N PflJNTINQ & seUlPTURE ri 0£ vi33 AH- CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FINE ARTS LIBRARY Cornell University Library ND 623.F84W33 Piero della Francesca / 3 1924 015 606 043 The Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture Edited by G. C. Williamson PIERO BELLA FRANCESCA THE GREAT MASTERS IN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE. The following Volumes have been issued, price ^s. net each. BERNARDINO LUINI. By George C. Williamson, Litt.D., Editor of the Series. VELASQUEZ. By R. A. M. Stevenson. ANDREA DEL SARTO. By H. Guinness. LUCA SIGNORELLI. By Maud Cruttwell. RAPHAEL. By H. Strachev. CARLO CRIVELLI. By G. McNeil Rushfokth, M.A.. Classical Lecturer, Oriel College, Oxford. CORREGGIO. By Selwvn Brinton, M.A., Author of "The Renais- sance in Italian Art." DONATELLO. By Hope Rea, Author of "Tuscan Artists." PERUGINO. By G. C. Williamson, Litt.D. SODOMA. By the Contessa Lorenzo Priuli-Bon. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA. By the Marchesa Buriamacchi. GIORGIONE. By Herbert Cook, M.A. MEMLINC. By W. H. James Weale, late Keeper of the National Art Library. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. By W. G. Waters, M.A., Worcester College, Oxford. In Preparatioit. PINTORICCHIO. By Evelyn March Phillipps. EL GRECO. By Manuel B. Cossio, Litt.D., Ph.D., Director of the Mus^e P(£dagogique, Madrid. MICHAEL ANGELO. By Charles Holroyd, R.E., Keeper of the National Gallery of British Art. FRANCIA. By George C. Williamson, Litt.D. THE BROTHERS BELLINI. By S. Arthur Strong, M.A., Librarian to the House of Lords. DURER. By Hans W. Singer, M.A., Ph. D., Assistant Director of the Royal Print Room, Dresden. WILKIE. By Lord Ronald Sutherland-Gower, M.A., F. S.A., Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. TINTORETTO. By J. B. Stoughton Holborn, M.A., of Merton College, Oxford. BRUNELLESCHI. By Leader Scott. MANTEGNA. By Maud Cruttwell. GIOTTO. By F. Mason Perkins. Others to/ollow. LONDON : GEORGE BELL AND SONS. ^ ^^^_*, i^jT.^ i r l^^^H^'^^H ^H ^^p^^; . - ,1 |t,v^P!m^^ .", ^^H ^^B^^^^ jmA'''.' ■■-^^■'^!,ft, .'■ 1 ^ ""Ho^'^^^- 4 >' if?i •■ ;^l~:. L-' n ^^^^^^^B^' '- ^d^sHH ■■^ T'^^^^H f ^ PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA BY W. G. WATERS, M.A. WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1901 Av %^\\ CHISWICK press: CHARLES \\HITT1 N'GH AM AND i TOOK'S COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON'. TABLE OF CONTENTS LHArrtr; page List of Illustrations vii Chronological Table ix Bibliography xi I. Introductory i II. Biographical. Rimini and the Vatican ... ii III. Frescoes at Arezzo 27 IV, Works at Borgo San Sepolcro 40 V. Borgo San Sepolcro and Monterchio ... 50 VI. Various Works 60 VII. Urbino 72i VIII. Ferrara 81 IX. The Treatise on Perspective S7 X. The Charm of Piero. His Place in Art . . 95 XI. The Influence and Power of Piero .... 104 XII. His Pupils and the Result of his Work . . 113 Catalogue of the Works of Piero della Francesca British Isles 125 Germany 127 Italy 127 Index i^o LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Portrait of a Lady . Poldi-Peszoli Gallery, Milan Frontispiece Portrait of Piero della Francesca Palazzo Marini, Borgo San Sepolcro i o Sigismondo Malatesta and St. Sigismund San Francesco, Rimini i6 Head of Malatesta San Francesco, Rimini i8 The Recognition of the Cross by the Queen of Sheba San Francesco, Arezso 28 Heads of Women, from the above-named San Francesco, Arezzo 30 Defeat and Death of Chosroes . . San Francesco, Arezzo 32 Invention and Verification of the Holy Cross San Francesco, Arezzo 34 Details from the above-named . . San Francesco, Arezzo 34 Heraclius restores the Cross to Jerusalem San Francesco, Arezzo 34 Bearing the Wood of the Holy Cross San Francesco, Arezzo 36 Judas drawn up from the Pit . . San Francesco, Arezzo 38 The Vision of Constantine . . . Sa7i Fra7icesco, Arezzo 38 The Annunciation San Francesco, Arezzo 40 St. Mary Magdalen Cathedral, Arezzo 40 The Resurrection of Christ Miitiicipio, Borgo San Sepolcro 44 Altar-piece of the Madonna della Misericordia Church of the Hospital, Borgo San Sepolcro 50 The Deposition of Christ (predella of the above-named) Church of the Hospital, Borgo San Sepolcro 52 Baptism of Christ National Gallery, London 54 San Ludovico Muni^ipio, Borgo San Sepolcro 54 Hercules Villa Caitani, Borgo San Sepolcro 56 Madonna del Parto .... Cemetery Chapel, Monterchio 58 St. Jerome Accademia, Venice 62 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I'ACE Madonna and Child with Angels Santa Maria delle Grazie, Sinigaglia 62 The Nativity National Gallery, London 64 St. Michael National Gallery, LoTidon 64. Virgin and Child with Angels Christ Church Library, Oxford 66 Portrait of a Lady National Gallery, London 68 Portrait of a Lady National Gallery, London 68 The Duke of Urbino Uffizi Gallery, Florence 74 The Duchess of Urbino .... Uffizi Gallery, Florence 74 Allegory relating to Duke Federigo of Urbino Uffizi Gallery, Florence 78 Allegory relating to the Duchess of Urbino Uffizi Gallery, Florence 78 Virgin and Child with Angels and Saints, and Federigo, Duke of Urbino Brera Gallery, Milan 80 Architectural Subject Ducal Palace, Urbino 82 Portrait of a Youth San Francesco, Arezzo 84 Portrait of a Man San Francesco, Arezzo 86 Altar-piece — Virgin and Child with Saints Pinacoteca, Perugia 90 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 1406 {circa). Born at Borgo San Sepolcro of Benedetto dei Franceschi and Romana di Perino. 1439-1445. Working with Domenico Veneziano at Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. 1445. Receives a commission for tlie altar-piece, the Madonna della Misericordia, now in the chapel of the hospital at Borgo San Sepolcro. 1446. With Domenico Veneziano at Loreto. 1447-1450? At Rome. 1 45 1. Paints the fresco and portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta at Rimini. 1452 ? At Ferrara. 1453-1469. Working at Arezzo in San Francesco and in the cathedral, and at intervals at Borgo San Sepolcro. In 1454 he receives a commission from the Augustinians at Borgo San Sepolcro to paint an Assumption of the Virgin, and in 1469 he signs a receipt for payment of the balance due for the same. In 1460 he paints the fresco of San Ludovico now in the Municipio at Borgo San Sepolcro, and in 1466 the Company of the Annunziata at Arezzo commissions him to paint a processional banner, the final balance due for the same being paid in 1468 at Bastia, a village near Borgo San Sepolcro. 1469. He stays some time in Urbino as the guest, or at the charges of Giovanni Santi. b X CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 1478. He paints a fresco (mentioned by Vasari) in the hos- pital of the Misericordia in Borgo San Sepolcro. 1487. Makes his will. 1492. Dies. BIBLIOGRAPHY Berenson, B. Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance. 1897 Cavalcaselle e Crowe. Firenze, 1S86 CoRRAZiNi, Francesco. Appunti Storici e filologici suUa valle Tiberina Toscana. Borgo San Sepolcro, 1874 Dennistoun, James. Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino. London, 185 1 Gruyer, F. a. Les Vierges de Raphael. Paris, 1869 Gruyer, G. L'Art Ferrarais. Paris, 1895 Harck, G. Gli affreschi del Palazzo di Schifanoia. Ferrara, 18S6 MtJNTZ, E. Leonardo da Vinci. London, 1S98 Passavant. Raphael d'Urbin et son pere. Paris, i860 PiCHi, G. F. La Vita e le Opere di Piero della Francesca. Borgo San Sepolcro, 1893 Pungeleoni. Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi. Urbino, 1822 Rio, a. F. L'Art Chretien. Paris, 1861 RosiNi. Storia della pittura Italiana. Pisa, 1841 Vasari. Vite, con annotazione di Gaetano Milanesi. Firenze, 1878-85 Witting, Felix. Piero dei Franceschi. Strassburg, 1898 PIERO DELIA FRANCESCA CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY '"I ^O those people whose imaginations are adequately X sentient to the true message of art, the personality of a great master reveals itself like a radiant gleam of colour in some beloved and oft visited canvas — some climax of sound in a symphony or concerto. The colour, getting and spending beauty in its perfect en- vironment, becomes a mere patch of red or yellow when parted from its setting, and a similar degeneration be- falls the musical phrase when heard dissociated from the prelude and sequence which helped to build up its dignity and expression. But the case of the hj'pothe- tical master stands on a somewhat different ground. However completely he may fill his place in tlie hier- archy of art, however much of charm may evaporate when he comes to be treated individually and apart, the loss here will not be so manifest as in either of the instances just cited. He remains a potent operative force, a subject for treatment only one degree less in- teresting than the whole corpus of art itself. The complex series of ideas, serving to constitute the impression whichthe sound oi" the name of a particular a 2 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA master may suggest, will flow from a dozen varying sources ; from legends of the young student sitting in the bottega of some teacher whose name is only just rescued from oblivion by the reflected lustre of his pupil's fame ; from the spectacle of the finished master moving a stately figure through courts and cities, rever- enced alike by cultivated churchmen — and here and there a prince of the same temper — and by cut-throat nobles and coarse-fibred traffickers and craftsmen ; and from the appreciation of the keen intellectual storm and stress amidst which he lived, and which he helped to realize and perpetuate in marble or on canvas. But by far the most powerful and abiding of these impressions are those which haunt the memory after studying the fading and perhaps half-perished fruit of his genius in some mouldering church or dismal pinacoteca in a mori- bund Italian town — impressions which likewise give a quasi - sanctification to the visit paid to its squalid melancholy precincts. And when these separate impressions and rays of memory shall have run into focus — when we shall have formulated mentally the personality of our master — this personality will still remain something vaporous and fleeting, something difficult to apprehend and to in- terpret with precision and unity, even to kindred intelli- gences, unless the exponent shall happen to be endowed with certain gifts of sympathy and expression. And unless there is a likelihood that this feat may be accom- plished with moderate success, unless the written words can be invested with the vital qualities of things, the task will not be worth the trouble. A correct and painstaking narrative of the Master's INTRODUCTORY 3 life and movements ; an exhaustive eleuchus of his work, with the genuine disentangled from the false and doubt- ful ; a carefully drawn-up table of the months, or weeks, or days he may have spent in the studio of this or that teacher ; or a sincere and laborious attempt to trace the influence exercised on him by some particular teacher in works subsequently produced, may be held to be within the literary scope of the majority of those who find their chief joy in art, and desire to record their impressions of the same ; but treatises composed of such materials as these may quite easily fail to inform the reader of the real mission of the central figure, or to illustrate his position in relation to his contemporaries and surroundings. This is scarcely the place to dogmatize as to the nature of the life-giving touch requisite to vivify such dry bones as the aforesaid. Suffice it to say that the attainment of moderate success in this department of letters is no small honour ; and that failure, disappointing as it must be, is no disgrace. To treat of Piero della Francesca ' on the lines above designated is not an easy task. It is true that as much is known concerning his artistic development as is known about the careers of many of the masters whose names bulk more largely than his in the world's estimate. There are on record certain details of his student life and training; of his by-studies and excursions into the field ' It has recently become the fashion to write his name Piero dei P'ranceschi, but until some authoritative rule is introduced into the nomenclature of Italian painters it seems futile to apply to Piero any other style than that which has always been applied to him as a painter. Judging from his signature on his \vorks he would probably have called himself Pietro del Borgo. 4 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA of mathematics ; and of the pupils he taught. His legacy of painting, the greater part of which has been passed as genuine by the most rigid purists of the modern school of experts, survives, though in many cases irre- parably injured. We know, albeit imperfectly, that he was at different periods of his life the honoured guest at the splendid and cultivated court of Urbino in the days of the good Duke Federigo, that he also lived for a time in the sinister atmosphere of Malatesta's castle at Rimini ; while Fra Luca Pacioli, a citizen of Borgo San Sepol- cro, and one of the leading mathematicians of his age, writes in his " Architettura," "and illustrious amongst mathematicians is Piero della Francesca, who in this our day is recognized as the monarch of painting and of architecture as well, as is proved by the works he has produced with his brush, frescoes, pictures on panels, some in oil and some in water-colour {giiazso), in Ur- bino, Bologna, Ferrara, Rimini, Ancona, and in our own country, especially in the city of Arezzo in the great chapel of the choir behind the high altar of San Francesco, one of the most excellent works of Italy and praised by all men. And he is likewise renowned for his treatise on perspective which is now in the library of our illustrious Duke of Urbino." Vasari treats Piero more suo, and is perhaps more anecdotic than usual, but it must be admitted that these details of his life and personality, interesting as they may be, render little help in the task of fathom- ing the secret of the charm which holds all those who study his pictures deeply and intelligently enough to realize the strange and subtle power of his idealization INTRODUCTORY 5 and method, or in teaching us why it is that his low- toned, faded and half-perished frescoes in Arezzo and Borgo San Sepolcro have power to stir the mental activities of his true \-otaries more effectively than do the stately and gorgeous canvases of the Venetian masters. There is a view that is now greatly in vogue concern- ing all 'great masters, and Piero is one of them — that their strength lies chiefly in what is called their imper- sonality, and there is a certain amount of truth in this contention. It is maintained that an artist who lets his work be signed all over with his mental and emotional idio.syncrasies has no claim for a place amongst, or even near to, the seats of the elect. A great orator, when he sets to work to prove his case, brings forth his arguments carefully selected and subordinated and presses them home in due sequence with flawless logic and appropriate illustration. He presents his work in such fashion that it stands out a masterpiece ready to be considered, if need be, entirely apart from the cause to advance which it may have been spoken, and never trusts to produce an effect by tricking out his speech with tags of his own feelings and preferences. It is a commonplace of the courts that an advocate must be at his wit's end when he bases his discourse on his personal conviction of the justice of his client's cause ; and with a great painter the same rule is held to apply. Howc\-er powerfully he may be stirred by the original impression of the scene or thing which he proposes to represent, he must be careful to keep his work free from all suspicion of prompt- ings, excited by the subjective emotion, at the moment when he first gathered consciousness of the thing he is moved to reproduce. 6 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA We are taught, therefore, that the impersonal artist — to repeat the current formula — is he who refrains from reproducing his own feelings in the delineation of the subject chosen. Whatever else may happen, his picture must never show itself to be ■\\'hat the best judges tell us a masterpiece of literature is bound to be, to wit, the revelation of a personality. The painter must reproduce his subject as it has presented itself to his consciousness, unmodified entirely by the working of any emotion which may have possessed him either before or during its creation, and we are told that, if he has followed obedi- ently the precepts aforesaid, we, when we look at his work, shall see it as he saw it, and feel as he felt. To some this will be a hard saying, and, indeed, the theory of impersonality is much easier to sustain with regard to the work of a portrait-painter or of a land- scapist than with regard to that of an artist whose aim is to produce an imaginative work, or one expressive of human passion or achievement. In the world of por- traiture the finest work will be unquestionably that of the master gifted with reticence, the faculty of self- effacement, the clear vision to fathom and the sure rapid touch to perpetuate the essential characteristics of the sitter. In the portrait of an individual person the ex- pression of the painter's emotions or idiosyncrasies is entirely out of place. We only want the forcible, vera- cious, and significant expression of the personality of the sitter as the painter first grasped it, but it is doubtful whether this rule \\-ilI apply equally when the painter of a great allegory or dramatic episode in history throA\-s his vision on the canvas, or elicits it from the yielding clay. With regard to the views aforesaid, we have it on the INTRODUCTORY 7 authority of Leonardo da Vinci that one of the most common defects in the portrait-painter is his tendency to produce the most salient marks of his own personality in the presentation of his sitters. In the treatise on painting (cap. 108) he writes : " It is a great defect in artists to repeat the same movements, faces, and draperies in one and the same composition, and to give to most counten- ances the features of the author himself I have often felt surprise at this, for I have known many artists who in their figures seem to have portrayed themselves, so that their own attitudes and gestures have been repro- duced in the population of their pictures. If a painter is quick and vivacious in gesture and language, his figures have an equal vivacity. If he is pious, his figures, with their drooped heads, seem pious too. If he is indolent, his figures are laziness personified. If he lacks propor- tion, his figures are also badly built. Finally, if he is mad, the state of his mind is reflected in his work, which lacks cohesion and reality. His personages look about them like people in a dream. And so all the distinctive features of the pictures are regulated by the author's character." And again, in another place (cap. 58), he goes on as if to show that, however valuable the gift of imper- sonality may be to a portrait-painter, it is not a quality to be desired in certain other fields of art. " Amongst those whose profession it is to paint portraits, the men who make the best likenesses — i.e., those who are in the highest degree impersonal — are the least effectual when the composition of an historical picture is in question." ' Bearing in mind the remarks of this illustrious master, ' E. Miintz, " Leonardo da Vinci." London, 1898, vol. i., pp. 237- 238. 8 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA we may well ask how an artist, bundle of quivering nerves as he is, should, in the elaboration of some great episode of dramatic passion, be able to let his production emerge as something entirely external to himself, and to keep it untouched by his personality ; and the answer, in the case of the majority of inquirers, will be that he cannot. An illustration to help to show how the artist's temperament may be manifested in his work, and that work still remain one of the wonders of the world, maj- be found in Michael Angelo's sculptures in the sacristy of San Lorenzo at Florence. Surely any student of the times who has mastered the political situation in Ital)' during the pontificate of the ill-starred Clement VII., and at the same time gained an insight into the genius and character of Michael Angelo, and into the political passions and aspirations which moved him scarcely less powerfully than the afflatus of his art, will be able to discover for himself the significance of those wonderful marble shapes without the prompting of Mr. Symonds' florid, but at the same time just and appropriate de- scription of them. The sculptor was racked and tor- mented by his undisciplinable temper, by the ingratitude of patrons, and by the ruin which had fallen on Italy in the sack of Rome and in the enslavement of Florence. He was, moreover, ignorant of these new rules which are supposed to govern contemporary artists and critics, so he let every line of his creation give token of the emotions which possessed him as he tore these miracu- lous forms from the envelope of circumjacent stone. There is no need to dilate here on the amazing re- sult achieved INTRODUCTORY 9 The world has to thank the indomitable force of Michael Angelo's passion — a passion aggravated no doubt by the consciousness that he was spending his best energies in the glorification of the race of assassins and spoilers who had ruined the liberty he adored — for the Niglit Bind the Dawn and the Statue of Lorenzo ; had he listened to and obeyed the teachings of the gospel of universal impersonality, the world would now lack these masterpieces. It is true that the world has also to deplore the outrage done to Art by the maladroit am- bition of his imitators, who set to work to copy his lines and dimensions without one prompting thrill of sym- pathetic emotion. To work as these impostors worked, to writhe and struggle in the effort to produce an outward sign of a feeling which was entirely lacking in them, was to sin beyond forgiveness ; but to let genuine passion blossom and flower as it did in the aforesaid masterpieces was to achieve the grandest triumph of art. It has seemed necessary to labour the foregoing point at some length in order to leave the ground clear for the consideration of the essential questions as to the spirit in which Piero della Francesca worked, and as to the effect generally produced by his paintings upon those who have given careful study both to the pictures themselves and to the age in which they were created. To the first of these questions, as to the moving spirit of Piero's work, the answer must be that it was absolute sincerity — a sincerity which was the fruit of careful study and heaped-up knowledge, rather than of an}- special inherent tendency in that direction. Man\- of his contemporaries and forerunners may have been equally well endowed with sympathy and insight, but no single one of them had 10 PIERO DELL A FRANCESCA the interpretative skill which he possessed — Masaccio excepted. Paolo Uccello may have preceded him as a perspectivist and Pollajuolo may have left more carefully drawn studies of anatomy, but neither of these was Piero's equal in the faculty of presenting to the beholder the true significance of things seen in such wise as to let their meaning be grasped as something by itself, and unalloyed by any other impression, save that of his own informing passion. To the second question, as to the message which his pictures bring, the reply will naturally be less simple. The full message will not be the same in cases where temperaments are sharply diverse, but it will not be rash to assert that the vast majority of .those students, who have studied Piero as he deserves to be studied, will be agreed as to those of his characteristics which are most strongly operative in formulating this mes- sage. They will bring forward his distinctive reticence and his strong individuality. A very brief considera- tion would demonstrate how naturally properties like these would characterize a brush moved as Piero's was by the traditions and practice of the school in which his hand and eye were trained, but this consideration may best be entertained when the time comes for dis- cussing the method and mental attitude of the school and of the master who taught him. Before attempting this task, which must necessarily be retrospective, it will be convenient to give a brief outline of Piero's birth and early life. Private /■lnttc\ \_Siiiuor Frnncaclii-Mariui, of Borgo Sati Sepokr P(JKTKAIT OF I'lERO DELLA KRAXCESCA CHAPTER II BIOGRArmCAL. RIMINI AND THE VATICAN PIERO DI BENEDETTO DEI FRAXCESCHI, to give him his full name, \\as born at Borgo San Sepolcro, a city lying in the valley of the Upper Tiber, nestling at the foot of the Apennines and situated about midway between Arezzo and Urbino. It has been fruitful of painters, and claims amongst its citizens such men as Raffaelle del Colle, Santi di Tito, Matteo di Giovanni, and Cristofero Gherardi. The exact date of Piero's birth cannot be fixed. He died in 1492, and if, as Vasari states, he lived eighty-six years, he must have been born in 1406. His name is sometimes written as Pietro del Borgo ; and, until recent years, he has been known in the world of Art as Piero della Francesca, a style which has been the cause of no little confusion in defining his family status. According to Vasari's account he was so named after his mother, a certain Francesca, who was pregnant with him at the time of her husband's death ; her name having been given to him for the reason that she had brought him up, and assisted him to rise to the level which good fortune had allotted to him. Rosini' repeats Vasari's error, and F. A. Gruyer,'^ writing as late as 1869, furnishes some ad- ' "Storia della Pittura Italiana." Pisa, vol. iii., p. 36. - " Les \'ierges de Raphael." Paris, 1869, vol. i., p. 471. 12 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA ditional details to the effect that Piero was the natural child of a poor woman who had been basely abandoned by her seducer, but he gives no authority for this state- ment. M. Gruyer, however, is copying or even amplify- ing Vasari's account without inquiry, a practice he again adopts in endorsing Vasari's mistakes about Piero being summoned to Urbino by " Guidobaldo Feltre," and about his working with Bramantino di Milano in the Vatican. In 1874, Signor Francesco Corrazini,^ after a search in the municipal archives at Borgo San Sepolcro, dis- covered the fact that Piero's father was a certain Bene- detto dei Franceschi, or della Francesca, a member of a family which had been established in the city for three generations, and had given seven members to the Con- siglio del Commune. This Benedetto married Romana di Perino di Carlo da Monterchi. Signor Gaetano Milanesi in his latest edition of Vasari - has treated in full the question of Piero's descent, and has given a genealogical tree of the Franceschi family ; he has, more- over, ascertained that Benedetto, Piero's father, died somewhere about the }-ear 1465 — a fact which upsets Vasari's statement that the boy's education was left entirely to the care of his mother. She, according to Vasari, died just at the time when Piero had finished his work in Rome. All details of his earl}' life are wanting, and no one knows what art training he received — or indeed whether he received any at all — until he became the pupil of ^ " Appunti storici e filoloffici sulla Valle tiberina toscana." San Sepolcro, 1874. •' Firenze. G. C. Sansoni, 187S-1885. All references to \'asari are made to this edition. BIOGRAPHICAL 13 Domenico Veneziano, a painter who at this time enjoyed considerable vogue. In spite of his name, Venice had no share in Domenico's art training, the character of his work being more suggestive of Florentine influences and the study of Donatello's sculpture than of the teaching of any other school. Some historians in glancing at these early years profess to find in Piero's style traces of Sienese teaching, while others are con- fident that he must have studied under some miniaturist of Gubbio or Perugia — Matteo di Cambio, for choice — on account of the method he afterwards used in handling finely-drawn figures.' In 1438, Domenico Veneziano was in Perugia engaged in decorating the Baglioni palace with portraits of illustrious warriors, civilians, and philosophers. This visit is fixed with some degree of certainty by a letter written by him from Perugia this same year to Piero dei Medici at Florence, in which he begs Piero to use his interest to secure for him a com- mission from Cosmo to paint a certain altar-piece.' It is very likely, though there is no direct evidence on the point, that Piero may have worked with Domenico as his pupil at Perugia ; it is not until 1439, when Domenico went to Florence to paint the chapels in the Ospedale and in Santa Maria Novella, that the names of these t\\'o painters are associated.' From 1439 to 1445 Domenico was at work in the ' Rosini, op. cit., \ol. iii., p. 37. " Vasari, vol. ii., p. 674, note. ' Signer Milanesi has discovered in the hospital accounts the following details, which are cited by Cavalcaselle e Crowe, vol. v., p. 121 : " I\I. Domenicho di Bartolomeio da Vinezia che dipinge la chapella niaggiore di .Santo Gidio de 'dare a di vii di Sett. F. 44 ; ed de 'dare a di .\ii di Sett. F. 2. 5. 15. Pietro Benedetto dal Borgo a San Sepolchro sta coUui." 14 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA chapel of the hospital, and also in the chapel of Sant' Egidio in the church itself, and he took his young pupil with him, his workman assistant at the time being Bicci di Lorenzo. Piero, at the end of this period, must have parted company with his master for a time, for in 1445 he received a commission from the Brotherhood of the Misericordia at Borgo San Sepolcro to paint an altar- piece for the chapel of their hospital. It must have been after the completion of this work that, according to Vasari, they joined company again, and went to decorate the sacristy of Our Lady at Loreto, where they re- mained till they were driven away by fear of the plague.' It is known that the plague raged in the Marches in 1447, and for several years after," wherefore it is per- missible to indicate 1446- 1447 as the period of Piero's stay in Loreto. In his life of Domenico Veneziano,' Vasari tells another story, to wit, that the two painters went to Loreto before Domenico began his work in Santa Maria Novella ; but, if this \ersion be accepted, his allusion to the outbreak of plague loses its meaning. As is the case in Florence, all trace of their work at Loreto has vanished, though Vasari asserts that Domenico and his pupil began the decoration of the roof of the sacristy, and further suggests that this work of Piero's, which was possibly left unfinished through fear of the plague, may have been completed later on by' his pupil Luca Signorelli.' ^ Vasari, vol. ii., p. 495. - Calcagni, " Memorie istoriche di Recanati ; " Torsellini, " De Historia Lauretana." Milano, 1606. ' Vasari, vol, ii., p. 674. * This could not have been, as iiignorelli painted entirely in the BIOGRAPHICAL 15 In 1445 Piei'o painted what is probably the earliest of his surviving works, the altar-piece in the chapel of the Misericordia at Borgo San Sepolcro. If exact chrono- logical order were to be observed, this work would be noticed at once, but it seems more convenient to con- sider at the same time all his paintings still remain- ing in his birthplace. Vasari records that Piero went direct from Loreto to paint the Bacci chapel in San Francesco at Arezzo, but there are good reasons for rejecting this statement. Nothing is really known of his work for the next four years, but in 145 i his where- abouts and one of his most important frescoes can be identified. In this year Piero went or was summoned to Rimini, where Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was engaged in considering I.eo Battista Alberti's plans for the recon- struction of the Cathedral of San Francesco. Malatesta was one of the strangest figures on the political stage of Italy in the fifteenth century. The son of a father almost as infamous as himself, he was a man stained with the most abominable vices, and at the same time an ardent lover of art and powerfully swayed by the revived pagan spirit of the time. He was cruel, treacherous, and licentious, sparing neither wife, nor son, nor daughter, and there is a lurid tale of his calcu- lated villainy to be noted later on in connection with the ill-fated Od' Antonio of Urbino. A man with Piero's artistic and scientific equipment would be sure of a \\elcome at Malatesta's court, and on present existing church at Loreto, which was not begun till 1468. Domenico and his pupil might well have left paintings in the old church, which was then destroyed. 1 6 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA Piero's side there was, moreover, a special reason why he, as a citizen of Borgo San Sepolcro, should pay his respects to the Lord of Rimini, for in the preceding century Carlo and Galeotto Malatesta had taken upon themselves the duty of safeguarding the independence of San Sepolcro, and without this protection it is highly probable that the little city would have been absorbed by the Republic of Florence long before its final annexa- tion in 1 44 1. There is extant a letter written in 1449 by Sigismondo from the camp of the Venetians, who under his leader- ship were besieging Cremona, to Giovanni dei Medici,' concerning the decoration of the new buildings at Rimini, in which the following words occur : " As to the master painter, seeing that the chapels are yet too newly built, it would be well to defer the painting of the same for the present, for it would be labour thrown away. My object is as follows. I wish, until the chapels shall be ready to be decorated, to employ him on some other work, some- thing which will suit his purpose and mine as well ; and this so that I may have him at my disposition when I want him, and because he is, as you say, in want of money. I propose to make an agreement with him and to advance him a certain sum, and give him security whereby he may claim the balance when he wishes to have it. Therefore, will you kindly let him know what my requirements are, and tell him that I mean to treat him well, so that he may come and live and die in my country ? " ' ' Second son of Cosimo the Great. - Tonini, "Rimini nella Signoria dei Malatesti." Rimini, 1887, \ol. v., p. 297. rrh'utr f>l:,-lo\ SI(;iSM()\!)0 MALATESTA KNKEUx, SDW^^'^-^'^^^"^^ ;-- PAN - F > wrmm LINi; BEFORE ST. SKJISMUNl) BIOGRAPHICAL i-j Signer Pichi ' in his life of Piero is of opinion that this letter must refer to Piero, but the use of the expression " maestro dipintore " rather suggests a reference to Domenico Veneziano. Sigismondo must have known of the relative position of the two painters in the past, and it seems more likely that in writing to a Medici at Florence he should allude to a painter with a great Florentine reputation, rather than to a young man little known as Piero then was ; but, whatever may have been his meaning, Piero certainly was the painter commis- sioned to decorate the walls of the Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini as soon as the mortar might be sufficiently dry to take the colour, and now, in the Cappella delle Reliqine there, we may stand face to face with what is almost certainly the earliest of Piero's surviving frescoes.' It is a large composition containing a portrait of Sigis- mondo himself kneeling before the seated figure of Sigismund of Burgundy, who fills the place of patron saint. The latter sits on the left of the picture dressed in kingly robes, with a peaked velvet cap on his head and orb and sceptre in his hands. Sigismondo, with his face given in exact profile, kneels in the centre of the scene, and behind him lie two wolf-hounds magni- ficently drawn and full of life. The first impression the fresco gives is one characteristically distinctive of the Umbrian school, a splendid generosity of space. The figures of the men and dogs and the architectural details ^ " La Vita e le Opere di Piero della Francesca." San Sepolcro, 1893, p. 25. - E. Miintz, " L'Arte Italiana nel Quattrocento" (Milano, 1895), gives an earlier date, 1445, to the fresco of the Res-urrection at Borgo San Sepolcro; but this is purely hypothetical (p. 616) C i8 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA occupy a good part of the wall space, but behind the figure of Sigismondo the eye may range over distance beyond distance towards a group of low hills like those which rise from the valley of the Tiber looking from Borgo San Sepolcro in the direction of Anghiari. The composition is simple, but thejust balance between the two somewhat incongruous figures, and the way in which the hounds are grouped give token of careful posing, though it may be noted that Piero was as yet too much absorbed in striving after the perfect rendering of the human figure to give adequate care to composition. In this instance it must be admitted that he has succeeded far better with the living original than with the idealized figure of Sigismund, which, though the face is majestic and well modelled, is wanting in dignity and somewhat commonplace. In Sigismondo's portrait the careless and shallow treatment of the draperies brings out in forcible relief the marvellous individuality of the head, and, in lesser degree, of the folded hands. Here indeed the impersonality or self-effacement of the artist is something to be thankful for. Piero has set down just enough to reveal the true character of the man, and not one jot more. Sigismondo is in a devotional attitude, but, in his impassive figure, and in his sphinx- like face, with its closely pressed lips and narrow slits of eyes, there is a suggestion that his reverence is of the most perfunctory nature, and that he is conveying no slight honour on his patron saint by this act of devotion. Both of the figures are draped so as to reveal adequately the shapes underneath,' and the framework of archi- ' Dr. Felix Witting, in his " Piero dei Franceschi " (Strassburg, 189S), p. 28, tries to show that Piero must have previously learnt - >!a>i /-h.Hc, XMal.dfita Tiinf'l.-ViaN Fr.uuiso'), HEAIi Ci]' MALATESTA BIOGRAPHICAL 19 tectural detail in which they are set is admirably drawn and in perfect harmony with the figures themselves, an achievement due no doubt in some degree to the study of the frescoes of Paolo Uccello in the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, but still more to the work of Albert! executed on the exterior of the cathedral. The rim of the carpet on which Sigismondo kneels is enriched with an exquisite pattern, and on the wall to the right is a medallion in which is represented the Castle of Rimini, with the inscription, " Castellum Sigismundum MCCCCXLVI," a fact which misled the author of the " Pitture delle Chiese di Rimini," in that he has given 1446 as the date of the fresco. This oversight is all the stranger seeing that under the panel in the boldest lettering is written, " Sanctus Sigismundus Sigismundus Pandolfus Malatesta Petri de Burgo opus MCCCCLI.'" In this wonderful picture there is perhaps a suggestion that Piero was touched by the prevalent sentiment of alienation from the current manifestations of religious belief. There is certainly nothing to show that he as the decorator, or Leo Battista Alberti as the architect of the Tempio Malatestiano, was at all outraged in religious feeling by the neo-Pagan character of Malatesta's enter- prise, or by the commission given to rear and adorn this monument dedicated " Divse Isotta: Sacrum " ; nor is there any record of contemporary censure passed upon how to paint rich draperies from studying the work of Roger van der Weyden at Ferrara. If Dr. Witting had studied the Virgin and Child in the National Gallery by Domenico Veneziano, he might have been able to give a more probable source of Piero's skill in painting brocade. ' Dennistoun, in his "Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino," 1851, vol. ii., p. 198, also gives an erroneous date, i.e., 1448. 20 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA either of them ; and Sigismondo, sinister figure as he was, seems to have raised little contemporary scandal by his manner of life. A modern writer, M. Rio, in his work " L'Art Chretien," has been moved to charge Piero with what was, according to the writer's view, nothing less than an act of public profanation, in consenting to per- petuate by his handiwork the memory of Sigismondo's mistress, Isotta, the height of indecency being reached by the portrayal of a monster so infamous as Sigis- mondo kneeling reverently before his patron saint. A statement like this is indeed a strange admission of impotence, on the part of a man professing to write history, to realize the sentiment and the tendencies of the age in which Piero painted. Writing from the orthodox standpoint, M. Rio can only see one side of the question, and fails to realize that an indictment, quite as strong as his own against Piero, might be drawn against any of the painters who accepted the patronage of Sixtus IV. or Leo X. The Malatesta portrait has given opportunity for another ineptitude of criticism, scarcely less astonishing, to Signor Rosini, who, when discussing this work, de- clares that but for the name signed thereon he would never have believed that Piero could have painted it. This historian of Art further remarks in another place, while writing of the great fresco of the Resurrection at Borgo San Sepolcro, that this, the most characteristic creation that Piero has left, " seems to resemble the work of Luca Signorelli rather than that of Piero." ' Bearing ' Rosini, op. at., vol. iii., p. 38. BIOGRAPHICAL 21 this statement in mind it will be well, for the future, to receive his criticisms with caution. Pisanello and Gen- tile da Fabriano also worked at Rimini, but there is no evidence to show that they and Picro were there at the same time. Piero's wanderings in Itah' and the dates of his sojourn in various cities cannot be followed exactly or fixed with any chronological accuracy. Dates must be largely hypothetical. An}- structural narrative that may be attempted must needs be raised on the untrust- worthy foundation of \'asari's record, which gives little else than a sequence of e\'ents without dates, and with no attempt at chronological order. With regard to Piero's visit to Rome, Vasari states that he was sum- moned thither by Pope Nicolas V., who became pope in 1447, and that while he was there he worked with Bramantino di Milano in decorating the upper chambers of the Vatican. A long controversy has raged over the identit}' of this coadjutor of Piero's. Signor Milanesi, in his commentary on the life of Garofalo,' declares that Vasari has entirely mistaken the facts : that this Bramantino who worked in tlie Vatican was not Bra- mantino di Milano at all, but Bartolommeo Suardi, detto il Bramantino, and that he worked, not in company with Piero, but later on with Perugino, Signorelli, and others. With regard to the presence of Piero in any particular place at any particular time, the data given by Vasari are just as vague, and an attempt to follow them up leads ' \'asari, \ol. vi., p. 528. Bramantino di Milano was Agostino Bramantini. \'a5ari (vol. iv., p. 14S) erroneously describes him as Ihe master of Bramante of Urbino, the great architect. 22 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA from one quagmire of hypothesis to another. Piero is fixed at Rimini in 145 1, and it is impossible to say with certainty whether his visit to Rome took place between this date and 1455, the j'ear Pope Nicolas died, or in the period between 1447 and 145 1, though the balance of probability inclines towards the earlier time ; and when Rome is reached, there is just as much uncertainty about divining the existence, or the position, or the sub- ject, of any picture he may have designed or painted. After, therefore, giving a short summary of what tradi- tion says, it seems that the only labour which promises to repay the trouble will be that spent in searching for any traces which the presence of Piero in Rome may have left, and in considering later on whether these traces were of a nature to influence the work of the painters who may have been his contemporaries, or who may have succeeded him in the task of decorating the Vatican apartments. It is stated by Vasari that Piero painted in the Vatican two large historical frescoes which contained the representations of many of the illustrious personages of the time, amongst whom were Charles VII. of France, Niccolo Fortebraccio, Antonio Colonna, Francesco Car- mignuola, Giovanni Vitellesco, Cardinal Bessarion, Fran- cesco Spinola, and Battista da Canneto. The King of France had done good service to the Pope by procuring in 1448 the abdication of Felix V. (Amadeus of Savoy), who had been elected Pope by the Council of Basel, and had thus extinguished the last embers of the long schism. It was no doubt to acknowledge and com- memorate this service that the Pope desired to let the French king's effigy stand upon the walls of the Vati- BIOGRAPHICAL 23 can.' Whatever the fresco may have been it has perished entirely, and not a hne or shadow exists to help to reveal what it may have been like ; and its de- struction is said to have been brought about in this wise. After Julius II. had been elevated to the Papacy in 1502, the master of the ceremonies suggested, when conducting him through the Vatican, that, before the occupation by the Pope of the residential apartments, the effigies of his predecessor, Alexander VI., ought to be removed from the walls, whereupon the Pope cried out : " And even if the portraits be taken awa}', will not the very aspect of the rooms themselves be enough to recall the presence of the simoniacal Jew who lately inhabited them ? " Then they showed to the Pope the suite of rooms on the upper floor which — as has al- ready been noticed — had been decorated by Piero della Francesca and Bramantino, and the Pope approved of these apartments, but not of the paintings on the walls. He determined to renew the entire scheme of decoration, and when he had duly matured his plans he summoned to Rome the most celebrated painters of Italy, Signorelli, Perugino, Pinturicchio, and Sodoma, to undertake the work. But soon after they had made a beginning Raphael was introduced to the Pope, and the whole of the aforesaid artists were dismissed, and part of the work they had already completed was taken down to give room for Raphael's compositions. The earlier frescoes done by Piero della Francesca and Bramantino suffered the same fate ; but Raphael showed himself laudably solicitous both for the cause of art and for the ' Felibieii, " Entretiens sur les Peintres,'' etc. London, 1705, vol. i., p. 121. 24 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA feelings of his brother-artists ; wherefore he managed to preserve the work on the ceihng of the Sala dell' Eliodoro done by Perugino, Sodoma, and Peruzzi, and, before removing the frescoes painted by Piero and Bramantino, he caused copies to be made of the same, most likely by the hand of Giulio Romano, who is said to have given them to Paolo Giovio. These copies are supposed to have been the originals of the wood engrav- ings in the Palazzo Giovio at Come,' but it is somewhat strange that in the " Elogia virorum bellica virtute illus- trium," by Paolo Giovio (Basil., 1571), the name of Carmagnola is the only one of those mentioned by Vasari which appears. The great fresco which was painted in the Vatican Library, representing Sixtus IV. surrounded by his Cardinals, with a portrait of the learned Platina kneeling in the centre, was for a long time assigned to Piero ; but the evidence which now gives it to his pupil, Melozzo da Forli, is indisputable. During the structural altera- tions made in the Vatican by Leo XII. this fresco was transferred to canvas and removed to the Pinacoteca, where it now hangs. More than one attempt has been made to show that Piero never visited Rome at all,^ but there seems to be every reason to accept Vasari's state- ment in this particular instance, since it is confirmed by the author of an anonymous life of Raphael," who states that Raphael, after he had been called away by the Pope from the work he was engaged upon in Florence to decorate the Vatican, was somewhat annoyed when he ' Vasari, vol. ii., p. 492. ^ Schmarsow, " Melozzo da Forli," p. 59. " Ed. Ang-iolo ComoUi. Roma, 1791. BIOGRAPHICAL 25 arrived in Rome to find that some of the apartments had already been painted and some were in the course of decoration ; Pietro del Borgo, Bramante da Milano, and II Cortonese (Signorelli) having been amongst the artists called in to execute the work. Nicolas v., after having initiated his great project, did not divest himself of all control over the painters he had engaged to decorate the Palace of the Vatican. He seems to have detected in Piero qualities and talents which would find more legitimate outlet in the produc- tion of a great historical work than in the multiplication of altar-pieces or religious pictures of the sort then in fashion, wherefore he set him to work on the fresco con- taining the portraits of the King of France and others in the Sala d'Eliodoro. In using this discrimination the Pope showed himself to be a sound philosopher, and as capable a judge of art as he was of letters. He saw how asceticism, the manifestation of a frame of mind with which he had little sympathy, was still a potent inspiration in art. In spite of the humanist revival in letters the tradition of Giotto was still the dominant one in painting, which hesitated to deliver any message other than that which religion called for, or to reveal on canvas any aspect of the world in verisimilitude. Pope Nicolas might well have recognized in Piero a disciple of the scientific school, one who was feeling about how he might cast aside for good the constant portrayal of a recognized type, and let his art have free course in the reproduction of the world as he saw it, a fitting champion to war against the revival and perhaps the perpetuation of mediaeval sentiment. It is a fact worth noticing that, in the first great work of painting undertaken and 26 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA executed under the direction of Nicolas V., there is a perceptible ebb of the mediaeval spirit, even though the painter of the same was the devout Angelico da Fiesole himself. Of all Angelico's works those in the chapel of Nicolas V. in the Vatican are the least imbued with the spirit of mediaeval asceticism. In the fresco of St. Stephen preaching, and in the Almsgiving of St. Laurence, the figures are touched with a freedom the painter had seldom used before, and show clearly that their creator had not been unmindful of the methods of Masaccio. Perchance the intellectual contact with a man like the reigning Pope may have hastened the assimilation of Angelico's style to that of the coming men. CHAPTER III FRESCOES AT AREZZO PIERO'S movements after the termination of his labours in Rome are wrapped in obscurity. Vasari declares that he went from Rome direct to Borgo San Sepolcro on account of the death of his mother ; and also to Pesaro, where Galeazzo Malatesta was governor, and to Ancona, where he painted a " Sposalizio " in the Cathedral of San Ciriaco,' but there is no work of his extant in either of these places, nor any record to con- firm Vasari's statements. In the same way Vasari writes that Piero travelled direct from Loreto to Arezzo to paint with frescoes the chapel of the high altar in the church of San Francesco. There is no direct evidence which helps to fix the date of this achievement, the most important of Piero's lifetime, and one of the most momentous in the history of painting ; but Vasari's statement, which would make it anterior to the execution of the fresco at Rimini, is manifestly erroneous. Only one fact bearing upon the date is known, and this goes no farther than to show that the chapel must have been painted before 1466. This fact appears in a contract made in the year aforesaid between Piero and the Company of the ' \'asari, vol. ii., p. 498. 28 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA Annunziata at Arezzo for the execution of a proces- sional banner, which goes on to state that the balance of the price was paid at Bastia on November 7th, 1468, to " il maestro di dipigniere il quale a dipinto la chupola maggiore di S. Francesco d'Arezzo." The history of this series of frescoes is as follows : Luigi Bacci, a rich and influential citizen of Arezzo, gave a commission some time after 1446 to Bicci di Lorenzo — the same who had acted as workman assistant to Domenico Veneziano while he was painting his frescoes in Santa Maria Novella at Florence — Piero being his pupil at the same time. This commission was to paint the walls and the ceiling of the Bacci chapel in the church of San Francesco at Arezzo with a series of frescoes. Bicci di Lorenzo was the son of Lorenzo Bicci two painters whose personalities had been mixed up inextricably by Vasari, and it was not until Signor Gaetano Milanesi,' by examination of the family records, succeeded in differentiating, partially at least, the work of each painter, that Piero's forerunner in San Francesco was really identified. The father was a pupil of Spinello, and painted most of the Apostles and Saints under the windows in the side chapels of the Duomo at Florence, the son's chief work being the figures of the Evangelists in the church of San Francesco at Prato. Both of them were feeble exponents of the school of Giotto, and it was a great gain to art when the death of Bicci di Lorenzo, in 1452, gave to the patron the opportunity of offering to Piero della Francesca the task of finishing the series of frescoes at Arezzo. ' \'asaii, \ol. ii., p. 61. o 3 o FRESCOES AT AREZZO 29 When Piero began, the roof of the chapel had already been painted with figures of the four EvangeHsts, and part of the end wall as well. This work was for a long time attributed to Lorenzo Bicci, and Piero was set down as his successor, but Lorenzo Bicci died in 1427 ; and, whether he painted any of the earlier frescoes in San Francesco or not, it is almost certain that his son was engaged on the work a very little time before his death. The fact that Bicci di Lorenzo died in 1452 has been counted by some writers as a fair ground for in- ference that, not long after this date, Piero began to paint in San Francesco ; for Luigi Bacci, the donor, would naturally desire that the interrupted work should be resumed without delay. But it does not follow from this that he was able to command the immediate service of the master. All that is known for certain is that the frescoes must have been executed between 1452 and 1466. Within this period certain of Piero's actions may be identified by means of a few scattered dates, but not one of these — save the date of the contract for the Annunziata banner — has any bearing on the time when the frescoes in San Francesco were painted. A work of such magnitude would neces- sarily take several j-ears to execute ; wherefore, to allow for its completion by 1466, it is reasonable to set down a year not later than 1462 for its inception Schmarsow ' and Witting^ write laboriously to prove that 1460-1466 must cover the period in question, urging that, since these frescoes exhibit Piero's highest achievement in composition, it is necessary to assign to them the latest ' "Melozzo da Forii," pp. 312-314. - Op. ci/., p. 100, 30 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA possible epoch in his art career, but they bring forward no valid proof to show that Piero might not have been as accomplished a master of composition in 1452 as in 1460. The legend of the Discovery of the Holy Cross was one of the subjects chosen for treatment. During his stay in Florence Piero would almost certainly have seen the in- terpretation of the same theme by Agnolo Gaddi in the Cappella Baroncelli of the church of Santa Croce. In each case the painter has chosen the version of the story as set forth in the " Golden Legend," which tells how Adam, being at the point of death, begs Seth to procure the oil of mercy for extreme unction from the angels who guard Paradise. Seth, when he applies for the oil, hears from the Archangel Michael that it can only be obtained after the lapse of ages — defining the period as one correspond- ing with the interval between the Fall and the Atonement. Seth receives, instead of the oil, a small branch of the tree of knowledge, and is told that, when it should bear fruit, Adam would recover. On his return Seth finds Adam dead, and plants the branch on his tomb. The sapling grew to a tree, which flourished till the time of Solomon, who caused it to be hewn down for the pur- poses of building. The workmen, however, found such difficulty in adapting it that it was thrown aside, and used as a footbridge over a stream of water. When the Queen of Sheba, the type of the Gentiles, was about to cross this water she saw a vision of the Saviour on the Cross, and knelt in adoration, and afterwards told Solomon that when a certain one would be suspended on that tree the fall of the Jewish nation should be near. Solomon, in alarm, buried the fatal wood deep in the Alinari photo '.'k/tj'ch oj Sai! Fi-iini'i'sso, A-?-er:.zo HEADS ..,^iii^_ ^ Hhh r^ i#'^ MB^ JT JK0 ^k ^^KBEm w yyijil ^K ' V , _ ^'-jfl^HH ^H "''''^^^^1 ^^Hvr ^ ^hBh^^H HI MM|feJ : 1.^^9|^H^H^H H Aliiiari p!!Oio'\ {C,dlu;h-al. ArfZZO ST. ^[ARY MAGDALEN BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO 41 The history of the Magdalen in art is a very interesting one. The spirit in which the painters of different eras have touched her, has varied greatly according to the circumstances and sentiment of the times. In the middle ages she appears rather as a sacred personage than as a saint, and up to the fifteenth century she is rarely repre- sented, save as a subordinate figure of a group. Signer Pichi ' in his book gives currcnc)' to an assertion to the effect that this effigy by Piero in the cathedral of Arezzo, where she is portrayed with the signs of penitence upon her and touched with sadness, is the first instance when the Magdalen is represented as a single figure. This statement is surely a little wide of the mark, for the writer seems to ha\"e overlooked the Italo-B}'zantine painting of the Penitent hiagdalcn in the Belle Arti at Florence. This picture, from its great size, could ne\'er have been designed for a place over an altar ; indeed, it was almost certainly painted before 1280, the date when the cultus of the Magdalen was authorized by Pope Nicolas IV. The mediaeval sentiment concerning the Magdalen seems to have survi\'ed down to Piero's time, for here he has shrunk from giving her a prominent position in the church, and placed her designedly in a secluded corner, instead of letting her dominate an altar or adorn a screen. Another single figure of Si. Mary Magdalen, by Hugo A-an der Goes, is in the Royal Insti- tution at Liverpool. A fresco at one time attributed to Piero is painted on a staircase of the Palazzo Comunale at Arezzo, and this no doubt is the one mentioned by Vasari as having ' " N'ita," p. 60, 42 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA been painted in the church of Santa Maria della Pieve, the church in question being now a portion of the Municipio. It is a Madonna with two saints, and local tradition, without any warrant, assigns to it the date of 1483. Certain characteristics of the fresco suggest that it may have been executed by that Lorentino di Agnolo who, according to Vasari, painted many pictures in Arezzo, imitating Piero's style, and finished certain works which the master had left incomplete. Vasari says that other frescoes, also attributed to Piero, are to be found in San Francesco (a figure of Santa Rosalia) in San Bernardo, and in San Domenico. With regard to Piero's sojourn in Arezzo, there are extant two documents bearing upon the same : a receipt of the date of December 20th, 1466, by which Piero di Benedetto acknowledges to have received from Cosme di Nanni, an officer of the Company of the Annunziata in that city, ten golden florins on account of a banner which he had painted for the aforesaid association, and another receipt, dated November 7th, 1468, and exe- cuted at Bastia, a village between Arezzo and Borgo San Sepolcro, with respect to twenty golden florins, the balance of the sum due for the said banner, and paid to the painter by Benedetto di Giovanni della Valle. This banner has disappeared, and nothing is known of the fate it ultimately suffered. It by no means follows that Piero was residing in Arezzo while he was engaged on painting the banner, or that he remained there unin- terruptedly from the beginning to the end of his com- mission in San Francesco. It is an easy journey of twenty- four miles from Arezzo to San Sepolcro. From 1452 onwards he most likely spent a good portion of his BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO 43 time in his native city, and painted most of the frescoes and other works which still survive there and in the adjacent parts. Like many others of the great masters, Piero was an erratic worker, and would sometimes put his paintings aside for months or even years at a time. An instance of this irregularity may be found in the long interval between the first payment on account of the Annunziata banner in 1466 and the final settlement in 1468. Vasari goes on to say that at this time Piero painted at Borgo San Sepolcro a fresco in Pieve di Santa Maria ^ (here he evidently means the church now known as Sant' Agostino) and another ° in Sant' Agostino, here intending to signify the church which the Augustinians occupied until 1555, when they migrated to Pieve di Santa Maria, and gave over their church to the nuns of Santa Chiara, this church being called Santa Chiara at the present day. Vasari assigns also to this period a figure of the Madonna della Misericordia in the hospital (which he calls a fresco) and the great fresco of the Resurrection of Christ in one of the apartments of the Palazzo dei Conservatori. It has been already remarked that Piero, having been summoned to Rome by Nicolas V., must have gone there between the years 1447 and 1455, only one inter- mediate date, 1451, the year when he painted the fresco at Rimini, being fixed. The death of Bicci di Lorenzo ' " E Nella Pieve face a fresco dentro all a porta del Mezzo due Santi che sono tenuti cosa bellissima" ("Vita," vol. ii., p. 493). Milanesi says that this fresco was found in good condition when the church was restored, " negli anni passati." No trace of it however now exists. - Tht Assumption of ihf Virgin noticed on page 50, 44 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA in 1452, and the consequent interruption of the work on the frescoes in San Francesco at Arezzo, make it possible that Piero may have taken up the work there in 1452 or shortly afterwards. With regard to his stay in Rome, the balance of probability — as it has been noted already — is in favour of the earlier portion of the pontificate of Pope Nicolas. He may quite naturally have gone to Rome from Lorcto, where he was in 1446- 1447, and then have halted at Rimini on his journey northwards. Of his visit to Rimini Vasari makes no mention at all. The adoption of this hypothesis would therefore bring Piero back to his birthplace in 1453 or short!}- after. Vasari groups together all the works of Piero which now exist in Borgo San Sepolcro and certain others of which there is no surviving record, as if he wished to imply that all these were painted during the stay which Piero made in the citj' after his mother's death. But there is no reason why the production of these works — and of some other genuine ones unnoticed by Vasari — should not have been spread over the whole of the period lying between 145 1 and 1469, the date last named having been settled, with a fair amount of certainty, as the one when he paid his first visit to Urbino. However, to avoid repetition, it will be convenient to deal with this Borgo San Sepolcro group of pictures as they stand, without any considerations of chronological sequence. Amongst them will be found examples of his work, showing the utmost diversity both in treat- ment and in medium of production. If the frescoes in San Francesco at Arezzo are the works most interesting in the history of the development of art that Piero has left, the Resurrection of Christ in the Palaz7-o dei Con- •|HE RKSCRKEl'lIOX OK CIIKI'-'r BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO 45 servatori, now the Sala Comunale at Borgo San Sepolcro, is unquestionably the strongest manifestation of his power, the creation upon which rests his most vaHd title to immortal fame. From the first moment that the eye of the spectator alights upon it the spell of Piero's genius begins to work ; but it must not be imagined that the charm begins with soft invocations of gentle flowing lines and rich and harmonious colour. It is quite possible that the first sense may be one of painful shock. The thing we see on the wall before us resembles no other render- ing of the Resurrection we have ever yet beheld or dreamt of. The nerves are assailed with a harsh and even lacerating touch, as when a strident fault of harmony mars the climax of some triumph of sound. The sprawling forms of the soldiers, the ragged trees, the amorphous hills in the background, and beyond all those terrible eyes of the central figure fixed in their sockets and overpowering all else in the composition by their stony regard, provoke no thrill at the conscious- ness of beauty revealed ; nay, there may very likely surge up a sense of revulsion and disappointment. But not one in a thousand of those who may have taken upon themselves the trouble of a journey to Borgo San Sepolcro, will have stood for five minutes before the fresco without feeling that, as this presentment of the Resurrection differs in character from all others, so it exceeds them all in power and originality ; indeed, in these respects it yields to few or any of the pictures of the world. In composition it is extremely simple. The figures fall natural!)- into triangular form, and indicate the 46 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA geometrical training of his hand and eye. In the fore- ground four soldiers lie sleeping, some of them in very un- easy attitudes. Those to the right and the left are hand- some, fair youths ; between them is a dark man facing the spectator, who is understood to be a likeness of the painter himself. His face is a consummate achievement of skilful modelling and an absolutely faithful render- ing of a sleeping man both in pose and in expression. The fourth soldier holds a spear, and has a neck of abnormal length and no lower part to his body. The tomb, classic in design and made of marble, stretches almost across the picture, and from it rises Christ, partially clad in a pink robe and bearing in his hand a flagstaff. Round his head is something which at a first glance seems to be a halo ; but the pink markings on it, which examination discloses, suggest that probably in its original form it bore a suggestion of one of those rose garlands which Piero loved to place upon the heads of his angels and saints. His left foot rests upon the edge of the tomb, and is a most exquisite piece of drawing, and one which will hardly fall in with the de- scription of the picture by Crowe and Cavalcaselle (ii. 540, ed. 1864), which sets down that" the extremities are coarse and common." ' The landscape at the back resembles strongly that in Tlie Baptism of Christ in the National Gallery and that in the St. Jerome in the Ac- cademia at Venice. The sky is streaked with clouds, ^ Dr. F. Witting also finds fault with this foot, and declares {op. cit., p. 107) that it has so little connection with the figure that it looks Hke a separate stand made to exhibit the grave clothes. This criticism is manifestly an amplification of Vasari's statement that Piero was in the habit of draping plaster figures and using them as models (vol. ii., p. 49S). BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO 47 reddened by the rays of the ascending sun, and beghis itself to glow with the saffron tint of dawn on Christ's left hand. On this same side, the side of the rising sun and of rekindling life, the trees are green and full of leaf, while on the opposite one they are bare and dead. Perhaps there is here a touch of symbolism of death and rebirth, perhaps too the roses round the head maybe an illustration of the myth of the blossoming of the crown of thorns. The chief attribute of the figure of Christ, taken by itself, is an expression of irresistible force. This perfectly developed organism, this splendid and robust manifestation of muscular strength, rises from the tomb to bring salvation and liberty to the world, and we feel, as we contemplate, that any effort to resist the calm onward sweep would be as vain as the interposition of the fragile wing with which Love seeks to bar the entrance of Death on Watts' great canvas. The con- quering Christ which Piero has here realized puts to shame the agonized, shapeless figures of his earlier Central Italian predecessors. Christ here bears the similitude of the perfect man, dignified and majestic. The sentiment and conscience of the onlooker are dominated by a novel manifestation of artistic expres- sion, one of the first signs, since the revival, that the hand of man had learnt how to act by regulated know- ledge, instead of giving out mechanical imitations of a misconceived type. Powerful and unique as is the effect produced on the spectator by this great picture, it is nevertheless impossible to judge therefrom whether or not Piero was a man strongly affected by religious sentiment, and whether he was capable of feeling the 48 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA reverential awe with which the picture undoubtedly fills the majority of those who view it. There is no doubt that the scene presented is the one he idealized, faith- fully reproduced, but whether he set it forth with the design of letting the religious element in his work react upon the spectator, we can never know. The Christ is drawn from the same model who served for the Christ in the Baptism in the National Gallery, and for the St. John the Baptist in the altar-piece in the Accademia at Perugia. Lanzi, who wrote at the end of the eighteenth century, describes several of Piero's works in Borgo San Sepolcro, but says nothing about the Resurrection, and a reason for this omission is forthcoming. A careful examination of the fresco has revealed the fact that it must at one time have been covered with a thick coat of plaster. Round the sides portions of the plaster yet remain, and bear traces of a decorative pattern — a sort of arabesque of flowers and scrolls which was painted on it. Moreover, upon the fresco itself are to be found marks of the tools used in removing the plaster. It was no doubt thus concealed at the date when Lanzi visited the city ; but there is no extant record to show when the plaster was taken off. M. Eugene Muntz ' has drawn attention to a resemblance between the Christ in this fresco and the Christ in a small picture by Man- tegna now in the museum at Tours. The Tours picture formed a portion of the predella of the great Mantegna in San Zeno at Verona, and was left in France when the rest of Napoleon's theft was restored. Both figures are on the point of emerging from tombs of similar ' " Archivio Storico dell' Arte," July, 1S89 (Rome). BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO 49 design, and have the left foot placed on the edge of the sepulchre. Both bear flags, and the draperies are dis- posed over the figure in the same fashion. But Man- tegna has placed the flag in the left hand of his Christ, who is raising the right in the act of benediction. M. Mijntz is satisfied that the composition of the frag- ment at Tours gives evidence of careful study by Mantegna of Piero's style, but his criticism loses much of its value from the fact that Mantegna painted the San Zeno picture about 1457, before his sojourn in Mantua. Under these circumstances it is scarcely possible that any part of it could have been inspired by Piero's work. CHAPTER V BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO AND MONTERCHIO MUCH controversy has arisen over the authenticity of the altar-piece, the Assumption of the Virgin, now in the church of Santa Chiara at San Sepolcro. A commission was given to Piero on October 4th, 1454, for a picture answering to the description of this one for the sum of 320 florins, the price to be paid partly in money and partly in certain pieces of land, the painter binding himself to complete the same within eight years under a formal contract, drawn up by Ser Bartolommeo Fedeli, a notary of Borgo San Sepolcro ; which writings are now in the Archivio Generale dei Contratti at Florence. On November 14th, 1469, Piero gave a receipt to the Augustinian friars for the balance due to him, the instrument having been drawn up by Ser Lionardo Fedeli of San Sepolcro — a fact which is scarcely in keeping with the theory that Piero may have begun the picture and that someone else may have completed it. In this composition the Virgin is ascending to Heaven surrounded by angels. San Francesco, San Giro- lamo, San Ludovico, and Santa Chiara stand below, and the Apostles occupy the background. This picture throughout is so entirely foreign to Piero's style that scarcely a voice has been given in support of its is BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO 51 authenticity,' in spite of the documentary evidence in its favour, which seems quite clear and convincing. Piero may have varied his manner occasionally, but he could scarcely have varied it enough to allow this picture to be assigned to him. Cavalcaselle attributes it to Francesco da Citta di Castello, a painter strongly influenced by Perugino, and throughout the picture re- semblances to Perugino's style are abundantly manifest. The perfectly regular documentary evidence and the style of the picture are so strongly contradictory that much discussion has arisen and many attempts have been made to explain the incongruity ; but no serious defence of Piero's authorship seems possible. It may be remarked that the framework of the altar-piece has been cut and modified to make it fit its present place ; possibly it may have been substituted for the original work by Piero, and no record made of the change. The altar-piece of the Madonna della Misericordia, in the chapel of the hospital at Borgo San Sepolcro, is almost certainly the earliest of Piero's extant pictures. In form and arrangement it follows the style of similar works painted by Fra Angelico in Cortona and Perugia. By the terms of the contract Piero was allowed from 1445 to 1448 to complete the work, the price thereof being 150 gold florins. According to Cavalcaselle, the subjects on the predella are painted in tempera, and all the rest in oil. In this altar-piece the central and principal space is filled by a figure of the Virgin, who, with a golden crown on her head, and clad in a robe of dull red colour, ' Passavant alone declares it to be the work of Piero, " Raphael d'Urbin et son P^re " (Paris, i860), vol. i., p. 394. 52 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA spreads out with her hands her dark blue mantle to gather under its sheltering folds the group of suppliants kneeling below — four men on the left, and four women on the right of the picture. These figures, relatively to the figure of the Virgin, are drawn on a very small scale ; but in spite of this limitation Piero has succeeded in endowing each one with vitality and dramatic action, and in varying the type in each individual case. The figure of the Virgin herself is dignified and somewhat austere. She looks down with pitying eyes upon the worshippers at her feet, in whom the stir of religious ecstasy is plainly evident, emotion being here rendered with a sincerity and verisimilitude which is often lacking in the work of earlier painters, men dominated and enfeebled by excess of the ascetic spirit. The notion of the Virgin as adored, and of the suppliants as adoring, is conceived in a nobler and more elevated vein of sentiment than the age had yet learned to appreciate.' The faces of the suppliants are well worth individual study. On the left the foremost is a young man, richly clad, who shows by the action of his hands that he is addressing himself to the Virgin ; next to him comes an old man in an attitude of prayer ; then a figure in the garb of the order of the Misericordia, and at the back a man whose upturned face bears an extraordinary re- semblance to that of the sleeping soldier, represented full face, and fabled to be a likeness of the painter him- self, in the fresco of the Resurrection, in the Municipio hard by. The women on the right are less remarkable. The young woman in the front is probably the wife of ' According to Rosini {pp. n't.) these are all portraits, vide description of Plate XXXIX, BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO 53 the young man nearest to her. The next two figures are wonderfully alike in feature, and the old woman at the back is most likely their mother. In this picture Piero shows himself more possessed by the spirit of medisevalism than in any other of his works ; here if anywhere may be discerned the working of those Sienese influences to which reference has been made already, but a comparison between Piero's rendering of this subject and the rendering of Domenico di Bartolo in the infirmary at Siena will demonstrate alike the faint rudimentary impulses, common to each painter, and the enormous gulf of divergence — exhibited in their com- pleted work — which lay open between Piero's sentiment and method and that of the Sienese masters. Above the central subject is an upright panel of the Crucifixion. The Virgin and St. John stand under the cross in postures which exhibit the poignant anguish they suffer. The body of Christ is drawn simply as that of a dead man, correct in every detail. No attempt has been made to exaggerate the death convulsions accord- ing to Sienese precedent, nor to give to the corpse any sign to designate it as the recent temple of the God- head. On either side of the central panel are wings ; that on the right containing the figures of Sant' Andrea and San Bernardino, and the left one those of San Giovanni Battista and San Sebastiano. Above these side wings are two other saints and an Annunciation. The whole composition rests upon a predella of five scenes. In the central one is the Entombment, with the Noli me tangere and the women at the Sepulchre on the right, and on the left the Flagellation and Gethsemane. No other work of Piero is so archaic in conception or in treatment as 54 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA this predella. In the central panel, Tlie Entoiiibincitt, the figure of the Virgin with her arms uplifted is almost a replica of that in Lorenzo Lorenzetti's Deposition in the Accademia at Siena, while the conception of the work as a whole suggests the influence of Fra Angelico's Entombment of tlic Virgin ■a.t Q,oxloxva.. Piero had scarcely begun to realize the principles of composition when he executed this important work. In the central panel the figure of the Virgin gains, no doubt, in dignity, both of exhibition and sentiment, from the juxtaposition of the kneeling figures on either side, who fill the space in that triangular scheme which Piero adopted also in the fresco of the Resurrection; but, with the scale of- dimension differing so vastly, the picture can scarcely be discussed seriously with relation to composition at all. In the Crucifixion, and in the predella panels as well, the figures occupy the space without much relation the one to the other. Indeed, in The Entombment, the spirit is so strongly archaic as to suggest that some other painter, perhaps a pupil, may have worked at it. The Baptism of CImst, now in the National Gallery, was formerly in the church of the Priors of St. John the Baptist at Borgo San Sepolcro, but on the suppression of this establishment in 1785 it was given over to the chapter of the cathedral, who sold it on the pretext of using the proceeds for the repair of their church. The Baptism formed the centre and principal portion of the picture. Two wings, the work of some other hand, probably Domenico di Bartolo, were formerly attached to it, and these are now to be found in the church of San Giovanni at Borgo San Sepolcro. There are traditions also of a predella, upon which were represented divers scenes in H,iiililJng/J,/,olo] [X.ili.'nal C,t/L'rv, l.ondo, 'i'llE ILUTISM (IF CHRIST AlhiariJt'i. MfntcrchiL THE iMAIlONXA DEL I'AKTO AXl) TWo AXGKLS MONTERCHIO 59 Vasari mentions several more of Piero's works In the neighbourhood of Arezzo ; one a seated figure of San Domenico with attendant angels in Santa Maria dellc Grazie, and a San Vincenzo in San Bernardo, a church of the monks of Monte Oliveto. At Sargiano, a house be- longing to the Frate Zoccolanti of San Francesco, he painted a figure of Christ praying in the garden, which Vasari describes as " bellissimo." In the cathedral of San Ciriaco at Ancona he painted a fine picture of the marriage of the Virgin over the altar of San Giuseppe. Vasari closes his narrative with the interesting statement that amongst the pupils of Piero was Piero da Castel della Pieve, that is to say Perugino, though in another place he describes him as a pupil of Verrocchio ; but, as Passavant ' points out, Perugino might well have been Piero's pupil in perspective. ' Op. cU., vol. i., p. 44J. CHAPTER VI VARIOUS WORKS TO revert to the other surviving pictures which are commonly ascribed to Piero without demur, the most famous yet unnoticed is the altar-piece painted for the monastery of Sant' Antonio at Perugia, and now in the Pinacoteca in that city. This work, one of his most fasci- nating compositions, is manifestly an early one, and prob- ably executed soon after the Misericordia altar-piece at Borgo San Sepolcro. It consists of three compartments, the whole composition being framed in a delicate Gothic design of richly worked pillars and arches. The central space is occupied by the Virgin, who is heavily robed in red brocade and a blue mantle, and bears in face a strong resemblance to the Madonna del Parto at Mon- terchio. On her lap sits the infant Christ with a fat clumsy figure, thick shapeless legs and thighs, and a face illumined by a look of significant and preternatural gravity. He is raising his hand in the act of benediction, and though the group is treated in a conventional spirit, it is as a whole stately and full of grace. With the ex- quisite ornamentation of the golden background, and the harmonious architectural design of the throne, it forms in itself a beautiful picture. On the right are the figures of San Francesco and Sant' Elisabetta, and on the left those of Sant' Antonio and San Giovanni Battista, all VARIOUS WORKS 6i the figures being finely conceived and painted witii great power of characterization. The St. John the Baptist is unmistakably taken from the same model who sat for the Christ of the Resurrection at Borgo San Sepolcro, but here the face is that of a mere mortal and lacks en- tirely the look of awesome reminiscence of the nether world which yet lingers on the features of the risen Christ. There is no positive evidence to show the date of this work, but a cursory examination will show that it marks a great advance both in conception and execution on the altar-piece of the Misericordia. It is difficult to estimate a painter's progress in composition from a collection of isolated figures such as this altar-piece, but in its execution Piero has shown a dexterity as a painter of light and shade which helps to explain his triumphant success in the Vision of Constantine. The body of the child is illuminated with strength exactly sufficient to let the rest of the composition appear a perfectly har- monious study of chiaroscuro. The technique of the individual figures shows a great advance upon his earlier work, the lines being more flowing and gracious, and the facial expression softer and more natural. Above this altar-piece is placed a separate picture of the Annunciation, one of Piero's most wonderful feats in architectural design. The spectator has before him a graceful screen of classic form, built up of semicircular arches and slender Corinthian columns, in front of which on the left kneels the angel, fair and robust, with a head crowned by a mass of that rich, curling hair which Piero loved to paint. On the right the Virgin is standing, dressed according to the painter's habitual rendering, in 63 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA thick flowing robes, very heavy in texture. Between the two figures the eye penetrates to the end of a long cloistered passage of the most exquisite design, pillar receding behind pillar, and arch behind arch, drawn with marvellous skill and exactitude of detail. No other picture of Piero's reveals so clearly as this his complete mastery of the art of perspective ; and at the same time it never suggests — consummate technical achievement as it is — that the artist, when he drew it, was seeking to make a special demonstration of his powers. The figures, the architectural setting, the bit of garden landscape behind, are in perfect relation, every accessory falls into its proper place, and helps to exhibit the whole as a triumph of learned composition. But the most marked element of success in this charming work is undoubtedly the exquisite framework of architecture in which it is set. In the fresco at Rimini Piero introduces architecture as a subordinate detail ; in the Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba at Arezzo, and in the Flagellation at Urbino, he uses it with greater elaboration and effect, but here he reaches his highest point of excellence. Here he exhibits the fairest presentments of the human figure, combined in perfect harmony with the fairest conceptions of the architect and master of perspective — an indication per- haps that his artistic nature was dominated by the fascination of science powerfully enough to let him find a completer and more congenial outlet for his energies in dealing with subjects in which the measured and orderly beauty of architecture would have its part. It is quite certain that this picture is much later in date than the altar-piece over which it now stands, and Ali7ia>-i phota\ [AcLaJvnna. I 'c?iicc ST. JKRO-ME AVITH KNEELING FIGURE /j'l-,.f/ //„>/, I \Chhrck of Sa>!ta Marul dt'lk i',raZ!<: Jnori Citta. Sl>ni^a^lu THE MAD(.)NNA AM) CHILI) WITH TWO ANGELS VARIOUS WORKS 63 the combination, as we see it, is not a very fortunate one ; but the two works were in the same juxtaposition when Vasari saw them in the church of the convent of Sant' Antonio. The Accademia at Venice possesses one of Piero's works, a seated figure of St. Jerome, before whom kneels a man in a monastic robe with hands folded as if in supplication. There is a tradition that the kneeling figure is Girolamo, the son of Carlo Malatesta of Sog- liano, who in 1464 married a daughter of Federigo of Urbino.^ The landscape in the background represents a hilly region, like the country portrayed in the Resur- rection at Borgo San Sepolcro, and in the plain stands a little town with a perfect forest of bell towers. The rough facial drawing and a certain crudeness both in colour and in composition denote that this picture was an early work. It is signed " Petri de BOgo Sci SEPULCRI OPUS." The painting of the Virgin and Child between two saints in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie outside Sinigaglia was at one time placed amongst Piero's doubtful works ; but, in these more severely critical days, expert opinion has turned — and with good reason — in favour of its authenticity. The handling is entirely in his manner, and the Virgin is of the same type as the seated figure in the altar-piece at Perugia and the Madonna del Parto. The composition and the pose of ' The picture bears the inscription " Hier. Amadi Aug-. F.," probably the name of some owner to whom the picture subsequently passed. Cavalcaselle e Crowe (vols. iv. and viii., pp. 316, 239) mention a certain Francesco Amadi, who, in 1408, gave a com- mission for a ?Iadonna's head to one Niccolo in Venice. 64 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA the figures is somewhat awkward, and the picture alto- gether is one of the least attractive of his works. The Nativity, now in the National Gallery, must have been painted some time after the Baptism of Christ, near which it now hangs. It has suffered much from the fading of colour, but more from repainting. The landscape background is the conventional one Piero uses so frequently, and the animals are as archaic as Paolo Uccello's horses. The chief beauty of the composition lies in the figure of the Virgin and in the heads of the singing angels, which are full of dignity and dramatic power ; and the attitudes, especially that of the left-hand angel, are graceful and dignified. The figures of the Virgin and Child are of the gentlest and fairest type, and show undoubted signs of the Flemish influence which made itself felt in Florence and throughout Central Italy after Hugo van der Goes set up his great altar-piece in the Ospedale of Santa Maria Novella. The contrast between the slim, delicate infant, which here lies on the ground before the adoring Virgin, and the plump and somewhat clumsy one in the altar-piece at Perugia, is quite strong enough to justify the inference that here Piero must have been swayed by some in- fluence from without, and it is unnecessary to seek for a more probable source of such influence than Hugo's great composition. In the drawing of the ruined shed under which the Holy Family takes shelter, Piero has given striking proof of his skill in aerial perspective. The jutting roof comes forward from the wall, the receding planes being rendered with perfect accuracy ; but he fails completely in dealing with the background of hills in the landscape, which form a flat, unrelieved THE NATIN'ITV OF OUR LURD VARIOUS WORKS 65 mass in themselves, and seem to occupy the same plane as the shed in the foreground. This picture formerly belonged to the Franceschi-Marini family of Borgo San Sepolcro, from whom it passed to the Cavaliere Baldi of Florence. Mr. Alexander Barker next purchased it, and at his sale in 1874 it was acquired by the National Gallery. The figure of Si. Michael, also in the National Gallery, is a thoroughly typical work, and has the strongest claims to be considered genuine, though it has failed to satisfy certain of the experts. The painting of the head and face is in Piero's best manner, and the whole figure is full of dignity, resembling strongly both in pose and features the central angel of the group in the Baptism hanging close to it. The dado of inlaid marble behind the saint is a close imitation of the tomb in the Resurrection at Borgo San Sepolcro. In the Gallery at Urbino is an Architectural subject, and at Berlin is another of the same character, both of which may undoubtedly be ascribed to Piero's hand. The other paintings which Piero executed at Urbino will be described later on ; and, besides these, there are one or two other extant pictures which can be classed, at least in part, as Piero's undoubted work — examples in which his special characteristics are strongly marked, though certain portions of them may suggest the hand of the pupil or the assistant. The most celebrated of these is a fine picture in the Brera at Milan (No. 187), which was at one time assigned to him without reserve, and though recent criticism gives a certain share of it to Corradino of Urbino (Fra Carnovale),' there is little ' It is assigned to him in the catalogue of the Brera. F 66 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA doubt that those points in it, which assert their ex- cellence even to an untutored eye, are the work of Piero. Its execution may be referred to the period of Piero's sojourn in Urbino, as it formerly hung in the church of San Bernardino outside the city. It is a very interesting composition. The angels who stand behind the Virgin are strongly suggestive of Piero's style, both in drawing and in handling of colour. In the foreground kneels Duke Federigo, clad in black armour. The Virgin her- self — in face not unlike the Virgin in the picture in Christ Church, Oxford — is said to be a portrait of the Duchess Battista,^ and the child asleep on her lap to have been taken from the infant Guidobaldo. In group- ing and colour the picture recalls Piero's manner very strongly, and it is not unlikely that Corradino may have begun the work under Piero's direction during the sojourn of the master in Urbino. Piero almost certainly had a hand in the Virgin and child and in the heads of the angels, and the architectural background is entirely in his manner, but the group of male figures standing behind Duke Federigo — and especially that of the butcher-like figure supposed to represent St. Francis — suggest the work of another hand. St. John the Baptist has the face of Christ in the Resurrection at Borgo and in the Baptism in the National Gallery, and of the Baptist in the Perugia altar-piece, but the type here is smoother and more elaborately painted, and consequently deficient in the rugged virility which characterizes the other renderings. The Virgin and Child with Angels in the Librarj' at ' Paiigileoni, op. cit., p. 53, assumes the altar-piece to ba\e been paiiued in 1472, the year the duchess died. ri-h.itc plu-t,< x/nr.i THE MADOXXA AND CHILD WITH ANflELS VARIOUS WORKS 67 Christ Church, Oxford, reflects, in as remarkable a degree as does The Nativity in the National Gallery, the in- fluence of the great Flemish triptych by Hugo van der Goes in the Ospedale of Santa Maria Novella, and like- wise shows how powerfully Piero's style and method of composition was affected by the coloured reliefs of the Delia Robbias. The general arrangement, the pose of the figures — especially of the angels — and the back- ground of blue sky, all recall one of Luca's delicate masterpieces. To deal with the figure of the Virgin in particular, the slender neck, the long thin nose, and the narrow face are distinctly suggestive of the ascetic- looking women in Hugo's picture ; but Piero showed too real a sense of beauty to copy slavishly the hydro- cephalous type which Hugo has repeated in every woman and angel in his wonderful work. In spite of the evident Flemish influence in this picture, the types — although showing an undoubted variation — are all marked with Piero's characteristics. The type of the Virgin is that (somewhat refined) of the Brera picture just described, and of the Nativity in the National Gallery. The faces of the angels are skilfully drawn and modelled, the colouring is deep and warm in tone and finely glazed. The painting of the brocaded raiment of the Virgin and the angels bears a certain resemblance to that of the Virgin's robe in Domenico Veneziano's great picture in the National Galler)', but it is more like that in the profile portrait (No. 585) formerly entitled /.rc^'^a da Rimini, and ascribed to Piero, and is probably the work of the same hand. With this exception the rest of the picture is almost cer- tainl)- from Piero's brush. 68 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA The Profile portrait of a woman in the National Gal- lery recently alluded to (No. 585) is no longer ascribed to Piero, and its claim to represent Isotta da Rimini is also abandoned, seeing that a comparison of the features thereof with authentic coins and medallions has demon- strated the fact that it bears not the least resemblance to Malatesta's mistress. The face has been heavily re- painted, but the treatment of the richly-brocaded dress suggests that it may be from the hand of some other pupil of Domenico Veneziano. The same remarks will apply to another profile portrait in the National Gallery (No. 758), at one time supposed to represent the Contessa Palma of Urbino. In the various galleries of Europe are several other Female lieads in profile which have been set down as Piero's work. One of these is in the gallery at Berlin (it formerly belonged to the Earl of Ashburnham, and was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1893), and another is in the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum at Milan, these two being portraits of the same lady taken at different times. Both of them are clad in the rich brocade which Domenico and his pupils painted with such gusto. The portrait at Milan is an exquisite work. In concep- tion and in execution as well it reaches a point of ex- cellence paralleled by scarcely any other work of its period. There is no extant evidence which connects its authorship with Piero ; but if it is not from his hand it must be the work of some gifted painter of the same school whose name has perished. There is another of the same type in the Uffizi, and Mr. Drury Lowe has in his collection the portrait of a Young Man which Caval- caselle and Crowe assign — with reservation — to Piero. llanfUdn^l photo'] IX.itioiitil Callcrv. r.o:iJoN I'ljRTRAIT (IF A LADV Altiiliutcd \>y sonic Li-iticb, lo I'iero ilella Francesca Haujstdu^^l photo] yXational GalUi-y, London IM )irrRAIT OK A LADY .VttriluUcd l.'V some crilic^ lu J'imi ilclla FraiiceinCa VARIOUS WORKS 69 Mr. C. Newton Robinson possesses a Madonna and Child ascribed to Piero, which has many of the painter's early characteristics. It is painted somewhat more heavily than is Piero's wont, and the red of the Virgin's robe is more vivid than any red used in any one of his recognized works, but the embroidery of the dark green robe is exactly in his style. The figure of the child is ungraceful, with fat shapeless legs like those of the in- fant Christ in the Perugia altar-piece ; the face is charm- ingly drawn, as is also the right hand of the Virgin. There are faint traces of trees and of a landscape in the background. There are three pictures in the private apartments of Prince Barberini in his palace at Rome which were at one time assigned to Piero, and reputed to have been painted by him during his sojourn at Urbino. At the devolution of the duchy to the Papacy they came into the possession of Urban VIII., and have descended to the representative of his family. The first in importance is a Portrait of Federigo and his son Guidobaldo, which is said to have been painted in 1478. Federigo is drawn full life-size, clad in armour, and wearing the insignia of the Garter and of the Erinellino as well, and Guidobaldo is represented as a boy of five or six years of age. The other two pictures are Architectural subjects drawn in Piero's manner, with figures introduced. Dennistoun attributes these works to Mantegna — an ascription which would hardly be advanced at the present time. It has been already noted that Vasari, in the begin- ning of his life of Piero, states that he was at one time employed by " Guidobaldo Feltre the elder " at Urbino. Milanesi, in his notes to Vasari's life, remarks that the 70 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA prince here designated could not possibly have been Guidobaldo, the son of the great Federigo, seeing that Guidobaldo was only born in 1472, and became duke ten years later ; but it is possible that, by employment, Vasari may have had in his mind patronage, and that Piero regarded Guidobaldo as a patron is evident from his dedication to the young duke, some time after 1482, of his " Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus," a dedication in which he speaks of his great age and fail- ing powers. But the most eventful visit Piero paid to Urbino was one he made in Duke Federigo's time, when he painted the well-known Portraits of the duke and of the Duchess Battista. With his inveterate inaccuracy Vasari may perhaps have had this visit in view, but there is a farther possibility that he may have been thinking of another alleged visit, a contingency which may be considered later on. The Counts of Urbino date from the close of the thirteenth century, and amongst their number was that Count Guido who was stamped by Dante as the exem- plar of treacherous counsel' In 1404 the sovereignty passed to Count Guid' Antonio, who seems to have ex- ercised a certain amount of jurisdiction over Borgo San Sepolcro. This ruler died in 1443, and was succeeded by his son Od' Antonio, whose short reign was ended by assassination. He lived long enough, however, to obtain the title of duke from Pope Eugenius IV,, and on his death in 1444 Federigo, the natural son of Guid' Antonio, became Duke. The long reign of Count Guid' Antonio had been a ' " Inferno," xx^'ii. VARIOUS WORKS 71 prosperous one for Urbino. He was a wise and en- lightened prince, and one filled with the current enthu- siasm for art. During his reign Domenico Veneziano was at work decorating with frescoes the Baglioni Palace at Perugia ; and, as Domenico was one of the leading painters of his time, the report of his presence would naturally arouse the interest of a prince of Guid' An- tonio's temper. From one source or another a tradition has arisen that Guid' Antonio used his influence to in- duce Domenico to accept as a pupil a talented young man, Piero della Francesca, a native of the neighbouring town of Borgo San Sepolcro. Perhaps this legend, coming to Vasari's ears, may have been the source of his statement concerning Piero's presence in Urbino, the name Guidobaldo therein being written in lieu of Guid' Antonio. These details must necessarily remain conjectural, but thirty years later, when Piero was a painter of estab- lished fame, we are able to find firmer ground. Pun- gileoni * records Piero's presence at Urbino in 1469 as the guest of Giovanni Santi. At this date Federigo's court must have been at the apex of its splendour, the haunt of learned men and artists from all parts of Italy. Castiglione in " The Courtyer " remarks how at different times " Leonard Vincio, Mantegna, Raphael, Michel Angelo, and George de Castelfranco " (Giorgione) were guestsoftheDukesFederigo and Guidobaldo,buthe makes no mention of Piero. Earlier than these came Giuliano da Rimini, who painted a crucifixion in the church of San Giovanni at Urbania or Castel Durante in 1407. ' " Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi," p. 12 (Urbino, 1822). 72 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA Federigo summoned to Urbino Justus of Ghent, because, as we learn from Bisticci's life, he wished to have at his court someone skilled in the use of oil colour, and this Flemish artist painted for the church of Sant' Agata The Institition of the Last Supper,^ a work which includes an excellent portrait of Federigo, as well as one of an Oriental who is supposed to be the ambassador of Usum Hassan, king of Persia/ And in the Oratorio di San Giovanni Battista is a wonderful series of Giottesque frescoes representing the Crucifixion, the baptism of Christ, and scenes in the life of the Baptist by an un- known hand.' ' It is now in the public gallery. - Lazzari, " Compendio Storico delle Chiese " (Urbino, 1801). ' It was attributed in the time of Giovanni Santi to Lorenzo and Jacopo di San Severino (Pungileoni, np. czf., p. 4). CHAPTER VII URBINO ACCORDING to Pungileoni the art world of Urbino was somewhat aggrieved and jealous of Federigo's introduction of Justus of Ghent into the city ; wherefore, on account of an agitation in favour of Italian artists, Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello were invited also. The Brotherhood of Christ's Body made overtures to Piero for an ancona in their chapel, but for some un- known reason he refused to paint it.' Paolo Uccello's only remaining work in Urbino, The Robbery of the Pyx, forms the predella of Justus of Ghent's picture of Tlie InstiUition of the Sacrament, now in the Public Galler)'. In his rhymed chronicle of Urbino, Giovanni Santi shows a strong bias against Justus, though he praises freely the Flemings, Hugo van der Goes and Van Eyck. Giovanni Santi,' at this time the leading painter of Urbino, was no doubt a persona grata with Duke Federigo. Piero della Francesca had already gained a ' Pungileoni, op. cit., p. 13, declares, on the authority of the records of the Brotherhood, that Piero's charges for travel and entertainment were borne by Giovanni Santi. - Santi in his rhymed chronicle makes mention of Piero : " Masaccio e I'Andrein, Paolo Occelli Antonio e Pier si gran disegnatori Piero del Borgo antico piii di quelli." 74 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA wide reputation in Central Italy, so it was not strange that he should be bidden to Urbino, or that Santi should give him hospitality. It is probable that he was specially invited to paint the Portraits of Federigo and his duchess, for portrait painters were few in Central Italy at this period, and the fame of Piero's portrait of Malatesta at Rimini would certainly have come to Federigo's knowledge. Federigo was painted many times, and several of his effigies survive, but none equals this one painted by Piero. The head and shoulder portraits of Federigo and Battista are painted on adjacent panels, which open on hinges, and disclose inside two allegorical pictures trionfi, in which the duke and duchess play the leading parts. The heads are drawn in profile about life size. Federigo's expression is one of shrewd benevolence, and the duchess resembles a Swiss or German peasant rather than an Italian princess. The subjects inside the panels are careful and elaborate studies of composition. " On a car drawn by two white horses Federigo sits in a chair of antique model. He is in full armour, with his helmet on his knee and his truncheon in his hand, and a figure of Victory stands behind him and sets a garland on his head. On the front part of the car are four female figures. One with a broken column in her arms repre- sents Force ; another, emblematic of Prudence, is placed in the centre of the group holding a mirror in her hand ; her face, bright with youthful hope, looks in advance to the future, and the profile or mask of a bearded and wrinkled old man, affixed to the back of her Janus head, contemplates the past with matured experience, a metaphor closely followed by Raphael for his Juris- Br,\';//i-i-030 PORTRAIT OF A ^■(.l^TH FERRARA 85 stands a group of lawyers. Below, Borso gives judgment in a suit. In April, above the sign of Taurus, Venus is drawn in a bark of swans and holds Mars captive, while on the banks youths and maidens and doves are in tender dalliance. In the lower space Borso makes a gift to his fool, and witnesses a donkey race. Above Gemini, Apollo is seated on a car with a group of poets, and below Borso is returning from the chase. Mercury, representing music and pastoral life, is over Cancer. Jupiter and Ceres appear severally over the Lion and the Virgin ; and over Libra is a strangely conceived subject of a woman in a car drawn by apes, meant to typify sensuality, the allegory being carried out by representations of the Workshop of Vulcan and Venus and Mars ensnared. In this series the upper portions of the subjects devoted to Aries, Taurus, and Gemini show the strongest resemblance to Piero's style. These stray facts constitute all the information avail- able as to Piero's connection with any existing paintings in Ferrara ; and the case, being one in which evidence is almost entirely lacking, has given rise to numerous hypotheses as to the date of Piero's sojourn, and as to his share in the decoration of the Palazzo Schifanoia. The only statements to be considered are that Piero went to Ferrara on the invitation of Duke Borso, and executed certain works, and that in the Palazzo Schifanoia at the present time is a series of frescoes which, if untouched by Piero's hand, at least show strong signs of his informing spirit. Cosimo Tura, the recognized head of the school of Ferrara, had been taught by Squarcione, and the hardness of the Paduan st\-le is apparent in an exaggerated degree 86 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA in his earlier work.^ The recent criticisms of Harck and Gruyer assign to him a large portion of the Schifanoia frescoes, but in none of them is there any resemblance to the style of his early pictures, and the most striking variations are exactly such as would have been brought about by the study of Piero's methods, most likely in the works executed for Duke Borso in the Castello. In the frescoes attributed to Tura there is a softening of line, and a more gracious sense of colour, and a general relaxation of the rigid classicism of the Paduan type. Amongst the frescoes assigned to Cossa the influence of Piero is no less apparent. The half-clad man who holds the key of Spring in the middle of the April group, and the general treatment of the upper portion of the March compart- ment, may be given as special instances. Moreover, the draperies and the pose of several of the female figures are almost the same as those of the Queen of Sheba and the Empress Helena in the frescoes at Arezzo. And Galassi, one of the earliest of the Ferrarese painters, to whom Gruyer assigns a share in the Schifanoia frescoes was, according to Baruffaldi,' a pupil of Piero. It will thus appear that the story of the Sala dell' Eli- doro is here repeated with a slight variation. In both cases tradition points to Piero as the painter of certain frescoes which have disappeared indeed, but which, during the period of their existence, were real and stimu- lating sources of inspiration ; centres from which radiated the vivifying influences under which Art shook off its fetters, and attained its c-ulminating point of excellence. ' Notably in the St. Jerome in the Pinacoteca at Ferrara, and in No. 773 in the National Gallery. - " Vite dei pittori e scultori Ferraresi" (Ferrara, 1844), i. 50. ^-{U?iari pkoto^ yCliiirch nfSail Francesco, Arczzo IMJRTRAIT (JF A MAX CHAPTER IX THE TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE FRA LUCA PACIOLI, one of the most distin- guished mathematicians of the age and a fellow- townsman of Piero, has had the misfortune to incur the censure of Vasari, who wantonly, if not malevolently, accused him of having appropriated without acknow- ledgment Piero's discoi'eries in mathematics — " tutte le fatiche di quel buon vecchio" — and of having passed them off as his own in his " Somma di Aritmetica," which he published in 1494.' Lanzi, in his " History of Italian Painting," has repeated this charge, but the reports given elsewhere of Fra, Luca's character, and the invariably affectionate and enthusiastic tone of his remarks con- cerning Piero, all tend to discredit Vasari's statement. Moreover, Piero's proficiency as a geometrician was well known, and any theft of this kind would have certainly been detected at once ; but no one before Vasari ever accused Fra Luca." In his subsequent work, " De Di- ' Vasari's accusation is circumstantial enough : " Perche Maestro Luca dal Borgo, frate di S. Francesco, che scrisse de' corpi regolari di geometria fu suo discepolo : e venuto Piero in vecchiezza ed a morte, dope avere scritto molti libri. Maestro Luca detto, usur- pandoli per se stesso, gli fece stampare come suoi " ("Vita," vol. ii., p. 498). - Giuseppe Bossi, in his work on Leonardo's Cenacolo (Milan, 1810), deals minutely with this controversy. 88 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA vina Proportione," published in 1 509, Fra Luca promised to publish, at some future time, an account of all Piero's works on Perspective, a promise he could hardly have given if he had really used any special discovery of Piero's and claimed it as his own. In the same work he also reproduces some drawings of heads, taken from Piero's treatise on perspective, but Vasari's charge could hardlyhave been made on the strength of such an innocent borrowing as this. Vasari, however, in the second edition of the "Lives" which he published in 1560, made an alteration which suggests that he may have realized the injustice of his attack on Fra Luca; that is to say, he omitted from this edition an epitaph which he had com- posed for Piero, the terms of which repeat with acerbity the charge aforesaid. The epitaph runs as follows : " Geometra e Pittor', penna e pennello Cosl ben' misi in opra ; die natura Condann6 le mie luci a notte scura Mossa da invidia ; e de le mie fatiche Che le carte allumar dotte ed antiche, L'empio discepolo mio fatto si i bello.'' Several copies of Piero's MS. of the " Prospettiva Pin- gendi " are known to exist. One is in the Saibanti Library in Verona ; another in the Ambrosiana in Milan ; another — once in the Library at Urbino — in the Vatican ; another in Parma ; another in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris ; and another in the British Museum. Fra Luca dedicates his "Summa" to Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, and writes : " Perspective, if closely con- sidered, will show that it could not exist but for geometry, a fact which has been clearly demonstrated by Piero della Franccsca, ni)- contemporary and the THE TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE 89 prince of modern painters " ; and again (Tit. I., Art. ii.), after referring to the province of perspective in art, he goes on : " Thus, in placing a figure on a particular plane it is necessary to let it appear in exact proportion to its distance from the eye, and to give to the draperies their natural form. In drawing a seated figure it must be proportioned so that it would not strike the head against the ceiling in rising. And the illustrious painter, Messer Fieri delli Franceschi, my townsman, has recently written a most excellent work on the art of Perspective." ' This is scarcely the tone of a literary robber. Fra Luca, as pupil, may have set down in his book much that he learned from Piero as teacher ; but this is surely the universal relation of pupil and teacher. Piero, it may be noted, though he was a skilled geometrician, had no claim to rank in this field of knowledge with Fra Luca, who was one of the leading mathematicians of the age. Up to the beginning of the fifteenth century perspect- ive was in the empiric stage. Men were content to work by experiment alone, and Brunelleschi, following this course, astonished the men of theory, and the men of practice as well, by rearing the dome of St. Maria dei ' In the dedication of the " Summa'' Fra Luca writes as if Piero were still living : " a Ir di nostri ancor vivente maestro Piero." Piero was no doubt alive when these words were written, and Fra Luca forgot to make the correction before publication in 1494. There is also a tradition that Piero painted a portrait of Fra Luca, " Non vi fu pittore, scultore o architetto de' suoi tempi che seco non contrahesse strettissima amicitia, tra quali vi fu Pietro de' franceschi suo compatriota, pittore eccellentissimo e prospettivo, di mano de cui si conserva ne la Guardarobba de' nostri serenis- smii principi in Urblno il ritratlo al naturale d'esso Frate Luca" ("Vasari," vol. ii., p. 498, nole,!. 90 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA Fiori at Florence. Shortly afterwards the study of Euclid led to investigation as to how principles might be settled on a scientific basis, and Paolo Toscanella and Manetti became the teachers of Uccello and Leo Battista Alberti ; the last named, indeed, undertook to find a scientific foundation for Brunelleschi's achieve- ments, and to advance them still further. Alberti had a clear notion of the art of delineation, but his intellect failed to advance any further than the teaching of pro- portion and of visual angles on the basis of Euclid. His " Trattato della Pittura " was, indeed, little else than a dissertation on optics. At the outset of his " Treatise on Perspective " Piero lets it be seen that he fully realizes the importance of his task, and that he proposes to elucidate his meaning by scientific treatment of the entire theory. He leaves design and colour aside, and deals with perspective alone. His method is simple and coherent, each problem being explained by those which have preceded it ; he states the problem in a few words, and gives the solution by means of drawings and explanatory letters. In the first book he treats of his subject by the help of the figures commonly used in Geometry, that is, the point and the line and the level surface. | In the second book he deals with regular figures, and' in the third with irre- gular. He does not presuppose any knowledge of the vanishing point; he insists simply that the lines of a square surface if produced must converge, and sets forth that, if the back line of such a surface be drawn parallel with the figure plane, it becomes an easy matter to determine the correct perspective of this surface ; for, the extreme points being fixed, diagonal lines may be drawn through 'A {^. THE TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE 91 it, and any point within its limits correctly located. Also, if this same flat surface be set upright, all the vertical points therein may be determined in like manner. By this simple and ingenious process Piero formulates and establishes a rule for the solution of the elementary difficulties of perspective. Piero really took up Alberti's teaching, which was based not so much on general principles as on geo- metrical and optical experiments, and carried on the science of perspective to the point at which it remained for several centuries, until the theory of the vanishing point was finally established. Baldassare Peruzzi was a diligent student of the " Prospettiva," and wrote several commentaries on it, and, together with Daniele Bartolo, Romano Alberti, and divers others, has left his testimony to Piero's merits as a geometrician. Piero's other work, the " Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus," ^ is a treatise on the practical application of Euclid's propositions to the needs of Art, which proposi- tions, up to his time, could only be worked out by roundabout methods. The five bodies in question are the triangle with four bases, the cube with six faces, the octohedron with eight faces and as many triangles, the dodecahedron with twelve faces and as many pentagons, and the icosahedron with twenty faces and as many triangles. Piero dedicates this treatise to Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, and writes as follows : " And as my works owe ' This, being a somewhat abstruse work, was written in Latin, while the " Prospettiva," intended for the use of all artists, is in Italian. Certain remarks at the end of the dedication show that it was written after the " Prospettiva." 92 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA whatever illustration they possess solely to the brilliant star of your excellent father, the most bright and dazzling orb of our age, it seemed not unbecoming that I should dedicate to your Majesty this little work on the five regular bodies in mathematics which I have composed, that, in this extreme fraction of my age, my mind might not become torpidly inactive. Thus may your splendour reflect a light upon its obscurity, and Your Highness will not spurn these feeble and worthless fruits gathered from a field now left fallow, and nearly exhausted by age, from which your distinguished father has drawn its better produce, but will place this in some corner as a humble handmaid to the numberless books of your own and his copious library near our other treatise on per- spective which we wrote in former years." ' These words must have been written after Guido- baldo's accession in 1482, and they go to prove that Piero was active and in full enjoyment of his faculties in old age. They give, moreover, a pleasant glimpse of the kindly feeling subsisting between the accom- plished young prince and the illustrious artist and man of science, and show that Piero's relations with the son were as cordial as they had been with the father. Piero left the MS. of this work in the library at Urbino, from whence it was carried off to Rome during the usurpation of Czesar Borgia. Of the latter portion of Piero's life scarcely anything is known. He seems to have been at Borgo San Sepolcro in 1469, the year when he signed the receipt for the balance due for the altar-piece in the church of ' Uennibtoun, " Dukes of L'lbino ' iol. ii., p. 196. THE TREATISE ON PERSPECTIVE 93 Sant' Agostino, which he had begun in 1454; and then, until 1478, there is a complete blank. In 1478 the Compagnia della Misericordia at Borgo gave him a commission to paint the fresco already referred to/ which Vasari mentions and which has now perished. On July 5th, 1487, he made his will, and on October I2th, 1492, he died and was buried in the church of the Badia — now the cathedral — at Borgo San Sepolcro. Vasari's remark that Piero became blind in his old age" may reasonably be added to the list of his mis- statements. Arguments against its validity are not far to seek. Fra Luca, who never loses an opportunity of recording facts concerning his master, is entirely silent on this point ; and it is hard to believe that a fact so salient would have been unnoticed by him. If dates are compared, fresh proof will appear. Vasari gives Piero's age at his death as eighty-six. The records at Borgo fix his death accurately as occurring in 1492 ; wherefore, if all these figures are correct, he must have been born in 1406, and have lost his sight in 1466, a year when he was actively engaged in painting at Borgo and at Arezzo, and three years before his summons to Urbino, where he painted some of his most delicately finished work. Moreover, Vasari records that he executed the Misericordia fresco at Borgo San Sepolcro, a work which is known to have been painted after 1478. An expression in his will, which he made in 1487, describing ' Page 58. ■■= " Piero Borghese le cui pitture furono intorno agli anni 1458 d'anni sessanta per un cattaro accec6, e cosi visse insino all' anno ottantasei della sua vita" (" Vita," vol. ii., p. 500). Lanzi says Piero was blind in 1458. 94 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA himself as "sanus mente iiitellectu et corpore," is hardly one which a blind man would have used or permitted ; and, as a final contradiction to Vasari's statement, it may be noted that Piero was able to dedicate his work, " Libellus de quinque corporibus regularibus " to Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, who had succeeded to his in- heritance as late as 1482. CHAPTER X THE CHARM OF PIERO — HIS PLACE IN ART AT the time of Piero's birth the prevailing art in- fluence throughout Central Italy was unquestion- ably Sienese. At Orvieto Simone Martini had painted his remarkable picture of the Virgin and Saints for the church of San Domenico, and had left other work of his to stand beside Giotto's at Assisi, where also Pietro Lorenzetti had covered with frescoes the roofs of several of the transepts. At Citti di Castello this same Lorenzetti painted a Virgin and Child with Angels for the church of San Domenico ; at Arezzo in Santa Maria della Pieve a polyptych of Madonna and Saints ; and at Cortona a Madonna and Angels in the Duomo, and a crucifix in the church of San Marco. At Asciano Domenico di Bartolo, Lippo Memmi, and Taddeo di Bartoli painted altar-pieces in several of the churches ; and at Perugia Piero might well have seen and studied pictures by Duccio, Domenico di Bartolo, Taddeo di Bartoli, and Gentile da Fabriano, while at Gubbio Otta- viano Nelli had decorated with frescoes the church of Santa Maria Novella and several others. Thus the principal pictorial creations which were brought before the eyes of Piero as a youth in the towns adjacent to his birthplace were for the most part produced by men in whom the primitive inspiration had 96 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA been modified, and the faculty of representation helped onward by the peculiar qualities of Sienese teaching. These men held the field in his youth, but a farther and more momentous period of advance was at hand. Their traditions and method waned before those which fol- lowed the rise of Masaccio, and the manifestation of Donatello's powers : events which gave to art the most effective impulse it had \'et received, and made their influence felt far and wide. Andrea da! Castagno and Domenico Veneziano were the earliest and most illus- trious of those who took up the new teaching ; so, when Piero was old enough to learn, he went for training and inspiration to the works of men who had formed their style by a study of Masaccio and Donatello, and found himself urged on towards the adoption of the new traditions before his method had become fixed on con- ventional lines. In brief retrospect it may be noted that the central Italian school of painting, after the primal momentum given to it by the two great contemporary masters, Duccio and Giotto, was forced onward by suc- cessive manifestations of the art spirit issuing respect- ively from Siena and Florence. In the beginning Giotto unquestionably held the field against his great compeer, but after his death came that Sienese move- ment, which by its feeling for beauty of line subdued the austerity of Giotto's style. Then came the second great Florentine outburst which under Masaccio's di- rection, launched the art of painting in the course it has pursued with slight variation ever since. It was a happy conjunction when Piero was born into a world which was just opening its eyes to the new light. It is possible that too great importance has been THE CHARM OF PIERO 97 attached to Piero's achievements on the scientific side of art. No claim which aims at marking him as the discoverer of perspective can be seriously entertained ; but his eulogists, though they stop short of this, affirm that Paolo Uccello and Brunelleschi were little better than perspectivists by rule of thumb, and that Piero it was who first raised perspective to the dignity of a science, and that no one before his time had ever duly applied it to the delineation of the human form. There is a certain ground for this claim, but its validation is of little im- portance in settling the question of his place in the hierarchy of art. He undoubtedly drew his figures with more knowledge than Masaccio, but it would be rash to assert that he alwa}'s drew them with greater grace or accuracy. Piero had an important share in bringing to perfection the medium of painting. He adopted the method which Antonello da Messina is said to have learnt from some Flemish master,^ and expended great care and trouble in patient experiments for its improvement. He painted his lights with clear colour, using the same tint somewhat darkened for the shadows. The medium tints are always cool and reticent, and the flesh tones warmed with a due amount of colour. The delicacy of chiaroscuro which he achieved was largely the result of fine and transparent glazings, and few painters in any age have excelled him in the faculty of illumination of flesh tints. ■ When he ' Piero almost certainly studied the use of oil as a medium while painting with Domenico Veneziano at Florence : some years before Antonello was born, Cennini writes that the Florentine painters of the fourteenth century knew the use of oil. " In certain of his pictures — notably in the faces of the angels in H q8 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA set to work to paint drapery he began fearlessly with a scheme of primitive colours which he toned down gradu- ally to a just balance of values, so that the general effect might ultimately be one of complete harmony. In the distribution of light and shade he displayed a knowledge and dexterity which were equally remark- able. Seldom or ever does he concentrate the light in one point of his picture ; he rather treats each field of illumination by itself, and gives to each tint its proper local depth within the plane of the group or scene por- trayed — notable examples of this characteristic being the two smaller frescoes above the Victory of Constantine in San Francesco at Arezzo. A particular study of chiar- oscuro indeed may be found in almost any portion of any picture from his brush. In this respect his method finds its direct contrary in that of Rembrandt, who in his typical works depends for effect upon the condensation of all his light upon one single spot, an illuminated point in a firmament of obscure canvas. It is in the drawing of architectural accessories that Piero shows the most marked superiority to his pre- decessors and contemporaries, but this result probably arose from the fact that he attached greater importance to these accessories, and deemed them worthy of the best work he could give. It is not safe to assume that the painters before the revival ignored landscape and the beauty of the human form, or gave to the same an un- comely or amorphous rendering through mere incapacity. They treated with neglect subjects like these, or slurred ihe Baptism in the National Gallery — the underlying impasto seems to have suffered some change which has affected the modelling. THE CHARM OF PIERO 99 them over, because, infected with cloistral influences, they deemed them worthy of no better usage. Nature and man himself were accounted worthless, or even noxious, as themes for illustration. They still seemed to suggest something of the pagan spirit in Art which the early Christians had exorcised as unclean, when they demolished the temples and broke the images of the gods ; but had these themes, as details, appeared as im- portant to the primitive painters as geometrical per- spective appeared to Piero, it is probable that even the earliest and most ascetic of them would have worked with care and diligence, and perchance have produced bits of nature as charming as those which adorn the backgrounds of Perugino or of Titian himself. The longer and the more attentively Piero's work is studied, the plainer it will be manifest that the cause of the peculiar charm which he exercises — a charm which compels the respect even of those who carp at a tendency, as they allege, to ignore the claimsof beauty of form and expression — does not lie merely in his technical excel- lence, or in his wide knowledge of his art. This charm begins to operate as soon as the onlooker realizes in Piero the possessor of a certain mysterious power, a power denied to crowds of men who have equalled or even surpassed him in excellence of workmanship. This power was the gift which made him the great man he was, and to speculate as to its source would be labour in vain. One instance, perhaps, may be quoted to show how vast may be the loss consequent on its absence — to wit, the instance of Correggio. Correggio had talents of the first order, a marvellous sense of beauty and sure- ness of execution, but with all these gifts his works 100 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA miss the point of consummate achievement, and do not leave on the mind an impression at all commensurate with that which Piero's creations seldom fail to pro- duce upon those who have studied them with care and intelligence. The portrait fresco of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta at Rimini — though it cannot be regarded as Piero's most attractive work — is second to none as an illustration of his peculiar gift. In the description of the picture already given, reference was made to the wonderful restraint displayed by Piero in treatment, and to the marvellous result attained. In this creation, more than in any other, Piero, by the application of his well- trained hand and his well-stored mind to the precious gifts bestowed on him by nature, has produced a work which, as a manifestation of absolute sincerity and originality of treatment, is equalled by few extant examples of the portrait art. Not one superfluous stroke has been used in presenting the subject : and in spite of this reticence it is impossible to stand before this fresco without realizing, albeit imperfectly, the im- mense power of the intellect which produced it. Piero's nature was one of those richly endowed ones which the fifteenth century produced in such rare abund- ance : a nature which, realizing to the full the real signi- ficance of art, gave itself up wholly to the fulfilment of its mission, and found its fellows in the immortal personali- ties of Brunelleschi, Leo Battista Alberti, and Leonardo. Piero, indeed, was lacking in the versatility of these : but, if his field was somewhat narrow, his vision was as clear as theirs, and no artist ever set to work with a more certain notion of the task to be accomplished. And he did not THE CHARM OF PIERO loi spare himself. Painting, as he found it, lacked the pre- cision and sureness of touch which he regarded as essential. It must not be supposed that he studied geometry for its own sake : he troubled himself with it simply because in it he recognized the most efficient instrument for bringing his art to perfection. In literature and in art as well, the student will light now and again upon striking figures which, if for no other reason, compel attention from the fact that they stand apart, upon pedestals of their own. Piero della Francesca is one of these great solitary figures in the world of Art, and there are not many of them. To take Duccio, Giotto, and all the masters of the Sienese and Florentine schools down to the time of Masaccio ; all of these borrowed from their forerunners (Duccio from the Byzantines), and handed down a legacy of form and colour to their successors, thus producing a sequence of pictorial examples which all show signs of descent from the first recognized progenitor of the line, modified here and there by the more potent individuality of some transmitter of the legend. Amongst the Florentines, the Lombards, the Venetians, and the Central Italians after the revival, a similar phenomenon is to be observed, but Piero more than any master of any of the schools aforesaid stands aloof We are taught that certain men were his masters, and that the work of certain other painters helped to form his style. It is not difficult to detect in the Virgin Enthroned, and in the two heads of saints in the National Gallery by Domenico Veneziano, traces of the informing spirit which affected the beginning of Piero's method. The noble simplicity of Domenico's figures, 102 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA the dignified reticence of the faces (Donatello's influence is here plainlymanifest) and the carefullydrawn andrichly painted draperies of these compositions are all repro- duced in the subsequent works of his great pupil. The striving after correct drawing, which is apparent in the lines of the marble chair occupied by the Virgin in the National Gallery picture, shows that Domenico had at least the sense of perspective, though the mistakes, which must affront even the eye of a novice, prove that he was still in the empiric stage. Domenico's most marked characteristic is the grandeur of his conception of the human form, and the supremacy he gives to it in the scheme of his compositions. In the London Madonna, signs of the influence of Angelico are apparent ; but these grow less in the Virgin and Saints in the Uffizi, and in the fresco figures of two saints in Santa Croce' they disappear entirely. Domenico felt and manifested freely the spirit of the revival ; he lived in the full vigour of the early spring, and handed on to his pupil a virtue which was yet waxing and un- folding. To judge aright of work executed in this era of spontaneous vigour, it is only necessary to place it beside some product of an age of stagnancy or decay, some smooth, showy canvas of the mannerist period, the result of eyesight sated by the contemplation of pictorial achievement of all degrees of merit, and too weary and too imperfectly disciplined to return to nature. Andrea Castagno, Domenico's contemporary, is often cited as one of those whose work and teaching helped to form Piero's style, and this contention is just. ' This work was until recently attributed to Castagno. THE CHARM OF PIERO 103 Castagno had the gift of letting his figures stand firmly on their feet and in perfect balance, a gift which he handed on to Piero. Piero's figures, even in his early works, are posed with dignity and certitude ; and no figures of his are more reminiscent of Castagno's hand- ling than the Sant' Andrea and the San Sebastian in the Misericordia altar-piece at San Sepolcro. An examination of Andrea's fresco of the Resurrec- tion at Sant' Apollonia in Florence will show another instance. The figure of Christ standing upon the edge of the tomb, the cold clear sky of morning, and the background of trees might well have been in Piero's mind when he conceived the scheme of his fresco of the same subject at Borgo San Sepolcro ; while many others of his figures are strongly reminiscent of the drawings of sybils and warriors by Castagno, which have been brought to Sant' Apollonia from the Villa Legnaia, near Florence. Judging from the stately usage Piero followed in posing his figures, it may be inferred with reason that he also felt directly Donatello's influence during his student life at Florence as Do- menico's pupil. Possibly the spectacle of certain treasures of classical antiquity may have affected him as well ; but in his case classical influences were far less potent than they were in that of Mantegna. Finally, during his career as a student, he must frequently have come across the work of Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli ; but whether he studied them or not, they assuredly left no trace on his style, which finally emerged entirely free from the superficiality of Gozzoli, and from the monkish restraint of Angelico. CHAPTER XI HIS INFLUENCE AND POWER WITH regard to Piero's two great pupils, Luca Signorelli and Melozzo da Forli, men in whom indications of his teaching might reasonably be antici- pated, it is a difficult matter to cite any plain and un- mistakable examples of his influence in the work of either of them, apart from a broad and open method of treatment and in certain details of technique. Melozzo took from his master the characteristic Umbrian sense of space, and displayed rare skill in its application, not- ably in the great portrait group of Federigo di Monte- feltro and his son in the gallery at Windsor. Melozzo, more than any other painter, learned the secret whereby Piero was able to invest his figures with that incompar- able severity and dignified simplicity which is his most marked characteristic. In his single figures this trait is especially striking, and it also characterizes those in the transferred fresco of Sixtus IV. and Jus Cardinals, now in the Pinacoteca at the Vatican. In this composition the careful drawing of the architectural details, the at- tention shown to perspective, the accurate apportionment of each figure to the space it fills, the arrangement of the masses of light and shade, and the tj'pical Umbrian rendering of the draperies are all the effects of Piero's teaching. Melozzo seems to have been a diligent student HIS INFLUENCE AND POWER 105 of perspective.' In his maturity he evidently studied the works of Mantegna, and let his style be influenced by the great Paduan master. Of Melozzo's separate figures — which on the whole show Piero's influence more strongly than the groups — the best known are two figures in the museum at Berlin, Dialectics and Astronomy, and two others in the National Gallery, Music and Rhetoric. All these were originally in the palace at Urbino, and are painted in strict adher- ence to the rules which govern the design of figures placed high in an apartment, and only to be seen from below. Also, there are some remarkable fragments of his work preserved in the Sacristy of St. Peter's at Rome : heads of angels singing and playing divers in- struments. Luca Signorelli, the greater pupil of a great master, without doubt acquired from Piero that indescribable sense of dignity and reticence which in certain cases serves to mitigate the faulty composition. The eye may be conscious that the field is overcrowded, that the grouping is confused and ill-balanced, but it will be equally conscious that each individual figure is dignified, simple, and noble. The exuberance of Signorelli's fancy must almost certainly have been held back from eccentric manifestations by the traditions of his master's method, but these points being touched little else remains to be said. In every other respect Signorelli is to a far greater extent the artistic son of Pollaiuolo than of Piero della Francesca ; indeed,if the architectural features ' Giovanni Santi writes in his rhymed chronicle : " Non lasciando Melozzo a me si caro Che in prospettiva ha steso tanto il passo." io6 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA ill certain of his pictures are omitted — for example, in th& Ann7mdation at Volterra, which might well have been inspired by a similar detail in Piero's rendering of the same subject in the Pinacoteca at Perugia — there is little executive resemblance to his master's individual style in any of his productions. From this brief consideration of Piero's natural ten- dencies it will appear that in dealing with him we stand face to face with one endowed with certain extraordinary qualities ; to wit, a pregnant brain and a virility of genius which gave to the world a type which no one had yet pro- duced : a type which for stateliness and sincerity has never been excelled ; and along with these positive qualities we may note a negative one which we cannot but deplore. This was his inability to transmit these astonishing qualities to his successors. This gift he could not im- part as he could the knowledge of perspective, of chiar- oscuro, of accurate composition, and the due adjustment of planes. This apparent failing on his part may perad- venture have arisen from the fact that during his lifetime he met with no nature sufficiently sympathetic with his own to take from him the greatest treasure he had to leave. When once the charm and mystery of Piero's work are fully realized, it will be clearly manifest that this work is not the mere reproduction of impressions received. Piero's mind was one of those powerfully working ones which transform the essence as well as the form of the material upon which they operate. In the fiery furnace of his nature the images he may have incorporated in his fancy were not simply stamped with the mark of his individuality ; they were resolved, transmuted, and re- HIS INFLUENCE AND POWER 107 produced in forms incomparably more noble and precious than the originals. Either from the maintenance of his faculties at this tense strain of emotion, or from the want of a duly qualified successor, he was apparently doomed to sterility, so far as the transmission of his higher gifts was concerned. That inherent force of his nature which could strike so strong and unmistakable a stamp upon his own productions could go no farther, but seemed to spend itself in the creative effort. It would be idle to maintain, or even to suggest, that a man of Piero's power and originality could spend his life in such magnificent achievement and still exercise no influence upon the men around him, or over those who came after him. The view which has been here advanced goes no farther than to suggest that, while he distributed liberally the stores of scientific knowledge which he had accumulated, and led his followers to copy here and there subordinate characteristics of his method, no one of his followers ever took up his mantle, or was able to rise to an achievement equalling the figure of the risen Christ at Borgo San Sepolcro. The quality of his genius was exceedingly subtle and fleeting, and amongst the pupils who came to him for instruction not one in a hundred would be endowed with faculties sympathetic and delicate enough to apprehend, much less to repro- duce, the spirit of his teaching. His greater disciples are justly famous in the world of art, but not one of them ever was to him what the young Raphael was to Perugino, or what Filippino Lippi was to Botticelli. Before giving a detailed account of the painters who, by their surviving work, show some traces of a study of Piero's method, it will be well to refer briefl}' to his io8 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA sojourn in Rome, and to consider the question as to what influence may have been exercised by the frescoes he is said to have painted there under the direction of Pope Nicolas V. Whatever the subject of these frescoes may have been, it is certainly permissible to infer that their presence must have tended to break the fetters under which mediaeval art had languished, and to counteract any tendencies towards asceticism and con- ventional handling which may have lingered in the temperament of any of the painters who were brought face to face therewith. Let us therefore consider whether we can detect in the work of any of the painters, who have left their mark on the walls of the Vatican, some fresh departure, some new inspiration, which dates from the time of his engagement. The first name to suggest itself is that of Raphael. The astounding genius of this marvellous youth, after he had once come to realize his powers, would not be likely to bend itself to the sway of any master ; but in the growth of the greatest intellects there must always be particular points of time when some new and decisive impression will make itself felt. One of these epoch-making moments may well have come to Raphael when he stood and gazed upon the frescoes of Piero which he had been commanded to de- stroy. Whatever their creations may have been, Raphael certainly must have seen them, and the recorded state- ment of Vasari that he caused them to be copied by his assistants before their destruction, warrants the inference that he found in them something to admire and perhaps to imitate. Up to the time of his quitting Florence for Rome in 1 508, Raphael had painted only one picture which was HIS INFLUENCE AND POWER 109 not religious in subject, that is the Three Graces, now in the gallery at Chantilly, wherefore, in order to execute the task laid upon him by the worldly and ambitious Julius II., he was compelled to equip himself with a new set of ideas so as to be able to illustrate adequately scenes of secular history and dramatic episodes in the picturesque mythology of the ancients, and to celebrate generally the glories of the humanistic ideal. It would certainly be a stretch of the imagination to profess to detect in Raphael's treatment of the Sacrifice of Isaac or of the Deliverance of Peter any manifest and unques- tionable traces of the method of Piero, whose frescoes once stood upon the walls of the same apartment.' Such a course would be a surrender to that craving for special illustration which is one of the infirmities of modern dissertations on painting, but it is a perfectly legitimate hypothesis to imply that Raphael may have found the calm and reticent treatment used by his Umbrian predecessor to be full of suggestive and stimu- lating counsel in those moments when he was debating in what spirit he should set to work to give form to these imaginings which, as far as he himself was con- cerned, belonged to a new and strange world. Amongst the achievements of pictorial art existing in Rome at the date of his visit, it is hard to single out one which could have stimulated Raphael's brain and hand to the production of such triumphs of composition as the Disputa or the School of Athens ; but, though the painters might have been unsuggestive, the poets had ' According to Vasari, The Deliverance of Peter and the Miracle of Bolsena were painted over Piero's frescoes ("\'ita," vol. ii., p. 493)- no PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA been fruitful, and had already conjured up word pictures of dramatic and stately spectacles, such as the " Trionfo della Fama " and the " Trionfo d'Amore," which glow in Petrarch's pages : and Raphael, with no foreboding of the contempt destined to be manifested in after times towards painters who illustrate literary themes, may well have betaken himself to this fount of inspiration when he was maturing the scheme of his immortal works. But besides these sources there were others which he might well have approached. Rome was then the haunt of men of learning and culture, though Julius II. found more use for soldiers and statesmen than for poets and rhetoricians : Inghirami, Sadoleto, and Beroaldo are a few of the names which may be quoted, and in conversation with men such as these Raphael may well have been brought to realize the leading points of the great argument he was about to illustrate, and to select with discretion the special famous personages to be de- picted as representatives of this or that great epoch of the world's history. With regard to Raphael's fresco of the Sacrifice of Isaac, it has been already noted that a theory — a bold one, but not without claims for consideration — has been started to demonstrate that the drawing of the angel, swooping down from heaven to arrest the hand of Abraham, was most likely inspired by the superseded work of Piero : the perfect arrangement of space, the severity of line, and the general harmony of composition being cited as proofs that the inspiring influence might well have come from the work of the artist who painted the Vision of Constantine in the church of San Francesco at Arezzo, In the Deliverayicc of Peter, also, the skilful HIS INFLUENCE AND POWER in management of light and shade — here treated with a facility Raphael had never hitherto approached — lends a certain plausibility to the view that Piero had pre- viously painted in the same apartment some dexterous example of chiaroscuro, and that Raphael made a care- ful study of the same before he set to work upon his own fresco. The night effect, the rays of the moon, the glare of the torches, the light reflected from the shining armour of the guards, the misty smoke, and the care- fully treated masses of light and shade all certainly tend to support the view that Raphael may have approached the execution of this fresco with his eye enriched by some fresh suggestion, taken from the work of Piero which was destined to give place to his own. To go a step farther, it is by no means impossible that, some time or other, Raphael may have visited Arezzo, and there have gathered other and more general impressions from the frescoes in San Francesco. But at the present day, when the besetting infirmity of the art student is to write axioms in water, and to claim finality in a court the decisions of which will be successively upset until every picture, over which they now wrangle, will have fallen to dust, such suggestions as those above written should only be advanced as hypothetical. It is vain labour to attempt to prove everything and to speculate as to every particular instance in which the young Raphael may have been influenced by his great forerunner ; but, as has been already remarked, it is almost certain that a general influence, powerful and far reaching, would diffuse itself from any work which Piero may have left on the walls of the Stanze. A careful consideration of Raphael's works in the 112 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA Sala d'Eliodoro, encourages the view that it is in the famous fresco of the Parnassus, where the painter turns his back upon asceticism and mediaeval types, and revels in the glorification of music and poetry, and in the joy of life ; and again in the magnificent study of anatomy in the small lunette of the Fall of Man on the ceiling, that the leaven of Piero's influence has worked with the happiest effect. In these compositions Raphael casts off the last trammels of mediaivalism, and accords a worthy treatment to the human form, drawing it with a nobility, freedom, and vigour equal to that used b> Piero's great pupil, Luca Signorelli, in the Duomo at Orvieto. It would be superfluous to seek for any further instance of Piero's influence on the finest flo^\'er of Umbrian art. CHAPTER XII HIS PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS TO come to the men who lived nearer to his own time, and putting aside Melozzo da Forli and Luca Signorelli, the two men who are commonly rated as the direct inheritors of whatever legacy Piero as a teacher was able to transmit, there is to be found amongst the Italian painters of the fifteenth century, a distinguished set of men whose work gives evidence of a study more or less intimate of his types and methods- From the fact that the painters aforesaid are most numerous in the school which subsequently became identified with Perugia, there seems a high probability that Piero must have spent a considerable time in that city at some period after his sojourn there as the pupil of Domenico Veneziano. Benozzo Gozzoli, who was Fra Angelico's assistant in painting the roof of the chapel of San Brizio in the cathedral at Orvieto, was a contemporary rather than a follower of Piero, but in some of the early work which he left in Umbria, indications of Piero's influence may be observed. His frescoes in the church of San Francesco at Montefalco show the closest affinit)- to Piero's method : these indeed are some of the weakest of Benozzo's paintings, for it \\as not until he developed an in- dependent stj'le in the Campo Santo at Pisa, and in the I 114 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA Palazzo Riccardi at Florence, that his charm was fully revealed. Benozzo may be designated as the herald of the Florentine movement in this part of Umbria, and the contemplation even of his imperfect creations seems to have stimulated the poverty-stricken school of Perugia to seek help and strengthening from other Umbrian masters who had also gained, both in strength and sweetness, from the teachings of Florence. Bonfigli, whose paintings are scarcely to be seen out of Perugia, was in all probability a fellow-student there with Piero under Domenico Veneziano ; for his works which are now in Perugia show signs, especially in the matter of technique, of the influence of Piero and of Domenico as well ; his draperies, however, are painted somewhat in the manner of Filippino Lippi. It is in the sober majesty of his figures, and in his flower-crowned angels, full of dignity in spite of their baby faces, that the traces of Piero's style are most marked. In the picture of the Death of San Ludovico the combined in- fluence of Piero and Domenico is well illustrated, the facial portraiture and the grouping of the figures being strongly reminiscent of Domenico's style, while the architectural surroundings are evidently taken from some study by Piero, the details of perspective being very carefully rendered. But in colour Bonfigli was more in sympathy with Benozzo Gozzoli than with his master or his fellow-student, and the rich raiment of his lovely angels and the golden glow in which they sit and sing were fruits of a portion of his technique which Piero had no share in providing. Giovanni Boccatis was another of the Perugian masters who came under the combined influence of Piero della HIS PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS 115 Francesca and Benozzo Gozzoli, his imitation of Piero's manner being most clearly marked in a Head of the Virgin and a Crucifixion in the Pinacoteca at Perugia. Matteo da Gualdo, whose chief work is to be seen at Assisi, and Lorenzo di Viterbo, who painted a remark- able set of frescoes in Santa Maria della Verita at Viterbo, are painters who may be included in the same category. With regard to Lorenzo, Piero's influence is less apparent in the frescoes at Viterbo, than it is in the less interesting work in San Francesco at Montefalco. At Viterbo, on the vaulting over the altar, Lorenzo's figures of St. Augustine writing, of the Venerable Bede, of the prophet Ezekiel and of the Evangelists are visibly imitated from Benozzo Gozzoli, so far as the faces are concerned, but the treatment of the draperies is just as certainly modelled on Piero's method. Of the frescoes on the walls, the Annunciation reveals also an imitation of Gozzoli's style, but the Going into the Temple, and the Nativity, with its delightful touch of neighbourly solicitude on the part of the attendant women, are clearly inspired by Piero's manner. Altogether the invasion of the Renaissance sentiment springing from Florence achieved a less facile victory in the parts around Perugia than in other districts of Umbria. There existed, however, a special reason for the sustained, and, in a measure, successful resistance of the ascetic spirit in Perugia, and this reason was to be found in the near neighbourhood of Assisi, and in the still potent working of the legend of St. Francis. The impression originally produced by the exhibition of Giotto's great achievement at Assisi, and nurtured b}' the still vivid associations connected w ith the saint's life ii6 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA and teaching and miracles, was as yet too strong to be neutralized by the infusion of any extraneous sentiment, however efficient and persuasive the exponents of the same might be. In its extreme manifestations the ten- dencies of this wonderful legend were unquestionably morbid and unwholesome ; but, for good or evil, these manifestations appealed powerfully to local sentiment, and set an indelible stamp on the character of any paintings which may have been produced in the region. Neither Domenico Veneziano in 1438, nor Piero della Francesca, when at a later period he painted the altar- piece for the monastery of Sant' Antonio, succeeded in modifying the methods and aims of the Peruginesque artists so strongly as did Benozzo Gozzoli, whose ex- pression of the devotional spirit was more marked and sympathetic. They even affected them less than did Carlo Crivelli, who, by those of his pictures which he left in the Mark of Ancona, unquestionably helped on the Umbrian school in richness of decorative effect. More- over, the fame of Fra Angelico, and the frescoes which he painted at Orvieto, and in other central Italian cities earlier in the fifteenth century, had tended to strengthen the growth of the devotional sentiment amongst the Umbrian painters, and at the same time to deaden their susceptibilities towards the recently arisen scientific im- pulse of which Piero della Francesca was the most note- worthy interpreter. It was in the eastern provinces of Umbria, amongst the painters of the Mark of Ancona and the Duchy of Urbino, that the traces of Piero's influence are most strongly apparent. The difference in the social and physical conditions of these regions from those prevalent HIS PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS 117 round about Perugia may partially account for this re- sult. That excessive hysterical emotionalism which pervaded the secluded valleys of the Upper Tiber found a less congenial inilicu in the busy towns of the eastern coast, and amongst the shrewd, prosperous contadini who tilled the fertile plains lying adjacent thereto. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that Piero's influence in these regions made itself felt less by the exhibition of his own powers than by the teaching and method of his pupil Melozzo da Forli, through whom Giovanni Santi, Palmezzano, Corradini, and Niccolo d'Alunno were es- pecially affected. Melozzo's great work at Loreto would naturally have spread his fame as a master in the regions adjacent. Giovanni Santi was coaeval with, or perhaps senior to Melozzo, wherefore it is unlikely that he ever was, strictly speaking, his pupil. Like Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, whose best work is now in the Pinacoteca at Perugia, Giovanni Santi shows signs of Mantegna's influence, an influence which in his case was probably operative through Piero ; but with regard to Fiorenzo, the resemblance to Mantegna is so strongly marked, that it seems certain this painter must, some time or other, have come under the direct teaching of Mantegna himself Perhaps Bartolommeo Corradini (Fra Carnovale), whose share in the large picture in the Brera at Milan ' has already been discussed, painted more like Piero in style than any other of his followers. The Brera picture is evidently the work of two painters, and it is not difficult to point out the portions of it in which Piero had no hand ; ' Page 65. ri8 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA nevertheless, the work of one artist does not clash with that of the other, the influence of the master having proved strong and penetrating enough to compass unity both in spirit and in expression. Marco Palmezzano, the representative pupil of Me- lozzo, can scarcely be quoted as an inheritor of any material share of Piero's legacy ; but his works are worth study as examples of the divergence between the Eastern and Western schools of Umbrian painting. They abound in Forli, but the finest example is a Madonna and Saints in San Francesco at Matelica. It would be easy to add largely to the list of painters falling into the category of the aforenamed ; but it is doubtful whether any clearer notion of the character and extent of the diffusion of Piero's teaching would be thereby attained ; indeed, in whatever aspect it may be studied, the question of the influence exercised by Piero on art at large is exceedingly difficult to determine. The modification of types, and the more faithful and symmetrical rendering of the same, constitute that portion of his legacy which meets the investigator on the threshold of his inquiry ; but to trace those quasi invisible forces, which were set in action by Piero's adoption of the scientific method, and by the operation of his marvellous natural gifts, is a task which, for reasons of space, cannot here be attempted. It must suffice to remark that the operation of these forces is general rather than particular ; that it may in many cases be detected and grasped by comparing the work of those men who had seen and studied his creations, with that of others who had not enjoyed this privilege ; and that its most important manifestations will be found HIS PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS 119 to lie in the nobler and more elevated conceptions, and in the more learned and symmetrical renderings, which marked the great age of Italian painting, rather than in the works of any special group of men. The condition of the Umbrian school of painting as it existed at the time of Piero's opening activity has been already noticed. Very soon after this period the followers of the masters before-named ' began to show signs of the infiltration of the spirit of the Florentine revival, and it was left to Piero to seize the full significance of this vivifying impulse, and, by uniting thereto the purer tendencies of the prevailing current of thought, and by treating it with the superior knowledge he had acquired, to put a seal on the art of his day, and to lead into the art current of the age that fertilizing rill which affected the productions of the great men who followed him as widely and as permanently as did the primal revelation of Masaccio's powers. In brief, it may be said that Piero's influence upon art is to be traced in the more enriched and humane inter- pretation of life essayed by those of his followers who rightly comprehended the significance of his message, rather than in any copying of details or reproduction of style or handling. The literary eulogists of the Renais- sance have made it an article of faith that the revival of the arts was essentially the result of the imitation of classic forms, an awkward and incomplete statement of a position which, after a very cursory examination, will be found untenable. To take two great representative figures, Andrea Mantegna and Piero della Francesca, ' Page 95. 120 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA and to assert that these two, by following the lessons of classic antiquity, advanced along the same path by the same methods and were substantially at one in their practice, would be to court overthrow. On the one hand Mantegna formed his style by direct imitation of ancient sculpture and of architectural remains, a process natural enough in his case, seeing that in no city of Italy was the classical tradition more faithfully preserved than in Padua. He worked with admirable patience and ob- servation, and trained his hand to set upon the panel a presentment of the human form, dignified and sym- metrical indeed, but a statue rather than a living figure. His fundamental error was that he spent his powers in reproducing on the flat what another man had carved in stone. The hard Roman type of the models he studied in his youth affected his style long after he had ceased to copy them ; and, though he had never freed himself en- tirely from mannerism, his frescoes in the Church of the Eremitani at Padua show that, at the time when he executed them, he had advanced towards naturalism at least as far as any of his contemporaries. The inborn poetry of his nature and his powers of invention enabled him to give to his paintings an attraction and charm in which many other compositions derived from origins strictly legitimate, are entirely wanting. His exquisite technique, the sense of motion he is able to communicate in spite of his faulty methods, and the magnificent figures of his warriors and apostles, compel our admiration, but for some reason his pictures lack the life which seems to pulsate even in the forms which grew under Giotto's less instructed pencil. Piero, on the other hand, began at the point designated as vital b\- the Greek critic, Pamphi- HIS PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS 121 lius, that is, in the study of geometry. He went to the fountain-head, -saturating himself with the learning of the ancients, and working his way to excellence by the employment of scientific rules. A creation of Piero's was produced by the application of a general law which would serve its purpose to the end of time, and not by the copying of a particular object by a hand governed by no definite principle. Such creations as have been handed down to us in the Risen Christ, or in the Alary Magdalen, or in the eager warriors of the Battle of Con- stantine, may be rated as triumphs of constructive energy achieved by the application of knowledge to the har- monizing and delineation of the mental impression, and saved from artificiality and from all signs of the livtce labor by the transforming vigour of the artist's hand. It is not in the nature of things that the transferred semblances of statues and columns and architectural details, which constitute so large a portion of Mantegna's handiwork, should be endowed with the seminal strength of Piero's creations, which plainly proclaimed the story of their evolution ; which led his followers to study as he had studied, and ultimately to produce, each accord- ing to his particular gifts, the most splendid triumphs in the history of art ; a result which would never have been achieved by the most assiduous copying of the products, however fine, of a bygone age,' As of another, it might be said of Piero ; '■ He doth bear His part, while the one spirit's plastic stress Sweeps through the dull, dense world, compelling there ' The horses in the battle pictures at Arezzo and in the Trio?iJl in the Uffizi are Piero's most evident imitations of the antique. 122 PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA All new successions to the forms they wear, Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight To its own likeness." His "compelling" hand assuredly stamped his work with an individuality more intense than any other painter ever compassed, but this feat never has nor ever will win for him the notice of the people who merely talk about painting. It is no uncommon thing to come across a list of Italian painters which lacks his name ; and in a recent popular selection of Vasari's lives his life is not to be found. His work, scanty in volume and unattractive to eyes sated with the obvious and the commonplace, will never commend itself to any but those who have set them- selves to study it with zeal and application, for it is not by cursory inspection, nor by the mere committal to memory of the names and locations of his pictures, that any one will be able to realize the full significance of his achieve- ment, or to determine in what degree it contributed to the enlightenment and dexterity of the men who, during the succeeding century, gave to the world its greatest historical masterpieces. CATALOGUE OF THE WORKS OF PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA AND OF CERTAIN WORKS ATTRIBUTED TO THE ARTIST, ARRANGED ACCORDING TO THE GALLERIES IN WHICH THEY ARE CONTAINED NOTE W)iere numbers are given thus [No. 6], they are the nu/nbers of the catalogue of ttie gallery. These cannot of course be guaran- teed, as alterations are not infrequently made in the arrangement of tlie pictures. Several fictures attributed to the artist have been included U'hich the author cannot accept. These are denoted by an asterisk. CATALOGUE OF WORKS BRITISH ISLES. LONDON, NATIONAL GALLERY. *PoRTRAiT OF A Lady. Head in profile. In tempera, on wood, I ft. 4| in. x iitV in. [No. sSS-] Formerly in the possession of the Marchese Carlo Guicci- ardini of Florence. Purchased at Florence from the Lombardi-Baldi collection in 1857. This is no longer ascribed to Piero. The Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan. In tempera, on wood, 5 ft. 5-i- in. x 3 ft. 9I in. [No. 665.] Formerly the principal altar-piece of the Priory of St. John the Baptist at Borgo San Sepolcro. When the priory was suppressed in 1807 the picture was removed to the sacristy of the Cathedral, where it formed the centre portion of an altar decoration, the remainder of which was by another hand. It was bought by Sir J. C. Robinson for Mr. Uzielli, at whose sale it was purchased for the National Collection in 1861. Christ is standing in the river, under the shade of a pome- granate tree, receiving the water on his head from the cup of the Baptist ; the do\'e is descending upon him. On the spectator's left are three angels witnessing the ceremony other figures are on the banks of the river, in the back- ground. Composition of si.\ principal figures. 126 CATALOGUE OF WORKS *PoRTRAiT OF A Lady. Ill lempera, on wood, 2 ft. x I ft. 4 in. [No. 758.] Formerly belonging to the Counts Pancrazi, in Ascoli. Pur- chased from Signor Egidi, in Florence, in 1866. Said to be a Contessa Palma, of Urbino. A bust in pro- file, life size. St. Michael and the Dragon. On wood, 4 ft. 43 in. x I ft. II in. [No. 769.] Formerly in the possession of Signor Fidanza at Milan. Purchased from the collection of Sir Charles Eastlake, P.R.A., in 1867. The Archangel is standing full-length and nearly life-size, clothed in a coat of blue and gold armour, and he has large white wings ; on his feet are red socks, open in front. He stands on the slain beast or serpent, the detached head of which he holds in his left hand ; in his right he has his bloody sword. Inscribed Angelus Potentia Dei Lucha. The Nativity of our Lord. On wood, 4 ft. i in. x 4 ft. [No. 908.] Formerly in the possession of the Franceschi-Marini family, of Borgo San Sepolcro, descendants of the painter, who entrusted it for sale into the hands of the Cavaliere Ugo Baldi in Florence, where, in 1861, it was bought by Mr. Alexander Barker. Purchased for the National Gallery at the Barker sale in 1874. The child is lying on the ground on the corner of the mantle of the Virgin, who is kneeling in adoration ; five angels are singing, or playing on musical instruments. In the background is a ruined shed or stall, in which are seen an ox and an ass. Joseph is seated behind the Virgin on the ass's saddle ; near him are two shepherds. In the dis- tance a hilly landscape and the view of a town. Unfinished. BRITISH ISLES— GERMANY—ITALY 127 OXFORD, CHRIST CHURCH LIBRARY. Madonna and Child with Angels. GERMANY. BERLIN, MUSEUM. Study of Architecture. Tempera, 4 ft. i in. x 7 fi. 9 in. [No. 1615.] *Profile Portrait of a Lady. i ft. 8 in. x i ft. 2 in. [No. 1 6 14.] P'rom the Ashburnham Collection. *Tobias and the Archangels. [No. 1616.] i ft. 2 in. x 10 in. Lent by Dr. Bode. ITAL Y. AREZZO, DUOMO. The Magdalen. Fresco. AREZZO, BACCI CHAPEL, SAN FRANCESCO. North and South Watts : The Story of the Origin and Discovery of the Cross. East IVatt : The An- nunciation, The Vision of Constantine, T\vo FIGURES of Saints. Two frescoes. On pillar of Choir Arch : Head of Angel. Frescoes. BORGO SAN SEPOLCRO, MUNICIPIO. The Resurrection, — San Ludovico. Frescoes. BORGO S. S., OSPEDALE DELLA MISERICORDIA. Altar-piece, in oil and tempera. BORGO S. S., VILLA CATTANI. Hercules. Fresco. 128 CATALOGUE OF WORKS FLORENCE, UFFIZI. Portraits of Federigo and Battista, Duke and Duchess of Urbino. [No. 1300.] Two busts in profile, painted on two little doors ; on the other sides of the panels are two allegorical compositions representing the Duke and Duchess in chariots. N.B. — These are in the third hall of the Tuscan school. :milan, brera gallery. Madonna and Child, with Saints and Angels, and Portrait of Federigo di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, kneeling. 8 ft. 2 in. x 5 ft. 7 in. [No. 187, Sala n.] From the Church of San Bernardino, Urbino. iMILAN, POLDI-PEZZOLI GALLERY. *Profile Portrait of a Lady. Tempera, 1 ft. 6 in. x I ft. gin. [No. 21, Sala IIL] On the back is the inscription : " Uxor Joannes De Bardi." MONTERCHIO, CHAPEL OF THE CEMETERY. Fresco of Madonna and Angels. PERUGL\, PINACOTECA. Virgin and Child and Saints. ^Vltar-piece. Above this a lunette of the Annunciation. [No. 21, Sala V.] From the church of the suppressed monastery of Sant' Antonio in Perugia. RIMINI, SAN FRANCESCO. Portrait of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesxa and St. Sigismund, his patron Saint. Fresco. ITALY 129 SINIGAGLIA, SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE. Madonna and Child and Angels. URBINO, PINACOTECA. Architectural Study. URBINO, DUOMO. The Flagellation. VENICE, ACCADEMIA (Sala Palladiana). St. Jerome and a kneeling Donor in a red dress, said to be Girolamo, son of Agostino Amadi. Signed " petri de bVgo sci sepvlcri opvs." Under neath the kneeling figure is the inscription : " hier amadi . avg . F." Panel, i ft. 7I in. x i ft. 55 in. [No. 49-] Mr. B. Berenson describes a picture by Piero, The Triutnph of Chivalry, belonging to the Historical Society of New York, but this society disclaims the possession of any such picture. INDEX Adam, Burial of, 31, 39. Adam, Death of, 2,^, 56. Albeiti, Leo Battisla, 15, 19, 37, 90, 100. Andrea dal Castagno, 96 ; influence of on Piero, 102, 103. Angelico, Fra, his frescoes in the Vatican, 26 ; his Entombment of the Virgin, 54 ; his slight in- fluence on Piero, 102, 103; 51, 116. Annunciation, The (Borgo), 53, 127 ; (Perugia), 61, 128, ill., 90 ; (Arezzo), 127, ill., 40. Antonello da Messina, technique of, 97. Architectural Subject (Urbino), 65, 129, ill., 82; (Berlin), 65, 127 ; (Barberini Palace), 69. Arezzo, frescoes in San Francesco at, 27-39, 127 ; fresco in the cathedral of, 40, 127 ; fresco in the Palazzo Comunale at, 41, 42. Assumption of the Virgin, The, 43, 50,51. Bacci, Luigi, 28, 29. Baptism of Christ, The, 46, 48, 54, 64, 65, 66, 97 ;/., 125, ill., 54. Berlin, works by Piero in, 65-68, 127. Bicci di Lorenzo, assistant to Do- menico Veneziano, 14 ; frescoes in the Bacci chapel at Arezzo begun by, 28, 29 ; death of, 29, 43- Bicci, Lorenzo, 28, 29. Boccatis, Giovanni, influence of Piero on, 114, 115. Bonfigli, influence of Piero on, 114. Borgo San Sepolcro, altar-piece in the chapel of the Misericordia at, 14. 15. 43> 51-54. 127; the Resuri-ection at, 43-49, 127; the Assumption of the Virgin at, 50 ; the San Ludovico at, 55, 127. Bramantino di Milano, said to have worked with Piero in the Vatican, 12, 21, 23, 24. Bramantino, II, 21, 58. Bruiielleschi, 37, 89, 97, 100. Carnovale, Fra, 65, 66, 117. C/iosroes, Defeat and Death of, 32, ill., 32- Constantino, Victory of, over Max- entius, 32, 38, 121. Constantine, The Vision of, 34, 38, 61, 127, ill., 38. Corradini, Bartolommeo, picture at Jlilan attributed to, 65, 66, 117. 132 INDEX Correggio, contrasted with Piero, 99- Cossa, Francesco, frescoes at Fer- rara by, 83, 84, 86. Costa, Lorenzo, frescoes at Ferrara, by, 84. Crivelli, Carlo, 116. Crucifixion, The (Borgo San Sepol- cro), 53, 54. Delia Robbias, the, influence of, on Piero, 67. Discovery of the Cross, The, 30, 127, ill., 34. Domenico di Bartolo, the /Resurrec- tion at Siena by, 53 ; other works by, 54, 95. Domenico Veneziano, master of Piero, 13, 14, 17, 68, 71, 96, 97 »., loi, 102, 116; his Virgin and Child in the National Gal- lery, 19 K., 67. Donatello, 13, 96. Dossi, Dosso, his work at Ferrara, 82. Duccio, 95, 96, loi. Entombment, The (Borgo), 53, 54. Ferrara, Piero at, 81-86. Ferrara, Borso, Duke of, 81, 82. Ferrara, Ercole, Duke of, 82, 83. Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, 117. Flagellation, The (Urbino), 35, 62, 77. 129 ; (Borgo), S3. Florence, pictures by Piero in the Uffizi, 68, 70, 74, 75, 128. Francesca, Piero della, his name, 3 ?i., II ; the spirit of his work, 9 ; the message of his work, 10 ; portrait of himself, ill., 10; birth and parentage, II ; pupil of Domenico Veneziano, 13 ; altar-piece at Borgo San Sepol- cro, 15 ; at Malatesta's court at Rimini, 15, 16, 44 ; his earliest fresco, 17 ; visit to Rome, 21, 22, 44 ; frescoes in the Vatican, 22, 23 ; frescoes at Arezzo, 27- 39 ; contrasted with Gaddi, 35, 36 ; the first of the scientific realists, 37 ; the Resurrection at Borgo San Sepolcro, 43-49 ; other works at San Sepolcro, 50-56 ; fresco at Monterchio, 56, 57 ; vanished frescoes, 58 ; works at Perugia, 60-62 ; works in the National Gallery, 54, 64, 65, 68 ; influenced by Hugo van der Goes, 64, 67 ; influenced by the Della Robbias, 67 ; various portraits, 68 ; visit to Urbino, 69, 71, 73- 80; visit to Ferrara, 81-86; his treatise on Perspective, 80, 87- 91 ; his death, 93 ; his use of perspective, 97 ; his technique, 97 ; his treatment of light and shade, 98 ; his architectural ac- cessories, 98, 99 ; the source of his charm, 99 ; influence of his predecessors, 101-103 5 his in- fluence on Melozzo da Forli and Signorelli, 104, 105 ; his power, 106, 107 ; probable influence on Raphael, 108-112; hispupilsand followers, 113-122; his influence summed up, 118, 119. Francesca, Benedetto della, Piero's father, 12. Francesco da Citti di Castello, 51. Gaddi, Agnolo, fresco in Santa Croce, 30, 31 ; contrasted with Piero, 35, 36. INDEX 133 Galassi, frescoes at Ferrara by, 84, 86. Gentile da Fabriano, 21, 95. Giotto, 95, 96, loi, 115. Giovio, Paolo, 24. Giulio Romano, 24. Golden Legend, the, 30. Gozzoli, Benozzo, 103 ; influence of Piero on, 113, 114; his in- fluence on others, 114, 115, 116. Hercules (Borgo San Sepolcro), 56, 127, ill., 56. Heraclius and Chosroes, Battle between, 32, 79, ill., 32. Holy Cross, Discovery of the, 30, 127, ill., 34. Impersonality, in painting, 5, et seq. Julius II., Pope, 23. Justus of Ghent, summoned to Urbino, 72 ; his Institution of the Last Supper, 72, 73, 79. Leonardo da Vinci, on personality in painting, 7 ; 100. Lorentino di Agnolo, works at Arezzo by, 42. Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, frescoes at Siena by, 38. Lorenzetti, Lorenzo, his Deposition, 54- Lorenzetti, Pietro, frescoes at Assisi by, 95- Lorenzo di Vitevbo, a follower of Piero, 115. Loreto, Piero at, 14, 44. Lowe, Mr. Drury, 68. Madonna and Child with Angels (Oxford), 66, 67, 127, ill., 66; (Sinigaglia), 63, 129, ///. , 62. Madonna and &!Wj (Perugia), 60, 61, 66, 128, ill., 90 ; (Milan), 65, 66, 128, ill., 80. Madonna and Child (Mr. C. N. Robinson), 69. Madonna delta Misericordia, 14, 15. 43> 51, 93. 103. 127, ill-, 50. Madonna del Parto (Monterchio), 57, 60, 63, 128, ill, 58. Malatesta, Girolamo, supposed por- trait of, 63, 129. Malatesta, Sigismondo Pandolfo, 4, 15 ; commissions Piero to decorate the Tempio Malates- tiano, 17; portrait of, 17, 18, 100, 128, ill., 16, 18. Manetti, 90. Mantegna, his 7?««r7-i?c/w« at Tours, 48, 49 ; his influence on Giovanni Santi and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, 117; his imitation of the antique, 119, 120, 121. Martini, Simone, his Virgin and Saints at Orvieto, 95. Masaccio, 10, 36, 96, 97, loi. Matteo da Gualdo, a follower of Piero, 115. Matteo di Cambio, 13. Medici, Giovanni dei, letter from Malatesta to, 16. Melozzo da Forli, 34 ; fresco of Sixtus IV. and his Cardinals by, 24, 104; influence of Piero on, 104, 105 ; his pupils, 117. Memmi, Lippo, 95. Michael Angelo, his sculptures in San Lorenzo, 8, 9. Milan, picture by Piero in the Brera 134 INDEX at, 65, 66, 12S, ill., 80; portrait in the Poldi-Pezzoli Gallery at, 68, 128, ill. front. Monterchio, fresco at, 56, 128, ill., 58- National Gallery, pictures by Piero in the, 54, 64, 65, 68, 125, 126, ///., 54, 64, 68. Nativity, The (National Gallery), 64, 67, 126, ill., 64. Nelli, Ottaviano, frescoes at Giibbio by, 95- Nicolas v.. Pope, summons Piero to Rome, 21, 22, 25, 43. Oxford, picture by Piero at Christ Church, 66, 67, 127, ill., 66. Pacioli, Fra Luca, his "Archi- tettura " quoted, 4, 81, 87, 88, 89. Palmezzano, Marco, a pupil of Melozzo, 118. Perugia, altar-piece at, 60, 61, 66, 128, ill., 90. Perugino, a pupil of Piero, 59. PoUaiuolo, 10, 105. Portrait <7/"aZa 39. S5> 62, 77- Taddeo di Bartoli, 95. Toscanella, Paolo, 90. Tura, Cosimo, frescoes at Ferrara by, 84, 85, 86. Uccello, Paolo, 10, 37, 90, 97 ; influence of, on Piero, 19 ; in- vited to Urbino, 73 ; his Robbery of the Pyx, 73. Urbino, Piero's visit to and works at, 65, 69, 71, 73-80, 129. Urbino, the Counts of, 70. Urbino, Duke Federigo of, 4 ; the Court of, 71, 72 ; portrait of (Bar- lierini Palace), 69 ; (Uftizi), 70, 74, 128, ill., 74; (Milan), 66, 128, ill., 80; Triutuph of, 74, 128, ill., 78. Urbino, Duchess Battista of, 66 ; portrait of, 70, 74, 128, ill, 74; Triumph of 74, 84, 128, ill., 78. Urbino, Duke Guidobaldo of, 69, 70, 7', 88, 91, 92, 94. INDEX 135 Van der Goes, Hugo, figure of SL Alary Magdalen by, 41 ; his altar-piece in S. M. Novella, 64, 67. Van der Weyden, Roger, Si n. Vatican, the, frescoes by Piero and Bramantino in, 21 et seq. ; copies made by Raphael's orders, 24. ^^enice, figure of St. Jerome at, 63, 129, ill., 60. CHISWICK PRESS : PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. A Note to the Reader. It hardly needs pointing out how essential Illustrations are in books on matters artistic ; they do not merely decorate and enhance the outward appearance of the book, they illustrate, in the literal sense of the word, the author's meaning. Various technical reasons prevent publishers from interspersing their publications with as great a number of reproductions as might be desirable. However, any- one wishing to learn more about the painter of whom this volume treats, can do so by calling at Mr. Hanfstaengl's Gallery at 1 6, Pall Mall East, where over ten thousand different reproductions from the works of Old Masters are always on view. 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