Antonello da Messina

“ Bartolommeo had never been very successful in his dealing with oil-painting, though he had dabbled in it for some years before Antonello da Messina came his way, but the perception with which the Bellini at once grasped the new technique gave them the victory. We have only to compare the formless contours of much of Bartolommeo Vivarini’s work, the bladder-like flesh-painting of the Holy Child, with the clear luminous colour and firm delicate touch of Gentile, to see that the one man is leagues ahead of the other. ”

“ Van Eyck introduces the three-quarter face view, which represents an improvement in the rendering of form. Mantegna and Antonello da Messina portray with great firmness, and to Uccello is ascribed an interesting series of heads of his contemporaries. It is Gentile and Giovanni Bellini however who may be regarded as the fathers of modern portrait painting. Venetian art was always more secular in spirit than that of the rest of Italy, and Venetian portraits were abundant. ”

“ Owing to the taste of the times, he did not arrive at that perfection of design founded on the antique, which his disciple Antonello da Messina attained; an artist, as I understand, well known amongst you. The style of Colantonio was founded on the Flemish, and the colouring of that country, to which he was so much attached, that he had intended to go thither, but the King Raniero retained him here, satisfied with showing him the practice and mode of such colouring. ”

“ Later pieces such as the triptych of 1487 at the Frari reveal a heavy-handed imitation of Mantegna, and any little originality of the master soon gets lost in the voluminous output of the shop. Bartolommeo died in the last year of his century, whose fair average he had well represented. His nephew Alvise Vivarini deserves 364notice as the transmitter of the realism of Antonello da Messina to such artists as Montagna, Cima, and Lorenzo Lotto. As a portraitist he has real power. His great altar-pieces have their bleak and unattractive nobility. ”

“ In the dark all cats are grey, and all women beautiful. But I think the countenance of this one had no need to fear the dawn.
CHAPTER XXVI
Amongst all her costly possessions in the Casa Caprona, there had once been none so loved, so treasured, so often consulted by Beatrice as a certain portrait of the little Parablist of San Zeno, which she had bought straight from the studio of its limner, Messer Antonello da Messina, at that time temporarily sojourning in Milan. This was the artist, pupil of Jan Van Eyck, who had been the first to introduce oil-painting into Italy ”

“ The history of the art in Messina enumerates a series of pictures from the year 1267, of which period is the S. Placido of the cathedral, painted by an Antonio d'Antonio. It is supposed that this is a family of painters, which had the surname of Antonj, and that many pictures in S. Francesco, S. Anna, and elsewhere, are by different Antonj, until we come to Salvatore di Antonio, father of the celebrated Antonello di Messina, and himself a master; and there remains by him a S. Francis in the act of receiving the Stigmata, in the church of his name. ”

“ Antonello left Flanders to revisit his native land, and to make Italy partake in the advantages of a secret so useful, beautiful, and valuable. After having remained some few months in Messina, he repaired to Venice, where, being much addicted to the pleasures of life, a man, indeed, of very licentious habits, he resolved to fix his residence, and there finish his life, having found in that city a mode of existence exactly suited to his taste. Resuming his labours, he executed many paintings in oil, according to the method which he had learned in Flanders ”

“ Now it is certain that those men are grossly deceived who, even though they are niggardly and avaricious respecting things that cost them nothing, yet believe that every one must be willing to do them service for the sake of their high deserts: the courtesies of Domenico Veneziano enticed from Antonello the secret which he, with so many labours and pains, had procured for himself, and which he would most probably not have made over to any other, even for a large sum of money. ”

“ When I pass in review the hundreds of survivors I have seen and talked with in Rome, Syracuse, Palermo, finally in Messina itself, I see clearest of all the face of Rosina, the ancient woman; I hear her shriek of woe:
“Messina non esiste più!{39}”
II
THE STRAITS OF DEATH
Wednesday, December 30th, the King and Queen of Italy sailed through the straits and into the harbor of Messina. As their ship, the “Vittorio Emanuele,” approached the Faro, the gunners of the Russian cruisers, the English men-of-war, and the Italian battleships began to fire the royal salute. ”

“ The dangers which were supposed to beset mariners in their passage through the narrow strait which divides it from Italy, on one side of which was Sylla, and on the other Charybdis, sufficiently point out the ignorance and inexperience of the ancients in the construction and management of their ships.
The principal town on the eastern coast of Sicily, opposite Greece, was Messana, now called Messina: it was the first which the Romans possessed in the island: it was one of the most wealthy and powerful cities in ancient Sicily. ”

“ Messina (78) , on a bay at the NE. corner of Sicily; is a very ancient city, but rebuilt after the earthquake of 1783; has a 12th-century cathedral, two old castles, and a university, founded 1549; it manufactures light textiles, coral ornaments, and fruit essences; its excellent harbour encourages a good trade.
Messina, Strait of, 24 m. long, and at its narrowest 21⁄2 broad; separates Sicily from the Italian mainland; here were the Scylla and Charybdis of the ancients. ”

“ Never mind, we shall soon be at Messina. And now we approach a point from which the lofty Calabrian coast opposite, and the flinty wall of the formidable Scylla, first present themselves, but still as distant objects. In another half hour we are just opposite the redoubtable rock; and here we turn abruptly at right angles to our hitherto course, and find ourselves within the straits, from either side of which the English and the French so often tried the effect of cannon upon each other. ”

“ The victorious fleet then returned to Messina with the released princess and the captive prince. Never had there been seen such rejoicings in Messina as greeted the admiral on his return. The Queen and her sons went on board the galley to receive their long-imprisoned relation. It was a most affecting scene. The two sisters embraced each other, weeping for joy mingled with sorrow. Since they had seen each other their father Manfred and their cousin Conradin had been killed; their mother and all the rest of their family had died in prison. ”

“ They come because they believe that the streets of London are paved with gold, but too many of them find our streets guttered by the tears of foreign waiters who have failed to find work. You had much better stay where you are like a good boy, and I will come to Messina and see you next autumn.
Then a basket arrived containing the prickly pears in a state of pulp, exuding juice from every pore because he had not attempted to pack them, and accompanied by a card wishing me a Merry Christmas.
Early in the morning of the 28th December, 1908, Messina was destroyed by an earthquake. ”

“ The senate was suppressed, and Messina lost its privileges. This was fatal to the importance of the city. In 1743 the plague carried off 40,000 inhabitants. The city was partially destroyed by earthquake in 1783. During the revolution of 1848 against the Bourbons of Naples, Messina was bombarded for three consecutive days. In 1854 the deaths from cholera numbered about 15,000. Garibaldi landed in Sicily in 1860, and Messina was the last city in the island taken from the Bourbons and made a part of united Italy under Victor Emmanuel. ”

“ Messina is beautifully land-locked. The only possible winds that can affect its port are the north-west and south-east. In summer it is said to enjoy more sea breeze than any other place on the Mediterranean. Our Greek friend, however, says that Constantinople is in this respect not only superior to Messina, but to any other place in the seas of Europe. Pity that the fellows are Turks! We did not find much to interest us within the walls of Messina. There was, to be sure, a fine collection of Sicilian birds, amongst which we were surprised to see several of very exotic shape and plumage. ”

“ This they know, but they do not know the state of mind and body to which those men were reduced. It was better that they fled, for they were not fit to hold positions of responsibility; few of us were; we were too much broken. No one who has not seen Messina, who has not known the survivors, can understand; it was not like a battle, where men go in prepared for death, it was quite another thing!{54}”
While the King was at Messina martial law was proclaimed. General Mazza, who was at home on sick leave, left his bed and hurried to Messina to take command of the troops. ”

“ Messina boasted of Anna Maria Ardoino, the daughter of the Princess de Polizzi, accomplished in every branch, including music and poetry, who won great celebrity on account of her splendid attainments in art and literature, and was admitted a member of the Academy of Arcadia in Rome. She died in 1700, at Naples, in the bloom of her life and fame, and it is said her death was occasioned by grief for the loss of a son.
The two schools of Bologna and Naples may be said to embrace the greater number of the prominent productions of the pencil in Italy during the period of which we have spoken. ”

“ At noon we anchored in the finely sheltered harbour, the finest, indeed, in the Mediterranean. The commerce and shipping of Messina are most extensive, and make her quite cosmopolitan. The city undulates with a gentle rise, so as to present to the highest advantage every fine building, the exceeding purity and whiteness of which is thrown up by the dark green forest behind. In speaking of Genoa, I remarked that its situation was unequalled in its imposing grandeur; and here in Messina we have a beauty equally unsurpassed, though of a different kind ”

“ Luckless Messina! For eight francs the Palermitans can make a trip to see the wreck of the proud city once Palermo’s rival!
“Poor devils—to be made a spectacle of!” sighed Patsy. “Still it helps to have anybody{412} make money! The railroad will get something out of these special trips; any movement is better than none.”
Outside a large dry-goods shop an immense placard called our attention.
“Bazar Messinesi. Bankrupt stock from Messina, to be sold out below cost.”
In the Via Marquada, a fine bustling modern street, I found my friend Palladia the milliner. ”

“ Gian buys a picture from them now and then; his [Pg 116] studio is full of their work—better than he can do. Oh, he knows a good thing when he sees it. These pictures will be valuable some day, and he gets them at his own price. It was Antonello of Messina who introduced oil-painting into Venice. Before that they mixed their paints with water, milk or wine. But when Antonello came along with his dark, lustrous pictures, he set all artistic Venice astir. Gian Bellini discovered the secret, they say, by feigning to be a gentleman and going to the newcomer and sitting for his picture. ”

“ They, however, with the long-suffering of conscious strength, replied that "they would neither return the insults nor his blows; the Messinese and Palermitans were brothers; the French oppressors their only enemies, and they would do better to turn their arms against the tyrants." With these words they hoisted the standard of the cross of Messina upon the walls beside the eagle of Palermo. ”

“ His torch was out; his fires were smoldering; a tall column of smoke that rose up and lost itself in the growing moonlight was all the sign he gave that he was a living Autocrat of the Sea and not the spectre of a dead one.
At two in the morning we swept through the Straits of Messina, and so bright was the moonlight that Italy on the one hand and Sicily on the other seemed almost as distinctly visible as though we looked at them from the middle of a street we were traversing. The city of Messina, milk-white, and starred and spangled all over with gaslights, was a fairy spectacle. ”

“ Opposite Messina, on the Italian side, there was a town named Rhegium. Now it happened that both these towns had been taken possession of by lawless bodies of soldiery. The Romans came and delivered Rhegium, and punished the soldiers who had seized it very severely. The Sicilian authorities advanced to the deliverance of Messina. The troops there, finding themselves thus threatened, sent to the Romans to say that if they, the Romans, would come and protect them, they would deliver Messina into their hands. ”

“ Messina hostile, or even neuter, nothing was done, and Sicily must again fall into the vindictive hands of Charles of Anjou. As usual, in Sicilian revolutions, Palermo had given the impulse, but a satisfactory result depended on the adhesion of Messina. Flattering overtures were made by the insurgents to the Messinese; but the latter still hesitated, and, far from joining the massacre, sent six galleys to blockade Palermo, and armed two hundred cross-bowmen to reduce the fortress of Taormine. ”

“ So these two mad wits were reconciled, and made a match of it, after Claudio and Hero were married; and to complete the history, Don John, the contriver of the villainy, was taken in his flight, and brought back to Messina; and a brave punishment it was to this gloomy, discontented man, to see the joy and feastings which, by the disappointment of his plots, took place in the palace in Messina. ”