The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 4 (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. 4 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century
Lanzi, Luigi
Painting -- Italy -- History
Gervasio Gatti, Il Soiaro, nephew to Bernardino, was initiated by him in
the same maxims and principles which he had himself imbibed, by studying
and copying the models left by Coreggio at Parma. The advantage he derived
from them may be known from his S. Sebastiano, which was painted for S.
Agatha, at Cremona, in 1578, a piece that appears designed from the
antique, and coloured by one of the first figurists and landscape painters
in Lombardy. In the same city is his Martyrdom of S. Cecilia, at S. Pietro,
surrounded with angels, in the Coreggio manner, a picture nobly coloured,
and finished with exquisite care. In composition it resembles those of his
uncle, for one of which it might be mistaken, did we not find the name of
Gervasio and the date of 1601. But he was not always equally diligent, and
sometimes betrays a mechanical hand, while there is often a monotony in his
countenances, and a want of selection in his heads, no unusual fault in
portrait-painters, among whom he held a high rank. It is most probable that
he saw the works of the Caracci, traces of which I have discovered in some
of his productions, and particularly in those at S. S. Pietro and
Marcellino. Perhaps it was a brother of this artist who left a picture of a
Crucifixion, surrounded by different saints, at S. Sepolcro in Piacenza,
bearing an inscription of _Uriel de Gattis dictus Sojarius_, 1601. It
boasts great strength of colouring, combined with no little elegance, but
the manner is insignificant and it is feeble in chiaroscuro. This, if I
mistake not, is the same _Uriele_ who, on the testimony of the Cav.
Ridolfi, had been selected for some undertaking at Crema in preference to
Urbini, as I formerly observed. Bernardino likewise instructed Spranger, a
favourite artist of the Emperor Rodolph II. as well as the Anguissole, of
both of whom we shall give some account shortly. What more peculiarly
distinguishes him is his title to be considered the great master of the
Cremonese School, which, benefitted by his presence and guided by his
precepts and examples, produced during so long a period such a variety of
admirable works. To speak frankly what I think, Cremona would never have
seen her Campi, nor her Boccaccino rise so high, if Soiaro had not
exhibited his talents in that city.
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