#David Rosand Palma Giovane and Venetian Mannerism PDF

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ROSAND, D a vid , 1938-

P A L M A G IO VANE AND V E N E T IA N
M A N N ER IS M .
C o lu m b ia U n iv e rs ity , P h .D ., 1965
P in e A rts
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
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Copyright by
DAVID ROSAND
1965
PALMA GIOVANE AND VENETIAN MANNERISM
David Rosand
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy,
in the Faculty of Philosophy,
Columbia University.
1965
kr.
ABSTRACT
PAIMA GIOVANE AND VENETIAN MANNERISM
DAVID ROSAND
This study is concerned with the changes that occurred in Venetian art
at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th. More specifically,
it is focused on the changing function of drawing in Venice and on the art and
personality of Jacopo Palma il Giovane, the leading Venetian painter of the
period.
In Chapter I ("Venetian Drawings and the Disegno-Colorito Controversy")
is discussed the different approaches to painting and drawing in Venice and
in Central Italy. Enphasis is placed on the technical revolution effected fcy
Giorgione and its further development ty Titian and Tintoretto. The particular
style and function of Venetian drawing is viewed in the context of the new
methods of painting in oil on canvas and of the continuing tradition of the
family workshop in Venice. Venetian writers on art (Pino, Dolce, Boschini)
are cited as providing contenporary evidence regarding ifet theory and prac
tice in Venice during the Cinquecento.
Chapter II ("Mannerism and the Venetian Tradition") is an attempt to de
fine the particular meaning and form of "Manner!an" in Venice. The development
of Venetian painting during the first half of the 16th century is surveyed, snd
the continuing contact with and influence of Florentine and Roman art is high
lighted. The significance of the term maniera in Centraldftalian art theory is
contrasted with the use of the term in Venice, and the concept is discussed
with regard to the disegno-colorito controversy.
Tintoretto!s activity in Venice is touched on, and his initiation of the
grande maniera Venetians, the style of oil painting on a monumental scale, is
discussed as the major development in Venetian painting of the later Cinque
cento. The enormous influence of Tintoretto on the following generation of
painters in Venice is indicated and some possible reasons for this phenomenon
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
2
are suggested.
Chapter III is a brief monograph on Jacopo Palma il Giovane. His early
career is surveyed, with special attention to his training in Home and to his
subsequent relations with Titian and Tintoretto; Palma’s later career, his
success, and his stylistic development are then outlined. Most of this chapter
is dedicated to a study of the artist's drawings, and significant changes of
attitude are noted in his work. In comparison with the traditional Venetian
Renaissance concept of drawing as essentially an activity ancillary to painting,’
Palma is seen to give new importance to it as an independent artistic activity.
This fundamental change is related to Palma's Roman education and to the critical
example of the Carracci in Bologna. The chapter concludes with a discussion of
Palma's position in the history of Venetian painting.
The final chapter, IV ("Academic Art and the Crisis of the Venetian Tradi
tion"), continues the discussion of the new attitude toward drawing in Venice <
The drawing books published by Odoardo Fialetti and Giacomo Franco, sad Palma's
relation to them, are adduced as documents of this change. Academic ideas,
originating in Florence and Rome, are traced, and their influence in Venice is
discussed, especially with regard to the conflict between the new academies and
the old painters' guild. The Venetian guild is examined, and its relationship to
the Venetian state is cited to explain, in part, Venice's generally conservative
stance vis-1-vis academies of art.
The personalities of Palma and his contemporaries, their attitudes toward
art in general and drawing in particular, are then observed in the context of the
artistic ferment of the early Seicento. In conclusion, an historical paradcx is
notedt these Venetian painters begin to abandon traditional Venetian values,
especially the plttura di macchia, just when the art of the Venetian Cinquecento
is providing important inspiration for the development of Baroque painting in
other Italian centers.
PREFACE
The present study is an attempt to outline and explain

certain developments in the history of Venetian painting and
drawing during the final quarter of the sixteenth century
and the opening decades of the seventeenth. While it cannot
be maintained that this field is entirely terra incognita,

it is certainly true that it has not been a frequent subject
“of study. Indeed, the years a cavallo fra i secoli are
generally considered lean ones in the story of Venetian

painting, a nadir in the cycle of its history. Following
the deaths of the great masters of the Cinquecento— Titian
(d. 1576), Veronese (d. 1588), Jacopo Bassano (d. 1592), and
Tintoretto (d. 1594)— a younger generation of epjqoni as

sumed the responsibility of carrying on the magnificent
pictorial tradition. The failure of that generation to live
up to— let alone add to— the brilliance of that heritage has
discouraged modern art history from devoting serious study
to the period. - *
Until very recently, the history of Venetian painting
seemed to disappear from sight immediately upon the death

of Tintoretto— the end of the "Golden Age"— and did not re
appear until the eighteenth century, when Tiepolo and Guardi
added a new giory to the final years of Venetian decadence—
the "Silver Age" of Venetian painting. With the 1959
V
a
exhibition of La Pittura del Seicento a T7enezia a great step

was taken toward illuminating the general area of the
Venetian Baroque. The personalities and developments linking
the Venetian Cinquecento with the Seicento, however, remain
to be placed in a proper historical perspective. The
"accademismo fine secolo" of Jacopo Palma il Giovane and his

generation was not merely a stagnant hiatus in the course of
Venetian painting; rather, it was an attempt to keep abreast
of the most significant contemporary events in other parts

of Italy, in Bologna and Rome. When viewed in this light,
the activities of these painters assume a new interest for
the art historian. It is the purpose of this study to out

line certain features of the development of Venetian painting
in these years, to examine the background, style, and goals
of the leading painter of this epoch, Palma Giovane, and to
establish the relationship of these to the crucial artistic

currents in other Italian centers.
This project— and, indeed, my concern with Venetian

painting in general— developed from discussions in a seminar
with Professor Rudolf Wittkower. To him I owe my greatest
debt of gratitude for his constant encouragement and advice
and for his valuable criticisms and specific suggestions
regarding the formulation and expression of many of the ideas

contained in this dissertation. Professor Milton J. Lewine's
attentive reading of the first draughts of my manuscript and
his acute and probing criticism helped me to clarify my
approach to and ideas on Venetian painting. I must further
iii
t
thank him for sharing with me his wide knowledge of six
teenth-century painting and drawing in Florence and Rome.

I would also like to express my gratitude to
Professor Julius S. Held and Professor Howard Hibbard,

who guided my first attempt to deal with the problems of
Venetian draughtsmanship, and to Professor Howard McP.
Davis, with whom I began, as an undergraduate, to study
and appreciate the painting of the Italian Renaissance.
My earliest practical experience in examining old master
drawings took place in the studio of Mr. Janos Scholz, and
I should like to thank him for the generosity he has always
shown in opening his collection to students.
In Venice my work was facilitated by Dr. Alessandro
Bettagno and the staff of the Istituto di Storia dell'Arte
of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, and by Dr. Francesco
Valcanover, Director of the Gallerie jdell'Accddemia. I

a.lso benefited from many conversations with Dr. Michelangelo
Muraro, to whom I owe several of the references cited in

these pages.
I am much obliged to the following directors of
collections for their cooperation: Mile. Rosaline Bacou of

the Cabinet des Dessins of the Louvre, Dr. Anna Forlani-
Tempesti of the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi,

Dr. Enrico Bresciani of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo,
Dr. Bernard Degenhart of the Staatliche Gfaphische Sammlung,
Munich, and M. Frits Lugt and his assistant, Mme. Jeanne A.
Renault, of the Institut Neerlandais, Paris.
My studies in Venice were made possible by grants
from Columbia University and from the Fulbright Commission

of the Institute of International Education.
Finally, I should like to thank my wife, who shared

with me the problems of the past few years, for her under
standing of and patience with this dissertation and its
author.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES
ed. P. Barocchi P. Barocchi, Trattati d*arte del

Cinouecento, I, Bari, 1960.
S. Moschini Marconi, S. Moschini Marconi, Galierie
Galierie, II dell1Accademia di Venezia, II,
Opere d 1arte del secolo XVI,
Rome, 1962.
Ridolfi Le maraviglie dell'arte (Venice,
1648), ed. D. von Hadeln, 2 vols.,
Berlin, 1914-24.
J. Schlosser, La J. von Schlosser, La letteratura

1 etteratura artistica artistica. 2nd Italian ed., with
additions by 0. Kurz, Florence-
Vienna, 1956.
Thieme-Becker U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines
Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler,
37 vols., Leipzig, 1907-50.
T. (followed by number) H. Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat,
The Drawings of the Venetian
Painters in the 15th and 16th
Centuries. New York, 1944.
Tietze, Drawings Ibid.
Uffizi Mcstra A. Forlani, Mostra di disegni di
Jacopo Palma il Giovane, Florence,
1958.
Vasari G. Vasari, Le Vite de'piu
eccellenti pjttori, scultori ed
architettori. (Florence, 1568),
ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols., Florence
1878-85.
A. Venturi, Storia A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte
italiana, 11 vols., Milan, 1901-39.
vi
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE ......................................... i
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN N O T E S .............. V

CHAPTER
I. VENETIAN DRAWINGS AND THE DISEGNO-COLORITO
C O N T R O V E R S Y ............................. 1
Vasari's Testimony ....................... 1

Approaches to Painting in Florence
and V e n i c e ............................. 14
The Style and Function of Venetian
Drawings . ........................... 27
Art Criticism and Theory in Venice. . . . . . 53

II. MANNERISM AND THE VENETIAN TRADITION. . . . . 68
The Term . . ........... 68
The High Renaissance in V e n i c e ............ 76

Mannerism to V e n i c e ......... 86
Maniera and Manierismo.................... 105
The Example of T i n t o r e t t o .......... . 116
III. JACOPO PALMA IL GIOVANE . ................ 136

Biographical Notes ....................... 136
Early Works in Venice and the Problem

of Palma in Titian's S h o p .............. 143
Palma ana Tintoretto............... .. 159
vii
CHAPTER PAGE
Palma's Later Career and Stylistic
D e v e l o p m e n t ............. . .. .......... 167
Palma as Draughtsman...................... 196
IV. ACADEMIC ART AND THE CRISIS OP THE
VENETIAN TRADITION......... .... ......... 263

Drawing Books in Venice. . . . . . . . . . 263
Workshops, Guilds, and Academies.......... 304
Venetian Art and Artists at the End
of the Renaissance...................... 342

BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................
353
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS............ ...............
395
ILLUSTRATIONS ..................................... 422
t
CHAPTER I
VENETIAN DRAWING AND THE DISEGNO-COLORITO CONTROVERSY
Vasari*s Testimony
In his Second Discourse, of 1769, Sir Joshua Reynolds de
livered the following judgement on Venetian draughtsmanship:
The Venetian and Flemish schools, which owe much of their

fame to colouring, have enriched the cabinets of the
collectors of drawings with very few examples. Those of
TITIAN, PAUL VERONESE, TINTORET, and the BASSANS, are in
general slight and underdetermined. Their sketches on
paper are as rude as their pictures are excellent in re
gard to harmony of colouring.1
The first president of the Royal Academy thus continued to
propagate the then two-hundred-year-old doctrine of inter
national academic dogma: namely, that the Venetian artists

of the Renaissance were pure painters, working solely with
color, and had, in fact, neglected the art of drawing. The
corollary of this proposition was that drawing had been
practised and perfected by artists in central Italy. Standard

academic curriculum in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen
turies taught students to look to Venice for their coloring

and to Rome for drawing.
This contrast was a legitimate outgrowth and reflection

of the actual situation in Italian painting of the Cinque-
cento and its broad division into two large schools: one
1Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art, ed. R. R. Wark,

San Marino, Calif., 1959, p. 34f.
centering about a Florence-Rome axis, the other around Venice.
The formulation of the antitheses and the precise phrasing of
the problem derive from the art literature of the sixteenth
century and especially from its fountainhead, the Florentine
academic circle and its extraordinarily influential leader
and spokesman, Giorgio Vasari. In the pages of his Vite,
the practical and theoretical importance of drawing is firmly

established; it is defined as the "padre delle tre arti
nostre Architettura, Scultura, e Pittura" and recognized as
the basic expressive medium of the artist. For the painter,
above all, it forms the very foundation of the imaginative
process and of the creation of a picture, the medium of his

2
thought as well as of its expression. Disegno provides for
Vasari the measure of progress in the arts from Giotto to
Michelangelo; it is especially in disegno that the overwhelming

3
and teleological achievement of Michelangelo lies.
Vasari, I, p. 168: "Perche il disegno, padre delle tre

arti nostre Architettura, Scultura, e Pittura, procedendo
dall1intelletto, cava di molte cose un giudizio universale,
simile a una forma o w e r o idea di tutte le cose della natura, la
quale % singolarissima nelle sue misure; di qui e che non solo
nei corpi umani e degli animali, ma nelle piante ancora, e nelle
fabbriche e sculture e pitture cOnosce la proporzione che ha il
tutto con le parti, e che hanno le part fra loro e col tutto
insieme. E perche da questa cognizione nasce un certo concetto
e giudizio che si forma nella mente quells tal cosa, che poi
espressa con le mani si chiama disegno; si puo conchiudere che
esso disegno altro non sia, che una apparente espressione e
dichiarazione del concetto che si ha nell’animo, e di quello
che altri si e nella mente immaginato e fabbricato nell'idea."
For a discussion of this passage from the point of view of the
concept of idea, see E. Panofsky, Idea, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1960,
p. 35ff.
3
Elsewhere, Vasari refers to invenzione as the mother of the
arts (II, p. 11), and it is in this category that the biographer,
in the second edition of his Vite (1568), concedes the superiority
3
Drawing is fundamental to painting in both theory and

practice, according to Vasari; he viewed the entire creative •
process with respect to drawing, from the conception of an
idea, through its first tangible formal expression in a rapid

sketch, to its final execution in a finished cartoon. He
considered sketches as essentially preparatory steps; they
were the first efforts, crude reflections of the artist's

t
inspired idea, which can find full expression only in the
finished, carefully elaborated^drawing, a work of art and
4
worthy of the title of disegno. The drawings collected by
Vasari himself in the five albums of his famous Libro de'disegni
were given monumental frames and were intended to be appre
ciated on the same aesthetic level as paintings.^
of Raphael over Michelangelo. This distinction had already been

made by the Venetian Lodovico Dolce in his Dialogo della pittura
of 1557 (ed. P. Barocchi, p. 187ff.) in response to Vasari's
singular praise of Michelangelo in the first edition of the
Vite (1550). For further discussion of the critical use of
these terms by Vasari, see S. L. Alpers, "Ekphrasis and Aesthetic
Attitudes in Vasari's Lives," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes, XXIII, I960, p. 190ff.
^Vasari, I, p. 174: "Gli schizzi de'quali si e favellato di

sopra, chiamiamo noi una prima sorte di disegni che si fanno per
trovar il modo delle attitudini, ed £1 primo componiraento
dell'opra, e sono fatti in forma di una macchia ed accennati
solamente da noi in una sola bozza del tutto. E perche dal
furor dello artefice sono in poco tempo con penna o con altro
disegnatoio o carbone espressi, solo per tentare l'animo di quel
che gli sovviene, percio si chiamano schizzi. Da questi dunque
vengono poi rilevati in buona forma i disegni, nel far de'quali
con tutta quella diligenza che si puo, si cerca vedere dal vivo,
se gia 1 *artefice non si sentisse gagliardo in modo che da se li
potesse condurre." Vasari, nonetheless, expresses a particular
appreciation of the sketch precisely because it represents the
first visual approximation of the artist's idea and thus preserves
in its rapid execution the furor of the moment of inspiration.
Cf. below, p. I 6f. and note 32.
5
On Vasari'.^ collection of drawings, see O. Kurz, "Vasari's
'Libro de'disegni',11 Old Master Drawings, XII, 1937, p p . Iff. ..
and 32f f., and idem, ~,rTIJr Libro~deTaisegni ■ di Giorgio Vasari, H
f
4
For the Tuscan, the essential measure of a painting

is the quality of its drawing; the important criteria of
judgement are basically graphic and plastic values: line
and shading, form and proportion. The representation of the
human figure in contour and modelling is the primary problem

g
of the painter, and Vasari defines a painting as "un piano
di colori, in superficie sopra, i quali per virtu di un buon
7
disegno di linee girate circondono la figura." Color is
merely a surface addition to the basic drawing.

It is with such critical convictions in mind that Vasari
approached the works of the Venetian painters, and it is
therefore not surprising that his observations on their art
in Studi vasariani, Florence, 1952, p. 225ff. For a discussion

of Vasari's historical attitude and the related significance of
his frames, see E. Panofsky, "The First Page of Giorgio
Vasari's 'Libro'," in Meaning in the Visual Arts, Garden City,
N. Y., 1957, p. 169ff. Cf. also C. de Tolnay, History and Tech
nique of Old Master Drawings. New York, 1943, p. 5f.
6 «
Vasari, I, p. 170: "Nella pittura servono i lineamenti in
piu modi, ma particolarmente a dintornare ogni figura, perche
quando eglino sono ben disegnati e fatti giusti, ed a proporzione,
1 'ombre che poi vi si aggiungono ed ilumi sono cagione che i •
lineamenti della figura che si fa ha grandissimo rilievo, e
riesce di tutta bonta e perfezione." The critical values ex
pressed here are related to the more plastic formal concerns of
the sculptor and reflect Michelangelo's own view that painting
is best when it approaches the qualities of relief: "Io dico
cha la pittura mi par piu tenuta buona quanto piu va verso il
rilievo, et il rilievo piu tenuto caittivo quanto piu va verso
la pittura" (letter to Benedetto Varchi, printed in P. Barocchi,
ed., Trattati d'arte. I, p. 82). The Paraqone between painting
and sculpture was given impetus by Leonardo, who naturally found
sculpture lacking with regard to intellectual qualities. See
I. A. Richter, ed., Paragone, A Comparison of the Arts by
Leonardo da Vinci. Oxford, 1949, p. 87ff.
7Vasari, I, p. 170.
are often less than fully appreciative and tinged with a
definite condescension. Still, it is to Vasari that we owe

the first full description of the important changes in
Venetian painting that occurred at the beginning of the
sixteenth century. His account of Giorgione's revolutionary
approach to painting lies at the heart of his conception of
the contemporary Venetian school and provides the basic

material for the reverse side of the di segno-colorito coin.â
The story of Giorgione's innovation is related at the

opening of Vasari's life of Titian and begins with a charac
teristically slighting reference to Giovanni Bellini and the
other Venetian masters of the late Quattrocento, who, not
having studied the art of the ancients, had to rely solely
upon drawing directly from nature, but in a dry and graceless
7a
Colorito, rather than colore, is the word used most fre
quently by the Venetian writers on art, especially by Lodovico
Dolce and Marco Boschini (cf. below, p.58ff*), as well as by
Vasari. The term usually implies more than just color crua
pigment, referring- to the art of coloring in general.
Baldinucci, in his Vocabolario toscano dell'arte del disegno.
Florence, 1681, maintains this distinction; his definition of
colore involves references to "alcuni antichi Filosofi,"
Aristotle in particular, and the theoretical principles of
primary and secondary colors. Colorito. however, applies spe
cifically to artistic practice: "11 colorire: fra i Pittori
dicesi buon colorito, e cattivo colorito del tal Maestro; ed
il tale ha buon colorito, o cattivo colorito." Cf. also the
definitions of colorito in Reale Accademia d*Italia, Vocabolario
della lingua italiana. I, Milan, 1941: "II colorire proprio e
caratteristico di uno stile pittorico" (with quotations front
Vasari and Baldinucci) and "L'insieme dei colori in una pittura"
(with quotations from Baldinucci); and in S. Battaglia, Grande
dizionario della lingua italiana. Ill, Turin, 1964: "II
colorire di una pittura; arte di colorire; maniera di colorire,
caratteristica di uno stile pittorico" (with passages cited from
Leonardo, Aretino, Vasari, Marino, et al.).
0
manner. It was against this tradition, according to Vasari,
that Giorgione's technical revolution was directed:
Ma venuto poi...Giorgione da Castelfranco, non gli

piacendo in tutto il detto modo di fare, comincio a dare
alle sue opere piu morhidezza e maggiore rilievo con
bella maniera; usando non dimeno di cacciarsi avanti le
cose vive e naturali, e di contrafarle quanto sapere il
meglio con i colori e macchiarle con le tinte crude e
dolci, secondo che il vivo mostrava, senza far disegno;
tenendo per fermo che il dipignere solo con i colori
stessi senz'altro studio di disegnare in carta fusse il
vero e miglior modo di fare ed il vero disegno.
While apparently applauding the new style,10 Vasari
could hardly approve of Giorgione's approach. No sooner has

he recounted the Venetian's practice and ideas on drawing than
the biographer feels obliged to deliver an academic polemic
against them, reprimanding Giorgione for not having realized
the importance of drawing.^ He goes on at length to re-affirm
the values that Giorgione's example had put in question: the
necessity of drawing and its fundamental role, the importance
of constantly developing ideas on paper and keeping the hand
in practice so that the creation of a composition becomes a
flowing and almost effortless exercise. "Disegnando in carta,"

he concludes,
O
Vasari, VII, p. 427: “Gian Bellino e gli altri pittori
di quel paese, per non avere studio di cose antiche, usavano
molto, anzi non altro che il ritrarre qualunque cosa facevano
dal vivo, ma con maniera secca, cruda e stfintata...."
9
Ibid.
■^Vasari considered Giorgione one of the leaders of the

third and greatest age of Italian art. Cf. below, Chapter II,
P- 76f.
^■^Vasa^ri, loc. cit.: “Ma non s'accorgeva, che egli [sc.
disegno] e necessaric a chi vuol bene disporre i componimenti,
ed accomodare l'invenzioni, ch'e'fa bisogno priraa in piu modi
different! porle in carta, per vedere come il tutto torna insieme.
I
7
si viene a empiere la mente di bei concetti, e s'impara

a fare a mente tutte le cose della natura, senza avere
a tenerle sempre innanzi, o ad avere a nascere sotto la
vaghezza de'colori lo stento del non sapere disegnare;
nella maniera che fecero molti anni i pittori viniziani,
Giorgione, il Palma, il Pordenone, ed altri che non
videro Roma n^ altre opere di tutta p e r f e z i o n e . ^
In these passages the poles of the disegno-colorito
controversy are clearly established, and the Tuscan attitude

toward Venetian practice is forcefully expressed. The virtue
of Venetian painting is conceded to be its successful imita
tion of nature. Mere imitation, however, falls low on Vasari's

scale of values, for the painter, by forming a style based
upon the select models of ancient and modern art, must surpass
nature.13
In his account of Titian's career, Vasari continues
his theme, admiring the Venetian's use of color, acknowledging
his position as "il piu bello e maggiore imitatore della

14
natura nelle cose de'colori," but deploring his lack of
drawing. If only Titian could have come to Rome earlier to
benefit from the examples of Raphael and Michelangelo, from
the marvelous art of the ancients, to add Central Italian
draughtsmanship to his masterful coloring! In the famous
12feid., P. 428.
13
Ibid.; "...chi non ha disegnato assai, e studiato cose
scelte antiche o moderne, non puo fare bene di pratica da se
tie aiutare le cose che si ritranno dal vivo, dando loro guella
grazia e perfezione che da l'arte fuori dell'ordine della
natura, la quale fa ordinariamente alcune parti che non son
belle." For further discussion of these points, see below,
Chapter II, p. 68 ff., and Chapter IV, p. 2o0ff.
14 Vasari, VII, p. 431.
J
8
anecdote concerning Titian's visit to Rome in 1545, when he
painted the Danae now in Naples, Vasari records that Michel
angelo himself admired the canvas:
...il Buonarruoto lo comendo assai, dicendo che molto

gli piaceva il colorito suo e la maniera; ma che era un
peccato che a Vinezia non s'imparasse da principio a
disegnare bene, e che non avessono que'pittori miglior
modo nello studio. Con cio sia (diss'egli) che se
quest'uOmo fusse punto aiutato dall'arte e dal disegno,
come e dalla natura, e massimamente nel contrafare il
vivo, non si potrebbe far piu ne meglio, avendo egli
bellissimo spirito ed una mol to vaga e vivace maniera .•*■5
Vasari then adds a characteristic statement regarding the

impossibility of improving upon nature without the aid of
16
selected models and constant practice in drawing.
The Venetians, of course, did not accept this role of

mere imitators of nature. Titian especially was highly aware
of the responsibility of the artist to transform nature and
had chosen as his personal embiem-device the image of a she-
bear licking her cub into shape, with the motto, Natura
17
Potentior Ars. He was conscious as well of the examples
of Michelangelo and Raphael and, although he used some of what
15
Ibid., p . 447. A confused paraphrase of this anecdote
is repeated in the Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en
France par M. de Chantelou, ed. L. Lalanne, Paris, 1885, p. 8 8 .
For further comment on Titian's trip to Rome, see below,
Chapter II, p. 95ff«
16
Cf. above, note 13.
17
The image itself is a traditional one both in antiquity
and in the Middle Ages. The coupling of it with the motto
Natura Potentior Ars appears to have been Titian's own choice,
and the resulting device was identified as the painter's own
in the emblematic literature of the sixteenth century. For a
full discussion and further references, see H. Tietze, "Un
known Venetian Drawings in Swedish Collections," Gazette des
Beaux-Arts, XXXV, 1949, p. 183ff., who publishes a drawing of
the motif by the master, now in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.
I 9
they offered, he was said to have deliberately rejected the

idea of modelling a style upon theirs. The imperial envoy
Vargas once saw the painter using "a brush as big as a birch-
broom" and was told by Titian that "he wished to paint in a
manner different from that of Raphael or Michelangelo, be-

18
cause he was not content to be a mere imitator." A style
and an aesthetic very different from that of Central Italy
had been developed in Venice, where painters like Titian
found the greatest expressive power in the brush rather than
in the pen or chalk, in the spot of color rather than in the

line of a contour.
Yet the late Titian1s pittura di macchia— -and the

weight of his fame— moved even Vasari. His comments upon the
extreme style of the later works, those executed with the
birch-broom brush, no doubt, are valuable as critical testimony,
revealing a contemporary artist's reaction to Titian's art:
Ma e ben vero che il modo di fare che tenne in queste

ultime [pitture], e assai differente dal fare suo da giovane:
con cio sia che le prime son condotte con una certa finezza
e diligenza incredibile, e da essere vedute da presso e da
lontano; e queste ultime, condotte di colpi, tirate via di
grosso e con macchie, di maniera che da presso non si possono
vedere, e di lontano appariscono perfette. E questo modo
e sta’
to cagione che molti, volendo in cio imitare e
mostrare di fare il pratico, hanno fatto di goffe pitture:
e cio adviene perche, se bene a molti pari che elle siano
fatto senza fatica, non e cosl il vero, e s'ingannano;
perche si conosce che sono rifatte, e che si e ritornato
loro addosse con i colori tante volte, che la fatica vi si
vede. E questo modo si fatto e giudizioso, bello e
stupendo, perche fa parere vive le pitture e fatto con
grande arte, nascondendo le fatiche. ®
is
Quoted with further references by J. A. Crowe and G. B.
Cavalcaselle, The Life and Times of Titian. I, London," 1881,
p. 329.
10
Thus does Vasari describe the end product of the revolution
initiated by Giorgione, the extreme development of painting
directly upon the canvas without a careful preparatory de
sign, applying the colors in broken touches and large patches
and creating a surface of pure paint. From the passage quoted

it is quite clear that, of all the Venetians, Vasari granted
such license to Titian alone. The younger generation of
painters in Venice, headed by Tintoretto, came in for harsher

treatment. 20
Vasari1s attitudes are representative of the greater part
of Italian artistic thought in the second half of the six

teenth century. Following him, writers such as Borghini,
Armenini, and Lomazzo presented similar doctrines of the
primacy of disegno, always understanding by the term some

thing more than drawing in the strictly technical sense.
Drawing, it is true, was the key to the mastery of composi

tion, of proportion and human anatomy, all of which were in-
21
volved in the broader concept of disegno. Although these
authors are freer than Vasari in their admiration for the
20
Cf. below, p. I2f.and note 26.
21
G. P. Lomazzo, Trattato dell'arte della pittura (Milan,
1584), Rome, 1844, I, p. 35f.: "Ma perch^ il fare, e creare
le sostanze delle cose ha, come dicono i teologi, di potenza
infinita, la quale non si trova in alcuna pura creatura, e
bisogno^che il pittore pigli alcuna cosa invece di materia, e
questa e la quantita proporzionata, la quale e la materia
della pittura. II che hanno da considerar molto i pittori,
che il medeisimo e disegno, che la materia sostenziale della
pittura. E percio avvertiscano, che quantunque siano
eccellenti, e miracolosi in colorire, se non hanno disegno
non hanno la materia della pittura, e conseguentemente sono
privi della parte sostanziale di lei."
G. B. Armenini, De*veri precetti della pittura (Ravenna,
11
achievements of Venetian painting, they nonetheless similarly
criticize the Venetians' lack of drawing. In singling out
for praise in the field of composition Raphael, Polidoro,

Parmigianino, and Gaudenzio Ferrari, Lomazzo includes
alcuni Veneziani, parte dei quali pero usavano le

invenzione con colorimenti ed imitazioni naturali,
lasciando addietro il disegno e l'anatomia, che e
il proprio fondamento e base delle invenzioni. ...22
By the latter part of the Cinquecento, however, the
triumph of Titian had succeeded in forcing a basic respect
for Venetian color, and the beginning artist was advised to
combine the drawing of Michelangelo with the coloring of the
1587), Pisa, 1823, p. 48: "II disegno presso di voi sar&

una preordinazione considerata per tutte quelle cose, che
prima sono necessarie a sapersi per dover condurre le opere
nel suo fine abbastanza, le quale preordinazione imaginata
prima nella mente e conceputa dall'animo e dal giudizio, si
viene a porre finalmente in atto per varj modi su i piccoli
spazj delle carte, il che si fa con linee, lumi ed ombre,
intanto quell'artificio, che sono quelle invenzioni e materie
che si tentano e che fa di bisogno per le opere sue, e cio e
che li serva sempre siccome per iscorta e guida quasi in
fall ibile."
On the attitudes of the sixteenth-century writers to
drawing, a great deal of information is contained in the pages
of J. Meder, Die Handzeichnunq, Vienna, 1919, 2nd ed., 1923,
passim. See also K. Birch-Hlrschfeld, Die Lehre von der
Malerei im Cinquecento, Rome, 1912, p. 27ff., and L. Grassi,
II disegno italiano, Rome, 1956, pp. 7ff. and 25ff.
22
.Lomazzo, o p . cit., II, p. 466. R. Borghini, II Rjposo.
Florence, 1584, p. 564: "...si puo dire che questi pittori
Vinitiani grandissimo studio pongano nella vaghezza de'colori,
mol to piu? che non fanno nell'eccellenza del disegno." The
corollary of this regional feud was, of course, that the
Central Italians were mere draughtsmen and knew little about
color.. El Greco, who benefited from studies in both Venice
and Rome— though whose manner of painting must certainly be
considered Venetian— is said to have stated that "Michelangelo
was a good man, but that he did know how to paint" (quoted
from F. Pacheco, Arte de la Pintura (1638], by H. E. Wethey,
El Greco Snd His School. I, Princeton, 1962, p. 9) .
/
12
23
Venetian master. The artist most frequently said to have
24
applied this formula, Tintoretto, was the Venetian painter
most severely castigated by nearly all the writers for having
wandered much too far from the true path of disegno. In his
brief reference to Tintoretto, Vasari calls him,

nelle cose della pittura, stravagante, capricioso,
presto e risoluto, e il piu terribile cervello che
abbia avuto mai la pittura, come si pub vedere in
tutte le sue opere e ne'componimenti delle storie
fantastiche e fatte da lui diversamente e fuori
dell'uso degli altri pittori: anzi ha superata la
stravaganza con le nuove e capricciose invenzioni e
strani ghiribizzi del suo intelletto, che ha lavorato
a caso e senza disegno, quasi mostrando che quest*arte
e una baia. Ha costui alcuna volta lasciato le bozze
23
G. P. Lomazzo, L'ldea del tempjo della pittura (Bologna,
1590), Bologna, 1785, p. 52f.: "Ma diro bene che a mio
parere chi volesse formare due quadri di somma perfezione
come sarebbe d'uno Adamo, e di un Eva che sono corpi
nobilissimi al mondo; bisognerebbe che 1 *Adamo si dasse a
Michel Angelo da disegnare, al Tiziano da colorare, togliendo
la proporzione, e convenienza da Rafaello, e 1 ‘Eva si
disegnasse da Rafaello e si colorisce da Antonio da Coreggio;
che questi due sarebbeero i miglior quadri che fossero mai
stati fatti al mondo." This kind of success-formula was
actually first presented in 1548 by the Venetian Paolo Pino
in his Dialogo di pittura (ed. P. Barocchi, p. 127): "...se
Tiziano e Michiel Angelo fussero un corpo solo, over al
disegno di Michiel Angelo aggiontovi il colore di Tiziano, se
gli potrebbe dir lo dio della pittura...." On the electicism
of late-Cinquecento art theory, see A. Blunt, Artistic Theory
in Italy. 1450-1600, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1960, p. 137ff.
24
Borghini, op. cit.. p. 118: "Si prese per principal
maestro 1*opere del divino Michelangnolo....Laonde egli stesso
confesso non riconoscere per maestri nelle cose del disegno,
se non gli artefici Fiorentini; ma nel colorire dice aver
imitato la natura, e poi particolarmente Tiziano...." Ridolfi
(II, p. 13f.) later added an interesting and most probably
apocryphal detail to the story of Tintoretto's application of
the formula: "E per non deuiare dal proposto tema, scrisse
le leggi dello studio suo ne'muri d'vn suo gabinetto in tal
guisa: Il disegno di Michel Angelo e'l Colorito di Tiziano."
Cf. also Pietro Aretino's sonnet, cited below, note 109.
13
psr finite, tanto a fatica sgrossate, che si veggiono

i colpi de'pennelli fatti dal caso e dalla fierezza,
piuttosto che dal disegno e dal g i u d i z i o . 2 5
And Vasari's indictment set the tone for subsequent criticism

of Tintoretto's art.^
25
Vasari, VI, p. 587. For Vasari's attitude toward the
idea of finish, see P. Barocchi, "Finito e non-finito nella
critica vasariana," Arte antica e moderna. 1958, 3, p. 221ff.
26
G. B. Armenini, De'veri precetti, ed. cit., p. 129:
"...ma nel vero e di minor disegno, ed e men considerato di
Luca [cambiaso], e siccome con i colori e piu dolce, cosl di
minor rilievo e forza sono le sue pitture. Costui ha fatto
piu volte senza i disegni opere molto importanti, lasciando
le bozze per finite, e tanto a fatica sgrossate, che si veggono
i colpi del pennello fatti dall'impeto e dalla fierezza di
lui, ne percio sono poi da essere troppo,considerate a minuto."
For Federico Zuccaro's opinion that Tintoretto was personally
responsible for the decline of Venetian painting at the end of
the Cinquecento, see below, Chapter IV, p. 33&f*«
14
Approaches to Painting in Florence and Venice
Vasari never claimed that Giorgione had abandoned drawing

altogether or that the Venetian masters did not draw at all.
Indeed, his own collection included sheets attributed to

27
Giorgione and Tintoretto, respectively, the innovator of
the new manner of painting in Venice and, for the Tuscan,
the most offensively radical practitioner o'f it. In his
comments on these two artists, Vasari's censure is directed

against the Venetians' failure to follow the precepts of
accepted Central Italian practice. Basically, this comprised

the elaborate preparation of a composition through drawing—
"iscorta e guida quasi infallibile," in the words of

28
Armenini — from rough sketches to finished cartoon.
The essentially linear, rational structuring of a
picture was a constant in Florentine art throughout the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, from Giotto's clearly
functional spatial settings to the development of a rigorous
mathematical system of artificial perspective construction.
Similarly, the close and detailed investigation of the human

anatomy demanded the precision of linear expression. The
careful representation of the plastic form of the figure by
27
Vasari refers to "schizzi e disegni di penna" by
Giorgione in his collection. (0. Kurz, "Vasari's 'Libro de'disegni*,
p. 32))',. A Lamentation by Tintoretto, a chiaroscuro oil sketch,
formerly in Vasari's collection is now in the Louvre (T. 1737;
ibid., p. 40, pi. 40). A design for a tomb by Palladio con
tains the interesting notation by Vasari that "le figure son
di Paolo Veronese)'? the sheet is now in the museum at Budapest
(T. 2050; ibid., p. 42, pi. 45).
28
Armenini, op. cit., p. 48, quoted above, note 21.
15
means of an elaborate system of hatching is characteristic
of Tuscan draughtsmanship from the brothers Pollaiuolo through
Signorelli to Michelangelo. *
More tangible, however, is the relationship between
drawing and the favored medium of mural decoration in Tuscany,
painting aL fresco. In the Trecento and early Quattrocento,
monumental designs were worked out directly upon the wall

surface, the artist making a large rough drawing with a brush.
In the subsequent process of frescoing, this drawing, or
sinopia— as it has come to be called because of the red ochre

color that was. commonly used— was modified and corrected.
In the mid-fifteenth century the precisely delineated cartoon

came into use and this careful drawing on heavy paper gradually
replaced the sinopia as the penultimate step in fresco pro
duction. At first used for single figures, in the transfer
of specific studies to the wall surface, the cartoon became,

in the High Renaissance in Florence and Rome, a full-size,
29
detailed drawing of the entire composition.
OQ
Full surveys of the development of the fresco technique
in Tuscany will be found in E. Borsook, The Mural Painters of
Tuscany, London, 1960, and in L. Tintori and M. Meiss, The
Painting of the Life of St. Francis in Assisi, New York; 1962,
p. 3ff.; cf. also idem, "Additional Observations on Italian
Mural Technique, " Art Bulletin, XLVI, 1964, p. 377ff. For
further discussion of the early development and use of the
sinopia, see also U. Procacci, Sinopie e affreschi, Milan, 1960.
The particular problem of the relationship of drawing to monu
mental wall decoration was first investigated by R. Oertel,
"Wandmalerei und Zeichnung in Italien: Die Anfange der
Entwurfszeichnung und ihre monumentalen Vorstufen," Mitteilungen
des Kunsthistorischen Institute in Florenz, V, 1940, p. 217ff.,
who also has some interesting observations in "Perspective
and Imagination,“ in Studies in Western Art, II. The Renaissance
and Mannerism, Princeton, 1963, p. 146ff.
k. . x. .
The very nature of the cartoon and the mechanical pro
cedure of transferring the design from paper to wall surface
required that special emphasis be placed on the definition
of contours. Although the forms were modelled through

shading, only their outlines would be traced onto the plaster
ground.
The cartoon was the end of the entire process of graphic
preparation; all that remained was the mechanical transference
of the design to the wall and, as was often the case in the
i
Raphael studio, this could be left to assistants. The cartoon
itself contained all the essential virtues of the finished

painting— "l'istessa opera, fuorche le tinte," Armenini calls
it^®— and was usually the product of the master's own hand.
The cartoons of great artists were sought after and collected,
31
valued as highly as the frescoes which they prepared. The
30
G. B. Armenini, De'veri precetti, ed. cit., p. Ilf.:
"Ora ci resta a trattare dei cartoni, i quali appresso di noi
si ti.ene essere I'ultimo ed il piu perfetto modo di quello
che per artificio di disegno si vede il tutto delle sue forze
potere esprimersi; li quali appresso coloro che con diligenza
usano le strade vere, che con industria s'ingegnano intorno
al finirle bene, si mostrano cos! giovevoli per le opere, che
sono per dover fare, che li pare il rimanente poi di quelle
di poca fatica li sia....si vede in un ben finito cartone
esserci espresse di tutte le cose le difficulta piu estreme,
di maniera che a seguir i termini di quello, si cammina in
sicurissima strada con un perfettissimo esemjpio ed un modello
di tutto quello che si ha a fare; anzi si jpuo dire, quello sia
l'istessa opera, fuorche le tinte, o percio questo con ogni
industria e studio si vede esser sempre stato operato da
Michelangelo, da Leonardo Vinci, da Raffaello, da Perino, da
Daniello e da altri eccellenti."
31
Ibid.: "E siami lecito in questi da me, come veduti, il
dar loro ogni possibile perfezione d'incredibile maestria in
torno, e ci sono testimpni di quelli le molte reliquie, che ci
restano in diverse citta, sparse per le case de'nobili cittadini,
le quali come cose meravigliose, si tengono da loro carissime,
e con molta riverenza e riguardo."
beginning of the process of elaboration was the sketch, born
32
"dal furor dello artefice." The first rough draft of an
idea, as contained in a sketch, was further developed and

worked out with the aid of more finished drawings, careful
figure studies done from the model, elaborating details with
clarity and precision.
What was especially exasperating to Vasari and the other

Central Italian writers and theorists was the failure of the
Venetians to conceive and develop a composition in such clear
graphic stages. The background to Giorgione's practical in
novations, however, was not so. much the "dry".manner of drawing
of Bellini and his contemporaries ><as the traditional concern

in Venice with the particular effects of light in painting,
a concern which certainly can be traced back to the long

history of mosaic decoration in that city. Light, of course,
was a crucial phenomenon in all fifteenth-century painting;
light effects were responsible for the sparkling realism of
the Flemish masters as well as for the convincing solidity of

33
forms and definition of space in the painting of Florence.
Vasari, I, p. 174; see above, note 4. Cf. also Vasari's

preference for the drawings of Giulio Romano, rather than his
paintings, ibid., V, p. 528: "...si pub affermare che Giulio
esprimesse sempre meglio i suoi concetti ne'disegni che nell'operare
o nelle pitture, vedendosi in quelli piu vivacita, fierezza ed
affetto: e cio potette forse avvenire, perche un disegno lo
faceva in un'ora tutto fiero ed acceso nell'opera, dove nelle
pitture consumava i mesi e gli anni." Cf. A. Blunt, Artistic
Theory in Italy, p. 95f. - ^ ■
33
For the function of light in painting during this period,
see M. Meiss, "Light as Form and Symbol in Some Fifteenth-
Century Paintings," Art Bulletin. XXVII, 1945, p. 175ff., and,
for a more general discussion, W. SchSne, flber das Licht in
der Malerei, Berlin, 1954, p. 119ff.
In Venetian painting,- however, this phenomen functioned in a
different manner, working less with regard to the definition

of solid objects than toward the creation of an atmosphere,
something much less tangible. The light that is suffused
throughout the compositions of Giovanni Bellini, whether in
a landscape background or a mosaic-lined niche, displays
certain spiritual qualities that remind us of Venice's

34
Byzantine heritage.
Bellini's achievement, however, depended upon his suc-
35
cessful exploitation of the oil medium. By applying his
colors in glazes, darker tones over a lighter ground, he was
For a close analysis of one of Bellini's most remarkable

achievements in the handling of light, see M. Meiss, "Giovanni
Bellini's St. Francis," Saggi e memorie di storia dell'arte,
III, 1963, p. llff. Bellini's awareness of a Byzantine heri
tage is evident in many of his Madonnas, with their enclosing
robes surrounding the face of the Virgin, and in his renderings
of the blessing Christ child in a rigid, iconic frontal pose.
More pertinent to our present discussion, however, is Bellini's
use of gold mosaics in works like the San Giobbe and San
Zaccaria altarpieces. Here the painter consciously sought to
depict the effect of light reflected on a mosaic surface and
diffused, in a muted way, into the architectural space below,
a phenomenon known to every Venetian from his experience in
San Marco. For a brief introduction to the artistic importance
of Byzantium for Venice, see A. Grabar, "Byzance et Venise,11
in Venezia e l'Europa, Venice, 1956, p. 45ff.
Venetian painters of the Quattrocento were naturally
also aware of the art of their contemporaries in Florence, and,
with regard to the use of light, that of Piero was of particular
importance. See R. Longhi, "Piero dei Franceschi e lo sviluppo
della pittura veneziana, " L'Arte, XVII, 1914, pp. 198ff. and
241ff. Piero, in turn, as well as the Venetians, was indebted
to the example of Flemish painting. See M. Meiss, "Jan van
Eyck and the Italian Renaissance," in Venezia e l'Europa, p 58ff.
and G. Robertson, "The Earlier Works of Giovanni Bellini,
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXIII, 1960,
p. 45ff.
35
The technique of using oil as a binder for pigments was
not unknown to the Trecento; it is discussed by Cennini in
II libro dell'arte (The Craftsman's Handbook, D. V. Thompson, Jr.
trans., New Haven, 1933, p. 57). Improvements in the method
19
able to create a light that seemingly emanated from the very
depths of the picture itself; light was given an existence

independent of the objects in the composition. "With these
methods the portrayal of the diffusion of light could become

36
a major pictorial theme." It was upon such accomplishments
that Giorgione would build.
One other practical consideration was of great impor
tance for Giorgione's technical and stylistic innovations:
the use of canvas. Although cloth was used as a ground for

painting from antiquity through the Middle Ages, when it was
were generally credited to Hubert and Jan van Eyck,and for

this tradition Vasari provides the locus classicus (II, p. 565ff.).
The biographer asserts that the new methods were brought to
Italy by Antonelio da Messina, who was said to have studied in
the Netherlands. While this account of his supposed travels
is untenable, the Sicilian painter was certainly familiar with
Flemish works in Naples. See J. Lauts, "Antonelio da Messina,"
uahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, VIII, 1933,
p. 15ff. Cf. also, for Vasari's account, C. L. Eastlake,
Materials for a History of Oil Painting, reprinted as Methods
and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters. I,
New York, 1960, p. 182ff.; for a general bibliography on the
subject, see E. Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I,
Cambridge, Mass., p. 418, note 2 for p. 151. That Antonelio
was responsible for introducing the oil technique to Venice
during his visit of 1475-76 remains doubtful*. Giovanni Bellini,
who probably knew Flemish works in and around Venice (M. Meiss,
"Jan van Eyck and the Italian Renaissance," p. 62), used it
in his Coronation of the Virgin in Pesaro, the precise date
of which is unknown, though it is generally placed in the
early 1470s. For the technique of this altarpiece, see
C. Brandi, "The Cleaning of Pictures in Relation to Patina,
Varnish, and Glazes," Burlington Magazine, XCI, 1949, p. 183ff.,
and idem, "Postilla al restauro della pala del Bellini di
Pesaro e del Gozzoli del 1456 della Pinacoteca di Perugia,"
Bollettino dell1Istituto Centrale del Restauro, 2, 1950,
p. 57ff. Cf. also Meiss, "Giovanni Bellini's St. Francis."
p. 1 2 .
36
Meiss, op. cit., p. 12.
r 20
especially utilized for processional banners, not until the

late Quattrocento did it assume an important role in the
production of pictures. Although at first favored for its

37
ease of transport, canvas became increasingly popular in
Venice particularly for large-scale mural decorations in
stead of fresco, which suffered badly from the humidity of the
Venetian climate. Thus, the major decorative cycle in the

Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Ducal Palace, begun in '
fresco by the Paduan Guariento in 1365 and continued into
the early Quattrocento by artists such as Gentile da Fabriano
and Pisanello, was; from 1474 on, gradually replaced by a

series of oil paintings on canvas, and this became the
favorite medium of Venetian painting, especially for the
38
extensive pictorial cycles decorating the various scuole.
37
In a letter of July 6 , 1477, to Lodovico Gonzaga, Marquis
of Mantua, Mantegna writes with regard to certain portraits
commissioned of him, asking whether they are to be on panel
or canvas: "Se la s. vostra li volesse mandare lontano se
[posso]no(?) farli suso tela sotile per poterli avoltare suso
un bastonzelo." The full text is in P. Kristeller, Andrea
Mantegna. London, 1901, Document No. 29, p. 477f. Similar
practical virtues are cited by Vasari, I, p. 188: "Gli uomini,
per potere%portare le pitture di paese in paese, hanno trovato
la comodita delle tele dipinte, come quelle che pesano poco,
ed avvolte sono agevoli a trasportarsi." On the use of cloth
grounds before the fifteenth century, see D. V. Thompson, Jr.,
The Materials of Medieval Painting, London, 1936, p. 37f.
Vasari himself notes the usefulness of canvas for large

decorative schemes, and specifically cites the Ducal Palace
as a prime example, I, p. 189: "E perche questo modo e paruto
agevole e comodo, si sono fatti non solamente quadri per
portare attorno, ma ancora tavole da altari ed altre opere di
storie grandissime, come si vede nelle sale del palazzo di S.
Marco di Vinezia, ed altrove, avvengache dove non arriva la
grandezza delle tavole, serve la grandezza e fl comodo delle
tele." As early as 1409 the frescoes by Guariento and Antonio
Veneziano were in poor condition; in that year and in 1411
there are records of funds being voted for the necessary repairs
It was in the exploitation of the particular qualities
of the fatty substance of the oil medium and the rough texture
of the canvas surface that Giorgione opened up new expressive
possibilities. The broken highlight, a single touch of
paint, a natural result of working on such a ground, added
a new vibrancy to the effect of light in painting, as well

as calling attention to the tactile qualities of the painted
39
surface itself. This practice would later be picked up by
Titian and developed to the extreme of his late style; it

would allow Tintoretto to frustrate the ideas of finito and
abbozzato held by his Central-Italian critics. Venetian
colorito consisted not merely of the use of various colors,
( G B . Lorenzi, Monumenti per servire alia storia del Palazzo

Ducale di Venezia, Venice, 1868, Documents Nos. .137 and 140).
In 1422 an annual sum of 100 ducats was Voted for the general
maintenance of the paintings and a master painter was retained
for the work (ibid., Document No. 148). On the early'decora
tion of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, see P. Wickhoff, "Der
Saal des Grossen Rates zu Venedig in Seinem alten Schmuck,"
Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, VI, 1883, p. Iff., and L.
Testi, La storia della pittura veneziana. I, Bergamo, 1909,
p. 269ff. For further discussion of the "restoration" of
official paintings in Venice, see the comments of E. Tietze-
Conrat, "Decorative Paintings of the Venetian Renaissance Re
constructed from Drawings," Art Quarterly, III, 1940, p. 15ff.
39
The use of a very coarse and heavy kind of twilled
canvas with a herring-bone pattern, called terlise, was common
in Venice throughout the sixteenth century. The stylistic ex
ploitation of its texture occurs as early as about 1520, in the
work of the late Carpaccio shop— e.g., in the Martyrdom of St.
Stephen from the Scuola di San Stefano and now in Stuttgart
(P. Zampetti, Vittore Carpaccio, exhibition catalogue, Venice,
1963, Cat. No. 56). Even in the last years of the Quattrocento,
however, Carpaccio had begun to thin the gesso priming applied
over the canvas, thereby revealing some of the texture of the
cloth (cf. L. Venturi, Giorgione e il Giorgionismo. Milan, 1913,
p. 46f.). It is interesting to note that when canvas was used
in Florence it was often covered with a rather heavy ground of
gesso, deliberately eliminating the rough texture of the woven
surface. Cf. below, note 142.
but of the manner in which those colors were applied. In
Venetian painting of the middle and later Cinqueconto, figures
and forms are defined through differentiated touches of color,
individual brush strokes which create, from a distance, the

illusion of form as well as an intricate and nearly abstract
arrangement on the surface of the canvas— which is naturally

appealing to modern, post-impressionist tastes. In such a
method of painting there is no room for careful consideration

of contours, which are constantly-being eaten away by the
more powerful structure of brushwork and patterns of light

and dark.40
It is apparent that the finished cartoon has no place
in such a system. The Venetian painting was, in the main,
constructed on the very surface of the canvas, the ideas de

veloped during the actual process of painting. The arguments
over the iconographic interpretation of Giorgione's Tempest,
for instance, are further complicated by the fact that the

artist's original composition was quite different. X-ray
photographs of the picture reveal another, earlier solution

41
to the arrangement of the figures beneath the final version.
40
For further comment on the Pittura di macchia with
bibliography and references, see E. H. Gombrich, Art and
Illusion, New York, 1960, p. 192ff.
41
A. Morassi, "L'esame radiografico della 'Tempesta' di
Giorgione," Le arti. I, 1939, p. 567ff. For a survey of the
various interpretations of the painting's subject and a full
bibliography, see S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie, II, Cat. No.
198, and, for a guide and approach to the general problem,
cf. R. Wittkower, "L1Arcadia e il Giorgionismo," in Umanesimo
europeo e umanesimo veneziano, ed. V. Branca, Florence, 1963,
p. 473ff. Cf. also C. Gilbert, "On Subject and Not-Subject
in Italian Renaissance Pictures," Art Bulletin, XXXIV, 1952,
The.difficult question of whether Gioltqione changed the
actual subject of his picture or merely its composition is
not to our point at the moment; rather, what is significant
is that the artist felt free to and was able to make such
important changes during the very execution of the painting.
Similarly, Titian altered the composition of his Madonna with
the Cherries, now in Vienna, and was frequently adjusting and

re-arranging the poses and relationships of figures in his
later works, such as the Perseus and Andromeda in the Wallace

42
Collection, London. Such changes, as well as many that
can be seen in later works by Tintoretto and Veronese,
clearly indicate that the Venetian masters were constantly
altering and adjusting their compositional ideas in the course
of executing them. Thus, both the style and the technical
procedure of Cinquecento painting in Venice obviated the

necessity of preparing a full-scale detailed cartoon.
p. 202ff., and particularly p. 211ff. For X-ray examinations

of other paintings by Giorgione, see H. Posse, "Die Rekonstruk-
tion der Venus mit dem Cupid von Giorgione," Jahrbuch der
preussischen Kunstsammlungen. LII, 1931, p. 29ff., and J. Wilde,
"Rontgenaufnahmen der 'Drei Philosophen' Giorgiones und der
1Zigeunermadonna1 Tizians," Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen
Sammlungen in Wien. N. F. VI, 1932, p. 141ff.
42
The underpainting of the Madonna with the Cherries was
revealed when the picture was transferred from canvas to
panel in 1853-59 and is preserved in a copy made at that
time. See H. Tietze, Titian, London, 1950, p. 400, figs. 33
and 34. The most up-to-date bibliography on the picture is
in the catalogue of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemalde-
galerie. I, Vienna, i960, Cat. No. 1 0 1 . For the Perseus and
Andromeda, see C. Gould, "The Perseus and Andromeda and
Titian's Poesie," Burlington Magazine, CV, 1963, p. 112ff.
24
While the technique of fresco painting was occasionally
practised by most of the major Venetian masters of the six
teenth century, the Venetian climate, as we have indicated,

was not conducive to the preservation of such works. Many
of the facades of palaces and public buildings in Venice were
once covered with frescoes by Giorgione, Titian, Pordenone,
and Tintoretto, but only the vaguest traces of some of these

43
decorations are extant. Yet even when working in this
medium the Venetians asserted their own particular style and
technique, one closely related to developments in oil paint

ing, seeking effects different from those achieved by
artists in Florence and Rome. By mixing a kind of ceramic
ingredient into the plaster, the Venetians obtained an
intonaco surface that was coarser and more granular than
ordinary plaster; while this was done primarily to counteract

the damaging effect of Venetian humidity, a roughly textured
43
The decorations on the facades of the Fondaco de'Tedeschi,
executed by Giorgione and Titian in 1508, were in ruinous con
dition by the eighteenth century, when they were recorded in
etchings by Zanetti, Varie pitture a fresco de'principali
maestri veneziani, Venice, 1760 (H. Tietze, Titian, figs..
286-291). Only the single fragment of a female nude by
Giorgione now survives of these extensive decorations. See
M. Muraro, Pitture murall nel Veneto e tecnica dell'affresco,
catalogue of an exhibition, Venice, 1960, Cat. No. 65, and
S. Moschini Marconi, o p . cit.. Cat. No. 200. For the extant
fragments of Tintoretto's designs on the facade of Ca'Soranzo,
see M. Muraro, op. cit.. Cat. No. 78 and idem, "Affreschi di
Jacopo Tintoretto a Ca'Soranzo," in Scritti di storia dell*arte
in onore di Mario Salmi, III, Rome, 1963, p. 103ff. Such
large-scale projects surely required elaborate graphic pre
paration, but, unfortunately, hardly any of this material has
been preserved. Drawings associated with Giorgione's designs
on the Fondaco de'Tedeschi and with Pordenone*s for the facade
of the Palazzo d'Anna were discussed by E. Tietze-Conrat,
"Decorative Paintings of the Venetian Renaissance," p. 26ff.
44
painting surface was thereby obtained. In his frescoes,
then, Giorgione apparently attempted the same kind of tonal
effects of atmosphere and light that he had achieved so
strikingly in the oil medium. Although Titian's decorations
in the Scuola del Santo in Padua were executed in a relatively

45
pure fresco technique, his approach differs markedly from
that of Raphael in the contemporary Stanze decorations in the
Vatican. Titian's fresco style can only be called “painterly;"
the touch of the brush is in evidence throughout and the
forms are rendered even more freely than in his oil paintings
from the same period. There are some impressions in the
plaster which might at first seem to indicate that Titian may
have pirepared certain details of the composition with the
aid of cartoons. The handling in general, however, is so
free and these guide lines are so rare that it is certain the
Venetian's preparatory drawings have nothing in common,
stylistically or functionally, with the drawings and cartoons

46
of Rapnael.
But, in the sixteenth century, as now, Venetian paint
ing meant the oil medium on a canvas ground. It was in this
technique that the Venetians attained that freedom which so
44
On the use of this pastellone in Venetian frescoes,
see M. Muraro, Pitture murali nel Veneto, p. 27f.
45
Ibid., p. 27 and Cat. Nos. 70 and 71. See also
A. Morassi, Tiziano: gli affreschi della Scuola del Santo
a Padova, Milan, 1956.
46
Only one drawing for the Padua frescoes is known,
a sketch for the composition of the Jealous Husband, preserved
in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris (T. 1961; ill. in Tietzes,
Drawings, pi. LX, 1).
26
upset Vasari, failing to inform their compositions with a
solid structure based upon disegno and apparently treating

painting and drawing as two separate and almost unrelated
creative acts. If the preparatory graphic steps were not

apparent in the final picture, which was built of the fabric
of pigment and canvas, then we may ask— sharing for the
moment Vasari's incredulity— to what end did the Venetians
draw? What was the function of drawing in Venice and what
form did the graphic endeavors of the Venetian painters assume?
27
The Style and Function of Venetian Drawings
The graphic material available for study from the
early Cinquecento is rather sparse, and this is especially

47
so with regard to Giorgione. However, the few extant
drawings by that master make it clear enough that drawing
did indeed play some role in his artistic activity. Vasari
himself reports that Giorgione was a close observer of nature
and would use in his paintings only material that he had

48
drawn directly from nature. Several of the sheets at
tributed to him appear to be such studies of landscape

49
motifs which were then used in paintings.
The difficulties concerning the study of Giorgione's
drawings are, unfortunately, almost insurmountable. Not
only is the graphic oeuvre of this artist extremely small,
but the extant paintings, aside from presenting many pro
blems of attribution and interpretation, represent only one,
limited aspect of Giorgione's activity. We know him only as
47
For the drawings of Giorgione, see ibid.. p. 168ff.
48
Vasari, IV, p. 92: "Attese al disegno, e lo giusto
grandemente, e in quello la natura lo favorl, si forte, che
egli innamoratosi delle cose belle di lei non voleva mettere
in opera cosa che egli dal vivo non ritraesse."
49
Cf. especially two drawings in the Boymans Museum,
Rotterdam: a view of Castelfranco executed in red chalk
(T. 709; ill. in Tietzes, Drawings, pi. LI, 1) and a silver-
point landscape, also with a castle (T. 707; ibid., pi. XLVII,
3) . The latter study was apparently used in the background of
the Finding of Paris (P. Zampetti, Giorgione e i Giorgioneschi.
exhibition catalogue, Venice, 1955, Cat. No. 1). While the
painting may be a work of Giorgione's shop— it has also been
attributed to Bastiani, Catena, and Giulio Campagnola— the
use of a drawing by the master would have been a common
studio practice.
28
the painter of devotional images and small cabinet pictures
painted for the cultural elite of Venice; this is the part

of his work that has survived and these were the paintings
noted by Marcantonio Michiel in various private collections

50
of the early sixteenth century. A large part of Giorgione's
activity, however, was devoted to fresco decoration and mural

painting on a monumental scale. 51 Of this work we know only
52
the crumbling fragment from the Fondaco de'Tedeschi. The
rest of this important aspect of Giorgione's art is lost to
us.
Though hardly as small as in the case of Giorgione,
the number of drawings attributable to Titian is also quite

53
limited, fewer than 50 items. Here too the lack of material
has been interpreted as a verification of the Venetians' sup
posedly traditional aversion to drawing. The extant material,
however, is so varied in style and function that it clearly
50Marcantonio Michiel, Notizie. d'opere di disegno. ed.

T. Frimmel, Per Anonimo Morelliano (Quellehschriften fur
Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der
Neuzeit, N. F.I), Vienna, 1888, passim. On Michiel, see J.
Schlosser. La letteratura artistica, pp. 215f. and 221f.;
cf. also R. Pallucchini, La critica d'arte a Venezia nel
Cinquecento. Venice, 1943, p. 4ff.
51
Vasari, IV, p. 94ff., notes that Giorgione "dilettossi
molto del dipignere in fresco" and lists several such projects.
52
See above, note 43.
53
The first list of drawings attributed to Titian was
compiled by D. von Hadeln (Tizians Zeichnungen, Berlin, 1924)
and contained 36 items, to which were added another six in
the second, English edition (Titian's Drawings, London, 1927).
L. Fr8hlich-Bum rejected 13 of Hadeln's attributions and added
several of her own in two studies ("Studien zu Handzeichnungen
der italienischen Renaissance," Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen
Sammlungen in Wien. N. F. II, 1928, p. 194ff., and "Tizians
V 29
must represent only a random cross-section of a larger pro-

54
duction. Titian's graphic oeuvre contains landscapes and
55 56
studies from nature, studies for portraits, of single
figures, for details of and entire compositions. 57
Landschaftszeichnungen," Belvedere, VIII, 1929, p. 71ff.),

enumerating 45 drawings. Her judgements, in turn, were
questioned by H. Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat ("Tizian-
Studien," Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien,
N. P. X, 1936, p. 137ff.) who, in their corpus of Venetian
drawings, attributed 43 items to the master (Drawings,
p. 304ff.). In several subsequent studies, H. Tietze has
published a number of new drawings as the work of Titian ("A
Drawing by Titian," Art in America, XXXIII, 1945, p. 148ff.;
"Unknown Venetian Renaissance Drawings in Swedish Collec
tions, " Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXXV, 1949, p. 177ff.; and
"Studies from Nature by Titian," Nationalmusei Arsbok,
Stockholm, 1949-50, p. 29ff.). Cf. also W. Suida, "Miscellanea
tizianesca, II," Arte veneta, X, 1956, p. 79ff.
54
The failure of the early collectors of drawings to
show any interest in Titian is certainly due in part to the
influence of Vasari's comments and the general attitudes of
the disegno-colorito polemic. Cf. below, note 106. In addi
tion, however, it must be kept in mind that upon the deaths of
Titian and his son and chief assistant, Orazio Vecellio, the
master's residence was plundered in the confusion of the plague
of 1576. What little remained after that was dispersed by the
surviving son, Pompottip, who had no interest in art or in the
reputation of his father. This, incidentally, is in striking
contrast to the way in which Michelangelo's artistic legacy was
guarded by his family. These conditions may be further reason
for assuming, as do the Tietzes (Drawings, p. 304), that we are
left with an unrepresentatively small portion of Titian's
graphic output.
55_
The pen drawing of a group of trees, now in the Metro
politan Museum (T. 1943), a penetrating study from nature, was
used twice in Titian's woodcut of the Sacrifice of Abraham
(see H. Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat, "Contributi critici alio
studio organico dei disegni veneziani del Cinquecento," La
critica d'arte, II, 1937, p. 80, figs. 5 and 7). Such studies
certainly formed part of a collection of exempla, drawings to
be used by master and shop assistants in subsequent projects.
56 Cf. the preliminary pen drawing in the Uffizi (T. 1911)

for the portrait of the Duke of Urbino, also in the Uffizi.
57
See, e.g., the landscape drawing with St. Theodore
slaying the dragon, in the collection of Mr* Janos Scholz, New
York City (M. Muraro, Venetian Drawings from the Collection Janos
Scholz, catalogue of an exhibition, Venice, 1957, Cat. No. 17).
It is especially with regard to the last of these
categories that problems of interpretation have arisen,
especially the problem of placing these drawings within the
context of the master1s working methods. The most detailed
account of Titian's approach to painting is that recorded

by Boschini, who claims to have heard it from an eye-witness,
Jacopo Palma il Giovane. According to this source, the
master began a painting by sketching the composition directly
onto the canvas, using a loaded brush for the monochrome
underpainting and establishing with just a few strokes the
structure of the figures. This initial process completed,

the picture was turned to the wall and kept out of sight
for a period of weeks or even months. Then it was taken
out to be worked on once more, Titian examining it with

critical scrutiny, adjusting the composition and correcting
whatever faults he found. This procedure was repeated
several times, the canvas being moved back and forth between
easel and wall, undergoing each time such examination and
reworking, until it was judged finished. In the final stages
of completion, according to Palma, Titian painted with his

CQ
fingers as much as with the brush.
58
M. Boschini, Le ricche minere della pittura veneziana,
Venice, 1674, preface (unpaginated): "Tiziano...abbassaua i
suoi quadri con vna tal massa di Colori, che seruiuano (come
dire) per far letto, o base alle espressioni, che sopra poi li
doueua fabric^re; e ne iio veduti anch'io de colpi rissoluti,
con pennellate massiccie di colori, alle volte d'vn striscio
di terra rossa schietta, e gli seruiua (come a dire) per mezza
tinta: altre volte con vna pennellata di biacca, con lo stesso
pennello, tinto di rosso, di nero e di giallo, formaua il
rilieuo d'vn chiaro, e con queste massime di Dottrina faceua
comparire in quattro pennellate la promessa d'vna rara f.igura,
with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
31
On the basis of this testimony, Hadeln had concluded .

that drawing could not have played a part in such a process
59
of elaboration.. Palma's report, however, can have referred
only to Titian's methods during the very last years of his
60
career; his account is very similar to Vasari's report of
61
the master's late style. For Titian's earlier years we
have the evidence of drawings related to paintings— the pen
& in ogni modo questi simile abbozzi satollauano i piu in-

tendenti di modo, che da molti erano cosi desiderati, per
tramontana di vedere il modo di ben incaminarsi ed entrare
nel Pelago della Pittura. Dopo hauer formati questi preziosi
fondamenti, riuoglieua i quadri alia muraglia, & iui gli
lasciaua alle volte qualche mese, senza vederli: e quando
poi da nuouo vi voleua applicare i pennelli, con rigorosa
osseruanza li esaminaua, come se fossero stati suoi capitali
nemici, per vedere se in loro poteua trouar diffeto; e
scoprendo alcuna cosa, che non concordasse al delicato suo
intindimento, come chirurgo beneficio medicaua l'ingermo, se
faceua di bisogno spolpargli qualche gonfiezza, o soprabondanza
di carne, radrizzandogli vn braccio, se nella positura hauesse
presa attitudine disconcia mettendolo a luogo, senza compatir
al suo dolore, e cose simili....Ma il condimento de gli vltimi
ritocchi era andar di quando, in quando vnendo con sfreggazzi
delle dita ne gli estremi de chiari, auicinandosi alle meze
tinte, ed'vnendo vna tinta con l'altra; altre volte con vn
striscio delle dita pure poneua vn colpo d'oscuro in qualche
angolo, per rinforzarlo, oltrs qualche striscio di rossetto,
quasi gocciola di sangue, che inuigoriua alcun sentimento
superficiale, e. cosi andaua a riducendo a perfezzione le sue
animate figure. Ed il Palma mi attestaua per verita, che ne
i finimei>ti dipingeua piu con le dita, che con pennelli.”
59
D. von Hadeln, Titian's Drawings, p. 2: "Apparently
Titian did not start with the linear image of a composition which
he had sharply defined in his mind but rather from the surface
of his canvas and its organization of color, from which the
picture grew gradually in a slow prbcess of refining.
"With such a point of view and corresponding methods of
work there was little room for preliminary drawing. It was of
no use to put on paper ideas which were formulated only on
canvas; needless first to try motives of single figures, when
the whole was still in the process of fermentation."
go
Palma can have been familiar with the Titian shop only
after 1570. For further discussion of his relationship to
Titian, see below, Chapter III, p.
6 1 Cf. above, p. 9f.
SS'
32
sketches for the St. Sebastian of the Brescia altarpiece,

62
dated 1520, and for the destroyed composition of St. Peter
Martyr, completed around 1530 for the church of SS. Giovanni
63
e Paolo — showing that he did indeed use drawing as an aid
in the development of painted compositions. These rapid
notations reveal the boldness of Titian's penmanship. The

final formulation of a figure was certainly left for the
brush, but the Venetian was obviously quite capable of

thinking with the pen.
There are several chalk drawings by Titian which are
preparatory studies for particular figures in paintings. The
earliest of these is a study for the figure of St. Peter in

64
the Prari Assunta, completed in 1518. From around 1531 is
the drawing for the St. Bernardino in the now lost vdtive
65
picture of Doge Andrea Gritti. For the Martyrdom of St.
Lawrence in the Gesuiti, ca. 1550-55, there is a sheet of
62 Berlin, Kupferstichkabinet (T. 1880), and Frankfort

am Main, Stadelsches Kunstinstitut (T. 1915).
^Lille, Musee Wicar (T. 1923, 1924) . M. Roy Fisher,

Titian's Assistants during the Later Years, Ph.D. Dissertation,
Harvard University, 1958, p. 108ff., has attempted to attri
bute these sketches to Palma Giovane, supposedly copying the
Titian composition and preparing a similar project of his own.
A comparison with Palma's well-known style of drawing is, how
ever, entirely unconvincing and Fisher's thesis must be re
jected. There seems to be little reason to question the
traditional attribution of the sketches to Titian.
64
London, British Museum (T. 1929).
65
Florence, Uffizi (T. 1904). The painting, originally
in the Sala del Senato of the Ducal Palace, was destroyed in
the fire of 1574; the composition is preserved in an anonymous
woodcut (H. Tietze, Titian, fig. 303).
7
33
studies for the legs of the executioner at the right. We
have, then, three drawings from different periods of Titian's

67
career preparing details of painted compositions; all are
executed in black chalk or charcoal with some white heightening

and are rendered in a very free manner. Titian was not seeking
to establish with any precision the contours of these figures.
In the St. Peter study he was attempting to set down the

ecstatic gesture of the saint and to determine the form of
the draperies through chiaroscuro patterning. The figure of
St. Bernardino similarly displays a feeling for pictorial
values rather than an interest in exact linear distinctions,

and the rendering of the anatomy of the legs in the third
example depends more upon the masses of light and dark and
broken touches than upon .the deliberate searching of a precise
line.
One need only compare these drawings with preparatory
studies by Raphael to appreciate the difference in function

as well as style. Titian's designs are not meant to lead up
to a carefully rendered cartoon, to be interpreted finally by
66 Florence, Uffizi (T. 1906).

67
A drawing of a lion in black and yellow chalks in the
Boymans Museum, Rotterdam (T. 1917), is a study for the
painting of Doge Antonio Grimani Adoring the Figure of Faith
in the Sala delle Quattro Porte of the Ducal Palace. The
picture, commissioned in 1555, was left unfinished upon the
death of Titian and was completed by Marco Vecellio. See
below, Chapter III, p. 149£f• Cf. also the drawings of horse
men in Munich (T. 1941) and Oxford (T. 1949), perhaps studies
by the master used by his son Orazio in a battle picture com
missioned of him for the Ducal Palace.
; . • ■ I
34
means of exact delineation. They are, rather, clarifications
of particular problems, pictorial notations for the painter's

own reference, to be consulted during the act of painting
but not to be transferred mechanically to. the picture's sur
face. Nonetheless, such drawings are strictly a part of the
painter's procedure, intimately related to the preparation

68
of a painted composition.
Only two drawings have been preserved that contribute
to our knowledge of how Titian may have elaborated his ideas
for a composition. The first of these is a compositional

69
sketch for Titian's Battle of Cadore, painted in 1537-38.
It is a black chalk drawing on blue paper with some white
heightening, executed in a loose manner, in which the general
design of the whole is fixed, although the details do not
always correspond with those of the final composition. Al
though the sheet is squared, it is impossible to determine
whether the artist worked from this particular drawing onto

the canvas or made subsequent sketches of the composition.
68
Hadeln's judgement of such drawings (op. cit., p. 6 ),
though perhaps justified to a certain extent, still seems to
be an exaggeration of the situations "Thus Titian's sketches
do not show any systematic, carefully planned, and strictly
applied method. The result shows comparatively little of
scientific value, for the drawings are not closely related to
the development of his paintings."
69
Paris, Louvre (Inv. 21788). The drawing was published
and its position in the development of the composition dis
cussed by E. Tietze-Conrat, "Titian's Design for the Battle of
Cadore," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXXIV, 1948, p. 237ff. The
painting itself was destroyed in the fire of 1577, but its
composition has survived in a painted copy in the Uffizi and
in several engravings. For further references, see H. Tietze,
Titian, p. 395.
One of the most finished drawings in Titian's known
oeuvre is the design for the Sacrifice of Abraham, one of
three ceiling panels painted for the church of the Santo
Spirito around 1544 and now in the sacristy of Santa Maria

70
della Salute. The approach to a central-Italian style of
drawing may be explained by the circumstances of the com
mission, which was first awarded to Vasari during his first

71
trip to Venice in 1541-42. The paintings themselves stand
at a crucial moment in the development of Venetian ceiling
painting with its concern with a strong di sotto in su per
spective, and this may account for the care with which Titian
72
developed the composition in drawing. We may be sure, how
ever, that this design represents the final stage of graphic
preparation and that Titian began the actual execution of
the canvas free-hand, as it were, without a full-scale cartoon.

In drawing as in painting, the most extreme example ,of
73
the Venetian approach is provided by the art of Tintoretto.
Nearly all the sheets in this painter's large corpus of
70
Paris, Ecole des Beaux Arts (T. 1962) .
71
For Vasari's trip to Venice and its possible influence
on the development of Venetian art, see below, Chapter II, p. giff.
72
Cf. below, p. 94* The Tietzes (loc. cit.) have sug
gested that Titian may have been familiar with some of Vasari's
preparatory drawings for the project and that these may have
exercised a definite influence on the Venetian's draughtsman
ship at this moment.
73
The major studies of Tintoretto's drawings remain
those of Hadeln, Zeichnungen des Giacomo Tintoretto. Berlin,
1922, and the Tietzes, Drawings, p. 268ff. See also A. Forlani's
catalogue of the Mostra di disegni di Jacopo Tintoretto e della
sua scuola, Florence, 1956.
drawings are studies of single figures executed in black
74
chalk or charcoal. These, in turn, fall into two broad
categories: drawings of small pieces of sculpture and
studies preparing painted compositions. The former group
consists of sheets executed in black and white chalks,
usually on blue paper, and contains the most finished ex-

75
amples of Tintoretto's draughtsmanship. The artist turned
his small models, selecting varied and unusual views, inter
ested more in the impression of the foreshortened image than
in the integral anatomy of the sculptured figures. The solid
forms of the model are interpreted through contrasting areas

of light and dark; the sculptural is translated into the
pictorial.
The studies of human models or small figurines made

by Tintoretto himself display an even greater freedom of
execution. They are usually quick notations in vdiich the-

artist is more interested in the movement of the figure than
74
The recent attempt by W. Hugelshofer to attribute
pen drawings to Tintoretto is hardly convincing ("Zeichnungen
mit der Feder von Jacopo Tintoretto," Pantheon, XX, 1962,
p. 338ff.). The author ignores the warnings of Hadeln and
the Tietzes and apparently fails to recognize the problems
involved in investigating the drawings of the master of a :
large and active workshop.
75
Boschini, Carta del navegar pitoresco, Venice, 1660,
Vento terzo, p. 140f., lists many of the casts of pieces of
sculpture in the collection of the Tintoretto shop. Among
these were Daniele da Volterra's small models of Michelangelo1
four allegorical figures in the Medici Chapel, for which
Tintoretto had expressly sent to Florence (Ridolfi, II, p. 14)
On these see D. R. Coffin, "Tintoretto and the Medici Tombs,"
Art Bulletin. XXXIII, 1951, p. 119ff., and for Tintoretto's
drawings after sculpture, Hadeln, op. cit., p. 19ff. Cf. also
C. Gilbert, "Tintoretto and Michelangelo's 'St. Damian',"
Burlington Magazine. CII, 1961, p. 16ff.
37
in its plastic form; for these, Tintoretto developed a calli
graphic shorthand, setting down a figure in a series of short,

76
rapid strokes. The squaring on many of these sheets indi
cates that this is as far as the graphic preparation of a
figure would go before the form was executed on the canvas.
These sketches are never full size and the transferring of
the figure was, of course, never accomplished mechanically.
With the squaring as a guide, the master took up his brush
and in a similar shorthand executed the figure directly on

77
the surface of the canvas.
Tintoretto's elaborate method of preparing a com

position is described by both Ridolfi and Boschini, who re
ceived their information from the master's heirs and
successors, his son Domenico and Sebastiano Casser, his
son-in-law. For large public commissions Tintoretto went
76
Some interesting light is shed on Tintoretto's atti
tude toward drawing by the following anecdote, narrated by
Ridolfi, II, p. 65; "Visitato da alcuni Fiaminghi venuti da
Roma, gli recarono alcune loro granite teste di lapis rosso,
condotte con estrema diligenza; e ricercati da lui quanto tempo
vi si fossero occupati intorno, risposero, chi dieci e chi
quindici giorni. Veramente disse ii Tintoretto; non vi
poteuate star meno; ed intinto il pennello nel nero fece in
breui colpi vna figura, toccandola con lumi di biacca con
molta fierezza, poi riuoltosi a quelli disse; Noi poueri
Venetiani non sappiamo disegnare, che in questa guisa. Stupir-
ono quelli della prontezza del li lui ingegno, e si accorsero
del tempo perduto."
77
On the reverse side of Tintoretto's painting of St.
Mark Rescuing the Saracen at Sea in the Accaderiiia, Venice, the
artist had previously begun and abandoned another composition.
This unfinished project affords an opportunity of observing
how the master sketched his figures, without draperies, onto
the canvas. See S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie, II, Cat. No.
408. See also M. Pittaluga, "Di alcune tracce sul verso della
'Crocifissione' del Tintoretto della Scuola di San Rocco,,!
L'Arte. XXIV, 1921, p. 202ff.
38
first to examine the site for the general conditions of
lighting and space. Then he made little wax figures, which

he distributed on a small stage and, with the aid of arti
ficial lighting, worked out ideas for the composition in
three dimensions. When the composition was thus established,
Tintoretto sketched it in chiaroscuro, interpreting the light
and dark patterning in monochromatic values. The canvas was
then tested at the site and adjustments made, often neces
sitating the re-arrangement of large portions of the com-

78
position.
78
M. Boschini, Le ricche minere, preface: "Il Tintoretto
ogni volta, che doueua far vn'opera in publico, prima andaua ad
osseruare il sito, doue doueua esser posta, per veder l ’altezza,
e la distanza, e poi in conformita di quello, per ben formare
i concerti delle Historie, disponeua sopra vn piano alcuni
modellini di picciole figurine di cera da lui medesimo fatti,
distribuendogli in atteggiamenti serpeggianti, piramidali,
bizzari, capricciosi, viuaci. Ma per ben distribuire tutta
la massa applicaua grS studio all'artifizio del di centro, e
del di fuori, col far apparir sempre fierezze di lumi, ombre,
riflessi, e battimenti; alle volte col formar le figure vicine
tutte oscure, e gettar in distanza il chiaro, ed altre volte
tenendo le figure principali chiare, e mandando in lontano gli
oscuri, ed altre volte, facendo nascer qualche accidente, che
lumeggiasse vna figura all'opposito dell'altre, per ben con-
certare le sue opere: licenze pittoresche, ed artificij in-
dustriosi nuoui statuti, e riforme di nuoue leggi alia Pittura;
di modo che si vede in questo gran Maestro dell1Arte quella
padronia artificiosa non mai veduta in alcuno. Quando poi
haueua stabilita questa importante distribuzione, abbozzaua
il quadro tutto di chiaro oscuro, hauendo sempre oggetto
principale di concertare la massa come s'e detto. E poi anco
molte volte abbozzata, che haueua vna gran tela, la colocaua
nel suo sito per maggiormente sodisfare alia sua accuratezza,
e scoprendo per auuentura alcuna cosa, che rendesse discorde
l'armonia del concerto, era buono di rifformar non solo,'vna
figura, ma per causa di quella, molte altre vicine."
Ridolfi, II, p. 15: "Esercitauasi ancora nel far
piccioli modelli di creta, vestendoli di cenci, ricercandone
accuratamente con le pieghe de'panni le parti della membra,
quali diuisaua ancora entro picciole case e prospettiue com
pos te di asse e di cartoni, accomodandoui lumicini per le
fenestre, recandoui in tale guisa lumi e le ombre. Sospendeua
VI 39
Between the first compositional sketches, made from the
miniature stage setting, and the final canvas would come the
studies from the living model, establishing single figures or
groups of figures. 79 Of these there are numerous extant ex
amples. Of the sketches of full compositions,' however, very
few have survived. One of these is a design for the Munich
painting of Venus and Vulcan, a drawing elaborately but freely
executed in pen and wash over black chalk and heightened with
white. 80 The realization of the radical foreshortening of
ancora alcuni mcdelli do'fili alle trauatine, per osseruare gli

effetti, che faceuano veduti all'insu, per formar gli scorci
posti ne'soffitti, componendo in tali modi bizzaxe inuentioni;
le reliquie de'quali si conseruano ancora nella stanza secre-
taria de'pellegrini suoi pensieri."
For further discussion of Tintoretto's procedure, see
Hadeln, Zeichnungen des Giacomo Tintoretto, p. 29ff. Such
methods were common practice throughout most of Italy in the
sixteenth century, especially when artists began decorating
ceilings, vaults, and domes. They are recommended by Vasari
(I, p. 176) and Lomazzo asserts that even Titian made such
models (Idea del tempio della pittura, Milan, 1590, p. 53),
though tdiere is no other evidence for this. The topic is
treated circumstantially by J. Meder, Die Handzeichnung, 2nd
ed., Vienna, 1923, pp. 414ff.t and 551ff., and by J. von
Schlosser, "Aus der Bilderwerkstatt der Renaissance," Jahrbuch
der kuns this tor ischen Kunstsammlungen des allerh'dchsten Kaiser-
hauses, XXXI, 1913, p. 67ff. and especially p. 102ff.; on
p. 128ff. Schlosser includes an appendix of texts from the older
literary sources on the painters' use of small models.
79
For the Adam and Even and Cain and Abel, painted for
the Scuola della Trinita and now in the Accademia, Ridolfi
(II, p. 18) writes that Tintoretto had drawn the figures from
life with the aid of a wire grid. In his petition for a re
vision of the broker's patent at the Fondaco de'Tedeschi,
Tintoretto refers to his painting of the Battle of Lepanto.
destroyed in the fire of 1577, claiming that he worked on it
for ten months and that his expenses had amounted to 200
ducats, because he had designed everything from nature (see
G. B. Lorenzi, Monumenti per servire alia storia del Palazzo
Ducale, Document No. 801, dated September 27, 1574).
80
Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett (T. 1561).
40
the figures and the distribution of light and shadow would
seem to indicate that the drawing was made from a stage con
struction. A design associated with the painting of the
Battle on the Taro, on the other hand, is so pictorial a
sketch, establishing the composition only in the most general
way, that we may assume it to be one of the very earliest

steps in the elaboration of the idea, a rough sketch executed
81
with the brush.
The graphic production of Paolo Veronese is as large

82
as Tintoretto's but more varied in style and medium. His
drawings fall into three categories: pen sketches, chalk

studies, and finished designs executed in a chiaroscuro
technique. This variety reveals an interest in the modes of
graphic representation that goes beyond that of either Titian,

or Tintoretto and reminds one of Veronese's non-Venetian origins. 83
81
Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte (T. 1724). On
Tintoretto's oil sketches presented as modelli, see H. Tietze,
"Bozzetti di Jacopo Tintoretto," Arte veneta, V, 1951, p. 55ff.,
and idem, "II bozzetto della Probatica Piscina del Tintoretto,"
ibid., VI, 1952, p. 189ff. Cf. also P. Warzee, "Le Miracle de
l'esclave du Tintoret, une decouverte iinportante, " Bulletin de-
l'Institut du Patrimonie Artistigue (Brussels), VI, 1963, p. 91ff.,
where a canvas in a private collection in Brussels is identified
as the "avant-projet" for Tintoretto's 1548 composition; the
attribution to Tintoretto, however, is unconvincing.
82Nearly 1500 drawings by Veronese and his shop are listed

in an inventory of 1682 as still the property of the Caliari
family: G. Gattinoni, ed., Inventario di una casa veneziana
del secolo XVII° (la casa degli eccellenti Caliari eredi di
Paolo il Veronese). Venice, 1914, passim. On Veronese's draw
ings in general, see G. Fiocco, Paolo Veronese, Bologna, 1928,
p. 131ff., and particularly Tietzes, Drawings, p. 334ff. Cf.
also D. Rosand, The Drawings of Paolo Veronese, unpublished
M.A. Essay, Columbia University, 1962.
83
Paolo was born in Verona in 1528 and his father was a
spezzapreda, a stonecutter, and it was in this craft that
Veronese was first trained. In a letter of 1553, the artist
41
In general, the differences in type of execution cor
respond to differences in function. The pen sketches, rendered
with a freely flowing line and often washed, are usually pre
liminary ideas for compositions. Veronese filled sheets with
such notations, developing motifs of figures, groups, land-

84
scapes and architectural motifs. For the graceful yet firm
style of these sketches there is no precedent to be found
either in the work of Paolo's early Veronese masters or in
the drawings of native Venetians, and we must look instead to

85
the influence of an artist like Parmigianino.
still signed himself as Paullo spezaPda (see P. Caliari, Paolo

Veronese, sua vita e sue opere, Rome, 1888, p. 17, note). His
education as a painter began under the Veronese master,
Antonio Badile, and was supplemented by study of the Mannerism
of Giulio Romano and Parmigianino, whose works were to be
seen throughout northern Italy and in Verona itself. On the
formation of Veronese's early style, see D. von Hadeln, "Veronese
und Zelotti," Jahrbuch der preuszischen Kunstsammlungen, XXXV,
1914, p. 168ff.; G. Fiocco, op. cit., p. 4ff.; and R. Pallucchini,
Paolo Veronese, Bergamo, 1943, p. llff.
84
See Tietzes, Drawings, p. 336ff.
85
Considering the facts of Veronese's local origin, B.
Degenhart, "Zur Graphologie der Handzeichnung," Kunstgeschicht-
liches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana. I, 1937, p. 291ff.,
has attempted to demonstrate a relationship between the linework
of Paolo's pen drawings and that of older Veronese artists like
Stefano da Verona and Pisanello. More than a century, however,
separates Paolo Caliari from these earlier masters, and it is
difficult to support such a local heritage in his draughtsman
ship. ^Ridolfi (I, p. 345) specifically notes that Veronese "si
diletto de'disegni del Parmegiano, ritraiendo molti." Veronese
may well have been familiar with actual drawings by Parmigianino,
who was in Verona in 1530 and may have left some behind; many
of his drawings were owned by Alessandro Vittoria. See R.
Predelli, "le memorie e le carte di Alessandro Vittoria,"
Archivio trentino, XXIII, 1908, p. 129ff., and below, note 89,
and Chapter II, note 54.
Veronese's pen style underwent relatively little change
during his career, as can be seen by a drawing published by
H. Tietze, "Nuovi disegni veneti del Cinquecento in collezioni
r'
42
In his chalk drawings, however, Veronese exhibits a
more traditional Venetian approach; indeed, the attributions
of several drawings in this medium are uncertain, the sheets
being assigned variously to Titian, Tintoretto, Bassano, or

86
Veronese. There are, however, other sheets in which Paolo
demonstrates a highly individual technique of black and white

chalk rendering, a brilliant and direct handling of the
87
materials with variety of touches and strokes. The very
open and flickering quality of such drawings is purely
Venetian and, like Veronese's painting and his pen drawings,
finds a distinct echo in Paolo's Settecento heir, Giambattista
Tiepolo.
americane," Arte veneta, II, 1948, p. 59, fig. 71. It is a

sketch for the Prado Christ among the Doctors, which is dated
1548 and is Paolo's earliest known secure work. See M. Levey,
"An Early Dated Veronese and Veronese's Early Work," Burlington
Magazine, CII, 1960, p. 106ff.
86
For example, the Uffizi drawing of a lady at a clavi
cembalo (T. A2059), previously attributed to Titian, has been
given to Veronese by Hadeln (Venezianische Zeichnungen der
SpStrenaissance, Berlin, 1926, p. 29, pi. 50), Fiocco (Paolo
Veronese, pp. 138 and 208), who notes, however, the sympathy
of Veronese in his later years for the work of Bassano, and by
Pallucchini (Mostra di Paolo Veronese, Venice, 1939, p. 229).
The Tietzes returned to the earlier attribution, assigning the
drawing to "some artist closer to Titian." A study of a seated
man seen from behind, in a London private collection, bears an
old inscription associating it with Tintoretto (T. 1847). Hadeln
(op. cit., p. 30, pi. 54) published it as Veronese and Fiocco
(Paolo Veronese, Rome, 1934, p. 129) followed this attribution,
although suggesting the possibility of Jacopo Bassano or even
Tintoretto. The Tietzes took up this last suggestion, asserting
that the style was closer to Tintoretto or his followers and
putting forward the name of Andrea Vicentino. A black and red
chalk study of a gondolier, also in a private collection in
London (T. 2107), is generally accepted as the work of Veronese
by Hadeln (op. cit., p. 31, pi. 53), Pallucchini (op. cit..
p. 228), and the Tietzes, while Fiocco (loc. cit.) hesitates
between Veronese and Bassano.
87
Rotterdam, Boymans Museum (T. 2078, T. 2079, T. 2080).
43
The third category of Veronese drawings, the chiaroscuro

designs, is rather more difficult to locate, both with regard
to our stylistic concepts of Venetian draughtsmanship and to
their function in the preparation of painted compositions.
They are generally line drawings executed in pen, or occa
sionally with the point of a brush, on gray prepared paper
and heightened with white. The draughtsmanship is very firm
though never tight; there is an easy confidence to every
line. In the white-heightening, Veronese exhibits a freedom
of brushwork very much like that of his paintings and it is

this that sets the sparkling tone of these drawings.
Although such a chiaroscuro medium was a common tech-

88
nique in both Central Italy and Venice, it was not practised
often by Venetian masters of the Renaissance. Beside Veronese,
only Schiavone seems to have favored it and both were pro
bably influenced by the chiaroscuro designs of Parmigianino,

89
which had wide circulation as woodcuts. While many of
Schiavone’s drawings seem to have been made for such reproduction,
88
The chiaroscuro technique was a favorite of artists
in the Quattrocento and, in Venice, the corpus of drawings by
Carpaccio especially contains numerous examples of this type.
It remained common throughout the sixteenth century and was
described as one of the basic techniques by Vasari (I, p. 175:
"questo modo\e mol to alia pittoresca e mostra pijSi l ’ordine del
colorito") and Armenini (De’veri precetti, Pisa, 1823, p. 61).
On the development of this type of drawing, see Meder, Die
Handzeichnung, p. 588ff.
89
See L. FrShlich-Bum, Parmigianino und der Manierismus,
Vienna, 1921, p. 6 8 ff.; M. Pittaiuga, "Disegni del Parmigianino
e correspondenti chiaroscuri cinquecenteschi," Dedalo, 3X, 1928,
p. 30ff.; also M. Fossi, Mostra di chiaroscuri italiani dei
secoli XVI. XVII. XVIII. Florence, 1956.
44
90
Veronese apparently had no such end in mind. His white-
heightened drawings were meant to function as production aids
in the workshop. Of the many such drawings left by the

■f
master and his assistants, only a few are associated with
known paintings. Many of those executed by Veronese himself
are almost certainly modelli. designed to be presented to

91
patrons; others are either ricordi made— by the master or
90Several of Veronese's chiaroscuro designs were re

produced in three-color woodcuts. The earliest of these was
made by Raffaele Schiaminossi, who was born in 1570 and is
therefore unlikely to have worked directly for Paolo. Since
no prints after Veronese's drawings can be dated during the
lifetime of the artist, it may be safely assumed that he did
not make these drawings for reproduction. They did, however,
serve as models for woodcuts throughout the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. A print after Veronese's design of a
Nymph fleeing a Satyr (Paris, Ecole des Beaux Arts, T. 2139),
ascribed to a French xylographer of the eighteenth century,
is reproduced in A. Reichel, Die Clair-Obscur-Schnitte des
XVI, XVII, XVIII Jahrhunderts. Zurich, 1926, pi. 79.
In addition to the influence of Parmigianino, we may
point to the further examples of Central Italian diseano,
including chiaroscuro drawings, brought to Venice by Fran
cesco Salviati and Vasari, who visited that city in 1539 and
1541-42, respectively. Degenhart ("Zur Graphologie der
Handzeichnung," p. 293), who saw a typically Veronese style
in the calligraphy of Paolo's pen stroke and the placement
of the figures on the sheet, when confronted with the artist's
chiaroscuro designs is forced to conclude that they fall be
yond the range of this geographically and ethnically oriented
- critical grouping. His inability to locate these drawings
within a specifically Veronese context, however, is an indi
cation of the inflexibility of Degenhart's approach, in which
it is difficult to deal with the migration of artistic modes
and styles. Cf. below, note 103.
91
The drawing of the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine
in the Gardner Museum, Boston (T. 2045), differs from the
painting (Accademia, Venice) in several details and was no
doubt a modello for that work. The modello for the altar-
piece of the Martyrdom of St. Justina in the church of that
saint in Padua is preserved in the collection at Chatsworth
(T. 2056). Ridolfi (I, p. 317) describes the painting and
reports having seen the modello in the apartment of the abbot
of the monastery. Hadeln (ibid.. note 7), unaware of the
45
assistants— to preserve compositional ideas or simile draw-

92
ings, or they are copies of the master's drawings executed
*
for instruction and practice.
Two other drawings give us a better idea of Veronese's

production methods. One is a design for the ceiling paint
ing of the Coronation of Venice in the Sala del Maggior Con-
siglio of the Ducal Palace, a drawing executed first in pen

with the addition of a monochrome shading and modelling. 93
The other is a monochrome oil sketch on red prepared paper
for the Allegory of the Victory of Lepanto iri the Sala del
94
Collegio. Both are executed in a rougher, more purely
drawing, had identified the small painting in the Museo Civico,

Padua, as the modello referred to. There are some notable
differences between the drawing and the altfurpiece, which
was executed by Paolo with the aid of his brother, Benedetto,
especially in the addition of many more figures.
92
See the white-heightened drawing of two palm trees
in the collection of J. Q. van Regteren Altena, Amsterdam
(T. 2026).
93
London, Collection Earl of Harewood (T. 2101). The
peculiar nature of the painting, its position on the ceiling
and the necessary di sotto in su perspective, is responsible
for the unusually careful attention given to the construction
of the architectural setting and its spatial effect. This is
the part of the drawing that is carefully rendered in measured
and ruled pen lines. Over this basic skeletal structure, the
figures are freely brushed in monochrome and the sense of mass
and depth, implicit in the architecturally defined space, is
explicitly stated. We may imagine that once the architecture
was fully elaborated on the canvas, the artist freely adapted
- -the figurative elements to the format of the panel and to its
greater size, making decisions in the course of execution. An
analogous approach may be studied in Veronese's frescoes in the
Palladio villa at Maser, where the guide lines for the archi
tectural settings have been traced into the wet plaster while
the figures display-all the freedom andbrilliance of execu
tion usually associated with Veronese'sbrush.
94
London, British Museum (T. 2092). Changes in com
position and iconography between the oil sketch and the fin
ished painting make it quite clear that the former was a
painterly manner than the chiaroscuro drawings and, as work
ing material, are more closely related to-the free composi
tional sketches of Titian and Tintoretto.

The refusal to fix a composition definitively in
drawings was characteristic of the Venetian approach to
painting. Instead of the cartoon, the Venetian masters de

veloped the oil sketch. Such models have heen preserved by
Tintoretto, Veronese, Francesco Bassano, and Palma Giovane

for the competition held shortly after 1582 for the great
95
composition of Paradise in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio.
The entry of Federico Zuccaro for the same competition,

significantly, was a very finished drawing, a small-scale
96
cartoon.
modello presented to the committee and then used as the basis

for the painting. See S. Sinding-Larsen, "The Changes in
the Iconography and Composition of Veronese's Allegory of the
Battle of Lepanto in the Doge's Palace," Journal of the War
burg and Courtauld Institutes, XIX, 1956, p. 298ff.
95
Tintoretto's entry is now in the Louvre; those of
Veronese and Francesco Bassano are preserved, respectively,
at Lille and Leningrad. These were published by Hadeln, "Die
Vorgeschichte von Tintorettos Paradies im Dogenpalast," Jahr
buch der preuszischen Kunstaammlungen, XL, 1919, p. 119f£.
Palma Giovane‘s sketch, now in the Ambrosiana, Milan, was pub
lished by W. Suida, "II 'Paradiso' di Jacopo Palma il giovane,"
Rivista d'arte, XX, 1938, p. 77ff. The date of the competition
was traditionally placed in 1579; that it cannot have taken
place before 1582 has been demonstrated by J. Schulz, "Cristo-
foro Sorte and the Ducal Palace of Venice," Mitteilungen des
Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz. X, 1962, p. 198, note 22.
96
The drawing was published by H. Voss, "A Project of
Federico Zuccari for the 'Paradise' in the Doges' Palace,"
Burlington Magazine, XCVI, 1954, p. 172ff. Cf. also W. Vitz-
thum, "Zuccari*s Project for the Doges' Palace," ibid., p. 291.
47
The use of such relatively rough preparatory material
on the part of the Venetian painters does not imply a lack
of organization. On the contrary, though the compositions
may have been worked out during the final stages of produc
tion, that production took place in a highly organized and
efficient atmosphere. Artistic activity in Venice was in
general a collective enterprise, usually carried on by mem
bers of a single family. The workshop, with its medieval
heritage of guild regulations and systems of apprenticeship,

was one of the unchanging aspects of the artistic life of
Venice until the fall of the republic in the eighteenth

97
century. The younger members of the family and other
assistants worked under the direction of the master, who set

the style of the shop. Patrons did not usually demand work
by any particular member of the family but were satisfied to
acquire a painting the quality of which was guaranteed by the

reputation of. the studio. The master assumed full respond
sibility for all pictures that left his shop, including ver
sions of his inventions painted by assistants. If a work
from the master's brush was desired, the price was naturally
higher.
Much of the basic work of the shops consisted in the
production of replicas, and it was especially for this purpose
97
For a full discussion of the family workshop tradition
in Venice, see Tietzes, Drawings, p. 5ff.; H. Tietze, "Master
and Workshop in the Venetian Renaissance, 11 Parnassus. XI, 1939,
p. 34ff., essentially repeated in "Meister und WerkstStte in
der Renaissancemalerei Venedigs," Alte und neue Kunst, Wiener
kunstwissenschaftliche BlStter. I, 1952, p. 89ff.
48
that records of all compositions were kept. The form of such
records varied. In the. Titian shop they were usually paintings
on canvas, begun but not yet finished. Such organization
was necessary for the efficient working of the shop and for
its economic success. Thus, it is very probable that Veronese
maintained a collection of compositions, already executed
ideas as well as potential solutions, in the form of

■_#
chiaroscuro drawings, from which a prospective patron might
choose."
98
See H. Tietze, "An Early Version of Titian's Danae,
An Analysis of Titian's Replicas," Arte veneta, VIII, 1954,
p. 199ff., and E. Tietze-Conrat, "Titian's Workshop in His
Late Years," Art Bulletin, XXVIII, 1946, p. 76ff. For
Tintoretto's shop, see D. von Hadeln, "Originals and Replicas
from Tintoretto's Studio," Burlington Magazine, XLIII, 1923,
p. 286ff.
99
A series of white-heightened drawings by Veronese
was in the collection of the brothers Cristoforo and Franceso
Muselli of Verona; it was seen by Ridolfi (I, p. 320f.), who
described three of the set. These had inscriptions on the
back describing the subjects, which the biographer recorded
as well. Two of the drawings have been identified, both de
picting the Virgin and Child with angels: one is in the
Louvre (T. 2135) and the other, recently exhibited in New
York (Great Master Drawings of Seven Centuries, Columbia Uni
versity benefit exhibition held at M. Knoedler and Co., New
York, 1959, Cat. No. 17a), is in the collection of Mr. Stephen
Spector, New York. Many other chiaroscuro drawings by Veronese
contain similar inscriptions describing the subjects of the
compositions in great detail and discussing various icono-
graphic points. On the assumption that the handwriting was
that of Paolo himself, Schlosser (La letteratura artistica,
p. 400) interpreted these inscriptions as notes left by the
artist for a projected manual of iconography for painters.
The handwriting, however, is clearly not Veronese's, as a com
parison with his well-known flowing calligraphy, preserved in
the drafts of many letters and notes on drawings, easily proves
(cf. C. Pini and G. Milanesi, La scrittura di artisti italiani.
Ill, Florence, 1876, pi. 214). The inscriptions then must be
attributed to some member of the workshop, perhaps Carletto
since Benedetto's hand is known (ibid.. pi. 225). For further
discussion of Veronese's chiaroscuro drawings, see my unpublished
M.A. Essay, The Drawings of Paolo Veronese, Columbia University,
1962.
The inscriptions are basically a reflection of the
49
No artistic effort within the shop was wasted; all
drawings, whether by the master or by assistants, were saved,
becoming the common working stock of the shop. Along with

colors, brushes, models, etc., drawings were part of the
necessary professional material- of any studio.100 Motifs
preserved in drawings by the master were vised by assistants
in their own commissions,*101 the style of the workshop was

based in large part on the accumulated vocabulary of forms
102
collected in drawings. —
organization of a large shop, material being brought together

to serve some future patron. Analogous and even better docu
mented material exists for another Veronese painter, Paolo
Parinato, who has also left a large corpus of highly-finished
white-heightened drawings. An entry in Farinato'-s diary refers
to an Ecce Homo "diseghato sul mio libro di carta assurra"
(L. Simeoni, "II giornale del pittore Veronese Paolo Farinati,"
Madonna Verona, V, 1911, p. 90). Many of Farinato's drawings
bear what appears to be an autograph numeration, further indi
cation of a very definite organization of graphic models. For
Farinato's drawings, see A. E. Popham and J. Wilde, The Italian
Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries at Windsor Castle, London,
1949, p. 217ff., and L. Puppi, "Su alcuni disegni inediti di
Paolo Farinati," ProSPettive. VII, No. 19, 1959, p. 90ff.
On the use of drawings as ricordi in the Bassano shop,
see W. R. Rearick, "Jacopo Bassano: 1568-69," Burlington
Magazine, CIV, 1962, p. 524ff.
10°Drawings figure especially prominently in the testa
ments of the Bellini and Tintorettofamilies. On these and
for the mention of drawings in artists' wills, see Tietzes,
Drawings, pp. 5f., 102, and 258.
101 _ -
A common practice in the Tintoretto shop was the re
versal of drawings, on the part of assistants, thereby doubling
the stock of forms. With the aid of these they produced vari
ations and enlargements of compositions by the master. See
Hadeln, "Originals and Replicas from Tintoretto's Studio,"
and H. Tietze, Tintoretto. London, 1948, p. 54ff.
10^Ridolfi (II, p. 64) suggests that Tintoretto in
tended to make a kind of Liber Veritatis, recording in drawings
the various compositions he had created during his career:
"Hebbe pensiero ancora di fare vna quantita di disegni, ne'quali
si proponeua lasciare impresse alcune sue fantasie, accioche
50
Despite the ultimate subservience of drawing to painting,
drawing played a very definite role in the activity of the

Venetian workshops. The basic function of drawing was as an
aid in the production of paintings and its style was closely
related to that of Venetian painting. An open and apparently

spontaneous character informs nearly all examples of Venetian
draughtsmanship, in which the pen stroke or the mark of the
chalk retains a certain independence. The contrast with the
closed contours of Florentine disegno is apparent, whether

one compares the graphic works of Carpaccio and Botticelli
or those of Titian and Raphael. The stylisjtic differences

between the two schools are of course a further reflection
of the different approaches to painting, the differing roles

of drawing in the preparation of a fresco and an oil painting.
The physical dependence of painting on drawing in the case

of the development of a composition in Florence or Rome de
termined in large measure the style of drawing; forms were

fully elaborated entirely in graphic media. In Venice, as
we have repeatedly observed, final decisions were made
directly on the canvas. Drawing remained ancillary to
103
painting, a constant aid rather than a guide. The style
seruissero di sugello alle infinite cose da lui operate." The

Tietzes (Drawings, p. 335) have suggested that Veronese's
chiaroscuro drawings may have been intended for such an end.
Cf. above, note 99.
103
The basic critical study of the distinction between
Central and North Italian draughtsmanship was made by Degen
hart, "Zur Graphologie der Handzeichnung." While his
stylistic analysis is quite perceptive, he apparently mis
interprets the spontaneity and calligraphic freedom of North
51
of Venetian draughtsmanship in the Cinquecento took its lead
from that of Venetian painting; the freedom of the brush in
the Pittura di tocco was transferred to the medium of drawing.

The preference for black chalk and charcoal in Venice offers
an analogy to the preference for oil and rough-textured
canvas; equivalent pictorial values and dissolution of form

104
were particularly obtainable in that soft, crumbling medium.
Although they may have developed a specifically
Venetian style of drawing, the Venetian artists of the

Renaissance did not in general place great value on their
graphic efforts as works of art; their major interest was
painting. Critics and connoisseurs of the Cinquecento

learned to respect the distinction between Venetian coloring
and Florentine-Roman drawing, doubtless especially after its
canonization in Vasari's Vite. Pietro Aretino, a close

friend of Titian, apparently never considered asking that
master for a drawing, although he never ceased his efforts to
obtain such favors from Michelangelo.105 When a Florentine
Italian drawing and Venetian drawing in particular, seeing it

as an indication of the independence and autonomy of drawing.
He fails to appreciate the very definite role of drawing in
the process of artistic production of Venice and assumes that
this supposed lack of function allowed the Venetian draughts
man a greater freedom (ibid., p. 270ff.). This structural
looseness, as we have noted, is rather intimately related to
the specific function of drawing in Venice.
104
See ibid., also Meder, Die Handzeichnunq, pp. lOlff.,
109ff., and 148ff. For the particular properties of the chalk
medium, see J* Watrous, The Craft of Old-Master Drawings, Madison,
Wisconsin, 1957, p. 91ff., and, regarding charcoal, p. 130ff.
105
See S. Ortolani, "Pietro Aretino e Michelangelo,"
L'Arte, XXV, 1922, p. 15ff. A Venetian counterpart to Michel
angelo's famous presentation drawings, such as those given to
Tommaso Cavalieri, is inconceivable.
collector, Niccolo Gaddi, did ask a Venetian painter, Fran
cesco Bassano, to send him some example of Bassano draughts
manship for his collection, the latter replied that the
members of his family considered themselves painters not

draughtsmen:
...noi non avemo disegnato molto, ne avemo mai fatto

profession tale, ma ben avemo messo ogni studio in
cercar di far le opere, che abiamo a riuscir al
meglior modo che sia possibile.10 ®
106
Letter of May 25, 1581, printed in G. Bottari and
S. Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere sulla pjttura, scultura ed
architettura, III, Milan, 1822, p. 265f. On the function of
drawings in the Bassano workshops, see Tietzes, Drawings,
pp. 43ff. and 47ff., and W. R. Rearick, "Jacopo Bassano:
1568-69."
W ’
53
Art Criticism and Theory in Venice
The disegno-colorito conflict is naturally reflected in

contemporary Venetian writing on art. Discussing the nature
of painting, the Venetian writers never totally disregard
the importance of drawing, but, in contrast to the emphasis
of the Central Italians, they stress the even greater impor
tance of color. Never denying the impressive achievements

of Michelangelo, they merely reverse the Florentine sense of
values and accuse him of lacking a feeling for color. Color,

however, as opposed to the concept of disegno, did.not pro
vide the Venetians with a solid base for theoretical formu
lations, and they never developed a rational or systematic

working theory of art comparable to the encyclopedic state
ments of Vasari. They accepted the standard tripartite

division of painting into drawing, color, and composition,
a theoretical trinity going back to Alberti and ultimately

107
based upon classical models. If for Vasari drawing,
superior to the other two categories, was the foundation of
the visual arts, the Venetians tended to regard drawing merely
as one aspect of a larger pictorial experience.
The first and most influential literary appreciation of
Titian's art came from the pen of a friend and countryman of
Vasari's, Pietro Aretino. Aretino arrived in Venice in 1527

from Rome, where his aesthetic tastes, culminating in a
107
See C. Gilbert, "Antique Frameworks for Renaissance
Art Theory: Alberti and Pino," Marsvas, III, 1943, p. 87ff.,
and R. W. Lee, "Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of
Painting," Art Bulletin. XXII, 1940, p. 264f.
1 (\Q
passionate enthusiasm for Michelangelo, were formed. In
Venice he added Titian1s name to those of Michelangelo and
109
Raphael as the greatest of contemporary artists, and the
writer's direct and unpedantic style was well suited to the
exaltation of the peculiar qualities of the Venetian's
painting. His enthusiasm for Titian and his keen appreci
ation of the master's art are especially well illustrated
in the famous passage from a letter to Titian dated May,
1544. Aretino writes that he was gazing out of his window
over the busy Grand Canal and he looked up to the sky,

il quale, da che Iddio lo creo, non fu mai abbellito
da cosl vaga pittura di ombre e di lumi. Onde l'aria
era tale quale vorrebbono esprimerla coloro che hanno
invidia a voi per non poter esser-voi. Che vedete,
nel raccontarlo io, in alcun luogo pura e viva, in
altra parte torbida e smorta. Considerate anco la%
maraviglia ch'io ebbi dei nuvoli composti d'umidita
condensa; i quali in la principal veduta mezzi si
stavano vicino ai tetti degli edificii, e mezzi ne
la penultima peroche la diritta era tutta d'uno sfumato
pendente in bigio nero. Mi stupii certo del color
vario di cui essi si dimostrano; i piu vicini ardevano
con le fiamme del foco solare; e i piu lontani rosseggi-
avano d'uno ardore di minio non cosi ben acceso. Oh con
che belle tratteggiature i pennelli naturali spingevano
l'aria in la, discostandola dai palazzi con il modo che
la discosta il Vecellio nel far dei paesii Appariva in
certi lati un verde-azurro, e in alcuni altri un azurro-
verde veramente composto de la bizarrie de la natura,
maestra dei maestri. Ella con i chiari e con gli scuri
108
S. Ortolani, "Pietro Aretino e Michelangelo," L'Arte,
XXV, 1922, p. 15ff.
109
In a sonnet of 1553, Aretino wrote:
Divino in venustcl fu Raffaello;
e Michel Angelo piu divin che humano
Nel dissegno stupendo; e Titiano
,11 senso de le cose ha nel pennello.
Quoted by R. Pallucchini, La critica d'arte a Venezia nel
Cinquecento. Venice, 1943, p. 12.
55
sfondava di rilevava in maniera cio che la pareva

di rilevare e di sfondare, che io quattro volte
esclamai: "Oh, Tiziano, dove sete mo?"-*^
Although Aretino1s appreciation of Titian's mastery is not
basically different from Vasari's comments on the painter's

late style, Aretino's enthusiasm leads him to see nature
itself in terms of Titian's art, to describe natural phenomena

through color and brushwork.
Paolo Pino was the first Venetian author to compose a
formal defense— though admittedly neither very theoretical

nor very rigorously organized— of the pictorial approach of
his fellow painters against the more solidly structured one
\ of the Florentines. In the preface to his Dialogo di pjttura

of 1548, he indicates his position in a brief diatribe against
Tuscan intellectualism:
Leon Battista Alberto fiorentino, pittore non menomo,

feceûn trattato di pittura in lingua latina, il quale
e piu di matematica che di pittura, ancor che prometti
il c o n t r a r i o . ^ ^ - 2
110 T.P>ttarm sun 'arte di Pietro Aretino, ed. F. Per tile

and E. Camasasca, II, Milan, 1957, p. 17, No. CLXXIX.
■^Âretino never set himself the task of defending
Venetian color against Central Italian design, nor is there
any reason to believe that he ever abandoned his enthusiasm
for the latter. See the comments of F. Pertile in ibid., III,
i, Milan, 1959, p. 186ff. For further discussion of Aretino's
thoughts on art, see S. Ortolani, "Le origini della critica
d'arte a Venezia," L'Arte. XXVI, 1923, p. 5ff.; L. Venturi,
"Pietro Aretino e Giorgio Vasari," in Melanges Bertaux. Paris,
1924, p. 323ff.; idem, "La critique d'art a Venise au XVIe
siecle," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, ix, 1924, p. 39ff.; and R.
Pallucchini, op. cit., p. 9ff. Cf. also F. Saxl, "Titian and
Pietro Aretino," in Lectures. I, London, 1957, p. 161ffi.
^Dialogo di pittura, ed. P. Barocchi, p. 96. It is
significant that Pino chose the literary form of the dialogue
rather than the more formal treatise in which to express him
self. See C. Gilbert, "Antique Frameworks for Renaissance
Art Theory," p. 93f.
1
56
Pino nonetheless shares a common cultural tradition
with Alberti and bases his own arguments essentially on the
humanistic concept of mimesis; here, too, the superiority of
the Venetian method, of oil painting over fresco, is main
tained because it allows the most faithful imitation of
nature. 113 Disegno, however, remains a crucial part of Pino's
standard definition of painting, along with invenzione and
colorire, though it is further subdivided into four categories:

114
giudicio, circuntscrizzione, pratica, and retta composizione.
Elaborating on eircumscrizzione, he defines it to include
not only linear contours, but shading and sketching in

115
general. The theoretical language of Tuscan humanism is
being adapted to the experience of Venetian art, to the
113
Dialogo di Pittura, ed. cit., p. 120: "Io tengo
che lo dipignere a oglio sia la piu perfetta via & la piu vera
pratica; la ragion e pronta: che si pub piu particolarmente
contrafar tutte le cose, perch*alcune specie di colori serveno
alle diversita de tinte piu integramente, onde si vede, le
cose a oglio molto different! dall'aitre, et oltre a cio si
puo replicar le cose piu fiate, laonde se li pub dar maggior
perfezzione e meglio unir una tinta con l'altra. Arte che non
se puo negli altri modi. II colorire a fresco in muro e piu
imperfetto per le ragioni dette...."
114
Ibid., p. 113. Cf. .Gilbert, op. cit. p. 94f.
115 v
Pino, op. cit., p. 114: "E ben vero ch1isercitandolo
nell'arte egli divien piu perfetto, ma avendo il giudicio, voi
imparerete la circonscrizzione, il ch'intendo che sia il pro-
fillare, contornare le figure e darle chiari e scuri a tutte
le cose, il qual modo voi 1'addimandate schizzo." When Pino
speaks of a "buona maniera nel disegnare," he means "saper
l'invenzioni, come in carte tinte col lapis nero e biaca toccar
d'acquaticie, trattegiar di penna, ma lo chiaro e scuro e il
piu util^modo e il migliore, perche si pub ben unire il tutto
e dar piu mezze tinte e piu chiare." This pictorial approach
will be further articulated by Marco Boschini; see below,
P. 60ff.
I*;\
painting of the Giorgione tradition. Paralleling Giorgione's
innovations, Pino reacts against the older concepts of
drawing, against the complicated geometric constructions
taught by Alberti as well as against the carefully drawn
preparatory underpainting of Bellini:
n'anco disegnare le tavole con tanta istrema dili-
genza, componendo il tutto di chiaro e scuro, come
usava Giovan Bellino, perch'e fatica gettata, avendosi
a coprire il tutto con li colori; e men e utile il
velo o quadratura, ritrovata da Leon Battista, cosa
inscepida e di poca construzzione. H 6
Drawing, like painting, must hold to the principle of imita
tion and, toward this end, shading and color are indispensable.
Drawing is subsumed by painting, and since the composition
is to be covered with color, careful drawing is really un-
necessary, especially drawing in contours. 117
Lodovico Dolce's Dialogo della pittura, intitolato
1 'Aretino, published in 1557, was in effect a response to

the first edition of Vasari's Vite, in which Michelangelo,
Ibid., p. 116. For an idea of the Bellini practice

against which Pino was inveighing, see the chiaroscuro under
painting of the panel in the Uffizi, Mourning over the Dead
Christ (R. Pallucchini, Mostra di Giovanni Bellini, Venice,
1949, Cat. No. 105).
117
Pino, op. cit., p. 117: "E anco da fuggire il pro-
filare cosa graziosa." For full consideration of Pino's
dialogue, with further references and full bibliography, see
the edition of R. and A. Pallucchini, Venice, 1946, and P.
Barocchi's commentary in Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento, I,
pp. 312ff. and 341ff. A third modern critical edition, with
introduction and notes, is that of E. Camasasca, Milan, 1954.
Cf. also, S. Ortolani, "Le origini della critica d^'arte a
Venezia," p. 13f.; L. Venturi, “La critique d'art a Venise";
M. L. Gengaro, Orientamenti della critica d'arte nel Rinasci-
mento cinguecentesco, Milan-Messina, 1941, p. 121ff.; and R.
Pallucchini, La critica d'arte a Venezia, p. 14ff.
r 58
the only living artist treated, eclipsed all his predecessors

and contemporaries. Dolce's ideas, as the title of his dia
logue indicates, were based upon those of Pietro Aretino,
and his main concern was to celebrate the art of the "divin
Tiziano."
With regard to art theory, Dolce too follows the tradi
tional definition of painting as invenzione, disegno, and

119
colorito, though he show's more respect for drawing than
did Pino. Indeed, he identifies it with form and requires
that the painter be a good draughtsman as well as inventive

120
in composition. When he arrives at his discussion of
color, however, Dolce sounds like a true Venetian:
Ora, bisogna che la mescolanza de'colori sia sfumata

et unita di modo che rappresenti il naturale e non
resti cosa che offenda gli occhi; come sono le linee
de'contorni, le quali si debbono fuggire, che la natura
non le fa, e la negrezza ch'io dico dell' ombre fiere e
disunite. ^-21
Thus, despite his theoretical acceptance of the line and form
of drawing, practically, Dolce demands that they disappear
On Dolce's relationship with Aretino, see M. W. Roskill,

Dolce's "Aretino" and Venetian Art-Theorv of the Cinquecento,
Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1961, p. lxvff.
119
L. Dolce, Dialogo della pittura, ed. P. Barocchi, p. 164.
i on
Ibid., p. 171f.: "II disegno...e la forma che da il
pittore alle cose che va imitando, et e proprio un giramento
di linee per diverse vie, le quali formano le figure? ove
bisogna ch'l pittore ponga ogni cura e sparga del continovo
ogni suo sudore, percioche una brutta *forma toglie ogni laude
a qual si voglia bellissima invenzione; ne basta a un pittore
di esser bello inventore, se non e parimente buon disegnatore,
percioche la invenzione si appresenta per la forma, e la forma
non e altro che disegno."
1 2 1 Ibid., p. 184.
0
59
beneath the colors of the painting: nature, after all, is
seen in terms of color, of light and dark, and not in terms
of contour, and the painter, to imitate nature successfully,
must therefore work essentially with color.
From the Venetian point of view, color is primary, and

the true test of an artist's skill is not in the drawing of
the figure but in the rendering of human flesh and the sub
stances of nature in color. Describing a Venus and Adonis
by Titian, Dolce writes in a letter:
Ne si^puo discerner qual parte in lui sia piu bella,

perche ciascuna separatamente, e tutte insieme, con-
tengono la perfezion dell 1arte; ed il colorito contends
col disejno, e il disegno col colorito; del qual color-
ito chi e manchevole, non si dee dimandar dipintore.
Che non basta il saper formar le figure in disegno
eccellenti, se poi le tinte d e 1colori, che deono
imitar la carne, hanno del porfido o del terreno, e
sono prive di quella unione, e tenerezza e vivacita
che fa nei corpi la n a t u r a l 22
While many painters excel in disegno and invenzione, "a

123
Tiziano solo si dee dare la gloria del perfetto colorito,"
12 Cottar i-Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere. III, p. 379ff.

With undisguised reference to Michelangelo, Dolce has his
Aretino state: "lo stimo che un corpo delicato debba ante-
porsi al muscoloso. E la ragione e questa; ch'e maggior
fatica nell'arte a imitar le carni, che l'ossa, perche in
quelle non ci va altro che durezza, e in queste solo si con-
tiene la tenerezza, ch'e la piu difficil parte della pittura,
in tanto che pochissimi pittori 1 'hanno mai saputo esprimere
o la esprimono oggidi nelle cose loro bastevolmente" (Dialogo
della pittura, ed. cit., p. 177f.). Further on, p. 184, he
declares: "Cos! la principal difficulta del colorito e posta
nella imitazione delle carni e consiste nella varieta delle
tinte e nella morbidezza."
123
Ibid., p. 200. Of Titian's Assunta in the Frari,
Dolce writes, p. 202: "E%certo in questa tavola si contiene
la grandezza e terribilita di Michelagnolo, la piacevolezza e
venusta di Rafaello, et il colorito proprio della natura.'1
60
and because of this singular mastery the Venetian is "nella

pittura divino e senza pari." 124
For a final statement of the traditional Venetian at
titude toward drawing, we may turn to the pages of Le ricche
minere della pittura veneziana by Marco Boschini, the Seicento
critic and spiritual heir to the Venetian Renaissance. 1 n5
In the preface to the second, expanded edition of his book, 126
124
Ibid., p. 206. Further discussion of Dolce's work
will be found in M. Pittaluga, "Eugene Fromentin e le Origini
della moderna critica d'arte," L'Arte, XX, 1917, p. 240ff.;
S. Ortolani, "Le origine della critica d'arte a Venezia,"
p. 16f.; M. L. Gengaro, Orientamenti della critica d'arte,
p. 133ff.; R. Pallucchini, La critica d'arte a Venezia,
p. 20ff.; and especially P. Barocchi, in Trattatl d'arte. I,
pp. 316ff. and 343ff. An English translation with critical
commentary appears in M. w. Roskill, Dolce's "Aretino".
125
Althgugh Boschini was writing after the middle of
the seventeenth century, he was personally familiar with the
descendants of the great Venetian masters of the Cinquecento.
He had studied with Palma Giovane, from whom he obtained the
account of the aged Titian's working methods, and was ac
quainted with Domenico Tintoretto and Sebastiano Casser,
Tintoretto's heirs. Thus he was well versed in the traditions
of Renaissance practice in Venice. Furthermore, as a writer
and critic, he was able to translate his knowledge of and
sympathy for Venetian painting into evocative, if Baroque,
phrases. More than Pino, Dolce, or Ridolfi, he was aware of
the very special nature of that painting and from what sources
it derived its peculiar characteristics. For these reasons
we need not hesitate to accept his testimony regarding the
style and attitudes of the Venetian Cinquecento. Cf. below,
Chapter II, note 6 8 .
126
The first edition of this work, entitled Le Minere
della pittura veneziana, was published in 1664 and is an
artistic guide to Venice. In 1674 the second edition appeared
under the slightly different title, expanded and with the addi
tion of a preface, "Breve instruzione per intender in qualche
modo le maniere de gli autori veneziani." The first part of
this preface, containing a brief survey of the development of
Venetian painting and critical comments on and appreciation of
the styles of the various masters, is unpaginated; the pagina
tion begins with the second part, the theoretical and technical
discussion of the art of painting. A modern critical edition of
the important works of Boschini is still awaited. Cf. J. Schlosser,
La letteratura artistica, pp. 548 and 561f.
61
Boschini set forth his own theoretical position, which basic

ally varies little from those of his predecessors. Diseano,
colorito, and invenzione form the "vero trino di perfezione"

127
of painting, with drawing accepted as the basis of the art.
Drawing supplies the fundamental structure, but it is only the
skeleton over which must lie the real material of a painting:
Dico adunque, che il Dissegno % la base, & il fonda-

mento principale clella fabrica, e come la fabrica senza
fondamento non puo sussistere, cosi la Pittura senza
Dissegno e vna mole, che non puo reggersi. Alcuni cre-
dono, che il Dissegno consista solamente ne i lineamenti...
ma io dico, che i lineamenti sono ben si necessarij al
Dissegno, ma bisogna valersene come fa lo Scrittore della
falsa riga, che sino che scriue, se ne vale; ma doppo
hauer scritto, la getta da parte: poiche la Pittura
vuole esser rappresentata tenera, pastosa, e senza
terminazione, some il naturale d i m s t r a . ^ 2 8
Like Pino, Boschini is unable to accept as sufficient
a definition of drawing solely with regard to contour. Again,
since the aim of painting is a mimetic one, drawing can only

be perfect when it too approaches nature, and drawing cannot
do this without chiaroscuro and, finally, color. Boschini

continues with his metaphors:
Questi lineamenti si possono anco paragonare alio
Scheletto del corpo humano, che deue coprirsi di carne
per esser perfetto: e questo e vno de capi piu impor-
tSti del Dissegno: poiche il Pittore sopra quei linea
menti deue con il chiar'oscuro fa rilleuare le parti
carnose. E per meglio esprimermi, daro questo eserapio:
Chi vuole forma vna palla rotonda certo bisogna con il
compasso formar vn Circolo; ma non basta: poiche mancando
l 1ombre, i chiari, e meze tinte, quel lineamento, quel
127
Le ricche minere. preface, f. 4v. Boschini*s theoreti
cal assumptions also underlie his poetic guide to Venice, La
carta del navegar Pitoresco. Venice, 1660, but their exposi
tion in Le ricche minere is naturally more thorough and ex
plicit.
1 2 8 Ibid., f. lv.
62
cfiro, e quel circolo non potrebbe mai dirsi vn globo,

o vna palla, ma vn semplice circolo matematico: di
maniera che fa b.isogno con l'arteficio del chiar'oscuro,
far che tondeggi in ogni sua parte: e cio al colpo del
pennello s'aspetta nel colorire artificiosamente il
Naturale. Si che, senza il Colorito, non resta per-
fezionato il Dissegno.
In Boschini's definition and demonstration, drawing again
finds itself subsumed by color; as it was for Dolce, color

is the key to the successful imitation of nature, the ful-
130
fillment of the mimetic function of painting.
Concerning the relative importance of drawing and
color, then, the differences between the Tuscan and Venetian
critical attitudes are quite clear and reflect the actual

practices of the two schools of painting. If, however,
Vasari was able to arrive at a fairly precise— though at the
same time rather inclusive— definition of disegno, the Vene

tians, more empirical than theoretical, could do little more
than describe the effects of good coloring; their favorite

element of painting would not submit to the rigorous demands
Ibid., f. 5r.: "...seza il qual Colorito, il Dissegno

potrebbe dirsi corpo seza anima...cosi il Colorito ci pone
all'occhio la distinzione di tutte le cose...." Other aspects
of Boschini's critical attitudes will be discussed below,
Chapter II, p.l07ff# In addition to the references cited
there, cf. also M. Pittaluga, "Eugene Fromentin e le origini
della moderna critica d'arte," p. 247ff.; L. Venturi, Storia
della critica d'arte, Turin, 1964, p. 139ff.; L. Grassi,
Construzione della critica d'arte. Rome, 1955, p. 108ff.;
and F. Ulivi, Galleria di scrittori d'arte, Florence, 1953,
p. 122ff. On the concept of the imitation of nature, especi
ally with regard to the Venetians, see E. Battisti, "II
concetto d 'imitazione nel Cinquecento italiano," in Rina-
sclmento e Barocco. Turin, 1960, p. 198ff. Cf. also below,
Chapter IV, p . 2 8 0 f f •
131
of an intellectualizing art theory. Pino summarizes the
Venetian attitude in the following way:
Sono infinite le cose appertinenti al colorire et

impossibil e isplicarle con parole, perche ciascun
colore o da se o composito puo far piu effetti, e
niun colore vale per sua proprieta a fare un minimo
dell1effetti del n a t u r a l e . 1 3 2
Both he and Dolce agree that the quality of colorito
does not reside in the physical nature of the colorsthem
selves, which are beautiful even in their boxes, but in the

133
manner in which these colors are applied. This, of course,
means the imitation of nature, following its tones and hues
and uniting these upon the surface of the canvas. Further

more, both authors demand a certain manual dexterity in the
application of the pigments, a "prontezza e sicurta di mano."^^
In theory, as in practice, Venetian coloring is inseparable

from Venetian brushwork; the effect of the color depends on
131
It is not surprising that the first academy of art
was founded in Florence under the guidance of Vasari and bore
the title, Accademia delle arti del disegno. Not until the
traditional Venetian attitude toward drawing was challenged
did academic ideas become current in Venice. See below,.
Chapter IV, pp. 263ff.and 321ff,
132
Pino, Dialogo di pittura, ed. cit., p. 117.
133
Ibid., p . 118: "Non per intendo vaghezza 1 1azzurro
oltramarino da sessanta scudi l'onzia o la bella laca, perch'i
colori sono anco belli nelle scatole da se stessi...." Dolce,
Dialogo della pittura, ed. cit., p. 184f.: "Ne creda alcuno
che la forza del colorito consista nella scelta de'bei colori,
come belle lache, bei azzurri, bei verdi e simili; percioche
questi colori sono belli parimente senza che e'si mettano in
opera; ma nel sapergli maneggiare convenevolmente."
134
Pino, op. cit., pp. 117 and 118, and Dolce, op. cit..
p. 185: "Bisogna sopra tutto fuggire la troppa diligenza,
che in tutte le cose nuoce." Cf. below, Chapter II, pp. 69ff.
and 105ff.
64
135
the touch of the painter's brush. This crucial relation
ship between medium and implement is never fully stated by
either Pino or Dolce, though it is clearly implicit in their

discussions of color. Boschini, however, looking back upon
the achievements of late-Cinquecento Venetian painting, was
able to express this quality with greater precision and

understanding:
...il Colorito si dilata in varie circostanze, e parti-

colarita: poiche questo alle volte si riceue per
l'impasto ed e fondamento; per la^macchia, ed e Maniera;
per 1 'vnione de colori, e questo e tenerezza; per il
tingere, o ammaccare, e questo e distinzione delle
parti; per il rilleuare, & abbassare delle tinte, e
puesto e tondeggiare; per il colpo sprezzante, e questa
e franchezza di colorire; per il velare, o come dicono
sfreggazzare, e questi sono ritocchi per vnire maggior-
mente. Di modo che con questi, e con altri simili parti-
colari, si forma il Colorito alia Veneziana.136
In contrast to this paean of the brush stroke, of a
Pittura di macchie. Vasari's comments on the function of

color reveal an entirely different concern. For the six
teenth-century Central Italian, color is essentially an ad-

137
junct to form and contour; color must help to further
define the formal distinction and articulation of the figures
138
and their position within the composition. Although he
135
Pino could not, however, understand the extreme style
of a younger contemporary like Schiavone, whose hasty execution
he considered mere "smearing" of paint. Cf. below, Chapter II,
note 64.
136
Boschini, Le ricche minere, preface, f. 5v.
137
Cf. above, p.4*
^®Vasari, I, p. 179: "L‘unione nella pittura e una
discordanza di colori divers! accordati insieme; i quali, nella
diversita di piu divise mostrano differentemente distinte l'una
dall'altra le parti delle figure; come le carni dai capelli, ed
un panno diverso di colore dall'altro."
speaks of unifying the colors of painting in a harmonious
manner, 139 Vasari

• does not discuss the actual blending of
colors or the imitation of nature through color. Rather,
color is considered basically additive and decorative in

140
that it is to be used and appreciated for its pure beauty,
that is, for the very quality the Venetians deliberately re
jected. While the colors used by Florentine painters like
Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Rosso, and Bronzino may appear
purer, more intense and highly saturated, more striking than

anything to be seen in contemporary Venetian painting, these
colors, in a sense, come straight from the box, as Pino and

141
Dolce might say. It is rather the constructive use of
color by the Venetians, which in turn implies the emphasis
on brushwork, that distinguishes the colorito alia Veneziana
139 \
Ibid., p. 180: "Cosi nella pittura si debbono
adoperare i colori con tanta unione, che e'non si lasci uno
scuro ed un chiaro si spiacevolmente ombrato e lumeggiato,
che e'si faccia una discordanza ed una disunione spiacevole."
140
Ibid., p. 179f.: "E principalmente si abbia grand-
issima avvertenza di metter sempre i colori piu vaghi, piu
dilettevoli, e piu belli nelle figure principali, ed in quelle
massimamente che nella storia vengono intere e non mezze;
perche ûeste sono sempre le piu considerate, e quelle che
sono piu vedute che l'altre, le quali servono quasi per campo
nel colorito di queste, ed un colore piu smorto fa parere piu
vivo l'altro che gli e posto accanto, ed i colori maninconici
e pallidi fanno parere piu vivo l'altro che gli e posto accanto,
ed i colori maninconici e pallidi fanno parere piu allegri
quelli che li sono accanto, e quasi d'una certa bellezza
fiammeggianti.“
141
Leonardo's writings and his works themselves are,
in this respect, closer to the artistic situation in Venice
and northern Italy in general. His use of tone and muted
color, based on his own. observations of nature, was un
doubtedly an influential factor in Giorgione's development.
See below, Chapter II, p.
66
142
from that of Central Italy. The extreme exploitation of the
oil medium and the texture of canvas to make the pigment work
in a suggestive manner naturally affected the function and

143
importance of drawing in Venice.
If Vasari saw behind every painting the whole process

of graphic conception and elaboration and the basic drawing,
the Venetians saw in drawing merely the first and imperfect
steps toward painting, that is, toward imitation. For the
Tuscan, drawing itself was both the first and final act of
artistic creation. For the Venetians, it was only an incom

plete beginning of a process the goal of which could be fully
realized only in tone and color, in painting. Drawing was
merely a means toward a different end; studies from nature
142
The differences between Venetian and Florentine
coloring derive from the respective approaches to medium and
ground. The Venetian preference for the coarse texture of
canvas and for a brown underpainting yielded a kind of basic
unifying surface, one that tended to absorb, as it were, clear
distinctions between forms and to establish an overall warm
tonality. Florentine practice, on the other hand, favored
the hard, smooth surface of a gesso ground, even on canvas,
which enabled the artist to maintain crisp formal delineation;
further, this white ground contributed to a brilliance of hue.
For a technical analysis of a Florentine painting of ca. 1500,
see H. Ruhemann and J. Plesters, "The Technique of Painting in
a 'Madonna' attributed to Michelangelo," Burlington Magazine,
CVI, 1964,p. 546ff.
143 4
A clear idea of the general Venetian position may
be gained from Boschini's summary of Venetian practice, Le
ricche minere. preface, f. 5v.f.: "Li Pittori Veneziani,
dico gli Eccellenti nel dipingere applicati ad vna gran tela,
doppo hauer delineate sopra di essa le figure delle historie,
o delle fauole, che voleuano dipingere, si disponeuano prima
di abbozzarle con massicci di colori, che seruiuano per fonda-
menti, ebasi delle loro sinqolari espressioni. E questi primi
abbozzi, e lineamenti li scaturiuano dal loro ideale intendi-
mento, senza valersi del Naturale, ne tampoco delle Statue,
ne. da Rillieui, ed in cio la cura loro maggiore era il con-
certare il dentro, ed il fuori: perche le figure restassero
67
and of the figure, compositional sketches and modelli, all
were intended to serve as aids in the production of paintings.
This is the situation that Pino, Dolce, and, a century later,
Boschini knew, and, despite their humanistic rhetoric, they
could not isolate drawing as something apart from the process
of making a painting. In their definitions this subservience
of drawing to painting is underscored. Drawing remains some
thing essentially abstract; without shading and color the ball
remains a mere mathematical circle. Only painting can succeed
in paralleling nature. The Venetians, then, in their own

polemics, contributed more than their share of fuel to the
flames of the disegno-colorito controversy.
distinte in virtu del chiar1oscuro, vno de capi piu importanti

del Colorito, e del Dissegno, come pure dell'Inuenzione\ e
concertare, che haueuano questi importanti massime, andauano
poi (asciutti, che erano quegli abbozzi) procurando d'osseruare il
Naturale, ed anco le Statue non obligandosi nondimeno loro
totalmente; me ben si, in virtu di quattro segni in carta, ter-
minauanole loro figure, e senza altro Naturalej dando di piglio
a pennelli, cominciauano sopra quegli abbozzi a colpeggiare
facendo vn Colorito di carne; adoprando terre piu, che ogn'-
altro colore, ed il piu, che come la pes.te biadetti, gialli
santi, smaltini, verdi azuri, giallolini, e similmente i
lustri, e vernice. Ma dopo la seconda coperta de colori,
asciutti che erano, andauano velando vna figura, per esempio,
di qualche bassa tinta, per far maggiormente spiccare vn'altra
iui vicina, col farla balzar inanti; e conferendo col pennello
ad vn'altra qualche lume, per esempio nella superficie della
testa, o d'vna mano, o d'vn piede...." The practice described
here is evidently based on the example of Tintoretto.
fe,-., ' ■ ■ ■ ■ ' •
68
CHAPTER II
MANNERISM AND THE VENETIAN TRADITION
The Term
Mannerism is a problematic concept in art history; the word

has been used, with some disagreement, to describe various
stylistic phenomena and cultural situations but has never
been reduced to the same historiographic neutrality as other
art-historical labels, such as Gothic, Renaissance, or Baroque.
Some preliminary discussion of its significance and connota

tions is therefore necessary before the term can be used in
the context of Venetian Cinquecento painting.
The semantic confusion is due in part to the etymo

logical background of the word, its origin in the Italian
maniera, meaning, literally, manner or style.1 In this sense

the term was applied in sixteenth-century art literature by
Vasari and others, referring to the styles of periods, local-

2
ities, or of individual artists. A further distinction was
made, however, and maniera also signified a positive stylistic
1See G. Weise, "La doppia origine del concetto di

Manierismo," in Studi Vasariani. Florence, 1952, p. 181ff.,
who notes the derivation of the Italian word from the French
maniere, which in late-Gothic courtly culture referred to a
very unnatural and even hypocritical comportment.
2
The use of the term in Italian literature on art is
surveyed by M. Treves, "Maniera, The History of a Word, "
Marsvas. I, 1941, p.69ff.
69
quality, that element which raised a work of art above the

mere imitation of nature; Mannerism, in this case, would imply
-*
a kind of stylization. The artist with'a buona maniera did
not merely copy (ritrarre or contrafare) but imitated (imitare)

nature, which meant ennobling it by selecting only its most
3
perfect parts and imposing a style upon nature's raw material.
The way to the attainment of such a maniera was clearly
indicated by Vasari and Armenini: beyond the study of nature

and the works of the best modern masters, the young artist
had to copy the sculpture of the ancients. Here was to be
found the purest imitation of nature; in these models the

4
selection of its best elements had already been made. By
3
E. g., V. Danti, IIprimo libro del trattato delle per-
fette proporzioni (Florence, 1567), ed. P. Barocchi, p. 241:
"Ora per tornare a dire universalmente di tutte le proporzioni
delle cose che imitare o vero ritrarre si possono, dico
primieramente che ritrarre intendo io che sia fare una cosa
appunto come si vede essere un'altra. E lo imitare medesima-
mente intendo, al propositonostro, che sia fare una cosa non
colo in qviel modo che altrivede essere la cosa che imita,
quando fosse imperfetta, ma farla come ella arebbe essere in
tutta perfezione. Imperocche questa parola 'imitazione1 non
intendo che sia altro che un modo di operare il qual fugga le
cose imperfette e s'accosti, operando, alle perfezioni; e che
il ritrarre abbia a servire solamente d'intorno alle cose che
si veggiono essere, per loro stesse, di tutta perfezione."
Cf. ibid., note 2 on p. 513, and below, Chapter IV, p. 280f£,
and note 39, for further references. Vasari no doubt con
sidered Giorgione's drawings after nature essentially copies
and not imitation. See above, p. 27, and passages quoted in
Chapter I, note 48. Cf. J. Shearman, "Maniera Us ah Aasthetic
Ideal," in Studies in Western Art. II, The Renaissance and
Mannerism, Princeton, 1963, p. 200ff. and especially p. 207
and note 24.
4
Vasari, IV, p. 10. Armenini, De'veri precettl. Pisa,
1823, p. 6 6 ff. For a discussion of the use of ancient statuary
for artistic education, see below, Chapter IV, p. 279£f •, with
further references.
70
drawing after classical statuary and reliefs, the artist con
centrated on the distilled essence of nature's creation; he

learned lessons in both anatomy and style. This program was
identical to the one prescribed for the mastery of disegno
and the two concepts, maniera and disegno, were indeed inti-
5
mately related. Through constant practice the forms of the
human figure were committed to memory, thereby freeing the
imagination from dependence on the model and permitting the

artist to give, immediate expression to his ideas.
Pratica is then another aspect of the concept of
maniera. As opposed to the painstakingly diligent investi
gation of nature practised by the Quattrocento masters, tirar

di pratica or di maniera meant to work quickly and surely,
f
relying on knowledge gained through practice and on a style
C
acquired through habit.
The first reaction against such practice was contem
porary with the actual formulation of the concept itself and

is found in Dolce's Dialogo della pittura of 1557, where
7
maniera is called "cattiva pratica." It is not until the
^Further discussion of this point is reserved for

Chapter IV, p. 282ff.
g
See Treves, op. cit.; C. H. Smyth, Mannerism and
Maniera, Locust Valley, N. Y., 1962, note 38 on p. 47f.; and
V. de Ruro, "La concezione estetica di G. Vasari,"in Studi
vasariani, Florence, 1952, p. 52ff. For the long tradition
of brevity as an ideal of style in ancient and medieval
literature, see E. R.Curtius, European Literature and the
Latin Middle Ages. New York. 1963, p. 487ff.
7
Dolce, Dialogo della pittura, ed. P. Barocchi, p. 196:
"Seppe ancora il gran Rafaello fare iscortar le figure, quando
egli voile, e perfettamente; senzache io vi ritOrno a dire che
71
seventeenth century, following the essentially Carracci-
inspired artistic reaction to the highly stylized and sophi

sticated maniera of the later Cinquecento, that a generally
critical attitude toward that style and practice developed.
The original meaning of the term was, of course, retained
and understood, hut maniera as pratica was roundly condemned

as having forsaken both the study of nature and the measure
0
of the antique.
tutte le sue opere egli uso una varieta tanto mirabile, che
non e figura che ne d'aria ne movimento si somiglia, tal che
in cio^non appare orribra di quello che da'pittori oggi in mala
parte e chiamata maniera, cioe cattiva pratica, ove si veggono
forme e volti quasi sempre simili." The passage is discussed by
Smyth, op. cit., p. 4f., with further references in note 36 on
p. 46f. Smyth assumes that Dolce was referring to the practice
of contemporary Venetian painters; the point occurs, however,
during the debate on the relative merits of Raphael and Michel
angelo and, considering this context, more probably alludes to
the art of Central Italy. Armenini too blames artists who work
di pura maniera, ignoring the living model; he urges a union of
maniera with the study of nature. Cf. Treves, op. cit., p. 77.
8
P. Baldinucci, Vocabolario toscano dell'arte del disegno,
Florence, 1681: "MANIERA, f. Modo, guisa, forma d'opera de'-
pittori, scultori o architetti. Intendesi per quel modo che
regolarmente tiene in particolare qualsivoglia artefice nell'-
operar suo; onde rendesi assai difficile il trovare un'opra
d-'un maestro, tuttoche diversa da altro dello stesso, che non
dia alcun segno, nella maniera, di esser di sua mano e non
d'altri: il che porta per necessita ancora ne'maestri singular-
issimi una non so qual lontanza dalla imitazione dal vero e
naturale, che e tanto quanto e quello ch'essi con la maniera
vi pongono ,ai proprio. Da questa radicale parola, maniera, ne
viene ammanierato che dicesi di quell'opre nelle quali 1 *artifice
discostandosi molto dal vero tutto tira al proprio modo di fare
tanto nelle figure umane, quanto negli animali, nelle piante,
ne'panni e altre cose le quali in tal caso potranno bene apparir
facilmente e francamente fatte; ma non sacranno mai buone pitture,
sculture e architetture, ne avranno fra di loro intera varieta,-
ed e vizio questo tanto universale, che abbraccia ove piu ove
meno la maggior parte degli artisti." Cf. Treves, op. cit.,
p. 77ff.
72
In modern art-historical criticism, the term Mannerism

has retained its ambiguous connotations. In its earliest
modern usage, Mannerism was synonymous with decline, the de
cline of Central Italian painting following, and under the
formidable influence of, Michelangelo: "Art became completely
formalised and no longer paid any attention to nature, con
structing motives of movement according to personal formulae
and making of the human body a purely schematic machine of

9
joints and muscles." Wolfflin's strictures echo those of
the seicento critics; both he and they felt that the break
with the "classic art" of the High Renaissance was real. It
required, however, a different approach, a positive attitude,

to appreciate the significance of this Mannerism, to see it
as more than a mere slavish mimicry of Michelangelo's art
or the weak and ignorant perversion of Raphael's classicism.
The style established shortly after 1520 in Florence and Rome
was reinterpreted as a deliberate and creative volte-face,
an intentionally anti-classical and anormative art based on
the expressive distortion of the human figure and the destruc

tion of the rational spatial values and commensurable pro
portions of High Renaissance art.^®
9 H. Wolfflin, Die klassische Kunst (1899), trans. by

P. and L. Murray as Classic Art. London, 1959, p. 202. For a
survey of nineteenth-century attitudes toward Mannerism, see
Smyth, Mannerism and Maniera. p. 2f. and especially note 8 on
p. 33ff. and note 13 on p. 37.
^ W . Friedlaender, in his pioneering study, "Die Entstehung

des antiklassischen Stiles in der italienische Malerei urn 1520,"
Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft. XLVI, 1925, p. 49ff., de
liberately avoided the term Mannerism because of its then current
pejorative connotation. The essay is translated as "The Anti-
Classical Style," in Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian
Painting, New York, 195/* -----------------
73
When the term Mannerism is used for stylistic de

scription/ it is now necessary to distinguish among the various
generations and schools of Italian painting after 1520: to
distinguish, for example, the Florentine Mannerism of Pontormo

and Rosso from the later Roman style, more academic and
classicizing, of Vasari and the brothers Zuccaro.^ What
the various Mannerist schools have in common, nevertheless,

is an overwhelming concern with the expressive and composi
tional manipulation of the human figure, to which nearly
every other aspect of painting is subordinated. This con
cern is, of course, a continuation of the traditions of the
Quattrocento and High Renaissance in Central Italy, but the

concept of maniera demands an ever greater freedom for the
12
artist, license to break with the laws of proportional norms.
The apparently arbitrary handling of the human figure in the
works of Vasari and his circle followed conditions dictated

by formal considerations: the relating of the figures to one
another and to the frame with regard to the overall two-
dimensional design of the picture. The distortion of the
figure was determined by its adaptation to a planar, relief

13
conception of compositional design.
^ L . Becherucci, Manieristi toscarii, Bergamo, 1944, p. 9.

Smyth, op. cit., p. 26ff., questions the applicability of the
term to the work of the post-classical painters.
12
On Vasari's recommendation of licenzia within the
regola, see Ibid., p. 23. On the changing attitude toward
figural proportions, cf. below, Chapter IV, p. 270ff•
13
This aspect of mid-Cinquecento Mannerist style has been
emphasized by Sn^rth, loc. cit.. who convincingly associates it
with the study and use of models of ancient relief sculpture.
IT
74
Despite Vasari's appreciation of facility and of the

freedom of an artist's sketch, the style of mid-Cinquecento
Mannerism was a relatively tight one. 14 The emphasis was
on design, on drawing and composing the figure, and this
required the use of sharp contours, of the distinct
separation of forms. In the art of Vasari and his con
temporaries there is an extremely precise quality; figures

and objects are defined with an almost Flemish crispness.
This style of painting is perhaps the clearest example

of the predominance of disegno, beyond the drawing of the
figure to the conception and mode of composing a picture.
It is an important aspect of Central Italian Mannerism at
the middle of the sixteenth century and will provide a

standard against which to measure and appreciate the forms
of Mannerism in Venice.
In its various contexts, then, the word Mannerism
may be applied to nearly every aspect of Italian painting

s
following the death of Raphael. It must constantly be
*
modified when used descriptively, and the usefulness of
the term in criticizing the negative aspects of late
14
Cf. Vasari's preference for the drawings of Giulio
Romano, above, Chapter I, note 32. See P. Barocchi, "Finito
e non-finito nella critica vasariana," Arte antica e moderna,
1958, No. 3, p. 221ff. On the importance of finish in maniera
see Smyth, o p . cit.. p. 12ff.
Cinquecento painting in the era of International Mannerism,
its easy stylization, its formulas, in short, its pratica,
15
should not be forgotten.
The critical literature on Mannerism, the term and

the styles, is now quite enormous. Several recent summaries
and discussions of the topic are: Smyth, op. cit.: E. Battisti,
"Sfortune del Manierismo," in Rinascimento e Barocco, Turin,
1960, p. 216ff.; G. Nicco Fasola, "La storiografia del
Manierismo," in Scritti di storia dell'arte in onore di L.
Venturi, I, Rome, 1956, p. 429£f.; G. Weise, "Storia^del
termine 'Manierismo'," in Manierismo, Barocco, Rococo: con
cetti e termini, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, 1962,
p. 27ff. Cf. also the contributions of E. H. Gonibrich and
J. Shearman in Studies in Western Art, II. The Renaissance
and Mannerism, Princeton, 1963.
76
The High Renaissance in Venice
Before the relationship of Mannerism to the Venetian
tradition can be understood and appreciated, it must be de

termined against what High Renaissance style Mannerist changes
are to be measured in Venice.
Vasari, the first writer to look back and worship the
achievements of the early Cinquecento, presents us with a
clear awareness of the break that occurred around 1500 and
gave rise to what we now call the High Renaissance. Two
figures in particular are singled out and hailed as the
innovators of the new style: Leonardo da Vinci in Florence

16
and Giorgione da Castelfranco in Venice. That the Tuscan
biographer should place a Venetian directly behind Leonardo,

although "alquanto lontano," at the threshold of the new era
is surely significant. Vasari found in the art of both
masters a certain animation and expressiveness, a grazia.

that derived partly from the handling of tone, the use of
sfumato effects and chiaroscuro. While, as we might expect,

Vasari claims that Giorgione found his inspiration in the work
16
Vasari, IV, p. 11: "Ma lo errore di costoro [the
Quattrocento masters] dimostrarono poi chiaramente le opere
di Lionardo da Vinci, il quale dando principio a quella terza
maniera che noi vogliamo chiamare la moderna, oltra la
gagliardezza e bravezza del disegno, ed oltre il contraffare
sottilissimamente tutte le, minuzie della natura, cosl a punto
come elle sono, con buona regola, miglior ordine, retta
mi sura, disegno perfetto, e grazia 'divina abbondantissimo di
copie, e profondissimo di arte. Seguito dopo lui, ancora que
alquanto lontano, Giorgione da Castel Franco, il quale sfumo
le sue pitture, e dette una terribil movenzia alle sue cose,
per una certa oscurita di ombre ben intese."
77
17
of Leonardo, he nevertheless recognized the Venetian painter
as a major figure in the establishment of a new style.
Leonardo*s handling of color and tone was always based
upon a very firm basic drawing. Contours may disappear into
shadow but they are never lost; their presence is aiways im
plied or felt, and works such as the unfinished Uffizi

Adoration or the St. Anne cartoon in London are clear demon
strations of the always important role of drawing in Leonardo's
18
creative process. Leonardo's more pictorial efforts in the
realm of chiaroscuro were rejected, in general, by the
younger masters in Florence, who returned to the more tra

ditionally Tuscan concern with plastic modelling and,
17
Ibid., p. 92: "Aveva veduto Giorgione alcune cose
di mano di Lionardo molto fumeggiate e cacciate, come si e
detto, terribilmente di scuro: e questa maniera gli piacque
tanto, che, mentre visse, sempre ando dietro a quella, a nel
colorito a olio la imito grandemente." This passage is pro
bably more than just another example of Vasari's well-known
campanilismo. Leonardo was in Venice for a while in March
of 1500, when he worked on a plan of defense against the
Turks, and it is highly unlikely that the Florentine had no
contact with Venetian artists. He is known to have had with
him a portrait drawing of Isabella d'Este and quite probably
many other examples of his work, especially drawings. The
young Giorgione is likely to have been excited and inspired by
this new art. For further comment on this problem, see L.
Coletti, "La crisi' gifNDgionesca," Le Tre Venezie, XXI, 1947,
p. 255ff. The relations between Leonardo and Giorgione are
discussed in the most, general terms by J. Alazard, "Leonard
de Vinci et Giorgione," in L'art et la pensee de Leonard de
Vinci, Etudes d'art, 8-10, Communications du Congres Inter
national du Val de Loire, Paris-Alger, 1953-54, p. 35ff.
18
On Leonardo's drawings in general, see A. E. Popham,
The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. London, 1946. For the
radically new creative importance attached to drawing by
Leonardo, see E. H. Gombrich, "Consails de Leonard sur les
esquisses de tableaux," in L'art et la pensee de Leonard.
p. 179ff.
V
78
1 Q
consequently! to a more intense chromatic application. It
was essentially Leonardo's drawing of the figure that inspired
the Florentines, Michelangelo among them. The heroic male
nude became both the favorite subject and the symbol of early
High Renaissance art in Florence. Based upon and furthering
the traditions of the Pollaiuolo and Signorelli, the ac
complishments of Leonardo and Michelangelo struck a new
classical note and established the foundations of the High

Renaissance in Central Italy.
Giorgione, however, used the new oscurita as the

basis for a different kind of development, drawing totally
new implications from the art of Giovani Bellini and setting'

20
a daring technical precedent. In one sense, then, Giorgione
was Leonardo's only truly creative follower, transforming
the language of light and shadow into a new Venetian syntax.
His transformation of the heritage of antiquity was also

characteristically different, leading not to a new formal
freedom and monumentality of the figure as much as to the
creation of a very real space for it; this was not the mathe
matically correct and commensurable space of Florence, but an

atmospheric, suggestive yet, as it were, romantically tangible
19
For a discussion of these phenomena and an analysis
of Leonardo's ideas and practice in this field, see J. Shearman,
"Leonardo's Colour and Chiaroscuro," Zeitschrift fur
Kunstqeschichte, XXV, 1962, p. 13ff. Leonardo's example was,
of course, followed in Milan,where artists of the stature of
Luini, Cesare da Sesto, and Boltraffio produced works of a
Leonardesque character.
20
Cf. above, Chapter I, pp. 5f* and 17ff.
79
21
ambiente. With this emphasis the direction of High Renais
sance painting in Venice was set.
The technical consequences of this approach to painting

have already been examined, and it remains to consider the
formal developments in Venetian painting of the early Cinque-
cento. Giorgione's rendering of the figure, based as it was
on the traditional coloristic heritage of Venetian art and
on the new Leonardesque chiaroscuro, had to be basically dif
ferent from the plastic, sculpture-oriented figures of the
21 —
Giorgione's romantic landscapes were nonetheless a
part of the classical tradition of the Renaissance, evoking
the mood and often the themes of the bucolic landscapes of
antiquity. See R. Wittkower, "L'Arcadia e il Giorgionismo,"
in Umanesimo europeo e umanesimo veneziano, Florence, 1963,
p. 473ff. Cf. also E. Battisti, "Un'antica interpretazione
della 'Tempesta'," in Rinascimento e Barocco, Turin, 1960,
p. 146ff., and for the specific use of fragments of ancient
sculpture in Giorgione's work, E. Tietze-Conrat, "Giorgione
and the 1Pezzi di figure'," in II mondo antico nel Rinasci
mento, Atti del V. Convegno Internazionale di Studi sul
Rinascimento, Florence, 1958, p. 245ff.
The particular involvement of the figure with its sur
roundings was especially appreciated in the context of the
famous Paragone between painting and sculpture. According to
the literary traditions, Giorgione is supposed to have painted
one tour de force as a demonstration of the superiority of
painting; in order to counter the argument that a painting
could show only one aspect of the figure, he created an image
in which he took special advantage of the medium at his com
mand. The anecdote is first related by Pino, Dialogo di
pittura, ed. P. Barocchi, p. 131: "...chiudero la bocca a
questi che voranno diffendere la scultura, come per un altro
modo furno confusi da Georgione da Castel Franco, nostro pittor
celeberrimo e non manco degli antichi degno d'onore. Costui,
a perpetua confusione degli scultori, dipinse in un quadro un
San Giorgio armato, in piedi, appostato sopra un tronco di
lancia, con li piedi nelle istreme sponde d'una fonte limpida
e chiara, nella qual transverberava tutta la figura in scurzo
sino alia cima del capo? poscia avea finto uno specchio
appostato a un tronco, nel qual riflettava tutta la figura
integra in schena et un fianco. Vi finse un altro specchio
dall'altra parte, nel qual si vedeva tutto l'altro lato del
San Giorgio, volendo sostentare ch'uno pittore puo far vedere
Florentine High Renaissance. The latter existed easily in
the rarified atmosphere of space defined in terms of classical
architectural forms. The Venetian's figures, like those of

the early Sehastiano del piombo and Titian, Giorgione's most
important followers, were surrounded by an almost tangible
medium of tone. Their spatial environment was created by
the painterly rendering of light and shadow; contours were

22
lost in the darkness from which the figures emerged.
The resulting softness of form was especially adapt
able to the feminine figure and it is quite logical that
Giorgione should have established the most characteristic
Venetian Renaissance motive, the reclining Venus. The female

nude in a landscape was treated often by nearly every Venetian
integramente una figura a un sguardo solo, che non puo cos!

far un scultore; e fu questa opera, come cosa di Georgione,
perfettamente intesa in tutte le tre parti di pittura, cioe
disegno, invenzione e colorire." The same feat is described,
with some variations, by Vasari (IV, p. 98) and Ridolfi (I,
p. 106), both of whom no doubt relied upon Pino's original
statement. A similar effect was used by Savoldo in his por
trait of Gaston de Foix (Louvre), where two mirrors are placed
behind the sitter (P. Zampetti, Giorgione e i Giorgioneschi,
exhibition catalogue, Venice, 1955, Cat. No. Ill).
22
The motif of the figure in a niche offers a convenient
point of comparison. In Central Italy it was treated as an
essentially sculptural idea; the niche was the necessary spatial
envelope for the solid figure* which filled and often overflowed
it$ (cf. the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul by Fra Bartolommeo,
finished by Raphael, in the Vatican Museum;( ill. in S. J. Freed-
berg, Painting of the High Renaissance in Rome and Florence. II,
Cambridge, Mass., 1961, figs. 265, 266). In Sebastiano del
Piombo's comparable figures of St. Louis of Toulouse and St.
Sinibaldo in the church of San Bartolomeo a Rialto in Venice,
the relation of figure to niche is quite different (ill. in
R. Pallucchini, Sebastiano Viniziano. Milan, 1944, pis. 6 , 7).
The figures are smaller in scale and are not in forced physical
contact with the architecture. Instead, the niche, vhich is
deeper than that of Fra Bartolommeo, is filled with a substantial
shadow from which the figures emerge. In the Roman example we
feel the physical convexity of the figures while in the Venetian
we sense first the reality of the spatial concavity.
V 81
'23
painter after him. The Giorgionesque method of painting
was technically well suited to the rendering of both figure
and setting, and the preference for landscape backgrounds
was another hallmark of Venetian painting of the first quarter

of the sixteenth century. The landscape setting was, in a
sense, a formal support for the close interrelationship of
figure and environment already effected in the Venetians'
peculiar use of the oil medium. An all-embracing atmosphere

was created by color and tone and the broken touches of
paint further unified the pictorial components in a more
technically formal way. This particular balance of form and
content is a crucial aspect of High Renaissance painting in

Venice.
The tonal spatial envelope surrounding the figures in

the new painting was in contrast to Quattrocento solutions
in Venice. Practised well into the sixteenth century by
Carpaccio and his shop, the traditional approach to monumental
decoration was the tableau composition, in which the dramatic
action unfolded parallel to the picture plane in the rela

tively shallow space of the foreground. A deep stage was
usually defined by the architectural or landscape setting of
23
Again, the contrast is offered with Florence, where
the standing, heroic male nude was the central figure of the
new art; Michelangelo's David has always been regarded as the
symbol of High Renaissance Florence. For a discussion Of the
tradition of the Apollo-David figure in Florence and the re
clining Venus in Venice, see K. Clark, The Nude, Garden City,
N. Y., 1959, pp. 8 6 ff., 171ff., and 175ff. For an interpre
tation of the iconographic significance of the female nude in
Venetian painting, cf. E. Panofsky, “The Neoplatonic Movement
in Florence and North Italy," in Studies in Iconoloov, Jnd ed.,
New York, 1962, p. 129ff.
82
such scenes, populated by auxiliary figures also moving
parallel to the picture's surface, but the primary drama

rarely extended into that depth. The new tonal painting
forced a continuity of foreground and background and a

greater freedom of movement for the figures in general,
liberated as they were from the confines of the narrow strip
immediately behind the plane. The new generation of painters

was not in open revolt, however, and the actual formal break
in the compositional disposition of the figures was not a
radical one. A basic awareness of the picture plane re-

24
mains a part of the Venetian approach.
The greatest achievements of the Venetian High
Renaissance, and indeed its climax, are the great altar-

pieces of Titian. The earliest of these, the Assunta in the
Prari, was completed in 1518 and is at once a summary and

transcendence of traditional Venetian pictorial values. The
24
The development of the tableau composition is of
course intimately related to the role of pageantry and pro
cessions in the public life of Venice, and one of the most
important examples of this mode of composition is, signifi
cantly, Gentile Bellini's Procession in Piazza San Marco from
the cycle in the SCuola di San Marco. The continuation of
tableau compositional elements in the art of Titian and later
Venetian masters may in part be due to the continuation of
traditional commissions, such as processions and votive pic
tures. Cf. especially Titian's votive picture of the Vendramin
family (London, National Gallery). For the development of the
votive picture in Venice, see S. Sinding-Larsen, "Titian's
Madonna di Ca'Pesaro and its Historical Significance," in Acta
ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historjam Pertinentia. Institutum
Romanum Norvegiae, I, Rome, 1962, p. 139ff. On the conserva
tive tradition of preserving older pictorial types in Venice,
see E. Tietze-Conrat, "Decorative Paintings of the Venetian
Renaissance Reconstructed from Drawings," Art Quarterly. Ill,
1940, p. 15ff.
83
immediate impressiveness of its heavenly glow marks it as a
further elaboration of Giovanni Bellini's approach to re

ligious themes. A new scale, however, distinguishes this
painting from all previous Venetian altarpieces, as does
the emphatic statement of the color, based upon the keynote

of red in the Virgin's robe. The novelty was at first even
shocking; the unveiling of the Assunta apparently caused
some misgiving in Venice and it took a while before the

25
picture was finally accepted and its leadership recognized.
In his second Frari altarpiece, completed for the
Pesaro family in 1526, Titian revolutionized the traditional

representation of the Sacra Conversazione. The artist chose
a different view of the central group of Madonna and Child
and saints, placing them off to the right, the apex of a

scalene triangle; access to the holy group is by a few
steps set obliquely to the picture plane. The development
of atmospheric effects in Venetian painting is given further
25
The unveiling of the Assunta on May 19, 1518, was
important enough an event to have been recorded in the diaries
of Martino Sanudo. Ridolfi, I, p. 163, notes that Padre
Germano was critical of the composition, insisting that the
figures of the apostles were too large. The painters them
selves were apparently also offended by a breach of tradi
tional values. Dolce, Dialogo di pittura, ed. P. Barocchi,
p. 202 , reports, "...i pittori goffi e lo sciocco volgo, che
insino alora non avevano veduto altro che le cose morte e
fredde di Giovanni Bellino, di Gentile e del Vivarino,...le
quali erano senza movimento e senza rilevo, dicevano della
detta tavola un gran male. Dipoi, raffreddeandosi la invidia
et aprendo loro a poco a poco la verita gli occhi, cominciarono
le genti a stupir della nuova maniera trovata in Vinegia da
Tiziano, e tuttii pittori d'indi in poi si affaticarono
d'imitarla; ma per esser fuori della strada loro, rimanevano
smariti."
84
stimulus in this picture in the paii: of putti holding the

cross and floating on a cloud high above the figures below.
The placement of the cloud in front of the architectural
forms underscores the airy impression of space that permeates

the entire composition. While the cloud functions to define
the spatial setting, extending it by implication both forward
and backward, the position of the members of the Pesaro
family is determined with deliberate reference to the frame

26
and the picture plane. They are seen in the traditional
profile view, placed in the first narrow spatial strip in
the immediate foreground. The daring innovations of the
rest of the picture are thereby balanced by a motif continuing

26 a.
the traditions of the tableau compositions.
This combination of old and new is quite typical of
Titian, who, after the death of Giorgione in 1510 and the
departure for Rome of Sebastiano in the following year,
assumed absolute leadership of the Venetian school. The
important developments of the second and third decades of the
sixteenth century were primarily the achievements of that

master. Most of the other artists then active in Venice—
e.g., Palma Vecchio, Giovanni Cariani, Bernardino Licinio,
Vincenzo Catena— were content to develop themes and modes of
26
S. Sinding-Larsen, op. cit.. has convincingly demon
strated that the two massive columns, generally thought to be
later additions by the painter himsfelf, were indeed added after
the death of Titian and probably in the seventeenth century.
The original architectural setting consisted of a coffered
barrel-vault springing from the wall at the right.
26a.
Cf. above, note 24.
85
representation inherited from Giorgione, notably portraiture
and landscape settings. Even the best of them, Palma Vecchio,
was unable to take the strides made by Titian; next to the

new monumentality of the latter*s work, Palma's conceptions
remain modest and conservative.
fS&v:’. -- ™
Mannerism to Venice
By the fourth decade of the sixteenth century the

Giorgione tradition was in general a tired one; of the
painters active in Venice only Titian had been able to build
upon Giorgione's example, creating a distinctly personal
ctyle, constantly growing and developing. And it is especi
ally in the work of Titian that the changes occurring in

Venetian painting in this and the following decade can be
measured and understood. Basically, the developments of
4
these years center about an ever greater rapprochement with
the more' three-dimensional and solid formal values of Central
Italian art.
Although to a certain extent these developments ap
pear to have been anticipated in Titian's work of the 1520's,

he did not initiate this movement but rather seems to have
reacted to new challenges. The first painter to practice
a decidedly plastic monumental figure style in Venice was
Pordenone, who came to Venice and frescoed part of the church

of San Rocco soon after 1528. The style that he brought to
Venice was a particularly intense and powerful one, dis

playing a breadth and vitality of form based upon Central
Italian models, heightened by an immediacy of expression
that may well have been influenced by Diirer and northern

27
art. in the decade following his arrival, Pordenone
27
On Pordenone's development, especially his contact
with northern art and possible trips to Rome and Urbino, see
G. Fiocco, Giovanni Antonio Pordenone. Udine, 1939, pp. 23ff.
and 45ff. Practising in and around the Veneto, he was also
naturally subject to the influence of Giorgione and the early
Titian, above all in the use of chiaroscuro.
87
decorated many palace facades and in 1537 received a com
mission for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio of the Ducal

Palace. Thus Titian found himself in active competition
with an artist and a style that blatantly challenged the
local traditions by introducing new possibilities of a solid

28
and formal art.
The new manner involved a greater emphasis on the
human figure, on its anatomical mass and movement. It was

antithetical to the Giorgionesque ideal of the figure in a
landscape, for this heroic conception of the human form,
inspired by Central Italian art in general and Michelangelo's

in particular, placed the figure in a space all its own,
defined by an architecture that reflected its heroic pro
portions. Now, the monumental figure in action was not an

element totally foreign to Titian. He had achieved a monu-
mentality of scale in his great altarpieces, and in the
destroyed canvas of the Murder of St. Peter Martyr, completed
in 1530 for the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, he had

created a model of figure composition that was to be studied
and copied by generations of Venetian artists. The composi
tion represents, in a way, a wedding of the two traditions;

its impressiveness lies essentially in the interaction of
28
For further discussion of Pordenone*s activity in
Venice and his role in the transformation of Venetian painting
see ibid.. p. 89ff; R. Pallucchini, La ctiovinezza del Tintor
etto, Milan, 1950, p. 22ff; and for the rivalry between him
and Titian, J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, Titian. His
_ Life and Times. II, London, 1877, p. Iff. Cf. also L. Coletti,
"La crisi manieristica nella pittura veneziana," Convivlum.
XIII, 1941, p. 109ff.
88
29
the violence of the figures and the twisting of the trees.
In the 'thirties, following Pordenone, other Venetian
painters began to abandon the landscape in favor of archi
tectural backgrounds, adding a plastic dimension to their
handling of space. The Giorgione tradition of landscape

settings was giving way to a new ideal, architecturally de
fined space, and the architecture was of a definitely clas-

sicizing Roman design. 30 The change is evident in the work
of Paris Bordone and Bonifazio de'Pitati and his active shop,
as well as in the paintings of Titian himself; furthermore,

in these same years, the young Tintoretto was beginning to
31
manipulate space in a more dynamic way. In Titian's
Presentation of the Virgin, executed for the Scuola della
29
The competition for the commission was held in 1525,
and Titian's rivals for the project were Palma Vecchio and
Pordenone; the presence of the latter artist may have had
some influence on Titian's design. The painting was destroyed
by fire in 1867, but the composition has been preserved in
several engravings and painted copies.
30
One easily accessible source of convenient and use
ful architectural motifs and settings was the treatise of
Sebastiano Serlio, the first volume of which (Book IV) was
published in Venice in 1537. See C. Gould, "Sebastiano
Serlio and Venetian Painting," Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes. XXV, 1962, p. 56ff.
31
In the compositions of Paris Bordone and of Bonifazio
the dramatic actinn is usually limited to the immediate fore
ground; the deep architectural space serves essentially as a
flat scenic backdrop, from which genre it often derived (cf.
ibid.). There is something of a reflection in this treatment
of the traditional Venetian tableau composition (cf. above,
P* 81f* and note 24). The significance of Tintoretto's ap
proach, is that he actively utilized that deep space, creating
a composition in which the drama was revealed in all three
dimensions; this point will be further discussed below, p.l0 3 f*
89
Carita between 1534 and 1538, a new note of grandeur is
struck. Although the procession of figures moving across
the surface of the canvas is well within the Venetian tableau
tradition and the landscape still plays an important part in
the background, the use of an architectural setting on such
a scale is new and marks Titian's participation in the
stylistic developments of Venetian painting in these years.
These developments in Venice were contemporary with,

and indeed influenced by, even more profound transformations
in the art of Central Italy. In Rome and Florence the break
with the classical norms of the High Renaissance, so clearly

established even in 1520, was given a particular urgency in
1527 with the sack of Rome. The migration of artists from
that center was to be of great significance for local schools

of art throughout Italy but perhaps nowhere more so than
Venice, where both Pietro Aretino and Jacopo Sansovino found
haven. These two powerful individuals became the closest
friends of Titian and leading members of the artistic and
cultural community of Venice; they played crucial roles in the
metamorphoses of Venetian Renaissance art. Aretino brought,
to the lagoon all his Roman enthusiasm for Michelangelo and

32
Raphael. Sansovino introduced a related figurative style
in his sculpture and established a monumental Roman mode of
32
On Aretino, cf. above, Chapter I, p. 53 and note
111, for further references. For the informal "academy"
centering about the artistic triumvirate of Aretino, Sansovino,
and Titian, cf. below, Chapter IV, note 136.
90
design in his architecture, transforming single-handedly, as

33
it were, the face of Venice. While both Aretino and
Sansovino were, in turn, to be influenced by stubborn
Venetian traditions, adapting their conceptions and style
to a new environment, their importance as conveyors of a
"Romanism" to Venice must be emphasized.

Before any other aspect of Central Italian art had
gained a hold in Venice the cult of Michelangelo began to be
felt there. Indeed, the first Venetian to show an awareness
33
Sansovino was appointed proto of San Marco by the
Venetian government in 1529, and as official architect to the
state was responsible for most of the important building in
Venice until his death in 1570. His mark upon the city was so
great that Armenini, referring to the "modernization" of Venice
under Sansovino's hand, wrote: "Ma che sarebbe forse ancora
Venezia se Jacopo Sansovino, che fu scultore ed architetto nei
suoi tempi assai valente, non vi avesse le sue virtu adoperate?"
(De'veri precetti, Pisa, 1823, p. 244). Vasari naturally also
stressed the leadership of the Tuscan Sansovino in Venice; of
the Libreria he writes (VII, p. 503): "II qual modo di fare
fu cagione in quella citta, nella quale fino allora non era
entrato mai modo se non di fare le case ed i palazzi loro con
un medesimo ordine, seguitando ciastsuno sempre le medesime
cose con la medesima misura ed usanza vecchia, senza variar
secondo il sito che si trovavano, o secondo la comodita, fu
cagione, dico, che si cominciassero a fabbricare con nuovi
disegni e con migliore ordine, e secondo l'antica disciplina
di Vitruvio, le cose pubbliche e le private." The specifically
Roman motifs in Sansovino's Venetian architecture have been
studied by W. Lotz, "The Roman Legacy in Sansovino's Venetian
Buildings," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians,
XXII, 1963, p. 3ff., and "L'eredita romana di Jacopo Sansovino
architetto veneziano," Bollettino del Centro Internazionale
di Studi d 1Architettura Andrea Palladio, III, 1962, p. 82ff.
For a general survey of Sansovino's work in Venice, see G.
Lorenzetti, Itinerario sansoviniano a Venezia, Venice, 1929,
and G. Mariacher, II Sansovino. , 1962. On his
sculpture, see L. Planiscig, Venezlanische Bildhauer der
Renaissance, Vienna, 1921, p. 349ff., and J. Pope-Hennessy,
Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, London, 1963,
I, p. 78£f., II, pp. 51ff. and 103ff.
91
of Michelangelo was Titian himself, always open to new ideas.
The St. Sebastian of the Brescia altarpiece, dated 1520, may
well have been inspired by one of Michelangelo's slaves for
the Julius tomb, and even earlier, in 1518, he had borrowed
a figure directly from the cartoon of the Battle of Cascina

34
for his own composition of the Andrians. Furthermore, in
1523, Cardinal Domenico Grimani had tried to obtain a picture

35
by Michelangelo for his collection, and in 1535 Aretino
wrote to Vasari, asking him to send drawings of the figures

of the Medici tombs to Venice, where, we may imagine, he had
36
been talking about Michelangelo since his arrival.
Around 1540 the Venetian painters had the opportunity

to become directly familiar with the very latest in Roman
painting in the works of Francesco Salviati and Giorgio
Vasari. Salviati came to Venice in 1539 and remained for
34
The figure is the reclining youth resting on one
arm in the center of the group. A fragment of Michelangelo's
cartoon, which had been broken up in 1515-16, was in a private
collection in Mantua in the sixteenth century. See H. Tietze,
Titian, London, 1950, p. 17, fig. 43.
35
See Coletti, "La crisi manieristica," p. 118.
36
In the letter to Vasari, dated Venice, July 15, 1535
(Lettere sull'arte di Pietro Aretino, I, No. X, p. 24f.),
Aretino writes: "Io insieme con le vostre lettere ricevei i
due capitani ritratti da voi, a petizion mia, da le sepulture
del duca Giuliano e del duca Lorenzo, i quali mi son piaciuti
assai, si perche avete saputo ritrargli, si perche vengono
da lo iddio dela scoltura....E qui non si stupora vedendo
l'orecchia cosl minutamente finita di lapis?" Vasari sent
many other artistic gifts to Aretino in Venice; in 1536 he
sent a portrait-head of Michelangelo modelled in wax, in 1538
a drawing by Michelangelo representing St. Catherine and in
1540 a cartoon by himself of the Fall of Manna. For a full
discussion of the relationship between the two natives of
Arezzo, see L. Venturi, "Pietro Aretino e Giorgio Vasari,"
in Melanges Bertaux, Paris, 1924, p. 323ff.
I '
92
about a year; his principal patrons were Giovanni and Vettor
Grimani, in whose palace he worked on two different decora-

37
tive projects. The Grimani family, with some of its mem
bers in Rome, was the center of the Venetian Romanophile

38
circle, and they selected two Roman artists, Salviati and
Giovanni da Udine, to create a scheme of fresco and stucco
decorations in the Roman manner.

On December 1, 1541, Vasari arrived in Venice, invited
there to design the apparato for Aretino's comedy, La Talanta.
He also executed ceiling decorations in the Palazzo Corner-
Spinelli and was commissioned to paint three ceiling panels

39
for the church of Santo Spirito in Isola. The scenic
37
Salviati also painted a portrait of Aretino, which
was sent as a gift to Francis I, and an altarpiece for the
church of the Corpus D o m i n i S e e I. H. Cheney, "Francesco
Salviati's North Italian Journey," Art Bulletin, XLV, 1963,
p. 337ff., and M. Hirst, "Three Ceiling Decorations by Fran
cesco Salviati," Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte, XXVI, 1963,
p. 146ff.
38
The chapel of the Grimani family in S. Francesco
della Vigna was decorated with frescoes by the Romanized
Venetian, Battista Franco. Upon the death of that artist in
1561, Federico Zuccaro was called from Rome to continue and
complete the project. See W. R. Rearick, "Battista Franco and
the Grimani Chapel," Saggj e memorie di storia dell'arte. II,
1959, p. 107ff. The Grimani family's collections of ancient
art were among the earliest formed in Italy, containing many
works brought directly from Greece, as well as Roman antiquities.
Parts of the collection were given to the Republic in 1523 and
1593 and now form the core of the Archeological Museum in Venice.
For the collections, see P. Paschini, "Lie collezioni archaelo-
.giche dei prelati Grimani del Cinquecento, h Rendiconti della
Pontificia Accademia romana di archaelogia, V, 1926-27, p. 149ff.,
and B. Forlati Tamaro, "La fortuna della scultura grec3 nel
gusto veneziano del Cinquecento," in Studi vasariahi, Florence.
1952, p. 239ff. "
39
For Vasari's work in Venice, see J. Schulz, "Vasari
at Venice," Burlington Magazine. CIII, 1961, p. 500ff.
93
designs for La Talanta included 'bc>th painting and sculpture

in stucco and, in certain monochrome canvases, the illusion-
istic imitation of one medium by the other. .Such a highly
sophisticated and self-consciously artistic play could only

have been conceived by a Central Italian, especially one of
39a
Vasari's academic inclinations.
The immediate influence of Salviati1s work does not
40
seem to have been appreciable; both he and Vasari, however,
were instrumental in adding impetus to the growing interest in
41
palace decorations, vdiich culminated in the classicizing
39d
In Act I, Scene 1, of La Talanta, Aretino has one of
his characters announce: "Mi s'awisa, mi si scrive, e mi si
notifica, che un messer Giorgio d ’Arezzo di etade d'un XXXV
anni ha fatto una scena, et uno apparato, che il Sansovino,
el Tiziano, splriti mirabili, ne ammirano."
40
Cf. Cheney, o p . cit., p. 347, who nevertheless notes
that Salviati brought with him to Venice a drawing after
Michelangelo's not yet finished Last Judgement, which he gave
to Aretino, who undoubtedly showed it to Titian.
41
In 1545 Tintoretto executed ceiling decorations in
Aretino's house. A panel from this project, Apollo and Marsvas,
is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. In general, how
ever, Vasari did not seem too happy over the reception he re
ceived in Venice. In the life of Cristoforo Gherardi, his
assistant in Venice, he writes (VI, p. 226): "Essendo poi
pregato il Vasari da Michele Sammichele, architettore Veronese,
di fermarsi in Vinezia, si sarebbe forse volto a starvi qualche
anno; ma Cristofano ne lo disuasse sempre dicendo che non era
bene fermarsi in Vinezia, dove non si tenea conto del disegno,
ne i pittori in quel luogo l'usavano: senza che i pittori sono
cagione che non vi s'attende alle fatiche dell'arti, e che era
meglio tornare a Roma, che e la vera scuola dell'arti nobili,
e vi e molto piu riconosciuta la virtu che a Vinezia. Aggiunte
dunque alia poca voglia che il Vasari aveva di starvi le dis-
suasioni di Cristofano, si partirono amendue." Needless to
say, we are presented here with Vasari's own thoughts on the
subject. That this supposed affront to his virtu lies behind
Vasari's critical animosity toward Venice has been suggested
by L. Venturi, "Pietro, Aretino e Giorgio Vasari," p. 328.
94
AO
vault decoration in Sansovino's Libreria. “ In the case of
Vasari's Santo Spirito commission there is a direct connection
between the Central Italian and Titian, who succeeded to the

project when Vasari left Venice in August of 1542 without
having finished. Titian's solutions to the problems involved

may well have been inspired by Vasari, even to the extent of
43
utilizing some of the latter's designs. At any rate, we
notice in Titian's paintings, now preserved in the sacristy
of Santa Maria della Salute, a greater emphasis on careful
draughtsmanship, on the solidity of the human form, and on
boldness of foreshortening. Conversely, the Venetian master's

color has undergone a change, moving toward a monochrome of
browns and grays and away from his earlier glowing brilliance.
Although the strong use of di sotto in su was not entirely
new to Venice, it had never become a favorite decorative
mode, and of the painters working in Venice during the first
half of the sixteenth century only Pordenone had utilized this

44
perspective device. Once again, Pordenone seems to have
pointed the way, presaging artistic developments in Venice

after his death in 1539.
42
The vault contains seven rows of three tondo panels
each. In 1556 Titian and Sansovino selected the seven painters
for the execution and competition and served as the jury,
awarding the first prize of a gold chain to Veronese. The
stucco framework was, according to G. Lorenzetti (Venezia e
il suo estuario, Rome, 1963, p. 151), designed by Battista
Franco. Cf. Rearick, op. cit., p. 117f.
43
Cf. above, Chapter I, p. 35 and note 72.
44 %
Di sotto in su perspective had a long tradition in
Northern Italy, going back to Mantegna's ceiling fresco in the
Camera degli Sposi at Mantua. Pordenone had applied such a
95
In the ‘forties, then, Titian's art took a definite
turn in a new direction, and the other works of this period
reveal a similar concern with powerful figures in straining
action. Both the Louvre Crowning of Thorns and the Martyrdom

of St. Lawrence in the Gesuiti date from this decade and bear
witness to the new emphasis and the change to a more mono

chromatic color scheme. In 1545 Titian finally went to Rome
in order to familiarize himself with the great modern masters
and the work of the ancients, to learn something of the
45
discipline of disegno. He had been prepared for his Roman
perspective device in his decoration of the Saladei Pregadi

in the Venetian Ducal Palace, executed in 1535-36 and destroyed
in the fire of 1574. Earlier, he had produced such illusion-
istic effects in the panels of the ceiling of the Scuola di
San Francesco ai Frari, several of which are still preserved.
This particular project has been reconstructed by J. Schulz,
"Vasari at Venice," p. 507f., who also briefly surveys Venetian
ceiling design before Pordenone, which displayed little
interest in illusionism. Cf. also idem. The History of
Venetian Ceiling Painting in the Sixteenth Century, Ph.D .
Dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London,
1958, and idem, "A forgotten Chapter in the Early History of
Quadratura Painting: The Fratelli Rosa," Burlington Magazine,
CIII,‘1961, p. 92ff.
^Lettre sull'arte di Pietro Aretino, II, No. CCLXIV,

p. 106f.: "Mi pare ogni ora un mese il tempo de lo aspettar
che ritorniate, solo per udire ci& che vi pare degli antichi
nei marmi, e in quel che piu e men vale il Buonaroto di loro;
e in che non si gli appressa o lo supera Rafaello in dipignere.
Goderommi nel ragionarmi voi de la machina di Bramante in San
Pietro, e de le opere degli altri architetti e scultori.
Tenete a mente il far di ciascun pittore famoso, e del nostro
fâ'Bastiano in spezie. Di Bucino guardate fiso ogni intaglio.
Ne vi si scordi il paragonare cosi fra voi stesso le figure
del compar messer Jacopo con le statue di coloro che feco con-
corrono a torto, onde ne con biasinati a ragione. Insomnia,
cosi de la corte, cosi dei costumi dei cortigiani venitevene
informato, come de l'arte del pennello e de lo scarpello. E
sopratutto attendete a le cose di Perin del Vago, perche e
d'intelletto mirabile. In cotal mezzo rammentativi di non vi
perdere si ne la contemplazione del Giudicio di Capella, che
96
visit, which was, in a sense, the natural climax of the de
velopments of the previous decade. Probably dating from just
after his Roman sojourn, Titian's painting of the standing

46
St. John the Baptist, now in the Accademia, is perhaps the
47
very best key to the problem of his "Mannerist crisis."
The figure seems to be an exercise in draughtsmanship, as
though Titian were again accepting the Roman challenge. The
landscape background, on the other hand, is entirely within

the Venetian tradition and the two elements are in striking
contrast; the precise contours set off the figure against
the relative softness of the setting in a manner that under

scores the incompatibility of the two modes, at least as far
as Titian is concerned.
A compromise with the Roman manner was obviously un
workable, and Titian apparently realized that the resolution
of this crisis did not lie in the adoption of a new style but
vi si dimentichi lo espedirvi, che tutto il verro vi tenga

assente da me e dal Sansovino." Cf. above p. I t , See also
R. W. Kennedy, "Tiziano in Roma," in II mondo antico nel
Rinascimento, Atti del V Convegno Internazionale di Studi sul
Rinascimento, Florence, 1958, p. 237ff.
46
The painting is not securely dated, though there is
general agreement that it was executed between ca. 1540 and
1550. See S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie, t l , Cat. No. 452,
for a review of opinions on the dating. Also dating from the
1540's is the design of Samson and Delilah, reproduced in a
woodcut by Boldrini (ill. in H. Tietze, Titian, fig. 326), in
vfcich the emphatic use of profiles of an obviously classical
stamp further testifies to Titian's involvement with Roman
diseano.
47
The term is Luigi Coletti's ("La crisi manieristica")
Cf. also Pallucchini, La giovinezza del Tintoretto, p. 22ff.
97
in the intensification of the most important aspect of his
own indigenous tradition, in the extreme development of
Venetian colorito. While the Mannerism of the late Michel
angelo resides in the terribilita of his figures, that of the
later Titian is to be found in the fantasy of his color, the
amazing freedom of his brushwork and the extreme dissolution

of his forms. Both late period manners were the result of
the expressive distortion of an earlier, more balanced art,

of each artist's own High Renaissance style. The true
Mannerism of Titian is not that brief moment of accomodation
to Roman influence but the extreme style of his later years,

which, although it may have been precipitated in some way by
the catalytic decade before 1550, should be viewed within

the context of a purely Venetian tradition.
The impact of Roman Mannerism in the 'forties, if
not of absolute importance for the future course of Titian's
art, was nonetheless to prove a crucial event in the forma
tion of the style of a younger generation of Venetian

painters. It was in these years that a Venetian art litera
ture was born, inspired by and reacting against Central Italian
models, and it is in the first of these books, Paolo Pino's
Dialogo di pittura of 1548, that we find an attempt at some

sort of reconciliation of the Venetian and Roman manners,
the formula that recommended combining the color of Titian
48
and the drawing of Michelangelo.
Precisely at this time, Tintoretto established himself
48
Cf. above, Chapter I, p.Ilf, and note 23.
98
as a major competitor of Titian with the painting of St. Mark
Rescuing the Slave, finished in 1548. He had fully absorbed

the lessons of the Roman examples, especially the casts of
49
Michelangelo's sculpture, and had accommodated them to a
native Venetian use of color and tone to produce a style
that would lead Venetian painting in a new direction. He
used dramatic architectural space and radically foreshortened

figures with a freedom and inventiveness beyond Titian's ef
forts in these fields, and it is not surprising that the
Titian-plus-Michelangelo formula, a product of the very

years of Tintoretto's artistic formation, should be soon
50
applied to his work. The composition of St. Mark Rescuing
the Slave, inspired by Sansovino's bronze relief of the same

51
subject in San Marco, contains at least one quotation from
52
Michelangelo. It was for this very combination of Venetian
53
color and Roman drawing that Aretino hailed the painting.
49
Cf. above, Chapter I, note 75.
50
^Sansovino's relief, on the left choirstall of the

presbytery, dates from 1537. In its architectural setting
and massing of the figures around the body of the slave,
Tintoretto's composition reveals an awareness of the sculptor's
version of the theme. While retaining a sense of the compactness
of the figure grouping, however, Tintoretto has nonetheless
opened it up; his figures break the confining limits of a re
lief conception, twisting and extending themselves into space.
52
Of the two seated figures at the lower right, one de
rives directly from Michelangelo's Crepuscolo on the tomb of
Lorenzo de'Medici, a cast of which was owned by Tintoretto and
was studied in many drawings; the other may well be a freer
paraphrase of the pose of one of the ignudi on the Sistine ceiling.
53
In a letter to Tintoretto dated April, 1548, Aretino
wrote: "Non e huomo si poco istrutto nella virtu del disegno
che non si stupisca nel rilievo della figura, che tutta ignuda
li.';.. '
99
The figure of Michelangelo looms large as the most
important influence upon the change of style in Venetian
painting toward the middle of the Cinquecento, and this im
portance is due as much to the enormity of his reputation
as to the example of his work, which was known primarily
through copies and in reflections in the work of Salviati and
Vasari. Michelangelo, however, was not the only "foreign"
artist to exert such an influence. Parmigianino's parti
cularly graceful brand of Mannerism, deriving from Correggio
and the earliest post-Raphael Mannerist style in Florence,
was well-known through the dissemination of his prints and
drawings; it was especially important for Schiavone's de
velopment; both Veronese and Jacopo Bassano were also greatly

54
indebted to the style of Parmigianino. The figurative
manner that Veronese brought to Venice in 1553, however, was
e offerta alia crudelta del martirio; i suoi colori son carne,

il suo lineamento ritondo e il suo corpo vivo tal che vi giuro
per il bene che, io vi voglio, che le cere, l'arie e le viste
delle turbeche la circondano, sono tanto simili agli effetti
ch'esse farino In tale opra che lo spettacolo pare piuttosto
vero che finto" (Lettere sull'arte di Pietro Aretino, II, No.
CDII, p. 204f.). See G. Lorenzetti,' "II Tintoretto e l'Aretino,"
supplementary study in La Mostra del Tintoretto a Venezia,
Venice, 1937, p. 7ff.
54
On Schiavone's debt to Parmigianino, see L. Frohlich-
Bum, "Andrea Meldolla, genannt Schiavone," Jahrbuch der
kunsthistorischen Sammlunaen des allerhochsten Kaiserhauses,
XXXI, 1913, p. 137ff. On Parmigianino's influence in general,
see idem, Parmigianino und der Manierismus, Vienna, 1921, p.
115ff., and, especially with regard to his graphic work, A, E.
Popham, The Drawings of Parmigianino. London, 1953, pp. 35 and
45'ff. Parmigianino's figure style was very important for the
sculpture of Alessandro Vittoria, who is known to have owned
drawings by the Parmesan artist. See above, Chapter I,
note 85.
100
based more upon the example of Giulio Romano, with his massive
yet active figures. Giulio's work was readily accessible in

55
nearby Mantua and in Verona itself, where he had designed
‘ the cartoons for the frescoes in the apse of the cathedral,
which were executed by Torbido in 1534. Veronese's composi
tions of massive male figures were developed on such models,
and in his designs for the ceiling paintings of San Sebastiano

he drew direct inspiration from the decorations in the Palazzo
del T e . ^
By the opening years of the second half of the sixteenth
century, then, Central Italian Mannerism had had a real effect
upon the course of Venetian painting. If Titian returned to

develop an intensely personal style based more on his own
pre-Roman experience, Tintoretto and Veronese established
powerful figurative styles that drew upon the art of Rome as

well as upon Titian himself. Stylistically, painting in Venice
owed a good deal to the impetus of Central Italian Mannerism,

and yet at the same time it was a form of Mannerism that is
better measured against earlier Venetian painting of the High
Renaissance.
55
In 1551, Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga called upon four
Veronese artists, Domenico Brusasorci, Battista del Moro, Paolo
Farinati, and Paolo Caliari, to execute paintings for the newly
restored Duomo of Mantua. Veronese's contribution, the Tempta
tion of St. Anthony, now in the museum at Caen, clearly reflects
his early interest in Central Italian Mannerism and especially
Giulio Romano.
56
Here, too, what the Central Italian model offered was
a lesson in the effective and dramatic foreshortening of a ceil
ing composition seen di sotto in su. Veronese's picture of the
Triumph of Mordecai, with its horses stepping out and over the
retaining ledge, is reminiscent in its effect of Giulio*s
ceiling design of the Chariots of the Sun and the Moon in the
Sala del Sole of th£- Palazzo del Te (F. Hartt, Giulio Romano,
II, New Hhven, 1958, fig. 169).
101
In the third quarter of the Cinquecento, three great
workshops were active in Venice, those of Titian, Tintoretto,
and Veronese, and each was marked by a distinctly individual
style set by the master. The aging Titian, however, entered
a realm of expression so personal that he abandoned his own
disciples and assistants— thus we are confronted by that

57
peculiar double standard of production in the late workshop.
Venetian art is now characterized more by the styles established
by Tintoretto and Veronese, who employed new modes of elaborate
decorative painting on a grand scale. Where Titian's great

achievement was in canvases of single figures or small groups,
the younger masters developed a kind of polyphonic sense of
composition, creating large and complex pictures with many
figures. In these works the experience of Central Italian
art has yielded a new product, one that is markedly Venetian;

indeed, one of the reasons for the success of Tintoretto and
Veronese in such endeavors is their approach to painting,
alia veneziana. The solution of the Central Italians to

similar compositional tasks had been based upon disecrno. ad
justing the relationship of figures and frame in terms of
planar design, which often accounts for the impression made
by mid-Cinquecento Roman and Florentine pictures of being
57
The loneliness of Titian's late style was recognized
by Vasari, VII, p. 460: "Ora se bene molti sono stati con
Tiziano per imparare, non e pero grande il numero di coloro
che veramente si possano dire suoi discepoli; percioche non
ha molto insegnato, ma ha imparato ciascuno piu e meno, secondo
che ha saputo pigliare dall'opre fatte da Tiziano."
mere accumulations of individual figures. The constructive
use of color, tone, and brushwork, however, enabled the

Venetians to give such ambitious pictures a unity beyond
that of the design. The compositional unity of a painting
through the actual texture and fabric of canvas and paint was
one of the most important elements of the Giorgione heritage
and was responsible for the particular stamp of Venetian

Mannerism.
And yet Veronese's and Tintoretto's approaches and
individual solutions to similar problems are entirely different.
Veronese developed a style that was in many respects classical,

one marked by a respect for the picture plane and basically
clear color and, by Venetian standards, clear design. His
compositions often unfold in a narrative and frieze-like
fashion, in the tradition of the tableau composition. Space
is defined by successive parallel planes; architecture is

used as a stable and measured backdrop, before which the sweep-
58
ing movement of the figures takes place. Coloristically,
the architecture provides a relatively monochromatic ground
against which the broad areas of brilliant color play. While
this is not an adequate appreciation of Veronese's style, it
does recognize the basic components of his many-figure compositions,
in which the interweaving of figures and architecture produces
a distinctive spatial complexity. The Mannerism of Veronese
58
In his tableau compositions Veronese displays a
general preference for open and somewhat rhetorical poses.
Thus the attitude of the figure, the gesture of an arm, the
flow of draperies, all contribute to the establishment of a
rhythmic movement across the picture plane.
is thus carefully calculated; the movement of his elegant
figures is slow and deliberate. These qualities, as we have
noted, are part also of the artist's formal preparation of a
painting. 59 For a Venetian painter, his obvious sense of

60
careful control seems remarkable.
A sense of abandon, on the contrary, is the hallmark

of Tintoretto's art, where an arbitrary quality seems to in
form everything, the poses of the figures, their disposition
in space, the distribution of light and dark. Tintoretto

aims for irrational and immediately dramatic effects and
toward this end he uses his brush with a greater freedom than
Veronese. In place of Veronese's quietly brilliant complexity,

he creates an ordered composition out of violent, opposing
movements. In the radical foreshortening of his figures and
59For Veronese's drawings and preparatory steps, see

above, p. 4-Off. Veronese's cool tonality is in marked contrast
to the general warmth of canvases by Titian and Tintoretto, and
it is interesting to note that while the latter two artists used
a brown monochrome for their underpainting (cf. above, Chapter I,
notes 58 and 78), Veronese's was executed in blue (cf. Boschini,
Le ricche minere, preface). Over this light underpainting Ver
onese' s colors maintain their brightness and intensity. From
the late 'seventies on, however, his style changes, his palette
becoming deeper. In these late works he has abandoned his cool
underpainting and, in £ more purely Venetian manner, uses a
brown monochrome. Cf. below, note 125.
60
Veronese's brand of "classical Mannerism" bears the same
relation to the more melodramatic forms deriving from Michel
angelo as Palladio1s Mannerist style does to the more extreme
forms of Mannerism in architecture. Cf. R. Wittkower, Archi
tectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. 2nd ed., London,
1952, p. 75: "In spite of such Mannerist factors as conflict
and complication, we find in the building [the Palazzo Thiene]
neither Michelangelo's extreme tension nor Giulio Romano's
almost pathological restlessness; it is orderly, systematic and
entirely logical, and one looks at it with a disengaged curiosity
rather than with that violent response which many more complex
Mannerist structures evoke."
104
sudden thrusts into deep space, in the overall counterpoint

of opposing forces and spatial tension, Tintoretto seems to
violate the formal dictates of the picture plane. He assigns

a new and crucial role to the play of light and dark, however,
which no longer function; primarily to define plastic form,

but instead server: to impose a new unity on the composition
through its surface pattern.
105
Maniera and Manierismo
In determining the significance of the term maniera

with respect to Venetian painting, we must procede in a rather
indirect way. As expressed in Vasari and in Armenini, maniera
clearly can be referred to contemporary Central Italian

practices and theoretical concerns. In Venice, Pino uses the
word in a very ordinary context, meaning the normal style of

61
an artist, while Dolce was indeed aware of the current re
lationship between maniera and practica, of which, as we have
62
seen, he was quite critical.
Commenting on various characteristics of contemporary
artistic practice, both commendable and reprehensible, Pino ..

does, nevertheless, touch on certain qualities definitely
comparable to Central Italian maniera. "La prontezza di mano,"

he writes, "e una cosa de grande importanza nelle figure e mal
% 63
puo operare un pittore senza una sicura e stabil mano." .
61
Pino, Dialoqo di pittura, ed. P. Barocchi, p. 114,
where the reference is to a "buona maniera nel disegnare," and
p. 138: "Non sia il pittor disjpettoso nell'esser premiato, ma
si condanni, come quello che piu apprezza l'onore che l 1utile,
et aborrisca quel far mercato, cosa veramente vilissiraa e
mecanica et anco disconvenevole all'arte nostra; impero che
non pub il pittore prometter di fare u n 1opera perfetta, ancor
che sia eccellente, che molte fiate 1 1indisposizione et il
troppo amore dell'oper c'e contraria di maniera ch'una ficjura,
tolta in displicenza nella prima bozza, mai piu riesce, ne per
cio contradico alia natural perfezzione che pub esser nel
nostre pittore, perche questa indisposizione non causa dall'-
intelligenzia, ma dall'imperfezzione degli sensi nostri."
®^Cf. above, p. 70f•
63
% Pino, op. cit., p. 118 and p. 117: "La prontezza e
sicurita di mano e grazia concessa dalla natura." Cf. above,
p. 63ff«and p. Barocchi in ibid., p. 414f.
This is similar to Vasari's pratica, although Pino, needless
to say, does not develop the idea any further; he asks of

the artist only a certain technical proficiency beyond mere
diligence but, unlike Vasari, does not seek brilliant virtu-

64
osity. Dolce, on the other hand, is more outspoken in his
demand for "una* certa convenevole sprezzatura," especially

65
with respect to color. Moving closer to the traditional
realm of maniera, he writest
La facility e il principale argomento della eccellenza

di qualunche arte e la piu difficile a conseguire, et
1 e arte a nasconder l'arte,...°°
64
Pino, op. cit., p. 119; "L1ispedizione riesce in tutte
le cose, ma la prestezza nell'uomo e disposizion natural et e
quasi imperfezzione....E poi non si giudica nell'arte nostra
la quantita del tempo inspeso nell'opera, ma sola la perfezzion
d'essa opera, per la qual si conosce il maestro eccellente dal
goffo." Further on in this passage Pino specifically indicts
Schiavone: "Et anco quest'empiastrar facendo il pratico, come
fa il vostro Andrea Schiavone, e parte degna d'infamia, e
questi tali dimostrano saperne puoco, non facendo, ma di lontano
accennando quello che fa il vivo, e per cio vi conviene usar
una mediocre diligenzia, non avendo riguardo all'ispender tempo.
Cf. Vasari's comments on the differences between the
older masters and his contemporaries in the Proemio to the
third part of the Vite. IV, p. 13: "Ma quello che inporta il
tutto di quest'arte e che l'hanno ridotto oggi talmente per-
fetta e facile per chi possiede il disegno, l'invenzione ed il
colorito, che dove prima da que'nostri maestri si faceva una
tavola in sei anni, oggi in un anno questi maestri ne fanno sei.
On the value of sprezzatura and the difficult in art as impor
tant criteria in maniera, see P. Barocchi, op. cit., pp. 416
and 472f.; A. Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, p. 94ff.; R. J.
Clements, "Michelangelo on Effort and Rapidity in Art," Journal
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XVII, 1954, p. 301ff.;
M. Rosci, "Manierismo e accademismo nel pensiero critico del
Cinquecento," Acme. IX, 1956, p. 62ff.; J. Shearman, "Maniera
as an Aesthetic Ideal," in Studies in Western Art, II, p. 212;
C. H. Smyth, Mannerism and Maniera, p. 9 and note 50 on p. 51.
65
Dolce, Dialogo della pjttura, ed. P. Barocchi, p. 185.
66
Ibid., p. 149. Dolce is here coming to the defense of
the apparent effortlessness— and supposed artlessness— of yîch
Raphael, in comparison to Michelangelo, was accused.
107
The comments of Pino and Dolce remain casual observa
tions and, alone, do not provide a key to the interpretation

of maniera in Venice. They have* however, brought us back to
the consideration of Venetian colorito, which, as we might
imagine, bears the same relation to pratica as does disegno
in Central Italy; for the Venetians, prontezza di mano and
/•«
facilita referred, of course, to the handling of the brush.
But once again, for a more complete explication of the Venetian
attitudes expressed so randomly by Pino and Dolce, we must
turn to the pages of Marco Boschini's publications on Venetian
painting.
Boschini was a kind of belated literary, champion of
the achievement of Tintoretto, and when he uses the term
maniera,it is especially with reference to that painter's

68
work. The traditional judgements on the difficulty of
foreshortening and its importance in painting are strengthened
in Boschini, based especially on the example of Tintoretto's
67
Cf. above, pi>3ff.,and Pino's criticism of Schiavone,
quoted above, note 64.
68
Despite the fact that he was writing more than half
a century after the death of Tintoretto and in a peculiarly
Baroque idiom, Boschini's testimony is less distorted than
might be imagined. His bias is rather more Venetian than it
is Seicentesque; his enthusiasm for the accomplishments of
late Cinquecento painting in Venice and his ability to recog
nize and define the particular character of that art make
his testimony almost as eminently valid for Venetian painting
as was Vasari's for Central Italian art. Cf. above, Chapter
I, note 125, and see R. Pallucchini, "Marco Boschini e la
pittura veneziana del Seicento, " in Barocco europea e barocco
yeneziano, ed. V. Branca, Florence, 1962, p. 95ff.
Eki.— .
V
108
69
style* It is almost entirely within the context o£ that
style that the writer arrived at a definition of the maniera

veneziana;
Ma che si dira della gran tela rappresentante il
Paradiso nella Sala del Gran Consiglio, che tanto
non farebbero insieme cinquanta Pittori? In soma
la Maniera Veneziana ha portato seco questo dominio
di pennello, e questa Pcdronia di distribuire
migliaia di figure!70
The vast canvas of Paradise, executed for the most part by
shop assistants, is perhaps an extreme example of the Venetian
manner, an exaggeration of the taste for compositions
69
Boschini, Le ricche minere. preface, £. 3v., refers
to "gli scorci" as "vna delle piu difficili parti del Dissegno;
mentre piii non serue la misura, o la forma; anzi pure con la
difformita deue l'occhio rimaner ingannato, e deue la per-
fezione con 1'imperfezione apparire....E questo e vn capo,
che distingue con caratere di superôrita il Pittore dallo
Statuario; poiche lo Statuario pub a suo bell'agio valersi
delle misure, ed il Pittore forma senza forma, anzi con forma
difforme la vera formalita in apparenza; ricercando cosi
l'Arte Pittoresca....Ma a te, o Gran Tintoretto, tocca hauer
il titolo di Monarca nel Dissegno."
Foreshortening was one of the traditional elements
raised in the painting vs. sculpture paraqone of the sixteenth
century; it was singled out as a virtue peculiar to painting
and one of that art's most marvelous effects. Thus, «vg., Pino,
Dialogo di pittura. ed. P. Barocchi, p. 114: "contrafa ben
gli scurci, parte piu nobile nell'arte nostra," and p. 115:
"et in tu’tte l'opere vostre fateli intervenire almeno una
figura sforciata, misteriosa e difficile, accio che per quella
voi siate notato valente da chi intende la perfezion dell'-
arte1;" Dolce, Dialogo della pittura, ed. Pi Barocchi, p. 180:
"Aviene anco che le figure, o tutte o alcuna parte di esse,
scortino. La qual cosa non si pub far senza gran giudicio e
discrezione." Cf. also Vasari's letter to Benedetto Varchi,
printed in Barocchi, op. cit., p. 61: "L'arte nostra non la
pup far nessuno che non abbia disegno grandissimo et un
giudizio perfetto, atteso che si fa in un braccio luogo scortar
una^figura di sei, e parer viva tonda in un campo pianissimo,
ch'e grandissima cosa."
70
Boschini, op. cit., preface.
109
overflowing with "migliaia di figure." Such spectacular
displays, however, were felt by Boschini— and, we shall see,

by earlier generations— to be the highest achievement of
painting, the purest expression of the grande maniera
veneziana.
The other aspect of Boschini's concept of maniera,
the "dominio di pennello," leads us into the realm of an

even more specifically Venetian point of view. The relation
of maniera to brushwork is made quite explicit in several
lines from La carta del navegar pitoresco, where Boschini

writes, "La macchia, adonca, nasce de maniera, el trato,
71
d'artificio de dotrina," and "...el colorito contien in
^ 72
se la macchia, e insieme el trato." Although it would be
misleading to try to deduce from these lines an academic,
theoretical statement, the implications are clear: while

73
Vasari's conception of maniera was based on disegno, the
Venetian maniera, as we would expect, is intimately bound up

74
with Venetian colorito, which, of course, means brushwork.
The pratica of the maniera veneziana lies, then, in the artist's
facility in the handling of the brush, creating figures "con
75
sprezzo di pennello."
71
Boschini, La carta del navegar pitoresco, Venice,
1660, p. 301.
7 2 Ibid., P- 300.
73 Cf. above, p. 70*
74
On the relation of Venetian brushwork to Venetian
color, see above, p. 6 y S t •
75
Writing of Tintoretto, Boschini, Le ricche minere.
preface, states: "Fu prodigo di meze tinte, e d'ombre; ma
One other aspect of Boschini's view of Tintoretto's
painting should be mentioned, his appreciation of the master's
fantasia. Now this is precisely where Seicento critics con
demned the practice of the manieristi of the late sixteenth
century; fantasia was generally a pejorative term, implying
a complete dependence on one's own fancy without any reference

76
to nature. It was, indeed, Tintoretto himself who first
suffered this criticism from contemporary sixteenth-century
writers, and Boschini's terms of praise basically differ little

77
from those of blame used by Vasari and Armenini. For
Boschini, however, the critical foil was not just Central
Italian disegno; he exalted Tintoretto's free inventive manner
scarso di lumi, facendo le figure con sprezzo di pennello, che

in poca distanza pareuano esquisitamente terminate, rappresentan-
dole sempre brillanti, con movimenti spiritosi, e viuaci,
accompagnati dalla bizaria, che portaseco il furore. Dubio
non e che quelli, che vedono dette operazioni da vicino, e che
non fondano nell'Arte si credono che quelle siano pennellate
affine d'abbreuiar la fatica: ma certamete s'ingannano; poi
che sono tutti colpi di ben dotto Artificio." Cf. Vasari's
similar comments on Titian's late manner, quoted above, p.9*
76
E.g., G. P. Bellori, Le vite de'pittori, scultori et
architetti moderni, Rome, 1672, p. 20, refers to maniera as
“una fantastica idea non appoggiata all'imitazione." On
seventeenth-century criticism of maniera, see M. Treves,
“Maniera, the History of a Word," p. 77ff.; C. H. Smyth,
Mannerism and Maniera. note 6 on p. 32; and G. Weise, “Storia
del termine 'Manierismo*,“ p. 28f.
//Boschini, op. cit.. preface: "Giacomo Robusti, detto

Tintoretto, fu sodi fiero nel suo operare, che ben poteua
chiamarsi vn lampo.^vn tuono anzi pure vna saetta, che hauesse
colpite tutte le piu eccelse cime della machina Pittoresca:
poiche con il suo%fulminante pennello ha colpeggiato cosi
fieramente, che ha fatto arrestare, ed atterrire i piu generosi
Campioni dell'Arte." Cf. above, Chapter I, p. 12f. and note 26,
for Vasari's and Armenini's criticism of Tintoretto's fierezza.
in opposition to the naturalism of Seicento Caravaggesque
painting: the grande maniera veneziana against small cabinet
78
pictures and genre painting. The Venetian painter follows
nature but does not become its slave; his primary concern is
the rendering of the figure and its imaginative manipulation
in the context of a vast compositional scheme:
Ma i nostri gran possessori dell'arte, emuli della

Natura abborriuano d'obligarsi al Naturale, ma
ben si studiauano di leggiadramente riformarlo
cosi nel Dissegno, come nel Colorito; e non
solo rendeuano in esguisita perfezione le figure
& parte, ma godeuano pur anco dell*assoluto
dominio sopra il concerto dell'historie, con gran
numero di figure senza confusione.78
78The polemic against i naturalisti runs as a

Leitmotif especially throughout Boschini's Carta del navegar
pitoresco: .naturalisti se chaimemo;/Perch€ le cose al
natural copiemo" (p. 74). Against this fidelity to nature
Boschini sets the idea of the Venetian maniera:
Chi sta su'l puro natural, credelo,
Che la maniera sar& sempre fiaca:
Ch£ finalmente el natural se straca,
E in fin de i fini no l'fe tuto belo.
Me fa da rider quel Naturalista;

Anzi pur compasion, quando el vuol dir,
Che'l venezian bon ochio ha in colorir?
Ma che in dessegno l'ha una curta vista (p. 293).
La Prontezza xe meterse davanti

Uh gran tela, e de farina propria
Tamisar, e impastar figura in copia,
E senza natural, far casi tanti (p. 339).
On Boschini's attitude toward sevanteenth-century painting see
Pallucchini, "Marco Boschini e la pittura veneziana del seicento.
7 9 Boschini, Le ricche minere. preface. The grand
figural composition on a large scale was the ideal field for
the grande maniera veneziana. and the rendering of the figure,
quite naturally for the Venetian, was intimately related to
color: "...intendo peril Colorito la figura humana ignuda;
perche in quato al Colorito delle altre cose diuersi sono i
particolari, che si ricercano. Ma di questo Colorito humano,
essendo, l'essenziale, f& di bisogno 1 'esplicazione pihdis-
tinta, che sia possibile." Cf. the passage which follows this,
quoted above. Chapter I, note 142.
For further analysis of Boschini's critical attitudes
0
112
In the passages quoted above, Boschini has been re

ferring to the grande maniera veneziana, the tradition of
the great Cinquecento masters and, above all, Tintoretto.
He uses the term maniera, however, in a second way, in which
he seems to share some of the attitudes of his seventeenth-
century contemporaries in Rome and Bologna. The preface to

the 1674 edition of Le ricche minere della pittura veneziana,
from which we have been quoting, is entitled, "Breve
instruzione per intender in qualche modo le maniere de gli

auttori veneziani," and contains, as we have seen, a brief
account of the methods of the Venetian painters and an
attempt at a critical appreciation of their individual styles.

Having discussed the artists of the Renaissance, Boschini
procedes to their epjgoni, subtitling this section, "Distinzione
di sette maniere in certa guisa consimili":
Da questi gran Maestri dell*Arte, sono poi-Iderivati

infiniti Pittori di moltissima stima, ed in parti-
colare ce ne sono al numerodi sette, che hanno
osseruate le pedate di tre, cioe di Tiziano, del
Tintoretto, e di Paolo Veronese: %e per guesta
cagione tengono molta simpatia fra loro.®®
The seven are Jacopo Palma il Giovane, Leonardo Corona,
Andrea Vicentino, Sante Peranda, Antonio Aliense, Pietro
and his conception of Venetian maniera, see L. Coletti,

"Intorno alia storia del concetto di manierismo," Convivium.
raccolta nuova, 1948, No. 6 , p. 801ff.; idem, "La critlca
d'arte," in Barocco europeo e barocco veneziano, ed. V. Branca,
Florence, 1962, p. 159ff.; N. Ivanoff, "Stile e maniera,"
Sagqj e memorie di storia dell 1arte. I, 1957, p. 107f£.j idem.
"Arte e critica d'arte nella Venezia del Seicento," in La
civilta veneziana nell'eta barocca. Florence, 1959, p. 185ff.
80
Boschini, op. cit.
113
Malombra, and Girolamo Pilotto. And, Boschini continues,
Molte volte chi non e prattico del loro operare

non e cosi pronto a farne di essi la distinzione;
ancorche realmente ogn'vno da per se tenga carattere,
se non in tutto, in qualche parte diuerso.81
Concerned with the distinguishing stylistic qualities of
particular artists, Boschini is forced to admit a lack of
obvious distinction among the seven painters in question.

He is not, however, harshly critical of their work; rather
he appreciated their efforts to carry on the grande maniera

in the face of the new naturalism inspired by Caravaggio and
spread throughout Europe.

Boschini's eighteenth-century successor in the Venetian
82
art-critical world, Antonio Maria Zanetti, no longer felt
a personal sympathy with the grande maniera and his criticism
of this generation of painters is considerably more stringent;
he refers to them as "la biasimevole setta de Manieristi, cioe

83
Dipintori di sola pratica." His attack on maniera and
pratica echoes the traditional Seicento reactions. Allowing
the validity of prontezza in the work of the great Venetians
82
Zanetti was responsible for a new and expanded edition
of Boschini's Le ricche minere:Descrizione di tutte le
pubbliche Pitture di la citta de Venezia e isole circonvicine
o sia Rinhovazione delle ricche minere di Marco Boschini,
coll1aggjunta di tutte le opere che vi ci sono dal 1674 sino
al presente 1733...con un compendio delle vite e maniere
de'principali pittori, Venice, 1733.
83
A. M. Zanetti, Della pittura veneziana. 2nd ed., Venice,
1792, p. 400. It is interesting in this context that Zanetti
refers to the older writers who praised "il tirar di pratica,"
specifically citing, in a note, Vasari's passage following the
description of Giorgione's direct approach (cf. above, p. 6 f.).
of the sixteenth century, he condemns it in that of their
immediate followers:
La prontezza lodarono come cos* muova e grata in quei

primi tempi; ma non gib l'usarne sempre, senza mai
prender consiglio dalla verita.84
84
Ibid., p. 401. Zanetti's full tirade against the
Mannerists, p. 399ff., is as follows: "A tutto cib che potea
render facile il dipingere speditamente molti guadri, e averne
percio pronto guadagno, erano rivolte le mire de'Veneziani
professori. La natura era negletta e abbandonata. Troppo
lunga e penosa via credeasi quella della verita; e le fatiche
altrui serviano di soccorso alia fantasia sterile, perche non
esercitata ed incolta. Uno sforzo continuo di memoria reggea
la mano del pittore allora; e distingueasi chi potea conservare
migliori immagini, e per ventura nato fosse genio per l'arte.
Niuna grazia vedeasi piu nelle forme delle teste, niuna varieta
nelle fisonomie. Tutte simili erano i panni, gittati indosso
alle figure o con affettazione, o con semplicissima negligenza.
Mancava^quella forza che dalle studiate repliche suol prodursi,
e percib niun sapore trovasi in quelle pitture, e poco o niun
effetto faceano agli occhi del passeggere, che potea andarsene
senza essere obbligato da esse a mirarle.
"Questi ed altri poco dissimili erano i caratteri di
quello stile, per ,cui s'intitul la biasimevole setta de'
Manieristi, cioe Dipintori di sola pratica. II Dolce nel suo
Dialogo non si contenta di chiamar pratica solamente quella
che in pittura si dice maniera, ma vi aggiunge cattiva pratica;
e cio molto propriamente. Poiche riflettendo ai principj di
questo modo di operare, e osservando qual fosse nelle mani
de' gran Maestri; confessar conviene che buono, e necessario
talora e l'uso della maniera, o pratica spezialmente nel
rappresentare momenti impetuosi, figure in arfca, e altre
simili^cose, in cui non si puo far uso interamente del naturale;
e che e lecito allora cercare ajuti della memoria, e dalla
fantasia ben assuefatta per altro al vero. Ma il volere
formar tutto con le sole idee, e tirar ogni cosa dalla
tavolozza e dal pennello, siccome dicono, e vizio;.ed e
quello un camminare alia cieca, presumendo di non inciampare
giammai. Lodasi da alcuni antichi scrittore, ic lc so, il
tirar di pratica; ma non intesero percio di approvarae il
continuo uso. La prontezza lodarono come cosa nuova e grata
in quei primi tempi; ma non gia l'usarne sempre, senza mai
prender consiglio dalla verita."
On Zanetti, see N. Ivanoff, "Antonio Maria Zanetti,
critico d'arte, 11 Atti dell 11stituto Veneto di Scienze,
Lettere ed Arti, CXI, 1952-53, p. 29ff.
115
The distinction is thus drawn with regard to Venetian develop-

85
ments, between maniera and manierismo and, although
Zanetti can hardly be accepted as an objective observer, the

distinction is, to a large extent, a valid reflection of the
actual state of Venetian painting at the close of the six
teenth century, when a younger generation tried to follow in

the tradition of Tintoretto and the grande maniera veneziana.
85
Cf. Baldinucci's definition of maniera, quoted above,
note 8 .
r
116
The pxample of Tintoretto
Tintoretto created a maniera. an individual style

that was a personal synthesis and development of his own
artistic training and experiences: in effect, the famed

formula of drawing from the sculpture of Michelangelo:— and
other Central Italians— and learning from the coloring of
Titian. He established a new mode of monumental painting
in Venice, one that inspired immediate reactions through

its dramatic foreshortenings and spatial complexity and
chiaroscuro. In addition, however, Tintoretto's style in

vited emulation on the part of younger, impressionable
artists, and, like Michelangelo in Rome, Tintoretto in Venice
was held personally responsible by later writers for the

decline of art: the terribilita of his style, the brilliance
of his brush, the near theatricality of his chiaroscuro, and

the apparent effortlessness of his execution were said to
have seduced an entire generation of painters in Venice, and

that seduction was held to be as complete and as artistically
unfortunate as Michelangelo's influence on Central Italian
painting of the later sixteenth century.
An alternative to Tintoretto's manner was offered by
Veronese, but few of the younger Venetian painters at the
end of the century chose to follow his style. Perhaps the

roads he opened appeared more difficult, the promised rewards
fewer. Veronese's art was more obvious in its demands; there
was less bravura in the brushwork and the effects of his
chromatic juxtapositions seemed to require a more deliberate
planning, as did the classical mis-en-scene of his compositions.
V
117
At any rate, beyond the immediate circle of his workshop,

Veronese's manner found few adherents; it was part of the
more classical heritage of the Renaissance and would have
to await another classicizing era before it could be resur-

QC
rected, near the end of the history of Venetian painting.
Tintoretto's success in Venice was overwhelming. He
enhanced the legend of his swiftness by his prodigious pro
duction. Resorting to various wiles in his eagerness to gain
commissions, he captured an inordinate number, of the important

87
projects of the later Cinquecento for himself and his studio.
86
For Veronese's influence on later Venetian painting,
see M. Goering, "Paolo Veronese und das Settecento," Jahr-
buch der preuszischen Kunstsammlungen, LXI, 1940, p. lOOff.
Significantly, the classicizing Carracci found in Veronese's
work a model for composition as well as color. See R. Wittkower,
Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600-1750, Harmondsworth, 1958,
p. 31ff.
87
Thus, e.g., in order to gain a commission in Santa
Maria Assunta (the Gesuiti), originally awarded to Veronese,
he promised to execute the altarpiece in the manner of that
artist. Ridolfi,, II, p. 38; "Ne‘ Padri Crociferi, nella
maggior Cappella, fece la tauola con lo ascendere di Nostra
Signora al Cielo; & tutto che que'Padri hauessero terminato,
che Paolo Veronese facesse quella Pittura, seppe il Tintoretto
tanto dire, promettendogli, che l'hauerebbe fatta su lo stile
medesimo di Paolo, si che ogn'vgno l'hauerebbe creduta di sua
mano, che ne ottenne lo impiego. Ne vanamente promise, poiche
in effetto fece vn misto in quella tauola di fiero e di vago,
che bene dimostro, che per ogni modo sapeua dipingere, tras-
formandosi in ogni qual maniera fosse aggradeuole." The
biographer later discusses this aspect of Tintoretto's repu
tation (Ibid.. p. 63); “Tali furono i modi, spesse fiate%
vsati dal Tintoretto ne'suoi trattamenti, perloche concito
contro di se l'odio de' Pittori, parendogli, ch'egli offendesse
la riputatione dell*arte, non sostenendo il douuto decoro; e
di qul forse alcuni han creduto, ch'ei facesse le pitture sue
senza fatica, facendone si poca stima; poiche in vero non
vsciva cosa giamai dalle sue mani,che non fosse maturamente
pensata, o almeno ridotta alia douuta forma; la qual via di
operare non bene intesa, ne apparata con i modi da lui tenuti,
ha dato materia ad alcuni di poco spirito, che han voluto
Perhaps the greatest conquest in this respect was the Scuola
di San Rocco, where he won the original competition for the

ceiling of the Sala dell'Albergo in 1564 by rather deceitful
88
means, and where over a period of more than twenty years
seguirlo, senza fondamento di gran disegno, di ridursi alio

strapazzo, con poca lode, poiche ad ogn'vno non bene compariscono
le di lui vesti; onde si vede dalla rarita de'buoni soggetti,
quanto la pittura sia dificile da conseguirsi, & come di rado
il cielo dona simili gratie a gli huomini, che dopo vn lungo
giro di secoli....Ne vi e dubbio, che se lui hauesse alcuna
volta ratenturo quell'impeto suo naturale, contentandosi di
far men numero di Pittura, haurebbe sicuramente formato
maggiore il concetto ancora appresso quelli, che poco intendono
dell'arte. Ma non volendo lasciar partire alcuno giamai nel
contenuto dalla sua Casa, si accommadaua all'altrui sodis-
fattione, e bene spesso donaua le opere sue. Quindl e, che
carico di molti affari, non poteua meno le cose tutte con la
medesima applicatione terminare; & per tale cagione si veggono
per auuentura molti quadri da lui esposti non in tutto terminati,
cercando d'alleggerirsi con la celeritci dalle cose molte, che
haueua per le mani."
88
The circumstances surrounding the competition for the
Scuola di San Rocco were narrated by Vasari four years after fie
the event, VI, p. 593f.: "Chiamati adunque Iosef Salviati e
Federigo Zucchero, che allora era in Vinezia, Paolo da Verona
ed lacopo Tintoretto, prdinarono che ciascuno di loro facesse
un disegno, promettendoa colui 1 'opera che in quello meglio
si portasse* Mentre adunque gli altri attendevano a fare con
ogni diligenza i loro disegni, il Tintoretto, tolta la misura
della grandezza che aveva ad essere 1 *opera, e tirata una gran
tela, la dipinse senza che altro se ne sapesse con la solita sua
prestezza, e la pose dove aveva da stare. Onde ragunatasi una
mattina la compagnia per vedere i detti disegni e risolversi,
trovarono il Tintoretto avere finita 1'opera del tutto e postala
alluogo suo. Perche adirondosi con esso lui, e dicendo che
avevano chiesto disegni e non datogli a far 1 'opera, respose
loro che quello era il suo modo di disegnare, che non sapeva
far altrimenti, e che i disegni e modelli dell'opere avevano
a essere a quel modo per non ingannare nessuno; e finalmente
che se non volevano pagargli 1 'opera e le sue fatiche, che le
donava loro; e cosl dicendo, ancorche avesse molte contrariety,
fece tanto, che 1*opera e ancora nel medisimo luogo." For a
full discussion of the competition, see R. Berliner, “Die
TStigkeit Tintorettos in der Scuola di San Rocco, " Kunstchronik
und Kunstmarkt, XXXI. 1919-20, p. 469ff. Tintoretto's pre
paratory sketch for the figure of St. Roche was recently
published by O. Benesch, "A Study for the Scuola di S. Rocco
by Tintoretto," Master Drawings. I, 1963, No. 3, p. 29f.
V
119
he made of the building's three main rooms a monument to
himself and his art. Ridolfi writes that the edifice, with
more than fifty canvases by the master, became a kind of
academy to which artists from all <y er came to learn the

89
principles of painting. The Ducal Palace also offered a
large selection of works by Tintoretto; compositions such as
the Paradise displayed an abundant variety of figures from

89a.
which aspiring artists could draw.
The pervasive influence of Tintoretto is evident in
the works of the following generation of artists and can be
seen in their compositions in the Ducal Palace and in their

individual religious projects. This attraction is documented,
in a sense, in several of Ridolfi's biographies; we notice a
pattern of younger artists abandoning their earlier training
to follow the style of Tintoretto.

Tlê case of Leonardo Corona is perhaps typical. Accord
ing to Ridolfi, he was born in Murano in 1561 and there began
his artistic education under his father, a "Miniatore de

Santi." He was then apprenticed in. the Venetian shop of one
89 %
Ridolfi, II, p. 33: "...la Scuola di San Rocco fu
sempre l'Accademia e'l ridotto d'ogni studioso della Pittura,
& in particolare degli oltramontani, che da indi in qu&. sono
capitati a Venetia; le cui opere han'seruito d'esemplari per
apprendere il modo di compor le inuentioni, la gratia &
stringatura del disegno; l'ordine dello staccare con lumi ed
ombre i gruppi delle figure ne 1componimenti; la franchiggia &
la forza del colorire; ed in somma qual si sia termina piu
accurato, che puo rendere erudito lo ingegnoso Pittore."
89aFor Tintoretto's work in the Ducal Palace, see M.

Pittaluga, "L'attivita del Tintoretto in Palazzo Ducale,"
L 1arte, XXV, 1922, p. 76ff., and for the Paradise in parti
cular, p. 94ff.
•- '
120
Maestro Rocco, called da Silvestro, "Pittore di poco pregio;"

the main activity of this shop was copying the paintings of
90
other artists. Upon seeing his progress, Corona's father
called him back to Murano and set him to painting small
pictures on copper, the compositions of which were taken from

91
engravings. This was the full extent of the systematic
training received by Leonardo Corona, an extremely modest

education, to be sure. Nevertheless, Ridolfi adds, whenever
he could, the young artist studied and copied the works of

92
Titian and Tintoretto. It was essentially on the basis of
this experience that he formed his own mature style. In his
own painting of the Crucifixion in San Fantin (Fig. 420), as

Ridolfi writes, he imitated the composition of the same sub
ject by Tintoretto in the Scuola di San Rocco, not in the
particular details, but in the general disposition of the
90
Ridolfi, II, p. 101: "Fu Leonardo figuliuolo di
Michele Corona, Miniatore de Santi, che lo applico al mestier
suo, ma vedutolo attiuo, ed essendo aggrauato da molta famiglia,
— non potendo alleuarlo col douuto modo, il pose in Venetia con
Maestro Rocco detto da S. Silvestro, Pittore di poco pregio,
accio col prestargli alcun seruigio potesse profittarsi nell'-
arte, tenendo quegli in Casa numero de 1fiaminghi, quali
occupaua in far copie de’quadri de' buoni maestri, onde con
quella occasione hebbe materia di praticar il dipingere, e
col ritrarre ancor lui le medesime pitture apprese vna buona
e maestreuole maniera."
91
s Ibid.: "Ma vedendolo il Padre in breue auuanzato in
Virtu, lo voile appresso di se, occupandolo in dipingere
picciolo rami, cauandone egli le inuentioni dalle carte a
stampa, quali poscia vendeua a mercatanti, che altroue i
trasportauano traendo con tale modo molta vtilitk."
92 %
Ibid.: "Leonardo nondimeno, quanto piu poteua,
studiaua dalle opere di Titiano, ed in parti colare ritraeua '
quelle del Tintoretto, riportando spesso le cose studiate nelle
inuentioni che far soleua."
I'
121
93
figures, in the color and handling of the tones. Ridolfi
comments further on this dependence on the ideas and manner
of another, throwing an interesting light on the situation
of this whole generation:

Ma non si puo seguir le orme di quegli Autori, sopra
quali si e fatto lo studio, e come l'ape suole trar
il sugo da fiori, senza vi appaia la cicatrice, cosi
saici lecito al Pittore il valersi delle cose altrui,
in modo, che non si scopri il f u r t o . ^ 4
A further example of Tintoretto's attraction in this-
period is offered in the biography of Antonio Aliense, which

95
is more complete than many of the others. The artist was
born on the Greek island of Milos around 1556, arrived in
Venice at an early age, probably in 1571, and was apprenticed

96
in the shop of Veronese. He was very likely still in
Veronese's studio in 1574 when he assisted the master and
Tintoretto in the decorations for the triumphal entry of
93 •%
Ibid.: "E certo che Leonardo si diporto in questa
operatione egregiamente bene, se habbiamo riguardo al colorito
naturale & alle parti tutte de'corpi molto bene intesi e
dottamente sentimentati; e tutto che paia., che in certq ftiodo
egli imitasse l'ordine della passione del Tintoretto posta
nella Confraternita di San Rocco, nondimeno, chi ben vi con-
sidera non vi troua cosa, dhe particolarmente vi si assimigllr"
94 \
Ibid. For further general discussion of the work of "
Leonardo Corona, see A. Venturi, Storia, IX, 7, p. 274ff., and,
for his drawings, Tietzes, Drawings, p. 162ff.
95
Ridolfi, II, p. 207ff. Ridolfi had been a pupil of
Aliense for five years and continued to be his close friend
until the painter's death in 1629. The biographer states
(p. 2 20 ) that he himself took charge of the arrangements for
Aliense's funeral in San Vitale.
96
In addition to Ridolfi*s account, cf. G. Boccassini,
"Profilio dell*Aliense," Arte veneta. XII, 1958, p. lllff.
122
97
Henry III on the Lido. Of his training with Veronese
Ridolfi writes that Aliense had learned to copy the drawings

98
of that painter with great facility, and these sheets are
involved in the rather unpleasant circumstances surrounding
Aliense's departure from the Veronese workshop. According
to the biographer, Veronese, jealous of the talent and rapid

progress of his pupil, forced him to leave the shop, adding
insult by advising the young artist to confine himself to

small pictures. Whereupon Aliense sold all the drawings he
had made under Veronese to an art dealer and, completely
abandoning his earlier manner, formed under Veronese, decided

99
to follow instead the style of Tintoretto. Whether*or not
97
Ridolfi, II, p. 207f. For these decorations, cf.
below, p. 1 2 8 .
98 Ibid., p. 207.
99 %
Ibid.. p. 208: "Ma vedendo Paolo in Antonio certo
genio non ordinario, poiche facilmente apprendeua gli ammaestra-
menti e daua indito di molta riuscita, non tolero (come per
lo piu auuiene degli eccellenti Pittori) di veder in lui
accrescimento di maggior viirtu, onde licentiollo di sua casa,
persuadendolo ad attendere a far piccioli quadretti, per lo
che sdegnato egli, fece vendita di tutti i dissegni, che fatti
haueua nella casa di ffeolo ad Antonio dalle Anticaglie, che
teneua Bottega alia piazza di San Marco, e mutato parer diedesi
poi ad imitare la maniera del Tintoretto, che veniua per lo
piu seguito dagli studiosi di quel tempo." The story is re
peated with interesting variations, laying greater stress on
the drawings, by Boschini, Le ricche minere, preface: "Antonio
Aliense fu Discepolo di Paolo Veronese per^vn tal tempo, &
opero con quella maniera molte cose....Ando poi all'orecchie
dell'Aliense, che Paolo disse, che sino, che hauerebbe hauuti
de suoi dissegni, sarebbe stato vn valent'huomo creduto. Queste
parole posero nel petto dell'Aliense vn pensiero di non voler
piu quello Stile, e per confirmazione di cio fece stender
alcune feste nella Merceria tutti i dissegni, che teneua di
Paolo e vender li fece. Gran fortuna^di chi hebbe in sorte di
comperare quelle gioie; e poi protesto di non voler piu seguir
quello stile. Grand'errore fu quello certamente dell'Aliense!
e parue appunto, che il Cielo permetesse, che egli perdesse la
i
i
123
the story Is true is difficult to say, although Aliense*s
stylistic development would seem to support it in its
essential outlines.^®® What Ridolfi himself reports of
Paolo's personality^®^" is completely at variance with his
supposed vindictive actions and we recognize in the story
another stock formula of art biography: the older master's

jealousy of a young pupil's talents. 102
Several political and historical considerations throw

some further light on the general situation of the Venetian
artistic community at the end of the Cinquecento and help to
explain the preference for Tintoretto in particular. Art,

like most other activities in Venice, was closely related to
103
politics; the state both controlled the arts and acted as
their primary patron. The most frequent function of painting
was to reflect the glory of the history of the republic, and
toward this end the Ducal Palace was decorated with pictures
of great events in that history. For generations, though

artists and styles changed, the iconography of the state
bellezza delle Idee, & acquistasse la ruuidezza delle figure.

Riuolse egli per tanto ad altra parte la prera del suo ingegno,
e si fece studioso del Tintoretto, e veramente apprese
buonissime forme nelle figure, con robustezza, fierezza, e
dominio."
100See Boccassini, op. cit., for an account of

Aliense*s development. Cf. also A. Venturi, Storia, IX, 4,
p. 624ff., and ^Pietzes, Drawings. p. 31ff.
101 Ridolfi, I, p. 348.
102
Cf. the account of the young Tintoretto's ten days
in the shop of Titian, ibid., II, p. 13.
103
On the state regulation of the guilds in Venice,
see below, p. J31ff, and Chapter IV, p.315f£.
124
remained essentially the same, with new additions as special
moments in recent history were considered worthy of com

memoration. Allegory and history were combined to produce
a vast cycle celebrating the glories of the Serenissima, its
military, diplomatic, and commercial triumphs, and the self-

104
proclaimed virtues of its constitutional government.
Politically and commercially, Venice had attained
its greatest power in the course of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, becoming absolute mistress of the Adri
atic, controlling the flow of commerce with the East, and
extending its rule over much of the terra ferma. Just as

the republic reached this height, however, events occurred
which began to undermine the very foundations of her power.
In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Turks; the expanding
Ottoman empire loomed as an immediate threat to Venice,
104
For the early decorations of the Sala del Maggior
Consiglio, see F. Wickhoff, "Der Saal des Grossen Rates zu
Venedig in seinem alten Schmuck, " Repertorium fiir Kunstwissen-
schaft, VI, 1883, p. Iff. For the decorations of the major
rooms after the fires of 1574 and 1577 and for their present
state, see G. Lorenzetti, Venezia e il suo estuario, Rome,
1963, p. 248ff. The iconography of the new decorations is
expounded by one of its author&r, G. Bardi, "Dichiaratione
di tutte le historie che si contengono ne* quadri posti
nouamente nelle Sale del Scrutinio & del gran Consiglio del
Palagio Dvcale," in Delle cose notabili della citta di Venezia,
Venice, 1587. The propaganda role of the pictorial cycles
has been emphasized by K. Escher, "Die grossen Gem$lde£olgen
im Dogenpalast in Venedig und ihre inhaltliche Bedeutung fur
den Barock," Repertorium fur Khnstwissenschaft. XLI, 1919,
p. 87 £f. For the renovations of the decorations in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, <pE« E. Tietze-Conrat,
"Decorative Paintings of the Venetian Renaissance Reconstructed
from Drawings," Art Quarterly, III, 1940, p. 15ff. Cf. also
above, Chapter I, note 38, for further references.
125
challenging her hegemony of the eastern Mediterranean. The
discovery of the New World and the opening of new sea routes
to the East further weakened her economic and, therefore,
political position. On the mainland, Venice was having a

difficult time maintaining her provinces against the claims
of various Italian and continental powers; in 1508 she was
faced by the League of Cambrai, an alliance of Imperial,

French, and Papal forces, and was saved from humiliating
losses only by her own successful diplomatic undermining

of the tenuous alliance. To the east, the Turkish threat,
eased for a long while by treaties, pressed hard once again,

105
resulting in the costly and inconclusive war of 1537-40.
In the course of the Cinquecento, Venetian power
was clearly on the wane, and it became increasingly important

for the republic to maintain a convincing pose. Against the
growing Spanish hegemony over most of Italy, Venice assumed
the self-appointed role of defender of Italian liberty,
while nevertheless refraining from any direct and open con-
flict; diplomacy had to replace force. Nonetheless,
105
A convenient survey of the events of this period
in Venetian history may be found in J. Alazard, La Venise de
la Renaissance, Paris, 1956. For a further analysis, cf. F.
Chabod, "Venezia nella politica italiana ed europea del Cinque
cento, " in La civiltk veneziana del Rinascimento, Florence,
1958, p. 29ff.
106
x, S. Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia, VI,
Venice, 1857, p. 432f., summarizes the situation as follows:
"II secolo XVI segna dunque per Venezia il massimo sviluppo
della sua diplomazia; piu che sulla forza materiale, dovea
essa fare assegnamento sull*accortezza politica, dando il
piglio alle arm! solo quando inevitabile necessita ve lo
costringesse."
126
Venice’s reputation as an ideal republic, raiding with Athens
and ancient Rome, grew. The political realities of the
stable, oligarchic, and conservative government were trans

formed into the myth of the democratic, just, and blessed
constitutional city-state, of theBtaautevn Serenissima.107
Turkish power continued its advance, and when war
erupted again in 1570 the results were more unfortunate for
the republic. By August of the following year, Cyprus had
fallen to the Turks. This disaster convinced Venice and
her. allies of the moment, Spain and Rome, to take the of
fensive. On the 7th of October, 1571, St. Justina's Day,
the Christian fleet met and vanquished the Turkish armada
in the Gulf of Lepanto. While the victory itself was a de

cisive one, it did not turn the Turkish tide, and when a
peace was concluded in 1573 the Ottomans retained all their
108
conquests, including Cyprus.
The effect of the victory <S>£ Lepanto on the morale of
Venice— and Western Europe in general— was, however, immense.
107
Chabod, op. cit., p. 48, notes that throughout the
sixteenth century, and especially after 1530, the general
attitude toward Venice was marked by one basic idea: "e
l'affermarsi, clamoroso, su piano non solo italiano, bensl
europeo, del 'mito* di Venezia. Parallelamente, si puo dire,
alio scemare della sua potenza effettiva, cresce invece la
fama o, come dicevano i cinquecentesti, la 'riputazione1 di
Venezia.” Venice's international reputation was further en
hanced when she successfully opposed the interdict under which
Pope Paul V placed the city in 1606. See F. A. Yates, “Paolo
Sarpi's 'History of the Council of Trent'," Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, VII, 1944, p. 123ff.
108
For the events of the war of 1570-73, see Romanin,
op. cit., p. 310ff., and Alazard, op. cit.. p. 209ff.
127
It had been the first important military success against the

infidel and was elaborately celebrated, the Senate proclaim
ing a four-day holiday throughout Venice and its possessions.
St. Justina's Day, the day of the victory, was declared an
official state holiday, and the saint thus became a special

patroness of Venice; the doge was thereafter to pay an
109
annual visit to her church on the 7th of October. It was
decreed that the victory should be recorded in a painting.
The picture was executed by Tintoretto in the Sala dello
Scrutinio, but was destroyed in the fire of 1577.111 A

votive painting representing an allegory of the victory, in
the Sala del Collegio, was commissioned of Veronese by the

112
doge Sebastian Venier in 1577-78. Furthermore, paintings
were also executed by Vicentino and Aliense, and the doge

Lodovico Mocenigo had a commemorative medal struck; the
entrance to the Arsenal was reconstructed in honor of St.
Justina, and the Cappella del Rosario in SS. Giovanni e Paolo
109
For the celebrations occasioned by the victory, see
Romanin, op. cit., p. 315ff. The general popular reaction was
expressed in the signs on shops closed for the holiday, "per
la morte de' Turchi," and in the many popular songs about the
event. Cf. G. A. Quarti, La battaglia di Lepanto nei cantj
popolari dell*epoca, Milan, 1930.
110The decree was published on November 8 , 1571. See

R. M. della Rocca and M. F . Tiepolo, "Cronologia veneziana del
Cinquecento," in La civilta veneziana del Rinascimento, p. 236.
i:L1It is to this painting that Tintoretto refers in his

application of September 27, 1574, for a broker's patent at
the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. Cf. above, Chapter I, note 79.
112
See S. Sinding-Larsen, "The Changes in the Icono
graphy and Composition of Veronese's Allegory of the Battle of
Lepanto in the Doge's Palace," Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes, XIX, 1956, p. 298ff.
113
was redecorated as a shrine in memory of the victory.
Art was also called into the service of politics on
the occasion of the visit to Venice of Henry III, King of
France and Poland, in 1574. Venice had, since the League of
Cambrai, maintained an alliance with France and at this

moment it was imperative that these ties be strengthened;
Rome and Spain felt that Venice had betrayed their common
cause by signing a separate peace with the Turks in 1573,

and the temporary relaxation of tensions between the republic
114
and the Christian powers was ended. Consequently, when
Henry succeeded Charles IX as King of France and stopped at

Venice on the way to assume his new throne, the Serenissima
made every effort to assure that the occasion should be
used to gain the favor of the monarch. Once again all the
arts were marshalled, and Henry's visit began with a magni
ficent flotilla and triumphal entry at San Nicolo on the Lido.
The arch and loggia were designed by Palladio and decorated

with ten paintings by Tintoretto and Veronese; dramatic and
musical representations were performed there in honor of the
113
For the many works of art celebrating the victory,
see A. Blunt, "El Greco's 'Dream of Philip II': An Allegory
of the Holy League," ibid.. Ill, 1939-40, p. 63ff. For the
effect of the victory on Palladio's design of the Loggia del
Capitanio in Vicenza, then under construction, see R. Wittkower,
Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, London, 1952,
p. 78ff.
114
Chabod, “Venezia ndda politica italiana ed europeo
del Cinquecento," p. 45.
115
There are several contemporary descriptions of the
event, among them: Marsilio della Croce, L'Historia della
publica et famosa entrate in Venezia del Ser. mo Enrico III re
In the same year, a painting of the entry was com
missioned of Andrea Vicentino for the Sala delle Quattro
Porte, and in 1575 it was decreed that a tablet with an in
scription recording the event be placed on the Scala dei

1 1g
Giganti in the courtyard of the Ducal Palace. While in
Venice, Henry was lodged in the Ca'Foscari bn the Grand Canal,
where his room was decorated for the occasion by Veronese,
who designed cartoons for the floor mosaics and painted an
Aurora for the ceiling; Tintoretto was commissioned to paint
the portrait of the king. 117
The celebrations of the victory of Lepanto and the
di Francia e di Polonia, colla descrizione particolare della

pompa e del numero e varieta delli briaantini et altri vascelli
armati, colla dichiarazione dell'edificio et arco fatto al
Lido. Venice, 1574, and Rocco Benedetti, Le feste et trionfi
fatti dalla Sereniss. Signoria di Venetia nella felice ven-
uta di Henrico III, Venice, 1574. For summaries of the
decorations, see G. B. Lorenzi, Monumenti per servire alia
storia del Palazzo Ducale, p. 396ff., and A. Magrini, Memorie
intorno la vita e le opere di Andrea Palladio, Padua, 1845,
p. 190jEf. and No. 84. Cf. also A. Chastel, "Palladio e l'art
des fetes," Bollettino del Centro Internazionale di Studi
d'Architettura Andrea Palladio, II, 1960, p. 29ff. For the
musical and dramatic performances, see P. de Nolhac and A.
Solerti, II viaggjo di Enrico III re di Francia e le feste a
Venezia, Ferrara, Mantova e Torino, Turin, 1890.
116 Lorenzi, op. cit., No. 808, p. 395f.

117
There are several other paintings related to the ad
vent of Henry. A canvas by Palma Giovane in the*Dresden
GemSldegalerie portrays the entry of the King (Fig. 3). A
painting of Esther before Ahasuerus in the Ringling Museum,
Sarasota, and attributed to Antonio Palma, the father of Palma
Giovane, is dated 1574 and has been interpreted as a political
allegory by C. Gilbert, “A Sarasota Notebook," Arte veneta, XV,
1961, p. 42ff. Esther wears a doge's cap within her crown and
Ahasuerus, who is adorned with fleurs-de-lis, may well be a
portrait of Henry; thus Esther's supplication would become a
parallel to the political relationship of Venice to the new
King of France.
»'
130
arrival of Henry III are only two instances of the republic's
using the arts for political and diplomatic ends. The Ducal
Palace itself, like the governmental palaces of all Italian
cities, was the prime example of art in the service of the
state. Here the Renubblica Serenissima made its daily show
ing before foreign ambassadors and visiting dignitaries as

118
well as before its own citizenry. Consequently, when a
part of it was destroyed by fire in 1574, immediate restor
ation was of the utmost importance. The fire occurred on

May 11, and the formation of a committee of three nobles to
oversee the restoration was announced the following day; the
necessity of accomplishing the work quickly was underscored
in the proclamation:
Essendo necessario riffar con prestezza quella Parte

di Palazzo ch*e stata ruinata dal foco....a riffar
esso Palazzo honoramente et come si conviene alia
publica dignita.119
When the Sala del Maggior Consiglio was gutted by fire on
the 20th of December, 1577, all haste was again urged to re-
120
build this most important room of the palace.
118
It is indicative that in 1415 the Sala del Maggior
Consiglio was attracting so many visitors and sightseers that
the Senate voted an additional sum of money in order to pro
vide for better access to the hall. Lorenzi, op. cit.. No.
145, p. 57.
119
Ibid.. No. 786, p. 383f. Cf. G. Zorzi, "Nuove
rivelazioni sulla ricostruzione delle sale del piano nobile
del Palazzo Ducale di Venezia dopo l'incendio dell'll maggio
1574," Arte veneta, VII, 1953, p. 123ff.
120
Lorenzi, o p . cit.. No. 844, p. 415: "Essendo
necessario proveder di luogo conveniente per ridurre il gran
Consiglio con quella maggior prestezza che sia possibile."
131
The Ducal Palace and its decorative cycles of paintings
formed the grandiose facade the republic of Venice presented
to the world. This artistic glory represented the fame and

the myth of Venice and, at this time of actual decline,
such reflected grandeur was essential. The damage of the
first fire had barely been repaired when the second confla
gration occurred. The Signoria had to call upon all the

artists of the city to assist in the redecoration. Just
prior to the second fire, however, another disaster struck
Venice, the plague of 1576. In this both Titian and his

son and chief assistant, Orazio, lost their lives; one of
the major workshops in Venice thus went out of existence.
Problems of this kind accompanied every plague that
hit Venice, destroying varying proportions of the population,
and the state, which through the guild system, exercised a

121
direct control over the arts and industries of the city,
was prepared to meet the economic aspects of such crises.
Normally each guild had authority over the number of appren

tices to be admitted as masters, in the event of emergencies
such as the plague, however, the state ordered the barriers
dropped, and, for a period of three years, membership was
completely open. On October 31, 1577, following the plague,
this law was cited and’membership in all guilds was opened

to whoever desired to enter the trade, without the usual
121
See below, Chapter IV, p.315ff*f for further dis
cussion of the guild system in Venice.
•• • •
132
122
prescribed period of apprenticeship or required tests.
A fresh supply of artists and craftsmen was thereby made
available for the pressing work of restoring the Ducal

Palace.
The special relationship of art to politics in Venice
and the disastrous events of 1574-77 may shed an interesting
light on the general preference for Tintoretto displayed by
the younger Venetian artists. The fires and the opening of
the guild in 1577 no doubt gave many of them their first
opportunity to practise as independent masters. Ridolfi
specifically states that Leonardo Corona received his first
official commissions because of the destruction in the Ducal

123
Palace. The three main panels of the ceiling of the Sala
del Maggior Consiglio and the neighboring pictures were
executed by Tintoretto, Veronese, and Palma Giovane and

their respective workshops. Between these major efforts there
were small areas to be designed in chiaroscuro, and these
were assigned to Aliense, Francesco Montemezzano, and Andrea
Vicentino, who, along with Corona, executed "alcuni minori

lt124
spatij, a chiaro scuro."
122
A. Sagredo, Sulle consorterie delle arti edificative
in Venezia, Venice, 1856, p. 182.
123
RidOjLfi, II, p. 102: "Hebbe poi occasione, per
l'incendio del Palagio Ducale, d'esercitar l'ingegno, essen-
dogli assegnati alcuni minori spatij, a chiaro scuro nel
maggior Consiglio...."
124
For a description of the ceiling of the Sala del
Maggior Consiglio, see Lorenzetti, Venezia e il suo estuario.
ed. cit., p. 269ff. Cf. also references cited above, note
104.
.. .
133
For such a massive undertaking as the redecoration of

the Ducal Palace all the artistic resources of Venice were
needed, and for the last quarter of the sixteenth century

the building became a focal point of Venetian artistic en
deavors; nearly every artist in Venice was called upon to
contribute to the decorations. While the largest share of
pictures was originally awarded to the shops of Tintoretto,

Veronese, and Francesco.Bassano, the influence of Tintoretto
on the younger artists was certainly the greatest. Working
in close proximity to that old master, artists like Corona

and Aliense easily succumbed to the spell of his style, its
terribilita; his swiftness of execution must have recommended
itself especially under the present circumstances, where all
haste was officially encouraged. It was perhaps above all

in the Ducal Palace that the art of Tintoretto definitely
gained the day as the example of his work impressed itself

upon his younger co-workers who tried to follow his solu
tions and to emulate his dramatic compositions of conflict.
It was not only the younger painters of this genera

tion for whom Tintoretto's influence was so important. Con
temporaries of the master such as Veronese modified their

125
late styles under the impact of his work, and recently
established artists like Palma Giovane modelled their work
125
Veronese's late manner is characterized by a general
darkening of his palette. In a specific work like the
Crucifixion, painted about 1580 for the church of SZ Nicolo
ai Frari and now in the Accademia, the composition, with its
agitation and sharp thrusts into space, seems to be inspired
by Tintoretto's treatments of the subject. Cf. 3tbovtr, note
59.
134
126
according to his example. By the time of Tintoretto's
death, in 1594, Venetian painting clearly bore the mark of

his pervasive influence. The leading masters of the follow
ing generation attempted to build on the foundations of a
generally Tintorettesque background. In addition to Palma,

Corona, and Aliense, Domenico Tintoretto, the legitimate
heir to that manner, carried on, as best he could, the style

127
and the reputation inherited from his father.
To this generation of artists had fallen the heritage
of the great Venetian Renaissance, the awesome tradition of
Titian, Veronese, and Bassano, as Well as Tintoretto. Yet;
the younger painters seem to have been painfully aware of
their inadequacy, of their failure to live up to that Golden
Age. Aliense was said to have admitted that the art of

128
painting was on the decline, and Ridolfi opens his biography
126See below, Chapter III, p.l59ff«» for the impor

tance of Tintoretto in the development of Palma's style.
127
The work of Domenico Tintoretto, especially from
his early career, has usually been confused with the oeuvre
of his father. R. Tozzi has attempted to clarify this situ
ation in several studies: "Notizie biografiche su Domenico
Tintoretto. 11 Rivista di Venezia. XI, 1933, p. 299ff.; "Disegni
di Domenico Tintoretto," Bollettino d 'arte. XXXI, 1937, p. 19ff.
and most recently, "La maturita di Domenico Tintoretto in
alcune tele ritenute di Jacopo," Arte ahtica e moderns, 12,
1960, p. 386ff. Cf. also Tietzes, Drawings, p. 256ff.
128
Ridolfi, II, p. 219: "Diceua ancora, che^ la pittura
andaua declinando, non essendo inteso, che da poiche il buono,
che consisteua in certo che di conoscimento proprio solo di
quelli, che ben intendeuano l'Arte. Che vedeuasi poca riuscita
ne'giouani, perche non haueuano a pena appreso il modo di
formar le parti de'corpi, che voleuano far dei Maestri,
douendosi per gradi giungere alia cognitione dell'Arte, la
quale poi stabilita con douuto fondamenti, poteua all'hora
lo studente cimentarsi a far opere d'inuentione.“
)V
135
of Giovanni Contarini, a member of this group, with a

panegyric in praise of the great tradition, the grande
maniera, and, as if in anticipation of what was to follow

the biography of Tintoretto, an almost apologetic intro
duction to the lives of the next generation:
Or quanto siano rare & eccellenti le operation! di

questa facolta, e quali effetti produssero i decoresi
Pittori, dalle descritte cose potra ciascuno facilmente
comprenderlo, essendo stato il passato secolo vn Teatro
a punto, oue si fece l'apparato delle piu rare mara-
uiglie dell'Arte; non vi essendo stata parte difficultosa,
che non fosse felicemente praticata da Titiano, dal
Tintoretto, da Paolo e dagli altri valorosi Autori
narrati, e dal loro sublime pennello ridotto ad'vna
impareggiabile esquisitezza; onde con ragione se le
potrebbe dirizzare per corpo d ’impresa le due Colonne
Herculee col Motto: "Vltra quid faciam?" essendo
vanita il pretendere documenti migliori, esempi piu
rari e bellezze piu pellegrine.129
1 2 9 Xbid., p. 95.
fc ■
CHAPTER III
JACOPO PALMA IL GIOVANE
Biographical Notes
The foremost member of the generation of painters bridging
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was Jacopo Palma

il Giovane, who succeeded to Tintoretto's place as the
leading master of Venice.'*' His long career is better docu

mented than those of his fellow artists, arid stylistically
his oauvre is the most clearly defined. The main sources
of information for Palma's biography are the brief account

2
of his early career narrated by Borghini and the more ex-
3
tensive survey by Ridolfi7 both writers were personally
familiar with the artist, though at different periods of his

life. The date of the artist's birth, however, is not defi
nitely established. Ridolfi states that he was born in
Palma's name heads the lists of Tintorettesque

Mannerists in the art literature of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Cf. Boschini, Le ricche minere. prefacet
"...con giusta ragione puo pretendere da gli altri sei il
grado primiero"; and Zanetti, Della pittura veneziana, 2nd
ed., Venice, 1792, p. 401; also L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica
dell'Italia. Ill, Milan, 1825, p. 210.
2
R. Borghini, II Riposo (Florence, 1584), ed. Florence,
1730, p. 457ff.
3
Ridolfi, II, p. 172ff. We should also mention the
short biography in G. Baglione, Le vlte de«pittori. scultori
et architetti, Rome, 1642, p. 1831?.
A 5
1544, and this date has been generally accepted. Borghini,
on the other hand, writes that Palma was 33 years old at the
time of his writing, probably in 1583, thereby placing his

date of birth in or around 1550.** The discrepancy, however,
is resolved by the artist himself in a self-portrait drawing

(Pig. 359) which bears the autograph inscription "1606" and
7
"Etade ano 58," which would indicate 1548 as the year of the
artist's birth.
In certain respects Palma's artistic education was
atypical; owing to aristocratic intervention, he was freed
from a long period of apprenticeship and was exposed to a
greater variety of artistic experiences than was normal for
a beginning painter in Venice. Like Domenico Tintoretto,
Palma had been born into a family of painters. His father,

Antonio, was a nephew of Jacopo Palma il Vecchio, and although
there was ho direct contact between the two, the heritage of
the name Palma, with its reputation, was handed down to the
great-nephew of the'early Cinquecento master. The young
4 Ridolfi, II; p. 172.

5Cf. W. Arslan, "Palma Giovane," in Thieme-Becker, XXVI,
1932, p. 176; A. Venturi, Storia, IX, 7, p. 178; M. Ciampi,
"Notizie riguardanti la vita e le opere di Palma il Giovane,"
Archivio veneto, LXVI, 1960, p. 1.
^Borghini, op. cit., p. 458.
^New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, IV, 82 (T. 1046).
The style of the drawing as well as of the sketches on the
verso, vfoich is dated "adi 27 febrai 1606," corresponds to
the date. For further evidence concerning Palma's date of
birth, see below, note 1 0 .
Q
The Negretti family was originally from Serinalta,
near Bergamo. Jacopo Negretti, called Palma il Vecchio, was
138
Palma naturally received his first training under his father,

though he supplemented this by copying many of the outstanding
pictures in Venice, among which Titian1s Martyrdom of St.
g
Lawrence in the Gesuiti is specifically mentioned by Ridolfi.
It was supposedly in this church that the youth came to the
attention of Guidobaldo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, who was

so impressed with his work that be invited Palma to return
with him to Pesaro; in 1564 the young artist left Venice
under the patronage of the duke and continued his education
by copying pictures in the ducal collections, especially
born there about 1480; he came to Venice before 1510 and

practised there until his death in 1528 (see W. Arslan, "Palma
Vecchio," in Thieme-Becker, XXIV, 1932, p. 172ff.). It was
not until after that year that Antonio Negretti (c. 1510/
15-c. 1575) came to Venice, where he adopted the professional
name of his uncle and entered the flourishing workshop of
Bonifazio de‘Pitati, who, in turn, had been a pupil of Palma
Vecchio. Antonio became an important assistant and major
collaborator of this master and eventually married his niece.
After the death of Bonifazio in 1553, Antonio carried on the
established style of the shop, part of which he probably
inherited. Por the known biographical data, see D. Westphal,
"Antonio Palma," in ibid., p. 171f. On the position of
Antonio in Bonifazio1s shop, see G. Ludwig, "Bonifazio di
Pitati da Verona, eine archivalische Untersuchung," Jahrbuch
der koniglich preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XIII, 1901, pp.
71ff. and 184ff. Illustrations of work ascribed to him will
be found in A. Venturi, Storia, IX, 3, p. 1053ff., whose at
tributions, however, have not always been accepted; cf. also
C. Gilbert, "A Sarasota Notebook," Arte veneta, XV, 1961, p. 42ff.,
for a recent attribution.
9
Ridolfi, II, p. 172i "Pu posto Iacopo fanciullo dal
Padre al disegno, e d'anni 15 in circa ritrasse molte
eccellenti Pitture della Citta tra le quali il San Lorenzo
di Titiano nella Chiesa de1Padri Crociferi...."
10
those of Titian and Raphael. He remained with the court
of Urbino for nearly three years, until 1567, when he was
sent to Rome to study drawing.^ The older sources all agree
that Palma went there specifically to develop his skill as a
12
draughtsman, drawing after the famous statues of antiquity,
the works of Michelangelo and Raphael, and especially the
13
designs of Polidoro da Caravaggio.
Ibid.i "...nella Chiesa de'Padri Crociferi, doue

spesso capitar soleua Guido Vbaldo Duca d'Vrbino, che
dilettauasi vederlo a dipingere, & una fiata mentra quegli
vdiua Messa, lacopo postosi in vn canto dell'Altare, fece il
di lui ritratto, il che osservato da Cortegiani, & riferito
al Duca, se ne corapiacque in guisa, che voile il quadro
appresso di se con la copia del San Lorenzo, che fatto haueua,
e dimandatolo se voleua andar seco, prontamente lacopo si
offerl a suo seruigij, e passato con lui ad Vrbino, diede il
Duca commissions al Maestro di casa di ben tratterio e
prouedergli di tutto quello gli occorresse.
"Ora standosene il putto in quella Corte, fece copia
d*alcuna opera di Raffaello e di Titiano con piacimento di
quel Prencipe."
Ridolfi's account is erroneous in at least one pointt
Palma went not to Urbino but to Pesaro. This was reported by
Borghini, II Riposo, ed. cit. p. 457, and confirmed by docu
ments published by G. Gronau, Documentl artistic! urbinati,
Florence, 1935, p. 20ff., where a precise account of Palma's
travels will be found. Furthermore, Ridolfi states that
Palma was 15 years old at the time, which, if we accept the
1544 birth date given by the biographer, would place the
duke’s visit to Venice in 1559. The event occurred, however,
in 1564 (see ibid.). Thus Borghini1s reckoning is apparently
more accurate in this case; if Palma was about 15 in 1564,
then a birth date of circa 1550 would be correct.
12
Borghini, loc. cit.* "...il mando a Roma a studiare
nel disegno...." Ridolfi, II, p. 173. The account of Baglione
(Le vite de'pittori. scultori et architetti, p. 183*
"...mandollo a Roma, accioche nel disegno perfettamente
studiasse...") is probably based on Borghini*s.
13
Ridolfi, loc. cit.* "Ma vedendo il Duca gli awanzi,
che egli faceua, il mando poi a Roma al Cardinal fratello,
140
Palma, unlike most other young artists in Venice, thus
had the opportunity to supplement his early Venetian training

with a knowledge of the artistic wonders of Rome, precisely
the kind of experience Vasari felt that the Venetians in
general unfortunately missed. 14 Palma was exposed to a full
range of the accomplishments of Italian Renaissance art as

well as to that of the ancient world, and, in this regard,
he may have been one of the best educated Venetian painters

of his day-. It was, of course, with the standard assumptions
of the disegrio-colorito controversy in mind that the older
writers claimed the purpose of Palma1s Roman trip to be the
improvement of his draughtsmanship, by which they meant not

only drawing in the strictly technical sense but also a knowl
edge of the structure of the human figure. For such studies

Rome was the great academy.
Palma remained there for three years, returning to
accio iui hauesse maggior commodo di studiare, doue all'ombra

della quercia d'oro per anni otto sen visse, disegnando le
piu pregiate statue di Roma, & in particolare ritrasse il
cartone di Michel'Angelo Buonaroti, e le pitture di Polidoro,
piacendogli molto quella raaniera, perche si approssimaua
(diceua egli) alio stile Veneziano.•.."
The "Venetian" quality of Polidoro's work, especially
his landscapes, was noted, in a sense, by Vasari, who writes
of the decorations in S. Silvestro_e^’Qui3riiia"l#.t ", "nelle
quali sono i macchiati de'paesi fatti con somma grazia e
discresione; perche Polidoro veramente lavoro i paesi e macchie
d'alberi e sassi meglio d'ogni pittore" (V, p. 147). It is
quite probable that Palma was particularly attracted to PoliJ-
doro's chiaroscuri, in which he would have found Roman dlseqno
coupled with a freedom of execution close in some ways to the
Venetian approach.
14 Cf. above, p. $ff .
141
Pesaro briefly in 1568 in order to greet the duke upon his
return from Spain.^ Ridolfi adds that after meeting the
duke he returned to Venice but that on this occasion, finding
no work, he remained there only a short timet
Ma prouando egli molta difficolta nell'ottenese

impiego di momento in quella Citta per lo numero degli
eccellenti Pittori, che all'hora fioriuano in quella
Patria, se ne passo di nuovo a Roma.^6
Palma spent the next year or two in Rome, where, still
according to Ridolfi, he encountered difficulties in ob-

17
taining work. By 1570, at any rate, Palma was back in
15
Gronau, Document1 artistic! urbinati, p. 20.
^■^Ridolfi, II, p. 173. The workshops of Titian,

Tintoretto, Veronese and the Bassano were all flourishing at
that time and the opportunities for novices must indeed have
been limited. It was, as we have seen, only after the firus
of 1574 and '77 in the Ducal Palace and the plague of ±514>,
during which Titian died, that new opportunities opened for
younger painters. Cf. above, p. 13lf.
17
Ibid.i "Ne molto egli vi si trattenne in fastidito
infine di operare sotto il Maestro, come iui si accostuma, e
venutone di nuouo a Venetia...." Baglione, however, reports
in greater detail about Palma's activity in Rome (loc. cit. ) i
"Vi giunse, e dopo buon studio sotto Gregorio xiij, misesi
coll'altrui indirizzo, adoperare nel Palagio di Vaticano, si
nella bella Galleria, come anche nelle Loggie.
"Ma senza aiuto d'altri, essendo all'hora giouinetto,
diedesi ancora a colorire di sua inuentione; e nella Chiesa
de'Cruciferi, alia fontana di Treui, sopra l'Altar raaggiore
di quella, lauoro vn quadro a olio, entroui vna gloria
d'Angioli, con puttini, in alto d'adorare il Santissimo
Sagramento con buona maniera, e con diligenza dipinti, ed
all'hora diede saggio di se, che saria col tempo diuenuto
eccellete, come riusci.
"Dipinse a fresco, sopra la porta de'SS,. Vincenzo, &
Anastagio, par intente a Treui uicini, vna N. Donna, che
rappresenta quella di Santa Maria Maggiore, & e francamente
condotta."
None of the work mentioned by Baglione has been pre
served, although some of the old guides note that the altar-
piecs and two side pictures in Santa Maria in TriVio. were by
Palma (cf., e.g., A. Nibby, Roma descritta ne11'anno
142
18
Venice, about to begin a long and very successful career.
MDCCCXXXVI1I, III, Rome, 1839, p. 507). Baglione's reference

to the pontificate of Gregory XIII (1572-1585), however, makes
it clear that the works in oil, at any rate, cannot date from
Palma's early trip to Rome. The church of Santa Maria in
Trivio was conceded to the Crociferi in 1571 and was rebuilt
by them in time for the Holy Year of 1575 (see M. J. Lewine,
The Roman Church Interior, 1527-1580, Ph.D. Dissertation,
Columbia University, 1960, p. 398ff.). It seems impossible,
then, to date Palma's work in the church during his Roman
years; rather the paintings were probably executed in Venice
and sent to Rome. Indeed, Baglione specifically mentions
paintings by Palma sent from Venice (loc. cit.: "mando egli
a Roma..."). If we tentatively correct the implications of
Baglione's statement and assign Palma's fresco decorations
in SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio to the late 1560's, then there
is no reason to postulate a subsequent trip to Rome (cf.
M. R. Fisher, Titian's Assistants during the Later Years,
p. 47, who suggests such a journey).
M. Ciampi, "Notizie storiche riguardanti...Palma il
Giovane,"p. 2, asserts that it was during his early stay in
Rome that Palma was inscribed in the Accademia di San Luca
(cf. A. Bertolotti, Artisti veneti in Roma nei secoli XV,
XVI, e XVII, Venice, 1884, p. 62). This, however, is impos
sible since the old Roman painters' guild was not transformed
into an academy until 1577, and, as we shall see, it is much
more likely that Palma became a member later, when he was a
master of some renown and the academy itself was flourishing
under the inspiration of Federico Zuccaro. Cf. below,
Chapter IV, p. 309ff.
18
Gronau, op. cit. In a letter of,October *20, 1570,
to his ambassador in Venice, the duke asks about "Iacomo
pittore." Palma's entire length of absence from his native
city was thus six years at the most. Borghini; II Riposo,
ed. cit., p. 457, is mistaken when he states that the artist,
remained in Rome for eight years, an assertion in vtfiich he
is followed by Baglione, loc. cit. Although the last refer
ence to Palma in Rome is a letter dated November, 1568 (Gronau,
op. cit., document CXC), Palma himself thanks the duke for
having maintained him in Rome for four years (ibid., document
CXCIII, letter of 1625 to the duke from his ambassador in
Venice).
143
Early Works in Venice and the Problem of

Palma in Titian's Shop
Certainly the young artist/ then only 22, did not

establish himself immediately as an independent master. By
1570 conditions in Venice had not changed significantly since
the time of his first brief return visit/ and it would have
been quite difficult for him,with six years of training out
side Venice, to become inscribed so soon in the Arte dei
19
depentori, the Venetian painters* guild. It was probably
necessary for Palma to enter the workshop of a local master,

but unfortunately the biographers tell us very little about
this important moment in his career, Ridolfi merely noting
that after his return he continued to study the works of

Titian and Tintoretto.20
There is, nonetheless, ample evidence to demonstrate
that Palma had some sort of relationship with the studio of

Titian. We recall that Boschini's account of Titian*s
■^Gn the Arte dei depentori and the rules regarding

required apprenticeship, see below. Chapter IV, p. 315ff.
20
Ridolfi, II, p. 174* "...continuando tutta via lo
studio sopra le cose di Titiano e del Tintoretto, qual
ricondbbe come Padre dell'Arte...." A canvas in the Museo
Civico in Treviso may well be a document of this activity.
It is a copy of Titian’s Nymph and Shepherd in Vienna and is
clearly the work of Palma (Pig. 2% «$ef. L. Coletti and L.
Menegazzi, Guida delMuseo Civico di Treviso, Treviso, 1959,
p. 24). Titian*s canvas, which can be traced back to 1636,
when it was in the collection of Bartolomeo della Nave in Venice,
can hardly have been on public display (cf. the catalogue of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gem&ldeqalerle, I, Vienna, 1960, Cat.
No. 727). Palma may havehad access to it'insome private
collection or he may wellhave actually owned a version ofthe
composition, acquired after the death of Titian. Boschini
refers to "document! da Tiziano" in the possession of Palma
(cf. below, notes 22 and 23).
144
21
working methods was based upon the testimony of Palma, and,
as Boschini further relates, it fell to Palma to finish
22
several paintings left incomplete at the death of the master.
The most famous and important of these— and indeed the only
documented example— is the Pieta (Pig. 1) in the Accademia
in Venice, designed and begun by Titian to decorate his own

tomb in the Cappella del Crocifisso in the Prari. Some dif
ficulty apparently arose between the painter and the friars,

and at the time of his death the canvas was left unfinished.
Its completion was undertaken by Palma, as the inscription

added by him explains*
QUOD TITIANUS INCHQATUM RELIQUIT PALMA

RKVERENTER ABSOLVIT DEOQ. DICAVIT OPUS t2 3
21
22 v
Boschini, Le ricche minere, preface* "Fu egli cosi
fortunato che non solo hebbe document! da Tiziano ma anche,
a di lui richiesta, condusse a fine diuerse opere del
Maestro rimaste inconcluse quando, per la molta vecchiezza,
non bene gli seruiua la vista." Boschini thus clearly implies
that Palma was a favored assistant in the Titian shop, an
impression perhaps deliberately created by Palma himself.
Cf. in this regard the painter's attempt at the end of his
career to identify himself with the fame of the great master,
below, p. 260f£
23
"What Titian left unfinished Palma reverently com
pleted and dedicated to God." Precisely how and why the task
fell to Palma is not known. Boschini’s suggestion that Titian
himself* unable to work because of failing vision, asked the
young painter to finish such works, seems unlikely. Titian
had been preparing his own son, Orazio, to succeed him and
such responsibilities would certainly have been delegated to
the son (cf. below, note 32). It is possible that Palma
acquired the unfinished painting during the dispersion of
material from Titian's shop following the death of the master.
(Tintoretto is known to have obtained several unfinished works
at that time. Cf. E. Tietze-Conrat, "The Holkham Venus in
the Metropolitan Museum," Art Bulletint XXVI, 1944, p. 266ff.)
Upon its completion by Palma, the Pieta was placed in the
' Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
145
Although opinions have differed on the extent of
Palma's participation in the execution, his hand is unmis-

24
takably evident in the rendering of the flying arjgel. One
has only to compare this little figure with the other putto
in the lower left corner, clearly by Titian, to appreciate
the difference between the two hands at work here. Palma's
angel is hard, its contours neatly drawn and its surface
smooth, owing to the rather unbroken transition between light
and dark and the shining highlights on the head, shoulder,
and leg. Titian's angel, leaning over a vase, is executed in

the free, late manner of the master; the little figure is
constructed of patches of color and paint and the light*is

reflected by the very texture of the surface. Of the other*
figures in the composition, the Magdalen is obviously also
the product of the late Titian's brush. In addition, the

central group of Mary and the dead Christ and cSaint
25
« Jerome are the work of Titian, as is the statue of Moses.
church of Sant'J^ngelo and after the demolition of that church

passed to the Accademia in 1814. On the history of the paint
ing and its general condition, see S. Moschini Marconi,
Gallerie, II, Cat. No. 453, with full bibliography.
24
This is also the only figure mentioned by any of the
older sources as being definitely by Palma. Ridolfi, I,
p. 206, states that the painting was completed by Palma "con
1'aggiongerui alcuni Angeletti." It is clear that another
position for this figure Urns first contemplated, for in the
pentimenti visible under the surface, the outlines of a torch
and a hand holding it can be discerned.
25
There is general agreement on the attribution of the
Magdalen to Titian. Some modern critics, however, have
ascribed the central group to Palma (e.g. W. Suida, Tiziano,
Rome, 1933, p. 141f.).
146
The statue of the Hellespontine Sibyl, close to the flying

angel in its smooth chiaroscuro modulations and to Palma's
known works in its physiognomic type, is certainly to be con
sidered the work of the younger artist. A distinct stylistic
polarity can thus be observed in the Pieta.

The question naturally arises, then, as to just how
finished the canvas was at the time of Titian's death. From
Palma's own testimony, we know that the master worked on
paintings over long periods of time, keeping them in a con
tinuing state of execution, attacking them again and again,
each time changing some part or even the whole of the com
position. ^ We may therefore be sure that when the Pieta
came to Palma the entire composition was fully indicated.
From the examples of other abbozzi by Titian we know that

such unfinished pictures, intended to ,be completed at some
future date, were often elaborately, if freely, painted and
that the major figures, at any rate, were completely esta-
0*7
blished. It is very likely that the Pieta was in such
condition when Palma assumed the responsibility for its com

pletion. The main group could hardly have been different
from its present appearance and Palma's main job was probably
filling in the surrounding areas, which were, no doubt, more
roughly painted; it is especially in the upper areas, the
26
Cf. above, Chapter I, p.30 and note 58.
27
On this aspect of Titian's practice, see E. Tietze-
Conrat, "Titian's Workshop in His Late Years," Art Bulletin,
XXVIII, 1946, p. 76ff.
147
angel, the sibyl, and the architecture, that Palma's hand is
most clearly in evidence, smoothing over, as it were, the

28
rougher more personal texture of Titian's brush.
It is obvious that a young artist like Palma faced a
problem in attempting to follow the example of the late
Titian's very personal style, and in this he was confronted

with the dilemma of all young painters seeking their inspir
ation in Titian. The old master's late manner was not one
suitable to workshop production but was the culmination of
a long lifetime of involvement with painting and was not

29
easily passed on to disciples. If we may judge from the
stylistic dichotomy in the Pieta, Palma evidently recognized
the spiritual distance between Titian and himself and, taking
him at his word, we may believe that he “reverently completed"

the canvas, modestly finishing the secondary areas and hardly
30
touching the last brush strokes of Titian.
28
Such an hypothesis would be in accord with the obser
vations of Boschini, Le minere della pjttura veneziana. Venice,
1664, p. 119f., who writes that "li chiaroscuri sono tutti di
Tiziano; ma le altre figure sbno inmolti luogi ritocche e
coperte dal Palma." Such "retouching" may account for certain
qualitative differences between the rendering of the Magdalen
and of Saint Jerome;. . ...
29
Cf. Vasari's comments on Titian's disciples, quoted
above, Chapter II, note 57.
300 ne problem in evaluating the present condition of the

canvas is the subsequent series of repaintings and restorations;
for these, see S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie, II, loc. cit.
J. Wilde (review of T. Hetzer, Tizian, Zeltschrlft fur Kunst-
geschlchte, VI, 1937, p. 54) has suggested that the central
group of the Pieta was first conceived as an independent work
in the early 1550's and that in the last years of his life
Titian expanded the canvas and the composition. Attention was
recently called to this hypothesis by A. H. R. Martindale, in
his review of Moschini Marconi's catalogue, Burlington Magazine.
CVI, 1964, p. 578.
148
Can we, on the evidence Of. th Pieta and Boschini's

statements, assume that Palma was actually an assistant in
«
Titian's workshop? In the later years of the master's life

the production of this shop was marked by a double standard:
on the one hand, there were the intensely personal works
created by Titian himself and, on the other, the more or less
mass-produced pictures, replicas as well as official com-

31
missions, executed by members of the shop. Titian's
studio, like most large Venetian workshops, was a well
organized center of artistic production in which a group of

assistants, specialists, and younger apprentices worked to
gether under the master's supervision, and chief among these

32
assistants was Orazio Vecellio, Titian's son. Because of
the very nature of workshop practice it is naturally diffi
cult to identify the various hands at work in Titian shop
pieces; only the touch of the master remains unmistakably

clear, and even then, as Ridolfi reports, Titian often put
31
For further comments on the production standards of
the late Titian shop, see Tietze-Conrat, op. cit., and M. R.
Fisher, Titian's Assistants, p. iff. On the structure and
functioning of the Venetian workshops in general, see the
references cited above, Chapter I, note 97.
32
Had he not died two months after his father, Orazio
would have succeeded Titian, .following the tradition of
family workshops in Venice, inheriting the studio and-carrying
on the family name. Titian had been preparing his son and
assuring the future success of the shop by introducing Orazio
to his patrons and, in 1569, having his broker's patent at
the Fondaco de'Tedeschi transferred to him. No securely
documented paintings by Orazio have survived, although cer
tainly most of the shop production must be by him. For
further information on Orazio Vecellio, see A. Venturi,
Storia, IX, p. 92f., and Fisher, o p . cit.. p. lOff.
149
some finishing touches on works by pupils and claimed them

33
to be originals from his own brush.
While none of the older sources actually states that
Palma entered Titian's shop, an omission that is certainly

not without significance, most recent scholars have gener
ally accepted it as fact. Giuseppe Fiocco has even attempted
to attribute to Palma a specific and important function in

34
that shop. He suggests that Palma, returning to Venice
after six years of training and experience in Central Italy,
was able to give "corpo" to the large official works commis-
siohed of the Titian studio; the implication is that Palma
played a very definite role in the formation of an official
shop style, introducing a new, Roman-inspired formalism into
that style— if only during the last few years of the shop's
existence. In support of this thesis he adduces the votive
picture of Doge Antonio Grimani Kneeling before Faith (La

Fede) in the Sala delle Quattro Porte of the Ducal Palace
(Fig. 415).
The painting was commissioned under the doge Francesco
33 Ridolfi, I, p. 227, in the life of Polidoro Lanziani.

Cf. Tietze-Conrat, op. cit., p. 79f. Fisher, op. cit., has
attempted to clarify the personalities at work in the late
Titian shop. His conclusions with regard to Palma, however,
are not always convincing (e.g. p^xxi: "In the studio there
was only one figure with a mentality receptive to the 'late
style' and ample abilities to attempt to express it. This
figure, I propose, is Palma Giovane."). Specific points will
be discussed as they occur.
34
G. Fiocco, Problemi tizianeschl. Unpublished lectures,
University of Padua, 1953-54, p. 57ff.
150
35
Venier in 1555, but ten years later it was still unfinished
and in 1566 Vasari saw it in Titian's shop along with other

36
■ pictures "aibbozzate e cominciate." The picture was left
in that condition, completed by a follower after the master's
death, and placed in its present location sometime before

37
1604. It was probably not finished until after 1589 since
the new prisons, vdiich appear next to the Ducal Palace in the
_ Oft
view of Venice, were not completed until that year. The
35
The painting was officially commissioned on March 22,
1555, and on July 29 Titian received an initial payment of 50
ducats. Lorenzi, Monumenti per servire alia storia del Palazzo
Ducale, p. 289f., Nos. 619, 623.

Ridolfi, I, p. 206: "Lascio ancora imperfetta vna
tela col Doge Antonio Grimano armato dinanzi alia Fede con tre
Angeletti, che sostengono la Croce, San Marco da vn canto con
libro in mano, e presso al Doge vn Paggetto col Corno Ducale,
e vi furono terminate alcune cose da Discepoli, che hor si vede
nell'Antipregadi." The first mention of the picture is found
in Stringa's revised edition of F. Sansovino, Venetia citta
nobilissima et sinqolare, Venice, 1604, f. 225v.
38
G. Lorenzetti, Venezia e il suo estuario, Rome, 1963,
p. 284. For a full discussion of the dating of the painting,
see F. Zanotto, II Palazzo Ducale, II, Venice, 1858, part x,
p. 3ff. Zanotto suggests that the unfinished picture was taken
and held by the Grimani family and was completed and put in
place only during the term of Doge Marino Grimani (1595-1606).
According to the so-called Anonimo Tizianello (Breve compendio
della vita del famoso Titiano Vecelli di Cadore, Venice, 1622,
p. 8 ), the picture was originally in the Anticollegio, and
Zanetti (Della pittura veneziana, Venice, 1771, p. 164) writes
that it was removed from there to its present position after
the fire of 1577. The Anticollegio and Sala delle Quattro
Porte, however, were not affected by that fire but by the fire
of 1574. For the reconstruction of the Sala delle Quattro
Porte (or dell'Antipregadi) after that fire, see G. Zorzi,
"Nuove rivelazioni sulla ricostruzione delle sale del piano
nobile del Palazzo Ducale di Venezia dopo l'incendio dell'll
roaggio 1 trario-ha VII, 1953, p. 132ff.
I’
151
name traditionally associated with the final execution of the

39
painting is that of Marco Vecellio, Titian's nephew.
Fiocco, however, sees the hand of Palma Giovane in

the Qanvas and thinks that the picture is one of those
Palma was said to have finished. While the name of Palma

is never mentioned in any of the older guides, certain
figures are stylistically close to his manner. We observe
qualities similar to those noticed in the Pieta; a peculiar

hardness of contour and a smoothness of surface caused by
even transitions from light to dark. Such features, though,
are not enough to certify the manner of Palma. Indeed, when
we turn to the documented paintings of Marco Vecellio similar

characteristics are quite evident. In contrast to his uncle,
Marco tends to favor massive figures with a greater emphasis
on the rendering of the anatomy; his art in general speaks a

40
more formal and plastic language than Titian's. While
Fiocco's arguments cannot be completely discounted, we must
emphasize that Marco Vecellio was as capable as Palma of

giving "body" to the paintings of the Titian shop, and there
39
Boschini, Le ricche minere, Sestier di San Marco, p. 10,
states specifically that Marco Vecellio painted the two
canvases of the prophet and the standard bearer that flank the
main picture# (Figs..416, 417). Zanetti, loc. cit.. adds that
the addition of these figures was necessitated when .the paint
ing was moved to a larger wall, which is quite probably even
though we do not know for which room.the painting commissioned
of Titian was intended.
40
For the works of Marco Vecellio, see C. Fabbro, et al.,
Mostra dei Vecellio, Belluno, 1957, p. xxviiff. For a con
sideration of his relationship to the Titian shop see Fisher,
Titian's Assistants, p. 23ff. Cf. also A. Venturi, Storia. IX,
p. 94ff.
r 152
seems little reason to substitute Palma's name for his in the

41
attribution of the Fede completion.
Furthermore, Fiocco's assertion that Palma was re
sponsible for important changes in the official style of the

Titian workshop is difficult to substantiate. We shall see
that when Palma returned from Rome he was indeed practising

a rather un-Venetian style, one with greater emphasis on
draughtsmanship. But to claim that this formalism was his
contribution to the Titian shop is perhaps to reverse the
situation. Palma may very well have entered that shop, but,
we suggest/ to continue his own education under the most

famous master of all, and not as an artist capable of in-
42
forming Titian's commercial manner with greater solidity.
41
The traditional attribution to Marco Vecellio has been
maintained by R. Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del 600, I,
Unpublished lectures, University of Padua, 1960-61, p. 9.
Fisher, op.cit., p. 98, writes that the Fede "bears evidence
of Palma's assistance." He points to "the same smooth model
ling and a strong crisp pattern of highlights in the painting
of the drapery," which is also to be found in Palma's auto
graph works. Elsewhere, however, he apparently considers Marco
Vecellio responsible for the completion of the picture (ibid.,
p. 25ff) .
^^Fiocco* s suggestion has led to attempts to define

with even greater precision the role of Palma in Titian's
shop. N. Ivanoff, "La Flagellation de Palma le Jeune au Musee
des Beaux Arts de Lyon," Bulletin des Musees Lyonnais. V, 1956,
p. Iff., asserts that Palma was employed expressly as a
draughtsman and that the designôf cartoons was left to him:
"C'est precisement en sa qualite de dessinateur^ nourri de la
science academique romaine, qu'il a ete remarque par le vieux
Titien et utilize dans son atelier'' (p. 2). "...quand il
s'agissait des^ oeuvres commandees et qui comportaient necessaire-
ment des problemes d'invention et de composition, il employa
Palma le Jeune^pour 1*execution des cartons (esquisses dessinees).
L ‘essential c'etaênt les derniers coups de pinceau, qu'il se
reservait a lui meme et dont il faisait dependre toute
1'orchestration des valeurs et des couleurs" (p. 3). Such an
&
^Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
153
There are, however/ other considerations that throw

*
a different light on the relation of Palma to Titian's

workshop. It must be remembered that Jacopo's father,
Antonio Palma, was a master painter and the head of his own
43
studio, and it is precisely the existence of this shop
that leads us to question the general assumption of the
active presence of Palma in Titian's establishment. If we
consider the traditional structure of family workshops in
Venice, it seems highly unlikely that the young Palma would

not have returned to his own father's house after his Central
Italian sojourn. There he would have assumed an important
role as an assistant and heir apparent; upon the death of
his father he could expect to inherit the shop and all its
working material, being automatically inscribed in the guild
as a master. And indeed there is some reason to believe

that this may actually have been the course of events, for
Palma does not appear as an independent master until 1575,

44
the probable year of Antonio's death. The younger Palma's
attempted ejqplanation involves an overestimation of the artistic

powers of the young Palma at this point in his career. More
serious, however, it betrays a lack of understanding of Titian's
working methods, apparently assuming that the free brushwork
was merely a decorative adornment to a basic cartoon, as Frans
Hals was supposed to have added his brilliant brush strokes
over originally smoothly modelled forms.
43
Cf. above, note 8 .
44
The last notice of Antonio Palma is a document dated
March 15, 1575, among the archives of the Arte dei depentori
(see D. Westphal in Thieme-Becker, XXVI, 1932, p. 171). In a
document of September 26, 1575, tie first find Palma Giovane's
name as a witness and a master: "Iacomo palma pittor” (printed
in G. Ludwig, et al., Archivalische Beitracre zur Geschichte der
yenezianischen Kunst. Berlin, 1911, p. 29).
154-
association with Titian's shop was, we may surmise, a rather
informal one; Palma probably "attended" the shop, as a means

45
of supplementing his artistic education, while he remained
officially connected with his father's establishment. This
relationship guaranteed him both a position in the profes
sional community of Venetian painters and the necessary
material with which to continue artistic production on his

own. 46
Lacking secure documentation for such an hypothesis,

however, we must turn to Palma's known early works for further
insight into his Venetian- training and early influences.
Probably his first datable extant painting is a Descent into

Limbo (Fig. 4), executed for the Venetian church of San
Nicolo ai Frari and now in the parish church of Quero, near

47
Belluno. Borghini mentions the picture and states that
Palma painted it when he was 23, i.e. in 1573, according to
48
his own reckoning of the artist's birth date. Both Borghini
and Ridolfi write that Palma also painted a Deposition for
45
The brief career of Carletto Caliari offers a parallel
for this kind of supplementation of training in the family
workshop. Veronese is said to have sent his son to Bassano,
where he hoped the youth would learn from Jacopo da Ponte,
whose brushwork especially was admired by Veronese. See
Ridolfi, I, p. 353f.; the story is further elaborated upon
by Lanzi, Storia pittorica dell'Italia, III, p. 191.
46
Fisher, Titian's Assistants, p. 50, also concludes
that Palma was not an actual apprentice but that his alliance
with Titian's shop remained a loose one. Cf. below, note 55.
47
See S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie, II, Cat. No. 244.
48
R. Borghini, II Rjposo, Florence, 1730, p. 457.
155
the same church at this time; Ridolfi refers to this picture
as the first commissioned of Palma after his return from

49
Rome, adding that it was executed in the "maniera di Roma."
50
While this particular work has not survived, Ridolfi's de
scription applies rather well to the Descent into Limbo, where
Palma's evident concern with the anatomical definition of
broad and powerful figures may reflect his Roman lessons in
disegno.
The next documented work by Palma is the cycle of
paintings in the old sacristy of San Giacomo dell'Orio, which

51
was commissioned in 1575. These canvases (Figs. 5-15)
49 Ridolfi, II, p. 173.

50
None of the guidebooks mentions a Deposition by Palma
in San Nicolo ai Frari, though a picture of the same subject by
Paolo dei Franceschi was in the same church and Hadeln, ibid.,
note 4, suggests that Ridolfi may have been referring to this
painting, which is now in the Accademia (Moschini Marconi,
op. cit.. Cat. No. 193). Most of the decoration of San Nicolo
was executed by Veronese and his shop (see J. Schulz, "Veronese's
Ceiling at San Nicolo ai Frari," Burlington Magazine. CIII, 1961,
p. 241ff.). Palma's Descent into Limbo apparently adorned the
presbytery, along with works by Paolo and Carletto Caliari.
Schulz suggests that the project remained unfinished at Ver
onese's death in 1588 and that Palma was called in only then.
The style of Palma's jbainting, however, supports the literary
evidence for an earlier dating. Furthermore, Paolo's unfulfilled
commissions would have naturally fallen i ito his heirs, who
continued running the shop, which explains the presence in San
Nicolo of so many works by Carletto, Benedetto Caliari, and
Alvise dal Friso.
51
G. Costantini, La chiesa di San Giacomo dall'Orio in
Venezia, Venice, 1912, p. 27f. Work on the sapristy was com
pleted in 1568 and in 1575 the parish priest, Giovanni Maria da
Ponte, commissioned Palma to execute the decorations. In addi
tion to the altarpiece depicting the Madonna and Child with
saints and the donor (Fig. 5), the cycle comprises pictures of
the Entombment (Fig. 6 ), the Submersion of Pharoah1s Army in the
Red Sea (Fig. 14), the Brazen Serpent (Fig. 10), the Gathering
of Manna (Fig. 11), Eli-jah and the Angel (Fig. 9), the Passover
Feast (Fig. 7), and, on the ceiling, the Four Evangelists
adoring the Holy Eucharist (Fig. 8 ).
r
156
reveal that by 1575 Palma had not abandoned whatever plastic
concern he had acquired in Rome, nor is there any obvious
stylistic dependence on his father. What is most striking

about this cycle is its stylistic heterogeneity; each paint
ing seems to have been inspired by the example of a different
master and the choice of model was apparently dictated by
the particular problems involved. Thus, in the smaller and
more intimate compositions of the altarpiece (Fig. 5) and
the Entombment (Fig. 6 ), Palma may have looked to Titian.
In the figures crowded around the table of the Passover Feast
(Fig. 7), while Tintoretto1s influence is apparent, Bassano
appears to have provided the model for the general tone,
especially in the choice of a candle as the light source,

52
silhouetting certain figures. Even more striking is the
reminiscence of Veronese in the ceiling panel of the Four
Evangelists (Fig. 8 ); the very nature of the composition,
with its sharply foreshortened colonnaded setting, made it

rather natural for Palma to turn to Veronese. In addition to
the di sotto in su perspective, however, even the figure

types seem derivative, especially that of St. Matthew at the
right, who leans back and turns in his chair in a movement
typical of so many figures in Veronese's big feasts. Also,
the angel of the saint recalls the curly-headed putti of Veronese.
52
Fisher, Titian's Assistants, p. 53f., sees the handling
of light in this painting as completely inspired by Titian, who
in his late years, the author suggests, was particularly inter
ested in such experiments. Titian's use of light, however, was
rarely so dependent upon such natural causes; rather, it was a
part of his entire mode of painting. It is more often in the
works of Jacopo Bassano and his shop that we encounter such a
hpa&lfic localizing of light sources.
157
The cycle is dominated by the two long, horizontal

compositions of the Submersion of Fharoah1s Army (Fig. 14)
and the Gathering of Manna (Fig. 11), both filled with many
figures. Despite some borrowing here of specific figure

motifs from Bassano, Palma found a most appropriate model in
the works of Tintoretto. The figure types, their proportions
and extreme poses reveal that Palma was very much aware of
53
the art of that master, and these canvases are the first
fruits of his attempt to cope with the recently established
grande maniera veneziana.
In 1575, then, Palma Giovane was in certain respects
an artist still in search of a style. Of the several in
fluences to which he was open at this moment, that of Tintor
etto was the most decisive. As Palma himself acknowledged,

he would always consider Titian and Tintoretto as his masters
throughout his career. Titian's influence ^remains most evi
dent in Palma's smaller compositions with relatively few fig

ures, in renderings of intimate themes, such as the Pieta
(Fig. 84) or the Ecce Homo (Fig. 119), and in his small
54
Crucifixions. Certain figure types, derived from Titian's
53
For drawings by Palma related to these paintings,
which also betray a close affinity to Tintoretto, see below,
p. 203ff.
54
See, e.g., the small canvas in the Ca' d'Oro in Venice
(ill. in A. Venturi, Storia, 3X, 7, fig. 117). A preparatory
drawing in charcoal for the figure of the Magdalen kneeling at
the foot of the cross was formerly attributed to Titian (see
below, note 118). In a rendering of the Crowning of Thorns
in the Accademia (Fig. 69) we may also find reflections of
Titian's work, especially his late treatment of the same sub
ject now in Munich.
158
various treatments of the old St. Jerome, for example, also
recur in Palma's work (Fig. 82). But these resemblances are

55
not enough to assure us of Palma's training with Titian;
they are relatively small points of comparison, and despite

an early sympathy for the old master, Palma seems to have
recognized that the future lay in another direction. In the
creation of vast decorative cycles Titian's example was of
limited value and Palma, like most of his contemporaries,

had to turn instead to Tintoretto, who, in his decorations
in the Scuola di San Rocco and in the Ducal Palace, was for
mulating in its most powerful aspect the grand maniera of
late Cinquecento Venetian painting.
55
We are thus unable to accept completely Fisher's
account of Palma's role in Titian's shop. Fisher tends to
attribute most of the collaboration of the last years of the
shop to Palma, considering him a major personality in produc
tion, second only to the master himself. The author's attri
bution (Titian's Assistants, p. 94ff.), for example, of the
fragment of a Crucifixion in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna,
to Palma must also be rejected (cf. Mostra di Tiziano. Venice,
1935, Cat. No. 89). While the attribution to Titian may be
open to question, the painting is powerfully conceived; the
figures are firmly rendered, though in a free manner. Fisher's
argument is based on consideration of the use of chiaroscuro,
but neither this factor nor the figures themselves bear much
resemblance to Palma's documented early works, or, indeed, to
his later known work.
Palma and Tintoretto
Ridolfi's statement that Palma felt a special debt to
Titian and Tintoretto is further elaborated by Boschini,
who adds that the artist learned to use color from the
57
former and to draw from the latter. While we recognize
the familiar disegno-colorito formula of the Venetian writers,.
in which Tintoretto's name came to replace that of Michel-

58
angelo, its application to Palma is certainly valid. More
than any other artist in Venice at this time he should have
been equipped to take advantage of such a formula. In Rome
he had familiarized himself with the work of Michelangelo and,
back in Venice, he had very immediate and practical contact
with Titian's painting. Thie was the double experience that
Tintoretto was said to have, combined in the production of a
distinctly Venetian monumental figurative manner.
It is precisely in the Ducal Palace, when Tintoretto
and Palma were executing works for the redecoration of the

59
Sala del Maggior Consiglio shortly after 1582, that an
incident between the two painters, related by Ridolfi, was
supposed to have occurred:

57
Boschini, Le ricche minere, preface.
58 Cf. above, Chapter I, p. llff* and Chapter II, p.97f*

59
The construction of the ceiling of the Sala del Maggior
Consiglio was not completed until the spring of 1582. See J.
Schulz, "Cristoforo Sorte and the Ducal Palace of Venice,"
Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institute in Florenz. X,
1962, p. 198f.
160
Dicesi che incontratosi col Tintoretto nel tempo

stesso, lo domando cio, che faceua ne'quadri suoi,
che seguiuano l'ordine medesimo? A cui il vecchio
scherzando, ripose: Io faccio alcuni, che vanno su
gli alberi, del cui auuiso si preualse il Palma,
facendone anch'egli alcuni nel modo detto in atto
di salire, che poi veduti dal Tintoretto, disse:
Costui mi ha rubbata 1 1inuentione.60
The paintings in question are Tintoretto's ceiling painting

61
of the Victory at Argenta and Palma's Victory at Cremona.
of which Ridolfi writes,
Qui si vedono molti combattenti sopra de'nauagli

con altri caduti nel fiume, e chi sale sopra scale
di corda su gli alberi di legni,62
The resemblance between the two compositions is striking
and, while Ridolfi's account need not be accepted literally,
we may assume that the story rather accurately reflects the
situation at that moment. Palma was indeed learning his
lessons quite well from Tintoretto.
In addition to the cycle in San Giacomo dell'Orio,
two other paintings testify to Palma's early involvement with
the art of Tintoretto; both can be dated between 1575 and
ca. 1580 on stylistic grounds. One of these is a Passover
Feast (Fig. 16) in the Pinacoteca dei Concordi in Rovigo;
in its use of rather elongated figures in involved poses it

61
111. in E. von der Bercken, Die GemSlde des Jacopo
Tintoretto, Munich, 1942, Fig. 299.
^^Ridolfi, loc. cit.
161
is close to the long compositions of the San Giacomo.series,
while its intense chiaroscuro relates it specifically to the
Passover Feast of the same cycle (Fig. 7). The other paint
ing is a Crucifixion in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna
(Fig. 18). Here too the emphasis on contorted figures, on
deep shadow and bright light, and the general handling of
paint point to Palma's deliberate study of Tintoretto. The
composition itself, set in motion by the two charging horses
at the left, resembles in its overall tone the older master's
treatments of the theme for the Scuola di San Rocco and the
63
church of San Severo.
It is during the last two decades of the sixteenth
century, when he had become a fully mature painter, that
Palma's stylistic relation to Tintoretto is strongest. His
Crucifixion in the Madonna dell'Qrto (Fig. 17), probably
executed ca. 1585, is perhaps the closest he ever, came to
pure imitation of Tintoretto's style; not only is the concep

tion of the crowded composition derived from Tintoretto's
pictures of the same subject, but Palma has also borrowed
specific physiognomic types from him, notably in the group

64
of women in the lower right corner.
63
The Crucifixion for San Severo is now m the
Accademia, Venice (S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie, II,Cat.No. 404).
64
Cf. especially a similar group in Tintoretto's altar-
piece in the church of Santa Maria del Rosario (Mostra del
Tintoretto. Venice, 1937, Cat. No. 26, detail ill. on p. 79).
162
Palxna's continuing study of Tintoretto is more
specifically documented in a drawing he made after the
latter's Apparition of the Virgin to St. Jerome (Fig. 198).
The painting, now in the Accademia, was originally the
altarpiece,in the upper hall of the Scuola di Santa Maria

della Giustizia, or San Fantin. The drawing dates from
the early 1580's, when Palma began working in the same hall,
65
where he executed most of the decorations. Palma was
evidently particularly struck by Tintoretto's chiaroscuro pat

terning, since he has concentrated on this aspect of the
composition in his drawing, trying to capture its effect in
the broad application of washes.
Also in the early 1580's, Palma entered the competition
for the great Paradise mural in the Sala del Maggior
Consiglio. His entry, like most of the others, was a large
oil sketch on canvas (Figs. 27,28), in which he demonstrated
his ability to speak the language of the grande maniera.66
6 5 Borghini, II Riposo. p. 457, mentions the work as

still in progress. For Palma's cycle of paintings in the
Scuola di Santa Maria della Giustizia, see below, note 77.
6 6 Palma's modello is now in the Ambrosiana, Milan.

It was published, along with a sheet of preparatory pen draw
ings (T.1143), by W. Suida, "Il'Paradiso* di Jacopo Palma il
Giovane," Rivista d'arte.XX. 1938, p. 77ff. For the other
entries in the competition, see above, Chapter I, notes 95
and 96.
The competition was won by Tintoretto, and, although the
final huge canvas was executed primarily by workshop assis
tants, it became the greatest single model of the Venetian

m a m era.67
Several years later Palma had an opportunity to follow
Tintoretto in this kind of massive mural decoration in his
painting of the Last Judgement (Fig. 29) in the Sala dello

68
Scrutinio. His efforts are similar to those of Tintoretto,
though the long composition is even more overcrowded with a
tumultuous mass of twisting figures. There is hardly any

sense of space here and absolutely no breathing room.
Palma's Last Judgement is an exaggeration of the kind of
compositional recklessness, as it were, to which Tintoretto's
example could lead. More than any of his contemporaries,
Palma appears anxious to prove his own "padronia di distribuire
migliaia di figure." According to Ridolfi, however,
Tintoretto was rather critical of this distorted tribute to
his leadership:
67
For Boschini's comments on the painting, cf. above,
p.1 0 8 .
68
The original decoration of this room, of which
nothing is known, had been destroyed in the fire of 1577 and
the rebuilding started the following year under Cristoforo
Sorte. This was completed in 1585 and two years later the
task of redecorating the room was under way. See G. Lorenzetti,
Venezia e il suo estuario. p. 274f.; cf. also J. Schulz,
"Cristoforo Sorte and the Ducal Palace of Venice."
164
E di quest*opera soleua dire lacopo Tintoretto, che

gli hauerebbe dato l'animo di ridurla assai migliore,
senza aggiungerui cosa alcuna, ma solo col leuarle
alcune figure, che gli pareuano superflue, non consis-
tendo la perfettione nella multiplicity delle figure,
ma nel collocarle bene senza confusione, con l'ordine
douuto.69
Palma's interest in Tintoretto's intensely dramatic
chiaroscuro and lighting is evident in an Agony in the
Garden (Fig. 19), a picture now in the University of Kansas
Museum of Art. The painting exhibits the hardening of forms
and broadening of light and dark areas that begin to charac
terize Palma's style toward the very end of the Cinquecento.
The composition itself clearly derives from a common
Tintoretto solution to the problem, utilized in pictures in
the Scuola di San Rocco and in San Stefano. The latter of

70
these has been convincingly attributed to Domencio Tintoretto
and may well have been a direct model for Palma's picture in
71
Kansas; its insistent outline of light areas and crispness,
as well as its general disposition of the figures and use of
motifs such as the emergence of figures with torches from
behind the trees to the left are to be found in Palma's

painting.
° Ridolfi, II, p. 179.

70
R. Pedrazzi Tozzi, "La maturita di Domenico Tintoretto
in alcune tele ritenute di Jacopo," Arte antica e moderna,
12, 1960, p. 388.
^^Domenico's work toward the close of the century was

marked by a kind of codification of his father's stylistic
devices. Thus, for example, Jacopo's long brush stroke along
the edge of a drapery fold or his shimmering, light become in
165
It was to Tintoretto's vast compositions in the grande
maniera, with figures filling the entire pictorial surface,
such as those in the Madonna dell'Orto, the Scuola di San
Rocco, and the Ducal Palace, that Palma turned when faced
with similar tasks, always trying to supply lessons learned —
or, as the case may be, only half-learned — from the older
master. While Tintoretto's distortions of the human body
and his arbitrary manipulation of spatial relationships
served to knit a greater structural unity of the whole picture,
an "oraine dovuto," Palma's attempts to follow such turbulent
formulas seem more often to lead to a rather chaotic assembly
of poorly related figures and groups. He appears to have
failed, in a sense, partly because he apparently did not
appreciate the importance of Tintoretto1s touch and the very
ordering function of light in his pictures. The younger
artist seems instead to have concentrated too intently upon

the figures themselves; thus he was better able to utilize
the arbitrary formal vocabulary of the maniera than the
painterly means of unifying those forms within an overall
compositional context. This heightened interest in what is
basically an aspect of traditional disegno is, as we shall
his son's art distinctly outlined motifs. Domenico tends

to use broad, unrelieved areas of solid color, which, be
cause they lack the verve of his father's brushwork, are
essentially flat.
see, characteristic of Palma and his contemporaries in Venice
at the turn of the century.
Nonetheless, Palma always felt that he had followed
in the direction first indicated by Tintoretto, and in his
last will and testament he acknowledged the great debt he
felt he owed to that master. He expresses his gratitude to
the entire house of Tintoretto, specifically noting the close

friendship that existed between himself and Domenico, to whom
72
he left four drawings as a token of his feelings.
72
"E perche io son molto obligato alia casa et alia
virtu del Sig.r Giacomo Tentoretto fu ecc.mo pitore la cui
fama sara sempre imortalle come per moltii favori recevuti in
tempo di sua vitta e come per molto amore pasatto fra mi ed
il Sig.r Domenico Tintoretto suo filgiolo universamente et
in partico.re ecc.mo nella pittura laso al Sig. Domenigo
quatro pezzi di mie disegni...." The text then sheds an inter
esting light on the relationship that must have existed
between Palma and Domenico, who, as heads of two active work
shops, must have been in constant competition: "...e si benche
sono cosa di pocho valore e che n 6 ^ bisogno di simil cosa
pero di questo pocho saro sichuffS*3re ne restera servito per
eseo parquaegnopdehamore il qualle auerei magiormente dimos-
trato in vitta mia quando la etta et il resto auese permeso
che io mi apparentase se che si come auerei disiderato." This
may be an indication of some sort of close relationship be
tween Palma and the Tintoretto shop at the beginning of his
career in Venice. The precise nature of this relationship
is inpossible to determine. The text of Palma's will, which
is preserved in the Archivio di Stato in Venice (Archivio
notarile, Testamenti, Notaio Giulio Ziliolo, busta 1244, no. 355;
a copy of the original: busta 1251, registro VI), has been
published only in a French translation by R. de Mas-Latrie,
"Testament et codicille de Jacques Palma le jeune," Gazette
des Beaux-Arts, XXII, 1867, p. 295 ff.
167
Palma's Later Career and Stylistic Development
As Bidolfi informs us, Palma held some difficulty in

obtaining commissions on his return to Venice, but the his
torical events of the 'seventies, the two fires and the
plague, opened new possibilities for him and for other young
painters in Venice. Palma's early success depended even
more, however, upon the intervention on his behalf and the

protection of a single individual, the sculptor Alessandro
Vittoria:
Diuenuto poscia famigliare di Alessandro

Vittoria, dal cui giuditio dependeua all'hora la Citta
tutta nelle deliberation!, che a far si haueuano delle
cose di scoltura e dell'architettura non solo, ma della
Pittura, il quale non ben seruita del Tintoretto e del
Veronese, come quelli, che essendo huomini stimatissimi,
non conpatiuano dipendere da vno scultore, per isdegno
prese a fauorire il Palma, procurandogli qualunque
occasione, che gli auueniua, al cui affetto quegli cor-
rispondeua con la continua seruitu & ossequio....73
Because of the professional pride and jealousy of the
leading Venetian artists, then, Palma found in Vittoria a
protector, and the number of anecdotes related by Ridolfi
makes it clear that, until the end of Vittoria's life, the

74
sculptor remained Palma's faithful friend and champion.

74
Alessandro Vittoria, born in 1525, died in Venice
in May of 1608. For considerations of his work, see L.
Planiscig, Venezianische Bildhauer der Renaissance, Vienna,
1921, p. 435 ff.; J. Pope-Hennessy, Italian High Renaissance
and Baroque Sculpture. London, 1963, I, p. 82 ff., II, p. 114 ff.;
w u
168
Through Vittoria Palma was awarded a major part in the re
decoration of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, sharing with
Veronese and Tintoretto the adornment of the new ceiling.
Palma executed one of the three large central panels, the
Coronation of Venice by Victory (Fig. 30) and two smaller
pictures, the Entrance of Andrea Gritti into Padua (Fig. 34)

75
and the Victory at Cremona (Fig. 35). Further, Ridolfi
writes that Vittoria procured commissions for the painter in

76
San Giovanni in Bragora, in the Scuola di Santa Maria della
and, for the most recent biographical treatment, F. Cessi,

Alessandro Vittoria. 5 vols., Trent, 1960-62. In 1592 Vittoria
had Palma fresco the facade and interior of his house (R.
Predelli, "Le memorie e le carte di A. Vittoria," Archivio
trentino, XXIII, 1908, p. 163), and the sculptor executed a
bronze portrait bust of Palma, now in the Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna (Fig. 132). (This piece of sculpture, or a
cast of it, was in the Tiepolo Shop in the eighteenth century,
and several drawings of it are known. See K. T. Parker,
"PLorenzo Tiepolo u737-after 17721" Old Master Drawings, IX,
1935, p. 61ff.)
75 s
Ridolfi, 11^ p. 176: "Gli preparo ancora in questo
mentre la Fortuna piu degne occasion! essendo egli aggregato
al numero de 1 Pittori destinati per le opere del Palagio
Ducale, adoperandouisi molto in suo fauore il Vittoria, onde
ottene vno degli ouati maggiori del soffitto nel gran Consiglio,
e due quadri dalle parti."
76
Ibid.. p. 175: "...non mancando il Vittoria della
solita protettione predicaua del continuo il valore dell 1
amico, a cui fece assegnare da Confrati della compagnia del
Sacramento di San Giovanni in Bragora due quadri, in vn
de'quali rappresento Nostro Signore, che laua i piedi a gli
Apostoli, e vi e vn seruo, che porta vn vase con bel mouimento,
e nell'altro lo stesso Saluatore dinanzi a Caifasso, che
squarcia le vesti, e San Pietro nell'atto di fauellar con
l'Ancella, che sono due spiritose figure." The two pictures
are still preserved in the church.
169
77
Giustizia, and intervened on his behalf regarding work in
the Frari, where the monks were apparently displeased with

78
.Palma1s painting of the Martyrdom of St. Catherine.
77
Ibid.: "...e benche il Tintoretto fatto vi hauesse
la bellissima tauola del San Girolamo,...nondimeno preualsero
in maniera gli offici del Vittoria, e l'autorita di Francesco
Tebaldo Guardian Maggior, suo amoreuolissimo compare, che a
lui [sc. Palma] solo furono allogate." On Tintoretto's
altarpiece of the Apparition of the Virgin to St. Jerome, in
the upper hall of the scuola, cf. above, p. 162f. For that
same room, shortly after 1580 (cf. above, note 65), Palma
painted a cycle of pictures devoted to the life of St. Jerome,
one of the patron saints of the confraternity, and the
ceiling painting of the Assumption of the Virgin. Most of
these works have been dispersed. Some of those belonging
to the St. Jerome cycle (Figs. 23-25) have been identified
and published by V. Moschini, "Inediti di Palma il Giovane
e compagni," Arte veneta, XII, 1958, p. 97ff. One-half of
the ceiling canvas is preserved in the Hermitage, Leningrad,
and an oil sketch for the entire composition is in the
Pinacoteca Querini-Stampalia, Venice (Fig. 26). The decora
tions on the ceiling of the ground floor hall, also by Palma
and representing the Suffering of the Souls in Purgatory
and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church (Figs. 70, 71),
are dated 1600. See W. Ellero, !,I quadri della Confraternita
di Santa Maria della Giustizia," Rivista di Venezia. XIII
1934, p. 255ff., and N. Ivanoff, "II ciclo pittorico della
Scuola di San Fantin," Ateneo veneto (Fascicolo speciale per
il 150° Anniversario, 1812-1962), Venice, 1962, p. 65ff.;
cf. also idem, "Disegni di Palma il Giovane per il soffitto
della Scuola di S. Girolmo," Ibid., CXLIV, 1953, p. 47ff.
78
Ridolfi, II, p. 186: "In quella Chiesa fece in
gran tauola il Martirio di Santa Caterina, e per molto, che
vi si affaticase, non piacque 1'opera d'Padri. Mia Alessandro
Vittoria, che in ogni occasione gli era fauoreuole, fingendo
non conoscer chi fosse 1 ‘Autore, si fermb a cui fecero
cerchio molti di quei Padri, querelandosi della poca riuscita;
ma quello lodandola di parte in parte, con molta destrezza
gliela rimise in gratia."
170
In the church of San Salvatore, Vittoria had the commission,

79
first awarded to Andrea Vicentino, given to Palma; and he
helped Palma overcome criticism of his altarpiece in San

80
Zaccaria (Fig. 82). Through such help and with the
deaths of the leading masters in the 'nineties Palma was
eventually established as the most successful painter in
Venice; his position was further solidified in 1605 when
two important competitors, Giovanni Contarini and Leonardo

Corona, both died.®^
79
Ibid., p. 187: "Haueua la compagnia de‘Pizzicaroli
allogata la Pala del loro Altare in San Salvatore ad Andrea
Vicentino; ma il Vittoria, a quali fatto haueua le due
figure di marmo de'Santi Rocco e Sebastiano, non voile a
patto alcuno metterle in opera, se la pittura non veniva
fatta dal Palma dicendo: non conuenirsi alia dignita delle
opere sue, che fosse d'altro mano; onde quelli, per non
restar priui di si belle scolture (commutato l'impiego al
Vicentino nella mezza luna, ch'e sopra 1'Altare) la diedero
al Palma, nella quale fece il Sant'Antonio loro Protettore
ed altre due figure de Santi, e la Vergine in aria."
80
Ibid., p. 188: "...quell 1opera essendo veduto dal
Malombra, ne disse molto male: ma poscia ritoccata dal
Palma con l'assistenza del Vittoria (ehe sempre inuigilaua
per gli auuanzi dell'amico) riueduta dal Malombra rimasse
stupidito, parendogli, senza saper come, migliorata." Also
in San Zaccaria, Palma painted the four panels of Christ's
Passion on the tabernacle designed for the high alter by
Vittoria (Figs. 79, 80).
81 \
Ibid., p. 176: "...tra quelli che dipensero in quel
giro, rimane ancora indeterminata la lode; ma datosi dopo la
morte del Tintoretto [1594] e del Bassano [1592] ad vna buona
pratica..." Ibid.. p. 189: "...essendo mancata finalmente
il Contarino e Leonardo, che gli faceuario non poca fortuna, e
l'Aliense, benche valoroso, poco curando affaticarsi, con-
correuano a lui [sc. Palma] gl'impieghi da ogni parte, essen-
dogli rimasto (per cosi dire) il campo libero dagli emuli...."
By 1575, as we have noted, he was already inscribed
82
as a master in the painters' guild, and by 1578 he appears
to have further .enhanced. his position in the Venetian
artistic community, for in that year he was chosen along

with Veronese to evaluate the four pictures of mythological
subjects painted by Tintoretto for the small rbbm at the

QO
top of the Scala d'Oro in''the Ducal Palace. Palma re
ceived his first major commissions in the palace after the
fire of 1577, when he was awarded one of the large panels
82
The only compilation of painters inscribed in the
Arte dei depentori or Fraglia dei Pittori is Giannantonio
Moschini's early nineteenth-century manuscript in the
Biblioteca Correr in Venice (Moschini, Miscellanea, XIX,
A.c. 30), in which Palma's name appears from 1588 until
1627, the year before his death. This MS. list, however,
is incomplete and the document and commissions of 1575 make
it certain that Palma was a master by that year. On October 5,
1593, he was elected a member of the guild's Comessarii della
comessaria di Vincenzo Cadena, a position to which he was re
elected in 1597. On the membership of the Arte and the
Comessarla, see below, Chapter IV, notes. 116, 119, 120.
83
Lorenzi, Monumenti per servire alia storia del
Palazzo Ducale, No. 880. The paintings, for which Tintoretto
was awarded 200 ducats by the two-man jury, were transferred
to the Sala dell'Anticollegio in the early eighteenth century.
See Lorenzetti, Venezia e il suo estuario, p. 253.
on the ceiling of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the other
84
two being assigned to Tintoretto and Veronese.
The three large paintings are all depictions of the
glory of Venice. The central, rectangular canvas, executed

85
by the Tintoretto workshop, shows Venice as the Queen of
the Sea, surrounded by sea gods, offering an olive branch to

x 86
the doge Nicolo da Ponte, who in turn presents the Serenissima
with gifts from the subjected provinces. The two oval pic
tures, by Veronese and Palma, both depict the Coronation of
Venice by Victory and a comparison of the two is reveiling
with regard to the particular character of Palma's style at
this date. Each composition is constructed in a strongly
84
Tintoretto's design is illustrated in E. von der
Bercken, Die GemSlde des Jacopo Tintoretto, Pig. 303; Veronese's
appears in G. Fiocco, Paolo Veronese, Bologna, 1926, pi. XCV.
The elaborate decorative framework of the ceiling of the Sala
del Maggior Consiglio, designed by Cristoforo Sorte, was not
completed until 1582, which established a terminus post cruem
for the paintings. Cf. above, note 59.
85
For a diagram of the positions of the pictures on
the ceiling, see Lorenzetti, op. cit., p. 269. From the
‘moment of its completion, apparently, Tintoretto's picture
was recognized as a shop product; Ridolfi, II, p. 39, states
quite simply that the painting was "fatte per pratica."
86 v
Nicolo da Ponte's term of office extended from 1578
to 1585, i.e. during the actual period of reconstruction; his
coat-of-arms appears as a Leitmotif throughout the framework
of the ceiling.
173
accentuated di sotto in s& perspective, appropriate to the
ceiling position; from the bottom edge, the eye is led up a
series of architectural elements to open blue sky above.
The coronation takes place in the upper part of the compo
sition, while below are gathered prisoners and trophies,
symbols of the victories of the republic. ’'The transition
between these two areas of the composition is effected in
Veronese's canvas by various architectural motifs, the ver

ticals of the balustrade, the upward thrust of the twisting
columns, and by the disposition of areas and patches of
bright color, which strengthens the unity of the design.
Palma, however, has placed a series of steps at the base of
his composition and the resulting set of parallel horizontal
lines cuts the picture neatly in two; the edge of the upper-
87
most step is broken only slightly at two points. Although
the design is thus composed of two separate masses, parallel
but structurally unrelated, the overall composition remains
rather impressive,with its clear delineation of the individui
forms.
Tintoretto's picture also uses steps as a base for

the composition, but here the horizontals are broken by
several vertical elements and the steps themselves are sur
mounted by another staircase, placed perpendicularly and
running in a different direction, which serves as a transi
tion between the upper and lower parts of the picture, an
element lacking in Palma's painting.
174
Palma was here working in a tradition of perspective
ceiling painting that had developed in Venice particularly
around the middle of the sixteenth century and under the

87a
influence of non-Venetian examples. Yet he reintroduced
into that tradition a greater emphasis on the massive human
figure, a taste that may be attributed to his years in Rome.88

Tintoretto and Veronese, each in his own way, had tended to
de-emphasize the solidity and weight of the figure in favor
of a lightness of setting; their figures had to rise and
assume their places in the neo-Olympian realm of official
Venetian mythology. Compared with their work on the ceiling,
Palma's appears singularly earthbound. Tintoretto's Venice
in the sky is surrounded by an aureole of light and by the
flying divinities; Veronese's, holding court in the clouds,
is crowned by a flying Victory, while above the winged figure
of Fame trumpets her glory. This kind of political icono
graphy and its formal corollaries were developed especially
by these two masters. Palma appears unable to speak this
8â Cf. above, Chapter IX,p. •

88Palma may have been deliberately introducing a neo-
Roman element in his works in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio.
It should be noted that his wall painting of Doge Sebastiano
Ziani Mediating between Pope Alexander III and Otto, Son of
Frederic Barbarossa (Fig. 37). is adjacent to Federico Zuccaro's
Barbarossa Kissing the Foot of the Pope,signed and dated 1582-
1603 (ill, in H. Voss. Die Malerei der SPcLtrenaiasance in Rom
und Florenz. II, Berlin,1920, fig. 187). The clarity of form
in Zuccaro's composition is an assertion of Roman style in
this Venetian ambiente. Palma's painting, with its relatively
bright tonality and formal precision, may have been inspired
by the Roman example. Regarding Palma's relation to the
Zuccaro circle in Rome, cf. below, note 125.
language with any degree of fluency; in his picture, Venice
is seated rather heavily under a baldacchino upon a very
solid throne, from behind which the winged — but flightless
— Victory has stepped to crown her (Fig. 31).
Palma's Roman figure canon of massive proportions
makes it difficult for the characters in his composition to
leave the ground. Tintoretto*s mannered figures never became
ungainly because they were kept lighter and somewhat elonga
ted, proportions that allowed enough flexibility for such ex
treme poses and actions. Palma's figures, based upon a
Michelangelesque ideal,®9 appear awkward and physically con
strained by the very bulk of their bodies;, within the context
of the composition, his ignudi,in particular, seem quite
isolated anatomical exercises.
Ridolfi was surely justified in observing that these
figures were executed "con molto disegno" and that they
demonstrated "l'auuanzo dello studio, che fatto haueua dalle
cose di Michel'Angelo e dalle buone pitture di Venetia."90
But this synthesis was hardly as complete as that attributed
to Tintoretto, and part of the reason for this is to be found
in Palma's attitude toward nature. Indeed, when compared with
the older masters with whom he was now competing, his work
®9For Boschini's recording of Palma's specific canon

of proportions, see below, p.238 f.
90 Ridolfi, II p. 177.
vv
176
might even be termed naturalistic. His concern with anatomi
cal detail at this time may still be a remnant of his Homan
days, but in the nude prisoners of his Coronation of Venice
(Figs. 32, 33} he seems unwilling to subordinate the concern
with musculature to a larger compositional unity. Similarly,
while he exhibits a definite feeling for the material reality
of drapery fabrics, he renders these with the same concentrated
heaviness. The bulk of the draperies is still another
obstacle to freedom of movement.
With the commissions in the Ducal Palace and in the
scuole and churches of Venice, Palma was beginning to rival
Tintoretto and Veronese. In the early 1580's, just prior to
the decorations of the Scuola di Santa Maria della Giustizia,
he executed the paintings for the Sala dell'Albergo of the

Q1
Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista, including a Virgin crowned
with Stars, the Twelve-Thousand Receiving the Sign of the
Cross (Fig. 22), the F.ftni»..aeraemei3f.-1. (Fig. 20), and the

92
Angels of Death (Fig. 21). In these compositions, Palma
9^The paintings are mentioned by Borghini, II Riposo

(1584), Florence, 1730, p. 458.
92See G.M. Urbani di Gheltof, Guida storico-artistica

della Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venezia. Venice,
1895, p. 19ff. Cf. also, Lorenzetti, Venezia e il suo
estuario. p. 605.. The ceiling of the Albergo was originally
decorated by Titian with a painting of the Vision of St. John
the Evangelist. This work was lost after the suppression of
the scuola and was only recovered and identified recently; it
is now in the Kress Collection. See W. Suida, "Miscellanea
177
continues to concentrate on the rendering of the muscular

QOa
human figure straining in extreme postures. As in the
ceiling painting of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, however,

this emphasis on anatomical solidity severly limits the
figures' significant participation in the overall movement
of the composition.
tizianesca, II," Arte veneta, X, 1956, p. 74ff. The work

was commissioned around 1541. Fisher, Titian's Assistants,
p. 62ff., however, prefers to date the actual execution of
the project much later and to attribute it to Titian's
workshop; specifically, Fisher suggests that it was "in the
main executed by Palma," an attribution which appears to us
unfounded.
92a
Certain of these figures appear to be reflections
of Palma's Roman experience. The inverted foreshortened
figure in the Angels of Death (Fig. 21), for example, is
derived from the Laocoon group, a model of which had,
however, been brought to Venice by Sansovino (M. Bieber,
Laocoon, the Influence of the Group Since its Rediscovery.
New York, 1942, p. 6 ). The cowering figure at the right
frame, Michelangelesque in its energetic thrust and compli
cated pose, was a common motif in Roman art of the late
Cinquecento: cf., e.g., Taddeo Zuccaro's Conversion of Paul
in the Ooria Pamphilij Gallery in Rome (H. Voss, Die Malerei
der SpStrenaissance in Rom und Florenz, II, Fig. 174)and
Federico Zuccaro's drawing of Moses and Aaron before Pharoah
(idem, Zeichnungen der italienischen SpStrenaissance. Munich,
1928, pi. 17).
The pictorial embellishment of the Sala del Senato
of the Ducal Palace began in 1587 and the project was domin
ated by Palma (Pigs. 38-48), who now captured more commissions

93
than Tintoretto and his workshop. The canvases executed
by Palma in this room are some of his most successful works.
Figures are powerfully realized, especially with the aid of
striking contrasts of light and dark. The iconography of
these compositions is less demanding than that of the earlier
ceiling painting, and only a few of the figures are contorted
in the exaggerated manner of the canvases for the Scuola di
San Giovanni Evangelista.
^ T h e decoration was accomplished during the term of

office of Doge Pasguale Cicogna (1585-95). It could not have
been begun before the completion of the ceiling, which was
not considered finished until October 17, 1587. (borenzi,
Monumenti per servire alia storia del Palazzo Ducale. No. 979;
cf. J. Schulz, "Cristoforo Sorte and the Ducal Palace of
Venice," p. 199. ) Paintings portraying the doge himself,
moreover, were probably neither executed nor conceived until
after his death in 1595. Furthermore, the votive picture of
Doges Girolamao and Lorenzo Priuli can be dated, in all prob
ability, before 1589, since the view of Venice to the left of
the doorway does not show the new prisons (cf. above, p.150 )
and was quite likely the first of the pictures executed by
Palma in this room. For a description of the pictorial cycle
of the Sala del Senato, see Lorenzetti, op. cit.. p. 257ff.
179
After the commissions from the republic, Palma's most
frequent patron was the order of the Crociferi, for whom he
painted cycles in their oratory and in the sacristy of their

94
church, Santa Maria Assunta-{the Gesuiti). These cycles
are among the most important accomplishments of Palma's
career, exhibiting the strongest aspects of his art — as
well as some of the weaker. The first pictures for the
oratory, dealing with the early history of the order (Pigs.

95
50, 54, 55), were commissioned in 1583 and probably com
pleted in 1585.96
94
Palma's relations with the order of the Crociferi
go back to his early, pre-Roman days, when he was allowed
to copy Titian's Martyrdom of St. Lawrence in their church
(cf. above, p. 1 3 8 ) Ridolfi, II, p. 179, specifically
notes the continuing close relations between Palma and the
brothers, "a'quali visse sempre il Palma diuoto, poiche fin
da fanciullo ffc, da quelli hauuto in protettione." His first
commission in Santa Maria Assunta was the altarpiece in the
first chapel on the right, the Custodian Angels, apparently
an early work in style and so mentioned by Ridolfi (II,
p . 183). Palma had also executed pictures for the church of
the Crociferi in Rome, Santa Maria in Trivio (above, note 17),
and at least one of his pupils, Padre Cosimo, a Capuchin
monk, later found work with these "Padri Venetiani" in Rome
(Baglione, Le vite de 1pittori.... p. 161).
95The Institution of the Order of the Crociferi by

Pope Anacletus. Pope Paul IV Receiving the Venetian Ambas
sadors . and the Votive Picture of Doge Renier Zeno, founder
of the oratory. See Lorenzetti, op. cit.. p. 399.
96
For records of payments, see Hadeln's notes to
Ridolfi, II p. 179. These three paintings are dated 1585
by their inscriptions.
180
The oratory itself was founded in the thirteenth
century by Doge Renier Zeno, but its greatest patron was
Pasquale Cicogna, who was elected doge in 1585. The follow
ing year Palma was commissioned to execute three paintings
depicting the acts of the doge: Pasquale Cicogna as a
Senator Attending Mass at the Oratory (Fig. 52), Cicogna
Receiving the News of his Election as Doge, and the Visit of

97
the Doge to the Oratory on Ascension Dav (Pig. 51). The
cycle is completed by pictures of the Flagellation (Fig. 49)

and Entombment (Fig. 56) and, on the ceiling, the Assumption
QO
of the Virgin. The style of the paintings is marked by a
general clarity of form and composition, which may in part
reflect the continuing influence of Central Italian models .®®3
97
Ibid. In Palma's Votive Picture of Doge Pasquale
Cicogna, in the Sala del Senato, the building of the oratory
of the Crociferi stands prominently in the background (Fig.43).
®®I11. in A. Venturi, Storia. IX, 7, fig. 114.

Palma's altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi disappeared
in the early nineteenth century, and in its place is a pic
ture of the same subject by Paris Bordone. See Lorenzetti,
loc.cit.
“The ultimate source for Palma's Flagellation (Fig.

49), for example, is Sebastiano del Piombo's fresco in the
Borgherini Chapel of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome. This
rendition of the theme, with its Michelangelesque central
figure, was particularly popular throughout the sixteenth
century. It is interesting to note that two other Romanized
Venetians used it as a model: Battista Franco (Urbino,
Cathedral; ill. in W.R. Rearick, "Battista Franco and the
Grimani Chapel," Saggi e memorie di storia dell'arte. II, 1959,
181
It may, however, also be accounted for with reference to a
purely Venetian tradition, namely the votive picture with its

99
tableau composition of figures parallel to the picture plane.
Work on the paintings for the sacristy of Santa Maria
Assunta probably began immediately after the completion of
the oratory decorations, around 1589, and continued until

99a.
1593. Like the somewhat smaller cycle in the oratory,
that of the church comprises scenes of the early history of
the order as well as pictures from the Old and. New Testaments
and from the history of the true Cross.
The impressiveness of the canvases in the oratory,
especially those dealing with Pasquale Cicogna, resides
essentially in the immediacy of the portrait figures. These
are the most powerfully realized figures, the most convinc
ingly rendered, and they assure us of Palma's particular gift
fig. 1) and Girolamo Muziano (Orvieto, Museo dell'Opera del

Duomo; ill. in U. da Como, Girolamo Muziano. Bergamo, 1930,
P. 55).
99
For the tableau composition and the votive picture
in Venice, see above, Chapter II, note 24.
^ aIn 1589 Palma received payment for the ceiling

paintings in the sacristy. For this and the dates of the
subsequent pictures, see Hadeln's notes to Ridolfi, II, p.182.
100The central panel of the ceiling is a Fall of Manna

(Fig. 58); the two subordinate paintings depict Elijah
Receiving Bread from the Angel and David Fleeing the Wrath of
Saul. On the walls, in addition to the altarpiece, an
Annunciation, are: The Brazen Serpent (Fig. 59), St. Cletus
for portraiture.1® 1 The heads of these participants are
executed in a very vital manner; there is a certain spark
of life captured here that creates a very definite indivi
dual presence. These are life studies of the various members
of the order; for each of them there probably existed an
original sketch such as the profile head of Padre Giuliano

102
Cirno (Fig. 53), now in the Brera, Milan. This particular
study was used on two occasions s the bearded ancient appears
as one of the Venetian envoys in the Pope Paul IV Receiving
Instituting the Order and its Confirmation by St. Ciriacus

(Fig. 60), St. Helen Discovering the True Cross. The Bnperor
Heraclius Carrying the Cross into Jerusalem, and smaller
canvases of St. Helen and St. Lanfranco. Above the doorway
leading into the sacristy is a picture of the Decapitation
of St. John the Baptist (Fig. 57), and in an adjacent room.
Pope Pius II Giving a Silver Cross to the Order.
1 ®1 Palma's talents as a portrait painter were first

noted and discussed by B. Berenson, "While on Tintoretto,"
in Festschrift fttr Max J. Friedltnder, Leipsig, 1927, p. 224ff.
(reprinted in Italian translation as "Ristudiando Tiziano e
Tintoretto," Arte veneta.I. 1947, p. 22f&). The inclusion of
portrait groups in narrative cycles in the Venetian scuole
goes back to the late Quattrocento: members of the Loredan
family appear in Carpaccio's pictures for the Scuola di Sant*
Orsola^ and the Vendramin family participates in the pictorial
celebration of the miracles of the relic of the cross in the
Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista. For the presence of these
portraits, see P. Pouncey, "The Miraculous Cross 'Vendramin
Family'" Journal cfthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. II.
1938-39, p. 191ff., and S. Sinding-Larsen, "Titian's Madonna
di Ca'Persaro and its Historical Significance," Acta ad Archae-
ologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia.I. 1962, p. 161 ff.
102Oil sketch on paper, 380 x 279 mm. The study has

been variously attributed to Titian, Jacopo Bassano, and to
an anonymous artist of the Venetian School. The attribution
to Palma, secured by the relationship to the Crociferi
the Venetian Ambassadors (Fig. 54) in the oratory and again
as the bishop St. Lanfranco in the Decapitation of St. John
the Baptist (Fig. 57), the picture in the sacristy of Santa

103
Maria Assunta. Whenever they make their appearance,
these sturdy Venetian noblemen lend an air of confidence to

the painting.
While the presence of such dignitaries is natural
and appropriate in the historical pictures, their appear
ance in the purely religious compositions is another matter.
The tone of the Entombment (Fig. 56) for instance, is des
troyed by the presence of the two sixteenth-century
Venetians. It is not merely that they manifestly do not
belong here, or that they stare directly out at the beholder,
rather than participating in the drama around them, but
that they are rendered in an entirely different manner from

104
the rest of the painting. In the portraits Palma's
paintings, is generally accepted now. See E. Tietze-Conrat,

"The Iconography of Michele Sanmichele," Gazette des Beaux-
Arts. XXIX, 1946, p. 378ff.
im
■‘■^He is specifically identified by Ridolfi, II,
p. 181, who also names many of the other portraits appear
ing in these compositions.
104Ridolfi refers to only one of these portraits:

"in persona di Gioseffo & ritratto il Signor Luca Michele
Procurator di San Marco.“ The inclusion of portraits in
religious compositions was an old tradition in Renaissance
painting from the Quattrocento onward (for the beginnings
of the tradition in Venice, see above, note 101). Titian's
Gloria (Madrid, Prado) contains portraits of Bnperor
184
brushwork was deliberate and varied, carefully seeking out
the variety of form and texture that distinguishes and gives
expression to character. In the figures of the religious
groups, however, Palma is working with physiognomic and
anatomical formulas that he had arrived at in the course of
many years' practice; here, in fact, he is working di maniera.
This kind of contradiction is even more disturbing in the
more ambitious compositions such as the Brazen Serpent

(Fig. 59). In this picture the violent movement and broad
areas of light and dark seem to be intruded upon by the
Charles V, his wife Isabella, Philip II, Queen Maria of

Hungary, and Titian himself. These, needless to say, are
completely integrated in the composition, participating in
the general adoration of the Holy Trinity. Pietro Aretino
appears as Pontius Pilate in Titian's Ecce Homo (Vienna,
Kunsthistorische Museum). In his St. Mark Rescuing the Slave.
Tintoretto included himself and, possibly, Aretino in the
crowd of onlookers and, even more conspicuously, added the
figure of Tommaso Rangone, guardian grande of the Scuola di
San Marco, at the left frame. The quintet of contemporary
painters in the center of Veronese's Wedding at Cana (Paris,
Louvre) is quite naturally a part of the general festivities.
Thus, in addition to donor figures and votive paintings,
there was a long tradition of such portraiture in larger com
positions. These examples, however, are marked by the total
integration of the portraits within the larger scheme.
Tintoretto placed himself in the crowd, a participant in the
drama of the picture. Palma's self-portraits usually stare
out at us, self-consciously, as, for example, at the left
frame of his painting of Doge Sebastiano Ziani Mediating
between Pope Alexander III and Otto. Son of Barbarossa.
painted around 1582 (Fig. 37), and in the Adoration of the
Magi, dated 1608,in the Galleria .Estense at Modena (Figs.
97,98). While the self-conscious portrait or self-portrait
in a larger compositional framework is a common motif in
Italian painting, usually serving as a direct link between
the spectator and the picture, Palma's images of himself
185
group of portrait heads attending the scene at the right.104a
This tension between an inclination toward natural
ism — perhaps ultimately deriving from the Bassano — and
working di maniera is generally evident throughout Palma's

career. The meticulous attention he sometimes devoted to
the rendering of the anatomical details of nude figures
often led to the neglect of their satisfactory unification
within the composition. In his earlier works especially
such figures are conspicuous, like the portraits, for the

studied manner of their execution (Pigs. 4, 21). In the
j
later paintings, however, even when they are treated broadly
and in raorq general terms, Palma's figures are isolated by
appear rather surreptitiously. Instead of providing a clear

invitation to the viewer, his face looks out from the midst
of the active crowd, an apparently insignificant and unex
pected intruder. For this topic in general, see L. .
Goldscheider, Five Hundred Self-Portraits. Vienna-London,
1937.
104aIn the context of this discussion we might mention

the contemporaneous example of El Greco; the quartet of
artists in the lower right corner of his Purification of
the Temple (Minneapolis, Institute of Art) is the most
striking addition of a portrait group to a highly activated
composition. In this case, however, the group functions as
a repoussoir element and contributes to the deliberate
tension and wrenching of spatial relationships that charac
terize the style of this painter. Palma's style is hardly
as intense as El Greco's, and he does not use the portrait
group as a conscious stylistic device. Instead of creating
an immediate confrontation between spectator aid subjects,
Palma places these figures in the background, where they
become interruptions in the flow of the action.
186
the very nature of their complex poses {Figs. 59, 91). His
vast machines in the tradition of the grande maniera are
never so successful as Tintoretto's precisely because of
his failure to subordinate the figure to the overall compo
sitional scheme.
Palma's Mannerism, so evident in his taste for
figure serpentinate and for complicated poses in general,
reaches its peak of intensity in his large, ambitious com
positions with — nearly — "migliaia di figure." In this

genre he felt himself the heir to Tintoretto, whose maniera,
however, was based on his imaginative and almost abstract
use of chiaroscuro and on his very free brushwork. With
regard to brushwork, Palma's most interesting achievements
are his portrait studies (Fig. 53). But when it comes to
the execution of the figure in the large compositions, his
brush loses its initiative. He seems satisfied just to
cover the broad expanse of canvas without regard to vary
ing its texture.
Palma's use of chiaroscuro effects is also different
from Tintoretto's. While the older master utilized light
and dark to destroy, in a sense, the formal integrity of
the figure, to impose upon it a new, compositional order,
Palma's chiaroscuro is basically tied to the figure.
Whether the light falls strongly on a torso or limbs (Figs.
74, 8 6 ) or in the background, clearly silhouetting a figure
Is-;-
(Figs. 50, 92), it serves to heighten that isolation of the
human form from the larger composition. Often very dramatic

effects are achieved pigs. 83-85), but these are local;
the overall composition remains an essentially additive one,

less an organic unity than a sum of individual and
separate elements.
As we may imagine, when freed from the context of
the large-scale maniera format, Palma is able to work much
more effectively with these elements of light and shadow.
In his smaller compositions, especially those of religious
themes such as the Dead Christ, (Fig. 79), the suggestive
tone of the chiaroscuro is maintained and not dissipated as
it is in Palma's more monumental efforts. Attention is
focused on the brightly lit figure of Christ, which emerges
from the darker background, and a generally pious mood is
sustained throughout. In these paintings Palma appears to
be participating in the more progressive movements of the
late sixteenth century, reacting against the formulas of
the maniera and aiming for a new immediacy of expression.105
105For the reaction against maniera painting toward

1600 see W. Friedlaender, Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in
Italian Painting. New York, 1957, p. 47ff. Cf. also
R. Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy. 1600-1750.
Harmondsworth, 1958, pp. 1 ff. and 55ff.
188
Tflie maniera, however, is never abandoned or overcome
by Palma, who does not seem to have been completely
conscious of the new spirit. While his use of chiaroscuro
dramatically lights these compositions and focuses upon

their significant figures, the figures themselves are ren
dered di pratica. The sepentine movement of the dead Christ
and the rhetorical poses of the pious mourners are con
structed of the most conventional formulas and rendered in
an unsearching manner (Figs. 76,78,83,84,85). Had Palma
combined with his expressive lighting the kind of approach
we noted in his portraits, a particularly striking picture

might have resulted, and the painter would have claimed an
important place in the creative restlessness of the late
Cinquecento. Such was not the case. The bright lighting
merely throws the standardized figures and comparatively
unsearching rendering into glaring relief. The naturalism
of his portraits remains an isolated phenomenon in Palma's
art; its implications remained unexplored.
His affecting use of chiaroscuro was part of Palma's
Venetian heritage, coming essentially from Tintoretto,.with
contributions from Bassano and the late Titian, The other
part of that heritage, however, the pittura di macchia. was
not particularly developed by Palma. There is an occasion
al passage of very free brushwork, but this is usually
limited to a specific area, a single figure (Fig. 81) or a
189
highlight, for example, on a piece of drapery (Figs. 51,52).
Otherwise,Palma's application of paint remains unexceptional.
Indeed, he was no doubt discouraged from following the
freedom typical of Venetian painting by his neo-Roman concern
with the delineation and plastic definition of the human
form. Anxious to render the figure in a solid manner,
Palma naturally turned away from an excessive freedom of
the brush.
Chiaroscuro transitions in his work are either
smoothly modulated, as we have seen even in his earliest
paintings, or are abrupt, creating sharp contrasts or sil
houettes (Figs. 86,87,100,102). But they are never relieved
by the broken texture of brushwork. Areas of light and of
coJ.or are presented as broad and flat. Even when his use
of color is most interesting, as in the work in the Ducal
Palace (Figs. 30,34,35,37)* the color is firmly related to
the actual forms of things represented, especially draperies,

and is carefully limited to precisely defined areas. Here,
too, Palma sacrificed his Venetian heritage to the respect
for solid form he learned in Rome. In the later part of
his career, in the first decades of the seventeenth century,
Palma devoted increasing attention to the delineation of
solid forms, further simplifying his treatment of light and
shadow and color in favor of a concern with the plastic
rendering of the figure (Figs. 86,104,109).
190
This growing emphasis on disegno is attended by a
definite decline in the quality of Palma's work, a decline
that apparently set in soon after the death of Tintoretto
and Palma's establishment as uncontested head of the

Venetian school of painting in the final years of the six-
106
teenth c e n t u r y . T h i s falling off, as noticed by contem
poraries, was in turn accompanied by an ever greater
productivity. Palma was a prodigious worker and once the

field was free, as Ridolfi writes,
ei soleua nel bel mattino fino & sera, e nel tempo

verno fino alle cinque e sei hore di notte incessan-
temente dipingere, eccitato ancora dall'vtile, che
ne traheua, mandone quantity per varij luoghi dello
stato & altroue.107
106
That freedom from the pressure of competing with
Tintoretto should have been accompanied by such a decline
implies that the very competition had previously sustained
Palma. With Tintoretto's death, a necessary source of
inspiration and, as it were, nourishment was lost to him.
The case of Domenico Tintoretto is even clearer in this
respect; Domenico was completely dependent, it would seem,
upon the presence and support of his father. The difference
in quality between his work of the sixteenth century and
that of the first three decades of the seventeenth is
incredible.
107
Ridolfi, II, p. 189. Ridolfi later notes (p.203)
that Palma "operaua senza alcuna intermittenza, non
hauendo altro per fine, che di occupar ogni luogo, seguendo
in ci& 1'humore del Tintoretto, e per far auuanzi di
ricchezze.o.."
191
During the final three decades of his life, Palma and his
shop were busy fulfilling commissions not only for the
republic and its churches and confraternities, but for
churches and palaces throughout Italy and other parts of

108
Europe. The decorations of the choir of the cathedral
of Salo (Figs. 126-129), for example, commissioned and
begun in 1602, were completed only in 1628, the year of
Palma's death. ^ 9
108
Ridolfi, II, p. 189ff., lists paintings by Palma
outside Venice, including works for the Emperor Rudolf II
in Augsburg and King Sigismund of Poland in Warsaw. Can*
vases by Palma were also to be found in nearly every private
collection, "non vi essendo stato soggetto d'intelligenza,
che non habbia procurato alcuna cosa di questa mano," as
Ridolfi puts it (p. 199). In addition to the lists given
by A. Venturi) Storia, IX,7, p. 263ff.? W. Arslan, in
Thieme-Becker, XXVI, p. 176ff.; and M. Ciampi, "Notizie
storiche riguardanti...Palma il Giovane ;" see K. Prijatelj,
"Le opere del Palma il Giovane e dei manieristi veneziani in
Dalmazia," in Venezia e l'Europa, Venice, 1956, p. 294ff.;
A. Ghidiglia Quintavalle, "Jacopo Palma il Giovane nel: mo-
denese e nel reggiano," Arte veneta, XI, 1957, p. 129ff.;
V. Moschini, "Inediti di Palma il Giovane e compagni," ibid.,
XII, 1958, p. 97ff.; G. Gamulin, "Due dipinti di Palma il
Giovane," Paragone, 115, 1959, p. 50ff.; and idem, "Ritornando
su Palma il Giovane," Arte antica e moderna. 13-16, 1962,
p. 259ff.
109
The final painting, an Annunciation, is signed and
dated 1628, and it is highly probable that the work was
finished by shop assistants. For a documented history of
the commission, in which Palma was assisted by Aliense, see
A.M. Mucchi, II Buomo di Salo. Bologna, 1932, p. 208ff.
192
TJhese late works reveal a continuing use of for
mulas and types fully developed by the end of the sixteenth
century. Like every successful artist, Palma had accumu
lated an individual vocabulary of forms, a collection of

stock figures and compositional solutions. Such an
accumulation of motifs may be attributed in part to the
large-scale operations of workshop production, demanding,
as it did, a strict economy of artistic means; we may thus
explain the repeated use of a single motif in various

110
contexts. In addition, however, we must recall that
this practice endowed a painter with that prontezza which
was so very important a part of Mannerist aesthetics, in

111
Venice as well as in Central Italy. Once conceived, a
figure in dramatic action could be used repeatedly; the
painter always had his original model before him in the
form of a drawing or painted modello. Within the monumental
compositions of the grande maniera. which demanded such
careful consideration of the inter-relationships among the
figures, the re-application of an old formula, however, did
^ ® Q n workshop production in Venice, the creation of

replicas and the re-use of old motifs and compositions, cf.
above, p. 47ff.
^■Ôn the practice and concept of prontezza. see

above, pp. 70 f. andl05£E.
193
112
not always work successfully.
There are indications, though, that in some of his
later works Palma did attempt to counter the Mannerism of
his earlier career. Partly, he tried to accomplish this by
a stricter application to the drawing of the figure and by
consciously turning to models of classical art. The
Parnassus in the gallery at Parma (Fig. 124) clearly
exhibits this late classicizing tendency, as does the
Allegory of War and Peace in Carpi (Fig. 123). Palma has
apparently attempted to slow down, to delineate the figure
with greater care; he has even made use of classical proto
types, the Laocoon and a fleeing Niobid, as sources for the
sorrowful figures at the left of the latter composition.
Nonetheless, the old habits were difficult to break. Despite

the classical precision of their forms, the figures in both
paintings assume typical Mannerist poses; they are similar
to the serpentine types of Palma's earlier work. This
crystallization of form, however, is characteristic of
Palma's activity in the seventeenth century, and we are again
reminded that Palma is a contemporary of the creators of the
Baroque, a point to which we will return.
Although he never lost his position as the leading
112
The drawings preserving specific motifs and
their uses will be discussed below, p. 222 f£.
194
master in Venice, Palma's reputation did suffer because of
his reliance, in effect, upon pratica. In 1619, the poet
Giambattista Marino ordered two small paintings from Palma,

a Venus and Adonis and a Venus and Mars. In a letter of
the following year to his Venetian publisher, Marino
expresses some concern regarding the fulfillment of the
commissions:
Voglio da lui due condizioni.. La prima & diligenza

circa la spedizione, perch6 per ordinario suol esser
tardissimo, ed io ne ho bisogna per alcuni rispetti
molto presto. L'altra fe la perfezione, perchd mi
dicono ch'egli in guesta ultima etS. fa poche cose
buone e che lavora per lo pift a fin di guadagno senza
molto studio. Desidero adungue che i due miei
guadretti non siano strappazzati, ma vi si usi indus-
tria particolare con affezione straordinaria, ben
disegnati e coloriti vagamente, non solo per mio inter-
esse ma per onor suo, poichd hanno da comparire tra
parecchie fatiche d 1altri valentuomini avertendo ch'io
voglio le figure intiere, proporzionate per6 alia
piccolezza de'guadri.113
Marino's fears were apparently j u s t i f i e d , a n d while
Palma's problems were perhaps in part those of age, they
were also the result of a long career of working di maniera.
113
Printed in G. Marino, Epis tolar io, ed. A. Borzelli
and P. Nicolini, I, Bari, 1911, NO. . C L l l l , p. 267f. The
two paintings ordered by Marino correspond to those des
cribed by him in his Galeria. first published in 1619. It
is clear that the ekphrases preceded the pictures, which were
evidently ordered to fit the literary descriptions. C£. La
Galeria del Cavalier Marino distinta in pittvre. & sculture.
2nd ed.,. Venice, 1620, p. 13 ("Venere in atto di disuelarsi
a Marti. Di Giacomo Palma") and p. 15 ("Adone che dorme in
grembo a Venere. di Giacomo Palma"). On Marino, see G.
Ackerman, "Gian Battista Marino's Contribution to Seicento
Art Theory," Art Bulletin. XLIII, 1961, p. 326ff.
1 1 4 0ne of the paintings was finally delivered in
195
We have tried in the preceding pages to define some
of the more prominent aspects of Palma's art without, how
ever, offering a complete survey of his work. That, we
feel, would have merely offered repetitive documentation for
our observations. It has been necessary to investigate the
conditions of Palma's early training with its non-Venetian
orientation and to establish his relationship to his
Venetian predecessors. Against this background, the devel
opment of his drawing style, techniques, and methods will
be more comprehensible, as will the changes that occur in
Venetian art, and especially in drawing,at the end of the
sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth, changes
in which Palma plays a leading role.
1621, after much epistolary distress on the part of Marino.

Of this work the poet writes, "il quadro del Palma, il qual
da coloro che se n'intendono non fe stato ritrovato delle
miglior cose ch'egli abbia fatte, n£ corrisponde all'altre
opere sue; e ben si vede che con gli anni ha perduta gran
parte di quella sua maniera leggiadra e graziosa. Di grazia
di cib non ne fate molto alcuno, anzi ringraziatelo da mia
parte, sollecitando la spedizione dell'altro, e vedete di
cavarglilo di raano quanto prima " (Epistolario. No. CLXXVI,
p. 301). Neither of these paintings can now be identified.
Palma's close relations with Marino are further documented
by Ridolfi (II, p. 203), who mentions that the poet was
frequently a visitor to Palma's house, and by a drawing in
the British Museum (Fig. 305), representing the crowikijQB°f
a poet by Apollo and the Muses. On the book held by the
poet is inscribed, "II Marini poetta ill.stre." The draw
ing was probably executed in 1606-07, on the occasion of
Marino's visit to Venice.
196
Palma as Draughtsman
Of all the Venetian painters of the sixteenth
century, Palma Giovane was the most prolific draughtsman.
Modern scholarship has put together a graphic corpus of
over a -thousand sheets by him. Serious study of these
drawings dates from 1926, when Hadeln included seven draw
ings by Palma in his volume of Venetian drawings of the

115
late Renaissance. In the same year, Walther Heil, in
the first extensive investigation of Palma's draughtsman
ship, published and discussed several of the 475 drawings
collected in the two albums now in the Munich Graphische

116
Sammlung. The firmest foundation for a knowledge of
Palma's graphic legacy, however, was laid by the Tietzes
in their indispensable volume on Venetian drawings of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; their catalogue, in
which over 500 items are discussed, remains the most

117
important and still basic work on Palma's drawings.
„ •
L15D. von Hadeln, Venezianische Zeichnungen der
Spalfcrjtejntaissance. Berlin, 1926, pis. 93-99.
Heil, "Palma Giovane als Zeichner, "

Jahrbuch der preuszischen Runstsammlungen. XLVII. 1926,
p. 58ff.
117
Tietzes, Drawings. p. 193ff., Cat. Nos. 821-1252.
The most recent contribution to Palma studies was the
important exhibition of drawings in the Gabinetto disegni e
stampe of the UffizisAJTorlani, Mostra di disegni di Jacopo
Palma il Giovane. Florence, 1958.
197
In order to establish a clear idea of Palma's style,

it was first necessary to distinguish the many drawings by
him that were hidden under attributions to other masters.
This work, a kind of by-product of the studies of the draw
ings of Titian and Tintoretto, was initiated by Hadeln and
continued and expanded by the Tietzes. The generally vague

idea of Titian's late graphic style was responsible for
considerable confusion? in an attempt to fill the hiatus of
that master's final years, many drawings subsequently

Tig
recognized as Palma's were erroneously attributed to Titian.
The confusion with Tintoretto was the result of a willing
ness to accept as the work of that artist any Venetian
drawing of a figure in a strained pose and executed in a
118
The outstanding example of this confusion is a
drawing in Berlin (T.831). A charcoal drawing of the
Magdalen kneeling at the foot of the cross, it was ascribed
to Titian until E. Tietze-Conrat ("Two Drawings by Palma
Giovane," Old Master Drawings.XI, 1936-37, p. 21£f.) demon
strated its connection with Palma's small Crucifixion in the
Ca'd'Qro. (The drawing is illustrated in ibid.. pi. 19, and
Tietzes, Drawings. pi. CLXX,l;for the painting, see
A. Venturi, Storia. IX,7, fig. 117.) The Tietzes (Drawings.
p. 195) succinctly sum up the situation regarding this kind
of contusion: "Part of Titian's very late style is revived
in Palma's hasty rdutine work. „ If isolated and regarded as
by Titian, the drawing £b. 1180/ assumes qualities which it
loses at the very moment it is again absorbed into the mass
of drawings by Palma. What might be considered a contempt
for details in a work by Titian from his oldest age becomes
superficial routine in one by Palma."
198
rapid manner.119
As with his paintings, the major problems concerning
Palma's drawings involve his early work, especially with
regard to the impact of his Roman training and the influence
of the great Venetian painters after 1570. The earliest
drawing attributable to Palma is a sheet in the collection
of the Morgan Library (Fig. 136), a study in black and red
chalks of a young man seated and reading; the drawing con
tains an inscription that identifies the subject as Matteo
p£rez da Lecce, a Spanish painter and follower of
Michelangelo and Francesco Salviati, and dates the drawing

120
in Rome, 1568. The sheet was discussed by Heil as Palma's
119
Here, too, the attributions were corrected only
by establishing definite relationships between such draw
ings and documented paintings by Palma. Several drawings
used in Palma's earliest Tintorettesque compositions in
San Giacomo dell'Orio form a key group in this category
(cf. below, p. 203ff.)# Also erroneously ascribed to
Tintoretto are some sheets of pen sketches of figures in
violent action (Figs. 189,190). Cf. a similar sheet in
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where it is correctly
attributed to Palma (Fig. 191).
120
The inscription in Palma1s hand, reads# "Matteo
da Leze pitor in Roma nel 1568 /jja another inJ/ qvxal morse
poi nel Peru & campagno di Jacomo Palma carissimo." Heil,
"Palma Giovane als Zeichner," p. 66, note 1, read the
problematic word as "peste." The Tietzes* reading of it as
"Peru" is, however, undoubtedly correct, since P£rez is
indeed last heard of in Lima. See J. Herrtandez Diaz, in
Thieme-Becker, XXVI, 1932, p. 409f. While the first part
of the inscription is a notation contemporary with the
execution of the drawing, the second part was probably added
by the artist at a later date, after learning of the death
or disappearance of P&rez.
199
121 122
earliest drawing and accepted as such by Arslan.
123
This attribution, however, was rejected by the Tietzes,
"in view of the typical Roman linework...hardly consistent

with Palma's well known manner of drawing." But Roman line-
work is exactly what we should expect of Palma at this
moment; it was in order to acquire just such skill in draw-

124
ing that he went to Rome in 1567. The draughtsmanship
of the Morgan sheet, with its closed contours and parallel
hatching, placing the emphasis on plastic solidity of form,

125
certainly confirms its Roman execution. The apparent
121Heil, op.cit.. p. 65.

122
W. Arslan, m Thieme-Becker, XXVI, 1932, p. 176.
123T.A1045.
•*■24cf. above, p. f.
■^-^More specifically, the drawing can be associated

with the graphic style of the brothers Zuccaro; both of
them often used this mixed chalk technique and achieved a
kind of pictorial softening of form by means of broad areas
of parallel hatching. A relationship to Federico Zuccaro
has already been noted in Palma's painting (above, notes 88ff
92a), and this relationship can be further documented with
reference to the subject of Palma's Morgan drawing, Matteo
da Lecce, whose style of painting is quite Zuccaresque. The
apse frescoes in S. Eligio degli Orefici in Rome, for example,
have been attributed to Matteo (cf. GUida d'Italia del
Touring Club Italiano, Roma e d'intii&l, Milan, 1962, p. 243),
although he executed only the exterior decorations; the
interior frescoes were painted by Federico Zuccaro. (:*
-■ 7 ..............
200
hesitancy of the touch’and unsureness of the distribution
of weight indicate that the drawing is the work of a young
hand. Hie evidence of the inscription must also be consi
dered. Hie handwriting is almost certainly Palma's own;

126
the signature of the artist especially appears autograph.
Hie verso of this drawing (Figs. 137,138), hitherto
overlooked, is even more interesting, particularly with
regard to Palma's interests in Rome. Hie drawing is a
carefully executed black chalk study of a male torso, seen

from the rear and with arms extended, a copy of a figure
in Daniele da Volterra's Descent from the Cross in TrinitS.

127
del Monti. Hie drawing presents us with the first
126
Cf. C. Pini and G. Milanesi, La scrittura di
artisti italiani. Ill, Florence, 1876, p. 276„ T#ie Tietzes
did not discuss the handwriting; its ascription to Palma
is dismissed by Forlani, Uffizi Mostra. p. 5, though she
gives no reasons beyond citing the Tietzes' rejection. In
a note on the mount, Bernard Berenson also rejected the
attribution of the drawing to Palma.
Ân inscription at the bottom of the sheet identi

fies the subject as "D. da Volterra's Descent...." It is
apparently in the handwriting of William Sharpe, through
whose collection the drawing passed (Lugt, 2650). For the
important position of Daniele*s composition in the late
sixteenth century, see E. Male, L'art religieux aprfes le
Concile de Trent. Paris, 1932, p. 280.
201
document of Palma's concern with Roman figure design. Here,
the young Venetian has laboriously attempted to render the

intricate pattern of straining muscles of the back in a
rather tight system of hatching. The admittedly awkward
result of the artist's intense effort and the tendency

toward a somewhat looser handling of the chalk at certain
points — e.g., the head and the draperies — all point to
Palma's authorship of the study. Furthermore, given the
related evidence of the recto, we are encouraged to accept
this drawing as Palma's earliest known figure study.
In the Uffizi exhibition of Palma drawings, a further
attempt was made to clarify the artist's first style, the

128
manner of drawing formed in the Roman milieu. Two of
the four sheets tentatively ascribed by Forlani to the
years before 1570 bear old attributions to Palma. Examin
ing these drawings with a retrospective knowledge of the
artist's subsequent stylistic development, we can indeed
find in them indications of Palma's own touch. Although he
is attempting to work in a Roman idiom, modelling the
figure through a network of hatching and cross-hatching in

129
a manner that ultimately derives from Michelangelo,
128UffiZi MoSt;:ra> Cat. Nos. 1-4.
l^cf. ibid.,Cat. No. 4, fig. 3, a drawing formerly

attributed to Bandinelli and bearing the inscription, "di
Baccio Bandinelli o dell*Ammannato." In contrast to Palma's
202
Palma's calligraphy remains, in comparison to Roman examples,
loose and open. Beneath the veneer of Roman diseano, of

Sculptural drawing in the Bandinelli manner, may be found'
*
the broken touch of Venetian drawing (Fig. 139). The
investigation of the human form in these studies is hardly
as intense and its definition scarcely as precise as. might
be expected of a Roman draughtsman. Furthermore, in certain
details — as, for example, the rendering of hair or the
summary notation of a hand — we find convincing parallels
with Palma's documented later style. The Uffizi drawings
may thus be accepted as additional examples of Palma's
Roman activity, confirmation of the reports of Borghini and

130
Ridolfi that, when in Rome, Palma concentrated on drawing.
earliest chalk drawings (e.g., ibid., Cat. No. 2, fig. 2),

the style of the pen studies, it is interesting to note,
reveals less dependence upon the example of Taddeo and
Federico Zuccaro. The young Palma appears to have been
concentrating on the sculptural realization of the solid form
of the figure and, with this end in mind, he may well have
found the Zuccaresque pen line too mannered. The decorative
linear flourish, that informed the pen drawings of the Zuccaro
and of manysother late sixteenth-century draughtsman, north-
eners as well as Italians, apparently had little appeal to
Palma.
130
Ridolfi, II, p. 173, adds that many of Palma's
early drawings, the copies after ancient and modern Roman
works, were owned in the seventeenth century by one of the
painter's pupils, Jacopo Albarelli. Only one sheet after
Michelangelo is now known (T. 1041), a copy of the Prophet
Jonah on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The drawing
was published by B. von Liphart-Rathshof, "Eine venezianische
Zeichnung nach einem Michelangelomotiv bezeichnet 'Domencio
Greco'," Zeitschrift fflr bildende Kunst, LXIV, 1930/31,
p. 68, ill. on p. 70. It is, however, in Palma's late style,
ca>1615, and cannot be associated with the artist's early
period in Rome. Also in Palma's late manner is a drawing
,r*
i
203
It is likely then that Palma's Roman training was
fairly thorough and that he returned to Venice schooled in
foreign ways, The transition from Michelangelo to Titian
was as radical a change as was conceivable!. Unfortunately

it is difficult to document with any certainty Palma's
graphic style in the very first years of the 1570's.
Whether he gradually adapted his draughtsmanship to his new

Venetian surroundings or performed a sudden stylistic volte
face is hard to say. Although he never completely abandoned
Roman values, as we shall see, it is nevertheless certain
that by 1575 Palma had sworn a new allegiance to the
Venetian manner, as both his paintings and drawings testify.
Many of the early drawings, datable in the mid and late
'seventies, and especially those executed in black chalk,
have been found under the names of Titian130a and
Tintoretto, and this confusion itself is an indication of
the degree to which Palma was reassimilated.
The earliest securely dated chalk drawings of Palma's
Venetian career are those that can be connected with the
paintings in San Giacomo dell'Qrio of 1575. Two studies
after a figure in Raphael's Fire in the Borgo (Fig. 313).

These drawings may nonetheless reflect earlier studies,
copies of Michelangelo and Raphael made before 1570.
130acf. above, note 118.
■V
204
for single figures, one for the central female figure in

131
the Passover Feast, the other for one of the male nudes
in the Gathering of Manna (Pig. 143), were ascribed to
Tintoretto until they were identified by the Tietzes,
These drawings, and two others used for the Martyrdom of
St, Lawrence (Pig. 142), also in San Giacomo dell'Qrio,132
provide the basis for our knowledge of Palma's chalk style

around 1575 and shortly thereafter.
The most interesting material from this period is

found in a dismembered album of drawings now in the
133
Accademia Carrara, Bergamo (Pigs. 144-168), This volume
131London, Collection Sir Robert Witt, No. 2495

(T. 1018); ill, in Tietzes, Drawings, pi. CLXXI,1.
132Darmstadt, Kupferstichkabinett (T. 883). This

charcoal study of a man with a shovel was originally pub
lished by Hadeln under Tintoretto's name (Zeichnungen des
Giacomo Tintoretto. Berlin, 1922, pi. 67). Copenhagen,
Robberstiksamling (T. 882), a study for the figure carrying
a bundle of wood, still catalogued as "anonymous Venetian."
133Bergamo, Accademia Carrara, Nos. 801-861, approx.

305 x 195 mm. The individual pages of the album were in
ruinous condition, eaten away by mould, and have been
recently restored through plastic lamination by the
Xnstituto per la Patologia del Libro in Rome. The album
was briefly discussed and several of its sheets published
in C.L. Ragghianti and L. Ragghianti Collobi, Disegni dell'
Accademia Carrara di Bergamo. Venice, 1962, p. 44f., and
C.L. Ragghianti, Antichi disegni e starope dell'Accademia
Carrara di Bergamo. Milan, 1963, p. 26ff. Pull publication
of the album is being planned as part of the series,
Monuments Bergomensia.
o
205
contains studies by Palma from a male model and can be
securely dated around 1575 on stylistic grounds as well as
on the basis of a connection of several of the drawings

134
with the San Giacomo compositions. Ridolfi, in this
particular case, throws an interesting light on both the
paintings and the drawings, telling us that for the large
canvases in the sacristy, Palma made many life studies from

his pupil, Girolamo Gambarato, who, in return for his model
ling services, was allowed then to copy each of the master's

135
drawings. T3ie Bergamo album and many of the stylisti
cally related loose sheets are no doubt the records of these
particular studio sessions. In this manner, Palma built up
a stock of figure studies which served him not only for
134For example. No. 825 (Pig. 144), which repeats

the same pose as the drawing in Dresden (Fig. 143), used
in the Gathering of Manna (Pig. 11).' Other studies in the
Bergamo album, though not precisely corresponding to figures
in the painted compositions, exhibit poses found in those
pictures, £?:awn, Jôwever, from different points of view
(No. 841 ^Fig. 1 6 # ).
135Ridolfi, II, p. 174: "...la sommersione di

Faraone, & il cader della manna e delle conturnici nel
deserto, e qul forlfb alcune belle donne con braccia e gambe
scoperte, e molti ignudi, che le raccolgnono, guali trasse
dal Gambarato Pittore, che seco conuersaua, contentando-pi
quegli seruigli per modello, con patto di voler vna copia
di ciascun disegno, che'egli faceua...."
the immediate project at hand but for future commissions as
136
well. The Bergamo album, for example, contains studies
137
used in the early Descent into Limbo and in the later
composition of the Twelve-Thousand Receiving the Sign of
the Cross in the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista

(Fig. 157).138
136
Bearing in mind the importance of such a stock of
drawings for production in general, we understand that
Gambarato, the model, thus gained as much as Palma.
805, for the fleeing figure at the extreme

right of the composition (cf. Ragghianti, op.cit.. Cat. No.
206). If this particular drawing was made expressly for
the Descent into Limbo, then either the album in general
must be dated nearly two years before the San Giacomo com
mission or Borghini's dating of the painting (cf. above
P.154 ) must be questioned. Considering the evidence re
lating these drawings to the San Giacomo cycle, the latter
alternative seems preferable.
138
No. 835, for the kneeling figure with his arms
piously crossed at the right of the painting. Another of
the studies in the Bergamo album, NO. 840 (Fig. 161), was
used as a St. Jerome in a later painting (Fig. 68), perhaps
ca. 1585. (I am familiar with this work only through a
photograph in the Istituto di Storia dell'Arte of the
Fondazione Cini, Venice, and have not seen the original,
the present location of which is unknown to me.)
Thus, within five jiars of his return from Rome,
Palma's style had developed in a rather Venetian manner.
His very free use of the chalk, its rapid strokes and broken
touches, indicates, as we have said, the degree of Palma's

139
reassimilation. He has obviously looked to Tintoretto
in drawing as well as painting in these years and the early
misattribution of such drawings to the older master is under'

139a
standable. Despite the superficial resemblance to
139Degenhart, "Zur Graphologie der Handzeichnung,,"

Kunstgeschichtliches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana.
I, 1937, p. 318f., had refused to accept Palma as a Venetian,
insisting that he was of Bergamasque descent and that, con
sequently, his style of drawing was un-Venetian. However,
as the Tietzes pointed out in their criticism of his approach
(Drawings, p. 196f.), Degenhart based his comments exclu
sively on Palma's pen drawings. Trapped, in a sense, by
his own theory, he was forced to reject the attribution to
Palma>of a typical oil sketch (T. 900), preferring an attri
bution to a "pure" Venetian, such as Tintoretto: "Palma war
zwar in Venedig geboren, abstammungsmdssing jedoch
Bergaxnaskei" (op. cit.. p. 275, note 95).
139a
An interesting document regarding Palma's
relation to Tintoretto's draughtsmanship is provided by a
drawing (1,213) in one of the albums of Palma's drawings in
the Graphische Sammlung in Munich. The recto of this sheet,
which measures 307 x 220 mm., contains a rather tight char
coal drawing of a woman walking and carrying a bucket (Fig.
185). The drawing itself is of extremely poor quality and
must be ascribed to a pupil, who may have been copying from
a drawing by the master, a study perhaps for the similar
figure that appears, slightly modified, in the Gathering of
Manna in S. Giacomo dell'Qrio (Fig. 11). The verso drawing
of a male nude leaning forward, foreshortened, and carrying
a heavy pole (Fig. 186) is, however, by Palma; it is executed
in brush and brown oil paint over black chalk and has been
squared. The rendering of the figure in short, curved
strokes, the general shorthand notation, and the pose itself,
are directly derived from Tintoretto. The figure may indeed
208
Tintoretto's style, however, Palma's attitude and approach
are quite different. In his figure studies Tintoretto is
interested essentially in the problem of pose and movement.
The cursive, broken chalk strokes only hint at the anatomical
form, the final definition of which was left to the brush.
Palma instead seems to approach the figure more deliberately,

accepting the figure itself as the primary problem and
attempting to render its solid form and musculature in a
fairly precise way. The technique and the medium may be
Venetian, but the attitude reminds us of his Roman back
ground. Tintoretto's drawings are clearly preparatory,
clarifications of ideas for a painted composition. Palma's
have been executed by some member of the Tintoretto shop

and the sheet then somehow acquired by Palma, but the broad
proportions and the emphasis upon the musculature make the
attribution to -Palma himself more plausible. The drawing
would thus provide the closest example of Tintoretto's
influence; perhaps it is even a copy from some work of that
master. Another sheet, in Bergamo although not part of the
album, is a drawing after Michelangelo's sculptural group
of Samson slaying a Philistine (Pig. 171). The style of
the drawing is very closely modelled on Tintoretto's
draughtsmanship, but it is certainly not the hand of that
master. Rather, we are witnessing an attempt by Palma to
imitate Tintoretto's manner and the looseness of both the
calligraphy and the conception of form would seem to indi
cate that Palma was working not from the sculptural group
itself, but from a drawing of it by Tintoretto (cf. T. 1559).
(This particular group was a favorite model for late six
teenth century painters in Rome and appears, e.g., in Daniele
da Volterra's composition of the Massacre of the Innocents
in Trinity dei Monti £ ill. in A. Venturi, Storia. IX,6,
fig. 1533, another, smaller version of which is in the
Uffizi^ ibid.. fig. 149].) Still another interesting example
of Palma working in a very definite Tintorettesque idiom is
209
however, are figure studies, complete in themselves,
directed less toward their particular compositional function
in a painting than toward the delineation of the human form
in drawing, This kind of narrowly directed and almost
exclusive concentration on the figure leads to that parti
cular isolation of bodies within his compositions that we

13Sto
have observed in Palma's paintings.
It has also been observed that Palma's painting was
characterized by a tension between his native Venetian and
acquired Roman heritages, and this tension is even more
pronounced in his drawings, Hie general Venetian approach
to drawing was inadequate for the close investigation of
the human form, the main concern of Roman disegno, and
Palma, in effect, adopts Tintoretto's means toward Roman
ends. The chalk drawings of the first decade of his Venetian
career record a kind of vacillation between these two poles.
Hie Venetian characteristics are more marked in studies of
the clothed figure, where the artist's interest is focused
a drawing of the Archangel Michael in the British Museum

(Fig. 187), executed in brush and heightened with white.
Here too, although the sheet bears an inscription, "Jacomo
Tentoret," the massive proportions and the attention to
anatomical detail certify the attribution to Palma.
139toCf. p# 175f.
210
on the outer garments rather than on the underlying nude
figure (Figs. 177,180). The difficulty of satisfying the
demands of disegno with the broken touches of the Venetian
chalk style, however, are especially apparent in Palma's
more anatomical figure studies. This disegno di tocco
allows a kind of approximation in light and dark of the
actual structure of, say, the human torso. Palma succeeds
in forcing the style, as it were, adapting it for the task
of rendering the solidity of the body. Rarely, however,
does he manage to render completely in this medium the
more intricate forms of hands aid feet. Rather, he contents
himself with a kind of brief notation of these extremities

(Figs. 175,176), a shorthand approach learned from
Tintoretto.140
Pen and ink was a medium little favored by most
Venetian masters of the late Cinquecento. The extant pen
drawings by Titian date, for the most part, from his earlier
years. Tintoretto and Jacopo Bassano clearly preferred to
use chalk or the brush. Ohly Veronese, of the major
painters, had employed the pen extensively, developing a

141
personal, flowing calligraphy. Palma most likely learned
140A drawing like the Uffizi study of a male figure

with his arm raised (Fig. 179) provides something of an
exception to the above observations. In this case the use
of a relatively bold and unbroken contour and the broad
application of chalk in the shaded areas effect a solidity
of form that is rare in Palma's chalk drawings.
141 On Veronese's pen drawings, see above, p. 4-Off.
211
to use the pen during his years in Rome, acquiring a style
based on the almost sculptural approach of that Roman
draughtsmanship inspired by Michelangelo. Even in Rome,

however, we have observed that his style was rather looser
than the pure Roman manner« Tbe few examples of his early
pen style are figure studies. Back in Venice Palma turned
to chalk for such tasks; the pen, instead, was preferred
for developing compositional ideas.
Ehe earliest such sketch is a study for the painting,
now in Dresden, of the Arrival of Henry III in Venice.
which gives us some idea of Palma's style around 1574/75

142
(Pig, 140)• A taste for parallel hatching is still
evident, though it here serves a different end; rather than
defining only the solidity of form, hatching is applied
freely to establish in a general way the distribution of
light and dark. A certain freedom in the pen line is also
exhibited, especially in the repoussoir group in the lower
left corner. Nevertheless, there is something tentative
and hesitant in this sheet, perhaps owing to the restrictions
of contemporary subject and costume, as well as to the
142vienna, Albertina, Inv. 1696 (T. 1202), TSie

relationship to the painting was first recognized by Hadeln,
Spfltrenalssance. p. 22, pi. 95. Cf. 0. Benesch, Disegni
veneti dell'Albertina di Vienna. Venice 1961, Cat. No. 61.
212
function of the drawing as a preliminary sketch.143
A more fully developed but still early penmanship
marks one of the compositional sketches (Pig. 182) for the
Martyrdom of St. Lawrence in San Giacomo dell'Qrio, painted
ca. 1575/80o The character of Palma's style is easier to
read in this drawing, in which the subject is obviously
more congenial to him and where he can recall the many
hours of his youth spent in front of Titian's canvas of
the same theme in the Gesuiti. His pen swings freely over
the sheet, seeking to establish the forms of-the figures,
and the wash is applied to reinforce and give solidity to
these forms.
Because Palma obviously found the pen a natural
medium of graphic expression, he must certainly have been
aware of the example of Veronese's drawing. Such an aware
ness is documented by several drawings in the scrapbooks in

144
Munich, which reveal compositional as well as stylistic
143close to the Albertina drawing in style is a pen

sketch of an abduction scene in the Museo Civico of Bassano.
See L. Magagnato, Catalogo della roostra di disegni del
Museo Civico di Bassano. Venice, 1956, Cat. No. 10.
144The two albums of drawings are in eighteenth-

century bindings; the title-page reads, "Disegni del Palma"
and the first volume contains a dedication to Palma fol
lowed by a sonnet in his honor, a pun upon the name, prob
ably written in the early Cinquecento and originally meant
for Palma Vecchio. The text of the sonnet was published
by Heil ("Palma Giovane als Zeichner," p. 61, note 1), who
first called attention to the albums. The Tietzes (T. 1037^
213
affinities to Veronese (Figs. 192-195). One sketch, of
the Agony in the Garden (Figs. 192), for instance, is
surely based upon Veronese's small composition in the

145
Brera, and another, of the Baptism of Christ (Fig. 194),
with its composition structured by diagonal trees, is

146
reminiscent of Veronese's treatment of the subject. In
the first of these sketches the very flowing quality of
the line and the figure types at first may seem foreign
to Palma and distant from our general idea of his penman
ship. The drawing of the Baptism, however, is easier to
discussed the material at greater length, The collection

itself undoubtedly can be traced back to Palma's workshop,
and, although the bulk of the drawings is by the master,
others are certainly by followers, especially since some
of the sheets bear dates well into the seventeenth century.
Most of the 475 drawings, however, remain unpublished.
145
R. Pallucchini, Mostra di Paolo Veronese. Venice,
1939, Cat. No. 65. The painting was originally in the
church of Santa Maria Maggiore, and a modified version of
the composition hangs in the Ducal Palace.
146
Cf. the large composition in the Brera (ibid..
Cat. No. 82). The canvas was painted for San Nicolft ai
Frari, for which Palma executed his very early Descent of
Christ into Limbo. Cf. above, p. 154 •
place within Palma's own style, the shorter strokes and
broken touches being a part of his draughtsmanship to which
we shall later return. And when we look again at the draw
ing of the Agony in the Garden, these same elements become
apparent, and the attribution to Palma becomes more

147
obvious. We conclude, then, that in the 'seventies
Palma became aware of Veronese's drawing as well as his
painting and that his own pen style owes a great deal to
, ,148
this example.
147L. Frdhlich-Bum, "Uhbekannte Zeichnungen des

Paolo Veronese," Mflnchner Jahrbuch ftir bildenden Kunst. N.P.
VI, 1929, p. Iff., attempted to isolate a number of the
drawings in the Munich albums and attribute them to
Veronese. Her results were justly rejected both by Piocco
(Paolo Veronese. Rome, 1934, p. 83) and by the Tietzes
(loc. cit.).
The verso of one of the drawings. I, 120, was pub
lished by Suida, "Studien zu Bassano," Belvedere, XII,
1934-36, p. 197f., note 2, as by Antonio Palma. While this
is difficult to substantiate, given the lack of material
for comparison* the drawing is definitely the work of an
earlier generation and is indeed close to the style of
Bonifazio and, considering its presence among drawings from
the shop of Palma Giovane, the attribution is plausible.
The recto contains a pen sketch of Christ and the Children
(?) in the free style of Palma's earliest Venetian manner
just discussed.
148
It was in 1575, we recall, that Palma used
Veronese as a model for the ceiling panel in the sacristy
of San Giacomo dell'Qrio. See above, p. 156.
215
Moreover, in Palma's handling of wash the influence
of Veronese was probably strengthened by the young painter's
close association with Alessandro Vittoria, through whom
Palma may well have become familiar with the source of this
kind of draughtsmanship, Parmigianino. The drawings of the
Parmesan master were quite influential in the development
of Veronese's own style, and Vittoria owned a large group

149
of such sheets. What little we know of the drawing
style of the sculptor himseE indicates that Vittoria may
also have exercised a personal influence on Palma, rein-

150
forcing his taste for a free pen and wash technique.
149See above. Chapter I, p. 41 £• and note 85.

Palma was a witness on September 10, 1581, when Vittoria
acquired a second set of drawings "di roan dil Excell.mo
Francesco Par.no et altri valenomini." See R. Predelli,
"Le memorie e le carte di Alessandro Vittoria, 11
Archivio trentino. XXIII, 1908, p. 136.
150cf. m . Muraro, Mostra di diseoni veneziani del

Sei e Settecento. Florence, 1953, Cat. No. 17, fig. 14,
for a pen and wash drawing of an allegorical figure attri
buted to Vittoria. Although the sheet bears an old
inscription assigning the drawing to the sculptor, the
attribution is by no means certain. Mention should also be
made, however, of the practice of a crisp pen and wash
technique in the Zuccaro circle in Rome. Although we have
no Roman drawings by Palma to document his awareness of
this manner of drawing, he probably saw and studied such
sheets.
w 216
As his style developed, however, and as he abandoned
the eclectic search of his first years in Venice, the
êffects for which Palma strove in his drawings as well as
the forms he employed indicate the growing and dominant
influence of Tintoretto. In a sheet of preparatory

151
sketches for the Deposition in San Giacomo dell'Qrio,
the elongated figures straining in an exaggerated manner
are clearly influenced by Tintoretto. Furthermore, as
Palma learned to apply areas of wash more dramatically, he
was able to establish that overall patterning of chiaroscuro

more securely in his drawings than in his paintings, A
compositional sketch for the Brazen Serpent in the sacristy
of Santa Maria Assunta illustrates this manner of crisp

152
rendering (Fig. 199), The broad, flat areas of dark
and the active interplay of wash and white paper in certain
groups turn the surface into an interesting aid. sparkling
design; the success of the drawing is owed also to the
economy of the execution.
While Veronese may have given Palma a Venetian pre
cedent for drawing in pen and wash and may have had an
^Florence, Uffizi, No, 12855F (T. 914). Uffizi

Mostra. Cat. No. 28, fig. 14.
1 5 2^6 drawing was attributed to Tintoretto until

Hadeln, Spfltrenaissance. p. 21, pi, 97, recognized it as
Palma.
"I
217
initial influence on the development of his style, Palma
further developed this technique in a personal-minnor,
striving for graphically dramatic effects through chiaro-r
scurOo In the washed pen drawings, the most successful of
which date from the final two decades of the sixteenth
century, Palma applies and extends the lessons learned
from the art of Tintoretto in a way he somehow never could
in his paintings. Here he makes his most powerful and ori
ginal artistic statements, whether he creates an active
maniera composition (Pigs. 199,221), or strikes a quieter,
more pathetic tone (Pigs. 188,209,229). Executed in pen
and brush and sometimes heightened with white, these
drawings display an intensity of feeling arrived at through
a deep and varied chiaroscuro, an intensity that is main
tained throughout the limited area of the sheet. It is in
such drawings rather than in his paintings that Palma lives

up to his great heritage and, for a moment, at least, seems
about to lead Venetian art into new realms, into the
dramatic arena of the Baroque.
This group of drawings leads us to another, the

modelli. drawings of full compositions executed for the
most part in charcoal and monochrome tempera or oil paint
(Figs. 214*215,217,219,220). The aesthetic effect of these
sheets also depends upon the chiaroscuro, but the texture
is naturally richer. Such oil sketches are part of Palma's
L Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
218
specifically Venetian heritage; his designs, however, are
not usually freely and directly brushed onto the paper —
as are the many similar sketches by Domenico Tintoretto,
who found this medium the easiest and most natural means
153
of graphic expression. Rather, the composition is often
first drawn in black chalk or charcoal and then painted
over, the modelling and chiaroscuro being quite thoroughly
developed in some cases. While some of these sheets must
have functioned as simile drawings, preserving the solution
of an often-used motif (Pig. 216), most of the sketches,

154
as well as others executed on canvas, usually served
153The large collection of oil sketches by Domenico

Tintoretto in the British Museum was originally published
by S. Colvin, "Tintoretto at the British Museum,"
Burlington Magazine. XVI, 1909-10, pp. 189ff., 254ff., who
attributed them to Jacopo. This attribution was rejected
by Hadeln, Spfltrenaissance. p. 25ff. He ascribed them to
Domenico and his judgment was confirmed by R. Tozzi,
"Disegni di Domenico Tintoretto," Bollettino d 1arte.XXXI.
1937, p. 19ff; cf. also Tietzes, Drawings, p. 263ff.
(T. 1526). For the general character of Domenico as a
draughtsman, see Tozzi, op.cit.. and Tietzes, op.cit..
p. 256ff .
154
Cf. the monochrome bozzetto of the Martyrdom of
St. Peter in the Accademia, Venice (S. Moschini Marconi,
Gallerie. II, Cat. No. 249); also, L. Becherucci, Mostra
dei bozzetti. Florence, 1953, Cat. No. 78.
1
219
either as bozzetti to be entered in competition or as

models to be submitted for a patron's approval.1^
This kind of painterly preparation, as we have
noticed, is part of a typically Venetian approach; the oil
sketch is, in a sense, the counterpart of the Central Italian
cartoon, the penultimate stage of Venetian production. In
the various types of drawings we have just surveyed, the
several preparatory steps in the development of a painting
are all documented* the first idea.for the composition set
down in rapid pen sketches, the elaboration of single
figures in chalk studies, and the final preparatory state
ment of the composition in a painted modello. The procedure
itself, beginning with pen sketches, isef course closer to
that of Veronese15 than to the approaches of Titian and
155
The modello submitted for the Paradise competition
was a full-color oil sketch on canvas (Figs. 27,28), as was
the modello for the ceiling painting in the Scuola di Santa
Maria della Giustizia (Fig. 26); cf. above, p3.62f and pJ.69,
note 77. For the altarpiece in San Geremia of Venice
Crowned by St. Magno and Faith there is a monochrome sketch
on paper din the Louvre (Fig. 217), and a similar bozzetto
for an altarpiece of St. Martin and the Beggar is in the
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (Fig. 220), a draw
ing which the Tietzes associated with a painting formerly
in the church of San Martino on Murano. For other sketches
similarly connected with known or lost paintings, cf.
T. 974 and T. 1124.
155a<fhe clear graphic steps of this procedure, begin
ning with sketches and working through chalk studies, are
part of a general Renaissance heritage, which is best illus
trated by the practice of the Raphael studio and is embodied
in the recammehdations of Vasari.
22a
Tintoretto. This affinity may in part be attributed to
Palma's early education outside Venice, where the pen was
a more common instrument; in Venice he naturally continued
to favor this medium. The chalk studies of single figures,
however, are more Venetian in character, as are the oil
sketches.
Boschini, in the preface to Le ricche minere della
pittura veneziana, devotes relatively little space to
Palma and his contemporaries and gives us no account of ,,
their working methods, such as he did for the older masters.

#
Nor does Ridolfi provide much information on this subject.
We are left to wonder, for instance, if Palma, following
the grande maniera. utilized an approach similar to
Tintoretto's, making elaborate little stage constructions
and small plastic models. That he did draw from small
plastic models is confirmed by a drawing discussed by Meder,
in which the artist sketched a group of two fighting

156
figures from various points of view. It appears
156J. Meder, Die Handzeichnung, Vienna, 1923, p.417f.,

fig. 173. The attribution of the drawing, which is in the
Louvre, was questioned by E. Tietze-Conrat, "A Drawing by
Farinato for the 'Massacre of the Innocents' in S. Maria in
Qrgano at Verona," Old Master Drawings. X, 1935-36, p. 42,
who thought Farinato a more likely, author of such studies
from plastic models. Her doubts, however, seem entirely
unfounded; the sheet is clearly an example of Palma's
draughtsmanship. The application of such techniques by
Palma is evident in his painting of the Last Judgement in
the Sala dello Scrutinio (Fig. 29), where two of the angels
are drawn from a common model viewed from different angles.
f
iY
2 2 1
unlikely, however, that Palma prepared his larger compositions

in such a thorough manner; his approach, as we can follow
it in his drawings, seems much less deliberate and calculated,

and the paintings themselves do not exhibit the kind of
inner logic of construction that Tintoretto attained through

157
such aids.
Ridolfi's comments on Palma's preparatory efforts
are in general confined to noting that the artist in parti-.
cular cases had made many life studies for the figures in
. . 158
a composition. We have already studied those made for
the paintings in San Giacomo dell'Grio and other, stylis
tically related sheets, products of an early period. Palma's
later chalk drawings are even more Venetian in their open
ness of form and in their comparatively impressionistic
approach. In the rendering of drapery especially, Palma
scarcely pushes his investigation of form below the surface.
The figures in a study for the ceiling of the lower hall of
the Scuola di Santa Maria della Giustizia (Figs. 71,223)
157por Tintoretto's use of such models and for a

general bibliography on the subject, see above. Chapter I,
p. 37f., note 78.
158Cf., e.g., the documented drawings for the cycle
in San Giacomo dell'Grio, above, p.155 f • With regard to
the large canvas of the Brazen Serpent in San Bartolomeo
(Fig. 61), a painting dating from the final decade of the
sixteenth century, Ridolfi (II, p. 187) notes that Palma
devoted special attention to the nude figures: ''...il gran
quadro del Serpente di bronzo, ch'egli condusse a'Confrati
222
are completely enfolded within their heavy robes;159 there
is little indication of the human form beneath the draperies.
Palma seems here to have abandoned his usual interest in
the figure in favor of a concern with the surface impressions
of the outer garments.160
Characteristic of the Venetian workshop system was
that functional economy which allowed no artistic efforts
to be wasted or go unused. This was an important part of
the tradition inherited by Palma's generation and helps to
explain another aspect of Palma's practice. As already
noted, throughout his oeuvre certain figures appear and
reappear, often in similar contexts but also re-used in new
del Sacramento, oue entrano molti manierosi e ben'intesi

corpi ignudi, quali volontieri faceua il Palma, hauendoui
fatto studio particolare."
159Cf. N. Ivanoff, "Disegni di Palma il Giovane per

il soffitto della Scuola di S. Girolamo," Ateneo veneto.
CXLIV, 1953, p. 47ff•
1®®Cf. Tintoretto's studies for the allegorical

figures and saints, similar to Palma's in position, sur
rounding the main panel of the Albergo ceiling in the
Scuola di San Rocco (HadeIn, Zeichnungen des Giacomo
Tintoretto, pis. 22-25). These are drawings from the nude
model; Tintoretto clearly began with the solid armature of
the figure, over which the draperies were then placed.
223
161
compositional situations. For some of these figures
there exist what may be assumed to be the original chalk
studies, and by their style as well as the dates of the
paintings for which they were apparently first intended it
is clear that these motifs appear early in Palma's work.
One such figure, a young man walking, seen from behind
(Fig. 178), may well have originally been a study for a
page, The figure appears, however, as the central man with
a shovel in the canvas of St. Jerome Overseeing the Con
struction of the Monastery (Fig. 25), painted shortly after
1580 for the Scuola di Santa Maria della Giustizia,*-^ and
again, slightly modified, in the Crucifixion in the Madonna
dell'Qrto (Fig. 17); in reverse, it is used in the ceiling
161The re-use of old motifs was, of course, a common

practice of nearly every artist. When Michelangelo, how
ever, adapts the figure of Tityus to a new subject, the
resurrected Christ, the new rendering of the same pose is
informed with a different kind of energy; the artistis
conscious of the transforming effect of the new content on
the older form. Similar comments may be made of Titian's
repetitions of old motifs. This awareness, as we shall see,
is precisely what is lacking in Palma's practice.
162
The painting is now in the parish church of San
Giorgio delle Pertiche, near Padua, and was published by
V. Moschini, "Inediti di Palma il Giovane e compagni,"
Arte veneta. XII, 1958, p. 97ff.
224
paintings of the Coronation of Venice (Fig. 30) and the
Entrance of Andrea Gritti into Padua (Fig. 34) in the Sala

del Maggior Consiglio.
Another drawing, in the Uffizi, contains a study for
a figure in flight (Fig. 175) and was probably intended to
serve as a flying angel; as such it appears in Palma's
modello submitted in the Paradise competition of ca. 1582
(Fig. 27). As early as 1574/75, however, a similar figure
was used in the lower left repoussoir group in Palma's
drawing for the Arrival of Henry III in Venice (Fig. 34);
the same motif was later used for a female nude among the
damned in the Last Judgement in the Sala dello Scrutinio
(Fig0 29), in the Brazen Serpent in San Bartolomeo (Fig. 61),
twice in the canvas of the same subject in the sacristy of
feanta Maria Assunta (Fig. 59), and finally, in 1620, in the

♦
Resurrection in the sacristy of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. A
similar drawing (Fig. 181) was identified by the Tietzes as
a study for a figure in the small panel of the Brazen
Serpent in Siena (Fig. 91), dated 1598. Slightly modified,
the same figure was also used.iinthe versions of the
Resurrection in San Giuliano (Fig. 92) and in San Nicolft
dei Mendicoli (Fig. 93).
The repeated use of ideas, as we have observed, was
common in all the large Venetian — and non-Venetian ~
workshops where motifs of single figures or groups were
225
preserved either in drawings or in oil sketches of whole
compositions and so became standard elements in the shop's
repertory of forms. It was a necessary procedure, enabling
these organizations to produce paintings with greater effi
ciency; but when employed by the lesser talents of the
younger generation, this approach led to mere stereotyping
rather than to style. Deprived of the guidance of the
older masters and seduced, it would seem by the dramatic
possibilities of the grande maniera, these painters easily

fell into the trap of depending too much upon established
formulas,of working di maniera, © ius , those figures by
Palma, when re-used, are often not satisfactory solutions
to the new compositional problems involved. A sweeping
rhetorical gesture that is appropriate to a flying angel
may become empty when transferred to a mere mundane setting.
This practice of repeating motifs became habitual
with Palma, as we can see in his more casual drawings,
where stock figure types are often re-applied. With only
slight modification, a single basic idea can be used to
add several new motifs to the artist's working vocabulary
of forms. As he did in his paintings, Palma in such draw
ings transfers poses from figure to figure (Figs, 202,205),
a process of visual transference that was somehow particu
larly useful in the case of meditative and devout subjects;
a pose expressing jpiety was equally applicable to the
ttyVr
2 2 6
Magdalen (Pig. 353) and, for example, to Daniel in the lions'
den (Fig. 208). Hie same process can be observed on a
single sheet (Pig. 204) where Palma has first set down
several studies for a composition of St. Jerome in the
wilderness; one of these has easily been adapted for the
figure of the Magdalen, for which several other sketches

163
were then made. Hie thematic relationship between the
two subjects is obvious, but for Palma, the purely visual
connection is equally as important. Hie modified re
application of a figure type toward a new end is character
istic of his use of motifs.
Hie nature of the types of figures that Palma
repeated is rather interesting. He favored the somewhat
strained poses of figure serpentinate as well as the
expressions of pious devotion noted above"and frequently
returned to the themescf St. Sebastian (Figs. 206,245) and
the Dead Christ (Figs. 211,219,230,231,237). In such motifs
he found combined both the formal complexity of a Mannerist
163Hie figure reappears in a single sheet by Palma

(T. 1809), the subject of which is unclear though it is
probably a study either for the Virgin Mary at the foot of
the cross or for the Magdalen. See A. Forlani, Mostra di
disegni di Jacopo Tintoretto e della sua scuola. Florence,
1956, Cat. NO. 86, fig. 27.
t
1
A
227
figure canon and the direct emotional appeal of a religious
experience. This combination is indicative of Palma's
historical position at the end of the Cinguecentos on the

one hand we find his continuing concern with the twisting
figures of Mannerism and, on the other, the statement of an
apparently profound religious commitment that seems to

, I64
point ahead to Baroque art. Palma's concern with expres
sions of piety is well illustrated in a series of pen and
wash drawings of the Magdalen (Figs. 224-227). Variations
on a theme of Titian, these repeated renderings of the
penitent saint establish a devotional note through basic
rhetorical gestures, crossed arms and upturned eyes.
A major influence on Palma's conception of the

St. Sebastian figure was no doubt the sculpture of
Alessandro Vittoria. The sculptor's figures in general are
gracefully serpentine and, considering the close bond of
friendship and working relationship between the two artists,
Vittoria*s importance for Palma's development was undoubt
edly considerable. The isolated figure of St. Sebastian
himself, alone and without the archers, was a favorite
motif in Counter-Reformatory art; the new emphasis was upon
the pathos and ecstasy of the saint. On the iconography of
this saint in the late sixteenth century, see I.L. Zupnick,
Saint Sebastian in Art. Ph.D. Dissert&on, Columbia
university, 1958, p. 121ff«; cf. also V. Kraehling, Saint
S^bastien dans 1*art. Paris, 1938, p. 37ff.
^ 5Prototypes for this kind of figuffte are to be

found in Titian's paintings of the Magdalen in the Palazzo
Pitti and in the Hermitage (ill. in H. Tietze, Titian, figs.
121,253; cf. also E. Arslan, "Titian’s 'Magdalen',"
Burlington Magazine. XCIV, 1952, p. 325) and the St.
Catherine in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (cf. E. Tietze-
Conrat, "Titian's Saint Catherine." Gazette des iMteaux-arts.
228
Whether or not these drawings express the artist's
own personal feelings, they are certainly spontaneous
creations, spontaneous in that they have no apparent refer
ence or function beyond themselves• We recall that the
basic characteristic of Venetian drawing during the six
teenth century was a definite kind of functionalism. The
act of drawing was always part of the larger process of
producing a painting; drawing was the handmaiden of painting.
With Palma, and his contemporaries, drawing became an
autonomous creative act, and as much time and energy were
devoted to it as to painting. As Bidolfi already observed,
I disegni fatti da lui in gualungue genere in

pi& maniere del vecchio e nuouo testamento furono
infiniti, da'guali traheua l'inuentioni, chi & far
haueua, e molti ancora ne formaua per isfogare il
capriccio, poi che non tantosto leuata la touaglia
dalla mensa, si faceua recare il lapis, componendo
sempre gualche pensiero, e di guesti molti ne vanno
in volta.166
XLIII, 1954, p. 253£f.). The basic attitudes of this type

are also displayed in the figure of St. Margaret in the
Uffizi, attributed variously to Titian and to Palma Giovane
(ill. in W. Suida, Tiziano. Borne, 1933, pl« CCLXVIIb). In
the late sixteenth century Venetian painters in general
adopted this convenient expressive formula. See the
depictions of the Magdalen by Domenico Tintoretto '(Borne,
Pinacoteca Capitolina, ill. in A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte.
IX, 4, fig. 460) and Leandro Bassano (Bergamo, Accademia
Carrara, ill. in E. Arslan, I Bassano. Milan, 1960, II,
fig. 323).
■^Ridolfi, II, p. 203. The importance of this

passage and of this aspect of the draughtsmanship of Palma
and his generation was first underscored by the Tietzes,
229
Unlike the Venetian masters of an earlier age,
Palma often drew with no other end in view, no project in
mind beyond the sketch itself; drawing was for him, as
Ridolfi's testimony makes quite explicit, even a form of
relaxation, an outlet for his fancy and, we may conjecture,
for nervous energy. This explains the enormous number of
drawings by Palma that cannot be related to ppintings. He
filldd sheets with sketches that are the casual notations
of a well-trained hand*: thus the many repetitions of
various motifs. These became part of Palma's artistic
personality, and when, after dinner, he called for his
drawing implements, these same forms flowed effortlessly
from his chalk or pen. We may recognize in this activity
a Central Italian rather than Venetian attitude; this is

1.67
precisely the pratica advised by Vasari. In a sense,
then, Palma is a Mannerist par excellence.
Drawings, p. 198 and passim. Cf. the similar anecdote about

the Carracci related by Malvasia, Felsina pittrice. I,
Bologna, 1841, p. 334; see R. Wittkower, The Drawings of the
Carracci at Windsor Castle. London, 1952, p. 18.
167cf. above, pp. 6f., 68 ff. Palma's particular

distinction between form and subject, which enabled him to
transfer a pose so freely from figure to figure (cf • afrftv*,
p. 222ff.), approaches, in a way, certain Central Italian
attitudes. This kind of dissociation was, indeed, first
advocated by Leonardo, who urged that drawings, should be
used not only in the preparation of a painting, but also
as sources of future inspiration. From a single sketch, he
suggested, the artist should be able to derive many ideas•
Drawing was no longer merely a preparatory step, but thereby
230
Several of the sketchbooks Palma filled can be

168
reconstructed, and one is preserved intact in the
169
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford (Figs. 248-298). A revealing
document regarding Palma's artistic personality, this book
contains fifty folios with drawings executed mostly in pen 1
or pen and wash and sane in black or red chalk. Stylisti
cally they can be dated in the first decade of the seven
teenth century, toward 1610, and they represent a varied
became part of the whole process of imagination and invention.

The development of the concept of disegno as expressed by
Vasari has its roots in Leonardo's thought. See E.H.
Gombrich, "Conseils de Leonard sur les esquisses de tableaux,11
in L'art et la pensê de Leonard de Vinci, p. 179ff.
16^Twenty-one sheets from such a "dismembered book,

the single pages of which are numbered between 1 and 59,
cure preserved in the Moravskd Galerie, Brno (T. 837-857).
Other pages from this album are tti^the Albertina (T. 1217}
and the Liechtenstein Collection in Vienna (T. 1221-23,1225,
1228-30,1232-34,1236,1237,1239-42). The Albertina also
contains several sheets from another sketchbook (T. 1189,
1193-95).
169
K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of
Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum. II. Italian Schools.
Oxford, 1956, Cat. No. 432. In his last will of May 19,
1631, Philipp Esengren, the German-born painter and dealer
living in Venice, left to the ptainter Giuseppe Alabardi
"libri quattro di dissegni de mano del signor Palma"
(G. Ludwig, et. al., Archivalische Beitrflge zue Geschichte
der venezianischen Runst, p. 92^. It is possible that these
may have been scrapbooks, albums of collected drawings
similar to those in Munich and in the British Museum
(cf. T. 991), rather than actual sketchbooks.
231
cross-section of Palma's activities as a draughtsman, The
sheets are filled with figures which, for the most part,
are recognizable as standard members of the artist's col
lection of stock types. There are, in addition, several
pages devoted to genre-like observations, chalk studies of
a mother and child (Fig. 286), of standing draped figures
(Figs, 259,272), of heads of old men and a child (Fig. 257),
and of various anatomical details, an ear, a knee, a foot,
a leg (Fig. 261). Finally, there are notations for whole
compositions, some in chalk (Figs. 265, 268) and others in
pen and wash, the latter contained in cameo-like frames
(Figs. 293-298).
Nearly all the subjects treated in the pages of
this book were common problems facing any painter; above
all, there are drawings of the figure in action, studies
related to such themes as the Baptism of Christ (Figs.
259,263,270), the Resurrection (Figs. 287,289,291,293), the
Dead Christ (Figs. 249,250,251,259,262,269,290). In
certain cases we can follow the sequence cf execution for
more than one page, as in the first three sheets, all of
putti (Figs. 249-251), or folios 25 and 26, in which the
motif of the Madonna and Child is studied (Figs. 273,274).
Such concentration and deliberate development of an idea,
however, are not always characteristic; more often Palma's
pen seems simply to play over the page, creating forms in
232
a rather casual way, forms tirate di pratica. Prom his pen
comes an endless stream of variations and repetitions of
motifs from Palma's standard, vocabulary. He appears to have
taken up his drawing materials often with no special
purpose in. mind, no specific problem to be solved or devel
oped. Palma drew for practice, to keep his hand dexterous.
He learned to think with the pen, and drawing became for him
a natural outlet through which could flow whatever partially

170
formed ideas he felt needed some kind of expression.
Hie Oxford sketchbook documents the activity of an extremely
facile draughtsman, whose hand, however, often appears more
agile than his imagination. Hie energy in the hand some-

i
times overflows the form; the line seems to lose itself in

fctadboi scrilrtlija^ as Palmiu's
pen moves from the delineation or modelling of a figure to
play over the surrounding white paper (Figs. 252,277,279,292).
Hie medium itself fascinated the artist, and he
attempted to develop its expressive possibilitiesswith a
thoroughness that again carries him beyond the traditional
practices of the Venetian Cinguecento. Palma's interest in
drawing is different from that of his Venetian predecessors,
^ 0Hie same attitude is to be found in Domenico

Tintoretto's oil and tempera sketches in the British Museum
(T. 1526) and elsewhere, in which that artist plays with a
theme, developing variations on it with apparently no other
end in mind. Cf. above, note 154.
233
and the application with which he sought to cultivate his
powers of graphic expression is not typically Venetian but
must be considered a development from the legacy of his
formative years in Rome. Despite the relationship to Titian,
Tintoretto, Veronese, and Bassano in Palma's work, both
paintings and drawings, there is always present in it a
kind of formalism that is fundamentally ua-Venetian. In
his drawings Palma seeks a completeness and self-sufficiency

of expression for which we can find no precedent in Venice.
It was particularly in his early chalk drawings, in
the 'seventies, we remember, that Palma*s draughtsmanship
assumed its most purely Venetian characteristics, in the
medium favored by most Venetian masters. The Central-
Italian heritage, however, remained an important element
in the artist's pen drawings. A study of the young
St. John the Baptist (Fig. 205),. inscribed 1580, offers
evidence of Palma's continuing concern with the solid ren
dering of the human figure. While the decorative emphasis
of the light and dark patterning may certify the sheet's
Venetian origin, the plastic modelling, the elaborate
system of cross-hatching, points in another direction, The
^ l ^ e white-heightened drawings of Veronese, although

stylistically un-Venetian in some respects, nevertheless
functioned within the context of workshop production and
were not intended as autonomous graphic expressions. Cf•
the discussion of this point, above, p. •
l\
234
degree of attention paid to the overall composition is a
further indication of the autonomous character of the
sheet; it is rare to find in Venice drawings of complete
compositions — beyond rapid sketches. The thoroughness
of the rendering would be superfluous if this were merely
a preparatory sketch in the Venetian manner.
Palma's keen interest in the figure is more apparent
in a contemporaneous drawing (Pig. 210). In this study of
a male nude the artist applies a more deliberate system of
hatching in order better to articulate the anatomical forms.
His Roman background is more obvious here; indeed, Palma
seems intent upon bringing disegno to Venice, upon follow
ing Vasari's advice to go beyond mere sketching and to
make drawings "rilevati in buona forma'1 and "fatti con
diligenza." It is especially after about 1600, apparently/
that Palma devotes himself to drawing in this conscientious

manner, leaving many full-sheet compositions, carefully
executed either in pen (Fig. 233) or in pen and wash
heightened with white (Fig. 232). Even more characteristic
of his later period is a technique of pen and wash.height
ened with gold (Figs. 245,247). Such drawings were
obviously created with some care. For the most part they
cure of subjects common to Palma's earlier graphic oeuvre
and were clearly never intended to prepare painted composi
tions. While same of the finished pen drawings may have
Ml
235
172
been intended to be reproduced in prints, the white and
particularly the gold-heightened designs were finished

products in themselves, intended as final and complete
173
artistic expressions. in any event, the existence of
such drawings demonstrates the distance Palma had travelled
from the traditional Venetian Renaissance attitude toward

drawing.174
The pictorial completeness of Palma's drawings is
one of the most striking aspects of his development as a
draughtsman. He found in the graphic media means of
expression offering a range of possibilities and he attempted
to develop many of them. We have already commented on his
effective handling of washes to produce a distinctly dramatic

note; a similar attention to chiaroscuro marks his elabor
ately hatched pen drawings. This feeling for the dramatic po
tential of light and dark places Pfclma within the general
172
A list of the designs that Palma had engraved is
given by Ridolfi, II, p. 184.
173
The drawing of Christ holding the cross (Fig. 247)
bears the autograph inscription "In te domine speravi" and
the date "1611 decembris, " and may have been a small devo
tional token meant as a gift or for the personal use of the
artist himself. Marino, in letters to his publisher, asks
specifically for drawings by Palma for his collection (cf.
Epistolario, I, Bari, 1911, Not XLIII, p. 56, and No. CXV,
p. 178). The poet probably had in mind drawings of Venus or
some other classical nude, drawings of a finished nature
(Figs. 299,300). Cf. above, note 113.
174
Cf. Francesco Bassano1s reply to a request for
drawings from a Florentine collector, quoted above, p.52 .
%.V' ;
236
transitional movement from Mannerism to the Baroque.
Indeed, certain drawings, like the David with the Head of
Goliath (Fig. 302), seem to belong very definitely to the
graphic traditions of the Seicento; although the very
broken touches recall its Venetian origin, this drawing is
comparable in its aim and overall effect to works by
Guercino or even Strozzi.176 The pen drawing of a man in
costume (Fig. 301) is. so close to the Guercinesque that
the attribution to Palma at first seems rather questionable.
Palma is, however, undoubtedly the author of this sheet; we
need only refer again to the broken pen stroke and to
other, very similar bearded heads by the artist (Figs. 233,
■^’’For a consideration of the position of such

painters as Barocci, Cigoli, and Cerano in the transition
from Mannerism to the Baroque, see R. Wittkower, Act and
Architecture in Italy. 1600-1750. p. 55ff.
176por paima*s relationship with Guercino, see

below, note; 191. The physiognomic type of the David,
with its round face and eyes and small nose, definitely
resembles similar heads by Strozzi, who came to Venice,
however, only in 1630. Palma, nonetheless, may have known
drawings by him. For Strozzi1s drawings, see T. Pignatti,
"Disegni veneti del Seicento," Cat. NOs. 37-43, in
La pittura del Seicento a Venezia. Venice, 1959; cf.
especially NO. 43.
237
177
235) in order to confirm the attribution.
Palma's exploration of the expressive possibilities
of drawing, related to his Soman education, was also
encouraged by the growing importance and influence of the
Carracci circle. Pram Bologna there spread in the late
177Especially interesting in this regard is a very

finished drawing of a Piet& in the Louvre (Fig. 309);
executed in pen and wash over black chalk, the sheet is
squared in red chalk. Although attributed to Palma, the
drawing at first seems rather more like an example of
Bolognese draughtsmanship. Indeed, in a note on the mount,
A. chStelet has aigaociiateA i'tjcbth.LArajihelelCTarâeftii^bc print
<*£> • The draw
ing is oDviousiy not by Annibale, however? despite the very
careful rendering of the body of Christ, the attribution
to Palma seams quite justified. The loose and scattered
touch characteristic of his later style is quite evident in
the surrounding figures, especially Joseph of Arimathea and
Nicodemus. The drawing is probably a copy by Palma of a
composition by another artist, very possibly Carracci.
Although Palma has devoted great care to the articulation
of the figure of Christ, Morellian details such as the
hands and feet are characterized by his typical manner, as
is the relatively careless rendering of the right forearm,
with its unsure lines, and of tie knees, which conform to
Palma's stated ideas (see below, p. 23$ and practice. The
meticulous handling of the torso, however, is indicative of
the artist's attempt to deal with the new Bolognese disegno.
In another drawing dating from the early Seicento, a
sketch of his wife, Palma utilizes a stippled effect
(Fig. 323). This of course is a technique especially asso
ciated with drawing for graphic reproduction. The study
was certainly not so intended and provides another example
of Palma's search for new means of expression. The tech
nique itself appears quite frequently in the work of superb
pen draughtsmen like Guercino and the Flemish Mannerists of
the late Cinquecento. Indedd, it has recently been pointed
out that a high value was placed on the kind of virtuosity
displayed when pen drawing rivalled engraving with the
fineness of its line. See J.S. Held, "The Early Appreciation
of Drawings, " in Sadies in Western Art.. III. Latin American
Art and the Baroque Period in Europe. Princeton, 1963,
238
Cinquecento a renewed dedication to drawing and especially
to drawing as a means of better understanding the human

178
figure. Here too Palma seens to be participating in the
significant developments of the late Cinquecento, and the
impact of the Carracci circle on his art, as we shall dem
onstrate, was considerable. A concern with the human
figure was not of course something new to Palma; the
delineation of that form was a key problem for him through
out his career. In the early seventeenth century, however,
he renewed this interest with an even greater intensity.
This is quite evident in the drawings as well as the
paintings, in which the figures assume ever more massive
proportions. That this attitude toward the figure was in
part, at least, the legacy of his Roman education is made
clear in Palma's own statement, recorded by Boschini, of
his canon of proportions:
p. 72ff., particularly p. 82f. Specifically involved in

the high evaluation of pen drawing was the Bolognese
Qdoardo Fialetti, who was said to have made drawings that
were even superior to engravings (cited in ibid.). Palma's
close connections with Fialetti will be studied shortly,
below, p. 263f£*
178
The significance of the drawings of the Carracci,
and especially Agostino, for developments in Venice around
1600, will be discussed below. Chapter IV, pp. 263 f£» and
284 ff.
* Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
\ '
239
Proporzione anco nel Dissegno (come mi instruiua

Giacomo Palma ne i studij, ch eio faceua in mia
giouentb) sono gueste per appunto: forraando vna
figura (diceua egli) si facciano la testa, le mani,
& i piedi, piccioli, pochi capelli in testa, il
collo grosso, le spalle larghe, il braccio nella
giuntura ben formato di carne, e pastoso; il petto
assai rilleuante, il sotto scaglio faccia rilleuar
le poppe moderatamente, sueltire i fianchi, far le
coscie & suo loco larghe, e strette, ingrossar de
i ginocchi le noci, e sotto & quelli il leggiadrire
alquanto; stringar lo schipco, quasi sen&a pelle,
ed il calcagno quadrato.179
Obis verbal statement of his ideas on proper propor
tions, dating from the last years of his career, is an
indication of the peculiarly academic tone of Palma's
attitude toward the figure. Mast revealing in this regard
is his collaboration with his friend, Giacomo Franco,
engraver and publisher, on the production of a printed model
book designed to teach the fundamentals of the art of
drawing. For this volume, entitled De excellentia et
nobilitate delineationis and published in 1611, Palma
executed the etchings for the two title pages (Figs. 388,
389) and designed the manneristically overcrowded plates
of anatomical studies (Figs. 392-407).*-80
179M. Boschini, Le ricche minere della pittura

veneziana. preface, f. 2.
180
For a full description and discussion of this book,
see below. Chapter IV, p. 263ff •» also p. 333 , note 155, for
a drawing possibly associated with Palma's design for the
frontispiece. Palma and Franco were old friends. In 1582
/ 24a
Some of these are filled with images of eyes, ears, mouths,
and noses, others are sheets of arms, legs, hands, or feet.
There are pages of torsos and of heads and one page is
covered with dancing and flying putti. The models for some
of the heads were pieces of sculpture like the Laocoon,
while others, the bearded old men, for instance, are stock
characters in Palma's graphic work, appearing often in the
guise of St. Jerome or merely as scribbled heads. Many of
Palma's drawings of the first decade of the seventeenth
century can be connected with this publishing project. The
models were often casts of ancient sculpture and relief
profiles, and in these very, years Palma exhibits a decided
interest in the profile (Figs. 304,310,311), a taste formed
Franco was a witness when Andriana Palma, the painter's wife,

made her last will and testament,and in his own will of
June 16, 1620, Franco left to Palma "una moneda d'oro val
ducati vinti che la goda per amor mio." (The texts of both
documents were published in G. Ludwig, et.al.. Archivalische
Beitrflge zur Geschichte der venezianischen Kunst. pp. 119f.
and 103.) In 1596 Franco dedicated his book of lace patterns,
Nuova inventions de diuerse mostre cosi dl punto in aere
come di retticelli.... "alia molto magnifica Signora Andriana
Palma." Palma also collaborated with Franco on other pub
lishing ventures. For the latter's Habiti d'hvomenl et donne
Venetians (Venice, 1610), for instance, he designed the
plates entitled "Le cortegiane si fanno conciar eadi versi"
(p. 10) and "Abito delle cortegiane prencipale" (p. 11).
several quite finished drawings of such genre subjects by
Palma may be associated with this or some similar project
(Figs. 306-308).
Palma was probably introduced to the art and technique
of etching by Odoardo Fialetti. This BdBiognese artist, who
came to Venice at the end of the sixteenth century produced
the very first drawing book in 1608. Palma contributed two
241
181
on the study of classical reliefs and gems.
The torsos on the plates of this drawing book were
naturally derived from fragments of ancient sculpture.
For the other individual anatomical elements, however,
there is evidence that Palma made many special studies.
Most of these drawings are preserved in the Munich scrap
books; they are sketches of skeletons, skulls, and £corch£
figures, and reveal Palma at work in an attempt to master
the anatomy of the body with a kind of Tuscan thoroughness
(Figs. 317-320). The attempt, however, must be judged
totally unsuccessful; these sheets sure not close investiga
tions of the body but rapid notations. Palma seems to have
been satisfied with merely recording a vague likeness, a
general impression, rather than using drawing as a means
toward knowledge, toward a true understanding of the
mechanism of the body. The poor results of Palma's anatom
ical studies, however, are not surprising. If we survey
etchings to this volume (see below. Chapter IV, p<£63). A

single print by him (Fig. 410) may be a kind of practice
sheet, associated probably with Palma's collaboration with
Franco.
l-Bllt should be noted here that the second part of

De excellentia et nobilitate delineationis was devoted to
just such classical motifs (cf. below, Chapter IV, p.264f.)
Along with this academic aspect of his late career, Palma
demonstrated an understandable interest in classical sculp
ture (cf. above, p.l93)«
2 4 2
his many careful drawings of the human figure (Figs. 210,233,
237,240), we are struck by his basic failure to understand
it; the massive proportions and exaggerated musculature,
the lumpy knees, the ill-defined hands and feet, combine
to leave a final impression of awkwardness.
In one sense, Palma, the Venetian painter who
tried so hard to master the concept and practice of
disegno, was here the victim of his own technical habits,
of his own pratica. His most impressive drawings are not
his very finished efforts; rather, he is most effective in
the more casual medium of the sketch, where there is often
a refreshing freedom in his handling of hatching or wash.
Despite his early allegiance to Roman draughtsmanship, he
never really mastered it. In other words, Palma never
really mastered the anatomy of the human figure. His
sketching technique was not an adequate means for delin
eating the figure with any completeness and, curiously
enough, Palma was rarely able to render hands and feet

182
with any real comprehension. Hie paradox of his
182ghe situation is summed up by the Tietzes, Drawings.

p. 195: "It is curious to note that such a prolific
draftsman as Palma Giovine should seem to have suffered
from a restraint in his wrist. Hie flow- is always suddenly
brought to a stop, the inspiration drops before it reaches
its aim. Rarely does Palma succeed in bringing his vision
to fulfillment. When the chalk is replaced by the pen,
the break is less striking, but the fragmentary character
is still there, though now hidden in the calligraphic
243
designing a book purporting to teach the rules of drawing

182a.
the figure thus becomes all too clear.
In spite of his very sincere and ambitious involve^
ment with drawing and the promise of his most expressive

designs, Palma's ability as a draughtsman declined during
the latter part of his career, although, as with his paint
ings, his production increased. Just as his entire style
underwent an impoverishment as he ceased to search for new
flourishes. There is hardly a drawing in which the vision

is sufficiently clear for the realization of the hands,
and none in vhich the feet are realized. The painter who
in his youth had drawn nudes after classical statues and
Michelangelo's cartoons, had not learned to utilize their
approach to reality in his own art." For Palma's inter
pretations of figures by Michelangelo and Raphael ((Pig. 313),
cf. above, note 129.
182ci
Palma was not entirely unaware of the inadequacy
of his work in this field, as is evident from an anecdote
recorded by Malvasia, Felsina pittrice, II, Bologna, 1678,
p. 363, who writes that Guercino "Fece ad istanza del R.P.
Antonio Mirandola vn'esemplare a penna con occhi, bocche,
teste, mani, piedi, braccia, e torsi per insegnare a prin-
cipianti dell'arte. Ebbe questo libro D. Pietro Martire
Pederzani Canonico Regolare dal P. Mirandola, e portollo a
Venetia, andando seco anco l'auttore. Quiui successe vn
bellissimo caso, poiche auendo il Padre Pederzani sudetto
trouato il Palma Pittore, gli mostro il libro, con dire
che l'avea fatto vn principiante, che^desideraua stare
sotto laxsua disciplina per iraparare a Venetia; ma il libro
a pena fu veduto dal Palma, che proruppe in queste parole:
molto piu di me ne Set questo discepolo...." While it is a
typical art biography anecdote, it does nevertheless point
up a comparison that is perfectly valid; next to Guercino's
drawings of the figure and its parts, Palma's do indeed
appear amateurish.
244
forms, content continually to re-use the old ones, so his
pen style was dissipated through mechanical repetition.

This dissipation, already evident by the turn of the
century and qsite clear in the drawings associated with
Giacomo Franco's book, especially marks the manner of
Palma's old age. The freedom of execution is lost and a
tightness seems to set in; the open quality of his pen line,
which had always in some measure distinguished his work as
Venetian, becomes so exaggerated that the sense of form is
almost entirely lost; the broken touches become meaningless,
nervous and accidental rather than constructive and
suggestive (Figs. 240,242).
The human form remained the center of Palma's inter
est, nonetheless, and in his final renderings of the

l
figure the defects of his draughtsmanship are sadly high
lighted. Unable to depend upon a secure knowledge, he had
to continue to create out of his fund of formulas and
accumulated graphic idiosyncrasies. A sheet dated 1628,
the year of Palma's death, and identified in a pupil's
inscription as his last drawing, contains a group of male

183
figures climbing upward (Fig. 335). The complete
183
The inscription reads, "1628 adi marti. Questo sono
lultimo disegnio disegnato dal Sig.r Palma mio Car.mo maestro."
The number of preserved drawings bearing the date 1628 makes
it quite clear that Palma remained an active draughtsman
through the last year of his life. Cf. the late Martyrdom of
St. Lawrence in the Witt Collection, London, signed and dated,
"I.P.F. 1628 14 otobre" (Fig. 336).
245
dispersion of the pen lines and the shakey touch may be
expected of an octoganarian master. But the desire to
render the powerful human form in motion is accompanied
by an almost embarrassing lack of comprehension of the
figure; the combination is characteristic of Palma, and

this single drawing remains a testimony to both his
ambitions and failings as a draughtsman,
6, Critique
Palma Giovane began his career as a young
artist of some promise and had the benefits of a double
education, learning in the rival centers of disegno and
colorito. In active competition with his elders in
Venice, and particularly with Tintoretto, he actually
developed a manner of painting that seemed to reconcile
those two extremes; as far as we can judge, that always
remained his goal. Yet the positive and affective
features of his art appear primarily in the works dating
before the end of the Cinguecento, With the death of
Tintoretto, Palma's professional career prospered but, as
we have repeatedly observed, the quality of his work
declined. He had clearly derived his ;most important
nourishment from the active, competitive example of the
older master,
Palma's rather ambiguous position with regard to
the Venetian Renaissance tradition is evident in the
accounts of the older Italian art historians and is
epitomized by Lanzi's opinion that he was both the last
184
of a good age and the first of a bad one. While
185
Zanetti was not absolutely sure of Palma's position,
he did, nonetheless, recognize certain of the artist's

weaknesses:
So bene, che vago fu di far molto, e che fra

le opere sue parecchie ve ne sono dipinto con
soverchia speditezza; e non potea essere
altrimente in quel immenso numero ch'ei ne
fece.186
This equation of the quantitative increase in Palma's
production and its qualitative decline had already been
obsexved by Ridolfi. The biographer leaves a picture of
Palma working incessantly, trying to fill every available
space in Venice, motivated less by a desire for fame than

187
by anxiety for the economic security of his old age.
184L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica dell*Italia. Ill,

Milan, 1825, p. 210: "Jacopo Palma il giovane00o&
pittor che ugualmente si puo chiamare 1'ultimo della
buona etci e il primo della cattiva."
185A.M. Zanetti, Della pittura veneziana. 2nd ed.,

Venice, 1792, p. 401: "Io non saprei dir con certezza se
uno de'promotori della Maniera fosse l'eccelente Pittore
Jacopo Palma, il giovane, Veneziano."
187
Ridolfi, II, p. 203: "M& benche il Palma fosse
accompagnato da buona Fortuna e copioso d'amici, che gli
procurauano del continuo le opere senza punto incommodarsi
di Casa, che veniuano ben pagato (hauendo per lo tempo suo
guadagnato gran migliaia di scudi, onde hauerebbe potuto
con maggior decoro di se e della professione dar saggi
maggiori di eccellenza in molte delle opere sue) datosi
nondimeno in tutto alia fatica, operaua senza alcuna
247
Indeed, Ridolfi's final praise of Palma as the last master
of the great tradition is tempered by a sad reference to

his overproduction:
Nel cadare in fine del Palma, diede anco

vn graue crollo la Pittura, essendo mancato dopo
di ltiti il buon gusto della maniera Venetiana,
cosi ben essercitata in taute delle opere fatto
da questo Artefice, le quali condusse con buon
studio, vsando belle ammaccature de'panni, & vna
diletteuole e fresca maniera di colorire, che si
appressa con facile modo al naturale, e le pitture
sue verrebbero maggiormente desiderate & airibite, se
in manco numero ne hauesse operate. 8
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
Palma's reputation rested on his position as an epigone
of the great Venetian Cinquecento painters. Praise,
however, was always tempered by censure of his hasty exe
cution and of his uneven standards. Zanetti, whose
criticism is pronounced with an eighteenth-century neo
classical bias against the maniera. is the most specific
of the older writers. He notes Palma's studies "nelle
erudite scuole di Roma" and observes the influences of
Titian and Tintoretto, concluding that:
intermittenza, non auendo altro per fine, che di occupar

ogni luogo, seguendo in cio l'humore del Tintoretto, e
per far auuanzi di ricchezze, pensando, che le accumulate
ancora non le bastassero per lo sostentamento di sua
vecdhiezza; p6iche non sempre pub l'huomo produrre effetti
eccelenti: onde fu di mestieri tal'hora la quiete ed il
riposo, poiche gli spirit! reinfrancati piu ageuolmente
concorrono^poi alle operation! dell'intelletto, producendo
effetti piu purgati non essendo in fine il piu infelice in
questa vita di colui, che toglie a se stesso il riposo, per
lasciar a'posteri que'sudati auuanzi, che si conuertono
spesso in vso non buono."
188Ibid.. p. 204.
Con questi principij, compose egli uno stile,
che fu suo originale; e se avesse sempre
moderato lo spirito di velocity, sarebbe stato
uno de'piu ben fondati pittori della Scuola
nostra,^-®®
In 1594 Palma assumed the leadership of the
Venetian school, successor to Tintoretto, and he enjoyed
the prestige of this position until his death. Perhaps
more than any other Venetian painter since Titian his
work was in demand far beyond the boundaries of the
Veneto, and with the diffusion of his work Palma’s
reputation spread. In the Seicento he was particularly

190
active m Etailia, where he apparently acted as a
personal representative of the entire tradition of
Venetian painting. Palma's own stylistic goals were
very much in sympathy with contemporary trends in Bologna
especially, and it is possible that painters like
Guercino and Guido Reni came to know Venetian painting
through Palma's work. The respect apparently paid him
by the Bolognese masters, as reported by Malvasia, may
be only a recognition of Palma's influential position in
1892anetti, Della pittura veneziana. ed. cit.,

p. 401f.
1QO
For Palma's work outside Venice, see the
bibliography cited above, note 108, particularly
A. Ghidiglia Quintavalle, "Jacopo Palma il Giovane
nel modenese e nel reggiano," Arte veneta. XI, 1957,
p. 129ff•
249
Venice, but it does indicate the extent of his reputa

tion.191
Modern art-historical criticism has been harder
on Palma. While acknowledging his role as the foremost
painter of his generation, it has nevertheless condemned

192
the tired Mannerism of his and its art. Simply
191
Palma was a personal friend of both Guido Reni
and Guercino, as is clear from Malvasia's accounts,
Felsina pittrice. II, Bologna, 1678, pp. 75, 87, 363.
fflhese artists had visited and worked in Venice —
Guercino's altarpiece of St. Helen before the Cross is
still in San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti (cf. ibid.. p. 75) —
and Palma had apparently worked in Bologna on two pro
jects, no longer extant, in the Palazzo Ercolani and in
the Church of the Cappucini (cf. Malvasia, Pitture.
scolture. ed architettura delle chiese di Bologna. Bologna,
1792, p. 314, and Boschini, La carta del navegar. Venice,
1660, p. 382f.). Palma's possible influence on the
Bolognese has been discussed by A. Boime in an unpublished
paper, A Venetian Source for Ludovico Carracci. Guido
Reni. and Guercino. Columbia university,, 1964. In general,
however, I think he may exaggerate Palma's importance for
these painters. Palma was, it must be emphasized, a living
representative of the Venetian tradition. When Guercino was
inr Venice, according to Malvasia (Felsina. II, p. 363),
Palma served as a guide for him: "gli fece vedere 1'opere
del famosissimo Tiziano, del quale il Sig. Gio. Francesco
f£t sempre mai innamorato, portandolo scolpito nel cuore
per l'idea de'Pittori." Palma's own work must have seemed
a rather pale reflection of this idea to a painter interested
in the power of the brush, as was Guercino.
192
G. Fiocco. La pittura veneta del Seicento e del.
Settecento. Verona, 1929, p, 7f.: ^Non vale proprio la
pena di ferraarsi in particolare a questi mediocri, sempre
piu traviati da ogni ricerca, sempre piu convenzionali e
verbosi, confusi nel grigiore dell'uniformita, dell'uggia
e della menzogna.... Va detto poi schiettamente, anche
se non si volgia parlare proprio di una moralita nell'arte,
che il Palma Giovane, il quale fu a capo di tutta questa
schiera, per diritto d'ingegno, per la buona scuola e per
la dottrina, in cui sopravanza ognuno del suo tempo a
jO
250
labelling Palma’s painting academic and eclectic, however,
hardly does full justice to it, and certainly offers little
help toward understanding the artist and his ideals.
Despite his many weaknesses, as we have seen, Palma
brought some new elements to Venetian painting, primarily
a concern with the solid rendering of the human body, The
special qualities of his portraiture were first recognized
by Bernard Berenson, "Palma’s figures in the Crociferi,
in the Accademia and elsewhere in Venice,” he wrote,
"contain some of the most delicately characterized and

193
humanized figures that had hitherto appeared in art,"
It is true, as Berenson wrote, that "Palma is at his best
in the portrayal of meditative sentiment," But while
Venezia, fu anche il peggiore e il pi& colpevole di tanto

danno. Perche a tutti diede l'esempio di una fretta
sparalda, di una sciatteria disonesta, che divenne regola
per gli altiri," R, Pallucchini La pittura veneziana del
Cingueoento. II, Novara, 1944, p, XLIff,: "Mentre
operano il Tintoretto, il Veronese, ed il Bassano, sorge
attorno ad essi una cultura artistica riflessa, cioe
d'imitazione, e quindi accademica e conservatrice,,,,
Palma il Giovane,., meglio d ’ogni altro impersona questo
infelice momento della pittura veneziana,,,. Con il
Palma trionfava cosi, senza alcun ritegno, un accademismo
stagnante, dove ogni controllo critico veniva soffocato
dalla facilita d'impiego dei mezzi espressivi." R, Longhi,
Viatico per cinque secoli di pittura veneta, Florence,
1946, p, 32, refuses even to bother to discuss the.
situation at all,
•^^B, Berenson, "While on Tintoretto," in

Festschrift fflr Max J. Friedlflnder, Leipzig, 1927,
p, 225,
251
Berenson overestimated these positive elements of Palma's
work, he had nonetheless to admit that the painter was

194
"at his worst when trying to depict energy." If we
consider the goals the artist set for himself and the
ideals of the grande maniera veneziana. such a judgment will

be understood as no compliment.
A more general re-evaluation of Palma’s accomplish
ment has been started recently as still more of his work

195
is brought to light and published. Palma was the
master of a large and very productive workshop, but the
attempt to attribute to studio collaboration all weak or
awkward parts of individual paintings or all pictures of
low quality is both misleading and unconvincing.196 Such
features that render Palma's paintings unsuccessful, espec
ially his often unimaginative treatment of the figure and
the poor rendering of its individual parts, are to be
found in his own drawings and cannot be blamed on
assistants — although they, in turn, may have followed

their master's example.
194
Ibid. Berenson*s general conclusion also seems
greatly exaggerated: Palma, he states, "in a country less
overburdened with masterpieces would take a high place. In
Spain, for instance, he would rank close to Murillo, and
even in the Netherlands he would not be too out of place with
the young Van Dyck,, the Van Dyck who had not yet taught
'the great' to look their part."
195
Cf. references cited above, note 108.
196Cf. especially G. Gamulin, "Ritornando su Palma

il Giovane," Arte antica e moderna. 13-16, 1962, p. 259ff.
252
One aspect of this new look at Palma has been

specifically concerned with his drawings. Heil was the
first to emphasize the importance of drawing for the
artist and the definition of the figure in drawing, and
he correctly associated this interest with Palma’s

197
Roman education. . Yet to praise Palma’s draughtsman
ship without taking into account its very definite
weaknesses and Palma's general stylistic development and
decline is to misunderstand and misrepresent the situa-

198
tion. Palma was a prolific draughtsman and, at
times, an extremely able and affecting one, but he was
also a very ambitious artist. In a rather self-conscious
way he attempted to master the two major approaches in
Cinquecento painting, Venetian colorito and Central-
Italian disegno. His drawings, unfortunately, often
appear as testaments to this unrealized ambition; they
document Palma's various interests and offer a revealing
insight into his personality.
That personality was in every way a professional
one, concerned above all with the problems of art,
whether the description of the figure or obtaining a
commission. And while it is going too far to call him a
197
W. Heil, "Palma Giovane als Zeichner,” p. 70f.
198Cf., e.g., the thesis of N. Ivanoff, quoted

above, note 42.
253
"pure artist, for whom art became an end in itself,"199
this very professional involvement marks both Palma's
work and life. The sketchbooks and the hundreds of
sheets of mere scribbling reveal just how much of Palma's
time was consumed by such activity and Ridolfi*s

200
admonitions confirm the impression.
Further evidence that Palma was a highly self-
conscious artist is afforded by his many self-portraits.
The mere fact that he drew and painted his own image is
201
not in itself surprising, but the frequency with which
he did so and the form of these pictures are revealing.
The most famous of Palma's self-portraits is the painting
in the Brera, of about 1585/90, in which the artist
depicts himself, palette and brush in hand, at work on a
composition of the Resurrection, one of his favorite

202
themes (Fig. 131). Proudly, and with a rather
theatrical gesture, Palma stands away from the canvas and
199
N. Ivanoff, "L*arte di Palma il Giovane,"
Ateneo veneto. CXXV, 1939, p. 303.
200
See above, note 187.
201
* xCf. L. Foscari, "Autbritratti di maestri della
scuola veneziana," Rivista di Venezia. XIII, 1933, p. 247ff.
2 0 2 ^ 6 self-portrait appeared in the exhibition.

La pittura del Seicento a Venezia. Venice, 1959, Cat. No. 1.
The painting of the Resurrection cannot be identified
with any of Palma's extant versions of the composition,
although it is close to the rendering in San Nicol& dei
Mftndicoli; the figures, however, are common types in Palma's
oeuvre.
254
looks back over his shoulder out at the spectator. Clear
ly the painter is here identifying himself with the grande
maniera; the composition in progress and the figure types
are part of the art by which Palma wished to make his

203
reputation.
903
AV/JIt rs particularly the stance taken by Palma
that distinguishes his self-portrait from others by well-
known artists of the later Cinquecento. In his late self-
portrait of about 1565, Titian presented himself in a
comparable professional context, brush in hand (Prado,
ill. in H. Tietze, Titian, fig. 267). The profile view
and the simple massing of the figure, however, give to
Titian's image a greater solidity, a firmer structure
that reflects upon the personality of the artist himself.
Even in the earlier Berlin self-portrait (ibid.. fig. 195),
we are struck by Titian's proud self-assurance. Annibale
Carraci, like Palma, depicted himself with brush and
palette before an easel (Brera, Mostra dei Carracci. Cat.
No. 64). m this case, however we do not see the picture
on which the painter works; the focus is on the outward
gaze of the sitter, who is surrounded by members of his
family. Here too, the simplicity of the composition
contrasts with the distinctly mannered quality of Palma's
self-portrait. The opposing diagonals of painter and
painting create a tension that is underscored by the
proximity of images at different removes from reality.
Standing stylistically between Titian's Renaissance
structural firmness and the clarity of Carracci's "neo-
Renaissance" values, Palma's self-portrait assumes a
definite Mannerist tone. Furthermore, we may again
emphasize that the immediate relationship of the painter
to his work reinforces the maniera association; Palma
seems anxious to demonstrate the ease with which he
works, to make clear his facility and speed. (A com
parable note of obvious staged self-consciousness is
struck in Federico Zuccaro's portrait of himself as proud
academician, a picture still in the collection of the
Accademia di San Luca [ill. in W. Kflrte, Per Palazzo
Zgccari in Rom. Leipzig, 1935, pi. l] •) Regarding the
artist's actual appearance, it is eyident, as we might
have expected, that Palma has flattered himself; this is
obvious from a comparison with a #irtrait vdrawlng of him
by Goltzius (Fig. 130), made when the Flemish artist was
r-
It;.. .
Among the numerous self-portrait drawings are two
in which Palma has placed a bust of himself within a very
elaborate frame; one of these is in the Morgan Library
(Fig. 363) and the other is in the Biblioteca Reale in

204
Turin. Crowned by sheaves of grain, the frame is a
very ornamental affair, flanked by two allegorical
figures, with two putti below. These elements are the
same for both drawings, though the poses of the individual

figures are varied. The Turin drawing is dated 1597 in
the oval plaque between the putti; the more elaborately

decorated plaque in the New York drawing has been left
blank, but the style of the drawing and the portrait itself
point to a later date, perhaps as late as ca.1610/15.205
In these two sheets, Palma has surrounded himself with

206
allegories of excellence, perseverance, and plenty.
in Venice in 1591 (E.K.J. Reznicek, Die Zeichnungen von

Hendrick Goltzius. Utrecht, 1962, Cat. No. 281). Palma was
clearly a rather pudgy person and this characteristic is
only slightly idealized in Alessandro Vittoria's portrait
bust in Vienna (Fig. 132).
^®Â. Bertini, I disegni italiani della Biblioteca

Reale di Torino, Rome, 1958, Cat. No. 299, where, however,
it is not identified as a self-portrait.
205
The figure of the striving youth is similar in
style to those in the 1628 sheet in the Accademia in
Venice (Fig. 335).
206
The sheaves of grain refer to abundance, while
the female figure with a staff and cornucopia in the New
York drawing is more likely an allegory of virtues in
general. Ripa, Iconologia. Rome 1603, p. 510, describes
one personification of Virt& as a "Donna vestita d* oro.
256
It is, however, the generally ornate nature of these self
portraits that is so striking. Very finished drawings,
they appear to have been highly valued by Palma, and the
later one was a gift from the artist to Sir Nicholas

N 207
Laniere, as indicated by an inscription on the back.
Palma's self-consciousness also involved an acute
awareness of himself as an heir of the masters of the
Renaissance. In the collection of Frits Lugt in Paris,
there is a small album of drawings by Palma on prepared

208
parchment (Figs. 337-358). The frontispiece, pen and
wash over black chalk, heightened with gold, represents
Christ the Savior (Fig. 337); the other drawings, in a
similar medium but heightened with white, are for the
most part typical figures of saints from Palma's late

*
style. More interesting, however, are twelve verso sides
which contain three portrait heads each with inscriptions
piena di maestSl, con la destra mano tiene vn'hasta, & con

la sinistra vn cornucopia." The female figure on the
earlier sheet in Turin is depicted without either of these
attributes, but merely crowned. The nude youth to the ?
left is close to Ripa's description of Perseveranza: "Vn
fanciullo, il quale con le mani si sostenga ad vnxamo di
palma alzato assai da terra" (ibid., p. 393). The pose
alone, however, makes such an interpretation quite clear.
207Sir Nicholas Laniere (1588-1666), musician and

art collector, was in Italy from 1625 to 1628, primarily in
Venice. See F. Lugt, Les marques de collections. Amsterdam,
1921, p. 533f.
208The album appeared in the exhibition, Le dessin

italien dans les collections hollandaises. Paris-Rotterdam-
Haarlem, 1962, Cat. NO. 126.
257
2 n 8 a
identifying them as artists of the sixteenth century.
Thus, for example, folio 7v depicts Raphael, Giulio
Romano, and Perino del Vaga (Pig, 341)? folio 8 v,
Giorgione, Titian, and Sebastiano del Piombo (Fig. 342);
folio 14v, Michelangelo, Baccio Bandinelli, and Daniele
da.Volterra (Fig, 348), Palma included himself on folio

209
16v, along with Tintoretto and Veronese (Fig. 350),
The twenty-four-page album was probably begun as a kind
of model book, in which Palma preserved certain common

210
types of saints from his repertory. The portraits,
all of which are on verso sides, appear to have been
added later. The style of the drawings as well as
Palma's self-portrait indicate a date sometime in the
second decade of the seventeenth century. In other words,
at the very end of his career Palma must have consciously
Most of these portraits are based on the

engravings published in the second edition of Vasari1s
Vite; occasionally Palma has Reversed these models,
299The inscription "IAC° PAL3" has been erased, no
doubt by some later owner of the book, A drawing which
may be 91 preparatory sketch for this page is in the
collection at Chatsworth? it contains heads of Tintoretto,
Veronese, and Palma (Fig, 365), The inscriptions, how
ever, were apparently added later and Palma has been rais-
identified as Malombra, and Tintoretto is labelled Jacopo
Bassano,
210
Some of these figures may have been derived
from the work of other masters. For example, the St,.
Jerome on folio 24 (Fig, 357), in its physiognomic features
and in the distribution of light and dark appears to be
based upon some original by.Jacopo Bassano, Cf, the canvas
258
looked back and seen himself as continuing the traditions
of those masters, Roman as well as Venetian, with whom
he associated himself on these pages.211
Palma's very name was a crucial part of his

212
heritage, as we have seen, and he was anxious that
this illustrious name continue the Venetian tradition
after his death. As Ridolfi relates, however, he had

^ 213
"poca felicita ne' figliuoli." The two sons born to
in the Accademia, Venice (S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie,

II, Cat., NO. 10).
211
Palma's historical consciousness, as it were,
may also be revealed in another book of drawings, the
catalogue of the picture collection of Andrea Vendramin.
Preserved in the British Museum and published by T.
Borenius* (The Picture Gallery of Andrea Vendramin.
London, 1923), this album records in small drawings,
executed in pen and wash, each of the compositions in
cluded in the Vendramin collection. Many of them are
labelled. Andrea Vendramin had this inventory drawn in
1627 and it is quite possible that the artist commissioned
to perform this task was Palma Giovane. The drawings,
with their hesitant and broken touch and the manner of
the application of the wash, are very close to Palma's
late graphic style. While we can find no precise
parallel in documented drawings by the roaster, we must re
member that the artist in this case was commissioned to
make careful copies of painted compositions. For a drawing
by Palma that is probably a copy of a painting, cf. T. 983,
which offers some points of comparison with the drawings in
the Vendramin catalogue. Somewhat more conclusive evidence
is offered by the inscriptions identifying many of the sub
jects (e.g. the comment beneath a Tower of Babel by Lambert
Sustris, Borenius, dp. cit.. pi. 5), which are extremely
close to Palma's finished penmanship as known from letters
and documents. Cf. the letter to the Duke of Urbino now
in the collection of Frits Lugt, Paris (Le 3Mtssin italien
dans les collections hollandaises. p. 86).
212Cf. above, note 8.
213
Ridolfi, II, p. 203.
A/
259
his wife Andriana died, one while travelling and the other
214
after leading a brief but dissolute life. There were
also two daughters, only one of whom, however, had a son.
Thus, when Palma prepared his final will and testament on
April 1, 1627, he left all the material pertaining to his

profession to this boy, then 9 or 10 years old, on the
condition that he become a painter and assume the name of

215
Palma. On the first of August of the following year he
added a codicil, stating that if this grandson did not
enter the profession the material in question should be
divided equally between his two daughters,, in the hope
that one of them would eventually bear a son with an
inclination toward painting, "per perpetuare il ricordo
della nostra famiglia nell'arte." His hopes were never
fulfilled, and when Jacopo Palma il Giovane died on the
214lbid.
215
For the text of Palma's last will, see R. de
Mas-Latrie, "Testament et codicille de Jacques Palma le
jeune" (cf. above, note 72). The stipulations of the
will are common enough in the history of Venetian art
from the Trecento on. Sebastiano Casser, a pupil of
Tintoretto and assistant of Domenico Tintoretto, married
Ottavia Robust! and assumed the name Tintoretto in order
to become eligible to inherit the workshop. See M.
Brunetti, "La continuity della tradizione artistica nella
famiglia del Tintoretto in Venezia," Studi d'arfce e storia
a cura della Direzione del Museo Civico Correr. I, Venice,
1920, p. 269ff., and in general, Tietzes, Drawings, p. 5f.,
with further references.
260
17th of October, 1628, the name of Palma disappeared with
In 1620, Palma had arranged with the monks of SS.
Giovanni e Paolo to be buried in that church and to be
allowed to erect a monument to himself above the door
to the sacristy; in return for this permission he agreed
to paint two pictures for the sacristy, the altarpiece

217
and another canvas to the right of the altar. The
monument was planned by the painter himself and was
erected in 1621 (Fig. 134). Above the pediment over the
door are three portrait busts, one of Titian in the
center, flanked by those of Palma Vecchio and Palma
2X6
Palma's family consciousness is further indi
cated by a group of drawings in the Morgan Library,
portraits of Palma and of members of his family (Figs.
359-362). The portraits of the younger members of the
family are among the most sensitive renderings by Palma;
executed in red chalk, reinforced with pen, they reveal
Palma at the height of his powers as a portraitist.
Several of these studies will be discussed by Dr.
Heinrich Schwarz in a forthcoming issue of Master
Drawings.
217
The documents relating to Palma's request are
preserved among the manuscripts in the Biblioteca Marciana,
Inscriptiones Sepulchrales (Class XIV, Cod. 26, 27); the
details of the agreement are published in G. Tassini,
Curiosita veneziane. 6th eda, Venice, 1933, p. 221 i , The
two paintings, a Crucifixion and a Resurrection are still
in the sacristy. Cf. Ridolfi, II, p. 204f.
Vi.
JT
261
218
Giovane. The inscription on the pedestal. o£ the
central portrait reads, TITIANO VECELIO/ IACQBO
PALMA/ SENIORI IVNIORIQ/ AERE PALMEO COMVNI GLORIA, and
below it is carved the date MUCXXI (Fig. 135). On the
tall canvas behind the sculptures Palma has painted two
allegorical figures of Fame trumpeting the glory of the
three artists; between the figures rises a tall palm
tree flanked at its base by two putti. The punning of
both the inscription and the painting is perfectly
obvious. For his funeral monument, then, Palma had
chosen to reaffirm his ties with the brighter past,
linking his reputation to the fame of his highly cele
brated ancestor and of the most illustrious master of
the entire Venetian tradition.
Palma's work, both paintings and drawings, and
the almost embarassing self-consciousness of these
later testaments tell us a good deal about the personality
of the artist. The epitaph and the series of portraits in
the little Lugt album in effect reveal him as an almost
218
The bust of Titian has been attributed to
Alessandro Vittoria, even though the sculptor died in
1608. The busts of the two Palmas — and probably that
of Titian as well — were executed by Palma's pupil,
Giacomo Albarelli. Cf. G. Lorenzetti, Venezia e il suo
estuario. Pome, 1963, p. 349. Ridolfi. loc. cit..
despite the date of 1621 on the monument, writes that the
sculptures were placed in position only after the death of
Palma by Albarelli, "suo discepolo, che anni 34 con molto
affetto (roa poca ricognitione) fedelmente l'hauea servito...."
fev.
insecure figure. The impression gained from his art
that he was perhaps overburdened by the weight of a
magnificent heritage is confirmed in these documents.
Palma seems to have recognized himself as the last
of a good age and, perhaps because he lacked confi
dence in his own achievement after all, tried deliber
ately and desperately to be identified with that
golden epoch of the past.
263
CHAPTER IV
ACADEMIC ART AND THE CRISIS OF THE VENETIAN TRADITION
Drawing Books in Venice
The relationship of Venice to the academic currents of the
late Cinquecento and early Seicento is most clearly docu
mented by Palma Giovane's participation in the production
of the two printed books designed to teach the basic prin
ciples of drawing. The first of these, published in Venice
in 1608, was Odoardo Fialetti's II vero modo et ordine per
dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano (Fig.
367); the second, De excellentia et nobilitate delineationis

(Fig. 388), was written and published by Giacomo Franco.
Palma's contribution to Fialetti's publication was
limited to the two final pages, for which he executed two
etchings, one of a Madonna and Child with Saints (Fig. 386).

and the other of Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery
(Fig. 387). The book itself consists of forty-three pages,
most of which are illustrations of various parts of the
human body, comprising a kind of model book of anatomical
details and physiognomic types. Interestingly enough, how

ever, the human figure in its entirety never appears, only
the individual and separate "parti et membra" (Figs. 370-385).
Some of the plates demonstrate in a step-by-step approach a
particular method for drawing various parts of the body; the
\
26?
head seen foreshortened is built up from simple stereometric

shapes (Fig. 375), and the eye is similarly constructed on
*1
the basis of its most elementary component lines (Fig. 370).
Giacomo Franco's De excellentia et nobilitate de-
lineationis is a more ambitious production and broader in
scope. It is divided into two parts, the first of which is
devoted to models of torsos and anatomical details (Figs.

392-407), while the second presents a set of illustrations
from ancient cameos, triumphs, ornaments, and animal motifs,
based on designs by Battista Franco, the more famous father

of the publisher (Fig. 389). Thus the volume is a still
more complete book of models for the artist, offering
exempla for the drawing of the human body as well as a set
of antique motifs to guarantee the nobility and correctness

2
of the artist's compositions. While Fialetti's plates were
3
accompanied by hardly any text, Franco has included an essay
The significance of this approach and the tradition

of such drawing books have been discussed by E. H. Gombrich,
Art and Illusion. New York, 1960, p. 156ff.
^Franco's original project may have been even more

elaborate since on January 19, 1611, he was granted permission
to print and copyright privileges for thirty years for "il
libro d*intaglio di rame per usp de dessegnatori in 3 volumi
intitolati: Della nobilita del dissegno con la dedication al
signor Gio. Battista da Val Segretario della Regiana di
Francia et una dichiaratione alii lettori." See E. A. Cicogna,
Delle iscrizioni veneziane. V, 1842, p. 433.
3
The text of II vero modo et ordine is confined to the
title-page with its dedication to'Cesare d'Este, Duke of
Modena and Reggio (Fig. 367), a page expressing the author's
gratitude to Giovanni.Grimani for his patronage (Fig. 368),
and a second frontispiece (Fig. 373).
265
on drawing, written in Latin and supposedly directed to the

student of the art. 4 This is essentially a recapitulation
of traditional ideas on drawing and painting with anecdotes
concerning the status of art in antiquity. Following Vasari,
Franco states that drawing is the father of painting and the
5
source of its perfection, and he then procedes to outline
the steps necessary to master the art. Just as one learns
to write by studying the component elements of spelling,
grammar, and syntax, so one learns to render the human
g
figure by beginning with the individual parts of the body,
and so we have the sheets filled with eyes, ears, noses,
mouths, hands, feet, etc. Furthermore, and always following
precepts stated so forcefully by Vasari and become common in
subsequent sixteenth-century literature on art, Franco affirms
that the first step in drawing is contour; only after the
7
figure has been outlined is shading to be added. The novice
4
G. Franco, De excellentia et nobilitate delineationis.
f. 2v ff. In addition to this text there is also a lengthy
title-page and dedication to Jean Baptiste du Val, secretary
to the Queen of France.
5
Îbid., f. 2v: "Est enim Designatio Picturae veluti
pater, a quo ipsa deriuatur, & sine qua nequit esse perfects."
6
Ibid.: "Et cum in re qualivet ci minimis paulatim in-
cipiendum sit, non secus ac faciunt scribendi magistri, qui suos
tyrones, prius literarum caracteres docent, postea syllabas, &
deniq; dictiones; idem arbitror in designatione faciendum, de-
lineandi sunt prius, oculi, nasi, ora, aures, pedes, & manus,
postea capita, brachia, crura, femora, tarn maris, quam feminae,
& demum figura simul, quae eo facilius effigiabitur ab eo, a
quo pluries partes supradictae fuerint effinctae."
7
Ibid.: "Est autem Pictorum omnium excellentium sententia,
vt partes sine vmbra delineentur prius, (veluti poteritis in
positis ordine exemplaribus) postea studio, & diligentia
inumbrentur."
. .
266
should begin by making drawings from figures in relief
and sculpture; having copied these forms, the young
artist then procedes to study the figure from life and

Q
gradually learns to master all the forms of nature.
This didactic program was often outlined in previous
academic statements of what was common practice through-

D
out much of the Cinquecento.
Franco repeats the anecdotes about the prestige
and excellence of painting in antiquity in order to
emphasize the nobility of the art.'*’® Battista Franco's
designs after ancient carvings were intended to provide,
then, a collection of motifs that would serve to intro

duce the young artist to the accomplishments of the
ancients.
® Ibid.: "Quod iuuenes industrij facientes ad

anaglyptum delineandum viam aperient, quod ad lampadis,
seu aeris lumen ita accommodabunt, vt iucundum, & facile
permaneat imitandum partem obscuram,partem claram facere
procurantes. Inde postea designare poterunt viuum
mobilius, & difficilius imitatu, ideo illud venuste suis
locis aptare conabuntur, opera eximiorum Pictorum ob
oculos hie posita ssquentes, nam horum exemplaria ad
delineadum viuum via extiterit perfecta. Et cum ipsi
omnibus modis integram figuram nouerint, effigiare, facile
fuerit cetera cuncta, videlicit, cuiuscumq; generis
animalia, & regiones, omnemq; aliaro rem effingere,"
Q
Cf. Vasari, I, p, 170ff, (quoted below, note 38),
and Armenini, De'veri precetti. Pisa, 1823, p. 58ff,
10Franco, op. cit., f. 3r. For a general review

of the anecdotes concerning artists in antiquity, cf, R.
and M. Wittkower, Born Under Saturn. London, 1963, p. Iff.
" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
267
The human figure, however, remains the central
concern of drawing, and the primary purpose of Franco's
book is to present the novice with a set of illustra-
tions of its individual parts, Palma's contribution was
the designing of these plates and perhaps even the execu
tion of some of them.^ Most of the studies of heads
and torsos were apparently derived from sculptured
models, either ancient or modern. The inspiration for
the other plates, the pages of ears, eyes, noses, was
provided by Fialetti's II vero modo et ordine, which had
appeared only three years earlier. Not that Fialetti's
designs were taken over directly; rather the idea and
approach, the inspiration for the project itself, came
to the Venetians from this Bolognese, Palma's close
contact with Fialetti makes such a flow of ideas all
the more likely.
i:
lA1though Palma's signature appears only below
the etching of the frontispiece, several of the other
etchings are so close in style and manner of execution
that their design, at least, is certified as Palma's,
The anatomical plates themselves fall into two groups:
those that are very finished engravings, the forms
elaborately modelled in light and dark/ and those that
appear to be left in a comparatively unfinished or pre
liminary state. The latter are quite close in style to
Palma's draughtsmanship and were evidently based directly
on sheets of drawings by the painter. Despite Franco's
signature, we are tempted to attribute the actual execu
tion of several of these plates to Palma, who had already
proved himself an able graphic craftsman in the last two
pages of Fialettifesbook. The fullest discussion of De
excellentia et nobilitate delineationis and of its author
will be found in Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni veneziane, V,
268
Odoardo Pialetti was born in Bologna in 1573; he

received his first training there and probably supple-
19
mented it with studies in Rome. He then settled in
Venice, where he is listed in the Mariegola of the
painters' guild between 1604 and 161213 and was appar
ently associated with the shop of Tintoretto.14 When
he was a young apprentice in Bologna, the Carracci
were establishing a new style and a new approach to
drawing and painting. No doubt Pialetti carried some
of the new ideas then circulating with him to Venice,
where, as we have seen, toward the end of the century,
artists like Palma were beginning to pay more attention
to the discipline of drawing.15 Indeed, Fialetti's II
vero modo et ordine is itself a definite part of the

heritage of the Carracci academy.
The Accademia degli Incarominati was founded in
Bologna in the latter part of 1582, that is, shortly
after the return from Venice of Agostino Carracci, with
p. 432ff. The book, a rather rare volume, was exhibited

in the Uffizi Mostra, Cat. No. 67.
12
*Malvasia, Felsina pittrice. I, Bologna, 1678,
p. 309ff. Cf. also Thieme-Becker, XI, 1915, p. 525.
•Âccording to the copy of the old list preserved

in the Biblioteca Correr in Venice. Cf. below, notes 116
and 120.
14Ridolfi, II, pp. 39 and 65. The date of Fialetti's

arrival in Venice is not known.
1^Cf. above, p. 2 3 2 ff.
269
whom the idea probably originated. 16 The activities of
the academy, like the art of the Carracci, were a reaction
against the extravagant formal stereotypes of late sixteenth-
century Mannerism."*-7 In place of the stagnant formulas, the
result of painting di maniera. the Carracci proposed a more
direct confrontation with nature as well as a new apprecia
tion of the classical values of High Renaissance art. The
emphasis in their academy was on the mastery of the human

18
figure, arrived at through the study of the living model.
Young artists were set to work drawing the figure, analysing
it, investigating and understanding its every detail. The
guiding master here was the versatile Agostino. As aids
to this study he prepared anatomical models for a better
comprehension of the form and structure of the human body?
these were based upon a knowledge gained from careful
16
A full discussion of the foundation, character,
and history of the Carracci academy will be found in H.
Bodmer, T.'Accademia dei Carracci," Bologna, rivista
mensile del commune. XXII, 1935, no. 8, p. 61ff.
l7For the role of the Carracci, and particularly

Lodovico, in the formation of a new style at the end of
the Cinquecento, see W. Friedlaender, Mannerism and Anti-
Mannerism in Italian Painting. New York, 1957, p. 47ff. Cf.
also N. Pevsner, Academies of Art Past and Present. Cambridge,
1940, p. 75ff«, and R. Wittkower. Art and Architecture in
Italy. 1600-1750. Harmondsworth, 1958, p. 31ff.
18
Drawing naturally played a crucial role for the
Carracci in the development of a composition. The scope
and thoroughness of the preparatory drawings for the Farnese
Gallery represent a revival of the working methods and atti-
tudos found in the Raphael studio. See R. Wittkower. fShe
Drawings of the Carracci at Windsor Castle. London 1952,
p. 15f., and J.R. Martin, The Farnese Gallery. Princeton, 1965.
270
examination of the body, including the dissection of corp-

1Q
ses, a standard part of the academy's educational program.
The drawings left by Agostino include many sheets containing
studies of anatomical details, eyes, ears, feet, etc., and
in these is to be found the main source of inspiration for
Fialetti's etchings of similar subjects. For although
Agostino*s drawings were not planned with such a project
in mind, their very character as life studies aimed at
clarifying the fundamentals of draughtsmanship; the
activity of the Accademia degli Incamminati itself made them
ideal educational' and engravings made after these
.sheets appear bound as books under various titles through-

20
out the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Fialetti's
own volume belongs to this tradition and is, indeed, the
first of such drawing books to be published.
Although the ideas and practices of the Carracci
academy were directly opposed to those of late Cinquecento

Marlftet&sjn, the emphasis upon a thorough understanding of
the figure through drawing was essentially a continuation
of the traditional Renaissance concern with the human
form. Around 1500, artists such as Leonardo and Dttrer
19
fflais activity was regularly supervised,by a
professional anatomist, Bodmer, op. cit.# p. 70,
20
* See Wittkdwer, op. cit.# p. 13, note 16,
271
took the lead in the investigation of the figure, its
anatomy and proportions; it is a commonplace that in the
Quattrocento, scientific inquiry and, even more important,
the means of recording knowledge gained were given their
greatest impetus by Italian artists. After 1500, the
study of the human figure came to overshadow the pre
occupation with perspective and spatial representation as

0*1
the central object of thought among painters® While the
concern with the figure remained the basic problem of such
thought throughout the sixteenth century, the approach to
it naturally underwent certain changes. Both Leonardo and
Ddrer had gone beyond their requirements as painters in
their studies. Leonardo's projected treatise on anatomy
was to begin with "the conception of man" and to "de
scribe the nature of the womb, and how the child inhabits
it" and the stages of growth within the womb and after
22
birth. Such thoroughness is more indicative of
23-For these problems in general, see E. Panofsky,

"The History of the Theory of Human Proportions as a Re
flection of the History of Styles," in Meaning in the
Visual Arts. Garden City, N.Y., 1957, p. 55ff., and idem.
"Artist, Scientist, Genius: Notes on the 'Renaissance
Dammerung'," in The Renaissance: Six Essays. New York, 1962,
p. 12Iff. Cf. also C. Singer, "The Confluence of Humanism,
Anatomy and Art," in Fritz Saxl. 1890-1948. A Volume of
Memorial Essays from his Friends in England, ed. D.J.
Gordon, London, 1957, p. 261ff., and L. Premuda, Storia
dell1iconografia anatomica. Milan, 1957, pp. 51ff. and 65ff.
22For the scope of Leonardo's treatise, see L.H*

Heydenreich, Leonardo da Vinci. London, 1954, p. 122ff.,
with further references.
272
Leonardo's own scientifically oriented mind than of
the general attitude of his contemporary artists.
Dttrer's ideas on the human figure were concerned
less with its organic nature and anatomy than with its
objective dimensions and proportions and, as Panofsky
has written, the artist "succumbed to a degree to the
temptation of pursuing the study of human proportions
as an end in itself: by their very exactitude and
complexity his investigations went more and more beyond
the bounds of artistic usefulness, and finally lost

23
almost all connection with artistic practice."
Dttrer's work was published posthumously as the Vier
Bttcher von menschlicher Proportion (Nuremberg, 1528),
and, despite its already rather dated character,
found wide circulation through the sixteenth century;
it went into many editions and was translated into

24
Latin, French, and Italian. In Germany particularly,
Dttrer's volume was also followed by a host of similar
23
Panofsky, "The History of the Theory of Human
Proportions," p. 104. For further discussion of Dttrer's
theory of human proportions, see, idem. Albrecht Dttrer.
3rd ed., Princeton, 1948, I, p. 26Iff.
^40n the various editions of the Vier Bttcher.

see J. Schlosser, La letteratura artistica. p. 274.
publications, all based directly upon its example,
and in Italy the Vier Bttcher enjoyed a considerable
reputation.26
The treatises on anatomy or human proportions
written or projected by the Italian artists of the
sixteenth century were of a different order, closely
bound to the needs of artistic practice and style.
Bramante, Leonardo’s contemporary, was said to have
written a treatise on the quadratura of the human

27
body and of the horse. Vasari claimed that he
possessed several drawings designed by Rosso Fiorentino

7ft
for an anatomy book supposedly printed in France.
Although we cannot be sure of the precise nature of
these projects, they cannot have been anything as
26For these publications, see Panofsky, "The

History of the Theory of Human Proportions," p. 105.
26
A thorough analysis of Dttrer's theoretical
work will be found in Panofsky, Albrecht Dttrer,
p. 242ff.
27
According to Lomazzo, the manuscript was in
the possession of the Genoese painter, Luca Cambiaso,
at the end of the sixteenth century. See Schlosser,
op. cit.. p. 144f.
28Ibid., p. 232f.
274
29
abstract as Leonardo's or Dttrer's work in the field.
Condivi, after noting Michelangelo's activities
in the field and the importance of anatomical study
for that artist, adds that he is speaking of the
"cognizione che all*arte della pittura e scultura e
necessaria, non dell'altre minuzie che osservano i
29
Mention should be made-here of the most impor
tant publication in the field to appear in the sixteenth
century, the De corporis humani fabrica of Andreas Vesalius.
Although it was published in Basel in 1543, the work on
it was done when the author was at the University of
Padua, between 1537 and 1542, and the illustrations were
designed in Venice by Giovanni Stefano da Calcar, a
northern pupil of Titian; the woodblocks were also cut
in Venice. The Fabrica. essentially because of its
illustrations, stands, as a monument in the history of
anatomical study and in the dissemination of knowledge.
The achievement may well be more to the credit of the
artist than to the anatomist, the value of whose original
research has been questioned, for example by W.M. Ivins,
Jr., "What About the t’abrica' of Vesalius?" in $hree Vesa-
lian Essays. New York, 1952, p. 43ff. Despite the great
"artistic" value of this publication, however, it belongs
less to the tradition we are surveying than to a
different, more specifically medical and scientific one.
The illustrations for Vesalius are available in a con
venient edition by J.B. Saunders and C.D. O'Malley,
The Illustrations from the Works of Andreas Vesalius
of Brussels. Cleveland, 1950. For further discussion and
references, see Ivins, Jr., op. cit.. and idem.. "Hie
Woodcuts to Vesalius," Bulletin of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. XXXI, 1936, p. 139ff. Cf. also, E.
Panofsky, "Artist, Scientist, Genius," p. 140ff„; the
contributions of S.W. Lambert, "The Initial Letters of
the Anatomical Treatise, De Humani Corporis." and W.
Weigand, "Marginal Notes by the Printer of the leones"
in Three Vasalian Essays, pp. 3f£, and 27ff.; and L.
Premuda, op. cit.. p. 91ff. The most recent biography
of Vesalius is C.D. O'Malley, Andreas Vesalius of
Brussels. 1514-1564. Berkeley, 1964. Regarding Titian's
relationship to the Fabrica. see below,, note 57.
275
30
notomisti." Michelangelo considered Dttrer's work of
little value for the artist since the German’s figures
were much too stiff and lacked all expression. The
treatise Michelangelo contemplated writing would deal
not with the objective measurements of the figure but

31
with its expressions and movements ("atti e gesti").
30
Ac Condivi. La vita di Michelangelo Buonarotti
(1553), ed. P. d'Ancona, Milan, 1928, p. 165.
Ibid.. p. 175f.: "E ben vero che di tal facolta

[sc. anatomy]cosi dOtto e ricco si parti, che piu volte
ha avuto in animo, in servigio di quelli che voglion dare
opera alia scultura e pittura far un'opera, che tratti
di tutte le maniere di'moti umani e apparenze, e dell*
ossa, con una ingegnosa teorica, per lungo uso da lui
ritrovata, e l'arebbe fatta, se non si fosse diffidato
delle forse sue e di non bastare a trattar con dignita ed
ornato una tal cosa, comme farebbe uno nelle scienze e
nel dire esercitato. So ben che quando legge Alberto
Duro, gli par cosa molta debole, vedendo coll'animp suo
quanto questo suo concetto fosse pereftter piii bello e
pi& utile in tal facolta. E a dire il vero Alberto non
tratta se non delle misure e varieta dei corpi, di
che certa regola dar non si pu3, formando le figure ritte
comme pali; quel che piii importava, degli atti I gesti
umani non ne dice parola. E perche oggiroai *e dleta grave
e matura, ne pensa di poter in scritto mostrare al mondo
questa sua fantasia, egli con grande amore minutissimamente
m'ha ogni cosa aperta; il che anco comincio conferire con
messer Realdo Colombo, notomista e medico cerusico...."
Realdo Colombo was, as a matter of fact, Vesalius' successor
in anatomy at the University of Padua and published an
anatomical treatise, xv libri di notomia (Venice, 1559).
In a letter of 1548, Colombo speaks of his plans for
writing an anatomical treatise in Rome, "se perche la
fortuna mi apresentava il primo pittor del mondo sa
servirmi in questo." (See K. Frey, "Ein Brief des
Realdo, Colombo aus Cremona," Deutsche Militarflrztliche Zeit-
schrift, XLI, 1912, p. 26ff.) Michelangelo’s projected
treatise, however, was not to be a rigid, purely anatomi
cal work; rather, he was concerned with the dramatic and
expressive representation of the figure and not with its
276
The extreme, expressive ambitions of the anti-
classical styles following the High Renaissance demanded
an approach to the study of the figure that was basic
ally different from the close scrutiny of Leonardo and

Dflrer. A greater sense of movement was sought;"^ and
in place of the classically poised contrapposto stance —
though certainly derived from it — a more extreme pose
was developed: the flame-like S-curve of the figura

33
serpehtinata. Such an irrational form was not sub
ject to the rigorous measurements of the anthropometrist,
and, instead of objective proportions, personal judgement
anatomy as such. Nonetheless, it is surprising that so

little graphic testimony remains of Michelangelo's many
anatomical investigations. Cf. C. de Tolnay, The Art
and Thought of Michelangelo, New York, 1964, p. 83ff.,
who questions the attribution to Michelangelo of
several anatomical drawings (note 8 on p. 137).
32
Both Dflrer and Leonardo were concerned with
the movements of the human body but essentially in a
mechanical and structural way. Although Leonardo's
general concern with movement was, in a sense, an organic
one, encompassing both his scientific investigations and
artistic expression, his theoretical statements found
little circulation. For reflections of his thought in a
late.-.sixteenth-century Milanese manuscript, see E.
Panofsky, The Codex Huygens and Leonardo da Vinci's Art
Theory. London, 1940, esp. p. 122ff.
33
For further comment on the significance of the
figura serpentinata. the development of which goes back
ultimately to the visual example of Leonardo's work, see
Panofsky, Idea. 2nd ed., Berlin, 1960, p. 42f.
became the standard of measure. Michelangelo remains the
guide, and Vasari quotes him as saying that it was
necessary to have "le seste negli occhi e non in mano,
perche le mani operano, e l'occhio giudica."'*4 Following

Michelangelo, writers and artists of the later sixteenth
a
century universally rejected the idea of drawing the
figure according to rational and objective measurement,
rejected, in shorty the Renaissance tradition of Leonardo
and Dflrer.^5
If the investigation of the human body was
carried on with less scientific fervor than it had been
by these two Renaissance masters, anatomical study itself
naturally remained a crucial part of an artist's activity,
through such study he gained the knowledge necessary to
J^Vasari, VII, p. 270.

3E .
Thus, e.g., Vincenzio Danti writes m II priroo
libro del trattato delle perfette proportioni (1567), ed.
P. Barocchi, p. 237: ben vero che alcuniantichi e
moderni hanno con molta diligenza scritto sopra il
ritrarre il corpo umano; ma questo si ^ veduto mani-
festamente non poter servire, perche*’hanno voluto con
il mezzo della misura, determinata circa la quantitl, com-
porre una loro regola: la qual misura nel corpo umano
non ha luogo perfette, perciocch^ egli dal suo principio
al suo fine mobile, cioe non ha in se'proporzione stabile."
Similar statements reflecting the loss of faith in
measure may be found in Bor&hini, Armenini, Lomazzo, and
Zuccaro. For a fuller discussion of this rejection of
objective rules in the later sixteenth century, with
further references, see E. Panofsky, op. cit.. p. 41ff.
and lOlf. Cf. also K. Birch-Hirschfeld, Die Lehre von
der Malerei im Cinquecento. Rome, 1912, pp. 3Iff. and
36ff.
278
draw the figure freely, and anatomy and drawing together
thus formed the very foundation of an artistic education.
The human figure was the primary object of drawing, and
anatomy was therefore one important aspect of the general

36
concept of disegno. Thus, for example, Benvenuto Cellini,
in the fragment of a discourse Sopra i principj e'l modo
d'imparare l'arte del disegno, recommended that the
young artist begin by drawing the most basic part of the
body, the bones of the skeleton. By constructing the
figure piece by piece, putting together the skeletal

structure and then covering it with muscles and flesh,
the novice was to learn the fundamentals of draughtsmanship.

< 37
Anatomy and drawing were inseparably united in principle.
36
Cf. above, Chapter I, p. 4*
37b. Cellini, Sopra i principj e U modo d'imparare
l 1arte del disegno: "Ora, perche? tutta la importanza di
queste tali virtu1 consiste nel fare bene uno uomo e una
donna ignudi, e questo hisogna pensare, che volendogli
poter far bene, e ridursegli sicuramente a meporia, ^
necessario di venire al fondamento di tali ignudi, il
qual fondamento si £ le loro ossa; in modo che quando tu
aria recatoti a memoria una ossatura, tu non portai mai
fare figure, o vuoi ignuda or vuoi vestita, con errori;
e questo si e un gran dire" (ed. C. Milanesi, I Trattati
dell1oreficeria e della scultura di Benvenuto Cellini.
Florence, 1857, p. 236).
Several studies of the human skeleton in various
poses have recently been attributed to Alessandro Allori
(Mostra di disegni del fondatori dell*Accademia delle Arti
del Disefrno. Florence, 1963, Cat. Nbs. 50-53, figs. 40, 41,
previously ascribed to Pontormo), and we may wonder
whether such drawings were intended to be utilized in that
artist's own Dialogo sopra l 1arte del disegnare le
figure. On this work, supposedly published in Florence in
279
Such a basic approach was not always practicable,
however, and most artists did not begin with either the
living model or its skeletal substructure. Instead the
aspiring draughtsman could begin by copying sculpture, since
figures in relief or in the round present themselves as
simple subjects with clear contours, stationary, and
without feeling or movement. From such examples the
young artist could first master the various elements of

the human figure and could then turn to the living model
for a more thorough understanding. 38
1590, see Schlosser La letteratura artistica. p. 400.

The drawings have also been discussed with regard to
Allori's participation in the decorations for Michel
angelo's funeral; see R. and M. Wittkower, The Divine
Michelangelo. New York, 1964, p. 162.
38This is the approach advised, for example, by

Vasari, I, p. 171ff.: "Chi dunque vuole bene imparare
a esprimere disegnando i concetti dell'animo e qual-
sivoglia cosa, fa di bisogno, poich£ avrl alquanto
assuefatta la mano, come per divenir pi£i intelligente
nell'arti si eserciti in ritrarre figure di rilievo o
di marmo, d^ sasso, o w e r o sopra qualche bella statua
antica, o si veramente rilievi di modelli fatti di
terra o nudi o con cenci interrati addosso, che servono
per panni e vestimenti; perciocche tutte queste cose
essendo immobili e senza sentimento, fanno grande
agevolezza stando ferme a colui che disegna. Quando
poi avra in disegnando simili cose fatto buona pratica
ed assicurata la mano, cominci ritrarre cose naturali."
For the changing concepts of art education in the
sixteenth century, see N. Pevsner, Academies of Art.
p. 34ff.
280
One of the basic assumptions of Renaissance art
theory from Alberti on was that painting should aim at
the imitation of nature, which in the fifteenth century
was held to be the petfect model for the artist. This
particular attitude, however, was modified in the
Cinguecento as the perfection of nature was questioned.
Nature came to be viewed instead as the imperfect
realization of a higher ideal, and, based on Aristotle's
comments on poetry, the new criticism maintained that
art should imitate human action in an idealized sense,
should imitate nature not as it is but as it ought to

39
be. The problem of the artist's relation to his
model thus became particularly acute. He could,
following the example of Zeuxis, select the best
individual elements from many models to create a per
fection of form in his art, or he could seek an already
perfect model. The idea, however, of piecing together
a figure could no more be accepted by the theorists of
30
For an introduction to these intricate problems,
the reader is referred to the discussions in E. Panofsky,
Idea, p. 24ff.; R.W. Lee, "Ut Pictura Poesis: The
Humanistic Theory of Painting," Art Bulletin. XXII, 1940,
p. 203ff«; D. Mahon, Studies in Seicento, Art and Theory.
London, 1947, p. 109ff.; and E. Battisti, "II concetto
d'imitazione nel Cinguecento italiano," in Rinasciroento
e Barocco. Turin, 1960, p. 175ff. These questions were
most recently discussed in a paper, soon to be published,
by R. Wittkower, "limitation, Eclecticism and Genius,"
Aspects of the Eighteenth Century, The Humanities
Seminars at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, 1963-64.
the later Cinquecento than could the anthropometry of
40
an earlier generation, w Fortunately,,this historically
self-conscious age found models exhibiting a perfection
greater than life's in the works of the ancients
and in those of the great modern masters who had even
surpassed the artists of antiquity. The practicality
of drawing from sculptured models, then, was given a
theoretical foundation: not only were these statues
convenient subjects for the young draughtsman, but,
even more important, they were ideal models in that
they represented the perfection of form so lacking in

41
the crude works of nature. Furthermore, by learning
40
Thus, V. Danti, 11 primo libro del trattato
delle perfette proporzioni. ed. P. Barocchi, p. 226,
writes, "nella quale proporzione, dico, risplende una
bellezza composta di%diverse bellezze o vero figure di
bellezze. Perciocche in un corpo possono essere tutte
le bellezze particolari di^ciascun membro, et il tutto
insieme si disidera, e cosi non essere perfettaxnente
bello." Cf. Mahon, op. cit.. p. 132ff. Vasari, how
ever, maintained that Raphael formed his own style by
selecting the best from the art of ancient and modern
masters and that this synthesis transcended all the
models. See R. Wittkower, "The Young Raphael," Allen
Memorial Art Museum Bulletin. Oberlin College, XX, no. 3,
1964, p. 166f.
41
L. Dolce, Dialogo della pittura, ed. P. Barocchi,
p. 176: "E parte si debbono iroitar le belle figure di
marmo o di bronzo de'maestri antichi; la mirabile per-
fezzion delle quali chi gustera e possedera a pieno potrk
sicuramente corregger molti difetti di essa natura e far
le sue pittuxe riguardevoli e grate a ciascuno, percioche/
le cose antiche contengono tutta la perfezzion dell*arte e
possono essere esemplari di tutto il bello.... E per
far un cgrpo perfetto, oltre alia imitazione ordinaria
della natura, essendo anco mestiero d'imitar gli antichi."
Cf. the passage from Vasari quoted above. Chapter I, note 13.
from these idealized figures, the artist could escape
the crude imitation of his Quattrocento predesessors
and acquire instead a graceful style, a pleasing maniera.42
Anatomy, then, was only a starting point;
anatomical Knowledge was necessary in order to guarantee
a certain mimetic correctness, but not aesthetic

40
quality. The concept of pratica naturally enters into
42
Vasarij, IV, p. 10: "Quella fine a quel che ci
mancava [in the works of the Quattrocentisti ], non lo
potevan mettere cosi presto in atto, awenga che lo
studio insecchisce la maniera, quando egli e presso per
terminare i fini in quel modo. Ben lo trovaron poi dopo
loro gli altri, nel veder cavar fuora di terra certe
anticaglie, citate da Plinio de le piu famose; il
Lacoonte, l'Ercole et il torso di Belvedere; cosi la
Venere, la Cleopatra, lo Apollo, ed infinite altre; le
quali nella lor dolcezza e nelle lor asprezze, con termini
carnosi e cavati dalle maggior bellezze del vivo, con
certi atti che non in tutto storcono, ma si vanno in certe
parti movendo, e. si mostrano con una grazziosissima
grazia.o.." Cf. the similar passage in Armenini,
Deêri precetti, ed. 1823, p. 68f., who adds "Vi aggiungiamo
di poi tutte le opere del divin Michelangelo Buonarroti,
quelle di Baccio Bandinellie quelle di frate Guglielmo
milanesi Li.e. della PortaJ •" For further comment on
these points, see P. Barocchi, "II valore dell'antico nella
storiffrrafia vasariana," in II mondo antico nel Rinascimento,
Florence, 1958, p. 217ff., and J. Bialostocki, "The
Renaissance Concept of Nature and Antiquity," in Studies
in Western Art. II. The Renaissance and Mannerism, p. 19ff.
On the general relationship of the Quattrocento to
antiquity, see E. Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in
Western Art. Stockholm, 1960, pp. 162ff• and particularly
200ff•
43
Cellini only guaranteed that his recommended
method would teach the beginner to construct an anatomic
ally correct figure, but not necessarily an aesthetically
pleasing one. "Io non dico gia," he continues, "che tu
sii sicuro per questo di fare le tue figure con roeglio o
peggio grazia; ma solo ti basti il farle senza errori, che
di questo io te ne assicuro" (Sopra i principj e'l modo
d'imparare l 1arte del disegno, ed* cit., p. 236).
44
the general Mannerist attitude toward drawing the figure.
The goal of the recommended study and exercise was not
simply an understanding of the mechanical functioning of
the human body. Through such practice the artist was
expected to free himself from dependence on the model
by acquiring a certain manual facility and a sense of
judgement that would enable him to give immediate form
to his ideas. And this facility Vasari held to be the
end of drawing; he maintains that
la pratica che si fa con lo studio di molti

anni in disegnando...d il vero lume del disegno,
e quello che fa gli uomini eccellentissimi.4*
He and those writers following him stress the importance
of committing the forms of the figure to memory:
Ma sopra tutto il meglio [subject of study] e

g l 'ignudi degli uomini vivi e femmine, e da
quelli avere presso in memoria per lo continuo
uso i muscoli del torso, delle schiene, delle
gambe, delle braccia, delle ginocchia, e l'ossa
di sotto, e poi senza avere i naturali innanzi si
possa formare difantasia da se attitudini
per ogni verso.46
Pratica. like maniera. is ultimately in direct
opposition to the idea of working from nature; to work
44Cf. above, p. 70f.
^JVasara., I, p. 171.
46
Ibid.. p. 172. For further discussion of this
aspect of Vasari's thought, see A. Blunt, Artistic Theory
in Italy, p. 88ff. Cellini, loc. cit.. also stressed the
importance of memorizing the elements of the figure.
284
according to these principles meant to work quickly,
relying more upon experience and habit than on careful

47
observation* Thus the many years of diligent study
and application advised by Vasari are meant eventually
to lead the artist away from the model, away from nature.
Once the anatomy of the figure has been mastered, and
this is the primary object of artistic education, one

•*
can work with the body imaginatively, bending it,
twisting it, multiplying it to create full and energetic
compositions di maniera. The end of pratica is, then,
a reversal of Renaissance values, like the distortion
of the contrapposto pose in the figura serpentinata.
Starting with the classical approach to the study of
the figure, based on a respect for the sanctity of
the human form, the practice of working di maniera
arrived finally at the celebration of the triumph of
fantasy over nature, of personal inventiveness over

AO
objective reality. °
A reaction against this divergence developed
toward the end of the sixteenth century, and the most
radical and important part of this reaction was embodied

49
in the practice of the Carracci. The essence of this,
47
'Cf. the references cited above, Chapter II, note 6.
AQ
These tensions in the Mannerist outlook are analy
sed by E. Panofsky, Idea, p. 43ff.
Ârtist-wr iters like Armenini had already begun to
condemn extreme practitioners on both sides, the artists
who painted from life without the aid of a manner based
3*
285
as has been observed, was a return to the direct and
constant study of the living model and a thorough under
standing of its anatomy. This emphasis, of course, was
not novel, but rather a reaffirmation of the values of
the Renaissance itself, values that the Mannerists of
the late Cinquecento had chosen to reject. The Carracci,
however, extended the scope of such study beyond the
strictly "humanistic" limits set by preceding generations;
they included as objects worthy of observation not only the
human nude, but the human being in general, in all its
mundane activities, not only the human form, but all
the forms found in nature: animals, landscapes,
vegetables, and "in somma ogni cosa creata."^® The

corollary to the formal figure studies of Agostino and
Annibale, and the product of the same insistence upon
direct observation, were the many drawings and even
paintings of genre scenes and the development of carica-

51
ture studies.
on the study of the antique as well as those who worked

di pura maniera. Cf. above. Chapter II, note 7.
50
See H. Bodmer, "L'Accademia dei Carracci," p. 70.
51
On this aspect of the art of the Carracci, see
R. Wittkower, The Drawings^ of the Carracci, p. 16ff. An
interesting insight into this activity is offered by the
Oxford painting of the Butcher1s Shop, in which a curious
blend of genre and classical quotation produces a monumental
Italian translation of a northern pictorial idiom. For the
most recent discussion of this picture, see J.R. Martin, "The
Butcher's Shop of the Carracci," Art Bulletin, XLV, 1963,
p. 263ff., whose identification of the figures in the paint
ing as the Carracci themselves is, however, open to question.
k: •
. ■'
286
Their investigation of the human figure is what

interests us most in the context of our present study.
The models made by Agostino were indispensable educational
aids, indicative of the thoroughness of their approach.
These and the plaster casts and the pages of close
studies of individual anatomical units provide the
background for the format of Odoardo Fialetti's II
vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et i

52
membra del corpo humano. What this book provides,
in effect, is a substitute for the material of the work
shops a set of prints of the various parts of the human
anatomy, of several physiognomic types, and step-by-
step guidance in the construction of the eye and the
head for those who lacked the facilities of a well-
equipped studio. Giacomo Franco's De excellentia et
nobilitate delineationis, following Fialetti's project,
contains an only slightly different selection of
illustrations. The torsos presented in these volumes
were intended to serve the same function as those in the
workshop or academy, and the young artist was apparently
52
The educational program of drawing the separate
elements of the anatomy was not an innovation of the
Carracci. Such practice was apparently not uncommon in
the sixteenth century, since Cellini's fragmentary discourse
on the teaching of drawing begins with an argument against
those who would set the beginner first to drawing the
details of the body, starting with the eyes.
L. .. '
287
expected to use these as substitutes for the originals,
models now twice removed from nature. The books, then,
were actual primers in the art of drawing, the first two
of many such publications that would appear throughout

53
the seventeenth century and thereafter.
Although Venice was the greatest publishing center
of Italy, it is still paradoxical that these model books,
the culmination, in effect, of the Central Italian
tradition of disegno, should be first published there.
Admittedly, the earlier of these was brought but by a
transplanted Bolognese artist — although with some
collaboration from the Venetian Palma; the second, however,
was the product of the efforts of two Venetians, Franco
and Palma. These publications coincide with stylistic
changes in Palma's later work, and especially in his
drawings; 54 they are even more specific documents of
the new attitude toward drawing in Venice, signaling the
end of the Venetian Renaissance tradition. Drawing was no
longer to be subordinated to color but was, following
nearly a century of ideological conflict with Central
Italy, finally recognized as the very foundation of
the art of painting.
53
A survey of this tradition will be found in
E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, p. 156ff. Mention should
be madeêre of earlier printed patternbooks, such as Hein
rich Vogtherr?s iEftnsfrbflchlin (Strasbourg, 1837, and many sub
sequent eds.); of. Gombrich, loc.cit.. and p.419, and
Schlosser, La letteratura artistioa. p.279*
^*See above, p. 229ff.
k. ■
288
Although never valued as an end in itself, the study
of anatomy had not been totally ignored in Venice. Titian's
figure of St. Sebastian in the Brescia altarp4,ece inspired
the Ferrarese ambassador to Venice to write to Alfonso
d'Este, "I am no judge, because I do not understand drawing!
but looking at the limbs and muscles, the figure seems to

55
me as natural as a corpse." Such naturalistic effects
were commonly praised by beholders of Titian's work. The
master's secret, however, lay less in the precise delinea
tion of the anatomical structure of the figures than in the

56
suggestiveness of color and brushwork. It is not likely
that Titian, even in his early years, dedicated more energy
to the investigation of the human anatomy than was necessary
for his work. His drawings from nature tend to be executed
in a free and open manner; they are thoroughly Venetian and

57
anti-disegno.
55
Quoted in J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, The
Life and Times of Titian. I, London, 1881, p. 251.
56
Cf. Vasari's observations on Titian's art, above f
p. 9 1 and the comments of Dolce on the rendering of flesh,
P. 59.
57
See Tietze, "Studies from Nature by Titian,"
Nationalmusei Arsbok. Stockholm,. 1949-50, p. 29£f. It
should also be noted, however, that the woodcut illustra
tions for Andreas Vesalius' De corporis humani fabrica were
designed by Giovanni Stefano da Calcar, a Flemish pupil of
Titian's. Despite the long tradition of this attribution,
E. Tietze-Conrat ("Neglected Contemporary Sources Relating
to Michelangelo and Titian," Art Bulletin. XXV, 1943,
p. 156ff.) has attempted to ascribe to Titian himself the
dominant role in the production of these anatomical designs:
"According to my hypothesis.•.the artistic invention of the
figures, the idea, in the terminology of the period, and
the mis en scfene would be Titian's, while Calcar's role
’
(
■
VI
*
Tintoretto, as we recall, was credited with tempering
Titian's color with the drawing of Michelangelo, and it is
would be that of the 'medical designer'....This would cor

respond exactly to the division of labor typical of Raphael's
studio and such an amount of participation by a pupil would
also be compatible with any reasonable conception of Titian's
workshop. The painstaking rendering of the minute results
of the anatomical studies would contradict any notion that
Titian himself was the medical designer." The author ad
duces the contemporary reference by Annibale Caro to Titian's
authorship of the designs and suggests that Vasari may have
deliberately exaggerated the contribution of his "amicissimo
Calcar," (df. Vasari, V. p. 435, VII, pp. 461f. and 582.)
"As a matter of fact," Mrs. Tietze continues, "had atten
tion not been drawn to Vasari's testimony, nobody would
have questioned the attribution to Titian." Calcar's col
laboration with Vesalius, however, is better documented than
that and actually pre-dates the work on the Fabrica. In
1538, Vesalius published a set of large anatomical woodcuts,
the so-called Tabulae Sex, three of internal organs, which
he may have designed himself, and three of skeletons, which
the anatomist attributes specifically to Calcar. Moreover,
the artist himself appears to have borne the expenses of
the publication ("sumptittus:; Ioannis Stephani Calcarensis").
The following year Vesalius published his Epistola docens.
and in it he refers to suggestions that he continue work
on his anatomical investigations and publication. His in
tentions, he writes, are to return to the task, provided
that cadavers are available and that Calcar, "the most ad
mirable artist of our time,” agrees to work with him
("Quamobrem si corporum dabitur opportunitas, et suam operam
Johannes Stephanus insignis nostiae aetatis pictor non
denegaverit, hequaquam ego eum laborem subterfugero,").
Calcar's role in the production of the Fabrica must indeed
have been significant and his contribution to the history
of anatomical investigation must be recognized as at least
equal to that of Vesalius, as has been maintained by W.M.
Ivins, Jr., "What About the 'Fabrica' of Vesalius?" (See
above, note 29.) A further, though not completely convincing,
attempt to associate Titian with Vesalius has been made by
H.W. Janson, "Titian's Laocoon Caricature and the Vesalian-
Galenist Controversy," Art Bulletin, XXVII. 1946, p. 49ff.
Another interesting aspect of the problem of the

Fabrica concerns the supposed preparatory drawings for the
frontispiece. P. Kristeller ("Eine Zeichnung von Johann
Stephan von Calcar zum Titelblatte der Anatomie des Andreas
Vesalius," Mitteilung der Gesellschaft fur vêrvielfaltigende
290
not surprising then to find that he did indeed devote much
more attention to anatomy. Ridolfi notes the care with
which he studied the figure:
...si pose anco &. disegnare da corpi naturali, for-

mandone varie attitudini, alle guali daua gratis
ne' mouimente, cauandone ancora infiniti scorci.
Taluolta scorticaua membra di cadaueri, per vedebe
la ragione de1 muscoli, procurando di accopiare.
Kunst. II, 1908, p. 17) identified a pen and wash drawing

in the National Museum, Stockholm, as such a preparatory
sheet. His attribution was tentatively accepted by Ivins,
op. cit.. p. 124f., although it is clearly wide of the
mark. The sheet bears the later inscriptions "Jean Calkar"
and "1675," which are ascribed to some collector; but the
style of the drawing is compatible with the date and the
sheet is surely a seventeenth-century copy of the frontis
piece. (It is illustrated in Saunders and O'Malley, The
Illustrations from the Works of Andrea Vesalius. pi. 93•)
Two other pen drawings have been adduced with regard to
this design; one is in the Hunterian Library in Glasgow
(ibid.. pi. 94), the other is in a private collection in
Los Angeles (ibid.. pi. 95). Both reflect the design of the
woodblock in reverse — the Stockholm drawing does not —
and are in a style contemporary with the publication of the
Fabrica; the latter sheet bears the inscription, "Joh.
Stephanus, inv. 1540 Venetiis." Furthermore, the style is
distinctly Venetian and related to Titian's manner of
drawing with the pen, as we might expect of a pupil. Ivins,
however, rejects these two sheets as genuine preparatory
drawings for the woodcut, but his reasoning appears parti
cularly unsound. The facts of the reversal of the composi
tion, slight deviations from the published version, the
style of draughtsmanship, and the inscription all point to
the opposite conclusion, namely that these drawings are in
some way connected with the preparation of the frontispiece
design.
291
ci6 che osseruaua nel rilieuo col naturaley apprendendo

da quello la buona forma, da questi la vnione e la
tenerezza.
Of Tintoretto's dissections we have no other evidence;
Ridolfi was speaking of the artist's early years, and his
tone indicates that such activities were not usual among
Venetian painters nor even for Tintoretto himself, A
drawing by the artist, an early sheet with careful studies

CQ
of legs, 3 might give us some idea of Tintoretto's approach,
but the model was not a natural one; it was a cast of
piece of sculpture, as is indicated by the manner in which
the leg is cut off above the knee in each study. Drawing
from such models was a standard procedure in most Renaissance
workshops, of course, and Tintoretto seems to have derived
his knowledge of the human anatomy as much from these as
from the living model. His drawings after sculpture pro
vide the most finished specimens of his graphic oeuvre.
His drawings after human models are of a different order;
usually directly related to the preparation of a painting,
they are radically free sketches, full of energy, rather
than careful observations of anatomical detail. They have
scarcely any relationship to the Central Italian ideal of
CD
Ridolfi, II, p, 15.
59
British Museum, 1946-7-13-107 (T. 1577).
deliberate and careful studies for such exercises. The
final form would be defined on the canvas with the brush
and color.
The entire assumption underlying the concept and
practice of drawing in Cinquecento Venice was ultimately
questioned by Palma Giovane and his generation around 1600
and, as was so often the case in such critical moments in
Venice, under the impact of foreign influences. The grow
ing reputation of the Carracci and the presence of Bolognese
artists in Venice were important factors. Palma, it will
be remembered, never abandoned ideas he had encountered
in Rome and was undoubtedly very receptive to the new em

phasis on disegno.60
Except for the case of Paolo Pino's dialogue, no
Venetian Renassance painter had written or, as far. as we
know, even contemplated writing a treatise on his art,
whether a humanistic dialogue or a more practical book
such as the anatomical works or lessons on drawing so
favored by Roman artists. The technical treatises that
were published in Venice were concerned with either archi-

61
tecture or perspective. The perspective studies, however,
60Cf. above, p. 234ff•

61
Of the architectual treatises, the first of the
Bolognese Sebastiano Serlio's seven books on architecture
was published in Venice in 1537 (for publication dates of
the subsequent volumes, see J. Schlosser, La letterature
artistica. p. 418f). I quattro libri dell'architettura of
Andrea Palladio appeared in 1570, and Vincenzo Scamozzi's
293
were of such a very involved mathematical character that
their appeal and usefulness to painters must have been quite
limited, despite such claims as that on the title-page of
Daniele Barbaro's La pratica della perspettiva (1569) that
it was an "Opera molto utile a Pittori a Scultori, & ad
Architetti." The renowned humanistSa treatise is a con
tinuation of the studies begun by the artists and mathema
ticians of the Quattrocento. In his preface he acknowledges
his debt to E?urer and Serlio, upon whose work so much of
his own is based. For example, he repeats Serlio*s three
woodcut illustrations of tragic, comic, and satyric

62
theatrical scenes, and nearly all of the eighth part
of his book, "Nella quale si tratta delle misure del corpo
Humano," is drawn directly from Eturer's Vier Bucher von
menschlicher Proportion, including the woodcuts.®^
Dell*idea dell*architettura universale in 1615. Mention

should also be made of Daniele Barbaro's important edition
of Vitruvius, published in 1556.
62
D. Barbaro. La pratica della perspettiva. Venice,
1569, p. 156ff•
63
Ibid.. p. 179ff. The Florentine Lorenzo Sirigatti's
La pratica di prospettiva (Venice, 1596) is also a rather
technically involved work. It is limited, however, to the
actual perspective construction of architectural space and
elements and to the study of complex solids. Though the
author makes no appeal to painters in his preface, his book
is nonetheless closer to the practical problems faced by
artists than was Barbaro's. For the unpublished treatment
of the subject by a Milanese painter, see E. Panofsky, The
Codex Huygens and Leonardo da Vinci's Art Theory, p. 68ff.
294
One of the important events of the 1590's for our
study was the appearance in Venice of the only Italian
translation of Eurer's books, the work of Giovanni Paolo

64 i
Gallucci. While lJurer's artistic work was highly esteemed
in Italy, the books on human proportions, although respected,
as we have seen, were considered of little practical value

65
by Italian artists. Nonetheless, Gallucci1s translation
soon went into a second edition ° and must therefore have
had some audience. The declaration on the title-page that
this was an
Opera a i pittori e scoltori non solo vtile, ma

necessaria, & ad ogn'altro, che di tal materia
desidera acquistarsi perfetto giudiccio
would seem to imply the existence of a community of dile
ttanti. who might be expected to be interested in such

67
matters. *fhe very publication of the work at this late
64.
Di Alberto Dvrero pittore e georoetra chiarissimo.
Della simmetria de i corpi hvmani. libri quattro. NUoua-
mente tradotti dalla lingua Lattina nella Italiana da M.
Gio. Paolo Gallvcci Salodiano. Venice, 1591.
65See above, p. 275«
66
Venice, 1594.
67
Dolce, in his Dialogo della pittura of 1557 (ed.
P. Barocchi, p. 154), had already discussed the question of
the right of the cultivated layman to express his opinion
and make judgements on matters of art and, basing his reason
ing on the humanistic assumption that painting is a learned
pursuit, a liberal art and the sister of poetry, he concluded
that such non-artists were indeed competent in every aspect
of art but the technical one. Behind Dolce's argument stood.
date in Venice is surely significant and the translator's
own comments are indicative of the chagges occuring at this

time.
In his preface Gallucci strikes a learned humanistic
note, attempting to demonstrate the nobility of the art of
painting and, toward this end, the similarity of painting
and p o e t r y M o r e pertinent, however, is the fifth book
which he appends to Durer's four,
Nel gual s'insegna, in gual modo possano i Pittori

con lineamenti, & colori spiegare gli affetti del
corpo, & dell'animo, si naturali, come accidentali
nelle imagine de gli huomini, & delle donne, secondo
l'opinione de i Filosofi, & Poeti.
This contains fifty-seven chapters in which are described
the appropriate manners of representing a full variety of
human types, differentiating qualities such as ethnic origin,
sex, age, physical, emotional, and moral states. The author

is armed with a complete range of texts, from Homer to Tasso,
of course, the extraordinary figure of Pietro Aretino.

Cf. A. Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, p. 84, and A. Hauser,
The Social History of Art. II, New York, 1957, p. 133. The
educated lay public of the later Cinquecento and early Sei-
cento, however, became increasingly interested in the tech
niques and approaches of the artist and based its judgements
more upon direct experience and appreciation of the work of
art than upon elaborate theories. Cf. below, note 77.
Gallucci, op. cit.. p. 5: "Prefatione a i lettori

...nella quale si mostra la similitvdine c'ha la pittura
con la poesia, che cosa pu6 imparare il Pittore, & Scoltore
da questi libri, & si Rachia, che la pittura fe arte." Poetry,
of course, had a long and noble tradition as a free and
creative art, with a theoretical foundation boasting an
ancient classical heritage. Thus, through its association
with poetry, painting might claim some of this glory for it
self. See the fundamental study of this subject by R.W. Lee,
"Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting."
296
although hLs most frequent source is Ariosto.6^ From the
poets' descriptions of human actions and feelings the
painter may learn how to depict figures of similar types
in similar dramatic and expressive situations» For each
type there corresponds an appropriate set of physiognomic
features, and Gallucci includes chapters indicating the
kinds of noses, eyes, feet, knees, hands, etcD, that are
suitableo We find here a kind of literary precursor of
those sheets of individual anatomical units that will
appear in the drawing books of Fialetti and Franco0 Typical
of the later Cinquecento is the academic and rigid formu-
larization of the traditional Renaissance concept of decorum,
the appropriate relationship between form and subject,

70
and in this reppect Gallucci's book is intended as a painter's
69
Dolce had already recognized in descriptive pas
sages of Ariosto's poetry ideal models for the painter;
cf« Dialogo della pittura, ed. P. Barocchi, p. 172ff.
‘ For further comment on the use of Ariosto as a model, see
Lee, op. cit.. p. 198.
70The idea of decorum or propriety was a standard

part of Renaissance art theory since Alberti's De pictura.
In his treatise of 1504, De sculptura (ed. H. Brockhaus,
Leipzig, 1886, p. 152ff.), Pomponio Gaurico included a
section on Physiognomica. in which he presented instructions
on the forms appropriate to the representation of various
human types and characteristics. On the general concept
of decorum, see Lee, op. cit.. pp. 228ff. and 268f.; and,
with regard to the Council of Trent and religious art, J.
Schlosser, La letteratura artistica. p. 425ff., and Blunt,
op. cit.. p. 103f.
V
297
71
guideo It is, then, the product of the same attitude
that slightly earlier produced the iconographic manuals,
designed to assure correctness and learning to the painter's

72
work. Venice, which for so long had resisted such an
academic and doctrinaire approach,73 was falling in with the
general intellectual tone of late Cinquecento Mannerism.
7lGallucci, op. cit., V,i, Dell'vtilide di guesta

dottrina, "Quelle pitture od imagini, delle guali i pittori
non hanno cosa certa: poiche non mai furono o furono in
tai t'Spi, tal che non si ha cosa certa de i loro cor pi, sono
di due sorti, altre sono libere al giuditioso pittore,
altre sono astrette a particolari lineamenti, sono, libere
le figure delle historie, che non siano principali, non
sono libere 1'imagini de i Dei de gli antichi, ne l'idee
delle virtudi, & altri concorrendo nondimeno nell'historie
diuerse sorti di huomini non sara di poca vtile l'hauere
guesta vniversale cognitione de de gli huomini, si per sapere
uariare le sue tauole, si perche, & i lineamenti dei corpi,
& i colori corrispondano ai lineamenti, & colori del capo....
Veggano dunque le stt^diosi della pittura quanta vtilit&
possono trarre da guello, che nel presente libro si tratta,
se diligentemente egli osseruera quelle cose, che gui
s'insegnano, intorno ai lineamenti, & colori conuenienti
a tutte 1*imagini humane rispetto a quello, ch'egli vorra
in quelle rapresentare."
72
Natale Conti's Mythologiae sive explicationis
fabularum was published in Venice in 1551, Vincenzo Cartari's
Le imagini colla sposizione degli dei degli antichi in 1556?
Cesare Ripa!s Iconologia appeared in Rome in 1593. On these
manuals, all of which went through many editions, and their
influence on later sixteenth-century art, see J. Seznec,
Tfoe Survival of the Pagan Gods. New York, 1961, p. 279ff.
73
We quote Seznec1s rather flowery tribute to the
Venetians, ibid.. p. 304: "The mannerism of Florence and
Rome, hollow and grudging in spite of its bombast, makes a
virtue of obscurity. Its pedantry and its labored hieroglyphics
are completely foreign to the splendid abundance of the
Venetians, whose overflowing vitality makes them scorn the
artificial fruit, lacking all aroma and taste, that ripens
in libraries. Never, for their part will the Venetians con
sent to sacrifice the 'plastic* to the 'intellectual,' or
to allow form to degenerate in the paralyzing embrace of
symbol. Hence the superb ease with which they free the
gods from their entangling accessories."
298
Gallucci did, however, sense that ifurer's studies on
human proportions were rather out of date. Hie final chapter
of the fiftfy appended, book, which begins with a vague ref-

74
erence to Ficino,' describes the proportions used by modern
painters, referring especially to the excessive elongation
of figures, and, in effect, a lack of classical proportion.
Almost with a sigh, he is forced to recognize the gulf be
tween these practices and the measurements of D&rer; Gal-
lucci's appeal to painters to return to the sure, numerical
relationships of the German master must certainly have

75
fallen on deaf ears. His plea^.for the re-establishment
of older norms, however, may be seen as part of the general
anti-Mannerist reaction of the late sixteenth century.
74Qallucci, op. cit., V, lvii. In gual cosa consists

la bellezza. & proportione de i corpi secondo Marsilio
Ficino. & i pittori: "Che cosa & inalmente la bellezza del
corpo? Vila certa viuacita di attione, & una certa gratia,
che risplende nella istessa cosa bella per l'influsso della
sua idea." Gallucci was very probably following the longer
passage from Ficino cited by Lomazzo in his Idea del tempio
della pittura (1590), xxvi, the text of which is given in
full in Panofsky, Idea, p. 126ff.
75Gallucci, loc. cit.. "Et queste sono le misure

uniuersali, che si vaano da i moderni pittori, le quali
dicono essi, havere comprobate, si col naturale, si con
le statue antiche pift esquisite, & pih certe, che queste
misurando quelle ciascheduna particella, quantuque picciola,
& queste solo i membri principali, oltre acci6 dando quelle
misure ad ogni sorte di corpi, che si possa ritrouare fra
gli huomini, & queste solo a quelli che costano di nuoue,
& diece teste. Hon rincresca dunque alii isLtudAaill'affaticarsi
nelle misure del Durero, come pitt certe, & in questi discorsi,
c'hanno forza di spiegare le nature de gli huomini, accio
che imitado bene la natura come deono ne portino quel frutto,
che meritano 'le loro fatiche." Cf. above p. 276ff.‘
299
The publication of Durer's four books may well have
contributed to the rising interest in the problems of the
study and drawing of the human figure, to the atmosphere in
which the books of Fialetti and Franco were produced. The
specific form of these books, however, derived from the ap
proach of the Carracci academy, as was discussed previously,
especially from the didactic drawings of Agostino.76 The
books mark, as we have observed, a kind of official rupture
of the traditional Venetian attitude toward drawing, recog
nizing it as the basis of an artistic education. Moreover,
these publications attest to a new artistic climate in Venice,
since, like Gallucci's Erurer translation, they assume an

77
audience beyond the professional community of painters.
The drawing-book idea caught on, and these two pioneering
efforts were followed by many others in Venice and the
76Fialetti, as noted, was of Bolognese origin and

Giacomo Franco had been in contact with Agostino Carracci
on several occasions. In Thieme-Becker, XII, 1916, p. 365,
it is suggested that he may even have studied with that
master. Franco and Agostino did share the task of engrav
ing the twenty designs by Bernardo Castello for an edition
of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata published in Genoa in 1590.
Malvasia, Felsina pittrice. I, Bologna, 1678, p. 98f., de
scribes the ten engravings by Agostino "fatte tutte a con-
corenza del Franco." Cf. E.A. Cicogna, Delle iscrizioni
veneziane. V, p. 436.
77
Noting the lack of theoretical publications on art
in the early Seicento in Italy, following the final activity
of Federico Zuccaro, Denis Mahon, "On Some Aspects of
Caravaggio and His Times," Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bulletin. XII, 1953, no. 2, p. 36., has written: "Indeed
the counterpart of the general absence of art theory is that
it is precisely at this juncture that we witness the birth
on a considerable scale of the practical dilettante who looks
at the painting rather than the book." Cf. above, note 67.
lo*
300
Veneto, as well as throughout Italy and then Europe.7®
De excellentia et nobilitate delineationis went into several
editions, in a significantly revised form, through the seven
teenth and early eighteenth centuries. In 1636, after the
deaths of both Franco and Palma, the plates of the first
part of the book, the figure studies, appeared with the
title Regole per imparar a disegnar i corpi hvmani diuise
in doi libri delineati dal famoso pittor Giacomo Palma
(Figs. 408,409); they were republished in 1659.79 The
second book of Franco's original project, of ancient
cameos, triumphs, ornaments, and animals, designed by
Battista Franco, was dropped, and with it the name of
Giacomo Franco. The book continued under 'Palma's name,
a long and lasting tribute to his fame, with which he no
doubt would have been well pleased.
Fialetti's and Franco's books were soon followed by
a still more elaborate one written by Gasparo Colombina of
Padua, Discorso sopra il modo di disegnare, dipingere. &
splegare secondo I^vfla. & l'altr*arte gli affetti principali.
si naturali. come accidentali nell'huomo secondo i precetti
78For a discussion of these, the reader is again

referred to E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, p. 156ff.
79The "doi libri" were obtained merely by distin
guishing between the engravings and the etchings. Cf. above,
note 11. The first revised edition was published by Marco
Sadeler, the second by Stefano Scolari. The plates were
used again in the early eighteenth century by Domenico
Lovisa. On the various editions, see Cicogna, op. cit..
p. 432ff.
<}&>
301
della Fisonomia (Padua, 1623). 1516 visual part of the
book,®® designed by Philipp Esengren, the German-born artist
living and working in Venice, contains notônly the familiar
sheets of anatomical details and figures, but also a sheet
constructing the figure in three steps from the skeleton,
through the addition of muscles, to the final nude. There
are, in addition, several plates of animals, similar to
those in the second part of Franco's publication.(Figs.411-414)•
This section of Colombina's volume is preceded by a
long text, a discourse by the author on the art of drawing
that repeats many of the standard formulas, especially those
of Vasari. Chapter I defines drawing and describes the
various media just as the Tuscan artist and biographer did
in Chapters XV and XVI of the "Introduzione alle tre arti

gl
del disegno" in his Vite. Following this, he recommends
to his readers the models prepared by Esengren,
a beneficio vostro (o Giouani virtuosi) da cui

apprender potrer il vero, & il buono del Disegnar,
e per conseguenza della Pittura.®
Li primi elementi della simmetria o' sia commen-

svratione del disegno delli corpi humani. & naturali. a
giouamento delli studiosi di guesta nobil arte.
81
Cf. e.g., Colombina's definition of drawing,
Discorso. f. 3v.: "Disegno altro non & (6 nobilissimi Giouani,)
c!he vna considerata preordinatione di quelle cose necessarie
a sapersi, per condurre h. bastanza 1'opera nel suo fine,
la qual preordinatione nella mente imaginata, e dall'animo,
e dal giuditio conceputa si viene finalmente h porre in
atto per varij modi sopra piccioli spatij di carte, il che
si f& con linee, lumi, & oombre; in modo, che si scuopre in
carta quello, che nell'idea si era fabricato....11
^ Ibid.. f. 4r.
Chapters II and III of the book deal with painting and
its various media, singling out Raphael as the ideal
model for the beginner, never mentioning either Titian
or Tintoretto. The fourth and final chapter.
Con guali lineamenti il dissegnatore, e con

quali colori il pittore, deue spiegare gli
affetti principali, si naturali, come acciden-
tali nell'huomo secondo l'arte della fisonomia,
belongs to the same tradition as Gallucci's appendix
to Dflrer's work, 83 the extension of the concern with
decorum. This codification of the appropriate modes of
representing the human passions would culminate in
Charles le Brun's M^thode pour apprendre 'k dessiner les
passions0^3a
Within the lifetimes of painters like Palma
Giovane and Domenico Tintoretto, the artistic climate
of Venice had clearly undergone some fundamental
changes. The nttfe introduction of a serious concern
with art theory on the part of the artists themselves
is significant, but even more so is the complete reversal
of values revealed in the enthusiastic recognition of
disegno as the basis of the art of painting. These are
the theoretical and historical conditions surrounding
83 - -
Colombina's text clearly derives from Gallucci*s;
the chapter headings and the formulas used closely follow
the latter's example.
®®aSee J. Schlosser, La letteratura artistica. pp.

630f. and 635, with further references. For a discussion
of the academic regulation of expression, see Lee, "Ut
Pictura Poesis." pp. 217ff. and 266ff», and Mahon, Studies.
p. 148ff.
303
the change in Palma's drawing style in the later part
of his career. In their acceptance of general Mannerist
ideas and in their simplification of these ideas toward
more practical ends, the Venetians were indeed partici
pating in the birth and early development of the new
era of the Baroque, even though their efforts appear
somewhat awkward.
Ihe drawing books were the first practical
grammars of the academic approach to art education,
manuals of selected models. Although these volumes
were certainly no substitute for practical studio
experience, their success and popularity indicate that
they did serve some real purpose — perhaps the
educating of a new kind of public rather than of the
artists themselves. When, in the eighteenth century,
an academy of art was finally opened in Venice, Palma's
Regole per imparare a disegnare. just gone into its
fourth edition, provided the inspiration for the primer
designed by the new academy's first directory,
Giambattista Piazzetta.84 TSie efforts of Palma, Fialetti,
and Franco, then, stand at the very beginning of the more
than century-long struggle of the Venetian artists to
become academicians.
84 y
Studi di pittura gia disegnati da Giambattista
Piazzetta ed ora con 1'intaglio di Marco Pitteri publicati
a spese di Giambattista Albrizzi. Venice, 1760. For further
information on this publication and the academy, see G.
Fogolari, "L'accademia veneziana di pittura e scultura del
Settecento," L'Arte. XVI, 1913, p. 241ff.
304
Workshops, Guilds, and Academies
With regard to academies of art, Venice, always the

most conservative and stable city in Italy, remained the
most backward. Since the thirteenth century painters, like

all other artisans and merchants, had been organized in
guilds, and of such professional organizations was the
economic and political fibre of the Italian and northern

European communes composed. Guild membership was open only
to citizens of the town, and it was only through such member
ship that the individual could exercise certain civic rights

85
and participate in the political life of the community.
The guilds were in general both professional and religious

confraternities, supervising the education of apprentices
and the activities of the workshops, regulating contracts
and maintaining standards of craftsmanship and material, as

well as guiding the moral conduct and enforcing the religious
86
obligations of the members.
In early Quattrocento Florence, along with the new

style in the visual arts, there arose a new ideal of the
artist as a learned and proud practitioner of a free and
liberal art: the idea of the Renaissance artist. The
medieval guilds had generally associated painters, glass
makers, gilders, carvers, cabinet makers, and paper makers
85
In Florence, after 1293, citizenship was dependent
upon, membership in a professional corporation. See R. and M.
Wittkower, Born under Saturn. London, 1963, p. 8ff., with
further references.
86
For a general discussion of this question, see ibid..
and F. Antal, Florentine Painting and its Social Background.
London, 1947, pp. 274ff. and 374ff.
305
in a single organization. In Florence, since they dealt
with pigments, painters were members of the Arte dei medici.

87
speziale, e merciai. Sculptors and architects were usually
organized with stonemasons and bricklayers. In their quest
for a new social status, the Florentine artists of the fif
teenth century argued that painting, sculpture, and archi
tecture were not mechanical but liberal arts and the artist
himself was to be not a craftsman but, in the words of Al
berti, a "huomo buono et docto in buone lettre." It was ob
vious that the new artist felt out of place within the old
guild system,and it is just at this moment that he begins

his long revolt against it.®®
In 1434, Brunelleschi, the leading figure of the new
generation, refused to pay his dues to the Arte de*maestri
di pietri e lagnami, the guild of stonecutters and carpenters,
of building workers in general. For this refusal the guild,
exercising its right and power, had the architect imprisoned.
The cathedral authorities, however, undoubtedly in sympathy
. 87Ibid.. p. 277ff.
88
For the changing social status of the Renaissance
artist, see N. Pevsner, Academies of Art Past and Present; p. 31ff.,
and Wittkowers, op. cit., p. 14ff. On the.artists' relation to
the liberal arts, see R. Wittkower, The Artist and the Liberal
Arts, London, 1952. From its origin in antiquity, the concept
of the liberal arts had excluded the visual £rts: "These are
the studies whose purpose is not to make money. They are
called 'liberal* because they are worthy of a free man. Hence
painting, sculpture, and the other manual arts (Cartes me-
chanicae') are excluded, while music, as a mathematical sub
ject, has a stable.place in the circle of the liberal arts"
(E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages.
New York, 1963, p. 37).
with the new ideals, came to Brunelleschi's defense, and
within eleven days he was free to continue work on the dome .

of the Florentine cathedral. 89
Throughout the fifteenth century, Florence was the
center of new artistic ideas aid new concepts of the social

and intellectual position of the artist. Both were nurtured
by the contact of artists with the humanists of Ficino*s
Academy and, with the academic idea thus established, the
organizational goal of the artist's social aspirations be-

90
came clearer: an academy of art. By assuming the title
of academician the artist could identify his art and himself
with the new humanistic intellectual currents of the day,

thereby distinguishing himself from the craftsman. The word
academy, however, was not deliberately applied to the visual

arts until 1531, in an engraving by Agostino Veneziano a
after Bandinelli. This print depicts a group of artists
sitting around a table and drawing from small statues by
candle light and bears the inscription, "Academia di Bacchio

91
Brandin in Roma in Luogo detto Belvedere." The activities
shown were common to nearly every Renaissance workshop, but
89
Wittkowfers, Born under Saturn, p. 10, with further
references.
90
For the background of the relation of art tos
Florentine humanismjb see A. Chastel, Art et humanisnfeaEt
; Florence au temps de Laurent le Macrnifique. Paris, 1959.
See also R. Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Princeton, 1956,
p. 315ff.
91
N. Pevsner, Academies of Art Past and Present, p. 39ff.
Fig. 5.
Bandinelli has glorified them with the new term. This
"academy" was merely a free gathering of artists in the
sculptor's studio, informally, as was the manner of the
earliest humanist academies as well, come together to profit

from his collection of casts and models and, probably, to
discuss the theory and practice of art. Organized institu
tions called academies were still unknown in Rome in 1531;

the idea came from Florence, but Bandinelli appears to have
92
been the first to apply the term to the artist's studio.
The first proper, organized art academy was the ■
Florentine Accademia del Disegno, founded by Vasari in 1563

93
under the auspices of Cosimo de'Medici. The primary pur
pose of the new institution was a social one; the esta
blishment of a society of the foremost artists of Florence
under the special protection of the grand duke. Cosimo

himself and Michelangelo, who was then residing in Rome,
were to be the two Capirand membership in the academy was
to be restricted to the "piu eccellenti" painters, sculptors,

and architects. The old guild distinctions were thus de
stroyed since the three visual arts were essentially three
. 9^For a discussion of the character of Bandinelli, see

ibid., and Wittkowers, op. cit.. p. 229ff. Around 1550, when
he was situated in Florence, Bandinelli designed another,
smaller scene, which was engraved by Enea Vico (Pevsner,
op. cit.. Fig. 6).
93
A full account of the founding, development, and
character of the academy will be found in ibid., p. 42ff.
Cf. also P. Barocchi, "L'Accademia del Disegno ai suoi inizi,"
in the catalogue of the Uffizi Mostra di diseqni dei fondatori
dell'Accademia delle Arti del Dlsegno, Florence, 1964, p. 3ff.
The forty-seven articles of the Capitoli et Ordini of the
academy were published by Pevsner, op. cit., p. 296ff.
308
QOj*
different aspects of disegno, "padre delle tre arti nostre."
Furthermore, since for Vasari "disegno altro non sia, che una
apparente espressione e dichiarazione del concetto che sia

94
nell'animo," a very definite intellectual tone was esta
blished at the same time. It was not, however, until 1571
that, by a ducal decree, academicians were officially ex
empted from their guild obligations.
Another concern of the academy was educational.
Vasari refers to the new institution as "una Sapienza per i .

giovani e alio insegnar loro" and the members were classified
95
as either Capi or Giovani. Articles 32 and 33 of the
Capjtoli et Ordini stipulated that each year three masters
should be chosen as visitori and they were to give instruc
tion in the art of disegno to a number of promising novices,
either at the academy or at their own shops. Once a youth
seemed advanced enough he would be proposed for membership

96
in the academy. Thus the academy was not meant to replace
the traditional procedures of workshop training? rather, it

provided a supplement to that training. Practical education
in the technical methods of art continued through the tradi
tional master-apprentice relationship of the workshops. The
academy, however, made available certain auxiliary subjects;
93a
Cf. M. L. Gengaro, "Il 'tema* del 'rapporto tra le
arti'nella critica di Giorgio Vasari," in Studi vasariani,
Florence, 1952, p. 57ff.
94
Vasari, I, p. 168. On Vasari's concept of disegno.
cf. above, Chapter I, p.2ff.
95
Pevsner, o p . cit.. p. 46£f.
96Ibid.. p. 47.
y°
309
there were to be lectures on geometry and anatomy delivered

97
by experts in these fields, and we may assume that the
academy took the lead in establishing a proud, intellectual,

and self-confident attitude on the part of artists.
Vasari apparently lost control of the later develop
ment of his organization, and the academy seems to have be

come a substitute for the artist*.' guilds, concerning itself
increasingly with commercial aspects of the profession. To

correct this situation, Federico Zuccaro, in a letter written
between 1575 and 1578, set forth a program "per rimetter in

98
piedi li studij di questa nostra accademia." His proposals
for the reform of the educational activities of the academy,

which were much more precise than Vasari's original program,
were never carried out. In 1593, however, he was able to
re-apply his ideas when he became Principe of the second

academy of art, the Accademia di San Luca, founded in 1577
99
at Rome. One of his proposals had been for a room in which
life-drawing would be supervised once a week, and this was

apparently established in the Roman academy.^”®® Drawing from
97
Ibid., p., 48.
98
For this letter, see ibid., p. 51f.
99
On the Accademia di San Luca, see ibid., p. 55ff.
1Q0Ibid., p. 62: "Instruction of some sort must have
existed...for a paragraph newly introduced into the rules of
1596 forbids to all students 'far adunanze in case, ne tener
modello senza far permesso del Principe,1 which obviously
means private life-classes or any kind of study in private
groups, i.e. just what Bandinelli had done. If there had not
been any life-drawing at the academy, this paragraph would
scarcely have been inserted."
310
living and sculptured models was probably one of the most

important parts of the curriculum,and it was undoubtedly
aided by the donation to the academy of the Salvioni Collec

tion of casts in 1598.
Zuccaro himself, however, was more interested in the
literary formulation of his ideas on art, and for the period
of his directorship the artists in the Accademia di San Luca
were subjected to his philosophical e x h o r t a t i o n s . T h e s e
do not seem to have made much of an impression at all. "The
more Zuccaro became convinced of the importance of art as a
human activity, and the more he thought to substantiate this

view theoretically, the further he got from the practical
problems of the artist: this lack of close relationship be
tween theory and its application in practice meant that,

whatever Zuccaro's influence might be outside the profession
(as a propagandist on its behalf), the direct effect of his
theories among working artists was hardly likely to be great.
His principal object is to obtain wider recognition for the

position of art as a major activity of the human spirit, and
consequently he speaks rather as an abstract philosopher to
the letterati than as an art theorist to the artists: la
dignita dell'Arte, that is his real theme.
^■^^Zuccaro's writings are now available in a facsimile

edition compiled by D. Heikamp, Scritti d'arte di Federico
Zuccaro, Florence, 1961. For a discussion of his ideas on
art, see Panofsky, Idea, p. 39ff.; A. Blunt, Artistic Theory
in Italy, p. 137ff.; J. Schlosser, La letteratura artistica.
p. 388ff.; and D. Mahon.-Studies in Seicento Art and Theory.
p. 155ff.
102
Ibid.. p. 165f.
311
Like Vasari's Accademia del Disegno, Zuccaro's
Accademia di San Luca was meant to enhance the prestige of
the profession, to rescue artists from their embarrassing
bondage to still strongly lingering medieval attitudes. The

academicians of San Luca, however, were never freed from
their obligations to the guilds and there ensued many years
of jurisdictional dispute between the academy and these older
organizations. While the Roman academy had established the

basic model for the many academies of art that were founded
in the seventeenth century, the guilds fiercely, and usually
successfully, defended their ancient privileges and powers. 103
Still, the academic movement had been initiated in
Florence and Rome, and artists and patrons in these two
Renaissance centers recognized the new position of the arts.
Developments in northern Italy in general were slower. Until

1569 the painters in Bologna belonged to the guild of sword-
cutlers, saddlers, and scabbard makers and after that to the
guild of calico merchants. It was only in 1598 that, follow
ing the examples of Florence and Rome, a separate Compaqnia
di pittori was created by Cardinal Montalto, the Papal legate

in Bologna, and only after the painters had protested that
"1'arte della pittura merita et e solita ad essere abbracciata

104
et favorita da Prencipi." In his decree, the cardinal
103
Pevsner, op. cit.. p. 64: "...all these vicissitudes,
orders, repeated orders, and withdrawals of orders, can only
serve to prove beyond doubt that ten, twenty, forty-five
years after the foundation of the academy all that ascendency
of the Accademia di S. Luca over the guilds had vanished, and
painting and sculpture were in a position hardly different from
that a hundred years before.”
104™,
The events in Bologna are surveyed in ibid., p. 68ff.
y r
312
recognized the art of painting as a "nobil e virtuosa pro-

fessione" and, agreeing with the painters' petition, that in
Bologna especially that art had attained a "stato di flori-
dezza e di celebrita." Moreover, the new guild was also to

include architects and sculptors, “come di profession! molto
conformi e necessarie al buon pittore." Despite this liberal
acceptance of the relationship of the three arts of disegno,

the new organization was never accorded the status of
academy, even though Lodovico Carracci went to Rome in 1602
petitioning such a change. 1
A t the end of the Cinquecento in Genoa the old order
suffered a clear defeat by the progressive forces. Giovanni

Battista Paggi, a Genoese nobleman living in exile in Florence,
had become a rather successful painter. He was, however,

self-educated, having learned the art of painting merely by
studying from drawings, casts, and books without any training
in the workshop of a master painter. When Paggi decided to
return to Genoa, the guild there invoked its rights and de
manded official sanction of the old rules: since Paggi had
never undergone the required seven years of apprenticeship
with a local master and guild member, it was demanded that
he be forbidden to practise in Genoa. Paggi's defense was
conducted by his brother, an eminent physician, and supported

by several learned members of the nobility. His arguments,
presented in letters to his brother and later printed in

105
pamphlet form, are based on the now familiar defense of
^■^The letters are printed in Bottari-Ticozzi, Raccolta

di lettere, VI, Milan, 1822, p. 56ff. For the pamphlet,
Diffmizione ossia divisione della pittura (Genoa, 1607),
see J. Schlosser, La letteratura artistica. pp. 397 and 403.
313
painting as a liberal art. Paggi writes that he wishes to
see the profession restored to its honored standing,to count
only well-born and well-mannered men among the ranks of

artists. Academically he argues that the practice of art is
founded on the study of "mathematics, geometry, arithmetic,

philosophy and other noble sciences." These may be learned
from books, and the rest will come through practice and ob
servation, which depend on natural gifts and cannot be taught:

therefore the beginning artist need not follow any given
master for his education but may, like the poet or musician,
learn from the study and emulation of great models. In 1590

the Genoese Senate, declaring that the guild rules applied
only to painters maintaining open shops, upheld Paggi's

claims.106
It was of course soon after, in the opening, years of

the Seicento, that the first drawing books appeared, and
Paggi's own education gives us a further understanding of

the audience for whom these publications may have been meant.
The books themselves must be viewed in the same context of
the establishment of painting as a free and liberal art, for,
as much as Paggi's position, they were a challenge to the

monopolistic control of the guilds over artistic education.
Paggi had argued that one need not learn in the workshop under
the supervision of a master. The books, ostensibly by offering
106
The above account of Paggi's story is based essentially
on that of R. and M. Wittkower, Born under Saturn, p. lOf. For
further discussion of these events, see ibid., and Pevsner,
Academies of Art. p. 67f.
substitutes for necessary study material usually found only
in established workshops or in the collections of wealthy
art-lovers, were intended as Aids to such self-education.
They could hardly have provided anything more than
a poor substitute, however, for the plaster casts themselves

and, at a time when there was a new emphasis on drawing
directly from the living human model, could scarcely have
been of much use to any but the most amateurish students of
drawing. Drawing from life, as we have seen, was one of the
main practical points of Zuccaro's academic program and cer

tainly the most significant for the future development of
academies. Following the initiative of Vasari and Zuccaro
in Florence and Rome, official academies did not, however,
quickly spring up in the other major artistic centers of

107
Italy. The term academy itself was used more frequently
107
Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who, until he left Rome
in 1595, was the protector of the Accademia di San Luca, founded
an Accademia del Disegno at the Ambrosiana in Milan in 1620.
It was closed in 1625, re-opened in 1669 and permanently closed
in 1690. Although the cardinal's primary concern was naturally
with religious art, the practical program of the academy was a
typical one: "Gli Studi e le fatiche dell'Accademia saranno
questi: ritrarre dal naturale le varie parti del corpo umano,
formare e disegnare i rilievi e le altre opere degli uomini di
celebre fama. In certi tempi determinati sopra le parti prin-
cipali delle arti e sopra le materie assegnare vicendevolmente
si ragionera^dai maestri....01tre al trattare di queste tre
arti si potra trattare de 1color! e del componimento di essi e
del convenevole apparecchio degli altri istrumenti, che nella
pittura, nella scultura, nella architettura si adoperano....
Si diano particolari ammonimenti intorno alia disposizione
delle historie." See G. Rosa, "L1Accademia del Disegno fondata
dal Cardinale Federico Borromeo." Aevum, XIII, 1939, p. 333ff.,
and Pevsner, op. cit., p. 69ff. On Federico Borromeo's treatise,
De pictura sacra (Milan, 1625), see J. Schlosser, La letteratura
artistica. pp. 615f. and 624.
315
to refer to gatherings similar to those held at Bandinelli's

studio, artists assembling to draw'from casts or from a live
model. This kind of activity was the basis of the Carracci's
Accademia degli Incamminati. Camillo and Giulio Procaccini
had a similar academy in their house at Milan and, according
to Malvasia, Guercino obtained two rooms to be used as an

108
“Accademia del Nudo.11 Such academies were common by the
end of the Cinquecento, usually being held in an artist's
studio or in some room made available for the purpose by an

109
interested patron. Here artists could either profit from
a particular collection of sculpture or could share the costs

of a model. At any rate, such activities were not novel but
had been a standard part of Renaissance artistic education
and practice; they had merely been given a new descriptive
label.
The situation in Venice was, as usual, somewhat dif
ferent. The Venetian painters' guild was probably the oldest
organization in Italy, dating from 1 2 7 1 . Its Capitolari
108
Sfe Pevsner, op. cit., p. 72, with further references.
109
For further examples, see ibid., p. 74f. Cf. also
J. Meder, Die Handzeichnung, 2nd ed., Vienna, 1923, p. 214ff.
110
Other guilds were founded at Perugia in 1286, Verona
in 1303, Florence in 1339, and Siena in 1355. The statutes of
the Venetian Arte dei depentori were published by G. Monticolo,
"II capitolare dell'arte dei pittori a Venezia composto nel
dicembre 1271 e le sue aggiunte (1271-1311)," Nuovo archivio
veneto, II, 1891, pp. 311ff. and 363ff., and were further dis
cussed by L. Testi, La storia della Pittura veneziana. I,
Bergamo, 1909, p. 137ff. Without citing any sources, C. A.
Levi, Notizie storiche di alcune antiche scuole d'arte e
mestleri scomparse o esistentl ancora in Venezia. 3rd ed.,
Venice, 1895, p. 38, states that the Venetian guild was in
316
were basically similar to the regulations of painters1 guilds
elsewhere, establishing the pattern of an artist's career.

A five to seven-year period of apprenticeship as a garzone
was prescribed and another two to three years as a lavorante.

Then, upon passing a practical test, the submission of a
masterpiece, un anchona a piu colori, the artist could be
inscribed in the guild as a master, able to open his own
shop, employ assistants and make and sell art objects.111
The guild maintained standards of workmanship and material

and also controlled the working conditions and schedules of
the shops. At the same time it protected the interests of
its members, assuring a broad distribution of available work

by allowing the head of each shop to have only one apprentice
at a time and to employ no more than two other masters as
assistants. Thus the number of novices entering the trade

112
was also limited. It was forbidden for anyone who was not
inscribed in the guild to practice his art, to make or sell
articles in Venice. This privilege of the guild, known as

arte chiusa, is an exact parallel to the modern "closed shop"
fact founded by several Florentine painters residing in Venice.

The political function of the guild in Venice, which we shall
discuss, makes this highly unlikely. Levi may be referring to
a specific religious confraternity of the Florentines.
111A. Sagredo, Sulle consorterie delle arti edificative

in Venezia, Venice, 1856, p. 130. On the general conditions
of apprenticeship, see also Meder, op. cit.. p. 213f.
112
In cases of emergency, such as plagues, guild mem
bership was opened without limitations for a period of three
years. On the situation following the plague of 1576, see
above, p. 1 3 1 f,!
317
and was the primary means of protecting the Venetian artisans

113
against foreign competition.
What distinguished the situation in Venice was the

particularly close relationship that existed between govern
ment and guild. Unlike the guilds in many of the other
medieval communes, those in Venice did not exercise the
powers of government. Rather they were under the direct
control of the state, to which they owed the privileges *and

controls they enjoyed in their respective fields. A special
office of the Venetian government, the Maqistrato de1
Giustizieri vecchi, was established in 1182; its three mem

bers were selected by the Maggior Consiglio and charged with
114
the responsibility of supervising the activities of the Arti.
Through the system of guilds, the state directly organized

and controlled the various segments of its population; through
his guild the craftsman or merchant paid his own obligations
to the republic, since each guild owed the government certain

taxes and services, in return, as it were, for the guarantee
113
On the general position of the guilds in Venice, see
especially Sagredo, op. cit., and for the painters1 guild in
particular, p. 125ff. cf. also for further references,
A. Dall'Acqua-Giusti, L 1Accademia di Venezia, relazlone
storica. Venice, 1873, p. 5ff., and E. Bassi, La R. Accademia
di Belle Arti di Venezia, Venice, 1941, p. lOff. M. Muraro
has attempted to assess the influence of the guild upon actual
artistic practice and historical situations in two studies,
"The Statutes of the Venetian Arti and the Mosaics of the
Mascoli Chapel,” Art Bulletin. XLIII, 1961, p. 263ff., and
MThe Guardi Problem and the Statutes of the Venetian Guilds,"
Burlington Magazine. CII, 1960, p. 421ff.
114
On the Giustizieri vecchi, see Sagredo, op. cit.,
p. 51ff., and for the laws governing the guilds, p. 180ff.
318
of its powers. In crises the government could make special
financial claims upon the guilds, fcJxieh were also obliged to

115
supply a specified number of men for military service.
The statutes of the guilds, in addition to containing the
rules governing the exercise of each particular trade, re
presented an extension of the laws of the republic in. that ill

the statutes contained identical articles declaring the du
ties of the members to the state.
The painters of Venice, like those elsewhere, were or
ganized along with other craftsmen in other, related fields.
The members of the Arte dei depentori were listed under eight
different.headings: painters, gilders, miniature painters,

textile designers and embroiderers, leatherworkers, makers of
playing cards, mask makers, and sign painters. Since the
guild thus included "painters" of the most varied kinds, from
at least the early sixteenth century those in the first
category enjoyed the added title of fiourer, figure painter,
thus implying a kind of hierarchy typical of the

116
Renaissance. This, however, was the only concession
115
Thus, for example, on June 15, 1310, the members of
the Arte dei depentori and of the Scuola della Carita sup-
1 ported the doge Pietro Gradenigo against the rebellious
forces of Bajamonte Tiepolo; their victory at San Luca is com-
.. memorated by an inscription on the base of the flagpole in
Campo San Luca. See G. Lorenzetti, Venezia e il suo estuario,
p. 388, and Levi, Notizie storiche di alcune antiche scuole. p.
116
The names of Marco Basaiti, Paris Bordon, and Vin
cenzo Catena are followed by fjcrurer in the only extant list
of members of the Arte, preserved in a nineteenth-century copy
by Gianantonio Moschini in the Biblioteca Correr at Venice:
MS. Moschini, Miscelanea, XIX, A.c.30, Nota de'plttori reois-
trati ne*libri della Veneta Accademia. These lists, which in
clude the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, were pub
lished by G. Nicoletti Cfer la storia dell'arte. Liste di
nomi di artisti tolti dai libri di tanse o luminarie
della Fraglia dei pittori," Ateneo veneto,
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission
319
made to the artists, and their association with the
other craftsmen continued until the end of the seven
teenth century. The most famous masters of the Cinquecento
were all members of and theoretically subject to the
rules and regulations of the Arte.
In his last will and testament of 1530,
Vincenzo Catena left a fund to the guild, stipulating
that it be used for the benefit of poor and needy
members and for the construction of a permanent head
quarters for the Arte, following the example of the
Scuole Grandi. In 1532, the year after Catena's death,
a building was erected near the church of Santa Sofia.117
A Comessaria di Vincenzo Catena had been created in
1531 to supervise the care and distribution of the other
part of the legacy, and among the first masters to be
entrusted with this responsibility were Titian, Lorenzo
I, 1890, pp. 378ff., 631ff., 701ff.). They are, however,

incomplete, and the dates are often misleading since they
do not represent an artist's full period of membership
in all cases. Cf. below, notes 119 and 120.
117
The edifice no longer exists, but in the Seminary
of Venice is preserved the commemorative stone with the
following inscription: "PICTORES ET SOLVM EMERVNT ET
HAS CONSTRVXERVNT AEDES BONIS A VINCENTINO CATENA PICTORE
SVO COLLEGIO RELICTIS MCXXXII." See Ridolfi, I, p. 83,
and, for Catena's testament, Sagredo, Sulle consorterie
delle arti edificative. p. 348ff• For descriptions of the
building and its decoration, see Levi, loc. cit.. and
C. Zangirolami, Storia delle chiese. dei monasteri. delle
scuole di Venezia rapinate e distrutte da Napoleone
Bonaparte, Venice, 1962, p. 65f.
320
118
Lotto, and Bonifazio de* Pitati.
Although the activities and membership of the guild
in the mid-Cinquecento are not very well documented, at the
end of the century the organization was clearly flourishing.
Hie names of Paolo and Benedetto Caliari, Domenico Tintoretto,
Leandro Bassano, Palma Giovane, Andrea Vicentino, Antonio
Aliense, Pietro Malombra, Sante Peranda, Girolamo Gambarato,

Marco Vecellio, and, indeed, nearly every painter of the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries appears on the

119
rolls. Furthermore, Palma Giovane and his contemporaries
120
appear often in various documents as officers of the Arte.
118
The document is dated September 29, 1531, and was
cited by A. Venturi, Storia. IX, 3, p. 1035.
119
With the notable exceptions of Jacopo Bassano
and Jacopo Tintoretto. Their absence, however, is certainly
due to the incompleteness of the lists. The dates given
for Paolo Veronese, for instance, are 1584-87, and can
hardly be accepted as covering that master's full period
of membership. Palma Giovane, as we have seen (above.
Chapter III, note 82),vwas probably inscribed in 1575,
although Moschini*s list gives 1588-1627 as the years of
his association. There are similar discrepancies with
regard to the dates of other masters as well•
120 ' '
Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Arte dei Dipintori,
No. 2. From loose documents in this volume we learn that
Pietro Malombra was Gestaldo of the guild in 1595, a
position held by Aliense in 1597, by Gambarato in 1601, by
Domenico Tintoretto in 1602, and in 1604 by Giuseppe Alabardi,
Palma Giovane's pupil. Since the office of Gestaldo was
a one-year appointment and since the painters' guild had
two such officers, we may assume that most of the members
held the position at one time or another. In 1593 Palma,
Aliense, and Vicentino, along with three other masters,
were named comessarij della comessaria di Vincenzo Cadena;
they were re-elected in 1597.
321
Throughout the period of intense academic activity
elsewhere in Italy, the Venetian painters thus obviously
remained faithful to their guild obligations and continued
to be the professional associates of the doratori, miniatori.

121
mascheri. and cartolari. In 1679, when they finally
decided to try to force a separation, the painters in
their petition to the Senate complained of being united
con altre arti mecchaniche della citta, con le

quali ricusano in gran parte i pittori di
accomunarsi....Infatti,, sono confratelli e
membri cogli indoradorf, miniadori, disegnadori,
quoridoro, cartoleri, pignateri, dipinti di
travi e bianchegini.
They asked to be allowed to disengage themselves from
such a motley union and establish a new organization to
represent the painters, "sotto il nome di accademia dei

122
pittori*" Their plea was heard with some sympathy,
and in 1682, by a decree of the Senate, a Collegio dei
Pittori came into existence. In a manuscript copy of the
Mariegola of the new organization dating from 1726, its
establishment is proudly announced:
121
In Pino's Dialogo di pittura of 1548, the fore-
stiere Fabio, unable to understand why the painters in
Venice continue to decorate furniture, asks the Venetian
Lauro: "E perche non fate voi delle tavole, e non tal
gofferia appresso noi vituperosa et impropriaT" (ed.
P. Barocchi, p. 119). Attention was first drawn to the
significance, of his passage' fc>y J. Schlosser, La letteratura
artistica. p. 241.
122
A. Dali1Acqua-Giusti, L*Accademia di Venezia
P. Ilf-
322
Fin dall'anno 1682, 31 dicembre, seguita essendo la

separazione dei Pittori dai Depentori, e stabilito con
amplissimo decreto dall'Eccellentissimo Senato separato
e distinto dalle arti mecchaniche e come-liberale fre-
giato con 1 1istituzione di Collegio....
More than a century after Florence, Venice seemed to have fi
nally officially recognized the art of painting as a liberal
art, and painters no longer had to bear the traditional title

124
of depentori; henceforth they were to be pittori. But they
were not yet to be academicians; the Senate had created a
Collegio dei Pittori, not an Accademia, and this was in effect

125
merely another guild. The new institution owed the same ob
ligations to the republic as did the other guilds; the Collegio
was still under the jurisdiction of the Giustizieri vecchi, and
the rules of its Mariegola were merely taken over literally from
those of the Arte dei depentori, which, of course, continued to
exist for the practitioners of the "mechanical" arts.
12 Venice, Biblioteca Correr, MS. Cicogna, IV, 123, no.

2823•. Mariegola del Collegio de SS.n Pittori ristaurata sotto
il priorato di Antonio Visentini. L'anno MDCCXXVI. The text
is cited in Dall'Acqua-Giusti, op. cit., p. 13, note 1.
124
In 1611 Giacomo Franco had already cited the ancients
in support of a distinction between artist and artisan, painter
and craftsman: "Hinc etiam Picturae dignitas colligitur, quod
vbi ceteri ab antiquioribus artifices vocati fuerunt, & fabri;
solus Pictor ab artificis, & fabri nomine liber eu esit, nobil-
iore nomine dignus" (De excellentia et nobilitate delineationis,
f. 3v). Franco, of course, drew no practical consequences from
such theoretical distinctions and apparently saw no contradiction
between the nobility of the painter's art and the representative
nature of his guild,
i 05
The word collegio had already been applied to the
Arte dei depentori in 1532, on the commemorative stone of the
scuola. Cf. above, note 117.
323
The atmosphere in Venice is accurately reflected
in a jurisdictional dispute between the Acte and a certain
Giovanni Perusini, a painter from Ancona,, The case, which
is a parallel to that involving Paggi and the guild in
Genoa, occurred, earlier in the very year of the founding
of the Collegio, 1682, Perusini, a forestiere in Venice,
naturally had trouble with the local guild, and, like
Paggi, he defended his right to practice without being a
guild member by claiming that painting was a liberal art

* »
and therefore open to all free men. The Venetian Senate,
however, refusing to recognize such liberal ideas, dismissed
his suit, stating that "tutti i pittori terrerrii o
forestieri debbano matricolarsi" in the Arte dei depentori
and that Perusini "in conformita degli altri pittori doveva

126
conformarsi alia regola." "La regola" and not the
theoretical status of the arts was the concern of the
Venetian state. It was not until 1754 that the Accademia
di Belle Arti. uniting the three arts of disegno. was opened

127
in Venice. Only after nearly every city in Italy and
126
Dall'Acqua-Giusti, op. cit., p. 12.
•^Îbid.. p. 14ff. It was only in 1723 that the

sculptors were freed from their obligations to the Arte dei
tagliapietra and were granted a Collegio of their own. TSie
history of this guild of stonecutters contains onie interes
ting exception to the rule. Alessandro Vittoria, who, as
we have seen with regard to Palma, was a kind of artistic
dictator in Venice at the end of the Cinquecento, obtained
from the Giustizieri vecchi in 1599 permission to leave the
guild, being relieved of all financial obligations to it
Europe boasted an academy of fine arts did the Serenissima
move to keep up with the times.
The strong political nature of the guild system
in Venice made it impossible for the painters of the six
teenth century even to think of attempting to abandon the
Arte and organizing a free a c a d e m y . B u t they did not
remain impervious to the new movement, and on October 20,
1566, Vasari received a letter from six Venetian artists,
Titian, Tintoretto, Palladio, Giuseppe Salviati, Battista
Franco, and Danese Cattaneo, who, having heard of the
as well as of the required military service. See H.

Predelli, "Le memorie e le carte di Alessandro Vittoria,"
Archivio trentino. XXIII, 1908, p. 37. We may certainly
wonder, then, about the obligations to the painters' guild
of a personnage such as Titian.
T9ft
The situation of Ddrer in Venice in the early
Cinquecento is revealing in this regard. While he
appreciated the freer atmosphere of the Italian city
and enjoyed the higher esteem accorded artists, he none
theless faced the traditional obstacles of guild re
strictions and privileges. Indeed, Dtlrer seems to have
had a good deal of trouble with the Venetian artistic
community, the members of which, eager to borrow and
steal ideas from the German, still forced him to pay the
penalty of a foreigner attempting to practise his art in
Venice: "The painters here, let me tell you, are very
unfriendly to me. ®hey have summoned me three times be
fore the magistrates and I have had to pay four florins
to their school." Thus does Dttrer complain in a letter
to Pirekheimer of April 2, 1506 (M.W. Conway, The
Literary Remains of Albrecht DCtrer. Cambridge, 1889,
p.5i;.
325
fame of the Florentine academy, desired to be inscribed.

129
Their application for membership was accepted. The
Venetians were probably mainly interes'ted in the representa
tional aspect of the Accademia del Disegno; it would be
difficult to imagine a figure like Tintoretto participating
in the more literary activities of academic discourse. We
have already dsicussed the particularly pragmatic nature of
artistic thought in Venice, so uLnsuited to the development
of comprehensive and rational ideas on art and incapable of
establishing a theoretical groundwork for an academy. Draw
ing, not color, could be related to the concept of measure,
to geometry,arithmetic; drawing could find a classical heri
tage to justify its idealization and acceptance as a liberal
art. Venetian color was the mere copying of nature, so fer
as the more academic Central Italians were concerned.
Despite the humanistic terms in which Venetian art
writers had to couch their arguments, the Venetian painters
themselves seem to have ignored the rhetoric of art theory.
Titian was indeed often criticized for the lack of decorum
129For Vasari's notes-on this letter, see H.W. Frey,

Neue Briefe von Giorgio Vasari. Burg b.M., 1940, p.215f.
In addition to these six artists, Vasari notes Paolo Veronese
and Alessandro Vittoria as forestieri in the academy
(VII, p. 621).
326
in his paintings, for violating historical probability130
or for interpreting too freely an ancient text.131 Paolo
Veronese's vast religions banquets are the most obvious
examples of "poor taste," for which breach he was called
before the Inquisition in 1573. The feigned nafvetS of his
response is perfectly in spirit with his composition, the
Feast in the House of Levi, painted for the refectory of
SS. Giovanni e Paolo and now in the Accademia Venetian
painters, as far as we can tell, were not generally given to
discoursing on their art in learned terms. Unlike their
contemporaries in Florence and Pome, Renaissance painters
in Venice were not virtuosi. In general they were merely
130
Cf. Dolce*s comments on Titian's battle picture in
the Ducal Palace (Dialogo della pittura. ed. P. Barocchi,
p. 168f.).
131Borghinie II Riposo. Florence, 1730, p. 48f.,

criticizes Titian's rendering of the tale of Venus and
Adonis, stating that the painter had departed too far from
the text of Ovid and concluding that "si pufe.vedere, che
Tiziano di quelle licenze si & preso, che i pittori prendere
non si doverebbono."
132
For a full bibliography on the painting and the
events surrounding Veronese's trial, see the entry in
S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie. II, Cat. No. 137.
327
painters, rarely practising sculpture or a r c h i t e c t u r e 3
thus, there was scarcely an opportunity to establish a
theoretical union of the three arti del disegno. Furthermore,

the Venetian masters had no literary pretensions; with the
single exception of the minor painter Pino, they wrote neither
treatises, biographies, nor sonnets,134 The letters of Titian,
133 It should be noted, however, that Titian was a

consultant on Francesco Giorgio's elaborate program for
San Francesco della Vigna, which implies an understanding on
the part of the painter of the architectural and more
general intellectual problems involved. See R, Wittkower,
Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, London,
1952, p„ 93 f,
134ihis is, of course, not to deny the association of

these artists with the humanist and intellectual circles of
Venice; we need only point to Giorgione's enigmatic paint
ings or Titian's mythologies and allegories to realize that
the artistswere very much a part of the highest Renaissance
culture. Personally, however, their ambitions seem to lie
elsewhere. For example, many of the Venetian painters
appear to have been accomplished musicians, Vasari (IV,
p. 99) cites Giorgione's talents as a musician, and (VI,
p, 587) he lavishes more praise on Tintoretto's musical
abilities than upon his art, Pino, Dialogo di pittura. ed,
P. Barocchi, p, 135, notes the musical accomplishments of
Pordenone and Sebastiano del Piombo, among others.
328
for example, are essentially concerned with very practical
matters of commissions, payments, and deliveries, with hardly
a word to reveal the painter's own ideas on his art. "Non

13-5
fosse di molta letteratura," says Ridolfi of the artist,
and the so-called academy to which Titian belonged was merely
an informal group of friends that included Jacopo Sansovino
and the self-consciously anti-academic Aretino,, This group
would gather frequently either at Titian's house or Aretino's,
and their evenings together were usually taken up with food
and wine, music, conversation, and, occasionally, women.
The formally organized academies in Venice were
humanistic and literary in character. The best known of
these was the Accademia Veneziana della Fama. founded in
1557 by the Venetian Senator Federico Bddoaro. Its activities
were primarily devoted to editing and publishing, and the
academy had its own press, directed by Paolo Manuzio, son
of the famous Aldo. The academy's membership included
philosophers, rhetoricians, poets, grammarians, historians,
scientists, mathematicians, and musicians — i.e. representa
tives of the liberal arts. In the elaborate program drawn up
135Ridolfi, I, p. 208. Many of Titian's official letters

were composed by his literary friends, especially Aretino and
Giovanni Maria Verdizotti. Letters penned by the painter him
self are free of any literary pretension. See E. Tietze-
Conrat, "Titian as a Letter Writer," Art Bulletin.XXVI, 1944,
p. 117ff.
136on Titian's friends, see G. Gronau, Titian. London,
1911, p. 232ff., and on the "academy", p. 241f., and N. Pevsner,
Academies of Art. p. 34, note 2.
329
by Badoaro there is no place for nor mention of painters,

137 '
sculptors, or architects.
The exclusion of the visual arts from an essentially
literary humanistic academy is of course not unusual. A
breakthrough, however, had been effected earlier, albeit in
Vicenza, in the academy established in the 1530’s by
Giangiorgio Trissino at his villa at Cricoli. The Accademia
Trissiniana carried on the tradition established by the old
Platonic Academy in Florence, and the subjects studied were
encyclopedic in range. But along with the young noblemen of
Vicenza, the academy was also frequented by Andrea Palladio.
Trissino himself was an architect and had been responsible
for introducing the young stonemason, Andrea di Pietro da
Padova, to the nobler aspects of the art of architecture,
for endowing him with his new classical name, and for intro-
138
ducing him to Vitruvius. Palladio became a learned human
ist in his own right, and when the Accademia Olimpica was
founded in Vicenza in 1555 he was one of its main promoters.
Its goal was the traditional one of humanistic education:
137For the peculiarly anthropomorphic organizational

scheme outlined by Badoaro and theAccademia della Fama in
general, see D.M. Pellegrini, "Continuazione del sommario
dell’Accademia Vsneta della Fama,” Glornale dell1italiana
letteratura. XXIII, Padua, 1808, p. 49ff., and M. Maylender,
Storia delle accademie d 1Italia. V, Bologna, 1930, p. 436 ffl.
P. Caliari, Paolo Veronese. 2nd ed., Rome, 1909, p. 40,tried
with neither conviction nor success to associate his artist
ancestor with the Accademia della Fama.
•1-38Qn Trissino’s architectural interests and his rela
tionship with Palladio, see R. Wittkower, Architectural
Principles in the Age of Humanism, p. 51ff.
330
the cultivation of the uomo universale.
Architecture was the first of the arti del disegno
to find acceptance as a humanistic and liberal art, owing to
its obvious relationship to mathematics and geometry, Through
this relationship, architecture is the art closest to the
intellect, the art best able to approach the Platonic idea
behind the form, Daniele Barbaro, in his commentary on
Vitruvius (1556), writes that the "artist works first in
the intellect and conceives in the mind and symbolizes then
the exterior matter after the interior image, particularly

140
in architecture," We recognize, of course, the same
concept that was applied by Vasari to disegno in order to
elevate all three arts to a higher intellectual level.
In Venice, however, painting and sculpture lacked
the intellectual support of such able humanists as Barbaro,
The Patriarch of Aquileia was certainly a patron of all the
arts — his villa at Maser is one of the glories of the
Venetian Renaissance — but it was the certainty of mathe
matics that leant the special value to architecture. When
Barbaro turned to painting, as we have seen, he tried to
instill a sense of measure and proportion through perspective
139lbid., p. 62,
140see ibid,, p. 59ff., for a discussion of Barbaro's

ideas on art and the dignity of architecture.
331
and anthropometry based primarily upon Dflrer.^^
Nonetheless, the example of his interests and activi
ties leant some support to the defenders of the nobility of
painting. Dolce cites the fact that patricians such as
Barbaro and Francesco Morosini practised both painting and
drawing and that thesevarts were much favored by other

142
noblemen. This was merely an extension to the contem
porary scene of the kind of examples usually cited from
antiquity. The greatest and most noble of the ancients,
emperors, warriors, statesmen, philosophers, and poets, were

143
saxd to have practised the art of painting. It was further
argued that since painting is such a free and noble art its
practice was forbidden to slaves by the Ramans. A more
frequent and indeed more convincing argument was offered by
the contemporary success of Titian. The example of the great
painter's triumphs at the various courts of Italy and Europe
and of the title bestowed upon him by the emperor was a high
141See above, p. 293.
142Dolce, Dialogo della pittura. ed. P. Barocchi,

p. 159: "il oggidl qui in Vinegia monsignor il Barbaro, eletto
patriarca di Aquilegia, signor di gran valore e d'infinita
bontSt e parimente il dotto gentiluomo M. Francesco Morosini,
i quali due disegnano e dipingono leggiadramente; oltre una
infinite di altri gentiluomini che si dilettano della pittura,
tra i quali v'fe il magnifico M. Alessandro Contarini, non meno
ornato di lettere che di altre rare virtft."
143Dolce, ibid.. p. 160, mentions Caesar and Nero in

this respect. Socrates and Plato are included by Giacomo
Franco, De excellentia et nobilitate delineationis. f. 3r.
332
tribute to the nobility of the art of painting in general.
Such citations, however, while they may have helped to raise
the social status of painting, in no way established the
intellectual value of the art. Titian was neither virtuoso
nor uomo universale; his accomplishments were, so to speak,
purely painterly.
The Venetian Accademia della Fama closed in 1561, only
four years after its foundation. More than thirty years later,
in 1593, a second Accademia Veneziana was established. Like
its predecessor, this academy was also concerned with the full
145
range of humanistic intellectual pursuits. What is of
most interest to us, however, is the inclusion in the new

146
academy of painters and sculptors. The membership roll
144The familiar Apelles-Alexander formula was often

applied to Titian and Charles V. See, among many others, Dolce,
op. cit.. p. 159. For their relationship in general, cf.
Crow and Cavalcaselle, The Life and Times of Titian. I, p.370f.
145See D.M. Pellegrini, "Prospetto dell*accademia

veneziana seconda," Giornale dell*italiana letteratura.
XXXII, Padua, 1812, p. 356ff., where the constitution and
membership of the academy are published. Cf. ajso May lender,
Storia delle accademie d*Italia. V, p. 444ff.
146»De musico. pictore. sculptore. bibliopola ac

typographo. Ad academiam recipitor musicus unus, pictor
unus, sculptor unus, bibliopola unus, unus typographus,
unusgue oeconomus. Academici sunto. Hi guando eis libuerit
ad academiam accedunto; si guando non venerint, eis fraudi
non esto." -(Pellegrini, op. cit.. p. 364).
333
lists Alessandro vittoria, Jacopo Tintoretto, pictor venetus.

147
and Domenico Tintoretto, filius. It is rather difficult
to imagine the aged Tintoretto as a humanistic academician,
although’ in 1593 he was the last surviving great master and
was no doubt invited to join the academy on the basis of his
reputation rather than for his intellectual gifts. Since
the academy accepted only one painter, Domenico must have
succeeded to his father's position upon Jacopo's death in
1594; indeed, the younger Tintoretto was surely more comfor-

i
table in such literary company.
Domenico Tintoretto was a close friend and associate
of the letterati of Venice. According to Ridolfi, he had
devoted himself to literary studies in his youth, wrote
poetry, and in his paintings and drawings showed a definite

148
predilection for subjects of a complicated literary nature.
And this was characteristic of the generation of Venetian
painters at the end of the sixteenth century and beginning
of the seventeenth. Pietro Malombra, whose father was an

149
official of the republic and a poet, was also supposed to
147Ibid.. p. 377f•
148Ridolfi, II, p. 262: "Egli valse molto nelle inven-

tioni, fft copioso di pensieri, espresse molte historie, poesie
e morali soggetti, hauendo occupatp gualche tempo della giouentfe
nello studio delle buone lettere....Sd dilettft di compor versi.
Interueniua nelle veglie, che si faceuano da'gentil'uomini e
letterati della Citt£...i' For further discussion of the charac
ter of Domenico Tintoretto, cf. the bibliographic references
cited above. Chapter II, note 129.
149Ridolfi, II, p. 155.
334
150
have been extremely well-read and a poet as well. So, too,
151
Aliense was a particularly cultured gentleman, and
Alessandro Maganza, perhaps more understandably as a Vicentine,

152
was an accomplished poet. Although Ridolfi attributes no
such creative literary activity to Palma, he does note that
the painter's house was a gathering place for poets and men
153
of letters.
150nbid., je. 16Of•: "Compose gentilmenti versi volgari.

Fb molto pratico delle historie e delle Poesie, onde soleua
dire, che senza passar per le altrui mani, teneua in casa il
Teologo & il Poeta, volendo inferire, che intendendo bene i
libri di simili materie (come gratiosamente disse al Cardinal
Vendramino, che lo persuadeua ad informarsi da vn Teologo di
certa historia della Scrittura Sacra, che doueua dipingerli)
non haueua bisogna di loro."
151Ibid.. p. 219: "Fb sottilissimo aritmetico e di

piaceuole e schietta natura, gratissimo nelle conuersationi,
viuace ne'molti e si dilettfe di legger historie, guali
riferiua btempo con felice spiegatura,"
152ibid., p. 236: n,,,hebbe Alessandro buon talento

nelle lettere, & in particolare nella Poesia* faceua varie
cornpositioni, le guali mandaua ad amici & a'principali
Pittori dell'Italia.11
153ibid., p. 203: "Godeua sommamente della lode, ed

era la sua Casa freguentata da1 pib chiari Poeti, trb guali
il Guarino, lo stigliani, il Marino, il Frangipane, & altri
soggetti di lettere." Palma's relations with Marino in par
ticular are well documented by the poet's conespondence and
by several ekphrases in his Galerie. Cf. above, pj.94
335
By the end of the Cinquecento the intellectual and
social tone of the Venetian community of painters was under
going a definite change. Catching up, as it were, with de

velopments in Florence and Rome, Venice too was adopting an
academic ideal of the artist and of art. The drawing books
of Fialetti and Franco were part of this accomodation to
foreign ideas, and Palma's designs for the second of these
publications pay further tribute to the Central Italian
academies. His allegorical figure of ancient Rome (Fig. 390)

154
is inspired by a form common to the academic repertoire,
and those representing painting and sculpture (Fig. 388)
are typical of that professional self-consciousness of an

155
academic outlook.
154
Cf., for example, the design by Stradanus engraved
by Cornelia Cort in 1578 in which the same figure appears (J.C.J.
Bierens de Haan, L 1oeuvre grave de Cornelis Cort, The Hague,
1948, Cat. No. 218, fig. 53).
155
Palma's figure of painting follows in many respects
the description given by Ripa, Iconoloaia. Rome, 1603, p. 404f.:
"Donna, bella, con capelli neri, & grossi, & ritorti in diuerse
maniere, con le ciglia inarcate, che mostrino pensieri fantas-
tichi, si cuopra la bocca, con vna fascia ligata dietro a gli
orecchi, con vna catena d'oro al collo, dalla quale penda vna
maschera, & habbia scritto nella fronte, imitatio. Terra in vna
mano il pennello, & nell'altra la tauola; con la veste di
drappo qangiante, la quale le cuopra li piedi, & a pie di essa
si potranno fare alcuni istromenti della pittura, per mostrare
che la pittura, e esercitio nobile,.no si potendo fare senza
molta applicatione dell'intelletto, dalle quale applicatione
sono cagionate, & misurate appresso di noi, tutte le professioni
di qual si voglia forte, non facendo l'opre fatto a caso, quant-
unque perfettissime alia lode dell'Autore, altrimente che si
non fossero sue." Palma has neglected only the covered mouth
and the inscription. A drawing by Palma in the National Gal
lery of Scotland depicts two female allegprical figures of
painting and sculpture (Fig. 325). Stylistically, the sheet
dates from the early seventeenth century. While it does not
correspond to the design of the etching, it does demonstrate
V**
336
It is not surprising to learn that among the artists
from non-Venetian schools Palma was especially close to
Cavaliere d'Arpino and Federico Zuccaro. The latter of these
Roman Mannerists, whom Palma probably met in Rome, had been a
familiar figure in Venice in the sixteenth century^® and was
quite active in northern Italy in the early Seicento, spreading
the ideas he had been unable to get accepted by the Anaflflnihfra di
San Luca. His main purpose now was to see established in all
the major centers of Italy academies of art, to be supported
by the various states or courts, and this primarily to remedy
the decline in which he claimed to find the art of painting.
This project was advocated in the Letters a Principi. et Sig
nori Amatori del Dissegno, Pittura, Scultura, et Architettura.
which he published db Mantua in 1605. Included in this pamph

let was a poem, II Lamento della Pittura su l'onde Venete, in
which Zuccaro holds the extravagant manner of Tintoretto re-
that at this time Palma was concerned with such representations.

For the Scuola dei pittori he had executed an allegorical fi
gure of painting in tempera on paper.. See Levi, Notizie
storiche di alcune antiche scuole. p.:. 139, and Zangirolami,
Storie delle chiese?y.., p. 65. .Cf. below, note 181.
156
Zuccaro arrived in Venice in 1562 at the :invitation
of Giovanni Grimani in order to complete the family chapel
in San Francesco della Vigna (see Rearick, "Battista Franco
and the Grimani Chapel," Saggi e memorie di!storia dell*arte,
2, 1959, p. 129ff.). He entered the competitions for the
albergo of the Scuola di San Rocco in 1564 and for the Para
dise mural in the early 1580's; he executed a painting in the
Sala del Maggior Consiglio, signed 1582-1603 (cf. above, Chap
ter III, notes 88 and 125). Moreover, he was a "Cavaliere
della repubblica di Venezia." Cf. D. Heikamp, "I viaggi di
Federico Zuccaro," Paragone. 105, 1958, p. 40ff.
337
sponsible for the downfall of painting:
Cadei, misera mia, per un Tentore^

Che di far cose grandi mi die segno
Mentre de gli anni suoi era nel fiore.
• • • •
0 che capriccio, o che gran frenesia,

p che furori; ma quel che mi sa peggio,
E ch'altri lo seguir ne la pazzia.*3 '
To correct the harm done by this unfortunate example, he
advocates a return to solid Central Italian principles:
Faccia ciascun gli suoi dissegni in carte,

Che megio poi riesce la Pittura, 158
E misuri hor'il tutto, hora la parte.
In the letter dedicating the poem to Girolamo Capelli,
the Venetian patrician is asked to use his influence with the
Serenissima Repubblica,
alia quale poco, e nulla sarebbe assegnar due stanze

nella Libraria, od altroue per questi studi^, gia che
ha tanta copia di statue, & d'altre comodita di studio.
157
Scritti d'arte di Federico Zuccaro. ed. D. Heikamp,
p. 127.
158Ibid.. p. 128.
159
Ibid.. p. 118. The letter is signed by Francesco
Osanna, Zuccaro's publisher, but was probably drawn up by the
artist himself. For a full discussion of Zuccaro's Lettera
and II Lamento, see D. Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and
Theory, p. 162f., note 12, and idem, "Art Theory and Practice
in the Early Seicento: Some Clarifications," Art Bulletin.
XXXV, 1953, p. 226f. The Grimani legacy of ancient sculpture
(cf. above, Chapter II, note 38) had indeed been arranged by
Scamozzi in 1596 in the anteroom of the main hall of Sanso
vino's library. Its arrangement is recorded in a drawing in
the Biblioteca Marciana (MS. IVr., 123, folio 1; ill. in G.
Mariacher, II Sansovino. VerdflhL 1962, fig. 45).
338
Zuccaro's tone and approach when addressing himself to the
Venetian painters, as he is most certainly doing in his poem,
are quite different from those he adopted in his speeches to
the Roman academicians of San Luca. Here he is not the philo
sophical apologist for a highly intellectual theory of art;
rather he is concerned with very practical matters. His
main message to the Venetians is to return to the fundamentals
of disegno. and it was toward this end that he thought the
republic should sponsor an academy to correct finally the

160
extreme symptoms of Venetian colorito.
Even if the Serenissima had desired to do so, how
ever, the establishment of an academy of art in Venice would
have been a rather difficult procedure. It would have meant
freeing art education to some degree from the province of the
workshops and would have thus been a direct challenge to the
traditional master-apprentice relationship. The prerogatives

of the Arte dei depentori would have been impinged upon, and
160
Despite the fame of the great masters of the
Venetian Renaissance, above all, Titian, Venice itself was
not considered as essential a goal as Rome for young artists
from the north. Indeed, in one sense, it was apparently
not even considered part of Italy, as indicated by Van Mander's
observation that Diirer had been cjhite successful without
ever having set foot on the peninsula (Le Livre des peintres
de Carel Van Mander. ed. H. Hymans, Paris, 1884, I, p. 113) .
See J. Pope-Hennessy, "Nicholas Hilliard and Mannerist Art
Theory," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.
VI, 1943, p. 93. On "The Lure of Rome," see Wittkowers,
Born under Saturn, p. 46ff.
339
such a radical move was unlikely to be taken by the conserva-

161 v"
tive Venetian state.
The academic fever nonetheless caught on in Venice in
the early seventeenth century; the word academy itself was

in circulation in an informal way. Ridolfi writes of Domenico
Tintoretto that he
Hebbe pensiero di lasciar dopo di se a pittori

la propria casa con lo studio di rilieui, disegni e
modelli, che teneua del Padre suo; accio vi formasse
vn'Accademia, oue ogn'vno potesse studiare.-^^
This is precisely the manner in which Bandinelli's workshop
had become an academy; study material was made available to
X61
The situation in the Veneto seems to have been some
what different. Vicenza, as we have seen> was a center of
humanistic academic activities, and artists there seem to
have been in general more advanced than their Venetian brethren.
The painter Giambattistia Maganza, the father of Alessandro,
was a poet and, with Palladio, a member of the Trissino
circle (cf. Wittkower, op. cit., p. 55). The Paduan archi
tect and painter, Giovanmaria Falconetto, who spent many
years in Rome studying the architecture and sculpture of an
tiquity, was a close friend and associate of the learned noble
man Luigi Cornaro and was recognized for his oratorical as
well as artistic talents (cf. Vasari, V, p. 319ff.). The
Veronese painter Paolo Farinati was an extremely cultured
gentleman; Ridolfi (II, jp. 133) reports that^he was "agile
della persona, si diletto di scherma, fauello acconciamente,
e fu del numero degli Accadmici nobilissimi Filarmonici, e
Protettore con Felice Brusasorci della Accademia del disegno
di Verona." About this latter academy we unfortunately have
no further information. The very title of Protettore would
seem to indicate that it was well .organized and possibly
modelled on the examples of Florence and Rome.
162Ibid., II, p. 262.
340
all artists. We know that Tintoretto’s shop was particu
larly well equipped with such models, and we may imagine the
disappointment recorded by Ridolfi when Domenico chose in
stead to follow the traditions of the Venetian family work
shop. Sebastiano Casser, Domenico's apprentice, having
proved himself worthy of the heritage, married Ottavia
Robusti, the master's sister, and assumed the name Tintoretto.
The family shop was to continue and all the working material
was to go to Sebastiano.
Domenico's proposed academy would have been one of

those open studios, becoming very common in the late six
teenth and early seventeenth centuries, where painters ga
thered together to draw and informally discuss professional
matters. Venice must have had some of these centers devoted
to drawing from living and plastic models, since in his last
163 * %
Ridolfi's account continues: "Ma poscia cangio
opinione per i disgusti che n'hebbe da* medesimi pittori,
lasciando herede delle cose tutte della profession Sebas
tiano Casser di natione germario suo scolare, che tuttavia
si esercita virtuosamente nella pittura, il quale per
lunghi anni lo haueua seruito." In her last will and testa
ment Ottavia declared that she had married Casser only after
being convinced that he was worthy of the Tintoretto name
and heritage. See M. Brunetti, "La continuita della tra-
dizione artistica nella famiglia del Tintoretto a Venezia,"
Studii d'arte e storia a cura della Dlrezione del Museo
Civico Correr, I, 1920, p. 269, and R. Tozzi, "Disegni.
di Domenico Tintoretto," Bollettino d'arte, XXXI, 1937,
p. 19. Such an academic organization of material is also
evident in the Caliari finally. The inscriptions on the
back of many of Paolo's finished white-heightened drawings
are certainly literary additions by one of the master's
heirs, probably his son Carletto, to the shop's stock of
modelli (cf. above, p. 43^f)•
341
will of May 19, 1631, Philipp Esengren left to the painter
Mattei Ponzone."libri sei di dissegni di mia mano fatto

164
nell1accademia." As the publications of Fialetti, Franco,
and Colombina indicate, drawing was indeed becoming a more
important activity in Venice, and, echoing Buccaro, Aliense
is quoted by Ridolfi as lamenting a decline in art and

attributing it to a lack of fundamentals:
Diceua ancor, che la pittura andaua declinando

non essendo inteso, che da poiche il buono, che con-
sisteua in certo conoscimento proprio solo di quelli,
che ben inte.ndeuano l'Arte. Che vedeuasi poca riuscita
ne' giouani, perche non haueuano a pena appreso il
modo di formaf le parti de'corpi, che voleuano far dei
Maestri, douendosi fondamenti, poteua all'hora lo stu-
dente cimentarsi a far opere d'inuentione.165
This concern with the education and formation of young artists
is part of the new, academic atmosphere in Venice, which

gave rise to a re-evaluation of disegno.
164
G. Ludwig et al., Archivalische Beitrflge zur Ge-
schiehfee der venezianischen Kunst, Berlin, 1911, p. 92.
342
Venetian Art and Artists at the Bnd of the Renaissance
One aspect of the growing,interest in drawing is the
activity of Venetian artists as collectors. Veronese
had acquired several prints by Dflrer and drawings or prints
by Parmigianino and had used these as aids in the study of

166
draperies and in the actual formation of his own style.
We know that Tintoretto had acquired some canvases by
Titian after the latter's death, and these pictures were

167
naturally part of the material later inherited by Domenico.
Yet we could hardly call these masters active art collec
tors. They acquired works which could be of immediate
use in their own practice, as models or merely for in
spiration. Alessandro Vittoria, however, seems to have
been guided by less purely professional motives in his
collecting, as he built up a collection that included
166
Ridolfi, I, p. 345. Cf. above, Chapter I,
note 85. ,
167
M. Boschirii, Le ricche minere, preface.
works by Parmigianino as its nucleus. 168 Collecting on
such a large scale implies a less self-interested aesthetic

appreciation of the works as art objects.
The collection built up by Aliense seems to
have been even more extensive, according to the evidence
of Ridolfi, who writes that the painter
Raccolse gran numero di rilieui, quantita

di carte in istampa e disegni de'piu eccellenti
Autori; di Raffaello, di Michel'Angelo, del
Parmegiano, di Perino del Vaga, di Titian &
altri, & una serie pregiata in particolare
di Paolo Veronese, fatti sopra carte tinte,
onde per la fama della sua Virtu, e per
vedere cosi bella raccolta, veniua spesso
visitato da'Prencipi, da'Ambasciatori e da
famosi Pittori, che capitauano a Venetia.
168
In 1558 Vittoria bought from a Vicentine minia
ture painter a panel and an album of drawings from Par
migianino, and in 1560 he acquired from Palladio the
tondo self-portrait in a mirror of that artist, now
in Vienna. Cf. above, Chapter I, note 85, and Chapter
III, note 149.
169
Ridolfi, II, p. 218f. ThjLS interest in the art of
masters of the immediate past is of course part of the general
Mannerist attitude of the late Cinquecento. It led ultimately
to a concern with the preservation of these works of art/and
344
Aliense apparently enjoyed imitating the drawings of other

masters in his collection, and his imitations of the style of
170
Luca Cambiaso were supposedly especially good. This
kind of facile draughtsmanship is similar to Palma's activi
ties, although the care with which Aliense approached some

171
of his compositions, making large preparatory drawings,
was not common practice in Venice.
For this generation of Venetian painters, drawing was
a particularly favored ejapressive medium. We have studied
the care and attention that Palma devoted to it, and the
cases of Aliense and Domenico Tintoretto offer further evi
dence. The latter*s many oil and tempera sketches in mono
chrome and colorare similar to Palma's sheets of sketches

in that they are not meant to lead anywhere. The repeated
renderings of a single compositional idea are not preparing
laws were passed in hoth Florence and Venice in the early

seventeenth century regarding the exportation of art objects.
In 1607, the Venetian government decided to take stock of the
vast treasures accumulated by the various scuole and churches
and to prevent their dispersion (See C.A. Levi, Le collezioni
veneziane d'arte e d'antichltl. dal secolo XIV ai nostri
qjorni, Venice, 1900, p. LXXXVIII). The Florentine Accademia
del Disegno was asked in 1602 to supervise the execution of
a law against the export of works by famous masters (see N.
Pevsner, Academies of Art, p. 53).
170
Ridolfi, II, p. 219. Cf. Tietzes, Drawings, p. 31ff.,
for further comment on Aliense's draughtsmanship. A drawing
of a Lamentation by Palma in the British Museum has been
mounted in an elaborately decorated frame (Fig. 326). The
Tietzes (T. 987) suggested that the frame was the design of
Alessandro Vittoria; the style of drawing here, however, ap
pears closer to Aliense. The cube-like rendering of the fi
gures reminds us of Aliense's taste for Cambiaso, vfcich be
came an important permanent influence on his own graphic style.
Like Vasari, then, Aliense may have mounted and framed the
drawings in his collection.
345
a larger project, but are rather rapid sketches, never fully
realized and often revealing the mechanical reflexes of a prac-

172
tised hand. The arbitrary character of such drawings is
typical of a Mannerist outlook and is precisely what marks

the graphic work of this generation of Venetian painters,
distinguishing it from the functional approach of the Re

naissance masters. The cultural lag, so to speak, between
Venice and Central Italy is interesting to note. When in
Florence and Rome a Mannerist generation was already begin
ning to look back to the greatness of the immediate past
and to formulate academic principles, Venice was in the
brightest glow of its golden age. At the close of the six
teenth century, when Rone found itself at the opening of a
new creative era, the decline set in at Venice, and a Mannerist
generation f&tnndered in indecision and searched in vain for

academic remedies.
The Venetians were certainly aware that important
events in art were occurring outside Venice around 1600, and
we have observed how they tried in certain ways to cope with
these changes. After the death of Jacopo Tintoretto, Palma
and the others began slowly to abandon the attempt to follow
the old master's terribilitci. Without his sparkling example
the younger painters fell into a kind of half-hearted natural

ism. The happiest creations of Palma, Domenico Tintoretto,
and Leandro Bassano are their portraits, but when they applied
172Por references on the drawings pf Domenico Tintoretto,

see above, Chapter II, note 129.
$'
346
this detailed approach to the machines of official historical
or religious subjects, these painters were unable to maintain
their powers of observation on such a scale. Technically,
they abandoned the tocco and macchia, the very substance of
Venetian painting in the Cinquecento, pigment and brushwork,
and placed a new value on plastic solidity and the contour.

And as these artists pledged an allegiance to Central Italian
ideas of the priority of disegno. their canvases became
smooth, hard, and dull, lacking in texture and interest.
In the early Seicento the traditional disegno-colorito
controversy re-emerged, and with new importance, as a subject
of debate among .artists. Palma's failure to establish him
self as a master draughtsman in the classical Central Italian
sense has been fully discussed. Despite the Venetian's at
tempt at disegno. he could hardly hope to satisfy the critics
of his native tradition, as the following anecdote, narrated

by Ridolfi, illustrates:
Visitato dal Caualier Gioseppe d'Arpino, e,dopo'

hauer ammirata la felicitb del suo operare, & vedute
alcune abbozzature, scherzando disse: Signor Palma fu
di mestieri, che io venghi per qualche tempo a star
con voi, per imparare il modo di questi vostri abbozzi;
ed egli tosto disse: Venite % piacer vostro, che ve
io ,insegnero volontieri, & poi verrb con voi a Roma ad
iiqparare il modo di finirli; cosi chiuse la bocca al
Caualiere.1 '3
It was all in jest, of course, but the joke itself reflects
the continuing tension between the two schools, the two
modes of painting.
173
A 7 Ridolfi, II, p. 204.
347
More specific evidence is offered by a letter addressed

to Palma from the Veronese painter Marcantonio Bassetti,
writing from Rome in 1616. Bassetti thanks the older painter
warmly for the advice he had apparently been sending him,
comments and observations on art which Bassetti says he
quotes frequently in discussions with other painters:
Io resto obbligato dell,ammonizione che mi fa, dandomi

animo, e consigliandomi, per sempre ad affaticarmi; per
la qual cosa mi sforzerfe piu che mai di metterlo in
esecuzione, au&ndo dato principio alia nostra acca-
demia, disegnando le attitudini con li pennelli e
colori che questa gente la chiama un'accademic alia
veneziana, e essi mostrano gran soddisfazione di veder
qualche botta risoluto; ammirando grandemente il
veder che quanto si disegna, si dipinge ancora. Ed
10 ayerei gran contento che VS. ne vedesse qualchgduna,
accio mi dicesse e mostrasse la vera strada perche
11 mio benio non si conforma troppo con questi di
Roma; e se non fosse il travaglip della guerra, io
me ne verrei a godere la felicita di quella maniera
di dipinger con tanta bravura che propriamente fa
venir voglia di fare. •*■^4
Bassetti desires to get away from Rome, to return to Venice
and the manner established by Tintoretto. Yet the Roman
painters of 1616 were hardly as fanatically dogmatic as
Federico Zuccaro had been. Following the Carracci and
Caravaggio, they had in effect resolved the disegno-colorito
•> polemic in their work.
The issue had been forced by Zuccaro in the anti-
Tintoretto refrain of his Lamento della Pittura and in his
famous comment on Caravaggio1s Calling of St. Matthew, that
•l-^Bottari-Ticozzi, Raccolta di lettere. II, Milan,

1822, p. 484fo
348
he saw in it nothing more than "il pensiero di Giorgione.1,175
Giorgione*s name was probably invoked to represent the
entire Venetian tradition, seen as it was through the eyes
of a Roman Mannerist, of apparently casual imitation of

176
nature. Part of this tradition was, of course, the
practice of painting alia prima. directly from the model
onto the canvass — just what Bassetti says the Romans
75Zuccaro*s comment was reported by Baglione, Le

Vite de* pittori..., Rome, 1642, p. 137. See W. Friedlaender,
Caravaggio Studies. Princeton, 1955, pp. 178f. and 231f.
175Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory. p0177f.

There has been some controversy regarding the proper trans
lation and interpretation of this passage: was Zuccaro actu
ally referring to a specific work by Giorgione or merely
to the general composition and handling of the theme?
Cf• R. Longhi, ”11 Caravaggio e i suoi dipinti a San Luigi
dei Francesi," Paragone. 1951, no. 17, p.9, who has taken
the former view, and D. Mahon, "Caravaggio’s Chronology Again,"
Burlington Magazine. XCIII, 1951, p.290, note 15, who argues
for a broader — and more plausible — interpretation.
Cf. also M. Cutter, "Caravaggio in the Seventeenth Century,"
Marsyas. I, 1941, p.89ff.
349
called an "accademia alia veneziana" — without careful
preliminary drawings. Caravaggio's adoption of this approach

was certainly frowned upon by the academic Zuccaro and was
a direct challenge to the well-established practice of work
ing di maniera. Thus, in many ways, the experience of the

177
Venetian Cinquecento lay behind Caravaggio's reforms.
The supposedly academic Carracci also found new
inspiration in the heritage of the Venetian Renaissance.
Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and perhaps especially
Bassano taught them lessons in the handling of color, of
light and of paint itself as an approach to the reality of
nature. These same qualities are to be found in their draw
ings, above all in those o f Annibale. In the art of the
Carracci the traditional values of color and design, of

178
natural'observation and classical structure were combined.
An important fact in this respect is the total

lack of drawings attributable to Caravaggio. See R.
Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy. 1600-1750. p.26ff.,
for further comments on Caravaggio's technique. For his
early education and contact with the Venetian tradition,
see Friedlaender, op.cit«* p.34ff., and, on his relations
with the Mannerist establishment in Rome, p.57ff. Cf. also
D. Mahon, "On Some Aspects of Caravaggio and his Times,11
Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. XII, 1953, no.2, p.33ff.
1 *70
'“On the importance of the Venetians for the develop
ment of the art of Annibale Carracci especially, see
Wittkower, op.cit.. p.32f.
r 350
The paradox of the early Seicento is that while
through Caravaggio and the Carracci, as well as directly
in the works of its own great masters, the Venetian tradition

was serving as a foundation for the several styles of the
Baroque, the legitimate heirs, as it were, of that tradition
were no longer able to understand or interpret it. The
naturalism and light of the Caravaggisti. Velazquez, and
Rembrandt, the exuberant flights of Pietro da Cortona and
Rubens, all are unthinkable without the example of the

179
Venetian Cinquecento. Venice, in turn, had to await the
arrival of foreigners, eagerly seeking inspiration at the
source, for a reinvigoration of its traditions of color and

brushwork.
Yet the disegno-colorito controversy remained very
much alive through the Seicento. Guercino, one of the most
forcefully creative members of the new, Baroque generation

was, in a sense, unable to come to terms with the issues
involved. The decline in the latter part of his career from
the high level of the imaginative early works has been analyzed
179
Cfo Jo Lauts, "Venetian Painting in the 16th Century
and its European Resonance," in Venezia e l'Europa. Venice,
1956, p. 70ff.
351
by Denis Mahon0 The painter, whose natural inclinations
lay in a specific direction, succumbed to the criticism of
classical theory; he converted, as it were, from one pole

of the controversy to the other, from colorito to disegno,
and his later works remind us a little of Palma Giovane's

1.8*1
later career, A The debate continued, reflecting the cycle
of changes in taste and the stylistic alternatives open to
artists. In the course of the Seicento, disegno became even
more firmly allied with classical art theory, with the con
cepts of decorum and the didactic responsibility of art;
drawing assumed a moral and self-righteous tone against which
color seemed a purely hedonistic luxury. From the
18°Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory, p, 9ff,

n81
“Guercino's lack of confidence in his own talents
and tastes is documented by his Dresden Allegory of Drawing
and Painting, A young woman is shown before an easel,
painting a picture of a sleeping cupid. To the left, an
old man is seated behind a table; in his hands he holds a
sheet of paper, a drawing. The young pittrice looks over
to his drwwing, evidently using it as her model: painting in
this case is clearly dependent upon drawing. The figures
in the composition are personifications of Disegno and his
daughter, Pittura, Guercino has illustrated the classical
statement that drawing is the father of the arts. See J. S.
Held, "The Early Appreciation of Drawings," in Studies in
Western Art, III, Latin American Art and the Barogue Period
in Europe,Po 73f, Cf, M. Winner, Die Quellen der Pictura-
Allegorien in gemalten Bildergalerien des 17. Jahrhunderts
zu Antwerpen. Dissertation, Uhiversity of Cologne, 1957,
passim.
352
controversy between Sacchi and Cortona in Rome and the
rivalry of Poussinistes and Rubenistes in the Royal Academy

132
at Paris to the conflicting examples of Ingres and
183
Delacroix in nineteenth-century France, Vasari's indict
ment of Venetian practices and the disegno-colorito contro
versy of the Cinquecento echoed through nearly four centuries
of art history.
189
*0n the controversy between Sacchi and Cortona, see
Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy. 1600-1750. pc171ff.
For the specific echoes of the disegno-colorito polemic in
artistic circles of seventeenth-century France, see M c
Pittaluga, "Eugfene Fromentin e le origini della moderna
critica d'arte," L'Arte. XX, 1917, pp. 14ff., 115ff0, XXI,
1918, p.5f•
183
Reflections of the disegno-colorito controversy
in the writings of Delacroix are discussed by Pittaluga,
op.cit.. XXI, 1918, p.66ff.
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395
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE
1. Titian, Pletk (finished by Palma Giovane).

Venice, Aooademia.
2. Palma Giovane, Nymph and Shepherd (copy

after Titian), Treviso, Huseo Civioo.
3* Arrival of Henry III in Venloe. Dresden,

G emftldegaleri e •
4. Desoent into Limbo. Venice, Aooademia

(exhibited in Quero De l l u n <3 , parish
church)•
$• Madonna and Child with Saints and Giovanni

Marla da Ponte. Venice, San Giacomo
dell'Orio.
6. Deposition. Venice. San Giacomo dell'Orio
7. Passover Feast. Venice. San Giacomo dell'

Orio.
8. Four Evangelists Adoring the Eucharist.

Venice, San Giacomo dell'Orio.
9. Ell.lah and the Angel. Venice. San Giacomo
dell*0rio.
10. Brazen Serpent. Venice. San Giacomo

dell'Orio.
11. Gathering of Manna. Venice. San Giacomo

dell'Orio.
12. Detail of Fig. 11.
14. Submersion of Pharoah's Army. Venice. San

Giaoomo dell'Orio.
396
PAGE .
16 . Passover Feast. Rovigo, PInacoteca del

Concord!.
17. Crucifixion. Venice, Madonna dell’Orto.

18. Crucifixion. Bologna, PInacoteca Nazlonale.
19. Agony In the Garden. Lawrence, University

of Kansas Museumof Art.
20. Triumph of Death. Venice, Scuola di San

Giovanni Evangelista.
21. Angels of Death. Venice, Scuola di San

Giovanni Evangelista.
22. The Twelve-Thousand Receiving the Sign of

the Cross^ Venice, Scuola dl San Giovanni
Evangelista.
23. St. Jerome in his Study. Venice, Accademia.
24. St. Jerome and the Lion. San Giorgio delle

Pertiche (Padua), parish church.
23. St. Jerome Supervising the Construction of

the Monastery. San Giorgio delle Pertiche
(Padua), parish church.
26. Assumption of the Virgin. Venice, Pina-

coteca Querini-Stampalia.
27. Paradise (detail of left half). Milan,

Ambrosiana.
28. Paradise (detail of right half).
29. Last Judgement. Venice. Ducal Palace (Sala

dello scrutlnio).
30. Coronation of Venice. Venice. Ducal Palace

(Sala del MaggiorConsiglio).
34. Entrance of Andrea Grittl into Padua. Ven-

ice, Ducal Palace (Sala del Magglor
Consiglio).
T U
397
PAGE
35. Vlcory at Cremona. Venice, Ducal Palace

(Sala del Maggior Consiglio).
36. Fall of Constantinople. Venice, Ducal

Palace (Sala del Maggior Consiglio).
37• Doge Sebastlano Ziani Mediating between

Pope Alexander ill and Otto, Son of
Frederic Barbarossa. Venice, Ducal
falace. (Sala del Maggior Consiglio).
38 . Votive Picture of Doges Lorenzo and Glro-

lamo Prlull. Venice, Ducal Palace (Sala
del Senato).
39. Detail of Fig. 38 .
42. Allegory of the League of Cambral with Doge

Leonardo Loredan. Venice, Ducal Palace
(Sala del Senato).
43. Votive Picture of Doge Pasquale Clcogna.

Venice, Ducal Palace (Sala del Senato).
44. Votive Picture of Doge Francesco Venier.

Venice, Ducal falace (Sala del Senato).
45. Allegorical Figure of Prudence. Venice,

Ducal Palace (Sala del Senato).
46. Allegorical Figure of Justice. Venice,

bucal Palace (Sala del Senato).
47. Allegorical Figure of Equity. Venice, Ducal

Palace (Sala del Senato).
48. Allegorical Figure of Obedience. Venice,

Ducal Palace (Sala del Senato).
49. Flagellation. Venice, Oratorio del

brociferi.
50. Votive Picture of Doge Renier Zeno. Venice,

Oratorio del Crociferi.
398
PAGE
51• Doge Pasquale Clcogna Visiting the

Oratory on Ascension I)ay~. Venice,
Oratorio del Croclferi.
52. Pasquale Clcogna Attending Mass at the

OratoryJ Venice, Oratorio del Croclferi.
53. Portrait of Padre Glullano Cirno. Milan,

Brera.
5^. Pope Paul IV Receiving the Venetian Ambas-
sadors, Venice, Oratorio del Croclferi.
55. The Institution of the Order of the Crocl-

ferl. Venice, Oratorio del Croclferi.
56 . Deposition. Venice, Oratorio del Croclferi
57. Decapitation of St. John the Baptist.

Venice, Santa Maria Assunta.
58. Fall of Manna. Venice, Santa Maria Assunta
59. Brazen Serpent. Venice, Santa Maria

Assunta.
60. Institution and Confirmation of the Order

of the Croclferi" Venice, Santa Marla
Assunta.
61. Brazen Serpent. Venice, San Bartolomeo a

fti'alto.
62 . Beating of St. Bartholomew. Venice, San

Bartolomeo a Rialto.
63 . Triumph of David. Venice, San Zaccaria.
64. Madonna and Child with Saints. Udine,

Museo dommunale.
65 . Apotheosis of St. Zacharlah. Venice, San

Zaccaria.
66 . Birth of the Virgin. Verona, Museo di

Castelvecchio.
67 . Birth of the Virgin. Venice, San Trovaso.
399
PAGE
68 . St. Jetfome in the Wilderness. Present

location unknown.
59. Crowning of Thorns. Venice, Accademia.
70. Distribution of Indulgences. Venice,

Ateneo Veneto.
71. Two Fathers of the Church. Venice, Ateneo

Veneto.
72.- Virgin in Glory with Saints. Venice, San

tfrovaso.
73. Assumption of the Virgin. Venice, San

Giuliano.
74. Dead Christ. Bergamo, Accademia Carrara.
75. Flagellation. Bergamo, Accademia Carrara.
76. Lamentation. Belluno, Duomo.
77. Dead Christ Supported by Angels. Venice.

Accademia.
00
Lamentation. Glasgow, Glasgow Art Gallery

•
and Museum.
79. Dead Christ Supported by Angels. Venice.

San Zaccaria.
CO
o
Flagellation. Venice, San Zaccaria.

•
81 . Detail of Fig. 82.

00
ro
Virgin in Glory with Saints. Venice. San

•
Zaccaria.
83. Lamentation. Reggio Emilia, Museo Civico.
84. Lamentation. Dallas, Museum of Fine Arts.

00
VJ1
Lamentation. Reggio Etailia, Duomo.

•
86 . Lamentation. Venice, PInacoteca Querini-

Stampalla.
87. Virgin In Glory with St. Hyacinth. Hegglo
Emilia, Duomo.
88 . Stigmatization of St. Franols. Venice,
Aooademia.
89. Martyrdom of St. Lairrenoe. Carpi, San

Bernardino•
90. Crucifixion. Castelnuovo Sotto (Hegglo

Emilia), parish ohurch.
91. Brazen Serpent. Siena, Pinaooteoa

Nazlonale.
92. Resurrection. Venice, San Giullano.
93. Resurreotlon. Venice, San Nioolo del

Mendlooll.
9^. Apotheoals of St. Julian. Venice, San

Giullano.
95. Visitation. Modena, Galleria Estense.

96. Marriage of the Virgin. Venice, Chiesa
dello Spirito Santo.
97. Adoration of the Magi. Modena, Galleria

Estense.
99. Allefcory of History. Sarasota, Singling

Museum of Art.
100,. Eoly Trinity with Saints. Bergamo Aooa
demia Carrara.
101. _ Adoration of the Magi. Trieste, Museo
CIt Io o .
162 . Annunciation. Venice, Madonna dell'Orto.
104. Dead Christ with Saints. Venice, San Llo.
106. Virgin in Glory with Saints Raymond
and Sebastian. Reggio Emilia,
Palazzo Vescovile.
107. St. Sebastian. Nice, Collection

Lazzaroni.
108. Christ the Savior with Saints Sebastian

and RocET Cividale, San Pietro.
109. Baptism of Chrl3t. Venice, PInacoteca

Querini-stampalia.
110 . St. Jerome In the Wilderness. New York,
Private collection.
111 . St. Sebastian. New York, Collection Paul

G a i'n z .
112 . St. Matthew. Venice, Accademia.
113. St. James Minor. Venice, Accademia.

114. Votive Picture of Doge Marcantonlo Memmo
(detail o f left half). Venice, I)ucal
Palace (Andito del Maggior Consiglio).
115. Votive Picture of Doge Marcantonlo Memmo

(detail o f right half).
116. Allegorical Figure of _Falth. Venice, Ducal
Palace (Andito del MaggTor Consiglio).
117. Allegorical Figure of Justice. Venice,

bucal Palace (Andito del Maggior Con
siglio).
118. Palma Giovane(?), Ecce Homo. Venice, Acca
demia .
119. Palma Giovane, Ecce Homo. Venice, PInacoteca

Querlnl-Stampalla.
120. Samson. Venice, Santa Maria della Salute.
121. Jonah. Venice, Santa Maria della Salute.
122. Rebecca at the Well. Trieste, Museo Civico.
123. Allegory of War and Peace. Carpi, Museo
della Xilografia Italiana.
124. Parnassus. Parma, Galleria Nazionale.
125. Holy Family with St. Theresa. Bergamo,

Accademia Carrara.
126. Assumption of the Virgin. Salo, Duomo,
130. Hendrick Goltzius, Portrait of Palma Giovane.

(drawing). Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
131. Palma Giovane, Self-Portrait. Milan, Brera.
132. Alessandro Vittoria, Portrait Bust of Palma

Giovane. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum.
133. Palma Giovane(?), Self-Portrait(?). Florence,

Uffizi. ~
134. Palma Giovane, Sepulchral Monument of the

Artist. Venice, SS. Giovanne e Paolo.
Drawings by Palma Giovane (Figs. 1 3 6 -3 6 6 ). Note:

dimensions and technical data are given only for
unpublished drawings.
136. Portrait of Mateo Perez da Lecce, Seated

and Reading. Wew York, iMerpont Morgan
Library, if 74 (T. A10U5).
137. Copy of a Figure from Daniele da Vol-

Terra1s Crucifixion^ Black chalk.
(verso of Fig. 13bJ.
139. Figurej Study, Male Torso.

' Florence, Uffizi,
7Bbtt£. (tjfflzi Mostra, Cat. No. 3).
140. Arrival of Henry III in Venice. Vienna,
Albertina, Inv. Ib9b (T. 1201).
141. Male Figure Kneeling, Seen from Behind.

Dresden, Staatlicne Kunstsammlungen
(T. 886).
142. Male Figure Picking Up a Bundle of Sticks.

Copenhagen, Royal Museum of Pine Arts,
No. Tu 9,5 (T. 882).
143. Male Figure Reclining. Dresden. Staat-

liche Kunstsammlungen (T. 887).
Figs. 144-168 are from an album in Bergamo, Acca

demia Carrara. The drawings are in either black
chalk or charcoal, on blue paper, approx.
305 x 195mm. Some of the sheets were discussed
by C. L. Ragghianti, Antlchl dlsegnl e stampe
dell1Accademia Carrara dl BergamoT Milan, 19b3.
p. 2bff.
144. Male Nude Reclining. No. 825, folio 19.

145. Male Torso from Behind. No. 813, folio 11.
146. Male Nude Swinging a Stick. No. 8l4,

~ T5Tio~I2r. --------
147. Male Nude Crouching, Seen from Behind.
” "No.U23, foHTiTr.- - - - - - - - - - -
148. Seated Male Nude. No. 824, folio 18.
150. Male Nude Walking and Holding a Stick;

Studies of a Leg and a Torso. No. 828,
folio 22 .----- 6-------- —
151. Male Nude Leaning on a Staff. No. 829,
folio 23r.
152. Study of an Arm and Part of a Torso. No.
8 3 0 , folio 2 3 v.
153. Male
—
Nude Walking -----------------
Forward. No. 831, folio
155. Male Nude Lunging to the Right. No. 833,

folio 26.
157. Male Nude Kneeling and with Arms Crossed.

“ NoV 835, folio" 28. ------- -----------
158. Male Nude Walking Forward. No. 836,

folio 29r.
159. Kneeling Male Nude, Looking Up to the

EeTt. No .~837/ioTio TO? “ -------
160. Study of a Hand. Unnumbered, folio 32v.
16 1 . Kneeling Male Nude, Looking Up to the

" Right" No. 846, folio'33.
162. Crouching Male Nude with Left Arm Raised.

"No". '841, f o l i o '14. ------------------
163. Clothed Male Figure, Seen from Rear. No.

"bfla; folio 35: ----------------
164. Standing Male Nude. No. 843, folio 36.
165. Seated Male Nude, Seen from Rear; Study

for a Horseman. Wo. 844, folio 37 .
166. Standing Male Nude. No. 845, folio 38 .
167. Reclining Male Nude. No. 850, folio 4lr.
168. Reclining Male Nude. No. 852, folio 42.
169. Study of a Man Gesticulating. Bergamo,

Accademia Carrara, No. 732 (Ragghianti,
Cat. No. 209).
170 . Kneeling M a n . Bergamo, Accademia Carrara,

Wo. 731 (Ragghianti, Cat. No. 208).
171. Study after a Mlchelangelesque Samson Group,

fiergamo, Accademia Carrara, Wo. 733
(Ragghianti, Cat. No. 210).
/ 405
s
•V'
v°
PAGE
172. Male Figure Crouching. Bergamo, Accademia

Carrara, No. 793 (Ragghianti, Cat. No.
204).
173. Male Torso, Seen from Rear. Bergamo, Acea-

demla Carrara, No. 734 (Ragghianti,
Cat. No. 212).
174. Crouching Male Nude. Bergamo, Accademia

Carrara, too. 789V (Ragghianti, Cat. No.
218).
175. Foreshortened Figure in Motion. Florence,
Offizi, No. 13104F. (T. 925; Uffizi
Mostra, Cat. No. 16).
176. Male Nude. Study for a St. John the Baptist.

Udine, Museo Coinmunale, N o . 8b. Charcoal,
heightened with white, on gray paper;
268 x 170mm.
177. Female Figure, Half-Length. Florence,
Offizi, N o . 13107F. (T7 930; Uffizl
178. Young Man Walking, Seen from Rear. Florence,

UfTizi, No. 13070F . (T. W ; Uff izi
179. Three-Quarter Length Male Figure Raising his

Arm. Florence, Uffizl, NoT lhb4p.
(*f. 907; Uff izi Mostra, Cat. No. 11).
180. Study for the Virgin in an Assumption. 0x~

ford, Ashmolean Museum (T. 1003; Parker,
Ashmolean Catalogue, II, No. 424).
181. Falling Figure, Seen from Rear. Florence,

Uffizl, No. 1 3 0 2 0 F . ( T . 910; Uffizi
182. Martyrdom of St. Lawrence. Paris, Louvre,

~lnv; 5208 '('F. 1IU6).---
183. Two Male Heads. Paris, Louvre, Inv. 5290A,
ascribed to Jacopo Bassano. Black chalk,
traces of white heightening, on brown
paper; 125 x 172mm.
406
PAGE
184. One Female Head and Two Male Heads.

Paris, Louvre, Inv. 52$OB, ascribed to
Jacopo Bassano. Black chalk, traces
of white heightening, on brown paper;
197 x 146mm.
185. Palma Giovane(?), Woman Walking to the

Right, Carrying a Bucket. Munich.
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung,
I, 213r. Charcoal on blue paper;
307 x 220mm.
186. Palma Giovane, Male Figure Carrying a Pole.
Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung,
I, 213v. Brown oil paint over char
coal on blue paper, squared; 307 x
220mm.
187. Archangel Michael. London, British
Museum, No. 1941-11-8-15. Brush,
brown oil paint, heightened with
white, on brown paper; 430 x 280mm.
188. Dead Christ. Venice, Accademia, No. 388

(T. 11537.
189. Sheet of Figure Sketches. Paris, Louvre,
Inv. 5421, ascribed!to Tintoretto. Pen,
brown ink; 296 x 227mm.
190. Sheet of Figure Sketches. Paris, Louvre,

Inv. 54207 ascribed to Tintoretto. Pen,
191* Studies for a Nailing to the Cross and

6ther Figures. Boston, Museum of Pine
Arts, NoT 51.1076. Pen, brown ink;
200 x 270mm.
192. Sketches for an Annunciation and an Agony
in the Garden. Munich, Staatliche
Graphische Sammlung, I, 197. Pen,
brown ink; 183 x 145 mm.
193. Assumption of the Virgin. Munich, Staat-

licne Graphische Sammlung. I, 3 . Pen,
194. Baptism of Christ. Munich, Staatliche

Graphische Sammlung, I, 2. Pen, brown
ink; 80 x 145mm.
-V
\ \0
\
407
PAGE
195. Christ and the Children(?) Munich,

Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, I,
120r. Pen, brown ink; 76 x 180mm.
196. Crucifixion. Brno, Moravska Galerie,

'"No. fi2555” (T. 846).
197. Vision of St. John the Evangelist: the
Pour Horsemen. Vienna, Iiechstenstein
Collection, Ital. 37, a (T. 1236).
198. Vision of St. Jerome (copy after Tinto-

retto). Paris, louvre, Inv. RP5914,
ascribed to Tintoretto. Pen, brown
ink; wash; 236 x 203mm.
199. Brazen Serpent. Florence, Uffizi, No.

I814F\ (T7“905; Uffizi Mostra, Cat.
No. 37).
200 . Flagellation. Paris, Louvre, Inv. 5178

( T . 1 0 8 7 ).
201 . Flagellation. Rome, Gabinetto Nazionale

(Telle" Slampe, No. 128270 (T. 1132).
202 . Sheet of Sketches of Various Figures.

Florence, tlffizi. No. "13113^. '(T: 933;
Uffizi Mostra, Cat. No. 27).
203. Studies for an Agony in the Garden.

Florence, uffizi, No. l3<la3F. TtJffizi
204. Studies for a St. Jerome and for a S t .

Mary Magdalene. Florence, tJfflzi, No.
l3l2bF. (Muraro, Mostra dl dlsegni
venezlani, Cat. No. 14).
203. St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness.

""'Paris, touvre, 157. 5239 '(*. 1113).
206. St. Sebastian. Paris, Ecole des Beaux
Arts, No. 214R (T. 1122).
207. St. Mary Magdalene. Paris, Louvre, Inv.

5211. Pen, brown ink, wash; 200 x
134mm.
208. Daniel in the Lions1 Den. Paris, Louvre,

Inv. 5151. Red chalk; 192 x 130mm.
209. Agony In the Garden. Vienna, Albertina,
Inv. 1538 (T. Ilb4; Benesch, Disegnl
veneti dell’Albertina, Cat. N o . b4 ) .
210 . Seated Youth. Paris, Louvre, Inv. 5241

Of: n i 4 y :
211 . Dead Christ. Edinburgh, National Gal-

lery of Scotland, No. 3100 (T. 897).
212 . Nativity. Venice, Accademia, No. 567.

Over pen sketch, brush, brown ink,
heightened with white; 155 x 215mm.
213. Nativity. Besancon, Musee des Beaux

Arts, No. D.I 368. Pen, brown ink,
wash, 201 x 274mm.
214. Doubting Thomas. Paris, Louvre, Inv.
215. Annunciation. London, British Museum,

Wo. 19^6-7-13-40. Monochrome oil
sketch; 252 x 290mm.
216. Lion. London, Collection C. R. Rudolf.

Monochrome oil sketch.
217. Virgin and Child with Coronation of

Venice by St. Magnus and iFaith"
t>aris, Louvre, Inv. 5215 (T. 1108).
218. Apparition of Christ to Doge Renler

Zeno, his Wife, and Senators. Venice,
SH'cademTa/TJo. TTl"(f7T[5T).
219. Dead Christ Supported by Angels. Paris.

EouvreInv. 5I88 (T. 1093).
220. St. Martin and the Beggar. Edinburgh,
National Gallery of Scotland, No.
697 (T. 891).
221 . Coronation of Venice. London, Collection
C. R. Rudolf (T. 1015).
222. Decapitation of St. John the Baptist.

Vienna, Albertina, Inv. Ibb9 (T. 1191;
Benesch, Disegnl veneti, Cat. No. 65).
223. Two Fathers of the Church. Vienna,
Albertina, inv. 24023 (T. 1191;
Benesch, Disegnl veneti, Cat. No. 62).
224. Penitent Magdalen. Paris, Louvre, Inv.

Inv. 5209bis. Pen, brown ink, wash,
over black chalk; 80 x 68mm.

Inv. 52107 Pen, brown ink, wash, over
black chalk; 79 x 71mm.

Inv. 52097 Pen", brown Ink, wash, over
black chalk; 86 x 72mm.

5237• Over black chalk, brush, brown
wash, heightened with white, on blue
paper; 230 x l6lmm.
228. S t . Francis Supported by an Angel. Paris,

Louvre, inv. 5212. Pen, brown ink,
wash, heightened with white, on brown
paper; 233 x l6lmm.
229. Dead Christ Supported by an Angel.

Florence, UffizT,"No' 78'89'S. "(Uffizi
230 . Dead Christ Supported by Angels. Paris,

Louvre, Inv. 5190. Pen, brown ink,
wash; 233 x 187mm.
231. Dead Christ Supported by Angels. Paris,

Louvre, Inv. 5167. Pen, Drown ink,
wash, heightened with white (oxidized);
150 x 117mm.
232. St. Jerome. Paris, Louvre, Inv. 5204.

Over black chalk, pen, dark brown ink,
wash, heightened with white, on blue
paper; 256 x l80mm.
233. St. Jerome. Paris, Louvre, Inv. 5202.

Pen, brown ink; 271 x 191mm,
234. Bust of a Bearded Old Man. Venice, Acca-

“ dimia, NoT 49'4 (T. 1171)
410
PAGE
235. Moses and Other Sketches. Paris, Louvre,

Inv. 5150 71F'.'T056T.
236. Lamentation. Budapest, Museum of Fine

Arts 7Sz£pmflveszeti Muzeura, A Graflkai
Osztaly XCI. Kiallltasa Velencei 5s
Egy4b Eszakitaliai Rajzok, Budapest
i 960, Cat. No. 4b).
237. Dead Christ Supported by an Angel. Darm-

stadt, Landesmuseum, A# I60I. Pen,
brown ink, wash, heightened with
white (oxidized); 291 x 184mm.
238. Deposition. Dusseldorf, Kunstakademie,

Budde 599 (T. 890).
239. Deposition. Darmstadt, Landesmuseum,

AE 1^95. Pen, brown ink, wash,
heightened with white, on gray paper;
251 x 183mm.
240. Seated Male Nude, Seen from Behind.
Venice, Accademia, No. 349 (T. 1174).
241. St. Jerome in the Wilderness. Florence

Uffizi, No. 1867N (*. 910).
242. St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness.

Florence, Uffizi, No. 7695S (T. 933).

Uffizi, No. 1311bF (T. 935).

Uffizi, No. 13143F. Charcoal, brush,
brown oil paint; 387 x 265mm.
245. St. Sebastian. Florence, Uffizi, No.

7863s. Pen, brown ink, wash, height
ened with white, on blue paper; 289 x
177mra.
246. st. John the Baptist in the Wilderness.
~Paris, Louvre;- Inv. 5175""('T"1079J7
247. Christ Carrying a Cross. Paris, Louvre,

“ inv. 5180 (TTTOB'^fT"
411
PAGE
Pigs. 248-298 are from a sketchbook preserved
in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. For full
descriptions of the individual folios, see
K. T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of
Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, II, Italian
Schools, Gxford, 1956, Gat. No. 432, p7"gL5ff.
248. Oxford Sketchbook.
249.. , folio 1 .
250. , folio 2 .
251. , folio 3 .
252. , folio 4.
253. , folio 5 .
254. , folio 6 .
255. , folio 7 .
256. __________ , folio 8 .
257. > folio 9 .
258. , folio 10.
259. , folio 11.
260 • ^ folio 12 .
261. , folio 13.
262• , folio 14.
263. __________ , folio 15.
264. , folio 16.
265. , folio 17 .
266. , folio 18.
267. , folio 19 .
268. , folio 20 .
269. , folio 21.
412
PAGE
270. , folio 22 .
271. , folio 23.
272. , folio 24.
273. , folio 25.

I>-
CVl
, folio 26 .
•
1
275. , folio 27.
276. , folio 28 .
277. , folio 29.
278. , folio 30.
279. , folio 31.
280. , folio 32.
281. , folio 33.
282. , folio 34.
283. , folio 35.
284. , folio 36.
285. , folio 37.
286. j folio 38.
287. , folio 39.
288. . , folio 40.
289. , folio 41.
290. j folio 42.
291. , folio 43.
292. , folio 44.
293. , folio 45.
294. , folio 46.
295. , folio 47.
296. __________ , folio 48.
297. __________ , folio 49.
298. __________ , folio 50.
299. Venus and Cupid. Paris, Louvre, Inv.

5217. Over black chalk, pen, brown
Ink, wash; 193 x 270mm.
300. Venus and _Cupld. Paris, Louvre, Inv.

521a. Over black chalk, pen, brown
ink, wash; 199 x 272mm.
301. Bust of a Bearded Man in Costume. Paris,

Louvre, Inv. 5228. Pen, brown ink;
136 x 123mm.
302. David with the Head of Goliath. Munich,
125. Pen, brown ink; 115 x 115mm.
303. Two heads of Bearded Men. Paris,

heightened with white; 104 x 90mm.
304. Profile head of a Bearded Man. Paris,

Louvre, Inv. 522$. Pen, brown ink;
100 x 64mm.
305. Coronation of a Poet by Apollo and the

Muses. London, British Museum, Mo.
197*d I, P. 67, no. 116 (T. 991).
306 . Presentation of the Bride. Leningrad,
hermitage, Inv. b322 (T. 978; L.
Salmina, Disegnl veneti del Museo di
Lenlngrado, Cat. Mo. 2b).
307. Venetian Woman. Oxford, Ashmolean

Museum, (barker, Disegnl veneti dl
Oxford, Cat. No. 6b).
308. Venetian Woman and a Lute Player. Lon

don* ^British Museum, No. 1898-12-16-2.
Over black chalk, pen, brown ink, wash;
222 x l66mm.
309. Lamentation. Paris, Louvre, Inv. 5248.

6ver black chalk, pen, brown ink,
wash, squared in red chalk; 217 x
280mm.
310. Four Male Heads. Florence, Uffizi,
No. 1 3 H 7 F • Pen, brown ink, 189 x
297mm.
311. Five Heads. Paris, Louvre, Inv. 5257*

Red chalk, pen, brown ink, washj
254 x 199mm.
312. Study for the Martyrdom of St. Barth-

olomew and Five Heads. Florence,
ttfffizi, Ro"TTB71F:— (¥. 912; Uffizi
Mostra, Cat. No. 62 ).
313. Male Nude Turned to the Left. London,

Victoria and Albert Museum, Dyce 253
(T. 993).
314. Dead Christ, Seen Foreshortened. Paris,
wash; 110 x 121mm.
315. Sketches of a Child *3 Head, a Torso, a

ftoot. Munich, Staatliche Graphische
Sammlung, II, 7 . Pen, brown ink;
145 x 199mm.
316. Sheet of Sketches. Florence, Uffizi,

“ "No. 1 3 0 8 ^ 7 '(*. 920).
317. Anatomical Studies of a Figure and

Skeleton. Munich, Staatliche Graph
ische Sammlung, 1,21. Pen, brown ink;
207 x 170mm.
318. Anatomical Studies of a Leg. Munich,
319. Studies of Skulls, Arms, Hands. Munich,

153. Pen, brown ink; 145 x lfomm.
320. Anatomical Studies of an A rm. Munich,
321. Portrait of Andrlana Palma, 1593.

Munich, Staatliche GraphischeSammlung,
I, 101. Pen, brown ink. 190 x l48mm.
415
PAGE
322 . Portrait of Andrlana Palma and Other

Sketches^ Munich, Staatliche
Graphische Sammlung, I, 94. Pen,
brown ink; 270 x 150mm. (Mentioned
by Hell, "Paima Giovane als Zeichner,"
P. 62).
323. Portrait of Andrlana Palma, 1596. Mun-

ich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung,
I, 215. Pen, brown ink; 176 x 123mm.
324. Portrait of Andrlana Palma, 1596. Mun-

ich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung,
I, 102. Pen, brown ink; 135 x 135ram.
325. Allegorical Figures of Painting and

Sculpture"! Edinburgh, National Gal
lery of Scotland, D. 1173. Pen,
326. Lamentation. London, British Museum,

No. 1922-6-22-5 (T. 987).
327. Two Horses' Heads. London, British

Museum, No. 1946-7-13-410. Red
chalk; 200 x 133mm.
328. Three Horses 1 Heads. London, British

Museum, No. 1946-7-13-411. Pen, brown
ink; 200 x 133mm.
329. Sheet of Sketches. Florence, Uffizi, No.

I 3 S 8 W r ~ r T r 3 5 l ; Uffizi Mostra, Cat.
No. 66 ).
330. Allegorical Figures with View of Venice

CSEudy for the Votive Picture of Doge
Marcantonlo Memmo). Mew York, Collec
tion Janos Scholz (Neumeyer-Scholz,
Venetian Drawings, Berkeley, 1959,
ffat. Mo. 47). '
331. Job Reproveth his Wife. Oxford, Ashmolean

Museum (barker, Ashmolean Catalogue, II,
No. 429).
332. Nativity. Darmstadt, Landesmuseum, AE

1597. Pen, brown ink, wash; 160 x
207mm.
333. Man Walking to the Right. Darmstadt,
Iandesmuseum, AE lb04. Over charcoal,
pen, brown ink, wash; 177 x 90mm.
334. St. John the Baptist Preaching. Darm-

stadt, landesmuseum, AE 15^4. Pen,
brown ink, wash, heightened with
white, on yellowish paper; 344 x
259mm.
335. Figures Climbing Upward. Venice, Acca-

"demia/ No. T2l"(T: 1178).
336. Martyrdom of S t . Lawrence. London, Witt

Collection (I. I0I9 ).
Figs. 337-358 are from an album of drawings in

the collection of Frits Lugt in Paris. The draw
ings are on prepared parchment and are executed
in pen, brown ink, wash, and heightened with
white (with the exception of folio lr., which is
heightened with gold). The album was exhibited
and briefly described in Le dessln itallen dans
les collections hollandalses,~ Paris-Rotterdam-
Raarlem, 1^62, Cat. No. 12b.
337. Christ the Savior. Folio lr.
338. Four Heads; Virgin and Child. Folios lv.-
339. Three Heads; Seated Saint. Folios 5v.-6r.
340. Three Heads (ANT.O RVS.NI.A., VET.V SCAR.

■”2A; ANBR.A SSHIV:» 7 St ."Andrew. ''Polios
Sv!-7r.------ ------------------
341. Three Heads (RAF.O D.VRB.O, IVL.O ROM.O,

MftlN D.VAGA); Seated Saint. Folios
7v7-8r\----- --------------
342. Three Heads (GIOR.NE DA CAS.LFRAN.O,

""Et'CIAM v e 6.o, b a s T o V E O St.
James. folios 8v.-9r.
343. Three Heads (IOSEPINO D'ARPINO. IER.0

HVTIa'M, BAT.A ZILOTI); S t : "John the
Evangelist, folios 9v.-l0r.
344. Three Heads (BRAMAHTE.A., NICrTRIB.O,

F.feffi.O glOR.O); St. Bartholomew(?)
Foilos lOv.-llr.
345. Three Heads (PVLID.O DA CARAV.O, BA.A
&BNESE, MASllA:ffftA.E); Seated Saint.
Folios llv.-12r.
346. Three Heads (PRA.O MAZ.A PARM.O, AND.

A I). SAR.O, MEC.~Q D. Sfift.A); Seat
Saint (John?). Polios l£v.-13r.
347. Two Saints. Polios 13v.-l4r.
348. Three Heads (MXC.L ANG:0 BONAR:I, BACIO:

BAN.!!, DANlfeL.D.VOl.h St."John the
baptists Polios 14v.-15r .
349. Three Heads (IAC.0 DA PONT.O, IER.0

GENGA, Z.Afl.O SOD.A); St. Je"rome.
Polios 15v.-l6r.
350. Three Heads (IAC.0 TET.O, PAV.O VEB.e,

IAC .0 PAL.A ); St. Lawrence. Polios
TFvT- 17'r';---- -------------
351. Female Martyr; St. Sebastian. Polios

" 1 7 v.-18r.-----------------
352. St. Catherine; St. Mary Magdalen.

Polios lbv.-19f.
353. Three Heads (IAC:Q SAN.O S., AES.O VIT.A.

dtoM.O LON.O); St. Catherine. Polios
I9v.-20r.- ------------
354. Two Drawings of St. Jerome (?) Polios

20v .-21rT
355. St. Francis; St. Roch. Polios 21v.-21r.
356. Seated Evangelist; St. Georgef?) Polios

22v.-23r.
357. Two Drawings of St. Jerome (?) Folios
“ S3v.-24r? -----------
358. Seated Youth; Portrait of Andrlana
Palma(?) Polio 24v. and back Inside
cover.
359. Self-Portrait, 1606. New York, Pierpont

Morgan Library, IV,82,1 (T. 1046).
418
PAGE
360. Portrait of Andrlana Palma. 1 6 0 5 . New

York, Pierpont Morgan Horary, IV,
82,2 (T. 1047).
361. Portrait of Regina Palma. 1596. New

York, Pierpont Morgan Library, IV,
82,4 (T. 1049).
362. Portrait of Glanne Vassllachl. New York,

Pierpont Morgan Library, IV,82,3
(T. 1048).
363. Self-Portrait. New York. Pierpont Morgan

Library, 1, 73 (T. 1044).
364. Self-Portrait. Edinburgh, National Gal-

lery of Scotland, W. 2237 (T. 895).
365. Three Heads (Later Inscriptions: Jacopo

ftaBsano, Paolo Veronese, Malombra).
Chatsworth, Collection Duke of Devon- ,
shire.
366. Portrait of a Bearded Ma n . Oxford, Ash-

molean Museum (Parker, Ashmolean Cata
logue, II, No. 42).
Figs. 367-387 are from Odoardo Fialetti, II uero

modo et ordlne per dlssegnar tvtte le parti et
membra del corpo hvmano, Venice, lb08.
367. Title-Page.
368. Dedication.
369. Scene of an artist!s studio. Folio 3 .
370. The construction of an eye. Folio 4.
371. Ears. Folio 6.
372. Noses. Folio 8.
373. Title-Page. Folio 10.
374. Noses and profiles. Folio 12.
375. Construction of a Foreshortened Head.

Folio 13.
43.9
PAGE
376. Four Heads. Folio 16.
377. Hands. Folio 27.
378. Arms. Folio 30.
379. Legs. Folio 32,
380. Knees. Folio 33.
381. Thighs. Folio 34.
382. Feet. Folio 37-
383. Torsos. Folio 3 8 .
384. Torsos Seen from Behind. Folio 41.
38 5 . Various heads. Folio 15.
38 6 . Palma Giovane, Madonna and Child and Saints.

Folio 42.
387. Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery.

Folio 43,
Figs. 388-407 are from Giacomo Franco, De excel-

lentia et nobilitate dellneatlonis, Venice, lbll.
*the plates were designed by Palma Giovane.
38 8 . Title-page, designed and executed by

Palma Siovane.
389 . Camei, Trlvmphl, Ornamenta, Anlmalla
(Frontispiece for Part ll). Folio 30 .
390. Allegory of Rome. Folio 20 of 1636
edition.
391. Fama. Folio 16.
392. Eyes, Mouths, Ears, Noses. Folio 17.
393. Eyes, Mouths, Ears, Noses. Folio 4.
396. Feet. Folio 23.
397. Hands. Polio 22.
398. Legs. Polio 25.
399. legs. Polio 9 .
400. Heads. Polio 6.
401. Heads. Polio 18.
402. Head8. Polio 19.
403. Male Torsos. Polio 27.
404. Female Torsos. Polio 28.
405. Female Torsos. Folio 19.
406. Male and Female Torsos. Polio
407. Puttl. Polio 29.
408. Regole per lmparar a disegnar ;
dal famoso plttor Giacomo Falmal

Venice, 163 b. Title-Page^
409. Llbro secondo. Polio 13.
410. Palma Giovane, Sheet of Studies. Etching.
Pigs. 411-414 are from Gasparo Colombina, Discorso

aopra 11 modo dl disegnare, dlplngere, & spiegare..
gll affettl p r i n c l p a l i . Padua, 1023. The
esigns are fay
designs by Philipp Esengren.
411. Title-Page.
412. Construction of the Head.Polio l8r.
413. Construction of the Figure. Polio 30v.
414. Horses. Polio 32r.
415. Titian and Marco Vecellio, Votive Picture of

Doge Antonio Grlmanl (La Fede). Venice.
Ducal Palace, âla delle Quattro Porte.
416. Marco Vecellio, Prophet. Venice, Ducal Pal

ace, Sala delle Quattro Porte.
421
PAGE
417. Standard Bearer. Venice, Ducal Palace,
Sala delle Quattro Porte.
418. Peace Signed at Bologna in 1529 between

Pope Clement VII and Charles V . “
(detail). Venice, Palazzo Ducale, Sala
del Consiglio del Dieci.
419. Peace Signed at Bologna in 1529 (detail).
420. Leonardo Corona, Crucifixion. Venice, San

Pantin.
ILLUSTRATIONS
4.
-124
R e p r o d u c e d with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
% 10.
12.
13.
/6 .
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425
22.
450
26.
29.
433
35.
36.
37
454
38.
41 •
Avi
43.
44.
47- 41
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65-9173

ROSAND, D a vid , 1938-

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

PAIMA GIOVANE AND VENETIAN MANNERISM

personality of Jacopo Palma il Giovane, the leading Venetian painter of the

In Chapter I ("Venetian Drawings and the Disegno-Colorito Controversy")

is discussed the different approaches to painting and drawing in Venice and

in Central Italy. Enphasis is placed on the technical revolution effected fcy

methods of painting in oil on canvas and of the continuing tradition of the

family workshop in Venice. Venetian writers on art (Pino, Dolce, Boschini)

tice in Venice during the Cinquecento.

Chapter II ("Mannerism and the Venetian Tradition") is an attempt to de­

lighted. The significance of the term maniera in Centraldftalian art theory is

with regard to the disegno-colorito controversy.

Tintoretto!s activity in Venice is touched on, and his initiation of the

grande maniera Venetians, the style of oil painting on a monumental scale, is

discussed as the major development in Venetian painting of the later Cinque­

cento. The enormous influence of Tintoretto on the following generation of

Chapter III is a brief monograph on Jacopo Palma il Giovane. His early

is dedicated to a study of the artist's drawings, and significant changes of

Renaissance concept of drawing as essentially an activity ancillary to painting,’

Palma is seen to give new importance to it as an independent artistic activity.

example of the Carracci in Bologna. The chapter concludes with a discussion of

Palma's position in the history of Venetian painting.

relation to them, are adduced as documents of this change. Academic ideas,

the Venetian state is cited to explain, in part, Venice's generally conservative

stance vis-1-vis academies of art.

The personalities of Palma and his contemporaries, their attitudes toward

artistic ferment of the early Seicento. In conclusion, an historical paradcx is

notedt these Venetian painters begin to abandon traditional Venetian values,

is providing important inspiration for the development of Baroque painting in

other Italian centers.

The present study is an attempt to outline and explain

drawing during the final quarter of the sixteenth century

and the opening decades of the seventeenth. While it cannot

be maintained that this field is entirely terra incognita,

“of study. Indeed, the years a cavallo fra i secoli are

generally considered lean ones in the story of Venetian

the deaths of the great masters of the Cinquecento— Titian

Tintoretto (d. 1594)— a younger generation of epjqoni as­

Until very recently, the history of Venetian painting

seemed to disappear from sight immediately upon the death

exhibition of La Pittura del Seicento a T7enezia a great step

Venetian Baroque. The personalities and developments linking

the Venetian Cinquecento with the Seicento, however, remain

to be placed in a proper historical perspective. The

"accademismo fine secolo" of Jacopo Palma il Giovane and his

Venetian painting; rather, it was an attempt to keep abreast

of the most significant contemporary events in other parts

the activities of these painters assume a new interest for

the art historian. It is the purpose of this study to out­

in these years, to examine the background, style, and goals

of the leading painter of this epoch, Palma Giovane, and to

establish the relationship of these to the crucial artistic

This project— and, indeed, my concern with Venetian

debt of gratitude for his constant encouragement and advice

and for his valuable criticisms and specific suggestions

Chapter II ("Mannerism and the Venetian Tradition") is an attempt to de

discussed as the major development in Venetian painting of the later Cinque

Tintoretto (d. 1594)— a younger generation of epjqoni as

the art historian. It is the purpose of this study to out

thank him for sharing with me his wide knowledge of six

propagate the then two-hundred-year-old doctrine of inter

were given monumental frames and were intended to be appre