Lorenzo Lotto; an essay in constructive art criticism

Front matter

lLJBR ARIES ITH/^CA, N. Y. ,1-1853

Fine Arts Library Sibley HaJJ '

Cornell University Library ND 623.L91B41 1901

Preface

This book has another object in view than the bringing together of mere information regarding Lotto. It is an attempt to reconstruct Lotto's character, both as a man and as an artist. Consequently only such data as served this purpose have been considered. No document that can throw light on the painter's career, no authenticated work, at all accessible, has been neglected. Such documents, however, as would bring more increase to the pages of a book than to the intimacy with an artist have been left to the delectation of lovers of old paper, in and for itself As to pictures known only by hearsay, they cannot and must not be considered in forming an estimate or in defining the quality of an artist, vicarious experience of the work of art being less than useless in criticism. Nor has it been thought needful to encumber the following pages with refutations of all the catalogue-makers whom it has pleased to attach Lotto's name to pictures. Such refutation might be made amusing, if not edifying reading, but could not add to our knowledge of the master. Happily criticism is so much of one accord regarding the bulk of paintings attributed to Lotto, that the study of him can afford to become something viii PREFACE

more than ' Bilderbestimmung ' — the discussion of what was and what was not painted by a given artist. The author is confident that the student who has devoted as much time as himself to the study of Lotto, and has as many of the painter's works fresh in his mind, will agree with him in the exclusions he has made,— even when he has against him Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, as when they attribute the Pitti Three Ages^ to Lotto, or Morelli when ascribing to him The Concert at Hampton Court, or the Lot and Ids Dauo-hters of the Milanese Museo Civico.

Considering at what length Alvise and his school have been treated in the present work, it has been a sore temptation to make the study of them more exhaustive, but the writer has constantly had to remind himself that his book deals with Lotto, and that Alvise and his following may come in only when they can throw light on the subject in hand.

In this second edition, besides the rectification of mortifying misprints and some few obvious errors, there will be found a considerable increase in the number of works by both Lotto and Alvise, which are here discussed. Otherwise, the book remains unchanged, and I doubt whether, from the point of view taken by the writer, the part concerning Lotto himself will ever require much more change. Further documents may be discovered, and further pictures, but scarcely in either case of a kind to add to our knowledge of Lotto's artistic personality.

' For the happy suggestion that this and the following, both obviously from the same hand, are by Morto da Feltre, see Mary Logan, Guide to Hampton Court, the Kyrle Society, London.

PREFACE ix

But the point of view taken by the writer eight or nine years ago, when he first composed this book, was determined by interests that then seemed much more important than they do now. Yet as he has no means of arriving at the certainty that his present Interests are essentially more real than the earlier ones, as these earlier Interests also are at all events permanent ones, and as, moreover, If the author's present point of view, and this point of view only, were regarded, the new edition would have perhaps no greater likeness to the old one than If the subject were handled by a different writer, the author has thought best to stick to his old position. But he feels bound to confess that he now concerns himself little with the work of art as a document in the history of civilization, and laments the confusion that such an interest is apt to create between historical and aesthetical standards. He feels even more greatly bound to warn his readers against the assumption that in art there Is such a thing as progress. Technical advance there has been and may be, but It is by no means Identical, nor even coincident with advance in art ; and a counsel of perfection would be to avoid confounding an Interest in the history of technique with love of art, and most of all to beware of finding beauty where there is only curiosity.

If further documents can be of no great service in the study of Lotto himself, there is much they still may do to clear up the question touched upon at considerable length In this book — the question of his antecedents. That Alvise formed him there can be no legitimate doubt ; nor can it be reasonably argued that the position

X PREFACE

here given to Alvise, his father, and his uncle in the history of Venetian Painting is exaggerated. Further documents, read by the competent, will, it may be hoped, but help to establish the author's theory. The precise relations, however, between the various painters in this group may be considerably changed by further researches in archives. Thus far, to give an instance, we know the date of birth of relatively few Venetian artists.

Thanks are due to Dr. Georg Gronau and to Dr. Max Friedlander for several hints helpful in preparing this new edition.

Contents

PAGE

Preface vii

List of Illustrations xiii

Introduction xvii

CHAPTER II Lotto's Antecedents : the School of Alvise Vivarini

I. Lotto, Giovanni Bellini, and Giorgione II. Jacopo di Barbari ....

III. Francesco Bonsignori

IV. Bartolommeo Montagna .

V. Cima da Conegliano

VI. Testimony of Lotto's entire career to his descent from Alvise VII. Alvise Vivarini ....

VIII. The purpose of knowing the artist's antecedents .....

17 26

39 47 53

62 65

CHAPTER IX Index to Photographs of Pictures and Drawings not by Lotto 279

Index to Names Mentioned Incidentally . 283 Index to Places 285

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS'

1. Portrait of Laura ni Pola

2. Danae

3. Louvre, St. Jerome

4. Santa Cristina Altar-piece .

5. Central Panel of Recanati Altar-piece

6. S. ViTO, AND Barbari's Herald. (On same page.)

7. Cracow, Madonna and Saints ....

TO FACE PAGE

Frontispiece at Venice.) . . . - .

10. Bonsignori. (Portrait of a Gonzaga.)

11. Montagna. (Vicenza Altar-piece.) .

12. Montagna. (Brera Altar-piece.)

13. CiMA, Madonna with six Saints

14. Alvise. (Polyplych at Montefiorentino.)

15. Alvise, Madonna and Saints. (Venice Academy.)

16. Alvise. (Berlin Altar-piece.) ....

I

II

8. Bonsignori, Madonna and Saints. (In S. Paolo at Verona.) 40

9. Bonsignori. (Details of Polyptych in S. Giovanni e Paolo

44 46

48 52 58 66

^ When no painter's name is given the illustrations are after originals by Lotto.

xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

TO FACE PAGE

17. Alvise, Madonna. (National Gallery.) . . . -74

18. Alvise. (St. Clare, Venice Academy.) To follow preceding

19. Alvise, Redentore Madonna .....

20. Alvise, Santa Giustina ......

21. Alvise. (Frari Altar-piece.)

22. Alvise. (Portrait of Man, Mr. Salting's) .

23. Alvise. (Portrait, Padua.) . . To follow preceding

24. Alvise. (Layard Portrait.) .....

25. Alvise. (Mr. Salting's Bust of Boy.) To follow preceding

26. Alvise. (Louvre Bust of Salla.) ....

27. Alvise. (Bust of Man, Comtesse de Beam's.) .

28. Alvise. (Windsor drawing.) .....

29. Alvise. (M. Mathey's drawing.) ....

30. Jesi, Entombment .......

31. Portrait of Piero Soderini

32. Assassination of Peter Martyr ....

33. Naples. (Bust of Man.)

34. Portraits of Agostino and Niccolo della Torre.

(National Gallery.)

35. Kaufmann. (Portrait.)

36. S. Bartolommeo Altar-piece .....

37. Dresden, Madonna .

38. S. Bernardino Altar-piece .....

39. S. Spirito Altar-piece ......

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

XV

40. Christ taking Lea^-e of His Mother

41. Carrara. (Portrait of Lady.) .

42. Prothoxotary Givliano. (National Gallery)

43. Carrara, Marriage of St. Catherine

44. Madrid, Bridal Couple ....

45. Family Group. (National Gallery.)

46. Berlin. (Portrait of Young Man.) .

47. Milan. (Portrait of Youth.) .

48. Vienna. (Portrait of Man. ) .

49. Hampton Court. (Portrait of Andrea Odoni.)

50. Vienna, Santa Contersazione .

51. Recanati, Annunciatiojn' ....

52. Venus and Chastity ....

53. Carmine Altar-piece ....

54. Holford, ' Lucretia ' ....

55. Jesi, Visitation .....

56. Monte S. Giusto, Crucifixion

57. LocHis, Holy F.ajhly ....

58. DoRiA Portrait of Invalid

59. CiNGOLI AlT.AR-PIECE ....

60. Brera Portrait of Old Man .

61. LoRETO, Presentation in Temple .

62. Mr. Wagner's Dratving ....

TO FACE PAGE

. 146

Introduction

Before approaching the first chapter, with its dry analysis of data, a bare word of explanation is necessary.

Given a few documentary notices, and a number of pictures, to reconstruct the history of an artist's education, and of the early years of his career — such, at the beginning of our task, is the problem before us. How shall we solve it ? In one way only, and that is by discovering what habits have become so rooted in the artist as to be unconscious, and under what influences he formed them, the training of the painter being altogether a training in habits of attention, visualization, and execution.

Of all perceptible phenomena the painter is taught to observe only a few — a certain type of face, let us say, a certain type of figure, a certain type of movement are singled out for observation from among the multiple types existing. Of all possible ways of picturing this type in his memory he is taught but one way, and of all possible ways of transferring his visual image to wall, panel, or canvas he again is taught but one way. He may get more ways later, and even get over his xviii INTRODUCTION

first way, but while fresh from school the young painter's way is sure to be his master's way.

Conclusions, therefore, regarding a painter's origm, drawn from the existence of general resemblances between his works and the works of other masters, do not surprise us. We are, however, likely to be troubled by the constant reference to certain details singled out from the many, details apt to be neglected in our general impression of a picture, but pounced upon by recent connoisseurship as likely to yield the best clue to a master's antecedents.

These details are the ears, the hands, the ringlets of hair, certain constantly recurring bits of landscape, certain awkwardnesses of attitude, and other such unimportant and even trivial things.

It is his most inrooted habits, we bear in mind, that the painter acquires from his teacher. What, then, is more likely to reveal habit, the general look of a picture depending so much as it does on the subject, or on the sitter's whim, or the details just enumerated, which the subject scarcely affects, and the sitter never notices ? Let us see in which habits are most likely to take root.

Habits tend to become fixed in measure as they meet with the least resistance. The child ^ is taught to draw in a stereotyped way, but the habits of execution that he thus tends to form encounter the resistance of the teaching in observation that he is having at the

^ Whatever I say here about the education and the habits of the artist I mean to apply to the Italian artist of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries only. For all I know it may not be true of the artist of to-day.

INTRODUCTION xix

same time. The resistance, however, is not the same all along the line, because attention itself tends to crystallize into habits of regarding certain features and details, and disregarding others. Habits of execution will, therefore, tend to become strongest where habits of attention are weakest.

Now, where are the habits of attention weakest ? Surely not in that which is of greatest general human interest, the expression of the human face. Its pleasantness or unpleasantness makes or mars a picture- A habit of execution which resulted in eyes invariably wild, in a mouth invariably sour, in a nose invariably mean, would be fatal to any painter's career ; while the artist who has the wisdom to please in these points, may give the less expressive features any shape, not grotesque, that he chooses. It is in the less expressive features, then, that habits of attention are weakest, and habits of execution, consequently, strongest.

It remains to be seen which features are the less expressive, and therefore the less noticed. They must be those which are less capable of a sudden change of look.

Of all the exposed parts of the human figure, the ears are least capable of sudden change of character. After the ears come the hands. The ears therefore get the least attention, so little that not one person probably in a thousand knows the shapes either of his own, or of his dearest friend's. Nowadays the hands are noticed, but in the fifteenth century they were scarcely ever observed, and it is only in the sixteenth,

XX INTRODUCTION

that their shape began to glimmer with a suggestion of individuahty. The painter's public never noticing them, and consequently never criticizing them, there was no reason for doing them otherwise than in the way first learned, and consequently the ears and the hands, more than any other exposed parts, permitted of the formation of habits in their execution. And all that holds true of the ears and hands holds true of even less expressive and less noticed details, as, for instance, hair and dress, regarded not as a whole where they are entirely at the mercy of fashion, but in such details as a particular ringlet, or a particular fold. As long as a painter gives our hair and clothing a certain cut, we do not demand the exact reproduction of every hair and fold. Even if the artist had the patience to reproduce them, we should lack the patience to audit his account. The hair and clothing, then, also permit of the formation of habits in their execution. And we might thus examine every detail of every conceivable picture with figures, to see what chance it cfave for the formation of habits of execution ; and at the end of our task we should come back to the ears, the hands, the hair, the folds, certain idiosyncrasies of pose, and certain settings and backgrounds, as pronest to being executed in a stereotyped fashion.

In other words, the details just mentioned are least liable to change from the way they were done, when first learned. Now, as a master cannot but teach his own ways, those habits of the pupil which, once formed, have undergone the least change can scarcely help being, as much as the pupil's personality will permit,

INTRODUCTION xxi

like the master's habits. It follows, therefore, that the ears, the hands, the hair, the drapery, and whatever other details most permit of the formation of habits of execution are the best clue to a painter's origin, and to the history of his novitiate.

I cannot here pursue this subject further. Its full development would take a volume. I must add, however, that although habits of execution are the most obvious, they are not necessarily the most tyrannical. Habits of attention, and of visualization; habits of feeling and of thinking do, no less than habits of execution, intervene between the artist and the object, and all of them the spectator must be able to deduct before he is approximately sure of having before him the idea of the master, and not a projection of his own fancy or fantasy.

With this, and with the further word of warning that the artist is not a botanical but a psychological problem, the reader is invited to examine the data upon which rests my theory of Lotto's origin and development ^.

^ To follow me in my arguments, the reader should have before him the photographs of the various pictures discussed. Photographs of Lotto's works are indicated in the text ; of others in an index following after the last chapter.

l^;r II . A/ur/iii Cc«cO

DAXAE

LORENZO LOTTO

Chapter I

Lorenzo di Tommaso Lotto must have been born in 1480. 1480; for, in a will made by him on March 24, 1546, he speaks of himself as being 'about 66 years old ' (Gust. Bampo, // Testamento di Lorenzo Lotto, Archivio Veneto, vol. xxxiv). Other documents published by Dr. Bampo {Archivio Veneto, vol. xxxii, p. 169) prove conclusively that Lotto was born in Venice.

London Collection of Sir W. Martin Conway. Danae.

Danae, completely clothed, reclines in a wooded 1498 ?). landscape. To the L. a female satyr peers from behind a tree, and a faun lies in the foreground to R., while Cupid pours a shower of gold from the clouds.

On wood, 16 X 13 in.

This is clearly the least mature of Lotto's existing works. It resembles Alvise Vivarini in type, draperies, landscape, greyish tone, and cool effects of light. The face of the Danae, with its full oval and round chin, recalls one of Alvise's later pictures, the Madonna of the Redentore at Venice. Her loose construction and

1498(7). awkward pose suggest Jacopo cli Barbari's engravings. The Cupid, with liis turned-up nose, fat cheeks, and chubby Hmbs, is identical in general build with the putti in Alvise's Redentore picture. The hand of the female satyr, with its long, clumsy fingers, recalls the hands in Alvise's Berlin altar-piece (No. 38), while the clinging drapery of the Danae, composed of soft stuff that tends to arrange itself in close lineal folds converging at a point (vividly recalling the draperies of the putti in the Redentore Madonna, and of Alvise's Sta. Giustina dc Borromei in the Casa Bagati at Milan, and certain details in his last picture, the altar-piece of 1503 in the Frari at Venice), is even more strikingly like the drapery of Jacopo di Barbari. The landscape, containing fuU-foliaged trees of small leaves, painted with great minuteness, has closer affinities with German or Lombard than Venetian painting. The greyish tone and cool lights recall such of Alvise's pictures as the Berlin altar-piece and the altar-piece of 1480 in the Venice Academy (Sala IX, No. 11). In spirit, the picture is closely akin to the Endymion and the Apollo a7id Marsyas in the Parma Gallery, which were painted by Cima da Conegliano, and no less akin to the mythological and allegorical engravings of Jacopo di Barbari.

Louvre, No. 1350. St. Jerome.

1500. The saint crouches against a rock in the foreground of a mountainous landscape, while his lion and St. Antony appear around the edge of a boulder to the L. In the middle distance a horseman is seen riding through a forest clearing.

Inscribed: LoTvs. 1500. On wood, 58 cm. h., 40 cm. w.

Photographed by Braun.

The style is much more mature than in the first

\Loiizn-c. I'aris

ST. JEROME

NAPLES: MADONNA AND SAINTS 3

work. The trees are similar, but the tone is warmer, 1500. coming nearer to Alvise's Resurrection in San Giovanni in Bragora at Venice. The movement of the figure is far more articulated and expressive than the Danae. The drapery is not so pronouncedly Alvisesque as before, for its large papery folds recall Giovanni Bellini. The rocks in the foreground suggest the same master. But the movement of the figure is neither Alvisesque nor Bellinesque. It already betrays an artist who is able to use the human form as an instrument of expression in a way and to a degree the older Venetian masters rarely attained.

Lotto was living at Treviso, as appears by a docu- Sept. 6, ment of this date, published by Dr. Bampo in the ^5°3-

Archivio Veneto (vol. xxxii, Spigolatiire dall' Arckivio Notarile di Treviso).

Naples, Scuola Veneta, No. 56. Madonna and Saints.

The Madonna, seated against a curtain to R. with 1503- St. Peter Martyr standing to L., places her hand on '^°^' the infant St. John at her knee. Behind the saints is seen a landscape deepening to a watered valley, with low hills beyond on the sky-line.

Signed : L. Lotvs. About 85 cm. h., i m. w. Figures three-quarters. Much repainted, the knife in the head of St. Peter Martyr looking like a much later addition, and the little St. John completely painted out of shape. Indeed, Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle go so far as to say that he was put in much later, replacing the head of a donor ^.

' This composition occurs, with shght changes, a number of times in the Venetian Painting of about 1500, e. g. Berlin Gallery, No. 287, attributed to Previtali ; the Madonna and Saints signed ' Marcus Venetus,' and supposed to be by Pensabene, in the Lochis Collection in Bergamo;

B 2

1503- Photographed by Brogi, Florence.

1505- In this picture we again find traces of the influence both of Bellini and of Alvise Vivarini. The Virgin is not only draped as in Bellini's early Madonnas in the Contarini Collection of the Venice Academy (Nos. 17 and 24), the one in the Lochis Collection at Bergamo (No. 210), the one with the Greek inscription in the Brera (No. 261), and the one in Turin (No. 779), but resembles the last two even in type. Her L. hand, however, is Alvisesque, close to such a hand as that of St. Antony of Padua in Alvise's altar-piece of 1480 already mentioned. The structure of the Child is identical with Alvise's in the Berlin altar-piece, although its movement has a greater resemblance to that of the Child in a picture belonging to Miss Hertz, of London, painted by Bartolommeo Montagna, or to the Child by the same master in the Vicenza Gallery, representing the Madonna between SS. John and Onofrio. In type the St. Peter Martyr, severe and ascetic, recalls Cima. His ear is Alvisesque, much narrower than in Giovanni Bellini, and having a marked indentation where it meets the cheek, a peculiarity scarcely ever wanting in Alvise and never in Lotto, except possibly in one or two portraits. The thumb of St. Peter's L. hand, with the second phalanx broader than the first, we shall find frequently in Lotto, and as frequently in the works of Jacopo di Barbari, Bonsignori, and Savoldo.

London, Bridgewater House. Madonna and Saints.

The Madonna is seated, with, to R., SS. Clare and Francis, whose wound she is touching, and, to L.,

a Madonna by Basaiti in the Stuttgart Gallery ; and a Madonna, probably by Catena, formerly in the Pourtal^s Collection (woodcut in Lafenestre, Peinture Italienne, p. 317).

LONDON : MADONNA AND SAINTS 5

SS. Jerome and Joseph, Jerome offering a scroll to the 1503- Child who turns eagerly toward him. Two woodmen '^°^' are seen in a hilly forest in the background.

Inscribed : L. Lotvs F. On wood, about 85 cm. h., I m. w. Figures three-quarters.

The Madonna and all the saints, except the Francis, are practically the busts of the figures in the altar-piece at Santa Cristina near Treviso, although the drier and more timid treatment, and the ash-coloured flesh-tints, make it certain that this picture was painted first. The St. Francis resembles the St. Peter Martyr in the picture at Naples.

One copy of this is exhibited in the Dresden Gallery (No. 195). Another is said to be in the Grosvenor Gallery in London.

Next in date comes a small allegorical picture, which J"ly. belonged to the late painter Gritti, of Bergamo. Just *^°^' before his death, he sent it to London, and it has not been heard of since. Several authorities quote the following inscription on the back :

BERNARDVS. RVEEVS.'

LAVRENTIVS. LOTTVS. P.

GAL. lUL. MDV.

The picture represented a tree with trophies, a shield with the arms of the Rossi di San Secondo, a putto playing with instruments on the ground, a satyr among urns and vases, and a genius making a path up a high mountain.

^ Bernardo Rubeo, Legate of Bologna, is well known to students of Italian art through his medal struck by Francesco Francia.

Near Treviso, Santa Cristina. High Altar.

1505- The Madonna is enthroned in an apse, with SS. 1506. Liberale and Jerome standing below her to R., and SS. Cristina and Peter to L. Above, in a lunette, the Dead Christ upheld by Angels.

Signed : Lavrentivs Lotvs. On wood, 2-46 m. h., 1-42^ m. w.

Considerably damaged by recent attempts at restoration and by bad varnishing.

Photographed by Alinari, Florence.

The pose of the Madonna's head, bending to the L. with a kerchief rising in a peak over the crown, is commonly found in Alvise's works (e. g. the Venice altar-piece of 1480, and the National Gallery Madonna), but almost never in Bellini's. The finger-tips resting on an object (a book in this instance) are also found in Alvise (e. g. the Berlin altar-piece) and his school alone among the elder painters. The position of the Child, standing with both his feet on his mother's L. knee, with her L. hand only around his body, is never found in Bellini, but is precisely paralleled in Alvise's altar-piece of 1480, where, indeed, the proportions and action of the Child closely resemble Lotto's. The Virgin's L. hand is almost identical with the hand of St. Antony of Padua in the altar-piece of 1480, and her drapery, distinctly outlining the knees with folds in the shape of half diamonds, resembles Alvise's draperies in the Berlin altar-piece. The long-drawn, parallel folds over the arm and shoulder of the angel to R. in the Pieta recall the figure stretched out at full length in Basaiti's Agony in the Garden of the Venice Academy (No. 69), a picture in which, as Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle have already noted, Basaiti is still purely Alvisesque. The hand of the St.

ALTAR PIECE

SANTA CRISTINA: ALTAR-PIECE 7

Jerome, with its bony fingers wide apart, and with 1505- knotty joints, recalls the hands of Alvise, as for ex- ^5°^* ample the hand of the St. Jerome in the Frari altar-piece. St. Peter's hand, with its scattered fingers, is even more Vivarinesque. The St. Cristina is of the same type as Lotto's early Danae. The only ear visible, that of St. Peter, much rounder than Alvise's, but retaining the characteristic indentation into the cheek, remains in this form practically throughout Lotto's entire career. It is, by the way, strikingly like Montagna's ear in such a typical instance as the St. Margaret in the Sacristy of San Nazzaro e Celso at Verona, or like Bonsignori's ear in the portrait in the Sciarra-Colonna collection at Rome. St. Liberale, with his feet almost parallel although not alongside of each other, and St. Peter, with his feet at right angles, stand in a way characteristic of Alvise, as, for instance, the saints in the Venice Academy altar-piece. The capitals of the architecture are close to those in Alvise's Berlin altar-piece. Alvise's influence is traceable not alone in all these details, but in the more general characteristics of an exaggerated contrast of light and shadow and a zinc-washed grey tone. But there are traces of Bellini's influence as well — not only of his general influence (as in the composition of the Pietd, which recalls such a composition of Bellini's as the Pieta in the Correr Museum at Venice, Sala IX, No. 54), but, I think, of one particular work, his altar-piece of 1505 in San Zaccaria at Venice. The arrangement of Lotto's work, although more crowded, recalls Bellini's — the Jerome and Peter closing in both compositions at the sides — and his Jerome may be reminiscent of the Jerome of Bellini. Furthermore, the decorative Mosaic pattern in the apse appears to have been suggested to Lotto by a similar feature in the San Zaccaria picture, although

1505- Lotto's design already betrays that marked originality 1506. ij^ decoration which becomes later so distinct a characteristic of his work. The fig-tree, a feature seldom found elsewhere in Lotto's pictures, may be a further indication of his having studied Bellini's work. If this hypothesis be correct, we can assume that the altar-piece could not have been begun before the end of 1505, that being the date, it will be remembered, of Bellini's picture. The maturity and ambitious character of the painting, moreover, help to confirm this later date rather than the somewhat earlier one which has sometimes been assigned to it.

AsoLO. Altar-piece. Assumption of the Virgin.

1506. The Virgin rises, surrounded by a glory of cherubs, while SS. Antony Abbot and Basil stand below to R. and L., looking up at her.

Inscribed : Lavrent Lotvs Iunior MD. VI. According to Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle, the present inscription is not the original one, which, they say, was Lavrent Lotvs Iunii 1506.

The Madonna is of the same type as the Cristina of Treviso and the Catherine of Munich, but even more Alvisesque than either. The landscape recalls the Naples picture, but is larger in treatment and much more elaborate, with fine effects of light on the horizon. The flesh colour is blonder than in most of Lotto's early works, and is almost of the tone found in Alvise's latest pictures. For a Venetian work of this date, this Assumption is singularly expressive. The feeling is distinctly devotional, and Lotto's power of psychological analysis appears here for the first time in the attitude of sentimental ecstasy he has given the

MUNICH: MARRIAGEOFST.CATHERINE 9

young St. Basil, as contrasted with the calm reverie 1506. of the old St. Antony.

Lotto quits Treviso, leaving his furniture and most Oct., of his clothing behind him to pay for the rent of his *5o6. house. (G. Bampo, Spigolahire, &c.) The same collection of documents proves Lotto's presence at Treviso on February 24 and November 25, 1504, and on April 7, 1505. On the last occasion he is mentioned as pictor celeberrim^is. We can assume, therefore, that from September, 1503, to June, 1506, Lotto was constantly in or near Treviso, becoming more and more well known as an artist.