THE LATER SIENESE SCHOOL

We have seen how the art of the Italian Renaissance had arisen rather in Siena than in Florence, brought to birth by the genius of Duccio. But, astounding as was its early strength, as seen in its development in the hands of Simone Martini, Segna, the Lorenzetti, the Golden Age of art in Siena had early passed, flown by 1400, with the Lorenzetti and the conquering force of Florence. Thenceforth Sienese art had moved along in the tradition it had created for itself, with Tuscan influence entering into it. It had produced VECCHIETTA, SASSETTA, MATTEO DI GIOVANNI (1435?-1495, by far the greatest of them), BENVENUTO DA SIENA, NEROCCIO DI LANDI, and BERNARDINO FUNGAI.

Fungai's two pupils, JACOPO PACCHIAROTTO (1474-1540) and GIROLAMO DEL PACCHIA (born in 1477 and living in 1535), came under the influence of Raphael and Fra Bartolommeo ; but of these the arrival in Siena of Bazzi turned the art of Girolamo del Pacchia into the new manner created by Bazzi under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, as indeed Bazzi's arrival influenced the further, if short-lived, endeavour of Siena.

Bazzi revealed their art to the architect and painter BALDASSARE PERUZZI (1481-1537) and to DOMENICO BECCAFUMI (1485-1551), who is celebrated as the designer of the famous [168] pavement of Siena Cathedral. There had come to Siena in 1503, two years after Bazzi, the Umbrian painter, famed as Pinturicchio, to begin his great frescoes in the Library of the Duomo, and to Pinturicchio became assistant Baldassare Peruzzi, who later thereafter became a follower of Raphael.

Thus Sienese art lost all its character, and passed into and became a part of the art of the later Renaissance as Florence and Rome created it. Just as Siena became overwhelmed by her greater rival Florence, so her exquisite, tender, decorative sense in art, her sense of elegance and human beauty, more passionate but less disciplined than the art of Florence, passing into a mere aim of beauty, roused again for a brief effort under the shadow of Bazzi, and collapsed under the eventual and overwhelming outburst that created the giants in Florence ; at the same time she infected the Umbrian School and greatly influenced the Golden Age.

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CHAPTER XXI

WE now come to the stupendous achievement of Florence in the fifteen-hundreds, and we shall find a strange element enter thereinto that Florence has not before known.

Florentine art was to reach to its complete grandeur in the genius of Michelangelo ; but Michelangelo was not to stand alone, pure Florentine though he was in his achievement. There was to enter into the art of Florence another influence, quite alien to her spirit ; and the invasion was to come from out the sunny genius of Venice-diluted and simplified, it is true-nevertheless, in its love of golden colours, Venetian at its source.

To the warmth of colour that came with Piero di Cosimo and Fra Bartolommeo out of Cosimo Rosselli's studio, came also light warm airs blowing from the south.

If you shall turn to the map of Italy, it will be seen that in Tuscany, Siena lies due south of Florence. To the south of Tuscany, where her southern borders reach towards the Apennines, lies Umbria amongst the hills.

The Umbrian towns were to create an art very different from that of Florence-different in spirit, in significance, in handling and treatment-as different as was the art of Siena and akin to the art of Siena. To understand the achievement of this school, and of its supreme genius Raphael, it is well to trace its growth and its blossoming.

Painting in Umbria arose in a miniaturist, famed in [170] Dante's day, one ODERIGO or ODERISI ; and careful finish and flat brilliancy, wedded to smiling gaiety of colour, became the utterance of the tribe. One of his pupils was GUIDO PALMERUCCI (1280-1345), whose pupil MARTINO NELLI, a mediocre fellow, became father to the chief painter of this early Umbrian achievement, OTTAVIANO DI MARTINO NELLI. Of about Nelli's day were the brothers GIACOMO and LORENZO DA SANSEVERINO, whose younger kinsman LORENZO DA SANSEVERINO II. was painting as late as 1496. ALLEGRETTO Nuzi, known as GRITTO DA FABRIANO, prepared the way for the genius of that Umbrian town of Fabriano in the person of GENTILE DI NICCOLO DI GIOVANNI MASSI, known to fame as GENTILE DA FABRIANO.