they increased the splendour of their existing elevation to grandeur and to power, and promoted more securely their future fame; and to them, and to their example and influence, painting is indebted for the most brilliant efforts of the Florentine school. And well are they rewarded for their liberal and generous conduct! What were now the record of their fame, had they not been actuated by that elevated feeling, that desire to promote the advancement of literature and the arts?

Hitherto, the object of the art of painting, in the school which they encouraged, had been single, or nearly so, as I have shown to you; and its career had been conducted with steps careful but slow; but now, having obtained a firm footing, it suddenly sprang forward with a degree of elasticity beyond all expectation. Its professors, excited by more elevated ideas, left the beaten track of mere imitation; and, maintaining its general principle, as a basis for their exer tions, launched forth in pursuit of those qua lities which add lustre to truth, and grace to beauty. We have henceforth, at least for a season, to contemplate its productions, adorned with refinement, and executed with more perfect freedom and fancy.

The anatomy of the human figure was made an object of more particular study, and great aid

was gained in its application, by the discovery of many remnants of ancient sculpture and painting. Mere imitation of the model, being abandoned for that select combination of beauties to be found only in the general mass of mankind; that ideal excellence of form and cha racter, which was the idol of the ancient Greeks, became the great object of attention.

The artists were not content with dramatic illustration of facts, as heretofore; but, giving the reins to their imaginations, indulged their fancies in the regions of the spiritual world. :1

Luca Signorelli da Cortona* claims priority in this grand exaltation of the art. His great works in the Duomo, at Orvieto, the Resurrection, with the Punishment of the Wicked, and the Reward of the Just, in separate compartments, and a number of minor compositions in the same church, present to us the product of a vivid imagination, purified of the gross and puerile imagery introduced in representations of the same subjects by his predecessors. Bold and daring foreshortenings, accompanied by great vigour of line, are here rendered with the greatest truth; exhibiting perfect knowledge of the anatomy of the human figure, employed by a varied and fertile invention in striking

contrasts and combinations; and with an almost complete abandonment of the style of arrangement and effect which had till then been the guide of the school. The skill he there exhibited, fully justifies a belief in the declaration of Vasari, and of others, that Michel Angelo attentively studied his works.

Coeval with Signorelli was Lionardo da Vinci*; than whom no one more generally accomplished ever embraced the profession of an artist. Extreme sensibility to refinement in all that he undertook, appears to have been the prominent feature in his character; and this ardent desire for excellence, the cause of his bringing so few works of art to perfection.

Still perceiving somewhat beyond that which he had effected, he laboured to attain it; and was never satisfied, till the exalted aspirations of his mind were fully presented to view.

Original in thought, fertile in expedient, active in mind and body, there appears to have been no bound set to his pursuits. Each of the arts which adorn human life, and the sciences which give power to man, engaged his attention; and it is the necessary consequence of his refinement of thought and his superabundance of pursuits, that but little of his painting remains to testify

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his ability, considering that he enjoyed fifty years of manhood. But, it must be confessed, that little is powerful; it amply informs us of his pre-eminent acquirements as a painter, and justifies his elevation among those of the highest rank.

Soon after Signorelli, by venturing so ably and freely into the world of imagination, had provided extended means for the occupation of the art; Lionardo added a novel and important feature to its technical power; abstract in itself, but duly founded on some of the peculiar effects of nature.

The quality to which I allude, is chiaro-oscuro, in its most serious character: that which is selected, or composed, to exhibit an individual object to advantage; totally different from those styles, of which I shall speak hereafter, the Venetian and the Flemish.

The style of artificial management of light and dark introduced by Da Vinci, distinct from the mere natural light and shade of objects (and little more had been attended to previously), consists principally in a selection of a concentrated light, and, consequently, a larger quantity of shade upon his figures (such as is produced by lamp-light); and the union of those shades with the grounds of relief. It was by him practised upon rather a confined scale, which gives

monotony to the character of his minor works; it was afterwards extended in its application by Fra. Bartolomeo, and Mariotti Albertinelli; but found that breadth which gives it its ultimate perfection, in the hands of Correggio.

In support of this original and valuable quality, his pictures bear the impress of the most skilful and earnest investigation into the works of nature, and the preceding productions of art; pursued with almost inconceivable industry and ingenuity.

That he obtained power over the most complicated composition, is sufficiently testified by his well known group of horsemen contending for a standard; a portion of a large work, intended to have been painted on the wall of the great council chamber at Florence, in competition with Michel Angelo. In this composition, his line is an enlargement upon that of Masaccio, and even upon his own; for it cannot be said that grandeur of line is a prevailing feature in his works generally even in his Last Supper, his most important work, painted in the refectory of the Dominican Convent at Milan, his line, though varied, is not large; but, to compensate, there is in it, that great quality to which I have so repeatedly directed your attention: it springs from truth, it always conveys feeling, as it is wrought with understanding.