Spolverini instructed in the art Francesco Simonini, a distinguished battle-painter of that period. Orlandi says he was a scholar of Monti, and educated at Florence upon the model of Borgognone. He long resided at Venice, where, in the Sala Cappello, and in different collections, he left pictures which abound in figures, ornamented with fine architecture, and varied with every kind of skirmish and military exploits. Ilario instructed several young Parmese in the art, among whom, perhaps, were Antonio Fratacci, Clemente Ruta, and more indisputably the Ab. Giuseppe Peroni. The first under Cignani became a better copyist of his master than a painter, being calledpittor pratico, a mechanical hand, by Bianconi in his Guide to Milan, where, as well as in Bologna, a few of his pictures are to be seen. At Parma he was not employed in public, as far as I can learn, but for collections, in whichhe holds a pretty high rank. Ruta was likewise educated in the academy of Cignani at Bologna. Returning to his native state, whose paintings he has described, he there entered into the service of the Infant Charles of Bourbon, as long as he remained at Parma, after which he accompanied his patron to Naples. Subsequently returning to Parma; he continued to employ himself with credit, until, near the period of his decease, he lost the use of his eyes.
The Ab. Peroni, in the first instance, repaired to Bologna, where he received the instructions of Torelli, of Creti and of Ercole Lelli. He next visited Rome, where he became pupil to Masucci; though it is probable that he was struck with the colouring of Conca and Giacquinto, who were then much in vogue, as his tints partake more or less of their verds, and other false use of colouring. For the rest he could design well, and in elegant subjects partakes much of Maratta, as we perceive from his S. Philip in S. Satiro at Milan, and from the Conception, in possession of the Padri dell' Oratorio, at Turin. In Parma his productions are to be seen at S. Antonio Abbate, where his frescos appear to advantage, and there is an altar-piece of Christ Crucified, placed in competition with Battoni and Cignaroli, and here more than elsewhere he is entitled to rank among the good painters of this last age. He adorned his native place and its academy with his pictures, and died there at an advanced age. The career of Pietro Ferrari wasmuch shorter, although he had time to produce several fine pictures for the public, besides that of his B. da Corleone in the church of the Capuchins, as well as more for private collections. He imitated the ancient manner of his school, no less than more recent styles.[32]
In Piacenza there flourished Pier Antonio Avanzini, educated by Franceschini at Bologna. He is said to have been wanting in imagination, which led him, for the most part, to copy from his master's designs. Gio. Batista Tagliasacchi, from Borgo S. Donnino, sprung from the school of Giuseppe del Sole, and displayed a fine genius for elegant subjects, which induced him to study Coreggio, Parmigianino, and Guido. He was particularly ambitious of adding Raffaello to the list, but his parents would not permit him to visit Rome. He resided and employed himself chiefly at Piacenza, where there is a Holy Family much admired in thecathedral, which, in its ideal cast of features, partakes of the Roman style, and is not inferior to the Lombards in point of colouring. He was an artist, if I mistake not, of far greater merit than fortune.
Finally, the state was never in want of excellent masters in minor branches of the art. Fabrizio Parmigiano is commended by Baglioni amongst the landscape painters of his age. He was assisted by his wife Ippolita in drawing for Italian collections, and he visited a variety of places previous to his arrival at Rome, where he also adorned a few of the churches with his wood-scenes, and views, with hermits, &c. and died there at an early age. His style was, perhaps, more ideal than true, as it prevailed before the time of the Caracci; but it was spirited and diligent. There is known also one Gialdisi, of Parma, whom, from his residence in Cremona, Zaist enumerates among the professors of that school as a celebrated painter of flowers. He frequently represented them upon small tables covered with tapestry, and he added also musical instruments, books, and playing-cards, the whole depicted with an air of truth and a fine colouring, that obtained for him from such inconsiderable objects a large portion of fame. I must also record Felice Boselli of Piacenza, who became, under the direction of the Nuvoloni, a tolerable artist in figures, though he succeeded best in copying ancient pictures, even so as to deceive the eye of experienced judges by the exactness of his imitations. Followingthe bent of his genius, he began to draw animals, sometimes with their skins, and at others, as they are exposed to view in the shambles; besides collections of birds and fishes, arranging them in order, and all coloured from the life. The palaces in Piacenza abound with them, Boselli, having survived beyond his eightieth year, and despatching them with facility and mechanically, whence all his productions are not equally entitled to esteem. Gianpaolo Pannini belonged to the Roman School, in which he both learned and taught, and in treating of which I rendered him that justice which the public admiration of his perspective views, and of his peculiar grace in small figures, seemed to require. Many fine specimens were sent from Rome to his native country, and among these the Signori della Missione possess a very rare picture, inasmuch as the figures are on a larger scale than those which he in general drew. It represents the Money Changers driven out of the Temple by our Lord; the architecture is truly magnificent, and the figures full of spirit and variety. The governor, Count Carasi, the able illustrator of the public paintings in Piacenza, declared that he was the only artist then deceased, of whom the city could justly boast. Such deficiency ought not to be ascribed to its climate, abounding as it does with genius, but to the want of a local school, a want, however, which was converted into a source of great utility to the city. If we examine the catalogue of painters who flourished there,with which the Count Carasi closes his work, we shall find that, with the exception of the capitals, no other city of Italy was so rich in excellent painters belonging to every school. Had it possessed masters, they would have produced for every excellent disciple, at least twenty of only middling talent, whose works would have filled its palaces and churches, as it has happened to so many other secondary cities.
Like one university for letters, one academy for the fine arts is usually found sufficient for a single state; and in particular, where it is established, supported, and encouraged in the manner of that at Parma. It owed its origin to Don Philip of Bourbon, in 1757, the tenth year of his government; and his son, who at this time bears sway, continues to promote the interests of the institution.[33]Nothing can be better calculated to revive among us the noble genius of the art of painting, than the method there adopted in the distribution of premiums. The subject of the painting being proposed, the young artists invited to the competition are not confined to those of the state; and consequently the industry of the most able and best matured students is laid under contribution, in every place, for the service of Parma. The method of holding the assembly, the skill and integrity of the umpires, and the whole form of the decision, excludes every doubt or suspicion respectingthe superiority of the piece adjudged. The artist is largely remunerated; but his highest ambition is gratified in having been pronounced the first among so many competitors, and before such an assemblage. This is of itself always sufficient to raise the successful candidate above the common standard, and often leads to fortune. The prize painting assumes its perpetual station in one of the academic halls, along with the favourite pieces of previous years, forming a series which already excites a warm interest among the lovers of the fine arts. Since the period when the Cortona manner began[i]to lose ground in Italy, a manner that, under such a variety of names and sects, had usurped so wide a sway, the art in our own times has approached a sort of crisis, which as yet forms an essay of new styles, rather than any prevailing one characteristic of this new era. It is in such a collection, better than in any book, that we may study the state of our existing schools; what maxims are now enforced; what kind of imitation, and with how much freedom, is allowed; from what source we are to look for a chance of recovering the ancient art of colouring; what profit painting has derived from the copies of the best pictures published in engravings, and from the precepts of the masters communicated through the medium of prints. I am aware that a variety of opinion is entertained on this head, nor would my own, were I to interpose it, give weight to any of the conflicting arguments in this matter. But Iam happy to say, that finding at length appeals made to reason, which were formerly referred to practice, I feel inclined rather to indulge hopes than doubt or diffidence in regard to the future.
[28]See Lettere Pittoriche, tom. i. p. 211.
[29]Bellori, in his Life of Annibal, pp. 34, 35. See also Malvasia, tom. i. pp. 334, 404, 405, 442. And Orlandi under the headGio. Batt. Trotti.
[30]By Malvasia, tom. i. p. 517, he is calledSisto Rosa.
[31]Malvasia, tom. i. p. 212.
[32]I wish here to offer a brief tribute to the merit of his deceased master, (he died two years since) who, though a native of Pavia, resided a long period at Parma. He studied in Florence under Meucci, next at Paris, where one of his pictures was greatly applauded, and the artist elected to a place in that distinguished academy of art. On his return he became first painter to the court at Parma, and produced works no less than pupils calculated to reflect credit on his country. His Prometheus freed by Hercules, placed at the academy, his large portrait-piece of the family of Philip, Duke of Parma, which is pointed out in the Guardarobas as his best specimen, fully justify the reputation he enjoyed while living, and which continues beyond the tomb. The name of this artist was Giuseppe Baldrighi, and he died at Parma, aged eighty years.
[33]The professors who reflect credit upon it are enumerated by P. Affò in the works cited in this chapter.
The Ancients.
I have never perused the history of Bernardino, and the rest of the pictoric family of the Campi, written some time since by Baldinucci, and more recently by Giambatista Zaist, without thinking that I see in the school which these artists established at Cremona, a sketch of that which was subsequently formed by the Caracci in Bologna. In both these cities a single family projected the formation of a new style of painting, which should partake of all the Italian schools, without committing plagiarism against any; and from each family in its respective city sprung a numerous series of excellent masters, who partly by themselves and partly by means of their disciples, adorned their country with their works, the art by their example, and history itself with their names. Why the Cremonese School did not keep pace with that of Bologna in reputation, nor continue so long as the Caracci's, and why the latter completed in a manner what the other only essayed, was occasioned by a variety of causes whichI shall gradually explain in the course of the present chapter. In the outset, agreeably to my usual plan, I mean to investigate the origin and principles of this school, nor shall we need to go farther back than the foundation of the magnificent cathedral in 1107, which as speedily as possible was decorated with all that sculpture and painting could afford. Its specimens of both are such as to gratify the eye of the antiquary, who may wish to trace through what channels, and by what degrees, the arts first began to revive in Italy. The sculpture there does not indeed present us with any works that may not likewise be found in Verona, in Crema, and other places; whereas the paintings remaining in the ceiling of the two lateral naves, may be considered uniques, and deserve the trouble of examining them more nearly, on account of the smallness of the figures and the want of light. They consist of sacred histories; the design is extremely dry, the colours are strong, and their drapery wholly novel, except that some of them still continue to be seen in the modern masks and theatres of Italy. Some specimens of architecture are introduced, presenting only right lines, like what we see in our oldest wood engravings, and explanations are also inserted, indicating the principal figures, in the manner of the more ancient mosaic-workers, when the eye, yet unaccustomed to behold pictoric histories, required some such illustration of the subject. Yet we can gather no traces of the Greek mosaics; the whole is Italian,national, and new. The characters leave us in doubt whether we ought to ascribe them to the age of Giotto, or to that preceding him, but the figures attest that their author was indebted neither to Giotto nor his master for what he knew. I can learn nothing of his name from the ancient historians of the school, neither from Antonio Campi, Pietro Lamo, nor Gio. Batista Zaist, whom I have already cited, and who compiled two volumes of memoirs of the old artists of Cremona, edited by Panni in the year 1774.
I may, however, safely assert that there were painters who flourished in the Cremonese as early as 1213; for on occasion of the city obtaining a victory over the people of Milan, the event was commemorated in a picture, in the palace of Lanfranco Oldovino, one of the leaders of the Cremonese army, and for this we have the testimony of Flameno in his History of Castelleone.[34]There is also recorded by the Ab. Sarnelli, in his "Foreigner's Guide to Naples," as well as by the Can. Celano, in the "Notices of the Beauties of Naples," a M. Simone of Cremona, who, about 1335, painted in S. Chiara, and is the same mentioned by Surgente, author of the "Naples Illustrated," as Simon da Siena, and by Dominici as Simone Napolitano. In a former volume I adhered to the opinion of Dominici, inasmuch as he cites Criscuolo and his archives; but let the authority rest with them. Other names might be added, which Zaist has in part collectedfrom MSS., and in part from published documents, such as Polidoro Casella, who flourished about 1345, Angelo Bellavita in 1420, Jacopino Marasca, mentioned in 1430, Luca Sclavo, named by Flameno, subsequent to 1450, among excellent painters, and among the friends of Francesco Sforza, besides Gaspare Bonino, who became celebrated about the year 1460. Hence it may be perceived that this school was not destitute of a series of artists, during a long period, although no specimens of their art survive to confirm it.
The earliest that is to be met with bearing a name and certain date, is a picture which belonged to Zaist, representing Julian (afterwards the saint) killing his father and mother, whom he mistakes for his wife and her paramour. Below the couch on which they are found, are inscribed the two following verses:—
Hoc quod Manteneæ didicit sub dogmate clari,
Antonii Cornæ dextera pinxit opus.—mcccclxxviii.
The name of Antonio della Corna is handed down to us by history, and from this monument he is discovered to have been a pupil of Mantegna, and a follower of the first rather than the second style of his master. But he does not appear to have flourished a sufficient time, or he was not in repute enough to have a place among the painters of the cathedral, in the fourteenth century, who left there a monument of the art that may vie with the Sistine chapel; and if I mistake not the figures of those ancient Florentines are more correct, thoseof the cathedral more animated. There is a frieze surrounding the arches of the church, divided into several squares, each of which contains a scriptural history painted in fresco. Upon this work a number of Cremonese artists, all of high repute, were successively employed.
The first in this list, subscribed in one of these compartments,Bembus incipiens, and in the other compartment 14— ... under his paintings of the Epiphany and the Purification. The remaining figures after the above, have long been concealed by a side wing of the organ. But the sense is very clear, the name and the date of the centuries appearing together; nor are we at a loss to perceive that the artist, in an undertaking to be conducted by many, and during many years, was desirous of commemorating his name, as the first who commenced it, and in what year. Some, nevertheless, have wished to infer, by detaching the wordsBembus incipiensfrom the rest, that the artist meant to inform us he was then first entering upon his profession; as if the people of Cremona, in the decoration of their finest temple, which was long conducted by the most celebrated painters, would have selected a novice to begin. It is, however, a question whether the inscription refers to Bonifazio Bembo, or to Gianfrancesco his younger brother; but apparently we ought to give it, with Vasari, to the former, a distinguished artist who was employed by the court of Milan as early as 1461, while Gio. Francesco flourished later, as weshall shortly have occasion to shew. In the two histories with which Bembo commenced his labours, as well as in those that follow, he shews himself an able artist, spirited in his attitudes, glowing in his colours, magnificent in his draperies, although still confined within the sphere of the naturalists, and copying from the truth without displaying much selection, if he does not occasionally transgress it by want of correctness. Both our dictionaries of artists and Bottari have confounded this Bonifazio with a Venetian of the same name, whom we have mentioned in his place.
Opposite to those of Bembo is a painting, a history of the Passion, representing our Redeemer before his judges, painted by Cristoforo Moretti,[35]the same, according to Lomazzo, who was employed with Bembo in the court of Milan, and also painted at the church of S. Aquilino. One of his Madonnas is still to be seen there, seated amid different saints, and upon her mantle I was enabled to decipher,Christophorus de Moretis de Cremona, in characters interweaved in the manner of gold lace. Cremonese writers call him the son of Galeazzo Rivello, and father and grandfather to several other Rivelli, all artists, Moretti being only an assumed appellation. From the inscription I have adduced, there appears some difficulty in the way of such a tradition, sincede Moretisis an expression importing a family name, not an acquired one. Whatever may be thought on this head, itis certain that he was one of the reformers of the art in Lombardy, and particularly in the branches of perspective and design; and in this history of the Passion, in which he excluded all kind of gilding, he is seen to approach the moderns.
Somewhat later, and not before 1497, Altobello Melone and Boccaccio Boccaccino, two Cremonese artists, were employed in completing the frieze of the cathedral. The former, according to Vasari, painted several histories of the Passion, truly beautiful and deserving of commendation. But he was the least consistent in point of style, introducing, as it has been observed, figures of small and large proportions in the same piece, and also least excellent in his frescos, colouring them in a manner that now gives them the look of tapestry. But he excelled in his oil paintings, as we gather from his altar-piece of Christ descending into Limbo, which is preserved in the sacristy of the Sacramento, a piece for which the canons refused to receive a large sum that was offered for it. The figures are very numerous, of somewhat long proportions, but coloured with equal softness and strength. His knowledge of the naked figure is beyond that of his age, combined with a grace of features and of attitudes that conveys the idea of a great master. In the Notizia of Morelli, his picture of Lucretia, painted for private ornament, is mentioned. It is executed in the Flemish style, and he is said to have been the pupil of Armanino, perhaps an artist of that nation.
Boccaccio Boccaccino bears the same character among the Cremonese as Grillandaio, Mantegna, Vannucci, and Francia, in their respective schools, the best modern among the ancients, and the best of the ancients in the list of the moderns. He had the honour of instructing Garofolo during two years previous to his visiting Rome in 1500. In the frieze of the cathedral, Boccaccino painted the Birth of the Virgin, along with other histories, relating to her and the Divine Infant. The style is in part original, and in part approaches that of Pietro Perugino, whose pupil Pascoli says he was. But he is less regular in his composition, less beautiful in the air of his heads, and less powerful in his chiaroscuro, though richer in his drapery, with more variety of colours, more spirit in his attitudes, and scarcely less harmonious or less pleasing in his architecture and landscape. He is, perhaps, least attractive in some of his figures, which are somewhat coarse, owing to their having a fulness of drapery, and not being sufficiently slender, a defect carefully avoided by the ancient statuaries, as I have formerly observed.[36]It is remarked by Vasari that he visited Rome, in which I agree with him, both because it is in some degree alluded to by Antonio Campi, and because there are evident traces of his imitation of Pietro, as in his Marriage of the Virgin Mary, and in a very magnificent temple, that appears erected upon lofty steps,a subject repeated by Pietro several times. It has been also noticed that his Madonna at S. Vincenzo, with the titular Saint and S. Antonio, seems like the work of Vannucci, and he certainly approaches very near him in other figures. I can easily believe, therefore, that Boccaccino[j]was at Rome; but I also believe that what is written of him by Vasari and by Baldinucci, if not fictitious, is at least wide of the mark.
Let us briefly examine this matter. It is said that he there attempted to depreciate the works of Michelangiolo, and that after exhibiting his own productions at the Traspontina, which met with ridicule from the Roman professors, in order to escape from the hisses they excited on all sides, he was compelled to return to his native place. This story, added to others of a like nature, irritated the Lombard artists. Hence Scanelli in his Microcosm, Lamo in his Discourse on Painting, and Campi in his History, renewed the complaints of the other schools against Vasari. These are recorded by Zaist (p. 72) with the addition of his own refutation of this account. The refutation rests upon the epochs which Vasari himself points out, and which of themselves, say his opponents, afford a decided negative to the story of Boccaccino's journey to Rome in time to have cast reflections upon the paintings of Michelangiolo. It is the custom of less accurate historians, when they give the substance of a fact, to add to it circumstancesof time, of place, or of manner, that had really no existence. Ancient history is full of such examples, and the severest criticism does not presume to discredit facts on the strength of some interpolated circumstance, provided there be others sufficiently strong to sanction them. In this instance, the historian, and a great friend of Michelangiolo, narrates an affair relating to that friend, and which is supposed to have taken place at Rome, only a short period before the author wrote. We can hardly then believe it to have been a mere idle report without any foundation in truth. I would reject indeed some of its accessaries, and in particular condemn those unwarranted reflections in which Vasari indulges at the expense of one of the most distinguished artists who at that time flourished in Lombardy.
Next to the four historical paintings just mentioned, follow those conducted by Romanino di Brescia and by Pordenone, two master spirits of their age, who left examples of the Venetian taste at the cathedral, which were not neglected by the Cremonese, as will be seen. We ought in justice to add, that their city has always shewn a laudable wish to preserve these ancient productions from the effects of age, as far as in her power. When towards the close of the sixteenth century they began to exhibit marks of decay, they were instantly ordered to be examined and restored by a painter and architect of some reputation, called Il Sabbioneta, his real name being Martire Pesenti.The same degree of care and attention has been shewn them in the present day by the Cav. Borroni.
Two other citizens exhibited specimens in the same place, of the style which is now calledantico moderno. Alessandro Pampurini, as it is said, drew some figures of cherubs, round acartellone, or scroll for inscriptions, together with a kind of arabesques, bearing the date of 1511; and in the subsequent year Bernardino Ricca, or Ricco, produced a similar work opposite to it, which owing to its having been executed with too much dryness, perished in a few years, and was renewed by a different hand. But there still exists his picture of a Pietà at S. Pietro del Po, with some specimens likewise by his companion, sufficient to prove that both are worthy of commemoration for their time.
Having thus described the series of artists who decorated the cathedral, there remain a few other names unconnected with that great undertaking, but which, nevertheless, enjoyed considerable celebrity in their day. Such are Galeazzo Campi, the father of the three distinguished brothers, and Tommaso Aleni. This last so nearly resembled Campi in his manner, that their pictures can with difficulty be distinguished, as may be seen at S. Domenico, where they painted in competition with each other. It is loosely conjectured by many that they were the pupils of Boccaccino, an opinion which I cannot entertain. The disciples of the best masters in the fourteenth century continuedto free themselves, the longer they flourished, from the dry manner of their early education. Galeazzo, on the other hand, the only one we need here mention, approaches less closely to the modern style than his supposed master, as we perceive in the suburban church of S. Sebastiano, where he painted the tutelar saint and S. Rocco standing near the throne of the Virgin with the Infant Christ. The picture bears the date of 1518, when he was already a finished master, and nevertheless he there appears only a weak follower of the Perugino manner. His colours are good and natural, but he is feeble in chiaroscuro, dry in design, cold in his expression; his countenances have not a beam of meaning, while that of the holy infant seems as if copied from a child suffering under an obliquity of the eyes, those of the figure are so badly drawn. The observation, therefore, of Baldinucci, or of his continuator, that he "had rendered himself celebrated even beyond Italy," would seem in want of confirmation; nor do I know whence such confirmation can be derived. Certainly not from the ancients, for even his own son Antonio Campi only remarks of Galeazzo, that he was "a tolerable painter for his age."
Nor did some others of Galeazzo's contemporaries rise much above mediocrity. To this class belonged Antonio Cigognini and Francesco Casella, a few of whose productions remain in their native place; Galeazzo Pesenti, called Il Sabbioneta, a painter and sculptor; Lattanzio of Cremona,who having painted at the school of the Milanese in Venice, has been recorded by Boschini in hisMiniere della Pittura, besides Niccolo da Cremona, who was employed, according to Orlandi, in 1518 at Bologna. There are two, however, who merit a larger share of consideration, having produced works of a superior character which still exist, and belong in some degree to the golden period of the art. The name of the first is Gio. Batista Zupelli, of whom the Eremitani possess a fine landscape with a Holy Family. His taste, although dry, is apt to surprise the eye by its originality, and attracts us by a natural and peculiar grace, with which all his figures are designed and animated, as well as by a certain softness and fulness of colouring. If Soiaro had not acquired the principles of his art from Coreggio, we might suppose that this Zupelli had instructed him in regard to the strong body of his colouring, which is remarkable both in him and in his school. The second is Gianfrancesco Bembo, the brother and disciple of Bonifazio, highly commended by Vasari, if, indeed, he be, as is supposed, the same Gianfrancesco, called Il Vetraro, who is recorded by the historian in his Life of Polidoro da Caravaggio. It appears certain that he must have visited Lower Italy, from the style which he displays in one of his altar-pieces, representing saints Cosma and Damiano, at the Osservanti, to which his name with the date of 1524 is affixed. I have not observed any thing in a similar taste, either inCremona or in its vicinity. It retains very slight traces of the antique, much as may be observed in those of F. Bartolommeo della Porta, whom he greatly resembled in point of colouring, however inferior in the dignity of his figures and his draperies. A few more of his specimens are met with in public places and the houses of noblemen, which exhibit him as one of those painters who added dignity to the style of painting in Lombardy, and improved upon the ancient manner.
[34]See Zaist, p. 12.
[35]See Lomazzo, Treatise on Painting, p. 405.
[36]Chapter iii.
Camillo Boccaccino, Il Soiaro, The Campi.
After the time of Vetraro, nothing occurs worthy of putting on record until we reach the moderns; and here we ought to commence with the three distinguished artists, who, according to Lamo, were employed in Cremona in the year 1522. These were Camillo Boccaccino, son of Boccaccio, Soiaro, recorded in the preceding chapter, and Giulio Campi, who subsequently became the head of a numerous school. Other Cremonese artists, it is true, flourished about the same period, such as the two Scutellari, Francesco and Andrea, who have been referred by some writers to the state of Mantua; but as few of their works remain, and those of no great merit, we shall proceed at once to the great masters of the school whom we have mentioned above. The grand undertaking of the cathedral proved useful likewise in the advancement of these artists, and in particular the church of S. Sigismondo, already erected by Francesco Sforza at a little distance from the city, where these artists and their descendants, painting as it were in competition, rendered it a noble school for the fine arts. We may therestudy a sort of series of these artists, their various merit, their prevailing tastes in the Coreggio manner, their different style of adapting it, and their peculiar skill in fresco compositions. With these they not only decorated temples, but by applying them to the façades of palaces and private houses they gave an appearance of splendour to the state, which excited the admiration of strangers. They were surprised, on first entering Cremona, to behold a city arrayed as if for a jubilee, full of life, and rich in all the pride of art. Strange then that Franzese, who wrote the Lives of the best painters (in four volumes) should have compiled nothing relating to the Cremonese, far more deserving of commemoration than many others in his collection whom he has greatly praised.
Camillo Boccaccino was the leading genius of the school. Grounded in the ancient maxims of his father, though his career was short, he succeeded in forming a style at once strong and beautiful, insomuch that we are at a loss to say which is the prevailing feature of his character. Lomazzo pronounces him, "very able in design, and a noble colourist," placing him, as a model for the graceful power of his lights, for the sweetness of his manner, and for his art of drapery, on a level with da Vinci, Coreggio, Gaudenzio, and the first painters in the world. According to the opinion of Vasari, against whom the Cremonese have so bitterly inveighed, Camillo was "a good mechanical hand, and if he had flourished for a longer periodwould have had extraordinary success, but he produced few works except such as are small, and of little importance." In respect to his paintings at S. Sigismondo, he adds, not that they are, but are only "believed by the Cremonese to be, the best specimens of the art they have to boast." They are still to be seen in the cupola, in the grand recess, and on the sides of the great altar. The most distinguished pieces are the four Evangelists in a sitting posture, excepting the figure of S. John, who, standing up in a bending attitude, with an expression of surprise, forms a curved outline opposed to the arch of the ceiling, a figure greatly celebrated, no less on account of the perspective than the design. It is truly surprising how a young artist who had never frequented the school of Coreggio, could so well emulate his taste, and carry it even farther within so short a period; this work, displaying such a knowledge of perspective and foreshortening, having been executed as early as the year 1537.
The two side pictures are also highly celebrated, both in Cremona and abroad. One of these represents the Raising of Lazarus, the other the Woman taken in Adultery, both surrounded with very elegant ornaments, representing groups of cherubs, which are seen in the act of playing with the mitre, the censer, and other holy vessels in their hands. In these histories, as well as in their decorations, the whole of the figures are arranged and turned in such a way, as scarcely to leave asingle eye in the figures visible, a novelty in respect to drawing by no means to be recommended. But Camillo was desirous of thus proving to his rivals that his figures were not, as they asserted, indebted for their merit to the animated expression of the eyes, but to the whole composition. And truly in whatever way disposed, they do not fail to please from the excellence of the design, their fine and varied attitudes, the foreshortening, the natural colouring, and a strength of chiaroscuro which must have been drawn from Pordenone, and which makes the surrounding paintings of the Campi appear deficient in relief. Had he exhibited a little more choice in his heads of adults, with a little more regularity in his composition, there would, perhaps, have been nothing farther to desire. We may, moreover, mention his painting on a façade in one of the squares of Cremona, where, not long ago, were to be seen the remains of figures which Camillo executed so as to excite the admiration of Charles V. and obtain the highest commendations. There remain likewise two of his altar-pieces, one at Cistello and the other at S. Bartolommeo, both extremely beautiful.
The name of Bernardino, or Bernardo Gatti, for he subscribed both to his pictures, was mentioned at length among the pupils of Parma; and I have now to record it among the best masters of Cremona. Both Campi and Lapi refer him without scruple to Cremona, though he is given by others to Vercelli, and supposed to be the sameBernardo di Vercelli who succeeded Pordenone in painting S. Maria di Campagna at Piacenza, as we find related in Vasari. By others he is supposed again to have come from Pavia, where he was employed in the cupola of the cathedral, and according to the testimony of Count Carasi, mentioned before with commendation, he there subscribed his nameBernardinus Gatti Papiensis, 1553. I leave the question to others, though it seems hardly credible that two contemporary historians, who wrote shortly after the death of Bernardino, while the public recollection of his native place must have been yet fresh, and ready to refute them, should have each fallen into error. We might add that Cremona is in possession of many of Soiaro's paintings from his earliest age until he became an octogenarian, and owing to a paralytic affection was in the habit of painting with his left hand. At that advanced period he produced for the cathedral his picture of the Assumption, fifty hands in height, and which, although he never lived to complete it, is a work, as is justly observed by Lamo, that excites our wonder. Moreover he left his possessions and a family at Cremona, from which sprung two artists deserving of record, one of whom is celebrated in history, the other never before noticed. As there still remains some degree of foundation for attributing him to Pavia, upon the authority also of Spelta, who wrote the Lives of the Pavese Bishops, and was almost contemporary with Bernardino, and what is more, he himself thinks that the difference might be thusreconciled, we may agree with him in stating that our artist was either derived from, or a citizen of Pavia, and at the same time a citizen and a resident at Cremona.
Gervasio Gatti, Il Soiaro, nephew to Bernardino, was initiated by him in the same maxims and principles which he had himself imbibed, by studying and copying the models left by Coreggio at Parma. The advantage he derived from them may be known from his S. Sebastiano, which was painted for S. Agatha, at Cremona, in 1578, a piece that appears designed from the antique, and coloured by one of the first figurists and landscape painters in Lombardy. In the same city is his Martyrdom of S. Cecilia, at S. Pietro, surrounded with angels, in the Coreggio manner, a picture nobly coloured, and finished with exquisite care. In composition it resembles those of his uncle, for one of which it might be mistaken, did we not find the name of Gervasio and the date of 1601. But he was not always equally diligent, and sometimes betrays a mechanical hand, while there is often a monotony in his countenances, and a want of selection in his heads, no unusual fault in portrait-painters, among whom he held a high rank. It is most probable that he saw the works of the Caracci, traces of which I have discovered in some of his productions, and particularly in those at S. S. Pietro and Marcellino. Perhaps it was a brother of this artist who left a picture of a Crucifixion, surrounded by different saints, at S. Sepolcro in Piacenza,bearing an inscription ofUriel de Gattis dictus Sojarius, 1601. It boasts great strength of colouring, combined with no little elegance, but the manner is insignificant and it is feeble in chiaroscuro. This, if I mistake not, is the sameUrielewho, on the testimony of the Cav. Ridolfi, had been selected for some undertaking at Crema in preference to Urbini, as I formerly observed. Bernardino likewise instructed Spranger, a favourite artist of the Emperor Rodolph II. as well as the Anguissole, of both of whom we shall give some account shortly. What more peculiarly distinguishes him is his title to be considered the great master of the Cremonese School, which, benefitted by his presence and guided by his precepts and examples, produced during so long a period such a variety of admirable works. To speak frankly what I think, Cremona would never have seen her Campi, nor her Boccaccino rise so high, if Soiaro had not exhibited his talents in that city.
The remaining portion of our chapter will be devoted almost wholly to the Campi, a family that filled Cremona, Milan, and other cities of the state, both in private and public, with their paintings. They consisted of four individuals, all of whom devoted themselves indefatigably to the art until they reached an extreme old age. They were by some denominated the Vasari and the Zuccari of Lombardy, a comparison founded on some degree of truth in regard to the extent and the vast mechanism of their compositions; but not just, asfar as intended to be applied to any desire of achieving much, rather than what was excellent in its kind. Giulio and Bernardino, the most accomplished of their family, were accused of too great rapidity and want of accuracy; but they are not very often liable to the charge, and many of their faults must be ascribed to their assistants. They generally produced good designs, which were invariably well coloured, and these still remain entire, while those of Vasari and Zuccari stand in need of continual restoration and retouching from the fading of their colours. Of both these masters, however, as well as the rest of the Campi, we must now proceed to treat in their individual character.
Giulio may be pronounced the Lodovico Caracci of his school. The eldest brother of Antonio and Vincenzo, and the relation, or the instructor at least, of Bernardino, he formed the project of uniting the best qualities of a number of styles in one. His father, who was his first preceptor,[37]not conceiving himself equal to perfecting him in the art, sent him to the school of Giulio Romano, established at that period in Mantua, and which had begun, according to Vasari, to propagate the taste imbibed by its master from the most distinguished ornament of the art. Romano, too, instructed his pupils in the principles of architecture, painting,and modelling, and rendered them capable of directing and conducting all the branches of a vast and multiplied undertaking with their own hands. Such an education was enjoyed by the eldest Campi, and by his brothers, owing to his care. The church of S. Margherita was wholly decorated by him; and the chapels at S. Sigismondo were all completed by him and his family. They contain almost every variety of the art, large pictures, small histories, cameos, stuccos, chiaroscuros, grotesques, festoons of flowers, pilasters, with gold recesses, from which the most graceful forms of cherubs seem to rise with symbols adapted to the saint of the altar; in a word, the whole of the paintings and their decorations are the work of the same genius, and sometimes of the same hand. This adds greatly to their harmony and in consequence to their beauty, nothing in fact being truly beautiful that has not perfect unity. It is a real loss to the arts that these various talents should be divided, so as to compel us to seek a different artist for works of different sorts; whence it arises that in a number of halls and churches we meet with collections, histories, and ornaments of every kind, so extremely opposite, that not only one part fails to remind us of the other, but sometimes repels it, and seems to complain of its forced and inharmonious union. But we must again turn our attention to Giulio Campi.
It appears then that he laid the foundation of his taste and principles under Giulio Romano.From him he derived the dignity of his design, his knowledge of anatomy, variety and fertility of ideas, magnificence in his architecture, and a general mastery over every subject. To this he added strength when he visited Rome, where he studied Raffaello and the antique, designing with a wonderful degree of accuracy the column of Trajan, universally regarded as a school of the ancients always open to the present day. Either at Mantua or elsewhere he likewise studied Titian, and imitated him in an equal degree with any other foreign artist. In his native state he met with two more models in Pordenone and Soiaro, in whose style, according to Vasari, he exercised himself, before he became acquainted with the works of Giulio. From such preparatory studies, combined with imitating whatever he met with in Raffaello and Coreggio, he acquired that style which is found to partake of the manner of so many different artists. On visiting the church of S. Margherita just alluded to, in company with an able professor of the art, we there noticed several of his heads, each drawn after a different model, insomuch that on viewing the works of this artist we feel inclined to pronounce the same opinion on him, as Algarotti did on the Caracci, that in one of their pictures one kind of taste prevails, and in another an opposite manner. Thus in his S. Girolamo, in the cathedral at Mantua, and in his Pentecost at S. Gismondo in Cremona, we meet with all the strength of Giulio, though his most successfulimitation is to be found in the castle of Soragno in the territory of Parma, where he represented the labours of Hercules in a grand hall, which might be pronounced an excellent school for the study of the naked figure. In the larger picture at the church of S. Gismondo, where the duke of Milan is seen with his duchess in the act of being presented by the patron saints to the Holy Virgin, and also in that of saints Pietro and Marcellino at the church bearing their name, Campi displays so much of the Titian manner as to have been mistaken for that artist. One of his Histories of the Passion, in the cathedral, representing Christ before Pilate, was also supposed to be from the hand of Pordenone, though ascertained to be his. Finally in a Holy Family, painted at S. Paolo in Milan, particularly in the figure of the child seen caressing a holy prelate, who stands lost in admiration, we are presented with all the natural grace, united to all the skill that can be required in an imitator of Coreggio. The picture is exquisitely beautiful, and an engraving of it in large folio was taken by Giorgio Ghigi, a celebrated artist of Mantua.
Nor did Giulio's admiration of great painters lead him to neglect the study of nature. It was nature he consulted, and selected from; a study which he inculcated likewise upon the rest of the Campi. A choice is thus perceptible in their heads, more especially in those of their women, evidently drawn from nature, and I may add fromnational truth, inasmuch as they express ideas and attitudes that are not usually met with in other artists; the hair and temples often appearing bound with a ribbon, as was then customary in the city, and is still in use in some of the villages. The colouring of the heads approaches near that of Paul Veronese, and in the whole of their paintings the Campi were accustomed to make use of the distribution of colours that had prevailed before the time of the Caracci, though in their manner of disposing and animating them they acquired a peculiar beauty which Scaramuccio pronounces wholly original. Judging, therefore, from their colours, and the air of their heads, it is difficult to discern the individual hands of the Campi; but if we examine the design we shall more easily distinguish them. Giulio surpasses the rest in point of dignity; and he likewise aims at displaying more knowledge, both of the human frame and of the effects of lights and shadows. In correctness too he is superior to his two brothers, though he is not equal to Bernardino.
The Cav. Antonio Campi was instructed by his brother in architecture and painting, in the former of which he employed himself more than Giulio. This was useful to him in the distribution of his large works, where he often introduced perspective views of great beauty, and displayed great skill in foreshortening. A fine specimen of his powers is to be seen in the sacristy of S. Pietro, with that beautiful colonnade, above which appearsthe chariot of Elias in the distance. Antonio was also a modeller, an engraver, and the historian of his native state, whose annals, enriched with many of his copper-plates, he published in 1585. In the Campi family, therefore, he will be found to occupy the same place as Agostino among the Caracci, an artist of great versatility, conversant with polite letters. He was well known and appreciated by Agostino, who engraved one of his most beautiful productions, the Apostle of the Gentiles in the act of raising a person from the dead. It is placed at S. Paolo in Milan, a noble church, where all the Campi, in the same manner as at S. Sigismondo, are seen in competition with each other. Antonio there appears to great advantage, no less in the forementioned picture than in that of the Nativity, though the frescos adorning the chapels, ascribed to him, are deficient in accuracy. Thus he also produced works of unequal merit at S. Sigismondo, as if he wished to shew that he knew more than he was ambitious of expressing. His most familiar model, as is remarked also by Lomazzo, was Coreggio, and the feature that he most aimed at expressing was that of grace. To this he often attained in point of colouring, but was less happy in design, where, owing to his study of elegance, he at times becomes disproportionately thin, and at others, in order to display his power, he exhibits a foreshortening somewhat out of place. He is still more mannered in his more robust subjects, and occasionally borders uponheaviness and vulgarity, into which his imitation of Coreggio's grandeur, more difficult, perhaps, than his grace, doubtless betrayed him. There are many of these exceptions, however, along with his incorrectness of design, so often discernible, which are to be attributed to his numerous assistants, employed in these vast undertakings. But this will not apply to his over-grouping, which is so remarkable in some of his compositions, nor to the introduction of caricatures into his holy histories, which is a sort of jesting out of season. In a word his genius was vast, spirited, resolute, but often in want of the rein; and in this respect, and generally in what relates to pictorial learning, we should do wrong to put him in competition with Lodovico Caracci.
In the church of S. Paolo, at Milan, there is an inscription by Vincenzio Campi, in which he mentions Giulio and Antonio as his younger brothers. Most probably, however, it has been inserted there by some other hand, being quite contradictory to what is established by history. For he is represented by Antonio as the youngest of the brothers, and by others as an indefatigable assistant in their labours, and little more worthy of being compared with them than Francesco Caracci with his brother Annibal or Agostino. His portraits, however, are held in esteem, as well as his fruit pieces, which he painted on a small scale for private rooms in a very natural manner, and they are by no means rare at Cremona. In the colouring of his figureshe was equal to his brothers, but in point of invention and design greatly inferior to them. He appears to have imitated Antonio rather than Giulio, as far as we can judge from the few works he has left, which are now known to be his. He painted a few altar-pieces for his native place, four of which consist of Descents from the Cross. That in the cathedral extorted the praise of Baldinucci; and truly in the figure of Christ his foreshortening deceives the eye like that of Pordenone in his Dead Christ, while his heads and his colouring have likewise been commended. I cannot, however, think that the attitude of the Virgin mother, who is seen grasping his face with both her hands, is very becoming; nor do I approve of the saints Antonio and Raimondo, who lived at a period so remote from that of Christ, being here introduced, the one supporting his arm, the other kissing his hand. It moreover betrays several errors, of a kind which Baldinucci, so familiar with a more learned and severe school, would not so easily have forgiven had he happened to have beheld this picture. Vincenzio seems to have possessed greater skill in small than in large figures, in common indeed with a great number of artists. Mention is made in his Life of six little pictures which he executed on slate, and which were sold after his death for three hundred ducats. Zaist, whom I follow in my index, has presented us with the epochs applying to these three artists in such a manner as to leave them in considerable doubt. The inscriptionat S. Paolo in Milan, recorded in the Guide (p. 152) is as follows:—Vincentius una cum Julio et Antonio fratribus pinxerunt an.mdlxxxviii.Now Bianconi does not seem inclined to credit the authenticity of this; nor is it improbable but it may have been written some years subsequent to the painting, and by another hand.
Bernardino Campi, perhaps some way related to the other three Campi, occupied the same place in his family as Annibal Caracci amongst his brothers. Receiving his first instructions from the eldest Campi, he entered into similar views of forming a style which should include that of many other artists, and in a short time he rivalled, and in the opinion of many surpassed his master. He had at first attached himself to the goldsmith's art by the advice of his father; but happening to behold two tapestries, copied by Giulio Campi from Raffaello, he resolved to change his profession, and devoting himself to the school of Campi at Cremona, and next to that of Ippolito Costa at Mantua, he began to profess the art at the age of nineteen, and acquired a great proficiency in it at that early age. At Mantua he cultivated an acquaintance with Giulio Romano and his school, and we may infer, that from the study of his works he was enabled to enlarge his views and his capacity for great undertakings. But the love of Raffaello was fixed in his heart, and he took delight in nothing so much as his pictures, his designs, and his engravings; while in Giulio and the rest he was only anxious to emulate those portraitswhich appeared to him to bear some resemblance to his Raffaello. There too he applied himself to the study of Titian's series of the Cæsars, eleven in number; and after having copied them he added a twelfth in a style so perfectly consistent, as to exhibit no traces of imitation. By the liberality of one of his patrons he was enabled also to visit Parma, Modena, and Reggio, in order to become acquainted with the manner of Coreggio; and the advantage he thence derived, his pictures at S. Gismondo sufficiently display. From these first principles, with such as he studied in his native place, he derived one of the most original styles that is to be met with in the list of imitators. His imitation is never, like that of so many others, apparent to the eye, but rather resembles our poet Sannazzaro's, of the best Roman writers, who colours with them every line, but that line is still his own. In so great a variety of models, the most beloved and the most honoured, as Virgil was by Sannazzaro, was Raffaello by Bernardino; but it was unfortunate for him that he did not see Rome, and the originals which that great pictoric genius there produced. The want of this he supplied with ability, and formed for himself several maxims drawn from nature and simplicity, which serve to distinguish him from the rest of his school. By the side of the other Campi he perhaps appears the most timid artist, but the most correct; he has not the magnificence of Giulio, but he has more ideal beauty, and much more captivates the heart. He resemblesAntonio rather than Giulio in the length of his proportions; but not so in other points, for he occasionally borders upon dryness, as in his Assumption at the cathedral, in order to avoid falling into mannerism.
But it is the church of S. Sigismondo which inspires us with the loftiest ideas of this artist, in every view. We can imagine nothing more simply beautiful, and more consistent with the genius of the best age, than his picture of St. Cecilia, in the act of playing on the organ, while St. Catherine is seen standing near her, and above them a group of angels, apparently engaged with their musical instruments and with their voices, in pouring forth in concert with the two innocent virgins, strains worthy of Paradise. This painting, with its surrounding decoration of cherub figures, displays his mastery in grace. Still he appears to no less advantage in point of strength in his figures of the Prophets, grandly designed, for the same place; although he seems more anxious to invest them with dignity of feature and of action, than to give strength and muscle to their proportions. Above all, he shone with most advantage in the grand cupola, with which few in Italy will bear a comparison, and still fewer can be preferred for the abundance, variety, distribution, grandeur, and gradation of the figures, and for the harmony and grand effect of the whole. In this empyrean, this vast concourse of the blessed, belonging to the Old and New Testament, there is no figure that may notbe recognised by its symbols, and that is not seen in perfection from its own point of view, whence all appear of the natural proportion, although they are on a scale of seven braccia in height. Such a work is one of those rare monuments which serve to prove, that it is possible for a great genius to execute rapidly and well; it was wholly conducted by him in seven months; and to satisfy the workmen, who were more sensible of the brevity of the time than the merit of the work, he obtained a written acknowledgment from Soiaro and Giulio Campi, that he had achieved a laudable task. Bernardino was younger than either of them, or than Boccaccino, and the citizens took pleasure in placing him in competition with one or the other of them in their public works, in order that a noble emulation might call forth all their powers, nor suffer them to slumber. Nevertheless, the Nativity of our Lord, at S. Domenico, has been pronounced his masterpiece; a kind of abstract, in which he aimed at comprehending the various excellences of the art. This, at least, is the opinion of Lamo, who composed a diffuse life of this artist; such as to render his information far the most copious we possess upon the subject. He also compiled a correct catalogue of his works, executed both in his native place and at Milan, where he passed a great part of his time, and of those he painted in foreign parts. We find a great number of portraits of princes, as well as of private persons, enumerated; his skill in this branch of the art, inwhich very few equalled him, greatly adding to his fame and fortune. The precise period of his decease is not known, though it must have been somewhere towards 1590, at which time the art assumed quite a new aspect at Cremona.
[37]We may here correct the mistake of Orlandi, who assigns the death of Galeazzo to the year 1536, and Giulio's birth to 1540, when it is known that he began his labours as early as 1522.
Decline of the School of the Campi. Trotti and other Artists support it.
From the brief description already given, it will easily be perceived how far the Campi School was a sort of sketch of that of the Caracci; and what were the causes which contributed to the superiority of the latter, although they had both the same original outline. The Caracci were all excellent designers, and invariably aimed at appearing such; they were likewise united by affection, no less than by their place of residence, and were continually engaged in assisting each other. Finally, they supported an academy, much frequented, the object of which was, not so much to study the various manners of different artists, as to examine the different effects produced by nature, so as to render their works her real offspring, as it were, and not her more distant relations. The Campi, on the other hand, did not so uniformly aspire to the same excellence, nor did they reside, and unite together in forming so methodical and well-established an academy; each maintaining a separate school and residence, and teaching, if I mistake not, ratherhow their pupils should imitate them, than how they should paint. Hence it arose, that while Domenichino, Guido, Guercino, and others of the Caracci School, distinguished themselves by their novelty and originality of manner, the scholars of the Campi were confined to the sphere of imitating, as nearly as lay in their power, the painters of their own city, either severally or in a select number. And thus, as man is every where the same, it here ensued, as in the rest of the Italian schools, that having acquired a tolerable degree of skill in imitating their predecessors, artists began to slacken their industry. The first had accustomed themselves to copy only from the life; they drew cartoons, they modelled in wax, and carefully arranged all the divisions of their folds, with every accessary; but the second contented themselves with making a few sketches, and some heads taken from nature, executing the rest of their work in a mere mechanical manner, and as they judged to be most convenient. Thus by degrees this great school degenerated, and it happened also about the same period, when the disciples of Procaccini observed the same method at Milan. From this cause, during the seventeenth century, Lombardy was filled with the sectarists of the art, among whom the followers of Zuccheri themselves would have appeared in the rank of masters. A few there were who struggled to free themselves from the herd of imitators; and Caravaggio afforded them an opportunity. Born in the vicinity of Cremona, he waspartly considered their compatriot, and the more willingly followed by the Cremonese; more particularly as it became popular to cry down the style of the last masters as feeble, and to demand one of a more vigorous character. The attempt succeeded admirably in a few; while others, on the contrary, as it occurred in Venice, at Cremona also became only coarse and sombre. I have not been very anxious to cultivate an acquaintance with the artists of this period; though I shall take care to make mention of such as succeeded in raising themselves above the crowd.
Each of the Campi, therefore, claims his own disciples, though they have not always been distinguished in history, being described under the general designation of pupils of the Campi; as the two Mainardi, Andrea and Marc Antonio, by Orlandi. The two pupils of Giulio, best entitled to commendation, namely, Gambara of Brescia, and Viani of Cremona, having flourished in other schools, have been recorded by us, the first among the Venetians; and the second among the Mantuan artists.
Antonio Campi has left us an account of three of his own disciples: Ippolito Storto, Gio. Batista Belliboni, and Gio. Paolo Fondulo, who passed into Sicily. All of them remained in obscurity, however, in Lombardy, and are omitted in the painters' Dictionaries. Towards the close of his life, he instructed one Galeazzo Ghidone, an artist of weak health, who employed himself only at intervals, but withsuccess; as we may judge from his picture of the Preaching of St. John the Baptist, at S. Mattia, in Cremona, which has been highly commended by good connoisseurs. Another, is Antonio Beduschi, who, in his twenty-sixth year, produced a Pietà for S. Sepolcro, in Piacenza, and a still superior painting of the Martyrdom of S. Stefano; he is referred to the school of the Campi, and strongly partakes of the style of Antonio; I esteem him one of his imitators, if not in the list of his pupils. He was unknown to the historian Zaist, and is indebted for commemoration to the Sig. Proposto Carasi.
Luca Cattapane was initiated in the art by Vincenzio, and devoted much time to copying the works of the Campi family. He succeeded in this by exhibiting a rare boldness of hand, so as to give his pieces the air of originals, and they continue to impose upon the most experienced, even to the present day. He likewise counterfeited the style of Gambara in a Pietà of his, at the church of S. Pietro, in Cremona; and in order to enlarge the picture, he added three figures in a taste agreeable to the former. For the rest, being misled by his ambition to form a new style, or to approach nearer Caravaggio, he became even more sombre than the Campi, with still less taste. Many of his altar-pieces yet remain. In S. Donato, at Cremona, he represented the Beheading of St. John; one of his most successful works, in which the effect is superior either to the design or to the expression.To these we may add a number of his fresco paintings, though inferior to those he executed in oil.
Bernardino, however, was the favourite master, and the most frequented of any belonging to the school. His successors have continued to flourish longer, and even reached the confines of the present age. I first propose to enumerate a few of his most distinguished scholars, who either did not teach, or taught the art only to a few; and I shall afterwards treat of Malosso and his school, which, about the year 1630, held the chief sway in Cremona, and became one of the most celebrated throughout Lombardy.
Coriolano Malagavazzo, who is erroneously called Girolamo Malaguazzo, in the "Painters' Dictionary," assisted in the labours of his master, insomuch as to render it uncertain whether Cremona possesses any painting designed and executed by himself; for it is supposed that he drew his fine altar-piece, in S. Silvestro, representing the Virgin with S.S. Francesco and Ignazio, the martyr, from one of Bernardino's designs. Nothing, likewise, that has not been questioned, remains of Cristoforo Magnani da Pizzichettone, a young artist of great promise, as we are informed by Antonio Campi, who laments the shortness of his career. Lamo, too, complains of his loss, when he mentions him and Trotti as the two greatest geniuses of the school. His chief talent lay in portraits; though he was also well skilled in compositions. I have seen one of hisproductions, consisting of Saints Giacomo and Giovanni, at S. Francesco, in Piacenza, an early effort, but very well conceived and executed. Andrea Mainardi, called Chiaveghino, employed himself both singly and with Marcantonio, his nephew, in painting for the city, and more especially for its environs. By Baldinucci, he is pronounced a weak painter; and such indeed he appears wherever he worked in haste, and for a small sum. But several of his altar-pieces, laboured with more care, tend to redeem his character; there he shews himself a successful disciple of Bernardino, both in his minute style, as in his Marriage of S. Anne, at the Eremites, and in his loftier manner, as in his large picture of the Divin Sangue, or divine blood. He exhibits that prophetic idea,torcular calcavi solus, and the Redeemer is seen standing upright under a wine-press, and, crushed by the Divine Justice, emitting from his holy body, through the open wounds, whole streams of blood, which are received into sacred vessels by S. Agostino, and three other Doctors of the church; and are afterwards shed for the benefit of an immense crowd of the Faithful, who are seen gathered round. The same subject I saw in one of the churches of Recanati, and in some others, but no where so appropriately expressed. It is a picture that would reflect credit on any school; exhibiting fine forms, rich draperies, warm and lively colouring. In the distribution of his small and frequent lights he might, indeed, have been more happy, aswell as in the grouping of his figures; a fault, however, common to many of his school.
The best, however, of these disciples of Bernardino, with a number of others whom I omit, were all surpassed by a fair votary of the art named Sofonisba Angussola, sprung from a noble family at Cremona. Along with her younger sister, Elena, who afterwards took the veil, she received his instructions at her father's request, in his own house. Upon his going to Milan, Soiaro was selected to supply the place of Bernardino, and Sofonisba soon attained to such a degree of excellence, more particularly in portraits, as to be esteemed one of the most finished painters of her age. She at first superintended the pictorial education of her four younger sisters, whose names were Lucia and Minerva, who died young; Europa and Anna Maria, of whom the former married, and died in the flower of her age; and of the second, likewise married, there remains no further account. Vasari bestows the highest commendations upon Sofonisba, and upon the other sisters, with whom he was acquainted at Cremona, when they were young. At that period Sofonisba had already been invited as court painter, by Philip II. into Spain, where, besides the portraits she took of the royal family and of Pope Pius IV., she painted several other princes and lords of rank, all ambitious of the same honour, insomuch that we might apply to her the words of Pliny: "Illos nobilitans quos esset dignata posteris tradere." Entering afterwards into matrimonywith one Moncada, she resided with him some years at Palermo, and after his death again married a gentleman of the name of Lomellino. She died at Genoa, at a very advanced age, infirm and blind; though she continued to converse and give her advice upon the art until her last moments; insomuch that Vandyck was heard to say, that he had acquired more knowledge from her, than from any one else he knew. Her portraits are greatly esteemed in Italy; and in particular, two which she took of herself; one of which is in the ducal gallery at Florence, and the other in possession of the Lomellini family at Genoa.
I next approach that celebrated pupil of Bernardino, whom I promised to mention at the close of the chapter; and this is the Cavalier Gio. Batista Trotti, who published his master's life, during his lifetime, written by Lamo. None of Campi's pupils was so much attached to him as this artist, who married his niece, and was left heir to his valuable studio. On his competing at Parma with Agostino Caracci, and being more applauded at court, it was said by Agostino, with pleasantry, that they had given him a hard bone to gnaw. Hence he acquired the surname of Malosso, which he adopted, and sometimes made use of in signing his name, besides transmitting it, as an hereditary appellation, to his nephew. Thus he converted into a source of applause, the satiric trait launched against him by Caracci, meant to convey, that the people of Parma had preferred to him an artist ofinferior worth. Nor indeed was Malosso his equal either in design or in solid judgment; though he could boast pictoric attractions which made him appear to advantage when opposed to other artists. He displayed little of Bernardino's taste, except in a few of his first efforts; he afterwards studied Coreggio, and, most of all, aimed at resembling Soiaro, whose gay, open, and brilliant style, varied shortenings, and spirited attitudes, he exhibited in the chief part of his works. But he carried it too far, making an extravagant display of his white and other clear colours, without sufficiently tempering them with shade, insomuch that I have heard his paintings compared to those on porcelain; while he has been accused of want of relief, or according to Baldinucci, of some degree of harshness. His heads are, however, extremely beautiful, smiling with loveliness, and of a graceful roundness, not unlike Soiaro's; though he is too apt to repeat them on the same canvass, nearly alike in features, colours, and attitude. Here his rapidity of hand alone was in fault, as he was in no want of fertility of ideas. When he pleased he could give variety to his lineaments, as we gather from his Beheading of St. John, at S. Domenico, in Cremona, as well as to his compositions; having represented at S. Francesco and at S. Agostino, in Piacenza, and if I mistake not, elsewhere, a picture of the Conception of the Virgin, in every instance abounding with fresh ideas. Nor do we often meet with any of his paintings throughout the numerous cities in whichhe was employed, that have much resemblance in point of invention. He was equally varied in his imitations when he pleased, as appears from his Crucifixion, surrounded by saints, in the cathedral of Cremona, executed in the best Venetian taste; while his S. Maria Egiziaca driven from the Temple, to be seen at S. Pietro in the same town, partakes as much of the Roman. There is also a Pietà of his at S. Abbondio, which shews that he was occasionally happy in catching the Caracci manner.