These may have been copied by Fiamminghi, as the tints of some of them indicate, or by other Italian artists of the various schools, since they differ so much in their mode of colouring. Some copies may be the work of the scholars of Michelangiolo, though Vasari informs us they were all but feeble artists. He gives us the names of those who dwelt in his house; Pietro Urbano of Pistoia, a man of genius, but very indolent; Antonio Mini of Florence, and Ascanio Condivi da Ripatransone, both eager in their profession, but of little talent, and therefore the authors of no work worthy of record. The people of Ferrara include their countryman Filippi in this school, an artist unknown to Vasari, but worthy of notice. Lomazzi mentions Marco da Pino as one of the number. To these Palomino adds Castelli of Bergamo, (whose master, while he was in Rome, is not noticed by any of our writers) and Gaspar Bacerra, of Andalusia, a celebrated Spanish painter. We may likewise add Alonzo Berrugese, who is reckoned by Vasari only among those that studied the cartoon of Michelangiolo, at Florence, with Francia, and other strangers, who were not among his disciples. In the history of Spanish painting, there is mentioned by all the writers a Roman, of the name of Matteo Perez d'Alessio, or d'Alessi. They recount that he lived many years at Seville, and produced many works there, among which his S. Cristoforo, in the cathedral, which cost 4,000 crowns, is by far the grandest. They add, that Luigi Vargas, a very able disciple of Perino del Vaga, having returned from Rome, Alessi was glad to leave the field open to him, and to return into Italy; where Preziado finds him. Indeed he rather finds him at Rome, and at the Sistine Chapel, where two histories, painted "opposite to the Last Judgment of his master," are ascribed to him; these however are the production of Matteo da Leccio, who aimed at imitating Michelangiolo and Salviati; but he is only despised by Taia, and by every one who has a grain of sense. He executed this work in the time of Gregory XIII.; and neither he nor the supposititious Alessio,[163] an imaginary name, had any connexion with Michelangiolo. The rest we refer to the note, in order to proceed without delay to names which may boast a better title to such a connexion.
Many other figures and historic compositions were designed by Michelangiolo, and painted at Rome by F. Sebastiano del Piombo, an excellent colourist of the Venetian school. The Pietà in the church of S. Francis of Viterbo,[164] the Flagellation, and Transfiguration, with some other pieces at S. Pietro in Montorio, are of this number. Two Annunciations, designed by Bonarruoti, were coloured for altar-pieces by Marcello Venusti of Mantua, a scholar of Perino, who adopted the style of Michelangiolo, without apparent affectation. The one was put up in the church of S. Giovanni Laterano, the other in the Della Pace. He is said to have painted also some cabinet pictures after designs of Bonarruoti; as the Limbo,[165] in the Colonna palace; the Christ going to Mount Calvary, and some other pieces in the Borghese; also the celebrated copy of the Last Judgment, which he painted for Cardinal Farnese, that still exists in Naples. Although a good designer, and the author of many pieces described by Baglione, he obtained greater celebrity by clothing the inventions of Michelangiolo in exquisite beauty, especially in small pictures, of which, Vasari says, he executed a great many. This writer, and Orlandi following him, have erroneously named him Raffaello, not Marcello. Batista Franco coloured the Rape of Ganymede, after a design of Bonarruoti, which was also done by the artist who painted the small picture which D'Argenville describes in France; and another on a larger scale, to be seen at Rome in the possession of the Colonna family: it was also painted in oil by Giulio Clovio. Pontormo employed himself in a similar manner at Florence, on the design of Venus and Cupid; and on the cartoon of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen, a work which was re-executed by him for Città di Castello, Bonarruoti having said, that none could perform it better. Francesco Salviati painted another of his designs, and Bugiardini, as we have already noticed, executed some figures designed by him. Such is the information transmitted to us by Vasari; and he would have been justly reprehensible if he had written with such minuteness on the drawings of Michelangiolo, and of those employed to finish them, and had neglected to inform us as to those pieces which Michelangiolo himself executed. Hence it is not easy to avoid scepticism on the genuineness of the Annunciation, the Flagellation, or any other oil painting ascribed to Bonarruoti by Bottari, D'Argenville, or the describers of collections. We have noticed his aversion to this method of painting. We are informed that during his lifetime he employed others in this branch; and we know that after his death artists availed themselves of his designs; as Sabbatini did in a Pietà for the sacristy of the Church of S. Peter, a work copied by some other artist for the Madonna de' Monti, and some others made known to us by Baglione. Can we then hesitate as to the originality of any picture, if we give credit to the oil paintings of Michelangiolo? The portraits of Bonarruoti ascribed to his own hand, are also, in my opinion, supposititious. Vasari knew of no likeness of him except the figure cast in bronze by Ricciarelli, and two portraits, the one painted by Bugiardini, the other by Jacopo del Conte. From these are derived the very old and well known portraits, preserved in the ducal gallery, in the collection of the Capitol, in the Caprara palace at Bologna, and that in the possession of Cardinal Zelada at Rome.
Franco, Marco da Siena, Tibaldi, and other foreign artists, who have imitated Michelangiolo, shall be noticed under their respective schools. The Florentine school abounded in them, and these we shall consider all together in the succeeding epoch. I shall here only notice two, who lived on intimate habits with him, who executed works under his own eye, and for a long time received directions from his own lips; circumstances which cannot be said of Vasari, of Salviati, nor of any other able artist of his school. One of these was Francesco Granacci of Florence, characterized by Vasari as an excellent artist, who derived much of his merit from his early intimacy with Michelangiolo. He was the fellow student of the latter, under Domenico Ghirlandaio, and also in the garden of Lorenzo; and from his precepts, and by studying his cartoon, he enlarged his own manner, and approached near the modern style. After the death of his master, he remained with the brothers of that artist, to complete some of the works of the deceased, and was employed in painting some Holy Families, and cabinet pictures, in distemper, which might easily pass under another name, as they resemble the best productions of that school. In his new style he never entirely abandoned the simplicity of the old manner; but there is a specimen in the church of S. Jacopo without-the-walls, more studied in design, and more determined in the colouring. In this picture S. Zanobi and S. Francis appear near our Lady under a lofty canopy; a subject then familiar in every school. His style seems more matured in an Assumption which was in S. Pier Maggiore, a church now suppressed: here he inserted, between two other figures, a S. Thomas, wholly in the manner of Michelangiolo. Few other considerable paintings can be ascribed to this artist, who was left in easy circumstances by his father, and painted rather as a commendable amusement than from necessity.
Ricciarelli, usually known in history by the name of Daniele di Volterra, enjoys a greater name, and is generally described as the most successful follower of Michelangiolo. Educated in Siena, according to report, by Peruzzi and Razzi, he became the assistant of Perino del Vaga, and acquired an astonishing talent for imitating Bonarruoti, who greatly esteemed him, appointed him his substitute in the labours of the Vatican, brought him into notice, and assisted and enriched him with designs. It is known that Michelangiolo was often with Daniele when he painted in the Farnese palace, and it is said that Bonarruoti, during his absence, "O vero o falso che la fama suoni," mounted the scaffold, and sketched with charcoal a colossal head that is still seen there. Volterra let it remain, that posterity might judge of the powers of Bonarruoti, who without pre-meditation and in mere jest, had finished a work in such proportion, and so perfect. Nor did Daniele execute, without the assistance of Michelangiolo, the wonderful Descent from the Cross in the Trinità de' Monti, which, together with the Transfiguration by Raffaello, and the S. Girolamo of Domenichino, may be reckoned among the finest paintings in Rome.[166] We seem to behold the mournful spectacle, and the Redeemer sinking with the natural relaxation of a dead body in descending: the pious men engaged in various offices, and thrown in different and contrasted attitudes, appear assiduously occupied with the sacred remains which they seem to venerate; the mother of Jesus having fainted between the sorrowing women, the beloved disciple extends his arms and bends over her. There is a truth in the naked figures that seems perfect nature; a colouring in the
