trace, through Mantegna, in the grand school of Lombardy; through Marco Zoppo in the Bolognese; while it extended some degree of influence over that of Venice itself. For Jacopo Bellini, having come to exercise his talents in Padua, it would appear that he took Squarcione for his model, as before stated.

There is nothing remaining from the hand of Squarcione, in Padua, that can be relied upon with certainty, except an altarpiece, formerly to be seen at the Carmelitani, but now in possession of the accomplished Conte Cav. de' Lazara. It is drawn in different compartments; the chief place is occupied by the figure of San Girolamo. Around him appear other saints; but the work is in parts re-touched, though there is sufficient of what is original to establish the character of the painter. Rich in colouring, in expression, and above all in perspective, it may be declared one of the best specimens of the art produced in those parts. The painting of the altarpiece, here alluded to, was assigned him by the noble family of the Lazara, of which the contract is still preserved by them, dated 1449, the salary being paid in 1452, the period at which it was completed. The artist subscribes himself Francesco Squarcione, whence we are enabled to correct the mistake of Vasari, who, invariably unfortunate in his nomenclature of the Venetians, announces his name as Jacopo, an error repeated also in the dictionaries of artists. Besides this specimen, there still exist, in a cloister of San Francesco Grande, some histories of that saint in terra verde, which are to be referred to the early part of his life, there being good authority for believing them to be by the same hand, though with the assistance of his school, as the more and less perfect parts render sufficiently apparent. Near them were placed some other pieces of Squarcione also in terra verde, which were defaced in the time of Algarotti, who regrets their loss in one of his elegant and pleasing letters. Their style is altogether analogous to that of his school; animated figures, neat in the folds, foreshortenings not usual in works of that age, and attempts, though yet immature, at approaching towards the style of the ancient Greeks.

Proceeding from Padua, in the direction of Germany, we meet with some anonymous paintings, in the districts of Trevigi and Friuli, which ought, apparently, to be referred to this epoch; so far removed are they in style from the nobler method, we shall shortly have to describe. The name of Antonio is well known in Treviso, an artist who produced a S. Cristoforo, of gigantic stature, tolerably well executed, in San Niccolo, and that of Liberale da Campo, author of a Presepio, which is placed in the cathedral. Superior to both of these must have been Giorgio da Trevigi, if we are to believe Rossetti, where he mentions his introduction into Padua, in 1437, in order to paint the celebrated tower of the Horologe. There exist other pictures of the fourteenth century, more or less perfect, interspersed throughout the Marca Trevigiana, and more particularly in Serravalle. Other places in Italy, indeed, bear the same name, derived from the inclosed form of the mountains; this, however, is the largest of the whole, being a rich and ornate city, where Titian was in the habit of spending some months in the year at the house of his son-in-law, by way of amusement, and has left there several memorials of his art. But the whole of the church of the Battuti appears ornamented in a more antique taste, executed in such a manner, that I was assured, by a person who witnessed it, that it most of all resembled a sacred museum of art. The whole must have been the work of the same artists that we have just been recording in other cities, inasmuch as the names of no natives are known beyond the single one of Valentina. He, indeed, verged upon the improved age; but in Ceneda, that boasts various altarpieces of his hand, as well as in Serravalle itself, where he painted another, with some saints of the Holy Family, he still appears a disciple of the ancients, and a copyist of Squarcione, of Padua. We shall soon discover more celebrated artists rising up in this province, after the introduction into the Trevigiana, of the method of the Bellini.

The artists of Friuli availed themselves of it less early, not having sufficiently imbibed the principles of modern taste, even as late as the year 1500, either, in the opinion of Rinaldis, from the secluded situation of the place, or from the disturbed and revolutionary character of the times. Hence it is that the provincial painters of that period are to be referred wholly to this, not to the subsequent era of the art. To such belongs Andrea Bellunello, of San Vito, whose masterpiece is a Crucifixion, among various saints, with the date of 1475, exhibited in the great council chamber at Udine. It has some merit in regard to the size, and the distribution of its figures; but displays neither beauty of forms, nor colour, and we might almost pronounce it an ancient piece of tapestry, when placed by the side of a beautiful picture. Nevertheless, in his own district, he was considered the Zeuxis and Apelles of his age.^[23] Contemporary with him, was Domenico di Tolmezzo, who painted an altarpiece in various compartments for the cathedral of Udine; a Madonna, in the taste of those times, with some saints, figures which all partake of the ancient Venetian style, even to the colouring, insomuch that one might believe him to have been a disciple of that school. He has attached his name and the year, 1479, and it would appear that there belonged to the same piece, exhibiting a figure of the blessed Bertrando, Patriarch of Aquileja, two oblong tablets, one of which represents his offering of alms, the other the circumstances of the death he suffered. The whole of these paintings, which I have noticed, are tolerably executed, in particular the two histories, and are preserved in two chambers of the Canonica. Not far from the same place is seen a figure of the saint, in fresco, painted by Francesco de Alessiis, in 1494, and placed over the door of a house, formerly the college of S. Girolamo.

While the schools of the state thus continued to advance, a knowledge of design became more general in Venice; and in the latter part of the century, its artists, for the most part, had acquired a taste similar to what I have already described as influencing those of other places—a taste rather removed from the antique coarseness, than adorned with the elegance of the moderns. Although the use of canvass had been already adopted in Venice, like that of boards elsewhere, a circumstance for which Vasari accounts, in treating of the Bellini, there was no composition besides water colours, or distemper; excellent, indeed, for the preservation of tints, as we perceive from unfaded specimens in the present day, but unfriendly to the production of union, smoothness, and softness. At length appeared the secret of colouring in oils from Flanders, a discovery conferring a happier era upon the Italian Schools, and in particular upon that of Venice, which availed itself of it above every other, and apparently the very first of all. In the Florentine School I have described the origin of this invention, ascribing it, along with Vasari, to Giovanni Van Eych, and both there and in the Neapolitan, I have also shewn that the first who communicated it to Italy was Antonello da Messina, having been instructed in it by Giovanni himself in Flanders. The historical account of this Messinese, as I have repeatedly before observed, has never been