from what has been supposed, is it possible to make the world understand what the artist, so highly but unjustly celebrated, really is. It is certain that the greatest injury a man can receive, is to be too early and too highly extolled, for such talent as he may display, in whatever may be his vocation, since these injudicious praises, inflating those who are the subject of them, serve as an impediment to their subsequent progress. And furthermore, it may be observed, that men thus extolled, when their works are found to fall short of the excellence expected from them, are apt to become discouraged by the first breath of censure, and, falling into another extreme, are sometimes led to despair of ever accomplishing anything of value. He, then, who is wise, will dread praise more than censure, for the first deceives while it gratifies; but the second, unveiling truth, serves to instruct him who can learn.
Boccaccino left Rome, where he felt himself wounded and mortified at all points, and returned to Cremona; there he continued to exercise the art of painting as he best might. In the Cathedral, for example, he depicted the entire life of the Madonna on the central arches; and this is a work which has been much commended in that city; other works, also, were performed by this artist, both in Cremona and the neighbourhood, but they do not require further mention.[1]
Boccaccino taught the art of painting to his son, Camillo, who gave himself to the study of the same with a more zealous care, and took pains to avoid the faults into which the vain-glory of his father had been betrayed.[2] By his hand are certain works at San Gismondo which is at the distance of about a mile from Cremona, and these are considered by the Cremonese to be the best paintings in their possession.[3] On the façade of a house in the Piazza of his native city, this artist executed certain pictures, and painted the compartments of
- ↑ Lanzi, on the contrary, speaks'thus of this master: “Boccaccio Boccaccino is to the Cremonese what Ghirlandajo, Mantegna, Perugino, and Francia are to their schools, 'the best modern painter among the ancients, and the best ancient among the moderns.’”
- ↑ Lanzi calls this Camillo “the greatest genius of whom the Cremonese school can boast.”
- ↑ For many interesting details respecting this artist, but which cannot here find place, the reader is referred to the Pittura Cremonese of Count Bartolommeo Vidoni, Milan, 1824.
