Chapter 21

[*150]There are two greyhounds lying side by side facing opposite ways.

[151]Passavant conjectures this group to be a satire upon three neighbouring princes who were Duke Federigo's enemies, and seems to consider the picture influenced by some Flemish master. If painted after the visit of Justis of Ghent, it can hardly represent Oddantonio. See below,ch. xxx.

[152]It is very unsatisfactorily engraved inBonnard'sCostumes du Treizième au Quinzième Siècle.

[*153]None of these three belongs to Piero.

[*154]It is a curious comment on this that a man like Mr. E.V. Lucas, certainly not "a connoisseur," tells us in his book,A Wanderer in London(Methuen, 1906), that he "once startled and embarrassed a dinner table of artists and art critics by asking which was the best picture in the National Gallery. On my modifying this terrible question to the more human form—Which picture would you choose if you might have one? and limiting the choice to the Italian masters, the most distinguished mind present named at once Tintoretto'sOrigin of the Milky Way.... After very long consideration," he continues, "I have come to the conclusion that mine would be Francesca'sNativity. Take it for all in all, I am disposed to think that Francesca'sNativityappeals to me as a work of compassionate beauty and charm before any Italian picture in the National Collection."

[155]Such is the magnificent Annunciation in a small chapel three miles west from Pesaro, known as the Madonna del Monte, but properly the oratory dedicated in 1505 to the Madonna dell'Annunziata di Calibano, by Ludovico del Molino,aliasdegli Agostini. Its pure and beautiful countenances are less beatified in expression than earlier Umbrian works, but in composition and draperies it yields to none, and excels all others in gorgeous effect. The gilding is freely laid on in broad masses, and a scintillation in solid gold streams from the Almighty upon the Madonna's bosom, while the angels' wings are starred with peacock's plumage. Yet, as in Gentile da Fabriano's best works, all this glitter is subdued by an earnest and solemn feeling becoming the theme. The panel is inscribed "Ludovicho di Jachomo Aghostini merchatanti da Pesaro a fato [fare] deta tavola a di xxiv. di Decienbre, mdx." How unfortunate that the pious donor had not recorded the artist's name as well as his own! I was unable to visit an altar-piece at Montebaroccio ascribed to Fra Carnevale's pencil.

[*156]There is a predella picture by him at S. Domenico, in Siena, and another in the Uffizi Gallery. He was the pupil of Vecchietta.

[157]See vol. I., pp.147-50,161-3;Lettere Sanesi, III., p. 79;Carteggio d'Artisti,passim, I., pp. 255-316.

[*158]Cf. alsoBorghese & Banchi,Nuovi Documenti per la Storia dell'Arte Senese(Siena, 1898).

[*159]On the fortresses of the Marche generally, seeGaspari,Fortezze Marchigiane e Umbre, inArch. St. per le Marche e per l'Umbria, vol. III., p. 80et seq.

[160]MSS. in Public Library at Siena; printed in Bottari, Lettere Pittoriche I. App. No. 36, and in Gualandi, Memorie Artistiche.

[*161]See works quotedp. 138, note *1supra.

[162]Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi; Rafael von Urbino. The few facts of importance which the Abbé's microscopic researches have ascertained are scarcely extricable from the confusion that prevails in his eulogy and its accompanying, or rather darkening, notes. The catalogue of Sanzi's works is useful to travellers, though sadly deficient in judicious criticism. The good Padre was more able to appreciate a mouldering MS. than a fine painting.

[163]Seevol. I., p. 94.

[164]See it already described atp. 138.

[165]SeeAppendix III.

[*166]The works on Raphael would fill a library. In addition to the usual sources of information, see—Branca,L'ingegno l'arte e l'amore di R. e la nevrosi del suo genio(Firenze, 1895).Campori,Notizie ined. di R. tratte da docum. dell. archivio palatino di Modena(Modena, 1862).Campori,Notizie e docum. per la vita di Giov. Santi e di R.(Modena, 1870).Crowe & Cavalcaselle,Raphael: His Life and Works(London, 1882-1885).Fua,Raffaello e la Corte di Urbino, inItalia Artistica, An. IV., p. 178et seq.Muntz,R. sa vie, son œuvre et son temps(Paris, 1881).Muntz,Raphael: His Life, Works, and Times. Edited by Sir W. Armstrong (London, 1896).Alippi,Un nuovo documento int. a R.(Urbino, 1880).Rossi,La casa e lo stemma di R., inArch. St. dell'arte(Roma), An. I., fasc. I.Anon.,La Casa di R. in Roma, inArte e Storia(Firenze), An. VI., No. 17.Ricci,La Gloria d'Urbino(Bologna, 1898).Anon., Notice of a portrait of R. in the collection of James Dennistoun (Edinburgh, 1842).

[*166]The works on Raphael would fill a library. In addition to the usual sources of information, see—

[167]We have already accounted for the change of his surname to Sanzio, atp. 216. His Christian name, in modern Italian Raffaello, seems to have been spelt by himself Raphællo and Raffaele. *Raphael was born on Good Friday, 28 March, 1483.

[168]British and Foreign Review, vol. XIII., p. 248.

[169]SeeAppendix IV.

[*170]Giovanni died when Raphael was eleven, in 1494.

[171]See above,p. 218.

[172]See above,p. 195-6.

[*173]This is not so. The first master of Raphael was Timoteo Viti, who, having left home in 1490 to enter Francia's workshop, returned to Urbino in April, 1495. Timoteo was then twenty-six years old. There is a beautiful portrait of him by himself in the British Museum. The first undoubted work of Raphael, probably painted while he was a pupil of Timoteo, is theVision of a Knight, in the National Gallery. Having served his apprenticeship to Timoteo, Raphael entered the most famous workshop in Umbria—one of a crowd of pupils—that of Perugino.

[*174]The suggestion that Perugino was an atheist, and died without the Sacraments of the Church, rests on no good foundation.

[*175]The first independent picture which he painted after coming to Perugia was theCrucifixion, now in the possession of Mr. Ludwig Mond. This was painted in 1501 or early in 1502, because the Vitelli for whom it was painted were driven out of Città di Castello in the latter year. I know nothing of any return to Urbino in 1499. He went back in 1504.

[*176]This work is a copy of Raphael's picture by Lo Spagna. Cf.Berenson,The Study and Criticism of Italian Art, vol. II., p. 1-22.

[*177]The only work of Raphael's left in Perugia is the fresco of Christ and Saints, in St. Severo, 1505.

[178]The frequent contradictions of the many writers upon Raffaele throw a doubt upon most of his movements. Our rapid sketch has been compiled after a careful comparison of authorities, which we cannot stay to criticise or reconcile. *In 1504 Raphael went to Florence. The assertion that he accompanied Pinturicchio to Siena seems a mere invention of Sienese municipal vanity.

[179]Pietro Sodarini, Gonfaloniere for life. The original in Latin is printed inBottari'sLettere sulla Pittura, I., 1. A loose expression might lead to the conclusion that Giovanni Sanzi was still alive, though he died in 1494; and on the strength of it, Rosini raises doubts as to the authenticity of the letter, or the identity of the painter, in which we cannot join.

[*180]Now in the National Gallery.

[*181]None of these pictures save the last seems to be from Raphael's hand.

[*182]This is not by Raphael.

[183]Fea,Notizie, p. 9. Raffaele's own letter of 1514 mentions that sum for each Stanza.

[184]Quarterly Review, No. cxxxi. pp. 20, 25, 32, 42.

[*185]Far from the parallel "suggesting itself," only a disorderly mind would make it. No comparison is thinkable between work that is absolutely different. One might as well compare a valley with the sea.

[186]British and Foreign Quarterly, vol. XIII.

[187]Yet this casino, begun in 1511, is by some said to have been completed several years before.

[188]It stood in front of St. Peter's, and was removed when the piazza was extended.

[189]Passavant treats the usual legends regarding the Fornarina as after inventions, and ascribes the earliest notice of her toPuccini'sReal Galleria di Firenze, I., p. 6.

[190]British and Foreign Review, vol. XIII., p. 274.

[*191]Raphael seems to us to-day to have been a supreme portrait painter. His other easel pictures, splendid as they often are in "space composition," seem to lack sincerity. His frescoes have a perfect decorative value, but little force or real contact with life. If they sum up the Renaissance, they do so only in part, with much sacrifice of truth and of that virility and assured contact of life which were its most precious possessions.

[192]See above,p. 161.

[193]"On the 4th April, 1495, my dear Timoteo went away, to whom may God grant all good and success." He seems to have been received at first into Francia's "workshop" as a goldsmith, to work for the first year without pay, the second at sixteen florins a quarter, the last to be free, working by the piece. This indenture was, however, broken by mutual consent after fourteen months, on his wish to pass into the painters' studio.

[*194]In the Cathedral sacristy is the St. Martin and St. Thomas of 1504, with the founders beside them. In the Pinacoteca there is a half figure of S. Sebastian, the figures of S. Roch and of Tobias with the Angel. The S. Apollonia, once in S. Trinità is now in the Gallery. Of these, the S. Sebastian, S. Roch, and Tobias show the influence of Giovanni Santi, the other two the influence of Raphael.

[*195]Timoteo painted the Prophets above the Sibyls in S. Maria della Pace, in Rome.

[*196]The Sibyl was not exclusively Pagan. Consider the first verse of theDies Irae, which ends—"Teste David cum Sibylla."

[*196]The Sibyl was not exclusively Pagan. Consider the first verse of theDies Irae, which ends—

"Teste David cum Sibylla."

[197]See the learned observations ofPungileone, in theElogio Storico di Timoteo Vite, pp. 23-38.

[*198]He was probably the pupil of Luciano da Laurana and Piero della Francesca.

[199]Seep. 214above. In an old MS. chronicle I find, besides most of the names here enumerated, the following now-forgotten painters of Urbino, at the close of the fifteenth century:—Bartolomeo di Maestro Gentile, Bernardino di Pierantonio, Ricci Manara, Francesco di Mercatello, and in 1528 Ottaviano della Prassede.

[200]Sketches of the History of Christian Art, Letter VIII., especially part II., §§ 1, 2, 4, and part III., § 6.

[*201]But Justus de Alemania, who painted at Genoa, and Justus of Ghent, are different persons.

[*202]Now in the Pinacoteca.

[203]The coinage of Duke Federigo consisted of Bolognini and Piccioli. The former were small thin silver pieces, weighing 19½ grains, of which 3½ were copper alloy, and forty of them made a florin. The florin, a nominal coin, thus contained 63434/59grains of pure silver, and 146½ grains of copper; and supposing pure silver worth, as now, 5s. 6d. an ounce, it would be worth 7s. 3¼d. sterling, making a bolognini 71/3farthings. The piccioli (33/5to a farthing) were about the size of bolognini (52 or 56 to the ounce); but were of copper alloyed with about three per cent. of silver. All this Duke's coinage seems to have been minted at Gubbio, and it is described at great length by Reposati, in hisZecca di Gubbio. Seep. 41above, andAuthor's Preface.

[*204]See on this subject the most excellent book byG.F. Hill,Pisanello(London, 1905); a good bibliography is there given.

[205]Riposati mistakes this for a metal weight. The French work does not venture on any conjecture as to the object represented.

[206]Mariotti'sItaly.

[*207]For birth of Sixtus IV., cf.Creighton,op. cit., vol. IV., p. 65, and authorities there quoted. "His father was a poor peasant in a little village near Savona, and at the age of nine Francesco was handed over to the Franciscans to be educated. He acted for a time as tutor with the family of Rovere, in Piedmont, and from them he took the name by which he was afterwards known."

[208]Most of these were buried in the church of Sta. Maria del Popolo, at Rome, where their funeral inscriptions may be found.

[209]Cristoforo and Domenico della Rovere, brothers, and successively cardinals of San Vitale, were of the Vinovo family. The former has a tomb in the Church del Popolo, the latter was distinguished for his intelligent patronage of art. I have failed to affiliate Clemente, Bishop of Mende, surnamedil Grasso, made cardinal 1503, and died next year; and Stefano, who was nephew of Julius II., and had a son, Gian Francesco, Archbishop of Turin, who died in 1517.

[210]See below,ch. xxxii.

[211]Muratori has not scrupled to adopt this opinion, for which I can discover no adequate ground, and which is inconsistent with the accepted genealogy of the Riarii.

[212]The sumptuous and lavish festivities of the age, and the extent to which art was combined with classical associations in public displays, may be estimated from Corio's elaborate description of the reception at Rome, in 1473, of Duchess Leonora of Ferrara, with her suite, including 60,000 horses. *Cf.Annalisti di Tisi, quoted byCorvisieri, q.v. inArchivio Romano, vol. I.;Il Trionfo Romano di Eleanora d'Aragona.Creighton,op. cit., vol. IV., pp. 75-77, gives a splendid sketch of his life.

[*213]Cf.Fratini,St. della Basilica e del Convento di S. Francesco in Assisi(Prato, 1882), p. 260et seq.

[*214]"Sixtus," saysCreighton, "changed the course of life in Rome because his own recklessness was heedless of decorum. Hitherto the Roman court had worn a semblance of ecclesiastical gravity.... Rome became more famous for pleasure than for piety.... The Rovere stock was hard to civilise.... Hitherto the Papacy had on the whole maintained a moral standard; for some time to come it tended to sink even below the ordinary level. The loss that was thus inflicted upon Europe was incalculable" (op. cit., vol. IV., p. 132-3).

[*215]Pinturicchio was also among them; neither can Signorelli be called a Florentine. Dennistoun is (infra) mistaken in thinking that Pinturicchio did not work in the Sixtine Chapel. The Baptism of Christ and the Journey of Moses are both from his hand.

[216]Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023.

[*217]Cf.L. Siena,Storia di Sinigaglia(Sinigaglia, 1764), p. 277et seq.;AnselmieMancini,Bibliografia Sinigagliese(Sinigaglia, 1905); andMarcucci,Francesco Maria I. della Rovere, Parte I. (1490-1527) (Sinigaglia, 1903).

[*218]The best contemporary account of Djem is that ofGuglielmo Caoursin,Obsidimis Rhodii Urbis Descriptio(Ulm, 1496). Cf.Burchard(ed. Thuasne), I., p. 528. The amount seems to have been 45,000 ducats. See especiallyHeidenheimer,Korrespondenz Bajazet II.'s mit Alexander VI., inZeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, vol. V., p. 511et seq.As usual, Creighton's account,op. cit., vol. IV., is most excellent, written with the pen of a statesman. Heidenheimer maintains the authenticity of the letters, and Creighton agrees with him. "If the letters were forged, the forgery was the work of Giovanni della Rovere," but there is no good ground for questioning their genuineness.

[219]These papers have been printed in Bossi's Italian translation ofRoscoe'sLeo X., vol. IV., p. 220; but our extracts were made from a MS. in Vat. Ottobon, Lib. No. 2206, f. 17.

[220]Lettere de' Principi, II., 4.

[221]Molini Documenti di Storia Italiana, I., 23.

[222]Lettere Pittoriche, VIII., p. 23.

[223]In the Belvidere, where his frescoes have unfortunately perished.

[224]Panvinio tells us that, being received in full consistory on his arrival in Rome, he refused to kiss the Pope's toe, but only his knee.

[225]The reverse of this caricatured portrait may be found in a curious account of this unfortunate prince's romantic adventures, given by the Turkish historian, Saadeddin-effendi, and printed by Masse in hisHistoire du Pape Alexander VI., pp. 382-408.

[*226]For authorities for Pope Julius II., cf.Creighton, vol. V., pp. 305-6, where an excellentrésuméis given.

[227]He had certainly two natural children, and Bernardo Capello alludes to the inroads upon his constitution, occasioned by gout andmorbus Gallicus(Ranke, App., sect. i., No. 6); the latter term seems, however, to have been often in that age completely misapplied.

[228]Ranke, Appendix, sect. i. No. 6.

[*229]William Roscoe,Life of Leo X., 4 vols. (3rd ed.), 1847.

[*230]SeeMarcucci:Francesco Maria I. della Rovere(Sinigaglia, 1903).

[*231]She was betrothed in the same month in which her father died. The marriage had long been desired by Elisabetta. Giustiniani mentions a report of it in his Despatches (Dispacci, vol. II., p. 359) even in 1503. Mrs.Ady(Isabella d'Este, vol. I., p. 267) says the Marquis of Mantua desired it "as a means of obtaining the Cardinalate which he had been striving to obtain for his brother during the last fifteen years."

[232]Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 904, f. 89.

[*233]Cf.Luzio e Renier,Mantova ed Urbino(Torino, 1893), p. 182.

[*234]The document is printed byLuzzatto,Comune e principato in Urbino nei secc. xv. e xvi., inLe Marche(1905), An. v., p. 196et seq.

[*235]The league of Cambrai is one of the great crimes of history. The man who devised it and urged it upon Europe was the head of European Christianity, Pope Julius II. Beside this, the sensualities and murders of the Borgia go for nothing. His policy, created by hate, succeeded in so far as it established the States of the Church and murdered Italy. Yet looking back now, we may judge of the price that has been required of the Church for that treason. Beggared of her possessions, at the mercy of the new Italian kingdom, he who sits in the seat of Julius is a prisoner in the Vatican—the prisoner of history.

[*236]On the 25th of August, Francesco Maria had paid a visit to Mantua to see his betrothed. "Come," said Leonora's uncle to him, "and when you have seen Madonna Leonora and the Marchese's horses you will have seen the two finest things in the world." Francesco Maria spent two days there travelling incognito with but four persons. Cf.Julia Cartwright,op. cit., vol. I., p. 310. An amusing letter from Federico Cattaneo to Isabella d'Este, who was absent, describes the meeting of Francesco Maria and his future bride. Leonora was fourteen, and they were married at Christmas.

[*237]Cf.Luzio e Renier,op. cit.; p. 195, for the entry of the Duchess into Urbino.

[238]It is difficult to reconcile with these details of an eye-witness the statement of Leoni, followed by Riposati and others, that the marriage was privately performed at Mantua in February, 1509. In May of that year the Duke was unanimously chosen a Knight of the Garter at a chapter of that order, but for reasons which it is now too late to investigate, the nomination was not confirmed by Henry VIII. At next election he had but one vote out of ten, and his name does not again occur in the record preserved by Anstis.

[239]Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 489. This is but a fragment of the life of Francesco Maria by Urbano Urbani, who was his secretary at this time. Our account of the League of Cambray has been taken from it, collated with many published authorities. Urbani's full work, which I have not discovered, has been largely drawn upon by Leoni, Baldi, and other biographers.

[*240]Little is known of the steps which led to the Council of Pisa. See some interesting letters printed inCreighton,op. cit., vol. V., p. 329et seq.

[*241]Cf.Sanuto,Diario, vol. XI., p. 721et seq.It was the Pope who threatened pillage.Creighton,op. cit., vol. V., p. 143.

[*242]She was the widow of the Count Ludovico of Mirandola.

[243]So say the Urbino writers. Guicciardini characterises the escape of the army as a panic-rout, in which the whole camp-equipage and colours, including the ducal standard, fell into the enemy's hands. Sanuto says that 200 men-at-arms were slain.

[244]Not only Leoni and Reposati, but the MSS. in the Urbino library, which refer to these transactions, must be so regarded. We have compared all of these, especially Baldi's life of this Duke, and the defence of him against Guicciardini, which he left prepared for the press in No. 906 of the Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 924 contains the pleading of the younger Beroaldo in favour of the Duke, when charged with the Cardinal of Pavia's murder. No. 1023, art. v., and No. 819, fol. 335, the former by Monsignor Paolo Maria Bishop of Cagli, the latter anonymous, have supplied us with some new facts. Guicciardini, admitting in other passages the Legate's bad faith and his antipathy to Francesco Maria, blames his deficiency of courage or judgment in the Bologna affair, and lashes the aggravated vices of his character. Roscoe has not here exercised his usual acumen.

[*245]The account of Paris de Granis (given byCreighton,op. cit., vol. V., pp. 305-19) somewhat differs from that given here.

[246]Several letters, quoted by Sanuto, MS. Diary, XII., 158-161, say the 23rd, being Saturday; but Saturday fell on the 24th. See Filippo Giraldi, Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3153, f. 90.

[247]We obtain a curious glimpse of his home-circle at this critical moment from the correspondence of Bembo, who, having just quitted Urbino on his way to Venice, wrote thus to Fregoso from Cesena, where he was waiting a passage by sea. "But what, I say, are you and your ladies, and the Duke, and the rest of you grandees about? What is my Ippolita doing? Is she entangled in the toils of Secundio or Trivulzio? Oh dull and drivelling me, who, abandoning my loves to the rapine and plunder of men of war, am here sitting on a sandy shore more pluckless and besotted than the very shells! Many salutations in my name to both their Highnesses, and to Emilia, and the lively Margherita, and to Ippolita of many admirers, and to my rival Alessandro Trivulzio." This badinage was surely ill-timed, within a month of the defeat of Francesco Maria and the Cardinal's assassination.

[*248]The battle of Ravenna is fully described byGuicciardini,Opere Inedite(Firenze, 1857), vol. VI., p. 36et seq., in letters from his father and brother. The French had everything in their hands, the route was complete. They should have pressed on to Rome and Naples, and have reduced the Pope to terms and annihilated the Spanish power in Italy. But Gaston was in his grave. Cf.Creighton,op. cit., vol. V., p. 168.

[249]Giraldi Dialogo, Vat. Ottob. MSS. No. 3153.

[250]The preceding account of the judicial process, and of the Duke's conduct in regard to the campaign of Ravenna, has been chiefly taken from Baldi, as his narrative is more intelligible and consistent with the best historical authorities, than the indistinct and garbled statements of Leoni and Riposati, who gloss over such facts as they cannot satisfactorily clear up. Guicciardini asserts that Francesco Maria set his peasantry upon the troops of Cardona as they fled through the duchy from the rout of Ravenna, a statement more reconcileable with that author's prejudice than with probability. The legal evidence of both the Duke's absolutions will be found inNo. V. of the Appendix, and Giraldi is our authority for some minor details. We have purposely avoided mixing up with this personal narrative the more general events of the French war. They are succinctly given by Roscoe,Leo X., ch. viii. and ix.

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