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
Yet he mentioned, among the excellent artists who still flourished there,
Luca Longhi, whose ability in the essentials of the art is highly praised.
He regrets, however, that he should always have resided in his native
place, which had he left for objects of improvement, he might have become a
very distinguished artist. He was a good portrait-painter, and produced a
great number of pictures for Ravenna. Some, too, he sent elsewhere, and
they are met with at San Benedetto in Ferrara, in the Abbey at Mantua, in
that of Praglia near Padua, at S. Francesco in Rimini, with the date of
1580, in Pesaro, and other places. They are chiefly composed in the ancient
manner, but on comparing some of the earlier with those that follow, a more
modern air is perceptible, a circumstance attributed by Vasari to his own
conversations with the artist. Longhi's style, however, was opposed to that
of Vasari, being very correct and highly finished; his conceptions sweet,
varied, and graceful; with a powerful union of colours; more nearly
resembling Innocenzo da Imola, if I mistake not, than any other artist of
the times, though inferior to him in point of grandeur and beauty. Luca's
most perfect pictures that I have met with in Ravenna are those of S.
Vitale, of S. Agata, of S. Domenico, all with a representation of the
Virgin between two or more saints, and with some graceful cherubs playing
above. There are others more laboured, which please us less, and
demonstrate that to succeed in grand compositions, it is previously
necessary to have studied the great schools. Luca had a daughter, named
Barbara, yet a child at the period when Vasari published his work, but who
had begun to paint "with a tolerable degree of grace and manner." From the
hand of this lady there is only a single specimen remaining in public.
Respecting a son of Luca, named Francesco, the historian is wholly silent,
being, doubtless, at the time he wrote, still younger than his sister, but
who became an artist in maturer years. In 1576 he produced a picture for
the church of the Carmine, and there are accounts of him, even down to
1610. He chiefly pursued the steps of his father, though he is more common
in his countenances, and more feeble in point of colouring, which he copied
rather from Vasari.
Francesco Scannelli mentions a pupil of Raffaello at Cesena, omitted by all
other historians, named Scipione Sacco. He painted a picture of S. Gregory
for the cathedral of Cesena, in a grand style,[17] and the Death of St.
Peter the Martyr for the church of S. Domenico. Doubtless he was of
Raffaello's school, and not remembered out of Romagna.
Footnote 17: On this picture is inscribed, _Cæsenas_, 1545.
_Oretti_, _Memorie_, MSS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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