We owe to Lord Lindsay some very interesting views on the influence of early Teutonic art beyond the Alps, a subject long overlooked and still far from exhausted.[200] Among its masters no celebrity equals that of Jean Van Eyck. He was not only capo-scuola in the Low Countries and inventor of a new method and vehicle of painting, but was the first to introduce that "feeling for nature and domestic sentiment" which, subordinate at the outset to religious delineation, has continued, through many phases, and for the most part with strictly naturalist aims, to characterise the Flemish pencil. The fame of his mechanism spread into Italy, and Vasari speaks of a bath scene being sent by him to Duke Federigo of Urbino. This was, however, probably the same work described as belonging to Cardinal Ottaviani by Facio, who wrote about 1456. In a room lighted by a single lamp, a group of nude females issued from the bath, an aged beldame, their attendant, bathed in perspiration, their thirsty dog lapping water. A mirror accurately gave back the scene, reflecting the profile of the one whose figure was turned from the spectator. Without, was elaborate and far-spreading scenery, with men, horses, castles, hamlets, groves, plains, and mountains, dexterously graduating away as the evening shadows fell. Keeping in view the state of art at that time, this painting, of which all further trace mysteriously vanishes, must have exercised an important influence. The borrowed illumination, the mirror reflections, the nude forms, the heated atmosphere detected by its physical effects on animal life, the minutely pencilled landscape, the delicately receding perspective, were all more or less innovations in Italy, apart from the colour and surface produced by the new process.

Among the followers of Van Eyck who first made their way to the Mediterranean shores was Josse or Justus of Ghent, who, under the signature of Justus de Alemania, appears to have executed an Annunciation in fresco, at the convent of Sta. Maria di Castello at Genoa in 1451.[*201] Admiration for Van Eyck's bath scene may probably have obtained for him an invitation to Urbino, where, however, he does not seem to have shared the ducal patronage, but was employed by the fraternity of Corpus Christi to paint for them an altar-piece, which, after nine years of labour, was completed in 1474, and is still preserved in the church of Sta. Agata.[*202] It was executed in oil, about ten feet square without the now missing predella, and seems to have cost 500 florins, besides materials. Its subject was appropriately the Institution of the Eucharist, in contradistinction from the Last Supper, and it is treated after the manner of the Romish mass,—Christ distributes the sacramental wafer to his Apostles kneeling round a table, over whom hover two white-draped angels of the Van Eyck type. Four personages stand apart, spectators of the sacred mystery, and these, by the legitimate rules of sacred art, might be portraits. Among them may be easily recognised the Duke; and a turbaned figure is said by Baldi to be the ambassador from Usum-cassan, King of Persia, while visiting the court in 1470-1, on a mission to unite the Italian princes in a league against the Turk,—a fact garbled by Michiels, whose commendations of the picture are greater than its distance above the eye allows me to confirm or challenge, as, without scaffolding or a very strong glass, all detailed criticism must be in a great measure conjectural. Neither have I discovered that influence upon art at Urbino which he and Passavant impute to this Fleming, whose only other known work in Umbria was a now lost church standard.

Art has in many instances been able largely to compensate the liberality of its early patrons. Besides preserving to after times the person of those

"Whose barks have left no traces on the tide,"

it has frequently transmitted to us the form and comeliness of men whose characters, actions, or talents have left an impress on their age. Although the pencil and the chisel were at first rarely dedicated to portraiture, a mode of representation arose in Italy during the fifteenth century which supplied this want with singular success. Reviving classical taste found few more attractive relics than the coins and medals of Greece and her colonies; but their imitators, struck with the inferiority of those under the Roman empire, adopted, and even surpassed, the bold style and high relief of the former. When almost every principality in the Peninsula possessed a mint, and die-cutting was a usual branch of the goldsmith's craft, there were great facilities for the new art. The circulation of precious metals being very limited, trade was then conducted chiefly by barter, or by the transmission of coin in sealed bags, stamped with the value they contained, whilst small transactions were made almost solely in copper money.[203] Heroic medals, which soon became the established meed of egotism and incense of flattery, were at first cast,—and, when machinery became more perfect, were struck,—in an alloy of copper, under the name of bronze. Those of the fifteenth century were of great size, varying from one to four and a half inches in diameter; many bear the names of well-known sculptors and painters as their artists, and exhibit a grandeur of conception unequalled in other numismatic productions.[*204] About three hundred and seventy-five such medals have been published in the Trésor de Numismatique et de Glyptique, and although the procédé Collas there adopted in general fails to preserve the sharpness and finish given to the originals by careful retouching, no work of art is so delightful a companion to Italian mediæval history. Zannetti's elaborate collections on Italian coinages, and the fifth volume of Cicognara's great work upon sculpture, may also be consulted with pleasure and advantage.

The only medallist of Urbino now known was called Clemente, and, besides the portrait by him to be immediately noticed (No. I.), he is said to have ornamented the great hall of the palace with six round bas-reliefs of Duke Federigo's exploits. Seven medals of that prince have come to my knowledge, all of extreme rarity: the first five are described and engraved in the Zecca di Gubbio; the first, second, and fourth in the Trésor de Numismatique; the sixth is probably unnoticed elsewhere. The heads of all are in profile.

No. I. A medallion of 35/8 inches diameter. The Duke's bust is in armour, on which are chased a Lapitha reducing a Centaur, and other emblematic devices; his cap, called by the French a mortier, is of the usual cinque-cento form, exactly resembling a round Highland bonnet. The legend is a Latin couplet, signifying,

"He comes, another Cæsar and another Roman Scipio,
Whether he gives to the Nations Peace or fierce Wars."