standard. The former has its origin in the bodily form, the latter in the emotions and feeling. In Greek art the human body was in the first place developed in all its perfection; all its movements and its powers were exactly imitated before the mind or the feelings expressed themselves in the face. Nay, more, even the dignity and beauty of the head, which, independently of all expression, depend on the proportion of the several parts, were comparatively a late discovery among the Greeks. With the old Christian painters, on the other hand, the body is imperfectly conceived and is treated as a mere appendage or necessary evil, whilst the nicest distinctions in expression are caught and expressed in the various faces: thus whilst the moderns succeeded in painting as it were the beauty of the soul, they have succeeded in representing the body only by imitating the antique. It is the business of a history of art to show how the difference of religion has produced these different directions in its progress. The further we go back into the history of ancient and modern art, the more exclusively do we find each devoted to religious objects.' (B. ii. s. 409.)

The two volumes of Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle's book already published are but an instalment, as the authors tell us in their preface, of a larger work. They contain

'the history of painting complete to the close of the fourteenth century, partially so to the end of the fifteenth, leaving the sixteenth entirely untouched. Our future plan involves the termination of the fifteenth century, with a narrative of the decline of the Siennese and the rise of the Perugian schools, and the development of Venetian, Sicilian, and Neapolitan art. The lives of the Florentines of the next period will immediately follow, and be made to contrast with those of artists in other parts of Italy till the tide of the great revival halts at the full. This result we hope to attain in two subsequent volumes.' (Vol. i. p. vi.)

It was not till the tenth century that the Crucifixion and the Passion became popular subjects for art, and what Lady Eastlake calls the realistic' conception of them was reserved for still later times. The physical sufferings of Christ and of the early martyrs were afterwards dwelt on with especial care and minuteness by the painters and sculptors of Spain. In early Christian Art it is not so much the objects of reverence themselves which are presented to the eye, as symbols which suggest a spiritual meaning and lead to a certain train of thought. It is curious, however, that the type of head appropriated to St. Peter and St. Paul respectively is distinguishable in the paintings of the Catacombs of Naples at a very early period. Rumohr conceives that if we set aside what is doubtful, the oldest remains of Christian art may be

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considered to belong to the fourth century after Christ*; and by the end of the second, art had already declined so much, that little technical excellence or skill in execution can be looked for in the monuments of that time.

To the wall paintings of the Catacombs succeeded the works in mosaic which adorned the basilicast of Rome and Ravenna. The costume of Christ, the Virgin, and the Apostles continued to be antique in its character with the pallium and sandals, and the portrait-like type of St. Peter and St. Paul, alluded to above, was maintained.

'No mosaics of earlier date than the fourth century are to be found at Rome, nor do these afford material for a fair and impartial judgment. There are, indeed, but three edifices in Italy that contain mosaics of the fourth century, and these are so damaged that very little of the original remains.' (Vol. i. p. 11.)

The three buildings in which these mosaics are found, are the Baptistery of Constantine now Santa Costanza, Santa Pudenziana at Rome, and the Baptistery at Naples, which was erected in the time of Constantine. The mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Sabina, and the chapel annexed to the Baptistery of St. John Lateran belong to the fifth century. In the sixth and seventh we have the great works executed at Ravenna.

We may observe in the history of Art that sculpture is always in advance of painting, and that when a movement forward is impending, the signs of progress are visible in the former art before they show themselves in the latter. Certain feeble efforts were made about the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century by six or seven sculptors, whose names have been preserved, and who were stimulated by

* Ital. Forschungen, b. i. s. 158.

† Rumohr (Ital. Forschungen, b. i. s. 170) speaks of the damaged and restored head of Christ in the Vatican as apparently genuine, and as being one of the earliest as well as the best specimens of mosaic. Our authors, on the other hand, state that this head is merely a plaster imitation. (Vol. i. p. 10.)

We observe a difference in the statements made by Lady Eastlake and Baron von Rumohr as to the date of the mosaics in the vestibule cupolas of St. Mark's, Venice. The former (vol. i. p. 20) speaks of them as believed to belong to the eleventh century, whilst the latter (b. i. ss. 175-6) throws them further back, and gives strong reasons for thinking that they were derived from the school of Ravenna. Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle (vol. i. p. 76) appear rather to agree with Lady Eastlake, and notice the resemblance to the mosaics of Sicily.

the impulse which had been given to architecture. Rumohr mentions first among these works the sculpture in the pulpit of the cathedral at Volterra.* The subject is the Magdalen washing Christ's feet. The heads are large in proportion to the bodies, and the style and arrangement resemble the rude Christian works of an earlier time.

It is curious that many of the older monuments of Italian sculpture which we now possess exist at Pistoia; a city which, after having enjoyed considerable wealth and consequence, was very early in the thirteenth century conquered by Florence, and sunk to the rank of a mere provincial town. Among these workmen was a certain Gruamons, or Gruamonte, whose stone-cutting may be seen on the architrave of the Church of St. Andrea, and whom Vasari has confounded with a later master, both having called themselves' magister bonus.' On St. Salvatore at Lucca is a relief representing St. Nicholas in a cauldron, with the inscription- Bidvino me fecit hoc 'opus.' This master belongs to the twelfth century, and is about on the same level as Gruamons. Bonanno executed in 1180 the bronze gates of the Duomo at Pisa,‡ and in 1186 those which still exist at Monreale. The latter were said to be superior to the former. On the architrave of San Bartolommeo at Pistoia another sculptor or mason, Rudolfinus; on S. Frediano at Lucca, Robertus; and on St. Andrea at Pistoia, Enricus, are named. Their works are all rude, but Italian in character; and it is necessary to refer to them in order to show the condition of art at the moment when Niccolas Pisano first gave it new vigour. They exhibit to us the

Rumohr, Italien. Forschungen, b. i. s. 251. Rumohr's book is still of the greatest value both for its discussion of the theory of Art, and for the accuracy of his notes on individual works, especially as regards these early vestiges of Italian progress.

Rumohr (b. i. s. 261) says that he could not find the 'opus' quoted by Morrona. It was there when we saw this work, and it is in an abbreviated form 'opc' (as on the pulpit of the Baptistery of Pisa) cut below the rest of the inscription on one side. Cf. Cicognara, Storia della Scultura,' vol. iii. p. 127.

Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle state on the authority of Morrona (vol. i. p. 169) that these gates of Bonanno were destroyed by fire in 1596. This we considered as certain, but we observe that Mr. Perkins, in his recent history of Tuscan Sculpture, speaks of the Porta di San Ranieri as one of them (vol. i. p. liv.) still preserved. It is clear from Morrona's expressions (vol. i. p. 315) that little is known of the origin of this door, and that it is only by conjecture that it can be attributed to Bonanno.

dull and clouded atmosphere in which he had to labour, and enable us to appreciate his real power. Sculpture had sunk to its lowest level, and yet after a period of stagnant and mouldering decay, it may perhaps be said that some signs of life were just becoming visible.

When we look back on the history of ancient Greek art we are struck by the fact that the old traditional type of sculpture was thrown aside, and the full perfection of conception and workmanship attained, not by a succession of gradual innovations and improvements, but by a sudden burst of artistic power. One man was the representative of this great movement, and brought the art at once to a degree of perfection which has never been surpassed. As the change in ancient art at the time of Phidias seems to us to be sudden and complete in its character, so it is, though perhaps in a less degree, with all the great steps of progress in the modern art of Italy.

There is this difference however: we know of no external stimulus from a foreign school which excited or inspired Phidias. But the genius of Niccola Pisano and Michael Angelo was awakened to life and consciousness only by the remains of ancient sculpture. All that the moderns have ever done in reproducing the bodily perfection of man's nature has been inspired by the masterpieces of Greek art; and the study of the antique is still the medium through which painters and sculptors learn to handle the human frame. The third great movement in modern Italian art—that made in painting by Giotto-was of a wholly different character.

That Niccola derived all his education as an artist from the antique sarcophagus still preserved at Pisa it is impossible to believe. It appears from documents of the time†, that he was styled Nicholas, the son of Peter of Apulia.' Who or what Peter of Apulia was we do not know, but professions were often hereditary, and it is not improbable that he too was a sculptor, who had settled at Pisa, a city closely connected by trade with Southern Italy. Now it is curious and interesting to find that there is in the church of San Pantaleone, at Ravello near Amalfi, a pulpit and other monuments of the thirteenth century, indicating a high standard of sculpture and bearing marks of a study of the antique.

*See Aug. W. Schlegel, Kritische Schriften, b. ii. s. 410. 'In ' der Darstellung der Körper sind die Neueren nur durch Nachah'mung der Alten vortrefflich geworden.'-See the passage translated above, p. 81.

† One of these is printed by Rumohr (b. ii. s. 152), in which he is called 'Magistrum Nicholam Pieri de Apulia.'

This pulpit was the work of Nicholas de Bartolommeo de Foggia, and was executed in 1272. The palace of Frederic II. was at Foggia, and it is very probable that there may have been there some collection of antique marbles. It It is clear too from the references in Raumer's Hohenstaufen (b. vi. p. 459) that at his time more attention began to be paid to works of art previously neglected.

'It is therefore (say Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle) neither contrary to fact nor experience to suppose that Niccola of Pisa was a born Appulian and that he was educated in that country. It might be urged indeed that in the inscription of the pulpit of Pisa he is called Pisanus, but every citizen had a right to that qualification after he had taken the freedom.' (Vol. i. p. 130.)

We think, certainly, that a probability in favour of the Southern origin of Niccola's art is made out; but this sudden burst of a higher style of sculpture is still more or less a mystery to us, and will remain so.

In the year 1240 Cimabue was born, and with him begin the annals of the Tuscan School of painting. It is now pretty well agreed that there is no evidence, external or internal, in favour of the story told by Vasari, how Cimabue resuscitated painting by studying the works of certain Greek artists employed in his native city; but that the pre-eminence of Florence began to show itself from the appearance of his great picture there can be little doubt. In fact, the festal procession which, according to Vasari, Charles of Anjou and his courtiers witnessed, was a sort of triumph by anticipation. It prefigured the glories of that school which was destined hereafter to carry the art to its highest point of excellence.

Of Cimabue's eminence among the artists of his time the testimony of Dante, in the well-known passage which we forbear to quote, leaves no doubt. Perhaps, as Rumohr conjectures, that very mention of him by the poet induced Vasari to give him the prominent place which he occupies in his work. But

'The altar-piece of S. Maria Novella would alone suffice to explain the superiority of Cimabue over his predecessors and contemporaries, the rise of Giotto, and the principles on which he started: without it the principal link of artistic history at Florence would be lost, and Giotto's greatness unexplained, because neither the Madonna of the Academy of Arts at Florence nor that of the Louvre gives a just idea of the master. The altar-piece of the Academy of Arts may, it is true, rank higher than that of the Rucellai as regards composition and the study of nature; but, above all, the colour has been so altered by time and restoring that the excellent