Life, published at Florence, by Bartolozzi. He was painter to the court, by which he was much employed, as well as by private individuals. He was a moderate follower of Cortona. He wrote a useful tract on the Theory of Painting, in which he combated the prejudices of the age, and enforced the necessity of proceeding on general principles. It was printed in 1739; and afterwards defended by the author against certain criticisms made on it. Giuseppe and Margherita, his two sons, have met with some commendation, and I am told there is a fine altar-piece by the former, which adorns the parish church at Borgo Buggiano. It is retouched, however, by his father, who honourably makes mention of the fact. I repeat, honourably; because many fathers are known to have aided their sons with a view of obtaining for them a reputation beyond their deserts. Michelangiolo Palloni da Campi, a pupil of Volterrano, is well known in Florence by a good copy of the Furius Camillus, of Salviati, in the old palace; which was placed by the side of the original. He resided long, and was much employed in Poland. An eminent pupil of Baldassare, named Benedetto Orsi, was omitted by Baldinucci. A fine picture of S. John the Evangelist, in the church of S. Stephen, at Pescia, his native place, is attributed to him. He also painted the Works of Mercy, for the religious fraternity of nobles. These oil paintings were shewn to strangers among the curiosities of that city; but they were dispersed on the suppression of the order. There still exists a large circular picture which he produced at Pistoia for S. Maria del Letto, enumerated by good judges among the finest works of Volterrano, until an authentic document discovered the real author. Last in this list I have to mention Arrighi, the fellow citizen of Franceschini, and his favourite pupil. He has nothing remaining in public, in which his master cannot boast a great share.[218]
After Franceschini, who may be considered the Lanfranco of the Rosselli, or rather Florentine school, we proceed to Francesco Furini, who is its Guido and its Albano. Foreigners recognized him as such: hence he was invited to Venice, for the express purpose of painting a Thetis, as a companion to an Europa by Guido Reni. He had seen the works of masters of this class at Rome, and appears to have aspired at rivalling, rather than at imitating them. His ideas certainly do not seem borrowed from them, nor from any other artists. He spent a long time in meditating on his subject, and was accustomed to consider his picture completed when he had finished his studies for it; so little time and trouble did it cost him to embody his ideas in colours. Having been ordained a priest about his fortieth year, and becoming curate of S. Ansano in Mugello, he executed some pictures truly valuable, both on account of the rarity of his works and their excellence, for the neighbouring town of S. Lorenzo. Above all, we may notice with admiration a S. Francis receiving the Stigmata, and a Conception of the Blessed Virgin, in which, elevated above mortality, she appears soaring and resplendent. But his great name in Italy arose from his cabinet pictures, which are rare out of Florence, and in Florence are highly esteemed, though considerable numbers of them remain there. His Hylas carried away by the Nymphs, which he painted for the family of Galli, and in which he introduced noble figures that are grandly varied, is highly celebrated; not to mention the three Graces of the Strozzi palace, and the many historical pieces and half-length figures dispersed through the city that are unnoticed in his life. They chiefly consist of nymphs, or of Magdalens, no less naked than the nymphs; for Furini was a very expert painter of delicate flesh, but not one of the most modest. Furini must have had a great number either of pupils or imitators, as his pictures for private houses before mentioned, which were copied, are of frequent occurrence in Florence. They are often of a dusky hue, through the defect of their ground, and Simone Pignone is made, often erroneously so, their most common author. He was Francesco's best pupil; very delicate in the colours of his fleshes, as we may judge from the altar-piece of B. Bernardo Tolomei, at Monte Oliveto, where the Virgin and the Infant are coloured very beautifully in the flesh, if not handsome in their features. His picture of St. Louis, king of France, at S. Felicità, is still more celebrated. It was much commended by Giordano, and the artist received five hundred crowns for its execution. In the first volume of Lettere Pittoriche we are informed, that Maratta only esteemed Gabbiani and Pignone among all the Florentine painters of his time. He was also praised by Bellini in the work entitled Bucchereide, where he coins a new term for Pignone, (a liberty extremely common among our jocose poets,) I know not how far susceptible of imitation in another tongue: "È l'arcipittorissimo de' buoni."
Lorenzo Lippi, like his friend Salvator Rosa, divided his hours between poetry and painting. His Malmantile Racquistato,[219] which is a model of Tuscan purity of language,[220] is a work less read perhaps, but more elegant than the satires of Salvator; and is sprinkled with those graceful Florentine idioms that are regarded as the Attic salt of Italy. In looking for a prototype among the artists of his own school, guided by similarity of genius, he made choice of Santi di Tito. A delineator of the passions sufficiently accorded with the genius of the poet, and a painter of the choicest design was highly congenial to so elegant a writer. He, however, added to his style a greater force of colouring; and in drapery he followed the practice of some Lombard masters and of Baroccio, in modelling the folds in paper, a practice of which their works retain some traces. The delicacy of pencil, the clearness, harmony, and to sum up all, the good taste, pervading his pictures, demonstrate that he had a feeling of natural beauty superior to most of his contemporaries. His master admired him, and said, with a liberality not always to be found among history painters, "Lorenzo, thou art more knowing than I." His pictures are not very rare at Florence, although he resided far from it for many years, for he was painter to the court of Inspruck. A Crucifixion, among his best performances, is in the ducal gallery. The noble family of Arrighi possesses a S. Saverio recovering from the claws of a crab, the Crucifix which he had dropped into the sea. Baldinucci and the author of The Series of the most Illustrious Painters have spoken very highly of his Triumph of David, painted for the hall of Angiol Gaddi, who wished him to represent his eldest son as the son of Jesse, and his other sixteen children as the youths and virgins, that with songs and timbrels greet the victor, and hail the deliverance of Israel. In this celebrated piece, the artist was enabled to give full scope to his talent for portrait painting, and to the style approaching to nature, which he loved, without troubling himself about studied and artful embellishments. It was his maxim to write poetry as he spoke, and to paint what he observed.
Mario Balassi perfected himself under Passignano, and after the choicest examples of the Roman and other schools. He was an excellent copyist of the old masters, and a painter of invention above mediocrity. Some of his small historical pictures, and a few pieces representing eatables, are to be met with in private houses; and, above all, there are many of his half-length figures finely coloured and relieved. In his old age he changed his manner, and retouched as many of the works of his youth as he could lay his hands on; but in striving to improve, he only injured them.
Francesco Boschi, the nephew and scholar of Rosselli, was an excellent portrait painter. In the cloister of All Saints, where his uncle Fabrizio also painted, there are some of his portraits that seem absolutely alive, and are executed in fresco so admirably, that they clearly shew the school from which he proceeded. He finished some pieces in oil, that were left imperfect by the death of Rosselli, and painted others entirely his own, the subjects of which were chiefly religious, where the countenances are strikingly expressive of probity and sanctity. As he grew older he assumed the ecclesiastical habit, and sustained its dignity by his exemplary conduct, the account of which Baldinucci has extended at some length. During twenty-four years in which he lived a priest, he did not resign his pencil; but he employed it less frequently, and generally less successfully, than in his youth. His elder brother Alfonso promised much, and even attained a great deal, though cut off in early life.
The style of Jacopo Vignali has some resemblance to that of Guercino, but less in the forms than in the dark shadows and the grounds. He is amongst those scholars of Rosselli who are seldom mentioned, although he painted more than any of the rest for the prince and the state. He often is weak, especially in attitude; often, however, he appears praiseworthy, as in the two pictures at S. Simone, and in the S. Liborio, which is possessed by the Missionaries. He is most conspicuous in fresco painting, with which he ornamented the chapel of the Bonarruoti. He painted good
