chael Angelo are so infinitely superior as to be beyond all comparison with other painters.

Francesco Parmegiano had so thoroughly adopted the graceful manner of Raphael, that it was said the soul of that great painter had, after his death, found itself a new body. But the figures of Parmegiano, though highly graceful, have often a degree of affec tation: his is that grace which is the result of study, whereas in Raphael it is the result of ease and nature. His taste perhaps might have become more chaste and simple as he advanced in years, but he died at the age of thirty-six. These three-the Florentine, the Roman, and the Venetian—are the chief of the Italian schools of painting. The Florentine is distinguished by grandeur and sublimity, and great excellence of design; but a want of grace, of beauty of colouring, and skill in the chiaro-oscuro. The character of the Roman is equal excellence of design, a grandeur tempered with moderation and simplicity, a high degree of grace and elegance, and a superior knowledge, though not an excellence, in colouring. The characteristic of the Venetian is the perfection of colouring, and the utmost force of the chiaro-oscuro, with an inferiority in every other particular.

These original schools gave birth to many others. To the school of Raphael succeeded that of the Caraccis, which may be termed the second Roman school. The Caraccis were three brothers, all of them eminent in their art, but of whom Annibal was the most excellent. He left many scholars of great reputation as Guercino, Albano, Lanfranc, Dominechino, anc Guido. Guercino distinguished himself by a graceful and very correct design: the airs of Lis heads are admirable. Albano painted nymphs, goddesses, and Cupids, with great beauty and delicacy, and in a most pleasing style of colouring: the landscape of his pieces is in general extremely fine. Lanfranc painted chiefly in fresco, and with great force and beauty. Dominechino excelled in character and expression, and

Guido in strength and sweetness, with which he uni ted a great deal of majesty. His colouring, however, is in general cold and unpleasant, unless in the famous picture of the Aurora, where he has given all the splendour of colouring which the subject required.

In the age of Leo X. the Flemish school likewise produced its masters, who, though in a different style, and very inferior to the Italian, had, like them, taken a very surprising stretch beyond the abilities of their predecessors. Nature was the prototype of the Flemish, and the antique that of the Italians. John Van Eyk, a Fleming, had, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, found out (or at least greatly improved) the manner of tempering the colours with oil instead of water; and this invention, which gave to painting a greater durability, as well as a warmth more approaching to nature, was very soon adopted by the artists both of Flanders, of Germany, and of Italy. In Flanders, Heemskirk, Martin Vos, Frans Florus, and Quintin Matsys, were deservedly distinguished. In Germany, Albert Durer raised the reputation of the art of painting, which in that country was till then extremely low. Without the least conception of the beauties of the antique, this artist, by ability in design and skilfulness of composition, has produced some wonderful pieces. In his heads there is something uncommonly excellent; but the bodies of his figures are lean, weak, and ungraceful; and we seldom find in any of his works a happy effect of light and shade: yet in this painter there was so much of an original genius, that Raphael himself admired and valued his productions.

Among the Flemish painters, such at least as were so by nation, Rubens has unquestionably attained the highest rank. He studied with perfect intelligence the ancient models, as well as the works of the best of the Italian artists: but such is the force of a natural and constitutional taste, that his figures, though eminently beautiful, are of that style of beauty which is peculiar to his own country. To the eye of an Ital

ian the female figures of Rubens are too corpulent to be graceful; to us they are less exceptionable, because they approach nearer to that style of figure with which we are accustomed. In point of drawing, intelligence of anatomy, and the use of the muscles, Rubens is supremely excellent.

Switzerland, too, in this remarkable age, produced a painter of uncommon excellence; this was Hans Holbein. The latter pieces of this artist, probably painted after he had seen some of the works of the schools of Italy, are extremely pleasing. Holbein excelled in the knowledge of the chiaro-oscuro, and was an able colourist.

England, it would appear, at this time, had begun to manifest a taste in the fine arts. Erasmus, the friend of Holbein, persuaded that painter to travel to England, as the best field of encouragement for his merit. There the painter lived for many years in high favour with Henry VIII. and the chancellor Sir Thomas More. He was a most industrious artist; and there are at this day more of the works of Holbein in Britain, than in any other country of Europe.

Holland had likewise at this time its remarkable painters, of whom the chief merit was a most accurate representation of nature, but without any selection of the beautiful from the deformed; and often with a preference for the low, vulgar, and ludicrous. It is such nature, however, as is suited to the generality of tastes, for there are but a few who have a real feeling for the sublime and beautiful.

With the art of painting, those of sculpture and architecture were likewise revived and brought to high perfection. In sculpture, Michael Angelo stands unrivalled among the moderns. He has produced some works which are even equal to the antique. His statue of Bacchus is so exquisitely formed as to have deceived even Raphael, who judged it to be the work of Phidias or Praxiteles. But of all the sculptors of modern times, no other artist has approached near to

the merit of the antique, nor have there been in that department, an equal number who excelled as in painting. No position certainly can be worse founded than that of the Abbé du Bos, who maintains that to excel in sculpture does not require so great a degree of genius as to be eminent in painting. That this notion is erroneous, there cannot be a stronger proof than the comparative numbers of eminent painters and sculptors. For one capital sculptor in the age of Leo, who was Michael Angelo, there existed ten capital painters.

The age of Leo was, likewise, the era of a good taste in architecture. The Grecian mode of architecture, which for many ages sunk entirely into neglect, while the Gothic was universally prevalent, began gradually to recover about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The Florentines, from their commercial voyages into the Levant, and intercourse with Greece, were the first who re-established the Grecian architecture in Italy. The church of St. Miniato, which was built at Florence in the year 1300, showed the first specimen of the renewed architecture of the ancients. The cathedral of Pisa, built soon after, was constructed by Buschetto, a Grecian architect, who introduced into it some entire columns which had been brought from the ruins of some of the ancient temples in Greece. This magnificent building served as a model for many others constructed in Italy about the same time.

From this period, architecture continued slowly advancing for about two centuries, till it was brought to great perfection in the age of Leo. Bramante, who had carefully studied all the best remains of the ancient buildings in Italy, had been chosen by Julius II. to design the plan of St. Peter's church, and upon his plan that immense and noble structure was begun. It was afterward superintended by different artists of great eminence, by San Gallo, by Raphael, and by Michael

Angelo, and varied probably by each of these in many particulars from its original plan.

Verona likewise, remarkable for some of the most entire and noblest monuments of ancient building, particularly its great amphitheatre, produced in this age many excellent architects-Jocondo, who raised several noble buildings for Lewis XII. of France; San Michael, who adorned his native city with some works in the true manner of antiquity, as did likewise Maria Falconetti. But all yielded to the universal genius of Michael Angelo, who, equally eminent in all the works of design, painting, sculpture, and architecture, applied himself in the latter part of his life chiefly to architecture. The church of St. Peter's owes to him its greatest beauty; and as that building is deservedly esteemed one of the most perfect models of architec ture in the world, we must thence conclude Michael Angelo to have been one of the greatest architects.

In treating of the state of the fine arts in the age of Leo X., the art of engraving deserves to be particularly taken notice of as one of the finest of the modern inventions, and of which the first discovery was but a few years prior to the period of which we now treat. The Italians, the Germans, the Flemish, and the Dutch, have all contended for the honour of this invention. The opinion best founded is that engraving had its origin in Italy. Tomaso Finiguerra, a goldsmith of Florence, about the year 1460, discovered the method of taking off impressions from engraved silver plates with wet paper, which he pressed upon them with a roller. Andrea Mantigna, a painter, bethought himself of multiplying by that means copies of his own designs. From Italy the art travelled into Flanders, where it was first practised by Martin Schoen of Antwerp, of whose works there remain a very few prints, which are the most ancient engravings now known.

His scholar was the celebrated Albert Durer, who far surpassed his master in abilities. He engraved