Verona, they entrusted him with an important and honourable commission,-that of painting a part of the ducal palace, restored in 1493. It seems, however, that he never finished that commission. It is not known when he stayed at Milan; but Maurolyco writes, in his chronicle, that he was celebrated in that city.1 In 1489-90, he spent some time at Treviso, working for Caterina Cornaro, by whose marriage into the house of Lusignan the republic of Venice gained the island of Cyprus. She had been forced by the Council of Ten to abdicate her throne, and she took refuge in Treviso. Her daughter, whose hand was sought in marriage by various parties intriguing against each other, was, at last, espoused by Rambaldo Avogaro of Treviso; and Caterina commissioned Antonello to paint a picture of the Madonna and Holy Infant, which she presented to her daughter as a gift2 on her wedding-day. His presence in Treviso was considered, doubtless, an occasion not to be neglected; and the nobles of that city employed him during 1490 on the frescoes of the tomb of the senator Agostino Onigo.3 He returned to Venice, where he died about 1493, before he had been able to touch the pictures of the ducal palace.1

1 Maurolyco, ut sup., p. 200. “Mediolani quoque fuit percelebris." 2 Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell' Arte. Venezia, 1648, p. 48. 3 Ibid. Zanetti, Della pittura Veneziana. Ven. 1771, p. 21. 4 Vasari, p. 80. The author of "Memorie de' Pittori Messinesi" says (p. 19), "In the church of the PP. Reformati, outside Catania, is one of the most exquisite works of one Antonellus. This picture is about four palmi by three in size. It represents, with the greatest sentiment and diligence, a Madonna with the Infant; and at the foot of it are the words, 'Antonellus Messenius, 1497.'" The notice of this picture is declared in a note to have been communicated by that great amateur of the fine arts, Dr. D. Carlo Gagliani

He died of a heart-disease, and was buried with pomp by the artists of the city, who celebrated his name in the following epitaph:

"D. O. M.

"Antonius pictor, præcipuum Messanæ suæ et Siciliæ totius ornamentum, hac humo contegitur. Non solum suis picturis, in quibus singulare artificium et venustas fuit, sed et quod coloribus oleo miscendis splendorem et perpetuitatem primus Italicæ picturæ contulit, summo semper artificum studio celebratus." 1

Thus the artists of his time celebrated Antonello as the first of those who brought to Italy the improvements in oil-painting which he had learnt from John Van Eyck. The man who most regretted him at his death was Andrea Riccio, a sculptor, well known as the author of several statues in the Church of San Cassiano, of whom Vasari mentions the naked figures of Adam and Eve in the ducal palace. Little credit can be given to the story of an interview said to have taken place between Antonello and Giovanni Bellini, and described by Ridolfi. It is said that Bellini was desirous of discovering Antonello's secret of painting in oil, and that he introduced himself into the house of the Messinese in the garb of a nobleman desirous of having his likeness taken. Antonello,

di Catania. Though the description was circumstantial, it seemed so like an error, that we referred this matter to a friend of Mr. Domenico Gagliani, son of Dr. D. Carlo Gagliani, who wrote to his father, and obtained the following reply:-" The picture of the P. P. Reformati at Catania, lately in the private chapel of the convent, is now in the church, and has the following signature in large letters: 'Antonellus de Saliba Messinensis, 1697.' This Antonello was one of the later members of the family of the great artist who went to Flanders to learn the art of painting in oil." 2 Ibid.

1 Vasari, ut sup., p. 81.

seeing him dressed in the Venetian toga, mistook him for the character which he assumed, and thus betrayed his secret to Bellini.1

Salvo d'Antonio, one of Antonello's pupils, afterwards became a disciple of Leonardo da Vinci.

1 Ridolfi, ut sup., p. 48.

CHAPTER XI.

THE WORKS OF ANTONELLO DA MESSINA.

WHILST the uncertainties of art history and the conflictstories of writers involve us in doubt as to the great features of Antonello's career, and especially as to his visit to Flanders, we are relieved from perplexity by the straightforward evidence of his pictures, which are too vividly impressed with a Flemish influence to leave any doubts of the master's personal contact with John Van Eyck.

From the solitary example we possess of his early manner we are unable to derive much knowledge of Antonello's style after his return from Rome and his study in the school of Colantonio. But, even in late productions, we can still detect points of resemblance between him and the Neapolitans in a certain arrangement of the composition and details of foreground. The qualities which generally distinguished him were simplicity and nature, derived from his Italian education; but, in more than one instance, the patience with which he sought to render truth and finish overshadowed these great qualities, and flung him back into the ranks of the realistic and minute schools of Belgium. From that source he drew his occasional hardness of outline, a tendency to prefer the real to the ideal in the choice of a type of countenance, and to fall below the

standard of nobleness and grace in attitude and expression which mark the primitive schools of Italy. It was not, however, without many a struggle that Antonello surrendered himself to these tendencies. His pictures are a sufficient evidence of the endeavour to substitute some of the finer features of Italian character for those less pleasing ones which he had engrafted on his manner in Flanders. Thus, whilst his draperies maintained, in a measure, the character of those seen in the pictures of Van Eyck, they gained markedly in elegance of form and fold; and whilst his landscapes kept the episodic style of the Flemings, they were less than usually obtrusive or destructive of general effect.

His most excellent quality, however, was colour, which he derived from the Van Eycks. Not always free even here from the fault of minuteness when it became necessary to depict such details as the hairs of a beard, he used his colours with a firm and flowing brush, of a bright transparent yet powerful tone, modelled with great softness and blending, and as even in touch as those of the Bellini. But in colour and in design he was not at all times successful, as we possess more than one example of dark opaque tones in pictures where, at the same time, he failed of nobleness in expression, especially in the attempt to render ideal character. In portraits, however, he was exempt at all times from these failings, being full of strong and expressive character, noble and severe in attitude, intelligent in form, and fine in design, ennobling the reality, and creating that type of portraiture in which the Venetian school outshone all others. That he possessed the art of giving perspective harmony to the figures and accessories