FLORENTINE SCHOOL OF PAINTING. The most important. Italian school during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was emi nent in individuality and intellectual qualities, its members often being sculptors and scientists as well as painters. Their works are excellent in line and composition, and are well modeled, showing the influence of Florentine sculpture; but are not so rich in color as the Venetian. Florentine art is the most decorative of all Italian painting. being mostly fresco work. The Florentine school attained its high position through ( :hut() ( c. 1266-1337 ) . and throughout the fourteenth century it remained dominant in Italy. The painting of the Renaissance orig inated in Florence, in the works of Masolino and Masaeeio. spreading thence throughout Italy. During the fifteenth century the Forentinc was the first school of Italy and the world. Among the almost incredible number of artists which it produced at this period, the most important, Resides those mentioned, are Fra Angelico. Fi lippo and Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, Domenico (thirlandajo, and Andrea del Veroechio. Floren
tine art was characterized at this time by a vigorous naturalism, which was replaced during the sixteenth century by a growing imitation of the anthme. Florence produced two of the greatest masters of the High Renaissance, Leo nardo da Vinci and :Michelangelo, to say nothing of others like Fra Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto, and the influence of its masters was de terminative in forming Raphael's art. But its chief artists migrated to other cities, forming the Lombard and Roman schools, and during the sixteenth century Florence lost its primacy.
Consult the authorities on Italian painting re ferred to under PAINTING, especially Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in Italy (Lon don, 1866); Bereneon. Florentine Painters of the Renaissance (New York, 1896) ; Cartwright, The Painters of Florence (ib., 1901). See also RENAISSANCE ART. and the articles on each of the painters mentioned above.