Ulrich Middeldorf 3 X-A*i*/£/5 — njgMSBznaiffi :'l -.M ezzo. Ghiberci . Dona.teilo. F. Naniri di Banc< *V deTet inf LON DON . LON C M A N AC" TUSCAN SCULPTORS: THEIR LIVES, WORKS, AND TIMES. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS. BY CHARLES C. PERKINS. ‘ALS ICH KAN, NIET ALS IK WIL ’ — (DUTCH PROVERB). IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. 1864 . DEDICATED TO M. F. A. RIO IN TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR’S ADMIRATION AND AFFECTIONATE REGARD. PREFACE. JTALIAjSi SCULP PURE has, in comparison with Italian Painting, found but few admirers or illustrators. The reason for this does not lie so much in the greater claims of the latter upon lovers and students of art, as in the existence of an antique standard, by which all modern Sculpture is habitually judged, and of which it falls short; while Painting, which cannot be submitted to this formidable test, is judged more according to its merits. Another and more positive reason why Italian Sculpture is so much less known, and consequently less widely appreciated than Italian Painting, is because it can only be studied in Italy , 1 where its masterpieces are not to be found in splendid and commodious galleries, but in scattered churches and palaces, in which they are seldom so placed as to attract the attention of any but careful observers. 1 The admirable collection of Italian sculpture at the South Kensington Museum, for which the public is chiefly indebted to J. C. Robinson, Esq., whose persevering energy, knowledge, and sagacity in selecting valuable works of art can hardly be overrated, makes it possible for a student to learn more about it in England than anywhere else out of Italy. PREFACE. viii Unless therefore the traveller’s object be to learn something about its Sculpture, he may travel through Italy without getting any idea of it; whereas he cannot, be he ever so super- ficial an observer, help gaining some notion of its Painting (at least in its more advanced schools), if he but saunter through the galleries of the great cities of the Peninsula. Again, books upon Italian Painting abound, and every year adds to their number, while the available works upon Italian Sculpture, including those which treat of it in conjunction with Painting, are few. Of these the most voluminous are by Cicognara and Agincourt, neither of them attractive to the general reader, or thoroughly satisfactory to the student ; the most delightful are those by M. Rio and Lord Lindsay, which should be in the hands of all who can appreciate the highest sort of art literature, but which treat of Sculpture partially, and from an exclusive point of view. A few others may be mentioned, such as Burckhardt’s Cicerone, and Mr. Robinson’s illustrated catalogue of the Kensington Museum, in both of which valuable notices are to be found, but neither of which pretends to give anything like a fully developed account of Sculpture in Italy. The number of works upon this subject being thus limited, it has seemed to me that a space remained to be filled in the literature of art, in which the names and works of many illustrious artists might be pointed out. With this object I have taken pains to see whatever is most worthy of notice, and to make drawings and collect photographs throughout Italy, PREFACE. IX and from them I have selected and executed a series of illustra- tions 1 which may give an idea of the progress of the Art, whose history I have endeavoured to make as correct as possible by the examination of all MSS., books, and pamphlets, connected with the subject. The result of my journeys and researches, as far as they concern Tuscany, is contained in these volumes; the remainder, relating to Northern, Southern, and Eastern Italy, I hope at some future time to publish in a similar form. With this intention I have prefixed to these volumes a compressed account of Sculpture throughout Italy before the Revival, which is equally necessary for the better comprehension of Tuscan Sculpture, whose links with the past, from the days of Niccola Pisano to Michelangelo, are many and clear. As the universal history of art throws light upon any one of its phases, I might, had space permitted, have sketched that of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece, as well as of Etruria and Rome, for with them, as with these, its connection is evident. But such a course would have led me too far, and I have preferred pointing out the connec- tion when occasion offered in the book itself. I cannot lose this opportunity of mentioning the courtesy and kindness with which a student of art is treated in Italy, whose public and private libraries, galleries, palaces and churches are freely thrown open, and whose eminent men of letters and artists vie with each other in assisting those who come among them to seek infor- mation. For such assistance, liberality, and politeness, I shall always remember with gratitude the Marchese Selvatico, of Padua; the Cavalier Lazzari and the Sigg. Yeludi and Lorenzi, 1 The wood-blocks have been skilfully engraved by Mr. Cooper. VOL. I. a X PREFACE. of Venice; Don Alessandro Melzi, Cavalier Cantu, Professor C. Boito, and Sig. Maggi, of Milan; Sig. Michelangelo Gualandi, of Bologna ; Dr. Carpellini, of Siena ; the Sigg. Gaetano and Carlo Milanesi, of Florence; and the Cavalier d’Albono of Naples. To many of them the world is indebted for valuable researches into the history of Italian art, without which much that is now clear would still remain unknown or hopelessly confused. CONTENTS OF THE FIEST VOLUME. BOOK I. THE ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTORS. CHAPTER I. Niccola Pisano CHAPTER II. The Scholars of Niccola Pisano . PAGE 3 37 BOOK II. THE ALLEGORICAL SCULPTORS. CHAPTER III. Andrea Pisano and his Scholars, Nino and Tommaso, Giovanni Balduccio, and Andrea Orcagna ...•••• CHAPTER IV. a 2 Sienese School 85 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. a ii BOOK III. THE PICTORIAL SCULPTORS, CHAPTER -V. PAGE Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello . . . . . .122 CHAPTER VI. The Scholars of Donatello and Verocchio . . . .163 CHAPTER VII. Luca della Robbia and his School ; the Rossellini ; Mino da Fiesole AND ClVlTALE . . . . . . . . 192 BOOK IY. TARES AMONG THE WHEAT. CHAPTER VIII. Pollajuolo — The Majani — Bartolomeo di Montelupo and the Ferucci . 222 CHAPTER IX. Andrea Contucci ; Jacopo Tatti ; Francesco di Sangallo . . 241 CPI AFTER X. Benedetto da Royezzano and Piero Torregiano . . 257 ILLU STKATION S IN THE FIRST VOLUME. o'^o ETCHINGS. PAG! Judith, by Ghiberti , and David, by Donatello , in niches; St. John, by Michelozzo, and Bas-relief op a Sculptor's Workshop, by Nanni di Banco frontispiece 1. Pulpit. In the Baptistry at Pisa. Niccola Pisano . . . to face 17 2. Bas-relief and Half Figure, from the Baptistry at Pisa. Niccola Pisano „ 18 3. Allegorical Statue of Pisa. Campo Santo. Giovanni Pisano 4. Portion of the Monument of Benedict XI. In S. Domenico, at Perugia. Giovanni Pisano ...••• 5. Madonna and Child. From the monument of Cardinal de Braye in S. Domenico, at Orvieto. Arnolfo del Cambio 6. Burial of St. John. From the Gates of the Baptistry at Florence. Andrea Pisano 7. Madonna della Spina and St. Peter. From the Chiesa della Spina, Pisa. Nino Pisano 8. Figure of Temperance. Tomb of St. Peter Martyr, in S. Eustorgio, Milan. Giovanni Balduccio . ... . 9. Marriage of the Virgin. From the Tabernacle at Or San Michele. Andrea Orcagna ....... 10. Christ taking the Rib from Adam’s Side. Bas-relief on the Facade of the Duomo at Orvieto. Incog. ..... 11. The Blessed and the Damned. Bas-relief on the FaQade of the Duomo at Orvieto. Incog. ...... 40 48 52 65 71 75 81 91 93 XIV ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE FIRST VOLUME. 22 . 28 . 12. The Creation of Eve. Portal of S. Petronius, Bologna. Giacomo della Quercia . . . . . . , .to face 109 13. M. Socinio. Head from the monumental effigy, Uffizi. Lorenzo Vecchietta „ 113 14. Trial Plates. For the Baptistry Gate, Uffizi. Z. Ghiberti and F. Brunelleschi ....... 126 15. St. Matthew. From the first Baptistry Gate. L. Ghibe>-ti . . „ 128 16. Panel. From the second Baptistry Gate. Z. Ghiberti . . ,, 130 17. Statue of St. George. From Or San Michele. Donatello . . v 140 18. Bas-relief. From the Pulpit at Prato. Donatello . . . „ 148 19. St. J ohn. Profile Bust in Relief. Uffizi. Donatello . . 150 20. St. Cecilia. Bas-relief. Belongs to Lord Elcho. Donatello . v 152 21. Bas-relief. From S. Francesco, at Rimini. Simon Fiorentino, called Donatello ........ 172 Bust of Marietta Strozzi. Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. Desiderio da Settignano ....... 175 Death of Lucrezia Tornabuoni. Uffizi. Andrea del Verocchio . 177 Marco Albertoni. From Sta. Maria del Popolo. Incog. . . ,, 179 Singing Boys. Uffizi. Luca della Robbia .... 193 Adoring Madonna. At Pisa. Luca della Robbia ... v 198 Chastity and Two Angels. Facade of S. Bernardino, Perugia. Agostino di Duccio ....... 201 St. Bernardino and the Shepherd. Facade of S. Bernardino, Perugia. Agostino di Duccio . . . . _ 202 Adoring Madonna. Uffizi. Antonio Rossellino . . . „ 206 Bust of Bishop Salutati. Duomo at Fiesole. Mino da Fiesole . „ 208 Madonna and Child and St. John. Duomo at Fiesole. Mino da Fiesole ,, 210 Adoring Angel. Matteo Civitali ..... 215 Bas-relief of Faith. Uffizi. Matteo Civitali . . . „ 216 Christ supported by the Madonna and St. John. Shrine of the Ma- donna dell’ Ulivo, near Prato. Giuliano Benedetto , and Giovanni da Majano ,, 227 Death of St. Francis. Pulpit at Sta. Croce. Benedetto da Majano ,, 232 Monumental Effigy of Cardinal Ascanio Maria Sforza. In Sta. Maria de Popolo, Rome. Andrea Sansavino , . . 244 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE FIRST VOLUME. xv PAGE 37. Davtd. Loggetta of the Campanile at Venice. Jacopo Tatti . . to face 250 38. Group from the Bas-relief Representing the Funeral of S. G. Gualberto. Benedetto da Rovezzano .... „ 259 WOODCUTS. 1. Etruscan Bas-relief. Chiusi ...... xvii 2. Etruscan Heads. Campana Collection, Louvre . . . xxi 3. Head of Tiber. Trajan’s Column, Rome .... xxxiv 4. Soldiers bringing the Heads of Barbarians to Trajan. Trajan’s Column, Rome .......... xxxv 5. Ascension of Elijah. Bas-relief, Lateran Museum . . . xxxix 6. Adam and Eve. From Tomb of Junius Bassus, Crypt of St. Peter’s . . xl 7. Pastor Bonus. Bas-relief, Lateran Museum ..... xliii 8. Disc. From Campo Santo at Pisa, Mixed Byzantine and Italian . . xlvii 9. Taking down from the Cross. Cappella Boiardi, Duomo, at Parma. Bene- detto degli Antelami ........ 1 10. Angel. St. Bartolomeo, Pistoja. Ruclolfinus . . . . . lv 11. Taking down from the Cross. Duomo at Lucca. N. Pisano . . 13 12. Allegorical Figures. From the Fountain at Perugia . . .36 13. Angel. From the Pulpit, Pistoja. G. Pisano . . . . .59 14. Ivory Madonna. In Sacristy of the Duomo at Pisa. G. Pisano . . 59 15. Portrait of Orcagna. Bas-relief, Or San Michele. Orcagna. . . 84 16. Angels. From the Facade of the Duomo at Orvieto . . . .91 17. St. Catharine. S. Frediano, Lucca. G. della Quercia . . . 121 18. Israelites taking Corn from Egypt. From the Second Baptistry Gate. Ghiberti . . . . . . . . .162 19. Angels. From a Bas-relief in the South Kensington Museum. Desiderio . 191 20. Statue of Zachariah. Duomo at Genoa. Civitale .... 219 21. Saint John. Uffizi, Florence. B. da Majano ..... 240 22. Bishop Buonafede. Certosa, near Florence. F. di Sangallo . . . 256 23. Demoniac Boy. Bas-relief, Uffizi. B. da Rovezzano .... 267 3£ c U Etruscan Bas-relief from Chiusi. (Musee Napoleon III. au Louvre.) TUSCAN SCULPTORS. INTRODUCTION. A S Etruria is the cradle 1 of Italian art, we naturally desire to know whence the Etruscans came, that we may gain a clue to its original sources ; but unfortunately it is as easy to dispute as it is hard to answer this question in modern as it was in ancient times. Nor, if we consider our inability to decipher the Etruscan language, is it likely to be solved. The generally received tradition has been, that about three centuries before the foundation of Rome, the Etruscans emigrated from Lydia, in Asia Minor, under the guidance of Tyrrhenus, son of their king, and that after expelling the native tribes, they founded a kingdom in the heart of Italy, extending along the coast of the Mediterranean, from Piste to Tarquinii, and inland to Origin of the Etruscans. n.c. 1040. 1 ‘Ajunt Thuscos plasticum excogitasse ’ (Cl. Alex. Stromat. lib. i., quoted i-- , icct/YLy j&d p ^ “/ c j.xiijpcixcv^u ui luu general uu nines oi natural iorms, representing figures rectilinear in outline, without action, standing or sitting, robed in tightly fitting garments, with long extremi- ties, with closely joined feet, wide staring eyes and crooked mouths . 1 During this period the Etruscans also made terra-cotta vases, stamped with little figures, and strangely contorted monsters and demons, symbolic of a dark and superstitious faith. In these reliefs, which are of a thoroughly national character, the figures are represented in profile, are hard and dry in form, with exaggerated faces, and hair arranged in minute ringlets, or left loose and floating upon their shoulders, and robed in garments fitting to the body, or marked by loose and rectilinear folds. To causes of which also left its traces upon the second or Tuscanic , 2 we must remember that the Etruscans were a commercial people, and as such had frequent communication with Egypt; and that being eminently susceptible to new impressions, they adopted something of the rigidity, dryness, and precision of its art. The principles of the two schools were, however, diametrically opposite opposed, for while that of Egypt was the product of a never pr 1 1 The Etruscans were very powerful b.c. 992, about which time Millin thinks they first turned their attention to art {Diet, des Beaux Arts, Article ‘Etrusque’). ‘Sine manibus, sine pedibus, sine oculis, aut pedibus conjunctis inter se’ (Borbone, Delle Statue, cli. i. p. 6). ‘ Dopo le opere Egiziane le piu antiche sono quelli degli Etruschi’ (Winckelmann, op. cit. ch. iii. p. 26). ‘ Le opere pero tra di loro analoghe nei laberinti, un certo mistero di cerimonie religiose, que’ risini in bocca alle figure femminili, quelle attacature delle dita e delle membra, etc. etc., hanno dell’ affinita.’ — P. della Valle, Vite de’ Pittori Antiche , prefazione, p. 13. 2 Dr. H. Brunn, Ueber die Grundverschiedenheit in Bildungs Princip der Griechischen und A egyptischen Kunst, and two admirable papers upon Etruscan account for the Egyptian influence perceptible in this first style, influence. Egyptian INTRODUCTION. xviii a +ina however. the state - / 7 * ./ Although their institutions were under the control of priests and augurs, who, in their compound capacity of princes and military chiefs, wielded a well-nigh absolute power, we must conclude, from its want of system and its susceptibility to ex- ternal influence, that art in Etruria was less under their control than in Egypt, where their despotic rule kept style immutable 1 2 under the successive dominations of Persians, Greeks and Romans. This comparative freedom, and the scope given to individuality, which makes it uncertain whether peculiarities belong to special or general development, renders it difficult to form a clear 1 Mommsen thinks they came into Italy over the Ehastian Alps, and were of the Indo-Germanic stock ( History of Home, Eng. Tr. vol. i. cb. ix. p. 128; Micali, St. degli Antichi Popoli Italiani, vol. i. p. 99). They called themselves Raseni, the Greeks called them Tyrseni or Tirreni, and the Romans Tusci or Etrusci. Thucydides, Plutarch, and other Greek writers, call the Greek colonists in Italy, Pelasgi and Tyrrheni (Winckelmann, Mon.Ined. vol. i. ch. iii. p. 26). Sir G. C. Lewis, in An Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman History, at p. 297, sect. 6, vol. i., says upon this subject, ‘ All the elaborate researches of modern scholars respecting the primitive history of the Pelasgians, the Siceli, the Tyrrhenians, the Etruscans, the Aborigines, the Latins and other national races, must be considered as not less unreal than the speculations concerning judicial astrology, or the discovery of the philo- sopher’s stone and the elixir of life. Not only the results of the uncritical Italian historians, such as Micali, but those arrived at by the most learned and sagacious of the German inquirers, as Niehulir and Ottfried Muller, must be rejected when they relate to this unknown and undiscoverable period.’ See Niebuhr’s Lectures on the History of Rome, ed. by Dr. Schmitz, 3 vols., London 1852, for his views on the subject, vol. i. pp. 57-66. 2 Plato remarks that in his time Egyptian Art was neither better nor worse than that of a thousand years before (Dr. II. Brunn, Ueber die Grundverschie- denheit in Bildungs Princip der Griechischen und Aegyptischen Kunst ). ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE. xix division of Etruscan sculpture into styles, though for purposes of classification they may with sufficient accuracy be specified as three — namely, the Egizio, the Toscanico, and Greco-Etrusco. To the first belong the earliest attempts to represent the human form; which, like those of every other people, were rude and imperfect imitations of the general outlines of natural forms, representing figures rectilinear in outline, without action, standing or sitting, robed in tightly fitting garments, with long extremi- ties, with closely joined feet, wide staring eyes and crooked mouths . 1 During this period the Etruscans also made terra-cotta vases, stamped with little figures, and strangely contorted monsters and demons, symbolic of a dark and superstitious faith. In these reliefs, which are of a thoroughly national character, the figures are represented in profile, are hard and dry in form, with exaggerated faces, and hair arranged in minute ringlets, or left loose and floating upon their shoulders, and robed in garments fitting to the body, or marked by loose and rectilinear folds. To account for the Egyptian influence perceptible in this first style, which also left its traces upon the second or Tuscanic , 2 we must remember that the Etruscans were a commercial people, and as such had frequent communication with Egypt; and that being eminently susceptible to new impressions, they adopted something of the rigidity, dryness, and precision of its art. The principles of the two schools were, however, diametrically opposed, for while that of Egypt was the product of a never 1 The Etruscans were very powerful b.c. 992, about which time Milliu thinks they first turned their attention to art ( Diet . des Beaux Arts, Article ‘Etrusque’). ‘Sine manibus, sine pedibus, sine oculis, aut pedibus conjunctis inter se’ (Borbone, Delle Statue , cli. i. p. 6). ‘ Dopo le opere Egiziane le piu antiche sono quelli degli Etruschi’ (Winckelmann, op. cit. ch. iii. p. 26). ‘ Le opere pero tra di loro analoglie nei laberinti, un certo mistero di cerimonie religiose, que’ risini in bocca alle figure femminili, quelle attacature delle dita e delle membra, etc. etc., lianno dell’ affinita.’ — P. della Valle, Vite de Pittori Antiche , prefazioue, p. 13. 2 Dr. H. Brunn, Ueber die Grundverschiedenheit in Bildungs Princip der Griecliischen und Aegyptischen Kunst, and two admirable papers upon Etruscan Sculptural styles. Egyptian style. Causes of Egyptian influence. Opposite principles. XX INTRODUCTION. Tuscanic style. varying architectural and mathematical system, that of Etruria, even when rudest, was free and individual, imitating nature, as is seen in the working out of muscles, veins, hair, and draperies. Furthermore, while art both in Egypt and Greece was cultivated for the decoration of great public edifices; in Etruria, where few such existed, it was of a comparatively private character, and chiefly confined to the making of vases, mirrors, and goldsmiths’ work ; though in her palmy days (when the Tuscanic style was purest) her sculptors were also employed in making statues of gilded bronze or terra-cotta 1 for the pediments of temples, in stamping and casting beaten plates of metal with varied orna- ments, in making engraved work (toreutica), and in adorning sarcophagi of all dimensions with funeral processions or combats between warriors in very low or half relief, and with effigies of the dead, either of life size (and these neither ill-proportioned nor stiff in attitude), or small clumsy portraits of the ‘ obesi et pingues Etrusci,’ with big heads, thick bodies, and ill-fashioned extremities , 2 numerous examples of which may be seen in the Campana collection at the Louvre, as well as in the museums at Chiusi and Perugia. Of their skill in bronze work we can judge by the famous Wolf at the Capitol, and the ChimaBra in the Gal- lery of the Uffizi at Florence, which, like many other statues and bas-reliefs, also show us how .clever they were in representing animals, whose anatomical structure they had frequent opportunity of studying, in the victims slain for examination by the augurs. As the first Etruscan style was that of an uninstructed people, who contented themselves with a superficial imitation of nature, Art, by the same writer, entitled Pitt. Etruschi and Scoperte Tarquiniense, extracted from the Annali dell' Istituto Archceologico, t. xxxii. Tavole 46 & 47, vol. vi. 1 ‘ Ornantque signis fictilibus aut aereis inauratis earum fastigia Tuscanieo more.’ — Vitruvius , lib. viii. cli. ii. 2 The Etruscans were distinguished from the Latin and Sabellican Italians, as well as from the Greeks, by their very bodily structure (Mommsen, op. cit. vol. i. ch. ix. p. 125). ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE. xxi so the second was that of a school of artists, who aimed at science, but, being without that knowledge of anatomy which would have given them the key to natural action, expressed it by exaggerated movement of limb, strongly and often erroneously marked muscles, and extravagant gestures. So, also, as the first resembled the Egyptian, the second bore some resemblance to the iEginetan , 1 Tuscanic folds, disposed in parallel lines, and those delicate indications of drapery, which seem accidentally to arise from texture, as well as 1 This resemblance was noticed by Strabo, who travelled both in Egypt and Etruria, and who speaks of the Stile Toscanico as like the Egyptian and Ancient Greek. Like Quintilian and Pliny, Strabo meant by the Tuscanic style that which was in vogue up to the time of the absorption of Etruscan into Greek art : all such works were stvled by the Latins ‘ opera et sign a had a universal influence. Decadence of the Etruscans. Veii fell in 357 A.u.c., and in 444 a.u.c. the battle of Yadimone decided the fate of the nation. Etbuscan Heads. (Musee Napolfion III. at the Louvre.) though in points which lie somewhat upon the surface, and are netan balanced by essential differences. For the regularly undulating 1 and iEgi- netan com- pared. U' XX INTRODUCTION. varying architectural and mathematical system, that of Etruria, even when rudest, was free and individual, imitating nature, as is seen in the working out of muscles, veins, hair, and draperies. Furthermore, while art both in Egypt and Greece was cultivated for the decoration of great public edifices ; in Etruria, where few such existed, it was of a comparatively private character, and chiefly confined to the making of vases, mirrors, and goldsmiths’ Tuscanic work ; though in her palmy days (when the Tuscanic style was style. purest) her sculptors were also employed in making statues of gilded bronze or terra-cotta 1 for the pediments of temples, in stamping and casting beaten plates of metal with varied orna- ments, in making engraved work (toreutica), and in adorning sarcophagi of all dimensions with funeral processions or combats between warriors in very low or half relief, and with effigies of the dead, either of life size (and these neither ill-proportioned nor stiff in attitude), or small clumsy portraits of the 4 obesi et pingues Etrusci,’ with big heads, thick bodies, and ill-fashioned extremities , 2 numerous examples of which may be seen in the Campana collection at the Louvre, as well as in the museums at Chiusi and Perugia. Of their skill in bronze work we can judge by the famous Wolf at the Capitol, and the Chimcera in the Gal- lery of the Uffizi at Florence, which, like many other statues and bas-reliefs, also show us how clever they were in representing animals, whose anatomical structure they had frequent opportunity of studying, in the victims slain for examination by the augurs. As the first Etruscan style was that of an uninstructed people, who contented themselves with a superficial imitation of nature, Art, by the same writer, entitled Pitt. Etruschi and Scoperte Tarquiniense , evt.rn.eted from the Aiinali dell' Istitulo Arc.hir.nl Ionian. t. xxvii. Tavnle 46 & " JL IltJ JLi ll'USUclllO WC1C UlOllilgUlOUCU 11U111 LUO lai u i xx uuu jLtuinwiiOj as well as from the Greeks, by their very bodily structure (Mommsen, op. cit. vol. i. ch. ix. p. 125). ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE. xxi so the second was that of a school of artists, who aimed at science, but, being without that knowledge of anatomy which would have given them the key to natural action, expressed it by exaggerated movement of limb, strongly and often erroneously marked muscles, and extravagant gestures. So, also, as the first resembled the Etruscan Heads. (Musee Napoleon III. at the Louvre.) Egyptian, the second bore some resemblance to the fiEginetan , 1 though in points which lie somewhat upon the surface, and are balanced by essential differences. For the regularly undulating folds, disposed hi parallel lines, and those delicate indications of drapery, which seem accidentally to arise from texture, as well as 1 This resemblance was noticed by Strabo, who travelled both in Egypt and Etruria, and who speaks of the Stile Toscanico as like the Egyptian and Ancient Greek. Like Quintilian and Pliny, Strabo meant by the Tuscanic style that which was in vogue up to the time of the absorption of Etruscan into Greek art : all such works were styled by the Latins ‘ opera et signa Tuscanica.’ The Conte Gian Carlo Conestabile, in a discourse Degli Etruschi, &c. (Perugia, 1859), says that the first style of the Etruscans lasted till the third century of Rome. After that time they entered into the Stile Toscanico, parallel with the AEginetan in Greece ; in the fifth century a.u.c., Greek art had a univei’sal influence. Decadence of the Etruscans. Veii fell in 357 a.u.c., and in 444 A.u.c. the battle of Vadimone decided the fate of the nation. Tuscanic and AEgi- netan com- pared. The ob- stacles to healthy develop- ment. Colour used in sculpture. Greek Etruscan style. xxii INTRODUCTION. that ideal character of face, which marks the works of the Archaic period in Greece, were substituted in Etruria draperies which seem to adhere to the body, so accurately do they reveal its forms, and countenances which, even in the fanciful monsters of its symbolism (such as winged sphinxes, griffins, hippocamps, and men with fishes’ tails), are mere realistic exaggerations. Being without the ideality of the Greeks, and that deep knowledge of nature which enabled them to combine the highest qualities of form into a noble abstract, the Etruscans reproduced what struck them as most characteristic, bestowed great pains upon accessories, and worked out details in the nude, which the Greeks, jealous of everything that could interfere with the beauty of the whole, would have kept strictly subordinate. Hence arose a want of harmony in Etruscan works, which, however admirable in parts, fail in the ‘ ensemble.’ The perpetual conflict between free thought and archaic in- fluence checked healthy development, and disturbed harmony of style; while the custom of using for sculpture, paintings and incised drawings upon metal (sgraffiti), books of models, which the artists of Volterra, Chiusi, and Yulci repeated -with slight modifications, or combined into a more or less harmonious whole (when a new subject required representation), cramped their powers of invention and caused them to degenerate into mere copyists. His chief aim being reality, the Etruscan artist, from very early times, used colour upon the draperies of his figures, and in the background of his bas-reliefs; generally with severe simplicity of taste, and breadth, and with a far less meretricious effect than if he had applied it to art of a more ideal character. The third style of Etruscan art, which is characterised as ‘ Greco-Etrusco,’ was marked by a gradually increasing Greek influence , 1 which in the end completely effaced all marks of nationality. To its best period belong such admirable works as the statue of the Orator ( Arringatore) in the Uffizi, the charm- 1 Hellenism invaded Italy after the taking of Syracuse, b.c. 212. ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE. xxiii ing Boy with the Dove at Leyden, the ‘Putti’ in the Vatican, and many other bronzes scattered through European museums. Bronze seems to have early become the favourite material of Etruscan bronzes. the Etruscan sculptor, and in it he achieved his greatest triumphs. The activity in this branch of art was so great, that some of the cities of Etruria seem to have been peopled with bronze statues. After the reduction of Volsinium (Bolsena) the Romans carried b.c. 267. away no less than 2,000, some of which were probably of the same colossal size as the great bronze Apollo, set up in Rome in commemoration of the victory gained over the Samnites by the Romans, which Pliny tells us was so high that it could be seen from the summit of the Alban Hill. 1 The Etruscan artists were equally expert in casting suits of armour in bronze and precious metals, whose surfaces they adorned with chiselled figures. These, as well as their candelabra, their gold cups, and articles of jewellery, were transported by their merchants to foreign lands, and highly esteemed at Athens in the days of Pericles. 2 In this success, however, lay the causes of Causes of degeneration, for when art was chiefly valued as an aid to luxury, tion. and was restricted to the making of cinerary urns, mirrors and jewellery, it fell into the hands of men who laboured exclusively for the satisfaction of a wealthy and luxurious people, and was thus reduced more and more to the level of a trade. The Greek Greek in- fluence. influence 3 which began to make itself felt in Etruria during the How and when first century of Rome, was brought about by the intercourse of brought to the Etruscans with the inhabitants of Cumte, and the Samians Etruria, and Rhodians dwelling in Campania. From them they learned the Hellenic myths, the stories of Thebes and Troy, which, having themselves no heroic history, they delighted to illustrate. 1 ‘ Amplitudo tanta est ut conspiciatur a Latiario Jove.’ — Pliny , lib. xxxiv. cli. vii. 2 Phidias shod his Minerva with £ sandali Tirreni,’ b.c. 428. 3 The early influence of Greek art upon the Etruscans is proved by the fact that about b.c. 550 (a.u.c. 204) the Etruscan cities cast gold and silver coins after the pattern of those of Attica and Asia Minor. XXIV INTRODUCTION. b.c. 657 . b.c. 721- 708 . Rhegian sculptors. B.c. 776 . The style of art in Campania during the second century of Rome was hard and dry, like the iEginetan, as we know by the medals of Sybaris, Posidonia, Cadmia, &c. : the connection between that and the Etruscan is, therefore, easily established. From that time until the middle of the fifth century, Etruscan corsairs in- fested the Tyrrhenian sea, and Tarquinii, the modern Corneto, had direct communication with Corinth ; from which intercourse comes the tradition, that three Greek artists, bearing the significant names of Eucheir, Diopos and Eugrammus, the moulder, fitter, and draughtsman, accompanied Demaratus, father of Tarquin, when he fled from Corinth, after the expulsion of the Bacchiades in the twenty-ninth Olympiad, and introduced the plastic arts into Italy . 1 According to Herodotus, the Greeks knew nothing of Italy a century before the foundation of Rome ; but shortly after that event we find positive proof of their acquaintance with the southern portion of the peninsula, in the colonies of Sybaris and Tarentum , 2 whose artists, as well as those who worked in other parts of Campania and Sicily, were in no respect denationalised, as close relations were kept up between the Greco-Italian towns and the mother country. Rhegium (the modern Reggio) gave birth to two sculptors famous in Greek annals, Clearchus and his great scholar Pythagoras. Clearchus, said to have been a scholar of Daedalus (which would signify that his statues were of the earliest type of Greek art), or of Dipoinos and Skyllis, is mentioned by Pausanias as having made a statue of Jupiter (Z sug m r«ro^) out of beaten plates of metal fastened together with nails (o-QuprjxoiTov), which stood near the temple of Minerva at Sparta, and was looked upon as the oldest of all bronze works ; but as this method of work is older than the manner of reckoning by Olympiads, and as Rhegium 1 1 Demaratus vero ex eadem urbe profugum, qui in Hetruria Tarquinius Priscus regem populi Romani genuit, comitatos fictores Euchira et Eugram- mum, ab iis Italim traditam plasticen.’ — Pliny , lib, xxxv. ch. xii. 2 Naxos in Sicily is said to be the oldest of all Greek towns founded by strict colonisation in Italy or in Sicily (Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. book i. ch. x.). ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE. XXV was not founded till about the fourteenth Olympiad, he could not have been its author. Pythagoras, who stands among the most noted early Greek sculptors, is said to have been the first who strove to free himself from' traditional expression in art, marking out nerves and veins, and carefully elaborating the hair ; to have been, in short, a realist, who closely studied nature . 1 His works, we ^ (Xo/deyf'ldcV J' /) , < ^/ctdcet^n. metry the just relation of different parts to each other. He is said to have worked exclusively in bronze, and to have seldom modelled any but male figures, such as the wrestler Lentiscus, the boxers Protolaus and Eutimus, and the athlete Dromeus. From Etruria sprang, as we have seen, an original style of art, which, though more or less influenced by that of Egypt and Greece, asserted its vitality throughout her national existence. This, however, was never the case with Pome, a city founded by Early art rude shepherds, who naturally turned for builders, artists, and purely i . # Etruscan. men of letters, to their great and powerful neighbours, renowned for knowledge, long before their own community was constituted ; and while they fought themselves into life, gladly left to Etruria 1 Pliny, lib. xxxiv. ch. viii. 2 One at Beilin, the other at Bonn. Vide I. Overbeck, Geschichte der Griechischen Plastik, Band i. p. 85. See also Geschichte der Griechischen Kunstler, von Dr. H. Brunn, vol. i. pp. 48, 49, 50. Clearchus probably flourished about the 60tli Olympiad, b.c. 486. Of Pythagoras, Pliny {Hist. Nat. lib. xxxiv. ch. viii.) says, ‘ Hie primus nervos et venas expressit, capil- lumque diligentius.’ In Rhegium, which was a Greek colony, the Greek language was spoken until a very late period, so that in one sense both these artists may be called Greeks. Vitruvius (lib. iii. cap. i.) gives the following definitions of symmetry and proportion as derived from the human body and applied to architecture : ‘-diidium compositio constat ex symmetria, cujus rationem diligentissime architects tenere debent. Ea autem petitur a proportione quaa Graece avaXoyia dicitur. Proportio est rataa partis membrorum in omni opere totiusque commodulatio, ex qua ratio efficitur symmetriarum.’ VOL. I. C b.c. 657 . b.c. 721- 708 . Rhegian sculptors. b.c. 776 . xxiv INTRODUCTION. The style of art in Campania during the second century of Rome was hard and dry, like the fEginetan, as we know by the medals of Sybaris, Posidonia, Cadmia, &c. : the connection between that and the Etruscan is, therefore, easily established. From that time until the middle of the fifth century, Etruscan corsairs in- fested the Tyrrhenian sea, and Tarquinii, the modern Corneto, had when he lied Irom Uormtn, alter tne expulsion oi tne JDaccmaaes in the twenty-ninth Olympiad, and introduced the plastic arts into Italy . 1 According to Herodotus, the Greeks knew nothing of Italy a century before the foundation of Rome ; but shortly after that event we find positive proof of their acquaintance with the southern portion of the peninsula, in the colonies of Sybaris and Tarentum , 2 whose artists, as well as those who worked in other parts of Campania and Sicily, were in no respect denationalised, as close relations were kept up between the Greco-Italian towns and the mother country. Rhegium (the modern Reggio) gave birth to two sculptors famous in Greek annals, Clearchus and his great scholar Pythagoras. Clearchus, said to have been a scholar of Daedalus (which would signify that his statues were of the earliest type of Greek art), or of Dipoinos and Skyllis, is mentioned by Pausanias as having made a statue of Jupiter (Z sbg uVocro^) out of beaten plates of metal fastened together with nails (t> (9 ■ €$£&/ Of c/de ndcO 9 -9ft ty* d/ct £ici rts tfe/ff/r/er/v " Rome, witn terra-cotta liguics anu paintings. -Lins u.atc uctumca hxijjui uaui as fixing the period when Greek art supplanted Etruscan at Rome, as, accord- ing to Yarro, ‘ante hanc mdem Thuscanica omnia in tedibus fuisse ’ (Pliny, lib. xxxv. cap. xii.). If this Demophilus be identical with Demophilus of Himsera, master of Zeuxis, who flourished about forty years later, the temple of Ceres must have been decorated a long time after it was built (Mommsen’s Rome , vol. i. p. 498 ; Brunn, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 531). ROMAN SCULPTURE. XXVll despised art, and left it to foreigners and slaves, 1 that they might find in it forgetfulness of and consolation for servitude .’ 1 Their dominant passion was patriotism; and in the defence and aggran- disement of their country, and the fulfilment of those filial obli- gations which made their homes miniatures of the commonwealth, they found a sufficient occupation for their whole nature . 2 The laws of Numa contain regulations bearing upon art, which prove that even in his reign it was considered of some importance. One of these, which forbade the representation of the gods for purposes of worship , 3 was set aside by Tarquinius Priscus, who employed his countryman Yulcanius of Yeii to make a statue of Jupiter for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which he founded and Tarquinius Superbus finished. Another restricted the height of statues erected to illustrious persons to three feet, whence we may suppose that the bronze statues of Horatius Codes and Clelia were not above that size . 4 In Numa’s reign we find the name of one Roman sculptor, 1 ‘ Ut haberent htec oblectamenta et solatia servitutis.’ — Cicero. 2 Daring a period of 400 years Roman literature furnishes no proof of a feeling for art among that great military people, which would be impossible had any such ever existed ( Ueber den Kunstsinn der Romer in der Kaiserzeit, von Dr. L. Friedlander, Konigsberg, 1852). 3 ‘ Hie vetuit Romanis liominis vel bestiaa formam tribuere Deo, neque fuit ulla apud eos ante vel picta vel ficta imago Dei, sed centum sexaginta annos templa extruxerunt et cellos Diis, simulacrum per id temporis nullum habuerunt, nefas putantes angustiora exprimere humilioribus, neque aspirari aliter ad Deum quam mente posse.’ — Numa, Plutarchce Chceronensis quee extant omnia, &c. ed. Francfort, 1620, p. 65. ‘ Divisit autem civitatem per artes tibicinum, auriftcum, fabrum, tinctorum, sutorum, coriariorum, cerariorum, Jigulorum' — Ibid. p. 71. 4 Thence called Tripedaneae ; those of smaller dimensions, whether made of gold, silver, bronze, or ivory, were called sigillte. Dechazelle, Studii sulla Storia delle Arti, vol. ii. p. 48. It is, of course, quite uncertain if these statues were erected in the lifetime of these persons ; if so, they must have been Etruscan in style. In regard to those of Romulus and Tatius, mentioned by Pliny (lib. xxxv. 11. 3), it is most improbable, as they were nude, i. e. in the Greek Heroic style, then necessarily unknown at Rome. ‘ La nudite, qui etait dans les mceurs grecques, n’etait point dans les moeurs romaines.’ — Ampere, Hist. Rom. a Rome, vol. iv. p. 4. of art among the early Romans. The laws of Numa, concerning art. Roman sculptors. xxviii INTRODUCTION. Mamurius Vetturius, who having made several facsimiles in bronze of the ‘ ancile,’ that small shield which the Romans believed to have fallen from heaven, demanded as his recompense, that his name should be always inserted at the end of the Saliaric songs. 1 An interval of more than five hundred years occurs between this sculptor and the next known to us, whose name, Novi us Plau- b.c. 250. tius, is inscribed upon the base of a little group, consisting of a young man and two satyrs of a rude national type, and evidently by a far less skilful hand than that which engraved the admirable compositions around the celebrated bronze Cistus in the Kirche- rian museum at Rome, upon the top of which it stands ; 2 a second, Novius (Novius Blesamus), sculptor at Rome, probably flourished at a much later date. 3 Other sculptors, who lived at the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century after the foundation of Rome, are Caius Ovius, 4 and Caius Pompeius, whose names are inscribed upon a small bust of Medusa, and upon a little bronze Jupiter in the same museum : and Canoleius, and Rupius or Rufius, who made a terra-cotta figure noAv in the museum at 1 ‘Premium artis Mamurio tributum autumant fuisse carmen quoddam, quod in illius memoriam Salii tripudio illo peragunt.’ — Plutarch, Numa, p. 69. ‘ Eas peltas ancylia ex figura vocant.’ — Ibid. p. 68. ‘ Octavo anno regni Nurnse, pestilentia quas per Italiam vulgabatur urbem quoque vastabat. Perculsis civibus tradunt peltam seneam in manus Numse coelitus delapsam, de hac mira prsedicasse regem, ex Egeria se et Camoenis accepisse, esse ea arma ad salutem urbis missa et servanda cum undecim aliis, quae pari figura, amplitudine ex forma faciunda erant. . . . Earn peltam obtulit Numa artificibus, exci- tavitque eos similes ad effigiendas. Torpentibus cteteris Yeturium Mamurium insignem opificem ita expressisse effigiem, et imaginem ejus representasse, ut ne ipse quidem dignoscere ultra Numa posset.’ — Ibid. p. 68. 2 The inscription, in old Latin, is to this effect : ‘ Novios Plautois (for Plautios) med Romai fecit. Dindia Macolnia filea dedit.’ The compositions upon the body of the Cistus relate to the Argonautic expedition, e.g. the victory of Pollux over Amycus, King of the Bebryces (Ampere, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 110). 3 Judging by the Latin of his epigraph (Brunn, op. cit. vol. i. p. 614). 4 ‘Caius Ovius Oufentina fecit.’ The tribus Oufentina dates from a.u.C. 436. ‘Caius Pomponius Quirina opus.’ Tribus Quirina A.u.C. 516 (Brunn, op. cit. vol. i. p. 529 et seq.). ROMAN SCULPTURE. XXIX Perugia; Publius Cincius Salvius, whose name is inscribed upon the bronze pine cone which formerly stood upon the top of the mausoleum of Hadrian ; Flavius Largonius, who made bronze statuettes ; Titius Gemellus, who, we learn by a Greek inscription, modelled his own bust; Copronius, who personified in fourteen figures the nations conquered by Pompey ; 1 and Decius, who cast a colossal bronze head for the Consul Publius Lentulus Spinther , 2 which was rated as inferior to its pendant, the work of a Greek sculptor named Chares. From the scant list of sculptors bearing Roman names we must deduct the affranchised Greeks who, according to custom, adopted those of their patrons, such as Marcus Cossutius Cerdo 3 and Lollius Alcamenes ; 4 while on the other hand we might make some additions to it from those apparently Greek, since the Greek language became so much that of art at Rome, that Roman artists sometimes inscribed their names in Greek characters upon their works . 5 It would be unreasonable to conclude that no other Roman sculptors existed, because their names have not come down to us ; and Lysippus which have passed in our day as originals . 6 1 ‘Idem et a Copronio xiv. nationes, quae sunt circa Pompeii, factas, auctor est.’ — Pliny, lib. xxxvi. c. v. 2 Consul A.u.c. 697, perhaps became possessed of the head of Chares through his political connection with Rhodes (Brunn, op. cit. vol. i. p. 603). 3 This artist, whose name appears on the base of a statue found at Lanuviurn, might be taken for a Roman, if another inscription on a statue in the British Museum did not tell us that he was the freedman of Marcus Cossutius (Dilet- tanti, i. 71, cited by Ampere, vol. iv. p. 79). 4 He is represented in a bas-relief at the Villa Albani as holding a bust which he has just terminated. He was a Greek, as his name proves, who had joined the name of Lollius to his own, because a Lollius had enfranchised him (Ampei’e, vol. iv.). 5 E. g. VvaioQ for Gnaeus ; pate de verre, cited by Winckelmann. 6 Some of these were brought as slaves to Rome, others came of their own xxviii INTRODUCTION. Mamurius Yetturius, who having made several facsimiles in bronze of the ‘ ancile,’ that small shield which the Romans believed to have fallen from heaven, demanded as his recompense, that his name should be always inserted at the end of the Saliaric songs . 1 An interval of more than five hundred years occurs between this sculptor and the next known to us, whose name, Novius Plau- b.c. 250 . tius, is inscribed upon the base of a little group, consisting of a young man and two satyrs of a rude national type, and evidently by a far less skilful hand than that which engraved the admirable compositions around the celebrated bronze Cistus in the Kirche- rian museum at Rome, upon the top of which it stands ; 2 a second, Novius (Novius Blesamus), sculptor at Rome, probably flourished at a much later date . 3 Other sculptors, who lived at the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century after the foundation of Rome, are Caius Ovius , 4 and Caius Pompeius, whose names are inscribed upon a small bust of Medusa, and upon a little bronze Jupiter in the same museum : and Canoleius, and Rupius or Rufius, who made a terra-cotta figure now in the museum at civibus tradunt peltam mneam in manus JNumse coeiitus delapsam, de nac mira praedicasse regem, ex Egeria se et Camoenis accepisse, esse ea arma ad salutem urbis missa et servanda cum undecim aliis, qum pari figura, amplitudine ex forma faciunda erant. . . . Earn peltam obtulit Numa artincibus, exci- tavitque eos similes ad effigiendas. Torpentibus caeteris Yeturium Mamurium insignem opificem ita expressisse effigiem, et imaginem ejus representasse, ut ne ipse quidcm dignoscere ultra Numa posset.’ — Ibid. p. 68. 2 The inscription, in old Latin, is to this effect : ‘ Novios Plautois (for Plautios) med Romai fecit. Dindia Macolnia filea dedit.’ The compositions upon the body of the Cistus relate to the Argonautic expedition, e.g. the victory of Pollux over Amycus, King of the Bebryces (Ampere, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 110). 3 Judging by the Latin of his epigraph (Brunn, op. cit. vol. i. p. 614). 4 ‘Caius Ovius Oufentina fecit.’ The tribus Oufentina dates from a.u.c. 436. ‘Caius Pomponius Quirina opus.’ Tribus Quirina A.u.c. 516 (Brunn, op. cit. vol. i. p. 529 et seq.). ROMAN SCULPTURE. XXIX Perugia; Publius Cincius Salvius, whose name is inscribed upon the bronze pine cone which formerly stood upon the top of the mausoleum of Hadrian; Flavius Largonius, who made bronze statuettes; Titius Gemellus, who, we learn by a Greek inscription, modelled his own bust; Copronius, who personified in fourteen figures the nations conquered by Pompey ; 1 and Decius, who cast a colossal bronze head for the Consul Publius Lentulus Spinther , 2 which was rated as inferior to its pendant, the work of a Greek sculptor named Chares. From the scant list of sculptors bearing Roman names we must deduct the affranchised Greeks who, according to custom, adopted those of their patrons, such as Marcus Cossutius Cerdo 3 and Lollius Alcamenes ; 4 while on the other hand we might make some additions to it from those apparently Greek, since the Greek language became so much that of art at Rome, that Roman artists sometimes inscribed their names in Greek characters upon their works . 5 It would be unreasonable to conclude that no other Roman sculptors existed, because their names have not come down to us ; for when art became the fashion during the Empire, and Greek artists abounded at Rome, they probably had able Roman scholars, who may have made some of those copies from Scopas, Myron, and Lysippus which have passed in our day as originals . 6 1 ‘ Idem et a Copronio xiv. nationes, quae sunt circa Pompeii, factas, auctor est.’ — Pliny, lib. xxxvi. c. v. 2 Consul A.u.c. 697, perhaps became possessed of the head of Chares through his political connection with Rhodes (Bruno, op. cit. vol. i. p. 603). 3 This artist, whose name appears on the base of a statue found at Lanuviurn, might be taken for a Roman, if another inscription on a statue in the British Museum did not tell us that he was the freedman of Marcus Cossutius (Dilet- tanti, i. 71, cited by Ampere, vol. iv. p. 79). 4 He is represented in a bas-relief at the Villa Albani as holding a bust which he has just terminated. He was a Greek, as his name proves, who had joined the name of Lollius to his own, because a Lollius had enfranchised him (Ampere, vol. iv.). 5 E. g. Yvaiog for Gnaeus ; pate de verre, cited by Winckelmann. 6 Some of these were brought as slaves to Rome, others came of their own XXX INTRODUCTION. Love of A love of art was first awakened by the Roman generals, who art first awakened gave their fellow-citizens the opportunity of seeing the master- ly the Roman pieces of sculpture which they brought as trophies from Sicily, generals. Macedonia, and Campania, to fill the city temples and public places. This system of plundering, which was practised at an earlier time from religious motives, 1 was begun, for plunder’s sake, b.c, 212 . by Marcus Marcellus after the capture of Syracuse ; it found no sympathy with men of the old school like Quintus Fabius, who b.c. 209. allowed the Tarentines ‘ to retain their indignant gods,’ 2 and Scipio Africanus the Less, who, after the reduction of Carthage, was moved by the advice of the historian Polybius to give back to the Sicilians the statues of which they had been plundered by { 194 the Carthaginians, 3 but was imitated by Titus Flaminius, Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, Lucius Paulus, and Mummius, whose conquests largely added to the treasures of art at Rome. The latter general displayed a rapacity only equalled by his ignorance, when he sold the most remarkable works of art which fell into his hands at Corinth to the King of Pergamus, and warned the captains of the accord, sucli as Arcesilaus, Zopiros, and Praxiteles, who wrote upon the Fine Arts, and Lala di Cizico (Cantu, Storia degli Italiani, vol. i. cli. xlii. p. 624). 1 E. g. The Juno brought from Yeii by Camillus ; the Jupiter Imperator from Praeneste, by Titus Quintius Cincinnatus (Livy, vi. 29); the Venus Victrix, by Fabius Fabricianus, taken from the Samnites ; the Hercules, by Fabius Maximus. 2 ‘ The moderation of Fabius,’ says M. Ampere (vol. iii. p. 595), ‘ may have been induced by the fact, that the statues being colossal were difficult of removal, as well as by his want of appreciation of their beauty.’ 3 Polybius considered the gold and silver of conquered cities to be the only lawful objects of plunder, and these because they were instruments for renewed resistance. In Frag. iii. lib. ix. of his History we find these words : ‘At quae aliena sunt ab ilia quam diximus potentia, ea Romani poterant et comitantem invidiam simul, ibidem relinquere unde primo sunt annota ; ita ut patriae suae gloriam amplificarent ; non tabulis et typis, sed gravitate morum publicorum, et animi magnitudine ipsam decorantes.’ — Polybii Historic e, lib. qui supersunt, Isaacus Causabonus primus vulgavit, p. 550. 1 vol. folio, Paris, 1609. Poly- bius was a native of Megalopolis in the Peloponnesus, and son of the Achaean statesman Lycortus. He was carried to Rome as one of the Achaean hostages, and lived there from b.c. 167-150. HOMAN SCULPTURE. XXXI vessels in which the remainder were to be conveyed to Italy, that if any were lost or injured on the voyage, they must replace them . 1 The daily sight of these masterpieces roused the desire to swell their number; and as the Romans themselves could not furnish artists capable of doing so, the best living Greek masters Greek ar- tists called were induced by promises of liberal patronage to take up their to Rome, abode at Rome . 2 Amateurs and collectors (many of whom had studied in Greece) increased in number, some of whom, between the latter days of the Republic and the close of Hadrian’s reign, spent immense sums upon statues, pictures, and gems, rather from ostentatious motives than from real love or knowledge of art ; considering their reputation as connoisseurs safe, if they took care to purchase works signed with a great name, and estimated at 1 Mummius withdrew from sale at Corinth, because King Attalus offered for it 6,000 denarii (246Z.), the Bacchus of Aristides, the first picture publicly exhibited at Rome (Mommsen’s Rome , vol. iii. p. 475). 2 (Agincourt, vol. iii. p. 51, note 2.) The works that were produced at Rome proceeded from the hands of foreigners ; the few Roman artists of this period (b.c. 167-143) who are particularly mentioned, are without exception Italian or transmarine Greeks, who had migrated thither, e.g. Hermodorus of Salamis (b.c. 143), architect ; Pasiteles, the sculptor, from Magna Grecia, who furnished images of the gods in ivory for Roman temples ; Metrodorus of Athens, painter and philosopher, who painted pictures for the triumph of L. Paulus (b.c. 167, A.u.c. 587 ; Mommsen’s Rome, vol. iii. p. 476). Among the Greek sculptors who worked at Rome, were Posis, who, says Varro (Pliny, xxxv. 45. 2), imitated fruit with wonderful truth to nature ; Ophelion, son of Aristonidas, who made the portrait of Sextus Pompeius, and who (says M. Ampere), if he was, as is probable, a freedman of the family, may have made the statue of Pompey in the Palazzo Spada at Rome, supposed to be that at the base of which Caesar fell ; Arcesilaus, employed by Lucullus and Caesar ; Pasiteles (who was made a Roman citizen); Stephanos, and Menelaus, Greeks established at Rome towards the end of the Republic : probably also Posidonius of Ephesus, Laedus, Statiates, Pytheas, Zopyrus, and Teucer, who, Pliny says, lived about Pompey’s time. Diogenes, who decorated the Pantheon, and Thaletius (freedman of Maecenas), a bronze caster, belong to the first century of the Empire. Almost all the engravers upon fine stones have Greek names — very few have Latin names ; among these are Gneus, Aulus, and Saturnius Severus (Brunn, op. cit. pp. 546, 51, 60, 66, 78, 79). XXXI l INTRODUCTION. Eminent collectors at Rome. b.c. 116 — 28 . b.c. ilO- 57 . b.c. 63 - 12 . b.c. 60 . a high price : though they ran the risk of being deceived by some of those clever Greek dealers who manufactured false originals at Rome, writing the name of Praxiteles on new marble, and that of Myron upon beaten silver. 1 Amonsf the most celebrated collectors of Greek art whose names we meet with were, Terentius Varro, called the most learned of the Romans, of whom Pliny has preserved to us so many interesting notices ; Lucullus, the friend of the artist Arcesilaus, whose taste and knowledge are vaunted by Cicero, who caused an Apollo thirty cubits in height (which cost fifty talents) to be transported from Apollonia to the capital; Verres, who carried out his wholesale plunder of Sicily by means of two artists from Cibrya, named Tlepolemus and Hiero, whom Cicero, in his second Verrine Oration, calls his hunting dogs; 2 Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who in one year opened a hundred fountains at Rome, which he decorated with a hundred and fifty statues ; iEmilius Scaurus, the sedile, who adorned a temporary theatre, which he built for public games, with no less than 3,000 statues; 3 Julius Caesar, who collected gems, ivories and bronzes in great quantity ; Maecenas, the patron of Horace; and Pompey, through whose triumph that taste for engraved gems was introduced which afterwards became a universal passion. 1 ‘ Ut quidem artifices nostro faciunt seculo, Qui pretium operibus majus inveniunt, novo. Si marmori adscripserunt Praxitelem suo, Detrito Myronem argento.’ — Phcedrus, lib. v. fab. i. 2 ‘ Cibyratas sunt fratres quidam, Tlepolemus et Hiero : quorum alterum fingere opinor e cera solitum esse, alterum esse pictorem. . . . Eos jam bene cognitos et re probatos secum in Siciliam duxit. Quo posteaquam vene- runt, mirandum in modum (canos venaticos diceres) ita odorabantur omnia et pervestigabant, ut, ubi quidque esset, aliqua ratione invenirent.’ {In Verretn, act. ii. lib. iv. De Signis, cap. 13 et 14.) Cibyra was a great city of Phrygia Magna, on the borders of Caria. It was added to the Roman Empire in b.c. 83. Verres was praetor urbanus in b.c. 74, and afterwards propraetor in Sicily, where he remained for neai’ly three years (73 — 71). 3 A decree of the Senate, b.c. 157, forbade permanent theatres. Pompey, b.c. 57, first built one of stone, capable of holding 40,000 spectators (Cantu, op. cit. vol. i. ch. xlii. p. 625). ROMAN SCULPTURE. xxxiii Following the example of Augustus, during whose reign art reached a pitch of excellence unsurpassed even in Greece, except in the age of Pericles, the wealthy Romans adorned porticoes and theatres with Greek works, among which figured those of Scopas and Myron, and the famous Venus Anadyomene of Apelles (brought from Cos, and valued at one hundred talents), and with countless new statues, sculptured by the pupils of the greatest Greek masters at Rome. That these men deteriorated in their foreign home is not to be wondered at, if we consider the lower standard of taste, as well as the greater heaviness and comparative inelegance of Roman costume, and the decided inferiority of Roman beauty to that of the Greeks; but that there were artists. of great ability among them, is sufficiently proved by the statue of Augustus, lately dug up at the villa of Livia, and now added to the precious marbles of the Vatican. In general conception, in arrangement of drapery, and in the Phidian beauty of the reliefs which adorn the cuirass, we recognise Greek genius, know- ledge, and skill; but in the elaborate finish of the accessories, which a Phidias would have kept subordinate, we see signs of that decay in taste, which sprang from a desire to gratify a far less cultivated people than the Greeks, and which tended to make art the slave of individual caprice. Taste varied at Rome in accordance with that of the ruling emperor. Tiberius loved obscenity, and art became obscene ; Caligula valued it as a means of self-adulation, and placed his own vile head upon Greek statues decapitated for that purpose; Nero, who thought only of show, introduced the fashion of making statues of coloured marble with extremities of white marble or bronze, gilded the masterpieces of Lysippus, and set up a colossal statue of himself, 110 feet in height, the defects of which showed how much the art of casting in bronze had been forgotten. 1 At 1 ‘ Ea statua indicavit interisse fundendi scientiam’ — Pliny, lib.xxxiv. ch.vii. It was made by Zenodorus after ten years of labour, and cost 40,000,000 VOL. I. d XXXIV INTRODUCTION. Art of a national stamp. Trajan’s column. the same time lie added to the treasures of Greek art at Rome the masterpieces of Olympia and the 500 bronze statues stolen from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, with which he decorated the Golden House. Under the Flavian emperors, Greece was still further drained, and the Holy Land also paid its tribute in those splendid ornaments from the Temple at Jerusalem with which Vespasian adorned the Temple of Peace. The bas-reliefs of the Arch of Titus are in themselves sufficient proof of the excellence of the Greek artists resident at Rome during his reign, but we meet with no work which bears a national stamp until in the rilievi of the splendid column which comme- morates the Dacian vic- tories of Trajan, we find certain qualities of style and conception which are eminently Roman. 1 They are such as fitted the Romans to excel in por- traiture and plain story- telling, and made them great historians in marble as well as in books. This very column is a chronicle of what was then fresh in men’s minds; a marble ballad, replete with the raciness, energy and rudeness of structure, characteristic of that species of poetry; a record of events which demanded a positive treatment. Its series of 114 com- positions is sculptured in a long spiral, which winds from the base to the summit of the pillar, divided midway by a V ictory ti.'S M /• The Tibeu. (Trajan’s Column.) sestertii, equal, says the Abbe Barthelemy, to 9,000,000 francs (Decliazelle, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 174). 1 Erected after the year 106. ‘ So tragen sie doch unfehlbar das nationale Geprage des Romisclien Geistes ’ — Beschreibung Roms , vol. iii. p. 290. ROMAN SCULPTURE. XXXV engaged in inscribing the names of heroes upon her shield. In this figure,' and in the fine half-length of old Father Tiber below, are signs of a Greek or Greco-Roman hand, but elsewhere throughout the scenes of battle and siege, and the accompanying incidents of hewing trees, and building bridges, and towns, we see what looks like pure Roman work. The emperor, whose square flat head and marked features are so well known to us, appears everywhere, presiding over his soldiers, many of whom look like the Romans whom w;e meet now- a-days in the Trastevere, and who are easily to be distinguished from Roman SoLDIEES . (Trajan , s Column>) their enemies by their dress and type of face, and in some cases by their more civilised mode of warfare, for no Roman would have fought like one of these barbarians, with the head of his last opponent firmly held by the hair between his teeth. If we regard the pervading spirit, the manipulation, the manner of modelling, either in angular and coarsely marked planes, or very much rounded surfaces, we shall find the sculptures of Trajan’s column essentially different from the Greek of any period; and with the exception of certain busts and portrait statues, 1 the most striking development of the short- 1 Such works were divided into two classes : the Iconic, which was an absolute, and the Heroic, which was an ideal likeness. The Roman people conceded to such persons as had held the office of consul, asdile, censor, or praetor, a privilege called the ‘jus imaginum,’ by which, after they had delivered an oration devoted to the enumeration of their claims, they were entitled to decorate the atria of their houses with the images of their ancestors, made of wax run in moulds taken from life, and robed in the costume of their XXXVI INTRODUCTION. lived Roman school, whose possible growth was checked by the fresh influx of Greek artists which Hadrian’s love for Greek art Hadrian, induced. This passion had been developed in the new emperor by his travels in foreign lands, from which he returned to build a.d. i35- the Villa Adriana at Tivoli, where he caused those buildings i38. . . which had most impressed him both in Greece and Egypt to be reproduced upon a smaller scale, and filled them with statues brought from those countries, and with imitations in harmony with the architecture which they were intended to ScW of decorate. Hence arose a school of imitators, whose best energies sculpture . . under were directed towards counterfeiting Greek and Egyptian statues ; Hadrian. whe soon lost all originality; and whose works, though con- spicuous for their technical skill and knowledge of drawing, appear smooth and lifeless, when compared with the divine originals of Greece. To feel this, we have but to compare the Braschi Antinous and that of the Villa Albani with such original Greek works as the marbles of the Parthenon, the Venus of Milo, and the Fighting Amazon at the Villa Albani ; or even with such admirable copies as the Apollo and the Venus of the Capitol. The chisels of these Hadrianic sculptors were principally occupied upon portrait statues of the emperor, and his favourite Antinous, numbers of which exist to prove that art, forced by one man’s will into a certain channel, must always, however correct, be cold and uninspired. We are told that Hadrian was himself both architect, sculptor, 1 and painter, and so vain of his skill that he suffered no criticism upon his works ; as he proved, by first condemning to exile, and then to death, the great archi- tect Apollodorus, for having dared to pass a severe comment Dedicated upon the temple of Venus and Rome which he had designed. - b.c. 135. day, or simple masks, facsimiles of which were worn at great ceremonies by persons appointed to represent the deceased. See Overbeck, Geschichte der Griechischen Plastik, vol. ii. p. 293, and Clarac, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 33, 34. 1 The poet Aurelius Vettore compared Hadrian to Praxiteles and Euphranor (Spart. Had. p. 8, Winclcelmann, vol. ii. lib. xiii. ch. i. p. 298). 2 During the reign of Trajan, Apollodorus had had the indiscretion to ROMAN SCULPTURE. xxxvii After Hadrian came Antoninus Pius, an excellent prince, who did but little for the arts, and Marcus Aurelius, whose equestrian statue is full of vitality, ease, and dignity, and despite certain defects, a truly noble group. Some wilfully blind critics have chosen to mistake the tuft of hair between the horse’s ears for the bird of Minerva, in order to prove its sculptor to have been a Greek ; but judging from the heavy-limbed horse, and the unideab character of the whole group, we may consider it as genuine Roman work, or at least that of a Greek long settled at Rome. Sculpture declined more and more rapidly after Commodus succeeded to the throne, marking one stage of its downward progress upon the column which he raised in honour of Marcus Aurelius, which is but a feeble copy of that of Trajan ; another upon the arch of Septimius Severus ; and a final one upon that of Constantine . 1 Trajan patronised art because he esteemed it a noble thing, and worthy to occupy the mind of a great prince ; Hadrian partly from a love for it, and partly from motives of personal vanity; Marcus Aurelius, who loved philosophy and literature, regarded it with indifference, and it is unnecessary to say that his unworthy son was utterly incapable of appreciating it, rebuke Hadrian in a rude way for interfering in the discussion of an archi- tectural plan between himself and the Emperor. Afterwards he imprudently criticised the construction of the Temple of Venus and Rome, designed by Hadrian. In this temple the two goddesses of colossal size were seated in separate sanctuaries back to back ; ‘ If they stood up,’ said Apollodorus, ‘ they could not get out of the temple.’ * Hadrian etait envieux de toutes les manieres. Dans la politique de Trajan ; dans les lettres de tous les genies. II airnait beaucoup les savants quand ils etaient mediocres, il etait capable de les tuer quand ils etaient gens de talent. Entre l’architecte Apollodore et l’archi- tecte Hadrien il y eut aussi une lutte d’art et de critique, mais a ce jeu Apollodore jouait sa tete, et la perdit .’ — Les Antonins , par le Comte de Champagny, vol. ii. p. 6. 1 We refer in the text to the bas-reliefs sculptured in Constantine’s time, 5 in quo aperte dignoscitur smculi ejusdem infeliciter ’ (Ciampini, Vet. Mon., vol. i. p. 13), and not to those belonging to the arch of Trajan, which were incor- porated with them in the arch of Constantine. Decline of the art. a.d. 315 . INTRODUCTION. xxxviii or its benefits to mankind . 1 We cannot wonder at this decay of all the arts, when we read in Seneca that they were intrusted to A.i». 5-65. the hands of the vilest slaves , 2 and remember that the great fortunes by which they had been supported were swallowed up during the vicissitudes which marked the decline of the Roman Empire. The final blow was given by Constantine, who not only carried away an immense number of works of art from Rome to Constantinople, but compelled such numbers of artists and workmen, whom he needed for the adornment of his new seat of Founded empire, to follow him thither, that those who remained could not A.T). 329. even copy the antique, and when called upon to erect new build- ings, used old fragments, which they clumsily combined with their own inferior work . 3 But while Pagan art was thus dying out with the false super- stitions which had so long held undisputed sway over the minds Christian of men, another of new aims was springing up from the seed sculpture. sown by the early Christians in the darkness and silence of the Catacombs ; more precious for its significance, and for the service which it rendered in keeping alive and giving expression to faith, than for any artistic merit. During the first three centuries of our era, Christian sculpture was confined to the simplest symbolism, such as the engraving of palms, hearts, triangles, fishes,- and monograms, upon the altars and tombs of the subter- ranean galleries, in which the faithful found refuge from persecu- tion; but after Constantine, when senators and wealthy citizens were no longer ashamed to inscribe their names on the roll of Christ’s disciples, and desired to secure a fitting resting-place for 1 ‘ L’art renouvele par Trajan, entra en decadence sous Commode ; de meme que l’art glorieux sous Auguste avait commence a dechoir sous Tibere.’ — Champagny, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 240. 2 ‘ Vilissimorum municipiorum commenta sunt.’ — Ep. 90. (Sacchi, Ant. Rom. d' Italia, p. 178). 3 ‘ Non si trova quasi piu nessuna menzione dell’ arte dopo i tempi di Costan- tino.’ — Winckelmann, op. cit. vol. ii. lib. xii. ch. iii. p. 329. CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE. XXXI X their bodies after death, its field was widened, by the use of which had a plain in- structive meaning to the unlettered disciple, and another sense to 1 From aapMtycryoQ, ‘ flesh-devouring.’ The use of sarcophagi for burial was revived under the Antonines, when the burning of bodies was forbidden by law. (Vide Agincourt, vol. iii. pp. 149 et seq.) Two of the oldest Christian sarcophagi known are the first and seventh placed on the left-hand side of the staircase in the Christian Museum at the Lateran. The supposition that they are anterior to the fourth century is based upon the somewhat better style in which they are sculptured. Upon the front of the first of these sarcophagi are represented the raising of Lazarus; Moses striking the rock; a subject of doubtful interpretation, in which three men are running away and two lying prostrate upon the ground; and the story of Jonah, in three parts. The other sarcophagus is divided into three parts by as many figures in relief of the Good Shepherd, and covered with a vine, upon whose branches stand many children picking grapes, which others are treading out below. Besides the two statues of the Pastor Bonus at the Lateran, the earliest and best of which we give in a woodcut (p. 27), there is a third of inferior style at the Kircherian Museum. In regard to the poverty of the early Christians, which generally precluded the possibility of so costly a mode of burial, we must remember that even in the first century there were some wealthy disciples, such as the Senator Pudens ; while, although in consideration of the rigour of the laws and the vigilance of the magistrates during the persecutions, we might suppose that even if any among them could afford to purchase or order a sarcophagus they would not have dared to do so, we must not forget that by selecting a series of subjects which meant one thing to the learned and another to the un- initiated, a Christian might have done so without danger. The greater part of the Christian sarcophagi which we possess were found in the Catacombs, where they were placed after the establishment of Christianity, in order that their occupants might rest in death near the burial-places of the saints and martyrs. sarcophagi . 1 examples of these are preserved in the Christian Museum at the Lateran Palace, in the crypt of St. Peter’s, and in other Roman churches, sculptured with reliefs, generally of the rudest description, illustrating dogmas, mysteries, and scenes ® iiJL The Ascension op Elijah. (From a Sarcophagus at the Lateran Museum. ) xl INTRODUCTION. Object of Christian symbolism the initiated. Such are those upon the great sarcophagus 1 at the foot of the staircase in the Lateran Museum, probably sculptured in the latter part of the fourth century, which set forth the doctrinal mysteries of Christianity; such also is that of Junius Bassus 2 in the crypt of St. Peter’s, whose double row of reliefs portray Biblical scenes, beginning with the Creation, and followed by the Temptation, &c. Both are of great interest, because, belonging to the same period, they are yet of merit so unequal. The object of the symbolism which pervaded the architecture, sculpture and painting of the church during the first six centuries of its existence was, in the words of Dionysius the Areopagite, ‘ Ascendere per formas ad veritatem.’ Strict watch was kept over the subjects represented, which were carefully restricted to those which recalled the promise of a future world, and thus sustained the Christian under the sore trials and grievous persecutions which were his portion in this. Daniel in the lion’s den, and the three young men who walked unharmed through the fiery furnace, taught the efficacy of faith amid many and great dangers ; the peacock, the fish, the stag, and the phoenix spoke of immortality, baptism and the resur- rection; while the flowers, vines, and crowns of myrtle used as ornaments, being all of a joyful peaceful character, tended to pro- mote cheerfulness of spirit . 3 Of the same character were certain 1 Supposed to be contemporary with the rebuilding of the Basilica, under Honorius, a.d. 375-423. An elaborate description of its reliefs is given by the Marchese A. Ricci, at p. 54, note 31, vol. i. of his St. deW Architettura in Italia. See also ibid. p. 40. 2 Prmfect of Rome, a.d. 359. Vide Besch. Roms, vol. ii. p. 228, and Agin- court, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 119. 3 Daniel, like the chaste Joseph, is a type of Christ in the Old Testament; and Adam and Era. (From the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, crypt of St. Peter's.) CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE. xli heathen subjects which, being capable of a double interpretation, were used at a period when concealment of meaning was neces- sary . 1 Of these we may mention Orpheus, Deucalion, Jason, and the Four Seasons, which latter typified the constantly varying nature of human life. The letter of St. Mlus to Olympiodorus , 2 which speaks of hares, goats, and every sort of running beast pursued by men and dogs, and of fishes, horses, and serpents; and that of St. Dionysius, which mentions oxen, lions, eagles, &c. &c., as figures through which men arrive at ascetic truths, also proves that the custom of sculpturing these animals in the friezes and upon the arches and door-posts of Christian churches was general before the sixth Daniel in the lions’ den especially foretells the staying of Christ in the grave. He is often represented upon the oldest Christian sarcophagi between the lions (vide Aringlii, 331, 333, 423, 567, 571). The fiery furnace, in the oldest Christian representations, is not only a symbol of earthly trials, but of this world, joy of deliverance from which is expressed by the three young men singing praises. The lamb symbolised Christ, the sacrificial lamb. The peacock symbolised im- mortality, because his flesh was said to be incorruptible. The fish was often placed on old Christian graves, to show that there a Christian was buried ; also as the fish lives in water, so Christ was baptised in water. The stag panting for the waterbrooks as the soul thirsteth for God, is taken as a symbol of baptism. The phoenix as the symbol of the risen Redeemer. Orpheus, whose lyre tamed wild beasts, as the words of Christ (with whom he was identified) softened re- bellious hearts ( Christliche Symbolik, von Wolfgang Menzel). 1 Mercury carrying the ram (fcpio^opoc) is the original of the Pastor Bonus. It was treated by Onatus and Callicles (Paus. v. 27, 5) and by Calamis (Paus. ix. 22, 2). That of Onatus carried the ram under the arm, and that of Calamis on the shoulder, because the god is said to have delivered the city of Tanagra from a pestilence by carrying a ram on his shoulders round the walls (Ampere, op. cit. vol. iii. note i. p. 256). The relation between the ram and Mercury was revealed in the mysteries of Cybele (Paus. loc. cit.). Generally the Pastor Bonus carries a lamb on his shoulder, but sometimes also a ram. Children treading out grapes is also of Pagan origin, for they figure in the bas-reliefs in which Priapus also appears. The whale which swallowed Jonah was imitated from a fantastic animal with a dragon’s head and a fish’s tail and body, such as Myron represented, and which the ancients called Pristis (Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 19, 8). Pristas for pristes, id. with pistrices, sea-monsters, whales (Ampere, vol. iii. p. 258). 2 Sacchi, op. cit. vol. i. p. 156. VOL I. e Single statues. a.d. 610 - 641 . a.d. 744 - 749 . a.d. 1204 . xlii INTRODUCTION. century. Those especially styled mystic, as symbolic of the Evangelists, are most commonly to be met with, as well as the horse, the clove, the lamb, the fish and the goat. About the beginning of the sixth century, when the Church had lost her dread of being charged with idolatry, the fathers permitted artists to represent these three mysteries of the Passion : Christ before Pilate, the Crowning with Thorns, and the Procession to Calvary; and at its close included the other mysteries among allowed subjects . 1 Christian sculptors were sometimes induced by love of gain to work for the heathen ; but that such use of their time and talents was considered highly sinful, we learn from the reproof ad- ministered by Tertullian to certain persons who were not excused in his eyes by their alleged plea of poverty, and many of whom, moved by his earnest exhortations, abandoned their profession rather than incur the risk of further temptation. Although very few single statues were modelled in Italy after Constantine’s time, one or two may be cited, of which the oldest in bronze is that which stands in the Piazza of the town of Barletta in Apulia, supposed to represent either the Emperor Heraclius or the Lombard King Eraco ; 2 and which, though tra- ditionally believed to have been cast at Constantinople by Poly- phobus and wrecked on the Adriatic coast when brought to Italy by the Venetians, has so little of the precision and conventionality characteristic of Byzantine art about it, and so many marks of early Italian, such as the broad face, protruding eyes, and small nose, that we rather believe it belongs to the latter school. 1 In the year 680, a Council, convened at Constantinople, decreed the sub- stitution of reality for symbolism. This decree was much more regarded in the Eastern than in the Western Empire. 2 G. Villani says, Eraco, who marched against Rome, was converted by Pope Zaccharias, and died a saint {1st. Florentine lib. ii. ch. ii.). It was found in 1491. Engraved in IT, W. Schultz’s Denkmaler der Kunst in Unter Italien, vol. i. p. 141. See also Agincourt, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 104 ; Burckhardt, Cicerone , p. 552. CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE. xliii The oldest known statue in marble is that of St. Hippolytus, in the Christian Museum at the Lateran Palace, probably made in the sixth century, of which the lower portion only is old, and the upper a modern restoration devoid of character. Two small statues of the Good Shepherd, in the same collec- tion, one of which is really graceful and pleasing, are among the best examples of Christian sculpture. Lastly, we may mention the bronze statue of St. Peter in St. Peter’s at Pome, which is supposed to have been cast by order of Pope Leo I. about the middle of the fifth century , 2 in gratitude for the de- liverance of the city from Attila and his barbarian hordes by the miraculous inter- position of St. Peter and St. Paul. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who 2^ • r had been brought up from his eighth year at Constantinople, in the palace of the Em- peror Leo, to whom he was sent as a host- age, although completely illiterate , 3 had a great respect for the remains of antiquity, and did much towards saving the buildings and statues in Italy from further destruction in the latter half Pastor Bonus. (Lateran Museum.) 1 St. Hippolytus was Bishop of Porto. The statue was found in 1551 upon the Ager Veranus, where, according to Prudentius, the saint was buried ( Besch . Roms, vol. ii. p. 329). The date of this work is approximately fixed by the form of the letters in the Paschal Calendar, which the saint invented, and which is engraved on the side of the chair whereon he sits. 2 Torrigio (Sac. Grot. Vat. pp. 126, 127) says it was cast about a.d. 453. From its superiority to works of the time, it has been supposed that this statue is an antique, with head and hands added in late Christian times ; but as every part of it corresponds in style, the old accounts which state that it is a work of the fifth century are most probably correct (Besch. Roms, vol. ii. p. 177). 3 ‘ Theodoric resta toujours completement illettre, et plus tard, quand il fut parvenu a la plus haute fortune, il ne put jamais, quelque desir qu’il en eut, apprendre a ecrire son nom.’ — A. Thierry, Recit de VHist. Rom. au V. Siecle, pp. 192 et seq. Theodoric a protector of art. a.d. 475 - 526 . Goths and Lombards had no art of their own. Sculpture under the Lombards, xliv INTRODUCTION. of this century, by the appointment of magistrates charged with their preservation, and at Rome, of special officers, ‘ comes niten- tium rerum, ’ who watched over their safety by night, and severely punished all persons convicted of inflicting any injury upon them . 1 As neither history, marbles, nor medals have preserved to us the name of a single Gothic or Lombard artist, and as the laws, decrees and inscriptions of the Lombards show that they em- ployed Italian workmen, who built in the debased Roman style, we may safely conclude that they had no art of their own . 2 The best of these Italian workmen were the Magistri Comacini, so styled from their native district, which lay about the Lake of Como . 3 These men, who after their subjugation became Lombard citizens, were especially exempted from servile tribute, and were allowed to form themselves into a society, whose members went about Italy and into foreign countries, to transmit secret methods of building, and who, in recognition of their free jurisdiction, were styled Free Masons. They created what we call the Lombard style of architecture, by combining Roman and Byzantine elements, with an excessive use of monsters, chimseras and fantastic designs . 4 An interesting example of the style of sculpture in vogue during the rule of the Lombard kings, is the bas-relief, representing the Baptism of our Lord, which stands over the chief portal of the Basilica of Monza , 5 in which the Holy Spirit is represented in the likeness of a dove holding a vase in its mouth, from which water 1 Cantu, St. degli Italiani, vol. ii. p. 25. Not a single Roman artist is recorded by name between the fifth and the ninth centuries. The Magister Christianus, who is mentioned in an inscription at Santa Prassede as sculptor of the bust of Cardinal Petrus, probably belonged to the tenth century, as this prelate assisted at the Lateran Council, held by Pope Leo VIII., a.d. 964. 2 Leg. Longobard. 144 and 145 ; Muratori, vol i. p. 2 ; Cordero, Dell' Arch. Long., p. 313. 3 Muratori, Ant. Med. AEvi, vol. i. part ii. p. 64. Ricci, op. cit. vol. i. p. 174. 4 Their first constructions were clumsy imitations of classical Roman work. Ricci, op. cit., and Arch. Cosmatesca del Prof. C. Boito. 5 Founded by Queen Theodolinda. ‘Barbaro quidem saeculo insculpta, ut informes figurm satis indicant.’ — Frisi, Mem. St. di Monza. SCULPTURE UNDER TIIE LOMBARDS. xlv descends upon the head of our Lord, whose garments are held by Qll QTlO’ol nrlnl A LI -I V-V~» ~\T O X T 1 ^ ^.duigiitci vj uiiueucrgcx, n cr nuoutiiiu Agiiuipn, ana ner son AQaiO- aldo beside her; the latter holding a dove in his hand emblematic of his extreme youth. The crowns, crosses, vases, &c., which she gave to the Basilica, are introduced . 1 Another example of the style of sculpture which prevailed throughout Italy before the ninth century, is furnished us in the rude sculptures upon the exterior of the Baptistry at Cividale in Friuli , 2 of the evangelical symbols, a cross with two palms, and candelabra surrounded by circles, executed in a barbarous sort of relief, obtained by lowering the surface of the stone around the clumsy forms (which rather suggest than imitate objects) whose details are marked by furrows unskilfully cut in the stone. The privileges enjoyed by the Comacine artists under the Comacine Lombards were increased under Charlemagne; and gradually artists of many nations, Roman, French, German, and English, were added to their society, which was further enlarged by the affiliation of numbers of Greeks , 3 who were driven from their own country during the Iconoclastic war, which was waged by Leo the Isaurian and his son Constantine Copronymus, exercised an important influence upon art in Italy during the eighth century. Brought up among Jews and Mahommedans, who instilled into 1 The only names of artists preserved to us from Lombard times, are those of Aurisperto, a painter patronised by King Astolfo (a.d. 749), and Orso, whose scholars Giovino and Gioventius sculptured two columns for the Tabernacle of Cf r-rro in Vol Pnlinella. -nufcjZ. tPu \fcuf/r/crco " in S. Ambrozio at Milan, S. Tommaso in Limine near Bergamo, the well in the Lateran cloisters at Rome, &c. &c. (Selvatico, up. cit. pp. 67, 68). 3 Another emigration took place in the twelfth century, and a third after the sack of Constantinople in the fifteenth. xliv INTRODUCTION. of this century, by the appointment of magistrates charged with had no art the name of a single Gothic or Lombard artist, and as the laws, of their & 7 ’ ployed Italian workmen, who built in the debased Roman style, we may safely conclude that they had no art of their own . 1 2 The best of these Italian workmen were the Magistri Comacini, so styled from their native district, which lay about the Lake of Como . 3 These men, who after their subjugation became Lombard citizens, were especially exempted from servile tribute, and were allowed to form themselves into a society, whose members went about Italy and into foreign countries, to transmit secret methods of building, and who, in recognition of their free jurisdiction, were styled Free Masons. They created what we call the Lombard style of architecture, by combining Roman and Byzantine elements, with an excessive use of monsters, chimseras and fantastic designs . 4 undCT the interesting example of the style of sculpture in vogue during Lombards. f-] ie ru } e 0 f the Lombard kings, is the bas-relief, representing the Baptism of our Lord, which stands over the chief portal of the Basilica of Monza , 5 in which the Holy Spirit is represented in the likeness of a dove holding a vase in its mouth, from which water 1 Cantu, St. decjli Italiani, vol. ii. p. 2o. Not a single Roman artist is recorded by name between the fifth and the ninth centuries. The Magister Christianus, who is mentioned in an inscription at Santa Prassede as sculptor of the bust of Cardinal Petrus, probably belonged to the tenth century, as this ~1 - * ~ nnnLfnrl of f L a T.atnrnn Plrmnpil I'u-lrl Vnr T*nnp. T.po A7 TIT a n 4 Their first constructions were clumsy imitations of classical Roman work. Ricci, op. cit., and Arch. Cosmatesca del Prof. C. Boito. 5 Founded by Queen Theodolinda. ‘Barbaro quidem sseculo insculpta, ut informes figurm satis indicant.’ — Frisi, Mem. St. di Monza. f 6~- > ( {(/c/c''K J a, / r ' , J/( /A a/n tfkugftJroo Ootlis ana Lombards as iieiuici iiioteuy, riicii liOl AAA^VACULO own. decrees and inscriptions of the Lombards show that they em- -nirtz ^ • tftLds Cfc^cfe n cfn * / tc c ft u i is Spc ( Cl 7 1 / SCULPTURE UNDER THE LOMBARDS. xlv descends upon the head of our Lord, whose garments are held by an angel, while near Him stand the Virgin, St. John, St. Peter, and St. Paul. Queen Theodolinda appears above in the act of offering a gemmed crown to St. John the Baptist, with her daughter Gundeberga, her husband Agilulph, and her son Adalo- aldo beside her ; the latter holding a dove in his hand emblematic of his extreme youth. The crowns, crosses, vases, &c., which she gave to the Basilica, are introduced . 1 Another example of the style of sculpture which prevailed throughout Italy before the ninth century, is furnished us in the rude sculptures upon the exterior of the Baptistry at Cividale in Friuli , 2 of the evangelical symbols, a cross with two palms, and candelabra surrounded by circles, executed in a barbarous sort of relief, obtained by lowering the surface of the stone around the clumsy forms (which rather suggest than imitate objects) whose details are marked by furrows unskilfully cut in the stone. The privileges enjoyed by the Comacine artists under the Lombards were increased under Charlemagne; and gradually artists of many nations, Roman, French, German, and English, were added to their society, which was further enlarged by the affiliation of numbers of Greeks , 3 who were driven from their own country during the Iconoclastic war, which was waged by Leo the Isaurian and his son Constantine Copronymus, exercised an important influence upon art in Italy during the eighth century. Brought up among Jews and Mahommedans, who instilled into 1 The only names of artists preserved to us from Lombard times, are those of Aurisperto, a painter patronised by Ring Astolfo (a.d. 749), and Orso, whose scholars Giovino and Gioventius sculptured two columns for the Tabernacle of St. George in Val Pulicella. - Erected by St. Calixtus, patriarch of Aquileja, in the reign of the Lombard king Luitprand (7K-744). The other examples are the tomb of Pemmone, Duke of Friuli, in S. Martino at Cividale of the eighth century, and sculptures in S. Ambrozio at Milan, S. Tommaso in Limine near Bergamo, the well in the Lateran cloisters at Rome, &c. &c. (Selvatico, up. cit. pp. 67, 68). 3 Another emigration took place in the twelfth century, and a third after the sack of Constantinople in the fifteenth. A.n. 591- 615. Comacine artists. IconoclaS' tic war. Influence of Greek emigra- tion upon Italy. xlvi INTRODUCTION. his mind their own hatred of image-worship, and moved by the complaints of many of his Greek subjects, who were continually outraged by the appellation of idolaters , 1 given them by their fellow-subjects of a different faith, Leo first called a council to discuss the question, and then issued an edict for the destruction of all. images. The agents first appointed to execute this decree fell victims to the fury of the adverse faction, which even threatened the emperor’s life; but imperial will, backed by military force, prevailed: the religious communities which had initiated the rebellion were suppressed, and a wholesale destruction of images was carried out in the Eastern Empire . 2 In the Western Empire matters took a different turn, as Pope Gregory the Second, supported by Luitprand, King of the Lom- bards, utterly refused to obey the decree of the schismatic council of Constantinople, and accorded his protection to the Greeks who fled to Italy. The emperor’s statues were overthrown, the Italians refused to pay him tribute, and a final blow was given to Greek dominion in the West, when the African Saracens made themselves masters of Sardinia. The use of the chisel, long almost abandoned on account of the abundance of antique fragments which were ready at band as building materials, but of which the supply was at this time becoming rapidly exhausted, was revived by the opportune arrival 1 The worship rendered by the Christians to certain images of Christ and the Virgin which were said to have been miraculously made (ax £t i° 07rot, 7 rat ) laid them open to this charge of idolatry by the Turks. The capture of Edessa, in which one of these images was preserved, shook the faith of the Christians in their efficacy. At this crisis Leo was raised to the throne by a race of mountaineers, who had preserved their independence in Asia Minor. Isauria was a part of Cilicia (Sismondi, Hist, des Rep. It. vol. i. pp. 120 et seq.). 2 The extinction of the iconoclasts after the death of Theophilus, a.d. 842, did not put an end to their influence upon sculpture in the East, as although his widow, Theodora, restored the worship of the Virgin and allowed pictures in the churches, sculptural representations were still prohibited, and have never since been allowed in the Greek Church, excepting in the flattest possible relief. ‘ The flatter the surface, the more orthodox .’ — Legends of the Madonna , Tnt. p. 24. ITALIAN AND GREEK SCULPTORS. xlvii of foreign workmen, who, being vastly better educated than their Italian brethren, stimulated the latter to unwonted exertion. Each, however, retained his natural style of decoration ; for while the Italians made use of subjects taken from animated nature, as well as of labyrinths, sirens, and other capricious ornaments, which had been introduced by the Comacine artists during the period of Lom- bard rule ; the Greeks con- fined themselves to the repre- sentation of rich stuffs (which had been introduced into Byzantium from Asia), of leaves, flowers, fruits and complicated lines of ingenious patterns bor- rowed from the Arabs. But we must not exaggerate the combined influence of native and foreign artists upon art of any kind in Italy, 1 which was un- questionably in a lethargic state during the two centuries pre- ceding that dreaded year 1000, in which all classes of people confidently expected the end of the world, doubting only whether the thousand years at the end of which Christ was traditionally believed to have prophesied the event, were to be counted from His birth or His death. Men’s minds were far too confused and anxious to think of aught else: crowds besieged the convents, filled the sanctuaries, or followed in procession the most venerated relics. Some sought to propitiate Divine wrath, by giving their no 1 The influence of the Carlo vingians upon all the arts in Europe, and espe- cially upon architecture, was great; but sculpture was sunk too low to be revived, especially in Italy, where ignorance about representing the human form, or rendering any natural object in stone, was almost total. The impulse given by Charlemagne ceased at the end of the ninth century with the last of his descendants (Tiraboschi, op. cit. vol. iii. lib. iii. p. 186; Labarte, pp. 4, 5 ; Rio, Art Chretien , vol. i. p. 2). Marble Disc. (Campo Santo.) Art in the lowest state of decadence during the ninth and tenth cen- turies. xlviii INTRODUCTION. Revival of sculpture through architec- ture. Unity of design caused by the joint exercise of the three arts by one person. Proofs of growing esteem for art. Sculptors of the twelfth and thir- teenth centuries. longer valued wealth to the Church; some reformed their lives; while others gave themselves up to the enjoyment of worldly pleasures, until the dreaded moment came and passed, leaving the globe still turning upon its axis, and men free to pursue their long-abandoned occupations, to which they turned with a new zest ; and, influenced by feelings of gratitude for their deliverance from the dreaded catastrophe, began to construct cathedrals, of whose fa§ades and portals sculpture formed an integral part. The exercise of architecture, sculpture and painting by one person during the middle ages, gave to these buildings an unparalleled unity of conception; and so faithfully was the primitive idea carried out by succeeding architects, when through want of funds, or some unforeseen obstacle, their construction had been temporarily interrupted, that the most practised eye, if unaided by documents, will often seek in vain the line of demarca- tion between the old and the new portions . 1 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries we first find sculptors careful about signing their works, which proves that their pro- fession was then held in esteem ; as do the absurdly exaggerated praises heaped upon them by contemporary writers, and the inscriptions upon the works themselves , 2 which also show how utterly all knowledge of what was good must have perished, when the rudest sculptor was looked upon as a prodigy, Nothing, for instance, could well be more shapeless and barbarous than the bas-reliefs made for the Porta Romana at Milan , 0 in commemoration 1 Ricci, op. cit. vol. i. p. 559. 2 The Greeks generally signed their works, the Romans less frequently ; in the Greco-Roman period sculptors sometimes did it symbolically, as Sauros and Batrachos by a lizard and a frog, upon the Portico of Octavia (Pliny, lib. xxxvi.). After the year 1000, the epigraphs of the marble workers were recorded like those of the painters (Not. Epig. Artifici Mannorarii, dal X al XV Secolo ; C. Promis, 1836). 3 The triumphal arch of the Porta Romana, here referred to, was removed about the end of the last century, when the line of the Corso was straightened, at which time the reliefs were then let into the outer wall of a house, near the Naviglio ; that of the Emperor Barbarossa is in the wall of a house near the PRE-REVIVALISTS. xlix of the Lombard league, by a certain Anselmus, who nevertheless is styled by the accompanying inscription ‘ Daedalus alter;’ or than those illustrating subjects from the Book of Genesis, sculptured with a frieze of leaves, grotesques, birds, &c. &c., about the portal of the cathedral at Modena by Wiligelmus, of whom the inscription says — Inter scultores quanto sis clignus honore Claret scultura nunc Wiligelma tua. This artist is claimed as a Modenese by some authorities, and by others identified with the monk Wilhelm von St. Egidius 1 von Nuremberg (called Guglielmo Tedesco by the Italians), who visited Italy about 1155, and long dwelt at Pisa, where, under the name of Wilhelm von Innspruck, he is said to have assisted Bonnano in building the Leaning Tower. A better sculptor than either of these was Anselmo da Campione, 2 who sculptured the five bas-reliefs in a chapel to the right of the high altar of the cathedral at Modena; among which, that representing the Last Supper shows a little more variety in the action of its stiff Byzantine figures, and a better disposition of drapery, than was common at the period. A further advance is traceable in the works of Benedetto Antelami, 3 the son of Antelamus, a notary at Parma, who was born about the middle of the twelfth century. His masterpiece bridge, overlooking tlie Naviglio, and that of the Empress in the Palazzo Archinti. Vide Giulini, Mem. della Citta e Campaqna di Milano , vol. iii. pp. 711, 716. 1 Tiraboschi calls him an Italian. Ixreuser, in Die Kristliche Kirchenbau , vol. i. p. 468, says he was from Nuremberg. 2 Flourished last part of the twelfth century. Campione, a feud of the monastery of St. Ambrogio, lies on the eastern slope of the mountain nearly opposite Lugano. Its inhabitants were especially noted before the revival as painters and sculptors (Calvi, p. 39). Individuals belonging to five generations of this family worked in the cathedral at Modena. 3 See two articles upon Antelami in the Arti del Disegno , a.d. 1856, Nos. 33 and 34, by M. Lopez, who finds mention of an Antelamus notary, the supposed father of Benedetto in a Doc. dated Nov. 6, 1182. Vide Ricci, op. cit. vol. i. p. 620, note 112. VOL. I. f 1 INTRODUCTION. is a Descent from the Cross, sculptured for the pulpit of the Duomo at Parma, and now let into the wall of the Capella Baiardi in that church. In this alto-relief, the body of our Lord, which Nicodeinus mounts upon a ladder to detach from Descent from the Cross. (By Benedetto Antelami.) the cross, is sustained by Joseph of Arimathsea, while an angel above the Virgin (who forms one of a procession of mourners) aids her in holding up His left arm. In a similar position, upon the other side of the composition, appears the archangel Raphael, above a soldier, who threatens with his hand a reluctant priest, whom the Divine messenger is pushing forward to the foot of the cross, and who, we imagine, from the word 4 Synagoga,’ inscribed above his head, • typifies the stiff-necked Jews. This idea of the invisible and the visible agent acting together, is original and striking, and proves Antelami to have been an artist of thought and feeling. It would be easy to criticise the com- position (if such it may be called), and to pohit out the want of proportion, the stiffness and awkwardness of the figures ; but if we bear in mind the period when it was sculptured, we shall recognise the artist’s superior capacity for expression above his contemporaries, and shall feel inclined to pardon these defects. PRE-REVIVALISTS. li The relief in a lunette over one of the doors of the Baptistry at Parma , 1 still more clearly shows his mystical tendencies. It represents a youth sitting in the branches of a tree, so absorbed in eating a honeycomb, that, like man who forgets the future in present enjoyment, he does not see a furious dragon watching him from below . 2 The other sculptures about the Baptistry can hardly be by Antelami, of whose life and works we know nothing more. The fa§ade of the Duomo at Borgo San Donino, near Piacenza, furnishes us with other examples of the state of the art at this time. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries we meet with the names of Roman, Sabine, and Umbrian sculptors, as well as of some from the Abruzzi, inscribed upon architraves, pulpits, altars, &c. &c. ; such as those of Giovanni and Guittone di Guido upon the architrave of the ciborium in the church of St. Maria di Castello at Corneto ; of Nicolo di Rainuccio Romano, and A . D . 1060 Giovanni di Ranieri from Perugia, in the same church, and upon the tabernacle of the church of S. Pietro, at Toscanella, over a.d. 1093 the arch of the portal of Santa Maria, and upon the capital of the column which divides its upper window. Other sculptors of the time are Pietro Oderigius, or Oderigi, from Rome, who made the tomb of Count Ruggerio at Milato in South Calabria, of which a.d. 1101 the sarcophagus now stands in the piazza of that toivn ; Paulus, with his four sons, Angelo, Sassone, Giovanni, and Paolo, who made the ciborium of S. Lorenzo near Rome, and Nicolo di a.d. his Angelo (grandson of Paulus), who made the paschal candlestick of marble at S. Paolo fuori le mura . 3 Several interesting inscriptions, containing the name of artists of this period, exist in the church of S. Pietro, near the old Marsian city of Alba, among which are those of Giovanni (probably 1 Built by Antelami in 1196. 2 Engraved in Revue Archeologique, 1853, art. by MM. Lopez and Didrou. 3 It is about eighteen feet in height, and is divided into seven zones, upon which are rudely sculptured scenes from the New Testament. f 2 lii INTRODUCTION. identical with the Giovanni di Guido mentioned as having made the ciborium at Santa Maria di Corneto, and the pulpit in Santa a.d. 1209. Maria di Toscanella) ; and Andrea, magister Eomanus, sculptor of the pulpit in this church (which is adorned with gilded and many-coloured mosaics in the cosmatesque style), 1 and of the marble screen inlaid with mosaic, in making which he was assisted by Gualterius, Moronto, and Petrus, the latter of whom is identical with the Petrus Amabilis, who made a pulpit at S. Vittorino near Aquila. The same Petrus and Andreas worked at Eieti, with a Magister Enricus, about the middle of the thirteenth century. In the south of Italy we also find that many sculptors flourished about this time, among whom were Alphonso di Tremoli, who made a tabernacle for the Duomo of his native town (about the middle of the eleventh century) which rests upon four columns, into the leaf-work about whose capitals a.d. 1229. angels are introduced ; Nicolaus, ‘ sacerdos et magister,’ sculptor of a bas-relief representing the Adoration of the Magi, in which the figures are short and stout and the faces barbaric; and Simeone di Eagusa, Nicodemus, Acceptus Archidiaconus, Acutus, and Eomoaldus. Nor is the North of Italy (in which art was kept alive by the Comacines during the darkest period of the middle ages) less rich in names and works of pre-revival artists. Thus, at Venice we find the sculptured columns which support the ciborium or baldacchino over the high altar of St. Mark’s, which we can a . d . 1105. compare on the spot with the Pala d’oro made at Constantinople to cover the front of the altar, in order to see the difference between Italian and Byzantine work. The Biblical subjects upon 1 The date of their works at Alba might be fixed with some accuracy, could we find out at what time their employer, mentioned in the inscription with them as that ‘ nobilis et prudens Oderisius abbas,’ lived ; but no such abbot is mentioned by Benedictine writers. Two abbots of this name, belonging to the Sangro-Marsian Counts, presided over the monastery of Monte Cassino, one from 1087 to 1105, the other from 1123 to 1126 ; but as S. Pietro d’Alba never belonged to that monastery, they are not probably identical with the Oderisius of the inscription (MS. Letter from the Abbate Luigi Tosti di Monte Cassino). PRE-REVIVALISTS. liii these columns are confused in outline, ill regulated in compo- sition, and filled with short, rounded, and clumsy figures, while those of the Pala d’oro are clear and sharp in outline, and the figures, which are long and stiff, are ranged in a thoroughly systematic and conventional manner. These peculiarities show us that the Italian artist, though groping in darkness, was inspired by a love for freedom, which sooner or later could not fail to lead him to the light, while the Byzantine, who was inimical to all change, could not make progress . 1 A still more remarkable example of early sculpture is offered to us by the reliefs upon the facade of San Zeno at Verona, of which those from the Old Testa- ment were made by Niccolo and Guglielmo, the latter of whom is thus mentioned in the adjoining inscription, ‘Pray God that Guglielmo, who sculptured this work, may be eternally saved .’ 2 From the similarity of the bas-relief at San Zeno, which repre- sents the creation of Adam and Eve, to that of Wiligelmus at Modena, Niccolo has been called his scholar; but this hypothesis is fanciful in an age in which the representation of all subjects was to a great extent regulated by fixed types. Gioventius of Modena, Orso, Gioviano, Pacifico of Verona, Martino, Adamino, Calzaro, and Briolotto, who made the round window in the facade of San Zeno representing the wheel of Fortune, and the baptismal font inside the church, all worked at Verona during the eleventh and twelfth centuries . 3 The Biblical reliefs in bronze upon the doors of San Zeno, which are made of beaten plates of metal nailed upon wood (after the oldest Greek process called are, we may sup- pose from their excessive rudeness of style, among the earliest specimens of Italian metal-work. They resemble Byzantine doors of the eleventh century in construction , 4 but differ from them in 1 Cicognara strangely enough calls the columu-sculptures Byzantine; but Selvatico, Zanotti, and Zanotto believe them to be Italian. 2 Maffei, Verona Illustra, lib. iii. capo sesto, p. 189. 3 Ricci, op. cit. vol. i. p. 452, and p. 490, note 75. Gailhabaud, L Arch, da V au XVII Siecle, et les Arts qui en dependent. 4 Such as the doors of San Paolo f. m. at Rome, made by Staurentius of liv INTRODUCTION. this important particular, that while these are in relief, those are incised, and the lines filled with a composition of silver or other metal, as in niello-work. Italy could boast some eminent bronze-casters in the twelfth century, such as Barisanus of Trani, who made the doors of the Duomos at Trani and Ravello , 1 a t). 1179. and the smaller door of the Duomo at Monreale near Palermo, which deservedly rank as the most perfect pre- Gothic works in Southern Italy. At Troya there are others, by an unknown workman, somewhat earlier in date. Simone di Ragusa, whose style was strongly Byzantine, also flourished in this century, during' the latter half of which the bronze doors at Amalfi, Monte a.d. io82. Cassino, Monte St. Angelo, Abani, and Salerno, were made ; a.d. 1087. . A.T). 1097. as well as those of the Oratory of St. John (contiguous to the a. i). 1196. Lateran Basilica) at Rome, which, with the exception of a few rude figures in relief, are quite plain in surface . 2 Another very eminent worker in bronze was Bonnano di Pisa, who, with the assistance of Jacopo of Innspruck, built that world-renowned a.d. 1180. monument of architectural skill, the Leaning Tower at Pisa, and cast the bronze gates of the Duomo at Pisa, the largest of which was destroyed by fire, but the smaller, called the Porta di San Ranieri, whose reliefs are so thoroughly Byzantine in style that they seem to have been copied out of some Greek missal, still exists on the side of the building towards the Leaning Power. The bronze gates which Bonnano cast for the cathedral of Monreale near Palermo, which surpass them in workmanship, are surrounded by a delicately sculptured frieze of leaves and arabesques. Bonnano was one of the last of the Italian- Byzantine artists, and the only sculptor out of the seven who attained reputation in Tuscany during the twelfth century, who worked ‘ alia Greca.’ Constantinople between 1061—1072; destroyed in 1824. See Plate 18, Ciampini, Vet. JSlon. * Subjects in relief at Ravello and Trani. 2 By Hubert and Peter from Piacenza. See Platner, Besch. Boms, vol. iii. p. 543; Kiigler, Kunstgeschichte, vol. ii. p. 273, and Didron, Ann. Arch. p. 173, a.d. 1855. PRE-REVIVALISTS. lv The best of these seven Italian sculptors was Gruamonte di Pisa , 1 architect and sculptor, who, with his son Adeodatus, built many important edifices at Pistoja, and sculptured an Adoration of the Magi upon the architrave of the chief door of St. Andrea, a Last Supper on that of S. Giovanni fuori civitas, and a pulpit in the church of the Madonna dei Groppoli outside the walls. A bas-relief of Christ and the twelve apostles, with two clumsy angels, on the architrave of San Bartolomeo di Pistoja, by Rudolfinus, a font at San Casciano near Pisa, and a miracle of St. Nicholas over the side door of San Salvatore at Lucca, by Biduinus, are contemporary works in the same rude but national style; as is also the font at San Frediano di Lucca, by Magister Robertus, upon which the Israelites are quaintly represented as passing through Angel. (By Rudolfinus. At S. Giovanni di Pistoja .) the Red Sea clad in chain armour, with odd-looking fishes swimming under their feet. The last of this group of sculptors is Enricus, whose work about the doorway of St. Andrea at Pistoja is like that of Gruamonte, but inferior to it. Towards the end of the twelfth, or the beginning of the thirteenth century, a taste for extravagant or capricious ornament in architectural sculpture showed itself in the facade of the Pieve or parochial church of Arezzo, which was built by Marchionne, a native artist. It has three rows of columns, one above the other, bound together in groups of two, three, and four, varying in size, shape and length, twisted like vines, or fashioned into human forms, based upon extravagantly conceived animals, and covered 1 Ciampi, De ’ belli Arredi, p. 27, calls him a Pisan, as does Morrona. Pisa Illuslrata, etc.; other writers say he was a native of Ravenna. Tuscan sculptors in the twelfth century. a.d. 1166 . Taste for extrava- gant orna- ment. a.d. 1216 . lvi INTRODUCTION. A.i). 1166. Proper classifica- tion of these sculptors. with capitals fantastically ornamented . 1 Marchionne also built the famous Tor de Conti at Rome, for Pope Innocent VII., which Petrarch speaks of as unique in the world . 2 As all these medi- ae val artists, who are called Taglia Pietre in contemporary docu- ments and inscriptions, regarded sculpture as the humble hand- maid of architecture, and made statuettes to crown the pinnacles or fill the niches of buildings, but never as separate entities, they may rather be classed as architectural stone-cutters than as sculptors. The impulse given by architecture to sculpture had indeed caused some slight improvement in the latter art at the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century ; but for its further progress a man of genius was needed, who could take the lead and introduce new principles of study. Such a man was Niccola Pisano, who commenced that great revival in architec- ture and sculpture, which gradually embraced all other arts, and like a stone thrown into water, which sets the whole surface into agitation through its ever-widening circles, communicated its impulse from point to point until it affected the civilised world. Judged from the point of view of his own time (the only way in which any man can be fairly judged), he was one of the greatest artists the world has ever seen: ‘non parceque ses travaux approchent le plus de la perfection, mais parceque avec les moindres moyens il a obtenu les plus grands resultats ; parceque son influence durable a traverse les siecles ; et parceque, dans une certaine mesure, on peut lui faire honneur des travaux de ses sieves et de ses successeurs .’ 3 1 That portion of the facade of the Duomo at Lucca which Guidetto built in 1204, the facade of San Michele in the same town, and that of the Duomo at Pistoja, are constructed in the same extravagant style. 2 His letter was written after its partial overthrow by an earthquake, and the epithet ‘unique’ probably applied to its height ( Rer . Fam. ep. ii. 12). 3 L’Abbe Texier, Diet, de V Orfevrerie Chretien , p.928. CHAPTER I. NICCOLA PISANO. separates the city from the sea, that in the eleventh century, when those lonely buildings, which now form her chief attraction, were erected, Pisa was chief among the Ghibelline cities of Italy, a seaport, and one of the principal channels through which Oriental produce flowed into Europe ; that she was mistress of several islands in the Mediterranean, whose waves often bore her gallant sons to battle with their rivals the Genoese; and that her now depopulated streets were daily filled with a motley crowd, quaintly described by an old chronicler as 1 Pagans, Turks, Libyans, Parthians, and other monsters of the sea.’ 1 If we would find something to guide our imagination to a still earlier period, we must inspect the antique sarcophagi which line the spacious corridors of her Campo Santo; some of which have, doubtless, been in her possession since the days when she flourished as an important colony of imperial Rome, while others were brought from the East, from Sicily, and various parts of Italy 1 ‘ Qui pergit Pisas videt illic monstra marina. buried at Canossa (L. Tosti, Life of the Countess Matilda , lib. iii. p. 167). B 2 it was. CHAPTER I. NICCOLA PISANO. TT is somewhat difficult to realise, while treading the dull and silent streets of Pisa, or traversing the broad plain which separates the city from the sea, that in the eleventh century, when those lonely buildings, which now form her chief attraction, were erected, Pisa was chief among the Ghibelline cities of Italy, a seaport, and one of the principal channels through which Oriental produce flowed into Europe ; that she was mistress of several islands in the Mediterranean, whose waves often bore her gallant sons to battle with their rivals the Genoese; and that her now depopulated streets were daily filled with a motley crowd, quaintly described by an old chronicler as 1 Pagans, Turks, Libyans, Parthians, and other monsters of the sea.’ 1 If we would find something to guide our imagination to a still earlier period, we must inspect the antique sarcophagi which line the spacious corridors of her Campo Santo; some of which have, doubtless, been in her possession since the days when she flourished as an important colony of imperial Rome, while others were brought from the East, from Sicily, and various parts of Italy 1 ‘ Qui pergit Pisas videt illic monstra marina. Ha3C urbs Paganis, Turchis, Libycis, quoque Partliis Sordicla ; Chaldcei sua lustrant moenia tetri.’ (Denizone, Vita Comm. Mathildis, apud Muratori, lib. i. ch.xx.) The monk Denizone, who wrote these lines, launched a torrent of abuse upon Pisa, because she would not allow his liege lady, the Countess Matilda, to be buried at Canossa (L. Tosti, Life of the Countess Matilda, lib. iii. p. 167). Contrast between Pisa as it is and as it was. 4 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Influence of the times upon art. during the middle ages. 1 When these sarcophagi decorated the exterior of the Duomo during the eleventh, twelfth, and greater part of the thirteenth century, they served as tombs for distinguished Pisans, and for illustrious foreigners deceased at Pisa, 2 and thus linked together her Roman and mediaeval existence ; and when they attracted the notice of Niccola Pisano, who through study of the bas-reliefs upon them was awakened to a full comprehension of the fallen state of sculpture in his day, and enabled to raise it again to a pitch of excellence unattained since the decline of the Roman Empire, they became the instruments of the regeneration of sculpture in Italy. The development of art in the thirteenth century was so strikingly influenced by the great struggle unceasingly carried on between the Imperial and Papal powers, that we may well pause, before entering upon the life of Niccola Pisano, to say a few words about it and its leaders, and to trace the connection between them and the art of their time. There were great men on both sides; great tyrants, such as Frederic II. and Ezzelino of Padua; great popes, such as Innocent 1Y. and Urban IY. ; great saints, such as SS. Francis and Dominic; who, though they represented antagonistic principles, equally aided the development of art; for while the tyrants needed fortresses, and palaces scarcely less calculated for purposes of defence, the popes needed convents in which the armies of monks whom they enlisted to fight against 1 Pisa, the ancient Pisse, originally a Pelasgic town, was made a Latin colony 180 B.C., and again colonised in the time of Augustus. As in the first century of the Christian era she was praised by Strabo, ‘ propter saxorum opera/ it is not impossible that some of these sarcophagi may have been sculptured within her walls. 2 Such as the Countess Beatrice, mother of the Countess Matilda, in 1187; Pope Gregory VIII., who died at Pisa in the same year ; the great Burgundian in 1193; and some Pisan archbishops (Tempesti, Anteperistasi Pisane, p. 92; vide Appendix to this chapter, letter A). In 1293, when marble steps were added to the duomo, all these sarcophagi, excepting that of the Countess Beatrice, which was first placed inside the church, were removed to the Campo Santo {ibid.). II ■ NICCOLA PISANO. 5 heresy could be lodged, and churches in which the faithful could be assembled for prayer. Thus, while the first developed civil architecture, the latter acted upon ecclesiastical, and consequently upon sculpture, which, as we have said, formed an integral part of it. The war between the Ilohenstaufens and the popes was Frederic renewed, at the outset of Niccola Pisano’s career, between Pope Honorius III., and Frederic II., who, being king of Sicily through his mother, of Jerusalem through his wife, and of the Romans by election, and having been crowned emperor by the pope, of whom he professed himself the vassal, was secretly preparing the jo ■ Jf C S2, ■ CXc/cleyrt doU • ■?'/() • ^fct f/// n * up tu tut; vmurcn tne Heritage ot tne Gountess iviatiicla, and to embark for the Holy Land within a year, he constantly eluded the fulfilment of these promises, and openly or covertly thwarted the plans of the Holy See. The popes desired the independence of Italy, regarding it as necessary to their own freedom, while the emperor wished to put down both popes and republics, in order to bring about its unification under himself. In this plan, as well as in his resistance to papal authority, and in his attacks upon the vices, riches and power of the clergy — which put him in the position afterwards occupied by the leaders of the Reformation, though he, unlike them, was actuated by purely ambitious motives — Frederic was far in advance of his time . 2 But the hour was not yet come for the unification of Italy, or for religious reform; and though Frederic pressed Rome hard, the 1 ‘Italy is my heritage, and all the world knows it’ (Declaration of Wai 1 , a.d. 1236 — Kington, Life of Frederic II.). 2 M. Cherrier, Hist, de la Lutte des Papes, vol. ii. p. 397. Kington (op. cit.) says, Frederic’s circular addressed to such prelates as mourned over the grasping and combative spirit of their head (Gregory IX., who had just excommunicated him in 1237), reads like a forerunner of the Reformation. 4 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. during the middle ages. 1 When these sarcophagi decorated the exterior of the Duomo during the eleventh, twelfth, and greater part of the thirteenth century, they served as tombs for distinguished Pisans, and for illustrious foreigners deceased at Pisa, 2 and thus linked together her Roman and mediaeval existence ; and when they attracted the notice of Niccola Pisano, who through study of the bas-reliefs upon them was awakened to a full comprehension of the fallen state of sculpture in his day, and enabled to raise it again to a pitch of excellence unattained since the decline of the Roman Empire, they became the instruments of the regeneration before entering upon the tile ol JNiccola JUisano, to say aiew wuius about it and its leaders, and to trace the connection between them and the art of their time. There were great men on both sides; great tyrants, such as Frederic II. and Ezzelino of Padua; great popes, such as Innocent 1Y. and Urban IY. ; great saints, such as SS. Francis and Dominic; who, though they represented antagonistic principles, equally aided the development of art; for while the tyrants needed fortresses, and palaces scarcely less calculated for purposes of defence, the popes needed convents in which the armies of monks whom they enlisted to fight against 1 Pisa, the ancient Pisas, originally a Pelasgic town, was made a Latin colony 180 B.C., and again colonised in the time of Augustus. As in the first century of the Christian era she was praised by Strabo, * propter saxorum opera,’ it is not impossible that some of these sarcophagi may have been sculptured within her walls. 2 Such as the Countess Beatrice, mother of the Countess Matilda, in 1187; Pope Gregory VIII., who died at Pisa in the same year ; the great Burgundian in 1193; and some Pisan archbishops (Tempesti, Anteperistctsi Pisane, p. 92; vide Appendix to this chapter, letter A). In 1293, when marble steps were added to the duomo, all these sarcophagi, excepting that of the Countess Beatrice, which was first placed inside the church, were removed to the Campo Santo {ibid.). NICCOLA PISANO. 5 heresy could be lodged, and churches in which the faithful could be assembled for prayer. Thus, while the first developed civil architecture, the latter acted upon ecclesiastical, and consequently upon sculpture, which, as we have said, formed an integral part of it. The war between the Hohenstaufens and the popes was renewed, at the outset of Niccola Pisano’s career, between Pope Honorius III., and Frederic II., who, being king of Sicily through his mother, of Jerusalem through his wife, and of the Romans by election, and having been crowned emperor by the pope, of whom he professed himself the vassal, was secretly preparing the way for the subjugation of Italy, which he looked upon as his rightful heritage . 1 Though he had bound himself to resign Sicily to his son Henry, immediately after his coronation, in order that it should not be united to the Empire, and pledged himself to give up to the Church the heritage of the Countess Matilda, and to embark for the Holy Land within a year, he constantly eluded the fulfilment of these promises, and openly or covertly thwarted the plans of the Holy See. The popes desired the independence of Italy, regarding it as necessary to their own freedom, while the emperor wished to put down both popes and republics, in order to bring about its unification under himself. In this plan, as well as in his resistance to papal authority, and in his attacks upon the vices, riches and power of the clergy — which put him in the position afterwards occupied by the leaders of the Reformation, though he, unlike them, was actuated by purely ambitious motives — Frederic was far in advance of his time . 2 But the hour was not yet come for the unification of Italy, or for religious reform; and though Frederic pressed Rome hard, the 1 ‘ Italy is my heritage, and all the world knows it ’ (Declaration of War, a.d. 1236. — Kington, Life of Frederic II.). 2 M. Cherrier, Ilist. de la Lutte des Papes , vol. ii. p. 397. Kington {op. cit.) says, Frederic’s circular addressed to such prelates as mourned over the grasping and combative spirit of their head (Gregory IX., who had just excommunicated him in 1237), reads like a forerunner of the Reformation. Frederic II. Nov. 22, 1220. G TUSCAN SCULPTORS. elasticity of her institutions (which yield to pressure only to resume their original shape when that pressure is removed) saved Rome from the loss of her temporal power. That peace between the two powers was impossible, is plainly shown by Pope Inno- cent’s definition of their respective positions, which says, 4 Two lights, the sun and the moon, illumine the globe ; two powers, the papal and the royal, govern it ; but as the moon receives her light from the more brilliant star, so kings reign by the chief of the church, who comes from God ; ’ and again (in defining imperial rights), that 4 the two swords left by Christ upon earth for the defence of Christianity, are confided to St. Peter, one for secular, and the other for ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; the first is lent by the pope to the emperor ; the other is retained by him for the government of spiritual matters.’ 1 Frederic, who was a sceptic, if not an atheist, who made war with 20,000 Saracens at his back, deaf alike to religious or national influences, laughed at these extravagant claims, and used cunning and deceit, when force failed, in thwarting the designs of his implacable enemies, who, it must be allowed, were as little scrupulous as himself as to their modes of action. In studying his life, we shall find that, though he was matched in evil by many of his time, but one (St. Louis of France) surpassed him in good ; and while we blame him for his cruelty 2 and duplicity, shall not be able to withhold our admiration from the man who founded universities, where poor scholars were 1 M. Cherrier, Gregoire VII., vol. i. lib. vii. p. 65, No. 25 Ep. Cantu, Storia degli Italiani, vol. ii. p. 489, Regesta and Speccliio di Svevia. 2 Such as burning out the eyes of his tried friend and councillor, Petrus de Vineis, on a mere suspicion of treachery. See Appendix to this chapter, letter B, for opinions as to the truth or falsehood of this accusation. ‘ I’ son colui, che tenni ambo le chiavi Del cuor di Federigo’ ( Inferno , canto xiii.). Some writers say that, to avoid this horrible fate, De Vineis dashed his brains out against a wall ( Vita di P. de Vineis, prefixed to Epistolm, Basle, 1566 ; Collenuccio, St. di Napoli, pp. 102, 110). FREDERIC II. 7 educated free of expense; who enacted wise laws, favoured and himself cultivated letters; was a poet, a practical architect, a musician ; understood law and philosophy ; and could converse in Greek, Latin, Arabic, Italian, German or French, with the men of letters and artists, in whose society he spent the rare intervals of leisure which he snatched from his turbulent life. That the accusations of his enemies were, in part at least, false, and as much exaggerated as the praises of his partisans, is certain ; and the friendship of the great and good St. Louis of France, who warmly pleaded his cause before Pope Innocent IV. at Lyons, accrues much in his favour . 1 o In warring against Frederic, whose courage, cunning, and am- bition gave them ceaseless cause for alarm, and in strengthening and extending the influence of the Church, much shaken by the many heresies which had sprung up in Italy and France, the popes received invaluable assistance from the Minorites and the Preaching Friars, whose orders had been established by Pope Innocent III. in the early part of the century, in consequence of a vision, in which he saw the tottering walls of the Lateran basilica supported by an Italian and a Spaniard, in whom he afterwards recognised their respective founders, SS. Francis and Dominic. Nothing could be more opposite than the means which these two celebrated men employed in the work of con- version; for while St. Francis used persuasion and tenderness to melt the hard-hearted, St. Dominic forced and crushed them into submission. St. Francis, La cui mirabil vita Meglio in gloria del ciel si canterebbe, 2 was inspired by love for all created things, in the most insignificant of which he recognised a common origin with 1 G. Villani gives the Guelphic opinion of Frederic, lib. vi. cli. i. pp. 233 et seq. ; Jamilla, Hist. Conradi et Manfredi, vol. viii. p. 495, the Ghibelline. Yide Sismondi, Bep. etc. vol. ii. pp. 46, 48. 2 Paradiso, canto xi. Minorites and Preaching Friars. 8 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Niccola Pisano. himself. 1 The little lambs hung up for slaughter excited his pity, and the captive birds his tender sympathy; the swallows he called his sisters, ‘ sororculaa me*,’ when he begged them to cease their twittering while he preached ; the worm he carefully removed from his path, lest it should be trampled on by a less careful foot; and, in love with poverty, 2 he lived upon the simplest food, went clad in the scantiest garb, and enjoined chastity and obedience upon his followers, who within four years numbered no less than 50,000; but St. Dominic, though originally of a kind and compassionate nature, 3 sacrificed whole hecatombs of victims in his zeal for the Church, showing how far fanaticism can change the kindest heart, and make it look with complacency upon deeds which would have formerly ex- cited its abhorrence. Having now obtained some knowledge of his great contem- poraries, let us turn to Niccola Pisano, who was born at Pisa between the years 1205 and 1207. 4 His father was a notary, called Pietro da Siena, on account of the long residence of his own father, Ser Biagio Pisano, in that city, where he exercised the functions of a magistrate. 5 As soon as he manifested his O 1 * Sciens ci'eaturas, quantumlibet parvas, unum secum habere principium (S. Bonaventura, Vita di S. Francis). 2 Bossuet calls him 4 le plus desespere amateur de la pauvrete qui est peut- etre dans 1’eglise.’ ‘ Cieco era il mondo, e tu failo visare. Lebbroso, liai lo mondato ; Morto, F hai suscitato ; Sceso a l’inferno failo al ciel montare’ ( Guy d' Arezzo). 3 While a student at Valencia, he sold his books to give money to the victims of a famine, and offered to ransom a captive by giving himself up to slavery. 4 Proved by an inscription on the fountain at Perugia, which states, that on its completion in the reign of Pope Nicholas III., a.d. 1277-80, Niccola Pisano was seventy-four years old (Vermiglioli, Scultura della Fontana di Perugia, p. 52, tav. 76). 5 In the documents of the Archivio di S. Jacopo a Pistoja, date 1272, Niccola is mentioned as ‘filius quondam Petri de and under date 1273, SS. FRANCIS AND DOMINIC. 9 natural genius, his father probably allowed him to study archi- tecture, under some one of the master workmen employed about the Duomo and Baptistry, through whose teachings, as well as by the daily sight of those noble buildings, and of the ancient marbles that decorated them, he developed so rapidly, that, when scarcely fifteen years old, he obtained the appointment of Appointed architect to Frederic II., who then passed through Pisa, on his to Frede- ric ii. way to receive the imperial crown at Rome; and joining the suite of the emperor, witnessed his coronation in the month of November, and proceeded with him to Naples, where he was Goes to immediately ordered to complete Castel Capuano and Castel del Ovo, both of which buildings had been commenced under the Norman king William I. by the Florentine architect Bono . 1 i i at* 1_ x. -i/l„ nai't nf t.PTi VCfirs Goes to COnspiCUOUS IOl' liuimt;s» ui juic, ttiiu quence. Although born in an age of fierce and unbridled passion, st. An- thony of he preached peace and good-will to men, enforced it by example, Padua, and so moved the vast audiences assembled around him, in city squares and open fields, that the bitterest enemies fell upon each other’s necks and swore ever after to live like brothers. The astonishing effects produced by the Minorites, and the Preaching ‘ Mag. Nichole quondam Petri de Senis, Ser Blasii Pisanis.’ Ser or Sire is a title indicative of nobility or office (Ciampi, De' belli Arredi, etc. p. 35; Vasari [Le Monnier], vol. i. p. 258 ; and Rio, L’Art Chretien , vol. i. p. 6, note). ‘ Ego magister Niccholus olim Petri Lapidum de Pissis, populi Sancti Blasii,’ &c. (Milanesi, Doc. no. 10, vol. i. p. 150). 1 Vasari, vol. i. p. 261, note 4. Castel Capuano was long used as a palace by the Angevine kings. According to Ricci, these castles were finished by a Neapolitan architect, named Puccio (St. delle Arch, in Italia , vol. i. p. 593). Unfortunately we can form no idea of the appearance of these strongholds when finished by Niccola, since they were completely remodelled by the viceroy, Don Pedro, in the sixteenth century. 8 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. himself. 1 The little lambs hung up for slaughter excited his pity, and the captive birds his tender sympathy; the swallows he called his sisters, ‘ sororculte mete,’ when he begged them to cease their twittering while he preached ; the worm he carefully removed from his path, lest it should be trampled on by a less careful foot; and, in love with poverty, 2 lie lived upon the simplest food, went clad in the scantiest garb, and enjoined chastity and obedience upon his followers, who within four years numbered no less than 50,000; but St. Dominic, though originally of a kind and compassionate nature,' 3 sacrificed whole hecatombs of victims in his zeal for the Church, showing how far fanaticism can change the kindest heart, and make it look with complacency upon deeds which would have formerly ex- cited its atlinri’pn^o /. /3- ifeJtJ (MtUndeu p 2 i&trfpArvo ' „<■(, t b&u 3* V/J.1 u;v>VOUHU V7JL UllU 1 C&1UC11CC OJL I11S own father, Ser Biagio Pisano, in that city, where he exercised the functions of a magistrate. 5 As soon as he manifested his 1 4 Sciens ci’eaturas, quantumlibet parvas, unum secum habere principium (S. Bonaventura, Vita di S. Francis ). 2 Bossuet calls him 4 le plus desespere amateur de la pauvrete qui est peut- etre dans 1’eglise.’ 4 Cieco era il mondo, e tu failo visare. Lebbroso, liai lo mondato ; Morto, 1’ hai suscitato ; Sceso a l’inferno failo al ciel montare’ ( Guy d? Arezzo). 3 While a student at Valencia, he sold his books to give money to the victims of a famine, and offered to ransom a captive by giving himself up to slavery. 4 Proved by an inscription on the fountain at Perugia, which states, that on its completion in the reign of Pope Nicholas III., a.d. 1277-80, Niccola Pisano was seventy-four years old (Vermiglioli, Scultura della Fontana di Perugia , p. 52, tav. 76). 5 In the documents of the Archivio di S. Jacopo a Pistoja, date 1272, Niccola is mentioned as ‘filius quondam Petri de and under date 1273, SS. FRANCIS AND DOMINIC. 9 natural genius, his father probably allowed him to study archi- tecture, under some one of the master workmen employed about the Duomo and Baptistry, through whose teachings, as well as by the daily sight of those noble buildings, and of the ancient marbles that decorated them, he developed so rapidly, that, when scarcely fifteen years old, he obtained the appointment of architect to Frederic II., who then passed through Pisa, on his way to receive the imperial crown at Rome; and joining the suite of the emperor, witnessed his coronation in the month of November, and proceeded with him to Naples, where he was immediately ordered to complete Castel Capuano and Castel del Ovo, both of which buildings had been commenced under the Norman king William I. by the Florentine architect Bono . 1 Thus employed, Niccola spent the greater part of ten years at Naples, and when he left it, travelled to Padua, to design a Basilica in honour of St. Anthony (then lately deceased), than whom no one among the disciples of St. Francis was more conspicuous for holiness of life, and the gift of persuasive elo- quence. Although born in an age of fierce and unbridled passion, he preached peace and good-will to men, enforced it by example, and so moved the vast audiences assembled around him, in city squares and open fields, that the bitterest enemies fell upon each other’s necks and swore ever after to live like brothers. The astonishing effects produced by the Minorites, and the Preaching ‘ Mag. Nichole quondam Petri de Senis, Ser Blasii Pisanis.’ Ser or Sire is a title indicative of nobility or office (Ciampi, De ’ belli Arredi, etc. p. 35; Vasari [Le Monnier], vol. i. p. 258 ; and Rio, L' Art Chretien , vol. i. p. 6, note). ‘ Ego magister Niccholus olim Petri Lapidum de Pissis, populi Sancti Blasii,’ &c. (Milanesi, Doc. no. 10, vol. i. p. 150). 1 Vasari, vol. i. p. 261, note 4. Castel Capuano was long used as a palace by the Angevine kings. According to Ricci, these castles were finished by a Neapolitan architect, named Puccio (St. delle Arch, in Italia , vol. i. p. 593). Unfortunately we can form no idea of the appearance of these strongholds when finished by Niccola, since they were completely remodelled by the viceroy, Don Pedro, in the sixteenth century. VOL. I. C Appointed architect to Frede- ric II. Goes to Naples. Goes to Padua. A.D. 1231 . June 13, 1231 . St. An- thony of Padua. 10 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Sermons of St. Anthony. Friars, which surpass those achieved by ancient or modern orators, are not altogether attributable to their discourses (which, as we are told, generally consisted of Scripture texts and quotations, strung together in simple sequence), but in a great measure to the faith of the people in their sanctity and sincerity, and to the strong contrast which these angel-messengers of peace presented to the bloody tyrants who ground them to the dust . 1 In the sermons of St. Anthony, however , 2 whose texts are 1 If we believe the statements of some writers, that these discourses were pronounced in Latin (vide Sismondi, vol. i. p. 510, and Abbate Bettinelli, Risorgimento , etc. vol. i. p. 109), which, it is true, differed far less from the then unformed Italian than from that of the present day, the prodigies pro- duced by the eloquence of these friars, which recall those of Orpheus, and the magic effects of language exercised over the Greeks when, like the Italians, a new and enthusiastic people, strike us as still more astonishing. The question is a very difficult one to settle, for though their sermons are preserved to us in Latin, which we know was at that time the universal language of all who pretended to any sort of education, and was perhaps as much like the Italian then spoken by the common people, as the Venetian, Neapolitan, and Bolognese dialects are like pure Tuscan, so that precisely as a common person in any part of Italy can comprehend a stranger who speaks to him in pure Italian, one in his station in the thirteenth century might have been able to understand a Latin discourse, it is difficult to credit that a mass of un- educated people could have understood the Latin language sufficiently to have been so moved by discourses pronounced in it ; and such proof that they did not is furnished us in a portion of the epitaph of Pope Gregory V. (996 — 999), which says — ‘ Usus Franciscae, Vulgari, et voce Latince (sic) Instituit populos eloquio triplici,’ evidently meaning that he used the French, the Italian, or the Latin tongue, as best suited the comprehension of his hearers. 2 As, for instance, in the sermon for the Second Sunday after the Trans- figuration, this passage — * Sicut enim sapientes mundi quando volebant perscrutari dispositionem coe- lestium, motus astrorum, ac etiarn planetarum, montes ascendebant altissimos, ex quibus tam clarius quam latius aspiciebant coelestia. Clarius quidem, quia illis aspicientibus nec ascendebant nebulas nec venti. Latius vero, quia terra eos non impediebat quin possent videre libere circumquaque. Sic certe qui vult coelestia mentaliter inspicere debet montem contemplationem ascendere, ad quern nebulae phantasiarum ascendere nequeunt, nec venti tentationum, nec etiam ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA. 11 developed by images fitted to touch the heart, and illustrated by striking similes, there is enough of sentiment and fancy to explain the interest which they excited in the minds of his hearers, who gave him all their confidence, because they were convinced ‘che le sue parole rispondevano alia sua santa vita,’ and because so many of them had witnessed his fearlessness in re- buking sin, when he saluted the iniquitous tyrant of Padua with the words, 4 0 most cruel tyrant, and mad dog ! the terrible sentence of God hangs over thee. When wilt thou cease to spill the blood of innocent men?’ and had wondered at his power when they saw the monster, whom all feared, fall upon his knees, with a cord about his neck, before the man of God, confessing his sins and imploring pardon. 1 Soon after the death of II Santo (as he is styled by the Paduans), he was canonised by Pope Gregory IX. ; and offerings, which eventually accumulated to an immense amount, were made towards building a Basilica in his honour ; and a sum of 4,000 lire was annually spent during the seventy years occupied in its erection. In the design which he furnished for it, Niccola Pisano, being himself an Eclectic and eminently susceptible to new impressions, whose results he grafted upon classical forms (to which, like the Italian architects in general, he clung with extraordinary tenacity), and living at a time when architectural ideas were in an unsettled state in Italy, attempted to amalgamate many styles into a harmonious whole. The Gothic elements which he used were a homage to the turbines humante sollicitudinis qute mentes habent involvere, non etiam terrena affectio se opponit qua? solet aspectus latitudinem impedire ( Sancti Frcmcisci Assisiatis , nec non S. Antonii Paduani, Opera omnia, Parisiis, 1641, p. 160). 1 ‘Adjecitaue (i.e. Eccelino) “Viri commilitones, non mirum vobis istud videatur, nam revera divinum quemdam vidi fulgorem ex liujus vultu vibrari, qui adeo me perterruit, ut me repente in terram demersum iri vererer”’ ( Vita S. Antonii, caput xxii.; Sancti Francisci Assisiatis, nec non S. Antonii Paduani, Opera omnia). The chronicler Salimbene, who thought that as Christ had sent His counterpart upon the earth in the person of St. Francis, so the Devil had sent Eccelino, says, ‘De fratribus minoribus plus timebat in suis factis, quam de aliquibus aliis personis in mundo.’ His power over Eccelino. May 30, 1232. Niccola architect of the Basilica di San Antonio. 12 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Could not have built the Frari at Venice. a.d. 1237. Niccola’ s first known sculptural work. peculiar predilections of the followers of St. Francis; the cluster- ing Byzantine cupolas showed the effect produced upon him by the church of St. Mark at Venice; while the Romanesque fa9ade told that he had not forgotten the well -beloved Duomo at Pisa, under the shadow of whose walls his early years had been spent . 1 While on the one hand this combination of styles, which was habitual to Niccola, corroborates the traditional belief that he was the architect of this church, it weighs equally against the statement (based upon a misinterpreted passage of Vasari) that he was that of the Frari at Venice, whose simple Gothic features, and geometrical rather than sculptural ornaments, belong to quite another school . 2 Four years before the corner-stone of the basilica of San Antonio was laid, Niccola left the north of Italy, and made his first known essay as a sculptor, in an alto-rilievo of the Deposition, which still fills a lunette over one of the side doors of the cathedral of San Martino at Lucca. The old legend of the taking down of our Lord’s body from the cross, which is closely followed in this composition, says that ‘ while Nicodemus drew forth the nails which fastened the feet, Joseph of Arimathsea sustained the body, so that the head and arms of the dead Saviour hung over his shoulder, and the afflicted mother, seeing this, rose on her feet, 1 The most important work upon this church is that entitled La Basilica di S. Antonio, by the Padri Gonzati and Isnenghi (see vol. i. pp. 120, 121). Selvatico and Ricci attribute only a part of it to Niccola; but Vasari, Gonzati (vol. i. pp. 120, 121), Burckhardt, Morrona (vol. ii. p. 61), and Cicognara (vol. ii. p. 170) assert that he built the whole of it, or, at least, completely designed it (vide Not. St. sail' Arch. Pad. est. dal Giornale di Belle Arti. Venezia, 1834). 2 Selvatico, Architettura et Scultura in Venezia , p. 98 ; Ricci, St. delV Architettura in Italia, vol. ii. p. 328. No one who has seen the cupolas of St. Mark’s, and those of San Antonio, can doubt that Niccola went to Venice before designing the latter ; but as the influence of the Pisan school of sculpture (which he had not yet founded) was long afterwards brought to bear upon the Venetian by his scholars, we can found no theory of his having resided there upon any woi'ks in his manner which exist at Venice. NICCOLA PISANO. 13 and she took the bleeding hands of her Son as they hung down, and clasped them in her own, and kissed them tenderly .’ 1 In the bas-relief, the two Marys kneel behind the standing figure of the Virgin, who holds one of our Lord’s arms; and on the opposite side, behind St. John, who holds the other, stand two The Deposition. (By Niccola Pisano. Circa 1234.) figures, in front of whom kneels a man, who seems to be holding the crown of thorns. The centre is occupied by the grandly i - o a wlin sustains the drooping 1 . cavity is piaceu a siiiui^ tu muAn ^ ~ 0 1 Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Madonna , p. 288. 2 The old Jewish legend states that Adam was buried on Mount Calvary ; according to the Mohammedans, by Melchisedec, the son of Shem, who had saved his body in the Ark during the Deluge. This the early artists indicated by a snake at the foot of the Cross (emblem of the Tempter, whose head was to be trampled on), and a skull with cross-bones over it. Thus, where the old Adam is, there also is the New ; where the sinner, there also is the Liberator ; where the originator of death, there also the Originator of life. ‘ Ibi Abraam et 12 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Could not have built the Frari at Venice. a.d. 1237. Niccola’s first known sculptural work. peculiar predilections of the followers of St. Francis; the cluster- ing Byzantine cupolas showed the effect produced upon him by the church of St. Mark at Venice; while the Romanesque fa§ade told that he had not forgotten the well -beloved Duomo at Pisa, under the shadow of whose walls his early years had been spent . 1 While on the one hand this combination of styles, which was habitual to Niccola, corroborates the traditional belief that he was the architect of this church, it weighs equally against the statement (based upon a misinterpreted passage of Vasari) that he was that of the Frari at Venice, whose simple Gothic features, and geometrical rather than sculptural ornaments, belong to quite another school . 2 Four years before the corner-stone of the basilica of San Antonio was laid, Niccola left the north of Italy, and made his first known essay as a sculptor, in an alto-rilievo of the Deposition, which still fills a lunette over one of the side doors of the cathedral of San Martino at Lucca. The old legend of the taking down of our Lord’s body from the cross, which is closely followed in this composition, says that ‘while Nicodemus drew forth the nails which fastened the feet, Joseph of Arimathsea sustained the body, so that the head and arms of the dead Saviour hung over his shoulder, and the afflicted mother, seeing this, rose on her feet, V vui. 11 . p. xikjj assert mat no cunt tne wnoie of it, or, at least, completely designed it (vide Not. St. still' Arch. Pad. est. dal Giornale di Belle Arti. Yenezia, 1834). 2 Selvatico, Architettura et Scultura in Venezia, p. 98 ; Ricci, St. delV Architettura in Italia, vol. ii. p. 328. No one who has seen the cupolas of St. Mark’s, and those of San Antonio, can doubt that Niccola went to Venice before designing the latter; but as the influence of the Pisan school of sculpture (which he had not yet founded) was long afterwards brought to bear upon the Venetian by his scholars, we can found no theory of his having resided there upon any works in his manner which exist at Venice. NIC COLA PISANO. 13 and she took the bleeding hands of her Son as they hung down, and clasped them in her own, and kissed them tenderly .’ 1 In the bas-relief, the two Marys kneel behind the standing figure of the Virgin, who holds one of our Lord’s arms; and on the opposite side, behind St. John, who holds the other, stand two The Deposition. (By Niccola Pisano. Circa 1234.) figures, in front of whom kneels a man, who seems to be holding the crown of thorns. The centre is occupied by the grandly conceived form of Joseph of Arimathsea, who sustains the drooping, lifeless body of our Lord in his arms, while Nicodemus detaches it from the cross, which is planted upon a rock, in whose hollow cavity is placed a skull, to mark the spot as Golgotha . 2 1 Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Madonna, p. 288, 2 The old Jewish legend states that Adam was buried on Mount Calvary ; according to the Mohammedans, by Melchisedec, the son of Shem, who had saved his body in the Ark during the Deluge. This the early artists indicated by a snake at the foot of the Cross (emblem of the Tempter, whose head was to be trampled on), and a skull with cross-bones over it. Thus, where the old Adam is, there also is the New ; where the sinner, there also is the Liberator ; where the originator of death, there also the Originator of life. ‘Ibi Abraam et 14 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Statuettes at Florence. The great superiority of this work over those that had preceded it, lay especially in that it revived the long-forgotten art of com- position. If we compare it with Antelami’s bas-relief of the same subject from the Duomo at Parma (vide Introduction, p. 34), we shall see, that while in that the figures are processionally arranged on either side of the cross, instead of being grouped together with unity of action around the central figure, in this each lends his aid to the object in view, so that the principal actors in the scene form a group, which arrests the attention as a whole. A glance at the reliefs, sculptured by some of Niccola’s con- temporaries, about the door of the Duomo adjoining that over which his Deposition stands, will satisfy anyone of its greater excellence ; and as it was made before he had gone through that course of study upon which he afterwards founded his second and most characteristic style, it may be taken as an example of what he could accomplish without such study, and therefore of his comparatively uncultivated powers. To the same category belong three statuettes of the Madonna, St. Dominic, and the Magdalen, in niches on the outside of the Misericordia Vecchia, at Florence, which are in themselves of little value ; though the Madonna is interesting as the prototype of all future Madonnas of the Pisan school. In strict accordance with the spirit of early Christian art, which demanded the concealment of her figure, she is amply draped ; and in token of her peculiar mission of showing Christ to the world, she holds Him far from her, as though her natural affection were absorbed in reverence for His Divine nature. 1 The year in which Niccola made these statuettes is unknown ; but we may suppose it to have been about 1248, when he was certainly at Florence, employed in an act of Ghibelline vengeance, which wreaked itself on the homes as well as on the persons of Isaac et Jacob conditi sunt, et ipse princeps humani generis Adam,’ etc. (I. Kreuser, Christliche Kirchenbau, vol. ii. pp. 79, 80 ; W. Menzel, Christliche Symbolik, vol. i. p. 28). 1 Kreuser, Christliche Kirchenbau, vol. i. p. 109. NICCOLA PISANO. 15 the Guelphs. Incited by the emperor, and headed by his son Frederic of Antioch with 1,500 horse, the Ghibellines, after driving their enemies out of the city, proceeded to throw down thirty-six lofty towers, and many palaces lately occupied by the Guelphs, of which the most remarkable was the Toringhi, above whose successive ranges of marble columns rose a tower 250 feet in height. 1 Desiring to annihilate also the venerable Baptistry, which had been a favourite place of worship with the Guelphs, but not daring to use direct means, they employed Niccola Pisano to throw down upon it a neighbouring tower, called Guardamorto, because corpses intended for burial in the Baptistry were previously exposed for eighteen hours in its chambers. To do this, Niccola (who, we must hope, secretly desired to save the Baptistry) removed the stone foundations of the tower on one side, and replaced them with beams, to which he set fire, and when these were burned away, ‘ it fell,’ says Villani, ‘ by the grace of God and through a special miracle of St. John, straight across the Piazza.’ 2 The unrecorded years which passed between Niccola’s visit to Lucca and his stay in Florence, and the twelve which imme- diately followed the overthrow of the Guardamorto Tower, were probably occupied in building many churches and palaces, the exact date of whose construction is uncertain, but of which he is universally allowed to have been the architect. Among these are the churches of Santa Trinita at Florence, 3 S. Domenico at Arezzo, the Duomo at Yolterra, the Pieve and Santa Margherita at Cortona, all of which he designed, rebuilt or enlarged, and all of which have been subsequently remodelled. The church of San Michele in Borgo, which he began, and his scholar Fra Guglielmo He is employed to destroy the Bap- tistry at Florence. Churches and palaces built by Niccola Pisano. 1 Cantu, St. degli Italiani ; Malespina, Hist. Fior. pp. 94, 95. 2 Giovanni Villani, ch. xxxiii. p. 177. 3 Ricci, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 60. According to Villani, this church was built in the year 801 ; rebuilt after Isiccola’s design in 1230. It was reconstructed in 1593 by B. Buontalanti. 16 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Agnelli finished, and the ingeniously constructed campanile of the church of San Niccolo, 1 which he built, are still extant; but many of the buildings which were erected by him or his scholars at Pisa, were destroyed by the great fire which desolated that city in the year 1610. Among them were the church of San Matteo, whose external southern walls and cloister alone escaped, and the palace of the magistrates (adjoining the Torre della Fame, where Ugolino and his children miserably perished), upon whose foundations Vasari subsequently built the convent of the Cavalieri di San Stefano. 2 Although Niccola Pisano had widely established his fame as an architect during the first half of the thirteenth century, it was not until the year 1260 that he produced a work which at once placed him equally high as a sculptor. With the exception of the Deposition relief at Lucca and the statuettes at Florence, his constant architectural commissions had not, so far as we know, left him any leisure for sculpture, but from the difference of style perceptible between them and the bas-reliefs of the pulpit 3 which he now undertook for the Baptistry at Pisa, we are forced to conclude that he had in the mean time turned his thoughts 1 Founded on an octagonal base, it is divided into four stories, each varied in order and ornament : the first two are eight-sided, and adorned with pilasters ; the third is surrounded by isolated columns, forming a spacious peri- style, upon which rises the fourth, hexagonal in shape, and terminating in a pyramid. The round interior is ascended by a spiral staircase, so constructed that persons ascending or descending are always visible to each other. Bra- mante imitated it in a staircase which he built for Julius II. in the Belvidere ; and Antonio di San Gallo in the famous well at Orvieto, which he built for Clement VII. 2 Vasari, vol. i. p. 262 ; Ricci, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 59. That Niccola had any hand in building the fa<;ade of the Duomo at Siena, as stated by Vasari, is now known to be false (Milanesi, St. di Siena, etc. p. 135; Ricci, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 71). 3 ‘ Anno milleno bis centum, bisque ti’iceno, Hoc opus insigne sculpsit Niccola Pisano, Laudetur digne tam bene docta manus ’ ( Inscription upon the pulpit). Uiccola Els auo sc. Plfl^PlT if( BAPTlgTiyf _at PISAN PULPIT. 17 and studies to sculpture, and had found in the antique a sure +hat i m nrnvpm on t, of style which he sought, hi ot only J. 1 Will 111U MCIO l vuox on mv tjw/i v* _ ^ and of the bearded Bacchus on a Greek vase in the Campo Santo, furnishes positive proof of it. That his reproductions want the elegance and grace of the originals, here lost in a squareness and solidity of form and heaviness of drapery generally characteristic of Niccola’s sculptures, merely proves his want of skill, and re- sembles the result obtained by Roman sculptors, who imitated Greek art at Rome in the days of the Empire. The form of pulpit general throughout Italy up to this time was that of a sarcophagus, supported upon four columns, and sculptured with reliefs on three sides, such as may be seen in the Duomo at Monza, and in the churches of San Bartolomeo and San Giovanni fuori civitas at Pistoja. Niccola’s Pisan pulpit (see Plate I.), which is of quite a different type, and far more ornate and elegant, is hexagonal, by which he gained more space for sculptural decoration. It has many supporting columns, spanned by round arches, which are filled in with Gothic tracery, and with a multitude of statuettes, placed above the Corinthian and Byzantine capitals, and in the spandrils of the archSs. Its columns are supported, like those of the Lombard church porticoes, upon the backs of lions, the emblems of sacerdotal vigilance, and symbols of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection . 1 2 The five bas-reliefs upon it represent the Birth of Christ, the 1 Wife of Boniface, Marquis of Tuscany, and mother of the Countess Matilda, died a.d. 1076. This sarcophagus, when opened in 1810, was found to contain the fragments of a wooden sceptre, four little globes of ivory and lead, and a few small pieces of coin (Morrona, Pisa Illustrata, vol. i. p. 295, note 1). 2 In allusion to the fable related by Aristotle and Pliny, that if by chance a lion whelp was born dead, the mother kept him for three days, after which the father breathed in his face, and thus restored him to life (Selvatico, St. dell' Visible The pulpit in the Pisan Baptistry. PISAN PULPIT. 17 and studies to sculpture, and had found in the antique a sure guide to that improvement of style which he sought. Not only does the general character of his second style bear out this belief, but the direct imitation in two of his pulpit reliefs of the Phaedra from the bas-relief on the sarcophagus of the Countess Beatrice , 1 and of the bearded Bacchus on a Greek vase in the Campo Santo, furnishes positive proof of it. That his reproductions want the elegance and grace of the originals, here lost in a squareness and solidity of form and heaviness of drapery generally characteristic of Niccola’s sculptures, merely proves his want of skill, and re- sembles the result obtained by Roman sculptors, who imitated Greek art at Rome in the days of the Empire. The form of pulpit general throughout Italy up to this time was that of a sarcophagus, supported upon four columns, and sculptured with reliefs on three sides, such as may be seen in the Duomo at Monza, and in the churches of San Bartolomeo and San Giovanni fuori civitas at Pistoja. Niccola’s Pisan pulpit (see Plate I.), which is of quite a different type, and far more ornate and elegant, is hexagonal, by which he gained more space for sculptural decoration. It has many supporting columns, spanned by round arches, which are filled in with Gothic tracery, and with a multitude of statuettes, placed above the Corinthian and Byzantine capitals, and in the spandrils of the arches. Its columns are supported, like those of the Lombard church porticoes, upon the backs of lions, the emblems of sacerdotal vigilance, and symbols of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection . 2 The five bas-reliefs upon it represent the Birth of Christ, the 1 Wife of Boniface, Marquis of Tuscany, and mother of the Countess Matilda, died a.d. 1076. This sarcophagus, when opened in 1810, was found to contain the fragments of a wooden sceptre, four little globes of ivory and lead, and a few small pieces of coin (Morrona, Pisa Illustrate, vol. i. p. 295, note 1). 2 In allusion to the fable related by Aristotle and Plinjq that if by chance a lion whelp was born dead, the mother kept him for three days, after which the father breathed in his face, and thus restored him to life (Selvatico, St. dell' Visible influence of the antique upon his second style. The pulpit in the Pisan Baptistry. 18 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Adoration of the Magi, the Circumcision, the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment. The first of these follows the Byzantine type in composition, but differs from it utterly in that its long meagre figures and stiff folds are replaced by short round-limbed forms, draped in broad floiving robes. In the Adoration (see Plate II.), which is decidedly the best and most original of the series, sits a dignified Madonna (suggested by the Phaedra of the sarcophagus) holding the Divine Child upon her knees, who graciously leans forward to receive the costly myrrh, typical of His burial, from Caspar, King of the Ethiopians; the incense, symbolic of God, and of the priest after the order of Melchisedec, from Balthazar King of Saba; and the little golden apple, in token of allegiance to the King of the earth, from Melchior, King of the Arabians. Behind the Madonna stands St. Joseph ; next to him an angel, and still further to the left the three fiery-looking steeds of the three kings. In the Circumcision relief, the Bacchus with Ampelus of the already mentioned Greek vase is almost exactly reproduced in an imposing amply draped figure, who assists at the holy rite. The two other compositions, representing the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment, were more effectively treated by Niccola in the pulpit which he afterwards made for the Duomo at Siena. The rude expedient here resorted to of filling up the spaces which were too small for full-sized figures by disproportionately smaller ones, is a barbarism which, considering their many superior qualities, may well be overlooked . 1 L’Arcadi After completing this very beautiful pulpit, Niccola went to S. Dome- nico. Arti del Disegno , vol. ii. pp. 93, 94). The lion is also a symbol of wisdom and a companion of Solomon the Wise. The true Solomon is Christ, who is represented with twelve lions, typical of the twelve Apostles. Christ is called in the Revelation, the Lion of the stem of Judah (Kreuser, op. cit. vol. i. p. 189) 1 Rumohr suggests that Niccola could hardly have executed reliefs techni- cally so superior to any made before his day, unless, like the bronze casters, he had first modelled them in clay, a practice unknown to Italian sculptors in the Middle Ages (Rumohr, ltalianische ForscJncngen , vol. i. p. 272). THE ARCA DI S. DOMENICO. 19 Bologna to sculpture a sarcophagus for the remains of 4 II Santo a.d. 1265. Atleta,’ St. Dominic, who died there August 6, 1221. His body was buried in a wooden coffin without any special sign of honour or reverence, and there remained until Pope Gregory IX., being about to canonise him, ordered II Beato Girolamo of Saxony, second general of the order, to transfer his remains to a plain stone sarcophagus, after their verification by the Archbishop of Ravenna; and on June 5, 1267, as we learn through a letter a.d. 1233 . written by II Beato Bartolomeo, Bishop of Vicenza (himself an eye-witness), the Archbishop of Ravenna again presided over the transfer of the oft-displaced bones, 4 de tumulo lapideo non ctelato, ad marmoreum et cselatum,’ from the plain stone re- ceptacle to the sculptured sarcophagus which Niccola Pisano and his scholar Fra Guglielmo Agnelli had commenced two years before. 1 Two miracles worked by the saint, and certain events connected with the establishment of his order, furnished Niccola with materials for his bas-reliefs, the most elaborate of which illustrates the following story. 4 On Ash Wednesday, a.d. 1215, the Abbess aud some of her nuns went to take possession of the new monastery of St. Sixtus at Rome; and being in the chapter house with St. Dominic and Cardinal Stefano di Torre Nuova, suddenly there came in one tearing his hair, and making great outcries, for the young Lord Napoleon, nephew of the Cardinal, had been thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. The Cardinal fell speechless into the arms of St. Dominic, and the 1 The Annals of the Convent of St. Catherine furnish the following proof of the correctness of these dates, and of the co-operation of Fra Guglielmo : ‘Hie (Fr. Gulielmus), cum Beati Dominici corpus sanctissimum in solem- niori tumulo levaretur, quem sculpserant Magistri Nicoli de Pisis Policretior manu (sic), sociatus dicto architectori,’ etc. ; and ‘ Frater Gulielmus conversus sculptor egregius, cum Nicholaus Pisanus Patris nostri Dominici sacras reli- quias in marmoreo, vel potius alabastrino sepolcro a se facto collocaret, praesens erat et ipse adjuvabat a.d. 1267’ (Arch. St. Ital. vol. vi. pp. 467 — 474, pub. by Prof. Bonaini ; Padre Marchesi, Mem. etc. vol. i. p. 72, 73). d 2 20 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. women and others who were present were filled with grief and horror. They brought the body of the youth into the Chapter- house, and laid it before the altar, and Dominic, having prayed, turned to the body of the young man, saying, “ 0 adolescens Napo- leo, in nomine Domini nostris, tibi dico surge,” and thereupon he arose sound and whole, to the unspeakable wonder of all present.’ 1 With a just sense of the capabilities of his subject, Niccola represented the resuscitation of the youth, not in the chapter- house, but on the spot where the accident occurred, which enabled him to introduce the fallen horse, as well as the praying saint and the crowding spectators, and thus, at once, show the cause and effect of the untoward accident. The story could not have been more clearly or distinctly told, nor could the central group have been more happily combined to attract and fix the attention ; as, while the actors are full of movement, the numerous personages in the background are so quiet in attitude and line, that they do not distract the eye from the dead youth, the young men who raise him from the ground, the saint, and the fallen horse. The other relief upon the front of the sarcophagus, which is separated from the first by a statuette of the Madonna holding the Divine Child in her arms, represents St. Dominic disputing with heretics in Languedoc, and submitting his own works and the Manichgean books to the trial by fire, in which the latter perished, while the former remained unscathed. On one end of the Area two events are set forth in the same compartment, namely, the apostles Peter and Paul consigning the Gospels to the saint, that he may disseminate them for the conversion of heretics, and the saint giving the Holy Word to his monks, that they may carry out the Apostolic command; and on the other, angels without wings, in the simple dress of acolytes, bringing bread to the brotherhood in time of famine. At the four corners of the Area, stand four statuettes of the four Doctors of the 1 Mrs. Jameson, op. cit. p. 369. FRA GUGLIELMO AGNELLI. 21 Church. The two compartments at the back, which are separated by a statuette of the Redeemer, were designed by Niccola, and sculptured by his scholar Fra Guglielmo Agnelli. They represent St. Reginald of Orleans, the disciple of St. Dominic, smitten with disease and falling into the arms of a young man; his restoration by the Madonna, who points out to him the dress of the Preaching Friars, which she orders him to put on, and his liberation from a great temptation by the placing of his hands in those of St. Dominic; the vision of Pope Honorius III., his examination of the constitution of the Dominican order, and his solemn approval of the same. These reliefs are greatly inferior in design to those on the front and sides of the Area, owing to the crowding of too many events into a small spaee ; and as they also fall far short of them in modelling, proportion, and technical execution, prove that Fra Guglielmo Agnelli was hardly equal to the task assigned him in his master’s absence. Fie had been under Niccola’ s guidance from his early youth, and when at the age of nineteen he became a monk in the convent of St. Catherine at Pisa, continued to study architecture and sculpture, as the exercise of these profes;sions was perfectly compatible with his new position, in an age when art was almost exclusively confined to religious subjects. While working as Niccola’s assistant up xyy "•feuttasn o " — 1495 . AJ.1.XO UUC KJA. LJLIKs dlttH ment ot ;5t. uonumu, wm^u Manno Tesi, Salvolini, and a French sculptor named Boudaud, the ornaments about it. Instead of regarding their work as simply intended to set off the Area, and keeping it as much as possible in harmony with that of Niccola, each of these sculptors thought only of himself; but though they thus sacrificed unity to per- sonality, they made the simple earnestness of the old sculptor all the more conspicuous by contrast, and proved once more the great truth, that technical skill is little in comparison with those higher qualities which give the true artist’s works an inappre- ciable value. It was in the year 1266, as we have already mentioned, that Pulpit Niccola Pisano came from Bologna to Siena to make a contract Duomo at for a pulpit for the Duomo, 2 by which he bound himself to reside Siena ’ Gualandi ( Mem . di Belli Arti } Ser. V. p. 32) discredits the tradition, not only on account of its complete dissimilarity, but also because the convention made with Niccola dell Area, in 1469, does not admit such a supposition. 2 Milanese, Doc. delV Arte Sanesi, vol. i. pp. 145 et seq. nos. 8, 9, 10. The first contract bears date Oct. 5, 1266. 22 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. n. 1414. M. 1494. In 1293 Fra Guglielmo worked at Orvieto upon the bas-reliefs of the facade of the cathedral, though, judging from his authenti- cated works, none of the best can be by him. 1 Eleven years later he was engaged upon the fagade of San Michele in Borgo at Pisa, for which he probably sculptured the rude statue of the Madonna and Child which stands under a Gothic tabernacle over the principal entrance, a work in every respect inferior to the four bas-reliefs of the Nativity, the Adoration, the Flight into Egypt and the Presen- tation, now set up on either side of the tribune in the Duoino at Pisa, but which were intended for a pulpit which he never com- pleted. As an architect he rendered valuable services to his community, by rebuilding the convent of St. Catherine, which must have been newly completed in the year 1272, as St. Thomas A * il 'll ’ ~ ’ .... ana discreet man, who honourably hiied various offices in the fraternity. ’ 2 We must now return to the Area di San Domenico, and examine the great monumental altar of which it forms the centre, and which is interesting as an epitome of sculptural styles, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. More than 200 years after the Area was completed (a.d. 1469), a scholar of Giacomo della Quercia, named Niccola da Bari, sculptured the curved surface above the Area, which is covered with symmetrically arranged leaves, and divided by eight large zones terminating in volutes, upon which stand statuettes of SS. Francis, Dominic, Florian, Proculus, John the Baptist, and Petronius. 3 On the top of the struc- ture stands a statuette of God the Father, holding a globe upon a 1 Vide Chapter IY. upon the Sienese School. 2 Arcli. St. Ital. vol. vi. clx. p. 504. 3 The S. Petronius is said to be an early work of Michael Angelo’s. For a notice of Niccola da Bari, called Dell ’ Area , see Appendix to Chapter IV. letter D. FRA GUGLIELMO AGNELLI. 23 vase-shaped pedestal, from the handles of which hang festoons of flowers and fruit, pressed outwards by the hands and feet of two little angels. Between these festoons, which rest upon dolphins and fall upon a flat base (at the four corners of which are statuettes of prophets), is an Ecce Homo, between two adoring angels, which were sculptured in the sixteenth century by the Florentine sculptor Tribolo. Below this stands the Area, upon an altar, whose gradino is covered with delicate 4 stiacciato ’ reliefs by Alphonso Lombardi di Ferrara. At either end of the altar are placed candle-bearing angels, one of which (that to the left) is believed to have been made by Michael Angelo, when he took refuge at Bologna after the flight of Piero de’ Medici. 1 In the first half of the sixteenth century Girolamo Coltellini made the St. J ohn, and perhaps some of the other statuettes, which stand upon the volutes above the Area; and in the seventeenth Carlo Bianconi sculptured the bas-relief representing the entomb- ment of St. Dominic, which fills the panel of the altar front, and Manno Tesi, Salvolini, and a French sculptor named Boudaud, the ornaments about it. Instead of regarding their work as simply intended to set off the Area, and keeping it as much as possible in harmony with that of Niccola, each of these sculptors thought only of himself; but though they thus sacrificed unity to per- sonality, they made the simple earnestness of the old sculptor all the more conspicuous by contrast, and proved once more the great truth, that technical skill is little in comparison with those higher qualities which give the true artist’s works an inappre- ciable value. It was in the year 1266, as we have already mentioned, that Niccola Pisano came from Bologna to Siena to make a contract for a pulpit for the Duomo, 2 by which he bound himself to reside 1 Gualandi {Mem. di Belli Arti, Ser. V. p. 32) discredits the tradition, not only on account of its complete dissimilarity, but also because the convention made with Niccola dell’ Area, in 1469, does not admit such a supposition. 2 Milanese, Doc. delV Arte Sanesi, vol. i. pp. 145 et seq. nos. 8, 9, 10. The first contract bears date Oct. 5, 1266. a.d. 1494 — 1495 . Pulpit in the Duomo at Siena. 24 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. in that city until its completion, with liberty to visit Pisa four times a year, for a fortnight at a time, not counting the days employed in going and returning, and consented to be paid at the rate of eight soldi a day (a sum equivalent to twelve Tuscan pauls of the present currency), besides his living. His assistants were to be his son Giovanni, and his scholars Arnolfo del Cambio, Donato, and Lapo. As the pulpit was to stand beneath the dome of an immense cathedral, Niccola made it of larger dimensions than that at Pisa, and octagonal instead of hexagonal. He also almost exactly repeated the bas-reliefs of the Nativity and the Crucifixion of his Pisan pulpit in two of its panels, but treated those of the Adoration and the Last Judgment quite differently, and added two entirely new compositions representing the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt. Although the Last Judgment is a subject which cannot be adequately treated in sculpture, and one which, from the vastness of its nature, necessarily led Niccola to overcrowd the small space at his disposition with a somewhat confused mass of figures, he showed great skill in its composition, and a power of conception which is all the more wonderful in one who, unlike Orcagna, Signorelli, and Michael Angelo, could not have fired his imagination with the vivid descriptions of Dante’s ‘ Inferno.’ As in the Pisan, the columns of the Sienese pulpit rest upon the backs of lions, and have statuettes placed singly and in groups above their capitals ; while its flat spaces are filled in with open work, leaves, grotesques, and gilded glass mosaics , 1 and it is entered by an 1 By a celebrated glass-worker, painter, and sculptor of Siena, named Pastorino Pastorini ; flourished 1531—1560; scholar of Guglielmo Marcilla, or Di Marcillat, a French painter on glass and in fresco, who lived some time at Arezzo, and painted the windows in the episcopal palace there. He painted the round window of the Duomo at Siena in 1548. Pastorini made portraits in the round, or in medals of coloured wax, and medallions in bronze, for which he attained great reputation. From 1554 to 1557 he worked at Ferrara for Duke Hercules II. See Commentary to the Life of Guglielmo da Marcilla, TI1E PULPIT AT SIENA. 25 elaborately ornamented staircase in the style of the Renaissance, which, though exquisite in workmanship, is not in harmony with the main structure. On this account, and also because the eye is distracted by the grandeur and beauty of the great cathedral in which it stands, the Sienese pulpit is less effective than the Pisan, which, being the one object of attraction in the Baptistry, completely absorbs the attention. The residence of Niccola Pisano at Siena was most important N ccola ’ s inferior, rose to considerable eminence in the next century, sculpture. The sixty-one sculptors who, as Della Yalle informs us, kept open shop in the city at the period of Niccoia’s visit, were in fact mere stone-cutters, who with their brother architects had been formed into a corporation since the year 1212, from which 4--. 1 4-h /% 1 d rll n blin -Pa! 1 min v> i-L ^ great progress and paved the way for Agostino and Angelo, Gano, Goro, and Tino in the fourteenth century, and for Quercia in the fifteenth. Thus we find Niccola Pisano’s influence manifest everywhere; in the north, at Venice and Padua; in the south, at Naples; and in the central parts of Italy, at Pisa, Florence, Lucca and Siena. We are now to find him in his old age again in the south, employed by the man who had annihilated the power of his early patron, to memorialise the extinction of that patron’s house. played out on the battle-field of Tagliacozzo ; the last scion of the house the Suabian house had died the death of a felon, and Charles of Anjou, the ambitious and unscrupulous agent of papal vengeance, Vasari, vol. viii. p. 112. The staircase to this pulpit is said to be the work of II Marrina, a Sienese sculptor, who lived in the first part of the fifteenth century. See Chapter IV. vol. i. VOL. I. E in its influence upon the school of sculpture, which, though then influence upon Sienese While he was making the pulpit at Siena, the last scene of Events which led the long struggle between the papal and imperial power had been to the ex- to tne ex- tinction of 24 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. in that city until its completion, with liberty to visit Pisa four times a year, for a fortnight at a time, not counting the clays employed in going and returning, and consented to be paid at the rate of eight soldi a day (a sum equivalent to twelve Tuscan pauls of the present currency), besides his living. His assistants were to be his son Giovanni, and his scholars Arnolfo del Cambio, Donato, and Lapo. As the pulpit was to stand beneath the dome of an immense cathedral, Niccola made it of larger dimensions than that at Pisa, and octagonal instead of hexagonal. He also almost exactly repeated the bas-reliefs of the Nativity and the Crucifixion of his Pisan pulpit in two of its panels, but treated those of the Adoration and the Last Judgment quite differently, and added two entirely new compositions representing the Massacre of the T j "1 il. _ T?l! 4- nt-i-v T? rvTmf of its nature, necessarily led Niccola to overcrowd the small space at his disposition -with a somewhat confused mass of figures, he showed great skill in its composition, and a power of conception which is all the more wonderful in one who, unlike Orcagna, Signorelli, and Michael Angelo, could not have fired his imagination with the vivid descriptions of Dante’s ‘ Inferno.’ As in the Pisan, the columns of the Sienese pulpit rest upon the backs of lions, and have statuettes placed singly and in groups above their capitals; while its flat spaces are filled in with open work, leaves, grotesques, and gilded glass mosaics , 1 and it is entered by an 1 By a celebrated glass-worker, painter, and sculptor of Siena, named Pastorino Pastorini ; flourished 1531—1560; scholar of Guglielmo Marcilla, or Di Marcillat, a French painter on glass and in fresco, who lived some time at Arezzo, and painted the windows in the episcopal palace there. He painted the round window of the Duomo at Siena in 1548. Pastorini made portraits in the round, or in medals of coloured wax, and medallions in bronze, for which he attained great reputation. From 1554 to 1557 he worked at Ferrara for Duke Hercules II. See Commentary to the Life of Guglielmo da Marcilla, THE PULPIT AT SIENA. 25 elaborately ornamented staircase in tbe style of the Renaissance, which, though exquisite in workmanship, is not in harmony with the main structure. On this account, and also because the eye is distracted by the grandeur and beauty of the great cathedral in which it stands, the Sienese pulpit is less effective than the Pisan, which, being the one object of attraction in the Baptistry, completely absorbs the attention. The residence of Niccola Pisano at Siena was most important Niccoia’s influence in its influence upon the school of sculpture, which, though then ll P on x L ° Sienese inferior, rose to considerable eminence in the next century, sculpture. The sixty-one sculptors who, as Della Yalle informs us, kept open shop in the city at the period of Niccoia’s visit, were in fact mere stone-cutters, who with their brother architects had been formed into a corporation since the year 1212, from which period until the middle of the following century their numbers increased; and after Niccola Pisano had endowed their city with an admirable subject for study in his famous pulpit, they made great progress and paved the way for Agostino and Angelo, Gano, Goro, and Tino in the fourteenth century, and for Quercia in the fifteenth. Thus we find Niccola Pisano’s influence manifest everywhere; in the north, at Venice and Padua; in the south, at Naples; and in the central parts of Italy, at Pisa, Florence, Lucca and Siena. We are now to find him in his old age again in the south, employed by the man who had annihilated the power of his early patron, to memorialise the extinction of that patron’s house. While he was making the pulpit at Siena, the last scene of Events which led the long struggle between the papal and imperial power had been to the ex- ° tinction of played out on the battle-field of Tagliacozzo ; the last scion of the house I J > ° 5 of Suabia. the Suabian house had died the death of a felon, and Charles of Anjou, the ambitious and unscrupulous agent of papal vengeance, Vasari, vol. viii. p. 112. The staircase to this pulpit is said to be the work of II Marrina, a Sienese sculptor, who lived in the first part of the fifteenth century. See Chapter IV. vol. i. VOL. I. E 2G TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Dec. 13, 1250. Charles of Anjou. Defeat and death of Manfred, May 1265. The history of Conradino. had been firmly seated on the throne of Frederic II. After that emperor’s death, Manfred, one of his many illegitimate children, and guardian of his grandson Conradino, had usurped his throne, and successfully battled against the armies of the Church. Moved by motives of policy, for his position was at best precarious, Manfred had offered great temporal advantages to Pope Urban IV.; but these weighed little in the pope’s mind against Manfred’s continued and energetic resistance to papal encroachments, and his pretensions to universal dominion; and being a Frenchman by birth, and in nowise moved by that patriotism which had partially inspired Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. to oppose Germanic domination, Urban offered the crown of the Two Sicilies to Charles of Anjou as the surest means of bringing about the downfall of. his enemy. These views were fully shared by Clement IV., who before Charles of Anjou landed in Italy, had succeeded Urban on the papal throne. The defeat and death of Manfred at the battle of Beneventum, in the following year, put an end to the twenty-one years’ struggle, which had lasted since the deposition of Frederic II. at Lyons by Pope Innocent IV., removed the sceptre of Sicily from the House of Suabia, and apparently rendered the long-dreaded union of Southern Italy and Germany impossible. There remained, however, one obstacle to the complete security of the pope, in the existence of Conradino, who, then fifteen years of age, was living at Landshut with his mother, Elizabeth of Bavaria, and her second husband Count Meinhardt de Coritz. He was a handsome generous youth, expert in all manly exercises, a poet like his grandfather and uncle, and, thanks to the Bishop of Constance, who superintended his education, a good Latin scholar and well versed in ancient literature. Taught from childhood to look forward to the day when he should restore the fortunes of his ancestral house, he was no unwilling listener to the Ghibelline envoys, who came to him at this time with promises of money, arms, and troops. To these CONEADINO. 27 assurances of support were added those of his uncles, the Dukes Louis and Henry, of his stepfather, and, more than all, of Henry of Castile, Senator of Rome, who had been driven to join the Ghibellines by hatred of Charles of Anjou. Having at last quieted the prophetic fears of his mother, Conradino issued a manifesto to the princes of the Empire, in which he enumerated the many wrongs which he had endured at the hands of his papal enemies, of whom he said, ‘ Innocent has injured me innocent, Urban has been wanting to me in urbanity, and Clement in clemency; ?1 and thus concluded, ‘Not content with depriving us of our heritage in Italy, the pope persecutes us in Germany, refuses us pardon, takes from us the name of king, puts the sickle into our harvest by giving Charles the title of Imperial Vicar, and, as if these rigours were not enough to use against an innocent person, launches against us the thunders of the Church. What evil have we done you, 0 Sovereign Pontiff, that you should treat us as if the life of one, who calls Heaven to witness for the clearness of his conscience, were in itself a crime in your eyes ? ’ Soon after, having assembled his troops at Augsburg, Conradino, accompanied by his uncle Louis of Bavaria, his step- father, his friend and counsellor Rudolph of Ilapsburg, and his young cousin Frederic of Baden, 2 marched by Innspruck to Verona, and made his entrance into that city at the head of 12,000 men. There he remained for the space of three months, during which time he not only lost two-thirds of his soldiers by desertion, but also saw his uncle and stepfather return to Germany, under pretence of obtaining for him the imperial crown, but really because they dared not proceed in face of the 1 Codex, It. Dip. t. 11. No. 41, pp. 937-940; M. Cherrier, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 234. 2 Frederic was son of Hermann Margrave of Baden, and Gertrude, daughter of Duke Frederic of Austria, last of tlie Babenbergs (Kington, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 423). V/cVc ' C^-d&rit/a, p ^yy r ' d/lclficU'rc. ■ tJe-U.£f(,/crtsv Conradino crosses the Alps, Oct. 20, 1267. 2 G TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Dec. 13, 1250. Charles of Anjou. Defeat and death of Manfred, May 1265. The history of Conradino. had been firmly seated on the throne of Frederic II. After that emperor’s death, Manfred, one of his many illegitimate children, and guardian of his grandson Conradino, had usurped his throne, and successfully battled against the armies of the Church. Moved by motives of policy, for his position was at best precarious, Manfred had offered great temporal advantages to Pope Urban IV.; but these weighed little in the pope’s mind against Manfred’s continued and energetic resistance to papal encroachments, and his pretensions to universal dominion; and being a Frenchman by birth, and in nowise moved by that patriotism which had partially inspired Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. to oppose Germanic domination, Urban offered the crown of the Two Sicilies to Charles of Anjou as the surest means of bringing about the downfall of. his enemy. These views were fully shared by Clement IV., who before Charles of Anjou landed in Italy, had succeeded Urban on the papal throne. The defeat and death of Manfred at the battle of Beneventum, in the following year, put an end to the twenty-one years’ struggle, which had lasted since the deposition of Frederic II. at Lyons by Pope Innocent IV., removed the sceptre of Sicily from the House of Suabia, and apparently rendered the long-dreaded union of Southern Italy and Germany impossible. There remained, however, one obstacle to the complete security of the pope, in the existence of Conradino, who, then fifteen years of age, was living at Landshut with his mother, Elizabeth of Bavaria, and her second husband Count Meinhardt de Coritz. He was a handsome generous youth, expert in all manly exercises, a poet like his grandfather and uncle, and, thanks to the Bishop of Constance, who superintended his education, a good Latin scholar and well versed in ancient literature. Taught from childhood to look forward to the day when he should restore the fortunes of his ancestral house, he was no unwilling listener to the Ghibelline envoys, who came to him at this time with promises of money, arms, and troops. To these CONRADINO. 27 assurances of support were added those of his uncles, the Dukes Louis and Henry, of his stepfather, and, more than all, of Henry of Castile, Senator of Rome, who had been driven to join the Ghibellines by hatred of Charles of Anjou. Having at last quieted the prophetic fears of his mother, Conradino issued a manifesto to the princes of the Empire, in which he enumerated the many wrongs which he had endured at the hands of his papal enemies, of whom he said, 1 Innocent has injured me innocent, Urban has been wanting to me in urbanity, and Clement in clemency;’ 1 and thus concluded, ‘Not content with depriving us of our heritage in Italy, the pope persecutes us in Germany, refuses us pardon, takes from us the name of king, puts the sickle into our harvest by giving Charles the title of Imperial Vicar, and, as if these rigours were not enough to use against an innocent person, launches against us the thunders of the Church. What evil have we done you, 0 Sovereign Pontiff, that you should treat us as if the life of one, who calls Heaven to witness for the clearness of his conscience, were in itself a crime in your eyes ? ’ Soon after, having assembled his troops at Augsburg, Conradino, accompanied by his uncle Louis of Bavaria, his step- father, his friend and counsellor Rudolph of Ilapsburg, and his young cousin Frederic of Baden, 2 marched by Innspruck to Verona, and made his entrance into that city at the head of 12,000 men. There he remained for the space of three months, during which time he not only lost two-thirds of his soldiers by desertion, but also saw his uncle and stepfather return to Germany, under pretence of obtaining for him the imperial crown, but really because they dared not proceed in face of the 1 Codex, It. Dip. t. 11. No. 41, pp. 937-940; M. Cherrier, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 234. 2 Frederic was son of Hermann Margrave of Baden, and Gertrude, daughter of Duke Frederic of Austria, last of the Babenbergs (Kington, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 423). Conradino crosses the Alps, Oct, 20, 1267. 28 TUSCAN SCULPTOBS. His triumphal entry into Eome. He quits Eome Aug. 18, 1268. pope’s menaces of excommunication. The shock of this double defection was somewhat softened by the arrival of a body of troops from Pavia, and by the warm reception of his envoy Galvano Lancia by the Senator and people of Rome ; and he marched to Pavia, where he received pecuniary aid, which enabled him to reach Pisa, where he was received with imperial honours. These events were watched by Pope Clement with undisguised consternation. Prom the highest windows of his palace at Viterbo he looked down upon the army of the prince, which defiled, as if in a spirit of bravado, beneath the city walls, on its march to Rome ; and though at Pentecost he had declared that ‘ this young man, doomed to destruction, was led on to death by wicked advisers, like a sheep to the shambles,’ he now trembled for the result. On his arrival at Rome, Conradino, who was received by Henry of Castile with the honours due to the head of the Empire, made his entry into the city through streets whose pavements were carpeted with flowers and spanned by triumphal arches, and whose houses were linked together by cords heavy with 4 precious garments and furs, Eastern carpets, stuffs from Sicily and Damascus, knightly purses, scarfs of silk and gold, necklaces and jewels,’ and proceeded immediately to the Capitol, where he pronounced a discourse (often interrupted by the joyous shouts of the people), in which he declared them his heirs, if he should die in the prosecution of his enterprise. Daily, during his stay at Rome, reinforcements arrived from the Marches, Tuscany, and the Sicilian States, and Henry of Castile promised to accompany him against Charles of Anjou at the head of 800 Spanish troops. Thus materially strengthened, and buoyant with hope, Con- radino marched out of the Porta San Lorenzo, and through Tivoli and Tagliacozzo, to a little village called La Scorgola, where he found himself in the vicinage of the foe, who after rapid marches (intended to intercept his progress) had encamped at Ovindolo, near Avezzano, on the borders of Lake Fucino. On the 22nd, Charles diminished the distance between the two armies, CONKADINO. 29 by moving his troops to the hill of Alba, but declined the battle, to which the cries, shouts and calls to arms of Conradino’s soldiers would have provoked him, on account of the over-fatigue of his men. The next day a bloody and decisive fight took place, in which Conradino’s superior forces might have given him the victory, had the French army been commanded by a less brave and crafty leader than Errard, Sire de Valery, an old crusader, who on his way from the Holy Land had traversed the Abruzzi mountains with a troop of soldiers to visit Charles of Anjou (his companion in arms), by whom he was entrusted with the chief command. This ‘ haut baron, courtois et sage,’ seeing that cunning on his part could alone make up for the numerical in- feriority of his troops, sent a portion of Charles’s army into the field, under the command of the Marechal Henri de Cousance, wearing the king’s armour, and preceded by the royal banner, and placed Charles, with 800 chosen cavaliers, behind a wooded hill, which completely concealed them from the enemy. Con- radino, seeing before him, as he supposed, the whole army, com- manded by the king in person, confidently led the attack. The encounter was terrible; the ground was soon strewn with the dead and dying, and the air resounded with cries of rage. At last, after an obstinate resistance, the French, overwhelmed by numbers, gave way, leaving their leader upon the field; and Conradino, believing Charles slain, and the victory gained, seated himself beneath the trees, on the banks of the little river Salto, and took off his armour, which by reason of the great heat had become oppressive, while his troops scoured the plain in pursuit of the flying enemy. Suddenly there came upon the air a sound of trumpets, and the well-known war-cry of the French, 1 Montjoie ! Montjoie ! ’ and over the hill-side came pouring 800 chosen knights, with King Charles at their head. Thus rudely 1 Dante ( Inferno , canto xxviii.) speaks of the battle-field of Tagliacozzo, 'ove senz’ arme vinse il vecchio Alai'do.’ The battle of Taglia- cozzo. 30 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. roused from his repose, Conradino -vainly sought to rally his scattered forces, and lead them to battle ; but all his efforts were vain, as, overpowered with terror, they fled, dragging him with them in their headlong flight. Seeing this, Henry of Castile, who had pursued the flying French after the first battle, returned to the charge, with a large body of troops, and so boldly attacked those who had become victors in their turn, that he might have redeemed the fortunes of the day, had not the astute old crusader, by simulating flight, drawn him to the place where Charles and the main body of his troops stood ready, and rallying his own His defeat followers, turned once more to fight a final battle, and gain a final and flight. . & victory. All being now lost, Conradino, after halting at Taglia- cozzo long enough to take counsel, fled towards Rome with his cousin Frederic and a few followers. But the news of his defeat had preceded him ; the Ghibellines were terror-stricken, and the Guelphs, who now showed themselves in the city, easily turned the fickle populace against him. For a day and a night the unhappy fugitive remained in the Coliseum, with the small body of troops which he had gathered around him in his flight, and then hearing that his enemies were preparing to besiege him there, secretly withdrew to Castel Saraceno with his cousin and a few noble Italian and German adherents. Disguising themselves as peasants, they then pushed on to Astura, a town upon the sea-coast, whence they intended to embark for Sicily, and where, according to one account, they imprudently offered a valuable ring in payment for food, which led to their recognition and seizure . 1 The better authenticated story, however, is, that when it was known in which direction Conradino and his companions had fled, attention was instantly drawn to a body of persons so evidently disguised, and that, soon after leaving the shore in a boat, for which they had paid an immense sum, they were pursued by a swift felucca, bearing the flag of Giovanni Frangipani, Lord of Astura. When 1 Collenuccio, St. del Regno, p. 136. CONRADINO. 31 Conradino was told the name of his pursuers, he gave himself He is up without hesitation, supposing that this man, upon whom his anTiL- grandfather (Frederic II.) had heaped benefits, would prove his pnsoued friend ; but in this he was cruelly deceived, for Frangipani, who had now become a staunch adherent of the pope, took no heed of his protestations, promises, and entreaties, and first imprisoned him at Astura, and then gave him up to the admiral of Charles’s fleet, who removed him and his companions to Palestrina, and thence to Naples, where he was confined in the Castel dell’ Uovo, and loaded with chains. The ill-starred prince, supposing that he would be saved if he were reconciled with the pope, and ignorant of the fact that when no longer excommunicate, he would fall under secular jurisdiction, demanded absolution ; but as the pope must have known this when he granted his request, we are inclined to doubt the story that he secretly desired to save Con- radino, and rather give credit to the tale, that when the king’s messengers -asked him what should be done with the prisoners, he silently replied by cutting off the heads of the poppies in his garden with his walking-stick, or answered (as the Neapolitan historians tell us), ‘ Yita Corradini, mors Caroli; mors Corradini, vita Caroli.’ Not wishing to bear the undivided responsibility of their condemnation, Charles had them tried by a tribunal, to which his will was law, before which, Conradino, though not allowed to appear, was accused by Roberto de Bari, proto-notary, and especial creature of the king. Some of the French judges counselled mercy, while the Italians kept silence through shame, though inclined to rigour. This silence Charles saw fit to interpret as a condemnation, and immediately proceeded to pronounce sentence of death upon the eleven prisoners, and of He is confinement for life upon Henry of Castile, whom he spared as todtaT his relative. Although the young princes were totally unprepared for this result, they received the fatal messenger with great composure, only asking that their execution might be delayed for three days, in order that they might have time to prepare TUSCAN SCULPTORS. His execution. a.d. 1847. themselves for death, and at the appointed time were led to the Mercato Nuovo, where the scaffold had been erected beneath a window, from which Charles of Anjon could look down upon the bloody spectacle. Unwilling to witness the death of his com- panions, Conradino asked and obtained permission to die first. His last words were a protest against the injustice of his sentence, and an appeal for mercy for the innocent man who had been brought to this fate by love for him. Touched by his youth, his beauty, and dignity, the people wept as they listened to him, but Charles remained unmoved; the fatal signal was given, the axe fell, and the last scion of the house of Suabia lay lifeless upon the scaffold. Transported with frenzy at this sight, the young Duke Frederic kissed the bleeding head of his cousin, and then, being seized and forced to the block, laid his own beside it. .Tradition records, that as Conradino lay upon the ground, 4 like a purple flower cut down by the unheeding sickle,’ an eagle, descending from the sky, dipped his right wing in the sacred blood, and then soared aloft into the clouds. The mortal remains of the victims, being refused sepulture in consecrated ground, were interred under a heap of stones, in a ditch dug in the sand near the mouth of the river Sebeto; those of Conradino were after- wards removed by the successor of Charles of Anjou to the Carmine church, and buried under the high altar, whence his descendant Maximilian (then crown prince of Bavaria) removed them to the nave of the church, and placed over them a statue, sculptured by Thorwaldsen. About eighty years after Conradino s death, a chapel was erected on the spot where he was put to death, within which a column of porphyry was set up bearing this inscription — Asturis ungue Leo pullum rapiens aquilinum, Hie deplumavit aceplialumque dedit. A statue of his mother Elizabeth, with a crown upon her head, and a purse (allusive to her donations to the Carmelite church) in her hand, was also placed in the angle of a house near the STA. MARIA DELLA VITTORIA. 33 spot upon which her son was executed, whence it was removed to the Museum, where, though poor as a work of art, it must still excite interest as the sole memorial of the unhappy mother of a more unhappy son. It is said that she herself came to Naples, in a galley draped with black, to superintend the removal of Conradino’s bones to the Carmine, towards the building of which she largely contributed. To commemorate his victory at Tagliacozzo, Charles com- -1 AT Lnilrl on aKLoTr a rid prmvonf noai- fhp T11GSG DlLllUlIl^S) IIUVV Cl j.i.j.cloo v^i uiiiMiiiig i tuv vx which is marked only by the name of an adjoining church, Sta. Maria della Vittoria , 1 was a height overlooking the battle-field about ten miles from Tagliacozzo, interesting as the spot where Conradino first halted in his march from Rome. Looking from O it over the little town of La Scorgola, whose houses cluster upon the hill- side, the traveller beholds, with a delight tempered with sad associations, the exquisite view spread out before him. The fatal plain, the sparkling lake, the grand background of mountains whose chain culminates in the snow-caj:>ped Velino, the ruins of the old Marsian city of Alba which supplied a mass of material for the construction ol the now ruined abbey, are before him, unchanged in general effect since the sad day which gave them a never- failing interest. As Niccola himself stood there, we cannot doubt that thick-coming memories thronged upon him of the days, then 1 Carlo Promis, Degli Artejici Marmorarii Romani , p. 15, note 23. A festival to commemorate tlie victory of Charles of Anjou is held at Santa Maria della Vittoria every hundred years. Over the altar of the church is a statue dug up in the neighbourhood by a citizen of Tagliacozzo, which perhaps belonged to the old abbey. The dispute which arose as to whether it should be taken to Tagliacozzo or La Scorgola, was settled by placing it on the back of a mule, who, left to himself, carried it back to La Scorgola. VOL. I. F Niccola Pisano is nnmmis- TUSCAN SCULPTOES. themselves for death, and at the appointed time were led to the Mercato Nuovo, where the scaffold had been erected beneath a window, from which Charles of Anjon could look down upon the bloody spectacle. Unwilling to witness the death of his com- panions, Conradino asked and obtained permission to die first. His last words were a protest against the injustice of his sentence, and an appeal for mercy for the innocent man who had been brought to this fate by love for him. Touched by his youth, his , . T T •, ,1 1 . -- -Ll T A 1 1 1 * ■■ PfPui (. of- U , ° iP fill ri ' U tp^' al fe^aj, /J'Z ■ C/c/s/p ■*«/« (Jh f~ S’cuIfUxrrff " works we have spoken in the preceding chapter; Arnolfo del Cambio, one of the most illustrious of Italian artists ; and three other Florentines, Lapo, Donato di Ricevato, and Goro di Ciuccio Ciuti. 1 Giovanni Pisano, who had inherited no small portion of his Giovanni Pisano. father’s genius, differed so completely from him in style, that we are inclined to think he must have early fallen under some foreign influence, which planted in him a preference for Gothic, rather than Romanesque architecture, and gave him a taste for that fantastic action and exaggerated expression which we notice 1 We know nothing of Donato, Lapo, and Goro, but that they were made citizens of Siena (Milanesi, Doc. II. vol. i. p. 153), and settled with their families in that city a.d. 1271 — 72. Concerning a monument, perhaps by Lapo, see Appendix to this chapter, letter A. In 1277 Donato was superintendent of the Ponte di Fojano. Goro (in 1311) had three sons, Neri, Ambrogio, and Goro, all sculptors and architects, who built the Fonte di Follonica in 1306. Lapo was architect of the barracks at S. Angelo in Colle in 1281, and in 1289 capo maestro of the expedition sent to destroy the possessions of the Cacciaconti (Milanesi, Doc. II. vol. i. p. 154, note). 36 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. CHRONOLOGY. Niccola Pisano — a.d. Born between ..... 1205 — 1207 Appointed architect to Frederic II. ... 1220 Completes Castles Capuano and Dell’ Ovo ; leaves Naples . 1231 Goes to Padua to design the Basilica di S. Antonio . 1231 Bas-relief over the door of the Duomo at Lucca . . 1237 Overthrow of the Guardamorto Tower and statuettes upon the Bigallo, at Florence .... 1248 Various churches rebuilt or enlarged . . 1237 — 1260 Pulpit in the Baptistry at Pisa .... 1260 Area di S. Domenico at Bologna . . . 1265 — 1267 t/e/2^ ( a / Jo . ~'Wo y C-7L • — completed Works at Orvieto Dies at Pisa . 1272 . 1293 . 1314 (?) Allegorical Figures fhom the Fountain at Perugia. GIOVANNI PISANO. 37 CHAPTER II. THE SCHOLARS OF NICCOLA PISANO. N ICCOLA PISANO had six scholars, all of whom (excepting Fra Guglielmo Agnelli) worked with him at Siena upon the pulpit, and by their joint influence caused great progress in architecture and sculpture to be made there during the first half of the fourteenth century. They were his son Giovanni, born at Pisa about 1240; Fra Guglielmo Agnelli, of whose life and works we have spoken in the preceding chapter; Arnolfo del Cambio, one of the most illustrious of Italian artists ; and three other Florentines, Lapo, Donato di Ricevato, and Goro di Ciuccio Ciuti. 1 Giovanni Pisano, who had inherited no small portion of his father’s genius, differed so completely from him in style, that we are inclined to think he must have early fallen under some foreign influence, which planted in him a preference for Gothic, rather than Romanesque architecture, and gave him a taste for that fantastic action and exaggerated expression which we notice 1 We know nothing of Donato, Lapo, and Goro, but that they were made citizens of Siena (Milanesi, Doc. II vol. i. p. 153), and settled with their families in that city a.d. 1271 — 72. Concerning a monument, perhaps by Lapo, see Appendix to this chapter, letter A. In 1277 Donato was superintendent of the Ponte di Fojano. Goro (in 1311) had three sons, Neri, Ambrogio, and Goro, all sculptors and architects, who built the Fonte di Follonica in 1306. Lapo was architect of the barracks at S. Angelo in Coile in 1281, and in 1289 capo maestro of the expedition sent to destroy the possessions of the Cacciaconti (Milanesi, Doc. II. vol. i. p. 154, note). Niccola’s scholars. a.d. 1266 . Giovanni Pisano. 38 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. a.t). 1268. a.d. 1274. a.d. 1278. His works at Pisa. Sta. Maria della Spina. in his sculptures. The contract for the pulpit at Siena proves that when it was made he was an independent maestro and an artist of repute, since his cooperation is spoken of as a matter to be decided by him, and not by his father , 1 while that of his pupils is promised by Niccola at a fixed salary. Having accepted the invitation, he spent the better part of two years at Siena, and then went to Naples, where he built a church for the Franciscans (as a substitute for that of Santa Maria Nuova, which had been pulled down by Charles of Anjou) and designed the episcopal palace . 2 After leaving Naples, he spent several years at Perugia in constructing the fountain of the piazza according to his father’s designs, and in carving the fifty-two bas-reliefs around its upper basin, in a broad and simple style, very unlike that which he afterwards adopted. Hardly were these completed, when he was summoned to Pisa by his dying father; and as he received a very cordial welcome from his fellow-citizens, who pressed him to remain among them, he determined to do so, and soon found himself busily employed upon various important com- missions. Among these was the enlargement of the oratory of Santa Maria del Porto, which, having been lately endowed by a Pisan merchant with a thorn from our Lord’s crown, could not accommodate the devotees attracted by so precious a relic. This oratory, transformed by Giovanni into a Gothic church, and thenceforward called Santa Maria della Spina, was the first edifice built in Italy in the Pointed style ; and as it forms a singular exception to the prevailing Romanesque, many writers have supposed it to have been designed by some wandering 1 ‘ Si Johannes fili us .... in prcedicto opere laborare voluerit ’ (Milanesi, op. cit. vol. i. p. 148). 2 Vasari gives 1283 as the date of Giovanni’s visit to Naples ; an error corrected by Signorelli. Another Tuscan architect, named Maglione, built S. Lorenzo in 1267. From this Tuscan influence sprang Masuccio I., the Neapolitan Niccola Pisano. The episcopal palace at Rieti has been attributed to Niccola, but it was more probably designed by Giovanni, who may have gone there after leaving Naples. THE CAMPO SANTO. 39 German . 1 The honour of having done so is worth disputing, as, although somewhat overloaded in ornament, it is a little gem in its way, and looks like a casket set by the river-side, to contain some precious object. During early Christian times it was customary to bury the dead in churches, which thence obtained the name of ‘ Coemiteria .’ 2 Sepulture was afterwards restricted to their porticoes, by decrees of the early councils ; but this also was given up as likely to breed pestilence, and public cemeteries apart from the dwellings of men were used first in France, and then in other parts of Europe. Their introduction into Italy was projected by Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi, who with this intent brought a shipload of earth from Mount Calvary to Pisa, which he caused to be spread out in the shape of a parallelogram, according to the traditional dimensions of Noah’s ark ; 3 to which was subsequently added the contents of fifty Pisan galleys which returned from the crusade undertaken by Frederic Barbarossa, freighted with the sacred earth. A century later, Giovanni Pisano, having been appointed to enclose the space with walls, designed and built the first, as well as the most beautiful, Campo Santo in Italy. Following the ground- plan marked out by Archbishop Lanfranchi, Giovanni raised his outer walls without windows, and with only two doors looking 1 Ricci, op. cit. vol. ii. p.264. Such an one was Rodolpho, called II Tedesco, mentioned in the Sienese archives, 1258 — 59. 2 Bingham ( Origines , etc., part iii. p. 129) states that the word Coemi- terium is equivalent to Church ; and, according to an inscription, cited by Cardinal St. Borgia ( Confess . Vat. B Petri , p. 139), the Basilica of St. Paul’s was so called (Ricci, St. dell' Arch. vol. i. p. 24). Eusebius, Chrysostom, and other Church Fathers, also called them rd^oi, graves. In the Constantinian Basilicas the Saints were buried in the crypt, or confession (E. Forster, Geschichte der Deutschen Kanst , part i. p. 7, Introduction. Ed. Leipsic, 1861). t> fV , 0 loaf, cit.ip.s t.hn.t n.hn.ndonod the custom of burvinff the 3 Tronci, Annali Pisa?ii, vol. ii. p. 75. The use of public ceme- teries : why intro- duced. a.d. 1108. A.D. 1178. a.d. 1278. The Campo Santo at Pisa, 38 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. a.t). 1268. A.n. 1274. A.n. 1278. His works at Pisa. Sta. Maria della Spina. in his sculptures. The contract for the pulpit at Siena proves that when it was made he was an independent, maestro and an artist of repute, since his cooperation is spoken of as a matter to be decided by him, and not by his father , 1 while that of his pupils is promised by Niccola at a fixed salary. Having accepted the invitation, he spent the better part of two years at Siena, and then went to Naples, where he built a church for the Franciscans (as a substitute for that of Santa Maria Nuova, which had been pulled down by Charles of Anjou) and designed the episcopal palace . 2 After leaving Naples, he spent several years at Perugia in constructing the fountain of the piazza according to his father’s designs, and in carving the fifty-two bas-reliefs around its upper basin, in a broad and simple style, very unlike that which he afterwards adopted. Hardly were these completed, when he was summoned to Pisa by his dying father; and as he received a very cordial welcome from his fellow-citizens, who pressed him to remain among them, he determined to do so, and soon found himself busily employed upon various important com- missions. Among these was the enlargement of the oratory of Santa Maria del Porto, which, having been lately endowed by a Pisan merchant with a thorn from our Lord’s crown, could not accommodate the devotees attracted by so precious a relic. This oratory, transformed by Giovanni into a Gothic church, and thenceforward called Santa Maria della Spina, was the first edifice built in Italy in the Pointed style ; and as it forms a singular exception to the prevailing Romanesque, many writers have supposed it to have been designed by some wandering ' ‘ Si Johannes filius .... in prasdicto opere laborare voluerit ’ (Milanesi, op. cit. vol. i. p. 148). 2 Vasari gives 1283 as tlie date of Giovanni’s visit to Naples ; an error — * • . . i i» r i • r *n n "A ^ C (,/i/ c, ft c( (ty Jfo 2 /cP . h Saufifr/trt'v' to lMCCOia, out ll wa» tuwiw J 0 gone thei’e after leaving Naples. THE CAMPO SANTO. 39 German . 1 The honour of having done so is worth disputing, as, although somewhat overloaded in ornament, it is a little gem in its way, and looks like a casket set by the river-side, to contain some precious object. During early Christian times it was customary to bury the dead in churches, which thence obtained the name of 4 Coemiteria .’ 2 Sepulture was afterwards restricted to their porticoes, by decrees of the early councils ; but this also was given up as likely to breed pestilence, and public cemeteries apart from the dwellings of men were used first in France, and then in other parts of Europe. Their introduction into Italy was projected by Archbishop Ubaldo Lanfranchi, who with this intent brought a shipload of earth from Mount Calvary to Pisa, which he caused to be spread out in the shape of a parallelogram, according to the traditional dimensions of Noah’s ark ; 3 to which was subsequently added the contents of fifty Pisan galleys which returned from the crusade undertaken by Frederic Barbarossa, freighted with the sacred earth. A century later, Giovanni Pisano, having been appointed to enclose the space with walls, designed and built the first, as well as the most beautiful, Campo Santo in Italy. Following the ground- plan marked out by Archbishop Lanfranchi, Giovanni raised his outer walls without windows, and with only two doors looking 1 Ricci, op. cit. vol. ii. p.264. Such an one was Rodolpho, called II Tedesco, mentioned in the Sienese archives, 1258 — 59. 2 Bingham ( Origines , etc., part iii. p. 129) states that the word Ccemi- terium is equivalent to Church ; and, according to an inscription, cited by Cardinal St. Borgia ( Confess . Vat. B Petri, p. 139), the Basilica of St. Paul’s ■was so called (Ricci, St. dell’ Arch. vol. i. p. 24). Eusebius, Chrysostom, and other Church Fathers, also called them ra. 1286. where he was appointed, as his father had been before him, to S'siena? build the fa5ade of the Duomo . 3 Hoping to induce him to settle in their city, the magistrates made him a citizen, exempted him from taxes for life, and, 1 in order that he might continue to work 1 Roncioni, Arch. St. It. vol. vi. part i. p. 3. 2 Made for the Duomo in 1311. 3 This church existed a.d. 947, under the name of Santa Maria Assunta. It was enlarged in 1089, and consecrated by Alexander II. in 1179. VOL. I. G 42 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Fa5ade of theDuomo. a.d. 1286 —1289. a.d. 1317. a.d. 1289. Tumultu- ous state of the times. without hindrance,’ absolved him from certain penalties to which he had for some unknown reason subjected himself . 1 It is impossible to say exactly, how far this work advanced under Giovanni’s direction, during the three years of his residence at Siena, although it is clear that the fa9ade as it now exists is a modification of his original design by the architects who, after a considerable interval, succeeded him, and completed it in the next century. We can, however, safely ascribe its general features to Giovanni, since we trace in its combination of styles the influence of his father upon him, and see among the statues upon it some, which, like the Virgin on the end towards the campanile, if not his, must be by a sculptor bred in his school. Want of clearness, and a decidedly overloaded effect, produced by the parti- coloured marbles, the profusion of statues and bas-reliefs, mosaics, lions, horses and griffins , 2 which cover every part of its surface, make it inferior to that of the Duomo at Orvieto, which belongs to about the same period, but, with all its defects, it is a splendid work, and one of the most striking examples of the growing influence of the great French and German cathedrals upon Italian taste. When, notwithstanding the many inducements held out to him to remain there , 3 Giovanni left Siena, he entered upon a new phase of his life, for whereas up to this time he had been princi- pally occupied as an architect, he henceforward devoted himself almost exclusively to sculpture. While we follow him in the apparently tranquil course of his life, we shall do well to remember the tumultuous state of the times in which he lived, that we may fully realise how the innate artistic strength of the Italian asserted its vitality despite all opposing influences. 1 Milanesi, Doc. San. vol. i. p. 162. 2 The lions, horses and griffins are the emblems of Arezzo and Perugia, Over whose troops the Sienese had been victorious (Ricci, vol. ii. pp. 74, 75). 3 The works were suspended after his departure, and not resumed until the year 1317. SHRINE OF S. DONATO. 43 If Art had been less exclusively the servant of Religion in the fourteenth century, the ever-surging feuds would have checked its growth; but the artist of that period was a recluse, who pursued his occupations, which were seldom secular, without disturbance, and if forced to leave his seclusion to serve emperor or municipality, found ample protection during such term of service, and then went back to carve the altar or the monument, in some quiet church or cloister, undisturbed by the popular strife which, like the sea, dashed in mighty waves against its peaceful walls. Giovanni’s history is an example of this; for wherever he laboured, the great struggle between the people and their rulers was going on. At Naples lie found Charles of Anjou fighting against the Sicilians ; at Siena, the people carrying on war with Florence ; at Pisa, struggling against native tyrants and carrying on hostilities with the Genoese; while at Arezzo, the Ghibelline exiles and their partisans were preparing for that battle in the plain of Campaldino , 1 in which his patron a.d. 1287. Bishop Ubertini was killed; and at Pistoja, the Bianchi and Neri were fighting against each other with a hatred which rivalled that of the Ghibellines and Guelphs to whom they succeeded. From Siena, Giovanni went to Perugia to make the monument of Pope Urban IV ., 2 and thence to Arezzo, where Bishop Ubertini m. a.d. . 1 1264 . had commissioned him to sculpture the shrine of San Donato for The shrine the cathedral. During the persecution of the Christians under Donato. J ulian the Apostate, San Donato fled from Rome to Arezzo, of a.d. 361 — which he became bishop, and after his death patron saint. As he stood one day, according to the legend, before the altar, with a sacramental cup in his hand, some rude Pagans attacked him and 1 June 11 , a.d. 1289. This battle was fought between the Ghibelline exiles, aided by the Aretines, and the Guelphs of Florence (who conquered them), in whose ranks Dante fought. 42 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Facade of theDuomo. A.T). 1286 —1289. a.d. 1317. a.d. 1289. Tumultu- ous state of the times. without hindrance,’ absolved him from certain penalties to which he had for some unknown reason subjected himself . 1 It is impossible to say exactly, how far this work advanced under Giovanni’s direction, during the three years of his residence at Siena, although it is clear that the fagade as it now exists is a modification of his original design by the architects who, after a considerable interval, succeeded him, and completed it in the next century. We can, however, safely ascribe its general features to Giovanni, since we trace in its combination of styles the influence of his father upon him, and see among the statues upon it some, which, like the Virgin on the end towards the campanile, if not his, must be by a sculptor bred in his school. Want of clearness, and a decidedly overloaded effect, produced by the parti- coloured marbles, the profusion of statues and bas-reliefs, mosaics, lions, horses and griffins , 2 which cover every part of its surface, make it inferior to that of the Duomo at Orvieto, which belongs to about the same period, but, with all its defects, it is a splendid work, and one of the most striking examples of the growing influence of the great French and German cathedrals upon Italian taste. When, notwithstanding the many inducements held out to him to remain there , 3 Giovanni left Siena, he entered upon a new phase of his life, for whereas up to this time he had been princi- pally occupied as an architect, he henceforward devoted himself almost exclusively to sculpture. While we follow him in the apparently tranquil course of his life, we shall do well to remember the tumultuous state of the times in which he lived, that we may fully realise how the innate artistic strength of the Italian asserted its vitality despite all opposing influences. 1 Milanesi, Doc. San. vol. i. p. 162. 2 The lions, horses and griffins are the emblems of Arezzo and Perugia, over whose troops the Sienese had been victorious CRieffi. vnl n rm *7± vv\ 71 % rUtcnU / -S'/iP- •• Ma/uw tfai/Jo"’ SHRINE OF S. DONATO. 43 If Art had been less exclusively the servant of Religion in the fourteenth century, the ever-surging feuds would have checked its growth; but the artist of that period was a recluse, who pursued his occupations, which were seldom secular, without disturbance, and if forced to leave his seclusion to serve emperor or municipality, found ample protection during such term of service, and then went back to carve the altar or the monument, in some quiet church or cloister, undisturbed by the popular strife which, like the sea, dashed in mighty waves against its peaceful walls. Giovanni’s history is an example of this; for wherever he laboured, the great struggle between the people and their rulers was going on. At Naples he found Charles of Anjou fighting against the Sicilians ; at Siena, the people carrying on war with Florence ; at Pisa, struggling against native tyrants and carrying on hostilities with the Genoese ; while at Arezzo, the Ghibelline exiles and their partisans were preparing for that battle in the plain of Campaldino , 1 in which his patron a.d. 1287. Bishop Ubertini was killed; and at Pistoja, the Bianchi and Neri were fighting against each other with a hatred which rivalled that of the Ghibellines and Guelphs to whom they succeeded. From Siena, Giovanni went to Perugia to make the monument of Pope Urban IV ., 2 and thence to Arezzo, where Bishop Ubertini m. a.d. . 1 1264 . had commissioned him to sculpture the shrine of San Donato for The shrine the cathedral. During the persecution of the Christians under Donato. J ulian the Apostate, San Donato fled from Rome to Arezzo, of a.d. 361 — which he became bishop, and after his death patron saint. As he stood one day, according to the legend, before the altar, with a sacramental cup in his hand, some rude Pagans attacked him and 1 June 11 , a.d. 1289. This battle was fought between the Ghibelline exiles, aided by the Aretines, and the Guelphs of Florence (who conquered them), in whose ranks Dante fought. 2 This monument was destroyed when the Duomo was enlarged. It was made, at the public expense, of the finest marbles ; but we know nothing of its design (Vasari, vol. i. p. 269, note 1). 44 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Pulpit by 11 Tedesco at Pistoja. shattered it to fragments, which he miraculously reunited, without losing a drop of its contents. Transported with fury at this sight, the aggressors seized the unoffending prelate and hurried him away to death. The Gothic shrine which Giovanni Pisano designed and sculptured in honour of this martyr is oblong in shape, and richly adorned with statuettes, leaves, arabesques, intaglios, enamels and bas-reliefs. Above the altar, which occupies the front of the shrine, and beneath a canopy supported b} T angels, sits the Madonna, smiling tenderly (with an expression of affection quite different from the generally adopted Pisan type) upon the Infant Saviour, whose head rests upon her shoulder. On either side of this really pleasing group are statuettes of SS. Donato and Gregory, 1 and in the gables above, three reliefs, representing the Marriage of the Virgin, the Annunciation, and the Assumption. The most striking among the numerous bas-reliefs with which the three other sides of the shrine are covered, is that in which the saint’s body lies stretched upon a funeral couch, surrounded by his devoted and deeply grieving followers, one of whom leans over to lift the lifeless hand so often raised in blessing or in prayer, while the rest are kneeling in supplication. Around the top of the shrine runs a row of Gothic arches (filled in with half-figures of prophets and apostles), which are invaluable as giving an effect of lightness to the massive structure. This superb work of art, including enamels, some silver bas-reliefs, and jewels hung around the Madonna’s neck, cost no less than 30,000 florins. About this time, a sculptor known as ‘ II Tedesco,’ probably a native of that part of Lombardy which borders upon the Tyrol, 2 had made a pulpit for the church of San Giovanni f. c. at Pistoja, 1 This statuette is a portrait of Pope Honorius IV., M. a.d. 1287. The shrine is engraved in the Life of Gregory X., Rome, 1711 (Morrona, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 77, 78 ; Vasari, vol. i.). 2 The inhabitants of this district were called ‘ Tedesclii,’ to distinguish them from the Lombards proper, who dwelt in the plains. GIOVANNI PISANO. 45 whose bas-reliefs were greatly admired for general correctness of drawing, and good arrangement of draperies, though they were confessedly wanting in that sentiment and variety of expression conspicuous in the Pisan school. Feeling this, and participating in the reverence entertained by the citizens of Pistoja for the memory of Niccola Pisano, a Spanish priest urged that the commission for a marble pulpit then about to be erected in the church of San Andrea, should be given to Giovanni Pisano, whose reputation warranted the belief, which he fully verified, that he would produce a work in everyway superior to that by II Tedesco. The commission was accordingly given to Giovanni, with full a.d. 1300. liberty as to the subjects to be selected for its bas-reliefs and ornamental details, although he was obliged to conform himself in its general design to that of the pulpits at Siena and Pisa, which, it was felt, could not be improved. Taking the Pisan pulpit for his architectural model, as better Giovanni’s suited in size to the dimensions of San Andrea, Giovanni filled s. Andrea, its five panels with reliefs representing the Birth of Christ, the Adoration, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Crucifixion, and the Last Judgment. One of these, the Massacre, we consider Giovanni’s masterpiece ; nay, more, we feel inclined to set it down as one of the most dramatic and forcible representations of this painful and revolting subject, to be found in Italian art. Pare powers of conception and a dramatic feeling, which Niccola wanted, are shown in the sullen satisfaction with which Herod looks down upon the rush of maddened soldiers, despairing mothers, and shrieking infants, as well as in the figure of the woman who sits upon the ground, bowed in silent grief over the dead body of her child, and of her who yet struggles, in the agony of despair, to save her darling from a like fate. These same qualities shine out in the relief of the Crucifixion, which contains an admirable group of women at the foot of the cross. Elsewhere, as for example in the Inferno, the compositions are overcrowded, and consequently confused ; a fault into which 46 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Other works at Pistoja. He goes t Florence. both father and son often fell, from a want of judgment as to the capacities atforded for representation by pulpit and shrine panels . 1 (See a statuette from this pulpit — tailpiece.) While residing at Pistoja, Giovanni also made a holy- water vase, supported by the now mutilated figures of Temperance, Prudence, and Justice, for the church of San Giovanni; designed the campanile of San Jacopo, and the door of San Paolo ; and restored several churches and convents both at Pistoja and Prato. These labours ended, he turned his steps to Florence, desirous of seeing his old friend and fellow-scholar, Arnolfo del Cambio, then in the zenith of his reputation, and the young Giotto, whose praises were in every mouth. The city of Florence, which, forty years before, (when the courageous opposition of Farinata degli Uberti saved her from destruction by the Ghibellines,) 2 trembled on the brink of ruin, was now increasing in strength and wealth ; she had raised a large army, and for the third time girdled herself with walls, then nearly completed, within which Arnolfo and Giotto had built and decorated many beautiful churches and palaces . 3 Filled with admiration for these two great native artists, the Florentines seem to have been disinclined to commit any works of importance to a foreigner; and thus Giovanni Pisano, instead of finding among them the patronage which his reputation warranted him to expect, received but one order during the two years which he spent among them, namely, that for the Madonna and Adoring Angels which fill a lunette over one of the side-doors of the Duomo, then in process of erection by Arnolfo., The 1 The words of the inscription, ‘Johannis Nicholi natus sentia [szc] meliore beatus,’ appear to indicate that, in the opinion of the Pistojans, Giovanni had surpassed his father (Ciampi, op. citf. 2 After the battle of Montaperti, ‘che fece l’Arbia colorata in rosso,’ in which Farinata, chief of the Florentine Ghibellines, defeated the Guelphs, the victors proposed at Empoli to destroy Florence, which project they would have canned into execution if Farinata had not opposed it with indomitable firmness. 3 Macchiavelli, Hist, of Florence, book ii. ch. iii. BENEDICT XI. 47 Madonna is Pisan in type, and somewhat stiff in attitude; the angels are well conceived and pleasing. These first years of the fourteenth century, which our artist spent at Pistoja and Florence, were marked by the humiliation and death of Pope Boniface VIII., who had renewed the ancient struggle between the papacy and the Empire. Instead of Frederic II., the aggressor was now Philip le Bel of France, who, unlike his proto- type, came off victor in the contest, and ultimately succeeded in removing the seat of the papal government from Pome to Avignon. His intrigues were baffled for a short time by the rapid action of the cardinals, who immediately after the death of Boniface, replaced him by the Cardinal Niccola di Treviso, under the name of Benedict XI. ; he, yielding at first to the king, revoked the decrees of his predecessor against Philip, his coun- cillors, and the Gallican Church, but when the king demanded that Boniface (or Maleface, as he contemptuously called him) should be declared a heretic, he changed his ground, and excommunicated all those who had been concerned against the late pope at Anagni. From that moment his fate was sealed; and one month later he died at Perugia, after eating a basket of poisoned figs, administered to him, it is said, by one of the cardinals at the instigation of Philip le Bel. The nine months’ session of the Sacred College, which followed, gave the unscrupulous King of France time to prepare his plans for getting the papacy into his power, in carrying out which, one of his chief agents was the Cardinal Aquasparta, of Prato, who five years before had been sent to Florence as legate by Boniface, to endeavour to appease the quarrels between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, then lately revived by the Bianchi and Neri . 1 Through the timely advice of this cardinal, Philip was enabled to secure the election of Bertrand de Got , 2 a French cardinal, and one of his creatures, who was crowned at Lyons as Pope Clement V. 1 F. Viliam, op. cit. lib. viii. ch. xxxix. p. 371. 2 Matteo di Orsini, leader of the Italian faction, on hearing of this election, a.d. 1305. Pope Benedict XI. His death. 48 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Nov. 14, 1305. Giovanni deputed to make the pope’s monument. Its design. Tomb of St. Margaret at Cortona. It was during the session of the Sacred College at Perugia, that Giovanni Pisano was invited by the before-mentioned Cardinal Aquasparta to make the monument of the late pope, which still stands in the church of S. Domenico. Upon a base of considerable height, and protected by a lofty Gothic canopy, sustained by twisted columns, richly inlaid with mosaic, into whose spirals diminutive figures are fantastically introduced, stands the sarcophagus upon which lies the effigy of the pontiff (see Plate IV.), at whose head and feet stand angels holding back curtains, and looking down upon it with a mingled expression of surprise and sorrow. This striking and novel monumental feature, which we shall henceforth meet with in many Pisan tombs, if an error, which we hardly think it to have been, was ‘ an error so full of feeling, as to be sometimes all but redeemed and altogether forgiven,’ and none the less lovely because the scholars of the Pisani caricatured it, and turned the quiet curtained canopy into a huge marble tent with a pole in the centre of it .’ 1 The honour of having first conceived it belongs to Arnolfo del Cambio, if (as is supposed) he made the tomb of Cardinal de Braye at Ovieto, within twenty years after that prelate’s death ; while Giovanni deserves praise only for quick appreciation and adoption of the idea, which he again used in the very impressive monument of St. Margaret, in the sacristy of her church at Cortona, whose general arrangement resembles that of Pope Benedict. Upon the sarcophagus lies the effigy of the saint with her hands clasped beneath her robe ; at her feet crouches the faithful dog who guided her to the bleeding body of her murdered lover, the sight of which (though tempted by a demon to resume her former evil courses) so changed her, that she determined to said prophetically to Cardinal del Prato, head of the French party : ‘ Vous voila done venu a vos fins ; vous nous menez au dela les monts. L’ltalie ne reverra de longtemps le Saint Siege ’ (H. Martin, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 460). 1 Stones of Venice, vol. i. p. 209. V I? n J9J 113 031 U 0 III 0 ( GIOVANNI PISANO. 4U spend the remainder of her days in penitence and prayer . 1 On the front of the sarcophagus are bas-reliefs representing the Magdalen washing our Saviour’s feet, and the raising of Lazarus ; while below, between the consoles, St. Margaret is represented taking the penitential habit, and giving up her soul to angels, who bear it to heaven. The latter years of Giovanni’s life were spent in rebuilding the Duomo at Prato, a work which was undertaken in conse- quence of the self- deliverance of the Virgin’s girdle from the hands of a sacrilegious thief ; and although not finished when he died, it was afterwards completed in strict accordance with his designs. Among his works of uncertain date, are an ivory Madonna and Child, in the sacristy of the Duomo at Pisa 2 (see Tail-Piece), a holy-water vase in the right transept of the same church, and another in the church of San Pietro, at San Piero, near Pisa; in the last he was assisted by his otherwise unknown scholar Lionardo. His other scholars were his son Bernardo , 3 an architect, and at one time capo maestro of the Duomo at Pisa ; Andrea Pisano, one of the greatest of Italian sculptors ; the Sienese artists Agostino di Giovanni, Agnolo di Ventura, Tino cli Camaino, Ciolo di Ventura; and, perhaps, Jacopo di Matteo da Pistoja, who worked with him upon the Campo Santo of Pisa, and sculptured a figure of St. Paul which stands over the door of the church of St. Paolo at Pistoja . 4 1 Legends of the Monastic Orders, p. 330. The head is evidently a restoration. 2 Ciampi, op. cit. Doc. iii. p. 128. 3 1299-1303. Ciampi, op. cit. 4 Sacclietti, Novella, p. 229. Sacchetti states, that Alberto Arnoldi, the sculptor, recommended Jacopo di Pistoja to make a monument for Messer Aldighieri degli Asinacci in the church of San Antonio at Parma. His Novella relates the tricks which Jacopo played upon his room-mate, a priest, whom he wished to get rid of: after sending him two or three times to Carrara after an imaginary ‘ innamorata,’ whom he painted as dying of love for him, he (Jacopo) put a stuffed serpent into his (the priest’s) bed, which so frightened him that he took to his heels and never returned. VOL. I. H A.D. 1312. His scholars. A.D. 1301. 50 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. We cannot take leave of Giovanni without referring to the assertion of Vasari, that he and his father both worked upon the bas-reliefs of the facade of the cathedral at Orvieto. In regal’d to Niccola, this is chronologically impossible, as he died about twelve years before the building was begun. Giovanni may have done * so (though Padre della Valle tells us that he searched in vain for his name among those of the sculptors registered in the Orvietan archives), but the superiority of the best, and the inferiority of the worst, to his known works, inclines us to doubt it ; 1 neither can we believe, that he sculptured the monument of Enrico a.d. 1320. Serov egno in the Arena Chapel at Padua, 2 as he died in the same year with Scrovegno. Giovanni Pisano has not been generally recognised as the first Italian architect who consistently employed Gothic forms, al- though all his buildings and monuments are Gothic, or contain a large admixture ol Gothic elements, with the exception of the Campo Santo, whose Romanesque character was in some measure induced by its proximity to the Duomo and Baptistry. In esti- mating him as a sculptor, we must acknowledge, that while his style is original and dramatic, it shows no feeling for beauty, and is without that dignity and repose which give so much value to the works of his father. A grave-slab 3 in the front of the archiepiscopal palace at Siena, which was made twenty years before Giovanni’s death, proves, a.d. 1320. that he intended to be buried at Siena ; but as he died at Pisa, and his fellow- citizens were naturally disinclined to carry out this intention, they laid him to rest in the same sarcophagus with his father. We do not know which of the sarcophagi in the Campo 1 See Chapter IV. 2 Ihe name of ‘Jaeobi Magistri Rieti ’ is inscribed under one of the angels; but as the style of the work is Pisan, and the sarcophagus better than the statues, it may be by another hand (Selvatico, Sulla Capella degli Scrovegni, p. 18. Padua, 1836). 3 Inscribed, ‘ Hoc est sepulcrum Magistri Johannis, quondam Magistri Nicola et de ejus heredibus (sic)’ ARNOLFO DEL CAMBIO. 51 Santo this was, nor can we point out any memorial at Pisa of these two eminent artists, except the tablet set up in the Campo Santo by the late curator Lasinio, which bears the following inscription — In memoriam Niccolae Pisani et Johannis fili Sculpturae artis restitutorum. Heu ! principe Pisanis artifices Hie jacerent sine titulo. That genius of a high order is not always early developed, is shown in the case of Arnolfo del Cambio, who, eight years older than his fellow-scholar Giovanni, worked as an apprentice under Niccola Pisano at Siena, when Giovanni had already won for himself a name. Born at Colle in the Vald’Elsain the year 1232, 1 he was at that time thirty-four years old, nor is it till ten years later that we find proof of his being settled as an independent maestro at Naples, in a letter written by the magistrates of Perugia requesting Charles of Anjou to allow his architect Arnolfo to assist in building the fountain of the piazza at Perugia. To this letter the king returned a gracious answer, giving the required permission, and promising to send with him a present of marbles to be used in the construction of the fountain, but whether Arnolfo went is uncertain, as his name is not found- with those of Niccola and Giovanni upon the fountain, and. as the municipal records of the time, which would have settled the question, are unfortunately missing. 2 It was probably three or four years after the date of this letter, that he sculptured the tomb of Cardinal Guillaume de Braye, for the church of S. Domenico at Orvieto. The recumbent statue of the cardinal, watched over by angels, with a touching and eager expression of sorrow, lies above a double basement, which 1 His parents were Cambio and Perfett.a. Perfetta is mentioned in a Mnrt.na.rio of the Florentine Duomo as Mater Magistri Arnolphi (Vasari, vol. i. Arnolfo del Cambio. n. 1232. A.D. 1277. Tomb of Cardinal de Braye. Died 1280. 50 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. We cannot take leave of Giovanni without referring to the assertion of V, asari, that he and his father both worked upon the bas-reliefs of the fa9ade of the cathedral at Orvieto. In regard to Niccola, this is chronologically impossible, as he died about twelve years before the building was begun. Giovanni may have done so (though Padre della Valle tells us that he searched in vain for his name among those of the sculptors registered in the Orvietan archives), but the superiority of the best, and the inferiority of the worst, to his known works, inclines us to doubt it ; 1 neither can we believe, that he sculptured the monument of Enrico Scrovegno in the Arena Chapel at Padua , 2 as he died in the same vear with Scrovegno. Giovanni Pisano has not been generally recognised as the first Italian architect who consistently employed Gothic forms, al- though all his buildings and monuments are Gothic, or contain a large admixture of Gothic elements, with the exception of the Campo Santo, whose Romanesque character was in some measure induced by its proximity to the Duomo and Baptistry. In esti- mating him as a sculptor, we must acknowledge, that while his style is original and dramatic, it shows no feeling for beauty, and is without that dignity and repose which give so much value to the works of his father. A grave-slab 3 in the front of the archiepiscopal palace at Siena, which was made twenty years before Giovanni’s death, proves, that he intended to be buried at Siena ; but as he died at Pisa, and his fellow- citizens were naturally disinclined to carry out this intention, they laid him to rest in the same sarcophagus with his father. AVe do not know which of the sarcophagi in the Campo 1 See Chapter IV. I he name of ‘Jacobi Magistri Rieti ’ is inscribed under one of the angels; but as the style of the work is Pisan, and the sarcophagus better than the statues, it mav Kp W ~ ARNOLFO DEL CAMBIO. 51 Santo this was, nor can we point out any memorial at Pisa of these two eminent artists, except the tablet set up in the Campo Santo by the late curator Lasinio, which bears the following inscription — In memoriam Niccolm Pisani et Johannis fili Sculpturas artis restitutorum. Heu ! principe Pisanis artifices Hie jacei’ent sine titulo. That genius of a high order is not always early developed, is shown in the case of Arnolfo del Cambio, who, eight years older than his fellow-scholar Giovanni, worked as an apprentice under Niccola Pisano at Siena, when Giovanni had already won for himself a name. Born at Colle in the Yald’Elsain the year 1232, 1 he was at that time thirty-four years old, nor is it till ten years later that we find proof of his being settled as an independent maestro at Naples, in a letter written by the magistrates of Perugia requesting Charles of Anjou to allow his architect Arnolfo to assist in building the fountain of the piazza at Perugia. To this letter the king returned a gracious answer, giving the required permission, and promising to send with him a present of marbles to be used in the construction of the fountain, but whether Arnolfo went is uncertain, as his name is not found, with those of Niccola and Giovanni upon the fountain, and as the municipal records of the time, which would have settled the question, are unfortunately missing. 2 It was probably three or four years after the date of this letter, that he sculptured the tomb of Cardinal Guillaume de Braye, for the church of S. Domenico at Orvieto. The recumbent statue of the cardinal, watched over by angels, with a touching and eager expression of sorrow, lies above a double basement, which 1 His parents were Cambio and Perfetta. Perfetta is mentioned in a Mortuario of the Florentine Duomo as Mater Magistri Arnolplii (Vasari, vol. i. p. 249, note 4; Kunstblatt, no. 64, a.p. 1839, Article by Gaye, on Promis). 2 Vermiglioli (op. cit. p. 32) suggests that Arnolfo may have made the SS. Peter and Paul of the first basin. Arnolfo del Cambio. n. 1232. a.d. 1277. Tomb of Cardinal de Braye. Died 1280. 52 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. a.d. 1285. Tabernacle at St. Paolo. is adorned with mosaics disposed in geometrical patterns (‘a Stella’), and divided into niches separated by twisted columns, also inlaid with mosaic. Above the prelate’s statue sits a very dignified Madonna (Plate V.) under a Gothic tabernacle, wearing a crown upon her head, from beneath which a veil falls upon her shoulders. Her left hand supports the Divine Child upon her knee, and her right rests upon the ball, which terminates the arm of her throne-chair, on either side of which are statuettes of St. Dominic and a companion saint, in the act of presenting to her the kneeling Cardinal de Braye. This monument is one of the most finished works of the Pisan school. It contains one strikingly original idea, and many exquisite details, and though his only well-authenticated sculptural work, is enough to establish Arnolfo’s fame. Some writers suppose, that he made at this time the very beautiful Gothic tabernacle at San Paolo f. m. at Rome, which still stands there, sole relic of the glories of the old Basilica 1 amid the cold splendours of the new; while on the other hand authorities of equal weight deny this, on the ground that he could not then have left Florence, owing to his great and pressing occupations. In view of Arnolfo’s wide- spread reputation, and the inscription upon the tabernacle , 2 Hoc opus fecit Arnolfus cum suo socio Petro, 1 It was destroyed by fire in 1825. 2 Inscription — ‘ Anno milleno centum bis et octuageno Quinto summe Us. qd. hie abbas Bartholomasus Fecit op. fieri sibi tu dignare mereri. Hoc opus fecit Arnolfus cum suo socio Petro.’ An Abbot Bartholomew ruled over the Convent of St. Paul’s from 1282-1297 .( Neue Romische Brief e, vol. i. p. 99). The following authors believe Arnolplio del Cambio to have made or designed this tabernacle : Gaye, KiinstbJcitt, no. 64, 1839; Rumolir, It. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 156; Cicognari, St. della Scultura , vol. iii. p. 265 ; and C. Boito, Arcli. Cosmatesca, p. 29 ; while Promis (Ant. Mar. Rom. pp. 28, 29) doubts it, as does Reumont (Neue Rom. Br. vol. i. p. 102). Yasari and Baldinucci make no mention of it. : ARNOLFO DEL CAMBIO. 53 we are inclined to believe, that having been requested by Bar- tolomeo, abbot of the adjoining convent, to furnish him with a design, he made it at Florence and sent his scholar Pietro Cavallini to execute it. Could this be proved, it would give to Arnolfo the glory of having introduced a Gothic taste into the Roman school, then represented by Adeodatus and Giovanni Cos- mati, who thenceforward gave up the round arch and horizontal line, and imitated the model set before them . 1 The statuettes of SS. Peter and Paul, Luke and Benedict, placed above the capitals of the columns which support the canopy, being very much in the Tuscan manner, and the whole structure decidedly superior in design and workmanship to known Cosmatesque works, further authorise the belief that it is not a work of their school. In the same manner, Arnolfo perhaps sent designs for the tomb of Pope Boniface VIII . 2 * now in the crypt of St. Peter’s, and for the altar of St. Boniface, and the tomb of Pope Honorius III. which stood in a now destroyed chapel at Santa Maria Maggiore, all of which are attributed to him by Vasari . To comprehend what Arnolfo did for Florence, we have but to look down upon that fair city from one of the neighbouring eminences, and note that all the most striking objects which greet the eye, the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, Sta. Croce, Or San Michele, and the walls which surround her, are liis works. A portion of the ground upon which Sta. Croce, the first of these great edifices, stands, was occupied by a small church, which the Minorite Friars had long intended to enlarge and embellish as soon as their means would permit. This being now possible, the corner-stone of the new edifice was laid 4 in the presence of many 1 As in the tabernacle at S. Cecilia. Ugoni {Hist, delle Stazione di Roma, p. 130) says this was also inscribed, ‘Hoc opus fecit Arnolplius 1283 but no such inscription exists at present. 2 Torrigio ( Grotte Vaticane, p. 371) attributes this tomb to Fra Giacomo da Turrita, the mosaicist, as does his biographer, the Abbate de Angelis (p. 24). Vasari assigns it, with the works mentioned in the text, to Arnolfo (vol. i. p. 244, note 3). Works at- tributed to Arnolfo at Rome. Sta. Croce. a.d. 1294 or 1295. 54 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. The Duomo at Florence. bishops, prelates, canons and monks, the podesta, the captain- general, the priors, and all the good people of Florence, both men and women, with great rejoicing and solemnity.’ 1 More than a century elapsed before its completion, but during this long period its successive architects carefully followed Arnolfo’s original design. Within its walls are placed the monuments of some of Italy’s greatest sons, Dante, Michael Angelo, Machiavelli, and Alfieri: why is it that Florence has not raised among them, one to the memory of him who designed this Italian Pantheon? Almost simultaneously with Sta. Croce, Arnolfo began to build the Duomo, called Sta. Maria del Fiore, in allusion to the lily in the city arms, which marks the tradition that Florence was founded in a field of flowers. The noble document by which the building of this cathedral was decreed, shows that the city was then governed by a body of men representing all the force and in- telligence of the State. ‘ Since,’ it says, ‘ the highest mark of prudence in a people of noble origin, is to proceed in the manage- ment of their affairs so that their magnanimity and wisdom may be evinced in their outward acts, we order Arnolfo, head master of our commune, to make a design for the renovation of Sta. Re- parata in a style of magnificence which neither the industry nor power of man can surpass, that it may harmonise with the opinion of many wise persons in this city and state, who think that this commune should not engage in any enterprise, unless its intention be to make the result correspond with that noblest sort of heart which is composed of the united will of many citizens.’ 2 The old church of Sta. Reparata, referred to in this document, was rudely built, after the model of a Basilica, in the year 407, to commemo- rate a victory gained over the Goths by the Florentines. To meet the expenses consequent upon its destruction, and the erection of the new Duomo, the Wool Merchants’ Guild, which undertook the 1 G. Viliam, lib. viii. cli. vii. p.349. 2 Gualandi, op. cit. fourth series, p. 102, note 9. STA. MARIA DEL FIORE. 55 management of affairs, not only gave large sums out of their own funds, but obtained a decree, by which a tax of four denari in a lira was laid upon all goods exported from the city, and that of two soldi a year upon every member of the population. Arnolfo is said to have sought to give stability to his cathedral, by making it the result of ingenious geometrical combinations, worked out through the entire building; and to have dug a series of subterranean wells around the entire line of its foundations, through which the elastic gases generated by central fires might freely find vent, in order to obviate danger from earthquakes . 1 Like Santa Croce, this church is built in the shape of a Latin cross with a great nave and two smaller side aisles, two transepts, and two tribunes, out of which open five chapels, and is surmounted by a magnificent cupola, which Arnolfo, had he lived, would have placed directly upon the roof, and thereby greatly diminished the majestic effect which his successor Brunelleschi attained, by raising it upon a drum, pierced with round windows to admit light into the building. It is the most complete example of Arnolfo’s style, which, like his master’s, was eclectic, though Gothic elements predominated in it. The pointed arch, the buttresses, and the tall windows divided into compartments, he combined with foreign elements, and thus formed an original style called Mediaeval Florentine, whose most striking feature, the novel mode of ex- ternal decoration by incrustation with different-coloured marbles arranged in symmetrical patterns, marks the difference between it and the Gothic, which, practising the honest law, ‘that every artifice of construction should be displayed ,’ 2 gave evidence in its external as in its internal decorations of all that was necessary to the organism of the edifice; while the Florentine, following the 1 ‘Fatto notevole nella fisica d’allora’ (Cantu, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 637). Bramante did the same under the pillars which support the cupola of St. Peter’s. 2 Okely on Christian Architecture in Italy , quoted from Dr. Whewell’s Notes on German Churches , Introd. pp. 3, 7. Facj-ade of the Duomo. a.d. 1585. The Palazzo Veccliio. a.d. 1298. 5G TUSCAN SCULPTORS. classical principle, ‘ that every artifice of construction should be concealed/ gave no indication of the framework of the building or the distribution of its parts in its exterior, whose decoration was but a facing. The fagade begun by Arnolfo was pulled down in 1334, and Giotto replaced it by another adorned with columns, niches, and statues, which he carried to above a third of the height of the building, 1 and which more than two centuries later was in its turn destroyed, 2 at the suggestion of Buontalenti, engineer to the Grand Duke Francesco, who asserted that the great superincumbent weight rendered it unsafe. The falseness of this assertion was proved by the difficulty experienced in breaking up what seemed like one piece of marble. 3 Some of the statues upon it were probably not only designed but sculptured by Giotto, who was a sculptor, as well as a painter and architect, as w r e know through Ghiberti, who says that he saw some of the models which Giotto made for the bas-reliefs upon the lower story of his campanile. 4 While building Sta. Croce and the Duomo, Arnolfo was ap- pointed by public decree to erect a palace, in which the State officers could reside, safe from the dangers of popular insurrection or the ambitious attempts of the nobles. The result of this com- mission was the Palazzo Yecchio, the irregularity of whose ground- plan, though long attributed to the refusal of the Guelphs to allow any part of the people’s palace to stand upon ground formerly occupied by the Ghibellines, is sufficiently accounted for by the 1 Engraved by C. Nelli, in his Dcsc. del Duomo. Vide Opere di Ferd. Ruggeri, Aggiunta al Vol. IV. parte 1. For list of artists who worked upon this fa9ade, see Appendix to this chapter, letter B. 2 By Benedetto Uguccione, Provveditore dell’ Opera del Duomo. 3 Rondinelli, Arti del Disegno , a.d. 1856, no. 15, p. 132. See a note by Monti, in which he asserts that the columns which were strong enough to bear a maximum weight of 165 lbs. had to bear only 48 lbs. 4 Vide Ghiberti’s Commentaries , published in Cicognara, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 210; Vasari, vol. i. p. 333, note 1 ; and Varchi, who in his Funeral Oration over Michel Angelo , p. 45, asserts the same thing. ARNOLFO DEL CAMBIO. 57 successive changes and additions which it underwent at the hand of Andrea Pisano in the fourteenth, Michelozzo and Cronaca in the fifteenth, and Vasari in the sixteenth centuries. Arnolfo also built, on the site of an old Lombard church dedicated to St. Michael, an open grain market, or loggia, consisting of brick columns spanned by arches, and roofed over, which, in honour of a representation of the Virgin painted upon one of its pilasters by Ugolino da Siena, was afterwards transformed by Andrea Orcagna into the church of Or San Michele. 1 2 Besides these great works, he executed many of minor importance, such as covering the Baptistry with slabs of marble, enlarging the circuit of the city walls, and building in the upper Val d’ Arno the castles of San Giovanni and Franco, intended to overawe the Ghibelline families of the Pazzi and Uberti. a — x i 2 4-^ cnn r>r\mr\lritirin r>f an v of* the PTeat or li nmy t;isiuuiisn m uuici pauo vjj. ^ ^ architecture which he there introduced. The reason of this may lie in the fact, that it was rather a decoration than an archi- tecture ; as well as in the persistent predilection for classical forms in Italy, against which the Gothic made but a short stand, and which finally found its full expression in the buildings of the Renaissance. Giotto made exquisite use of the mediaeval Florentine style in his campanile, but its further development was checked even in Florence by Orcagna, while other Florentine artists, who worked at Venice and in various parts of Italy, suited themselves to the taste of the locality. Arnolfo had two sons, Guiduccio, and Alberto, who was a sculptor, of whom we know nothing but that, 1 From 1 horreum,’ a granary, and the name of the Archangel. The picture is said to have first manifested a power of working miracles on July 3, 1292 ( Chr . of G. Villani). 2 Antica Necrologia di Santa Reparata, carta xii.; Vasari, vol. i. p. 255, note 2. VOL. I. I Or San Michele. a.d. 1284 a.d. 1292 m. A.n. 5G TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Facade of the Duomo. a.d. 1585. Palazzo Vecchio. a.d. 1298. classical principle, ‘ that every artifice of construction should be concealed,’ gave no indication of the framework of the building or the distribution of its parts in its exterior, whose decoration was but a facing. The fa 9 ade begun by Arnolfo was pulled down in 1334, and Giotto replaced it by another adorned with columns, niches, and statues, which he carried to above a third of the height of the building, 1 and which more than two centuries later was in its turn destroyed, 2 at the suggestion of Buontalenti, engineer to the Grand Duke Francesco, who asserted that the great superincumbent weight rendered it unsafe. The falseness of this assertion was proved by the difficulty experienced in breaking up what seemed like one piece of marble. 3 4 Some of the statues upon it were probably not only designed but sculptured by Giotto, who was a sculutor. as well n,s a, nnin+pv nnr I 1 ~ ^ "ft) (ytfirt crtyt) oLe ( Ccc m&tO ctctcly f 'rf, /3/f iJfJLs Cf (Ff Q tf CO Jo 3 ^(P. b d rl tV f l tars' . . Q v waxxa VlAV 4-/ lAVAAAWj J.AII1U11U VV CtjJ “ pointed by public decree to erect a palace, in which the State officers could reside, safe from the dangers of popular insurrection or the ambitious attempts of the nobles. The result of this com- mission was the Palazzo Vecchio, the irregularity of whose ground- plan, though long attributed to the refusal of the Guelphs to allow any part of the people’s palace to stand upon ground formerly occupied by the Ghibellines, is sufficiently accounted for by the 1 Engraved by C. Nelli, in his Desc. del Duomo. Vide Opere di Ford. Euggeri, Aggiunta al Vol. IV. parte 1. For list of artists who worked upon this facade, see Appendix to this chapter, letter B. 2 By Benedetto Uguccione, Provveditore dell’ Opera del Duomo. 3 Rondinelli, Arti del Disegno , a.d. 1856, no. 15, p. 132. See a note by Monti, in which he asserts that the columns which were strong enough to bear a maximum weight of 165 lbs. had to bear only 48 lbs. 4 Vide Ghiberti’s Commentaries , published in Cicognara, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 210 ; Vasari, vol. i. p. 333, note 1 ; and Varchi, who in his Funeral Oration over Michel Angelo, p. 45, asserts the same thing. ARNOLFO DEL CAMBIO. 57 successive changes and additions which it underwent at the hand of Andrea Pisano in the fourteenth, Michelozzo and Cronaca in the fifteenth, and Vasari in the sixteenth centuries. Arnolfo also built, on the site of an old Lombard church dedicated to St. Michael, an open grain market, or loggia, consisting of brick columns spanned by arches, and roofed over, which, in honour of a representation of the Virgin painted upon one of its pilasters by Ugolino da Siena, was afterwards transformed by Andrea Orcagna into the church of Or San Michele . 1 Besides these great works, he executed many of minor importance, such as covering the Baptistry with slabs of marble, enlarging the circuit of the city walls, and building in the upper Val d’ Arno the castles of San Giovanni and Franco, intended to overawe the Ghibelline families of the Pazzi and Uberti. Arnolfo did not live 2 to see the completion of any of the great buildings which he designed, and which still constitute the chief architectural ornaments of Florence ; neither did he found a school, or firmly establish in other parts of Italy that original style of architecture which he there introduced. The reason of this may lie in the fact, that it was rather a decoration than an archi- tecture ; as well as in the persistent predilection for classical forms in Italy, against which the Gothic made but a short stand, and which finally found its full expression in the buildings of the Renaissance. Giotto made exquisite use of the mediaeval Florentine style in his campanile, but its further development was checked even in Florence by Orcagna, while other Florentine artists, who worked at Venice and in various parts of Italy, suited themselves to the taste of the locality. Arnolfo had two sons, Guiduccio, and Alberto, who was a sculptor, of whom we know nothing but that, 1 From 1 horreum,’ a granary, and the name of the Archangel. The picture is said to have first manifested a power of working miracles on July 3, 1292 ( Chr. of G. Villani). 2 Antica Necrologia di Santa Beparata, carta xii.; Vasari, vol. i. p. 255, note 2. VOL. I. I Or San Michele. a.d. 1284. a.d. 1292. M. A.T>. 1310. 58 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. like their father, they were honoured with the citizenship of Florence . 1 An inscription let into the wall of the cathedral, his portrait introduced by Giotto into a fresco which he painted in Sta. Croce, and a statue placed in our own day side by side with that of Brunelleschi, opposite the cathedral, which the one built, and the other crowned with the second great dome in the world, are the only memorials to one of the most illustrious of Italian artists. CHRONOLOGY. Giovanni Pisano — a d. Born ....... 1240 (circa) Worked upon the pulpit at Siena . . . 1266 — 1267 Built Franciscan church and designed the episcopal palace at Naples ...... 1268 Worked upon the fountain at Perugia . . 1274 — 1278 Rebuilt Santa Maria della Spina, and built the Campo Santo at Pisa ...... 1278 Statues in the Campo Santo of uncertain date Designed and commenced the fai^ade of the Duomo at Siena . . . . 1286 — 1289 Monument of Pope Urban IV. at Perugia . . . 1289 Shrine of San Donato in the Duomo at Arezzo . . 1290 Pulpit in San Andrea, and holy-water vase in S. Gio- vanni, at Pistoja ..... 1300 Madonna and Angels over a door of the Duomo at Florence 1301 Pulpit in the Duomo at Pisa . . . 1302 — 1311 Monument of Benedict XI. in S. Domenico at Perugia . 1305 Monument of St. Margaret in Santa Margherita at Cortona .... Date unknown Rebuilt the Duomo at Prato . . . 1317 — 1320 Died at Pisa ... ... 1320 Arnolfo del Cambio — Born .... Working at Naples for Charles of Anjou . 1232 . 1277 1 Arnolfo’s works are said to have had an influence upon Margheritone (vide Appendix to this chapter, letter C). CHRONOLOGY. 59 *Aknolfo del Cambio — A.D. Monument of Cardinal de Braye in San Domenico at Orvieto ..... after 1280 Built the Loggia of Or San Michele at Florence . . 1284 Probably designed the Tabernacle of St. Paul f. le m. at Rome ...... Decorated the exterior of the Baptistry at Florence Commenced Santa Croce at Florence „ the Duomo at Florence „ the Palazzo Yecchio Died at Florence ..... . 1285 . 1292 1294—1295 1294—1295 . 1298 . 1310 1 2 1. Ivory Madonna, in Sacristy op the Duomo at Pisa. 2. Angel, from the Pulpit in S. Andrea at Pistoja, by Giovanni Pisano. i 2 BOOK II. THE ALLEGORICAL SCULPTORS. 63 CHAPTER HI. ANDREA PISANO AND HIS SCHOLARS, NINO AND TOMMASO, GIOVANNI BALDUCCIO, AND ANDREA ORCAGNA. several statues for the fa§ade of St. Mark's, anci made designs ior the reconstruction of the arsenal , 3 which were subsequently carried out by that ill-fated Venetian architect, Filippo Calendario . 4 The probability of Andrea’s visit to Venice is strengthened by He is mentioned as ‘famulus Magistri Johannis’ in the archives of the Pisan Duomo, 1299-1305 (Ciampi, op. cit. p. 47). 2 Vasari says, ‘Dicono alcuni (non l’affirmerai gia per vero) ’ (vol. ii. p. 37). Phis doubtful assertion is confirmed by a MS., which Orlandi cites in the Abecedario Pittorico, and (as it appeared to Cicognara) by ancient Venetian chronicles, in which, however, Andrea is not mentioned by name. The assertion, that Calendario ameliorated his style by the instructions which he received from Andrea, would be chronologically justified, could it be proved that he came to Venice while Gradenigo was doge. Vide Selvatico, op. cit. pp. 110, 111. This author states his belief that the style of the Pisani penetrated into Venice through Andrea. 3 Founded a.d. 1104, under the Doge Ordelaffo Falieri, at the time of the first Crusade. 4 Hanged in 1354, as implicated in the conspiracy of Marino Faliero. *:&<> > Ctfe/ie / / otuxi ^ cU / Vo/ // £, CtJofe n&Ccu ft f Jtc*Aet-n i r ulft Urs ' 63 CHAPTER III. ANDREA PISANO AND HIS SCHOLARS, NINO AND TOMMASO, GIOVANNI BALDUCCIO, AND ANDREA ORCAGNA. ALL that is known of the youth of Andrea Pisano da Pontedera, ^ son of Ugolino di Nino, is that he was early apprenticed to Giovanni 1 isano, and that he devoted much time to the study of the antique marbles at Pisa. When thirty-five years old, he is said to have spent a year at Venice, 2 during which he sculptured several statues for the facade of St. Mark’s, and made designs for the reconstruction of the arsenal, 3 which were subsequently carried out by that ill-fated Venetian architect, Filippo Calendario. 4 The probability of Andrea’s visit to Venice is strengthened by He is mentioned as ‘famulus Magistri Johannis’ in the archives of the Pisan Duomo, 1299-1305 (Ciampi, op. cit. p. 47). 2 Vasari says, ‘ Dicono alcuni (non l’affirmerai gia per vero) ’ (vol. ii. p. 37). Phis doubtful assertion is confirmed by a MS., which Orlandi cites in the Abecedario Pittorico , and (as it appeared to Cicognara) by ancient Venetian chronicles, in which, however, Andrea is not mentioned by name. The assertion, that Calendario ameliorated his style by the instructions which he received from Andrea, would be chronologically justified, could it be proved that he came to Venice while Gradenigo was doge. Vide Selvatico, op. cit. pp. 110, 111. This author states his belief that the style of the Pisani penetrated into Venice through Andrea. 3 Founded a.d. 1104, under the Doge Ordelaffo Falieri, at the time of the first Crusade. 4 Hanged in 1354, as implicated in the conspiracy of Marino Faliero. Andrea Pisano. n.a.b.1270. Andrea at Venice. 64 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Gates for the Baptistry at Florence. the testimony of Cicognara, 1 that some of the statues upon the facade of St. Mark’s, which he took pains to examine, were very much in his style ; and to us there seems an almost certain proof of it, in the sculptured capitals of the columns of the ducal palace, which we believe to have been made by Filippo Calendario, under the influence of Andrea, so greatly do they remind us of his works at Florence by their simplicity and clearness of style, and their allegorical treatment. 2 After his return from Venice, Andrea attained the reputation of being the most skilful bronze-caster in Italy; and having gained great praise by a bronze crucifix, which he sent through his friend Giotto as a present to Pope Clement V . at Avignon, 3 was com- missioned to make those noble gates for the Baptistry at I lorence which are his chief and enduring title to fame. Assisted by his son Nino and his scholar Lionardo di Giovanni, he completed the modelling of these gates in 1330, as we learn by an inscription 1 Cicognara, St. della Scultura, vol. iii. p. 405. 2 Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon, who built the Porta della Carta after 1424, are said, by many writers, to have sculptured these column capitals ; but to our eyes there is not the slightest resemblance of style between them and the statues upon the Porta del Carta; nor do we know any Venetian sculptor in either century capable of conceiving or sculpturing the capitals of the ducal palace, excepting Calendario, under Andrea’s influence. Cicognara ascribes them to Calendario. Ricci {op. cit. vol. ii. p. 329) states his belief that Andrea influenced Calendario’s style. F. Zanotto, in his work upon the ducal palace, mentions this inscription upon the column of Justice, ‘Duo Soti (socii) Fiorentini incise;’ these two Florentines, he supposes, are the Petrus Magistri Nicholai de Florentia and Joannes Martini de Fesulis, who made the tomb ol the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo in S. Giovanni e Paolo, a.d. 1423. The recon- struction of the Riva and Piazzetta facades was decreed under this Doge. Ruskin, in the Stones of Venice, vol. i., and Burges {Iconographie des Chapiteaux , etc., extracted from Revue Archeologique, Paris 1857), cite an inscription in Arabic characters on the seventeenth column from the Riva bridge, dated 1344, in proof of Calendario’s claims. Didron doubts if they read it correctly. 3 Clement V. transported the papal seat to Avignon in 1305, wherefore Giotto could not have gone there till after that year (Vasari, vol. ii. p. 325, note 3). 64 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Gates for the Baptistry at Florence. the testimony of Cicognara, 1 that some of the statues upon the facade of St. Mark’s, which he took pains to examine, were very much in his style; and to us there seems an almost certain proof of it, in the sculptured capitals of the columns of the ducal palace, which we believe to have been made by Filippo Calendario, under the influence of Andrea, so greatly do they remind us of his works at Florence by their simplicity and clearness of style, and their allegorical treatment. 2 After his return from Venice, Andrea attained the reputation of being the most skilful bronze-caster in Italy ; and having gained great praise by a bronze crucifix, which he sent through his friend Giotto as a present to Pope Clement V. at Avignon, 3 was com- missioned to make those noble gates for the Baptistry at Florence which are his chief and enduring title to fame. Assisted by his son Nino and his scholar Lionardo cli Giovanni, he completed the modelling of these gates in 1330, as we learn by an inscription 1 Cicognara, St. della Scultura, vol. iii. p. 405. 2 Giovanni and Bartolomeo Bon, who built the Porta della Carta after 1424, are said, by many writers, to have sculptured these column capitals ; but to our eyes there is not the slightest resemblance of style between them and the statues upon the Porta del Carta; nor do we know any Venetian sculptor in either century capable of conceiving or sculpturing the capitals of the ducal palace, excepting Calendario, under Andrea’s influence. Cicognara ascribes them to Calendario. Ricci (op. cit. vol. ii. p. 329) states his belief that Andrea influenced Calendario’s style. F. Zanotto, in his work upon the ducal palace, mentions this inscription upon the column of Justice, ‘Duo Soti (socii) Fiorentini incise;’ these two Florentines, he supposes, are the Petrus Magistri Nicholai de Florentia and Joannes Martini de Fesulis, who made the tomb of the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo in S. Giovanni e Paolo, A.r>. 1423. The recon- struction of the Riva and Piazzetta fa<;ades was decreed under this Doge. Ruskin, in the Stones of Venice, vol. i., and Burges ( Iconographie des Chapiteaux, etc., extracted from Revue Archeologique, Paris 185/), cite an inscription in Arabic characters on the seventeenth column from the Riva bridge, dated 1344, in proof of Calendario’s claims. Didron doubts if they Cates of the Baptistry Florence ANDREA ORCAGNA. G5 upon them, 1 whose date refers to the period when they were ready to be cast, which operation, together with the requisite cleaning and finishing of the bronze, cost him nine years of toil. a . d . 1339. Their twenty large panels contain reliefs representing leading events in the life of St. John the Baptist; and eight of a smaller size are adorned with allegorical figures of Faith, Hope, Force, Temperance, Charity, Humility, Justice and Prudence, all of which contain special beauties; but as their enumeration might fatigue the reader, we shall content ourselves with describing those which represent Zacharias naming the infant Baptist ; and St. John’s disciples depositing his body in the tomb. In the first, Zacharias is represented as a venerable old man, writing at a table, near which stands a youth and two women, beautifully draped, and grouped into a composition whose antique simplicity of means shows how far Andrea had advanced beyond Niccola and Giovanni, who could not tell a story without bringing in a crowd of figures. In the Burial of St. John (Plate VI.), we see a sarcophagus, placed beneath a Gothic canopy, into which five disciples are lowering the dead body of their master, two at the shoulders (one of whom evidently sustains the whole weight of the corpse), and two at the feet, while a sorrowing youth holds up a portion of the winding- sheet; a monk, bearing a torch, looks down upon the face of St. John from the other side of the Area, and near him stands an old man, his hands clasped in prayer, and his eyes raised to Heaven. In these works we find sentiment, simplicity, beauty of line, purity of design, and great elegance of drapery, combined with a technical perfection hardly ever surpassed, while the single allegorical figures show the all-pervading influence of Giotto, from whom Andrea learned to use the mystical and spiritual 1 The inscription is, ‘Andreas Ugolini Nini de Pisis me fecit, a.d. mcccxxx.’ The elaborate frieze around them was beguu by Lorenzo Ghiberti and his son Vittorio in 1454. After Lorenzo’s death in 1455, it was completed by Vittorio, Ant. PolJajuolo, and other of his scholars. VOL. I. Iv GO TUSCAN SCULPTOES. The campanile of the Duomo at Florence ; begun in 1334 . The Duomo facade. Statue of Pope Boniface VIII. The J ubilee. elements of German art, as Giovanni Pisano had used the fan- tastic and dramatic. When they were completed and set up in the doorway of the Baptistry, now occupied by Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, all Florence crowded to see them; and the Signory, who never quitted the Palazzo Vecchio in a body except on the most solemn occasions, came in state to applaud the artist, and to confer upon him the dignity of citizenship. We have already mentioned the friendship between Giotto and Andrea, which naturally led that great architect and painter to avail himself of our sculptor’s talents when occasion offered ; as, for instance, when he had completed the campanile of the Duomo, he employed him to carve some little figures which he had de- signed about its doorway, and to model the bas-reliefs upon its lower story, and also to make several statues to fill niches upon the fi^ade of the Duomo, which, as we have already said, was far advanced at the time of his death. The most interesting of these statues is that of Pope Boniface VIII., now hidden away in a corner of the Strozzi gardens at Florence, where, clad in pontifical robes, and wearing a tall tiara upon its head, it sits with an air of proud impassibility, holding out its mutilated arms, as if in token of the miserable state of helplessness to which he whom it repre- sents was finally reduced. With a firmness of purpose equal to that of the great Hilde- brand, 1 Boniface aimed, like him, at exalting the papacy to an undisputed jurisdiction over the great European powers, and believed he had attained this end after the great Jubilee festival, which he revived in the very first year of the fourteenth century, 2 and inaugurated by riding through the streets clad in imperial 1 The enemies of Boniface said that he stood, in character as in date, midway between Gregory VII. and Alexander VI., joining the pretensions of the one to the infamous vices of the other (H. Martin, op. cit. vol. iv. p. 409). 2 Traditionally appointed to take place once in a century, and so fixed by Pope Boniface ; Clement VI., in 1343, fixed it once in fifty years ; Urban VI. every thirty-three years, as equal to the length of Our Lord’s life ; and Paul II. every twenty-five years (Gonmeric, Rome Chretienne, vol. i. p. 408). THE JUBILEE. 67 purple, preceded by heralds, bearing sword, sceptre, and globe, who cried, ‘ The Sovereign Pontiff, successor of St. Peter and vicar of Christ, is the only king of the Romans ; ’ a claim which the pope himself asserted to the deputies of Albert of Austria, who came to demand their master’s recognition, under that hereditary title, by saying, ‘ It is I who am Caesar; the Sovereign Pontiff is the only king of the Romans.’ Such multitudes were drawn to Rome by the proclaimed remission of sins to every pilgrim who should visit the apostolic shrines within the twelvemonth, that there were never less than 200,000 strangers collected together, 1 whose offerings actually rained at the foot of the altar in the Basilica of St. Paul, and were raked up by attendant priests. Among these pilgrims were Giotto, Giovanni Villani (who tells us that he then conceived the idea of writing his world-renowned Chronicles), 2 and Dante, who compares the crowds of spirits passing to and fro in hell to the multitudes which he then saw crossing and recrossing the Ponte St. Angelo. 3 Two years after the Jubilee, the renewed exactions of Boniface, who claimed The struggle authority in France over temporal as well as over spiritual between matters, fanned into a flame the hostile feelings which had and Philip, long smouldered between him and Philip le Bel; and upon the king’s declaration that he would disinherit his own children ‘ if they recognised any other power than that of God in tem- poral matters, or avowed that they held the kingdom of France from any living man,’ the pope issued a bull (‘ Ausculta fili’), in which he asserted his pretensions, and charged his enemy 1 G. Villani, lib. viii. ch. xxxvi. p. 367. 2 4 Ma considerando che la nostra citta di Firenze, figliulo e fattura di Roma, era nel suo montare, ed a seguire grandi cose disposta, siccome Roma nel suo calare, mi parve convenevole di recare in questo volume Et cosi median te la gratia di Christo nelli anni suoi 1300, tomato io da Roma comminciai a compilare questo libro,’ etc. etc. {ibid.). 3 ‘ Come i Roman, per V esercito molto, L’ anno del giubbileo, su per lo ponte, Hanno a passar la gente modo tolto’ {Inferno, canto xviii.). 68 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. with falsifying the French coinage, and appropriating the benefices of vacant sees ; Philip caused the bull to be publicly burnt at Paris, ‘thereby burning the pope’s temporal power, as two centuries later Luther burned his spiritual power at Wittem- berg;’ 1 and followed up this bold act by convoking the States- General of France, from whom he obtained a complete recognition of the national independence. ‘Let the king look to his ways,’ said the pope, ‘or we will punish him as if he were a little boy’ (‘ sicut unurn garcionem’), and issued a bull of excommunication, and a threat of deposition, in case of continued resistance. In the meantime the chancellor Nogaret, having (in an assemblage of prelates and barons held at the Louvre) declared Boniface to be a false pope, because he had forced his predecessor Celestine Y. to abdicate, besought the king to judge, depose, and imprison him by means of an oecumenic council. But Philip, preferring more direct means, organised a body of 400 armed men (headed by De Nogaret, and the pope’s implacable enemy, Sciarra Colonna), which soon after entered Anagni, where the pope resided, crying, ‘ Death to Boniface,’ ‘ Long live the King of France,’ 2 and proceeding directly to the papal palace, set fire to its closed doors, and forced their way in. The pope on their approach dried a few tears from his eyes, put on his tiara and his official robes, and holding in his hand the keys, and a cross which he pressed against his breast, took his seat upon the throne, saying calmly, ‘ If like Christ I am to be treacherously seized and put to death by my enemies, I will die as sovereign pontiff.’ 3 This firmness did not desert him when the conspirators, bursting into the room, dragged him from his seat, with blows and insults, 1 H. Martin, Hist, de France, vol. iv. 2 ‘ Veggio in Alagna entrar lo fiordaliso, E nel vicario suo Christo esser catto. Yeggio un altra volta esser deriso; Yeggio rinnovellar T aceto e T fele; E tra nuovi ladroni esser anciso ' ( Purgatorio , canto, xx. v. 86). 3 Abbate Tosti, Vita di Bonifazio VIII. vol. ii. lib. vi. pp. 261 et seq. BONIFACE VIII. 69 to which he replied, 4 Behold my head, my neck. I, Catholic legitimate pontiff, joyfully accept my condemnation at the hand of heretics. I thirst to die for the faith of Christ and for His Church.’ His resolute demeanour so awed his persecutors, that they determined to keep him a prisoner, until fear and suffering should force him to abdicate ; but on the 9th the people of Anagni, roused to pity by the terrible situation of their sove- reign, drove them out of the city, and bore him in triumph to the piazza. The unhappy pope thanked them with tears ; declared that he was dying of hunger, and after partaking of bread and wine, which were brought to him, told them that he only desired peace with all his enemies ; he then returned to Rome to convoke a council, but had no longer strength to do so, for no sooner had he arrived at the Vatican, than fever and delirium set in, during which he blasphemed, struggled, and ground his teeth, falling, says a chronicler, into such a state of frenzy, that he devoured his own hands, and at last died, without confession or extreme unction, in the midst of thunderings and lightnings Oct. 1303. neither heard nor seen by the inhabitants of the towns near Rome. 1 The only other sculptural works by Andrea which we know are statues for the the statues of the Four Doctors of the Church, made for the facade of the fa§ade of the Duomo, which now stand, transformed into poets, Duomo, at the foot of the hill leading up to Poggio Imperiale ; and some statuettes destined for the same place, among those in the villa at Castello ; also a bas-relief of the Madonna and Child, on the outside of the Bigallo at Florence, and a group of the same subject in the Campo Santo at Pisa. 2 His most important architectural work was the strengthening The Duke of the Palazzo Vecchio with great walls, towers, and barbicans, to of AthtUf ” render it a safe residence for Walter de Brienne, titular Duke of 1 The continuator of De Nangis. Vide H. Martin, Hist, de France, vol. iv. 2 There was formerly in the Baptistry a tabernacle with two angels, by Andrea, which was removed in 1732, to make room for one more in accordance with the wretched taste of the time (Vasari, vol. ii. p. 38, note 1). 70 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. A.D. 1341. Death of Andrea. a.d. 1345. Alberto Arnoldi. a.d. 1359. Athens, whom the Florentines had in an evil hour made Captain and ‘ Conservatoire del Popolo.’ This base and treacherous tyrant for a time so masked his acts of vengeance under the name of justice, as to deceive the people, who. elected him perpetual lord of Florence. But he could not long shut their eyes to his whole- sale system of extortion and plunder, which soon reduced them to such a pitiable condition that Florence, Che non si muove se tutto non si dole,’ rose ‘ en masse,’ nobles, artisans, and people, and besieged him for eight days in his palace. Each day he strove to pacify their fury by delivering up to them the miserable tools of his atrocities, and at last, more frightened than humbled, signed his abdication, and was allowed to depart amidst universal execration. 1 In their hatred of the Duke of Athens, the people destroyed the greater part of his palace, but showed that they did not con- nect the architect with the tyrant, by appointing Andrea to offices of public trust, and making him one of the city magistrates. 2 During the course of his life, he constructed many palaces, villas, and castles, in and about Florence, and began to build the Bap- tistry at Pistoja, with the assistance of Maestro Cellini di Nese, a Sienese architect. 3 He died at Florence in 1345, and was buried in the Duomo, in the nave, near the pulpit, but the exact spot is not known, as the monumental slab has disappeared which recorded that he worked in gold and ivory as well as in marble. His scholars were Alberto Arnoldi, his sons Nino and Tommaso, Giovanni Balduccio di Pisa, and the world-renowned Andrea Orcagna. Of Alberto Arnoldi nothing more is known than that he worked upon the fa§ade of the Duomo of Florence ; that he was afterwards made ‘capo maestro dell’ opera’; and spent 1 Napier, op. cit. vol. ii. ch. xix. xx. ; G. Villani, lib. xii. ch. viii. ; Milizia, vol. i. p. 116. 2 Vasari, vol. ii. p. 42, note 1. 3 Vide chapter upon the Sienese School. { ' s ( /( f((e * /> £ r \ / /sf./'f ct riy kJ-C( 4 ft- ft / o--,a; 70 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. A.D. 1341. Andrea. a.d. 1345. Alberto Arnoldi. a.d. 1359. Athens, whom the Florentines had in an evil hour made Captain and 4 Conservatoire del Popolo.’ This base and treacherous tyrant for a time so masked his acts of vengeance under the name of justice, as to deceive the people, who. elected him perpetual lord of Florence. But he could not long shut their eyes to his whole- sale system of extortion and plunder, which soon reduced them to such a pitiable condition that Florence, Che non si muove se tutto non si dole,’ rose 4 en masse,’ nobles, artisans, and people, and besieged him for eight days in his palace. Each day he strove to pacify their fury by delivering up to them the miserable tools of his atrocities, and at last, more frightened than humbled, signed his abdication, and was allowed to depart amidst universal execration. 1 In their hatred of the Duke of Athens, the people destroyed the greater part of his palace, but showed that they did not con- nect the architect with the tyrant, by appointing Andrea to offices of public trust, and making him one of the city magistrates. 2 3 During the course of his life, he constructed manv na, laces, villas „ iic Aijvu tit norence m 1 340, and was buried in the Duomo, in the nave, near the pulpit, but the exact spot is not known, as the monumental slab has disappeared which recorded that he worked in gold and ivory as well as in marble. His scholars were Alberto Arnoldi, his sons Nino and Tommaso, Giovanni Balduccio di Pisa, and the world-renowned Andrea Orcagna. Of Alberto Arnoldi nothing more is known than that he worked upon the fa§ade of the Duomo of Florence ; that he was afterwards made ‘capo maestro dell’ opera’ ; and spent 1 Napier, op. cit. vol. ii. ch. xix. xx.; G. Villani, lib. xii. ch. viii. ; Milizia, vol. i. p. 116. 2 Vasari, vol. ii. p. 42, note 1. 3 Vide chapter upon the Sienese School. Ch i£$a della g P I N A at PI |SA ALBERTO ARNOLDI. 71 many years of his life at Milan, in the service of Galeazzo Visconti . 1 Sacchetti has introduced him in one of his ‘ Novelle ’ as the umpire in a debate held at San Miniato between Orcagna, Taddeo Gaddi, and other artists, one of whom had asked who was the next greatest artist to Giotto. Gaddi answers, that although there have been clever painters, art is evidently falling off day by day. Arnoldi, taking the matter in a jocular way, thereupon proceeds to prove that the Florentine women are entitled to be called the greatest artists that ever existed, because they know how to make deformed children straight— black children, white; to put crooked noses into shape, and breasts and haunches into their proper place, thus setting nature to rights. ‘ Long live the maestro,’ cry the united company, ‘who has judged so well this knotty point; he has deserved the wand of office.’ Upon which they call for wine, and then depart, having promised the abbot of the convent to come again on the next Festa to discuss the question still further . 2 His only known work is the life-size statue of the Madonna, which stands upon the altar of the Bigallo Chapel at Florence . 3 She is a dignified matron, rigid in attitude, and impassive in countenance, enveloped in a once star-spangled drapery, of which the massive and carefully arranged folds fall over the lower half of the body of the Child, who sits poised upon her left arm. Although without beauty or expres- sion, this group has a certain grandeur, from its impassiveness, like Egyptian statues, which seem immutable as fate, mocking at all approach to human sympathy. Nino, who assisted his fatBpr* in ai,, ^ x - j — j- — ~ .uu y J- itn/v T XX. J. _L> eitlltU* Still, 1 Franco Sacchetti, Novella 229, and Baldinucci con Aggiunta di Piacenza, vol. iv. p. 437. Ed. Milano, 1811. 2 Sacchetti, Novella 136. 3 Contract dated June 18, 1359. Vide Appendix, letter A. The Madonna del Bigallo. della Rosa. Cm iE£a delma £pina at Pisa ALBERTO ARNOLDI. 71 many years of his life at Milan, in the service of Galeazzo Visconti . 1 Sacchetti has introduced him in one of his ‘ Novelle ’ as the umpire in a debate held at San Miniato between Orcagna, Taddeo Gaddi, and other artists, one of whom had asked who was the next greatest artist to Giotto. Gaddi answers, that although there have been clever painters, art is evidently falling off day by day. Arnoldi, taking the matter in a jocular way, thereupon proceeds to prove that the Florentine women are entitled to be called the greatest artists that ever existed, because they know how to make deformed children straight— black children, white; to put crooked noses into shape, and breasts and haunches into their proper place, thus setting nature to rights. ‘ Long live the maestro,’ cry the united company, ‘who has judged so well this knotty point; he has deserved the wand of office.’ Upon which they call for wine, and then depart, having promised the abbot of the convent to come again on the next Festa to discuss the question still further . 2 His only known work is the life-size statue of the Madonna, which stands upon the altar of the Bigallo Chapel at Florence . 3 She is a dignified matron, rigid in attitude, and impassive in countenance, enveloped in a once star-spangled drapery, of which the massive and carefully arranged folds fall over the lower half of the body of the Child, who sits poised upon her left arm. Although without beauty or expres- sion, this group has a certain grandeur, from its impassiveness, like Egyptian statues, which seem immutable as fate, mocking at all approach to human sympathy. Nino, who assisted his father in modelling the Baptistry gate, was an artist of feeling and graceful sentiment, as is best seen in his masterpiece, the Madonna della Rosa, which stands on the altar of the Chiesa della Spina at Pisa (Plate VII.). Neither stiff, 1 Franco Sacchetti, Novella 229, and Baldinucci con Aggiunta di Piacenza, vol. iv. p. 437. Ed. Milano, 1811. 2 Sacchetti, Novella 136. 3 Contract dated June 18, 1359. Vide Appendix, letter A. The Madonna del Bigallo. The Madonna della Rosa. 72 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Tomb of Arch- bishop Saltarelli. a.d. 1327. unsympathetic nor coldly dignified like Arnoldi’s Madonna, Nino’s gentle Virgin holds a rose in her left hand, which the infant Jesus leans forward to take. A veil falls in graceful folds upon her shoulders from beneath the crown upon her head. The sweetness of Nino’s manner sometimes degenerated into mawkishness, as we see in the statues of the Virgin and of the angel of the Annum elation in the church of Sta. Caterina, at Pisa, whose faces are distorted by a smirking smile. 1 Their eyes, draperies, hair, and robe-fringes bear traces of colour and gilding, according to the common practice of his time. 2 Nino also designed the monument of Archbishop Saltarelli which stands in this church, and perhaps sculptured some of the best figures in the bas-reliefs upon its front and sides. 3 This Archbishop had counselled the Pisans to shut their gates against Louis of Bavaria, when, having crossed the Alps to claim imperial rights, he braved excommunication and caused the interdicted bishops of Arezzo and Brescia to place the iron crown upon his head at Milan. Pisa, tired of the imperial treacheries and the papal interdicts and exactions which her Ghibellinism had brought upon her, offered the emperor 60,000 florins if he would give up his intention of entering her walls ; but Louis refused, 4 and taking the city by siege, exacted a tribute of 160,000, and revenged himself upon the patriotic bishop by depriving him of his see. 5 1 These statues have been incorrectly called ‘Faith and Charity.’ 2 See Appendix, letter B. 3 It was much injured by a fire in the seventeenth century, before which time it towered nearly to the roof of the church (Roncioni, Chronica di Sta. Caterina Arch. St. II. vol. vi. part i. p. 743, part ii. p. 465). 4 By the advice of Castruccio Castracani, who was anxious to become master of Pisa, the emperor, after taking Pisa, gave the sovereignty to his wife, and quieted Castruccio by making him lord of Lucca, Pistoja, Volterra, and the Lunigiana (Cantu, vol. ii. p. 745). 5 Proved by a decree of the Pisan magistrates, dated Dec. 8, 1368, to pay twenty florins to Andrea, son of the late sculptor, Nino di Andrea ( Doc . pub. by Prof. Bonaini ; Vasari, vol. ii. p. 44, note 1). NINO PISANO. 73 At the time of Nmo s death he was occupied upon a monument About 1 367 - to the Pisan Doge, Dell’ Agnello, the chief patron of his brother Tommaso Pisano. Tommaso, who was architect, sculptor, painter and goldsmith. As an architect, Tommaso built the upper story of the Leaning Tower, and designed a palace for Dell’ Agnello; as a sculptor, he a.d. 1368. made the monument of the Duchess Margaret, wife of the Doge, 1 and a marble Ancona for the church of San Francesco, now in the Campo Santo, which consists of six Gothic niches, containing a group of the Madonna and Child, and five statuettes of saints, whose pointed gables are filled with half-figures of saints ; and of a predella covered with bas-reliefs. Though rich in general effect, it is coarsely sculptured, and the figures, which are poorly drawn, show none of Nino’s sweetness of feeling. It looks like the work of a man more accustomed to labour as a goldsmith than as a sculptor ; and this, we are inclined to believe, was the case with Tommaso, though we have no example of his skill in that branch of art. We are also obliged to take on trust his capacity as a painter, and only know of him as such, by an order which the Doge gave him to paint two caskets for his wife. Moving in a narrow sphere, the two sons of Andrea Pisano Baiduecio could do nothing towards propagating the principles of his school out of Tuscany ; but such was not the case with his scholar Giovanni Balduccio di Pisa, who was long a resident in the north of Italy. Born at Pisa about the beginning of the fourteenth century, he worked during the early part of his life in Tuscany, first making a pulpit for the church of Sta. Maria al Prato, at Casciano near Florence, and the rude monument of Guarnerius, son of Castruccio a , t >. 1328 . Castracani, for the church of St. Francis at Sarzana, from which Castruccio judged so favourably of his talents that he recom- mended him to his friend Azzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, 2 who, (ju o ojls ( Col e * ( die Jo • ^ A c( *c ^C(c£Jcy/c^xx/ r VOL. I. L 72 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Tomb of Arch- bishop Saltarelli. A.D. 1327. unsympathetic nor coldly dignified like Arnoldi’s Madonna, Nino’s gentle Virgin holds a rose in her left hand, which the infant J esus leans forward to take. A veil falls in graceful folds upon her shoulders from beneath the crown upon her head. The sweetness of Nino’s manner sometimes degenerated into mawkishness, as we see in the statues of the Virgin and of the angel of the Annun- ciation in the church of Sta. Caterina, at Pisa, whose faces are distorted by a smirking smile. 1 Their eyes, draperies, hair, and robe-fringes bear traces of colour and gilding, according to the common practice of his time. 2 Nino also designed the monument of Archbishop Saltarelli which stands in this church, and perhaps sculptured some of the best figures in the bas-reliefs upon its front and sides. 3 This Archbishop had counselled the Pisans to shut their gates against Louis of Bavaria, when, having crossed the Alps to claim imperial rights, he braved excommunication and caused the interdicted bishops of Arezzo and Brescia to place the iron crown upon his head at Milan. Pisa, tired of the imperial treacheries and the papal interdicts and exactions which her Ghibellinism had brought upon her, offered the emperor 60,000 florins if he would give up his intention of entering her walls ; but Louis refused, 4 and taking the city by siege, exacted a tribute of 160,000, and revenged himself upon the patriotic bishop by depriving him of his see. 5 1 These statues have been incorrectly called ‘Faith and Charity.’ 2 See Appendix, letter B. 3 It was much injured by a fire in the seventeenth century, before which time it towered nearly to the roof of the church (Roncioni, Chronica di Sta. Caterina Arch. St. II. vol. vi. part i. p. 743, part ii. p. 465). 4 By the advice of Castruccio Castracani, who was anxious to become master of Pisa, the emperor, after taking Pisa, gave the sovereignty to his wife, and quieted Castruccio by making him lord of Lucca, Pistoja, Volterra, and the T nnm.'onn 1 ^ - * A R \ NINO PISANO. 73 At the time of Nino’s death he was occupied upon a monument to the Pisan Doge, Dell’ Agnello, the chief patron of his brother Tommaso, who was architect, sculptor, painter and goldsmith. As an architect, Tommaso built the upper story of the Leaning Tower, and designed a palace for Dell’ Agnello; as a sculptor, he made the monument of the Duchess Margaret, wife of the Doge , 1 and a marble Ancona for the church of San Francesco, now in the Campo Santo, which consists of six Gothic niches, containing a group of the Madonna and Child, and five statuettes of saints, whose pointed gables are filled with half-figures of saints ; and of a predella covered with bas-reliefs. Though rich in general effect, it is coarsely sculptured, and the figures, which are poorly drawn, show none of Nino’s sweetness of feeling. It looks like the work of a man more accustomed to labour as a goldsmith than as a sculptor; and this, we are inclined to believe, was the case with Tommaso, though we have no example of his skill in that branch of art. We are also obliged to take on trust his capacity as a painter, and only know of him as such, by an order which the Doge gave him to paint two caskets for his wife. Moving in a narrow sphere, the two sons of Andrea Pisano could do nothing towards propagating the principles of his school out of Tuscany ; but such was not the case with his scholar Giovanni Balduccio di Pisa, who was long a resident in the north of Italy. Born at Pisa about the beginning of the fourteenth century, he worked during the early part of his life in Tuscany, first making a pulpit for the church of Sta. Maria al Prato, at Casciano near Florence, and the rude monument of Guarnerius, son of Castruccio Castracani, for the church of St. Francis at Sarzana, from which Castruccio judged so favourably of his talents that he recom- mended him to his friend Azzo Visconti, Lord of Milan , 2 who, 1 Erected in the Duomo, and destroyed by fire in 1596. For a notice of Dell’ Agnello, see Appendix to this chapter, letter C. 2 This friendship had commenced at the battle of Alto Poscio, a.d. 1325, in which they fought side by side against the Guelphs, under Raymond of VOL. I. L About 1367. Tommaso Pisano. a.d. 1368 . Balduccio di Pisa. A.d. 1328 . 74 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. a.t). 1333. Goes to Milan. St. Peter Martyr. a.d. 1244. A.n. 1252. anxious to promote the cause of art in his dominions, invited him in common with other distinguished artists to Milan, where he employed him to execute many works, the most important of which was the monument to St. Peter Martyr in the church of San Eustorgio. Fra Pietro di Verona, commonly known as St. Peter Martyr, had zealously laboured during the first half of the thirteenth century in the service of the Church ; first in Florence, where the Paterini, who denied the efficacy of the Holy Eucharist, of the baptismal rite, and of prayers and almsgiving for the dead, had become so numerous, that Pope Gregory IX. sent him to assist the inquisitor Fra Ruggiero Calcagni in suppressing this so-called Manichsean sect; and then at Cremona, and Milan, where the people, angry at the ill success of their arms against Frederic II., had vented their feelings by inverting crucifixes and insulting church rites. The immense success of Fra Pietro, at Florence, where such crowds flocked to hear his sermons, that the Signory at his request enlarged the Piazza of Sta. Maria Novella, in which he delivered them , 1 and where, with a red-cross banner in his hand, he led his followers to battle against the Paterini, was not to be repeated in Lombardy, for as he was one day journeying between Milan and Como, he was set upon by assassins and mortally wounded. Lying thus upon the ground, he dipped his finger into the blood which poured from his wounds, and traced the single word ‘ Credo ’ in the sand, in token of his unshaken faith. As we write the story of his death, Titian’s wonderful picture comes before us, with its magical colour, its dramatic vigour, its beautiful landscape, and the golden glory which surrounds the angels who Cardona. After Azzo was liberated, by Casti’uccio’s mediation, from tbe prison at Monza, into which he had been treacherously thrown by the emperor, Louis of Bavaria, he took refuge in Tuscany, and there cultivated his natural lo\e of art, which he did so much to promote in Lombardy after his accession, a.d. 1329. Cantu, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 457. i BALDUCCIO DI PISA. 75 descend through the overshadowing trees to bear the martyr’s spirit to heaven. Balduccio’s monument to this saint consists of a sarcophagus supported upon eight pilasters, in front of which stand allegorical figures of Hope, Prudence, Justice, Obedience, Charity, Faith, Force, and Temperance, all bearing the strongest evidence of Giotto’s influence upon him. Take for instance the Hope, with up- turned eyes full of intense expression, and the Temperance (Plate VIII.), charming in pose, and noble in drapery, with a wreath of ivy leaves around her veiled head, and a look of dreamy gentle- ness in her wide eyes ; or the triple-faced P rudence, which looks at once at past, present, and future. The eight bas-reliefs upon the sides of the Area, representing scenes in the saint’s life, are very inferior in workmanship to these statues, and cannot stand a moment’s comparison with the bas-reliefs of Niccola or Giovanni Pisano, and far less with those of Andrea. They are separated from each other by statuettes of SS. Peter, Paul, Eustorgio, Thomas Aquinas, and the Doctors of the Church ; and upon the sides of the lid of the ‘Area,’ the donators are represented in relief. Statuettes of angels, and a tabernacle, under which sits the Madonna and Child, with SS. Peter Martyr and Dominic, complete this elaborate work, which has few equals in unity of design, earnestness of feeling, and a judicious use of the symbolism of Christian art . 1 Azzo Visconti died within the year which saw its completion, and Balduccio, as his favourite artist, was appointed to erect a monument to his memory in a chapel adjoining the palace; which monument, in a mutilated state, now forms the chief ornament of 1 Azzo and Giovanni Visconti, the King and Queen of Cyprus, Don Erasmo Borgia, and many French, German, and English noblemen, contributed largely to the funds collected for its erection. Vide G. Calvi, Prof, di Belle Arti, etc. part i. Milan, 1859 ; and Giuglini, vol. v. p. 286. It is inscribed with these words, ‘Johannes Balduccius de Pisis sculpsit lianc arcliam, a.d. 1339, costo circa due mila scudi d’ oro’ (Lattuarda, Desc. di Milano , vol. iii. p. 214). Tomb of St. Peter Martyr; begun in 1336, finished 1339. Tomb of Azzo Visconti. 76 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. the gallery of the Marchese Trivulzi at Milan . 1 The front of the sarcophagus, on which the recumbent figure of the deceased prince lies, watched over by angels, is sculptured with reliefs representing knights, and their patron saints (typical of the cities subject to Azzo) kneeling before St. Ambrose. It is supported upon two columns, above which stood the now detached statues of St. Michael and the Dragon, and a female figure holding before her a small child with clasped hands, possibly emblematic of her soul. According to some authorities, Balduccio was the architect of Azzo’s Azzo’s palace , 2 which stood on the site of the present royal residence, and of which the Milanese chronicler Fiamma wrote a minute description . 3 We have little doubt that he made the fine Tomb of l. tomb of Lanfranco Settala, an Augustinian monk and professor Settala. . ° r of theology, in the church of San Marco at Milan . 4 On the top of the sarcophagus, which is raised upon consoles, and set against the wall, the deceased monk lies upon a mortuary couch, behind which two figures raise the folds of a curtain. He is again represented in the centre of the front of the ‘ Area,’ seated at a desk instructing his scholars, who are sculptured in bas-relief within the side panels; and his very earnest face, as well as his cowl, frock and hands, being coloured, the effect is life-like and striking. The bas-reliefs directly opposite this tomb from the now destroyed monument of Salvario de’ Aliprandi, a bas-relief of the three Magi , 5 the tomb of Stefano Visconti and the Ancona 1 According to the engraving given by Giuglini (vol. v. p. 274), it was surmounted by a Gothic canopy. 2 Calvi {op. cit. pp. 5, 8) attributes it to Francesco Pecorari da Cremona, who built the church and tower of San Gottardo, both of which Albuzzi erroneously ascribes to Balduccio. Vide MS. History of Lombard Artists, by Bossi and Cattaneo, in the Library of Don Alessandro Melzi, at Milan. 3 See Appendix, letter D. 4 This Lanfranco Settala, who died while Balduccio was at Milan, is not to be confounded with Beato L. Settala, who died in the same Convent of St. Mark, a.d. 1264 (Giuglini, vol. iv. p. 562 ; Calvi, op. cit. p. 22). 5 Calvi, p. 20. Albuzzi and Lattuarda ascribe this relief to Balduccio. It was sculptured in 1347 for a company of scholars attached to the Chapel of the ANDREA ORCAGNA. 77 in S. Eustorgio, a bas-relief on the outside of the Porta Nuova, and some rude stone figures in a lower room of the Brera, which once stood above the door of the now destroyed church of Sta. Maria in Brera, 1 all belong to Balduccio’s school, and with many works at Milan, as well as in other Lombard cities (such, for example, as the Area di San Agostino 2 at Pavia, and the tomb of one of the Scaligers at Verona), prove how great was his influence upon sculpture in the north of Italy. We now come to the last and most eminent scholar of Andrea Pisano, Andrea Arcagnuolo di Cione, commonly called Andrea Orcagna, 3 architect, goldsmith, sculptor, painter and poet, son of the celebrated goldsmith, Maestro Cione, 4 who was born at Florence in 1329. Before entering the studio of Andrea Pisano, he studied the goldsmith’s craft under his father, and painting under his brother Bernardo, in the practice of which art he appears to have been chiefly occupied during the early part of his life. After aiding his brother to paint the Life of the Madonna, 5 the two great frescoes of Hell and Paradise in Santa Maria Novella, the frescoes of the Cresci chapel in the Servi (now destroyed), and the fa 9 ade of San Apollinare, he painted the Three Kings. ‘ Fecero fare 1’ Ancona della cappella loro, di marrao figurato e istoriato’ (Cronaca, L. vol. iii. p. 205). The bodies of the three kings were venerated in this church from a.d. 320 to 1160 (Lattuada, Desc. di Milano , vol. iii. p. 203). 1 Built for the Umiliati by Balduccio, in 1347 (Ricci, vol. ii. p. 377). See ‘Eng. of Fa9ade,’ in Le Fabbriche piu Cospicue di Milano, by Cassina. 2 Matteo da Campione made the Area di San Agostino and the pulpit at Monza ; Zeno da Campione, the Area at San Eustorgio ; and Bonino, with Matteo da Campione, the Scaliger tomb at Verona. All these men belonged to one family, which gave several generations of artists to Lombardy. 3 Rumohr {It. Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 90) first cleared up all doubt as to 1 ' 1 ° 4 1 1 • > - . i r\ M. 1347. Andrea Orcagna. 76 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. the gallery of the Marchese Trivulzi at Milan . 1 The front of the sarcophagus, on which the recumbent figure of the deceased prince lies, watched over by angels, is sculptured with reliefs representing knights, and their patron saints (typical of the cities subject to Azzo) kneeling before St. Ambrose. It is supported upon two columns, above which stood the now detached statues of St. Michael and the Dragon, and a female figure holding before her a small child with clasped hands, possibly emblematic of her soul. According to some authorities, Balduccio was the architect of Azzo’s Azzo’s palace , 2 which stood on the site of the present royal residence, and of which the Milanese chronicler Fiamma wrote a minute description . 3 We have little doubt that he made the fine Tomb of l. tomb of Lanfranco Settala, an Auo;ustinian monk and professor Settala. . ° r of theology, in the church of San Marco at Milan . 4 On the top of the sarcophagus, which is raised upon consoles, and set against the wall, the deceased monk lies upon a mortuary couch, behind which two figures raise the folds of a curtain. He is again represented in the centre of the front of the ‘ Area,’ seated at a desk instructing his scholars, who are sculptured in bas-relief within the side panels; and his very earnest face, as well as his cowl, frock and hands, being coloured, the effect is life-like and striking. The bas-reliefs directly opposite this tomb from the now destroyed monument of Salvario de’ Aliprandi, a bas-relief of the three Magi , 5 the tomb of Stefano Visconti and the Ancona 1 According to the engraving given by Giuglini (vol. v. p. 274), it was surmounted by a Gothic canopy. 2 Calvi {op. cit. pp. 5, 8) attributes it to Francesco Pecorari da Cremona, who built the church and tower of San Gottardo, both of which Albuzzi erroneously ascribes to Balduccio. Vide MS. History of Lombard Artists, by Bossi and Cattaneo, in the Library of Don Alessandro Melzi, at Milan. 3 C™ A — T\ - 7 xotu <* v Vz f / /i U d' of- r aj(^rr Jor/ ( (* 27f of- /■<{<„ .> &uJ/zUw CHAPTER IV. SIENESE SCHOOL. for decorative purposes. We have, therefore, to searcn tne porticoes, pilasters windows, and walls, of early buildings, for examples of their work. The oldest of these belong to the period of Lombard dominion, during which many oratories and churches were erected both in and about Siena , 2 such as S. Giovanni d’Asso, whose carved orna- ments, mere architectural accessories in the oldest Byzantine style, may be taken as a type . 3 But the most remarkable examples of early Sienese sculpture are to be found in the cloisters of the n rli Hnflr'crn.’ inspectin', or superintendent, oi a uuuumg m _ j necessarily an artist. 2 Milanesi, Siena e il sno Territorio, p. 155. Such were the Canonica of San Ansano a Dofano, built before 715; the Monastery of S. Eugenio, founded in 731 ; the Abbey of S. Antonio, near Montalcino, still standing (founded, it is said, by Charlemagne), with rudely sculptured capitals, lions, and symbolical friezes. 3 Dr. Carpellini’s notes to Romagnuoli’s MS. Treatise on Siennese Art, in the library at Siena. S. Giovanni d’ Asso was built by Warnifredo, Castaldo di Siena for King Luitprand, 712—744. The Lombard officer who ruled Siena was called ‘Guastaldo,’ or ‘Castaldo.’ SCUiJJl U1C are to be found. nnTTon a at Qnm pthps G. Balduccio di Pisa — Born about ....... 1300 Monument to Guarnerius in S. Francesco at Sarzana . 1328 Monument to St. Peter Martyr in S. Eustorgio, at Milan ...... 1336—1339 Monument to Azzo Visconti, now in the Trivulzi Gallery at Milan, after .... . . 1339 Monument to Lanfranco Settala in S. Marco Date unknown Died at Milan ..... about 1347 Oi * f r/ '/a? J rr/ / <^ / > \o / // Builds the Loggia de’ Lanzi . . . 1374 or 1376 Date of his death uncertain, probably a.ix 1376; some writers say . . . . .1 389 Portrait op Orcagna, from a Bas-relief on the Tabernacle op San Michele. SIENESE SCHOOL. CHAPTER IV. SIENESE SCHOOL. A T Siena, as in other Italian cities, the earliest 4 Maestri di Pietra M were architects, who employed sculpture merely for decorative purposes. We have, therefore, to search the porticoes, pilasters windows, and walls, of early buildings, for examples of their work. The oldest of these belong to the period of Lombard dominion, during which many oratories and churches were erected both in and about Siena , 1 2 such as S. Giovanni d’Asso, whose carved orna- ments, mere architectural accessories in the oldest Byzantine style, may be taken as a type . 3 But the most remarkable examples of early Sienese sculpture are to be found in the cloisters of the 1 ‘Maestro di Pietra ’ indicates the head of a workshop, ‘ Capo di Bottega,’ whose workmen were called ‘ Scarpellini,’ stone-cutters; ‘Magister Lapidum ’ signifies sculptor; ‘ Capo Maestro,’ the person who designed and directed the works of the Fabbrica del Duomo, or those of other buildings; ‘Operajo,’ the inspector, or superintendent, of a building in process of erection, who was not necessarily an artist. 2 Milanesi, Siena e il sao Territorio, p. 155. Such were the Canonica of San Ansano a Dofano, built before 715 ; the Monastery of S. Eugenio, founded in 731 ; the Abbey of S. Antonio, near Montalcino, still standing (founded, it is said, by Charlemagne), with rudely sculptured capitals, lions, and symbolical friezes. 3 Dr. Carpellini’s notes to Romagnuoli’s MS. Treatise on Siennese Art, in the library at Siena. S. Giovanni d’ Asso was built by Warnifredo, Castaldo di Siena for King Luitprand, 712 — 744. The Lombard officer who ruled Siena was called ‘ Guastaldo,’ or ‘ Castaldo.’ Where the earliest examples of Sienese sculpture are to be found. 86 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Pieve al Ponte alio Spino. a.d. 1266 . The Sculptors’ Guild. abbey of Santa Mustiola di Torri, upon the capitals of whose columns are carved doves, birds with long twisted necks, lions’ whelps, dragons, and fantastic monsters ; and upon two of whose architraves, opposite the principal entrances, are bas-reliefs of the Temptation of Eve, the Eating of the Forbidden Fruit, the Sacrifice of Cain and Abel, and the Murder of Abel, exe- cuted with a spirit and attempt at accuracy which shows that the Sienese sculptors of the twelfth century were not insensible to the impulse which quickened art at that period in other parts of Italy. The bas-reliefs in the chapel of St. Ansano, in the Duomo at Siena, which were brought from the Pieve al Ponte alio Spino, were probably sculptured early in the thirteenth century , 1 by some one of the many artists then attached to the Duomo. They represent the Birth of Christ and the Adoration of the Magi, and show in their thick-set figures and clumsy style little know- ledge of art, and little capacity for expression. At the time of Niccola Pisano’s arrival at Siena, her sculptors made up in number what they wanted in quality, for no less than sixty, we are told, kept open shop in the city , 2 and constituted a guild, ruled by three rectors and a chamberlain, elected for six months, none of whom could be changed, unless in case of illness or absence, and none re-elected until three years after the expiration of a previous tenure of office . 3 These Sienese sculptors showed so little jealousy and such a cordial appreciation of Niccola Pisano and his assistants, that we cannot wonder that they profited greatly by the model which he set before them in the pulpit, from which, as from the Trojan horse, says Padre della Valle, issued the first Sienese and Florentine sculptors. 1 They belonged to the altar of the Pieve. Some of the capitals of the columns in the Duomo at Siena belong to the same period. 2 Della Yalle, Lettere Sanesi, vol. i. p. 279. 3 By the statutes of this guild, all young sculptors were obliged to go through a fixed course of study before they could be admitted as members. SIENA. 87 During the thirteenth century, Siena gave abundant employ- ment to her architectural sculptors in the enlargement of her Duomo, the construction of the abbey church and monastery of S. Galgano, and in the building of walls and fortifications, bridges, gates, and fountains. Many of them were also admitted to a share in the city government when it took a popular form, and were constantly mixed up in the ever -recurring feuds between the nobles and the people. At the end of the twelfth century, after throwing off the imperial yoke which Frederic Barbarossa had placed upon their necks, the people elected a podesta, or supreme magistrate, who was assisted in his government by rectors, representing the greater and lesser art guilds. The struggles which took place between the powerful oligarchy of the twenty- seven, formed of the ennobled descendants of those who had formerly held office in the State, and the twenty-four represen- tatives of the people, ended in the victory of the latter, who proceeded to pass a law towards the end of the thirteenth century, by which the nobles were excluded from the magistracy and not even admitted to citizenship. To these causes of intramural discord was added the open state of war between the Gliibellines and Guelphs, in which the former were for the most part vic- torious at home, as well as abroad. In the latter half of the fourteenth century the government became thoroughly demo- cratic, and took rapidly changing shapes, being carried on by a body of magistrates, varying in number, who in 1368 banished no less than 4,000 citizens, of whom so many were artists and artisans, that a great temporary check was given to art, and that decline brought about in its different branches which marked the close of the fourteenth century. One of the first sculptors of the thirteenth century, whose name is something more than a name to us, is Ramo or Romano di Paganello, son of Pagan ello di Giovanni, architect and sculptor. 1 Effect of war, foreign and civil, upon art. Ramo di Paganello. 1 Romagnuoli, MS. ctt. vol. i. In the decree which recalled Ramo from banishment he is spoken of as ‘Filins Paganelli de partibus ultramontanis.’ 88 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. A.i). 1281. a. n. 1288. Goto di Gregorio. a.d. 1323. That lie was held in great esteem at Siena, is proved by a decree of the council general passed to recall him from the banishment to which he had been sentenced for having killed or maltreated his wife, in which he is spoken of as 4 de bonis intalliatoribus, et scultoribus, et subtilioribus, in mundo qui inveniri possit.’ 1 After his return he was appointed to work upon the Duomo, with the stipulation that he should not interfere with Giovanni Pisano, then architect of the fa£ade, although Giovanni was allowed to use Eamo and his workmen as he thought fit; and probably at this period made the statue of St. Francis, which stood over the door of the church of San Francesco. In 1296 he accompanied his fellow-citizen Lorenzo Maitani to Orvieto, and there presided over the sculptors who worked upon the Duomo, as 4 capo loggia/ a post to which none but a man of remarkable talent would have been elected. Though we cannot suppose him to have worked upon the bas-reliefs of its fagade, which were begun somewhat after his time, he doubtless aided in carving some of the great capitals of the pilasters of the Duomo. One of his contemporaries was Goro, 2 son of M. Gregorio, a Sienese sculptor, 3 whose most important work is the Urna, under the high altar of the Duomo di Massa di Maremma, which contains the body of St. Cerbone, Bishop of Massa. It is sculptured with five bas-reliefs, representing, firstly, the bishop summoned by the messengers of Pope Yirgilius; secondly drinking the milk of a hind which has just issued from an Rumohr (It. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 143) thinks that Ramo’s father was Rodolpho, called £ 11 Tedesco,’ one of the German artists who introduced their national style into Italy in the thirteenth century. He is, perhaps, the same artist who made the pulpit of S. Giovanni f. c. at Pistoja. Vide Life of G. Pisano, ch. ii. 1 £ Intalliatoribus,’ meaning those who worked upon ornaments and leaves ; and £ subtilioribus,’ as expressing those excessively minute works in the £ semi- tedesco’ style, then in fashion, 1288 (Carpellini, MS. note to Romagnuoli). 2 Not to be confounded with Niccola’s pupil, Goro di Ciuccio Ciuti, a Florentine. Vide Life of G. Pisano, ch. ii. note 1. 3 Over the door of the church of S. Giorgio, at Siena, was inscribed, £ mccix. Magister Gregorius me fecit’ (Milanesi, op. cit. p. 154). GORO AND LORENZO MAITANI. 89 adjoining wood; thirdly, restoring some sick persons while on his way to Rome with the papal messengers; fourthly, being presented to the pope at Rome; and fifthly, as celebrating mass before the pope, who, by placing his foot upon that of the saint, is enabled to hear the angelic melodies which were wont to sound for him at such times, inaudible to other ears. Above the sarco- phagus are twelve statuettes, one of which (that to the left) is remarkably well drawn and draped for the time. Generally rough in execution, these reliefs are not without expression and good drawing in parts. The horses are full of life, and the ornaments about the cornices are in good taste and delicately worked. Although after his return to Siena, Goro was much employed as a military architect, he found time to sculpture a bas-relief of the Baptism of our Lord for the Baptistry of Rosia (a castle situated in the neighbourhood of Siena), some statues for the ftu^ade of the Duomo, and the monument of the Petronio family which was erected in the subterranean chambers of the first cloister of the church of San Francesco. Ramo and Goro were artists of purely local celebrity, but such was not the case with Lorenzo Maitani, son of the sculptor Maitano di Lorenzo, who raised an imperishable monument to his name in the beautiful Gothic cathedral at Orvieto. Being a man of rare genius, and thoroughly versed in architecture, sculpture, bronze-casting and mosaic, Maitani was eminently fitted OIVJ1IV-- YV CIO XIAjI VI ^ IV tliut »V illVIl OCi VV ilO 1UOIJ |yiuiiwvAv W — towards heaven, was enabled to carry it out with a unity of design unattainable by an artist less versatile than himself. At the time of the foundation of the building, no fewer than forty architects, sculptors and painters came from Florence and Siena, to settle at Orvieto, where they were formed into a corporate body, each division of which had a separate head, though all were subject to Lorenzo Maitani, the master of masters, who with his VOL. i. n A. i). 1329. a.d. 1332, Lorenzo Maitani. The Duomo at Orvieto. a.d. 1330. 88 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. A.ib. 1281. a.d. 1288. Goro di Gregorio. a. i). 1323. That lie was held in great esteem at Siena, is proved by a decree of the council general passed to recall him from the banishment to which he had been sentenced for having killed or maltreated his wife, in which he is spoken of as ‘ de bonis intalliatoribus, et scultoribus, et subtilioribus, in mundo qui inveniri possit.’ 1 After his return he was appointed to work upon the Duomo, with the stipulation that he should not interfere with Giovanni Pisano, then architect of the facade, although Giovanni was allowed to use Eamo and his workmen as he thought fit; and probably at this period made the statue of St. Francis, which stood over the door of the church of San Francesco. In 1296 he accompanied his fellow- citizen Lorenzo Maitani to Orvieto, and there presided over the sculptors who worked upon the Duomo, as ‘ capo loggia,’ a post to which none but a man of remarkable talent would have been elected. Though we cannot suppose him to have worked upon the bas-reliefs of its fagade, which were begun somewhat after his time, he doubtless aided in carving some of the great capitals of the pilasters of the Duomo. One of his contemporaries was Goro, 2 son of M. Gregorio, a Sienese sculptor, 3 whose most important work is the Urna, under the hiodi altar of the Duomo di Massa di Maremma, which contains the body of St. Cerbone, Bishop of Massa. It is sculptured with five bas-reliefs, representing, firstly, the bishop summoned by the messengers of Pope Airgilius ; secondly ■ff. £> x C/f/c/pyri oh. ct, f ■ of- oiiueu ju j euesco, one oi me urermsm artists wno introduced tneir national style into Italy in the thirteenth century. He is, perhaps, the same artist who made the pulpit of S. Giovanni f. c. at Pistoja. Vide Life of G. Pisano, ch. ii. 1 ‘ Intalliatoribus,’ meaning those who worked upon ornaments and leaves ; and ‘ subtilioribus,’ as expressing those excessively minute works in the £ semi- tedesco’ style, then in fashion, 1288 (Carpellini, MS. note to Romagnuoli). 2 Not to be confounded with Niccola’s pupil, Goro di Ciuccio Ciuti, a Florentine. Vide Life of G. Pisano, ch. ii. note 1. 3 Over the door of the church of S. Giorgio, at Siena, was inscribed, ‘ mccix. Magister Gregorius me fecit’ (Milanesi, op. cit. p. 1-54). GORO AND LORENZO MAITANI. 89 adjoining wood; thirdly, restoring some sick persons while on his way to Rome with the papal messengers; fourthly, being presented to the pope at Rome ; and fifthly, as celebrating mass before the pope, who, by placing his foot upon that of the saint, is enabled to hear the angelic melodies which were wont to sound for him at such times, inaudible to other ears. Above the sarco- phagus are twelve statuettes, one of which (that to the left) is remarkably well drawn and draped for the time. Generally rough in execution, these reliefs are not without expression and good drawing in parts. The horses are full of life, and the ornaments about the cornices are in good taste and delicately worked. Although after his return to Siena, Goro was much employed as a military architect, he found time to sculpture a bas-relief of the Baptism of our Lord for the Baptistry of Rosia (a castle situated in the neighbourhood of Siena), some statues for the fa9ade of the Duomo, and the monument of the Petronio family which was erected in the subterranean chambers of the first cloister of the church of San Francesco. Ramo and Goro were artists of purely local celebrity, but such was not the case with Lorenzo Maitani, son of the sculptor Maitano di Lorenzo, who raised an imperishable monument to his name in the beautiful Gothic cathedral at Orvieto. Being a man of rare genius, and thoroughly versed in architecture, sculpture, bronze-casting and mosaic, Maitani was eminently fitted to undertake such a work, and, thanks to the singular fortune which permitted him to watch over it from the day when the corner-stone was laid, to that which saw its last pinnacle pointed towards heaven, was enabled to carry it out with a unity of design unattainable by an artist less versatile than himself. At the time of the foundation of the building, no fewer than forty architects, sculptors and painters came from Florence and Siena, to settle at Orvieto, where they were formed into a corporate body, each division of which had a separate head, though all were subject to Lorenzo Maitani, the master of masters, who with his VOL. i. n A. i). 1329. a.d. 1332. Lorenzo Maitani. The Duomo at Orvieto. a.d. 1290. a.d. 1330. 90 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. a.i). 1298. Its facade. The Pier of Creation. council pronounced judgment upon the models and drawings presented to them in the Loggia, a building set apart' for the purpose near the Duorno. Troops of these artists were employed in procuring and working upon marbles at Rome, Siena, and Corneto, or in the summer at Albano and Castel Gandolfo, whence the prepared material was dragged by buffaloes, or sent up the Tiber in boats, to the neighbourhood of Orvieto. 1 By means of this large body of master workmen and hired labourers, and the voluntary aid of the Orvietans and country people, who on fete days assisted in transporting building materials to the Piazza di Sta. Maria, the work advanced so rapidly, that eight years after the laying of the corner-stone, mass was celebrated by Pope Boniface VIII. within the walls, which had already nsen to a considerable height. 1 Artist-philosopher,’ says Romagnuoli, 4 Maitani adorned the base of the fagade with scenes from the Old and New Testa- ment, the foundations of our religion; above which, about the circular window, he placed the symbols of the evangelists, with the statues of the apostles and popes; and those of the angels, at a dangerous and almost aerial altitude.’ The bas-reliefs, a precious monument of the joint talents of many of the best Sienese and Pisan sculptors of the time, are sculptuied upon four great piers, which have been aptly called the I ier of Cieation, the Pier of Prophecy, the Pier of Fulfilment, and the Pier of Judgment. On the lower part of the first is repiesented the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, of birds and beasts, and of man and woman; and on the upper, the temptation, the expulsion from Paradise, and the murder of Abel. Nothing can exceed the flower-like freshness and purity of the angels (see woodcut, p. 91), who with reverently bent heads, nnd folded arms or clasped hands, attend upon the Creator, and singly or in groups watch and reason together upon each successive act of 1 Lettere Sanesi, p. 103. jyjc TIIE DUOMO AT OEVIETO. 91 creation; as, for instance, when the Lord walks in the garden and calls unto Adam, one of the two angels who follow Him points out our first parents, and explains the story of their sin, while the other with sad countenance grieves over their fall. It is God the Son 1 Who appears as the Creator; and Who, in literal inter- A.NGELS, FROM THE CREATION PlER, OllVIETO. pretation of the words, c And God created man in His own image, repeats in Adam His own oval-shaped head, high-set eyes, and parted flowing ringlets. (See Plate X.) We see in the broader forms, ruder execution, and different type of the figures in the In all religious art, as in all sound theology, Christ is the Creator, in the active and visible sense, on the First Day, as truly as He will be the Judge on the Last Day.’ This doctrine is frequently asserted in the Scriptures indirectly in the Old Testament, directly in the New (Ex. xxxiii. 20; St. John i. 18; Eph. iii. 9), and as a dogma in one of the Articles of the Nicene Creed ( History of Our Lord , by Mrs. Jameson and Lady Eastlake, vol. i. p. 66). 92 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. The Pier of Prophecy. The Pier of Fulfilment. The Pier of Judgment. Examina- tion as to the probable authors of these sculptures. upper portion of this pier, that they were sculptured by another hand than those below, which are among the most beautiful productions of early Italian art. The Pier of Prophecy, which relates to the Mosaic dispensation, is evidently the work of many and inferior artists. The Pier of Fulfilment contains finer compositions than the Pier of Creation, but with greater tech- nical perfection, its reliefs have less freshness and spontaneity, less of that lovely awkwardness which belongs only to the child- hood of art, whose very defects are attractive. Among these, the Annunciation, the Nativity, and especially the Visitation, could hardly be surpassed in composition, expression or drapery. With exquisite sentiment, half-figures of angels are placed beside each relief of this pier, whose emotions, as they grieve over Christ’s sufferings, or rejoice over His Pesurrection and Ascension, are depicted in their countenances with great variety of expression. Like the chorus of a Greek tragedy, they serve as a running commentary upon the successive events in our Lord’s life, and by giving us the key-note, keep our thoughts in harmony with each. Although the angels are less skilfully sculptured than the reliefs, their mutual relation is such that they must have been designed by one artist. In the fourth and last pier, the dead are seen rising from sarcophagi, whose heavy lids some strive to lift, while others, already free, look upwards to the blessed, who, guided by guardian angels, are pressing forward to the light Divine ; while the condemned are urged forward, shrieking and weeping, by an angel of stern countenance, who holds them in a leash, and drives them by a scourge into the arms of demon skeletons, with serpents’ tails, bats’ wings, and jaws stretching from ear to ear. (See Plate XI.) From the base of each of the four piers rises a vine, symbolic of Christ, the True V ine, which enframes each separate relief with its branches, leaves, and tendrils. The task of identifying these sculptures as the work of particular artists is one of no small difficulty, since, working as a body for the adornment of God’s temple, they regarded themselves merely as Pi'^K of' j UDOM F,NT AT OI^VI PTO SIENESE SCULPTORS. 93 instruments, nor cared by signing their work to advance their worldly fame, and render their act of service less precious in the eyes of Him ‘ Who seeth in secret.’ What they did not do for themselves we cannot do for them, though it is possible to correct some misconceptions about authorship. That Niccola Pisano ever worked among them (as was long believed) is now known to be impossible, since he died about twelve years before the corner stone of the Duomo was laid; 1 and that his son Giovanni sculptured some of the reliefs is doubtful, as his name is not to be found in its carefully kept registers, an omission which could not have occurred in the case of so eminent an artist ; while if it be true that they were not begun till 1320, the very year in which he died, his co-operation is manifestly impossible. 2 It cannot, how- ever, be denied, that the angel who scourges the damned, in the relief of the Inferno, and all the reliefs upon the Pier of Creation, which appear to be by one and the same artist, somewhat resemble his works in style. Among the first sculptors who went to Orvieto was Arnolfo del Cambio ; but as he left for them. Padre Marchesi attributes the greater part of these reliefs to Fra Guglielmo Agnelli, 3 the scholar of Niccola, who came to Orvieto at the same time with Arnolfo, and remained there until 1304, but his well-known works at Bologna and Pisa are so far inferior to them that we cannot concur in this opinion. Lorenzo Maitani was so constantly occupied in superintending the many workmen employed at Orvieto, and those who were 1 Vasari, who states it, must have confounded Niccola Pisano with the Sienese sculptor, Niccola Nuti or Nuzii, who worked at Orvieto in 1321 (Della Valle. St. del Duomo, p. 99, and Doc. XII. p. 264). 2 Romagnuoli (MS. cit .) says, the greater part of the reliefs were sculptured between 1321 and 1325. 3 Della Valle, Doc. X. p. 253, a.d. 1294. MX/ SIENESE SCULPTORS. 93 instruments, nor cared by signing their work to advance their worldly fame, and render their act of service less precious in the eyes of Him 4 Who seeth in secret.’ What they did not do for themselves we cannot do for them, though it is possible to correct some misconceptions about authorship. That Niccola Pisano ever worked among them (as was long believed) is now known to be impossible, since he died about twelve years before the corner stone of the Duomo was laid ; x and that his son Giovanni sculptured some of the reliefs is doubtful, as his name is not to be found in its carefully kept registers, an omission which could not have occurred in the case of so eminent an artist ; while if it be true that they were not begun till 1320, the very year in which he died, his co-operation is manifestly impossible. 1 2 It cannot, how- ever, be denied, that the angel who scourges the damned, in the relief of the Inferno, and all the reliefs upon the Pier of Creation, which appear to be by one and the same artist, somewhat resemble his works in style. Among the first sculptors who went to Orvieto was Arnolfo del Cambio; but as he left for Florence in the very same year in which the Duomo was founded, a.i>. and remained there overwhelmed with work during- the rest of his life, we do not see how he could have had a hand in them. Padre Marchesi attributes the greater part of these reliefs to Fra Guglielmo Agnelli, 3 the scholar of Niccola, who came to Orvieto at the same time with Arnolfo, and remained there until 1304, but his well-known works at Bologna and Pisa are so far inferior to them that we cannot concur in this opinion. Lorenzo Maitani was so constantly occupied in superintending the many workmen employed at Orvieto, and those who were 1 Vasari, who states it, must have confounded Niccola Pisano with the Sienese sculptor, Niccola Nuti or Nuzii, who worked at Orvieto in 1321 (Della Valle. St. del Duomo , p. 99, and Doc. XII. p. 264). 2 Romagnuoli (MS. cit .) says, the greater part of the reliefs were sculptured between 1321 and 1325. 3 Della Valle, Doc. X. p. 253, a.d. 1294. 94 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. a.i>. 1330. A.n. 1325. Agostino and Agnolo. a.d. 1284. A.n. 1327. working for the Duomo elsewhere, that he could not have found time to sculpture or even design these reliefs ; and we cannot form any idea of his capacity to do so from the bronze symbols of the Evangelists, above the base of the fagade, which he cast in the last year of his life , 1 nor from the Madonna and Child # seated beneath a canopy sustained by four angels, over the great door- way, which has been attributed to Maitani, but was more probably designed and cast by Maestro Buzio di Biaggio . 2 The Madonna is rounder in form than the Pisan Madonnas, and the Child’s face far sweeter and more natural in expression. Even this rapid examination will show how impossible it is to decide upon the claims of individual artists to the honour of having conceived or executed various portions of these bas-reliefs. Among the Sienese sculptors who were attached to the Duomo at Orvieto, were Agostino di Giovanni and Agnolo di Ventura, who have been erroneously supposed to be brothers . 3 Both were scholars of Giovanni Pisano; and Agnolo assisted his master in building the fa§acle of the Duomo at Siena . 4 The great painter Giotto passed through Orvieto (on his way to Naples) to see the works then in progress about the cathedral; 1 Maitani had a son named Vitale, who was an architect and capo maestro of the Duomo at Orvieto, in 1330. Nothing more is known of Lorenzo Maitani, excepting that he went to Perugia to superintend the erection of the Duomo. An absurd story was long current amongst the people of Orvieto, that after he had designed their cathedral, the directors of the work caused his eyes to be put out, lest he should design another like or superior to it. His last descendant, Margherita Maitani, who died at Orvieto about a century after him, left her property to the cathedral. 2 Della Yalle, op. cit. Doc. XXIII. p. 271. A Buzio von Stefano is men- tioned in the records of the cathedral with four other German artists, viz. Jakob and Paul von Baden, Johann Sohn, and Johann Ganzi. 3 Vasari says they were both born soon after 1360: a more than questionable date, as, if true, they must have made their first works when they were seventy years old. 4 Agostino never worked there, neither did the two build the Baptistry facade, for which Giacomo del Pellicciajo gave the design in 1382 (Carpellini, MS. note to Romagnuoli). BISHOP GUIDO TARLATI. 95 and being struck with the talent displayed by Agostino and Agnolo , 1 recommended Piero Saccone di Pietramala to give them the commission for a monument to his brother, Guido Tarlati, formerly Bishop of Arezzo, which he proposed to Bishop erect in the Duomo of that city. The history of a prelate 2 Tarlati. who, leaving mass and mitre, often donned the helmet, and led his troops in person to the battle-held, ottered a rich series of subjects for sculptural treatment, of which our artists wisely availed themselves. Adopting the Pisan type, they placed the sarcophagus, with its recumbent effigy exposed to His . . . , . _ monument view by curtain-drawing angels, under a lofty Gothic canopy, and at Arezzo, with novel effect disposed below it sixteen bas-reliefs, in which they represented the sieges and battles of Bishop Tarlati, with much spirit and action . 3 Though rudely sculptured, many of them are extremely well composed, and show feeling and power of expression. For instance, in that inscribed Caprera, there is an excellent group of knights on horseback entering a walled city, No. xii. and in that which represents Tarlati’s death, the figures of the attendants, one of whom throws out his arms in grief, while another tears his hair in despair, are dramatically conceived. TU„ Ci.xi. . 97/ cu. trn-o C/c/c/d rco/eU 9 7/6 ? 0 . /aJca *t. ' ■ .According to itomagnuoli, Agostino was then at work upon the Prophet statues of the Orvieto cathedral facade. The two artists also sculptured the ornament of the wheel window. Agostino’s name occurs in the annals of the year 1339, while that of Agnolo is not mentioned. See Della Valle, Doc. XXXVI. p. 278. this military prince-bishop was the deposed and excommunicated prelate who placed the iron crown of Lombardy upon the head of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, in the cathedral of Milan, May 30, 1327. Despite this proof of allegiance, Tarlati lost the emperor’s favour, a few months later, through Castruccio’s insinuations that he was carrying on intrigues with the Floren- tines, which so irritated Tarlati that, having left the emperor at Ripafratta, he returned to the castle of Montenero in the Maremma, where he soon after died, confessing his sins against the Church, acknowledging Pope John XXII.. and declaring Louis of Bavaria to be a rightly excommunicated heretic. 3 See Appendix, letter A, for the subjects of these reliefs. 94 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. A.i). 1330. A.n. 1325. Agostino and Agnolo. A.n. 1284. A.n. 1327. working for the Duomo elsewhere, that he could not have found time to sculpture or even design these reliefs ; and we cannot form any idea of his capacity to do so from the bronze symbols of the Evangelists, above the base of the facade, which he cast in the last year of his life , 1 nor from the Madonna and Child # seated beneath a canopy sustained by four angels, over the great door- way, which has been attributed to Maitani, but was more probably designed and cast by Maestro Buzio di Biaggio . 2 The Madonna is rounder in form than the Pisan Madonnas, and the Child’s face far sweeter and more natural in expression. Even this rapid examination will show how impossible it is to decide upon the claims of individual artists to the honour of having conceived or executed various portions of these bas-reliefs. Among the Sienese sculptors who were attached to the Duomo at Orvieto, were Agostino di Giovanni and Agnolo di Ventura, who have been erroneously supposed to be brothers . 3 Both were scholars of Giovanni Pisano ; and Agnolo assisted his master in building the fagade of the Duomo at Siena . 4 The great painter Giotto passed through Orvieto (on his way to Naples) to see the works then in progress about the cathedral; Duomo. An absurd story was long current amongst the people of Orvieto, that after lie had designed their cathedral, the directors of the work caused his eyes to be put out, lest he should design another like or superior to it. His last descendant, Marglierita Maitani, who died at Orvieto about a century after him, left her property to the cathedral. 2 Della Valle, op. cit. Doc. XXIII. p. 271. A Buzio von Stefano is men- tioned in the records of the cathedral with four other German artists, viz. Jakob and Paul von Baden, Johann Sohn, and Johann Ganzi. 3 Vasari says they were both born soon after 1360: a more than questionable date, as, if true, they must have made their first works when they were seventy years old. 4 Agostino never worked there, neither did the two build the Baptistry facade, for which Giacomo del Pellicciajo gave the design in 1382 (Carpellini, MS. note to Romagnuoli). BISHOP GUIDO TARLATI. 95 and being struck with the talent, displayed by Agostino and Agnolo , 1 recommended Piero Saccone di Pietramala to give them the commission for a monument to his brother, Guido Tarlati, formerly Bishop of Arezzo, which he proposed to erect in the Duomo of that city. The history of a prelate 2 who, leaving mass and mitre, often donned the helmet, and led his troops in person to the battle-field, offered a rich series of subjects for sculptural treatment, of which our artists wisely availed themselves. Adopting the Pisan type, they placed the sarcophagus, with its recumbent effigy exposed to view by curtain-drawing angels, under a lofty Gothic canopy, and with novel effect disposed below it sixteen bas-reliefs, in which they represented the sieges and battles of Bishop Tarlati, with much spirit and action . 3 Though rudely sculptured, many of them are extremely well composed, and show feeling and power of expression. For instance, in that inscribed Caprera, there is an excellent group of knights on horseback entering a walled city, and in that which represents Tarlati’s death, the figures of the attendants, one of whom throws out his arms in grief, while another tears his hair in despair, are dramatically conceived. The Giottesque treatment visible throughout is proof of the influence of Giotto upon these artists, though it does not 1 According to Romagnuoli, Agostino was then at work upon the Prophet statues of the Orvieto cathedral fa 9 ade. The two artists also sculptured the ornament of the wheel window. Agostino’s name occurs in the annals of the year 1339, while that of Agnolo is not mentioned. See Della Valle, Doc. XXXVI. p. 278. 2 this military prince-bishop was the deposed and excommunicated prelate who placed the iron crown of Lombardy upon the head of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, in the cathedral of Milan, May 30, 1327. Despite this proof of allegiance, Tarlati lost the emperor’s favour, a few months later, through Castruccio’s insinuations that he was carrying on intrigues with the Floren- tines, which so irritated Tarlati that, having left the emperor at Ripafratta, he returned to the castle of Montenero in the Maremma, where he soon after died, confessing his sins against the Church, acknowledging Pope John XXII.. and declaring Louis of Bavaria to be a rightly excommunicated heretic. 3 See Appendix, letter A, for the subjects of these reliefs. Bishop Guido Tarlati. His monument at Arezzo. No. XII. TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Tino di Camaino. Tomb of Henry VII. at Pisa. 96 warrant Vasari’s statement that he designed them. 1 Our two artists, who were often employed as architects in their native city, designed the Palazzo Pubblico 2 so much to the satisfaction of the magistrates, that they were appointed to superintend all public edifices, to build the church and convent of San Fran- cesco, that of Santa Maria in the Piazza Manetti, and the Roman and Tufi gates. 3 They both died about the middle of the century. Agostino left two sons — Domenico, a goldsmith, and Giovanni, a sculptor — both of whom were attached to the Duomo as capomastri. 4 The next Sienese sculptor who claims our notice is Lino or Tino di Camaino, 5 the scholar of Giovanni Pisano, who in the year 1315 was commissioned to make the tomb of the Emperor Henry VII. for the Duomo at Pisa, now in the Campo Santo. 6 Upon a sarcophagus of white marble lies the effigy of the emperor, robed in an imperial mantle decorated with the lions and eagles of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, his hands crossed 1 The monument is dated 1330, and .signed. 2 Begun in 1246 as a dogana, and completed in 1308. Ricci says, they built all the upper portion of this palace (vol. ii. p. 130). 3 xiie monument of Gastone della lorri, Patriarch of Aquileia (m. 131/), in the cloisters of Santa Croce at Florence, is ascribed to Agostino by Gozzini ( Mon . Sep. della Toscano, plate 27). 4 A bas-relief, by Giovanni di Agostino, representing the Virgin and Child seated under a canopy, with two Giottesque-looking angels holding vases of flowers, is preserved in the oratory of San Bernardino at Siena. 5 Son of Camaius di Crescentius or Crescenzio di Diotisalvi, flourished 1298-1338; attached to the Duomo at Siena from 1300-1338; made syndic in 1305; appointed, with others, to mark out the new walls in 1330 (Milanesi, Doc. delV Arte Sanese, vol. i. pp. 181 et seq.-, Ciampi, Not. Ined. p. 48, Doc. VL). G It first stood in the tribune of the Duomo, whence it was moved to the chapel of Sail Ranieri (a.d. 1494), and then (1727) set up over the door leading to the sacristy. Finally, in 1830, it was taken to the Campo Santo (AW Romische Briefe, vol. i. p. 116). That it was originally painted, we know by the mention of materials for colour, in the list of expenses incurred for the tomb. Vide Ciampi, Not. Ind. p. 126 ; see Appendix to Chapter III. letter B. TINO DI C AMINO. 97 u P on his breast, and his uncovered head, which is characteristic and full of repose, resting upon a cushion. This sarcophagus, adorned in front with eleven short and clumsy, but not ill-draped, figures of saints, while at each end stand mourning genii, rests upon a double basement; the upper one bears a long inscription recording the translation of his remains, followed by a concourse a.d. 1317. of more than three thousand persons, from the castle of Suvareto in the Maremma, where they had been temporarily deposited. Urged by the for once united Guelphs and GhibellineSj Henry HenryVii. of Luxemburg had descended into Italy, to reassert the long- A '°' 131 dormant rights of the German emperors ; to be greeted by Dante who implored him to give peace to Italy by uniting her under himself; 1 to be received with acclamation in Lombardy, and crowned with the iron crown at Milan. All went smoothly, till his severe measures alienated the Guelphs, who induced Florence and the cities in their interest to close their gates upon him, but 1 isa, ever faithful to the German emperors, welcomed and aided him with her troops and treasure, as he pushed on to Rome, which he entered, after gaining a battle over the Colonna and Prince John of Naples near the Ponte Molle. Although he a.d. 1312. succeeded in making himself master of the Lateran Basilica and the Coelian Hill, he could not drive his enemies out of the Leonine City, and was finally obliged to content himself with being crowned at the Lateran by a cardinal whom Pope Clement j un e 29, V . had sent from Avignon to represent him at the ceremony. A 1312 ’ few months later he returned to Tuscany, and having skilfully eluded a body of troops, sent to detain him at Incisa, crossed the September, mountains in safety, and suddenly appeared in the Val d’ Arno, 1312 ‘ T)e Monarchic r, written to prove that monarchy is necessary for the well- being of the world; that its exercise belongs by right to the Romans, and, consequently, to the king of the Romans, i.e. the emperor; and, lastly, that the monarch’s authority comes to him from God, and not from the pope. See also Epistole 5, 6, 7, addressed to the emperor, dated April, 1311. Vide Appendix, letter B. VOL. I. O 98 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. October 31 , 1312 . Aug. 13, 1313 . Bishop Antonio d’Orso. Other works by Tino. to the great terror of the Florentines, who naturally supposed that their soldiers had been cut to pieces. Instead of boldly entering the city gates, which in the first moments of confusion had been left open, Henry, conscious of his weakness, lost much time in ravaging the surrounding country, and when he at last advanced to the attack, found the walls bravely defended by the Florentines led by Bishop Antonio d’ Orso, who so inspired his fellow-citizens by his gallant bearing that they forced the emperor to retire and give up the attempt. In the following year he left Pisa, to make war against King Robert of Naples, but while encamped in the plain of Monte Aperto, was seized with a sudden illness, which forced him to retire to Buonconvento, where his speedy death of a fever gave rise to the suspicion that poison had been administered to him in the holy wafer by a Dominican monk . 1 Tino also made the monument to the brave Bishop Antonio d’Orso, which stands in the right aisle of the Duomo at Florence. It consists of a sarcophagus, on the top of which sits the bishop, clad in his ecclesiastical robes, with a mitre upon his head, and his hands crossed upon his breast. On the front is a bas-relief representing a youth kneeling before our Lord, Who is sur- rounded by angels, and by several draped figures . 2 Another monu- ment attributed to Tino is that of Bishop Felice Alliotti, in Sta. Maria Novella, close by the Rucellai Chapel. The sarcophagus is supported upon Gothic arches, adorned with a bas-relief of Christ between the Virgin and St. John, while two angels, one of whom holds a censer in his hand, watch over the deceased, who reposes beneath a Gothic canopy . 3 If he made this tomb, 1 Raniei'i, 1st. Pisani, part i. p. 682, Arch. St. It; Sismondi, vol. ii. pp. 430 et seq.; Scipione Ammirato, vol. i. part i. pp. 24, 25. In the Neue Romische BrieJ'e, vol. i. p. 116, it is said that he died of fever; and in the St. degli Jtaliani di C. Cantu, vol. ii. p. 739 : ‘Che fosse avvelanato nell’ ostia e ciancia smentita dal silenzio de’ contemporanei.’ 2 Engraved by Lasinio, in the Chiesa Metropolitana. The tomb was com- missioned by Fco. di Barberini, the bishop’s testamentary executor. 3 Aliotti was made Bishop of Florence in 1312, and died in 1336. ‘ Linius TINO DI CAMAINO. 99 it must have been some time before the prelate’s death, as they both died in the same year, and we know that Tino spent the last thirteen years of his life at Naples, from the Will of Maria, widow of Charles II. (who died in 1323), in which he is appointed, with Maestro Gerardus di Sermona, to erect her monument in the church of Sta. Maria Domna Regina, 1 which she reconstructed with the adjoining convent, where she passed her years of widowhood. Her tomb, erroneously attributed by Neapolitan writers to Masuccio II., is situated in the nuns’ chapel, and is visible only through a grating ; it consists of an Area on which the queen lies, overshadowed by a Gothic canopy, and watched over by curtain-drawing angels, sure sign of Pisan influence. In front of the Area, which is supported by four angel-caryatides, are seven figures of saints in relief, and above are two saints, and a Madonna and Child. Tino is again mentioned, in a letter written by Duke Charles of Calabria, as one of the architects selected to build the Carthusian cloister of San Martino; and, four years later, in another, written by King Robert to his chamberlain (the Knight Giovanni de Iiaya), expressing his wish to build a palace, ‘pro habilitate personae nostrae,’ on the top of Mount Erasmus, of which Tino da Siena and Francesco di Vico were named joint architects. Tino must have died before July 11, 1336, as on that day ‘ Magister Athanasius Primarius di Napoli ’ was appointed royal architect in room of ‘ quondam Tino da Siena.’ Contemporaneously with Tino, flourished Maestro Gano, said Sanese facie’ (sic) is inscribed upon the monument. Tino worked in the Opera di S. Giovanni at Florence, but upon what is not known ; also at Pisa, in the Duomo, where he built the Incoronata Chapel, and for which he made a baptismal font with bas-reliefs, now no longer extant. In 1319-20 he was capo maestro of the Duomo at Siena (Milanesi, Doc. San. vol. i. p. 185). 1 She left 1 54 oz. to be thus expended (H. G. Schultz, Denkmaler, etc. pp. 79, 139, 140, 251 ; Doc. CCCLXVII. vol. iv. pp. 137, 145). Dated May 4, 1325. A.D. 1329. Maestro Gano. 100 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Died after a.d. 1314. to have been a scholar of Agostino and Agnolo Sanesi, who made the tombs of Bishop Tommaso di Andrea, and Raniero Porrina, in the collegiate church at Casole. 1 He was a realist who copied nature simply and without pretension, as we see in the statue of Porrina, which shows us the man as he looked in life, squarely planted upon both feet, dressed after the fashion of his day in a tight under-garment, over which his ‘ lucco ’ or mantle falls in long straight folds, gathered in his left hand, while under his right arm he holds a book. He has a square cap upon his head, and a sword by his side, and looks every inch the powerful citizen he was, a sturdy upholder of the Ghibelline cause, and devoted partisan of the Emperor Henry VII. The monument of Bishop Tommaso di Andrea, 2 in which the effigy of the deceased lies straight upon its back, the hands crossed upon the breast, and a peacefully sleeping expression in the face, is treated with equal breadth. Two small genii kneel at the head and feet of the figure, and angels hold up a curtain behind it. It is placed beneath a Gothic arch, whose central space was once adorned with a fresco by Pietro Lorenzetti, and whose pediment contains a half-figure of Christ. Upon a scroll in the bishop’s left hand are inscribed these words, 4 In me, 0 passer, recognise what thou wilt shortly become. Whilst I was alive as thou art, I could do the work of a man ; now turned to dust, I am powerless ; so wilt thou be, when thou art buried ; therefore beware, and whilst thou livest live wisely.’ Other monuments attributed to Gano, 3 but which look rather like some scholar of Giovanni Pisano, are those of Cardinal Petroni in the Duomo at Siena, and of Ugo Causaronti, in the Pieve delle Serre at Rapolano. The statue belonging to this 1 A small town, about twenty miles from Siena. 2 He was made Bishop of Pistoja in 1283, and afterwards collector and commissary for Pope Nicholas IV., in Tuscany. He died in 1303. 3 By Romagnuoli, who also ascribes to Gano that of Nicolo Aringhieri, in the university at Siena. CELLINO DI NESE. 101 monument (which was sculptured in 1346, and is said to be 'the last work of Gano) was removed to the outside of the church by the bishop, because the country people worshipped it as that of a saint. Antonio Bi unaccio was a sculptor of this period, who took an active part in the revolutions in Siena, and was one of the eighteen who, despite the opposition of Malatesta, imperial vicar of Charles IV., expelled the nine who composed the government \ this expulsion was followed by a furious street battle, caused by the attempt of the emperor to restore the nine to power. 1 Of M. Cellino di Nese, Sienese architect and sculptor, we only know that he was called to Pistoja to complete the Baptistry, and while residing there sculptured, after a design furnished by an unknown Sienese sculptor, 2 the monument of the Poet Guittone Sinibaldi, better known as Messer Cino, the friend of Dante, who like him was driven into exile, and forced, as he says in one of his sonnets, a vagar per lo mondo. His monument stands in the Duomo, and consists of a Gothic canopy supported upon twisted columns, under which Messer Cino sits, clad in professorial robes, instructing several of his 1 Whether Brunaccio led an especially irreligious life, we are not told ; but it would seem that St. Catherine was greatly anxious about the state of his soul, from the long and urgent appeal which she addressed to him, to forsake the error of his ways and turn to Christ. ‘I desire,’ she says, ‘ to see you joined in love to Our Saviour, so that you may become pure, and be divested of that passion which causes you to suffer so greatly. Bathe yourself in the blood of Christ crucified, and commence a new life, with the hope that your sins may be consumed in the blood and fire of His love. I wish to take your sins upon myself, and wash them out with tears and prayers in the fire of Divine charity, and do penance for you. Eesist not the Holy Spirit which calls you. I say no more. Rest in the holy and sweet love of God ’ (Romagnuoli, op. cit. MS.). A notice of payment to Antonio di Brunaccio, for marbles furnished by him for the pavement of the Duomo in 1356, is interesting, as the first mention made of that unique and beautiful work (Dr. Carpellini, MS. notes to Romagnuoli). • Secondo un disegnamento che egli medesimo a veduto e aviallo apo noi, Antonio Brunaccio. Cellino di Nese. a.d. 1334. a.d. 1337. Tomb of Messer Cino di Pistoja. 102 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. disciples, among whom appears his favourite pupil, Bartolo di Sassoferrato, and the lady of his love, Selvaggia Vergiolesi. In the bas-relief on the front of the sarcophagus, upon which this group is placed, Messer Cino is again represented in the midst of his scholars, who are formally ranged on each side of him, in the style common to all professorial monuments of the time. As there is but little life in any of the figures, and little skill in grouping, it interests us less on account of its artistic merit, than as the resting-place of a man who was looked upon by Dante as among those who brought Italian poetry to per- fection, and to whom Petrarch acknowledged great obligations in regard to the formation of his own exquisite style. Born at Pistoja in the year 1272, this eminent man 1 was a scholar of the grammarian Francesco da Colle, and studied jurisprudence under Dino da Mugello at Bologna. Having warmly espoused the cause of the Bianchi, he was obliged to follow his chief, Filippo Vergiolesi, when the Neri expelled the Bianchi from the city; but as he was deeply enamoured of Filippo’s daughter, the beautiful Selvaggia, he must have found this exile deprived of its bitterness until death snatched her away, and left him to seek consolation in singing her praises in sonnets, as Dante sang those of Beatrice, Petrarch those of Laura, and Boccaccio those of Fiammetta. After the death of Selvaggia, he went to study in the university of Paris, and on his return, revisited Sambuco, a town on the confines of Lombardy, to weep over the grave of her, L che viva o morta gli dovea tor pace. " Fie then a.d. 1314. settled at Bologna, where he received a crown of laurel for his learned commentaries on the Codex of Justinian. Twenty-two il quale fece il maestro .... da Siena.’ Cicognara thinks that this maestro was Goro ; Ciampi suggests Agostino or Agnolo Sanesi. Concerning the appointment of Cellino di Nese to finish the Baptistry at Pistoja, see Doc. IV. (Ciampi, Not. Incd. p. 123). 1 Vide Seb. Ciampi, Vita di Messer Cino. Pistoja, 1803. 2 Dante’s letter to Cino, written between 1307 and 1319 (duration of Cino s exile), proves, as does the testimony of his biographers, that the Pistojan poet GIACOMO DELLA QUERCIA. 103 years later, he returned to Pistoja, and soon after died, regretted by his fellow-citizens, who sought by posthumous honours to make amends for the long wanderings to which their factious quarrels had condemned him. * il- - 1 • 1 T 1 _ i Cl* 1 j.1_ _ exile of many of the most able artists, which reduced art, in all its branches, to a very low ebb. We see evidence of this in the mediocre statues of the Apostles which till the tabernacles of the Capella della Piazza, made between 1376 and 1384, by Lando di Stefano, Bartolomeo di Tomme, called Pizzino, Mariano di Angelo Romanelli, Giovanni di Cecco, and Matteo di Ambrogio, called Sappa ; 1 as well as in the holy- water vase of the Duomo at Orvieto, made by Lucca di Giovanni, and in the baptismal font opposite, sculptured, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, by two Sienese and two Florentine artists, after the design of Pietro di Giovanni da Friburg. 2 Indeed, the Sienese school of sculpture fell in love with many other women after Selvaggia’s death, and was fickle and inconstant in his new passion. Yid e Epistola IV. 4 Exulanti Pistoriense,’ and the sonnet beginning 4 Io mio credea,’ etc. See Appendix, letter C. II Convito e le Epistole, pp. 432, 437, ed. Barbera, 1862. Petrarch wrote a sonnet upon the death of Cino, beginning, 4 Piangete, donne, e con voi pianga amore,’ etc. 1 Milanesi, Siena e il suo Territorio, p. 155. 2 Valentino di Paolo, Matteo di Nobili, Pietro di Yanni, and Giacomo di Pietro Guidi. His surname of Quercia was derived either from Quercia Grossa, a castle near the walls of Siena, built in 1271 ; or from Guerco, or Guerchio, a popular word signifying workman (Dr. Carpellini, MS. notes to Romagnuoli). 4 Della Valle supposes, that Goro Sanese was Quercia’s master {Lett. San. vol. ii. p. 149, note 1). 104 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. A.B. 1391 —1392. a.d. 1401. by an equestrian statue of wood covered with cloth painted in imitation of marble, made for the funeral obsequies of the famous Sienese captain Azzo Ubaldini , 1 but was not destined to follow up this success in his native city until a later period of his career, for when his patron Orlando Malevolti and many other patriots refused to consent to its disgraceful surrender into the hands of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and was driven with them into exile, Quercia, although not forced to do so, found it better to leave home . 2 We know nothing of him for the next nine or ten years, after which we find him mentioned as one of the competitors for the gate of the Baptistry at Florence, in which trial of skill his model, though considered wanting in delicacy of handling, was praised for good drawing and skilful casting, and judged to stand next in merit to those of Ghiberti and Brunelleschi. It was at this time that he sculptured a bas-relief , 3 which fills a gable over one of the side-doors of the Duomo, representing the Madonna, ‘ della Cintola ’ in a mandorla supported by angels; in one corner we see a bear climbing a pear-tree, by which, referring to an old proverb, ‘ Dar le pere in guardia all orsa (cio e fidarsi di chi non si deve),’ Quercia has been supposed to allude to his own folly in submitting his trial plate to the judgment of men who were incapable of appreciatinof it. the church of San Giacomo Maggiore at Bologna, in memory of 1 Died in 1390, while conducting an expedition against the Florentines. 2 Vasari says, Quercia made some statues of prophets for the Duomo at this time ; hut if he ever did so, it must have been at a later date, as his name does not appear in the archives until after 1417, and he left Siena soon after 1391. 3 Ugugieri ( Pompe Sanesi, vol. ii. p. 344) and Vasari (vol. iii. p. 25, notes 2 and 3) assign this relief to Quercia. Baldinucci says, it was sculptured by Donatello’s pupil, Nanni di Banco. 4 Removed from the Duomo to the Capitolo dei Canonici. FONTE GAJA. 105 bis father. It consists of the recumbent effigy so placed on an inclined plane, that although set high up against the wall, every part of the figure is visible from below; a massive cornice, on which stand statuettes of SS. Peter and Paul; and four figures of Force, Prudence, Temperance, and Faith. The professorial bas- relief in the front of the sarcophagus was added after Quercia’s day, to suit the monument to its new uses, for Antonio Bentivoglio was an eminent jurist, as well as politician and soldier. As Lord of Bologna, his abilities rendered him dangerous in the eyes of Pope Martin V., who therefore removed him to a safe distance, and employed him in a military capacity. Fifteen years later, trusting to a decree issued by the Bishop of Con- cordia, legate of Eugenius IV., allowing all exiles to return home, he came to Bologna, but within a month he and his friend Zambeccari were seized by the legate’s guard as they left the chapel where they had attended mass, and, without time for confession and absolution, were beheaded in the courtyard of the Bentivoglio Palace. Their bodies were buried without funeral rites, and the atrocious act was justified on the plea of their too great influence over their fellow-citizens . 1 While resident at Ferrara, Quercia was appointed by the Signory of Siena to make a fountain for the great piazza of their city. At the end of the twelfth century, when that called Fonte- branda was constructed outside the walls, the project of bringing water to supply one within the city was started, but it was not until the middle of the fourteenth century that the conduits for this purpose were constructed, and the delighted people saw water issue in the piazza. Overjoyed at this, they called their new fountain Fonte Gaja, and set over it a very beautiful antique statue of Venus, supposed to be the work of Lysippus, which had been dug up at Siena, many years before . 2 After fourteen years, 1 Eletta dei monumenti di Bologna (Sismondi, Rep. It. vol. iv. p. 491). 2 Ghiberti, in his third Commentary, tells us, that he saw a drawing made of it by the painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and relates the story of its overthrow. VOL. I. p Antonio Benti- voglio. Fonte Gaja. A.n. 1343. a.d. 1317. Nov. 7, 1357. 10G TUSCAN SCULPTORS. during which the city had been more than usually convulsed with factious tumults, a member of the council of twelve rose, and, addressing his fellows, declared that these calamities were sent upon them because they had exposed heathen idols to public veneration, and that they ought to remove the statue of a false divinity, and, after breaking it in pieces, should bury it in the Florentine territory, with the hope of transferring their own misfortunes to their adversaries. 4 Detto fix fatto,’ the statue was taken down and carried far from the city to satisfy the superstitious populace. Fonte Gaja was thus left deprived of its sole ornament, until Giacomo della Quercia undertook to decorate it in a more Christian fashion. 1 In his contract, he promised to furnish a design which was to be exposed for public approval in the Sala del Consiglio, to find his own materials, select his assistants for its construction, and consented to receive in final payment the sum of 2,320 florins. 2 The design, accepted by the Signory, and executed by Quercia, 3 who thence took the name of Jacopo della Fonte, consisted of a three-sided marble parapet; the central and longest was divided into nine niches, containing statues of the Madonna and Child, and the seven theological virtues, while the other two were decorated with bas-reliefs representing the creation of Adam, and the expulsion from Paradise. Below, from the surface of the basin, rose marine animals bearing children on their backs, and wolves, and dolphins, from whose mouths issued jets of water. Though now sadly mutilated and worn by time, its novelty of 1 First contract, dated Jan. 22, 1409; second contract, 1412, in which year it was commenced. Date of final quittance, Oct. 20, 1419. Vide Doc. dell' Arte Sanesi , vol. ii. pp. 44, 51, No. xxxii. ; also Romagnuoli and Carpellini. 2 The florin, or zecchino, was always of gold; 2,320 florins equal 4,640 Francescani, or 9,744 lire Toscane. 3 Fizio says, Quercia bound himself to do the whole work with his own hands; but this seems impossible, as he had five able assistants, who did much of it for him : namely, Francesco Valdambrini, Sarto di Matteo, Paolo dt Minella, Nanni da Lucca, and Bastiuo di Corso. See Appendix to this chapter for notice of these sculptors. ILARJA DEL CARETTO. 107 design and beauty of general effect make Fonte Gaja one of the model fountains of the world. 1 Its statues have the grace of line characteristic of Quercia’s best works, and their draperies fall in those peculiarly heavy snake-like folds which he so much affected. But Quercia was neither a purist nor a classical sculptor ; he wanted the delicate refinement and elegance of the great Florentine masters, and concealed his defects by a richness of drapery and voluptuousness of form which sometimes trenched upon coarseness. The construction of Fonte Gaja was constantly interrupted by Quercia’s occupations at Lucca, where he had simultaneously undertaken a work of importance. Highly A . D . 1413 incensed at his continued absence, the Sienese commissioners tin eatened to appoint some one else in his place 5 and after sending no less than five intimations to this effect during the space of eight months, ordered the commissary of justice to make him feel the weight of their displeasure, and finally bound him to complete their fountain within a fixed time, under a penalty of 300 florins. Despite these signs of irritation, he was honoured and loved in his native city as a modest and polite man, ‘ in somma una coppa d oro, un savio e buon uomo.’ The work which carried him to Lucca was a monument to Ilaria, second wife of Paolo Guinigi, u ar ; a del lord of that city, and daughter of Charles, Marquis of Carretto, of Carrett0 ‘ which a portion only exists in the Duomo, namely, the recumbent effigy of Ilaria, and a marble slab sculptured in relief with chil- dren bearing festoons, 2 originally belonging to its base. ‘I name it, says Mr. Ruslan, 3 ‘ not as more beautiful or perfect than other examples of the same period, but as furnishing an instance of the exact and right mean between the rigidity and rudeness of the earlier monumental effigies, and the morbid imitations of life, sleep, 01 death, of which the fashion has taken place in modern times. 1 The fountain is now being made anew, after the old model, by the Sienese sculptor, Tito Sarocchi. 2 Its duplicate is in the Uffizi gallery. 3 Modern Painters , vol. ii. ch. vii. upon « Repose.’ r 2 108 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Paolo Guinigi. a.d. 1416. She is lying on a simple couch, with a hound at her feet (emblem of conjugal fidelity), not on the side, but with the head laid straight and simply on the hard pillow, in which, let it be observed, there is no effort at deceptive imitation of pressure. It is under- stood as a pillow, but not to be mistaken for one. The hair is bound up in a flat braid over the fair brow, the sweet and arched eyes are closed, the tenderness of the loving lips is set and quiet ; there is that about them which forbids breath ; something which is not death nor sleep, but the pure image of both. The hands are not lifted in prayer, neither folded ; but the arms are laid at length upon the body, and the hands cross as they fall. The feet are hidden by the drapery, and the forms of the limbs are concealed, but not their tenderness.’ Not many years after Quercia sculptured this monument, Paolo Guinigi was driven from Lucca, and upon it, as upon everything which recalled his detested name, the people wreaked their vengeance, remembering how, backed by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, he had taken advantage of the moment when they were weakened and decimated by the plague, to fix his yoke upon their necks; he and his sons were sent as prisoners to Francesco Sforza, who confined them at Pavia, where he soon after died broken-hearted ; his palace was given up to pillage by Antonio Petrucci, a Sienese captain, who had been the chief agent in his overthrow; his horses and arms were sent as presents to Sforza, and his gold and silver appropriated to the public use . 1 Quercia also sculptured, at Lucca, a Gothic altar-piece in the church of San Frediano at Lucca, at the expense of Federigo di Trenta and his wife, whose monumental slabs are let into the pavement below. Its niches contain statues of the Madonna and Child, SS. Sebastian, Jerome, and Lucia, in a somewhat tor- mented and ‘baroque’ style; its predella has several bas-reliefs, of which that of St. Catherine of Alexandria (see tailpiece to this 1 Tommasi, St. di Lucca, Arch. St. It. vol. x. pp. 295-97 ; Mazzarosa, St. di Lucca , vol. iii. lib. v. p. 260; Vasari, vol. iii. p. 21, note 4. QUERCIA’S BAS-RELIEFS. 109 chapter) and that representing the expulsion of a demon from the body of a child, are delicately sculptured and truly charming, though the rest are not a little extravagant and mannered. Quercia again showed, in a bronze bas-relief made for the font of the Baptistry at Siena, that he was not to be depended upon by his employers. He received the commission for this and a companion relief in 14 16, 1 but had not fulfilled it twelve years later, as we learn through a letter addressed to him at Bologna, in which he is threatened with a fine of 100 lire if he does not return and remain at Siena until he has finished them. So low were his funds at this time, that he was unable to pay eight lire to the courier who brought him this letter, and was obliged in his answer to ask the Signory to advance that small sum on the money which would be eventually due to him. After his return to Siena, at the end of the year, he addressed a ‘ supplica ’ to the Corporation, in which he prayed for a remission of the fine, on the ground that he had been prevented by his engagements at Bologna from returning sooner, and that, when he finally made an attempt to do so, he had been forcibly detained by the ‘ operai ’ of San Petronius. It was not till 1430 that he completed one of the bas-reliefs representing the calling of St. Joachim, in which is an excellent group formed by the attentive saint, the earnest angel, and several persons who stand near them; but as he never found time to make the second relief, it was even- tually assigned to Donatello. Five years before this, he had again been called to Bologna to sculpture fifteen bas-reliefs for the great doorway of the Basilica of St. Petronius, 2 whose subjects, taken from the Book of Genesis, relate to the period between the creation of Adam and the Deluge. Those representing the creation of Eve (see Plate XII.) and 1 April 16, 1416. These bronze reliefs were to be gilded at the artist’s expense, and he was to receive 180 florins for each. 2 He was called to Bologna in 1425 by Archbishop Arli, who offered him 3,600 golden florins to furnish the designs for these reliefs and superintend their execution. Bas-relief by Quercia in the font of the Baptistry at Siena. A.n. 1428. a.d. 1425. Bas-reliefs at St. Pe- tronius’. no TUSCAN SCULPTORS. a. i). 1494 and 1507. the expulsion from Paradise, are almost identical in treatment with the frescoes of the same subject painted by Raphael in the Vatican loggia, and by Michael Angelo in the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. As we know that Michael Angelo twice visited Bologna , 1 and that his second visit took place only one year before he commenced the frescoes of the Sistine chapel, we may fairly suppose that Quercia’s works had made a strong impression upon him ; nor can we wonder at this, since there is so evident an affinity between the two artists, that Quercia has been called the precursor of Buonarotti. It is not only in single figures , 2 but also in the general style of the reliefs which represent the creation of Eve, the expulsion from Paradise, and Eve spinning while her two children cling about her knees, that we feel between these two great men a similarity, and the resemblance which is not confined to their works, but extends also to their lives ; for as Michael Angelo had his ‘ Tragedia del Sepolcro,’ so had Quercia his ‘ Tragedia della Porta.’ Broken contracts and endless money difficulties wore out the lives of both; and in Quercia’s case the latter became so unbearable that he fled to Parma, whence he wrote to his employers at Bologna, to express the hope that ‘ reason would be heard when passion and envy had ceased to speak,’ 3 adding that he had retired to a safe distance, trusting, thence to obtain justice; that he had no desire to shirk his duty, but should not return until they confirmed his original contract. At the same time he was constantly annoyed by letters from the Sienese magistrates, exhorting him to return home, and for his own honour, and the advancement of the cathedral, to devote himself thenceforward to the duties of his office, as operajo; 1 Michael Angelo is said to have made drawings of Quercia’s bas-reliefs during his first visit to Bologna. 2 See, for example, the figure of God the Father, in the bas-relief repre- senting the Creation of Eve, Plate XII. 3 Doc. Sanesi, vol. ii. ; Doc. CXXIX p. 168. QUERCIA’S SCHOLARS. Ill 4 God knows, ’ he writes, ‘ how many complaints and murmurs I have to hear from my countrymen.’ 1 While resident at Bologna, Quercia sculptured a relief, now in the museum of the university, representing the Madonna and Child seated under a Gothic arch, in the pointed gable of which three angels are grouped together in somewhat atfected atti- tudes. The heads of the Madonna and Child are charmin s' in expression, but their draperies are cumbrous and mannered. 1 he last three years of his life were principally spent at Siena, where he held the office of Operajo del Duomo, and the rank of Cavaliere, in working upon statues for the Loggia di San Paolo and the Cappella di Piazza del Campo, which he did not live to finish. In 1435 he obtained permission to revisit Bologna, and although he yielded to the reclamations of the Signory, and once more returned to Siena, he would have gone there again, three years later, had he not become too infirm. We learn from the books of the Opera del Duomo, that on the 20th of October 1438 Messer Giacomo Operajo passed from this life, ‘La Death of cui anima si reposi in pace.’ By his will 2 he left the bulk of his OcTnk property to his brother Priamo and his sister Lisabetta, and a small sum to his scholar Cino di Bartolo Battilori, 3 who, though long the recipient of many kindnesses from him, was accused, soon after Quercia’s death, of having stolen 800 florins in gold, 400 florins’ worth of clothes and drawings, and a gold ring, from his house at Bologna. Quercia’s other scholars were Niccola dell’ Area, 4 called II Died at Bolognese, whom we have already mentioned, in the life of Niccola Pisano, as the sculptor who made the greater part of the monu- mental altar above the Area di San Domenico ; Nanni da Siena, Doc. Sanesi, Nos. 127, 128. All the S. Petronius reliefs are engraved in a work entitled Le Sc. di Sati Petronio, pnb. by G. Guizzardi. 2 Vide Gaye, Carteggio degli Artisti, vol. i. pp. 36o, 366. 3 Worked under Quercia at Bologna 1428-1436. 4 Vide Appendix, letter D. 112 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. A.D. 1413. Born Dec. 21, 1391. Died 1458. A.D. 1460. a.d. 1476. Died after 1472. 11 Vec- chiett-a. Born 1412. Died 1480. who worked at Orvieto in the beginning of the century, and assisted in carving the ornaments about Fonte Gaja; Pietro del Minella, 1 whom he recommended to the commune in the last year of his life, as the best ornamental sculptor in the city, to work upon the Loggia di S. Paolo, who made all the maible "woik about the font in the Sienese Baptistry, worked in intaglio and intarsia at Orvieto, where he was capo maestro from 1431 to 1433, and who filled the same office at a later period in the Duomo at Siena, in which he built the Cappella di San Crescenzio ; Antonio Federighi 2 detto de’ Tolomei, whose statues of SS. Ansano and Crescenzio in the niches of the Loggia degli Uffiziali at Siena show him to have been an imitator of his master. He designed and executed the Seven Ages of Man and other compositions in the beautiful pavement of the Duomo at Siena, where he filled the office of master of drawing, which obliged him to superintend the studies of eight young men, who were educated as sculptors at the expense of the Fabbrica, and worked at Orvieto as architect and sculptor. 3 Lorenzo di Pietro di Giovanni di Lando, commonly known as II Vecchietta, was also a scholar of Giacomo della Quercia, and deserves a somewhat more extended notice, being one of the most original artists of the Sienese school. This gifted man, who distin- guished himself as goldsmith, architect, sculptor, and painter, was born at Castiglione di Valdorcio, in the Sienese territory, in 1412. 1 There were three of this family, sons of Tommaso del Minella, viz. Antonio, Giovanni, and Pietro; and Bernardino, son of Antonio. 2 In the little Chapel de’ Turchi, called the Palazzo dei Diavoli, outside the Porta Camollia at Siena, there is a bas-relief of glazed terra-cotta which, with the four Evangelists in the church of San Niccola, now the Insane Hospital, has been attributed to Cecco di Giorgio, worker in terra-cotta. Perhaps the bas-relief (mentioned by Giulio Mancini in his Ragguagho della Cose di Siena , MS., as the work of an unknown Sienese) is by Antonio Federighi. See Vasari, Commentary to the Life of Luca della Robbia, vol. iii. p- 82, note 1. 3 Giovanni di Stefano, who made two of the bronze angels above the altar of the Duomo, was his scholar : so also were Vito di Marco, flourished 1456; Franc, di Bartolo, flourished 1437-1497; and Barto. di Domenico, flourished 1472-1522. SIENESE SCULPTORS. 113 Of his skill as a goldsmith, no example is extant, but we know that he made the bust or statue 1 of St. Catherine of Siena in silver, soon after her canonisation. He is well known as a painter to all lovers of the Sienese school by his pictures at Siena and Florence, and by his masterpiece, the Assumption of the Virgin, at Pienza. Between 1465 and 1472, he made for the Hospital della Scala at Siena, the bronze tabernacle now above the altar of the Duomo, which is adorned with a statuette of Christ the Arisen, and with numerous angels and ‘ putti.’ An excellent specimen of his hard dry style is the bronze effigy of a famous Sienese jurisconsult, Marino Soccino the elder, which formed part of a monument formerly in the church of San Domenico at Siena, and is now to be found among the bronzes of the Uffizi gallery. 2 (See Plate XIII.) The head, which is not unlike that of Dante, appears to have been cast from life, as well as the hands and feet : the drapery is hard and unpliable. The two statues of SS. Peter and Paul in the niches of the Loggia de’ Mercanti (called also Degli Uffiziali) are, like Vecchietta’s other works, pure in style, but dry and meagre in form and drapery. In the latter part of his life he obtained permission from the directors of the Hospital c della Scala ’ to build, decorate, and endow a chapel for which he modelled and cast the bronze Christ and candle- bearing angels which stand above the altar. Around the carved base of the statue is coiled a serpent with a woman’s head, on which Christ rests the cross which He holds in His right hand. This figure, which is somewhat mannered in attitude and executed in a hard dry style, is inscribed with the words, ‘Vecchietta, Pictor, pro sua devotione fecit hoc opus.’ An altar in the chapel of St. Catherine, in the church of San Domenico, and a Christ between two angels in the house of the Sacristan of the Madonna di Fontegiusta at Siena are also 1 Rio (op. cit. vol. i. p. 102) says, bust; Dr. Carpellini says, statue, for 2541. It disappeared after the siege of Siena, in 1 555. 2 Sold by his descendants to the Grand Duke Ferdinando III. VOL. I. o Sculptured in 1451. 114 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Contempo- raries of Quercia. a.d. 1425. In 1427. Francesco di Giorgio. n. 1439. m. 1502 or 1506. pointed out as works of this artist, who died in 1480. He Avas a melancholy and solitary man ; but as he lived to be seventy-eight years old, we can hardly think, with his biographer, that these tendencies greatly shortened his days. Among the contemporaries of Quercia at Siena, were the goldsmith Turino di Sano, and his son Giovamii, goldsmith, sculptor, and niellist, 1 Avho sculptured three marble reliefs of SS. John the Baptist, Paul, and Matthew, 2 which are set into the Avail of a chapel in the Duomo at Siena. They are ill-proportioned figures, unmeaning in expression, and poorly draped, and do not, like the tAvo bronze reliefs of the Birth of St. John and his Preaching in the Desert, which were cast by father and son for the font of the Baptistry, even look like the works of second-rate artists bred in a good school. They are separated by statuettes of Charity, Justice, and Prudence, which want significance, and are stiff in action and rigid in drapery. Their family was one of artists, as, besides the father and son, there Avas a Lorenzo di Turino di Sano, and a Turino and Pietro di Giovanni, who were attached as sculptors to the Sienese Duomo. With Francesco di Giorgio, architect, engineer, sculptor, painter, and bronze-caster, we have but little concern in these pages, for although one of the most eminent Sienese artists of the fifteenth century, he devoted himself principally to military architecture and engineering, and obtained such celebrity that his services Avere constantly solicited of the Sienese republic, by the lords of the great Italian cities. His chief employer was the Duke of Urbino, and a series of seventy-tAvo bas-reliefs, made up of military machines, arms, and trophies, which he sculptured for the fa§ade of his palace, may still be seen set into the wall around the corridor of the first story of the ducal palace at 1 Duchesne, Essai sur les Nielles. 2 Intended for a pulpit which was never completed. The bronze wolf, suckling Romulus and Remus, which stands upon the column near the Palazzo del Commune, at Siena, was cast by Giovanni Turini. SIENESE SCULPTORS. 115 Urbino. These were but a small part of the works which he executed for the Duke Federigo, who being, as Francesco di Giorgio tells us in his famous treatise upon civil and military architecture, ‘ replete with humanity and benignity and loving him as tenderly as if he had been his own son, commissioned him to build one hundred and thirty- six edifices, besides calling him to assist in the construction of many churches throughout his territory. 1 In 1493 he was elected to the magistracy of Siena, and having given up architecture, modelled and cast two of the four angels which stand on either side of the tabernacle above the high altar of the Duomo. He was for a long time supposed to have made the monument of the Cavaliere Cristofano Felice in the church of San Francesco, now known to be the work of Urbano da Cortona, a scholar of II Vecchietta, who resided at Siena during the greater part of his life. The figure of the deceased, in alto-relief, is set against an architectural background, which, though nearly flat, is so cleverly treated in perspective as quite to deceive the spectator. Like the bas-relief over the door of the oratory of St. Catherine, also by him, this monument is naturalistic, and though a little stiff and precise, in a far purer and better style than that of Vecchietta or Francesco di Giorgio. Another excellent worker in bronze was Giacomo Cozzarelli, scholar of Francesco di Giorgio, who made the beautiful torch sockets (braccialetti) which adorn the fagade of the Palazzo Petrucci at Siena, and the brackets at either end of the high altar of the Duomo, one of which (a winged child) is really exquisite. Among Cozzarelli’s scholars figures Michael Angelo Sanese, 2 mentioned by Benvenuto Cellini as the most amusing and endearing of companions, and as a member, like himself, of 1 Trattato d' Arcliitettura, etc. etc., di Fco. di Giorgio Martini, pub. by Cav. Cesaro Saluzzo, con Diss. e Note di Carlo Promis. Turino, 1841. That the Duke highly estimated his genius, goodness, and prudence, is proved by a letter which he wrote to the Republic of Siena (Ricci, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 538). 2 Probably identical with Michael Angelo di Bernardino di Michele. See \asari, vol. viii. p. 227, vol. ix. p. 18 ; Cellini’s Autobiography , pp. 59-63. Giacomo Cozzarelli, Michael Angelo Sanese. 116 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. In 1524. Lorenzo di Mariano. Conclu- sion. an artist club which met together at Rome twice a week for purposes of conviviality. His early life was spent in Schiavonia, whence he removed to Rome by the desire of his countryman Baldasser Peruzzi, who entrusted him with the execution of a monument to Pope Adrian VI., which he had designed for the church of Sta. Maria dell’ Anima, and which, though on a large and ostentatious scale, has little about it to attract the connoisseur. 1 One of the best sculptors at Siena in the year 1500 was Lorenzo di Mariano (detto il Marina), eminent for ornamental work, such as grotesques, leaves, 4 putti,’ who made the high altar of the church of Fontegiusta, one of the best examples of Renaissance work in Italy. In the lunette is a bas-relief of Christ in the Sepulchre supported by angels; above the key-stone of the arch, the statuette of a child ; a row of cherub-heads around the door of the central tabernacle; and a mass of exquisitely carved birds, scrolls, griffins, Arabesques, &c. &c. in the frieze, column capitals, and side spaces. According to a very doubtful tradition, it was sent on the backs of mules from Siena to Rome, to gratify Pope Julius, who had heard wonderful accounts of its beauty. The annals of the sixteenth century furnish us with no other names of note among the Sienese sculptors. With the loss of her liberties, Siena seems to have lost her artistic power, and when she was added to Tuscany under the sceptre of Cosimo de’ Medici in 1555, she brought in dower no new names worthy to shine among those of the great Tuscan sculptors. That the Sienese artists of the thirteenth century prepared the way for those who, in the first half of the fourteenth, caused sculpture 4 to rival the Pisan and outdo the Florentine,’ as has been averred by an eminent Sienese critic, 2 is a statement which will not bear an instant’s examination, since Agostino and Agnolo, Gano, Tino, &c., who represent the Sienese school at that time, are greatly inferior to Andrea Pisano and his scholars, who worked contemporaneously 1 Two statuettes upon it were made by Tribolo. 2 Milanesi, Siena e if suo Territorio, p. 153. CHRONOLOGY. 117 at Florence. Nor can any Sienese work of the fourteenth century be pointed out which at all equals the bas-reliefs sculptured by Niccola Pisano at Pisa or Siena in the thirteenth, or those made by his son Giovanni at Pistoja in the early part of the fourteenth. The truth is, that Siena produced but one sculptor, Jacopo della Quercia, and but one architect, Lorenzo Maitani, who deserve to be classed with the great Pisan and Florentine artists. Why, then, blind us to her real glory by instituting dangerous comparison, and claiming for her the first, while she really deserves the third place among the great Italian schools ? CHRONOLOGY. T?AHT/-W TAT ~P An. A -NTT? T T .... A.D. Capo Loggia at Orvieto ..... 1296 Goro Sanese — First mentioned in . . . . . . 1281 Urna di S. Cerboue at Massa, in the Maremma, sc. . 1323 Worked at Siena ..... 1329 — 1332 Lorenzo Maitani — Date of birth unknown Built the cathedral at Orvieto . . . 1290 — 1330 Cast the bronze symbols of the Evangelists for its fa 9 ade . 1330 Died at Orvieto in . . . . . . 1330 Buzio di Biaggio — Cast the Madonna and Child with Angels for the facade of the Orvietan Duomo in . . . 1325 Agostino di Giovanni and Agnolo di Ventura — Agnolo assisted Giovanni Pisano in building the facade of the Duomo at Siena ..... 1284 Agostino and Agnolo made the monument of Bishop Tarlati in the Duomo at Arezzo . . . 1330 Both died about . . . . . .1 350 118 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Giovanni di Agostino — Only known work, Madonna and Angels in the oratory of S. Bernardino at Siena. A.D. Lino or Tino di Camaino — First mentioned, as sculptor of the monument of Henry VII. in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in . . 1315 — 1317 Monument of Bishop Felice Aliotti in Santa Maria Novella at Florence . . . Date unknown Associated with Maestro Gerardus di Sermona in making the tomb of Queen Maria in the church of Santa Maria Donna Regina, after ..... 1323 Died at Naples in . • • . . . 1336 Maestro Gano Sanese — Made the monuments of Bishop Tommaso di Andrea and of Raniero Porrina in the collegiate church at Casole, after ...... 1314 Also that of Cardinal Petroni in the Duomo at Siena, and of Ugo Causaronti in the Pieve delle Serre at Rapolano ...... 1346 Antonio Brunacci — No works extant. Flourished .... 1330 Maestro Cellino di Nese — Flourished ....... 1334 Sculptures monument of Messer Cino at Pistoja . . 1337 Lando di Stephano — Flourished . 1382 — 1428 Bartolomeo di Tomme and Mariano di Angelo Roma- nelli — Made the SS. Peter and John the Baptist, and SS. James Greater and Less. Giovanni di Cecco — Made the St. Matthew. Matteo di Ambrogio — Made the St. Andrew. These artists made the sta- tues of the Apostles in the tabernacles upon the Cappella della Piazza at Siena, between 1376 and 1384 Giovanni di Cecco was the only sculptor among them. Lando was a painter, and the other three goldsmiths (Mila- nesi, Siena, etc. p. 155). CHRONOLOGY. 119 A.D. Luca di Giovanni — Flourished ...... 1363—1381 Supposed master of Quercia. Sculptures holy- water vase in the Duomo at Or vie to. Sculptured baptismal font in the Duomo at Orvieto, which was designed by Giovanni di Fribourg 1403 — 1406 . 1371 Equestrian statue of Azzo Ubaldini . . . 1390 Competes for the Baptistry gate at Florence . .1401 Sculptures B. R. Assumption of the Madonna, Duomo, Florence ..... 1401—1402 Sculptures Madonna and Child, B. R., in the Capitolo dei Canonici at Ferrara ..... 1408 Sculptures monument of Antonio Bentivoglio in S. Gia- como Maggiore at Bologna .... 1408 Contracts for Fonte Gaja at Siena .... 1409 Commences it in . . . . . 1412 Finishes it in . . . . . 1419 Tomb of Ilaria del Carretto in S. Martino at Lucca . 1413 Altar in S. Frediano at Lucca .... 1416 The Calling of St. Joachim, B. R. in Baptistry font, Siena 1430 Fifteen bas-reliefs about the great door of S. Petronius at Bologna ..... 1425—1435 Madonna and Child with Angels, in the University Museum, Bologna, circa .... 1430 Died at Siena ...... 1438 Valentino di Paolo — Matteo di Nobili — Pietro di Vanni — Flourished 1400. Giacomo di Pietro Guidi — Giacomo della Quercia — Pietro del Minella — Born ..... Marble work of font in the Baptistry at Siena. Capo Maestro d’ Intaglio at Orvieto, sculpturec del Coro .... Worked at Loggia di S. Paolo Worked at Coro dello Spedale . 1391 Seggili . 1431—1433 . 1437 . 1439 120 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. A.D. 1445 1458 Built the Chapel of S. Crescenzio in the Duomo . Died ....... Antonio Federighi — Sculptures statues of SS. Ansano and Crescenzio for the Loggia degli Uffiziali ..... 1460 Died ....... 1486 II Veccihetta — Born ....... 1412 Bronze tabernacle for the Duomo at Siena . . 1465 — 1472 Monument of Marino Soccino — effigy in the Uffizi — statues of SS. Peter and Paul — Loggia degli Uffiziali, Siena ....... 1451 Bronze Christ and candle-bearing Angels— Hospital at Siena ....... 1475 Altar in S. Domenico, and Christ supported by Angels. Died ....... 1480 Turino di Sano and Giovanni di Turino — Marble reliefs of SS. John, Paul, and Matthew, in the Duomo at Siena ..... 1425 Two bronze reliefs in Baptistry font at Siena . . 1427 Francesco di Giorgio — Born ....... Seventy-two bas-reliefs of military machines in the ducal palace at Urbino. Two Angels in bronze in the Duomo at Siena Died ...... 1502 or Urbano di Cortona — Monument of Cav. Cr. Felice in S. Francesco at Siena, and bas-relief over the door of the oratory of S. Catherine at Siena, circa ...... Giacomo Cozzarelli — Flourished ...... 1468 — 1473 Bronze ‘ braccialetti ’ of the Palazzo Petrucci at Siena, and brackets for the high altar of the Duomo. 1439 1493 1506 1480 Michel Angelo Sanese — Flourished . 1520 CHRONOLOGY. 121 A.D. Monument of Pope Adrian VI. in Santa Maria del! Anima at Rome ..... 1524 Lorenzo di Mariano detto II Marina — Flourished ....... 1500 High altar of the church of Fonte Giusta at Siena. St. Catherine. (By G. della Quercia.) YOL. I. 122 TUSCAN SCULPTORS. Period singularly favourable for art develop- ment. CHAPTER V. LORENZO GHIBERTI AND DONATELLO. W ITH the exception of Arnolfo del Cambio and Andrea Orcagna, Florence produced no sculptors equal to the best Pisan masters until more than one hundred and fifty years after the Revival ; but towards the end of the fourteenth century two men, destined to raise the fame of her school of sculpture equally high with that of painting, long esteemed the first in Italy, were born within her walls. These were Ghiberti and Donatello. Placed midway between the age of strong religious feeling and that in which Paganism invaded every form of art and literature, the period was singularly favourable for artistic education ; as the waning influence of religion was still strong enough to check the adoption of Pagan sentiment, while a general enthusiasm for the antique led to the study of the beauty of form and technical perfection revealed in those newly acquired masterpieces of classic art, which were eagerly sought for and daily added to the col- lections of the time. In its first phase, as represented by Brunelleschi in architecture and by Ghiberti and Donatello in sculpture, the Renaissance was noble and profitable ; but it became destructive to all life and progress when artists, no longer seeking to assimilate its abstract principles to new ideas, aimed at positive imitation of antique forms ; when, striking at the foundations of religious belief already GHIBERTI. 123 grievously shaken by the iniquities of Rome, classic art and literature usurped the first place in men’s affections so completely, that few were scandalised when they saw a never-dying lamp burning before the bust of Plato, as before that of a saint j 1 when Sigismund Pandolfo dedicated a temple to his concubine Isotta da Rimini, and covered its walls with their interlaced cyphers ; when painters represented the Madonna under the features of a well- ponrtesan : when the secretary 2 of a pope called Jesus •'G / - 7q