Anecdotes of eminent painters in Spain: during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; with cursory remarks upon the present state of arts in that kingdom. By Richard Cumberland. In two volumes. ... [pt.1]

THE Arts, which revived in Italy during the 14th century, did not reach Spain till the time of Ferdinand the Catholic; Antonio Del Rincon, a native of Guadalax∣ara,

may be considered as the fa∣ther of the Spanish school; he studied in Rome, and, returning to his native country, was taken into the service of Ferdinand, who bestowed on him the Order of Santiago, and made him Groom of his Chamber. There are two por∣traits of Ferdinand and Isabella, painted by him, still to be seen at Toledo, in the church of San Juan de los Reyes, and several pictures by his hand perished in the fire, that destroyed the palace of the Pardo in the year 1608. This ar∣tist died in the year 1500.

The unhappy catastrophe of Torrigiano, the Florentine, follow∣ed in the year 1522: After having enriched the cities of Andalusia

with several pieces of sculpture, not unworthy the disciple and ri∣val of Michael Angelo; he was condemned to death by the In∣quisition, and expired in the pri∣son of Seville under the horrors of an approaching execution: The story is as follows; Torrigiano had undertaken to carve a Madona and child of the natural size, at the order of a certain Spanish Gran∣dee; it was to be made after the model of one, which he had al∣ready executed; and promise was given him of a reward propor∣tioned to the merit of his work. His employer was one of the first Grandees of Spain, and Torrigi∣ano, who conceived highly of his generosity, and well knew what

his own talents could perform, was determined to outdo his for∣mer work; he had passed great part of his life in travelling from kingdom to kingdom in search of employment, and, flattering him∣self with the hope, that he had now at last found a resting-place after all his labours, the ingenious artist with much pains and appli∣cation compleated the work, and presented to his employer a matchless piece of sculpture, the utmost effort of his art; the Gran∣dee surveyed the striking perfor∣mance with great delight and re∣verence; applauded Torrigiano to the skies; and, impatient to pos∣sess himself of the enchanting idol, forthwith sent to demand it;

at the same time, to set off his generosity with a better display, he loaded two lacqueys with the money, that was to defray the purchase; the bulk at least was promising, but when Torrigiano turned out the bags, and found the specie nothing better than a parcel of brass maravedi, amount∣ing only to the paltry sum of thir∣ty ducats, vexation at this sudden disappointment of his hopes, and just resentment for what he con∣sidered as an insult to his merit, so transported him, that, snatch∣ing up his mallet in a rage, and not regarding the perfection, or (what to him was of more fatal consequence) the sacred character of the image he had made; he

broke it suddenly in pieces, and dismissed the lacqueys with their load of farthings to tell the tale: They executed their errand too well. The Grandee in his turn fired with shame, vexation and revenge, and assuming, or per∣haps conceiving, horror for the sacrilegious nature of the act, pre∣sented himself before the Court of Inquisition, and impeached the unhappy artist at that terrible tri∣bunal; it was in vain that poor Torrigiano urged the right of an author over his own creation; Reason pleaded on his side, but Superstition sate in judgement; the decree was death with torture. The Holy Office lost its victim; for Torrigiano expired under the hor∣rors,

not under the hands of the executioner: That he was of a fierce impatient spirit we may well believe from what is related of his maiming the great Michael Angelo by a violent blow on the sace; the heretical reader perhaps will think this blow a more in∣excusable, offence, than that, for which he suffered; and an enthu∣siast in the arts will scarce lament the punishment, which by a just transition fell upon him; for my part, I lament both his offence and his punishment; the man, who could be so frantic with pas∣sion, as in the person of Michael Angelo to deface one of the di∣vinest works of heaven, might easily be tempted to demolish his

own; and it has been generally observed, that hearts, so prone to anger, have on occasion been as susceptible of apprehension and fear; it is to be supposed, that Torrigiano's case was not better in the eyes of the Holy Office for his having been resident in England and employed by King Henry the Eighth: Whether they considered him as tinctured with the heresy of that Royal apostate does not ap∣pear; I am inclined to believe he more resembled Henry in temper than in opinion: At least, if we are to credit his assault on Michael Angelo and try him on that ac∣tion; since the days of Diomed few mortals ever launched a more impious blow.

The arts, being thus trans∣planted from Italy into Spain, found a ready naturalization in a country, then abounding with ge∣nius: The province of Andalu∣sia took the lead on this occasion, and has in all times been produc∣tive of extraordinary talents; it was the cradle of most of the Spa∣nish painters; it's natives conti∣nue to be remarked for quick and volatile parts, differing much in manners and disposition from the Castilians. Certain it is that Spain has many local qualifications for becoming a nursery of Painters, which other countries are in want os: It enjoys a clear and vivid sky, with a dry and healthy air, fa∣vourable to the preservation if not

to the production of works of art; the human countenance there is in general of a grave historical cast; the intermixture of the Jewish and Moorish tribes have marked the lower classes with a strong peculi∣arity of features; the forms of the children, till they attain the age of eight or ten, are good, and of∣tentimes their faces beautiful; the eyes of the women black and piercing, and, as they use much action when they converse, and are universally addicted to the Moor∣ish modes of dancing, which al∣most every peasant can accom∣pany with his voice and instru∣ment, their groupes become ex∣tremely picturesque: To these may be added the character of their

dress, particularly that of Anda∣lusia, which both in male and fe∣male is uncommonly antique and graceful; the cloak alone may be folded twenty different ways for different applications, and each attitude presents a specimen of drapery worthy the study of an academy. The Painters have a∣vailed themselves of this, Italians as well as natives, and the Capa will be found frequently upon their canvasses, even where the scene does not lie in Spain. In speaking of Spain, as a country favourable to Painters, I think it is just to except painters of land∣scapes; in these it has neither ex∣celled nor abounded; and the ge∣neral want of trees and verdure

readily supplies a reason: Groves and rivers and scattered habita∣tions, emblematic of rural tranquil∣lity, which furnish the most pleas∣ing subjects to the imagination of the scenist, are there but thinly spread; the face of Nature is adust and frowning.

The Emperor Charles, though not very cordially attached to his Spanish subjects, nor over partial to their country, cultivated not∣withstanding the genius of their Painters; and this he effected not only by sending them to study under the Italian masters, but also by inviting the Italian masters in∣to Spain; the fertile genius of Titiano might have been alone sufficient to illuminate a kingdom,

and there were many others in the like employ; Julio and Alexan∣dro, Italians of the school of Juan de Udine, a disciple of Ra∣fael, were artists of great emi∣nence; Charles employed them in a royal work, the beautifying the Alhambra of Grenada; they en∣riched the Hospital of Santiago, in the city of Ubeda, with many no∣ble paintings, and the famous Duke of Alva found employment for their talents.

Alonso Berruguete, a Castilian, educated in the school of the great Michael Angelo, the friend and contemporary of Andrea del Sarto, Bachio Bandinello and others, re∣turned into Spain an eminent proficient in painting, sculpture

and architecture; deeply skilled in the theory of his art, he exhi∣bited to the world a new system of human symmetry and propor∣tion, differing at once from the rules of Pomponio Gaurico, Philipo de Borgona and Alberto Durero, over whom he finally triumphed both in principle and practice; leaving many illustrious monu∣ments of his excellence in all the branches of his study, both at Madrid, the Pardo and the Al∣hambra of Grenada; for which he was suitably honoured and re∣warded by the Emperor Charles, and died full of years and replete with fame and fortune, in 1545, in the city of Madrid. I should observe in this place, that in the

choir of the cathedral in Toledo, there are an innumerable number of beautiful carvings by Berru∣guete; Philip de Borgona executed one side of the choir, and Berru∣guete the other.

The success of this artist was an encouragement to others, and the school of Michael Angelo was eagerly resorted to by Baptista Bergamo and Gaspar Becerra, of Baiza in Andalusia; these illustri∣ous students returned together to Spain, and were immediately tak∣en into the protection of the Em∣peror. The arts, which Rincon had transplanted into Spain, which Berruguete had so prosper∣ously advanced, they (but espe∣cially Becerra) pushed into matu∣rity;

this man, who even in Rome (at that period in her zenith) had attracted general admiration, ex∣celled in sculpture, equally as in painting; in the latter art his mode of colouring, and his ma∣nagement in the relief of his fi∣gures, greatly improved the prac∣tice of the Spanish school, and taught his countrymen to look upon their first manner with con∣tempt: As a statuary, he seems to have found ample field for the exercise of his talents; the altars now began to wear a different form; instead of the distorted bar∣barous shapes of Gothic masonry, crucifixes, saints and virgins now took place, in all the grande gusto of Michael Angelo. The

churches of Astorga, Zamora, Burgos and Salamanca contended which should first engage him in their service; he executed all these commissions to the satisfac∣tion of the Fathers, and, when they had equipped his images in wide hoops and furbelowed petti∣coats, they applauded the artist, and adored his manufacture. It was not so easy to satisfy the ca∣price of Isabella of Valois; she commissioned him to carve a wooden image of our Lady of the Solidad, for the convent of San Francisco de Paulo; Becerra re∣ceived her Majesty's commands, and addressed himself with dili∣gence to the work; after the la∣bour of a year he compleated an

image to his intire satisfaction; he presented it to the Queen with an assurance of success, but in vain; his image did not reach the ideas of the Queen; the expression did not please her; and he was com∣manded not only to make a bet∣ter, but to take less time in mak∣ing it: He executed his order a second time, and produced an image to the admiration of all beholders; even the Fathers of the Convent acknowledged it to be a perfect and exact representa∣tion of nature; it was again sub∣mitted to the Queen, and again condemned for falling short of her Majesty's conceptions of our Lady of the Solidad; the unhappy artist was threatened to be super∣seded

in the commission by some abler master; but, anxious to pre∣serve his pre-eminence, and ful∣fil her Majesty's ideas, he again applied himself with ardour to the task; he racked his imagination without ceasing to frame some vi∣sage, and devise some form, that Isabella might confess bore a re∣semblance to the image in her mind: Wearied out with the tor∣menting investigation, the ex∣hausted artist one day fell into a profound sleep; whilst this was passing, he saw, or thought he saw, a female figure presenting herself at the feet of his bed; he looked, in hopes perhaps to have ob∣tained a model for his image; but the lady unluckily concealed her

face; at length, addressing him in the most courteous stile, she de∣sired him to open his eyes, get out of bed, and take the log, that he would find burning on his hearth, and set to work upon it, and he would find an image to his mind; Becerra, overjoyed, lost no time in following her advice; he found the log, quenched it; 'twas a convenient piece of timber; and with this supernatural aid com∣pleated a figure to the heart's content of Isabella; the Monks, whose prayers assisted the execu∣tion, received the miraculous image with joy; it was erected on the high altar of the convent in Valladolid, with all proper cere∣monials fitting the solemnity; it

was habited in the weeds of Queen Joanna, widow of Philip the Handsome, and remains to this day, not indeed a monument of Becerra's art (for no part of that is to be seen) but of his pa∣tience; and proves, that, however eminent might be his talent for sculpture, if it had not been for his faculty of dreaming, he would have made a shameful shipwreck of his fame. Happy had it been for poor Torrigiano, if he had had Becerra's discretion, or Becerra's dreams.

Antonio Flores, and Fernando Gallegos (the one of Seville and the other of Salamanca) were Painters of great merit, and much in the favour of the Emperor,

particularly the latter; they for∣med themselves in the school of Alberto Durero, and Gallegos co∣pied the manner of his master so closely, that many of his pictures cannot be distinguished from Du∣rero's: Some of his works remain at Salamanca, but most of them so impaired by time, and by the cloister where they hang, that they are become scarce visible. Charles the Vth also brought with him into Spain, out of Italy, the celebrated Pedro Campana, a Fle∣ming by birth, who had studied twenty years in the school of Ra∣fael Urbin: When Charles made his entry into Bologna, in the year 1530, Pedro Campana devised the grand triumphal arch, under

which he passed: Campana soon after came into Spain, resid∣ing chiefly at Seville. In the chapel of the Purification in that city there is still to be seen a ca∣pital painting by this master on the subject of the ceremony, to which the chapel is dedicated; a Descent from the Cross and a Nati∣vity, both celebrated pictures, are yet to be seen in the church of San Lorenzo; and in the convent of San Pablo, in a small chapel adjoining to the Chapter-house, there is a picture by Campana on the subject of the Circumcision; all which are much extolled by Pacheco in his treatise on the Art of Painting. Campana died in the year 1570 at Brussels, where his

portrait is still to be seen in the Consistory.

It was this visit made by the Em∣peror Charles to Bologna in 1530, which brought about an event of the first importance in the history of the arts in Spain; I mean the introduction of the works of Titi∣ano, and some time after of Titiano himself; that great master was in Bologna, when Charles made his entry, and like Charles was then in the full lustre of his fame; scarce a character of eminence in Europe, but was to be found on the canvass of Titiano; to be de∣livered to posterity in the glowing colours of his pencil seemed an object of general ambition, and in some degree an anticipation

of immortality; Alonso de Ferra∣ra, Federico Gonzaga (Duke of Mantua) Francisco Maria, (Duke of Urbino) the Marquis del Basto, Pescara, Alva, Francisco Sforza, Antonio de Leyva, Diego de Men∣doza, Arretino, Bembo, Fracastorio, Ferdinand (King of the Romans) and his son Maximilian, both af∣terwards Emperors, the Popes Six∣tus IV, Julius II, and Paulus III, the great Emperor Soliman and the Sultaness Rosa were amongst the illustrious personages, who had been painted by Titiano: The Em∣peror sate to him at Bologna, as he passed through that city in the year above mentioned; he was in the meridian of life and, though he could not be said to inherit the

beauty of Philip the Handsome, he was nevertheless of a majestic comely aspect; the portrait pleased him well and, though so weak an ingredient as vanity was not to be found in Charles's composition, yet he was not insensible to im∣pressions, and henceforward deter∣mined never to commit his person to any other limner than Titiano. He was a lover of arts, not an en∣thusiast; he knew the force of their effects, and reverenced them for their power, without-being captivated by their charms; to men of eminence he was liberal without familiarity; in short, his affections in this particular, as in every other, were directed regu∣larly to their object by reason, not driven impetuously by constitution

or passion: Upon this principle he rewarded Titiano for his portrait with a thousand golden scudi, consulting thereby no less his own magnificence, than the artist's merit; he paid him 200 ducats for a small piece; and, upon Titi∣ano's presenting him with a pic∣ture of the Annunciation, for which his countrymen the Venetians had refused to pay him more than 200 scudi, Charles rewarded him for the present with a thousand. He invited Titiano into Spain, and pressed him to comply, using many promises and some intreaties; anx∣ious to wrest the palm of glory from the brows of his rival Fran∣cis in arts, as well as arms, he perceived there was no other living

merit but Titiano's, which he could oppose to that of Leonardo da Vinci. Carlos Rodolfi, the biographer of Titiano, says he never came into Spain, but he is mistaken; it was not however till the year 1548 that he complied with the Empe∣ror's invitation; from that period till 1553 he resided in Spain; dur∣ing this residence he composed many admirable works, and re∣ceived many princely rewards; Charles gave him the key, the order of Santiago at Brussels, and in 1553 constituted him a Count Palatine of the empire at Barcelona by an instrument worthy to be re∣corded; viz. Carolus V. divinâ fa∣vente clementiâ Romanorum Im∣perator augustus ac Rex Germa∣niae,

Hispaniarumque spectabili nostro et imperii sacri fideli dilecto Titiano de Vecellis, sive equiti au∣rato, et sacri Lateranensis palatii, aulaeque nrae et imperialis consisto∣rii comiti gratiam Caesaream et omne bonum.

Cum nobis semper mos fuerit, postquam ad hujus Caesariae digni∣tatis celsitudinem divis auspiciis evecti fuerimus, vos potissimum, qui singulari fide et observantiâ erga nos et sacrum Romanum im∣perium praediti egregiis moribus, eximiis virtutibus et ingenuis ar∣tibus industriâ{que} clari et excel∣lentes habiti sunt prae caeteris be∣nevolentiâ, favore et gratiâ nostrâ prosequi. Attendentes igitur singu∣larem tuam erga nos, et sacrum

Romanum imperium fidem et ob∣servantiam, ac praeter illas egre∣gias virtutes tuas et ingenii dotes, exquisitam illam pingendi et ad vivum effigiendarum ima∣ginum scientiam, quâ quidem arte talis nobis visus es, ut meritò hujus saeculi Apelles dici merearis, &c. Motu igitur proprio et certâ nostrâ scientiâ, animo deliberato, sano quoque Principum, Comitum, Baronum, Procerum et aliorum nostrorum et Imperii sacri dilec∣torum accidente consilio, et de nostrae Caesareae potestatis plenitu∣dine te praenominatum Titianum sacri Lateranensis palatii, aulae{que} nrae, et Imperialis consistorii co∣mitem fecimus, creavimus, erex∣imus, et comitatus Palatini ti∣titulo

clementer insignivimus: Prout tenore praesentium faci∣mus, creamus, erigimus, attoli∣mus et insignimus ac aliorum Comitum Palatinorum numero et consortu gratanter aggregamus et adscribimus, &c.

These favours alarmed the jealou∣sy of the nobles both of Germany and Spain, but their envy drew no other answer from Charles, than that he had many nobles in his empire and but one Titiano; the artist, who was at some distance, employed upon a picture, overheard the retort with conscious satisfaction and, as he made his reverence to the Emperor, dropt a pencil on the floor; the courteous monarch took it up and, delivering it to

him confounded by this second mark of his condescension, added, that to wait on Titiano was a ser∣vice for an Emperor. Charles did not only grace this eminent ar∣tist with the splendid ornaments and titles above mentioned, he gave him more solid marks of his favour, appointing him rents in Naples of two hundred ducats annually each, besides a munifi∣cent compensation for every pic∣ture he executed: Palomino says, that Charles regarded the posses∣sion of a capital piece of Titiano more than he did the acquisition of a new province to his domi∣nion; but Palomino was a painter, and more familiar with the pic∣tures of Titiano, than with the po∣litics

of the Emperor: This would have been a caprice unworthy of any prince; but Charles's charac∣ter was not the sport of caprice; whilst to the very moment of his life, when he resigned his domi∣nions, it was evident that ambi∣tion was his ruling passion; had he been capable of that preference, which Palomino ascribes to him, he would hardly have taken such pains to the last hour of his reign to persuade his brother Ferdinand to make a sacrifice of his succession of the empire, nor have retired into the unfurnished cell of his convent with his puppets and his birds without one consolatory re∣membrance of his favourite author to cheer his solitude, or to enflame

his devotion: I can hardly be persuaded, that Charles's abdica∣tion of his empire was any proof of caprice; he plainly enough perceived his health was gone, and he was not willing that his fame should follow it.

Titiano had quitted Spain, be∣fore Philip took possession of the throne; the arts however had rapidly advanced: Charles had made some improvement to the royal edifices, but all with a view to accommodation rather than magnificence; he had fronted the old palace of Madrid, beautified and repaired the venerable Al∣hambra of Grenada, planted and disposed the walks and avenues of Aranjuez in the Flemish taste,

and built the Pardo at two leagues distance from the capital in a retired situation and in a stile by no means imperial; it is a square building of moderate dimensions, flanked with four small towers at the angles, and environed with a foss exactly on the scale of a no∣bleman's seat in his native coun∣try: Superstition soon engaged Philip in a more important un∣dertaking and, having made a vow upon the victory of St. Quin∣tin to dedicate a church and mo∣nastery to San Lorenzo, he began in the midst of a solitary and frightful desart to displace the rocks and compel them to take the shape of an edifice: on the feast-day of St. George with much

temporal and spiritual pomp he laid the foundation-stone of the monastery of San Lorenzo, called the Escorial, with the following, Inscription:

Deus O. M. operi Aspiciat!
Philippus II. Hispaniarum Rex
a fundamentis erexit
MDLXIII.

Joan Baptista Architectus
IX Ka. MAII.

So much has been said on the subject of this extraordinary edi∣fice, and the Spanish writers make such a pompous display of its magnificence, that I might appear to affect a singularity of opinion, if I was to offer freely what my

imperfect judgment suggests on the matter; to such of my readers, as have seen the Escorial, what I should have to say would have little novelty; and in their opinions, who have not seen it, and been taught to respect it, it might have too much. The scale undoubtedly is magnificent, though the mass is graceless; as a monastery it is vast and aweful, fitly calculated to entomb the living and the dead; as a palace, it is justly em∣blematic of its founder, who on the summit of the superincum∣bent mountain was accustomed to sit and survey his rising fabric in silent contemplation and de∣light. Francisco de los Santos, the monk, who wrote a pompous

••escription of the Escorial, ob∣••erves that the sensation, which a ••pectator feels upon entering the ••reat court, is the same as at sud∣••enly hearing a delightful concert; ••he soul, says he, in both cases is ••bsorbed in extasy—what then must ••ave been the sensations of Phi∣••ip, as he sate upon the top of the ••ountain, where at one glance he ••ook in the whole birds-eye of the ••difice? Certainly, if the good Fa∣••her heard a concert upon his en∣••ering only one of the courts of ••he monastery, His Catholic Ma∣••esty, when stationed on the moun∣••ain, must have enjoyed a full cho∣••us of musical extasy: For my ••art, taking into consideration the ••crupulous performance of his vow,

I am inclined to believe his chief pleasure consisted in observing how exactly he had made the building correspond to the gridiron of San Lo∣renzo; this he did in honourable commemoration of the martyrdom of the Saint above mentioned: He also took the pious precaution of disposing a number of relics in the balls of the cupolas, crosses and different parts of the building, to preserve it from fire, storm, or any other injury: These holy pre∣servatives have not been very suc∣cessful in their office, for great part of the edifice, with not a few of the relics in charge, were con∣sumed by a dreadful conflagration: Nor is this the only element at war with the Escorial, the furious gusts

of wind, that occasionally sweep from the impending mountains, surpass description: The Escorial is placed in the very eddy of these furious gusts; as neither man, nor beast, nor carriages can stand be∣fore them, a subterranean passage is cut through the rock, under the area of the court, for a communi∣cation with the town, which is better sheltered from the blast: The massy walls of the building are proof against the violence of the storms, but the covering of the roof, though fortified with all pos∣sible care against the attack, con∣tinually exhibits melancholy proofs os its insufficiency; whilst the ar∣chitect, by disposing the windows to resist the wind, seems to have

forgot, that one part of their office was to admit the light.

If the architect however finds something to condemn, the paint∣er will find much to admire: It is undoubtedly a repository of noble arts. As soon as Philip had con∣ceived the idea of enriching the royal convent with every thing suitable to the magnificence of its scale, and which the mines of America, that flowed in upon his treasury, could procure, he cast his eyes towards his father's favourite painter Titiano, then returned in∣to his own country: Whether he solicited him to come again into Spain does not appear; but he had certainly given him several com∣missions for pictures: In a letter,

which Philip writes to Titiano of the 13th of July 1558 from Ghent, he acknowledges the re∣ceipt of one from Titiano of the 19th of the preceding month, and expresses the satisfaction it gave him to hear, that he had com∣pleated his picture of Calixtus and one also of Diana bathing: He tells him that he had wrote to Gar∣cias Fernandez at Genoa to forward these pictures for Spain, and desires Titiano himself to superintend the backing and to direct the cases, that no other of his valuable productions might be again exposed to the like misfortune, as had befallen his paint∣ing of the Christ, which had been ruined by the way: He earnestly ••equests of Titiano to restore that

loss by another of the same composi∣tion, which he shall highly prize, as coming from the hand of so great a master: In conclusion he expresses his regret to hear that the rents, settled upon him in Milan and Naples, had fallen into arrear, and tells him that he will put those pay∣ments in such train, that there shall be no cause of complaint in future. This in effect he performed by a peremptory mandate to his gover∣nor of Milan, directing him to sa∣tisfy the arrears due to Titiano from the date of the grants in 1541 and 1548, and put the same in regular course of payment for the future, either from the Ducal chamber, or such other funds as might be more conveniently applied to that purpose.

This mandate bears date the 25th of December 1558, and at the foot of it the King writes these lines with his own hand: You know how I am interested in this order, as it affects Titiano; comply with it therefore in such a manner, as to give me no occasion to repeat it. The King had the further attention to continue to him the grant of his Key, and nominated him First Painter of the chamber.

The pictures, which Titiano made in Spain, and those he sent into Spain, form of themselves a large and magnificent collection; the catalogues of the Escorial and Madrid give some idea of them, but do not nearly reach the amount; to particularize their re∣spective

merit is not the object of this work, and would be an un∣dertaking far above my hands: In a posthumous publication of Antonio Rafael Mengs, printed at Madrid in 1780, there are some observations on Titiano's pictures in the palace at Madrid; I could wish, for the reader's better gra∣tification, that more had been said by Mengs upon the subject; and in general it is to be regretted, that he had not entered into a fuller description of the Madrid collection, of which he professes to give an account: But it is not in these collections of the Escorial and palace of Madrid, as I before observed, that we can find the sum of Titiano's works in Spain;

many capital pictures are dispers∣ed, many perished in the deplorable fire, that destroyed the Pardo, some have been by late decree exiled for their dishonesty, and some condemned and executed in the flames: Amongst the pictures, that perished at the Pardo, many portraits of the Austrian family were lost, toge∣ther with one of Titiano himself, painted by order of Charles V. a celebrated work, in which the painter is represented, holding in his hand the portrait of Charles; transferring by this courtly device the honour of the representation from himself to the Emperor. On the subject of the exiles and mar∣tyrs above mentioned I am un∣willing

to enlarge, it will suffice to say, that being most in the nude, their crime will in some people's judgment appear their recommendation; certain it is that the unparalleled and inestimable figure of the sleeping Venus, which was given by Philip the IVth to our Charles the First, when Prince of Wales, upon the visit he made in Spain, and which, after the death of that unhappy monarch, was purchased by the Spanish am∣bassador in England, has been res∣cued from execution by the ad∣dress of Mengs. I frequently vi∣sited this matchless deity in her hiding-place, where I found her miserably lodged, though respec∣tably attended by an Atalanta in

the race by Guido, divinely ex∣ecuted, a Helen and Paris by Rubens, and three Graces of the same master, coloured to a mira∣cle, but much more embonpoint than their principal. To attempt any description of this sleeping Venus appears to me as impossi∣ble, as it would be to condemn such perfect and withal such modest beauties to the flames; a graceful turn of the neck gives the full countenance to the spectator, in which the master-artist has dis∣played beauty and sweetness of the divinest sort, with the most perfect innocence of character; the limbs are elegantly and de∣cently disposed, the hues are glow∣ing and transparent, the outline

round and glittering, and the lo∣cal lights and shades produced by those tender and imperceptible touches, that form the magic of Corregio; in short it is a miracle of art, and was so decidedly the chef d'oeuvre of the master, that, after several efforts to rival his own matchless work, he quitted this self-emulation in despair. It is to the honour of Don Anto∣nio Mengs, that he saved it from destruction: It had another escape from the flames of the Pardo, which fatal accident being re∣ported to Philip the IVth, then on the throne, he instantly demanded, if the Titian-Venus had escaped the conflagration; the messenger as∣sured him that it was saved, then

replied the King all other losses may be supported: I cannot dis∣miss this enchanting object with∣out observing, that, by testimony of all the best judges of its merit, it yields in no particular to the Venus of Medicis, but in the weaker nature of it's material: twice rescued from the flames, it still exists in perfect condition: May no future age of the world produce a hand to raise an ax against the one, or to construct a funeral pile for the other!

There are several paintings of Titiano in the Madrid collection upon fabulous subjects, and in par∣ticular a Tarquin and Lucretia so naturally executed, that, what be∣tween the excess of chastity in one

prince, and the notorious abuse of it in the other, it must be owned the lady has had an escape. But of all his pictures upon subjects of this description, the most beau∣tiful are two celebrated compa∣nions, the one a groupe of Bac∣chanals, the other of Cupids, in the apartments of the Princess; the figures in each are of the third part of the natural size. In the fore ground of the groupe of Bac∣chanals there is a young female votarist asleep, of which Don An∣tonio Mengs in his critique above mentioned speaks with rapture; he says that he never saw it with∣out that striking novelty of de∣light as if he had never discovered it before: The colouring of this

figure he observes is in Titiano's clearest manner, and the degrada∣tion of tints through the whole groupe, (which is all in the nude, and which with an infinite variety of nice discriminations composes one uniform tone) is wonderfully contrived; and constitutes such a model in the art of colouring, as he never met with in any other example; he concludes his re∣marks on this picture by observ∣ing, that all the harmonious ac∣companiments of sky, variegated soil, with deep and tender shades of the trees, form such an assem∣blage of beautiful objects in na∣ture perfectly imitated, that a bet∣ter picture in this stile he does not think the world can produce:

The other picture represents a very numerous groupe of beautiful Cu∣pids, disposed in a wonderful vari∣ety of attitudes, employed in pu∣erile sports, under a grove of ap∣ple-trees, the fruit of which they have scattered about the ground, and are playing with in the most gay and natural manner: The same curious degradation of hues in the carnations of the flesh and colours of the hair obtains in this picture, as in the former, and to an equal degree of excellence; the same remarks therefore, as I have quoted in that case, are ap∣plicable to this: Don Antonio Mengs adds, that these pictures were formerly in the Ludovici palace at Rome, and were a pre∣sent

to the king of Spain: Sand∣rart reports of this groupe of Cu∣pids, that it served for a study to Dominiquino, Pousin and Flamenco; Albano has transcribed a part of this groupe into a composition of his painting, and there are two copies made by Rubens of these pictures to be seen in the palace; the ingenious author above quot∣ed adds with rather too much cri∣tical severity, that these copies of Rubens are like an elegant author translated into Dutch, where the sentiments of the original may be guest at, but all the grace is va∣nished.

Of scriptural subjects, treated by the hand of this great master, the Escorial presents a host of va∣luable

examples; not a few art also to be found in the palace at Madrid; the celebrated pic∣ture of the Last Supper in the re∣fectory at the Escorial has been repeatedly described, and is known to all Europe as a miracle of art: In a letter of Titiano to Philip, which is preserved, he informs the King, that he had been seven years employed in painting it; this must surely be understood with latitude as to other inter∣mediate compositions; for, al∣though the artist, as it is well known, lived to a very uncommon age, yet the life of a Patriarch would scarce suffice to warrant undertakings of such labour, nor would the reward of 2000 golden

scudi, which the King sent him by way of Genoa, and which was in fact a magnificent price in those times, be a proportionable com∣pensation for the dedication of so great a portion of his time.

The composition, which is call∣ed la gloria de Titiano, that of Christ in the garden and the Santa Mar∣garita with the Dragon, would claim some description, if much more capable judges had not al∣ready passed the due encomiums on these excellent performances; the scrupulous sanctity of the monks was offended at some li∣berties taken by Santa Margarita in tucking up her robe and dis∣covering part of a very graceful leg; a thing not seemly to be

done, when in company with a Dragon; especially as all Dragons have not the prudence and good faith of that, which was in keep∣ing by the Hesperides: But Jor∣dan's rapid pencil pieced the petti∣coat, which now, like Raphael's wings,

Her feetShadows from either heel.

Titiano was born in 1480, and consequently was 68 years old when he came into Spain; he staid there five years and, after Charles's abdication, painted many pieces for Philip; it is to be ex∣pected therefore, that there will be found some tokens of natural

decay in his later works, and cer∣tain it is, that though his colour∣ing is always good, some pictures there are in the royal collection of another pencil from his Venus, and far less bright than his slum∣bring Bacchant: He prattles some∣times with the privilege of old age; but still it is the prattle of Nestor.

It is not to be understood that all the pictures of Titiano, that are in the royal collection, were paint∣ed by him, whilst he was King's painter to Charles and to Philip: Many are of his earlier and better age, and were either presented to the Crown, or purchased in Italy after the death of Titiano: An in∣stance of this occurred in the case

of the famous pictures above-mentioned extracted from the Lu∣dovice palace, which were a pre∣sent to Philip: There is also in the sacristy of the Escorial a San Sebastian in his best manner, which was given by the Conde de Bena∣vente, and several pieces of Titiano were collected by the great paint∣er Velazquez in his excursion to Italy by order of Philip the IVth. Whilst Philip the IId. was thus solicitous to enrich his royal con∣vent of San Lorenzo with the va∣luable works of Titiano, extracted out of Italy, his own kingdom of Spain offered to his choice many eminent professors and disciples in the art; the residence of that great master in Spain, and the emulation

of contemporary genius, roused into action by the study of his brilliant compositions, as well as by the introduction of other dis∣tinguished foreigners, engaged in compleating and adorning that vast fabric, operated to produce an Augustan age in Spain. I shall proceed to name some of the prin∣cipal painters, as well foreigners as natives, who were employed in furnishing and adorning the Esco∣rial.

Juan Fernandez Ximenez of Na∣varre, commonly called El Mudo or the Dumb, and generally acknow∣ledged as the Titiano of Spain, was born at Logrono, of a respectable family; the defects of nature (for he was deaf as well as dumb)

were in some degree compensated to him by most quick and brilliant sense in the remaining faculties. He was first instructed in the art of painting by Fray Vicente de Santo Domingo, a monk of Santo Catalina in a convent at Talavera in Castile, of the order of Geroni∣mytes; his early marks of genius were such, that Fray Vicente pro∣posed to the parents of El Mudo to send him into Italy, which be∣ing accordingly done, he travelled to Florence, Venice, Milan and Naples, visiting many of the most famous academies; but princi∣pally forming himself in the school of Titiano: He soon established so general a reputation in Italy, that Philip, being apprized of his fame,

recalled him into Spain and ap∣pointed him one of his painters at the Escorial; after having given some sketches of Prophets in black and white, in the adornments of the sacristy, as samples of his art, he proceeded to compositions of greater consequence, and paint∣ed the Baptism of our Saviour in the Prior's cell; he was after that employed in several paintings for a chapel, which King Philip caused to be erected in the wood of Se∣govia; these paintings were re∣moved to the upper cloyster of the Escorial, and in one of these, which represents the beheading of Santiago, El Mudo has inserted the portrait of Santoyo in the cha∣racter of the Executioner, in re∣venge

for some ill offices, which that minister had done him. San∣toyo complained to the King, making suit that the figure might be expunged, and his person not delivered to posterity in the dis∣graceful occupation of a hangman; the King, who probably knew the cause of the offence, did not dis∣approve of the nature of the re∣venge, and, excusing himself to Santoyo on account of the excel∣lence of the performance, would not allow the picture to be defaced. The Twelve Apostles on the great pillars of the church next to the high altar are also painted by El Mudo. When Titiano's famous painting of the Last Supper arrived at the Escorial, El Mudo was em∣ployed,

and upon Philip's propos∣ing to cut the canvass to the size of the pannel in the refectory, where it was destined to hang, El Mudo to prevent the mutilation of so ca∣pital a work made earnest signs of intercession with the King to be permitted to copy it, and reduce it to the size of the place allotted, offering to do it in the space of six months; upon the King's expres∣sing a hesitation on account of the length of the time required by El Mudo for the work, and pro∣ceeding to put his design in exe∣cution, El Mudo repeated his sup∣plications in behalf of his favour∣ite master with more fervency than ever, offering to compleat his copy in less time, than he at first de∣manded,

tendering at the same time his head, as the punishment of non-compliance, laying his hand on his breast as a sign, that he claimed the order of Santiago as his reward if he should succeed; the offer was not accepted and execution was performed upon Ti∣tiano, accompanied with the most distressful attitudes and distortions of El Mudo. He died soon after at the Escorial to the great regret of Philip, at the age of 40, in the year 1572, generally intitled the Titiano of Spain, and was honour∣ed with an epitaph by Fra. Lope Feliz de Vega Carpio.

El Divino Morales was born at Badajoz in the province of Estre∣madura, in the beginning of the

sixteenth century. He was in∣structed at Seville in the academy of Pedro Campana, a disciple of Raphael; from his constant choice of divine subjects and the ex∣treme delicacy of his pencil he acquired the appellation of El Di∣vino, and is known to the present age by no other name than that of El Divino Morales. All his paint∣ings are upon board or copper, and almost generally heads of the crucified Saviour; no instance oc∣curring of his having executed any composition or figure at full length. His heads are finished off with infinite care and laboured to the utmost, yet not so as to dimi∣nish the force of the expression; for I have seen some examples of

his Ecce Homo of a most exquisite and touching character; also some heads of the Christ bearing the cross approaching very near to the Saviour in the famous Pasmo de Sicilia. Though Morales never fails to impress the countenance with the deepest tints of human agony, I never met with any instance of his doing violence to our ideas of the divinity of the object he re∣presents: His conception of the countenance seems to be original and his own, more resembling however the face of the Christ in Raphael's picture above-mention∣ed, than any other; and worked, as it appears to me, after the man∣ner of the highly-finished heads of Leonardo da Vinci. He was un∣doubtedly

an artist of a very li∣mited invention and design; in aerial perspective and the clear∣obscure I have sometimes found him evidently deficient, nor has he any tincture of art or academy in grouping his figures and dis∣posing his attitudes; every thing is left to a simple expression of af∣fecting nature: His Mater dolorosa is the very extreme of sorrow; nor is he anxious to maintain any trace of beauty amidst his expressions of affliction: I am of opinion that no imagination, which had not been aided by the spectacles of exhaust∣ed nature, which a nunnery ex∣hibits, could have devised an ob∣ject so extremely woe-begone: It is in short the aggravated por∣trait

of an emaciated devotee ex∣piring in her vigils. It may rea∣dily be believed in a country, where paintings of this sort are amongst the objects of devotion, and where every private house is furnished with its oratory and its altar, that the pictures of Morales must have been in general request; it has been for the same reason extremely difficult for travellers to extract out of Spain any piece of this author; and as he worked very slowly and was not very industri∣ous or interested in his art, his pictures are both very rare and ve∣ry permanent in their stations* 1.1.

Enough may be had of illegiti∣mate or suspicious pretensions, but in general they are easily to be dis∣tinguished. One would expect to find in Morales's private life a character in unison with his stu∣dies; but the contrary of this ap∣pears from his history. When Morales was summoned to the Es∣corial by Philip, he left Badajoz at the King's command, and put∣ting himself in the best array, that his whole substance could procure, presented himself to the sovereign more like an Ambassador upon the

delivery of his credentials, than a rural artist, called to labour at his profession for hire: Upon the King's remarking on the unex∣pected splendor of his appear∣ance, he answered with an air of national gallantry that, being re∣solved to dedicate every thing he possest by nature, or by fortune, to the service of his sovereign, he had presented himself in the best condition and attire, that his means admitted in obedience to his sum∣mons. It does not appear, that his reply displeased, neither was the King dissatisfied with his per∣formances, for which he liberally rewarded him: However, when upon completion of his undertak∣ings he returned to Badajoz, he

seems to have carried home the same spirit of extravagance; for, when Philip passed through that place in 1581 on his way to take pos∣session of the kingdom of Portu∣gal, Morales presented himself in a far different condition, reduced by poverty and age, for he was then 72 years old; Morales, says the King, methinks you are grown very old, since last I saw you. True, Sen̄or, replied he, and also very poor. Philip, (of whom the arts at least have nothing to complain) directly turning to the city trea∣surer ordered him 200 ducats, telling him it was to purchase him a dinner—and a supper too? said Morales; No, answered the King, give him a hundred ducats more: a

fortunate rencounter for poor Mo∣rales: He survived this event some years and died in 1586. Some of his paintings are preserved at Cor∣dova and Seville; and at Madrid in the chapel of our Lady of the Soledad, belonging to the convent of the Trinitarians, I have been shewn a Santa Veronica by his hand: There is also an Ecce Homo in the convent of the nuns of Corpus Christi, which with other specimens I have met in private cabinets, confirm to me his title to the appellation of El Divino.

Miguel Barroso, (a disciple of Becerra) and Domingo Beltran the Jesuit, a native of Victoria, were men of eminent talents; they were both excellent architects and of

great erudition: The former was employed at the Escorial in paint∣ing part of the principal cloyster, the latter, who had formed him∣self in Italy, executed some sta∣tues in the great church of admi∣rable workmanship, and in the grande gusto of Michael Angelo. Beltran also carved a crucisix for the high altar at the Imperial col∣lege, lately occupied by the Je∣suits at Madrid, a work of infinite merit and expression; there is another on the high altar of the college at Alcala de Henares, which I have not seen, but which is no less celebrated: Both these ingenious artists died in the year 1590, both were men of amiable

manners, great candour and re∣markable modesty.

The same year was also fatal to Teodosio Mingot the Catalan, (a dis∣ciple of Michael Angelo) and Luis de Carvajal of Toledo, both emi∣nent painters, and both employed at the Escorial: Part of the prin∣cipal cloyster is painted by Carva∣jal, and amongst the paintings in the church specimens of a respect∣able sort are to be found of both these masters.

But amongst the principal ar∣tists, employed by Philip in the paintings of the Escorial, the Elder Coello was one in the chief favour and esteem of that sove∣reign, who in his letters stiles him Titiano Portugues (for he was of

that nation) and addresses him by the affectionate appellation of my beloved son Alonso Sanchez Coello. He studied at Rome in the school of Rafael de Urbino, and compleat∣ed himself in his art under the in∣struction of Antonio Moro in Spain; he passed from Spain into Portu∣gal, and was in the service of Don Juan, and afterwards of his widow Donna Juana, sister of Philip the second: Upon the retirement of Antonio Moro, the King of Spain solicited his sister to supply the loss of that great artist by send∣ing him Coello; upon his arrival at the court Philip lodged him in an apartment near at hand, with which he had a private communi∣cation, for the purpose of visiting

him, whilst he was at work: On these occasions he treated Coello with great familiarity and conde∣scension; he was in such favour with all the Royal family, that his apartment became at times their general rendezvous; and in these visits Coello made several portraits of Philip on foot and horseback, and of all the Royal or distin∣guished personages, that composed the court: In short he became considered as a man in such high degree of favour, that his protec∣tion was lookt up to by the Cour∣tiers and Grandees and his house and table frequented by the first persons in the nation, not except∣ing Cardinal Grambela, Don Gas∣par de Zueroga, archbishop of To∣ledo,

and Don Rodrigo de Castro, archbishop of Seville: Coello was no less in favour with Pope Gre∣gory the XIIIth and Sixtus Quin∣tus, with the Dukes of Florence and Savoy, Cardinal Farnese and many other illustrious characters of that time. After endowing a cha∣ritable foundation for the reception of poor orphans at Valladolid, Co∣ello died in the sixty-fifth year of his age in 1590; an aera fatal to the arts in Spain.

If Coello cannot properly be considered as a native of Spain, he must be acknowledged to rank high amongst the chief artists, who have flourished in that king∣dom: His paintings in the Esco∣rial, which are chiefly of Saints af∣fixed

to the respective altars, do great honour to his memory; the portrait, that he made of the great patriarch San Ignacio, drawn from an impression of his face, taken in wax after his death, is much ce∣lebrated; and his original figures of Sisiphus and Titius, as well as his copies from Titiano of Tanta∣lus and Ixion, now in the palace of Madrid, are noble specimens. His portraits of many royal and noble persons, which are spoken of as excellent, perished with many other of his capital works in the unfortunate fire of the Par∣do; of all which survive, the prin∣cipal in point of composition is preserved in the church of San Geronimo in Madrid, represent∣ing

the martyrdom of San Sebas∣tian; on the right hand of the Saint stands the figure of Christ, on the left the Virgin Mary, and lower in the front San Bernardo and San Francisco; above a glory and a fi∣gure representing El Padre Eter∣no; the whole is executed with great majesty of design, a bold re∣lief and a strong and masterly ex∣pression: He colours in the stile of Titiano and seems to draw with great facility and freedom. He died universally regretted by the artists, lamented by Philip, who regarded him highly, and cele∣brated by the famous Lopez de Vega who wrote his epitaph.

Philip in the decline of fortune and life, by the death of Coello lost

his best and perhaps only resource against the vexations of state and the intrusions of remorse: Haugh∣ty by nature and harsh through disappointment, there were still some moments, when his pride sought the relief of familiarity, and when his temper for a while relaxed into complacency: In those moments he would mount the ladder, (the only one he ever climbed without ambition or dis∣grace) that privately communi∣cated with the painting-room of Coello. Philip had deserved well of the arts, and in company with them he found himself for once amongst his friends: Coello had dis∣cretion, good manners and much acquaintance with the world; if

the King encouraged conversa∣tion, Coello knew every body and every thing, and out of those could chuse his topics suitably and treat them agreeably; if the King was disposed to silence during his visit, as was frequently the case, Coello pursued his work with fixt atten∣tion, he pressed his canvass into life with all the energy and spirit of his genius: The king sate by, contemplating the new creation, which the hand of art was forming in his sight, and for a while per∣haps forgot the breaches he had caused in that of nature's produ∣cing: By the easel of Coello, if he was not defended from the cares, he was at least secure from the in∣trusions of Royalty. Whoever has

been accustomed to look on du∣ring the operations of industry or art, must have experienced a re∣pose of thought, an interval from worldly inquietude, that steals in∣sensibly and gradually upon the mind, as sleep does on the body: If such are our sensations, whilst contemplating the labourer at his task, or the mechanic at his trade, how much do we improve the avo∣cation, when the eye is called off from every other object and fixed upon one of the most pleasing and surprizing in the whole circle of human arts and inventions! We may naturally believe that Philip felt the benefits of this resource: In his council-chamber the defec∣tion of provinces galled his pride,

and the dispersion of armadas thwarted his ambition: In his closet the injured Perez stung his conscience and the unhappy Don Carlos haunted his imagination; but in the academy of Coello he saw himself in his most favourable light, and perhaps the only one, which can reflect a lustre on his memory.

The great works, which Philip was carrying on at the Escorial, and the magnificent collection of paintings he was there amassing, at∣tracted the attention of all the ar∣tists in Europe, whilst the wealth and munificence of the King held out ample encouragement to ad∣venturers of merit. Spain at that brilliant aera was in possession of

many native painters, who had they been happy enough to have found an historian to have done justice to their fame, would at this day have ranked with the most dis∣tinguished masters of the age in Italy; but their names are buried in the obscurity of time, and their works in that of cloysters and con∣vents.

Philip pressed his favourite un∣dertaking with such ardour, and the immeasurable walls of the con∣vent of San Lorenzo offered such a field for emulation, that the har∣vest could not be reaped by natives only, however numerous; so that to conclude the work within the period of his reign it was necessa∣ry to call in the assistance of more

labourers, and a great body of in∣genious emigrants accepted the invitation: My design is to pre∣sent the reader with a few local anecdotes relative to the principal characters of this description, the gleanings of their better history, which in general is so well known, as to make any more diffusive re∣lation superfluous and imperti∣nent.

In selecting these I shall princi∣pally follow the order of time, in which they flourished, for the pre∣sent however confining myself to the reign of Philip the IId.

Antonio Moro (Sir Antony More) the predecessor and pre∣ceptor of the elder Coello above mentioned, was born at Utrecht,

where in the early years of his life he studied in the school of Juan Escorelio; from thence he passed into Italy, where he ultimately formed himself upon the models of the great masters Michael An∣gelo and Rafael de Urbino. He came into Spain 1552, Charles V. being then on the throne, under the protection of his countryman Cardinal Grambeli; he made a portrait of Prince Philip, and, being recommended by the Cardi∣nal to the service of the Emperor, he was sent by him into Portugal to take the portrait of the Prin∣cess Donna Maria, then contract∣ed to Philip: At the same time he painted John III. of Portugal and his queen Donna Catalina,

Charles's youngest sister; by all which portraits he gave entire sa∣tisfaction, and was magnificently rewarded both by Charles and the Royal personages above-mention∣ed. Having succeeded so well in this commission, he was next dis∣patcht by the Emperor into Eng∣land to the court of Mary, to take the portrait of that princess, previous to her espousals with Phi∣lip: Moro employed all the flat∣tering aids of his art in this por∣trait, and so captivated the cour∣tiers of Spain with the charms of Mary's person, that he was em∣ployed by his patron the Cardinal and many of the Grandees to make copies of his picture, one of which I have seen in possession of a noble

family, and by which it should appear that Moro was not only a very good painter, but an excel∣lent courtier. Having enriched himself by his embassy to Eng∣land, he returned into Spain upon the conclusion of peace between that kingdom and France, and was eagerly received into the ser∣vice of Philip II. then on the throne. His excellence in the painting of portraits supplied him with ample employ in this court, Philip, who made slaves of his friends and friends of his painters, treated Moro with extraordinary familiarity. This great artist had not all the courtly disoretion of his scholar Coello, and met the King's advances with the same ease

that they were made; so that one day, whilst he was at his work and Philip looking on, Moro dipt his pencil in carmine, and with it smeared the hand of the King, who was resting his arm on his shoulder: The jest was rash, and the character, to which it was applied, not to be played upon with impunity; the hand of the Sovereign of Spain (which even the fair sex kneel down to salute) was never so treated since the foundation of the monarchy; the King surveyed it seriously a while, and in that perilous moment of suspence the fate of Moro balan∣ced on a hair; the courtiers, who were in awful attendance, revolt∣ed from the sight with horror and

amazement (could Luca Jordano have seized the groupe in that mo∣ment and dashed it off with his rapid facility, what a subject for a painter!) caprice, or I would ra∣ther say pity, turned the scale, and Philip passed the silly action off with a smile of complacency: The painter, dropping on his knees, eagerly seized those of the King, and kissed his seet in humble a∣tonement for the offence, and all was well, or seemed at least so to be; but the person of the King was too sacred in the consideration of those times, and the act too daring to escape the notice of the awful office of the Inquisition; these holy and enlightened Fathers, maturely weighing all the cir∣cumstances

of the case, learnedly concluded that Antonio Moro, be∣ing a foreigner and a traveller, had either learnt the art magic, or obtained in England some spell or charm, wherewith he had bewicht the King: Nor let the heretical reader treat this story as a fiction, or think that the Fathers accord∣ing to the premises, on which their judgments then were and still are formed, reasoned much amiss; for a disbelief in witches is a spe∣cies of criminal infidelity to the present moment condemnable at that sacred tribunal, of which I could give a late very notable ex∣ample, if it was proper to make public a gentleman's disgrace, for which he has suffered punishment,

and of which it is hoped he has duly repented. If Antonio had contended that he practised no other charms upon Philip, than those of his art, which over some minds has a kind of bewitching influence, such a plea would scarce have passed with his judges, whose hearts were far out of reach of such mechanical fascination; and as little would it have served his cause to plead the natural gaiety and good-humour of the Monarch, such an argument would have been fairly set down amongst those quae non admittuntur; so that his con∣demnation would have been ine∣vitable; for as it is hard to sup∣pose how any man could daub the fingers of a King of Spain with

carmine, unless by the correspon∣dence and conspiracy of the De∣vil, or some of his agents in witchcraft, no doubt the tragedy of poor Torregiano would have been revived on this occasion, had not the same Devil, in the shape of one of Philip's ministers, luckily snatcht Antonio from his fate, whilst the tortures were preparing to force out the impious secrets of his black and diabolic art: This same minister of Philip, or I should rather say of the Devil, spirited away his brother imp of darkness to Brussels without loss of time, upon the feigned pre∣tence (which on such occasions is readily enough supplied to the wicked) of an immediate and pres∣sing

avocation. It was in vain that Philip moved him to revoke his resolution, in vain that he so∣licited him by letters under his own hand, expressed in terms the most kind and condescending, and declarations even of affection to his person, as well as of esteem for his talents; the terrors of a tribunal, from which even the Royal hand, that he had so fami∣liarly treated, could not snatch him, weighed down all the ca∣resses, all the solicitations of the King, and he departed, loaded with the rewards of Philip's muni∣ficence, and penetrated with the proofs of his complacency and in∣dulgence. He left many por∣traits and some historical pieces in

the Royal collection, but most of them perished at the Pardo.

As the elder Coello supplied the loss of Antonio Moro in the list of Philip's painters, so that of El Mudo was filled by Luqueto, or Lucas Cambiaso, or according to Spanish orthography Cangiaso, of Genoa, one of the most celebrated painters of his time: His principal work at the Escorial is the roof of the choir, for which it is re∣corded that he received the sum of 12,000 ducats; a work of infinite labour, consisting of a vast multi∣tude of the blest, received into heaven, with a great host of angels surrounding the holy Trinity, plac∣ed in the center of the groupe: The disposition of these figures is

void of all grace or art as to picturesque effect, being seated re∣gularly upon benches one behind the other, a direct counterpart of the reverend Fathers below: The whole composition presents to the spectator's eye one living range of heads, amongst these the painter has taken the liberty of introduc∣ing his own and that of his friend Fra. Antonio de Villacartin. Con∣sidering it as a pavement of faces, worked by the square yard, Lucas Cangiaso has executed his com∣mission like an able and honest mechanic; the honour of the de∣sign is due to certain Theologians of the time, who, regarding the beauty of effect with pious con∣tempt, considered only how to

dispose the assembly in decent form and order, most resembling, as I before observed, the congregation of the monks in the choir. King Charles the IId would have en∣gaged Luca de Jordano to under∣take the re-painting it to dispose it after his own fancy and design; but that painter excused himself from the task, probably for other reasons than the respect he pre∣tended to entertain for the merit and superior excellence of the ori∣ginal. Lucas Cangiaso was accom∣panied out of Italy by Lazaro Ta∣baron and his brother Horatio Can∣giaso, on whom Philip settled pro∣portionable appointments. Lucas died at the Escorial much enrich∣ed

by the munificence of the King, by whom he was highly favoured.

Mateo Perez de Alesio, a Roman by birth, was amongst the many eminent foreigners, that migrated into Spain during the reign of Philip, though I do not find that he came thither by invita∣tion of the King, or that he exe∣cuted any thing at the Escorial: His great work was a magnificent fresco on the subject of St. Chris∣topher in the cathedral of Seville, which those, who have visited that church, speak of with rapture. It will be sufficient for me to ob∣serve of this artist (whose history authors of better information have already recorded) that after abid∣ing

some time in Spain, where he was held in universal estimation, he departed for Italy, candidly de∣claring, that a country in posses∣sion of so great a living master as Luis de Vargas, then residing at Seville, of which place he was na∣tive, could not be benefited by his talents, nor needed his assist∣ance; and so high was the opi∣nion he conceived of Vargas's su∣perior merits, that one day, whilst he was contemplating a picture by that artist of Adam and Eve, and observing upon the masterly fore∣shortening of some of the parts, that single limb, said he, pointing to the leg of Adam, is more worth than my whole Saint Christopher; alluding to the great fresco paint∣ing

above-mentioned: On which artist of the two this testimony reflects most honour I leave with the reader to determine.

Federico Zucaro is well known to all, who are conversant in the histories of the Italian masters; the dissatisfaction that his perform∣ances in Spain gave to Philip is no less notorious; insomuch that his works were removed out of the Escorial by order of that King, and his fresco paintings in the cloyster replaced by others of Pe∣regrino Tibaldi. Whether Philip's expectations were raised too high by the report his emissaries in Italy had made of Zucaro's ta∣lents, or whether the vanity of the man disgusted him, which might

well be the case, so it was, that of all the artists employed at the Es∣corial, he alone fell short in exe∣cution and failed of success. At the same time, that Philip dis∣missed him from his service, he compensated him in so princely a manner for his undertaking, that I am inclined to think upon the evi∣dence of some letters, which pass∣ed between the King and his am∣bassador at Rome Don Juan de Zuniga and the Conde de Olivares, that the payments made to Zucaro were larger, than to any other painter, which came into Spain; but however he might profit in respect of interest, he certainly was a considerable loser in point of re∣putation by his adventure: Sen̄or,

says Zucaro, as he was displaying a painting of the Nativity for the great altar at the Escorial, you now behold all that art can execute; be∣yond this, which I have done, the powers of painting cannot go: The King was silent for a time, and so unmoved, that neither approba∣tion nor contempt could be deter∣mined from the expression of his countenance; at last, preserving still the same indifference, he ask∣ed if those were eggs, which one of the shepherds, in the act of running, carried in his basket; the painter answered him they were: 'Tis well he did not break them, said the King, and turned away; the picture was dismissed. Upon another occasion, when Philip ex∣pressed

his dissatisfaction with a composition Zucaro had made up∣on the subject of the Visitation, he excused himself by saying it was painted by his scholars; Philip desired him to paint the same sub∣ject with his own hand; he did so, and the second work fell short of the first, and Philip remained still more dissatisfied than before. At length he gave him his dismission, paying him, as I before observed, with an extraordinary munificence. Antonio El Obrero, who had been instrumental in recommending him to the King, kissed his Ma∣jesty's hand on the occasion, and re∣turned him thanks for his extraor∣dinary bounty to Zucaro: It is not Zucaro, replied the King, that is in

fault, the blame is their's, who re∣commended him. Peregrin Tibaldi, or Peregrin of Bologna, was a co∣pyist of the grand stile of Michael Angelo, and, as Palomino informs us, his scholar; but according to the testimony of Zanoti, whose au∣thority is to be preferred, he stu∣died under Bagnacabalo. Philip sent for him to paint the lower cloyster of the Escorial in fresco, having expunged the unsuccessful attempts of Zucaro; Peregrino ac∣quitted himself of this invidious task to the entire satisfaction of his royal employer; the figures are models of correctness, and drawn in a free and masterly stile, with great attention to truth and nature: In these paintings he has

treated the subjects of the Purifi∣cation, the Flight into Egypt, the Slaughter of the Innocents, Christ in the Temple, the Temptations in the Wilderness, the Election of the Apostles, the Resurrection of La∣zarus, the Expulsion of the Mo∣ney-changers out of the Temple and the various passages of the Passion and Resurrection of the Saviour, with other subjects of sa∣cred history. The cloyster is of the conventual sort, sad and gloomy, and neither very spacious nor lof∣ty; it was, when I saw it, very un∣cleanly, and I found it in the same condition upon repeated visits: The frescos have received great injury, not only from time and climate, but from actual violence

and notorious want of care; their effect in my opinion is by no means pleasing, whether owing to the cause above-mentioned, or the dry harsh uniformity of the co∣louring, of a red and bricky hue, unrelieved by any accompaniment, or compartment, and the sizes dis∣proportionate to the cloyster, which as I before observed is neither lofty nor wide: I have no doubt they would make a conspicuous fi∣gure as engravings, and the date of their existence might be there∣by prolonged; but that I conceive will reach its final period without reprieve of this, or any other sort. Several paintings of Peregrino are to be seen in the great church, particularly a St. Michael with the

Fall of the Angels, a Martyrdom of San Lorenzo and two very grand compositions of the Nati∣vity and Adoration, which he exe∣cuted to replace those of Zucaro on the same subjects, which Philip had rejected: The paintings in the Sagrario are by Peregrino on the subject of Abraham and Mel∣chisedech; but what above all things else establishes his reputa∣tion in Spain is the cieling of the Library: In this composition the painter has personified the Arts and Sciences in different compart∣ments; the four Doctors of the church, with several eminent an∣tient philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Seneca, accompanied with all their proper attributes and

insignia, interspersed with many beautiful groupes of children and figures in the nude, supporting the cornice and festoons, in various postures and foreshortenings of grand force and expression in the stile of Michael Angelo, in perfect drawing and admirable perspective. Peregrino was liberally rewarded by Philip and returning to Italy died at Milan in 1600, aged 73 years.

In the same year died Romuh Cincinnato the Florentine; he also was one of Philip's painters, and contributed to illuminate this aera of arts and sciences by a residence of many years in Spain, during which he made many excellent paintings, particularly in fresco, not only in the Escorial, but also

at Guadalaxara in the palace of the Duque del Infantado, a gran∣dee of an illustrious family. In the Escorial part of the great cloy∣ster is painted by Romulo Cincin∣nato; in the church there are seve∣ral of his paintings, particularly one of San Geronimo reading, and another of the same Saint, dic∣tating to his disciples, and in the choir two fresco paintings, taken from passages in the life of San Lorenzo; also a picture in the chapel of San Mauricio, apper∣taining to that church: In the Je∣suits' church at Cuenca there is a Circumcision of his painting great∣ly celebrated, particularly for the admirable effect in the foreshorten∣ing of one of the figures, which

is represented with his back turn∣ed to the spectator; of this he was so conscious, that he is reported to have declared that he prized one limb of this figure above all his paintings in the Escorial. He died in the year 1600 in an ad∣vanced age universally esteemed and lamented.

In this year Caesar Arbasia came into Spain upon the invitation of Pablo de Cespedes canon of Cordo∣va, with whom he had formed an intimacy at Rome: He re∣mained in Cordova long enough to paint the cieling of the cathe∣dral and returned into Italy.

Bartolome de Carducho accompa∣nied his master Zucaro into Spain and was employed in the Escori∣al:

He was a native of Florence and of great eminence in his art; he was concerned with Peregrin de Bolonia in painting the famous cieling of the library; the figures of Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes and Cicero are his, and do him high honour both for their execu∣tion and design: Part of the fresco in the cloysters is of his painting, and gave entire satisfaction to Phi∣lip, who rewarded him with two hundred ducats over and above his salary, and when Carducho was in∣vited into France by order of his most Christian Majesty, Philip ex∣prest such regret at the proposal of his departure, that he excused himself to the French Ambassador ••n the handsomest manner he could,

and continued in Spain. There is no doubt but Carducho passed some time at Valladolid, where several of his pictures are remaining; he painted also some pictures for the palace of Madrid, particularly one of the Last Supper, and another on the subject of the Circumcision, which is an excellent performance; but the picture, which of all others establishes his reputation in Spain, is a Descent from the Cross, which now hangs in a small chapel near the side door of the church of San Phelipe el Real in Madrid; a piece of such superior execution, that it may well be taken for one of Ra∣phael's. In the church of San Ge∣ronimo in the second chapel on the right hand there is an excellent

figure of San Francisco, the sera∣phic Patriarch, in which accord∣ing to custom he is represented wounded; there is also in the chapel of the old palace at Segovia a very respectable composition of this painter on the subject of the Adoration of the Magi, and ano∣ther over it with the supposed re∣presentation of the Padre Eterno. Carducho continued in Spain seve∣ral years after the death of Philip the second, and was appointed by the succeeding King Philip the third to paint a gallery in the pa∣lace of the Pardo; the subject was to be taken from the life and ac∣tions of the Emperor Charles: Car∣ducho begun the work, but died at the Pardo, aged 50 years, before

he had made any great progress in the completion of it. His brother Vicencio, who had studied with him, undertook to finish the gallery, which he did, but took the history of Achilles instead of that of Charles the Vth. Barto∣lome Carducho was not only an eminent painter, but a statuary and architect; he was also a man of an exemplary character, patient and content with a little, a hard student and exceedingly industri∣ous in his profession: He was much in favour with Philip the IId and his son, but he does not appear to have shared much of their liberality, though we hear of a gratuity from Philip the IId, of which I have already

taken notice. He died in the year 1610.

I have now enumerated the most eminent painters employed by Philip the IId in the Royal monastery of San Lorenzo; it re∣mains to say something of the con∣temporary artists, who were not engaged in his service at the Esco∣rial; and of these one of the first in time and of the most distin∣guished in point of merit was the celebrated Blas de Prado, a Casti∣lian, born in the neighbourhood of Toledo, and educated in the academy of Berruguete. Some of his paintings are to be found in the city of Toledo, particularly in the chapel dedicated to San Blas, but in general they have

suffered great injury by length of time and unfavourable exposures; in the churches and convents at Madrid I have been shewn some compositions of Blas de Prado, particularly in the parish church of San Pedro a Descent from the Cross, which is evidently the work of a great master. In the early part of his life, he passed into Africa upon the solicitation of the Emperor of Morocco to take a portrait of his daughter, and pas∣sed some time at that court in high favour; returning into Spain much enriched by his expedition Blas de Prado died at the age of 60 in the year 1557 in the city of Madrid.

Sofonisba Angusciola of Cremona, with her three sisters, passed some

years in Spain in the houshold of Queen Isabella: I have seen a let∣ter written by Sofonisba to Pope Pius the fourth, dated from Ma∣drid the 17th of September 1561, transmitting a portrait of the Queen above mentioned, the receipt of which his Holiness acknowledges by an answer from Rome of the 15th day of the succeeding month, highly extolling her performance, and assuring her that he has placed it amongst his most select pictures, expressing at the same time much paternal affection for the illustri∣ous lady, which it so exactly re∣presents. Palomino thinks, that Sofonisba died at Madrid in 1575, aged somewhat more than fifty years; this circumstance he men∣tions

doubtfully, but perhaps it is cleared up by Vasari, whose ac∣count of her I have not read. These examples will serve to shew that the fair sex had their share of fame at this illustrious aera of the arts; the religious orders also sub∣scribed to the national stock of genius many eminent names; in particular Father Nicolas Fattor, a Franciscan monk, born in the city of Valencia; Pablo de Cespedes of Cordova, a dignitary in that church, Father Francisco Galeas, of the or∣der of Carthusians, a native of Seville, and Father Juan de la Mi∣seria, a Carmelite friar, by birth a Neapolitan; of these Cespedes was the most eminent, a man of such diffusive talents, that there is

scarce a branch of literature in which he was not profoundly versed: He had a deep knowledge of the oriental and classic lan∣guages, and spoke several of the living ones: He composed many works, which his modesty with∣held from the world, and some, that he published: Amongst the latter is a treatise on the antiquities of his church, proving it to have been a temple of Janus, and ex∣plaining many emblems and in∣scriptions in proof of his position. In the art of painting, whether in respect of theory or practice, Ces∣pedes holds his rank with the very first names Spain has to boast of; in pursuit of this study he went twice to Rome, and formed his

stile upon the model of the great Michael Angelo, not in painting only, but in architecture and sculp∣ture also; in both which, by the happy fertility of his genius, he acquired great fame. It was his practice to model the heads of his principal figures, when he was en∣gaged in any great historical com∣position, and several of these are yet to be found in his native city of Cordova. When he was at Rome he supplied a head to a fa∣mous antique trunk of his country∣man Seneca in white marble, and acquitted himself so happily in this arduous undertaking, that he was generally thought to have ex∣celled the original, and, in testi∣mony of his triumph, the Romans

caused to be engraved upon it the following words—Victor it Spag∣nuolo. He composed a treatise, in which he compares the antient and modern art and practice of paint∣ing: His contemporaries speak of this work in high strains, but it is unfortunately lost to the world, together with one in verse on the general subject of painting; for the talents of this extraordinary man, amidst the circle of arts and sciences, which they embraced, are reported to have excelled in that of poetry. Cespedes composed several pictures during his resi∣dence at Rome, and in the church of the Holy Trinity he was em∣ployed amongst the principal art∣ists of the time, and left there

some paintings in fresco of distin∣guished excellence: Amongst these artists Federico Zucaro was engaged, with whom Cespedes formed an in∣timate and lasting friendship; as I have been led to give some in∣stances of Zucaro's vanity on a former occasion, I am more happy in recording, to the credit of his candour and modesty, that, when he was applied to by the Bishop and Chapter of Cordova for a painting of Santa Margarita, to be affixed to the high altar of the cathedral, he peremptorily de∣clined the commission, giving for answer, that while Pablo de Ces∣pedes was in Spain, there would be no occasion to send into Italy for pictures: Though the works of

Cespedes are dispersed in Seville and the cities of Andalusia, it is in Cordova, that we must expect to find his principal performances, particularly his famous composi∣tion of the Last Supper in the high church: Palomino gives this picture great commendation for the nice discrimination of charac∣ters in Christ and his disciples, and relates a circumstance of the dis∣gust, which Cespedes conceived from the silly adoration of some of his countrymen, who were so en∣chanted with the execution of some vases and jars of porcelain intro∣duced into the piece, that they to∣tally overlooked the superior parts of the composition, and, this be∣ing repeated upon several visits by

the mob of spectators, which the fame of so great a work drew to∣gether, it angered him to that de∣gree, that he would have pro∣ceeded to strike out all these sub∣servient ornaments from his piece, is he had not been diverted from his purpose by the intreaties of his friends and the submission of these false and contemptible admirers. As a colourist, Spain never pro∣duced a painter superior to Ces∣pedes: In anatomy, drawing and perspective he was peculiarly cor∣rect: His angels in the Martyr∣dom of Santa Catalina, a picture which he painted for the late Je∣suits' college at Cordova, are touch∣ed with all the colouring and ef∣fect of Coregio, whom he much

resembled in those particulars. This great man is no less cele∣brated for his extraordinary virtue, modesty and humility, than for the variety and extent of his ge∣nius; he died at Cordova in 1608, being turned of seventy, and is interred in the cathedral under a stone, on which the following words are engraved, viz. Paulus de Ces∣pedes, hujus almae ecclesiae Porcio∣narius. Picturae, sculpturae, archi∣tecturae, omniumque bonarum artium, variarumque linguarum peritissimus, hic situs est, obiit anno Dom. MDCVIII. septimo Kalendas Sex∣tilis. Of the other religious art∣ists before mentioned Father Ni∣colas Fattor died in the year 1588, after being admitted to a conver∣sation

in person with our Lady of Atocha: Francisco Galeas died in 1614, and Juan de la Miseria two years after him: This last-men∣tioned person travelled into Spain, as a hermit, to visit the tomb of the holy apostle Saint James, and, coming afterwards to Madrid, was taken into protection of the court, and received into the house of Alonso Sanchez Coello, painter and favourite of Philip the IId, with whom he studied several years, and painted many excellent pictures, chiefly portraits; amongst these one, which he was admitted to draw of the person of Santa Te∣resa the nun, by which he gained great reputation; and another of the most blessed Virgin, with which

he is said to have performed many miracles.

Luis de Vargas was one of the greatest painters of the sixteenth century; he was born in Seville, and studied painting in Italy, as well as in his own country; he returned to Seville, after seven years residence at Rome, and, find∣ing himself excelled in his art by Antonio Florez and Pedro Campana, he returned without delay back to Rome, and, after serving another apprenticeship of seven years to his art, returned so compleat a master, that the famous Perez de Alesio, contemplating his picture of our First Parents in the cathe∣dral of Seville, exclaimed in rap∣ture at the performance, that one

limb of the Adam of de Vargas was worth more than the whole composition of his colossal Saint Christopher; and, returning into Italy soon after, gave that remark∣able testimony of his own candour and the merit of de Vargas, of which we have before taken no∣tice.

There are several paintings by de Vargas in the famous cathedral of Seville, particularly in the tow∣er, which was his last work. Luis de Vargas was not less remark∣able for his devotion, than for his talents, and, following the exam∣ple of the great emperor Charles, he used at his private hours to deposit himself in a coffin, which he kept in his closet, and in that

posture pursue his meditation up∣on death: This event, for which he used such edifying preparation, took place in the year 1590.

In endeavouring to apportion their due degrees of merit to the several Spanish painters of this aera, so fruitful in arts, I sensibly feel the insufficiency of descrip∣tion, and have more than once desisted from my work in despair of giving any thing to the world worth its notice and acceptance. The description of a picture, like that of a battle, rarely brings its object before the reader, though it be ever so scientifically exe∣cuted: I know no method of speaking intelligibly on the sub∣ject of any particular Spanish

painter, whose name and character are unknown to the rest of Eu∣rope, except by comparing him with some artist of general noto∣riety; and yet Spain has produced some, whose manner is so much their own, that it will not be il∣lustrated by any known compari∣son; of this sort was the great artist whom I am next to men∣tion, Juan Bau^a. Juanes, a na∣tive of Valencia; a man, whose ce∣lebrity would rank with that of the first artists of the age of Leo X, if his works laid in the track of travellers, or by happy emanci∣pation could be set at liberty, and made to circulate through the ca∣binets of Europe. Juanes, like Morales, selected his subjects,

without an instance to the contrary, from the most sacred passages of revelation; but his life, unlike that of Morales, was in unison with the purity and austerity of his taste; prepared by confession and fasting, he first approached the al∣tar before he visited the easel; painting with him was an act of piety and devotion: The charac∣ters, which filled his canvass, were of the holiest sort, and, as he gave them life, he gave them adoration: As the exercise of his art was in him an office of devotion, so his moderation kept him from en∣gaging in any private commissions with a view to gain; and I am inclined to doubt if any picture of Juanes is at this hour in lay pos∣session:

Both Pacheco, and Lauren∣tio Surio give him high encomi∣ums; these he most unquestionably merits, but credulity will never go such lengths upon their autho∣rity, or that of Palomino, as to rank him not only before Morales, but above Rafael himself: As there is much to be ascribed to national prejudice, so there is something to be excused in it: Certain it is, the pictures of Juanes are finished with astonishing truth, colouring and beauty; though they are laboured to a minuteness, that lets not even a hair escape, still their force is unimpaired, and the sublimity of design suffers no prejudice by the delicacy of its execution; as every work is the work of the heart,

nothing is neglected or left, every figure is laboured into life, and the labour is the labour of love, not the task of the hireling: It is greatly to be lamented, that these precious remains are shut in the convents of Valencia, without any hope of delivery and that free dis∣play, of which the mortmain of superstition seems for ever to de∣prive them. In the sacristy of the church of San Pedro in Valencia there will be found a Christ by Juanes, a San Sebastian and a San Francisco de Paula in the convent of the last-named order: In the chapel of San Francisco de Borja there is a Santa Ines, and in the chapel of Santo Thomas de Villa∣nueva, belonging to the Augus∣tine

monks of San Julian, there are three grand compositions by this master; that in the middle on the subject of the Nativity, with the Martyrdom of Santa Ines on one side and the Burial of a de∣vout priest of that chapel, named Moses Bauta. Agnesio on the other side. As soon as you enter the cathedral of Valencia, on your left hand hangs a picture of the Baptism of Christ in the river Jor∣dan by this artist; he has intro∣duced the persons of some Saints, present at this scene, by privileged anachronism; as Rafael has done in his famous Madona del Pez in the Escorial: This composition of Juanes is entirely in the stile of the great master above-mentioned;

the heads are excellent, the ex∣pression just and natural, and the execution delicate in the highest degree; the glory above, with the Padre eterno and the groupe of Seraphim is managed with infinite art and effect. That Juanes was a copyist of Rafael appears from the example of a Holy Family, painted by him, now in the ca∣thedral of Valencia, in which the Nino Jesus is an exact transcript of that in Rafael's Madona del Pez, but touched with all the spirit of an original; many other paintings of Juanes will be found in Valen∣cia; but care must be taken to distinguish his true pictures, as several of his scholars have passed their works under his name; that,

for which he is chiefly celebrated, is his composition on the subject of the Immaculate Conception in the late college of the Jesuits in that city; this picture is the ob∣ject of general veneration, and by the devout and credulous consi∣dered as an actual original, or very little removed from an ori∣ginal; for the tradition runs, that it was painted by the order of Father Martin Alberto, to whom the blessed Virgin condescended to appear on the eve of the Assump∣tion, and required the holy Father to cause her portrait to be taken in the dress she then wore, which was a white frock, or tunic, with a blue cloak, together with the fol∣lowing accompaniments, viz. at

her feet the moon, over head the Padre eterno and her most blessed Son, in the act of placing a crown on her head, with the Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, hovering over the groupe. Alberto, who was all obedience to the sacred vi∣sitor, communicated to Juanes the honourable office of fulfilling the commands, which he himself was unable to execute: the devout painter sate to work with extraor∣dinary preparations for the task, and, having sketched a groupe af∣ter the description of Alberto, pre∣sented it to the Father for his opi∣nion; the first design being found imperfect and unlike, Juanes was incited to address himself to the undertaking with fresh and more

elaborate acts of penitence and contrition; no austerities deterred Juanes; whilst the Father assisted him with his prayers the work succeeded, for every touch was sanctified, and his pencil, like a sword blest and made invincible by the Pope, never missed its stroke. Some intervals there were, in which the work stood still, and then the painter would sit looking and pondering on his canvass, till the happy inspiration seized him and the prayers of Father Alberto gave him fortitude and vigour to resume the task. Pacheco relates an anecdote so much to the credit of the parties concerned, that it would be wrong to omit it; which is, that the pious Juanes, being

one day seated on a scaffold at work upon the upper parts of this picture, the frame gave way, and the painter, being in the act of falling, the holy personage, whose portrait he had finished, stept sud∣denly forward out of the canvass, and, seizing his hand, preserved him from the fall: This being done, and Juanes safe landed on the floor, the gracious Lady with all possible composure returned to her post, and has continued there ever since, dispensing her favours to her supplicants and worshippers, and is universally believed, upon the testimony of Alberto, to be an exact counterpart of the original; and indeed, if we admit the cir∣cumstance of the rescue, I do not

see how we can dispute the like∣ness, which I should guess, from the same circumstance, had not erred on the unfavourable side: With legends of this sort Pacheco's book is filled; a specimen or two will serve to shew the credulity and superstition of the time: I shall give this very sparingly, and I hope without offence to the opi∣nions of any reasonable man. This great artist died in 1579, in the town of Bocairente in Valen∣cia, after having painted the great altar of that church, which was his last work. In the year 1581 his body was removed agreeable to his last will and testament to the parish church of Santa Cruz in Valencia from that of Bocairente

attended by a considerable train of secular priests and others. Re∣duced by religious austerities and mortifications, he died at the age of fifty-six years: By his piety he merited a place in the calendar of Saints, by his genius a name amongst the first class of his art; high in the school of Rafael at least, if not on a level with the great master himself.

Juan Labrador a Spaniard, was a scholar of the Divino Morales and the best painter of fruits and flowers and of still-life in general, that Spain ever produced; he died in 1600 at Madrid at a very ad∣vanced age.

Juan Pantoia de la Cruz was born in Madrid, and studied under the

celebrated Alonso Sanchez Coello, whom he succeeded as painter of the chamber to Philip the IId; he chiefly excelled in portraits and died in 1610.

I have now nearly enumerated the principal artists, who flourish∣ed in Spain during the reign of Philip the second; that prince died in September 1598, at his fa∣vourite monastery of San Lorenzo in the most deplorable and loath∣some state of misery, to which hu∣man nature can be reduced before its actual dissolution: It must be acknowledged he was a liberal pro∣tector of the arts; the great work of the Escorial, in which his pride and superstition engaged him, gave occupation and display to many

eminent men: The genius; which this encouragement called up, ap∣pears to have lost none of its force during the reign of his son and suc∣cessor Philip the IIId. Artists of dis∣tinguished abilities will be found in this period. Bartolome Gonzalez, a native of Valladolid and a dis∣ciple of Patricio Caxes, came to Madrid in 1606, and was made King's painter upon his arrival; he made many portraits of the Austrian family for the palace of the Pardo in a very excellent stile; though he was of an advanced age, when he entered into the service of King Philip the IIId. for he died at the age of sixty-three, in the year 1611, in the city of Madrid.

Juan de Solo and Juan de Chisinos

were natives of Madrid, both emi∣nent artists and both died in the year 1620. In the same year died El Doctor Pablo de las Roellas of Seville, and the Cartusian monk Padre Luis Pasqual Gaudin, born at Villafranca in Biscay; the for∣mer of these was a scholar of Ti∣tiano's, and left many respectable monuments of his art at Cordova and Seville. Phelipe de Liano was born at Madrid, was a scholar of Alonso Sanchez Coello, and became so famous for portraits of a small size, which he executed with such spirit, that he got the name of El Ticiano Pequino; he died in 1625: This year was also fatal to the fa∣mous Patricio Caxes, a noble Flo∣rentine, in the service of Philip

the IIId. who engaged him to paint the Queen's gallery at the Pardo in fresco. The story which Caxes chose was that of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar, a subject not very flattering to female delicacy, but it perished with many other works of art in the lamentable fire, which consumed that palace.

Dominico Teotocopoli, commonly called El Greco, flourished in this aera; there are many remains of his art, both as painter, staruary and architect in the cities of New Cas∣tile. He came so near the manner of his master Titiano, that many of his pictures have passed upon the world under that character; this it seems was not fame sufficient for the vanity of Dominico; but in his

efforts at originality he has exposed himself to the ridicule of all good judges: When he departs from Titiano, he departs from nature and substitutes in her stead an ex∣travagance of design, with so faulty a mode both of colouring and drawing, that he is no longer the same master: Of this sort are his paintings in the convent of Donna Maria de Aragon at Madrid, and the picture which he drew for the Escorial by order of Philip the IId. on the subject of the martyrdom of San Mauricio and his compa∣nions: Philip was too good a judge not to see the extravagance of his composition, and refused it a place in his collection; Dominico Greco made humble suit to save the credit

of his work, and it is likely was convinced of the errors, into which he had been led by an affectation of singularity, for he made some corrections; after which his pic∣ture was, with some degree of dif∣ficulty, admitted to a place, though not very conspicuous in the Sala de Capitulo; whilst Romulo Cin∣cinnato was deputed in his stead to the more honourable task of paint∣ing an altar-piece for the chapel of the Saint above mentioned. In the cathedral of Toledo there are some pictures by Dominico in his best manner, which are admirable performances; particularly a grand composition on the parting of the raiment of our Saviour before his crucifixion, which hangs in the sa∣cristy,

and is so entirely in the stile and manner of Titiano, that his re∣putation could have suffered no in∣jury by its adoption. In the same place are the twelve Apostles by the same master, but in an inferior stile. In the parish church of Santo Tomé is a very capital picture of Dominico's on the interment of Don-Gonzalo Ruiz of Toledo; this illustrious person, who was Conde de Orgaz, founded an Augustine convent un∣der the title of San Estevan in the city of Toledo, in commemoration of which pious act Dominico has re∣presented San Augustin and San Estevan in the act of placing his body in the tomb: This picture cost the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Don Gaspar de Quiroga, two thousand

ducats, a great sum in the year 1584, when it was executed at the suit of the parish priest of Santo Tomé and put up in that church, which, as well as the convent be∣fore mentioned, was founded by this noble and devout person: This picture, and that on the part∣ing of our Saviour's raiment are the most capital performances of this author in Spain; there are va∣rious others however both at To∣ledo and Madrid, but chiefly at the former city, which would well repay the curiosity of a tra∣veller: At Illescas, which is half way between the said cities, the church of the Hospital de la Caridad was designed by Dominico, and is, with its altars, carvings

and paintings, a very respectable proof of his merit, in the several elegant arts which he professed: He was near eighty years old, when he died at Toledo in 1635, and was interred in the parish church of San Bartolomé. Domi∣nico Greco was the first painter in Spain, who had the spirit to oppose the exaction of a royal tax upon the pictures painted and sold by living masters, which he litigated and obtained a favourable decree.

Diego de Romulo Cincinnato was son and scholar of the elder Ro∣mulo, painter to Philip the IId; he entered into the service of Don Fernando Enriquez de Ribera, third Duke of Alcala, and went with him to Rome, when he was ap∣pointed

ambassador extraordinary from Philip the IVth, for the pur∣pose of doing homage to Pope Urban the VIIIth; he painted his Holiness three several times, and so much to his satisfaction, with such applause from all the artists at Rome, that he was rewarded with many handsome presents and made a Knight of Christ in Por∣tugal, where the ceremony was performed by Cardinal Trexo Par∣riagua, a Spaniard: This was done in presence of the Duke of Alcala, his patron, in the house of the Cardinal before-mentioned, who gave him a gold chain and the medal of the order: This passed in December of the year 1625, and in the year following this in∣genious

artist died in the city of Rome, and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo, with all the cere∣monials due to a Knight of the order and a man of so distinguished a genius. Philip the IVth of Spain had the consideration to so∣licit his Holiness to transfer the dignity of Knight of Christ to Francisco the brother of Diego, which was accordingly done.

Francisco and Juan Ribalta were father and son, born in Valencia, and painters of such equal emi∣nence, that it is exceedingly dif∣ficult to distinguish their respec∣tive hands; the father's pictures are however rather more finished than those of the son's, which, on their part, have the advantage in

force and effect: In many of his pictures he appears to have pro∣posed his countryman Juanes for his model, and sometimes paints so like his contemporary Vicencio Carducho the Florentine, as scarce to be distinguished from him; of this sort is his picture of the Last Supper on the high altar of the college of the Patriarch in Valen∣cia, which, if compared with that of Carducho on the same subject upon the high altar of the church of the nuns of Corpus Christi in Madrid, will be found so exactly corresponding in stile and manner, that both might pass for the work of either master. One of the best works of Ribalta in Valencia is a dead Christ in the hall of the chap∣ter-house

of the Carmelitish con∣vent, copied from Sebastian del Piombo, the original of which is in the Royal collection: In this same place are two other copies from Piombo of admirable exe∣cution. It is related of Fran∣cisco Ribalta, that, having painted a crucifixion for the Pope's nuncio in Spain, the picture was carried to Rome, and, upon being shewn to an eminent painter in that city, he immediately exclaimed—O Di∣vino Rafaelo! judging it to be a capital performance of that master; upon being told of his mistake by the nuncio, he proceeded to exa∣mine it afresh with great attention, and concluded with a common Spanish proverb, Que verdadera∣mente

donde yeguas hay patros nacen; viz. Where there are mares there will be colts; importing, that all countries may at times produce extraordinary men. Francisco Ri∣balta died in Valencia in 1600, and his son in 1630; he had the ho∣nour of being the first master of Ribera called Span̄olet.

Adriano of Cordova was a lay brother of the barefooted Carme∣lites; his works are few and con∣fined to the city abovementioned; the chief composition is a cruci∣fixion, in which he has introduced the mother of Christ, San Juan and la Magdalena, with other fi∣gures of half length, in the man∣ner of Rafael Sadeler, to whom he was greatly attached; this picture

is in the antichamber to the sa∣cristy of the Carmelitish convent at Cordova, in which city Adriano died in the year 1630. This artist was so diffident of himself, that he used to deface or destroy his pic∣tures, as soon as he had executed them; and so general was this practice with him, that his friends took occasion to intercede with him for the preservation of his va∣luable productions in the name of the souls in purgatory, knowing his attachment to the holy offices in their behalf: By this mode of exorcism, the destroying spirit, which his self-dissatisfaction had conjured up, was kept in cheek, and thanks to the souls in purga∣tory! some very valuable pictures

were rescued from extinction by their influence and authority.

Vicencio Carducho, a Florentine, the brother and scholar of Bartho∣lome Carducho, was King's painter in the reigns of Philip the IIId and IVth: He was in singular esteem and favour with those princes and employed in many eminent works at the palace of the Pardo; the works of this master are to be found in all the cities of Castile, in Toledo, Salamanca, Segovia, Alcala and Valladolid, as well as in Madrid, where he died in 1638; this date is ascertained by the fol∣lowing memorandum, inscribed on a picture of San Geronimo, in the great church of Alcala de He∣nares—Vincentius Carduchi Floren∣tinus,

hic vitam non opus finin anno 1638. He died at the age of 70 years: He instructed the fa∣mous Rizi, who was painter to Philip the IVth and Charles the IId, and formed many other dis∣ciples in his academy.

Philip the IIId died and was succeeded in 1621 by his son Phi∣lip the IVth, a great patron of the arts, in whose time flourished men of very illustrious talents. In 1623 Charles Prince of Wales came to Madrid, upon a youthful sally of gallantry, to throw him∣self at the feet of the Infanta, sister of Philip, and conclude, as he be∣lieved, a treaty of marriage, which had been long in dependence and obstructed by many difficulties and

delays: In this expedition he was accompanied by Pedro Pablo Ru∣bens of Antwerp: This great mas∣ter was then in his forty-sixth year; had concluded a long course of study in Italy, being in high esti∣mation, upon his return to Flan∣ders, and greatly in favour with the Archduke Albert and the In∣fanta Donna Isabel Clara Eugenia his spouse; he had painted several pictures by order of the Emperor and of the King of England, and had visited Paris, where, by order of Mary of Medicis, he had exe∣cuted his famous paintings for the Luxembourg palace with great credit and success. Charles had an early passion for the arts, and was greatly attached to his fellow

traveller; the honours, which the King of Spain lavished upon his Royal visitor with all the profuse magnificence, that Spanish gal∣lantry could devise, extended themselves to the person of his in∣genious companion. Olivares, then the minister of Spain, had splendor, and Philip was in pos∣session of taste: Rubens was in turns caressed by both; the Royal collections of the Escorial, Pardo and Madrid opened to his view an inexhaustible magazine of arts. Mr. Horace Walpole is mistaken in thinking Rubens was in Spain, during the administration of the Duke of Lerma: This was not so. Rubens had studied Titiano and Pablo Verones at Venice with

distinguishing attention; the cabi∣nets of Philip now displayed such superb compositions of these mas∣ters, particularly of Titiano, as equally captivated both the painter and the Prince; Rubens, by order of the Catholic King, copied the Europa, the Baths of Diana, and several other pictures of Titiano, which Charles had particularly ad∣mired; when these copies were finished, it was expected, that Philip should present them to the Prince of Wales, and the compli∣ment would surely have been a worthy one both to Charles and to his favourite artist; but the ge∣nerosity of Philip meditated greater lengths, and in truth it scarce knew any bounds towards his

princely guest: He retained to himself the copies and sent to Charles the originals. It is pro∣per in this place to observe, that these valuable originals returned again to the possession of the King of Spain, when Charles, by the instigation of Buckingham, made occasion to dissolve his engage∣ments with the Infanta: to reject the sister and yet to retain the pre∣sents of the Catholic monarch would have been a conduct irre∣concileable to the spirit and prin∣ciples of Charles; though his at∣tachment to the arts was as ardent as any man's, he had the senti∣ments of a gentleman and pride of honour superior even to his love of the art of painting. In

the event of things it has come to pass, that Charles, instead of tak∣ing from the Royal stock in Spain, has been the means of some addi∣tions to it of the highest value. Charles, having taken his depar∣ture for England, and the high punctilio of the Spanish monarch having supported ifself to the latest moment of his abode, by erecting a pillar on the spot, where they parted, Rubens at the same time returned to Flanders; and Philip, having now compleated his hunt∣ing-seat of the Torre de la Prada, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, applied to that artist for several pictures in character with the pa∣lace, with exact descriptions of the sizes of the canvasses and the

rooms and positions in which they were to be hung; all these were executed by Rubens, and trans∣mitted to the King, who highly approved of them: many of the dogs and other animals in these hunting-pieces were put in by his scholars Azneira and Pedro de Vos, who excelled in that branch of the art. About this time the Conde Duque de Olivares, Philip's mini∣ster, had compleated his founda∣tion of a convent of barefooted Carmelites, at the little town of Loeches, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, now belonging to his Excellency the Duque de Alba. Philip, to do a grace to his fa∣vourite and to make a merit with the religious of that order, com∣missioned

Rubens for some pic∣tures, which he executed in his grandest stile, and richest glow of colours: Two of these, which flank the altar, are of considerable dimensions, and, in point of exe∣cution, not to be exceeded by any of the master; the first is an alle∣gorical composition on the Tri∣umph of Religion, which he has personified and habited very grace∣fully: This figure is seated in a su∣perb triumphal carr, drawn by four angels, with others in atten∣dance, bearing the cross and other symbols, properly in character; four figures, that express the va∣rious characters of Infidelity, or Ignorance, over which Religion is supposed to triumph, follow the

carr, like slaves or captives, bound with chains; whilst the piece is crowned with beautiful cheru∣bims, that hover over the groupe, with chaplets of various descrip∣tions in their hands, disposed with singular art and astonishing effect: The other, which companions it in size, is the Interview of Abra∣ham and Melchisedech, who of∣fers him bread and the tenth of the spoils; in the drapery of the priests, and the armour of the sol∣diers, Rubens has exhausted every resource, that his fund of colour∣ing could supply; there are two other pictures in this small but precious collection of the same author, and of equal size and ex∣cellence with the above, that can∣not

be passed over in silence; they hang in the choir, that on the left∣hand represents the four Doctors of the church with Santo Thomas, San Buenaventura and Santa Clara; its companion on the opposite side represents the Four Evangelists, with their proper emblems, com∣positions of unspeakable majesty and expression: The original sketch of this latter piece is preserved in the Sitio of the Buen Retiro, that of the Doctors in the palace of Madrid. It is painful to observe, that these magnificent perform∣ances are suffering daily for want of new straining and the obvious repairs, which, if not speedily ap∣plied, these monuments of art

will be in ruin: In the nave of the church there are two other large compositions by Rubens, the one of Elias and the Angel comfort∣ing him in the desart, the other of the Israelites gathering manna; the fcenery in both these pictures is uncommonly beautiful, so is the sky in the latter: The drapery of Elias is finely disposed; but, as the painter has neglected to dreis the Prophet in the habit of a Car∣melite, the holy Fathers, who claim him as the founder of their order, are not a little scandalized by the omission. I cannot inform myself upon what proofs these rigid devotees carry up the pedigree of their order to the asoresaid pro∣phet; but, whatever, flaws a scru∣pulous

enquirer might find in their title, this I am sure of, that the strength of their faith can make up for the weakness of the autho∣rity: The Angel in this piece is coloured to a miracle, and, as the Fathers do not claim to derive from him, there is no exception to the habit, which the painter has thought fit to give him. The fi∣gures in these pieces are above na∣tural size.

The three great kingdoms of Europe (Spain, France and Eng∣land) were at this time governed by the ministers Olivares, Richelieu and Buckingham; it was the reign of favourites: Buckingham, who had more caprice and less genius than either of his contemporaries,

had nevertheless contracted a great esteem for Rubens, during their expedition to Madrid; this was not directed to his professional ta∣lents, but to those qualities and good conduct, which undoubtedly he had, and which Buckingham sagaciously enough determined to call forth, when any great occasion should present itself: Such was now in view; Buckingham was at Paris, negociating a marriage be∣tween Charles, who had lately suc∣ceeded to the throne, and the prin∣cess Mary, whom that prince had seen at Paris in his way to Spain, and of whose beauty and attractions we have such striking testimo∣nials under the hand of Vandyke. Though Buckingham at Madrid

had wantonly avowed eternal en∣mity to the minister of Spain, he now entered upon a correspondence with Rubens on the means of recon∣ciling the kingdoms, and this pro∣duced the second visit, which that artist paid to Madrid in quality of ambassador extraordinary from the court of Brussels in the year 1628. He staid nine months in Madrid on this negociation, and, being at times confined to his chamber by the gout in his feet, he took the opportunity of working at his easel; in which time he compleated eight grand pictures for the great saloon of the palace, of which his famous Rape of the Sabines was one, and also his Battle of the Romans and the Sabines. In this period, such

was the rapidity of his pencil, that he took five several portraits of King Philip, one of which is equestrian and grouped with se∣veral other figures; a magnificent performance, and for which he re∣ceived a magnificent reward, with the honour of knighthood, of naturalization and the golden key, as gentleman of the chamber. He painted the Infanta a half-length, and the King of the same size by commission from the Arch-duchess Isabella; he made five or six other portraits of illustrious persons.

Superior to the little vain punc∣tilios of his art, he returned with ardour to his task of copying the most capital works of Titiano in the royal possession, such as the

Venus and Adonis, the Venus and Cupid, the Adam and Eve and many others, with several por∣traits, particularly of the Land∣grave, the Duke of Saxony and the great Alva; he made a con∣siderable addition to his grand composition on the Adoration of the Magi, which now holds so con∣spicuous a place in the Madrid col∣lection; of all the crown of Spain possesses of the works of this emi∣nent master, this picture of the Adoration appears to me the most superb and brilliant; and his dead Christ in the Sala del Capitulo of the Escorial the most touching and expressive: I have never yet sound any picture, that speaks so strong∣ly to the passions as this last:

Amongst the capital performances of Rafael, Titiano and others, this composition has attracted, and will probably continue to attract little notice or applause, but I am bold to believe every spectator, who shall review this wonderful collec∣tion with independent taste and de∣termination not to be told what he is to feel, and where he is to ad∣mire, and will stop a while to con∣template the tragic spectacle of a mangled Saviour, surrounded by a groupe of such mourners, as seem to feel a sorrow, like the object, which creates it, more than hu∣man, will own with me that Ru∣bens in this affecting piece has touched the passions with some∣thing more than a painter's, with a

poet's hand. Contemplating this picture, I could not help calling to mind the bitterness of Mengs' criticism, when he is comparing Rubens' copy of Titiano to a Dutch translation of an elegant author; and in this train of thinking I could not avoid drawing a comparison in my mind between the piece before me and that, which Mengs himself has composed on the like subject: The scene is the same, the actors the same, and the catastro∣phe not to be diversified: But with Mengs all is lifeless, cold and flat; methodized by art and measured by rule; the groupe of an academy, sitters for attitudes and hirelings for sorrow; the dead body of the Christ is laid out and in like man∣ner

exposed to view in the one case as in the other, but what a contrast! Mengs has indeed labour∣ed hard to make a beautiful corpse; he has rounded the muscles, and polished the skin, and given it such a hue, that it ceases to be flesh, and is a shining waxen figure with no trace of pain or sufferings past; look upon the other, and you contemplate, as it should seem, the very person, who himself bore our sorrows on the tree, by whose stripes we are healed: Yet Mengs is the author, whom courtly pre∣judice has put above comparison in Spain, whom not to admire is treason against state, and whose worship is become canonical, a part almost of the orthodox ido∣latry

of their religion: Mengs is the critic, who, professedly treat∣ing of the collection of pictures in the palace at Madrid, can afford no commendation or description of Reubens's capital picture of the Adoration and records his name apparently with no other view but to make a needless sacrifice of it to that of Titiano, whom it seems he had had the temerity to copy.

It is hardly to be believed, that Rubens during these nine months finished several other considerable pictures, particularly his Martyr∣dom of the apostle San Andres, which now makes the altar-piece of the Flemish chapel, an enchant∣ing composition. I have related that he arrived in Spain in the year

1628; on the 26th of April in the year following he took his de∣parture, not without many dis∣tinguishing tokens of favour from his Catholic Majesty, by whose order the Conde Duque de Oli∣vares presented Rubens with a ring worth two thousand ducats; he was also made secretary to the privy council at the court of Brus∣sels for his life, with the succession to his son Alberto, a very consider∣able benefice. Having now attend∣ed him to the time of his leaving Spain, I shall commit him for the remainder of his career to his more professed biographers, observing only, that he formed a sriendship in Madrid with the great Spanish painter Diego Velazquez de Silva,

which friendship was continued by a correspondence, that lasted many years.

Juan del Castillo of Seville was a painter of eminence and in great repute as a master and instructor in the art; he had the double ho∣nour of being disciple of Luis de Vargas, and teacher of Bartolome Murillo; the famous Alonso Cano, and Pedro de Moya were likewise his scholars: He died at Cadiz, aged 56, in the year 1640.

At this period of time, under the fostering auspices of Philip the fourth, such a host of artists pre∣sent themselves to my view, that, whilst I perceive the impracticabi∣lity of recording all, I feel repug∣nance at omitting any; as I would

not willingly present to the public a mere catalogue of painters and their works, so neither would I strain the truth of circumstances by endeavouring at variety. In this dilemma therefore I have judged it best to select some of the most eminent, and pass over the less interesting in silence; amongst the former Eugenio Caxes undoubtedly deserves a place, if it were only that he was found worthy to be of the list of King's painters, and to enter into com∣petition with the celebrated Velaz∣quez in the branches both of his∣torical and portrait painting: Though he was a native of Madrid, yet his father Patricio, by whom he was educated in his art, was a

Florentine: Philip the fourth sate in person to Eugenio, but what became of the picture, or whether it is in existence, I have not been able to discover; it was his fate, with many others, to be eclipsed by the superior lustre of Velazquez's talents, and from the time that artist entered into the royal service and employ, Eugenio principally employed his talents in painting for the convents and churches, who, in emulation of the court, held forth a very liberal encourage∣ment to the arts: The convent of San Phelipe in the city of Madrid contained the chief collection of this master's works, where they perished by fire together with the convent itself in 1718: He was

jointly engaged with Vicencio Car∣ducho in the frescos of the Pardo, where the like fatal accident again consumed his labours with many others equally to be lamented: He died in 1642, at the age of sixty-five.

In the same year died Pedro Orrente, by others called Pedro Rente, born in Murcia, and Fa∣miliar of the Inquisition in that city, a disciple of Bassan, and pro∣tected by the minister Olivares, who employed him in the paint∣ings, then collecting at the palace of the Buen Retiro: Many of his works are to be found in Valencia and Cordova, and some at Toledo, particularly a Santa Leocadia com∣ing out of the sepulchre, over the

door of the sacristy of the cathe∣dral, and in the chapel de los Reyes nuevos belonging to the said church a Nativity, which compa∣nions an Adoration of the Magi by Caxes before-mentioned; both which are excellent compositions and finely executed: He coloured in the stile of his master, but in his choice of nature did not imi∣tate his vulgarity of taste; in cor∣rectness of drawing he has been rarely exceeded: He was buried in the parish church of San Barto∣lome at Toledo, in which he died far advanced in years, and is de∣servedly to be numbered amongst the most eminent Spaniards of his profession.

Francisco Fernandez and Alonso

Vazquez, were the favourite disci∣ples, the one of Carducho and the other of the celebrated Luis d•• Vargas: Vazquez was a native o•• Ronda, and practised his art it the city of Seville: His figures in the nude are drawn with grea•• truth and anatomical skill; they are slight and sketch-like, bu•• executed with effect and force•• whilst he was painting in Seville•• Francisco Pacheco (from whos•• treatise some of these anecdote•• are drawn) was keeping an acade¦my in that city, with great repu¦tation and success; Velazquez, wh•• afterwards rose to such high ho¦nours and favour with his King•• was a disciple of Pacheco's at thi•• time, Vazquez and Pacheco wer••

rival artists and painted some pic∣tures professedly in competition for the cathedral of the convent of barefooted Carmelites, and other places; the manner of Pa∣checo, though learned and cor∣rect, was harsh and dry in the ex∣treme, so that Vazquez was much the more popular painter of the two; and young Velazquez, who about this time married Pacheco's daughter, did not think fit to es∣pouse his taste and formed him∣self upon other models. There is a little couplet upon a crucifix of Pacheco's, which satyrizes this harshness of manner with so much smartness, and such neatness of versification, that I present it in the original to the reader:

Quien os puso assi, Sen̄or, Tan desabrido y tan seco, Vos me direis que el amor. Mas yo digo, que Pacheco.

Nothing can be more musical than the chime of the words, but the idea cannot be well conveyed in English. It seems natural for academicians like Pacheco, who are so much concerned in the grammar of their art, to contract a stiff pedantic stile, as was the case, but his pictures are said to be good studies, and, if he was not a painter of the first manner, he appears to have been a great master and author in his art. He was a man of liberal sentiments, strict morals and uncommon me∣desty:

He died in Seville in 1654, having survived his competitor Vazquez four years. As to Francisco Fernandez, who was unquestion∣ably one of the first artists of his time, he died in 1646 at Madrid, of which place he was a native, being killed by Francisco de Baras in a sudden fit of passion, at the age of forty-two years, universally regretted.

Joses de Ribera, known to Eu∣rope by the name of Il Spagnoleto, was a native of Xativa in the kingdom of Valencia; a country rich in natural productions and of a most happy temperature in point of climate: In this particu∣lar it has been frequently com∣pared to Greece, and, like Greece,

has been found uncommonly pre∣liric in giving birth to men of genius and talents. How far the growth and culture of the human mind may, like vegetable nature, depend upon the skiey influences, there is no need at present to en∣quire; the seeds of genius, like those of any other tender plant, may well be supposed susceptible of nutrition, advancement or re∣pression, by the operations of the atmosphere; and if this obtains in the general, I think we may con∣clude for it more strongly in fa∣vour of the particular art now un∣der consideration, than of any other perhaps in the whole cata∣logue of human study or inven∣tion: Painting, which is an ope∣ration

manual as well as mental, demands the joint vigour and ex∣ertion of body and mind; it should seem that there is in demand a force of atmosphere to brace the corporeal system and at the same time such a degree of genial warmth and relaxation of climate, as shall give imagination its full play and scope; these can only be obtained in those happy latitudes, where our scene is now laid. It is needless perhaps to observe, that there must be proper lights for the creation of the art and there should be a commodious tempera∣ture for their preservation and continuance: These are to be had in their highest perfection in Spain, as well as Greece. If the Ice∣lander

in his native climate ever should experience the impulse of a painter's genius, the year itself would not supply many hours in which his fingers could obey its summons; and in the other extre∣mity of climate, where every fibre is unstrung by relaxation, all, who have experienced, know the inap∣titude both of mind and body to∣wards any action or employ of ei∣ther; unfit alike for arts and arms, the emasculate and soft inhabitant sinks into sloth and slumbers away a life, that scarce deserves a better name than vegetation. Upon the whole I think we may admit, that there are some portions of the ha∣bitable earth, where nature has declared herself against the pro∣duction

of painters, and no por∣tion yet discovered where an as∣semblage of more happy requisites ever centered, than in the climate and country, in which the artist now before us had his birth.

It may be proper to observe, that, although there cannot be found amongst the Spanish pain∣ters a greater instance of poverty in the extreme, than what Ri∣bera experienced, yet his preten∣sions in respect of family were as high and his blood as pure as most in Spain: This pride of pe∣digree is there to the full as much at heart, and as ceremoniously maintained amongst men in the last degree of worldly misery, as it is with the rich and great.

To enumerate a line of ancestors, unadulterated with Moorish or Jewish blood, and not made vile by any ignoble and dishonourable trades, is the glory of an old Cas∣tilian, though in rags and wretch∣edness: The house of Ribera, tho' it had branched into Valencia, was in its original rooted in the pure terra firma of Old Castile; and I dare say his parents would as soon have brought up their son to the occupation of a hangman, as apprenticed him to the trade of a shoemaker: This is amongst the occupations, which an old Spaniard calls dishonest, and by which he would as effectually pollute his blood, as an Indian would forfeit his cast by eating hog's-flesh out

of the unclean platter of a Portu∣guese: To be a mender of shoes, or in vulgar phrase a cobler, is no degradation to a Spaniard's dig∣nity; but to be a maker of them in the first instance is corrupt and vile, and such an artisan cannot consort or intermarry with the persons, that are uncontaminated with any thing but poverty and ver min.

With these principles, and no other earthly possession for his inhe∣ritance young Ribera entered him∣self a disciple of Francisco de Ribalta, as I have already related; how long he continued, or how far he pro∣ceeded to form the peculiarities of his taste under the tuition of this master, I cannot precisely ascer∣tain;

he was certainly very young, when he first went to Rome, be∣cause it was there he first received the puerile appellation of Il Spag∣noleto, or the Little Spaniard; and that this was in early time is also manifest from other reasons: As for his singularity in chusing sub∣jects of terror and expressions of pain, that was not owing to the infusions of precept, or the effect of imitation, but was in him at once characteristic and original. He had a strong mind hardened by ad∣versity and naturally superior to those passions, which, though soft and enervating, have operated to produce the beautiful in art. In the sublime and terrific Ribera stands forth as a great master: In

tragic compositions, the distortions of agonized nature, and in the strong and horrible reliefs of the deepest lights and shades he is emi∣nently distinguished: England is in possession of so many examples in this cast of the author, that I shall not enter into a minute de∣scription of his works in Spain; but I cannot dispense with myself from observing, that he is capable of expressing his ideas with uncom∣mon elegance and delicacy: Some of the characters of his Baptist, some Magdalens and Madonas, which I have met, are equal in grace and tenderness of expression to the best heads of Guido and Guercino: I confess my surprize was great in discovering him in a

character, which was new and un∣known to me before I went to Spain; at the same time in a pri∣vate closet at the Escorial, where there is an altar belonging to the Prior, and to which admittance is rarely allowed, I felt equal sur∣prize and delight at being shewn a small Holy Family by Michael An∣gelo Bonarota, finished and coloured to a miracle. In this inestimable little piece the face of the Madona is of a most singular cast, such as I had never before seen; extremely beautiful, but not by the result of the correctest symmetry of sea∣tures; for the face is lengthened beyond its proportion, by which and other means, with a peculiar action of the eyes and muscles an

expression is obtained, which at the same time that it exceeds na∣ture, does not violate it; appear∣ing to be at once above, and yet within it.

Young Ribera, though suffering the extreme of poverty, felt within himself such powers of genius, as were superior to depression, and in the school of Ribalta meditated an excursion to Rome, there to receive the last finishings of education in his art: Thither he repaired, and, enlisting himself in the academy, pursued his studies with an industry, which knew no remission, but whilst he was in pursuit of the scanty necessaries for the demands of life; these he obtained by the sale of some of his sketches and drawings

in the academy. Without friends and at times almost without food or raiment, he persisted in his course with a stubborn virtuous perseverance, which nothing could divert from its object; if such a mind and imagination are found to delight in images of savage great∣ness and terrific sublimity, it is little to be wondered at, and a greater proof of his excellence cannot be given, than the high estimation, in which his pieces of the character above-mentioned continue to be held, notwith∣standing the false effeminate deli∣cacy of modern taste and fashion in pictures, now prevailing in Eng∣land, which discourages all at∣tempts at tragedy in painting and

shrinks from an Ugolino and Pro∣metheus with as much dread and horror, as a modern petite maitresse would from the spectacle of a bull∣fight. Such an academician as young Ribera could not long re∣main undistinguished in the mass of common students; Rome was not a place, where merit could be long hidden, nor was his merit of a sort, that could be concealed any where; his fellow-students and teachers soon discovered the supe∣riority of his talents, and par ex∣cellence gave him the name of Il Spagnoleto; and a certain Cardinal, one day passing in his coach, ob∣served a tattered figure employed in painting a board, affixed to the outside of one of the ordinary

houses in the streets of Rome; the youth and wretchedness of the spectacle engaged his pity, and the singular attention, with which he pursued his work, attracted his curiosity. It was Il Spagnoleto in the act of earning his bread, of which his appearance made evi∣dent he was absolutely in want. The Cardinal called him to his coach-side and, ordering him to his palace, immediately domici∣liated the lucky youth. Here he lived in ease and affluence; but that virtue, which the frowns of fortune could not shake, was no proof against her caresses: Young Ribera became a slave to plea∣sures, of which he had not before even speculative, enjoyment; but

his virtue, though repulsed, was not subdued; his apostacy from the purity of his native principles pres∣sed upon his conscience, and the ruin, which his genius was now me∣naced with, alarmed his pride of nature; with one gallant effort he burst the shackles of temptation, and, sallying out of the palace of the Cardinal, reassumed his dig∣nity of soul, and poverty at once: Perhaps the history of human na∣ture will afford few examples of so strong an act.

He had now all his former mi∣series to encounter with the aggra∣vating contrast of experienced de∣lights: In addition to all these he was to suffer the reproaches of his protector, who, occasionally meet∣ing

him, upbraided his ingrati∣tude in the severest terms: The virtuous Spaniard made a suitable reply, and, cheering himself with the resources of his art and the ap∣plauses of his conscience, persisted in his poverty. The clear obscure of Caravagio became his favourite manner, and in the language, tho' not with the motives, of Doctor Young's Zanga he might have said that horrors now were not dis∣pleasing to him. The meagre en∣couragement he found in Rome determined him to seek his better fortune at Naples: For this place he set out in a ragged jacket, hav∣ing pledged his capa for a viaticum. In Naples he let himself out to a common painter for hire: This man

however had great humanity and some science; the abilities of Il Spagnoleto surprized him; he clear∣ly saw how superior his talents were to the low occupation he had engaged in; a further acquaintance opened to him the singular virtues and good qualities he was possessed of, and he soon conceived the de∣sign of converting his servant into his son-in-law: He had an only child, a daughter; the girl being exceedingly handsome, and the fa∣ther very rich, an abundance of suitors presented themselves to the choice of her parents, but, the mo∣ment which Providence had de∣creed for rewarding the virtues of poor Ribera being now arrived, all their pretensions availed nothing

with the father, who had determined upon his part and, calling Ribera aside, proposed at once to bestow his daughter with the better part of his means immediately upon him; a proposition so totally above expectation or hope staggered his belief, and he entreated his mas∣ter not to make his misery and ill fortune the object of his raillery and ridicule; he was at a loss to think what presumption could have escaped him to merit this re∣buke; he was not conscious of having conceived or entertained a thought, that aspired to a match so totally above his reach; with some difficulty the father con∣quered his incredulity, when young Ribera, transported with joy and

gratitude, was in one moment from being the poorest made the happiest of beings. Behold him now occupying a whole floor the palace of the Viceroy, with all the comforts of life and the conveniencies of his art in abun∣dance around him; at the height of his fame, in request of all the great and eminent in Europe, and honoured by his Holiness the Pope with the knighthood of Christ. A new choice of subjects now present∣ed themselves to the world, and people saw, with a terror partaking of delight, martyrdoms, executions and torments expressed to the truth, nay in some cases even aggra∣vated beyond it: He selected all that sacred or classic history afford∣ed

in the terrible; all that the pa∣gan theology or the poetical hell had represented to appall the guilty was to be found on the canvasses of Ribera; a martyred San Bartolome, stript to the muscles, became a study for anatomists: Cato of Utica in the act of tearing out his bowels brought the horror of self-murder to the eyes and hearts of men: Hercules struggling in the throes of death and all the tortured in the fabulous realm of Pluto were now exhibited, like Eschylus's suries on the stage of Athens, and in some instances with the same effects; for it is related, that a certain lady of Amsterdam named Jacoba de Usfel having miscarried upon seeing some paintings of Sisyphus, Tantalus and Ixion by Ribera, her hus∣band's

gallantry induced him to dispose of them, and being carried into Italy they were purchased on the part of His Catholic Majesty and transported into Spain, where they are now preserved in the pa∣lace of the Buen Retiro. Many other pictures of this master were collected by the Viceroys of Naples for the King and also for particu∣lar Grandees and brought into Spain: In the royal collections of Madrid and the Escorial there are many; the great altar-piece of the church of Santa Isabel on the sub∣ject of the Conception is by Ribera, and the head of the Virgin is the portrait of his daughter. He died at Naples in 1656, aged 67 years, leaving only one child above men∣tioned,

whom he married to a man of distinction in Naples. He left be∣hind him a tract in manuscript on the principles of the art of painting, which is reported to have been a most elaborate and excellent com∣position.

Luis Tristan, a disciple of Domi∣nico Greco, was born in a small vil∣lage near the city of Toledo: He certainly exceeded his master in correctness of drawing and purity of taste. It does not appear that Dominico had any of the jealousies of his art about him in his treat∣ment of Tristan, whilst he was under his tuition; on the contrary he took early notice of his talents, and brought them into practice and display with all the advantages in his power to give; the monasteries

of Spain, as I have elsewhere ob∣served, were in that period con∣siderable patrons of the elegant arts of painting and sculpture; most of these religious Societies are rich, and those, whose funds did not enable them to set the artists at work, found benefactors amongst the great, whose devotion or va∣nity disposed them to beautify and enrich the churches and altars, which they frequented, and where such donations would be accepted in the way of atonement, or re∣corded as acts of voluntary piety and meritorious munificence: The monks of La Sisla in the neighbour∣hood of Toledo had applied to Dominico Greco for a picture of our Lord's last supper to be painted for

their refectory, in the manner that Titiano had adorned that in the monastery of San Lorenzo. Dominico being obliged to decline the com∣mission on account of indisposition, recommended his young pupil Luis Tristan to the undertaking; the monks accepted his services, and upon delivery of the picture were with reason satisfied with the per∣formance; nothing remained to be adjusted but the price, and the de∣mand of the artist being for 200 ducats was deemed exorbitant; the Fathers referred themselves to Do∣minico, who being then in a fit of the gout was put into a coach and conveyed to the convent; as soon as he arrived there and had deli∣berately surveyed the piece, he

turned suddenly to his disciple and with a menacing tone and air, lift∣ing up his crutch, exclaimed against Tristan for disgracing his art and all who professed it, by demanding 200 ducats for the picture in question. The triumph of the Fathers upon this testimony of their umpire, so decidedly as it seemed in their fa∣vour, was however soon reversed, when Dominico directed his dis∣ciple to roll up the picture and take it away with him to Toledo, for that he should not leave it there for five hundred ducats; then, launching out into rapturous en∣comiums on the performance, he began to put his decision into exe∣cution: Vexation and surprize now took possession of the convicted

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monks, their murmuring and com∣plaints were changed to inter∣cessions, and, after sufficient a∣tonement on their part, the mo∣ney was paid and the picture sur∣rendered to the refectory and obli∣vion: Certainly it is a capital com∣position, and whenever the Fathers shall repent of the bargain made by their predecessors, there is not a collector in Europe but will give them their principal with ample interest upon their purchase. Tris∣tan died at Toledo in the year 1649, at the age of fifty-four, with the honour of being imitated by the celebrated Velazquez, who declared himself his admirer and, quitting the precepts of Pacheco, professedly modelled himself after

the stile and manner of Luis Tris∣tan.

Juan Baptista Mayno, a monk of the order of the Predicadores, was a contemporary of Tristan and a disciple also of Dominico Greco: In the convent of San Pedro the Martyr at Toledo there is an altar∣piece in four compartments repre∣senting the subjects of the four Pasquas, viz. the Nativity, the Re∣surrection, the Descent of the Holy Ghost and the Mystery of the Holy Trinity: There is in the same church a Saint Peter weeping, of which many copies are dispersed through Spain; an affecting na∣tural idea of that zealous yet of∣fending disciple in the moment of recollection and remorse. The

college of San Estevan at Sala∣manca contains some works of this master, whose excellence as an art∣ist and whose irreproachable sanc∣tity gained him universal esteem and promoted him to the honour of being drawing-master to Philip the IV th. who was not only a lover of the arts but a proficient. Mayno was employed by the King at the palace of the Buen Retiro, where he painted a fine battle-piece, in which the Conde Duque de Oli∣vares is introduced animating the troops to action by presenting to their view a portrait of King Phi∣lip, a brilliant thought and a courtly compliment to both par∣ties. Mayno died in his sixtieth

year, in the city of Toledo, in 1654.

In the same year died Pedro Nun̄ez a native of Madrid, of whose celebrity there needs no better tes∣timony, than his being one in the following groupe of artists, re∣corded by the famous Lope de la Vega in the following lines:

Pero porque es razon que participe L'el Laurel la pintura generosa Juntos llegaron a la cumbre hermosa Sulcando varios mares. Vincencio, Eugenio, Nun̄ez y Lan∣chares.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Since this book went to the press, I have received out of Spain an Ecce Homo by Morales, painted upon stone, which was affixed to a private oratory in the house of the Duque de Osuna, and transmitted to me by the favour of that distinguished Grandee.