DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57409#0363
LUCA DELLA KOBBIA.
347
worked, and becomes indurated by time and exposure to the
air. Girolamo della Robbia laboured much in Orleans, and
executed many works in various parts of the whole realm of
France, acquiring high reputation and great riches. But after
a time, understanding that the only brother now remaining
to him in Florence was Luca, while he was himself alone in
the service of the French king, and very wealthy, he invited
his brother to join him in those parts, hoping to leave him
the successor of his own prosperous condition and high credit.
But the matter did not proceed thus. Luca died soon after
his arrival in France, and Girolamo found himself once more
alone and with none of his kin beside him. He then resolved
to return to his native land, and there enjoy the riches ac-
quired by his pains and labours, desiring moreover to leave
some memorial of himself in his own country. In the year
1553 he established his dwelling in Florence accordingly, but
was in a manner compelled to change his purpose, seeing that
duke Cosmo, by whom he had hoped to be honourably em-
ployed, was entirely occupied by the war in Siena : he there-
fore returned to die in France, when not only did his house
remain closed and his family become extinct,* but art was at
the same time deprived of the true method of working in
the glazed terra-cotta. It is true that there were some who
made attempts in this kind of sculpture after his decease,
but no one of these artists ever approached the excellence
of Luca the elder, of Andrea, and the other masters of that
family in the branch of art of which we are now speaking, f
Wherefore, if I have expatiated at some length on this sub-
ject, or said more than may have seemed needful, let my
readers excuse me, since the fact that Luca invented this
mode of sculpture, which had not been practised—so far as I
* See Balclinucci, who shews that Vasari is here in error. The Della
Robbia family flourished most honourably, both in France and Florence,
until the year 1645, the last of the name being Bishop of Cortona and
Fiesole.—Schorn.
f The secret of these inventions was transmitted to the Buglioni family
by the marriage of a Della Robbia with Andrea Benedetto Buglioni.
Andrea was contemporary with Verrocchio; and his son, Santi Bu-
glioni, inherited the secret, which in him, as it appears, was totally lost,
although many attempted to discover the methods adopted (according
to Baldinucci, who relates this), more particularly a certain Antonio
Novello, but he was far from attaining to the excellence of the Della
Robbia family.
347
worked, and becomes indurated by time and exposure to the
air. Girolamo della Robbia laboured much in Orleans, and
executed many works in various parts of the whole realm of
France, acquiring high reputation and great riches. But after
a time, understanding that the only brother now remaining
to him in Florence was Luca, while he was himself alone in
the service of the French king, and very wealthy, he invited
his brother to join him in those parts, hoping to leave him
the successor of his own prosperous condition and high credit.
But the matter did not proceed thus. Luca died soon after
his arrival in France, and Girolamo found himself once more
alone and with none of his kin beside him. He then resolved
to return to his native land, and there enjoy the riches ac-
quired by his pains and labours, desiring moreover to leave
some memorial of himself in his own country. In the year
1553 he established his dwelling in Florence accordingly, but
was in a manner compelled to change his purpose, seeing that
duke Cosmo, by whom he had hoped to be honourably em-
ployed, was entirely occupied by the war in Siena : he there-
fore returned to die in France, when not only did his house
remain closed and his family become extinct,* but art was at
the same time deprived of the true method of working in
the glazed terra-cotta. It is true that there were some who
made attempts in this kind of sculpture after his decease,
but no one of these artists ever approached the excellence
of Luca the elder, of Andrea, and the other masters of that
family in the branch of art of which we are now speaking, f
Wherefore, if I have expatiated at some length on this sub-
ject, or said more than may have seemed needful, let my
readers excuse me, since the fact that Luca invented this
mode of sculpture, which had not been practised—so far as I
* See Balclinucci, who shews that Vasari is here in error. The Della
Robbia family flourished most honourably, both in France and Florence,
until the year 1645, the last of the name being Bishop of Cortona and
Fiesole.—Schorn.
f The secret of these inventions was transmitted to the Buglioni family
by the marriage of a Della Robbia with Andrea Benedetto Buglioni.
Andrea was contemporary with Verrocchio; and his son, Santi Bu-
glioni, inherited the secret, which in him, as it appears, was totally lost,
although many attempted to discover the methods adopted (according
to Baldinucci, who relates this), more particularly a certain Antonio
Novello, but he was far from attaining to the excellence of the Della
Robbia family.