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 GIULIO

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GIULIO

in 1672, he taught the huniiiiiities, rhetoric, and phi- losophy, after which he devoted liimself for a long time to preaching. The pleasure which Gisbert took in dis- cussing pulpit eloquence with Lamoignon, the inten- dant of Languedoc, impelled him to write an essay on sacred eloquence, which he entitles "Le bon gout de I'eloquence chretienne" (Lyons, 1702). He spent ten years in retouching this essay, and augmented it con- siderably by adding to the rules examples drawn from Holy Scripture and the Fathers, especially St. John Chrysostom. The second edition appeared at Lyons in 1715 under the title "L'Eloquence chretienne dans I'idee et dans la pratique". The work, which com- prises twenty-three chapters, does not follow the rigorous order of a didactical treatise and is without the dryness of a scholastic manual. It has been rightly called " un livre eloquent sur I'eloquence ". It con- tains a series of talks on the faults to be avoided in the pulpit, on the qualities necessary to the preacher, on the matter and form of sermons, on oratorical action and decorum. Gisbert 's book sufficed to make its author famous not only among the Catholic clergy, but even among Protestant pastors. One of them, Jacques Len- fant (1661-1728) carefully annotated it, and another, Kornrumpff, translated it into German. An Italian translation also appeared during Gisbert's lifetime, and later a Latin translation. The latest and best p^rench edition is that of Crampon and Boucher (Paris, 1865). As a sort of supplement Gisbert wrote reflec- tions on the collections of sermons printed in France from 1570 to about 1670. In this he considers, accord- ing to the somewhat narrow ideals of his age, ten orators before Bossuet and Bourdaloue. The MS. of this interesting " Ilistoire critique de la chaire fran- (.-aise depuis Frangois 1°'" was lost, but was finally recovered by Mgr Puyol and published by Fathers Ch(?rot and Griselle, S.J., in the "Revue Bourdaloue", 1902-04.

SoMMERVOGEL, Biblioihcque de la compagnic de Jesus, III, 1481; Revue Bourdaloue, 1902, 12S.

Paul Debuchy.

Giulio Romano, properly Giulio dei Giannuzzi. also known as Giulio Pii'PI, a famous architect and painter, the best-known of Raphael's pupils, and the unique representative of the so-called "Roman School"; b. at Rome in 1492; d. at Mantua in 1546. At the age of 19, Giulio placed himself under Raphael, who had just finished after three years (1509-12) the Halls of the Segnatura and Heliodorus. In 1514, Raphael was appointed general overseer of works by Leo X, contlucted in 1519 the excavations of ancient Rome, and found it difficult to carry out all his undertakings. It came thus to pass that the assistant was soon the factotum and right hand of the master, who during the later portion of his career seldom found time (except for a few portraits) to take a brush into his hands.

As an artist, Giulio has no originality; as a painter, he is merely a tcmp(ramcnl, a prodigious worker. His manual dexterity is unaccompanied by any great- ness of conception or high moral principle. He en- larged and executed in fresco or on canvas the draw- ings and studies completed by Raphael for his pictures. In this way were completed, within eight years, "Fire in the Borgo" (151.S), the cartons of the "Acts of the Apostles" (1512-1514), the loggias of the Vatican (1514-1519), the frescoes of the Farnesina (1518), and many other famous works such as the "Lo Spasimo" (Christ bearing the Cross), the "Pearl", the "Virgin with the Fish" (M^idiid), tlio "St. Michael" of the Louvre, and '"I'lic Ilnly I'Miuily" cxeculeil for Francis I (1518). With .'ill his cleverness Giulio never caught the real glow of Raphael's genius; the master's divine ideas became vulgarized in passing through Giulio's more material brain. Moreover he was carried away by the power of Michelangelo's works (the Sistine

Roof was uncovered in 1512), which, however, he mis- interpreted as the brute force of physical strength. Thus Raphael 's graceful figures often became in Giufio's hands coarse muscular giants like the "Ignudi" and the " Prophets ". Giulio is also responsible for the brick- coloured tones and plaster flesh-tints of the men and women in Raphael's later works, the artistic defects of which are in many cases entirely due to Giulio. A number of the master's most beautiful conceptions have come down to us only under this imperfect form, spoiled for ever by the triviality and lack of delicacy of the execution, and the pity of it is that, on the strength of Raphael 's signature, these works seemed to impress the seal of sanction on many serious de- fects in the French School of the seventeenth century. Much time and discussion would have been saved if in arguing over the famous "Transfiguration" (1520), for instance, it were admitted that in its present state, as completed by Giulio, it is impossible to say what the master's original idea was, since the secret of it is buried with him in the grave. As for the " Battle of Constantine", and the "Coronation of the Virgin", it would be as well to admit that they retain nothing whatever of Raphael.

Although the sole interest of this early portion of Giulio's career consists in the light it throws on Ra- phael's work, it is of greater artistic importance than all Giulio's subsequent independent efforts. Yet even they are not without interest. They show us Giulio developing, though with undoubted talent, some of the defects and deadly vices which lay hidden in the Renaissance movement. The most serious of these defects is dilettanteism, or virtuosity for its own sake. Giulio had not with impunity devoted ten years simply to the execution of another's ideas ; he came to believe that in art the thought is of no account, the form everything. The necessary connexion between the idea and its expression, between art and life, quite escaped him. 'This was the grave defect of the Ital- ian spirit — the abuse of art, the worship of form, the indifTerence to subject, and it could hardly fail to prove fatal to an artist whom it had obsessed.

An opportunity of translating this erroneous prin- ciple to canvas on a large scale was afforded to Giulio by the Duke of Mantua. For 22 years (1524-1546) the artist was absolute master of all the works of art executed in that town. He entirely remodelled the interior decoration of the old palace (the Palazzo di Corte), lavishing on it all the resources of his inexhaust- ible fancy. He refashioned the interior of the cathe- dral ; he raised the important church of San Benedetto, and he built from roof to cellar the famous Palace of Tajetto, near the gates of the town.

It is especially in these two palaces, which were almost entirely painted by him or his pupils, that Giulio marks an epoch in the history of art. His lively but superficial fancy, incapable of deep emotion, of religious feeling, or even of observation, attracted him to neutral subjects, to mythological paintings, and imaginary scenes from the world of fable. There- in under the cloak of humanism, he gave expression to a sensualism rather libertine than poetical, an epi- cureanism unredeemed by any elevated or noble quality. It is this that wins for Giulio his distinctive place in art. His conception of form was never quite original; it was always a clever and "bookish" com- promise between Raphael and Michelangelo. His sense of colour grows ever louder and uglier, his ideas are void of finesse, whatever brilliancy they show is second-hand. His single distinctive characteristic is the doubtful ea,se with which he played with the connii(>Ti])l;iccs of pagandom. In this respect at least, painliiins like those of the "Hall of Psyche" (15.'52) are histiiiic:il landnuirks. It is the first time (even if we include llic I'liT-ncsina') that an appeal is made to the senses with all the brutal frankness of a modern work. Unlike Raphael's "Galatea" and his "Three Graces".