And without
Giorgio Vasari of Arezzo and his all-important work, we should perhaps
to this day have no history of Northern art, or of the art of modern
Europe, at all.
Among the biographers of North Italy in the fifteenth century,
Bartolommeo Fazio of Spezia holds a high rank. Platina, born in the
territory of Cremona, gives us, in his 'Life of Paul II,' examples of
biographical caricatures. The description of the last Visconti, written
by Piercandido Decembrio--an enlarged imitation of Suetonius--is of
special importance. Sismondi regrets that so much trouble has been
spent on so unworthy an object, but the author would hardly have been
equal to deal with a greater man, while he was thoroughly competent to
describe the mixed nature of Filippo Maria, and in and through it to
represent with accuracy the conditions, the forms, and the consequences
of this particular kind of despotism. The picture of the fifteenth
century would be incomplete without this unique biography, which is
characteristic down to its minutest details. Milan afterwards
possessed, in the historian Corio, an excellent portrait-painter; and
after him came Paolo Giovio of Como, whose larger biographies and
shorter 'Elogia' have achieved a world-wide reputation, and become
models for subsequent writers in all countries. It is easy to prove by
a hundred passages how superficial and even dishonest he was; nor from
a man like him can any high and serious purpose be expected.
Pages:
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386