Giorgio Vasari

“ That Giant is known by the trident that he has in the hand, by the crown of pine, and by the Tritons that are at his feet, sounding their trumpets, to be Neptune, God of the sea; and, riding in a graceful car adorned with various products of the sea and two ascendant Signs, Capricorn for the Duke and Aries for the Prince, and drawn by four Sea-horses, he appears in the guise of a benign protector to be promising tranquillity, felicity, and victory in the affairs of the sea. ”

“ This whole work was carried to perfection with the greatest possible study and diligence, and set up in the above-named place as a worthy companion to the Judith by the hand of Donato, that famous and celebrated sculptor. And certainly it was a marvel that Benvenuto, after being occupied for so many years in making little figures, executed so great a statue with such excellence. The same master has made a Crucifix of marble, in the round and large as life, which of its kind is the rarest and most beautiful piece of sculpture that there is to be seen. ”

“ The Duke has also caused the same Valerio to make a nude statue of the dwarf Morgante in marble, which has proved so beautiful and so like the reality, that probably there has never been seen another monster so well wrought, nor one executed with such diligence, lifelike and faithful to nature. In like manner, he has caused him to execute the statue of Pietro, called Barbino, a gifted dwarf, well-lettered and a very gentle spirit, and a favourite of our Duke. ”

“ In the landscape, all darkened by that gloom, some rocky mountains, shaken by the earthquake that was caused by the Passion of the Saviour, are seen shivered into pieces, and certain dead bodies of Saints are seen rising again and issuing from their sepulchres in various manners; which picture, when finished, was not displeasing to the gracious judgment of the greatest painter, sculptor, and architect that there has been in our times, and perchance in the past. ”

“ At the corner which from the straw that is constantly sold there is called the Canto alla Paglia, there was made another arch of great beauty and not less rich and imposing than any of the others. Now it may perchance appear to some, for the reason that all or the greater part of those ornaments have been extolled by us as in the highest rank of beauty and excellence of artistry, pomp, and richness, that this has been done by reason of a certain manner of writing inclined to overmuch praise and exaggeration. ”

“ And all, as followers and handmaidens of Venus, being grouped around the car on the same cloud with singular artistry and most beautiful composition, were seen—leaving behind them Jove, Juno, Saturn, Mars, Mercury, and the other Gods, from whom appeared to be issuing the soft harmony described above—to sink gradually with most beautiful grace towards the earth, and by their coming to fill the scene and the whole hall with a thousand sweet and precious odours ”

“ The Lord Duke, having seen from these and other works the excellence of this painter, and that it was his particular and peculiar field to portray from life with the greatest diligence that could be imagined, caused him to paint a portrait of himself, at that time a young man, fully clad in bright armour, and with one hand upon his helmet; in another picture the Lady Duchess, his consort, and in yet another picture the Lord Don Francesco, their son and Prince of Florence. ”

“ For the time being, however, I did nothing but the ceiling of the hall, which is passing rich in woodwork, with thirteen large pictures wherein are the Celestial Gods, and in four angles the four Seasons of the year nude, who are gazing at a great picture that is in the centre, in which, with figures the size of life, is Excellence, who has Envy under her feet and has seized Fortune by the hair, and is beating both the one and the other ”

“ In short, all the architecture and ornamentation of that garden are the work of Francesco, who by the richness of the various fountains has made it such, that it has no equal in Florence, and perhaps not in Italy. And the principal fountain, which is even now being carried to completion, will be the richest and most sumptuous to be seen in any place, with its wealth of the richest and finest ornaments that can be imagined, and the great abundance of waters that will be there, flowing without fail at every season. ”

“ I have written as a painter and with the best order and method that I have been able, and, as for language, in that which I speak, whether it be Florentine or Tuscan, and in the most easy and facile manner at my command, leaving the long and ornate periods, choice words, and other ornaments of learned speech and writing, to such as have not, as I have, a hand rather for brushes than for the pen, and a head rather for designs than for writing. ”

“ Nor was it long before by his means M. Lorenzo Gamurrini gave me an altar-picture to execute, for which Rosso made me the design; and I then painted it with all the study, labour, and diligence that were possible to me, in order to learn and to acquire something of a name. And if my powers had equalled my good will, I would have soon become a passing good painter, so much I studied and laboured at the things of art ”

“ And the works that he has done by himself alone in the obsequies of Michelagnolo, in the nuptials of the most illustrious Lord Prince, and at other times for various friends, in which he has shown intelligence, boldness, diligence, grace, and good judgment, have made him known as a gifted youth and an able painter; but even more will those make him known that may be expected from him in the future, doing as much honour to his country as has been done to her by any painter at any time. ”

“ And so, while carrying forward in Arezzo the above-named altar-picture and the façade of S. Rocco, with the ornament, I was making preparations to go to Rome, when by means of M. Giovanni Pollastra—and by the will of God, to whom I have always commended myself, and to whom I attribute and have always attributed my every blessing—I was invited to Camaldoli, the centre of the Camaldolese Congregation, by the fathers of that hermitage, to see that which they were designing to have done in their church. ”

“ And having arrived in Florence, he painted as it were by way of pastime, for Messer Giovanni de Statis, Auditor to Duke Alessandro, a little picture of Our Lady which was a much extolled work, and shortly afterwards, for Monsignor Giovio, his friend, the portrait of Andrea Doria; and for Bartolommeo Bettini, to fill certain lunettes in a chamber, the portraits of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio, half-length figures of great beauty. ”

“ There the four arches rose to the height of those without, and the pendentives curved in the manner of a vault as if a little cupola were to spring over them; but when these had reached the cornice curving right round, at the point where the vault of the cupola would have had to begin to rise, there sprang a gallery of gilded balusters, above which was seen a choir of most beautiful Angels, dancing most gracefully in a ring and singing in sweetest harmony ”

“ But the most notable thing is a figure that he has made and placed over the centre of that fountain, a Neptune of six braccia, which is a most beautiful casting and a statue studied and wrought to perfection. The same master—not to speak at present of all the works that he has executed in clay, terracotta, wax, and other mixtures—has made a very beautiful Venus in marble, and has carried almost to completion for the Lord Prince a Samson large as life, who is combating on foot with two Philistines. ”

“ After Giovan Battista Cavalcanti had caused a chapel to be built in S. Spirito, at Florence, with most beautiful variegated marbles conveyed from beyond the sea at very great cost, and had laid there the remains of his father Tommaso, he had the head and bust of the father executed by Fra Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli, and the altar-piece Bronzino painted, depicting in it Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener, and more distant two other Maries, all figures executed with incredible diligence. ”

“ Opposite to this, placed on the left hand, and perhaps not less peculiar to the Florentine genius than the last-named, was seen the statue of Design, the father of painting, sculpture, and architecture, who, if not born in Florence, as may be seen in the past writings, may be said to have been born again there, and nourished and grown as in his own nest. ”

“ For the nuptials of Queen Joanna of Austria, wife of that Prince, he painted in three large canvases which were placed at the Ponte alla Carraia, as will be described at the end, some scenes of the Nuptials of Hymen, of such beauty that they appeared not things for a festival, but worthy to be set in some honourable place for ever, so finished they were and executed with such diligence. For the same Lord Prince he painted a few months ago a small picture with little figures which has no equal, and it may be said that it is truly a miniature. ”

“ Besides this, every evening the noble youth of the city exercised themselves with most elegant dexterity and valour, according to their custom, at the game of football, the peculiar and particular sport of that people, with which finally there was given on one of those Sundays one of the most agreeable and most graceful spectacles that anyone could ever behold, in very rich costumes of cloth of gold in red and green colours, with all the rules, which are many and beautiful. ”

“ The beautiful Adonis, as her dearest lover, was seen walking first before the car, in the gracious habit of a huntsman, and with him appeared as his companions two charming little Loves, with painted wings and with bows and arrows. These were followed by the marital Hymeneus, young and beautiful, with the customary garland of marjoram, and in his hand the lighted torch; and by Thalassius with the spear and shield, and the little basket full of wool. ”

“ But to return to the space of the façade which, turning from the straight, was supported against the Palazzo degli Spini. In it was seen, painted in chiaroscuro, a Nymph all unadorned and little less than nude, placed between many new kinds of animals, who stood for the new land of Peru, with the other new West Indies, discovered and ruled for the most part under the auspices of the most fortunate House of Austria. ”

“ Of these poets, in the most honourable place were seen the profound Dante, the gracious Petrarca, and the fecund Boccaccio, who with smiling aspect appeared to be promising to the incoming Lady, since a subject so noble had not fallen to them, to infuse in the intellects of Florence such virtue that they would be able to sing worthily of her; to which with the exemplar of their writings, if only there may be found one able to imitate them, they have opened a broad and easy way. ”

“ Wherefore Benvenuto, after the death of Clement, having returned to Florence, likewise made dies with the head of Duke Alessandro for the coins of the Mint of Florence, so beautiful and wrought with such diligence, that some of them are now preserved as if they were most beautiful antique medals, and that rightly, for the reason that in these he surpassed himself. Having finally given himself to sculpture and to the work of casting, Benvenuto executed in France many works in bronze, silver, and gold, while he was in the service of King Francis in that kingdom. ”

“ Berni, also, the inventor and father (and excellent father) of Tuscan burlesque poetry, with Burchiello, with Antonio Alamanni, and with Unico Accolti (who were standing apart) , appeared to be showing no less joy than any of the others; while Arno, leaning in his usual manner on his Lion, with two children that were crowning him with laurel, and Mugnone, known by the Nymph that stood over him crowned with stars, with the moon on her brow, in allusion to the daughters of Atlas, and representing Fiesole, appeared likewise to be expressing the same gladness and contentment. ”

“ Battista has painted in an altar-picture in oils that is in a chapel of the Black Friars' Abbey of Florence, a Christ [Pg 15] who is bearing the Cross, in which work are many good figures; and he has other works constantly in hand, which will make him known as an able man.
Not inferior to any of these named above in talent, art, and merit, is Maso Manzuoli, called Maso da San Friano, a young man of about thirty or thirty-two years, who had his first principles from Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, one of our Academicians, of whom we have spoken in another place. ”

“ A beautiful genius, also, universal and abundant in fine fantasies, has been shown by Bernardo Timante Buontalenti, who had his first principles of painting in his youth from Vasari, and then, continuing, has made so much proficiency that he has now served for many years, and still serves with much favour, the most illustrious Lord Don Francesco de' Medici, Prince of Florence. ”