chapter eighteen

of the first Book of the _Schedula_.

Footnote 184:

Every museum contains examples of these delicate German carvings in hard materials.

Footnote 185:

In a Note to the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, ante, p. 128 f., an account was given of some sculptures in travertine on the façade of the church of S. Luigi dei Francesi at Rome by a ‘Maestro Gian’ who has been conjecturally identified as a certain Jean Chavier or Chavenier of Rouen who worked at Rome in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. Vasari in this place introduces an artist of the name of ‘Maestro Janni francese,’ and the question at once arises whether he is the same person as the ‘Maestro Gian’ of Rome.

The statue here described is to be seen in the church of the Annunziata at Florence, but not where Vasari saw it. It has been placed for about the last half century in the spacious round choir, where it occupies a niche in the wall of the second chapel to the left as one faces the high altar. It has been painted white in the hope that it may be mistaken for marble, and this characteristic performance dates from about 1857. Certain fissures observable show however that it is of wood, and one of the Frati remembers it when it was as Vasari saw it ‘nello stesso colore del legname.’ The work is shown on Plate IX. We have been unable to discover anything certain about the artist. The figure, which is in excellent preservation, speaks for itself. The Saint has a tight fitting cap over his head and curling hair and beard. His eyes are almost closed as he looks down with a somewhat affected air at his wounded leg to which the finger of his right hand is pointing. The other hand holds a staff, round which the drapery curls and over the top of which it is caught. This drapery bears out Vasari’s description of it as ‘traforato’ ‘cut into.’ It is floridly treated with the sharp angles common in the carving of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Germany, Flanders, and parts of France. M. Marcel Reymond, who has kindly given his opinion on the photographs submitted to him, has written about it as follows: ‘Le St. Roch, par la surcharge de vêtements, l’excès de reliefs, l’agitation des draperies, se rattache à l’art français tel qu’il s’était constitué au xiv^{me} siècle, et tel qu’il s’était continué jusqu’au xvi^{me} siècle, notamment dans le Bourgogne et la Champagne.’ He does not consider the two ‘Maîtres Jean’ the same person. ‘Ce sont sans doute deux artistes du xvi^{me} siècle, l’un travaillant la pierre, le travertin, l’autre travaillant le bois. C’est leur aptitude à travailler ces deux matières, que les artistes italiens travaillaient moins bien que les français qui a retenu l’attention de Vasari sur eux et qui leur a fait attribuer une place si importante dans les préfaces de Vasari.’ Our study of the originals at Rome and Florence has led us to the same opinion. The S. Rocco is Gothic in feeling, the ‘Salamander’ and other pieces at Rome are Renaissance. The Roman ‘Maestro Gian’ may be credited with an Italian style, but Vasari does not show much critical acumen when he sees ‘la maniera italiana’ in the S. Rocco of the Florentine Janni.

Footnote 186:

The first two sections, §§ 74, 75, of this chapter were added by Vasari in the second edition. They contain his contribution to the philosophy of the graphic art. It will be noted that his word ‘Disegno’ corresponds alike to our more general word ‘design’ and the more special term ‘drawing.’

Footnote 187:

This remark of Vasari is significant of the change in architectural practice between the mediaeval and modern epochs. That the architect is a man that sits at home and makes drawings, while practical craftsmen carry them out, is to us a familiar idea, but the notion would greatly have astonished the builders of the French Gothic cathedrals or the Florentines of the fourteenth century. In mediaeval practice the architect was the master of the work, carrying the scheme of the whole in his head, but busy all the time with the actual materials and tools, and directing progress rather from the scaffolding than from the drawing office. On the tombstone of the French architect of the thirteenth century, Hughes Libergier, at Reims, he is shown with the mason’s square, rule, and compasses about him; while in the relief that illustrates ‘Building’ on Giotto’s Campanile at Florence we see the master mason directing the operations of the journeymen from a position on the structure itself. In the present day there is a strong feeling in the profession that this separation of architect and craftsman, which dates from the later Renaissance, is a bad thing for art, and that the designer should be in more intimate touch with the materials and processes of building.

Footnote 188:

It is characteristically Florentine to regard painting as essentially the filling up of outlines, and to colour in staccato fashion with an assorted set of tints arranged in gradation. To the eye of the born painter outlines do not exist and nature is seen in tone and colour, while colours are like the tones of a violin infinite in gradation, not distinct like the notes of a piano. With the exception of the Venetians and some other North Italians such as Correggio and Lotto, the Italians generally painted by filling outlines with local tints graded as light, middle, and dark, and the Florentines were pre-eminent in the emphasis they laid on the well-drawn outline as the foundation of the art. Since the seventeenth century the general idea of what constitutes the art of painting has suffered a change and Vasari’s account of Florentine practice, in which he was himself an expert, is all the more interesting. Vasari’s point of view is that of the frescoist. In that process, which, as we shall see, had to be carried out swiftly and directly so as to be finished at one sitting, it was practically necessary to have the various tints in their gradations mixed and ready to hand. The whole method and genius of oil painting, as moderns understand it, is different, and its processes much more varied and subtle.

Footnote 189:

The innumerable sketches and finished drawings that have come down to us from the hands of Florentine artists testify to the importance given in the school to preliminary studies for painting, and any collection will furnish examples of the different methods of execution here described. Drawings by Venetian masters, who felt in colour rather than in form, are not so numerous or so elaborate.

Footnote 190:

That is to say, by observation of aerial as well as linear perspective.

Footnote 191:

This practice is noticed in the case of more than one artist of whom Vasari has written the biography. Tintoretto is one. See also postea, p. 216.

Footnote 192:

See the Note on ‘Fresco Painting’ at the close of the ‘Introduction’ to Painting, postea, p. 287.

Footnote 193:

Michelangelo’s greatest _tour de force_ in foreshortening, much lauded by Vasari in his Life of the master, is the figure of the prophet Jonah on the end wall of the Sistine chapel. It is painted at the springing of the vault, on a surface that is inclined sharply towards the spectator, but the figure is so drawn as to appear to be leaning back in the opposite direction.

Footnote 194:

Correggio is responsible for many of the forced effects of drawing in the decorative painting of vaults and ceilings in later times, but the Umbrian Melozzo da Forlì in his painting of the Ascension of Christ, now destroyed save for the fragments in the Quirinal and in the sacristy of St. Peter’s at Rome, may have the doubtful honour of beginning the practice of foreshortening a whole composition, so that the scene is painted as it would appear were we looking up at it from underneath.

Footnote 195:

This truth, about the mutual influence of colours in juxtaposition, was well put by Sir Charles Eastlake when he wrote, in his _Materials for a History of Oil Painting_, ‘flesh is never more glowing than when opposed to blue, never more pearly than when compared with red, never ruddier than in the neighbourhood of green, never fairer than when contrasted with black, nor richer or deeper than when opposed to white.’

Footnote 196:

Vitruvius describes the fresco process in his seventh Book. See Note on ‘Fresco Painting’ at the end of the ‘Introduction’ to Painting, postea, p. 287. This chapter is one of the most interesting in the three ‘Introductions.’

Footnote 197:

Travertine, next to marble, makes when burnt the whitest lime (see § 30, ante, p. 86). From this lime the fresco white, called bianco Sangiovanni, is made, and Cennini gives the recipe for its preparation in his 58th chapter. The ordinary lead white (biacca) cannot be used in fresco.

Footnote 198:

The word ‘tempera’ is used by Vasari and other writers as a noun meaning (1) a substance mixed with another, as a medium with pigments (2) a liquid in which hot steel is plunged to give it a particular molecular quality (ante, p. 30) (3) the quality thus given to the steel (ante, p. 32), while (4) it has come to mean in modern times, as in the heading of this Note, a particular kind of painting. It is really to be regarded as the imperative of the verb ‘temperare,’ which alike in Latin and in Italian means ‘to divide or proportion duly,’ ‘to qualify by mixing,’ and generally ‘to regulate’ or ‘to discipline.’ ‘Tempera’ thus means strictly ‘mix’ or ‘regulate.’ It is used in the latter sense in metallurgy, as the liquid which Vasari calls (ante, p. 30) a ‘tempera’ (translated ‘tempering-bath’) regulates the amount of hardness or elasticity required in the metal, and the quality the steel thus receives is called (ante, p. 32) its ‘temper.’ In the case of painting the ‘tempera’ is the binding material mixed with the pigment to secure its adhesion to the ground when it is dry. The painting process is, in Italian, painting ‘a tempera’ ‘with a mixture,’ and our expression ‘tempera painting’ is a loose one. For the form of the word we may compare ‘recipe,’ also employed as a substantive but really an imperative meaning ‘take.’

Strictly speaking any medium mixed with pigments makes the process one ‘a tempera.’ Many substances may be thus used, some soluble in water, as size, gum, honey, and the like; others insoluble in water, such as drying oils, varnishes, resins, etc., while the inside of an egg which is in great part oleaginous may have a place between. It is not the usage however to apply the term ‘tempera’ to drying oils or varnishes, and a distinction is always made between ‘tempera painting’ and ‘oil painting.’ See Note on ‘Tempera Painting,’ postea, p. 291.

Footnote 199:

This practice of covering wooden panels with linen and laying over this the gesso painting ground was in use in ancient Egypt. In fact the methods described by Cennini of preparing and grounding panels are almost exactly the same as those used in ancient Egypt for painting wooden mummy-cases. Even the practice, so much used in early Italian art, of modelling details and ornaments in relief in gesso and gilding them, is common on the mummy-cases. On the subject of gesso see Note 5 on p. 249.

Footnote 200:

Vasari’s expression ‘rosso dell’ uovo o tempera, la quale è questa’ calls attention to the fact, to which his language generally bears testimony, that he looked upon the yolk of egg medium as the tempera _par excellence_. When he uses the term ‘tempera’ alone he has the egg medium in his mind, and the size medium is something apart. See this chapter throughout.

Footnote 201:

Tempera painting has had a far longer history and more extensive use than any other kind. The technique predominated for all kinds of painting among the older Oriental peoples and in classical lands, and was in use both on walls and on panels in Western Europe north of the Alps during the whole mediaeval period, while south of the Alps and at Byzantium it was to a great extent superseded for mural painting by fresco, but remained in fashion for panels till the end of the fifteenth century. After the fifteenth century the oil medium, as Vasari remarks, superseded it entirely for portable pictures, and

## partly for work on walls and ceilings, but in our own time there has

been a partial revival of the old technique. See Note on ‘Tempera Painting,’ postea, p. 291.

The whole question of the different vehicles and methods used in painting at various periods is a difficult and complicated one, and too often chemical analysis fails to give satisfactory results owing to the small amount of material available for experiment. Berger, in his _Beiträge zur Entwicklungs-Geschichte der Maltechnik_, an unfinished work that has already run to a thousand pages, goes elaborately into the subject, but has to admit that many points are still doubtful. It makes comparatively little difference what

## particular medium is used in tempera painting, but it is of great

importance to decide whether a particular class of work is in tempera or in fresco. In connection with this Berger has reopened the old controversy as to the technique of Pompeian wall paintings, which have been accepted as frescoes, on the authority of Otto Dönner, for a generation past. There are difficulties about Pompeian work and it is well that the question has again been raised, but Berger goes much too far when he attempts to deny to the ancients the knowledge and use of the fresco process. The evidence on this point of Vitruvius is quite decisive, as he, and Pliny after him, refer to the process of painting on wet plaster in the most unmistakeable terms. See Note on ‘Fresco Painting, postea, p. 287.

Footnote 202:

This passage about the early painters of Flanders occurs just as it stands, with some trifling verbal differences, in Vasari’s first edition of 1550. The best commentary on it is, first, the account of the same artists in Guicciardini’s _Descrittione di Tutti i Paesi Bassi_, first published at Antwerp in 1567, and next, Vasari’s own notes on divers Flemish artists which he added at the end of the _Lives_ in the second edition of 1568 (_Opere_, ed. Milanesi, VII, 579 f.). He there made certain additions and corrections from Guicciardini, the most noteworthy of which is the mention of Hubert van Eyck, whom Vasari ignores in this passage of the Introduction, but who is just referred to by Guicciardini at the end of his sentences on the younger brother—‘A pari a pari di Giovanni andava Huberto suo fratello, il quale viveva, e dipingeva continuamente sopra le medesime opere, insieme con esso fratello.’ Vasari however in the notes of 1568 goes much farther than this, and, though he does not call Hubert the elder brother, he seems to ascribe to him personally the supposed ‘invention’—‘Huberto suo fratello, che nel 1510 (_sic_) mise in luce l’ invenzione e modo di colorire a olio’ (_Opere_, l.c.). ‘John of Bruges’ is of course Jan van Eyck. Vasari writes of him at the end of the _Lives_ as ‘John Eyck of Bruges.’ Vasari’s statement in this sentence is of great historical importance, for it is the first affirmation of a definite ‘invention’ of oil painting, and the first ascription of this invention to van Eyck. As van Eyck’s own epitaph makes no mention of this, and as oil painting was practised long before his time, Vasari’s statement has naturally been questioned, and on the subject the reader will find a Note at the close of the ‘Introduction’ to Painting, postea, p. 294.

Footnote 203:

It was long supposed that this picture was the ‘Epiphany’ preserved behind the High Altar of the Church of S. Barbara, Naples, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in North Italy_, II, 103, pronounce this ‘a feeble and injured picture of the eighteenth century.’

Footnote 204:

Frederick of Urbino (there were not two of the name as Vasari supposes) seems to have had a bathroom decorated with secular compositions by the Flemish master. Facio, whose tract _De Viris Illustribus_, written in the middle of the fifteenth century, was printed at Florence in 1745, writes, p. 46, of ‘Joannes Gallicus’ (who can be identified as Jan van Eyck) who had painted certain ‘picturae nobiles’ then in the possession of Cardinal Octavianus, with ‘representations of fair women only slightly veiled at the bath.’ Such pictures were considered suitable decorations for bath chambers. There is a curious early example of mediaeval date in the Schloss Runkelstein near Botzen in the Tyrol, in the form of wall paintings round a bathroom on one side of which nude figures are seen preparing to enter the water, while on two other walls spectators of both sexes are seen looking in through an open arcade. The pictures here referred to by van Eyck are now lost, but by a curious coincidence attention has just been directed to an existing copy of one of them, of which Facio gives a special notice. The copy occurs in a painting by Verhaecht of Antwerp, 1593–1637, that represents the picture gallery of an Antwerp connoisseur at about the date 1615. There on the wall is seen hanging the van Eyck, that corresponds closely to the full description given by Facio. The painting by Verhaecht was shown at Burlington House in the Winter Exhibition, 1906–7, and in the ‘Toison d’Or’ Exhibition at Bruges in 1907. See also the _Burlington Magazine_, February, 1907, p. 325. It may be added that the Cardinal Octavianus mentioned above was a somewhat obscure prelate, who received the purple from Gregory XII in 1408.

Footnote 205:

The latest editors of Vasari (_Opere_, ed. Milanesi, I, 184) think this may be a picture in the Museum at Naples, ascribed there to an apocryphal artist ‘Colantonio del Fiore.’ Von Wurzbach says it is by a Neapolitan painter influenced by the Flemings.

Footnote 206:

Roger van der Weyden, more properly called, as by Guicciardini and by Vasari in 1568, ‘Roger of Brussels.’ In 1449 he made a journey to Italy, and stayed for a time at Ferrara, which under the rule of the art-loving Este was very hospitable to foreign craftsmen. He was in Rome in 1450 and may have visited Florence and other centres. His own style in works subsequent to this journey shows little of Italian influence.

Footnote 207:

Hans Memling. ‘No Flemish painter of note,’ remark Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _Early Flemish Painters_, p. 256, ‘produced pictures more attractive to the Italians than Memling.’ The Portinari, for whom Memling worked, were Florentine merchants who had a house at Bruges, the commercial connection of which with Tuscany was very close. In his Notes on Flemish Painters at the end of the _Lives_, Vasari says that the subject of ‘a small picture in the possession of the Duke’ which is probably the one here mentioned, was ‘The Passion of Christ.’ If this be the case, it cannot be the beautiful little Memling now in the Uffizi, No. 703, for the subject of this is ‘The Virgin and Child.’ It might possibly however be the panel of ‘The Seven Griefs,’ a Passion picture in the Museum at Turin. On the other hand, Passavant thought the Turin panel was the ‘Careggi’ picture that Vasari goes on to mention. See Note on p. 268 of Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s work.

Footnote 208:

The German editors of Vasari identified Lodovico da Luano with the well-known painter Dierich Bouts of Louvain, but the name Ludovico (Chlodwig, ‘Warrior of Renown’) is not the same etymologically as Dierich (Theodoric, ‘Prince of the People’). It is to be noted that in Guicciardini we find a mention of ‘Dirich da Louano,’ who is undoubtedly Dierich Bouts (the surname is derived from St. Rombout the patron of Haarlem, where the painter, who is also called ‘Dirick van Haarlem’ [see below], was born) and also a mention of Vasari’s ‘Ludovico da Luvano.’ A scrutiny however of the sentence in Guicciardini, where the last-mentioned name occurs, shows that it is copied almost verbatim from our text of Vasari. (Vasari [1550]:—‘Similmente Lodovico da Luano & Pietro Christa, & maestro Martino, & ancora Giusto da Guanto, che fece la tavola della comunione de’l Duca d’ Vrbino, & altre pitture; & Vgo d’ Anuersa, che fe la tauola di Sancta Maria Nuoua di Fiorenza’; Guicciardini:—‘Seguirono a mano a mano Lodouico da Louano, Pietro Crista, Martino d’ Holanda, & Giusto da Guanto, che fece quella nobil’ pittura della comunione al Duca d’ Vrbino, & dietro a lui venne Vgo d’ Anuersa, che fece la bellissima tauola, che si vede a Firenze in santa Maria nuoua’). Vasari is accordingly responsible for this ‘Ludovico da Luano,’ whose name is duly chronicled in von Wurzbach’s ‘_Niederländisches Künstler-Lexicon_, Leipzig, 1906, II, p. 69, on the authority of Guicciardini alone, and who is called in M. Ruelens’s annotations to the French edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle ‘Louys de Louvain (peintre encore inconnu).’ Subsequently Guicciardini mentions also a ‘Dirich d’ Harlem,’ who can be none other than the same Dierick Bouts, and Vasari, as a return favour, copies back all three Diericks into his Notes at the end of the edition of 1568. The first ‘Ludovico’ may be merely due to a mistake in the text of Vasari carelessly adopted by Guicciardini. Vasari’s copyist may have written ‘Ludovico’ in place of the somewhat similar ‘Teodorico.’ There was however a certain Ludovicus Dalmau or Dalman (D’Alamagna?), a Flemish painter who worked at Barcelona in Spain about 1445 (von Wurzbach, _sub voce_) who may be meant, though there is no indication of a connection between him and Louvain.

Footnote 209:

Pietro Crista is of course Petrus Christus or Christi of Bruges, an imitator, though as Mr Weale has shown not an actual pupil, of the van Eycks. Von Wurzbach says that Guicciardini was the first to mention his name, but Vasari in 1550 already knows him. As an explanation of the surname it has been suggested that the artist’s father may have had a reputation as a painter or carver of Christ-figures, so that Petrus would be called ‘son of the Christ-man.’

Footnote 210:

The name Martin belongs to painters of two generations in Ghent, and von Wurzbach thinks it is the earlier of these, Jan Martins, apparently a scholar of the van Eycks, who is referred to here, and called by Guicciardini (see above), and by Vasari in 1568, ‘Martino d’ Holanda.’ There was a later and better known Martin of Ghent called ‘Nabor Martin.’ The more famous ‘Martins,’ ‘of Heemskerk,’ and ‘Schongauer,’ when referred to by Vasari, have more distinct indications of their identity. See, e.g., _Opere_, V, 396.

Footnote 211:

Justus of Ghent worked at Urbino, where he finished the altar piece referred to by Vasari in 1474. The ‘other pictures’ may be a series of panels painted for the library at Urbino, on which Crowe and Cavalcaselle have an interesting paragraph, _op. cit._ p. 180.

Footnote 212:

Hugo of Antwerp is Hugo van der Goes, whose altar piece painted for S. Maria Nuova at Florence has now been placed in the Uffizi.

Footnote 213:

Vasari’s stories about the connection with oil painting of Antonello da Messina, Domenico Veneziano, and Andrea dal Castagno have of course been subjected to a good deal of hostile criticism. Those about the two latter artists are in the meantime relegated to the limbo of fable, but the case of Antonello da Messina is somewhat different, and we are not dependent in his case on Vasari alone. He certainly did not visit Flanders in the lifetime of Jan van Eyck, for this artist died before Antonello was born, but von Wurzbach accepts as authentic a visit on his part to Flanders between 1465 and 1475, and sees evidence of what he learned there in his extant works (_Niederländisches Künstler-Lexicon_, sub voce, ‘Antonello’).

Footnote 214:

‘Terre da campane,’ ‘bell earths.’ There seem to be two possible meanings for the phrase. It may refer to the material used for the moulds in bell casting, or to the clay from which are made the little terra-cotta bells by which children in Italy set great store on the occasion of the mid-summer festival. This last is improbable.

Baldinucci, _Vocabolario del Disegno_, sub voce ‘Nero di Terra di Campana,’ says that this is a colour made out of a certain scale that forms on moulds for casting bells or cannon, and that it is good with oil, but does not stand in fresco. Lomazzo also mentions the pigment.

Footnote 215:

‘L’abbozza’ evidently refers to the first or underpainting, not to the sketch in chalk, for in the first edition the passage has some additional words which make this clear. They run as follows: ‘desegnando quella: e così ne primi colori l’abozza, il che alcuni chiamono imporre.’

Footnote 216:

With the above may be compared ch. 9 of Book VII of L. B. Alberti’s _De Re Aedificatoria_.

Footnote 217:

The matter in our § 87 was added in the edition of 1568. Though Vasari declared so unhesitatingly for fresco as the finest of all processes of painting, he tells us that he used oil for a portion of his mural work in the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, when he prepared it for the residence of Duke Cosimo, and we shall notice later his praise of tempera (postea, p. 291). Vasari describes how he painted in oil on the walls of a refectory at Naples (_Opere_, VII, 674), and gives us an interesting notice of his experiments in the technique about the year 1540 at the monastery of the Camaldoli, near Arezzo, where he says ‘feci esperimento di unire il colorito a olio con quello (fresco) e riuscimmi assai acconciamente’ (_Opere_, VII, 667). The technique required proper working out, for it was not a traditional one.

The most notable instance of its employment before the end of the fifteenth century is in the case of the ‘Last Supper’ by Leonardo da Vinci at Milan. A commission of experts has recently been examining the remains of this, the most famous mural painting in the world, and has ascertained that the original process employed by Leonardo was not pure oil painting but a mixed process in which oil played only a part. The result at any rate, as all the world is aware, was the speedy ruin of the work, which now only tells as a design, there being but little of its creator’s actual handiwork now visible.

Some words of the Report are of sufficient interest to be quoted. ‘Pur troppo, dunque, la stessa tecnica del maestro aveva in sè il germe della rovina, ben presto, infatti, avvertita nelle sue opere murali. Spirito indagitore, innovatore, voglioso sempre di “provare e riprovare” egli voile abbandonare i vecchi, sicuri e sperimentati sistemi, per tentare l’ esito di sostanze oleose in miscela coi colori. Perchè nemmeno può dirsi ch’ ei dipingesse, in questo caso, semplicemente, ad olio come avrebbe fatto ogni altro mortale entrato nell’ errore di seguire quel metodo anche pei muri. Egli tentò invece cosa affato nuova; poichè, se da un lato appaiono tracce di parziali e circoscritte arricciature in uso pel fresco, dall’ altro, la presenza delle sostanze oleose è accertata dalla mancanza di adhesione dei colori con la superficie del muro e dalle speciali screpolature della crosta o pelle formata dai colori stessi, non che dal modo con quale il dipinto si è andato e si va lentamente disgregando e sfaldando.’ _Bollettino d’ Arte del Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione_, Roma, 1907, I, p. 17.

Another famous instance of the use of oil paint in mural work about a generation later is to be found in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican, where Raphael’s pupils have left two of the decorative figures by the side of the Popes executed in that medium. One (Urbanity) is close to the door leading to the Chapel of Nicholas V, the other is on the wall containing the battle, and is in better preservation than the first which is covered with wrinkles. The oil paint gives a certain depth and richness of effect, but there is the fatal disadvantage that the painting does not look a part of the wall as is the case with work done in fresco. The fresco is really executed in the material of the ground, whereas oils and varnishes have nothing in common with lime and earths, and the connection of structure and decoration is broken. One of the most successful pieces of work of the kind is the painting of ‘Christ at the Pillar’ by Sebastian del Piombo in S. Pietro in Montorio at Rome. The work, which is executed on a cylindrical surface, is rather shiny, an appearance which in mural painting is to be avoided, and it has darkened somewhat, though this defect is not very apparent and the experiment has on the whole succeeded well. Vasari’s Life of Fra Sebastiano contains a good deal of information about this particular technique, which was essayed in the later age of Italian painting more often than is sometimes imagined. It needs hardly to be said that this oil painting on the actual plaster of the wall is a different thing from the modern process of painting on canvas in the studio and then cementing the completed picture on to the wall. Mural painting on canvas was introduced by the Venetians in the fifteenth century, for at Venice atmospheric conditions seem to have been unfavourable to the preservation of frescoes, and the Venetians preferred canvas to plaster for their work in oils. It would be interesting to know whether the canvas was ever fixed _in situ_ before the painter commenced operations, as from the point of view of the preservation of decorative effect this would be of importance. Vasari’s story about Tintoretto’s proceedings at the Scuola di S. Rocco (_Opere_, VI, 594) is evidence that canvases were painted at home and put up on walls or ceilings when finished. Of course if a wall be covered with canvas before the painting begins the canvas is to all intents and purposes the wall itself, grounded in a certain way.

Footnote 218:

The use of canvas for the purpose in view was, as Vasari mentions below, very common at Venice, where as early as about 1476, if we believe Vasari (_Opere_, III, 156), Gentile Bellini executed in this technique the large scenic pictures with which he adorned the Hall of Grand Council in the Ducal Palace. Such a process would come naturally enough to Italian painters as well as to the Flemings, for they had been accustomed from time immemorial to paint for temporary purposes on banners and draperies, after a fashion of which Mantegna’s decorative frieze on fine canvas at Hampton Court is a classic example. Canvas had however been actually used for pictures even in ancient Egypt. Not only was the practice of stretching linen over wooden panels to receive the painting ground in use there in the time of the New Empire, but some of the recently discovered mummy-case portraits from Egypt, of the earliest Christian centuries, are actually on canvas. There is an example in the National Gallery. At Rome painting on canvas is mentioned by Pliny (_Hist. Nat._, XXXV, 51) and Boethius (_de Arithmetica_, Praef., I) says that ‘picturae ... lintea operosis elaborata textrinis ... materiam praestant.’ The Netherland painters of the fifteenth century nearly always painted on panel, but canvas was sometimes used, as by Roger van der Weyden in his paintings for the Town Hall at Brussels.

Footnote 219:

Vasari prescribes ‘due o tre _macinate_’ of white lead for mixture with the flour and nut oil for the priming of canvas. A ‘macinata’ was the amount placed at one time on the ‘macina’ or stone for grinding colours. Berger suggests ‘handfuls’ as a translation, but the amount would be small, as for careful grinding only one or two lumps of the pigment would be dealt with at one time.

Footnote 220:

The Ducal Palace, that adjoins S. Marco, is probably the building in Vasari’s mind. The Library of S. Marco, Sansovino’s masterpiece, might also be meant, as this was called sometimes the Palace of S. Marco. We must remember however that, as noticed before, ante, p. 56, this building, at the time of Vasari’s visit to Venice, was still unfinished.

Footnote 221:

On panels and canvases as used at Venice Vasari has an interesting note at the beginning of his Life of Jacopo Bellini (_Opere_, III, 152). This was a subject that would at once appeal to his practical mind when he visited the city. He notices incidentally that the usual woods for panels were ‘oppio’ _acer campestris_, maple; or ‘gattice,’ the _populus alba_ of Horace, but that the Venetians used only fir from the Alps. (Cennini, c. 113, recommends poplar or lime or willow. Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XVI, 187, speaks of larch and box, and Ilg says that northern painters generally used oak.) The Venetian preference for canvas, Vasari says, was due to the facts that it did not split nor harbour worms, was portable, and could be obtained of the size desired; this last he notes too in our text. Berger (_Beiträge_, IV, 29), gives the meaning of ‘Grossartigkeit’ to the word ‘grandezza’ used above by Vasari, but of course it only means material size, not ‘grandeur’ in an aesthetic sense.

Footnote 222:

See ‘Introduction’ to Architecture, § 13, ante, p. 54. The stone is a species of slate. Slate is suitable for painting on. See Church’s _Chemistry of Paints and Painting_, 1890, p. 21.

Footnote 223:

Greek paintings on marble panels have come down to us from various periods of ancient art. Some early Attic specimens on tombstones are in the museums of Athens, and at Herculaneum there was found an interesting painting on marble of a group of Greek heroines playing at knuckle bones. A much earlier slab with a figure of a warrior is in the Acropolis Museum at Athens.

Footnote 224:

These chiaroscuri or monochromes are characteristic of the later Renaissance. They may either be frankly decorative, and in this form obey the rules of all other pictorial enrichment; or they may have an illusive intention, and be designed to produce the appearance on a flat wall of architectural members or sculptured or cast-bronze reliefs. In this case, when on monumental buildings and permanent, they are insincere and opposed to sound decorative principles, though on temporary structures they are quite in place. Vasari was a famous adept at the construction and adornment of such fabrics, which were in great demand for the numerous Florentine pageants and processions. See his letters, passim.

Footnote 225:

There are examples of painted imitations of bronze in Michelangelo’s frescoes on the vault of the Sistine. The medallions held by the pairs of decorative figures of youths on the cornice are painted to represent reliefs in this metal. Raphael’s Stanze and Loggie also furnish instances, and there are good examples on the external façade of the Palazzo Ricci at Rome.

Footnote 226:

The clay or earth that Vasari speaks of forms the body of the ‘distemper’ or ‘gouache,’ as it would be called respectively in Britain and in France, and takes the place of the ‘whitening’ used in modern times. Baldinucci in his _Vocabolario_ explains ‘Terra di cava o Terretta’ as ‘the earth (clay) with which vessels for the table are made, that mixed with pounded charcoal is used by painters for backgrounds and monochromes, and also for primings, and with a tempera of size for the canvases with which are painted triumphal arches, perspectives, and the like.’ It is of very fine and even texture, and Baldinucci says it was found near St. Peter’s at Rome, and also in great quantity at Monte Spertoli, thirteen miles from Florence.

Footnote 227:

This process of wetting the back of the canvas is to be noted. The chief inconvenience of the kind of work here spoken of is that it dries very quickly, and dries moreover very much lighter than when the work is wet. Hence it is an advantage to keep the ground wet as long as possible till the tints are properly fused, so that all may dry together. Wetting the back of the canvas secures this end. The technique that Vasari is describing is the same as that of the modern theatrical scene-painter, and would be called ‘distemper painting.’ The colours are mixed with whitening, or finely-ground chalk, and tempered with size. The whitening makes them opaque and gives them ‘body,’ but is also the cause of their drying light. F. Lloyds, in his _Practical Guide to Scene Painting and Painting in Distemper_, Lond. 1879, says (p. 42) ‘In the study of the art of distemper painting, a source of considerable embarrassment to the inexperienced eye is that the colours when wet present such a different appearance from what they do when dry.’

Footnote 228:

Does Vasari mean by ‘tempera’ yolk of egg? It has this sense with him sometimes, as in the heading of