ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO
1390?-1457

But both the virile art of Masaccio and the art of Uccello, combined with the sculpture of Donatello, had an enormous effect upon the art of ANDREA DAL CASTAGNO, who was born about 1390 and died in 1457. He passed his youth near the hamlet of Castagno, watching his uncle's [83] cattle. The artistic instinct in him was set aflame by seeing a painter at work on a tabernacle ; thereafter he began to scratch figures of animals on walls with his knife's point, and to draw with pieces of charcoal, in such remarkable fashion that it became the gossip and wonder of the neighbours. The gossip came to the ears of one of the Medici, who sent the youth to be trained in Florence. Thus Vasari retails the story ; but the more ugly tale of Vasari, that Andrea's fierce jealousy of his rival, the Venetian Domenico, ended in his slaying Domenico Veneziano with a knife, has been proved a slander-not the lightest part of the proof being that the victim outlived his murder some four years-yet the slander hints, at any rate, of his violent temper and uncouth character. He was born into an age well-fitted to his rugged habits. And his grim vision, his rugged and harsh style, prove the quality of the man, who found his glory in painting rude and uncouth types, and whose unflinching interest in character and forthright communion with reality sent him to his art as much concerned with ugliness as with beauty, so long as the thing seen appealed to his feelings. For Castagno, neither Masaccio nor Donatello had lived in vain. Mere beauty, as beauty, had no concern for him. His art is given to rugged strength in terms of grandeur almost as of sculpture. And his vigorous art never found more congenial subject than in that lusty, swaggering portrait of Pippo Spano, at S. Apollonia in Florence, in which we see the mailed soldier-adventurer of his days, straddling with defiant and careless bearing, his broad sword-blade gripped across the thighs in his two strong hands. It is one of the first of the great portraits of the Renaissance. From this masterpiece breathes the reckless spirit, the careless laugh, the swashbuckling habit that filled all Italy with soldier-adventurers, [84] who came at last to her many thrones and seats of power, and held the people in the hollow of their hands. As famed are Castagno's Last Supper in the Church where the truculent Pippo Spano stands astride; and in the cathedral of the city is Castagno's equestrian portrait of Niccolò da Talentino, all fine examples of his vigorous art. And it is easily understood why, when it was decided to have the picture painted of the gibbeted bodies of the partakers in the Albizzi conspiracy of 1435, Castagno was hailed to the painting of it.

FRANCESCHI
1415 - 1492

Working as pupil to Domenico Veneziano, and being admitted thereby into the secrets and mysteries of painting in oils, was PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA, or, as he should be called, PIERO DEI FRANCESCHI (1415 ?-1492). From Domenico Veneziano also he got his grip of character, but it was from Uccello that he caught his keen delight in perspective.

It is wont to class Franceschi as an early master of the school of Umbria-he was born in the little mountain town of Borgo San Sepolcro, and thither he returned at the end of his days to die. Whatsoever by birth, Tuscan he was by artistry, and a very Florentine of Tuscans. Though little of his work is known to-day, he wrought much, ranging over Italy to do the will of his patrons. The frescoes that he painted of the Legends of the Cross stand to-day where he wrought them in the Church of San Francesco at Arezzo. The scientific bent of his mind-even as a boy he was a mathematician-shows itself in close observation, a grip of anatomy, and a skill in perspective ; indeed, his Treatise on Perspective, dedicated to the Duke Guidobaldo of Urbino, was a guide to the painters of his age.

V
PIERO DEI FRANCESCHI
1415? - 1492
UMBRIAN SCHOOL "THE NATIVITY"
(NATIONAL GALLERY)
The Infant Christ lies on the ground on the corner of the Virgin's mantle ; she kneels beside him in adoration. To the right St. Joseph is seen sitting on the pack saddle of the ass ; near him are two shepherds. In the distance a view of a hilly landscape and the towers of the city of Arezzo.
Painted on wood. 4 ft. 4 1/2 in. h. x 4 ft. w. (1.333 x 1.219).

But he was rather [85] a forerunner to the greater genius of Florence that came after him, than a great achiever himself; though it must be remembered that Franceschi was the first painter to display a calculated skill in the painting of objects seen in the value created by their distance in atmosphere-what is called tone-values-that is to say, the subtle effect produced by perspective of colour in relation to its distance from the eye.

Piero dei Franceschi died blind on the 12th of October 1492, and was buried in the cathedral of his native town.