And now, had Fate permitted that Palma should have departed this life on the completion of that work, he alone would have borne off the crown, and have retained the reputation of having surpassed all those whom we now celebrate as our greatest and most divine masters; but the further duration of his life giving occasion to other productions, became to him the cause of deterioration, since, not maintaining himself at the point to which he had attained, all that he had previously acquired gradually diminished, and he sank from the position which he had, on the contrary, been confidently expected even further to improve and exalt. Finally, being satisfied with the fact that one or two wellexecuted works partly exonerated him from the censures which others had brought on his name,[1] Jacopo Palma died at Venice, in the forty-eighth year of his age.[2]
A friend and companion of Palma was the Venetian painter Lorenzo Lotto,[3] who had imitated the manner of the Bellini for a time, and had afterwards attached himself to the manner of Giorgione, as may be seen from the numerous pictures and portraits by his hand in the houses of the Venetian gentry. In the house of Andrea Odoni is a portrait of the latter by Lorenzo, a very beautiful thing; and in the house of the Florentine Tommaso da Empoli there is the Birth of Christ, the time chosen being night, which is a work of admirable beauty. In this picture is particularly to be remarked, that the splendour of Christ is made to illuminate the whole in a very fine manner. The Madonna is kneeling;
- ↑ The examination given by Vasari to the numerous works of Palma Vecchio, does not appear to have been more than a cursory one. The Venetian Academy, Vicenza, Dresden, Vienna, and other places, afford specimens which cannot here find further mention. That in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge will be in the recollection of most of our readers.
- ↑ Authors are not entirely agreed as to the exact date of our author’s birth and death. See Calvi, Efemeridi, and Zanotto, ut supra; see also Ticozzi, Vite de Pittori Vecelli. See also Zani, who differs greatly from those previously mentioned, and places Palma Vecchio’s works between the years 1491 and 1516.
- ↑ Beltramelli, Noiizie, &c., as cited by Lanzi, affirms the truth of our author’s assertion, that Lorenzo Lotto was a Venetian; other writers consider him to belong to Bergamo. Moschini believes that there were two painters of the same name.
that there is a picture at Munich (in the Pinacothek) under the name of Giorgione, which agrees at all points with the description here given.
