Fra Bartolommeo
By Leader Scott
CHAPTER IV.
WORKS IN FLORENCE.
A.D. 1511-1515.
From 1511 to 1514 Andrea was employed on the two last frescoes in the courtyard of the SS. Annunziata the Epiphany and the Nativity of the Virgin. The sum fixed for these was ninety-eight lire, but the Servite brothers augmented it by forty-two lire more, seeing the work was “veramente maravigliosa"; thus these two were paid at the same rate as the other five of S. Filippo–seventy lire or ten scudi each.
In the Nativity, one of the finest of his frescoes, we see his favourite double grouping, the interest in the mother being kept to one side, that of the child and its attendants to the other-a balance of form united by Joachim, a stern, finely moulded figure in the centre. The attitudes are natural, the draperies free and graceful. Old Vasari justly remarks “pajono di carne le figure.” The woman standing in the centre of the room is Lucrezia della Fede; this is the first known likeness of her. There is a richness of colour without impasto, a modulation of shade giving full relief without startling contrast, a clear air below and celestial haze in the angel-peopled clouds above.
This might well be classed as on the highest level ever reached in fresco. Nearly fifty years after it was painted, while Jacopo d’Empoli was copying this fresco, an old woman came through the courtyard to mass, and, stopping to watch the young artist at his work, began to talk of the days of her youth and beauty when she sat for the likeness of that natural figure in the midst, no doubt sighing as she looked at the freshness of the fresco, and thought of her many wrinkles and aged limbs, she being nearly fourscore at the time.
The Epiphany is also a remarkable work, more lively than the last; it is also less carefully painted, the graceful feminine element is wanting; there is plenty of activity, a crowded composition, and richness of colour. Three figures are especially interesting as likenesses; that of the musician Francesco Ajolle–a great composer of madrigals, who went to France in 1530, and spent the remainder of his life there; Sansovino, on the right of Ajolle; and near him Andrea himself–the same face as the portrait in the Uffizi already spoken of.
The Madonna del Sacco, over the door of the entrance to the church from the cloister, would seem to have been painted in the same year, 1514, judging from Biadi’s extract from the MS. account books of the Servite Fathers existing in the archives, where is an entry “Giugno, 1514, ad Andrea del Sarto, per resto della Madonna del Sacco, lire 56.” This term resto (remainder) would imply a previous payment. The money was a thank-offering from a woman for having been absolved from a vow by one of the Servite priests. Like all his other frescoes of this church, Andrea only gained ten scudi for this masterpiece. The date of MDXXV. and the words “Quem genuit adoravit” on the pilasters of this work have led most writers to suppose it painted in that year; but it is probable they were added by a later hand. Biadi [Footnote: Biadi, Notizie, &c., p. 42 note.] says the letters are of the style of nearly two centuries later, that Andrea would have signed it, like all his other and works, with his monogram of the crossed A’s (i.e. Andrea d’ Agnolo). For charming soft harmonies of colour, simplicity, and grace of design, this surpasses all his other frescoes. The Madonna has an imposing grandeur of form, there is a boyish strength and moulding in the limbs of the child which is very expressive, the dignity of Joseph and majesty of the Virgin are not to be surpassed; and yet the whole is given in a space so cramped that all the figures have to be reclining or sitting.
[Illustration of Monogram]
After this Andrea returned to the Scalzo, the Barefoot Brothers offering better pay than the Servites. Here he did the allegory of Justice and the Sermon of S. John in monochrome. In these he took a fancy to retrograde his style, for they have the rugged force and angular form that recalls the more stern old Italian masters, or that Titan of northern art, Albrecht Dürer.
Of his works in oil at this era we may class–
1. The Story of Joseph, painted for Zanobi Girolami Bracci, which Borghini judges a beautiful picture. The figures were small, but the painting highly finished. It came afterwards into the possession of the Medici family.
2. A Madonna, with decorations and models surrounding it like a frame, was painted for Sansovino’s patron, Giovanni Gaddi, afterwards clerk of the chamber to Ferdinand I. It was existing in the collection of the Gaddi Pozzi family in Borghini’s time.
3. Annunciation, for Giovanni di Paolo Merciajo, now in the Hall of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. It is a pretty composition, the Virgin sitting, yet half kneeling, the angel on his knees before her. There is a yellowish light in the sky between two looped dark green curtains; the angel’s yellow robe takes the light beautifully.
4. Madonna and Child, in the “Hall of the Education of Jupiter" in the Pitti Palace, one of his most pleasing groups. This is supposed by the commentators of Vasari to be the altarpiece painted for Giovanni di Paolo Merciajo, but Biadi traces it through the possession of Antonio, son of Zanobi Bracci, to its present possessors. The mistake arises from Vasari often confusing the names Annunciations and Assumptions with Madonnas.
5. A Holy Family, for Andrea Santini, which awakened great admiration in Florence. It was in the possession of Signer Alessandro Curti Lepri, by whose permission Morghen’s print was taken.
6. The Head of our Saviour, over the altar of the SS. Annunziata, ordered by the sacristan of the order. A magnificent head, full of grandeur and expression, and very clear in the flesh tints. Empoli made several copies of it.
7. The Madonna di San Francesco, Andrea’s masterpiece among easel pictures. It was a commission from a monk of the order of “Minorites of Santa Croce,” who was intendant of the nuns of S. Francesco, and advised them to employ Andrea. In grandiose simplicity this surpasses Albertinelli’s Visitation, in soft gradations and rich mellowness of colour it equals Fra Bartolommeo at his best, for tenderness in the attitude of the child it is quite Raphaelesque. The Madonna is standing on a pedestal adorned with sculptured harpies. She holds the Divine Child in one arm; its little hands are twined tenderly round her neck, and it seems to be climbing closer to her. The two children at her feet give a suggestive triangular grouping, while the dignified figures of S. Francis and S. John the Evangelist form supports on each side, and rear up a pyramid of beauty. Rosini’s term “soave” just expresses this picture, so fused and soft, rich yet transparent in the colouring. The olive-brown robe of one saint is balanced by the rich red of the other. In the Virgin, a deep blue and mellow orange are combined by a crimson bodice. The price paid to the painter for this was low because he asked little; but a century or two later, Ferdinando de’ Medici, son of Cosmo III., spent 20,000 scudi to restore the church, and had a copy of the picture made in return for a gift of the original, which is now the gem of the Tribune in the Uffizi.
8. The Disputa, di S. Agostino is another masterpiece, showing as much power as the last-named work displays of softness. It was painted at the order of the Eremite monks of San Gallo for their church of San Jacopo tra Fossi, where it was injured by a flood in 1557, and removed later to the Hall of Saturn in the Pitti Palace. The composition is level, the four disputing saints standing in a row, the two listeners, S. Sebastian and Mary Magdalen, kneeling in front. S Agostino, with fierce vehemence, expounds the mystery of the Trinity; S. Stephen turns to S. Francesco interrogatively, S. Domenico (whom Vasari, by the way, calls S. Peter Martyr) has a face full of silent eloquence–he seems only waiting his turn to speak. In S. Sebastian we have a good study from the nude, and in Mary Magdalen’s kneeling figure–a charming portrait of Lucrezia–is concentrated the principal focus of colour.
9. Four Saints, SS. Gio. Battista, Gio. Gualberto, S. Michele, and Bernardo Cardinale, a beautifully-painted picture, once in the Hermitage of Vallombrosa. There were originally two little angels in the midst dividing the saints, as in our illustration. When the picture was transferred to the Gallery of the Belle Arti, where it now is, the angels were taken out and the divided saints brought into a more compact group. The angels are in a frame between two frescoed Madonnas of Fra Bartolommeo.
By this time the fame of Andrea del Sarto, both as a fresco and oil painter, had risen to the highest point. Michelangelo only echoed the opinion of others when he said to Raphael, “There is a little fellow in Florence who will bring the sweat to your brow if ever he is engaged in great works.” His style of composition was important, his figures varied and life-like, his draperies dignified. “The main excellence, however, in which Andrea stands unique among his contemporaries rests in the incomparable blending of colour, in the soft flesh tints, in the exquisite chiaroscuro, in the transparent clearness even of his deepest shadows, and in his entirely new manner of perfect modelling." [Footnote: Lübke History of Art, vol. ii. p. 241.] His method, as shown in an unfinished picture of the Adoration of the Magi in the Guadagni Palace, was to paint on a light ground; the sketch was a black outline, the features and details not defined, but often roughly indicated. He finished first the sky and background. The flesh tints, draperies, &c., were all true in tone from the first laying in. [Footnote: Eastlake’s Materials for History of Oil Fainting.] He did not place shades one over the other, and fuse them together glaze by glaze as Leonardo did, but used an opaque dead colouring which allowed of correction; the system was rapid, but deficient in depth and mellowness; “the lights are fused and bright,” but “the shadows, owing to their viscous consistency, imperfectly fill the outlines." [Footnote: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. in. chap. xvii. p. 670.] In a Holy Family in the Louvre, S. Elizabeth’s hand is painted across S. John, and shows the shadow underneath it, being grey at that part. Though more solid, he could not paint light over dark without injuring his brilliance of colour.
Albertinelli, on the contrary, when he painted and repainted his Annunciation, washed out the under layer with essential oil before making his “pentimenti” or corrections, and in this way the thinness was kept.
In Andrea’s early style this thinness is apparent, especially in the Joseph series, painted for Pier Francesco Borgherini.
Biadi classes Andrea’s works in three styles. The first showing the influence of Piero di Cosimo, the second–to which the best works in the Servi cloisters belong–is a larger and more natural style, after the study of Michelangelo and Leonardo.
The third is the natural development in his own practice of a perfect knowledge of art, and a just appreciation of nature. The Birth of the Baptist and the Cenacolo, of San Salvi, belong to his last and greatest manner. In 1515 the Florentine artists were employed on more perishable works than frescoes. Leo X., the Medici Pope who had been elected in 1513, made his triumphal entry into Florence on the 3rd of September, 1515, on his way to meet Francis I. of France at Bologna. All the guilds and ranks of Florence vied with each other to make his reception as artistic as possible. He and his suite were obliged to stay three days in the Villa Gianfigliazzi at Marignolle while the triumphal preparations were being completed. The churches had temporary façades of splendid architecture in fresco; arches were erected at the Porta Romana and Piazza San Felice, covered with historical paintings; Giuliano del Tasso adorned the Ponte Santa Trinità with statues; Antonio San Gallo made a temple on the Piazza della Signoria, and Baccio Bandinelli prepared a colossus in the Loggia dei Lanzi. Various decorations adorned other streets, and Andrea del Sarto surpassed them all with a façade to the Duomo, painted in monochrome on wood. His friend Sansovino designed the architecture, and he painted the sculpture and adornments with such effect that the Pope declared no work in marble could have been finer.
Andrea lent his talent to another kind of decorative art. The guild of merchants were desirous of inaugurating a festa for the day of S. Giovanni, and had ten chariots made from the model of the ancient Roman ones, to institute chariot races in the piazza. Andrea painted several of these with historical subjects, but they have long been lost. The chariot races were revived under the Grand Dukes, but not with any success.
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