I AM aware that it is commonly held as a fact by most writers that
sculpture, as well as painting, was naturally discovered originally
by the people of Egypt, and also that there are others who attribute
to the Chaldeans the first rough carvings of statues and the first
reliefs. In like manner there are those who credit the Greeks with
the invention of the brush and of colouring. But it is my opinion
that design, which is the foundation of both arts, and the very soul
which conceives and nourishes in itself every part of the
intelligence, came into full existence at the time of the origin of
all things, when the Most High, after creating the world and
adorning the heavens with shining lights, descended through the
limpid air to the solid earth, and by shaping man, disclosed the first
form of sculpture and painting in the charming invention of things.
Who will deny that from this man, as from a living example, the
ideas of statues and sculpture, and the questions of pose and of
outline, first took form; and from the first pictures, whatever they
may have been, arose the first ideas of grace, unity, and the
discordant concords made by the play of lights and shadows?
Thus the first model from which the first image of man arose was a
clod
of earth, and not without reason, for the Divine Architect of time
and of nature, being all perfection, wished to demonstrate, in the
imperfection of His materials, what could be done to improve them,
just as good sculptors and painters are in the habit of doing, when,
by adding additional touches and removing blemishes, they bring
their imperfect sketches to such a state of completion and of
perfection as they desire. God also endowed man with a bright flesh
colour, and the same shades may be drawn from the earth, which
supplies materials to counterfeit everything which occurs in
painting. It is indeed true that it is impossible to feel absolutely
certain as to what steps men took for the imitation of the beautiful
works of Nature in these arts before the flood, although it appears
most probable that even then they practised all manner of painting
and sculpture; for Belus, son of the proud Nimrod, about 200 years
after the flood, had a statue made, from which idolatry afterwards
arose; and his celebrated daughter-in-law, Semiramis, queen of
Babylon, in the building of that city, introduced among the
ornaments there coloured representations from life of divers kinds
of animals, as well as of herself and of her husband Ninus, with
bronze statues of her father, her mother-in-law, and her
grandmother, as Diodorus relates, calling them Jove, Juno, and Ops,
Greek names, which did not then exist. It was, perhaps, from these
statues that the Chaldeans learned to make the images of their
gods. It is recorded in Genesis how 10 years later, when Rachel
was fleeing from Mesopotamia with her husband Jacob, she stole
the idols of her father Laban.
Nor were the Chaldeans singular in
making statues and paintings, for the Egyptians also had theirs,
devoting great pains to those arts, as is shown by the marvellous
tomb of that king of remote antiquity, Osymandyas, described at
length by Diodorus, and, as the severe command of Moses proves,
when, on leaving Egypt, he gave orders that no images should be
made to God, upon pain of death. Moses also, after having ascended
the Mount, and having found a golden calf manufactured and
adored by his people, was greatly troubled at seeing divine honours
accorded to the image of a beast; so that he not only broke it to
powder, but, in the punishment of so great a fault, caused the
Levites to put to death many thousands of the false Israelites who
had committed this idolatry. But as the sin consisted in adoring
idols and not in making them, it is written in Exodus that the art of
design and of making statues, not only in marble but in all kinds of
metal, was given by the mouth of God himself to Bezaleel, of the
tribe of Judah, and to Aholiab, of the tribe of Dan, who made the
two cherubim of gold, the candlesticks, the veil, and the borders of
the sacerdotal vestments, together with a number of other
beautiful things in the tabernacle, for no other purpose than to
induce people to contemplate and adore them. From the things seen
before the flood, the pride of man found the means to make statues
of those whose fame they desired to remain immortal in the world;
and the Greeks who assign a different origin to this, say that the
Ethiopians invented the first statues, according to Diodorus, the
Egyptians imitated these, while the Greeks followed the Egyptians.
From this time until Homer's day it is clear that sculpture and
painting were perfect, as we may see from the description of
Achilles' shield by that divine poet, who represents it with such
skill that the image of it is presented to our minds as clearly as if
we had seen the thing itself. Lactantius Firmianus attributes the
credit of the invention to Prometheus, who like God fashioned the
human form out of clay. But according to Pliny this art was
introduced into Egypt by Gyges of Lydia, who, on seeing his shadow
cast by the fire, at once drew an outline of himself on the wall with
a piece of coal. For some time after that it was the custom to draw
in outline only, without any colouring, Pliny again being our
authority. Colour was afterwards introduced by Philocles of Egypt
with considerable pains, and also by Cleanthes and Ardices of
Corinth and by Telephanes of Sicyon.
Cleophantes of Corinth was the first of the Greeks to use
colours, and Apollodorus was the first to introduce the brush.
Polygnotus of Thasos, Zeuxis and Timagoras of Chalcis, Pytheus and
Aglaophon followed them, all most celebrated, and after them came the
renowned Apelles who was so highly esteemed and honoured for his
skill by Alexander the Great, for his wonderful delineation of
Calumny and Favour, as Lucian relates. Almost all the painters and
sculptors were of high
excellence, being frequently endowed by heaven, not only with the
additional gift of poetry, as we read in Pacuvius, but also with that
of philosophy. Metrodorus is an instance in point, for he was
equally skilled as a philosopher and as a painter, and when Apelles
was sent by the Athenians to Paulus Aemilius to adorn his triumph
he remained to teach philosophy to the general's sons. Sculpture
was thus generally practised in Greece, where there flourished a
number of excellent artists, among them being Phidias of Athens,
Praxiteles and Polycletus, very great masters, Lysippus and
Pyrgoteles who were of considerable skill in engraving, and
Pygmalion in ivory carving in relief, it being recorded of him that
he obtained life by his prayers for the figure of a maid carved by
him. The ancient Greeks and Romans also honoured and rewarded
painting, since they granted the citizenship and very great honours
to those who excelled in this art. Painting flourished in Rome to
such an extent that Fabius gave a name to his family, subscribing
himself in the beautiful things he did in the Temple of Safety as
Fabius the Painter.
By public decree slaves were prohibited from
practising painting, and so much honour was continually accorded
by the people to the art and to artists that rare works were sent to
Rome among the spoils to appear in their triumphs; excellent artists
who were slaves obtained their liberty and received notable
rewards from the republic. The Romans bore such a reverence for
the art, that when the city of Syracuse was sacked Marcellus gave
orders that his men should treat with respect a famous artist there,
and also that they should be careful not to set fire to a quarter in
which there was a very fine picture. This was afterwards carried to
Rome to adorn his triumph. To that city in the course of time almost
all the spoils of the world were brought, and the artists themselves
gathered there beside their excellent works. By such means Rome
became an exceedingly beautiful city, more richly adorned by the
statues of foreign artists than by those made by natives. It is
known that in the little island city of Rhodes there were more than
30,000 statues, in bronze and marble, nor did the Athenians
possess less, while those of Olympus and Delphi were even more
numerous, and those of Corinth were without number, all being
most beautiful and of great price. Does not every one know how
Nicomedes, king of Lycia, expended almost all the wealth of his
people owing to his passion for a Venus by the hand of Praxiteles?
Did not Attalus do the same? who without an afterthought
expended more than 6000 sesterces to have a picture of Bacchus
painted by Aristides. This picture was placed by Lucius Mummius,
with great pomp in the temple of Ceres, as an ornament to Rome.
But although the nobility of this art was so highly valued, it is
uncertain to whom it owes its origin.
As I have already said, it is
found in very ancient times among the Chaldeans, some attribute
the honour to the Ethiopians, while the Greeks claim it for
themselves. Besides this there is good reason for supposing that the
Tuscans may have had it earlier, as our own Leon Battista Alberti
asserts, and weighty evidence in favour of this
view is supplied by the marvellous tomb of Porsena at Chiusi,
where not long ago some tiles of terracotta were found under
the ground, between the walls of the Labyrinth, containing
some figures in half relief, so excellent and so delicately
fashioned that it is easy to see that art was not in its infancy
at that time, for to judge by the perfection of these specimens
it was nearer its zenith than its origin. Evidence to the same
purport is supplied every day by the quantity of pieces of red
and black Aretine vases, made about the same time, to judge
by the style, with light carvings and small figures and scenes
in bas-relief, and a quantity of small round masks, cleverly
made by the masters of that age, and which prove the men of
the time to have been most skilful and accomplished in that
art. Further evidence is afforded by the statues found at Viterbo
at the beginning of the pontificate of Alexander VI., showing
that sculpture was valued and had advanced to no small state
of perfection in Tuscany. Although the time when they were
made is not exactly known, yet from the style of the figures
and from the manner of the tombs and of the buildings, no less
than by the inscriptions in Tuscan letters, it may be conjectured
with great reason that they are of great antiquity, and that
they were made at a time when such things were highly valued.
But what clearer evidence can be desired than the discovery
made in our own day in the year 1554 of a bronze figure
representing the Chimera of Bellerophon, during the excavation for
the fortifications and walls of Arezzo. This figure shows to
what perfection the art had arrived among the Tuscans, in
this Etruscan style. Some small letters carved on a paw are
presumed, in the absence of a knowledge of the Etruscan Ianguage,
to give the master's name, and perhaps the date. This
figure, on account of its beauty and antiquity, has been placed
by Duke Cosimo in a chamber in his palace in the new suite of
rooms where I painted the deeds of Pope Leo X.
The Duke also
possesses a number of small bronze figures of similar character
which were found in the same place. But as the antiquity of
the works of the Greeks, Ethiopians, Chaldeans, and Tuscans
is equally doubtful, like our own or even more so, and because
it is necessary in such matters to base one's opinions on conjectures,
although these are not so ill founded that one is in danger of going
very far astray, yet I think that anyone who will take the trouble to
consider the matter carefully will arrive
at the same conclusion as I have, that art owes its origin to
Nature herself, that this beautiful creation the world supplied
the first model, while the original teacher was that divine
intelligence which has not only made us superior to the other
animals, but like God Himself, if I may venture to say it. In
our own time it has been seen, as I hope to show quite shortly,
that simple children, roughly brought up in the wilderness, have
begun to draw by themselves, impelled by their own natural
genius, instructed solely by the example of these beautiful
paintings and sculptures of Nature. Much more then is it probable
that the first men, being less removed from their divine
origin, were more perfect, possessing a brighter intelligence,
and that with Nature as a guide, a pure intellect for master,
and the lovely world as a model, they originated these noble
arts, and by gradually improving them brought them at length,
from small beginnings, to perfection.
I do not deny that there must have been an originator, since
I know quite well that there must have been a beginning at some time,
due to some individual. Neither will I deny that it is possible for
one person to help another, and to teach and open the way to design,
colour,
and relief, because I know that our art consists entirely of
imitation, first of Nature, and then, as it cannot rise so high
of itself, of those things which are produced from the masters
with the greatest reputation. But I will say that to declare
absolutely it was one man or another is a very dangerous and
perhaps unnecessary task, since we have seen the true and
original root of all. The works which constitute the life and
fame of artists decay one after the other by the ravages of
time. Thus the artists themselves are unknown, as there was
no one to write about them and could not be, so that this
source of knowledge was not granted to posterity. But when
writers began to commemorate things made before their time,
they were unable to speak of those of which they had seen no
notice, so that those who came nearest to these were the last
of whom no memorial remains: Thus Homer is by common
consent admitted to be the first of the poets, not because there
were none before him, for there were, although they were not so
excellent, and in his own works this is clearly shown, but
because all knowledge of these, such as they were, had been
lost two thousand years before.
But we will now pass over these matters, which are too vague
on account of their antiquity, and we will proceed to deal with
clearer questions, namely, the rise of the arts to perfection, their
decline and their restoration or rather renaissance, and here
we stand on much firmer ground. The practice of the arts began
late in Rome, if the first figures were, as reported, the image of
Ceres made of the metal of the possessions of Spurius Cassius,
who was condemned to death without remorse by his own
father, because he was plotting to make himself king. But
although the arts of painting and sculpture continued to flourish
until the death of the last of the twelve Caesars, yet they did
not maintain that perfection and excellence which had characterised
them before, as we see by the buildings of the time
under successive emperors. The arts declined steadily from day
to day, until at length by a gradual process they entirely lost
all perfection of design. Clear testimony to this is afforded by
the works in sculpture and architecture produced in Rome in
the time of Constantine, notably in the triumphal arch made
for him by the Roman people at the Colosseum, where we see,
that for lack of good masters not only did they make use of
marble reliefs carved in the time of Trajan, but also of spoils
brought to Rome from various places, Those who recognise the
excellence of these bas-reliefs, statues, the columns, the cornices
and other ornaments which belong to another epoch will perceive
how rude are the portions done to fill up gaps by sculptors
of the day. Very rude also are some scenes of small figures in
marble below the reliefs and the pediment, representing victories,
while between the side arches there are some rivers, also
very crude, and so poor that they leave one firmly under the
impression that the art of sculpture had begun to decline even
before the coming of the Goths and other barbarous and foreign
nations who combined to destroy all the superior arts as well as
Italy.
It is true that architecture suffered less at that time
than the other arts of design. The bath erected by Constantine
at the entrance of the principal portico of the Lateran contains,
in addition to its porphyry columns, capitals carved in marble
and beautifully carved double bases taken from elsewhere, the
whole composition of the building being very well conceived.
On the other hand, the stucco, the mosaic and some incrustations
of the walls made by the masters of the time are not
equal to those which had been taken away for the most part
from the temples of the gods of the heathen, and which Constantine
caused to be placed in the same building. Constantine
observed the same methods, according to report, with the
garden of Aequitius in building the temple which he afterwards
endowed and gave to Christian priests. In like manner the
magnificent church of S. Giovanni Lateran, built by the same
emperor, may serve as evidence of the same fact, namely, that
sculpture had already greatly declined in his time, because the
figures of the Saviour and of the twelve apostles in silver, which
he caused to be made, were very base works, executed without
art and with very little design. In addition to this, it is only
necessary to examine the medals of this emperor, and other
statues made by the sculptors of his day, which are now at the
capitol, to perceive clearly how far removed they are from the
perfection of the medals and statues of the other emperors there.
All these things prove that sculpture had greatly declined long
before the coming of the Goths to Italy. Architecture, as I have
said, maintained its excellence at a higher though not at the
highest level. Nor is this a matter for surprise, since large
buildings were almost entirely constructed of spoils, so that
it was easy for the architects in great measure to imitate the
old in making the new, since they had the former continually
before their eyes. This was an easier task for them than for
the sculptors, as the art of imitating the good figures of the
ancients had declined. A good illustration of the truth of this
statement is afforded by the church of the chief of the apostles
in the Vatican, which is rich in columns, bases, capitals, architraves,
cornices, doors and other incrustations and ornaments
which were all taken from various places and buildings, erected
before that time in very magnificent style. The same remarks
apply to Santa Croce at Jerusalem, which Constantine erected at
the entreaty of his mother, Helena; to San Lorenzo outside the
walls, and to Santa Agnesa, built by the same emperor at the request
of his daughter Constance.
Who also is not aware that the font
which served for the baptism of the latter and of one of her
sisters, was ornamented with fragments of much greater antiquity?
such as the porphyry pillar carved with beautiful
figures and some marble candelabra exquisitely carved with
leaves, and children in bas-relief of extraordinary beauty? In
short, by these and many other signs, it is clear to what an
extent sculpture had declined in the time of Constantine, and
with it the other superior arts. If anything was required to
complete their ruin it was supplied by the departure of Constantine
from Rome when he transferred the seat of government
to Byzantium, as he took with him to Greece not only all the
best sculptors and other artists of the age, such as they were, but
also a quantity of statues and other beautiful works of sculpture.
After the departure of Constantine, the Caesars whom he left
in Italy were continually building in Rome and elsewhere,
endeavouring to make their works as good as possible, but as
we see, sculpture, painting and architecture were steadily going
from bad to worse. This arose perhaps from the fact that when
human affairs begin to decline, they grow steadily worse until
the time comes when they can no longer deteriorate any further.
In the time of Pope Liberius the architects of the day took considerable
pains to produce a masterpiece when they built S.
Maria Maggiore, but they were not very happy in the result,
because although the building, which is also mostly constructed
of spoils, is of very fair proportions, it cannot be denied that,
not to speak of other defects, the spaces running round the
church above the columns, decorated with stucco and painting,
are of very poor design, and that many other things to be seen
there leave no doubt as to the imperfection of the arts. Many
years later, when the Christians were suffering persecution under
Julian the Apostate, a church was erected on the Celian Hill
to SS. John and Paul, the martyrs, in so inferior a style to the
others mentioned above that it is quite clear that at that time,
art had all but entirely disappeared. The edifices erected in
Tuscany at the same time bear out this view to the fullest
extent. To take one example among many: the church outside
the walls of Arezzo, built to St. Donato, bishop of that city, who
suffered martyrdom with Hilarion the monk, under the same
Julian the Apostate, is in no way superior to those mentioned
above. It cannot be contended that such a state of affairs was
due to anything but the lack of good architects, since the church
in question, which is still standing, has eight sides, and was
built of the spoils of the theatre, colosseum and other buildings
erected in Arezzo before it was converted to the Christian faith.
No expense was spared, and it was adorned with columns of
granite, porphyry and variegated marble taken from ancient
buildings. For my own part, I have no doubt, seeing the expense
incurred, that if the Aretines had possessed better architects
they would have produced something marvellous, since what
they actually accomplished proves that they spared nothing
in order to make this building as magnificent and complete
as possible. But as architecture had lost less of its excellence
than the other arts, as I have so often said before, some good
things may be seen there. At the same period the church of S.
Maria in Grado was enlarged in honour of St. Hilarion, who
had lived in the city a long time before he accompanied Donato
to receive the palm of martyrdom. But as Fortune, when she
has brought men to the top of the wheel, either for amusement
or because she repents, usually turns them to the bottom, it
came to pass after these things that almost all the barbarian
nations rose in divers parts of the world against the Romans,
the result being the speedy fall of that great empire, and the
destruction of everything, notably of Rome herself. That fall
involved the complete destruction of the most excellent artists,
sculptors, painters and architects, burying them and their arts
under the debris and ruins of that most celebrated city. The
first to go were painting and sculpture, as being arts which
served rather for pleasure than for utility, the other art, namely
architecture, being necessary and useful for the welfare of the
body, continued in use, but not in its perfection and purity.
The very memory of painting and sculpture would have speedily
disappeared had they not represented before the eyes of the rising
generations, the distinguished men of another age who had been
honoured thereby. Some of these were commemorated by effigies
and by inscriptions placed on public and private buildings, such
as amphitheatres, theatres, baths, aqueducts, temples, obelisks,
colosseums, pyramids, arches, reservoirs and treasuries, yes, and
even on the very tombs. The majority of these were destroyed and
obliterated by the savage barbarians, who had nothing human
about them but their shape and name. Among others there were
the Visigoths, who having made Alaric their king, invaded Italy
and twice sacked Rome without respecting anything. The Vandals
who came from Africa with Genseric, their king, did the like.
But he, not content with his plunder and booty and the cruelties
he inflicted, led into servitude the people there, to their infinite
woe, and with them Eudoxia the wife of the Emperor Valentinian,
who had only recently been assassinated by his own
soldiers. These men had greatly degenerated from the ancient
Roman valour, because a great while before, the best of them
had all gone to Constantinople with the Emperor Constantine,
and those left behind were dissolute and abandoned. Thus true
men and every sort of virtue perished at the same time; laws,
habits, names and tongues suffered change, and these varied
misfortunes, collectively and singly, debased and degraded every
fine spirit and every lofty soul. But the most harmful and
destructive force which operated against these fine arts was the
fervent zeal of the new Christian religion, which, after long and
sanguinary strife, had at length vanquished and abolished the
old faith of the heathen, by means of a number of miracles and
by the sincerity of its acts. Every effort was put forth to remove
and utterly extirpate the smallest things from which errors
might arise, and thus not only were the marvellous statues,
sculptures, paintings, mosaics and ornaments of the false pagan
gods destroyed and thrown down, but also the memorials and
honours of countless excellent persons, to whose distinguished
merits statues and other memorials had been set up in public
by a most virtuous antiquity. Besides all this, in order to build
churches for the use of the Christians, not only were the most
honoured temples of the idols destroyed, but in order to ennoble
and decorate S. Pietro [San Paolo] with more ornaments than it then
possessed, they took away the stone columns from the molo [Tomb]
of Hadrian, now the castle of Sant'Angelo, as well as many other
things which we now see in ruins.
Now, although the Christian religion did not act thus from
any hatred for talent, but only in order to condemn and overthrow
the heathen gods, yet the utter ruin of these honourable
professions, which entirely lost their form, was none the less
entirely due to this burning zeal. That nothing might be wanting
to these grave disasters there followed the rage of Totila against
Rome, who destroyed the walls, ruined all the most magnificent
and noble buildings with fire and sword, burned it from one
end to another, and having stripped it of every living creature
left it a prey to the flames, so that for the space of eighteen
days not a living soul could be found there. He utterly destroyed
the marvellous statues, paintings, mosaics and stuccos, so that
he left Rome not only stripped of every trace of her former
majesty, but destitute of shape and life. The ground floors of
the palaces and other buildings had been adorned with paintings,
stuccos and statues, and these were buried under the debris,
so that many good things have come to light in our own day.
Those who came after, judging everything to be ruined, planted
vineyards over them so that these ruined chambers remained
entirely underground, and the moderns have called them grottos
and the paintings found there grotesques. The Ostrogoths being
exterminated by Narses, the ruins of Rome were inhabited in
a wretched fashion when after an interval of a hundred years
there came the Emperor Constans II. of Constantinople, who
was received in a friendly manner by the Romans. However,
he dissipated, plundered and carried away everything that had
been left in the wretched city of Rome, abandoned rather by
chance than by the deliberate purpose of those who had laid it
waste. It is true that he was not able to enjoy this booty, for
being driven to Sicily by a storm at sea, he was killed by his
followers, a fate he richly deserved, and thus lost his spoils, his
kingdom and his life. But as if the troubles of Rome had not
been sufficient, for the things which had been taken away could
never return, there came an army of Saracens to ravage that
island, who carried away the property of the Sicilians and the
spoils of Rome to Alexandria, to the infinite shame and loss of
Italy and of all Christendom. Thus what the popes had not
destroyed, notably St. Gregory, who is said to have put under
the ban all that remained of the statues and of the spoils of the
buildings, perished finally through the instrumentality of this
traitorous Greek. Not a trace or a vestige of any good thing
remained, so that the generations which followed being rude
and coarse, particularly in painting and sculpture, yet feeling
themselves impelled by nature and inspired by the atmosphere
of the place, set themselves to produce things, not indeed
according to the rules of art, for they had none, but as they
were instructed by their own intelligence.
The arts of design having arrived at this pitch, both before
and during the time that the Lombards ruled Italy, they subsequently
grew gradually worse and worse, until at length they
reached the lowest depths of baseness. An instance of their
utter tastelessness and crudity may be seen in some figures
in the Byzantine style over the door in the portico of S. Pietro
at Rome, in memory of some holy fathers who had disputed
for Holy Church in certain councils. Further evidence is supplied
by a number of examples in the same style in the city and in
the whole of the Exarchate of Ravenna, notably some in S.
Maria Rotonda outside that city [Mausoleum of Theodoric], which were made shortly
after the Lombards were driven from Italy. I will not deny
that there is one very notable and marvellous thing in this
church, and that is the vaulting or cupola which covers it,
which is ten braccia across and serves as the roof of the building,
and yet is of a single piece and so large that it appears impossible
that a stone of this description, weighing more than
200,000 pounds, could be placed so high up. But to return to
our point, the masters of that day produced nothing but shapeless
and clumsy things which may still be seen today. It was the
same with architecture, for it was necessary to build, and as
form and good methods were lost by the death of good artists
and the destruction of good buildings, those who devoted
themselves to this profession built erections devoid of order
or measure, and totally deficient in grace, proportion or principle.
Then new architects arose who created that style of
building, for their barbarous nations, which we call Gothic,
and produced some works which are ridiculous to our modern
eyes, but appeared admirable to theirs. This lasted until a better
form somewhat similar to the good antique manner was discovered
by better artists, as is shown by the oldest churches in
Italy which are not antique, which were built by them, and
by the palaces erected for Theoderic, King of Italy, at Ravenna,
Pavia, and Modena, though the style is barbarous and rather
rich and grand than well conceived or really good.
The same may be said of Santo Stefano at Rimini and of San Martino at
Ravenna, of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in the same
city built by Galla Placidia about the year of grace 438, of
San Vitale which was built in the year 547, and of the abbey of
Classi di fuori, and indeed of many other monasteries and
churches built after the time of the Lombards. All these buildings,
as I have said, are great and magnificent, but the architecture is
very rude. Among them are many abbeys in France
built to St. Benedict and the church and monastery of Monte
Cassino, the church of San Giovanni Battista at Monza built by
that Theodelinda, Queen of the Goths, to whom St. Gregory the
Pope wrote his dialogues. In this place that queen caused the
history of the Lombards to be painted. We thus see that they
shaved the backs of their heads, wore their hair thick in front,
and were dyed to the chin. Their clothes were of linen, like those
worn by the Angles and Saxons, and they wore a mantle of
divers colours; their shoes were open to the toes and bound
above with small leather straps. Similar to the churches
enumerated above were the church of San Giovanni, Pavia, built
by Gundeberga, daughter of Theodelinda, and the church of
San Salvatore in the same city, built by Aribert, the brother of
the same queen, who succeeded Rodoald, husband of Gundeberga,
in the government; the church of San Ambrogio at Pavia,
built by Grimoald, king of the Lombards, who drove from
the kingdom Aripert's son Pentharit. This Pentharit being
restored to his throne after Grimoald's death built a nunnery
at Pavia called the Monasterio Nuovo, in honour of Our Lady
and of St. Agatha, and the queen built another dedicated to the
Virgin Mary in Pertica outside the walls. Cunipert, Pentharit's
son, likewise built a monastery and church to St George called
di Coronate in a similar style, on the spot where he had
won a great victory over Alachis. Not unlike these was the
church which the Lombard king Luitprand, who lived in the
time of King Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, built at Favia,
called San Piero, in Cieldauro, or that which Desiderius, who
succeeded Astolf, built to San Piero Clivate in the diocese of
Milan; or the monastery of San Vincenzo at Milan, or that of
Santa Giulia at Brescia, because all of them were exceedingly costly,
but in a most ugly and characterless style.
In Florence the style of architecture improved slightly
somewhat later, the church of Sant' Apostolo built by Charlemagne,
although small, being very beautiful, because the shafts of the columns,
although made up of pieces, are very graceful and beautifully formed,
and the capitals and the arches for the vaulting of the side
aisles show that some good architect was left in Tuscany, or
had arisen there. In fine the architecture of this church is such
that Pippo di Ser Brunellesco did not disdain to make use of
it as his model in designing the churches of Santo Spirito and San
Lorenzo in the same city. The same progress may be noticed in
the church of San Marco at Venice, not to speak of that of San
Giorgio Maggiore erected by Giovanni Morosini in the year
978. San Marco was begun under the Doge Giustiniano and
Giovanni Particiaco near to San Teodosio, when the body of the
Evangelist was brought from Alexandria to Venice. After the
Doge's palace and the church had suffered severely from a
series of fires, it was rebuilt upon the same foundations in the
Byzantine style as it stands today, at a great cost and with
the assistance of many architects, in the time of the Doge
Domenico Selvo, in the year 973, the columns being brought
from the places where they could be obtained. The construction
was continued until the year 1140, Messer Piero Polani being then
Doge, from the plans of several masters who were all Greeks,
as I have said. Erected at the same time, and also in the
Byzantine style, were the seven abbeys built in Tuscany by
Count Hugh, Marquis of Brandenburg, such as the Badia of
Florence, the abbey of Settimo, and the others. All these structures
and the vestiges of others which are not standing bear
witness to the fact that architecture maintained its footing
though in a very bastard form far removed from the good
antique style. Further evidence is afforded by a number of old
palaces erected in Florence of Tuscan work after the destruction
of Fiesole, but the measurements of the very elongated doors
and the windows and the sharp-pointed arches after the manner
of the foreign architects of the day, denote some amount of
barbarism. Subsequently, in 1013, the art appears to have
received an access of vigour in the rebuilding of the beautiful
church of S. Miniato on the Mount in the time of M. Alibrando [Ildebrando],
citizen and bishop of Florence, for, in addition to the marble
ornamentation both within and without, the façade shows that
the Tuscan architects were making efforts to imitate, so far as
they were able, the good ancient order in the doors, windows,
columns, arches and cornices, which they perceived in part in
the very ancient church of San Giovanni in their city. At the same
period, pictorial art, which had all but disappeared,
seems to have made some progress, as is shown by a mosaic in the
principal chapel of the same church of S. Miniato.
From such beginnings design and a general improvement in
the arts began to make headway in Tuscany, as in the year
1016 when the Pisans began to erect their Duomo. For at that
time it was a considerable undertaking to build such a church,
with its five aisles and almost entiiely constructed of marble
both inside and out. This church, built from the plans and under
the direction of Buschetto, a Greek from Dulichium and a most
remarkable architect for his time, was erected and adorned by
the Pisans when at the zenith of their power with an endless
quantity of spoils brought by sea from various distant parts,
as the columns, bases, capitals, cornices and other stones there
of every description, amply demonstrate. Now since all these
things were of all sizes, great, medium, and small, Buschetto
displayed great judgment and skill in adapting them to their
places, so that the whole building is excellently devised in every
part, both within and without. Amongst other things he devised
the façade very cleverly, which is made up of a series of stages,
gradually diminishing toward the top and consisting of a great
number of columns, adorning it with other carved columns and
antique statues. He carried out the principal doors of that façade
in the same style, beside one of which, that of the Carroccio,
lie afterwards received honourable burial, with three epitaphs,
one being in Latin verse, not unlike other things of the time:
Quod vix mille boum possent juga juncta movere,
Et quod vix potuit per mare ferre ratis
Buschetti nisu, quod erat mirabile visu,
Dena puellarum turba levavit onus.
As I have mentioned the church of S. Apostolo at Florence
above, I will here give an inscription which may be read on a
marble slab on one of the sides of the high altar, which runs:
VIII. v. Die vi. Aprilis in resurrectione Domini Karolus Francorum
Rex a Roma revertens, ingressus Florentiam cum magno gaudio et
tripudio succeptus, civium copiam torqueis aureis decoravit.
Ecclesia Sanctorum Apostolorum in altari inclusa est lamina
plumbea, in qua descripta apparet praefata fundatio et consecratio
facta per Archiepiscopum Turpinum, testibus Rolando et Uliverio.
The edifice of the Duomo at Pisa gave a new impulse to the
minds of many men in all Italy, and especially in Tuscany, and
led to the foundation in the city of Pistoia in 1032 of the church
of San Paolo, in the presence of St. Atto, the bishop there, as a
Contemporary deed relates, and indeed of many other buildings,
a mere mention of which would occupy too much space.
I must not forget to mention either, how in the course of time
the round church of San Giovanni was erected at Pisa in the year
1060, opposite the Duomo and on the same piazza. A marvellous
and almost incredible statement in connection with this church
is that of an ancient record in a book of the Opera of the
Duomo, that the columns, pillars and vaulting were erected
and completed in fifteen days and no more. The same book,
which may be examined by anyone, relates that an impost of a
penny a hearth was exacted for the building of the temple,
but it does not state whether this was to be of gold or of base
metal. The same book states that there were 34,000 hearths
in Pisa at that time. It is certain that the work was very costly
and presented formidable difficulties, especially the vaulting of
the tribune, which is pear-shaped and covered outside with
lead. The exterior is full of columns, carving, scenes, and the
middle part of the frieze of the doorway contains figures of
Christ and the twelve apostles in half-relief and in the
Byzantine style.
About the same time, namely in 1061, the Lucchese, in emulation
of the Pisans, began the church of San Martino at Lucca, from the
designs of some pupils of Buschetto, there being no other artists then in
Tuscany. The façade has a marble portico in front of it contaimng
many ornaments and carvings in honour of Pope Alexander II., who had
been bishop of the city just before he was raised to the pontificate. Nine
lines in Latin relate the whole history of the building and of the
Pope, repeated in some antique letters carved in marble between
the doors of the portico. The façade also contains some figures and a
number of scenes in half-relief under the portico relating to the life
of St. Martin executed in marble and in the Byzantine style. But the
best things there, over one of these doors, were done by Niccola
Pisano, 170 years later, and completed in 1233, as will be related
in the proper place, Abellenato and Aliprando being the craftsmen
at the beginning, as some letters carved in marble in the same place
fully relate.
The figures by Niccola Pisano show to what an extent sculpture was
improved by him. Most of the buildings erected in Italy from
this time until the year 1250 were similar in character to these,
for architecture made little or no apparent progress in all these
years, but remained stationary, the same rude style being
retained. Many examples of this may be seen today, but I
will not now enumerate them, because I shall refer to them
again as the occasion presents itself.
The admirable sculptures and paintings buried in the ruins of
Italy remained hidden or unknown to the men of this time who were
engrossed in the rude productions of their own age, in which they used no
sculptures or paintings except such as were produced by the old
artists of Greece, who still survived, making images of clay or stone,
or painting grotesque figures and only colouring the general
outline. These artists were invited to Italy for they were the best
and indeed the only representatives of their profession. With them
they brought the mosaic, sculpture, and painting as they
understood them, and thus they taught their own rough and clumsy style
to the Italians, who practised the art in this fashion up to a certain
time, as I shall relate.
As the men of the age were not accustomed to see any excellence
or greater perfection than the things thus produced, they greatly
admired them, and considered them to be the type of perfection, barbarous
as they were. Yet some rising spirits, aided by some quality in the air
of certain places, so far purged themselves of this crude style that
in 1250 Heaven took compassion on the fine minds that the Tuscan
soil was producing every day, and directed them to the original forms.
For although the preceding generations had before them the remains of
arches, colossi, statues, pillars or carved stone columns which were
left after the plunder, ruin and fire which Rome had passed
through, yet they could never make use of them or derive any profit from
them until the period named. Those who came after were able to
distinguish the good from the bad, and abandoning the old style they began
to copy the ancients with all ardour and industry. That the distinction I
have made between old and ancient may be better understood, I will
explain that I call ancient the things produced before Constantine at
Corinth, Athens, Rome and other renowned cities, until the days of Nero,
Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus; the old works are those
which are due to the surviving Greeks from the days of St. Silvester,
whose art consisted rather of tinting than of painting. For the
original artists of excellence had perished in the wars, as I have
said, and the surviving Greeks, of the old and not the ancient
manner, could only trace profiles on a ground of colour. Countless mosaics
done by these Greeks in every part of Italy bear testimony to this,
and every old church of Italy possesses examples, notably the
Duomo of Pisa, San Marco at Venice and yet other places. Thus they
produced a
constant stream of figures in this style, with frightened eyes,
outstretched hands and on the tips of their toes, as in San Miniato
outside Florence between the door of the sacristy and that of the
convent, and in Santo Spirito in the same city, all the side of the
cloister towards the church, and in Arezzo in S. Gitiliano and
S. Bartolommeo and other churches, and at Rome in old San Pietro in
the scenes about the windows, all of which are more like monsters than
the representation of anything existing.
They also produced countless sculptures, such as those in bas
relief still over the door of San Michele on the piazza Padella at
Florence,
and in Ognissanti, and in many places, in tombs and ornaments for
the doors of churches, where there are some figures acting as corbels to
carry the roof, so rude and coarse, so grossly made, and in such a
rough style, that it is impossible to imagine worse.
Up to the present, I have discoursed upon the origin of sculpture
and painting, perhaps more at length than was necessary at this stage. I
have done so, not so much because I have been carried away by my
love for the arts, as because I wish to be of service to the artists of
our
own day, by showing them how a small beginning leads to the
highest elevation, and how from so noble a situation, it is possible to
fall to
utterest ruin, and consequently, how these arts resemble nature as
shown in our human bodies; and have their birth, growth, age and
death, and I hope by this means they will be enabled more easily to
recognise the progress of the renaissance of the arts, and the
perfection to which they have attained in our own time. And again,
if ever it happens, which God forbid, that the arts should once more
fall to a like ruin and disorder, through the negligence of man, the
malignity of the age, or the decree of Heaven, which does not
appear to wish that the things of this world should remain stationary,
these
labours of mine, such as they are (if they are worthy of a happier
fate), by means of the things discussed before, and by those which
remain to be said, may maintain the arts in life, or, at any rate,
encourage the better spirits to provide them with every assistance,
so that, by my good will and the labours of such men, they may have
an abundance of those aids and embellishments which, if I may
speak the truth freely, they have lacked until now.
But it is now time to come to the life of Giovanni Cimabue, who
originated the new method of design and painting, so that it is right
that his should be the first of the Lives. And here I may remark
that I shall follow the schools rather than a chronological order. And in
describing the appearance and the features of the artists, I shall be
brief, because their portraits, which I have collected at great
expense, and with much labour and diligence, will show what
manner of men they were to look at much better than any description could
ever do. If some portraits are missing, that is not my fault, but because
they are not to be found anywhere. If it chance that some of the
portraits do not appear to be exactly like others which are extant, it
is necessary to reflect that a portrait of a man of eighteen or
twenty years can never be like one made fifteen or twenty years
later, and, in addition to this, portraits in black and white are
never so good as those which are coloured, besides which the
engravers, who do not know design, always take something from
the form, because they are never able to reproduce those small details
which constitute the excellence of a work, or to copy that perfection
which is rarely, if ever, to be found in wood engravings. To
conclude, the reader will be able to appreciate the amount of
labour, expense, and care which I have bestowed upon this matter when he
sees that I have got the best that I could.
