Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects/Giovanni da Udine

by Giorgio Vasari

 

THE PAINTER, GIOVANNI DA UDINE.

[born 1487—died 1561-1564.]

In Udine, a city of Friuli, there lived a citizen, Giovanni by name, and of the family of the Nani, who was the first of his kin that had given attention to the calling of an embroiderer, which was afterwards pursued by his descendants with so. much distinction, that they were no longer called De’ Nani but De’ Ricamatori, or the Embroiderers.

To one of that family, a certain Francesco, who lived in the manner of an opulent proprietor, passing his time at the chase and in similar occupations, there was born, in the year 1494,^[1] a son whom he called Giovanni, and who, while yet but a boy, showed so much inclination to the study of design, that the thing was considered extraordinary; for even while hunting or fowling with his father, he would design the figures of the dogs, the hares, the kids, every kind of animal or bird, in short, which fell into his hands, whenever a halt in the chase gave him leisure, and that to such perfection as to amaze all who beheld it.

This disposition being remarked by Francesco his father, the latter took him to Venice, and put him to learn the art of the limner with Giorgione da Castel Franco. Here, while working with Giorgione, the youth heard so much praise bestowed on the productions of Michelagnolo and Ratfaello, that he resolved to repair to Rome, come what might, and having procured a letter of good will and favour from Domenico Grimani, who was the particular friend of his father, to Baldassare Cartiglioni, Secretary of the Duke of Mantua, and a special intimate of Raffaello da Urbino, he went to Rome accordingly. Having reached that city he was placed by Cartiglioni in the school of Ratfaello, where he acquired a thorough knowledge of the principles of his art, which is a matter of great importance, seeing that when the disciple commences by adopting a bad manner, it rarely happens that he afterwards attains to a good one, or in any case if he do so, it must always be a work of infinite ditficulty.

Having passed some time in Rome then, as we have said, and having next acquired a knowledge of the soft, beautiful, and graceful manner of Raffaello, Giovanni, like a youth of good parts as he was, determined to adhere rigidly and by all means to that manner. Wherefore, his genius and power of hand giving good aid to his judicious intention, he made extraordinary progress, and very soon became capable of drawing and painting to such perfection that he rapidly succeeded, at a word, in the successful imitation of whatever natural objects were placed before him, whether animals, landscapes, buildings, draperies, vases, implements, foliage, or whatever else the object might be; insomuch that there were none of the young men in that school who could surpass him.^[2]

But above all did Giovanni delight in depicting birds of every kind, and of these he soon completed a book full of so much variety and beauty that Raffaello found a perpetual amusement and interest therein. Now there was at that time with Raphael, a Fleming called Giovanni, who was an excellent master in fruits, foliage, and flowers, all which he executed beautifully, and with the utmost truth to nature, although in a manner that was somewhat hard and laboured; from him, therefore, Giovanni da Udine learned, in a short time, to produce these objects in equal perfection with his teacher; nay, rather, he improved on the manner of the latter by the addition of a certain force and largeness as well as softness, which caused him to succeed in some branches of his art to a degree that was most admirable, as will be presently related. He furthermore learned to execute landscapes, with ruined buildings and the broken relics of antiquity, as also to paint the same landscapes and foliage on cloth, in the manner which has been practised since his time, not by the Flemings only, but by all the Italian painters likewise.

Now Raphael very highly estimated the abilities of Giovanni da Udine, and when occupied with that picture of the Santa Cecilia, now in Bologna,^[3]! he caused Giovanni to paint the organ which is in the hand of that saint; this the latter copied from the instrument itself, and with such good efiect that his work does really appear to be a relief: he also painted the other musical instruments which are at the feet of Santa Cecilia, and, what is of more importance, he brought his own manner herein to so close a similitude with that of Raphael, that the whole work appears to have been executed by one hand.

No long time after the completion of the above, excavations were made at San Piero in Vincula, and among the ruins of the Palace of Titus, with the hope of finding statues, when certain subterranean chambers were discovered, and these were decorated all over with minute grottesche, small figures, stories, and ornaments, executed in stucco of very low relief.^[4] These discoveries Raffaello was taken to see, and Giovanni accompanied his master, when they were both seized with astonishment at the freshness, beauty, and excellent manner of these works, seeing that it appeared to them a great marvel to find them in so fair a state of preservation after the lapse of so long a time, but in effect it was not so much to be wondered at, when, we consider that they had never been touched by the air or looked on by the light; which are wont, by means of the changes brought by the seasons, to destroy and consume all things.^[5]

These grottesche then (for they were called grottesche because they had first been found in these grottoes or subterranean places), executed with so much care, giving proof of so profound a knowledge in design, and evincing such extraordinary power of fancy, seeing that with those minute ornaments in stucco were mingled portions in colour of the most varied beauty, and exhibiting small figures comprising stories of exquisite grace and sweetness—all these things, I say, did so deeply enter into, and take possession of, the mind and heart of Giovanni, that he devoted himself wholly to the study thereof, and could not satisfy himself with copying the same, neither one time nor twice sufficing him by any means: he succeec^ed therefore so effectually in imitating these works, and reproduced them with so much grace and facility, that nothing more was now wanting to him than the knowledge of the manner in which the stucco, whereof the grottesche were in part formed, was compounded.

Now, it is true that many before his time had cogitated and puzzled over that matter, but had been able to manage nothing better than a stucco made of gypsum, chalk, Greek gold. But they had not succeeded in discovering the true method of making stucco similar to that used for the works discovered in the ancient grottoes and chambers. At the time of which we now speak they were proceeding to construct decorations for the arches and the upper tribune of San Pietro, with lime-stone and puzzolana, as we have related in the life of Bramante, all the carvings of foliage, with the ovoli, and many other members, then being prepared in moulds of clay; wherefore Giovanni began to examine that method of preparation in lime-stone and puzzolana, and to try if he could not succeed in making figures of basso-rilievo therefrom: continuing his experiments accordingly, he finally produced them in all their parts to his wish, with the one exception, that the external surface had not the delicacy and fineness exhibited by the antique, nor had it the whiteness of colour which those works presented.

Giovanni then bethought himself of some remedy for this defect, and decided that it might be requisite to mingle the lime of the white travertine Avith some substance which should be also white, instead of with puzzolana; he therefore caused flakes of travertine to be pounded, and found that they answered tolerably well, but the Avork was nevertheless rather of a livid than a pure white. Ultimately, however, having caused the Avhitest marble which he could find to be ground to an impalpable powder and carefully sifted, he mixed that with lime from white traAmrtine, and found that he had thus indubitably succeeded in producing the stucco of the ancients, with all the properties that were to be desired therein.

Greatly rejoiced Avith this result, Giovanni then showed Baphael what he had done; and as the latter was then in process of adorning the Papal Loggie, as Ave have already said, by command of Pope Leo X., he caused Giovanni to decorate all the vaultings of the same Avith most beautiful ornaments in stucco, surrounding the Avhole Avith grottesche similar to those of the antique, all being enriched with the most pleasing and fanciful inventions, and exhibiting the most singular and most varied objects that can possibly be imagined. The whole work Avas executed in mezzo and basso-rilievo, the decorations being varied by stories, landscapes, foliage, and other fancies, as also presenting borders of much beauty. Giovanni did, indeed, on that occasion exhaust every effort, so to speak, that art can make in works of such a kind, and he not only equalled the antique in this performance,—so far as we can judge from such things as have been hitherto discovered and as we have seen,—but even surpassed them, since these works of Giovanni, for the beauty of their design, for the rich invention displayed in the figures, and for the colouring, whether in stucco or in painting, are indeed to be preferred to those of the ancients; his productions being infinitely superior in these respects to the antiques found in the Colosseum, or painted in the Baths of Dioclesian^[6] and other places known to us.

Nay, where, in the works of any other master, will you find birds more truly natural, so to speak, or which come nearer to the truth, whether as regards the colouring, softness of the plumage, or other praiseworthy qualities, than do those of the friezes and pilasters of the Loggie now in question, where are they to be seen of every kind, and in all instances more truthful and life-like?^[7] where, indeed, can we see them of equal merit? We have them exhibited, too, in variety as rich as that of Nature herself, some represented in one manner and some in another, but all of different kinds; many of these exquisite birds, for example, are perched on ears of corn and sheaves of maize, buckwheat, millet, and grain of all sorts; but not of grain only, they are seen among fruits and berries also, of such kinds as the earth has always produced for the sustenance of birds. As much may be affirmed of the fish and every other manner of water animal and marine monster, which Giovanni represented in the same place; but since it is impossible to say so much but that it shall still be too little, it were perhaps better to be altogether silent, than to set one’s self attempting that which cannot be accomplished.

What, indeed, can I say of the innumerable varieties in fruits and flowers which are here depicted in every possible manner and witliout end? Displaying too, as they do, every tint of colour and change of form which Nature has imparted to them at every season of the year and in all the regions of the world. What again of the infinite assemblage of musical instruments which are also here represented in the most natural fashion? And who does not know,—seeing that the thing is most notorious—who does not know that at the end of the Loggia, where there was a building respecting which the Pope had not yet decided on the mode of completion —that Griovanni had painted a balustrade to imitate and continue the true one of the Loggia, with a hanging carpet over it, and that a groom one day, running in great haste to the Pope, who was then at the Belvedere, where a carpet was required for the use of his Holiness—a groom, I say, running towards this painted carpet from a distance, was about to snatch it from the balustrade, as believing it to be a real one?

At a word, it may truly be asserted, without offence to other artists, that for a work of this kind the paintings here in question are the most beautiful, the most extraordinary, and the most admirable, that have ever been seen by mortal eye. Nay, I will furthermore venture to declare, that this has been the cause why not Rome alone, but every other part of the world also, has been filled with these pictures. For not only was Giovanni more than the restorer, he may even be called the inventor, of stucco work and other grottesche; for by these his productions he has furnished a model from which all who have desired to labour in that branch of art have been able to take their exemplars, to say nothing of the fact, that the young men by whom Giovanni was assisted, and who were in great numbers, one time with another, having learned from him as the true master of that art, did afterwards disseminate their knowledge of the same throughout all the Provinces.

Giovanni was meanwhile proceeding with the lowermost part of the Loggia, wherein he adopted another and different method from that used in the compartments of stucco-work, the pictures on the walls and the vaultings of the firstmentioned Loggie; but these last were no less beautiful, the various divisions representing trellises of cane which supported vines richly covered and laden with grapes mingled with briony and other plants of various kinds, as also with flowers in rich abundance—jasmine, roses, See., the whole furthermore embellished with diflerent kinds of animals and birds of varied plumage.

Pope Leo then determining to cause the Hall on the ground floor, wherein the Guard of the Lansquenets hold their watch, to be painted, Giovanni, in addition to the friezes which he executed around the same, and which consisted of the Papal Arms, with lions, children, and grottesche, made a species of ornament for the walls, resembling the ancient incrustations used by the Romans for their temples, baths, and similar edifices, as may be seen in the Ritonda, in the Portico of San Piero and in other places, the incrustation made by Giovanni being an imitation of marbles and fine stones of various kinds.

In a Hall near that above-named, and which was used as a waiting-room by the chamberlains, Raflaello da Urbino had painted many beautiful figures of the Apostles, the size of life, standing within certain tabernacles; and over the cornices of that work Giovanni executed numerous animals and birds of the parrot kind, all painted from nature and exhibiting various colours, the originals of those birds being in the possession of His Holiness: he added figures of apes and monkeys also, with civet-cats and other strange creatures. But this work had only a short life, 'seeing that Pope Paul lY., choosing to make little cabinets and nooks wherein to hide himself, fairly ruined the apartment, and deprived the Palace of a very remarkable work, a thing which would not have been done by that holy man had he been gifted with taste for the arts of design. Giovanni likewise prepared the. cartoons for the hangings and arras required for various purposes, and which were afterwards woven of silk and gold in Flanders; the subjects chosen were figures of children sporting amidst festoons of flowers, whereunto are suspended the devices of Pope Leo, with the addition of various animals all copied from nature. He also made the cartoons for certain pieces of arras covered with grottesche, and which are in the first rooms of the Consistory.

While Giovanni was occupied with this work, there was a palace in process of erection for Messer Giovanni Battista deir Aquila, at the end of the Borgo Nuovo, and near the Piazza di San Pietro; for the front of this building Giovanni was commissioned to prepare decorations in stucco, and he executed the greater part of the same; a very fine work it was considered to be.^[8] This artist likewise painted the Loggia of the Yigna, which Giulio, Cardinal de’ Medici, caused to be constructed under Monte Mario, and made all the ornaments in stucco for that Loggia, wherein there are animals, grottesche, festoons, and arabesques,^[9] which are so beautiful that Giovanni may be supposed to have been desirous of surpassing himself on that occasion;^[10] the Cardinal, who highly estimated his abilities, not only conferred many benefits on the kinsmen of Giovanni, but also gave him a canonicate for himself.^[11] This benefice was situate at Civitale in Friuli, and was subsequently given by Giovanni to one of his brothers.^[12]

Having at a later period been commissioned to construct a fountain for the same Cardinal at the above-mentioned Vigna,^[13] and to make the water flow from the mouth of an elephant’s head in marble, Giovanni took for his model in all parts and for every particular the Temple of Neptune, a hall which had been discovered a short time previously, among the ancient ruins of the great palace, and which was decorated all over with stucco work, marine monsters and other products of the sea, copied from nature and executed with the utmost perfection. But in certain respects Giovanni nevertheless did far surpass this ancient hall, seeing that, to a great variety of those animals admirably well done, he added shells and other things of similar kind in vast numbers, and arranged with very great ability.

He subsequently constructed another fountain, but in the rustic manner, and having its site in the bed of a stream overhung with shrubs and plants. Here, with infinite skill and judgment, Giovanni caused the water to fall through tufa and other stones in drops and slender streams, which had all the appearance of being entirely natural. In the uppermost part of this grotto or cavern, and amidst the spungeous stones which formed it, he placed a colossal head of a Lion, around which the maidenhair and other climbing plants were so artfully trained as to form a kind of chaplet to the same, nor would it be easy to describe the grace thus imparted to that wild place, which was indeed most beautiful in every part, and inconceivably charming.

Having completed that undertaking, Giovanni received from the Cardinal the dignity of a knighthood of San Pietro, and was then sent to Florence, to the end that, having erected a certain chamber at that corner of the Medici Palace where Cosimo the elder, founder of the edifice, had made a Loggia for the assemblage and accommodation of the citizens, as it was formerly the custom of the most noble families to do, he might then paint and adorn the same with grottesche and ^stucco-work. Now the Loggia had been constructed after the designs of Michelagnolo Buonarroti, not open, but having the form of a chamber, and being furnished with two grated windows, which were the first of the kind that had been made for palaces, with the external grating of iron curving outwards that is to say. Of this Loggia, Giovanni now decorated all the vaulting with pictures and stucco-^work, exhibiting, in a circular* compartment thereof, the six balls, which are the arms of the Medici, and giving as supporters three boys in relief, the figures of which are singularly beautiful and graceful in their attitudes. Pie also represented numbers of admirably depicted animals in the same place, adding many fair devices of the Signori belonging to that illustrious house, with stories in mezzo-rilievo, made of stucco; there were besides compartments, wherein were delineated historical representations in white and black, after the mannef of cameos, and so well done that better could not possibly be imagined.

Pliere still remained four arches beneath the roof, which were not decorated with pictures at that time, but were painted many years after by the Aretine, Giorgio Vasari, who was then a youth of eighteen, and working in the service of his first lord, the Duke Alessandro de' Medici. This was in the year 1535; and Giorgio there delineated stories from the Life of Julius Caesar in allusion to the Cardinal Julius, by whom the work had been commanded, as we have said. On a small vaulting of a coved form, near the above-mentioned Loggia, Giovanni then executed certain ornaments of stucco in very low relief, with several pictures of extraordinary merit, which greatly pleased the painters who were then in Florence, as giving evidence of much boldness and singular facility, while they were full of spirited and fanciful inventions; but being themselves accustomed to a laboured manner of their own and to a servile copying of exact portraits from the life, in everything that they did, the Florentine artists were not disposed to commend them unreservedly and without restriction, they not perfectly entering into the spirit of those productions. Nor did they set themselves to imitate the same, perhaps because they had not the boldness or courage to do so.

Having returned to Rome, Giovanni painted a series of large festoons around the angles and sections of a ceiling in the Loggia of Agostino Chigi, where Rafiaello had executed and was then continuing the decorations; Giovanni there represented fruits and flowers appropriate to every season of the year, each season following in regular succession, and the foliage, fruits, and flowers, being all finished to such perfection, that every separate object seen there, appears to be detached from the walls, and is indeed most natural. The variety of kind also in those fruits, grain, &c., is so wonderful, that I will not attempt to enumerate them one by one, and will only say that every sort which has ever been produced by Nature in our part of the world may there be found represented. Among the figures are those of a Mercury in the act of flight, and of a Priapus. Over the former is a gourd enveloped in its tendrils, with pumpkins amidst their flowers, and large bunches of figs, some bursting with their ripeness, and also mingled with flowers: all these fancies being expressed with so much grace, that no one could imagine anything more perfectly done. But what more can I say?—to sum up the whole, I may safely venture to affirm. that in this sort of paintings, Giovanni da Udine has far surpassed all those who have best imitated Nature in works of a similar kind; for, to say nothing of other matters, it was the custom of our artist to depict every object, even to the flowers of the elder, the fennel, and other things, however minute, with an exactitude that is most amazing. In the lunettes, which are surrounded by the above-mentioned garlands, or festoons, are large numbers of anihials, with figures of children holding the attributes of the Gods in their hands; but more than all the rest are admired, a lion and a seahorse; these are foreshortened in a manner which is so beautiful that they are held to be all but miraculous.

The works here in question being completed, Giovanni decorated a bath-room of much beauty, in the Castello Sant’ Angelo, and performed many other less important works in the Palace of the Pope; but these, for the sake of brevity, we leave undescribed. The death of Raphael, which grieved Giovanni very much, then ensued, and Pope Leo having also departed, the Arts of Design, with every other kind of talent, were found to have no longer any place in Rome; and Giovanni da Udine employed himself for many months in painting certain matters of little moment, for the Yigna of the above-named Cardinal de’ Medici. On the arrival of Pope Adrian in Rome, Giovanni did but prepare the small flags for the Castle, and these he had twice renewed during the pontificate of Leo X., together with the great Standard which floats on the summit of the highest tower.

It is true that Giovanni painted four square banners, when the said Pope Adrian canonized Sant’ Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, with St. Hubert, who had been Bishop of I know not what city in Flanders: and of these banners, one, on which is the figure of the above-named Sant’ Antonino, was given to the Church of San Marco, in Florence, where the body of that Saint is deposited: another of the banners, bearing the figure of St. Hubert, was placed in the Church of Santa Maria dell’ Anima, which is the Church of the Germans in Rome, while the remaining two were sent into Flanders.

But when Clement YII. was created High Pontiff, Giovanni, who had at that time left Rome to avoid the pestilence then raging there, and had gone to Udine, returned instantly to the former city, having been much employed in the service of that Pope, at an earlier period. He was at once appointed to prepare a rich and beautiful ornament, which was to be erected over the steps of San Pietro, for the ceremony of the Coronation of Clement, and it was subsequently commanded that he and Perino del Vaga should paint certain pictures in the vaulted ceiling of the Old Hall; that, namely, which stands opposite to those lower rooms previously decorated by Griovanni, as we have said, and which lead from the Loggia to the rooms of the Torre Borgia. Our artist now therefore, made a beautiful series of divisions in stucco work, with numerous grottesche, and animals of various kinds; while Perino painted the seven planets within the square compartments, formed by those works in stucco.^[14]

The same two artists were also commissioned to paint the walls of that Hall, wherein Griotto, according to that which has been written by Platina, in the Lives of the Pontiffs, did long ago paint figures of certain Popes, who had been put to death for the faith of Christ, and for which cause, that room was once called the Hall of the Martyrs; but scarcely had they completed the ceiling, before that most unhappy sack of Rome took place, and the work could proceed no further; seeing that Giovanni, who had suffered greatly, both in his person and property, had again retired to Udine, with the intention of making a long stay there.

His purpose in that matter was nevertheless interrupted, since Pope Clement VII. having returned to Pome from Bologna, after he had there crowned the Emperor Charles V. caused Giovanni to return thither also; he then made him paint anew the Standards of the Castello Sant’ Angelo, and afterwards commanded him to decorate the ceiling of the great Chapel of San Pietro, which is the principal one in that Church, and where the Altar of the Saint is erected.^[15] Meanwhile, Fra Marino, who held the office of the leaden seal, being dead, that office was given to Sebastiano Veneziano, a painter of great, name; but a pension of eighty ducats on the same was assigned to Giovanni da Udine,^[16] and the troubles of the Pontiff having in a great measure ceased, while the affairs of Pome were also brought into a state of repose, Griovanni was despatched by His Holiness, with many promises of favour, to Florence, there to execute the decorations for the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, which had been adorned with the admirable sculptures of Michelagnolo, and the tribune of which is covered with deeply sunken squares, diminishing as they approach the central point.

Giovanni put hand to the work accordingly, and completed it to admiration, with the aid of his numerous assistants, adorning the same with rosettes, foliage, and other ornaments in stucco and gold. But in one respect he betrayed a defect of judgment; in the plane or level bordering which forms the ribs of the vaulting namely, and in those which cross the same, and serve to enclose the squares, he painted birds, foliage, masks, and figures of various kinds, which are indeed exceedingly beautiful in themselves, but which, being painted on grounds of different colours, are not to be clearly distinguished from below, by reason of the distance, whereas if he had simply coloured the figures themselves on a plain ground, and without any other addition, they could have been seen, and the whole work would have produced a more cheerful and pleasing effect.^[17]

There now remained to complete only so much of this undertaking as might have been effected in about fifteen days, with some retouching in certain parts—when the news of Pope Clement’s death reached Giovanni, who thereupon lost all hope; more particularly in relation to the reward which he was expecting for the work in question. He then perceived, although too late, that the trust of those who put their faith in Courts is too frequently betrayed, and was compelled to acknowledge the constant liability to disappointment of those whose hopes are built on the lives of princes.

Giovanni then returned to Pome, and there indeed he might have lived on the revenues of his offices and other sources of income; he might also have entered the service of the new Pontiff Paul III., or that of the Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, but he determined to reinstate himself in his native place of Udine, and repaired thither accordingly. Here he proposed to live with that brother of his to whom he had given the Canonicate, intending to use his pencils no more: but in that matter also he was compelled to a change of plans, seeing that having taken a wife and become the father of a family, he was in a manner forced, by that instinct which impels a man to desire the future welfare of his children, as well as to feel anxious that they shall be fittingly brought up in his own lifetime, he was compelled, I say, once more to recommence his labours.

He then, at the request of the father of the Cavalier Giovan-Francesco di Spilimbergo, adorned the walls of a room with figures of children, garlands, and other fantasies; after which he decorated the Chapel of Santa Maria di Civitale, with admirable stucco-work and paintings; and for the canons of the Cathedral in that place, he painted two exceedingly beautiful standards. For the Fraternity of Santa Maria di Castello in Udine, Giovanni likewise painted a figure of Our Lady with the Divine Child in her arms, on a rich Gonfalon or Banner; beside the Virgin is a most graceful Angel, who offers to her the above-named Castello, which is on an eminence in the centre of the city.^[18]

In Venice also this artist executed certain works, among which may be particularized a chamber most beautifully adorned with stucco-work and paintings, in the Palace of Monsignore Grimani, the Patriarch of Aquilea. In this room there are besides some admirable stories in small figures from the hand of Francesco Salviati.^[19]

Finally, in the year 1550, our artist, having gone on a pilgrimage to Rome for the most holy Jubilee, travelling on foot, meanly clothed, and in the company of the poorer sort of pilgrims, thus remained in the city several days without being known to any one; but one morning, as he was going to San Paalo, he was recognized by Giorgio Vasari, then proceeding to the same Pardoning, in a coach, with Messer Bindo Altoviti, who was his intimate friend. Giovanni at first denied that he was himself, but being at length compelled to admit his identity and confess the truth, he then sutFered his case to be known, and allowed that he had great need of Giorgio’s assistance with the Pontiff in the matter of his pension, which was withheld from him by a certain Fra Guglielmo, a sculptor of Genoa,^[20] who had succeeded to the leaden seal after the death of Fra Bastiano.

Giorgio mentioned the affair to His Holiness accordingly, when the order for Giovanni to receive his pension was renewed, and subsequently an attempt was made to exchange the same for a canonicate, to be Conferred on a son of Giovanni.^[21] Meanwhile the pension was again withheld by that Fra Guglielmo, and Giovanni repaired from Udine to Florence, just when Pope Pius was elected to the papal chair, hoping that he might there be favoured by His Excellency whose intervention with the Pontiff he expected to obtain by means of Vasari. Having reached Florence therefore, he was made known to the Duke by Vasari, and was permitted to accompany his most Illustrious Excellency to Siena; nay, from that last-mentioned city he went with that Signore to Pome also, whither repaired at the same time the Signora Duchess Leonora. In Rome Giovanni da Udine was so powerfully aided by the Duke, that he was comforted by the obtaining of all that he desired; nay, was furthermore commissioned by the Pope to give the ultimate completion to the last of the Loggie; that namely which is over the one formerly constructed by Pope Leo: he received very handsome appointments while thus employed, and when that work was finished he was commanded by the same Pontiff to retouch all the pictures of the last-mentioned Loggia.

But this was an error, and a very ill-considered thing, seeing that the retouching of those paintings a secco caused them to lose all those masterly touches effected by the pencil of Giovanni, when he had been in all the excellence of his best days, and deprived them of that freshness and delicacy which had rendered the work in the first instance so perfectly beautiful.^[22]

Having completed these labours, and being now in his seventieth^[23] year, Giovanni finished the course of his life also: he died in the year 1564, rendering up his soul to God in that most noble city which had for so many years furnished him with the means of living in honour and with so great a name. Giovanni was always, but more especially towards the close of his life, a man who feared God, and was a good Christian. In his youth he had permitted himself few pleasures, those of hunting and fowling excepted, and while still young it was his custom to repair, on all festival days, with a servant of his, to the chase, sometimes going across the country to a distance of ten miles from Rome: he was, indeed, so successful in shooting with the short gun, or the cross-bow, that he seldom returned home without havins: first laden his servant with wild-ducks, pigeons, and every other kind of animal to be found in those marshy places. Giovanni was indeed the inventor, as it is said, of the screen formed of a figure of an ox painted on canvas, and behind which the sportsman can fire his piece without being discovered by the object aimed at: his love of fowling and of the chase caused him also to delight in dogs, many of which he reared himself.

This artist, who merits to be extolled among the greatest of his vocation, desired to be buried in the Ritondo, near his master Ratfaello da Urbino, that he might not be divided in death from him whom his spirit never willingly abandoned in life; and since both of these masters were excellent Christians, as we have said, so we may believe that they are now met together in eternal blessedness.^[24]

1. Giovanni da Udine left a Journal in his native city, written with his own hand, and from which it appears that he was born on the 27th of Oct. 1487. The memoranda of this work bear high testimony to the general accuracy of Vasari, since, with the exception of certain dates, the relation of our author is in strict accordance with the facts as set forth in the Journal of Giovanni.
2. Certain details respecting this master will be found by such of our readers as may desire them, in the work of Count Fabio Maniago, published at Udine, Storia delle Belle Arti Friulane, pp. 364, et seq.
3. See the Life of Raphael, vol. iii. p. 33, et seq. See also the Life of Francia, vol. ii. p. 303, et seq.
4. Certain parts of these works were engraved on copper, and published with explanations in the Picturae Antiquae Romae, Rome, 1751.
5. And these remains are accordingly now reduced to a deplorable condition, much having been totally destroyed by the humidity of the place.—Bottari.
6. The grottesche and stucco works in the Colosseum and the Baths of Dioclesian have now totally perished.—Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
7. The arabesques and stucco work of the Loggie have now suffered greatly: they have been engraved by Santi Bartoli, as well as by Volpato and Ottaviani.—Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
8. These stuccoes have perished.— Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
9. The principal ditference between the arabesques and the grottesche, as our readers will probably remember, is that the latter added figures to its various fantasies.
10. Bottari laments, and with reason, that these works, as well as all beside in “in that delicious abode,” have suffered grievous injury.
11. Hear! hear!
12. It were to be desired that this second consignee of the Benefice had at least been a churchman, but we have not been able to give our readers the satisfaction of knowing that it was so; on the contrary, the said recipient of clerical dignities is described as simply “Paolo Ricamatori,” without any of the additions which denote the ecclesiastic. He is recorded as having ‘‘been named Canon in 1522, and died in 1576.”
13. This vigna, or country house, is now called the Villa Madama.
14. These stuccoes and paintings have all perished.
15. The Chapel having been rebuilt, this work also has been destroyed.
16. In the Journal of Giovanni he has himself made mention of this precise sum as the pension assigned to him. See Maniago, Storia delle Belle Arti Friulane.
17. The whole of these works have long been covered with whitewash. — Ed. Flor., 1832-8.
18. These works of Giovanni da Udine have long been lost,” observes Maniago, ut supra, but there is an erudite letter written by the Abbot Mauro Boni, on the above-named Gonfalon, and which was published at Udine in 1797.
19. These works still exist.
20. Guglielmo della Porta, who succeeded Sebastiano Veneziano, as Frate del Piombo, was not a Genoese, but a native of Milan. It is, however, true, that he studied at Genoa under Perino del Vaga.
21. This youth, called Raffaello, proved to be a dissipated and worthless man, who was the source of perpetual sorrow to his father. See Maniago, Storia, &c., p. 368.
22. Bottari observes very justly in respect to this fact, that if Giovanni succeeded so ill in the re-touching of his own pictures, although an excellent master in his particular walk, we have the less reason to be surprised that the many obscure and incapable persons who have been suffered to retouch the works of able masters should have produced the mischief so frequently lamented.
23. The Journal of Giovanni before alluded to shows him to have lived to the age of seventy-seven. See Maniago, Storia delle Belle Arti Friulane, as before cited.
24. In the year 1822, a discourse in eulogy of Giovanni da Udine was pronounced by the Professor Francesco Maria Franceschini, at the Academy of the Fine Arts in Venice. This act of homage took place on the pccasion of a distribution of prizes by that Academy.—Ed. Flor., 1832-8.