Fra Bartolommeo Part 3

During the interval between the second and third partnership of this incongruous pair of friends, the life of Albertinelli had been very different from that of the Frate. So distressed was he at losing Baccio that he was quite wild for a time. His pa.s.sions being unruled, that of grief took entire possession of him. In his despair he vowed to give up painting; he declared that he would also become a monk, if it were not that he now hated them more than ever; besides, he was a Pallesco, and could not desert his party.

After a time, however, he calmed down, and, looking on his friend's unfinished fresco of the _Last Judgment_ as a legacy from him, began to work at it as a kind of obligation till the occupation wove its own charm, and he steadily devoted himself to art again, much to the satisfaction of good Gerozzi Dini, who was in great perturbation, and declared there was not another hand but his in Florence which could finish it; and also to the relief of Fra Bartolommeo himself, who, having received money on account, was troubled in conscience lest it should remain unfinished. There remained only some figures to put in the terrestrial group, all the celestial portions having been finished by the Frate; but they are very well drawn figures, with a good deal of expression in them. Several are likenesses, amongst whom are Dini and his wife, Bugiardini, the painter's pupil, and himself. Most of these are now destroyed by the effects of damp.

Mariotto left Fra Bartolommeo's house in S. Pier Gattolini, and took a room in Gualfonda--now Via Val Fonda--a street leading towards the fortress, built by the Grand Duke Cosimo on the north of the city; and here in time quite a school grew up under his tuition. Giuliano Bugiardini was his head a.s.sistant rather than pupil; Francia Bigio, then a boy, Visino, who afterwards went to Hungary, and Innocenzio da Nicola, besides Piero, Baccio's brother, were all scholars. Albertinelli's Bottega in Val Fonda gave some n.o.ble paintings to the world, works independently his own, though Fra Bartolommeo's influence is traceable in most of them. The finest of these is the _Salutation_, dated 1503--ordered for the Church of S. Martino, and now the gem of the hall of the Old Masters in the Uffizi Gallery--a work which alone has been able to mark him for all time as a great master.

So simple is the subject, and yet so grand the proportions, and in the figures there is such majesty of maternity and dignity of womanhood! A decorated portico, with the heavens behind it, forms the background to the two n.o.ble women, in one of whom is expressed the gracious sympathy of an elder matron with the awful, mysterious joy of the younger.

The colouring, perfectly harmonised, is the most masterly blending of a subdued tone with soft yet brilliant and shows a deep study of the method of Leonardo.

The predella has an _Annunciation_, _Nativity_, and _Circ.u.mcision_; all showing the same able style, but more injured by time than the picture.

Another charming painting of this period is the _Nativity_ at the Pitti, a round, on panel. The _Madonna_ is not quite so n.o.ble as that of the _Salutation_, but the limbs of the child are beautifully rounded. There is a pretty group of three angels singing in the sky; the landscape is as minute in detail as those his old fellow-pupil Piero used to paint in Cosimo's studio.

In 1504-5 Fra Bartolommeo called upon him for a deed of friendship, which proves that, whatever biographers (building up theories on a word or two in Vasari) may say of his want of steadiness, the friend who knew him best had supreme trust in him. Santi Pagnini, having been removed to Siena as prior, Fra Bartolommeo made Mariotto guardian and instructor of his young brother Piero, signing a contract that Mariotto was to have the use and management of all estates and possessions of Piero, which included several _poderi_ in the country, as well as the house at the Porta Romana (S. Pier Gattolini). In return Albertinelli was to keep Piero in his house, teach, clothe, and provide for him, not, however, being obliged to give him more than "sette (seven) soldi" a month.

Albertinelli was also to have a ma.s.s said yearly in the Church of S.

Pier Gattolini for the soul of Paolo the muleteer, and to use two pounds of wax candles thereat. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii.

pp. 36, 37.] The contract was signed from 1st January, 1505, and was to last till 1st January, 1511. It appears that this brother Piero was a great trouble to the Frate, being of a bizarre disposition, and addicted to squandering money; he sold some possessions for much less than their worth, [Footnote: Private communication from Sig. G. Milanesi.] which probably accounts for the singular contract of guardianship. He did not show enough talent to become a painter, and took priests' orders later.

About this time Fra Bartolommeo recommenced work, and while he was painting the triptych for Donatello's _Madonna_ (the miniature _Nativity_ and _Circ.u.mcision_ in the Uffizi), Albertinelli was at work in the convent of the Certosa, at a _Crucifixion_ in fresco.

The painting is extant in the chapterhouse, and is a very fair and unrestored specimen of his best style. The Virgin and Magdalen are very purely conceived figures; the idea of the angels gathering the blood falling from the wounded hands of the crucified Saviour is very tender; there is a great brightness of colouring, and a greenish landscape almost Peruginesque in feeling. Some of his pupils worked with him at the Certosa, and nearly brought their master into trouble.

They were not more content with convent fare than was Davide Ghirlandajo, when the only delicacy supplied him at Vallombrosa was cheese; and to revenge themselves, they stole round the cloister after the circular sliding panels by which the rations were sent into the monks' cells were filled, and feasted on the meals made ready for the good brothers. Great confusion ensued in the convent, the monks accusing each other of the theft; but when they found out the real culprits, they made a compromise, promising double rations if the artists would hasten their work and leave them their daily dole in peace.

The fresco is dated 1506. The same year produced the fine picture now in the Louvre, which was painted for the church of S. Trinita on the commission of Zan.o.bio del Maestro.

The _Madonna_, stands on a pedestal, with S. Jerome and S. Zen.o.bio in front, while episodes from their lives are brought in like distant echoes in the background. [Footnote: S. Zen.o.bio was the first bishop of Florence, and is the patron saint of that city.]

The nuns of S. Giuliano employed him to paint two pictures, both of which are now in the Belle Arti. One is an altarpiece; the _Madonna enthroned_, with the Divine Child in her arms. Era Bartolommeo's idea of an angel-sustained canopy is here, but the angels hold it up from the outside instead of the inside. Before her are S. John the Baptist, S. Julian, S. Nicholas, and S. Dominic. The S. Julian has a great similarity to the S. Michael of Perugino, and the S. John, by its good modelling, shows the result of his studies from the antique in the Medici garden.

For the same church he did the curious conventional painting of the _Trinity_ on a gold ground. The subject is inartistic, because unapproachable; the attempt to paint that which is a deep spiritual mystery degrades both the art and the subject; the latter because it lowers it to human grasp, the former because it shows its powerlessness to shadow forth the infinite. There is beautiful painting in the heads of the angels, at the foot of the Cross, but the brilliancy of the gold ground is overpowering to the colours, albeit he has balanced it by reproducing Cosimo Roselli's red-winged cherubs. Nothing but Fra Angelico's delicate tints can bear such a background. No doubt Piero, Baccio's brother, helped to lay on this gold, for one of the stipulations in the contract with Mariotto was that he was to "metter d' oro ed altre cose di mazoneria" (to put on gold and other articles of emblazonment).

It has been a great subject of conjecture at what part of his life Albertinelli took the rash step of throwing up his art and opening a tavern at Porta S. Gallo. Some say it was in his despair at Fra Bartolommeo having taken the vows, but this is disproved by his having at that time finished the _Last Judgment_, and taken pupils in Val Fonda. Others a.s.sert that it was at the breaking up of the last partnership in 1513, but there is no hiatus in his work at that time, existing paintings being dated in 1513 and the following years till his death, three years after.

Vasari, though not to be depended on in regard to dates--chronology not being his forte--is generally right in the gossip and stories of the lives near his own time, and it is by collateral evidence from his pages that we are able to fix with more certainty 1508 or 1509 as the time of this episode in Albertinelli's life. In 1507 we find him as an artist helping to value his friend's picture, and mediating between the convent and Bernardo del Bianco. [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. iii.

chap. xvii. p. 544.] Now, in the 'Life of Andrea del Sarto,' we read that Francia Bigio, Albertinelli's pupil, made the acquaintance of Andrea while studying the Cartoons in the Hall of the Council (this was from 1506 to 1508), and as their friendship increased, Andrea confided to Francia Bigio that he could no longer endure the eccentricities of Piero di Cosimo, and determined to seek a home for himself, and that Francia Bigio being also alone--his master Mariotto Albertinelli _having abandoned the art of painting_--they determined to share a studio and rooms. [Footnote: Vasari, vol. iii. p. 182.] The first works the partners undertook were the frescoes of the Scalzo and the Servi, which were begun in 1509. Thus the date is tolerably certain, especially as a gap occurs in Albertinelli's works at this time.

Sig. Gaetano Milanesi's researches in the Archives have thrown a new light on Mariotto's motives, which were not entirely connected with art; it was not that he was discouraged by adverse criticism, nor wholly that, as time divided him from his friend, he felt he could produce no great work away from his influence, but it was partly that he had married a wife named Antonia, whose father kept an inn at S. Gallo.

It is possible the tavern came to him by way of _dot_, and the above reasons making him discontented with art for a time, might have induced him to carry on the business himself. Sig. Milanesi says a doc.u.ment exists of a contract in which Mariotto's name is connected with a tavern, but that he has never been able to retrace it since the first time he found it. It is his opinion that the whole story arose from the fact of the wife's family possessing this wine shop, and his connection with it in that way.

But though Albertinelli pa.s.sed off his pseudo-hostdom with bravado, talking very wittily about it, the artistic vein was too strong within him to be subdued; he soon gave up the flask and returned to the brush, for in 1509, when his quondam pupil, Francia Bigio, was busy at the Servi, we again find Mariotto's hand in a painting of the _Madonna_. The Virgin, holding a pomegranate in her hand, supports with the other the Child, who stands on a parapet, and clings to the bosom of his mother's dress for support, in a truly natural way; the infant Baptist stands by. The painting, signed, and dated 1509, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, but has been injured by repainting. In spite of this, Messrs.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle believe they perceive Bugiardini's hand in it.

In 1510 Albertinelli began one of his masterpieces, the _Annunciation_ for the company of S. Zen.o.bio, now in the Belle Arti. All his zeal for art was reawakened, he flung himself _con amore_ into this work, which, though in oil on panel, was painted on the spot where it was intended to be placed, that the lights might be managed with the best effect. He was imbued with Leonardo da Vinci's principle, that the greatest relief and force are to be combined with softness, and wishing to bring this combination to a perfection which never before had been reached, he depended greatly on the natural light to further his design. [Footnote: Vasari, vol. ii. p. 469.]

The picture, although a great work of art, and the most laboured of all his paintings, failed to satisfy the artist. He tried various experiments, painting in and painting out, but never reaching his own ideal. According to Leonardo, he was proving himself a good artist, one of his principles being, "when his (an artist's) knowledge and light surpa.s.s his work so that he is not satisfied with himself or his endeavours, it is a happy omen." [Footnote: Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting.]

The work as it stands is a n.o.ble one, though darkened by time having brought out the black pigments used in the shades. The background is an intricate piece of architecture with vaulted roof, showing that he too had profited by Raphael's instructions in perspective to Fra Bartolommeo.

The Virgin is a tender sweet figure; indeed no artist has given more gracious dignity to womanhood than Albertinelli, although his detractors say his life showed no great respect for it. Above, the Almighty is seen in a yellow light with a circle of angels and seraphs around. It is strange how the realistic painters stopped at nothing, not even the representation of the eternal in a human form. Is not this the reason why art ceased about this time to be the interpreter of religion, and found its true mission in being the interpreter of nature? Who can draw one soul? How much more impossible then to depict the incomprehensible soul in which all others have their being? The utmost we can do is to give the indication of the spirit in the expression of a face, and that so imperfectly that not two beholders read it alike. Study Perugino and Raphael, see how they raise human nature and etherealize it till we see the divinity of soul in the faces of their saints and martyrs. But the moment they try to depict the Almighty, or even his angels, they fall at once below humanity.

But to return to the _Annunciation_ of Albertinelli. His impetuous temper betrayed him even here; he fell into a dispute with his patrons, who refused to pay the price he asked. The usual "trial by his peers"

was resorted to, Perugino, Granacci, and Ridolfo Ghirlandajo were called into council to value it according to its merits.

On completing this picture the events we have related in the last chapter took place, Fra Bartolommeo returned from Venice with his enterprise renewed, and the convent partnership was commenced.

CHAPTER VII.

CONVENT PARTNERSHIP. A.D. 1510--1513.

We now come to the studio of S. Marco, where the two friends, who had dreamed together as boys, and worked together as youths, now laboured jointly as men, bringing to light some of the finest works of art that remain to us. During these three years Albertinelli's star seems merged in that of his senior, his hand is to be recognised in the lower parts of a few altarpieces; but it is always difficult to distinguish the two styles.

It was a very busy atelier, for they had many patrons. Bugiardini was still Mariotto's head a.s.sistant, and Fra Paolino, and one or two other monks, worked under Fra Bartolommeo, besides pupils of both, among whom were Gabriele Rustici and Benedetto Cianfanini.

The studio was on the part of the convent between the cloister and Via del Maglio, [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, vol. ii. p. 69.] and we can quite picture its interior. There stands the lay figure on which Fra Bartolommeo draped the garments that take such majestic folds in his works; [Footnote: Fra Bartolommeo was the inventor of the jointed lay figure.] there are several casts and models in different parts of the room; grand cartoons in charcoal hang on the walls, like those we see to this day in the Uffizi and Belle Arti. So many of these masterly sketches are the Frate's and so few are Mariotto's that we may presume the former was in most instances the designer. And to what perfection he carried design! Not a figure was drawn except its lines harmonised with the geometric rhythm in the artist's mind. His groups fall by nature into kaleidoscopic figures of circles, triangles, ellipses, crosses, &c.

Not a cartoon was sketched in which the lights and shadows were not as gradated and finished as a painting, although they were merely drawn with charcoal. The following was the method of work in the "bottega."

The panels were prepared with a coating of plaster of Paris, over which, when dry, a coat of under colour, ground in oil, was pa.s.sed. The preparing of the panels fell to the work of one of the monk scholars, Fra Andrea.[Footnote: The books of the convent have a note of payment to Fra Bartolommeo for 20th March, 1512, "per parte di lavoro di Fra Andrea converse per mettere d'oro, et ingessare alle tavole nella bottega in diversi lavori" (Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, lib. ii. chap. in. p. 70).]

Then the master made his sketch in white, or "sgraffito" (i.e. graven on the plaster), as in the architectural lines of the pictures of patron saints in the Uffizi, and the _Marriage of S. Catherine_ in the Pitti Palace; he also put in the shadows in monochrome. But the a.s.sistants, who were skilled artists, were called to put broad level tints of local colour on the buildings, &c., the master himself finishing the faces. No doubt Albertinelli was often deputed to the study of the lay figure and its drapery. Where he a.s.sisted, the monogram, a cross with two rings and the joint names, marked the work, as en a panel of 1510 in Vienna, and another at Geneva.

Fra Bartolommeo only imitated Leonardo in his intense force and soft gradations; the general thinness of colour is opposed to his system. He followed him, however, in his method of painting his shadows with the brush, instead of "hatching" them; he used the same yellowish ground, and "sfumato," [Footnote: Eastlake's _Materials for a History of Oil Painting_, vol. ii. chap. iv.] _i.e._ the imperceptible softening of the transition in half-lights and shadows; it was effected by glazes, and is not adapted to a thin substance. The great mistake in Fra Bartolommeo's system was the preparing his paintings like cartoons, and using asphaltum or lamp-black for outlines and shadows; this in process of time destroys the super-colour, and gives a general blackness to the painting.

The same kind of talk went on here as in modern studios. When the frame-maker came, Fra Bartolommeo would be vexed to see how much of his work was hidden beneath the ma.s.sive cornice, and would vow to dispense with frames altogether, which he did in his _S. Sebastian_ and _S.

Mark_, by painting an architectural niche round the subject like a carving in relief.

The first work begun at the convent studio was the picture for Father Dalgano of Venice, the subject of which is the _Eternal Father in Heaven_, surrounded by seraphs and angels. Perhaps in this we have the source of the motive of Albertinelli's _Annunciation_. The colouring is more brilliant than any of the Frate's works before his visit to Venice.

Vasari says that in this picture Giorgione himself could not have surpa.s.sed him in brilliancy. The saints, although nearly level with the ground, are given celestial rank by the cherubs and clouds below them.

Fra Bartolommeo was dissatisfied with his angels, which seemed merely lovely children, and seeking other forms, he thought to picture them better under shapes which at a distance seem only clouds, but nearer are full of angels' faces, as in the _S. Bernard_. But this idea, not having aesthetic beauty, was also abandoned. [Footnote: Padre Marchese, _I Puristi ed Accademici_.]

The monks of S. Pietro at Murano did not hasten to claim their picture, but sent two friars to negotiate about the price; they failed to agree, and the work is now in the Church of S. Romano in Lucca.

Lucca has another exquisite picture of the same year in the Cathedral of S. Martino, a _Madonna and Child_--a lovely ideal of joyful infancy--beneath a veil suspended above her head by two angels. S. John Baptist and S. Stephen support this airy composition like pillars, their figures showing in strong relief against the dark shades; the whole picture is intensely soft, and yet the outlines are perfectly clear.

This is valued at sixty ducats in the Libri di San Marco.

Next followed the _Virgin and Child with four Saints_, in S. Marco, which is so fine that it has been taken for a Raphael, although, owing to the use of lamp-black, it has now become very much darkened.

The _Holy Family_ which he painted for Filippo di Averardo Salviati, and which is now in Earl Cowper's collection at Panshanger, is an almost Raphaelesque work, and attains the greatest excellence in art. The composition is his favourite triangle, touched in with the flowing lines of the mother seated on the ground with the two children before her. S.

Joseph is in the background. The greatest softness of flesh tints must have been perceptible when new, for, "in spite of the abrasions produced by time, the delicate tones brought out by transparent glazes fused one over another are apparent." The landscape with an echo subject of the flight into Egypt is thought by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to be by Albertinelli.

In 1510 the partners had a large order from Giuliano da Gagliano, who, on the 2nd November, 1510, and 14th January, 1511, paid, in two rates, the sum of 154 ducats. The picture, which is Fra Bartolommeo's own painting, unfortunately cannot be traced.

In 1511 a long list of works are enumerated--a _Nativity_, valued two ducats, a _Christ bearing the Cross_, and an _Annunciation_, sold to the Gonfaloniere for six ducats--pictures which are dispersed in England, Pavia, &c.; but the masterpiece of the time is the _Marriage of S.

Catherine_, now in the Louvre. The Florentine government bought it for 300 ducats in 1512, to present to Jacques Hurault, Bishop of Autun, who came to Florence as envoy of Louis XII. He left it to his cathedral at Autun, from whence, at the Revolution, it pa.s.sed to the Louvre.

[Footnote: Padre Marchese, _Memorie_, lib. iii. ch. iv. p. 77. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting_, vol. iii. chap. xiii. p. 452.]

Before it was sent away, Fra Bartolommeo made a replica of it, which is now in the Pitti Palace. There is his favourite canopy supported by angels; in this case they are beautifully foreshortened. The Virgin is seated on a pedestal, holding by one arm an exquisitely moulded child Jesus of about four years old, who is espousing S. Catherine of Siena, kneeling at His feet on the left. A semicircle of saints group on each side of the Virgin, and two angels, with musical instruments, are at her feet; the upturned face of one is exquisitely foreshortened. The S. George in armour is a powerful figure; and in S. Bartholomew, on the left, is the same grand feeling which he afterwards brought to perfection in S. Mark. The grace of the Virgin's figure is not to be surpa.s.sed; if Raphael's Madonnas have more sentiment, this has more dignified grace. He has remembered Leonardo's precept, "that the two figures of a group should not look the same way"; the contrast of the flowing lines in these two forms is very lovely. The same contrast of lines, and yet balance of form, is carried out in the two S. Catherines who form the pyramid on each side of her, and in the varied characters of the encircling group of saints. The deleterious use of lampblack has spoiled the colouring; it, moreover, hangs in a bad light at the Pitti Palace.