Apse of the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, on the Cœlian Hill, Rome.(From a photograph by Alinari.)See page 405.
Apse of the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, on the Cœlian Hill, Rome.(From a photograph by Alinari.)
See page 405.
The great Lombard Masonic Guild being under the especial protection of the Popes, we should expect to see its members employed in the mediæval buildings of Rome. And truly, after Adrian's time, here they are. Hope, Schmarzow, Ricci, and Boito, besides other writers, have all decided that the ancient cloisters of San Lorenzo—built under Honorius III. in the beginning of the thirteenth century—as well as the primitive churches of St. Peter, S. John Lateran, and S. Lorenzo, were all early Comacine work; and that the exquisite cloister of S. John Lateran, and the churches of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, Ara Cœli, San Giovanni e Paolo, S. Maria sopra Minerva, etc., are all equally Lombard churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Several friezes and inscriptions go to prove the truth of this, besides those eloquent lions that crouch beneath the columns in the cloister of S. John Lateran and other places.
As this is not an architectural dissertation, but merely a tracing of the work of this great guild, I will keep more to the inscriptions relative toMagistri, than to a description of their works, which has been done by so many writers.
In the old times before the painters and sculptors, and after them the metal-workers, split off and formed companies of their own, every kind of decoration was practised by the Masters. A church was not complete unless it were adorned in its whole height and breadth with either sculpture, mosaic, or paintings, and this from the very early times of Constantine and his Byzantine mosaicists, and of Queen Theodolinda and her fresco-painters, up to the revival of mosaics by the Cosmati, and the fresco-painting in the Tuscan schools. But never were those arts entirely lost.
The ideas which the Lombard architects brought up from Sicily, when working there under the Normans, were the seeds of re-vivification, and caused a tremendous evolution in the art of the guild. They saw the decorative value of mosaic as it was used in the twisted Saracenic columns, and they were charmed by the rich use of sculpture in the graceful arches. From that time, every lodge throughout the land seemed to invent a new style peculiar to itself.
The Romans, with their traditions of classic mosaics, revived the art in Saracenic style as a means of decoration. The Tuscans, with their wealth of coloured marbles, enlarged chromatic decoration into chromatic architecture, and their airy towers and arched churches were all more or less polychrome. The Lombards, having no marbles at hand, took from these same Saracens their rich traceries and cuspings, which they produced in the plastic clay, throwing a veil of ruddy beauty over the façades and arches of their buildings.
The name of the Cosmati family has become generic for the peculiar chromatic sculpture of Rome in the twelfth century; the family were complete masters of the art. But though they may have taken the idea of its revival as a decorative aid to sculpture, it was by no means their invention, or even their monopoly. If you look at a Cosmati pillar or panel, and then at the floor of any Roman church, you will see that Cosmatesque decoration is but an adaptation of the old Romanopus Alexandrinum. And we have plenty of proof of the fact that otherMagistriof the guild also practised it. The ambone in S. Cesareo in Palatio at Rome, of which we give an illustration, is earlier than any of Cosimo's family.
Basilica of S. Paolofuori le mura,Rome.See page 405.
Basilica of S. Paolofuori le mura,Rome.
See page 405.
There exists at Florence (in S. Leonardo) the ancient pulpit from S. Piero Scheraggio, and which was said to have been brought there from Fiesole. Its date is supposed to be before 1000A.D.Though of a ruder style,we have the Cosmatesque inlaying of glass and marble, as a setting to sculptures distinctly Comacine, and of almost Longobardic antiquity. In Sta. Maria in Cosmedin are two fine pulpits, on one of which is a beautiful candlestick formed of a twisted column, inlaid in the same style. The Comacine lion crouches beneath it, and on the base is the inscription in Gothic letters, telling us that the worthy and learned man Paschalis (called Rita), with great study made this candlestick.[290]Then we have Nicolao di Rannuncio, whose name is inscribed on the door of inlaid marble in the church of S. Maria at Toscanella,[291]and a whole family whose names are inscribed on the ciborium of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura:[292]where it is written—"John, Peter, Angelo, and Sasso, sons of Paul the sculptor, Magisters of this Opera. I, the humble Abbot Hugh, had this work executed"[293](Johs, Petrus, Angĕs, et. Sasso. Filii. Pauli. Marmōr. Huj'. Opis. Magister Fuer. Ann d. M. CXLVIII. Ego. Hugo. Humilis. Abbs. Hoc. Opus. Fieri Feci.). The tabernacle is of the usual four-pillared form; the columns are ancient porphyry ones adapted; the capitals the usual Comacine mixture of classic and mediæval—acanthus leaves and cornucopiæ with the mystic beasts climbing among them.
Angelo, the third son of Magister Paulus, had a son named Niccolò, and the two together made the candelabrum of S. Paolo; a quaint mediæval piece of sculpture, of the style of Magister Roberto's font, but with some marvellously beautiful interlaced work. There is also Arnolfo with his partner Peter (Arnolfus cum suo socio Petro), who made the inlaid and sculptured tabernacle in S. Paolo fuori le Mura in 1285.
Merzario says that we must not confuse this Arnolfo with the Florentine architect. Camille Boito, however, opines that he is the same. Arnolfo had certainly a taste for the polychrome in architecture, which may or may not have been imbibed in Rome, while working at that lodge with Peter—whom Cavalcaselle considers was one of the Cosmati, and who certainly did the ciborium at S. Paolo, though Arnolfo's name is absent in that work. I have found some other members of the Roman Lodge inscribed above a bronze door in S. John Lateran. On the archivolt is written—"Hui opis Ubert et Petr: F͡rs. Māgistri Lausenen. Fecer͡unt." Over another bronze door in the sacristy they are written as—"Ubert Magister, et Petrus. Ei: Fr. Placentini Fecerunt Hoc. op.," and the dateA.D.1196. Boito[294]sees nothing in this but a perplexing contradiction, that in one place the brothers say they are from Lausanne, and in another from Piacenza. It is to me plain enough. They are natives of Lausanne, and consequently Lombards: they are also brethren of the lodge of Piacenza, where they had most likely worked while the cathedral and other buildings were being erected.
The date of the Baptistery door, and the connection of its maker with the guild, are verified by the inscription on the other panel of the bronze door, which says it was done in the fifth year of the pontificate of Pope Celestine III. (i.e.1196), and that Father Giovanni, Cardinal of S. Lucia, theJubente, orcamerariusof theOpera, had it made.[295]
This door had engraved on it the design of the ancient façade of S. John Lateran—a perfectly Lombard front consisting of two round-arched arcades, with a little pillared gallery above.
Pulpit in Church of S. Cesareo in Palatio, Rome. Mediæval Sculpture inlaid in Mosaic.(From a photograph by Alinari.)See page 406.
Pulpit in Church of S. Cesareo in Palatio, Rome. Mediæval Sculpture inlaid in Mosaic.(From a photograph by Alinari.)
See page 406.
The door of the Sacristy must have been cast beforethat of the Baptistery, as in the first work Uberto is entitledMagister, and Petrus only named as his brother, whereas in the second the younger brother must have also graduated, and has in his turn attained to the dignity ofMagister.
We trace the same gradual progress through the ranks of the Guild in the Cosmati family, whose connection with the Roman lodge we must now trace. Several generations of them wereMagistri—
To Lorenzo belong the façades of Santa Maria in Falleri, and the Duomo in Civita Castellana, besides the pulpit in Ara Cœli at Rome. In all these works his son Jacopo worked with him.
Jacopo alone, with the title ofMagister, sculptured the smaller doors in the façade of the Duomo at Civita Castellana, and the door of San Saba at Rome in 1205; also the inlaid columns at S. Alessio in Rome, and the Cloister of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco. In Civita Castellana, above the magnificent portal, is inscribed "Laurentius cum Jacobo Filio suo, Magistri doctissimi Romani H(oc) opus fecerunt." This proves my assertion that they had graduated in the Roman Lodge, and if further proof is required, this portal bears the universal mark of the Comacine Masters at this era—its columns rest on lions.
Similar inscriptions are on the ambone of Ara Cœli, and the doorway at Falleri. The inscription on the door of San Saba, dated 1205, is—"Ad honorem domini nostriI͞HU X͡PIAnno VII. Pontificatus domini Innocentii III.PPHocopus domino Johanne, Abbate Jubente[296]factum est per manus magistri Jacobi." Up to this time we have no proof that the family was of Roman origin; they are merely given as members of the Roman Lodge, which we have seen was of Lombard origin. They were afterwards made Roman citizens.
After these works we find Cosmato, the son of Jacopo, old enough to assist him. That same frontal of the Duomo at Civita Castellana has on the cornice over the portico these words inlaid in letters of gold—"Magister Jacobus civis Romanus cum Cosma filio suo, Fieri fecit hoc opusA. D͠NI. MCCX." Cosmato's name is also inscribed as assisting his father in the door of the church of San Tommaso in Formis at Rome. Next, in 1224, we find young Cosmato a full-fledgedMagister, working at the cathedral of Anagni, which was in those days an important city, and the residence and birthplace of several Popes. The whole pavement there is a beautiful work of inlaid marbles, and bears an inscription saying that the Venerable Lord Bishop Albert had the pavement made; Magister Rainaldo, Canon of Anagni to Pope Honorius III., and the honourable sub-deacon and chaplain assisting in the expense, which was a hundred goldoboli; Magister Cosmato executing the work.[297]Magister Rainaldo, the Canon, must have been one of the ecclesiastic members of the guild, and showed so much respect for the privilege that he preferred the title ofMagisterto the grander one ofVenerabilis, to which his office of Canon would have given him right.
After this time, Cosmato is always written as Magister; his name appears on the altar of the crypt of S. Magnus in the cathedral of Anagni, which was also a commission of Bishop Alberto in 1230. Next, we perceive that Cosmato has married and has a goodly family of sons, who, according to ancient custom, are all educated in the guild.
Luca and Jacobo, the two eldest, helped him in the mosaic pavement of the crypt at Anagni, and in the cloister of Santa Scolastica at Subiaco. This is a most beautiful work in transition style. The columns are alternately single and double, the single ones with a wide projecting abacus. Some are slight and straight, others spiral and beautifully inlaid between the sculptured ribs. The arches resting on these fanciful columns are on two sides round, but on the other sides are slightly pointed. Above the arches is a sculptured cornice and a frieze of mosaic. It is altogether very beautiful.
In 1277 Cosmato was employed by Pope Nicholas III. to restore the chapel "Sancta Sanctorum" in the Basilica of S. John Lateran, the altar of which was reserved for the Popes alone. Luca appears to have died young, but Jacopo at eighty years of age was a master builder at the cathedral of Orvieto, where in 1293 he is written in the books as "Maestro de' Muratori Jacopo di Cosma Romano."
The third son, Adeodatus, or Deodatus, rose high in the guild. In the pavement of S. Jacopo alla Lungara, before it was destroyed, the following epigraph was inlaid, which was copied by Crescimbeni—"Deodatus filius Cosmati, et Jacobus fecerunt hoc opus." In a later work, the ciborium once in S. John Lateran, now in the cloister, we find that Deodatus has risen to the rank ofMagister. It was a commission from the Colonna family, whose arms are sculptured on it. The ciborium in S. Maria in Cosmedin, ordered by Cardinal Gaetani, nephew of Pope BonifaceVII., must have been earlier than this, for he has merely signed "Deodat. me fec."
Cosmato's fourth son, Giovanni, first appears in an independent work in 1296, when, on the elegant sepulchre of Bishop Durante, he signs—"Jo͞hs filius Magri Cosmati fec̄ hoc op." Similar epigraphs are on the tomb of Cardinal Gonsalvo in S. Maria Maggiore, and a monument to Stefano de' Surdi in Santa Balbina.
In all these works of the Cosmati, Camille Boito finds signs of Lombard principles, and traces in the development of style from father to son the same gradual movement from older forms towards the Gothic, which we notice between Jacopo Tedesco and Arnolfo, and between Niccolò Pisano and his son Giovanni. Living in Rome, however, the Cosmati never really took up the Gothic style, as it developed further north; but always kept nearer to classical forms, and so prepared Rome for the Renaissance style, which arose from the humanist movement in the Cinque-cento epoch.
The next great patron of the Lombard Guild in Rome was Pope Nicholas V. (Thomas of Sarzana), of whom Gregorovius said—"This man had only two passions—collecting books and building." His dominating idea was the directing of a new Renaissance. According to him, "Rome ought to become the imperishable monument of the Church, or rather the Papacy, and re-arise in admirable magnificence before the eyes of all people."[298]Nicholas V. had the first idea of the rebuilding of St. Peter's, and the Vatican, but one man's life was not long enough for such great works. He, however, restored the Campidoglio, Castel S. Angelo, San Todaro, S. Stefano Rotondo, the palace of S. Maria Maggiore, the fountain of Trevi, the walls of Rome, and several of the State fortresses.
Candelabrum in S. Paolo at Rome, 12th century.See page 407.
Candelabrum in S. Paolo at Rome, 12th century.
See page 407.
He got some of his architects, such as Leon Battista Alberti and Rossellino, from the Florentine Lodge, but by far the greater part of them were Lombards. The chief of these was Master Beltramo da Varese, of whom we have heard much in the Lombard Lodges. With him were his nephew Maestro Pietro di Giovanni, Maestro Paolo da Campagnano (a village near Varese), and Maestro Giacomo di Cristoforo. Rossellino had begun the works at St. Peter's in a kind of reverse fashion, starting with the apse. The continuation of this tribune was confided to Maestro Beltramo, who set to work in good earnest. He made vast lime and brick furnaces, filled thelaboreriumwith wood, ropes, ladders, etc., engaged sub-architects andMagistriwith bands of workmen under them, most of whom came down from the Como region. In fact, there was an army of Lombards.[299]The registers of theOpera, now in the Vatican, mark large payments to Magistro Beltramo and his nephew Pietro di Giovanni, who became chief architect after his uncle's death.
Besides the Tribune of St. Peter's, the two relatives were employed to rebuild the Campidoglio. Muntz publishes some notes taken from the registers of the Apostolic Camera, recording payments made between 1447 and 1448 to Maestro Beltramo, and some of his associates (socii), for the roof and marble windows of the Campidoglio and the palace of the Conservators. In 1452 Pietro da Varese is found continuing the work alone. The documents recently published from the registers of the Vatican have these entries—
"1452.December 31.—To Maestro Pietro da Varese, nephew of Maestro Beltramo, 1000 gold ducats for part of the Tower he is building behind the Campidoglio, at the side where they sell salt by retail. T. S. 1452, fol. 216, cf. fol. 194."
"1453.March 9.—D. 112, b. 56, d. c., for remainder and completion of the contract of the Tower he (Pietro) has made at the Campidoglio, which in full amounts to 1212 ducats, of which he received last year at different times, 1000 (and 100) ... and thus it is registered by Janni di Jordani (Notary V. fl. 126. 10. 93)."[300]
We find Pietro in 1450 sculpturing in the cathedral at Orvieto, where in a public act he is described as a good and clever sculptor ("lapidum sculptor bonus et doctus"), and prayed to remain at Orvieto in the service of the lodge there.
Muntz speaks very highly in praise of the Lombard sculptor, Giacomo di Cristoforo[301]da Pietrasanta, saying that although his name is little known to biographers, he holds a high place in Roman art of the fifteenth century, and merits to be ranked among the most celebrated artists of his time. Many of the buildings which Vasari ascribes to Giuliano da Majano and Baccio Pontelli are in reality due to him; for instance, the Palazzo Venezia, which was rebuilt under Pope Paul II. (Pietro Barbo, who succeeded to the papal throne in 1464). Now Giuliano da Majano only came to Rome towards the end of the reign of Pope Sixtus IV., and could not therefore have been employed by Paul II. In fact, Muntz, after many researches, concludes that the chief architect was Maestro Giacomo da Pietrasanta, who is in the registers of 1467 qualified by the title ofSoprastantein thelaboreriumof the church and palace of S. Marco at Rome, and in 1468 is written as the president of the building of the Palazzo Apostolico or Vatican.[302]In fact, Giacomo da Pietrasanta, the Lombard, was Grand Master of the whole Roman Lodge during these years.
But Maestro Giacomo was not the only Comacine employed in the Palazzo Venezia. A contract dated June 16, 1466, names Magister Manfred of Como and Andrea of Arzo, whom we have seen in Venice, asmagistros architectos,[303]and the registers reveal a whole army of master builders and sculptors whose names will be found in the list appended. Muntz quotes no less than twenty-five, many of whom have been familiar to us at Milan, Siena, and Florence.
Although when Calixtus III. (Alfonso Borgia) succeeded Nicholas V. in 1455, he had no great ideas about resuscitating the architectural glories of ancient Rome, he nevertheless employed the Lombard Masters to finish the works begun. Maestro Pietro da Varese, and Maestro Paolo da Campagnano, with Maestro Antonio di Giovanni from Milan, and Maestro Paolino da Binasco, were joint architects of the Pontifical Palace. Maestro Bartolommeo da Como, whom we have known at Milan and Pavia, was director of the works of fortification at Castel S. Angelo, while Maestro Stefano da Bissone di Como is named as a sculptor in the church of S. Spirito.
The next Pope, Pius II. (Æneas Silvio Piccolomini), did so much building and embellishing in Siena—where the Lombard Masters divided the honours with their colleagues born in Siena, and trained by them—that he did little for Rome. He employed the same Pietro da Giovanni and Paolo da Campagnano between 1460 and 1463, for the roof of S. Pietro, which menaced destruction. The palace of the Vatican was placed under thearchitectural superintendence of Maestro Manfred of Como and Domenico of Lugano. The first appears to have been designing architect, and the second master builder, as he commanded squadrons of workmen, and was assisted in ruling them by his brother Antonio.
Maestro Angelo da Como, and a certain Martino Lombardo, rebuilt the chambers which had been destroyed by fire, and adorned the "Hall of the Pavilion" and "Hall of the Parrot."
In the time of Sixtus IV. (Francesco della Rovere, 1471-1484) the Lombards of the Roman Lodge were joined by their brethren from Florence, and now we find the two groups inextricably mixed. Baccio Pontelli and Giuliano da Majano work together with Manfred the Lombard and Paolo da Campagnano in the administration of the works of the Vatican; while Francesco and Andrea, both Lombards, are found carving in wood and executing beautiful doors inintarsia, together with Giovanni and Marco di Dolci, Florentines; Giovanni de' Dolci with his colleagues (chiefly Comacines) worked at the Sixtine Chapel, some parts of the Vatican, and the fortress of Civita Vecchia, which Baccio Pontelli finished. Pope Innocent VIII. (Cibo, 1484-92) added the Loggia Belvedere to the already immense palace of the Vatican, and Alexander VI., a Spaniard, built the Borgia apartment, for which he employed Antonio di San Gallo, or from St. Gall, a Lombard naturalized Florentine, whose assistants in the work seem to have been chiefly Lombards.
It was this influx of Florentines, who were fresh from the humanistic influences of the classic revival of literature under the Medici, and therefore more open to further inspirations from the influences of antique Rome, which brought about the revival of classic forms in architecture in Rome. Bramante and San Gallo began it in 1503, Raphael and Michael Angelo carried it on; and such holddid the Renaissance style take on the minds of people in the late Cinque-cento era, that it spread, and overpowered the Gothic from end to end of Italy.
Vasari raved about the faults of the old architecture and itsgoffissimastyle, upholding the chastened order of the new, but whatever may have been the merits of Renaissance, as Bramante and Michael Angelo practised it, their later followers committed quite as many sins against reason and good taste as any Comacine or Romanesque architect ever did. Look, for instance, at the church of S. Carlo, in the Corso at Rome, with its gigantic pilasters running up the whole height of a front, which is, by its square windows, cut up into three storeys, giving the lie to the unity of space implied by the mock columns; and at San Firenze in Florence, where half an arch runs up into the air and stops short, as a defiance to all laws of gravity. Arches or pediments, with ahiatuswhere the key-stone should be, and which, logically speaking, can support nothing, are the most common blots on a late Renaissance building.
But we have nothing to do with this era. It was only a late survival of a side issue of the Comacine Guild which had been practically dissolved before Michael Angelo's time, although the influence of its smouldering ashes vivified the art even of that great genius.
The great family of sixteenth-century architects, the Fontana, was of Comacine origin, though I believe the guild was dissolved by their time. Domenico Fontana was born at Melide near Como; his elder brother Giovanni, famous for his stucco work, had preceded him in Rome, but Domenico was an artist of a wider kind. The Cardinal Felice di Montalto soon discovered his capacities, and entrusted him with the erection of the Cappella del Santissimo in S. Maria Maggiore. Here a very unusual episode occurred. The Cardinal had not means enough to finish the work, and the brothers Fontana, instead of suing himfor their pay, lent him 1000 scudi. Of course the Cardinal was their great patron after this, and recommended them to Pope Sixtus V., who employed them in the Vatican to build the Belvedere and the Library. Domenico also enshrined the Scala Santa at S. John Lateran; he placed the obelisks on Piazza S. Giovanni and Piazza S. M. Maggiore; set up the Castor and Pollux on the Quirinal; built the bridge at Borghetto, the hospital of S. Sisto, and restored the Alessandrini-Felice aqueduct; embanked the Fiumicino near Porto; made the water conduit at Civita Vecchia, which implied tunnelling under a mountain; and the great aqueduct of Acqua Paola from Bracciano to Rome, thirty-five miles long; besides constructing fountains everywhere, in Rome and Frascati.
In fact, he nearly made Cinque-cento Rome. His brother Giovanni was nominated architect in general to Pope Clement VIII.; and Paul V. made him chief architect of St. Peter's, with his nephew Carlo Madernò. He too was employed in Ferrara. For a century the name and race of Fontana flourished in Rome, some of the family emigrating to Naples, where they became equally famous. The number of their buildings was legion; they and the family Della Porta, who also came to Rome from Lake Lugano, divided the renovation of Rome between them. Girolamo della Porta, like the Fontanas, was a naturalized Roman.
The Fontana family forms a link with Naples, though not the only connection of that city with the guild. The Comacine Masters kept up their connection with Naples long after the time of the Normans, when Maestro Buono built the Castel Capuana for William I. Merzario claims for one of his descendants, Buono dei Buoni, the credit of having first invented painting in oils, which he is supposed to have taught privately to Antonello of Messina.[304]Several names of the Solari family, so famous at Milanand Venice, turn up at Naples in the fifteenth century, and then a famous work was put into Lombard hands. When Alphonso of Aragon made his entry in 1443, the governors of the city decreed that a triumphal arch should be built to commemorate the event. It was placed at the entrance of Castel Nuovo, and consists of two round towers, with an arch between them, supported on Corinthian columns. The arch is surmounted by a frieze and cornice, with a parapet above, enriched with bas-reliefs representing the entry of King Alphonso. The whole is surmounted by statues of saints and the cardinal virtues.
The construction of this fine arch has been attributed to Giuliano da Majano, but as he was at the time only a boy of ten or twelve years old, this could not be. Sig. Miniero Riccio, after a diligent search in the Neapolitan archives, has found some acts, which give the names of sculptors employed on this. We find Pietro di Martino from Milan, head architect; Isaja da Pisa, Domenico di Montemignano, Antonio da Pisa, Francesco Arzara, Paolo Romano, and Domenico Lombardo. This authorship is confirmed by the epigraph in the church of S. Maria la Nuova in Naples, dated 1470, in memory of Pietro di Martino, Milanese, who, for his merit in erecting the arch at Castel Nuovo, was created Cavalier by King Alphonso, and a sepulchre was given in this church for him and his descendants.[305]
If the date had only been a little later, we might have supposed this to be Pietro Lombardo, son of Martino Solario, who had won such fame in Venice; but as he died in 1512, it is scarcely likely he would have been well-knownenough to have obtained such an important commission in 1440. Knowing how a certain succession of names was, and is, kept up in Italian families, this Pietro and Martino might have been the father and grandfather of the Martino da Carona, father of Pietro Lombardo, especially as they had Domenico, also a Solari, with them.
King Alphonso was a good patron to the Comacine Masters, and greatly appreciated them. On February 16, 1456, a gentleman at Terracina wrote to the Duke Francesco Sforza, saying thatsome master builders from Como, in leaving the realm of Naples, had been made to forfeit 190 ducats, on which they appealed to the King. Alphonso ordered the restitution of the money, excepting a small tribute to the confiscators, which he made good to the Comacine Masters out of his own purse.[306]
From 1484 to 1508, a Maestro Tomaso da Como, sometimes calledTomaso delle parti di Lombardia, master sculptor, was living in Naples. He was paid for the carving of the principal door of the church of the Annunziata, which his son Giovanni finished after his death. His will still exists. It is dated July 2, 1508, and says that "Mastro Tomaso de Sumalvito (now Sanvito) de la terra de Como de la parti di Lombardia, marmorario habitante in Napoli: istituisce herede Joan Thomaso de Sumalvito de Napoli suo figlio," and declares besides that a debt of three ducats is still owing to him on the work for the great doorway of the church of the Annunziata. The fine monument to Signor Antonio d'Alessandro and his wife, Maddalena Riccio, in the church of Monte Oliveto, and that of the Bishop of Aversa in the same church, were sculptured by Tommaso de Sanvito, as he is called in the books of Orvieto, where he was head architect.
His son Giovanni built, in 1509, the fine chapel of the Macellai in the church of S. Eligio, and the "Confession"of S. Gennaro under the tribune of the cathedral of Naples, where the yearly miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of S. Gennaro takes place. Even the beautiful Royal Palace at Capodimonte was built by a Lombard, Domenico Fontana of Melide, near Como, whose family we have seen was more famous in Rome than in Naples? Domenico, however, died in Naples in 1607, and was buried in S. Anna dei Lombardi, where his sons Sebastian and Julius Cæsar (Giulio Fontana) wrote on his tomb—"Patritius Romanus, Summus Romae Architectus. Summus Neapolis." Like so many of his predecessors in the guild, he had been given the citizenship of the towns he had embellished. It is this which makes it so difficult to trace the artists—the same man may appear successively as being a citizen of Rome, of Orvieto and Siena, and yet have been born at Como in spite of all.
Enough has been said to show that at Rome and Naples, as well as in other cities, the great Lombard Guild led the way. The guild, which may be looked on as the flower of the Renaissance, had, however, reached the period when its blossoming time was over; its many petals, too much spread, were falling from all its branches. Some had dropped off long since, and new suckers formed in the painting academies, and the sculptors' companies, at Siena, Florence, Venice, and other parts. These suckers had, by the fifteenth century, grown into independent plants, that threatened to overshadow and choke the ancient trunk. Art knowledge of all kinds had now become dispersed outside the jealous custody of the once secret Freemasonry, and the Cinque-cento artist stood alone on his own merit, without needing thecachetof the Masonic title ofMagister. There were, after this time, Masters in every other art or trade guild, the nomenclature of this most ancient and universal of guilds having been adopted by all other guilds whatsoever; so that even in our own England we find Master Humphrey the iron-worker, or MasterAmbrose the cloth-weaver; and in Italy Maestro Giorgio the maker of majolica, and Maestro Pollajuolo the metal-worker; and in Germany the "Little Masters," who, I opine, were a German group of painters, who, like their brethren of the South, seceded from the Masterspar excellence, i.e. the great Masonic Guild.
When I began writing this work, my object was to prove that the Comacine Masters were the true mediæval link between Classic and Renaissance Art. The results have been greater than I then foresaw. In attaching this link in its true place, the chain of Art History takes a new and changed aspect, and instead of several loose strands with here and there detached links, it becomes one continuous whole, from early Christian Rome to the Rome of Raphael and Michael Angelo.
The famous artists who formed the rise of the different schools of the Renaissance, were not each a separate genius inspired from within, but brethren of one Guild, whose education was identical, and whose teachers passed on to them what they received from their predecessors—the accumulated art-teaching of ages.
I am aware that in tracing the progress of this great Guild, the weak points are the derivation of the Comacines of Lombard times from the Roman public architects, who built for Constantine and Pope Adrian; and the connection of this Lombard Guild with the early Cathedral builders of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Between each of these transitions there lies a century or two of decadence, during the barbaric invasions and general demoralization which I have indicated in the earlier chapters. But I think I have given arguments enough toprove these affinities. For the first, we have the identity of form and ornamentation in their works, and the similarity of nomenclature and organization between the RomanCollegioand the Lombard Guild ofMagistri. Besides this, the well-known fact that the free republic of Como was used as a refuge by Romans who fled from barbaric invasion, makes a strong argument.
For the second, we may plead again the same identity of form and ornamentation, and a like similarity of organization and nomenclature. Just as King Luitprand's architects were calledMagistri, and their grand master theGastaldo, so we have found the great architectural Guild in Venice, in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, using the very same titles, and having the same laws.
In the Tuscan schools which have been traced direct from Lombard times, we have the same offices with the titles translated into a more mediæval Italian—or late Latin—form; theGastaldohere becomesArch Magister. In some Lodges it is more significant still, the ancient RomanSuperstansis modified intoSoprastante, thus forming a very suggestive connection between early Christian Rome and Tuscany. Again, the hereditary descent is marked by the patron saints of the Lombard and Tuscan Lodges, being four martyr brethren from a RomanCollegio. All these and other indications are surely as strong as documental proof.
The lists of the Comacine Guild begin with a few masters, who are seemingly members of three or four families only, the men of the Buoni, Antelami, and Campione schools forming the aristocracy of the Guild.
We have seen how, as the church-building era developed, the brotherhood grew and multiplied.
The Antelami family founded Lodges in Parma, Padua, and Verona; the Campione at Modena, Bergamo, and Cremona; the Buoni family spread eastwards to Venice, andsouthwards to Tuscany, founding everywherelaboreriumsand schools.
Three hundred years later we see the descendants of the Buoni and Campione artists together, building the Gothic and Renaissance palaces at Venice; masters of the Graci and Antelami families rearing the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto; and in all the ages dispersing about Italy from north to south. We have seen how all these schools increased; native artists joining the Lombard ones, and working together with them, and though a distinctive local style was the characteristic of each school, yet in their fundamental principles they all had one rule and one teaching.
As the Guild increased and multiplied, in the times of the foundation of rival Communes, all vying with each other in building glorious churches, noble palaces, and fine houses, it frequently happened that the primitive Lombard element was overpowered by the newer local one, and then schisms and disintegration took place.
Separate local Guilds were thus formed at Venice, Siena, and Florence.
The painters next seceded, and started painting as an art independent of church decoration; and thus the Academies of Art were formed. This split took place so late after the cityArtior Guilds were established, that the painters of Florence, having left the Freemasons, had no Guild of their own; and if they wished to enjoy civic privileges, they had to enroll themselves in the Company of the Gold-workers, or that of the Apothecaries. Here we get at once a clear explanation of the goldsmith painters in Florence.
This disintegration reached its climax when Brunellesco defied theMaestranzeor Masonic Magisters, proving that the Freemasons had not the exclusive right to genius; and that genius had its own claims to be heard, even without the pale of that monopolizing Guild. I think that his domeliterally crushed out the almost effete institution of Freemasons, and that the Florentine Lodge was broken up soon after; for by Michael Angelo's time the Medici had to supply a school for sculptors, which we have seen was placed under the instruction of old Bertoldo,—a lingering relic of the great company.
At first sight it might appear that this revelation of the universal fraternity would materially alter the history of art. In some aspects it does; for we can no longer say that Maitani built Siena cathedral, or Arnolfo that of Florence, nor assert that St. Mark's at Venice was entirely Byzantine, or Milan cathedral the work of a German architect. They were all the joint labours of the same brotherhood of artists, the plans made by the first Arch-master being modified a score of times as the centuries went on, and art developed. But in the great points the story of Art remains as it was. Certain masters still stand out as leaders and founders of schools, and every school had its own separate bias and special development of style; but Niccolò di Pisa's influence on future ages is not lessened by our finding out the masters who trained him; the Lorenzetti, Memmi, and Gaddi are not the less famous because their frescoes illustrated with divine truths the walls built by the hands of their brethren of the great Guild.
The recognition of the complex brotherhood only renders history more compact and concentrated, giving it a rich and perfect unity, and showing a gradual and consistent development, like some perfect flower which grows leaf by leaf, bud by bud, until the petals fall from its own over-blossoming. But its seeds are left to future ages.
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