for I am not a little indebted to several notices published in the "Elogj" of Signor Longhi, and in some of the catalogues of private collections; besides other anecdotes, in part collected by myself, in part^[4] communicated by my friends, and in particular by the very accomplished Sig. Gio. Maria Sasso,^[5] who has already promised to gratify us with his "Venezia Pittrice," accompanied with designs of the most esteemed paintings of this school, accurately engraved.

[1] It is observed by Signor Bottari, that Giorgio, in his life of Franco, was too sparing of his praises of Tintoret and Paul Veronese; and the same might be said also of Gambera, and many others, who flourished at the same period, or were already deceased when he wrote. To his opinions have succeeded those of the Caracci, and of many other distinguished professors of the art, which may be safely relied upon.

[2] There very opportunely appeared, in the year 1800, at Bassano, a "Notizia d'Opere di Disegno"—"Upon works of Design," the anonymous production, apparently, of some inhabitant of Padua, about 1550. It was published and illustrated by the learned Abbate Morelli, and contains several anecdotes, relating more particularly to the Venetian School.

[3] The celebrated painter, Cignaroli, besides drawing up a complete Catalogue raisonné, of the painters of Verona, already published in the Chronicle of Zagata, vol. iii., left behind him MS. notes upon the entire work of Pozzo, in the margin.

[4] I have been enabled in this edition, by means of Count Cav. de Lazzara, to avail myself of a MS. from the pen of Natal Melchiori, entitled, "Lives of the Venetian Painters," drawn up in 1728. The author is deserving of credit, no less on account of having been himself a painter, than from his personal acquaintance with the chief part of those whose lives he commemorated.

[5] This excellent man is now no more, and his work has not hitherto appeared. That, however, by the Sig. Co. Canonico de Rinaldis, on the painters of Friuli, we have received. It embraces a much more correct and enlarged view of that noble school, than we before possessed in the scantier notices from the pen of Altan. Still he is not always exact, and he would undoubtedly have written better, had he seen more. At length, however, we are in possession of the work of Padre M. Federici, in two volumes, relating to the artists of the "Marca Trevigiana," accompanied by documents; a work better calculated than the former to satisfy the expectations of a reader of taste. But, as is generally the case, when an author hazards new opinions, we are sometimes compelled to suspend our assent to his conclusions.

VENETIAN SCHOOL.

EPOCH I.

The Ancients.

If in the outset of each school of painting I were to pursue the example held up in the Etruria Pittrice, of introducing the account of its pictures by that of some work in mosaic, I ought here to mention those of Grado, wrought in the sixth century, distinguished by the name of the Patriarch Elia, those of Torcello, and a few other specimens that appeared at Venice, in the islands, and in Terra Firma, produced at periods subsequent to the increase of the edifices, together with the grandeur of the Venetian state. But admitting that these mosaics, like many at Rome, may really be the production of the Greeks; the title of my work, confined as it is to painting, and to the period of its revival in Italy, leads me to be little solicitous respecting those more ancient monuments of the fine arts, remnants of which are to be found scattered here and there, without any series of a school. I shall still, however, occasionally allude to them, according as I find needful, were it only for the sake of illustration and comparison, as I proceed. But such information ought to be sought for in other works; mine professes only to give the history of painting from the period of its revival.

The most ancient pictorial remains in the Venetian territories I believe to be at Verona, in a subterraneous part of the nunnery of Santi Nazario and Celso, which, however inaccessible to the generality of virtuosi, have, nevertheless, been engraved on a variety of plates by order of the indefatigable Signor Dionisi. In this, which was formerly the Chapel of the Faithful, are represented several mysteries of our redemption; some apostles, some holy martyrs, and in particular the transit of one of the righteous from this life, on whom the archangel, St. Michael, is seen bestowing his assistance. Here the symbols, the workmanship, the design, the attitudes, the drapery of the figures, and the characters united, permit us not to doubt that the painting must be much anterior to the revival of the arts in Italy. But most writers seem to trace the rudiments of Venetian painting from the eleventh century, about the year 1070, at the period when the Doge Selvo invited the mosaic workers from Greece to adorn the magnificent temple, consecrated to St. Mark the Evangelist. Such artificers, however rude, must have been acquainted, in some degree, with the art of painting; none being enabled to work in mosaic who had not previously designed and coloured, upon pasteboard or cartoon, the composition they intended to execute.

And these, observe the same writers, were the first essays of the art of painting in Venice. However this may be, it speedily took root, and began to flourish after the year 1204, when Constantinople being taken, Venice was in a short time filled, not indeed with Grecian artists, but with their pictures, statues, and bassi relievi.^[6] Had I not here restricted my observations to existing specimens of the art, bestowing only a rapid glance upon the rest, along with their authors, I might prove, that from the above period, the city was no longer destitute of artists; and was enabled, in the thirteenth century, to form a company of them with their appropriate laws and institutions.

But of these elder masters of the art, there remains either only the name, as of a Giovanni da Venezia and a Martinello da Bassano, or some solitary relic of their labours without a name, as in the sarcophagus, in wood, of the Beata Giuliana, painted about the year 1262, the same in which she died.