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Updated: June 7, 2025
In this great vicissitude of affairs, there was not a more remarkable instance of the uncertainty of fortune than Luca Pitti, who soon found the difference between victory and defeat, honor and disgrace. His house now presented only a vast solitude, where previously crowds of citizens had assembled. In the streets, his friends and relatives, instead of accompanying, were afraid even to salute him.
Florence had already, at the end of the fourteenth century, its Casanova a certain Buonaccorso Pitti, who, in the course of his incessant journeys as merchant, political agent, diplomatist and professional gambler, won and lost sums so enormous that none but princes like the Dukes of Brabant, Bavaria, and Savoy, were able to compete with him.
And his contemporaries and successors, Jacopo Pitti, Guicciardini, Segni, Varchi, Vettori, what a circle of illustrious names! And what a story it is which these masters tell us! The great and memorable drama of the last decades of the Florentine republic is here unfolded.
As to which of these two artists it is, opinions so far as any have been published are divided. Yet Dr. Gronau, who claims it for Titian, admits in the same breath that the hand is the same as that which painted the Cobham Hall picture and the Pitti "Concert," a judgment in which I fully concur. Dr. Bode labels it "Art des Giorgione." Finally, Mr. Berenson, with rare insight proclaimed the conception and the spirit of the picture to be Giorgione's. But he asserts that the execution is not fine enough to be the master's own, and would rank it with the "Judith" at St. Petersburg in the category of contemporary copies after lost originals. This view is apparently based on the dangerous maxim that where the execution of a picture is inferior to the conception, the work is presumably a copy. But two points must be borne in mind, the actual condition of the picture, and the character of the artist who painted it. Mr. Berenson has himself pointed out elsewhere that Giorgione, "while always supreme in his conceptions, did not live long enough to acquire a perfection of draughtsmanship and chiaroscuro equally supreme, and that, consequently, there is not a single universally accepted work of his which is absolutely free from the reproaches of the academic pedant." Secondly, the surface of this portrait has lost its original glow through cleaning, and has suffered other damage, which actually debarred Crowe and Cavalcaselle (who saw the picture in 1877) from pronouncing definitely upon the authorship. The eyes and flesh, they say, were daubed over, the hair was new, the colour modern. A good deal of this "restoration" has since been removed, but the present appearance of the panel bears witness to the harsh treatment suffered years ago. Nevertheless, the original work is before us, and not a copy of a lost original, and Mr. Berenson's enthusiastic praise ought to be lavished on the actual picture as it must have appeared in all its freshness and purity. "Je n'hésiterais pas," he declares, "
I think Murray says that these things were made for the Grand Duke Cosmo; and if so, they do him no credit, indicating something dark and morbid in his character. June 13th. We called at the Powers's yesterday morning to leave R there for an hour or two to play with the children; and it being not yet quite time for the Pitti Palace, we stopped into the studio. Soon Mr.
But it should be understood that almost nothing is known about Botticelli and the origin of his pictures. Piero had but just succeeded to Cosimo when Pitti, considering him merely an invalid, struck his blow. By virtue largely of the young Lorenzo's address the attack miscarried: hence the presence of Lorenzo in the picture, on the extreme left, with a sword.
The adverse party did the same, but not in such good order, being unprepared. The residence of Diotisalvi being near that of Piero, he did not think himself safe in it, but first went to the palace and begged the Signory would endeavor to induce Piero to lay down his arms, and thence to Luca Pitti, to keep him faithful in their cause.
By the window is a Velasquez, the first we have seen in Florence, a little Philip IV on his prancing steed, rather too small for its subject, but very interesting here among the Italians. In the next large room the Sala di Saturno we come again to Raphael, who is indeed the chief master of the Pitti, his exquisite "Madonna del Granduca" being just to the left of the door.
Pitti, whose insight into the situation is perhaps the keenest, and who is by far the most outspoken, does not refer the failure of the Florentines to the cowardice or stupidity of the popular party, but to the malignity of the Palleschi, the double-dealing and egotism of the wealthy nobles, who to suit their own interests favored now one and now another of the parties.
Indeed, there is no more beautiful light in any picture we shall see, and the Virgin's melancholy face is inexpressibly sweet. Perugino is best represented at the Accademia, and there are works of his at the Uffizi and Pitti and in various Florentine churches; but here he is at his best.
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