Fig. 257.—Sketch of the Virgin of Alba. Chalk-drawing by Raphael.
We should here close our remarks, were it not that we might be accused of an important omission in this review of the principal schools. For nothing has been said of the Bolognese school, whose origin, though not its maturity, belongs to the epoch we have made our study. But the material circumstances we now mention must be our justification: although the school of Bologna gave signs of its existence in the thirteenth century, and under the impulse of Guido, Ventura, and Ursone, showed itself to be industrious, active, and numerous; and also in the fourteenth century, under that of Jacopo d’Avanzo and Lippodi Dalmasio; yet it died away, reviving only at the commencement of the sixteenth century, again to become extinct after the death of the poetic Raibolini, called Francia, without having produced any of those great individualities to whose glory alone we are compelled to devote our attention.
We must, however, confess that this school, which suddenly retrieved its position at a time when all other schools were in a state of complete decadence, found three illustrious chiefs instead of one, and acquired the singular glory of resuscitating, by a kind of potent eclecticism, the ensemble of the noblest traditions. But it was not till the latter part of the sixteenth century that Bologna witnessed the opening by the Carracci of that studio whence were destined to proceed Guido, Albano, Domenichino, Guercino, Caravaggio, Pietro of Cortona and Luca Giordano—a magnificent phalanx of men who, by their own works and the force of their example, were to become the honour of an age into which it does not form a portion of our task to follow them.
ENGRAVING.
Origin of Wood-Engraving.—The St. Christopher of 1423.—“The Virgin and Child Jesus.”—The earliest Masters of Wood-Engraving.—Bernard Milnet.—Engraving in Camaïeu.—Origin of Engraving on Metal.—The “Pax” of Maso Finiguerra.—The earliest Engravers on Metal.—Niello Work.—Le Maître of 1466.—Le Maître of 1486.—Martin Schöngauer, Israel van Mecken, Wenceslaus of Olmutz, Albert Dürer, Marc Antonio, Lucas van Leyden.—Jean Duret and the French School.—The Dutch School.—The Masters of Engraving.
