Fra Bartolomeo imitated, or rather painted in a very similar style to, Lionardo da Vinci. Several of his works are in many respects admir able, and in compositien, in expression, in the cast of draperies, and in design, bear the strongest resemblance to the works of Raffaelle : the great figure of St. Mark, in the Pitti palace, combines with the style of Raffaelle much of the grandeur of the prophets and sibyls of Michel Angelo in tho Sistine chapel. Bartolomeo was the true master of Raffaelle: these two great painters contracted a friendship for each other in 1504, when Raffaelle was in Florence and only twenty-one years of age. Bartolomeo died in 1517, three years before Raffaelle. Mariotto Albertinclli followed the style of Bartolomeo, and painted many excellent pictures.
Andrea Vannucchi, called del Sarto from the trade of his father (a tailor), was also one of the most distinguished of all the Florentine painters. He was the scholar of Piero di Cosimo, and had great ability of execution, but ho wanted invention. His style in colouring and in chiaroscuro is similar to that of Fra Bartolomeo, but from the study of the cartoon of Pisa he had acquired much of the style of Michel Angelo in design. His easel pictures are very numerous. He died in 1530.
Michel-Angelo Buonaroti, painter, sculptor,ancl architect, the scholar of Domenico Ghirhuidajo, revolutionised painting not only in Tuscany, but in Italy, yet although his style can scarcely be said to have anything in common with that of any of his predecessors, he was anticipated in some of the greatest beauties of composition and design by Da Vinci and by Raffaelle. The chief characteristics of his works are severe grandeur of design and an occasional sublimity of invention: the frescoes of the vault. of the Sistine chapel, painted in 1512, are in these respects unrivalled by any other works. The cartoon of Pisa, however, was by some contemporary critics considered to be a superior work in design : it represented many soldiers of Piea suddenly called to arms when bathing in the Arno, and was a very superior work to the rival cartoon of Lionardo da Vinci. Benvenuto Cellini calls these cartoons the school of the world, so long as they were exhibited to the public : Vanari speaks to the same effect. They were both lost a few years after they were made, in a manner never accounted for. Michel Angelo's was cut in pieces. There is an old print of Lionardo's by
Edelinck, made from a bad drawing; and Marcantonio and Agostino Veneziano both engraved parts of 3lichel Angelo's. The style of Michel Angelo has its faults, independent of an excessive muscular development : he had but one standard of form for man, woman, and child, of every age and every degree ; his women are female men, and his children diminutive giants. His great works are his single figures, but his paintings arc as statuesque as his statues, and express a similar character : his Moses, his Lorenzo de' Medici, in sculpture ; his Daniel, and his Jeremiah or Isaiah, in painting. His Last Judgment, a vast work, but the production of his old age, has the faults of his other works without their grandeur or sublimity ; it was finished in 1541, in his 67th year. Michel Angelo made many drawings, but he painted scarcely anything in oil. Though the great works of Michel Angelo were executed at Rome, they influenced chiefly the Florentine school ; and the painters of Florence, unlike those of Home, not being held in restraint in their imitation of Michel Angelo by any veneration for the works of Raffaelle, the imitation was the more palpable, and it was an imitation of manner only, not of style. The anatomical school is the best designation for the Florentine imitators of Michel Angelo. Fran cesco Granacci and Daniel Ricciarelli of Volterra, were the least man nered of his scholars. The latter painted with great care, and his Descent from the Cross, in the church of Trinith. de' Monti, is reckoned one of the finest pictures in Rome. Another celebrated follower of Michel Angelo was Giorgio Vasari ; be is better known however for his lives of the painters, sculptors, and architects, than for his paintings. He executed an immense number of works, but beyond a general' cor rectness of drawing they have nothing to recommend them. Other followers and imitators of his style were Sebastiano del Piombo, Mar cello Venusti, Federigo Zuccaro, Francesco Rossi de' Salviati, Jacopo del Conte, Angelo Bronzino, and Allessandro Allori. Painters of this period who were not carried away with the host of imitators were Franciabigio, Jacopo da Pontormo, and Domenico Puligo, scholars of Andrea del Sarto ' • besides some others of less note : also Il Rosso, or Maitre as he is called by the French.