The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 1 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth CenturyLanzi, Luigi
History
The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 1 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century
Lanzi, Luigi
Painting -- Italy -- History
Giovanni Camillo Sagrestani, a scholar of Giusti, was esteemed at
Florence, even during the lifetime of Gabbiani and Gherardini. To study
different masters, he visited the best schools of Italy, and for some
time attended the school of Cav. Cignani, whose manner he copied rather
than emulated. One of his Holy Families is in the Madonna de' Ricci, the
beauty of which has more of an ideal cast, and the colouring is more
florid, than is usual with his contemporaries of this school. One of the
first judges in Florence assured me that this painting was the work of
Sagrestani, although others ascribe it to his scholar, Matteo Bonechi.
Bonechi had excellent parts, but not an equal knowledge of the art, in
which he is reported to have been instructed by a species of dictation;
for he practised under the eye, and was directed by the voice of his
master. He thus became one of those practical artists who make up for
the poverty of their design by their spirit and their colouring. There
are some of his pictures that in any collection would be particularly
calculated to attract the eye. Among his works in fresco, the picture at
Cestello, where he finished what was begun by Gabbiani, is worthy of
record; and also that in the Capponi palace near the Nunziata, where he
continued the work of Marinari.
About this time Cignani died in Bologna, and Gio. Gioseffo del Sole,
denominated the modern Guido, enjoyed the highest reputation. Florence
employed three of his eminent pupils; one of the two Soderini, Meucci,
and Ferretti, who although called da Imola, was born and lived in
Florence. Mauro Soderini enjoyed the reputation of a good designer, and
aimed at beauty and effect in his pictures. The Death of S. Joseph in
the cathedral is said to be by his hand, though it is in fact by
Ferretti; the Child revived by S. Zanobi, in the church of S. Stephen,
is really his. Vincenzio Meucci was chiefly employed in works of
perspective, which he executed in many parts of Tuscany, and even in the
cupola of the royal chapel in S. Lorenzo. If there was any one who could
dispute with him pre-eminence in fresco painting, it was his fellow
disciple, Giovanni Domenico Ferretti, whose works may be seen in
Florence, in several other parts of Tuscany, and at Bologna; from which
he appears to have surpassed Meucci in fancy and in spirit, and
especially at the Philippini at Pistoia, where his performance in the
cupola is highly praised. In fresco works they were both excellent; but
in oil paintings they often were too hasty, an error into which all
fresco painters, not excepting the most esteemed, have fallen. Hence
Ferretti, although he painted the Martyrdom of S. Bartolommeo, for the
church dedicated to that saint at Pisa, in an excellent style, did not
give equal satisfaction by his History of S. Guido, in the
archiepiscopal church. Several of the works of Meucci are dispersed
through the various churches in Florence; and in a chapel of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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