The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance

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The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, by

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Title: The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance With An Index To Their Works
Author: Bernhard Berenson
Release Date: December 28, 2005 [EBook #17408]
Language: English
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[Illustration: _Portrait of a Lady._
_From the Painting, possibly by Verrocchio, in the Poldi Museum at Milan._]

THE FLORENTINE PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE
WITH AN INDEX TO THEIR WORKS
BY BERNHARD BERENSON
AUTHOR OF "VENETIAN PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE," "LORENZO LOTTO," "CENTRAL ITALIAN PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE"
THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press

COPYRIGHT, 1896 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS _Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_
* * * * *
COPYRIGHT, 1909 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS (For revised edition)
Made in the United States of America

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
Years have passed since the second edition of this book. But as most of this time has been taken up with the writing of my "Drawings of the Florentine Painters," it has, in a sense, been spent in preparing me to make this new edition. Indeed, it is to that bigger work that I must refer the student who may wish to have the reasons for some of my attributions. There, for instance, he will find the intricate Carli question treated quite as fully as it deserves. Jacopo del Sellajo is inserted here for the first time. Ample accounts of this frequently entertaining tenth-rate painter may be found in articles by Hans Makowsky, Mary Logan, and Herbert Horne.
The most important event of the last ten years, in the study of Italian art, has been the rediscovery of an all but forgotten great master, Pietro Cavallini. The study of his fresco at S. Cecilia in Rome, and of the other works that readily group themselves with it, has illuminated with an unhoped-for light the problem of Giotto's origin and development. I felt stimulated to a fresh consideration of the subject. The results will be noted here in the inclusion, for the first time, of Cimabue, and in the lists of paintings ascribed to Giotto and his immediate assistants.
B. B.
_Boston, November, 1908._

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The lists have been thoroughly revised, and some of them considerably increased. Botticini, Pier Francesco Fiorentino, and Amico di Sandro have been added, partly for the intrinsic value of their work, and partly because so many of their pictures are exposed to public admiration under greater names. Botticini sounds too much like Botticelli not to have been confounded with him, and Pier Francesco has similarly been confused with Piero della Francesca. Thus, Botticini's famous "Assumption," painted for Matteo Palmieri, and now in the National Gallery, already passed in Vasari's time for a Botticelli, and the attribution at Karlsruhe of the quaint and winning "Nativity" to the sublime, unyielding Piero della Francesca is surely nothing more than the echo of the real author's name.
Most inadequate accounts, yet more than can be given here, of Pier Francesco, as well as of Botticini, will be found in the Italian edition of Cavalcaselle's Storia della Pittura in Italia, Vol. VII. The latter painter will doubtless be dealt with fully and ably in Mr. Herbert P. Horne's forthcoming book on Botticelli, and in this connection I am happy to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Horne for having persuaded me to study Botticini. Of Amico di Sandro I have written at length in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, June and July, 1899.
FIESOLE, November, 1899.

CONTENTS.
PAGE THE FLORENTINE PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE 1
INDEX TO THE WORKS OF THE PRINCIPAL FLORENTINE PAINTERS 95
INDEX OF PLACES 189

THE FLORENTINE PAINTERS OF THE RENAISSANCE
I.
Florentine painting between Giotto and Michelangelo contains the names of such artists as Orcagna, Masaccio, Fra Filippo, Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, Leonardo, and Botticelli. Put beside these the greatest names in Venetian art, the Vivarini, the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoret. The difference is striking. The significance of the Venetian names is exhausted with their significance as painters. Not so with the Florentines. Forget that they were painters, they remain great sculptors; forget that they were sculptors, and still they remain architects, poets, and even men of science. They left no form of expression untried, and to none could they say, "This will perfectly convey my meaning." Painting, therefore, offers but a partial and not always the most adequate manifestation of their personality, and we feel the artist as greater than his work, and the man as soaring above the artist.
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