Dominicus Lampsonius

Dominicus Lampsonius (Latinised form of Dominique Lampsone) (1532, in Bruges – 1599, in Liège) was a Flemish humanist, poet and painter. A secretary to various Prince-Bishops of Liège, he maintained an extensive correspondence with humanists and artists at home and abroad. His writings on Netherlandish artists formed an important contribution to the formation of the so-called Netherlandish canon.

Life Lampsonius studied arts and sciences at the University of Leuven. In 1554, he went to England to serve as secretary to Reginald Pole, a prominent humanist and Roman Catholic Cardinal. After Pole's death in 1558, he traveled to Liège where he was secretary to the successive Prince-Bishops (Robert of Berghes, Gerard of Grœsbeek, and Ernest of Bavaria). He thus regularly collaborated with Laevinus Torrentius who was the vicar of the Prince-Bishops until 1586 after which he became Bishop of Antwerp.

Lampsonius was for a while the teacher of Otto van Veen, a painter and humanist who would later be one of the masters of Peter Paul Rubens. He became friends and engaged in intensive correspondence with some of the leading humanists of his time such as Justus Lipsius, Janus Dousa, Johannes Livineius and Petrus Oranus. He was a correspondent of the Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari, who relied upon him for his notes about the life and works of the Liège painter Lambert Lombard. In one of his letters to Vasari, Lampsonius defended Netherlandish art against some of the disparaging remarks that Vasari had made in his Vite.

He further conducted a regular correspondence with Giulio Clovio to whom he proposed a project to engrave Michelangelo's works in a skilful manner so that those who had not visited Rome could appreciate what they looked like.

Correspondence with Vasari Dominicus Lampsonius maintained a regular correspondence with Giorgio Vasari. The content of two letters is known. The first, dated 30 October 1564, was partly incorporated into Vasari’s Vite.

Since all the depicted artists were dead at the time of publication, Lampsonius included a dedicatory poem that qualified the work as a whole as an act of mourning and readers of the book are asked to ‘be the companions’ of the late Hieronymous Cock and his predecessors in a funeral procession. Lampsonius thus attempted to place Netherlandish art on the same level as Italian art, which he admired. He seems, however, to have resigned himself tacitly to the difference in rank between Italian and Netherlandish art. He writes in his poem on the painter Jan van Amstel that 'The Netherlanders are particularly praised as good painters of landscapes, the Italians of people or gods. No wonder: it stands to reason that the proverb says that the Italian has his brain in his head and the Netherlander in his diligent hand.'

The quality of the 23 prints was outstanding as they had been made by some of the leading engravers of the time such as Jan Wierix, Adriaen Collaert and Cornelis Cort. The portraits are rendered with a metallic sharpness and brilliance. The prints constitute a visually harmonious series.

Hendrik Hondius I published in 1610 a book with almost the same title ('Pictorum aliquot celebrium, præcipué Germaniæ Inferioris', in English: 'Effigies of some celebrated painters, chiefly of Lower Germany') that contained 69 engraved portraits of painters. Hondius' work included in its first part reworked versions of 22 of the portraits of the 1572 publication. The portrait of Hieronymus Cock (often numbered 23) was not included by Hondius maybe because the likeness was made after death, rather than drawn "ad vivum" or after the living model as was the case for the other portraits.

Other writings Lampsonius wrote numerous poems and epigrams in Latin. Lampsonius also was the author of Lamberti Lombardi Apvd Ebvrones Pictoris Celeberrimi Vita (The Life of Lambert Lombard), a biography of his art teacher Lambert Lombard (1565). This was the first biography about a Northern artist ever published. In the book, Lampsonius defended Lombard's art in the book and pronounced Lombard to be the equal of Vasari as a painter. Lampsonius noted that Lambert worked more for love of art than for money, an idea promoted in ancient times by Pliny the Elder and shared by Lampsonius.

Painting

Lampsonius dedicated himself for some time successfully to the art of painting. He was assisted in his efforts by Lambert Lombard, the eminent Renaissance painter of Liège. Lampsonius' only known extant painting is a Crucifixion scene dated 1576.