Giulio Romano

“ The result was that painters who under favourable circumstances might have done some meritorious work, became mere journeymen contented with the soulless insincerity of cheap effects. Giulio Romano alone, by dint of robust energy and lurid fire of fancy flickering amid the smoke of his coarser nature, achieved a triumph in this line of labour. His Palazzo del Te will always remain the monument of a specific moment in Renaissance history, since it is adequate to the intellectual conditions of a race demoralised but living still with largeness and a sense of grandeur. ”

“ What, we think, as we gaze upward, would the Master have given for such a craftsman? The hardness, coarseness, and animal crudity of the Roman School are absent: so also is their vigour. But where the grace of form and colour is so soft and sweet, where the high-bred calm of good company is so sympathetically rendered, where the atmosphere of amorous languor and of melody is so artistically diffused, we cannot miss the powerful modelling and rather vulgar tours de force of Giulio Romano. The scale of tone is silvery golden. There are no hard blues, no coarse red flesh-tints, no black shadows. ”

“ Giulio Pippi, or Giulio Romano, the most distinguished pupil of Raffaello, resembled his master more in energy than in delicacy of style, and was particularly successful in subjects of war and battles, which he represented with equal spirit and correctness. In his noble style of design he emulates Michelangiolo, commands the whole mechanism of the human body, and with a masterly hand renders it subservient to all his wishes. His only fault is, that his demonstrations of motion are sometimes too violent. ”

“ Giulio Romano, seeing these works, said that he had never seen any colouring that attained to such perfection. One was a naked Leda, and the other a Venus; both so soft in colouring, with the shadows of the flesh so well wrought, that they appeared to be not colours, but flesh. In one there was a marvellous landscape, nor was there ever a Lombard who painted such things better than he; and, besides this, hair so lovely in colour, and executed in detail with such exquisite finish, that it is not possible to see anything better. ”

“ The fame of the two masters, just celebrated, did not then extend far beyond their native districts, being eclipsed by the celebrity of many contemporaries, who swayed the regions of the art; in the list of whom was Giulio Romano. His reputation drew to Mantua Francesco Primaticcio, instructed in design by Innocenzio, and by Bagnacavallo in colouring. Under Giulio he afterwards became a painter on a great scale, and a very copious composer of large histories, as well as a decorator in wood and stucco in a magnificent style suitable only for a palace. ”

“ Giulio Romano assisted Raphael in the painting of many things in that apartment of the Torre Borgia wherein is the Conflagration of the Borgo, more particularly the basement, which is painted in colours to imitate bronze, and where Giulio depicted figures of the Countess Matilda, King Pepin, Charlemagne, Godfrey de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem, and other benefactors of the church; these are all works of great merit, and no long time since there were published engravings of parts thereof, executed after a design made by Giulio himself. ”

“ After these things, Giulio Romano, whose modesty would never permit him to have any of his own works engraved during the life-time of his master, lest he should seem to be attempting a competition with Raphael himself; Giulio Romano, I say, after the death of the divine Raphael, caused Marcantonio to engrave two combats of horses from his designs, on tolerably large plates, with all the stories of Venus, Apollo, and Hyacinth, which he had painted in the bath constructed at the Vigna of Messer Baldassare Turini, of Pescia. ”

“ Giulio Romano introduced the style of Raphael into Mantua, and established there a considerable school of art, which surpassed in development that of his predecessor Mantegna, and almost rivalled that of Rome. ”

“ CACCINI, Giulio, a native of Rome, known also as Giulio Romano, born, according to the preface of his own 'Nuove Musiche,' in 1558 or 1560. He learned to sing and play the lute from Scipione della Palla, and in 1578 removed to Florence, where he remained till his death in 1640. Great as a singer he was still greater as a reformer in music. ”

“ In Flanders also and in France many plates have been engraved from the designs of Giulio, but of these, however beautiful they may be, it does not need that we should now make mention, nor would it be easy to enumerate all his designs, seeing that he produced them, so to speak, in loads; let it suffice to say that he had such extraordinary facility in all works of art, but more particularly in design, that there is no memorial of any artist who has performed more numerous works than himself. ”

“ Among the many, nay, rather, the innumerable scholars of Raphael of Urbino, although the greater part of them became able artists, there was none who pursued the footsteps of the master more closely, whether as regarded manner, invention, design, or colouring, than Giulio Romano ”

“ Giulio must at all events have been quite youthful when he first became the pupil of Raphael, and at Raphael’s death in 1520 he was at the utmost twenty-eight years of age. Raphael had loved him as a son, and had employed him in some leading works, especially in the Loggie of the Vatican ”

“ Rinaldo Mantovano, a man of great ability who died young, was the chief executant of the “Fall of the Giants”; he also co-operated with Benedetto Pagni da Pescia in painting the remarkable series of horses and hounds, and the story of Psyche. Another pupil was Fermo Guisoni, who remained settled in Mantua. The oil pictures of Giulio Romano are not generally of high importance ”

“ Going afterwards to Mantua, where at that time Giulio Romano was working at the Palace of the Te for Duke Federigo, he employed such interest that he was set, in company with many other young men who were with Giulio, to labour at that work. There, attending to the studies of art with much industry and diligence for a period of six years, he learned very well to handle colours and to work in stucco; wherefore, among all the other young men who were labouring in the work of that Palace, Francesco came to be held one of the most excellent, and the best of all at drawing and colouring. ”

“ The invention and composition of this painting are alike beautiful and graceful, the young man Saul is seen seated by the garments, while the Jews are engaged in the martyrdom of the saint. Giulio Romano never executed a more admirable painting than this, the fierce attitudes and expression of the persecutors are rendered equally well with the patience of the martyr, whose look, which is turned upward, is such, that he truly appears to see the Saviour Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, in a Heaven which is indeed most divinely painted. ”

“ CHÉRON, LOUIS (1655–1725) , painter and engraver, was born in Paris on 2 Sept. 1655. He was the son of Henri Chéron, a French miniature painter in enamel and an engraver, who died at Lyons in 1677. After having received some instruction from his father, he was enabled by the liberality of his sister to visit Italy, where he particularly studied the works of Raphael and Giulio Romano. On his return to Paris he was in 1687, and again in 1690, commissioned by the corporation of goldsmiths to paint the ‘mai’ which they offered every year on 1 May to the cathedral of Notre-Dame. ”

“ The apartment being thus constructed in a manner so unusual, Giulio set himself to paint therein the most extraordinary inventions that he could possibly devise; the subject chosen was Jupiter launching his thunderbolts at the Giants, and having depicted the Olympian Heaven in the highest part of the vaulting, he there placed the Throne of Jove, foreshortened, as seen from below; showing also the front and interior of a round temple, with columns of the Ionic order: the God has a canopy midway over his seat, and his eagle is beside him, all which the master displayed as borne on the clouds. ”

“ Among the many attendants of the Pope here taken from nature, was the little Cavalier Messer Niccolo Vespucci, Knight of Rhodes, who was at that time all-powerful with his Holiness. Beneath this story, and in the basement, Giulio painted a group to imitate bronze, the subject presenting the Emperor Constantine, engaged in the building of the church of San Pietro at Rome, and alluding to Pope Clement: in this part of the work are the architect Bramante and Giuliano Lemi, [16] the latter holding the ground-plan of the church in his hand; an exceedingly meritorious picture. ”

“ Both these figures are of the size of life. [56] On the walls of the same chapel, Giulio further caused Rinaldo to paint two very beautiful pictures after his own designs; one of these represents the Crucifixion of Our Saviour Christ, with the Two Thieves; in the air above are Angels, and beneath are the Executioners, with the Maries and many Horses, in which Giulio always delighted greatly, and which he rendered admirably well, making them beautiful to a marvel: there are numerous Soldiers also in finely varied attitudes. ”

“ See also Bottari, Descrizione Storica, 1783, with Le Pitture di Giulio Romano nel Palazzo del T, fuori di Mantova, Mantua, 1831. ↑ Engraved by Diana of Mantua, and dedicated to Claudio Gonzaga, in 1575. ↑ In the engraving of Diana Ghisi above named, the car of the sun rises from the sea, and not from behind the hills.— Bottari. ↑ Who repaired to Mantua for the purpose of studying under Giulio, in the year 1525, remaining there until 1531, when he became the disciple of Francia. ”

“ On that day the arts of design, together with all the other arts, were recalled to new life, and Giulio and Giovan Francesco set themselves joyfully to work, by command of the Pontiff, to finish the above-named hall of Constantine. The preparation of grounding which had been made for painting in oil they threw down; leaving nevertheless two figures, which Raphael had previously painted in oil as a sort of ornamental frame-work to certain popes: these were a figure of Justice, and another figure of similar character. ”

“ See Passavant, vol. i. p. 198, vol. ii. p. 160. ↑ On this picture, which represents the miraculous expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, Giulio Romano is said to have worked to a considerable extent. It was completed in 1512, consequently before that previously so much extolled by Vasari.—Ed. Flor. 1832 -8. ↑ The foremost of these bearers is the portrait of the copper-plate engraver, Marc Antonio Raimondi; his opposite companion is said to be that of Giulio Romano. ”

“ In one of the compartments of the Hall of Constantine, Giulio depicted that Emperor making a speech to his soldiers, while in the air above is seen the sign of the cross appearing in a splendour of light, surrounded by angels in the form of children and with the words, “In hoc Signo vinces.” A Dwarf, standing at the feet of Constantine, and placing a helmet on his head, is executed with much art. ”

“ This master was of a most obliging disposition, more particularly towards his friends; there was no mark of kindness, and even of affection, which Giorgio did not receive at his hands; and Vasari, on his part, having departed from Mantua, and proceeding to Venice, had thence returned to Rome exactly at the time when Michelagnolo had uncovered his Last Judgment in the chapel, sent Giulio three plates of the Seven Mortal Sins, taken from the above-named Last Judgment of Michelagnolo. ”

“ In the distance are seen small figures representing Women who are approaching to visit the Madonna. This picture was afterwards presented by the Duke to the Signora Isabella Buschetta, whose portrait, which is a very beautiful one, was taken by Giulio in a little picture not more than a braccio high, which is now in the possession of the Signor Vespasiano Gonzaga, with another, presented to him by the Duke Federigo and also by the hand of Giulio, representing a Youth affectionately caressing a maiden, while an old woman is secretly observing them from behind a door ”

“ To render his work still more fearful and terrible, Giulio has exhibited many of the giants, who are of the most extraordinary forms, as well as of immense stature, in the act of falling to the earth, some backwards, others on their faces, as they are differently struck and wounded by the lightnings and thunder-bolts; some are already dead, others writhing with their wounds, and still more lying crushed and partially covered by the mountains and edifices which have fallen upon them. ”

“ The characters of both Medici Popes are wonderfully conceived in Raffaelle's portraits: in Leo's otherwise intellectual face there is a vulgarity that almost degenerates into coarseness and sensuality, and with Clement the cold soul, lacking all strong feeling, distrustful, never unfolding itself. "In spite of all his talents," said Francesco Vettori, "he brought the greatest misery on Rome and on himself; he lost courage at once and let go the rudder." Guicciardini too complains of Giulio's faintheartedness, vacillation and indecision as the chief source of his misfortune. ”

“ The villa of Papa Giulio is still visited by the stranger. Restored to the presence of those times, he ascends the spacious steps to the gallery, whence he overlooks the whole extent of Rome, from Monte Mario, with all the windings of the Tiber. The building of this palace, the laying out of its gardens, were the daily occupation of Pope Julius III. The place was designed by himself, but was never completed: every day brought with it some new suggestion or caprice, which the architects must at once set themselves to realize. This pontiff desired to forward the interests of his family ”