the Bacci family. There is, besides, a most beautiful picture from his hand in the church of Santa Maria in Grado: which contains numerous figures. Over the high altar of the Brotherhood of the Trinity there is also a work of Andrea della Robbia, representing God the Father, who supports the body of the crucified Redeemer in his arms. This group is surrounded by a multitude of angels, while San Donato and San Bernardo are kneeling below.* In like manner, this master executed various pictures for the church and other buildings of the Sasso della Vernia, and these have retained their beauty in that desert place, where no painting could have been preserved even for a few years.† Andrea likewise executed all the figures in glazed terracotta, which decorate the loggia of the hospital of San Paolo in Florence, and which are tolerably good. The boys, some naked, others in swathing-clothes, which are in the medallions between the arches, in the loggia of the hospital of the Innocenti, § are also by Andrea della Robbia. These are all truly admirable, and give a favourable idea of the ability and knowledge of art possessed by this master; there are, besides, a large-nay, an almost infinite number of other works, performed by him in the course of his life, which lasted eighty-four years. Andrea died in 1528, and I, being still but a boy and talking with him, have heard him say, or rather boast, that he had been one of those who bore Donato to his burial-place. I remember, too, that the good old man, speaking of this circumstance, seemed to feel no little pride in the share he had taken in it. But to return to Luca, that master was buried, with the rest of his family, in the tomb of his fathers, which is in the church of San Pier Maggiore, and after him Andrea della All the works of Andrea, executed in Arezzo, with the exception of the Circumcision, are still in existence; but that of which Vasari here speaks, as executed for the Brotherhood of the Trinity, is now in the chapel of the Madonna in the cathedral.-Ed. Flor. 1849. These works still remain. See Reumont, in the Morgenblatt for 1831, No. 206. These decorations of the Loggia are also well preserved. These works are still in good preservation. There is also a most beautiful Annunciation, by the same master, over the side-door of the church of the Innocents, and which was formerly within the building. -Ed. Flor. 1846-9. Robbia was entombed in the same sepulchre. The latter left two sons, who became monks in San Marco, where they received the cowl from the venerable Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was ever held in great honour by the della Robbia family; wherefore it is that these artists have depicted him in the manner which we still see on the medallions.* Andrea had three sons besides the monks above-mentioned-Giovannit (also an artist, and who had three sons, Marco, Lucantonio, and Simone, all of high promise, but who died of the plague in 1527); Luca and Girolamo, who devoted themselves to sculpture. Of the two last-named, Luca paid infinite attention to works in the glazed terra-cotta; and among many other labours of his performance are the pavements of the papal Loggia, which pope Leo X caused to be constructed in Rome, under the direction of Raphael of Urbino, and those of numerous walls and chambers, wherein Luca represented the arms and insignia of that pontiff. Girolamo, who was the youngest of all, worked in marble and bronze, as well as terra-cotta, and by the emulation existing between himself, Jacopo Sansovino, Baccio Bandinelli, and other masters of his time, he had already become a good artist, when he was induced by certain Florentine merchants to visit France. Here he executed various works for king Francis at Madri, a place not far distant from Paris, more particularly a palace decorated with numerous figures and other ornaments, cut in a kind of stone similar to that which we have ourselves at Volterra, but of a better quality, since it is soft while being *These medallions are cast. They have the portrait of Savonarola in profile, with a circular inscription, as follows: "HIERONYMUS SAV. FER. VIR DOCTISS. ORDINIS PRÆDICHORUM." On the reverse is a city, with numerous towers, probably Florence, below; and an arm holding a dagger, with the point turned downwards. The inscription is as follows: "GLADIUS DOMINI SUP. TERAM (SIC) CITO ET VELOCITER." Schorn, and Ed. Flor. 1846-9. † Baldinucci enumerates various works of this master. Among others, a magnificent representation of scenes from the life of the Virgin, in the church belonging to the monastery of San Girolamo delle Poverine Ingesuate. A villa built in the Bois de Boulogne, by order of Francis I, in memory of his sojourn as a prisoner in Spain; and therefore called "Madrid", not " Madri", nor " Marli", as Bottari erroneously believes, that last having been erected under Louis XIV. See Lettere Pittoriche, Ticozzi's edition, vol. iv, No. 210. worked, and becomes indurated by time and exposure to the air. Girolamo della Robbia laboured much in Orleans, and executed many works in various parts of the whole realm of France, acquiring high reputation and great riches. But after a time, understanding that the only brother now remaining to him in Florence was Luca, while he was himself alone in the service of the French king, and very wealthy, he invited his brother to join him in those parts, hoping to leave him the successor of his own prosperous condition and high credit. But the matter did not proceed thus. Luca died soon after his arrival in France, and Girolamo found himself once more alone and with none of his kin beside him. He then resolved to return to his native land, and there enjoy the riches acquired by his pains and labours, desiring moreover to leave some memorial of himself in his own country. In the year 1553 he established his dwelllng in Florence accordingly, but was in a manner compelled to change his purpose, seeing that duke Cosmo, by whom he had hoped to be honourably employed, was entirely occupied by the war in Siena: he therefore returned to die in France, when not only did his house remain closed and his family become extinct,* but art was at the same time deprived of the true method of working in the glazed terra-cotta. It is true that there were some who made attempts in this kind of sculpture after his decease, but no one of these artists ever approached the excellence of Luca the elder, of Andrea, and the other masters of that family in the branch of art of which we are now speaking.† Wherefore, if I have expatiated at some length on this subject, or said more than may have seemed needful, let my readers excuse me, since the fact that Luca invented this mode of sculpture, which had not been practised—so far as I * See Baldinucci, who shews that Vasari is here in error. The Della Robbia family flourished most honourably, both in France and Florence, until the year 1645, the last of the name being Bishop of Cortona and Fiesole.-Schorn. †The secret of these inventions was transmitted to the Buglioni family by the marriage of a Della Robbia with Andrea Benedetto Buglioni. Andrea was contemporary with Verrocchio; and his son, Santi Buglioni, inherited the secret, which in him, as it appears, was totally lost, although many attempted to discover the methods adopted (according to Baldinucci, who relates this), more particularly a certain Antonio Novello, but he was far from attaining to the excellence of the Della Robbia family. know-by the ancient Romans, rendered it proper, as I thought, that it should be treated of at some length, which I have done accordingly. And if, after closing the life of Luca the elder, I have briefly stated other things relating to his descendants, who have lived even to our own days-this I have done that I may not have further occasion to recur to that matter. Luca moreover, be it observed, though he passed from one occupation to another-from marble to bronze, and from bronze to terra-cotta-was not induced to these changes by an idle levity, or because he was, as too many are found to be, capricious, unstable, and discontented with his vocation, but because he was by nature disposed to the search after new discoveries, and also because his necessities compelled him to seek a mode of occupation which should be in harmony with his tastes, while it was less fatiguing and more profitable. Whence the arts of design and the world generally, were enriched by the possession of a new, useful, and beautiful decoration-from which, too, the master himself derived per petual fame and undying glory. Luca della Robbia drew well and gracefully, as may be seen by certain drawings in our book, the lights of which are in white lead; and in one of them is his own portrait, made with great care by his own hand, looking at himself in a mirror. THE FLORENTINE PAINTER PAOLO UCCELLO. PAOLO UCCELLO would have proved himself the most original and inventive genius ever devoted to the art of painting, from the time of Giotti downwards, had he bestowed but half the labour on the delineation of men and animals that he lost and threw away over the minutiae of perspective. For, although these studies are meritorious and good in their way, yet he who is addicted to them beyond measure, wastes his time, exhausts his intellect, and weakens the force of his conceptions, insomuch that he frequently diminishes the fertility and readiness of his resources, which he renders ineffectual and sterile. Nay, whoever bestows his attention on these points, rather than on the delineation of the living figure, will frequently derive from his efforts a dry and angular hardness of manner, which is a very common result of too close a consideration of minute points. There is, moreover, the highest probability that one so disposed will become unsocial, melancholy, and poor, as did Paolo Uccello, who, being endowed by nature with a subtle and inquiring spirit, knew no greater pleasure than that of undertaking over-difficult, or, rather, impossible problems of perspective; which, although, doubtless curious, and perhaps beautiful, yet so effectually impeded his progress in the more essential study of the figure, that his works became worse and worse, in that respect, the older he grew. It is by no means to be denied that the man who subjects himself to studies too severe, does violence to his nature; and, although he may sharpen his intellect on one point, yet, whatever he does, wants the grace and facility natural to those who, proceeding temperately, preserve the calmness of their intelligence, and the force of their judgment, keeping all things in their proper place, and avoiding those subtleties which rarely produce any better effect than that of imparting a laboured, dry, and ungraceful character to the production, whatever it may be, which is better calculated to move the spectator to pity, than awaken his admiration. It is only when the spirit of inspiration is roused, when the intellect demands to be in action, that effectual labour is secured; then only are thoughts worthy of expression conceived, and things great, excellent, and sublime accomplished. Paolo Uccello employed himself perpetually, and without any intermission whatever, in the consideration of the most difficult questions connected with art, insomuch that he brought the method of preparing the plans and elevations of buildings, by the study of linear perspective, to perfection. From the ground plan to the cornices, and summit of the roof, he reduced all to strict rules, by the convergence of intersecting lines, which he diminished towards the centre, after having fixed the point of view higher or lower, as seemed good to him; he laboured, in short, so earnestly in these difficult matters, that he found means, and fixed rules, for making his figures really to seem standing on the plane whereon they |