Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/225

 194 VECCHI— VENEZIANO. and Angnstine. The mosaics of the tribune of St. Peter's, St. John and St. Lnke, are from his cartoons. {Bag- lione.) VECCHIA, Peetro, 6. at Venice, 1605, d. 1678. Venetian School. The Bcholar of Alessandro Varotari, called Padoyanino. He studied and copied with great skill the works of Qiorgione and Pordenone. His real name ap- pears to have been Mattoni; Vecchia was a nickname he got from his ability in imitating and restoring old pictures. He executed many original imitations of Giorgione and others, which Zanetti states have found their places in cele- brated galleries as originals. His sacred subjects, as some representations of the Passion by him, completely failed, from a want of appropriate elevation of feeling for the subject : his talent was more for the ludicrous than the serious. His easel pictures were generally of inferior subjects. His touch was bold, bis drawing and colouring excellent, and his light and shade powerful and effeetiye. He made the designs of many of the mosaics in the church of St. Mark's, at Venice; several of his pictures are still in the churches there. {Zanetti, Lanzi.) VECELEIO. [Titian.] VECELLIO, Marco, called also Marco bi Tiziano, 6. at Venice, 1545, d. 1611. Venetian School. He was the nephew, scholar, and assistant of Titian, with whom he was a favourite, imd also his travelling companion. In simple composition and the mechanism of the art he was a good follower of his great master; but his works, like those of most imitators, are deficient in originality and in animation. In the Ducal Palace, in San Jacopo di Sialto, and in San Giovanni Elemosi- nario, at Venice, there are some good pictures by this painter. Zanetti no- tioes the Axmunciationy in San Jacopo^ as his master-piece. Marco's son^ Tizianello, was also distinguished in his time, but belongs to the manner- ists of the Venetian School. {Za- netti.) VENEZIANO, Ahtonio, b. at Ve- nice, about 1320, Iwmg in 1388. Ve- netian School. He studied with Angelo Gaddi, at Florence, and painted in his style. He is much praised by Vasari, who considered Antonio the greatest master of chiaroscuro of his time ; he praises also his colouring, drawing, composition, and expression. Towards the close of his life he turned physi- cian; and Vasari says he was as dis- tinguished in one capacity as the other, and that he died at Florence, of the plague, in 1384 ; he was, however, still living in Pisa in 1388. He painted three of the subjects from the Life of San Banieri, in the Campo Santo, at Pisa — the three which occupy the lower half of the wall. They display a better taste than those which fill Uie upper compartment, though, in their present state, they scarcely justify Vasari^s praises. Antonio executed, also, some works for the Signory of Venice, and for Santo Spirito at Florence. VENEZIANO, DoMENico, ft. at Ve- nioe, about 1410, d. about 1460-4. Tuscan School. The scholar of Anto- nello da Messina, who is recorded to have imparted to this painter, about 1450, the secret of the new method of oil-painting, which he had himself acquired (probably from Lambert Van Eyck) at Bruges, about 1442-5. About the year 1460, Domenico Veneziano and Andrea del Gastagno were em- ployed to execute some paintings in the Portinari Chapel, in Santa Maria Nuova, when the greater sensation caused by the pictures of Domenico excited the envy of Andrea, who, ac- cording to Vasari, insinuated himself into the confidence of Domenico, ao-