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It was, in truth, no slight distinction for a Florentine artist to erect a statue beneath the Loggia de' Lanzi in the square of the Signory. Every great event in Florentine history had taken place on that piazza. Every name of distinction among the citizens of Florence was connected with its monuments.
Outside Palermo, at a place called Catania, Garibaldi engaged and defeated the royal army so badly that General Lanzi was fain to ask the aid of the British admiral, to negociate terms between himself and the filibuster Garibaldi, for his withdrawal from, and surrender of, Palermo to the national army.
Between this statue and the Loggia de' Lanzi is a bronze tablet let into the paving which tells us that it was on this very spot, in 1498, that Savonarola and two of his companions were put to death.
One of Orcagna's altar-pieces, that of 'the coronation of the Virgin, containing upwards of a hundred figures, and with the colouring still rich, is in our National Gallery. As an architect, Orcagna designed the famous Loggia de' Lanzi of the grand ducal palace at Florence.
Most writers observe that Titian had four different manners, at as many different periods of his life: first that of Bellini, somewhat stiff and hard, in which he imitated nature, according to Lanzi, with a greater precision than even Albert Durer, so that "the hairs might be numbered, the skin of the hands, the very pores of the flesh, and the reflection of objects in the pupils seen:" second, an imitation of Giorgione, more bold and full of force; Lanzi says that some of his portraits executed at this time, cannot be distinguished from those of Giorgione: third, his own inimitable style, which he practiced from about his thirtieth year, and which was the result of experience, knowledge, and judgment, beautifully natural, and finished with exquisite care: and fourth, the pictures which he painted in his old age.
The exquisite cornice is Michelozzo's original, and the courtyard has merely lost its statues, among which are Donatello's Judith, now in the Loggia de' Lanzi, and his bronze David, now in the Bargello, while Verrocchio's David was probably on the stairs. The escutcheon on the corner of the house gives us the period of its erection. The seven plain balls proclaim it Cosimo's.
Lanzi says, "In painting landscape, fruit, and flowers, Bernazzano succeeded so admirably as to produce the same wonderful effects that are told of Zeuxis and Apelles in Greece. These indeed Italian artists have frequently renewed, though with a less degree of applause.
Fierce as the age in which he lived, says Lanzi, his Madonnas were without beauty, and his angels, even in the same picture, were all in the same attitude. To Cimabue succeeded his pupil, the famous Giotto, who died in 1337. With him the ruggedness of his master's manner was softened down, and considerable advances made towards a better style.
The Emperor pointed to that of Mabuse, as excelling in whiteness and beauty of the flowers; and when he was told of the painter's stratagem, he would not believe it, till he had examined it with his own hands. Lanzi relates the following amusing anecdote of Giovanni da Capugnano, an artist of little merit, but whose assurance enabled him to attract considerable attention in his day.
His grandson, Horace Vernet, painted an excellent picture of this scene, which was exhibited in the Louvre in 1816, and attracted a great deal of attention. Vernet arrived at Rome in 1732, and became the scholar of Bernardino Fergioni, then a celebrated marine painter, but Lanzi says, "he was soon eclipsed by Joseph Vernet, who had taken up his abode at Rome."
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