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  • cipal composition, the Descent from the

Cross, is ranked among the great pictures of the world. As it is superior to any other work by Volterra, many think he was aided in the composition by Michelangelo. On the death of Del Vaga, in 1547, Volterra was appointed superintendent of the works in the Vatican, but on the death of Paul III. he lost the position, and the rest of his life was devoted chiefly to sculpture. After living in Florence and other places he finally returned to Rome, and was employed by Paul IV. to drape the nude figures in Michelangelo's Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel, whence he was nicknamed Il Bracchettone (breeches-maker). Among his works are: Massacre of the Innocents, Uffizi, Florence; Madonna and Saints, Liechtenstein Gallery, Vienna; Descent from the Cross, Madrid Museum; Beheading of John Baptist, Turin Gallery; David and Goliath, Louvre.—Vasari, ed. Le Mon., xii. 84; ed. Mil., vii. 49; Ch. Blanc, École florentine; Burckhardt, 184, 648, 683, 756.


VOLTERRA, FRANCESCO DA, Florentine school, 14th century. Supposed disciple of Giotto, but long settled in Pisa, where in 1346 he had already executed an altarpiece for the cathedral. Another work is The Crucified, Angels and Saints, Sacristy of Ognissanti, Florence (1350). About 1370 he painted, according to late authorities, the great frescos of the Trials of Job, in the Campo Santo, formerly ascribed to Giotto.—C. & C., Italy, i. 392; Burckhardt, 495, 497, 503.


VOLTRI, NICCOLÒ DA, Genoese school; worked at Genoa in 1401 on an Annunciation, for the Church of the Madonna delle Vigne; also painted an altarpiece for S. Teodoro, Madonna and Child holding a small Bird, with Kneeling Donor, inscribed Nicolaus da Voltri, deposited in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Shows study of German masters.—Soprani, 11; Siret, 984.



VOLTZ, FRIEDRICH, born at Nördlingen, Oct. 31, 1817, died in Munich, June 25, 1886. Animal and idyl painter, son and pupil of the history and genre painter Johann Michael Voltz (1784-1858); then studied at the Munich Academy and from nature in the Bavarian Alps; visited Italy in 1843-45 and in 1872, and the Netherlands in 1846, afterwards Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. Professor at Munich Academy, member of Munich (1863), Berlin (1869), and Vienna (1870) Academies. Gold medals: Berlin, 1856, 1861; Würtemburg medal for art; Orders of Red Eagle and of St. Michael, 1867. Most of his works—nearly 2,000—are in private collections. Works: Menagerie (1835), Cows Drinking (1868), National Gallery, Berlin; Herd on Benedictine Wall in Bavarian Highlands (1852), Königsberg Museum; Herdsman and Cows near a Village, Leipsic Museum; Cow Stable, Schwerin Gallery; Sunday Morning on the Alp, Stuttgart Museum; Cows by the Water, Harrach Gallery, Vienna; Return of the Herd, St. Gall Museum; First Storks (1859), Duke of Oldenburg; Pasture, Endangered Meal in the Stable (1860); Herd Resting, Cologne Museum; Idyl (1862), Carlsruhe Gallery; Cows in Stable, do. in Pasture, Provinzial Museum, Hanover; Return of Herd to Village (1863), New Pinakothek, Munich; Cow Stable (1884); Watering Place for Cattle on Starnberg Lake in Approaching Storm, Siesta in the Pasture (1886).—Dioskuren (1861), 47, 55; Illustr. Zeitg. (1857), i.; (1870), i. 371; Regnet, ii. 294; Kunst-Chronik, xix. 660; xxi. 652; xxii. 38; Zeitschr. f. b. K., ii. 209; v. 160; vi. 247; xiii. (Mittheilungen, vi. 35).