altar-piece in the National Gallery, of Saints Sebastian, Rock, and Demetrius, formerly in the church of Bondeno, near Ferrara, he may be accounted among the great masters of his time.1 The two Dossi, of Dosso, near Cento, Dosso and Giambattista, are honoured by the praises of Ariosto:— E quei che furo a' nostri dì, o sono ora, Orlando Furioso, Cant. xxxiii. 2. Dosso LUTERI, called Dosso Dossi (about 1479-1560), was the pupil of Lorenzo Costa; he likewise studied some time at Rome, and was the most distinguished contemporary of Garofalo at Ferrara. His brother, GIAMBATTISTA, who died in 1549, painted the landscapes in Dosso's pictures; they generally painted together; and the "Infancy of Jupiter," in the National Gallery, though long ascribed to Giulio Romano, is considered by some a joint work of these two Ferrarese painters, and they may be right: the picture is on deal, a wood used by the Swiss painters and the artists of the north of Italy. The Dresden Gallery has by Dosso, a grand altar-piece of the "Four Doctors of the Church meditating on the mystery of the Immaculate Conception;" Saints Gregory, Augustin, Ambrose, and Jerome, have much of the dignity of Moretto and Raphael in their style, but the visionary portion of the picture above, representing God blessing the Virgin Mary, is a very ordinary piece of work. Of Garofalo's own scholars, the principal was GIROLAMO CARPI, or DE' CARPI, who was born at Ferrara in 1501, or towards the close of the fifteenth century, and died there in 1556 or 1568; he executed many works at Ferrara and Bologna, both in oil and in fresco, endeavouring to appropriate the style and grace of Correggio; and he was an excellent portrait painter. He was a decorative painter, and also an architect; in the last capacity he was with the Cardinal Ippolito d'Este in Rome, in 1550, and the Pope, Julius III. wished to make him superintendent of the Vatican buildings; but the jealousy of rivals made Girolamo's residence in Rome so unpleasant that he returned to his own family in Ferrara. BARTOLOMEO FACCINI Succeeded Girolamo de' Carpi as ducal painter at Ferrara, and executed for Alfonso II., in the court of Bartolino di Novara's grand old castle of Ferrara, in chiaroscuro, in imitation of 1 His existence, however, has been doubted by some, though the title of a book of sketches noticed by Baruffaldi, “Studio di me Zoane Bapta d. Benvegnù, fatto in Bologna," &c., would seem to prove such existence, except that the m with a flourish, which is read in this and other cases as me, should, I imagine, in nearly every case be read as m, the contraction for messer-master. See the National Gallery Catalogue, 1864. bronze, a series of portrait figures, now all but perished, of the Princes of Ferrara, of the house of Este: a somewhat similar series had been painted by Girolamo in the ducal palace of Copparo, for Duke Ercole. It was in making some corrections in this series of chiaroscuri that Faccini fell from the carelessly-arranged scaffolding, in 1577, and was killed on the spot, in his forty-fifth year.' Two other painters of this school were distinguished in the sixteenth century: Gio Francesco Surchi, called Dielai, a scholar and assistant of the Dossi, he died in 1590; and his scholar, Giuseppe Mazzuoli, called II Bastaruolo, from the occupation of his father, who was a corn-chandler; he was drowned in 1589, while bathing in the Po. There are works of both at Ferrara. CHAPTER XXI. SCHOOLS OF LOMBARDY:-CHIAROSCURO-CORREGGIO AND PARMIGIANO. WHILE form and expression were almost exclusively cultivated at Florence and Rome, chiaroscuro and colour were perfected in the north. One of the chief branches of the Lombard school was the Milanese; and the principal painters of this school have been already noticed among] the followers of Leonardo da Vinci. But throughout all the Italian schools in this period the religious spirit of the quattrocento art gradually gave place to classical mythology and history, and the sensuous development of art became the highest aim of the artists; this is a predominant quality of what is styled the cinquecento art. Correggio is the greatest master of chiaroscuro, or light and dark, whether effected by light and dark colours or light and dark shades. ANTONIO ALLEGRI, or LIETO, commonly called CORREGGIO, from his birth-place of that name, near Modena, was the son of a respectable merchant, Pellegrino Allegri, and was born in the latter end of the year 1493, or in the beginning of 1494. Scarcely anything is known of his early career. He is supposed to have been the pupil of one Tonino Bartolotto, of Correggio, but he probably acquired much from the works of Leonardo da Vinci and his Milanese 1 Baruffaldi, "Pittori Ferraresi, 1844." 2 Cinquecento, or five hundred, is a mere abbreviation for one thousand five hundred, and signifies the style of art which arose shortly after the year 1500, and therefore strictly the art of the sixteenth century, as also the quattrocento means that of the fifteenth. scholars; as his earlier works have a greater affinity to this school than any other, especially the San Francesco at Dresden, which has something of Gaudenzio Ferrari in the quality of its tone and colour. Correggio probably also had opportunities of studying works of the schools of Mantua and Modena, both of which were influenced by the painters of Venice: he was in Mantua in 1511-12, having fled from Correggio on account of the plague, that perpetual scourge of the "good old times" of dirty habits. The pictures of Giorgione, who died when Correggio was a boy, were alone sufficient to attract the studies of Correggio to those qualities of light and shade for which his own works are so distinguished. In 1519, when he was only twenty-five years of age, we find Correggio a master of established reputation at Parma, and contracting in the following year to paint in fresco the dome of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista: the payments for these frescoes extend from 1520 to 1524.' He had before this time painted several fine altarpieces at Correggio, two of which are now among the principal ornaments of the celebrated Gallery of Dresden-the Madonna enthroned, surrounded by saints, known as the Madonna del San Francesco, which is assumed to be the picture painted by Correggio in 1515 for the Franciscans of Correggio, for 100 ducats in gold, or 400 lire, which we may consider as about 400 francs or 15l. sterling. This picture is signed ANTOIUS DE ALEGRIS, P., but is certainly unlike any other known work of the painter: the signature is a singular one; it is, however, at least a century and a half old, and may be genuine. Such a painting is certainly a great and a surprising work for a youth of twenty-one years of age; it must not be forgotten, however, that Correggio's altar-piece disappeared from the convent of the Franciscans about the year 1577, and cannot be traced to the Modena Gallery, whence this picture came. The other early work is the picture known as the "Saint George, a brilliant masterpiece, but with no trace of the hand which painted the "Saint Francis." The third large Madonna in this collection, the "Madonna del San Sebastiano," a superior, but an injured work, was painted at, or for, Modena, in 1525 or 1526. His first works in Parma were some mythological subjects in the convent of San Paolo. The next in importance to these is the Ascension of Christ in the presence of the Apostles, in the church of San Giovanni. Correggio had painted also the apse or tribune 1 For the cupola Correggio received only 130 golden ducats, and for the choir, 65. This seems certainly small pay, especially when we think of the 301. per inch paid for the "Vierge au Panier." Affo, "Il Parmigiano Servitor di Piazza," 1796, p. 37. 2 See Pungilconi, "Memorie," &c., vol. ii. p. 69. 3 These works have been lately admirably lithographed by F. Hanfstängl. of the choir of this church of San Giovanni; but the monks wishing to enlarge the choir, the old tribune was destroyed, and, with the exception of some fragments, the frescoes of Correggio perished with it. The monks had, however, taken the precaution to have the frescoes carefully drawn by Cesare Aretusi, and he reproduced them on the new tribune; this was in 1587: the cartoons made by Aretusi are still preserved in Naples, at Capo di Monte. Aretusi received 200 scudi d'oro for his copy, or about three times what Correggio was paid for the original fresco. A still greater work than the cupola of San Giovanni is the Assumption of the Virgin, on the dome or cupola of the cathedral of Parma. He contracted for this work in 1522, and undertook to paint the whole dome and choir for 1000 ducats, or about 150l. sterling, which may have been worth at that time about 3000l. Correggio, however, never fulfilled this engagement; he did not even complete the dome, which was finished by his scholar Giorgio Gandini. The Apostles likewise witness the Assumption of the Virgin; and in the four lunettes on the piers of the dome Correggio has painted in the same size the patron saints of Parma-John the Baptist, Sant' Ilario, San Tommaso, and San Bernardo degli Uberti. There is no window or lantern above this dome, the light being admitted from long oval windows in the lower part: a circumstance which adds greatly to the effect of the composition, and of which Correggio has taken the utmost advantage. He has made the whole illumination of the subject proceed from the glory around Christ in the centre of the cupola; Christ is descending from amidst a glory of angels to meet the Virgin borne up from the earth by another crowd of angels; the Apostles, witnesses of the Assumption, are painted between the windows in the lower part of the cupola. The whole forms one great host of saints and angels, all illumined from the central glory in the summit; and the light has a wonderful effect upon the apostles and saints below. A striking peculiarity of these and other works by Correggio is the violent perspective in which most of the figures are seen. Foreshorten 1 Affò, l. c. p. 38. Cesare Aretusi was probably the grandson of Pelegrino da Modena: he was a good portrait painter as well as fresco painter. He died at Parma about 1612. 2 The common report circulated by Vasari about Correggio's poverty seems unfounded; he appears from existing documents to have been generally, if not always, well paid for his works. In considering his prices we must not overlook that money had at that time, in some parts of Europe, twenty-fold its present value. Pungileoni, "Memorie Istoriche di Antonio Allegri, detto il Correggio," Parma, 1817-21; "Sketches of the Lives of Correggio and Parmigiano" London, 1823; Lanzi, "Storia Pittorica dell' Italia." 3 Engraved by G. B. Vanni: a new series of prints from these and the frescoes of San Giovanni has been engraved by the Cav. Toschi. R ing appears to have been a passion with him, though in the frescoes of these cupolas, in which the subject events are supposed to take place immediately above the spectator, the figures must of necessity have been foreshortened if naturally or justly represented. In many, however, of Correggio's altar-pieces, he has displayed his skill in this department of art when the occasion did not necessarily require it. Besides the above frescoes, which are accounted Correggio's masterpieces, there are many very celebrated easel-pictures and altar-pieces in oil by him, particularly the Nativity at Dresden, or the "Notte" (Night), as it is called in Italy. And one of the best, in all respects, is the "San Girolamo," or St. Jerome adoring the Infant Christ, of the Gallery of Parma, which is a work of exceeding beauty, combining, with all the academic requirements of art, a refined sentiment, but yet not free from that affectation of posture which is the general result of his over-wrought efforts at grace of attitude. This is also a "Nativity," but it is "Il Giorno," the Day," contrasting with the effect of the other, which represents the Night. This was painted in 1524. 2 The "Notte" was painted, or at least commissioned, in 1522, and Correggio received for it only 208 lire, about 77. 10s. of our money; this was, however, by no means an inconsiderable sum at that time, though only half what he had received seven years before for the "San Francesco" altar-piece. The light of this picture, which is an "Adoration of the Shepherds," proceeds from the Infant Saviour, a circumstance upon which much has been written, as an original and happy invention; the principle was, however, previously applied by Raphael in the fresco in the Vatican of the Liberation of St. Peter from Prison: in the central portion of this composition, the Angel visiting St. Peter in the Prison, the entire illumination proceeds from the angel. The "Notte," the St. Sebastian, the Magdalen, and the other works by Correggio, in the Gallery at Dresden, were purchased in 1745 from the Duke of Modena, with the rest of that prince's collection, by Frederick Augustus II., Elector of Saxony. There is or was a copy of the "Notte" in the church of San Giovanni at Parma, made by Cesare Aretusi: another copy is spoken of as being in the church of San Prospero at Reggio. The praises of this picture seem exceedingly exaggerated; it may have had a brilliant effect in its original state, but though improved by its recent restoration, it has no such effect now. It was cleaned and restored 1 See the fine print by Strange. 2 "Abrégé de la Vie des Peintres," &c., or Dresden Catalogue of 1782. 3 Bertoluzzi, "Guida di Parma," 1830, says this copy has been sold, and a very inferior one substituted for it. |