The Road To Venice

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

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To enumerate all the artists who were influenced by Mantegna and the School of Squarcione would be to give a list of a hundred names, and to attempt a task beyond the scope of the Outline; but brief mention must be made of one whose life, and particularly whose death, is of unusual and romantic interest. Franceso Francia (1450-1517) was a goldsmith of Bologna who achieved great fame as an engraver of medallion portraits long before the example of Mantegna inspired him to become a painter also. Francia was one of the first artists to make prints from an engraved plate, and served literature by designing the famous italic type for the press of Aldus Manutius. As a painter, Francia began with portraits and proceeded to altar-pieces, in which he displayed a remarkable psychological insight. Both in ancient times and in modern his lunette of the Dead Christ in the lap of the Virgin has been regarded as a most beautiful work, poignant in the intensity of its expression. The half-moon shaped picture is the upper part of a famous alter piece originally painted for the Church of St. Frediano at Lucca, and now in the National Gallery, London. The main picture below shows the Madonna and Child, with the following saints: St. Sebastian, St. Paul, St. Anne, St. Lawrence, and St. Benedict, while in front of the throne is the figure of the young St. John the Baptist; and the wan, expressive face of the young Virgin seems to suggest that she is already forewarned of the tragedy commemorated by the picture.

Francis was at the height of his reputation in Bologna when the young Raphael was working in Rome. The two artists never met, for Raphael was too busy to leave the Vatican and Francia was too old to travel. But they heard much of one another, and Francia as the elder, offered to help his junior in any way he could. He had never seen a picture of Raphael, and longed to view some work by the young man of whom everybody was talking. At last the opportunity came. Raphael was commissioned to paint a panel of ‘St. Cecilia’ for a Bolognese chapel, St. Giovanni in Monte; and when he had finished the painting he sent it to Francia at Bologna with a courteous letter begging the older artist to ‘correct any errors found in it,’ and then set it up on the altar for which it was intended.

When Francia drew the masterpiece from its case and viewed it in a good light, he was filled with amazement and with chagrin, so Vasari says, at his presumption in offering to help so great a genius:

‘Francia, half dead at the overwhelming power and beauty of the picture, which he had to compare with his own works lying around, though thoroughly discouraged, took it to St. Giovanni in Monte, to the chapel where it was to be. Returning home he took to his bed in an agony, feeling that art could offer him no more, and died, some suppose of grief and melancholy, due to his contemplation of the living picture of Raphael.’

That is the story told by Vasari, and though it may seem incredible to us that any artist should be so fatally affected by seeing the work of another, the fact that so strange a cause of death was related in good faith reveals to us how seriously art was taken in Italy in 1518.

The Road To Venice (continued)