Don Bartolomeo of Arezzo, having nothing to add of his own to the works
of the Sistina, is mentioned here only as the helper of Luca Signorelli
and Pietro Perugino; nor is Filippino Lippi, the natural son of Frà
Filippo, numbered among the companions of Sandro his master, though the
perpetual recurrence of antique customs and dresses in his works makes
it probable that he formed his juvenile studies at Rome. Inferior in
real capacity to his father, he may be praised rather for the accessory
than the substantial parts of his works: he filled with an unequal hand
the remaining panels left by Masaccio al Carmine; and in the Minerva at
Rome, yields the palm in expression and amenity of ideas to his own
scholar Raffaelino del Garbo, whose early works at Monte Oliveto of
Florence, and elsewhere, give sufficient evidence that he might have
raised himself to the first artists of his day, had not the cravings of
a numerous family crushed his powers, and poverty and dejection hastened
his death. His contemporary Andrea Verocchio, though a celebrated
statuary, and a designer of style, has deserved our notice as a
painter, only because he was the master of Lionardo da Vinci, the first
name in the annals of Tuscany's golden epoch.
Vinci, a burgh of Lower Valdarno, had the honour of giving a surname to
Lionardo, the natural son[58] of one Ser Piero, a state notary at
Florence. Elevated by nature above the common standard of men, born to
discover, he joined to boundless inquiry intrepidity of pursuit, and
lofty conception to minute investigation, nor only in the arts connected
with his own, music and poesy, but in science, philosophy, mathematics,
mechanics, hydrostatics: this wide mental range, supported by equal
vigour and gracefulness of body, was commended by every accomplishment
of a gentleman. Such was the genius whom Nature had destined to
establish art on elements, to open the realms of light and shade, to
inspire the subject with its tone, and to poise expression between
insipidity and caricature.
Notwithstanding the distractions of so many diverging inclinations, for
powers they could not yet be called, an innate attachment to the art
appears to have predominated at the earliest period to such a degree
that Ser Piero determined to place Lionardo under his friend Verocchio,
whom he soon excelled in painting,[59] and in modelling equalled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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