These masters had laboured by unremitting effort to produce the impossible in art, more especially in foreshortenings or in objects displeasing to the sight, and which, as they were difficult in the execution, so are they unattractive to those who behold them. It is true that the greater part of their works were well drawn and free from errors, but there were wanting to them that certainty and firmness of handling, that harmony in the colouring, which may be perceived in the works of Francia, of Bologna, and of Pietro Perugino, but are never to be found in those of which we have now been speaking. When the last-mentioned masters commenced this new treatment, people rushed like madmen to behold that unwonted and life-like beauty, believing then that it would be absolutely impossible ever to do better; but the error of this judgment was clearly demonstrated soon after by the w^orks of Leonardo da Vinci, with whom began that third manner, which we will agree to call the modern; for, in addition to the power and boldness of his drawing, and to say nothing of the exactitude with which he copied the most minute particulars of nature exactly as they are, he displays perfect rule, improved order, correct proportion, just design, and a most divine grace; abounding in resource, and deeply versed in art, he may be truly said to have imparted to his figures, not beauty only, but life and movement.
After Leonardo there followed, even though somewhat distantly, Giorgione da Castel Franco, whose pictures are painted with much delicacy, and who gave extreme force and animation to his works by a certain depth of shadow, very judiciously managed; nor are the works of Fra Bartolommeo di San Marco less worthy of commendation, for the force, relief, and softness imparted to them bj the master. But above all is to be distinguished the most graceful Raffaello da Urbino, who, examining and studying the works both of the earlier and later masters, took from all their best qualities, and, uniting these, enriched the domain
proposed to exempt Masaccio from the partial censure under which he is placing the earlier masters generally, when comparing them with those of the third period, how^ever approvingly he may have spoken of each individually in his own point of time?
