these brothers, in the cathedral of Faenza, for Messer Giovanni Battista, Cavaliere de’ Buosi; the subject is Christ Disputing with the Doctors in the Temple, and in this work they greatly surpassed their previous labours by the adoption of a new manner; more especially in respect of the portrait of that cavalier and those of others, which are also delineated in the painting. The picture was appended in the cathedral above-named in the year 1536.[1]
Having ultimately attained to considerable age, Dosso Dossi passed the latter part of his life without labour, having received a pension, which was paid to him till the end of his days, from the Duke Alfonso;[2] his brother Battista survived him, and executed numerous works, after having been thus left alone, maintaining himself in a condition of much comfort.[3] Dosso was interred in his native city of Ferrara.
At the same period was flourishing the Milanese Bernazzone, who was most excellent in the painting of landscapes, foliage, animals, birds, fishes, and other objects of external nature; but who did not attempt to work much in figures, as knowing that he was but imperfectly competent to do so; he therefore associated himself with Cesare da Sesto, by whom the same were executed with great ability and in a very fine manner.[4] It is said, that Bernazzone painted some very beautiful landscapes in fresco around a certain court, and that the natural objects therein represented were copied most exactly, insomuch that a strawberry bed with its fruit, some ripe, others green and partly in flower, being there depicted among other things, was so frequently pecked at by some peacocks which were in the court, as to be at length entirely worn away and destroyed.
- ↑ There is now only a copy of this work in the Cathedral of Faenza.
- ↑ Dosso Dossi might well have claimed a more extended and less unfavourable mention from our author, but the latter has in part made amends for whatever injustice he may have unintentionally committed in the life of Girolamo da Carpi. See also Lanzi, History of Painting, vol. iii., p. 196, et seq.
- ↑ Lanzi affirms that Dosso survived Battista, the latter having died, according to the above-named authority, in 1545, the former living vmtil 1560.
- ↑ In the possession of the Scotti Galanti family of Milan there is an admirable work by Cesare da Sesto, it exhibits the Baptism of Jesus Christ depicted in a most beautiful landscape, the latter painted by Bernazzone; this is the picture described by Lomazzo, Trattato, p. 118.
