the fourth generation; nay, in some of the most noble houses they go still farther back, a custom which is certainly most praiseworthy, and was in use even among the ancients.[1] For who does not feel infinite contentment, to say nothing of the beauty and ornament resulting from them, at sight of the effigies of his ancestors, more particularly if they have been distinguished for their deeds in war or by their works in peace, or have rendered themselves illustrious by learning or other signal qualities and remarkable virtues, or by the part they have taken in the government of the state? And to what other purpose, as has been remarked in another place, did the ancients place the statues of their great men, with honourable inscriptions, in the public places, if not to the end that they might awaken the love of glory and excellence in those who were to come after?[2]
Among the portraits executed by Griovanni Bellini was that of a lady[3] beloved by Messer Pietro Bembo, before the latter went to Rome to Pope Leo X.; and whom he portrayed with so much truth and animation, that as Simon of Siena was celebrated by the first Petrarch the Florentine, so was Griovanni by this second Petrarch the Venetian, as may be seen in the sonnet,
“O imagine mia celeste e pura.”
Wherein he says, in the commencement of the second quatrain,
Credo che 'l mio Bellin con la figura.”
with that which follows. And what greater reward could our artists desire for their labours than that of seeing themselves celebrated by the pens of illustrious poets, as the most excellent Titian, also, has been by the learned Messer Giovanni della Casa, in that sonnet which begins—
“Ben veggo io Tiziano, in forme nuove.”
- ↑ Dr. Waagen mentions a picture, now in the Berlin Gallery, in which are the portraits of Gentile Bellini and of Giovanni his brother, painted by the former. Seethe Catalogue (German) for 1841.
- ↑ An Italian commentator asks, “wherefore do artists not take the precaution of writing on the portraits they execute the name of the person represented, since likenesses, however striking their merit as works of art, lose all their moral value, when the spectator does not know whom they present.”
- ↑ The fate of this work is not known.
