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Medieval Sourcebook:
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574):
Lives of the Artists: Parmagiano
Back to Index to Vasari's Lives
AMONG the many in Lombardy who have been endowed with a gift for
drawing and a spirit of invention and a talent for painting beautiful
landscapes, none is to be put before Francesco Mazzuoli Parmigiano.
If he had only kept to the study of painting, and not gone after
the nonsense of congealing mercury to make himself rich, he would
have been without compare. Francesco was born in Parma in 1504,
and his father dying when he was a child of tender age, he was
left in the custody of two old uncles, both painters, who brought
him up with the tenderest love, and taught him all that a Christian
and a citizen ought to know. He had no sooner taken a pen in his
hand to learn to write than he began to draw marvellously, and
his master, perceiving this, persuaded his uncles to let him apply
himself to painting. They, although they were old, and painters
of no great fame, were men of good judgment, and placed him under
excellent masters. And because they found that he had been born,
as they say, with a pencil in his hand, sometimes they urged him
on, and sometimes, fearing that too much study would injure his
health, they restrained him. At length, having reached the age
of sixteen, he completed a picture of S. John baptizing Christ,
which even now causes astonishment that a boy could have done
such a thing.
Many others he painted before he attained the age of nineteen.
Then came upon him the desire to see Rome, hearing men greatly
praise the works of the masters there, especially of Raffaello
and Michael Angelo, and he told his desire to his old uncles.
They, seeing nothing in the desire that was not praiseworthy,
agreed, but said that it would be well to take something with
him which would gain him an introduction to artists. And the counsel
seeming good to Francesco, he painted three pictures, two small
and one very large. Besides these, inquiring one day into the
subtleties of art, he began to draw himself as he appeared in
a barber's convex glass. He had a ball of wood made at a turner's
and divided in half, and on this he set himself to paint all that
he saw in the glass, and because the mirror enlarged everything
that was near and diminished what was distant, he painted the
hand a little large. Francesco himself, being of very beautiful
countenance and more like an angel than a man, his portrait on
the ball seemed a thing divine, and the work altogether was a
happy success, having all the lustre of the glass, with every
reflection and the light and shade so true, that nothing more
could be hoped for from the human intellect.
The picture being finished and packed, together with the portrait,
he set out, accompanied by one of his uncles, for Rome; and as
soon as the Chancellor of the Pope had seen the pictures, he introduced
the youth and his uncle to Pope Clement, who seeing the works
produced and Francesco so young, was astonished, and all his court
with him. And his Holiness gave him the charge of painting the
Pope's hall.
Francesco studying in Rome wished to see everything, ancient and
modern, sculpture and painting, that there was in the city; but
he held in special veneration the works of Michael Angelo and
Raffaello da Urbino, and people said when they saw a youth of
such rare art and such gentle, graceful manners, that the spirit
of Raffaello had passed into the body of ' Francesco, seeing also
that he strove to imitate him in everything, especially in painting,
and not in vam.
But while he was painting a picture for S. Salvadore del Lauro
came the ruin and the sack of Rome, which not only banished all
art for the time, but cost the lives of many artists, and Francesco
was very near losing his; for at the beginning of the tumult he
was so intent on his work that when the soldiers began entering
the houses-- and some Germans were already in his-he, for all
the noise they made, did not move from his place. But they, coming
suddenly upon him, and seeing his painting, were so astonished
by it that, like good fellows, they let him alone. And while the
poor city was ruined by the impious cruelty of the barbarians,
sacred and profarle things alike suffering, without respect to
God or man, he was taken care of by these Germans, and honoured
and defended from injury. All the annoyance that he suffered from
them was that, one of them being a great connoisseur in painting,
he was forced to make a number of drawings in watercolour or in
pen and ink, which were taken as the payment of his ransom. But
on the soldiers being changed, Francesco fell into trouble, for
while he was going to look for some friends, he was made prisoner
by some other soldiers, and obliged to give up the few crowns
he had. His uncle, seeing that all hope of Francesco's acquiring
knowledge, fame, and wealth was cut off, and that Rome was little
less than ruined, and the Pope a prisoner in the hands of the
Spaniards, determined to take him back to Parma.
But having reached Bologna, and meeting there many friends, he
stayed some months in that city, and caused some of his works
to be engraved, having with him for that purpose one Antonio da
Trento. But this Antonio one morning when Francesco was in bed
opened a chest, took out all the engravings and woodcuts, and
whatever drawings he could find, and took himself off it was never
known where; and tho~lgh Francesco recovered the engravings, which
the fellow had left with a friend, intending probably to get them
when it was convenient, he never saw his drawings again. Half
desperate, he returned to his painting, and was forced for the
sake of earning some money to paint the portrait of some Bolognese
Count or other.
When the Emperor Charles V. came to Bologna that Clement VII might
crown him, Francesco went to see him dine, and without drawing
his portrait painted a very large picture of this Ca~sar, with
Fame crowing him with laurel. And when it was finished, he showed
it to Pope Clement, and it pleased him so much that he sent both
the picture and Francesco to the emperor, accompanied by the Bishop
of Verona. The picture pleasing his Majesty also, he gave him
to understand that he was to leave it; but Francesco, by the counsel
of a not very faithful or not very wise friend, ssid it wss not
finished, and so his Majesty did not have it, and he was not rewarded
as he certainly would have been.
So Francesco, after many years' absence from his home, having
gained experience in art, and acquired friends but no wealth,
returned at last to Parma. And immediately he was set to paint
in fresco in the church of S. Maria della Steccata. He was also
employed in painting a picture for a gentleman of Parma, and for
the church of S. Maria de' Servi. But it soon appeared that he
was neglecting the work in the Steccata, or at least taking it
very easily; it was evident things were going badly with him;
and the reason was that he had begun to study alchemy, and to
put aside painting for it, hoping to enrich himself quickly by
congealing mercury. He used his brains no longer for working out
fine conceptions with his pencils and colours, but wasted all
his days instead over his charcoal and wood and glass bottles
and such trash, spending more in a day than he earned in a week
by his painting in the Steccata. Having no other means, he began
to find that his furnaces were ruining him little by little, and
what was worse still, the company of the Steccata, seeing that
he neglected his work, and having perhaps paid him beforehand,
began a suit against him. He therefore fled by night with some
of his friends to Casal Maggiore, where putting his alchemy for
a while out of his head, he returned to his painting, and made
a Lucretia, which was the best thing that had ever been seen from
his hand. But his mind was constantly turning to his alchemy,
and he himself was changed from the gentle, delicate youth to
a savage with long, illkept hair and beard, and in this melancholy
state he was attacked by a fever, which carried him off in a few
days.
Source. These texts were at http://ubmail.ubalt.edu/~pfitz/ART/REN/VASARI.HTM,but
vanished from the net, and so they have been restored here.
Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574. Lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors &
architects, by Giorgio Vasari: newly tr. by Gaston du C. de Vere. With five hundred
illustraiions, London, Macmillan and & The Medici society, 1912-15.
Other translations include:
Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574. The lives of the painters, sculptors and architects. London, J. M. Dent; New York, Dutton [1949-50]).
Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574. Lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors,
and architects. Abridged from the translation by Gaston DuC. DeVere. Edited, with an
introd., by Robert N. Linscott. New York, Modern Library [1959].
Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574. Lives of the artists. Selected and translated by
E.L. Seeley. Introd. by Alfred Werner. (New York, Noonday Press, [1965, c1957]).
Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574. Lives of the artists; a selection translated by
George Bull. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Eng. : Penguin Books, 1987.
Vasari, Giorgio, 1511-1574. The lives of the artists; translated with an
introduction and notes by Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella. (Oxford ; New
York : Oxford University Press, 1991.).
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