Franco, Marco da Siena, Tibaldi, and other foreign artists, who have imitated Michelangiolo, shall be noticed under their respective schools. The Florentine school abounded in them, and these we shall consider all together in the succeeding epoch. I shall here only notice two, who lived on intimate habits with him, who executed works under his own eye, and for a long time received directions from his own lips; circumstances which cannot be said of Vasari, of Salviati, nor of any other able artist of his school. One of these was Francesco Granacci of Florence, characterized by Vasari as an excellent artist, who derived much of his merit from his early intimacy with Michelangiolo. He was the fellow student of the latter, under Domenico Ghirlandaio, and also in the garden of Lorenzo; and from his precepts, and by studying his cartoon, he enlarged his own manner, and approached near the modern style. After the death of his master, he remained with the brothers of that artist, to complete some of the works of the deceased, and was employed in painting some Holy Families, and cabinet pictures, in distemper, which might easily pass under another name, as they resemble the best productions of that school. In his new style he never entirely abandoned the simplicity of the old manner; but there is a specimen in the church of S. Jacopo without-the-walls, more studied in design, and more determined in the colouring. In this picture S. Zanobi and S. Francis appear near our Lady under a lofty canopy; a subject then familiar in every school. His style seems more matured in an Assumption which was in S. Pier Maggiore, a church now suppressed: here he inserted, between two other figures, a S. Thomas, wholly in the manner of Michelangiolo. Few other considerable paintings can be ascribed to this artist, who was left in easy circumstances by his father, and painted rather as a commendable amusement than from necessity.
Ricciarelli, usually known in history by the name of Daniele di Volterra, enjoys a greater name, and is generally described as the most successful follower of Michelangiolo. Educated in Siena, according to report, by Peruzzi and Razzi, he became the assistant of Perino del Vaga, and acquired an astonishing talent for imitating Bonarruoti, who greatly esteemed him, appointed him his substitute in the labours of the Vatican, brought him into notice, and assisted and enriched him with designs. It is known that Michelangiolo was often with Daniele when he painted in the Farnese palace, and it is said that Bonarruoti, during his absence, "O vero o falso che la fama suoni," mounted the scaffold, and sketched with charcoal a colossal head that is still seen there. Volterra let it remain, that posterity might judge of the powers of Bonarruoti, who without pre-meditation and in mere jest, had finished a work in such proportion, and so perfect. Nor did Daniele execute, without the assistance of Michelangiolo, the wonderful Descent from the Cross in the Trinità de' Monti, which, together with the Transfiguration by Raffaello, and the S. Girolamo of Domenichino, may be reckoned among the finest paintings in Rome.[166] We seem to behold the mournful spectacle, and the Redeemer sinking with the natural relaxation of a dead body in descending: the pious men engaged in various offices, and thrown in different and contrasted attitudes, appear assiduously occupied with the sacred remains which they seem to venerate; the mother of Jesus having fainted between the sorrowing women, the beloved disciple extends his arms and bends over her. There is a truth in the naked figures that seems perfect nature; a colouring in the faces and the whole piece that suits the subject, and is more determined than delicate; a relief, a harmony, and, in a word, a skill that might do honour to the hand of Michelangiolo himself, had the picture been inscribed with his name. To this the artist, I believe, alluded, when he painted Bonarruoti with a mirror near it; as if in this picture he might behold a reflection of himself. Volterra painted some other Crucifixions in the Orsini Chapel, where he was employed for seven years; but they are inferior to that described above. He employed his pupils in another chapel of that church, (Michele Alberti, according to the Guide to Rome, and Gio. Paolo Rossetti,) and supplied them with designs; one of which he himself executed in a picture, with figures of a moderate size. The subject is the Murder of the Innocents, and it is now deposited in the Tribune of the Royal Gallery of Florence; an honour that speaks more for it than my eulogy. The Grand Duke Leopold purchased it at a high price from a church in Volterra, where there is now no other public specimen of this master. The Ricciarelli family possess a fine Elijah, as an inheritance and memorial of this great man; and a beautiful fresco remains in a study in the house of the Dottor Mazzoni, relating to which we may refer the reader to the excellent historiographer of Volterra, (tom. i. p. 177).
There was a youth of Florence, named Baccio della Porta, because his study was near a gate of that city; but having become a Dominican, he obtained that of Fra Bartolommeo di S. Marco, from the convent where he resided, or, more shortly, that of Frate. Whilst he studied under Rosselli, he became enamoured of the grand chiaro-scuro of Vinci, and emulated him assiduously. We read that his friend Albertinelli studied modelling, and copied ancient basso-relievos, from a desire of obtaining correctness in his shadows; and we may conjecture the same of Baccio, although Vasari is silent on this head. The Prince has a Nativity and Circumcision of Christ in his early manner; most graceful little pictures, resembling miniatures. About this period he also painted his own portrait in the lay habit, a full-length figure, most skilfully inclosed in a small space, and now in the splendid collection of the Signori Montecatini at Lucca. He entered the cloister in 1500, at the age of thirty-one, and for four years never handled the pencil. The execution of Savonarola, whom he knew and respected, preyed upon his mind; and, like Botticelli and Credi, he gave up the art. When he again resumed it, he seems to have advanced daily in improvement, during the last thirteen or fourteen years of his life; so that his earlier productions, though very beautiful, are inferior to his last. His improvement was accelerated by Raffaello, who came to Florence to pursue his studies in 1504, contracted a friendship for him, and was at the same time his scholar in colouring, and his master in perspective.