ART. III.-1. Storia Pittorica della Italia, dal Risorgimento delle Belle Arte, fin presso al Fine del xviii Secolo. Abbate Luigi Lanzi. 7 tom. Milano. Par 2. Histoire de la Peinture en Italie depuis la Renaissance des Beaux Arts; jusques vers la Fin du 18 Siècle. Traduite de l'Italien sur la 3e edition. Par Mme. de Armande Dieude. 5 tom. Paris. LUIGI LANZI was a learned churchman, a skilful antiquarian, a lover of painting and sculpture, a sensible critic, something of a poet, and in all those matters remarkably diligent and enthusiastic. He travelled, he examined, he collected, he studied, and he wrote, much more than divines usually do; and he early acquired the reputation of a candid judge of art and a sagacious antiquarian. To write a history of painting in Italy was a wish which he entertained early in life: he prepared himself for the task, and seemed fully aware of the extent and difficulty of the labour. From the scattered and varied materials which the learning, the research, and the curiosity of his countrymen had amassed concerning art, he proposed to extract a clear, accurate, and consistent history-which, while it distinguished individual excellence, should present a particular and general character of the various schools of painting which united in conferring such permanent glory on Italy. A man less resolute and laborious would have been alarmed when he surveyed the overwhelming profusion of his materials, and thought on the dignity and the importance of the subject. He had to trace the rise and progress of twelve great schools of painting-to tell the story of three thousand four hundred painters of note or eminence-to distinguish between the works of true creative genius and those produced by the laborious diligence of happy imitators-to decide between the claims which rival artists preferred as first-born heirs of fame-to assign to each masterspirit his just character and influence ;-and taking infant art by the hand, as it emerged from the gross darkness of the early ages, lead it onward into vigorous manhood and mid-day effulgence. To accomplish all this, he had to consult three hundred and odd authors-to go leisurely through the crypts of the chuches, the cabinets of the curious, and the galleries of the rich, examining all that time had left of ancient art and all that genius had created of the new,-with the skill of a scholar, the tact of an antiquarian, and the sagacity of a man of taste and sense. Nor was this all. In addition to the danger he was in of being led astray, in his narrative, by the romantic biographies and singular adventures of the early professors of art, and the strong temptation temptation which a land strewed with relics of ancient sculpture presented to a learned man and an antiquary, of becoming tedious on the subject of shapeless stones and painted pots, he had to weigh his own emotions of pleasure, of pity, or of awe, in the balance, with the lavish admiration of the friends, and the fierce sarcasms of the rivals, or the enemies, of the great painters whose works came under his contemplation. He had to trace the influence of the quiet grace and severe dignity of the antique style, amid the stately and gorgeous splendour of the modern; and enable other nations to see, in the mirror of history, the unrivalled glory of the arts of his country. Nor was it the least meritorious part of his labour to divest himself of all prejudiceto soothe the citizens of rival cities, while he assigned to one school the merit of restoring the dignity of Italian art, and to another, the honour of the fullest fame and the noblest productions. That our author has accomplished all this, we are not prepared to say. To write a book of varied talent, full of accurate and luminous criticism, including the history of innumerable great works and the characters of many great masters in painting, was to perform a labour of genius. A high genius, indeed, was required to brood over the chaos of discordant materials-to warm them into life, and mould them into a fair-proportioned body. Knowledge in painting was necessary to enable the historian to describe with graphic force and happy ease the productions of the various schools; and it required the good taste of the scholar and the gentleman to keep the narrative free from the technical jargon of the studio and academy. Luigi Lanzi had many of these qualities and acquirements: he had a spirit wary and judicious-a mind patient and industrious, which no investigation could fatigue, nor research tire; and he was modest withal, and distrusted his own judgment more than it deserved. But, much as we admire this history, and anxiously as we recommend it to our countrymen, it must not, indeed, be supposed to be entirely free from defects. Our worthy historian is sometimes a little dry in his details, idly minute in his investigations, and vague and undefined in his criticisms. He is rash occasionally in his conclusions, and hasty in his movements over very interesting ground; and, in one or two instances, grievously slow in his progress where the barrenness of the prospect might have added wings to his speed. Nor can we conceal from ourselves, that, in extracting truth from some of the old biographies, he has crushed out the spirit in the act of removal, and dismissed, in general words, many very vivid and instructive passages. The twofold sin of fine scholarship and skilful antiquarianism besets him now and then, and he loves to linger and expatiate among forgotten forgotten gods and classic groves and fountains. He claims, too, for painters and sculptors, a station in fame which few men will willingly concede; for, much as we admire the master-pieces of art, we are far from feeling that they equal or rival the works of the chief poets of the earth. He is rash, too, in the conclusion, which he frequently comes to, that modern is excelled by ancient art. How he could decide so boldly, we cannot conceive; the paintings of antiquity have vanished from the earth, and all that remains of them is the memory preserved by poets and historians. He judges, but he judges by implicit faith. If we estimate the excellence of their painting by the remains of their sculpture, we have no hesitation in saying, that the Greeks have been fairly equalled by the Italians—that Raphael has rivalled Apelles. It is painful to think how soon the paintings of Raphael, and Titian, and Correggio, and other illustrious men, will perish and pass away. 'How long,' said Napoleon to David, will a picture last?' About four or five hundred years.' 'Bah!' exclaimed the Emperor, five hundred years! a fine immortality!' The poet multiplies his works by means of a cheap material and Homer, and Virgil, and Dante, and Tasso, and Molière, and Milton, and Shakspeare may bid oblivion defiance; the sculptor impresses his conceptions on metal, or on marble, and expects to survive the wreck of nations and the wrongs of time; but the painter commits, to perishable cloth or wood, the visions of his fancy, and dies in the certain assurance that the life of his works will be but short in the land they adorn. If we believe, with our historian, that the Greeks excelled the Italians in painting and in sculpture, and believe it on faith alone, we have the assurance of our own eyes that, in art, the Italians have excelled all modern nations. The great artists of that country approach, as near as the limited nature of art will permit, the illustrious poets of the earth: they have stamped on all their works such a divine grandeur-such grave beauty, and such loftiness of sentiment, that we forgive, in our admiration, the superstition of the peasants who kneel to the saints and madonnas of Raphael, pouring out before them their contrition in sighs and tears, and supplicating them as divinities. In her painting, Italy seems to have put forth the whole of her untamed and unchecked spirit. The nation directed the youthful and enthusiastic vigour of its intellect to the task; and works of unrivalled beauty became as abundant as flowers in spring.Learning was not then universal; men of genius had not been taught to fear the application of other rules than those of nature; the fulness and overflow of knowledge had not produced queru lous lous taste and captious criticism; the world wished to be pleased and was pleased; and, though there was much that was objectionable in point of taste, there was ten times more of what was noble and magnificent. Painters imagined without fear, and wrought with the full assurance of being rewarded by fame. We can read their confidence in the grandeur of their daring conceptions, and feel their pride and enthusiasm in their art, in the laborious diligence and almost superhuman rapidity with which they poured out their genius. Nothing can surpass, we think, the dashing freedom and unrestrained and unretouched vigour of their compositions. To strike off one great work, at one glowing heat of fancy, was with them a common thing. Most of the masterly works of those great men, who flourished during the golden period of Italian art, were hastily done. The walls, and ceilings, and cupolas of new and splendid churches were covered, as if by enchantment, with miracles from Scripture, with legends of saints, and with devotional processions. The eager multitude were not compelled to wait till the genius of the land considered for years what it had been years in conceiving-till the work grew into beauty and grace, under its hand, by constant and repeated touches-till it had obtained the full advantage of all that study and care could add: for those ready and eager spirits seemed to breathe out their masterly creations at once, in full and mature beauty; they performed by the force of well-disciplined genius, what all the cold precision of mechanical knowledge cannot accomplish; and yet all is there that taste demands or admiration requires. Artists, we are afraid, work more coldly now; the fever-fit of genius is passed and gone; they are no longer daring; they aspire only to represent some domestic incident-some touch of honest feeling or vagrant humour; to paint the heroes of yesterday's gazette, or acres of hill and dale with the accuracy of sworn land-surveyors.' The great and original spirit of painting is abated, we fear, throughout Europe; nor will the labour of academies, nor the patronage of the great, nor annual pilgrimages of amateurs and students to Italy, revive or restore it. We even wonder less at the excellence of the works of Italian painters, than at their abundance. Lanzi assures us, nor did we need his assurance, that the whole of Italy-palace, tower, and town-is filled with their productions: filled-not with the common works of common minds-with portraits of prize oxen and full-fed divines-with lapdogs from life and windmills after nature, as the catalogue says; but filled with noble works-conceived with dignity and executed with grace, over the whole of which an ardent and lofty spirit is warmly breathed. Nor are they they locked up in noblemen's chambers or galleries, inaccessible to all save men of rank and fortune-they are every where, and are to be seen by all. They cover the walls and ceilings of the churches-they fill public galleries, crowd palaces and castles, and have even found their way into very humble abodes. The mistress to whom the Italian artists principally dedicated the fruits of their fancy, and whose work they wrought with such right good will and success, was the Church of Rome. They were unto her as chief priests, who used a new and splendid language in interpreting her history and her character; her miracles, her legends, and her dogmas, to the world. The ruling character of all their works is religious; and their chief aim is to exalt and glorify the papal church, with her long train of dubious miracles and apocryphal saints. Had Lanzi touched upon this with the freedom which the subject required-had he traced art to its proper sources, and displayed the nature of its labours, he would have written a work infinitely more interesting and more true; but, then, it would have been to his country as a book shut and a fountain sealed. Rome withholds such books from the eyes of her children, and her favours from those who write them. We shall briefly supply this omission. The heathen religion was addressed chiefly to the eye: it was full of external beauty and splendour; it was aided by the sculptor, the painter, and the poet; it took up its abode in the most magnificent temples; was daily visible in sacred processions and solemn sacrifices-while its voice was heard in oracles to which the wisest listened. The gods of this superstition were beings clothed in beauty and majesty, who assisted man in war and counselled him in peace, and condescended to intercourse, at times, with his sons and his daughters. As man made his own gods, he made them much after his own heart, and endowed them with such charms and gifts as are most beloved in human nature. Art was called to help him in this, and she embodied his conceptions in a way almost divine. Temples, groves, and public places were filled with the sculptured progeny of religion and poetry; and priest and politician alike agreed to retain the aid of an art which brightened superstition and strengthened power. In like manner, painting and sculpture were admitted into the papal church as the auxiliaries of Christianity. When the Christian religion vanquished the Pagan, and Saint Paul and Saint Peter were established at Rome in place of Pan and Apollo, the heathen belief was not wholly subdued. The common people, in many places, persisted in loving the gods of their fathers; nor did they love them the less, that merry festivals kept alive the memory of their names, and that they were secretly visible |