Diego and Francesco, both eminent artists favoured by Philip IV. and Pope Urban VIII. by whom they were knighted.
Jacopino del Conte, who is also noticed in the Abecedario Pittorico, under the name of Jacopo del Conte, and considered not as the same individual, but as two distinct artists, was little employed in Florence, but in great request in Rome. He was eminent as a portrait painter to all the Popes and the principal nobility of Rome, from the time of Paul III. to that of Clement VIII., in whose pontificate he died. His ability in composition may be discovered in the frescos in S. Gio. Decollato, and especially in the picture of the Deposition in that place, a work which is reckoned among his finest productions. There the competition of his most distinguished countrymen stimulated his exertions for distinction. He was an imitator of Michelangiolo, but in a manner so free, and a colouring so different, that it seems the production of another school. Scipione Gaetano, whom we shall consider in the third book of our history, was his scholar. Of Domenico Beceri, a respectable pupil of Puligo, and of some others of little note, I have nothing further to add.
Angiolo Bronzino was another friend of Vasari, nearly of the same age, and was enumerated among the more eminent artists, from the grace of his countenances, and the agreeableness of his compositions. He is likewise esteemed as a poet. His poems were printed along with those of Berni; and some of his letters on painting are preserved in the collection of Bottari.[204] Although the scholar and follower of Pontormo, he also recals Michelangiolo to our recollection. His frescos in the old palace are praised, adorning a chapel, on the walls of which he represented the Fall of Manna, and the Scourge of the Serpents, histories full of power and spirit; although the paintings on the ceiling do not correspond with them, being deficient in the line of perspective. Some of his altar-pieces are to be seen in the churches of Florence, several of them feebly executed, with figures of angels, whose beauty appears too soft and effeminate. There are many, on the other hand, extremely beautiful, such as his Pietà at S. Maria Nuova, and likewise his Limbo at Santa Croce, in an altar belonging to the noble family of Riccasoli. This picture is better suited for an academy of design, from the naked figure, than for a church; but the painter was too much attached to Michelangiolo to avoid imitating him even in this error. This picture has been lately very well repaired. Many of his portraits are in Italian collections of paintings, which are praiseworthy for their truth and spirit; but their character is frequently diminished by the colour of the flesh, which sometimes partakes of a leaden hue, at other times appears of a dead white, on which the red appears like rouge. But a yellowish tint is the predominant colour in his pictures, and his greatest fault is a want of relief.
The succeeding artists, who are chiefly Florentines, are named by Vasari in the Obsequies of Bonarruoti, in the memoirs of the academicians, written about the year 1567, and in several other places. Their works are scattered over the city, and many of them are to be found in the cloister of S. Maria Novella. If these semicircular pictures had not been retouched and altered, this place would be, with regard to this epoch, what the cloister of the Olivetines in Bologna is to that of the Caracci; an era, indeed, more auspicious for the art, but not more interesting in an historical point of view. Another collection, of which I have spoken in my description of the tenth cabinet of the royal gallery, is better preserved, and indeed is quite perfect. It now occupies another apartment. It consists of thirty-four fabulous and historical pictures, painted on the panels of a writing desk for Prince Francesco,[205] by various artists of this epoch. Vasari, to whom the work was entrusted, there represented Andromeda delivered by Perseus, and procured the assistance of the academicians, who thus emulated each other, and strove to recommend themselves to the court. Most of them have put their names to their work;[206] and, if the defects common to that age, or peculiar to the individual, are here and there visible in the work, it demonstrates that the light of painting was not yet extinguished in Florence. Nevertheless, I advise him who examines this collection, to suspend his judgment on the merits of those artists until he has considered their other productions in their own country or at Rome, where some of them have a place in the choicest collections. They may be divided in several schools: we shall begin with that of Angiolo.
Alessandro Allori, the nephew and pupil of Bronzino, whose surname he sometimes inscribed on his pictures, is reckoned inferior to his uncle. Wholly intent upon anatomy, of which he gave fine examples in the Tribune of the Servi, and on which he composed a treatise for the use of painters, he did not sufficiently attend to the other branches of the art. Some of his pictures in Rome, representing horses, are beautiful; and his sacrifice of Isaac, in the royal museum, is coloured almost in the Flemish style. His power of expression is manifested by his picture of the Woman taken in Adultery in the church of the Holy Spirit. He was expert in portrait painting; but he abused this talent by introducing portraits in the modern costume in ancient histories, a fault not uncommon in that age. On the whole his genius appears to have been equal to every branch of painting; but it was unequally exercised, and consequently unequally expanded. He painted much for foreigners, and enjoyed the esteem of the ducal family, who employed him to finish the pictures at Poggio a Caiano, begun by Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, and Pontormo, and by them left more or less imperfect. Opposite to these pictures he painted, from his own invention, the Gardens of the Hesperides, the Feast of Syphax, and Titus Flaminius dissuading the Etolians from the Achæan league; all which historical subjects, as well as those of Cæsar and Cicero, were chosen as symbols of similar events in the lives of Cosmo and Lorenzo de' Medici. Such was the manner of thinking in that age; and moderns personified in ancient heroes obtained a less direct, but higher honour from the art. Giovanni Bizzelli, a disciple of Alessandro, of middling talents, painted in S. Gio. Decollato, at Rome, and in some Florentine churches. Cristofano, a son of Alessandro, became eminent; but he is to be considered hereafter.
Santi Titi, of Città San Sepolcro, a scholar of Bronzino and Cellini, studied long at Rome, whence he returned, with a style full of science and of grace. His beautiful is without much of the ideal; but his countenances exhibit a certain fulness, an appearance of freshness and of health, that is surpassed by none of those who took nature for their model. Design was his characteristic excellence; and for this he was commended by his imitator, Salvator Rosa. In expression he has few superiors in other schools, and none in his own. His ornaments are judicious; and having practised architecture with applause, he introduced perspectives, that gave a dignity and charm to his compositions. He is esteemed the best painter of this epoch, and belongs to it rather from the time in which he lived than his style; if we except his colouring, which was too feeble, and without much relief. Borghini, at once his critic and apologist, remarks that even in this department he was not deficient, when he chose to exert himself; and he seems to have studied it in the Feast of Emmaus, in the church of the Holy Cross at Florence, in the Resurrection of Lazarus, in the cathedral of Volterra, and in a picture at Città di Castello, in which he represents the faithful receiving the Holy Spirit from the hands of the Apostles; a painting that may be viewed with pleasure, even after the three by Raffaello which adorn that city.
Among his numerous pupils in design, we may reckon his son Tiberio; but this artist attended less to the pursuits of his father, than to painting small portraits in vermilion, in which he had singular merit; these were readily received into the collection formed by Cardinal Leopold, which now forms a single cabinet in the royal museum. Two other Florentines are worthy of notice, viz. Agostino Ciampelli, who flourished in Rome under Clement VIII.; and Lodovico Buti, who remained at Florence. They resemble twins by the similarity between them; less scientific, less inventive, and less able in composition, than Titi, they possessed fine ideas, were correct in design, and cheerful in their colouring, beyond the usage of the Florentine school; but they were somewhat crude, and at times profuse in the use of red tints not sufficiently harmonized. Frescos by the first may be seen in the Sacristy at Rome, and the chapel of S. Andrea al Gesù, and an oil painting of the Crucifixion at S. Prassede, in his best manner. A Visitation, with its two companions, at S. Stephen of Pescia, may be reckoned among his choicest works; to which the vicinity of Tiarini does little injury. The second may be recognised by a picture of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, abounding in figures, which is in
