The equestrian statue of the old Duke of Milan by Lionardo excited so much delight in its first freshness, that it was carried in triumph through the city, and during the progress it was accidentally broken. Lionardo began another, but funds failed for its completion, and afterwards the French used the original clay model as a target for their bowmen.

Lionardo returned to Florence, and found his great rival, Michael Angelo, already in the field. Both of the men, conscious of mighty gifts, were intolerant of rivalry. To Lionardo especially, as being much the elder man, the originator and promoter of many of the new views in art which his opponent had adopted, the competition was very distasteful, and to Michael Angelo he used the bitter sarcasm which has been handed down to us, 'I was famous before you were born.'

Nevertheless Lionardo consented to compete with Michael Angelo for the painting in fresco of one side of the council-hall, by the order of the gonfaloniere for the year. Lionardo chose for his subject a victory of the Florentines over the Milanese, while Michael Angelo took a scene from the Pisan campaigns. Not only was the work never done (some say partly because Lionardo would delay in order to make experiments in oils) on account of political troubles, but the very cartoons of the two masters, which all the artists of the day flocked to see, have been broken up, dispersed, and lost; and of one only, that of Michael Angelo, a small copy remains, while but a fragment from Lionardo's was preserved in a copy made by Rubens.

Lionardo went to Rome in the pontificate of Leo X., but there his quarrel with Michael Angelo broke out more violently than ever. The Pope too, who loved better a gentler, more accommodating spirit, seemed to slight Lionardo, and the great painter not only quitted Rome in disgust, but withdrew his services altogether from ungrateful Italy.

At Pavia Lionardo was presented to Francis I, of France, who, zealous in patronizing art, engaged the painter to follow Francis's fortunes at a salary of seven hundred crowns a year. Lionardo spent the remainder of his life in France. His health had long been declining before he died, aged sixty-seven years, at Cloux, near Amboise. He had risen high in the favour of Francis. From this circumstance, and the generous, chivalrous nature of the king, there doubtless arose the tradition that Francis visited Lionardo on his death-bed; and that, while in the act of gently assisting him to raise himself, the painter died in the king's arms. Court chronicles do their best to demolish this story, by proving Francis to have been at St Germain on the day when Lionardo died at Cloux.

Lionardo was never married, and he left what worldly goods he possessed to a favourite scholar. Besides his greater works, he filled many MS. volumes, some with singularly accurate studies and sketches, maps, plans for machines, scores for music (three volumes of these are in the Royal Library at Windsor), and some with writing, which is written—probably to serve as a sort of cipher—from right to left, instead of from left to right. One of his writings is a valuable 'Treatise' on painting; other writings are on scientific and philosophic subjects, and in these Lionardo is believed to have anticipated some of the discoveries which were reached by lines of close reasoning centuries later.

Lionardo's genius as a painter was expressed by his uniting, in the very highest degree, truth and imagination. He was the shrewdest observer of ordinary life, and he could also realize the higher mysteries and profounder feelings of human nature. He drew exceedingly well. Of transparent lights and shadows, or chiaroscuro, he was the greatest master; but he was not a good colourist. His works are very rare, and many which are attributed to him are the pictures of his scholars, for he founded one of the great schools of Milan or Lombardy. There is a tradition that he was, as Holbein was once believed to be, ambidextrous, or capable of using his left hand as well as his right, and that he painted with two brushes—one in each hand. Thus more than fully armed, Lionardo da Vinci looms out on us like a Titan through the mists of centuries, and he preaches to us the simple homily, that not even a Titan can command worldly success; that such men must look to ends as the reward of their travail, and before undertaking it they must count the cost, and be prepared to renounce the luxurious tastes which clung to Lionardo, and which were not for him or for such men as he was.

Lionardo's great painting was his 'Last Supper,' of which, happily, good copies exist, as well as the wreck of the picture itself. The original is now, after it is too late, carefully guarded and protected in its old place in the Dominican convent of the Madonna della Grazia, Milan. The assembled company sit at a long table, Christ being seated in the middle, the disciples forming two separate groups on each side of the Saviour. The gradations of age are preserved, from the tender youth of John to the grey hairs of Simon; and all the varied emotions of mind, from the deepest sorrow and anxiety to the eager desire of revenge, are here portrayed. The well-known words of Christ, 'One of you shall betray me,' have caused the liveliest emotion. The two groups to the left of Christ are full of impassioned excitement, the figures in the first turning to the Saviour, those in the second speaking to each other,—horror, astonishment, suspicion, doubt, alternating in the various expressions. On the other hand, stillness, low whispers, indirect observations, are the prevailing expressions in the groups on the right. In the middle of the first group sits the betrayer; a cunning, sharp profile, he looks up hastily to Christ, as if speaking the words, 'Master, is it I?' while, true to the Scriptural account, his left hand and Christ's right hand approach, as if unconsciously, the dish that stands before them.[5]

A sketch of the head of Christ for the original picture, which has been preserved on a torn and soiled piece of paper at Brera, expresses the most elevated seriousness, together with Divine gentleness pain on account of the faithless disciple, a full presentiment of his own death, and resignation to the will of the Father. It gives a faint idea of what the master may have accomplished in the finished picture.

During his stay at Florence Lionardo painted a portrait of that Ginevra Benci already mentioned as painted by Ghirlandajo; and a still more famous portrait by Lionardo was that of Mona Lisa, the wife of his friend Giocondo. This picture is also known as 'La Jaconde.' I wish to call attention to it because it is the first of four surpassingly beautiful portraits of women which four great painters gave in succession to the world. The others, to be spoken of afterwards, are Raphael's 'Fornarina,' Titian's 'Bella Donna,' and Rubens' 'Straw Hat.' About the original of 'La Jaconde' there never has been a mystery such as there has been about the others. At this portrait the unsatisfied painter worked at intervals for four years, and when he left it he pronounced it still unfinished. 'La Jaconde' is now in the Louvre in nearly ruined condition, yet a judge says of it that even now 'there is something in this wonderful head of the ripest southern beauty, with its airy background of a rocky landscape, which exercises a peculiar fascination over the mind.'

There is a painting of the Madonna and Child Christ said to be by Lionardo, and probably, at least, by one of his school, and which belongs, I think, to the Duke of Buccleuch, and was exhibited lately among the works of the old masters. The group has at once something touching and exalted in its treatment. The Divine Child in the Mother's arms is strangely attracted by the sight of a cross, and turns towards it with ineffable longing, while the Virgin Mother, with a pang of foreboding, clasping the child in her arms, seeks to draw him back.

The fragment of the cartoon in which Lionardo competed with Michael Angelo, may be held to survive in the fine painting by Rubens called 'the Battle of the Standard.' Of a famous Madonna and St Anne, by Lionardo, the original cartoon in black chalk is preserved under glass in our Royal Academy.[6]

Michael Angelo Buonarroti, born at Castel Caprese near Tuscany, 1475, is the next of these universal geniuses, a term which we are accustomed to hold in contempt, because we have only seen it exemplified in parody. After Lionardo, indeed, Michael Angelo, though he was also painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, poet, musician, might almost be regarded as restricted in his pursuits, yet still so manifold was he, that men have loved to make a play upon his name and call him 'Michael the angel,' and to speak of him as of a king among men.

Michael Angelo was of noble descent, and though his ancient house had fallen into comparative poverty, his father was mayor or podesta of Chiusi, and governor of the castle of Chiusi and Caprese. Michael Angelo was destined for the profession of the law, but so early vindicated his taste for art, that at the age of thirteen years he was apprenticed to Ghirlandajo. Lorenzo the Magnificent was then ruling Florence, and he had made a collection of antique models in his palace and gardens, and constituted it an academy for young artists. In this academy Michael Angelo developed a strong bias for sculpture, and won the direct patronage of the Medici.

To this period of his life belong two characteristic anecdotes. In a struggle with a fellow-student, Michael Angelo received a blow from a mallet in his face, which, breaking bone and cartilage, lent to his nose the rugged bend,

'The bar of Michael Angelo.'

An ill-advised member of the Medician house, while entertaining a party of guests during a snowstorm, sent out the indignant artist to make a snow man within sight of the palace windows. These anecdotes bear indirectly on the ruling qualities of Michael Angelo—qualities so integral that they are wrought into his marble and painted on his canvas—proud independence and energy.

Before going farther I wish to guard against a common misapprehension of Michael Angelo—that he was a haughty, arrogant man, absolutely narrow in his half-idolatrous, half-human worship of art. Michael Angelo was severe in place of being sweet; he was impatient of contradiction; he was careless and scornful of ceremony; and in his very wrath at flattery and hypocrisy, he was liable to sin against his own honesty and sincerity. But he was a man with a lofty sense of duty and a profound reverence for God. He was, unlike Lionardo, consistently simple, frugal, and temperate, throughout his long life. If he held up a high standard to others, and enforced it on them with hardness, he held up a higher standard to himself, and enforced it on himself more hardly still. He was a thoroughly unworldly man, and actions which had their root in unworldliness have been ascribed unjustly to a kind of Lucifer pride. Greed, and the meanness of greed, were unknown to him. He worked for the last ten years of his life (under no less than five different Popes) at his designs for St Peter's, steadfastly refusing pay for the work, saying that he did it for the honour of God and his own honour. He made many enemies and suffered from their enmity, but I cannot learn that, except in one instance, he was guilty of dealing an unworthy blow at his opponents. He was generous to his scholars, and without jealousy of them, suffering them to use his designs for their own purposes. He said, 'I have no friends, I need none, I wish for none;' but that was in feeling himself 'alone before Heaven;' and of the friends whom he did possess, he loved them all the more devotedly and faithfully, because they were few in number.

One need only be told of his love for his old servant Urbino, whom he presented with two thousand crowns to render him independent of service; and when the servant was seized with his last illness Michael Angelo nursed him tenderly, sleeping in his clothes on a couch that he might be ready to attend his patient. When his cares were ended, Michael Angelo wrote to a correspondent—'My Urbino is dead—to my infinite grief and sorrow. Living, he served me truly; and in his death he taught me how to die. Of Michael Angelo's more equal friendship with Vittoria Colonna I hope my readers will read at leisure for themselves. No nobler, truer friendship ever existed. It began when the high-born and beautiful, gifted, and devout Marchesa de Pescara—most loyal of wives and widows, was forty-eight, and Michael Angelo sixty-four years of age. After a few years of privileged intercourse and correspondence, which were the happiest years in Michael Angelo's life, it ended for this world when he stood mourning by her lifeless clay. 'I was born a rough model, and it was for thee to reform and re-make me,' the great painter had written humbly of himself to his liege lady.[7]

Italy, in Michael Angelo's time, as Germany in Albert Duerer's, was all quickened and astir with the new wave of religious thought which brought about the Reformation. Ochino and Peter Martyr, treading in the footsteps of Savonarola, had preached to eager listeners, but 'in Italy men did not adopt Lutheranism, though they approached it;' and in all the crowd of great Italian artists of the day, Michael Angelo shows deepest traces of the conflict—of its trouble, its seriousness, its nobleness. He only, among his brethren, acted out his belief that the things of the world sank into insignificance before those thoughts of God and immortality which were alone fully worthy of the soul. And it was, as to a religious work for which he was fitted, that he at last gave himself up to the raising of St Peter's. We shall have next in order the life of a man who had all the winning qualities which Michael Angelo wanted, but we shall hardly, through the whole range of history, find a nobler man than Michael Angelo.

After his first visit to Rome, 1496, Michael Angelo executed his colossal statue of David. In 1503 he entered into the competition with Lionardo for the painting of one end of the Council-hall, in Florence, which has been already mentioned. For this object he drew as his cartoon, 'Pisan soldiers surprised while bathing by a sudden trumpet call to arms.' The grand cartoon, of which only a small copy exists, was said to have been torn to pieces as an act of revenge by a fellow-sculptor, whom Michael Angelo had offended.

Michael Angelo was invited to Rome by Julius II. in 1504 to aid in erecting the unapproachable monument which the Pope projected raising for himself. Then commenced a series of contentions and struggles between the imperious and petulant Pope and the haughty, uncompromising painter, in which the latter certainly had the best of it. At one time in the course of the quarrel, Michael Angelo departed from Rome without permission or apology, and stoutly refused to return, though followed hotly by no less than five different couriers, armed with threats and promises, and urged to make the reparation by his own gonfaloniere. At last a meeting and a reconciliation between Michael Angelo and the Pope were effected at Bologna. Michael Angelo designed for Pope Julius II, not only the statue of Pope Julius at Bologna, which was finally converted into a cannon, and turned against the very man whose effigy it had originally presented, but also for that tomb which was never completed, the famous figure of Moses seated, grasping his beard with one hand.

While employed at the tomb, Michael Angelo, then in his fortieth year, was desired by the Pope to undertake the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here, again, the hand of an enemy is said to have been at work. Michael Angelo, with the first place as a sculptor, was inexperienced in fresco painting; while Raphael, who was taking the place of Lionardo as Michael Angelo's most formidable rival (yet whom it is said Michael Angelo pointed out as the fittest painter of the ceiling), and who was then engaged in painting the Vatican chambers, had already achieved the utmost renown. It was anticipated by secret hostility, so records tradition, that Michael Angelo would fail signally in the unaccustomed work, and that his merit as an artist would pale altogether before that of Raphael's. I need hardly write how entirely malice was balked in the verdict to which posterity has set its seal.

Michael Angelo brought artists from Florence to help him in his great undertaking, for over the chapel, whose walls had already been painted by older artists—among them Ghirlandajo, was an enormous vault of 150 feet in length by 50 in breadth, which Michael Angelo was required to cover with designs representing the Fall and Redemption of Man. But the painter was unable to bear what seemed to him the bungling attempts of his assistants; so dismissing them all and destroying their work, he shut himself up, and working in solitude and secrecy, set himself to evolve from his own inner consciousness the gigantic scenes of a tremendous drama. In 22 months (or, as Kugler holds, in three years, including the time spent on the designs) he finished gloriously the work, the magnitude of which one must see to comprehend. On All Saints' Day, 1512, the ceiling was uncovered, and Michael Angelo was hailed, little though he cared for such clamorous hailing, as a painter indeed. For this piece of work Michael Angelo received 3000 crowns.

Pope Julius died, and was succeeded by Leo X. of the Medician house, but, in spite of early associations as well as of mother country, Michael Angelo was no more acceptable to the Pope—a brilliantly polished, easy-tempered man of the world, who filled the chair of St Peter's, than Lionardo had been. Leo X, greatly preferred Raphael, to whom all manner of pleasantness as well as of courteous deference was natural, to the two others. At the same time, Leo employed Michael Angelo, though it was more as an architect than as a painter, and rather at Florence than at Rome. At Florence Michael Angelo executed for Pope Clement VII., another Medici, the mortuary chapel of San Lorenzo, with its six great statues, those of the cousins Lorenzo de Medici and Giuliano de Medici, the first called by the Florentines 'Il Pensiero,' or 'Pensive Thought,' with the four colossal recumbent figures named respectively the Night, the Morning, the Dawn, and the Twilight.

In 1537 Michael Angelo was employed by his fellow citizens to fortify his native city against the return of his old patrons the Medici, and the city held out for nine months.

Pope Paul III., an old man when elected to the popedom, but bent on signalizing his pontificate with as splendid works of art as those which had rendered the reigns of his predecessors illustrious, summoned another man, grown elderly, Michael Angelo, upwards of sixty years, reluctant to accept the commission, to finish the decoration of the Sistine Chapel; and Michael Angelo painted on the wall, at the upper end, his painting, 'The Last Judgment.' The picture is forty-seven feet high by forty-three wide, and it occupied the painter eight years. It was during its progress that Michael Angelo entered on his friendship with Vittoria Colonna.

For the chapel called the Paolina or Pauline Chapel Michael Angelo also painted less-known frescoes, but from that time he devoted his life to St Peter's. He had said that he would take the old Pantheon and 'suspend it in air,' and he did what he said, though he did not live to see the great cathedral completed. His sovereign, the Grand Duke of Florence, endeavoured in vain with magnificent offers to lure the painter back to his native city. Michael Angelo protested that to leave Rome then would be 'a sin and a shame, and the ruin of the greatest religious monument in Christian Europe.' Michael Angelo, like Lionardo, did not marry; he died at Rome in 1563, in his eighty-ninth year.

His nephew and principal heir,[8] by the orders of the Grand Duke of Florence, and it is believed according to Michael Angelo's own wish, removed the painter's body to Florence, where it was buried with all honours in the church of Santa Croce there.

The traits which recall Michael Angelo personally to us, are the prominent arch of the nose, the shaggy brows, the tangled beard, the gaunt grandeur of a figure like that of one of his prophets.

While Michael Angelo lived, one Pope rose on his approach, and seated the painter on his right hand, and another Pope declined to sit down in his painter's presence; but the reason given for the last condescension, is that the Pope feared that the painter would follow his example. And if the Grand Duke Cosmo uncovered before Michael Angelo, and stood hat in hand while speaking to him, we may have the explanation in another assertion, that 'sovereigns asked Michael Angelo to put on his cap, because the painter would do it unasked.'

The solitary instance in which Michael Angelo is represented as taking an unfair advantage of an antagonist, is in connection with the painter's rivalry in his art with Raphael. Michael Angelo undervalued the genius of Raphael, and was disgusted by what the older man considered the immoderate admiration bestowed on the younger. A favourite pupil of Michael Angelo's was Sebastian Del Piombo, who being a Venetian by birth was an excellent colourist. For one of his pictures—the very 'Raising of Lazarus' now in the National Gallery, which the Pope had ordered at the same time that he had ordered Raphael's 'Transfiguration'—it is rumoured that Michael Angelo gave the designs and even drew the figures, leaving Sebastian the credit, and trusting that without Michael Angelo's name appearing in the work, by the help of his drawing in addition to Sebastian's superb colouring, Raphael would be eclipsed, and that by a painter comparatively obscure.

The unwarrantable inference that the whole work was that of one painter, constituted a stratagem altogether unworthy of Michael Angelo, and if it had any existence, its getting wind disappointed and foiled its authors. When the story was repeated to Raphael, his sole protest is said to have been to the effect that he was glad that Michael Angelo esteemed him so highly as to enter the lists with him.

We can judge of Michael Angelo's attainments as a poet, even without having recourse to the original Italian, by Wordsworth's translations of some of the Italian master's sonnets, and by Mr John Edward Taylor's translations of selections from Michael Angelo's poems.

Michael Angelo was greater as an architect and a sculptor than as a painter, because his power and delight lay in the mastery of form, and in the assertion, through that mastery, of the idealism of genius. It is not necessary to speak here of the mighty harmonies and the ineffable dignity of simplicity, somewhat marred by the departure from Michael Angelo's designs, in St Peter's. It has been the fashion to praise them to the skies, and it has been a later fashion to decry them, in awarding a preference to the solemn shades and the dim rich dreaminess of Gothic architecture. Both fashions come to this, after all, that beauty, like these great men of genius of old, is many-sided.

In Michael Angelo's works of sculpture a weird charm attaches to his monuments in honour of the Medici in the chapel of San Lorenzo, Florence. Perhaps something of this weirdness has to do with the tragic history of the men, and with a certain mystery which has always shrouded the sculptor's meaning in these monuments.

Mrs Jameson quotes an account of Michael Angelo at work. An eye-witness has left us a very graphic description of the energy with which, even in old age, Michael Angelo handled his chisel:—"I can say that I have seen Michael Angelo at the age of sixty, and, with a body announcing weakness, make more chips of marble fly about in a quarter of an hour than would three of the strongest young sculptors in an hour,—a thing almost incredible to him who has not beheld it. He went to work with such impetuosity and fury of manner, that I feared almost every moment to see the block split into pieces. It would seem as if, inflamed by the idea of greatness which inspired him, this great man attacked with a Vigenere."

In painting Michael Angelo regarded colouring as of secondary importance. He is not known to have executed one painting in oil, and he treated oil and easel-painting generally as work only fit for women or idle men. While he approached the sublime in his painting, it was by no means faultless. Even in form his efforts were apt to tend to heaviness and exaggeration, and the fascination which robust muscular delineation had for him, betrayed him into materialism. Fuseli's criticism of Michael Angelo's work, that Michael Angelo's women were female men, and his children diminutive giants, is judged correct. Incomparably the greatest painting of Michael Angelo's is his ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It includes upwards of 200 figures, the greater part colossal, as they were to be looked at, in the distance, from below.

'The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel contains the most perfect works done by Michael Angelo in his long and active life. Here his great spirit appears in noblest dignity, in its highest purity; here the attention is not disturbed by that arbitrary display to which his great power not unfrequently seduced him in other works. The ceiling forms a flattened arch in its section; the central portion, which is a plain surface, contains a series of large and small pictures, representing the most important events recorded in the book of Genesis—the Creation and Fall of Man, with its immediate consequences. In the large triangular compartments at the springing of the vault are sitting figures of the Prophets and Sibyls, as the foretellers of the coming Saviour. In the soffits of the recesses between these compartments, and in the arches underneath, immediately above the windows, are the ancestors of the Virgin, the series leading the mind directly to the Saviour. The external of these numerous representations is formed by an architectural frame-work of peculiar composition, which encloses the single subjects, tends to make the principal masses conspicuous, and gives to the whole an appearance of that solidity and support so necessary, but so seldom attended to in soffit decorations, which may be considered as if suspended. A great number of figures are also connected with the frame-work; those in unimportant situations are executed in the colour of stone or bronze; in the more important, in natural colours. These serve to support the architectural forms, to fill up and to connect the whole. They may be best described as the living and embodied genii of architecture. It required the unlimited power of an architect, sculptor, and painter, to conceive a structural whole of so much grandeur, to design the decorative figures with the significant repose required by the sculpturesque character, and yet to preserve their subordination to the principal subjects, and to keep the latter in the proportions and relations best adapted to the space to be filled.'—Kugler.

The pictures from the Old Testament, beginning from the altar, are:—

1. The Separation of Light and Darkness. 2. The Creation of the Sun and Moon. 3. The Creation of Trees and Plants. 4. The Creation of Adam. 5. The Creation of Eve. 6. The Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise. 7. The Sacrifice of Noah. 8. The Deluge. 9. The Intoxication of Noah.

'The scenes from Genesis are the most sublime representations of these subjects;—the Creating Spirit is unveiled before us. The peculiar type which the painter has here given of the form of the Almighty Father has been frequently imitated by his followers, and even by Raphael, but has been surpassed by none. Michael Angelo has represented him in majestic flight, sweeping through the air, surrounded by genii, partly supporting, partly borne along with him, covered by his floating drapery; they are the distinct syllables, the separate virtues of his creating word. In the first (large) compartment we see him with extended hands, assigning to the sun and moon their respective paths. In the second, he awakens the first man to life. Adam lies stretched on the verge of the earth in the act of raising himself; the Creator touches him with the point of his finger, and appears thus to endow him with feeling and life. This picture displays a wonderful depth of thought in the composition, and the utmost elevation and majesty in the general treatment and execution. The third subject is not less important, representing the Fall of Man, and his Expulsion from Paradise. The tree of knowledge stands in the midst; the serpent (the upper part of the body being that of a woman) is twined around the stem; she bends down towards the guilty pair, who are in the act of plucking the forbidden fruit. The figures are nobly graceful, particularly that of Eve. Close to the serpent hovers the angel with the sword, ready to drive the fallen beings out of Paradise. In this double action, this union of two separate moments, there is something peculiarly poetic and significant: it is guilt and punishment in one picture. The sudden and lightning-like appearance of the avenging angel behind the demon of darkness has a most impressive effect.'—Kugler.

The lower portion of the ceiling is divided into triangles, occupied by the Prophets and Sibyls in solemn contemplation, accompanied by angels and genii. Beginning from the left of the entrance their order is—

1. Joel. 2. Sibylla Erythraea. 3. Ezekiel. 4. Sibylla Persica. 5. Jonah. 6. Sibylla Libyca. 7. Daniel. 8. Sibylla Cumaea. 9. Isaiah. 10. Sibylla Delphica.

'The prophets and sibyls in the triangular compartments of the curved portion of the ceiling are the largest figures in the whole work; these, too, are among the most wonderful forms that modern art has called into life. They are all represented seated, employed with books or rolled manuscripts; genii stand near or behind them. These mighty beings sit before us pensive, meditative, inquiring, or looking upwards with inspired countenances. Their forms and movements, indicated by the grand lines and masses of the drapery, are majestic and dignified. We see in them beings, who, while they feel and bear the sorrows of a corrupt and sinful world, have power to look for consolation into the secrets of the future. Yet the greatest variety prevails in the attitudes and expression: each figure is full of individuality. Zacharias is an aged man, busied in calm and circumspect investigation; Jeremiah is bowed down, absorbed in thought, the thought of deep and bitter grief; Ezekiel turns with hasty movements to the genius next to him, who points upwards with joyful expectation, etc. The sibyls are equally characteristic: the Persian, a lofty, majestic woman, very aged; the Erythraean, full of power, like the warrior goddess of wisdom; the Delphic, like Cassandra, youthfully soft and graceful, but with strength to bear the awful seriousness of revelation.'—Kugler.

'The belief of the Roman Catholic Church in the testimony of the sibyl is shown by the well-known hymn, said to have been composed by Pope Innocent III, at the close of the thirteenth century, beginning with the verse—

"Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet saeclum in favilla Teste David cum Sibylla."

It may be inferred that this hymn, admitted into the liturgy of the Roman Church, gave sanction to the adoption of the sibyls into Christian art. They are seen from this time accompanying the prophets and apostles, in the cyclical decorations of the church.... But the highest honour that art has rendered to the sibyls has been by the hand of Michael Angelo, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Here in the conception of a mysterious order of women, placed above and without all considerations of the graceful or the individual, the great master was peculiarly in his element. They exactly fitted his standard, of art, not always sympathetic, nor comprehensible to the average human mind, of which the grand in form and the abstract in expression were the first and last conditions. In this respect, the sibyls on the Sistine Chapel ceiling are more Michael Angelesque than their companions the prophets. For these, while types of the highest monumental treatment, are yet men, while the sibyls belong to a distinct class of beings, who convey the impression of the very obscurity in which their history is wrapt—creatures who have lived far from the abodes of men, who are alike devoid of the expression of feminine sweetness, human sympathy, or sacramental beauty; who are neither Christians nor Jewesses, Witches nor Graces, yet living, grand, beautiful, and true, according to laws revealed to the great Florentine genius only.

Thus their figures may be said to be unique, as the offspring of a peculiar sympathy between the master's mind and his subject. To this sympathy may be ascribed the prominence and size given them, both prophets and sibyls, as compared to their usual relation to the subjects they environ. They sit here on twelve throne-like niches, more like presiding deities, each wrapt in self-contemplation, than as tributary witnesses to the truth and omnipotence of Him they are intended to announce. Thus they form a gigantic frame-work round the subjects of the Creation, of which the birth of Eve, as the type of the Nativity, is the intentional centre. For some reason, the twelve figures are not prophets and sibyls alternately—there being only five sibyls to seven prophets,—so that the prophets come together at one angle. Books and scrolls are given indiscriminately to them.

'The Sibylla Persica, supposed to be the oldest of the sisterhood, holds the book close to her eyes, as if from dimness of sight, which fact, contradicted as it is by a frame of obviously Herculean strength, gives a mysterious intentness to the action.

'The Sibylla Libyca, of equally powerful proportions, but less closely draped, is grandly wringing herself to lift a massive volume from a height above her head on to her knees.

'The Sibylla Cumana, also aged, and with her head covered, is reading with her volume at a distance from her eyes.

'The Sibylla Delphica, with waving hair escaping from her turban, is a beautiful young being, the most human of all, gazing into vacancy or futurity. She holds a scroll.

'The Sibylla Erythraea, grand, bare-headed creature, sits reading intently with crossed legs, about to turn over her book.

'The prophets are equally grand in structure, and though, as we have said, not more than men, yet they are the only men that could well bear the juxtaposition with their stupendous female colleagues. Ezekiel, between Erythraea and Persica, has a scroll in his hand that hangs by his side, just cast down, as he turns eagerly to listen to some voice.

'Jeremiah, a magnificent figure, with elbow on knee and head on hand, wrapt in meditation appropriate to one called to utter lamentation and woe. He has neither book nor scroll.

'Jonah is also without either. His position is strained and ungraceful, looking upwards, and apparently remonstrating with the Almighty upon the destruction of the gourd, a few leaves of which are seen above him. His hands are placed together with a strange and trivial action, supposed to denote the counting on his fingers the number of days he was in the fish's belly. A formless marine monster is seen at his side.

'Daniel has a book on his lap, with one hand on it. He is young, and a piece of lion's skin seems to allude to his history.'[9]

In the recesses between the prophets and sibyls are a series of lovely family groups, representing the genealogy of the Virgin, and expressive of calm expectation of the future. The four corners of the ceiling contain groups illustrative of the power of the Lord displayed in the especial deliverances of his chosen people. Near the altar are:

Right, The Deliverance of the Israelites by the Brazen Serpent.

Left, The Execution of Haman.

Near the entrance are:

Right, Judith and Holofernes.

Left, David and Goliath.[10]

Michael Angelo was thirty-nine years of age when he painted the ceiling of the Sistine. When he began to paint the 'Day of Judgment' he was above sixty years of age, and his great rival, Raphael, had already been dead thirteen years.

The picture of the 'Day of Judgment,' with much that renders it marvellous and awful, has a certain coarseness of conception and execution. The moment chosen is that in which the Lord says, 'Depart from me, ye cursed,' and the idea and even attributes of the principal figure are taken from Orcagna's old painting in the Campo Santo. But with all Michael Angelo's advantages, he has by no means improved on the original idea. He has robbed the figure of the Lord of its transcendant majesty; he has not been able to impart to the ranks of the blessed the look of blessedness which 'Il Beato' himself might have conveyed. The chief excellence of the picture is in the ranks of the condemned, who writhe and rebel against their agonies. No wonder that the picture is sombre and dreadful.

Of the allegorical figures of 'Night' and 'Morning' in the chapel of San Lorenzo, there are casts at the Crystal Palace.

A comparison and a contrast have been instituted between Michael Angelo and Milton, and Raphael and Shakespeare. There may be something in them, but, as in the case of broken metaphors, they will not bear being pushed to a logical conclusion or picked to pieces. The very transparent comparison which matches Michael Angelo with his own countryman, Dante, is after all more felicitous and truer. Michael Angelo with Lionardo are the great chiefs of the Florentine School.

Raphael Sanzio, or Santi of Urbino, the head of the Roman School, was one of those very exceptional men who seem born to happiness, to inspire love and only love, to pass through the world making friends and disarming enemies, who are fully armed to confer pleasure while almost incapable of either inflicting or receiving pain. To this day his exceptional fortune stands Raphael's memory in good stead, since for one man or woman who yearns after the austere righteousness and priceless tenderness of Michael Angelo, there are ten who yield with all their hearts to the gay, sweet gentleness and generosity of Raphael. No doubt it was also in his favour as a painter, that though a man of highly cultivated tastes, 'in close intimacy and correspondence with most of the celebrated men of his time, and interested in all that was going forward,' he did not, especially in his youth, spend his strength on a variety of studies, but devoted himself to painting. While he thus vindicated his share of the breadth of genius of his country and time, by giving to the world the loveliest Madonnas and Child-Christs, the most dramatic of battle-pieces, the finest of portraits, his noble and graceful fertility of invention and matchless skill of execution were confined to and concentrated on painting. He did not diverge long or far into the sister arts of architecture and sculpture, though his classic researches in the excavations of Rome were keen and zealous; a heap of ruins having given to the world in 1504 the group of the that a writer of his day could record that 'Raphael had sought and found in Rome another Rome.'

Raphael was born in the town of Urbino, and was the son of a painter of the Umbrian School, who very early destined the boy to his future career, and promoted his destination by all the efforts in Giovanni Santi's power, including the intention of sending away and apprenticing the little lad to the best master of his time, Perugino, so called from the town where he resided, Perugia. Raphael's mother died when he was only eight years of age, and his father died when he was no more than eleven years, before the plans for his education were put into action. But no stroke of outward calamity, or loss—however severe, could annul Raphael's birthright of universal favour. His step-mother, the uncles who were his guardians, his clever, perverse, unscrupulous master, all joined in a common love of Raphael and determination to promote his interests.

Raphael at the age of twelve years went to Perugia to work under Perugino, and remained with his master till he was nearly twenty years of age. In that interval he painted industriously, making constant progress, always in the somewhat hard, but finished, style of Perugino, while already showing a predilection for what was to prove Raphael's favourite subject, the Madonna and Child. At this period he painted his famous Lo Sposalizio or the 'Espousals,' the marriage of the Virgin Mary with Joseph, now at Milan. In 1504 he visited Florence, remaining only for a short time, but making the acquaintance of Fra Bartolommeo and Ghirlandajo, seeing the cartoons of Lionardo and Michael Angelo, and from that time displaying a marked improvement in drawing. Indeed nothing is more conspicuous in Raphael's genius in contra-distinction to Michael Angelo's, than the receptive character of Raphael's mind, his power of catching up an impression from without, and the candour and humility with which he availed himself unhesitatingly of the assistance lent him by others.

Returning soon to Florence, Raphael remained there till 1508, when he was twenty-five years, drawing closer the valuable friendships he had already formed, and advancing with rapid strides in his art, until his renown was spread all over Italy, and with reason, since already, while still young, he had painted his 'Madonna of the Goldfinch,' in the Florentine Gallery, and his 'La Belle Jardiniere,' or Madonna in a garden among flowers, now in the Louvre.

In his twenty-fifth year Raphael was summoned to Rome to paint for Pope Julius II. My readers will remember that Michael Angelo in the abrupt severity of his prime of manhood, was soon to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for the same despotic and art-loving Pope, who had brought Raphael hardly more than a stripling to paint the 'Camere' or 'Stanze' chambers of the Vatican.

The first of the halls which Raphael painted (though not the first in order) is called the Camera della Segnatura (in English, signature), and represents Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, with the Sciences, Arts, and Jurisprudence. The second is the 'Stanza d'Eliodoro,' or the room of Heliodorus, and contains the grandest painting of all, in the expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple of Jerusalem (taken from Maccabees), the Miracle of Bolsena, Attila, king of the Huns, terrified by the apparition of St Peter and St Paul, and St Peter delivered from prison. The third stanza painted by Raphael is the 'Stanza dell' Incendio' (the conflagration), so called from the extinguishing of the fire in the Borgo by a supposed miracle, being the most conspicuous scene in representations of events taken from the lives of Popes Leo III, and IV.; and the fourth chamber, which was left unfinished by Raphael, and completed by his scholars, is the 'Sala di Constantino,' and contains incidents from the life of the Emperor Constantine, including the splendid battle-piece between Constantine and Maxentius. At these chambers, or at the designs for them, during the popedoms of Julius II., who died in the course of the painting of the Camere, and Leo X., for a period of twelve years, till Raphael's death in 1520, after which the 'Sala di Constantino' was completed by his scholars.

Raphael has also left in the Vatican a series of small pictures from the Old Testament, known as Raphael's Bible. This series decorates the thirteen cupolas of the 'Loggie,' or open galleries, running round three sides of an open court. Another work undertaken by Raphael should have still more interest for us. Leo X., resolving to substitute woven for painted tapestry round the lower walls of the interior of the Sistine Chapel, commanded Raphael to furnish drawings to the Flemish weavers, and thence arose eleven cartoons, seven of which have been preserved, have become the property of England, and are the glory of the Kensington Museum. The subjects of the cartoons in the seven which have been saved, are 'The Death of Ananias,' 'Elymas the Sorcerer struck with Blindness,' 'The Healing of the Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,' 'The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,' 'Paul and Barnabas at Lystra,' 'St Paul Preaching at Athens,' and 'The Charge to St Peter.' The four cartoons which are lost, were 'The Stoning of St Stephen,' 'The Conversion of St Paul,' 'Paul in Prison,' and 'The Coronation of the Virgin.'

In those cartoons figures above life-size were drawn with chalk upon strong paper, and coloured in distemper, and Raphael received for his work four hundred and thirty gold ducats (about L650), while the Flemish weavers received for their work in wools, silk, and gold, fifty thousand gold ducats. The designs were cut up in strips for the weavers' use, and while some strips were destroyed, the rest lay in a warehouse at Arras, till Rubens became aware of their existence, and advised Charles I, to buy the set, to be employed in the tapestry manufactory established by James I. at Mortlake. Brought to this country in the slips which the weavers had copied, the fate of the cartoons was still precarious. Cromwell bought them in Charles I.'s art collection, and Louis XIV, sought, but failed, to re-buy them. They fell into farther neglect, and were well-nigh forgotten, when Sir Godfrey Kneller recalled them to notice, and induced William III, to have the slips pasted together, and stretched upon linen, and put in a room set apart for them at Hampton Court, whence they were transferred, within the last ten years, for the greater advantage of artists and the public, to Kensington Museum.

The woven tapestries for which the cartoons were designed had quite as chequered a career. In the two sacks of Rome by French soldiers, the tapestries were seized, carried off, and two of them burnt for the bullion in the thread. At last they were restored to the Vatican, where they hang in their faded magnificence, a monument of Leo X, and of Raphael. An additional set of ten tapestry cartoons were supplied to the Vatican by Raphael's scholars.

Raphael painted for the Chigi family in their palace, which is now the Villa Farnesina, scenes from the history of Cupid and Psyche, and the Triumph of Galatea, subjects which show how the passion for classical mythology that distinguishes the next generation, was beginning to work. To these last years belong his 'Madonna di San Sisto,' so named from its having been painted for the convent of St Sixtus at Piacenza, and his last picture, the 'Transfiguration,' with which he was still engaged when death met him unexpectedly.

Raphael, as the Italians say, lived more like a 'principe' (prince) than a 'pittore' (painter). He had a house in Rome, and a villa in the neighbourhood, and on his death left a considerable fortune to his heirs. There has not been wanting a rumour that his life of a principe was a dissipated and prodigal life; but this ugly rumour, even if it had more evidence to support it, is abundantly disproven by the nature of Raphael's work, and by the enormous amount of that work, granting him the utmost assistance from his crowd of scholars. He had innumerable commissions, and retained an immense school from all parts of Italy, the members of which adored their master. Raphael had the additional advantage of having many of his pictures well engraved by a contemporary engraver named Raimondi.

Like Giotto, Raphael was the friend of the most distinguished Italians of his day, including Count Castiglione, and the poet Ariosto. He was notably the warm friend of his fellow-painters both at home and abroad, with the exception of Michael Angelo. A drawing of his own, which Raphael sent, in his kindly interchange of such sketches, to Albert Duerer, is, I think, preserved at Nueremberg. The sovereign princes of Italy, above all Leo X., were not contented with being munificent patrons to Raphael, they treated him with the most marked consideration. The Cardinal Bibbiena proposed the painter's marriage with his niece, ensuring her a dowry of three thousand gold crowns, but Maria di Bibbiena died young, ere the marriage could be accomplished; and Raphael, who was said to be little disposed to the match, did not long survive her. He caught cold, as some report, from his engrossing personal superintendence of the Roman excavations; and, as others declare, from his courtly assiduity in keeping an appointment with the Pope, was attacked by fever, and died on his birth-day, April 6th, 1520, having completed his thirty-seventh year.

All Rome and Italy mourned for him. When his body lay in state, to be looked at and wept over by multitudes, his great unfinished picture of the 'Transfiguration' was hung above the bed. He was buried in a spot chosen by himself in his lifetime, and, as it happened, not far from the resting-place of his promised bride. Doubts having been raised as to Raphael's grave, search was made, and his body was exhumed in 1833, and re-buried with great pomp. Raphael's life and that of Rubens form the ideal painter's life—bountiful, splendid, unclouded, and terminating ere it sees eclipse or decay—to all in whom the artistic temperament is united to a genial, sensuous, pleasure-loving nature.

Raphael was not above the middle height, and slightly made. He was sallow in colour, with brown eyes, and a full yet delicate mouth; but his beautiful face, like that of our English Shakespeare, is familiar to most of us. With regard to Raphael's face, the amount of womanliness in it is a striking characteristic. One hears sometimes that no man's character is complete without its share of womanliness: surely Raphael had a double share, for womanliness is the most distinctive quality in his face, along with that vague shade of pensiveness which we find not infrequently, but strangely enough, in those faces which have been associated with the happiest spirits and the brightest fortunes.

Raphael and his scholars painted and drew about nine hundred pictures and sketches, including a hundred and twenty Madonnas, eight of which are in private collections in England. Of Raphael's greatness, Kugler writes that 'it is not so much in kind as in degree. No master left behind so many really excellent works as he, whose days were so early numbered; in none has there been observed so little that is unpleasant.' All authorities agree in ascribing much of Raphael's power to his purely unselfish nature and aim. His excellence seems to lie in the nearly perfect expression of material beauty and harmony, together with grandeur of design and noble working out of thought. We shall see that this devotion to material beauty has been made something of a reproach to Raphael, as it certainly degenerated into a snare in the hands of his followers, while unquestionably the universal appreciation of Raphael's work, distinguished from the partial appreciation bestowed on the great works of others, proceeds from this evident material beauty which is open to all.

Then, again, Raphael, far more than Andrea del Sarto, deserved to be called 'faultless;' and this general absence of defects and equality of excellence is a great element of Raphael's wide popularity; for, as one can observe for one's self, in regarding a work of art, there is always a large proportion of the spectators who will seize on an error, dwell on it, and be incapable of shaking off its influence, and rising into the higher rank of critics, who discover and ponder over beauties. I would have it considered also, that this equality of excellence does not necessarily proceed always from a higher aim, but may arise rather from an unconsciously lower aim.

The single reproach brought against Raphael as a painter is that—according to some witnesses only, for most deny the implication—Raphael so delighted in material beauty that he became enslaved by it, till it diminished his spiritual insight. It is an incontestable truth that in Raphael, as in all the great Italian painters of his century, there was a falling away from the simple earnestness, the exceeding reverence, the endless patience, the self-abstraction, and self-devotion of the earliest Italian and Flemish painters. Therefore there has been within the last fifty or sixty years that movement in modern art, which is called Pre-raphaelitism, and which is, in fact, a revolt against subjection to Raphael, and his supposed undue exaltation of material beauty, and subjection of truth to beauty—so called. But we must not fall into the grave mistake of imagining that there was any want of vigour and variety in Raphael's grace and tenderness, or that he could not in his greatest works rise into a grandeur in keeping with his subject. Tire as we may of hearing Raphael called the king of painters, as the Greeks tired of hearing Aristides called 'the just,' this fact remains: no painter has left behind him such a mass of surpassingly good work; in no other work is there the same charm of greatest beauty and harmony.

It is hard for me to give you an idea in so short a space of Raphael's work. I must content myself with quoting descriptions of two of his Stanze, those of the Heliodorus and the Segnatura. 'Heliodorus driven out of the Temple (2 Maccabees iii.). In the background Onias the priest is represented praying for Divine interposition;—in the foreground Heliodorus, pursued by two avenging angels, is endeavouring to bear away the treasures of the temple. Amid the group on the left is seen Julius II., in his chair of state, attended by his secretaries. One of the bearers in front is Marc-Antonio Raimondi, the engraver of Raphael's designs. The man with the inscription, "Jo Petro de Folicariis Cremonen," was secretary of briefs to Pope Julius. Here you may fancy you hear the thundering approach of the heavenly warrior, and the neighing of his steed; while in the different groups who are plundering the treasures of the temple, and in those who gaze intently on the sudden consternation of Heliodorus, without being able to divine its cause, we see the expression of terror, amazement, joy, humility, and every passion to which human nature is exposed.'[11]

'The Stanza della Segnatura is so called from a judicial assembly once held here. The frescoes in this chamber are illustrative of the Virtues of Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence, who are represented on the ceiling by Raphael, in the midst of arabesques by Sodoma. The square pictures by Raphael refer:—the Fall of Man to Theology; the Study of the Globe to Philosophy; the Flaying of Marsyas to Poetry; and the Judgment of Solomon to Jurisprudence.

'Entrance Wall.—"The School of Athens." Raphael consulted Ariosto as to the arrangement of its 52 figures. In the centre, on the steps of a portico, are seen Plato and Aristotle, Plato pointing to heaven and Aristotle to earth. On the left is Socrates conversing with his pupils, amongst whom is a young warrior, probably Alcibiades. Lying upon the steps in front is Diogenes. To his left, Pythagoras is writing on his knee, and near him, with ink and pen, is Empedocles. The white mantle is Francesco Maria della Rovere, nephew of Julius II. On the right is Archimedes drawing a geometrical problem upon the floor. The young man near him with uplifted hands is Federigo II., Duke of Mantua. Behind these are Zoroaster, Ptolemy, one with a terrestrial, the other with a celestial globe, addressing two figures, which represent Raphael and his master Perugino. The drawing in brown upon the socle beneath this fresco, is by Pierino del Vaga, and represents the death of Archimedes.

'Right Wall.—"Parnassus." Apollo surrounded by the Muses; on his right, Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Below on the right, Sappho, supposed to be addressing Corinna, Petrarch, Propertius, and Anacreon; on the left Pindar and Horace, Sannazzaro, Boccaccio, and others. Beneath this, in grisaille, are,—Alexander placing the poems of Homer in the tomb of Achilles, and Augustus preventing the burning of Virgil's AEneid.

'Left Wall.—Above the window are Prudence, Fortitude, and Temperance. On the left, Justinian delivers the Pandects to Tribonian. On the right, Gregory IX. (with the features of Julius II.) delivers the Decretals to a jurist;—Cardinal de' Medici, afterwards Leo X., Cardinal Farnese, afterwards Paul III., and Cardinal del Monte, are represented near the Pope. In the socle beneath is Solon addressing the people of Athens.

'Wall of Egress.—"The Disputa." So called from an impression that it represents a Dispute upon the Sacrament. In the upper part of the composition the heavenly host are present; Christ between the Virgin and St John the Baptist; on the left, St Peter, Adam, St John, David, St Stephen, and another; and on the right, St Paul, Abraham, St James, Moses, St Lawrence, and St George. Below is an altar surrounded by the Latin fathers, Gregory, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine. Near St Augustine stand St Thomas Aquinas, St Anacletus, with the palm of a martyr, and Cardinal Buenaventura reading. Those in front are Innocent III., and in the background, Dante, near whom a monk in a black hood is pointed out as Savonarola. The Dominican on the extreme left is supposed to be Fra Angelico. The other figures are uncertain.' ...

'Raphael commenced his work in the Vatican by painting the ceiling and the four walls in the room called della Segnatura, on the surface of which he had to represent four great compositions, which embraced the principal divisions of the encyclopedia of that period; namely, Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, and Jurisprudence.

'It will be conceived, that to an artist imbued with the traditions of the Umbrian School, the first of these subjects was an unparalleled piece of good fortune: and Raphael, long familiar with the allegorical treatment of religious compositions, turned it here to the most admirable account; and, not content with the suggestions of his own genius, he availed himself of all the instruction he could derive from the intelligence of others. From these combined inspirations resulted, to the eternal glory of the Catholic faith and of Christian art, a composition without a rival in the history of painting, and, we may also add, without a name; for to call it lyric or epic is not enough, unless, indeed, we mean, by using these expressions, to compare it with the allegorical epic of Dante, alone worthy to be ranked with this marvellous production of the pencil of Raphael.

'Let no one consider this praise as idle and groundless, for it is Raphael himself who forces the comparison upon us, by placing the figure of Dante among the favourite sons of the Muses; and, what is still more striking, by draping the allegorical figure of Theology in the very colours in which Dante has represented Beatrice; namely, the white veil, the red tunic, and the green mantle, while on her head he has placed the olive crown.

'Of the four allegorical figures which occupy the compartments of the ceiling, and which were all painted immediately after Raphael's arrival in Rome, Theology and Poetry are incontestably the most remarkable. The latter would be easily distinguished by the calm inspiration of her glance, even were she without her wings, her starry crown, and her azure robe, all having allusion to the elevated region towards which it is her privilege to soar. The figure of Theology is quite as admirably suited to the subject she personifies; she points to the upper part of the grand composition, which takes its name from her, and in which the artist has provided inexhaustible food for the sagacity and enthusiasm of the spectator.

'This work consists of two grand divisions,—Heaven and Earth—which are united to one another by that mystical bond, the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The personages whom the Church has most honoured for learning and holiness, are ranged in picturesque and animated groups on either side of the altar, on which the consecrated wafer is exposed. St Augustine dictates his thoughts to one of his disciples; St Gregory, in his pontifical robes, seems absorbed in contemplation of celestial glory; St Ambrose, in a slightly different attitude, appears to be chanting the Te Deum; while St Jerome, seated, rests his hands on a large book, which he holds on his knees. Pietro Lombardo, Duns Scotus, St Thomas Aquinas, Pope Anacletus, St Buenaventura, and Innocent III., are no less happily characterized; while, behind all these illustrious men, whom the Church and succeeding generations have agreed to honour, Raphael has ventured to introduce Dante with his laurel crown, and, with still greater boldness, the monk Savonarola, publicly burnt ten years before as a heretic.

'In the glory, which forms the upper part of the picture, the Three Persons of the Trinity are represented, surrounded by patriarchs, apostles, and saints: it may, in fact, be considered in some sort as a resume of all the favourite compositions produced during the last hundred years by the Umbrian School. A great number of the types, and particularly those of Christ and the Virgin, are to be found in the earlier works of Raphael himself. The Umbrian artists, from having so long exclusively employed themselves on mystical subjects, had certainly attained to a marvellous perfection in the representation of celestial beatitude, and of those ineffable things of which it has been said that the heart of man cannot conceive them, far less, therefore, the pencil of man portray; and Raphael, surpassing them in all, and even in this instance, while surpassing himself, appears to have fixed the limits, beyond which Christian art, properly so called, has never since been able to advance.'[12]

Of Raphael's Madonnas, I should like to speak of three. The Madonna di San Sisto: 'It represents the Virgin standing in a majestic attitude; the infant Saviour enthroned in her arms; and around her head a glory of innumerable cherubs melting into light. Kneeling before her we see on one side St Sixtus, on the other St Barbara, and beneath her feet two heavenly cherubs gaze up in adoration. In execution, as in design, this is probably the most perfect picture in the world. It is painted throughout by Raphael's own hand; and as no sketch or study of any part of it was ever known to exist, and as the execution must have been, from the thinness and delicacy of the colours, wonderfully rapid, it is supposed that he painted it at once on the canvas—a creation rather than a picture. In the beginning of the last century the Elector of Saxony, Augustus III., purchased this picture from the monks of the convent for the sum of sixty thousand florins (about L6000), and it now forms the chief boast and ornament of the Dresden Gallery'[13]

The Madonna del Cardellino (our Lady of the Goldfinch): 'The Virgin is sitting on a rock, in a flowery meadow. Behind are the usual light and feathery trees, growing on the bank of a stream, which passes off to the left in a rocky bend, and is crossed by a bridge of a single arch. To the right, the opposite bank slopes upward in a gentle glade, across which is a village, backed by two distant mountain-peaks.

'In front of the sitting matronly figure of the Virgin are the holy children, our Lord and the Baptist, one on either side of her right knee. She has been reading, and the approach of St John has caused her to look off her book (which is open in her left hand) at the new comer, which she does with a look of holy love and gentleness, at the same time caressingly drawing him to her with her right hand, which touches his little body under the right arm. In both hands, which rest across the Virgin's knee, he holds a captive goldfinch, which he has brought, with childish glee, as an offering to the Holy Child. The infant Jesus, standing between his mother's knees, with one foot placed on her foot, and her hand, with the open book, close above his shoulder, regards the Baptist with an upward look of gentle solemnity, at the same time that he holds his bent hand over the head of the bird.

'So much for mere description. The inner feeling of the picture, the motive which has prompted it, has surely hardly ever been surpassed. The Blessed Virgin, in casting her arm round the infant St John, looks down on him with a holy complacency for the testimony which he is to bear to her Son. Notice the human boyish glee with which the Baptist presents the captured goldfinch, and, on the other hand, the divine look, even of majesty and creative love, with which the infant Jesus, laying his hand on the head of the bird, half reproves St John, as it were saying, "Love them and hurt them not." Notice, too, the unfrightened calm of the bird itself, passive under the hand of its loving Creator. All these are features of the very highest power of human art.

'Again, in accompaniments, all is as it should be. The Virgin, modestly and beautifully draped; St John, girt about the loins, not only in accord with his well-known prophetic costume, but also as partaking of sinful humanity, and therefore needing such cincture: the Child Redeemer, with a slight cincture, just to suggest motherly care, but not over the part usually concealed, as indeed it never ought to be, seeing that in Him was no sin, and that it is this spotless purity which is ever the leading idea in representations of Him as an infant. Notice, too, his foot, beautifully resting on that of his mother; the unity between them being thus wonderfully though slightly kept up. Her eye has just been dwelling on the book of the Prophecies open in her hand; and thus the spectator's thought is ruled in accordance with the high mission of the Holy One of God, and thrown forward into the grand and blessed future. It is a holy and wonderful picture; I had not seen any in Italy which had struck or refreshed me more.'[14]

And allow me to write two or three words with regard to the 'Madonna della Sedia,' or our Lady of the Chair, an engraving of which used to charm me when a child. The Virgin, very young and simple-looking in her loveliness, is seated on a low chair, clasping the Divine Child, who is leaning in weariness on her breast. In the original picture, St John with his cross is standing—a boy at the Virgin's knee, but he is absent from the old engraving. The meek adoring tenderness in the face of the mother, the holy ingenuousness in that of the child, are expressions to be long studied.

Of Raphael's cartoons, which, so many of us can see for ourselves, I cannot trust myself to do more than to repeat what strikes me as a singularly apt phrase of Hazlitt's, given by Mrs Jameson, that the cartoons are instances in which 'the corruptible has put on incorruption.' That from the very slightness of the materials employed, and the very injuries which the cartoons have sustained, we have the greatest triumph of art, where 'the sense of power supersedes the appearance of effort,' and where the result is the more majestic for being in ruins. 'All other pictures look like oil and varnish, we are stopped and attracted by the colouring, the penciling, the finishing, the instrumentality of art; but the on the canvas.... There is nothing between us and the subject; we look through a frame and see Scripture histories, and amidst the wreck of colour and the mouldering of material beauty, nothing is left but a universe of thought, or the broad imminent shadows of calm contemplation and majestic pains.'

And that Raphael did not neglect the minutest details in these sketches, will be seen by the accompanying note: 'The foreground of Raphael's two cartoons, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes," and "The Charge to Peter," are covered with plants of the common sea cole-wort, of which the sinuated leaves and clustered blossoms would have exhausted the patience of any other artist; but have appeared worthy of prolonged and thoughtful labour to the great mind of Raphael.'—Ruskin.

Whole clusters of anecdotes gather round the cartoons, which, as they have to do with the work and not the worker, I leave untouched, with regret. But I must forewarn my readers by mentioning some of the refuted criticisms which have been applied to the cartoons. Reading the criticisms and their answers ought to render us modest and wary in 'picking holes' in great pictures, as forward and flippant critics, old and young, are tempted to pick them. With regard to the 'Miraculous Draught of Fishes,' a great outcry was once set up that Raphael had made the boat too little to hold the figures he has placed in it. But Raphael made the boat little advisedly; if he had not done so, the picture would have been 'all boat,' a contingency scarcely to be desired; on the other hand, if Raphael had diminished the figures to suit the size of the boat, these figures would not have suited those of the other cartoons, and the cartoon would have lost greatly in dignity and effect.

In the cartoon of the 'Death of Ananias,' carping objectors were ready to suggest that Raphael had committed an error in time by introducing Sapphira in the background counting her ill-gotten gains, at the moment when her no less guilty husband has fallen down in the agonies of death. It was hours afterwards that Sapphira entered into the presence of the apostles. But we must know that time and space do not exist for painters, who have to tell their story at one stroke, as it were.

In the treating of the 'Lame Man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,' some authorities have found fault with Raphael for breaking the composition into parts by the introduction of pillars, and, farther, that the shafts are not straight. Yet by this treatment Raphael has concentrated the principal action in a sort of frame, and thus has been enabled to give more freedom of action to the remaining figures in the other divisions of the picture. 'It is evident, moreover, that had the shafts been perfectly straight, according to the severest law of good taste in architecture, the effect would have been extremely disagreeable to the eye; by their winding form they harmonize with the manifold forms of the moving figures around, and they illustrate, by their elaborate elegance, the Scripture phrase, "the gate which is called Beautiful."'—Mrs Jameson.

Of Raphael's portraits I must mention that wonderful portrait of Leo X., often reckoned the best portrait in the world for truth of likeness and excellence of painting, and those of the so-called 'Fornarina,' or 'baker'. Two Fornarinas are at Rome and one at Florence. There is a story that the original of the first two pictures was a girl of the people to whom Raphael was attached; and there is this to be said for the tradition, that there is an acknowledged coarseness in the very beauty of the half-draped Fornarina of the Barberini Palace. The 'Fornarina' of Florence is the portrait of a noble woman, holding the fur-trimming of her mantle with her right hand, and it is said that the picture can hardly represent the same individual as that twice represented in Rome. According to one guess the last 'Fornarina' is Vittoria Colonna, the Marchesa de Pescara, painted by Seba Piombo, instead of by Raphael; and according to another, the Roman 'Fornarina' is no Fornarina beloved by Raphael, but Beatrice Pio, a celebrated improvisatrice of the time.

An 'innovation of modern times is to spell Raphael's name in England as the modern Italians spelt it, Raffaelle, a word of four syllables, and yet to pronounce this Italian word as if it were English, as Raphael. Vasari wrote Raffaello; he himself wrote Raphael on his pictures, and has signed the only autograph letter we have of his, Raphaello.'[15]

Titian, or Tiziano Vecelli, the greatest painter of the Venetian School, reckoned worthy to be named with Lionardo, Michael Angelo and Raphael, was born of good family at Capo del Cadore in the Venetian State, in 1477. There is a tradition that while other painters made their first essays in art with chalk or charcoal, the boy Titian, who lived to be a glorious colourist, made his earliest trials in painting with the juice of flowers. Titian studied in Venice under the Bellini, and had Giorgione, who was born in the same year, for his fellow-scholar, at first his friend, later his rival. When a young man Titian spent some time in Ferrara; there he painted his 'Bacchus and Ariadne,' and a portrait of Lucrezia Borgia. In 1512, when Titian was thirty-five years of age, he was commissioned by the Venetians to continue the works in the great council-hall, which the advanced age of Gian Bellini kept him from finishing. Along with this commission Titian was appointed in 1516 to the office of la Sanseria, which gave him the duty and privilege of painting the portraits of the Doges as long as he held the office; coupled with the office was a salary of one hundred and twenty crowns a year. Titian lived to paint five Doges; two others, his age, equal to that of Gian Bellini, prevented him from painting.

In 1516, Titian painted his greatest sacred picture, the 'Assumption of the Virgin.' In the same year he painted the poet Ariosto, who mentions the painter with high honour in his verse.

In 1530, Titian, a man of fifty-three years, was at Bologna, where there was a meeting between Charles V, and Pope Clement VII., when he was presented to both princes.

Charles V, and Philip II, became afterwards great patrons and admirers of Titian, and it is of Charles V. and Titian that a legend, to which I have already referred, is told. The Emperor, visiting the painter while he was at work, stooped down and picked up a pencil, which Titian had let fall, to the confusion and distress of the painter, when Charles paid the princely compliment, 'Titian is worthy of being served by Caesar.' Titian painted many portraits of Charles V., and of the members of his house. As Maximilian had created Albrecht Duerer a noble of the Empire, Charles V, created Titian a Count Palatine, and a Knight of the Order of St Iago, with a pension, which was continued by Philip II., of four hundred crowns a year. It is doubtful whether Titian ever visited the Spain of his patrons, but Madrid possesses forty-three of his pictures, among them some of his finest works.

Titian went to Rome in his later years, but declined to abandon for Rome the painter's native Venice, which had lavished her favours on her son. He lived in great splendour, paying annual summer visits to his birth-place of Cadore, and occasionally dwelling again for a time at Ferrara, Urbino, Bologna. In two instances he joined the Emperor at Augsburgh. When Henry III, of France landed at Venice, he was entertained en grand seigneur by Titian, then a very old man; and when the king asked the price of some pictures which pleased him, Titian at once presented them as a gift to his royal guest.

Titian married, as has been recently ascertained, and had three children,—two sons, the elder a worthless and scandalous priest; the second a good son and accomplished painter; and a daughter, the beautiful Lavinia, so often painted by her father, and whose name will live with his. Titian survived his wife thirty-six years; and his daughter, who had married, and was the mother of several children, six years. His second son and fellow-painter died of the same plague which struck down Titian, in 1566, at the ripe age of eighty-nine years.

Titian is said to have been a man of irritable and passionate temper. The hatred between him and the painter, Pordenone, was so bitter, that the latter thought his life in danger, and painted with his shield and poniard lying ready to his hand. Titian grasped with imperious tenacity his supremacy as a painter, sedulously kept the secrets of his skill, and was most unmagnanimously jealous of the attainments of his scholars. No defect of temper, however, kept Titian from having two inseparable convivial companions—one of them the architect, Sansovino, and the other the profligate wit, Aretino, who was pleased to style himself the 'friend of Titian and the scourge of princes.' Though Titian is said, in the panic of the great plague, to have died not only neglected, but plundered before his eyes, still Venice prized him so highly, that she made in his favour the single exception of a public funeral, during the appalling devastation wrought by the pestilence.

From an engraving of a portrait of Titian by himself, which is before me, I can give the best idea of his person. He looks like one of the merchant princes, whom he painted so often and so well, in richly furred gown, massive chain, and small cap, far off his broad forehead: a stately figure, with a face—in its aquiline nose and keen eyes, full of sagacity and fire, which no years could tame.

Towards the close of Titian's life, there was none who even approached the old Venetian painter in the art which he practised freely to the last. Painting in Italy was everywhere losing its pre-eminence. It had become, even when it was not so nominally, thoroughly secularized;—and with reason, for the painters by their art-creed and by their lives were fitter to represent gods and goddesses, in whom no man believed, than to give earnest expression to a living faith. Even Titian, great as he was, proved a better painter of heathen mythology than of sacred subjects.

But within certain limits and in certain directions, Titian stands unequalled. He has a high place for composition and for drawing, and his colouring was, beyond comparison, grand and true. He was great as a landscape painter, and he was the best portrait painter whom the world ever saw. In his painting is seen, not, indeed, the life of the spirit, but the life of the senses 'in its fullest power,' and in Titian there was such large mastery of this life, that in his freedom there was no violence, but the calmness of supreme strength, the serenity of perfect satisfaction. His painting was a reflection of the old Greek idea of the life of humanity as a joyous existence, so long as the sun of youth, maturity, health, and good fortune shone, without even that strain of foreboding pain, and desperate closing with fate, which troubled the bliss of ancient poet or sculptor. A large proportion of Titian's principal pictures are at Venice and Madrid.

Among Titian's finest sacred pictures, are his 'Assumption of the Virgin,' now in the Academy, Venice, where 'the Madonna, a powerful figure, is borne rapidly upwards, as if divinely impelled; .., fascinating groups of infant angels surround her, beneath stand the apostles, looking up with solemn gestures;' and his 'Entombment of Christ,' a picture which is also in Venice. Titian's Madonnas were not so numerous as his Venuses, many of which are judged excellent examples of the master. His 'Bacchus and Ariadne,' in the National Gallery, is described by Mrs Jameson, 'as presenting, on a small scale, an epitome of all the beauties which characterize Titian, in the rich, picturesque, animated composition, in the ardour of Bacchus, who flings himself from his car to pursue Ariadne; the dancing bacchanals, the frantic grace of the bacchante, and the little joyous satyr in front, trailing the head of the sacrifice.'

Titian's landscapes are the noble backgrounds to many of his pictures. These landscapes were not only free, but full. 'The great masters of Italy, almost without exception, and Titian, perhaps, more than any other (for he had the highest knowledge of landscape), are in the constant habit of rendering every detail of their foregrounds with the most laborious botanical fidelity; witness the Bacchus and Ariadne, in which the foreground is occupied by the common blue iris, the aquilegia, and the wild rose; every stamen of which latter is given, while the blossoms and leaves of the columbine (a difficult flower to draw) have been studied with the most exquisite accuracy.'—Ruskin.

In portraits, Titian conveyed to the sitters and transferred to his canvas, not only a life-likeness, but a positively noble dignity in that likeness. What in Van Dyck and Sir Joshua Reynolds was the bestowing of high breeding and dainty refinement, became under Titian's brush dignity, pure and simple, very quiet, and wonderfully real. There is this peculiarity in connection with the number of portraits which Titian executed, that many of them have descended to us without further titles than those of 'A Venetian Senator,' 'A Lady,' etc., etc., yet of the individual life of the originals no one can doubt. With regard to Titian's portraits of women, I have already referred to those of his beautiful daughter, Lavinia. In one portrait, in the Berlin Museum, she is holding a plate of fruit; in another, in England, the plate of fruit is changed into a casket of jewels; in a third, at Madrid, Lavinia is Herodias, and bears a charger with the head of John the Baptist. A 'Violante'—as some say, the daughter of Titian's scholar, Palma, though dates disprove this—sat frequently to Titian, and is said to have been loved by him.

I have written, in connection with Lionardo's 'Jaconde' and Raphael's 'Fornarina,' of Titian's 'Bella Donna.' He has various 'Bellas,' but, as far as I know, this is the 'Bella Donna,'—'a splendid, serious beauty, in a red and blue silk dress,' in the Sciarra Gallery, Rome.

I have read that critics were at one time puzzled by the singular yellow, almost straw colour, appearing profusely in the hair of the women of the Venetian painters of this time, and that it was only by consulting contemporary records that it was learnt that the Venetian women indulged in the weak and false vanity of dyeing their black hair a pale yellow—a process, in the course of which the women drew the hair through the crown of a broad-brimmed hat, and spreading it over the brim, submitted patiently to bleaching the hair in a southern sun.

Among Titian's portraits of men, those of the 'Emperor Charles V.' and the 'Duke of Alva' are among the most famous.

Titian painted, and painted wonderfully, to the very last. He was eighty-one when he painted the 'Martyrdom of St Lawrence,' one of his largest and grandest compositions, and in the last year of his life he painted—leaving it not quite completed,—a 'Pieta;' showing that his hand owned the weight of years,[16] but the conception of the subject is still animated and striking, the colours still glowing; while, Titian-like, the light still flows around the mighty group in every gradation of tone.



CHAPTER V.

GERMAN ART—ALBRECHT DUeRER, 1471-1528.

Albrecht Duerer carries us to a different country and a different race. And he who has been called the father of German painting is thoroughly German, not only in his Saxon honesty, sedateness, and strength, but in the curious mixture of simplicity, subtlety, homeliness, and fantasticalness, which are still found side by side in German genius.

Albrecht Duerer was born at that fittest birth-place for the great German painter, quaint old Nuremberg, in 1471. He was the son of a goldsmith, and one of a family of eighteen children; a home school in which he may have learnt early the noble, manly lessons of self-denial and endurance, which he practised long and well. He was trained to his father's trade until the lad's bent became so unmistakable that he was wisely transferred to the studio of a painter to serve his apprenticeship to art.

When the Nuremberg apprenticeship was completed, Albrecht followed the German custom, very valuable to him, of serving another and a 'wandering apprenticeship,' which carried him betimes through Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, painting and studying as he went. He painted his own portrait about this time, showing himself a comely, pleasant, and pleased young fellow, in a curious holiday suit of plaited low-bodied shirt, jerkin, and mantle across the shoulder, with a profusion of long fair curls, of which he was said to have been vain, arranged elaborately on each side, the blue eyes looking with frank confidence out of the blonde face. He painted himself a little later with the brave kindly face grown mature, and the wisdom of the spirit shining in the eyes, and weighing on the brows.

On his return from his travels, Albrecht Duerer's father arranged his son's marriage with the daughter of a musician in Nuremberg. The inducement to the marriage seems to have been, on the father's part, the dowry, and on the son's the beauty of the bride. How unhappy the union proved, without any fault of Albrecht's, has been the theme of so many stories, that I am half inclined to think that some of us must be more familiar with Albrecht Duerer's wedded life than with any other part of his history. It seems to me, that there is considerable exaggeration in these stories, for granted that Agnes Duerer was a shrew and a miser, was Albrecht Duerer the man to be entirely, or greatly, at such a woman's mercy? Taking matters at their worst, dishonour and disgrace did not come near the great painter. He was esteemed, as he deserved to be; he had a true friend in his comrade Pirkheimer; he had his art; he had the peace of a good conscience; he had the highest of all consolations in his faith in Heaven. Certainly it is not from Albrecht himself that the tale of his domestic wretchedness has come. He was as manfully patient and silent as one might have expected in a man upright, firm, and self-reliant as he was tender. I do not think it is good for men, and especially for women, to indulge in egotistical sentimentality, and to believe that such a woman as Agnes Duerer could utterly thwart and wreck the life of a man like Albrecht. It is not true to life, in the first place; and it is dishonouring to the man, in the second; for although, doubtless, there are men who are driven to destruction or heart-broken by even the follies of women, these men have not the stout hearts, the loyal spirits, the manly mould of Albrecht Duerer.

But making every allowance for the high colours with which a tale that has grown stale is apt to be daubed, I am forced to admit the inference that a mean, sordid, contentious woman probably did as much as was in her power to harass and fret one of the best men in Germany, or in the world. Luckily for himself, Albrecht was a severe student, had much engrossing work which carried him abroad, and travelled once at least far away from the harassing and galling home discipline. For anything further, I believe that Albrecht loved his greedy, scolding wife, whose fair face he painted frequently in his pictures, and whom he left at last well and carefully provided for, as he bore with her to the end.

In 1506 Albrecht Duerer re-visited Italy alone, making a stay of eight months in Venice, where he formed his friendship with the old Gian Bellini, and where Albrecht had the misfortune to show the proofs and plans of his engravings to the Italian engraver, Raimondi, who engraved Raphael's paintings, and who proved himself base enough to steal and make use of Albrecht Duerer's designs to the German's serious loss and inconvenience.

A little later Albrecht Duerer, accompanied by his wife, visited the Netherlands. The Emperor Maximilian treated the painter with great favour, and a legend survives of their relations:—Duerer was painting so large a subject that he required steps to reach it. The Emperor, who was present, required a nobleman of his suite to steady the steps for the painter, an employment which the nobleman declined as unworthy of his rank, when the Emperor himself stepped forward and supplied the necessary aid, remarking, 'Sir, understand that I can make Albrecht a noble like and above you' (Maximilian had just raised Albrecht Duerer to the rank of noble of the empire), 'but neither I nor any one else can make an artist like him.' We may compare this story with a similar and later story of Holbein and Henry VIII., and with another earlier story, having a slight variation, of Titian and Charles V. The universality of the story shakes one's belief in its individual application, but at least the legend, with different names, remains as an indication of popular homage to genius.

While executing a large amount of work for the great towns and sovereign princes of Germany, some of whom were said to consult the painter on their military operations, relying on his knowledge of mathematics, and his being able to apply it to military engineering and fortification, Albrecht Duerer was constantly improving and advancing in his art, laying down his prejudices, and acquiring fresh ideas, as well as fresh information, according to the slow but sure process of the true German mind, till his last work was incomparably his best.

Germany was then in the terrible throes of the Reformation, and Albrecht Duerer, who has left us the portraits of several of the great Reformers, is believed to have been no uninterested spectator of the struggle, and to have held, like his fellow-painter, Lucas Cranach—though in Albrecht Duerer's case the change was never openly professed—the doctrines of the Reformation.

There is a portrait of Albrecht Duerer, painted by himself, in his later years. (By the way, Albrecht was not averse to painting his own portrait as well as that of his friend Pirkheimer, and of making the fullest claim to his work by introducing into his religious and historical pictures his own figure holding a flag or tablet, inscribed with his name in the quiet self-assertion of a man who was neither ashamed of himself, nor of anything he did.) In that last portrait, Albrecht is a thoughtful, care-worn man, with his fair locks shorn. Some will attribute the change to Agnes Duerer, but I imagine it proceeds simply from the noble scars of work and time; and that when Albrecht Duerer died in his fifty-seventh year, if it were in sourness and bitterness of spirit, as some of his biographers have stated, that sourness and bitterness were quite as much owing to the grievous troubles of his time and country, which so large-minded a man was sure to lay to heart, as to any domestic trouble. Albrecht Duerer was greatly beloved by his own city of Nuremberg, where his memory continues to be cherished. His quaint house still stands, and his tomb bears the motto 'Emigravit,'

'For the great painter never dies.'

Albrecht Duerer's name ranks with the names of the first painters of any time or country, though his work as a painter was, as in the case of William Hogarth, subservient to his work as an engraver. With the knowledge of a later generation to that of the earliest Italian and Flemish painters, Albrecht Duerer had much of their singleness of purpose, assiduity of application, and profound feeling. He had to labour against a tendency to uncouthness in stiff lines and angular figures; to petty elaboration of details; and to that grotesqueness which, while it suited in some respects his allegorical engravings, marred his historical paintings, so that he was known to regret the wasted fantastic crowding and confusion of his earlier work. From the Italians and Flemings he learnt simplicity, and a more correct sense of material beauty. The purity, truth, and depth of the man's spirit, from which ideal beauty proceeds, no man could add to.

Among Albrecht Duerer's greatest paintings are his 'Adoration of the Trinity' at Vienna, his 'Adam and Eve' at Florence, and that last picture of 'The Apostles,' presented by Albrecht Duerer to his native city, 'in remembrance of his career as an artist, and at the same time as conveying to his fellow-citizens an earnest and lasting exhortation suited to that stormy period.' The prominence given to the Bible in the picture, points to it as the last appeal in the great spiritual struggle. With regard to this noble masterly picture, Kugler has written, 'Well might the artist now close his eyes. He had in this picture attained the summit of art; here he stands side by side with the greatest masters known in history.'

But I prefer to say something of Albrecht Duerer's engravings, which are more characteristic of him and far more widely known than his paintings; and to speak first of those two wonderful and beautiful allegories, 'Knight, Death, and the Devil,' and 'Melancolia.' In the first, which is an embodiment of weird German romance as well as of high Christian faith, the solitary Knight, with his furrowed face and battered armour, rides steadfastly on through the dark glen, unmoved by his grisly companions, skeleton Death on the lame horse, and the foul Fiend in person. Contrast this sketch and its thoughtful touching meaning with the hollow ghastliness of Holbein's 'Dance of Death.'

In 'Melancolia' a grand winged woman sits absorbed in sorrowful thought, while surrounded by all the appliances of philosophy, science, art, mechanics, all the discoveries made before and in Albrecht Duerer's day, in the book, the chart, the lever, the crystal, the crucible, the plane, the hammer. The intention of this picture has been disputed, but the best explanation of it is that which regards the woman as pondering on the humanly unsolved and insoluble mystery of the sin and sorrow of life.

In three large series of woodcuts, known as the Greater and the Lesser Passion of the Lord, and the Life of the Virgin, and taken partly from sacred history and partly from tradition, Albrecht Duerer exceeded himself in true beauty, simple majesty, and pathos. Photographs have spread widely these fine woodcuts, and there is, at least, one which I think my readers may have seen, 'The Bearing of the Cross,' in which the blessed Saviour sinks under his burden. In the series of the Life of the Virgin there is a 'Repose in Egypt,' which has a naive homeliness in its grace and serenity. The woodcut represents a courtyard with a dwelling built in the ruins of an ancient palace. The Virgin sits spinning with a distaff and spindle beside the Holy Child's cradle, by which beautiful angels worship. Joseph is busy at his carpenter's work, and a number of little angels, in merry sport, assist him with his labours.[17]