and Tobias and the Angel with St. Nicholas of Bari and St. James. The latter is

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an entirely sincere and noble picture of the central epoch. Not supreme in any artistic quality, but good and praiseworthy in all; and, as a conception of its subject, the most beautiful you will find in Venice."—(R.)

Boccaccio Boccaccino (of Cremona), who sometimes shows the influence of Cima, rather reveals his indebtedness to Vivarini in a beautiful composition of high finish.

"It is a Madonna with Four Saints (Peter, John, Catherine and Rosa) seated in the open air; one of the earliest and most beautiful examples of this type of Holy Conversations with kneeling and sitting figures in a landscape around them, for which, later on, Palma and Titian showed such strong predilection."-(J. B.)

Bonifazio's Banquet of Dives is an invasion of the domains of Veronese.

"Bonifazio was a portrait painter. His studied and characteristically individual faces faithfully recall the patrician types of Venice who so often posed for him. The anachronism of the costume shows that Lazarus is merely a pretext, and that the real subject of the picture is a banquet of the lords with courtesans, their mistresses, in one of those beautiful palaces that bathe their marble feet in the green water of the Grand Canal."—(T. G.)

There are two fine works by Marco Basaiti. "To 1510 belongs the Calling of the Sons of Zebedee; and, to the same time, the Agony in the Garden, with the hanging lamp and leafless tree seen against a solemn toned evening sky-a picture of great earnestness in the person of the Saviour."-(A. H. L.)

Pordenone's San Lorenzo Guistiniani with six other figures has a great reputation.

"The composition unites all the peculiar qualities of

the master, and we can see that a supreme effort has been made to produce a grand impression."-(C. and C.)

Very celebrated is Christ at the Column, by Antonello da Messina.

"The head of Christ is wild and superb, the lips are half open and seem to cry out, the black eyes are raised to Heaven with an extraordinary expression of anguished desolation. The execution is rather hard and dry, but the work is poignant in sentiment and irresistibly eloquent."— (P. M.)

In a gallery that contains few examples of the early art of the Netherlands, Lucas van Leyden's Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine is conspicuous. It has a charming landscape background. The vine-leaves on the arched trellis behind the Virgin's throne are painted with loving minuteness. Bernard Van Orley has a delicate and carefully studied portrait of a Young Woman.

Of the Primitivis, there is an exquisite portrait of Lorenzo Fraimont, by Roger Van der Weyden.

"The hands, remarkable for their delicate modelling are clasped in prayer. The warm brown flesh tones are scarcely relieved by shadow. Dark blue background. This most interesting and exquisitely finished work was formerly ascribed to Holbein."-(C. L. E.)

THE BRERA

MILAN

IN the Palazzo di Brera, built for a Jesuit College in 1651, and now the home of science, letters and art, the Picture Gallery founded in 1806 is housed. The collection has been greatly enlarged since 1901. The Brera is rich in examples of the Lombard and Venetian Schools. The gem of the Gallery is regarded as Raphael's Sposalizio.

In 1503, the Franciscans of Citta di Castello ordered a picture representing the Marriage of the Virgin. It was delivered the following year; and, in general character, greatly resembles the same subject, painted in 1496, by his master, Perugino, in whose studio he was then working.

"Nothing could be more unjust than to say that Raphael only followed his master. The art of composition, which is nothing in Perugino, belongs to Raphael. In the grouping of the Brera picture there is none of the stability of the other; we no longer see in evidence the precise point that forms the centre of gravity of the whole mass; but the picturesque equilibrium is definitely established; the air circulates more freely among the people who are more closely assembled. The drawing, the movement of every figure, the arrangement of the draperies, the expression of the heads-all differ entirely. Without any loss of sincerity, every figure reveals a science unknown to Perugino. If the contours are finer, the colour also is more suave and learned, and in this respect also it eclipses Perugino's work."-(F. A. G.)

The famous Pietà, by Giovanni Bellini, is an extraordinary conception. The dead Christ is ap

parently standing, supported by the Virgin and St. John, whose faces grief renders repulsively ugly. The three figures are life-size, but visible only to the waist. There is a landscape background of conventional treatment.

A whole collection of frescoes by Luini has been removed from various chapels into this gallery "In quiet devotional pictures of this kind, where the subjects protected him from unsymmetrical arrangement. his loveliness is enchanting. The remaining frescoes here appear to be pretty early; for instance, in the somewhat timid mythological and genre subjects, the naïveté of which quite indicates the coming glow of the golden time; and also the pictures from the life of the Virgin and the well-known simple and beautiful composition of the Angels Carrying the Body of St. Catherine.”—(J. B.)

St. Catherine Carried away by Angels is the finest of Luini's frescoes.

"Its grace is inimitable, because it is not in the least laboured, and it seems to have been found in one of those divine dreams that traverse the souls of poets. Luini has represented the saint asleep rather than dead. One might say that she had fainted in an ecstasy and would awake in the delights of Paradise. Three angels respectfully bear in flight the delicate and immaculate body that is weighted by no venial sin and that exhales the odour of sanctity. There is something of Raphael in Luini.”— (C. B.)

The Brera is particularly rich in works by Crivelli. A Crucifixion, a splendid Coronation of the Virgin, a Virgin and Child with Four Saints, and a Virgin and Child are of the first rank among his works. In the Crucifixion, the landscape is most charming; the Coronation exhibits Crivelli's most advanced style regarding the unity of composition, wealth of detail, and a sky