Florence; the two brothers Taddeo and Federigo Zuccaro, and the Cavalier d'Arpino, at Rome; Federigo Barroccio, of Urbino; Luca Cambiasi, of Genoa; and hundreds of others, who covered with frescoes the walls of villas, palaces, churches, and produced some fine and valuable pictures, and many pleasing and graceful ones, and many more that were mere vapid or exaggerated repetitions of worn-out subjects. And patrons were not wanting, nor industry, nor science; nothing but original and elevated feeling-" the inspiration and the poet's dream."

But in the Venetian school still survived this inspiration, this vital and creative power, when it seemed extinct everywhere besides. From 1540 to 1590 the Venetians were the only painters worthy the name in Italy. This arose from the elementary principle early infused into the Venetian artists-the principle of looking to Nature, and imitating her, instead of imitating others and one another. Thus, as every man who looks to Nature looks at her through his own eyes, a certain degree of individuality was retained even in the decline of the art. There were some who tried to look at Nature in the same point of view as Titian, and these are generally included under the denomination of the "School of Titian," though in fact he had no school properly so called.

MORONE was a portrait-painter who in some of his heads equalled Titian. We have in England only one known picture by him, but it is a masterpiece-the portrait of a Jesuit, in the gallery of the Duke of Suther

land, which for a long time went by the name of Titian's Schoolmaster; it represents a grave, acute-looking man, holding a book in his hand, which he has just closed; his finger is between the leaves, and, leaning from his chair, he seems about to address you.

"The very life is warm upon that lip,

The fixture of the eye has motion in't,
And we are mock'd by art!"

BONIFAZIO, who had studied under Palma and Titian, painted many pictures which are frequently attributed to both these masters. For example, the "Finding of Moses," in the Brera at Milan, was long attributed to Giorgione; the beautiful Holy Family in the Louvre (82) was generally supposed to be by Palma; and many of his pictures pass under the name of Titian. Very little is known of this painter. Ridolfi mentions that in his time six long pictures by Bonifazio were carried to England, representing the Triumph of Love, of Chastity, of Time, of Fame, of Death, and, last, the Triumph of Religion; forming a series suggested by the well-known

* It may be called rather a romantic and poetical version than an historical representation of the scene. It would shock Sir Gardner Wilkinson. In the centre sits the princess under a tree; she looks with surprise and tenderness on the child, which is brought to her by one of her attendants: the squire or seneschal of the princess, with knights and ladies, stand around; on one side two lovers are seated on the grass; on the other are musicians and singers, pages with dogs. All the figures are in the Venetian costume; the colouring is splendid, and the grace and harmony of the whole composition is even the more enchanting from the naireté of the conception. This picture, like many others of the same age and style, reminds us of those poems and tales of the middle ages in which David and Jonathan figure as "preux chevaliers," and Sir Alexander of Macedon and Sir Paris of Troy fight tournaments in honour of ladies' eyes and the "blessed Virgin." They must be tried by their own aim and standard, not by the severity of antiquarian criticism.

Trionfi' of Petrarch, and often represented by the Italian painters, but I can find no account of these pictures.

A much finer painter was ALESSANDRO BONVICINO, called IL MORETTO, who also studied under Titian, but, by uniting with Venetian colour and sentiment something of the dignity of the Roman school and a depth of religious feeling which seems to have belonged to his individual character, he surpassed in some of his pictures every painter of his time except Titian. Very little is known of his life, except that he chiefly worked in his native city Brescia and its neighbourhood. There is a rich purple glow over his pictures, which distinguishes them from all others I have seen. The Santa Giustina, at Vienna, long attributed to Pordenone, and a magnificent altarpiece in the possession of Lord Northwick, are the finest I can remember, besides those in the churches at Brescia.

ANDREA SCHIAVONE, whose elegant pictures are often met with in collections, was a poor boy who began the world as an assistant mason and house-painter, and who became an artist from the love of art; but by some fatality, or some quality of mind which we are wont to call a fatality, he remained always poor. He painted numerous pictures, which others obtained and sold again for high prices, enriching themselves at the expense of his toil of hand and head. At length he died, and in such wretched circumstances, that he was buried by the charity of a few friends. In general the Venetian painters were joyous beings; Schiavone was a rare and melancholy exception. Very different was the temper

and the fate of PARIS BORDONE of Treviso, a man without much genius, weak in drawing, capricious or commonplace in invention, without fire or expression, but a divine colourist, and stamping on his pictures his own buoyant, life-enjoying nature; in this he was like Titian, but utterly inferior in all other respects. Some of his portraits are very beautiful, particularly those of his women, which have been often mistaken for Titian's.

The elder PALMA is also considered as a scholar of Titian, though deriving as little from his personal instruction as did Tintoretto, Bordone, and others of the school. The date of his birth has been rendered uncertain by the mistakes of various authors, who confounded the elder and the younger Palma; but it appears that he was born between 1473 and 1480,-that he was, in fact, about the same age as Titian. In some pictures he has shown the dignity of Titian, in others a touch of the melancholy sentiment of Giorgione. Not half the pictures attributed to Palma Vecchio are by him. We have not one in our National Gallery; and those at Hampton Court which are attributed to him are not genuine-mere third-rate pictures of the Venetian school. On the whole he was a most charming painter, and his religious subjects in that pastoral style which belonged to the Venetian school are beyond expression lovely—one in the Louvre (277) and one at Dresden are examples. This painter had three daughters of remarkable beauty. Violante, the eldest and most beautiful, is said to have been loved by Titian. She was frequently painted by her father, and it is a tradition that she was the model of his St. Barbara, in the S. Maria-Formosa at

Venice; his masterpiece-and one of the finest pictures in the world. We have the three daughters of Palma, painted by himself, in the Vienna gallery; one, a most lovely creature, with long light-brown hair, and a violet in her bosom, is without doubt Titian's Violante. In the Dresden gallery are the same three beautiful girls in one picture, the head in the centre being the Violante.

It remains to give some account of two remarkable Venetian painters, who were contemporaries of Titian, but could hardly be called his rivals, his equals, or his imitators. They were both inferior to him, but original men in their different styles.

The first was TINTORETTO, born in 1512; his real name was Jacopo Robusti. His father was a dyer (in Italian, Tintore); hence he received in childhood the diminutive nickname Il Tintoretto, by which he is best known to us. He began, like many other painters whose genius we have recorded, by drawing all kinds of objects and figures on the walls of his father's house. The dyer, being a man of sense, did not attempt to oppose his son's predilection for art, but procured for him the best instruction his means would allow, and even sent him to study under Titian. This did not avail him much, for that most excellent painter was by no means a good instructor. Tintoretto, however, did not lose courage; he pursued his studies, and after a few years set up an academy of his own, and on the wall of his painting-room he placed the following inscription, as being expressive of the principles he intended to follow: "Il disegno di Michel Agnolo: il colorito di Tiziano" (the drawing of Michael Angelo, and the colouring of Titian). Tintoretto was a man of extraordinary talent, unequalled for