It is probable that the dissolution of partnership marked the time of Fra Bartolommeo's visit to Rome. Fra Mariano Fetti, once a lay brother of S. Marco, who had gone over to the Medici after Savonarola's death, and had kept so much in favour with Pope Leo X. as to obtain the office of the Seals (del Piombo), [Footnote: An office for appending seals to papal documents. Fra Mariano Fetti was elected to it in 1514, after Bramante, the architect; Sebastiano del Piombo succeeded him.] was pleased to be considered a patron of art; and welcoming Fra Bartolommeo to Rome, he gave him a commission for two large figures of S. Peter and S. Paul for his church of S. Silvestro. The cartoons of these pictures are now in the Belle Arti of Florence; they are grand and majestic figures, admirably draped. S. Peter holds his keys and a book; S. Paul rests on his sword. In executing them in colour, he made some improvements, especially in the head and hand of S. Peter, but he did not remain long enough in Rome to finish them. "The colour of the first (S. Peter) is reddish and rather opaque, the shadows of the head being taken up afresh, and the extremities being by another painter. The head of the second (S. Paul) is corrected ... but the tone is transparent, and the execution exclusively that of Fra Bartolommeo. Whoever may have been employed on the S. Peter, we do not fancy Raphael to have been that person." This is the opinion of Crowe and Cavalcaselle, [Footnote:History of Painting, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 460.] who, however, seem to have little faith in any works of the Frate at Rome. Against this we have the chronicles of quaint old Vasari and Rosini; besides Baldinucci (ch. iv. p. 83), who says, "Raphael gave great testimony of his esteem when, in after years, he employed his own brush in Rome to finish a work begun by Fra Bartolommeo in that city and left imperfect."
His reason for leaving it imperfect was that of ill-health, the air of Rome not agreeing with him. It seems he brought homemalaria, which never entirely left his system, the low fever returning every year, and being only mitigated by a change to mountain air. He was well enough at times to resume painting, but never in full health again. That very summer he was sent to the Hospice of Sta. Maria Maddalena in Pian di Mugnone, "dove pure non stette in ozio," [Footnote: Rosini,Storia della Pittura, chap, xxvii. p. 245.] where he did not remain idle. The Hospice stands on a high hill, just the place for Roman fever to disappear as if by magic for a time, and the patient, relieved of his lassitude, set to work with energy, aided by Fra Paolino and Fra Agostino. Many of his frescoes still remain, one of which is a beautifulMadonna, on the wall of the infirmary, which has since been sawn away from the wall and placed in the students' chapel in San Marco, Florence. [Footnote: A document of the Hospice records these paintings, and dates them 10th of July, 1514. Padre Marchese,Memorie, &c., vol. ii. p. 610.]
He returned to Florence for the winter, and with renewed vigour produced hisSan Sebastian, a splendid study from the nude, which shows the influence upon him of Michelangelo's paintings in Rome. The picture was hung in San Marco, but its influence not proving elevating to the sensuous minds of the Florentines, it was removed to the chapter-house, and Gio Battista della Palla, the dealer who bought so many of the best pictures of the time, purchased it to send to the King of France. Its subsequent fate is not known, although Monsieur Alaffre, of Toulouse, boasts of its possession. He says his father bought three paintings which, in the time of the Revolution, had been taken from the chapel of a royal villa near Paris [Footnote: Padre Marchese,Memorie, &c., vol. ii. note p. 119.], one of which is theS. Sebastian. In design and attitude it corresponds to the one described by Vasari, the saint being in a niche, surrounded by a double cornice. The left arm is bound; the right, with its cord hanging, is upraised in attitude of the faith, so fully expressed in the beautiful face. Three arrows are fixed in the body, which is nude except a slight veil across the loins; an angel, also nude, holds the palm to him. Connoisseurs do not think this painting equal in merit to the other works of Fra Bartolommeo. It is true it may have been overrated at the time, for the Frate's chief excellence lay in the grandeur of his drapery; the test of authenticity for a nude study from him would lie more in the colouring and handling than in form.
In the early part of 1515 Fra Bartolommeo went to pay his old friend Santi Pagnini, the Oriental scholar, a visit at the convent of San Romano, in Lucca, of which he was now prior, passing by Pistoja on February 17th to sign a contract for an altar-piece to be placed in the church of San Domenico—a commission from Messer Jacopo Panciatichi. The price was fixed at 100 gold ducats, and the subject to be the Madonna and Child, with SS. Paul, John Baptist, and Sebastian. On his arrival at Lucca he was soon busy with his great work, theMadonna della Misericordia, for the church of San Romano. The composition of this is full and harmonious. A populace of all ages and conditions, grouped around the throne of the Madonna, beg her prayers; she, standing up, seems to gather all their supplications in her hands and offer them up to heaven, from which, as a vision, Christ appears from a mass of clouds in act of benediction. Amongst the crowd of supplicants are some exquisite groups. Sublime inspiration and powerful expression are shown in the whole work. On his return he stayed again at Pistoja, where he painted a fresco of aMadonnaon a wall of the convent of San Domenico; this, which has since been sawn from the wall, is at present in the church of the same convent, and though much injured, is a very light and tender bit of colouring and expression. It would seem that the altar-piece for the same church, spoken of above, was never finished, as no traces of it are to be found.
In October, 1515, we again find him at Pian di Mugnone; no doubt the summer heats had induced a return of his fever. Here, again improving in health, he painted a charmingAnnunciationin fresco, full of life and eagerness on the part of the angel, and joy on the Virgin. He did not remain long, for before the end of the autumn he returned to visit the home of his youth and see his paternal uncle, Giusto, at Lastruccio, near Prato. We can imagine the meeting between him and his relatives, and how the little Paolo, son of Vito, being told to guess who he was, said, "Bis Zio Bartolommeo," [Footnote: Padre Marchese,Memorie, &c., vol. ii. chap. vii. pp. 139, 140.] for which he was much applauded. And when all the country relatives hoped to see him again soon, how the Frate said that would be uncertain, because the King of France had sent for him, and with what awe and family pride they would have looked at him! But instead of going to France for the glory of art, he was returning to Florence to sorrow. His life-long friend, Mariotto Albertinelli, had been brought home on a litter from La Quercia, near Viterbo, and now lay on his death-bed; and what his life had lacked in religion, the prayers of his friend would go far to atone for at his death.
While Fra Bartolommeo had been ailing, Albertinelli had also paid his visit to the great city, and seen the two great rivals there. He went from Viterbo, where he had been to finish colouring a work of the Frate's left unfinished, and also to paint some frescoes in the convent of La Quercia, near that town. Being so near Borne, he was seized with a great desire to see it, and left his picture for that purpose. Probably Fra Bartolommeo had given him an introduction to his friend and patron, for Fra Mariano Fetti gave Albertinelli a commission to paint aMarriage of S. Catherinefor his church, which he completed, and then left Rome at once. Nothing is known of the impressions made on him by the works of the two great masters, and unfortunately his death occurred too soon after for his own style to have given any evidence of their influence.
A Giostra, at Viterbo, proved a very strong attraction to his pleasure-loving mind. This "Giostra," which the translators of Vasari seem to find so "obscure," [Footnote: Vasari'sLives, vol. ii. p. 470.] was no doubt one of those festivals revived by the Medici, in which mounted cavaliers ride with a lance at a suspended Saracen's head, striking it at full gallop. Desirous of appearing to advantage before the eyes of her whom he had elected his queen, he forgot his mature age, and rushed into the jousts with all the energies of a youth, but alas! fell ill from over-exertion. Fearing the malarious air was not good for him, he had a litter made, and was taken to Florence, where Fra Bartolommeo placed himself at his bedside, soothing his last moments, and leading him as far heavenward as he could. When Albertinelli died, on the 5th of November, 1515, his friend followed him to an honourable interment in S. Piero Maggiore.
After Albertinelli's death, the Frate soared to greater heights of genius than before.
The year 1516 marks the birth of his grandest masterpieces, first the picture in the Pitti Palace called by Cavalcaselle aResurrection, but which is more truly an allegorical impersonation of the Saviour. It was ordered by a rich merchant, Salvadore Billi, to place in a chapel which Pietro Roselli had adorned with marbles in the church of the "Annunciata." He paid 100 ducats in gold for it.
In its original state the picture was a complete allegory ofChrist as the centre of Religion, between two prophets in heaven, and four apostles, two at each side—beneath him two angels support the world. The prophets have been removed, and are placed in the Tribune of the Uffizi; thus the picture as it stands loses half its meaning. The Christ is a fine nude figure standing in a niche, and in it Fra Bartolommeo has solved the problem of obtaining complete relief almost in monochrome, so little do the lights of the flesh tints, and the warm yellowish tinge of the background differ from each other. All the positive colour is in the drapery of the saints, one in red and green, and another in red and blue. The two angels are exquisitely drawn, and contrast well in their natural innocence with the sentimental pair in Raphael'sMadonna of the Baldacchinoon the same wall of the Pitti Palace.
San Marco was rich in frescoes of theMadonna and Child, two of which are still in the chapel of the convent, and two in the Belle Arti. Some of these are charming in expression, the children clinging round the mother's neck in a true childishabandonof affection. What a tender feeling these monk artists had for the spirit of maternity! Perhaps by being debarred from the contemplation of maternal love in its humanity, they more clearly comprehended its divinity. Look at the little round-backed nestling child in Fra Angelico'sMadonna della Stella, imperfect as it is in form, the whole spirit of love is in it. He does not give only the mother-love for the child, but the child-love for the mother, which is more divine, and the same feeling is seen in theMadonnaof Fra Bartolommeo.
This year, 1516, also marks a journey to a hermitage of his order at Lecceto, between Florence and Pisa. Here he painted aDeposition from the Crosson the wall of the Hospice, and two heads of Christ on two tiles above the doors.
A great many of his works are in private collections in Florence; one of the most lovely is thePietà, painted for Agnolo Doni, and now in the Corsini Gallery at Rome.
All this time the great painting of theEnthronement of the Virgin, ordered by Pier Soderini, before his exile, was still unfinished. He seems to have taken it in hand again about this time, but being attacked with another access of fever, again left it, and the painting, shadowed in with black, remains in the Uffizi. Lanzi writes of it that, imperfect as it is, it may be regarded as a true lesson in art, and bears the same relation to painting as the clay model to the finished statue, the genius of the inventor being impressed upon it. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote:History of Painting, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 455.] call this aConception, but Vasari's old name of thePatron Saints of Florenceseems to fit it best. S. John the Baptist, S. Reparata, S. Zenobio, &c., stand in an adoring group around the heavenly powers, S. Anna above the Virgin and infant Christ forming a charming pyramidal group in the midst. The whole thing is one of Fra Bartolommeo's richest compositions. The centre of the three monks on the left is said to be a portrait of Fra Bartolommeo himself, and to be the original from which the only known portrait of him is taken (see Frontispiece). Fra Bartolommeo left another work also unfinished, an apotheosis of a saint, which is now at Panshanger. This is supposed to have been a small ideal prepared for a picture to celebrate the canonisation of S. Antonino, which Leo X. had almost promised the brethren of S. Marco on his triumphant entry in 1515. The work, if it had been painted in the larger form, would have been a perfect masterpiece of composition, "a very Beethoven symphony in colour," if we may judge from the sketch at Panshanger, where a living crowd groups round the bier of the archbishop, and life, earnestness, harmony, and richness, are all intense.
So ill was Fra Bartolommeo in 1517 that he was ordered to take the baths at San Filippo, thence he went for the last time to Pian di Mugnone, where he painted aVision of the Saviour to Mary Magdalen, above the door of the chapel. The two figures, nearly life-size, are at the door of the cave sepulchre. Mary has just recognised her Lord, and in her ecstasy flings herself forward on her knees before him. The Saviour is a dignified figure semi-nude, with a white veil wrapped around him.
In the Pitti Palace, a charmingPietàof Fra Bartolommeo's occupies a place near thePietàof Andrea del Sarto, the two pictures forming a most interesting contrast of style. The kneeling Virgin and S. John support the head of the prostrate Saviour, S. Catherine and Mary Magdalen weep at his feet, the latter in an agony of grief crouches prone on the ground hiding her face. The colouring is extremely rich, broad masses of full-tone melting softly into deep shadows. The handling in the flesh-tones of the dead Saviour, as well as the modelling of form, are most masterly. It is generally supposed that this was the picture which Bugiardini is said to have coloured after the master's death; but there is much divergence among Italian authors both as to whether this was the painting spoken of, and also as to the meaning of Vasari's words, he using the phrase "finished" in one place, and "coloured" in another. For charm of colouring and depth of expression, thePietàis the most lovely of all the Frate's works; therefore Bugiardini who wasmediocre, could not have outdone his great master. It was notcolouredby him. Bocchi [Footnote: Bocchi,Bellezze di Firenze, p. 304.] says there were two other figures, S. Peter and S. Paul, in the picture, where a meaningless black shadow stretches across the background; but they were erased by the antique restorer because they were "troppo deboli." Is it not likely that if Bugiardini had any hand in the work, it was to finish these figures?
Returning in the autumn to Florence, Fra Bartolommeo caught a severe cold, the effects of which were heightened by eating fruit, and after four days' extreme illness he died on October 8th, 1517, aged 42.
The monks felt his death intensely, and buried him with great honour in San Marco.
He left to art the most valuable legacy possible—a long list of masterpieces in which religious feeling is expressed in the very highest language. In all his works there is not a line or tint which transgresses against either the sentiment of devotion, or the rules of art. He stands for ever, almost on a level with the great trio of the culmination, "possessing Leonardo's grace of colour and more than his industry, Michelangelo's force with more softness, and Raphael's sentiment with more devotion;" yet with just the inexpressible want of that supernatural genius which would have placed him above them all. His legacy to the world is a series of lessons from the very first setting of his ideal on paper to its finished development. The germ exists in the charcoal sketches at the Belle Arti and Uffizi; the under-shadowing of the subject is seen in thePatron Saintsat the Uffizi.
Many of his drawings are not to be traced. Some were used by Fra Paolino, his pupil, who at his death passed them to Suor Plautilla Nelli, a nun in Sta. Caterina, Florence (born 1523, died 1587). When Baldinucci wrote his work, he said 500 of these were in the possession of Cavaliere Gaburri.
Of these, little more than the names have come down to us. Vasari speaks of Benedetto Cianfanini, Gabbriele Rustici, and Fra Paolo Pistojese; Padre Marchese mentions two monks, Fra Andrea and Fra Agostino. Of these, the two first never became proficient, and have left no works behind them. Fra Andrea seems to have been more a journeyman than scholar, being employed to prepare the panels and lay on the gilding. Fra Agostino assisted his master, and Fra Paolo in the subordinate parts of a few frescoes, especially at Luco in the Mugnone. Fra Paolo is the most known, but chiefly as a far-off imitator of Fra Bartolommeo, without his mellowness of execution. His pictures are mostly from his master's designs, which were left him as a legacy, and this ensures a good composition.
He was born at Pistoja in 1490; his father, Bernardino d' Antonio del Signoraccio, a second-rate artist, taught him the first principles of art. His knowledge of drawing caused him to be noticed by Fra Bartolommeo, when at a very early age he entered the order. He was removed from Prato to San Marco, Florence, in 1503; and here he found another friend who assisted his artistic tendencies. This was Fra Ambrogio della Robbia, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in. chap. ii. p. 246.] who taught him to model in clay; a specimen of his work exists in the Church of Sta. Maddalena in Pian di Mugnone, where are two statues of S. Domenico and Mary Magdalen by his hand.
His best work is aCrucifixionat Siena, dated 1516, which has been thought to be Fra Bartolommeo's; but though that master was asked to go and paint it as a memorial of a certain Messer Cherubino Ridolfo, his many occupations prevented his accepting the commission, and his disciples, Fra Paolo and Fra Agostino, went in his place. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, Memorie, &c., lib. in. chap. ii. p. 251.] Possibly the master supplied the design, which is very harmonious. The Virgin and S. John stand on each side of the cross, and Saint Catherine of Siena and Mary Magdalen are prostrate before it. One or two of the female saints are pleasing, but the nude figure of Christ is hard, exaggerated, and faulty in drawing.
The artists got thirty-five lire for the work, though the record in the archives allows that it was worth more. There is anAssumptionin the Belle Arti of Florence, of which the design is Fra Bartolommeo's, but the colouring Fra Paolo's. It was painted for the Dominican monks at Santa Maria del Sasso, near Bibbiena. The colouring is hard and weak, the shadows heavy, and not fused well in the half tints. Two monks on the left are tolerably life-like, probably they were drawn from living models; the S. Catherine on the right is very inferior.
The Belle Arti also possesses aDeposition from the Cross, which Fra Bartolommeo had sketched out and left uncoloured at Pian di Mugnone. In 1519 Fra Paolo finished it, and it presents the usual disparity between the composition and colouring, the former being good, the latter weak and crude. His best known works are a Nativity in the Palazzo Borghese, aMadonna and Child with S. John Baptistin the Sciarra Colonna, also in Rome; aMadonna and Child with S. Johnin the Corsini Gallery, Florence, and another of the same subject in the Antinori Palace. He painted also at San Gimignano, Pian di Mugnone, and Pistoja, and died of sunstroke in 1547.
He had as a follower a Suor Plautilla Nelli, born 1523, daughter of a noble Florentine, Piero di Luca Nelli. She took the vows at the age of fourteen, in the convent of S. Caterina di Siena, in Via Larga (now Cavour), Florence. Her sister, Suor Petronilla, in the same convent, was a writer, and her life of Savonarola is still extant. Suor Plautilla taught herself to paint. Legend says, that in order to study the nude for a Christ, she drew from the corpse of a nun—which might account for the weak stiffness of her design. Fra Paolo, though there is no record of his having taught her, left her as a legacy the designs and cartoons of Fra Bartolommeo, one of which, thePietà, she has evidently made use of in the painting in the Belle Arti. The grouping is that of thePietàof Fra Bartolommeo, now in the Pitti, of which she must have had the original sketch, for she has put in the two saints in the background, which have been painted out in that of the Frate, but we will give her the entire credit of the colouring, which is extremely crude; the contrasting blues and yellows are in inharmonious tones, the shading harsh, and the whole picture wanting in chiaroscuro. The Corsini Gallery, Florence, has aVirgin and Childby her.
The scholars of Mariotto Albertinelli were much more important in the annals of art, the principal ones being Bugiardini, Francia Bigio, Visino, and Innocenza d' Imola.
Giuliano Bugiardini should be called the assistant rather than the scholar of Albertinelli, being older than his master. He was born in 1471 in a suburb outside the Via Faenza, Florence, and was placed in the shop of Domenico Ghirlandajo, where his acquaintance with Michelangelo—begun in the Medici Gardens—ripened into intimacy, and he was employed by him in the Sistine Chapel. Giuliano had that happily constructed mind which, with an ineffable content in its own works, will pass through life perfectly happy in the feeling that in reaching mediocrity it has achieved success. Not only wanting talent to produce better works, he lacked also the faculty of perceiving where his own were faulty, and having a great aptitude for copying the works of others, he felt himself as great as the original artists. Michelangelo was always amused with his naïve self-conceit, and kept up a friendship with him for many years. He even went so far as to sit to Bugiardini for his likeness, at the request of Ottaviano de' Medici. Giuliano, having painted and talked nonsense for two hours, at last exclaimed, to his sitter's great relief, "Now, Michelangelo, come and look at yourself; I have caught your very expression." But what was Michelangelo's horror to see himself depicted with eyes which were neither straight nor a pair! The worthy artist looked from his work to the original, and declared he could see no difference between them, on which Michelangelo, shrugging his shoulders, said, "It must be a defect of nature," and bade his friend go on with it. This charming portrait was presented to Ottaviano de' Medici, with that ofPope Clement VII., copied from Sebastian del Piombo, and is now in the Louvre. Bugiardini's works always take the style of other masters. There is aMadonnain the Uffizi, and one in the Leipsic Museum, both in Leonardo's style, with his defects exaggerated. The former is a sickly woman in a sentimental attitude, the child rather heavy, the colouring is bright and well fused; he has evidently adopted the method which he had seen Albertinelli use in his studio.
During a stay in Bologna he painted aMadonna and Saintsas an altar-piece for the church of S. Francesco, besides aMarriage of S. Catherine, now in the Bologna Pinacoteca. The composition of this is not without merit; the child Jesus seated on his mother's knees, gives the ring to S. Catherine, little S. John stands at the Virgin's feet, S. Anthony on her left. The colouring is less pleasing, the flesh tints too red and raw.
A round picture in the Zambeccari Gallery, Bologna, shows him in Michelangelo's style. The Virgin is reading on a wooded bank, but looks up to see the infant Christ greet the approaching S. John Baptist; this is carefully, if rather hardly, painted. The lights in the Saviour's hair have been touched in with gold. The time of his stay in Bologna is uncertain, but in 1525 he was in Florence, and drawing designs for the Ringhiera with Andrea del Sarto. There is a document in the archives, proving that on October 5th, 1526 Bugiardini was paid twenty florins in gold for his share of the work. He obtained some rank as a portrait painter, in spite of his failure in that of Michelangelo; and had commissions from many of the celebrities of Florence. It was in original composition that his powers failed him. Messer Palla Rucellai ordered a picture from him of theMartyrdom of S. Catherine, which he began with the intention of making it a very fine work indeed. He spent several years in representing the wheels, the lightnings and fires in a sufficiently terrible aspect, but had to beg Michelangelo's assistance in drawing the men who were to be killed by those heavenly flames; his design was to have a row of soldiers in the foreground, all knocked down in different attitudes. His friend took up the charcoal and sketched in a splendid group of agonised nude figures; but these were beyond his power to shade and colour, and Tribolo made him a set of models in clay, in the attitudes given by Michelangelo, and from these he finished the work; but the great master's hand was never apparent in it. Bugiardini died at the age of seventy-five.
Of Francesco Bigi, commonly called Francia Bigio or Franciabigio, so much is said in the following life of Andrea del Sarto, that a slight sketch will suffice here. He was the son of Cristofano, and was born in 1482. His early studies were made in the Brancacci Chapel, and the Papal Hall—where he drew from the cartoons in 1505-6, and the studio of Mariotto Albertinelli, from which he passed to his partnership with Andrea del Sarto in 1509. Thus it is that his first style was marked by the influence of Mariotto and Fra Bartolommeo, while in his later works he approximated more to Andrea del Sarto.
Two of his early paintings were placed in the church of S. Piero Maggiore, one aVirgin and Childof great beauty. The infant clasps its arms round its mother's neck—a charming attitude—which suggests a playful effort to hide from the young S. John, who is running towards him, by nestling closer to the dearer resting place. The picture is now in the Uffizi and has been long known asRaphael's Madonna del Pozzo. [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle,History of Painting, vol. iii. chap. xv. p. 501.] No greater testimony to Francia Bigio's excellence can be given than the frequency of his works being mistaken for those of Raphael, but the influence of his contemporaries was always strong upon him. TheAnnunciation, painted for the same church, is also described by Vasari as a carefully designed work, though somewhat feeble in manner. The angel is lightly poised in air, the Virgin kneeling before a foreshortened building. The picture was lost sight of in the demolition of the church, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle,History of Painting, Vol. iii. p. 500.] believe they have discovered it in a picture at Turin, the authorship of which is avowedly doubtful. They mention, however, a celestial group of the Eternal Father in a cherub-peopled cloud, sending his blessing in the form of a dove, with a ray of glory. Surely if this be the one described by Vasari [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 336] so minutely, he would not have omitted a part of the subject so important to the picture.
In 1509 we may presumably date the partnership with Andrea del Sarto, that being about the time when they began to work together in the Scalzo. Francia Bigio painted some frescoes in the church of S. Giobbe, behind the Servite Monastery. AVisitationwas in a tabernacle at the corner of the church, and subjects from Job's life on a pilaster within it: these have long ago disappeared. The altar-piece of theMadonna and Job, which he painted in oil for the same church, has been more fortunate, as it still exists in the Tuscan School in the Uffizi. Though much injured, it shows his earlier style. TheCalumny of Apellesin the same gallery is a curious picture. It is hard and dull in colouring, the prevailing tone being a heavy drab; there are several nude figures, of doubtful forms as to beauty of drawing, the flesh is painted in a smooth glazed style, without relief or tenderness.
Francia Bigio shines more in fresco than in oil; his hardness is less apparent, and he gains in freedom and brilliance of colouring in the more congenial medium. The finest of his frescoes is, unfortunately, spoiled by his own hand, and remains as a memorial of his genius and hasty temper. I allude to theSposalizio(A.D. 1513) in the courtyard of the Servite church, where Andrea did his series of frescoes from the life of Filippo Benizzi. The composition is grand and carefully thought out, the colouring bright and pleasing; perhaps in emulating Andrea's luxurious style of drapery he has gone a little too far, and crowded the folds. The bridegroom is a noble figure, and shows in his face his gladness in the blossoming rod. A man in the foreground breaks a stick across his knees. The commentators of Vasari have taken this to emblematize the Roman Catholic legend of the Virgin having given rods to each of her suitors, and chosen him whose rod blossomed. Graceful women surround the Virgin, but there is perhaps a too marked sentimentality about these which suggests a striving after Raphael's style. There is, however, a great touch of nature in a mother with a naughty child, who sits crying on the ground, much to the mother's distress. Francia Bigio commenced this in Andrea's absence in France, which so excited his former comrade's emulation that he did hisVisitationin great haste, to get it uncovered as soon as Francia Bigio's. In fact, Andrea's works were ready by the date of the annual festa of the Servites, and the monks, being anxious to uncover all the new frescoes for that day, took upon them to remove the mattings from that of Francia Bigio as well, without his permission, for he wished to give a few more finishing touches. So angry was he, on arriving in the cloister, to see a crowd of people admiring his work in what he felt to be an imperfect condition, that in an excess of rage he mounted on the scaffolding which still remained, and, seizing a hammer, beat the head of the Madonna to pieces, and ruined the nude figure breaking the rod. The monks hastened to the scene in an uproar of remonstrance, the frantic artist's destructive hand was stayed by the bystanders, but so deep was his displeasure that he refused to restore the picture, and no other hand having touched it, the fresco remains to this day a fine work mutilated. It shows him artistically in his very best, and morally, at his worst, phase. In 1518, while Andrea was in France, the monks of the Scalzo employed Francia Bigio to fill two compartments in their pretty little cloister, where Andrea had commenced hisLife of S. John Baptist. These are spoken of more at length in the life of that master, who on his return took the work again in his own hands. In 1521 Bigio competed with Andrea and Pontormo, in the Medici Villa at Poggio a Cajano; Andrea'sCæsar receiving Tributeoccupies one wall of the hall, and Francia Bigio'sTriumph of Ciceroanother. The subjects were selected by the historian, Messer Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera; it only remained for the artists to make the most of the chosen themes. Francia Bigio filled his background with a careful architectural perspective, and a crowd of muscular Romans are grouped before it. This also was left unfinished at the Pope's death, and Allori completed it in 1582. Francia Bigio, however, did many of the gilded decorations of the hall.
In the Dresden Gallery is a work, Scenes from the Life of David, signed A. S., MDXXIII., and his monogram, a painting very much in the style of Andrea del Sarto'sLife of Joseph. Reumont [Footnote: Life of Andrea del Sarto, p. 138 et seq.] claims it as the joint work of Andrea and Francia Bigio, founding his opinion on the letters A. S. before the date; but the letters mean onlyAnno salutis, and are used in very many of Francia Bigio's signed paintings. He had the commission from Gio Maria Benintendi in 1523. It is one of those curious pictures which have many scenes in one—a style which militates greatly against artistic unity. On the right is David's palace, on the left Uriah's; David is at his door watching Bathsheba and her maidens bathing. In the centre is the siege of Rabbah; another well-draped group represents David receiving Uriah's homage. In the foreground David gives wine to Uriah at a banquet. There is careful painting and ingenious composition, but a less finished manner of colouring than in Andrea's Joseph, which was painted about the same time for Pier Borgherini.
Like Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, Francia Bigio fell off in his later style, partly because his ambition failed him, and also because he began to look on art as a means of livelihood—a motive which is certain death to high art.
He was especially celebrated as a portrait painter, several of his works having been attributed to Raphael. Among these are one at the Louvre and one at the Pitti Palace, both portraits of a youth in tunic and black cap, with long hair flowing over his shoulders; one in the National Gallery, formerly in Mr. Fuller Maitland's collection; the portrait of a jeweller, dated A. S., MDXVI. in Lord Yarborough's gallery; that in the Berlin Museum, of a man sitting at a desk, dated 1522; and the likeness of Pier Francesco de Medici at Windsor—all of which bear Francia Bigio's monogram, often with the letters A. S. (Anno salutis) before the date. He died on January 14th, 1525.
RIDOLFO (DI DOMENICO) BIGORDI, called GHIRLANDAJO, &c., was born on the 4th of January, 1483. Although not strictly a scholar, he is one of Fra Bartolommeo's principal followers. When quite a child he lost his father, the famous Domenico, who died of fever, on January 11th, 1494; his mother and uncle Benedetto only lived a few years after; and Ridolfo, with his three sisters and two brothers, was left to the guardianship of his uncle Davide.
Ridolfo was the only one who chose the family profession, and he became the fourth painter of the name of Ghirlandajo.
Davide was not a perfect artist, although a good mosaicist, as his works in the cathedrals of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence show, but he was for many years Ridolfo's only instructor. As the boy grew up Ridolfo frequented those public schools of art before spoken of, the Brancacci Chapel, and the study of the cartoons in the Papal Hall. Here he secured the friendship not only of Granacci and Pier di Cosimo, but of Raphael himself, with whom he visited Fra Bartolommeo in his convent.
Raphael permitted Ridolfo to assist him in a Madonna for Siena, and tried to persuade him to accompany him to Rome; but Ridolfo, like a true Florentine, declined to go "beyond sight of the Duomo."
His first great picture was done in 1504 for the church of San Gallo. The subject wasChrist Searing His Cross. His uncle Benedetto had laboured on a similar picture, now in the Louvre, but Ridolfo's is a great improvement on this; the composition is well balanced, full of force and animation, the weeping figures of the Maries and the solicitude of S. Veronica are very lifelike, although he has not entirely abolished his uncle's coarseness in the scowling, low-typed men. The Christ and the Virgin are, on the contrary, so refined as to induce the supposition that this force of contrast was intentional; the landscape is rather hard and crude in tone, the flesh tints smooth, and the handling similar to that of Credi.
The original is now in Palazzo Antinori, Florence, but a replica, in which he was assisted by Michele, his favourite pupil and adopted son, is in Santo Spirito.
Vasari speaks of aNativity, painted for the Cistercian monks of Cestello; a beautiful composition, in which the Madonna adores the holy child, S. Joseph standing near her; S. Francis and S. Jerome kneel in adoration; the landscape was sketched from the hills near "La Vernia," where S. Francis received the stigmata.
Maselli says the picture was lost when the monastery changed hands, but Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle [Footnote: History of fainting, vol. in. chap. xvi. pp. 523, 524.] believe they have found it in the Hermitage at S. Petersburg, under Granacci's name. It is possible that the favourite pupil of his father and Ridolfo's own friend may have assisted him. The landscape is Raphaelesque, and might mark the time when that master and Fra Bartolommeo influenced his style. His best manner approached so nearly to that of the Frate, that had he continued he would have very nearly rivalled his excellence.
His two masterpieces are now in the Uffizi; they were painted for the Brotherhood of S. Zenobio, 1510, to stand one on each side of Albertinelli'sAnnunciation. One isS. Zenobio(the first bishop and patron saint of Florence)restoring a dead child to life; the other theFuneral Procession of the Saint passing the Baptistery, where an elm tree, which had been withered, put forth fresh leaves as the coffin of the bishop touched it. A marble column, with a bronze tree in relief on it, stands on the spot as a memorial of this miracle. In these two works Ridolfo Ghirlandajo proved the power which was in him, but they are the culmination of his art; he never surpassed, or indeed equalled them again. His richness of colouring and deep relief equalled that of the Frate, the animation and expression rivalled Andrea del Sarto. In the first picture, the eagerness of the crowd, the intense feeling of the mother, in whom grief for the dead child seems almost greater than the hope of his resuscitation, the sturdy, solid character of the Florentines of the Republic, are all given with a masterly hand, while a rich blending of colour fuses the animated crowd in a harmonious unison. In the latter, grandeur and dignity mark the group of ecclesiastics which surrounds the archbishop's bier, the full solid falls of their drapery show that he had well studied his father's works.
Ridolfo's brothers became monks, Don Bartolommeo lived in the Camaldoline Monastery of the Angeli, which Ridolfo beautified with many works. Paolo Uccelli had adorned the Loggia with frescoed stories from the life of S. Benedict. Ridolfo added two to the series. In one the Saint is at table with two angels, waiting for S. Romano to send his bread from the grotto, but the devil has cut the cord and taken it.
Another isS, Benedict investing a youth with the habit of the order. In the church of the same monastery he painted a beautifulMadonna and Child, with Angels, above the holy water vase, andS. Romualdo with the Camaldolese Hermitage in his Hand, in a lunette in the cloister. All these were done as a brotherly gift, and after they were finished, the abbot, Don Andrea Dossi, gave him a commission to paint aLast Supperin the refectory, which he did, placing the portrait of the abbot in the corner.
Ridolfo, like his father, regarded art rather as a means of livelihood than with any aesthetic feelings, and this is probably the reason of his never attaining true excellence. His "bottega" was really a shop where any one might order a work of art, or of artisanship, and he gave as much attention to painting a banner for a procession as to composing an altar-piece. He had a great many assistants, whom he called on for help in various undertakings. They assisted him to prepare the Medici Halls for the reception of Pope Leo X., and later for the marriages of Giuliano and Lorenzo, not disdaining to paint scenes for the dramas which were then given. He painted banners, and designed costumes for the processions of the "potenze," a festive company, the origin of which is uncertain, but dating certainly from the Middle Ages. Each quarter of the city had an emperor, lords, and dignitaries, each of whom carried his banner or emblazonment. Grand processions, tournaments, and feasts were held once a year, on S. John's Day, by the potenze.
Having assisted at the triumphs and marriages of the Medici princes, he also furnished the funeral pomp and magnificence on the deaths of the brothers, that of Giuliano occurring in 1516, of Lorenzo 1519.
Lucratively it answered his purpose; the Medici gave him great honour; he was well paid by them, and got the commission to decorate the Chapel of the Palazzo Vecchio—a very good specimen of his fresco painting, in which he never reached his father's excellence, although in oil he far surpassed him. The chapel is small; the groined roof is covered with emblematical designs on a blue ground, a Trinity in the midst with angels bearing symbols of the passions around. The apostles and evangelists surround this, and the principal wall has a larger fresco of theAnnunciation—a rather conventional rendering.
Commissions flowed in on him to such a degree, that although he had fifteen children, he lived to amass money and lands, to see his daughters well married, and his sons prosperous merchants trading to distant lands. He died on the 6th of June, 1561, and lies with his forefathers in the church of S. Maria Novella.
Andrea Del Sarto is a curious instance of the vital power of art, which, like a flower forcing its way to the light through walls or rocks, will find expression in spite of obstacles.
Andrea the painter, "senza errori," was an artist in spite of lowering home influences, of want of encouragement in his patrons—for his greatest works only brought the smallest remuneration—and even in spite of his own nature, which was material, wanting in high aims, and deficient in ideality; yet his name lives for ever as a great master, and his works rank close to those of the leaders of the Renaissance.
In looking at them one sighs even in the midst of admiration, thinking that if the hand which produced them had been guided by a spark of divine genius instead of the finest talent, what glorious works they would have been! The truth is that Andrea's was a receptive, rather than an original and productive mind. His art was more imitative than spontaneous, and this forms perhaps the difference between talent and genius. The art of his time sunk into his mind, and was reproduced. He lived precisely at the time of the culmination of art, when all the highest masters were bringing forth their grandest works; therefore he could not do otherwise than to follow the best examples.
He gathered the experience of all—the force of Michelangelo, the handling of Leonardo, the sentiment of Raphael, so blending them as to form a style seemingly his own, and in execution following closely on their excellence.
In Giotto's or Masaccio's case the master created the art; in Andrea's it was the art of the age which made the artist.
The question of Andrea del Sarto's birth is a mooted one. Biadi dates it 1478, but the register he quotes is both vague and doubtful. He also tells a curious story of his Flemish origin. Signor Milanesi has deduced, from the archives of Florence, an authentic pedigree from which we learn that his remote ancestors were peasants, first at Buiano, near Fiesole, and later at S. Ilario, near Montereggi. His grandfather, Francesco, being a linen weaver, came to live nearer Florence; his father, Agnolo, son of Francesco, followed the trade of a tailor—hence Andrea's sobriquet, "del Sarto"—he took a house in Via Gualfonda, in Florence, about 1487, with his wife Constanza, and here Andrea was born, he being the eldest of a family of five—three girls and two boys. From the tax papers of a few years later it is proved that Andrea was born in 1487. His full name is Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco. It is by mistake that he has been called Vannucchi.
His parents were young, his father being only twenty-seven years of age at Andrea's birth. They lived at that time in Val Fonda, where Albertinelli had his shop, but in 1504 they removed to the popolo, or parish, of S. Paolo. Boys were not allowed to be idle in those days, but were apprenticed at an early age; thus Andrea, like most artists of his time, was bound to a goldsmith. It would be interesting to investigate the great influence of the guild of goldsmiths on the art of the Renaissance. The reason why youths who showed a talent for design were entered in that guild is easy to assign—it was one of the "greater" guilds, that of the painters being a lesser one, and merged in the "Arte degli Speziali." At seven years old he left the school where he had learned to read and write, and entered his very youthful apprenticeship; but he showed so much more aptitude for the designing than for the executive part of his profession thatGiovanni Barile, who frequented the bottega, was induced to counsel his being trained especially as a painter, offering himself as instructor. If Andrea, a contadino by birth, an artisan by education, was not originally of the most refined nature, his artistic training did not go far towards refining him. Giovanni Barile was a coarse painter and a rough man; he had, however, generosity enough to see that the boy was worthy of better teaching, and got him entered in the bottega of Piero di Cosimo, who had attained a good rank as a colourist, his eccentricities possibly adding to his reputation.
Accordingly in 1498, Andrea being then eleven years of age, a life of earnest study began. Piero di Cosimo, odd and misanthropic as he was, had yet a true appreciation of talent, and showed an earnest interest in his pupil, giving him—with plenty of queer treatment—a thorough training. "He was not allowed to make a line which was not perfect" [Footnote: Rosini,Storia della Pittura, chap. xvii. p. 40.] while in Piero's school. But excellent as his art teaching may have been, the boy's morale could not have been raised more here than under the rough but good-natured Barile. We have seen Piero di Cosimo in his youth, the serious, absent young man, who never joked with his juniors in Cosimo Roselli's shop; we see him now, with his youthful oddities hardened into eccentricities, and his reserve deepened to misanthropy. No woman's hand softened and refined his house, no cleansing broom was allowed within his door, and no gardener's hand cleared the weeds or pruned the vines in his garden. He so believed in nature unassisted that he took his meals without the intervention of a cook. When the fire was lighted to boil his size or glue he would cook fifty or sixty eggs and set them apart in a basket, to which he had recourse when the pangs of hunger compelled him. All this was morally very bad for a boy so young. And then woe betide the poor little fellow if he whistled, sneezed, or made any other noise! his nervous master would be out of temper for a day afterwards. On wet days Piero was merrier, for he would watch the drops splashing into the pools, and laugh as if they were fairies. Sometimes he would take Andrea for a walk, and all at once stop and gaze at a heap of rubbish, or mark of damp on a lichened wall, picturing all kinds of monsters and weird scenes in its discolourations.
No doubt he was literally carrying out Leonardo da Vinci's advice, headed, in his treatise, "A new Art of Invention." "Look at some old wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some old streaked stones; you may discover several things like landscapes, battles, clouds, humorous faces, &c., to furnish the mind with new designs." [Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci,Treatise on Painting.] Cosimo's mind being fantastic, the pictures he saw were incomparably grotesque. He delighted in drawing sea monsters, dragons, wonderful adventures, and heathen scenes; in fact the boy could have learned neither Christian art nor manners from him. He learned how to use his brush, however, and, leaving Piero to his minotaurs and dragons, went off at every spare hour to study at more congenial shrines. He copied Masaccio at the Brancacci Chapel, and drew so earnestly from the cartoons in the Hall of the Pope that his achievements reached the ears of Piero himself, who was not sorry that his pupil surpassed the rest, and gave him more time for study away from the bottega. Rosini tells us that "Fra Bartolommeo taught him the first steps." [Footnote:Storia della Pittura, chap, xxvii. p. 2.] The influence of the Frate may have reached him in two ways. It is not unlikely that Piero di Cosimo kept up an interest in his old fellow-pupil; and then again, as Andrea lived in Val Fonda, it is probable he often visited Albertinelli's studio in that street, and the friendship with Francia Bigio began before the cartoons of Michelangelo ripened there.
The evidence of style goes to show that the works of Albertinelli and Fra Bartolommeo influenced him more than those of Piero. Yet though his sphere was devotional, it was "impelled more by a material sense of beauty than by the deep religious feeling which inspired the Frate."
As time went on the youth in strange old Piero's studio became more famous than his master, and felt that he could do greater things away from the stiff method which cramped him, and the whimsicalities which annoyed him. His friend, Francia Bigio, Mariotto's pupil, having just then lost his master, who was giving more attention to his father-in-law's business of innkeeper than his own, was willing to enter into partnership, and the two youths began life together in 1509 or 1510, in a room near the Piazza del Grano, in the first house in Via del Moro, which still remains in its old state.
The first bit of patronage recorded is the commission for the frescoes in the Scalzo; that they had work before is proved by the words in the contract of the Barefoot Friars, "dettero ad Andrea pittoreceleberrimoil dipingere nel Chiosto." The "celebrated" presupposes works already done.
The Scalzo was a name given to the "Compagnia dei Disciplinati di S. Giovanni Battista," because they went barefoot when they carried the cross in their processions. They lived in a convent in Via Larga (now Cavour), opposite San Marco. A new cloister had been erected there—an elegant little cortile, thirty-eight feet by thirty-two, adorned with lovely Corinthian pillars—and the Brethren were anxious to fill the lunettes of the arches with frescoes at the least possible expense, wisely judging that a young artist on his way to fame would be the best to employ.
The frescoes, of which there would be twelve large, and four small ones in the upright spaces by the doors, were to be done in "terretta," or brown earth, and to be paid fifty-six lire (eight scudi) for the large, and twenty-one lire (three scudi) each for the lesser frescoes. The small ones were four figures of the Virtues,Faith,Hope,Justice, andCharity.Hopeis exquisitely expressed, andCharitya charming group, the children most tenderly drawn. The subjects, though not all finished till many years later, stand now in the following order; the second row of figures, with the dates, show the order in which they were painted:—