Vasari on technique

On the manner of making Pavements of Tesselated Work.

§ 32. Mosaic Pavements.

There are no possible devices in any department that the ancients did not find out or at any rate try very hard to discover,—devices I mean that bring delight and refreshment to the eyes of men. They invented then, among other beautiful things, stone pavements diversified with various blendings of porphyry, serpentine, and granite, with round and square or other divisions, whence they went on to conceive the fabrication of ornamental bands, leafage, and other sorts of designs and figures. Therefore to prepare the work the better to receive such treatment, they cut the marble into little pieces, so that these being small they could be turned about for the background and the field, in round schemes or lines straight or twisted, as came most conveniently. From the joining together of these pieces they called the work mosaic,^[142] and used it in the pavements of many of their buildings, as we still see in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome and in other places, where the mosaic is made with little squares of marble, that form leaves, masks, and other fancies, while the background for these is composed of squares of white marble and other small squares of black. The work was set about in the following manner. First was spread a layer of fresh stucco of lime and marble dust thick enough to hold firmly in itself the pieces fitting into each other, so that when set they could be polished smooth on the top; these in the drying make an admirably compacted concrete, which is not hurt by the wear of footsteps nor by water. Therefore this work having come into the highest estimation, clever people set themselves to study it further, as it is always easy to add something valuable to an invention already found out. So they made the marble mosaics finer, and of these, laid pavements both for baths and for hot rooms, and with the most subtle mastery and diligence they delicately fashioned various fishes in them, and imitated painting with many colours suitable for that work, and with many different sorts of marbles, introducing also among these some pieces cut into little mosaic squares of the bones of fishes which have a lustrous surface.^[143] And so life-like did they make the fishes, that water placed above them, veiling them a little, even though clear, made them appear actually alive in the pavements; as is seen in Parione in Rome, in the house of Messer Egidio and Fabio Sasso.^[144]

§ 33. Pictorial Mosaics for Walls, etc.

Therefore, this mosaic work appearing to them a picture, capable of resisting to all eternity water, wind, and sunshine, and because they considered such work much more effective far off than near, the ancients disposed it so as to decorate vaults and walls, where such things had to be seen at a distance, for at a distance one would not perceive the pieces of mosaic which when near are easily distinguished. Then because the mosaics were lustrous and withstood water and damp, it was thought that such work might be made of glass, and so it was done, and producing hereby the most beautiful effect they adorned their temples and other places with it, as we still see in our own days at Rome in the Temple of Bacchus^[145] and elsewhere.^[146] Just as from marble mosaics are derived those which we now call in our time glass mosaics, so from the mosaic of glass we have passed on to egg-shell mosaic,^[147] and from this to the mosaic in which figures and groups in light and shade are formed entirely of tesserae, though the effect is like painting; this we shall describe in its own place in the chapters on that art.^[148]

How one is to recognize if a Building have good Proportions, and of what Members it should generally be composed.

§ 34. The principles of Planning and Design.

But since talking of particular things would make me turn aside too much from my purpose, I leave this minute consideration to the writers on architecture, and shall only say in general how good buildings can be recognized, and what is requisite to their form to secure both utility and beauty. Suppose then one comes to an edifice and wishes to see whether it has been planned by an excellent architect and how much ability he has shown, also whether the architect has known how to accommodate himself to the site, as well as to the wishes of him who ordered the structure to be built, one must consider the following questions. First, whether he who has raised it from the foundation has thought if the spot were a suitable one and capable of receiving buildings of that style and extent, and (granted that the site is suitable) how the building should be divided into rooms, and how the enrichment on the walls be disposed in view of the nature of the site which may be extensive or confined, elevated or low-lying. One must consider also whether the edifice has been tastefully arranged and in convenient proportion, and whether there has been furnished and distributed the proper kind and number of columns, windows, doors, and junctions of wall-faces, both within and without, in the given height and thickness of the walls; in short whether every detail is suitable in and for its own place. It is necessary that there should be distributed throughout the building, rooms which have their proper arrangement of doors, windows, passages, secret staircases, anterooms, lavatories, cabinets, and that no mistakes be apparent therein. For example there should be a large hall, a small portico or lesser apartments, which being members of the edifice, must necessarily, even as members of the human body, be equally arranged and distributed according to the style and complexity of the buildings; just as there are temples round, or octagonal, or six sided, or square, or in the form of a cross, and also various Orders, according to the position and rank of the person who has the buildings constructed, for when designed by a skilful hand these exhibit very happily the excellence of the workman and the spirit of the author of the fabric.

§ 35. An ideal Palace.

To make the matter clearer, let us here imagine a palace,^[149] and this will give us light on other buildings, so that we may be able to recognize, when we see them, whether they are well fashioned or no. First, then, if we consider the principal front, we shall see it raised from the ground either above a range of outside stairs or basement walls, so that standing thus freely the building should seem to rise with grandeur from the ground, while the kitchens and cellars under ground are more clearly lighted and of greater elevation. This also greatly protects the edifice from earthquakes and other accidents of fortune. Then it must represent the body of a man in the whole and similarly in the parts; and as it has to fear wind, water, and other natural forces it should be drained with sewers, that must be all in connection with a central conduit that carries away all the filth and smells that might generate sickness. In its first aspect the façade demands beauty and grandeur, and should be divided as is the face of a man. The door must be low down and in the middle, as in the head the mouth of the man, through which passes every sort of food; the windows for the eyes, one on this side, one on that, observing always parity, that there be as much ornament, and as many arches, columns, pilasters, niches, jutting windows, or any other sort of enrichment, on this side as on that; regard being had to the proportions and Orders already explained, whether Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, or Tuscan. The cornice which supports the roof must be made proportionate to the façade according to its size, that rainwater may not drench the façade and him who is seated at the street front. The projection must be in proportion to the height and breadth of the façade. Entering within, let the first vestibule have a great amplitude, and let it be arranged to join fittingly with the entrance corridor, through which everything passes; let it be free and wide, so that the press of horses or of crowds on foot, that often congregate there, shall not do themselves any hurt in the entrance on fête days or on other brilliant occasions. The courtyard, representing the trunk, should be square and equal, or else a square and a half, like all the parts of the body, and within there should be doors and well-arranged apartments with beautiful decoration. The public staircase needs to be convenient and easy to ascend, of spacious width and ample height, but only in accordance with the proportion of the other parts. Besides all this, the staircases should be adorned or copiously furnished with lights, and, at least over every landing-place where there are turns, should have windows or other apertures. In short, the staircases demand an air of magnificence in every part, seeing that many people see the stairs and not the rest of the house. It may be said that they are the arms and legs of the body, therefore as the arms are at the sides of a man so ought the stairs to be in the wings of the edifice. Nor shall I omit to say that the height of the risers ought to be one fifth of a braccio at least,^[150] and every tread two thirds wide,^[151] that is, as has been said, in the stairs of public buildings and in others in proportion; because when they are steep neither children nor old people can go up them, and they make the legs ache. This feature is most difficult to place in buildings, and notwithstanding that it is the most frequented and most common, it often happens that in order to save the rooms the stairs are spoiled. It is also necessary that the reception rooms and other apartments downstairs should form one common hall for the summer, with chambers to accommodate many persons, while upstairs the parlours and saloons and the various apartments should all open into the largest one. In the same manner should be arranged the kitchens and other places, because if there were not this order and if the whole composition were broken up, one thing high, another low, this great and that small, it would represent lame men, halt, distorted, and maimed. Such works would merit only blame, and no praise whatever. When there are decorated wall-faces either external or internal, the compositions must follow the rules of the Orders in the matter of the columns, so that the shafts of the columns be not too long nor slender, not over thick nor short, but that the dignity of the several Orders be always observed. Nor should a heavy capital or base be connected with a slender column, but in proportion to the body must be the members, that they may have an elegant and beautiful appearance and design. All these things are best appreciated by a correct eye, which, if it have discrimination, can hold the true compasses and estimate exact measurements, because by it alone shall be awarded praise or blame. And this is enough to have said in a general sense of architecture, because to speak of it in any other way is not matter for this place.

Porphyry, which is mineralogically described as consisting of crystals of plagioclase felspar in a purple felspathic paste, is a very hard stone of beautiful colour susceptible of a high polish. ‘No material,’ it has been said, ‘can approach it, either in colour, fineness of grain, hardness or toughness. When used alone its colour is always grand; and in combination with any other coloured material, although displaying its nature conspicuously, it is always harmonious’ (Transactions, Royal Institute of British Architects, 1887, p. 48). Though obtained, as Vasari knew, from Egypt, it was not known to the dynastic Egyptians, but was exploited with avidity by the Romans of the later imperial period. The earliest mention of it seems to be in Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXVI, 11, under the name ‘porphyrites’ and statues in the material were according to this author sent for the first time to Rome from Egypt in the reign of Claudius. The new material was however not approved of, and for some time was by no means in fashion. It was not indeed till the age of the Antonines that as Helbig remarks ‘the preference for costly and rare varieties of stone, without reference to their adaptability for sculpture, began to spread.’ After this epoch, the taste for porphyry and other such strongly marked or else intractable materials grew till it became a passion, and the Byzantine emperors carried on the tradition of its use inherited by them from the later days of paganism. The material was quarried in the mountains known as Djebel Duchan near the coast of the Red Sea, almost opposite the southern point of the peninsula of Sinai, and the Romans carried the blocks a distance of nearly 100 miles to Koptos on the Nile whence they were transported down stream to Alexandria, where Mr Brindley thinks there would be reserve dépôts where lapidaries and artists resided, a source of supply for the large quantities used by Constantine. The same authority estimates that there must be about 300 monolith porphyry pillars still extant in Europe, the finest being the eight great columns under the side apses in S. Sophia, Constantinople. The most important of all porphyry monuments is the column, 100 feet high, which Constantine erected at Constantinople where it still stands though somewhat mutilated and damaged by fire. It consisted in nine cylindrical drums each 11 feet long and 11 feet in diameter.

The quarries, as Vasari later on remarks, were in his time not known, and seem never to have been worked since the time of the Romans. The site of them was visited by Sir Gardner Wilkinson in 1823, and they were rediscovered by Mr Brindley in 1887. If they are again to be worked, the material will now be transferred to the Red Sea coast, distant only about 20 miles. Mr Brindley’s account of his expedition, with notes on the material, is contained in the Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects for 1888.

THE SASSI, DELLA VALLE, AND OTHER COLLECTIONS OF ANTIQUES OF THE EARLY PART OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

In chapters I and VI of the ‘Introduction’ to Architecture Vasari refers to the ‘casa di Egizio e di Fabio Sasso’ and the ‘casa di messer Egidio e Fabio Sasso’ ‘in Parione.’ Parione is that one of the 14 wards or ‘rioni’ of Rome that lies to the south of the Piazza Navona, and according to Gregorovius (Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, Stutt., 1886, etc., III, 537) the name is connected with the Latin ‘parietes,’ ‘walls,’ and was derived from the ruins of the Theatre of Pompeius, that bulked largely within its borders. There is now a ‘Via Parione’ to the west of the Piazza Navona, but older plans of near Vasari’s time show that the name was then applied to the more important thoroughfare south of the piazza, which is now called ‘Via del Governo Vecchio.’ The truth is that the present Via Parione should be called, as marked on older maps, ‘Via di S. Tommaso in Parione,’ beside which church it runs, and should not have been allowed to usurp the old historical name.

Among the families noted by Gregorovius as inhabiting this region were the Sassi, who, he says (VII, 708), possessed there ‘a great palace with many antiques.’ A notice of the Sassi, in the Archivio della R. Società Romana di Storia Patria, Roma, vol. XX, p. 479, tells us that they were among the most illustrious families of the ‘rione.’ In 1157 one Giovanni Sassi was a senator of Rome, and the family was especially flourishing in the fifteenth century, but later on declined. Branches of the Sassi stock still exist. When Vasari was in Rome in the service of the Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, about 1530, one branch at any rate of the family was represented by a certain Fabio Sasso and his brother, whom Vasari calls ‘Egidius’ but who appears in a document quoted by Lanciani (Storia degli Scavi di Roma, Roma, 1902, I, 177) as ‘Decidius,’ who possessed the family palace with its antiques, situated a little west of S. Tommaso in Parione. When Michaelis wrote the paper presently to be noticed, the exact situation of the palace was not identified, but the Conte Gnoli, the learned and courteous director of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele, has pointed out the remains of the Sassi habitation at No. 48 in the present Via del Governo Vecchio, where an early Renaissance doorway bears above it the cognizance of the family, and below on one jamb the syllable ‘Dom’ and on the other ‘Sax’ (Domus Saxorum). The house in general, which is claimed by legend as the residence of Raphael’s Fornarina, has been reconstructed. The plan, Fig. 8, is taken from a large map of Rome dating 1748 and shows this particularly interesting portion of the city as it was before recent changes. The line of the present Corso Vittorio Emanuele is shown by dotted strokes.

By the middle of the sixteenth century the family fortunes had declined, and in his will made in 1556 Fabio records that he had let all his three houses in Parione. This may account for the fact that no Palazzo Sassi occurs in the lists of Roman palaces of the seventeenth century. Furthermore, in 1546 the two brothers effected a sale of their antiques to the Duke Ottavio Farnese, who transferred them to the then newly erected Farnese palace. See text of Vasari, ante p. 28, and Lanciani, l.c.

When Vasari first knew the Sassi collection it was one of the best in Rome, and Michaelis (Jahrbuch d. deutschen Archeologischen Instituts, 1891, p. 170) quotes two writers of the early part of the century who praise it. Moreover there exists a contemporary drawing of the antiques and the court in which they were kept, that Michaelis (l.c.) has published. The early notices just referred to, and the notes of Aldovrandi (Mauro, Le Antichità della Città di Roma, Venet. 1556, p. 147) who saw the works in the Farnese collection in 1550, give prominence to the two pieces that are specially mentioned by Vasari. The ‘figura a sedere di braccia tre e mezzo’ in porphyry (ante, p. 28) is described by Aldovrandi (p. 147) as ‘un bellissimo simulacro di una Roma trionfante assisa,’ partly in porphyry and partly in bronze, and as having been formerly in the house of Messer Fabio Sasso. The statue has passed with the Farnese antiques to Naples, where it was numbered when Michaelis wrote, 212 b. It is now recognized as not a ‘Rome’ but a seated Apollo fully draped, and is numbered 6281.

The other one of the Sassi antiques mentioned by Vasari is referred to in the text § 7, ante, p. 42, as ‘una figura in Parione d’ uno ermafrodito’ in the stone called ‘paragone’ or ‘touchstone.’ This is also praised by the earlier writers, and is seen in the drawing which Michaelis has published. Aldovrandi calls it (p. 152) ‘uno Hermafrodito di paragone, maggiore del naturale’ and notes its provenance. It is the ‘Apollo’ at Naples, No. 6262, and Michaelis gives the material as basalt. It is noticed by Winckelmann as an Apollo.

The della Valle collection was more important than that of the Sassi, and was the finest of all those that were being formed in the early part of the sixteenth century. There is a full notice of it by Michaelis in the Jahrbuch, 1891, p. 218 f., who prints the inventory drawn up at the time of the sale of the collection in 1584 to Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, by whom the antiques were removed to the Villa Medici, whence many of them, including most probably the ‘Medici Venus,’ found their way to Florence.

The della Valle were a family of high importance, counting many branches and numerous houses in that part of Rome, south-east of the Piazza Navona, where church and piazza and palace and theatre still keep alive their name. The most important member of the family was Cardinal Andrea della Valle, one of Leo X’s creations of 1517. Vasari introduced him into the fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence representing Leo X with his Cardinals, that is given as a favourable specimen of Giorgio’s painting on Plate I. His is the uppermost figure on the extreme right of the picture. Referring to this fresco, Vasari describes him in his third ‘Ragionamento’ (Opere, VIII, 158) as ‘quel cardinale della Valle, che fece in Roma quello antiquario, e che fu il primo che mettessi insieme le cose antiche, e le faceva restaurare.’ About the last clause a word will be said later on.

Lanciani (l.c., I, 123) draws attention to the vast estates, urban and suburban, possessed by these wealthy proprietors, and the opportunities thus afforded of obtaining antique treasures for the mere trouble of digging for them. Nobles who had official charge of the streets and open places could turn the opportunities of their position to account for the same purpose, and in the first half of the century lovers of ancient art did not buy antiques but simply dug for them. Cardinal Andrea, Lanciani says, ‘era appassionato scavatore,’ and he made excavations in the Thermae of Agrippa near which his palace lay, and in the vineyards of the Lateran. Several writers of the early part of the century celebrate this collection. One (Fichard, in Frankfurtisches Archiv, Frankfurt, 1815, III, 68) writes, in 1536, that the Cardinal’s house was the real treasury of Roman antiquity, and he singles out for notice the same porphyry wolf about which Vasari writes, ante, p. 28. There were so many statues there, he says, that you would have thought everything ever found in Rome had been brought together to that one place! The whole collections of the family however were divided among three or four palaces, but Andrea had the lion’s share. He built a new palace for his treasures early in the century and displayed the best pieces in a court. There were to be seen a Venus, that was probably the Medicean, and the Florentine Ganymede, both now in the Uffizi, Nos. 548 and 115, and close to these above a window the porphyry wolf of which we hear from Vasari. The present location of this piece is not known, but Michaelis suggests it might be looked for at the Villa Medici or at Florence. Vasari also mentions ‘two prisoners bound,’ also of porphyry, as being in the garden of the palace (ante, p. 29). These are mentioned in the inventory referred to above (Jahrbuch, 229) as ‘two barbarians, draped, of porphyry, 11 palms high.’ They were transported from the Villa Medici at Rome to Florence in 1790, and are now very familiar to visitors in Florence, for they stand just within the Boboli Gardens, one on each side of the main walk that leads up towards the Amphitheatre. They are about eight feet high, of porphyry, with heads and hands of white marble. Two similar figures are to be seen in the Louvre, under the staircase at the top of which is the Niké from Samothrace.

Della Valle was not content with his fine house and museum, but desired another which he began to build about 1520. The work was directed by Lorenzo Lotti (Lorenzetto) a pupil and assistant of Raphael, and Vasari gives us an account of it in his life of the former artist (Opere, IV, 579). In connection with this we have from Vasari an interesting notice of the beginning of the practice of ‘restoring’ antiques, which from this period onwards was an established custom. When Lorenzetto, he tells us, was building for the Cardinal Andrea della Valle the upper garden of his palace, situated where is now the Teatro della Valle (see Fig. 8), he arranged niches and other places for the Cardinal’s antiques. ‘These were imperfect, some wanting a head and others arms, while others again were legless, and all were in some way mutilated. Nevertheless the artist managed everything excellently well, for he got good sculptors to make again everything that was wanting, and this led to other lords doing the same thing, and having many antique fragments restored. This was done for example by Cardinals Cesis, Ferrara, and Farnese, and in a word by all Rome. And in truth these antiques, restored in this fashion, have a much more pleasing effect than those mutilated torsos, and limbs without a head, and such-like fragments.’ On the restoration of the Papal antiques see Note, postea, p. 116.

Ascanio Colonna, who was brother to the famous Vittoria Colonna the friend of Michelangelo, was one of the chief representatives of the imperial interests in Italy, in the stormy times of the first half of the sixteenth century. Charles V made him in 1520 Grand Constable of Naples. With Pope Paul III he had a bitter feud, and the Pope seized on his possessions. On the election in 1550 of Julius III, the new Pope, in order to please the Emperor, reinstated Ascanio, and it was on the occasion of this reconciliation that Colonna presented to the Pope the famous basin of porphyry of which Vasari writes. The ‘vineyard’ for which the Pope destined it was connected with the casino and villa outside the Porta del Popolo which bear the name of the Pope and where is now installed the Villa Papa Giulio Museum. The tazza in question is the superb bowl that occupies the centre of the Sala Rotonda in the Vatican Museum. It is said to have been found temp. Julius II, in the Thermae of Titus (Pistolesi, Il Vaticano Descritto, V, 206), and after remaining for a time at the papal villa it was conveyed by Clement XI to the Vatican and placed in the court of the Belvedere, now the Cortile Ottagono. Francesco de’ Ficorini (Le Vestigia e Rarità di Roma, Roma, 1744, bk. II, ch. 2, p. 15) says that in this court was the ‘gran conca di porfido,’ and another of white oriental granite, both found in the Thermae of Titus. When Clement XIV (1769–75) added the octagonal colonnade in the interior of the Cortile, the tazza was apparently no longer needed there, for soon afterwards Pius VI, who with Clement was the creator of the Museo Pio-Clementino, placed it in his newly constructed Sala Rotonda, where it remains. Pasquale Massi in his Indicazione antiquaria del Ponteficio Museo Pio-Clementino, 1792, p. 118, speaks of ‘una vastissima tazza di porfido di palmi 62 di circonferenza tutta massiccia (all of one piece), la quale si trovava già in Vaticano trasportatavi dalla Villa di Giulio III, fuori di Porta del Popolo, ed ora squisitamente risarcita.’ This restoration was completed in 1792 and was no doubt carried out by the same artists whom Pius VI employed for the repair of the porphyry sarcophagi noticed ante, p. 27. In this way the work, which Vasari says in the text had to be left unfinished, was finally accomplished. Cancellieri (Lettera ... intorno la maravigliosa Tazza di Porfido, etc., Roma, 1822) makes the surprising statement that at one time the tazza had been mended with pieces of white granite!

The tazza is the largest existing piece of the kind and measures 14 ft. in diameter. It is shallow and has in the interior the usual projecting central boss. Independently of this boss the tazza has only one arris, or in Vasari’s words ‘canto vivo,’ at A in the rough sketch, Fig. 9. A smaller but more artistically wrought porphyry tazza, beautifully restored, and measuring 8 ft. 6 in. in diameter, is in the Pitti at Florence close to the entrance to the passage to the Uffizi. It was a gift from Clement VII to the Medici, and was brought from Rome (Villa Medici) to Florence in 1790, where it was repaired in the Tuscan manufactory of mosaics (Zobi, Notizie Storiche sull’ Origine e Progressi dei Lavori di Commesso in Pietre Dure, Firenze, 1853, p. 118). Both these pieces are superb works, and display the magnificent qualities of the red Egyptian porphyry to full advantage.

The original purpose of these great basins is not very clear. The ‘conche’ mentioned in the footnote to p. 27, ante, though now used as sarcophagi, were certainly in their origin baths, but the shallow tazza would be unsuitable for such a purpose, and moreover the central ornament would have almost precluded such a use. There seems no sign of a central opening through which a water pipe could have been introduced, so that the tazza might serve as the basin of a fountain. Perhaps their employment was simply ornamental.

FRANCESCO DEL TADDA, AND THE REVIVAL OF SCULPTURE IN PORPHYRY.

Vasari does not give a biography of this artist among his Lives, though he more than once refers to him in connection with other sculptors. There is on the other hand a notice of him and of other artists of his family in Baldinucci’s Notizie de’ Professori del Disegno, published 1681–1728. Baldinucci knew personally the son of Francesco, but was so poorly informed about Francesco’s early life that he makes two persons of him and describes his early career as if it were that of another Francesco del Tadda. (It is true that there was an earlier Francesco Ferrucci but he was not called ‘del Tadda’ and he died before 1500). The commentators on Vasari previous to the Milanesi edition seem to have been misled by Baldinucci, but in this edition the mistake is corrected, and a genealogical tree of the whole Ferrucci family is given in vol. IV, p. 487.

Francesco derived his name ‘del Tadda’ from his grandfather Taddeo Ferrucci, who belonged to a family of sculptors in Fiesole. In early life he worked with other sculptors under the orders of Clement VII at the completion of the chapel of Our Lady of Loretto, and afterwards assisted Michelangelo in his work in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo at Florence. In the Life of Giovanni Agnolo Montorsoli Vasari praises him as ‘intagliatore excellente’ (Opere, VI, 638). The works in porphyry mentioned in Vasari’s text, ante, p. 32 f., will be noticed presently, but it may be noted here that del Tadda’s chief work in this material, executed after Vasari published his Lives, was the figure of ‘Justice’ which stands on the granite column in the Piazza di S. Trinità at Florence. The column, which is 36 ft. high, came from the Baths of Caracalla at Rome and was presented by Pius IV to Duke Cosimo I.

Among the letters of Vasari published in the eighth volume of the Milanesi edition is one dated December 18, 1561, to Duke Cosimo, giving the measurements of this column which was then lying at Rome awaiting its transport to Florence. The system of measurement is instructive and has been referred to ante, p. 66 (see Opere, VIII, 352). The column was taken to Florence, occupying a year on its journey, and was erected in 1565 on the Piazza S. Trinità where it now stands. Cellini (Scultura, ch. 6) says that it is of Elban granite, but it is more likely to be from Egypt.

Francesco del Tadda received the commission for a porphyry figure to surmount it, and the work is said to have taken him and his son eleven years; it is in five or six pieces and about 11 ft. 6 in. high. The statue was placed in position on June 9, 1581, and the drapery of bronze was adjusted to it on July 21 (Francesco Settimanni quoted by Zobi, page 105). The figure has been adversely criticized but is a fairly successful piece of work, considering the difficulties of its execution. Francesco del Tadda died in 1585 and was buried in the church of S. Girolamo at Fiesole, where his epitaph signalizes his unique position as a worker in porphyry ‘cum statuariam in Porphyretico lapide mult. ann. unicus exerceret,’ and bears his portrait by his own hand in relief in porphyry on a field of green Prato serpentine.

On the whole subject of work in porphyry, after the early Byzantine period when the late Roman imperial tradition was still in force, the following may be noted.

Vasari does not say that the art of working the stone was ever wholly lost, and mentions, ante, p. 29, the cutting of the stone for use in inlaid pavements, Cosmati-work, and the like, as may be seen in St. Mark’s, Venice; at Ravello, and in numberless Roman churches. He also describes the ‘scabbling’ of the stone by heavy hammers with steel points to reduce it to even surfaces both rounded and flat (ante, p. 31). Fine examples of the use of the material in mediaeval days, for purposes other than statuesque, can be seen in the Cathedral of Palermo. There are there four noble sarcophagi, with canopies supported by monolithic shafts all in the same stone, dating from the thirteenth century. They contain the bodies of the Emperor Frederick II, who died in 1250, and of earlier members of his house, and show that at that time the artificers of southern Italy and Sicily could deal successfully on a large scale with this intractable material. Anton Springer, die Mittelalterliche Kunst in Palermo, Bonn, 1869, remarks in this connection, p. 29, that the Sicilians are to this day specially expert in the working of hard stones. Porphyry was also used on the original façade of S. Maria del Fiore at Florence that was demolished in 1588. Vasari might too have mentioned the porphyry sarcophagus completed in 1472 by Andrea del Verrocchio for the monument of Piero and Giovanni de’ Medici in S. Lorenzo at Florence. The Verrocchio sarcophagus is however composed only of flat slabs of porphyry, like those round the pulpit in St. Mark’s, Venice, whereas Vasari is drawing a distinction between this architectural use of the stone and its employment in figure sculpture, of which he makes Francesco del Tadda the first restorer.

In regard to this use of porphyry it must not be forgotten that in the Cabinet of Gems in the Uffizi there is a beautifully executed porphyry statuette, or rather group, of Venus with Cupid, about ten inches high, signed in Greek characters with the name of ‘Pietro Maria.’ This was Pier Maria da Pescia, noticed by Vasari in his life of Valerio Vicentino and others, as a famous worker in hard stones of the days of Leo X (Opere, V, 370). This however was executed, so Zobi says (p. 97), with the wheel after the manner of gem engraving, whereas the works of Ferrucci, of later date, were on the scale of statuary proper.

In connection with the latter we have Vasari’s story of the invention of Duke Cosimo. This is explained by Galluzzi, (Istoria del Granducato di Toscana, Firenze, 1781, I, 157 f.) who says that Cosimo’s efforts to exploit the mineral wealth of Tuscany (see postea, p. 120 f.) gave him an interest in metals, and that he set up a laboratory in his palace, where he carried on experiments in chemistry and physics. Hence the discovery of which Vasari writes. Cosimo certainly in his own time had some personal association with this cutting of porphyry, for Galluzzi says he used to make presents to his friends of porphyry reliefs executed with tools tempered by the new process, and quotes (II, 229) a letter of thanks from a Cardinal to whom a gift of the kind had been forwarded. On the other hand Cellini, (Scultura, ch. 6) makes Tadda the inventor and ignores Cosimo altogether, while Baldinucci, though, like Vasari, he was devoted to the Medici, scouts the idea of Cosimo having had any personal share in the invention of the new tempering bath, which he ascribes to Tadda alone, and he adduces in support of this Tadda’s own testament, in which are the words Franciscus de Fesulis sculptor porfidi, et ipse inventor, seu renovator talis sculpturae, et artis porfidorum incidendi. Cosimo’s participation in the discovery, whatever it was, can hardly have been ascribed to him without some small foundation in fact, and Aurelio Gotti, Le Gallerie e I Musei di Firenze, 2nd Ed., Firenze, 1875, p. 45, gives credit for it to the Duke.

However this may be, Tadda appears to have used the new process for the first time in the production of the tazza for the fountain in the cortile of the Palazzo Vecchio, and to have advanced from this to the more artistic work Vasari goes on to describe. Endeavours to discover the present habitat of the oval portraits of the Medici and the Head of Christ, referred to by Vasari, ante, p. 33, have led to the following result. Signor Supino, the Director of the National Museum at Florence, courteously informed us that the portraits of Cosimo Pater Patriae, of Leo X, and of Clement VII, with one of Giovanni de’ Bicci, were preserved in the magazines of the Bargello, where he has kindly allowed one of us to photograph them. The head of Cosimo has on the chamfer of the bust the inscription OPA DI FRANC^O DA FIESOLE, which identifies it with certainty as the work of Tadda of which Vasari writes. The others are treated in the same fashion, and all are mounted on flat oval slabs of green serpentine of Prato. They are no doubt all by the same hand. They were formerly in the Uffizi but have been for many years in the Bargello, and their historical and artistic interest would certainly vindicate for them more honourable treatment than at present is their lot. Plates III and V give the Cosimo Pater Patriae portrait and that of Leo X. They measure about 19 in. by 14 in.

With regard to the other examples noticed by Vasari, Zobi, l.c., p. 108, informed his readers that the two ovals of Duke Cosimo I and his wife the Duchess Leonora were at that time (about 1850) in the Pitti ‘on the wall of the vestibule in the part called Meridiana,’ but he complicates matters by announcing the same about the head of the older Cosimo, which we have just found at the Bargello, and which Gotti says, l.c., p. 46, was originally in the Villa of Poggio Imperiale whence it was conveyed in 1862 to the Uffizi. Zobi’s words are subjoined in the original. ‘Ed i ritratti in profilo del duca Cosimo I, d’ Eleonora di Toledo sua moglie, e di Cosimo appellato il padre della patria, scolpiti a mezzo rilievo e rapportati sul fondo di serpentino, si trovano oggidì situati insieme con altri ritratti parimente porfiretici, sulle pareti del vestibolo al quartiere detto della Meridiana nel palazzo regale.’

The part of the Pitti referred to is on the second floor of the palace and receives its name from a meridian line in brass marked on the floor on which, at the psychological moment, the sun shines through a hole in the roof. Here, through the courtesy of Signor Cornish the Conservator of the Royal Palace, we have seen no fewer than seven oval portraits in porphyry mounted on serpentine that are built into the wall in situations which make their study rather difficult. Among them the marked features of Duke Cosimo are not apparent, but on one of them is the inscription, ‘Ferdinandus Magnus Dux Etr. 1609,’ and on another the name and date of Christina, Duchess of Tuscany, 1669. This all bears out what Baldinucci tells us, that the Ferrucci family in general put their hands to this particular class of work, which was their speciality, just as the glazed terra-cottas were specialities of the della Robbia, while they also adopted into the circle pupils from outside. Zobi, p. 109, quotes an old inventory of 1574, the date of the death of Duke Cosimo I, which mentions ten such portraits of members of the family as at that time existing, all mounted on serpentine. Later on, Baldinucci mentions three sons of Francesco, to one of whom, Romolo, he is supposed to have left his ‘secret.’ There was however also an Andrea Ferrucci, and a Mattias Ferrucci, who if they lacked the pretended ‘secret’ at any rate did the same work, and finally one Raffaello Curradi, a pupil of Andrea, who in 1636 abandoned sculpture and took the Franciscan habit. According to Zobi, p. 116, he was the last of the porphyry sculptors, and ‘dopo quest’ epoca affatto s’ ignora se furono prodotte altre opere porfiree.’ In view of the date 1669 on one of the ovals in the Pitti, this should not perhaps be taken too absolutely. That porphyry has been worked successfully at Florence at later dates, the admirable restoration of the porphyry tazza in the Pitti, mentioned ante, p. 109, and other more recent productions noted by Zobi, sufficiently show.