Fallen as was every liberal pursuit during those ages, since emphatically called dark, painting was yet never unpractised in Europe. In the ecclesiastical records of that period, evidence is found that, in Italy, churches were in every century decorated with paintings and mosaics by native or Greek artists. A kind of competition, indeed, appears to have been carried on between the successive pontiffs, imitated by their inferior suffragans, who should thus load some favorite cathedral with the greatest quantity of barbarous finery. These gentlemen, as even the Abbate Tiraboschi has ventured to disclose, being rarely ornamental to the church in their own proper persons, endeavored to make up the deficiency in the best way possible by proxy. From monuments still remaining in Germany, it is evident, that neither was some degree of skill wanting in that quarter. In France, as in our country, similar research would probably be rewarded with the same discovery. Though darkened, the human spirit was still at work; and when at length its energies were restored to comparative activity by the slow operation of causes, imperceptible in themselves, mighty in their results, the arts, as already seen, shone forth among the morning stars in the dawn of freedom. This light first arose upon Italy; and, from the circumstances of her situation, Florence soonest established a school of painting. Cimabue, her citizen, early in the thirteenth century, caught the inspiration from certain Greek painters, employed by order of the magistracy. Equalling his masters, he was himself surpassed by Giotto, once a shepherd boy; in turn excelled by Memmi, Orgagna, Ucello, Massolino, to the middle of the fifteenth century, when all former names were forgotten in the merits of Massaccio. Dying at the age of twentyfour, he gave to painting truth, expression, light, and shade; thus creating the first era in its history. The chapel which still contains his frescoes, the early school of Da Vinci and Buonarotti—the scene, too, of the latter's misfortune, will long be visited with interest by the pilgrims of art. About the same time, the invention of oil painting, ascribed to Van Eyck of Bruges; and, not long after, the illusion of aerial perspective added by Ghirlandajo, gave to modern art all the means of perfection. These did not remain unimproved in the hands of such men as Verrocchio, first excelling in perspective, Lippi, Signorelli, in whose works evidence of selection is apparent, and many others, who, in different cities in Italy, were now laying the foundation of schools, soon to become as distinct in manner as the masters of one and the same art can well be conceived.

But though much had been accomplished before the close of the fifteenth century, as respects the higher qualities of imitative art, painting was still in infancy. Leonardo da Vinci, born in 1452, reared it to high maturity. The genius of this extraordinary man seemed as a mirror, receiving and reflecting, in added brightness, every ray of intellectual light which had yet beamed upon the age. Philosopher, poet, artist, he anticipated the march of three centuries; proving, in his own instance, what the unshackled energies of man would then accomplish. Yet—and that, too, by a living historian of most deserved reputation—has Leonardo been represented as a dabbler in various knowledge, a proficient in none—a laborious idler, wasting time and talent in useless multiplicity of pursuit. This apparently has been done to exalt his great contemporary and successor; but history ought not to be written as a picture is painted, touching in under-tones what are deemed secondaries, that the light may be more conspicuously directed to a principal figure. At the shrine of art, the devotion of Da Vinci was neither devoid of fervor nor unfruitful; albeit he courted, and not unsuccessfully, the favors of science, then new and dear to the aspiring mind. His true rank is not only among the fathers, but the masters of the art; he is one who not merely preceded, but excelled. His cartoon of horsemen in the battle of Pisa formed a favorite study of the greatest masters; and, in competition, Michael Angelo produced another of soldiers arming in haste, after bathing; which even his admirers say he scarcely ever afterwards equalled. Yet was Leonardo not vanquished. The Last Supper, painted in fresco, at Milan, exhibited a dignity and propriety of expression, a correctness of drawing, then unequalled; and, if seen as originally finished, probably still unsurpassed. The story of the head of the principal personage having been left incomplete is a vulgar error, as might be easily proved by reference to the early literature of Italian art. The well-known portrait of Mona Lisa, in purity of drawing, sweetness of simple and natural expression, has an equal only in the works of Raphael. But the influence of this master extended much more widely than the sphere of individual examples: he first united the science of anatomy with that of painting, and both with nature; and thus may truly be said to have prepared the art for the coming greatness.

To the majesty of Michael Angelo's genius the reader has already done homage. If in sculpture the grandeur of his conceptions was admired, in painting this greatness is still more wonderful, but unfortunately, not less singular and remote from nature. Yet, than the painting of Buonarotti there is perhaps no instance of intellectual power more truly grand in the entire history of mind. Previous to leaving his native Florence, where he was born, of a noble family, in 1474; and whence he fled, when his country became false to herself and to freedom, architecture and sculpture had formed his principal studies. Design he had pursued little farther than as indispensably connected with these: of painting, as a separate science, he was of course comparatively ignorant. In this state of knowledge, he received orders to complete the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, upon which several of the artists, already mentioned, had before been engaged. Yet, at this time, Michael Angelo was unacquainted with the mechanical processes of fresco. To produce the designs was to him a labour of ease; and these he endeavored to have executed by artists brought from Florence; but on trial, dismissed them in all save utter hopelessness. Rising in the strength and perseverance of indomitable genius, he resolved to begin art anew, and to depend henceforth solely on his own resources. Shutting himself up in the fated chapel, preparing the materials with his own hands, after many trials and failures,—after beholding the first piece finished to his satisfaction, moulder and mildew almost before his admiring eye—he at length triumphed, achieving in the course of years the most adventurous undertaking in modern art, under circumstances, too, that while they encourage all, leave to none who aspires to the moral dignity of talent even the shadow of an apology for irresolution or indolence.

The walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, with the picture of the Last Judgment, executed thirty years afterwards, form the principal, almost the sole, works of Michael Angelo in painting. The latter is the greatest work of modern art, being fifty feet high by forty wide, and containing upwards of 300 figures, many of which are larger than life. Here the human form appears under every variety of position, and agitated by every gradation of feeling; and over the whole is diffused a living ease—a science—a magic power—a fascination, which constrains us to gaze with wonder, astonishment, admiration, but not with interest or sympathy. Similar are our feelings in every other example; nor can this be exactly charged as a defect. Michael Angelo formed a system for himself—he stands alone in his art—an ideal abstraction of mind was the object of his imitation, to which all of living nature, elevated into gigantic forms and energetic modes, was to be moulded in subserviency. His art was creative, not imitative—standing forth, in its own independence of aim.

Hence, there are two relations in which the works in painting of Michael Angelo are to be examined, and according to which his merits will be very differently estimated. Viewed in themselves, the frescos of the Vatican present astonishing evidences of human power. Every thought is grandeur and strength; and the rapid, fervent execution arms the pencil with an omnipotence of art equal to all the modifications of form. Here the whole is perfect, inimitable; within this his own walk, Buonarotti has no compeer,—'second to none, with nothing like to him.' But when the same works are considered in reference to the general principles of imitation, and as deriving value according as they reflect the archetypes of elevated nature, those very qualities which formerly constrained our approbation, become startling blemishes. The ideal is found to consist solely in the imaginative; sublimity is sought too exclusively in the vehement to be always dignified. All is action,—all participates of an unquiet and too aspiring character of composition: every form, every muscle, every attitude, exhibits the very gladiatorship of art,—for each is displayed, exerted, involved, to the utmost. Even repose is anything save rest. Yet, in difficulty apparently insurmountable, constraint is not perceived; the execution, wonderfully facile, though too prominent in general effect, gives to each giant limb of the awful and gloomy shapes, the very effect of life and movement. But to this display of capabilities—to the exhibition of science, and the sporting with difficulty, truth, simplicity, feeling, and real beauty, have been sacrificed. In this nothing seems peculiar to painting as distinguished from sculpture; nor, indeed, is there any discrimination: color, tone, light, shadow—all is systematic and ideal, but all mighty and overpowering in the whole. Again, when the influence of such a style upon the progress of improvement is considered, it appears that such influence could be favorable neither to future improvement nor to stationary excellence. The greatness of Michael Angelo, then, is his own—not the grandeur of art. Both sculpture and painting he made subservient to the loftiest aims, and the most splendid fame any artist ever did, perhaps can, pursue or attain: yet each was but a slave, ministering to a glory in which neither intrinsically participated.

Contemporary with the 'mighty Florentine,' but most unlike in all the characteristics of genius, save the sublimity of the final result, was Raphael, the founder and master of the Roman school. Born at Urbino, 1483, he arrived in Rome upon the invitation of his relation, Bramante, the architect, about 1508, nearly at the same time with his great rival. Dying on his thirtyseventh birthday, he has, in a short life, bequeathed to posterity works almost equally numerous, and certainly displaying more of the profound excellences and beautiful sentiment of art, than those of any name since the revival of painting. Of these inestimable productions there remain to us easel pictures in oil, cartoons, and frescos, exhibiting, also, three different manners. The first dry, little, and tedious, but not without truth—often great beauty of finishing. This was derived from his instructer, Pietro Perugino; and though observable as a general characteristic only in his early easel pictures, and some frescos at Sienna, may yet occasionally be detected in the careful pencilling even of his frescos, and in the making out of his accompaniments. The pictures which display this style are those painted after he left his master in 1493, and before his return to Urbino about 1504. The finest of these was executed in his seventeenth year, representing a Holy Family,—the Virgin raising a veil from the Infant, who sleeps. Except in the works of Da Vinci, so much sweetness of expression and beauty of design had not yet appeared in the art, as is found even in this youthful production. The second manner is an intermediate step—an attempt to escape from a minuteness which he soon discovered to be unsuitable both to his own fervor and the dignity of art. The change is perceptible immediately after he had studied the works of the Florentine masters, whose improvements, and the vigor of their enlarged style, he would at sight appreciate as movements evidently in advance, but with which he had hitherto remained unacquainted. As a separate manner, it can scarcely be said to exist; for at most it was but a new instrument in the possession of a mind which has made everything its own. All that is apparent amounts merely to a progressive melioration, extending through three or four years, of which space he resided nearly two in Florence, studying the performances of art in that city, but receiving no personal instructions, excepting a reciprocal interchange of knowledge with Fra Bartolomeo. The most celebrated pictures produced by him during this interval are the Virgin, Infant, and St John, in the ducal gallery, and the entombing of Christ, now at Rome. These, more strikingly when viewed in comparison with the style of contemporary works, exhibit beauties of so opposite a character to the compositions of Michael Angelo, that it is impossible to perceive any grounds on which the obligations said to be owing by their author to the latter can be rested. Buonarotti, in fact, could not, or at least never did, paint in a taste of such simplicity as these exhibit. The third manner is solely and exclusively individual, neither derived nor—we grieve to say—inherited; full, harmonious, sweet, and flowing—yet bold, learned, and sustained,—composed of such an union of natural grace and antique correctness, as meet only in the creations of Raphael's pencil. To this style his most important works belong, having been formed after his arrival in Rome, and when he had there become deeply impressed with the sublimities of ancient art. In the space of only twelve years—for he united exquisite finish with wonderful expedition—he completed the frescos of the Vatican and the Farnesina, besides others, amounting to many hundred figures—designed the Cartoons—cultivating, at the same time, architecture (of which he was a master), poetry, and sculpture. During the same laborious period were produced those exquisite paintings in oil, which have chiefly contributed to spread his fame beyond Italy. Of these the best, the most wonderful, though in slight respects not the most perfect, is the Transfiguration—the last bequeathment of his genius to the arts and to posterity, for he died within a few days after it was completed.

As Raphael in these works, no painter has ever done so much for the real excellence of the art, nor, in the principles upon which they are conducted, has placed improvement on precepts so pure, so unerring. All that imagination could lend to a strictly imitative art he has added, yet has infused into its creations the warmest sensibilities of life; to nature he has given all that grace and fancy can bestow, consistent with the sweetest of all charms—leaving her nature still. On this account is Raphael, of all great names in art, the safest to adopt as the guide of taste and practice. For were the most decided admirer of system merely to copy, he would quickly find himself constrained to become the disciple of reality. True, we discover no mixed modes of nature, such as impede her energies and cloud her beauties in ordinary life; yet the tranquil loveliness—the sinless beauty—the noble feeling of the representation—has nothing of the cold and merely imaginative. This, indeed, constitutes the great charm of Raphael's grace, that neither in form nor expression is it abstract; its power of moving is acquired directly from human sympathy. In gazing upon his dramatic scenes and breathing figures, who has not experienced this truth in a gradual melting of the heart, in unison with every pure and holy remembrance that connects man with the species? See the Madona—how mildly, simply beautiful! In that bosom not one rude passion has a resting place; yet feels not each spectator now called-up dear though distant recollections of a parent's—a mother's tenderness, with all the reverential charities of life's spring? Behold the Magdalen—how changed the sensibilities! still how respectable! One overmastering, absorbing affection. No meretricious display—every movement is that of passion, but of sentiment too. Or view that youth so intent upon instruction; he hangs upon the very words of his aged guide. How powerfully do we conceive the mature resolves that irradiate the ingenuous countenance! Or turn your attention to the child who is playing in the lap of the mother—how innocently happy! how unconsciously beautiful! Yet look again;—even here is passion, sentiment, futurity. The imagination involuntarily shapes out the fortunes of that disposition so legibly expressed in the speaking countenance. But in the deep meaning of the mild full eye, in the holy expression which beams in every lineament, in the spotless form, has not genius made the nearest approaches to our unbreathed conceptions of an infant Saviour! Regard that prophet—how glorious, yet how good, he seems! No spirit insensible to human woe, unpitying of human frailty, lives there. The errors and backslidings of his race have given a fixed though placid sorrow to the eye, but the closing sunshine of his own pure life hath settled on the majestic brow.

Such are all the works of Raphael, full to overflowing of human sentiment and of interest. In their very highest ideal, they are but the primeval dignity and sacredness of our nature. How then can these facts be reconciled with the opinion so boldly and so long asserted, that they do not strike at first sight—that the heart as well as the judgment must be gradually prepared to relish their beauties? We shall not attempt to reconcile—we deny the conclusion. Where these works have not been from the first felt, and admired, and loved in their truth and in their simplicity, they have been viewed through the mists of false theory, or compared with erroneous standards of excellence. We discard all consideration of the theories of the French professional critics on this subject; but it has often been matter of great surprise to find Sir Joshua Reynolds maintaining the same system. 'I remember very well,' says the English artist, 'my own disappointment when I first visited the Vatican; but on confessing my feelings to a brother student, of whose ingenuousness I had a high opinion, he acknowledged that the works of Raphael had the same effect upon him—or rather, that they did not produce the effect which he expected. This was a great relief to my mind; and on inquiring further of other students, I found that those persons only, who, from natural imbecility, appeared incapable of ever relishing those divine performances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first beholding them. I found myself in the midst of works executed upon principles with which I was unacquainted; I felt my ignorance, and stood abashed. I viewed them again and again; I even affected to admire them more than I really did. In a short time a new taste and a new perception began to dawn upon me, and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false opinion of the perfection of the art, and that this great painter was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the estimation of the world. But let it always be remembered that the excellence of his style is not on the surface, but lies deep, and at first view is seen but mistily. It is the florid style which strikes at once, and captivates the eye for a time, without ever satisfying the judgment.' We admire this candor, and can at once admit the justness of these remarks in general, when applied to the works of Michael Angelo, on whose principles it is well known that Sir Joshua formed his theory of ideal beauty. But in reference to Raphael, conclusions the very opposite would be nearer the truth. Drawn immediately from nature, as are all his ideas, they interest the heart at once; and as we study the exquisite mechanism, the perfection of the details, the propriety of the composition, the judgment confirms yet more the impressions which the heart first entertained.

These observations lead to, while they are confirmed by, another view, which yet remains to be taken of the genius of Raphael. It is only in the individuality and profoundness of expression, that he reaches the sublimities of art. In the abstract conception of form he is inferior; hence, in the representations of mythological existences, he becomes feeble in proportion as he generalizes. It is this that discriminates between the Roman and the Florentine. The former is the painter of men as they live, and feel, and act; the latter delineates man in the abstract. The one embodies sentiment—feeling—passion; the other pourtrays the capacities, energies, and idealities of form. Raphael excels in resemblance; he walks the earth, but with dignity, and is seen to most advantage in relations of human fellowship. Michael Angelo can be viewed only in his own world; with ours he holds no farther communion than is necessary to obtain a common medium of intelligence. In the grand, the venerable, the touching realities of life, the first is unrivalled; his fair, and seeming true, creations cause us to reverence humanity and ourselves. Over the awful and the sublime of fiction, the second extends a terrible sway; he calls spirits from their shadowy realms, and they come at his bidding, in giant shapes, to frown upon the impotency of man.

To contend here for superiority is futile—each has his own independent sphere. The style of Raphael has justly been characterised as the dramatic, that of Michael Angelo as the epic, of painting. The distinction is accurate, in as far as the former has made to pass before us character in conflict with passion—in all its individualities of mode; while the latter represented and generalized both character and passion. The first leads us from natural beauty to divine—the second elevates us at once into regions which his own lofty imaginations have peopled. Hence, than Michael Angelo's prophets, and other beings that just hover on the confines of human and spiritual existence, the whole range of art and poetry never has, and never will, produce more magnificent and adventurous creations. This is his true power—here he reigns alone, investing art with a mightiness unapproachable by any other pencil. But when the interest is to be derived from known forms, and natural combinations, he fails almost utterly; never can his line want grandeur—but grandeur so frequently substituted for feeling, and when the subject cannot sustain it, presents only gorgeous caricature. Human affection mingles in every touch of Raphael, and he carries our nature to its highest moral, if not physical, elevation. Hence, his supernatural forms may want abstract majesty and overawing expression; but they display a community in this world's feelings, without its weaknesses or imperfections, by which the heart is perhaps even more subdued.

If this be a true estimate of the powers of these great men, and we have drawn our inferences from impressions often felt, and long studied, no comparison can be more unjust, nor less apt, than the one so frequently repeated, that Michael Angelo is the Homer, Raphael the Virgil, of modern painting. The Florentine may justly take his place by the side of the Greek. Not so the Roman and the Mantuan. The copyist of Homer, nay, frequently his translator, whose nature is taken at second-hand—whose characters, in the mass, have about as much individuality as the soldiers of a platoon, and little more intellectual discrimination than brave, braver, and bravest, must occupy a lower seat at the banquet of genius than the original, the ever varied, and graphic artist. The great error in estimating the merits of these masters appears to have arisen from not considering them separately, and as independent minds. Michael Angelo, indeed, created, while Raphael may be said to have composed; but he discovered and collected—he did not derive his materials. Michael Angelo found the art poor in means, undignified and powerless in composition; he assumed it in feebleness, and bore it at once to maturity of strength. Of these improvements Raphael profited by novel application; but the advantage was nothing more than necessarily occurs in the spread of intelligence. Massaccio had, in like manner, prepared the previous change; Da Vinci first, then Buonarotti, took it up. The pupil of Perugino made availment of this new path to a commanding height, whence the whole prospect of the empire of art might be surveyed, but over this his genius soared in guideless, independent flight. Than the invention, and at such a time, of Michael Angelo's mighty system, there is to be found no greater evidence of talent, nor of greater talent; but from the mind that could conceive that system, scarcely an exertion was demanded to maintain supremacy therein, guarded as were its claims against all rivalry by the very novelty and peculiarity of the style, where each adopter would be degraded into an imitator. On the other hand, if the perfection of Raphael's manner appear to be more in the ordinary course of genius, it is to be remembered, that its very perfectness depends upon those qualities of mind which most rarely assemble in the constitution of inventive genius—exquisite taste, sound judgment, patient study, and profound knowledge of the human heart. Be it also recollected, that to support the mastery here, in a style founded on no peculiar habitudes of intellect, but embracing the general and intrinsic principles of art, where all good artists would consequently be rivals, without incurring the imputation of copying, required unabating effort, diligence, and originality,—more liberal and varied excellence, than in the preceding system. Here we at length discover the real and abiding superiority of Raphael. It is not that he pre-eminently surpasses in one of the faculties of genius, but he has embodied in his labours more of the requisites of perfection than any other of the modern masters. In grandeur of invention and form, he is inferior to Michael Angelo. Titian surpasses him in coloring, Corregio in gradation of tone. This superiority, however, becomes visible only where each of the qualities becomes the ruling sentiment of the work. For when we view in itself a composition of Raphael, where the style of design so exquisitely accords with the forms, the coloring corresponding with each, the chiar' oscuro just adequate to the degree of perception meditated; the whole harmonized by innate and unerring propriety, animated with his own peculiar grace and sentiment, while each separate quality becomes yet more perfect in the combination,—the pencil seems justly to have attained its unrivalled utmost.

With their respective founders, the schools of Rome and Florence may be said to have terminated; at least the mantle of their teacher rested with very unequal inspiration upon the disciples of both. The death of Raphael, in 1520, proved an irremediable loss to the arts, the extent of which never can indeed be known. His pure and natural style, had it been more firmly engrafted by longer life, would probably have delayed, perhaps prevented, the sudden extravagance and mannerism which overspread the united schools of Tuscany and Rome, at the head of which Michael Angelo survived upwards of forty years.

Among the various pursuits of taste, painting alone exhibits this singular fortune, that the noblest and most intellectual of its principles, as also those which speak most directly to sense, and are merely alluring, were invented at the same time, but in different places, and separately practised. It is worthy of remark, also, that in each respect the first inventors remained the most accomplished professors of their own discoveries. While in Rome and Florence, design and expression were receiving their perfection, forming the almost exclusive subjects of study, in Venice, the seductions of coloring, in Lombardy, the illusions of light and shadow, were adding unknown pomp and magic to the art.

The school of Venice, though one of the earliest in Europe to cherish reviving arts, has added little of intellectual or noble to their progressive culture. Here they have never flourished in the genial soil of popular institutions. A haughty and jealous, yet luxurious and unpatriotic aristocracy, converted the arts into instruments of private gratification—instead of turning them to national ornament. Hence sculpture has been little cultivated, architecture more, though in peculiar style, and painting most of all. But while the sacredness of religion, or the manliness of history, has occupied the Italian pencil generally, of the older masters especially, Venice has sent forth her lordly senators, splendid banquets, and naked beauties. From the twelfth century, we have already seen, a movement might be discerned in the arts of Venice. Her school of painting begins to attract notice under Antonello da Messina, who introduced oil colors. The Bellinis carried out his improvements; and as pupils of the youngest, we discover Giorgione and Titian, who, with Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, Sebastian del Piombo, Schiavone, and Bassano, were the chief masters of this school.

But of Venetian painting the great ornament is Titian, whose name is synonymous with the characteristic of the native school—fine coloring. From this, however, we are not to suppose, as is too frequently done, that he was wanting in the higher principles of his profession. The alleged imperfection of his design will not often be detected, and only in momentary action of the parts; for in the more common modifications of form, it is faultless, and of inanimate nature the drawing and painting of his landscapes is unrivalled. In expression he is the most historical of all painters, his portraits being second only to those of Raphael. In careful imitation of natural effect, he is equal to the most pains-taking of the Dutch school; yet, with such grandeur and breadth in the masses, that, as has been justly remarked, the most imperfect sketch in which the original disposition in this respect is preserved, will present a character of high art. The chief defect of Titian was in composition and poetical fancy; he penetrated the very secrets of nature in all her varied effects and minutest shades of tone and hue—but he neither made selections of her forms, nor possessed the power of correcting her defects, by an ideal standard. In this mastery of coloring, three principles may be remarked; first, the interposing medium between the eye and the object is supposed to be a mellow golden light; secondly, the most glowing and gorgeous lights are produced, not so much by rich local tints as by the general conduct of the whole piece, in which the gradations of tone are almost evanescent, yet in their strongest hues powerfully contrasted. Hence the final splendor is effected rather by painting in under-tones, than by lavishing on particular spots the whole riches of the palette. The shadows and under-tones, also, are enlivened by a thousand local hues and flickering lights, and his masses by innumerable varieties and play of parts; yet all softened, and blended, and combined by an undefinable harmony. Hence, nothing more easy than apparently to copy Titian—nothing more difficult than really to imitate his faithfulness and splendor. The third principle refers to his practice; the colors are laid on pure, without mixing, in tints by reiterated application, and apparently with the point of the pencil.

Titian died in 1576, at the venerable age of 96 or 99, having survived the glory of the Venetian school, the last disciple of decided eminence being Tintoretto, called the lightning of the pencil, from his miraculous despatch. The Bassans are powerful colorists, and wonderfully true to nature. Paul Veronese wantons in all the luxuriance of fresh and magnificent coloring, but is correct neither in taste nor drawing. Giorgione, of all the early Venetian masters, gave greatest promise of uniting purity with splendor, but died in 1511, at the age of 33;—thus leaving Titian, to whom he had in some measure been instructer, to reap an undivided harvest of fame.

In the annals of genius, no name bears more strongly on the popular sense attached to the term of a heaven-born inspiration, superior to circumstances and independent of tuition, than that of Antonio Leti—better known as Corregio. This artist, who was born about 1494, and died at the age of 40, is the model rather than the founder of the Lombard school. From the bosom of poverty, without master, without patron, without even the commonest appliances of his art, he bursts at once upon the view in all the blaze of original talent—unpraised, unknown—in an age of knowledge, to sink unmarked like the meteor of the desert, leaving but the memorials of his graceful pencil—in his own phrase, 'anch' io son pittore'—to cry aloud that he also was a painter,—that such a man, contemporary with Raphael and Michael Angelo, and their nearest compeer, should have lived in ignorance of them, of Rome, of the antique, of all but nature—to die at last unrewarded in Parma—is utterly inexplicable. The principal works of this master are the two noble cupolas of the cathedral churches of Parma, painted in fresco—one subject the Assumption of the Virgin, the other the Ascension of the Saviour. Of his easel paintings, the most precious, representing a Holy Family, and called the 'Night,' is in the Dresden gallery. The beauties of Corregio are grace and exquisite management of light and color, united with inexpressible harmony,—'thus was completed the round of art.' 'Everything I see,' says Annibale Caracci, on beholding fifty years afterwards these works of Corregio,'astonishes me, particularly the coloring and beauty of the children, who live, breathe, and smile, with so much sweetness and vivacity, that we are constrained to sympathize in their enjoyment.' The clearness and relief, the sweetness and freedom of pencil, in the works before us, have indeed never been exceeded, but correctness is not one of their elements. Neither the most beautiful forms, nor the most pleasing groupings, are preferred to the most ungraceful upon any principle of abstract elegance, but the whole composed and selected in obedience to the distribution of light and the gradation of tone. In expression, the same system is pursued; for here Corregio has endeavored habitually to impress the soft hues and undulating lines which rapture and joy leave on the countenance. Beyond these, of ideal, he appears to have had no conception. Every form wears the stamp of living nature, and his coloring is the very reflection of natural bloom. He wanted force, which, with the defect of elevation, renders the whole effect, though delightfully soft and graceful, sometimes effeminate and monotonous. Yet Raphael alone united a greater variety of different excellences.

We have now surveyed the labours and merits of the old masters—the patriarchs of modern art. The establishment of the four primitive schools embraces likewise the golden age of painting. How brief was the reign of lofty genius! The same individual might have lived with all the masters now enumerated,—he might have survived them all,—beholding the art in its infancy, and in its manhood, he might have witnessed also its decline, and yet have viewed all this within the ordinary span of existence. The same brevity in the duration of excellence we also remarked in the arts of Greece. Is it, then, the fate of the human spirit, like human institutions, to fall away immediately on attaining a degree of perfection? or rather, is not this evidence of powers which shall hereafter expand, grow, and unfold their activities,—here on earth chilled, and cramped, and broken?

Among the minor fathers of the art who not unworthily supported the glory of the sixteenth century, and who continue the history of painting in the Roman and Florentine schools through the remainder of that period, the chief were the immediate disciples of Raphael and Michael Angelo. The favorite pupil of the former, Julio Romano, was an artist of highly poetic imagination, but less informed with pure taste than his master; his ambition appears to have aimed at uniting the grace of his instructer with the science and energy of Florence. Penni, Perin del Vaga, Polidore Caravaggio, and Maturino, not unsuccessfully studied in the same school; but we find a gradual disappearance of the more simple style of Raphael, and long before the middle of the century, the two schools may almost be said to have merged in the overwhelming despotism of the principles of Michael Angelo. Even the names now mentioned, though at first following the Roman in their later works, are scarcely to be distinguished from the disciples of the Florentine school. Of those who were truly disciples of the latter, and who derived their science immediately from the founder, was Daniel de Volterra, who survived till 1566. The designs of this latter have frequently been assigned to his master; and in the opinion of Poussin, his Descent from the Cross, in fresco, in the church of Trinita del Monte at Rome, is—or rather was, for it perished under French experiment,—one of the three best pictures in the world. Andrea del Sarto was more an independent master, who held between the two styles, and added better coloring than either. Mazzuoli, better known as Parmegiano, though by birth and early study belonging to the school of Corregio, his better taste was formed at Rome; his style of design is noble, coloring forcible, and general effect sweet and gracious. He died in 1540, ten years after the preceding. But of all the followers of Michael Angelo, Tibaldi approached nearest to the sublimity, without the extravagance, of his model. It soon becomes difficult, indeed impossible, to follow decidedly the division of the ancient schools. In the progress of the century, their principles become united in the works of the minor painters, who are henceforth to be distinguished by the place of their birth, rather than by their style. The design of Michael Angelo prevailed; but to this were added, in proportion to the abilities of the artist, the various discoveries of the other masters. The art however, was in rapid retrogression. A style which suited only the most transcendent genius, which only under such inspiration could be at all pleasing, and from whose sublimity one step led into the turgid and the false, became a most dangerous instrument of ill in the hands of mere imitators. The ingrafting, also, upon its severe simplicity, the more luxurious modes of Venice and Lombardy, tended still more effectually to extinguish character and truth of distinctive representation.

Towards the close of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth century, the progress of decline was stayed for a time by the establishment of a new school. This was the Bolognese or Eclectic, founded by the Caracci, and which, in some measure, was the concentration of all the Lombard artists, who, separately following, in a great measure, the style of Corregio, had yet never united into a seminary of which that master could be called the head. The grand principle of this new academy, and thence deriving the appellation of Eclectic, was to select what was most excellent in the primitive schools; design from the Florentine, and grace from the Roman, from the Venetian color, from the Lombard light and shade, uniting all in due proportion and harmonious effect. The plan was arduous and aspiring, but the idea was good; the failure which ensued, for, abating the success of individual talent, the final result disappointed expectation, arose not from the intention pursued, but from the means employed. The Bolognese masters sought to effect the combination of these elements by rules of art, instead of taking nature as the connecting and vivifying principle. In the study of her effects they would have found the very union they contemplated—the previous separation, in fact, of pictorial excellence into departments, had been occasioned by partial or peculiar views of nature. Still the success of the attempt was great, and threw the last rays of glory over the native seat of modern art.

The founders and great ornaments of this school were the three Caracci; Ludovico the eldest, born in 1555, died in 1619, was the instructer of his two cousins—Agostino, three years younger, and Annibale, born in 1560, both of whom Ludovico survived. The association formed by these relatives was, in the strictest sense of the term, a school of design, and conducted upon an admirable plan; students being instructed in anatomy, in drawing, in painting, and in the principles of composition, by actual superintendence and personal instruction. The unaffected breadth, solemnity, yet grace of effect—the simplicity of character, which distinguish the works of Ludovico, are justly admired. Augustino excelled more in the theory than the practice of his art; but one of the best pictures of this school, the St Jerome of the Certosa, is his. Engravings by him are numerous and valuable. Of all the Caracci, Annibale is the most magnificent in his compositions, and may be taken as the true representative of the school; bold, splendid, broad, his pencil deals its touches with firm, almost unerring certainty, to its aim—but too frequently that aim is style in art, rather than truth in feeling.

Of the immediate pupils of the Bolognese academy, the first undoubtedly is the modest and tender Domenichino. Though participating in the common fault of his school, loaded design, yet his heads have a feeling and expression approaching to the sublime in sentiment. The Communion of St Jerome is pronounced by Poussin to be one of the three best pictures in the world—the Transfiguration of Raphael, and Volterra's Descent from the Cross, completing the number. We shall not easily forget our impressions on beholding the Transfiguration and the Communion side by side in the Vatican. Guido's name instantly calls up all our associations of the graceful and the benign; but his expression is too often artificial: perhaps in his works we first decidedly mark those academic abstractions and refinements of precept, which, formed independently of nature, hastened the downfall of art in this its last resting place. Guercino wants power and individual character; Albani is agreeable and poetic, the painter of the Loves and Graces. Carlo Dolci, a Florentine, imitates Guido. Lanfranco is bold, but incorrect in his design; as are likewise Pietro Cortona, and Luca Giordano, mannerists in whom is lost every distinction of character. Contemporary with the Carracci, but self-taught, and belonging to no school, was Caravaggio, strong but ungraceful in design, harsh in the disposition of his lights, but of undoubted genius:—his pupil was Spagnoletto. The history of painting in Italy, at least of painting animated by genius, may be closed with the name of Salvator Rosa, who died in 1673, the only native landscape painter which that delightful and picturesque country has produced. The old masters, indeed, have left the grandest and most perfect landscape compositions—but these are subservient to the figures. Rosa succeeded in both, and stands nobly, but peculiarly, original in an age of decay and mannerism.

The eighteenth century opens under the auspices of Carlo Maratti, an affected mannerist, but not altogether devoid of talent. After his death, in 1713, his rivals, Garzi and Cignani, sustained for a little the expiring reputation of the Roman school. But it is quite unnecessary to continue the narrative; the state of the arts during the early part of this century has already been noticed, and the names of Bianchi, Costanzi, Manchini, the early contemporaries of Canova, and of the revival, are now forgotten. The only artists of those times still regarded with some respect, are, Solemena, who died in 1747; Sebastian Conca, in 1764; and Pompeo Battoni, who brings down the history of the art to 1787; Mengs belongs to Germany.

Over the living art of Italy, Camuccini at Rome, and Benvenuti at Florence, preside. The former is perhaps the best draughtsman in Europe, but is inferior as a colorist; he wants depth, harmony, and force; his grouping also is defective in richness and variety, approaching too nearly to the linear as in relievo. His expression, though noble, is cold—deficient in that warm gush of sentiment, which, in the ancient masters, seemed to 'create a soul under the ribs of death.' Benvenuti excels his contemporary as a colorist, in the disposition of his group, and in the force of chiar' oscuro; but in purity of drawing, in classical taste, and in the selection of form, he is inferior. Each has chosen his subjects principally from profane history. Camuccini's best performance is the Departure of Regulus; Benvenuti's a scene in the recent history of Saxony. Rome possesses several other good painters, but few natives—for, to the artist as to the poet of every nation, she has become