While he was engaged on this work it happened that the church of the Carmine was consecrated, and to commemorate this event Masaccio painted a picture of the entire ceremony as it had taken place, in chiaroscuro and terra verde, inside the cloister over the door which leads to the convent. He showed countless citizens following the procession and in their cloaks and hoods, among them being Filippo Brunelleschi, wearing wooden shoes, Donatello, Masolino da Panicale, who had been his own master, Antonio Brancacci, who commissioned Masaccio’s work for the chapel, Niccolò da Uzzano, Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, and Bartolommeo Valori, all of whom are also portrayed by the same hand in a painting in the house of a Florentine gentleman, Simon Corsi. Masaccio also painted there a portrait of Lorenzo Ridolfi, who at that time was ambassador of the Florentine Republic in Venice. And he not only portrayed these noblemen from life but also painted the door of the convent just as it was, with the porter holding the keys in his hand.
There are many excellent qualities in this work, for Masaccio succeeded in showing these people, five or six in line together on the level of the piazza, receding from view with such proportion and judgement that his skill is indeed astonishing. Even more remarkable, one can see his perspicacity in painting these men as they really were, not as being all the same size but with a certain subtlety which distinguishes the short and fat from the tall and thin; and they are also posed with their feet firmly on one level, and so well foreshortened in line that they look the same as they would in real life.
After this, Masaccio started work again on the Brancacci Chapel, continuing the scenes from the life of St Peter which Masolino had begun and finishing some of them, namely, St Peter enthroned, the healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, and the restoring of the cripples as St Peter’s shadow falls on them while he walks to the Temple with St John. The most notable among them, however, is the painting in which St Peter, in order to pay the tribute, at Christ’s command is taking the money from the belly of the fish; for as well as being able to see in one of the Apostles, the last in the group, a self-portrait which Masaccio executed so skilfully with the help of a mirror that it seems to breathe, we are shown the bold way in which St Peter is questioning Our Lord and the attentiveness of the Apostles as they stand in various attitudes around Christ, waiting for his decision with such animated gestures that they look truly alive. St Peter is especially remarkable, as he flushes with the effort he is making in bending to take the money out from the belly of the fish; and even more when he pays the tribute, where we can see his emotion as he counts the money and the greed of the man who is receiving it and is looking at it in his hand with great satisfaction.
He also painted there the raising of the praetor’s son by St Peter and St Paul; but he died before this work was finished, and it was subsequently completed by Filippino.1 In the scene showing St Peter baptizing there is a figure of a naked man, who is trembling and shivering with cold as he stands with the others who are being baptized. This is very highly regarded, being executed in very fine relief and in a very charming style; it has always been praised and admired by artists.
Because of Masaccio’s work, the Brancacci Chapel has been visited from that time to this by an endless stream of students and masters. There are still some heads to be seen there which are so beautiful and lifelike that one can say outright that no other painter of that time approached the modern style of painting as closely as did Masaccio. His work deserves unstinted praise, especially because of the way he formed in his painting the beautiful style of our own day. How true this is is shown by the fact that all the most renowned sculptors and painters who have lived from that time to this have become wonderfully proficient and famous by studying and working in that chapel: namely, Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, Fra Filippo, Filippino (who finished the chapel), Alesso Baldovinetti, Andrea del Castagno, Andrea del Verrocchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco, Mariotto Albertinelli, and the inspired Michelangelo Buonarroti. In addition, Raphael of Urbino found in the chapel the first inspiration for his lovely style. Masaccio has also influenced Granaccio, Lorenzo di Credi, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, Franciabigio, Baccio Bandinelli, Alonso the Spaniard, Jacopo Pontormo, Pierino del Vaga, and Toto del Nunziata. In short, all those who have endeavoured to learn the art of painting have always gone for that purpose to the Brancacci Chapel to grasp the precepts and rules demonstrated by Masaccio for the correct representation of figures. And if I have failed to mention many other foreigners and Florentines who have gone there to study, let me just say that where great artists flock so do the lesser.
Although Masaccio’s works have always had a high reputation, there are those who believe, or rather there are many who insist, that he would have produced even more impressive results if his life had not ended prematurely when he was twenty-six. However, because of the envy of fortune, or because good things rarely last for long, he was cut off in the flower of his youth, his death being so sudden that there were some who even suspected that he had been poisoned.
It is said that when he heard the news Filippo Brunelleschi, who had been at great pains to teach Masaccio many of the finer points of perspective and architecture, was plunged into grief and cried: ‘We have suffered a terrible loss in the death of Masaccio.’
Masaccio was buried in the Carmelite Church itself, in the year 1443. During his lifetime he had made only a modest name for himself, and so no memorial was raised. But there were some to honour him when he died with the following epitaphs:
by ANNIBAL CARO
I painted, and my picture was like life;
I gave my figures movement, passion, soul:
They breathed. Thus, all others
Buonarroti taught; he learnt from me.
by FABIO SEGNI
Invida cur, Lachesis, primo sub flore juventae
Pollice discindis stamina funereo?
Hoc uno occiso, innumeros occidis Apelles:
Picturae omnis obit, hoc obeunte, lepos.
Hoc Sole extincto, extinguuntur sydera cuncta.
Heu! decus omne perit, hoc pereunte, simul.1
LIFE OF FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI
Florentine sculptor and architect, 1377–1446
THERE are many men whom nature has made small and insignificant, but who are so fiercely consumed by emotion and ambition that they know no peace unless they are grappling with difficult or indeed almost impossible tasks and achieving astonishing results. These men enhance and distinguish whatever they happen to take up, no matter how commonplace or worthless it may seem. So one must never look down one’s nose at those who lack the fine grace and bearing with which nature should endow all artists when they come into the world; lumps of earth often conceal veins of gold. Men of unprepossessing appearance are very often magnanimous and pure in heart, and when nobility is added to their other qualities they may confidently be expected to work miracles. This can clearly be seen in the case of Filippo Brunelleschi; just like Forese da Rabatta and Giotto he was insignificant to look at, but his genius was so commanding that we can surely say he was sent by heaven to renew the art of architecture. For hundreds of years men had neglected this art and had squandered their wealth on buildings without order, badly executed and poorly designed, which were full of strange inventions, shamefully devoid of grace and execrably ornamented. The world having for so long been without artists of lofty soul or inspired talent, heaven ordained that it should receive from the hand of Filippo the greatest, the tallest, and the finest edifice of ancient and modern times, demonstrating that Tuscan genius, although moribund, was not yet dead.
Moreover, Filippo was endowed with outstanding personal qualities, including such a kind nature that there was never anyone more gentle or lovable. He was dispassionate in judgement, and he never allowed his own advantage or the interest of his friends to blind him to merit and worth in others. He knew himself, he let others benefit from his success, and he was always
ready to help someone in need. He was a forthright enemy of all vice and a friend of the virtuous. He never wasted his time, but was always working to help others, either directly or indirectly; and he would go round on foot visiting his friends and was always ready to serve them.
It is said that there lived in Florence a man of excellent reputation, industriously following a good way of life, whose name was Brunellesco di Lippo Lapi. His grandfather Cambio had been a highly educated man and was himself the son of a physician, Ventura Bacherini, who was very famous in those days. Brunellesco married a very well-bred young woman from the noble family of Spini, and as part of her dowry she brought him a house where he and his sons lived all their lives. And this house stands in a corner opposite San Michele Berteldi, past the Piazza degli Agli. Brunellesco was leading a busy and contented life when, in 1398, to his great joy his wife bore him a son to whom he gave the name of Filippo, after his own dead father. When Filippo was still a child his father anxiously tried to teach him the rudiments of letters, but the boy showed such intelligence and detachment that it seemed as if he were deliberately giving his mind to things of greater importance, turning away from what he was being taught as if it lacked interest for him. Brunellesco, who wanted him either to become a notary like himself or to follow the profession of his great-great-grandfather, was deeply upset. All the same, seeing that the boy was always investigating ingenious problems of art and mechanics, he made him learn arithmetic and writing, and then apprenticed him to the goldsmith’s art with a friend of his so that he might study design. Filippo was overjoyed by this, and after he had started to learn the art not many years passed before he was setting the precious stones better than experienced craftsmen. He occupied himself with niello1 and with bigger pieces of work such as the silver figures, including two half-length prophets, which are at the head of the altar of San Jacopo in Pistoia. (These figures, made by Filippo for the city commissioners, are considered extremely beautiful.) He also made some figures in bas-relief, showing that he understood the craft so well that his mind would inevitably be led on to greater things. He became well acquainted with some highly educated people and started to speculate about problems of motion and time, and of weights and wheels, and how the latter can be made to revolve and by what means they are kept in motion; and he made with his own hands some very splendid and very beautiful clocks.
Not content with this, he grew extremely ambitious to do some sculpture. And this ambition was satisfied, because he became a constant companion of Donatello, who was also a young man at that time and was regarded as very able and as showing considerable promise. Such great affection sprang up between them, because of the wonderful qualities they saw in each other, that it seemed as if the one could not possibly live without the other. Then Filippo, who was very versatile, tried his hand at several crafts, and he had not been working at them long before he was held by those who were knowledgeable to be a very sound architect. This is clear from all the work he did on the construction of various houses: for example, the house of his relation Apollonio Lapi, at the corner of the Ciai, towards the Old Market, on which he worked very assiduously while it was being erected, and also the tower and house of Petraia, at Castello outside Florence. In the Palazzo della Signoria he arranged all those rooms where the officials of the Monte used to transact their business, constructing doors and windows in a style which had been employed in the ancient world but was then out of fashion because of the crudeness of contemporary architecture. Meanwhile, the friars of Santo Spirito in Florence wanted to commission for one of their chapels a statue in lime showing the penitent St Mary Magdalen, and Filippo, having executed a good many small works and wanting to prove that he could succeed on a larger scale, accepted the commission. When the statue was finished and put in its place it was regarded as a very fine piece of sculpture; but it was destroyed in a fire which broke out about then, in 1471, along with many other valuable works.
Filippo made a careful study of perspective, which because of all the errors of practice was in a deplorable state at that time, and he worked for a long while until he discovered for himself a technique by which to render it truthfully and accurately, namely, by tracing it with the ground-plan and profile and by using intersecting lines. This ingenious discovery made a great contribution to the art of design. It gave him so much satisfaction that he went to the trouble of drawing the Piazza San Giovanni and showing all the squares in black-and-white marble receding beautifully, and he also drew in the same way the house of the Misericordia, with the shops of the wafer-makers and the arch of the Pecori, and the pillar of St Zenobius on the other side. What he did was so highly praised by the experts that he grew still more ambitious and before long he started another work; this showed the palace, the piazza, and the loggia of the Signori, as well as the roof of the Pisani and all the surrounding buildings. These works encouraged his contemporaries to continue enthusiastically on the same lines.
Filippo took special pains to teach the young painter Masaccio, who was a close friend of his and who did his teacher credit, as we can see from the buildings depicted in his work. And he also taught his method to those who worked in tarsia, which is the art of inlaying coloured woods. His influence on these craftsmen was so fruitful that he can be given credit for the excellent results which were achieved then and later, and for the many fine works which over the years have brought renown and profit to Florence.
Now one evening Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli invited Filippo when his work was over to join him in his garden, where he had been entertaining some friends at supper. Filippo went along and heard Paolo talking about the art of mathematics. He soon struck up a close friendship with him and started to take lessons from him in geometry; and although Filippo had had no theoretical training he was able to discourse so skilfully from practical experience that very often he bested Paolo in argument. Then Filippo went on to study the Christian scriptures, and whenever he could he went to hear learned disputations and sermons. His wonderful memory enabled him to profit tremendously from what he heard, and Paolo used to say in his praise that when he listened to Filippo it was as if he were hearing a new St Paul. At that time Filippo also made a careful study of the writings of Dante, which he fully understood with regard to the places described and their proportions, and he would often cite Dante in his conversations and use his work to make comparisons. He was constantly thinking how to devise and solve ingenious and difficult problems, and he never found anyone whose discernment responded better to his own than Donatello’s; they delighted in each other’s company and conversation, and used to discuss the problems of their art together.
At that time Donatello made a wooden crucifix which was placed in Santa Croce in Florence, below Taddeo Gaddi’s picture of the child being restored to life by St Francis. He was anxious to hear Filippo’s opinion of it, but he soon regretted this because Filippo told him that he had shown a peasant hanging on the cross. This provoked Donatello to retort with the words that have now become proverbial: ‘Get some wood and do it yourself.’ (I explain the story more fully in the Life of Donatello.) Now Filippo never lost his temper whatever the provocation, and on this occasion he merely kept quiet for a few months while he worked on a wooden crucifix of the same size. He executed it with great care and skill, producing a work so well designed and so beautiful that when for a joke he sent his unsuspecting friend home before him Donatello stopped short in astonishment, let fall the apron in which he was carrying all the eggs and other things for their meal, and stood there gaping, carried away by the marvellous skill and artistry Filippo had shown in his figure’s legs, torso, and arms, which were so harmoniously combined that Donatello admitted he was beaten and said it was a miracle. Today this work is in Santa Maria Novella, between the chapels of the Strozzi and of the Bardi da Vernia, and it is still enthusiastically praised by modern artists. Following this, after their qualities had been recognized, the Butchers and Drapers Guilds commissioned from these excellent artists two marb
le statues wanted for their niches outside the church. However, since Filippo had undertaken some other work he left the statues for Donatello, who executed them perfectly.
After this, in 1401, seeing that the art of sculpture had reached a new level of perfection, the decision was taken to reconstruct the two bronze doors of the church and Baptistry of San Giovanni; from the time of Andrea Pisano until then there had been no artists competent to do this work. What was wanted was made known to all the sculptors who were then in Tuscany and they were called to Florence where each was given an adequate allowance and allowed a year to produce one scene for the doors. Both Filippo and Donatello were asked to compose scenes, in competition with Lorenzo Ghiberti, Jacopo della Quercia, Simone da Colle, Francesco di Valdambrino, and Niccolò Aretino. The artists completed their work that same year and the scenes were exhibited together. One, namely Donatello’s, was well designed but badly executed; another, Jacopo della Quercia’s, was well designed and skilfully executed, but the figures did not diminish to give a good composition; another showed feeble invention and contained tiny figures, and that was how Francesco di Valdambrina had executed his scene; however, the poorest were by Niccolò d’ Arezzo and Simone da Colle and the best was by Lorenzo di Cione Ghiberti; Lorenzo’s work was well designed, skilfully and diligently executed, and inventive; and his figures were robustly presented. All the same, the panel by Filippo was almost as good: his scene of Abraham sacrificing Isaac showed a servant who, as he waits for Abraham and while the ass is grazing, is drawing a thorn from his foot. And this work deserves the highest praise. When all the scenes were exhibited, Filippo and Donatello decided that only Lorenzo’s was satisfactory, and they agreed that he was better qualified for the work than they or the others were. So they approached the consuls and argued very persuasively that the commission should be given to Lorenzo, making it clear that both the public and the private interest would be best served if this were done. They thereby showed true qualities of friendship, talent untouched by envy, and sound judgement of their own abilities, and for this they deserved more praise than if they had done the work perfectly themselves. What happy men they were! They helped each other and they found pleasure in praising the work of others. What a deplorable contrast is presented by our modern artists who are not content with injuring one another, but who viciously and enviously rend others as well!
Lives of the Artists Page 14
