of this portrait has been bequeathed to the National Gallery by Sir Henry Layard, and it is to be hoped that the difficulties raised by the Italian government as to its removal from Venice will shortly be overcome. The picture of S. Mark Preaching at Alexandria already mentioned as having been finished by Giovanni, is remarkable for the Oriental costumes of all the figures in it. Gentile's pictures are often ascribed to his brother; in two examples at the National Gallery (Nos. 808 and 1440) there is actually a false signature on a cartellino. In the latter instance Messrs Ludwig and Molmenti are still of opinion that the picture is the work of Giovanni.
Vincenzo Catena (c. 1470-1530) is not known to have been a pupil of Bellini, but he began by so modelling his style upon him that one of his works in the National Gallery was until quite lately officially ascribed to him, namely the S. Jerome in his Study. Another, a later work, A Warrior Adoring the Infant Christ was similarly ascribed to Giorgione. This is a proof that Catena was very susceptible to various influences, and was "an artist of extraordinary suppleness of mind, never too old to learn or to appreciate new ideals and new sentiments." In a manner more his own is the Madonna with Four Saints in the Berlin Gallery (No. 19). The S. Jerome and the Warrior are among the most popular pictures in the National Gallery—partly perhaps on account of their supposed illustrious parentage, but by no means entirely. A painter who could so absorb the characteristics of two such masters must needs be a master himself.
Cima da Conegliano, so called from his birthplace in Friuli—the rocky height of which serves as a background in some of his pictures—settled in Venice in 1490, when he was about thirty years old. The influence of Bellini may be seen in the temperamental as well as the technical qualities of his work, which is distinguished by sound drawing and proportion, fine and brilliant colour, as well as by sympathetic types of countenance. One of his best and earliest pictures is the S. John the Baptist with four other saints, in Santa Maria del Orto in Venice. Another is the Madonna with S. Jerome and S. Louis, now in the Vienna Gallery. A smaller but peculiarly attractive piece is the S. Anianus of Alexandria healing a shoemaker's wounded hand, at Berlin, distinguished for its beautiful clear colours and the life-like character of the heads.
Andrea Previtali, born in Bergamo in 1480, came to Venice to study under Bellini, whom he succeeded in imitating with remarkable success. The Mystic Marriage of S. Catherine (No. 1409) in the National Gallery was formerly attributed to Bellini. If he had not the originality to carry the art any farther, his pictures are nevertheless a decided and very agreeable proof of the advance that was being made in it at the beginning of the sixteenth century, before the full splendour of Giorgione and Titian had unfolded.
Marco Basaiti, though probably not a pupil of Bellini, nevertheless acquired many of his characteristics. The picture in the National Gallery known as The Madonna of the Meadow was until lately assigned to Bellini, and another of his, in the Giovanelli Palace at Venice, which is identical in technique, tone, and general effect with this one, is still so ascribed. Whether or not he learnt from Bellini, he was certainly an assistant to Alvise Vivarini, on whose death he completed the large altar-piece in the Church of S. Maria de Friari at Venice, representing S. Ambrose surrounded by Saints. His Christ on the Mount of Olives and The Calling of Zebedee, both dated 1510, are now in the Academy at Venice, and together with the Portrait of a Man, dated 1521, in the Bergamo Gallery, and The Assumption in S. Pietro Martire at Murano, may be considered his best performances.
More remote from Bellini, yet not so far as to be entirely free from his influence in some of their more important compositions, was the school formed by Lazzaro di Bastiani or Sebastiani, of which the chief ornament was Vittore Carpaccio, and among the lesser ones Giovanni Mansueti and Benedetto Diana. The history of this independent group of painters has only of late years been elucidated; Kugler, after a page devoted to Carpaccio, dismissed them with the remark that Mansueti and Bastiani were both pupils of Carpaccio, and that Benedetto Diana was "less distinguished." Our national collection was without any example until 1896, when Mansueti's Symbolic representation of the Crucifixion was purchased. In 1905 the National Art-Collections Fund secured Bastiani's Virgin and Child, and in 1910 Sir Claude Phillips presented Diana's Christ Blessing. Alas! that we are still without anything from the hand of Vittore Carpaccio. Seven portraits by Moroni do not fill a gap like this.
The name of Lazzaro de Bastiani first occurs in Venice as a witness to his brother's will in 1449, and as early as 1460 he was painting an altar-piece for the Church of San Samuele. Ten years later, the brothers of the Scuolo di San Marco ordered a picture of the Story of David from him, promising him the same payment as they gave to Jacobo Bellini, who had been working for them with his two sons Gentile and Giovanni. In 1474, another proof of his rank and repute as a painter is afforded by a letter from a gentleman in Constantinople, asking for a picture by him, but that Giovanni Bellini should paint it in the event of Bastiani being already dead. He was thus, it would seem, preferred to Bellini, though it will be remembered that five years later, when the Sultan expressed the wish that a distinguished portrait-painter should be sent him from Venice, it was Gentile Bellini who was nominated. All the same, Gentile was a portrait-painter, and Bastiani was not; and it is fairly evident that the latter was at least in the front rank. One of his best-known pictures the Vergine dai begli occhi in the Ducal Palace at Venice used to be attributed to Giovanni Bellini; but though he appears to have drawn inspiration for his larger and more important compositions from Jacobo Bellini, his style was chiefly developed through that of Giambono. His most important work is now in the Academy at Vienna—an altar-piece painted for the Church of Corpus Domini, Venice, S. Veneranda Enthroned. In the Imperial Gallery at Vienna are a Last Communion and Funeral of S. Girolamo. In the Academy at Venice are S. Anthony of Padua, seated between the branches of a walnut-tree, with Cardinal Bonaventura and Brother Leo on either side, a large picture of a Miracle of the Holy Cross, and a remarkable rendering of The Madonna Kneeling, the child being laid under an elaborate canopy. An Entombment in the Church of S. Antonino at Venice is reminiscent of Giovanni Bellini at his best.
In 1508, the name of Vittore Carpaccio occurs with that of Bastiani in connection with the frescoes of Giorgione upon the façade of the Fondaco de Tedeschi, about which there was a dispute. To Carpaccio we are indebted for the most vivid realization of the contemporary life of Venice; for although his subjects were nominally taken from sacred history or legend, they are treated in a thoroughly secular fashion, giving the clearest idea of the buildings, people, and costume of the Venice of his time, with the greatest variety and richest development. His object is not only to represent single events, but a complete scene, and while we observe this characteristic in one or two pictures by the Bellini, Carpaccio not only shows it much oftener, but carries it to a much fuller development—possibly influenced by the Netherlandish masters.
Many of his works are in the Academy at Venice; eight large pictures, painted between 1490 and 1495, represent the history of S. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins. Such a wealth of charming material might have embarrassed a less capable painter, but "the monotonous incident which forms the groundwork of many of them," as Kugler coldly puts it, "is throughout varied and elevated by a free style of grouping and by happy moral allusions." Another series is that of the Miracles of the Holy Cross, among which may be especially noticed the cure of a man possessed by a devil; the scene is laid in the loggia of a Venetian palace, and is watched from below by a varied group of figures on the Canal and its banks. Larger and broader treatment may be seen in the Presentation in the Temple, painted in 1510, which is also in the Academy, and in the altar-piece of S. Vitale, dated 1514. This last brings Carpaccio into closer comparison with the later Venetian painters, being in the nature of a Santa Conversazione, where the holy personages are grouped in some definite relation to each other, and not independent figures.
Palma Vecchio (1480-1528), so called to distinguish him from Giacomo Palma the younger—Palma Giovane,—was so much influenced by Giorgione and Titian that his indebtedness to Bellini appears to have been comparatively slight. The beautiful Portrait of a Poet in the National Gallery has been attributed both to Giorgione and to Titian.