doomed to perish in obscurity for the want of such assistance; and how profitably is expended that gratuity from which such consequences result.

LIFE OF JULIO ROMANO.

Of the Roman school, Julio Romano excelled in loftiness and energy of thought, but was deficient in delicacy and purity of taste. With uncommon powers of expression, he united a decided attachment to distortion and grimace. Francisco Primaticio propagated the conceptions of his master. Julio, by the aid of Nicolo, loaded the palaces of Francis the first, with mythologic and allegoric works, in frescoes, celebrated for an energy and depth of tone. Polydoro's style was formed on the basis of the purest antique; but it was rendered, by the study of the Roman basso relievos too monumental. Michael Angelo Amerigi, surnamed Il Carravagio,was eminent for the dark and mournful sobriety of his colouring.

Sachi was one of the most eminent in fresco. He studied all the artists, but copied none. A strong competition was maintained between him and Pietro, both men of great genius, and both of extraordinary abilities. He excelled in beauty of figure, appropriate drapery, and delicacy of disposition. His principal painting was an allegorical figure of divine wisdom, distinguished for grandeur of design and sweetness of colouring. He also excelled in perspective.

Carlo Maratti was celebrated for the loftiness of his designs, the clearness and brilliancy of his colourings, and tender and delicate carnations. He excelled likewise in the ornaments he bestowed on the head, and his judicious disposition of the hair. His best painting was the representation of the Virgin in the church of Sienna. The drapery cast in broad folds was elegant, and the colouring excellent. Another of his pieces represented the flight of our Saviour into Egypt. The head of the Virgin was of a noble character, but that of Joseph unworthy of the artist's pencil.

The annexed engraving represents the nativity of our Saviour, a work deservedly ranked amongst the most celebrated compositions of Julio Romano. The attitude of the Virgin is full of dignified simplicity; and the head of Joseph is boldly por

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trayed. The countenance of our Saviour has a smile of sweetness; but it appertains more properly to the face of a child two or three years old, than to a newly born infant. In the back ground an angel appears, announcing the miracle to the shepherds. But there are in the composition two glaring anachronisms. St John is represented as attending the nativity in the character of a man twenty-five or thirty years old.. And how the soldier who pierced the side of our Saviour could attend on an occasion like the present, remains to be accounted for.

There is seen in this painting all the correctness, vigor, and dignity so characteristic of the pencil of Romano. It was painted on wood of the natural size, and decorated originally the chapel of Isabella Boschetta, in the church of St. Antony, of Mantua. It passed afterwards into the hands of Charles the First. After the death of that unfortunate monarch, it was sold at public sale, for five hundred pounds sterling, to Jabach, a celebrated amateur, and was afterwards purchased by the King of France. The painter himself merits a more detailed notice.

When the pencil was deprived of one of its brightest ornaments, by the death of Raphael, Julio Romano still survived, who, with a large portion of the genius, possessed the entire confidence of. his master. He was employed by him in works of the greatest importance, in the pontifical apartments. These were painted by Romano after Raphael's designs, more particularly those which delineated the creation of Adam, the building of the ark, and the discovery of Moses by Pharaoh's daughter. He further finished a great part of the stories in the palace of Augustino Chigi, of whom mention has already been made, which was designed by his master. Raphael was an admirable architect; and Romano took so much delight in drawing his plans for churches, palaces, &c. that he at last became an eminent architect himself. In short, such confidence did Raphael place in the subject of the present memoir, that on his death he was appointed his heir, in conjunction with Giovan Francissio, with this proviso, a still more decisive proof of confidence, that they should finish the works which he had left incomplete. Much to their honour, they faithfully performed this melancholy duty.

Romano excelled all the other scholars of Raphael, in design, invention and colouring, and peculiarly in his knowledge of antique.

Cardinal Giulian de Medici, preparing to construct a palace on the Marti Mario, a site that commanded a beautiful and variegated prospect of the Tiber, and of the country adjacent, employed Romano as the architect, who executed his trust so faithfully, and so much to the admiration of all, that it was supposed to have been modelled by Raphael himself.

When Cardinal Gulian was elected to the papal chair, under the name of Clement the 7th, it was a day of jubilee for the artists, who, during the administration of his predecessor, languished and repined for want of patronage. They were employed to finish the hall of Constantine; and Romano peculiarly distinguished himself, where that monarch is represented as addressing his soldiers. In the air, a cross is made to appear, with these words inscribed-In hoc signo vinces-a device at once both beautiful and allegoric, which, while it expresses the power and prosperity of the hero, ascribes them to the agency and superintendence of that system of worship he had so recently embraced.

On the other side of the hall, was represented a battle, fought near Ponte Molli, where Constantine routed Maxentius. The various and awfully impressive attitudes of the dying and the wounded, of both horsemen and footmen, are almost preeminent for design, and have been a model for almost all battles ever since. The artist displayed to great advantage his acquaintance with the pillars of Trajan and Antoninus, whence he borrowed the habit, arms, and ensigns of his piece. Amidst all this confusion, consternation, and rout, Maxentius appears in the act of flying from the battle across the Tiber on horseback.

On the chimney is drawn St. Peter's church in prospective, where the pope, assisted by all the cardinals and prelates of the church, are employed in singing high mass. Constantine on his knees, and at the feet of the sovereign pontiff, presents the keys of Rome, intimating that the emperor had endowed the church with those domains.