but an act of necessity, owing to the desperate conditions of Pisa.
Bibliography.—Besides the above-quoted works see P. Tronci, Annali Pisani (2 vols., Pisa, 1868–1871); S. de Sismondi, Histoire des républiques italiennes (Brussels, 1838); also the various annotated editions of Dante, especially W. W. Vernon’s Readings from the Inferno, vol. ii. (2nd ed., London, 1905). (L. V.*)
DELLA PORTA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (c. 1538–1615),
Italian natural philosopher, was born of a noble and ancient
family at Naples about the year 1538. He travelled extensively
not only in Italy but also in France and Spain, and he was still a
youth when he published Magia naturalis, sive de miraculis rerum
naturalium lib. IV. (1558), the first draft of his Magia naturalis,
in twenty books, published in 1589. He founded in Naples the
Academia Secretorum Naturae, otherwise known as the Accademia
dei Oziosi; and in 1610 he became a member of the Accademia
dei Lincei at Rome. He died at Naples on the 4th of February
1615.
The following is a list of his principal writings:—De miraculis rerum naturalium, in four books (1558); De furtivis litterarum notis, in five books (1563, and frequently afterwards, entitling him to high rank among the early writers on cryptography); Phytognomonica (1583, a bulky treatise on the physiology of plants as then understood); Magia naturalis (1589, and often reprinted); De humana physiognomonia, in six books (1591); Villa, in twelve books (1592, an interesting practical treatise on farming, gardening and arboriculture, based upon his own observations at his country-seat near Naples); De refractione, optices parte, in nine books (1593); Pneumatica, in three books (1601); De coelesti physiognomonia, in six books (1601); Elementa curvilinea (1601); De distillatione, in nine books (1604); De munitione, in three books (1608); and De aëris transmutationibus, in four books (1609). He also wrote several Italian comedies Olimpia (1589); La Fantesca (1592); La Trappolaria (1597); I’ Due Fratelli rivali (1601); La Sorella (1607); La Chiappinaria (1609); La Carbonaria (1628); La Cintia (1628). Among all the above-mentioned works the chief interest attaches to the Magia naturalis, in which a strange medley of subjects is discussed, including the reproduction of animals, the transmutation of metals, pyrotechny, domestic economy, statics, hunting, the preparation of perfumes. In book xvii. he describes a number of optical experiments, including a description of the camera obscura (q.v.).
DELLA QUERCIA, or Della Fonte, JACOPO (1374–1438),
Italian sculptor, was born at Siena. He was the son of a goldsmith
of repute, Pietro d’Agnolo, to whom he doubtless owed
much of his training. There are no records of his early life until
the year 1394, when he made an equestrian statue of Gian
Tedesco. He is next heard of at Florence in 1402, when he was
one of six artists who submitted designs for the great gates of the
baptistery, in which competition Ghiberti was the victor. From
Florence he seems to have gone to Lucca, where in 1406 he
executed one of his finest works, the monument of Ilaria del
Caretto, wife of Paolo Guinigi. It is uncertain if he visited
Ferrara in 1408; but at the end of that year he was engaged
in negotiations which resulted in his acceptance of the commission
for the famous Fonte Gaia, at Siena, early in 1409. This
work was not seriously begun by him until 1414, and was only
finished in 1419. In 1858 the remains of the fountain were
removed to the Opera del Duomo, where they are now preserved;
a copy of the original by Sarrocchi being erected on the site.
After another visit to Lucca in 1422, he returned to Siena, and
in March 1425 undertook the contract for the doors of S. Petronio,
Bologna. He is known, in following years, to have been to Milan,
Verona, Ferrara and Venice; but the rest of his life was chiefly
divided between his native city and Bologna. In 1430 he finished
the great font of S. Giovanni at Siena, which he had begun in
1417, contributing himself only one of the bas-reliefs, “Zacharias
in the Temple,” the others being by Ghiberti, Donatello and
other sculptors. Among the work known to have been done by
Jacopo, may be mentioned also the reliefs of the predella of the
altar of S. Frediano at Lucca (1422); and the Bentivoglio monument
which was unfinished at the time of his death on the 20th
of October 1438. Jacopo della Quercia’s work exercised a powerful
influence on that of the artists of the later Italian Renaissance.
He himself reflects not a little of the Gothic spirit, admirably
intermixed with some of the best qualities of neo-classicism.
He was an artist whose powers have hardly yet received the
recognition they undoubtedly deserve.
See C. Cornelius, Jacopo della Quercia: eine Kunsthistorische Studie (1896), and works relating generally to the arts in Siena. (E. F. S.)
DELLA ROBBIA, the name of a family of great distinction in
the annals of Florentine art. Its members are enumerated in
chronological order below.[1]
I. Luca della Robbia (1399 or 1400[2]–1482) was the son of a Florentine named Simone di Marco della Robbia. According to Vasari, whose account of Luca’s early life is little to be trusted, he was apprenticed to the silversmith Leonardo di Ser Giovanni, who from 1355 to 1371 was working on the grand silver altar frontal for the cathedral at Pistoia (q.v.); this, however, appears doubtful from the great age which it would give to Leonardo, and it is more probable that Luca was the pupil of Ghiberti. During the early part of his life Luca executed many important and exceedingly beautiful pieces of sculpture in marble and bronze. In technical skill he was quite the equal of Ghiberti, and, while possessing all Donatello’s vigour, dramatic power and originality, he very frequently excelled him in grace of attitude and soft beauty of expression. No sculptured work of the great 15th century ever surpassed the singing gallery which Luca made for the cathedral at Florence between 1431 and 1440, with its ten magnificent panels of singing angels and dancing boys, far exceeding in beauty those which Donatello in 1433 sculptured for the opposite gallery in the same choir. This splendid work is now to be found in the Museo del Duomo. The general effect of the whole can also be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where a complete cast is fixed to the wall. The same museum possesses a study in gesso duro for one of the panels, which appears to be the original sketch by Luca’s own hand.
In May 1437 Luca received a commission from the signoria of Florence to execute five reliefs for the north side of the campanile, to complete the series begun by Giotto and Andrea Pisano. These panels are so much in the earlier style of Giotto that we must conclude that he had left drawings from which Luca worked. They have representative figures chosen to typify grammar, logic, philosophy, music, and science,—the last represented by Euclid and Ptolemy.[3] In 1438 Luca in association with Donatello received an order for two marble altars for chapels in the cathedral. The reliefs from one of them—St Peter’s Deliverance from Prison and his Crucifixion—are now in the Bargello. It is probable that these altars were never finished. A tabernacle for the host, made by Luca in 1442, is now at Peretola, near Florence, in the church of S. Maria. A document in the archives of S. Maria Nuova at Florence shows that he received for this 700 florins 1 lira 16 soldi (about £1400 of modern money). In 1437 Donatello received a commission to cast a bronze door for one of the sacristies of the cathedral; but, as he delayed to execute this
