Gruner, Ludwig; Hittorff, Jacques Ignace [Editor]: Fresco decorations and stuccoes of churches & palaces, in Italy, during the fifteenth & sixteenth centuries with descriptions (London, 1844)

DECORATIONS

OF

THE

VILLA

PONIATOWSKY,

THE PALAZZO MONTALTO, AND THE PALAZZO ALTIERI.

PLATES 13—15.
There were, and still are, many palaces and country-houses, in and
near Rome, possessing arabesque-decorations of the Sixteenth century,
and when we see the long list of disciples and followers of Raphael in
Vasari’s Life of Perino del Vaga,1 and consider the great and numberless
works that sprung up in so short a space of time, we are easily con-
vinced that many skilful artists may have existed whose names are not
preserved, and that we may often be at a loss to ascertain which are the
works of those with whose names we are acquainted. In fact, those
disciples must have obtained such a practical skill in this branch of art,
that one hint, one slight sketch, by any of the Great Masters, must have
been sufficient to enable them to produce a work almost equal in merit to
the master-pieces we so justly admire. Of this class are the decorations
of the three ceilings given on the three following Plates, which, although
not ascribed to any great name, are undoubtedly excellent specimens of
that school, and by their graceful simplicity particularly adapted as
models for imitation.

1 Perino del Vaga, T. xi.42.