against the order of time, as we must presently consider the works of a more remote period of history, it is as well to say in one place, what little our space will admit on the subject of MSS.

Besides the painters already mentioned there were very few illuminators of celebrity. One of the earliest was Oderigi of Gubbio, noticed by Dante in his "Purgatorio" (canto xi.); he died about 1300 A.D. His more celebrated pupil, Franco Bolognese, likewise noticed by Dante in the same canto, was still living in 1313. Simone Memmi, the painter of Laura, and by whom there is a miniature of Virgil writing, in a MS. of that poet, in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, died at Avignon in 1342.

Attavante, a Florentine artist of the fifteenth century, was a very celebrated illuminator of MSS. There is in the Library at Brussels a magnificent Missal, which he illuminated for Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. The former regents of Belgium used to take their official oath upon this volume; the first to do so were the Archduke Albert and Isabella in 1599; and the Prince of SaxenTeschen, in the name of Joseph II., was the last, in 1781. It was probably brought to Brussels by Maria, sister of Charles V.; she obtained the Government of the Netherlands after the death of her husband, Ludwig II. of Hungary. Attavante was still living in 1487. Julio Clovio's illuminations are injured by their excessive finish he spent, according to Vasari, nine years in executing twenty-six miniatures in a breviary of the Virgin, for the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese; it is now in the Royal Library at Naples. Clovio died in 1578. Oderigi and Attavante, and the few before mentioned, are the only illuminators of MSS. known exclusively as such, who have obtained great fame; and they were probably not exclusively engaged on such works.

There is a Psalter in the British Museum, supposed to be of English origin, of perhaps the latter part of the thirteenth century, or probably the early part of the fourteenth (Reg. 2, b. 7.), in which the drawing of the period is much better represented than is generally the case in MSS. Some of the illuminations are fair specimens of the design of the Italian frescoes of the period; and it is a matter of rare occurrence to find the illuminations of MSS. even approximating the best style of design of their respective ages. It is an octavo volume, containing 320 leaves of vellum; on the first sixty-five are illustrations from the Old Testament, in transparent water-colours, in the usual style of such drawings, the designs being drawn in outline, and the colours lightly washed in. These are followed by drawings of Saints, in body colours or distemper, which are likewise first drawn in outline; but in this style the outline is frequently obliterated by being painted over with the body colour. These designs are followed by a Calendar, and finally

comes the Psalter, which fills the greater part of the volume, and is ornamented with many designs both of events and customs. It belonged to Queen Mary, to whom it was presented in 1553 by its then possessor, Baldwin Smith.

An interesting MS. of the fifteenth century is the celebrated Bedford Missal, executed in France for John, Duke of Bedford, and Regent of France, in the reign of Henry VI., in the possession of Sir John Tobin at Liverpool, in 1833, who purchased it at a sale for 1100l. It is a small folio, and contains fifty-nine illustrations nearly of the size of the page, and about a thousand small illustrations with ornamental borders, &c. In this MS. is the only known portrait of the Duke of Bedford: the portrait of the duke, engraved by Vertue for Rapin's "History of England," was engraved from this illustration. It was presented by the duke to Henry VI., at his coronation in France. There are several illuminated French romances of the fifteenth century in the British Museum, with many valuable illustrations with regard to costume. Among the most interesting are:-the famous "Romance of the Rose" (Harl. MSS. 4425); the collection presented by Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, to Margaret of Anjou (Royal MSS. 15 E. vi.); and the "Poems of Christine of Pisa" (Harl. MSS. 4431). The "Romant de la Rose," supposed to have been executed towards the close of the fifteenth century, is very richly illuminated. The poem itself dates from the thirteenth century; it describes a dream, and contains 22,000 lines in 100 chapters: it was commenced by William de Lorris, and completed by John De Mehun. The British Museum MS. is considered the most beautiful one extant of this poem, which has, however, been several times printed. The last edition was published at Paris in 1814.

The Anglo-Saxons were long among the best illuminators; and the Irish also were distinguished for their excellence in this department of art. The British or Hiberno-Saxon school of illumination shows a distinct character, as seen in the so-called "Durham Book, or St. Cuthbert's Gospel," of the beginning of the eighth century, now in the British Museum. The initials are characterised by an extreme intricacy of pattern, interlacing of knots, something on the principle of the so-called Runic knots and tracery, so common in the sculptured monuments of Ireland and of the North. They are sometimes interwoven with animals and birds, and often terminating in the heads of serpents. These peculiarities indicate a Byzantine origin. The serpent figures largely in Byzantine art, as the instrument of the Fall, and one type of the Redemption. The cross planted on the serpent is found sculptured on Mount Athos; and the cross surrounded by the Runic knot is only a Scandinavian version of the original Byzantine image, the crushed snake curling round the

stem of the avenging cross. The ordinary Northern and Irish crosses, so conspicuous for their interlaced ornaments and grotesque monsters, and all the similar initial letters of the MSS., appear to be purely modifications of this idea. There are some very characteristic examples of this tracery in Chalmers' Sculptured Monuments of Angus.

There are no British illuminations later than the reign of Henry VII. After the establishment of printing, and consequent multiplication of books, MSS. became gradually more rare, though still occasionally executed as works of luxury or curiosities of calligraphy. Their writing is often equal to the finest types, and sometimes even superior. Perhaps the latest of the illuminated missals, says Sir F. Madden, is the immense folio in the library of Rouen, which is nearly three feet high, and cost the monk of St. Andoen, who illuminated it, thirty years of labour: it was completed in 1682.1

1 A fuller account of the illuminations of MSS. is given in the article "PALEOGRAPHY "in the "Supplement to the Penny Cyclopædia," and the whole subject will be found thoroughly treated in the following works:-Dibdin's "Bibliographical Decameron," 1817: D'Agincourt's "Histoire de l'Art par les Monuments," &c., 1823 Shaw's "Illuminated Ornaments," already cited; and the magnificent work published in Paris by Champollion Figeac, and Aimé Champollion, Fils, "Paléographie Universelle; Collection de Fac-Similes d'Ecritures de tous les Peuples et de tous les Temps," par M. Silvestre, 1839-42, 4 vols. folio. Lately photography, also, has been brought into aid for the illustration of MS. illuminations, as well as of painters' original drawings; and a fine selection from Flemish miniatures, in the Grimani Breviary has been published in Venice by Antonio Perini-"Fac-simile delle Miniature contenute nel Breviario Grimani, conservato nella Biblioteca di San Marco." The principal illuminators of this missal were Memling, Gerard of Ghent, and Livin of Antwerp, both probably Memling's pupils. The Breviary belonged to Antonello da Messina, who sold it to Cardinal Grimani for 500 ducats. See the "Anonimo di Morelli," p. 77.

BOOK III.

THE RENAISSANCE. DEVOTIONAL ART. ASCENDANCY OF SENTIMENT. NEW TECHNICS.

CHAPTER XII.

THE REVIVAL OF PAINTING IN ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY: CIMABUE AND GIOTTO.-THE GIOTTESCHI.

WHATEVER were the causes, and they are not obvious, the formative arts made a surprising and comparatively sudden progress in the thirteenth century. Various promoting causes have been suggested as the source of this improvement; but it was doubtless owing to the combination of many influences. The Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204, and the greater intercourse generally which then arose between the Italians and the Greeks or Byzantines, appears to have been one of the principal sources of the advancement. Many Greek artists were established in Italy in the thirteenth century, and were apparently particularly active at Venice, at Siena, and Pisa; Greek artists, however, were certainly in the habit of going to Italy long before this time. Part of the improvement was doubtless owing to the study of ancient bassirilievi, which first attracted the notice of artists about this time; and also much must be attributed to the more than ordinary powers of observation of some few individual artists, who shook off the trammels of convention and ancient precedent, and had immediate recourse to Nature herself. The gold grounds, however, which characterize this epoch, appear to have belonged to the Byzantines, who also were probably the masters of the Italians in the preparing of their paints and colours and other technicalities; for it is more probable that such arts would be even improved at Byzantium, which, since its elevation to the imperial capital, had never, until 1204, been wasted by a foreign enemy, than that they could be so

much as preserved in Italy, for ages the common prey of all the marauding tribes of the North.

The great fact of the revival of art is that it became imitative as well as representative, though in the first two centuries, or before Masaccio, the imitation was as much imaginary as real: the art of looking at Nature had to be learnt before the imitating her could be acquired. It is worthy of remark, that the more positive revival of Art was simultaneous, or immediately following the discovery of gunpowder and the invention of printing. The discovery of gunpowder, by rendering the baronial and other strongholds untenable, and thus putting an end to the impunity of tyranny and plunder at once, enabled the peaceful and industrious classes to devote themselves to commerce and the useful arts, with comparative security and proportionate success. Gunpowder was certainly a most valuable pioneer in modern civilization. Printing likewise, of incalculable consequences, disseminated both ancient lore and modern science, spreading a new spirit of inquiry, and a taste for knowledge of every description. The immense improvement which took place in the Arts in the fifteenth century was doubtless greatly owing to this new impulse given to the whole range of the intellectual and perceptive faculties of man, henceforth under other influences besides ecclesiastical tradition.

TUSCAN SCHOOL.

Among the modern schools of Italy, the Florentine or Tuscan rather takes the precedence in point of time; not that there were not painters in Venice and Pisa and Siena, as early as at Florence, but it was the earliest school which distinguished itself. Another reason of the prominence of the Florentine school in history is that Vasari, being himself a Florentine, has made his native place conspicuous above all others in his lives of the painters, and has preserved much information concerning many Florentine artists of little general repute, while he has left us in ignorance about many masters of the highest merit, belonging to other parts of Italy; and these hiatus, left by him in the history of painting, are not wholly made good by the works of other writers, though modern researches are constantly supplying deficiencies.

The earliest known Tuscan artists are of the thirteenth century; these are Niccola and Giunta, of Pisa. Niccola, who was a sculptor, was the first who approximated Nature in design since the time of the ancients. GIUNTA PISANO was a tempera painter of so-called frescoes and easel pictures; there are several of his works still extant: a crucifixion of about the year 1236, in the church of Santa Maria Degli Angeli at Assisi, by him, is remarkable for the solidity