Paolo Farinato and Antonio Badile, though influenced by Liberale were not under his tutelage, but they belonged to the great school which he founded, and they helped to the best of their ability to carry it on worthily. Farinato can generally be recognised by the snail which he introduces into his pictures, and which he would seem to adopt as his badge. Badile’s glory lies almost exclusively in having been the uncle and master of Paolo Cagliari, surnamed “Il Veronese.” This great genius belongs so absolutely to Venice, where he lived and worked and where all his masterpieces are to be found, that he cannot be included in the Veronese school of painting. His surname though reminds everyone that Verona gave him birth, and that he himself was proud to own his sonship, and to subscribe himself to all time as “Paul of Verona.”
Speaking of the Veronese school Layard says of it: “No school in Italy, except the Florentine, shows so regular and uninterrupted a development, and none is consequently more deserving of the attention of the student who seeks in art a phase of the human intellect, influenced by local and special circumstances. Nowhere can this school be better studied and understood than in the public gallery and churches of Verona.”[40]
CHAPTER VII
The Duomo—S. Giovanni in Fonte—Biblioteca Capitolare—Vescovado—St Anastasia—Piazza delle Erbe
The cathedral church of Verona is said to date from between the eighth and ninth centuries. The period of its erection cannot be stated with certainty, and beyond the fact that it was first dedicated to Sta. Maria Matricolata nothing definite relating to it can be affirmed. It was nearly completed in its primitive state in 806 under Bishop Rathold, though it was considerably heightened in after years. The building itself is a mixture of the Lombard style with Gothic and Italian introduced—a mixture eminently satisfactory in its results notwithstanding the divergence of style. Ruskin speaks of it as follows, when, after six months’ close study of Byzantine work in Venice, he came again to the Lombard work of Verona and Pavia. “(Verona)—Comparing the arabesque and sculpture of the Duomo here with St Mark’s, the first thing that strikes one is the low relief, the second the greater motion and spirit, with infinitely less grace and science. With the Byzantines, however rude the cutting, every line is lovely, and the animals or men are placed in any attitudes which secure ornamental effect, sometimes impossible ones, always severe, restrained, or languid. With the Romanesque workmen all the figures show the effort (often successful) to