The History Of Painting In Italy Volume Iii Part 8

In Trevigi, Ascanio Spineda, a n.o.ble of that city, is held in some estimation, and included among the disciples of Palma; from whom he is sometimes with difficulty distinguished. One of the most exact in point of design, he also colours with much sweetness and grace of tints; an artist deserving to be known in his native district, which abounds with the best of his works. He employed himself there, for many churches, succeeding perhaps better at San Teonisto than at any other place. No one surpa.s.sed him in the number of his pieces for public exhibition, if we except indeed one Bartolommeo Orioli, who, about the same period, displayed the talent of a good practiser, though with less repute. This last belonged to that numerous tribe who, in Italy, were ambitious of uniting in themselves the powers of poetry and painting; but who, not having received sufficient polish either in precept or in art, gave vent to their inspiration in their native place, covering the columns with sonnets, and the churches with pictures, without exciting the envy of the adjacent districts. Father Federici praises him for his portraits; a valued ornament, at that period, of large pictures, and well introduced by Orioli, in the church of St. Croce, where a numerous procession of the people of Trevigi appears, taken from the life. Burchiellati, a contemporary historian of the place, adds, as a companion to the foregoing, the name of Giacomo Bravo, a painter of figures and ornamental works, which are still held in some degree of estimation.

Paolo Piazza, of Castelfranco, who afterwards became a Capuchin by the name of Father Cosimo, is enumerated by Baglione among the good practisers, and the pupils of Palma. Yet he bears little resemblance to him, having formed a style of his own, not powerful indeed, but free and pleasing, which attracted the eye of Paul V., the Emperor Rodolph II., and the Doge Priuli; all of whom availed themselves of his ability. Both the capital and the state boast many of his pieces in fresco, and some altarpieces: nor is Rome without them, where, in the Palazzo Borghese, he painted those very fanciful ornaments in friezes, for various chambers, as well as histories of Cleopatra for the Great Hall, and in the Campidoglio at the Conservatori, a celebrated picture of Christ taken from the Cross. While residing in Rome he attended to the instruction of Andrea Piazza, his nephew, who in course of time entered the service of the Duke of Lorraine, by whom he had the honour of being made a cavalier. Upon returning to his own state, he produced his great picture of the Marriage of Cana, for the church of Santa Maria; one of the best pieces that adorn the place.

Matteo Ingoli, a native of Ravenna, resided from early youth, until the period of his immature decease, in the city of Venice. He sprung from the school of Luigi del Friso, and proposed for himself, says Boschini, Paul Veronese and Palma as his models. If I mistake not, however, he aspired to a more solid, but less beautiful style, as far as we can gather from one of his pictures at the Corpus Domini, from his Supper of our Lord at San Apollinare, and from others of his works; in all which we trace the hand of precision and a.s.siduity. He was also a good architect, and terminated his days during one of those awful periods in which the Venetian state was visited by the plague, adding another instance of loss to the fine arts, similar to those which we have noticed in other schools.

Another victim to the same contagion was Pietro Damini, of Castelfranco, who, it is averred, had he survived a little longer, would have displayed the powers of a t.i.tian; an expression we are to receive as somewhat hyperbolical. He acquired the art of colouring from Gio.

Batista Novelli, a good scholar of Palma, who, more for amus.e.m.e.nt than for gain, ornamented Castelfranco and the adjacent places with several well executed pieces. Damini next devoted much time to the theory of the art, and to the study of the best engravings, upon which he modelled his design. By this method, it is said, that he freed himself from the shackles of the mannerists, though it gave to his colours a degree of crudity; and in truth this is a defect that strikes the eye in many of his productions. Numerous specimens remain at Padua, where he established himself at the age of twenty; several at Vicenza, at Venice, and still more in Castelfranco, where his altarpiece of the Blessed Simone Stoch at Santa Maria, is highly estimated, as well as the Tabernacle surrounded with twelve histories, from both the Old and New Testaments; a novel idea, and executed with real taste. His style is elegant and pleasing, but not uniformly excellent. He is observed to have frequently changed his manner, in aspiring to reach a higher degree of perfection in his art. We might, in some instances, p.r.o.nounce him an excellent naturalist; in others more of an adept in ideal beauty, as we gather from his picture of the Crucifixion at Santo di Padova, which displays rare beauty and harmony combined, though he did not live long enough to produce others of equal merit. He died early, and at a short interval his brother Giorgio, seized by the same disorder, followed him to the tomb, an artist excellent in portrait, and pictures with small figures.

Subsequent to this period, (1630, 1631,) in which the deaths of a number of artists occur, the traces of the old Venetian style, in its best school, began still more to disappear; and the Venetian paintings produced after the middle of the century, display for the most part a different character. It is remarked by Signor Zanetti, that several foreign artists established themselves about this period in the city, and held sway over the art at their own discretion. Attached to various schools, and chiefly admirers of Caravaggio, in his plebeian manner, they agreed amongst themselves in nothing, perhaps, except two points.

One of these was, to consult truth in a greater degree than had before been done; an extremely useful idea to render art, now degenerated into a paltry trade, once more real art. But the plan was not well executed by many, who were either incapable of selecting what was natural, or of enn.o.bling it when found; while, at all events, they were too apt to mannerize it with an excessive use of strong shades. The other plan was to avail themselves of very dark and oily grounds, which were as favourable to despatch as injurious to the duration of paintings, as we have more than once had occasion to observe. Indeed this had so far come into vogue, in most places, as even to infect, in some degree, the great school of the Caracci. Hence it has arisen that in many of those pictures the lights only have remained durable, and the ma.s.ses of shade, the middle tints having disappeared; insomuch that posterity has distinguished this cla.s.s of artists by the new appellation of the sect of _Tenebrosi_, or the dark colourists. Boschini, who first put forth his _Carta del Navegar Pitoresco_ in 1660, is very severe, as we have before stated, upon the sect of mere naturalists, stigmatizing them generally, and upbraiding them for coming to seek their bread at Venice; while, at the time that they employed themselves in crying down the taste, the spirit, and the rapid hand of the Venetians, their own productions bore ample witness to the pitiable efforts by which they were produced. He gives no names; but it is not difficult to gather from the whole his aversion to the Roman and Florentine artists, of whom we shall shortly give an account. Upon these he certainly does not bestow encomiums, as he does upon all others at that period engaged in Venice, his commendations being sometimes extremely vague, and at others extravagant.

If we wish to avoid forming erroneous judgments, then, we must abandon his Painter's Chart of Navigation, and attach ourselves to the _Pittura Veneziana_, a very different guide to that of Boschini. In this the author takes care to distinguish, with the precision of a good historian, such as were followers of Caravaggio, like Saraceni; excellent pupils of Guercino, like Triva; fine colourists, however much accustomed to copy rather than invent, like Strozza, and though less select, his scholar Langetti; to whom we may add a third Genoese artist, who flourished during those times at Venice, though he left no public specimen of his labours; this was Niccolo Ca.s.sana. Of these, as well as of a few others, I shall treat in the schools to which they respectively belong. Several other names are omitted by the author, either on account of such artists having produced little in the city, or from his being unacquainted with their education and the place of their birth. Among these is Antonio Beverense, an artist who painted for the college of the Nunziata, the Marriage of the Virgin Mary, a picture that displays accuracy of design, superiority of forms, and a very fine chiaroscuro.

He was, for the most part, a disciple of the Bolognese, and from his united taste and diligence fully deserving of being more generally known. I suspect, however, that he ought to be named a native of Bavaria, and to the circ.u.mstance of his speedy return into his own country, we are, perhaps, to ascribe the little notice he seems to have attracted. Returning to the authority of Zanetti, we find, that besides giving a favourable opinion of the authors just mentioned, he bestows equal commendation upon those who are soon to follow; explaining their respective excellences and defects, and detecting such as belonged to the cla.s.s of _Tenebrosi_ through their own fault, and such as became so owing to the bad priming of those times; in treating of whom I follow the path he has pointed out.

Pietro Ricchi was an artist who resided for a long period at Venice, where he left a great number of works, and is generally known by the name of il Lucchese. It remains doubtful whether he deserves to be accused of having introduced the oily and obscure method of painting already mentioned. It is at least certain, that besides having made use of bad priming, he was in the habit of covering his canva.s.s with oil whenever he applied his pencil, which has occasioned the loss of so many of his works that once produced an excellent effect, but which are now either defaced or perished. This is the case with those that remained in Venice, in Vicenza, Brescia, Padua, and Udine; some of which, indeed, are not greatly to be regretted; the production of mere mechanic skill, and that not always executed correctly. A few, however, are conducted with much care, as we find in his S. Raimond, at the Dominicans of Bergamo, and his Epiphany at the patriarchal church in Venice, both highly deserving of commemoration, no less for the union of their colours, than for the taste displayed in the whole composition. We may easily perceive that they are the productions of a scholar, or at least of an imitator of Guido; of one accustomed to consult the pictures of Tintoretto, and of the most celebrated Venetians. Another artist equal to Ricchi in the handling of his pencil, and more accurate in the union of his colours, will be found in Federigo Cervelli of Milan, who, on opening his school at a somewhat later period in Venice, obtained the celebrated Ricci for one of his pupils. At the school of San Teodoro, we meet with a history piece of that saint, from the hand of Cervelli; and in this we may trace all the features of the same style, that was afterwards continued by Ricci, who added dignity, however, to its forms, and executed them upon canva.s.s and upon grounds better calculated to bear the effects of age.

The other artists to be enumerated in the same cla.s.s, are Francesco Rosa, a pupil rather than follower of Cortona, for an account of whom we must refer the reader to the fifth book of the fifth volume; and Giovanni Batista Lorenzetti, whose composition, bold, rapid, and magnificent, displays a powerful and correct hand. The merit of the second is conspicuous in his frescos, exhibited at Santa Anastasia, in his native city of Verona, for which he received twelve hundred ducats, including only the decoration of the chapel. Add to these the name of Ruschi, or Rusca, a Roman, and a disciple of Caravaggio in his forms, and of his age in the mixture of his colours. He was wholly unknown at Rome, though he acquired some degree of reputation in the cities of Venice, of Vicenza, and of Trevigi. His paintings are admitted into collections, where several of his oblong pieces are to be met with in pretty good preservation. Contemporary with him was Girolamo Pellegrini, a native, of the same place, not mentioned in the Guide of Rome, but commemorated in that of Venice for some works, chiefly executed in fresco upon a large scale, in which he appears neither a very select, various, nor spirited painter, though of a sufficiently elevated character. Bastiano Mazzoni, a Florentine, is another artist unknown in his native city, belonging to the cla.s.s of the naturalists, though possessed of a certain delicacy, roundness of style, and ease of handling. He was also an excellent architect, of whose talents the Cavalier Liberi availed himself in the erection of his fine palace at Venice, which appears to exceed the fortune of a painter. Count Ottaviano Angarano, a Venetian n.o.ble, if he did not altogether avoid the style then current, avoided at least its extravagance; and the Nativity which he placed at San Daniele, confers upon him double honour, having been both painted and engraved by his hand. Stefano Pauluzzi, a citizen of Venice, has been enumerated among the best belonging to this sect, if indeed he is to be included in it, as the deterioration of his pictures may be rather attributed to the badness of his grounds than to the artist. Niccolo Renieri Mabuseo also flourished at the same period, an artist, who at Rome, under Manfredi, a follower of Caravaggio, formed a taste partaking of his early Flemish and of his Italian education; very pleasing in the opinion of Zanetti, and in general displaying much strength of hand. He had four daughters who inherited their father's talents, all of whose productions were highly admired in Venice. Two of these, of the name of Angelica and Anna, remained with their parent; Clorinda entered into an union with Vecchia, and Lucrezia with Daniel Vandych, a Frenchman, who afterwards entered into the service of the Duke of Mantua, as the keeper of his gallery of pictures; himself a fine portrait painter, and by no means despicable in his histories. To his I add the name of D. Ermanno Stroifi, a Paduan, first a pupil, and an excellent imitator of Prete the Genoese, and afterwards of t.i.tian though occasionally, owing to an excessive attention to the chiaroscuro, he deviated too much from the right path. We are informed by Boschini that he travelled for the purpose of observing other schools, and that on returning to Venice, he still continued to rise in the estimation of the Venetians. A Madonna from his hand is to be seen at the great altar of the Carmini in that city; and in Padua, his Pieta, placed at San Tommaso Cantuariense. I conclude this list with one Matteo, a Florentine artist, not commemorated in his own state, from the circ.u.mstance of having resided abroad; better known by the name of Matteo da' Pitocchi. He displayed most talent in his representation of Mendicants, heads of which cla.s.s are to be met with in Venice, in Verona, in Vicenza, and elsewhere, as well as several burlesques and other fanciful pieces, in the galleries of many Italian n.o.bles. He painted likewise for churches, more particularly in Padua, where he most probably died; and the Serviti are in possession of some on a larger scale, designed in the character of a mere naturalist. These names we trust will be found sufficient, however various and unequal both in point of style and merit, as affording examples of the taste of that age.

But inasmuch as it is difficult, as I have before observed, for an entire age to become wholly corrupt, so among the mannerists, who mark the character of this epoch, there nourished some good imitators of t.i.tian, of Paul Veronese, and of Raffaello himself, both in the capital and its adjacent provinces. In the last, indeed, they were more numerous, because the artists of the terra firma did not so greatly abound in those masterpieces of the art, of which the Venetians themselves were enabled so easily to become the plagiarists, to the serious deterioration of the art. In the first rank then of supporters of the solid style, I must mention Giovan Contarino, who flourished in the time of Palma, a companion of Malombra, and an exact imitator of t.i.tian's method. He did not always succeed in improving and embellishing the nature which he copied, though, at the same time, he displayed a soundness of taste that was truly that of t.i.tian. He shewed exquisite skill in his foreshortening from above (di sotto in su), and in the church of San Francesco di Paola, he exhibited a Resurrection in the entablature, or ceiling, along with other mysteries and figures, so beautifully coloured, so distinct, and so finely expressed, as to be considered some of the most perfect of which the city can boast. He employed himself much for collections, even extending to Germany, by which he obtained from the Emperor Rodolph II., the collar of the order of cavaliers. His favourite subjects were such as he drew from mythology, being possessed of sufficient learning to treat them with cla.s.sic propriety, and of these, in the Barbarigo collection, I saw a considerable number. He was so extremely accurate in his portraits, that on sending home one which he had taken of Marco Dolce, his dogs, the moment it appeared, began to fawn upon it, mistaking it for their master. His fame was nevertheless eclipsed in portrait by Tiberio Tinelli, at first his scholar, afterwards an imitator of Leandro Ba.s.sano, and raised to the rank of cavalier by the King of France.

Pietro da Cortona, on beholding one of his portraits, exclaimed that Tiberio had not merely infused into it the whole soul of the original, but added his own also. I have met with several at Rome, bearing a very high price, and still more are to be seen in the Venetian state.

Sometimes they are left unfinished, at the desire of the parties for whom they were taken, in order to diminish their price; sometimes they are thrown into an historical character; and a Venetian Lord, for instance, will appear as Marc Antony--his wife, as Cleopatra. Many of this artist's pieces for private ornament, of the portrait size, are very highly estimated: they are alternately borrowed from scripture and from fable. Such is that of his _Iris_, belonging to the Conti Vicentini, at Vicenza, simple in point of composition, very natural and pleasing; and what is still more surprising, quite original. He did not display equal facility in more copious compositions, requiring a larger portion of time and leisure than he ever enjoyed, in order to leave behind him a work which could give him full satisfaction.

Succeeding him, appears Girolamo Forabosco, a distinguished portrait painter, of Venetian origin according to Orlandi, though believed by the Paduans, to have been one of their fellow citizens. Two of the most celebrated schools contended for the honour of adding him to their respective ranks. He flourished in the time of Boschini, who bestowed upon him and Liberi the precedency over all other Venetians of the age.

In order better to commend him in the spirit of his age, he puns upon his name, declaring Forabosco one of those who emerged _fuor del bosco_, or out of the wood, into full day; in other words that he rose out of obscurity into considerable note. We are to forgive similar conceits upon the part of Boschini, in consideration of the notices he handed down to us; and we may add likewise with Zanetti, that Forabosco possessed a n.o.ble and penetrating genius; a genius delighting the professed artist by its display of judgment; arresting the observer by its beauty; and which unites sweetness with refinement, beauty with force, studious in every part, but particularly in the airs of its heads, that appear endued with life. To form an adequate idea of these, we ought not so much to direct our inquiries to churches, which rarely boast any of his altarpieces, as to those collections which preserve his portraits; his half-length figures of saints, and his little history pieces, of which three are recorded in the catalogue of the Dresden gallery. Resembling Forabosco in diligence and delicacy of finish, though inferior to him in genius, we may mention his pupil Pietro Bellotti. By some he is reproached for his minuteness and dryness of style, which leads him to distinguish almost every hair, though always an exact and faithful transcriber of nature. Boschini considers him in the light of a prodigy, for having succeeded in uniting to so much diligence, a most exquisite delicacy in his tints, to a degree never before known. His compositions, more particularly his portraits and his caricatures, which are to be met with in galleries, are held in much esteem. Several I have seen in different places, even out of the limits of the state; two of them very excellent--portraits of an old man and an old woman, in possession of the Cavalier Melzi, at Milan, and such as are not to be exceeded by the most polished and exquisite specimens of Flemish art.

At the same period flourished the Cavalier Carlo Ridolfi, a native of Vicenza, but who received his education and distinguished himself at Venice. His natural good sense led him to shun the peculiar style of his times, no less in writing than in painting; and we may observe the same character that is displayed in his "Lives of the Venetian Painters,"

written with equal fidelity and judgment, preserved also in his pictures. Thus his _Vizitazione_, painted for the church of the Ognissanti at Venice, has been much extolled; a piece that exhibits some novelty in the adaptation of the colours; a fine relief, and exactness in every part. Other specimens of him are to be met with in public places, both in Venice and throughout the state; but a great part of his productions were for private persons, consisting of portraits, half-length figures, and historical pieces. Ridolfi imbibed excellent principles of the art from Aliense, which he afterwards improved in Vicenza and Verona, by copying the best models he could find, and attending to perspective, to the belles lettres, and to other pursuits best calculated to form a learned artist. Such he likewise appears in the two volumes of his "Lives," which are at present extremely rare, and deserving of republication, either with the plates which I heard were still in existence at Ba.s.sano, or without them, since it is no very serious loss after all to remain ignorant of the features of celebrated men, provided we become acquainted with their virtues. Upon a comparison of Ridolfi's style of writing with that of Boschini, we might suppose that these authors flourished at two different epochs, though they were very nearly contemporary. Bayle's observation, indeed, may be considered correct, as applied to them; that there exists a certain mental, as well as physical epidemic; and as, in the last, every individual is not seized with the disorder, so, in the former, good sense, as evinced in thinking and in writing, does not become altogether extinct. Thus the Cav. Carlo, as I before noticed, was not only a good writer, but one of the best biographers of artists we have. Not that he was wholly exempt from every kind of grammatical error, any more than Baldinucci himself, though one of the della Crusca academicians; but he knew how to avoid errors of judgment, into which others fell; such as relating old stories, fit only to amuse children when they first begin to draw eyes and ears; making inquisition into the life and manners of every artist, and wasting time in long preambles, episodes, and moral reflections, quite out of place. On the contrary he is precise, rapid, and eager to afford fresh information for his readers in a small s.p.a.ce, with the exception of quoting largely sometimes from the poets. His pictorial maxims are just; his complaints against Vasari always in a moderate tone, and his descriptions of paintings and of grand compositions very exact, and displaying great knowledge, both of mythology and history. He concludes the work with an account of his life, in which he complains of the envy of rivals, and the ignorance of the great, too often combining together to trample upon real merit. His epitaph, as given by Sansovino, a contemporary writer, and afterwards by Zanetti, refers the year of his decease to 1658. Boschini, on the contrary, in his Carta, page 509, speaks of him as one of the living authors in 1660, in which year his book was given to the world. I am inclined to think that those verses in which Ridolfi is commended, were the production of Boschini while the former was still living, and that after his death he neglected to retouch them.

Two others, among the best of these imitators of a more solid taste, are Vecchia and Loth, fully ent.i.tled as much as the rest to the rank they hold. Pietro Vecchia sprung from the school of Padovanino, but he did acquire altogether his style, most probably because Padovanino, like the Caracci, gave an individual direction to the talents of his pupils, in the path he judged best adapted to their success. The genius of Vecchia was not at all calculated for lighter subjects. He had imbibed from his master an admiration of the ancients, as well as the art of imitating them; and with these principles he arrived at such a degree of excellence, that several of his pictures pa.s.s for those of Giorgione, of Licini, and even of t.i.tian. It is true, that by dint of copying and exactly imitating old paintings, much darkened by time, he contracted the habit of colouring with considerable dulness of lights, affording an example for every young artist, that he should learn to tinge with lively colours, previous to taking copies of similar pictures. For though he, indeed, acquired the colouring of the ancients, he added neither much variety nor much choice of countenances; and he still remained a naturalist, limited in his ideas, and more inclined towards the burlesque than the serious. Some of his best productions consist of pictures for private ornament; of youths armed, or equipped and ornamented with plumes, in the manner of Giorgione, though not without some degree of caricature. One of these, an astrologer telling their fortune to some soldiers, is in possession of the senator Rezzonico at Rome, altogether of so beautiful a character that Giordano painted a companion to it; a little picture quite in the same taste. But although his humourous pieces please us in some, they disgust us in many of his other subjects, and more particularly in the Pa.s.sion of our Saviour; a sacred mystery, in which the spectator ought never to be presented with cause for mirth. But Vecchia seemed to forget this, and introduces, like Callot, certain caricatures among his sacred pieces, of which specimens are to be seen in the church of Ognissanti at Venice; in possession of the Conti Bevilacqua at Verona, and in other places. In other points, with a style rather strong and loaded with shade than pleasing, he shewed himself an excellent artist, both in his naked parts and his draperies; which he designed and coloured at the same time in the academies. His fleshes are dark red, his handling easy, his colour thick and heavy, the effects of his light new and studied, and his whole taste so far from any degree of mannerism, and of such a composition, that to any one unversed in pictorial history, he would appear to have flourished at least two ages before his real time. Melchiori bestows particular commendation upon him for his talents in restoring old pictures; and conjectures that he, in this way, acquired the appellation of Vecchia, his family name being, as we have noted in the index, that of _Muttoni_. He instructed several pupils in the art, none of whom pursued their master's career. Agostino Litterini, and Bartolommeo his son, were among these, both artists well known in Venice and the islands, and both distinguished for clearness and boldness of style, though the latter surpa.s.sed his father in this way. A specimen of his altarpieces at San Paterniano, displays an imitator of t.i.tian, and of the better age. Melchiori likewise gives the reputation of an excellent artist to his daughter Caterina, though commendations of this sort ought always to be understood in reference to the time in which the artists flourished. The same reasoning might apply also to politics. The t.i.tle of your Excellency used once to be applied to minor sovereigns, but it has since become applicable also to the great officers and ministers of state.

Gian Carlo Loth, an artist from Monaco, resided during a long period, and subsequently died, at Venice, in the year 1698, aged sixty-six years, as we find written in his epitaph. Both Orlandi and Zanetti are mistaken in giving him as a scholar to Caravaggio, who died before Carlo was born. It is probable, however, that he acquired his strong and loaded manner of composition, and his exact representation of nature without enn.o.bling it, from the study of Caravaggio's pictures. And if he were really the pupil, as is supposed, of Liberi, he failed to make himself master of the lively and ideal character of that school; nor did he perhaps derive any thing from it, but a certain rapidity of hand, and an elevation of manner that distinguished him from the naturalists of his time. He took a rank among the first four painters of his age, all of whom bore the name of Carlo, as I have elsewhere observed. He was much employed in Germany for the emperor Leopold I., as well as in Italy for the churches, and still more for different collections. Many cabinet pictures from his hand are to be met with in every state, in the style of Caravaggio and Guercino, with histories; of which kind is the dead Abel, so much praised in the royal gallery at Florence. One in the best preservation I have seen, is to be found at Milan; a picture of Lot inebriated, in the Trivulzi palace, celebrated among men of taste as a museum of antiquities; newly arranged by the present young and accomplished marquis, and forming a collection not unworthy of a royal house. Daniele Seiter, a fine colourist, to whom we shall again allude, was instructed in the art by Loth, during a period of twelve years. He was distinguished both in Rome and at Turin; and was succeeded by Ambrogio Bono, one of the best disciples formed by the same master in Venice, where he left a variety of works, all executed in the taste he had so early imbibed.

Other artists, about the same period, flourished in Venice, who by dint of imitating the most approved models, and also through their own talents, obtained easy access into the most choice collections. Jean Lys, from Oldenburg, came early among these, bearing along with him the style of Golzio. But, on beholding the Venetian and Roman schools, he adopted an exceedingly graceful style, partaking of the Italian in its design, and of the Flemish in its tints. He chiefly produced figures upon a middle scale, such as his Prodigal Son, in the royal museum at Florence; or of smaller dimensions, as in his various little pictures of village sports and combats, with similar subjects, in the Flemish mode of composition. Yet he produced a few pictures for churches, like his St. Peter, in the act of resuscitating Tabitha, at the Filippini, in Fano; and his more celebrated San Girolamo, at the Theatini, in Venice, where he died. Valentino le Febre, from Brussels, is a name omitted by Orlandi; while his very numerous engravings of Paul Veronese, and of the best Venetian artists, are ascribed by him to another artist of the same name. He painted little; and always pursued the track of Paul Veronese, of whom he was one of the most successful imitators and copyists known.

His countenances bear no stamp of a foreign origin, and his colours none of the bad character of his age; while his touches are always strong, without offending our taste. His smaller pieces are full of research and finish; though he has less merit upon a larger scale, and is occasionally wanting in point of composition. We meet with another distinguished imitator of Paul, in Sebastiano Bombelli, from Udine; Guercino's scholar in the outset, and subsequently a fine copyist of the best works of Paul Veronese, which are scarcely to be distinguished from the copies he took; until he gave up the more inventive branches of the art, and devoted his attention to portraits. Here he restored the lost wonders of a former age; his portraits being remarkable for strong likeness, vivacity, and truth of colouring, both in the drapery and the fleshes. In his painting there is a happy union of the Venetian and the Bolognese manner; and in some specimens of his portraits that I have seen, he seems to have preferred the delicacy of Guido to the vigour of his own master. He was esteemed also beyond Italy; he was employed by the archduke Joseph at Inspruck; took the portraits of several German electors; of the King of Denmark, and of the emperor Leopold I., by whom he was largely honoured and rewarded. It is a matter of regret, that, owing to a peculiar varnish of pitch and gum,[78] which at the time produced a good effect, a great portion of his pictures should have become obscured; and that many by the more ancient masters, which he wished to restore, should have been altogether blemished or destroyed like his own. Among the imitators of t.i.tian, of Tintoretto, and of Paul, one Giacomo Barri is likewise mentioned by Melchiori; though he is the sole authority we have upon the point. It is now easy to meet with his engravings in aqua fortis, but not with his pictures. He was also the author of a little work ent.i.tled by him _Viaggio Pittoresco d'Italia_, which has become somewhat rare, owing, I imagine, to its small dimensions, and to the researches made after it by those who preserve a series of pictorial works; for the rest, his authority is of a middling character.

In the changes which produced such an alteration in the state of painting at Venice, several cities of the provinces also in some measure partook, but in others many eminent geniuses arose, capable of resisting the moral contagion that invaded the capital, and of barring its entrance into their native provinces. The school of the Friuli, after the death of Pomponio Amalteo and Sebastiano Seccante, owing to the mediocrity of Sebastian's followers, or of the younger branches of his family, had declined, as we before stated, from its original splendour.

It numbered, indeed, other pupils by different masters; limited in point of invention, dry in design, and somewhat hard in their colouring. None appeared capable of restoring the art, and succeeded only in furnishing the city with works reasonably well executed, more or less, and borrowed from familiar models. To this cla.s.s belong Vincenzo Lugaro, mentioned by Ridolfi for his altarpiece of San Antonio, at the Grazie in Udine; Giulio Brunelleschi, whose _Nunziata_ in one of the Fraternities presents a good imitation of the style of Pellegrino; and Fulvio Griffoni, who received a commission from the city to produce a picture of the Miracle of the Manna, to be placed in the public palace near the Supper of Amalteo. Add to these Andrea Petreolo, who ornamented the panels of the organ, in the dome of his native town of Venzone, as well on the interior, where, in a very beautiful manner, he exhibited the histories of San Geronimo and San Eustachio, as on the outside, where, surrounded with fine architecture, he represented the Parable of the wise and foolish Virgins. Without dwelling upon the names of Lorio and Brugno, of whom there remain but few works, which obtained little celebrity, we shall newly record the name of Eugenio Pini, the last it may be said of those artists who but slightly addicted themselves to foreign methods. He flourished about the middle of the seventeenth century, was frequently employed at Udine, and in his own state; extremely diligent and skilled in every office of a painter, if we except, perhaps, his want of a more perfect harmony of tints. The Repose of Egypt, in the dome of Palma, and his San Antonio in that of Gemona, are p.r.o.nounced by the Abbate Boni among his n.o.blest productions.

During the period the latter flourished at Udine, Antonio Carnio, a native of a town of Portogruaro, came to establish himself in the city.

Instructed in the art by his own father, a very able artist, he subsequently appears, as far as we may judge from his style, to have studied the works of Paul Veronese and Tintoretto. Next to Pordenone, the Friuli perhaps never produced a finer genius; equally original in all the branches of historic painting, bold in his design, happy in his colouring, more particularly of his fleshes; expressive in every variety of pa.s.sion; and all these comprehended within the limits of a grand naturalist, though he frequently became a mannerist, in order to expedite his works. Several of his best productions are, at this period, lost to Udine, owing to the fault of the artist who retouched them; and among the most studied and the best preserved, there still remains his San Tommaso di Villanuova, adorning an altar of Santa Lucia. He produced likewise several histories for private ornament, half-length figures, portraits and heads in caricature, for which he displayed a peculiar talent, and which still exist at Udine. Both the city and province are well supplied with his pieces, few of which, however, are to be found coloured with strength of handling or very highly finished. He was never without numerous commissions, even though confining his talents to the Friuli; but either from want of prudence, or some other reason, he nevertheless died in penury near Portogruaro. A few of his pictures in that place are still pointed out; but those seen at San Francesco, among which are the Washing the Disciples' Feet, and our Lord's Last Supper, said to have been executed by him in 1604, either bear a false date, or are rather to be attributed to his father. For, at that period, Antonio could not have produced them, since he was still alive in the year 1680; and on this point we ought to admit the authority of Pavona, at one time his pupil, from whom Guarienti received his notices of Carnio, which he inserted in the Abecedario. This artist must not be confounded with another Carnio, named Giacomo, who flourished posterior to him, and was much inferior to Antonio in point of merit.

Sebastiano Bombelli was born at Udine, as I just observed, though he studied and resided at other places. He left no specimens of his art in the Friuli, if we except a few portraits and pieces for private ornament, along with some heads or busts of saints; while his altarpiece of the Redeemer upon the Cross, between some saints, in the parochial church of Tricesimo, is considered a very rare piece. He had a brother of the name of Raphael, whose labours were more abundant, but the whole of them, together with his name, were confined within the limits of the Friuli.

While the art thus declined in these parts of the Venetian dominions, it appeared equally to revive in others; from whence it arose, that though greatly diminished in the capital, the glory of the state did not become wholly extinct. The city of Verona was its greatest support; for in addition to having given birth to Ridolfi, to Turchi, and Ottoni, all of whom did honour to their country, it produced likewise Dario Varotari, who having established himself at Padua, laid the foundation of a very flourishing school. He exercised his talents under Paul Veronese, at Verona, to whom he has occasionally some resemblance, though his taste appears to have been chiefly formed upon other models. His design is very chaste, by no means an uncommon acquisition among the Veronese; though he shews some traces of timidity in the method of some of those pupils of the _quattro-centisti_,[79] who, whilst they draw their contours fuller than those of their masters, appear as if they were afraid in every line of departing too far from the models before them; and this he has exemplified in the pictures of San Egidio at Padua. In others, conducted at a more mature age, he seems to have aspired at imitating more modern artists, sometimes Paul Veronese, and sometimes t.i.tian himself in point of design, particularly in the airs of the heads; although his colours, however true and harmonious, can boast neither the Venetian strength nor beauty. Dario painted in Venice, at Padua, and in the Polesine; yet he produced little in reference to the age in which he flourished. He educated several pupils, among whom was Gio. Batista Bissoni, whose life has been given us by Ridolfi. This last was also a scholar of Apollodoro, named di Porcia, a portrait painter of much celebrity, and the style which he formed for himself is exactly that of a good painter of portraits, with which he is fond of filling his pictures, clothing them in the manner of his time. We may observe this in his Miracles of San Domenico, placed in the church belonging to his order, drawn upon a large scale, as well as in other pieces, scattered throughout the city in almost every street.

We must not omit the name of his daughter, Chiara Dario, a lady extolled by Ridolfi for the beauty of her portraits, and fully deserving of the honour conferred upon her by the grand dukes of Tuscany, who placed one of herself in their n.o.ble series of painters, where it is still to be seen. Boschini seems to be of opinion that she gave public instructions in the same manner as the fair Sirani of Bologna; and that she initiated in the art Caterina Taraboti and Lucia Scaligeri, a niece of Bartolommeo. Yet the pa.s.sage referring to this, (p. 526) in the Venetian poet, is somewhat ambiguous, and he perhaps only meant to a.s.sert that these two young women pursued the same career. But the chief honour and crown of Dario's reputation, was his own son and pupil, named Alessandro, who, though left an orphan at an early age, shortly after set out for Venice, where he soon began to distinguish himself. He there received the name of Padovanino, which he retained at an advanced age, and by which he is now generally known.

He first studied t.i.tian's works in fresco, such as he found in Padua, and his copies still continue to attract the admiration of the greatest professors. In Venice he persevered in his a.s.siduous attention to the same incomparable master, penetrating so far by degrees into his peculiar character, as to be preferred by many to any of t.i.tian's other disciples. But comparison is invariably disagreeable, and I am inclined to think that those who personally received from the lips of great artists a few brief and sound rules, as to what ought to be avoided or achieved in order best to resemble them, are ent.i.tled to a high degree of respect: all the speculations of the finest genius upon their works are not half so valuable; for the second century is fast pa.s.sing away, since the oral tradition of the best colourists wholly ceased, and we have been attempting to attain their method, in which we cannot succeed.

Padovanino was always equal to the task of handling any subject that had before been treated by t.i.tian; his softer ones with grace, his more powerful with strength, his heroic pieces with dignity; in which last, if I mistake not, he surpa.s.sed every other disciple of this master. "Le donne, i cavalier, l'armi, e gli Amori," these, and let us add to them his boys, were the favourite subjects of his pencil, which he exhibited to most advantage, and which he most frequently introduced into his compositions. And he knew how to treat landscape as well; which, in some of his small pictures, he has succeeded in admirably. He was familiar with the science of the sotto in su,[80] of which he gave the most favourable specimen in the church of San Andrea di Bergamo, in three admirable histories of that saint. It is a work embellished with beautiful architecture, and replete with graces in every part. He has approached equally near his model in the sobriety of his composition, in the very difficult use of his middle tints, in his contrasts, in the colour of his fleshes, in smoothness and facility of hand. But t.i.tian was still to remain unequalled in his art; and Varotari is not a little inferior to him in animation, and in the expression of truth. Nor can I believe that his method of preparing his canva.s.s, and of colouring it, was the same as that pursued by t.i.tian's disciples, many of his pieces being much darkened, with the shades either deepened or altered. This is very perceptible even in Varotari's Dead Christ, at Florence, a painting which the prince not very long since purchased for his gallery there.

In other points he appears to me to have observed the same method, in regard to his model, as Poussin, who aimed at Raffaello's manner, without reaching it, either from want of ability, or from a dread of falling into servility. His masterpiece is said to be the Supper of Cana, a piece that has been engraved by Patina, among the _Select Paintings_. It was formerly in Padua, and is now at Venice in the Chapter of La Carita; with few figures in proportion to the place; a rich display of costume and ornament; dogs that appear like those of Paul, full of life; grand attendance, women of the most exquisite forms warmed with more ideal beauty than those of t.i.tian, and drawn in the most graceful att.i.tudes. Still it is not every one who will approve of his introduction of them for the service of such a table, in preference to men, as is the more general custom. The above picture cannot, however, boast such fresh and lucid tints as his four histories of the Life of San Domenico, which are to be seen in a Refectory of Santi Giovanni and Paolo, containing as it were the flower of Padovanino's best style. This very elegant artist spent his time between the capital and his native province, where alone his pictures abound in public; in other cities they are more rarely met with, and are scarce even in private collections.

In forming a judgment of his productions, it is necessary to be upon our guard against a variety of copies, many of his disciples having so happily imitated him, that Venetian professors themselves with difficulty distinguish their hand from that of their master.

Bartolommeo Scaligero ranks among the most celebrated pupils and imitators of Padovanino, an artist enumerated by the people of Padua among their fellow citizens, although they can boast little from his pencil; while the Venetians are in possession of his pictures in various churches, the most beautiful, perhaps, at the _Corpus Domini_. Gio.

Batista Rossi, from Rovigo, produced one of his pictures for San Clemente at Padua; subsequently he flourished at Venice, executing few things for public exhibition, but which are much extolled by Boschini.

Giulio Carpioni was accounted also among the pupils of Varotari, and acquired a reputation rather for his small than his larger compositions; but we shall have occasion to allude to him again. Maestri and Leoni are names recorded in the _Guida_ of Venice, distinguished for their works in fresco, exhibited at the Conventuali. The former was most probably a foreigner, as well as the latter, whom we shall find at Rimino. Were Boschini somewhat of a less profuse panegyrist, we might here add to this list the name of Dario, a son of Padovanino, uniting the character of the physician, the poet, the painter, and engraver. In the index to the _Carta del Navegar_, we find him placed in the rank of Dilettanti, from the circ.u.mstance of his producing little in the art, and this more with the object of presenting his pictures as gifts than of gain.

Nevertheless we meet with an encomium upon them,[81] sufficient to satisfy the claims even of a good professor; besides which, several of his virtues and portraits, with an excellent body of colouring, are equally extolled for the spirit of their att.i.tudes, and exquisite taste in the Giorgione manner.

We have next to treat of Pietro Liberi, an artist who succeeded Padovanino in sustaining the honour of his native place. He ranks among the great men of his art, and is esteemed by many the most learned in point of design, of all who adorned the Venetian School. From his early studies of the antique at Rome, of Michelangiolo, and of Raffaello, of Coreggio at Parma, and of all the most excellent masters in the city of Venice, he was led to form a style partaking of every school; a style that pleased in Italy, but far more in Germany, and which obtained for him the t.i.tles of Count and Cavalier, with wealth to support them handsomely in Venice. And, in fact, to estimate his merits rightly, we ought not to consider him as a painter in one style, but in many. For according to his own confession, he employed for the eye of true judges a free and rapid pencil, not very studious of finish; for the less intelligent he worked with a very careful one, which bestowed the last touch upon every part, distinguishing the very hairs in such a manner that one might number them; and these paintings he executed on panels of cypress wood. Most probably the fire of this man's genius became quenched whenever he attempted to paint slowly, and his pieces were certainly less perfect, which is known to have occurred to several painters in fresco. But with the exception of these enthusiasts, who are extremely rare, and always adduced by the indolent in defence of their haste, an observing diligence is the perfection of every artist; and even those two thunderbolts, let us call them, of art, Tintoretto and Giordano, where they most practised it, succeeded most in charming the eye of taste. The style of this artist may also be distinguished into the sublime and beautiful. He produced fewer specimens, however, in the former, of which Venice boasts a Slaughter of the Innocents, Vicenza a Noah just landed from the Ark, Bergamo the Great Deluge, in which the sh.o.r.e is said to have been the work of M. Montagne; the whole of them painted for churches, robust in their design, displaying fine variety of foreshortenings and of att.i.tudes, with naked parts in grand character, and more in emulation of the Caracci than of Michelangiolo. He even abused the singular skill that he thus displayed; drawing the Supreme Deity by an unprecedented example, without the least drapery, in the church of Santa Caterina at Vicenza, an error of judgment which detracts from the worth of one of his most beautiful productions. In a lighter character he produced several pictures for private ornament, sometimes consisting of fables familiar to us, and sometimes of _capricci_ and allegorical subjects, too obscure even for OEdipus himself to unravel.

Most frequently he drew naked figures of Venus, in the taste of t.i.tian; and these are esteemed his masterpieces, which have acquired for him, indeed, the name of Libertino. It is a.s.serted, that being unequal to the formation of the folds of his draperies, for the most part ill disposed and vague, he the more willingly exercised himself in these schools. We meet with a great number in different collections, and after beholding one, we are at no loss to recognize the remainder, both from the heads which are often repet.i.tions of each other, and from the rosy tinge of his fleshes, and of the general tone of his pictures. He was extravagantly fond indeed of this last colour; which he often misapplied in regard to the hands and the extremities of the fingers. For the rest the composition of his colours was sweet; his shades delicate, in the Correggio manner, and his profiles often borrowed from the antique, while his whole handling was free and elevated.

Marco Liberi, his son, was not in any way comparable to his father, either in point of dignity or beauty, when left to his own invention.

His forms are either caricatures, in a manner, of those of his father, or are very inferior where they are original. This striking difference may be observed in numerous collections, where their paintings of Venus are placed together, as we see in that of Prince Ercolani at Bologna.

Still he was an excellent copyist of his father's works, a talent possessed by many others of the same school, whose imitations are easily mistaken for originals, even by professors themselves.

An excellent foreign artist ought not to be omitted in this place, one who flourished during a long period, and taught and died in Padua. His name is Luca Ferrari, from Reggio, fully deserving of being enrolled in the _Abbeccedario Pittorico_. Although Guido's pupil, his style became rather lofty than delicate; so that judging by the pictures that he produced for Santa Maria della Ghiaja in Reggio, Scannelli p.r.o.nounced him a disciple of Tiarini. In some of the airs of his heads, however, and in certain graceful motions, he shews himself not unworthy of the character of the former master. In Padua there is a _Pieta_ of his at San Antonio, of a very masterly kind, a picture that displays the rarest beauty of colouring. In his pieces abounding with figures, like that of the Plague of 1630, painted for the Domenicani, he does not appear to so much advantage; nor had Guido, indeed, offered him any great examples in this line, being accustomed rather to weigh than to number his figures.

Minorello and Cirello, two of his pupils and followers, continued to support in Padua some relish of the Bolognese School. Their names might be added to the dictionary above mentioned, as Rosetti seemed to wish, and the former, who might sometimes be confounded with Luca, ought to hold a higher place in it than the latter. Francesco Zanella deserves likewise to be recorded there, as an artist of spirit, though neither very diligent nor very learned in his art. He is esteemed almost the Giordano of this city, from the great number of his works conducted in a short time, and may be computed almost as the last of the school; for Pellegrini, who flourished during the same age, was not a native, though tracing his origin to Padua; nor did he reside there many years.

The city of Vicenza produced nothing original during this epoch; though it possessed a school, sprung from that of Paul Veronese and from Zelotti, of which I promised the reader a series in a more appropriate part of the work. In regard to its style, this school, in part, belongs to a better age; but its productions are chiefly so very indifferent, and so much the result of mechanic art, that it may rather be ascribed to the present. Vicenza indeed might have had reason to boast, had it possessed artists at all equal in point of genius to its architects. I shall first commence with the name of Lucio Bruni, whether a native of the state or a foreigner is uncertain, an artist who produced, for San Jacopo, a little altarpiece, representing the marriage of S. Catherine, executed in 1585, and partaking of the genius of a better age. I have met with no other notice of him; for as he was probably little known in times when Italy abounded with the choicest artists, he found no historian who might have rescued his reputation from oblivion. Yet this I would willingly do, if not by giving him a rank in this school, at least including him in the list of artists of the city, where I find mention of his name. Giannantonio Fasolo received the instructions of Paul, and for a longer period those of Zelotti; still adhering, however, to Paul as his first example. At San Rocco there is one of his pictures, a Probatica, so beautifully decorated with perspective, and so finely filled with sick figures, in various groups and distances, that Paul Veronese would not have disclaimed it for his own. There are likewise three Roman histories in the ceiling of the prefectory palace; Mutius Scaevola before Porsenna, Horatius at the Bridge, and Curtius before the Gulf; the whole of them n.o.bly executed. By some strange mistake Orlandi mentions Verona as the place of his birth, and where he exercised his talents.

Among his pupils was Alessandro Maganza, son of the same Giambatista whose name I recorded among t.i.tian's followers. Fasolo inspired him with his own taste; and we may likewise consider him a fine imitator of Zelotti and of Paul Veronese; as he has shown in his Epiphany, at San Domenico; and in his Martyrdom of S. Giustina, at San Pietro. In his architecture he was excellent, judicious in his composition, very pleasing in his countenances; in his fleshes inclining towards white; in his folds somewhat hard and monotonous; and for the most part wanting in expression. Vicenza has an abundance of his paintings, both private and in public; besides the provinces and the adjacent cities, to such an amount, that we have no difficulty in believing that he flourished till his seventy-fourth year; that he painted for good prices, and with little trouble. A few of his pictures, such as we meet with at Vicenza, are amply sufficient to give us an idea of the rest; not unfrequently presenting us with the same features and the same att.i.tudes and motions.

We are to look for the cause of this, not so much in his genius, which he shows in many of his works to have been excellent, as in his domestic anxieties, occasioned by a numerous family for whom he had to provide.

This artist was extremely unfortunate as a father. Giambatista, the eldest of his sons, emulated him in knowledge; and if we may venture to judge from one of his histories, of San Benedetto, at the church of S.

Giustina, in Padua, he was superior to him in point of elegance. But the support he derived from this young man's talents was soon cut off by his early death, leaving a young family of his own to the care of their grandfather. His second son, Girolamo, who had also to make provision for his own children, and Marcantonio, quite a youth, afterwards a.s.sisted their father in his productions, and already began to acquire some degree of reputation from their own. When, in the year 1630, their native place was ravaged by the plague, Alessandro had the grief to witness the death of his two sons, and, one by one, of the whole of his grandchildren; until left "the last of his race," to lament over the destruction of his kindred, he shortly followed them to the tomb, closing with his death that n.o.ble school which the two ill.u.s.trious Veronese had founded in Vicenza.

Yet it did not altogether perish; but was continued by Maffei, by Carpioni, and by Cittadella, three artists who, compared with the Maganza, sometimes appear to have sprung from the same academy, either from having studied in Vicenza the models they imitated, or because the style, which partakes both of that of Paul and Palma, was then in high repute, as that of Cortona at another period among us. They were all three, like Alessandro himself, rapid in their composition; and were their pictures, even belonging to the city, to be enumerated, they would most likely be found to equal those of all the other foreign or native artists employed there. Francesco Maffei, from Vicenza, had been the pupil of Peranda, some of whose unfinished pieces he completed. He next undertook to imitate Paul Veronese, with a tolerable degree of spirit and learning. His style is on a lofty scale; in so much that Boschini ent.i.tles him the great mannerist, extolling him as the painter of giants. Nor is he wanting in a certain grace peculiarly his; which distinguishes him from the mannerists. His picture of St. Anna, at San Michele di Vicenza, besides many works produced at the same place for the public palace, and elsewhere, extremely poetical, full of fine portraits, and coloured in the best Venetian taste, show that he was able to compete with more skilful artists than Carpioni and Cittadella, his contemporaries. And as he, perhaps, did not consider them very formidable rivals, he did not finish his pieces with much care, leaving many of his heads, besides other portions of his figures, incomplete; scanty in his colouring, employing dark grounds, and altogether painting rather for years than for ages. At San Francesco, in Padua, there is a grand picture of his "Paradise," which, owing to this method, has lost almost every trace of colour. This result extinguishes the praise which Boschini bestows upon him, that with four touches of his pencil he could make the observer raise his eyebrows with admiration, and is a very excellent warning, we think, for over expeditious artists. Their pictures may be said, indeed, to resemble certain children, the offspring of unhealthy parents, who sometimes exhibit a florid countenance in youth, accompanied with every other symptom of health, but, declining as they advance, their const.i.tution becomes exhausted in a few years.

Giulio Carpioni, a pupil to Padovanino, and for the same reason familiar with the composition of Paul Veronese, has a.s.suredly more vivacity, power of expression, and poetry than Maffei. He was not, however, equally inclined to grand proportions, and works upon an extensive scale. His figures do not usually exceed the size of those of Ba.s.sano; and they are more frequently met with in collections than in churches, throughout the whole Venetian state. In many n.o.ble houses we also find pictures consisting of baccha.n.a.ls, dreams, fables, and capricci, or fancy pieces, as well as histories, all touched with a spirit and a taste in his tints, which his master himself might have thought worthy of his pencil. He appears to have produced others for the people, if indeed they are not the work of his pupils, or of his son Carlo, who is supposed to have followed, in all points, the example of his father; though I never met with any piece that was positively genuine. He was, likewise, a good portrait painter; and in the public Council Hall at Vicenza, as well as in the church of the Servi at Monte Berico, appear the portraits of several of the magistrates in that government, accompanied by their trains; in which, to singular correctness of feature, we meet with much ideal beauty in his representation of the Virtues, that he introduced with appropriate and n.o.ble inventions. Such an artist ought to be well known in Venice and Vicenza, where he flourished during many years. He pa.s.sed his latter days in Verona, where his contemporary, Bartolommeo Cittadella, had likewise taken up his residence; last of the three whom I have just before mentioned. It is uncertain whether he was a pupil, or only a companion of Carpioni; but he is indisputably his inferior in point of genius and ability. To the same school we may add the name of Niccolo Miozzi, of Vicenza, recorded in the _Gioielli Pittoreschi_ of Boschini; and, though more doubtful, that of Marcantonio Miozzi, known by his superscription attached to a sacred subject, in possession of the house of Muttoni, at Rovigo.

Towards the close of the century, one of the artists in most request was Menarola, whose style approaches nearer to the modern. He was pupil to Volpato, though chiefly following the manner of Carpioni. Next to him was Costantin Pasqualotto, more distinguished for colouring than for design; and Antonio de' Pieri, called Zoppo, of Vicenza, who possessed a rapid, but less decided hand; along with some others who may be recognized in this description. Still higher in repute than these was Pasquale Rossi, little of whom remains in Vicenza, having chiefly attached himself to the Roman School, where he will be found mentioned.

Gio. Bittonte, leaving Vicenza, established himself, and painted a good deal at Castelfranco; where, from the circ.u.mstance of founding a school both of painting and of dancing, he acquired the surname of Ballerino.

Melchiori represents him as pupil to Maffei, and master of Melchiore, his father, who lived also in Castelfranco, where he was much employed, although engaged also at Venice, in the Casa Morosini, where he competed with the Cavalier Liberi.

When the ancient school had become wholly extinct at Ba.s.sano, there appeared a Gio. Batista Volpati, who produced many pictures for his native state; somewhat resembling Carpioni in his capricci and in his style, but more common, perhaps, in his features and whole design. His pupils are said to have been one Trivellini, and one Bernardoni, both still inferior to their master. He left behind him several treatises upon the pictoric art, which are yet existing in MS. in the rich and select library of Count Giuseppe Remondini. In the preface to these he a.s.serts that he had no master, though he is said, in a MS. at Castelfranco, to have been a pupil of Novelli. The work is interspersed with good remarks, such as to lead us to suppose him a tolerable theorist; and Algarotti took a copy of it, as