The History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 5 (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. 5 (of 6): From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century
Lanzi, Luigi
Painting -- Italy -- History
appears from a Pietà, at the hospital of Pesaro, conducted, I believe,
after having studied the Venetian and the Lombard Schools, in the course of
a pictoric tour. Subsequently, he imbibed a certain sweetness, which I may
call more like Maratta's, in which his rivals discover a want of vigour.
Though he enjoyed long life, he did not leave many works, as he applied
himself with assiduity to his clerical duties. Frequently he had occasion
to paint for private families, and succeeded admirably in his Madonnas; one
of which, seen weeping, in the Varani collection at Ferrara, is among his
most studied pieces. His native place possesses three altar-pieces at the
Magdalen, three at S. Caterina, others in different churches, and in
general upon a small scale. But his genius is more clearly apparent in some
larger pictures, which are to be seen in the cathedrals of Osimo and of
Foligno; at S. Agostino, of Ancona; and the two at S. Domenico, in Fano.
One of these contains various saints of the order, placed around the
Virgin, whose portraits, positions, and action, exhibit singular variety
and grace. The other represents S. Vincenzio, seen in the act of healing
the sick, before the people assembled by sound of bell; nor is it easy, in
this immense throng, to find any one figure resembling another, or
superfluous, or less happy in expressing what it ought. But the work in
which he appears, as I have been informed, to surpass himself, adorns the
chapel of the Counts Fantuzzi, in Gualdo, a diocese of Rimini. He had spent
several years at Rome, at the house of Monsig. Gaetano, afterwards Cardinal
Fantuzzi; for whom he made that fine collection of pictures, from each
school, which afterwards went to his heirs, one of whom, Count Marco, is
well known to the public by his "Monuments of Ravenna," edited and
illustrated in several volumes, with much research and erudition; and to
whose courtesy I owe much of my information respecting Lazzarini. In this
collection are several of the canon's paintings, of various kinds;
landscape, a branch in which he appears to perfection; instruments and
books of music, porcelain, and fruits that deceive the eye; and, in
particular, two pictures, on imperial canvass, one exhibiting the Baptism
of Christ; the other, the Flight out of Egypt; where, in the Egyptian
plants and monuments we seem to recognize that ancient land itself. Still
the altar-piece at Gualdo shews a greater degree of originality, as he here
displayed his utmost care in imitating Raffaello, whom he had accurately
studied, so as to derive from his forms and composition all that could go
to adorn a picture of the Virgin and Holy Child, seen between St. Catherine
the martyr, and the B. Marco Fantuzzi, a Franciscan, who will, perhaps,
obtain the honours of a solemn canonization. The place is decorated with
architecture, the pavement variegated with marbles of different colours.
The Holy Child, placed with the Divine Mother, upon a pedestal, is seen
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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