The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 2 (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. 2 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century
Lanzi, Luigi
Painting -- Italy -- History
Sicilians, as we have seen, pass over to Venice, where Antonello
resided, to instruct themselves, and not confine themselves to Naples?
Why did the whole school of Venice, the emporium of Europe, and capable
of contradicting any false report, attest, on the death of Antonello,
that he was the first that painted in oil in Italy, and no one opposed
to him either Solario or Colantonio?[103] They either could not at that
time have been acquainted with this discovery, or did not know it to an
extent that can contradict Vasari, and the prevailing opinions
respecting Antonello. Dominici has advanced more on this point than any
other person, asserting that this art was discovered in Naples, and was
carried from thence to Flanders by Van Eyck himself, to which
supposition, after the observations already made, I deem it superfluous
to reply.[104]
We shall now return to the scholars of Solario, who were very numerous.
Amongst them was a Niccola di Vito, who may be called the Buffalmacco of
this school, for his singular humour and his eccentric invention, though
in other respects he was an inferior artist, and little deserving
commemoration. Simone Papa did not paint any large composition in which
he might be compared to his master; he confined himself to altarpieces,
with few figures grouped in a pleasing style, and finished with
exquisite care; so that he sometimes equalled Zingaro, as in a S.
Michele, painted for S. Maria Nuova. Of the same class seems to have
been Angiolillo di Roccadirame, who in the church of S. Bridget, painted
that saint contemplating in a vision the birth of Christ; a picture
which even with the experienced, might pass for the work of his master.
More celebrated and more deserving of notice, are Pietro and Polito
(Ippolito) del Donzello, sons-in-law of Angiolo Franco, and relatives of
the celebrated architect Giuliano da Maiano, by whom they were
instructed in that art. Vasari mentions them as the first painters of
the Neapolitan school, but does not give any account of their master, or
of what school they were natives, and he writes in a way that might lead
the reader to believe that they were Tuscans. He says that Giuliano,
having finished the palace of Poggio Reale for King Robert, the monarch
engaged the two brothers to decorate it, and that first Giuliano dying,
and the king afterwards, Polito _returned_ to Florence.[105] Bottari
observes, that he did not find the two Donzelli mentioned by Orlandi,
nor by any one else; a clear proof that he did not himself consider them
natives of Naples, and on that account he did not look for them in
Bernardo Dominici, who has written at length upon them, complaining of
the negligence or inadvertent error of Vasari.
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