Lives of the Artists

by Giorgio Vasari

  The second of the statues, dressed in the citizen’s gown worn in Florence, is in the church of the Servites (the Annunziata) above the lower door by the table where the candles are sold. And the third was sent to Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi and set up in front of the Madonna. This was where (as I described elsewhere) Lorenzo de’ Medici had the street running from Santa Maria to the gate facing San Francesco paved with bricks; he also restored the fountains that his grandfather Cosimo had erected there.

  But to return to the waxwork figures: in the church of the Servites all those made by Orsino are marked at the base with a large O with an R inside and a cross above, and they are all so beautifully made that there have been few to compare with them since. The craft has been kept alive until the present day but it is now falling into disuse, either through lack of devotion or for some other reason.

  However, I must return to Verrocchio himself. As well as all the work I have mentioned, he did some wooden crucifixes and various other things in terracotta in which he certainly excelled, as we can see from the models for the reliefs that he did for the altar of San Giovanni and from some very beautiful putti, as well as from a head of St Jerome which is regarded as truly marvellous. Verrocchio also made the boy on the clock in the New Market whose arms are raised to sound the hours with a hammer held in his hands; at the time, this was considered very attractive and novel. And now we have come to the end of the biography of that most distinguished sculptor, Verrocchio.

  LIFE OF ANDREA MANTEGNA

  Painter of Mantua, c. 1431–1506

  AS is known by every ambitious and reasonably successful artist, generosity is a powerful spur to talent. Craftsmen work all the harder, ignoring fatigue and discomfort, when they can hope for the rewards and honours which foster their talents and make them better known. It is certainly true that genius is not always recognized and rewarded as it was in the case of Andrea Mantegna, an artist who was born of very humble stock in the Mantua district, working in the fields as a boy and yet (as I shall describe) rising to the rank of a knight through his own efforts and good fortune.

  When he was nearly grown up Andrea was taken to the city, where he studied painting under Jacopo Squarcione,1 a Paduan painter, who welcomed him into his house, and shortly afterwards, perceiving the boy’s intelligence, adopted him as his own son, as Girolamo Campagnuola writes in a letter written in Latin to Leonido Tomeo, in which he tells him about some of the old painters who used to serve the Carrara dynasty in Padua. Squarcione knew that he himself was not the world’s greatest painter, and so in order to help Andrea learn more than he could teach he made him study from casts taken from antique statues and from pictures painted on canvas which he sent for from various places, but especially Tuscany and Rome. Andrea learned a great deal by this and other means while he was still young. And he was also given no little help and incentive by the competition he met from Marco Zoppo of Bologna, Dario da Treviso, and Niccolò Pizzolo of Padua, who were all pupils of his master and adoptive father.

  Now before he was even seventeen Andrea painted the panel for the high altar of Santa Sofia in Padua, producing a picture worthy of a mature and experienced craftsman. And when Squarcione was commissioned to decorate the chapel of St Christopher, in the Eremitani Church of Sant’Agostino in Padua, he handed the work over to Niccolo Pizzolò and Andrea. Niccolò depicted God-the-Father seated in majesty between the Doctors of the Church, and his paintings were subsequently regarded as the equal of anything that Andrea did there. Indeed, although his output was meagre it was all excellent, and if he had enjoyed handling a brush as much as he did a sword, Niccolò would have been a great and almost certainly a longer-lived artist; but he always went about armed and he had many enemies, and one day on his way home from work he was treacherously attacked and killed. The only other work of his that I know of is another painting of God-the-Father in the chapel of the city governor.

  Left to finish the work by himself, Andrea did a fresco painting of the four evangelists, which was very highly regarded. Because of this and his other paintings great things were expected of him, and the success he eventually achieved was confidently predicted. The Venetian painter, Jacopo Bellini (the father of Gentile and Giovanni and a rival of Squarcione) contrived to get Andrea to marry his daughter, Gentile’s sister. But when Squarcione heard of this he was so angry with Andrea that they were enemies from then on; and just as before he was always praising Andrea’s paintings, so now he spent all his time criticizing them unfavourably in front of everyone. He singled out for attack the paintings that Andrea had done in the chapel of St Christopher, saying that they were inferior work since when he did them Andrea had imitated marble statues. Stone, said Squarcione, was essentially a hard substance and it could never convey the softness and tenderness of flesh and natural objects, with their various movements and folds. Andrea would have done far better, he suggested, if he had painted his figures not in various colours but just as if they were made of marble, seeing that his pictures resembled ancient statues and suchlike things rather than living creatures.

  This censure enraged Andrea, but all the same it proved very useful because he realized that there was a lot of truth in what Squarcione said and he started to practise portraying living people. He made so much progress that in one of the scenes he still had to do in the chapel his use of nature and living things was as effective as his derivations from art. None the less, Andrea still held to the opinion that the statues of antiquity were more perfect and composed of more beautiful elements than anything in living nature; it was his theory, confirmed by what he saw with his own eyes, that the sculptors of the ancient world had used several living models to create the perfection and beauty which nature rarely brings together in a single form: they found it necessary to take one part from one body and another from another. As well as this, the statues he copied seemed to Andrea to be more detailed and clearly defined as regards the muscles, veins, nerves, and so forth which nature conceals with a soft covering of flesh, except in the case of the old or the emaciated whom artists anyhow for other reasons will not use as models. Andrea’s fondness for this theory can be seen in his works, whose style is in fact quite sharp and sometimes suggests stone rather than living flesh.

  Anyhow, in the last scene he painted for the chapel (which gave great satisfaction) Andrea portrayed Squarcione as an ugly pot-bellied figure carrying a lance and sword. He also included portraits of the Florentine Noferi, the son of Palla Stozzi, of Girolamo dalla Valle, a first-rate physician, of Bonifazio Frigimelica, doctor of law, Niccolò, Pope Innocent VIII’s goldsmith, and Baldassare da Leccio, all close friends of his. He painted them all in a beautiful style dressed in white armour, burnished and resplendent as if it were real. He also portrayed the knight Borromeo, and a certain Hungarian bishop. (The bishop was a mad eccentric who used to wander about the streets of Rome begging all day, and lie down to sleep like an animal at night.) He introduced as well the portrait of Marsilio Pazzo, in the person of the executioner who is beheading St James, and a self-portrait. Altogether, the excellence of this work vastly increased his reputation.

  While he was working on the chapel Mantegna also painted a panel picture, which was placed on the altar of St Luke in Santa Justina; and afterwards he did in fresco the arch over the door of Sant’Antonino, where he signed his name. In Verona he painted a panel for the altar of SS. Christopher and Anthony, and he did some figures at the corner of the Piazza della Paglia. In Santa Maria in Organo, for the monks of Monte Oliveto, Andrea painted the very beautiful panel for the high altar, and he also did the altarpiece for San Zeno. Among the pictures he did, while he was working in Verona, and sent to various places, was a painting which came into the hands of the abbot of Fiesole, his friend and relation, containing a half-length Madonna and Child and the heads of some angels, who are singing. This picture, which was painted with exquisite grace, is today in the library of the monastery, where it has always been treasured. Now when he lived in Mantua An
drea had devoted himself to the service of the Marquis Lodovico Gonzaga, and that ruler, who always valued and patronized Andrea’s talents, commissioned from him a little panel for the chapel of the castle of Mantua containing some small but very beautiful scenes with figures. Also in the castello of Mantua Andrea painted many figures, which he foreshortened from below upwards and which have won high praise, since although his treatment of the draperies was rather crude and finicky and his style somewhat arid the work as a whole was executed with considerable skill and diligence.1

  For the same marquis in the hall of the Palazzo di San Sebastiano Andrea did a picture of the Triumph of Caesar, his best work ever. In this painting we can see grouped and cleverly arranged in the Triumph the ornate and beautiful chariot, the figure of a man cursing the victorious leader, the victor’s relations, the perfumes, incense and sacrifices, the priests, the bulls crowned for sacrifice, the prisoners, the booty captured by the troops, the ranks of the squadrons, the elephants, the spoils, the victories, and the cities and fortresses represented in various chariots, along with a mass of trophies on spears, and with helmets and armour, headgear of all kinds, ornaments and countless pieces of plate. Among the great crowd looking on stands a woman holding by the hand a boy whose foot has been pierced by a thorn and who is tearfully showing it to his mother in a most graceful and natural manner. As I may have pointed out already, in this scene Andrea applied a very fine and attractive idea, setting the plane on which his figures are posed above eye-level and then placing the feet of the foremost figures on the outer edge and making the others recede gradually, so that their feet and legs vanished from view exactly in the proportions demanded. In the same way, following the laws of perspective, he showed only the lower parts of the spoils and bases and other implements and ornaments, letting the upper parts vanish from view. Andrea del Castagno very diligently took the same considerations into account when painting his Last Supper, which is in the refectory of Santa Maria Novella. So we see that at that time accomplished artists were setting themselves to the intelligent investigation and zealous imitation of the true properties of the natural world. Anyhow, in a word, Andrea’s Triumph could not have been more beautiful or better executed; and if the marquis had loved him before, now he loved and honoured him beyond measure.

  What is more Andrea became so famous that, after he had heard of his excellence as a painter and of the other fine qualities with which he was so marvellously endowed, Pope Innocent VIII sent for him (just as he was sending for many others) to decorate the walls of the Belvedere, which had just been built. So, very favourably recommended by the marquis (who had made him a knight in order to honour him still more) Andrea went to Rome where the Pope received him affectionately and immediately asked him to paint a little chapel in the Belvedere. Andrea’s work on the chapel was so painstaking and he paid such loving attention to every detail that the walls and vaulting appear to have been illuminated rather than painted. The largest figures, painted like the rest in fresco, are over the altar and they represent St John baptizing Christ with a group of people showing their eagerness for baptism by taking off their clothes. Among them is the figure of a man trying to take off a stocking which has stuck to his leg with the sweat; he is drawing it off inside out, one leg crossed over the other, with the pain and exertion clearly reflected in his face. This ingenious detail amazed everyone who saw the painting in those days.

  It is said that because of the many demands made on the Pope, his holiness did not pay Mantegna as often as the artist would have liked. Then when he was painting some of the Virtues in monochrome in the chapel, Andrea introduced the figure of Prudence and was asked by the Pope, who came along one day to see the work, what it represented. When he told him, the Pope commented: ‘If you want a suitable companion for her, show us Patience…’

  The painter understood the Holy Father’s meaning, and he never said another word. And when the work was finished, the Pope sent him back to the duke well favoured and rewarded.

  During his stay in Rome, besides the chapel Andrea painted a small picture showing Our Lady with her Son sleeping in her arms. The background is formed by a mountain with caves in which some stone-cutters are quarrying; and Andrea depicted this scene with great patience and delicacy. Indeed, it hardly seems possible for such fine work to have been done with the brush. Today the picture is in the possession of the most illustrious lord, Don Francesco Medici, prince of Florence, who keeps it among his most treasured belongings.

  I have in my book half a folio sheet with a drawing by Andrea finished in chiaroscuro and showing Judith putting the head of Holofernes into a bag held by one of her Moorish slaves. The chiaroscuro is done in a style which is no longer used, for Andrea left the paper white to serve for the lights in place of white lead, and he executed the separate hairs and other details so delicately that they might have been carefully painted with a brush. One could say, in fact, that it is a work in colour rather than a drawing.

  Andrea, like Pollaiuolo, used to love doing copper engravings; and among other things he reproduced his own Triumphs in engravings which were highly valued since they were better than anything seen before.

  One of the last works that Mantegna did was a panel picture for Santa Maria della Vittoria, a church built to his plans and instructions by the Marquis Francesco to commemorate his victory on the River Taro when he commanded the Venetian forces against the French. This painting, which was done in tempera and placed on the high altar, shows the Madonna and Child seated on a pedestal, over the figures of St Michael the Archangel, St Anne, and Joachim presenting to Our Lady (who is holding her hand out to him) the marquis himself realistically portrayed from life. This work, which has never failed to give pleasure, pleased the marquis so much that he rewarded Andrea’s talent and labours very generously: it was, in fact, because of the recognition he won at the courts of princes that Andrea was able all his life to maintain honourably his rank as a knight.

  Among Andrea’s rivals was Lorenzo da Lendinara, an artist with a considerable reputation in Padua who did some things in clay for the church of Sant’Antonio, and some other work of little consequence. And Andrea kept up a warm friendship with Dario da Trevisi and Marco Zoppo of Bologna, having trained with them under Squarcione. Marco painted a loggia for the Friars Minor at Padua, which they use for their chapter-house, and, when he was in Pesaro, a panel which is now in the new church of San Giovanni Evangelista; and he also painted a portrait of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro when Guidobaldo was a military commander for the Florentines.

  Another friend of Mantegna’s was the painter Stefano of Ferrara, whose works were few but good. It was he who did the ornamentation of the arch of Sant’Antonio at Padua as well as a Madonna, called the Virgin of the Pillar.

  But to return to Andrea. In Mantua, he built and painted a lovely house for his own use, and he lived there happily until his death in 1517 at the age of sixty-six. He was buried honourably in Sant’Andrea, with the following epitaph placed on his tomb, over which is his portrait in bronze:

  Esse parem hunc noris, si non praeponis, Apelli,

  Aenea Mantineae qui simulacra vides.1

  Andrea was so kind and lovable that he will always be remembered not only in his own country but all over the world. He was rightly praised by Ariosto (as much for his courteous manners as for the excellence of his paintings) at the beginning of Canto XXXIII where the poet places him among the greatest painters of his time:

  Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Gian Bellino.

  Andrea discovered a vastly improved way of painting figures in perspective from below upwards, and this was a very difficult and ingenious invention. And, as I said, he loved making copper engravings, making use of a really remarkable process which has made it possible for everyone to study not only the Bacchanalia, the battle of the sea-monsters, the Deposition of Christ, his Entombment, and his Resurrection, with Longinus and St Andrew (all works by Mantegna himself) but also the personal style of all the artists who ha
ve ever lived.

  PREFACE TO PART THREE

  THE distinguished artists described in the second part of these Lives made an important contribution to architecture, sculpture, and painting, adding to what had been achieved by those of the first period the qualities of good rule, order, proportion, design, and style. Their work was in many ways imperfect, but they showed the way to the artists of the third period (whom I am now going to discuss) and made it possible for them, by following and improving on their example, to reach the perfection evident in the finest and most celebrated modern works.

  But to clarify the nature of the progress that these artists made, I would like to define briefly the five qualities that I mentioned above and discuss the origins of the excellence that has made modern art even more glorious than that of the ancient world.