and jewelled ornaments, in which, as well as in the higher departments of painting, he excelled. His draperies are elegant, but sometimes rather fluttering and fantastic. In our National Gallery is a beautiful specimen of this master, only lately acquired, and marked by all his characteristics; but the finest picture by him. I have ever seen is the altarpiece in the chapel of the Innocenti (the Foundling Hospital) at Florence.

It may be said, on the whole, that the attention of Ghirlandajo was directed less to the delineation of form than to the expression of his heads and the imitation of life and nature as exhibited in feature and countenance. He also carried the mechanical and technical part of his art to a perfection it had not before attained. He was the best colourist in fresco who had yet appeared, and his colours have stood extremely well to this day.*

Another characteristic which renders Ghirlandajo very interesting as an artist was his diligent and progressive improvement; every successive production was better than the last. He was also an excellent worker in mosaic, which, from its durability, he used to call "painting for eternity."

To his rare and various accomplishments as an artist, Ghirlandajo added the most amiable qualities as a man -qualities which obtained him the love as well as the admiration of his fellow-citizens. He was, says Vasari, "the delight of the age in which he lived.” He was still in the prime of life and in the full possession

Except where the whole surface has been destroyed by damp or accident, as in several of the frescoes in the choir of S. Maria Novella.

of conscious power-so that he was heard to wish they would give him the walls all round the city to cover with frescoes-when he was seized with sudden illness, and died, at the age of forty-four, to the infinite grief of his numerous scholars, by whom he was interred, with every demonstration of mournful respect, in the church of Santa Maria Novella, in the year 1495. His two brothers, Davide and Benedetto, were also painters, and assisted him in the execution of his great works; and his son RIDOLFO GHIRLANDAJO became afterwards an excellent artist, but he belongs to a later period.

Ghirlandajo formed many scholars; among them was the great Michael Angelo.

Contemporary with Ghirlandajo lived an artist, memorable for having aided with his instructions both Michael Angelo and Lionardo da Vinci. This was ANDREA VERROCCHIO (b. 1432, d. 1488), who was રી goldsmith and sculptor in marble and bronze, and also a painter, though in painting his works are few and little known. He drew and modelled admirably, but his style of painting is rather hard and formal. He is celebrated through the celebrity of the artists formed in his school; and is said to have been the first who took casts in plaster from life as aids in the study of form.

ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO.

BORN ABOUT 1430, DIED 1498.

AMONG the assistants of Ghiberti one more must be particularly commemorated. ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO, like many other great Florentine artists, began his professional career as a goldsmith and a modeller and carver in wood and metal. To be the sons of a poulterer (Pollaiuolo, whence they derive their name) does not seem to promise much in regard to art; but the father of Antonio and Piero was soon aware of the talent of his sons, and found means to place the eldest under the tuition of Bertuccio, the father-in-law of Lorenzo Ghiberti. Antonio at once distinguished himself by his aptitude and his skill in modelling and designing, and Ghiberti selected him as one of his assistants in the second Bronze Gate of the Baptistery. On the rich border of foliage and figures. on the left hand, and about four feet from the ground, is seen the quail modelled by Antonio, of which Vasari says, "it wants nothing of life but the power to fly."

After executing many beautiful works in metal, and particularly part of the elaborate silver altar (Dossale) for the same church of St. John the Baptist, Antonio applied himself to painting, in which, however excellent in some things, he retained a certain hardness and formality of design derived from his first profession.

The altarpiece which he painted for Antonio Pucci in

1475 is now in our National Gallery. It is a known and celebrated picture, and one of our most valuable acquisitions, but not attractive considered as a religious work. The young Roman soldier who died for his faith is here a commonplace and contorted figure; the head has none of that fervent aspiration and love which we are accustomed to look for in St. Sebastian. It is, in fact, a portrait, and that of a celebrated man, Gino Capponi. The two soldiers in front bending their crossbows are the most admired figures in this picture; the technical skill displayed in the foreshortening and in the expression of strong bodily effort was new at that time, and was a kind of merit which the learned and the unlearned would equally understand. Antonio Pucci, in paying for it the stipulated 300 crowns, expressed his satisfaction, and was heard to declare that the money only paid the cost of the colours-it would not recompense the skill of the artist. Pollaiuolo was soon afterwards called to Rome, employed there by Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., and Alexander VI., and executed the famous and elaborate, but not quite satisfactory, monument of Sixtus IV. in the Vatican. Pollaiuolo, as an artist, had that leaning to pagan and classical taste which was the fashion of the time; he was a capital designer, but deficient in sentiment and grace. As a man, he was esteemed for his exemplary life no less than for his talents, and died at Rome in 1498, rich and prosperous, leaving a dowry of 5000 gold crowns to each of his two daughters. He and his brother Piero were buried in the same tomb, in S. Peter-in-Vincula, at Rome.

ANDREA MANTEGNA.

BORN 1431, Died 1506.

FOR a while we must leave beautiful Florence and her painters, who were striving after perfection by imitating what they saw in nature-the common appearances of he objects, animate and inanimate, around them-and turn to another part of Italy, where there arose a man of genius who pursued a wholly different course; at least he started from a different point; and who exercised for a time a great influence on all the painters of Italy, including those of Florence. This was ANDREA MANTEGNA, particularly interesting to English readers, as his most celebrated work, the Triumph of Julius Cæsar, is now preserved in the palace of Hampton Court, and has formed part of the royal collection ever since the days of Charles I.

Andrea Mantegna was the son of very poor and obscure parents, and was born near Padua in 1431. All we learn of his early childhood amounts to this-that he was employed in keeping sheep; and being conducted to the city, entered, we know not by what chance, the school of FRANCESCO SQUARCIONE.

About the middle of the 15th century, from which time we date the revival of letters in Europe, the study