Of the Neapolitan school the earliest painter was Tommaso do' Stefani, a contemporary of Cimabue ; and it can trace the succession down to the present day ; but among them are very few great names. Of the 15th century the chief is Antonio Solario, called Lo Zingaro, a scholar of Lippe Dalmasio of Bologna, but who also studied under Gentile da Fabriano at Rome, and indeed in most of the cities of Italy, and whose numerous scholars formed what is called the school of lingaro. His most celebrated work was a fresco in the choir of S. Severino, which represented in several compartments the principal events in the life of S. Benedict, and which, according to Lanzi, contained an incredible variety of figures. Antonello da Messina is also claimed by the Neapolitans; but from having practised his art at Venice until his death is usually placed among Venetian painters. Andrea Sabba tini da Salerno, whose style was formed on that of the Roman painters, and especially of Perugino and Raffaelle, is the greatest name of the 16th century. Of the 17th century the great masters are Giuseppe Itibera, called Lo Spag,noletto (b. 1592, d. 1656)—claimed by the Neapolitans from having practised in Naples, though a Spaniard by birth, and Salvator Roaa (b. 1615, d. 1673). Both of these painters owed much of their daring exaggeration and coarseness of style to the example of Caravacgio, the founder of the so called Natumlisti.' The Spaniard had considerable native vigour, and he shrank from the representation of no scene however horrible. His best pictures are in Naples, and among them are a ' Martyrdom of S. Januarius,' in the Royal Chapel, and a S. Jerome in the church of the Trinity. Several of his pictures are in Spain, and among them are lxion on the Wheel,' in the palace of the Buon Retire, at Madrid. Salvator Rosa possessed more varied powers ; but he was a man of irregular life, and something of his character is reflected in his works'. His landscapes (often wild scenes in the Apennines) and his battle-pieces are the most prized of his productions, and are superior to his historical pictures.
Salvator had many followers, but, as in the other schools, the Neapolitan painters fell in due course under the influence of the dominant eclecticism, and ceased to have any distinctive character. The last Neapolitan painter who requires mention is Luca Giordano, called from his swiftness of execution Fa Presto (b. 1632, d. 1705). Ile was a man of great ability; but his facility of invention and execu tion, and the readiness with which he could imitate different styles, led him to a slightness of manner which was fatal to greatness. Lanzi gives particulars of numerous later painters, some of whom are highly praised by Neapolitan writers.
(Among the authorities on the Schools of Painting in Italy may be cited Vaaari, ' Vite de' Pittori ; Baldinucci, ' Notizie de' Professori del Disegno ; ' Della Vale, ' Lettere Senesi;' Bellory ' Vita de' Pittori ; ' Zanetti. 'Della Pittura Veneziana;' Domenici, Vita dei Pittori Napolitani ; Lanzi, 'Storia Pittorica delta Italia ; ' Fiorillo, ' Ges chichte der 3Ialerey ; ' Speth, ' Kunst in Hellen ; ' Rumohr, ' Hellen lathe Forschungen •' Kugler ' Handbook of Painting in Italy,' edited by Sir C. L. Eastlake, and Wornurn, ' Epochs of Painting.' The rise and progress of Italian pictorial design may be traced in the plates of D'Agincourt's ' Hist, de l'Art pas les Monumens ' (Peinture) ; but still better in Ramboux'a splendid series of 300 folio plates of outline tracings from the original frescoes of Italy from 1200 to 1600.) Northern .school: Germany.—Painting in Germany can be traced back to the time of Charlemagne, but few examples are extant of painters' works of a date prior to the 15th century. Charlemagne was
a munificent patron of art. The dome of the cathedral erected by him at Aix-la-Chapelle he caused to be covered with mosaics represent ing Christ enthroned, with the four-and-twenty elders worshipping. The walls of his palaces glittered with representations of his own victorious, and other famous fields of battle ; his oratories with sacred subjects, or legends of the saints ; and miniatori exerted their best skill in illuminating manuscripts for his service. Of the paintings and mosaics no vestiges remain ; but illuminated manuscripts of the period show that a considerable amount of imitative skill was reached, and in the scrolls and arabesque ornamentations not a little fancy, though the human face and form are as meagre and uncouth as in wholly Byzantine work. The Byzantine influence is, however, still more evident in German work of the 10th and Ilth centuries, a consequence perhaps of the marriage of Otho II. (978-983) with the Greek princess Theophania having given the German artists access to the technical skill of the Byzantines. From the middle of the 12th and in the beginning of the 13th centuries visible signs of new life in art began to show themselves. Ecclesiastical art took a wider scope ; more artistic individuality was displayed ; the drawing of the figure was improved, and expression was studied. The miniature painters espe cially made a marked advance, and many excellent examples of their work remain. In the Parcival ' of Wolfram von Eschenbach, who lived early in the 13th century, the painters of Cologne and 3Iaes tricht are especially mentioned ; and the series of compartments on the ceiling of the former monastery of Brauweiler, near Cologne, of about 1200, representing the Triumph of Faith,' and the figures of the Apostles, one of which bears the date 1224, in the church of St. Ursula, in Cologne, are, with those of scriptural subjects on the wooden roof of St. Michael's Church, Hildisbeim, of the beginning of the 13th century, probably the oldest German pictures extant. But a more important work is the extensive series of paintings on the choir and transept of Brunswick cathedral, which appear to be of about the middle of the 13th century ; and the paintings of saints recently discovered in restoring the transept of Bamberg Cathedral. (Kugler and Waagen.) A school of very able artists seems to have existed at this time in Bohemia ; but towards the close of the 14th century the German painters recovered the lead, those of the school of Cologne being the most distinguished. Meister Wilhelm is spoken of by a contemporary chronicler, in 1380, as the best master of his day. Pictures attributed to him are to be seen in St. Castor, at Coblcnz ; some remarkably fine ones, formerly in the church of Sta. Clara, and now in the Cathedral of Cologne ; in Cologne Museum ; and in the Berlin Museum. The great altar-piece, formerly in the chapel of the town-hall, now in the cathedral of Cologne, is supposed to have been painted by Stephan Lothener, or as he was called, Meister Stephan, who died in 1451. Tho richness of the colouring, and the dignity and beauty of the Virgin, are most remarkable. Next to the schools of Cologne and Bohemia at this time ranks that of Nurnberg. A branch of the Cologne school appears about this time in Westphalia. Of this school the chief was a painter known as the Meister von Liesborn, whose great work was a large altar-piece in several compartments, painted for the second convent in Liesborn, but which was cut in pieces at the suspension of the convent by Napoleon in 1807; several of the pieces are lost; some are now, with other pictures of the master, in the National Gallery.