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Corn«llUnlverilly Library 
 ND 53.P89 1890 
 
 Classic and Italian Pal"''"*,, 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924008746020 
 
ILLUSTRATED TEXT-BOOKS OF ART 
 ED UCA TION 
 
 EDITED BY EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A. 
 
 CLASSIC AND ITALIAN PAINTING 
 
 EY EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A. 
 
 AND 
 
 PERCY R. HEAD 
 
ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE 
 GREAT ARTISTS. 
 
 The foUnuin^ volumes, lack illustrated with from 14 to 20 Ensrravi^gs, are no-Ji 
 ready, price y, 6d. Those tnarkfd with an asterisk are 2s. bd. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. By F. S. Pulling, M.A. 
 
 WILLIAM HOGARTH. By Austin Dobson. 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH and CONSTABLE. By G. BroCk-Arnold, IJ.A. 
 
 LAWRENCE and ROMNEY.* By Lord Ronald Gowee, F.S.A. 
 
 TURNER. By Cosmo Monkiiouse 
 
 SIR DAVID WILKIE. By J. W. Mollett. B.A. 
 
 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. By F. G. Stephens. 
 
 GIOTTO. By Harry Quilter, M.A. 
 
 FRA ANGELICO and BOTTICELLI. By C. M. Phillimoee. 
 
 FRA BARTOLOMMEO and ANDREA DEL SARTO. By Leader Scott. 
 
 MANTEGNA and FRANCIA. By Julia Cartwright. 
 
 GHIBERTI AND DONATELLO.* By Leader Scott. 
 
 LUCA DELLA ROBBIA and CELLINI.* By Leader Scott. 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCL By Dr. J. Paul Richter. 
 
 MICHELANGELO BUONARROTL By Charles Cl£.ment. 
 
 RAPHAEL. By N. D'Anvers. 
 
 TITIAN. By R. F. Heath, M.A. 
 
 TINTORETTO. By W. R. OsLER. 
 
 CORREGGIO.* By M. Compton Heaton. 
 
 VELAZQUEZ. By E. Stowe. M.A. 
 MURILLO.* By Ellen E. Minor. 
 
 ALBRECHT DURER. By R. F. Heath, M.A. 
 
 THE LITTLE MASTERS of GERMANY. By W. B. ScoTT 
 
 HANS HOLBEIN. By Joseph Cundall. 
 
 OVERBECK. By J. Beavington Atkinson. 
 
 REMBRANDT. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. 
 
 RUBENS. By C. W. Kett, M.A. 
 
 VAN DYCK and HALS. By P. R. Head, B.A, 
 
 FIGURE PAINTERS of HOLLAND. By Lord Ronald Gower, F.S.A. 
 
 CLAUDE LORRAIN. By Owen J. Dullea. 
 WATTEAU. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. 
 VERNET and DELAROCHE. By J. Ruutz Rees. 
 MEISSONIER.* By J. W. Mollett, B.A, 
 
St. Agnes. By Andeea del Sakto. 
 In the Cathedral, Pisa, 
 
 P. 154. 
 
TEXT-BOOK OF ART EDUCATION, EDITED BY 
 EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A. 
 
 CLASSIC 
 
 AND 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTING 
 
 BY EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A. 
 
 AND 
 
 PERCY R. HEAD 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON 
 (Limited) 
 ST. dunstan's house, fetter lane, fleet street, E.C. ' 
 
 1890 
 
RicHAED Clay & Sons, Limited, 
 London & Bungay. 
 
 (All HgMs reserved.) 
 
NOTE. 
 
 T N this, tlie first volume of Illustrated Text-Boohs of 
 -*- Art Education, the history of Classic Aut and the 
 general summary of Italian Abt are written by Mr. 
 Percy R. Head. The chapter on Egyptian Art, the 
 accounts of the rise and progress of the various 
 Schools of Painting in Italy — as well as the general 
 criticisms on styles — are added by the Editor. 
 
 The wood-engravings have boea selected from the best 
 available sources, and great pains have been taken to 
 procure illustrations of each important School. 
 
 To insure accuracy in dates and other biographical 
 particulars, reference has been made to the latest autho- 
 rities, especially to the works of Mr. J. A. Crpwe. 
 Any correction or suggestion of alterations will be very 
 thankfully received by 
 
 The Publishees. 
 
"Wall Deooeation, Pompeii. 
 
P E E F A C E. 
 
 IT is no doubt the business of artists to educate the 
 public in matters of art by raising the standard of 
 taste through their own productions, whether these take 
 the form of architecture, sculpture, painting, or the in- 
 dustrial arts. And it is equally without doubt that public 
 opinion reacts, and not always too favourably, upon art, 
 by creating a demand which can but rarely be up to the 
 required level of taste and critical knowledge : and this 
 must be the case so long as that class of the public which 
 possesses the means of encouraging art remains for the 
 most part in a Dogberry-like belief that the appreciation 
 of what is excellent in architecture, painting, or sculpture 
 " comes by nature." 
 
 To be born with a love for the arts is doubtless " a gift 
 of fortune," which is possibly completely denied to many 
 people ; though, however small the natural gift, it can be 
 encouraged into the right direction. There are some 
 amateurs of art who have acquired in the course of their 
 life a critical knowledge of the subject inferior to none — 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 their strong predilections leading them to devote them- 
 selves to it almost as though it were the business of 
 their lives. This class of connoisseurs, oi; dilettanti, or 
 amateurs, as they are variously called, has always existed 
 in greater or less numbers wherever there has been any 
 cultivation of art : but whereas the patronage of the arts 
 was formerly confined to a small class, in the present 
 day we have entered upon a new and different phase. 
 
 Within the last few years an interest in art — not un- 
 frequently genuine enough — has sprung up, which is very 
 widespread, and which is increasing far beyond the circle 
 of the few highly cultivated persons who at one time 
 constituted the amateur classes, But if this interest is to 
 be more than a fashion — distinguishing itself chiefly in the 
 opportunity it affords for quackery and advertisement 
 among some so called "art" companies and tradesmen — 
 a definite and systematic knowledge of art must be its 
 foundation. 
 
 The object of this series of Text-books is to provide that 
 such a knowledge should form part of general education ; 
 and it would seem hardly necessary to point out the ad- 
 vantages to be gained from their use in this direction, did 
 we not know of the strange belief alluded to above — that 
 the appreciation of good or bad in art is a mere matter 
 of taste. This belief does not extend to literature, the 
 rudiments at least of which, far in excess of what is 
 required for reading, writing, and grammar, are taught in 
 all our higher schools. It is to be supposed, for instance, 
 that the intention in teaching Greek and Latin in our 
 public schools goes beyond the mere benefit to be derived 
 from subjects requiring regular application ; the knowledge 
 
PEEFACE. XI 
 
 thus conferred forms at the Bame time a basis of the 
 etymology of an important section of modern languages. 
 The pnpil suilply is intended to combine with these 
 advantages the foundation of a discriminative taste for 
 the higher forms of literature, to the beauties of which 
 his mind may be opened through the study of the best 
 classic models. Something of the history of classic litera- 
 ture is also supposed to be acquired. Most boys, on leaving 
 school, know at least who Homer, jEschylus, Virgil, and 
 Horace were and what they did. They have probably 
 learnt also how Virgil's epic is founded on Homer's ; how 
 .^Eschylus led the way to Sophocles and Euripides ; they 
 have learnt from Horace the various forms of versification 
 which he used, and whence they were derived, and much 
 more of the same kind; in fact, unless more than the 
 usual amount of time has been devoted to athletics, they 
 come away with a sufficient general acquaintance with fine 
 literature to form their taste and to help them to pursue 
 the subject in after life if so inclined. 
 
 But it is doubtful whether the large majority of boys 
 would not be puzzled by any allusion to the names of 
 Phidias or Michelangelo. They may have heard of 
 Baphael because his .cartoons for the Vatican tapestries 
 are in this country, and they may have seen prints of 
 Da Vinci's Zasi Supper; but there are veiy few who 
 would come well out of an examination as to any other 
 works of these great artists. As regards the rise, pro- 
 gress; culmination, and hardly contested decline of the 
 various schools of art — Greek, Boman, Italian, Spanish, 
 German, Flemish, French, English— for aught tliat the 
 well-educated schoolboy knows of their history, it may be 
 
Xll PKEFACE. 
 
 said that the great men who were the instruments of 
 change and improvement might as well have existed in 
 the Eocene period, or in the planet Mars, rather than in 
 our own globe, and in times with whose history he is 
 otherwise familiar. 
 
 When the English public begins to understand that a 
 knowledge of art requires just such a foundation of definite 
 instruction as is given to literature, they will wonder 
 that the subject is still as foreign to the curriculum of 
 the English schoolboy as if the Greeks of old had been 
 as destitute of art as the barbarous nations of the North 
 whose languages he rarely deigns to study. 
 
 A smattering of drawing, it is true, has been at most 
 schools within reach of thpse boys whose natural instinct 
 has led them with more or less insistence in that direction, 
 and this branch of education is becoming every year 
 more general, and is improving in quality; but unless 
 under very able direction, this tends but little towards 
 the cultivation of taste. We must have in addition an 
 acquaintance with the great works of art that are standards 
 of style ; such works, that is to say, as have received the 
 sanction of cultivated men of all times. To have learnt 
 to draw and paint a little, adds unquestionably a great 
 zest to the pleasure to be derived from pictures ; but tech- 
 nical knowledge of this kind, aiid even great skill and 
 originality as an artist, may exist in an individual in com- 
 pany with the most absolute indifference to any form of 
 art that lies beyond his range of ideas ; and there are many 
 cultivated men whose opinion on a work of art is much 
 to be preferred to that of many artists. Be this as it 
 may, it may safely be admitted that au acquaintance with 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 the history of art, combined with a good general education, 
 is a better preparation for foi-ming a genuine taste for 
 the arts than the very moderate amount of practical skill 
 which can be acquired during the ordinary school course. 
 Not that this also is not equally desirable ; a good system 
 of teaching drawing should be found in every school, 
 and all boys that are not absolutely incapable should 
 learn to draw, but this is for other and obvious reasons 
 which need not be dwelt on here. Briefly, however, it 
 may be said that learning to draw, when once the stage 
 of educating the hand alone is passed, tends to open the 
 mind to the true aspects of nature : whereas the study of 
 the history of art should promote a desire for a more 
 intimate knowledge of the great works that have been done 
 in past times, and of their authors ; the mind will then 
 begin gradually to classify and compare such representative 
 examples as are to be found in the numerous museums 
 and picture-galleries of the world, and will awaken to the 
 beauties of the various styles of art ; and thus the taste 
 will be formed and the judgment improved, and a sounder 
 criticism extended to the productions of the present time. 
 It is only by such means, moreover, that it becomes 
 possible to appreciate those sentiments of beauty which, 
 ■ struggling through the rigid surroundings of the early and 
 undeveloped attempts of an artistic race, distinguish them 
 from mere barbarism : appreciation which, to the possessor 
 of a cultivated mind, so far compensates foif the imperfect 
 means of expression that the silhouettes of figures on 
 an archaic Greek vase lose for him their grotesqueness, 
 and foreshadow the beauty which receives its full expres- 
 sion in the Panathenaic frieze : and that he can discern 
 
XIV PEEFACE. 
 
 in the sober and limited, though dignified, simplicity of 
 Giotto's groups in the Arena Chapel, the profound thought 
 and the feeling for the grander aspects of nature which 
 are more obvious in the completely developed art of the 
 Sistine Chapel and the Stanze of the Vatican. 
 
 It is not too much to affirm that the perception of this 
 instinctive sentiment for form and expression which under- 
 lies the immature attempts of primitive art is necessary 
 to the prpper understanding of the productions of per- 
 fected genius ; and no one who is without it can be said 
 to have more than a partial and unformed knowledge of 
 the subject, and certainly has but little right to give 
 opinions on the merit of this or that production ; for the 
 whole of a most important and most interesting phase of 
 art — that in which, with as yet imperfect powers .of ex- 
 pression, the mind is striving with all its energies to give 
 utterance to its emotions and its impressions of nature — 
 is a sealed book to him. 
 
 Such investigation as this is one of the proper results 
 of the study of art through its history. 
 
 When we consider the vastness of the subject, it cannot 
 be expected that the Text-books which are here presented 
 to the public will carry the learner far. Their limited size 
 does not admit of their being much more than compilations, • 
 taking a general survey; it is but a little learning that 
 can be gained from them ; but, if this touch the right chord 
 in the pupil's mind, and be acquired, as other subjects are 
 acquired in his school course, with method and accuracy, 
 it will act as an incentive to him to follow up the sub- 
 ject for its own sake, and will afford him that pleasure 
 whicli can only be derived from intelligent appreciation. 
 
PHEFACE. XV 
 
 The least that the future possessor of a fine house or a 
 picture gallery can get from such studies will be an 
 insight into his ignorance concerning things which 
 surround him, and meet his eyes at every turn ; and if 
 his interest in them carry him but little further than the 
 acquisition of a certain number of names and dates by 
 heart, the mere fact that he has been taught these may be an 
 indication to him of their importance ; and thus his small 
 stoi-e of acquired facts may add to his contemplation of pic- 
 tures and buildings that respect which is always attached 
 to matters learnt in youth, and perhaps lead him to gaze 
 on them with a less vacant eye. In the endless Madonnas 
 and Saints in the picture galleries abroad, he will possibly 
 discern distinguishing featui'es presenting unexpected 
 points of interest ; and he may discover in antique statues 
 some further subjects of remark than that they commonly 
 have broken noses.* To have learnt only that these things 
 are worth looking at, may induce him to look at them, and 
 perhaps care for them, which is a step towards being careful 
 of them for their own sakes, and not for their money value 
 only or because their possession conduces to his family 
 dignity. This alone will be an enormous gain, for how 
 many beautiful and priceless works of art have been suffered 
 to go to ruin in our English country-houses, tlirough sheer 
 ignorance on the part of their possessors, the winter exhibi- 
 tions of the Eoyal Academy and of the Grosvenor Gallery 
 have too clearly shown. 
 
 » Tradition assigns to the playful exuberance of spirits in an English 
 nobleman of the beginning of this century, who had a lancy for collect- 
 ing marble noses, this very prevalent form of dilapidation. It is cer- 
 tain that many busts and statues ^ra;itiiig this feature are in othenvise 
 flawless condition, so that they cannot all have suffered by accident. 
 
XTl PEEFACE. 
 
 But supposing a real and intelligent interest in the 
 history of ancient art to be awakened, what a different 
 aspect is given to the general course of a boy's studies ! Por 
 nothing humanises a people for us or brings them more 
 within the range of our sympathies than an acquaintance 
 with their handiwork. Some nations indeed, such as the 
 ancient Egyptians, are known only through their art ; but 
 how intimately we seem to know them ! It is hardly too 
 much to say that we may become, through such works on 
 Egypt as Lepsius's Denkmdler, acquainted with every 
 detail of their domestic life. But putting aside such cases 
 as this of the Egyptians — whose climate and habit of re- 
 cording everything in painting have put us in exceptional 
 communication with their daily life — we have only to think • 
 of the way in which history is taught in schools to under- 
 stand what it might become if the schoolboy were given 
 at the same time some knowledge of the art which played 
 so important a part in the lives of ancient peoples. 
 
 He would learn that the Greeks of old, when once they 
 had freed themselves from the fears of foreign invasion, 
 had even more respect for pictures and statues than for the 
 triremes and hoplites whose numbers are catalogued for him 
 with such useless and wearisome minuteness — although his 
 Greek history, which spares not a detail of their parish 
 politics, will not give him the faintest hint of it. 
 
 Pericles, a , stumbling block to historians, who cannot 
 make up their minds whether he was a patriotic citizen 
 or an ambitious demagogue, will acquire a new, and possi- 
 bly a higher, interest for him, as the patron who called 
 into life the Propylsea and the Parthenon (" which alone 
 suffice for the glory of Pericles,'' says a Greek writer) with 
 
PKEFACE. XVU 
 
 their matchless sculptures and paintings — that Parthenon 
 whose statues, two hundred years ago nearly perfect, now 
 present but a few fragments, mutilated torsos, without hands, 
 without feet, with hardly a face unbroken, yet suflSoient in 
 their ruin to make us wonder how imperfect humanity ever 
 achieved such perfection ; and doubt while we stand before 
 them whether the most renowned Italian art of the six- 
 teenth century be not separated from them by a gulf as 
 wide as that which divides the art of our own time from 
 that glorious period of the revival. The Propylaea * again, 
 so daring and magnificent in its structure, and so beautiful 
 in its detail that the Greek writers invariably give it 
 the first place in their accounts, — ^mentioning it even 
 before the glories of the Parthenon — and which was 
 regarded with such envy by the other cities of Greece 
 that Epaminondas was desirous of having it transported 
 bodily to Thebes t' — these are the works of Pericles that 
 will shed lustre on his name for ever, and with them will 
 live the names of the great artists of whose existence the 
 schoolboy has been kept in perfect ignorance. 
 
 Mummius, on the other hand, lives in history as the 
 great Koman who finally subdued the degenerate Greeks, 
 and reduced their country to a Roman province. In the 
 history of art he is held up to execration as having wan- 
 tonly razed the beautiful Corinth (more beautiful parhaps 
 than Athens) to the ground, and left not one stone of 
 her glorious " monuments of fame and strength and art " 
 
 * A building flanked by wings — ^the entrance to the Acropolis. 
 
 t See Beule'a Aeropole d'Athines, where he gives quotations from 
 various Greek writers : all to the effect that the Propylaea was 
 considered the chief glory of Athens. 
 
 c I p £ 
 
XVUl BEEFACE. 
 
 standing on another, while he brutally and roughly 
 despoiled it of such of its work of art as could be 
 carried away.* 
 
 It seems hardly doubtful, then, that it would be well if 
 our future statesmen could have it impressed on them in 
 their youth, that some meed of the glory which Pericles has 
 received will be their due wlienever their encouragement 
 of the fine arts tempts them to go further than the annual 
 votes which they give with a grudging hand to the three 
 museums of London-^votes which are cut down or withheld 
 by whichever party may be in power on the slightest ex- 
 cuse.t And it will be well also if our future Mummiuses 
 shall have been taught as schoolboys that works of beauty 
 and skill have a value in themselves independent of their 
 market price. The laws of civilised warfare, it is true, are 
 in the present day opposed to the unnecessary destrtiction 
 of works of art, or indeed to wanton destruction of any 
 kind ; and English generals, as they are the bravest, so 
 are they the most humane, and the first to be considerate 
 
 * That he saved and sent to Rome the works of art, is probably 
 due purely to a suspicion of their commercial value ; for the works 
 were put up for sale, and when he heard how large a sum had been 
 offered by Attains for a celebrated picture of Bacclma by Aristides, 
 he withdrew it from the sale and placed it in the Temple of Ceres. 
 The extent of his appreciation of their beauty may be gathered from 
 the fact of his threatening hi.") soldiers that if they broke any of the 
 statues in removing them they would have to provide new ones. 
 
 t The vote for the National Gallery was withheld for seven (or was it 
 nine ?) years on the ground of a large purchase of pictures by the last 
 Liberal Government ; and it was only by the head of the late Govern- 
 ment making himself personally responsible to Parliament for the 
 unauthorised expenditure during this period of cataleptic suspense, 
 that the Director was enabled tQ obtain certain valuable pictures 
 which have lately been added to the Gallery. 
 
PUEFACE. XIX 
 
 on this point ; but these laws have not yet beeu made 
 to apply fully to our dealings with so-called barbarous 
 countries ; a little respect, for instance, for the beautiful 
 work of men's hands learnt as a lesson in youth might 
 have prevented the truly barbarous demolition and looting 
 of the famous Yuen-min-yuen, the summer palace of the 
 Emperors of China. 
 
 Eespect for the work of men's hands — this is indeed 
 one of the most desirable lessons that may be learnt from 
 the history of art ; and this whether the artificer be 
 barbariiin or not ; for we must remember that much of 
 what we admire has at one time or another been thought 
 barbarous. To an architect of the last century the stained 
 glass of Salisbury Cathedral was only fit to be taken out 
 and (it is said) thrown into the city ditch — not to be re- 
 placed by other more worthy, but simply to be destroyed 
 as barbarous and offensive to the eye — and the numberless 
 gems of Gothic fretwork in wood and stone that have 
 perished, the victims of churchwardens' improvements, 
 will never, alas ! be known. Manifold indeed are the 
 ways in which destruction has fallen on the priceless pro- 
 ductions of world-famous artists. "War, greed, sectarian 
 hatred, religious zeal, popular fury, the prurient fanati- 
 cism of individuals, natural decay, accident, neglect, re- 
 storation, have all had their hand in the destruction of 
 works of beauty and skill, which not only can never be 
 replaced, but of which the like will never be seen again. 
 It ia the fate, unluckily, of pictures, especially when 
 painted on walls, to perish under the changes which pro- 
 gress makes indispensable ; and architecture cannot but 
 suffer under the same inevitable law. But sculpture may 
 
 b 2 
 
XX PEEFACE. 
 
 more easily be preserved ; yet of all the famous statues of 
 the most famous period of Greek art, how many remain i 
 The treasures of art of which Constantine despoiled the 
 shrines of Greece and Asia Minor to enrich his new city, — 
 treasures which included the most celebrated works of 
 Phidias himself, — have perished every one. 
 
 Alaric the Goth, besieged in Elis, — encamped on soil 
 virgin of war, — destroyed for the value of the metal the 
 3,000 bronze statues with which successive victors in the 
 Games had adorned the inolosures "of Olympia. The Par- 
 thenon with its sculptures, alone, by what would seem a 
 miracle, — for Athens, like Olympia, was "blasted by his 
 baleful presence " * — lived almost unscathed for 2,000 years 
 amidst wars and changes of dynasty, escaping the senseless 
 ravages of the Roman soldiery, Republican and Imperial, 
 no less than the religious fervour of the early Christians, 
 to perish no longer ago than the reign of our James II. by 
 the bomb-shell of a Venetian battery. 
 
 The burst of religious ardour excited by Savonarola 
 induced many of the Florentine artists to bring most 
 precious works to be burned, like heretics, at the bonfire 
 in the Piazza Granduca, a lamentable act of piety which did 
 not save its instigator from a like dreadful fate. Popular 
 fury destroyed Michelangelo's bronze statue of Julius II. 
 at Bologna two years after it was completed ; and not 
 a vestige remains, not a fragment of a wax model, not a 
 sketchy to give us the slightest clue to the aspect of one 
 of his greatest works — unhappily, one of the few which 
 
 ' Gibbon goes on to say, " And, if we may use the comparison of a 
 contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and 
 empty skin of a slaughtered victim." 
 
PREFACE. XXI 
 
 he quite completed. Accident buried his illustrations to 
 Dante's Divinia Gommedia under the waves of the Gulf of 
 Genoa, while fanaticism burned or cut to pieces his Leda, 
 one of the two easel-pictures which he painted in his life- 
 time. And neglect — how many famous works utterly lost 
 has it not to answer for ? And restoration 1 If the world 
 were not awakening to the horrors that have been com- 
 mitted in its name, the unique and beautiful Basilica of St. 
 Mark's at Venice — left almost intact from the eleventh cen- 
 tury until to within the last five-and-twenty years — would 
 have had but a poor chance of not being renewed into a 
 vulgar and showy semblance of its former glories. And 
 how many a celebrated picture is now a wreck, like Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci's Last Supper, the result of neglect and 
 restoration working, like Sin and Death, in complete accord. 
 
 The list might of course be extended indefinitely without 
 trouble ; but the moral to be drawn is undoubtedly this : 
 that there is hardly one of the causes of loss enumerated 
 above, whose fatal action a spirit of reverence for the arts 
 might not have modified; for even accident and what is 
 called natural decay are generally the result of neglect or 
 want of precaution. , 
 
 That the foundation for such a spirit exists in the 
 present day is not to be denied ; the interest in discovering, 
 collecting, and preserving works of art of all kinds is a 
 sufficient sign of it ; but if it is to last and to be of real 
 service, it must be'fbunded on a knowledge which shall be 
 both genuine and liberal. It cannot be denied that in this 
 respect, in spite of all that is talked and written in 
 sincerity or cant on the subject of art, we are hardly 
 better off now than formerly ; a satisfactory knowledge of 
 
XXll PEEFACE. 
 
 art will still be found only among those who practise it — 
 (a much larger class undoubtedly than hitherto) — and with 
 a few earnest lovers of it, such as have in all times assisted 
 by their enthusiasm. Outside, the taste, though wide- 
 spread, is desultory, following a fashion ; or, as is too 
 frequently the case, acquired at second-hand from the 
 writings of enthusiasts ; and admirable as these are for 
 kindling in healthy minds an ardent love for art and 
 beauty, they lead' as surely as ignorance itself to a dangerous 
 spirit of intolerance and iconoclasm , foolish disciples are 
 only too apt to make these writings an excuse for indulging 
 in prejudices no less objectionable than the prejudices 
 of sectarianism, for with the love for what is called the 
 " good cause " comes easily the hatred and desire for the 
 destruction of all which is considered to be opposed to it. 
 
 But there is nothing new in proclaiming the benefits to 
 be derived from knowledge, and it would be easy to fall into 
 truisms and platitudes by extending these observations. 
 The standard of merit in the production of works of art 
 and manufacture cannot be raised solely by the increased 
 opportunities for study afforded by galleries and museums 
 to artisans and others. Immense efforts are made to 
 spread the knowledge of art by these means,* and the 
 public collections are largely visited by the people, and, 
 to a moderate extent, by the educated classes, as a source 
 of amusement ; but it is absurd to expect that a mere de- 
 sultory 'wandering among cases of pottery and metal-work, 
 
 » Excellent handbooks to the various classes of industrial art are 
 published for t^e South Kensington Museum, and are most useful (and 
 much used) guides to the projier understanding and appreciation of 
 the objects in the museum. 
 
PKEFACE. XXIU 
 
 or a rapid survey of specimens of painting from every 
 school of Europe on an occasional holiday, should have 
 an educational effect — however predisposed to intelligent 
 admiration the visitor may be — without some basis for 
 discrimination and comparison. Previous instruction is 
 indispensable ; and especially from those classes who are in 
 a position to encourage production have we a right to expect 
 sufficient knowledge to act as a guide to the producers ; and 
 such knowledge as these Text-books are designed to give 
 cannot but be of some use in forming taste and counter- 
 acting the evils of ignorance : on the other hand, if the 
 instruction of the pupil in art cannot be made to in- 
 clude all that they are meant to teach — and it would 
 be nothing less than a calamity if the class of instruction 
 that has formed the usual course in our public schools were 
 to be made subordinate to the teaching of either Art or 
 Science — it would at least be possible for him to acquire 
 as much as should keep pace with his history lessons ; so 
 that while he learns what they teach him about Emperors, 
 and Demagogues, and Generals, he may not be uninformed 
 concerning those great creations of Art which have lasted 
 longer than these heroes or their deeds, and which need 
 never decay but for the passions or indifference of men. 
 
 EdWAKD J. POYNTEE. 
 May, 1880. 
 
 PosTSCEiPT. — In my capacity of editor of these volumes 
 I have made considerable additions to Mr. Head's care- 
 ful and well-written summary of the History of Classic 
 and Italian Painting ; especially to the accounts of the 
 
XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 earlier Schools where it was important to show the con- 
 nection which existed between them, and the means by 
 which art spread from one part of Italy to another. The 
 lives of certain men of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries have thus been dwelt on at some length, partly 
 because they themselves stand out as artists of exceptional 
 genius (such was Mantegna), to whom it is advisable to 
 direct the student's attention, and partly because of the 
 influence they exercised on other artists and succeeding 
 generations. The greater names of the sixteenth century 
 can better take care of themselves ; accounts of their life 
 and times are easily accessible ; and artists of the 
 decadence, however brilliant, are of little importance in 
 history. In the process of tracing the development of art 
 in these earlier centuries it is hardly necessary to say 
 that I am greatly indebted to the invaluable volumes of 
 Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle for my brief summaries. 
 The criticisms on the style of the various artists, on 
 the other hand, are derived from my own notes and 
 observation. 
 
 The form in which the work 'is published has naturally 
 rendered it impossible to provide many new engravings ; 
 but the examples have been selected with great care, so as 
 to convey a consistent impression of the characteristics of 
 each painter, and to illustrate the progress of the art. 
 
 E. J. P. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface ■ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Painting in Egypt : Painting in stucco : Picture-writing on 
 walls : Paintings in the tombs 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Painting in Greece : Embroidery : Origin of Art in Greece : 
 Red and black Vases : Further Development of Art : its 
 Zenith : and Decline : Ehopography 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Fainting in Borne : Etruscan Art : Greek Painters in Rome ; 
 Mural Paintings at Pompeii and Herculaneum : Early 
 Christian Art : the Catacombs of Rome : Mosaics : Minia- 
 ture Painting : Byzantine Painting 
 
XXVI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV, ■ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Renaissance ; Schools of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth 
 Centuries ; the Campo Santo at Pisa : Cimabue : Early 
 Sienese School : Giotto and the Early Florentine School : 
 Early Eoman School 53 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Fifteenth Century : Fra Angelico and the Florentine 
 School : Paduan School : Early Venetian School : other 
 Schools of North Italy : TJmbrian School : Neapolitan 
 School ' i 83 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Sixteenth Century : Leonardo da Vinci, and his Pupils : 
 Florentine School ; Michelangelo, and his School : Raphael, 
 and his Followers : School of Fen-ara : Lombard School : 
 Con-eggio, and his Pupils : Venetian School : Titian, and his 
 Followers 131 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Decline : The Eclectic School : the Carraoci ; the 
 
 Naturalists : the Late Venetian School 191 
 
 The Tribune of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence : List of 
 
 Statues and Paintings 209 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 St. Agnes Andrea del Sarto. Frontis. 
 
 St. Geokoe. Panel fhom the toiid oJ Cardinal ) mj^, 
 Amboise in Eouen Cathedral \ 'P' ° 
 
 Wall Decoeation, Pomi'eii viii 
 
 XXX 
 
 2 
 
 Youths on Horseback Beiwzzo Go::zoli 
 
 1. GouDESS Hathor Egyptian . 
 
 2. KiNe Bameses II. storming A FouTiiEss Egyptian . 
 
 3. Sons of King Rameses II Egyjitian . 
 
 i. Altar-Table with Offerings . . . Egyptian . 
 
 5. A King decapitating his Enemies , Egyptian . 
 
 6. Hunters bringing home Game . . . Egyptian . 
 
 7. Bowl (icpoTifp) Gfrcek . . 
 
 8. Oil Flask {Xrix^^os) Grrcnk . . 
 
 9. Wine Jar {irTa/wos) Greek , . 
 
 10. The Last Night of Tkoy Greek School 
 
 11. The Sacrifice of Ipiiigeneia .... Gfreek School 
 
 12. The Parting of Achilles and Briseis Greek School 
 
 13. Still-Life Painting, Pompeii .... Gfreek School 
 
 14. Wall Painting, 1'ompeii Greek School 
 
 15. Mosaic on a floor, Pompeii .... Greek Sdiool 
 
 16. The Battle of Issue, Pompeii . . . Greek School 
 
 17. Fresco from the Catacombs .... Byzantine . 
 
 18. Mosaic in the Church OF SS. Cosmo E "I „ .„.,/.■„, 
 
 Damiano, Home f Byzantine . 
 
 19. Mosaic, Justinian and his Attendants Byzantine . 
 
 3 
 4, 
 7 
 8 
 10 
 15 
 15 
 15 
 18 
 26 
 33 
 36 
 41 
 43 
 44 
 46 
 
 47 
 
 49 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAfiE 
 
 50 
 
 20. Santa Pudentiana Roman .... 
 
 21. The Madonna Entiikoned Gimabue .... 60 
 
 122. The Entombment of the Viegin . . Giotto 62 
 
 23. Chkist among the Doctors Giotto 6i 
 
 24. Joachim comes to the Shepherds . . Giotto 66 
 
 25. Shbpheed Life Giotto 6S 
 
 26. The Arts and Sciences, ascribed to . Taddeo Gaddi ... 70 
 
 27. Burial op St. Benedict SpiTiello Aretino . . 72 
 
 28. Fragment of a Fresco, attributed to Simone Memmi . 74 
 
 29. Head op " Concordia " Ambrogio Lorenzetti . 76 
 
 30. Portion OP THE Crucifixion .... Amlrogio Lorenzetti . 78 
 
 31. Jesus Stripped OF HIS Vestments . . Giotto .82 
 
 ?2. The Coronation OF ■JHB Virgin (Louvre)^?'a^Kg'cZico ... 84 
 
 33. TheCoronationopthe Virgin (Florence)i?V(i^?tg'eZjco ... 85 
 
 34. The Angelic Choir Benozzo Gozzoli . . 87 
 
 35. The Tribute Monet Masaccio 90 
 
 36. Madonna adoring the Holy Child . Filippo Lippi ... 93 
 
 37. Coronation op the Virgin Botticelli 95 
 
 38. The Madonna Enthroned lAica SignorelU . . 98 
 
 39. The Adoration OF the Magi .... Ohvrlandaio,, . . .101 
 
 40. Vision of St. Bernard Filippino Lippi . .103 
 
 41. The Crucifixion MmUegtm 107 
 
 42. The Triumph of Julius Caesar' . . . Mantegna 109 
 
 43. Santa CoNVEKfiAZioNB Giovanni Bellini . . 114 
 
 44. The Incredulity OP St. Thomas . . CimadaConegliano . IV 
 
 45. The Marriage of the Virgin .... Penufino 123 
 
 46. The Virgin Enthroned Frcmda '...,. 127 
 
 47. Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci . . Leonm-Ao da Viwyi . 133 
 
 48. The Last Supper Leonardo da Vina . 134 
 
 49. La ViEHGB AUX EocHERS Leonardo da Vinci .139' 
 
 50. The Vision of St. Catherine .... Bazzi 141 
 
 51. The Enthronement of the Virgin . Fra Bartolommco . .143 
 
 52. The Visitation of THE Virgin to St. "I ,,. ,. „. 
 
 Elizabeth )^ Albertvneni .... 144 
 
 53. PiSAN Soldiers BATHING IN THE Arno . Michehmgelo . . . 147 
 
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS. XXIX 
 
 PAOB 
 
 54. The Creation oir Adam MicheUijffelo . . .149 
 
 55. The Descent fuom the Cross .... Daniele da Voltcrra . 151 
 
 56. The Parable OF THE Vineyard . . . Andrea del Harto . .153 
 
 57. St. Agnes AndreadelSarto. Vvontia. 
 
 58. The Miraculous Draught op Fishes Raphael 160 
 
 50. Madonna della Sedia . , Saphael 162 
 
 60. The Coronation of the Virgin . . . Corrcggio 167 
 
 61. The Marriage of St. Catherine . . Correggio 169 
 
 62. The Madonna EnthroneI) Oiorgione 173 
 
 63. The Tribute Money Titifm 175 
 
 64. Death of St. Peter Martyr .... Titian 177 
 
 65. The Flagellation OF Christ .... Sebastiano del Piombo 180 
 
 66. Madonna WITH Saints Alessandro BonviciTio 182 
 
 67. The Marriage at Cana Tintoretto . . 
 
 68. The Martyrdom op St. Justina . Paolo Veronese 
 
 69. The Feast in the house of Simon . . Paolo Veronese 
 
 70. The Holy Family (Le Raboteur) . . AnnihaU Oarracei 
 
 71. The Adoration OF THE Shepherds . . Annibale Oarracei 
 
 72. So-called Portrait of Beatrice Cenci Ctuido Reni 
 
 73. Phoebus and Aurora Chiido Reni 
 
 74. The Last Communion of St. Jerome . Domeniehino 
 
 75. St. Pbtronilla raised from the Tomb Guereino . 
 
 76. The Players Caravaggio 
 
 77. View of Venice Canaletto . 
 
 78. The Tribune of the Uffizi, Florence 
 
 . 184 
 . 156 
 . 188 
 . 192 
 . 194 
 . 196 
 . 197 
 . 199 
 . 201 
 . 203 
 . 206 
 . 210 
 
By Benozzi Gozzoli (about a.d. 1460). 
 From "St. Augustine going to Rome" at San Qimignano. 
 
CLASSIC 
 
 ITA LIAN PAINTING 
 
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 CLASSIC AND ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 CHAPTER r. 
 
 PAINTING IN EGYPT. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the art of painting was known and 
 commonly practised in Egypt and Asia Minor, long 
 before even its rudest forms would seem to have existed in 
 Greece, it was in Greece that it first attained to a degree 
 of development which entitles it to rank as a fine art. 
 
 The art of Egypt was in many respects so primitive, and 
 so trammelled by its peculiar formalism, that it belongs 
 rather to the domain of archaeology than of aesthetics. 
 The specimens of Egyptian painting which remain to us, 
 however, are in such abundance that a short account 
 of the art as practised by them is necessary, and cannot 
 but be interesting, especially as it is probable that the 
 Greeks in early times learnt much of their art from the 
 Egyptians. 
 
 In Egypt, painting and sculpture were intimately com- 
 bined, and it is supposed by some that all the sculpture 
 
EGYPTIAN PAINTING. 
 
 was painted, including the colossal figures, which are 
 such a prominent feature of Egyptian art, and that only 
 objects in metal remained of their naltural hue. It is 
 doubtful, however, whether the large statues of their gods 
 and kings, and the figures of sphinxes, Uons, and rams, 
 which were executed in granite or sienite, were ever 
 painted. The beautiful polish which was given with such 
 an expenditure of labour to these hard materials (in them- 
 selves so beautiful) would seem to be senseless and waste- 
 ful if it was afterwards to be concealed with paint ; nor 
 _ is it easy to understand how the 
 
 paint would have held to so smooth 
 a surface. With these exceptions, 
 however, we may say that the 
 Egyptians enlivened every work of 
 art and manufacture with colour. 
 The insides and outsides of their 
 houses, of their temples, and of their 
 tombs were covered with pictures and 
 hieroglyphs. Their furniture was 
 either painted or inlaid with coloured 
 wood and ivory : the mummy cases 
 and all wooden figures were painted, 
 their jewellery was enamelled, their pottery was coloured, 
 multitudes of small ornamental objects, with which they 
 decorated their houses and their persons, were made of 
 porcelain or glass of a beautiful blue, and they had 
 moreover the art of making glass of various colours likfe 
 the Venetians. Colour was everywhere. 
 
 Fid. 1. — GuDJJ£S» Hathub. 
 
 It is with their pictures however that we have to deal • 
 these and the hieroglyphs, with which the walls and 
 columns of the temples are universally covered, were first 
 

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 4 EGYPTIAN PAINTING. 
 
 carved in tte sandstone in a kind of bas-relief peculiar 
 to Egyptian monuments, in which, although the pictured 
 objects are in relief, they are sunk beneath the flat surface 
 of the wall (Fig. 1). The surface was then covered with 
 a thin coat of fine stucco, which did not destroy the 
 
 delicacy of t,he carving, 
 and on this the painting 
 was done. The subjects 
 of these pictures vary 
 but little. The most im- 
 portant represent the 
 victories of the king in 
 whose reign the temple 
 was built. The' king, 
 invariably of gigantic 
 size, while the other 
 figures are generally 
 small in proportion, 
 fights in his chariot or 
 on foot, and is seen slay- 
 ing his enemies either 
 with a bow and arrow 
 (Fig. 2) or with a battle- 
 axe, or with a falchion 
 of peculiar shape. The 
 enemy are scattered before him, or fall in heaps under 
 his chariot wheels. Thus figuratively he is supposed to 
 be personally conquering or putting to flight the whole 
 force of the enemy. "Where the picture is on a very large 
 scale (as in those on the front of the immense propylons 
 to the temples), Ms sons and other officers are seen in their 
 chariots round the border (Fig. 3), fighting, or pursuing the 
 fugitives ; and various other incidents of the battle are 
 
 FiQ. 3.— The Sons or Kisa Bameses II. 
 
WALL PICTUBES. 5 
 
 represented. In other parts of these immense paintings 
 we see the king seated on his throne, or in his chariot, 
 receiving the tribute and the chief prisoners ; or his 
 oflScers count before him the hands of the slain, which 
 they have cut off from the bodies as the tale of their 
 numbers. 
 
 Although the treatment of these pictures is purely con- 
 ventional, and in some respects childish, as will presently 
 be shown, the figure of the king has frequently (indeed 
 always in the good period of art) an energy of action and 
 a grandeur of mien which is most imposing ; the horses, 
 with their sumptuous trappings, are full of life ; above 
 him flies the vulture of victory, or the hawk of the god Ra, 
 holding the flabella, or the signet-rings, which are the 
 insignia of royalty ; his names and titles are emblazoned 
 by his side ; and, as this principal group is always on a 
 colossal scale, the effect of the whole is impressive, and, 
 it may be added, picturesque in the extreme. 
 
 The Egyptian method of representing these scenes is 
 peculiar; they resemble maps rather than pictures, and 
 are a combination of plan and what architects call eleva- 
 tion ; they resemble, in fact, the maps of London of some 
 two hundred years ago, where the streets are drawn in 
 plan, but the houses are represented upright, only that in 
 the Egyptian scenes there is no perspective ; a manner of 
 treatment, which is no doubt characteristic of all early 
 paintings, but which with the Egyptians was systematic 
 and logical, and never changed through the whole period 
 of their history. Thus in the Egyptian battles the figures 
 are scattered over the ground as on a map, but they are 
 drawn in profile ; when a town on an island in a lake 
 has to be pictured, the lake and island are shown precisely 
 as we should show them on a map, but the town or castle 
 
6 EGYPTIAN PAINTING. 
 
 is shown in elevation as in an architectural drawing ; just 
 as the old maps of London give the Thames in plan, while 
 the ships and bridges are drawn, as in a picture. Egyptian 
 paintings must, in fact, be looked upon as ■pictMre-writing, 
 and the pictures are nothing more than enlarged hiero- 
 glyphics. This method of combining plan and elevation 
 runs through all their art, and when once understood 
 helps to explain many a puzzle which the absence of 
 perspective creates ; as in this painting of an altar with 
 offerings (Fig. 4), where the altar-table is shown as an 
 architectural elevation, but the offerings are seen as they 
 would be drawn in plan on the top, not heaped up as 
 would at first sight seem to be intended. They also com- 
 bined profile and full view in a way which was also, no 
 doubt, intentional and systematic. Thus, for instance, 
 though their faces are always drawn in profile, they re- 
 presented the full-face view of the eye. Again, as they 
 draw all objects in profile, and could thus show only one 
 side, they sometimes put into this one view objects which 
 would be hidden from sight. In the drawing of the chariot 
 in Fig. 2 the bow-case and quiver attached to it are shown 
 on the side near the spectator, and this is always the case 
 whichever way the chariot be turned, although it is more 
 than probable that the bow-case hung on one side of the 
 chariot and the quiver on the other. The artist, moreover, 
 as he could not clearly show the two in the same place, 
 has made them cross each other, which produces a very 
 picturesque effect. All these devices of arrangement are 
 for the purpose of getting as much into the picture as 
 possible, and are frequently most ingenious. "We effect 
 the same purpose by means of perspective, a science of 
 which the world up to the fifteenth century was ignorant. 
 Besides the paintings relating to the victories of the 
 
Fig. 4. — Altar-table with Offeeings. 
 
8 EGYPTIAN PAINTING. 
 
 king, we find little else on the outside walls but repre- 
 sentations of ofEerings to the various gods, in which the 
 king invariably figures; they are, in fact, his thank- 
 ofEerings for his victorious campaign. 
 
 One subject, frequently repeated, represents the king 
 cutting ofE the heads of his enemies before a protecting 
 
 Fio. 5.— A KiKQ CirmHO off the Heads of his Eseuies. 
 
 deity — generally Amun-Ra, or Ea, the hawk-headed god, 
 who presents him with a falchion (Fig. 5). The king 
 holds the group of kneeling victims by the hair in his 
 left hand, while with an action full of vigour and 
 majesty he prepares with upraised battle-axe to strike 
 ofE their heads at a blow. This representation is purely 
 
PAINTINGS IN THE TOMBS. i) 
 
 symbolic ; each figure symbolises a different nation which 
 he has conquered, as may be seen by their faces, which are 
 each one of a different type and colour. Similar scenes 
 and religious processions and other ceremonies decorate the 
 walls of the porticoes and the interior ; the columns and 
 even the ceilings were covered with symbolic paintings. 
 
 The paintings in th'e tombs are of a different character ; 
 they are done " a secco " * on the flat stucco with which the 
 walls are covered, the bas-relief preparation being very rare. 
 Every kind of scene of domestic and out-door life, having 
 relation to the pursuits and occupations of the deceased in- 
 mate of the tomb during his life-time, are here represented 
 in extraordinary profusion. Thanks to the elaborate manner 
 in which these paintings are carried out, and to the infinite 
 variety of the scenes represented, we know as much of the 
 manners and occupations, whether of business or pleasure, 
 of the ancient Egyptians as of any country of modern 
 times ; much more than of the Greeks or Romans, or any 
 other nations of antiquity. It is unnecessary to dwell 
 here on this subject, on which volumes have been written ; 
 but one characteristic of these tomb-paintings deserves 
 notice. Although the arrangement of these pictures is 
 on the primitive plan of the painted bas-reliefs of the 
 temples, and although the human figures are always drawn 
 by certain conventional rules, though with more freedom 
 of action than in the religious bas-reliefs, the animals and 
 birds (Fig. 6), from the very earliest times, are painted with 
 a feeling for life and truth of character which shows that 
 the Egyptians, if they had not been fettered by rules with 
 regard to the human figure, might have developed their 
 
 * A secco means that the painting is done on the dry plaster ; 
 painting on wet plaster is called a fresco, and does not seem to 
 have been practised by the Egyptians, 
 
10 
 
 EGYPTIAN PAINTING. 
 
 art to a very high pitch of perfection; although, probably, 
 always within certain limits. 
 
 The colours used in these paintings are very simple, but 
 the effect is frequently very beautiful and harmonious, and 
 the tints are of great purity. They had, moreover, a strong 
 sense of decorative composition. Light and shade of course 
 there is none ; the pictures are painted entirely in flat 
 tints, generally on a white or yellowish ground. 
 
 Fig. 6. — Hunters Brikging Home Gaue. 
 
 As far as the limits imposed upon them allowed they 
 exhibit a great feeling for portraiture ; through the con- 
 ventional type we can generally trace an idealised portrait 
 of the reigning king. The characteristic types of the 
 various nations with whom they fought — Semitic, or 
 Scythian, or Negro — are strongly and accurately marked. 
 We feel everywhere that it was not the want of 
 power which prevented the development of their art, but 
 what has been called religious prejudice; more probably 
 it was the determination of the sacerdotal class to 
 
SCULPTURE PAINTING. 
 
 11 
 
 restrain their artists within the limits of strictly re- 
 cording art, from which it might easily wander, if they 
 became too enamoured of it for its own sake.* The 
 Egyptians worked with the hope of their work lasting 
 to eternity — witness their massive temples and their 
 mummied bodies — and to them the art of sculpture-painting 
 was simply a form of eternally durable history. 
 
 E. J. P. 
 
 * The admirable portrait-busts of the early Egyptian dynasties, as 
 life-like and as finely modelled as those of the Romans or Florentines, 
 prove that sculpture at least had freed itself from barbarism, and 
 suggest that it was suddenly checked in its career, and compressed 
 within the limits of conventionality by strict regulations imposed 
 from without. The earliest painted portrait of which mention is made 
 is the portrait of himself which, according to Herodotus, Amasis, in the 
 sixth century B.C., sent as a present to the Greeks of Cyrene. 
 
 LotuB Flower. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PAINTING IN GREECE. 
 
 OF Assyrian painting little is known ; a few fragments 
 of wall paintings still exist, and traces of colour 
 are occasionally found on the bas-reliefs ; but these remains 
 are not suflSlcient to make the subject of general interest. 
 
 In Asia Minor the art must have flourished from a very 
 early date. Painting, as we understand the term, is not 
 mentioned in the Homeric poems, but elaborate embroidery, 
 a thing little removed from it in principle, is several times 
 referred to : it will suflSce to mention the mantle of Helen's 
 weaving described in the Iliad, iii. 125 — 8. 
 
 ij 8e /liyav iarov v^aivev 
 SiTrAoKa irop^piTjV, itoKias S'fviiraao'cv dfSKovs 
 Tpaxav ffiinrobdficov Kal ^A^aiav ^aKKO^iTavcaVi 
 ots ?6ev clveK ciraa'xoi' in "Apjjos wdKaiiaap.* 
 
 * "A mighty web she wove. 
 
 Of double woof and brilUant hues ; whereon 
 Was interwoven many a toilsome strife 
 Of Trojan warriors and of brass-clad Greeks, 
 For her encountered at the hands of Mars." — Lord Derby. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART. 13 
 
 Such embroideries may probably have resembled, as pointed 
 out by Mr. S. Birch, the paintings on the archaic Greek 
 vases (Fig. 7), where figures and animals are represented 
 in rows between borders one above the other, and the 
 ground is spotted over with conventional flowers. Pliny 
 whose authority on these matters is very slight, has a 
 story concerning a picture of the eighth century B.C., a 
 battle-piece by Bularchus, which, he says, Candaules, King 
 of Lydia, purchased for as much gold as would cover the 
 surface of the picture. 
 
 An independent school of Ionian painting flourished 
 before the conquest of Ionia in the sixth century B.C., after 
 which Samos became the chief seat of the art. The Greeks 
 of Italy and Sicily also attained at this early period to a 
 considerable degree of refinement in their painting. 
 
 Concerning the origin of the art in Greece itself, there 
 are various graceful legends. Pliny relates the story of a 
 young girl, the daughter of Dibutades, a potter of Sicyon, 
 who traced the outline of her lover's shadow, cast by a 
 lamp on the wall. Her father filled in the outline with 
 clay, backed it, and produced the first example of the art of 
 modelling in relief. To the same, or a similar incident, 
 most ancient writers agree to ascribe the invention of 
 skiagraphy {a-Kuxypacfiia) or shadow-drawing, the simplest 
 and earliest kind of pictorial design. Satirias of Samos, 
 who traced his horse's shadow on the ground with his 
 spear, is another claimant for the honour of having 
 originated this branch of art. It is evident that tales 
 like these, even if related on better authority than that 
 of late and uncritical writers, would be of little value 
 except as specimens of an interesting folk-lore. The arts 
 do not spring suddenly into being at the summons of an 
 
14 GREEK PAINTING. 
 
 individual ; they grow with the growth of mankind, and 
 their beginnings can no more be assigned to any particular 
 occasion than the beginnings of the civilisation which 
 they accompany and express. 
 
 The (rKuiypdij.fm or silhouette, the simple shade drawing 
 above described, when painted in colour, received the name 
 of monochrom {(iovo)(patus.Tav). Such are the early Greek 
 vases of archaic style in which the figures are painted in 
 black on a red ground (Fig. 7), with the faces and limbs of 
 the female figures sometimes in white. The next step in the 
 development of the picture was the monogram (/Aovoypa/i/xox) 
 or outKne drawing in which the interior lines of the figure 
 are marked, still without light and shade or any attempt 
 at local colour ; as in the vases of the finest period of Greek 
 art, about 400 B.C., which have the figures in red on a 
 black ground (Fig. 9), the inner markings of the features, 
 muscles, and draperies being traced in fine lines. Next comes 
 an advance of great importance, — ^the introduction of light 
 and shade into the monochrom, by painting in upon each 
 other different tints of the same colour. This is a method 
 of much more refinement than polychromy — ^in which a 
 variety of colours is introduced, but hardly any attention 
 is paid to chiaroscuro,* — of which class of painting the 
 beautiful vases of Athens, called "lekythoi" (Fig. 8), are 
 examples. When local colour, and its modifications by the 
 laws of light and shade and perspective, are fully under- 
 stood, we have reached the final state of what the Greeks 
 emphatjdally called life-painting (^oyy pa<jiia). 
 
 The earliest names in the history of Greek painting are 
 those of artists who practised some of these primitive 
 methods before the art had reached its full development. 
 
 * Chiar-osetiro ("clear-obsoure") an Italian word much used in the 
 technical language of art, means simply " light and shade." 
 
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16 GEEEK PAINTING. 
 
 Hygiemon, Dinias, and Chaemadas are mentioned as 
 ancient monochromists ; Philocles of Egypt, Telephanes 
 of Sicyon, Cleanthes, Aedices, and Cleophantes, all of 
 Corinth, were early designers of the monogram. Eumaeus 
 of Athens, the most celebrated of the very early painters, 
 seems to have introduced a certain amount of chiaroscuro 
 into his monochrom or polychrom drawings, and is said to 
 have been the first who properly distinguished the male 
 from the female figure. 
 
 CiMON of Cleonae pushed forward the work of improve- 
 ment, and would seem to have surpassed all preceding artists. 
 He was more natural in his indications of the muscles and 
 veins of the figure and the folds of drapery. He first in- 
 troduced foreshortenings (Karaypa^o^ or perspective views 
 of the figure looked at obliquely. Cimon's date cannot 
 be determined with certainty, but he probably flourished 
 about a century before Polygnottis, that is, in the latter 
 part of the sixth century B.C. 
 
 The mention of Polygnotus brings us to the first of those 
 great masters who established painting as an independent 
 art on a footing equal to the dignity of architecture and of 
 sculpture, to which it had hitherto been always in some 
 measure subordinate. Polygnotus was a native of the island 
 of Thasos, who took up his residence at Athens probably 
 in 463 B.C., and received the honour of Athenian citizen- 
 ship in reward for his services as an artist. The works 
 which obtained him this distinction are conjectured to have 
 been a part of the decoration of the temple of Theseus. In 
 the Poecile, or Painted Portico (17 ttoiklXt] otoo.) in the Agora, 
 Polygnotus executed a large painting, or series of paintings, 
 representing the trial of Ajax by the Greeks for the rape 
 of Cassandra. In the temple of the Dioscuri he painted 
 the story of the daughters of Leucippus. But the most 
 
PJ3UI0D OF P0LYGNOTU9. 17 
 
 famous of all his works were the pictures representing 
 scenes in the Trojan war and the history of Odysseus, 
 which he painted in the Lesche, or council-chamber, of the 
 temple of Apollo at Delphi. These pictures, which, six 
 hundred years later, excited the enthusiasm of Pausanias, 
 were proudly called the Iliad and Odyssey of Polygnotus. 
 The superb composition on a celebrated vase at Naples, 
 representing the tragic scenes of the night when Troy 
 was taken, may possibly be copied or imitated from one of 
 these pictures ; this may be seen in the engraving (Fig. 10), 
 which shows that the incidents represented offer points of 
 close resemblance to the paintings of Polygnotus as they 
 are described by Pausanias (x. 25 — 31) ; for instance, — 
 " Cassandra sits on the ground holding the wooden, image 
 of Minerva which she tore from its basis when Ajax drew 
 her from her supplications at the altar." Taking into 
 account the inaccuracies of a traveller who writes from 
 memory or from hasty notes, and that the painting on 
 the vase may represent only part of the composition, the 
 whole description tallies fairly enough with it to make it 
 not unlikely that we have here a free copy of the picture 
 by Polygnotus. 
 
 Great and rapid as was the advance which the art of 
 painting had now made, it must not be supposed that pei- 
 fection had been reached. The painting of Polygnotus 
 and the artists of his time must still have been tram- 
 melled by some stiffness and technical crudity, in so far 
 as it was treated without backgrounds or perspective, 
 in the manner of a bas-relief. His outline, doubtless, pos- 
 sessed the ideal simplicity and the severe beauty of the 
 marbles of the Parthenon which were derived from con-' 
 summate knowledge of the human form ; but his painting 
 was probably wanting in relief, art not having yet arrived 
 at the point of rendering the roundness and solidity of 
 
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DIONYSIUS. MICON. 19 
 
 nature. Painting, the more difficult art, is always later 
 in development than sculpture, and while their great 
 contemporary, Fheidias, had achieved a degree of excellence 
 which the experience of all succeeding time has decreed 
 to be the perfection of the sculptor's art, the painters had 
 still much to learn before they could fairly measure their 
 strength with nature. Polygnotus had not the freedom 
 and naturalness, for he had not the imitative dexterity, of 
 a later age. His style was statuesque, grand, and, so to 
 speak, epic ; Aiistotle, who makes the often quoted remark, 
 that " Polygnotus painted men as better than they are, 
 Pauson worse than they are, and Dionysius like ordinary 
 men," assigns to Polygnotus a position similar to that 
 which Homer occupies in poetry. , The title of 'H^oypa^os, 
 which Aristotle and others apply to him, also indicates 
 the lofty and ideal character of his art. 
 
 The Dionysius mentioned above in the quotation from 
 Aristotle, was a native of Colophpn, a contemporary, and 
 to some extent an imitator of Polygnotus, but inferior to 
 him in grandeur of style and ^6os. His attention to the 
 realities of human character, which Aristotle notices, 
 earned him the name of 'AvOpoyiroypdcjio^, Painter of 
 Mankind. 
 
 MicoN, an Athenian, was another contemporary of Poly- 
 gnotus, associated with him in some of his works. Certain 
 pictures in the Poecile were from his hand ; he also assisted 
 Panaenus with the great painting of the Battle of Marathon 
 in that place, and, it is said, was fined thirty minae for 
 making the barbarians larger than the Greeks. In painting 
 the walls of the temple of Theseus Micon had in his turn 
 the assistance of Polygnotus. A picture of his repre- 
 senting Jason and the Argonauts was executed for the 
 temple of the Dioscuri. Micon was espeoiallj- celebrated 
 for his skill in painting horses. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 GREEK PAINTIITG. 
 
 Panaenus of Athens, a nephew of the great sculptor 
 Pheidias, was probably by some years the junior of Poly- 
 gnotus and Micon. He assisted his uncle in the decoration 
 of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, colouring some of the 
 statues and painting numerous pictures within the temple. 
 The greatest work of Panaenus was the Battle of Ma/rathon 
 in the Poecile, in which he had the assistance of Micon. 
 Pliny remarks, as a proof of the advanced stage which art 
 had now reached, that the artist introduced into this 
 picture portraits of the generals on both sides ; the 
 expression, however, can hardly be taken to mean more 
 than that he found it possible to distinguish them without 
 resorting to the common plan of writing names under the 
 principal figures. It is impossible that Panaenus should 
 have seen the generals himself, and quite incredible that 
 portraits of them should have already been in existence for 
 him to copy. 
 
 In a contest for a prize at the Pythian games, in which 
 Panaenus took part, he was defeated by one Timagokas of 
 Ohalcie, whose name is only known in connection with this 
 incident, but who must evidently have been a painter of 
 considerable merit. Other contemporaries were Aga- 
 THAEOUS, the inventor of scene-painting ; PleistaenetuSj a 
 brother of Pheidias, knowil only by name ; and Onatas of 
 Aegina, who, though best known as a sculptor, also 
 practised painting, and was employed together with 
 Polygnotus, in the temple of Athena at Plataea. 
 
 The next generation witnessed an increasing power of 
 dramatic effect and a much closer imitation of nature. 
 
 Apollodobus, of' Athens, born in the middle of the fifth 
 century B.C., was the first great master of chiaroscuro. 
 He seems to have thoroughly mastered what no artist had 
 grappled with before, that influence of light and shade in 
 graduating the tints of objects in a picture, which constitutes 
 
ZEUXIS. 21 
 
 what the moderns term tone. He was called, in reference to 
 the force of his chiaroscuro, the shadow painter, a-Kiaypa.<f>o<i. 
 The language which Pliny uses about him suggests a com- 
 parison with Rembrandt ; " neque ante eum tabula ullius. 
 ostenditur, quae teneat ocuhs " — " rivets the eyes." 
 
 ApoUodorus was the first who, by the delicacy of his 
 effects, proved the power of the pencil in processes subtler 
 than the methods of encaustic were adequate to accom- 
 plish. It is related by Plutarch that he usually wrote 
 upon his works the line, /Au/AijcreTat rts nSXkov rj [u/ii/jcrcTaL 
 — " it is easier to blame than to imitate." 
 
 The influence which the work of ApoUodorus exercised 
 over the great painter who imniodiately followed him is 
 forcibly illustrated by the expression which Pliny makes 
 use of in introducing the latter to his readers. 
 
 Zeuxis, says Pliny, entered the gates of art, which ApoUo- 
 dorus had thrown open ; and he tells us, moreover, that 
 ApoUodorus himself complained of being outstripped by 
 his younger rival on his own peculiar ground. " Zeuxis," 
 he declared, with not ungenerous pique, " has robbed me 
 of my art, and carried it away with him." 
 
 The date. of the birth of Zeuxis is not to be determined 
 with certainty, but we shall not be far wrong in placing it 
 about B.C. 450, ApoUodorus having been born a few years 
 earlier. His birth-place was Heracleia, but there is con- 
 siderable difference of opinion as to which of the widely- 
 scattered towns that bore that name is to be understood ; 
 perhaps the balance of probability, in default of any direct 
 evidence of imuch value, is in favour of the Pontic 
 Heracleia, on the shores of the Black Sea. The style of 
 Zeuxis was strongly marked with the leading character- 
 istics of the Asiatic school — its skill in imitation and its 
 sensuous beauty, so strongly opposed to the severe idealism 
 
22 GREEK PAINTING. 
 
 of Polygnotus. Lucian remarks, with reference to the 
 great picture of the Centaurs, of which he gives a charming 
 description, that Zeuxis preferred to work on subjects 
 attractive from their own singularity, rather than to repeat 
 the representations of gods, heroes, and battles, which 
 were already hackneyed and familiar. This is hardly true, 
 as a general statement ; Zeuxis painted many well-known 
 subjects ; and with regard to this very picture of the 
 GentOM/rs, it is said that he withdrew it from exhibition on 
 finding that the people were attracted chiefly by its novel 
 and sensational character, and cared little in comparison 
 for the art it displayed. 
 
 The masterpiece of Zeuxis, as a delineation of female 
 beauty, was considered to be his Helen in the temple of 
 Hera at Croton. It was painted from five maidens, the 
 most beautiful to be found in that city, from whose com- 
 bined perfections the artist was to extract the essence of 
 consummate loveliness. The motto which he chose for the 
 picture served to express his own opinion of his perform- 
 ance. It was from that well-known passage in the Iliad, 
 where the sight of Helen's beauty, as she passes before 
 the Elders of Troy in coimcil at the Scaean gate, makes 
 the old men confess that such charms were indeed worth 
 even the woe they had caused : — 
 
 ov vf/teais Tpaas Koi evKinjiuSas 'A^niovs 
 
 TOILS' afUpl \vvaiKL noKiv j^p6vov oXyta 5i£i(r;^fif 
 
 all/as aBavuTrjfTi 6ifjs fls ima eoocei'.* 
 
 * Iliad, iii. 156—158. 
 
 " ' 'Tis no marvel,' one to other said, 
 ' The valiant Trojans and the well-greaved Greeks 
 For beauty snch as this should long endiire 
 The toils of war ; for goddess-like she seems.' "^Lord Derby. 
 
ZEUXIS. ' FAUBHASIUS. 23 
 
 It is related of this picture that when the painter 
 Nicomachus visited it with a companion, the latter saw, or 
 affected to see, but little merit in the work. " Take my 
 eyes," said the artist, " and you will see a goddess." 
 
 A story of Pliny's, which must probably have some 
 foundation in fact, shows what a high degree of skill had 
 now been attained in the imitation of nature. A trial 
 of skill was arranged between Zeuxis and Parrhasius. 
 Zeuxis had painted a bunch of grapes so naturally that 
 birds came and pecked at the picture. He then called upon 
 Parrhasius to remove the curtain which concealed the 
 picture he had brought to the contest ; but what he took 
 for a curtain was his rival's picture itself. Zeuxis imme- 
 diately confessed himself defeated, saying, " I have deceived 
 the birds, but you have deceived an artist.'' Another 
 time, says PHny, Zeuxis painted a boy with grapes, which 
 again attracted a bird ; but this time the artist was dis- 
 satisfied, observing that if he had painted the boy as well 
 as the grapes, the bird would have been frightened. In 
 spite of these stories it is clear that the mere power of 
 deception was rated by the Greeks no higher than it 
 deserves; no author whose critical opinion is worth any- 
 thing ever praises a picture for this quality alone. 
 
 A work which especially displayed ihe great dramatic 
 power of Zeuxis was his Infant Heracles, representing the 
 hero strangling the serpents in his cradle, in the presence 
 of Alcmena and Amphitryon, whose terror was finely 
 expressed. His Zeus and his Marsyas Bound are men- 
 tioned with high praise by Pliny. It is remarkable 
 that Pausaniaa does not speak of Zeuxis at all, and it is 
 supposed that his paintings, being exclusively on panels, 
 must have all perished, or been dispersed by Roman 
 conquerors before that writer's time; it is impossible to 
 
24 GREEK PAINTING. 
 
 believe that he would have omitted to describe the works 
 of so great an artist, had he ever seen them. 
 
 Pabrhasius, a native of Ephesus, was a younger con- 
 temporary of Zeuxis, and flourished in the height of his 
 reputation about 400 B.C. He was celebrated for the 
 correctness and beauty of his drawing of the figure, espe- 
 cially the extremities. He established, in fact, a sort of 
 canon of proportion in drawing, which was accepted by 
 subsequent artists; and for this reason Quintilian calls 
 him the " legislator " of art. The softness and sensuality 
 of the Asiatic school were characteristic of Farrhasius, 
 and their presence in his famous picture of Theseus pointed 
 the criticism of Euphranor, who said that the Theseus of 
 Parrhasius had been fed upon roses, but his own bad been 
 fed upon beef. Some of his pictures were lascivious in 
 their subjects. One of the most celebrated of his works 
 was the picture of the Athenian People, in which he seems 
 to have essayed the expression of all the various moods of 
 character and passion displayed by the many-sided Demos — 
 no small task for the painter, whatever machinery of 
 symbol and illustration he might employ. 
 
 Parrhasius was fully conscious of his own excellence, 
 assumed an arrogant demeanour and an ostentatious mode 
 of life, and made a' boast of his luxurious habits, inscribing 
 his name on his pictures with the epithet, 'A/BpoSiairo?, the 
 luxurious. He claimed descent from Apollo, and professed 
 to have painted Heracles from a knowledge of his form 
 granted to him in visions. Having been defeated by 
 Timanthes in a contest of paintingj for which the subject 
 was the strife of Ajax and Odysseus for the arms of 
 Achilles, he refused to admit the justice of the decision, 
 but complained that Ajax was a second time overcome by 
 an unworthy rival. 
 
TIMANTHES. 25 
 
 TiMANTiiES was probably a native of Cythnos. His 
 genius -was remarkable for the imaginative power which 
 conveyed to the spectator's understanding much that the 
 resources of painting could not directly express.* The 
 most celebrated of his works was a picture of the Sacrifice 
 of Iphiyeneia, which has been the subject of an amount 
 of criticism and controversy probably unparalleled in the 
 history of art, considering that none of the critics had 
 seen the picture they so warmly discussed. The artist 
 introduced into the picture the figure of Agamemnon, and 
 represented him as hiding his face in his mantle, unable 
 to witness his daughter's immolation. His leaving the 
 father's emotion thus to the spectator's imagination, was 
 praised by the ancients as a master-stroke of genius, though 
 few seem to have given the painter credit for a higher 
 intention than to evade a task for which he found his 
 powers inadequate. If this were the artist's true motive, 
 there would be good reason to challenge the opinion of his 
 admirers ; but a modern critic can hardly believe that a 
 truly great artist could adopt such a device merely to 
 relieve himself from additional labour. Timanthes had a 
 better reason for what he did than mere incapacity to do 
 otherwise; the figure of Agamemnon was not the chief 
 figure in the picture, nor was his attitude the chief incident 
 in its composition ; the artist probably had no other 
 thought than to paint Agamemnon as he must have ap- 
 peared, and the question is well dismissed with the sensible 
 remark of Fuseli, that "neither height, nor depth, but 
 propriety of expression was his aim." A fresco discovered 
 
 * " Atque in vnius hvjtis operibus intelUgitur phis semper, qiuim 
 pingitur, et cum ars sit lumma, ingenium tamen ultra artem est." — 
 Pliny, H. N., xxxv. 36. 
 
Fig. 11. — ^Thb Sagmitice of Iphigeneia. 
 
 Fresco, in the Souse of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii. 
 
 (Supposed to be after Timanthes.) 
 
EUPOMPUS. PAMPHILUS. 27 
 
 at Pompeii in the House of the Tragic Poet, though not 
 in itself a work of very high merit, has interest as show- 
 ing the traditional treatment of this subject, and may- 
 even repeat in an imperfect form the composition of 
 Timanthes (Fig. 11). 
 
 Pliny mentions with high praise a picture by Timanthes 
 of a Sleeping Cyclops ; it was painted on a very small 
 panel, and the artist conveyed the impression of the giant's 
 huge bulk by the insertion of some tiny Satyrs, measuring 
 his thumb with a thyrsus. 
 
 EupOMPUS of Sicyon — although scarcely anything is 
 known of his life, and only one of his works, a victor in the 
 games bearing a palm, is mentioned — was an artist of great 
 fame and influence, and the founder of a new school of 
 painting. There existed already the Greek and the Asiatic 
 schools ; from the time of Eupompus a third, the Sicyonian, 
 was added, and the three were henceforth distinguished as 
 the Attic, Ionic, and Sicyonian schools. The watchword 
 of the new school was individuality, a revolt against the 
 generalism and formality of the school of Polygnotus. 
 Their maxim was expressed in the advice given by Eupom- 
 pus to the sculptor Lysippus, who asked him which of his 
 predecessors he ought to take as a model — " Nature her- 
 self is to be imitated, and not an artist.'' 
 
 One of the pupils of Eupompus was Pamphilus of Am- 
 phipolis, who flourished from about B.C. 390 to 350, and 
 did more than any other artist for the growth and estab- 
 lishment of the school of art -with the rise of which his 
 master's name was connected. Although the works of 
 Pamphilus were highly esteemed he won his chief fame as 
 a teacher and a theorist. He insisted that an acquaintance 
 with every kind of knowledge was necessary to form a 
 perfect artist ; and similarly that a knowledge of practical 
 
28 6BEEE PAINTING. 
 
 art was an indispensable part of every man's right educa- 
 tion. Pamphilus was in fact the first to preach the doctrine 
 of " culture " that we hear so much of at the present day, 
 and the influence of his ideas on general as well as on tech- 
 nical education was considerable. His pupils, among whom 
 were Apelles and Melanthius, went through a course of 
 instruction which lasted ten years, and for which the fee 
 was a talent (about 2501.). Pamphilus made much use 
 of arithmetic and geometry in their applications to art, 
 probably by elaborating the theory of proportion, in 
 representing the human form in various positions. 
 
 NicoMACHUS of Thebes, who flourished about the middle 
 of the fourth century B.a, was famous for the ease and 
 rapidity of his work. He appears to have been the victim 
 of circumstances which prevented his attaining a success 
 in life equal to his posthumous fame. 
 
 Aeisteides, a brother and pupil of Nieomachus, was 
 celebrated as a painter of character and expression. Some 
 of his paintings fetched remarkably high prices. A battle- 
 piece painted for Mnason, tyrant of Elatea, was paid for 
 at the rate of ten minae a figure j and as the picture con- 
 tained a hundred figures the price was over 4,000^. It is 
 said that, long after the artist's death, Attains, King of 
 Pergamus, paid the enormous sum of one hundred talents 
 (abut 25,0001) for one of his pictures. 
 
 Apelles, who flourished between 350 and 300 B.C., is 
 allowed by all ancient authors to stand in the first place 
 among Greek painters. He was a native, probably, of 
 Colophon, and studied first at Ephesus, and afterwards 
 under Pamphilus at Amphipolis. At an advanced period 
 of his career he went to Sicyon, and placed himself for a 
 time under the tuition of his old fellow-pupil Melanthius, 
 in order to combine the excellences of the Sicyonian school 
 
AFELLES. 29 
 
 with the mastery he had attained over the Ionic style of 
 art. The modesty displayed in this proceeding was always 
 characteristic of Apelles, and was apparently free from any 
 taint of affectation. He had a generous appreciation of the 
 merits of contemporary artists, and was always ready to 
 point out the qualities in which he considered any one 
 superior to himself ; while in one particular he claimed to 
 be himself supreme over all rivals, and the consent of the 
 critics allows his opinion to bo just. This was a quality 
 somewhat vaguely spoken of as p^apis, venustas, or " grace," 
 meaning probably the unity and perfect balance of his 
 powers — that fine quality of the greatest artists by which, 
 knowing exactly what is to be done, and having every 
 faculty under complete control, they arrive without hurry 
 or hesitation at the desired result. The end once reached, 
 Apelles had little faith in retouching ; he held, and with 
 reason, that many pictures may be spoiled by over careful 
 corrections ; and he blamed Protogenes chiefly for this 
 fault, that he did not know when to leave his pictures 
 alone. 
 
 It was a constant rule of Apelles to let no day pass, 
 however much he might be occupied with other business, 
 without devoting some time to the practice of his art, a 
 rule which from his usage passed into a proverb — Nulla 
 dies sine linea. Another popular saying originated from 
 the great artist's rebuke to a presumptuous critic. A 
 cobbler who came with the crowd to see one of his pictures 
 pointed out a mistake in the drawing of a pair of sandals. 
 Apelles corrected the mistake, and the cobbler, elated, on 
 his next visit took a higher flight, and ventured to criticise 
 the drawing of the leg; but Apelles bade "the cobbler 
 stick to his last" — ne supra crepidam sutor judicarit. 
 
 Apelles spent a great part of his life at the Court of 
 
30 GREEK PAINTING. 
 
 Macedon, where he was high in favour both with Philip 
 and Alexander. He painted many poi-fcraits of both mon- 
 archs. After the death of Alexander Apelles travelled in 
 Asia Minor, and it was probably at this time that the visit 
 to Protogenes at Bhodes took place, concerning which 
 Pliny relates a very well-known and ill-understood anec- 
 dote to the following effect : Apelles came to the studio 
 when Protogenes was absent, and refusing to leave his 
 name with the servant, dipped a brush in colour, and drew 
 a line of exceeding fineness upon a prepared panel which 
 stood on the easel. When Protogenes returned and saw 
 what had been done he exclaimed at once that Apelles had 
 been there ; then, taking a different colour, he drew a still 
 finer line upon the first, and left directions that it should 
 be shown to Apelles when he came again. When this 
 was done, Apelles drew with a third colour a third line 
 upon the other two, so delicately that no room was left for 
 further refinement, and Protogenes, on returning again, 
 had to confess himself beaten.* 
 
 Pliny proceeds to say that this panel, containing nothing 
 
 * Pliny relates the story in the following words : — "Protogenes . . . 
 Mhodi viveiat : quo cum Apelles adnamgasset, avidus cognoscendi opera 
 ejuSifama tantum sibi cogniti, amtinuo officinam petiit. Aberat ipse, 
 scd tabulam amplae 'magniticdinis in machina aptatam picturae una 
 cuatodiebat anus. Haecforis esse Protogenem respondit, interrogavitque, 
 a quo quaesil/wm, diceret. Ab hoc, inquit Apelles : arreptoque penidllo 
 lineam ex colore dmxit summae termitatis per tabulam. Eeverso Pro- 
 togeni, quae gesta erant anus indicavit. Ferunt artificem protinus con- 
 templata subtilitate dixisse Apellem renisse ; rum cadere in alium torn, 
 absolutum opus. Ipsumque alio colore tenuiorem lineam in ipsa ilia 
 (others read penicillo) duxisse, abeuntemque praecepisse, si redisset 
 ille, ostenderet, adjiccretque hunc esse quern quaereret : atque ita evenit. . 
 Revertitur enim Apelles, sed vinci erubeseejis tertio colore lineas secuit, 
 nullum, rclinquens amplius subtilUati locum. At Protogenes vieium so 
 ^wfesaws inportum devolavit hospitem quaerens." — Hist. Nat. xxxr. 36. 
 
STORY OF THE THKEE LINES. 31 
 
 but the three lines " visum effugientea," was preserved in 
 the palace of the Caesars at Home, and was more admired 
 than the greatest masterpieces of the gallery. The chief 
 diflioulty is to understand what is meant by the word 
 Uvea, as used in the story. The first explanation which 
 suggests itself is thaj: they were plain straight lines, one 
 within and upon the other, the second longitudinally 
 bisecting the first, and the third the second ; but seeing 
 that the first line was already so finely drawn as to excite 
 admiration, the feat of superimposing a second and a third 
 would be a simple impossibility. It has been suggested 
 with more probability that the first drawing of Apelles was 
 an outline of a face or some part of the human form, such 
 as were much practised by artists who, like him, prided 
 themselves on accuracy of drawing ; that Protogenes 
 capped it by a more perfect outline of the same figure, 
 crossing and recrossing the first line in a way that might 
 be described by Pliny's words in ipsa ilia ; and that Apelles 
 lastly drew over both the previous sketches one which 
 conformed to the ideal of beauty or correctness so that it 
 could not possibly be excelled — the three outlines in dif- 
 ferent colours lying one over the other just as the line 
 which finally satisfies a student may overlie a first and 
 second attempt which he has rubbed out. 
 
 Of the works of Apelles the most admired was the 
 Venus Aneulyomene, representing the goddess rising from 
 the sea, with the waterdrops falling like a transparent veil 
 around her. His finest portrait was that of Alexander 
 grasping the thunderbolt of Zeus, which was known as 'O 
 Kepawotjiopoi, the Thunder-bearer. An equestrian portrait 
 of Antigonus, king of Asia, was much admired ; it was 
 painted in profile, to conceal the disfigurement of the 
 king, who had lost an eye. Many of the paintings are 
 
33 GREEK FAINTING). 
 
 mentioned. Apelles wrote several works on art, but no 
 part of his writings has been preserved. 
 
 Peotouenes was a native of Camirus, but lived during 
 the whole of his working life at B.hodes, only once quitting 
 that city on a visit to Athens. His fame among his 
 fellow-citizens was by no means equal to his merits, and he 
 remained comparatively obscure until the visit of Apelles 
 enlightened them as to his quality. Apelles instantly 
 recognised the unsuspected greatness of his host's powers, 
 and offered the high price of fifty talents each for all his 
 pictures, proclaiming that he could sell them again at a 
 profit as his own. The Ehodians ,then first understood the 
 value of what they had nearly lost, and paid a still higher 
 price to keep these treasures of art in their own city. 
 When Demetrius Poliorcetes was besieging Rhodes, in B.C. 
 305, he commanded that the quarter of the city which con- 
 tained the picture of Icdysua should be spared. Lest the 
 masterpiece might be injured in the attack j he also 
 showed the greatest courtesy to the artist, who had con- 
 tinued to reside outside the walls, confident, as he said, 
 that the war was against the Bhodians, and not against 
 the arts. 
 
 The picture of lalysus was considered to be the greatest 
 work of Protogenes ; he devoted seven years to its execu- 
 tion, finishing and correcting, as his wont was, with the 
 most careful minuteness. This excessive elaboration, 
 especially characteristic of his style, was the only point in 
 which Apelles found fault with him. Another picture of a 
 Resting Satyr, painted during the siege, was ranked next 
 in merit to the lalysus. A partridge, introduced into this 
 picture, was painted so naturally that some live partridges 
 on being placed before it gave signs of recognition ; and 
 Protogenes, perceiving that admiration of this feat of 
 
Fig. 12. — The Parting of Ashilles and Bmseis. 
 
 From the House of the Tragic Poet, at Pompeii, 
 
 (Supposed to be from a Greek painting.) 
 
 C I P 
 
34 GREEK PAINTING. 
 
 illusion blinded the spectators to the higher excellence of 
 the picture, obliterated the figure of the bird. There was 
 a celebrated picture by Protogenes in the Propylaea of the 
 Acropolis at Athens, of the sacred ships Pa/ralus cmd 
 Ammomus. Other works are enumerated by Pliny, but 
 owing to the amount of time which the artist devoted to 
 each, the total number of his pictures was but small. He 
 also executed several statues in bronze. 
 
 Pausias of Sicyon, a pupil of Pamphilus, painted chiefly 
 in encaustic, and in that department of art was unsur- 
 passed among the artists of this period. He frequently 
 painted small panel pictures of boys ; and on one occasion, 
 being challenged to show his speed, finished a picture of 
 this kind in one day, which was celebrated under the name 
 of 'H/^ep^crtos, the Day's Work. 
 
 EyPHBANcm, a native of the Isthmus of Corinth, but 
 resident in Athens, obtained equal fame in sculpture and 
 painting. In his pictures of heroes he deviated from the 
 ordinary canon of proportion, and gave dignity to the 
 figure by making the head and limbs rather large in pro- 
 portion to the rest of the body ; it was probably to this 
 peculiarity of style that he referred in his criticism, above 
 quoted, on the Theseus of Parrhasius. 
 
 NiciAS of Athens was a pupil of Euphranor's pupil 
 Antidotus. He painted generally in encaustic, and was 
 celebrated for his chiaroscuro, and for .his painting of the 
 female figure. In his youth he was employed to paint the 
 marble statues of Praxiteles, who set the highest value on 
 his aid. Nicias used to insist on the importance of choosing 
 subjects worthy of the dignity of art, and considered action 
 and significance in a painting as necessary as in a play or a 
 poem — a right and much needed protest against the growing 
 taste for pretty trivialities which not long afterwards 
 
DECLINE OF GREEK ART. 35 
 
 debased Greek art, in the hands of the rhopographers, to 
 the level of the pettiest Dutch gfemre-painting. 
 
 A THEN ION of Maroneia was an encaustic painter who 
 much resembled Nicias in style, and in some respects 
 excelled him. He would undoubtedly have attained the 
 highest eminence, had he not died before the full maturity 
 of his powers. Among the other distinguished painters 
 who flourished before the decline of art set ia with the 
 third century B.C., were Philochakes, a brother of the 
 orator Aeschines : Asclepiodorus of Athens, who, in the ' 
 quality vaguely indicated by the term " symmetry," was 
 confessed to have even surpassed Apelles : Echion, who is 
 supposed by some to have painted the original from which 
 the well-known Alddbrandini Marriage was copied : and 
 Theon of Samos, whose love of fantastical and sensational 
 effect would incline us to rank him among the harbingers 
 of the decline. 
 
 The style which now came into fashion, and commanded 
 more popularity than any higher kind of art, has been 
 called rhopography,* from the word ^Sttos, meaning toys or 
 trifles. Grotesque interiors, quaint sketches of animals, 
 flower and fruit pieces, and still life generally, seem to 
 have come under this denomination. Rhopography was in 
 fact exactly what we are familiar with in the modern Dutch 
 school. Works of this kind by favourite artists fetched 
 great prices, but high and serious art was unsaleable, 
 although it was the fashion to profess much admiration 
 and to give vast sums for works bearing the names of the 
 great old masters. The small Pompeian paintings of still 
 life probably afford a tolerable representation of the style 
 of these Greek paintings (Fig. 13). ' 
 
 * Sometimes, but less correctly, termed rhyparograpTiy, and derived 
 from 'puvap6s, meaning low or mean. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 CREEK PAINTING. 
 
 The most eminent of the rhopographers was Pyeeicus, 
 ■who lived just after the time of Alexander. Antiphilus 
 of Egypt, a contemporary of Apelles, had previously 
 painted, though not exclusively, in this style. The names 
 of several painters are mentioned who still laboured to 
 keep up the traditions of the golden age, but they did not 
 receive sufficient encouragement to enable them to revive 
 the departed greatness of the previous century. .The 
 firmest stand was made by the school at Sicyon, which down 
 to the middle of the third century was still striving to 
 
 Fig. 13. — ^Painting of Still-Life on the Walls of a House in Pompeii. 
 
 uphold the dignity and purity of art. As the ascendency 
 of Home increased, her wealth attracted much of the best 
 artistic talent of Greece ; and when the subjugation of 
 Greece was complete, the Roman conquerors spared f&w of 
 the art treasures of the country from their wholesale 
 spoliations. The perfect art of painting perished with the 
 generation of Apelles — ^not to be known again until, eighteen 
 centuries later, came its new birth in mediaeval Italy. 
 
 The style of Greek art may be sufficiently understood 
 from the remains we possess of ancient painting (Figs. 12, 
 
DECLINE OF GREEK AET, 37 
 
 13), of a later age, especially those discovered at Hercula- 
 neum and Pompeii.* Many of these are doubtless repetitions 
 of celebrated works, though of course vastly inferior in 
 point of execution. The Greek vases also, in which certain 
 subjects are repeated with the same treatment over and 
 over again, probably — as mentioned above in connection 
 with the works of Polygnotus — give us reminiscences of 
 many a well known and favourite picture. Paintings have 
 been found in houses excavated at Rome, which no doubt 
 are executed in the Greek style, and which are remarkable 
 for truth of effect, and light and shade, proving that the 
 best Greek painters in no way fell short of us in their 
 rendering of subtle gradations of tone and colour. Perspec- 
 tive they never understood, although they occasionally came 
 
 * A PoMPEiAN House. -^The frescoes on the walls are very beautiful. 
 Close to the floor runs a wreath of leaves about a quarter of a yard 
 wide, with alternately a lizard and a stork. Above it, about a yard 
 distant, droop, as if from over a wall, large branches of vine or ivy 
 and broad leaves like those of the tiger-lily ; all very freely, naturally, 
 and gracefully drawn. At each comer of the room a bird clings to one 
 of these branches. Then comes a space — bordered at the top by another 
 row of leaves — in which is represented a whole aquarium, as if the 
 room were lined with tanks. There are different sorts of shells and 
 aquatic plants lying at the bottom of the water, and swimming in or 
 on it all kinds of fish, jelly-fish, sepias, ducks and swans, admirably 
 sketched with a light but firm touch. The ripples made by the swim- 
 ming ducks are indicated, and one duck is just flying into the water 
 with a splash. The wall of a gallery is decorated with »■ woodland 
 landscape, in which, on one side, is represented a bull running franti- 
 cally away with a lion clinging to its haunches ; on the other, a horse 
 lying struggliflg on its back, attacked by a leopard; all nearly the 
 size of life. On each side of the doorway is painted respectively a 
 graceful doe and a bear. The other rooms are also very beautiful ; one 
 with a specially elegant design on a black ground : in another a small 
 fresco representing a man pouring wine out of an amphora into a large 
 vessel. — From a Descriptimi of an almost perfect house lately found at 
 Pompeii: by a Correspondent of the "Daily News." 
 
38 GREEK PAINTING. 
 
 very near it by eye ; strangely enough they never quite hit 
 on the simple law which directs that all parallel horizontal 
 lines in perspective converge to one point on the horizon. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, apparent that some glimmering of 
 this truth had reached them, for in one of the paintings 
 just referred to (that in the Palace of Tiberius),* and in 
 others at Pompeii, some of the more obvious leading lines are 
 drawn to a point in the centre of the picture ; but without 
 any consistent scheme ; for they were evidently unable to 
 determine the position of the horizon. There is no reason 
 to suppose that the painters of the best period of Greek 
 art had any better knowledge of the rules of perspective 
 than we find in these later works ; for the laws once 
 known were not likely to be lost. With this exception 
 their painting was in all probability as perfect in its kind 
 as the finest works of their sculpture which have been pre- 
 served to us ; in qualities of colour, lig'ht and shade, and 
 expression in gesture and. face, it could hardly have fallen 
 short of the best work of the Italian Kenaissance ; while 
 in beauty of form and composition it may have been 
 superior to anything that we know. We may imagine, 
 however, that certain figures by Michelangelo, notably the 
 Adam and other of the nude figures in the vault of the 
 Sistine, although dissimilar in style, are not far from the 
 perfection of Greek painting. 
 
 * An excellent' copy of this painting is ia the South Kensinp;ton 
 Museum. It was presented, with some other copies of antiq^ue 
 decorations, by the late Emperor of the French, 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ROMAN PAINTING — THE "DARK AGES " — POMPEII AND 
 
 HEECDLANEUM BYZANTINE PAINTING — EABLY 
 
 CHRISTIAN ART — MOSAICS. 
 
 ROME plays only a secondary part in the history of 
 any branch of the fine arts. Nearly all that was 
 noteworthy in her achievements in painting, sculpture, and 
 even architecture, was derived from Greek sources; and 
 unlike her literature, which owed nearly as much of its 
 original inspiration to Greek models, E.oman art never 
 acquired a proper force and individuality of its own. 
 No master of the manual arts ever arose to justify a 
 boast like that of the poet, who subdued Aeolian song to 
 the measures of Italy, 
 
 The art of painting in its rude and early forms seems to 
 have been general in Italy, especially among the colonies 
 of Magna Graecia, and in Etruria. Etruscan art was in- 
 fluenced to a considerable extent both 'by Egypt and 
 Greece, but it never advanced, so far as we know, beyond 
 a flat polychromatic treatment. The earliest Eoman 
 painting of which we have any historical record was exe- 
 cuted by C. Fabius Pictor, a member of the famous Gens 
 Eabia, about 300 b,c. ; the surname of ' Pictor, which he 
 
40 ROMAN PAINTING. 
 
 was the first to bear, was given to him on account of this 
 work, a wall-painting in the temple of Salus, probably 
 representing a Roman victory over the Samnites. It was 
 destroyed by fire in the reign of the Emperor Claudius. 
 The tragic poet Pacuvius cultivated art as well as litera- 
 ture, and painted works which were much admired, in 
 the temple of Hercules, about 180 B.C. After his time 
 the art feU into disrepute among Romans of the higher 
 class, and, with few exceptions, was abandoned to slaves 
 and foreigners. 
 
 The fall of Corinth in 146 B.C. completed the subjection 
 of Greece, and what the fallen race could still muster of 
 art was summoned to minister to the luxury of the con- 
 querors, Greece ■ was stripped of her pictures and her 
 statues, and Greek artists flocked to enrich themselves by 
 the liberal patronage of the wealthy Romans. They were 
 chiefly employed in the decoration of houses and in portrait 
 painting. A painter of the time of Augustus, whose name 
 cannot be discovered with certainty from the MSS., but is 
 commonly given as Marcus Ludius, was a favourite deco- 
 rator. He painted landscapes with figures engaged , in 
 various pursuits, according to the taste of his employer. 
 Many of the great men of this epoch were profuse in their 
 patronage of art, and enormous sums were given for the 
 works of the great masters of Greece. Such painters as 
 attempted a higher sort of art than that of the house- 
 painters had no reason to complain of want of encourage- 
 ment, but with the, exception of two or three men, still 
 Greeks, it is impossible to mention the name, after the 
 conquest of Greece, of any eminent painter of the ancient 
 world. About 100 B.C. Timomachus of Byzantium obtained 
 well-deserved fame for heroic paintings almost worthy of 
 the golden age ; two of his most celebrated pictures were 
 
>a pm 
 
 < 
 Pi 
 
 
 2 
 
42 EOMAN PAINTING. 
 
 bought by Julius Caesar. Two hundred years later, about 
 the time of Hadrian, Kved Aetion, one of whose pictures, 
 representing the Maariage of Alexander arid Boxana, is 
 described by Lucian. The name of Alexandeos, an 
 Athenian, is preserved on ah exquisite little picture on 
 marble, found at Herculaneum, and representing a group 
 of maidens playing at knuckle-bones. 
 
 From the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian, that is, 
 about the first three centuries of the Christian era, was the 
 period during which true Roman art, such as it was, chiefly 
 flourished. Still Koqian art, even at its best period, fur- 
 nishes the name of no painter worthy to be placed beside 
 the least distinguished among the Greek masters we have 
 enumerated. Portrait painting engrossed the energies of 
 the most capable artists, and with this exception there was 
 no demand for anything higher than decorative and scene 
 painting. Portraits were indeed, produced in great abund- 
 ance ; pictures or statues of eminent men were multiplied 
 in public places and private collections; and portrait 
 painters in this epoch are mentioned for the flrst time as 
 a distinct class of artists. 
 
 It may be said that the establishment of the Eastern 
 Empire at Constantinople (330 a.d.) marks the extinction 
 of ancient art. From this time art is controlled by a new 
 influence — that of Christianity. But before we enter on 
 this subject, we must not omit to mention the remains of 
 ancient painting preserved to us by the 'catastrophe of Her- 
 culaneum and Pompeii. They consist of mural paintings in 
 distemper and mosaics* (Fig. 15), none of them of the first 
 order of excellence, but possessing merits which — ^when it is 
 considered that these are the decorations of private houses 
 * The mosaics occur both on the walls and on the floors. 
 
POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM, 
 
 43 
 
 in a provincial town, and of an age when critics universally 
 lamented the deep decline of art — prove in a striking 
 manner what must have been the excellence of those older 
 works which became famous throughout the world as 
 
 Fig. 15.— Mosaic Picture. 
 
 Forming the fioor of a house at Pompeii. 
 
 (Supposed to be a copy of a Oreek pamting.) 
 
 unapproachable masterpieces. The wall paintings (Fig. 14) 
 are not confined to merely decorative designs, but include 
 many ambitious and elaborate pictures of historical and 
 mythological subjects. Pompeii also contains the most 
 internsting of the many ancient mosaics which have been 
 
EARLY CHRISTIAN PAINTING. 45 
 
 preserved, the Battle of Issus (Fig, 16), in the House of 
 the Faun. The composition of this mosaic is exceedingly 
 fine, and it is thought to be a copy of some great work of 
 a preceding age. A series of paintings representing scenes 
 from the life of Adonis, discovered in some ruins near the 
 baths of Titus, excel any in Pompeii, and are perhaps the 
 finest existing relics of ancient painting. 
 
 The earliest remains of Christian art, in style as well as 
 in time belonging rather to the era of paganism, are the 
 paintings in the catacombs of Rome, the subterranean 
 hiding-places where the Christians of the first three cen- 
 turies found refuge from heathen persecution. The most 
 ancient and the best of these paintings are those in the 
 catacombs on the Via Appia, dedicated to Saint Calixtus ; 
 they were probably executed during the reign of Alexander 
 Severus (a.d. 222-235). Painted by men whose religion 
 was a secret, a thing apart from their daily life, and whose 
 ordinary employment was probably to illustrate in Roman 
 houses the popular and conventional subjects of Roman 
 art, these pictures naturally display little or nothing of the 
 peculiarities of ideal and symbolism which distinguish the 
 later Christian art. In type and imagery as well as in 
 style they bear the mark of pagan influences. The example 
 we give from the frescoes of Saint Calixtus (Fig. 17) is an 
 illustration of this, the central group typifying the power 
 of Christianity to subdue the hearts of men by the 
 favourite symbol of Orpheus attracting the wild beasts 
 with his lyre.* 
 
 * It may save the reader some perplexity to mention that the gi-oiip 
 in the right-hand upper compartmeat' of the border represents the 
 Saising of Lazarus. The subject is several times repeated in the cata- 
 combs, the general composition being always the same. The three 
 figures in the other compartments are easily recognisable as Moses, 
 David, and Daniel. 
 
46 
 
 EARLT CHEISTIAN PAINTING. 
 
 A great change in style is to be noted after the estab- 
 lishment of Christianity as the religion of the State, when 
 
 Fm. 17.— Fkesoo from the Catacombs of Saiht Calixtus. 
 
 Christian art was called forth from its hiding-places among 
 the tombs, and set to adorn its own temples freely in its 
 own way. In the mosaics of the basilicas, which, with 
 manuscript illuminations and some rare wall paintings 
 
48 EABLY CHRISTIAN PAINTING. 
 
 and pictures on panel, scarcely carrying on the traditions 
 of the art,* constitute the sole remains of this period 
 — -and form the connecting link between antique art 
 and the revival of painting in the thirteenth century — we 
 may observe a transition taking place from pagan tradi- 
 tions to the new ideal. The earliest Christian mosaics 
 in Eome date from the fourth century, and show little if 
 any departure from the familiar decorative style of ancient 
 art. Those of the fifth century in the baptistery of the 
 cathedral at Ravenna, and even the examples, widely 
 different in style, of the same period in Santa Maria 
 Maggiore at Rome, reveal the same influence though in a 
 weaker form. But in the important designs of the church 
 of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, executed later in the same 
 century, the influence is hardly felt; the Christian artist 
 has learned the language of his new inspiration. The sixth 
 century produced the finest examples of this art in ancient 
 Christian Rome, the mosaics of the church of Saints Cosmo 
 and Damiano. Equally celebrated are the works in San 
 Vitale at Ravenna, executed a few years later ; they include, 
 besides fine representations of religious subjects of the 
 ordinary type, two famous and very remarkable ceremonial 
 pictures of the Emperor Justinian (Fig. 19) and Empress 
 Theodora accompanied by groups of attendants, bringing 
 gifts for the church. ' 
 
 Of the miniature painting with which the luxury or the 
 reverence of the age adorned the manuscripts of important 
 works, the Yatican library preserves two exquisite examples, 
 a Booh of Joshua, and a Virgil, The Book of Joshua is a 
 
 * Copies of some paintings of this dead period of art, which were 
 discovered about fifteen years ago in the ancient church of St. 
 Clemente at Rome, may be seen at the South Kensington Museum ; 
 where are also many reproductions and copies of the best mosaics. 
 
MOSAICS. 49 
 
 large parchment roll covered with finely conceived scenes 
 from the sacred history, which, though actually belonging 
 to the seventh or eighth century, undoubtedly borrows its 
 composition from some earlier work of the best time. The 
 Virgil is an original work of the fourth or fifth century, 
 and is in many points of execution superior to the other, 
 but must be considered inferior in composition. 
 
 Fig. 19.— Justikias and his ArrENDANTa. 
 Mosaic in San Vitale at Ba/oenna, 
 
 Among other examples of approximately the same date 
 as the Vatican Virgil may be mentioned a Book of Genesis 
 at Vienna, and the fi-agments of a manuscript Homer at 
 
 Milan. 
 
 Meanwhile the Byzantine school of art had been grow- 
 in" into importance as a style apart from that of Italy : 
 
 c I p " ^ 
 
iiiiiiKi 
 
 
 Fig. 20.— Santa Pudentiana. 
 From the Catacombs of Santa Priscilla, Home. 
 
BYZANTINE PAINTING. 51 
 
 a style which reached its maturity precisely at the period 
 when Italian art had sunk to its lowest level of decadence. 
 By the seventh century the flood of northern barbarism 
 had almost overwhelmed Italian civilization, and the art 
 of Christian Rome was practically extinct. The art which 
 was kept alive in the more peaceful atmosphere of Con- 
 stantinople was a product of Christianity engrafted in a, 
 dim reminiscence of the old Greek perfection. At first 
 not without qualities of beauty and grandeur, this style 
 gradually grew utterly rigid and lifeless under the hard 
 conventionality that oppressed the artist. Direct appeal 
 to nature was unknown; an artist selected his model, 
 traced it, learned every detail by heart, and multiplied 
 his mechanical copies wherever a representation of its 
 subject was demanded. In all its most precious and subtle 
 qualities each successive reproduction inevitably deteriorated 
 a step further from the original example. The same causes, 
 however, which prevented the improvement of the style, 
 saved" it from extinction. An art for the most part 
 mechanical was easily taught, and its plainly marked 
 characteristics were not easily lost in passing from hand to 
 hand and from country to country. From the monasteries 
 of Constantinople, Thessalonica, and Mount Athos, Greek 
 artists and teachers passed into all the provinces of 
 Southern Europe. 
 
 At the beginning of the ninth century, the mosaics of 
 Santa Praxedes. income show how completely the artists of 
 Italy were dependent on their Eastern instructors. But 
 of all Italian remains, those of Venice are the best repre- 
 sentatives of the Byzantine school. Venice grow up, at 
 first under the protection of, and afterwards in close and 
 continual intercourse with Byzantium, in entire seclusion 
 from the turmoils which distracted the rest of Italy, 
 
 E 2 
 
52 EAELY CHRISTIAK PAINTING. 
 
 The commercial prosperity of the city was also peculiarly 
 favourable to the growth- of an art which depends for 
 much of its efiect on sumptuousness of material. 
 
 Perhaps the most splendid existing remains of Byzan- 
 tine mosaic are the decorations of the wonderful church 
 of St. Mark; or rather (since these include works of 
 every epoch and every style from the tenth to the seven- 
 teenth century) those of them which date from the tenth 
 or eleventh century. The wealth of the city was freely 
 lavished to make this • Basilica a worthy resting-place 
 for the body of the Evangelist, brought from Alexandria 
 to Venice in the year 976 ; and the results go far to console 
 us for the ravages which time and war have committed 
 on the gorgeous edifices of Byzantium. Here alone (to 
 quote the words of Dr. Kugler) do we obtain any idea 
 of the wealth of mosaics which existed in the state 
 buildings of ancient Constantinople. As we advance from 
 this period, signs of thfr approaching revival in Italian 
 art become manifest. In the vestibule of Saint Mark's 
 itself are mosaics, dating probably from the twelfth cen- 
 tury, showing a boldness and power of conception, which 
 in the midst of Byzantine formalism and Western rudeness 
 stamp the unknown artist as a true and original genius. 
 His work heralded the new era. In the thirteenth century 
 we emerge from the millennium of obscurity, and the 
 progress of Art can again be traced by the lives and 
 works of her most famous followers. 
 
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 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE RENAISSA^rCE. 
 
 SCHOOLS OF THE THIRTEENTH AND FOUETEENTH CENTUKIES. 
 
 THE awakening of art in Italy in the thirteenth 
 century was but one phase of a mighty movement, 
 the product of complex causes, which indeed includes all 
 that is implied in the birth of modern civilisation ; a great 
 struggle of mankind to put in order, out of the elements of 
 chaos, a better and more beautiful form of human social 
 life. The same influence stirred all Europe ; and its ap- 
 pearance in connection with the things of taste and 
 intellect was but a sign of a deeper agitation in great 
 questions of practical politics and religion. It is in the 
 thirteenth century that the full power of this stir and 
 change becomes plainly visible in history ; and one of the 
 great phenomena of that memorable age is this revival of 
 long torpid art which begins in the cities of Tuscany. 
 
 Pisa, Siena, and Florence are the three cities which 
 divide the chief honours of the revival. Each boasts its 
 two or three great names on the roll of the Eenaissance ; 
 and each possessed what is still more important to the 
 
54 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 formation of an illustrious school, its crowd of less con- 
 spicuous but skilful and original workers on the same 
 lines. The seeming pre-eminence of the school of 
 Florence is due less to the superiority of her artists than 
 to the partiality of an historian. The biographer Vasari, 
 on whose work the greatest part of our knowledge of the 
 earlier art-histoiy depends, was himself a Florentine, and 
 jealously careful of the fame of his fellow-citizens : he not 
 only devotes to them a disproporti9nately large space in 
 his Lives, but against some of their nearest rivals, notably 
 the artists of Siena, he seems to be possessed of positive 
 hostility — a partiality so far successful that while we have 
 plenty of detail concerning Florentines, from Ciambue 
 and Giotto down to quite insignificant minor artists, men 
 so great as Duccio or Lorenzetti still remain to us little 
 more than the shadow of a name. 
 
 In early Italian art, painting was again, as it had been 
 in the remote time of its first origin, the handmaiden of 
 architecture. Its greatest achievements were all accom- 
 plished in the decoration of churches and public buildings, 
 either by' mural pictures or by movable pictures intended, 
 as in the case of altar-pieces, for some fixed position for 
 which their effect was calculated. The picture familiar to 
 modem eyes, hung by itself in a room or in a gallery to be 
 regarded in independence of its surroundings, became 
 -commoner as time advanced, and the patronage of wealthy 
 ■ individuals was to be sought as well as that of commu- 
 nities; but, to the last, the chief boast of Italy — in a 
 climate -where the painter may expose his colours to the 
 air with more boldness than beneath a northern sky — has 
 been the frescoes and the wide surfaces of canvas or 
 panel which throw open the whole side of a chapel or a 
 s.aloon into a new world of movement and beauty. The art 
 
THE CAMPO SANTO AT PISA. B5 
 
 of a, particular painter or epoch is nowhere studied to 
 greater advantage than in such a situation, where the 
 value of the individual paintings is immensely enhanced 
 by their unity of aim as parts of a complete scheme of' 
 decoration. Examples are numerous enough in Italy, but 
 tliose which have remained to our own day in a tolerably 
 teoiiipjete state of preservation are but few. A very 
 remarkable monument of the art of the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries, of which, though it has not escaped 
 the ravages of time, enough remains to give a cpmplete 
 \mderstanding of the plan as originally accomplished, is to 
 be found in the Campo Santo, the Ceinetery of Pisa. It is an 
 example which has its peculiar value in being thoroughly 
 representative of the art of an epoch, apart from the 
 idiosyncrasies of individual artists. Many of the most 
 important frescoes of the Campo Santo are only conjeo- 
 turally assigned to their painters, modern research having 
 exploded the tradition that affixed to them some of the 
 most eminent names in the history of art. 
 
 The Campo Santo is an oblong space about 400 feet in 
 length and 120 in width, inclosed by a high wall ; the 
 middle is occupied by the open burial ground, and round 
 the sides runs an arcade, resembling the cloisters of an 
 English college or cathedral. Within this arcade the 
 inner side of the bounding wall was, and is still — except 
 where decay or destruction has interrupted the series — 
 covered with fresco paintings of religious subjects, arranged 
 in two rows, one above the other. Some of the paintings 
 have perished by fading or by the fall of the plaster, 
 others have been partially hidden or cut away by later 
 erected monuments ; but the majority are sufficiently well 
 preserved. These frescoes are well engraved in Lasinio's 
 Pilture a fresco del Campo Santo di Pisa. 
 
56 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 There are three entrances to the cametory : one from 
 the chapel contiguous to the east (end) wall, and two 
 openings in the south (side) wall. Entering from the chapel 
 and turning to the left, the first frescoes reached are a series 
 of four, on the east wall, ascribed to a certain Buonamico 
 BufEalmaco of Florence, and representing the Passion of 
 Christ, the Resurrection, the Aiypearance to the Bisciplen, 
 and the Ascension. Next to these, on the south wall, 
 comes a far more important series, once ascribed to 
 Orcagna, but now supposed with some probability to have 
 been the work of the Sienese artists, the brothers Ambrogio 
 and Pietro Lorenzetti ; the first picture is an allegorical 
 representation of the Triumjh of Death, the second a 
 Last Judgment, and the third, adjoining and continuing 
 the composition of this, a savagely horrible conception of 
 Hell. The design of the brothers seems then to have been 
 interrupted, and in plate of the Paradise which might 
 have been expected to complete the series, there is a com- 
 position illustrating in several groups the life of the 
 Anchorites of the Tlieban Desert, probably also the work 
 of Pietro Lorenzetti These four frescoes fill the space 
 between the angle of the walls and the first of the two 
 entrances which open through the south wall. On the 
 other side of the entrance there is a series of six designs, 
 in an upper and a lower course of three each, illustrating 
 scenes from the Life of Saint Ranieri; these were originally 
 ascribed to Simone Memmi, but are more probably the 
 work of two less celebrated artists ; the three upper 
 pictures are now assigned to one Andrea of Florence, and 
 the three lower ones to Antonio of Venice. They are 
 succeeded by another similar series of six, of which, 
 however, the lower course has been obliterated ; these deal 
 with the Lives of Saints Ephesus a/nd Potitus, and are 
 
THE CAMPO SANTO AT PISA. 57 
 
 traditionally, and probably correctly, asciibed to Spinello 
 Aretino. After these comes the second entrance, and 
 between that and the angle a series, once ascribed to 
 Giotto, but now considered to be the -work of Francesco 
 da Volterra, representing the Sufferings of Job. The 
 west ■wall is of little importance; it is decorated with 
 works of a later date and much inferior to the rest. The 
 north wall is occupied with a long series of scriptural 
 subjects, arranged in chronological order. The first six 
 pictures were executed by Pucoio d'Orvieto, during the 
 last ten years of the fourteenth century ; their subjects 
 are God holding t/ie Universe, the Creation of Man, the Fall 
 and Expulsion, the Death of Abel, the Death of Cain, and 
 the Deluge. About seventy years later Eenozzo Gozzoli took 
 up the design where Puccio had laid it down, and in a 
 series of twenty-one magnificent frescoes continued the 
 history of the world from Noah to Solomon, and completed 
 the decoration of the north wall. 
 
 The Campo Santo may be regarded as the typical 
 example, for the fourteenth century, of the application of 
 the highest art to decorative purposes ; and the church of 
 S. Francesco at Assisi formed another centre of employ- 
 ment for the artists of Florence and Siena of that time. 
 Many of the other famous examples of the kind are repre- 
 sentative less of a school than of a single artisst. The 
 Arena Chapel at Padua, for instance, is the entire work of 
 Giotto ; the Sistine Chapel is connected chiefly with the 
 name of Michelangelo ; the frescoes in the Stanze of the 
 "Vatican owe the whole of their design and the greater part 
 of their execution to Raphael; and the celebrated paint- 
 ings of the Library at Siena seem to have been entirely the 
 work of Pinturiochio. Some description of these works 
 will be given in treating of the several painters. 
 
68 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 The painters of the Campo Santo, however, though 
 fairly representing the early freshness of Italian art, by 
 no means include the earliest Italian painters. The 
 Byzantine tradition, which compelled one painter to follow 
 in the steps of liis predecessor without reference to nature, 
 was carried on in Italy by Greek artists and their Italian 
 imitators, without change, up to the middle of the thir- 
 teenth century, and even later ; for paintings in the 
 Byzantine manner are found in Italian art as late as the 
 fourteenth century.* But long before this influence was 
 entirely shaken ofE Italy had her great names in painting. 
 Oimabue himself, with all his original power, was still 
 ■ trammelled by the Byzantine stiffness ; and Cimabue cannot 
 fairly be called the first great Italian painter. There was 
 no equally distinguished artist before him, but some of his 
 predecessors had shown genius and originality of no con- 
 temptible kind ; and it is only fair to state that at the 
 time that the first Italian painters were breaking through 
 the Byzantine tradition there was still in existence at 
 Rome a remnant of the ancient classic school, which seems 
 never to have been completely subject to its influence. 
 A certain Jacobus, a Franciscan monk who worked at 
 Eome, executed some mosaics in the Baptistery at Florence, 
 in 1225, which are exempt from the meagreness so charac- 
 teristic of the unregenerated art of that time. 
 
 The chief of the first regenerators were Giunta of Pisa, 
 whose frescoes at Assisi were painted early in the thir- 
 teenth century; GuiDO of Siena, who painted, in 1221, the 
 great picture of the Virgin and Child in the church of 
 San Domenico in that city; Buonaventura Beblingieki 
 of Lucca ; and Maegaritone of Arezzo, who is supposed 
 
 * In paintings for the Greek churches the same manner is continued 
 to the present day. 
 
CIMABUE. 59 
 
 to have invented painting on prepared canvas ; evidence 
 of this may be seen in a picture (No. 564) in our National 
 Gallery, which is considered one of the best of his exist- 
 ing works. Though ugly and almost barbarous, it shows 
 the departure of the new school from the formality and 
 stiffness of Byzantine tradition. To these names we 
 may add Bartolommeo of Florence, and Andrea Tafi, a 
 celebrated master of mosaic. 
 
 Giovanni Cimabue was born at Florence in 1240, and is 
 believed to have been the pupil of Giunta. His colossal 
 Madonna in the church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence 
 (Fig. 21) shows, by the broad and natural treatment of the 
 draperies, that he had succeeded in emancipating himself 
 from the debased Greek style, which is still obvious in one 
 of his earlier paintings of the same subject. This picture 
 excited such enthusiasm among the citizens to whom it wns 
 exhibited, that it was carried ini solemn public procession 
 from the studio to its place in^ the church. He executed 
 other important works at Florence and Pisa, and was per- 
 haps the painter of some of the frescoes in the upper 
 church of Saint Francis at Assisi. Gimabue was at Pisa 
 in 1302, engaged on a mosaic in the Duomo. He appears 
 to have returned to Florence shortly after this time, and 
 to have died there. His portrait, with that of Petrarch 
 and other celebrated' men of the- time, appears in the fresco 
 attributed to Simone Memmi in the Cippella de' Spagnuoli 
 in the cloister of Santa. Maria Novella, at Florence ; he 
 is distinguished by his- hood< and' short cloak (Fig. 28). 
 With his name we may couple that of Gabdo Gaddi, the 
 friend of both Cimabue andi Giottoj who was born at 
 Florence in 1239. He- worked chiefly in mosaic, freeing 
 himself, probably through the. influence of Cimabue's 
 friendship, from the Greek manner which he at first 
 
Fig. 21. — The Madonna Enthroned. Bt Cimabue. 
 
 Tvt ilia 7?tij>ff71/ti'. Cfh/rnflJ 'in FJn.vtfji Mnvin fJevt^olln P7««.«m«« 
 
DUCCIO DI BUONINSEGNA. 61 
 
 practised. The fame which he achieved by his Corona- 
 tion of the Virgin in the Cathedral of Florence induced 
 Clement V. to invite him to Rome in 1308, There he 
 executed several important mosaics, and returning to 
 Florence, he died in 1312. 
 
 The painters hitherto mentioned may be said to have 
 formed the transition from the Byzantine to what Vasari 
 calls the modern manner. The rival schools of Siena and 
 Florence now each produced a painter who fairly cleared 
 himself from the old conventional manner of expressing 
 the emotions, and derived his impressions from nature 
 direct. 
 
 Duccio DI BuoNiNSEGNA, who heads the early Sienese 
 School, as Cimabue heads the Florentine, though he has 
 missed, for reasons already stated, the extended traditional 
 fame of the latter, may with good reason be considered a 
 much greater painter, Almost the only undoubted produc- 
 tion of his that remains happens fortunately to be the most 
 important work of his life, and is the fair test by which 
 his reputation must stand or fall. There can be little 
 doubt on examining the Scenes from the Life of Christ, that 
 Duccio possessed many of the finest qualities of a religious 
 artist in a degree that places him on a par with Giotto. 
 The dates of Duccio' s birth and death are not known ; the 
 former should perhaps be placed about 1260, and the latter 
 certainly took place later than 1320. His great master- 
 piece, the altar-piece in the Cathedral at Siena, was com- 
 pleted in 1310, and like Cimabue's Madowna, was carried 
 in procession by the citizens. This picture is still preserved 
 in the cathedral, but has been removed from the high altar, 
 and divided, as it was painted both on front and back, into 
 two pictures. The front shows an altar-piece of the 
 ordinary kind : the Virgin and Child, surrounded by saints 
 
GIOTTO. 63 
 
 aud angels, and adored by four bishops. The back is 
 occupied by the scenes from the Life of Christ, a series of 
 twenty-six designs, who.se small scale does not prevent them 
 from attesting forcibly the greatness of Duccio's powers 
 (Fig. 22). The series is in fact for him what the frescoes of 
 the Arena Chapel are for Giotto, and Duccio will suffer 
 little from the comparison. Duccio is also known by his 
 designs on the pavement of Siena Cathedra], executed in 
 " chiaroscuro " in marble, a process of his own invention ; 
 these are still to be seen in good preservation, in company 
 with others of a later date. Had his works been more 
 numerous, and the sphere of his influence more extended, 
 he would have been no very unequal rival of Giotto. 
 This great master, who, though later in point of time, 
 ■ has in truth a better claim than Cimabue or any of his 
 predecessors to be called the father of Italian painting, 
 comes next in date, and ushers in a school of artists 
 who have at last cast off the trammels of tradition and 
 conventionality, and strive earnestly, in spite of imperfect 
 technical means and knowledge, towards the simple truth 
 of nature. The National Gallery has recently acquired 
 part of an altar-piece by him, the Annunciation and Christ 
 giving Sight to the Blind. 
 
 Giotto (short for Ambrogiotto), the son of a peasant 
 named Bondone, was born in the district of Vespignano, 
 near Florence, in 1266. Employed as a boy in watching 
 sheep, he is said to have been one day discovered by 
 Cimabue, as he was sketching one of his flock upon 
 a stone. The painter, surprised at the promise shown 
 by the boy, who was not more than ten years old, 
 took him to Florence, and made him his pupil. Giotto's 
 earliest works were executed at Florence, and at the age 
 of thirty he had already attained such fame that he 
 
Fig. 23.— Chmst among the Doctors. A Fresco by Giotto. 
 In the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florerwi. 
 
GIOTTO. 65 
 
 was invited to Rome by Pope Boniface VIII., to take part 
 in the decoration of the ancient Bascilica of Saint Feter. 
 The Namcella mosaic which he there executed, representing 
 the Disciples in the Storm, is preserved * in the vestibule of 
 the presqnt Saint Peter's. The famous story of " Giotto's 
 0," belongs to this episode in his career. When the envoy 
 sent by the Pope to engage his serviijes begged for some 
 drawing or design which might be shown to his Holiness 
 in proof of the artist's talent, Giotto, taking an ordinary 
 brush full of colour, and steadying his arm against his 
 side, described a perfect circle on an upright panel with 
 a sweep of the wrist, and offered this manual feat as 
 sufficient evidence of his powers. The story shows the 
 importance attached by a great artist to mere precision 
 in workmanship, and teaches the useful lesson that genius, 
 unsupported by the skill only to be acquired by discipline 
 and labour, is wanting in the first condition which makes 
 great achievements possible. This visit to Rome took 
 place about 1298 ; soon afterwards we find Giotto engaged 
 on his frescoes in the church of Saint Francis at Assisi, 
 a series of allegorical designs illustrating the Saint's 
 spiritual life and character. In 1306, he was work- 
 ing on the fine series of frescoes in the Arena Chapel 
 at Padua, which represent thirty-eight scenes from the 
 lives of the Virgin and of Christ. The series begins with 
 the Rejection of Joachim! g Offering, and ends with the 
 Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Ghost. We here 
 see Giotto in the fulness of his powers ; the incidents are 
 treated with a charming simplicity and sentiment for 
 nature (Fig. 24), and he rises to great solemnity of style in 
 the more important scenes. Engravings of these frescoes 
 ! have been published by the Arundel Society, accompanied 
 * Very much restored. 
 r T P F 
 
GIOTTO. 67 
 
 by an interesting monograph by Mr. Euskin. Important 
 ■works by Giotto are found in many other places besides 
 those mentioned above, including especially Naples, 
 Ravenna, Milan, Pisa, and Lucca. Perhaps the finest are 
 those which have been discovered of late years in the 
 Church of Santa Croce at Florence nnder coats of white- 
 wash which happily had preserved them almost intact ; the 
 Last Supper, in the refectory of the convent attached to the 
 church, is in remarkable preservation, and is a magnificent 
 example of the style of the time.* The twenty-six panels 
 which he painted for the presses in the sacristry of the same 
 church are good illustrations of his method of treatment ; 
 natural and dignified with the interest concentrated on 
 the figures ; the background and accessories being treated 
 in the simplest possible manner, and hardly more than 
 symbols expressing the locality in which the scene is en- 
 acted. Giotto was the first of the moderns who attempted 
 portrait-painting with any success, and some most interest- 
 ing monuments of his skill in that branch of art have been 
 preserved to us. In 1 840, discovery was made, in the chapel 
 of the Podestk's palace at Florence, of some paintings, 
 by Giotto, containing a number of portraits, among them 
 one of his friend, the poet Dante ; the portraits being 
 introduced, as was usual among the early painters, and 
 indeed frequent at all periods, as subordinate actors in the 
 scene represented. Giotto was not only a painter ; as a 
 sculptor and architect he was also distinguished. The 
 Campanile of Florence was built from his designs, and 
 completed after his death by his scholar, Taddeo Gaddi. 
 Some of the sculptures are said by Vasari to have been 
 executed by his own hand (Fig. 25) ; but many of this 
 * Said by Vasari to be by Giotto, but ascribed, as well as the jianels 
 for the presses, by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle to Taddeo Gaddi. 
 
 F 2 
 
FiG. 25. — Shei'Herd I.ife. Designei^j^Gioiio. 
 From, the bas-relief on tlie OampaniU, Florence. 
 
TADDEO GAPDI. 69 
 
 historian's statements concerning the painters of that early 
 time have been questioned by modern critics. Giotto died 
 at Florence in January, 1337, and was Buried with public 
 solemnities in the cathedral. His style, though marked 
 by the hardness and quaintness of a time when chiaro- 
 scuro and perspective were very imperfectly understood, 
 displays the originality of his genins in its thoughtful 
 and vigorous design, and shows how resolutely the artist 
 relied, not on traditions, but on keen and patient observation 
 of nature. 
 
 The scholars and imitators of Giotto were numerous ; 
 the chief of them were Stefano Fioeentino, called, from his 
 success in the imitation of form, Simia della Natwra, the 
 " Ape of Nature," to whom, however, no existing work 
 can with certainty be ascribed ; Giottino ; and Taddeo 
 Gaddi, son of Gaddo Gaddi, and Giotto's godson. 
 
 Giottino was so called from the resemblance which his 
 works presented to those of the founder of the school. 
 It is doubtful who he was, as the accounts of the period 
 in which he lived cannot be reconciled with the date of 
 the frescoes assigned to him. Those which are supposed 
 to be executed by him combine, with an advance towards 
 realism, the dignified unity of composition characteristic of 
 Giotto. 
 
 Taddeo Gaddi lived and worked for Giotto for twenty- 
 four years, and was charged at the master's death with the 
 completion of his unfinished works. As has already been 
 hinted, many works which have hitherto been ascribed to 
 Giotto are now assigned to this painter, whose style very 
 closely resembles that of his master. He, in his turn, is 
 now deprived of the honour of having executed the fine 
 symbolic painting in the Cappella de' Spagnuoli in the 
 cloister of Santa Maria Novella, representing St. Thomas 
 
70 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Aquinas enthroned among the prophets. This work is 
 very typical of the allegorical compositions of the time ; 
 personifications of the Sciences and Arts and Virtues are 
 seated below, while under each allegorical figure is placed 
 an historical or mythical personage representative of the 
 type personified above; as Atlas below AstroTwmy, Tubal 
 Cain below Music, St. Augustine below Cha/rity, &c. (see 
 Ei". 26.) It is probably by a Sienese painter. 
 
 Fia. 26. — Portion op a Fbesco ascribed to Taddeo Gadui. 
 Jft Santa Maria Novella^ Florence, 
 
 Numerous other followers of Giotto are known by name, 
 and countless works of his school exist ; the difficulty con- 
 sists in assigning the works to their proper authors. 
 From among the multitude of these artists whose frescoes 
 decorated the churches of the time, we need only add 
 to those already mentioned, Giovanni da Milano, who 
 
ORCAGNA. 71 
 
 was a fellow-worker with Taddeo Gaddi, but advanced the 
 art further in realistic treatment, and displayed more 
 individuality ; combining with his Florentine training 
 something of the poetic grace of the Sienese school. 
 
 The most famous of the immediate successors of Giotto 
 was Andrea di Cigne, called Orcagna,* who, though not 
 a pupil of Giotto, was considerably influenced by his works. 
 He was born in Florence about 1308. In conjunction with 
 his brother Leonardo, he executed several paintings in 
 the churches of Florence. The National Gallery possesses 
 a fine altar-piece which was painted for the church of San 
 Pietro Maggiore ; it is divided and hung in ten portions 
 (Nos. 569 — 578). A painting of Heaven and Hell, after 
 the description of Dante, done by the two brothers in the 
 Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, is still 
 preserved ; but the paintings in the Campo Santo of Pisa, 
 by which Orcagna was best known, and which gave him his 
 reputation with some connoisseurs in the last century — 
 a period when the great schools of the early times of 
 Florence and Siena were ignored or contemptuously stig- 
 matised as "Gothic" — are now, as has been explained, 
 known to be by other artists. Orcagna was, undoubtedly, 
 of great original genius, and gave a marked impulse to the 
 arts ; Giotto's own pupils and their followers having been 
 content to follow in their master's footsteps without in any 
 way departing from his style, Orcagna, like Giotto, was 
 famous in sculpture and architecture as well as painting ; 
 in fact, the three branches in the early ages of Italian art 
 were scarcely" separated, and painting was far from holding 
 the position of pre-eminence which it afterwards attained, 
 not a little to the detriment of the others, Orcagna died 
 in or about 1368. 
 
 * Short for his soubrii^net of Abcaqkuolo, the ArchangeL 
 
SPINELLO AKETINO — SIMONE MEMMI. 73 
 
 Jacofo di Casentino, whose family name was Landini, 
 was bom in 1310, and became a pupil of Taddeo Gaddi. 
 He painted many important works in fresco, of which few 
 remain, and died in advanced age about 1390. Jacopo 
 was the master of Spinello Abetino, who was about 
 twenty years his junior, and a native, as the name by 
 which he is commonly known implies, of Arezzo. Spinello 
 painted a great number of works in different places, of 
 which the most celebrated are his frescoes at San Miniato 
 outside Florence (Fig. 27) and those already desci'ibed 
 in the Campo Santo of Pisa. He was the best of the 
 school directly founded on Giotto, and far superior to 
 his master Jacopo. In the South Kensington Museum are 
 two fragments of fresco by this painter (lent by Sir H. A. 
 Layard), the only remains of his paintings m S. M. degli 
 Angeli at Arezzo, which have been lately destroyfld. The 
 date of his death is unknown; he was living in 1408. 
 
 Giovanni and Agnolo Gaddi, sons of Taddeo, were also 
 distinguished painters about this period. A pupil of 
 Agnolo, Cennino Cennini, who lived in the latter part of 
 the fourteenth century, was the author of a Trattato delta 
 Pittura, the oldest of modern books on painting. 
 
 The Sienese School, which may be said to have been 
 founded by Duccio, was now a rival of the school of 
 Florence. Its chief master at this period was Simone di 
 Maetino, called Simone Memmi, bom about 1284. He was 
 the friend of Petrarch, and painted the . portrait of his 
 mistress Laura. Memmi spent the latter years of his life 
 at Avignon, where he died in 1344. The impoi?tant fresco 
 in the CappeUa de' Spagnuoli (Fig. 28), once attributed to 
 him, is now, like that of Taddeo Gaddi, assigned to another 
 artist ; in this case supposed to be the same Andrea di 
 FiBENZE who executed the paintings of the Life of St. 
 
LOEENZETTI. 75 
 
 Jianieri at Fisa. That Andrea was of the Sienese School 
 is surmised from his style, but nothing further is known 
 about him. Simone's brother-in-law, Lippo MEMiat, was 
 also distinguished as a painter. 
 
 Ambbogio Lorenzetti, who is best known by the frescoes 
 with which he decorated the Palazzo Pubblico, or Town Hall, 
 of Siena, was the most famous member of a distinguished 
 family of artists. The dates of his birth and death are 
 unknown : his first picture, a fresco in the church of San 
 Francesco at Siena {Fig. 30), was painted about 1331. The 
 three great frescoes of the Town Hall were begun in 1337, 
 and finished in 1339 ; they are large compositions, remark- 
 able for the grandeur of the figures (Fig. 29), which repre- 
 sent allegorically the Government of Siena, the Results of 
 Good Government, and the Results of Bad Government ; and 
 to him and his brother are now properly ascribed (as has 
 already been stated) the frescoes in the Campo Santo at 
 Pisa, said by Vasari to be the work of Oreagna. The only 
 work of importance which Ambrogio is known to have 
 executed after these is a Presentation in the Temple, painted 
 in 1342, and still preserved, though in a much injured 
 condition, in the Academy of Florence. His work, like 
 Orcagna's, is distinguished by great originality of concep- 
 tion and grandeur of treatment. 
 
 The Sienese school of the fourteenth century, though 
 inferior to the Florentine, was not without influence in 
 Florence, and did much towards laying the foundations of art 
 in other centres. That Oreagna learnt something from the 
 Sienese and that Lorenzetti imbibed something of Floren- 
 tine grandeur seems indubitable, and up to this time the 
 two schools, though differing greatly in character, seemed to 
 have worked in harmony, each being useful to the other. 
 Imperfect though the works of these two artists be — through 
 
Fie. 29. Head of " Concokdta," from the " Allegory of Good 
 
 Government." By Ambrogio Loeenzetti. 
 
 In tlie Palazzo Puhblico, Siena. 
 
GUILD OF ST. LUKE. 77 
 
 their being done at a time when the art was as yet but 
 emerging from infancy, and painters were but feeling their 
 way — they glow with that imagination and creative spirit 
 which either culminates an epoch or begins a new one. 
 Though different from, and immensely superior to, the im- 
 mediate followers of Giotto and Duccio, in that they added 
 and originated on their own account, these painters may 
 be considered to have said the last word of the Giottesque 
 school. After them painting takes a fresh start, to lead 
 in Florence to numberless masters, who, keeping to nature 
 as their guide, and steadily improving in the higher tech- 
 nical qualities, made ever fresh advances towards perfect- 
 ing the art ; — in Siena to a school which, though deeply 
 imbued with poetic feeling, remained within narrow and 
 provincial bounds, neither exercising an influence abroad 
 nor receiving fresh inspiration from without, until it 
 perished incomplete, like Siena itself, from its ambitious 
 exclusiveness. 
 
 About the middle of the fourteenth century, the number 
 of men who followed the painter's calling had become so 
 considerable, that the two cities of Florence and Siena 
 formed each its own guild of painting, — the Florentine 
 guild having been constituted in 1349, and that of Siena 
 in 1355. These guilds were semi-religious societies, and 
 placed under the protection of the evangelist Saint 
 Luke, himself, according to a common tradition, a 
 painter. 
 
 Meanwhile the art of painting was making rapid 
 advances in other parts of Italy, especially in Umbria, 
 Rome, and Venice, although the Tuscan and Sienese were 
 as yet the only schools which had produced artists of 
 the highest genius and fame. Of the TJmbrian school, 
 the earliest painter of note was Odebigi of Gubbio, a 
 
CAVALLINI. 79 
 
 contemporary and friend of botli Giotto and Dante, whose 
 mention of him in the Pargaiorio has made . him cele- 
 brated ; he was a miniature painter, and no works of his 
 are known ; but he headed a school at Gubbio which was 
 much influenced by that of Siena; and he is considered 
 to be the founder of the school of Bologna, as he lived 
 there, and was the master of Franco Bolognese, the earliest 
 recorded painter of that school. Perugia, afterwards 
 so celebrated, remained in complete obscurity until the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 At Rome the Cosmati family carried on in the thir- 
 teenth century the traditions of art which had never 
 ceased from the classic times. They were architects, 
 sculptors, and mosaicists, and were succeeded by Pieteo 
 CavaIiLINI, a contemporary of Giotto, and his assistant 
 during his work at Saint Peter's. The works of Cavallini 
 which remain are also chiefly designs in mosaic ; the fresco 
 at Assisi, which is attributed to him by Vasari, being 
 more in the character of the -Sienese school, was probably 
 executed by Pietro Lorenzetti. Cavallini was a good 
 architect, and some have identified him with the Italian 
 artist who designed the shrine of Edward the Con- 
 fessor in Westminster Abbey, and the crosses in memory 
 of Queen Eleanor. Cavallini was born in 1259, and died in 
 1344; he was therefore some years older than Giotto, 
 though he outlived him. It can hardly be said, however, 
 that there was in this century a Roman school, in the sense 
 in which we speak of the Sienese and Florentines ; all the 
 artists of this date whom we find mentioned as belonging 
 to the Roman school are, as their names testify, from 
 various cities of central Italy ; as Andrea da Velletri, 
 Ugolino Orvietano, and others ; and they seem to have 
 been employed mostly in decorating the cathedral of 
 
80 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Orvieto, which was for this part of Italy what the church 
 at Assisi was for Florence ; Siena, sending her artists to both 
 these centres of fresco and monumental painting, no doubt 
 acquired a considerable influence on the art of the time. It 
 was not until Borne became a centre of attraction for artists 
 from all parts of Italy, in the sixteenth century, that a 
 style was formed which can be properly called Roman ; and 
 Cavallini, in the fourteenth century, is rather the last of a 
 traditional race of Roman artists, than the beginner of a 
 new epoch. Later on we find the names of Gentile da 
 Fabriano and Melozzo da Forli as belonging to Rome, both 
 artists of distinction. 
 
 Gentile da Fabbiano occupies an intermediate place 
 in the art of the time ; he is hardly to be called Roman, 
 although he worked in St. Giovanni Laterano, — his paint- 
 ings have a decided character of their own, and of a very 
 attractive kind ; he exercised a very marked influence on 
 the schools of Venice and Padua, having been the master 
 of Jacopo Bellini — who named his son Gentile after him, 
 and who himself had an undoubted influence on the great 
 Andrea Mantegna — and of Antonio of Murano, a painter of 
 the rival school in Venice. He was born about 1370, and 
 died about 1450. He was well abreast of the advance in 
 technical methods and doctrine which distinguishes the age 
 of Masaccio from that of Giotto. He was fond of deco- 
 rating his pictures with gold, and his style somewhat 
 resembles that of Fra Angelico ; but it is doubtful whether 
 he was, as Vasari states, his pupil; he was greatly 
 admired by those who knew his works, including the great 
 Michelangelo ; most of these, however, have unfortunately 
 perished. An Adoration of the Kings in the Academy at 
 Florence remains, and ranks among the finest examples of 
 the early schools. Gentile spent some time in Venice, and 
 
AITICHIERO — AVANZI. 81 
 
 his services to art were rewarded by the Venetian Senate 
 with a pension, and a grant of patrician rank. 
 
 In North Italy, notwithstanding Giotto's visit, in the 
 first years of the fourteenth century, to Verona, Ferrara, 
 Ravenna, and, above all, to Padua — where his paintings 
 in the Arena Chapel might" have been expected to form 
 a school — the art of painting ■ remained in the im- 
 poverished state in which it was everywhere before the 
 revival ; Guariento of Padua is the only name of im- 
 portance remaining to us ; and his works show no trace 
 of the new influence. Towards the -end of the century, 
 however, two artists appeared, whose paintings form 
 a conspicuous feature of interest in the famous church 
 of Sant' Antonio at Padua. Fortunately preserved by the 
 whitewash from under whiph they were rescued, though 
 not without damage by sub-sequent restoration, the frescoes 
 of Altichieeo da Zevio and Jacopo Avanzi, painted in 
 1.379, give a very high position to these artists. Formed 
 on the style of Giotto, these pictures are full of life and 
 invention, and are remarkably harmonious in colour. 
 These men executed other works in Padua, and some at 
 Verona, which have perished. But they left no school to 
 follow them. 
 
 The Milanese painters of this time are hardly worth 
 mention ; a few names remain, but no work showing that 
 the school had any importance. 
 
 The Venetian school of the fourteenth century includes 
 some meritorious artists, but none of any great celebrity. 
 Maestro PAOiiO, Loeenzo Veneziano, Niccol5 Semitecolo, 
 are among its best known names. 
 
 The fifteenth century brings with it a remaiiable 
 improvement in the technics of painting. Oil painting was 
 then first piactised (for the painters hitherto noticed, both 
 
 C I P G 
 
82 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTINO, 
 
 ancient and modern, were limited to the usage of fresco 
 and distemper), and a great advance was made in the 
 knowledge of perspective and chiaroscuro. At the same 
 time, the earnestness, devotion, and spiritual significance of 
 the works of the earlier period were not yet lost or 
 obscured in the pride of self-conscious artistic power ; and 
 among painters of the fifteenth century, uniting with 
 Giotto's sanctity and Giotto's strength a command over 
 means of expression which Giotto never possessed, we 
 shall find the greatest masters of the noblest religious 
 art. 
 
 Fig. 31.— njBSTJs stkipped or His Vbstmento. By Giotto. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FIFTEENTH CENTURY — TUSCAN, PADUAN, VENETIAN, UMBBIAN, 
 AND NEAPOLlTAfT SCHOOLS. 
 
 THE earliest of the great fifteenth-century painters 
 belongs in the character of his works rather to 
 the preceding century, and his style has not much affinity 
 with the peculiar excellences of the school" of Masaccio. 
 The monk Guibo di Pietro of Fiesole, commonly called 
 Fea Angbltco from the holiness and purity which were 
 as conspicuous in his life as in his works, was born in 
 1387 at Yicchio, in the province of Mugello. At the 
 age of twenty he entered the order of the Predicants at 
 Fiesole, and took the name of Giovanni, by which he was 
 afterwards known. His first art work was the illumination 
 of manuscripts. Quitting the monastery in 1409, he prac- 
 tised as a fresco-painter in various places until 1418, when 
 he returned to Fiesole, and continued to reside there for the 
 next eighteen years. In 1436 he again quitted his retreat, 
 to paint a series of frescoes on the history of the Passion 
 for the convent of San Marco in Florence (Fig. 33). This 
 work occupied nine years, and on its completion Angelico 
 was invited to Eome. The chief work which he undertook 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 there was the decoration of a chapel in the Vatican 
 for Pope Nicholas V. In 1447 he went to Orvieto to 
 
 i'lG, 82.— The Coronation of the Virgin. By Fka Angelico. 
 Now in the museum of the Lovjvre^ Paris, 
 
 undertake a similar task, but returned in the same year, 
 having done only three compartments of the ceiling, and 
 leaving the rest to be afterwards completed by Luca 
 
Fig. 33. — The Coronation op the Vikgin. By Fra Angblico. 
 In the Convent of San Marco, Florence. 
 
86 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 SignorelH. He then continued to reside in Eome, where 
 he died and was buried in 1455. The most striking 
 characteristics of Angelico's art spring from the temper 
 of reh'gious fervour with which he practised it. He 
 worked without payment ; he prayed before beginning 
 any work for the Divine guidance in its conception • and 
 believing" himself to be so assisted, he regarded each 
 picture as a revelation, and could never be persuaded to 
 alter any part of it. His works on panel are very 
 numerous, and are to be found in many public and private 
 galleries ; of the finest pf these are, a Last Judgment, 
 belonging to the Earl of Dudley, and the Coronation oj 
 the Virgin in the Gallery of the Louvre (Fig. 32). After 
 his death he was " beatified " by the Church he had served 
 so devotedly — a solemnity which ranks nest to canonisa- 
 tion ; and II Beato Angelico is the name by which Era 
 Giovanni was and is most fondly and reverently remem- 
 bered. His style survived only in one pupil who assisted 
 him at Orvieto. 
 
 Benozzo Gozzoli, whose great works in the Oampo Santo 
 have been above referred to, was born at Florence in 1420, 
 and was a pupil of Fra Angelico. ' He began by following 
 the style of his master, but was afterwards irresistibly led 
 into the realistic school, of which Masaccio may be called 
 the originator in the beginning of the fifteenth century. 
 His paintings in the B,iccardi Palace (Fig. 34) at Florence 
 are an example of his transition from the one school 
 to the other. In place of the pure and spiritual severity 
 of Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli delights in crowded incident 
 and richness of detail. He fills up every background 
 with an abundance of picturesque accessories, figures of 
 animals, architecture, and landscape, and displays a feel- 
 ing for the beauty of material Nature more intense than 
 

 
 Fig. 34. — The Angelic Choir. By Benozzo Gozzoli. 
 Part of a fresco in the Eiccardi Palace, Florence, 
 
88 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 any of his contemporaries. Unquestionably the finest of 
 Benozzo's works are his latest, the frescoes of the Campo 
 Santo, which, executed at the rate of three a year, occu- 
 pied him during the seven years beginning with 1469. 
 The satisfaction which these works gave to the authorities 
 of Pisa was rather oddly expressed by a present of a 
 sarcophagus, in which he might finally rest near to his 
 great creations. Another series of frescoes, remarkable 
 for their beauty, is in the church of S. Agostino at San 
 Gimignano in Tuscany ; it consists of a series of seventeen 
 pictures of the life of St. Augustine, which are mostly 
 in perfect preservation. The story of St. Augustine's 
 schoolboy life is enhanced in interest by a highly realistic 
 representation of the punishment of one of his comrades, 
 who is being ujimistakably " hoisted " in the traditional 
 fashion. Benozzo died in Florence in 1498. Our National 
 Gallery has a small picture by him of the. Ilape of Helen, 
 closely resembling in style the work of Fra Angelico, and 
 an altar-piece painted by him for a church in Florence. 
 
 Much of the impulse art received at this, time was given 
 by a closer application to it of the exact sciences. The 
 great sculptor Ghiberti led the way in this direction, and 
 some of the most successful painters were his pupils. One 
 of them, Paolo di Dono, called Uccelli, from his fondness 
 for painting birds, devoted himself to the study of per- 
 spective' so ardently as to injure his own fortunes while he 
 advanced his art. He was helped in his studies by the 
 geometrician Manetti. Vasari tells us that his enthusiasm 
 led him to sit up reading all night ; and his displeased 
 wife could get no other answer to her appeals than " Oh ! 
 die dolce cosa i questa prospettiva /" — " What a sweet thing 
 perspective is 1 " Uccelli was born at Florence in 1396, 
 and died there in 1475. Most of his works are now lost; 
 
UCCELLI, 89 
 
 an extensive series of frescoes in the cloister of S. Maria 
 Novella, executed in terra verde or green earth, still 
 remains, it is true, but in such dilapidated condition as to 
 be scarcely distinguishable. There is an interesting panel 
 by him in the Louvre, containing the heads of Giotto, 
 Donatello, Brunelleschi, Manetti, and himself, as repre- 
 sentatives of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Mathe- 
 matics, and the dolce cosa, Perspective. A picture in the 
 National Gallery curiously illustrates his fondness for 
 . perspective. It represents a battle, and the broken frag- 
 ments of arms on the ground, and even the figure of a 
 dead soldier, are carefully drawn to the point of sight, 
 
 Andeea del Castagno (born 1390, died 1457) was a 
 painter of the new realistic school, and a follower of Paolo 
 Uccelli j he painted an equestrian portrait of Niccolo 
 Tolentino in imitation of statuary, which he placed in the 
 Cathedral of Florence as companion to a similar painting 
 of the English general, Hawkwood, by Uccelli. His name is 
 connected with that of Domenicx) Veneziano (see page 112), 
 who introduced oil-painting into Florence, and of whose 
 work only two specimens remain, one in oil and the other 
 in fresco. This painter was born at Venice about 1420, 
 and died at Florence in 1461. 
 
 PiETKO db' Feanceschi, one of the first masters of the 
 Umbrian school, devoted himself as earnestly as Uccelli 
 to the mathematical study of perspective, and helped 
 greatly to advance the science. He was born at Borgo San 
 Sepolcro about 1415. During the earlier part of his life 
 he mostly worked as an assistant of Domenico Veneziano, 
 and probably learned from him to employ the new method 
 of oil-painting. The two painters together executed con- 
 siderable works in Florence and in Loreto. Pietro also 
 left paintings in his native city, in Urbino, Ferrara, 
 
90 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Eome, and Arezzo. He died at his birtiplace in 1492.: 
 Both this master and Paolo Uccelli exercised an influence 
 on future painters which extended far beyond the limits 
 of their own schools. Some of Pietro's works are dis- 
 tinguished for very pow^f ul chiaroscuro ; but the greatest 
 advance in this direction was made at this time by 
 Masolino da Panicale, a contemporary Florentine painter, 
 and the master of Masaccio. 
 
 fio. 35.— The Tribute Money (Matthew xvii. 27). By M.\saooio. 
 In the Church of the UarmeUtei, Florence. 
 
 This great painter, whose true name is Tommaso Guidi — 
 Masaccio is a familiar nickname referring to his untidy 
 habits — was born at Castel San Giovanni in 1401, became 
 the pupil of Masolino, and undertook, as his first important 
 work in painting, to continue the series of frescoes which 
 his master had begun in the Brancacci Chapel of the church 
 of the Carmine in Florence. Masaccio's work in the chapel 
 was included in -about four years, from 1423 to 1427, and 
 
MASAOCIO. 91 
 
 tlie pnintings he produced, marvellous for so young a man, 
 were studied as models by all the greatest painters, down 
 to the time of Baphael. They are five in number : the 
 Expulsion from Paradise, the Tribute Money (Fig. 35), Scdnt 
 Peter Baptising, the Apostles restoring the Youth to Life 
 (completed by Filippino Lippi) and the Infirm Man owred 
 by Uie Shadow of Saint Peter. Besides these frescoes the 
 only entirely undoubted work of the master is the Italian 
 Trinity in Santa Maria Novella at Florence ; for the series 
 of frescoes ascribed to him in the church of San Ciemente 
 at Rome would seem rather to be the work of an inferior 
 artist, for whom Masaccio may have furnished designs. 
 He left Florence for Rome in 1427, and died there in 
 1428, having lived just long enough to give evidences 
 of a power sufiScient, immature as it must have been, to 
 place him among the greatest masters of the art. He was 
 unquestionably the founder of the modern style, under- 
 standing by that the natural treatment of groups with, 
 their proper force of light and shade and relief, appro- 
 priately placed in the picture, and among such surroundings 
 as help the subject without being overcrowded with in- 
 cident. The expressions also are natural and easy ; the 
 faces full of character, but less idealised than under the 
 earlier painters, and sometimes too obviously portraits, 
 
 FiLJPPO Lippi, generally known as Fra Lippo Lippi, to 
 distinguish him from his son Filippino, was perhaps a pupil 
 of Masaccio, and certainly drew much from the study of 
 his works. At the time when Masaccio was engaged in the 
 Brancacci Chapel, Lippi was a boy of about fourteen in 
 the convent of the Carmelites, and an ardent student of 
 art. Born about 1412, he had been left an orphan at an 
 early age and placed in the convent by his aunt. He began 
 his noviciate at eight years old,, and showing a special. 
 
»Z ITALIAN PAINTING, 
 
 aptitude for art was' allowed to make it his occupation. In 
 1425 he had painted some frescoes in the convent cloisters. 
 Lippi's spirit was ill suited for a monastic life ; when he 
 came to man's estate, he took the protestant step of running 
 away, and soon had his fill of adventure. Having put to 
 sea off Ancona, he fell into the hands of Moorish pirates, 
 and was sold for a slave in . Barbary. A portrait of hi^ 
 master sketched on a wall won him favour, and he was 
 allowed to purchase his liberty by drawing a few pictures. 
 We find him employed in Florence in 1438 (Fig. 36). 
 Several years afterwards he undertook important works in 
 Prato, including the famous frescoes of the cathedral choir, 
 on which he was engaged from 1452 to 1464. While painting 
 an altarpiece for the convent of Saint Margaret in Prato, 
 Lippi fell in love with a girl named Lucrezia Buti, who was 
 being educated in the convent, and was intended for a 
 nun, and in 1456 he carried hier off. This is said to have 
 caused a great scandal, and raised against him an enmity 
 of which he was at last the victim ; but as he did not 
 lose his employment in the cathedral of Prato, and. was 
 afterwards employed on a like task in that of Spoleto, 
 we must suppose that the sacrilegious element of the 
 story has been exaggerated.* His death, at Spoleto in 
 1469, was attributed to poison. The National Gallery 
 contains several good examples of Lippi's easel pictures. 
 
 With Filippo Lippi should be associated his pupil, Sandeo 
 Botticelli, who was born at Florence in 1447, and whose 
 style has much affinity with that of his master. The 
 name by which he is generally known he took from the 
 goldsmith who was his first master, his family name being 
 FiLiPEPi ; Sandro is short for Alessandro. He completed 
 
 * 'Cosimo de' Medici abtained a dispensation from Pius II., which 
 enabled him to mair} Lucreisia. 
 
Fig. 36. — The Madonna adoring the Holt Child, strsTAiNED by Angels, 
 By Filippo Lippi. 
 
 In the Uffizi, Florence. 
 
94 ITALIAN PAINTlNa. 
 
 his studies under Filippo Lippi, and painted a great number 
 of pictures in a very vigorous and original style, delighting 
 equally in religious subjects and those drawn from classical 
 mythology. Among his works are three of the frescoes in 
 the Sistine Chapel. Botticelli was an ardent student of 
 Dante, and devoted himself towards the close of his career 
 as an artist to illustrating and commenting on the Divine 
 Comedy. At last he joined the followers of Savonarola, 
 earnestly espoused the cause of religious reform, and 
 apparently gave up the practice of art altogether. His 
 zeal brought him into poverty, and he was supported in his 
 last years by the charity of friends. He died at Florence in 
 1510. Botticelli's reputation as an artist stood high among 
 his contemporaries ; his works are full of invention and 
 imbued with a fancy peculiarly his own ; his children 
 especially have a naturalness which shows him a devoted 
 lover of baby-life; his pictures have been much studied 
 and his fame revived by artists and critics of our own 
 day (Fig. 37). His large picture of the Assumption of the 
 Virginwas acquired for the National Gallery at the Hamilton 
 sale in 1882. 
 
 There is some confusion about the works ascribed to 
 Pesello and Pesellino, as there are two painters named 
 Pesello, one of whom, Feancesco, was the grandson of the 
 other, GiULiANO ; and Yasari speaks of them indifferently 
 as Pesello. An altar-piece, representing the Trinity, in 
 the National Gallery, shows great grandeur of style and 
 beauty of colour ; the head of the Almighty is remarkably 
 fine, and the influence of Filippo Lippi seems obvious ; so 
 that it would appear to be by the younger artist, as 
 Francesco (bom 1422, died 1457), was of his time, whereas 
 Giuliano was born in 1367, and died in 1446. The PeseUi 
 were much engaged in painting cassoni or wedding-chests, 
 
Fig. 37.— C'oeonation op the Virgin. By Samdeo Bottioelli. 
 Jn the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 
 
ao ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 and one of them, probably Giuliano, was celebrated for 
 painting animals.* 
 
 Antonio Pollaiuolo, distinguislied as a sculptor as well 
 as a painter, was born in Florence about 1433. He was 
 apprenticed to a goldsmith — a calling in which many dis- 
 tinguished painters learned their elements, and which, as 
 then practised, offered the best possible training for hand 
 and eye, Pollaiuolo is said to have been the first painter 
 who employed dissection of the dead subject as an aid to 
 his artistic studies, an important step in the direction of 
 that fuller knowledge of nature to which art was ■ still 
 tending, and which has to be attained before the means of 
 expression at the artist's disposal are complete. One of 
 the principal pictures of this master, the Martyrdom of 
 Saint Sebastian, in the National Gallery, displays con- 
 spicuously the effects of his studies in this direction ; the 
 figures of the archers are full of life, and show an energy 
 and character evidently due to the painter's intimate 
 knowledge of muscular formation ; although a certain 
 dryness and rigidity of execution confess the want of other 
 qualities which should be proportional elements of imita- 
 tive power. Pollaiuolo won at the outset of his career 
 considerable fame as a sculptor and modeller. He did 
 not, until a comparatively late age, turn his attention to 
 painting, in which he soon took rank among the ablest of 
 his contemporaries. Pollaiuolo died in 1498, at Rome, 
 where he had been engaged chiefly in sculptural work. 
 
 Andeba Verrocchio (born at Florence 1432, died 1488), 
 though more famous as a sculptor than as a painter, de- 
 serves mention as having been the master of Leonardo 
 da Vinci. It is said that jealousy at seeing himself 
 
 * There are many good specimens of mssoni of this period ia the 
 South Kensington Museum. 
 
TUSCAN SCHOOL. 97 
 
 surpassed by Ws pupil led him to give up painting for 
 sculpture. Verroochio executed the models at least of the 
 famous statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni in the Piazza San 
 Giovanni e Paolo at Venice, certainly one of the finest, if 
 not the finest, equestrian statue in the world. It was com- 
 pleted by Alessandro Leopardi after Verrocchio's death. 
 
 CosiMO RossELLi (bom at Florence 1439, died in 1507) 
 was "in his earlier years a worthy follower of Masaccio ; 
 but he degenerated later in life into a comparatively poor 
 and mannered style. He was the master of Fra Barto- 
 lommeo, and of Piero di Cosimo, Of Kosselli's frescoes in 
 the Sistine Ohapel, some of which are hardly worthy of 
 their place, the best is considered to be the Sermon on 
 the Mount. He reverted in these frescoes to the earlier 
 practice of adorning them with much gilding, which, com- 
 bined with the use of strong deep colours in the draperies, 
 gives a pecuUar richness to his best works. 
 
 LucA SiGNOEELLi, an artist whose powerful works had 
 great influence in forming the genius of Michelangelo, was 
 a native of Cortona, born about 1441. He was a pupil 
 and an assistant of Pietro de' Franceschi. His earlier 
 pictures show great power of design, but are apt to be 
 somewhat formal, and without charm ; but the heads 
 possess great grandeur, and he has a largeness of style 
 which found its proper expression later in life. He 
 painted, in 1478, two frescoes in the Sistine Ohapel at 
 Rome ; but the most important of all his works were those 
 in the Oathedral of Orvieto,jthe continuation of the series 
 of frescoes which Fra Angelico had left unfinished. These 
 paintings were begun in 1499 and finished in 1502 ; they 
 belong therefore to .an advanced period of the painter's 
 life. The chief of them are the four great pictures repre- • 
 senting Antichrist, Hell, the Resurrection, and Paradise. 
 These are the first Italian pictures in which the nude 
 
 GIF n 
 
IiG. 38. — The Madonna Entheoned. By Ltjca Signokelli. 
 In the Academy nf Fine Arts, Florence. (From Santa Trinilct, Cortona.) 
 
oniRLANDAIO. 99 
 
 figure is made a prominent part of the design, and in 
 this, and in the terrific grandeur of the scenes represented, 
 the artist found the proper scope for his powers. The 
 dead rising from their graves, the demons harassing the 
 lost souls, the wicked struck by lightning, occupy the 
 highest place among the conceptions of the tragic and the 
 terrible, and are realised with amazing force and vividness. 
 The comparison of them with the great works of Michel- 
 angelo in the Sistine Chapel will prove how much the latter 
 artist was indebted to the leadership of Luca Signorelli's 
 work, which, by the impulse it gave to the study of the nude 
 figure and anatomy, constitutes an epoch in the history of 
 art. Signorelli spent his later years at Cortona, where he 
 died in 1523 (Fig. 38). At the Hamilton sale in 1832, the 
 National Gallery acquired an important panel by Signorelli, 
 The Circumcision of Christ, originally painted for San 
 Francesco in Volterra. 
 
 DoMENico Ghielandaio, the son of a goldsmith named 
 BiGOEDi, acquired tiat surname for his skill in making 
 garlands : he was born at Florence in 1449, and, like many 
 of his contemporaries, learned the rudiments of art in 
 the goldsmith's workshop. Of his many fine works in 
 Florence, the most celebrated are the series of frescoes in 
 the choir of Santa Maria Novella, in which he introduced 
 a great number of interesting portraits, — -beautiful ladies 
 of Florence, brother artists and friends, and several 
 members of the family of Giovanni Tornabuoni, who had 
 obtained for him the commission to execute the work. 
 Previously to these he had executed six frescoes in the 
 Sassetti Chapel in S. TripitAi, representing scenes from the 
 life of St. Francis. These, though not so splendid in scale 
 and design, are more appropriate in treatment than the 
 scenes from New Testament history in Santa Maria Novella. 
 The Florentine costume of his time jars less upon pro- 
 
 II 3 
 
100 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 priety, and the portraits are less incongruous there than 
 in such subjects as the Birth of tJte Virgin, or the Angel 
 appearing to Zachwriaa. He painted one fresco, the Calling 
 of Peter and Andrew, in the Sistine Chapel at Kome. The 
 town of 8. Gimignano, in Tuscany, boasts of some fine wall- 
 paintings by his hand, and his altar-pieces are numerous. 
 He worked also in mosaic, a beautiful specimen being the 
 Amvunciation over one of the doors of the Duomo at 
 Florence. Ghirlandaio was the master of Michelangelo, 
 who is said to have assisted him in his work at Santa 
 Maria Novella. His paintings, though showing the greatest 
 advance hitherto made towards largeness of style, and 
 completeness of expression both in form and light and 
 shade, breathe but little of the religious feeling which 
 inspired the earlier artists ; and it is evident that for him 
 the artistic form, the pictorial effect, and the splendour of 
 decoration, have more interest than the proper and effective 
 treatment of the subject (Fig. 39). We cannot but feel 
 a falling off in art when the great events of Scripture 
 are used as a vehicle for the introduction of portraits of 
 leading citizens and beautiful ladies in all the splendour 
 of the costume of their time. In all great works of art, 
 where portraiture has been introduced, whether by the 
 earlier artists, such as Giotto, or by those later than 
 Ghirlandaio, as Baphael, it has always been kept quite 
 subordinate, and confined to the lookers-on in the scene. 
 His brothers, David and Benedetto, and his son Eidolpo,* 
 were also distinguished painters. Ghirlandaio happens to 
 be quite unrepresented in our National Gallery: but 
 examples of his works are not wanting in other English 
 collections. He died at Florence in 1494. 
 
 * In the National Gallery la a Procession to Calvary, painted by 
 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio in 1504, when he was but eighteen, for the church 
 of San Gallo at FloTfnce. 
 
Fig. 39.— The Adokatiost of the Magi. By Ghiklandaio. 
 In the Pitti Palace, Florence, 
 
102 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Next in chronological order among the great Florentine 
 masters comes - Leonaedo da Tinci, but as his place in 
 art is rather among the great masters of the sixteenth 
 century, he may be fitly considered after the remaining 
 qtMttro-centisti * who were his juniors. 
 
 LoEENZO Di Ceedi, bom at Florence in 1459, was a 
 pupil of Verrocchio, and distinguished both as a painter 
 and a sculptor. His early works are much influenced by 
 his fellow-pupil, Leonardo da Vinci. His pictures are 
 remarkable for elaborate finish, and the evident pleasure 
 he took in painting infants is a noticeable trait of this 
 master ; his Madonnas, however, are apt to be sleepy and 
 uninteresting, and his pictures are dull and inharmonious 
 in colour. But his drawings of heads, of which there are 
 many in the Louvre and the TJflSzi, are done with a 
 delicacy and feeling for character which is remarkable 
 even for that time. Lorenzo died in 1537. 
 
 FiLiPPiNO LiPPi, born at Florence in 1460, was, accord- 
 ing to the old story, the offspring of Fra Lippo Lippi's 
 illicit connection with Lucrezia Buti ; but was possibly his 
 adopted son. On the death of his father, Filippino became 
 the pupil of Sandro Botticelli. His first important work 
 was the completion of the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, 
 which Masaccio had left unfinished. He executed some 
 considerable works in the church of Santa Maria Novella, 
 and others at Rome and at Prato. One of his finest 
 paintings, the Vision of Saint Bernard, is stiU in La Badia 
 at Florence (Fig. 40). Filippino, like Ghirlandaio, made 
 
 » Quatirocenf.isti, the Italian term for artists belonging to the years 
 one thousand /(wr Mindred and odd ; the words einquecento and cinque- 
 centisti are similarly used of the school of the following century. 
 Q^mttrocento and cinqxhecento correspond respectively to out fifteenth and 
 sixteenth, centuries ; the difference of notation is a little embarrassing. 
 
r-vY i,''f..m\\m 
 
 
 
 Fia. 40.— YisiON OF SaInt Beenakd. By Filippiko Lippi. 
 In the Church of La Badia, at Florence. 
 
104 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 an important advance towards the complete mastery of 
 the art over technical means. He died in 1504. 
 
 PiEEO Di Cosmo, the son of a jeweller in Florence, born 
 in 1462, adopted the name by which he is generally known 
 from his master, Cosimo Eosselli. As an artist he was 
 eccentric, but his works have much merit, his landscapes 
 being especially good. He died at Florence in 1521. 
 
 Besides these artists are many of reputation, whose 
 works however do not call for special notice in this neces- 
 sarily brief rhiimii, as they are rather followers than 
 originators. Dello Delli, who was a follower of TJccelLi 
 and painted cassoni ; Alesso Baldovinetti, a more im- 
 portant painter of the same school, few of whose works 
 can now be identified ; Fea Diamante, an assistant to Fra 
 FiUppo, and guardian to Filippioo Lk)pi ; Sebastiano 
 Mainardi, brother-in-law and assistant^tl Ghirlandaio, 
 who doubtless was the painter of many ^Mlled Ghirlan- 
 daios ; £.affaellino del Gabbo, and S lost of other 
 painters, known and unknown, assistantslto Filippino, to 
 Sandro Botticelli, and to Ghirlandaio, who multiplied 
 works in imitation of their masters, and who are respon- 
 sible for many pictures attributed to these great names. 
 Botticelli seems to have had a workshop whence numerous^ 
 inferior replicas of his Madonnas were given to the world, 
 which now inundate public and private collections; an 
 example afterwards followed by Giovanni Bellini, at Venice. 
 
 PADUAN SCHOOL. 
 
 The real founder of this school was Francesco Squab- 
 cioNE, who owes his celebrity rather to the number and 
 eminence of the pupils he instructed: than to the few works 
 which can with certainty be attributed to him. There is 
 internal evidence, indeed, in these, that, although signed 
 
PADUAN SCHOOL. 105 
 
 with his own name, they are not so much the work of 
 his own hands, as executed in the school or workshop 
 which he set up in Padua, where he is said to have had 
 137 scholars or assistants. Squarcione, who was born at 
 Padua in 1394, travelled in Italy and Greece, collecting 
 and carefully studying the remains of ancient art. The 
 examples which he brought home with him, and with 
 which he furnished his studio, gave to his style, and to 
 that of the entire school which he founded, a peculiarly 
 sculpturesque character. He died at Venice in 1474. 
 
 It would be an error to suppose, however, that to 
 Squarcione's teaching alone was due the eminence to which 
 the Faduan school attained, although his enthusiasm for 
 the antique showed him to be a man of superior taste and 
 cultivation. Of the many pupils who reflected his manner 
 Mabco Zoppo is the most remarkable, but the character of 
 his works is ugly, with the exaggerated anatomy and the 
 stifE broken drapery which is a marked characteristic of 
 Squarcione's school. He and others from the same work- 
 shop were much employed in painting house fronts, many 
 of which may still be seen in Castelfranco, Conegliano, 
 Bassano, and other towns of Lombardo-Venetia. 
 
 But the greatness of Andeea Mantegna, the most distin- 
 guished of all Squarcione's pupils, is due to other sources : 
 and here again we find the Florentine school asserting its 
 accustomed influence, wherever art raised itself to a high 
 level. Donatello, the sculptor, and Paolo Uccelli, the 
 painter, both worked in Padua, and the former resided 
 there for some years while executing the beautiful works 
 in bronze and marble which still remain for our admiration 
 in Sant' Antonio ; and it can hardly be doubted that Man- 
 tegna's style was greatly improved by his study of the works 
 of these artists. This painter's influence was so important 
 
106 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 that his life deserves a somewhat extended notice. Andrea 
 Mantegna was born in 1431 of a humble family ; and before 
 he was ten years old the chUd had displayed such talents 
 that Squarcione was induced to adopt him as his son. 
 At the age of seventeen he painted an altar-piece for the 
 chiirch. of Santa Sofia, in Padua, which was much praised ; it 
 has unfortunately perished. His earliest works of importance 
 are the series of frescoes in the chapel of Saint Christopher 
 in the church of the Eremitani at Padua, representing 
 scenes in the life of St. Christopher and St. James. Squar- 
 cione obtained the contract for decorating this chapel, and 
 employed several pupils on the work, the chief of whom 
 after Mantegna was Niccolo Pizzolo, who worked with 
 Andrea, probably after his designs. He perished young in 
 a street riot, leaving Mantegna, who began to be employed 
 there about 1448, to execute the greater part of the work 
 by himself. Mantegna here completely asserts his indivi- 
 duality, and these paintings excel by a mastery over com- 
 position, a thorough knowledge of perspective and fore- 
 shortening, learnt probably from Paolo Uccelli, and a charac- 
 teristic fondness for architectural backgrounds adorned 
 with friezes and medallions in the style of the antique, 
 acquired in Squarcione's workshop. The figures, though 
 rigid and statuesque, show an immense advance in the 
 knowledge of form, and are admirably true in expression. 
 They were completed in 1459 or '60. Mantegna married, 
 Nicolosia, the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, who at that time 
 resided in Padua with his family, and is said to have 
 incurred Squarcione's displeasure by this marriage, and so 
 to have lost the chance of becoming his heir; but it is 
 conjectured by Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle* that the 
 
 * To whose learned essay on Mantegna I am indebted for much of 
 this short account. — E. J. P. ■ 
 
108 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 quaprel arose from. Squarcione having signed and published 
 as his own a work executed by Mantegna. For the church 
 of San Zeno, at Verona, he painted a magniticent altar-piece, 
 about the year 1457, to which may perhaps be assigned 
 the palm, among all his works for beauty and completeness ; 
 the accompanying woodcut of The Crucifixion (Fig. 41), is 
 taken from one of the four small pictures which form the 
 predella of this noble work, and which are unfortunately 
 separated from the original composition! their place being 
 now occupied by copies. In 1460 Mantegna entered the 
 service of the Marquis of Mantua, by whom he was treated 
 as a friend, and for whom he executed several of his best 
 works. England is indebted to this connection for the 
 possession of the nine well-known pictures in tempera, 
 representing the Triv/mph of Julius Ccescuc (Fig. 42), at 
 Hampton Court. These, which were considered by Vasari 
 to be the finest of the artist's works, were purchased 
 by Charles I. on the dispersion of the Mantuan collection ; 
 they are so ruined by the restorations of a Flemish artist, 
 that it is impossible except in parts of the background, 
 which were probably considered too unimportant to demand 
 re-painting, to judge of their original beauty of execution ; 
 the composition remains, however, and their original char- 
 acter may be best studied in the woodcuts of Andrea 
 Andreani executed about 100 years after. 
 
 Mantegna died at Mantua in 1506. He was the first 
 painter who engraved his own designs : his son Francesco, 
 (to whom two pictures in the National Gallery are ascribed) 
 who had long been his assistant, completed some of his 
 unfinished works. Mantegna must be ranked among the 
 very greatest masters of painting. His style is severe,, 
 somewhat hard and rigid in execution, but his figures are 
 by turns energetic and graceful in movement, according 
 
110 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 as the subject required, and are full of character and 
 passion; the handling is faultless, with a finish and 
 delicacy in touch in his small works which has never been 
 surpassed. A small triptych in the Tribune of the Uffizi 
 at Florence, painted' about 1464, is one of the most perfect 
 of his works in this respect. His larger works are no less ' 
 complete, and exhibit, besides the grandeur of conception 
 ^inherent in all that he did, an extraordinary fertility of 
 invention and a profusion of beautiful detail in the acces- 
 sories. In his later works the colour is clear and har- 
 monious. He is represented at the National Gallery by 
 the picture of a Madowna and Child with Two Saints, 
 painted in tempera, which has escaped being varnished. 
 Like his master Squarcione, he was a devoted student of 
 the antique. 
 
 The style of the Paduans had a considerable influence on 
 the painters of other schools ; Jacopo Bellini, the Venetian, 
 studied for some time under Squarcione, whose influence is 
 also felt through Bono in the Ferrarese school, and through 
 Lorenzo Costa and Francia in that of Bologna. But Man- 
 tegna produced a much deeper effect on the school of 
 Venice through his intimacy with the Bellini. The extent 
 of his influence on Giovanni Bellini may be judged by a com- 
 parison of two pictures of the Agony in the Garden, one by 
 Bellini in the National Gallery, and the other by Mantegna 
 belonging to the Earl of Northbrook, in which the resem- 
 blance of style is so close that it is only by the light of 
 modern criticism that the two works have been assigned to 
 their respective authors. It was no doubt to the intimacy 
 with Bellini that the improvement in Mantegna's colouring 
 in his later works was mainly due. 
 
 Francesco Bonsignoei (1455-1519), a native of Verona, 
 was influenced by Mantegna. He was much patronised by 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. Ill 
 
 the Marchese Francesco Gonzaga. One of his best works 
 is his St. Louis, in the Brera at Milan. A portrait of a 
 Venetian Senator, signed, and dated 1487, is in the National 
 Gallery. 
 
 VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 The Venetian school may be said to have had a double 
 origin. The development of their art was later than with 
 the schools of Florence, Siena, or Padua, for in the begin- 
 ning of the fifteenth century we find Jacobello del Fioee 
 hardly emancipated from the Byzantine manner ; his most 
 important follower was Giambono, whose mosaics in the 
 chapel of Mascoli in St. Mark's have a peculiar beauty 
 distinct from all the other mosaics with which that church 
 is so splendidly adorned. At the same time an independent 
 school of artists sprang up in the neighbouring island of 
 Murano, under Giovanni and Antonio of Murano, who 
 seem to have felt the influence of German art, no less than 
 that of Gentile da Fabriano's visit to Venice. The Vivakini 
 were also of the Murano school, and Bartolommeo, noticed 
 below, is the first of the great Venetian names. 
 
 But the true greatness of the school of Venice begins with 
 the brothers Bellini ; they were, as we have seen, preceded 
 in order of time by some noteworthy painters, one of the 
 earliest of whom is celebrated for having introduced the 
 new method of oil-painting into Italy. This was Antonello 
 DA Messina, a native of the city of that name in Sicily, 
 bom about the first half of the fifteenth century. In the 
 course of travels undertaken for the sake of study, he saw 
 at Naples a picture painted by Jan van Eyck in the new 
 medium which that artist had lately discovered. His ad- 
 miration and curiosity were excited, and he made the 
 journey to Flanders to learn the process. Having returned 
 
112 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 to Italy about 1465, and being at Venice, he imparted his 
 knowledge to Domenico Veneziano, who, according to an 
 old story, now sufficiently disproved, was murdered for the 
 sake of the secret by his rival, Andrea del Castagno of 
 Florence.* Antonello resided for some time in Milan, and 
 afterwards in Messina, but returned in 1473 to Venice, 
 where he remained till his death, about the end of the 
 century. It must not be supposed that the use of oil in 
 painting was entirely unknown before the experiments of 
 Van Eyck, but the almost insuperable difficulties of drying 
 and blending the colours had caused it to be very rarely 
 employed. Van Eyck succeeded in mixing a kind of 
 varnish which proved in these respect more satisfactory 
 than any other medium, and was destined to supersede 
 distemper entirely. 
 
 The first oil-painting exhibited at Venice was the work 
 of Baetolommeo Vivabini, who was probably among those 
 instructed by Antonello. His works already show the 
 splendour of colouring which is the distinguishing feature 
 of the Venetian school. The dates of Bartolommeo's 
 birth and death are not known ; he painted between 1450 
 and 1499. His brothers Antonio and Lnigi were also 
 distinguished artists. 
 
 Carlo Ceivelli, born early in the century, and still 
 living in 1493, painted only in distemper. He was fond 
 of adorning his pictures with garlands of fruit and flowers, 
 in the style of the Paduan artists, and enriched them with 
 quantities of gold ornaments. In spite of a singular and 
 exaggerated rigidity of drawing, again resembling- the 
 school of Squarcione, sometimes verging on caricature, his 
 pictures are full of charm and interest. The colouring 
 
 * Andrea del Castagno died on August 19th, 1457 ; Domenico 
 Vennziano on May 15th, 1461, 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. 113 
 
 is varied and harmonious, and the treatment is always 
 thoroughly original His works are very numerous, and 
 usually in very good preservation, owing to the care with 
 which he prepared and used his mediums. As a decorative 
 painter Crivelli has few equals. The style of this master 
 may be studied to advantage in the National Gallery, 
 which contains eight of his works — one of them a large 
 altarpiece in many compartments. 
 
 Giovanni Bellini, the greatest Venetian artist of the 
 fifteenth century, and the master of Titian and Giorgione, 
 was the son of that Jacopo who has been mentioned as the 
 pupil of Squarcione and of Fabriano. He was born about 
 1427, and learned his art from his father; his connection 
 with the school of Padua, and especially with Andrea 
 Mantegna, has already been referred to. On the intro- 
 duction of oil-painting he adopted that method, and his 
 best works are executed in oil. A magnificent series of 
 pictures which he painted in company with his brother, 
 Gtentile, and Luigi Vivarini, in the council chamber of 
 the Ducal Palace, were unfortunately destroyed by fire in 
 1577. The same fate befell his fine altarpiece in the 
 church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, which perished in 1867 
 in the same fire that destroyed Titian's Peter Mwrt/yr. 
 It is only in Venice that the genuine works of Giovanni 
 Bellini can be studied, for, as has already been stated, 
 replicas of his works issued in great numbers from his 
 workshop, and are to be found in almost every collection 
 in Europe. The National Gallery, however, possesses an 
 exceptionally perfect example in the Death of St. Peter 
 Mwrtyr ; where it would be difficult to exceed the beauty 
 of the landscape background of wood and foliage either in 
 drawing or colour. Bellini continued to paint up to the 
 time of his death, which took place at an advanced 
 
 CI P I 
 
Fig. 43.— Santa Conveksazionb. By Giovanni Bellini. 
 In San Zaccaria, Venice. 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. 115 
 
 age in 1516, The picture on which he was then eligaged, 
 and which was finished by Titian, was the Bacchanalia, 
 now in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland. His 
 masterpieces are chiefly in the churches in Venice and 
 Murano, and in the Gallery of the Accademia. The finest 
 of all is perhaps the altarpiece in the sacristy of San 
 Zaccaria, of which an engraving is given (Kg. 43), which, 
 however, does not take in quite the whole work. The 
 immense advance in softness and richness of colouring 
 over his early style when under the influence of Mantegna 
 is here obvious to every one ; the work retains just suf- 
 ficient of the formal arrangement of the earlier times to 
 give dignity to the subject ; the simplicity of the com- 
 position, the balance of colour and breadth of light and 
 shade, are profoundly impressive, while nothing can exceed 
 the grandeur and sweetness of the heads, male and female. 
 Many other of his works are hardly less beautiful. 
 
 The elder of the two brothers. Gentile Bellini, who 
 was born about 1427 and died in 1507, though inferior to 
 Giovanni, takes a high place among the great artists of his 
 time. He spent some years at the court of Constantinople, 
 having been sent there by the Venetian government at 
 the request of Sultan Mahomet II. It is said that he 
 was at last frightened away by that monarch's manner of 
 showing his enthusiasm for realistic art ; for in the course 
 of some criticisms on a picture of the death of John the 
 Baptist, the Sultan had a slave decapitated in the artist's pre- 
 sence, to show him how to represent a freshly-severed head. 
 One of Gentile's finest works is Saint Ma/rh preaching at 
 Alexa/ndria, in the Brera at Milan ; another is the equally 
 celebrated Miracle of the Cross, in the Academy of Venice. 
 ViTTOEE Caepaccio is, among contemporary artists, 
 second only to Bellini. Little is known of his life. He 
 
 I 2 
 
116 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 was born about 1450, and appears to have studied under 
 Luigi Vivarini, but was much influenced by GentUe, and 
 later by Giovanni Bellini, as may be seen in the beautiful 
 altarpiece of the Presentation in the Temple in the Academy 
 of Venice. His principal work is the series of eight 
 pictures also in the Academy, illustrating the History 
 of Saint Ursula. They are large compositions, containing 
 hundreds of figures, full of incident and invention, and 
 remarkable for the completeness of the detail of the 
 figures, architecture, and landscape, not less than for the 
 beauty of the colouring and breadth of daylight effect. 
 Besides these is a series of smaller paintings in the Scuola 
 of San Giorgio full of charm and fancy, representing 
 incidents in the lives of St. George and St. Jerome. 
 Carpaccio was still painting in 1522. 
 
 Marco Basaiti, whose works extend in their dates from 
 1503 to 1520, and Cima da Conegliano, who painted 
 between 1489 and 1508, and who for his mastery of 
 drawing and composition has been termed the Masaccio of 
 Venice (Fig. 44) were contemporary artists, who approach 
 in their best works very near to the excellence of Bellini. 
 A picture of the Assumption attributed to the former in the 
 church of San Pietro Martire at Murano, is so fine and so 
 like Giovanni Bellini's best work as to render it doubtful 
 whether it be not by the latter artist. On the other 
 hand, many of the works formerly called Bellini are now 
 considered to be the work of Basaiti. Cima, in all but 
 his very best pictures, is characterised by a certain 
 hardness both in drawing and colour. He was fond of 
 introducing into his backgrounds the hills and towers of 
 his native town. 
 
 There are so many painters of the Venetian school of 
 this time, that it is impossible to give any extended notice 
 
Fig. 44. — The Incredulity of Saint Thomas. By Cima da Coneoliano. 
 In the Academy at Venice. 
 
118 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 of their works.. The churches and picture galleries of 
 Venice abound with them. Prominent among the painters 
 of large scenic pictures with numerous figures, in the style 
 of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio, are Lazzaeo Bastiani, 
 who painted about 1470 to 1490, and Giovanni Man- 
 SUETI, of the same date. Marco Mabziale, who is of this 
 period, shows a Venetian fondness for splendid colour and 
 dresses with rich patterns, but displays at the same time 
 a somewhat vulgar treatment of Scripture subjects, and 
 an ugly realism in the heads, which betrays German in- 
 fluence. He is well represented in the National Gallery 
 by two large pictures. Other painters of that date are 
 Catena, who, according to Mr. Crowe, is the author of the 
 beautiful picture of A Warrior adoring the Infant Christ 
 (No. 234), in the National Gallery, Peevitali, and Bissolo, 
 all decided followers of Giovanni Bellini, but far inferior. 
 
 OTHER SCHOOLS OF NORTH ITALY. 
 
 It is not in Padua or Venice alone that art was 
 practised in North Italy during the fifteenth century. 
 Most of the towns produced artists of more or less 
 eminence, and, in some cases, of su£B.cient power to form 
 a distinct school. Such were the schools of Vicenza and 
 Verona, which may with propriety be mentioned here, 
 as owing much to Padua and Venice, Mantegna especially 
 exerting his accustomed influence. The early works of 
 both these schools are of slight importance, and exhibit all 
 the ugly exaggeration which may be found in the imme- 
 diate followers of Squarcione ; but at Vicenza, towards the 
 end of the fifteenth century, arose a painter who is justly 
 entitled to rank with the great artists of the time. 
 
 Baktolommeo Montagna was by origin a Brescian ; the 
 time of his birth is not known, bub dates on his pictures 
 
SCHOOL OF VEBONA. 119 
 
 extend from 1487 to 1522. Large altarpieces by his hand 
 are not uncommon in public and private collections j but it 
 is at Vioenza, where he lived, that he may best be studied 
 in the churches and in the picture gallery. We here see 
 that his style, which greatly changed and improved during 
 the course of his life, is a happy combination of that of 
 Mantegna and the Venetians, from whom he gained, a 
 certain breadth of treatment and softness of modelling to 
 which Mantegna never attained. His most important 
 work is a Fiet& in Sta. Maria del Monte ; a Virgin and 
 Child is in the National Gallery. Giovanni Buonconsiglio 
 and Maecello Fogolino are later artists of the same school, 
 who worked in the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The school of Verona produced no artist of great 
 reputation before Paolo Veronese, who, however, is classed 
 among the Venetians. A number of not unimportant artists 
 led up to this great painter, the earlier of whom owed much 
 of the merit they possessed to the influence of Mantegna. 
 ViTTOEE PiSANBLLO was the founder of the school. He 
 lived in the first half of the fifteenth century, and con- 
 sequently before the Paduan school had any importance. 
 He is T)etter known by his medals than his pictures, but 
 the National Gallery possesses a curious and interesting 
 specimen of his work in a small picture of St. Anthony 
 and St. George, in which St, George is represented in an 
 extravagant costume of the time, with a broad-brimmed hat. 
 
 After him the best known are Libeeale, an imitator of 
 Mantegna, bom in 14-51 ; Gieolamo dai Libei, so called 
 from his having distinguished himself as a miniature 
 painter and illuminator of books; born in 1474, and died 
 in 1556 ; Moeando, born in 14S6, who lived late enough to 
 have seen the work of Raphael, and whose pictures are 
 free from the formality of the earlier school. The National 
 
120 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Gallery possesses a picture of St. Roch by him, which 
 is an unsuccessful attempt to rival the Venetian painters. 
 
 Ambeogio bi Stefano da Fossano — commonly known as 
 BoEGOGNONE, from his birthplace in Piedmont — is a painter 
 whose works are not frequently found out of the Milanese, 
 The earliest known date on any of his paintings is 1490, 
 and he was living as late as 1524. The National Gallery 
 possesses four works by him : — ^The Marriage of St. Catha- 
 rine of Alexandria ; two Family Portraits ; and a triptych 
 of the Virgin and Child Unthroned, with Christ iearing the 
 Cross, and the Agony in the Garden. 
 
 Of the school of Ferrara the earliest painter of import- 
 ance was CosiMO TuEA, whose pictures are repellent from 
 their ugliness. He painted between the years 1451 and 
 1594. Eecole Gbande, another follower of Mantegna, 
 painted from 1479 to 1513 ; and a son of the same name, 
 which has caused some confusion, died in 1531. The best 
 of the Ferrarese painters of this time was Loeenzo Costa ; 
 he was born in 1460, and seems to have studied in 
 Florence ; he painted in Bologna and Mantua, and, through 
 his association with Francia, lost much of the ugliness of 
 the early Ferrarese school. The Louvre possesses a picture ; 
 and there is a large but uninteresting altarpiece by him 
 in the National Gallery. He died at Mantua in 1536. 
 
 UMBEIAN, SCHOOL. 
 
 The Umbrian school produced nothing of special import- 
 ance during the fourteenth century ; nor did it rise to 
 eminence until the time of Pietro Perugino. 
 
 In the early part of the fifteenth century, were the 
 brothers Loeenzo and Jacopo di San Severing, whose 
 best known works are some frescoes in the church of San 
 Giovanni B.attista at TJrbino, representing scenes from 
 
UMDEIAN SCHOOL. 121 
 
 the i»ye qf the Baptist, which were painted in 1416. 
 A great advance on the style of the San Severini was made 
 by NiccoLO Di LiBERATORE, known as Niccolo Alunno, a 
 native of Foligno, who painted from 1458 to 1502. His 
 works, though often technically imperfect, have much of 
 the grace and spiritual beauty which distinguish Perugino. 
 He painted chiefly in tempera — never in oil. A Madonna 
 at Milan, and a rich altarpiece in the church at Foligno, 
 are among the best of his works. In the National Gallery 
 is a triptych. In the centre is the Crucifixion, with 
 Christ's Agony and Christ hearing the Cross on the left 
 wing ; and the Resurrection and a Pietd, on the right. It 
 is signed Nicolai Fulignatis, mcccc°lxxxvij. 
 
 PiETRo Vannucci, called Perugino, was born at Cittk 
 della Pieve about 1446 ; his popular name arose from his 
 residence in Perugia, where he had acquired the rights of 
 citizenship. It has been conjectured that he first studied 
 under Alunno ; it is certain that he became the pupil of 
 Andrea Verrocchio at Florence, and his earlier pictures 
 were painted in that city. He was one of the painters 
 summoned by Sixtus IV. to adorn the newly built Sistine 
 Chapel ; his three frescoes there were begun in 1480, and 
 he was employed in Rome for about ten years. After again 
 visiting Florence he returned to Perugia ; many memorable 
 scholars sought his instruction, and in 1495 he received 
 among them the young Raphael, then twelve years old. 
 Perugino viewed with much dislike the new direction which 
 art was taking in the hands of the cinquecentisti, and his 
 free expression of this opinion provoked Michelangelo to 
 utter the unjust and insulting condemnation of him as a 
 Goffo nelle' arte — " dunce in art " — for which the aggrieved 
 artist sought satisfaction from the tribunals. He continued 
 to live at Perugia, having married a lady considerably 
 younger than himself, until his death in 1524. 
 
122 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Perugino, so far from deserving the hasty censure of 
 Michelangelo, must be regarded as holding a high place 
 among religious artists. His life, it is said, was not free 
 from faults and meannesses, but the witness of his art 
 bespeaks a soul as pure and lofty as Angelico's, and in 
 technical skill he is superior to Angelico by all the added 
 power of another centuiy's experience. He was, however, in 
 some respects a mannerist ; his figures are pervaded by an 
 affected grace which is neither true to nature nor necessarily 
 in keeping with the subjects he painted (Fig. 45.) He 
 was a most prolific artist, and the same figures and attitudes 
 occur again and again in his works with but slight varia- 
 tions; nor did he ever attempt anything in the form of 
 dramatic expression. This gives, on the other hand, to his 
 treatment of subjects a peculiar sweetness and serenity 
 which was not without its efEect on Haphael, and is one 
 cause of his greatness, for it never desei-ted him through all 
 his changes of style. Among the most famous works of 
 Perugino are a Madonna with four Saints in the Vatican ; 
 a Descent from the Gross at Florence, in the Pitti Palace ; 
 the frescoes of the Cambio at Perugia ; and the frescoes 
 belonging to his earlier manner, iu the Sistine Chapel. The 
 English National Gallery possesses three of his pictures, 
 very different in character; one, a Madonna with St. 
 Francis and St. Jerome, acquired in 1879, is tender and 
 warm in colour, in shades of grey and brown with rich 
 but subdued tints in the draperies. The other, an altar- 
 piece in three compartments, is equally a masterpiece of the 
 artist ; in colouring it is marked by the brilliant harmonies 
 with which he seems to have imbued the work of his 
 assistant Pinturicchio. Certain deep blues and rose-coloured 
 reds have a very close resemblance to the method of that 
 painter as seen in the frescoes of the Library at Siena. 
 
Fig. 45.— The Makeiage of the Virgin. By Perugino. 
 In the Mviseum at Caen. 
 
124 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Eaphael Sanzio is of course by far the most famous of 
 Perugino's numerous pupils and assistants ; of the others 
 we can only mention the most considerable. One of the 
 best among them was Giovanni di Pietbo, commonly 
 called Lo Spagna (the Spaniard). Hardly anything is 
 known of his history but that he was a painter of estab- 
 lished reputation at the opening of the sixteenth century, 
 was admitted in 1516 to the citizenship of Spoleto, and 
 became the head of the Painter's Guild in that city. 
 He died before 1530. His most important work is the 
 Madorma with Saints in the lower church of San Francesco 
 at Assisi. 
 
 Beenakdino di Biagio, known as Pintueicchio (" little 
 painter ") was born at Perugia about 1454. He worked 
 for some years with Perugino, assisting him with the 
 frescoes in the Sistine Chapel and other works. The 
 most celebrated of his own numerous works are the 
 frescoes in a chapel of the Cathedral of Spello, painted 
 in 1501, the decorations of the vault of Santa Maria del 
 Popolo at Rome, and the great series of frescoes in the 
 Library of the Cathedral of Siena. These paintings, 
 which are still in good preservation, are very striking 
 examples of art as applied to decorative purposes. The 
 entire ornamentation of the building having been planned 
 and carried out by one and the same artist, and the several 
 pictures being devoted to the exposition of a continuous 
 history, the result is a rare unity of effect and significance. 
 The Library was built in 1495 by Cardinal Francesco 
 Piccolomini, to receive a collection of books bequeathed to 
 the family by Pope Pius IL Pinturicchio signed in 1502 
 a contract for the decoration of the walls and ceiling, and 
 painted on the ceiling in the following year a purely 
 decorative composition of arms and mythological figures. 
 
UMBBIAN SCHOOL. 125 
 
 The work was then, for some reason interrupted for a 
 period of three years ; in the meanwhile the Cardinal's 
 uncle, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, had ascended the Papal 
 throne as Pius III., and had died within a month after 
 his elevation. When Pinturicchio resumed his work in 
 1506 it was decided that the frescoes on the walls should 
 illustrate the life of Enea Silvio, and ten scenes from his 
 career were selected as subjects for the respective pictures. 
 The scenes represented are as follows : (1) Unea, as a 
 yowng man departs for the Council of Basle in the suite qf 
 Cardinal Capranica ; (2) Enea is received hy James I. qf 
 Scotland as Envoy from the Council qf Basle ; (3) Is 
 crowned poet lawreate hy the Emperor Frederick III. ; (4) 
 Appears as the Emperor's ambassador before Pope Eugenius ' 
 IT. ; (5) Presents to the Emperor his bride the Infamia of 
 Portugal ; (6) Receives the Cardinal's hat from Calixtus 
 III. in the Vatican ; (7) Is carried in Procession as Pope 
 Pivs II. ; (8) Presides at Momiua over an assernhly which 
 proclaims a crusade; (9) Canonizes Saint Catherine of 
 Siena ; (10) Gives signal for the depa/rture of the, crusade from 
 Ancona. The animated and cheerful effect of this beauti- 
 fully painted chamber is one of its most striking character- 
 istics, and, when compared with the thoughtful solemnity of 
 Giotto's chapel at Padua, or the quiet and serious dignity 
 of Ghirlandaio's frescoes in S. Maria Novella, is evidence 
 of another temper in the artist. The theme, it is true, is 
 not of a similar high and Biblical importance ; but the 
 difference is to be found rather in the treatment, and runs 
 through all the works of the TJmbrian school ; the gay and 
 varied colouring especially is in marked contrast with the 
 more sober harmonies of the Florentines of the same period. 
 These ten frescoes occupied Pinturicchio from 1506 to 
 1509 ; they are in the best manner of the master, and it 
 
126 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 is almost certain that he had the advantage, in their execu- 
 tion, if not in their design, of the assistance of Baphael, 
 then about twenty-five years old. For three of them at 
 least, drawings by Raphael exist, one of which (almost 
 mined by exposure to damp and sunlight successively) is 
 in the collection at Chatsworth.* After this period the 
 work of Pinturicchio deteriorated to some extent through 
 carelessness and haste. He died at Siena in 1513. 
 
 L'Inggeno, who received that name on account of his 
 abilities, his real name being Andrea di Luigi, was a 
 native of Assisi, and was considered to be one of the 
 most distinguished of the contemporaries of Perugino, with 
 whom he appears to have sometimes worked. It is sup- 
 posed that he was the pupil of Alunno, but hardly anything 
 is known of his life, and few works remain which can be 
 attributed to him with certainty. 
 
 We may conveniently mention here the early Bolognese 
 masters, who are sometimes treated as forming a distinct 
 school. Of these the greatest was Francesco Raibolini, 
 better known by the name of Fbancia, the sobriquet of 
 the goldsmith who was his first master. He was born 
 about 1450, and became a thorough master of the gold- 
 smith's art before he began, comparatively late in life, to 
 turn his attention to painting. The style of Perugino had 
 the greatest influence on him, but he also derived from his 
 connection with his contemporary, Lorenzo Costa, some of 
 the characteristics of the Paduan masters. Bologna contains 
 many of his works (Fig. 46), perhaps the best being his fres- 
 coes in the church of Saint Cecilia. The National Gallery 
 possesses two altarpieces in his best manner, in which the 
 resemblance to Perugino is obvious. Francia died in 1517 
 
 * Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in the Winter exhibition of 
 1877-78. 
 
Fig. 46. — The Virgin Enthroned, attended by Saints. By Fbancia. 
 In the Pinacoteea, Bologna. 
 
128 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 of grief, if we are to believe Vasari, at seeing himself sur- 
 passed by the young Baphael ; but the death of a man 
 nearly seventy years old may surely be accounted for in a 
 less extravagant manner. 
 
 The Sienese school in the fifteenth century produced a 
 number of artists whose works, .though exhibiting the 
 grace and religious sentiment which is characteristic of the 
 school, kept strictly within the traditions of the earlier 
 painters, neither introducing any elements of novelty from 
 observation of nature, nor importing them from the other 
 and more progressive schools of Italy. 
 
 The principal names are Taddeo, Baetoli, Fungai, 
 Sang ui Pieteo, and Matteo di Giovanni, called Matted da 
 Siena. Of these, the last (born in 1435, died about 1500) 
 is the most original and the most eminent. He delighted 
 in subjects displaying great energy of action and ex- 
 pression, and of the Massacre of the Innocents, he painted 
 no less than three large and important pictures, besides 
 introducing it among the subjects which he executed, 
 in the manner invented by Duccio, in the pavement 
 of Siena Cathedral. His work has something of the 
 picturesque quality that we find in Mantegna, and his 
 designs for the pavement, which, besides the subject 
 just mentioned, illustrate among others the stories of 
 Judith and of Judas Maccabaeus, are the most decorative 
 and the most inventive to be found in that vast and 
 unique scheme which gave opportunities to all the 
 principal Sienese painters from Duccio to Beccafumi. 
 The Sienese school of the fifteenth century can hardly 
 be studied out of Siena itself; and the public gallery 
 there contains numerous works of great interest, to many 
 of which it has been found impossible to assign names. 
 In all of these we find a certain efEeminacy of type, better 
 
UMBIIIAN SCHOOL. 129 
 
 known to the world through the works of Sodoma, a later 
 artist, who only carried to greater perfection, through a 
 better acquaintance with technical methods, what had 
 always been a distinguishing feature of Sienese art when 
 left to itself. In a fine picture, by an unknown artist, of 
 Christ being Stripped of His garments, in the Accademia, we 
 find combined with the savage energy of the soldiers, which 
 is evidently founded on Matteo, a gentleness of attitude 
 and a tenderness of expression in the figure apd face of 
 the Saviour which give Him the appearance of a beautiful 
 girl. In the National Gallery is a picture by Matteo of 
 the Legend of the Gift of the Girdle to St. Thomas. 
 
 We must not pass to the great masters of the sixteenth 
 century without a glance at the school of Naples, which, 
 early in the fifteenth, had risen to a position of importance. 
 Its earliest artists formed themselves almost entirely upon 
 Flemish models ; but in the works of the master who was 
 considered the true founder of the school there appear 
 additional marks of Umbrian influence. This was Antonio 
 SoLABio, commonly called Lo Zingabo, the Gipsy, who was 
 born about 1382, and who is said to have abandoned his 
 father's roving life for love of the daughter of a painter 
 who took him as his pupil. He was undoubtedly an artist 
 of great fame in his time, but most of the works now attri- 
 buted to him are exceedingly doubtful. Of these the most 
 remarkable are an admirable series of twenty frescoes 
 illustrating the Life of Saint Benedict, in San Severino 
 at Naples. He died at Naples in 1455. 
 
 Among the other N«a(p<dritan artists of this century may 
 be mentioned Silvesteo de' Buoni, and his pupil Antonio 
 d'Amato, whose life lasted far into the xvi.th century. 
 
 In attempting to sum up the distinguishing character- 
 istics of the qvattrocento painters, to whom this chapter 
 
 C I P E 
 
130 ITALIAN PAISTING. 
 
 has been devoted, we remark in the first place the advance 
 in the purely technical skill which enables the artist to 
 produce a faithful imitation of natural appearances. The 
 elaboration of the science of perspective, the growing habit 
 of drawing from the nude figure, the study of anatomy, 
 and the introduction of oil-painting, giving the artist a new 
 power of dealing with colour, were allied with the natural 
 progress of time and experience in bringing about this 
 result. If it were reserved for the great cinquecento 
 masters to carry the technics of their art to the very 
 highest point of perfection, there are nevertheless passages 
 in the works of some artists of the fifteenth century, which 
 for mere perfection of workmanship, are not excelled in 
 any time or by any master. As regards the higher quality 
 of art, which is tested not by the appeal of its execution to - 
 the admiration of the trained artist, but by the appeal of 
 its meaning, of the thought expressed in it, to the mind of 
 the earnest spectator, the earlier art has a fre.shuess, a 
 spontaneity, an inspiration, so to speak, which is missed in 
 the later artist, conscious of his power, triumphant in its 
 exercise, but less capable of being carried away by his 
 subject to the point where art forgets that it is art, and 
 in that unconsciousness achieves its utmost perfection. In 
 assigning the quality of spontaneity to the quattrocento 
 painters, as compared with the dnqtmcentisti, we must 
 speak with important reservations ; the causes which at 
 last brought corruption into art are not wanting among the 
 artists we have reviewed ; nor could Da Vinci, Michel- 
 angelo, and Eaphael, hold their supreme position in art 
 without sharing the same lofty inspiration that sets on 
 the handiwork of Perugino the mark of the divine. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SIXTEENTH CENTURY — TUSCAN, ROMAN, LOMBARD, AND 
 VENETIAN SCHOOLS, 
 
 IN treating of the Florentine artists of the fifteenth 
 century, we purposely passed over the name of 
 Leonardo da Vinci, as belonging rather to a more modern 
 school, of which he was the first great example, Leonardo 
 was the son of a notary of Vinci, near Florence, and was 
 born at that place in the year 1452. He became the pupil 
 of Andrea Verrocchio, the Florentine sculptor and painter, 
 and progressed so rapidly that he soon surpassed his 
 master, who is said to have thereupon given tip painting in 
 despair. Leonardo's studies at this time ranged over the 
 whole field of science and art ; besides being a painter and 
 a sculptor, he was a practised architect, engineer, and 
 mechanician; profoundly versed in mathematics and the 
 physical sciences ; and an accomplished poet and musician. 
 The famous letter in which he applied to the Duke of 
 Milan for employment, enumerates only a few of his 
 acquirements ; he represents himself as skilled in military 
 and naval engineering, offensive and defensive, and the 
 construction of artillery, and as possessing secrets in these 
 
 E 2 
 
132 ITAlilAN PAINTING. 
 
 matters hitherto -unknown ; he can make designs for build- 
 ings, and nndertake any work in sculpture, in marble, in 
 bronze, or in terra-cotta ; and " in painting," he says, " I 
 can do what can be done as well as any man, be he who he 
 may." He concludes by offering to submit his own account 
 of himself to the test of experiment, at his Excellency's 
 pleasure. He entered the Duke's service about the year 
 1482, receiving a yearly salary of 500 scudi. Under his 
 auspices an Academy of Arts was established in Milan in 
 1485, and he drew round him a numerous school of 
 painters. Of the many works executed by Leonardo during 
 his, residence at Milan, the greatest was the world-renowned 
 picture of the Last Supper (Fig. 48), painted in oil upon 
 the wall of the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria 
 della Grazie. Whether it was the fault of the wall or the 
 medium used by the painter, the great picture rapidly 
 faded, and by the end of fifty years had virtually perished. 
 It is stni shown, but decay and restoration have left little 
 of the original work of Leonardo. The best idea of it is 
 to be got from the old copies, taken while the picture was 
 yet perfect j of these the most valuable is the one executed 
 in 1510 by Marco d' Oggiorie, now in the possession of the 
 Royal Academy of London. His other important achieve- 
 ment, while at Milan, was a work of sculpture, which un- 
 fortunately perished within a few years of its completion. 
 This was an equestrian statue of Lodpvico Sf orza ; it seems 
 to have occupied him at intervals for eleven years, for the 
 completed model was first exhibited to the public in 1493. 
 All that we now know of it is from the numerous sketches, 
 in the Eoyal Collection at Windsor, at the South Kensing- 
 ton Museum, and in Paris. The model was still in exist- 
 ence in 1501, after which nothing more is recorded of it. 
 ■ He also at this time made a model for the cupola of 
 
Fig. 46. — Poeteait of Leonaedo da Vinci, 
 From a d/ra/wing in red chalk iy himself in the Boyal Gallery at Twrin^ 
 
 K 3 
 
Fig. 48.— The Last Sur 
 In tlie Oonmiii, qf Saw 
 
By Lbonakdo da Vinci. 
 ria, delle Grazie, Milan- 
 
136 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Milan Cathedral, which was never carried out. In 1499 
 Leonardo left Milan and returned to Florence. He re- 
 ceived a commission in 1503 to paint the wall at one 
 end of the Council Hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, the deco- 
 ration of the other end being at the same time entrusted 
 to Michelangelo. Leonardo's picture was never completed, 
 and Michelangelo's apparently never begun; but the 
 cartoons for their two compositions, known respectively 
 as the Battle of the Standard and the Ca/rto(m of Pisa,. 
 excited the greatest admiration, and were termed by 
 Benvenuto Cellini " the school of the world ; " both have 
 been lost or destroyed ; all that we know of Leonardo's 
 composition is gained from a drawing of it by Rubens in 
 black and red chalk in the gallery of the Louvre, to which, 
 though spirited enough, he contrived to impart the coarse 
 Flemish character with which all his work is disfigured.* 
 In 1514 Leonardo visited Eome, and was to have executed 
 some work in the Vatican, had not an affront put upon 
 him by the Pope given him offence and caused him to 
 leave Rome. He went to the King of France, Francis I., 
 who was then at Pavia, took service with him, and ac- 
 companied him, to France, in the early part of 1516. Ho 
 .was, however, weakened by age and in bad health, and 
 did little or no new work in France. In a little more than 
 three years time, in May 1519, he died at the chateau of 
 Cloux, near Amboise, at the age of 67. 
 
 Leonardo's great reputation is supported, unhappily, by 
 very few authentic works ; we have to deplore the loss of 
 
 » Eubens's admiration for the Italian sdiool did not prevent him 
 from defacing such of their drawings as fell into his hands, by drawing 
 or painting them over to suit his own taste ; it was probably under hi« 
 inspiration that the cartoons of Mantegna at Hampton Court were 
 irretrievably injured, as described on p. 108. 
 
LEONARDO DA VINCI. 137 
 
 the large majority of his pictures (Dr. Richter, in his work 
 lately published, enumerates no less than nineteen of which 
 all trace is lost), and of all his sculpture. Those that' 
 can with any certainty be ascribed to him are only nine in 
 number : and of these, one is the Last Supper, which, as 
 we have seen, has so perished as to retain scarcely a vestige 
 of the original workmanship. The list is so short that we 
 give, according to the same authority, the names of the 
 remaining eight : — 
 
 T/ie Baptism of Our Lord (begun by his master, 
 Verrocchio). 
 
 2Vi« Adoration of the Kings (unfinished, at Florence). 
 
 St. Jerome (a small monochrome, in the Vatican). 
 
 Portrait of *Mona Lisa (in the Louvre). 
 
 The Virgin with the Hocks (National Gallery). 
 
 " La Vierge aux Eochers " (Fig. 49) ; (in the Louvre). 
 
 Holy Family with St. Anne (in the Louvre). 
 
 St. John the Baptist (in the Louvre). 
 To these may be added the fine cartoon for the Holy 
 Family, in the Royal Academy in London. Some critics 
 may add two or three doubtful works, but the list cannot 
 be further increased. His numerous pupils and imitators, 
 however, so multiplied copies that there is scarcely a 
 gallery of importance, whether public or private, which 
 does not claim at least one original picture by Leonardo. 
 
 Those pictures which we may regard with confidence, 
 however, as the work of his own hand, fully justify the 
 exceptional admiration with which he has always been 
 regarded. He was excessively fastidious in his work, " his 
 soul being full of the sublimity of art," and spent years 
 over the execution of some of his works. The painting of' 
 the portrait of Madonna Lisa is said to have extended over 
 four years, and to have been then left incomplete. His 
 * Short for Madonna. 
 
138 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 mind also was at times equally bent on scientific matters, 
 and for long periods he was entirely absorbed in the study 
 of mathematics. For these reasons he produced but few 
 pictures ; if, however, he had left none, his drawings, 
 which fortunately exist in large numbers, would suffice to 
 account for the enthusiasm which his work has always 
 excited. It is certain that we do not see his pictures in 
 the state in which they left his easel ; from some causes, 
 unnecessary to discuss, they have blackened in the shadows, 
 and the colours have faded. Vasari praises beyond mea- 
 sure the carnations of the Mona Lisa, which, he says, " do 
 not appear to be painted, but truly flesh and blood " ; but 
 no trace of these delicate tints now remains. 
 
 Leonardo was the author of many treatises on art and 
 science, some of which have been published.* The most 
 celebrated is the Trattato ddla Pittura, still a book of high 
 authority. The grand head (Fig. 47) is from a drawing by 
 himself in the Eoyal Library at Turin, and is the only 
 portrait. of him extant which is certainly authentic. 
 
 Among many pupils of Da Vinci who became distin- 
 guished painters, retaining always the powerful impress 
 of his spirit, the chief was Beknardino Luini (born about 
 1470, living in 1530) some of whose works have, until 
 recent criticism demolished the system of ascribing aU 
 the. important works of a school to one name, been mis- 
 taken for his master's. The truth is that Luini was an 
 artist who needs no support from another and ■ greater 
 name ; his works have a sweetness and beauty which is 
 entirely his own ; and he only resembled Leonardo in so 
 far as the work of a pupil always exhibits something of the 
 manner of his master. His most important paintings are 
 
 * There are several folio volumes of MSS. by him in the Paris 
 Bibliothegue, some of which have been translated by Dr. Bichter. 
 Other volumes are at Milan. 
 
Fig. 49. — La Viekgb aux Boohees. By Leonabdo ua vajnui. 
 In the Louvre, 
 
140 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 frescoes at Milan, Saronno, and Lugano. A fine work in the 
 National Gallery, Christ disputing with the Doctors, was 
 executed by Luini possibly after the design of Leonardo. 
 
 Of the other scholars we may name Maeco d' Oqgione, 
 the copier of the Last Supper ; Andrea Salaino j Cesaee 
 DA Sesto, who was a very close imitator of the master, 
 and no doubt painted many of the second-rate copies 
 which pass for original works of Leonardo ; Beltkaffio ; 
 and Andhba Solabi. A scholar of Luini, Gaudenzio 
 Feeraei (bom 1484, died in 1549) was a close follower 
 of Leonardo, and one of the most powerful masters of his 
 time. These, and many others, formed what is known 
 as the Milanese School. 
 
 The Sienese master, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, commonly 
 called II Sodoma, already mentioned in connection with 
 the school of Siena, who lived from about 1473 to 1549, was 
 greatly influenced by Leonardo's manner, especially in his 
 earlier works. The picture by which he is best known 
 is a fresco in the church of San Domenico at Siena, re- 
 presenting two visions of St. Catherine ; in one of which 
 she is falling, overcome by the apparition of the Saviour, 
 into the arms of two nuns (Fig. 50). The picture is of 
 great beauty and fall of expression, but of a rather 
 theatrical kind : all his works which abound at Siena are 
 characterised by an incompleteness, which is disappoint- 
 ing in an artist of such great genius ; and which almost 
 justifies the contempt with which Vasari, as a Florentine, 
 felt bound to regard him. A Madowaa and Saints by him 
 is in the National Gallery. 
 
 Baetolommeo di Paghglo, better known as Fea Baeto- 
 LOMMEO, or Baccio della Poeta, or briefly II Feate, 
 though not a pupil of Leonardo, owes much to his example 
 and influence. He was born at Soffignano in 1469, and was 
 the pupil of Cosimo Eosselli. Like many of the finest 
 
r,io. 60.— The Vision of St. Cathemne. By Bazzi. 
 In the Church of San Domenieo, Siena. 
 
142 ITALIAN PAINTINO. 
 
 spirits of the time, the young Baccio was powerfully at- 
 tracted by the fervid character of Savonarola. When 
 hardly out of his pupilage, he was one of the artists who 
 abjured their trade of ministering to luxury, and gave 
 up their pictures and studies to be burnt at the great 
 preacher's bidding. In 1498 came the execution of Savon- 
 arola ; and in the first shock of feeling Baccio hastened to, 
 seclude himself from the folly and cruelty of the world. 
 He joined the order of the Dominicans at Prato, and it 
 was six years before the solicitations of his brethren could 
 induce him to quit his retirement and resume the practice 
 of his art. He then continued to work as a painter for the 
 benefit of the convent until his death in 1517 (Fig. 51). 
 Examples of Fra Bartolommeo's art are exceedingly rare 
 in England' ; among the finest to be seen in Italy may be 
 named the Descent from the Cross in the Pitti Palace, the 
 MadowtM delta Misericm-dia at Lucca, and the Assumption in 
 the Museum of Naples, partly painted by assistants from the 
 master's sketches. Tradition assigns to Fra Bartolommeo 
 the invention of the lay figure, universally employed by 
 modem artists for the arrangement and study of drapery. 
 
 The most important of the artists whose style was 
 modelled on that of the Frate was Maeiotto Albeeti- 
 NELLi, born at Florence in 1474. He was a pupil with 
 Bartolommeo in the school of Cosimo Eosselli ; a close friend- 
 ship sprang up between them, and when they left the studio 
 they worked much together. When Bartolommeo retired 
 into his monastery, Albertinelli finished such works as 
 he hq.d left incomplete. Albertinelli died in 1515, having 
 broken his health by irregular habits of life. The finest ex- 
 amples of his works are to be found in Florence (Fig. 52). 
 
 We come next to the wonderful man who seems to 
 have combiaed in his own person the highest powers 
 

 
 
 Fig. 51. — Enthkonembnt op the Vikgin. By Fea Babtolommeo. 
 In the Gallery of the Uffizi, Florence, 
 
PiQ^ 52. The Visitation of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth. By Albektinelu. 
 
 In the Uffizi, Flormce,, , 
 
MICRELANOKLO. 145 
 
 which that famous time could produce in every branch 
 of art, — great in architecture, to which he imparted a 
 grandeur of style founded on the study of proportion, 
 which makes his work unmistakable ; great in sculpture; 
 being the only modern whose name can be coupled with 
 that of Pheidias ; so great in painting that he is unsur- 
 passed in any age, and equalled only in his own, the 
 flowering time of modern art ; even in literature able 
 to show achievements that might more than satisfy an 
 ordinary ambition. 
 
 Michelangelo Buonaeroti was born at Castel Caprese, 
 near Arezzo, in 1475. In 1488 he entered the school of 
 Ghirlandaio, the master giving a small payment for the 
 boy's services. His precocious abilities soon attracted the 
 notice of Lorenzo de' Medici, and until the death of that 
 prince in 1492, Michelangelo worked under his espefeial 
 patronage. His earliest drawings show a spontaneous 
 power which made Fuseli say that " as an artist he had no 
 infancy" ; but for many years he confined himself almost 
 entirely to sculpture ; and some of his greatest achievements 
 in that kind of art were executed before he undertook his 
 first considerable work with the pencil. This was the Cartoon 
 of Fisa,6mshed in 1505 (Fig. 53), and intended as a design 
 for a mural picture to face that of Leonardo in the Council 
 Hall at Florence. This cartoon is lost, as has been men- 
 tioned above, but a copy in monochrome by Bastiano di San 
 Gallo, containing probably the whole of the coihposition, 
 exists in England, and is well known by the engraving 
 of Sfihiavonetti. During its progress he had broken off 
 to visit Rome, and execute some sculptural work for 
 the Pope ; and in 1508 he went to Rome again to begin 
 the great achievement of his life, the frescoes of the 
 ^istine Chapel. The paintings of the ceiling illustrate 
 
146 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 the Cteation and the Pall of Man, together with other 
 scenes and figures typical of the Eedemption. The middle 
 part of the ceiling is divided into nine compartments, 
 containing the Creation of Eve (placed in the centre, 
 as symbolising the Woman of ■whom the Messiah was 
 born), the Creation of Adam, (Fig. 54), the Temptation, 
 Fall, and Expulsion in one composition, the Separation of 
 Light, from Darkness, the Gathering of the Waters, the 
 Creation of the Sun and Moon, the Deluge, the Tha/riks- 
 giving of Noah, and the Drunkenness of Noah. At the 
 corners of the ceiling are four designs of the great deliver- 
 ances of the children of Israel, the Brazen Serpent, David 
 and Goliath, Judith with the head of Holofernes, and the 
 Funishm^nt of Ilaman. There are six windows on each 
 side of the chapel ; the lunettes which surround them, and 
 the spaces above them, are occupied by groups of the 
 Ancestors of Christ. Between the windows, at the spring- 
 ing of the vault, are colossal seated figures of the Prophets 
 and Sibyls who foretold the coming of the Saviour. They are 
 arranged alternately as follows : — Jeremiah, Persian Sibyl, 
 Ezekiel, Erythraean Sibyl, Joel, Delphic Sibyl, Isaiah, 
 Cumasan Sibyl, Daniel, Libyan Sibyl ; Jonah and Zacha/riah 
 are placed one at each end of the chapel, between the 
 historical compositions at the angles of the ceiling. These 
 single figures are the most striking features of the design, 
 and calculated skilfully to help the architectural effect. 
 The side walls of the chapel, belfw the springing of the 
 vault, had already. been decorated with frescoes executed 
 by Sandro Botticelli, Cosimo Kosselli, Ghirlandaio, Luca 
 Signorelli, and Perugino. Michelangelo's frescoes were 
 finighed towards the end of the year 1512. Vasari's state- 
 ment that he painted them all in twenty months without 
 any assistance is undoubtedly exaggerated; it possibly 
 

 A. 
 ■fe. 
 
 O 
 
 
 •i=> 
 
 Izi S 
 "< 8 
 
 
148 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 refers to the completion of the first half of the ceiling. 
 For a detailed description of this vast work, which was 
 the culmination of all the excellences of the Florentine 
 school combined in one gigantic master-mind, we must 
 refer the reader to the numerous biographies of Michel- 
 angelo ; of which Vasari's is the first and most picturesque, 
 Condivi's the most trustworthy.* 
 
 For the next twenty years Michelangelo did little or 
 nothing in painting; but in 1533, at the age of fifty-nine, 
 he began the cartoons for the fresco of the Last Judgment on 
 the wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel. This cele- 
 brated composition is entirely of nude figures, no accessories 
 being introduced to add to the terror of the scene. In the 
 centre of the upper part of the picture the Saviour rises 
 from His seat, and, with right hand uplifted, seems to give 
 the signal for the dead to start from the earth ; while with 
 face turned towards the troop of condemned souls, He 
 repels them from Him and from all contact with the 
 blest by a motion of His other hand. On His right stand 
 Adam and Eve and the patriarchs, on His left the apostles, 
 and beneath and around Him the saints and martyrs of 
 the Church, clamouring for salvation. Below Him, in the 
 centre, are the seven terrific figures of the archangels 
 summoning the dead to the sound of the trumpet. The 
 blessed arise on His right, to fall into the throng surround- 
 ing the throne; and on the other hand, the wicked, 
 personifying the seven deadly sins, are beaten down to 
 perdition by angels. In the lowest portion of the picture 
 the dead are seen breaking their way through the earth, 
 dazed at their sudden awakening; and Charon in his 
 winged boat transports a wretched crew of lost creatures 
 
 * The photographa of these frescoes are well known, and easily 
 attainable. They may be seen at the South Kensington Museum. 
 
CI P 
 
150 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 to " everlasting chains and penal fire." Each figure 
 throughout this vast composition has its appropriate 
 meaning, and the power of design and mastery of execu- 
 tion are unsurpassed and unsurpassable. The picture 
 was finished in 1541. Two frescoes in the neighbouring 
 Pauline Chapel, the Conversion of Saint Paul, and the 
 Crucifixion of Saint Peter, which were finished in 1549, 
 were his last paintings. He had accepted, in 1547, the 
 position of architect of Saint Peter's, stipulating that his 
 services should be gratuitous. He continued to carry 
 the , building forward, alteiing materially the original 
 design of Bramante, until his death, which took place 
 in February 1564. His body was taken to Florence, and 
 buried in Santa Croce. 
 
 Michelangelo is known to have completed only two easel 
 pictures, and those were in distemper. One, a HoTq/ Family, 
 is in the TJflSizi at Florence ; the other, a Leda, painted for 
 Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, was destroyed. Our National 
 Gallery possesses two unfinished examples, a Madonna 
 and Child with Angels, and an Entombment, both probably 
 genuine works of his hand. He made numerous finished 
 designs, however, which fortunately were carefully trea- 
 sured by their owners, and have come into the keeping 
 of various public and private galleries, especially in Eng- 
 land—the Royal Collection at Windsor possessing the 
 finest and most celebrated examples ; the British Museum 
 and the University Galleries at Oxford are also rich ia 
 Michelangelo's drawings. These designs were many of 
 them worked up into pictures by his pupils and followers, 
 which frequently pass under the name of the master. The 
 well-known composition of the Three Fates in the Pitti 
 Palace at Florence is not even from his design. 
 
 Although the genius of Michelangelo has exercised a 
 
rN-. 
 
 mm 
 
 III 1 1 
 
 Fig. 55. — The Descent feom the Ckoss. By Daniele da Volteeea. 
 In the Church of Santa Trinild da' Monti, Rome. 
 
152 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 vast and widely diffused influence over all subsequent 
 art, yet this master, unlike Raphael, formed no school of 
 his own immediate followers. It must be admitted that 
 Eaphael owes him much, for he never found his full 
 strength until he had seen Michelangelo's works at B,ome, 
 when his style underwent immediate improvement. None 
 of those who worked under Michelangelo dared to walk 
 directly in his steps ; there is in his style, as there was 
 in the character of the man himself, a certain stern indi- 
 viduality which gives the impression of solitary and 
 unapproachable greatness. Of his assistants, the most 
 eminent was Sebastiano del Pipmbo, of whom we shall 
 speak under the Venetian School. 
 
 Daniele da Volteeka (born in 1509, died in 1566) was 
 another distinguished follower. His best picture, a Descent 
 from the Cross in Santa Trinitk de' Monti at Eome, is so 
 superior to all his others that it is concluded that it was 
 in great part designed by Michelangelo (Fig. 55). 
 
 Feancesco Gbanacci, born in 1469, was a fellow-pupil 
 with Michelangelo under Ghirlandaio, and his constant 
 friend through life. He assisted Michelangelo at the be- 
 ginning of his labours in the Sistine Chapel, and, although 
 his senior by five years, paid his tribute of admiration 
 by adopting his style ; but he never rose to any eminence 
 as a painter. He died in his native Florence in 1543, 
 
 Maecello Venusti (he died about 1576) also deserves 
 mention as a good pupU and copier of Michelangelo. 
 
 Andeea d' Agnolo,* commonly called Andrea del Saeto 
 (" the tailor's son "), may be called the last of the really 
 great Florentines. He was born in Florence in. 1487, and 
 was the pupil of Piero di Cosimo. Unlike Leonardo and 
 
 • The name by which he has generally been known, " Vannucchi," 
 
n 
 
 B e 
 
 ^ 
 
 Eh 
 I 
 
 f=( 
 
154 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Michelangelo, he refused to wander from his native city, 
 except for one short visit to France in 1518, at the invita- 
 tion of Francis I. The happiness of Andrea's life was 
 darkened by an imprudent marriage with a beautiful but 
 coquettish and extravagant young widow named Lucrezia 
 del Fede. She induced him, on his return from France, to 
 commit the folly of squandering in unnecessary -expenses 
 a sum of money which Francis I. had intrusted to him for 
 the purchase of works of art ; and it is said that she 
 deserted him in his last illness, when he fell a victim to 
 the plague, in 1531. Andrea was the first who used fresco 
 with the freedom and largeness of style for which the 
 Italian school is so celebrated, and he remains a,lmost the 
 greatest master of that material. His best series of frescoes 
 are those in the convent of the Annunziata at Florence, 
 painted in 1510, the excellence of which earned him his 
 honourable nickname of Andrea senza errori (" without 
 faults ") ; but perhaps the most perfect work he ever 
 executed is the Madonna del Sacco, painted in 1525, to fill 
 a lunette in the cloister of the same convent. The Madonna 
 di San Francesco in the Uffizi is generally considered his 
 masterpiece. 
 
 The remaining Florentine masters of this epoch are of 
 less importance, and even in those who are best worthy of 
 notice we see signs of the approaching decadence of art. 
 Francesco Bigi, called Franciabigio, though senior by a 
 few years to Andrea del Sarto, was decidedly his follower. 
 He was born in 1482, and was at first the pupil of 
 Albertinelli. He assisted Andrea in many of his frescoes, 
 and painted several fine portraits in oil. He died in 1525. 
 Jacopo Caeucci, called, from his birthplace, da Pon- 
 TOKMO (born 1494, died 1556), was a pupil of Andrea 
 del Sarto, and imitated both him and Michelangelo. His 
 
SCHOOL OF RAPHAEL. 155 
 
 frescoes are injured by manneriJsm, but as a portrait painter' 
 He produced many works of great beauty and value. In 
 the National Gallery is a picture by him, which when in 
 the Hamilton Collection was known as An Allegory, but 
 which Dr. Richter has pointed out represents Scenes from 
 the Life of Joseph in Egypt. 
 
 Pontormo's pupil, Angiglo Alloei, called Bronzing 
 (born 1502, died 1572), is also seen to best advantage in 
 his portraits, many of which are finished with extraordi- 
 nary care. Of his other works, the most important is his 
 Christ's Descent into Hell, in the Uffizi, in which the 
 imitation of Michelangelo's Last Judgment is obvious ; he 
 exaggerated the style of the master into a mannerism, as 
 may be seen in his Venus and Cupid in the National Gallery. 
 
 Giorgio Vasari, born at Arezzo before 1512, was the 
 pupil of both Michelangelo and Andrea del Sarto. He was 
 a skilful painter, but sacrificed too much to haste, and has 
 left no work that can be called masterly. His most secure 
 title to renown was won from literature, not from art. 
 The Idves of tJie most excellent Painters, Sculptors, and 
 Architects, with all its faults, is a work of surpassing 
 interest, and forms the chief basis of all investigations 
 into the history of early Italian art. He died in 1574. 
 
 RAPHAEL AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 
 
 It has already been hinted that, up to the time of 
 Kaphael, a Roman school can scarcely be said to have 
 existed ; as a matter of fact, all the artists who in the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are commonly named 
 as belonging to the Roman school should properly be 
 described as Umbrian ; the,Roman school, rightly so called, 
 being composed of the numerous artists who came from 
 various parts of Italy to assist Raphael in his work at 
 
156 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 the Vatican, and of his immediate pupils. One artist, 
 however, who is generally considered as a member of this 
 school, must not be passed over. 
 
 Melozzo da FoELi (bom in TJmbria 1438, died 1494), 
 studied under Piero de' Franceschi, and learnt from him 
 the science of perspective and foreshortening, which he 
 afterwards carried to a more daring point than had ever 
 been attempted in the paintings he executed in the Church 
 of the SS. Apostoli at Eome. In Kome he also executed a 
 fresco in the Vatican, containing portraits of Fope Sixlus 
 IV. mnd his Cardinals, which is remarkable for the excel- 
 lence of the perspective, and for a certain grandeur of 
 style very much in advance of the time. His works are 
 rare, but his influence on succeeding painters was no doubt 
 great. Marco Palmezzano, his pupil (born 1456, died 
 about 1537), worked chiefly in his native town of Forli. 
 
 Giovanni Santi, of Urbino, whose works, though nume- 
 rous, are little known, was bom about 1440, and died in 
 1494. He was a friend of Melozzo, who seems to have had 
 some influence on his style ; but his chief claim to celebrity 
 rests on his being the father of the great painter Baphael, 
 whose world-wide reputation probably exceeds that of any 
 individual who ever lived. 
 
 Eaffaello Sanzio, always called Raphael, was born at 
 Urbino in 1483. His father died when he was eleven years 
 old, and the boy was placed by his uncles, who became his 
 guardians, with Perugino.* His handiwork at this time is 
 no doubt to be traced in many of Perugino's pictures and 
 frescoes ; and, as we have seen, he was an important co- 
 adjutor with Pinturicchio at Siena. The earliest picture 
 known to be painted entirely by himself is a Grucifixim,, in 
 
 * He had previously studied under Timoteo Viti (1467-1523) of 
 Urbino. 
 
RAPHAT!L. 157 
 
 the collection of Lord Dudley, done at the age of seventeen, 
 which closely resembles the style of Perugino. In 1504 
 he first visited JFIorence, where he enjoyed the friendship 
 of Francia and Era Bartolomm^o, and made acquaintance 
 with the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo — new in- 
 fluences which considerably affected his style. With the 
 exception of short visits to Perugia, Bologna, and TJrbino, 
 he was resident in Florence until 1508. In that year he 
 went to Rome at the invitation of Pope Julius II., and 
 was for the rest of his life continually in the employment 
 of that pontiff and of his successor Leo X. Kaphael died 
 on his birthday, the 6th of April, 1520, aged exactly thirty- 
 seven years. 
 
 Raphael's manner as a painter is divided into three 
 styles, corresponding with the broad divisions of his life's 
 history. Unlike Michelangelo, whose genius and indi- 
 viduality is stamped on the earliest works from his hand, 
 Raphael gained, as his experience of what had been done 
 by his contemporaries was enlarged, a deeper and further 
 insight into bis own powers. His first, or Peruginesque, 
 style characterises those works which he produced while 
 still the companion of his master, before his first visit to 
 Florence ; of these pictures the most important are the 
 Sposalizio (or Marriage of tlie Virgin) at Milan, and the 
 Coronation of the Virgin in the Vatican. His second, or 
 Florentine, style covers the four years from his arrival 
 in Florence in 1504 to his departure for Rome in 1508 ; 
 here the manner of Fra Bartolommeo had great in- 
 fluence upon him ; to this period belong the Madmma 
 del Ca/rdellino (" of the Goldfinch ") in the Uffizi, La 
 Belle Ja/rdirwJ^re of the Louvre, the Madmma del Baldao- 
 chino in the Pitti (which was left incomplete by Raphael 
 and finished by another hand), and the Entombment in 
 
158 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 the Borghese Gallery at Borne, his first attempt at a 
 great historical composition. It is in his third, or Roman, 
 style that Raphael fully asserts that sovereignty in art 
 which has earned him the name of the Prince of painters, 
 and appears as the head of his own school, which, 
 generally called the Roman School, might perhaps, as he 
 collected round him followers from all parts of Italy, more 
 fitly be termed the Raphaelesque. This third period 
 includes all his great frescoes in the Vatican, -with a 
 host of easel pictures ; for short as Raphael's life was, his 
 works are wonderfully numerous, and our space permits 
 mention of only a few of even the most celebrated. 
 
 The Stanze of Raphael are four rooms in the Vatican, 
 decorated with frescoes from his designs, and partly by his 
 own hand. The first painted ^Vas the Stanza della Segnatura, 
 which contains the four great wall-paintings illustrating 
 Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Jv/risprudence. The 
 Tlieology was painted in 1509, and is in the Florentine 
 manner of the master. It is at this time that the effort 
 of Michelangelo's style becomes apparent in a marked 
 change of manner. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was 
 thrown open to the public in November, 1509, after the 
 fresco of Theology, commonly called the Dispute of tJte 
 Sacrament, which is in his second manner, was finished ; 
 and the succeeding frescoes show an ever-increasing 
 boldness of composition, evidently gained from his obser- 
 vation of Michelangelo's grander conceptions, though he 
 still retained the beautiful serenity of expression and 
 exalted type which is peculiarly his own, (The exquisite 
 lunette of the Sibyls in S. Maria della Pace, painted 
 about this time, shows most clearly the inspiration from 
 this source.) Poetry is represented by an assembly of the 
 poets of all ages, with Apollo and the Muses, on Mount 
 
EAPHAEL. 159 
 
 Parnassus; Philosophy is the wonderful picture better 
 known as the School of Athens; Jurisprudence is illus- 
 trated by a composition in three parts, including allegorical 
 figures of Prudence, Truth, and Fortitude, and the two 
 great scenes in the history of Ecclesiastical and Secular 
 Law, — Gregory IX. giving out tJte Decretals, and Justinicm 
 delivering the Digest to Tribonian. The ceiling was painted 
 with subjects further illustrating the pictures on the walls. 
 This chamber was finished in 1511. 
 
 The wall-paintings in the Stanza dell' Eliodoro are the 
 Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, and the Mass of 
 Bolsena, both painted in 1512, the AttUa, and pmnt Peter 
 delivered from Prison, in 1513 and 1514. The crowd of 
 commissions which now poured in upon Eaphael, and his 
 additional work as architect of Saint Peter's (in which 
 office he succeeded Bramante) compelled him to leave the 
 greater part of his designs for the Stanza dell' Incendio to 
 be executed by his scholars ; and they progressed so slowly 
 that the fourth chamber, the Sala di Costantino, was not 
 completed until after his death, when his designs were 
 carried out under the direction of Giulio Romano. 
 
 It has been questioned whether Kaphael's art gained by 
 what he learnt from Michelangelo, some critics affirming 
 that his earlier style is his best. This, however, must be 
 considered to be entirely a matter of taste. Most painters — 
 unless, like Era Angelico, so entirely absorbed in the mys- 
 tical side of their art as never to change their style — as they 
 gain in power of expression, lose something of their youthful 
 emotional fervour ; and it is possible to assert that in the 
 magnificent design of the Incendio del Borgo the dramatic 
 element is more in evidence than in the Disputa. But what 
 is lost on the emotional and religious side is compensated 
 for by the gain in power of representation ; and it is difficult 
 
RAPHAEL. 161 
 
 to stand before the cartoon of the Miraculous Draught 
 of Fishes (Fig. 58) and not to confess that Giotto himself 
 could not have imparted a more implicit trustfulness and 
 childlike belief in the power of the Redeemer to the 
 look and gesture of St. Peter ; and while the magnificent 
 simplicity of the youths drawing the net is conceived in 
 an equal spirit of truthfulness to nature, the grandeur of 
 style and the knowledge displayed in the drawing is so 
 much pure gain on his * earlier manner. 
 
 The Loggie, or open corridors of the Vatican, were also 
 adorned by Raphael's scholars with a series of fifty-two 
 paintings of Biblical subjects from his designs ; the whole 
 series was known as " Raphael's Bible." 
 
 In 1515 he was commissioned to design tapestries for the 
 Sistine Chapel ; of the ten cartoons (distemper paintings 
 on paper) for these tapestries, three have been lost ; the 
 other seven after many dangers and vicissitudes came into 
 the possession of Charles I. of England. They are perhaps 
 the most remarkable art treasures belonging to our country, 
 and are at present exhibited, by permission of Her Majesty, 
 in the South Kensington Museum (Fig. 58). 
 
 Among the greatest oil pictures of Raphael's third period 
 may be enimierated the Madonna di Foligno in the Vatican ; 
 the Madmvna della Sedia (Fig. 59) in the Pitti Palace at 
 Florence ; the Saint Cecilia at Bologna ; the Madonna of the 
 Fish, and the picture of Christ bearing Mis Cross, known 
 as the Spasimo, in the splendid collection at Madrid ; the 
 Madonna di San Sisto at Dresden, which obtained for the 
 artist the name of " the Divine " ; and finally the Trans- 
 Jigwration at the Vatican, the sublime picture on which his 
 last working hours were spent, and which waa carried 
 at his funeral before its colours were dry, 
 
 • The execution of these two figures is probably due to his pupils, 
 but they are faithful to Kaphael's design and style. 
 
Fig. 59. — The Madonna della Sedia. 
 In the Pitti Palace, Florence^ 
 
SCHOOL OF EAPDAEL. 163 
 
 The most eminent of Raphael's pupils, Giulio de' 
 GiANNUzzi, called Giulio Eomano from his birthplace, 
 was born in Rome in 1498. After the completion of 
 the works in the Vatican which Raphael had intrusted 
 to him, he entered the service of the Dake of Mantua, 
 where he was intrusted with the building and decoration 
 of the celebrated Palazzo del T6, which is a masterpiece 
 of architecture, and sumptuously decorated throughout 
 with paintings in fresco, executed by himself and his 
 pupils and assistants ; the most famous of these decora- 
 tions is in the room where Giulio Romano painted the Fall 
 of the Giants ; but this is generally considered, and with 
 reason, to be a failure ; the giants are on a colossal scale 
 in a room comparatively small, and the conception is 
 extravagant and tasteless. Romano established a school 
 of art. in Mantua, and died there in 1546. 
 
 His best pupils were Peimaticcio (born 1490, died 1570) 
 who worked in fresco under him at Mantua, and was 
 afterwards the artist of the palace at Fontainebleau ; and 
 Giulio Clovio, a celebrated miniaturist, and illuminator 
 (born 1498, died 1578). An Office of the Madonna, exe- 
 cuted for Cardinal Aless. Farnese, occupied him, according 
 to Vasari, for nine years, and is almost as much praised by 
 that enthusiastic writer as Michelangelo's Last Judgment. 
 
 Giovanni Nanni, da TTdine, though of the "Venetian school, 
 should also be mentioned here. He was born in 1487 at 
 the place from which he took his name, and was at .first a 
 scholar of Giorgione. Christ among the Doctors, in the 
 Accademia at Venice, is the chief of his early works of the 
 Venetian time. But he was soon attracted to Rome, by 
 the fame of Raphael, and .executed under his direction the 
 world-famous arabesques in the " Loggie " of the Vatican, 
 which, founded on the antique decorations in the Baths of 
 
164 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Titus, discovered about that time, formed a new school of 
 ornamental art, of which the tradition still remains in full 
 force. Udine died in 1564. 
 
 Baldassabe Peruzzi, of Siena, may be introduced here, 
 as he is hardly of the Sienese school. He was born in 1481, 
 and studied at Borne under the father of Maturino, and 
 was distinguished both as painter and as architect, though 
 more in the latter capacity. He painted various altar- 
 pieces, which are of the school of Raphael, and executed 
 many decorative works, being specially praised for his 
 " grotesques " in imitation of relief. He built, among other 
 celebrated palaces, the beautiful Famesina Palace at Rome, 
 which contains Raphael's famous frescoes, the ^a^atea 
 and the Cupid and Psyche series, and decorated it with 
 grotesques and arabesques by his own hand. He lost all 
 his property in the sack of Rome by the Spaniards in 1527. 
 He died in 1536. 
 
 PiEEiNO BuoNACCOESi, called DEL Yaga (born 1500, died 
 1547), lived some time at Genoa; his best works are the 
 frescoes in the Palazzo Doria there. Gianfeancesco Penni 
 (1488-1528) was a careful scholar of Raphael and has left 
 some fine copies from his works ; both he and Polidoeo, 
 Caldaea, da Caeavaggio (1495-1543), who was also a 
 follower of Peruzzi in his decorative work, were instru- 
 mental in spreading the knowledge of the new Roman 
 school southwards into Naples and Sicily. 
 
 Matueino (born at Florence, 1490) was another pupil 
 of Raphael, who was engaged with Polidoro, his intimate 
 friend, in painting the exterior of Roman houses and 
 palaces with panels in imitation of the antique. These 
 works having entirely perished, there remains little by 
 which we can judge of their style and merit, except from 
 the drawings of Polidoro, which are very numerous, and 
 
THE SCHOOL OP FERBAEA. 165 
 
 show a great mastery of light and shade and immense 
 fertility of invention. The sack of Eome, which, by dis- 
 persing the Roman school, no doubt helped to spread the 
 knowledge of art through Italy, sent Polidoro to Naples, 
 and was, through the sufferings he endured, the cause 
 of Maturino's death. Polidoro went afterwards to Sicily, 
 and was assa.ssinated there by his servant, for the sake 
 of the money which he had saved to enable him to return 
 to Rome. 
 
 The above-named artists are representative of a con- 
 siderable group of followers of Raphael, forming a separate 
 decorative school of no little importance. 
 
 THE SCHOOL OP FEREAEA 
 
 Had at this time arrived at a certain importance, and 
 produced many artists, of whom Benvenuto Tisio, known 
 as Gabopalo from his birthplace, and the sign (a gilliflower) 
 with which he marked his pictures, is the most important. 
 He was born in 1481, and studied under various masters, 
 Lorenzo Costa among them. In 1515 he went to Rome 
 as Raphael's assistant in the Vatican frescoes. After a 
 few years he returned to Ferrara, where he remained until 
 his death in 1559. His chief works are various frescoes 
 at Ferrara. His pictures are held in some repute ; but, 
 like all the painters of the Ferrarese school, he has no 
 distinguishing characteristic but that of inferiority to the 
 artists from whom he derived such merit as is to be found 
 in his works. 
 
 Dosso Dossi (bom 1479) and his brother Giambattista 
 of Ferrara, studied under Lorenzo Costa, often woi-ked in 
 co-operation with Garofalo, and were, like him, penetrated 
 with the Raphaelesque manner. Dosso died in 1560. 
 Another contemporary Ferrarese painter of reputation 
 
 c I P It 
 
165 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 was Giovanni Battista Benvenuti called Dkll' Oetolano. 
 He was in practice from about 1512 to 1525 : his works 
 are frequently confounded with those of Garofalo. 
 
 DoMBNico Beccafumi (born 1486, died about 1551)^ 
 was a Sienese painter, and the last of the true Sienese 
 school. Like Giotto he was a shepherd boy, and was dis- 
 covered drawing on a stone. In his earlier works he 
 resembles Sodoma, but having gone to Eome he adopted 
 the style of Michelangelo and Raphael. His work is 
 mannered, and he is chiefly famous for his designs for the 
 pavement in the Cathedral, which have a great reputation : 
 and which, unlike those of Duccio and Matteo, are 
 carefully preserved. 
 
 THE LOMBABB SCHOOL. 
 
 The illustrious head of the Lombard School, Antonio 
 Allegei, called Coeeegqio from the place of his birth, was 
 born probably in 1494. Little is known of his early 
 life, and it is doubtful who were his masters,. but he was 
 certainly not the scholar of any very eminent painter. 
 He is believed to have studied under Lorenzo Costa. 
 His life was wholly spent within a small radius around his 
 native place, and never having visited those cities, such as 
 Florence, Eome, and Venice, which contained the greatest 
 works of other schools, he was free to a great extent 
 from the influences which powerfully affected the art of 
 his contemporaries. His principal works are in Parma. 
 The frescoes in the cupola of San Giovanni in that city 
 were painted between 1520 and 1524 ; in these he con- 
 ceived the idea, then quite original, of occupying the 
 whole space of the dome with one grand composition, and 
 chose as a subject Christ in Glory surrounded by figures of 
 the Apostles. A characteristic of the composition is the 
 violent foreshortening by which the artist sought to get 
 
M -^ 
 
168 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 over the difficulty of representing the scene as it would 
 appear to a spectator stationed directly below, without loss 
 of dignity through the prominence of the less honourable 
 parts of the human figure to the detriment of the heads. 
 The only two artists who had hitherto attempted to grapple 
 with this almost insurmountable difficulty (for however 
 well done, the effect is never at first sight pleasing) were 
 Mantegna, in a ceiling in the Ducal Palace at Mantua, 
 and Melozzo da Forli, in his frescoes at Rome. It is prob- 
 able that Correggio saw the works of Mantegna, and not 
 those of Melozzo ; but, for the peculiar beauty of his own 
 style in which he can never be surpassed, he is indebted 
 to no one. On the semi-dome of the choir in the same 
 church, he painted the Coronation of the Virgin (Kg. 60) ; 
 this was replaced by a copy when the roof was rebuilt in 
 1584. The original is in the Biblioteca. 
 
 Between 1526 and 1530 Correggio was engaged in 
 decorating the dome of the cathedral with a still larger 
 composition of the Assumption, which possesses in pro- 
 fusion all his finest qualities ; the Virgin and Christ 
 meeting among a crowd of floating angels, whose confused 
 limbs, drawn with the same peculiarities of perspective 
 that characterised the former fresco, but with the care- 
 lessness of design which grew upon him in his later years, 
 provoked a satirical comparison of this fine work to a " dish 
 of hashed frogs." 
 
 Correggio was married in 1520 to a lady of Mantua, by 
 name Girolama Merlini, who is supposed to have been the 
 original of his Madonna, known as La Zingwrella, in tbe 
 Naples Gallery. He died at Correggio in 1534. Among 
 the most celebrated of his paintings are the Madonna delta 
 Soodella and the Madonna di San Girolamo, known as 
 "II Giorno," at Parma; a Nativity, known as "La Notte," 
 
COEBEQGIO. 
 
 169 
 
 the Beading Magdalen, and three of the Madonna with 
 Saints, in the Dresden Gallery ; the Antiope and the Mystic 
 Marriage of Saint Catharine in the Louvre (Fig. 61) ; and 
 two masterpieces in our National Gallery, Mercwry teaching 
 
 FiQ. 61. — The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catharine. By Corrkggiu. 
 In the Louvre^ 
 
 Cupid his Letters and the £ece Homo. Two paintings in 
 tempora in the Louvre of Correggio's early time show that 
 he was at first remarkable for precision of drawing ; but 
 in his later years he became so careless that in the fresco 
 of the Assumption it is frequently a difficult matter to 
 assign the limbs to the right bodies. But he is alvvavs 
 
170 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 ,unri\al]ed for grace, softness of form, and harmony of chi- 
 aroscuro, though wanting in the highest spiritual qualities 
 0f art ; yet while he aims at pleasing by these more 
 sensuous charms, rather than instructing by a lofty moral 
 significance, there is an innocent beauty and inherent 
 grace in his types of women and children, which are as far 
 removed from sensuality as from the theatrical and pre- 
 tentious affectations of the vast multitude of third-rate 
 artists who afterwards adopted his style. There is, un- 
 fortunately, no doubt that the grace of his manner, dis- 
 torted into affecljation by these inferior artists, was the 
 origin of the odious mannerism which infected the later 
 Italian ecclesiastical art. 
 
 The majority of Correggio's pupils and immediate fol- 
 lowers are obscure and unimportant. The Lombard master 
 who ranks nearest to him is Francesco Mazzuoli, a native 
 of Parma, whence he derives his more familiar name of 
 Paemigiano or Parmigianino. He was born in 1504, and 
 though not a pupil of Correggio, was much influenced by 
 the work which that master executed in Parma ; in some 
 respects he was also an imitator of Michelangelo. After 
 residing for some years in Eome and Bologna he returned 
 to Parma in 1531, and undertook to decorate in fresco the 
 choir of Santa Maria della Steccata ; but the progress of 
 the work was so long delayed that he was thrown into 
 prison for the breach of contract. On his release he fled 
 from the city, and died in exile in 1540. In the part of 
 these frescoes which was finished by him occurs the cele- 
 brated figure of Moses breaking the Tables of the Law, by 
 which he is best known as a frescd painter. His most 
 famous altarpiece is the Saint Margaret, now in the 
 Accademia at Bologna. The National Gallery has a good 
 example of his easel pictures, the Vision of Saint Jerome. 
 
THE VENETIAN SCHOOL 171 
 
 Parmigiano is one of those masters in whom the sources 
 of inspiration are obvious, Combining, as he did, the 
 styles of Correggio and Michelangelo ; but there is none 
 the less an inherent graue of his own to be found in all his 
 productions, which raises him far above the ordinary run 
 of imitators., His sketches and drawings, especially, dis- 
 play an exquisite feeling for beauty, which perhaps some- 
 what fails him in carrying out his larger compositions. 
 
 Fedeeigo Bakocci, though not of the school of Parma, 
 should be mentioned here as having successfully adopted 
 the soft and graceful manner of Correggio. He was born 
 at Urbino h). 1528, and painted many important works in 
 oil and fresco in his native town and at Rome. He is 
 however decidedly a mannerist, and of the decline. He 
 died at Urbino in 1612. 
 
 Aecangiolo Salimbene, who died about 1560, and Fean- 
 CESCO Vanni, born 1563, were Sienese artists of note, 
 who followed Barocci and Parmigiano, and still further 
 diluted the style of Correggio into the mannerism which 
 became so prevalent in the later Italian schools. The 
 Sienese school had by this time lost all individuality. 
 
 THE VENETIAN SCHOOL. 
 
 From the school of the greatest "Venetian master of the 
 fifteenth century proceeded the impulse which carried 
 Venetian art to its glorious culmination in the sixteenth. 
 Giorgione and Titian, the two great masters who led the 
 way before all their contemporaries, were both scholars of 
 Giovanni Bellini ; and the highest excellence of his sue-, 
 cessors was but the legitimate development of the principles 
 and traditions of which he was the greatest representative. 
 The general purpose of the scliool is to present the Ufe.of 
 mankind at its best and fullest ; to express the highest 
 
172 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 human beauty physical and spiritual, not idealised and 
 carried up to heaven, but portrayed as it might be found 
 on earth. In the technics of art the "Venetian painters are 
 unsurpassed ; in colour especially they are supreme ; and 
 among the works of this school, probably among those 
 of Titian, its greatest master, the student of art would 
 most safely seek his examples of balanced and universal 
 excellence. 
 
 GioKGio Babbaeelli, known generally by the familiar 
 name of Gioegigne, was born near Castelfranco about 1476, 
 and was the fellow pupil of Titian in the school of Giovanni 
 Gelhni, Less fortunate than his illustrious comrade, he 
 lived only long enough to accomplish a part of the high 
 destinies of which his genius gave promise. He died in 
 1511, in the thirty-fourth year of his age. What he might 
 have become it is idle to conjecture, and the inquiry is 
 made more difficult by the fewness of his works which 
 have survived to the present day ; but it seems probable 
 that in the fuU maturity of his powers Giorgione would 
 have been scarcely, if at all, inferior to Titian. He occu- 
 pied himself to a great extent with frescoes.on buildings 
 which have all now perished. Many pictures in various 
 galleries are attributed to Giorgione, but the works that 
 can with certainty be referred to his hand are very rare. 
 The splendid altarpiece (Fig. 62) at Castelfranco is a 
 celebrated example ; the File Champetre in the Louvre is 
 probably genuine ; * so are certain allegorical subjects in 
 the Uffizi. Our National Gallery possesses a small picture 
 of a Knight in Armour, No. 269, which appears to be a study 
 for the figure of San Liberale in the Castelfranco altarpiece ; 
 it differs from it only by the absence of the helmet. 
 
 * Messrs. Crowe and Cavaloaselle say not; but it is difficult to 
 believe that this beautiful picture is by an inferior hand. 
 
Fis. 62.— The Matohna Enthroned. With St. Francis and St. Liberalk. By Giorgione. 
 
 At Castelfranco, Vcnetia, 
 
174 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 TiziANO Vecbllio, commonly called by the anglicised 
 form of his Christian name, Titian, was born at Cadore, 
 near Yenice, in 1477. His studies in art began at the age 
 of ten, under a painter named Zuccato, from whose studio 
 he passed to Gentile Bellini's, and from his again to that 
 of his brother Giovanni. Space forbids us to do more than 
 indicate the chief landmark, in Titian's long, eventful, and 
 illustrious life. When his reputation as a great artist was 
 new, before he was thirty years old, he visited the court of 
 Ferrara, and executed for the Duke two of his earliest 
 masterpieces, th« Tribute Money (Fig. 6.3), now at Dresden, 
 and the Bacchus and Ariadne in the National Gallery of 
 London. In 1516 he painted his great altarpiece, the As- 
 sumption, now removed from its church to the Accademia at 
 Venice, and was at once placed by this incomparable work 
 in the highest rank of painters. The Entombment of the 
 Louvre was painted abcmt 1523; and in 1528 he executed 
 anothea" magnificent altarpiece, the Death of Saint Peter 
 Mmrlyr (Fig. 64), in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, 
 which was destroyed in the fire of 1867. In 1530 Titian 
 was invited to Bologna, to paint the portrait of the Empeijor 
 Charles V. j and he is supposed by some writers to have ac- 
 compaisied the Emperor shortly afterwards to Spain. Owing 
 to the patronage which Charles V. and his son Philip II. 
 liberally conferred on the artist, Madrid possesses a collec- 
 tion of his works second in number and importance only to 
 the treasures of Venice. The Presentation in the Temple, in 
 the Accademia at Venice, dates from about 1539, and the 
 Christ at EmmMos, in the Louvre, from about 1546. In 1645 
 he painted at Rome the celebrated portrait of Pope Paul III. 
 ia the Naples Museum. Titian continued active in his 
 art even up to the time of his death, which occurred iu 
 1676, at the great age of ninety-nine. His style, as is 
 
Fig. 63.— The Tribute Money. By Titian. 
 In the Dresden Gallery. 
 
176 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 to be expected, cLanged considerably in the course of his 
 long life, and the pictures painted in his last years, though 
 full of colour, are infirm in drawing and execution ; in the 
 full vigour of his powers he was as a draughtsman second 
 to none, though never aiming at the select beauty of form 
 attained by the Florentine school and by B>aphael. It was 
 this that led Michelangelo to say that, with a better mode 
 of study, " This man might have been as eminent in design 
 as he is true to nature and , masterly in counterfeiting the 
 life, and then nothing could be desired better or more 
 perfect " ; adding, " for he has an exquisite perception, and 
 a delightful spirit And manner." 
 
 The splendid artistic power of Titian may perhaps be 
 better discerned in his portraits than in the more ambitious 
 works of sacred art. He stands unquestionably at the 
 head of portrait-painters of all ages and of all schools ; 
 not even Yelazquez equalling him at his best. Besides 
 religious pictures and portraits he painted a great number 
 of subjects from classical mythology. Among the most 
 famous, besides the Bacchus and Ariadne mentioned above 
 — the pride of our national collection — may be named 
 the Bacchanals of Madrid, the two of Venus in the Uffizi 
 at Florence, the Danae at Naples, and the often repeated 
 Vemis and Adonis and Diana amd Gallisto. He is seen at 
 his very best in the Venus of the Tribune at Florence 
 (Fig. 78), perhaps the only work of his which has escaped 
 retouching, , and in the exquisite allegory called Sacred 
 and Profane Love, in the Borghese Palace at Rome. As 
 a landscape-painter, he possessed a sentiment for nature 
 in all its forms which had never before been seen, and 
 his backgrounds have never been equalled since. The 
 mountains in the neighbourhood of his native town, 
 Cadore, of which, as well as of other landscape scenes, 
 
Fig. 64. — Death of Saint Teteu Maktyr. By Titian. 
 Burned. Formerly in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. 
 
178 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 numerous pen-and-ink drawings by his hand are in exist 
 once, inspired him, doubtless, with that solemn treatment 
 pf efEect^ of cloud and light and shade and blue distance 
 for which his pictures are conspicuous. 
 
 Giovanni Antonio Licinio, called from his birthplace 
 PoiiDENONE (1483 — 1539) was, during the earlier part of 
 Titian's career, his most formidable rival. His works 
 are rather rare out of Italy, but several fine examples, 
 both in fresco and in oil, may be found in Venice and 
 the neighbouring towns. Pordenone was very unequal 
 as a painter, some of his work being careless in the 
 extreme. The chapel of St. Catherine in the church of 
 S. Maria della Campagna at Piacenza contains a series of 
 frescoes which are considered his masterpieces, in which 
 religious subjects are strangely mixed up with Yenus 
 and Diana, Nymphs and Satyrs. In his oil pictures, as in 
 the Conversion of St. Paul, in the Uffizi Gallery, he some- 
 times approaches very close to Titian, and displays great 
 power of drawing and vigorous action. 
 
 Jacopo Palma, surnamed II Vecchio {old Palma) — to 
 distinguish him from a later painter, his great nephew, who 
 bore the same name — was born near Bergamo in 1480 ; he 
 went early to Venice, and is completely identified with 
 that school of painters. He died in Venice in 1528, The 
 Samta Bwrba/ra in the church of Santa Maria Formosa at 
 Venice seems to possess all the qualities of beauty, form 
 atid colour necessary for a work of the highest class, and 
 is considered to be his masterpiece. 
 
 Bonifazio * Veneziano, born at Verona in 1491, was a 
 pupil of Palma Vecchio, and after Titian and Giorgione, 
 whose style he chiefly followed, is the best colourist of the 
 
 * There were three artists of this name: one died in 1540, the 
 second in 1553, the third in 1579, 
 
SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO. 179 
 
 Venetian School. He cannot be fairly studied out of 
 Venice, although numbers of his works are scattered 
 about among collections in England and France. He was 
 employed in the Ducal Palace, where, among other of his 
 pictures, is an Expulsion of the Money Changers from the 
 Temple, which is full of dramatic power. The same cha- 
 racteristic is to be found in a smaller picture of the 
 Massacre of the Innocents, which is one of the most splendid 
 examples of Venetian colour in the Aocademia, and is 
 hardly less remarkable for its fine design. The Dives and 
 Lazarus, in the same gallery, is a no less beautiful work 
 of a more peaceful character. Bonifazio died in 1553. 
 
 Sebastiano Luciani, called del Piombo, born at Venice 
 in 1485, was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, and afterwards 
 of Giorgione. About 1512 he went to Kome, and there 
 became the friend and assistant of Michelangelo, whose in- 
 fluence produced a considerable change in his style. The 
 name by which he is generally known is derived from the 
 office (that of Frate del Piombo, or keeper of the Leaden 
 Seal) conferred on him by Pope Clement VII. Sebastiano 
 died in Home in 1547. A picture in the National 
 Gallery, the Racing of Lazarus, is generally considered 
 to be his masterpiece; the, group of Lazarus and the sur- 
 rounding figures was designed by Michelangelo. Sebas- 
 tiano's works in portraiture combine the qualities of Titian 
 as a eolourist with a style of drawing derived from the 
 influence of Michelangelo (Fig. 65). The portrait of 
 Vittoria Colorma, exhibited at the Eoyal Academy in 1878, 
 displays this combination in a remarkable degree. 
 
 The school of Brescia at this time produced an artist 
 who, in point of eminence, holds a similar rank to that 
 of Montagna at Vicenza in the fifteenth century. As 
 Montagna's was founded on a combination of Andrea 
 

 Fig. 65.— The Flagellation of Christ. By Sebastiano del Piombo. 
 in. San Pietro in Montario, Rome, 
 
BOBDONE. — MARONI. 181 
 
 Mantegna and the Venetian school, so Alessandro Bon- 
 viciNO, commonly called II Moeetto, ■ was, though a fol- 
 lower of the Venetian painters of the sixteenth century, 
 also a great admirer and to some extent an imitator of 
 Raphael. Little is known of his life ; he was born at 
 Brescia in 1498, and died about 1555, His native town 
 contains a large number of his pictures in its various 
 churches, and there are some fine examples in the gal- 
 leries of Berlin, Frankfurt, and Vienna, His best works 
 are splendid in colour and large in design, and his portraits, 
 of which there are two examples in the National Gallery, are 
 among the finest works of the class, Gibolamo E.omani (born 
 about 1487, died 1566), called Romanino, was his rival at 
 Brescia. There is a Nativity by him in the National Gallery, 
 
 Paris Bordone, born at Treviso in 1500, studied for a 
 short time under Titian, and afterwards became rather a 
 follower of Giorgione, He is most distinguished for 
 portraits, but did not confine himself to that branch of 
 art; indeed, his best historical picture. The Fisherman 
 presenting tli/e Ring of St. Mavh to the Doge, in the 
 Accademia at Venice, is one of the most beautiful examples 
 of the peculiar excellence of the Venetian style. Bordone 
 visited the French court about 1538, at the invitation of 
 Francis I., and painted several portraits. He died at 
 Venice in. 1571. The National Gallery possesses, in the 
 Portrait of a Lady (No. 674), one of the most perfect 
 examples of Bordone's work. This beautiful lady, who 
 was his mistress, figures in most of his pictures. 
 
 GiAMBATTiSTA MoRONi (bom near Bergamo about 1510, 
 died 1578) was a pupil of Moretto, and an excellent por- 
 trait painter. England possesses two of his finest works, 
 Tlie Jesuit in the possession of the Duke of Sutherland, 
 and The Tailor in the National Gallery ; the latter coUec- 
 
 c I p N 
 
Fig. 66.— The Madonna with Saints. By II Mokbtto.— Alessandbo Bonvicino. 
 In the Stddel Gallery, Frankfurt. 
 
TINTORETTO. 183 
 
 tioQ oontains four other portraits besides this, He had 
 not, however, the freedom of style of his master, and his 
 portraits, though successful in rendering character and 
 poetical in treatment, are timid in execution, and have 
 frequently a faulty peculiarity of drawing, the arms being 
 constantly made too small for the head, 
 
 Jacopo da Pontb, called from his birthplace, Bassano 
 (born 1510, died 1592), the most eminent of a family of 
 artists, was perhaps the first Italian who practised genre- 
 painting. His tastes led him to deal in a peculiar manner 
 with historical and sacred subjects, in which he often 
 dwells so much on accessories — introducing animals and 
 familiar bits of still life, and painting elaborate land- 
 scapes — that the principal figures appear to be of quite 
 secondary importance. His earlier pictures, however, 
 have not these eccentricities, and in some of his best 
 works be has some of the good qualities of Tintoretto. 
 His father Francesco, and his son Francesco were, after 
 Jacopo himself, the most eminent of this artistic family. 
 
 Passing over a number of minor names, we come to the 
 two masters whose names, joined with that of Titian, may 
 stand for what is greatest in the school of Venice — 
 Tintoretto and Veronese. Jacopo Eobosti, called Tinto- 
 retto (the "little Dyer," or "Dyer's son") from his 
 father's occupation, was born at Venice in 1518. He was 
 almost a self-taught artist, having had hardly any 
 schooling except a few days in the studio of Titian, from 
 which he was dismissed without reason given. He devoted 
 himself with extreme ardour to private study, painted in 
 the day time, and drew by artificial light from casts of 
 statues. His ambition was to draw like Michelangelo and 
 to colour like Titian, and he inscribed his resolve on the 
 wall of his studio : II disegno di Michela-^gdo, ed il colorito 
 
 N 2 
 
PAOLO VEKONESE. ■ 185. 
 
 di Tiziano. Eager for faipe; he for a time Xindertdok all 
 comiuissioDS regardless of price, and on such terms his 
 genius had not long to wait for recognition. At the age 
 of thirty-seven he painted his gretit picture, the Miracle 
 of the Slave, now in the Accademia at Venice ; it was one 
 of a series of four pictures, originally placed in the Scuolb 
 di San Marco, and illustrating the miracles of the Saint. 
 These pictures raised him at once into a position only 
 inferior to Titian's. Venice contains many noble works by 
 this master ; the Pa/radise in the Ducal Palace, the Last 
 Judgment and the Worsldp of the Golden Calf in the 
 Madonna dell' Orto, all of which are on a vast scale with 
 almost countless figures, and the Ma/rriage of Cana in 
 Santa Maria della Salute, with the Miracle mentioned 
 above, may be considered his greatest masterpieces. The 
 Scuola di San Kocco has two vast rooms, of which the 
 walls and ceilings are entirely covered with his paintings, 
 all forming one grand scheme of decoration, many of which 
 are in his best style : the Crucifixion, in another room of 
 the same building, may be added to the above list as being 
 one of his noblest works. Tintoretto died in 1594. He is 
 rather unequal in style ; a rapid, impassioned worker, who 
 sometimes soars to the grandest heights, as if his brush 
 were moved by an inspired hand, and sometimes leaves his 
 work marred by signs of carelessness. It was a saying in 
 Venice that he had three pencils, — of gold, of silver, and 
 of iron ; and no one could be certain which he would 
 choose to employ. His chief fault is well hit off in 
 Annibale Carracci's epigrammatic criticism, that " if some- 
 times equal to Titian, he was often inferior to Tintoretto.'' 
 Paolo Caoliabi, better known as Paolo Veronese, was 
 born at Verona in 1528, and studied under his father and 
 an uncle named Badile, artists of considerable merits 
 
186 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 belonging to the local school of Verona, which, as has been 
 seen, had already risen to some eminence. Veronese left 
 his native city to settle in Venice, where he soon made 
 good his place among the foremost. With the exception of 
 
 FiQ. 6R.^The Warttrdom of Saint Jushnia. By Paolo. Veronese. 
 in tTie Church of Santa Justina, Padua. 
 
 a visit to Rome in the train of the Venetian ambassador in 
 1563, he lived quietly at Venice in the exercise of his art, 
 until his death in 1588. The Louvre possesses his master- 
 piece, the magnificent Marriage at Gana ; it is the largest 
 nasel picture ever painted, and contains among its one 
 
PAOLO VEUONKStt 187 
 
 Lnndred aud twenty figures the portraits of many of the 
 most eminent persons of the artist's time. This picture is 
 one of four, all representing Feasts, which were painted for 
 the refectories of Venetian convents ; of the others, the Feast 
 in the House of Simon the Pharisee, is also in the Louvre (Fig. 
 69) ; the Accademia at Venice contains the Feast of Levi ; 
 and another Feast in the House of Simon the Fftarisee is at 
 Turin. Another magnificent picture of this class is the 
 Supper of St. Gregory, in the refectory of the convent 
 attached to S. Maria del Monte at Vicenza ; this stands next 
 in size to the Marriage of Cana. It has suffered from 
 having been cut to pieces by the Austrian soldiery in 1848. 
 The National Gallery has six pictures by Veronese, among 
 them two very fine works, the Consecration of Saint 
 Nicholas and the Family of Darius. It seems natural to 
 compare Veronese with Tintoretto, but they have in 
 reality little in common, except the immense scale and 
 number of their works. Tintoretto was a man of the 
 highest imaginative power, a dweller in sublime regions 
 which were never revealed to the more sober contemplation 
 of his contemporary. Veronese was essentially a decorative 
 painter, though of the highest type of decorative painters. 
 His style of colour ifi as much derived from the tradi- 
 tions of the Verona schodi as from the Venetians, and is 
 peculiarly his own ; and certain effects, such as the repre- 
 sentations of clear bright daylight, he has carried to the 
 highest point of perfection. But the attempt to grapple 
 with reaiUy great subjects is a strain upon his strength, 
 and he subordinated the religious element to the decorative, 
 as may be se"en in the accompanying engraving (Fig. 69), 
 where the figure of the Saviour and the incident depicted 
 are kept in the background, and are made inferior in in- 
 terest to the general expression of snlendour and festivity. 
 
VENETIAN SCHOOL. 189 
 
 Several relatives of Veronese were good painters, 
 especially his brother Benedetto, and his sons Caklo and 
 Gabrielle. Besides these, he had an important follower in 
 Bah'ista Faeinati, called Zelotti. (born at Verona in 
 1532, died in 1592), his fellow scholar< under Badile, and 
 afterwards his assistant. 
 
 Giuseppe Eoeta, born 1520 — called Salviati, after his 
 master, Francesco Salviati — though not a Venetian by birth 
 executed most of his works in Venice, and adopted the 
 Venetian style of colouring. His finest picture is a 
 Descent from the Cross in the Church of San Pietro in 
 Murano, which displays the best qualities of the Florentine 
 and Venetian schools. He died in 1585. 
 
 Jacopo Palma "Giovane" — the younger^bom 1544, 
 died 1628) great-nephew of Palma Vecchio, may conclude 
 our account of the golden age of Venetian art. He had 
 great skill, but hardly anything else that goes to make a 
 great artist • and in the hasty, tricky cleverness of his . 
 works began the decline of painting in Venice. 
 
 "With the sixteenth century closes the great age of modern 
 art. Italian painting in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
 is the supreme efiort of the human mind in that direction. 
 Without disrespect to the lost glories of the age of Apelles 
 it may fairly be said that that effort was never equalled 
 before, as it has never been equalled since. There have 
 been painters since who would have taken a good place 
 among the great Italians, but great artists do not always 
 imply great national art. Art in Italy, like art in ancient 
 Greece, was a thing deeply rooted in the inner life of 
 the people, an expression of the national character as 
 spontaneous and as essential as their politics or their 
 religion. 
 
190 ITALIAN PAINTEES. 
 
 In the sctool of Venice we see the art of the period this 
 chapter deals with, at its best. Perhaps Michelangelo and 
 Kaphael are mightier names than Titian, Tintoretto, or 
 Veronese. But the Venetian masters, in their interest in 
 the human life that was about them, set themselves to 
 portray it as the best thing they knew, and appeal per- 
 haps more directly to the natural love of humanity for 
 what is beautiful in its surroundings. Venetian art takes 
 nature on a different side from the art of Michelangelo and 
 Baphael; not deficient in its earlier stages in faith and 
 piety, it always displays that more simple religion which 
 consists in a deep enjoyment of beauty in nature wherever 
 it may be found ; no school of painters was more universal 
 in this appreciation, and no artist among them more so 
 than Titian. Splendour of colour is only one of the 
 many sides it takes, and there is hardly a phase of beauty 
 which the school of Venice, and their greatest master in 
 particular, has not presented to us. 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 
 THE DECLINE — ECLECTICS AND NATURALISTS — LATE 
 VENETIANS. 
 
 IN the train of the great cinquecenio masters came a host 
 of vmappreciative imitators, catching at the best only 
 the form and not the spirit of their works, and too often 
 content to resemble them chiefly by imitation of their 
 faults. The name of Mannerists, which has been given to 
 this class of artists, sufficiently well expresses their cha- 
 racter and objects. The painter was satisfied_ if he were 
 recognised as successfully reproducing the manner of 
 Michelangelo or Raphael, and so long as he skilfully 
 jiresented some of the most obvious and easy character- 
 istics of the great master, he and his critics were quite 
 indifierent to such trifles as absence of originality and 
 emptiness of thought. The corruption began soon after the 
 death of Raphael ; the Venetian school held out longest 
 against it, but as the sixteenth century closed in, art 
 seemed tending fast to a degradation that threatened its 
 total extinction. The reaction headed by the Carracci 
 saved it from that fate, though it was far from restoring 
 its departed glory. 
 
THE CAKHACCI. 193 
 
 The leader of the new school, ■which took the name of 
 the Eclectic School, and announced its piinciple to be the 
 combination of the peculiar excellencps of all the great 
 masters, added to direct study of nature, was Lodovico 
 Careacci, a native of Bologna, born in 1555. Lodovico 
 was a man of slow and heavy nature (he was nicknamed 
 " the ox "), and was therefore perhaps all the better fitted 
 for the task he proposed to himself of combining the excel- 
 lences of the various schools by a judicious selection. After 
 leaving the studio of his first instructor, he travelled, in 
 order to study at head-quarters the masterpieces of the 
 various great schools, and on returning to Bologna opened 
 a school of art in conjunction with his cousins, Agostino 
 and Annibale, in 1589. Their cooperation ceased in 
 1600, when the two brothers went to Rome, and 
 Lodovico carried on the school alone until his death 
 in 1619. 
 
 Agostino Careacci (bom 1657, died 1602) is better 
 known as an engraver than a painter. He was a man 
 of wide accomplishments, cultivating poetry and music, 
 and learned in the theory of art. Two cartoons, designed 
 by him for the frescoes executed by his brother in the 
 Farnese Palace, are in the National Gallery. 
 
 Annibale Caeracci, the younger brother of Agostino, was 
 born in 1560. It was intended that he should follow the 
 trade of his father, who was a tailor ; but he was rescued 
 from the board by his cousin Lodovico, who remarked his 
 taste and capacity for art, and made him his pupil. He 
 afterwards studied in Parma and Yenice. In 1600 he was 
 invited to Rome by the Cardinal Famese, and undertook 
 the frescoes of the Parnese Palace, assisted at first by his 
 brother ; this brilliant decorative work, in which the at- 
 tempt to rival Michelangelo is obvious, was finished about 
 
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 M 
 
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GUIDO UENI. 195 
 
 1604, and Annibale died in Rome in 1609. Tho National 
 Gallery has eight good examples of his works. 
 
 The Eclecticism professed by the Carracci has of course 
 chieily regard to technical qualities, and appears to be by 
 no means a bad rule lor study, so long as it is not allowed 
 to supersede the artist's direct study of nature. But it is 
 unfortunately no substitute for genius; and though the 
 followers of the school attained a singular perfection of 
 technical execution, they can lay claim to little higher 
 merit : we feel, in fact, in looking at their work, that there 
 is nothing behind their power of adapting other artists' 
 ideas to their own productions ; that there is none of that 
 charm which is to be found in the works of such men as 
 Parmigiano or Luini, both of them followers of greater 
 masters than themselves j that they give us nothing fresh 
 from their impressions of nature, and that there is no 
 stamp of individuality in their manner of presenting it 
 to us ; and it is for this reason, and not because they 
 adopted this or that style, that the work of the Eclectics 
 is bad and uninteresting. (Figs. 70 and 71.) 
 
 GuiDO Eeni, called Guido, one of the most distin- 
 guished pupils of the Carracci, was born at Calvenzano, 
 near Bologna, in 1575, and entered their school in 1595. 
 Early in the seventeenth century he went to Rome, and 
 resided there twenty years. At last he quitted Rome 
 abruptly in offence at an affront received from an employer, 
 and returned to Bologna. His earnings from his profes- 
 sion were remarkably large, but he lived in a style of 
 luxury which kept him in perpetual embarrassment. He 
 died at Bologna in 1642. ,The Aiurora in, the Rospigliosi 
 Palace at Rome is generfilly considered Guide's best worlc 
 (Fig. 73) ; although common in form and type, it is full 
 of life and movement, and original in conception ; and 
 
196 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 displays a genuine grace, not descending to affectation, 
 as is too commonly the case in Guido's work. One of his 
 most popular pictures is the portrait of a girl (Fig. 72), 
 in the Barberini Palace. He is well represented in the 
 National Gallery, which has seven of his pictures. 
 
 Fig. 72, — Portrait (usually called Beatrice Cenci) 
 
 By Guieo Beki. 
 
 In the Barberini Palace^ Eome, 
 
 Francesco Albani (born at Bologna 1578, died 1660) 
 was a friend and fellow-pupil of Guido, by whose advice 
 he was attracted into the school of the Carracci. He 
 'followed Annibal6 tb Eome, and assisted him with the 
 

 o 
 
 ^ I' 
 
 H ■"■ 
 P-l 
 
 V. I r 
 
198 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 Farnese frescoes and other works. Albani's chief work 
 was a graceful series of frescoes, illustrating subjects from 
 classical mythology, in the Verospi, now the Torlonia 
 Palace. He was especially fond of classical subjects, 
 and had excellent models for Venus, Diana, Nymphs, 
 and Cupids in his own beautiful wife and children. He 
 attempted to adopt Titian's colouring, but was not a 
 colourist by nature, and his work, though skilful in 
 execution, is purely artificial. 
 
 Giovanni Lanfranco was born at Parma, in 1581, and 
 after passing through the school at Bologna, also followed 
 Annibale to Rome. His work is nothing if not imitative, 
 and he modelled himself chiefly upon his countryman 
 Correggio. He died at Brome in 1647. 
 
 DoMENico Zampieei, commonly called Domenichino, born 
 in 1581 at Bologna, was the best of all the pupils of the 
 Carracci. He went to Borne soon after his friend Albani, 
 and at first lodged in his house. His first great success 
 was obtained in a kind of competition with Guido'; 
 opposite to a fresco by the latter in the church of Saint 
 Gregory, he painted the Flagellation of Saint Andrew, 
 which was generally considered to be the better picture. 
 The masterpiece of Domenichino, and the finest work 
 of the Eclectic School, is considered to be the Last 
 Communion of Saint Jerome (Fig. 74), which was painted 
 about 1614, and hung in Saint Petei^'s as the companion 
 piece to Raphael's Transfigwration ; where, with the crowd 
 of visitors, it excites almost equal admiration ; but, although 
 admirable in technical qualities, it hardly rises above a 
 commonplace realism ; and its merit is marred by an 
 attempt to rival a more idealised treatment with which its 
 poverty of type and accessories cannot be brought into 
 harmony. The two pictures still occupy the same room 
 
Fig. 74.— The Last Communion op St. Jeeomb. By Domenichiko. 
 In the Vatican, Borne. 
 
 O 2 
 
200 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 in the Vatican, From 1630 to his death in 1641 Dome- 
 nichino was engaged chiefly at Naples ; he .sufEered much 
 from the malice of rivals, especially from a cabal of three 
 native Neapolitan masters, who combined to keep out as 
 far as possible the painters of other schools ; it was even 
 suspected that his death was caused by poison administered 
 by these enemies. 
 
 GuEKCiNO (so called from his squinting, his true name 
 being Giovanni Francesco Barbieri), the son of a peasant 
 of Cento, near Bologna, was born in 1591. He was for 
 the most part self-taught, and was an artist of great 
 original talent ; at first a follower of the Eclectics, he 
 afterwards inclined to imitation of Caravaggio, He lived 
 for some time at Rome, afterwards for twenty years at 
 Cento, lastly for twenty-four years at Bologna, where he 
 died in 1666. The most celebrated of his works is the 
 Raising of Saint Petronilla (Fig. 75) in the Capitol at 
 Bome. Like most of the artists of this school, he is very 
 unequal; but his best works have a genuine feeling for 
 nature which saves them from being common. He is also 
 the only artist of the Bolognese school who has any natural 
 gifts as a colourist, though in all but his best work his 
 pictures are very black, 
 
 Giovanni Battista Salvi (born 1605, died 1685), called 
 Sassoferrato from the name of his birthplace, whose 
 works excite great admiration from a conventional and 
 theatrical piety which they exhibit ; and Carlo Dolci, of 
 Florence (born 1616, died 1686), whose works are remark- 
 able for their excessively careful finish, are the most 
 important of the remaining followers 'of the Carracci. 
 Both were bad colourists, especially Sassoferrato. 
 
 By the side of the Eclectics there arose another imnort- 
 ant: school of art, whose members called themselves 
 
5IPJ Wj, 
 
 
 Fig. 75. — Saint Peteonilla Kaised from the Tomb. By Gueecino. 
 In the Capitol, Momc. 
 
202 ITALIAN PAINTING 
 
 Naturalists, and professed to rely solely on the direct 
 study of .nature, rejecting the support of selection and 
 example on which the Eclectics rested. Their founder was 
 
 MiCHELANGioLO Ameeigi DA Cabavaggio, bom in 1569, 
 at that town near Milan. During his earlier years he sup- 
 ported himself at MUan, Venice, and Rome, by the practice 
 of cheap portrait painting and ornamental art. His picture. 
 The Cardplayera (Fig. 76), first attracted public, notice, 
 and he was soon established in popularity. He accom- 
 plished at Rome his masterpiece, an Entombment, now in 
 the Vatican Gallery, He was at last obliged to fly from 
 Rome, in consequence of having killed an acquaintance in 
 a dispute ; and his violent temper was again the cause of 
 his being expelled from Naples, where he took refuge. 
 Thence he went into Sicily, and a short time afterwards, 
 having obtained a pardon from the Pope, set sail to re- 
 turn to Rome ; but he was robbed and abandoned by the 
 companions of his voyage, and died at Porto Ercole in 1609 
 of a fever contracted in his forlorn wanderings on the 
 coast. Caravaggio's style is often coarse, and even vulgar, 
 and he rarely treats sacred subjects with much propriety ; 
 but he occupies an important position, not only as the 
 leader of the Italian Naturalist School, but also by virtue 
 of the influence which he exercised, chiefly through his 
 pupil, Gerard van Honthorst, over the northern schools of 
 genre-painting. 
 
 His pupil, Jos£ DE RiBEBA, Called Spagnoletto, was 
 born near Valencia, in Spain, in 1588. He went to Italy 
 when young, and studied at first under the Carracci, but 
 afterwards gave in his allegiance to Caravaggio. Ribera 
 settled in Naples, and attained to great distinction there 
 He was a most prolific painter, the Museum at Madrid 
 alone containing no less than fifty-nine of his works j and, 
 
204 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 like all artists possessed of great fertility of production 
 with little imagination, it is only now and then that 
 he rouses a genuine feeling of admiration. He was a 
 member of the Cabal which caused so much vexation to 
 Domenichino. He died at Naples in 1656. 
 
 The most eminent of Eibera's pupils was Salvatoe Rosa, 
 who was born at Renella, near Naples, in 1615. In 1635 
 he visited Rome, and met with such generous encourage- 
 ment in that city that he went to settle there in 1638. 
 He died at Rome in 1673. Salvator was a painter of great 
 power, with a tendency to melodrama in his nature, which he 
 exercised by preference on wild and terrible effects, delight- 
 ing in rugged and gloomy landscapes and scenes of pain and 
 horror. This love of gloom and violent effects of chiaro- 
 scuro is characteristic of most of the Naturalists, and the 
 name of Tet)^,hrosi is sometimes given to them to express 
 this quality. Some of his pictures show the influence of 
 
 Claude GelliSe de Lokraine, the great painter of land- 
 scape ; who, being born a Frenchman, is classed among the 
 French artists. His life, therefore, will be given in another 
 volume ; but there is no doubt that he was, as regards 
 his art, entirely Italian, and indeed, with the exception of 
 one short visit to his native land, he lived his whole life 
 in Italy, from the age of twelve years to his death, at 
 Rome, in 1682. 
 
 In the seventeenth century there were many artists of the 
 second rank, besides those hitherto mentioned, who worthily 
 carried out the traditions of their respective schools, but 
 whom it is unnecessary to mention, as they have no special 
 claim to notice. The list might be almost indefinitely 
 extended if we were to include the artists of the third 
 rank who, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
 
ANTONIO OANALETTO. 205 
 
 filled the palaces and churches of Italy with acres of 
 theatrical and inane productions, executed with an amazing 
 facility, on no account to be despised, but destitute of taste 
 or invention. 
 
 LATEK VENETIAN SCHOOL 
 
 To conclude the review of Italian art, it is necessary to 
 return to Venice. Her chief artist in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury was Alessandro Vaeotabi, called Padovanino from 
 his birthplace, Padua, where he was born in 1590. He 
 was a painter of considerable merit, and an imitator of 
 Titian. He died in 1650. 
 
 The most famous Venetian painter of the eighteenth 
 century was Antonio Canal, called Canaletto, born in 
 1697. Brought up as a boy in his father's craft as a scene 
 painter, he soon quitted it for a higher calling, and after a 
 period of assiduous study at Rome, became celebrated in 
 Venice as a painter of architectural views. He visited Eng- 
 land in 1746, and remained here for two years. Views of 
 Whitehall and of the Thames, executed during this visit, 
 have from time to time been seen in the "Winter Exhibitions 
 of the Royal Academy ; they show that London must at one 
 time have been one of the most charming and picturesque 
 of capital cities. He died at Venice in 1768. Canaletto 
 possessed an unusual power of faithfully rendering natural 
 appearances, and his pictures have something photographic 
 about them j they are painted with admirable certainty of 
 handling, and are remarkable for clearness of tone and 
 brilliancy of sunlight. He was a master of perspective 
 and architectural drawing, and composed his pictures in 
 
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 O 
 
 Iz; 
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 X 
 
 !5 
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 1 
 
 f» 
 
MODEUN SCHOOL. 207 
 
 a large style and with broad simplicity of effect ; he pro- 
 duced a good deal of inferior work, but occasionally, as in 
 the fine series in the corridor at Windsor Castle (not 
 often seen), rose to great grandeur of style, and displayed 
 poetical feeling. He has by modern critics often been 
 compared to his own disadvantage with Turner, who 
 treated similar subjects. But Turner, who was beyond 
 question the more imaginative artist, cannot compare with 
 him in faithfulness to fact, or the very important technical 
 qualities of clearness and precision of touch {Fig. 77). 
 Antonio's nephew and pupil, Bernaedo Bellotto, is also 
 sometimes called Canaletto. The two artists resemble 
 each other so closely that their works are not easily dis- 
 tinguished. Bellotto was born in 1720, and died in 1780. 
 Another pupil of Canaletto, Feancesco Guaedi (born i712, 
 died 1793), painted with force and skill, but too hastily and 
 carelessly. 
 
 Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (born 1693, died 1770), was 
 the most eminent of the remaining painters of this century ; 
 he painted large works in fresco in Venice, in Milan, and 
 in Madrid ; he was a mannerist, but of a brilliant kind, 
 founded on the style of Paolo Veronese. The figures in 
 Canaletto's pictures were frequently executed by him. 
 
 It is unnecessary in a work of the present scope to deal 
 with the school of painting which exists in Italy at the 
 present day. It would be paying it too high a compliment 
 to regard it as the legitimate successor of the art of those 
 great epochs whose course we have tried to sketch. The 
 modern Italian school is little more than an echo of the 
 modern French. And seeing that there is no principle 
 clearer or more certain than this, that a great national 
 school of art can flourish only when it springs from a sane 
 
208 
 
 ITALIAN PAINTING. 
 
 and vigorous national existence, it is not to be wondered at 
 if a country so convulsed by the political passions and so 
 vulgarised by the social triviality and meanness of modern 
 times, should be in this respect cast down further than her 
 moie fortunate neighbours by the same causes which have 
 soiled even the best art of the nineteenth century with 
 something of dilettantism and aliectation. 
 
TRIBUNA BELLA GALLERIA DEGLI UFFIZI, 
 FLORENCE. 
 
 The pictures and sculptures in the Tribune of the 
 CTffizi Gallery are among the most celebrated masterpieces 
 in all Florence. In the centre of this magnificent room are 
 placed five marble statues : beginning on our left in the 
 engraving, there are — • 
 
 The Young Apollo, of the School of Praxiteles. 
 
 Satte plating on the Cymbal. — The head, arms, and feet were 
 restored by Michelangelo. 
 
 The "Wkestlees. — The heads and parts of the limbs are modern. 
 
 Venus de' Medici. — Found in the sixteenth century, in the Villa 
 of Hadrian, near Tivoli. The base (a reproduction of the original 
 base) is inscribed, in Greek, with the name of Eleomenes, son 
 of Apollodorus of Athens. 
 
 The Gbindeb. — Found at Eome in the sixteenth century. 
 
 The paintings shown in the engraving, beginning at the 
 left on the lower line, are — 
 
 A portrait called La Fomarina. By Sebastiano del Piombo. 
 (Formerly attributed to Raphael.) 
 
 The Madonna del Oardellino. By Raphael. 
 
 St. John the Baptist in the Desert. By Raphael. 
 
 Pope Julius If. By Raphael. A rtplica of the original in the 
 Ktti Palace. 
 
 3 
 
Fig. 76.— Thb Tribune of the G 
 
4LLEBT OF THE UFFIZI, FlOBBNCE. 
 
TRIBUNE OF THE UFFIZI. 
 
 {Doorway.) 
 Portrait of a Zady, By Bafhael. 
 A Sibyl, By Guebcino. 
 
 JUaaaacre of the Innocents. By Daniele da Volterea. 
 Portrait of BeceadelU, Papal Nuncio at Venice. By Titian. 
 AUwrpieee, A Triptych. By Manteona. 
 
 And on the upper line of paintings are the following 
 masterpieces — 
 
 Saint JeroDM, By Spaonoletto. 
 
 MaAomiM with St. John and St. Sebastian. By Fbancia, 
 
 Portrait cf Jean de Movtfort. By Van Dtck. 
 
 Pan and Bacchante. By Annibale Cabeacoi. 
 
 Adoration of the Infant SavUywr by the young St. John. By Paolo 
 Vebonese. 
 
 Fenus (with the little dog). By Titian. (The most celebrated of 
 his mythological paintings.) 
 
 4ltarpiece, Madonna with St, John and St. Francis, By Andbea 
 DEL Sabto. 
 
INDEX OF NAMES. 
 
 (In the arrangement of the names no notice has been taken of prefixes.) 
 
 Action 
 
 Agatharcus . . 
 Albani, Francesco . . 
 Albertinelli .... 
 Alexandres, of Athens 
 Allegri, Antonio 
 Allori, Angiolo 
 Altichiero da Zevio 
 Alonno, Nicoolo . . 
 Amato, Antonio d' . 
 
 Amerigi 
 
 Andrea da Firenze 
 Andrea d'Agnolo (del Sarto) 
 Angelii'o, Fra . . . 
 Antipbilus . . . 
 Antonello da Messina 
 Antonio da Murano 
 
 Apelles 
 
 Apollodorus, of Athens 
 Ardices, of Corinth . 
 Aretino, SpineUo . . 
 Aristtides . '.'»«..,.». 
 Asclepiodorns . . 
 Athenion, of Maroneia 
 Avanzo, Jacopo d' 
 
 Baldovinetti 
 Barbarelli (Giorgione) 
 Barbieri (Guercino) . 
 
 Barocci 
 
 Bartoli, Taddeo . . 
 
 PAGE 
 42 
 
 20 
 
 . 196 
 
 . 142 
 
 42 
 
 . 166 
 
 155 
 
 . 81 
 
 . 121 
 
 . 129 
 
 . 202 
 
 73 
 
 . 152 
 
 . 83 
 
 . 36 
 
 . Ill 
 
 . Ill 
 
 . 28 
 
 . 20 
 
 . 16 
 
 . 73 
 
 . 28 
 
 35 
 
 35 
 
 . 81 
 
 . 104 
 . 172 
 . 200 
 . 171 
 . 128 
 
 PACJB 
 
 Bartolommeo, Fra . ... 140 
 Bartolommeo, of Florence ... 59 
 
 Basaiti, Marco . 116 
 
 Bassano, Jacopo 183 
 
 Bastiaui, Lazzaro 118 
 
 Bazzi, Giovanni ..... 140 
 Beccafumi, Domenico .... 166 
 
 Bellini, Gentile 115 
 
 Bellini, Giovanni 113 
 
 Bellotto, Bernardo ..... 207 
 
 BeltraflSo 140 
 
 Berlingieri, Buenaventura . . 58 
 Biagio (Pinturicchio) .... 124 
 
 Bigi, Francesco 154 
 
 Bigordi (Ghirlandaio) .... 99 
 
 Bissolo 118 
 
 Bondone (Giotto) 63 
 
 Bonifazio, Veueziano .... 178 
 
 • Bonviciuo (Moretto) 181 
 
 Bordone, Paris 181 
 
 Botticelli, Sandro 92 
 
 Bronzino 155 
 
 Buenaccorsi 164 
 
 Buonarroti, Michelagnielo . , 145 
 Buenaventura Berlingieri ... 58 
 Buonoensiglio, Giovanni . . . 119 
 
 Buoui, Silvestre de' 129 
 
 Buoninaegria, Duccio di ... 61 
 
 Cagliari, Paolo 185 
 
 Caldara (Caravaggio) ... . 164 
 
214 
 
 INDEX OP NAMES. 
 
 Canal, Antonio (Canaletto) 
 Caravaggio, Michelangiolo da 
 Caravaggio, Polidoro da 
 Carpaccio, Vittore . 
 Garracci, Agostino 
 Carracci, Annibale . 
 Carracci, Lodovico . 
 Carucci (Fontormo) . 
 Casentino, Jacopo di 
 Castagno, Andrea del 
 
 Catena 
 
 Cavallini .... 
 Cennini, Geunino . 
 Charmadas . . . 
 Cima da Conegliano 
 Cimabue .... 
 Cimon, of CIeona« 
 Oione (Orcagna) . 
 Claude de Lorraine 
 Cleautbes, of Corinth 
 Cleophantes, of Corintli 
 Conegliano, Cima da 
 Correggio . . 
 Cosimo, Piero di 
 Cosmati . . . 
 Costa, Lorenzo . 
 Credi, Lorenzo di 
 Crivelli, Carlo . 
 
 Delli, Dello . . 
 Diamante, Fra . 
 Dinias . . . 
 Dionysius . . 
 Dolci, Carlo . . 
 Domeuichino . 
 Ddmenico, Veneziano 
 Dono-(Uocelli) . 
 Dossi, Dosso . . . 
 Daccio di Buoninsegua 
 
 Echion 
 
 Eumarus, of Athens . 
 Euphranor, of Corinth 
 Enpompus, of Sicyon 
 
 Fabius Pictor . . . 
 Fabriano, Gentile da 
 
 FAOB 
 
 . 205 
 . 202 
 . 164 
 . 115 
 . 193 
 . 193 
 . 193 
 . 154 
 73 
 . 89 
 . 118 
 . 79 
 73 
 . 16 
 . 116 
 . 59 
 . 16 
 . 71 
 . 204 
 . 16 
 . 16 
 
 116 
 . 166 
 
 102 
 . 79 
 . 120 
 . 102 
 
 112 
 
 . 104 
 . 104 
 . 16 
 . 19 
 . 200 
 
 88 
 
 165 
 
 61 
 
 35 
 
 16 
 
 . 34 
 
 27 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Farinati 189 
 
 Ferrari, Gaudenzio .... 140 
 Fiore, Jacobello del . . .111 
 Firenze, Andrea da . . 73 
 
 Fogolino, Marcello 119 
 
 Forli, Melozzo da . . 156 
 
 Franceschi, Piero dei (della Fran- 
 
 cesca) 89 
 
 Francia . 
 
 Fungai 
 
 Gaddi, Agnolo .... 
 
 Gaddi, Gaddo 
 
 Gaddi, Giovanni . . . 
 
 Gaddi, Taddeo 
 
 Garbo, EafFaellino del 
 
 Garofalo 
 
 GelMe (Claude) . . 
 Genlile da Fabriano . 
 Gbirlandaio . . . 
 Giambono .... 
 Giannuzzi (Ginlio Bomano) 
 
 Giorgione 
 
 Giottino 
 
 Giotto ,,,;... 
 Giovanni da Mikno . 
 Giovanni da Murano. .. . 
 Giovanni di Pietro (Spagna) 
 Girolamo dai Libri . .. 
 , Giunta, of Pisa .... 
 Gozzoli, Benozzo .... 
 Granacci, Francesco . 
 Grande, Ercole . . 
 Guardi, Francesco 
 Guariento, of Padua . 
 
 Guercino 
 
 Guidi (Masaccio) . 
 Guido di Pietro . 
 Guido, of Siena 
 Guido Eeni .... 
 
 Hygiemon .... 
 
 Ingegno, L' 
 
 39 Jacobus .... 
 80 Jacopo di Casentino . 
 
 126 
 
 128 
 
 73 
 
 59 
 
 73 
 
 69 
 
 104 
 
 165 
 
 204 
 
 , 80 
 
 99 
 
 , 111 
 
 . 163 
 
 . 172 
 
 , 69 
 
 , 63 
 
 . 70 
 
 . Ill 
 
 . 124 
 
 . 119 
 
 . 58 
 
 86 
 
 . 152 
 
 . 120 
 
 . 207 
 
 . 81 
 
 . 200 
 
 90 
 
 . 83 
 
 . 58 
 
 . 195 
 
 16 
 
 126 
 
 58 
 73 
 
INDEX OF NAMES. 
 
 215 
 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Lanfranco, Giovanni . , 
 
 . . 198 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci . . 
 
 100, 131 
 
 Liberale 
 
 . . 119 
 
 Liberatore (Alunno) . . 
 
 121 
 
 Libri, Girolamo dai . . . 
 
 119 
 
 Licinio, Giovanni . . . 
 
 . 178 
 
 Iiippi, Filippo . 
 
 . . 91 
 
 lippi, Filippino . . 
 
 . 102 
 
 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio . 
 
 . 56, 75 
 
 Lorenzo Veneziano . 
 
 . 81 
 
 Lorraine, Claude Gellfe de 
 
 . . 204 
 
 Luciani .... 
 
 . . 179 
 
 Luini, Bernardino . . . 
 
 . 138 
 
 Mainardi, Sebastiaao 
 
 . 104 
 
 Mansueti, Giovanni . . 
 
 118 
 
 Mantegna, Andrea 
 
 . 105 
 
 Margaritone, of Arezzo 
 
 . . 58 
 
 Marziale, Marco 
 
 . . 118 
 
 Masaccio ... . . 
 
 . . 90 
 
 Masolino ... . . 
 
 . . 90 
 
 Matteo da Siena . . 
 
 . 128 
 
 Maturino . 
 
 . 164 
 
 Mazzuoli ... 
 
 . 170 
 
 Memmi, Lippo . . 
 
 . 75 
 
 Memmi, Simone . . 
 
 73 
 
 Messina, Antonello da 
 
 111 
 
 Michelangelo . 
 
 . 145 
 
 Micon, of Athens . 
 
 . 19 
 
 Milano, Giovanni da . . 
 
 . . 70 
 
 Montagna, Bartolommeo 
 
 . . .118 
 
 Morando . . 
 
 . 119 
 
 Moretto.n 
 
 . . . 181 
 
 Moioni, Giambattista . 
 
 . . .181 
 
 Murano, Antonio da . . 
 
 . . .111 
 
 Muraino, Giovanni da . 
 
 . Ill 
 
 Nanni, Giovanni (da Udin 
 
 e) . 163 
 
 Nicias, of Athens . 
 
 . 34 
 
 Nicomachns, of Thebes 
 
 . . 28 
 
 Oderigi, of Gubbio 77 
 
 Oggione, Marco d' 140 
 
 Onatas, of Aegina 20 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Orcagna 71 
 
 Ottolano 166 
 
 Fadovanino 205 
 
 Palma, Jacopo " Vecchio " . . 178 
 Palraa, Jacopo " Giovine " . . 189 
 Falmezzano, Marco . . 156 
 
 Pamphilus, of Amphipolis . . 27 
 Fanaenus, of Athens . . .20 
 
 Paolo, Maestro 81 
 
 Paolo, Veronese 185 
 
 Parmigiano . .... . 170 
 
 Farrhasius . 24 
 
 Pausias, of Sicyou .... 34 
 
 Fenni 164 
 
 Ferugino 121 
 
 Peruzzi, Baldassare 164 
 
 Pesellino 94 
 
 Fesello 94 
 
 Philochares 35 
 
 Philocles 16 
 
 Fiero di Cosimo 102 
 
 Fietro, Guido di 83 
 
 Pietro, Sano di 128 
 
 Finturicchio 124 
 
 Piombo, Sebastiano del . . . . 179 
 
 Pisanello, Vittore 119 
 
 Pizzolo, Niccolo 106 
 
 Pleistaenetus 20 
 
 FoUaiuolo, Antonio 96 
 
 Polygnotus 16 
 
 Ponte (Bassano) . . . .183 
 
 Pontormo, Jacopo da . . . 154 
 
 Pordenone 178 
 
 Porta, Baccio della 140 
 
 Porta, Giuseppe (Salviati). . . 189 
 
 Previtali 118 
 
 Protogenes 32 
 
 Pyreicus 36 
 
 Raibolini (Franoia) 126 
 
 Raphael 156 
 
 Eeni, Guido 195 
 
 Eibera, Josfi de 202 
 
 Eobusti, Jacopo 183 
 
 Kpmano, Giulio 163 
 
216 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES. 
 
 PA OK 
 
 a, Salvator 204 
 
 Eosselli, Oosimo 97 
 
 Salaino, Andrea 140 
 
 Salimliene Aroangiolo . . 171 
 
 Salvi, Giovanni Battista . . . 200 
 
 Salviati 189 
 
 Sano di Pietro 128 
 
 San Severino, Jacopo di . . . 121 
 
 San Severino, Lorenzo di . . . 121 
 
 Santi, Giovanni 156 
 
 Sanzio, Baifaello .... 156 
 
 Sarto, Andrea del 152 
 
 Sassoferrato . 200 
 
 Semitecolo, Niocolo 81 
 
 Sesto, Cesare da 140 
 
 Siena, Matteo da 128 
 
 Signorelli, Luca .... 97 
 
 Sodoma (Bazzi) 140 
 
 Solari, Andrea 140 
 
 Solario (Lo Zingaro) . . . 129 
 
 Spagna, Lo 124 
 
 Spagnoletto 202 
 
 Spinello, Aretino 73 
 
 Squarcione 104 
 
 Btefano Fiorentino 69 
 
 Tafi, Andrea 59 
 
 Telephanes, of Sicyou ... 16 
 Theon, of Samoa ... , 85 
 Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista . . 207 
 Timagoras, of Chalcis .... 20 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Timanthes 25 
 
 Timomarlius 40 
 
 Tintoretto 183 
 
 Tisio (Garofalo) 165 
 
 Titian 174 
 
 Tura, Oosimo 120 
 
 TJcoelli 88 
 
 Udine, Giovanni da 163 
 
 Vaga, Pierino del 164 
 
 Vanni, Francesco 171 
 
 Vannueci (Perugino) .... 121 
 
 Varotari 205 
 
 Vasari, Giorgio . . ... 155 
 
 Teoellio, Tiziano 174 
 
 Teneziano, Bouifazio . . . 178 
 
 Veneziano, Domenico . 89 
 
 Yeneziano, Lorenzo ... .81 
 
 Tenusti, Marcello 152 
 
 Veronese, Paolo 185 
 
 Verrocchio, Andrea 96 
 
 Vinci, Leonardo da . . . 100, 131 
 
 Vittore, Pisanello 119 
 
 Vivarini Ill, 112 
 
 Volterra, Daniele da .... 152 
 
 Zampieri, Domenico 198 
 
 Zelotti 189 
 
 Zeuxis . . . .... 21 
 
 Zingaro, Lo . 129 
 
 Zoppo, Marco 105 
 
 THE END. 
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.