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
Nunziata, where he painted the recess, he coloured a Madonna, which is
allowed to be one of his most diligent and best finished pictures. He
was there rivalled by Giuseppe Grisoni, a scholar of Redi; and it is
reported that vexation at this circumstance shortened his days. Grisoni
had travelled more than he in visiting the schools of Italy, had even
gone to England, and had acquired great skill in figures, and still more
in landscape. He therefore was induced to add landscape not only to
historical, but also to portrait painting; as in the instance of a
portrait of himself that is one of the most respectable in the second
chamber of painters. He added it also to the S. Barbara, painted in
competition with Meucci; and it is a picture which does honour to the
school in form, relief, and taste of colouring. He likewise painted
other pieces on the same plan, in which, however, he did not succeed so
well.
Meucci and Grisoni cannot be reckoned Italian artists of the same rank
with Luti; but if all are to be estimated by the times in which they
flourished, each was eminent in his day. I had noticed them briefly in
my first edition, and some painters have informed me, that with them I
ought to have mentioned Giuseppe Zocchi, who was a painter of note, and
should not have been omitted even in a compendium of the history of the
art. I now correct my error, and produce what information the noble
family of Gerini, under whose protection he was received when a boy, and
who, after his elementary studies at Florence, sent him to Rome, to
Bologna, and other parts of Lombardy, for his instruction in the
different schools, have supplied me. I may be allowed to add, that the
Florentine nobility have always been most liberal in this way; and there
are not a few living artists who owe their education in the fine arts to
the bounty of some noble family: such clients are an ornament to a
nobleman, and are not to be numbered among his servants. Zocchi had a
genius fertile in invention, pliant in imitation, and judicious in
selection; and hence at the conclusion of such a course of study, he was
able to compose large works with skill, and to colour beautifully. He
painted four pretty large frescos in the villa Serristori, beyond the
gate of S. Nicholas, some apartments in the Rinuccini palace, and one in
the Gerini gallery; and these are believed to be his best works of this
sort. In smaller pieces he was still greater; as in his oil picture of
the festivities at Siena, on the arrival of the Emperor Francis I., a
work very true in the perspective, and graceful in the multitude of
figures which he there inserted. It is deposited in the splendid
Sansedonii collection of pictures at Siena, where the entertainment
given to the Grand Duke Peter Leopold may also be seen: with this object
in view the painter went to Siena, where he caught the epidemic disorder
that raged there in 1767, and soon after died at Florence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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