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First, ANTONIO POLLAIUOLO; second, SANDRO BOTTICELLI; and lastly, LEONARDO DA VINCI. It is important to note that Pollaiuolo was first apprenticed to a goldsmith, and attained such proficiency in that craft that he was employed by Lorenzo Ghiberti in the carving of the gates of the Baptistry, and subsequently set up a workshop for himself.
It was, perhaps, the entire affinity of their temperament, as well as his passion for anatomical study, which led him to choose his second master in a man whose taste for realism, and interest in the action of muscle and movement of limb was as keen as his own. On Antonio Pollaiuolo, even more than on Pier dei Franceschi, had fallen the mantle of Paolo Uccello's investigating spirit.
The artist who used to be considered the greatest of draughtsmen he will hardly admit to be a draughtsman at all, ranking him far below Pollaiuolo and positively speaking of him as "a poor creature, most docile and patient." As a colorist and a manipulator of paint, he places him with Sebastiano del Piombo that is, among the mediocrities.
The influence of Antonio Pollaiuolo was stronger than any other in the development of his actual work, and is visible in all his paintings up to the last in greater or less degree, but only less important is that of Donatello, to whom Antonio himself owed so much.
That Young Goldsmith, No. 207, which used to be given to Leonardo but is now Ridolfo Ghirlandaio's, is here; a Franciabigio, No. 43; a questioned Raphael, No. 44; a fine and sensitive head of one of the Gonzaga family by Mantegna, No. 375; the coarse head of Giovanni Bentivoglio by da Costa, No. 376; and a Pollaiuolo, No. 370, S. Jerome, whose fine rapt countenance is beautifully drawn.
It is in his superb rendering of the figure, especially in the nude, that Antonio Pollaiuolo marks a decisive step in the progress of painting, and is entitled to be regarded as "the first modern artist to master expression of the human form, its spirit, and its action." But for him we should miss much of the strength and vigour that distinguishes the real from the false Botticelli.
This is one of Signorelli's finest altar-pieces, the colour being especially rich and harmonious, and it shows, even more than the Loreto frescoes, the strength of Florentine influences. For example, very close to Pollaiuolo is the figure of the angel tuning the lute, with its striped scarf, and so also is the powerful head of S. Ercolano.
And it was decided between the Gonfalonier and the chief citizens, the Great Council Chamber having been newly built the architecture of which had been contrived with the judgment and counsel of Giuliano da San Gallo, Simone Pollaiuolo, called Il Cronaca, Michelagnolo Buonarroti, and Baccio d' Agnolo, as will be related with more detail in the proper places and having been finished in great haste, it was ordained by public decree that Leonardo should be given some beautiful work to paint; and so the said hall was allotted to him by Piero Soderini, then Gonfalonier of Justice.
In the first thirty years of the fifteenth century, Masaccio contributed to the knowledge of anatomy by his painting of the nude form; and the study of the nude was continued by Pollaiuolo and Luca Signorelli, in the second half of the century. Masaccio, also, was the first to place his figures in air, enveloping them in atmosphere.
They show much of the influence of Pollaiuolo, and seem to me to be Signorelli's unassisted work. The face and gesture of one of them especially the angel in the flowered robe playing a lute is almost a duplicate of the child on the gradino of the throne in the Perugia altar-piece.
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