Antonio Allegri da Correggio from the German of Dr. Julius Meyer ..

Preface

HE present work originally appeared in 1870 in the “ Allgemeines Künstler-lexicon,” of which compre¬ hensive but tardy publication Dr. Julius Meyer was then the editor. It was, however, immediately republished in a separate form, with some additions and altera¬ tions, and it is from the reprinted volume, and not from the dictionary, that the English translation has been made. Miss Spencer, the translator, has found it necessary in some places to condense the text, but has always endeavoured to preserve the character of the original German as closely as possible.

Since the appearance of Dr. Meyer’s work, which thoroughly exhausted the knowledge gained upon the subject up to that time, two or three contributions to Correggio literature have been made. Of these, the most important are the second edition of Pietro Martinis “ II Correggio,” Parma, 1871, and Cav. Quirino Bigi’s “ Notizie di Antonio Allegri,” etc., Modena, 1873. Unfor¬ tunately, neither of these authors has added much to the very scanty amount of information we possess concerning Allegri’s vi

PREFA CE .

life. Cav. Bigi seems, indeed, to have written without any acquaintance with Dr. Meyer’s previous researches, so that his book is behind rather than in advance of our knowledge of the subject. It deals, however, chiefly with the minor artists of Correggio, none of whom have much more than a local celebrity. The few new facts and theories relating to Allegri and Antonio Bartolotti that are contained in it, I have found no difficulty in inserting in foot-notes. For these notes, the introductory chapter, and the appendices, which are compilations rather than literal translations from Dr, Meyer’s larger catalogues, I am responsible, I trust they may prove useful to English readers.

M. M. H.

Lessness Heath, Kent.

Contents

Life of Correggio.

NTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. Traditions of his Life

Page

xiii

His historical importance — The first accounts respecting him — Vasari’s narrations and other tales — Supposed likenesses — Traits of cha¬ racter — Vasari’s unfounded reports concerning the master’s mis¬ fortunes ........... i — 36

CHAPTER II. The Verdict of the Past Epoch upon Correggio’s Art and its

Influence.

Vasari’s criticism and its effects — The Carracci’s estimation of the master — -The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — New re¬ searches ........... 37 — 51

CHAPTER III. Youth and Education

His family and condition in life — Primary education— His uncle Lo¬ renzo — Residence in Modena and Mantua — Mantegna and his influence — Pretended residence in Rome — Alleged universality of Correggio’s education— Youthful works ..... 52 — 87 viii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV. Correggio’s first Master-works and the Call to Parma

Page

Correggio as master in his native town — His first great work, “ The Madonna of S. Francis” — Works from 1515 to 1518 — Altar-piece of S. Martha — Triptych — “Marriage of S. Catherine” — Altar-piece in Albinea— Call to Parma (1518) — The paintings in the Convent of San Paolo ....... 88 — 113

Chapter V

Marriage. Correggio’s Works antecedent to the Fresco Paintings in S. Giovanni (1519 — 1521).

Family circumstances — Marriage — The paintings of the year 1519 —

“ Noli me tangere ” — “ Worshipping Madonna” — “ Madonna della Cesta” — “La Zingarella” — The character of these paintings —

“The silent Madonna”- — Spurious Correggios — “Ecce Homo”

— “Christ on the Mount of Olives ” ..... 114 — 138

CHAPTER VI. The Paintings in San Giovanni in Parma

The frescoes in the Dome and Tribune — Residence in Parma (1522) — Altar-pieces in San Giovanni — “ Martyrdom of the saints Placidus and Flavia” — “Pietä” ....... 139 — 158

Chapter VII

The Dome of the Cathedral, in Parma. Correggio as Sculptor

and Architect.

Two small fresco paintings — “ The Annunciation ” and the “ Madonna della Scala” — Commission for the cathedral — Paintings in the dome — Correggio’s acquaintance with the plastic arts . 159 — 178

CONTENTS.

ix

Chapter VIII

Altar-pieces of the period when Correggio’s Art had attained its Highest Development.

Page

“Night” — “Madonna and S. Sebastian” — “Madonna della Scodella” —

“ S. Jerome ” — “ Madonna and S. George ” — “ The reading Mag¬ dalen” . 179 — 206

CHAPTER IX. Return Home and Renewed Industry

Last events in Parma — Death of Correggio’s wife — Return to Correggio (1530) — Relations with the Princess Veronica Gambara and the court of Mantua — The commission for the Emperor Charles V. 207 — 219

CHAPTER X. Mythological Paintings

“Jupiter and Antiope” — “School of Love”- — Two representations of

“ Ganymede” — “ Io” — “Leda” — “Danae” — “Virtue and Vice” 220 — 239

CHAPTER XI. Correggio’s Death

Last commission — Early death — His son Pomponio — Decline of the

CHAPTER XII. The Character and Significance of Correggio’s Art

Subjects of his works — Relation in which he stood to Michel Angelo and his contemporaries — His position in Christian art— -Perfection of sensuous beauty the latest goal in art — Aerial perspective, fore¬ shortening, drawing — Light, chiaroscuro — Approximation to Leo¬ nardo da Vinci — Excellence in handling and technical skill . 251 — 274

b

CONTENTS.

APPENDICES.

Page

Appendix A.

Catalogue of Authentic Monumental Paintings .

27 5

Appendix B.

Oil-Paintings, Authentic and still Preserved . . . . . .276

Appendix C.

Oil-Paintings, Authentic, but not Preserved ...... 279

Appendix D.

Paintings that there are good Reasons for considering authentic

Appendix E.

Drawings, Sketches, and Studies ........ 294

Appendix F.

Pictures of doubtful Authenticity and Works that have Disappeared . . 297

Appendix G.

Topographical Catalogue of Correggio’s Works . . 300

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

!• Page

ADONNA Enthroned. On her right hand are S. Francis and S. Anthony of Padua ; on her left are S. Catherine and S. John the Baptist . 90

In the Dresden Gallery.

II. The Madonna in Glory. S. Jerome, S. James, and

the donor . 284

Ascribed to Correggio. In the Munich Gallery.

III. The Mystic Marriage of S. Catherine ..... ioo

In the Louvre.

IV. Diana Returning from the Chase . . no

In the Convent of S. Paolo , Parma.

V. A Vine-Arbour. Boy blowing a horn ...... 252

On the ceiling of the Convent of S. Paolo , Parma.

VI. The Madonna in Adoration . . . . . . . .124

In the Uffizj, Florence.

VII. Ecce Homo. Christ crowned with thorns ...... 134

In the National Gallery.

VIII. Angelic Choir, (i.) . . . . 144

In the Cathedral , Parma.

In the Cathedral, Parma.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

xii

Page

X. Saint John the Evangelist. (Lunette) . 276

A fresco over the doot way in S. Giovanni , Parma.

XI. The Coronation of the Virgin . 152

Part of a fresco preserved in the Library at Parma.

XII. Madonna della Scala. A fresco . . .... 160

In tiie Gallery of Parma.

XIII. The Adoration of the Shepherds. (La Notte— the Night) . 182

In the Dresden Gallery.

XIV. The Madonna in Glory, surrounded by Infant Angels. S. Sebas¬ tian, S. Geminianus, and S. Roch . . . . . . .188

In the Dresden Galleiy.

XV. Madonna della Scodella . (. Frontispiece ) 190 j

In the Gallery of Parma.

XVI. Saint Jerome. The Virgin with the Holy Child and Mary Magdalen.

(Il Gtorno— the Day) .

In the Gallery of Parma.

XVII. Choir OF Angels. A drawing in red chalk

In ihe Dyce Collection , South Kensington Museum.

XVIII. Design for a Frieze. A drawing in red chalk

In the Dyce Collection, South Kensington Museum.

XIX. Head of a Man. A drawing in red chalk In the British Museum.

XX. Supposed Portrait of Correggio ....

From a picture in the Gallery at Parma.

LIFE OF CORREGGIO.

Introduction

HE little town of Correggio, lying about half way between Reggio and Novellara, in the pleasant duchy of Modena, is so unimportant at the present day that it is not even mentioned in Murray’s hand¬ books. Very few travellers ever think of turning aside from their route to visit it, for almost the only claim that it has upon their notice is that it was the birth-place of Antonio Allegri, who derives the name of Correggio by which he is usually called from this circumstance.

But this quiet, insignificant little city had formerly a distinct individuality and power of its own. It had its own lords, who governed it rightly or wrongly, according to their ability, and who, living in their strong fortified castle, if sometimes they plundered the inhabitants themselves, at all events protected them from foreign marauders.

It is uncertain when Correggio was first inhabited, but its old Latin name, Corregium , shows that it existed in Roman times. The first mention of it in mediaeval history occurs in a

XIV

INTRODUCTION.

I charter of the year 945, in which the following passage occurs : “ Alfri qui et Bonizo filio bone memorie exambit de Corregia.”1 It is certain that the castle must have existed not long after this date, for a charter of the year 1009 is dated, “ Actum in Castro Coregia.”2 3

This castle served the lords of Correggio both as a palace and a fortress. Its outer walls and bastions, the ruins of which the visitor still sees, were built by a certain Guido cli Azzo da Correggio, who, in 1372, with the troops of the Visconti, drove out the then Castellan Giberto da Correggio, his uncle, and assumed the government of the town. It was these fortifications that enabled the town to sustain the two years’ siege that it after¬ wards underwent in 1554.'*

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the lords of Correggio, like the other rulers of that time all over Italy, were ambitious of being considered the patrons of literature and art. They do not, however, seem to have attracted any men of distinguished ability to their town, net having perhaps any great seductions to hold forth, until the celebrated Veronica Gambara, second wife of Giberto da Correggio, who ruled Correggio at the beginning- of the sixteenth century, founded an academy in her palace, and invited scholars and scientific men from all parts of Italy to come and teach in it.

Veronica Gambara is characterized by Pungileoni as “a lady of excellent virtue and great purity of blood.”4 She was in truth

1 Zedler, “Universal Lexicon.”

3 Tiraboschi.

4 The Count Pompeo Gherardi, also, in his epitaphs on Distinguished Italian Writers that have lately appeared in II Raffaello, calls her “cultrice distinta delle buone lettere, poetessa di merito non comune, buona moglie, madre esemplare, nel governo di Correggio temperante — caritatevole — savia.”

INTRODUCTION.

xv one of those noble, gracious, and highly cultivated women who move dimly in the Italian history of this period, and who evidently exercised a considerable influence over the society and culture of their time. In several respects Veronica Gambara may be compared with the noble princess Vittoria Colonna, whose friendship cheered the gloomy age of the great Titan of Italian art. Both ladies had that indescribable charm of manner that subjugated men’s hearts to their service ; both were left in¬ consolable widows at an early age ; and both found expression for their feeling in graceful pensive verse, for Veronica was a poet as well as Vittoria. Her poems 1 were much admired in literary circles beyond the little court of Correggio, and they brought the writer into communication with several men of note, especially with the lively Pietro Bembo, with whom for some time she kept up an active correspondence.2

Such a woman, ever prompt to recognize and pay honour to genius, was not likely to have overlooked the merits of Allegri, even although it is the proverbial fate of a genius, no less than a prophet, to find little honour in his own country. It is evident, indeed, that she highly esteemed him, for in a letter to her friend Beatrice d’Este, the Duchess of Mantua, she writes, “ Come and see the chef cT oetivre of the Magdalen in the desert, just finished by the Messer Antonio Allegri; it astonishes all who behold it.”3

This was of course written at a time when his fame was fully established (the letter is dated Sept. 3, 1528) ; but it goes far to prove previous relations with our master; indeed Dr. Meyer, who is so careful of admitting anything not thoroughly substantiated,

1 Ihey were first collected and published in 1759, with some other letters.

2 Bigi, “ Dicorso di Veronica Gambara.” Mantua, 1859.

XVI

INTRODUCTION .

owns that Allegri most probably owed his introduction to the court at Mantua, and also perhaps to the great Emperor Charles V., who was at one time a guest in Veronica’s palace in Correggio, to her kindly offices.

Unfortunately, as is the case with everything relating to Allegri, beyond this little passage in a letter, and the fact that he was present as a witness at the marriage of the lady Clara of Correggio with her cousin Ippolito Gambara, the son of Veronica, in 1534, there is nothing to tell us what relations existed between the lady and the painter. It would be pleasant to have some little anecdote, some stray letter or even chance word that passed between them, but of such gossip history, so bountiful to us in respect to Michel Angelo, vouchsafes no record.

But Veronica’s favour, if it ever cheered the path of our master, could only have been bestowed towards the latter part of his life, or at all events after his reputation was fully established. There is nothing to show that he had even this encouragement at the outset of his career, nor that the small court of Correggio, at that time held by Manfredo, the father of Giberto, was in the least aware of the genius who had been born within its jurisdic¬ tion, and who, more than all the strong lords and gracious ladies who moved in its circles, was destined to shed glory on its obscure little town.

The fact, indeed, that one of the great masters of Italian painting should have arisen in this poor place, remote from all the favouring influences that had developed the growth of art in Florence, Venice, and Siena, seems to militate strongly against Taine’s well-known theory that art is to a great extent the pro¬ duct of the circumstances, le milieu , in which the artist is placed.1

1 “ Loi de la production des oeuvres d’art. L’ oeuvre d’art est ddterminee par un ensemble qui est l’etat ge'ne'ral de l’esprit et des moeurs environnants.”

INTRODUCTION.

xvu

Although we may not believe in the phenomenon that Vasari presents to us of a heaven-born genius suddenly acquiring a complete knowledge of art, and carrying the “ new manner ” (as he calls the freer style of painting adopted by the great artists of the fifteenth century) to perfection, yet it is certain that Allegri’s natural talents must have developed to a certain extent under unfavourable conditions.

In the other schools of Italy we find a direct succession of artists, each one carrying on the principles of art a step farther than the other, and following a certain law of development until perfection is reached, after which an apparently inevitable time of decline and decay has always followed. Thus in Florence we have Giotto, Orcagna, Masaccio, Ghirlandaio, Luca Signorelli, and other artists of progress before we get to Michel Angelo, who suddenly, as it were, achieves all that his predecessors had been striving after for centuries. Raphael’s art, again, is but the flower of the religious art of Siena and Umbria grafted on the bolder stock of Florence; and the same with the Venetian school. Its gorgeous blooms are the natural expansions of the lovely buds put forth in the time of the Vivarini and the Bellini. But it is not so with Allegri. It is impossible, from what we know of the influences under which he worked, to regard the wonderful perfection of his art as the outgrowth of any particular mode of cultivation.

“If,” says Hermann Grimm, “we were to imagine streams issuing from the minds of Raphael, Michel Angelo, Leonardo, and Titian meeting together to form a new mind, Correggio would be produced and yet it is tolerably certain that he never came under the direct influence of any one of these great painters. Leonardo is the one to whom he is most nearly allied, and no doubt he was well acquainted with some of Leonardo’s works ; but even his influence is not paramount, for the subtle intellectual

INTRODUCTION.

xviii qualities of the great Milanese master disappear in Allegri, while the sensuous are exaggerated.

In spite, therefore, of all the criticism that has been brought to bear upon his art, Allegri remains, even to this day, the “ pittore singularissimo ” that Vasari calls him ; one of those rare geniuses whom Nature now and then produces in contradiction to her general rule, and as if to show her superabundant power under unexpected, and, as it seems to us, unpropitious circumstances, at all events not in obedience to Taine’s “ Loi de la production.”

Of course it must not be supposed that Allegri’s sudden development was entirely spontaneous. He had teachers cer¬ tainly ; one of these, a master named Bartolotti, was no doubt a better artist than was formerly thought. Bigi proves that he was at the head of an Academy of painting in Correggio, and was highly esteemed for his drawing, harmonious colour, and impasto. Unfortunately very few of this master’s works are known, only one indeed is thoroughly authenticated, so that it is extremely difficult to judge of his merits or of the influence he had over his great pupil, but it is quite possible that some of the supposed early works of Allegri were really executed by Barto¬ lotti or in his school. This was the case, we know, with regard to Raphael, whose so-called early works are often only paintings done in Perugino’s school by forgotten artists, who like Raphael had caught their master’s peculiar manner. Later on, the study of Mantegna's works at Mantua taught Allegri much concerning the principles of art, but it is scarcely likely to have had, as Dr. Meyer supposes, any formative influence over his style, for nothing can well be more dissimilar than Allegri’s cheerful grace and Mantegna’s sternly classic spirit. The one master delighted in colour and life, whilst the figures of the other have often the coldness and rigidity of marble. Allegri would give life to a statue, but Mantegna would turn even Venus herself to stone.

INTRODUCTION.

xix

Much more probable is it that Allegri, like so many artists of his time, caught inspiration from the gracious Leonardo da Vinci, whose spirit was diffused more widely perhaps than that of any other master of his time. If Allegri had ever been a pupil in the great Milan school, the “Academia Leonardi Vinci,” as the inscription calls it, a school in which such men as Bernardino Luini, Andrea Solario, Marco Oggione, Cesare da Sesto, and Beltaffio were formed, it would not be difficult to discover from whence he derived the beautiful life of his art ; but there are no grounds whatever for supposing that he ever studied at Milan. It is quite possible, however, that his master, Bartolotti, of whose education we know nothing, might at some time or other have come within the sphere of Leonardo’s teaching, and that thus Allegri benefited by it at second hand. At any rate Leonardo’s influence was paramount at the beginning of the fifteenth century all through Lombardy. There is scarcely a master of the northern schools of Italy who did not come in some degree beneath it, and it is not likely that Allegri, whose art bears a greater affinity to that of Leonardo than to that of any other master, should have been the only one to escape.

Such being the case, it does not seem probable that it was not until he went to Mantua, and came under the influence of Man¬ tegna, that his art first received its peculiar bias. Doubtless it was the study of Mantegna at an early period of his career that led to that perfect knowledge of foreshortening and perspective that he exhibits with such daring in his wonderful ceiling decora¬ tions ; but this knowledge, astonishing as it is, is not the only or even the chief characteristic of Allegri’s style. Far more indi¬ vidual is his delicate perception of the minutest gradations of light and shade, his joy, if one may call it so, in the expression of the marvellous chiaroscuro of human life. This it is that distinguishes Allegri from every other painter, and this he cer-

XX

INTRODUCTION.

tainly could not have gained from Mantegna, whose antique sculpturesque forms do not admit of any great play of light and colour. On the other hand, Leonardo, though not pre-eminent as a colourist, was constantly occupied with the subtleties of light and shade. He wrote, as we know, a complete treatise on light,1 in which he laid down the laws regulating the phenomena of light and vision with a knowledge far in advance of his time. He is sometimes credited indeed with the discovery of the dif¬ fraction of light, but the passage on which this supposition rests is too vague to deprive Grimaldi of the honour of the discovery made by him in 1665. His use of chiaroscuro, however, was greatly superior to all the painters who had preceded him. He was the first who painted in that modern manner that Vasari so much extols, and his strong modelling of light and shade, ranging from whitest light to blackest shade, with every variety of grey half tone between, points him out more decisively than any other painter as the predecessor, and in some degree the teacher of Allegri, with whom the love of chiaroscuro was a passion. “ Correggio was the first,” says Kugler, “ who may be said to have warred systematically against all flatness of surface ; the play of his light and shade and the position of his figures equally assist the appearance of depth in space;” and again, “ Instead of form, another element of beauty predominates in Correggio — that of chiaroscuro, that peculiar play of light and shade which sheds an harmonious repose over his works. His command over this element is founded on that delicacy of perception, that quickness of feeling, which is alive to every play of light, and is thus enabled to reproduce it in the form of exquisite modelling. He knew how to anatomize light and shade in endless gradation ;

1 Published in part by Manzi, in the Roman edition of the “Treatise on Painting.”

INTRODUCTION.

xxi to give the greatest brilliancy without dazzling, the deepest shade without offending the eye.” The same might be said of Leonardo, but certainly not of Mantegna, whose study of antique sculpture led him to define his outlines with almost harsh precision, and especially to avoid that soft modelling of the human form that is one of the chief characteristics of Allegri’s art. Both painters, it is true, delighted in form, but the one drew it in its sculpturesque grandeur, the other in its sensuous beauty. Vasari, indeed, implies, rather than actually asserts, that Allegri’s drawing was defective, and other critics, taking up his opinion, have not hesi¬ tated to affirm that the perfection of his colouring was gained at a sacrifice of the severer principles of design; but this is chiefly because he did not care to indulge in the anatomical displays that many of his predecessors and contemporaries fancied the true aim of art. He was essentially a colourist, and therefore it is assumed rather than proved that he was not great in design, whereas his design, if one only studies it in its due relation to the other qualities of his art, will often be found to be more correct than that of other masters who make it their principal study. In Allegri’s works the figures and grouping, that other painters usually make their chief or even sole object, are so employed as to seem only the setting, if one may call it so, of the exquisite poetry of his art. It is this poetry, this rhythmical movement that runs through his works, that gives them such a wonderful charm. Except, perhaps, Leonardo, in whose works we also perceive a strange fascinating rhythm, no painter ever expressed the poetry of motion with the joyous grace of Allegri. All earlier masters, when they strove to depict it, did so in a stiff and awkward manner, and their efforts too often resulted in strange grimaces and contortions of the human figure. Even Raphael, who was a perfect master of dignified action, had not this peculiar rhythmical movement. His poetry is that of calm grandeur, as in

XXII

INTRODUCTION.

his great frescoes, or holy meditative repose, as in his Madonna pictures. But Allegri’s figures seem literally filled with life. It is not merely that they live and move, but they move as it were to quick, passionate music. One can almost count their heart-beats.

This sense of movement in Allegri’s works has been remarked by almost all who have studied him attentively. Burckhardt says of it : “ This motion is nothing merely external ; it interpenetrates the figures from within outwards. Correggio divines, knows and paints the finest movements of the nervous life;” and Kugler writes : “ In his compositions all is life and motion, and even in his devotional subjects painted for altar-pieces, which prescribe a certain earnestness and sobriety, he introduces an element which is always joyous, sometimes even humorous. All his figures express the overilowing con¬ sciousness of life, the impulses of love and pleasure.”

Another chief characteristic of Allegri’s art is its supreme beauty of colour. “ Correggio,” says Ruskin, “ uniting the sensual element of the Greek schools with their gloom, and their light with their beauty, became the captain of the painter’s art as such. Other men have nobler or more numerous gifts, but as a painter, master of the art of laying colour so as to be lovely, Correggio is alone.” It is extremely difficult to decide from whence he derived this wonderful knowledge of colour — cer¬ tainly not from Mantegna, whose colouring is of the coldest. The great colour school of Venice, under the patriarch Giovanni Bellini, had developed to a remarkable extent even in Allegri’s youth. He was the contemporary of Giorgione, Titian, Cima da Conegliano, Palma Vecchio, Catena, Previtali, Pordenone, and several others of the masters formed in the Bellini school, and, if it could be proved that he also had come within its influence, his predilection for colour would be more easy to

INTRODUCTION. xxiii

explain. But there is no proof that Allegri ever visited Venice, any more than Rome, and unless he did we can only suppose that at some time or other during his early development he learnt something of the mysteries of Venetian colour at second hand, so to speak, through some of the pupils of the Bellini settled in other towns of Italy. Palma Vecchio is perhaps the master to whom he is most nearly allied in his treatment of colour; indeed, so much does he resemble him in the soft lus¬ cious tones in which he expresses female loveliness, that it is im¬ possible not to imagine that either both painters were under the same influence, or else that the one learnt from the other.

Mr. J. A. Crowe is of opinion that Lorenzo Costa, the able pupil of Francia, was an artist with whom Allegri must at some time in his early career have been intimately associated. It is probable also, he thinks, that our master knew the Veronese painter Francesco Bonsignore, and gained from him certain secrets of colour ; “ but,” he writes,1 2 “ we cannot prove any rela¬ tions between him and other painters. We can only infer that the lessons which were decisive in forming his style were not obtained at Correggio, but whether these lessons were taken at Parma or Modena is uncertain. I myself incline to Parma, where Cima da Conegliano at one time cultivated an art that was subsequently confounded with that of Leonardo, and where many pupils of the Paduan school practised on the Mantuan lines which recur in the earlier efforts of Correggio. The Venetian influence comes after the Mantuan. During a stay at Mantua which I fully believe in, I think Costa was the man with whom he associated most.1 Compare Correggio’s early

1 In a private letter to the editor.

2 Costa was invited to Mantua by the Marchese Francesco Gonzaga, and might well have been there during Allegri’s stay in that city.

XXIV

INTRODUCTION.

‘ Madonna and S. Francis ’ at Dresden, with Lorenzo Lembruno’s ‘Apollo and Marsyas’ at the Berlin Museum, and you will see that both men must have studied under the same master. Now Lembruno, we are sure, was a pupil of Costa’s.”

But, wherever derived, the radiant loveliness of Allegri’s colour is wholly his own. Perugino, Francia, and Bellini delight in pure and solemn colour for the expression of their spiritual ideals ; Titian revels in the deep glory of gold and purple ; Tin¬ toretto, the dyer’s son, produces astounding effects with his rapid dashes of crimson and yellow; Veronese expresses by means of gorgeous colour his love of earthly pomp and pageantry, and Rubens, with profuse magnificence, throws all the colours of his palette on to canvas at once, making out of them, as Coleridge remarks, “ one vast and magnificent whole, consisting of heaven and earth and all things therein but none of these masters have quite the same voluptuous poetry in their colouring as Allegri. His melting tones and peculiar fusion of tints produce a satisfied sense of delight in “ simple beauty and nought else,” that few other painters ever awaken. His paintings make no demand on our intellects. Even their colour and perfect chiaroscuro are so thoroughly spontaneous that our attention is not drawn to them. We never think of analysing Allegri’s mode of execution, but are content with simply drinking in the delicious harmonies that he produces, and listening as it were to his soft, luscious strains.