Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 04 (of 10): Filippino Lippi to Domenico PuligoVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 04 (of 10): Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
It is not possible to write of every detail in the works of this
craftsman, wherein every least thing, although dumb, appears to have
speech: save only of the bases executed below these pictures, with
various figures of defenders and benefactors of the Church, and
various terminal figures on either side of them, the whole being
wrought in such a manner that everything reveals spirit, feeling,
and thought, and with such a harmony and unity of colouring that
nothing better can be conceived. And since the ceiling of that
apartment had been painted by Pietro Perugino, his master, Raffaello
would not destroy it, moved by respect for his memory and by the
love that he bore to the man who had been the origin of the rank
that he held in his art.
Such was the greatness of this master, that he kept designers all
over Italy, at Pozzuolo, and even in Greece; and he was for ever
searching out everything of the good that might help his art.
Now, continuing his work, he also painted a hall, wherein were some
figures of the Apostles and other saints in tabernacles, executed in
terretta; and there he caused to be made by Giovanni da Udine, his
disciple, who has no equal in the painting of animals, all the
animals that Pope Leo possessed, such as the chameleon, the
civet-cats, the apes, the parrots, the lions, the elephants, and
other beasts even more strange. And besides embellishing the Palace
greatly with grotesques and varied pavements, he also gave the
designs for the Papal staircases, as well as for the loggie begun by
the architect Bramante, but left unfinished on account of his death,
and afterwards carried out with the new design and architecture of
Raffaello, who made for this a model of wood with better proportion
and adornment than had been accomplished by Bramante. The Pope
wishing to demonstrate the greatness and magnificence of his
generous ambition, Raffaello made the designs for the ornaments in
stucco and for the scenes that were painted there, and likewise for
the compartments; and as for the stucco and the grotesques, he
placed at the head of that work Giovanni da Udine, and the figures
he entrusted to Giulio Romano, although that master worked but
little at them; and he also employed Giovanni Francesco, Il Bologna,
Perino del Vaga, Pellegrino da Modena, Vincenzio da San Gimignano,
and Polidoro da Caravaggio, with many other painters, who executed
scenes and figures and other things that were required throughout
that work, which Raffaello caused to be completed with such
perfection, that he even sent to Florence for pavements by the hand
of Luca della Robbia. Wherefore it is certain that with regard to
the paintings, the stucco-ornaments, the arrangement, or any of the
beautiful inventions, no one would be able to execute or even to
imagine a more marvellous work; and its beauty was the reason that
Raffaello received the charge of all the works of painting and
architecture that were in progress in the Palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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