lines, though in a rapidly deteriorating style, until the introduc- | first half of the 13th century, which show no artistic improve tion of a foreign-the Byzantine element, which created a ment over those at S. Clemente four or five centuries older. fresh starting-point on different lines. The old naturalism and It was not in fact till the second half cf the 13th century survival of classical freedom of drawing is replaced by stiff, that stiff, traditional Byzantine forms and colouring began conventionally hieratic types, superior in dignity and strength to be superseded by the revival of native art in Italy by to the feeble compositions produced by the degradation into the painters of Florence, Pisa and Siena. During the first which the native art of Rome had fallen. The designs of this thirteen centuries of the Christian era mural painting appears second period of Christian art are similar to those of the mosaics, to have been for the most part confined to the representation of sacred subjects. It is remarkable that during the earlier centuries council after council of the Christian Church forbade the painting of figure-subjects, and especially those of any Person of the Trinity; but in vain. In spite of the zeal of bishops and others, who sometimes with their own hands defaced the pictures of Christ on the walls of the churches, in spite of threats of excommunication, the forbidden paintings by degrees became more numerous, till the walls of almost every church throughout Christendom were decorated with whole series of pictured stories. The useless prohibition was becoming obsolete when, towards the end of the 4th century, the learned Paulinus, bishop of Nola, ordered the two basilicas which he had built at Fondi and Nola to be adorned with wallpaintings of sacred subjects, with the special object, as he says, of instructing and refining the ignorant and drunken people. These painted histories were in fact the books of the unlearned, and we can now hardly realize their value as the chief mode of religious teaching in ages when none but the clergy could read or write. FIG. 8.-Painted Vault from the Catacombs of St Callixtus, Rome. In the centre Orpheus, to represent Christ the Good Shepherd, and round are smaller paintings of various types of Christ. such as many at Ravenna, and also to the magnificently illuminated MSS. For some centuries there was little change or development in this Byzantine style of art, so that it is impossible in most cases to be sure from internal evidence of the date of any painting. This to some extent applies also to the works of the earlier or pagan school, though, roughly speaking, it may be said that the least meritorious pictures are the latest in date. These catacomb paintings range over a long space of time; some may possibly be of the 1st or 2nd century, e.g. those in the cemetery of Domitilla, Rome; others are as late as the 9th century, e.g. some full-length figures of St Cornelius and St Cyprian in the catacomb of St Callixtus, under which earlier paintings may be traced. In execution they somewhat resemble the Etruscan tomb-paintings; the walls of the catacomb passages and chambers, excavated in soft tufa, are covered with a thin skin of white stucco, and on that the mural and ceiling paintings are simply executed in earth colours. The favourite subjects of the earliest paintings are scenes from the Old Testament which were supposed to typify events in the life of Christ, such as the sacrifice of Isaac (Christ's death), Jonah and the whale (the Resurrection), Moses striking the rock, or pointing to the manna (Christ the water of life, and the Eucharist), and many others. The later paintings deal more with later subjects, either events in Christ's life or figures of saints and the miracles they performed. A fine series of these exists in the lower church of S. Clemente in Rome, apparently dating from the 6th to the roth centuries; among these are representations of the passion and death of Christ-subjects never chosen by the earlier Christians, except as dimly foreshadowed by the Old Testament types. When Christ Himself is depicted in the early catacomb paintings it is in glory and power, not in His human weakness and suffering. Other early Italian paintings exist on the walls of the church of the Tre Fontane near Rome, and in the Capella di S. Urbano alla Caffarella, executed in the early part of the 11th century. The atrium of S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, Rome, and the church of the Quattro Santi Incoronati have mural paintings of the During the middle ages, just as long before among the ancient Greeks, coloured decoration was used in the widest possible manner not only for the adornment of flat walls, Engilsh but also for the enrichment of sculpture and all the Mural fittings and architectural features of buildings, Painting. whether the material to be painted was plaster, stone, marble or wood. It was only the damp and frosts of northern climates that to some extent limited the external use of colour to the less exposed parts of the outsides of buildings. The varying tints and texture of smoothly worked stone appear to have given no pleasure to the medleval eye; and in the rare cases in which the poverty of some country church prevented its walls from being adorned with painted ornaments or pictures the whole surface of the stonework inside, mouldings and carving as well as flat wall-spaces, was covered with a thin coat of whitewash. Internal rough stonework was invariably concealed by stucco, forming a smooth ground for possible future paintings. Unhappily a great proportion of mural paintings have been destroyed, though many in a more or less mutilated state still exist in England. It is difficult (and doubly so since the so-called "restoration" of most old buildings) to realize the splendour of effect once possessed by every important medieval church. From the tiled floor to the roof all was one mass of gold and colour. The brilliance of the mural paintings and richly coloured sculpture and mouldings was in harmony with the splendour of the oak-work-screens, stalls, and roofs-all decorated with gilding and painting, while the light, passing through stained glass, softened and helped to combine the whole into one mass of decorative effect. Colour was boldly applied everywhere, and thus the patchy effect was avoided which is so often the result of the modern timid and partial use of painted ornament. Even the figure-sculpture was painted in a strong and realistic manner, sometimes by a wax encaustic process, probably the same as the circumlitio of classical times. In the accounts for expenses in decorating Orvieto cathedral wax is a frequent item among the materials used for painting. In one place it is mentioned that wax was supplied to Andrea Pisano (in 1345) for the decoration of the beautiful reliefs in white marble on the lower part of the west front. From the 11th to the 16th century the lower part of the walls, generally 6 to 8 ft. from the floor, was painted with a dadothe favourite patterns till the 13th century being either a sort of sham masonry with a flower in each rectangular space (fig. 9), or a conventional representation of a curtain with regular folds stiffly treated. pictures with figure-subjects 818 Above this dado ranges of any of the smaller works even of such men as Cimabue and Duccio were painted in tiers one di Buoninsegna, who were living when these Westminster above the other, each picture paintings were executed. Unhappily, partly through the frequently surrounded by a poverty and anarchy brought about by the French wars and painted frame with arch and the Wars of the Roses, the development of art in England made gable of architectural design. little progress after the beginning of the 14th century, and it Painted bands of chevron or ebit lo angiesh adTolle lo ti viton ads doidw other geometrical ornamentaiseom odi to send of heid to Bohoq hoose till the 13th century, and flowing ornament afterwards, usually divide the tiers of pictures horizontally and form the top and bottom boundaries of FIG. 9.-Wall-Painting of the 13th the dado. In the case of a century." Masonry pattern." church, the end walls usually alfaw or litaurorum ama have figures to a larger scale. On the east wall of the nave over the chancel arch there was generally a large painting of the "Doom" or Last Judgment. One of the commonest subjects is a colossal figure of St Christopher (fig. 10) usually on the nave wall opposite the principal Haw diew baba a or bas FIG. 10.-Wall-Painting of St Christopher. (Large life-size.) entrance selected because the sight of a picture of this saint was supposed to bring good luck for the rest of the day. Figures were also often painted on the jambs of the windows and on the piers and soffit of the arches, especially that opening into the chancel. 22nm sno any Us loot 100ft balit ad The little Norman church at Kempley in Gloucestershire (date about 1100) has perhaps the best-preserved specimen of the complete early decoration of a chancel. The north and south walls are occupied by figures of the twelve apostles in architectural niches, six on each side. The east wall had single figures of saints at the sides of the central window, and the stone barrel vault is s covered with a representation of St John's apocalyptic visionChrist in majesty surrounded by the evangelistic beasts, the seven candlesticks and other figures. The chancel arch itself and the jambs and mouldings of the windows have stiff geometrical designs, and over the arch, towards the nave, is a large picture of the "Doom." The whole onework being undecorated with colour. scheme is very complete, no part of the internal plaster or Though the drawing is rude, the figures and their drapery are treated broadly and with dignity. Simple earth colours are used, painted in tempera on a plain white ground, which covers alike both the plaster of the rough walls and the smooth stone of the arches and jambs. In the 13th century the painters of England reached a high point of artistic power and technical skill, so that paintings were produced by native artists equal, if not superior, to those of the same period anywhere on the Continent. The central paintings on the walls of the chapter-house and on the retable of the high altar of Westminster Abbey are not surpassed by 1 See Archaeologia, vol. xlvi. (1880). FIG. 11.-15th-century English Painting-St John the Evangelist. was not till a time when the renaissance of art in Italy had fallen into decay that its influence reached the British shores. In the. 15th century some beautiful work, somewhat affected by Flemish influence, was produced in England (fig. 11), chiefly in the form of figures painted on the oak panels of chancel and chapel screens, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk; but these cannot be said to rival the works of the Van Eycks and other painters of that time in Flanders. To return to the 13th century, the culminating period of English art in painting and sculpture, much was owed to Henry III.'s love for and patronage of the fine arts; he employed a large number of painters to decorate his various castles and palaces, especially the palace of Westminster, one large hall of which was known as the " painted Subjects of Medieval Wall Paintings.-In churches and domestic buildings alike the usual subjects represented on the walls were specially selected for their moral and religious teaching, either ad developed partly from Oriental sources, and coming to perfection at the end of the 15th century, was copied and reproduced in textiles, printed stuffs and wall-papers with but little change down to the present century-a remarkable instance of survival in design. Fig. 14 is a specimen of 15th-century English decorative painting, copied from a 14th-century Sicilian silk damask. Diapers, powderings with flowers, sacred monograms and sprays of blossom were frequently used to ornament large surfaces in a simple way. Many of these are extremely beautiful (fig. 15). cuted in the most simple FIG. 15.-Powderings used in 15th- specially recorded in the valuable series of accounts for the expenses | being broken up by some such delicate reliefs as that shown in of wall-paintings in the royal palace of Westminster during the reign of Henry III., printed in Vetusta monumenta, vol. vi. (1842). All the materials used, including charcoal to dry the paintings and the wages paid to the artists, are given. The materials mentioned are plumbum album et rubeum, viridus, vermilio, synople, ocre, azura, aurum, argentum, collis, oleum, vernix. Two foreign painters were employed-Peter of Spain and William of Florence at sixpence a day, but the English painters seem to fig. 16, so its effect was never dazzling. (W. Mo.; J. H. M.) Mural painting in England fell into disuse in the 16th century, until attempts to revive it were made in the 19th century. For domestic purposes wood panelling, stamped leather; and tapestry were chiefly used as wall-coverings. In the reign of Henry VIII., probably in part through Holbein's influence,- a rather coarse tempera wall-painting, German in style, appears to have been common. A good example of arabesque painting of this period in black and white, rudely though boldly drawn and Holbeinesque in character, was discovered in 1881 behind the panelling in one of the canons' houses at Westminster. Other examples exist at Haddon Hall (Derbyshire) and elsewhere. Many efforts have been made in England to revive fresco painting. The Houses of Parliament bear witness to this, the principal works there being those of William Dyce and Daniel Maclise. That of G. F. Watts, whose easel work also is generally distinguished by its mural feeling, is full of serious purpose and dignity of conception. "Buono fresco " (the painting in tempera upon a freshly laid ground of plaster while wet), "spirit fresco' or Gambier-Parry method (the painting with a spirit medium upon a specially prepared plaster or canvas ground 2), and "waterglass" painting (wherein the method is similar to water-colour painting on a prepared plastered wall, the painting when finished being covered, with a chemical solution which hardens and protects the surface), have all been tried. Other processes are also in the experimental stage, such as that known as Keim's, which has been successfully tried by Mrs Merritt in a series of mural paintings in a church at Chilworth. Unless, however, some means can be found of enabling the actual painted wall to resist the natural dampness of the English climate, it does not seem likely that true fresco painting can ever be naturalized in Great Britain. Of two of the few modern artists entrusted with important mural work in England, Ford Madox Brown and Frederick J. Shields, the former distinguished especially for his fine series of mural paintings in the Manchester town-hall, in the later paintings there adopted the modern method of painting the design upon canvas in flat oil colour, using a wax medium, and afterwards affixing the canvas to the wall by means of white lead. This is a usual method with modern decorators. Mr Shields has painted the panels of his scheme of mural decoration in the chapel of the Ascension at Bayswater, London, also upon canvas in oils, and has adopted the method of fixing them to slabs of slate facing the wall so as to avoid the risk of damp from the wall itself. Friezes and frieze panels or ceilings in private houses are usually painted upon canvas in oil and affixed to the wall or inserted upon their strainers, like pictures in a frame. (Walter Crane has used fibrous plaster panels, painting in ordinary oil colours with turpentine as a medium, as in Redcross Hall.) Recently there has been a revival of tempera painting, and a group of painters are producing works on panel and canvas painted in tempera or fresco secco, with yolk of egg as a medium, according to the practice of the early Italian painters and the directions of Cennino Cennini. A pure luminous quality of colour is produced, valuable in mural decoration and also durable, especially under varnish. (W. CR.) FIG. 16.-Pattern in Stamped and Moulded Plaster, decorated with gilding and transparent colours; 15th-century work. have done most of the work and received higher pay. William, an English monk in the adjoining Benedictine abbey of Westminster, received two shillings a day. Walter of Durham and various members of the Otho family, royal goldsmiths and moneyers, worked for many years on the adornment of Henry III.'s palace and were well paid for their skill. Some fragments of paintings from the royal chapel of St Stephen are now in the British Museum. They are delicate and carefully painted subjects from the Old Testament, in rich colours, each with explanatory inscription underneath. The scale is small, the figures being scarcely a foot high. Their method of execution is curious. First the smooth stone wall was covered with a coat of red, painted in oil, probably to keep back the damp; on that a thin skin of fine gesso (stucco) has been applied, and the outlines of the figures marked with a point; the whole of the background, crowns, borders of dresses, and other ornamental parts have then been modelled and stamped with very minute patterns in slight relief, impressed on the surface of the gesso while it was yet soft. The figures have then been painted, apparently in tempera, gold leaf has been applied to the stamped reliefs, and the whole has been covered with an oil varnish. It is difficult to realize the labour required to cover large halls such as the above chapel and the "painted chamber," the latter about 83 ft. by 27 ft., with this style of decoration. In many cases the grounds were entirely covered with shining metal leaf, over which the paintings were executed; those parts, such as the draperies, where the metallic lustre was wanted, were painted in oil with transparent colours, while the flesh was painted in opaque tempera. The effect of the bright metal shining through the rich colouring is magnificent. This minuteness of much of the medieval wall-decoration is remarkable. Large wall-surfaces and intricate mouldings were often completely covered by elaborate gesso patterns in relief of almost microscopic delicacy (fig. 16). The cost of stamps for this is among the items in the Westminster accounts. These patterns when set and dry were further adorned with gold and colours. So also with the architectural painting; the artist was not content simply to pick out the various members of the mouldings in different colours, but he also frequently covered each bead or fillet with painted flowers and other patterns, as delicate as those in an illuminated MS.-so minute and highlyfinished that they are almost invisible at a little distance, but yet add greatly to the general richness of effect. All this is neglected in modern reproductions of medieval painting, in which both touch and colour are coarse and harsh-caricatures of the old work, such as disfigure the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and many cathedrals in France, Germany and England. Gold was never used in large quantities without the ground on which it was laid MURANO (anc. Ammariuno), an island in the Venetian lagoon about 1 m. north of Venice. It is 5 m. in circumference, and a large part of it is occupied by gardens. It contained 5436 inhabitants in 1901, but was once much more populous than it is at present, its inhabitants numbering 30,000. It was a favourite resort of the Venetian nobility before they began to build their villas on the mainland; and in the 15th and 16th centuries its gardens and casinos, of which some traces remain, were famous. It was here that the literary clubs of the Vigilanti, the Studiosi and the Occulti, used to meet. 1 Shakespeare, Henry IV., Part. II. act II. sc. i: "Falstaff. And for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the prodigal. or the German hunting in waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries." It was in this method that the lunettes by Lord Leighton at the Victoria and Albert Museum were painted on the plaster wall. The same painter produced a fresco at Lyndhurst Church, Hants. conspicuously identified himself, he fell under suspicion and was recalled from the front. Returning to Paris (1795), he made the acquaintance of Napoleon Bonaparte, another young officer out of employment, who soon gained a complete ascendancy over his vain, ambitious and unstable nature. On the 13th Vendémiaire, when Bonaparte, commissioned by Barras, beat down with cannon the armed insurrection of the Paris sections against the Convention, Murat was his most active and courageous lieutenant, and was rewarded by the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 21st Chasseurs and the appointment of first aide de camp to General Bonaparte in Italy. In the first battles of the famous campaign of 1796 Murat so distinguished himself that he was chosen to carry the captured flags to Paris. He was promoted to be general of brigade, and returned to Italy in time to be of essential service to Bonaparte at Bassano, Corona and Fort St Giorgio, where he was wounded. He was then sent on a diplomatic mission to Genoa, but returned The town is built upon one broad main canal, where the tidal current runs with great force, and upon several smaller ones. The cathedral, S. Donato, is a fine basilica, of the 12th century. The pavement (of 1111) is as richly inlaid as that of St Mark's, and the mosaics of the tribune are remarkable. The exterior of the tribune is beautiful, and has been successfully restored. The church of St Peter the Marty (1509) contains a fine picture by Gentile Bellini and other works, and S. Maria degli Angeli also contains several interesting pictures. Murano has from ancient times been celebrated for its glass manufactories. When and how the art was introduced is obscure, but there are notices of it as early as the 11th century; and in 1250 Christoforo Briani attempted the imitation of agate and chalcedony. From the labours of his pupil Miotto sprang that branch of the glass trade which is concerned with the imitation of gems. In the 15th century the first crystals were made, and in the 17th the various gradations of coloured and iridescent glass were invented, together with the composition called "aventu-in time to be present at Rivoli. In the advance into Tirol in rine "; the manufacture of beads is now a main branch of the trade. The art of the glass-workers was taken under the protection of the Government in 1275, and regulated by a special code of laws and privileges; two fairs were held annually, and the export of all materials, such as alum and sand, which enter into the composition of glass was absolutely forbidden. With the decay of Venice the importance of the Murano glass-works declined; but A. Salviati (1816-1890) rediscovered many of the old processes, and eight firms are engaged in the trade, the most renowed being the Venezia Murano Company and Salviati. The municipal museum contains a collection of glass illustrating the history and progress of the art. The island of Murano was first peopled by the inhabitants of Altino. It originally enjoyed independence under the rule of its tribunes and judges, and was one of the twelve confederate islands of the lagoons. In the 12th century the doge Vital Micheli II. incorporated Murano in Venice and attached it to the Sestiere of S. Croce. From that date it was governed by a Venetian nobleman with the title of podestà whose office lasted sixteen months. Murano, however, retained its original constitution of a greater and a lesser council for the transaction of municipal business, and also the right to coin gold and silver as well as its judicial powers. The interests of the town were watched at the ducal palace by a nuncio and a solicitor; and this constitution remained in force till the fall of the republic. See Venezia e le sue Lagune; Paoletti, Il Fiore di Venezia: Bussolin, Guida alle fabbriche vetrarie di Murano; Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia, i. 41. MURAS, a tribe of South-American Indians living on the Amazon, from the Madeira to the Purus. Formerly a powerful people, they were defeated by their neighbours the Mundrucus in 1788. They are now partly civilized. Each village has a chief whose office is hereditary, but he has little power. The Muras are among the lowest of all Amazonian tribes. MURAT, JOACHIM (1767-1815), king of Naples, younger son of an innkeeper at La Bastide-Fortunière in the department of Lot, France, was born on the 25th of March 1767. Destined for the priesthood, he obtained a bursary at the college of Cahors, proceeding afterwards to the university of Toulouse, where he studied canon law. His vocation, however, was certainly not sacerdotal, and after dissipating his money he enlisted in a cavalry regiment. In 1789 he had attained the rank of maréchal des logis, but in 1790 he was dismissed the regiment for insubordination. After a period of idleness, he was enrolled, through the good offices of J. B. Cavaignac, in the new Constitutional Guard of Louis XVI. (1791). In Paris he gained a reputation for his good looks, his swaggering attitude, and the violence of his revolutionary sentiments. On the 30th of May 1792, the guard having been disbanded, he was appointed sub-lieutenant in the 21st Chasseurs à cheval, with which regiment he served in the Argonne and the Pyrénées, obtaining in the latter campaign the command of a squadron. After the 9th Thermidor, however, and the proscription of the Jacobins, with whom he had the summer of 1797 he commanded the vanguard, and by his passage of the Tagliamento hurried on the preliminaries of Leoben. In 1798 he was for a short time commandant at Rome, and then accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt. At the battle of the Pyramids he led his first famous cavalry charge, and so distinguished himself in Syria that he was made general of division (October, 1799). He returned to France with Bonaparte, and on the 18th Brumaire led into the orangery of Saint Cloud the sixty grenadiers whose appearance broke up the Council of Five Hundred. After the success of the coup d'état he was made commandant of the consular guard, and on the 20th of January 1800 he married Caroline Bonaparte, youngest sister of the first consul. He commanded the French cavalry at the battle of Marengo, and was afterwards made governor in the Cisalpine Republic. As commander of the army of observation in Tuscany he forced the Neapolitans to evacuate the Papal States and to accept the treaty of Florence (March 28, 1801). In January 1804 he was given the post of governor of Paris, and in this capacity appointed the military commission by which the duc d'Enghien was tried and shot (March 20); in May he was made marshal of the empire; in February 1805 he was made grand admiral, with the title of prince, and invested with the grand eagle of the Legion of Honour. He commanded the cavalry of the Grand Army in the German campaign of 1805, and was conspicuous at Austerlitz that Napoleon made him grand duke of Berg and Cleves (March 15, 1806). He commanded the cavalry at Jena, Eylau, and Friedland, and in 1808 was made general-in-chief of the French armies in Spain. He entered Madrid on the 25th of March, and on the 2nd of May suppressed an insurrection in the city. He did much to prepare the events which ended in the abdication of Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII. at Bayonne; but the hopes he had cherished of himself receiving the crown of Spain were disappointed. On the 1st of August, however, he was appointed by Napoleon to the throne of Naples, vacated by the transference of Joseph Bonaparte to Spain. King Joachim Napoleon, as he styled himself, entered Naples in September, his handsome presence and open manner gaining him instantaneous popularity. Almost his first act as king was to attack Capri, which he wrested from the British; but, this done, he returned to Naples and devoted himself to establishing his kingship according to his ideas, a characteristic blend of the vulgarity of a parvenu with the essential principles of the Revolution. He dazzled the lazzaroni with the extravagant splendour of his costumes; he set up a sumptuous court, created a new nobility, nominated marshals. With an eye to the overthrow of his legitimate rival in Sicily, he organized a large army and even a fleet; but he also swept away the last relics of the effete feudal system and took efficient measures for suppressing brigandage. From the first his relations with Napoleon were strained. The emperor upbraided him sarcastically for his monkey tricks" (singeries); Murat ascribed to the deliberate ill-will of the French generals who served with him, and even to Napoleon, the failure of his attack on Sicily in 1810. He resented |