Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo ZuccheroVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 08 (of 10): Bastiano to Taddeo Zucchero
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
Now, having spoken in this part of our book, up to the present, of the
craftsmen of design in the cities of Lombardy, it cannot but be well to
say something about those of the city of Milan, the capital of that
province, of whom no mention has been made here, although of some of
them we have spoken in many other places in this our work. To begin,
then, with Bramantino, of whom mention has been made in the Life of
Piero della Francesca of the Borgo, I find that he executed many more
works than I have enumerated above; and, in truth, it did not then
appear to me possible that a craftsman so renowned, who introduced good
design into Milan, should have executed works so few as those that had
come to my notice. Now, after he had painted in Rome, as has been
related, some apartments for Pope Nicholas V, and had finished over the
door of S. Sepolcro, in Milan, the Christ in foreshortening, the Madonna
who has Him on her lap, the Magdalene, and S. John, which was a very
rare work, he painted in fresco, on a facade in the court of the Mint in
Milan, the Nativity of Christ our Saviour, and, in the Church of S.
Maria di Brera, in the tramezzo,[4] the Nativity of Our Lady, with some
Prophets on the doors of the organ, which are foreshortened very well to
be seen from below, and a perspective-view which recedes with a
beautiful gradation excellently contrived; at which I do not marvel, he
having always much delighted in the studies of architecture, and having
had a very good knowledge of them. Thus I remember to have seen once in
the hands of Valerio Vicentino a very beautiful book of antiquities,
drawn with all the measurements by the hand of Bramantino, wherein were
those of Lombardy and the ground-plans of many well-known edifices,
which I drew from that book, being then a lad. In it was the Temple of
S. Ambrogio in Milan, built by the Lombards, and all full of sculptures
and pictures in the Greek manner, with a round tribune of considerable
size, but not well conceived in the matter of architecture; which temple
was rebuilt in the time of Bramantino, after his design, with a portico
of stone on one side, and with columns in the manner of trunks of trees
that have been lopped, which have in them something of novelty and
variety. There, likewise, was drawn the ancient portico of the Church of
S. Lorenzo in the same city, built by the Romans, which is a great work,
beautiful and well worthy of note; but the temple there, or rather, the
church, is in the manner of the Goths. In the same book was drawn the
Temple of S. Aquilino, which is very ancient, and covered with
incrustations of marble and stucco, very well preserved, with some large
tombs of granite. In like manner, there was the Temple of S. Piero in
Ciel d'Oro at Pavia, in which place is the body of S. Augustine, in a
tomb that is in the sacristy, covered with little figures, which,
according to my belief, is by the hands of Agostino and Agnolo, the
sculptors of Siena.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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