fame' and honour by the exercise of rare gifts and abilities, shall follow in the path thus prepared for him; for he has but to pursue the trace of the master in some slight degree, by doing which he almost always attains to an honourable position; while, if he had attempted to obtain that eminence by his own unassisted efforts, a much longer time and more laborious pains would, or might have been required to ensure success. The truth of this remark is fully exemplified in the case of Pisano, or Pisanello, a painter of Verona, who, having studied in Florence with Andrea dal Castagno, during many years, and having completed the works of that master, after his death, acquired so much reputation by means of Andrea’s name, that Pope Martin V., coming to Florence, took the Veronese artist with him to Kome.* There he caused Pisano to paint certain stories in fresco in San Giovanni Laterano; these are exceedingly pleasing and beautiful, from the circumstance of his having used a sort of ultra-marine blue, given to him by the Pope, in the richest abundance, and which is of a colour so full, so deep, and of so exquisite a tint, that none has ever been found to equal it. In competition with Vittore Pisano, Gentile da Fabriano likewise painted certain other stories beneath those abovementioned. and of these Platina makes mention in his Life of Pope Martin. He relates that the pontiff caused the flooring, ceiling, and roof of San Giovanni Laterano to be restored, which being done, Gentile da Fabriano then executed various paintings therein; among the rest, certain figures of Prophets in chiaro-scuro; they are between the windows, and are considered to be the best pictures in the whole work.f Gentile da Fabriano executed numerous
- Here, as indeed in the greater part of this life, there appears to be a
singular confusion of dates. Pope Martin having died in 1431, when Andrea dal Castagno himself was but a youth. Pisano and Fabriano also must both have died before Andrea Castagno; the whole series of dates in this life is indeed more than usiially inaccurate: for their rectification, and for various details respecting the two artists, the reader is referred to Matfei, Verona IllvMrata, and to Ricci, Memorie Storiche delle Arti e degli Artisti della Marcadi Ancona. Macerata, 1834. t Facius, De Viris Illustribus, affirms that Pisanello finished the stories of San Giovanni Batista, left incomplete by Gentile da Fabriano, but which were afterwards as Pisanello himself informed him, almost effaced by the humidity of the wall. No vestige of the work now remains.
