No. 26."1310, 16Settembre."Ciolo, maestro di pietra del fuNerida Siena, prende per suo discepoloTerifratello di Baldino da Castelfiorentino (Archivio del Duomo di Siena. Pergamena, 616)."In nomini Domini amen. Ex hoc publico instrumento sit omnibus manifestum; quodCiolusmagister lapidum de cappella sancti Salvatoris in Ponte, quondamNeriide Senis, fecit—Ugolinum, dictum Geriolum, de populo Sancti Joannis de Senis—suum procuratorem—ad recipiendum pro eo et ejus vice et nomine,Terium, germanum Baldini de Castro Florentino, nunc commorantem Senis, in discipulum et pro discipulo suprascriptiCioli. Et ad promictendum ipsiTerio, vel ali persone pro eo, quod ipseCiolusmagister tenebit eundemTeriumin suum et pro suo discipulo, ad terminum et terminos statuendum et statuendos a dictoCiolo; et quod eum dictam suam artem de lapidibus docebit."Actum Pisis, in via publica ante domum habitationis Duccii Nerii Bonaveris, positam in via sancte Marie, in cappella sancte Eufraxie.—Dominice incarnationis anno Domini Millesimo trecentesimo decimo, Indictione septima, sextodecimo Kal: Octobris, secundum cursum pisanorum."Ego Bonaccursus filius quondam Provincialis de Vecchiano—not:—scripsi."—(Reproduced from Milanesi,Documenti per la Storia dell' Arte Senese, vol. i. pp. 174, 175.)
No. 26."1310, 16Settembre.
"Ciolo, maestro di pietra del fuNerida Siena, prende per suo discepoloTerifratello di Baldino da Castelfiorentino (Archivio del Duomo di Siena. Pergamena, 616).
"In nomini Domini amen. Ex hoc publico instrumento sit omnibus manifestum; quodCiolusmagister lapidum de cappella sancti Salvatoris in Ponte, quondamNeriide Senis, fecit—Ugolinum, dictum Geriolum, de populo Sancti Joannis de Senis—suum procuratorem—ad recipiendum pro eo et ejus vice et nomine,Terium, germanum Baldini de Castro Florentino, nunc commorantem Senis, in discipulum et pro discipulo suprascriptiCioli. Et ad promictendum ipsiTerio, vel ali persone pro eo, quod ipseCiolusmagister tenebit eundemTeriumin suum et pro suo discipulo, ad terminum et terminos statuendum et statuendos a dictoCiolo; et quod eum dictam suam artem de lapidibus docebit.
"Actum Pisis, in via publica ante domum habitationis Duccii Nerii Bonaveris, positam in via sancte Marie, in cappella sancte Eufraxie.—Dominice incarnationis anno Domini Millesimo trecentesimo decimo, Indictione septima, sextodecimo Kal: Octobris, secundum cursum pisanorum.
"Ego Bonaccursus filius quondam Provincialis de Vecchiano—not:—scripsi."—(Reproduced from Milanesi,Documenti per la Storia dell' Arte Senese, vol. i. pp. 174, 175.)
In 1281 a Grand Council was called to revoke the banishment of one of the Lombard Masters, Ramo di Paganello.[219]It seems that Ramo's father was from Lombardy, "de partibus ultramontanis;" but the son had been made a citizen of Siena, whence he was exiled for contumacy. However, he was such a good sculptor that the edict was revoked. The report begins—
"1281, 20 Novembre.—Item cum Magister Ramus filius Paganelli de partibus ultramontanis, qui olim fuit civis senensis, venerit nunc ad civitatem Sen: pro serviendo operi beate Marie de Senis; ex eo quod est de bonis intalliatoribus et sculptoribus, et subtilioribus de mundo qui inveniri possit: et ad dictum servitium morari non potest, eo quod invenitur exbannitus et condenpnatus per contumaciam, occasione quod debuit jacere cum quadam muliere; eo existente extra civitatem Senensem: si videtur vobis conveniens quod debeat rebanniri et absolvi de banno et condenpnationibus suis, ad hoc ut possit libere et secure servire dicto operi ad laudem et honorem Dei, et beate Marie Virginis, in Dei nomine consulate."
The first head architect, who is definitely styledCapo maestro dell' Opera, is Giovanni Pisano, who, when he came to work with his father at the pulpit in 1266, seems to have taken root in Siena, as did his fellow-pupils Lapo, Donato, and Goro. Arnolfo, the fourth of the group, found his mission in Florence.
Signor Milanesi has not succeeded in finding the document referring to Giovanni da Pisa's election, but he finds that, in 1284, the Sienese, in gratitude for the services he has rendered in the building of the Duomo, and especially the façade, gave him the freedom of the city, and immunity from taxes.[220]
Like most artists, Giovanni must have been Bohemian in his ways, or careless in his political expressions, for in October 1290 he was fined the large sum of 600 lire, and had not the wherewithal to pay. He got off by paying a third, but even this Fra Jacopo, one of theOperaiof the Duomo, had to advance. It was probably repaid from his salary by instalments.[221]From these documents we gather that the façade was not designed by Lorenzo Maitani, as has generally been supposed. If the Commune of Siena in 1284 acknowledged Giovanni's talent in building the Duomo and the façade, Lorenzo Maitani, who only began to be chief architect of Orvieto from 1310, certainly could not have been old enough to design the front of Siena cathedral. Moreover Milanesi expressly says that, with all his research in the archives, he can find no mention whatever of Maitani's being connected in any prominent manner with Siena cathedral.[222]He most likely worked at it as Giovanni's pupil, and this, with the general tenets of the guild, would sufficiently account for the similarity between the two churches.
The tenets of the guild were certainly veering towards the Gothic, and each generation of its members made a new step. Jacopo Tedesco at Assisi, and Niccolò Pisano in his pulpit, showed the first sign of transition; their sons and pupils, Arnolfo at Florence, and Giovanni at Siena, developed the style still further, and their successors fully expanded it at Milan.
Giovanni was a lover of the Gothic, but was not yet entirely converted. His windows, like Arnolfo's, were pointed, the points emphasized by ornate Gothic gablesover them; but the three arches of the doorways are of a Lombard roundness, the pointed effect being only conveyed by the superimposed gables. Yet the turrets and saint-filled niches of the upper part of the façade are as rich, and pointed, and pinnacled as any Gothic cathedral could be. He had not discovered, as the Germans afterwards did, the beauty of the upward line. The old classic leaning to the horizontal line still cuts up the design; and the little Lombard pillared gallery still stretches across the front, though beautified and gothicized. He did not forget the sign of the guild in this transition period; for there on the columns, and beneath the arches, are the lions of Judah.
It is not positively certain whether the present façade was the one originally designed by Giovanni or not. We find that in November 1310, a commission of ten Master builders was formed, to superintend the work of the mosaic, already commenced, and to guard against useless expenses. Milanesi supposes this to refer to some mosaics destined for the façade, especially as in 1358 a Maestro Michele di Ser Memmo was paid six gold florins for his work, "per la sua fadigha (fatica) e magistero di Santo Michele agnolo, a musaica (sic) che fecie a la facciata di duomo nel canto."[223]The front, as it is at present, has no mosaics; probably Giovanni Pisano's plan was modified in later days. It is certain that after Giovanni's death in 1299 great changes of design were made.
The interior has the same mixture as the façade; there are round arches below in the nave, and pointed windows above in the clerestory. The black and white marble, significant of the times though it be, detracts much from the effect of the really fine architecture by cutting it up in slices. Fergusson recognized the purely Italianpedigree of Siena cathedral.[224]"That at Siena," he says, "illustrates forcibly the tendency exhibited by the Italian architects to adhere to the domical forms of the old Etruscans, which the Byzantines made peculiarly their own. It is much to be regretted that the Italians only, of all the Western mediæval builders, showed any predilection for this form of roof. On this side of the Alps it would have been made the most beautiful of architectural forms."
We cannot, however, endorse Mr. Fergusson's next assertion—"in Italy there is no instance of more than moderate success—nothing, indeed, to encourage imitation." In the face of the domes of St. Peter's at Rome, S. Marco at Venice, the cathedrals of Florence, Parma, Padua, Siena, and Monreale, this is rather a hard saying.
The Sienese had, as we have said, proposed to so enlarge the church by adding a huge nave, that the present church would only form the transept. This was begun, but when the works had already advanced the plan was abandoned. ProvisionalMagistriwere called to form a committee, which met in council on February 17, 1321, and here, for the first time in Siena, we find Lorenzo Maitani giving his vote. He was called to attend the meeting from Orvieto, where he had beencapo maestroof the works from 1310. He, with Niccola Nuti, Gino di Francesco, Tone di Giovanni, and Vanni di Cione (one of Orcagna's relatives from Florence), formed the council. After due deliberation they pronounced on the inconvenience of proceeding with the addition to the Duomo, and decided to build a new church of more moderate dimensions, which should still be large and magnificent. The work now continued without interruption; and on November 20, 1333, we find another Council of Masters was called, in which twelve of the guild severally swear "testis juratis die supra scripta et sancta Dei evangelia, corporaliter tactis scripturisdicere veritatem, suo juramento testificando dixit," etc., that the walls and foundations were strong and firm.
Front of Siena Cathedral. Designed by Magister Giovanni Pisano.See page 295.
Front of Siena Cathedral. Designed by Magister Giovanni Pisano.
See page 295.
The nextcapo maestrowas Master Lando or Orlando di Pieri, son of Piero, a metal-worker of the guild, who was recalled from Naples in 1339. He was a Lombard, though a naturalized citizen of Siena. They say Lando is "a most legal man (omo legalissimus), not only in his own special branch (gold-working), but in many others; is a man of the greatest ingenuity and invention, both with regard to the building of churches and the erection of palaces and private houses; a good engineer for roads, bridges, or fountains, and, above all, a citizen of Siena."[225]Here we see signs of the jealousy of the Lombard Guild, which caused the schism of which we have spoken. Lando was truly an acknowledged genius. He made the coronet with which the Emperor Henry VII. was crowned at Milan in 1311. Muratori (cap. xiii.), quoting an old Latin dissertation on the "corona ferrea," says the maker of the crown was present, "presente magistro Lando de Senis, aurifabro predicti domini Regis, qui predictam coronam propriis manibus fabricavit." We hear no more of his gold work; but in 1322 he was employed in Florence to hang the great bell of the palace of the Signoria, and make it ring (Ita quod de facili pulsatur et pulsari potest), for which he was paid 300 gold florins. In his architectural capacity he was employed at Naples by King Robert of Anjou, but was recalled from there to Siena in 1339, and madecaput magisterof the builders of the Duomo. The contract, signed on December 3, 1339, binds him for three years at a salary of 200 lire a year.
The accounts of theOperahave some interesting articles connected with the laying of the foundations of the revised plan. In August 1339 the Masters were calledinto council on the enlargement of the Duomo, as the nave was considered too short, and Ser Bindo, the notary of the guild, had to supply them with five sheets of parchment at one lire a sheet to make designs. Also two lire ten soldi were spent in bread, meat, and wine, which were sent by the guild to the priests who officiated when the first stone was laid. In March, Maestro Lando again applied to Ser Bindo for parchment to make designs, which cost him twenty-three soldi six denari.
Whether these plans were accepted or not, I cannot tell—probably not—for in the following March, Lando fell ill and died. He left a son, Pietro di Lando, also in the guild, and who was naturalized Florentine when he joined that lodge. A document cited by Gaye (Carteggio, etc. vol. i. p. 73) shows Pietro to have worked with Giovanni di Lazzero de Como and a Buono Martini at the fortifications of Castel S. Angelo in Val di Sieve; the three architects solicited the Signoria for the pay due to them. This Pietro was the father of Vecchietta, who inherited more than his great-grandsire's talent for working metal.
The nextcapo maestroafter Lando was Giovanni, son of the famous sculptor Agostino of Siena, who was, on March 23, 1340, elected for five years. He had been head of the works at Orvieto in 1337, but did not long remain there, for in 1338 we find him again in the pay of the lodge of Siena, where a document in the archives of the Hospital notes a payment for some work on April 26, to Maestro Giovanni, son of Maestro Agostino of theOpera, and of the parish of S. Quirico.[226]
After Giovanni I can find no mention of acapo maestrotill February 16, 1435, when Jacopo della Quercia, otherwise "Magister Jacobus, Magistri Petri," was electedoperajo(president of the Council),i.e.Grand Master. His salary was fixed at one hundred gold florins as long as he lived, andhis wife was to have a pension at his death. There were several conditions specified to which he had to agree. But he had so many other engagements, at S. Petronio in Bologna, at Parma, and Lucca, that he absented himself too much from Siena to please theOperathere. As early as March 1434-35, a month after his election, we find him leaving two of the Council of Administration to rule in his absence. The absence must have been a lengthy one, for on October 22, 1435, the Signoria of the Commune write to him as follows—"Magister Jacobo Pieri electus Operaio, etc. etc.... As you have been fully informed, you ought before the past month to have taken action, and performed the duties undertaken by you in regard to the office ofOperaioof our Church, to which our Councils elected you. We and our councillors have waited all the past month, expecting that, for the honour of the Commune, and its needs at the hands of the saidOpera, you would return. Now we are at October 22, and you do not appear to think of it. God knows how the citizens are complaining and murmuring against you. Therefore we have decided to write to you, that without fail, and with no delay, you must immediately present yourself to perform your duties, and let nothing hinder you. If you do not do this, it will cause us great astonishment and inconvenience."[227]
The Council of theOperawrote a long Latin letter at the same time, exhorting their chief to return and satisfy the claims of the Commune. Whether he came or not I cannot say, but it appears not for any length of time, as on March 26, 1436, we find him at Parma, writing a defiant kind of letter to theOperaiof San Petronio at Bologna, who had appealed to him to finish his engagements there. By 1439 we find Jacopo della Quercia had died, and his brother Priam was writing repeated petitions to theOperaat Siena about his inheritance from Jacopo, which it seems a certainpupil of Jacopo's called Cino Bartoli was withholding from him.
So the work went on for centuries. There are contracts with different Masters for sculptures, for windows, for towers, for chapels, each Master designing the part assigned to him. Francesco del Tonghio obtained great fame for his carvings of the stalls in the choir in 1377, where his son Giacomo assisted him. We find him in Florence some time later, and his fame must have preceded him, for he is known there as "Francesco of the Choir" (Francesco del Coro).
It is impossible to name a single architect for any of these great buildings; they were all the united work of a self-governed guild.
During the centuries when the Duomo of Siena rose into beauty, her sister of Orvieto also grew under the hands of the same brotherhood.
Lorenzo Maitani, having been trained by his master, Giovanni di Pisa, at Siena, was called to Orvieto in 1310. His family lasted long in the guild, and won much fame. His father Vitale was a master sculptor who had worked under Niccolò and Giovanni. His sons Vitale and Antonio both graduated in the Siena or Orvieto Lodge, and Vitale became chief architect at Orvieto for six months only, on Lorenzo's death, when Master Meo di Nuti di Neri succeeded him.
It is not probable that beyond the design, Maitani had much to do with the façade, which was incomplete till about 1500. The beautiful Bible in stone which adorns the pilasters of the three fine doors may have been designed by Maitani, but the work was done by his sons, with the help of many sculptors of the guild from Siena, Florence, and Lombardy. The upper part was not added till the time of Michele Sanmichele of Verona, who in 1509 was nominated chief architect of the façade at a salary of one hundred florins a year. He is described as "MagistrumMichaelem, Magistri Johannis de Verona, principalem magistrum fabrice faciate de Urbe vetere."[228]
Door in Orvieto Cathedral.See page 305.
Door in Orvieto Cathedral.
See page 305.
The enthusiastic work of the numberless artists all vying with each other in beautifying this marvellous church bore rather heavily on the funds of theOpera, for in August 1521 thecamarlengohad to stop the expenses of the façade and finish some more needful parts of the church first. So "Mag. Michael Johannes Michaelis, Caput Magister dicte Fabrice," was given permission to absent himself for three days a week, for other work (no doubt the church at Spello), and theOperacontinued his salary on half-pay.[229]About this time a competition was offered among theMagistrifor the best design for the chapel of the Three Kings at Orvieto. Antonio Sangallo and Michele were the two best, and when Pope Clement VII. fled to Orvieto from the sack of Rome in 1527, the choice was made with his concurrence, Michele's being chosen. Both San Michele and San Gallo rose to extreme eminence in the guild; many of the finest palaces in Florence and Venice were by them. It is interesting to find that they were both Lombard brethren of the guild by hereditary descent.
The preponderance of Lombards in all these later lodges is sufficient proof of the connection of these lodges with the older Comacines, from whom their ancestry can be traced direct.
In April 1422 we find Maestro Piero di Beltrami da Biscione and his Lombard companions arranging with theOperafor the purchase and cutting of marbles and travertine. In September 1444 Guglielmo di Como and his brother Pietro da Como were commissioned to make a mausoleum in the Duomo for the Bishop of Siena. A contemporary of theirs was Giuliano da Como, who was of such repute inthe guild, that the Council of theOpera, "considering thevirtùof Maestro Giuliano and the desirability of keeping him in Siena, deliberated to accord to him a loan he requested, of seventy florins to buy a house."[230]
Again, on May 25, 1421, the Republic of Siena wrote to Filippo Visconti Duke of Milan that a Maestro Giovanni, son of Maestro Leone da Piazza near Como, was anxious to return to his native country, to see his family and to arrange a law-suit; and they recommended him to the Lords of Milan because he had greatly won the affection and esteem of the Sienese republic by his good life and his eminence in his art of sculpture.
A certain "Maestro Alberto di Martino de Cumo in provincie Lombardie" was engaged by theOperaon March 2, 1448, as a builder, in company with Giovan Francesco of Valmaggia and Lanzilotto di Niccola of Como.
When the Piccolomini wanted to build a splendid palace in Siena, they did not choose their architects from the faction of their townspeople, but from the original Lombard branch. Martino di Giorgio da Varenna (near Bidagio on Lake Como) was chief architect, and Lorenzo from Mariano in the Lugano valley assisted him as sculptor. He carved the beautiful capitals and friezes in the palace, and his work so pleased the Piccolomini, that they employed him to erect an altar and decorate their chapel in the church of S. Francesco. Milanesi says that Lorenzo da Mariano was one of the best artists of his time for foliaged scrolls and grotesques.[231]In 1506 he wascapo maestroof the Duomo of Siena. Maestro Lorenzo was no doubt one of the precursors of the sculptors of the beautiful cathedral of Como, and the richly ornate Certosa of Pavia, who were trained in the Sieneselaborerium.
A fellow-countryman, named Maestro Matteo di Jacopo, came from Lugano with Lorenzo, and together with Maestro Adamo da Sanvito (also in Val di Lugano) undertook the great engineering work of making an artificial lake, to drain the then malarious country round Massa in Maremma.
Martino di Giorgio had a relative who became more famous than himself. This was Francesco di Giorgio di Martino—three names in rotation are generally enough to supply an Italian family for centuries,—who continued the work at Palazzo Piccolomini (Vasari gives him the credit for the whole), and was one of the architects of the palace at Urbino.
Milanesi, the commentator of Vasari, asserts that Francesco was the son of a seller of fowls in Siena, because he found the name of a "Giorgio di Martino, pollajuolo," in the registers, but seeing that he was bred in the guild, it is much more likely that he was related to the Giorgio di Martino already eminent there. His family had certainly become citizens of Siena by that date.
Maestro Francesco di Giorgio Martini holds a large share in the correspondence of the Sienese government and of theOperain the latter part of the fifteenth century.
On December 26, 1486, we find him first entering the pay of the Sienese Commune as public architect. He has a salary of 800 florins, and is bound to fix his home at Siena. He was recalled from Urbino for the purpose, having orders to arrive within six months, but the Duke Guidobaldo was not at all willing for him to leave. On May 10, 1489, the Duke writes to say that the absence of his architect (mio architector) would be a serious injury to him.
During the time Francesco remained in Umbria he seems to have done the Commune good political service by keeping them informed of the dangers that threatened Florence from the offensive alliance between Lorenzo de Medici and the Pope Innocent VIII., who designed to takeCittà di Castello for Francesco Cibo. This would have endangered the peace of Siena, so the architect warned them to be prepared.
After this, Magister Francesco became the bone of contention among several princes and republics. The Duke of Milan wrote, on April 19, 1490, to the Signoria of Siena, begging them to send the "intellexerimus magistrum Franciscum Giorgium Urbinatem" (see how the place he last worked at is named as his residence!) to Milan to give his opinion on the mode of placing the cupola. The Commune gave the permission, and on June 27, 1490, we find Magistro Francisco di Georgi di Siena (here again at Milan he is styled of Siena), with Magistro Johantonio Amadeo (Omodeo) and Johanjacobo Dolzebono (Gian Giacomo Dolcebono), elected as a supreme council of three, and giving their advice on the erection of the cupola at Milan, with the exact plan and measurements which would harmonize with the building as it then stood. He did not remain to see the plans carried out, but was on his recall to Siena remunerated with one hundred florins by the Fabbrica (Opera) of Milan.
On October 24 of the same year, Giovanni della Rovere, the Prefect of Rome, wrote to the Signoria of Siena praying for the service of their architect, and on November 4, 1490, Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano, begged him to go and build a fortress at Campagnano.
Next Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, wanted him at the Castle of Capua, where he went between February and May 1491, and in August of the same year the Anziani, Lords of Lucca, petitioned for him. And so he is called from end to end of Italy, and wherever he goes he is received with honour as a grand architect.[232]
At Orvieto we find the same preponderance of Lombardsas in Siena. The register of theOperathere for August 30, 1293, gives the salaries of theMagistriin the Loggia (lodge) of the Fabbrica. Here we find many of our Sienese friends; Magistro Orlando and Guido da Como receive six soldi a day; Magistro Martino da Como seven. We find also Pietro Lombardo, Giacomo and Benedetto da Como, sculptors; Martino, Guido, and Aroldo as successive chief architects in the Fabbrica orOpera.
In 1305 thecamarlengohad to write to Lombardy for more builders and sculptors, for, says Della Valle, "la fama di volo ne spargesse il grido fin oltre ai confini d'Italia," and in December fourMagistriarrived—"Mag. Franciscus Lombardus, Mag. Marchettus Lombardus, Mag. Benedictus Lombardus, and Johannes de Mediolano (Milan)." I do not know which of these sculptured the door of which we give an illustration, but the artist has set the sign of his fraternity on it in the lions beneath the pillars. (One is now missing.)
The Lodge of Orvieto, sometimes speltLoyaorLoja, is described as a large, spacious, and airy building, in which the sculpturing of stones and marbles was done, and where the stores and the schools were.[233]
The use of the word "Lodge" for this complicated organization seems a sign of Freemasonry, and suggests that the Comacines followed the ancient rules of Vitruvius, and kept up the organization of the RomanCollegium.
We have, I think, proved this to be true, and shown that the same organization held good up to the fifteenth century, if not longer. Signor Milanesi's interesting collection of Sienese documents, if studied closely, contains endless indications of the existence of the guild. We find several cases of arbitration, such as when Doctor Filippo Francesconi, and Maestro Lorenzo di Pietro, calledVecchietta, were chosen on September 20, 1471, as arbiters between Maestro Urbano di Pietro of Cortona, sculptor, and Bastiano di Francesco, stone-cutter, his workman, who lodged a complaint against his master on account of unpaid wages and loss of tools. This same Urbano appears to have been frequently in need of arbiters, for on Jan. 27, 1471-72, Bertino di Gherardo was called on to settle a cause between Madonna Caterina, wife of Silvio Piccolomini, and the sculptor Urbano, and decided that the lady must pay the artist 100 lire within the term of four years, the payments to be made quarterly. It was at the lady's option to pay in kind, such as corn or wine, if it suited her better.[234]Then there are frequent meetings of councils for appraising the work of other Masters, and we find theOperaio, or Head of Administration, fixing the salaries of underlings. Precisely the same meetings, arbitrations, appraisings, went on in Florence. Indeed, in the fifteenth century the two lodges of Siena and Florence were so closely intermingled, the Masters appearing now in one city and then in the other, that there can be no doubt a fraternity existed between them. We even find Donatello, who came from Florence to make the bronze doors, sleeping in a feather bed supplied by thecamarlengoof theOperaat Siena.[235]
Donatello was more or less in Siena between 1457 and 1461. He was engaged to sculpture the altar of the Madonna of the Duomo there on October 17, 1457. His accounts are much mixed up with those of Urbano di Pietro of Cortona, of whom we have spoken. It seemsUrbano bought the metal to cast a half figure of Judith, and one of St. John, both modelled by Donatello. The money, however, was advanced to Urbano by the banker Dalgano di Giacomo Bichi. The books of thecamarlengoof theOperahave several entries for expenses of modelling wax, and metal for casting, etc., used by Donatello in the figures on the altar of the Madonna delle Grazie; his assistants and pupils on this occasion were Francesco di Andrea di Ambrogio, of Lombard origin, and Bartolommeo di Giovanni di Ser Vincenzo.
THE FLORENTINE LODGE
Art is like a flower. If the seeds are sown in favourable soil the plant grows, develops, and bears beautiful blossoms, which in their turn leave seed for future generations. If the soil be not favourable, the plant may perhaps reach its flowering season, but it is weak, and the seeds lack the power of reproduction.
Thus in small cities like Modena, Parma, Orvieto, etc., the artistic atmosphere and soil were wanting. The lodges of those cities never became firmly rooted. The Lombard Masters placed there did their work, and then moved to other cities, but the natives remained uninfluenced. In Pisa, art first took root. The Pisans, whose artistic faculties had been awakened by the classic spoils they had gathered together in their conquests, found a practical outlet for them in the teaching of thelaboreriumset up in their midst by Buschetto and his assistants and followers. Pisans joined the lodge, and from it great teachers arose. Siena was the next lodge that took root, and drew native artists into it; then followed Venice and Florence; and through them all, distinct as they became in later times, the seed was always sown by the Comacines or Lombard Masters. The Campionese and Buoni families are at the bottom of all the Tuscan schools, and every one of these cradles of art was of the self-same form,i.e.composed of the school, thelaborerium, and theOperaof the Comacine Masters.
And what connection had Arnolfo, the first designing architect of the Florentine cathedral and Palazzo Vecchio, with this Masonic company? He had much to do with it, inasmuch as he was an hereditary member, in fact one of the aristocracy of the guild, and he had a most complete training in it. The first trace we get of Arnolfo is his instruction in the school of Magister Niccolò Pisano. The proof of this is a deed drawn up in Siena on May 11, 1266, in which these words occur—"requisivit Magistrum Nicholam Petri de Apulia quod ipse faceret et curaret ita; quod Arnolfus discipulus suus statim veniret Senas ad laborandum in dicto opere, cum ipso magistro Nichola." Here we have Niccolò di Pisa as Master in the guild, and his disciple Arnolfo not yet having graduated.
Another paper relating to Niccolò's work on the pulpitat Siena says—"Secum ducat Senas Arnolphum et Lapum, suos discipulos."
By 1277 Arnolfo seems to have graduated, for when Niccolò and Giovanni di Pisa were at work on the beautiful fountain at Perugia in that year, Fra Bevignate, thesoprastanteof the work, sent to call Magister Arnolfo from Florence to assist in the sculpture of the fountain. Arnolfo, however, declared in a letter dated Aug. 27, 1277, that he could not go to Perugia, or undertake any work there without the consent of King Charles of Anjou (King of Naples and Sicily) or of Hugo, his vicar in Rome. King Charles was applied to, and on Sept. 10 of that year he wrote conceding permission to Arnolfo to go and assist his old master—then 74 years of age—and also to take the marbles necessary.[237]
These documents are very valuable apart from the fact they chronicle. They show how the guild was not only privileged by the reigning monarch, but that he was the active president of it. It explains all those queer words on Longobardic inscriptions, beginning—"In tempore Dominus Honorius Episcopus," "In tempore præsule Paschalis, etc.," showing that they point out the reigning king, pope, or patron bishop who was at the time president of the Great Guild. The name of this highest magnate is usually followed in these inscriptions by the Grand Master,soprastanteoroperaioof the special lodge. The universality of the guild is also shown; its president, the king, being at Naples, his "vice" at Rome.
The next place in which we see Arnolfo is in Rome, where he worked with hissocio(fellow Freemason), Pietro, at the tabernacle of San Paolo fuori le mura. Here, with this ancestor of the Cosmati, Arnolfo learned his love of polychrome sculpture, which he afterwards adapted to the larger uses of architecture; for his grand Florentine Domeseems only a magnified inlaid casket. There is a beautiful piece of inlaid work in the Opera del Duomo which I believe to have been thepluteusor parapet of the tribune in Arnolfo's time. It is in the Cosmatesque work which Arnolfo often executed. That he was as apt a pupil of the Cosmatesque revival of theopus Alexandrinumas he had been of Niccolò's figure sculpture, and his father Jacopo's architecture, is evident by his tomb of Cardinal de Braye at Orvieto, where we next find him working in 1285.[238]The tomb is a beautiful mixture of Cosmatesque ornamentation with the legitimate sculpture which he had learned from Niccolò. The capitals of the spiral inlaid columns of the sarcophagus are of the true old Romano-Lombard form. In the simple grace of the recumbent figure we descry a forerunner of Donatello and Desiderio.
We have now traced Arnolfo's training through three or four of the chief lodges, and always under the best Masters. It is then no marvel that by 1294 his fame had risen so high that he was chosen as architect of the Duomo of Florence. He was well known to the Florentines, his master, Jacopo Tedesco, otherwise Lapo, having left Colle to settle in Florence, where he was engaged to build the Palace of the Podestà (Bargello). And this brings us to the vexed question of the parentage of Arnolfo.
Vasari says that Jacopo or Lapo, whom he calls "il Tedesco" (meaning Lombard architect), was the father of Arnolfo, and he gives this as a certain fact, understood to be the case by the world in general for two or three centuries past.
Milanesi, on the strength of the document quoted above, "Secum ducat Senas Arnolphum et Lapum suos discipulos," says that Lapo was only Arnolfo's contemporary and fellow-pupil.