Boccaccino, Boccaccio

, an artist who flourished about 1496-, is among the Cremonese, what Griilandajo, Mantegna, Vannucci, Francia, arc in their respective schools the best modern among the ancients, and the best ancient among the moderns. He was the master of Garofalo before his journey to Rome in 1500. The birth of the Madonna with other histories of her life, and that of | the Saviour in the frieze of the Dnotno at Cremona, are works of Boccaccino. The style is partly original, partly approaches that of Pietro Perugino less co-ordinate in composition, less agreeable in the airs of the heads, weaker in chiaroscuro hut richer in drapery, more varied in colour, more spirited in attitudes, and perhaps not less harmonious or pleasing in landscape and architecture. His great defect is the short and stumpy appearance which an immoderate load of drapery often gives to his figures. It is probable that he was at Rome, as Vasari pretends that he there reviled the works of Michael Angelo and what followed, as related by the same historian, admits of too much doubt to deserve attention. He died, according to Vasari, in 1518, aged fifty-eight. His son, Ca.Millo Boccaccino, was born at Cremona, in 1511, where he received the first instructions in the art of painting from his father and for some time he was obliged to conform himself to the -style and manner of his instructor. But he determined to quit that hard dry manner of colouring, to which he had been accustomed, and by degrees assumed a style of colour equally remarkable for its suavity and strength. The best remaining specimens of his art are in the church of St. Sigismondo, at Cremona; where, among the Four Evangelists, the figure of St. John, bent upwards in contrast with the arched vault, in boldness of foreshortening and truth of perspective, emulates the style of Correggio. He died very young, at a time when there was a great expectation of his arriving at very high perfection, in 1546. ¹