Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to MantegnaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 03 (of 10): Filarete and Simone to Mantegna
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
the said baptismal font to perfect completion, adding to it some bronze
figures, formerly cast by Donato but entirely finished by himself, which
are held to be very beautiful.
For the Loggia of the Ufficiali[16] in Banchi Lorenzo made two life-size
figures in marble of S. Peter and S. Paul, wrought with consummate grace
and executed with fine mastery. He disposed the works that he made in
such a manner that he deserves as much praise for them after death as he
did when alive. He was a melancholic and solitary person, ever lost in
contemplation; which was perchance the reason that he did not live
longer, for he passed to the other life at the age of fifty-eight. His
works date about the year 1482.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The officials of the Mercanzia.
GALASSO FERRARESE
LIFE OF GALASSO FERRARESE[17]
[_GALASSO GALASSI_]
PAINTER
When strangers come to do work in a city in which there are no craftsmen
of excellence, there is always some man whose intelligence is afterwards
stirred to strive to learn that same art, and to bring it about that
from that time onwards there should be no need for strangers to come and
embellish his city and carry away her wealth, which he now labours to
deserve by his own ability, seeking to acquire for himself those riches
that seemed to him too splendid to be given to foreigners. This was made
clearly manifest by Galasso Ferrarese, who, seeing Piero dal Borgo a San
Sepolcro rewarded by the Duke of Ferrara for the works that he executed,
and also honourably received in Ferrara, was incited so strongly by such
an example, after Piero's departure, to devote himself to painting, that
he acquired the name of a good and excellent master in Ferrara. Besides
this, he was held in all the greater favour in that place for having
gone to Venice and there learnt the method of painting in oil, which he
brought to his native place, for he afterwards made an infinity of
figures in that manner, which are scattered about in many churches
throughout Ferrara.
Next, having gone to Bologna, whither he was summoned by certain
Dominican friars, he painted in oil a chapel in S. Domenico; and so his
fame increased, together with his credit. After this he painted many
pictures in fresco in S. Maria del Monte, a seat of the Black Friars
without Bologna, beyond the Porta di S. Mammolo; and the whole church of
the Casa di Mezzo, on the same road, was likewise painted by his hand
with works in fresco, in which he depicted the stories of the Old
Testament.
His life was ever most praiseworthy, and he showed himself very
courteous and agreeable; which arose from his being used to live and
dwell more out of his native place than in it. It is true, indeed, that
through his being somewhat irregular in his way of living, his life did
not last long; for he left it at the age of about fifty, to go to that
life which has no end. After his death he was honoured by a friend with
the following epitaph:
GALASSUS FERRARIENSIS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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