[44] Now the first ornament of the exquisite collection of J. J. Angerstein, Esq.—Since purchased for the National Gallery.—Editor.
[45] Giorgio Vasari, of Arezzo, died in 1584, aged 68.
[46] Julio Pipi, called Romano, died at Mantoua in 1546, aged 54.
[47] Francesco Primaticcio, made Abbé de St. Martin de Troyes, by Francis, I., died in France 1570, aged 80.
[48] Polydoro Caldara da Caravaggio was assassinated at Messina in 1543, aged 51.
[49] Michael Angelo Amerigi, surnamed Il Caravaggi, knight of Malta, died 1609, aged 40.
[50] Nicolas Poussin, of Andely, died at Rome 1665, aged 71.
[51] Salvator Rosa, surnamed Salvatoriello, died at Rome 1673, aged 59.
[52] Of the portraits which Raphael in fresco scattered over the compositions of the Vatican, we shall find an opportunity to speak. But in oil the real style of portrait began at Venice with Giorgione, flourished in Sebastian del Piombo, and was carried to perfection by Titiano, who filled the masses of the first without entangling himself in the minute details of the second. Tintoretto, Bassan, and Paolo of Verona, followed the principle of Titiano. After these, it migrated from Italy to reside with the Spaniard Diego Velasquez; from whom Rubens and Vandyck attempted to transplant it to Flanders, France, and England, with unequal success. France seized less on the delicacy than on the affectation of Vandyck, and soon turned the art of representing men and women into a mere remembrancer of fashions and airs. England had possessed Holbein, but it was reserved for the German Lely, and his successor Kneller, to lay the foundation of a manner, which, by pretending to unite portrait with history, gave a retrograde direction for near a century to both. A mob of shepherds and shepherdesses in flowing wigs and dressed curls, ruffled Endymions, humble Junos, withered Hebes, surly Allegroes, and smirking Pensierosas, usurped the place of truth, propriety and character. Even the lamented powers of the greatest painter whom this country and perhaps our age produced, long vainly struggled, and scarcely in the eve of life succeeded to emancipate us from this dastard taste.
[53] Francesco Mazzuoli, called Il Parmegiano, died at Casal Maggiore in 1540, at the age of 36. The magnificent picture of the St. John, we speak of, was begun by order of the Lady Maria Bufalina, and destined for the church of St. Salvadore del Lauro at Città di Castello. It probably never received the last hand of the master, who fled from Rome, where he painted it, at the sacking of that city, under Charles Bourbon, in 1527; it remained in the refectory of the convent della Pace for several years, was carried to Città di Castello by Messer Giulio Bufalini, and is now in England. The Moses, a figure in Fresco at Parma, together with Raphael's figure of God in the vision of Ezekiel, is said, by Mr. Mason, to have furnished Gray with the head and action of his bard: if that was the case, he would have done well to acquaint us with the poet's method of making 'Placidis coire immitia.'