BOOK I. (continued 6)

Meucci and Grisoni cannot be reckoned Italian artists of the same rank with Luti; but if all are to be estimated by the times in which they flourished, each was eminent in his day. I had noticed them briefly in my first edition, and some painters have informed me, that with them I ought to have mentioned Giuseppe Zocchi, who was a painter of note, and should not have been omitted even in a compendium of the history of the art. I now correct my error, and produce what information the noble family of Gerini, under whose protection he was received when a boy, and who, after his elementary studies at Florence, sent him to Rome, to Bologna, and other parts of Lombardy, for his instruction in the different schools, have supplied me. I may be allowed to add, that the Florentine nobility have always been most liberal in this way; and there are not a few living artists who owe their education in the fine arts to the bounty of some noble family: such clients are an ornament to a nobleman, and are not to be numbered among his servants. Zocchi had a genius fertile in invention, pliant in imitation, and judicious in selection; and hence at the conclusion of such a course of study, he was able to compose large works with skill, and to colour beautifully. He painted four pretty large frescos in the villa Serristori, beyond the gate of S. Nicholas, some apartments in the Rinuccini palace, and one in the Gerini gallery; and these are believed to be his best works of this sort. In smaller pieces he was still greater; as in his oil picture of the festivities at Siena, on the arrival of the Emperor Francis I., a work very true in the perspective, and graceful in the multitude of figures which he there inserted. It is deposited in the splendid Sansedonii collection of pictures at Siena, where the entertainment given to the Grand Duke Peter Leopold may also be seen: with this object in view the painter went to Siena, where he caught the epidemic disorder that raged there in 1767, and soon after died at Florence.

On turning to the other parts of Tuscany, we find them from the beginning of the eighteenth century full of the followers of Cortona; San Sepolcro boasted one Zei, of whom I find no further account than that of his painting an altar-piece representing the souls in purgatory, for the cathedral of that place, a work extremely well coloured, and conducted in the maxims of the school, though the countenances are of a common cast; and if we except the liberating angel, of poor expression. Among this sect we cannot include Gio. Batista Mercati, one of the latest painters of that city, not unknown at Rome, and much noted in his native place, where he painted either at a more mature time of life, or with greater pains. Two of his historical frescos, representing our Lady, are in S. Chiara; and at S. Lorenzo there is a picture of the titular with other saints; in both there is an air apparently drawn from the school of the Caracci, especially in the breadth of the drapery, which is well cast, and skilfully varied. In the Guides to Venice and to Rome, several of his works are mentioned, and in that of Leghorn, the only picture in the cathedral esteemed worthy of notice is that of the Five Saints, painted by Mercati with great care. Orlandi notices Tommaso Lancisi, a scholar of Scaminossi, and two of his brothers, and adds, that painting was an hereditary honour in this family.

One only of the countrymen of Berrettini is known to me as his follower; his name is Adriano Palladino; he is mentioned by Orlandi, which is the only trace of him that I have discovered; I never saw any of his works, nor heard them mentioned by any one.

Arezzo abounds with pictures in the manner of Cortona. Salvi Castellucci, the scholar of Pietro, either at Florence or at Rome, was a great imitator of his style, and painted with expedition, according to the practice of the school. He executed many good pieces in the cathedral, and other churches, besides numerous cabinet pictures that are in private houses, which are estimable for the facility and good taste of their colouring. One of his frescos, representing our Lady surrounded by the patron saints of the city, is in the public palace; but he is greater in oil painting. He had a son, on whom he bestowed the name of Pietro, probably in honour of his master. He also was a follower of Cortona, but never equalled his father.

Pistoia, however, had two Gimignani, the father Giacinto, and Lodovico, his son, of whom it is still disputed which was the most eminent. From the school of Poussin, Giacinto entered that of Berrettini; and as he approached nearer his first master in design and composition, so in colouring and in taste for architecture he came nearest to the second. He moreover took the lead in works of fresco. Here he rivalled Camassei and Maratta, at the baptistery of S. Gio. Laterano, where he painted the histories of Constantine, besides leaving other specimens in different parts of Rome, in the Niccolini palace at Florence, and other places. In some pictures he also emulated Guercino, as for instance in the Leander in the ducal gallery, which was long considered as a Guercino. Though Lodovico was the scholar of Giacinto, he is not so correct in design, but was superior to his father in all the faculties that excite pleasing emotions; his ideas are more beautiful, his tints more lovely, his attitudes more spirited, and his harmony more agreeable. It would appear either that the style of his maternal uncle Orbetto, had attracted his attention, or that Bernini, the director of his studies, had led him into this path. He obtained great applause for his works in fresco, and those he executed at Rome in the church of the Virgins are studied by artists for the attitudes, the clouds, and the grace of the wings with which his angels were furnished. He chiefly resided at Rome, which possesses several of his paintings for churches, and a far greater number for halls and private rooms; being moreover much employed in these for foreign countries. Two histories of S. John by the hand of Giacinto, are in the church dedicated to that saint at Pistoia; and there was also a S. Rocco in the cathedral, which was esteemed excellent. Lodovico executed a beautiful picture for the church of the Capuchins, now converted into a parish church.

After the death of both, Lazzaro Baldi still remained, another great ornament of the school of Cortona, and of Pistoia, his native place. He may be there recognised in two pictures, the Annunciation in the church of S. Francis, and the Repose in Egypt in that of the Madonna della Umiltà. This latter place is a most majestic octagonal temple, executed by Ventura Vitoni of Pistoia, the great pupil of Bramante, and surmounted by a cupola, which is reckoned among the noblest in Italy. Baldi finally established his abode in Rome; where he was much employed, as well as in other parts of the states of the Church. One of the most studied pictures he ever painted is at S. Camerino, and represents S. Peter receiving the pontifical power. A still more recent artist is Gio. Domenico Piastrini, a scholar of Luti, who in the porch of Madonna della Umiltà, filled two large spaces with pictures, illustrative of the history of this church, and who rivalled the best followers of Maratta, in S. Maria in Via Lata, at Rome. It is not foreign to this period to notice Gio. Batista Cipriani, who was born in Florence, but descended from a family of Pistoia;[237] especially as he left specimens of his pencil in the neighbourhood of the places we have just mentioned. Two of his altar-pieces were in the abbey of S. Michael-on-the-Sea; one of S. Thesaurus, the other of S. Gregory VII. which are valuable, as Cipriani painted but little. His excellence lay in design, which he acquired from the collection of the studies of Gabbiani, before mentioned. Having afterwards gone to London, he was much employed by the celebrated Bartolozzi, who has immortalized the painter by engraving his inventions. We might augment our catalogue with the two Giusti and Michele Paoli, a Pistoian of the school of Crespi; but they did not attain maturity, if we depend on the information afforded by the continuator of Felsina Pittrice.[238]

Of those within the Florentine territory, the Pisans, and of those beyond it, the artists of Lucca, yet remain to be considered. Camillo Gabrieli, a scholar of Ciro, was the first who transplanted the style of Cortona into Pisa; and in this manner executed a good oil painting at the convent of the Carmelites, and also several for private individuals; in this kind of painting he was more happy than in fresco. In this line, however, his memory is honoured in his native place, both for his works in the grand saloon of the Alliata palace, and in the apartments of other noblemen's houses; and likewise on account of his pupils, the two Melani, who have contributed much to his reputation. We shall notice Francesco among the professors of architectural design: Giuseppe his brother, and a knight of the golden spur, became no common artist in figures, and was worthy of painting in the cathedral a large oil picture of the death of S. Ranieri. Although this piece ranks in the scale of mediocrity in this sanctuary of the arts, it does honour to its author; the invention is good, the perspective is regular, and exhibits no marks of carelessness, as is so often the case. But his place is among the painters in fresco; in which department he ornamented with figures the architectural works of his brother; and has shewn himself tenacious of the manner of Cortona, both in what is commendable in it, as the perspective, colouring, and harmony; and also where it is less praiseworthy, as in the heaviness and imperfect finish of the figures.

With a similar instance we shall commence the series of artists of Lucca: the two brothers, Ippolito and Giovanni Marracci, obtained equal applause in very different branches of the art; the former was a painter of architecture, the latter of figures; and of him only we shall here speak. Although little known beyond Lucca, he is reckoned among the eminent scholars and most successful imitators of Pietro da Cortona; and merits this name, either when he painted in fresco, as in the cupola of S. Ignatius, at S. Giovanni; or when he wrought in oil, as he did in several pictures in the possession of the brotherhood of S. Lorenzo, in the collegiate church of S. Michael, and in other places. With equal success two other artists, natives of Lucca, who had been educated in his school, became imitators, for a period, of Pier Cortona. These were Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi, who were trained in the school of their native place, and resembled each other no less in style than in disposition; so that though they usually painted in the same piece, all their joint labours appear the work of a single artist. They afterwards adopted a manner that participates of the Venetian and Lombard schools; and in this style they painted the vast ceiling of the library of S. Giorgio Maggiore at Venice. Rome possesses some of their stupendous works in the church of the Lucchesi, and in the magnificent Colonna gallery. The most celebrated picture with which they ornamented their native place was the fresco of the tribune of the church of S. Martin, and next to it that in S. Matthew's, which they decorated with three oil pictures. After the death of Coli, his companion resided and continued to paint in Lucca: the whole cloister of the Carmelite monastery was painted by him alone.

The manner of Cortona was likewise adhered to by Gio. Batista Brugieri, a scholar of Baldi and of Maratta, who was in his day highly applauded for his works in the chapel of the Sacrament, at the Servi, and his other productions in public. P. Stefano Cassiani, from the fraternity to which he belonged, surnamed Il Certosino, or the Carthusian, painted in fresco the cupola of his church, and two large histories of our Lady, besides other reputable works in the style of Cortona, at the Certosa of Pisa, of Siena, and elsewhere. Girolamo Scaglia, a disciple of Paulini and of Gio. Marracci, is surnamed Parmegianino. In architecture he imitated Berrettini, as is remarked by Sig. da Morrona;[239] in his shadows he followed Paulini, and sometimes approached Ricchi: as a painter his effect was superior to his design; or as it was observed by the Cav. Titi, (p. 146) on beholding his picture of the Presentation, painted at Pisa, it exhibits extreme industry and very little taste. Gio. Domenico Campiglia was reckoned among the best designers in Rome; and of him the engravers of antiquities particularly availed themselves. He was not without merit as a painter; and in Florence, where he executed some pictures, his portrait has a place among those of eminent artists. A picture painted by Pietro Sigismondi, of Lucca, for the great altar of S. Nicholas in Arcione at Rome, is honourably mentioned by Titi: I know not whether any of his works remain in his native place; and the same is the case with Massei and with Pini, who will be considered in another school.

I shall close this series with two other artists; and had the age produced many like them, Italian painting would not have declined so much as it has done during the eighteenth century. Giovanni Domenico Lombardi lived not, like his pupil, Cav. Batoni, within the enlightening precincts of Rome, but in merit he was at least equal to Batoni. He formed his style on the works of Paulini, and improved it by studying the finest colourists at Venice, and also by paying attention to the school of Bologna. The genius of this artist, his taste, his grand and resolute tone, appear in several of his pictures, executed in his best time, and with real pains. Such are his two pieces on the sides of the choir of the Olivetani, which represent their founder, S. Bernard, administering relief to the citizens infected with the plague. There are two others in a chapel of S. Romano, which are painted with a magic force approaching to the best manner of Guercino; and one of them, in the opinion of the most rigid critics, seems the work of that artist himself. He should always have painted thus; and never have prostituted his pencil to manufacture pieces at all prices. Batoni, who will be noticed in our third book among the Roman masters, supported better his own dignity and that of the art. He adhered in a great measure to the maxims of this school, a circumstance which did not altogether please his first master, who on examining some of his early performances, remarked, that they required a greater covering of dirt, for they appear to him too trimly neat. One who has not an opportunity of examining his capital works, may satisfy himself in Lucca, either in the church of the Olivetine fathers, where he painted the Martyrdom of S. Bartolommeo; or in that of S. Catharine of Siena, where she is represented receiving the mystic wounds of the crucifixion.

I shall not here mention many artists in the inferior walks of the art. The example of Cortona influenced none in this class, except a few ornamental painters, and some artists who accompanied their figures by landscapes. The painters of landscapes, flowers, and the like, continued to follow their original models. Chiavistelli, for instance, has been followed by various artists in fresco of this age, who besides executing figures, have exercised, as before remarked, other branches of painting. Pure architectural and ornamental painting in a good taste are, however, distinct arts; and to attain excellence in them requires all the faculties of man. Angiol Rossi, of Florence, applied himself to it, as I believe, in Bologna; and assiduously practised it at Venice, as we are informed by Guarienti. Two artists of Lucca, Pietro Scorzini and Bartolommeo Santi, received their education at Bologna, and were the favourite decorators of many theatres. Francesco Melani, of Pisa, adhered strongly to Cortona. As learned in perspective as his brother was in figures, his style was so similar, that no architectural painter was so well suited to accompany the figures of the other. This will be allowed by all who view the ceiling in the church of S. Matthew at Pisa, which is their finest work, or their paintings in Siena, and at other places, where they were employed together. They educated a pupil worthy of them, in Tommaso Tommasi, of Pietra Santa, a man of vast conception, who succeeded in Pisa to the commissions bestowed upon his masters, and produced very pleasing specimens of his powers in the nave of the church of S. Giovanni. Ippolito Marracci, of Lucca, the scholar of Metelli, appears a successful rival of his master, either when he painted by himself, as in the Rotonda, at Lucca, or when associated with his brother, as was generally the case. Domenico Schianteschi, a disciple of Bibieni, lived in San Sepolcro; his perspectives in that city are to be seen in the houses of many of the nobility, and are much esteemed.

Florence has boasted professed portrait painters, even to the present time; among whom Gaetano Piattoli is particularly extolled. He was pupil to a French artist, Francesco Riviera, who had resided and died at Leghorn, and was very much prized in collections for the excellence of his Conversazioni and Turkish ballets. He is well known too, in other countries; for he was employed to take portraits of the foreign nobility who visited Florence. The portrait of himself, which he painted for the ducal gallery, indicates the style of the rest. An illustrious female artist emanated from the school of Gabbiani, although assisted in her studies by other masters, and this was Giovanna Fratellini, who was not without invention, and was most expert in portrait painting. She executed in oil, in crayons, in miniature, and in enamel, various portraits of the family of Cosmo III. and of other princes, to paint whom she was sent by her sovereign to several cities of Italy. That which she painted of herself, is in the ducal gallery: in it she has blended the employment of the artist with the affection of a mother. She is represented in the act of taking a likeness of Lorenzo, her only son and pupil, who died in the flower of his age. It is painted in crayons, an art in which she may be called the Rosalba of her time. Domenico Tempesti, or Tempestino, is rather included among engravers than painters; though he was instructed by Volterrano in Florence, in the latter art, and exercised it with credit both in landscape and portrait. He is mentioned by Vianelli in the catalogue of his pictures. It would appear that he was the same Domenico de Marchis, called Tempestino, whom Orlandi casually notices in the article of Girolamo Odam, whom Domenico had initiated in the elements of landscape painting. Orlandi gives also a separate article, under the head of Domenico Tempesti, in which his voyages through Europe, and his long residence at Rome, are dwelt upon.

Many landscapes, chiefly rural views, painted by Paolo Anesi, are dispersed through Florence, and there are also many of them in Rome. Francesco Zuccherelli, a native of Pitigliano, born in the year 1702, was his scholar. On going to Rome, he resided there a long time, and first entered the school of Morandi, and afterwards of Pietro Nelli. His first intention was to study figures, but by one of those circumstances which discover the natural predilection, he applied himself to painting landscape; and pursued it in a manner that united strength and sweetness; and has been highly extolled not only in Italy, but over all Europe. His figures also were elegant, and these he was sometimes employed to introduce in the landscapes and architectural pieces of other artists. His principal field in Italy was Venice, where he was settled, until the celebrated Smith made him known in England, and invited him to that island, in which he remained many years, exercising his pencil for the court, and for the most considerable collections of pictures. He enjoyed the particular esteem of Count Algarotti; in the possession of whose heirs are two landscapes by Tesi, with figures by Zuccherelli: of the first artist I shall again speak in the school of Bologna. Algarotti was commissioned by the court of Dresden to procure the works of the best modern painters, and suggested to Zuccherelli subjects for two pictures, in which he succeeded admirably, and was employed to repeat them for the king of Prussia. In his old age he returned to Rome, and was employed there, at Venice and in Florence, where he died in 1788. These anecdotes of Zuccherelli I obtained along with many others from the Sig. Avvocato Lessi, a gentleman deeply versed in the fine arts.

The name of this artist brings to a fair conclusion the series of Florentine painters, which has been continued for little less than six centuries, in an uninterrupted succession of native artists, without the intervention of one foreign master in this school, at least one so eminent as to mark an era. With the exception of the last years, in which art was on the decline throughout Italy, the Florentine school, with all its merit, and that is undoubtedly very great, owes its progress to native genius. It was not unacquainted with foreign artists, but from them it disdained to borrow; and its masters never adopted any other style on which they did not engraft a peculiarity and originality of manner.

I might write much in praise of masters now living,[240] but I propose not to enter on their merits, and shall leave them wholly to the judgment of posterity. In other arts I indulge a greater latitude, but not frequently. I may add with truth, that during the course of six centuries, the artists of Florence have been fortunate in a government most auspicious to the fine arts. The last princes however of the Medicean family had shewn more inclination than activity in patronizing them; and the reign of the Emperor Francis I., though generally distinguished for enterprize,[241] was nevertheless that of an absent sovereign. The accession of the Grand Duke Peter Leopold to supreme power in Tuscany, in 1765, marked a new era in the history of the arts. The palace and royal villas were repaired and embellished; and amid the succession of undertakings that attracted the best artists, painting was continually promoted. The improvement of the ducal gallery was most opportune for it; and afforded new commissions to painters, and new specimens of the art: for the Prince ordered all the inferior pieces to be removed from the collection, and their place to be supplied by vast numbers of choice pictures. Fine specimens of antique marbles were likewise added: to him Florence owes the Niobe of Praxiteles,[242] the Apollo, and other statues; the basso-relievos, and busts of the Cæsars, which complete the grand series in the corridore: the cabinets of the gallery were then only twelve in number, and they contained a confused assemblage of paintings, statues, bronzes, and drawings, antiquities and modern productions. He reduced this chaos to order; he separated the different kinds, assigned separate apartments to each, made new purchases of what was before wanting, and increased the number of cabinets to twenty-one. This great work, one branch of which he was pleased to commit to my charge,[243] was worthy of record. I laid it before the public, in 1782, in a memoir, which was inserted also in the forty-seventh volume of the Journal of Pisa. Whoever compares this book with the Description of the Gallery, published in 1759, by Bianchi, will clearly perceive that Leopold was rather a second founder than a restorer of that emporium of the fine arts: so different is the arrangement, so remarkable are the additions to the building, to its ornaments, and to the articles it contains.[244] I have been diffuse in my description of the antiquities which appeared to me deserving of more particular elucidation; of the pictures I merely indicated the artist and the subject. Since that period, other descriptions of the gallery, by very able writers, have been given to the public, in which my nomenclature and expositions of the antiquities have been adopted; but a fuller and better catalogue of the paintings is given on the plan of that of the imperial cabinet of Vienna, and similar works.

Ferdinand III. who now for five years has promoted the welfare of Tuscany, succeeded no less to the throne of his august father, than to the protection of the fine arts. The new buildings already completed, as the right wing of the Pitti palace, or now begun, as the vestibule of the Laurentian library, which is to be finished upon a design of Michelangiolo, are matters foreign to my subject. Not so, however, are the additions made by the prince to the gallery and the academy of design. To the first he has added a vast number of prints and pictures of those schools in which it was formerly deficient; and the gallery is increased by a collection of Venetian and another of French masters, which are separately arranged in two cabinets.[245] The academy, since 1785, had been as it were created anew by his father; had obtained a new and magnificent edifice, new masters, and new regulations, circumstances already well known over Europe, and here unnecessary to be repeated. This institution, which required improvement in some particulars, has been at length completed, and its apartments and its splendour augmented by the son; seconded by the superintendence of those accomplished connoisseurs, the Marchese Gerini, the Prior Rucellai, and the Senator Alessandri. To the artists in every branch of the fine arts which were before in Florence, he has recently added the engraver Sig. Morghen, an ornament to the city and the state. The obligations of the fine arts to Ferdinand III., are eloquently stated by Sig. Cav. Puccini, a nobleman of Pistoia, and superintendant of the ducal gallery, in an oration on the arts, pronounced not long ago in this academy, of which he is the respected secretary, and since published, accompanied by engravings.[246]

petrvs. leopoldvs. francisci. avg. f. avstriacvs. m. d. ep

ad. vrbis. svae. decvs. et. ad. incrementvm. artivm. optimarvm

mvsevm. medicevm

operibvs. ampliatis. copIsqve. avctis

ordinandvm. et. splendidiore. cvltv. exornandvm. cvravit

anno. m.dcc.lxxxix.