From the period of these first efforts, I am of opinion that the art of painting continued to flourish throughout the state and city of Milan, though we are not fortunate enough to retain sufficient memorials of it to compile a full historical account. For little mention has been made by our oldest writers concerning the artists, except incidentally, as by Vasari in his Lives of Bramante, of Vinci, and of Carpi, and by Lomazzo, in his Treatise, and in his Temple, or Theatre[40] of Painting. As little likewise has been said by several of the more modern writers, nor that always with good authority, such as Torre, Latuada, Santagostini, whose narratives were collected by Orlandi, and inserted in his Dictionary. Some supplementary information has been supplied by _Notices of the Paintings of Italy_ as to a variety of artists, and their exact age; and by the New Guide to Milan, truly new and unique until this period in Italy, and reflecting the highest credit upon the Ab. Bianconi, who not only points out every thing most rare in the city, but teaches us, by sound rules, how best to distinguish excellence from mediocrity and inferiority in the art. To this we may add the name of the Consiglier de' Pagave, who published very interesting notices relating to this school, in the third, fifth, and eighth volumes of the new Sienese edition of Vasari. I am also enabled to furnish considerable information in addition, politely transmitted to me in manuscript by the last writer, for the present work. From these I am happy to announce we may become acquainted with the names of new masters, along with much chronological information of a sounder kind, relating to those already known, frequently derived from the _Necrologio_ of Milan, which had been carefully preserved by one of the public functionaries of that city.
Footnote 40: He borrowed the idea of this work from the Theatre of Giulio Camillo, with whom he compares his own Treatise in chap. ix. Hence, as in the case of some books which have two titles, I judge it best to call it by this name (Theatre) also, as others have done.
By aid of these, and other materials I have to bring forward, I prepare to treat of the Milanese School from as early a date as 1335, when Giotto was employed in ornamenting various places in the city, which, down to the time of Vasari, continued to be esteemed as most beautiful specimens of the art. Not long subsequent to Giotto, an artist named Stefano Fiorentino was invited thither by Matteo Visconti, and is celebrated as one of the most accomplished pupils of the former. But he was compelled by indisposition to abandon the work he had undertaken in that city; nor do we know that at that period he had any successor in the Giotto manner. About the year 1370, Gio. da Milano, pupil to Taddeo Gaddi, arrived there, so able an artist that his master, at his death, entrusted to him the care of his son Angiolo, and another son, whom he was to instruct in a knowledge of the art. It is therefore evident that the Florentine early exercised an influence over the Milanese School. We are informed at the same time of two native artists, who, according to Lomazzo, flourished at the period of Petrarch and of Giotto. These are Laodicia di Pavia, called by Guarienti, _pittrice_, and Andrino di Edesia, also said to belong to Pavia, although both his name and that of Laodicia lead us to conjecture that they must have been of Greek origin. To Edesia and his school have been attributed some frescos which yet remain at S. Martino and other places in Pavia.[41] I cannot speak positively of the authors; their taste is tolerably good, and the colouring partakes of that of the Florentines of the age. Michel de Roncho, a Milanese, is another artist discovered by Count Tassi, at the same time that he gives some account of the two Nova who flourished at Bergamo. Michele is said to have assisted in their labours in the cathedral of that city, from the year 1376 to 1377, and remnants of these paintings survive, which shew that they approached nearer the composition of Giotto than the artists of Pavia. There are some pictures in Domodossola that also bring us acquainted with an able artist of Nova. They are preserved in Castello Sylva and elsewhere, and bear the following memorandum--_Ego Petrus filius Petri Pictoris de Novariâ hoc opus pinxi_, 1370. Without, however, going farther than Milan, we there find in the Sacristy of the Conventuali, as well as in different cloisters, paintings produced in the fourteenth century, without any indication of their authors, and most frequently resembling the Florentine manner, though occasionally displaying a new and original style, not common to any other school of Italy.