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
In the school of Angiolo Gaddi we may reckon Antonio Veneziano,
concerning whom Vasari and Baldinucci disagree. The former makes him a
Venetian, "who came to Florence to learn painting of Agnolo Gaddi:" the
latter, a systematic writer, as we have seen, asserts that he was born
in Florence, and that he obtained the surname of Veneziano, from his
residence and many labours in Venice, on the authority of certain
memoirs in the Strozzi library, which were, perhaps, doubted by himself;
for had they been of high authority, he would not have omitted to
proclaim their antiquity. However this may be, each of them is a little
inconsistent with himself. As they assert that Antonio died of the
plague in 1384, or, according to the correction of their annotators, in
1383, at the age of 74, it follows that he was born many years before
Gaddi, whose disciple, therefore, we cannot easily suppose him. It is
likewise rendered doubtful by his design in the legends of S.
Ranieri,[65] which remain in the Campo Santo of Pisa, where there is a
certain facility, care, and caprice in the composition, that savour of
another school. Vasari, moreover, notices a method of painting in
fresco, without ever re-touching it when dry, that would seem to have
been introduced from other parts, different from what was employed by
the Tuscan artists, his competitors, whose paintings, in the time of the
historian, were not in as good a state of preservation as those of
Antonio. In the same place he deposited his portrait, which the
describers of the ducal gallery at Florence pretend still to find in the
chamber of celebrated artists. This portrait is, however, painted in a
manner so modern, that I cannot believe it the work of a painter so
ancient. On this occasion I must observe that there was another Antonio
Veneziano, whom this picture probably represents, and who, about the
year 1500, painted, at Osimo, a picture of St. Francis, in the manner of
that age, and inscribed it with his name. I learned this from the
accomplished Sig. Cav. Aqua, who added, that this name had been erased,
and that of Pietro Perugino inserted, who certainly gains no very great
honour by such substitution.
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