Rerirul of Painting in Italy.—The Ostrogoth dominion was not unfavourable to art ; at least there is a studied affectation of classical knowledge in Cassiodorus, and the mutilators of ancient statues are denounced as criminals. The Lombards could have brought no art with them, and were unlikely to appreciate what they found. The most remarkable monument of their time is the large MS. of the Bible from Mont Amiata, still preserved in the Laurentian Library at Florence ; but, others scarcely less beautiful are not uncommon. [Mistaruss..] The union of the Church with the Frank Empire gave the popes greater leisure and means, and Rome became once more a capital.
It is probable that the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins in 1201 supplied to the Italians some of that technical skill which the wild conflicts of their own parties at home had contributed to obliterate. Numerous Greek artists settled in the cities of Italy, and a semi-I3yzan tine style is visible in the painting as well as in the architecture of Venice, Pisa, and Siena.
But native painters of remarkable talent arose, first perhaps in the last named city, who soon cast off the trammels of Byzantine tradition, and painting once more rose to the dignity of a fine art, assuming a position such as it could only have previously held when the arts of ancient Greece were in their most flourishing state. We shall be able to trace the history of painting in Italy most conveniently by noticing in succession the principal Italian schools of painting. (The term school of painting is explained under BOLOONESE SCHOOL OF PAINTING.) Tuscan School of Painting.—This is frequently called the Florentine School, and is divided into several epochs, the first of which is termed the old Florentine; but the school of Florence was not the school of Tuscany until after the time of Michel Angelo. In the earliest period of painting in Tuscany the principal painters were of Pisa and Siena, and there is characteristically no essential difference between their works and those of the early' painters of Umbria of the same period. Sienese critics have discovered a distinct school in the works of the old masters of Siena, but it would be difficult to show any other dis tinction than a mere difference of local origin.
Some artists of Siena and Florence, of the early part of the 13th century, are the oldest painters of Tuscany that are known. There were painters in Pisa before this time, in the 11th century, but they were Greeks from Constantinople : and there are paintings extant in Tuscany which are said to be of the same period, but they are probably the production of Greek artists. In the church della Trinith at Flo
rence there is a picture of Christ painted upon canvas, and glued upon a wooden cross, which is probably of the 10th century ; it was done before 1003: and in the church of San Miniato al Monte near Florence there is a Greek painting of San Miniato Martire, of the 11th century. (' Etruria Pittrice.') The first considerable efforts towards the revival of painting were made by the Tuscans, and the Tuscan painters throughout have done much towards its improvement and perfection in later periods. The following masters are among the most celebrated in the history of painting, both for their works and for the grat changes they effected in the prevailing styles of their respective periods : Giotto di Bondone of Vespignano (b. 1276, d. 1336) ; Tornmme Guidi, of San Giovanni, called Masaccio lb. 1401 or 1402, d. 14.13) ; Lionarcli,' of Vinci (b. 1452, d. 1519); Michel Angelo Buonaroti, of Castell' Caprese, in the diocese of Arezzo (b. 1474, d. 1563) ; Ludovico Cardi, of Cigoli (b.1559, d. 1613); and Pietro Barrettini, of Cortona (b. 1596, d. 1669). All these painters, through the striking characteristics of their respective styles, made epochs in the history of painting in Tuscany.
The oldest Tuscan artists whose names arc known are Niccola and Giunta of Pisa. [Piseso,in Bloc. Div.] Niccola Pisano, or of Pisa, was a sculptor, and the first restorer of design from the excessive rigidity of the Byzantine forms ; he endeavoured to imitate the style of a bas-relief upon an ancient sarcophagus at Pisa : he lived at the beginning of the 13th century. Giunta. Pisano is the earliest Tuscan painter to whom extant works have been assigned : he is said to have learnt painting of some Greeks who were at Pisa about the year 1210. In 1230 he was employed in the church degli Angell at Assisi : there are a crucifixion and some other figures painted upon a wooden cross, the colours of which are mixed in some medium not affected by water. The drawing is careful, but very dry, and the fingers are extremely long—faults, as Lanzi has observed, not of the men, but of the times. The expression in the heads, however, is good, the draperies are well arranged and the colouring, though brown, is laid on with a strong impasto. Some frescoes by Giunta are in the upper church of San Francesco at Assisi.