Lives of the Artists

by Giorgio Vasari

  Then, having won a good name for himself at the court of Urbino, Piero wanted to make himself known elsewhere and so he went to Pesaro and Ancona. He was at his busiest there when Duke Borso summoned him to Ferrara where he decorated many of the palace rooms. These, however, were afterwards destroyed by Duke Ercole the elder when he renovated the palace; and so there is nothing by Piero left in Ferrara, save the frescoes he did in a chapel in Sant’Agostino, and even they have suffered badly from damp.

  Piero was then summoned to Rome by Pope Nicholas V, and there, in competition with Bramante of Milan, he painted two scenes in the upper rooms of the palace; but these, too, were destroyed by Pope Julius II and their place taken by Raphael of Urbino’s paintings of the liberation of St Peter from prison, the miracle of the Mass at Bolsena, and other scenes that had previously been depicted by Bramantino.1

  This Bramantino was an excellent painter in his time, and I propose to say something about him here; all his work has been lost and so there would be no point in writing at length about his life and works. I have heard that among the lost works were some heads copied from life which were so beautiful and so well executed that all they lacked was the faculty of speech. Many of these heads, however, have been preserved thanks to Raphael, who had copies made of them because they all commemorated very famous people. Among them were the heads of Niccolò Fortebraccio, Charles VIII, king of France, Antonio Colonna, prince of Salerno, Francesco Carmignuola, Giovanni Vitellesco, Cardinal Bessarion, Francesco Spinola, and Battista da Canetto; portraits of all these were given to Giovio by Giulio Romano, the pupil and heir of Raphael of Urbino, and were deposited by Giovio in his museum at Como. Over the door of San Sepolcro at Milan I have seen a foreshortened painting of the dead Christ, done by the same man; even though the picture is only about two feet high, he had done the impossible by including the whole length of the body, which he painted with great facility and judgement. In the same city there are some other works by Bramantino at the house of the young Marquis Ortanesia, where he decorated various rooms and loggias very skilfully, achieving some very forceful foreshortening of his figures. And outside the Vercellina gate, near the castle, he decorated some stables, which have now been demolished, with pictures of horses being groomed; one of these was so well done and so lifelike that one of the horses thought it was real and kicked it repeatedly with its hoofs.

  But to return to Piero della Francesca. He finished his work in Rome, and then after his mother had died he went back to Borgo. In the parish church, on the inside of the middle door, he painted two saints in fresco which are greatly admired. In the convent of the Augustinians he painted a panel picture for the high altar, which was also enthusiastically praised. And he painted in fresco a picture of Our Lady of Mercy which was commissioned by a guild or, as they say, a confraternity. In the Conservators’ Palace he painted a Resurrection which is considered the best work he did either in Borgo or anywhere else.

  In company with Domenico Veneziano, Piero started to decorate the vault of the sacristy of Santa Maria at Loreto; but they left it unfinished because of their fear of the plague and the painting was subsequently completed, as I shall describe later, by Luca of Cortona,1 Piero’s pupil.

  From Loreto Piero went to Arezzo where, for one of the citizens called Luigi Bacci, he painted the chapel of the high altar of San Francesco, the vaulting of which had already been started by Lorenzo di Bicci. This fresco cycle shows scenes depicting the story of the True Cross, from when Adam’s sons bury him and place under his tongue the seed of the tree from which the wood of the cross was to come down to the Exaltation of the cross performed by the Emperor Heraclius, who with the cross on his shoulders walks barefooted into Jerusalem. The work is full of admirable ideas and attitudes. The clothes of the women attending the queen of Sheba, for example, are depicted in a very delightful and novel way; there are many very true and lifelike portraits of people of the ancient world; there is a row of Corinthian columns, magnificently well proportioned; and there is a peasant who, while the three crosses are being disinterred, is leaning with his hands on his spade and listening with such an attentive air to the words of St Helena that the effect could not be more convincing. Also very well executed is the figure of the dead man being brought back to life at the touch of the cross, with a joyful St Helena and a group of amazed onlookers who are kneeling down in adoration. But above every other consideration of skill and art is Piero’s representation of Night, where he depicts an angel in flight, foreshortened with his head downwards, bringing the signs of victory to Constantine who is sleeping in his tent guarded by a servant and some armed men faintly discerned through the darkness of the night; the light coming from the angel illuminates the tent, the men-at-arms, and all the surroundings. This composition is marvellously thought out, for in his portrayal of darkness Piero makes us understand how important it is to copy things as they are in nature and to refer constantly to what is being copied. This he himself did so well that he has been followed by our modern artists who have been able to reach the perfection we see today. In the same story, Piero used a battle-scene to express very effectively fear, animosity, alertness, vehemence, and the other emotions typical of men in combat. He also showed the various incidents of the battle, depicting the wounded, the fallen, and the dead in scenes of almost incredible carnage. This work, in which Piero also counterfeited in fresco the gleam of the combatants’ arms, merits the highest praise, as does the group of horses shown in foreshortening in a picture of the flight and submersion of Maxentius which is on the other wall; the horses are so splendidly executed that one can almost say they were too beautiful and too excellent for those times. In the same picture he painted a man, riding on a lean horse, half nude and half clothed in the Saracen fashion; and he displayed a knowledge of anatomy that was rare in those days. For this work he was generously rewarded by Luigi Bacci (whose portrait, along with those of Carlo and other of his brothers as well as of many Aretines, who were well-known men of letters, he included in a scene showing the beheading of a king). Piero well deserved the love and admiration which from then on were always shown to him in Arezzo, a city made illustrious by his works.

  In Arezzo also, for the bishop’s palace, Piero painted St Mary Magdalen in fresco beside the door of the sacristy; and for the confraternity of the Annunciation he painted a banner for carrying in procession. At the head of a cloister in Santa Maria delle Grazie, outside the town, he did a painting in perspective of St Donatus seated in his episcopal robes and surrounded by putti; and for the monks of Monte Oliveto, in San Bernardo, in a niche high up in the wall, a St Vincent which is greatly admired by artists. And at Sargiano, outside Arezzo, in a chapel belonging to the Calced Franciscans he did a very beautiful painting of Christ praying in the Garden at night.

  He also did many works in Perugia that can still be seen there. For example, in the church of the Nuns of St Anthony of Padua he painted a panel in tempera showing Our Lady with the Child in her lap, St Francis, St Elizabeth, St John the Baptist, and St Anthony of Padua. Above is a very fine Annunciation with an angel who really seems to have come straight from heaven and, in addition, a beautifully painted row of columns diminishing in perspective. In the predella there are some scenes with little figures showing St Anthony restoring a boy to life, St Elizabeth saving a child who has fallen into a well, and St Francis receiving the stigmata. In San Ciriaco at Ancona, for the altar of St Joseph, he painted a very fine picture of the marriage of the Virgin.

  As I said earlier, Piero made an intense study of painting and perspective. He acquired an intimate knowledge of Euclid, understanding better than any other geometrician the nature of the perfect curves drawn on a basis of regular bodies; and the clearest elucidations of these matters come from his pen. The Franciscan, Luca dal Borgo, who wrote about the regular geometrical bodies, was his pupil; and when Piero died at an advanced age, having written many books, this Luca arrogated them to himself and published as his own work what had fallen into
his hands after his master’s death.1 Piero was, by the way, very fond of making clay models which he would drape with wet cloths arranged in innumerable folds, and then use for drawing and similar purposes.

  Piero Lorentino d’Angelo of Arezzo was a pupil of his who imitated his style in the many pictures he did in Arezzo, and who finished the works which Piero left uncompleted at his death. Near the St Donatus which Piero did in Santa Maria delle Grazie Lorentino painted some frescoes of scenes from the life of St Donatus, and he was very active in other places in Arezzo and the district around, partly because he could never stop working anyway, and partly for the sake of his family, which was then very poor. This same Lorentino did another picture for Santa Maria delle Grazie showing Pope Sixtus IV, standing between the cardinal of Mantua and Cardinal Piccolomini (afterwards Pius III) and granting an indulgence to that place. In this scene Lorenzo included life portraits of Tommaso Marzi, Piero Traditi, Donato Rosselli, and Giuliano Nardi, citizens and wardens of the church, who are shown kneeling in prayer. And for the hall of the palace of the Priors he did portraits from life of Galeotto, cardinal of Pietramala, Bishop Guglielmino degli Ubertini, and Angelo Albergotti, doctor of law; and there are many other works of his scattered throughout the city.

  It is said that once, when it was near carnival time, Lorentino’s sons begged him to slaughter a pig, as was the traditional thing to do in that part of the world. And knowing that the wherewithal was lacking, they asked him: ‘But how will papa manage to buy one if he hasn’t got the money?’

  To this, Lorentino merely said: ‘Well now, some saint will be sure to help us.’

  But after they had heard this several times, and carnival time had come and gone, the children gave up hope. Then, however, a countryman turned up from Pieve a Quarto and asked Lorentino to paint him a picture of St Martin so that he could fulfil a vow he had made; but he had nothing with which to pay for the picture except a pig worth five lire. So when he sought out Lorentino and told him what he wanted he added that he would have to offer a pig for the painting. They struck a bargain; Lorentino did him his St Martin and he brought Lorentino the pig. So the saint did after all find a pig for the painter’s poor children.

  Another pupil of Piero’s was Piero da Castel della Pieve who painted an arch above Sant’Agostino and for the nuns of St Catherine at Arezzo a St Urban which was recently destroyed when the church was rebuilt. Another of his followers was Luca Signorelli of Cortona, who did him more credit than all the others.

  Piero himself, whose pictures were painted about 1458, went blind through an attack of catarrh at the age of sixty, but lived on until he was eighty-six. He left in the Borgo a very fine property and some houses he had built himself, which were burned down and destroyed in the civil strife of 1536. He was buried honourably by his fellow citizens in the principal church, which was then in the care of the Camoldensian monks and is now the cathedral. His books, for the most part, are in the library of Federigo II, duke of Urbino; their qualities are such that because of them he has justifiably acquired the reputation of being the leading geometrician of his day.

  LIFE OF FRA GIOVANNI OF FIESOLE (FRA ANGELICO)

  of the Order of Friars Preachers, painter, c. 1400–1455

  FRA GIOVANNI ANGELICO of Fiesole (known in the world as Guido) was both an accomplished painter and illuminator, and also a worthy priest; and for the one reason as much as the other he should be honoured by posterity. He could have lived very prosperously as a layman, satisfying all his material ambitions through the practice of those arts in which he was proficient even when young. But for his own peace and satisfaction and, above all, for the sake of his soul, being by nature serious and devout, he chose to join the Order of Friars Preachers. For although it is possible to serve God in all walks of life, there are those who believe that they must seek their salvation inside a monastery rather than in the world. (And in the case of upright men the choice is justified, although when a man becomes a priest for the wrong reasons the outcome is invariably shameful and unhappy.)

  In Fra Angelico’s convent of San Marco at Florence there are several choir books with breath-taking illuminations from his hand, like some others in San Domenico at Fiesole on which he worked with incredible diligence. (It is true that he was helped by an elder brother who was himself an illuminator and an experienced painter.)

  One of the first paintings done by Fra Angelico was a panel for the Carthusian Monastery at Florence which was placed in the principal chapel of Cardinal degli Acciaiuoli and which showed the Madonna and Child with some lovely angels at her feet, playing music and singing. Beside her are St Lawrence, St Mary Magdalen, St Zenobius, and St Benedict, and the predella is adorned with scenes from the lives of those saints containing small figures executed with exquisite care. On the screen of the same chapel there are two more panel paintings by Fra Angelico, one depicting the Coronation of Our Lady and the other the Madonna with two saints, beautifully executed in ultramarine blue. Subsequently, he did a fresco painting in the gallery of Santa Maria Novella, beside the door opposite the choir, showing St Dominic, St Catherine of Siena, and St Peter Martyr, as well as some small scenes for the chapel, depicting the Coronation of Our Lady. For the doors of the old organ he painted an Annunciation on canvas which is now opposite the door of the lower dormitory between the cloisters of the convent.

  Cosimo de’ Medici was among those who loved and admired Fra Angelico, and so, after he had completed the church and convent of San Marco, Cosimo asked him to paint the entire Passion of Jesus Christ on a wall in the chapterhouse. This showed on one side, sorrowful and weeping at the foot of the cross, all those saints who have founded or been the heads of religious orders, and on the other side the figure of St Mark the Evangelist with the Mother of God, who has fainted at the sight of the Crucifixion of the Saviour, the Marys, who are lamenting as they hold her up, and SS. Cosmas and Damian. (It is said that as St Cosmas, Fra Angelico portrayed his friend, the sculptor Nanni d’Antonio di Banco.) Below this scene, in a frieze over the dado he painted St Dominic at the foot of a tree in whose branches are several medallions containing portraits of all the popes, cardinals, bishops, saints, and theologians that the Order of Friars Preachers had produced up to then. The friars helped him by sending for portraits from various parts, and so many of them are true to life; they include St Dominic, who is in the centre holding the branches of the tree, the French Pope Innocent V, Blessed Ugolino the Order’s first cardinal, Blessed Paolo patriarch of Florence, St Antoninus archbishop of Florence, Giordano the German the second general of the Order, and Blessed Niccolò Boninsegno, Florentine martyr. All these are on the right. Then on the left he painted Benedict XI of Treviso, the Florentine Cardinal Giandomenico, Pietro da Palude patriarch of Jerusalem, Albertus Magnus the German, Blessed Raymond of Catalonia third general of the Order, Blessed Chiaro of Florence provincial of Rome, St Vincent of Valencia, and Blessed Bernard of Florence. All these heads are very beautiful and graceful. Then over some lunettes in the first cloister he painted a number of very fine figures in fresco and a crucifix with St Dominic at the foot, which is very highly regarded. And as well as many other things in the friars’ cells, and on the surface of the walls in the dormitory, he painted an indescribably beautiful scene from the New Testament. Even more lovely, however, is the wonderful altarpiece he did for the high altar with a Madonna whose simplicity inspires devotion in the onlooker, as do the saints who surround her; moreover the predella, containing scenes of the martyrdom of SS. Cosmas and Damian and others, is so beautiful that one cannot imagine ever seeing anything executed with more diligence or containing little figures as delicate or as skilfully realized.

  He also painted the altarpiece for the high altar of San Domenico at Fiesole, which has suffered from being retouched by other artists, perhaps because it was deteriorating. The predella and the ciborium of the Blessed Sacrament, however, are in a better state of preservation, and the host of little figures that can be seen there, in a C
elestial Glory, are so exquisite that they really seem to be in Paradise and one could stand gazing at them for ever. In one of the chapels of the same church there is a panel painting by Fra Angelico of the Annunciation, showing Our Lady and the angel Gabriel in profile, their features being so well executed, so delicate and devout, that they seem to have been made in heaven rather than in this world. In the landscape one can see Adam and Eve, because of whom the Redeemer was to be born from the Virgin. The predella also contains several other very fine scenes.

  However, of all the paintings he did, the one in which Fra Angelico surpassed himself and which displayed to perfection his talent and knowledge as a painter was a panel picture found in San Domenico on the left hand as one enters the church. This shows the Coronation of Our Lady by Jesus Christ, with a choir of angels and a multitude of male and female saints, so many in number, so beautifully depicted, with such variety in their attitudes and expressions that in looking at them one is overwhelmed with pleasure and delight. Those blessed spirits, one imagines, must appear in heaven just as Fra Angelico has painted them, or rather would appear so if they had bodies; because all the saints that are there, male and female, are full of life, their expressions are gentle and charming, and, moreover, the colouring could well be the work of one of the angels or saints themselves. So we can understand why the good friar was always called Fra Giovanni Angelico.1 There are, in addition, some inspired stories of Our Lady and St Dominic in the predella; and I for my part can truthfully say that whenever I see this painting it seems to be for the first time, and that I can never have my fill of it. There are other paintings by Fra Angelico containing a number of small, very carefully executed figures, on the doors of the cupboard (where the silver is kept) in Piero de’ Medici’s chapel of the Annunziata at Florence.