The painters of the Venetian states at the end of the 15th century, contemporary with the school of Bellini, were very numerous, and many of them painters of great merit, though more or less followers of the old style. The beat were Carlos Chin, Vittore Beliiniano, and Jacopo 3lontagnana : others, who approached nearer to the new style, were Vincenzio Catena, Cordeglieghi, Francesco Bissolo, and Girolamo di Santa Croce.
As the school of Squarcione at Padua was opposed to that of the Bellini at Venice, and its numerous followers adopted a style distinct from that of the Venetian painters, which prevailed elsewhere through out the state, it is unnecessary to mention them here : the best of them painted in the style of Mantegna, who established a distinct school at Mantua. Francesco da l'onte, n native of Vicenza, and the two Mon tagne and Bonconeigli, likewise of Vicenza, though born so near to Padua, were followers of the school of the Bellini. Francesco da Pouto was the founder of the Bassanese school : Bonconsigli, called Mares mice, was the beat of all tho painters of Vicenza of this period. In the Oratorio de' Turchini there is is Madonna on a throne surrounded by four saints by him, which in by some reckoned the finest picture in Vicenza. At Verona, at this time, tho beginning of the 16th century, were Domenico Marone and his son Francesco, and also Girolamno da' Libri, who may be reckoned among the best masters of the old school ; Girolamo da' Libri was the most celebrated miniature-painter of his time in Italy. Brescia at this period had also its distinguished painters, as Fioravante Ferramola and Paolo Zoppo ; and Andrea Previtali, a scholar of Giovanni Bellini, acquired a great reputation at Bergamo.
The art of Inlaying with stained woods of different colours was prat, Heed with much skill at this time : the following artists are men tioned by Lanai as having attained great distinction for this species of art :—Fra Giovanni da Verona, Fra Vincenzo dalle Vacche, Fra Raffaello da Brescia, Fra Damiauo da Bergamo, Gian Francesco Cape diferro, and Bartolemeo da Pola.
Whilst the artists of the neighbouring cities of Venice were with more or leas success contentedly following the dry manner of Bel lini, it was completely exploded at Venice itself by two of his own scholars, Giorgio Barbarelli di Castelfranco, commonly called Giorgione, and Tiziano Vecellio da Cadore, or Titian. The former was born iu 1477, and died in 1511; the latter, born in 1430, died in 1576. Giorgione introduced completely a new style of art : he discarded everything conventional, and worked upon the principle that the exact imitation of the effect of nature as a whole was the true object of a painter, whatever might be the nature or purpose of his representa tion : the difficulties of execution involved in the carrying out this principle, though a material one, are immense; the greatest of them, however, local colour and tone, are those which the painters of Venice appear to have most fully mastered. Mind has ever been less an object of study with the Venetian artists of this and the following periods, than the mere pictorial representation, which appears generally to have been the end of all their works : they painted for the picture's sake only, not for the lessou or moral that the picture might convey, a style properly designated the ornamental. Giorgione was the first
to imitate the textures of stuffs : he painted all his draperies from the actual stuff represented, and painted draperies of many different sub stances. Before his time all draperies were made of the same material, and differed only in their colours or patterns. He is said to have been first led to the study of tone in light and shade from seeing the works of Lionardo da Vinci. His drawing was good, and his handling bold yet careful. Whether Giorgione, if he had lived longer, would have executed great works, in which every part and object would have been as perfectly executed as some of his single figures and their costumes, must remain a matter of opinion. This excellence was accomplished by Titian, and with a bolduess of execution in his best works (in his earliest he finished highly) which far surpasses that. of Giorgione ; on which account, though originally an imitator of the style of Giorgione, he is deservedly accounted his superior, and is universally considered the founder of the great Venetian school of painting. Titian was in uothiog ideal, but true in almost everything that he painted, if not in detail, at least in general effect. His scrupulous imitation of the effect of every object necessarily excluded the ideal from his works ; and if his drawing is not the most chaste in style or correct in proportion, it is at least natural, and it is not so inferior that his other excellences do not compensate for its inferiority : in composition he was generally simple, but sometimes grand. In colour, local and absolute, ho is to have surpassed all other painters ' • in landscape, few have surpassed him; in portrait, few have equalled him. His principal masterpieces are considered—a St. Peter Martyr, in the church of Sant Giovanni o Paulo, and the Assumption of the Virgin, in the Academy at Venice ; and the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, at the Escurial in Spain, or at the church of the Jesuits at Venice : his numerous portraits, and Venuses, as they are called, are well known. [TITIAN, in Bum. Div.] The scholars of these two great painters were nume rous. The following celebrated masters were among the scholars of Giorgione : Sebastian del Piombo, Giovanni da Udine, Francesco ' Turbid°, called 11 Moro, Pietro Luzzo, called Lerotto (and by Vasari, da Feltro), and Lorenzo Luzzi. The scholars and imitators of Titian were likewise numerous, but the painters who might be strictly termed his scholars are very few. He is said to have instructed his brother Francesco Vecellio, who was an excellent painter, but Titian, through jealousy, to report, persuaded him to turn mer chant : his own son Orazio Vecellio was likewise a good painter, and there were still four other painters of this family : Marco Vecellio, the nephew of Titian ; Tiziano Vecellio, the son of Marco, called Tizianello to distinguish him from Titian; also a Fabrizio and a Cesare Vecellio. Of his scholars, the principal were—Paris Borden°, a painter of the greatest ability ; he was only a short time the scholar of Titian, and ultimately adopted a style of his own, though varying in nothing essential from that of Giorgione or Titian.