The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 3 (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. 3 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century
Lanzi, Luigi
Painting -- Italy -- History
Manfrini, painted in 1436, besides the _Giustizia_, drawn between two
archangels, in the _Magistrato del Proprio_, bearing the date of 1421. I
may venture to say that few artists of that time equalled him; both on
account of his having few rivals who had so early ventured to attempt
drawing figures as large as the life, and because of his power of
conferring upon them a certain grace and dignity, and, where called for,
a vigour and ease rarely to be met with in other paintings. The two
lions which he represented as symbols of his _Giustizia_ (Justice), are
truly grand, though the rest of the figures would have appeared to more
advantage had they been less loaded with ornaments, and in particular
the draperies glowing with gold lace, according to the custom of his
age. He had a rival in Giacomo Morazone, known by an altarpiece seen in
the island of St. Elena, of which I shall have to speak elsewhere.
Two pupils of Jacobello are recorded by Ridolfi, one of whom, Donato, is
superior to his master in point of style, and the other, Carlo Crivelli,
of whom the capital can boast only one or two pieces, and of whom little
mention is made in Venetian history. It would appear that he long
resided out of his native place, and in the Marca Trevigiana, from which
circumstance we find him repeatedly named in the _Storia Picena_, in the
_Guida di Ascoli_, and in the catalogue of Fabrianese paintings. At San
Francesco di Matelica, I saw an altarpiece and _grado_ by his hand, with
his name in the following inscription--_Carolus Crivellus Venetus miles
pinxit_, as well as another with his name at the Osservanti, in
Macerata, and a third which bears the year 1476, in possession of the
Cardinal Zelada. He is an artist more remarkable for his force of
colouring than for his correctness of design: and his principal merit
consists in those little history pieces, in which he has represented
beautiful landscapes, and given to his figures grace, motion, and
expression, with some traces of the colouring of the School of Perugia.
Hence his productions have occasionally been taken for those of Pietro,
as in the instance of that in Macerata; and if I mistake not, such an
opinion was entertained, even by the learned Father Civalli, (p. 60). In
Piceno, likewise, in Monsanmartino, or in Penna S. Giovanni, there
remain altarpieces by Vittorio Crivelli, a Venetian, most probably of
the same family, and produced in the years 1489 and 90, from which
period I lose sight of him, whether owing to his early decease, or his
having set out in pursuit of better fortune into foreign parts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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