which remain to us, and recognise in them the dawn of that splendour which reached its zenith in the beginning of the sixteenth century: while to the philosophic observer Giotto appears as one of those few heaven-endowed beings, whose development springs from a source within-one of those unconscious instruments in the hand of Providence, who, in seeking their own profit and delight through the expansion of their own faculties, make unawares a step forward in human culture, lend a new impulse to human aspirations, and, like the "bright morning star, day's harbinger," may be merged in the succeeding radiance, but never forgotten.

Before we pass on to the scholars and imitators of Giotto, who during the next century filled all Italy with schools of art, we may here make mention of one or two of his contemporaries, not so much for any performances left behind them, but because they have been commemorated by men more celebrated than themselves, and survive embalmed in their works as "flies in amber." Dante has mentioned, in his 'Purgatorio,' two painters of the time, famous for their miniature illustrations of Missals and MSS. Before the invention of printing, and indeed for some time after, this was an important branch of art: it flourished from the days of Charlemagne to those of Charles V., and was a source of honour as well as riches to the laymen who practised it. Many, however, of the most

beautiful specimens of illuminated manuscripts are the work of the nameless Benedictine monks, who laboured in the silence and seclusion of their convents, and who yielded to their community most of the honour and all the profit: this was not the case with Oderigi, whom Dante has represented as expiating in purgatory his excessive vanity as a painter, and humbly giving the palm to another, Franco Bolognese, of whom there remains no relic but a Madonna, engraved in Rosini's 'Storia della Pittura.' He retains, however, a name as the founder of the early Bolognese school. The fame of Buffalmacco as a jovial companion, and the tales told in Boccaccio of his many inventions and the tricks he played on his brother-painter the simple Calandrino, have survived almost every relic of his pencil. Yet he appears to have been a good painter of that time, and to have imitated, in his later works, the graceful simplicity of Giotto:* he had also much honour and sufficient employment, but having been more intent on spending than earning, he died miserably poor in 1340.

Cavallini studied under Giotto at Rome, but

* An elegant little figure of St. Catherine, attributed to Buffalmacco, is engraved in Rosini, p. 52. A picture of St. Ursula, an early work of the same painter, is quite Byzantine in style. The Frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa, so long attributed to him, are by another hand. (See Kugler and Rumohr.)

seems never to have wholly laid aside the Greekish style in which he had been first educated. He was a man of extreme simplicity and sanctity of mind and manners, and felt some scruples in condemning as an artist the Madonnas before which he had knelt in prayer: this feeling of earnest piety he communicated to all his works. There is by him a picture of the Annunciation preserved in the church of St. Mark at Florence, in which the expression of piety and modesty in the Virgin, and of reverence in the kneeling angel, is perfectly beautiful: the same devout feeling enabled him to rise to the sublime in a grand picture of the Crucifixion which he painted in the church of Assisi, and which is reckoned one of the most important monuments of the Giotto school. The resignation of the divine sufferer, the lamenting angels, the fainting Virgin, the groups of Roman soldiers, are all painted with a truth and feeling quite wonderful for the time. Engravings after Cavallini may be found in Ottley's Early Italian School,' and in Rosini (p. 21). He became the pupil of Giotto when nearly forty years old, and survived him only a short time, dying in 1340. With Cavallini begins the list of painters of the Roman school, afterwards so illustrious. Among the contemporaries of Giotto we must refer once more to Duccio of Sienna. Though an established painter in his native city when Giotto was a child, his later works

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show that the influence of that young and daring spirit had given a new impulse to his mind. His best picture, still preserved, and described with enthusiasm in Kugler's Handbook,' was painted in 1311. Duccio died very old, about 1339.

The scholars and imitators of Giotto, who adopted the new method (il nuovo metodo), as it was then called, and who collectively are distinguished as the Scuola Giottesca, may be divided into two classes-1. Those who were merely his assistants and imitators, who confined themselves to the reproduction of the models left by their master. 2. Those who, gifted with original genius, followed his example rather than his instructions, pursued the path he had opened to them, introduced better methods of study, more correct design, and carried on in various departments the advance of art into the succeeding century.

Of the first it is not necessary to speak. Among the men of great and original genius who immediately succeeded Giotto, THREE must be especially mentioned for the importance of the works they have left, and for the influence they exercised on those who came after them. These were Andrea Orcagna, Simone Memmi, and Taddeo Gaddi.

The first of these, Andrea Cioni, commonly called ANDREA ORCAGNA, did not study under Giotto, but owed much indirectly to that vivifying influence which he breathed through art. Andrea