Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/190

 SANTACROCE— SANTI. 159 period he became an imitator of Gior- gione and Titian ; but says Lanzi, in his small pictures generally, there is more of the Roman than the Venetian School. The works execnted by this painter in the early Venetian style are so different from those execnted in the more modem manner, says Zanetti, that they appear to be the works of different artists. The Madonna and Saints, in the Venetian Academy, is among the best of his later produc- tions. His cabinet pictures, with small figures and landscapes, in which he greatly excelled, are highly spoken of by Lanzi. His Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, in San Francesco della Vigna, is taken chiefly from Marcantonio's print after Baccio Bandinelli. Works, Venice, San Geminiano, the Last Sapper: San Martino, the same subject (1548): San Francesco della Vigna, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo: Manfrini Gallery, an Adoration of the Kings : Academy, a Madonna with Saints. Naples, Studj Gallery, the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo. Padua, church of San Francesco, the History of the Virgin. Berlin Gallery, the Birth of Christ; the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian; the Coronation of the Vir- gin; and two other sacred subjects. {ZanetH,) SANTAFEDE, Fabrizio, b, at Na- ples, about 1560, d, 1634. Neapolitan SchooL He was the son and scholar of Francesco Santafede, one of the ablest followers of Andrea Sabbatini. Fabrizio distinguished himself at the age of thirteen, says Dominici; by a visit to Lombardy and Venice, he much improved himself in colour, and he studied for two years in Home, and for some time in Florence, where he was chiefly attracted by the works of Andrea del Sarto. He was one of those painters who obtained a great reputation rather by the absence' of any great defects than by any peculiar merit; his works were eclectic and academic, and, as nearly all such chiefly mechanical works must be, were con- spicuous for their material qualities only, being altogether wanting in sen- timent or originality. Naples abounded with the works of Santafede, and his pictures were held in the highest esteem even by the populace ; the house of Niccola Bal- samo was spared by the rioters of 1647, solely from the circumstance of its containing some frescoes by Santa- fede. One of his principal works, is the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin, in Santa Maria la Nnova, some- times attributed to Titian, on account of the brilliancy of its colouring. San- tafede was also a poet, an antiquary, and well versed in history ; he formed a distinguished collection of antiqui- ties in his house in Naples. In the Stn4j Gallery, are a Holy Family ; and two pictures of the Virgin in glory, and enthroned. {Dominici.) SANTI, Giovanni, called also San- zio, the father of Raphael, h. at Urbino, d, Aug. 1, 1494. Umbrian School. His models, if not his masters, were apparentiy Andrea Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, and Melozzo da Forli. He painted many works in Urbino, in oil and in fresco, of which some still remain; in 1489 he was employed on the public decorations ordered to cele- brate the marriage of the Duke Giudo- baldo with Elizabeth Gonzaga. Gio- vanni belonged to the better Quat- trocentisti; his compositions nearly exclusively Madonnas, are symmetrical, and somewhat resemble in execution the works of Francia and Perugino, though dry and inferior in colour, and indicate by no means an obscure painter ; his name has, however, been almost unknown till of late years ; the immortal fame of the son having rendered that of the father compara- tively obscure. Giovanni was also a