THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

ART. I.-1. Le Opere di Georgio Vasari, Pittore e Architetto, Aretino. Firenze, 1838.

2. Storie dei Municipii Italiani illustrate con documenti inediti da Carlo Morbio, Membro della Regia Giunta Sarda di Statistica. Milano, 1838.

3. Storia delle Famiglie celebri Italiane, del Conte Pompeo Litta. Milano, 1820-1839. Fascicolo XVII.

AMONGST the various classes of books, two are promi

nent, those which everybody praises and nobody reads, and those which everybody talks of and everybody dispraises. To the latter species, at least so far as the word is in the mouth of critics and historians of art, the long-established standard work of Georgio Vasari belongs. Errors, inaccuracies, mistakes, and false judgments, are the continual subjects of fault-finding with the Vite degli Artefici.' Yet, in all investigations of art, the work must, and always does, form the substratum of our inquiries.

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Vasari must be put into the witness-box. The judge cannot dispense with his testimony; and to those who are willing to accept his collection of facts, opinions, anecdotes, and even legends, in its true character, it is a manual from which the greatest pleasure and information will be derived. Vasari may be termed the Herodotus of art. Living just at the termination of its triumphant and palmy age, he preserved those materials for its history, which, had he delayed his labours but a little later, must have perished. But for him we should have been in the same perplexing doubt and uncertainty concerning the authors of the works of art and monuments still adorning Italy, as we are with respect to the Gothic architects and sculptors of France and England. Vasari has not merely individualised the artists, but he also identifies a large proportion of their productions. He connects the works with their authors; and in tracing the progress and mutations of Italian art, as embodied in most of the best subsisting examples, we can examine the painting, or the structure, or the statue, with a knowledge of the studies or models which led to its conception, and of the circumstances under which it was produced. It is from this identification, this connexion of the object with the hand which gave it shape and form, that so much of the pleasure imparted by Italian art arises.-Possibly

VOL. LXVI. NO. CXXXII.

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some

some portion of the amusement and interest with which you pace the Aisle or walk the Gallery, may be traced to the national and characteristic earnestness with which the Custode tells his tale. How much cleverness there is in his epithets! And then, the expressive modulation of his tone, varying from the sonorous confidence with which he commands you to worship the unquestionable Raphael, down to the considerate tenderness with which he introduces you to the dubious specimen, unwilling either to deceive you or to let you be undeceived. Questo quadro vuol essere di Corregio-ma, ha patito molto nel tempo de' Francesi !'— spoken in an under-voice, and as if he wished to spare the feelings of the chalky Magdalene, by not letting her hear any implication against her legitimacy.-But abstracted from all such extraneous considerations, our author possesses unparalleled recommendations.

He lectures, so to speak, surrounded by the apparatus and specimens upon which he discourses, and always with the greatest fulness and glee. His command and flow of language, savoured with idiomatic raciness, adds also, if not to the absolute value of his lectures, still very much to the pleasure with which they are listened to. It is droll to hear him talk away.

Vasari was brought up to the honest calling of a goldsmith. His application to the pursuits now termed the fine arts' arose out of his trade, a circumstance of very common occurrence in the lives of the Tuscan artists, and upon which we shall hereafter enlarge. He became an excellent architect. In this branch of art, the Uffizij, the building containing the Medicean gallery, is a fine example of his skill. As a painter, he was far above mediocrity; and there is often much ingenuity conjoined to cleverness of conception in his compositions. But he was very hasty in his execution, and, as is so often the case in things of more consequence than painting, he was a man who loved himself for being in the wrong: he prided himself upon his faults, glorying in his undue rapidity; and his colouring is hard and inharmonious. When his frescoes in the cupola of Sta. Maria del Fiore were uncovered, all the virtuosi in Florence were up in arms to criticise them; and whilst the multitude talked and sneered, the profligate Lasca lampooned the painter in his madrigals. The demerits of the paintings, however, are by no means such as to deserve all the vituperations which they received; and we shall probably not be very far from the mark, if we diminish the value of contemporary criticism by a good round discount, quoted,' as stockbrokers do in the share market,' from 331 to per cent., in consequence of Vasari having had the good or ill fortune to stand high in the favour of the Medici family, and more particularly of the Grand Duke Cosmo I. Placed in the position of

a court

a court favourite, he had to suffer the usual tribulation of a very liberal degree of detraction from those whom the sun of royalty did not gild by its rays.

Vasari's chief claim upon posterity, however, should be sought in the part which he has performed, not by the pencil, but by the grey-goose quill. It is not Vasari the painter, but Vasari the author of the Vite degli Artefici,' who will be so long recollected with honour. The plan of the book was suggested in a familiar conversation which took place at Naples, somewhile in the year 1544, at a supper in the house of the Cardinal Farnese.* Amongst the company was one not very worthy personage, who shows by his writings that he forgot he was a bishop: his memory must hold us excused if we forget his episcopal character also.

This was Paolo Giovio, who had then composed his well-known work, the Vitæ Illustrium Virorum.' The book does not appear to have been published, but it had probably been circulated in manuscript, as was then much the custom in the literary world. Giovio wished to append a biography of artists from the time of Cimabue, upon whose productions, as Vasari says, he began to discourse with judgment and knowledge of art, making, however, terrible mistakes with respect to the artists themselves, confounding names, surnames, birth-places, and specimens. In reply to a question put by the Cardinal, Vasari replied that such a biography would be very instructive, if compiled with accuracy; and the company, amongst whom was Annibal Caro, joined in urging Georgio to undertake the task of giving a better outline to Giovio. This he did. And he performed his task so satisfactorily, that, when the sketch was presented to Giovio, the latter declined using it, and advised Vasari to complete the book for himself.

Vasari ever since his youth had been collecting materials for such a work, yet the instinct of authorship was not strong upon him. Before the existence of the advantage, if it be one, stingily, grudgingly, and unthankfully yielded to men of letters, by the creation of literary property, writers were not urged by the yearning of realising the worth of their productions in hard cash, or paper as good as gold. And in Italy, moreover, the approbation received from a small and chosen number of judicious readers, to whom, as we have just said, the works were communicated, was more than equivalent to the pleasures now derived from wideextended popularity. Vasari hesitated-asked advice-a rare thing in authors-and what is more rare in the said race of authors, he took it (they never will do so from us, let it be ever so good); and his advisers were sound;-Annibal Caro, Molza, Tolomei;

* Vasari quitted Naples in 1548; and the first edition of his book is said to have been published at Florence in 1549, or 1550. Y 2

and

and he worked diligently, until, being urged by Cosmo to bring it out, the first edition was printed at the grand ducal press, and under the special auspices of his patron. In this first edition he inserted no life of any contemporary, excepting that of Michael Angelo, who received the presentation copy with great pleasure, testifying his gratitude by a sonnet, a thing like most complimentary poems, a column of fine words, containing an infinitesimal quantity of meaning: therefore we will let it alone. Still the sonnet was a high token of approbation, and it increased the intimacy subsisting between them; and this friendship enabled Vasari to profit the more by the verbal information received from Michael Angelo, as well as by his correspondence. Other valuable materials Vasari obtained from the manuscripts of Ghirlandajo, Ghiberti, Rafael d'Urbino, and many more who are not named. It was the custom in Florence for the heads of families to keep a book of remembrances- ricordi,' as they were termedof the events happening to themselves, their children, and kindred; and from these memorials he gleaned abundantly. Vasari was also well versed in the general and particular history of Tuscany and the adjoining states: but besides these sources, all the traditions of art were yet rife and lively, and much information of the greatest importance had been handed down from mouth to mouth. The chain of tradition, if once broken, can never be replaced. Interesting as such traditions of art may be in relation to the personal anecdotes they preserve, they were perhaps even more important with respect to the knowledge which they imparted of the mechanical proceedings employed by the artists, the identification of the portraits introduced in historical subjects, and the meanings of allegorical compositions, without which many would have remained unintelligible mysteries-enigmas to be gazed at, and nothing more-like hieroglyphics of which the key is lost. For example, the great fresco of Simon Memmi in the ancient chapterhouse of Santa Maria Novella, representing the Church Militant, in which the portraits of Petrarch and Laura are introduced, would, without this aid, be completely inexplicable.

Very much more might be said upon Vasari, were we discussing the fine arts scientifically. Such, however, is far from our object, and beyond our province; at present, we only propose to offer a few observations upon their connexion with history, and with what, in the phrase of the day, is termed the progress of civilization-aspects suggested by the other works whose titles are placed at the head of this article, and which, in their different ways, are of much value, though but little known to English readers, by whom, as' a whole and on the whole, Italian literature is most strangely neglected. How does it happen,'

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said we to a respectable importer of foreign books, that your stock of Italian is so scanty, particularly since, in the Sardinian States, in Austrian Italy, and in Italian Switzerland, so many good new historical books, and cheap editions of standard works have been recently produced?'-Why,' replied he, scanty as our stock is, we have more than we can sell: a few novels, Metastasio, Tasso, Ariosto, and a Dante now and then, is all that people ask for.'-But this by the way.

The truly classical work of Count Litta, as the Famiglie celebri Italiane' may be justly designated, is a genealogical history of Italy, illustrated by monuments. It consists of pedigrees of the principal families, in which are incorporated ample historical and biographical memoirs, written with great clearness and ability. Litta's style is pure and nervous; his views, philosophical, without affectation of philosophy. The main drawback from the utility of his text is the awkward typographical form which it has assumed. Instead of composing the pedigrees according to the usual fashion, of the names of the individuals, and giving references to the biographical and historical notices, these are included in the tables or pedigrees. Hence, though printed in a very small type, they are spread over the broadsides in a way most inconvenient to the reader: and the troublesome manner in which they present themselves to the eye will be appreciated, from the statement that the matter of two Tavole, reprinted by Morbio (in the work next noticed) as an introduction to his Chronicle, fills 50 octavo pages.

These genealogies are illustrated by the most important and significant memorials existing of each family-tombs, statues, portraits, medals, shields of arms. When needed, the plates are coloured, and splendidly, by hand; the work thus becomes an historic gallery. It contains many excellent representations of the best works of the finest period; but it is perhaps still more interesting as exemplifying the progress of pictorial design, of sculpture, and, in some degree, of architecture, from the first revival of the arts in Italy to the present day. The work is printed under the direction of Count Litta, at his palace in Milan. No expense or labour has been spared in the decorations, which unite excellent execution to the greatest accuracy (a most rare quality in continental drawings); and every means has been taken to ensure this most important element. Thus, in order to obtain true drawings of the sepulchres of the Scaligeri at Verona, Count Litta caused casts to be taken from these magnificent shrines; an operation, which, from the complication and delicacy of the sculptures and ornaments, was attended with great cost and difficulty, it having been necessary to build scaffolding completely

round