BOI.OGVESE SCHOOL OP PAIXTINO. 



*" 



/W,f ,>mn. when divided, ha. been ateted by Profewr Eaton to 

 heal like * h-wund by the.*** in/of MM. or complete mini. .11 of it- 

 divided edge*, scarcely exhibiting a cfcmtrix or trace of the injury. 

 (8iUimui' ' Journal.' Tol vi.\ Nitrogen eaten into their c< .iii|>a*ition ; 

 nd in regard to their relation* with the atmosphere, tliey inhale 

 oxygen, and exhale carbonic acid gas. The Bold*! /</ him been 

 ascertained to abatract twelve per cent of oxygen from the atm 

 in tuclrr hour*, f Inquiry into the Change* which the Atn. 

 undcnme* when in Contact with certain Vegetable* which ore <li-"t ,.'.. 

 of GreaT Learea,' by M. F. Marcet; Jameaons 'Edm. New. Phil 

 nal,' Oetober, 18SS.) 



Bolatl count largely of f**yi, with nome boletic aoid. Unlike 

 moat fungi, which grow rapidly ami perish quickly, m<*t of the Boleti 

 grow very alowhr, acquire a nnn texture, and last perhaps 100 years if 

 not exposed to moch moisture. According to Sir William Jones, the 

 R. iymiariut U found in India, and used in nearly the name manner as 

 nlie's ' Materia Medic* Indie*,' roL i. p. 6.) 



fhl'i-i rrfn/M (esculent Boletua, called in France Ceps) is not only 

 extremely nutritious, bat esteemed by the French an nmriaito bxmjr. 

 It ( * auaeeptible of cultivation as the common mushroom. iSec 

 Dr. Badham. 'On the Esculent Muiihrooms of England;' and Mrs. 

 Roam's British Mycology.') 



- - PAIXT1 f< . I Utorfau '- 



fine arta employ the word school, as it ia often used in reference to 

 other punuita, only to denote a similarity of opinion, aim, or practice 

 among many individual*; but the term is so far true to its literal 

 import, that the similarity of taste alluded to does not so much arise 

 from the accident*! coincidence of independent modes of thinking, as 

 from some common influence, and generally from the example of one 

 powerful mind. Kor does thia always involve a defect of originality : 

 in the complicated art of painting the advances to perfection were of 

 necewity very gradual ; the greatest masters were largely indebted to 

 the labours of their predecessors, and each of them may thus be said 

 to have sprung from a school as certainly as that he founded one. But 

 when excellence was once approximated, originality seemed only com- 

 patible with a difference in the mode, since a difference of degree 

 appeared to be no longer possible; and while tin- dc-ire f novelty 

 sometimes degenerated to caprice, and imitation ended in insipidity, 

 the moat plausible ambition seemed to be that which aimed at com- 

 bining excellence* not hitherto united in any one school. This was at 

 least the professed object of the Caracci, the most celebrated among 

 the Bologneae masters. It happens that this new effort took \ 

 a school which had not before distinguished itself BO greatly as the 

 reot. The most brilliant epochs of art, south of the Alps, concur ; the 

 greatest masters having been contemporary with each other in the 

 beginning of the 16th century. To this rule, which applies to Venice, 

 Paruia, Florence, and Rome, the Bolognesc school is an exception, since 

 it attained it com]>arative perfection nearly a century after the pro- 

 duction of the finest works of Italian art. 



Tli' merits, of the most distinguished later masters of the Bolognese 

 1 have been done ample justice to by many historians and bio- 

 graphers, but it must be confessed that the Florentine Vasari, who 

 was naturally anxious to extol the genius of the Tuscan artists, some- 

 times betrays a disposition to undervalue or to vilify the earlier 

 Bolognese painters whom he notices in his work, and he did not live to 

 see the revolution which the Caracci produced. The chief historian of 

 .the Bologneae school, Mnlvasia (Fulsina Pittrieo), on the other hand, in 

 his eagerness to defend his countrymen, lias not unfiv.|iiently exagge- 

 rated their merits, and the two should be compared with the more 

 impartial opinions of recent writers, among whom Lanzi, though again 

 perhaps disposed to. exalt his own Florence, will be found the moat 

 rational. 



The arts of design were kept alive during the middle age* by i 

 and by illuminated UMHIMrmtij the former were commoner at Homo 

 and Ravenna than in the other Italian cities, but the art of missal- 

 painting, which was practised wherever there was a monastery, seems 

 to have attained some perfection at Bologna at .in early period. The 

 Franco Bolognese mentioned by Dante (' PI < -into n) as 



n| i rior in this art to his master, O.lerici <li Agubbio, it appears some- 

 time* painted in larger dimensions, and the recorded datea 

 earlier painters might enable I'.ologna 1.1 ,,.nt.ii<l for the palm of 

 antiquity not only with Florence but with Siena ami Pisa. Franco, 

 who h.-ui been called th> lii-i Mhoot, b tfa BTIPpond founder 



-tylc ..f the Bologneae painters of the 14th century. Many of 

 their now fading work* exist in the . Inn. h <li Mezzoratta, a gal 

 it were, f ancient specimens which, as Lanzi remarks, is to this an 

 of the Bologna* ncWl what the f'anipo Santo at Pina is to that ..f 

 the early Florentine*. In ?.! i. hfiwerer, that this comparison .-l,..n'd 

 be jiut, it would be neceaavy to select corresponding dates ; some of 

 the work* in the Campo Santo, M for instance those of Bcnoz/ 

 executed after the middle .,f tl,.- 1.1th century. 



l.i|.]Hi IVdi 



lie subject* to which he almost confine. 1 himself, l.ipp,, .], 11, 

 Mxloun*; some of hi work* remain, an.l Malv.-u.ia n 

 reference to one in the church "f s. IV ..]. that he heart! Cuj.l 

 Ha purity awl grandeur of expression, and avert that, notwithstanding 

 the cubnqaant advancement of the art, no modern painter could 

 infuM so holy a fading into similar subject*. In this early epoch of 



BOLOGNESE SCHOOL OF PAINTING. 



the school the predilection for the style of the Greek plinth 

 common prototypes of Italian art, soems to have been more .' 

 and to have lasted longer than any "Hi.i. ! '.served 



that the modes of representation to which the Byzantine painters and 

 their Italian followers adhered were in many cases consecrated by 

 tradition, but independently of thin the works themselves, rude as they 

 were, often exhibited a .solemnity of tr. at meiit which may in some 

 degree account for the veneration in which they were held. The Flo- 

 rentines who virited Bologna and painted there 1 

 impression ; a native artist, Marco Zoppo, who studied at Padua 

 (where he was the rival of Mantegna) and afterward* at Venice, intro- 

 duced the arrangement of the Venetian altar-pieces in some 

 subsequently done by him in Bologna; but the early simpl 

 severity was preferred jwrhaps as fitter for religious subjects, and was 

 rather confirmed than discarded by the greatest painter of the first 

 epoch, Francesco Francia. This artist, who was contemporary with 

 Itaffaclle, and survived him some years, according to Malva>i 

 celebrated as a goldsmith and engraver of medals before he 

 himself to the pencil at a coinp;'iati\.-ly ad-. 



that he was born in 1450, and that his first picture was dated 1490 ; 

 but he had probably attained some celebrity before then, as in that 

 year he was employed to jkiint the altar-piece of the Uentivogli , 

 and on other works of importance though on the alti 

 mentioned he is said by Lanzi to have signed Francucu* Kranci. 

 Aurifex, thus implying that he still regarded nimself as much a gold- 

 smith as a painter. Francia is celebrated as a painter who succeeded 

 beyond most others in giving an expression of sanctity and purity to 

 his Madonnas, and a letter of Kaffaelle's is extant in which t hi 

 is particularly alluded to. Francia, who, in that middle style which 

 the Italians have called antico-nuxlernn, ranks with Perugino and liellini, 

 should, like them, have preceded the highest development of ; 

 in a Rafiaelle or a Titian ; but it is precisely in this highest 

 spending point that the Bolognese school is wanting, and the er. 

 of Francia have in vain endeavoured to exalt him to a level with the 

 painters of the first rank with whom he happens nearly to coincide in 

 date. Vasari relates that when the St. Cecilia of Rafiaelle mode ita 

 appearance in Bologna, according to him in 1518, Francia, to whose 

 rare it had been consigned by the great painter himself, was so ai 

 at its vast superiority to his own efforts that he soon after . 

 mortification. Francia, it has recently been proved iCalvi, ' >! 

 della Vita e delle Opere di Francisco Raibolini, dctto il Francia ') did in 

 fact die in the beginning of that year, but Vasari's story has r. 

 no other continuation, and its accuracy may well be doubted : he 

 in his 68th year at the time of his death. The school of Franc i 

 sents no distinguished names. The summit of the art had been a 

 reached elsewhere, and his followers, who were inferior to him, were 

 eclipsed by the disciples of Raffaelle. 



These introduced a more or less servile imitation of the style of their 

 great model into Bologna ; the best were Ramenghi called Bagnuc.iv -all. .. 

 and Innoceuza da Imola. It is in the account of Bagnacavallo (\\hieh 

 includes a notice of Innocenza, Aspcrtini, and tiirolanio da Cot! 

 that Vasari speaks so contemptuously of the liologm 

 euvallo was however iK-casionally original, and some of his pnh.. 

 were considered worthy of the particular attention and study of suc- 

 ceeding masters. Three distinguished names precede the epoch of the 

 Caracci: Primatiecio, Niccol6 dell' Abate, and Pellegrino TiUildi. 

 Niccolft dell' Abate belongs strictly to the school of \. 

 associated with the Bolognese painters by some works at Bologna, by 

 his joint, labours with Primatiecio at Fontaincblrau, and by the 

 vagant compliment paid to him in a sonnet 



which ho is said to unite all the excellences of all the great masters. 

 Primatiecio and Tilnldi IxVan their studies, though at very di; 

 times, under Bagnacavallo ; the first, who was the elder by many 

 assisted (Jiulio Hoi< ml under his dii. 



facility an.l a classic taste whii ' .mis displayed in a nei 



designs for the ceilings of Foiit.iineblean. where he was employi d l>\ 

 Francis I. and his successors. The- frescoes paint. .! from these designs, 

 and which are now no longer in existence, were chiefly . 



.Ml' Abate. IVllegrino Tihnldi M..,U leit Kamcnghi for Home 

 and Michael ' .\ho8ostylohc.l.v.il.dhiiie.lf: h: 



ii of the great Florentine master, win -n J| U 



with the exeelleni'es of other schools, places him in 



iUr to that which Ungnacavallo holdn to 



Kjiffaellc. and the Cara. . him with U i "the 



I!, -formed Michael Angclo," Tikildi was employed in Milan, and 

 g Spain, anil thus the three greatest masters of this 

 interm. "in Bologna a great part i<! 



Tlie name ,.f Proapero Montana sl.ind* at the h<aul of thos. 



rliertoth* laMer part ,i| the Kth .-.ntnrv, and in- 



the great masters, sin 

 ' willies i t! me of the Guae.i. Jn 



!.- meniionol Paawrotti, as the latest Bolognese 



I>ainter alluded to by ViLsiri. The others may be p ed "\.i.\\ith 



..f Denis (Vilvnrt.a native of Antwerp. tiling 



' nchool, ii..i only had the honour of 



lrtly inntnicting Ouido, Domcnichino, and other celebrated Bolognese 

 painters, but also of introducing that elevated style of landscape- 



