Note 208 — Chapter VII · (XXI.)

The German editors of Vasari identified Lodovico da Luano with the well-known painter Dierich Bouts of Louvain, but the name Ludovico (Chlodwig, ‘Warrior of Renown’) is not the same etymologically as Dierich (Theodoric, ‘Prince of the People’). It is to be noted that in Guicciardini we find a mention of ‘Dirich da Louano,’ who is undoubtedly Dierich Bouts (the surname is derived from St. Rombout the patron of Haarlem, where the painter, who is also called ‘Dirick van Haarlem’ [see below], was born) and also a mention of Vasari’s ‘Ludovico da Luvano.’ A scrutiny however of the sentence in Guicciardini, where the last-mentioned name occurs, shows that it is copied almost verbatim from our text of Vasari. (Vasari [1550]:—‘Similmente Lodovico da Luano & Pietro Christa, & maestro Martino, & ancora Giusto da Guanto, che fece la tavola della comunione de’l Duca d’ Vrbino, & altre pitture; & Vgo d’ Anuersa, che fe la tauola di Sancta Maria Nuoua di Fiorenza’; Guicciardini:—‘Seguirono a mano a mano Lodouico da Louano, Pietro Crista, Martino d’ Holanda, & Giusto da Guanto, che fece quella nobil’ pittura della comunione al Duca d’ Vrbino, & dietro a lui venne Vgo d’ Anuersa, che fece la bellissima tauola, che si vede a Firenze in santa Maria nuoua’). Vasari is accordingly responsible for this ‘Ludovico da Luano,’ whose name is duly chronicled in von Wurzbach’s ‘Niederländisches Künstler-Lexicon, Leipzig, 1906, II, p. 69, on the authority of Guicciardini alone, and who is called in M. Ruelens’s annotations to the French edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle ‘Louys de Louvain (peintre encore inconnu).’ Subsequently Guicciardini mentions also a ‘Dirich d’ Harlem,’ who can be none other than the same Dierick Bouts, and Vasari, as a return favour, copies back all three Diericks into his Notes at the end of the edition of 1568. The first ‘Ludovico’ may be merely due to a mistake in the text of Vasari carelessly adopted by Guicciardini. Vasari’s copyist may have written ‘Ludovico’ in place of the somewhat similar ‘Teodorico.’ There was however a certain Ludovicus Dalmau or Dalman (D’Alamagna?), a Flemish painter who worked at Barcelona in Spain about 1445 (von Wurzbach, sub voce) who may be meant, though there is no indication of a connection between him and Louvain.