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diff --git a/76481-0.txt b/76481-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1775599 --- /dev/null +++ b/76481-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4833 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76481 *** + + + + + + _ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF + THE GREAT ARTISTS._ + + ANDREA MANTEGNA. + + FRANCESCO RAIBOLINI, + CALLED + FRANCIA. + + + + +ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS. + + +_The following volumes, each illustrated with from 14 to 20 Engravings, +are now ready, price 3s. 6d._:— + +_ITALIAN, &c._ + + GIOTTO. By HARRY QUILTER, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. + FRA ANGELICO. By CATHERINE MARY PHILLIMORE. + FRA BARTOLOMMEO. By LEADER SCOTT. + MANTEGNA AND FRANCIA. By JULIA CARTWRIGHT. + LEONARDO DA VINCI. By Dr. J. PAUL RICHTER. + MICHELANGELO. By CHARLES CLEMENT. + RAPHAEL. From J. D. PASSAVANT. By N. D’ANVERS. + TITIAN. By RICHARD FORD HEATH, M.A., Oxford. + TINTORETTO. By W. ROSCOE OSLER. From researches at Venice. + VELAZQUEZ. By EDWIN STOWE, B.A., Oxford. + VERNET AND DELAROCHE. By J. RUNTZ REES. + +_TEUTONIC._ + + ALBRECHT DÜRER. By RICHARD FORD HEATH, M.A., Oxford. + HOLBEIN. From Dr. A. WOLTMANN. By JOSEPH CUNDALL. + THE LITTLE MASTERS OF GERMANY.* By W. B. SCOTT. + REMBRANDT. From CHARLES VOSMAER. By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A. + RUBENS. By C. W. KETT, M.A., Oxford. + VAN DYCK AND HALS. By PERCY R. HEAD, Lincoln College, Oxford. + FIGURE PAINTERS OF HOLLAND. By LORD RONALD GOWER, F.S.A. + +_ENGLISH._ + + HOGARTH. By AUSTIN DOBSON. + REYNOLDS. By F. S. PULLING, M.A., Oxford. + GAINSBOROUGH. By G. M. BROCK-ARNOLD, M.A., Oxford. + TURNER. By W. COSMO MONKHOUSE. + WILKIE. By J. W. MOLLETT, B.A., Brasenose College, Oxford. + LANDSEER. By FREDERIC G. STEPHENS. + +_The following volumes are in preparation_:— + + CORREGGIO. By M. COMPTON HEATON. + CORNELIUS AND OVERBECK. By J. BEAVINGTON ATKINSON. + +* An _Edition de luxe_, containing 14 extra plates from rare engravings +in the British Museum, and bound in Roxburgh style, may be had, price +10_s._ 6_d._ + + + + +[Illustration: ANDREA MANTEGNA. + +_From the bronze bust, attributed to Sperandio, in Sant’ Andrea, Mantua._] + + + + + “_The whole world without Art would be one great wilderness._” + + MANTEGNA + AND + FRANCIA + + BY JULIA CARTWRIGHT + AUTHOR OF “VARALLO AND HER PAINTER,” ETC. + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + SCRIBNER AND WELFORD + LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON + 1881 + + (_All rights reserved._) + + + + +PREFACE. + + +Although no separate biography of Mantegna has been published in England, +his life and works have been the subject of much study in other countries +during recent years. The thanks of the writer are especially due to +Dr. Woltmann, the author of the biography of the painter in Dr. Robert +Dohme’s “Kunst und Künstler,” to M. Armand Baschet, Canonico Willelmo +Braghirolli, and Dr. Karl Brun. It is to be hoped that before long the +last-named of these scholars will give the result of his researches to +the public in a complete work on this remarkable man, who was both one of +the greatest artists and one of the most striking personalities of the +Renaissance. + +With regard to Francia, materials for the history of his life are far +less plentiful, and are to be found almost exclusively in the works of +Bolognese writers, of whom Malvasia and Calvi are the fullest and most +trustworthy. In offering this little work as a guide for the use of +those who have not the opportunity of studying the master’s works for +themselves the author has only to add that the pictures mentioned have +been carefully examined, and their descriptions written on the spot. + + J. M. C. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + MANTEGNA. + + CHAPTER I. + + EARLY YEARS AND WORK AT PADUA. A.D. 1431-1457 1 + + CHAPTER II. + + WORK AT VERONA AND MANTUA. A.D. 1457-1470 12 + + CHAPTER III. + + THE CAMERA DEGLI SPOSI. A.D. 1470-1474 21 + + CHAPTER IV. + + WORK AT MANTUA AND ROME. ENGRAVINGS, A.D. 1474-1490 29 + + CHAPTER V. + + THE TRIUMPHS OF JULIUS CÆSAR. DRAWINGS, A.D. 1490-1500 38 + + CHAPTER VI. + + LAST WORKS AND DEATH—HIS INFLUENCE ON ART. A.D. 1500-1506 50 + + FRANCIA. + + CHAPTER I. + + EARLY ART IN BOLOGNA. A.D. 1300-1450 65 + + CHAPTER II. + + EARLY LIFE AND WORKS. A.D. 1450-1500 75 + + CHAPTER III. + + THE FRIENDSHIP AND INFLUENCE OF RAPHAEL. A.D. 1500-1506 86 + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE FRESCOES OF ST. CECILIA’S CHAPEL. A.D. 1506-1509 94 + + CHAPTER V. + + LAST WORKS AND DEATH. A.D. 1509-1517 102 + + + THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF MANTEGNA 109 + + THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRANCIA 114 + + CHRONOLOGY 119 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 121 + + INDEX 122 + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + + PAGE + + MANTEGNA. + + BUST PORTRAIT OF MANTEGNA _Frontispiece_ + + MEETING OF LODOVICO GONZAGA AND HIS SON, THE CARDINAL FRANCESCO 26 + + THE ENTOMBMENT (_engraving_) 35 + + JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES (_drawing_) 37 + + PART OF THE TRIUMPHS OF JULIUS CÆSAR 42 + + THE MADONNA DELLA VITTORIA 46 + + VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH ST. JOHN AND THE MAGDALEN 48 + + THE CRUCIFIXION 58 + + FRANCIA. + + PORTRAIT OF FRANCIA _Frontispiece_ + + THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED WITH SAINTS 80 + + MADONNA AND CHILD WITH THE BIRD 85 + + DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS 89 + + A PIETÀ 91 + + THE MADONNA OF THE ROSE-GARDEN 101 + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +ANDREA MANTEGNA. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +EARLY YEARS AND WORK AT PADUA, A.D. 1431-1457. + + +Among the different schools of painting which flourished on the mainland +of North Italy during the fifteenth century, that of Padua was the only +one which attained more than a merely local importance. Independent of +Byzantine traditions and strikingly peculiar in its characteristics, it +rivalled for a time and even surpassed the Venetian school in the vigour +and individuality of its art. + +A Paduan by birth, Andrea Mantegna became the greatest master of his +day, and left the stamp of his powerful genius not only on the schools +of neighbouring cities, but on the whole artistic world. By his own +achievements, and still more by the greatness of his aims, he stands +foremost among the men of his generation who carried on the work of the +Renaissance and prepared the way for the splendid age that was to follow. + +This development was the more remarkable, because until the fifteenth +century we do not hear of a single Paduan artist of note. Giotto had left +the frescoes of the Arena Chapel within the walls of the “learned city,” +and Umbrian influences had later reached her students through Gentile +da Fabriano, but these seeds were slow in bearing fruit. The men who +painted in the famous basilica of Sant’ Antonio were mostly foreigners. +Jacopo d’Avanzo and Altichieri of Verona, Giusto of Florence, belonged to +other Italian cities, and although a Paduan guild existed and increased +steadily in numbers the results were poor, and the few works which +its members produced were feeble imitations of Giottesque or Umbrian +originals. + +The first to raise Paduan art out of obscurity was Francesco Squarcione, +who, although “not the best of artists himself,” undoubtedly gave a new +direction to painting in his native city, and in a measure earned the +title of founder of the school, which has been liberally bestowed upon +him. Born in 1394, and by profession a tailor and embroiderer, Squarcione +early devoted himself to art, and having inherited some fortune from +his father, spent his youth in travelling both in Italy and Greece.[1] +During his travels he collected a considerable number of pictures, and +made drawings and took casts of ancient marbles, which on his return to +Padua he exhibited for the teaching of young artists. By these means he +soon obtained great reputation as a master, and as many as a hundred and +thirty-seven pupils, he himself tells us, were trained in his school. + +A man of excellent judgment in art, but of slender powers of execution, +who knew how to attract talented pupils to his studio, and who +employed them in the production of works which bore his name, is the +universal verdict passed upon Squarcione by early writers. The truth +of this testimony is tolerably well proved by the curious difference +of style visible in the only two authentic works of his that remain, +an altar-piece in the gallery of Padua, and a Madonna painted for the +Lazzara family. The former is a coarse and unpleasant work, with the +hardness of line and heavy colouring that mark Zoppo and the inferior +Squarcionesques, while the latter in the dignity of its pose and careful +modelling bears evident traces of Mantegna’s hand. Squarcione no doubt +possessed a quick eye for discerning talent, and it is his lasting claim +on the gratitude of posterity that he at once saw and appreciated the +rising genius of the young Mantegna. + + * * * * * + +Andrea Mantegna, the greatest of Lombard masters, was born in the +neighbourhood of Padua in the year 1431. His father, Biagio, is supposed +to have been a small farmer, and Vasari tells us that in his childhood +Andrea herded cattle until Squarcione, struck by the boy’s talent for +drawing, adopted him as his own son. + +In November, 1441, Mantegna’s name is entered on the registers of the +Paduan guild as Squarcione’s foster-child, and seven years later he +painted an altar-piece for the ancient church of Santa Sofia. Of this +youthful work contemporaries speak with high praise as bearing marks +of a practised hand, but it had already disappeared in the seventeenth +century, and the earliest painting of Mantegna that now exists is the +fresco above the portal of Sant’ Antonio. In this lunette, which bears +the date of 1452, the two saints Anthony and Bernardino are represented +supporting the sacred monogram; but the figures are too much damaged +to be a fair test of the young artist’s style, and the work is chiefly +interesting as a proof of the high reputation in which he was already +held by his fellow-citizens. + +It is to the frescoes of St. Cristoforo’s chapel in the church of the +Eremitani friars that we must turn in order to form a correct idea +of Mantegna’s powers during this time. Here we see him carrying the +principles which he had learnt in Squarcione’s workshop to their furthest +limits, and with the boldness of genius venturing on new and untried +paths. Here too we find him painting side by side with the best of +Squarcione’s other pupils, and we have an opportunity of comparing his +work with that of artists who had been formed on the same models. + +This chapel, which stands to the right of the high altar, at the east +end of the great Eremitani Church, belonged to the Ovetari family, whose +last representative, dying in 1443, had left a sum of seven hundred gold +ducats to be spent in decorating its walls with frescoes illustrating +the history of St. James and St. Christopher. Squarcione received the +commission from the dead man’s heir, and between the years 1448 and 1458, +the walls, apse, and ceiling were covered with frescoes by his different +pupils. + +Thus, only a few steps from the garden which encloses Giotto’s Chapel, +another great series was painted, to become for the schools of North +Italy what the Brancacci Chapel had been for Florence. + +Less fortunate than the celebrated frescoes of the Carmine, these +paintings have suffered much from the damp of the walls, and a great +part of the subjects in the apse, as well as several figures in the +martyrdom and burial of St. Christopher, are completely destroyed. Other +portions are still in good preservation, and afford excellent examples +of the peculiarities of the Paduan school and the studies which laid the +foundation of Mantegna’s subsequent greatness. + +The leading feature which marks the work of all Squarcione’s scholars, +and was to attain its highest artistic development in Mantegna’s later +conceptions, is the sculptural treatment of form, which was a direct +result of an exclusive study of ancient statues. Painting in their hands +becomes more plastic than pictorial, the forms are sharply defined, +the drapery falls in the small folds of ancient bas-relief, while the +severity of the whole is relieved by rich decorations in the shape of +festoons of fruit and foliage, which, when unskilfully managed, give a +heavy and over-loaded effect. This plastic tendency sprang from the +discovery, then first dawning upon the men of the Renaissance, that the +principles of the highest art are to be found in the antique, and was +so far as it went true and laudable in its aim. But in the case of the +Squarcionesques this study of classic statuary was not combined with +sufficient knowledge of nature, and, therefore, frequently degenerated +into a lifeless rigidity and absence of expression, if not into positive +ugliness and coarseness of form. + +This stiffness and want of vitality strike us at once in the four +Evangelists on the ceiling of the chapel, wrongly ascribed by Vasari to +Mantegna, and in the upper frescoes of St. Christopher’s life, attributed +to three different artists—Marco Zoppo, Bono of Ferrara, and Ansuino of +Forli. These last-named subjects are not without a considerable degree +of skill in perspective and composition, but are alike marked by the +same rigidity of form and metallic coldness of colouring. The feeblest +of the three is Bono’s representation of St. Christopher bearing the +child through the river, a work which, in awkwardness, incorrect drawing +and truly painful ugliness, seems to exaggerate the worst faults of the +Paduan school. + +On the other hand there is a decided advance in the frescoes of Niccolo +Pizzolo, the only one of the Squarcionesques who approached Mantegna’s +style, and whose improved colouring and greater nobleness of type are +best explained by the discovery that he had worked with the Florentines, +Donatello and Filippo Lippi, during their residence in Padua. To him +Vasari ascribes the figure of the Eternal between St. Peter and St. +Paul on the dome of the tribune, and later critics have recognised his +hand in the “Call of St. James and St. John” and “St. James exorcising +Devils” on the upper part of the left wall. But the finest of all his +works here is “The Assumption,” in the apse, a fresco which in joyous +life and freedom of movement so far surpasses the ordinary manner of the +Paduans that one of the best critics, Dr. Woltmann, pronounces it to be +by Mantegna’s hand. Against this we have the testimony of the anonymous +traveller of the sixteenth century, who says decidedly that Andrea +painted the lower part of the right and the whole of the left wall, but +that “The Assumption” and cupola are by Pizzolo. Vasari is silent on this +point, but remarks that Pizzolo’s works in this chapel yielded nothing +in excellence to those of Andrea, and probably the best solution of the +question is to accept both “The Assumption” and the upper frescoes of St. +James’s life as the joint composition of the two artists, or at least to +allow that they were partly designed by Mantegna. + +In the midst of Pizzolo’s labours in the Eremitani Chapel his promising +career was cut short by a violent end. He had, it appears, an unlucky +habit of taking part in street brawls and riots, and one evening as +he was returning home from his work he was attacked and slain by some +unknown persons whose enmity he had excited. + +Mantegna was now left alone to complete the unfinished work, and whatever +uncertainty rests on his share in the earlier frescoes there is no doubt +that the six remaining subjects are entirely by his hand. In each of +these we see some clearer revelation of unfolding powers. Step by step +some fresh difficulty is overcome, some new knowledge gained, until +by slow degrees the battle is won, and the mastery over human form is +complete. + +In the fresco of “St. James baptizing Converts” the statuesque air of +Squarcione’s school is still strongly felt in the principal figures. The +action is stiff, and the faces are mostly wanting in expression. But +the spectators of the ceremony are, on the contrary, full of life and +animation. Nothing can be more natural than the two children who look on +with wondering eyes—the taller of the two holding a water-melon in his +hand, while the smaller one presses close to his side—or the youth under +the colonnade in the act of turning round to speak to a figure whose face +is concealed by a pillar. If from these we turn to the decorative part of +the fresco, the winged angels in the upper corners at once remind us of +the charming groups of children on Donatello’s bronzes in Sant’ Antonio, +and prove how attentively Mantegna must have studied these recently +finished works of the Florentine master. The beneficial influence of +the great sculptor had already appeared in the earlier frescoes of the +Eremitani, and from his example Andrea now learnt how to combine the +study of nature with sculptural treatment, and to adopt a more elevated +type of human form. + +The next subject, “St. James before Herod,” reveals a new feature, +afterwards to become prominent in his career, in the accurate knowledge +of Roman costumes and classical architecture which is here displayed. One +of the finest figures is that of a soldier leaning on his lance in the +left-hand corner of the picture, an ancient Roman, in whom we recognise +immediately the painter’s own portrait, from the close resemblance +which his strongly marked features and massive brow bear to the bust on +Andrea’s tomb at Mantua. Both of these frescoes show considerable skill +in perspective, but in the next, “St. James blessing a kneeling Disciple +on his way to Execution,” Mantegna boldly ventures on an experiment +that is altogether new. For no apparent reason, but purely as a trial +of skill, he suddenly alters the point of sight to a low level, and +while the feet of the foremost figures appear to stand on the edge of +the picture the lower extremities of those in the background vanish +altogether. The difficulties thus created are on the whole correctly +solved. Each figure is carefully foreshortened, and the Roman arch under +which the procession passes is drawn in admirable perspective, but +freedom of action is impaired, and the whole suffers from an unpleasant +sense of effort and unnatural constraint. Perspective was in those days +a favourite branch of learning in the University of Padua, and Mantegna, +whose vigorous genius took pleasure in the driest studies, seems to have +derived this strange passion for applying its laws to the human form from +Paolo Uccelli, a Florentine who had lately visited Padua. In his ardour +to accomplish his self-imposed task he failed to see the mistake of +subjecting living figures to the rules of architecture, and of treating +them as existing solely in order to demonstrate a scientific problem. + +But at the time the young painter’s exhibition of skill excited the +utmost admiration, and both Daniele Barbaro and Lomazzo praise him as the +first artist who opened men’s eyes to the true principles of perspective. + +If we are to believe Vasari, Squarcione, who till now had been as proud +of his pupil’s growing fame as if it were his own, suddenly altered his +tone and openly blamed Mantegna for the stony rigidity of his figures, +declaring that they were mere copies of marble statues, altogether devoid +of life and expression. + +The reproach, although not wholly undeserved, was a curious one in +Squarcione’s lips, but the real cause of the breach which took place +between the master and scholar was Andrea’s connection with the rival +workshop of Jacopo Bellini. The Venetian painter, with his two sons, +Gentile and Giovanni, had lately taken up his abode at Padua, and a +strong friendship had sprung up between Mantegna and the members of his +family which before long led to the marriage of the young Paduan with +Jacopo’s daughter Niccolosia. Their union took place while Mantegna +was actually engaged on the Eremitani frescoes—probably about 1454 or +1455, since in 1458 he had already two or three children—and becomes an +important fact in art history as strengthening the ties between these +distinguished artists. The influence each was to exercise on the other +was destined to prove great and lasting. Jacopo Bellini, who had spent +some time in Florence, was probably instrumental in leading Mantegna to +follow Donatello and Uccelli’s models, while from Giovanni, Andrea would +learn the softer colouring and delicate feeling that impart so pure a +charm to those well-known Madonnas which fill the churches of Venice. +Mantegna, on his part, gave back at least as much as he took, and no +one can doubt that Gian Bellini owed to his brother-in-law in a great +measure his knowledge of classical architecture and perspective, as well +as the sculptural cast of drapery, that distinguish his pictures from +those of earlier Venetian masters. In all probability this new influence, +rather than Squarcione’s jealous reproaches, was the cause of the marked +improvement visible in the later frescoes. The principal figures in the +“Execution of St. James” are more life-like; there is less hardness in +the modelling and laying on of shadows, while the background, with its +winding road and rocky terraces crowned with olive-trees, is an exact +copy of a Lombard hill-side. Nothing, indeed, is more striking in these +frescoes than the close attention to natural objects, which shows how +strongly realistic was the bent of our painter’s genius, in spite of his +Squarcionesque training and love of antique statuary. He not only fills +his backgrounds with faithful reproductions of Italian landscape and +streets, with red roofs, arched loggias, or vine-trellised arbours, but +recalls every detail and renders the furrows and wrinkles of old age, the +ragged coat or torn shoe, with an accuracy that is almost painful. + +The eagerness with which he sought difficulties and his courage in +grappling with them meet us again in the foreshortened rider who looks +on at the Saint’s martyrdom, and is still more triumphant in the bold +action of the men who drag away the dead body of the giant Christopher, +in itself a masterpiece of perspective which served as a model for Titian +and other Venetians in dealing with similar subjects in future years. + +Unfortunately these two last frescoes, “The Martyrdom” and “Burial of +St. Christopher,” are much injured, and some of the chief figures are +completely obliterated. The portions that remain justify the praises of +former critics who pronounced these to be the finest of the whole series. +Here at least Squarcione’s reproach is refuted, the stony look of the +faces has given place to warm flesh-tones and softer modelling, and the +band of archers assembled under the vine-trellis in the scene where the +saint is to meet his doom are remarkable for their energetic action and +expressive faces. + +According to Yasari, in this last subject, Mantegna represented +Squarcione himself in the character of a fat archer, as a proof that he +knew how to draw from living models, and the same writer mentions several +other contemporary personages whose portraits are also introduced. +Especially interesting in our eyes is the group, in the right-hand corner +of “The Martyrdom,” of an elderly man standing between two younger +figures, one of whom wears a red cap. The Venetian costume of these three +spectators, and a certain resemblance of one of the youthful heads to +a medal bearing the likeness of Gentile Bellini, go far to confirm the +truth of Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s supposition that here we have portraits +of Mantegna’s father and brothers-in-law, who were all in Padua at the +time, and whom he would very naturally introduce among his other friends. + +With these frescoes Andrea’s labours in the church of the Eremitani end, +and the decoration of the chapel, with which Squarcione’s pupils had been +intrusted some ten years before, was finally completed. + +If from details of execution we pass to consider the work as a whole, it +must be owned that the general impression left upon the spectator’s mind +is one of coldness and severity. These stern and vigorous figures which +look down upon us from the walls awe us by the power and reality of their +presence; they impress us by the accurate science and years of assiduous +labour which they reveal, but they fail to touch the heart or delight the +eye; they are wanting in that sense of beauty which, is so conspicuous +a feature in Mantegna’s later work. If he had painted nothing else he +would have left behind him the reputation of a master of strong realistic +tendency, who solved difficult problems and attained a remarkable degree +of proficiency in drawing and anatomy, but lacked the qualities necessary +for the highest class of art. + +Fortunately for us Mantegna’s activity does not end here. The frescoes +of the Eremitani were only the first stage in a great career, and as +we contemplate them we can always reflect with satisfaction that these +powerful works, in their grimness and austere dignity, in their curious +display of scientific knowledge and minute attention to detail, were the +preliminary studies, by means of which he reached the perfection of after +years, and achieved the ultimate successes that were to make his name +celebrated. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +WORK AT VERONA AND MANTUA, A.D. 1457-1470. + + +The exact date of the completion of the Eremitani frescoes is uncertain, +but they were probably finished by 1458, perhaps earlier. Mantegna was +still a young man, not more than six or seven-and-twenty, but in actual +power as well as in reputation second to no living painter in North Italy. + +We have already noticed the chief influences brought to bear on his early +training. One by one we have watched him discover and assimilate, with +the same clearness of intellect and indefatigable energy, the peculiar +virtue of each successive artist with whom he was brought into contact. +We have seen him add Florentine principles to Squarcione’s teaching, +learn from Donatello how to combine the study of nature with the laws of +sculpture, gain from Uccelli that knowledge of perspective which had for +him so subtle a fascination, and last of all temper this fiery genius +under the gentler spell of Gian Bellini’s more genial art. + +Another and a very important element in his development was the constant +intercourse which he maintained with the most learned Paduan scholars, +and the keen pleasure with which he joined in their antiquarian +researches in the neighbourhood. He accompanied Felice Feliciano, a +famous collector of inscriptions, on several excursions in the environs +of Verona and the Lago di Garda for the express purpose of examining +classical remains, and in 1463 this same Feliciano dedicated his work on +ancient epigrams to the painter, whose learning he extols in the highest +terms. One result of these explorations in the classic ground of Sermione +appears in the fragments of Latin inscriptions which are repeatedly +introduced, in the Eremitani frescoes, and on one Roman portico the +name of Vitruvius Cerdo, a Verona architect of ancient days, is still +distinctly legible. + +This practice was a common one with many of the artists of Squarcione and +Mantegna’s school, who, in their genuine enthusiasm for classical art, +copied antique monuments and inscriptions with the minutest accuracy, and +afterwards used them as accessory portions of their own compositions. +We have a notable example of this habit in the drawing of a pagan altar +bearing an inscription to the effect that it was found in a vault of +the Baths of Caracalla, then known as the Antonine palace at Rome. The +drawing, evidently by the hand of some Paduan artist, is now preserved at +Christ Church, Oxford. + +Besides Feliciano, Andrea numbered among his intimate friends several +eminent scholars then studying at the University of Padua, such as Matteo +Bossi, afterwards Abbot of Fiesole, and the Hungarian bishop Giovanni +Pannonio, who celebrated the artist’s genius in Latin verse as early as +1458, and whose portrait Mantegna painted in the same year. + +This rare degree of culture which made him the friend of scholars, this +genuine delight in classical studies and antique art, was destined to +supply our master with some of his highest inspirations, and ultimately +render him the foremost representative among painters of that enthusiasm +for antiquity which was the ruling passion of Italy in the fifteenth +century. + +During the years that Andrea was employed on the Eremitani frescoes we +hear little else of his private life excepting that he married Niccolosia +Bellini, and became estranged from his old master Squarcione, while two +panel pictures, the Brera Altar-piece which he painted in 1454 for Santa +Giustina, and the “St. Euphemia” now at Naples, are the only other works +that are left us of this period. In the former, a vigorous but not very +pleasing work, St. Luke is represented writing at a table between four +single figures of saints, while above we have a Pietà with the Virgin, +St. John, and four other saints. Far more graceful in conception is the +St. Euphemia standing in her garlanded niche with the lily in her hand +and the lion beside her. This admirably drawn figure in attitude and form +closely resembles an antique statue, and will bear comparison, with the +best of the later frescoes. + +So far, Andrea’s works had been confined to Padua, but his fame had +spread far beyond his native city, and before he had finished his labours +in the Eremitani, pressing invitations to move to Mantua had reached +him from Lodovico Gonzaga, Marquis of that principality. This prince, a +generous patron of letters as well as a brave soldier and wise ruler, +was anxious to make his court a centre of art and learning; and, having +failed in his efforts to attract the aged Donatello, spared no pains to +secure the services of the Paduan artist, whose rising genius was already +eclipsing that of all others. As early as 1456 we find Lodovico entering +into communication with Andrea, first by letter and then through the +sculptor Luca Fancelli, a confidential agent of the Marquis. His offers +were liberal; fifteen ducats a month, lodging, firewood, and sufficient +wheat to feed the members of his family, who are reckoned as six in +number; besides, he proposed to assist him on his journey to Mantua by +sending a boat to meet him. + +Mantegna lent a willing ear to these proposals, but his hands were full, +and flattering as were Lodovico’s entreaties and assurances of good-will, +he was slow to comply with the request. In his letters he assigns first +one reason, then another, for delaying his departure. First, he asks +for time to execute an order given him by Gregorio Corraro, Abbot of +San Zeno of Verona, and protonotary to the Apostolic See. Then he begs +for six months more to complete the work, then for another respite in +order to do a little piece for the Podestà of Padua. The Marquis bore +all these delays with unalterable patience and courtesy, while he never +for a moment relaxed his efforts to bring the artist to Mantua, and +redoubled his assurance of favour. If Andrea will only come, he says +again and again, and himself prove the truth of the promises made to him, +he will every day of his life find greater cause to rejoice that he has +entered the service of the Gonzagas. When the summer of 1459 came and the +protonotary’s altar-piece was still unfinished, Lodovico suggested as a +last resource that the panels should be brought to Mantua and completed +there. To this proposal the abbot was too wise a man to consent, and he +would not even allow Mantegna to visit Mantua for a day until the picture +had been safely delivered into his hands. + +This altar-piece, of which we hear so much in Lodovico’s correspondence +with our master, was the “Madonna and Saints” in San Zeno, of Verona, +taken to Paris in 1797, but now restored (without its predella) to its +place, and one of the finest religious compositions that Andrea ever +painted. All the chief characteristics of Andrea’s Paduan time are +here brought together in a more elevated form, and for the first time +we realise fully how great was the progress he had made since the days +when he began to paint in the Eremitani Chapel. Nothing can exceed the +simple dignity and grace of the youthful virgin, who sits erect under +a portico decorated with a frieze of children bearing festoons of +fruit, through which we see a thick growth of trees, and open space +of blue sky beyond. On the pillars of the portico are medallions in +which Andrea has after his usual habit introduced reliefs of classical +subjects, one of which is a horse-tamer, evidently copied from the +famous “Twins,” of Monte Cavallo, and curious as adopted by a painter +who had not yet visited Rome. The saints who stand in the groups on +either side of the Madonna’s throne are still too much treated as +isolated figures, but each statue-like form has a grandeur of its own, +and the graceful heads of the young St. John and St. Lawrence contrast +finely with those of the aged apostles and fathers of the Church, while +in the boy-angels who play on the steps of the throne, or sing with +wide-parted lips, we have the first of those child-faces whose laughing +eyes look down from many of Mantegna’s pictures and seem to give us a +foretaste of Raphael’s sweetness. Unfortunately, the different parts of +the predella that belonged to this beautiful altar-piece are scattered +in different galleries, the “Gethsemane” and “Ascension” are at Tours, +the “Crucifixion,” in the dramatic action of its varied group by far the +finest of the three, is in the Louvre. + +According to Vasari, Mantegna painted several other pictures in Verona, +but the only other traces of his work now remaining in that city are some +equestrian figures and chiaroscuro decorations on the façade of a house +near San Fermo Maggiore, and we have no proof of his ever having resided +there. + +The “little piece” which Andrea executed for Giacomo Marcello, Podestà +of Padua, has been identified in the “Christ on the Mount of Olives” of +the Baring collection, a work in which we feel the same union of plastic +tendency of form and strong realism that strikes us in the frescoes. In +the background, a wild and savage landscape, the desolate aspect of which +is heightened by the presence of cranes and birds of prey, we recognise +the city of Padua with the Eremitani Church. + +If we compare this picture with the well-known rendering of the same +subject by Giovanni Bellini in the National Gallery, we shall see how +much of the original conception and drawing the Venetian artist borrowed +from his brother-in-law, and at the same time how well he knew how to +modify Andrea’s severer style by his own more delicate grace and feeling +for colour. + +These altar-pieces were Mantegna’s last works in his native city. The +patience of the Marquis was at length rewarded, and towards the close of +the year 1459, Andrea moved to Mantua with his family. Soon afterwards +Jacopo Bellini died, his sons moved to Venice, and the Paduan school of +painting, left in the hands of inferior followers of Squarcione, came to +a practical end. + +But Paduan art lived on in the work of her greatest son, and the new +influences and surroundings of Mantegna’s adopted city gave fresh impulse +to his creative energy. + +That he settled at Mantua before the end of 1459 is proved by a letter +of his written to the Marquis in May, 1478, in which he speaks of having +been almost nineteen years in Lodovico’s service, but it is not till the +spring of 1463 that we hear of him as engaged in painting at Goïto, one +of the summer villas belonging to the Gonzagas. Both this palace and +the neighbouring Castle of Cavriana, where he also painted, have been +destroyed, and a few panel pictures now dispersed throughout Europe are +the only productions that remain of his first ten years’ residence at the +Court of Mantua. + +Chief among these is the Uffizi triptych, which originally belonged to +a chapel of the Gonzagas, and may be the very picture to which Andrea +alludes in a letter of 1464 as destined for the little chapel, and which +Vasari tells us contained many small but most beautiful figures. + +The “Adoration of the Magi” forms the subject of the central panel, while +the “Ascension” and the “Presentation in the Temple” are represented +on the wings. All three are marked by the miniature-like finish which +reveals the thoroughly practised hand and loving zeal of one who took +delight in carrying his work to the highest possible perfection. + +In the seated Virgin, of the strong type of womanhood which Andrea +seems to prefer, with the flight of cherubs encircling her head, and +the patches of rough herbage starting out of the rocks behind her, we +recognise the original of his own unfinished engraving, the “Virgin of +the Grotto.” The red cherub-heads, which remind us of the similar wreath +with which Giovanni Bellini surrounds one of his Madonnas in the Academy +of Venice, are again introduced in “The Ascension.” Here the group of +apostles, who gaze upwards, have more of the slender form used by Pizzolo +in the Eremitani frescoes, and the panel is inferior as a whole to “The +Presentation.” + +This is in Mantegna’s best manner, the principal figures full of grace +and dignity, the heads excellent in expression, especially that of the +child sucking his finger as he leans against his mother, while Andrea’s +historic feeling appears in the typical reliefs of “Moses breaking +the Tables” and “Abraham sacrificing Isaac,” which adorn the altar. +Another fine rendering of this subject by Mantegna is now in the Berlin +Gallery, which also possesses two other works belonging to this period, a +half-length “Madonna holding the Child on a Parapet,” and a portrait of +an old ecclesiastic. + +Probably this Madonna was the very one of which Vasari speaks as painted +by Mantegna, for his old friend, the famous orator, Matteo Bossi, Abbot +of Fiesole, since the frame decorated with angels and instruments +of the Passion exactly corresponds with his description, and the +strikingly-truthful portrait may well be that of the Abbot himself, +whose friendship for the painter neither time nor distance seems to have +impaired. + +A “Death of the Virgin,” with a view of Mantua and its lake seen through +a colonnade, now at Madrid, and chiaroscuro figures known as “Summer” and +“Autumn,” now at Hamilton Palace, may be mentioned as painted about 1470, +when Andrea was engaged in works at the Castle of Mantua. + +More interesting in the eyes of most of us are the two small pictures +of the Saints Sebastian and George, two youthful figures intended to +show the contrast of suffering and repose. In the “St. Sebastian” now at +Vienna, Mantegna has deliberately set himself the task of representing +the human form wrung by physical agony, and the divine strength of a +will that can conquer pain by the power of its endurance. His success +was complete, and among the countless representations of martyrdom that +exist, there is scarcely a finer example than this St. Sebastian bound to +the ruined column and pierced with arrows, lifting his eyes heavenwards +in his mortal agony. At his feet lie broken statues and marbles, +shattered fragments of the old world that was crumbling to ruins around, +and which by the delicate grace of their shapes and mouldings help to +associate ideas of beauty with this scene of suffering and death. + +The opposite of this picture meets us in the armed “St. George” of the +Venice Academy, who stands under an archway garlanded with flowers, +leaning on his lance in satisfied repose of victory, with the dragon dead +at his feet. His classical head is not unlike the youthful saints of the +Verona altar-piece, while the highly finished character of the execution +approaches the style of the Uffizi triptych, evidently painted about the +same time. + +To these we may add the wonderful “Dead Christ” of the Brera, a work +almost terrible in its realism, and exaggerated foreshortening, but +which reveals in a surprising degree Mantegna’s mastery both in drawing +and management of light and shade. This _Cristo in Scurto_ was one of +those daring trials of skill which he loved to attempt, not to please +the eye or gratify the taste of his employers, but simply in order to +overcome some difficulty or solve some problem from which a less powerful +mind would have shrunk. + +The satisfaction which he felt in the success of this experiment is +proved by his unwillingness to part with this work, which never left his +studio until his death, when it is mentioned by his son in the list of +paintings that were sold to pay his debts. + +In the same style as this “Pietà,” but with more attempt at decorative +effect, is the picture exhibited by Sir William Abdy, in the last winter +exhibition at Burlington House (1880-81). Here the dead Christ lies on +a carved throne of coloured marbles, the back of which is formed by the +broken tables of the law. On either side are two grandly defined forms of +Isaiah and Jerome, as representatives of the old and new dispensations, +between whom Christ stands. The background is more elaborate than +usual. On one side is a wild tract of mountainous country, on the other +a river and fertile valley, along the slopes of which we see rows of +smiling villages, church-towers, and fields enclosed with hedges. +In the foreground skulls and bones are scattered at the feet of the +prophets, and beasts and birds of gay plumage enliven the scene. A stag +and panther and a red parrot are prominent figures, but all these minor +details are subdued to the leading idea in the painter’s mind. Doubts +have been entertained as to the authorship of the picture, but both its +general style and colouring and the presence of that weird grandeur of +imagination peculiar to Mantegna are strong proofs of its genuineness. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE CAMERA DEGLI SPOSI, A.D. 1470-1474. + + +Recent research has brought to light a series of valuable letters between +the Gonzagas and Mantegna, which tell us little indeed about his existing +works, but much that is of the deepest interest concerning his private +life, and especially his relations with Lodovico and his family. + +The Marquis had kept his word and proved himself a true friend and +generous patron to the Paduan artist. _Carissmé noster_, _dilecte +noster_, are the terms in which he always addresses him, and the +thoughtful consideration and patience with which he treated Andrea in +what must frequently have been very trying circumstances, are beyond all +praise. + +The first letter of the series is a complaint which the painter, writing +from Goïto, addresses to Lodovico, saying that his stipend is irregularly +paid, a wrong which the Marquis promptly redressed. Three years later we +find him in the same liberal spirit advancing one hundred ducats which +Mantegna begged in order to decorate and improve his house in Mantua. + +There our painter spent the winter with his wife and three +children—_tutto la mia brigatela_ he calls them in a letter to the +Marquis—and each year, when the summer heats returned, he moved to a +country-house at Buscoldo, where he afterwards received a grant of land +from his patron. + +In 1466 he paid a visit to Florence, where he had at least one friend in +the learned Abbot of Fiesole, and a letter from Giovanni Aldobrandini, +an agent of Lodovico, describes the great respect with which he was +received, and the admiration excited by his varied accomplishments. +“Not only in painting but in other ways he showed remarkable knowledge +and most excellent understanding” is Aldobrandini’s testimony, and we +learn from other sources that he took much pleasure in poetry, and even +wrote verses himself. A sonnet of his composition addressed to a lady +whose name is unknown, and written in the fashionable Platonic style of +the day, has been discovered in the Mantuan archives and is given by +Moschini. As a collector of antiquities he had acquired considerable +reputation, and in 1472 we find the young Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, +then at Bologna, begging his father that Mantegna may be sent to him that +he may have the pleasure of showing him his cameos, bronzes, and other +antiques. + +Unfortunately the culture and refined taste which made Mantegna so +agreeable a companion were accompanied by an irritable temper, and a +readiness to take offence, which rendered him the reverse of a pleasant +neighbour. The most trifling contradictions were sufficient to excite +furious outbursts of anger on his part, and his letters to Lodovico are +full of the pettiest grievances. The Marquis, it must be said, treated +him with the utmost forbearance, and spared no pains to inquire into the +grounds of his complaints, however small. On one occasion he implores +Lodovico to punish a tailor who has spoilt a piece of his cloth, on +another he has quarrelled with a gardener and his wife who live in the +same street, and complains that neither he nor his wife can leave the +house without being attacked by insulting words. More serious was the +lawsuit in which he found himself involved with the engraver, Zoan +Andrea, whom he suspected of purloining his plates, and to whom he +administered a sound thrashing. Upon this Zoan Andrea had recourse to +legal measures, in which Mantegna seems to have fared badly, since he was +again compelled to seek the help of his powerful patron. + +But of all Andrea’s quarrels, that which excited his greatest wrath +was his breach with his Buscoldo neighbour, Francesco Aliprandi, whom +he publicly accused of stealing five hundred quinces from a tree which +grew in his garden. There is a singular combination of the pathetic and +ludicrous in Mantegna’s description of the beauty of his fruit tree, with +its branches so heavily laden that they touched the ground. Each day he +looked upon it with fresh delight, until one September morning he found +all the quinces gone, and the tree stripped and bare. His anger knew no +bounds, and he did not hesitate to charge his nearest neighbours, the +Aliprandi, who he was convinced bore him secret ill-will with the theft. +Upon this Francesco Aliprandi, who seems to have been a citizen of good +birth, denied the charge indignantly, saying that during the two hundred +years his family had lived in Mantua, they had never been insulted by +so vile an epithet as that of thief, and complaining of Mantegna’s +disagreeable character as the real cause of all this disturbance. “No +one,” Aliprandi continues, “can live near him in peace, and at the +present moment he is engaged in lawsuits with no less than five of his +neighbours.” Even the Marquis was forced to admit this time that Andrea +was in the wrong, and, after carefully investigating the case, arrived at +the conclusion that the quinces had been stolen by some unknown thief. + +This ruggedness of disposition and exaggerated susceptibility which, +by attaching excessive importance to the trifling cares of daily life, +proved a constant torment to Mantegna and those around him, remind +us curiously of Michelangelo, whom in more ways than one our master +resembled. + +Like the great Florentine in this also, he never stooped to flattery or +servile expressions in addressing his patron. On the contrary, there is +from the first an independent spirit and proud consciousness of his own +merit which never deserts him, and he tells the Marquis repeatedly that +his coming to Mantua was a great favour on his part, and that no other +prince in Italy has so industrious an artist in his service. + +The boast may not have sounded well in Mantegna’s lips, but it was a +true one. His activity was indefatigable, and whether he painted in +chapels and palaces, or made studies for tapestry or designs from the +turkey-cocks and hens which strutted in the court poultry-yard, his time +and powers were unreservedly placed at Lodovico’s disposal. What we have +to regret is that so little of all his splendid work is left, although +when we consider the subsequent history of Mantua, it is rather to be +wondered that anything has been saved from the general wreck. + +In 1630, little more than a hundred years after Mantegna’s time, the city +was besieged during three months by the Imperialists, and ultimately +taken and sacked for three whole days. In 1797 it was again twice +besieged and bombarded by the French and Austrians, and during the wars +of the present century the ducal palace has been alternately occupied by +French and German soldiers. This once sumptuous pile is now the dreariest +and most desolate of palaces. The little life that still lingers in the +old town clusters round the market-place on the Piazza delle Erbe, and +grass grows on the deserted square which was once the centre of “Mantova +la Gloriosa.” + +[Illustration: MEETING OF LODOVICO GONZAGA AND HIS SON, THE CARDINAL +FRANCESCO. BY MANTEGNA. + +_In the Camera degli Sposi, at Mantua._] + +We pass through endless suites of spacious halls paved with marble and +adorned with decaying frescoes and other remnants of faded splendour, +till we reach the older part of the palace known in the days of the +Gonzagas as the Castello di Corte. From its windows we look down on +the sleepy waters of the vast lagoon, which seems to divide Mantua +from the outer world, and over miles of swampy marshes, through which +“smooth-sliding Mincius” winds its way. + +Here the Gonzagas hold their splendid court, here the banqueting-halls +where they feasted, the ball-rooms—the scenes of their revels and +masquerades—the suite of tiny apartments expressly built for the use of +the dwarfs, the courtyards where the dogs were kept, are still shown. +Here Mantegna painted, and here the walls of a room, now used to contain +the archives, were entirely covered with frescoes by himself. + +This was the famous Camera degli Sposi, on which Andrea was engaged +between 1470 and 1474, and where he represented Lodovico Gonzaga and his +wife, Barbara of Brandenburg, surrounded by the different members of +their family. + +All the frescoes have been much damaged, and those on two of the walls +completely obliterated; but the groups which remain and the decorations +of the ceiling are of the highest interest, and, if we except the +Hampton Court Triumphs, form the most important series that we have from +Mantegna’s hand. + +On the east wall above the mantel-piece is the central group. Lodovico +and his wife, clad in rich brocaded robes, are seated in a garden +surrounded by their children, and dwarfs in the act of receiving a +messenger, who hands the Marquis a letter. Neither Lodovico nor any of +his family seem to have been remarkable for personal beauty, and Mantegna +has not made any attempt to embellish them. He paints them exactly as +they were, in the stiff costumes of the day. Barbara wears the same +veiled horn-shaped head-dress as in Andrea’s portrait-engraving in +the British Museum; the children and courtiers are in short jackets +and tight-fitting caps. Nothing is omitted that could complete the +picture, which is like a page torn out of the court life of those times; +a favourite greyhound lies asleep under Lodovico’s chair, and several +dwarfs positively repulsive in their ugliness are introduced. They +formed, we know, an important part of the household, since the Marquis +kept a particular race, bred at Mantua, and reserved a whole wing of his +palace, with staircases, halls, and bedrooms adapted to their stature, +for their exclusive use. + +Beyond the fine figure of the courtier on the right, evidently the +painter’s own portrait, we have another compartment where the Marquis +stands at the head of the stairs welcoming his guests, or, as Selvatico +suggests, opening his arms to his son Federico, who had been in disgrace +for refusing to consent to a marriage which Lodovico had arranged for +him. This subject is much damaged, but on the entrance-wall is another +group, the best preserved of the three, in which the Marquis meets his +younger son, the boy-cardinal Francesco, on his return from Rome. The +composition is stiff and the dresses awkward, but nothing can surpass +the life-like character of the heads, whether we fix our eyes on the +baby-faces and demure air of the children who advance to welcome their +brother, or on the vigorous profiles of Lodovico and his courtiers. A +tame lion crouches at the feet of the Marquis, and a view of hills and +classical temples, intended to represent Rome, fills in the background. +On the opposite side of the doorway the servants and pages in attendance +are introduced holding their master’s horse, and several dogs in leash, +all admirably drawn; while above the door itself a charming group of +seven winged boys, in every possible attitude, support a tablet with the +following inscription:— + + Ill Lodovico II. M.M. + Principi optimo ac + Fide invictissimo + Et Ill Barbaræ eius + Conjugi Mulierum Glor + Incomparabili + Suus Andreas Mantinia + Patavus opus hoc tenue + Ad eorum Decus absolvit. + Ann. MCCCCLXXIIII. + +The grace and freshness of these boy-angels form a striking contrast to +the stiff figures on the walls, and both here and in the decorations of +the ceiling our painter, released from the obligations of portraiture, +allowed his fancy free play. Medallions of the Cæsars wreathed in laurel, +grisaille scenes from the myths of Hercules and Antæus, Orpheus, Apollo, +and the Tritons, occupy the vaulting of the ceiling; while in the centre +a circular opening is painted to represent a blue sky, across which white +clouds are floating by, as we see in actual reality in the Pantheon of +Rome. Round this open space runs a balustrade, upon which a peacock is +perched and a basket of fruit rests. Two women, a girl with a jewelled +head-dress and a negress, look down from above with laughing faces, while +a band of winged boys play on the edge of the stone-work. + +These are the famous figures, _che scortano di sotto in sù_, which Vasari +says excited general admiration when Mantegna first painted them in the +Castle of Mantua. + +Instead of treating the ceiling in the usual fashion, as another flat +surface on a level with the spectator’s eye, he endeavoured to represent +the figures he painted there as seen from below, and in reality looking +down over the balustrade. The optical illusion is effected in a +masterly way, and the playful boys, who push their heads through the +open stone-work of the parapet or balance themselves on its edge, are +admirably foreshortened. + +Curiously enough, this new principle of ceiling decoration, which +in Corregio’s days was to become universal, and which Mantegna here +attempted for the first time, was employed at almost the same moment by +another painter, Melozzo da Forli, in his fresco of the “Glory of Heaven” +in the tribune of the Church of the SS. Apostoli at Rome. Whether the +two masters had ever been brought into personal contact we do not learn, +but we know that Giovanni Santi, the father of Raphael, in his rhyming +chronicle, gives Mantegna’s perspective the highest praise, and we may +infer from this that the great Lombard’s influence had penetrated far +enough south to reach the Umbrian artists. + +The frescoes of the Camera degli Sposi were finished in 1474, and ten +years later it is recorded that Mantegna painted in another part of the +palace, known as the Scalcheria; but a ruined ceiling, with the same +circular opening and sportive Loves, is all that is left of his work +there. + +Traces of his hand are also visible in another hall in some of the groups +of a large, much-injured fresco, where the first Gonzaga is represented +taking the oath as _Capitano del popolo_, and more especially in the +children holding a tablet which once bore a now-effaced inscription. + +All else has perished. The lapse of time and the more cruel ravages of +man have swept away whatever other paintings once adorned these walls, +and the precious fragments of the Camera degli Sposi are absolutely the +only works of Mantegna that are still to be seen in this his adopted +city, where he spent well-nigh fifty years of his life. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +WORK AT MANTUA AND ROME: ENGRAVINGS, A.D. 1474-1490. + + +The painting of the Camera degli Sposi gave the Marquis an opportunity +for the bestowal of new favours on his chosen artist, “suus Andreas,” as +Mantegna proudly terms himself on the tablet where he has recorded the +completion of the work. Lodovico now granted him a piece of land near the +Church of St. Sebastian, in Mantua, where Andrea built a house with the +help of the architect Giovanni di Padova, and decorated it with frescoes +which were the admiration of his contemporaries, but which perished in +the sack of Mantua. + +Unfortunately his love of splendid undertakings led him into +extravagance; he had already incurred heavy debts by purchasing a +property at Buscoldo, and the expenses of his new house involved him in +further difficulties. According to his usual habit he had recourse to +the Marquis, and addressed him on the 13th of May, 1478, in a querulous +letter, complaining that he is growing old, and has several sons and +one daughter of a marriageable age, and yet that while others think he +is basking in the sunshine of his Excellency’s favour he is in reality +poorer than when he first came to Mantua. He ended by asking him to pay +the eight hundred ducats required to satisfy his Buscoldo creditors, and +to give him six hundred more in order to defray the cost of his new house. + +Lodovico was at that time in great difficulties himself, for he had +been defeated by his enemies, and even compelled to pawn his jewels. +None the less his reply was frank and generous. He fully recognised +his obligations, and assured him that all his last pledges should be +redeemed, but reminded him that of late fortune had been unfavourable +to his arms, and that it was impossible for him to give what he did not +possess. This letter, written in the same kindly spirit which we have +often before had occasion to notice, was the last which Andrea ever +received from his noble patron. Before another month had elapsed the good +Marquis was dead, and had been succeeded by his son Federico. + +The young Gonzaga had known Mantegna from his boyhood, and proved as kind +and liberal a friend as his father to the wayward artist. He not only +paid his debts, but exempted the estates which he possessed both at Goïto +and at Mantua from the land-tax. All his dealings with Andrea are marked +by the same generous feeling. His letters express much concern on hearing +of an attack of illness which had interrupted the painter’s work; and +on another occasion, when one of Andrea’s sons was ill, he sent his own +doctor from Venice to attend him. + +During the six years of this prince’s brief reign Mantegna was chiefly +employed in painting halls at the villas of Marmirolo and Gonzaga, which +have long since shared the common ruin of the summer palaces round Mantua. + +His fame was now at its height. “The virtue of Andrea,” wrote the Marquis +Federico, “is known to the whole world;” and in 1483 Lorenzo de’ Medici +stopped at Mantua to visit our painter’s house and renowned collection +of antiquities. Other sovereigns sent him pressing invitations, and all +were desirous of having a work by Mantegna’s hand; but the great man was +capricious, and refused most of these solicitations. Federico himself +had to make his painter’s excuses in an elaborate epistle to the Duchess +of Milan, whose portrait Andrea flatly refused to undertake. There was +no help for it, and the disappointed lady had to rest satisfied with +Federico’s explanation, that since these excellent masters were so full +of fancies we must be content with what they choose to give us. + +But when Federico’s early death in 1484 left the rule of his principality +to a mere child, Andrea, filled with anxiety for the future, and still +heavily burdened with debt, began to look around him for another patron. +His thoughts naturally turned to the illustrious patron of the fine arts +who had recently visited his studio, and he appealed to Lorenzo de’ +Medici in a pathetic letter, bewailing the losses he had sustained in the +successive deaths of two generous masters, and begging to be employed, +if perchance he should have any talent likely to please so magnificent a +prince. What answer Lorenzo returned to this entreaty we do not learn, +but he probably gave him a commission before long, since we know that it +was for him Andrea painted the beautiful little Virgin of the Uffizi, +which, with the master’s habitual slowness, he did not finish until the +close of his visit to Rome. This little gem remains a precious memorial +of the intercourse between two of the most interesting personalities +of the Renaissance, and few of Andrea’s conceptions are sweeter than +the blue-draped Mother gazing with drooping eyelids on the Child whom +she rocks to sleep in her arms, while the peasants are seen at work in +the field beyond and a band of herdsmen drive their flocks up the steep +hill-side path. + +After all, however, the state of affairs at Mantua was more hopeful than +Andrea had imagined in his first grief for the loss of Federico; and +before long the contemplated marriage of the boy Marquis Francesco with +Isabella of Este renewed his connection with the house of Ferrara, whose +members had been among his earliest patrons. He now painted a Madonna +for the Duchess Eleanor, which Francesco himself took to Ferrara, where +his mother-in-law was impatiently awaiting its arrival. Most critics +agree in identifying this picture with the noble Virgin, formerly in the +possession of Sir C. Eastlake and now in the Dresden Gallery, a work in +which the thoughtfulness of the child and tender maternal feeling of Mary +are peculiarly impressive. + +Very soon afterwards, in the year 1485, Mantegna began the greatest +work of his whole life, the “Triumphs of Julius Cæsar,” now at Hampton +Court. They were originally destined for the palace of St. Sebastian, +at Mantua, which the young Marquis was then building; and a letter of +the 25th of August, 1485, describes how Prince Ercole of Ferrara saw +Mantegna employed on them in his studio. While engaged on this engrossing +work he was interrupted in the summer of 1488 by an invitation from Pope +Innocent VIII., who begged Francesco that the great Lombard artist might +be allowed to decorate his newly erected chapel in the Vatican. Political +reasons induced the Marquis to consent; he knighted Andrea and sent him +to Rome with the most flattering recommendations. + +During two years Mantegna painted in the chapel of the Vatican, and it +is a subject of the deepest regret that a series of frescoes executed +in his best period should have been ruthlessly destroyed by Pius VI. +when he enlarged the Vatican Museum. On the entrance wall the Madonna +sat enthroned, above the altar was the “Baptism,” on the side walls the +“Birth of Christ” and the “Adoration of the Magi;” while Old Testament +subjects and the Virtues were represented in grisaille on the ceiling, +all painted, says Vasari, with the same miniature-like finish. + +But Andrea did not find the Pope a liberal patron or Rome a pleasant +residence. He complains bitterly in his letters to Francesco of the +irregular payment which he receives, and the difference which he finds +between the habits of the Vatican and those of the Courts. + +Whether he was not treated with the deference to which he was accustomed, +or whether failing health oppressed his spirits, his tone becomes more +and more melancholy. A longing for home had seized him, and he implores +the Marquis to send him a few lines of comfort, since he is now, as +he always has been, the child of the House of Gonzaga, and will serve +no other prince. Anxiety for his unfinished “Triumphs” is added to +the solicitude which he feels for his absent family, and he entreats +Francesco in the same breath to find his son Lodovico employment, and to +take care that his “Triumphs” are not injured by rain coming in at the +windows, since he considers them the best and most perfect of all his +works. + +Francesco replied in the most friendly manner, promising to attend to his +requests, and begging Andrea to be careful of his health, and to return +as speedily as possible to complete the “Triumphs,” which he counts the +greatest glory of Mantua and his own house. But the frescoes of the +Belvedere Chapel were no small task, and Andrea had, as he complains, +no assistant to help him in his labours. He found means, however, to +express his dissatisfaction to the Pope one day by adding another Virtue +to the figures which he had designed. The Pope, who frequently visited +him when at work, asked him who the last Virtue might be. “That is +Discretion,” said the painter; upon which the Pope, not to be outdone, +returned promptly, “Put her in good company then, and add Patience.” +Another version of the story, given by Ridolf, is that he added the +figure of Ingratitude as an eighth to the seven deadly sins, saying that +this was the blackest of all crimes. In the following June he writes +more cheerfully, describing a singular visitor he has had in the person +of Zizim, brother of the Sultan Bajazet, then a captive in the Vatican, +and sending his portrait for Francesco’s amusement. Another six months +passed, and the Marquis wrote again, this time in a very urgent strain, +both to the Pope and Mantegna, saying that his marriage with Isabella +of Este was to take place in January, and that Andrea’s presence was +indispensable. The courier who brought the letter found the painter +ill in bed and unable to move; so the wedding festivities had to be +celebrated without him, and his return was delayed until the following +summer, when the Pope at length dismissed him with a complimentary letter +of thanks to the Marquis. Besides the small “Virgin” of the Uffizi, +only one other work of Andrea’s Roman time is known to exist, a “Man of +Sorrows, supported by Angels,” now in the Museum of Copenhagen, and, like +the Brera Pietà, remarkable for the skill and knowledge displayed both in +the drawing and distribution of light and shade. + + * * * * * + +It has often been said that during his visit to Rome, Mantegna first +learnt the new art of engraving, in the practice of which he spent so +large a portion of his time and powers. But if we consider, on the one +hand, the variety both in style and subject of his plates, and on the +other the great undertakings on which he was engaged during his last +years, we shall see that this is impossible. + +It is true that no fixed date in his earlier career can be assigned with +certainty, but an attentive study of his engravings will, we think, +result in the conclusion that his first efforts in this new branch of +art belong to his Paduan days, and that he pursued it at intervals all +through his career, but with increased activity during the latter part +of his life. Two plates especially, the unfinished “Scourging” and +the “Descent of Christ into Limbo,” bear a strong resemblance to the +Eremitani frescoes, while others remind us in a similar manner of the +San Zeno altar-piece and the earlier Mantuan paintings. At first his +method was imperfect, but we trace a gradual improvement in the plates, +in proportion as he acquired greater technical knowledge in the new +art and became acquainted with Maso di Finiguerra, and it may be with +Schongauer’s engravings. All are marked by the same firmness of outline, +by the same closely-marked shading drawn in slanting lines from right +to left, and, above all, by the constant endeavour to give the print +something of the charm of chiaroscuro and colour. Since, however, a +whole school of engravers formed themselves on Mantegna’s style, and +Zoan Andrea, Mocetto, Campagnola and others, all adopted his method +and confined themselves almost exclusively to the reproduction of his +works—the task of distinguishing Mantegna’s original plates is by no +means easy. Of late years they have been subjected to a severe criticism, +and many formerly attributed to him are now rejected. But, whether we +accept twenty-four or twenty with M. Duplessis and Bartsch, or limit +the number to thirteen with M. Wallis, we shall equally acknowledge +how wonderfully every aspect of his genius is represented in these +engravings, and how inexhaustible was that wealth of thought and imagery +which, unable to find its full expression in painting, sought another +channel in the sister art. + +[Illustration: THE ENTOMBMENT. + +_From the engraving by Mantegna._] + +Small as is the cycle of genuine prints, they embrace a wide range of +subject; pagan myths, Roman and Christian themes, are all treated in +turn with the same seriousness of purpose and marvellous variety of +invention. Sometimes he reproduces his own pictures—the “Virgin of the +Grotto” from the Uffizi triptych, in later years we have the “Triumphs” +and the “Dancing Muses of the Parnassus.” The Bacchanalia, and still more +the “Battle of the Sea-gods,” remain to show us how deeply the spirit +of classic bas-relief had sunk into his soul. Certain subjects there +are in which he takes especial delight, which he treats with as great +freshness and originality as if he had never before approached them. +Such are the “Hercules and Antæus,” already represented in grisaille on +the ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi, and the “St. Sebastian,” which +hardly yields in beauty to the sublime painting of the Belvedere. At +other times he reveals some altogether new conception, as in the noble +“Descent from the Cross,” which supplied the motives whence Albrecht +Dürer, Luca Signorelli, Daniele da Volterra, and Rubens in turn took +their inspirations. In dramatic power and intensity of feeling this plate +is only equalled by the well-known “Entombment,” where all the horrors +of death, all the depths of the wildest despair, seem gathered up and +concentrated in that one figure of St. John wringing his hands aloft and +uttering the great and bitter cry which cannot be restrained. The same +strong feeling shows itself under another form in the seated Madonna, +whose whole figure is swayed with the foreboding of coming anguish that +mingles with her love, as she bends forward to press the Child closer to +her face. But although these figures, animated with rage and despair, +with a great hatred or a still greater love, are the subjects on which +Andrea seemed to dwell with preference in his engravings, he returns +at times to the serene repose of ancient statuary, and designs for us +a group of perfect majesty in the three grand figures of “St. Andrew, +St. Longinus, and the Risen Christ,” who stands between them, calm and +strong, with the awe of that death which he had conquered still upon his +brow. + +Again, in vivid contrast with reeling satyrs and angry Tritons battling +on the rough sea-waves, we have the quiet portrait heads of Lodovico +Gonzaga and his wife, Barbara,[2] whose homely faces and earnest eyes +look out of the same quaint costumes as on their palace walls at Mantua, +and on whose brocaded robes infinite pains have been bestowed. + +This is not the place to enter into further details, or a whole +volume might with profit be devoted to the consideration of Mantegna’s +engravings, but enough has been said to show how important a part of his +works they form, and how extraordinary was the genius of the man who +could, in his leisure moments during the brief intervals which elapsed +between his greater tasks, give to the world so rich a treasure of +profound and varied thought. + +[Illustration: JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES. + +_From the drawing by Mantegna in the Uffizi._] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE TRIUMPHS OF JULIUS CÆSAR: DRAWINGS, 1490-1500. + + +Mantegna, as we have already mentioned, returned to Mantua in the summer +of 1490, and during the rest of that year and the whole of the following +one he devoted himself without interruption to his “Triumphs,” which he +finally completed in February, 1492. + +This famous series consists of nine pieces of fine twilled linen, upon +which Andrea painted in tempera the triumphal procession of Julius Cæsar +on his way to the Capitol, after the Conquest of Gaul. The whole formed +a frieze eighty feet long, and the separate compartments, each nine feet +high, were originally divided by pilasters adorned with warlike ornaments. + +In the first piece, the trumpeters marching at the head of the procession +open the pageant with a burst of warlike music, closely followed by +standard-bearers carrying pictures of Cæsar’s victories, smoking censers, +and a large bust of Roma Victrix. In the second, the gods of the captive +cities are borne in chariots, a colossal Jupiter and Juno foremost, then +a fine Cybele, and after these come trophies of armour, battering-rams, +and other warlike implements, lifted high on men’s shoulders. The +costlier part of the spoil follows in the third and fourth compartments, +where strong men bend under the weight of vases filled with gold and +treasures, and white heifers garlanded with flowers ready for sacrifice, +are led by veiled priests and beautiful fair-haired youths in their white +tunics and red girdles. In the fifth picture another band of trumpeters +heralds the next division, and four large elephants, hung with gold +chains and draperies, bear on their backs baskets of flowers and young +children, who fan the flames of lighted candelabra. More trophies follow +in the sixth compartment; the armour of captive princes is borne aloft +on poles, and so great is its weight that one old soldier, exhausted by +the load he bears, sits down to recover breath. In the next picture we +reach the most interesting part of the procession—a train of captives who +advance with slow and sorrowful steps, but not without an air of noble +fortitude on their faces as they meet the jeers of the populace. Men and +women of all ages are among them, proud chiefs, matrons of royal blood, +sweet-faced maidens, a young bride with the myrtle wreath on her fair +brow and a coral necklace round her throat. Close to her we see a mother +bearing her youngest born in her arms and leading a boy by the hand, who +cries to be taken up, while the old grandmother bends down to soothe him +with caresses. + +In the eighth picture, immediately following this touching group, come +the jesters and hideous buffoons, who mock the prisoners with their +laughter and ape-like grimaces, and a troop of musicians singing and +dancing to the sound of timbrels. After these we have another company of +_signiferi_, this time bearing the eagles of the victorious legions and +the she-wolf of Rome. Their faces are turned backwards, and their eager, +expectant gaze prepare us for the coming of the conqueror, who appears in +the last picture seated on a richly sculptured biga with sceptre and palm +in his hand, and a laurel crown, which a winged Victory is in the act of +placing on his brow. At his feet children shout for joy, and wave laurel +boughs in his path; the multitude press round his chariot wheels and a +gaily-clad youth, with eager enthusiasm in his upturned gaze, lifts aloft +a banner bearing Cæsar’s well-known motto, _Veni, vidi, vici_, to meet +the victor’s eyes. + +This subject now forms the last of the series but Mantegna’s original +scheme included a tenth picture which he afterwards abandoned, probably +because the hall for which the “Triumphs” were intended was not large +enough to contain more than nine. + +An engraving, however, remains in which a body of Roman citizens, +followed by the first ranks of the advancing legions, are represented +marching in the conqueror’s progress; and the great procession, after +reaching its culminating point, is thus brought to a tranquil close. +Goethe, who knew the “Triumphs,” not indeed in the original, but from +Andreani’s engravings, and who wrote a masterly criticism on the series, +was the first to feel the need of a final scene to satisfy the eye, and +to point out that this must have been the artist’s original design. + +Such, then, are the principal parts of this magnificent work, in which +the love of antiquity, which was the ruling power of Mantegna’s genius, +found its highest expression. It was a sentiment common to many artists +in this age of revived learning, but while other men, like Botticelli or +Piero della Francesca, saw pagan themes through the colouring of their +own medieval fancies, he alone entered thoroughly into the true spirit of +ancient art. + +A glance at the “Triumphs” is sufficient to show us how profoundly +Mantegna had studied classical authors and how much freedom he had +acquired in dealing with his subject. + +[Illustration: PART OF THE TRIUMPHS OF JULIUS CÆSAR. BY MANTEGNA. + +_At Hampton Court._] + +Those ancient Romans are no strangers to him; he has lived among them +and mingled with them as freely as with men of his own day, the folds +of their draperies, their very gait and countenance are all familiar +to him. The same intimate knowledge of Roman times reveals itself in a +hundred details; in the temples and viaducts of the background, in the +mythological reliefs which adorn chariots, shields and breast-plates, in +tablets bearing Latin inscriptions, in the triumphal arch under which +Cæsar passes as he goes on his way. And here we may notice that Andrea, +in one of the reliefs of this arch, has again introduced the “Twins” of +Monte Cavallo, which during his visit to Rome he had doubtless seen with +his own eyes in their time-honoured place on the Quirinal hill. + +In the execution of the “Triumphs” we observe the same high degree of +finish, as in all his later work; the drapery hangs in the small folds +of Greek sculpture, but without stiffness or formality; while the light +and transparent colouring is admirably adapted in its softly-shaded +tints to the general character of the subject. Evidently in this it was +Mantegna’s intention to imitate as closely as possible the style of +ancient painting. Unfortunately most of the pictures have suffered from +repainting, and at the present day it needs a very minute examination to +appreciate the delicacy of the fragments that have been left untouched. + +Both in the plastic tendency of form and in the principles of perspective +which Mantegna has here successfully applied, we see the result of his +earlier studies, modified and restrained by the experience of the thirty +years which had passed since the days when he painted the Eremitani +frescoes. Nothing can surpass the manner in which the whole of the +splendid pageantry of the “Triumphs” is subdued and governed by the laws +of composition, till every figure moves in perfect rhythm and harmony of +line. We have only to look at the episode of the “Triumphs” by Rubens (in +the National Gallery) to see how the subject, released from the severe +restraint of Mantegna’s art, could degenerate into a Bacchanalian feast +of wild beasts, revellers, and dancing women. But for all its sculptured +tendencies and likenesses to a classic frieze, this great series is no +procession of marble statues, cold and rigid in their antique beauty. +The forms which pass before us in the long array are animated with life +and warmth, their faces glow with the fire of human passion in all its +endless varieties. Tender and youthful, or worn by age and care, exultant +with the joy of victory, or bowed down to earth by a cruel fate, they +are men and women like ourselves, and appeal to us by the instincts of +a common humanity. In the well-known words of Goethe, “The study of the +antique supplies form, nature gives movement and the last touch of life.” + +For more than a century the “Triumphs” of Mantegna remained in the hall +of the palace for which they had been intended, and were seen there both +by Vasari and the historian Mario Equicola. On festive occasions they +were sometimes moved to the Castello di Corte, and in Andrea’s lifetime +they were used as stage decorations when the comedies of Plautus and +Terence were performed at the Court of Mantua. + +Several separate episodes of the “Triumphs” were engraved by Mantegna +himself, and the complete series became generally known by the +publication of the large wood-cuts by Andrea Andreani at the close of the +sixteenth century. + +In 1628, a short time before the sack of Mantua, the pictures themselves +were sold to Charles I., with several other masterpieces of the Gonzaga +collection. After that monarch’s death on the scaffold they were again +sold by the Parliament, but Cromwell bought them for £1,000.[3] Charles +II. placed them in the palace at Hampton Court. There this precious +series still remains, irreparably injured by frequent removal and +repainting, but still in beauty and completeness both of design and +execution one of the most remarkable works of the Italian Renaissance. + +The exact date of the completion of the “Triumphs” is fixed by a fresh +grant of land which Francesco bestowed upon Mantegna in February, 1492, +with an express mention of the great work which he had at length brought +to a happy termination. “If the Marquis had loved him before, he loved +him still more now,” says Vasari, and in reality Andrea seemed to have +attained the highest pitch of honour and good fortune. For once his +affairs were prosperous. In 1492 he sold his small property at Padua, +and two years later furnished his own beautiful house in the quarter of +St. Sebastian. At the same time he came to a final settlement with his +Buscoldo creditors and exchanged land with his old enemy Aliprandi. His +son, Lodovico, obtained a good appointment as overseer and agent to the +Marquis at Cavriana, while Francesco, who was the least satisfactory +of the two and frequently caused Andrea anxiety, embraced the artist’s +profession and became his father’s assistant. Lastly, his only daughter, +Taddea, was married, on the 4th of July, 1499, with two hundred and sixty +ducats as her dowry, to Viano Vianesi, whom he styles “uomo prudente” in +his letters. + +Besides these children by marriage Andrea had one other son, Gian’ Andrea +by name, born in his old age after the death of his wife Niccolosia, and +whom in his will of 1504 he mentions as being still a child. + +His improved circumstances seem to have softened his temper, and the only +complaint we find in his letters to the Marquis at this time is that +the stones which he had prepared for building in his yard are stolen in +broad daylight, one of the thieves whom his son had caught in the act of +carrying away his spoil under his mantle being an officer of Francesco’s +household. + +We hear occasionally of his suffering from attacks of illness, but as +a painter his powers were at their best, and many of his finest works +belong to the period between his return from Rome and the close of the +fifteenth century. + +Among classical subjects are the two beautiful pictures now in the +Louvre, originally executed for the Marchioness Isabella’s “studio of +the grotto,” a room which Andrea, Perugino, and Costa were all employed +to decorate, and which became a complete museum of both antique and +Renaissance art. Andrea painted several panels for this apartment at +Isabella’s command, some we are told in imitation of bronze-reliefs, +and one in which the prophet Jonah, is represented in the act of being +cast into the sea; but the “Wisdom Victorious over the Vices” and the +“Parnassus,” both in the Louvre, are the only works of the series which +have come down to posterity. Both closely resemble the “Triumphs” in +style of modelling and in delicacy of finish. One is an allegorical +composition, such as Botticelli might have painted, in which Minerva +and Diana, led by Wisdom bearing a torch, are driving out a tribe of +Vices under the forms of centaurs and satyrs, while Justice, Force, and +Temperance hover in the air, about to return to earth. + +The form of the avenging goddesses is essentially classic in type, and +the trees of the background show that loving care in each leaf which +entitles Mantegna to a foremost place among the foliage painters of the +age. The other, perhaps the most poetic of all Andrea’s conceptions, +brings before us a pleasant landscape where the Muses dance hand in hand +to the music of Apollo’s lyre, while Mercury leans on the neck of Pegasus +hard by, and Mars and Venus pause from their embraces to listen to the +enchanted sound. Brighter tints than Andrea generally employs enliven +the scene, and in the light fluttering drapery and measured stop of the +dancing nine there is a grace and charm of movement which no contemporary +painter ever surpassed. + +These groups of dancing nymphs became a favourite motive with Mantegna, +and form the subject of one of his engravings as well as of a finished +drawing, exceedingly graceful and charming in design, now at Munich. +Classical subjects at this time occupied a great part of his thoughts, +and some of his finest engravings, the “Battle of the Sea-Gods,” +“Hercules and Antæus,” and the “Bacchanalia,” belong to this period. +Closely related to these are the beautiful drawings of the British Museum +to which Mr. Comyns Carr recently called attention, the “Mars, Diana and +Venus,” which in ideal beauty of form yields to none of Andrea’s designs, +and the long frieze-shaped composition of “Calumny,” after the pattern +of Apelles’s last picture, which these artists of the early Renaissance +delighted to recall. + +Several other precious drawings by Mantegna belong the Christ Church +collection, Oxford. Chief among them is the original composition for his +celebrated engraving of the “Entombment,” and a fine example of another +of his favourite subjects, “Hercules killing the Lion,” inscribed _Divo +Herculi invicto_. Many more are in the hands of private collectors, and +a whole volume containing twenty-six sheets of mythological subjects was +exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878, by Miss Hannah de Rothschild +(now Lady Rosebery). + +Among the other drawings of remarkable merit now scattered over Europe, +we will only mention the “Judgment of Solomon” in the Louvre, the +“Sagrifizio,” which forms the chief ornament of the Verona Museum, and +the well-known “Judith” of the Uffizi (see page 37), which once belonged +to Vasari, and bears the date of February, 1491. + +It was not in the nature of Mantegna’s art to cast off a hasty sketch, +or to leave to the world faces of rare loveliness drawn in a few pencil +strokes as it were at random on the paper. Whether he was engaged on the +cartoon of an altar-piece, or on a simple pattern of a cup or fountain, +all he achieved was marked by the same patient, untiring labour, the +same minute care, above all by the same feeling for beauty in every +detail. Many of us remember that exquisite design for a chalice which +attracted general attention in one of our last winter exhibitions. It is +true the perspective of the Cup was faulty, but this defect was scarcely +noticed in the beauty of the work, with which every part of the chalice +was covered. Scenes from the life of Christ, cherub heads and elaborate +scroll work adorned the border of the Cup. Apostles and prophets were +figured on its base, while the stem was studded with rows of lovely +babies and angel heads, executed with a grace and delicacy which rendered +the whole a perfect marvel of decorative art. And so it is with his +larger drawings, whether classical or religious in subject. Each hair in +the head of his “Judith” is distinctly drawn, there is the same attention +to form in the folds of her falling drapery, or, to take another +instance—the fair faces of the youth and maiden in the procession of the +_Sagrifizio_. Both are designs in the best spirit of classical art, and +remind us of the finest Greek sculpture. + +We have said that pagan themes occupied much of Mantegna’s imagination +during the years immediately following the conclusion of the “Triumphs,” +but the three large altar-pieces which also belong to this period +must not be passed over. In the first place we have the “Madonna +della Vittoria,” now in the Louvre, perhaps the noblest of all his +religious pictures. This altar-piece was painted by order of the Marquis +Francesco to commemorate his pretended victory at Fornovo, where he had +encountered the French, but, far from being victorious, had lost the +greater part of his army, and narrowly escaped with his life. A curious +circumstance characteristic of the manners of the times is connected with +this painting. + +[Illustration: THE MADONNA DELLA VITTORIA. BY MANTEGNA. + +_In the Louvre, Paris._] + +A Jew of Villafranca, Daniele Norsa by name, in the year 1495 bought +a house in Mantua which had a Madonna painted over the door, and +fearing any accidental misfortune to the picture might excite popular +displeasure, prudently obtained leave from the bishop to remove the +sacred image. Even this step was turned to his prejudice, and on +Ascension Day his house was attacked by the mob and narrowly escaped +destruction. The Jew appealed to the Marquis for protection, and +ultimately his case was brought before a tribunal, which condemned him, +by way of reparation for the supposed insult to the Virgin, to place a +new picture painted by Mantegna in one of the Mantuan churches. In the +meantime the battle of Fornovo took place, and Francesco, who in the hour +of danger had vowed to erect a church in Mantua to the Virgin, resolved +to gratify popular feeling and give greater effect to the fulfilment of +his vow by placing the building on the spot where the Madonna’s honour +had been slighted. Accordingly he bought Norsa’s house, and on the +anniversary of the battle, July 6th, 1496, the votive Madonna painted +by Mantegna for the occasion was placed above the high altar of the +newly erected church with great popular rejoicing. Three hundred years +afterwards the French carried off this picture, which was originally +intended to celebrate the victory over their nation, in triumph to Paris, +where it still remains. + +Few perhaps of Andrea’s larger works are as generally and deservedly +popular. The mild Virgin, in blue hood and mantle, sitting under her +leafy bower hung with fruit and coral and gay with twittering birds, is +familiar to all visitors to the Louvre. Both mother and child stretch +out their hands in blessing towards the kneeling Marquis, whose life-like +portrait excited the universal admiration of contemporaries. Opposite +him, the venerable form of St. Elizabeth is seen kneeling at the side of +the young St. John, who stands on the carved pedestal of the Virgin’s +throne, and in the background are the patron saints of Mantua, Andrew and +Longinus. More beautiful than either of these are the two warrior saints, +Michael and George, who stand in full armour on either side, holding the +hem of the Virgin’s mantle, and who, with their noble features, manly +forms, and flowing masses of fair locks, are perfect types of Christian +chivalry—in other words, of that union of strength and tenderness which +is held to constitute the heroic character. + +The “Virgin” of the National Gallery, long in the possession of +different Milanese families, bears a close resemblance, both in style +and execution, to the “Madonna della Vittoria,” and was probably painted +about the same time. Here the Virgin is seated under a red baldacchino +between St. Mary Magdalen and the Baptist, who stand erect against a +background of dark green orange-trees and silver-clouded sky. The face +of the Magdalen is lighted with the glad enthusiasm of her love, and in +the foliage we notice the same careful finish as in the bowers of the +“Parnassus” and in the leaf-painting of all Mantegna’s works. + +To the same period and class of picture belongs the “Glorified Madonna” +which Andrea painted for the monks of Santa Maria in Organo of Verona, +now in the Casa Trivulzi at Milan. Here the Madonna is enthroned on the +clouds, with four life-sized saints; a landscape of tall lemon-trees is +behind her. A troop of singing boy-angels hover in the air, after the +fashion of the Camera degli Sposi frescoes, and one bears a scroll with +the inscription:— + + “A Mantinia p. an. gracie 1497, 15 Augusti.” + +[Illustration: VIRGIN AND CHILD, WITH ST. JOHN AND THE MAGDALEN. BY +MANTEGNA. + +_In the National Gallery, London._] + +The small blue-mantled “Madonna” of Bergamo, and a good portrait of a +Gonzaga in the same collection, may have been painted towards the close +of the century, to which period the engravings of the “Triumphs” and +several other subjects are assigned. Finally, among the labours which +occupied the last months of 1499, was the commission to design a monument +of Virgil for the chief square of Mantua. The plan originated with the +Marchioness Isabella, who consulted the learned Latinists, Pontanus and +Vergerius, at Naples, as to the best mode of carrying her scheme into +effect. They suggested Mantegna as the natural person to furnish a design +for the monument, and he entered warmly into a project so well suited to +the spirit of the age. We can hardly imagine a commission more congenial +to a painter so imbued with Latin traditions as Mantegna, and the statue +which he designed was worthy of the occasion, as the drawing recently +discovered in the collection of M. His de la Salle abundantly proves. +Virgil is represented crowned with laurel and holding the Æneid in his +hands, while winged boys on the pedestal at his feet support a tablet +with the words:— + + “P. Vergilii Maronis a æternæ sui memoriæ imago.” + +Unfortunately, Andrea never had the satisfaction of seeing this design +executed in bronze or marble. Whether Francesco’s treasures were expended +in wars, or whether Isabella’s intention was only a caprice of the +moment, the scheme was abandoned, and Mantua remained without a monument +of her greatest son. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LAST WORKS AND DEATH: HIS INFLUENCE ON ART, 1500-1506. + + +During more than forty years Andrea had now lived at Mantua in the +service of the Gonzagas. Both at their court and throughout Italy he +was held in the highest honour, and enjoyed a degree of favour and +consideration which, but few artists have known in their lifetime. His +children were, with the one exception of Gian’ Andrea, grown up and +well provided for; he had lands and possessions of his own both in +town and country and what he valued even more—a collection of precious +antiquities. Behind him lay a whole lifetime of great works, and although +now in his seventieth year his powers as yet showed no trace of weakness +or failing. We have seen how rich in works of every branch of art was +this last decade of the fifteenth century; how untiring was his activity, +and how fresh and inexhaustible the treasures of his imagination. +Everything seemed to foretell an old age of honour and prosperity, in +which the great master should still charm men by the creations of his +brain and hand, and yet as his bodily powers grew weaker should enjoy +more of the repose to which he was so well entitled. But this was not +to be, and the last few years of Mantegna’s lifetime are a weary record +of sorrows and misfortune. Again we find him involved in pecuniary +difficulties, brought on by his own extravagance, and very probably +by that of his son, Francesco; in order to meet his liabilities he was +compelled to part with the beautiful house which he had decorated with +his own hand, and to live in lodgings, which he disliked extremely. Yet, +with the strange recklessness that formed part of his character, we find +him entering into new and imprudent engagements. In March, 1504, he made +a will, leaving a sum of money to his son Francesco and the chief part +of his fortune to Lodovico, together with the charge of bringing up +the child Gian’ Andrea, in whose favour he afterwards altered certain +provisions. At the same time he left two hundred ducats for the endowment +of the chapel of San Giovanni, in Alberti’s large church of Sant’ Andrea, +as a burial-place for himself and his family. Special mention is made +of his wife, Niccolosia, who had died some years before; and masses are +ordered to be said for the repose of her soul. In August of the same +year (1504) he obtained possession of this chapel by a contract with +Sigismondo Gonzaga, Bishop of Mantua, and the canons of the church. Its +decoration now became his favourite scheme, and it was his intention to +paint the walls in fresco and to erect a family monument there. He bought +a piece of ground outside to prevent the windows from being blocked up +by building, and announced his intention of turning it into a garden, +where he could spend his time in summer, and build a small room, where +he might keep himself warm in winter, “in order,” he adds touchingly, +“that I may take a little rest in my old age.” But all this expenditure +became the cause of fresh difficulties, and added to the burdens under +which Andrea already groaned. Other trials came to sadden his old age. +His son Francesco incurred the displeasure of the Marquis by some grave +misconduct, and neither Andrea’s tears nor the intercession of Isabella +could prevent his banishment from Mantua in 1505. This disgrace was a +heavy blow to Andrea, who owned that his son had offended grievously, +but thought that his fault might have been overlooked in consideration of +his own services. “Messer Andrea,” wrote Isabella to her husband, “has +just now been to see me, so full of tears and so altered in countenance +that he seemed to me more dead than alive.” + +But his activity was undiminished, and, heavy as his heart might be, +brain and hand were still the same as ever. We find him returning to a +favourite subject of earlier days in the “St. Sebastian,” originally +ordered by the Bishop of Mantua, but now in possession of the Scarpa +family at La Motta, in Friuli. The life-sized figure, lean in proportions +and suffering in expression, has a grandeur of its own. At the feet of +the saint is a lighted candle, which sends a thin blue smoke upwards, and +makes us wonder at its meaning, until we read the words on the scroll +which hangs to the coral string above—_Nil nisi divinum stabile est, +cætera fumus_. + +This, then, was the conclusion to which he had come at the end of that +long life full of works and honour; this the conviction that old age and +gathering troubles were forcing upon the mind of the great painter, who +had seen so clearly and felt so keenly the beauty and the joy of life. + +In that same sad year of his son’s banishment he commenced another of +the classic friezes which he loved to paint. This was the splendid +composition known as the “Triumph of Scipio,” now in the National +Gallery, which a wealthy Venetian named Francesco Cornaro ordered and +paid for in part in 1505, but which, to his great indignation, was still +in Andrea’s studio at the time of his death, when it was seized upon by +creditors nearer at hand. + +The real subject of this work, executed in chiaroscuro on a background +painted to imitate red marble, is the reception of Cybele among the +deities of Rome. A colossal bust of the Phrygian goddess is borne in +state into the presence of Scipio, who receives the messenger in +consular array; while Claudia Quinta, a Roman lady, kneeling at his feet, +welcomes the image with outstretched arms. Every gradation of movement is +represented here, from the swift tread of the bearers on whose shoulders +the goddess advances, to the motionless forms of the Roman soldiers who +stand grouped around Scipio; and nothing is more striking than the skill +with which the artist brings this rapid action by degrees to a complete +pause. The general character of the piece, its costumes, figures, and +draperies, all recall the “Triumphs.” It is, as it were, a last echo of +the great composition whose harmonies still lingered on in Mantegna’s +ears. + +Before the end of the year Andrea, tired of a wandering life, had again +bought a house, this time in the Contrada Unicorno, and settled himself +there for the winter, promising to pay the owner three hundred and forty +ducats in three instalments. It was an unwise venture, as the issue +too soon proved. A plague drove the wealthier Mantuans from the city, +provisions became scarce, and his own health began to give way. Still +he remained in Mantua and painted on manfully, endeavouring to finish a +mythological picture of Comus, which Isabella had ordered. But it was in +vain. He could not work fast enough to satisfy his creditors, and when +pressed to pay the stipulated sum for his house he was compelled to apply +to the Marchioness for help. + +Isabella was then at a villa near Cavriana, and Andrea wrote to her in +pathetic terms, telling her of his distress, and offering to her for +sale the one of all his antiques which he most valued, “_la mia cara +Faustina_.” Often in brighter days great masters and connoisseurs had +wished to buy this bust, but he had refused all their offers, and now +since part from it he must, the Marchioness is the only person to whom he +can bear to give it up. + +Strange as it seems, Isabella did not answer this letter, and with a +meanness unworthy of her wrote to her servant, Jacopo Calandra, telling +him to bargain with Andrea and obtain the Faustina at the lowest price +possible. + +This unkindness cut Mantegna to the heart, and when Calandra communicated +Isabella’s answer to him, he refused angrily to part with the bust for +less than the hundred ducats which had been offered him in former days. +Isabella, however, was determined to have it, and on the 1st of August +Calandra was able to write:—“Your Excellency will be glad to hear that I +have at last obtained possession of Andrea Mantegna’s Faustina. He gave +the bust into my hands with great reluctance, recommending it to my care +with much solicitude, and with such demonstrations of jealous affection +that if he were not to see it again for six days I feel convinced he +would die.” The words were to come true sooner than Isabella or Calandra +had expected. Andrea could bear to part with houses and lands, but the +marble was dear to him as his own flesh and blood, and the parting with +it broke his heart. + +He was already ill at the time, and six weeks later he died, on Sunday, +the 13th of September, 1506. To the last the old spirit of loyalty to the +Gonzagas did not leave him, and his son Francesco, writing to inform the +Marquis of the sad event, describes how a few minutes before his death he +asked for his master, and grieved much to think that he should never see +him again. + +Francesco was at that time at Perugia, whither he had gone to meet Pope +Julius II., and had little time or thought for the great painter who +had just passed away. Isabella scarcely troubled herself more, and in a +letter full of joyous congratulations to her husband on his entry into +Perugia, merely alludes to Mantegna’s death:—“You know Messer Andrea +died suddenly a few days after your departure.” There were others who +felt more deeply and judged more rightly of the loss which the world +had sustained in Mantegna’s death. Albrecht Durer was at that time in +Venice, on his way to visit the great Lombard artist whose engravings had +filled him with admiration, and from whom he had learnt perhaps more than +from any other master. His purpose was frustrated by the news of Andrea’s +sudden death, and in later years he was often heard to say that he looked +upon this as the saddest event of his whole life. Another graceful +tribute to Mantegna’s memory was paid by a certain Lorenzo di Pavia, a +collector of antiquities and objects of art, who had known Mantegna at +the court of Mantua, and who, on hearing of his unexpected death, wrote +to Isabella in these terms:—“I grieve deeply over the loss of our Messer +Andrea Mantegna, for in truth a most excellent painter, another Apelles, +I may say, is gone from us. But I believe that God will employ him +elsewhere on some great and beautiful work. For my part, I know that I +shall never see again so fine an artist and designer. Farewell.” + +The melancholy history of Mantegna’s difficulties did not end with his +death, and his sons had a hard task to satisfy his creditors. One hundred +ducats were still owing to the bishop and canons for the mortuary chapel, +and Cardinal Gonzaga, Bishop of Mantua, laid an embargo on the contents +of his studio. Francesco Mantegna had to obtain the permission of the +Marquis to sell the pictures that still remained there, among which he +names the “Triumph of Scipio,” which Cornaro had never received, the “St. +Sebastian,” now at La Motta in Friuli, and the famous _Cristo in scurto_. + +By this means his debts were paid, and a settlement of his affairs +concluded. Francesco Gonzaga seems to have behaved kindly, and both +Andrea’s sons continued in his service, Lodovico as agent, while +Francesco succeeded to his father’s place, and painted by turns in the +palaces of Mantua, Gonzaga, and Marmirolo. + +The remains of the great master were buried in his own chapel of Sant’ +Andrea, where half a century later his grandson placed a bronze bust, +supposed to have been the work of the medallist Sperandio, and which, +after being taken to Paris in 1797, has been restored to its place on +Mantegna’s tomb. + +The chapel itself is bare and dingy, its walls are whitewashed, rubbish +heaps are allowed to litter the floor, and the general aspect is of the +most cheerless description. But the gloomy surroundings only serve to +heighten the imposing grandeur of the bust. + +The sculptor has caught the spirit which animated the great master, and +has represented Mantegna, after the manner of an old Roman, wearing +a laurel wreath on the thick clusters of hair that shade the deeply +furrowed brows and massive features with which more than one portrait in +his own frescoes has made us familiar. We seem to feel the fiery flashes +of that piercing eye bent upon us, and to realise the iron strength and +unbending force of the genius which no difficulty could dismay, and no +labour exhaust. + + * * * * * + +Sperandio’s bust is almost the only thing in Mantua which still speaks +of Andrea. The perishing frescoes are still to be seen in the deserted +palace, and the walls of the house in which he once lived are standing; +but in this city, where he painted for nearly fifty years, his name +is forgotten, and while every child in the streets will talk to you +of Giulio Romano and the Hall of the Giants, scarcely a creature in +the place has ever heard Mantegna’s name. His Faustina is preserved +among other antiques in the public museum, where visitors can see for +themselves the classic outline of the features which he loved so well; +but the custodian, who unlocks the hall, and has much to say of the many +statues, passes by this one in silence, or wonders why it is we linger +before this bust, unmindful of the tragic story which has invested the +marble with so deep an interest. + +[Illustration: THE CRUCIFIXION. BY MANTEGNA. + +_In the Louvre, Paris._] + +The name of Mantegna, however, is not one that depends on local fame, and +there can be no difference of opinion as to the important place which +he holds in the history of the Renaissance. We have only to consider +how great and widespread was the influence which his works exercised on +contemporary art both in Italy and Germany. If we examine the different +schools of North Italy we shall find that there is scarcely one which did +not receive some new impulse from his powerful genius. + +His son Francesco followed in his father’s steps, and worked in the +same lines without ever rising above the level of mediocrity. The few +scholars and assistants he had in Mantua imitated his example, and +whatever remnants of art were still to be found in Padua bore the stamp +of Andrea’s earliest style. + +In Venice we recognise his vigour and precision of outline, and +the classical tendency of his types, not only in the works of his +brothers-in-law, the Bellini, but in those also of the rival Murano +painter, Luigi Vivarini. Montagna and Buonconsiglio at Vicenza, Ercole +Grandi and Cosimo Tura at Ferrara, alike formed their style upon his, +while the best Veronese masters were all either his followers or +imitators. + +We know that Caroto and Bonsignori assisted him in the execution of his +later works, while his influence is even more apparent in the works of +Liberale, Girolamo dai Libri, and Francesco Morone. The masterpiece of +the last-named artist, the frescoes on the walls and ceiling of the +sacristy of Santa Maria in Organo, at Verona, are indeed exact imitations +of the style of decoration adopted by Mantegna in the Camera degli Sposi. +We trace the same all-prevailing Mantegnesque in the works of Lorenzo +Costa, who spent some years of his life in Mantua, and if we are to +believe Vasari it is to the stimulus of Mantegna’s example that we owe +the inspiration which made a painter of Francia. + +The link which binds Mantegna to the Umbrians is as yet uncertain, +but even if Melozzo da Forli in his Roman frescoes derived no help or +suggestion from Andrea, Giovanni Santi’s stanzas remain to show us how +intimate was his acquaintance with the Paduan master’s works. + +If from contemporary art we pass to the culminating period of the +Renaissance, we find Raphael taking him as his model in more than one +instance. The likeness of the boy-angels of the Camera degli Sposi to +the famous cherubs of the “Madonna di San Sisto” has been frequently +remarked, and in the bearers of the dead Christ, who walk backwards in +the Borghese “Entombment,” we find a distinct reminiscence of Andrea’s +great engraving. + +Again, in the treatment of antique themes, Raphael often approaches +Mantegna, and we have little doubt that both he and Leonardo had closely +studied the works of their illustrious predecessor. + +Perhaps the actual connection between Mantegna and Michelangelo is less +capable of demonstration, but the strength and energy of expression +which were so remarkable features in the genius of both men, as well as +a certain resemblance in their characters, form a link which binds them +together. + +A very different artist, Correggio, who married a Mantuan wife, owes his +knowledge of the laws of perspective and composition in a large measure +to the study of Mantegna’s works, and, whether or not he visited Mantua +himself, probably derived the first idea of the dome-painting for which +he became famous from the ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi. + +But this is not all. The engravings of Mantegna spread his influence +beyond the limits of Italy into countries north of the Alps. There was +a robustness, vigour, and grave earnestness of purpose, as well as a +fantastic element in his art, which attracted the Teutonic mind, and it +is perhaps not too much to say that he influenced German art more than +any other Italian painter. + +We have already alluded to Albrecht Dürer’s admiration for his works and +anxiety to become personally acquainted with him. A further proof of the +fascination which drew him to Mantegna appears in the highly-finished +copies of the “Bacchanalia” and “Battle of the Sea Gods,” which Dürer +executed with his own hand, and in the St. John of “The Entombment” +which, unable to forget, he introduced in his own “Crucifixion” of 1508. +Professor Colvin has pointed out how much he learnt from the Italian +master in the delineation of passionate movement, and how close is the +affinity between the avenging angels of Dürer’s “Apocalypse” and the +angry Tritons of Mantegna’s engraving. + +Nor is Dürer alone among northern painters in his adoption of +Mantegnesque motives. Holbein repeatedly availed himself of those +episodes of the “Triumphs” which he knew from Andrea’s own engravings in +his works at Busle and Lucerne; and a portfolio of Mantegna’s works was +numbered among the treasures of art in Rembrandt’s possession. + +More singular is the admiration which Rubens conceived for an artist +with whom he can have had few points in common, yet we find him visiting +Mantua in order to study Andrea’s works, and reproducing a scene from the +“Triumphs” after his own fashion. + +We have already seen the great honour in which Andrea was held during +his lifetime. That he was equally esteemed by the succeeding generation +we learn from the verses of Ariosto, who places him next to Leonardo in +his “Orlando.” High as the praise is, we cannot think it excessive, for +Mantegna stands half-way between those men who first brought art to life +again, and those who carried it to the highest degree of perfection, and +he occupies the foremost place among the artists of the mid-Renaissance, +who saw how much was wanting before farther progress could be attained, +and allowed no difficulties to stop them in their endeavour to acquire +knowledge. + +With this end in view no research was dull, no toil wearisome. He +embraced the driest studios with the passionate ardour of his nature, and +gave life to the scientific problems which he attempted to solve by the +very force of his great zeal. + +At the same time he brought to the task a degree of culture rare +among the men of his class, and both his friendship with scholars and +antiquarians and his own classical studies were productive of the most +important results for Italian painting. He is the chief representative +in art of that revival of learning which was the leading intellectual +impulse of the age; and, by bringing this influence to bear upon +painting, he won a great step in the History of its development. First +among the artists of the Renaissance, he saw with unerring instinct the +path by which art would attain her final triumphs. Early in his career +the conviction had forced itself upon his soul that the most perfect +models of beauty are to be sought in antique art, but that this very +perfection can only be reached by a minute and faithful study of nature. +To reconcile anew these two principles, to combine in his work classic +grace and human action, became the aim of his life, the task which he +most nearly achieved in the “Triumphs”—although even there he is not +always successful. + +“We are conscious,” wrote Goethe, “of a sense of conflict, but this +conflict is surely the highest in which ever artist was engaged.” The +perfect union of the two principles was to be effected by artists of the +next generation, and where Mantegna had sown Raphael and Leonardo were to +reap. + +It is this sense of conflicting elements, this occasional antagonism +between the ideal form after which he strove and the actual fact present +before his eyes, which has given rise to so much mistaken criticism of +Mantegna’s work. By some critics of the very first rank he is called a +mere realist, while on the other hand the old reproach that he neglected +the study of real life to copy statues has been repeated till it has +grown wearisome. + +Although it is easy to trace their origin, both charges are equally +unjust. No man had ever a more thorough knowledge of nature, or was +more keenly alive to the minutest details of everyday life around him. +But something he felt was needed to lift this changeful scene, with its +seething throng of human thought and action, into the atmosphere of +perfect art. + +It is just that touch of grace, that power to ennoble and refine which +the Greeks understood so well, that Mantegna felt and sought after in +days of long and arduous toil. If at times a certain rigidity of form, a +carelessness of desire to please, is visible in his work, it is because +in his anxiety to obtain his end he occasionally omitted these minor +matters. But to say that Mantegna was alike destitute of feeling for +beauty and of spiritual perception appears to us simple blindness. + +In knowledge and mastery of the human form, in skill and finish of +workmanship, in wealth of imagery and creative thought, few have ever +surpassed him. + +In dramatic energy and intensity of expression he stands unrivalled by +any but Michelangelo. Every variety of emotion, every passion that can +swell the breast of man is included within the range of his experience. +He knew where to seek the purest springs of joy, and in darker hours +his strong soul had fathomed the lowest depths of the most unutterable +anguish. The sportive dances of laughing cherubs and nymphs, the +pleasures and pains of such mythical creatures as Tritons and Nereids, +satyrs and sea-monsters, the sublime and rapt devotion of a Magdalen, +the heroism of a Sebastian, were all familiar to him. He enters in the +fullest manner into the exultant joy of the victors returning with their +long array of spoils and captives from the fight, and yet in the midst of +the mighty triumphal procession he pauses to show us the innocent child +stretching out its little arms to its mother. + +But more than all he loved to paint the rage of violent passion, the wild +gestures of uncontrollable grief. There are certain figures into which he +seems to have concentrated either the tempest of the most ungovernable +fury or the agony of the bitterest despair. Once seen, these creations of +his brain refuse to loose their hold on our imaginations, and remain to +haunt us with their terrible forms, just as the wailing St. John of “The +Entombment” was ever present to Albrecht Dürer’s mind. + +The very greatness of Mantegna’s genius, its immense strength and power, +may in itself be the cause that he is not strictly speaking a popular +artist. His works have never been, perhaps they will never become, the +enthusiastic object of general worship. But within the last few years the +number of his admirers has increased steadily, and his high merit has +received the fullest recognition from some of our most cultured writers. + +That this circle will widen year by year, as a larger number of students +are drawn to examine for themselves those works of Mantegna which are +fortunately within the reach of us all, we feel confident. It is scarcely +necessary to add the expression of our conviction that to those who +attentively consider them, no works yield a more genuine and lasting +pleasure, while assuredly there are none that better repay the devotion +of a life-long study. + + + + +FRANCESCO RAIBOLINI + +CALLED + +FRANCIA + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +FRANCIA. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +EARLY ART IN BOLOGNA, A.D. 1300-1450. + + +From the earliest days of the revival of Italian painting the city of +Bologna was distinguished for the cultivation of art, and could boast a +regular succession of native painters. The names of several of these men +have been preserved by old writers, and we hear of a Guido, a Ventura, +and Ursone, who flourished in the thirteenth century. But the honour of +having been the real founder of the school is ascribed by the historian +Malvasia to a miniaturist known by the name of Franco Bolognese, who +lived in the time of Dante and Giotto. Since, however, none of his works +have come down to the present day, we have no opportunity of studying his +style, and all that we know is that he was a pupil of the miniaturist +Oderisio da Gubbio, and is said by Dante to have eclipsed his master in +the same way that Giotto surpassed Cimabue. + +[Illustration: FRANCESCO RAIBOLINI.] + +When Virgil and Dante meet Oderisio expiating the sin of pride in +purgatory, he tells them mournfully that the pictures which Franco now +paints are fairer than his own, and that the honour once his now belongs +to his scholar. So it has been in Dante’s own city of Florence, where +once Cimabue held undisputed possession of the field, and now the fame is +all Giotto’s. For what after all is the voice of earthly fame? Nothing +but an idle breath of wind that blows first from one quarter, then from +another, ever fitful and inconstant. + +But if Franco Bolognese’s only hope of immortality rests on Dante’s +noble lines, the works of his pupils are still to be seen in Bologna, +and afford us some idea of native art in these early times. Chief among +them was Vitale, who painted in the first half of the fourteenth century, +and whose few remaining pictures are marked by a softness and delicacy +of workmanship which reveal the Umbrian origin of the school of Gubbio. +A “Madonna and Angels,” painted by him in the year 1320 for the ancient +church of the Madonna del Monte, and now preserved in the Gallery of +Bologna, has a sweetness and humility of expression which approaches +contemporary Sienese art, and the faces of his virgins are not unworthy +precursors of Francia’s Madonna. The same manner was further developed in +the paintings of his best scholar, Lippo Dalmasii, whose virgins acquired +so wide a reputation as to win for him the surname of “Lippo delle +Madonne.” + +This artist, who lived at the close of the fourteenth century, and +painted between 1376 and 1410, was held in universal respect for the +holiness of his life and character. His devout habits are recorded by +Malvasia, who tells us that, before commencing a picture of the Virgin, +he invariably spent the night in prayer and fasting, and received +communion on the morning of the day itself. In his lifetime he was the +most popular artist of Bologna, and his pictures were so much in request +that he could scarcely paint fast enough to supply the demand. “No family +was considered rich in Bologna,” says Malvasia, “which did not possess +one of his Madonnas.” + +After Lippo’s death his Madonnas were revered as sacred images, and were +only uncovered on festivals dedicated to the Virgin. Several are still to +be seen in the ancient churches of Bologna, and a lunetto of the “Virgin +between St. Sixtus and St. Benedict” over the portal of San Procolo, is +pointed out as the very picture which excited the admiration of Pope +Clement VIII. On returning from the conquest of Ferrara, he is said to +have paused before Lippo’s “Virgin,” and, saluting it with the utmost +devotion, to have exclaimed that no other images ever touched him as +deeply as those painted by the old Bologna master. In later days, Guido +professed an extraordinary veneration for Lippo’s Madonnas, and often +declared that some supernatural influence must have guided the artist’s +pencil, since no modern painter could ever succeed in designing a figure +of so much purity and holiness. + +In spite of these enthusiastic expressions it is impossible to give Lippo +a high place among his contemporaries, and this Fra Angelico of Bologna +is as far below the friar of St. Marco as the school of his native city +is inferior to that of Florence. + +One of Lippo’s pictures, originally in the Ercolani Palace at Bologna, is +now in the National Gallery, and may be taken as a fair specimen of his +style. The Virgin, embracing her child, appears in mid-air surrounded by +a circular glory, angels hover above, and a flowery meadow lies below. +There is a good deal of religious feeling and maternal tenderness in the +Madonna’s face, and some attempt at rendering natural movement, without +either beauty of type or skill of workmanship. + +Side by side with the mystic traditions of the Madonna painter we trace a +more vigorous vein in the early school of Bologna, and see decided proofs +of the Giottesque influences which had already reached its artists. +This Florentine tendency is prominent in the works of both Simone dai +Crocifissi and Jacopo degli Avanzi, the only two other Bolognese +painters of this period who deserve mention. + +According to Malvasia, Simone executed nothing but crucifixes, and +although other paintings at Bologna are attributed to him, this was no +doubt the chief branch of art in which he was engaged. The best of his +crucifixes are those in San Giacomo Maggiore, and in the fourth of the +seven churches belonging to the ancient pile of San Stefano, in both of +which he to a great extent follows Giotto’s example, but retains much of +the bad taste of Byzantine art in the emaciation of the figure and the +grimace of the attendant saints. + +Much of the same ugliness of type, accompanied by greater truth and +character, is visible in the curious “Crucifixion” on gold ground, +ascribed to Jacopo degli Avanzi, in the Colonna Gallery at Rome, and in +the other altar-pieces which bear his name at Bologna. The personality of +this artist has been a cause of endless controversy, but at least it has +been shown that Vasari is clearly wrong in confusing him with d’Avanzo +of Verona, who assisted Altichieri in painting the chapel of St. George +at Padua. Whether Avanzi of Bologna is identical with the Jacobus Pauli +who painted the “Coronation of the Virgin” in San Giacomo Maggiore, is +a matter of small importance; but what we know for certain is, that a +Bolognese painter by name Jacopo, whom Vasari probably rightly calls +Avanzo, was the best of all the different artists who painted in that +most interesting of all Bologna churches, the Madonna della Mezzaratta. +This small chapel, called by Lanzi the Campo-Santo of Bologna, was built +in the twelfth century outside the Porta San Mammolo, and decorated with +frescoes in the fourteenth by a succession of native painters. Vasari +alludes to it more than once in his “Lives” as the _Casa di Mezzo_, +and speaks of the series painted there by Jacopo d’Avanzo, Cristofano, +Simone, and at a later period by Galassi of Ferrara. + +The frescoes of the Mezzaratta were no doubt the most important works of +art achieved by early Bolognese painters, and—although their execution +is too rude, and their present condition too imperfect to allow of +comparison with the productions of Giotto and his scholars at Padua and +Assisi—the scanty fragments that remain are still of the deepest interest +to the student. + +The most celebrated artists of later ages who had the advantage of seeing +these frescoes in a comparatively good state of preservation are said +to have held them in the highest esteem. Michelangelo himself visited +the chapel and praised its paintings in the warmest terms, while the +Carracci exerted themselves strenuously to save them from destruction. +Unfortunately, later generations have been less mindful of their +condition. The roof of the church was taken off some years ago and the +upper part used as a granary, while most of the frescoes were whitewashed +and many entirely obliterated. + +At the present moment the chapel of Mezzaratta is attached to a villa, +which was for many years the property of the Italian Minister, Cavaliere +Minghetti. This accomplished statesman took every possible means to +save these relics of early art from further destruction, and by his +care several frescoes were recovered from the coat of whitewash which +concealed them. + +The site of the chapel itself is so picturesque, and the views from +the hill of Mezzaratta are so full of beauty, that no traveller should +leave Bologna without making a pilgrimage to this shrine. A steep ascent +along a path lined with acacias leads from the gate of San Mammolo to +the garden of Villa Minghetti, and on a summer’s day, when nightingales +are singing in the acacia thicket and the air is sweet with myrtle +and orange-blossom, there is not a pleasanter spot in all Bologna. +Below, the domes and spires of the ancient city rise above its arcaded +streets, and the eye is at once arrested by the quaint forms of the +twin leaning towers, Garisenda and Asinelli, which were already old in +Dante’s lifetime. All around the plains stretch their vast expanse, +softly shadowed by passing clouds, far away towards Ferrara and Modena, +excepting where some rocky spur descends from the Apennines, and looking +up an opening valley we catch a glimpse of a jagged peak crowned with +snow. Mezzaratta itself has an additional claim on our interest from +having been the favourite resort of the Franciscan monk, Bernardino da +Siena, whose religious revival at Bologna was one of the most important +events in the early part of the fourteenth century, and who frequently +preached in this humble sanctuary, which could scarcely hold the crowds +that flocked to hear him. + +Bernardino’s preaching and his affection for the spot may have been one +cause of the celebrity which the church of Mezzaratta acquired in those +days, but the oldest painting on the walls takes us back a whole century +before his time. It is a large “Nativity” painted over the door by +Vitale and signed with his name. The composition chiefly adheres to the +Byzantine type, with a few variations, as in the action of Joseph, who is +represented pouring water into the bowl for the washing of the Child. Its +execution is feeble, as is the case with most early Bolognese paintings, +but in the graceful type of the Virgin’s head and in the kneeling angels +we recognise Vitale’s striving after a more ideal form. + +On the southern wall an artist named Cristofano, whose style as far as it +is possible to judge more resembles that of the Ferrara school, painted +scenes from the book of Genesis. Below these we have a series of subjects +from the history of Joseph, Moses, and the Life of Christ, all painted +by the same hand, and bearing in one corner the name of Jacobus, and the +date 1404. + +Of these the two most striking are the “Miracle of the Pool of Bethesda” +and the “Healing of the Paralytic.” In the former, a sick man stands +in the middle of the pool lifting his hands in prayer, and the cripple +who sits up in bed by the side of the healing waters looks towards +Christ with an air of helpless entreaty. In the latter, the roof of the +house in which the Saviour is teaching his disciples is uncovered, and +the sick of the palsy is being let down by cords. To the right he is +seen, walking away healed, bearing a mattress on his shoulders. In both +of these scenes—indeed all through the series—the head of Christ is +strikingly noble and dignified, while not even the artist’s ignorance +of the simplest elements of drawing and colouring can detract from the +originality and life of the representations. Each head is individual in +expression and character, and the whole composition is marked by the +pleasing naïveté of very early art, and an evident anxiety to shake off +the fetters of conventional types. + +Simone is said by Vasari to have painted the later scenes of the Passion +below Jacopo’s frescoes, and may have been the artist of the “Last +Supper,” which is still visible, but most of his work has perished, +and whatever else has escaped destruction belongs to the middle of the +fifteenth century, and owes its existence to Galasso Galassi, or other +Ferrarese painters. + +The most remarkable point in the frescoes of Mezzaratta, and the real +cause of their value, is that, in spite of all the injury they have +sustained, they are decidedly superior in merit to the contemporary +panel-pictures in the Gallery and churches of Bologna, and thus enable +us to form a better judgment of early Bolognese art. Here we see it +inferior, it is true, in every respect to the schools then flourishing at +Florence and Siena, but still possessing a force and individual character +which inspires interest and promises well for the future. + +During the greater part of the fourteenth century no native painter of +any genius arose, and the pictures of this date in the Bologna Gallery +are principally by unknown followers of Lippo Dalmasii. The only names +preserved there are those of Pietro Lianori and Michele di Matteo +Lambertini, who painted between 1450 and 1470, and in whose work we trace +some likeness to the contemporary Siena school, as well as a marked +difference from Avanzi’s manner. The same may be said of the picture of +“St. Ursula and her Companions,” a weak but not unpleasing work, painted +by Santa Caterina Vigri, a Bolognese nun, chiefly remarkable as the only +woman-artist who over attained the honours of canonization. + +Towards the middle of the fifteenth century a new element was introduced +into Bolognese art by the Ferrarese masters, whom the patronage of the +Bentivoglio family attracted from the neighbouring city. The court of +the Este princes was already one of the most brilliant in Italy, and had +become a favourite centre for artists, who were employed to decorate the +different palaces of the ducal house in the same way that Mantegna was +engaged on the castles of the Gonzagas at Mantua. + +Piero della Francesca had himself painted in Duke Borso’s Schifanoia +(Sans-Souci) palace, and both his presence and the all-pervading +influence of Mantegna, who had known several of the best Ferrarese +artists, had contributed in a large measure to mould the school of +native artists. These different elements were now imported to Bologna by +the Ferrara painters who migrated there. One of the first was Galasso +Galassi, who painted the later scenes from the Passion in the church of +Mezzaratta about the year 1450, and who may have been the painter of +the graceful “Sposalizio,” which is one of the best-preserved frescoes +still to be seen there. About the same time an artist of greater merit, +Francesco Cossa, was commanded by Giovanni Bentivoglio to restore an +ancient picture of Lippo known as the “Madonna del Baraccano,” and Ercole +Grandi was employed on the frescoes of the Garganelli chapel in the +church of San Pietro. + +With these Ferrara masters came a Paduan artist, also one of the painters +of the Schifanoia, who had been trained in the school of Squarcione +and had worked with Mantegna in the Eremitani. This was Marco Zoppo, +who moved to Bologna in 1471, and remained there twenty years, during +which period he painted many of his principal works, and probably became +acquainted with the goldsmith, Francia, whose first master he is said, by +some, to have been.[4] + +But the most important of all the painters who came to Bologna from +Ferrara was Lorenzo Costa, whose friendship with Francia was productive +of rich results, and with whom he lived for many years in a constant +interchange of artistic ideas. Born at Ferrara in 1460, Costa came as +a young man to Bologna and entered the service of Giovanni Bentivoglio +II., who employed him to decorate his palace with scenes from the Iliad. +During the next twenty years Costa was actively engaged in Bologna. In +1488 he finished an altar-piece for the chapel of the Bentivogli in +the church of San Giacomo Maggiore, and a few years later painted the +allegorical compositions representing “The Triumph of Life and Death,” +and various other works in the great Basilica of San Petronio. + +In many of those we already see signs of new and higher qualities which +were the direct fruit of Francia’s influence, although in technical +acquirements the Bologna master was at that time still inferior to Costa. + + * * * * * + +We have so far traced the rise of early Bolognese art throughout the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and watched the gradual development +of a school of painters who remained far behind their contemporaries in +Florence and Siena, and at the best never rose above mediocrity. But in +Francia, Bologna was for the first time to have an artist of the highest +order, and who would take his place among the best Florentines of the +day, rivalling even Perugino’s genius, and winning the praise of Raphael; +an artist not indeed of great inventive faculty or wide range of powers, +but who, in pure and tender feeling, in elevation of aim and thought, in +the expression of the deepest religious emotion, was to find few equals +in the history of art. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +EARLY LIFE AND WORKS, A.D. 1450-1500. + + +Francesco di Marco Raibolini, commonly called Il Francia, was born at +Bologna in the year 1450. His father was a carpenter, but although +belonging to the artisan class his family was highly respected and +owned lands in the neighbourhood. After the practice of many Florentine +painters, Francia began life in the goldsmith’s shop, but unlike +Botticelli and Pollaiuolo, did not turn his attention to art until he had +reached middle age and had acquired considerable reputation in his own +trade. + +Several writers have asserted that he took his surname from the goldsmith +under whom he served his apprenticeship, but it seems more probable +that Francia was merely the popular abbreviation of Francesco, and the +supposition is confirmed by documents recently found in the archives of +Bologna. + +His talents soon attracted attention and before long he became skilled in +cutting dies, designing medals, working in _niello_ and every department +of the goldsmith’s art. At the same time the charms of his person and +character won general favour and greatly contributed to the success of +his career. Contemporary writers describe him as strikingly handsome in +appearance, and gifted with a sweetness of disposition and rare eloquence +which could not fail to captivate his hearers. The wit and liveliness +of his conversation had the power to drive away the saddest moods and +brighten the darkest hours. In this manner he became a general favourite, +and he numbered members of the noblest families of Bologna among his +intimate friends. + +At the time Francia grew up the power of the Bentivogli family was +supreme in Bologna. This proud house claimed descent from King Enzio, +the unfortunate son of the Emperor Frederico II., whose long captivity, +vain attempts at escape, and loves with the fair Lucia di Viadogolo have +thrown a romantic charm over the grim walls of the Palazzo del Podestà. +Nothing less than the attainment of sovereign power could content the +Bentivogli in the fifteenth century, and after a long struggle with the +Popes, who claimed the supremacy of Bologna, they finally succeeded +in accomplishing their object. The reigning prince was now Giovanni +Bentivoglio II., who had assumed the reins of government in 1463, and +was undisputed master of the city. Although his tyranny became hateful +to the people, and ultimately proved the cause of his ruin, he was a +liberal and munificent patron of Francia, and rivalled the princes +of the house of Este by the encouragement which he gave to the fine +arts. He soon discovered the rising genius of the young goldsmith, and +appointed him Master of the Mint, an office which, in spite of many +vicissitudes in public affairs, Francia retained to the end of his life. +Other distinctions fell to his share. In 1483, and again in the year +1489, he was elected steward of the goldsmiths’ guild, a further proof +of the esteem and honour with which his countrymen regarded him. By this +time he was already married, since his sons Giacomo and Giulio were +born, the former before, and the latter in, 1487; but we hear no further +particulars and know nothing of his wife excepting that her name was +Caterina. + +Besides coining money and designing medals for Giovanni Bentivoglio, +Francia showed his fine taste and artistic powers in many works both in +gold and silver enamels, and especially in _niello_, “often introducing +as many as twenty figures of excellent proportion and graceful design +into a space scarcely two fingers high.” Most of these precious works of +art perished in the destruction of the Bentivogli’s palace at the time +of their expulsion, and the famous silver _pax_, which Francia executed +at immense cost for the wedding of Giovanni Sforza and Lucrezia Borgia, +has disappeared, but two smaller ones are still preserved in the Gallery +of Bologna, and are interesting specimens of their kind. One bearing a +representation of the Resurrection, surrounded by a wreath of delicate +foliage, was executed on the occasion of the marriage of Bartolommeo +Felicini and Dorotea Ringhieri, as we learn by the arms of these families +which are engraved upon the work. The other is engraved with the Sforza +and Bentivogli arms and the letters M. Z., _Messer Zoane_, and was +probably a wedding gift from Giovanni Bentivoglio to his bride Ginevra +Sforza. The Crucifixion is worked in niello on this pax, and both in +the sorrowing angels hovering round the cross and in the saints below +we recognise the type of head which Francia’s Madonnas have rendered +familiar, while the landscape in the background shows the pictorial bent +of the goldsmith’s mind. + +Andrea Mantegna’s visit to Bologna in 1472 is said to have first inspired +Francia with the wish to become a painter, but Vasari tells us in the +same breath that our master’s first painting was not executed until 1490, +when he was forty years old. + +The actual honour of having first given Francia instruction in oil +painting has been assigned to different artists, principally to Marco +Zoppo and Lorenzo Costa, both of whom, we have seen, were living at +Bologna about 1480. Little affinity exists between the Squarcionesque +master’s style and that of Francia, but it is very possible that he may +have been acquainted with the goldsmith and have given him his first +lessons. Francia’s connection with Lorenzo Costa was of a much closer +kind, and Ferrarese models had a large share in his future development. +But his first essays in painting are so purely original in character and +so free from foreign influences that we need not seek for any cause to +explain the reason of their existence, or ask what master had a share in +their production. He probably acquired the rudiments of tempera and oil +painting from either Zoppo or another of the humbler men who frequented +his workshop, and immediately tried his hand on small panels before +venturing on the larger pictures in which his adoption of Costa’s method +is apparent. These early works are very rare, but one excellent instance +is to be seen in the “St. Stephen” of the Borghese Gallery, Rome. This +interesting little piece was evidently one of his first efforts executed +at a time when he was unskilled in the rules of composition and technical +knowledge. The hand of the worker in metal is plainly seen in the sharp +outline and polished surface of the panel, in the cold, hard brightness +of the deacon’s red dalmatic which St. Stephen wears, and in the +elaborate ornament of its embroideries. There is no attempt at rendering +physical agony in the form of the kneeling martyr quietly raising his +clasped hands as the stones fall heavily to the ground beside him. Even +St. Stephen’s countenance is marked by a certain absence of expression, +and is without the rapt devotion of Perugino’s faces, or the yearning +gentleness of Francia’s own Madonnas. Yet there is a calm devoutness in +the martyr’s bowed head, which seems to reflect the earnestness of the +prayer which the parted lips have just breathed, and which in its very +simplicity is full of touching beauty. Already we feel the presence of +that strong religious sentiment which had first animated the creations of +earlier masters, and of which Francia was to be almost the last exponent +in the art of Italy. + +Another work belonging to this early period is the portrait of +Bartolommeo Bianchini, formerly in the Northwick collection, under the +name of Raphael. This personage was a Bolognese senator of considerable +culture, whose poetry earned some reputation in his days, and who wrote +flattering verses in praise of Francia’s genius. We have a further proof +of the friendship that existed between them in the small “Holy Family” at +Berlin, inscribed with the words, _Bartholomei sum(ptu) Bianchini maxima +matrom hic vivit manibus Francia picta tuis_. “Here—painted by thy hands, +O Francia, at the cost of Bartolommeo Bianchini—lives the greatest of +mothers.” + +The Madonna holds the child erect on a parapet, while St. Joseph stands +behind, much in the same style of composition as countless Holy Families, +by Giovanni Bellini, a painter with whom Francia had more than one +feature in common. Here again we notice the same sharpness of outline, +high polish, and want of shadow that recall the goldsmith’s art, but the +general method of laying on colour and the red glow of the flesh-tints +which marks all Ferrarese work, point unmistakably to the influence of +Lorenzo Costa’s example. During the next twenty years these two men +worked side by side in Bologna, and profited by a mutual exchange of +ideas which has few counterparts in art history. While Costa gave Francia +the benefit of his wider experience and greater knowledge, he received +more than he could impart from the nobler aims and more refined feeling +of the Bologna artist. Before long the pupil was to surpass the master, +but we never hear of the intimacy between the two being marred by any +jealousy or ill-feeling, and the unbroken harmony in which they lived +reflects credit on both. + +A great advance on the early works to which we have alluded is visible in +the large altar-piece of the “Madonna and Saints” which Francia painted +in 1490. The commission was given him by a wealthy Bolognese citizen, +Bartolommeo Felicini, who destined the picture for a chapel in the church +of the Misericordia, a confraternity of nobles for the assistance of +hospitals and other works of mercy. In this work, which Vasari calls his +first, Francia represented the Virgin seated on a marble throne with +six saints in the foreground, and a child-angel in a light blue robe +playing the violin at her feet. The architectural background and general +style of colouring are plainly the results of Costa’s teaching, but side +by side with these Ferrarese features we find another influence which +is altogether new. This is the Umbrian tendency, which appears here in +so marked a manner as to make us ask what was the link which brought +Perugino into connection with the great master of Bologna. Unfortunately +no historical evidence exists to satisfy our curiosity, and there is no +authority for the probable supposition that Francia visited Florence, +and thus became acquainted with the Umbrian painter. But there is every +reason to believe that works by Perugino had by this time found their +way to Bologna, and among them probably the beautiful altar-piece which +he painted for the church of San Giovanni in Monte, and which now hangs +in the Pinacoteca, almost side by side with Francia’s Madonna of the +Misericordia. It is worthy of mention that the same Umbrian character +appears in a small Madonna[5] at Berlin, the sole remaining work of +Antonio Crevalcore, a Bolognese artist chiefly known as a fruit and +flower painter, between 1480 and 1500, and whose name is preserved in +an epitaph by Francia’s friend, Girolamo Casio. Evidently Perugino’s +influence had in some form or other reached Bologna, and had touched a +responsive chord in Francia’s breast. For nowhere is this Peruginesque +vein more strongly present than in the fine head of the St. Sebastian, in +the Misericordia altar-piece, who is lifting his eyes to heaven with an +intensity of expression to which Perugino himself has rarely attained. +Henceforth this feature is constantly recurring in all Francia’s panels, +animating his less ideal types, his fresher and more vigorous conceptions +with a tender devotional feeling, and appealing to us in the peculiar +half-timid, half-reproachful gaze of those Madonnas which we know so well. + +[Illustration: THE VIRGIN ENTHRONED, WITH SAINTS. BY FRANCIA. + +_In the Pinacoteca, Bologna._] + + * * * * * + +The revelation of Francia’s powers as a painter was the cause of much +enthusiasm among his fellow-countrymen, who were never slow to applaud +the efforts of native artists, and Giovanni Bentivoglio immediately +commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for his family chapel in San +Giacomo Maggiore. All the religious communities of Bologna now pressed +Francia to decorate their altars, and Vasari says that by the end of +a few years there was scarcely a church in the city that could not +boast the possession of one of his paintings. The “Annunciation” of +the Brera, the “Madonna and Angels,” at Munich, the Pietà, still at +Bologna, in the Pinacoteca, followed each other in close succession. +For his goldsmith friend, Jacopo Gambaro, who is recorded to have stood +godfather with him to the child of a mutual friend, he painted the small +“Holy Family,” at Dudley House, and for the church of San Giobbe, in +Bologna, the “Crucifixion” of the Louvre. In this singular composition +the patriarch Job is represented wearing a crown and lying at the foot +of the cross, pointing upwards to a scroll on which we read the words: +_Maiora sustinuit ipse_. This fine and original conception is marred by +a hardness of drawing and colouring, which is a sufficient proof that it +was executed at an early period; its surface has suffered considerable +injuries which increase this unpleasant effect. + +A great step in advance is marked by the Bentivoglio altar-piece +completed in 1499, and still occupying its original place in a chapel +of San Giacomo Maggiore. Here the metallic harshness of the tints has +given place to more harmonious tones and softer shadows, and the rich, +glowing colours show that the artist had by this time acquired complete +mastery of the means at his disposal. The saints are more vigorous and +manly in type, and the heads are distinguished by more actual beauty than +in any other of Francia’s pictures. St. Sebastian is again a prominent +figure, and was used as a model a century later by the Carracci, who +declared it to be one of the finest studies of human form in Renaissance +painting. The two angels crowned with roses and standing on the steps +of the Virgin’s throne are said to be portraits of children of the +Bentivogli family. Others hover about the Virgin, and one, the loveliest +of all, leans his head thoughtfully against a pillar and stretches out +his little arms in wistful yearning to the child-Christ. In the same year +Francia painted another Enthroned Madonna,[6] very similar to this one +in style and grouping, by desire of a lady of the Manzuoli family, for +the church of the Misericordia. Here the attendant saints are St. George +and the Baptist, who point upwards to the child, whilst St. Stephen gazes +mournfully at the stones of his martyrdom, which, rest on a book that +he holds before him, and another of Francia’s sweet child-angels clasps +a tall white lily between its folded hands, “with so much grace that it +seems to belong to Paradise.” [_Vasari._] + +For the same church of the Misericordia, Giovanni Bentivoglio’s son, +Archdeacon of Bologna and papal protonotary, ordered the “Nativity,” +now removed to the Gallery,[7] where most of Francia’s masterpieces +are collected. In this picture the “Nativity” is treated not as an +historical event but as a Christian mystery, that is to say, the Virgin +and attendant saints are represented in the act of adoring the new-born +child, and celebrating his advent on earth. This class of composition, +always a favourite with religious painters, and much used both by +Perugino and Lorenzo di Credi, was especially adapted to Francia’s +genius. He never possessed the faculty of describing a scene in a vivid +and dramatic manner, or of rendering in quick succession all the varied +emotions of the human breast, but no one has excelled him in these groups +of rapt saints, without a thought beyond the object of their silent +adoration. And so we find him constantly moulding his subjects into +this form. The Annunciation, Pietà, Assumption, and Coronation of the +Virgin by turns took this shape in his hands. He conceived “these supreme +events as mysteries at which the successive ages were spectators, and +in relation to which the great souls of all periods became as it were +contemporaries.” [_George Eliot._] + +In this instance Francia has introduced several portraits among the +worshippers. His masterly profile of Bartolommeo felicini in the first +Misericordia altar-piece had already proved his skill as a portrait +painter, and he now represented Antonio Galeazzo Bentivoglio, who had +lately returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in the mantle of +a knight of the Red Cross kneeling under a ruined arch to adore the +infant Christ. The youthful shepherd who stands opposite, wearing a +laurel wreath on his flowing locks, is a portrait of Francia’s intimate +friend, the poet jeweller, Girolamo di Casio, on whom the laurel crown +was bestowed by Clement VIII. This accomplished man had the greatest +admiration for Francia, whose epitaph he lived to compose, and whom he +addressed during his lifetime in a sonnet beginning:— + + “Felice Italia che in se chiude, + Si sublime ingegno e si bella effigie + Che fanno al cielo e a natura guerra.” + + “Happy Italy, which contains a genius so lofty and forms so + fair that they challenge heaven and nature.” + +Lastly, in the regular features of the St. Francis in the background, we +have Francia’s own likeness (which he has here introduced in the form +of his patron saint), whose expressive face and refined air correspond +exactly with contemporary descriptions. Two angels kneel in lowly +adoration on either side of the child, who lifts his head and raises +his tiny hand in benediction, while a bullfinch perched on a twig at +his feet looks reverently towards him and almost seems to join in the +act of worship. As a rule Francia’s landscapes are simple in character, +generally consisting of a rocky foreground and broad valley opening +beyond, such as we often see in the Apennines near Bologna; sometimes +in his later works they are more distinctly Umbrian, but the background +of this “Nativity” is remarkable for an unusual degree of beauty and +variety. The rocky steep with its solitary pine-tree is still on our +right, but in the centre of the picture, above the heads of the kneeling +saints, a lovely expanse of park-like scenery unfolds itself before us. +There we see a broad sunny river winding its way between grassy glades +and forest avenues, cattle are feeding, and human life is stirring +on its banks, a church tower and cottage roofs peep out from among +the trees, and far away in the distance a line of blue hills rises in +soft undulating lines. The whole of this pastoral scene is charmingly +conceived and painted, and forms a poetic background to one of Francia’s +most graceful compositions. It was for this picture that Costa painted +his predella of the “Adoration of the Magi,” now in the Brera, one of the +many tokens of the friendship which continued to exist between the two +artists. + +[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH A BIRD. BY FRANCIA. + +_In the Dresden Gallery._] + +Besides these works for the Misericordia, Francia executed several +altar-pieces for other churches in Bologna—about 1500. The “Madonna and +Saints,” now at St. Petersburg, was originally painted for San Lorenzo, +and a similar subject resembling the Bentivoglio altar-piece is still +to be seen in San Martino of Bologna. With these larger subjects we may +mention the charming group of boy-angels playing on musical instruments +round an old picture of the Madonna in San Vitale, although their +Raphaelesque grace would seem to indicate a later date of production. The +Franciscan church of the Annunziata, outside the gate of San Mammolo, +also possessed two pictures, a “Madonna” and “Annunciation,” which have +been removed to the Gallery since that sanctuary has been used as a +barrack by the Italian Government. Both have been much damaged, but the +“Annunciation,” in spite of its bad state of preservation and unpleasant +rawness of colour, is singularly interesting. All three persons of the +Trinity assist at the celebration of the great mystery: the Father looks +down from heaven, the dove is seen descending to rest on the brows of +her who was blessed among women, and a vision of the Child appears +above in glory. The Angel of the Annunciation hovers in mid-air, and +on earth the lowly Virgin kneels with clasped hands and bent head, her +whole soul going forth in unutterable love and yearning as she listens +to his message. On either side, a little below this central figure, +stands a noble group of saints reverently pondering over the mystery +before our eyes; and foremost among them we recognise Bernardino, the +favourite saint of Bologna, whose memory was still fresh in the hearts +of the people, holding an open book, on the pages of which, the sacred +monogram and his motto, _In Nomine Gesu_, are inscribed. The birds +sing in the branches beside him, and a lizard crawls along the ground +bearing a scroll, on which are the arms of the Franciscans, a skull and +cross-bones, the date MCCCCC., and _Francia Aurifex pinxit_, a form of +signature which the goldsmith painter retained to the end of his life. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE FRIENDSHIP AND INFLUENCE OF RAPHAEL, 1500-1506. + + +Ten or twelve years had now elapsed since Francia had devoted himself to +painting, and in this comparatively short space of time he had produced +many important works and obtained a wide reputation. More than this, +his pictures during this period bear signs of a steady progress both in +technical skill and power of expression; the old hardness and want of +harmony had in a great measure disappeared, and his colouring had gained +that force and richness which give him so high a place among oil-painters. + +But in the first years of the sixteenth century we see him develop a +new style, and paint in a manner altogether freer and grander than ever +before. This marked improvement is especially visible in the composition +of his pictures which, instead of depending on the expression of single +heads, now acquire a grace of line and completeness that bring them near +to the best Florentine works of the period. + +The cause of this advance can only be ascribed to one influence—the +friendship which Francia had formed with Raphael. It is evident from +many of our master’s works at this time that he had studied Raphael’s +pictures; but beyond this, both the presence of this new element and +certain expressions which Raphael uses in his letter of September, 1508, +seem to imply the existence of a personal acquaintance between the two +masters. + +He had formed, we know, the highest opinion of Francia’s merit, and gives +expression in emphatic terms to his conviction that no Madonnas are so +beautiful or so well calculated to inspire devotion as the creations of +the Bolognese master. And on receiving Francia’s portrait he declares it +to be so life-like that as he stands before it he feels himself in his +friend’s presence and seems to hear his voice. + +Everything points to more than a mere intercourse by letter, and there +can be no reason to doubt the generally assumed fact that Raphael paid +a visit to Bologna on his way from Florence to Urbino in 1506. But long +before this they had a mutual object of interest in Timoteo Viti, a young +painter of Urbino, who became one of Francia’s favourite pupils and was +the first link between him and Raphael. + +In July, 1490, Timoteo came to Bologna to perfect himself in the +goldsmith’s art in Francia’s workshop. The date is recorded in a register +kept by Francia, where we read the following entry:— + +“Timoteo Viti da Urbino was taken into our shop. He will receive no +salary during the first year, and sixty-six florins for three months in +the second.” + +In 1491 another entry records the settlement of accounts with Timoteo, +and mentions that as he is desirous to become a painter he will now pass +into the hall where the other artists work. + +Four years later we find one more entry, which is as follows:— + +“On the 4th day of April, 1495, my beloved Timoteo left us. God grant +that all blessing and good fortune may be with him.” + +Timoteo returned to Urbino, where he became Raphael’s assistant, and +carried with him the fame of the master who remembered him so kindly. +Soon Francia received commissions from the Duke of Urbino, for whom he +painted a Lucrezia in the act of plunging the dagger into her breast, and +a marvellous set of horse trappings decorated with gaily-coloured birds +and foliage. + +From Timoteo’s lips Raphael also heard of Francia’s paintings, and +was perhaps first introduced by him to those Madonnas which inspired +so unfeigned an admiration in his breast. Afterwards we hear of an +exchange of pictures which passed between the two great masters, and at +Francia’s recommendation Giovanni Bentivoglio employed Raphael to paint +a “Nativity,” which has unfortunately perished. The Bolognese master +was of too generous and loyal a nature to entertain the least feeling +of envy towards the young painter, who had already surpassed all his +contemporaries, and showed his warm appreciation of Raphael’s genius +in the following sonnet, which he addressed to him in an outburst of +enthusiasm:— + + “Non son Zeusi nè Apelle, e non son tale, + Che di tanti tal nome a me convegna; + Nè mio talento, nè vertudo è degna + Haver da un Raffael lodo immortale. + + Tu sol, cui fece il ciel dono fatale, + Che ogn’ altro excede, e sora ogn’ altro regna, + L’excellente artificio à noi insegna + Con cui sei reso ad ogn’ antico uguale. + + Fortunato garxon, che nei primi anni + Tant’ oltre passi; e che sarà poi quando + In più provecta etade opre migliori? + + Vinta sarà natura; e, da’ tuoi inganni + Resa eloquente, dirà, te lodando, + Che tu solo il pictor sei de’ pictori.” + + “I am not Zeuxis nor Apelles, neither do I deserve that fame + so great shall be mine, nor is my talent worthy to receive + immortal praise from a Raffael. + + “Thou alone, on whom heaven has bestowed the fatal gift that + thou shouldest excel all others and reign over all, teachest + us the admirable art by which thou art become equal to the + ancients. + + “Fortunate boy, who in thy earliest years hast already advanced + so far, what wilt thou not be when in maturer age thou shalt + achieve yet greater things? Then nature shall own herself + conquered, and rendered eloquent by thy charms, shall exclaim + in thy praise, that thou alone art the painter of painters.” + +[Illustration: DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS. BY FRANCIA. + +_In the Accademia, Parma._] + +The original manuscript of this sonnet was first published by the +historian Malvasia, who discovered it among the papers of a member of +the Lambertini family, and gave the accompanying inscription, which +proves Francia to have been its author. _All’excellente pictore Raffaello +Sanxio, Zeusi del nostro secolo. Di me Francesco Raibolini decto il +Francia._ Even without these convincing proofs of Raphael’s friendship +with Francia, it would have been difficult not to assume the existence +of some similar connection from the strong marks of the great painter’s +influence that meet us in Francia’s later works. + +In the “Deposition,” painted soon after 1500 for the Benedictines of +Parma, his style is already powerfully affected by this contact with +Raphael, which can alone account for a vigorous action and dramatic +character here displayed. A deep emotion is visible on the faces of the +St. John, who supports the head, the Magdalen, who embraces the feet, and +the Virgin, who gazes at the dead face of her son with the grief-stricken +look which the “Pietà” of the National Gallery has stamped upon our +minds. Salome, who stands behind, flings aloft her arms in an energy of +despair unlike anything else that Francia ever conceived, while in the +background the cross lifts its gaunt form against the glowing tints of an +evening sky and a soft distance of cypress-grown rocks and far-away hills. + +Not many years afterwards Francia was asked by a noble of Lucca to +supply an altar-piece for the church of San Frediano in that city, and +after painting a “Madonna and Saints” as the principal subject, took the +Pietà as the motive of the lunette below. This time he returned partly +to his former conception, and represented the Dead Christ laid in his +mother’s arms in the same attitude as in the larger Deposition at Parma, +but with two angels instead of attendant saints at the head and feet. + +In later years the altar-piece passed into the Duke of Lucca’s hands, and +coming to England in 1840 with the rest of the collection, became one of +the chief ornaments of the National Gallery. + +It is difficult to approach this Pietà in a critical spirit. We have +known it all our lives, every form, almost every line of the well-known +group is familiar. To many of us it is associated with memories of days +long ago when it formed a part of our earliest religious ideas; and when +much of the faith of childhood has undergone change, it still recalls all +that was purest and best in those first impressions. + +[Illustration: THE VIRGIN AND TWO ANGELS WEEPING OVER THE DEAD BODY OF +CHRIST. A PIETÀ. BY FRANCIA. + +_In the National Gallery._] + +What is it, we ask, which touches us in this “Pietà,” that has appealed +to thousands in a way which no other picture has ever done? Surely, +not only the grace of its composition, the tender brightness of its +colouring, but more than all of these the deep human pathos which we +find there blended with a real and living hope. It is the contrast +between the mother mourning over her dead son with a grief that cannot +be comforted and the angels who fold their hands in lowly adoration, +and by their presence transform the saddest of all scenes into a divine +mystery full of hope and love. Mary, in the bitterness of her sorrow, is +unconscious of these heavenly attendants, her eyes, fixed on the dead +face of her son, are closed to that vision of angels, but we see them and +realise what Francia meant us to feel, all the promise of that horizon +which was opening beyond, all the great future that was to grow out of +the suffering and death which she mourned. + + “The wave + Of love which set so deep and strong + By Christ’s yet open grave.” + [_Matthew Arnold._] + +Unlike Mantegna and Gian Bellini, Francia has not attempted to give any +impression of the physical agony which has passed over the corpse, but +has concentrated all his force in the endeavour to give the deep repose +and peace of death without sacrificing anything of majesty of form. +There are other points in the drawing which might be criticised, and +a degree of stiffness in the position of the right arm has been often +observed, but no minor defects can prevent Francia’s Pietà from being, +in refinement of conception and tenderness of feeling, the highest ideal +representation of the subject in the whole range of art. + +The other portion of this altar-piece, a Virgin enthroned with the +Child, St. Anna at her side between two arches, and the Saints Sebastian, +Paul, Lawrence and Romualdo below, hangs next to Perugino’s Certosa +altar-piece in the National Gallery. An excellent opportunity is thus +afforded of comparing the styles of the two painters, and Francia’s work +does not show to disadvantage even by the side of Perugino’s masterpiece. +In depth and richness of colour he is at least his equal, and although +his types are less ideal they are fresher and more natural, and there is +less affectation in the attitude of his figures. + +For the same church of San Frediano at Lucca, Francia painted another +large altar-piece the “Coronation of the Virgin,” which is still to be +seen there. Here again he gives the subject a mystical character and +introduces the patriarchal ancestors of Mary and the chief advocates of +the dogma of the Immaculate Conception among the figures who stand below +in devout contemplation. Each bears a scroll in his hand: David points to +a verse of Psalm xxvii, “_In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide +me_;” Solomon, a noble, kingly profile, gazes earnestly upwards, showing +us a text from his song, “_Thou art all fair, my love_;” while Anselm and +Augustine bear scrolls on which we read passages from their own writings +relating to the Virgin, and Antony of Padua kneels at the empty tomb +where lilies and roses have blossomed. This altar-piece, although less +known than Francia’s other masterpieces, yields to none of his works +in grandeur and finish. The kneeling Madonna who, robed in purple and +gold, receives her crown from the hands of the Eternal, retains the same +expression of sweet humility touched with sadness which marks all his +Virgins, and the scenes from the History of the Augustinian order on the +predella are painted with exquisite taste and delicacy. + +Another large Coronation, commonly called the altar-piece of All the +Saints from the multitude of figures grouped below, is still in the Duomo +of Ferrara; while Cesena retains the “Presentation” mentioned by Vasari, +although the beauty of colouring to which he alludes has lost much of its +freshness. + +A “Nativity,” painted for his intimate friend Paolo Zambeccaro at +Bologna, is now in the Picture Gallery of Forli, but the frescoes with +which he adorned Zambeccaro’s villa have all perished. The same fate has +been shared by the other frescoes which he painted in different palaces +of Bologna, and what is most of all to be regretted, the “Judith” and +“Dispute of Philosophers” which he executed for Giovanni Bentivoglio were +destroyed in the sack of the tyrant’s palace by the mob, on his expulsion +in 1507. Vasari, speaking from the testimony of eyewitnesses, declares +the Judith to have been the finest work which Francia ever painted, and +describes minutely the splendour of the surroundings introduced, the +horses, banners, and armed guards brought on the scene as belonging to +the camp of Holofernes. The fame of this fresco had also reached the ears +of Raphael, who begged for a sketch of the work, but unfortunately not +even a drawing remains to give us an idea of the manner in which Francia +treated a theme so unlike his usual objects. + +A “Lucrezia” by his hand, perhaps the very panel which he painted for +Guido Baldo, Duke of Urbino, is now in England,[8] but has nothing +classical in character. The Roman matron raising her eyes to heaven as +she plunges the dagger into her breast is in feature and expression the +exact counterpart of Francia’s saints, and but for the uplifted hand +might be a St. Catharine or St. Agnes with perfect propriety. On the +other hand drawings in the style of ancient bas-reliefs by Francia, which +in type and character admit no doubt as to their genuineness, meet us +occasionally both in foreign galleries and London exhibitions, and show +a much truer appreciation of classical art. Such are the “Judgment of +Paris” in the Albertina collection, Vienna, and that beautiful group +of Greek youths before an altar exhibited by Mr. J. O. Robinson in +the Grosvenor Gallery of 1879, in which, the grace of antique art is +delicately blended with the yearning expression of Christian devotion. +These and others that resemble them were designs for engravings probably +intended for the use of Marc Antonio Raimondi, who served his first +apprenticeship in Francia’s workshop, and engraved several of his +master’s pictures before he left for Venice in 1509. + +More than one of this celebrated artist’s engravings bear marks of this +early training in the school of Francia, an influence soon to be effaced +by the very different associations and examples of the Roman world, in +the midst of which his later years were spent. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE FRESCOES OF ST. CECILIA’S CHAPEL, 1506-1509. + + +The only series of frescoes painted by Francia in Bologna of which some +traces still remain, are those in the Oratory of St. Cecilia, attached +to the church of San Giacomo Maggiore. This chapel, founded by Giovanni +Bentivoglio and erected by the architect Gasparo Nadi in 1481, was +decorated entirely by the hands of Francia and his scholars in the early +part of the sixteenth century. Costa’s fresco, which alone bears a date, +was executed in 1506, and the whole series was probably completed before +the exile of the Bentivogli in 1507. + +Unfortunately this chapel, which is for the Bolognese school what the +chapels of the Carmine and Eremitani are for Florentine and Paduan art, +has been frequently turned to other uses, and during its occupation +by French soldiers the frescoes suffered great injury. All are much +damaged, and some mutilated in such a manner that the principal figures +are scarcely visible. But even in their present melancholy condition +Francia’s frescoes are full of interest, and it is easy to see how +superior they are in merit to any other works of the school. Of the +four remaining artists employed in the chapel—Lorenzo Costa, Giovanni +Chiodarolo, Amico Aspertini, and Giacomo Raibolini (or Tamaroccio)—the +Ferrarese master is the only one who approaches him in the excellence of +his style, and even Costa’s heads cannot compare with those of Francia +for beauty and expression. The subjects of the ten frescoes are all taken +from the history of St. Cecilia. + +On the right of the altar:— + + 1. Marriage of Cecilia and Valerian. _Francia._ + + 2. Valerian instructed in the Christian faith by Pope Urban. _Costa._ + + 3. Baptism of Valerian. _Cesare Tamaroccio._[9] + + 4. Valerian and Cecilia crowned with roses by an Angel. _Chiodarolo._ + + 5. Martyrdom of Valerian and his brother Tiburtius. _Aspertini._ + +On the left of the altar:— + + 6. The Burial of the Brothers. _Aspertini._ + + 7. Cecilia before the Prefect. _Aspertini._ + + 8. Cecilia condemned to the boiling bath. _Cesare Tamaroccio._[9] + + 9. Cecilia distributing her riches to the poor. _Costa._ + + 10. Burial of Cecilia. _Francia._ + +The two frescoes by Francia are placed nearest to the altar, exactly +opposite each other, and are on the whole the best-preserved of the +series. Here Raphael’s influence is more apparent than in any of +Francia’s works, and it is highly probable that he visited Bologna while +the chapel was being painted. The fresco of the Marriage at once recalls +Raphael’s “Sposalizio” in the grouping of the figures, and is remarkable +for its grace of composition. The officiating priest stands between the +bride and bride-groom under the portal of a chapel which opens on to a +wooded valley. The bride shrinks timidly back and turns her face away as +one of her maidens holds her hand on which Valerian places the ring. On +either side are groups of youths and maidens who, by their intent gaze +and animated gesture, show their interest in the marriage that is being +celebrated. The action is simple, the heads noble and refined; those of +the maidens are especially remarkable for their beauty, while the grace +of line that marks the grouping is happily continued in the landscape +beyond, which harmonizes well with the scene before us. Evidently the +subject was exactly suited to Francia’s genius, and he has succeeded +admirably. + +The same praise can scarcely be given as fully to the “Burial of St. +Cecilia,” wonderful as is the power of its simple pathos. There is a want +of dramatic action in the spectators, and at the same time a formality +in the arrangement of the groups on either side of the picture, which +gives the whole an air of stiffness and renders it inferior in point of +composition to the Marriage. But these defects are atoned for by the +beauty of the central portion, where four young men hold the lifeless +form of the martyred saint suspended in a winding-sheet above the +opening of the vault. A wreath of white roses crowns her gentle brows, +and the bystanders press forward to take a last look at the sleeping +face that is still so fair in death. As in the Christ of the Pietà all +trace of suffering has passed away, the hands are folded with exquisite +tenderness, and the sweet maiden seems to lie there wrapt once more in +the deep unconscious sleep of childhood. For a moment we wonder if this +happy slumber can be death, but—if we look a little further, beyond the +pale light just breaking into the valley, above the tall cliffs and the +topmost branches of the waving palm-trees—we shall see the dim form of an +angel who wings his flight upwards, bearing the soul of the martyr back +to God. + +The frescoes of St. Cecilia were the last works which Francia painted for +his patron Giovanni Bentivoglio. In 1507, perhaps even before the chapel +was completed, the Bentivogli were driven out of Bologna by a popular +rising and forced to flee for their lives. Not only did Francia lose +their patronage and friendship, but he had the grief of seeing some of +his best works destroyed by an infuriated mob in the sack of their palace +in the Strada Donato. + +The universal respect in which he was held by his countrymen saved him +from sharing in the ruin of his patrons, and he retained his office +at the head of the Mint under Pope Julius II. In this capacity he was +required to coin the money which the Pope threw to the populace on his +triumphal entry and which bore the inscription:—“Bononia per Julium a +tyranno liberata.” But although he was forced to lend his talents, as +Michelangelo did on another occasion, to the service of the victor, he +could not conceal the bitterness of his grief, and for a whole year after +the flight of the Bentivogli still lamented the loss he had suffered. + +It was then that Raphael addressed his well-known letter to Francia, +begging him to take heart, and assuring him of his sympathy. The two +painters had, it appears, agreed to exchange portraits, and in this +letter Raphael thanks Francia for having sent him his likeness painted +by his own hand. We give a translation of this interesting document, +which was first discovered with Francia’s sonnet in the papers of the +Lambertini family, and brought to light by Malvasia:— + + “My dear Messor Francesco,— + + “I have this moment received your portrait, which Bazotto + brought me safely, without injury of any kind, and for which I + thank you exceedingly. It is very beautiful, and so life-like + that at times it deceives me. I seem to be with you and to + hear your voice. I pray you, pardon my delays, which arise + from the tasks in which I am incessantly engaged, and which + have been the cause why I have not yet painted the portrait + with my own hand, according to our agreement. Nor would I + allow it to be painted by one of my pupils and retouched by + myself, since this would not have been seemly, although I have + no hope of ever equalling your work. Have compassion on me, I + say, since you know by experience what it is to be deprived of + liberty and bound to patrons. I am sending you by this same + messenger, who returns in six days, another drawing, that of + ‘The Nativity,’ somewhat different from the original, which you + were good enough to praise so highly, with the same kindness + with which you speak of my other works in a manner that causes + me to blush. I hope that you will accept this trifle, more + as a token of love and obedience than for any other reason, + and if in exchange I may receive a drawing of your ‘History + of Judith’ I will place it among my dearest and most precious + treasures. Monsignore il Datario awaits his ‘Madonella’ with + much impatience, and Cardinal Riario his large one, all of + which you will hear more particularly from the said Bazotto. + I, for my part, shall behold them with the same delight and + satisfaction with which I see and praise all your other works, + never having seen any images that are fairer or more devout and + well painted. In the meantime take courage, summon up all your + habitual wisdom, and be sure that I feel your afflictions as + keenly as if they were my own. Continue to love me as I love + you, with my whole heart. + + “Ever your most obliged and devoted, + + “RAFAELLE SANZIO. + + “Roma, the fifth day of September, 1508.” + +Few documents in art history are more interesting than this letter, which +breathes all the sunny gladness of Raphael’s nature, and proves how +sincerely he admired Francia as an artist and felt for him as a friend. + +It is uncertain whether the portrait which he praises so warmly still +exists, but at the end of last century a half-length figure of Francia +holding a diamond ring, by his own hand, was in the Boschi collection at +Bologna, and a few years ago a similar work belonged to a private gallery +at Turin.[10] + +As a portrait-painter Francia ranks high, and all the works of this class +by him which remain are marked by the same exquisite finish and life-like +fidelity. The Tribune of the Uffizi has a fine specimen in the head of +Evangelista Scappi, whose pleasant open face and bushy locks modern +copyists have rendered familiar. The Umbrian character of the landscape +and general style of the work resemble Perugino’s heads, while other of +Francia’s portraits are painted more in his Raphaelesque manner. + +Such is the noble portrait of the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna long +ascribed to Raphael, but rightfully restored to Francia by Crowe and +Cavalcaselle, and probably the likeness of some Bolognese noble, since it +originally belonged to an old family of that city. + +The poet Girolamo di Casio also alludes in one of his sonnets to two +female portraits by Francia remarkable for their beauty, but these have +perished, it is to be feared, since no portraits of women by his hand are +known to exist. + +The expulsion of the Bentivogli, although a severe shock to Francia, does +not appear to have diminished his powers of activity, and many of his +best works belong to the years immediately following this event, which he +deplored so deeply. In 1509 he painted the “Baptism of Christ,” now at +Dresden, which still retains its rich glow of colour in spite of injuries +received from the splinters of a shell during the bombardment of that +city in 1760. Christ is represented standing on the waters of Jordan +while the Baptist bends forward from one of the banks, and two angels +with wistful faces wait on the other. A good replica of the subject, with +the same hilly landscape but some variations, is at Hampton Court, and +originally belonged to the Mantuan collection purchased by Charles I. The +Dresden Gallery possesses two other fine works of Francia, an “Adoration +of the Magi,” with a lake and mountain background, which bears strong +marks of Raphael’s influence, and a “Madonna” from the Quandt collection. +This last is one of the half-length figures of the Virgin with the child, +and one or more attendant saints, which became so popular a subject in +Francia’s school, and of which so many repetitions are to be seen. The +example in the National Gallery, acquired from the Beaucousin collection, +has unfortunately lost much of its original clearness, owing to the wash +of burnt sienna which has been laid on the surface. + +Another finely conceived work, which has been ruined by repainting, is +the “Madonna and Saints” of the Belvedere at Vienna, while the same fate +has attended the Berlin altar-piece, originally painted for the Friars of +the Osservanza at Modena. + +[Illustration: THE MADONNA OF THE ROSE-GARDEN. BY FRANCIA. + +_In the Pinakothek, Munich._] + +Two other panels, which, in type and execution, bear a marked resemblance +to the frescoes of St. Cecilia’s chapel, and were evidently painted +soon afterwards, are in a better state of preservation. The first, an +“Annunciation,” with St. Jerome and the Baptist, in the Bologna Gallery, +is a picture of the same class as the earlier Annunziata altar-piece, +and is distinguished by the refinement and gentleness of the Virgin’s +face. The other is the beautiful “Madonna of the Rose Garden,” originally +painted for the Gonzagas, into whose service Francia’s old friend, +Lorenzo Costa, had passed after the exile of the Bentivogli. It remained +in the Mantua collection till 1786, and after experiencing many changes +of hands, became the property of the Empress Josephine, until in 1815 +it passed from Malmaison into the Pinakothek of Munich. The child lies +on a bed of flowery grass, stretching out its little arms with a smile +of delight to its mother, who is in the act of sinking upon her knees +in a rapture of loving adoration. A trellis of tall roses, which might +have been painted by a Botticelli or Filippino, fences the garden round, +and, in the pleasant meadows beyond, horses are feeding on the banks of +a winding stream, and church-towers rise in the distance. Nowhere is the +transparent delicacy of Francia’s colouring more pleasing than in the +silver-grey tones of the Virgin’s robe, while her countenance wears the +same gentle air of tender melancholy which haunts his conceptions in the +same way as the smile on Leonardo’s faces, and the deeper sadness of +Botticelli’s Madonnas. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +LAST WORKS AND DEATH, A.D. 1509-1517. + + +We have few details of the last years of Francia’s life, but the dates +that mark some of his pictures show us that his powers were not impaired, +nor his activity diminished with advancing age. + +It would be interesting to know how he was affected by the return of +his friends, the Bentivogli, who in 1511 entered Bologna again, on the +retreat of the Papal troops before the French army under Gaston de Foix. +The fickle Bolognese were as glad to be rid of the Pope as they had ever +been to expel their former tyrant, and destroyed the statue which Julius +II. had erected of himself on the principal square. But the Bentivogli +only enjoyed their return to power during a very brief space. In a few +months the conquering advance of the French army was checked by the death +of Gaston de Foix in the battle of Ravenna; the Pope’s troops again +entered Bologna, the Bentivogli fled once more, and the city was heavily +fined and deprived of many of its former privileges. + +All we hear of Francia in these stormy times is that in 1511 he was +elected one of the sixteen Gonfalioneri of the people, which proves +that he still retained the popular favour, and that his changeable +fellow-countrymen had not wavered in their affection and regard for +him. In 1512 he was once more elected master of the Goldsmiths’ Guild, +and in 1514 he attained the dignity of Master of the four arts. “He +was reverenced as a god in Bologna,” says Vasari, “and not even his +friendship for Raphael, and his desire to see the larger works of the +great painter, could tear him away from his native city.” + +The fame of his works had spread over all Italy and had attracted a large +number of scholars, as many, it is said, as two hundred. Several of the +best of these passed into the school of Raphael, as Timoteo Viti had +already done, and adopted a style which has little in common with that +of Francia. Such were Innocenza da Imola and Bartolommeo Ramenghi, of +Bagnacavallo, whose influence became prominent in the Bolognese school +after Francia’s death, and who have left many of their works in the +churches and Gallery of Bologna. + +Others followed more closely in Francia’s steps, and contented themselves +for the most part with weak and conventional repetitions of those Saints +and Madonnas which his genius had rendered popular. Chief among these was +Francia’s own son, Giacomo Raibolini, an active and careful artist who +never aspired to originality, and whose conceptions are generally wanting +in life and freedom. Three of his best panels are in the Berlin Museum, +and we often find them in other collections under his father’s name. + +There is a fine portrait of him in the Pitti Palace, Florence, and as an +engraver he rose to the first rank, some of his prints being equal in +delicacy and finish to those of Marc Antonio himself. + +Francia’s second son, Giulio by name, also became a painter, and was +associated with Giacomo in the execution of several panels, which are +distinguished by the signature J. J. Francia. Giacomo died in 1557; +Giulio at some time after 1543. + +Another of Francia’s assistants whom he employed, as he did Giacomo, in +the frescoes of Cecilia, was Amico Aspertini, a wayward and eccentric +artist, who travelled in many parts of Italy, and received the surname +“dai due pennelle,” from his habit of working with both hands, holding +one brush for dark, and the other for pale tints. His numerous paintings +in Bologna have mostly perished, and the best works by him which remain +are the frescoes of the Volto Santo in San Frediano at Lucca, painted by +him about the same time that Francia executed his two altar-pieces for +that church. + +Besides these, Francia’s influence left its mark on several of the +Ferrarese, especially on Costa’s pupil, Ercole Grandi II., and on the +Ravenna artists, one of whom, Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, painted +several works at Bologna, and was summoned to take the portrait of Gaston +de Foix as he lay dead on the battle-field. + +Thus the latter part of Francia’s life was partly spent in directing the +efforts of this large number of scholars, all engaged in the production +of the numerous works in his style, and often bearing his name, which are +scattered throughout Europe. A few genuine panels of his last years are +still, however, to be seen. A Madonna dated 1511 is in Casa Pertusati +at Milan, and a small God the Father in the Ercolani collection at +Bologna bears Francia’s signature and the date 1514. Two larger and +more important works belong to the following year, 1515. One of these +is the “Madonna and Saints” in the Gallery of Parma, formerly in the +possession of the Sanvitale family, and resembling his earlier creations +in most points; it is remarkable for the fine profile of St. Justina, +who kneels on the pedestal of the Virgin’s throne, looking upward with +ardent devotion. The other is the Pietà of the Turin Gallery, a work +which has lost the richness of its colouring from subsequent restoration, +but still retains much of its former excellence. The leading features +are the same as those of the larger Parma “Deposition.” The dead Christ +lies in the Virgin’s arms supported by the Magdalen and St. John. Behind +them Nicodemus raises his hands with a sorrowing gesture, and a monk +stands with a lily in his hand, while tall palm-trees in the background +spread their fan-like branches against the western skies. There is the +same majesty of repose in the dead Christ, the same expression of piteous +sorrow on the Virgin’s face, which we expect in a Pietà by Francia. It +was the old conception of earlier days, which had lost none of its force +in declining years, but was still present as vividly as ever to his mind. + +The following year is rendered memorable by a last communication which +took place between Raphael and Francia. The great painter had finished +his famous altar-piece of St. Cecilia for the chapel, which a noble +Bolognese lady, the Beata Elena Duglioli, had erected in the church of +San Giovanni del Monte, and wrote to Francia, begging him as a friend +whom he trusted implicitly, to repair any accident the picture might have +suffered on the journey, and to make any correction which might appear to +him advisable. The picture reached Bologna safely early in the year 1516. +Francia, in accordance with his friend’s directions, placed it above the +altar in the chapel for which it was destined. The Bolognese hailed the +appearance of Raphael’s masterpiece with enthusiastic acclamations, and +we may well believe that Francia shared in their delight with the same +generous appreciation which he had always shown for his friend’s genius. +On the strength of these simple facts, the voice of slander founded the +ridiculous story, which Vasari repeats, of Francia having died from +the transport of jealous rage with which he was filled at the sight of +Raphael’s masterpiece. The absurdity of the fabrication is evident when +we remember the pictures which had been exchanged and the letters which +had passed between the two masters, and is contrary to all we know of +Francia’s character and natural disposition. Vasari himself seems to +have felt some misgivings as to the truth of the story, for he proceeds +to qualify his statement with the words “_come alcuni credono_” (as some +believe), and adds that others say Francia died of poison. + +Malvasia, in his zeal to vindicate the memory of Francia, endeavours to +prove that the Bolognese master lived till 1522, but the real date of his +death has been finally proved by the discovery of three separate notices +in contemporary chronicles, which all record the fact that Francesco +Francia, that most excellent goldsmith and painter, died on the 5th of +January, 1517 (new style 1518). The illness which ended his life, and the +grave where he lies, are both unknown, but it seems probable that he was +buried in the cloister of the large church of San Francesco, a favourite +place of sepulchre in his days, and which contains the tomb of his son +Giacomo. + + * * * * * + +During the next thirty years his pupils continued to paint in Bologna, +and maintained in some measure the honour of his name, but before the +end of the century a new school, utterly different in aim and style, +sprang up, and—in the sudden blaze of fame which encircled the names +of the Carracci, Domenichino, and Guido—the works of the older masters +were forgotten. Travellers who visited Bologna in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries were attracted solely by the creations of the +Eclectic school, and returned home without being even aware of Francia’s +existence. M. Rio points out a striking proof of the neglect into which +his works had fallen, in the curious fact that among all the pictures +which the French invaders carried back to Paris not a single piece was by +Francia. + +With the revival of a better taste the great master of the old school of +Bologna soon received just recognition, and his purity and gentleness +will always appeal to a large class of sympathetic natures who are +attracted by the charm of an art which is apparent to all. + +If we consider the place which he holds in contemporary art we shall see +how little he had in common with the spirit of his age, and how much of +his aspirations and sympathies belonged to the old world of the earlier +religious painters. Living as he did in the days of Raphael, at a moment +when the Renaissance was fast hastening to its culminating point, Francia +took no share in the great movement that was swaying forward at every +point, but stood apart in a sphere of his own. In an age when revived +Paganism had penetrated into every part of society, and the love of the +antique was the ruling impulse of intellectual thought, he scarcely shows +a trace of this influence, and derives his inspiration exclusively from +Christian sources. He paints Lucrezia dying with the ecstatic smile of a +martyred saint on her lips, and designs classical figures only to give +them the yearning expression of religious emotion. + +But in this realm of mystic art it must be owned that he takes the +highest place. That fine saying of Raphael, when he declared that no +other Madonnas were as beautiful or as religious as those which Francia +painted, was no empty compliment. Since those days many have felt +the truth of his words, and have confirmed his judgment. For to the +earnestness and purity of Fra Angelico’s conceptions Francia brought a +mastery of resources which had been lacking to those older painters. His +creations are animated with a warmer humanity and a more vigorous life, +they have all the charm of glowing colours and strongly contrasted light +and shadow, while secular influences are allowed a larger part in the +rich ornament and noble architecture which surround them. + +Thus Francia shares with Perugino the praise of having combined the +technical perfection of a later age with the Christian motives which +had so largely influenced the first efforts of Italian art. But, unlike +Perugino, the religious feeling which formed the secret of Francia’s +inspiration remained fresh and strong within his breast to the end of his +life, and was with him still a real and living power, when it had sunk +into conventionalism and affectation in the later works of the Umbrian +master, and was rapidly yielding to the growing influences of a worldly +age in the creations of Raphael. + +Slowly but surely men’s thoughts and their ideals of life had undergone +a complete change, and the art of Italy was entering on a new phase in +which there was no longer room for the rapture of Fra Angelico’s faces, +or the sweet gentleness of the Madonnas who haunted Francia’s dreams. + + “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, + And God fulfils himself in many ways.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF MANTEGNA. + + +BERGAMO. + + _Lochis-Carrara Gallery._ + + Madonna and Child. + + Portrait of man in red dress (Francesco Gonzaga?). + +BERLIN. + + _Museum._ + + Portrait of an Ecclesiastic. (Matteo Bossi, Abbot of Fiesole.) + + Madonna and Child. (_Painted about 1464._) + + Presentation in the Temple. (_Painted about 1464._) + +COPENHAGEN. + + _Museum._ + + Man of Sorrow supported by Angels. (ANDREAS MANTINEA. _Painted + about 1489._) + +DRESDEN. + + _Gallery._ + + Holy Family (_formerly in the possession of Sir Charles + Eastlake_). + +FLORENCE. + + _Uffizi._ + + Madonna and Child, in a rocky landscape. (_Painted in 1488-90._) + + Adoration of the Magi; Presentation; and Ascension. (_A + triptych, painted about 1464._) + +FRANKFORT. + + _Städel._ + + St. Mark (_doubtful_.) + +GLASGOW. + + _Hamilton Collection._ + + Woman carrying a basin. (_Painted about 1470._) + + Woman drinking. (_Painted about 1470._) + +HAMPTON COURT. + + The Triumphs of Julius Cæsar, 1492. (_Nine cartoons._) + +LA MOTTA. + + _Scarpa Collection._ + + St. Sebastian. + +LONDON. + + _National Gallery._ + + The Virgin and Child enthroned; St. John the Baptist and the + Magdalen. _With the annexed signature (C.P.F. = Civis Patavinus + fecit.)_ + + [Illustration: Andreas Mantinia C.P.F.] + + The Triumph of Scipio (_in monochrome: painted in 1505_). + +MADRID. + + _Museum._ + + Death of the Virgin (_formerly in the collection of Charles I.; + painted about 1470_). + +MANTUA. + + _Castello_ [_frescoes in the Camera degli Sposi, 1470-74_]. + + Lodovico Gonzaga and Barbara of Brandenburg surrounded by their + family and Court (_on the walls_). + + Lodovico meeting his son, Cardinal Francesco, on his return + from Rome (_on the walls_). + + Scenes from the fables of Hercules, Orpheus, Apollo, &c.; + Medallions of Cæsars, Cupids, and other figures (_in + monochrome, on the ceiling_). + +MILAN. + + _Brera._ + + St. Luke and other saints (_altar-piece in twelve parts: + painted for Santa Giustina, Padua, in 1454_). + + The dead Christ bewailed by the Maries. + +_Casa Trivulzi._ + + Virgin and Child in glory, with SS. John the Baptist, Romualdo, + and Jerome, a bishop and three angels. A MANTINIA P. AN. + GRACIE, 1497, 15 AUGUSTI. + +MUNICH. + + _Pinakothek._ + + Madonna enthroned with Saints. + +NAPLES. + + _Museum._ + + St. Euphemia, OPUS ANDREÆ MANTEGNÆ, MCCCCLIII. + +PADUA. + + _Church of the Eremitani._ + + St. James baptizing Hermogenes. + + St. James before Herod. + + St. James blessing a convert on his way to execution. + + Martyrdom of St. James. + + Martyrdom of St. Christopher. + + Burial of St. Christopher. _Six frescoes_, 1453-1459. + + _Basilica of Sant’ Antonio._ + + St. Bernardino and St. Anthony, 1452 (_fresco in a lunette over + the portal_). + +PARIS. + + _Louvre._ + + The Crucifixion (_part of the predella of the altar-piece of + San Zeno in Verona_). + + Madonna della Vittoria (_painted in 1495-96 for Santa Maria + della Vittoria, Mantua_). + + Parnassus. + + Wisdom victorious over the Vices (_from Isabella Gonzaga’s + “Grotto”_). + +PARMA. + + _Pinacoteca._ + + Copies in oil of the frescoes in the church of the Eremitani at + Padua (_doubtful_). + +TOURS. + + _Museum._ + + Christ on the Mount of Olives (_part of the predella of the + altar-piece of San Zeno in Verona_). + + The Ascension (_part of the predella of the altar-piece of San + Zeno in Verona_). + +TURIN. + + _Gallery._ + + Madonna and five saints. + +VENICE. + + _Academy._ + + St. George. (_Painted about 1464_). + +VERONA. + + _San Zeno._ + + Madonna and eight Saints. (_Painted about 1459; altar-piece: + the predella, a copy of which is in San Zeno, is part in the + Louvre and part in the Tours Museum._) + +VIENNA. + + _Belvedere._ + + St. Sebastian. (_Painted about 1464._) + + Studies for the Triumphs of Julius Cæsar (_doubtful_). + + + + +PAINTINGS BY MANTEGNA IN PRIVATE COLLECTIONS IN ENGLAND EXHIBITED AT +VARIOUS TIMES.[11] + + +AT THE BRITISH INSTITUTION (1816-1852). + + Date. Subject. Owner. + + 1835. Triumph of Scipio George Vivian, Esq. + 1861. The Children of Medea rescued by + the Nurse J. C. Robinson, Esq. + +AT THE MANCHESTER ART TREASURES EXHIBITION, 1857. + + Cat. No. Subject. Owner. + + 91. Pietà, with the Crucifixion in + the Distance Liverpool Royal Institution. + 96. Judith Earl of Pembroke. + 97. Christ bearing the Cross Christ Church, Oxford. + 98. Christ on the Mount of Olives Thomas Baring, Esq. + 102. The Triumph of Scipio George Vivian, Esq. + +AT THE LEEDS ART TREASURES EXHIBITION, 1868. + + Cat. No. Subject. Owner. + + 54. Saint Colonel Markham. + 55. A Triumphal Procession H. D. Owen, Esq. + 57. Judith with the Head of Holofernes Colonel Markham. + 59. Virgin and Child, surrounded by + scenes in the Life of the Virgin J. W. Faulkner, Esq. + +AT THE “EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF THE OLD MASTERS.” + + Date. Subject. Owner. + + 1870. Virgin and Child and St. John with + SS. Joachim and Anna Lady Eastlake. + Christ on the Mount of Olives Thomas Baring, Esq., M.P. + Angel at the Tomb Lady Taunton + 1871. The Triumph of Scipio George Vivian, Esq. + The Wise Men’s Offerings Louisa, Lady Ashburton. + Subjects (four) from the Life of + Christ Earl of Dudley. + 1872. Two Figures; a Study Duke of Buccleuch. + 1875. The Flight into Egypt W. Graham, Esq. + 1876. Judith with the Head of Holofernes Colonel Markham. + Dido ” + 1878. A Triumphal Procession Hugh Owen, Esq. + 1880. The Virgin and Child Charles Butler, Esq. + 1881. A Pietà Sir William N. Abdy, Bart. + +[Illustration] + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRANCIA. + + +BERLIN. + + _Museum._ + + Madonna and Child, with SS. Geminiano, Bernard, Dorothea, + Catharine, Jerome, and Louis of France. FRANCIA AURIFABER + BONON̅, 1502 (_painted for Santa Cecilia, Modena_). + + Holy Family (_early work_) BARTHOLEMEI SUM(PTU) BIANCHINI + MAXIMA MATROM HIC VIVIT MANIBUS FRANCIA PICTA TUIS. + +BOLOGNA. + + _Pinacoteca._ + + 78. Madonna and Child, with SS. John the Baptist, Monica, + Augustin, Francis, Proculus and Sebastian and an Angel (_with + portrait of Bartolommeo Felicini, for whom it was painted_, + OPUS FRANCIÆ AURIFICIS, MCCCCLXXXX (IV?).) + + 80. Madonna and Child, with SS. John the Baptist, Augustin, + Jerome, and Stephen, and an angel (_painted for the Manzuoli_). + + 81. The Infant Christ adored by the Virgin, SS. Joseph, + Augustin, and Francis, the donor and two angels. (_Painted for + Antonio Galeazzo Bentivoglio in 1499._) + + 82. Birth; Infancy; Death of Christ. (_A predella._) + + 83. Pietà. + + [_These five were formerly in Santa Maria della + Misericordia, Bologna._] + + 371. Annunciation, with SS. George, Bernardino of Siena, + Francis of Assisi, and John the Evangelist. FRANCIA AURIFEX + PINXIT, MCCCCC. + + 372. Madonna and Child, with SS. John the Baptist, Paul, and + Francis of Assisi. + + 373. Crucifixion, with the Madonna, the Magdalen, St. Jerome, + and St. John the Evangelist. OPUS FRANCIÆ AURIF. + + [_These three were formerly in the SS. Annunziata, + Bologna._] + + 79. Annunciation, with SS. John the Baptist and Jerome. + + [_Formerly in the Oratorio of San Girolamo di Miramonte + Bologna._] + + _San Giacomo Maggiore._ + + Madonna, with Saints and Angels. JOHANNI BENTIVOGLIO II. + FRANCIA AURIFEX PINXIT. (_in 1499_). [_In the Bentivoglio + Chapel._] + + Marriage; and Burial of St. Cecilia, _fresco 1509_. [_In the + Oratory of Santa Cecilia._] + + _San Martino Maggiore._ + + Madonna and Child, with SS. Roch, Sebastian, Bernardino, and + Anthony of Padua. FRANCIA AURIFEX P. + + _SS. Vitale ed Agricola._ + + Angels playing musical instruments (_round an older picture of + the Madonna_). + + _Casa Ercolani._ + + God the Father, 1514. + +CESENA. + + _Pinacoteca._ + + Presentation. FRANCIA AURIFEX. + +DRESDEN. + + _Gallery._ + + Adoration of the Kings (_a predella_). + + Madonna and Child, with the bird, and St. John the Baptist. + + Baptism of Christ. FRANCIA AURIFEX BON. F. M. V. VIIII. (1509). + +FERRARA. + + _Cathedral._ + + Coronation of the Virgin, with SS. George, Stephen, + Bartholomew, John the Baptist, Peter, Augustin and Paul, + Catherine, and another female Saint. (_The altar-piece “of all + the Saints.”_) + +FLORENCE. + + _Uffizi._ + + Portrait of Evangelista Scappi. SO. VANGELISTA SCARPI. + +FORLI. + + _Pinacoteca._ + + Adoration of the Child (_from the Palazzo Zambeccari, Bologna_). + +FRANKFORT. + + _Städel._ + + Portrait of a young man. + +HAMPTON COURT. + + Baptism of Christ. FRANCIA AURIFEX BON. (_replica of the + Dresden Gallery picture_). + +LONDON. + + _National Gallery._ + + The Virgin with the Infant Christ and St. Anne, enthroned, + surrounded by SS. John the Baptist, Sebastian, Paul, Lawrence + and Romualdo (_with the annexed signature_). + + [Illustration: FRANCIA · AVRIFEX · BONONIE̅S̅IS · P.] + + The Virgin and two angels weeping over the dead body of Christ + (_lunette of the above_). + + [_These two pictures, formerly an altar-piece, were + originally in the Buonvisi Chapel in San Frediano, at + Lucca._] + + The Virgin and Child with two Saints. + + _Dudley House._ + + Virgin and Child with St. Joseph. JACOBUS CAMBARUS BONON. PER + FRANCIAM AURIFABRUM HOC OPUS FIERI CURAVIT, 1495. + + Virgin and Child. + +LUCCA. + + _San Frediano._ + + The Virgin in glory blessed by Christ, with SS. Anselm, + Augustin, Anthony, and David and Solomon. + + Scenes from the History of the Augustine order (_predella_). + + _Galleria Mansi da San Pellegrino._ + + Madonna and Child. + +MADRID. + + _Duke of Fernan Nunez._ + + St. Sebastian. + +MILAN. + + _Brera._ + + Annunciation. + + _Casa Pertusati._ + + Madonna and Saints. 1511. + +MUNICH. + + _Pinakothek._ + + Madonna of the Rose-garden. FRANCIA AURIFEX BONO. (_A copy is + in the Berlin Museum, and another in the Pinacoteca, Bologna._) + + Madonna and Child (who holds a bird), with two angels. + +PARIS. + + _Louvre._ + + The Nativity. + + Christ on the Cross, with Job, the Virgin, and St. John. + FRANCIA AURIFABER (_formerly in San Giobbe, Bologna_). + +PARMA. + + _Accademia._ + + Deposition. FRANCIA AURIFEX BONON. F. + + Madonna and Child, St. John the Baptist, and SS. Joseph, + Benedict, Scolastica, and Placida. FRANCIA AURIFEX BONONIENSIS, + F. MDXV. + + Madonna with the little St. John. + +ROME. + + _Palazzo Borghese._ + + St. Stephen. VINCENTII DESIDERII VOTUM FRA̅CIÆ EXPRESSUM MANU + (_early work_). + + Madonna and Child. + +ST. PETERSBURG. + + _Hermitage._ + + Madonna and Child (_in the background the “Resurrection” and + “Transfiguration”_). F. FRANCIA. + + Madonna and Child, with St. Jerome, St. Lawrence, and two + angels. D.S. LUDOVICUS DE CALCINA. DECRETORU̅ DOCTOR CANONICUS. + S.P BON REDIFICATOR AUCTORQ. DOMUS ET RESTAURATOR HUIUS ECLESIÆ + FECIT FIERI. P. ME FRANCIAM AURIFICE̅ BONON. ANO. MCCCCC. + +TURIN. + + _Museum._ + + Pietà, with the Virgin, the Magdalen, the Evangelist, and a + Saint. F. FRANCIA AURIFEX BONONIENSIS F. MDXV. + +VIENNA. + + _Belvedere._ + + Madonna and Child, with SS. John the Baptist, Francis, and + Catherine (_repainted_). + + _Academy._ + + Madonna and Child, with Saints (_repainted, and doubtful_). + + _Liechtenstein Gallery._ + + Portrait of a Bolognese nobleman (_formerly ascribed to + Raphael_). + + + + +PAINTINGS BY FRANCIA IN PRIVATE COLLECTIONS IN ENGLAND EXHIBITED AT +VARIOUS TIMES. + + +AT THE BRITISH INSTITUTION (1816-1852). + + Date. Subject. Owner. + + 1843. Madonna and Child, with St. + Jerome and St. Francis Hon. T. Frankland Lewis. + 1852. Baptism of our Saviour Right Hon. H. Labouchere, M.P. + 1853. A Man’s Head John Freeborn, Esq. + 1861. Virgin and Child with Angels W. F. Maitland, Esq. + 1863. Portrait of a Young Man J. C. Robinson, Esq. + +AT THE MANCHESTER ART TREASURES EXHIBITION, 1857. + + Cat. No. Subject. Owner. + + 81. The Baptism of Christ Right Hon. H. Labouchere. + 108. The Madonna and Child, with St. + Joseph Lord Ward. + 124. Madonna and Child Daniel Lee, Esq. + 127. Virgin and Child Lord Northwick. + 132. The Baptism The Queen (Hampton Court). + 146. St. Roch Sir W. R. Farquhar, Bart. + +AT THE LEEDS ART TREASURES EXHIBITION, 1868. + + Cat. No. Subject. Owner. + + 60. Virgin and Child. Triptych J. W. Faulkner, Esq. + 80. Head of a Saint Alexander Barker, Esq. + 83. Virgin and Child, with Saints + Sixtus and Laurence Wolsey Moreau, Esq. + 86. Saint Alexander Barker, Esq. + 248. Holy Family The Right Hon. the Speaker. + +AT THE “EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF THE OLD MASTERS.” + + Date. Subject. Owner. + + 1871. The Virgin and Child Earl of Dudley. + 1873. The Virgin and Child J. F. Jesse, Esq. + 1876. The Virgin and Child—rocky + landscape in distance Thomas Sheffield, Esq. + 1879. St. Francis William Graham, Esq. + 1881. Portrait of the Painter Sir William N. Abdy, Bart. + Portrait of Giovanni Bentivoglio, + of Bologna ” ” + + + + +CHRONOLOGY + + +OF MANTEGNA. + + 1431. Born in the neighbourhood of Padua. (_Page_ 3.) + + 1441. Entered on the register of Paduan painters as the + adopted son of his master Squarcione. (_P._ 3.) + + 1448. Painted the altar-piece for Santa Sofia of Padua. (_P._ 3.) + + 1452. Painted the fresco over the portal of Sant’ Antonio. (_P._ 3.) + + 1452-58. Painted the frescoes of the Eremitani Church, and + married Niccolosia Bellini. (_Pp._ 3-11.) + + 1454. Painted the altar-piece for Santa Giustina, Padua. (_P._ 14.) + + 1456. Entered into correspondence with Lodovico Gonzaga. (_P._ 14.) + + 1457-59. Painted the altar-piece of San Zeno at Verona. (_P._ 15.) + + 1459. Settled at Mantua with his family. (_P._ 17.) + + 1466. Visited Florence. (_P._ 22.) + + 1472. Visited Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Bologna. (_P._ 22.) + + ” Received a grant of land at Buscoldo. (_P._ 22.) + + 1470-1474. Painted the frescoes of the Camera degli + Sposi. (_Pp._ 25-28.) + + 1473. Received a grant of land in Mantua upon which he + built his house. (_P._ 29.) + + 1481. Painted at Marmirolo. (_P._ 30.) + + 1483. Received a visit from Lorenzo de’ Medici. (_P._ 30.) + + 1485. Painted a Madonna for the Duchess of Ferrara. (_P._ 32.) + + 1485-1488. Painted the first pieces of the “Triumphs.” (_P._ 32.) + + 1488-1490. Painted the frescoes of the Belvedere Chapel + of the Vatican for Innocent VIII. (_P._ 32.) + + ” Painted the Madonna and Child of the Uffizi for + Lorenzo de’ Medici. (_P._ 34.) + + 1490. Left Rome and returned to Mantua, Sept. 6. (_P._ 34.) + + 1490-92. Worked at the “Triumphs of Julius Cæsar” and + completed the series. (_P._ 39.) + + 1492. Received a fresh grant of land from Francesco Gonzaga, + Feb. 4. (_P._ 43.) + + 1494. Furnished his house in the parish of S. Sebastian. (_P._ 43.) + + 1495-96. Painted the Madonna della Vittoria. (_P._ 47.) + + 1496-97. Painted an altar-piece for Santa Maria in Organo + at Verona, now in Casa Trivulzi, Milan. (_P._ 48.) + + 1499. Designed a monument to Virgil. (_P._ 49.) + + 1499. Marriage of his daughter Taddea to Viano Vianesi. (_P._ 43.) + + 1504. Made his first will, March 1. (_P._ 51.) + + ” Entered into a contract with the Canons of Sant’ + Andrea by which he obtained possession of a chapel + in that church, Aug. 11. (_P._ 51.) + + ” Sold his house in Mantua. (_P._ 51.) + + 1505. Disgrace and banishment of his son Francesco. (_P._ 51.) + + ” Painted the St. Sebastian of the Scarpa gallery, + and the Triumph of Scipio for Francesco Cornaro. (_P._ 52.) + + ” Bought a house in the Contrada Unicorno. (_P._ 53.) + + 1506. Altered his will in favour of Gian’ Andrea, his + illegitimate son, Jan. 24. (_P._ 51.) + + ” Painted the Masque of Comus for Isabella Gonzaga. (_P._ 53.) + + ” Sold his bust of Faustina to Isabella’s agent, Aug. 1. (_P._ 54.) + + ” Died at Mantua, Sept. 13. (_P._ 54.) + + +OF FRANCIA. + + 1450. Born at Bologna. (_P._ 75.) + + 1482. Entered the Goldsmiths’ Guild. (_P._ 76.) + + 1483. Elected steward of the Guild. (_P._ 70.) + + 1485. Birth of his son Giacomo. (_P._ 76.) + + 1487. Birth of his son Giulio. (_P._ 76.) + + 1489. Elected steward of the Goldsmiths’ Guild a second time. (_P._ 76.) + + 1490. Painted his first altar-piece for Bartolommeo Felicini. (_P._ 79.) + + 1495. Painted a Madonna and Child for Jacopo Gambaro. (_P._ 81.) + + 1499. Painted altar-pieces for the Bentivoglio Chapel and + Church of the Misericordia. (_P._ 81.) + + 1500. Painted altar-pieces for the Church of the + Annunziata, and for San Lorenzo. (_Pp._ 84, 85.) + + 1502. Painted Madonna and Saints for the Friars dell’ + Osservanza at Modena. (_P._ 100.) + + 1505-1506. Painted frescoes of the Chapel of St. Cecilia. (_P._ 94.) + + 1507. Expulsion of the Bentivogli. (_P._ 97.) + + 1508. Coined money for Pope Julius II. (_P._ 97.) + + ” Sent his portrait to Raphael in Rome, Sept. (_P._ 97.) + + 1509. Painted the Baptism of Christ (now in the Dresden + Gallery). (_P._ 99.) + + 1511. Elected one of the six Gonfalonieri of the People. (_P._ 102.) + + 1512. Elected steward of the Guild. (_P._ 103.) + + 1514. Elected steward of the four Guilds. (_P._ 103.) + + 1515. Painted Sanvitale altar-piece at Parma, and Pietà + at Turin. (_P._ 104.) + + 1516. Raphael sent his St. Cecilia to Bologna. (_P._ 105.) + + 1517. (New style, 1518). Died, Jan. 5. (_P._ 106.) + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[1] Crowe and Cavalcaselle doubt that he went to Greece. + +[2] We have Professor Colvin’s authority for assigning this print to +Mantegna, as well as the strong inference drawn from the likeness of the +engravings to the frescoes of the Castello di Corte. (Portfolio, vol. 8.) + +[3] The Raphael Cartoons only realised £300. + +[4] Crowe and Cavalcaselle doubt that Francia studied under Zoppo. + +[5] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle. “A History of Painting in North Italy,” +Vol. I., p. 294. Crevalcore’s name, however, does not occur in the Berlin +official catalogue. + +[6] No. 80, in the Pinacoteoa, Bologna. + +[7] No. 81. + +[8] At Tew Park, Oxfordshire. + +[9] These two frescoes are usually ascribed to Giacomo Raibolini; +but Frizzoni and Milanese after him attribute them to Tamaroccio, who +assisted his master Francia in the chapel. + +[10] The picture exhibited by Sir William Abdy at Burlington House last +winter (1881) as the painter’s own likeness has too little in common with +Francia’s style to be accepted as genuine with any certainty, although a +print of it, bearing the date 1763 and the name of the goldsmith painter, +is said to exist. + +[11] In the lists of Mantegna’s and Francia’s works exhibited at the +British Institution, Manchester, Leeds, and the “Old Masters” at +Burlington House, the official catalogues have been strictly adhered +to; it must not be supposed that _every_ picture classed as the work +of Mantegna or of Francia is recognised as genuine by the critics; for +example, the Royal Academy merely catalogues the works “under the names +given to them by the contributors,” and “can accept no responsibility as +to their authenticity.” + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHY. + + +CROWE AND CAVALCASELLE. A history of painting in North Italy. London, +1871. + +MILANESI, GAETANO. Le opere di Giorgio Vasari; con nuove annotazioni e +Commenti di Milanesi. Firenze, 1879. + + +MANTEGNA. + +GOETHE, J. W. VON. Triumphzug von Mantegna. Werke, XXXIX. + +ARCO, CARLO D’. Delle Arti e degli Artifici di Mantova, notizie raccolte +ed illustrate con disegni e con documenti. Mantova, 1859. + +BASCHET, ARMAND. Documents sur Mantegna. In the “Gazette des Beaux Arts.” +Paris, 1866. + +BRAGHIROLLI, WILLELMO. Alcuni documenti inedite relative ad Andrea +Mantegna: in the “Giornale d’Erudizione Artistica.” Perugia, 1872. + +BRUN, KARL. Neue Documente über Andrea Mantegna: in the “Zeitschrift für +Bildende Kunst,” vol. xi. Leipzig, 1875-6. + +WOLTMANN, DR. ALFRED. Biography of ANDREA MANTEGNA in the “Kunst und +Künstler des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit.” Edited by DR. ROBERT DOHME. +Leipzig, 1876. + + +FRANCIA. + +CALVI, JACOPO ALESSANDRO. Memorie della vita ed opere di Francesco +Raibolini. Bologna, 1812. + +MALVASIA, CARLO CESARE. Felsina Pittrice. Vite de Pittori Bolognesi. +Bologna, 1841. + +GIORDANI, GAETANO. Catalogo dei Quadri della Pinacoteca. Bologna, 1841. + +AMORINI, ANTONIO BOLOGNINI, Marchese, Vite dei Pittori ed Artefici +Bolognesi. Bologna, 1841-43. + +FRIZZONI, GUSTAVO. Gli Affreschi di Santa Cecilia in Bologna. Bologna, +1876. + + + + +INDEX. + + +TO MANTEGNA. + + Aldobrandini, 22 + + Aliprandi, quarrel with, 23 + exchanged land with, 43 + + Altichieri of Verona, 2 + + Andrea, Zoan, 23, 35 + + Ansuino of Forli, 5 + + Ariosto, 59 + + Avanzo, Jacopo d’, 2 + + + Barbaro, Daniele, 8 + + Bellini, the, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17 + + Bono of Ferrara, 5 + + Bossi, Matteo, 13, 18 + + Bust of Mantegna, 7 + + + Calandra, 54 + + Camera degli Sposi, 25-28 + + Campagnola, 35 + + Caracalla, Baths of, 13 + + Cerdo, Vitruvius, 13 + + Donatello, 9, 12, 14 + + Drawings— + _Calumny of Apelles_, 45 + _Chalice, Design for_, 46 + _Entombment_, 45 + _Hercules killing the Lion_, 45 + _Judgment of Solomon_, 45 + _Judith_, 45, 46 + _Mars, Diana and Venus_, 45 + _Sagrifizio_, 45, 46 + + Dürer, 36, 55 + + Dwarfs at Mantua, 26 + + + Engravings— + _Battle of the Sea-Gods_, 35, 45, 59 + _Dancing Muses of the Parnassus_, 35 + _Descent from the Cross_, 36 + _Entombment_, 36, 59, 62 + _Hercules and Antæus_, 36, 45 + _Portraits of Lodovico and Barbara Gonzaga_, 36 + _St. Andrew, St. Longinus and the Risen Christ_, 36 + _St. Sebastian_, 36 + _Scourging of Christ_, 4 + _Triumphs_, 35, 40 + _Virgin of the Grotto_, 18, 35 + + Eremitani Frescoes, 4-11 + + Este, Isabella d’, 31, 34 + + + Fancelli, 14 + + Faustina, Mantegna’s, 53, 54, 56 + + Feliciano, 13 + + Finiguerra, 35 + + + Gian’ Andrea, 43, 50, 51 + + Giotto, 1 + + Giusto of Florence, 2 + + Gonzaga, Federico, 30, 31 + + Gonzaga, Francesco, 22 + + Gonzaga, Francesco II., 32, 33, 43 + + Gonzaga, Lodovico, 14, 15, 17, 21, 25, 26, 29, 30 + + Gonzaga, Sigismondo, 51 + + + Influence of Mantegna on— + Bellini, the, 57 + Bonsignori, 57 + Buonconsiglio, 57 + Caroto, 57 + Correggio, 58 + Costa, 57 + Dürer, 59 + Forli, Melozzo da, 58 + Francia, 58 + Holbein, 59 + Libri, Girolamo dai, 57 + Grandi, Ercole, 57 + Leonardo, 58, 60 + Liberale, 57 + Michelangelo, 58, 61 + Montagna, 57 + Morone, 57 + Raphael, 58, 60 + Rubens, 59 + Tura, Cosimo, 57 + Vivarini, Luigi, 57 + + Innocent VIII., 32, 33 + + + Julius II., 54 + + + Lomazzo, 8 + + Lorenzo di Pavia, 55 + + + Mantegna, Andrea (_See_ Chronology p. 119) + + Mantegna, Francesco, 51, 57 + + Mantegna, Lodovico, 32, 43, 51 + + Mantegna, Niccolosia, 43, 51 + + Mantegna, Taddea, 43 + + Mantua, sack of, 24 + + Medici, Lorenzo de’, visits Mantegna, 30 + + Melozzo da Forli, 28 + + Mocetto, 35 + + + Niccolosia, 43, 51 + + Norsa, 47 + + + Paintings— + _Adoration of the Magi_, of the Uffizi, 18 + of the Vatican, 32 + _Autumn_, 19 + _Baptism of Christ_, 32 + _Birth of Christ_, 32 + _Burial of St. Christopher_, 10 + _Christ on the Mount of Olives_, 16 + _Cristo in Scurto_, 55 + _Comus_, 53 + _Dead Christ_, 19 + _Death of the Virgin_, 19 + _Descent of Christ into Limbo_, 34 + _Execution of St. James_, 9 + _Glorified Madonna_, of Milan, 48 + _History of St. James and St. Christopher_, 4-11 + _Lodovico Gonzaga and his son, Francesco_, 26 + _Lodovico Gonzaga and his wife_, 25 + _Madonna_, of Bergamo, 49 + _holding the child on a parapet_, 18 + _Madonna_, of the Dresden Gallery, 32 + of San Zeno, 15, 16 + _Madonna della Vittoria_, 46, 47, 48 + _Man of Sorrows_, 34 + _Martyrdom of St. Christopher_, 10 + _Parnassus_, 44, 48 + _Pietà_, 20 + _Portrait of an Ecclesiastic_, 18 + _Rubens’s copy of the Triumphs_, 41 + _SS. Anthony and Bernardino_, 3 + _St. Euphemia_, 14 + _St. George_, 19 + _St. James baptizing Converts_, 6 + _before Herod_, 7 + _blessing a kneeling disciple_, 7 + _St. Luke_, 14 + _St. Sebastian_, 19 + of La Motta, 52, 55 + _Summer_, 19 + _Triumphs of Julius Cæsar_, 32, 33, 38, 43, 46, 60 + _Triumph of Scipio_, 52, 55 + _Virgin_, of the National Gallery, 48 + of the Uffizi, 31, 34 + _Wisdom Victorious over the Vices_, 44 + + Pannonio, 13 + + Pizzolo, Niccolo, 5, 6, 18 + + + Santa Sofia, altar-piece for, 3 + + Santi, Giovanni, 28 + + Sperandio’s Bust of Mantegna, 56 + + Squarcione, 2, 8, 14 + + + Uccelli, 8, 9, 12 + + + Vianesi, 43 + + Virgil, Monument to, 49 + + + Zizim, 33 + + Zoppo, Marco, 5 + + +TO FRANCIA. + + Angelico, Fra, 107, 108 + + Aspertini, 94, 95, 104 + + Avanzi, Jacopo degli, 67, 68 + + Avanzo, Jacopo d’, 68 + + + Bagnacavallo, 103 + + Bentivoglio, Antonio Galeazzo Giovanni II., 73, 76, 81 + + Bentivogli driven from Bologna, 97 + + Bentivogli return to Bologna, 102 + + Bernardino da Siena, 70 + + + Carracci, the, 69, 82, 106 + + Casio, 80, 83 + + Caterina, 76 + + Chiodarolo, 94, 95 + + Clement VIII., 67 + + Cossa, Francesco, 73 + + Costa, 73, 77, 78, 79, 94, 95 + + Credi, Lorenzo di, 83 + + Crevalcore, 80 + + Cristofano, 70 + + + Dalmasii, Lippo, 66 + + Domenichino, 106 + + Drawings— + _Greek Youths_, 93 + _Judgment of Paris_, 93 + + + Franco Bolognese, 65 + + Felicini, 80, 83 + + Francia (_See_ Chronology p. 120) + + + Galassi, 68, 71, 72 + + Gambaro, 81 + + Gaston de Foix, 102 + + Grandi, Ercole, 73 + Ercole II, 104 + + Gubbio, Oderisio da, 65 + + Guido of Bologna, 66 + + Guido Reni, 106 + + + Imola, Innocenza da, 103 + + + Julius II, 97 + + + Lambertini, 72 + + Landscape, 84 + + Lianori, 72 + + + Mantegna, 72, 77 + + Marchesi, 104 + + Mezzaratta, Frescoes of the, 68, 69 + + Michelangelo, 69 + + + Nadi, 94 + + Niello work, 77 + + + Paintings— + _Adoration of the Magi_, of the Brera, 84 + at Dresden, 100 + _Annunciation_, of the Annunziata, 85 + Bologna Gallery, 100 + of the Brera, 81 + _Baptism of Christ_, Dresden, 99 + Hampton Court, 100 + _Burial of St. Cecilia_, 95, 96 + _Coronation of the Virgin_, at Lucca, 91 + at Ferrara, 92 + _Crucifixion_, of the Louvre, 81 + _Deposition_, Parma, 89, 104 + _Dispute of Philosophers_, 92 + _God the Father_, 104 + _Holy Family_, of Berlin, 79 + of Dudley House, 81 + _Judith_, 92 + _Lucrezia_, 88, 98 + _Madonna_, of the Annunziata, 85 + Bentivoglio, 82 + Manzuoli, 82 + Parma Gallery, 100 + Dresden, 100 + National Gallery, 100 + Vienna, 100 + Berlin, 100 + St. Petersburg, 84 + San Martino, 84 + Munich, 81 + of 1490, 79 + of 1511, 104 + _Madonna of the Rose Garden_, 100 + _Marriage of Cecilia and Valerian_, 95 + _Nativity_, of Bologna, 82 + of Forli, 92 + _Pietà_, at Bologna, 81 + of the National Gallery, 89, 90 + Turin Gallery, 104 + _Portrait of Bartolommeo Bianchini_, 79 + _Evangelista Scappi_, 99 + _a Bolognese Noble_, 99 + _Presentation_, of Cesena, 92 + _St. Stephen_, 78 + _Virgin enthroned with Saints_, of National Gallery, 91 + + Paxes, by Francia, 77 + + Perugino, 80, 83 + + Pietro della Francesca, 72 + + + Raibolini, Francesco (_See_ Chronology p. 120) + + Raibolini, Giacomo, 94, 95, 76, 103 + Giulio, 76, 103 + + Raimondi, 93 + + Raphael, Francia’s friendship for, 86 + + Raphael visits Bologna, 87 + and Francia exchange pictures, 88 + Sonnet to, 88 + influence of, 95 + letter of, 97 + sends his altar-piece to Francia, 105 + + + St. Cecilia, Frescoes in Oratory of, 94, 95 + + Simone dai Crocifissi, 67, 68, 71 + + + Tamaroccio, 94, 95 + + + Ursone, 65 + + + Ventura, 65 + + Vigri, Santa Caterina, 72 + + Vitale, 66, 70 + + Viti, Timoteo, 87 + + + Zoppo, Marco, 73, 77, 78 + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76481 *** |