lees and found misery at the bottom, dying, at the age of seventy-eight,* a beggar in the Misericordia, without a paul in his pocket to buy a coffin for his corpse or a mass for his soul-the type and mirror of a whole class of artists whose follies and vagaries throw discredit on genius, while a certain kindliness of heart renders it impossible not to pity while we blame them.

One only of his pupils, Giovanni da Ponte, is recorded as such; he was a prodigal and a man of pleasure, and died in wretchedness like himself.† Bruno, the accomplice, and Calandrino, the victim of his practical jokes, as recorded by Boccaccio, both of them painters, though mere daubers, unquestionably belonged to the same school, and, if not his own, may probably have been his fellow-pupils under Andrea Tafi. These would be but ignoble representatives of the Semi-Byzantine succession at Florence; but, strange to say, I think it not improbable that the Orcagna family derive their pedigree as artists from the same original stock,-and that thus the sublime author of the Triumph of Death,' and his pupil, the mystic Traini, and even, possibly, the

* In 1340, according to Vasari. But Baldinucci says his name is inserted as alive in 1351, in an ancient book of the Company of the Painters. Notizie, &c., tom. ii, p.

Vasari.

27.

A picture by Bruno, preserved in the Academy of Pisa, is engraved by Rosini, tav. 12. It bears a strong resemblance (in its inferiority) to the style of Orcagna. Compare for instance the female figures with the mother attempting to rescue her daughter from the Demons' grasp in the Last Judgment of the Campo Santo.

half-sainted Beato Angelico da Fiesole, walk in the same procession with him. But these are names of which we shall treat more fully and reverently hereafter.*

There were yet two or three Italico-Byzantine revivals, similar to and contemporary with those of Siena and Florence, which ought to be mentioned, before concluding this letter.

Tomaso de' Stefani effected an improvement of this description at Naples, but the frescoes executed by him in the chapel of the Minutoli in the Duomo are, I fear, no longer visible. Workmen were already whitewashing the upper walls of the chapel when I visited it in the spring of 1842, and it is not likely that the compositions to the right and left of the altar-tomb, which escaped retouching through the intercession of De' Dominici a century ago, have now been spared. The frescoes, though sadly injured, were well worth preserving; ease, freedom, and even grace made amends for harsh outlines,

* It may be remarked, that in Ghiberti's 'Commentario' he enumerates the painters in three distinct groups, commencing with Giotto and his pupils, nominatim, as such-then proceeding to Buffalmacco, (or, as he calls him, Bonamico,) Pietro Cavallini and Orcagna, evidently considering them a distinct school, independent of Giotto-and lastly, to the painters of Siena.—In the Campo Santo, moreover, the works of Orcagna immediately succeed those of Buffalmacco.

† See the Vite de' Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti Napoletani,' by Bernardo de' Dominici, tom. i, p. 11.—I shall speak of the character of this work in treating of the school of Niccola Pisano.

abrupt shadow, and much inequality of execution. But as the work of Tomaso, the brother of Pietro, who sculptured the altar-tomb, and the friend of Masaccio who built the cathedral, each in his department the parent of art at Naples, they should have been held sacred. Tomaso left a pupil, Filippo Tesauro, the master of Messer Simone, whom I shall hereafter mention as a proselyte to the school of Giotto.*

The frescoes of the Baptistery at Parma have a far better chance of preservation, and indeed rank among the most remarkable productions of the thirteenth century. They were executed by Bertolino of Piacenza and Niccolò of Reggio, shortly after 1260, in the youth of Cimabue, and fill three of the concentric circles of the cupola,-the highest representing the Apostles and Evangelists, (three of the latter, S. Mark, S. Luke and S. John being portrayed, like Egyptian deities, with the heads of their respective symbols, the lion, ox and eagle;) the second, Our Saviour, the Virgin and the prophets; the third, the history of S. John the Baptist. They

* Of Tesauro some frescoes, representing the life of the Beato Niccola, existed at the beginning of last century in a lunette in the chapel of S. Maria del Principio in the church of S. Restituta, now enclosed in the cathedral of S. Gennaro-but they have been whitewashed. De' Dominici, tom. i, p. 30.-A Madonna and child, in the Incoronata, over the first altar to the right, on entering the church, struck me as the most pleasing among the various works ascribed to Messer Simone. The expression is very sweet, and the style is peculiar, evidently before any Giottesque influence.

†The series commences in the first compartment to the right

are in excellent preservation, and very nearly as fresh as when first painted. In general style, they are decidedly Byzantine, imitated from the mosaics,— the very colouring, clear and brilliant, reminds one of them; several of the compositions are the traditional ones, yet varied with boldness and originality, while a life and animation pervade the whole series, to which I scarcely remember any contemporary parallel. I cannot say what succession these painters left, but from the peculiar colouring and other circumstances I strongly suspect an ancestral relation between them and the primitive and interesting school of Bologna.*

of the central, or Western door, as you face it from within, standing at the font. The Second, Sixth and Tenth compartments represent S. Ambrose and S. Augustine, S. Gregory and S. Jerome, S. Martin and S. Sylvester; the remainder are as follows:-1. The Annunciation to Zacharias; 3. The Birth of S. John; 4. An Angel leading him, while a child, into the wilderness; 5. S. John preaching; 7. S. John baptizing; 8. Pointing out Our Saviour to his disciples; 9. Baptizing Our Saviour; 11. Before Herod; 12. Led to prison, while, to the right, his two disciples are seen carrying his message to Christ ; 13. Our Saviour performing miracles of mercy in presence of John's disciples, in reply to his message; 14. The two disciples relating to John what they had seen; 15. John's decapitation, and 16. Herod's feast, and the head brought in on a charger. Some of the frescoes, I may observe, on the lower walls of the Baptistery, though very inferior, are curious as works (apparently) of the earlier pale-colouring school of Northern Italy, after undergoing the influence of the Giotteschi.

* The merits of which must be reserved for discussion hereafter, as the influence of Niccola Pisano became paramount ultimately, even in the case of Vitale, Lippo Dalmasio, and others, whose earlier works belong to the same class as the Madonna of Orsanmichele, and evince a close affinity to the semi-Byzantine style.

In the North of Lombardy we find fewer and indecisive traces of revival-at least in the Byzantine spirit. The old Roman school indeed, or what I have ventured to consider such, revived, especially at Cremona, where some very curious frescoes, of the middle of the fourteenth century, by Polidoro Casella, quite unlike either the Giottesque or the Byzantine manner, still exist on the vaults of the two aisles of the Cathedral.* Such too may be seen at Verona, in the frescoes that line the choir of S. Zenone, but there the Byzantine and Giottesque influences balance, if not encroach upon it.† Guariento, moreover, of Padua, an artist to be mentioned with high praise among the Giotteschi, and even Squarcione, the father of the classic school of Lombardy, would appear to have sprung originally from the same Roman family.

At Venice, on the contrary, ever, as you may remember, sympathetic with the East, a decided, though transient Italico-Byzantine revival took place as late as the middle of the fourteenth century, in the persons of Paolo Veneziano, Niccolò Semite

*The compositions are chiefly from the patriarchal history. The colouring and drapery are very peculiar, some of the figures are distinguished by a naïveté and simplicity which occasionally rises towards dignity, but upon the whole they are inferior, and even below par in point of mechanical excellence. Rosini has engraved two of them, tom. ii, facing p. 147.

†The Baptism of Our Saviour and the Resurrection of Lazarus seem to be the oldest. There is a rather spirited one of S. George killing the dragon, the dragon's tail curling round the horse's leg. These are on the Southern wall of the presbytery.