It is an advantage to the student of Italian art to be able to read French, German, and Italian, for though translations appear of the most important works, there are many interesting articles and monographs of minor artists which are otherwise inaccessible.

Vasari, not always trustworthy, either in dates, facts, or opinions, yet delightfully human in his histories, is indispensable, and new editions and translations are constantly issued. Sansoni’s edition (Florence), with Milanesi’s notes, is the most authoritative; and for translations, those of Mrs. Foster (Messrs. Blashfield and Hopkins), and a new edition in the Temple classics (Dent, 8 vols., 2s. each vol.).

Ridolfi, the principal contemporary authority on Venetian artists, who published his Maraviglie dell’ arte nine years after Domenico Tintoretto’s death, is only to be read in Italian, though the anecdotes with which his work abounds are made use of by every writer.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s Painting in North Italy (Murray) is a storehouse of painstaking, minute, and, on the whole, marvellously correct information and sound opinion. It supplies a foundation, fills gaps, and supplements individual biographies as no other book does. For the early painters, down to the time of the Bellini, I Origini dei pittori veneziani, by Professor Leonello Venturi, Venice, 1907, is a large book, written with mastery and insight, and well illustrated; La Storia della pittura veneziana is another careful work, which deals very minutely with the early school of mosaics.

In studying the Bellini, the late Mr. S. A. Strong has The Brothers Bellini (Bell’s Great Masters), and the reader should not fail to read Mr. Roger Fry’s Bellini (Artist’s Library), a scholarly monograph, short but reliable, and full of suggestion and appreciation, though written in a cool, critical spirit. Dr. Hills has dealt ably with Pisanello (Duckworth).

Molmenti and Ludwig in their monumental work Vittore Carpaccio, translated by Mr. R. H. Cust (Murray, 1907), and Paul Kristeller in the equally important Mantegna, translated by Mr. S. A. Strong (Longmans, 1901), seem to have exhausted all that there is to be said for the moment concerning these two painters.

It is almost superfluous to mention Mr. Berenson’s two well-known volumes, The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, and the North Italian Painters of the Renaissance (Putnam). They are brilliant essays which supplement every other work, overflowing with suggestive and critical matter, supplying original thoughts, and summing up in a few pregnant words the main features and the tendencies of the succeeding stages.

In studying Giorgione, we cannot dispense with Pater’s essay, included in The Renaissance. The author is not always well informed as to facts—he wrote in the early days of criticism—but he is rich in idea and feeling. Mr. Herbert Cook’s Life of Giorgione (Bell’s Great Masters) is full and interesting. Some authorities question his attributions as being too numerous, but whether we regard them as authentic works of the master or as belonging to his school, the illustrations he gives add materially to our knowledge of the Giorgionesque.

When we come to Titian we are well off. Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s Life of Titian (Murray, out of print), in two large volumes, is well written and full of good material, from which subsequent writers have borrowed. An excellent Life, full of penetrating criticism, by Mr. C. Ricketts, was lately brought out by Methuen (Classics of Art), complete with illustrations, and including a minute analysis of Titian’s technique. Sir Claude Phillips’s Monograph on Titian will appeal to every thoughtful lover of the painter’s genius, and Dr. Gronau has written a good and scholarly Life (Duckworth).

Mr. Berenson’s Lorenzo Lotto must be read for its interest and learning, given with all the author’s charm and lucidity. It includes an essay on Alvise Vivarini.

My own Tintoretto (Methuen, Classics of Art) gives a full account of the man and his work, and especially deals exhaustively with the scheme and details of the Scuola di San Rocco. Professor Thode has written a detailed and profusely illustrated Life of Tintoretto in the Knackfuss Series, and the Paradiso has been treated at length and illustrated in great detail in a very scholarly Édition de luxe by Mr. F. O. Osmaston. It is the fashion to discard Ruskin, but though we may allow that his judgments are exaggerated, that he reads more into a picture than the artist intended, and that he is too fond of preaching sermons, there are few critics who have so many ideas to give us, or who are so informed with a deep love of art, and both Modern Painters and the Stones of Venice should be read.

M. Charles Yriarte has written a Life of Paolo Veronese, which is full of charm and knowledge. It is interesting to take a copy of Boschini’s Della pittura veneziana, 1797, when visiting the galleries, the palaces, and the churches of Venice. His lists of the pictures, as they were known in his day, often open our eyes to doubtful attributions. Second-hand copies of Boschini are not difficult to pick up. When the later-century artists are reached, a good sketch of the Venice of their period is supplied by Philippe Monnier’s delightful Venice in the Eighteenth Century (Chatto and Windus), which also has a good chapter on the lesser Venetian masters. The best Life of Tiepolo is in Italian, by Professor Pompeo Molmenti. The smaller masters have to be hunted for in many scattered essays; a knowledge of Goldoni adds point to Longhi’s pictures. Canaletto and his nephew, Belotto, have been treated by M. Uzanne, Les Deux Canaletto; and Mr. Simonson has written an important and charming volume on Francesco Guardi (Methuen, 1904), with beautiful reproductions of his works. Among other books which give special information are Morelli’s two volumes, Italian Painters in Borghese and Doria Pamphili, and In Dresden and Munich Galleries, translated by Miss Jocelyn ffoulkes (Murray); and Dr. J. P. Richter’s magnificent catalogue of the Mond Collection—which, though published at fifteen guineas, can be seen in the great art libraries—has some valuable chapters on the Venetian masters.