Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10)
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Title: Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10)
Author: Giorgio Vasari
Translator: Gaston du C. De Vere
Release date: May 5, 2008 [eBook #25326]
Most recently updated: January 3, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25326
Credits: Produced by Mark C. Orton and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS, VOL. 01 (OF 10) ***
Produced by Mark C. Orton and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT
PAINTERS SCULPTORS AND
ARCHITECTS BY GIORGIO VASARI
VOLUME I. CIMABUE TO AGNOLO
GADDI 1912
LIVES OF THE MOST EMINENT PAINTERS SCULPTORS & ARCHITECTS
BY GIORGIO VASARI:
NEWLY TRANSLATED BY GASTON Du C. DE VERE. WITH FIVE HUNDRED
ILLUSTRATIONS: IN TEN VOLUMES
[Illustration: 1511-1574]
LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LD. & THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LD. 1912-14
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
PAGE
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO THIS EDITION xi
DEDICATIONS TO COSIMO DE' MEDICI
EDITION OF 1550 xiii
EDITION OF 1568 xvii
IMPRIMATUR OF POPE PIUS V xxi
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE WHOLE WORK xxiii
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE LIVES xxxvii
GIOVANNI CIMABUE 1
ARNOLFO DI LAPO 11
NICCOLA AND GIOVANNI OF PISA [NICCOLA PISANO: GIOVANNI
PISANO] 27
ANDREA TAFI 45
GADDO GADDI 53
MARGARITONE 61
GIOTTO 69
AGOSTINO AND AGNOLO OF SIENA 95
STEFANO AND UGOLINO SANESE [UGOLINO DA SIENA] 107
PIETRO LAURATI [PIETRO LORENZETTI] 115
ANDREA PISANO 121
BUONAMICO BUFFALMACCO 133
AMBROGIO LORENZETTI 153
PIETRO CAVALLINI 159
SIMONE SANESE [SIMONE MEMMI _OR_ MARTINI] 165
TADDEO GADDI 175
ANDREA DI CIONE ORCAGNA 187
TOMMASO, CALLED GIOTTINO 201
GIOVANNI DAL PONTE 209
AGNOLO GADDI 215
INDEX OF NAMES 225
ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME I
PLATES IN COLOUR
FACING PAGE
CIMABUE Madonna and Child Florence: Accademia, 102 10
GIOTTO Madonna and Child Florence: Accademia, 103 82
PIETRO LAURATI Madonna and Child, Assisi: Lower Church 118
with SS. Francis
and John
AMBROGIO Madonna and Child, Siena: Pinacoteca, 77 156
LORENZETTI with SS. Mary
Magdalen and Dorothy
SIMONE SANESE The Knighting of Assisi: Lower Church,
S. Martin Chapel of S. Martin 168
LIPPO MEMMI Madonna and Child Berlin: Kaiser
Friedrich Museum, 1081A 172
TADDEO GADDI The Presentation Florence: Accademia, 107 182
in the Temple
ANDREA DI CIONE Christ Enthroned Florence: S. Maria
ORCAGNA Novella, Strozzi Chapel 192
GIOTTINO The Descent from Florence: Uffizi, 27 206
the Cross
PLATES IN MONOCHROME
CIMABUE Madonna, Child, Paris: Louvre, 1260 2
and Angels
ROMAN SCHOOL Isaac's Blessing Assisi: Upper Church 6
ROMAN SCHOOL The Deposition Assisi: Upper Church 6
from the Cross
CIMABUE The Crucifixion Assisi: Upper Church 8
ARNOLFO DI LAPO Reclining Female Florence:
(SCHOOL OF) Figure from a Tomb Collection Bardini 18
ARNOLFO DI LAPO Tomb of Adrian V Viterbo: S. Francesco 24
(SCHOOL OF)
NICCOLA PISANO Pulpit Pisa: The Baptistery 30
NICCOLA PISANO Detail: The Pisa: Relief from the
Adoration of Pulpit of the Baptistery 32
the Magi
NICCOLA PISANO Detail: The Siena: Relief from
Visitation and the Pulpit
The Nativity of the Baptistery 34
GIOVANNI PISANO Detail: A Sibyl Siena: Duomo (facade) 38
GIOVANNI PISANO Detail: The Massacre Pistoia: Relief from the
of the Innocents Pulpit, S. Andrea 40
GIOVANNI PISANO Madonna and Child Padua: Arena Chapel 42
MARGARITONE The Virgin and Child, London: N.G., 5040 64
with Scenes from
the Lives of the Saints
GIOTTO The Death of S. Francis Florence: S. Croce 70
ROMAN SCHOOL S. Francis Preaching Assisi: Upper Church 72
before Pope Honorius III
ROMAN SCHOOL The Body of S. Francis Assisi: Upper Church 74
before the Church of
S. Damiano
GIOTTO AND HIS The Raising of Lazarus Assisi: Lower Church 78
PUPILS
GIOTTO The Flight into Egypt Padua: Arena Chapel 88
GIOTTO The Crucifixion Assisi: Lower Church 90
(SCHOOL OF)
UGOLINO SANESE SS. Paul, Peter, Berlin: Kaiser Friedrich
and John the Baptist Museum, 1635 112
PIETRO LAURATI The Madonna Enthroned Arezzo: S. Maria della
Pieve 116
PIETRO LAURATI The Deposition from the Assisi: Lower Church 120
Cross
ANDREA PISANO Details: Salome and The Florence: Gates of the
Beheading of S. John the Baptistery 126
Baptist
ANDREA PISANO The Creation of Man Florence: Relief on the
Campanile 128
NINO PISANO Madonna and Child Orvieto: Museo dell'Opera 130
AMBROGIO Madonna and Child Milan: Cagnola Collection 154
LORENZETTI
AMBROGIO Central Panel of Massa Marittima: Municipio
LORENZETTI Polyptych: Madonna 158
and Child
PIETRO Detail from The Last Rome: Convent of S. Cecilia
CAVALLINI Judgment: Head of an 162
Apostle
PIETRO Detail from The Last Rome: Convent of S. Cecilia
CAVALLINI Judgment: Head of the 164
Christ in Glory
SIMONE SANESE Altar-piece: S. Louis Naples: S. Lorenzo 166
crowning King Robert
of Naples
SIMONE SANESE The Annunciation Antwerp: Royal
Museum, 257-8 170
LIPPO MEMMI Madonna and Child Altenburg: Lindenau
Museum, 43 174
TADDEO GADDI The Last Supper Florence: S. Croce, the
Refectory 178
BERNARDO DI CIONE Detail from The Florence: S. Maria Novella 190
ORCAGNA Paradise: Christ
with the Virgin
Enthroned
ANDREA DI CIONE The Death and Assumption Florence: Relief on the
ORCAGNA of the Virgin Tabernacle, Or San Michele 194
FRANCESCO TRAINI S. Thomas Aquinas Pisa: S. Caterina 198
GIOVANNI DAL S. Peter Enthroned Florence: Uffizi, 1292 212
PONTE
AGNOLO GADDI The Marriage of S. Philadelphia: J. G. Johnson 218
Catharine Collection
* * * * *
+-------------------------------------------------+
|Transcriber's note: |
| |
|The CORRIGENDA have been corrected in this etext.|
+-------------------------------------------------+
CORRIGENDA
Page 49, lines 1, 27, _for_ "Apollonius" _read_ "Apollonio."
Page 120, line 10, _for_ "which tabernacle is quite round" _read_ "which
tabernacle is in the round."
Page 127, lines 11, 12, _for_ "oval spaces" _read_ "mandorle."
Page 196, line 18, _for_ "an oval space" _read_ "a mandorla."
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO THIS EDITION
Vasari introduces himself sufficiently in his own prefaces and
introduction; a translator need concern himself only with the system by
which the Italian text can best be rendered in English. The style of
that text is sometimes laboured and pompous; it is often ungrammatical.
But the narrative is generally lively, full of neat phrases, and
abounding in quaint expressions--many of them still recognizable in the
modern Florentine vernacular--while, in such Lives as those of Giotto,
Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelagnolo, Vasari shows how well he can rise
to a fine subject. His criticism is generally sound, solid, and direct;
and he employs few technical terms, except in connection with
architecture, where we find passages full of technicalities, often so
loosely used that it is difficult to be sure of their exact meaning. In
such cases I have invariably adopted the rendering which seemed most in
accordance with Vasari's actual words, so far as these could be
explained by professional advice and local knowledge; and I have
included brief notes where they appeared to be indispensable.
In Mrs. Foster's familiar English paraphrase--for a paraphrase it is
rather than a translation--all Vasari's liveliness evaporates, even
where his meaning is not blurred or misunderstood. Perhaps I have gone
too far towards the other extreme in relying upon the Anglo-Saxon side
of the English language rather than upon the Latin, and in taking no
liberties whatever with the text of 1568. My intention, indeed, has been
to render my original word for word, and to err, if at all, in favour of
literalness. The very structure of Vasari's sentences has usually been
retained, though some freedom was necessary in the matter of the
punctuation, which is generally bewildering. As Mr. Horne's only too
rare translation of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci has proved, it is by
some such method that we can best keep Vasari's sense and Vasari's
spirit--the one as important to the student of Italian art as is the
other to the general reader. Such an attempt, however, places an English
translator of the first volume at a conspicuous disadvantage. Throughout
the earlier Lives Vasari seems to be feeling his way. He is not sure of
himself, and his style is often awkward. The more faithful the attempted
rendering, the more plainly must that awkwardness be reproduced.
Vasari's Introduction on Technique has not been included, because it has
no immediate connection with the Lives. In any case, there already
exists an adequate translation by Miss Maclehose. All Vasari's other
prefaces and introductions are given in the order in which they are
found in the edition of 1568.
With this much explanation, I may pass to personal matters, and record
my thanks to many Florentine friends for help in technical and
grammatical questions; to Professor Baldwin Brown for the notes on
technical matters printed with Miss Maclehose's translation of "Vasari
on Technique"; and to Mr. C. J. Holmes, of the National Portrait
Gallery, for encouragement in a task which has proved no less pleasant
than difficult.
G. DU C. DE V.
LONDON,
_March 1912_.
TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST EXCELLENT SIGNOR COSIMO DE' MEDICI,
DUKE OF FLORENCE
MY MOST HONOURED LORD,
Seeing that your Excellency, following in this the footsteps of your
most Illustrious ancestors, and incited and urged by your own natural
magnanimity, ceases not to favour and to exalt every kind of talent,
wheresoever it may be found, and shows particular favour to the arts of
design, fondness for their craftsmen,[1] and understanding and delight
in their beautiful and rare works; I think that you cannot but take
pleasure in this labour which I have undertaken, of writing down the
lives, the works, the manners, and the circumstances of all those who,
finding the arts already dead, first revived them, then step by step
nourished and adorned them, and finally brought them to that height of
beauty and majesty whereon they stand at the present day. And because
these masters have been almost all Tuscans, and most of these
Florentines, of whom many have been incited and aided by your most
Illustrious ancestors with every kind of reward and honour to put
themselves to work, it may be said that in your state, nay, in your most
blessed house the arts were born anew, and that through the generosity
of your ancestors the world has recovered these most beautiful arts,
through which it has been ennobled and embellished.
Wherefore, through the debt which this age, these arts, and these
craftsmen owe to your ancestors, and to you as the heir of their virtue
and of their patronage of these professions, and through that debt which
I, above all, owe them, seeing that I was taught by them, that I was
their subject and their devoted servant, that I was brought up under
Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, and under Alessandro, your predecessor,
and that, finally, I am infinitely attached to the blessed memory of the
Magnificent Ottaviano de' Medici, by whom I was supported, loved and
protected while he lived; for all these reasons, I say, and because from
the greatness of your worth and of your fortunes there will come much
favour for this work, and from your understanding of its subject there
will come a better appreciation than from any other for its usefulness
and for the labour and the diligence that I have given to its execution,
it has seemed to me that to your Excellency alone could it be fittingly
dedicated, and it is under your most honoured name that I have wished it
to come to the hands of men.
Deign, then, Excellency, to accept it, to favour it, and, if this may be
granted to it by your exalted thoughts, sometimes to read it; having
regard to the nature of the matter therein dealt with and to my pure
intention, which has been, not to gain for myself praise as a writer,
but as craftsman to praise the industry and to revive the memory of
those who, having given life and adornment to these professions, do not
deserve to have their names and their works wholly left, even as they
were, the prey of death and of oblivion. Besides, at the same time,
through the example of so many able men and through so many observations
on so many works that I have gathered together in this book, I have
thought to help not a little the masters of these exercises and to
please all those who therein have taste and pleasure. This I have
striven to do with that accuracy and with that good faith which are
essential for the truth of history and of things written. But if my
writing, being unpolished and as artless as my speech, be unworthy of
your Excellency's ear and of the merits of so many most illustrious
intellects; as for them, pardon me that the pen of a draughtsman, such
as they too were, has no greater power to give them outline and shadow;
and as for yourself, let it suffice me that your Excellency should deign
to approve my simple labour, remembering that the necessity of gaining
for myself the wherewithal to live has left me no time to exercise
myself with any instrument but the brush. Nor even with that have I
reached that goal to which I think to be able to attain, now that
Fortune promises me so much favour, that, with greater ease and greater
credit for myself and with greater satisfaction to others, I may
perchance be able, as well with the pen as with the brush, to unfold my
ideas to the world, whatsoever they may be. For besides the help and
protection for which I must hope from your Excellency, as my liege lord
and as the protector of poor followers of the arts, it has pleased the
goodness of God to elect as His Vicar on earth the most holy and most
blessed Julius III, Supreme Pontiff and a friend and patron of every
kind of excellence and of these most excellent and most difficult arts
in particular, from whose exalted liberality I expect recompense for
many years spent and many labours expended, and up to now without fruit.
And not only I, who have dedicated myself to the perpetual service of
His Holiness, but all the gifted craftsmen of this age, must expect from
him such honour and reward and opportunities for practising the arts so
greatly, that already I rejoice to see these arts arriving in his time
at the greatest height of their perfection, and Rome adorned by
craftsmen so many and so noble that, counting them with those of
Florence, whom your Excellency is calling every day into activity, I
hope that someone after our time will have to write a fourth part to my
book, enriching it with other masters and other masterpieces than those
described by me; in which company I am striving with every effort not to
be among the last.
Meanwhile, I am content if your Excellency has good hope of me and a
better opinion than that which, by no fault of mine, you have perchance
conceived of me; beseeching you not to let me be undone in your
estimation by the malignant tales of other men, until at last my life
and my works shall prove the contrary to what they say.
Now with that intent to which I hold, always to honour and to serve
your Excellency, dedicating to you this my rough labour, as I have
dedicated to you every other thing of mine and my own self, I implore
you not to disdain to grant it your protection, or at least to
appreciate the devotion of him who offers it to you; and recommending
myself to your gracious goodness, most humbly do I kiss your hand.
Your Excellency's most humble Servant,
GIORGIO VASARI,
_Painter of Arezzo_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The word "artist" has become impossible as a translation of
"artefice." Such words as "artificer," "art-worker," or "artisan," seem
even worse. "Craftsman" loses the alliterative connection with "art,"
but it comes nearest to expressing Vasari's idea of the "artefice" as a
practical workman (_cf._ his remark about Ambrogio Lorenzetti: "The ways
of Ambrogio were rather those of a 'gentiluomo' than of an
'artefice'").]
TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST EXCELLENT SIGNOR COSIMO DE' MEDICI,
DUKE OF FLORENCE AND SIENA
MY MOST HONOURED LORD,
Behold, seventeen years since I first presented to your most Illustrious
Excellency the Lives, sketched so to speak, of the most famous painters,
sculptors and architects, they come before you again, not indeed wholly
finished, but so much changed from what they were and in such wise
adorned and enriched with innumerable works, whereof up to that time I
had been able to gain no further knowledge, that from my endeavour and
in so far as in me lies nothing more can be looked for in them.
Behold, I say, once again they come before you, most Illustrious and
truly most Excellent Lord Duke, with the addition of other noble and
right famous craftsmen, who from that time up to our own day have passed
from the miseries of this life to a better, and of others who, although
they are still living in our midst, have laboured in these professions
to such purpose that they are most worthy of eternal memory. And in
truth it has been no small good-fortune for many that I, by the goodness
of Him in whom all things have their being, have lived so long that I
have almost rewritten this book; seeing that, even as I have removed
many things which had been included I know not how, in my absence and
without my consent, and have changed others, so too I have added many,
both useful and necessary, that were lacking. And as for the likenesses
and portraits of so many men of worth which I have placed in this work,
whereof a great part have been furnished by the help and co-operation of
your Excellency, if they are sometimes not very true to life, and if
they all have not that character and resemblance which the vivacity of
colours is wont to give them, that is not because the drawing and the
lineaments have not been taken from the life and are not characteristic
and natural; not to mention that a great part of them have been sent me
by the friends that I have in various places, and they have not all been
drawn by a good hand. Moreover, I have suffered no small inconvenience
in this from the distance of those who have engraved these heads,
because, if the engravers had been near me, it might perchance have been
possible to use in this matter more diligence than has been shown. But
however this may be, our lovers of art and our craftsmen, for the
convenience and benefit of whom I have put myself to so great pains,
must be wholly indebted to your most Illustrious Excellency for whatever
they may find in it of the good, the useful, and the helpful, seeing
that while engaged in your service I have had the opportunity, through
the leisure which it has pleased you to give me and through the
management of your many, nay, innumerable treasures, to put together and
to give to the world everything which appeared to be necessary for the
perfect completion of this work; and would it not be almost impiety, not
to say ingratitude, were I to dedicate these Lives to another, or were
the craftsmen to attribute to any other than yourself whatever they may
find in them to give them help or pleasure? For not only was it with
your help and favour that they first came to the light, as now they do
again, but you are, in imitation of your ancestors, sole father, sole
lord, and sole protector of these our arts. Wherefore it is very right
and reasonable that by these there should be made, in your service and
to your eternal and perpetual memory, so many most noble pictures and
statues and so many marvellous buildings in every manner.
But if we are all, as indeed we are beyond calculation, most deeply
obliged to you for these and for other reasons, how much more do I not
owe to you, who have always had (would that my brain and my hand had
been equal to my desire and right good will) so many valuable
opportunities to display my little knowledge, which, whatsoever it may
be, fails by a very great measure to counterbalance the greatness and
the truly royal magnificence of your mind? But how may I tell? It is in
truth better that I should stay as I am than that I should set myself to
attempt what would be to the most lofty and noble brain, and much more
so to my insignificance, wholly impossible.
Accept then, most Illustrious Excellency, this my book, or rather indeed
your book, of the Lives of the craftsmen of design; and like the
Almighty God, looking rather at my soul and at my good intentions than
at my work, take from me with right good will not what I would wish and
ought to give, but what I can.
Your most Illustrious Excellency's most indebted servant,
GIORGIO VASARI.
FLORENCE,
_January 9, 1568_.
PIUS PAPA QUINTUS
Motu proprio (et cet.). Cum, sicut accepimus, dilectus filius Philippus
Junta, typographus Florentinus, ad communem studiosorum utilitatem, sua
impensa, Vitas Illustrium Pictorum et Sculptorum Georgii Vasarii demum
auctas et suis imaginibus exornatas, Statuta Equitum Melitensium in
Italicam linguam translata, Receptariumque Novum pro Aromatariis,
aliaque opera tum Latina, tum Italica, saneque utilia et necessaria,
imprimi facere intendat, dubitetque ne hujusmodi opera postmodum ab
aliis sine ejus licentia et in ejus grave praejudicium imprimantur; nos
propterea, illius indemnitati consulere volentes, motu simili et ex
certa scientia, eidem Philippo concedimus et indulgemus ne praedicta
opera, dummodo prius ab Inquisitore visa et approbata fuerint, per ipsum
imprimenda, infra decennium a quoquo sine ipsius licentia imprimi aut
vendi vel in apothecis teneri possint; inhibentes omnibus et singulis
Christi fidelibus tam in Italia quam extra Italiam existentibus, sub
excommunicationis lata sententia, in terris vero S.R.E. mediate vel
immediate subjectis, etiam ducentorum ducatorum auri Camerae Apostolicae
applicandorum et amissionis librorum p[oe]nis, totiens ipso facto et
absque alia declaratione incurrendis quotiens contraventum fuerit, ne
intra decennium praefatum dicta opera sine ejusdem Philippi expressa
licentia imprimere, seu ab ipsis aut aliis impressa vendere, vel venalia
habere; mandantes universis veneralibus fratribus nostris
Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, eorumque Vicariis in spiritualibus
generalibus, et in Statu S.R.E. etiam Legatis, Vicelegatis, Praesidibus
et Gubernatoribus, ut quoties pro ipsius Philippi parte fuerint
requisiti, vel eorum aliquis fuerit requisitus, eidem, efficacis
defensionis praesidio assistentes, praemissa contra inobedientes et
rebelles, per censuras ecclesiasticas, etiam saepius aggravando, et per
alia juris remedia, auctoritate Apostolica exequantur; invocato etiam ad
hoc, si opus fuerit, auxilio brachii saecularis. Volumus autem quod
praesentis motus proprii nostri sola signatura sufficiat, et ubique fidem
faciat in judicio et extra, regula contraria non obstante et officii
sanctissimae Inquisitionis Florentinae.
Placet motu proprio M.
Datum Romae apud Sanctum Petrum, quintodecimo Cal. Maij,
anno secundo.
PREFACE TO THE WHOLE WORK
It was the wont of the finest spirits in all their actions, through a
burning desire for glory, to spare no labour, however grievous, in order
to bring their works to that perfection which might render them
impressive and marvellous to the whole world; nor could the humble
fortunes of many prevent their energies from attaining to the highest
rank, whether in order to live in honour or to leave in the ages to come
eternal fame for all their rare excellence. And although, for zeal and
desire so worthy of praise, they were, while living, highly rewarded by
the liberality of Princes and by the splendid ambition of States, and
even after death kept alive in the eyes of the world by the testimony of
statues, tombs, medals, and other memorials of that kind; none the less,
it is clearly seen that the ravening maw of time has not only diminished
by a great amount their own works and the honourable testimonies of
others, but has also blotted out and destroyed the names of all those
who have been kept alive by any other means than by the right vivacious
and pious pens of writers.
Pondering over this matter many a time in my own mind, and recognizing,
from the example not only of the ancients but of the moderns as well,
that the names of very many architects, sculptors, and painters, both
old and modern, together with innumerable most beautiful works wrought
by them, are going on being forgotten and destroyed little by little,
and in such wise, in truth, that nothing can be foretold for them but a
certain and wellnigh immediate death; and wishing to defend them as much
as in me lies from this second death, and to preserve them as long as
may be possible in the memory of the living; and having spent much time
in seeking them out and used the greatest diligence in discovering the
native city, the origin, and the actions of the craftsmen, and having
with great labour drawn them from the tales of old men and from various
records and writings, left by their heirs a prey to dust and food for
worms; and finally, having received from this both profit and pleasure,
I have judged it expedient, nay rather, my duty, to make for them
whatsoever memorial my weak talents and my small judgment may be able to
make. In honour, then, of those who are already dead, and for the
benefit, for the most part, of all the followers of these three most
excellent arts, Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, I will write the
Lives of the craftsmen of each according to the times wherein they
lived, step by step from Cimabue down to our own time; not touching on
the ancients save in so far as it may concern our subject, seeing that
no more can be said of them than those so many writers have said who
have come down to our own age. I will treat thoroughly of many things
that appertain to the science of one or other of the said arts; but
before I come to the secrets of these, or to the history of the
craftsmen, it seems to me right to touch a little on a dispute, born and
bred between many without reason, as to the sovereignty and nobility,
not of architecture, which they have left on one side, but of sculpture
and painting; there being advanced, on one side and on the other, many
arguments whereof many, if not all, are worthy to be heard and discussed
by their craftsmen.
I say, then, that the sculptors, as being endowed, perchance by nature
and by the exercise of their art, with a better habit of body, with more
blood, and with more energy, and being thereby more hardy and more fiery
than the painters, in seeking to give the highest rank to their art,
argue and prove the nobility of sculpture primarily from its antiquity,
for the reason that God Almighty made man, who was the first statue; and
they say that sculpture embraces many more arts as kindred, and has many
more of them subordinate to itself than has painting, such as
low-relief, working in clay, wax, plaster, wood, and ivory, casting in
metals, every kind of chasing, engraving and carving in relief on fine
stones and steel, and many others which both in number and in difficulty
surpass those of painting. And alleging, further, that those things
which stand longest and best against time and can be preserved longest
for the use of men, for whose benefit and service they are made, are
without doubt more useful and more worthy to be held in love and honour
than are the others, they maintain that sculpture is by so much more
noble than painting as it is more easy to preserve, both itself and the
names of all who are honoured by it both in marble and in bronze,
against all the ravages of time and air, than is painting, which, by its
very nature, not to say by external accidents, perishes in the most
sheltered and most secure places that architects have been able to
provide. Nay more, they insist that the small number not merely of their
excellent but even of their ordinary craftsmen, in contrast to the
infinite number of the painters, proves their greater nobility; saying
that sculpture calls for a certain better disposition, both of mind and
of body, that are rarely found together, whereas painting contents
itself with any feeble temperament, so long as it has a hand, if not
bold, at least sure; and that this their contention is proved by the
greater prices cited in particular by Pliny, by the loves caused by the
marvellous beauty of certain statues, and by the judgment of him who
made the statue of sculpture of gold and that of painting of silver, and
placed the first on the right and the second on the left. Nor do they
even refrain from quoting the difficulties experienced before the
materials, such as the marbles and the metals, can be got into
subjection, and their value, in contrast to the ease of obtaining the
panels, the canvases, and the colours, for the smallest prices and in
every place; and further, the extreme and grievous labour of handling
the marbles and the bronzes, through their weight, and of working them,
through the weight of the tools, in contrast to the lightness of the
brushes, of the styles, and of the pens, chalk-holders, and charcoals;
besides this, that they exhaust their minds together with all the parts
of their bodies, which is something very serious compared with the quiet
and light work of the painter, using only his mind and hand. Moreover,
they lay very great stress on the fact that things are more noble and
more perfect in proportion as they approach more nearly to the truth,
and they say that sculpture imitates the true form and shows its works
on every side and from every point of view, whereas painting, being
laid on flat with most simple strokes of the brush and having but one
light, shows but one aspect; and many of them do not scruple to say that
sculpture is as much superior to painting as is truth to falsehood. But
as their last and strongest argument, they allege that for the sculptor
there is necessary a perfection of judgment not only ordinary, as for
the painter, but absolute and immediate, in a manner that it may see
within the marble the exact whole of that figure which they intend to
carve from it, and may be able to make many parts perfect without any
other model before it combines and unites them together, as Michelagnolo
has done divinely well; although, for lack of this happiness of
judgment, they make easily and often some of those blunders which have
no remedy, and which, when made, bear witness for ever to the slips of
the chisel or to the small judgment of the sculptor. This never happens
to painters, for the reason that at every slip of the brush or error of
judgment that might befall them they have time, recognizing it
themselves or being told by others, to cover and patch it up with the
very brush that made it; which brush, in their hands, has this advantage
over the sculptor's chisels, that it not only heals, as did the iron of
the spear of Achilles, but leaves its wounds without a scar.
To these things the painters, answering not without disdain, say, in the
first place, that if the sculptors wish to discuss the matter on the
ground of the Scriptures the chief nobility is their own, and that the
sculptors deceive themselves very grievously in claiming as their work
the statue of our first father, which was made of earth; for the art of
this performance, both in its putting on and in its taking off, belongs
no less to the painters than to others, and was called "plastice" by the
Greeks and "fictoria" by the Latins, and was judged by Praxiteles to be
the mother of sculpture, of casting, and of chasing, a fact which makes
sculpture, in truth, the niece of painting, seeing that "plastice" and
painting are born at one and the same moment from design. And they say
that if we consider it apart from the Scriptures, the opinions of the
ages are so many and so varied that it is difficult to believe one more
than the other; and that finally, considering this nobility as they
wish it, in one place they lose and in the other they do not win, as may
be seen more clearly in the Preface to the Lives.
After this, in comparison with the arts related and subordinate to
sculpture, they say that they have many more than the sculptors, because
painting embraces the invention of history, the most difficult art of
foreshortening, all the branches of architecture needful for the making
of buildings, perspective, colouring in distemper, and the art of
working in fresco, an art different and distinct from all the others;
likewise working in oils on wood, on stone, and on canvas; illumination,
too, an art different from all the others; the staining of glass,
mosaics in glass, the art of inlaying and making pictures with coloured
woods, which is painting; making sgraffito[2] work on houses with iron
tools; niello[3] work and printing from copper, both members of
painting; goldsmith's enamelling, and the inlaying of gold for
damascening; the painting of glazed figures, and the making on
earthenware vessels of scenes and figures to resist the action of water;
weaving brocades with figures and flowers, and that most beautiful
invention, woven tapestries, that are both convenient and magnificent,
being able to carry painting into every place, whether savage or
civilized; not to mention that in every department of art that has to be
practised, design, which is our design, is used by all; so that the
members of painting are more numerous and more useful than those of
sculpture. They do not deny the eternity, for so the others call it, of
sculpture, but they say that this is no privilege that should make the
art more noble than it is by nature, seeing that it comes simply from
the material, and that if length of life were to give nobility to souls,
the pine, among the plants, and the stag, among the animals, would have
a soul more noble beyond compare than that of men; although they could
claim a similar immortality and nobility in their mosaics, seeing that
there may be seen some as ancient as the most ancient sculptures that
are in Rome, and that they used to be made of jewels and fine stones.
And as for their small or smaller number, they declare that this is not
because the art calls for a better habit of body and greater judgment,
but that it depends wholly on the poverty of their resources and on the
little favour, or avarice, as we would rather call it, of rich men, who
give them no supply of marble and no opportunity to work; in contrast
with what may be believed, nay, seen to have happened in ancient times,
when sculpture rose to its greatest height. Indeed, it is manifest that
he who cannot use and waste a small quantity of marble and hard stone,
which are very costly, cannot have that practice in the art that is
essential; he who does not practise does not learn it; and he who does
not learn it can do no good. Wherefore they should rather excuse with
these arguments the imperfection and the small number of their masters,
than seek to deduce nobility from them under false colours. As for the
higher prices of sculptures, they answer that, although theirs might be
much less, they have not to share them, being content with a boy who
grinds their colours and hands them their brushes or their cheap stools,
whereas the sculptors, besides the great cost of their material, require
many aids and spend more time on one single figure than they themselves
do on very many; wherefore their prices appear to come from the quality
and the durability of the material itself, from the aids that it
requires for its completion, and from the time that is taken in working
it, rather than from the excellence of the art itself. And although that
does not suffice and no greater price is found, as would be easily seen
by anyone who were willing to consider it diligently, let them find a
greater price than the marvellous, beautiful, and living gift that
Alexander the Great made in return for the most splendid and excellent
work of Apelles, bestowing on him, not vast treasures or high estate,
but his own beloved and most beautiful Campaspe; let them observe, in
addition, that Alexander was young, enamoured of her, and naturally
subject to the passions of love, and also both a King and a Greek; and
then, from this, let them draw what conclusion they please. As for the
loves of Pygmalion and of those other rascals no more worthy to be men,
cited as proof of the nobility of the art, they know not what to answer,
if, from a very great blindness of intellect and from a licentiousness
unbridled beyond all natural bounds, there can be made a proof of
nobility. As for the man, whosoever he was, alleged by the sculptors to
have made sculpture of gold and painting of silver, they are agreed that
if he had given as much sign of judgment as of wealth, there would be no
disputing it; and finally, they conclude that the ancient Golden Fleece,
however celebrated it may be, none the less covered nothing but an
unintelligent ram; wherefore neither the testimony of riches nor that of
dishonest desires, but those of letters, of practice, of excellence, and
of judgment are those to which we must pay attention. Nor do they make
any answer to the difficulty of obtaining the marbles and the metals,
save this, that it springs from their own poverty and from the little
favour of the powerful, as has been said, and not from any degree of
greater nobility. To the extreme fatigues of the body and to the dangers
peculiar to them and to their works, laughing and without any ado they
answer that if greater fatigues and dangers prove greater nobility, the
art of quarrying the marbles from the bowels of mountains by means of
wedges, levers, and hammers must be more noble than sculpture, that of
the blacksmith must surpass the goldsmith's, and that of masonry must be
superior to architecture.
They say, next, that the true difficulties lie rather in the mind than
in the body, wherefore those things that from their nature call for more
study and knowledge are more noble and excellent than those that avail
themselves rather of strength of body; and they declare that since the
painters rely more on the worth of the mind than the others, this
highest honour belongs to painting. For the sculptors the compasses and
squares suffice to discover and apply all the proportions and
measurements whereof they have need; for the painters there is
necessary, besides the knowledge how to make good use of the aforesaid
instruments, an accurate understanding of perspective, for the reason
that they have to provide a thousand other things beyond landscapes and
buildings, not to mention that they must have greater judgment by reason
of the quantity of the figures in one scene, wherein more errors can
come than in a single statue. For the sculptor it is enough to be
acquainted with the true forms and features of solid and tangible
bodies, subordinate on every side to the touch, and moreover of those
only that have something to support them. For the painter it is
necessary to know the forms not only of all the bodies supported and not
supported, but also of all those transparent and intangible; and besides
this they must know the colours that are suitable for the said bodies,
whereof the multitude and the variety, so absolute and admitting of such
infinite extension, are demonstrated better by the flowers, the fruits,
and the minerals than by anything else; and this knowledge is supremely
difficult to acquire and to maintain, by reason of their infinite
variety. They say, moreover, that whereas sculpture, through the
stubbornness and the imperfection of the material, does not represent
the emotions of the soul save with motion, which does not, however, find
much scope therein, and with the mere shape of the limbs and not even of
all these; the painters demonstrate them with all the forms of motion,
which are infinite, with the shape of the limbs, however subtle they may
be, and even with breath itself and the spiritual essence of sight; and
that, for greater perfection in demonstrating not only the passions and
emotions of the soul but also the events of the future, as living men
do, they must have, besides long practice in the art, a complete
understanding of physiognomy, whereof that part suffices for the
sculptor which deals with the quantity and the quality of the members,
without troubling about the quality of colours, as to the knowledge of
which anyone who judges by the eye knows how useful and necessary it is
for the true imitation of nature, whereunto the closer a man approaches
the more perfect he is.
After this they add that whereas sculpture, taking away bit by bit, at
one and the same time gives depth to and acquires relief for those
things that have solidity by their own nature, and makes use of touch
and sight, the painters, in two distinct actions, give relief and depth
to a flat surface with the help of one single sense; and this, when it
has been done by a person intelligent in the art, has caused many great
men, not to speak of animals, to stand fast in the most pleasing
illusion, which has never been seen to be done by sculpture, for the
reason that it does not imitate nature in a manner that may be called
as perfect as their own. And finally, in answer to that complete and
absolute perfection of judgment which is required for sculpture, by
reason of its having no means to add where it takes away; declaring,
first, that such mistakes are irreparable, as the others say, and not to
be remedied save by patches, which, even as in garments they are signs
of poverty of wardrobe, so too both in sculpture and in pictures are
signs of poverty of intellect and judgment; and saying, further, that
patience, at its own leisure, by means of models, protractors, squares,
compasses, and a thousand other devices and instruments for enlarging,
not only preserves them from mistakes but enables them to bring their
whole work to its perfection; they conclude, then, that this difficulty
which they put down as the greater is nothing or little when compared to
those which the painters have when working in fresco, and that the said
perfection of judgment is in no way more necessary for sculptors than
for painters, it being sufficient for the former to execute good models
in wax, clay, or something else, even as the latter make their drawings
on corresponding materials or on cartoons; and that finally, the quality
that little by little transfers their models to the marble is rather
patience than aught else.
But let us consider about judgment, as the sculptors wish, and see
whether it is not more necessary to one who works in fresco than to one
who chisels in marble. For here not only is there no place for patience
or for time, which are most mortal enemies to the union of the plaster
and the colours, but the eye does not see the true colours until the
plaster is well dry, nor can the hand judge of anything but of the soft
or the dry, in a manner that anyone who were to call it working in the
dark, or with spectacles of colours different from the truth, would not
in my belief be very far wrong. Nay, I do not doubt at all that such a
name is more suitable for it than for intaglio, for which wax serves as
spectacles both true and good. They say, too, that for this work it is
necessary to have a resolute judgment, to foresee the end in the fresh
plaster and how the work will turn out on the dry; besides that the work
cannot be abandoned so long as the plaster is still fresh, and that it
is necessary to do resolutely in one day what sculpture does in a month.
And if a man has not this judgment and this excellence, there are seen,
on the completion of his work or in time, patches, blotches,
corrections, and colours superimposed or retouched on the dry, which is
something of the vilest, because afterwards mould appears and reveals
the insufficiency and the small knowledge of the craftsmen, even as the
pieces added in sculpture lead to ugliness; not to mention that when it
comes about that the figures in fresco are washed, as is often done
after some time to restore them, what has been worked on the fresh
plaster remains, and what has been retouched on the dry is carried away
by the wet sponge.
They add, moreover, that whereas the sculptors make two figures
together, or at the most three, from one block of marble, they make many
of them on one single panel, with all those so many and so varied
aspects which the sculptors claim for one single statue, compensating
with the variety of their postures, foreshortenings, and attitudes, for
the fact that the work of the sculptors can be seen from every side;
even as Giorgione da Castelfranco did once in one of his pictures,
wherein a figure with its back turned, having a mirror on either side,
and a pool of water at its feet, shows its back in the painting, its
front in the pool, and its sides in the mirrors, which is something that
sculpture has never been able to do. In addition to this, they maintain
that painting leaves not one of the elements unadorned and not abounding
with all the excellent things that nature has bestowed on them, giving
its own light and its own darkness to the air, with all its varieties of
feeling, and filling it with all the kinds of birds together; to water,
its clearness, the fishes, the mosses, the foam, the undulations of the
waves, the ships, and all its various moods; and to the earth, the
mountains, the plains, the plants, the fruits, the flowers, the animals,
and the buildings; with so great a multitude of things and so great a
variety of their forms and of their true colours, that nature herself
many a time stands in a marvel thereat; and finally, giving to fire so
much of its heat and light that it is clearly seen burning things, and,
almost quivering with its flames, rendering luminous in part the
thickest darkness of the night. Wherefore it appears to them that they
can justly conclude and declare that contrasting the difficulties of the
sculptors with their own, the labours of the body with those of the
mind, the imitation of the mere form with the imitation of the
impression, both of quantity and of quality, that strikes the eye, the
small number of the subjects wherein sculpture can and does demonstrate
its excellence with the infinite number of those which painting presents
to us (not to mention the perfect preservation of them for the intellect
and the distribution of them in those places wherein nature herself has
not done so); and finally, weighing the whole content of the one with
that of the other, the nobility of sculpture, as shown by the intellect,
the invention, and the judgment of its craftsmen, does not correspond by
a great measure to that which painting enjoys and deserves. And this is
all that on the one side and on the other has come to my ears that is
worthy of consideration.
But because it appears to me that the sculptors have spoken with too
much heat and the painters with too much disdain, and seeing that I have
long enough studied the works of sculpture and have ever exercised
myself in painting, however small, perhaps, may be the fruit that is to
be seen of it; none the less, by reason of that which it is worth, and
by reason of the undertaking of these writings, judging it my duty to
demonstrate the judgment that I have ever made of it in my own mind (and
may my authority avail the most that it can), I will declare my opinion
surely and briefly over such a dispute, being convinced that I will not
incur any charge of presumption or of ignorance, seeing that I will not
treat of the arts of others, as many have done before to the end that
they might appear to the crowd intelligent in all things by means of
letters, and as happened, among others, to Phormio the Peripatetic of
Ephesus, who, in order to display his eloquence, lecturing and making
disputation about the virtues and parts of the excellent captain, made
Hannibal laugh not less at his presumption than at his ignorance.
I say, then, that sculpture and painting are in truth sisters, born from
one father, that is, design, at one and the same birth, and have no
precedence one over the other, save insomuch as the worth and the
strength of those who maintain them make one craftsman surpass another,
and not by reason of any difference or degree of nobility that is in
truth to be found between them. And although by reason of the diversity
of their essence they have many different advantages, these are neither
so great nor of such a kind that they do not come exactly into balance
together and that we do not perceive the infatuation or the obstinacy,
rather than the judgment, of those who wish one to surpass the other.
Wherefore it may be said with reason that one and the same soul rules
the bodies of both, and by reason of this I conclude that those do evil
who strive to disunite and to separate the one from the other. Heaven,
wishing to undeceive us in this matter and to show us the kinship and
union of these two most noble arts, has raised up in our midst at
various times many sculptors who have painted and many painters who have
worked in sculpture, as will be seen in the Life of Antonio del
Pollaiuolo, of Leonardo da Vinci, and of many others long since passed
away. But in our own age the Divine Goodness has created for us
Michelagnolo Buonarroti, in whom both these arts shine forth so perfect
and appear so similar and so closely united, that the painters marvel at
his pictures and the sculptors feel for the sculptures wrought by him
supreme admiration and reverence. On him, to the end that he might not
perchance need to seek from some other master some convenient
resting-place for the figures that he wrought, nature has bestowed so
generously the science of architecture, that without having need of
others he has strength and power within himself to give to this or the
other image made by himself an honourable and suitable resting-place, in
a manner that he rightly deserves to be called the king of sculptors,
the prince of painters, and the most excellent of architects, nay
rather, of architecture the true master. And indeed we can affirm with
certainty that those do in no way err who call him divine, seeing that
he has within his own self embraced the three arts most worthy of praise
and most ingenious that are to be found among mortal men, and that with
these, after the manner of a God, he can give us infinite delight. And
let this suffice for the dispute raised between the factions, and for
our own opinion.
Now, returning to my first intention, I say that, wishing in so far as
it lies within the reach of my powers to drag from the ravening maw of
time, the names of the sculptors, painters, and architects, who, from
Cimabue to the present day, have been of some notable excellence in
Italy, and desiring that this my labour may be no less useful than it
has been pleasant to me in the undertaking, it appears to me necessary,
before we come to the history, to make as briefly as may be an
introduction to these three arts, wherein those were valiant of whom I
am to write the Lives, to the end that every gracious spirit may first
learn the most notable things in their professions, and afterwards may
be able with greater pleasure and benefit to see clearly in what they
were different among themselves, and how great adornment and convenience
they give to their countries and to all who wish to avail themselves of
their industry and knowledge.
I will begin, then, with architecture, as the most universal and the
most necessary and useful to men, and as that for the service and
adornment of which the two others exist; and I will expound briefly the
varieties of stone, the manners or methods of construction, with their
proportions, and how one may recognize buildings that are good and
well-conceived. Afterwards, discoursing of sculpture, I will tell how
statues are wrought, the form and the proportion that are looked for in
them, and of what kind are good sculptures, with all the most secret and
most necessary precepts. Finally, treating of painting, I will speak of
draughtsmanship, of the methods of colouring, of the perfect execution
of any work, of the quality of the pictures themselves, and of
whatsoever thing appertains to painting; of every kind of mosaic, of
niello, of enamelling, of damascening, and then, lastly, of the printing
of pictures. And in this way I am convinced that these my labours will
delight those who are not engaged in these pursuits, and will both
delight and help those who have made them a profession. For not to
mention that in the Introduction they will review the methods of
working, and that in the Lives of the craftsmen themselves they will
learn where their works are, and how to recognize easily their
perfection or imperfection and to discriminate between one manner and
another, they will also be able to perceive how much praise and honour
that man deserves who adds upright ways and goodness of life to the
excellencies of arts so noble. Kindled by the praise that those so
constituted have obtained, they too will aspire to true glory. Nor will
little fruit be gathered from the history, true guide and mistress of
our actions, in reading of the infinite variety of innumerable accidents
that befell the craftsmen, sometimes by their own fault and very often
by chance.
It remains for me to make excuse for having on occasion used some words
of indifferent Tuscan, whereof I do not wish to speak, having ever taken
thought to use rather the words and names particular and proper to our
arts than the delicate or choice words of precious writers. Let me be
allowed, then, to use in their proper speech the words proper to our
craftsmen, and let all content themselves with my good will, which has
bestirred itself to produce this result not in order to teach to others
what I do not know myself, but through a desire to preserve this memory
at least of the most celebrated craftsmen, seeing that in so many
decades I have not yet been able to see one who has made much record of
them. For I have wished with these my rough labours, adumbrating their
noble deeds, to repay to them in some measure the debt that I owe to
their works, which have been to me as masters for the learning of
whatsoever I know, rather than, living in sloth, to be a malignant
critic of the works of others, blaming and decrying them as men are
often wont to do. But it is now time to come to our business.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: The process of sgraffito work is described in Professor
Baldwin Brown's notes to "Vasari on Technique" as follows: "A wall is
covered with a layer of tinted plaster, and on this is superimposed a
thin coating of white plaster. This outer coating is scratched through
(with an iron tool), and the colour behind is revealed. Then all the
surface outside the design is cut away, and a cameo-like effect is given
to the design."]
[Footnote 3: The process of niello is as follows: A design is engraved
on silver or bronze, and the lines of the design are filled with a
composition of silver and lead. On the application of fire to the whole,
this composition turns black, leaving the design strongly outlined.]
PREFACE TO THE LIVES
I have no manner of doubt that it is with almost all writers a common
and deeply-fixed opinion that sculpture and painting together were first
discovered, by the light of nature, by the people of Egypt, and that
there are certain others who attribute to the Chaldaeans the first rough
sketches in marble and the first reliefs in statuary, even as they also
give to the Greeks the invention of the brush and of colouring. But I
will surely say that of both one and the other of these arts the design,
which is their foundation, nay rather, the very soul that conceives and
nourishes within itself all the parts of man's intellect, was already
most perfect before the creation of all other things, when the Almighty
God, having made the great body of the world and having adorned the
heavens with their exceeding bright lights, descended lower with His
intellect into the clearness of the air and the solidity of the earth,
and, shaping man, discovered, together with the lovely creation of all
things, the first form of sculpture; from which man afterwards, step by
step (and this may not be denied), as from a true pattern, there were
taken statues, sculptures, and the science of pose and of outline; and
for the first pictures (whatsoever they were), softness, harmony, and
the concord in discord that comes from light and shade. Thus, then, the
first model whence there issued the first image of man was a lump of
clay, and not without reason, seeing that the Divine Architect of time
and of nature, being Himself most perfect, wished to show in the
imperfection of the material the way to add and to take away; in the
same manner wherein the good sculptors and painters are wont to work,
who, adding and taking away in their models, bring their imperfect
sketches to that final perfection which they desire. He gave to man that
most vivid colour of flesh, whence afterwards there were drawn for
painting, from the mines of the earth, the colours themselves for the
counterfeiting of all those things that are required for pictures. It is
true, indeed, that it cannot be affirmed for certain what was made by
the men before the Flood in these arts in imitation of so beautiful a
work, although it is reasonable to believe that they too carved and
painted in every manner; seeing that Belus, son of the proud Nimrod,
about 200 years after the Flood, caused to be made that statue wherefrom
there was afterwards born idolatry, and his son's wife, the very famous
Semiramis, Queen of Babylon, in the building of that city, placed among
its adornments not only diverse varied kinds of animals, portrayed and
coloured from nature, but also the image of herself and of Ninus, her
husband, and, moreover, statues in bronze of her husband's father, of
her husband's mother, and of the mother of the latter, as Diodorus
relates, calling them by the Greek names (that did not yet exist), Jove,
Juno, and Ops. From these statues, perchance, the Chaldaeans learnt to
make the images of their gods, seeing that 150 years later Rachel, in
flying from Mesopotamia together with Jacob her husband, stole the idols
of Laban her father, as is clearly related in Genesis. Nor, indeed, were
the Chaldaeans alone in making sculptures and pictures, but the Egyptians
made them also, exercising themselves in these arts with that so great
zeal which is shown in the marvellous tomb of the most ancient King
Osimandyas, copiously described by Diodorus, and proved by the stern
commandment made by Moses in the Exodus from Egypt, namely, that under
pain of death there should be made to God no image whatsoever. He, on
descending from the mountain, having found the golden calf wrought and
adored solemnly by his people, and being greatly perturbed to see Divine
honours paid to the image of a beast, not only broke it and reduced it
to powder, but for punishment of so great a sin caused many thousands of
the wicked sons of Israel to be slain by the Levites. But because not
the making of statues but their adoration was a deadly sin, we read in
Exodus that the art of design and of statuary, not only in marble but in
every kind of metal, was bestowed by the mouth of God on Bezaleel, of
the tribe of Judah, and on Aholiab, of the tribe of Dan, who were those
that made the two cherubim of gold, the candlesticks, the veil, the
borders of the priestly vestments, and so many other most beautiful
castings for the Tabernacle, for no other reason than to bring the
people to contemplate and to adore them.
From the things seen before the Flood, then, the pride of men found the
way to make the statues of those for whom they wished that they should
remain famous and immortal in the world. And the Greeks, who think
differently about this origin, say that the Ethiopians invented the
first statues, as Diodorus tells; that the Egyptians took them from the
Ethiopians, and, from them, the Greeks; for by Homer's time sculpture
and painting are seen to have been perfected, as it is proved, in
discoursing of the shield of Achilles, by that divine poet, who shows it
to us carved and painted, rather than described, with every form of art.
Lactantius Firmianus, by way of fable, attributes it to Prometheus, who,
in the manner of Almighty God, shaped man's image out of mud; and from
him, he declares, the art of statuary came. But according to what Pliny
writes, this came to Egypt from Gyges the Lydian, who, being by the fire
and gazing at his own shadow, suddenly, with some charcoal in his hand,
drew his own outline on the wall. And from that age, for a time,
outlines only were wont to be used, with no body of colour, as the same
Pliny confirms; which method was rediscovered with more labour by
Philocles the Egyptian, and likewise by Cleanthes and Ardices of Corinth
and by Telephanes of Sicyon.
Cleophantes of Corinth was the first among the Greeks who used colours,
and Apollodorus the first who discovered the brush. There followed
Polygnotus of Thasos, Zeuxis, and Timagoras of Chalcis, with Pythias and
Aglaophon, all most celebrated; and after these the most famous Apelles,
so much esteemed and honoured by Alexander the Great for his talent, and
the most ingenious investigator of slander and false favour, as Lucian
shows us; even as almost all the excellent painters and sculptors were
endowed by Heaven, in nearly every case, not only with the adornment of
poetry, as may be read of Pacuvius, but with philosophy besides, as may
be seen in Metrodorus, who, being as well versed in philosophy as in
painting, was sent by the Athenians to Paulus Emilius to adorn his
triumph, and remained with him to read philosophy to his sons.
The art of sculpture, then, was greatly exercised in Greece, and there
appeared many excellent craftsmen, and, among others, Pheidias, an
Athenian, with Praxiteles and Polycletus, all very great masters, while
Lysippus and Pyrgoteles were excellent in sunk reliefs, and Pygmalion in
reliefs in ivory, of whom there is a fable that by his prayers he
obtained breath and spirit for the figure of a virgin that he made.
Painting, likewise, was honoured and rewarded by the ancient Greeks and
Romans, seeing that to those who made it appear marvellous they showed
favour by bestowing on them citizenship and the highest dignities. So
greatly did this art flourish in Rome that Fabius gave renown to his
house by writing his name under the things so beautifully painted by him
in the temple of Salus, and calling himself Fabius Pictor. It was
forbidden by public decree that slaves should exercise this art
throughout the cities, and so much honour did the nations pay without
ceasing to the art and to the craftsmen that the rarest works were sent
among the triumphal spoils, as marvellous things, to Rome, and the
finest craftsmen were freed from slavery and recompensed with honours
and rewards by the commonwealths.
The Romans themselves bore so great reverence for these arts that
besides the respect that Marcellus, in sacking the city of Syracuse,
commanded to be paid to a craftsman famous in them, in planning the
assault of the aforesaid city they took care not to set fire to that
quarter wherein there was a most beautiful painted panel, which was
afterwards carried to Rome in the triumph, with much pomp. Thither,
having, so to speak, despoiled the world, in course of time they
assembled the craftsmen themselves as well as their finest works,
wherewith afterwards Rome became so beautiful, for the reason that she
gained so great adornment from the statues from abroad more than from
her own native ones; it being known that in Rhodes, the city of an
island in no way large, there were more than 30,000 statues counted,
either in bronze or in marble, nor did the Athenians have less, while
those at Olympia and at Delphi were many more and those in Corinth
numberless, and all were most beautiful and of the greatest value. Is
it not known that Nicomedes, King of Lycia, in his eagerness for a Venus
that was by the hand of Praxiteles, spent on it almost all the wealth of
his people? Did not Attalus the same, who, in order to possess the
picture of Bacchus painted by Aristides, did not scruple to spend on it
more than 6,000 sesterces? Which picture was placed by Lucius Mummius in
the temple of Ceres with the greatest pomp, in order to adorn Rome.
But for all that the nobility of these arts was so highly valued, it is
none the less not yet known for certain who gave them their first
beginning. For, as has been already said above, it appears most ancient
among the Chaldaeans, some give it to the Ethiopians, and the Greeks
attribute it to themselves; and it may be thought, not without reason,
that it is perchance even more ancient among the Etruscans, as our Leon
Batista Alberti testifies, whereof we have clear enough proof in the
marvellous tomb of Porsena at Chiusi, where, no long time since, there
were discovered underground, between the walls of the Labyrinth, some
terracotta tiles with figures on them in half-relief, so excellent and
in so beautiful a manner that it can be easily recognized that the art
was not begun precisely at that time, nay rather, by reason of the
perfection of these works, that it was much nearer its height than its
beginning. To this, moreover, witness is likewise borne by our seeing
every day many pieces of those red and black vases of Arezzo, made, as
may be judged from the manner, about those times, with the most delicate
carvings and small figures and scenes in low-relief, and many small
round masks wrought with great subtlety by masters of that age, men most
experienced, as is shown by the effect, and most excellent in that art.
It may be seen, moreover, by reason of the statues found at Viterbo at
the beginning of the pontificate of Alexander VI, that sculpture was in
great esteem and in no small perfection among the Etruscans; and
although it is not known precisely at what time they were made, it may
be reasonably conjectured, both from the manner of the figures and from
the style of the tombs and of the buildings, no less than from the
inscriptions in those Etruscan letters, that they are most ancient and
were made at a time when the affairs of this country were in a good and
prosperous state. But what clearer proof of this can be sought? seeing
that in our own day--that is, in the year 1554--there has been found a
bronze figure of the Chimaera of Bellerophon, in making the ditches,
fortifications, and walls of Arezzo, from which figure it is recognized
that the perfection of that art existed in ancient times among the
Etruscans, as may be seen from the Etruscan manner and still more from
the letters carved on a paw, about which--since they are but few and
there is no one now who understands the Etruscan tongue--it is
conjectured that they may represent the name of the master as well as
that of the figure itself, and perchance also the date, according to the
use of those times. This figure, by reason of its beauty and antiquity,
has been placed in our day by the Lord Duke Cosimo in the hall of the
new rooms in his Palace, wherein there have been painted by me the acts
of Pope Leo X. And besides this there were found in the same place many
small figures in bronze after the same manner, which are in the hands of
the said Lord Duke.
But since the dates of the works of the Greeks, the Ethiopians, and the
Chaldaeans are as doubtful as our own, and perhaps more, and by reason of
the greater need of founding our judgment about these works on
conjectures, which, however, are not so feeble that they are in every
way wide of the mark, I believe that I strayed not at all from the truth
(and I think that everyone who will consent to consider this question
discreetly will judge as I did), when I said above that the origin of
these arts was nature herself, and the example or model, the most
beautiful fabric of the world, and the master, that divine light infused
by special grace into us, which has not only made us superior to the
other animals, but, if it be not sin to say it, like to God. And if in
our own times it has been seen (as I trust to be able to demonstrate a
little later by many examples) that simple children roughly reared in
the woods, with their only model in the beautiful pictures and
sculptures of nature, and by the vivacity of their wit, have begun by
themselves to make designs, how much more may we, nay, must we
confidently believe that these primitive men, who, in proportion as they
were less distant from their origin and divine creation, were thereby
the more perfect and of better intelligence, that they, by themselves,
having for guide nature, for master purest intellect, and for example
the so lovely model of the world, gave birth to these most noble arts,
and from a small beginning, little by little bettering them, brought
them at last to perfection? I do not, indeed, wish to deny that there
was one among them who was the first to begin, seeing that I know very
well that it must needs be that at some time and from some one man there
came the beginning; nor, also, will I deny that it may have been
possible that one helped another and taught and opened the way to
design, to colour, and relief, because I know that our art is all
imitation, of nature for the most part and then, because a man cannot by
himself rise so high, of those works that are executed by those whom he
judges to be better masters than himself. But I say surely that the
wishing to affirm dogmatically who this man or these men were is a thing
very perilous to judge, and perchance little necessary to know, provided
that we see the true root and origin wherefrom art was born. For since,
of the works that are the life and the glory of the craftsmen, the first
and step by step the second and the third were lost by reason of time,
that consumes all things, and since, for lack of writers at that time,
they could not, at least in that way, become known to posterity, their
craftsmen as well came to be forgotten. But when once the writers began
to make record of things that were before their day, they could not
speak of those whereof they had not been able to have information, in a
manner that there came to be first with them those of whom the memory
had been the last to be lost. Even as the first of the poets, by common
consent, is said to be Homer, not because there were none before him,
for there were, although not so excellent, which is seen clearly from
his own works, but because of these early poets, whatever manner of men
they were, all knowledge had been lost quite 2,000 years before.
However, leaving behind us this part, as too uncertain by reason of its
antiquity, let us come to the clearer matters of their perfection, ruin,
and restoration, or rather resurrection, whereof we will be able to
discourse on much better grounds.
I say, then, it being true indeed, that they began late in Rome, if the
first figure was, as is said, the image of Ceres made of metal from the
treasure of Spurius Cassius, who, for conspiring to make himself King,
was put to death by his own father without any scruple; and that
although the arts of sculpture and of painting continued up to the end
of the twelve Caesars, they did not, however, continue in that perfection
and excellence which they had enjoyed before, for it may be seen from
the edifices that the Emperors built in succession one after the other
that these arts, decaying from one day to another, were coming little by
little to lose their whole perfection of design. And to this clear
testimony is borne by the works of sculpture and of architecture that
were wrought in the time of Constantine in Rome, and in particular the
triumphal arch raised for him by the Roman people near the Colosseum,
wherein it is seen that in default of good masters they not only made
use of marble groups made at the time of Trajan, but also of the spoils
brought from various places to Rome. And whosoever knows that the votive
offerings in the medallions, that is, the sculptures in half-relief, and
likewise the prisoners, and the large groups, and the columns, and the
mouldings, and the other ornaments, whether made before or from spoils,
are excellently wrought, knows also that the works which were made to
fill up by the sculptors of that time are of the rudest, as also are
certain small groups with little figures in marble below the medallions,
and the lowest base wherein there are certain victories, and certain
rivers between the arches at the sides, which are very rude and so made
that it can be believed most surely that by that time the art of
sculpture had begun to lose something of the good. And there had not yet
come the Goths and the other barbarous and outlandish peoples who
destroyed, together with Italy, all the finer arts. It is true, indeed,
that in the said times architecture had suffered less harm than the
other arts of design had suffered, for in the bath that Constantine
erected on the Lateran, in the entrance of the principal porch it may be
seen, to say nothing of the porphyry columns, the capitals wrought in
marble, and the double bases taken from some other place and very well
carved, that the whole composition of the building is very well
conceived; whereas, on the contrary, the stucco, the mosaics, and
certain incrustations on the walls made by masters of that time are not
equal to those that he caused to be placed in the same bath, which were
taken for the most part from the temples of the heathen gods.
Constantine, so it is said, did the same in the garden of AEquitius, in
making the temple which he afterwards endowed and gave to the Christian
priests. In like manner, the magnificent Church of S. Giovanni Laterano,
erected by the same Emperor, can bear witness to the same--namely, that
in his day sculpture had already greatly declined; for the image of the
Saviour and the twelve Apostles in silver that he caused to be made were
very debased sculptures, wrought without art and with very little
design. Besides this, whosoever examines with diligence the medals of
Constantine and his image and other statues made by the sculptors of
that time, which are at the present day in the Campidoglio, may see
clearly that they are very far removed from the perfection of the medals
and statues of the other Emperors; and all this shows that long before
the coming of the Goths into Italy sculpture had greatly declined.
Architecture, as has been said, continued to maintain itself, if not so
perfect, in a better state; nor is there reason to marvel at this,
seeing that, as the great edifices were made almost wholly of spoils, it
was easy for the architects, in making the new, to imitate in great
measure the old, which they had ever before their eyes, and that much
more easily than the sculptors could imitate the good figures of the
ancients, their art having wholly vanished. And that this is true is
manifest, because the Church of the Prince of the Apostles on the
Vatican was not rich save in columns, bases, capitals, architraves,
mouldings, doors, and other incrustations and ornaments, which were all
taken from various places and from the edifices built most magnificently
in earlier times. The same could be said of S. Croce in Gierusalemme,
which Constantine erected at the entreaty of his mother Helena, of S.
Lorenzo without the walls of Rome, and of S. Agnesa, built by him at the
request of Constantia, his daughter. And who does not know that the font
which served for the baptism of both her and her sister was all adorned
with works wrought long before, and in particular with the porphyry
basin carved with most beautiful figures, with certain marble
candlesticks excellently carved with foliage, and with some boys in
low-relief that are truly most beautiful? In short, for these and many
other reasons it is clear how much, in the time of Constantine,
sculpture had already declined, and together with it the other finer
arts. And if anything was wanting to complete this ruin, it was supplied
to them amply by the departure of Constantine from Rome, on his going to
establish the seat of the Empire at Byzantium; for the reason that he
took with him not only all the best sculptors and other craftsmen of
that age, whatsoever manner of men they were, but also an infinite
number of statues and other works of sculpture, all most beautiful.
After the departure of Constantine, the Caesars whom he left in Italy,
building continually both in Rome and elsewhere, exerted themselves to
make their works as fine as they could; but, as may be seen, sculpture,
as well as painting and architecture, went ever from bad to worse, and
this perchance came to pass because, when human affairs begin to
decline, they never cease to go ever lower and lower until such time as
they can grow no worse. So, too, it may be seen that although at the
time of Pope Liberius the architects of that day strove to do something
great in constructing the Church of S. Maria Maggiore, they were yet not
happy in the success of the whole, for the reason that although that
building, which is likewise composed for the greater part of spoils, was
made with good enough proportions, it cannot be denied any the less, not
to speak of certain other parts, that the frieze made right round above
the columns with ornaments in stucco and in painting is wholly wanting
in design, and that many other things which are seen in that great
church demonstrate the imperfection of the arts.
Many years after, when the Christians were persecuted under Julian the
Apostate, there was erected on the C[oe]lian Mount a church to S. John
and S. Paul, the martyrs, in a manner so much worse than those named
above, that it is seen clearly that the art was at that time little less
than wholly lost. The buildings, too, that were erected at the same time
in Tuscany, bear most ample testimony to this; and not to speak of many
others, the church that was built outside the walls of Arezzo to S.
Donatus, Bishop of that city (who, together with the monk Hilarian,
suffered martyrdom under the said Julian the Apostate), was in no way
better in architecture than those named above. Nor can it be believed
that this came from anything else but the absence of better architects
in that age, seeing that the said church (as it has been possible to see
in our own day), which is octagonal and constructed from the spoils of
the Theatre, the Colosseum and other edifices that had been standing in
Arezzo before it was converted to the faith of Christ, was built without
thought of economy and at the greatest cost, and adorned with columns of
granite, of porphyry, and of many-coloured marbles, which had belonged
to the said buildings. And for myself I do not doubt, from the expense
which was clearly bestowed on that church, that if the Aretines had had
better architects they would have built something marvellous; for it may
be seen from what they did that they spared nothing if only they might
make that work as rich and as well designed as they possibly could, and
since, as has been already said so many times, architecture had lost
less of its perfection than the other arts, there was to be seen therein
some little of the good. At this time, likewise, was enlarged the Church
of S. Maria in Grado, in honour of the said Hilarian, for the reason
that he had been for a long time living in it when he went, with
Donatus, to the crown of martyrdom.
But because Fortune, when she has brought men to the height of her
wheel, is wont, either in jest or in repentance, to throw them down
again, it came about after these things that there rose up in various
parts of the world all the barbarous peoples against Rome; whence there
ensued after no long time not only the humiliation of so great an Empire
but the ruin of the whole, and above all of Rome herself, and with her
were likewise utterly ruined the most excellent craftsmen, sculptors,
painters, and architects, leaving the arts and their own selves buried
and submerged among the miserable massacres and ruins of that most
famous city. And the first to fall into decay were painting and
sculpture, as being arts that served more for pleasure than for use,
while the other--namely, architecture--as being necessary and useful for
bodily weal, continued to exist, but no longer in its perfection and
excellence. And if it had not been that the sculptures and pictures
presented, to the eyes of those who were born from day to day, those who
had been thereby honoured to the end that they might have eternal life,
there would soon have been lost the memory of both; whereas some of
them survived in the images and in the inscriptions placed in private
houses, as well as in public buildings, namely, in the amphitheatres,
the theatres, the baths, the aqueducts, the temples, the obelisks, the
colossi, the pyramids, the arches, the reservoirs, the public
treasuries, and finally, in the very tombs, whereof a great part was
destroyed by a barbarous and savage race who had nothing in them of man
but the shape and the name. These, among others, were the Visigoths,
who, having created Alaric their King, assailed Italy and Rome and
sacked the city twice without respect for anything whatsoever. The same,
too, did the Vandals, having come from Africa with Genseric, their King,
who, not content with his booty and prey and all the cruelties that he
wrought there, carried away her people into slavery, to their exceeding
great misery, and among them Eudoxia, once the wife of the Emperor
Valentinian, who had been slaughtered no long time before by his own
soldiers. For these, having fallen away in very great measure from the
ancient Roman valour, for the reason that all the best had gone a long
time before to Byzantium with the Emperor Constantine, had no longer any
good customs or ways of life. Nay more, there had been lost at one and
the same time all true men and every sort of virtue, and laws, habits,
names, and tongues had been changed; and all these things together and
each by itself had caused every lovely mind and lofty intellect to
become most brutish and most base.
But what brought infinite harm and damage on the said professions, even
more than all the aforesaid causes, was the burning zeal of the new
Christian religion, which, after a long and bloody combat, with its
wealth of miracles and with the sincerity of its works, had finally cast
down and swept away the old faith of the heathens, and, devoting itself
most ardently with all diligence to driving out and extirpating root and
branch every least occasion whence error could arise, not only defaced
or threw to the ground all the marvellous statues, sculptures, pictures,
mosaics, and ornaments of the false gods of the heathens, but even the
memorials and the honours of numberless men of mark, to whom, for their
excellent merits, the noble spirit of the ancients had set up statues
and other memorials in public places. Nay more, it not only destroyed,
in order to build the churches for the Christian use, the most honoured
temples of the idols, but in order to ennoble and adorn S. Pietro (to
say nothing of the ornaments which had been there from the beginning) it
also robbed of its stone columns the Mausoleum of Hadrian, now called
the Castello di S. Angelo, and many other buildings that to-day we see
in ruins. And although the Christian religion did not do this by reason
of hatred that it bore to the arts, but only in order to humiliate and
cast down the gods of the heathens, it was none the less true that from
this most ardent zeal there came so great ruin on these honoured
professions that their very form was wholly lost. And as if aught were
wanting to this grievous misfortune, there arose against Rome the wrath
of Totila, who, besides razing her walls and destroying with fire and
sword all her most wonderful and noble buildings, burnt the whole city
from end to end, and, having robbed her of every living body, left her a
prey to flames and fire, so that there was not found in her in eighteen
successive days a single living soul; and he cast down and destroyed so
completely the marvellous statues, pictures, mosaics, and works in
stucco, that there was lost, I do not say only their majesty, but their
very form and essence. Wherefore, it being the lower rooms chiefly of
the palaces and other buildings that were wrought with stucco, with
painting, and with statuary, there was buried by the ruins from above
all that good work that has been discovered in our own day, and those
who came after, judging the whole to be in ruins, planted vines thereon,
in a manner that, since the said lower rooms remained under the ground,
the moderns have called them grottoes, and "grotesque" the pictures that
are therein seen at the present day.
After the end of the Ostrogoths, who were destroyed by Narses, men were
living among the ruins of Rome in some fashion, poorly indeed, when
there came, after 100 years, Constantine II, Emperor of Constantinople,
who, although received lovingly by the Romans, laid waste, robbed, and
carried away all that had remained, more by chance than by the good will
of those who had destroyed her, in the miserable city of Rome. It is
true, indeed, that he was not able to enjoy this booty, because, being
carried by a sea-tempest to Sicily and being justly slain by his own
men, he left his spoils, his kingdom, and his life a prey to Fortune.
But she, not yet content with the woes of Rome, to the end that the
things stolen might never return, brought thither for the ruin of the
island a host of Saracens, who carried off both the wealth of the
Sicilians and the spoils of Rome to Alexandria, to the very great shame
and loss of Italy and of Christendom. And so all that the Pontiffs had
not destroyed (and above all S. Gregory, who is said to have decreed
banishment against all the remainder of the statues and of the spoils of
the buildings) came finally, at the hands of that most rascally Greek,
to an evil end; in a manner that, there being no trace or sign to be
found of anything that was in any way good, the men who came after,
although rude and boorish, and in particular in their pictures and
sculptures, yet, incited by nature and refined by the air, set
themselves to work, not according to the rules of the aforesaid arts,
which they did not know, but according to the quality of their own
intelligence.
The arts of design, then, having been brought to these limits both
before and during the lordship of the Lombards over Italy and also
afterwards, continued gradually to grow worse, although some little work
was done, insomuch that nothing could have been more rudely wrought or
with less design than what was done, as bear witness, besides many other
works, certain figures that are in the portico of S. Pietro in Rome,
above the doors, wrought in the Greek manner in memory of certain holy
fathers who had made disputation for Holy Church in certain councils. To
this, likewise, bear witness many works in the same manner that are to
be seen in the city and in the whole Exarchate of Ravenna, and in
particular some that are in S. Maria Rotonda without that city, made a
little time after the Lombards had been driven out of Italy. In this
church, as I will not forbear to say, there may be seen a thing most
notable and marvellous, namely, the vault, or rather cupola, that covers
it, which, although it is ten braccia wide and serves for roof and
covering to that building, is nevertheless of one single piece, so great
and ponderous that it seems almost impossible that such a stone,
weighing more than 200,000 libbre,[4] could have been set into place so
high. But to return to our subject; there issued from the hands of the
masters of these times those puppet-like and uncouth figures that are
still to be seen in the works of old. The same thing happened to
architecture, seeing that, since it was necessary to build, and since
form and the good method were completely lost by reason of the death of
the craftsmen and the destruction and ruin of their works, those who
applied themselves to this exercise built nothing that either in
ordering or in proportion showed any grace, or design, or reason
whatsoever. Wherefore there came to arise new architects, who brought
from their barbarous races the method of that manner of buildings that
are called by us to-day German; and they made some that are rather a
source of laughter for us moderns than creditable to them, until better
craftsmen afterwards found a better style, in some measure similar to
the good style of the ancients, even as that manner may be seen
throughout all Italy in the old churches (but not the ancient), which
were built by them, such as a palace of Theodoric, King of Italy, in
Ravenna, and one in Pavia, and another in Modena; all in a barbarous
manner, and rather rich and vast than well-conceived or of good
architecture. The same may be affirmed of S. Stefano in Rimini, of S.
Martino in Ravenna, and of the Church of S. Giovanni Evangelista,
erected in the same city by Galla Placidia about the year of our
salvation 438; of S. Vitale, which was erected in the year 547, of the
Abbey of Classi di Fuori, and in short of many other monasteries and
churches erected after the Lombard rule. All these buildings, as has
been said, are both large and magnificent, but of the rudest
architecture, and among them are many abbeys in France erected to S.
Benedict, the Church and Monastery of Monte Casino, and the Church of S.
Giovanni Battista at Monza, built by that Theodelinda, Queen of the
Goths, to whom S. Gregory the Pope wrote his Dialogues; in which place
that Queen caused to be painted the story of the Lombards, wherein it
was seen that they shaved the back of their heads, and in front they had
long locks, and they dyed themselves as far as the chin. Their garments
were of ample linen, as was the use of the Angles and Saxons, and below
a mantle of diverse colours; their shoes open as far as the toes and
tied above with certain straps of leather. Similar to the aforesaid
churches were the Church of S. Giovanni in Pavia, erected by Gondiberta,
daughter of the aforesaid Theodelinda, and in the same city the Church
of S. Salvadore, built by the brother of the said Queen, Aribert, who
succeeded to the throne of Rodoald, husband of Gondiberta; and the
Church of S. Ambrogio in Pavia, erected by Grimoald, King of the
Lombards, who drove Bertrid, son of Aribert, from his throne. This
Bertrid, being restored to his throne after the death of Grimoald,
erected, also in Pavia, a monastery for nuns called the Monasterio
Nuovo, in honour of Our Lady and of S. Agatha; and the Queen erected one
without the walls, dedicated to the "Virgin Mary in Pertica." Cunibert,
likewise, son of that Bertrid, erected a monastery and church after the
same manner to S. Giorgio, called di Coronate, on the spot where he had
gained a great victory over Alahi. Not unlike to these, too, was the
church that the King of the Lombards, Luitprand (who lived in the time
of King Pepin, father of Charlemagne), built in Pavia, which is called
S. Pietro in Cieldauro; nor that one, likewise, that Desiderius built,
who reigned after Astolf--namely, S. Pietro Clivate, in the diocese of
Milan; nor the Monastery of S. Vincenzo in Milan, nor that of S. Giulia
in Brescia, seeing that they were all built at the greatest cost, but in
the most ugly and haphazard manner.
Later, in Florence, architecture made some little progress, and the
Church of S. Apostolo, that was erected by Charlemagne, although small,
was most beautiful in manner; for not to mention that the shafts of the
columns, although they are of separate pieces, show much grace and are
made with beautiful proportion, the capitals, also, and the arches
turned to make the little vaulted roofs of the two small aisles, show
that in Tuscany there had survived or in truth arisen some good
craftsman. In short, the architecture of this church is such that
Filippo di Ser Brunellesco did not disdain to avail himself of it as a
model in building the Church of S. Spirito and that of S. Lorenzo in the
same city. The same may be seen in the Church of S. Marco in Venice,
which (to say nothing of S. Giorgio Maggiore, erected by Giovanni
Morosini in the year 978) was begun under the Doge Giustiniano and
Giovanni Particiaco, close by S. Teodosio, when the body of that
Evangelist was sent from Alexandria to Venice; and after many fires,
which greatly damaged the Doge's palace and the church, it was finally
rebuilt on the same foundations in the Greek manner and in that style
wherein it is seen to-day, at very great cost and under the direction of
many architects, in the year of Christ 973, at the time of Doge Domenico
Selvo, who had the columns brought from wheresoever he could find them.
And so it continued to go on up to the year 1140, when the Doge was
Messer Piero Polani, and, as has been said, with the design of many
masters, all Greeks. In the same Greek manner and about the same time
were the seven abbeys that Count Ugo, Marquis of Brandenburg, caused to
be built in Tuscany, as can be seen in the Badia of Florence, in that of
Settimo, and in the others; which buildings, with the remains of those
that are no longer standing, bear testimony that architecture was still
in a measure holding its ground, although greatly corrupted and far
removed from the good manner of the ancients. To this can also bear
witness many old palaces built in Florence after the ruin of Fiesole, in
Tuscan workmanship, but with barbaric ordering in the proportions of
those doors and windows of immense length, in the curves of the pointed
quarter-segments, and in the turning of the arches, after the wont of
the foreign architects of those times.
The year afterwards, 1013, it is clear that the art had regained some of
its vigour from the rebuilding of that most beautiful church, S. Miniato
in Sul Monte, in the time of Messer Alibrando, citizen and Bishop of
Florence; for the reason that, besides the marble ornaments that are
seen therein both within and without, it may be seen from the facade
that the Tuscan architects strove as much as they could in the doors,
the windows, the columns, the arches, and the mouldings, to imitate the
good order of the ancients, having in part recovered it from the most
ancient temple of S. Giovanni in their city. At the same time painting,
which was little less than wholly spent, may be seen to have begun to
win back something, as the mosaic shows that was made in the principal
chapel[5] of the said Church of S. Miniato.
From such beginnings, then, these arts commenced to grow better in
design throughout Tuscany, as is seen in the year 1016, from the
commencement made by the people of Pisa for the building of their Duomo,
seeing that in those times it was a great thing for men to put their
hands to the construction of a church made, as this was, with five
naves, and almost wholly of marble both within and without. This church,
which was built under the direction and design of Buschetto, a Greek of
Dulichium, an architect of rarest worth for those times, was erected and
adorned by the people of Pisa with innumerable spoils brought by sea
(for they were at the height of their greatness) from diverse most
distant places, as is well shown by the columns, bases, capitals,
cornices, and all the other kinds of stonework that are therein seen.
And seeing that these things were some of them small, some large, and
some of a middle size, great was the judgment and the talent of
Buschetto in accommodating them and in making the distribution of all
this building, which is very well arranged both within and without; and
besides other work, he contrived the frontal slope of the facade very
ingeniously with a great number of columns, adorning it besides with
columns carved in diverse and varied ways, and with ancient statues,
even as he also made the principal doors in the same facade, between
which--that is, beside that of the Carroccio--there was afterwards given
an honourable burial-place to Buschetto himself, with three epitaphs,
whereof this is one, in Latin verses in no way dissimilar to others of
those times:
QUOD VIX MILLE BOUM POSSENT JUGA JUNCTA MOVERE,
ET QUOD VIX POTUIT PER MARE FERRE RATIS, BUSCHETTI NISU,
QUOD ERAT MIRABILE VISU,
DENA PUELLARUM TURBA LEVAVIT ONUS.
And seeing that there has been made mention above of the Church of S.
Apostolo in Florence, I will not forbear to say that on a marble slab
therein, on one side of the high-altar, there may be seen these words:
VIII. V. DIE VI. APRILIS IN RESURRECTIONE DOMINI, KAROLUS
FRANCORUM REX A ROMA REVERTENS, INGRESSUS FLORENTIAM, CUM MAGNO
GAUDIO ET TRIPUDIO SUSCEPTUS, CIVIUM COPIAM TORQUEIS AUREIS
DECORAVIT ... ECCLESIA SANCTORUM APOSTOLORUM ... IN ALTARI INCLUSA
EST LAMINA PLUMBEA, IN QUA DESCRIPTA APPARET PRAEFATA FUNDATIO ET
CONSECRATIO FACTA PER ARCHIEPISCOPUM TURPINUM, TESTIBUS ROLANDO ET
ULIVERIO.
The aforesaid edifice of the Duomo in Pisa, awaking the minds of many to
fair enterprises throughout all Italy, and above all in Tuscany, was the
cause that in the city of Pistoia, in the year 1032, a beginning was
made for the Church of S. Paolo, in the presence of the Blessed Atto,
Bishop of that city, as may be read in a contract made at that time,
and, in short, for many other buildings whereof it would take too long
to make mention at present. I cannot forbear to say, however, following
the course of time, that afterwards, in the year 1060, there was erected
in Pisa the round church of S. Giovanni, opposite the Duomo and in the
same square. And something marvellous and almost wholly incredible is to
be found recorded in an old book of the Works of the said Duomo, namely,
that the columns of the said S. Giovanni, the pillars, and the vaulting
were raised and completed in fifteen days and no more. In the same book,
which anyone can see who has the wish, it may be read that for the
building of this church there was imposed a tax of one danaio for each
fire, but it is not said therein whether of gold or of small coin; and
at that time there were in Pisa, as may be seen in the same book, 34,000
fires. Truly this work was vast, of great cost, and difficult to
execute, and above all the vaulting of the tribune, made in the shape of
a pear and covered without with lead. The outer side is full of columns,
carvings, and groups, and on the frieze of the central door is a Jesus
Christ with the twelve Apostles in half-relief, after the Greek manner.
The people of Lucca, about the same time--that is, in the year 1061--as
rivals of the people of Pisa, began the Church of S. Martino in Lucca
from the design of certain disciples of Buschetto, there being then no
other architects in Tuscany. Attached to the facade of this church there
may be seen a marble portico with many ornaments and carvings made in
memory of Pope Alexander II, who had been, a short time before he was
elected to the Pontificate, Bishop of that city. Of this construction
and of Alexander himself everything is fully told in nine Latin verses,
and the same may be seen in certain other ancient letters engraved on
the marble under the portico, between the doors. On the said facade are
certain figures, and under the portico many scenes in marble from the
life of S. Martin, in half-relief, and in the Greek manner. But the
best, which are over one of the doors, were made 170 years after by
Niccola Pisano and finished in 1233, as will be told in the proper
place; the Wardens, when these were begun, being Abellenato and
Aliprando, as it may be clearly seen from certain letters carved in
marble in the same place. These figures by the hand of Niccola Pisano
show how much improvement there came from him to the art of sculpture.
Similar to these were most, nay, all of the buildings that were erected
in Italy from the times aforesaid up to the year 1250, seeing that
little or no acquisition or improvement can be seen to have been made in
the space of so many years by architecture, which stayed within the same
limits and went on ever in that rude manner, whereof many examples are
still to be seen, of which I will at present make no mention, for the
reason that they will be spoken of below according to the occasions that
may come before me.
In like manner the good sculptures and pictures which had been buried
under the ruins of Italy remained up to the same time hidden from or not
known to the men boorishly reared in the rudeness of the modern use of
that age, wherein no other sculptures or pictures existed than those
which a remnant of old Greeks were making either in images of clay or
stone, or painting monstrous figures and covering only the bare
lineaments with colour. These craftsmen, as the best, being the only
ones in these professions, were summoned to Italy, whither they brought
sculpture and painting, together with mosaic, in that style wherein
they knew them; and even so they taught them rudely and roughly to the
Italians, who afterwards made use of them, as has been told and will be
told further, up to a certain time. And the men of those times, not
being used to see other excellence or greater perfection in any work
than that which they themselves saw, marvelled and took these for the
best, for all that they were vile, until the spirits of the generation
then arising, helped in some places by the subtlety of the air, became
so greatly purged that about 1250, Heaven, moved to pity for the lovely
minds that the Tuscan soil was producing every day, restored them to
their first condition. And although those before them had seen remains
of arches, of colossi, of statues, of urns, and of storied columns in
the ages that came after the sackings, the destructions, and the
burnings of Rome, and never knew how to make use of them or draw from
them any benefit, up to the time mentioned above, the minds that came
after, discerning well enough the good from the bad and abandoning the
old manners, turned to imitating the ancient with all their industry and
wit.
But in order that it may be understood more clearly what I call "old"
and what "ancient," the "ancient" were the works made before Constantine
in Corinth, in Athens, in Rome, and in other very famous cities, until
the time of Nero, the Vespasians, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus;
whereas those others are called "old" that were executed from S.
Silvester's day up to that time by a certain remnant of Greeks, who knew
rather how to dye than how to paint. For since the excellent early
craftsmen had been killed in these wars, as has been said, to the
remainder of these Greeks, old but not ancient, there had been left
nothing but elementary outlines on a ground of colour; and to this at
the present day witness is borne by an infinity of mosaics, which,
wrought throughout all Italy by these Greeks, are to be seen in every
old church in any city whatsoever of Italy, and above all in the Duomo
of Pisa, in S. Marco at Venice, and in other places as well; and so,
too, they kept making many pictures in that manner, with eyes staring,
hands outstretched, and standing on tiptoe, as may still be seen in S.
Miniato without Florence, between the door that leads into the sacristy
and that which leads into the convent; and in S. Spirito in the said
city, the whole side of the cloister opposite the church; and in like
manner at Arezzo, in S. Giuliano and S. Bartolommeo and in other
churches; and in Rome, in the old Church of S. Pietro, scenes right
round between the windows--works that have more of the monstrous in
their lineaments than of likeness to whatsoever they represent. Of
sculptures, likewise, they made an infinity, as may still be seen in
low-relief over the door of S. Michele in the Piazza Padella of
Florence, and in Ognissanti; and tombs and adornments in many places for
the doors of churches, wherein they have certain figures for corbels to
support the roof, so rude and vile, so misshapen, and of such a
grossness of manner, that it appears impossible that worse could be
imagined.
Thus far have I thought fit to discourse from the beginning of sculpture
and of painting, and peradventure at greater length than was necessary
in this place, which I have done, indeed, not so much carried away by my
affection for art as urged by the common benefit and advantage of our
craftsmen. For having seen in what way she, from a small beginning,
climbed to the greatest height, and how from a state so noble she fell
into utter ruin, and that, in consequence, the nature of this art is
similar to that of the others, which, like human bodies, have their
birth, their growth, their growing old, and their death; they will now
be able to recognize more easily the progress of her second birth and of
that very perfection whereto she has risen again in our times. And I
hope, moreover, that if ever (which God forbid) it should happen at any
time, through the negligence of men, or through the malice of time, or,
finally, through the decree of Heaven, which appears to be unwilling
that the things of this earth should exist for long in one form, that
she falls again into the same chaos of ruin; that these my labours,
whatsoever they may be worth (if indeed they may be worthy of a happier
fortune), both through what has been already said and through what
remains to say, may be able to keep her alive or at least to encourage
the most exalted minds to provide them with better assistance; so much
so that, what with my good will and the works of these masters, she may
abound in those aids and adornments wherein, if I may freely speak the
truth, she has been wanting up to the present day.
But it is now time to come to the Life of Giovanni Cimabue, and even as
he gave the first beginning to the new method of drawing and painting,
so it is just and expedient that he should give it to the Lives, in
which I will do my utmost to observe, the most that I can, the order of
their manners rather than that of time. And in describing the forms and
features of the craftsmen I will be brief, seeing that their portraits,
which have been collected by me with no less cost and fatigue than
diligence, will show better what sort of men the craftsmen themselves
were in appearance than describing them could ever do; and if the
portrait of any one of them should be wanting, that is not through my
fault but by reason of its being nowhere found. And if the said
portraits were not peradventure to appear to someone to be absolutely
like to others that might be found, I wish it to be remembered that the
portrait made of a man when he was eighteen or twenty years old will
never be like to the portrait that may have been made fifteen or twenty
years later. To this it must be added that portraits in drawing are
never so like as are those in colours, not to mention that the
engravers, who have no draughtsmanship, always rob the faces (being
unable or not knowing how to make exactly those minutenesses that make
them good and true to life) of that perfection which is rarely or never
found in portraits cut in wood. In short, how great have been therein my
labour, expense, and diligence, will be evident to those who, in
reading, will see whence I have to the best of my ability unearthed
them.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: The libbra is twelve ounces of our ordinary pound
(avoirdupois).]
[Footnote 5: It is difficult to find a rendering of "cappella maggiore"
that is absolutely satisfactory. There may be a chapel in some churches
that is actually larger than the "principal chapel." The principal
chapel generally contains the choir, but not always, and when Vasari
wants to say "choir" he uses the word "coro." The rendering "principal
chapel" has therefore been adopted as the least misleading.]
CONCERNING THE LIVES OF THE PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS, WHO
HAVE LIVED FROM CIMABUE TO THE PRESENT DAY. WRITTEN BY MESSER GIORGIO
VASARI, PAINTER OF AREZZO
GIOVANNI CIMABUE
[Illustration: _Alinari_
MADONNA, CHILD AND ANGELS
(_After the painting by_ Cimabue. _Paris: Louvre, 1260_)]
LIFE OF GIOVANNI CIMABUE,
PAINTER OF FLORENCE
By the infinite flood of evils which had laid prostrate and submerged
poor Italy there had not only been ruined everything that could truly
claim the name of building, but there had been blotted out (and this was
of graver import) the whole body of the craftsmen, when, by the will of
God, in the city of Florence, in the year 1240, there was born, to give
the first light to the art of painting, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, of
the family, noble in those times, of Cimabue. He, while growing up,
being judged by his father and by others to have a beautiful and acute
intelligence, was sent, to the end that he might exercise himself in
letters, to a master in S. Maria Novella, his relative, who was then
teaching grammar to the novices of that convent; but Cimabue, in place
of attending to his letters, would spend the whole day, as one who felt
himself led thereto by nature, in drawing, on books and other papers,
men, horses, houses, and diverse other things of fancy; to which natural
inclination fortune was favourable, for certain Greek painters had been
summoned to Florence by those who then governed the city, for nothing
else but to restore to Florence the art of painting, which was rather
out of mind than out of fashion, and they began, among the other works
undertaken in the city, the Chapel of the Gondi, whereof to-day the
vaulting and the walls are little less than eaten away by time, as may
be seen in S. Maria Novella beside the principal chapel, where it
stands. Wherefore Cimabue, having begun to take his first steps in this
art which pleased him, playing truant often from school, would stand the
livelong day watching these masters at work, in a manner that, being
judged by his father and by these painters to be in such wise fitted
for painting that there could be hoped for him, applying himself to this
profession, an honourable success, to his own no small satisfaction he
was apprenticed by the said father to these men; whereupon, exercising
himself without ceasing, in a short time nature assisted him so greatly
that he surpassed by a long way, both in drawing and in colouring, the
manner of the masters who were teaching him. For they, giving no thought
to making any advance, had made those works in that fashion wherein they
are seen to-day--that is, not in the good ancient manner of the Greeks
but in that rude modern manner of those times; and because, although he
imitated these Greeks, he added much perfection to the art, relieving it
of a great part of their rude manner, he gave honour to his country with
his name and with the works that he made, to which witness is borne in
Florence by the pictures that he wrought, such as the front of the altar
in S. Cecilia, and in S. Croce a panel with a Madonna, which was and
still is placed against a pilaster on the right within the choir. After
this, he made a S. Francis on a small panel on a gold ground, and
portrayed him from nature (which was something new in those times) as
best he knew, and round him all the stories of his life, in twenty small
pictures full of little figures on a gold ground.
Having next undertaken to make a large panel for the monks of
Vallombrosa, in the Abbey of S. Trinita in Florence, he showed in that
work (using therein great diligence, so as to rise equal to the esteem
which had already been conceived of him) better inventions and a
beautiful method in the attitude of a Madonna, whom he made with the
Child in her arms and with many angels round her in adoration, on a gold
ground; which panel, being finished, was placed by these monks over the
high-altar of the said church, and being afterwards removed, in order to
give that place to the panel by Alesso Baldovinetti which is there
to-day, it was placed in a smaller chapel in the left-hand aisle of the
said church.
Working next in fresco on the Hospital of the Porcellana, at the corner
of the Via Nuova which goes into the Borg' Ognissanti, on the facade
which has in the middle the principal door, and making on one side the
Annunciation of the Virgin by the Angel, and on the other Jesus Christ
with Cleophas and Luke, figures as large as life, he swept away that
ancient manner, making the draperies, the vestments, and everything else
in this work, a little more lively and more natural and softer than the
manner of these Greeks, all full of lines and profiles both in mosaic
and in painting; which manner, rough, rude, and vulgar, the painters of
those times, not by means of study, but by a certain convention, had
taught one to the other for many and many a year, without ever thinking
of bettering their draughtsmanship, of beauty of colouring, or of any
invention that might be good.
Cimabue, being summoned again after this work by the same Prior who had
caused him to make the works in S. Croce, made him a large Crucifix on
wood, which is still seen to-day in the church; which work was the
reason, it appearing to the Prior that he had been well served, that he
took him to S. Francesco in Pisa, their convent, in order to make a S.
Francis on a panel, which was held by these people to be a most rare
work, there being seen therein a certain greater quality of excellence,
both in the air of the heads and in the folds of the draperies, than had
been shown in the Greek manner up to that time by anyone who had wrought
anything, not only in Pisa, but in all Italy. Cimabue having next made
for the same church on a large panel the image of Our Lady, with the
Child in her arms and with many angels round her, also on a ground of
gold, it was after no long time removed from where it had been set up
the first time, in order to make there the marble altar that is there at
present, and was placed within the church beside the door on the left
hand; and for this work he was much praised and rewarded by the people
of Pisa. In the same city of Pisa, at the request of the then Abbot of
S. Paolo in Ripa d'Arno, he made a S. Agnes on a little panel, and round
her, with little figures, all the stories of her life; which little
panel is to-day over the altar of the Virgins in the said church.
By reason of these works, then, the name of Cimabue being very famous
everywhere, he was brought to Assisi, a city of Umbria, where, in
company with certain Greek masters, in the lower Church of S.
Francesco, he painted part of the vaulting, and on the walls the life of
Jesus Christ and that of S. Francis. In these pictures he surpassed by a
long way those Greek painters; wherefore, growing in courage, he began
by his own self to paint the upper church in fresco, and in the chief
apse, over the choir, on four sides, he made certain stories of Our
Lady--namely, her death; when her soul is borne by Christ to Heaven upon
a throne of clouds; and when, in the midst of a choir of angels, He
crowns her, with a great number of saints below, both male and female,
now eaten away by time and by dust. Next, in the sections of the
vaulting of the said church, which are five, he painted in like manner
many scenes. In the first, over the choir, he made the four Evangelists,
larger than life, and so well that to-day there is still recognized in
them much that is good, and the freshness of the colours in the flesh
shows that painting began to make great progress in fresco work through
the labours of Cimabue. The second section he made full of golden stars
on a ground of ultramarine. In the third he made in certain medallions
Jesus Christ, the Virgin His mother, S. John the Baptist, and S.
Francis--namely, in every medallion one of these figures, and in every
quarter segment of the vaulting a medallion. And between this and the
fifth section he painted the fourth with golden stars, as above, on a
ground of ultramarine. In the fifth he painted the four Doctors of the
Church, and beside each one of these one of the four chief Religious
Orders--a work truly laborious and executed with infinite diligence. The
vaulting finished, he wrought, also in fresco, the upper walls of the
whole left-hand side of the church, making towards the high-altar,
between the windows and right up to the vaulting, eight scenes from the
Old Testament, commencing from the beginning of Genesis and following
the most notable events. And in the space that is round the windows, up
to the point where they end in the gallery that encircles the interior
of the wall of the church, he painted the remainder of the Old Testament
in eight other scenes. And opposite this work, in sixteen other scenes
corresponding to these, he painted the acts of Our Lady and of Jesus
Christ. And on the end wall over the principal door, and round the rose
window of the church, he made her Ascension into Heaven and the Holy
Spirit descending on the Apostles. This work, truly very great and
rich and most excellently executed, must have, in my judgment, amazed
the world in those times, seeing, above all, that painting had lain so
long in such great darkness; and to me, who saw it again in the year
1563, it appeared very beautiful, thinking how in so great darkness
Cimabue could see so great light. But of all these pictures (and to this
we should give consideration), those on the roof, as being less injured
by dust and by other accidents, have been preserved much better than the
others. These works finished, Giovanni put his hand to painting the
lower walls--namely, those that are from the windows downwards--and made
certain works upon them, but being called to Florence on some business
of his own, he did not carry this work further; but it was finished, as
will be told in the proper place, by Giotto, many years afterwards.
[Illustration: _Anderson_
"ISAAC'S BLESSING"
(_After the fresco of the_ Roman School. _Assisi: Upper Church of S.
Francesco_)]
[Illustration: _Anderson_
THE DEPOSITION FROM THE CROSS
(_After the fresco by_ Pietro Laurati [Lorenzetti]. _Assisi: Lower
Church of S. Francesco_)]
Having returned, then, to Florence, Cimabue painted in the cloister of
S. Spirito (wherein there is painted in the Greek manner, by other
masters, the whole side facing the church) three small arches by his own
hand, from the life of Christ, and truly with much design. And at the
same time he sent certain works wrought by himself in Florence to
Empoli, which works are still held to-day in great veneration in the
Pieve of that township. Next, he made for the Church of S. Maria Novella
the panel of Our Lady that is set on high between the Chapel of the
Rucellai and that of the Bardi da Vernia; which work was of greater size
than any figure that had been made up to that time. And certain angels
that are round it show that, although he still had the Greek manner, he
was going on approaching in part to the line and method of the modern.
Wherefore this work caused so great marvel to the people of that age, by
reason of there not having been seen up to then anything better, that it
was borne in most solemn procession from the house of Cimabue to the
church, with much rejoicing and with trumpets, and he was thereby much
rewarded and honoured. It is said, and it may be read in certain records
of old painters, that while Cimabue was painting the said panel in
certain gardens close to the Porta S. Pietro, there passed through
Florence King Charles the Elder of Anjou, and that, among the many signs
of welcome made to him by the men of this city, they brought him to see
Cimabue's panel; whereupon, for the reason that it had not yet been seen
by anyone, in the showing it to the King there flocked together to it
all the men and all the women of Florence, with the utmost rejoicing and
in the greatest crowd in the world. Wherefore, by reason of the joy that
the neighbours had thereby, they called that place the Borgo Allegri;
which place, although enclosed in time within the walls, has ever after
retained the same name.
In S. Francesco in Pisa, where he wrought, as has been said above,
certain other works, there is in the cloister, beside the door that
leads into the church, in a corner, a small panel in distemper by the
hand of Cimabue, wherein is a Christ on the Cross, with certain angels
round Him, who, weeping, are taking with their hands certain words that
are written round the head of Christ and are presenting them to the ears
of a Madonna who stands weeping on the right, and on the other side to
S. John the Evangelist, who is on the left, all grieving. And the words
to the Virgin are: MULIER, ECCE FILIUS TUUS; and those to S. John: ECCE
MATER TUA; and those that an angel standing apart holds in his hand,
say: EX ILLA HORA ACCEPIT EAM DISCIPULUS IN SUAM. Wherein it is to be
observed that Cimabue began to give light and to open the way to
invention, assisting art with words in order to express his conception;
which was certainly something whimsical and new.
Now because, by means of these works, Cimabue had acquired a very great
name, together with much profit, he was appointed as architect, in
company with Arnolfo Lapi, a man then excellent in architecture, for the
building of S. Maria del Fiore in Florence. But at length, having lived
sixty years, he passed to the other life in the year 1300, having little
less than resurrected painting. He left many disciples, and among others
Giotto, who was afterwards an excellent painter; which Giotto dwelt,
after Cimabue, in his master's own house in the Via del Cocomero.
Cimabue was buried in S. Maria del Fiore, with that epitaph made for him
by one of the Nini:
CREDIDIT UT CIMABOS PICTURAE CASTRA TENERE,
SIC TENUIT, VIVENS: NUNC TENET ASTRA POLI.
[Illustration: _Anderson_
THE CRUCIFIXION
(_After the fresco by_ Cimabue. _Assisi: Upper Church of S.
Francesco_)]
I will not refrain from saying that if to the glory of Cimabue there had
not been contrasted the greatness of Giotto, his disciple, his fame
would have been greater, as Dante demonstrates in his _Commedia_,
wherein, alluding in the eleventh canto of the _Purgatorio_ to this very
inscription on the tomb, he said:
Credette Cimabue nella pittura
Tener lo campo, ed hora ha Giotto il grido,
Si che la fama di colui s' oscura.
In explanation of these verses, a commentator of Dante, who wrote at the
time when Giotto was alive and ten or twelve years after the death of
Dante himself--that is, about the year of Christ 1334--says, speaking of
Cimabue, precisely these words: "Cimabue was a painter of Florence in
the time of the author, very noble beyond the knowledge of man, and
withal so arrogant and so disdainful that if there were found by anyone
any failing or defect in his work, or if he himself had seen one (even
as it comes to pass many times that the craftsman errs, through a defect
in the material whereon he works, or through some lack in the instrument
wherewith he labours), incontinently he would destroy that work, however
costly it might be. Giotto was and is the most exalted among the
painters of the same city of Florence, and his works bear testimony for
him in Rome, in Naples, in Avignon, in Florence, in Padua, and in many
parts of the world." This commentary is now in the hands of the Very
Reverend Don Vincenzio Borghini, Prior of the Innocenti, a man not only
most famous for his nobility, goodness, and learning, but also endowed
with such love and understanding for all the finer arts that he has
deserved to be elected by the Lord Duke Cosimo, most properly, as his
Lieutenant in our Academy of Design.
But to return to Cimabue: Giotto, truly, obscured his fame not otherwise
than as a great light does the splendour of one much less, for the
reason that although Cimabue was, as it were, the first cause of the
renovation of the art of painting, yet Giotto, his pupil, moved by
laudable ambition and assisted by Heaven and by nature, was he who,
rising higher with his thought, opened the gate of truth to those who
have brought her to that perfection and majesty wherein we see her in
her own century, which, being used to see every day the marvels, the
miracles, nay, the impossibilities wrought by the craftsmen in that art,
is now brought to such a pitch that nothing that men do, be it even more
Divine than human, causes it in any way to marvel. Well is it with those
whose labours deserve all praise, if, in place of being praised and
admired, they do not thereby incur blame and many times even disgrace.
The portrait of Cimabue, by the hand of Simone Sanese, is to be seen in
the Chapter-house of S. Maria Novella, made in profile in the story of
the Faith, in a figure that has the face thin, the beard small, reddish,
and pointed, with a cap according to the use of those times--that is,
wound round and round and under the throat in lovely fashion. He who is
beside him is Simone himself, the author of that work, who portrayed
himself with two mirrors in order to make his head in profile, placing
the one opposite to the other. And that soldier clad in armour who is
between them is said to be Count Guido Novello, then Lord of Poppi.
There remains for me to say of Cimabue that in the beginning of our
book, where I have put together drawings from the own hand of all those
who have made drawings from his time to ours, there are to be seen
certain small things made by his hand in the way of miniature, wherein,
although to-day perchance they appear rather rude than otherwise, it is
seen how much excellence was given by his work to draughtsmanship.
[Illustration: CIMABUE: MADONNA AND CHILD
(_Florence: Accademia 102 Panel_)]
ARNOLFO DI LAPO
LIFE OF ARNOLFO DI LAPO,
ARCHITECT OF FLORENCE
[NOTICE TO READERS IN THE LIFE OF ARNOLFO.--The said Arnolfo began,
in S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, the tomb of Pope Honorius III, of the
house of Savelli; which tomb he left imperfect, with the portrait
of the said Pope, which was afterwards placed with his design in
the principal chapel of mosaic of S. Paolo in Rome, with the
portrait of Giovanni Gaetano, Abbot of that monastery. And the
marble chapel, wherein is the Manger of Jesus Christ, was one of
the last pieces of sculpture in marble that Arnolfo ever made; and
he made it at the instance of Pandolfo Ippotecorvo, in the year
twelve (?), as an epitaph bears witness that is on the wall beside
the chapel; and likewise the chapel and tomb of Pope Boniface VIII,
in S. Pietro in Rome, whereon is carved the same name of Arnolfo,
who wrought it.]
Having discoursed, in the Preface to the Lives, of certain buildings in
a manner old but not ancient, and having been silent, for the reason
that I did not know them, about the names of the architects who had
charge of their construction, I will make mention, in the Preface to
this Life of Arnolfo, of certain other edifices built in his time or a
little before, whereof in like manner it is not known who were the
masters; and then of those that were built in the same times, whereof it
is known who were the architects, either because the manner of the
edifices themselves is recognized very well, or because we have had
information about them by means of the writings and memorials left by
them in the works that they made. Nor will this be outside our subject,
seeing that, although they are neither in a beautiful nor in a good
manner but only vast and magnificent, they are worthy none the less of
some consideration.
There were built, then, in the time of Lapo and of Arnolfo his son, many
edifices of importance both in Italy and abroad, whereof I have not been
able to find the architects, such as the Abbey of Monreale in Sicily,
the Piscopio of Naples, the Certosa of Pavia, the Duomo of Milan, S.
Pietro and S. Petronio in Bologna, and many others which are seen
throughout all Italy, built at incredible cost. Having seen all these
buildings for myself and studied them, and likewise many sculptures of
those times, particularly in Ravenna, and not having ever found, I do
not say any memorials of the masters, but even many times the date when
they were built, I cannot but marvel at the rudeness and little desire
for glory of the men of that age. But returning to our subject; after
the buildings named above, there began at last to arise men of a more
exalted spirit, who, if they did not find, sought at least to find
something of the good. The first was Buono, of whom I know neither the
country nor the surname, for the reason that in making record of himself
in some of his works he put nothing but simply his name. He, being both
sculptor and architect, first made many palaces and churches and some
sculptures in Ravenna, in the year of our salvation 1152; and having
become known by reason of these works, he was called to Naples, where he
founded (although they were finished by others, as will be told) the
Castel Capoano and the Castel dell' Uovo; and afterwards, in the time of
Domenico Morosini, Doge of Venice, he founded the Campanile of S. Marco
with much consideration and judgment, having caused the foundation of
that tower to be so well fixed with piles that it has never moved a
hair's-breadth, as many buildings constructed in that city before his
day have been seen and still are seen to have done. And from him,
perchance, the Venetians learnt to found, in the manner in which they do
it to-day, the very beautiful and very rich edifices that every day are
being built so magnificently in that most noble city. It is true,
indeed, that this tower has nothing else good in it, neither manner, nor
ornament, nor, in short, anything that might be worthy of much praise.
It was finished under Anastasius IV and Adrian IV, Pontiffs, in the year
1154. In architecture, likewise, Buono made the Church of S. Andrea in
Pistoia, and in sculpture he made an architrave of marble that is over
the door, full of figures made in the manner of the Goths, on which
architrave his name is carved, with the date when this work was made by
him, which was the year 1166. Next, being summoned to Florence, he gave
the design for enlarging, as was done, the Church of S. Maria Maggiore,
which was then without the city, and held in great veneration for the
reason that Pope Pelagius had consecrated it many years before, and
because, as to size and manner, it was a very fair body of a church.
Being then summoned by the Aretines to their city, Buono built the old
habitation of the Lords of Arezzo, namely, a palace in the manner of the
Goths, and beside it a bell-tower. This edifice, which for that manner
was good enough, was thrown to the ground, because it was opposite and
very near to the fortress of that city, in the year 1533. Afterwards,
the art making some little improvement through the works of one
Guglielmo, German (I believe) in origin, there were built certain
edifices of the greatest cost and in a slightly better manner; for this
Guglielmo, so it is said, in the year 1174, together with Bonanno, a
sculptor, founded in Pisa the Campanile of the Duomo, where there are
certain words carved that say: A.D. MCLXXIV, CAMPANILE HOC FUIT
FUNDATUM, MENSE AUG. But these two architects not having much practice
of founding in Pisa and therefore not supporting the platform with
piles, as they ought, before they had gone halfway with that building it
inclined to one side and bent over to the weakest part, in a manner that
the said campanile leans six and a half braccia[6] out of the straight,
according as the foundation sank on this side; and although in the lower
part this is not much, up above it shows clear enough to make men stand
fast in a marvel how it can be that it has not fallen down and has not
thrown out cracks. The reason is that this edifice is round both without
and within and built in the shape of a hollow well, and bound together
with the stones in a manner that it is well-nigh impossible that it
should fall; and it is assisted, above all, by the foundations, which
have an outwork three braccia wide outside the tower, made, as it is
seen, after the sinking of the campanile, in order to support it. I am
convinced that if it had been square it would not have been standing
to-day, for the reason that the corner-stones of the square sides, as is
often seen to happen, would have forced them out in a manner that it
would have fallen down. And if the Garisenda, a tower in Bologna,
although square, leans and does not fall, that comes to pass because it
is slender and does not lean so much, not being burdened by so great a
weight, by a great measure, as is this campanile, which is praised, not
because it has in it any design or beautiful manner, but simply for its
extravagance, it appearing impossible to anyone who sees it that it can
in any wise keep standing. And the same Bonanno, while the said
campanile was building, made, in the year 1180, the royal door of bronze
for the said Duomo of Pisa, wherein are seen these letters:
EGO BONANNUS PIS. MEA ARTE HANC PORTAM UNO ANNO PERFECI,
TEMPORE BENEDICTI OPERARII.
Next, from the walls that were made from ancient spoils at S. Giovanni
Laterano in Rome, under Lucius III and Urban III, Pontiffs, when the
Emperor Frederick was crowned by this Urban, it is seen that the art was
going on continually improving, because certain little temples and
chapels, built, as has been said, of spoils, have passing good design
and certain things in them worthy of consideration, and among others
this, that in order not to overburden the walls of these buildings the
vaulting was made of small tubes and with partitions of stucco,
praiseworthy enough for these times. And from the mouldings and other
parts it is seen that the craftsmen were going on striving in order to
find the good way.
Innocent III afterwards caused two palaces to be built on the Vatican
Hill, which were passing good, in so far as it has been possible to
discover; but since they were destroyed by other Popes, and in
particular by Nicholas V, who pulled down and rebuilt the greater part
of one palace, there will be nothing said of them but this, that a part
of them is to be seen in the great Round Tower and part in the old
sacristy of S. Pietro. This Innocent III, who ruled for nineteen years
and took much delight in building, made many edifices in Rome; and in
particular, with the design of Marchionne Aretino, both architect and
sculptor, the Conti Tower, so called from his own surname, seeing that
he was of that family. The same Marchionne, in the year when Innocent
III died, finished the building of the Pieve of Arezzo and likewise the
campanile, making in sculpture, for the facade of the said church, three
rows of columns one above the other, with great variety not only in the
fashion of the capitals and the bases but also in the shafts of the
columns, some among them being thick, some slender, some joined together
two by two, and others four by four. In like manner there are some
twined in the manner of vines, and some made in the shape of figures
acting as supports, with diverse carvings. He also made therein many
animals of diverse sorts that support on the middle of their backs the
weights of those columns, and all with the most strange and extravagant
inventions that can possibly be imagined, and not only wide of the good
order of the ancients but almost wide of all just and reasonable
proportion. But with all this, whosoever sets out well to consider the
whole sees that he went on striving to do well, and thought peradventure
to have found it in that method of working and in that whimsical
variety. The same man made in sculpture, on the arch that is over the
door of the said church, in barbaric manner, a God the Father with
certain angels, in half-relief and rather large; and in the arch he
carved the twelve months, placing his own name underneath in round
letters, as was the custom, and the date--namely, the year 1216. It is
said that Marchionne built in the Borgo Vecchio in Rome, for the same
Pope Innocent III, the ancient edifice of the Hospital and Church of S.
Spirito in Sassia, where there is still seen something of the old; and
the ancient church was still standing in our own day, when it was
rebuilt in modern fashion, with greater ornament and design, by Pope
Paul III of the house of Farnese.
And in S. Maria Maggiore, also in Rome, he built the marble chapel where
there is the Manger of Jesus Christ; here he portrayed from the life
Pope Honorius III, whose tomb, also, he made, with ornaments some little
better than and different enough from the manner that was then in
universal use throughout all Italy. About the same time Marchionne also
made the side door of S. Pietro in Bologna, which was truly for those
times a work of the greatest mastery, by reason of the many carvings
that are seen therein, such as lions in the round that sustain columns,
and men in the use of porters, and other animals that support weights;
and in the arch above he made the twelve months in full relief, with
various fancies, and for each month its celestial sign; which work must
have been held marvellous in those times.
[Illustration: RECLINING FEMALE FIGURE FROM A TOMB
(_After the_ School of Arnolfo di Lapo. _Florence: Collection Bardini_)]
About the same time there was founded the Order of the Friars Minor of
S. Francis, which was confirmed by the said Innocent III, Pontiff, in
the year 1206; and there came such growth, not only in Italy but in all
the other parts of the world, both to the devoutness and to the number
of the Friars, that there was scarce a city of account that did not
erect for them churches and convents of the greatest cost, each
according to its power. Wherefore, Frate Elia having erected, two years
before the death of S. Francis (while the Saint himself, as General, was
abroad preaching, and he, Prior in Assisi), a church with the title of
Our Lady, and S. Francis having died, and all Christendom flocking
together to visit the body of the Saint, who, in life and in death, had
been known as so much the friend of God, and every man making offering
to the holy place according to his power, it was ordained that the said
church begun by Frate Elia should be built much greater and more
magnificent. But there being a dearth of good architects, and the work
which was to be done having need of an excellent one, seeing that it had
to be built upon a very high hill at the foot of which there runs a
torrent called Tescio, there was brought to Assisi, after much
consideration, as the best of all that were then to be found, one
Maestro Jacopo Tedesco. He, having considered the site and grasped the
wishes of the fathers, who held thereunto a general Chapter in Assisi,
designed a very beautiful body of a church and convent, making in the
model three tiers, one to be made underground and the others for two
churches, one of which, on the lower level, should serve as a court,
with a fairly large portico round it, and the other for a church;
planning that from the first one should climb to the second by a most
convenient flight of steps, which should wind round the principal
chapel, opening out into two parts in order to lead more easily into the
second church, to which he gave the form of a [Symbol: T], making it
five times as long as it is broad and dividing one bay from another with
great piers of stone, on which he afterwards threw very bold arches,
with groined vaulting between one and another. From a model so made,
then, was built this truly very great edifice, and it was followed in
every part, save in the buttresses above that had to surround the apse
and the principal chapel, and in making the vaulting groined, because
they did not make it as has been said, but barrel-shaped, in order that
it might be stronger. Next, in front of the principal chapel of the
lower church, they placed the altar, and under that, when it was
finished, they laid, with most solemn translation, the body of S.
Francis. And because the true sepulchre which holds the body of the
glorious Saint is in the first--that is, in the lowest church--where no
one ever goes, and the doors are walled up, round the said altar there
are very large gratings of iron, with rich ornaments in marble and
mosaic, that look down therein. This building is flanked on one of the
sides by two sacristies, and by a very high campanile, namely, five
times as high as it is broad. It had on top a very high octagonal spire,
but this was removed because it threatened to fall. This whole work was
brought to a finish in the space of four years, and no more, by the
genius of Maestro Jacopo Tedesco and by the solicitude of Frate Elia,
after whose death, to the end that such a pile might never through any
lapse of time fall into ruin, there were built round the lower church
twelve very stout towers, and in each of these a spiral staircase that
climbs from the ground up to the summit. And in time, afterwards, there
were made therein many chapels and other very rich ornaments, whereof
there is no need to discourse further, since this is enough on this
subject for the present, and above all because everyone can see how much
of the useful, the ornamental, and the beautiful has been added to this
beginning of Maestro Jacopo's by many supreme Pontiffs, Cardinals,
Princes, and other people of importance throughout all Europe.
Now, to return to Maestro Jacopo; by means of this work he acquired so
great fame throughout all Italy that he was summoned by those who then
governed the city of Florence, and afterwards received with the greatest
possible friendliness; although, according to the use that the
Florentines have, and had still more in ancient times, of abbreviating
names, he was called not Jacopo but Lapo throughout all the course of
his life; for he dwelt ever with his whole family in that city. And
although he went at diverse times to erect many buildings throughout
Tuscany, such as the Palace of Poppi in the Casentino, for that Count
who had had for wife the beautiful Gualdrada, and for her dower, the
Casentino; and for the Aretines, the Vescovado,[7] and the Palazzo
Vecchio of the Lords of Pietramala; none the less his home was always in
Florence, where, having founded in the year 1218 the piers of the Ponte
alla Carraja, which was then called the Ponte Nuovo, he delivered them
finished in two years; and a little time afterwards the rest was
finished of wood, as was then the custom. And in the year 1221 he gave
the design for the Church of S. Salvadore del Vescovado, which was begun
under his direction, and that of S. Michele in Piazza Padella, where
there are certain sculptures in the manner of those times. Next, having
given the design for draining the waters of the city, having caused the
Piazza di S. Giovanni to be raised, having built, in the time of Messer
Rubaconte da Mandella, a Milanese, the bridge that retains the same
man's name, and having discovered that most useful method of paving
streets, which before were covered with bricks, he made the model of the
Palace, to-day of the Podesta, which was then built for the Anziani. And
finally, having sent the model of a tomb to Sicily, to the Abbey of
Monreale, for the Emperor Frederick and by order of Manfred, he died,
leaving Arnolfo, his son, heir no less to the talent than to the wealth
of his father.
This Arnolfo, from whose talent architecture gained no less betterment
than painting had gained from that of Cimabue, being born in the year
1232, was thirty years of age when his father died, and was held in very
great esteem, for the reason that, having not only learnt from his
father all that he knew, but having also given attention under Cimabue
to design in order to make use of it in sculpture, he was held by so
much the best architect in Tuscany, that not only did the Florentines
found the last circle of the walls of their city under his direction, in
the year 1284, and make after his design the Loggia and the piers of Or
San Michele, where the grain was sold, building them of bricks and with
a simple roof above, but by his counsel, in the same year when the
Poggio de' Magnuoli collapsed, on the brow of S. Giorgio above S. Lucia
in the Via de' Bardi, they determined by means of a public decree that
there should be no more building on the said spot, nor should any
edifice be ever made, seeing that by the sinking of the stones, which
have water trickling under them, there would be always danger in
whatsoever edifice might be made there. That this is true has been seen
in our own day from the ruin of many buildings and magnificent houses of
noblemen. In the next year, 1285, he founded the Loggia and Piazza de'
Priori, and built the principal chapel of the Badia of Florence, and the
two that are on either side of it, renovating the church and the choir,
which at first had been made much smaller by Count Ugo, founder of that
abbey; and for Cardinal Giovanni degli Orsini, Legate of the Pope in
Tuscany, he built the campanile of the said church, which, according to
the works of those times, was much praised, although it did not have its
completion of grey-stone until afterwards, in the year 1330.
After this there was founded with his design, in the year 1294, the
Church of S. Croce, where the Friars Minor have their seat. What with
the middle nave and the two lesser ones Arnolfo constructed this so
wide, that, being unable to make the vaulting below the roof by reason
of the too great space, he, with much judgment, caused arches to be made
from pier to pier, and upon these he placed the roofs on a slope,
building stone gutters over the said arches in order to carry away the
rain-water, and giving them so much fall as to make the roofs secure, as
they are, from the danger of rotting; which device was not only new and
ingenious then, but is equally useful and worthy of being considered
to-day. He then gave the design for the first cloisters of the old
convent of that church, and a little time after he caused to be removed
from round the Church of S. Giovanni, on the outer side, all the arches
and tombs of marble and grey-stone that were there, and had part of them
placed behind the campanile on the facade of the Canon's house, beside
the Company of S. Zanobi; and then he incrusted with black marble from
Prato all the eight outer walls of the said S. Giovanni, removing the
grey-stone that there had been before between these ancient marbles. The
Florentines, in the meanwhile, wishing to build walls in the Valdarno di
Sopra round Castello di San Giovanni and Castel Franco, for the
convenience of the city and of their victualling by means of the
markets, Arnolfo made the design for them in the year 1295, and
satisfied them in such a manner, as well in this as he had done in the
other works, that he was made citizen of Florence.
After these works, the Florentines determined, as Giovanni Villani
relates in his History, to build a principal church in their city, and
to build it such that in point of greatness and magnificence there could
be desired none larger or more beautiful from the industry and knowledge
of men; and Arnolfo made the design and the model of the never to be
sufficiently praised Church of S. Maria del Fiore, ordering that it
should be all incrusted, without, with polished marbles and with the so
many cornices, pilasters, columns, carved foliage, figures, and other
ornaments, with which to-day it is seen brought, if not to the whole, to
a great part at least of its perfection. And what was marvellous therein
above everything else was this, that incorporating, besides S. Reparata,
other small churches and houses that were round it, in making the site,
which is most beautiful, he showed so great diligence and judgment in
causing the foundations of so great a fabric to be made broad and deep,
filling them with good material--namely, with gravel and lime and with
great stones below--wherefore the square is still called "Lungo i
Fondamenti," that they have been very well able, as is to be seen
to-day, to support the weight of the great mass of the cupola which
Filippo di Ser Brunellesco raised over them. The laying of such
foundations for so great a church was celebrated with much solemnity,
for on the day of the Nativity of Our Lady, in 1298, the first stone was
laid by the Cardinal Legate of the Pope, in the presence not only of
many Bishops and of all the clergy, but of the Podesta as well, the
Captains, Priors, and other magistrates of the city, nay, of the whole
people of Florence, calling it S. Maria del Fiore. And because it was
estimated that the expenses of this fabric must be very great, as they
afterwards were, there was imposed a tax at the Chamber of the Commune
of four danari in the lira on everything that was put out at interest,
and two soldi per head per annum; not to mention that the Pope and the
Legate granted very great indulgences to those who should make them
offerings thereunto. I will not forbear to say, moreover, that besides
the foundations, very broad and fifteen braccia deep, much consideration
was shown in making those buttresses of masonry at every angle of the
eight sides, seeing that it was these afterwards that emboldened the
mind of Brunellesco to superimpose a much greater weight than that which
Arnolfo, perchance, had thought to impose thereon. It is said that while
the two first side-doors of S. Maria del Fiore were being begun in
marble Arnolfo caused some fig-leaves to be carved on a frieze, these
being the arms of himself and of Maestro Lapo, his father, and that
therefore it may be believed that from him the family of the Lapi had
its origin, to-day a noble family in Florence. Others say, likewise,
that from the descendants of Arnolfo there descended Filippo di Ser
Brunellesco. But leaving this, seeing that others believe that the Lapi
came from Ficaruolo, a township on the mouth of the Po, and returning to
our Arnolfo, I say that by reason of the greatness of this work he
deserves infinite praise and an eternal name, above all because he
caused it to be all incrusted, without, with marbles of many colours,
and within, with hard stone, and made even the smallest corners of that
same stone. But in order that everyone may know the exact size of this
marvellous fabric, I say that from the door up to the end of the Chapel
of S. Zanobi the length is 260 braccia, and the breadth across the
transepts 166; across the three naves it is 66 braccia. The middle nave
alone is 72 braccia in height; and the other two lesser naves, 48
braccia. The external circuit of the whole church is 1,280 braccia. The
cupola, from the ground up to the base of the lantern, is 154 braccia;
the lantern, without the ball, is 36 braccia in height; the ball, 4
braccia in height; the cross, 8 braccia in height. The whole cupola,
from the ground up to the summit of the cross, is 202 braccia.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
TOMB OF ADRIAN V
(_After the_ School of Arnolfo di Lapo. _Viterbo: Church of S.
Francesco_)]
But returning to Arnolfo, I say that being held, as he was, excellent,
he had acquired so great trust that nothing of importance was determined
without his counsel; wherefore, in the same year, the Commune of
Florence having finished the foundation of the last circle of the walls
of the city, even as it was said above that they were formerly begun,
and so too the towers of the gates, and all being in great part well
advanced, he made a beginning for the Palace of the Signori, designing
it in resemblance to that which his father Lapo had built in the
Casentino for the Counts of Poppi. But yet, however magnificent and
great he designed it, he could not give it that perfection which his art
and his judgment required, for the following reason: the houses of the
Uberti, Ghibellines and rebels against the people of Florence, had been
pulled down and thrown to the ground, and a square had been made on the
site, and the stupid obstinacy of certain men prevailed so greatly that
Arnolfo could not bring it about, through whatsoever arguments he might
urge thereunto, that it should be granted to him to put the Palace on a
square base, because the governors had refused that the Palace should
have its foundations in any way whatsoever on the ground of the rebel
Uberti. And they brought it about that the northern aisle of S. Pietro
Scheraggio should be thrown to the ground, rather than let him work in
the middle of the square with his own measurements; not to mention that
they insisted, moreover, that there should be united and incorporated
with the Palace the Tower of the Foraboschi, called the "Torre della
Vacca," in height fifty braccia, for the use of the great bell, and
together with it some houses bought by the Commune for this edifice. For
which reasons no one must marvel if the foundation of the Palace is awry
and out of the square, it having been necessary, in order to incorporate
the tower in the middle and to render it stronger, to bind it round with
the walls of the Palace; which walls, having been laid open in the year
1561 by Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect, were found excellent.
Arnolfo, then, having filled up the said tower with good material, it
was afterwards easy for other masters to make thereon the very high
campanile that is to be seen there to-day; for within the limits of two
years he finished only the Palace, which has subsequently received from
time to time those improvements which give it to-day that greatness and
majesty that are to be seen.
After all these works and many more that Arnolfo made, no less
convenient and useful than beautiful, he died at the age of seventy, in
1300, at the very time when Giovanni Villani began to write the
Universal History of his times. And because he not only left S. Maria
del Fiore founded, but its three principal tribunes, which are under the
cupola, vaulted, to his own great glory, he well deserved that there
should be made a memorial of him on the corner of the church opposite
the Campanile, with these verses carved in marble in round letters:
ANNIS . MILLENIS . CENTUM . BIS . OCTO . NOGENIS .
VENIT . LEGATUS . ROMA . BONITATE . DOTATUS .
QUI . LAPIDEM . FIXIT . FUNDO . SIMUL . ET . BENEDIXIT .
PRAESULE . FRANCISCO . GESTANTE . PONTIFICATUM .
ISTUD . AB . ARNOLFO . TEMPLUM . FUIT . AEDIFICATUM .
HOC . OPUS . INSIGNE . DECORANS . FLORENTIA . DIGNE .
REGINAE . C[OE]LI . CONSTRUXIT . MENTE . FIDELI .
QUAM . TU . VIRGO . PIA . SEMPER . DEFENDE . MARIA .
Of this Arnolfo we have written the Life, with the greatest brevity that
has been possible, for the reason that, although his works do not
approach by a great measure the perfection of the things of to-day, he
deserves, none the less, to be celebrated with loving memory, having
shown amid so great darkness, to those who lived after him, the way to
walk to perfection. The portrait of Arnolfo, by the hand of Giotto, is
to be seen in S. Croce, beside the principal chapel, at the beginning of
the story, where the friars are weeping for the death of S. Francis, in
one of two men that are talking together. And the picture of the Church
of S. Maria del Fiore--namely, of the outer side with the cupola--by the
hand of Simone Sanese, is to be seen in the Chapter-house of S. Maria
Novella, copied from the original in wood that Arnolfo made; wherein it
is noticeable that he had thought to raise the dome immediately over the
walls, at the edge of the first cornice, whereas Filippo di Ser
Brunellesco, in order to relieve them of weight and to make it more
graceful, added thereto, before he began to raise it, all that height
wherein to-day are the round windows; which circumstance would be even
clearer than it is, if the little care and diligence of those who have
directed the Works of S. Maria del Fiore in the years past had not left
the very model that Arnolfo made to go to ruin, and afterwards those of
Brunellesco and of the others.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: The braccio is a very variable standard of measurement. As
used by Vasari, it may be taken to denote about 23 inches.]
[Footnote 7: Vescovado includes both the Cathedral and the Episcopal
buildings of Arezzo. Vasari generally uses it to denote the Cathedral.]
NICCOLA AND GIOVANNI OF PISA
LIFE OF NICCOLA AND GIOVANNI OF PISA,
[_NICCOLA PISANO AND GIOVANNI PISANO_],
SCULPTORS AND ARCHITECTS
Having discoursed of design and of painting in the Life of Cimabue and
of architecture in that of Arnolfo di Lapo, in this one concerning
Niccola and Giovanni of Pisa we will treat of sculpture, and also of the
most important buildings that they made, for the reason that their works
in sculpture and in architecture truly deserve to be celebrated, not
only as being large and magnificent but also well enough conceived,
since both in working marble and in building they swept away in great
part that old Greek manner, rude and void of proportion, showing better
invention in their stories and giving better attitudes to their figures.
Niccola Pisano, then, chancing to be under certain Greek sculptors who
were working the figures and other carved ornaments of the Duomo of Pisa
and of the Church of S. Giovanni, and there being, among many marble
spoils brought by the fleet of the Pisans, certain ancient sarcophagi
that are to-day in the Campo Santo of that city, there was one of them,
most beautiful among them all, whereon there was carved the Chase of
Meleager after the Calydonian Boar, in very beautiful manner, seeing
that both the nude figures and the draped were wrought with much mastery
and with most perfect design. This sarcophagus was placed by the Pisans,
by reason of its beauty, in the side of the Duomo opposite S. Rocco,
beside the principal side-door, and it served for the body of the mother
of Countess Matilda, if indeed these words are true that are to be read
carved in the marble:
A.D. MCXVI. IX KAL. AUG. OBIIT D. MATILDA FELICIS MEMORIAE
COMITISSA, QUAE PRO ANIMA GENETRICIS SUAE DOMINAE BEATRICIS COMITISSAE
VENERABILIS, IN HAC TUMBA HONORABILI QUIESCENTIS, IN MULTIS
PARTIBUS MIRIFICE HANC DOTAVIT ECCLESIAM; QUARUM ANIMAE REQUIESCANT
IN PACE
And then:
A.D. MCCCIII. SUB DIGNISSIMO OPERARIO D. BURGUNDIO TADI, OCCASIONE
GRADUUM FIENDORUM PER IPSUM CIRCA ECCLESIAM, SUPRADICTA TUMBA
SUPERIUS NOTATA BIS TRANSLATA FUIT, TUNC DE SEDIBUS PRIMIS IN
ECCLESIAM, NUNC DE ECCLESIA IN HUNC LOCUM, UT CERNITIS,
EXCELLENTEM.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
THE PULPIT OF THE BAPTISTERY OF PISA
(_After_ Niccola Pisano. _Pisa_)]
Niccola, pondering over the beauty of this work and being greatly
pleased therewith, put so much study and diligence into imitating this
manner and some other good sculptures that were in these other ancient
sarcophagi, that he was judged, after no long time, the best sculptor of
his day; there being in Tuscany in those times, after Arnolfo, no other
sculptor of repute save Fuccio, an architect and sculptor of Florence,
who made S. Maria sopra Arno in Florence, in the year 1229, placing his
name there, over a door, and in the Church of S. Francesco in Assisi he
made the marble tomb of the Queen of Cyprus, with many figures, and in
particular a portrait of her sitting on a lion, in order to show the
strength of her soul; which Queen, after her death, left a great sum of
money to the end that this fabric might be finished. Niccola, then,
having made himself known as a much better master than was Fuccio, was
summoned to Bologna in the year 1225, after the death of S. Domenico
Calagora, first founder of the Order of Preaching Friars, in order to
make a marble tomb for the said Saint; wherefore, after agreement with
those who had the charge of it, he made it full of figures in that
manner wherein it is to be seen to-day, and delivered it finished in the
year 1231 with much credit to himself, for it was held something
remarkable, and the best of all the works that had been wrought in
sculpture up to that time. He made, likewise, the model of that church
and of a great part of the convent. Afterwards Niccola, returning to
Tuscany, found that Fuccio had departed from Florence and had gone to
Rome in those days when the Emperor Frederick was crowned by Honorius,
and from Rome with Frederick to Naples, where he finished the Castel di
Capoana, to-day called the Vicaria, wherein are all the tribunals of
that kingdom, and likewise the Castel dell' Uovo; and where he likewise
founded the towers he also made the gates over the River Volturno for
the city of Capua, and a park girt with walls, for fowling, near
Gravina, and another for sport in winter at Melfi; besides many other
things that are not related, for the sake of brevity. Niccola,
meanwhile, busying himself in Florence, was going on exercising himself
not only in sculpture but in architecture as well, by means of the
buildings that were going on being made with some little goodness of
design throughout all Italy, and in particular in Tuscany; wherefore he
occupied himself not a little with the building of the Abbey of Settimo,
which had not been finished by the executors of Count Ugo of
Brandenburg, like the other six, as was said above. And although it is
read in a marble epitaph on the campanile of the said abbey, GUGLIELM.
ME FECIT, it is known, nevertheless, by the manner, that it was directed
with the counsel of Niccola. About the same time he made the Palazzo
Vecchio of the Anziani in Pisa, pulled down in our day by Duke Cosimo,
in order to make the magnificent Palace and Convent of the Knights of S.
Stephen on the same spot, using some part of the old, from the design
and model of Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect of Arezzo, who has
accommodated himself to those old walls as well as he has been able in
fitting them into the new. Niccola made, likewise in Pisa, many other
palaces and churches, and he was the first, since the loss of the good
method of building, who made it the custom to found edifices in Pisa on
piers, and on these to raise arches, piles having first been sunk under
the said piers; because, with any other method, the solid base of the
foundation cracked and the walls always collapsed, whereas the sinking
of piles renders the edifice absolutely safe, even as experience shows.
With his design, also, was made the Church of S. Michele in Borgo for
the Monks of Camaldoli. But the most beautiful, the most ingenious, and
the most whimsical work of architecture that Niccola ever made was the
Campanile of S. Niccola in Pisa, where is the seat of the Friars of S.
Augustine, for the reason that it is octagonal on the outer side and
round within, with stairs that wind in a spiral and lead to the summit,
leaving the hollow space in the middle free, in the shape of a well, and
on every fourth step are columns that have the arches above them on a
slant and wind round and round; wherefore, the spring of the vaulting
resting on the said arches, one goes climbing to the summit in a manner
that he who is on the ground always sees all those who are climbing,
those who are climbing see those who are on the ground, and those who
are halfway up see both the first and the second--that is, those who are
above and those who are below. This fanciful invention, with better
method and more just proportions, and with more adornment, was
afterwards put into execution by the architect Bramante in the Belvedere
in Rome, for Pope Julius II, and by Antonio da San Gallo in the well
that is at Orvieto, by order of Pope Clement VII, as will be told when
the time comes.
But returning to Niccola, who was no less excellent as sculptor than as
architect; in the facade of the Church of S. Martino in Lucca, under the
portico that is above the lesser door, on the left as one enters into
the church, where there is seen a Christ Deposed from the Cross, he made
a marble scene in half-relief, all full of figures wrought with much
diligence, having hollowed out the marble and finished the whole in a
manner that gave hope to those who were previously working at the art
with very great difficulty, that there soon should come one who, with
more facility, would give them better assistance. The same Niccola, in
the year 1240, gave the design for the Church of S. Jacopo in Pistoia,
and put to work there in mosaic certain Tuscan masters who made the
vaulting of the choir-niche, which, although in those times it was held
as something difficult and of great cost, moves us to-day rather to
laughter and to compassion than to marvel, and all the more because such
confusion, which comes from lack of design, existed not only in Tuscany
but throughout all Italy, where many buildings and other works, that
were being wrought without method and without design, give us to know no
less the poverty of their talents than the unmeasured riches wasted by
the men of those times, by reason of their having had no masters who
might execute in a good manner any work that they might do.
Niccola, then, by means of the works that he was making in sculpture and
in architecture, was going on ever acquiring a greater name than the
sculptors and architects who were then working in Romagna, as can be
seen in S. Ippolito and S. Giovanni of Faenza, in the Duomo of Ravenna,
in S. Francesco, in the houses of the Traversari, and in the Church
of Porto; and at Rimini, in the fabric of the public buildings, in the
houses of the Malatesti, and in other buildings, which are all much
worse than the old edifices made about the same time in Tuscany. And
what has been said of Romagna can be also said with truth of a part of
Lombardy. A glance at the Duomo of Ferrara, and at the other buildings
made by the Marquis Azzo, will give us to know that this is the truth
and how different they are from the Santo of Padua, made with the model
of Niccola, and from the Church of the Friars Minor in Venice, both
magnificent and honoured buildings. Many, in the time of Niccola, moved
by laudable envy, applied themselves with more zeal to sculpture than
they had done before, and particularly in Milan, whither there assembled
for the building of the Duomo many Lombards and Germans, who afterwards
scattered throughout Italy by reason of the discords that arose between
the Milanese and the Emperor Frederick. And so these craftsmen,
beginning to compete among themselves both in marble and in building,
found some little of the good. The same came to pass in Florence after
the works of Arnolfo and Niccola had been seen; and the latter, while
the little Church of the Misericordia was being erected from his design
in the Piazza di S. Giovanni, made therein in marble, with his own hand,
a Madonna with S. Dominic and another Saint, one on either side of her,
which may still be seen on the outer facade of the said church.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
(_Detail, after_ Niccola Pisano, _from the Pulpit of the Baptistery,
Pisa_)]
The Florentines had begun, in the time of Niccola, to throw to the
ground many towers made formerly in barbaric manner throughout the whole
city, in order that the people might be less hurt by reason of these in
the brawls that were often taking place between the Guelphs and the
Ghibellines, or in order that there might be greater security for the
State, and it appeared to them that it would be very difficult to pull
down the Tower of Guardamorto, which was in the Piazza di S. Giovanni,
because the walls had been made so stoutly that they could not be pulled
to pieces with pickaxes, and all the more because it was very high.
Wherefore, Niccola causing the foot of the tower to be cut away on one
side and supporting it with wooden props a braccio and a half in length,
and then setting fire to them, as soon as the props were burnt away it
fell and was almost entirely shattered; which was held something so
ingenious and useful for such affairs that later it passed into use,
insomuch that, when there is need, any building is destroyed in very
little time with this most easy method. Niccola was present at the first
foundation of the Duomo of Siena, and designed the Church of S. Giovanni
in the same city; then, having returned to Florence in the same year
that the Guelphs returned, he designed the Church of S. Trinita, and the
Convent of the Nuns of Faenza, destroyed in our day in order to make the
citadel. Being next summoned to Naples, in order not to desert the work
in Tuscany he sent thither Maglione, his pupil, a sculptor and
architect, who afterwards made, in the time of Conradin, the Church of
S. Lorenzo in Naples, finished part of the Piscopio, and made there
certain tombs, wherein he imitated closely the manner of Niccola, his
master.
Niccola, meanwhile, being summoned by the people of Volterra, in the
year 1254 (when they came under the power of the Florentines), in order
that their Duomo, which was small, might be enlarged, he brought it to
better form, although it was very irregular, and made it more
magnificent than it was before. Then, having returned finally to Pisa,
he made the pulpit of S. Giovanni, in marble, putting therein all
diligence in order to leave a memorial of himself to his country; and
among other things, carving in it the Universal Judgment, he made
therein many figures, if not with perfect design, at least with infinite
patience and diligence, as can be seen. And because it appeared to him,
as was true, that he had done a work worthy of praise, he carved at the
foot of it these verses:
ANNO MILLENO BIS CENTUM BISQUE TRIDENO
HOC OPUS INSIGNE SCULPSIT NICOLA PISANUS.
The people of Siena, moved by the fame of this work, which greatly
pleased not only the Pisans but everyone who saw it, gave to Niccola the
making of the pulpit of their Duomo, in which there is sung the Gospel;
Guglielmo Mariscotti being Praetor. In this Niccola made many stories of
Jesus Christ, with much credit to himself, by reason of the figures that
are there wrought and with great difficulty almost wholly detached
from the marble. Niccola likewise made the design of the Church and
Convent of S. Domenico in Arezzo for the Lords of Pietramala, who
erected it. And at the entreaty of Bishop Ubertini he restored the Pieve
of Cortona, and founded the Church of S. Margherita for the Friars of S.
Francis, on the highest point of that city.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
THE VISITATION AND THE NATIVITY
(_Detail, after_ Niccola Pisano, _from the Pulpit of the Baptistery,
Siena_)]
Wherefore, the fame of Niccola ever growing greater by reason of so
great works, he was summoned in the year 1267, by Pope Clement IV, to
Viterbo, where, besides many other works, he restored the Church and
Convent of the Preaching Friars. From Viterbo he went to Naples to King
Charles I, who, having routed and slain Conradin on the plain of
Tagliacozzo, caused to be made on that spot a very rich church and
abbey, burying therein the infinite number of bodies slain on that day,
and ordaining afterwards that there should be prayers offered by many
monks, day and night, for their souls; in which building King Charles
was so well pleased with the work of Niccola that he honoured and
rewarded him very greatly. Returning from Naples to Tuscany, Niccola
stayed in Orvieto for the building of S. Maria, and working there in
company with some Germans, he made in marble, for the facade of that
church, certain figures in the round, and in particular two scenes of
the Universal Judgment containing Paradise and Hell; and even as he
strove, in the Paradise, to give the greatest beauty that he knew to the
souls of the blessed, restored to their bodies, so too in the Hell he
made the strangest forms of devils that can possibly be seen, most
intent on tormenting the souls of the damned; and in this work he
surpassed not merely the Germans who were working there but even his own
self, to his own great credit. And for the reason that he made therein a
great number of figures and endured much fatigue, it has been nothing
but praised up to our own times by those who have had no more judgment
than this much in sculpture.
Niccola had, among others, a son called Giovanni, who, because he ever
followed his father and applied himself under his teaching to sculpture
and to architecture, in a few years became not only equal to his father
but in some ways superior; wherefore Niccola, being now old, retired to
Pisa, and living there quietly left the management of everything to his
son. Pope Urban IV having died at that time in Perugia, a summons was
sent to Giovanni, who, having gone there, made a tomb of marble for that
Pontiff, which, together with that of Pope Martin IV, was afterwards
thrown to the ground when the people of Perugia enlarged their
Vescovado, in a manner that there are seen only a few relics of it
scattered throughout the church. And the people of Perugia, at the same
time, having brought a very great body of water through leaden pipes
from the hill of Pacciano, two miles distant from the city, by means of
the genius and industry of a friar of the Silvestrines, it was given to
Giovanni Pisano to make all the ornaments of the fountain, both in
bronze and in marble; wherefore he put his hand thereto and made three
tiers of basins, two of marble and one of bronze. The first is placed
above twelve rows of steps, each with twelve sides; the other on some
columns that stand on the lowest level of the first basin--that is, in
the middle; and the third, which is of bronze, rests on three figures,
and has in the middle certain griffins, also of bronze, that pour water
on every side; and because it appeared to Giovanni that he had done very
well in this work, he put on it his name. About the year 1560, the
arches and the conduits of this fountain (which cost 160,000 ducats of
gold) having become in great part spoilt and ruined, Vincenzio Danti, a
sculptor of Perugia, without rebuilding the arches, which would have
been a thing of the greatest cost, very ingeniously reconducted the
water to the fountain in the way that it was before, with no small
credit to himself.
This work finished, Giovanni, desiring to see again his old and ailing
father, departed from Perugia in order to return to Pisa; but, passing
through Florence, he was forced to stay, to the end that he might apply
himself, together with others, to the work of the Mills on the Arno,
which were being made at S. Gregorio near the Piazza de' Mozzi. But
finally, having had news that his father Niccola was dead, he went to
Pisa, where, by reason of his worth, he was received by the whole city
with great honour, every man rejoicing that after the loss of Niccola
there still remained Giovanni, as heir both of his talents and of his
wealth. And the occasion having come of making proof of him, their
opinion was in no way disappointed, because, there being certain things
to do in the small but most ornate Church of S. Maria della Spina, they
were given to Giovanni to do, and he, putting his hand thereunto, with
the help of some of his boys brought many ornaments in that oratory to
that perfection that is seen to-day; which work, in so far as we can
judge, must have been held miraculous in those times, and all the more
that he made in one figure the portrait of Niccola from nature, as best
he knew.
Seeing this, the Pisans, who long before had had the idea and the wish
to make a place of burial for all the inhabitants of the city, both
noble and plebeian, either in order not to fill the Duomo with graves or
for some other reason, caused Giovanni to make the edifice of the Campo
Santo, which is on the Piazza del Duomo, towards the walls; wherefore
he, with good design and with much judgment, made it in that manner and
with those ornaments of marble and of that size which are to be seen;
and because there was no consideration of expense, the roof was made of
lead. And outside the principal door there are seen these words carved
in marble:
A.D. MCCLXXVIII. TEMPORE DOMINI FREDERIGI ARCHIEPISCOPI PISANI, ET
DOMINI TARLATI POTESTATIS, OPERARIO ORLANDO SARDELLA, JOHANNE
MAGISTRO AEDIFICANTE.
This work finished, in the same year, 1283, Giovanni went to Naples,
where, for King Charles, he made the Castel Nuovo of Naples; and in
order to have room and to make it stronger, he was forced to pull down
many houses and churches, and in particular a convent of Friars of S.
Francis, which was afterwards rebuilt no little larger and more
magnificent than it was before, far from the castle and under the title
of S. Maria della Nuova. These buildings being begun and considerably
advanced, Giovanni departed from Naples, in order to return to Tuscany;
but arriving at Siena, without being allowed to go on farther he was
caused to make the model of the facade of the Duomo of that city, and
afterwards the said facade was made very rich and magnificent from this
model. Next, in the year 1286, when the Vescovado of Arezzo was
building with the design of Margaritone, architect of Arezzo, Giovanni
was brought from Siena to Arezzo by Guglielmino Ubertini, Bishop of that
city, where he made in marble the panel of the high-altar, all filled
with carvings of figures, of foliage, and other ornaments, distributing
throughout the whole work certain things in delicate mosaic, and enamels
laid on plates of silver, let into the marble with much diligence. In
the middle is a Madonna with the Child in her arms, and on one side S.
Gregory the Pope, whose face is the portrait from life of Pope Honorius
IV; and on the other side is S. Donatus, Bishop and Protector of that
city, whose body, with those of S. Antilla and of other Saints, is laid
under that same altar. And because the said altar stands out by itself,
round it and on the sides there are small scenes in low-relief from the
life of S. Donatus, and the crown of the whole work are certain
tabernacles full of marble figures in the round, wrought with much
subtlety. On the breast of the said Madonna is a bezel-shaped setting of
gold, wherein, so it is said, were jewels of much value, which have been
carried away in the wars, so it is thought, by soldiers, who have no
respect, very often, even for the most holy Sacrament, together with
some little figures in the round that were on the top of and around that
work; on which the Aretines spent altogether, according to what is found
in certain records, 30,000 florins of gold. Nor does this seem anything
great, seeing that at that time it was something as precious and rare as
it could well be; wherefore Frederick Barbarossa, returning from Rome,
where he had been crowned, and passing through Arezzo, many years after
it had been made, praised it, nay, admired it infinitely; and in truth
with great reason, seeing that, besides everything else, the joinings of
this work, made of innumerable pieces, are cemented and put together so
well that the whole work is easily judged, by anyone who has not much
practice in the matters of the art, to be all of one piece. In the same
church Giovanni made the Chapel of the Ubertini, a most noble family,
and lords of castles, as they still are to-day and were formerly even
more; with many ornaments of marble, which to-day have been covered over
with other ornaments of grey-stone, many and fine, which were set up in
that place with the design of Giorgio Vasari in the year 1535, for
the supporting of an organ of extraordinary excellence and beauty that
stands thereon.
[Illustration: _Lombardi_
A SYBIL
(_Detail, after_ Giovanni Pisano, _from the facade of the Duomo,
Siena_)]
Giovanni Pisano likewise made the design of the Church of S. Maria de'
Servi, which to-day has been destroyed, together with many palaces of
the most noble families of the city, for the reasons mentioned above. I
will not forbear to say that Giovanni made use, in working on the said
marble altar, of certain Germans who had apprenticed themselves to him
rather for learning than for gain; and under his teaching they became
such that, having gone after this work to Rome, they served Boniface
VIII in many works of sculpture for S. Pietro, and in architecture when
he made Civita Castellana. Besides this, they were sent by the same man
to S. Maria in Orvieto, where, for its facade, they made many figures in
marble which were passing good for those times. But among others who
assisted Giovanni in the work of the Vescovado in Arezzo, Agostino and
Agnolo, sculptors and architects of Siena, surpassed in time all the
others, as will be told in the proper place. But returning to Giovanni;
having departed from Orvieto, he came to Florence, in order to see the
fabric of S. Maria del Fiore that Arnolfo was making, and likewise to
see Giotto, of whom he had heard great things spoken abroad; and no
sooner had he arrived in Florence than he was charged by the Wardens of
the said fabric of S. Maria del Fiore to make the Madonna which is over
that door of the church that leads to the Canon's house, between two
little angels; which work was then much praised. Next, he made the
little baptismal font of S. Giovanni, wherein are certain scenes in
half-relief from the life of that Saint. Having then gone to Bologna, he
directed the building of the principal chapel of the Church of S.
Domenico, wherein he was charged by Bishop Teodorigo Borgognoni of
Lucca, a friar of that Order, to make an altar of marble; and in the
same place he afterwards made, in the year 1298, the marble panel
wherein are the Madonna and eight other figures, reasonably good.
In the year 1300, Niccola da Prato, Cardinal Legate of the Pope, being
in Florence in order to accommodate the dissensions of the Florentines,
caused him to make a convent for nuns in Prato, which is called S.
Niccola from his name, and to restore in the same territory the Convent
of S. Domenico, and so too that of Pistoia; in both the one and the
other of which there are still seen the arms of the said Cardinal. And
because the people of Pistoia held in veneration the name of Niccola,
father of Giovanni, by reason of that which he had wrought in that city
with his talent, they caused Giovanni himself to make a pulpit of marble
for the Church of S. Andrea, like to the one which he had made in the
Duomo of Siena; and this he did in order to compete with one which had
been made a little before in the Church of S. Giovanni Evangelista by a
German, who was therefore much praised. Giovanni, then, delivered his
finished in four years, having divided this work into five scenes from
the life of Jesus Christ, and having made therein, besides this, a
Universal Judgment, with the greatest diligence that he knew, in order
to equal or perchance to surpass the one of Orvieto, then so greatly
renowned. And round the said pulpit, on the architrave, over some
columns that support it, thinking (as was the truth, according to the
knowledge of that age) that he had done a great and beautiful work, he
carved these verses:
HOC OPUS SCULPSIT JOANNES, QUI RES NON EGIT INANES,
NICOLI NATUS ...... MELIORA BEATUS,
QUEM GENUIT PISA, DOCTUM SUPER OMNIA VISA.
At the same time Giovanni made the holy-water font, in marble, of the
Church of S. Giovanni Evangelista in the same city, with three figures
that support it--Temperance, Prudence, and Justice; which work, by
reason of its having then been held very beautiful, was placed in the
centre of that church as something remarkable. And before he departed
from Pistoia, although the work had not up to then been begun, he made
the model of the Campanile of S. Jacopo, the principal church of that
city; on which campanile, which is on the square of the said S. Jacopo
and beside the church, there is this date: A.D. 1301.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS
(_Detail, after_ Giovanni Pisano, _from the Pulpit of the Church of S.
Andrea, Pistoia_)]
Afterwards, Pope Benedict IX having died in Perugia, a summons was sent
to Giovanni, who, having gone to Perugia, made a tomb of marble for that
Pontiff in the old Church of S. Domenico, belonging to the Preaching
Friars; the Pope, portrayed from nature and robed in his pontifical
habits, is lying at full length on the bier, with two angels, one on
either side, that are holding up a curtain, and above there is a Madonna
with two saints in relief, one on either side of her; and many other
ornaments are carved round that tomb. In like manner, in the new church
of the said Preaching Friars he made the tomb of Messer Niccolo
Guidalotti of Perugia, Bishop of Recanati, who was founder of the
Sapienza Nuova of Perugia. In this new church, which had been founded
before this by others, he executed the central nave, which was founded
by him with much better method than the remainder of the church had
been; for on one side it leans and threatens to fall down, by reason of
having been badly founded. And in truth, he who puts his hand to
building and to doing anything of importance should ever take counsel,
not from him who knows little but from the best, in order not to have to
repent after the act, with loss and shame, that where he most needed
good counsel he took the bad.
Giovanni, having dispatched his business in Perugia, wished to go to
Rome, in order to learn from those few ancient things that were to be
seen there, even as his father had done; but being hindered by good
reasons, this his desire did not take effect, and the rather as he heard
that the Court had just gone to Avignon. Returning, then, to Pisa, Nello
di Giovanni Falconi, Warden, caused him to make the great pulpit of the
Duomo, which is on the right hand going towards the high-altar, attached
to the choir; and having made a beginning with this and with many
figures in the round, three braccia high, that were to serve for it,
little by little he brought them to that form that is seen to-day,
placing the pulpit partly on the said figures and partly on some columns
sustained by lions; and on the sides he made some scenes from the life
of Christ. It is a pity, truly, that so great cost, so great diligence,
and so great labour should not have been accompanied by good design and
should be wanting in perfection and in excellence of invention, grace,
and manner, such as any work of our own times would show, even if made
with much less cost and labour. None the less, it must have caused no
small marvel to the men of those times, used to seeing only the rudest
works. This work was finished in the year 1320, as appears in certain
verses that are round the said pulpit, which run thus:
LAUDO DEUM VERUM, PER QUEM SUNT OPTIMA RERUM,
QUI DEDIT HAS PURAS HOMINEM FORMARE FIGURAS;
HOC OPUS HIS ANNIS DOMINI SCULPSERE JOHANNIS
ARTE MANUS SOLE QUONDAM, NATIQUE NICOLE,
CURSIS VENTENIS TERCENTUM MILLEQUE PLENIS;
with other thirteen verses, which are not written, in order not to weary
the reader, and because these are enough not only to bear witness that
the said pulpit is by the hand of Giovanni, but also that the men of
these times were in all things made thus. A Madonna of marble, also,
that is seen between S. John the Baptist and another Saint, over the
principal door of the Duomo, is by the hand of Giovanni; and he who is
at the feet of the Madonna, on his knees, is said to be Piero
Gambacorti, Warden of Works. However this may be, on the base whereon
stands the image of Our Lady there are carved these words:
SUB PETRI CURA HAEC PIA FUIT SCULPTA FIGURA,
NICOLI NATO SCULPTORE JOHANNE VOCATO.
In like manner, over the side door that is opposite the campanile, there
is a Madonna of marble by the hand of Giovanni, having on one side a
woman kneeling with two babies, representing Pisa, and on the other the
Emperor Henry. On the base whereon stands the Madonna are these words:
AVE GRATIA PLENA, DOMINUS TECUM;
and beside them:
NOBILIS ARTE MANUS SCULPSIT JOHANNES PISANUS
SCULPSIT SUB BURGUNDIO TADI BENIGNO....
And round the base of Pisa:
VIRGINIS ANCILLA SUM PISA QUIETA SUB ILLA.
And round the base of Henry:
IMPERAT HENRICUS QUI CHRISTO FERTUR AMICUS.
[Illustration: _Alinari_
MADONNA AND CHILD
(_After_ Giovanni Pisano. _Padua: Arena Chapel_)]
In the old Pieve of the territory of Prato, under the altar of the
principal chapel, there had been kept for many years the Girdle of Our
Lady, which Michele da Prato, returning from the Holy Land, had brought
to his country in the year 1141 and consigned to Uberto, Provost of that
church, who placed it where it has been said, and where it had been ever
held in great veneration; and in the year 1312 an attempt was made to
steal it by a man of Prato, a fellow of the basest sort, and as it were,
another Ser Ciappelletto; but having been discovered, he was put to
death for sacrilege by the hand of justice. Moved by this, the people of
Prato determined to make a strong and suitable resting-place, in order
to hold the said Girdle more securely; wherefore, having summoned
Giovanni, who was now old, they made with his counsel, in the greater
church, the chapel wherein there is now preserved the said Girdle of Our
Lady. And next, with the same man's design, they made the said church
much larger than it was before, and encrusted it without with white and
black marbles, and likewise the campanile, as may be seen. Finally,
being now very old, Giovanni died in the year 1320, after having made,
besides those that have been mentioned, many other works in sculpture
and in architecture. And in truth there is much owed to him and to his
father Niccola, seeing that, in times void of all goodness of design,
they gave in so great darkness no small light to the matters of these
arts, wherein they were, for that age, truly excellent. Giovanni was
buried in the Campo Santo, with great honour, in the same grave wherein
had been laid Niccola, his father. There were as disciples of Giovanni
many who flourished after him, but in particular Lino, sculptor and
architect of Siena, who made in the Duomo of Pisa the chapel all adorned
with marble wherein is the body of S. Ranieri, and likewise the
baptismal font that is in the said Duomo, with his name.
Nor let anyone marvel that Niccola and Giovanni did so many works,
because, not to mention that they lived very long, being the first
masters that were in Europe at that time, there was nothing done of any
importance in which they did not have a hand, as can be seen in many
inscriptions besides those that have been mentioned. And seeing that,
while touching on these two sculptors and architects, there has been
something said of matters in Pisa, I will not forbear to say that on the
top of the steps in front of the new hospital, round the base that
supports a lion and the vase that rests on the porphyry column, are
these words:
THIS IS THE MEASURE WHICH THE EMPEROR CAESAR GAVE TO PISA,
WHEREWITH THERE WAS MEASURED THE TRIBUTE THAT WAS PAID TO HIM;
WHICH HAS BEEN SET UP OVER THIS COLUMN AND LION, IN THE TIME OF
GIOVANNI ROSSO, WARDEN OF THE WORKS OF S. MARIA MAGGIORE IN PISA,
A.D. MCCCXIII., IN THE SECOND INDICTION, IN MARCH.
ANDREA TAFI
LIFE OF ANDREA TAFI,
PAINTER OF FLORENCE
Even as the works of Cimabue awakened no small marvel (he having given
better design and form to the art of painting) in the men of those
times, used to seeing nothing save works done after the Greek manner,
even so the works in mosaic of Andrea Tafi, who lived in the same times,
were admired, and he thereby held excellent, nay, divine; these people
not thinking, being unused to see anything else, that better work could
be done in such an art. But not being in truth the most able man in the
world, and having considered that mosaic, by reason of its long life,
was held in estimation more than all the other forms of painting, he
went from Florence to Venice, where some Greek painters were working in
S. Marco in mosaic; and becoming intimate with them, with entreaties,
with money, and with promises he contrived in such a manner that he
brought to Florence Maestro Apollonio, a Greek painter, who taught him
to fuse the glass for mosaic and to make the cement for putting it
together; and in his company he wrought the upper part of the tribune of
S. Giovanni, where there are the Powers, the Thrones, and the Dominions;
in which place Andrea, when more practised, afterwards made, as will be
said below, the Christ that is over the side of the principal chapel.
But having made mention of S. Giovanni, I will not pass by in silence
that this ancient temple is all wrought, both without and within, with
marbles of the Corinthian Order, and that it is not only designed and
executed perfectly in all its parts and with all its proportions, but
also very well adorned with doors and with windows, and enriched with
two columns of granite on each wall-face, each eleven braccia high, in
order to make the three spaces over which are the architraves, that rest
on the said columns in order to support the whole mass of the double
vaulted roof, which has been praised by modern architects as something
remarkable, and deservedly, for the reason that it showed the good which
that art already had in itself to Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, to
Donatello, and to the other masters of those times, who learnt the art
by means of this work and of the Church of S. Apostolo in Florence, a
work so good in manner that it casts back to the true ancient goodness,
having all the columns in sections, as it has been said above, measured
and put together with so great diligence that much can be learnt by
studying it in all its parts. But to be silent about many things that
could be said about the good architecture of this church, I will say
only that there was a great departure from this example and from this
good method of working when the facade of S. Miniato sul Monte without
Florence was rebuilt in marble, in honour of the conversion of the
Blessed S. Giovanni Gualberto, citizen of Florence and founder of the
Order of the Monks of Vallombrosa; because that and many other works
that were made later were in no way similar in beauty to those
mentioned. The same, in like manner, came to pass in the works of
sculpture, for all those that were made in Italy by the masters of that
age, as has been said in the Preface to the Lives, were very rude, as
can be seen in many places, and in particular in S. Bartolommeo at
Pistoia, a church of the Canons Regular, where, in a pulpit very rudely
made by Guido da Como, there is the beginning of the life of Jesus
Christ, with these words carved thereon by the craftsman himself in the
year 1199:
SCULPTOR LAUDATUR, QUOD DOCTUS IN ARTE PROBATUR,
GUIDO DE COMO ME CUNCTIS CARMINE PROMO.
But to return to the Church of S. Giovanni; forbearing to relate its
origin, by reason of its having been described by Giovanni Villani and
by other writers, and having already said that from this church there
came the good architecture that is to-day in use, I will add that the
tribune was made later, so far as it is known, and that at the time when
Alesso Baldovinetti, succeeding Lippo, a painter of Florence, restored
those mosaics, it was seen that it had been in the past painted with
designs in red, and all worked on stucco.
Andrea Tafi and Apollonio the Greek, then
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