CHAPTER XIV.SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.Thefirst man to whom Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici gave a commission for a great piece of sculpture, after they became independent, was Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a disciple of Donatello, and had worked with the master in San Lorenzo. This was of itself a recommendation to the Medici, who found him also employed by their relatives, the Tornabuoni. Vasari rightly observes that a certain severity is even more prominent in his works than in those of his master, because he lacked the creative versatility of the latter and tried to supply by study what Nature had denied him. In bronze-casting he displays a delicacy which recalls the goldsmith. The monument to Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici was finished in 1472. Like Donatello, Verrocchio restored damaged antique sculptures for the Medici house and garden, and executed for Lorenzo some bronze busts which were sent to Matthias Corvinus. For the palace of the Signoria he furnished a bronze statue of David, now in the Podestà Museum, not very remarkable either in conception or execution. His shortcomings, however, are amply atoned for by the charming bronze group over the fountain in the courtyard, representing a boy, half-fighting, half-playing with a dolphin, full of easy grace that seems almost above this artist. It was a commission from Lorenzo, and intended for the fountain in the court at Careggi, but placed in its present position by Duke Cosimo. Verrocchio’s capabilities in more serious work were shown in Florence by thegroup of our Lord and the apostle St. Thomas, which in 1483 received the most prominent place in front of the church of Or San Michele—and in Venice, by his equestrian statue of Colleone. Though the former, with its broken and angular drapery—recalling the Umbrian school—does not exactly conform to the rules of plastic art, it is penetrated with a depth of feeling that renders it highly attractive; and in the latter the defiant self-conscious bearing of the oldcondottierebrings his position and character vividly before the eye. Among Andrea’s marble works is a relievo, very naturalistic, representing the death (in her confinement, September 24, 1477) of Francesca Pitti, wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni; it was intended for her tomb, and is now to be seen in the palace of the Podestà.[191]Equally intimate with the Medici, if not more so, was Antonio del Pollaiuolo, whose family connections linked him to the school of Ghiberti. In his sculptures the goldsmith is more closely discernible than in those of Verrocchio. They both, while painting and sculpturing, continued to work as goldsmiths, and Pollaiuolo was regarded in his native city as the first master of this branch. ‘A man unique in his art,’ wrote the Signoria, after his death, to the ambassador in Rome, ‘well deserving that we, who are wont to value praiseworthy qualities of whatever nature, should honour his memory by supporting his heirs.’[192]Lorenzo’s high esteem for him is shown by passages in his letters to Giovanni Lanfredini. The silver helmet presented in 1472 to the conqueror of Volterra was by Pollaiuolo; so was also the oft-copied medal representing the criminal attempt of the Pazzi, more valuable in a historical than in an artistic point of view. No great works of sculpture by him are known in Florence, the labour of his latter years being chiefly devoted to Rome, where his masterpiece is the tomb ofPope Sixtus IV. in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament in St. Peter’s, and where he died in 1498.[193]As Verocchio and Pollaiuolo passed from goldsmith’s work to sculpture, without abandoning altogether their original occupation, so Benedetto da Majano rose from artistic cabinet-work to sculpture and architecture. The monument to Giotto in Sta. Maria del Fiore—a marble bust in a richly ornamented circular frame—was, according to the inscription, erected by the citizens in 1490.[194]The bust of Antonio Squarcialupi, in the same church, is only ascribed to Benedetto by a later tradition, which the merit of the work by no means justifies.[195]The erection of both monuments was, doubtless, due to Lorenzo. Benedetto’s greatest work was a pulpit, executed for a Florentine citizen—Pietro Mellini—of whom he also made, in 1474, a most natural and expressive marble bust, which he signed with his name. The pulpit is decorated with reliefs, representing scenes in the history of St. Francis of Assisi—the richest and finest workof the kind since that of the Pisani. In imitation of Ghiberti, the reliefs are freely handled; landscapes and backgrounds in perspective are introduced, but with a careful subordination of the pictorial elements which afterwards became too prominent.[196]In Sta. Maria Novella is Benedetto’s monument to Filippo Strozzi. The artist who built the palace, of which the owner lived to see only the beginning, also erected in his beautiful family chapel this mausoleum, which was begun before his death.[197]Above the black marble sarcophagus, in the middle of a panel under an arch delicately carved in arabesques, is a large medallion of the Virgin and Child, in white marble, surrounded by a rich garland of flowers and foliage; at the sides are four angels in adoration. The charm of expression and delicacy of treatment recall Antonio Rossellino and Desiderio da Settignano. Filippo’s bust, preserved by his descendants in the Strozzi Palace, shows the marked, expressive features of the energetic man. Benedetto’s capabilities in decorative sculpture are displayed in the marble doors of the audience-chamber in the palace of the Signoria, where he worked, as has been mentioned, with his brother. Time and ignorance have not spared this fine work, and the statuette of the youthful Baptist, which once adorned it, is now in the Uffizi collection.The two finest works of Mino da Fiesole which adorn the Benedictine Abbey-Church, were executed about 1470; one represents the artist’s own time, the other the earlier days of Florence. They are the monuments of Bernardo Giugni, and of the Marquis Hugo. The former, and his services to the State have been already mentioned. The figure of an elderly man, in his long robe, with his hands crossed on his breast, lies on the sarcophagus; between Ionian pilasters is a semi-circular niche, in which is a figureof Justice in relief, and in the lunette is a medallion profile of the deceased.[198]The other monument, finished in 1481, is richer, but very like the first in general arrangement. It is a token of gratitude from the monks to their founder—the half-mythical Marquis who, in Emperor Otto’s days, is said to have come from the neighbourhood of the Elbe and the Havel—the ‘great Baron’ of the ‘Divine Comedy,’ whose arms are quartered on the armorial bearings of the chief Florentine families.[199]His effigies rest on a low couch on the top of the sarcophagus, two genii support shields at his head and feet; there is a group in relief, representing Charity, and in the lunette a medallion of the Virgin and Child. As in all Mino’s sculpture, careful workmanship is manifest in the accessories. This attention to detail and richness of ornamentation long remained a characteristic of the Florentines, who carried it to Rome and Naples. In the early decades of the following century, when the revolution in monumental style, introduced chiefly by Michel Angelo, was beginning to make its way, and ornamentation was compelled to take refuge in painting, admirable works in the old manner were raised in Florence. Such were the tombs of Oddo Altoviti, and Pier Soderini, both by Benedetto da Rovezzano; also the monument to Cardinal Luigi de’ Rossi, cousin of Leo X., said to be by Raffaello da Montelupo. With regard to ornamentation, a distinct position is held by two monuments, companions to each other, which tradition ascribes to Giuliano da Sangallo—those of Francesco Sassetti and his wife, in their family chapel in Sta. Trinità.[200]They consist of black marble sarcophagi, decorated with rams’ heads, and standing beneath an arch adorned with antique arabesques and medallions, and a frieze, in the middle ofwhich are medallion heads of the husband and wife, surrounded by small figures representing ceremonies of heathen worship. They are clearly the work of an artist well acquainted with classical antiquity; who, in this case, has certainly made rather a strange use of his studies. That Giuliano da Sangallo was expert in the use of the chisel and thoroughly understood the working of the Fiesolian stone, employed in this monument, is shown by his famous mantelpiece in the Gondi Palace, which served as a model for that by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the Casa Rosselli del Turco, near Sant’Apostolo.[201]Tuscan sculptors of ornamental work, particularly those from Fiesole, Settignano, Rovezzano, and the neighbourhood, found occupation all over Italy, like the architects and sculptors from the Lake of Como, themaestri Comacini, in the Middle Ages. In our own days the Tuscans still show great ability in working both marble andmacigno(the greyish stone of the neighbourhood of Florence) in which they produce objects of beautifully delicate workmanship.Other arts at this time rose to a highly flourishing condition. The connection between architecture and cabinet-making, and that between sculpture and goldsmith’s work, have been repeatedly referred to. The architect and cabinet-maker were often one, down to the middle of the following century, when the Del Tasso family continued their double occupation. But artistic cabinet-work was also connected with sculpture and painting, as may be seen by the rich choir-stalls of many churches; the ceilings and other woodwork of the palaces, with their fine reliefs, elegant panelling, and wood-mosaic (tarsia), much used to represent perspective as well as to imitate flowers and foliage. Many of the artists mentioned furnished work of this kind to the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Fiore, and to the palace of the Signoria. The goldsmith’s art was in its glory, followed asit was by great sculptors, who found excellent assistants in those who never rose to the height of sculpture. The finest work of this kind in Florence is the silver reredos for the Baptistery (mentioned at p. 130), which was never quite finished. The growing taste for ornamental vessels and other objects favoured this branch of art; as did also the custom of presenting silver helmets or pieces of plate to commanders and others who had deserved well of the Republic. As early as the summer of 1397, 436 florins were paid to the goldsmiths Piero, Matteo and Donato, for silver gold and enamel, for dishes (bacinetti) intended for the generals Paolo Orsini, Giovanni Colonna and Bernardin de Serre. Antonio del Pollaiuolo made a large silver dish for the Signoria, and various ornaments for rich families; and the churches were adorned with silver crucifixes and elegant lamps.Die-cutting was only a branch of sculpture and the goldsmith’s art, sure to be practised where these two arts flourished, and contemporary history furnished a store of materials. But here the Tuscans do not hold the foremost place, either in time or in excellence of workmanship. Natives of Northern Italy, Lombards, and Venetians, came before them in the great cast portrait-medallions, by which Vittore Pisanello made a name in the fifteenth century. Donatello’s followers strove to follow but never came up to him. Three of the Tuscan medallists—Antonio Pollaiuolo, Bertoldo, and Andrea Guazzalotti of Prato, had dealings with the Medici. Only the first is known to have struck a medal referring to his country’s history, namely, one relating to the Pazzi conspiracy. Guazzalotti, who was in correspondence with Lorenzo and cast statues for him, commemorated the Pope and the Duke of Calabria as victors over the Turks; the medals are characteristically conceived, but lacking in delicacy of treatment. Medals of Cosimo and of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, are attributed to Pisanello, the latter probablyincorrectly; a medallion with the head of Lorenzo seems to be the work of a Florentine, Pietro di Niccolò.[202]Yet another branch of art reached a high perfection in Florence—that of engraving precious stones. The taste for engraved gems, which kept pace with the increasing knowledge of antiquity and the passion for books and antique works of all kinds, revived the art of cutting cameos and precious stones. A good example of the growth of this taste is related by Vespasiano da Bisticci in the ‘Life of Niccoli,’[203]whose house was full of antiquities. Passing along the street one day, he saw a boy wearing round his neck a chalcedony with a figure engraved, which the learned man thought he recognised as a work of Polycletes. He inquired the name of the boy’s father, and sent to ask him whether he would sell the stone. The man was willing to let him have it for five florins, which he thought good payment. Now, in the days of Pope Eugene, the future Cardinal Luigi Scarampi—who had much taste for matters of this sort—being in Florence, asked Niccoli to show him the stone, and offered him two hundred ducats for it. Niccoli, who was not rich, accepted, and the chalcedony passed into the hands of Scarampi, then to Paul II., and, after his death, to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni, had collected many gems, of which not the least famous was the carnelian representing Apollo and Marsyas. It was supposed to be Nero’s seal, and was set in gold by Lorenzo Ghiberti.[204]Lorenzo considerably increased the collection of antique gems inherited from his father, and formed a treasury, of which numerous remains still exist, after all the disasters that befell his posterity. He and Paul II. inspired this branch of artwith new life, and enabled modern workers to enter the lists against the ancients. The first modern gem of known date, is a portrait of Pope Paul in 1470, now in the Uffizi collection. Giovanni delle Corniuole formed himself on the models in the Medici collection, and attained the perfection conspicuous in his famous head of Savonarola. He had a competitor in the Milanese Domenico de’ Cammei, who worked chiefly for Lodovico il Moro, and to whom is attributed the portrait of Lorenzo on an onyx of three strata, placed with that of the great Dominican in the Uffizi collection. Many other stones, with subjects taken from mythology, sacred history, &c., are works of this period, when, also, much antique work was copied. The name of Lorenzo de’ Medici, to be read on many gems in Florence and elsewhere, recalls the former wealth told of in Latin verses, and in the testimonies of contemporaries.[205]In painting we now witness the development of the tendencies which first appeared in Masaccio, and were so actively reciprocated by the sister-art of sculpture. Here the two branches of art frequently met, and their reciprocal influence is discernible in the character of the work. It was thus with Verrocchio, and the Pollaiuoli. The former, of no great distinction as a painter, recalls his bronze works in his picture of the Baptism of Christ.[206]The brothers Pollaiuoli,whose grave, quiet faces may be seen together on their tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome, cannot well be separated in their works; and, though Piero occupied himself with painting more than Antonio, the inscription by the latter on the monument of Pope Sixtus IV. shows his excellence in gold and silver work, in painting, and bronze casting. Antonio painted for Lorenzo the Labours of Hercules, of which some small copies are still in existence. The picture of St. James was painted for the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal; that of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,[207]the most famous work of these painters, was executed in 1475, for the Pucci chapel in the entrance-court of the Annunziata. In these works may be recognised the sculptor, and the student of anatomy, to whom fidelity in representing the figure is more important than the feeling for beauty. Alesso Baldovinetti, who was probably a pupil of Uccello, and a fellow-worker of Andrea del Castagno, experienced the influence of sculpture indirectly; and where he might have learned from it, in regard to modelling, he has only acquired a constrained, angular style, which is far from pleasing. An example of this may be seen in his picture of the Madonna enthroned with saints, painted for the villa at Caffaggiuolo, and now in the Uffizi collection. More satisfactory is a work executed from a design of his—the picture of Dante in Sta. Maria del Fiore which represents thealtissimo Poetain the attitude of speaking, with his open book in his hand; on his right is hell, on his left the city of Florence, in the background the Mount of Purgatory, above his head the firmament. This picture was actually attributed to Orcagna, till the artist’s name—Domenico di Michelino—and the date of execution, 1466, were discovered.[208]Benozzo Gozzoli’s most important works—his Pisanfrescoes—were executed from 1469 onwards; they display great creative power, though the harmony is defective and the masses and spaces are ill distributed. It is observable in the works of Filippo Lippi, Gozzoli, and Baldovinetti, a far inferior artist, that the custom was growing in Florence of introducing into historical and religious compositions portraits of spectators who had nothing to do with the subject. Nothing remains of the frescoes painted by Baldovinetti for the Gianfigliazzi in the choir of Sta. Trinità; they contained portraits of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, Bongianni and others of the Gianfigliazzi, Luigi Guicciardini, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, Filippo Strozzi, Lorenzo della Volpaia, and Paolo Toscanelli.[209]This branch of painting reached its highest development in the hands of Baldovinetti’s famous pupil, Domenico Ghirlandajo. Sandro Botticelli and Filippino Lippi pursued the same branch of art. The former learned the goldsmith’s trade in his youth, and shows traces of the influence of the Pollaiuoli. He was the pupil of Fra Filippo and became the master of his son, whom he survived, though Filippino was his junior by twenty years. In the paintings of both there is a peculiar fantastic element, attractive and interesting at first, but tiresome after a time. In the faces it degenerates into a constantly recurring type, and in the composition becomes mannerism. The way, too, in which both painters employ allegory increases the appearance of affectation. Yet both were men of great talent, with a fine and delicate sense of beauty when not marred by superficiality and exaggeration. Both had much to do with Lorenzo. None of the pictures painted for him by Botticelli are now in existence, but his fine picture of the Epiphany must have been a commission from the Medici, for in this work (formerly in Sta. Maria Novella, and now in the Uffizi) the Three Kings have the features of three members of the family—Cosimo the elder, his younger son Giovanni, and hisgrandson Giuliano.[210]The colouring is more like that of Ghirlandajo, to whom the picture was long attributed, than the brighter, thinner tone of most of Botticelli’s works. Florence contains many of his allegorical pictures, as well as Madonnas and saints; among them the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the church of San Marco, as a commission for the Silk-workers’ Guild.[211]Botticelli not only introduced likenesses into his historical pictures, he painted separate portraits; among them those of Lorenzo’s mother and Giuliano’s early lost love, the ‘bella Simonetta,’ very pleasing in the gentle simplicity which characterises her expression, her attitude, and even her dress. Both heads are in profile, the contour a little exaggerated, in the manner of this artist.[212]Botticelli’s close connection with the Medici is shown by the circumstance that after the conspiracy of the Pazzi he undertook to paint the likenesses of the conspirators on the wall of the palace of the Podestà.[213]Only one work of Filippino Lippi is mentioned as having been executed for Lorenzo—the unfinished fresco, representing a sacrifice, in the hall at Poggio a Cajano—but their intimacy is well known. The commission given to Filippino by Cardinal Olivieri Caraffa for the painting of his chapel in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva is said to have been procured byLorenzo, and so, probably, were those of Matthias Corvinus. The influence exercised on the views and tendencies of the son by his father’s works, especially those at Prato—where Filippino passed most of his youth—was mingled with that of Botticelli. The former comes out most in the earlier works, notably in the frescoes of the Brancacci chapel at San Pietro in Carmine, painted about 1485; the latter in the wall-paintings begun for Filippo Strozzi, but not finished till long after, in the chapel in Sta. Maria Novella. The immediate neighbourhood of Masaccio’s works had, no doubt, a beneficial effect on the young artist in his earlier works, for Filippino, not yet thirty, shows in the Brancacci frescoes infinitely more fidelity to nature and feeling for historical composition than in the paintings of the Caraffa and Strozzi chapels. The scenes in the last,[214]from the Acts and legends of the Apostles, display undeniable tokens of spirit and imagination, giving a vivid representation of the passions. But there is affected mannerism, inharmonious colouring, and an apparent delight in light tints playing into each other. Some of these defects may be partly laid to the account of restoration. The preference, noticeable in Botticelli, for antique accessories, produces in Filippino an effect of artificial overloading. Among his easel-pieces, the great Madonna with saints, painted in 1485 for the council-chamber of the palace of the Signoria, is distinguished by grace and earnest work.[215]Filippino, too, was fond of introducing figures of contemporaries. In his frescoes at S. Pietro in Carmine may be seen Tommaso Soderini, Piero Guicciardini (father of the historian), Luigi Pulci, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Sandro Botticelli, Francesco Granacci, and the painter himself. In an altar-piece (now in the Uffizi), representing the Epiphany, are portraits of several membersof the younger branch of the Medici, doubtless benefactors of the convent of San Donato, for which the picture was painted four years after Lorenzo’s death. There are Pierfrancesco, grandson of Giovanni di Bicci, his son Giovanni, father of the famous leader of the Black Bands and grandfather of the first Grand-Duke, and the younger Pierfrancesco, father of Lorenzino, the murderer of the first Duke of Florence.[216]Other portraits, such as those of the Nerli family in Sto. Spirito, represent donors. In Cosimo Rosselli’s greatest work, the Procession with the Chalice in the church of Sant’Ambrogio, only one portrait is named, that of Pico della Mirandola. In Lucca, where Rosselli painted a good deal, he fell into the reigning fashion. He had formed himself on the model, first of Fra Angelico, then of Benozzo Gozzoli, and with moderate talents endeavoured to combine the conventional with the naturalistic tendency.[217]The highest achievements of painting in Lorenzo’s days were those of Domenico Ghirlandajo. He is a nobler Benozzo, guided by a refined sense of symmetry. His power of drawing figures and groups is combined with variety and animation. He has a strong feeling for historical character, and makes a moderate use of architecture and accessories that heighten the interest of his compositions without seeming obtrusive. What he lacks in point of ideality is compensated by his love of nature and that cultivated sense of form which makes him select natural beauty and avoid whatever is repulsive in the reality. His scenes from Scripture and the history of the Saints are full of figures, and produce a grand, often a solemn, effect without being at all forced or far-fetched. They transport us, undisturbed by anything foreign or strange, into the Florence of his day. We seem to stand in the middle of that gay and busy life,among the gallant active citizens and the stately, beautiful women of that city, which, according to the inscription—doubtless Poliziano’s—on the picture in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella of the Angel appearing to Zacharias, was rich in the spoils of victory and the treasures of art, in noble buildings, in plenty, health, and peace.[218]Ghirlandajo’s frescoes are a sort of monumental glorification of Lorenzo’s latter years. Among the many portraits which give these works a value, independent of their qualities as works of art, may be seen Lorenzo’s in the Sassetti chapel in Sta. Trinità, which was decorated in 1485 with scenes from the history of St. Francis of Assisi. The frescoes in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella make quite a portrait gallery. They were begun in 1490 for Giovanni Tornabuoni, and after five years’ work were finished four years before the death of the painter, who is here seen at his best. Here are limned many members of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families (between whom there was a connection), as well as numerous friends—Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, Gentile of Urbino, the most distinguished scholars of the time. Baldovinetti, too, is there; David Ghirlandajo, Domenico’s brother; his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi and himself; Andrea de’ Medici, Federigo Sassetti, Gianfrancesco Ridolfi—a partner in the Medicean bank—besides noble ladies and matrons, among whom is Ginevra de’ Benci, a famous beauty also painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and another pleasing face, that of Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni in 1486.[219]Like the Brancacci chapel, the choir of Sta. Maria Novella was a school for painters in the palmy days of art; Andrea del Sarto, in particular, received a great impulsefrom the compositions of Ghirlandajo. When it is considered that the latter was taken away in the full strength of manhood, at the age of forty-five, and that his development was not rapid, it is hard to understand how he could have executed so many works in Florence and elsewhere. The frescoes may have been done in part by his pupils, but the easel-pieces—of which there are so many, executed with the most careful technical perfection—must have come chiefly from his own hand. Of those in Florence it will suffice to name one, the fine Epiphany painted in 1488 for the church of the Foundling Hospital. For Lorenzo, in 1488, he painted in the villa at Spedaletto some mythological subjects of Vulcan and his comrades, of which little now remains. For Giovanni de’ Medici he did two altar-pieces in the abbey church of San Giusto near Volterra, of which one, ‘Christ in the act of Blessing, with Saints,’ still exists. But Ghirlandajo’s chief patrons were the Tornabuoni, family connections of the Medici. That he and several other Tuscan artists were sent for to Rome to decorate the Sixtine Chapel may safely be attributed to these two families. About twenty years before the close of the century—when Sandro Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli, and his pupil Piero di Cosimo, were painting there with and after Ghirlandajo—the Pope and Lorenzo were reconciled; and as in Florence nothing was ever done in matters of art without him, he and Giovanni Tornabuoni doubtless procured these commissions.The diplomatic, literary, and artistic intercourse between Florence and Rome had never been so active and fertile as in those days when the predominance of Florentine influence in Rome was openly acknowledged. Almost all the remarkable works of the time of Sixtus IV. are due to Florentine architects, sculptors, and painters. They may have commenced even before the Pazzi conspiracy, for Baccio Pontelli began to build the chapel in 1473, and Sixtus was urgent for its completion. Beside the Florentine painters above named two other Tuscans were employed, Don Bartolommeodella Gatta, abbot of a small Camaldulensian convent at Arezzo, and perhaps a Florentine by birth, and Luca Signorelli of Cortona, who by his connection with Piero della Francesca forms a link between Tuscan and Umbrian art. His chief works belong to an Umbrian city, Orvieto, where indeed Tuscan masters had long taken the lead. Luca Signorelli also painted for Lorenzo. A Madonna, once in the villa at Castello now in the Uffizi, and a mythological picture, the ‘Education of Pan,’ seem to have been offerings of the artist to his patron. The last-named picture recalls the grandeur of conception and strong feeling for form noticeable in the frescoes in the chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral.[220]The head of the Umbrian school in the latter decades of the century, Pietro Perugino, made repeated and long visits to Florence, and was considerably influenced by Florentine art, though with an admixture of other elements. Thus was formed a style which, opposed on the one hand to the naturalism of most of the Florentines, on the other to the enthusiastic tendencies of some among them, gave expression to the religious element which long remained dominant in the master’s own country and beyond it. It is ascertained that Perugino was in Florence in 1482 and in the beginning of 1491, but nothing is known of what he did then. His chief works in Florence are of later date, as are those of his school, first among which is the ‘Last Supper,’ in Sant’ Onofrio, probably by Bernardino Pinturicchio. In 1496, Perugino had thoughts of building a house in Florence, and in 1515—when his talent was on the wane—he purchased a future resting-place in the Annunziata; such tokens did he give of his attachment to the city which, spite of the superhuman activity of Rome, was yet the focus of all artist-life and work. Of paintings by Perugino for the Medici nothing is known.Miniature painting[221]rapidly approached its highest development. Great illuminated church-books, antiphonaries, psalters, hours, breviaries, &c., had come forth from Benedictine, Camaldulensian, Dominican, and other convents, and were lodged in cathedrals and churches. The art of illumination was extended by Dante’s contemporaries, Oderigi of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna, to prayer-books for private use and to works of profane literature, when men of rank and citizens took to forming libraries and beautiful manuscripts became objects of luxury. The field for representation was correspondingly enlarged, and from figures of angels and saints the artists of the fifteenth century passed to scenes from the classic poets or the ‘Divine Comedy.’ In this century the Florentine churches were filled with the finest works of this kind, most of which are now in the National Library or that of San Marco. The Dominican order were especially rich in miniature painters after Giovanni Dominici had given an impulse to this branch of art. In Cosimo’s time, Fra Angelico and Fra Benedetto worked in San Marco under the eyes of St. Antonine. Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, Attavante degli Attavanti, Gherardo and Monti di Giovanni, Zanobi Strozzi, Francesco Rosselli, brother of Cosimo, and many others, distinguished themselves in this art, in which they were emulated by foreigners connected with Florence: Liberale of Verona, Girolamo of Cremona, several Sienese, and others. From the middle of the century miniature painting underwent the influence of the Van Eyck school. Many beautiful works found their way into the Medici collections. Lorenzo’stastes and traditions were inherited by his son Giovanni, whom Raphael’s famous portrait represents with a book adorned with miniatures, and a glass for looking at them lying before him. Many miniatures went abroad, and foreign ones came to Italy. Gherardo, Attavanti, and others worked for Matthias Corvinus; and in the Burgundian Library at Brussels is preserved the mass-book painted for the king by the last-named artist in 1485, and brought to the Netherlands by Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V. At Matthias’s death Lorenzo acquired several of the manuscripts, probably ordered at his own instigation, and some of which were still in hand. Lorenzo was deeply interested in the revival of mosaic. Vasari’s statement that Alesso Baldovinetti learned the long-forgotten principles of this art from a German pilgrim going to Rome must rest on its own merits; anyhow, the art was revived in Lorenzo’s latter years. In 1482-83, Baldovinetti undertook to restore the mosaics in the Baptistery. About 1490, Gherardo di Giovanni and Domenico Ghirlandajo began for Lorenzo the mosaic decoration of the chapel in the choir of the cathedral, where stands the shrine of St. Zanobi. This work was never finished. The same year Domenico executed the pleasing mosaic picture of the ‘Annunciation,’ over the side-door of the church, towards the Via de’ Servi. Baldovinetti’s pupil Graffione, and Ghirlandajo’s brother David, took part in these works; the latter, who busied himself with the technicalities of glass-making at Montaione, in the Elsa valley—where there are potteries and glass-houses to this day—afterwards worked both in Florence and in the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto.[222]Thus varied and fruitful was the development of art around Lorenzo, in a great measure stimulated and shared in by him. Like his grandfather, he was not content to profit by ripe talents and pluck the fruits, he sowed for thefuture; he, more than any one else, contributed to bring on the most brilliant period of art. He founded a nursery for choice spirits in the collection of works of art of all kinds, ancient and modern, which he laid out in his garden at San Marco and the neighbouring casino, and the superintendence of which he confided to Donatello’s pupil, Bertoldo. At a time when antique sculptures were rare, and the means of study limited, and when young men of talent had to remain for years in a dependent position which checked their individual development, advantages like these, offered to youth, were as unusual as they were invaluable. Lorenzo’s sound judgment was no less useful here than his goodwill. ‘It is no small matter,’ remarks Vasari in the ‘Life of Giovan Francesco Rustici,’[223]‘that distinction was attained by all those who went to school in the Medici garden, and were assisted by the illustrious Lorenzo. This can only be ascribed to the uncommon perspicacity of that noble gentleman, who was a veritable Mæcenas, who knew how to recognise genius and merit, and to encourage them by rewards.’ The painters Francesco Granacci, Lorenzo di Credi, Niccolò Soggi; the sculptors Giovan Francesco Rustici, Pietro Torrigiano, Baccio of Montelupo, Andrea Contucci of Monte San Sovino—who on Lorenzo’s recommendation was summoned to Portugal, where he executed works of architecture and sculpture for King John II.—these, and others, came forth from the garden of San Marco. The variety of their gifts and accomplishments bears witness to the freedom they had there enjoyed in the development of the most diverse intellectual powers. But the one who gave to the Medicean garden a worldwide fame was Michelangelo Buonarotti. Before he was fifteen he passed from the school of Ghirlandajo into this new world. His sculptures soon disclosed the marvellous talent which his sympathetic teacher had foreboded when he recommended him and Granacci to Lorenzo;the latter having, as the story goes, expressed to his artist-friend a regret that sculpture did not keep pace with painting. The youth came of a good family, but without property.[224]During the few remaining years of Lorenzo, he enjoyed a sympathy and kindness which had a decided influence on his life up to the threshold of old age, although the independent spirit of the free citizen often rebelled against the attachment which, as artist, he continued to feel for the Medici.It has been generally believed that the greatest Florentine artist of the second half of the fifteenth century—Leonardo da Vinci—was a stranger to Lorenzo. The fact appeared the more strange because Leonardo was the son of a chancellor or notary of the Republic, and a pupil of Andrea del Verocchio, who was in constant intercourse with the Medici. Newly discovered documents[225]show that Leonardo, if not among those admitted to study in the San Marco gardens, was at least acquainted with the Medici, and that it was Lorenzo who sent him, when thirty years old, to Lodovico il Moro, in company with one Atalante Migliorotti, famous for playing on the lyre. The date hitherto assigned to his first visit to Milan—1482 or 1483—is confirmed; but there is no explanation of the fact that his name is never mentioned during the war of 1478-79. He was then twenty-six, and might have done good service to his country by that knowledge of mechanics and hydraulics which he afterwards turned to such good account in Lombardy. On January 1 ofthe fatal year 1478, the Signoria commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for the chapel dedicated to St. Bernard in the palace. This commission, like many of the same kind, was not executed, but was transferred after Leonardo’s departure for Milan to Filippino Lippi, whose beautiful Madonna (see p. 175) was placed not in the chapel, but in the council chamber. Under the rule of the two Sforzas—Gian Galeazzo and Lodovico il Moro—Leonardo founded at Milan a school of painting which gave a new direction to Lombard art. When he returned to Florence after the downfall of the Moro, Lorenzo had been seven years in his grave, and his sons were in exile.
CHAPTER XIV.SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.Thefirst man to whom Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici gave a commission for a great piece of sculpture, after they became independent, was Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a disciple of Donatello, and had worked with the master in San Lorenzo. This was of itself a recommendation to the Medici, who found him also employed by their relatives, the Tornabuoni. Vasari rightly observes that a certain severity is even more prominent in his works than in those of his master, because he lacked the creative versatility of the latter and tried to supply by study what Nature had denied him. In bronze-casting he displays a delicacy which recalls the goldsmith. The monument to Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici was finished in 1472. Like Donatello, Verrocchio restored damaged antique sculptures for the Medici house and garden, and executed for Lorenzo some bronze busts which were sent to Matthias Corvinus. For the palace of the Signoria he furnished a bronze statue of David, now in the Podestà Museum, not very remarkable either in conception or execution. His shortcomings, however, are amply atoned for by the charming bronze group over the fountain in the courtyard, representing a boy, half-fighting, half-playing with a dolphin, full of easy grace that seems almost above this artist. It was a commission from Lorenzo, and intended for the fountain in the court at Careggi, but placed in its present position by Duke Cosimo. Verrocchio’s capabilities in more serious work were shown in Florence by thegroup of our Lord and the apostle St. Thomas, which in 1483 received the most prominent place in front of the church of Or San Michele—and in Venice, by his equestrian statue of Colleone. Though the former, with its broken and angular drapery—recalling the Umbrian school—does not exactly conform to the rules of plastic art, it is penetrated with a depth of feeling that renders it highly attractive; and in the latter the defiant self-conscious bearing of the oldcondottierebrings his position and character vividly before the eye. Among Andrea’s marble works is a relievo, very naturalistic, representing the death (in her confinement, September 24, 1477) of Francesca Pitti, wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni; it was intended for her tomb, and is now to be seen in the palace of the Podestà.[191]Equally intimate with the Medici, if not more so, was Antonio del Pollaiuolo, whose family connections linked him to the school of Ghiberti. In his sculptures the goldsmith is more closely discernible than in those of Verrocchio. They both, while painting and sculpturing, continued to work as goldsmiths, and Pollaiuolo was regarded in his native city as the first master of this branch. ‘A man unique in his art,’ wrote the Signoria, after his death, to the ambassador in Rome, ‘well deserving that we, who are wont to value praiseworthy qualities of whatever nature, should honour his memory by supporting his heirs.’[192]Lorenzo’s high esteem for him is shown by passages in his letters to Giovanni Lanfredini. The silver helmet presented in 1472 to the conqueror of Volterra was by Pollaiuolo; so was also the oft-copied medal representing the criminal attempt of the Pazzi, more valuable in a historical than in an artistic point of view. No great works of sculpture by him are known in Florence, the labour of his latter years being chiefly devoted to Rome, where his masterpiece is the tomb ofPope Sixtus IV. in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament in St. Peter’s, and where he died in 1498.[193]As Verocchio and Pollaiuolo passed from goldsmith’s work to sculpture, without abandoning altogether their original occupation, so Benedetto da Majano rose from artistic cabinet-work to sculpture and architecture. The monument to Giotto in Sta. Maria del Fiore—a marble bust in a richly ornamented circular frame—was, according to the inscription, erected by the citizens in 1490.[194]The bust of Antonio Squarcialupi, in the same church, is only ascribed to Benedetto by a later tradition, which the merit of the work by no means justifies.[195]The erection of both monuments was, doubtless, due to Lorenzo. Benedetto’s greatest work was a pulpit, executed for a Florentine citizen—Pietro Mellini—of whom he also made, in 1474, a most natural and expressive marble bust, which he signed with his name. The pulpit is decorated with reliefs, representing scenes in the history of St. Francis of Assisi—the richest and finest workof the kind since that of the Pisani. In imitation of Ghiberti, the reliefs are freely handled; landscapes and backgrounds in perspective are introduced, but with a careful subordination of the pictorial elements which afterwards became too prominent.[196]In Sta. Maria Novella is Benedetto’s monument to Filippo Strozzi. The artist who built the palace, of which the owner lived to see only the beginning, also erected in his beautiful family chapel this mausoleum, which was begun before his death.[197]Above the black marble sarcophagus, in the middle of a panel under an arch delicately carved in arabesques, is a large medallion of the Virgin and Child, in white marble, surrounded by a rich garland of flowers and foliage; at the sides are four angels in adoration. The charm of expression and delicacy of treatment recall Antonio Rossellino and Desiderio da Settignano. Filippo’s bust, preserved by his descendants in the Strozzi Palace, shows the marked, expressive features of the energetic man. Benedetto’s capabilities in decorative sculpture are displayed in the marble doors of the audience-chamber in the palace of the Signoria, where he worked, as has been mentioned, with his brother. Time and ignorance have not spared this fine work, and the statuette of the youthful Baptist, which once adorned it, is now in the Uffizi collection.The two finest works of Mino da Fiesole which adorn the Benedictine Abbey-Church, were executed about 1470; one represents the artist’s own time, the other the earlier days of Florence. They are the monuments of Bernardo Giugni, and of the Marquis Hugo. The former, and his services to the State have been already mentioned. The figure of an elderly man, in his long robe, with his hands crossed on his breast, lies on the sarcophagus; between Ionian pilasters is a semi-circular niche, in which is a figureof Justice in relief, and in the lunette is a medallion profile of the deceased.[198]The other monument, finished in 1481, is richer, but very like the first in general arrangement. It is a token of gratitude from the monks to their founder—the half-mythical Marquis who, in Emperor Otto’s days, is said to have come from the neighbourhood of the Elbe and the Havel—the ‘great Baron’ of the ‘Divine Comedy,’ whose arms are quartered on the armorial bearings of the chief Florentine families.[199]His effigies rest on a low couch on the top of the sarcophagus, two genii support shields at his head and feet; there is a group in relief, representing Charity, and in the lunette a medallion of the Virgin and Child. As in all Mino’s sculpture, careful workmanship is manifest in the accessories. This attention to detail and richness of ornamentation long remained a characteristic of the Florentines, who carried it to Rome and Naples. In the early decades of the following century, when the revolution in monumental style, introduced chiefly by Michel Angelo, was beginning to make its way, and ornamentation was compelled to take refuge in painting, admirable works in the old manner were raised in Florence. Such were the tombs of Oddo Altoviti, and Pier Soderini, both by Benedetto da Rovezzano; also the monument to Cardinal Luigi de’ Rossi, cousin of Leo X., said to be by Raffaello da Montelupo. With regard to ornamentation, a distinct position is held by two monuments, companions to each other, which tradition ascribes to Giuliano da Sangallo—those of Francesco Sassetti and his wife, in their family chapel in Sta. Trinità.[200]They consist of black marble sarcophagi, decorated with rams’ heads, and standing beneath an arch adorned with antique arabesques and medallions, and a frieze, in the middle ofwhich are medallion heads of the husband and wife, surrounded by small figures representing ceremonies of heathen worship. They are clearly the work of an artist well acquainted with classical antiquity; who, in this case, has certainly made rather a strange use of his studies. That Giuliano da Sangallo was expert in the use of the chisel and thoroughly understood the working of the Fiesolian stone, employed in this monument, is shown by his famous mantelpiece in the Gondi Palace, which served as a model for that by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the Casa Rosselli del Turco, near Sant’Apostolo.[201]Tuscan sculptors of ornamental work, particularly those from Fiesole, Settignano, Rovezzano, and the neighbourhood, found occupation all over Italy, like the architects and sculptors from the Lake of Como, themaestri Comacini, in the Middle Ages. In our own days the Tuscans still show great ability in working both marble andmacigno(the greyish stone of the neighbourhood of Florence) in which they produce objects of beautifully delicate workmanship.Other arts at this time rose to a highly flourishing condition. The connection between architecture and cabinet-making, and that between sculpture and goldsmith’s work, have been repeatedly referred to. The architect and cabinet-maker were often one, down to the middle of the following century, when the Del Tasso family continued their double occupation. But artistic cabinet-work was also connected with sculpture and painting, as may be seen by the rich choir-stalls of many churches; the ceilings and other woodwork of the palaces, with their fine reliefs, elegant panelling, and wood-mosaic (tarsia), much used to represent perspective as well as to imitate flowers and foliage. Many of the artists mentioned furnished work of this kind to the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Fiore, and to the palace of the Signoria. The goldsmith’s art was in its glory, followed asit was by great sculptors, who found excellent assistants in those who never rose to the height of sculpture. The finest work of this kind in Florence is the silver reredos for the Baptistery (mentioned at p. 130), which was never quite finished. The growing taste for ornamental vessels and other objects favoured this branch of art; as did also the custom of presenting silver helmets or pieces of plate to commanders and others who had deserved well of the Republic. As early as the summer of 1397, 436 florins were paid to the goldsmiths Piero, Matteo and Donato, for silver gold and enamel, for dishes (bacinetti) intended for the generals Paolo Orsini, Giovanni Colonna and Bernardin de Serre. Antonio del Pollaiuolo made a large silver dish for the Signoria, and various ornaments for rich families; and the churches were adorned with silver crucifixes and elegant lamps.Die-cutting was only a branch of sculpture and the goldsmith’s art, sure to be practised where these two arts flourished, and contemporary history furnished a store of materials. But here the Tuscans do not hold the foremost place, either in time or in excellence of workmanship. Natives of Northern Italy, Lombards, and Venetians, came before them in the great cast portrait-medallions, by which Vittore Pisanello made a name in the fifteenth century. Donatello’s followers strove to follow but never came up to him. Three of the Tuscan medallists—Antonio Pollaiuolo, Bertoldo, and Andrea Guazzalotti of Prato, had dealings with the Medici. Only the first is known to have struck a medal referring to his country’s history, namely, one relating to the Pazzi conspiracy. Guazzalotti, who was in correspondence with Lorenzo and cast statues for him, commemorated the Pope and the Duke of Calabria as victors over the Turks; the medals are characteristically conceived, but lacking in delicacy of treatment. Medals of Cosimo and of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, are attributed to Pisanello, the latter probablyincorrectly; a medallion with the head of Lorenzo seems to be the work of a Florentine, Pietro di Niccolò.[202]Yet another branch of art reached a high perfection in Florence—that of engraving precious stones. The taste for engraved gems, which kept pace with the increasing knowledge of antiquity and the passion for books and antique works of all kinds, revived the art of cutting cameos and precious stones. A good example of the growth of this taste is related by Vespasiano da Bisticci in the ‘Life of Niccoli,’[203]whose house was full of antiquities. Passing along the street one day, he saw a boy wearing round his neck a chalcedony with a figure engraved, which the learned man thought he recognised as a work of Polycletes. He inquired the name of the boy’s father, and sent to ask him whether he would sell the stone. The man was willing to let him have it for five florins, which he thought good payment. Now, in the days of Pope Eugene, the future Cardinal Luigi Scarampi—who had much taste for matters of this sort—being in Florence, asked Niccoli to show him the stone, and offered him two hundred ducats for it. Niccoli, who was not rich, accepted, and the chalcedony passed into the hands of Scarampi, then to Paul II., and, after his death, to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni, had collected many gems, of which not the least famous was the carnelian representing Apollo and Marsyas. It was supposed to be Nero’s seal, and was set in gold by Lorenzo Ghiberti.[204]Lorenzo considerably increased the collection of antique gems inherited from his father, and formed a treasury, of which numerous remains still exist, after all the disasters that befell his posterity. He and Paul II. inspired this branch of artwith new life, and enabled modern workers to enter the lists against the ancients. The first modern gem of known date, is a portrait of Pope Paul in 1470, now in the Uffizi collection. Giovanni delle Corniuole formed himself on the models in the Medici collection, and attained the perfection conspicuous in his famous head of Savonarola. He had a competitor in the Milanese Domenico de’ Cammei, who worked chiefly for Lodovico il Moro, and to whom is attributed the portrait of Lorenzo on an onyx of three strata, placed with that of the great Dominican in the Uffizi collection. Many other stones, with subjects taken from mythology, sacred history, &c., are works of this period, when, also, much antique work was copied. The name of Lorenzo de’ Medici, to be read on many gems in Florence and elsewhere, recalls the former wealth told of in Latin verses, and in the testimonies of contemporaries.[205]In painting we now witness the development of the tendencies which first appeared in Masaccio, and were so actively reciprocated by the sister-art of sculpture. Here the two branches of art frequently met, and their reciprocal influence is discernible in the character of the work. It was thus with Verrocchio, and the Pollaiuoli. The former, of no great distinction as a painter, recalls his bronze works in his picture of the Baptism of Christ.[206]The brothers Pollaiuoli,whose grave, quiet faces may be seen together on their tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome, cannot well be separated in their works; and, though Piero occupied himself with painting more than Antonio, the inscription by the latter on the monument of Pope Sixtus IV. shows his excellence in gold and silver work, in painting, and bronze casting. Antonio painted for Lorenzo the Labours of Hercules, of which some small copies are still in existence. The picture of St. James was painted for the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal; that of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,[207]the most famous work of these painters, was executed in 1475, for the Pucci chapel in the entrance-court of the Annunziata. In these works may be recognised the sculptor, and the student of anatomy, to whom fidelity in representing the figure is more important than the feeling for beauty. Alesso Baldovinetti, who was probably a pupil of Uccello, and a fellow-worker of Andrea del Castagno, experienced the influence of sculpture indirectly; and where he might have learned from it, in regard to modelling, he has only acquired a constrained, angular style, which is far from pleasing. An example of this may be seen in his picture of the Madonna enthroned with saints, painted for the villa at Caffaggiuolo, and now in the Uffizi collection. More satisfactory is a work executed from a design of his—the picture of Dante in Sta. Maria del Fiore which represents thealtissimo Poetain the attitude of speaking, with his open book in his hand; on his right is hell, on his left the city of Florence, in the background the Mount of Purgatory, above his head the firmament. This picture was actually attributed to Orcagna, till the artist’s name—Domenico di Michelino—and the date of execution, 1466, were discovered.[208]Benozzo Gozzoli’s most important works—his Pisanfrescoes—were executed from 1469 onwards; they display great creative power, though the harmony is defective and the masses and spaces are ill distributed. It is observable in the works of Filippo Lippi, Gozzoli, and Baldovinetti, a far inferior artist, that the custom was growing in Florence of introducing into historical and religious compositions portraits of spectators who had nothing to do with the subject. Nothing remains of the frescoes painted by Baldovinetti for the Gianfigliazzi in the choir of Sta. Trinità; they contained portraits of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, Bongianni and others of the Gianfigliazzi, Luigi Guicciardini, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, Filippo Strozzi, Lorenzo della Volpaia, and Paolo Toscanelli.[209]This branch of painting reached its highest development in the hands of Baldovinetti’s famous pupil, Domenico Ghirlandajo. Sandro Botticelli and Filippino Lippi pursued the same branch of art. The former learned the goldsmith’s trade in his youth, and shows traces of the influence of the Pollaiuoli. He was the pupil of Fra Filippo and became the master of his son, whom he survived, though Filippino was his junior by twenty years. In the paintings of both there is a peculiar fantastic element, attractive and interesting at first, but tiresome after a time. In the faces it degenerates into a constantly recurring type, and in the composition becomes mannerism. The way, too, in which both painters employ allegory increases the appearance of affectation. Yet both were men of great talent, with a fine and delicate sense of beauty when not marred by superficiality and exaggeration. Both had much to do with Lorenzo. None of the pictures painted for him by Botticelli are now in existence, but his fine picture of the Epiphany must have been a commission from the Medici, for in this work (formerly in Sta. Maria Novella, and now in the Uffizi) the Three Kings have the features of three members of the family—Cosimo the elder, his younger son Giovanni, and hisgrandson Giuliano.[210]The colouring is more like that of Ghirlandajo, to whom the picture was long attributed, than the brighter, thinner tone of most of Botticelli’s works. Florence contains many of his allegorical pictures, as well as Madonnas and saints; among them the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the church of San Marco, as a commission for the Silk-workers’ Guild.[211]Botticelli not only introduced likenesses into his historical pictures, he painted separate portraits; among them those of Lorenzo’s mother and Giuliano’s early lost love, the ‘bella Simonetta,’ very pleasing in the gentle simplicity which characterises her expression, her attitude, and even her dress. Both heads are in profile, the contour a little exaggerated, in the manner of this artist.[212]Botticelli’s close connection with the Medici is shown by the circumstance that after the conspiracy of the Pazzi he undertook to paint the likenesses of the conspirators on the wall of the palace of the Podestà.[213]Only one work of Filippino Lippi is mentioned as having been executed for Lorenzo—the unfinished fresco, representing a sacrifice, in the hall at Poggio a Cajano—but their intimacy is well known. The commission given to Filippino by Cardinal Olivieri Caraffa for the painting of his chapel in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva is said to have been procured byLorenzo, and so, probably, were those of Matthias Corvinus. The influence exercised on the views and tendencies of the son by his father’s works, especially those at Prato—where Filippino passed most of his youth—was mingled with that of Botticelli. The former comes out most in the earlier works, notably in the frescoes of the Brancacci chapel at San Pietro in Carmine, painted about 1485; the latter in the wall-paintings begun for Filippo Strozzi, but not finished till long after, in the chapel in Sta. Maria Novella. The immediate neighbourhood of Masaccio’s works had, no doubt, a beneficial effect on the young artist in his earlier works, for Filippino, not yet thirty, shows in the Brancacci frescoes infinitely more fidelity to nature and feeling for historical composition than in the paintings of the Caraffa and Strozzi chapels. The scenes in the last,[214]from the Acts and legends of the Apostles, display undeniable tokens of spirit and imagination, giving a vivid representation of the passions. But there is affected mannerism, inharmonious colouring, and an apparent delight in light tints playing into each other. Some of these defects may be partly laid to the account of restoration. The preference, noticeable in Botticelli, for antique accessories, produces in Filippino an effect of artificial overloading. Among his easel-pieces, the great Madonna with saints, painted in 1485 for the council-chamber of the palace of the Signoria, is distinguished by grace and earnest work.[215]Filippino, too, was fond of introducing figures of contemporaries. In his frescoes at S. Pietro in Carmine may be seen Tommaso Soderini, Piero Guicciardini (father of the historian), Luigi Pulci, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Sandro Botticelli, Francesco Granacci, and the painter himself. In an altar-piece (now in the Uffizi), representing the Epiphany, are portraits of several membersof the younger branch of the Medici, doubtless benefactors of the convent of San Donato, for which the picture was painted four years after Lorenzo’s death. There are Pierfrancesco, grandson of Giovanni di Bicci, his son Giovanni, father of the famous leader of the Black Bands and grandfather of the first Grand-Duke, and the younger Pierfrancesco, father of Lorenzino, the murderer of the first Duke of Florence.[216]Other portraits, such as those of the Nerli family in Sto. Spirito, represent donors. In Cosimo Rosselli’s greatest work, the Procession with the Chalice in the church of Sant’Ambrogio, only one portrait is named, that of Pico della Mirandola. In Lucca, where Rosselli painted a good deal, he fell into the reigning fashion. He had formed himself on the model, first of Fra Angelico, then of Benozzo Gozzoli, and with moderate talents endeavoured to combine the conventional with the naturalistic tendency.[217]The highest achievements of painting in Lorenzo’s days were those of Domenico Ghirlandajo. He is a nobler Benozzo, guided by a refined sense of symmetry. His power of drawing figures and groups is combined with variety and animation. He has a strong feeling for historical character, and makes a moderate use of architecture and accessories that heighten the interest of his compositions without seeming obtrusive. What he lacks in point of ideality is compensated by his love of nature and that cultivated sense of form which makes him select natural beauty and avoid whatever is repulsive in the reality. His scenes from Scripture and the history of the Saints are full of figures, and produce a grand, often a solemn, effect without being at all forced or far-fetched. They transport us, undisturbed by anything foreign or strange, into the Florence of his day. We seem to stand in the middle of that gay and busy life,among the gallant active citizens and the stately, beautiful women of that city, which, according to the inscription—doubtless Poliziano’s—on the picture in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella of the Angel appearing to Zacharias, was rich in the spoils of victory and the treasures of art, in noble buildings, in plenty, health, and peace.[218]Ghirlandajo’s frescoes are a sort of monumental glorification of Lorenzo’s latter years. Among the many portraits which give these works a value, independent of their qualities as works of art, may be seen Lorenzo’s in the Sassetti chapel in Sta. Trinità, which was decorated in 1485 with scenes from the history of St. Francis of Assisi. The frescoes in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella make quite a portrait gallery. They were begun in 1490 for Giovanni Tornabuoni, and after five years’ work were finished four years before the death of the painter, who is here seen at his best. Here are limned many members of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families (between whom there was a connection), as well as numerous friends—Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, Gentile of Urbino, the most distinguished scholars of the time. Baldovinetti, too, is there; David Ghirlandajo, Domenico’s brother; his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi and himself; Andrea de’ Medici, Federigo Sassetti, Gianfrancesco Ridolfi—a partner in the Medicean bank—besides noble ladies and matrons, among whom is Ginevra de’ Benci, a famous beauty also painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and another pleasing face, that of Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni in 1486.[219]Like the Brancacci chapel, the choir of Sta. Maria Novella was a school for painters in the palmy days of art; Andrea del Sarto, in particular, received a great impulsefrom the compositions of Ghirlandajo. When it is considered that the latter was taken away in the full strength of manhood, at the age of forty-five, and that his development was not rapid, it is hard to understand how he could have executed so many works in Florence and elsewhere. The frescoes may have been done in part by his pupils, but the easel-pieces—of which there are so many, executed with the most careful technical perfection—must have come chiefly from his own hand. Of those in Florence it will suffice to name one, the fine Epiphany painted in 1488 for the church of the Foundling Hospital. For Lorenzo, in 1488, he painted in the villa at Spedaletto some mythological subjects of Vulcan and his comrades, of which little now remains. For Giovanni de’ Medici he did two altar-pieces in the abbey church of San Giusto near Volterra, of which one, ‘Christ in the act of Blessing, with Saints,’ still exists. But Ghirlandajo’s chief patrons were the Tornabuoni, family connections of the Medici. That he and several other Tuscan artists were sent for to Rome to decorate the Sixtine Chapel may safely be attributed to these two families. About twenty years before the close of the century—when Sandro Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli, and his pupil Piero di Cosimo, were painting there with and after Ghirlandajo—the Pope and Lorenzo were reconciled; and as in Florence nothing was ever done in matters of art without him, he and Giovanni Tornabuoni doubtless procured these commissions.The diplomatic, literary, and artistic intercourse between Florence and Rome had never been so active and fertile as in those days when the predominance of Florentine influence in Rome was openly acknowledged. Almost all the remarkable works of the time of Sixtus IV. are due to Florentine architects, sculptors, and painters. They may have commenced even before the Pazzi conspiracy, for Baccio Pontelli began to build the chapel in 1473, and Sixtus was urgent for its completion. Beside the Florentine painters above named two other Tuscans were employed, Don Bartolommeodella Gatta, abbot of a small Camaldulensian convent at Arezzo, and perhaps a Florentine by birth, and Luca Signorelli of Cortona, who by his connection with Piero della Francesca forms a link between Tuscan and Umbrian art. His chief works belong to an Umbrian city, Orvieto, where indeed Tuscan masters had long taken the lead. Luca Signorelli also painted for Lorenzo. A Madonna, once in the villa at Castello now in the Uffizi, and a mythological picture, the ‘Education of Pan,’ seem to have been offerings of the artist to his patron. The last-named picture recalls the grandeur of conception and strong feeling for form noticeable in the frescoes in the chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral.[220]The head of the Umbrian school in the latter decades of the century, Pietro Perugino, made repeated and long visits to Florence, and was considerably influenced by Florentine art, though with an admixture of other elements. Thus was formed a style which, opposed on the one hand to the naturalism of most of the Florentines, on the other to the enthusiastic tendencies of some among them, gave expression to the religious element which long remained dominant in the master’s own country and beyond it. It is ascertained that Perugino was in Florence in 1482 and in the beginning of 1491, but nothing is known of what he did then. His chief works in Florence are of later date, as are those of his school, first among which is the ‘Last Supper,’ in Sant’ Onofrio, probably by Bernardino Pinturicchio. In 1496, Perugino had thoughts of building a house in Florence, and in 1515—when his talent was on the wane—he purchased a future resting-place in the Annunziata; such tokens did he give of his attachment to the city which, spite of the superhuman activity of Rome, was yet the focus of all artist-life and work. Of paintings by Perugino for the Medici nothing is known.Miniature painting[221]rapidly approached its highest development. Great illuminated church-books, antiphonaries, psalters, hours, breviaries, &c., had come forth from Benedictine, Camaldulensian, Dominican, and other convents, and were lodged in cathedrals and churches. The art of illumination was extended by Dante’s contemporaries, Oderigi of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna, to prayer-books for private use and to works of profane literature, when men of rank and citizens took to forming libraries and beautiful manuscripts became objects of luxury. The field for representation was correspondingly enlarged, and from figures of angels and saints the artists of the fifteenth century passed to scenes from the classic poets or the ‘Divine Comedy.’ In this century the Florentine churches were filled with the finest works of this kind, most of which are now in the National Library or that of San Marco. The Dominican order were especially rich in miniature painters after Giovanni Dominici had given an impulse to this branch of art. In Cosimo’s time, Fra Angelico and Fra Benedetto worked in San Marco under the eyes of St. Antonine. Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, Attavante degli Attavanti, Gherardo and Monti di Giovanni, Zanobi Strozzi, Francesco Rosselli, brother of Cosimo, and many others, distinguished themselves in this art, in which they were emulated by foreigners connected with Florence: Liberale of Verona, Girolamo of Cremona, several Sienese, and others. From the middle of the century miniature painting underwent the influence of the Van Eyck school. Many beautiful works found their way into the Medici collections. Lorenzo’stastes and traditions were inherited by his son Giovanni, whom Raphael’s famous portrait represents with a book adorned with miniatures, and a glass for looking at them lying before him. Many miniatures went abroad, and foreign ones came to Italy. Gherardo, Attavanti, and others worked for Matthias Corvinus; and in the Burgundian Library at Brussels is preserved the mass-book painted for the king by the last-named artist in 1485, and brought to the Netherlands by Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V. At Matthias’s death Lorenzo acquired several of the manuscripts, probably ordered at his own instigation, and some of which were still in hand. Lorenzo was deeply interested in the revival of mosaic. Vasari’s statement that Alesso Baldovinetti learned the long-forgotten principles of this art from a German pilgrim going to Rome must rest on its own merits; anyhow, the art was revived in Lorenzo’s latter years. In 1482-83, Baldovinetti undertook to restore the mosaics in the Baptistery. About 1490, Gherardo di Giovanni and Domenico Ghirlandajo began for Lorenzo the mosaic decoration of the chapel in the choir of the cathedral, where stands the shrine of St. Zanobi. This work was never finished. The same year Domenico executed the pleasing mosaic picture of the ‘Annunciation,’ over the side-door of the church, towards the Via de’ Servi. Baldovinetti’s pupil Graffione, and Ghirlandajo’s brother David, took part in these works; the latter, who busied himself with the technicalities of glass-making at Montaione, in the Elsa valley—where there are potteries and glass-houses to this day—afterwards worked both in Florence and in the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto.[222]Thus varied and fruitful was the development of art around Lorenzo, in a great measure stimulated and shared in by him. Like his grandfather, he was not content to profit by ripe talents and pluck the fruits, he sowed for thefuture; he, more than any one else, contributed to bring on the most brilliant period of art. He founded a nursery for choice spirits in the collection of works of art of all kinds, ancient and modern, which he laid out in his garden at San Marco and the neighbouring casino, and the superintendence of which he confided to Donatello’s pupil, Bertoldo. At a time when antique sculptures were rare, and the means of study limited, and when young men of talent had to remain for years in a dependent position which checked their individual development, advantages like these, offered to youth, were as unusual as they were invaluable. Lorenzo’s sound judgment was no less useful here than his goodwill. ‘It is no small matter,’ remarks Vasari in the ‘Life of Giovan Francesco Rustici,’[223]‘that distinction was attained by all those who went to school in the Medici garden, and were assisted by the illustrious Lorenzo. This can only be ascribed to the uncommon perspicacity of that noble gentleman, who was a veritable Mæcenas, who knew how to recognise genius and merit, and to encourage them by rewards.’ The painters Francesco Granacci, Lorenzo di Credi, Niccolò Soggi; the sculptors Giovan Francesco Rustici, Pietro Torrigiano, Baccio of Montelupo, Andrea Contucci of Monte San Sovino—who on Lorenzo’s recommendation was summoned to Portugal, where he executed works of architecture and sculpture for King John II.—these, and others, came forth from the garden of San Marco. The variety of their gifts and accomplishments bears witness to the freedom they had there enjoyed in the development of the most diverse intellectual powers. But the one who gave to the Medicean garden a worldwide fame was Michelangelo Buonarotti. Before he was fifteen he passed from the school of Ghirlandajo into this new world. His sculptures soon disclosed the marvellous talent which his sympathetic teacher had foreboded when he recommended him and Granacci to Lorenzo;the latter having, as the story goes, expressed to his artist-friend a regret that sculpture did not keep pace with painting. The youth came of a good family, but without property.[224]During the few remaining years of Lorenzo, he enjoyed a sympathy and kindness which had a decided influence on his life up to the threshold of old age, although the independent spirit of the free citizen often rebelled against the attachment which, as artist, he continued to feel for the Medici.It has been generally believed that the greatest Florentine artist of the second half of the fifteenth century—Leonardo da Vinci—was a stranger to Lorenzo. The fact appeared the more strange because Leonardo was the son of a chancellor or notary of the Republic, and a pupil of Andrea del Verocchio, who was in constant intercourse with the Medici. Newly discovered documents[225]show that Leonardo, if not among those admitted to study in the San Marco gardens, was at least acquainted with the Medici, and that it was Lorenzo who sent him, when thirty years old, to Lodovico il Moro, in company with one Atalante Migliorotti, famous for playing on the lyre. The date hitherto assigned to his first visit to Milan—1482 or 1483—is confirmed; but there is no explanation of the fact that his name is never mentioned during the war of 1478-79. He was then twenty-six, and might have done good service to his country by that knowledge of mechanics and hydraulics which he afterwards turned to such good account in Lombardy. On January 1 ofthe fatal year 1478, the Signoria commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for the chapel dedicated to St. Bernard in the palace. This commission, like many of the same kind, was not executed, but was transferred after Leonardo’s departure for Milan to Filippino Lippi, whose beautiful Madonna (see p. 175) was placed not in the chapel, but in the council chamber. Under the rule of the two Sforzas—Gian Galeazzo and Lodovico il Moro—Leonardo founded at Milan a school of painting which gave a new direction to Lombard art. When he returned to Florence after the downfall of the Moro, Lorenzo had been seven years in his grave, and his sons were in exile.
SCULPTURE AND PAINTING.
Thefirst man to whom Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici gave a commission for a great piece of sculpture, after they became independent, was Andrea del Verrocchio. He was a disciple of Donatello, and had worked with the master in San Lorenzo. This was of itself a recommendation to the Medici, who found him also employed by their relatives, the Tornabuoni. Vasari rightly observes that a certain severity is even more prominent in his works than in those of his master, because he lacked the creative versatility of the latter and tried to supply by study what Nature had denied him. In bronze-casting he displays a delicacy which recalls the goldsmith. The monument to Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici was finished in 1472. Like Donatello, Verrocchio restored damaged antique sculptures for the Medici house and garden, and executed for Lorenzo some bronze busts which were sent to Matthias Corvinus. For the palace of the Signoria he furnished a bronze statue of David, now in the Podestà Museum, not very remarkable either in conception or execution. His shortcomings, however, are amply atoned for by the charming bronze group over the fountain in the courtyard, representing a boy, half-fighting, half-playing with a dolphin, full of easy grace that seems almost above this artist. It was a commission from Lorenzo, and intended for the fountain in the court at Careggi, but placed in its present position by Duke Cosimo. Verrocchio’s capabilities in more serious work were shown in Florence by thegroup of our Lord and the apostle St. Thomas, which in 1483 received the most prominent place in front of the church of Or San Michele—and in Venice, by his equestrian statue of Colleone. Though the former, with its broken and angular drapery—recalling the Umbrian school—does not exactly conform to the rules of plastic art, it is penetrated with a depth of feeling that renders it highly attractive; and in the latter the defiant self-conscious bearing of the oldcondottierebrings his position and character vividly before the eye. Among Andrea’s marble works is a relievo, very naturalistic, representing the death (in her confinement, September 24, 1477) of Francesca Pitti, wife of Giovanni Tornabuoni; it was intended for her tomb, and is now to be seen in the palace of the Podestà.[191]
Equally intimate with the Medici, if not more so, was Antonio del Pollaiuolo, whose family connections linked him to the school of Ghiberti. In his sculptures the goldsmith is more closely discernible than in those of Verrocchio. They both, while painting and sculpturing, continued to work as goldsmiths, and Pollaiuolo was regarded in his native city as the first master of this branch. ‘A man unique in his art,’ wrote the Signoria, after his death, to the ambassador in Rome, ‘well deserving that we, who are wont to value praiseworthy qualities of whatever nature, should honour his memory by supporting his heirs.’[192]Lorenzo’s high esteem for him is shown by passages in his letters to Giovanni Lanfredini. The silver helmet presented in 1472 to the conqueror of Volterra was by Pollaiuolo; so was also the oft-copied medal representing the criminal attempt of the Pazzi, more valuable in a historical than in an artistic point of view. No great works of sculpture by him are known in Florence, the labour of his latter years being chiefly devoted to Rome, where his masterpiece is the tomb ofPope Sixtus IV. in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament in St. Peter’s, and where he died in 1498.[193]
As Verocchio and Pollaiuolo passed from goldsmith’s work to sculpture, without abandoning altogether their original occupation, so Benedetto da Majano rose from artistic cabinet-work to sculpture and architecture. The monument to Giotto in Sta. Maria del Fiore—a marble bust in a richly ornamented circular frame—was, according to the inscription, erected by the citizens in 1490.[194]The bust of Antonio Squarcialupi, in the same church, is only ascribed to Benedetto by a later tradition, which the merit of the work by no means justifies.[195]The erection of both monuments was, doubtless, due to Lorenzo. Benedetto’s greatest work was a pulpit, executed for a Florentine citizen—Pietro Mellini—of whom he also made, in 1474, a most natural and expressive marble bust, which he signed with his name. The pulpit is decorated with reliefs, representing scenes in the history of St. Francis of Assisi—the richest and finest workof the kind since that of the Pisani. In imitation of Ghiberti, the reliefs are freely handled; landscapes and backgrounds in perspective are introduced, but with a careful subordination of the pictorial elements which afterwards became too prominent.[196]In Sta. Maria Novella is Benedetto’s monument to Filippo Strozzi. The artist who built the palace, of which the owner lived to see only the beginning, also erected in his beautiful family chapel this mausoleum, which was begun before his death.[197]Above the black marble sarcophagus, in the middle of a panel under an arch delicately carved in arabesques, is a large medallion of the Virgin and Child, in white marble, surrounded by a rich garland of flowers and foliage; at the sides are four angels in adoration. The charm of expression and delicacy of treatment recall Antonio Rossellino and Desiderio da Settignano. Filippo’s bust, preserved by his descendants in the Strozzi Palace, shows the marked, expressive features of the energetic man. Benedetto’s capabilities in decorative sculpture are displayed in the marble doors of the audience-chamber in the palace of the Signoria, where he worked, as has been mentioned, with his brother. Time and ignorance have not spared this fine work, and the statuette of the youthful Baptist, which once adorned it, is now in the Uffizi collection.
The two finest works of Mino da Fiesole which adorn the Benedictine Abbey-Church, were executed about 1470; one represents the artist’s own time, the other the earlier days of Florence. They are the monuments of Bernardo Giugni, and of the Marquis Hugo. The former, and his services to the State have been already mentioned. The figure of an elderly man, in his long robe, with his hands crossed on his breast, lies on the sarcophagus; between Ionian pilasters is a semi-circular niche, in which is a figureof Justice in relief, and in the lunette is a medallion profile of the deceased.[198]The other monument, finished in 1481, is richer, but very like the first in general arrangement. It is a token of gratitude from the monks to their founder—the half-mythical Marquis who, in Emperor Otto’s days, is said to have come from the neighbourhood of the Elbe and the Havel—the ‘great Baron’ of the ‘Divine Comedy,’ whose arms are quartered on the armorial bearings of the chief Florentine families.[199]His effigies rest on a low couch on the top of the sarcophagus, two genii support shields at his head and feet; there is a group in relief, representing Charity, and in the lunette a medallion of the Virgin and Child. As in all Mino’s sculpture, careful workmanship is manifest in the accessories. This attention to detail and richness of ornamentation long remained a characteristic of the Florentines, who carried it to Rome and Naples. In the early decades of the following century, when the revolution in monumental style, introduced chiefly by Michel Angelo, was beginning to make its way, and ornamentation was compelled to take refuge in painting, admirable works in the old manner were raised in Florence. Such were the tombs of Oddo Altoviti, and Pier Soderini, both by Benedetto da Rovezzano; also the monument to Cardinal Luigi de’ Rossi, cousin of Leo X., said to be by Raffaello da Montelupo. With regard to ornamentation, a distinct position is held by two monuments, companions to each other, which tradition ascribes to Giuliano da Sangallo—those of Francesco Sassetti and his wife, in their family chapel in Sta. Trinità.[200]They consist of black marble sarcophagi, decorated with rams’ heads, and standing beneath an arch adorned with antique arabesques and medallions, and a frieze, in the middle ofwhich are medallion heads of the husband and wife, surrounded by small figures representing ceremonies of heathen worship. They are clearly the work of an artist well acquainted with classical antiquity; who, in this case, has certainly made rather a strange use of his studies. That Giuliano da Sangallo was expert in the use of the chisel and thoroughly understood the working of the Fiesolian stone, employed in this monument, is shown by his famous mantelpiece in the Gondi Palace, which served as a model for that by Benedetto da Rovezzano in the Casa Rosselli del Turco, near Sant’Apostolo.[201]Tuscan sculptors of ornamental work, particularly those from Fiesole, Settignano, Rovezzano, and the neighbourhood, found occupation all over Italy, like the architects and sculptors from the Lake of Como, themaestri Comacini, in the Middle Ages. In our own days the Tuscans still show great ability in working both marble andmacigno(the greyish stone of the neighbourhood of Florence) in which they produce objects of beautifully delicate workmanship.
Other arts at this time rose to a highly flourishing condition. The connection between architecture and cabinet-making, and that between sculpture and goldsmith’s work, have been repeatedly referred to. The architect and cabinet-maker were often one, down to the middle of the following century, when the Del Tasso family continued their double occupation. But artistic cabinet-work was also connected with sculpture and painting, as may be seen by the rich choir-stalls of many churches; the ceilings and other woodwork of the palaces, with their fine reliefs, elegant panelling, and wood-mosaic (tarsia), much used to represent perspective as well as to imitate flowers and foliage. Many of the artists mentioned furnished work of this kind to the cathedral of Sta. Maria del Fiore, and to the palace of the Signoria. The goldsmith’s art was in its glory, followed asit was by great sculptors, who found excellent assistants in those who never rose to the height of sculpture. The finest work of this kind in Florence is the silver reredos for the Baptistery (mentioned at p. 130), which was never quite finished. The growing taste for ornamental vessels and other objects favoured this branch of art; as did also the custom of presenting silver helmets or pieces of plate to commanders and others who had deserved well of the Republic. As early as the summer of 1397, 436 florins were paid to the goldsmiths Piero, Matteo and Donato, for silver gold and enamel, for dishes (bacinetti) intended for the generals Paolo Orsini, Giovanni Colonna and Bernardin de Serre. Antonio del Pollaiuolo made a large silver dish for the Signoria, and various ornaments for rich families; and the churches were adorned with silver crucifixes and elegant lamps.
Die-cutting was only a branch of sculpture and the goldsmith’s art, sure to be practised where these two arts flourished, and contemporary history furnished a store of materials. But here the Tuscans do not hold the foremost place, either in time or in excellence of workmanship. Natives of Northern Italy, Lombards, and Venetians, came before them in the great cast portrait-medallions, by which Vittore Pisanello made a name in the fifteenth century. Donatello’s followers strove to follow but never came up to him. Three of the Tuscan medallists—Antonio Pollaiuolo, Bertoldo, and Andrea Guazzalotti of Prato, had dealings with the Medici. Only the first is known to have struck a medal referring to his country’s history, namely, one relating to the Pazzi conspiracy. Guazzalotti, who was in correspondence with Lorenzo and cast statues for him, commemorated the Pope and the Duke of Calabria as victors over the Turks; the medals are characteristically conceived, but lacking in delicacy of treatment. Medals of Cosimo and of Filippo de’ Medici, Archbishop of Pisa, are attributed to Pisanello, the latter probablyincorrectly; a medallion with the head of Lorenzo seems to be the work of a Florentine, Pietro di Niccolò.[202]
Yet another branch of art reached a high perfection in Florence—that of engraving precious stones. The taste for engraved gems, which kept pace with the increasing knowledge of antiquity and the passion for books and antique works of all kinds, revived the art of cutting cameos and precious stones. A good example of the growth of this taste is related by Vespasiano da Bisticci in the ‘Life of Niccoli,’[203]whose house was full of antiquities. Passing along the street one day, he saw a boy wearing round his neck a chalcedony with a figure engraved, which the learned man thought he recognised as a work of Polycletes. He inquired the name of the boy’s father, and sent to ask him whether he would sell the stone. The man was willing to let him have it for five florins, which he thought good payment. Now, in the days of Pope Eugene, the future Cardinal Luigi Scarampi—who had much taste for matters of this sort—being in Florence, asked Niccoli to show him the stone, and offered him two hundred ducats for it. Niccoli, who was not rich, accepted, and the chalcedony passed into the hands of Scarampi, then to Paul II., and, after his death, to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Lorenzo’s uncle, Giovanni, had collected many gems, of which not the least famous was the carnelian representing Apollo and Marsyas. It was supposed to be Nero’s seal, and was set in gold by Lorenzo Ghiberti.[204]Lorenzo considerably increased the collection of antique gems inherited from his father, and formed a treasury, of which numerous remains still exist, after all the disasters that befell his posterity. He and Paul II. inspired this branch of artwith new life, and enabled modern workers to enter the lists against the ancients. The first modern gem of known date, is a portrait of Pope Paul in 1470, now in the Uffizi collection. Giovanni delle Corniuole formed himself on the models in the Medici collection, and attained the perfection conspicuous in his famous head of Savonarola. He had a competitor in the Milanese Domenico de’ Cammei, who worked chiefly for Lodovico il Moro, and to whom is attributed the portrait of Lorenzo on an onyx of three strata, placed with that of the great Dominican in the Uffizi collection. Many other stones, with subjects taken from mythology, sacred history, &c., are works of this period, when, also, much antique work was copied. The name of Lorenzo de’ Medici, to be read on many gems in Florence and elsewhere, recalls the former wealth told of in Latin verses, and in the testimonies of contemporaries.[205]
In painting we now witness the development of the tendencies which first appeared in Masaccio, and were so actively reciprocated by the sister-art of sculpture. Here the two branches of art frequently met, and their reciprocal influence is discernible in the character of the work. It was thus with Verrocchio, and the Pollaiuoli. The former, of no great distinction as a painter, recalls his bronze works in his picture of the Baptism of Christ.[206]The brothers Pollaiuoli,whose grave, quiet faces may be seen together on their tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome, cannot well be separated in their works; and, though Piero occupied himself with painting more than Antonio, the inscription by the latter on the monument of Pope Sixtus IV. shows his excellence in gold and silver work, in painting, and bronze casting. Antonio painted for Lorenzo the Labours of Hercules, of which some small copies are still in existence. The picture of St. James was painted for the chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal; that of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,[207]the most famous work of these painters, was executed in 1475, for the Pucci chapel in the entrance-court of the Annunziata. In these works may be recognised the sculptor, and the student of anatomy, to whom fidelity in representing the figure is more important than the feeling for beauty. Alesso Baldovinetti, who was probably a pupil of Uccello, and a fellow-worker of Andrea del Castagno, experienced the influence of sculpture indirectly; and where he might have learned from it, in regard to modelling, he has only acquired a constrained, angular style, which is far from pleasing. An example of this may be seen in his picture of the Madonna enthroned with saints, painted for the villa at Caffaggiuolo, and now in the Uffizi collection. More satisfactory is a work executed from a design of his—the picture of Dante in Sta. Maria del Fiore which represents thealtissimo Poetain the attitude of speaking, with his open book in his hand; on his right is hell, on his left the city of Florence, in the background the Mount of Purgatory, above his head the firmament. This picture was actually attributed to Orcagna, till the artist’s name—Domenico di Michelino—and the date of execution, 1466, were discovered.[208]
Benozzo Gozzoli’s most important works—his Pisanfrescoes—were executed from 1469 onwards; they display great creative power, though the harmony is defective and the masses and spaces are ill distributed. It is observable in the works of Filippo Lippi, Gozzoli, and Baldovinetti, a far inferior artist, that the custom was growing in Florence of introducing into historical and religious compositions portraits of spectators who had nothing to do with the subject. Nothing remains of the frescoes painted by Baldovinetti for the Gianfigliazzi in the choir of Sta. Trinità; they contained portraits of Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici, Bongianni and others of the Gianfigliazzi, Luigi Guicciardini, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, Filippo Strozzi, Lorenzo della Volpaia, and Paolo Toscanelli.[209]This branch of painting reached its highest development in the hands of Baldovinetti’s famous pupil, Domenico Ghirlandajo. Sandro Botticelli and Filippino Lippi pursued the same branch of art. The former learned the goldsmith’s trade in his youth, and shows traces of the influence of the Pollaiuoli. He was the pupil of Fra Filippo and became the master of his son, whom he survived, though Filippino was his junior by twenty years. In the paintings of both there is a peculiar fantastic element, attractive and interesting at first, but tiresome after a time. In the faces it degenerates into a constantly recurring type, and in the composition becomes mannerism. The way, too, in which both painters employ allegory increases the appearance of affectation. Yet both were men of great talent, with a fine and delicate sense of beauty when not marred by superficiality and exaggeration. Both had much to do with Lorenzo. None of the pictures painted for him by Botticelli are now in existence, but his fine picture of the Epiphany must have been a commission from the Medici, for in this work (formerly in Sta. Maria Novella, and now in the Uffizi) the Three Kings have the features of three members of the family—Cosimo the elder, his younger son Giovanni, and hisgrandson Giuliano.[210]The colouring is more like that of Ghirlandajo, to whom the picture was long attributed, than the brighter, thinner tone of most of Botticelli’s works. Florence contains many of his allegorical pictures, as well as Madonnas and saints; among them the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for the church of San Marco, as a commission for the Silk-workers’ Guild.[211]Botticelli not only introduced likenesses into his historical pictures, he painted separate portraits; among them those of Lorenzo’s mother and Giuliano’s early lost love, the ‘bella Simonetta,’ very pleasing in the gentle simplicity which characterises her expression, her attitude, and even her dress. Both heads are in profile, the contour a little exaggerated, in the manner of this artist.[212]Botticelli’s close connection with the Medici is shown by the circumstance that after the conspiracy of the Pazzi he undertook to paint the likenesses of the conspirators on the wall of the palace of the Podestà.[213]
Only one work of Filippino Lippi is mentioned as having been executed for Lorenzo—the unfinished fresco, representing a sacrifice, in the hall at Poggio a Cajano—but their intimacy is well known. The commission given to Filippino by Cardinal Olivieri Caraffa for the painting of his chapel in Sta. Maria sopra Minerva is said to have been procured byLorenzo, and so, probably, were those of Matthias Corvinus. The influence exercised on the views and tendencies of the son by his father’s works, especially those at Prato—where Filippino passed most of his youth—was mingled with that of Botticelli. The former comes out most in the earlier works, notably in the frescoes of the Brancacci chapel at San Pietro in Carmine, painted about 1485; the latter in the wall-paintings begun for Filippo Strozzi, but not finished till long after, in the chapel in Sta. Maria Novella. The immediate neighbourhood of Masaccio’s works had, no doubt, a beneficial effect on the young artist in his earlier works, for Filippino, not yet thirty, shows in the Brancacci frescoes infinitely more fidelity to nature and feeling for historical composition than in the paintings of the Caraffa and Strozzi chapels. The scenes in the last,[214]from the Acts and legends of the Apostles, display undeniable tokens of spirit and imagination, giving a vivid representation of the passions. But there is affected mannerism, inharmonious colouring, and an apparent delight in light tints playing into each other. Some of these defects may be partly laid to the account of restoration. The preference, noticeable in Botticelli, for antique accessories, produces in Filippino an effect of artificial overloading. Among his easel-pieces, the great Madonna with saints, painted in 1485 for the council-chamber of the palace of the Signoria, is distinguished by grace and earnest work.[215]Filippino, too, was fond of introducing figures of contemporaries. In his frescoes at S. Pietro in Carmine may be seen Tommaso Soderini, Piero Guicciardini (father of the historian), Luigi Pulci, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Sandro Botticelli, Francesco Granacci, and the painter himself. In an altar-piece (now in the Uffizi), representing the Epiphany, are portraits of several membersof the younger branch of the Medici, doubtless benefactors of the convent of San Donato, for which the picture was painted four years after Lorenzo’s death. There are Pierfrancesco, grandson of Giovanni di Bicci, his son Giovanni, father of the famous leader of the Black Bands and grandfather of the first Grand-Duke, and the younger Pierfrancesco, father of Lorenzino, the murderer of the first Duke of Florence.[216]Other portraits, such as those of the Nerli family in Sto. Spirito, represent donors. In Cosimo Rosselli’s greatest work, the Procession with the Chalice in the church of Sant’Ambrogio, only one portrait is named, that of Pico della Mirandola. In Lucca, where Rosselli painted a good deal, he fell into the reigning fashion. He had formed himself on the model, first of Fra Angelico, then of Benozzo Gozzoli, and with moderate talents endeavoured to combine the conventional with the naturalistic tendency.[217]
The highest achievements of painting in Lorenzo’s days were those of Domenico Ghirlandajo. He is a nobler Benozzo, guided by a refined sense of symmetry. His power of drawing figures and groups is combined with variety and animation. He has a strong feeling for historical character, and makes a moderate use of architecture and accessories that heighten the interest of his compositions without seeming obtrusive. What he lacks in point of ideality is compensated by his love of nature and that cultivated sense of form which makes him select natural beauty and avoid whatever is repulsive in the reality. His scenes from Scripture and the history of the Saints are full of figures, and produce a grand, often a solemn, effect without being at all forced or far-fetched. They transport us, undisturbed by anything foreign or strange, into the Florence of his day. We seem to stand in the middle of that gay and busy life,among the gallant active citizens and the stately, beautiful women of that city, which, according to the inscription—doubtless Poliziano’s—on the picture in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella of the Angel appearing to Zacharias, was rich in the spoils of victory and the treasures of art, in noble buildings, in plenty, health, and peace.[218]Ghirlandajo’s frescoes are a sort of monumental glorification of Lorenzo’s latter years. Among the many portraits which give these works a value, independent of their qualities as works of art, may be seen Lorenzo’s in the Sassetti chapel in Sta. Trinità, which was decorated in 1485 with scenes from the history of St. Francis of Assisi. The frescoes in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella make quite a portrait gallery. They were begun in 1490 for Giovanni Tornabuoni, and after five years’ work were finished four years before the death of the painter, who is here seen at his best. Here are limned many members of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families (between whom there was a connection), as well as numerous friends—Ficino, Landino, Poliziano, Gentile of Urbino, the most distinguished scholars of the time. Baldovinetti, too, is there; David Ghirlandajo, Domenico’s brother; his brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi and himself; Andrea de’ Medici, Federigo Sassetti, Gianfrancesco Ridolfi—a partner in the Medicean bank—besides noble ladies and matrons, among whom is Ginevra de’ Benci, a famous beauty also painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and another pleasing face, that of Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni in 1486.[219]
Like the Brancacci chapel, the choir of Sta. Maria Novella was a school for painters in the palmy days of art; Andrea del Sarto, in particular, received a great impulsefrom the compositions of Ghirlandajo. When it is considered that the latter was taken away in the full strength of manhood, at the age of forty-five, and that his development was not rapid, it is hard to understand how he could have executed so many works in Florence and elsewhere. The frescoes may have been done in part by his pupils, but the easel-pieces—of which there are so many, executed with the most careful technical perfection—must have come chiefly from his own hand. Of those in Florence it will suffice to name one, the fine Epiphany painted in 1488 for the church of the Foundling Hospital. For Lorenzo, in 1488, he painted in the villa at Spedaletto some mythological subjects of Vulcan and his comrades, of which little now remains. For Giovanni de’ Medici he did two altar-pieces in the abbey church of San Giusto near Volterra, of which one, ‘Christ in the act of Blessing, with Saints,’ still exists. But Ghirlandajo’s chief patrons were the Tornabuoni, family connections of the Medici. That he and several other Tuscan artists were sent for to Rome to decorate the Sixtine Chapel may safely be attributed to these two families. About twenty years before the close of the century—when Sandro Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli, and his pupil Piero di Cosimo, were painting there with and after Ghirlandajo—the Pope and Lorenzo were reconciled; and as in Florence nothing was ever done in matters of art without him, he and Giovanni Tornabuoni doubtless procured these commissions.
The diplomatic, literary, and artistic intercourse between Florence and Rome had never been so active and fertile as in those days when the predominance of Florentine influence in Rome was openly acknowledged. Almost all the remarkable works of the time of Sixtus IV. are due to Florentine architects, sculptors, and painters. They may have commenced even before the Pazzi conspiracy, for Baccio Pontelli began to build the chapel in 1473, and Sixtus was urgent for its completion. Beside the Florentine painters above named two other Tuscans were employed, Don Bartolommeodella Gatta, abbot of a small Camaldulensian convent at Arezzo, and perhaps a Florentine by birth, and Luca Signorelli of Cortona, who by his connection with Piero della Francesca forms a link between Tuscan and Umbrian art. His chief works belong to an Umbrian city, Orvieto, where indeed Tuscan masters had long taken the lead. Luca Signorelli also painted for Lorenzo. A Madonna, once in the villa at Castello now in the Uffizi, and a mythological picture, the ‘Education of Pan,’ seem to have been offerings of the artist to his patron. The last-named picture recalls the grandeur of conception and strong feeling for form noticeable in the frescoes in the chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral.[220]
The head of the Umbrian school in the latter decades of the century, Pietro Perugino, made repeated and long visits to Florence, and was considerably influenced by Florentine art, though with an admixture of other elements. Thus was formed a style which, opposed on the one hand to the naturalism of most of the Florentines, on the other to the enthusiastic tendencies of some among them, gave expression to the religious element which long remained dominant in the master’s own country and beyond it. It is ascertained that Perugino was in Florence in 1482 and in the beginning of 1491, but nothing is known of what he did then. His chief works in Florence are of later date, as are those of his school, first among which is the ‘Last Supper,’ in Sant’ Onofrio, probably by Bernardino Pinturicchio. In 1496, Perugino had thoughts of building a house in Florence, and in 1515—when his talent was on the wane—he purchased a future resting-place in the Annunziata; such tokens did he give of his attachment to the city which, spite of the superhuman activity of Rome, was yet the focus of all artist-life and work. Of paintings by Perugino for the Medici nothing is known.
Miniature painting[221]rapidly approached its highest development. Great illuminated church-books, antiphonaries, psalters, hours, breviaries, &c., had come forth from Benedictine, Camaldulensian, Dominican, and other convents, and were lodged in cathedrals and churches. The art of illumination was extended by Dante’s contemporaries, Oderigi of Gubbio and Franco of Bologna, to prayer-books for private use and to works of profane literature, when men of rank and citizens took to forming libraries and beautiful manuscripts became objects of luxury. The field for representation was correspondingly enlarged, and from figures of angels and saints the artists of the fifteenth century passed to scenes from the classic poets or the ‘Divine Comedy.’ In this century the Florentine churches were filled with the finest works of this kind, most of which are now in the National Library or that of San Marco. The Dominican order were especially rich in miniature painters after Giovanni Dominici had given an impulse to this branch of art. In Cosimo’s time, Fra Angelico and Fra Benedetto worked in San Marco under the eyes of St. Antonine. Don Bartolommeo della Gatta, Attavante degli Attavanti, Gherardo and Monti di Giovanni, Zanobi Strozzi, Francesco Rosselli, brother of Cosimo, and many others, distinguished themselves in this art, in which they were emulated by foreigners connected with Florence: Liberale of Verona, Girolamo of Cremona, several Sienese, and others. From the middle of the century miniature painting underwent the influence of the Van Eyck school. Many beautiful works found their way into the Medici collections. Lorenzo’stastes and traditions were inherited by his son Giovanni, whom Raphael’s famous portrait represents with a book adorned with miniatures, and a glass for looking at them lying before him. Many miniatures went abroad, and foreign ones came to Italy. Gherardo, Attavanti, and others worked for Matthias Corvinus; and in the Burgundian Library at Brussels is preserved the mass-book painted for the king by the last-named artist in 1485, and brought to the Netherlands by Mary of Hungary, sister of Charles V. At Matthias’s death Lorenzo acquired several of the manuscripts, probably ordered at his own instigation, and some of which were still in hand. Lorenzo was deeply interested in the revival of mosaic. Vasari’s statement that Alesso Baldovinetti learned the long-forgotten principles of this art from a German pilgrim going to Rome must rest on its own merits; anyhow, the art was revived in Lorenzo’s latter years. In 1482-83, Baldovinetti undertook to restore the mosaics in the Baptistery. About 1490, Gherardo di Giovanni and Domenico Ghirlandajo began for Lorenzo the mosaic decoration of the chapel in the choir of the cathedral, where stands the shrine of St. Zanobi. This work was never finished. The same year Domenico executed the pleasing mosaic picture of the ‘Annunciation,’ over the side-door of the church, towards the Via de’ Servi. Baldovinetti’s pupil Graffione, and Ghirlandajo’s brother David, took part in these works; the latter, who busied himself with the technicalities of glass-making at Montaione, in the Elsa valley—where there are potteries and glass-houses to this day—afterwards worked both in Florence and in the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto.[222]
Thus varied and fruitful was the development of art around Lorenzo, in a great measure stimulated and shared in by him. Like his grandfather, he was not content to profit by ripe talents and pluck the fruits, he sowed for thefuture; he, more than any one else, contributed to bring on the most brilliant period of art. He founded a nursery for choice spirits in the collection of works of art of all kinds, ancient and modern, which he laid out in his garden at San Marco and the neighbouring casino, and the superintendence of which he confided to Donatello’s pupil, Bertoldo. At a time when antique sculptures were rare, and the means of study limited, and when young men of talent had to remain for years in a dependent position which checked their individual development, advantages like these, offered to youth, were as unusual as they were invaluable. Lorenzo’s sound judgment was no less useful here than his goodwill. ‘It is no small matter,’ remarks Vasari in the ‘Life of Giovan Francesco Rustici,’[223]‘that distinction was attained by all those who went to school in the Medici garden, and were assisted by the illustrious Lorenzo. This can only be ascribed to the uncommon perspicacity of that noble gentleman, who was a veritable Mæcenas, who knew how to recognise genius and merit, and to encourage them by rewards.’ The painters Francesco Granacci, Lorenzo di Credi, Niccolò Soggi; the sculptors Giovan Francesco Rustici, Pietro Torrigiano, Baccio of Montelupo, Andrea Contucci of Monte San Sovino—who on Lorenzo’s recommendation was summoned to Portugal, where he executed works of architecture and sculpture for King John II.—these, and others, came forth from the garden of San Marco. The variety of their gifts and accomplishments bears witness to the freedom they had there enjoyed in the development of the most diverse intellectual powers. But the one who gave to the Medicean garden a worldwide fame was Michelangelo Buonarotti. Before he was fifteen he passed from the school of Ghirlandajo into this new world. His sculptures soon disclosed the marvellous talent which his sympathetic teacher had foreboded when he recommended him and Granacci to Lorenzo;the latter having, as the story goes, expressed to his artist-friend a regret that sculpture did not keep pace with painting. The youth came of a good family, but without property.[224]During the few remaining years of Lorenzo, he enjoyed a sympathy and kindness which had a decided influence on his life up to the threshold of old age, although the independent spirit of the free citizen often rebelled against the attachment which, as artist, he continued to feel for the Medici.
It has been generally believed that the greatest Florentine artist of the second half of the fifteenth century—Leonardo da Vinci—was a stranger to Lorenzo. The fact appeared the more strange because Leonardo was the son of a chancellor or notary of the Republic, and a pupil of Andrea del Verocchio, who was in constant intercourse with the Medici. Newly discovered documents[225]show that Leonardo, if not among those admitted to study in the San Marco gardens, was at least acquainted with the Medici, and that it was Lorenzo who sent him, when thirty years old, to Lodovico il Moro, in company with one Atalante Migliorotti, famous for playing on the lyre. The date hitherto assigned to his first visit to Milan—1482 or 1483—is confirmed; but there is no explanation of the fact that his name is never mentioned during the war of 1478-79. He was then twenty-six, and might have done good service to his country by that knowledge of mechanics and hydraulics which he afterwards turned to such good account in Lombardy. On January 1 ofthe fatal year 1478, the Signoria commissioned him to paint an altar-piece for the chapel dedicated to St. Bernard in the palace. This commission, like many of the same kind, was not executed, but was transferred after Leonardo’s departure for Milan to Filippino Lippi, whose beautiful Madonna (see p. 175) was placed not in the chapel, but in the council chamber. Under the rule of the two Sforzas—Gian Galeazzo and Lodovico il Moro—Leonardo founded at Milan a school of painting which gave a new direction to Lombard art. When he returned to Florence after the downfall of the Moro, Lorenzo had been seven years in his grave, and his sons were in exile.