FERRARIS
48
FERRARIS
which makes him stand out in an age where faith and
single-mindedness were gradually disappearing, as a
man of another country, almost of another time.
When we consider the works of Gaudenzio, more especially his earlier ones, in the light of the fact that the district in which he was born was in the direct line of communication between North and .South; and reflect that what might be termed the "art traffic" between Germany and Italy was very great in his time, we are forced to recognize that German influ- ence played a considerable part in the development of his genius, in so far at least as his mind was amenable to external stimuli. He is, in fact, the most German of the Italian painters. In the heart of a school where art was becoming more and more aristocratic, he remained the people's painter. In this respect his personality stands out so boldly amongst the Italian painters of the time that it seems natural to infer that Gaudenzio in his youth travelled to the banks of the Rhine, and bathed long and deep in its mystic atmosphere.
Like the Gothic masters, he is perhaps the only six- teenth-century painter who worked exclusively for churches or convents. He is the only one in Italy who painted lengthy sacred dramas and legends from the lives of the saints: a" Passion" at Varallo; a"Lifeof the Virgin ' ', and a " Life of St. Magdalen ' ', at Vercelli ; and at times, after the fashion of the dnquecenlo, he grouped many different episodes in one scene, at the expense of unity in composition, till they resembled the mysteries, and might be styled "sectional paints ings". He was not aiming at art, but at edification. Hence arose a certain negligence of form and a care- lessness of execution still more pronounced. The "Carrying of the Cross" at Cannobio, the "Calvary" at Vercelli, the " Deposition" at Turin, works of great power in many ways, and unequalled at the time in Italy for pathos and feeling, are somehow wanting in proportion, and give one the impression that the con- ventional grouping has been departed from. The soul, being filled as it were with its object, is over- powered by the emotions; and the intellect confesses its inability to synthesize the images which rise tumultuously from an over-excited sensibility. An- other consequence of this peculiarity of mental con- formation is, perhaps, the abuse of the materials at his disposal. Gaudenzio never refrained from using doubtful methods, such as ornaments in relief, the use of gilded stucco worked into harness, armour, into the aureolas, etc. And to heighten the effect he does not even hesitate to make certain figures stand out in real, palpable relief; in fact some of his frescoes are as much sculpture as they are painting, by reason of this practice.
His history must always remain incomplete until we get further enlightenment concerning that strange movement of the Pietist preachers, which ended in establishing (1487-93) a great Franciscan centre on the Sacro Monte de Varallo. It was in this retreat that Gaudenzio spent the years which saw his genius come to full maturity; it was there he left his greatest works, his "Life of Christ" of 1513, in twenty-one frescoes at Santa Maria delle (Jrazie, and other works on the Sacro Monte dating between 1523 and 1528. It was there that the combined use of painting and sculpture produced a most curious result. Fresco is only used as an ornament, a sort of background to a scene presenting a tableau vivanl of figures in terra- cotta. Some of the groups embrace no less than thirty figures. Forty chapels bring out in this way the prin- cipal scenes in the drama of the Incarnation. Gau- denzio is responsible for the chapels of the Magi, the PietA., and the Calvary.
In his subsequent works, at Vercelli (1530-34) and at Saronno (in the cupola of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, 1535), the influence of Correggio is curiously blended with the above-mentioned German leanings. The freshness and vigour of his inspiration remain un-
touched in all their homely yet stern grace. The
"Assumption" at Vercelli is perhaps the greatest
lyric in Italian art; this lyric quality in his painting is
still more intense in the wonderful " Glory of Angels",
in the cupola at Saronno, the most enthusiastic and
jubilant symphony that any art has ever produced.
In all Correggio's art there is nothing more charming
than the exquisite sentiment and tender rusticity of
"The Flight into Egypt", in the cathedral of Como.
The artist's latest works were those he executed at
Milan, whither he retired in 1536. In these paintings,
the creations of a man already seventy years of age,
the vehemence of feeling sometimes becomes almost
savage, the presentation of his ideas abrupt and apoc-
alyptic. His method becomes colossal and more and
more careless; but still in the "Passion" at Santa
Maria delle Grazie (1542) we cannot fail to trace the
hand of a master.
Gaudenzio was married at least twice. By his first marriage a son was born to him in 1509 and a daughter in 1512. He married, in 1528, Maria Mattia della Foppa who died about 1540, shortly after the death of his son. These sorrows doubtless affected the charac- ter of his later works. Gaudenzio's immediate influ- ence was scarcely appreciable. His pupils Lanino and Delia Cerva are extremely mediocre. Neverthe- less when the day of Venice's triumph came with Tin- toretto, and Bologna's with the Carraccis in the counter-reform movement, it was the art of Gaudenzio Ferrari that triumphed in them. The blend of North- ern and Latin genius in his work, so characteristic of the artists of the Po valley, was carried into the ate- liers of Bologna by Dionysius Calvaert. It became the fashion, displacing, as it was bound to do, the in- tellectual barrenness and artistic e.xoticism of the Florentine School.
LoMAZZO, Idea del tempio delta pitlura (Milan, 1584); Idem, Trattato dell' arte della pitlura (Milan, 1590); Zuccaro, // passag- gio per Vltalia con la dimora di Parma (Bologna, 1(568); BoR- DIGA, Nolizie inlomo alle opere di G. Ferrari (Milan, 1821); Idem, Guida al Sacro Monte di Varallo (18.51); <i)oLOMBO, Vita ed opere di G. Ferrari (Turin, 1881); Halsey, Gaudenzio Fer' rari (London, 1903); DE Wtzewa, Peintrcs italiens d'autrefois: Ecoles du Nord (Paris, 1907).
Louis Gillet.
Ferraris, Lucius, an eighteenth-century canonist of the Franciscan Order. The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown, but he was born at Solero, near Alessandria in Northern Italy. He was also professor, provincial of his order, and consultor of the Holy Office. It would seem he died before 1763. He is the author of the "Prompta Bibli- otheca canonica, juridica, moralis, theologica, necnon ascetica, polemica, rubricistica, historica", a veritable encyclopedia of religious knowledge. The first edi- tion of this work appeared at Bologna, in 1746. A second edition, much enlarged, also a third, were pub- lished by the author himself. The fourth edition, dating from 1763, seems to have been published after his death. This, like those which followed it, contains the additions which the author had made to the second edition under the title of addiliones aiictoris, and also other enlargements {addiliones ex aliend many) in- serted in their respective places in the body of the work (and no longer in the appendi.x as in the former edi- tions) and supplements. The various editions thus differ from each other. The most recent are: that of the Benedictines (Naples, 1844-55), reproduced by Migne (Paris, 1861-1863), and an edition published at Paris in 1884. A new edition was |niblished at Rome in 1899, at the press of the Propaganda in eight vol- umes, with a volume of supplements, edited by the Jesuit, Bucceroni, containing several di.s.sertations and the most recent and important documents of the Holy See. This supplement serves to keep up to dtitc the work of I'Vrniris, wliii-h will ever remain a precious mine of infonnation, although it is sometimes possible to reproach tlic author with laxism.
