Renaissance in Italy Volume III Part 8

Giotto and his followers, then, in the fourteenth century painted, as we have seen, the religious, philosophical, and social conceptions of their age. As artists, their great discovery was the secret of depicting life.

The ideas they expressed belonged to the Middle Ages. But by their method and their spirit they antic.i.p.ated the Renaissance. In executing their work upon the walls of palaces and churches, they employed a kind of fresco.

Fresco was essentially the Florentine vehicle of expression. Among the peoples of Central Italy it took the place of mosaic in Sicily, Ravenna, and Venice, as the means of communicating ideas by forms to the unlettered laity, and as affording to the artist the widest and the freest sphere for the expression of his thoughts.[160]

FOOTNOTES:

[118] In the _History of Painting in Italy_, by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle.

[119] Nothing is more astonishing than the sterility of Genoa and of Rome. Neither in sculpture nor in painting did these cities produce anything memorable, though Genoa was well placed for receiving the influences of Pisa, and had the command of the marble quarries of Carrara, while Rome was the resort of all the art-students of Italy. The very early eminence of Apulia in architecture and the plastic arts led to no results.

[120] Milan, it is true, produced a brilliant school of sculptors, and the Certosa of Pavia is a monument of her spontaneous artistic genius.

But in painting, until the date of Lionardo's advent, she achieved little.

[121] See Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, pp. 182-188, for the const.i.tutional characteristics of Florence and Venice; and Vol. II., _Revival of Learning_, pp. 118-120, for the intellectual supremacy of Florence.

[122] A glance at the map shows to what a large extent the Italians owed the progress of their arts to Tuscany. Pisa, as we have already seen, took the lead in sculpture. Florence, at a somewhat later period, revived painting, while Siena contemporaneously developed a style peculiar to herself. This Sienese style--thoroughly Tuscan, though different from that of Florence--exercised an important influence over the schools of Umbria, and gave a peculiar quality to Perugian painting. Through Piero della Francesca, a native of Borgo San Sepolcro, the Florentine tradition was extended to Umbria and the Roman States. Perugia might be even geographically claimed for Tuscany, inasmuch as the Tiber divides the old Etrurian territory from the Umbrians and the duchy of Spoleto. Lionardo was a Tuscan settled as an alien in Milan. Raphael, though a native of Urbino, derived his training from Florence, indirectly through his father and his master Perugino, more immediately from Fra Bartolommeo and Michael Angelo.

[123] If Vasari is to be trusted, this visit of Charles of Anjou to Cimabue's studio took place in 1267; but neither the Malespini nor Villani mention it, and the old belief that the Borgo Allegri owed its name to the popular rejoicing at that time is now somewhat discredited.

See Vasari, Le Monnier, 1846, vol. i. p. 225, note 4. Gino Capponi, in his _Storia della Repubblica di Firenze_, vol. i. p. 157, refuses however to reject the legend.

[124] See Capponi, vol. i. pp. 59, 78, for a description of the gay and courteous living of the Florentines upon the end of the thirteenth century.

[125] See the _Descrizione della Peste di Firenze_.

[126] I wish I could here transcribe the most beautiful pa.s.sage from Ruskin's _Giotto and his Works in Padua_, pp. 11, 12, describing the contrast between the landscape of Valdarno and the landscape of the hills of the Mugello district. I can only refer readers to the book, printed for the Arundel Society, 1854.

[127] See Trucchi, _Poesie Italiane Inedite_, vol. ii. p. 8.

[128] See above, Chapter III, Relation of Sculpture to Painting.

[129] The wonderful beauty of Orcagna's faces, profile after profile laid together like lilies in a garden border, can only be discovered after long study. It has been my good fortune to examine, through the kindness of Mrs. Higford Burr, of Aldermaston, a large series of tracings, taken chiefly by the Right Hon. A. H. Layard, from the frescoes of Giottesque and other early masters, which, by the selection of simple form in outline, demonstrate not only the grand composition of these religious paintings, but also the incomparable loveliness of their types. How great the _Trecentisti_ were as draughtsmen, how imaginative was the beauty of their conception, can be best appreciated by thus artificially separating their design from their colouring. The semblance of archaism disappears, and leaves a vision of pure beauty, delicate and spiritual. The collection to which I have alluded was made some years ago, when access to the wall-paintings of Italy for the purpose of tracing was still possible. It includes nearly the whole of Lorenzetti's work in the Sala della Pace, much of Giotto, the Gozzoli frescoes at S. Gemignano, frescoes of the Veronese masters and of the Paduan Baptistery, a great deal of Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Luini, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Pinturicchio, Masolino, &c. The earliest masters of Arezzo, Pisa, Siena, Urbino are copiously ill.u.s.trated, while few burghs or hamlets of the Tuscan and Umbrian districts have been left unvisited.

[130] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. i. pp. 445-451, for a discussion of the question. They incline to the authorship of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. But the last Florentine edition of Vasari renders this opinion doubtful.

[131]

Ed una donna involta in veste negra, Con un furor qual io non so se mai Al tempo de' giganti fosse a Flegra.

_Trionfo della Morte_, cap. i. 31.

[132] On a scroll above these wretches is written this legend:--

Dacche prosperitade ci ha lasciati, O morte, medicina d'ogni pena, Deh vieni a darne omai l'ultima cena.

[133] This might be used as an argument against the Lorenzetti hypothesis; for their work at Siena is eminently beautiful.

[134] The att.i.tude and the eyes of this archangel have an imaginative potency beyond that of any other motive used by any painter to suggest the terror of the _Dies Irae_. Simplicity and truth of vision in the artist have here touched the very summit of intense dramatic presentation.

[135] The "Triumph of S. Thomas Aquinas," in this cloister-chapel, has long been declared the work of Taddeo Gaddi. "The Triumph of the Church Militant," and the "Consecration of S. Dominic," used to be ascribed, on the faith of Vasari, to Simone Martini of Siena. Independently of its main subject, this vast wall-painting is specially interesting on account of its portraits. The work has a decidedly Sienese character; but recent critics are inclined to a.s.sign it to a certain Andrea, of Florence. See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. ii. p. 89. The same critics doubt the hand of Taddeo Gaddi in the "Triumph of S. Thomas," vol. i. p. 374, and remark that "these productions of the art of the fourteenth century are, indeed, second-cla.s.s works, executed by pupils of the Sienese and Florentine school, and unworthy of the high praise which has ever been given to them." Whatever may be ultimately thought about the question of their authorship and pictorial merit, their interest to the student of Italian painting in relation to mediaeval thought will always remain indisputable.

Few buildings in the length and breadth of Italy possess such claims on our attention as the Cappella degli Spagnuoli.

[136] The amorous fere of the Christian faith, the holy athlete, gentle to his own, and to his foes cruel.

[137] Everything outside this golden region is studded with stars to signify an epoyranios topos or heaven of heavens. S. Thomas and the Greeks are inside the golden sphere of science, and below on earth are the heresiarchs and faithful. Rosini gives a faithful outline of this picture in his Atlas of Ill.u.s.trations.

[138] "For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips."--Prov. viii. 7.

[139] Gozzoli's picture is now in the Louvre. I think Guillaume de Saint Amour takes the place of Averroes.

[140] _Inf._ iv. 144.

[141] _Averroes et l'Averrosme_, pp. 236-316.

[142] In the chapel. They are the work of Taddeo di Bartolo, and bear this inscription: "Specchiatevi in costoro, voi che reggete." The mediaeval painters of Italy learned lessons of civility and government as willingly from cla.s.sical tradition, as they deduced the lessons of piety and G.o.dly living from the Bible. Herein they were akin to Dante, who chose Virgil for the symbol of the human understanding and Beatrice for the symbol of divine wisdom, revealed to man in Theology.

[143] He began his work in 1337.

[144] A similar mode of symbolising the Commune is chosen in the bas-reliefs of Archbishop Tarlati's tomb at Arezzo, where the discord of the city is represented by an old man of gigantic stature, throned and maltreated by the burghers, who are tearing out his hair by handfuls.

Over this figure is written "Il Comune Pelato."

[145] These were adopted as the ensign of Siena, in the Middle Ages.

[146] In the year 1336, just before Ambrogio began to paint, the Sienese Republic had concluded a league with Florence for the maintenance of the Guelf party. The Monte de' Nove still ruled the city with patriotic spirit and equity, and had not yet become a forceful oligarchy. The power of the Visconti was still in its cradle; the great plague had not devastated Tuscany. As early as 1355 the whole of the fair order represented by Ambrogio was shaken to the foundation, and Siena deserved the words applied to it by De Commines. See Vol. L, _Age of the Despots_, p. 162, note 2.

[147] Rio, perversely bent on stigmatising whatever in Italian art savours of the Renaissance, depreciates this lovely form of Peace. _L'Art Chretien_, vol. i. p. 57.

[148] See Muratori, vol. xxiii., or the pa.s.sage translated by me in Vol.

I., _Age of the Despots_, p. 480.

[149] His "Madonna" in S. Domenico is dated 1221. For a full discussion of Guido da Siena's date, see Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. i. pp.

180-185.

[150] On their coins the Sienese struck this legend: "Sena vetus Civitas Virginis." It will be remembered how the Florentines, two centuries and a half later, dedicated their city to Christ as king.

[151] Date of birth unknown; date of death, about 1320.

[152] He is better known as Simone Memmi, a name given to him by a mistake of Vasari's. He was born in 1283 at Siena. He died in 1344 at Avignon. Petrarch mentions his portrait of Madonna Laura, in the 49th and 50th sonnets of the "Rime in Vita di Madonna Laura." In another place he uses these words about Simone: "Duos ego novi pictores egregios, nec formosos, Jottum Florentinum civem, cujus inter modernos fama ingens est, et Simonem Senensem."--_Epist. Fam._ lib. v. 17, p. 653. Petrarch proceeds to mention that he has also known sculptors, and a.s.serts their inferiority to painters in modern times.

[153] See above, Chapter IV, Theology and S. Dominic. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle reject, not without reason, as it seems to me, the tradition that Simone painted the frescoes of S. Ranieri in the Campo Santo at Pisa. See vol. ii. p. 83. What remains of his work at Pisa is an altar-piece in S. Caterina.

[154] To Simone is also attributed the interesting portrait of Guidoriccio Fogliani de' Ricci, on horseback, in the Sala del Consiglio.

This, however, has been so much repainted as to have lost its character.

[155] In S. Francesco at Pisa.

[156] Spinello degli Spinelli was born of a Ghibelline family, exiled from Florence, who settled at Arezzo about 1308. He died at Arezzo in 1410, aged 92, according to some computations.

[157] South wall of the Campo Santo, on the left-hand of the entrance.

[158] In the Sala di Balia of the public palace at Siena.