Luca

“ But the Cardinal wishing to have some painting by the hand of Luca as well, he, old as he was, and hindered by palsy, painted in fresco, on the altar-wall of the chapel of that palace, the scene of S. John the Baptist baptizing the Saviour; but he was not able to finish it completely, for while still working at it he died, having reached the age of eighty-two.
Luca was a man of most excellent character, true and loving with his friends, sweet and amiable in his dealings with every man, and, above all, courteous to all who had need of him, and kindly in teaching his disciples. ”

“ Movement has never been suggested in stone with less exaggeration, nor have marble lips been made to utter sweeter and more varied music. Luca's true perception of the limits to be observed in sculpture, appears most eminently in the glazed terra-cotta work by which he is best known. An ordinary artist might have found the temptation to aim at showy and pictorial effects in this material overwhelming. Luca restrained himself to pure white on pale blue, and preserved an exquisite simplicity of line in all his compositions. ”

“ Luca, then, while passing from one method of work to another, from marble to bronze, and from bronze to clay, did this not by reason of laziness or because he was, as many are, capricious, unstable, and discontented with his art, but because he felt himself drawn by nature to new things and by necessity to an exercise according to his taste, both less fatiguing and more profitable. Wherefore the world and the arts of design became the richer by a new, useful, and most beautiful art, and he gained immortal and everlasting glory and praise. ”

“ In the semicircle over each door is a coloured relief by Luca: that over the bronze doors being the "Resurrection," and the other the "Ascension"; and they are interesting not only for their beauty but as being the earliest-known examples in Luca's newly-discovered glazed terra-cotta medium, which was to do so much in the hands of himself, his nephew Andrea, and his followers, to make Florence still lovelier and the legend of the Virgin Mary still sweeter. But of the della Robbias and their exquisite genius I shall say more later, when we come to the Bargello. ”

“ On the road every woman in every doorway plaits straw with rapid fingers just as if we were in Bedfordshire. Impruneta is famous for its new terra-cotta vessels and its ancient della Robbias. For in the church is some of Luca's most exquisite work—an altarpiece with a frieze of aerial angels under it, and a stately white saint on either side, and the loveliest decorated columns imaginable; while in an adjoining chapel is a Christ crucified mourned by the most dignified and melancholy of Magdalens. Andrea della Robbia is here too, and here also is a richly designed cantoria by Mino da Fiesole. ”

“ Giordano resided at Rome about three years with his father, who seems to have been a helpless creature, subsisting by the sale of his son's drawings; but Luca cared for nothing but his studies, satisfied with a piece of bread or a few maccaroni. When their purse was low, the old man would accompany him to the scene of his labors, and constantly urge him on, by repeating Luca, fa presto, (hurry Luca) which became a byword among the painters, and was fixed upon the young artist as a nickname, singularly appropriate to his wonderful celerity of execution. ”

“ The peasants assembled, and pursued, and would have captured them, if some gentlemen, unworthy of being called so, had not stopped the pursuit, and received the villains into their castles. Luca was seen among the rocks, but no one knows what is become of him." Petrarch, in the deepest agitation, despatched fleet couriers to Placenza, to Florence, and to Rome, to obtain intelligence about Luca.
These ruffians, who came from Florence, were protected by the Ubaldini, one of the most powerful and ancient families in Tuscany. ”

“ Luca's most perfect pictures that I have met with in Ravenna are those of S. Vitale, of S. Agata, of S. Domenico, all with a representation of the Virgin between two or more saints, and with some graceful cherubs playing above. There are others more laboured, which please us less, and demonstrate that to succeed in grand compositions, it is previously necessary to have studied the great schools. Luca had a daughter, named Barbara, yet a child at the period when Vasari published his work, but who had begun to paint "with a tolerable degree of grace and manner." ”

“ These are thought to be by Andrea, Luca's nephew, and were added long after the building was completed. Luca probably helped him. The hospital was begun by Brunelleschi at the cost of old Giovanni de' Medici, Cosimo's father, but the Guild of the Silk Weavers, for whom Luca made the exquisite coat of arms on Or San Michele, took it over and finished it. Andrea not only modelled the babies outside but the beautiful Annunciation (of which I give a reproduction in this volume) in the court: one of his best works. ”

“ Wherefore the said Wardens of Works—who, besides the merits of Luca, were persuaded thereunto by Messer Vieri de' Medici, then a great citizen and a friend of the people, who loved Luca dearly—commissioned him, in the year 1405, to make the marble ornament for the organ which the Office of Works was then having made on a very grand scale, to be set up over the door of the sacristy of the said church. ”

“ It was therefore to his better scholars that Cambiaso was indebted for assistance in his profession; one of whom, Lazzaro Tavarone, followed him even into Spain, and remained there for some years after his master's death. He afterwards returned to Genoa, stored with the designs of Luca, and loaded with riches and honours. Luca seemed to live again in his scholar, so fully did he possess his style. He moreover distinguished himself by a method of colouring in fresco, which, if I mistake not, raised him above all his predecessors in this school, and above all who succeeded him, except Carloni. ”

“ The relief is made in the Della Robbia enamelled terra cotta ware. The sculptor has here followed his uncle's example in the simplicity of the draperies. The modelling of the hands also recalls the touch of Luca. In choice of types, however, Andrea shows his individual taste. The fragile figure of the Virgin is as different as possible from the robust beauty of Luca's Madonna which we have studied. The angel too is of a softer and less vigorous character than the older artist would have designed. ”

“ His easel pictures are rare, and do not offer good representations of the master. There is one in the National Gallery—a Virgin and Child, with saints and angels.
Luca d'Egidio di Ventura, called also Luca 'da Cortona,' from his birthplace, and Luca Signorelli, 1441, supposed to have died about 1524. His is a great name in the Tuscan School. He played an important part in the painting of the Sistine Chapel, though he is only represented by one wall picture, the History of Moses. At his best he anticipated Michael Angelo in power and grandeur, but he was given to exaggeration. ”

“ Other reliefs by Luca, also in glazed terra-cotta, are those of the Ascension and Resurrection in the tympani of the doors of the sacristies in the cathedral, executed in 1443 and 1446. Other existing works of Luca in Florence are the tympanum reliefs of the Madonna between two Angels in the Via dell’ Agnolo, a work of exquisite beauty, and another formerly over the door of S. Pierino del Mercato Vecchio, but now removed to the Bargello (No. 29) . The only existing statues by Luca are two lovely enamelled figures of kneeling angels holding candlesticks, now in the canons’ sacristy. ”

“ But Luca had no mind for this game, for many reasons,—for one, he had already received promises and rewards from Piero; for another, he had married one of his nieces to Giovanni Tornabuoni,—so that, instead of joining him, he admonished Soderini to lay aside his arms and return quietly to his house. ”

“ And no work is less imitable; like Tuscan wine, it loses its savour when moved from its birthplace, from the crumbling walls where it was first placed. Part of the charm of this work, its grace and purity and finish of expression, is common to all the Tuscan sculptors of the fifteenth century; for Luca was first of all a worker in marble, and his works in earthenware only transfer to a different material the principles of his sculpture. ”

“ Andrea had three sons besides the monks above-mentioned—Giovanni [33] (also an artist, and who had three sons, Marco, Lucantonio, and Simone, all of high promise, but who died of the plague in 1527) ; Luca and Girolamo, who devoted themselves to sculpture. Of the two last-named, Luca paid infinite attention to works in the glazed terra-cotta ”

“ It is not by sleeping but by waking and studying continually that progress is made.
Luca was barely fifteen years of age when he was summoned, together with other young sculptors, to Rimini, in order to make some [Pg 120] figures and other ornaments in marble for Sigismondo di Pandolfo Malatesti, Lord of that city, who was then having a chapel made in the Church of S. Francesco, and a tomb for his wife, who had died. ”

“ In May 1437 Luca received a commission from the signoria of Florence to execute five reliefs for the north side of the campanile, to complete the series begun by Giotto and Andrea Pisano. These panels are so much in the earlier style of Giotto that we must conclude that he had left drawings from which Luca worked. They have representative figures chosen to typify grammar, logic, philosophy, music, and science,—the last represented by Euclid and Ptolemy. [3] In 1438 Luca in association with Donatello received an order for two marble altars for chapels in the cathedral. ”

“ Luca, I have a fantastic wish to know when I spoke to you last before I was taken? And I: It was on Friday evening about 24 o’clock, in the shop of Pier Guicciardini, and Lorenzo Segni was there. I held your hand awhile, desiring to accompany you to the Palace whither you were bound, and you refused. About 2 I think you were taken. He answered: It was then in the evening? I said: Yes. And he: ’Tis true, I now remember well. Luca, do not abandon me; you are put to great trouble. I said: Ah, Pietro Pagolo, abandon you! why am I here? You know the love I have always borne you. ”

“ A great Plague, War, Hunger and Thirst shall be seen,
A great way off, where their Prince Ruler shall die. ANNOT. Luca at present is a strong Town, and a little Common-wealth by it self in Italy, governed by their own Magistrate: That Town is threatned here to see those prodigies mentioned, a little before the change of their Government, besides a great Plague and dearth; as also the death of their chief Magistrate, who shall die far off that Countrey. ”

“ Everything coming from Italy has the right to be romantic and artistic. If it happens to be a voice, it should of necessity be beautiful in quality, rich, smooth, and well trained.
Guiseppe De Luca
While all singers who come from the sunny land cannot boast all these qualifications, Mr. De Luca, baritone of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, can do so. Gifted with a naturally fine organ, he has cultivated it arduously and to excellent purpose. He began to {61} study in early youth, became a student of Saint Cecilia in Rome when fifteen years of age, and made his début at about twenty. ”

“ Higher on this façade is Luca della Robbia's famous arms of the Silk-weavers, one of the perfect things. Luca also made the arms of the Guild of Merchants, with its Florentine fleur-de-lis in the midst. For the rest, Ghiberti's S. Stephen, and Ghiberti and Michelozzo's S. Matthew, on the entrance wall, are the most remarkable. The blacksmith relief is very lively and the blacksmith's saint a noble figure. ”

“ The sculptor of the bambini, Andrea della Robbia, was the nephew of Luca della Robbia, of whom we have learned something in previous chapters. He was trained in the workshop of his uncle, and in turn passed on his art to his three sons. While Luca's work is considered superior to that of any of his pupils, the nephew Andrea had some fine artistic qualities. The decorations of the Foundling Hospital illustrate both the delicacy and the fertility of his imagination. Only a genuine artist could invent so many variations upon the simple theme of a single baby figure. ”

“ The Florentines think themselves so civilized, forsooth, for building a nuovo Lung-Arno, and three manufactory chimneys opposite it: and yet sell butchers' meat, dripping red, peaches, and anchovies, side by side: it is a sight to be seen. Much more, Luca della Robbia's Madonna in the circle above the chapel door. Never pass near the market without looking at it; and glance from the vegetables underneath to Luca's leaves and lilies, that you may see how honestly he was trying to make his clay like the garden-stuff. But to-day, you may pass quickly on to the Uffizii, which will be just open ”

“ Master Matteo was appeased; but Luca was far adrift with other matters. Love, for him, lay not in flesh and blood alone; rather, in what flesh and blood signified in another clay, not Messer Domeneddio's, but his own chosen task-stuff. He had come hither to Prato on the commission of the Opera, to work a Madonna col Bambino for the great door of the Duomo. Well! he had his Madonna to hand, it would seem:—Mariota at the door of the smith's house, confident, lissom and fresh, and the lusty child groping for his breakfast. ”