our eyes to Cortona, and notice two good artists. The one was Francesco Signorelli, the nephew of Luca, who, though unnoticed by Vasari, shows himself a painter worthy of praise, by a circular picture of the patron saints of the city, which was executed for the council hall, in 1320; after which period he lived at least forty years. The other was Tommaso Paparello, or Papacello, both which names are given him by Vasari, when writing of his two masters, Caporali and Giulio Romano. He assisted them both, but I can discover no trace of any work wholly his own.
Borgo, afterwards named Città San Sepolcro, could then boast its Raffaello, commonly called Raffaellino dal Colle, born at a small place a few miles from Borgo. He is reckoned among the disciples of Raffaello; but rather belongs to the school of Giulio, whose pupil, dependant, or assistant in his labours at Rome, and in the Te at Mantua, he is considered by Vasari. It is singular that he did not write a separate life of this artist; but assigns him scanty praise in a few scattered anecdotes. His merit is but little known to the public, as he painted for the most part in his native place, or the neighbouring cities; and I am able to add to the catalogue of his pictures from having seen them. He has two pictures at Città San Sepolcro, his only works specified by Vasari. One represents the resurrection of our Saviour, who, full of majesty, regards the soldiers around the sepulchre with an air of displeasure, which fills them with terror. This very spirited picture is in the Church of S. Rocco, and is repeated in the cathedral. The other, which is in the Osservanti of S. Francis, represents the Assumption of the Virgin; a piece agreeable both in colouring and design, but its value is diminished by a figure I am unable to explain, drawn at one side of it by another hand. The same subject is treated in the church of the Conventual friars, at Città di Castello, where great beauty is joined to the highest possible finish, but it loses something of its effect by standing opposite to a fine picture by Vasari, which throws it strongly into the shade. An entombing of Christ by Raffaellino, is in the Servi; a very beautiful picture, but the colouring is less firm; and there is another of his works at S. Angelo with S. Michael, and S. Sebastian, who humbly presents an arrow, a type of his martyrdom, to the infant Jesus and the Virgin. In this the composition is simple but graceful in every part. A picture of our Lady, with S. Sebastian, S. Rocco, and a canonized bishop, painted in a similar style, is to be seen in the church of S. Francis of Cagli; in it the figures and the landscape much resemble the manner of Raffaello. His Apostles in the sacristy of the cathedral of Urbino are noble figures, draped in a grand style, in small oblong pictures, firmly coloured. The Olivet monks of Gubbio have in one of their chapels a Nativity by Raffaellino, and two pieces from the history of S. Benedict, painted in fresco, in which he was, I believe, assisted by his scholars. The former is certainly superior to the two last, although he has introduced in them real portraits, finely conceived architecture, and added a figure of Virtue in the upper part, that seems a sister of the Sybils of Raffaello. He also painted, in the castle of Perugia, and in the Imperiale of Pesaro, a villa of the duke of Urbino, to whom he afforded more satisfaction than the two Dossi. After having assisted Raffaello and Giulio, he disdained not to paint after the designs of less eminent artists. On the arrival of Charles V. at Florence, in 1536, he assisted Vasari, who was one of the decorators; and he painted cartoons after the designs of Bronzino, for the tapestry of Cosmo I.; after which period I do not find him mentioned. Another instance of his diffidence is the following: on the arrival of Rosso at San Sepolcro, Raffaellino, out of respect to that artist, gave up to him an order for a picture which he was to have executed; a rare instance among painters, who are in the habit of using kindly those artists only, who come merely to see a city, and immediately leave it. He kept a school at San Sepolcro, whence proceeded Gherardi, Vecchi, and other artists, some of whom, perhaps, surpassed him in genius; but they did not equal him in grace, nor in high finish.
About this time many artists flourished in Arezzo, but of these two only are praised by Vasari, who is not sparing in his commendations of the Florentines, as I have remarked, but deals them scantily to his own townsmen. Giovanni Antonio, the son of Matteo Lappoli, was the scholar of Pontormo, and the friend of Perino and of Rosso, with whom he lived in Tuscany, and whose style he emulated in Rome. He was more employed in painting for private houses than for churches. Guglielmo, surnamed Da Marcilla, by Vasari, a foreigner by birth, became a citizen of Arezzo from inclination and long residence; he was dear to the citizens, who afforded him the means of enjoying life, and grateful to the city, where he left most beautiful monuments of his genius. He had been a Dominican in his own country; he became a secular priest on arriving in Italy, and at Arezzo he was called the Prior. He was an excellent painter on glass, and on this account, was brought to Rome by one Claude, a Frenchman, to execute windows for Julius II.; but he also employed himself in fresco. He studied design in Italy, and so improved in that art, that his works at Rome seem designs of the fourteenth century, while the Aretine ones appear the work of a modern. He painted some ceilings and arches in the cathedral, with scriptural subjects in fresco. In design he followed Michelangiolo, as nearly as he could; but his colouring was not firm. His paintings on glass are quite in a different style; there, to very good drawing, and uncommon expression, he joined tints that partake of the emerald, the ruby, and of oriental sapphire, and which, when illuminated by the sun, exhibit all the brilliance of the rainbow. In Arezzo, there are so many windows of this glass at the cathedral, at S. Francis, and at many other churches, that they might excite the envy of much larger cities. They are so finely wrought with subjects from the New Testament, and other scriptural histories, that they seem to have reached the perfection of the art. The Vocation of S. Matthew, in a window of the cathedral, is highly praised by Vasari; it exhibits "perspectives of temples and flights of steps, figures so finely composed, landscapes so well executed, that one can hardly imagine they were glass, but something sent down from Heaven for the delight of mankind."
This place and period remind me, that before I pass on to another epoch, I ought to say a few words concerning the invention of painting on glass, which was anciently likewise styled Mosaic, because it was composed of pieces of different coloured glass, connected by lead, which represented the shadows. We may observe glass windows that emulate well composed pictures on canvass or on panel; and this art is treated of by Vasari in the thirty-second chapter of the introduction to his work. From the preface to the treatise De omni scientiâ artis pingendi, by Theophilus the Monk, I find that France was celebrated for this art beyond any other country;[177] and there the art seems to have been invariably cultivated, and brought by degrees to perfection. From the earliest ages of the revival of painting, the Italians wrought windows with different coloured glasses, as is remarked by P. Angeli in his description of the churches of Assisi, where the most ancient specimens are to be seen. In the church likewise of the Franciscan friars at Venice, we find that one Frater Theotonius, a German, worked in tapestry and glass windows, and was imitated by one Marco, a painter, who lived in the year 1335.[178] It may also be observed, that such windows over the altars supplied the place of sacred paintings in churches; Christian congregations, in lifting up their eyes, there sought the resemblance of what "they hoped some time to behold in the celestial paradise: che ancor lassù nel ciel vedere spera," and they often addressed their supplications to those images. In the fifteenth century Lorenzo Ghiberti, a man eminent in various arts, still further improved this, and ornamented the oval windows of the façade of the church of S. Francis, and of the cathedral of Florence with coloured glass. In a similar manner he finished all the oval apertures in the cupola of the cathedral, except that of the Assumption, executed by Donatello. The glass was manufactured at Florence, for which purpose one Domenico Livi, a native of Gambassi, in the principality of Volterra, who had learnt and practised the art at Lubec, was invited to that place, as is proved by Baldinucci in his correction of Vasari.[179] From this school apparently came Goro, and Bernardo di Francesco, with that train of Ingesuati, whose workmanship, exhibited at S. Lorenzo and elsewhere, has been much commended by the Florentine historians. (See Moreni, part vi. p. 41.) This art afterwards flourished at Arezzo, where it was introduced by Parri Spinelli, a scholar of Ghiberti. About the same time flourished in Perugia P. D. Francesco, a monk of Cassino, not merely a painter in glass, but a master in that city; and some conjecture that Vannucci profited by his school, though a comparison of dates does not much favour such a supposition.
