his work cannot be said to surpass those of the other artists who have laboured in the same place.[1]
Bernardino di Lupino,[2] of whom we have already made some mention elsewhere, depicted various works for the house of the Signor Gianfrancesco Babbia, which is situate near San Sepolcro in the city of Milan; the front of the house that is to say, with the Loggie, halls, and other apartments. The subjects of these pictures were taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and other fables; the figures are good and beautiful, and the work is carefully executed and very delicately finished.[3] In the Munistero Maggiore[4] likewise, Bernardino produced certain works, having decorated the entire front of the high altar with stories of different subjects, and painted a picture of Our Saviour Christ scourged at the column, with many other productions, all of which are of very fair merit.[5]
- ↑ Lomazzo, Trattato sulla Pittura, &c., makes this master one of the “seven greatest painters in the world,” and the authorities who do not accept this opinion, are yet agreed in admitting that the passing notice here given to him by Vasari does in no way meet his deserts. The Santa Caterina by Guadenzio Ferrari is on all hands considered to be a work of the first rank. The taste of this artist may without doubt be considered questionable in certain points, but into details of this kind it is not our province to enter in this place; the reader who shall desire such, will find them in Lanzi, ut supra; School of Milan, vol. ii. p. 496, et seq.; in Bordiga, Notizie intorno alle opere di G. Ferrari, pittore e plastico, Milan, 1821; in Lomazzo, Trattato, &c.; in Orlandi, Abecedario Pittorico; and in many other works.
- ↑ Or rather, Luino, as we have already remarked.— Ed. Flor., 1832-8. See vol. iii. of the present work, p. 156. Passavant considers him to have commenced his labours about the year 1488. See Beitrage zur Kentniss der Lombardischen Malerschulen, and the Kunstblatt, as before cited.
- ↑ The pictures painted by Bernardino Luino in the house of the Rabbia family are declared by some of the Florentine writers to have been destroyed, when the building was restored in the last century; but from a note to the German Translation of our author we learn that certain portions of them are still to be seen in the Casa Silva at Milan.
- ↑ The Great Monastery has been suppressed, but in the Church annexed to it, and which is dedicated to San Maurizio, there are numerous pictures by Luino, who is one of the most admirable and meritorious of the Lombard masters. There are indeed not wanting authorities who consider him the first; and when we remember the correctness and grace of his design, the purity of his style, and the singular delicacy of his execution, we are but slightly disposed to question their judgment.
- ↑ The short mention with which our author has passed over the works
of Titian, painted for the same place, and which represents Our Saviour Christ crowned with thorns.
