Chapter xiv

., upon which Holbein also was employed. He appears, together with John Browne, to have provided various materials and also to have done some of the painting, for which he received a weekly wage, the entry running, “To Italian painters, Vincent Vulp and Ellys Carmyan at 20_s._ the week.”[590] In the treasurer’s accounts for quarter’s wages due at Christmas 1528 he is entered as receiving 50_s._ a quarter, but this is apparently a mistake in transcribing, for as early as 1516 he was getting a salary of £20 a year, and in September 1529, the larger amount is again entered against his name, to be paid quarterly. In May 1530 he received £15, 4_s._ 9_d._ for trimming the King’s new barge, and in December of the same year £3, 10_s._ “for paynting of a plat of Rye and Hastings”[591]—evidently a bird’s-eye view showing the fortifications and defences, such as were frequently made for the King. On New Year’s Day, 1532, he presented the King with two long and two round targets.[592] He appears to have died or to have left the country shortly after this. Mr. Nichols suggests that it is “by no means improbable that Vincent Volpe may have been the painter of some of those curious military pictures, something between plans and bird’s-eye views, that are still to be seen on the walls of Hampton Court”—the large painting of the “Field of the Cloth of Gold,” the “Embarkation of Henry VIII from Dover,”[593] and others.

In the entry respecting Volpe quoted above, in connection with the Banqueting House at Greenwich in 1527, he is coupled with another Italian painter, “Ellys Carmyan.” The latter, who was in receipt of a regular salary from the King, it has been customary to regard as a woman, because the Christian name is entered in the accounts more than once as Alice. Thus in December 1528,[594] the entry for quarter’s wages is “Alice Carmillion, painter, 33_s._ 4_d._” The writer, however, is of opinion that Carmillian was a man. At other times the name is given as Alys, Ellys, Alye, and other variations, and the surname is spelt Carmillion or Carmillian. This artist is more often described as a “millyner” than as a painter. The payment quoted above immediately precedes that of Volpe in the accounts, and the two painters were usually employed together at this period. In the payments for ships’ banners in 1511,[595] Volpe is joined with one Alexe of Myllen, painter. This Alessandro of Milan is evidently the same person as Ellys or Alys Carmillian; the change from Alexe to Alys is an easy one, and Bryan Tuke’s spelling of foreign names in his accounts is characterised by remarkable variety. It is not likely that a woman would be employed upon such work as the painting of a building; and the term “millyner” occurs much more frequently in recording payments to men than to women in the royal accounts. Mr. Digby Wyatt suggests that the name was Elisa Carmillione, Milanesa, and that she was a Milanese miniaturist.[596] It has been suggested, too, that this painter was a relative of Peter Carmeliano, of Brescia, the poet, Latin secretary to Henry VII and one of the King’s chaplains, who became lute player to Henry VIII.[597]

Carmillian was one of those who supplied materials for the work carried out at Westminster Palace in 1532. One of the entries in connection with this runs: “To Elys Carmenelle, of London, painter, for 200 Flemish paving tiles, 30_s._”[598] On New Year’s Day 1529 he, or rather his servant, received a reward of 10_s._ in return for his gift to the King.[599] Carmillian’s salary was only £6, 13_s._ 4_d._ a year, paid quarterly.[600]

Antonio Toto, who, as already noted, was brought over to England by Torrigiano, was an artist of greater capabilities than Volpe and Carmillian. He spent nearly forty years in England, and throughout the whole of the time appears to have been in the royal service. He usually worked in conjunction with another Italian painter, Bartolommeo Penni, their names almost always appearing together in the Household Accounts. Toto was the son of one Toto dell’ Nunziata, a painter of Florence of some standing, a maker of “puppets,” and a great practical joker, as Vasari relates. The son was a fellow-pupil with Perino del Vaga in Ridolfo Ghirlandajo’s studio. Toto took part with his master in painting a Madonna and Child in the church of San Pietro Scheraggio, a building no longer in existence. Vasari says that he was taken to England by some Florentine merchants, and there executed all his works, “and by the King of that province, for whom he wrought in architecture (as well as in sculpture and painting), and for whom he built his principal palace, was most handsomely rewarded.”

The “principal palace” referred to by Vasari was evidently Nonsuch, near Cheam, in Surrey, which was begun in 1538 by Henry VIII, who acquired the site, previously called Cuddington, in that year. The original and principal structure was of two storeys, the lower being of substantial and well-wrought freestone, and the upper of wood, “richly adorned and set forth, and garnished with a variety of statues, pictures (_i.e._ coloured figures in relief), and other artistic forms of excellent art and workmanship, and of no small cost”—it is thus described in the survey of the Parliamentary Commissioners in 1650.[601] This singular building remained in good condition for more than a century, and was described by both Evelyn and Pepys in 1665. The former says that the plaster statues and basso-relievos “must needs have been the work of some celebrated Italian.” Pepys speaks of the same features as “figures of stories and good painting of Rubens or Holbein’s doing.” In the earliest account of it, published in Braun’s _Urbium Præcipuarum Mundi Theatrum Quintium_, in 1583, it is stated that Henry VIII “procured many excellent artificers, architects, sculptors, and statuaries, as well Italians, French, and Dutch as natives, who all applied to the ornament of this mansion the finest and most curious skill they possessed in their several arts, embellishing it within and without with magnificent statues, some of which vividly represent the antiquities of Rome and some surpass them.” A view of the palace by Joris Hoefnagel accompanied this account, which gives an excellent idea of the building before the additions were made to it by Lord Lumley.

If Vasari is to be believed, Toto was the chief architect of this building; in any case, it may be taken for granted that he was one of the leading Italians employed there. In the royal accounts he is always spoken of as “paynter,” but the term included the makers of works in coloured plaster, with which the exterior of Nonsuch was covered. “Toto’s earliest education,” says Mr. Digby Wyatt, “had specially fitted him for dealing with such an infinity of allegorical and quasi-pictorial sculpture as that with which we shall find Nonsuch to have been adorned; since his father, in whose ‘bottega’ he was first brought up, obtained his nickname of ‘Nunziata’ from his annually furnishing all the quantity of imagery with which the feast of the Annunciation was wont to be set forth in a tangible shape at Florence.”[602]

[Sidenote: TOTO AND PENNI]

“Antony Toto and Barthilmewe Penne” first appear in the Household Accounts in 1530, “upon several warrantes being dated the iiijth day of June, anno xxij, for their wages, after the rate of xxv _li_ a year to every of them, to be paid unto them quarterly, & during the Kinges pleasure.”[603] Thus each received £25 a year, the payment for the two being always entered in one account, £12, 10_s._ each quarter, and 22_s._ 6_d._ each annually for their livery coats. On one occasion the scribe has confused them, and has entered them as “Anthony Pene and Bartilmew Tate.”[604] There are some interesting items concerning Toto in the Hampton Court Accounts,[605] from which we learn that in addition to his work as an architect and decorator he was employed as a painter of pictures. Thus, in 1530, there is an entry: “To Antonye Tote, painter, for the painting of five tables standing in the King’s library—First, one table of Joachim and St. Anne. Item, another table, how Adam delved in the ground. Item, the third table, how Adam was droven out of Paradise. Item, the fourth table, of the burying of our Lord. Item, the fifth table, being the last table, of the burying of our blessed Lady. The said Antonye taking for the said five tables, by a bargain in great, £6, 13_s._ 4_d._” Toto was also a restorer of old pictures, for on the same page is the following: “Item, to the said Antonye for sundry colours by him employed and spent upon the old painted tables in the King’s privy closet, 13_s._ 4_d._”; and again, “also paid to Antoyne Tote, painter, for the painting of four great tables—that is to say, one table of our [Lady] of Pity; another table of the four Evangelists; the third of the Maundythe [the feet-washing on Maundy Thursday?]. The fourth [title omitted]. The said Antonye taking for the said tables, by a bargain with him made, by great, 20_l._ soll.” These entries show that painters at Henry’s Court received separate payment for pictures and other special works, and that their salaries were in the nature of retaining fees. They also received a daily wage when engaged on work of some duration, as can be gathered from several quotations from the accounts already given. In 1530 Toto was engaged in this way at one shilling a day, and with him were associated Philyp Arkeman (10_d._), Lewes Williams (9_d._), and John Devynk (3_d._). The work consisted of “new painting and gilding certain antique heads brought from Greenwich to Hanworth at the King’s commandment, and new garnishing of the same.” In June 1532 he was employed upon a similar job: “Also paid to Anthony Tote and John De la Mayn, the King’s painters, for their wages, coming from London to Hanworth for to see the finishing and setting up of certain antique heads new painted and gilded, either of them by the space of three days at xii_d._ the day, for themselves and their horses.”[606] These were the terra-cotta roundels modelled by Giovanni da Maiano, the John De la Mayn of the accounts, which appear to have been painted and gilded by Toto.

[Sidenote: ANTONIO TOTO, SERJEANT-PAINTER]

On 15th January 1532 he received a special sum of £20 by the King’s commandment, for some service not mentioned.[607] He became a naturalised Englishman in 1538, his patent of denization being dated 26th June in that year. In it he is described as a native of Florence, in the Emperor’s dominions.[608] In the same year he was employed by Cromwell on some work at Havering, for which he was paid 51_s._ 1_d._ on 26th May.[609] On the 28th November 1538 he and his wife Helen received a grant in survivorship of two cottages and land in Mycheham (Mitcham), near Nonsuch, which was to be held by payment of a red rose at St. John Baptist’s Day annually.[610] On the following New Year’s Day he presented the King with a “depicted table of Calomia” (the Calumny of Apelles)[611]; and on the 1st of January 1541 a “table of the story of King Alexander.”[612] On the 14th of April 1541 he obtained a licence to import 600 tuns of beer,[613] and on the 2nd December 1542 he received a lease of the manor of Ravesbury, in Surrey, which belonged to Sir Nicholas Carew, attainted, for forty years, at £42, 6_s._ 8_d._ rental.[614]

Toto succeeded Andrew Wright as the King’s serjeant-painter in 1543, and he continued to hold the same position throughout the reign of Edward VI, and in that capacity he provided the tabards for the heralds, and at the coronation of Edward furnished all materials required by the College, whether in satin, damask, or sarcenet, for Kings, Heralds, and Pursuivants. He also devised patterns and painted the properties for the court masques. Thus, at Shrovetide 1548, he received 20_s._ as a reward for his pains in drawing patrons (patterns) for the masks, and a similar amount a year or two later for attending the Revels and drawing and devising for painters and others. In 1550 he supplied “antique moulded heads” for a temporary banqueting house, and in 1552 he was employed in preparing properties for a masque on the State of Ireland, and received 4_s._ for painting an Irish halberd, sword, and dagger, and a coat and cap with eyes, tongues, and ears for Fame.[615] On New Year’s Day 1552 he presented King Edward with “the phismanye of the Duke of —— (name obliterated), steyned upon cloth of silver, in a frame of woode,” for which he received in return a gilt salt with cover weighing a little over nine ounces. He was still serjeant-painter at the death of Edward VI, and for the King’s funeral had an allowance of seven yards of black cloth, with three more for his servant.[616] It is to be supposed that the numerous pictures Toto presented to Henry VIII and his son were of his own painting, though there is no actual proof of this; his chief works in England appear to have been architectural and decorative.

His fellow-worker, Bartolommeo Penni, another Florentine, may possibly have come with him to England in 1519. He was, in any case, settled in London and in the service of the King in the summer of 1522, for in a valuation of the lands and goods of the inhabitants of London of that date, he is entered in the parish of St. Martin Orgar as “Bartholomew Penny, stranger, in fees of the King yearly, £25.”[617] Penni may possibly have been a brother of Gian Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore, one of Raphael’s pupils, and of Luca Penni.[618] The latter was at work for some years at Fontainebleau under Rosso, and, according to Vasari, afterwards repaired to England; but there appears to be no foundation for this statement, Vasari having probably confused him with Bartolommeo.[619] In the royal accounts his name is always coupled with that of Toto when his quarterly salary is paid, but otherwise there is no record of him, except his patent of denization, dated 2nd October 1541, in which he is described as a subject of the Duke of Florence.[620] For some reason Penni did not sue for the letters patent for more than a year later, when the King’s style and great seal had been altered, so that by the Lord Chancellor’s command they were not to bear date until the 28th January 1543, and a fine of 13_s._ 4_d._ was inflicted. Beyond this, nothing is known about him, but the work he undertook for the Crown must have been of a similar nature to that done by Toto.

[Sidenote: ROVEZZANO, MAIANO, AND BELLIN]

Two Florentine sculptors of note, Benedetto da Rovezzano and Giovanni da Maiano, were at work here throughout the whole of Holbein’s sojourn in England. It is probable that they were brought over by Wolsey on purpose to work on the great tomb and monument he was erecting for himself in the tomb-house at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and after Wolsey’s fall, when Henry VIII seized upon the materials and such of the work as had been finished and proceeded to adapt it for a tomb of his own, the two sculptors were retained in the King’s service, though Benedetto, at least, was anxious to return to Florence before Wolsey’s downfall. Their names occur constantly in the royal accounts. Rovezzano is sometimes entered as “Benedict, the King’s tomb-maker.” Giovanni da Maiano was a noted worker in terra-cotta, and Wolsey employed him on such work at Hampton Court. On the 18th June 1521 he rendered an account to Wolsey for ten roundels of terra-cotta (_rotundæ imagines ex terra depictæ_) at £2, 6_s._ 8_d._ each, and three histories of Hercules at £4 each, “for the Palace at Anton Cort.”[621] These were the roundels already spoken of in connection with Toto. Maiano was one of the artists associated with Holbein in the decoration of the Greenwich Banqueting House, in the accounts of which he is entered as John Demyans. He was in the royal service, and received a salary of £20, being entered in October 1528 as “John Demayns, gravour.”[622] In 1526 his name occurs in the accounts of Thomas, Lord Rocheford. “To Mane, the painter, for making the pattern of your seal of arms, 3_s._ 4_d._,” and it was as a seal-engraver that he was largely engaged at the Court. In Cromwell’s accounts the two sculptors are sometimes entered as Benedict Rovesham or Rovesame and John de Manion or Manino. Their work on Henry’s tomb appears to have gone on until 1536, when the project was abandoned for a time. Both men seem to have left England shortly afterwards.

Nicolas Bellin of Modena was one of the most prominent of the Italian artists engaged at the English Court during the latter half of Holbein’s residence in England. Mr. Lionel Cust[623] suggests that “the similarity of name would lead to a possible identification of this Niccolo with Niccolo dell’ Abbate da Modena, who arrived in France after the accession of Henri II, and took an important share in the decorative paintings at Fontainebleau, where he died in 1571”; but the latter, who, as a painter, was by far the more important artist of the two, did not reach France from Italy until 1552, whereas Bellin had been in the employment of Francis I as early as 1517.[624]

Bellin was a designer and worker in plaster. He is called in the English accounts both “carver” and “moulder,” as well as “paynter.” His name appears in the French royal accounts between 1517 and 1533, and M. Dimier infers from lack of any later reference to his name, that he died shortly after the latter date; but he had, in reality, moved over to England. He took a considerable share in the decoration of Fontainebleau, where he worked under Primaticcio, and perhaps under Rosso, upon the ornamental borders and decorations in plaster and stucco with which the various wall-paintings were surrounded. “All visitors to Fontainebleau,” says M. Dimier,[625] “carry away a recollection of the extraordinary mixture of painting and sculptured ornament displayed in the gallery. The high relief and the abundance of the stucco, which hems in the pictures on all sides and in places even overlaps their edges, make a unique and inspiring effect, in which the balance of the two arts would have been disturbed if Rosso had not scattered among the stuccos little cartouches of painting and placed grounds of gold behind them charged with paintings in varied colours.” This was the kind of work upon which Bellin was employed in France, as can be gathered from the following entry in the “Account of Nicolas Picart,” which was lot 466 in the sale of the late Sir Thomas Phillips’ collections, 1903: “A Nicolas Bellin dit Modène, painctre, la somme de cent livres tournois ... pour cinq mois entiers qu’il avoit vacqué et besongné avec Francisque de Primadicis dit de Boullongne, aussi painctre, es ouvraiges de stucq et paincture encommancez à faire pour le roy nostre dit seigneur, en sa chambre de la grosse tour de son chasteau au dit Fontainebleau, à 20 livres par mois.”[626]

[Sidenote: NICOLAS BELLIN OF MODENA]

By 1538 he was already in the service of the King of England, for in December in that year he received a quarter’s wages, on a warrant dated on the previous 21st April, at the rate of £10 a year, and 20_s._ a year for his livery.[627] He is styled Nic. (Nicolas) de Modecio, but in the following March (1539) he appears as Nicholas de Modena.[628] Bellin did not come to England entirely of his own free will. He was, in fact, obliged to fly from France, and the King and his ministers made every effort to get him back again. Francis I wrote to Marillac, his ambassador in London, on 10th September 1540,[629] drawing his attention to the fact that some time earlier he had demanded “a subject and servant named Modena, who should be confronted with the president Gentils (also spelt Gentilz and Jentill) upon certain malversions he had made, but he has not been sent,” and Marillac is ordered to make lively remonstrances thereupon. From the ambassador’s reply,[630] of a week later, it is to be gathered that Modena, who is described as one of the accomplices of the President Gentilz, had been delivered by Henry’s Council, in the spring of 1538, to the Bishop of Tarbes, then representing Francis in London, but had not been permitted to be sent to France, “as he was a native of Italy, although of Milan, which, they knew, belonged to Francis.” Marillac is afraid that the same reasons will again be alleged against his extradition, and in writing to Montmorency, the Grand Constable, on the same date,[631] says that he will make representations to the King’s Council touching Modena, “about whom they are sure to make difficulty, as he is an Italian.” Sir John Wallop, the English ambassador to France, also wrote about the matter to Henry VIII, informing him that Modena was wanted “about an account of 100,000 crowns of which President Jentill beguiled the King.”[632] Henry in his answer said, “as for Modena, he (Francis) never demanded him as a traitor according to the treaty, yet Henry gave him up to the French ambassador (the Bishop of Tarbes) at his request, and the latter afterwards put him at liberty.”[633] The Council wrote to the same effect, saying, “the King is not bound to deliver him, as he is not a French subject, but born in the duchy of Milan, being in the Emperor’s hands. And the King said that when the French King should be Duke of Milan he would be ready to observe the treaties.”[634] In a final letter to Francis on 21st October 1540, Marillac calls Modena a “painter and sculptor,” and says that “the King said he would not speak of Modena until justice had been done in his own case” (_i.e._ the detention in France of Blanche Rose).[635] A further interesting reference to Modena is to be found in a long letter from Wallop to Henry VIII, written from Melun on 17th November 1540, in which he describes a visit to Fontainebleau and an interview with Francis.[636] The letter also shows how keen an interest the two kings took in one another’s building operations, and their willingness to assist one another with materials and designs. Francis asked Wallop many questions about Hampton Court, and said that he had heard that Henry used much gilding in his houses, especially in the roofs, but for his part he preferred natural wood, “as ebony, brasell, &c., which was more durable; he would show me Fontainebleau, especially his gallery there. He has found mines of marble nigh the sea-side, white at Marguyson, and black at Sherbroke (Cherbourg), and you might have some for nothing if you liked to send for it; also divers moulds of antique personnages that he hath now coming out of Italy, with which he shall have done within three or four months.” Wallop then describes a visit to “Fountayne de Bleawe” on the following Sunday, when the King showed him the “antycall borders” in his bedchamber, helping him to mount a bench that was too high for him, in order that he might examine them more closely. Francis afterwards showed him the Gallery, which Wallop describes, and refers Henry to “_Modon, who wrought there at the beginning_,” for details. One side of the gallery, he says, “is all antique of suche stuff as the said Modon makith your Majesties chemenyes.”[637] Such things, he adds, would suit the gallery at St. James’s, and the French King would gladly give the pattern.

By a warrant of 14th January 1540[638] the wages of “Nicholas de Modeno” were increased to £20 a year, and on 3rd October 1541 he received a patent of denization, with licence to have two apprentices and four journeymen or “covenant servants,” in which he is described as “Nic. Bellin, a native of the city of Modena, in Italy, in the dominions of the Duke of Ferrara.”[639] According to Mr. Nichols,[640] on New Year’s Day 1534, among the royal rewards was one “to Nicolas Modena, that brought the King a story of Abraham,” 6_s._ 8_d._ (_i.e._ to his servant). This is not given in the abstract in the State Papers, but, if correct, would seem to prove that Modena was in England some years before he was regularly employed in the royal service, and earlier than the letters with reference to his extradition suggest. The last year in which he is mentioned in the French accounts is 1533, which agrees with a possible arrival in England towards the end of that year, when he might seek to draw attention to his abilities by presenting a picture to the King. There appears, however, to be no further reference to him until 1538.

[Sidenote: NICOLAS BELLIN OF MODENA]

In the autumn of 1546 he was engaged upon work for some Revels at Hampton Court, arranged for the entertainment of the Admiral of France, for which he received £15. “Nich’as Modena, paynt’, for garments of here (hair) upon lether, for wildme’, to s’ve for torcheberers, w^{th} thayr hed peces, staves, and clubbes, taken in great for all, 15_li._”[641] These wildmen were satyrs or savage green-men, so much in vogue in mimic entertainments of this period. Modena was also engaged in freshening up and altering a certain Mount, used in some Revels for the Coronation festivities of Edward VI, this mount being probably the same apparatus for a pageant which had been employed some forty years before, in the reign of Henry VIII, and had been laid up in the store of the Master of the Revels as a valuable piece of machinery. The entry runs:[642] “To Nych’as Modena, stranger, for as well his owne wages and 22 other carvers’ wages, workeing upon the mouldyd w’ke appertayning to the mount, as also for clay, plaster parys, sewett, whyte paper, flower, glewe, syes, wax, here, colis (coals) for drying, with other necessaries.” It will be noticed that he is still termed stranger, though possessed of a patent of denization.

In the following year, at Shrovetide 1548, he is termed “moulder”—“Nicholas Modena, moulder, for 6 heads of heres (hair) for masks a’ 10_s._, 60_s._; trimming, color^g, and lyning 16 vysowres, at 12_d._, 16_s._”[643] In the roll of New Year’s gifts 1552, received by the King, is an entry showing that he presented a picture. “By Modeno a feire picture paynted of the Frenche King his hoole personage, sett in a frame of wodde,” and there was given in return “To Modeno, an Italian, oone guilte salte with a cover,” weighing x oz. iij qrt’ di.” Another picture by him, the portrait of a boy, was in the Arundel Collection, and is entered in the 1655 inventory as “Ritratto d’un fanciullo,” by “Nicolo da Modena.”

At the funeral of King Edward VI, “Modena, maker of the King’s picture,” received four yards of black cloth, and he is mentioned again as “Nicholas Modena, kerver, four yards.” The “King’s picture” referred to in this extract was not a painting, but the coloured effigy carried and displayed on the King’s coffin, as was the usual custom. Machyn, in his Diary, in his account of the same funeral, uses the term “picture” for the effigy—“then the chariot covered with cloth of gold, and on the chariot lay a picture, lying richly with a crown of gold, and a great collar, and a sceptre in his hand, lying in his robes, and the garter about his leg, and a coat in embroidery in gold.”[644] Modena’s share in this effigy would be the modelling of the head in the likeness of the King. Sir George Scharf[645] suggested that the very beautiful little whole-length figure of Henry VIII, carved in buff honestone, belonging to Mr. H. Dent-Brocklehurst, last exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1909 (Case A, No. 28), was the work of Nicolas Modena. It was apparently founded on Holbein’s Whitehall painting of the King. “It has evidently been painted, as traces of blue and crimson on the dress still remain in some of the hollows.” Sir George drew attention to the similarity of this exquisite piece of work, in its wooden frame, to Modena’s gift to Edward VI of the fair painted picture of the French king, whole length, set in a frame of wood, mentioned above.

[Sidenote: GIROLAMO PENNACCHI DA TREVISO]

Another Italian painter of considerable distinction who was in England during the latter part of Henry’s reign, was Girolamo Pennacchi da Treviso, son and pupil of Piermaria Pennacchi, born at Treviso in 1497, an imitator of Raphael, who worked chiefly at Bologna, Venice, and Genoa, and, so Vasari relates, came to England mainly on account of his unsuccessful rivalry with Perino del Vaga.[646] According to the same authority he was a good portrait-painter, and in England received encouragement and patronage from the King. “In his service he exercised his talents as architect and engineer. He erected buildings in the Italian style which delighted and surprised the King beyond measure, who constantly loaded him with gifts, and assigned him a stipend of 400 scudi a year, giving him leave also to build himself a handsome house at the King’s own expense. Girolamo lived most happily, and in the utmost content, thanking God and his good fortune for having placed him in a country where his merits were so well appreciated. But this unusual happiness did not last long; he went in his capacity of engineer to inspect the fortifications of Boulogne, during the siege, where a cannon-ball struck him lifeless off his horse. He thus died in 1544, at the early age of thirty-six.”[647] He painted chiefly in fresco, so that little of his work remains. There is an important example of his art in the National Gallery, No. 623, an altar-piece painted for the Boccaferi Chapel in the Church of San Domenico at Bologna, representing the Virgin and Child enthroned, with SS. Joseph, James, and Paul, which was formerly in the Solly and Northwick collections. There is no other work in this country which can be pointed out as being with any certainty from his brush, but Sir George Scharf was of opinion that the striking full-length portrait of Sir Thomas Gresham at the age of twenty-six, dated 1544, in Mercer’s Hall, is, by its superior merit and its accordance in many respects with the style of Girolamo, in all probability by that painter, and also the portrait of the Earl of Surrey at Knole, attributed to Guillim or Gillam Stretes. The portrait of Sir Anthony Wingfield, lent by Mr. T. Humphry Ward to the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition in 1909 (No. 56, attributed to Holbein), is also suggested, by the compilers of the catalogue, as a possible work of the same artist. He is generally referred to in the royal accounts as “Hierome Trevix Bollonia” or “Jeronimo Italion,” and received a salary of £25 a quarter. It may be inferred from Vasari’s statement as to his erecting buildings in the Italian style, that he was employed at Nonsuch.

In addition to these more important artists and craftsmen, a number of minor painters, native and foreign, were at work in England during Henry’s and the succeeding reigns, such as Nicholas Lyzarde, John Crust, John Simson, and the three members of the Bernardi family—Theodore, Lambert, and Anthony; but little or nothing is known about them beyond their names, and they need no comment here. With some of the more important men dealt with in this chapter Holbein must often have come in contact, and with certain of the Netherlanders, such as the Hornebolts, he seems to have been on terms of friendship.

NOTE.—Much of the information given in this chapter about the foreign artists who practised in England under Henry VIII is the result of a long and careful examination, on the part of the writer, of the _Calendars of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII._ Since the final proofs of the chapter were passed for printing, his attention has been called to a very interesting paper on “The Italian Artists in England during the Sixteenth Century,” read by Mr. R. W. Carden before the members of the Society of Antiquaries on 28th March 1912, and published in the Society’s _Proceedings_, second series, vol. xxiv. (1911-12), pp. 171-204, issued early in 1913. In this paper, more particularly that part of it dealing with Bellin of Modena, Mr. Carden covers much the same ground as the present writer, and his information is based on a similar study of the _Letters_, &c. He gives, however, further new and valuable details of the work and lives of Torrigiano, Toto, Rovezzano, Maiano, and Bellin, and strives to prove that the latter and Niccolo dell’ Abbate were one and the same man. He also shows that Bellin, in 1551, was engaged upon the completion of Henry VIII’s tomb, and that he was then living within the precinct of Westminster Abbey, as Torrigiano did before him.

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