We must previously however take a survey of some cities of Romagna, and select what seems to belong to our present argument. We shall commence with Ravenna, a city that preserved design during periods of barbarism better than any other in Italy. Nor do we elsewhere meet with works in mosaic so well composed, and in ivory, or in marble, cut in so able a manner; all vestiges of a power and grandeur worthy of exciting the jealousy of Rome, when the seat of her princes and exarchs was removed to Ravenna. This city too having fallen from its splendour, and after many vicissitudes being governed by the Polentani, was no less indebted to them for an illustrious poet in the person of Dante, than a great painter in Giotto.[6] This artist painted in the church called Porto di Fuori, several histories from the evangelists, which still remain there; and at S. Francesco and other places in the city, we may trace reliques of his pencil, or at least of his style. The Polentani being expelled, and the state brought under the subjection of Venice, from this last capital the city of Ravenna derived the founder of a new school.
Footnote 6: It is remarkable that, a century previous to the arrival of Giotto, we find in Ravenna one _Johannes Pictor_; a fact supplied by the learned Count Fantuzzi, to whom both Ravenna and the public owe so much valuable information. See his "_Monumenti Ravennati_, during the middle ages, for the most part inedited," vol. i. p. 347. In vol. ii. p. 210, there is mention of a parchment of 1246, in which one Graziadeo, a notary, orders that in the Portuense church there be made "imagines magnæ et spatiosæ ad aurum," which means mosaic, or painting upon a gold ground, a custom so much practised in those times.
This was Niccolo Rondinello, mentioned by Vasari as one "who, above all others, imitated Gian Bellini, his master, to whom he did credit, and assisted him in all his works." In the life of Bellini, and in that of Palma, Vasari gives a list of his best paintings, exhibited in Ravenna. In these his progress is very perceptible. He displays most of the antique in his picture of S. Giovanni, placed in that church, for which he also executed one of the Virgin, upon a gold ground. His taste is more modern in the larger altar-piece of San Domenico; whose composition rises above the monotony of the age, giving a representation of saints in great variety of attitudes and situations. The design is exact, though always inclining to dryness, the countenances less select, and the colouring less vivid than those of his master; with equal care in his draperies, richly ornamented with embroidery in the taste of those times. It is, however, uncertain whether he had obtained any idea of the last and most perfect style of Bellini. He had a pupil and successor in his labours at Ravenna in Francesco da Cotignola, whom Bonoli, in his history of Lugo, and that of Cotignola, as well as the describer of the Parmese paintings, agree in surnaming Marchesi, while in the Guide to Ravenna, he is denominated Zaganelli. Vasari commends him, as a very pleasing colourist; although inferior to Rondinello in point of design, and still more of composition. In this he was not happy, if we except his celebrated Resurrection of Lazarus, which is to be seen at Classe; his extremely beautiful baptism of Jesus Christ, at Faenza, and a few other histories, where he checks his ardour, and more carefully disposes his figures, for the most part fine and well draped; occasionally whimsical, and in proportions less than life. One of his most extraordinary productions is a large altar-piece at the church of the Osservanti, in Parma, where he represented the Virgin between several Saints, enlivened by several portraits in the background. He never, in my opinion, produced any work more solid in conception, nor more harmoniously disposed, nor more ingenious in the colonnade, and the other accessary parts. Here he preserved the most moderate tints, contrary to his usual practice, which was glowing and highly animated, and distributed more in the manner of Mantegna, than of any other master. He had a brother named Bernardino, with whom, in 1504, he painted a very celebrated altar-piece, representing the Virgin between S. Francesco and the Baptist, placed in the interior chapel of the Padri Osservanti, in Ravenna; and another to be seen at Imola, in the church of the Riformati, with the date 1509. Bernardino, likewise, displayed tolerable ability alone, and among the paintings at Pavia, there is one at the Carmine, inscribed with his name; a fact that may correct an error of Crespi, who names the elder brother Francesco Bernardino, making the two into one artist.