken of at page 90. Two or three of the +up stairs rooms are very fine, especially the one in which Andrea is +said to have died. [Footnote: This description is due to the kindness of +the present resident in the house, who kindly showed it to the writer, +pointing out all the unrestored portions.] It is probable the furniture +matched the style of the rooms, and that much money was spent on +carved chairs and _cassoni_. Certain it is that the King of France's +commissions were unfulfilled, and his money misappropriated. + +Andrea would have returned to France, but his wife, who had an Italian +woman's dread of leaving her own country, put every obstacle in his way, +adding entreaties to tears which the uxorious Andrea could not resist. +As usual he tried to please her, and she only cared to please herself. + +He fell greatly in the estimation of the King, who was justly angry; +albeit the artist salved his own too easy conscience by sending a few +of his own paintings to Francis I., one of which, the _Sacrifice of +Abraham_, still remains in France, and another a half length figure of +_S. John the Baptist_. The place of this picture is much disputed; it is +said to be at present in the Pitti Palace. Argenville speaks of it among +the French pictures as if it had returned subsequently to Florence, +while Vasari asserts that it never went there, but was sold to Ottaviano +de' Medici. [Footnote: _Life of Andrea, del Sarto_, vol. in. p. 212.] +As Andrea painted no less than five pictures of this subject, of which +Argenville mentions that there were two in France, one of which was sold +to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it is probable that the Pitti one is not +that painted for Francis I. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +ANDREA AND OTTAVIANO DE' MEDICI. A.D. 1521-1523. + + +The Medici, always patrons of art, did not neglect to enrich their +palaces with the works of Andrea del Sarto. Ottaviano de' Medici, a +cousin of the reigning branch, was an especial friend of his, from +the time that Andrea began the fresco of _Caesar receiving tribute of +animals_ in the Hall of Poggio a Cajano. The commission came really from +Pope Leo X., who deputed Cardinal Giulio, his cousin, to have the hall +of the favourite family villa adorned with frescoes. He in turn handed +over the direction to Ottaviano, who was a great amateur of art. It was +designed that Andrea del Sarto should cover a third of the Hall, the +other two-thirds being given to Pontormo and Francia Bigio. The payment +of thirty scudi a month was arranged. In this Andrea has shown his +genius in a style entirely new, the composition being crowded, the +perspective intricate, the background a building adorned with statues. +The subject being allegorical, he has given the reins to his fancy and +produced a wonderful assemblage of strange beasts and stranger human +beings, Moors, Indians, and dwarfs. There are giraffes, lions, and +all kinds of animals, which he had an opportunity of studying in the +Serraglio of Florence. The drawing is true and free, the figures and +animals full of life, the colouring as usual well harmonised and bright. +The Pope died about this time in 1522, and the picture was left to be +finished by Allori in 1580. + +Ottaviano de' Medici, being a great lover of art, was often a patron +on his own account; for him Andrea painted the _Holy Family_ now in the +Pitti Palace. It is a most charmingly natural group: the Virgin seated +on the ground dances the divine child astride on her knee, he is turning +his head to the infant S. John who struggles to escape from his mother's +arms to get to him. The fresh youth of the Virgin and the saintly age of +S. Elizabeth are well contrasted. By the time this picture was finished +the siege of Florence had begun, and when the painter took it to +Ottaviano, he, having other claims on his means, excused himself from +buying it, and recommended Andrea to offer it elsewhere. But the artist +replied, "I have laboured for you, and the work shall be always yours." +"Sell it and get what you can for it," again replied Ottaviano. Andrea +carried the painting home again and would never sell it to any one. A +few years after, the siege being over, and the Medici re-instated, he +again took the _Holy Family_ to Ottaviano, who was so delighted that he +paid him double the price for it. + +Ottaviano also bought from Carlo Ginori a _Madonna_ and _S. Job_, a nude +half figure, which were by Andrea's hand. He it was who commissioned him +to paint the portrait of Cardinal Giulio, afterwards Pope Clement VII., +and it was also at his instance that the imitation Raphael was painted +for the Duke of Mantua. The Duke had set his heart on obtaining the +picture painted by Raphael representing _Leo X. between the Cardinals +Giulio and Rossi_, and got a promise of it as a gift from Pope Clement. +His Holiness wrote to Ottaviano desiring him to have it sent to Mantua. +But Ottaviano, appreciating the treasure as much as the Duke of Mantua, +determined to secure it to the house of Medici. Under the pretence of +having a new frame made he gained time, and meanwhile employing Andrea +del Sarto secretly to make an exact copy of it, he sent that to the Duke +instead of the original. So well had Andrea imitated the great master's +style that every one in Mantua, even Giulio Romano, Raphael's own +scholar, was deceived, and it was only some years later that George +Vasari divulged the secret and showed Andrea's monogram on the side of +the panel beneath the frame. This copy is now at Naples. + +The fresco at Poggio a Cajano abandoned, Andrea returned to the Scalzo, +where he painted the _Dance of Herodias, Martyrdom of S. John Baptist, +Presentation of the Head, Allegory of Hope_, and the _Apparition of the +Angel to Zacharias_. The last was paid for August 22nd, 1523. + +About this time there was a great wedding in Florence. Pier Francesco +Borgherini espoused Margherita Accajuoli, and Salvi, the bridegroom's +father, determined to prepare for his son's bride a wedding chamber +which should be famous in all ages. + +Baccio d' Agnolo had carved wonderful coffers, chairs, and bedsteads +in walnut wood. Pontormo painted beautiful cabinets and _cassoni_, and +Granacci, Francesco d' Ubertini Verdi, called Bacchiacca, and Andrea +were all employed on the walls. Andrea furnished two pictures; the one +tells the story of Joseph in Canaan, the other gives his life in Egypt. +The style is that of Piero di Cosimo, but with greater excellence and +more dignified figures. The landscape is highly finished and minute, and +has a part of the story in every nook of it. + +The centre group, where Joseph leaves his father and mother to go to his +brethren, is very dignified, although fine enough to be a miniature. In +the second Pharaoh's palace is [Footnote: Reumont (_Life of Andrea del +Sarto_, p. 134) dates these works 1523; the style, which is very much +that of Piero di Cosimo, would seem to place them earlier.] represented +as a medieval Italian castle, the dresses are all Italian, and as an +instance of Andrea's versatility of talent they are very interesting +paintings. + +During the siege of Florence, Borgherini was absent, and the picture +dealer, Giovanni Battista della Palla, who prowled like a harpy to carry +off treasures for the King of France, made an effort to obtain these +paintings by inducing the government to confiscate them and sell them to +him. But Margherita was equal to the occasion, and meeting the despoiler +at her door, she poured out such a torrent of indignation, exhortation, +and defiance as drove the broker away crestfallen. + +On the Medici's return della Palla was imprisoned as a traitor, and +beheaded at Pisa. The paintings passed into the possession of the +Medici, by purchase, during Andrea's life. [Footnote: Biadi, _Notizie_, +&c., p. 146, note 2.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE PLAGUE AND THE SIEGE. A.D. 1525-1531. + + +From 1524 to 1528 the plague desolated Italy, never entirely leaving it. +During this time Andrea obtained a commission through Antonio Brancacci, +to paint some pictures in the convent of S. Piero at Luco in Mugello, +where he retired with his wife and her relations, and his pupil +Raffaelo. They spent a very pleasant summer: the nuns made much of his +wife and her sisters, and he passed his time in earnest painting. The +fruits of his labour are a _Pieta_, a _Visitation_, and a _Head of +Christ_--almost a replica of the one in the SS. Annunziata. + +The _Pieta_ is full of expression and feeling, but more realistic and +less dignified than that of Fra Bartolommeo, which now hangs on the same +wall of the Hall of Apollo at the Pitti. + +In colouring also there is a great contrast between the two, that of +Fra Bartolommeo being deep, rich, and mellow, while Andrea's is more +profuse, diffused, and wanting in depth of shadow. + +S. John and the Virgin raise the dead Saviour, the Magdalen and S. +Catherine weep at his feet; S. Peter and S. Paul at the back express +their grief in the manner natural to their characters. S. Peter, in his +vehemence, flings up his arms in a madness of sorrow. S. Paul, with more +dignity, is half stupefied with the intensity of woe. + +If those saints had been left in Fra Bartolommeo's _Pieta_, the +two pictures would have had the very same figures, in each: but how +different the composition, feeling, and expression! The Frate's group is +a compact triangle; that of Andrea a scattered arrangement. The Magdalen +of the Frate is overwhelmed with the very excess of love and grief, all +of which is expressed intensely, yet her face is hidden; that of Andrea +is a mere woman dressed in flying scarf and flowing garments, but with +very little soul in her face. + +The characteristics of the two painters can be well studied in these +works, so near together, so similar, and yet so different. + +For the three works painted at Luco Andrea was paid ninety florins in +gold. The _Pieta_, was bought in later years by the Grand Duke Leopold, +and now adorns the Pitti Palace. + +The _Visitation_ was placed in the church of the convent over a +presepio. [Footnote: In 1818 it was restored by Luigi Scotti and sold.] +Biadi gives the following document:--"Io Andrea d'Angiolo del Sarto, a +di 11 Ottobre 1528 ho ricevuto fiorini 80 d' oro di quei larghi [_i.e._ +of two scudi each] della Tavola dell' Altar grande e di una mezza tavola +della Visitazione, da Donna Caterina della Casa Fiorentina, Badessa di +Luco." [Footnote: 2 Vol. in. p, 571, note.] + +Andrea was paid ten florins for the _Head of the Saviour_, through his +assistant, Raffaello. This receipt would prove either that he went to +Luco later than 1524, or that he returned there to finish the works in +the year 1528. + +On their return to Florence in the autumn Andrea painted a fine work for +his friend, Beccuccio da Gambassi, a glass-worker. It is an apotheosis +of the _Madonna_, with four figures beneath--S. John Baptist, Mary +Magdalen, S. Sebastian, and S. Rocco; not S. _Onofrio_, as Bottari has +named it. The predella, now lost, had portraits of the patron and his +wife. Crowe and Cavalcaselle speak of six saints in this picture, four +standing and two kneeling. + +This description seems to point more certainly to the Sarzana _Madonna_, +which is now in the Hall of Apollo, in the Pitti Palace. That for +Beccuccio is described, with the four above-mentioned saints only, by +all the Italian authors. + +The tabernacle, at the corner of the convent, outside the Porta Pinti, +Florence, was painted about this time. It is now quite destroyed by +age and weather; a good copy by Empoli, exists, however, in the western +corridor of the Uffizi. It is a charming _Holy Family, with the infant +S. John_,--a sweet laughing face. The Madonna is a portrait of Lucrezia. + +In the siege when the convent of the Ingesuate--at the corner of which +it stood--was razed to the ground, this fresco, although loosened from +the wall, was spared by the soldiers, who had not courage to injure it. +The Grand Duke Cosimo was anxious to have it brought to Florence, and +often came with engineers and architects, but they never hazarded its +removal. [Footnote: Bocchi, _Bellezze di Firenze_, p. 482.] + +The Duomo of Pisa has five saints painted by Andrea; they originally +formed one large picture in five compartments, and were painted for the +church of the now suppressed convent of S. Agnes; but in 1618 they +were divided into five pictures, and removed to the Duomo, where _S. +Catherine Martyr_, _S. Margaret_, _S. Peter_, and _S. John the Baptist_ +hang on each side of the altar. _S. Agnes_, with her lamb by her +side, is placed on a pilaster towards the southern door. This and _S. +Margaret_ are especially graceful and expressive. There is much of +the feeling of Correggio, but with more natural grace and less +voluptuousness. The cutting and retouching had injured them greatly, but +in 1835 Antonio Garazalli took off the repainting and restored them more +delicately. + +In 1525 Andrea had a commission to draw cartoons for painting the +balustrade of the Ringhiera--a kind of wide terrace in front of the +Palazzo della Signoria, from which speeches were made to the populace. +His designs were very beautiful and appropriate, the compartments being +emblematical of the different quarters of the city; besides which were +allegories of mountains, rivers, and virtues. The designs were left +unfinished at his death, and the Ringhiera was never painted. + +In 1526-7 he worked at the fresco of the _Last Supper_, at S. Salvi, +which was intended to have been done when he began the four saints +there, in 1510, had not some misunderstanding between the rulers of the +order prevented their continuation. [Footnote: Vasari's _Lives_, vol. +iii. p. 224.] Even now he worked in a desultory manner, doing it bit by +bit, but in the end producing a marvellous work. + +The refectory is a long vaulted hall, and the frescoed table, with its +life-size figures, fills the whole arch of the wall opposite the door. +One's natural impulse on entering it is to exclaim, "How life-like!" +There is a great and living animation in the figures; the characters of +the Apostles are written on their expressive faces. Judas is not placed +away alone, as in many renderings of the subject, but is next to Christ, +the contrast of the two faces being thus emphasized by proximity. S. +Peter, though old, has all the vehemence and intensity of his character. +Add to the feeling a brilliancy of colour of which Andrea alone had the +secret, for without deep shadows, and keeping up the same intensity of +tone throughout, he yet obtained great harmony and full relief where +others would have produced a clash and flatness. Messrs. Crowe and +Cavalcaselle say with justice, "From the contemplation of the _Cena_, at +Milan, we should say that the painter is high bred; looking at that of +S. Salvi, that he is accustomed to lowly company." [Footnote: _Hist. of +Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xvii. p. 574.] But in some subjects a rugged +strength is more important than a high refinement, and in the group of +humble fishermen who formed the first church this is not out of place. +If he could only have spiritualised Christ, nothing would be left to be +desired. + +Andrea del Sarto was a member of a sacred company called the "Fraternita +del Nicchio," for which he painted a standard to be carried in their +processions. It is now in the Hall of the Old Masters in the Uffizi, +and is a charming group of _S. James, with two children dressed in white +surplices_--the habit of the company. The saint is caressing one, +who kneels at his feet; the other has an open book in his hand. +The draperies are especially graceful, and the expressions soft and +pleasing. + +After finishing a portrait of the Intendant of the monks at Vallombrosa, +which the said monk afterwards placed in an arbour covered with vines, +regardless of the injuries of wind and rain--Andrea, having some colours +still left on his palette, took up a tile and called his wife to sit for +her portrait, that all might see how well she had kept her good looks +from her youth; but Lucrezia not being inclined to sit, he got a mirror +and painted _his own portrait_ on the tile instead. It was one of his +later works, and Lucrezia kept it till her death. It is now in the room +of portraits in the Uffizi, but much blackened by time; probably +also from the tile not having been properly prepared. [Footnote: This +portrait is given as a frontispiece.] + +The next year or two were taken up in producing a number of large +altar-pieces, and in painting pictures for the dealer, Giovanni Battista +della Palla, who was still intent on supplying the King of France with +Italian works of art. For him he painted a _Sacrifice of Abraham_, which +Vasari thinks one of his most excellent works. The face of the patriarch +is full of faith, and yet self-sacrifice; the nude figure of Isaac, +bronzed in the parts which have been exposed to the sun, most tenderly +expresses a trembling dread, mingled with trust in his father; the +landscape is also very airy and beautiful, and a characteristic group of +a servant and the browsing ass is very effective in the background. + +He also painted a lovely picture of _Charity with three Children_ for +Della Palla. Both these works were done with great care, for he hoped by +their means to regain the lost favour of the King of France. It was +too late for this, however; and, as it happened, neither of these works +reached its destination. The siege of Florence took place about this +time (1529); the dealer, Battista della Palla, had his head cut off in +his dungeon at Pisa, and all hope of his mediation with Francis I. was +at an end. The _Charity_ was sold to Domenico Conti, the painter, after +Andrea's death, and thence passed into the hands of the Antinori family. +The _Sacrifice of Abraham_ has had more vicissitudes. Filippo Strozzi +purchased and gave it to the Marchese del Vasto, who had it in his +castle at Ischia many years. Later it was sent from Florence to Modena +in exchange for a Correggio, and Augustus II. of Saxony becoming its +purchaser, placed it in the Dresden Gallery. + +This seems to have been a favourite subject with Andrea del Sarto, who +repeated it five times. + +1. The one done by himself for the King of France. + +2. Also in France, having been purchased from the Grand Duke of Tuscany. +(See Argenville.) + +3. The one mentioned above, done for G. B. della Palla. + +4. A smaller one, painted for Paolo da Terra Rossa; a fine painting, for +which the artist asked so small a price that the purchaser was ashamed +to pay it. Paolo sent it to Naples. + +5. An unfinished painting of _Abraham holding Isaac by the Hand_, now in +the possession of the Zonadari family, who obtained it from the Peruzzi. + +During the siege, work was found for artists, but of an unpleasant +nature. Andrea was commissioned, in 1530, to paint the effigies of +some traitors on the palace of the Signoria. He dared not refuse, +but remembering that his namesake, Andrea del Castagno, who had been +similarly employed, gained the name of "Andrea degli Impiccati," he was +anxious that the same name should not attach to himself. Accordingly he +had an enclosed platform made, and giving out that his pupil, Bernardino +del Buda, was going to paint the effigies, he worked at them himself +secretly, till, on being uncovered, they seemed to be real persons +writhing on the gibbet. + +No trace of them remains now, but the studies are in the collection of +drawings in the Uffizi. + +A fine half-length figure of _S. Sebastian_, for the brotherhood of that +name, which had its head-quarters in the street in which Andrea lived, +was almost his last work in Florence. + +The siege was now over, but the influx of soldiers from the camp +brought a return of the plague, which awakened great terror in the city. +Andrea's mode of life and love of good living did not conduce to his +safety; he was taken ill suddenly, and gave himself up for lost. Neither +Vasari nor Biadi says he was entirely deserted by his wife; they only +hint that she came to his room as little as she could, having a great +fear of the plague. + +It is more than probable that Andrea himself kept her away from him, for +his love was always unselfish, and he thought only of her good. However +this be, he died, aged forty-two, on the 22nd of January, 1531, and was +buried very quietly by the "Brethren of the Scalzo" in the church of the +S. Annunziata. His tomb is beneath the pavement of the presbytery, on +the left hand. His older biographers seem to think this unostentatious +funeral a great slight to his merits, but if there were any doubts as +to his illness being the plague, it would only have been a natural +precaution to avoid spreading contagion by making his interment quite +private. + +That Andrea had not wholly neglected his own family is proved by his +will, which left his property (after paying back Lucrezia's _dot_ of +100 scudi, and the money for the improvement of the new house in Via +Crocetta for her and her daughter) to his brother Domenico, with +the proviso that after his death half the bequest should be given to +Domenico's daughter as _dot_, the rest to accrue to the hospital of +the Innocenti (Foundlings). [Footnote: Ricordanze nel Archivio del E. +Spedate degli Innocenti di Firenze. Biadi, _Notizie_, p. 127.] + +Lucrezia lived to a good old age, being nearly ninety when she died; +she seems to have lived a very quiet life, and to have kept Andrea's +paintings with great care, except a few only which she sold. The house +in Via Crocetta passed many years afterwards into the possession of +another painter, Zuccheri, who embellished the studio front with reliefs +in stone, representing the paraphernalia of an atelier; but it is +Andrea's name which lives in the house, as his memory does in the +hearts of the Florentine people, and his works in the cloisters of the +Florentine churches. The people of the city always seem to claim Del +Sarto as especially their own. He is always _nostro pittore_, or _nostro +maestro_-and indeed as a master of fresco he never was surpassed. In +colouring he was in his way unique; in modelling, original and graceful; +while the transparent clearness of his shadows and brilliant blending +of tints in the lights render his handling incomparable. A little more +refinement and aesthetic feeling would have placed him on a level with +the great leaders of the Renaissance. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +SCHOLARS OF ANDREA DEL SARTO. + + +Andrea's scholars were numerous, though only a few rose to any great +eminence. Of these, JACOPO CARRUCCI, "da Pontormo" (born 1494, died +1557), was by far the most talented. Left an orphan at an early age, the +charge of his sister devolved on him, and he placed her with a relation +while he was pursuing his art training. He studied under a diversity of +masters, including Leonardo da Vinci, Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo; and +finally, in 1512, he entered Andrea del Sarto's school, but did not +stay long there either. Some say Andrea was jealous of his success; he, +however, had generosity enough to praise and acknowledge his talent, and +to show his appreciation by giving him important work to do in his own +studio. + +Pontormo did the predella to Andrea's altar-piece of the _Annunciation_ +for the convent of S. Gallo. His hand is to be seen also in several +of his master's works. He drew public attention first by painting two +figures of _Faith_ and _Charity_ on the escutcheon of the Medici for +Andrea di Cosimo, who had obtained the commission, but did not feel +equal to executing it. Michelangelo, on seeing these figures, prophesied +great things for the youth, who was at that time only nineteen years of +age. + +The people of Pontormo, his native town, were so proud of him, that they +sent for him to emblazon the arms of Pope Leo over the gate of their +city. + +He was next employed by one of the festal companies of the age, called +the Company of the Diamond, to design cars, banners, and costumes for a +triumphal procession in honour of Leo X.'s elevation to the papal chair; +and he organised a very suggestive array of the ages of man, illustrated +historically. He decorated the Papal Hall for Leo X.'s entrance, and +later began to be employed on more serious and lasting works. + +Some good frescoes of his existed in the convent of Santa Caterina, but +were destroyed when the building was reconstructed in 1688. + +A very charming fresco of the _Visitation_ still exists in the court +of the SS. Annunziata. It shows him as a good pure colourist, the flesh +tints being especially tender; the composition is lively, full, and +effective. + +In 1518 he painted a fine altar-piece for the church of S. Michele +Visdomini, Florence, by commission of Francesco Pucci. The _Madonna_, +seated, is showing the Child Jesus to S. Joseph, whose face is most +expressive and full of smiling admiration. S. John Baptist stands near, +at the sides are S. John Evangelist, S. James, and S. Francis, the +latter kneeling in ecstatic admiration. + +In some cases he was placed in direct competition with his master, +Andrea del Sarto, being employed by Borgherini to paint the coffers and +cabinets in the same room for which Andrea did the _History of Joseph_; +and again later at Poggio a Cajano, where the ends of the great hall +were assigned to him to paint, Andrea and Francia Bigio taking the +larger walls at the sides. On one end he designed an allegory of +_Vertumnus_, with his husbandmen around him busy with their labours, and +on the other _Pomona, Diana, &c_. Perhaps in these last he has carried +his imitation of Andrea del Sarto rather too far in the matter of +draperies, which are too profuse and studied. Indeed the whole works +are overdone; he was so anxious to rival his master that he forced his +invention, altering and labouring till all spontaneity was taken out of +his work. Some of his frescoes were in the cloister of the Certosa, but +they are not fair specimens of his best style, as they were done when +the Florentine artists were smitten with the mania of imitating Albrecht +Duerer, and in these he has entirely followed the harder manner of that +artist without obtaining his strength. The frescoes are all scenes from +the _Life of Christ_, and he spent several years over them; after which +he painted an altar-piece. + +Giovanni Battista della Palla commissioned him to paint a picture to be +sent to the King of France, and Pontormo returning wisely to his natural +style, painted one of his masterpieces, the _Resurrection of Lazarus_. +The Pitti Palace possesses a curious specimen of his work, the 11,000 +martyrs crucified in a wood in the persecution under the Emperor +Diocletian. + +He rose to renown as a portrait painter, but lost patronage in later +year by his capricious behaviour, refusing to work except for whom and +when he pleased. In company with his favourite pupil, Bronzino, he did +the frescoes in the Loggie of the Medici villa at Careggi; one Loggia +was soon completed, to the great delight of the Duke, but Jacopo shut +himself up in the second and allowed no one to see what he was doing +for five years; when at length he uncovered the frescoes general +disappointment was the result. He pursued much the same line of conduct +in the frescoes of the roof of the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo. He kept +the chapel closed with walls and planks for eleven years, no one seeing +his progress except some young men who removed one of the rosettes from +the ceiling to peep in on him, but he discovered their plan, and closed +the holes more assiduously than ever. The composition is as confused as +it is diffusive; he tried to embody the whole teaching of the Bible, but +becoming overwhelmed with the vastness of his subject, fell short even +of the excellence of his own previous works. He died before this work +was completed, of hydropsy, and was buried in the Servite Church. + +GIORGIO VASARI, better known as the chronicler of the works of other +artists than for the excellence of his own, was born at Arezzo, +1512--died at Florence, 1574. His father was a painter, and the family +was connected by ties of relationship with Luca Signorelli of Cortona. +Among the many masters under whom he studied was Andrea del Sarto. +He did not remain long under his tuition, having contrived to offend +Lucrezia in some way. He painted a great many frescoes at Arezzo, where +he lived in his youth with his paternal uncle Don Antonio. Don Miniato +Pitti, prior of the convent of Monte Oliveti, near Siena, next employed +him to adorn the portico of his church. He had the good fortune to +attract the notice of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, who took him to Rome +in his suite, where he gained much advantage by the study of the works +of the great masters there. The Medici family, especially Andrea del +Sarto's patron, Ottaviano, were his constant friends: and their palaces +are profusely decorated by him. The Riccardi Palace has a room with +fresco scenes from the life of Caesar. While painting these Duke +Alessandro gave him a salary of six crowns a month with a place at +his table, and board for his servant, &c. The palace has several oil +paintings by Vasari, amongst which are portraits of the Duke and his +sister. After the death of Duke Alessandro and Ottaviano he wandered +from city to city, painting so energetically that there are few of +the principal towns which do not possess some of his works, especially +Naples, Pisa, Bologna, and Arezzo. The Palazzo San Giorgio of the +Farnese family, in Rome, has a large hall richly frescoed by Vasari, but +the best of his works are to be seen on the walls of the great hall of +the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, where he has illustrated the battles +of the Florentines, and in several other rooms of the same palace; he +having continued all the later years of his life in the service of Duke +Cosimo, by whom the palace was restored and decorated. His works are too +numerous and not sufficiently important to catalogue or describe, +his composition is overcrowded and wanting in perspective. There is +generally a superabundance of flesh; muscular limbs in all attitudes +form a great part of his pictures, but as the flesh tints he used were +wanting in mellowness and shadow, and have turned pink with age, they +compare disadvantageously with those of the more solid masters who +preceded him. After all, Vasari's name and fame rest principally on +the labours of his pen, not those of his brush. His "_Lives of the +Painters,_" although not a model of precision in facts or chronology, is +nevertheless the mine from which all subsequent art historians quarry to +obtain their information. + +One of the most valuable books of the day is probably the new edition +of Vasari with corrections and notes taken from the archives by Signer +Gaetano Milanesi. + +FRANCESCO ROSSI, DE' SALVIATI (born at Florence, 1510--died at Borne, +1563) was a great friend of Vasari; his real name was Rossi, his father +being a weaver of velvets, but he obtained the name of Salviati from +being the protege of the Cardinal of that name. His first master was +Raffaello del Brescia, but in 1529 he, with his friend Nannoccio, +entered the school of Andrea del Sarto, with whom they stayed during +the siege. Becoming known by some paintings done for the friars of the +Badia, Cardinal Salviati took him into his house, gave him a stipend of +four crowns a month, and an apartment at the Borgo Vecchio, he painting +any works the Cardinal wished. Francesco was not idle, a great number +of frescoes, altar-pieces, and portraits, &c., &c., testifying to his +industry. In his later years he was employed with his friend Vasari in +the Palazzo Vecchio, where he painted the frescoes in the smaller Hall +of Audience. These are principally scenes from the _Life of Camillus_. +The story of the schoolmaster of Falerii is very spirited, and the +_Triumph of Camillus_ varied and pleasing in colouring. Although +melancholy and suspicious, often making enemies and losing patronage by +misunderstandings, Rossi and Vasari were always faithful to their first +boyish friendship, often working together, but never with any spirit +of rivalry. Salviati's style was bold and spirited; he was rich in +invention, but perhaps a little wild in the matter of draperies and +bizarre costumes. His colouring is more pleasing than that of Vasari, +but is diffusive and wanting in depth. + +DOMENICO CONTI never became famous, but in spite of want of genius, he +was Andrea's favourite pupil. All his master's designs and cartoons came +into his possession at Andrea's death, but he was unfortunately robbed +of them soon afterwards. The inscription to Andrea del Sarto which once +existed in the church of SS. Annunziata was put up by Conti. + +JACOPO DEL CONTE (1510-1598), who in Vasari's time lived in Rome, is +chiefly noted for his likenesses of several pontiffs and personages +of the Papal Court. There are a few altar-pieces by him in Rome, and a +_Deposition_ in the church of the Misericordia in Florence, but he was +almost exclusively a portrait painter. + +ANDREA SGUAZZELLA, called NANNOCCIO, remained in France after having +accompanied Andrea del Sarto thither. Cardinal Tournon took him under +his patronage, and he painted a large number of works in the style of +Andrea. + +JACOPO, called JACONE, was another of Andrea's favourite disciples. His +frescoes, of which some existed till of late years on the facade of the +Palazzo Buondelmonte, in Florence, were much in Del Sarto's manner. +He assisted his master in a great many of his works, while of his +independent paintings many were sent to France; no doubt some of these, +as well as Sguazzella's, figure under the master's name in that list of +fifty works given by Argenville. He was too idle and fond of pleasure +to rise to eminence, though he did some good frescoes in the Palazzo +Capponi at Florence, and in the Capponi Villa at Montici, and assisted +Jacopo da Pontormo in the Hall of the Medici villa at Careggi. He died +in 1553, in great poverty. + +PIER FRANCESCO DI JACOPO DI SANDRO was said to have had some talent. He +and Domenico Conti were employed among others in decorating the court of +the Palazzo Vecchio on the occasion of Cosimo de' Medici's marriage with +Leonora di Toledo. There are some altar-pieces of his in the church of +Santo Spirito, Florence. + +SOLOSMEO, RAFFAELLO, and BERNARDINO DEL BUDA were three _garzoni_ in +Andrea's studio. They were employed in the subordinate work and manual +labour, but were not trained as artists. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY + + + 1886. G. GRUYER. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta and M. Albertinelli. + 1903. F. KNAPP. Fra Bartolommeo della Porta. + 1922. H. GABLENTZ. Fra Bartolommeo. + 1902. M. E. JAMES. Fra Bartolommeo. + 1899. H. GUINNESS. Andrea del Sarto. (The Great Masters Series.) + 1905. MASTERPIECES OF ANDREA DEL SARTO. (Gowan's Art Books.) + 1928. F. KNAPP. Andrea del Sarto. + 1864-66. CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE. A New History of Painting in Italy + from the 2nd to the 16th Century. Three Volumes. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea D'Agnolo, by +Leader Scott + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRA BARTOLOMMEO AND ANDREA *** + +***** This file should be named 7222.txt or 7222.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/2/2/7222/ + +Produced by Michelle Shephard, Tiffany Vergon, Charles +Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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