THE

HISTORY OF PAINTING

IN

ITALY.

VOL. III.

THE

HISTORY OF PAINTING

IN

ITALY,

FROM THE PERIOD OF THE REVIVAL OF

THE FINE ARTS,

TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY:

TRANSLATED

From the Original Italian

OF THE

ABATE LUIGI LANZI.

By THOMAS ROSCOE.

IN SIX VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

CONTAINING THE SCHOOL OF VENICE.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

W. SIMPKIN AND R. MARSHALL,

STATIONERS'-HALL COURT, LUDGATE STREET.

1828.

J. M'Creery, Tooks Court,
Chancery-lane, London.

CONTENTS

OF

THE THIRD VOLUME.

HISTORY OF PAINTING IN UPPER ITALY.
BOOK THE FIRST.

VENETIAN SCHOOL.

HISTORY OF PAINTING

IN

UPPER ITALY.

BOOK I.

VENETIAN SCHOOL.

This School would have required no farther illustration from any other pen, had Signor Antonio Zanetti, in his highly esteemed work upon Venetian Painting, included a more ample consideration of the artists of the state, instead of confining his attention wholly to those, whose productions, ornamenting the churches and other public places, had all been completed in the city of Venice alone. He has, nevertheless, rendered distinguished service to any one ambitious of succeeding him, and of extending the same subject beyond these narrower limits; since he has observed the most lucid order in the arrangement of epochs, in the description of styles, in estimating the merits of various painters, and thus ascertaining the particular rank as well as the age belonging to each. Those artists then, whom he has omitted to commemorate, may be easily reduced under one or other of the divisions pointed out by him, and the whole history enlarged upon the plan which he first laid down.

In cultivating an acquaintance with these additional names, the memorials collected by Vasari; afterwards, on a more extensive scale, by the Cavaliere Ridolfi, in his Lives of the Venetian Painters; and by Boschini, in the Miniere della Pittura, in the Carta del Navegar Pittoresco, and in other works: materials drawn from all parts of the Venetian state—will be of signal advantage to us. No one, it is hoped, will feel displeased at the introduction of the name of Vasari, against whom the historians of the Venetian School were louder in their complaints than even those of the Roman, the Siennese, and the Neapolitan Schools; all whose causes of difference I have elsewhere recounted, adding to them, whenever I found them admissible, my own refutations. These it would be needless now to repeat, in reply to the Venetian writers. I shall merely observe that Vasari bestowed very ample commendations upon the Venetian professors, in different parts of his history, and more particularly in the lives of Carpaccio, of Liberale, and of Pordenone. Let me add that if he was occasionally betrayed into errors, either from want of more correct information, or from a degree of jealousy or spirit of patriotic rivalry, which probably may have secretly influenced him in his opinions, it will be no difficult task in the present enlightened period,^[1] to substitute the real names, more exact accounts, and more impartial examinations of the earlier professors of the school.^[2]

In respect to the more modern, up to whose period he did not reach, I possess historical matter, which, if not very copious, is certainly less scanty than such as relates to many of the other Schools of Italy. Besides Ridolfi, Boschini, and Zanetti, it includes the historians of the particular cities, the same from whom Orlandi selected his various notices of artists; and among whom none is to be preferred to Signor Zamboni for the fulness and authenticity of his materials, in his work, entitled Fabbriche di Brescia. I am, moreover, in possession of several authors who have distinctly treated of the lives, or published other accounts of those who flourished in their own cities;—such as the Commendatore del Pozzo, in his notice of the Veronese,^[3] Count Tassi of those of Bergamo, and Signor Verci of the Bassanese artists. And no slight assistance may also be drawn from the different "Guides," or descriptions of paintings, exhibited in many cities of the state, although they are far from being all of equal merit. There is the "Guida Trevigiana," of Rigamonti, that of Vicenza printed by Vendramini Mosca, that of Brescia by Carboni, and that of Verona, expressly drawn from the "Verona Illustrata" of the Marquis Maffei, with the still more valuable one of Venice, dated 1733, from the able pen of Antonio M. Zanetti. To these we may likewise add that first published by Rossetti, now revised and improved by Brandolese, abounding with historical memoirs of the painters of Padua; and the Guide of Rovigo by Bartoli, communicating much new and interesting information, which serves to point out more accurately certain eras among the professors of the art, while the same may, in part, be observed of that of Bergamo, by the Dottore Pasta. Nor are these all;