Yet, upon the revival of the Arts, in the zenith of the Catholic Religion in Italy, the same encouragement once given, the subjects will be found to be nearly parallel, as far as invention and skill are required; and that, by changing only the names, the same elegance of forins, and the same expression of the passions are necessary to, and apparent in modern, as in antient representations. The dignified matron may be as happily personified by Maria, as by Juno; the inspired songstress by Cecilia as by Polybymnia; exquisite ideal beauty may be that of Magdalene, or of Venus. On Trajan's column that head is named Jupiter Pluvius, which has been copied by M. Angelo, and made to express his idea of Jehovah brooding over the chaos. The figure of St. John or Apollo may display the comeliest form of human youth. A similar objection may be inade to the winged head of Aoratus or a Cherub, the wings of a Genius or Cupid, as of an Angel, which is a solecism in anatomy, without superadding the muscles necessary to move them. The martyrdom of St. Bartholomew may be rendered equally horrible or scientific, as the flaying of Marsyas. No moment of pathetic expression in the story of Laocoon, or of Niobe, is equal to the group of the crucifixion. Of these striking analogies the sculptors of Italy did not neglect to avail themselves, and most of them had the candour to allow, that no inconsiderable portion of their own excellence was reflected from the works of the antients. The celebrated Moses of Michel Angelo, attached to the tomb of

Julius II. in the Church of the Apostles at Rome, and the group of the dead Christ on the lap of his mother, in St. Peter's, called La Pietà, or the Susanna of Fiamingo, have been placed in no very unequal competition with them, in point of majesty or grace. Without consenting impli citly to the exaggerated praises of D'Argenville in his Lives of the French sculptors, with respect to genius, design, and taste, the names of Puget, Girardon, Coysevox, Bouchardon, and Couston, will be honour ably distinguished in the history of modern Art, for their exemplary diligence and success in finishing, which called forth the utmost exertion of talent. From the patronage of the House of Medici, in the fifteenth century, the restoration of the Arts may claim its true date. Painting and Architecture preceded Sculpture, which, as it is susceptible of improvement from congenial causes, made a proportionate progress. Before the age of Donatello, the inventive genius of Italian Artists * had applied it to various materials, and produced figures in wood, clay, metals, and marble; yet so rude and incorrect, with the exception of Ghibertit, as to leave to Donatello the great and deserved name of the Restorer of Sculpture in modern Europe. From the era of the Antonines to this period, Sculpture had gradually fallen from comparative perfection into total disuse. the frequent discovery of antique marbles, which were now collecting for the Medicean Museum, and the Academy § established by the magni

But

ficent Lorenzo, concurred with other fortunate circumstances to promote these studies. The splendid Gallery was rendered subservient to its original and true purpose, that of inspiring the Fiorentines, and those who visited Florence, with a correct and genuine taste for the Arts *.

A chronological view of the Italian School of Sculpture is given at the close of this Essay, in a compressed form, that criticisms which have been gathered from various Authors, may be added with all the latitude the nature of this Essay will permit, consistently with any degree of perspicuity. The chronological view will select rather than enumerate instances.

In the Grecian ages, Sculpture was advanced by the talents of many Artists; but its revival in any comparison with classical excellence, is due to the efforts of Donatello, and his school, whilst in that very country so many precious monuments of antiquity remained unexplored, under ruins. He was the first who exhibited real genius, and who could impart to his statues animation and grace. M. Angelo is said to have given this extraordinary praise of his figure of St. Mark, addressing it as if alive, Marco perche non mi parli;" and of the Gates of the Baptistery by Ghiberti, he declared, that “ they were so exquisitely wrought, that they were worthy to be those of Paradise."

The School of Michel Angelo + formed the second æra of sculpture in Italy. This most illustrious period in the History of the Arts commenced with his return from Rome to Florence, which may be extended from

1500 to 1521, the year in which Leo X. died. Concerning the genius of this truly admirable man, and the change which it effected in the opinions and works of his contempora ries, much more has been said than can be comprised in these pages; but as the intention of them is to collect the criticisms of others, those shall be selected which have correctness or novelty to merit our attention. M. Angelo is the only sculptor of modern times that has given the human figure a character, which strictly resembles neither the beauty of the antique, nor the affectation of it, so frequently and unsuccessfully attempted in the present age. He is indeed the genius of his own school, and condescended to imitate none servilely, not even the antients. It is the opinion of one of the most eminent of the modern English criticks, that "he was always attempting to do something better than well; and that though not to be compared with a third-rate Artist of antient Greece in knowledge of the structure and pathology of the human body, he appears to have known more than any of his contemporaries; and when he made his knowledge subservient to his art, and not his art to his knowledge, he produced some compositions of real excellence." But, with more candour, Sir Joshua Reynolds coineides with the panegyrists: "From his infancy he was distinguished for his indefatigable diligence, and this was continued through his whole life, till prevented by extreme old age. The poorest of men, as he observed of himself, did not labour from necessity,

more

. did from choice. In21 the circumstances reLie, he appears not to last conception that his acquired by any other Panggreat labour, and yet he, that ever lived, might Drostest pretensions to the native genius and inspira

observations are distinctly pod d to tum, as a Professor of the Siloats. The group of the Pietà an 4 Peter's has been considered as the consummation of all M. Angelo's excellencios"; yet the figure of the Virgin has been censured as appearing Buch too young t; but, in fact, the whole group is supernatural; as the dead body could not possibly be susLained, in such a position, by the strength of any individual. Condivi, in his Life of M. Angelo, relates a conversation with that great Artist, in which he offers the immaculate purity of the Virgin Mary, as a reason for his having thus deviated from human bature in the extraordinary contrast between the dead and living figures. The two statues of prisoners or slaves which were intended to compose #part of the Mausoleum of Julius I'rank among his best works. FalComet, a late French Sculptor, who had long undervalued the modern School of Italy, exclaimed on seeing them," J'ai vu Michelange; il est effouyuur!' M. Angelo is said to have been so consummate a master of the art of sculpture, and possessed such a wonderful quickness of eye, that he could make a whole length statue, without setting his points like all other statuariest. Viganeres gives a

very curious and interesting account of his peculiar manner of working. The high toue of admiration in which his talents were celebrated by his contemporaries and disciples, has reached our own times. In his Lectures on Painting, Fuseli declares," that sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of manner, are the elements of M. Angelo's style. By these principles he selected or rejected the objects of imitation." Roscoe defines his manner to be “the salt of the art," that peculiar substance which, in a certain degree, united to others, procures them a high taste and relish, but which by itself is too strong and pungent." Similar commendation has been bestowed by others on the Moses. A lively Italian Critick remarks that "this celebrated figure sits as if meant to do nothing; that the head, if the enormous beard were cut off, would be that of a satyr with the bristles of a boar, and he is clothed like a lazzarone out of place. Can this characterize a Legislator who conversed face to face with the Divinity?" It forms a part of the Mausoleum of Julius II. in the Church of St. Maria in Vincolo, at Rome . There are likewise two female figures standing, of Religion and Virtue, which are simple and elegant. several works have a strong and marked character of their own; and deficient as they are in the beauty of the antique, when they are not sublime, they are at least not insipid. Among the successful imitators of M. Angelo, and of those who infused somewhat of his spirit into their own works, were Guglielmo della Porta, and Giovanni di Bologna. His ana

These

tomical

tomical science was adopted by them with superior delicacy in female figures. Fiamingo has been styled the modern Polycletis. In his younger days he preferred ivory as a material, and a consequently smaller scale. The children of Guido by his second wife, were so exquisitely beautiful, that they served as models for a degree of infantine loveliness which might be considered as purely imaginary, but for this well-known anecdote. Of an Apollo and Mercury, once in the collection of the Marchesa Giustiniani, Bellori thought so highly, that he compared them, in point of grace, with the Antinous of the Belvedere. The Saint Susanna, in marble, in the Church of Loretto, was modelled from the Urania of the Capitol. She holds a palm branch in one hand, and with the other invites to the Altar. A simplicity, rivalling the antique, marks both attitude and drapery. Yet it has been doubted whether the face be not too fleshy in the upper part of the cheeks, and whether the expression be not merely that of sweetness in a saint, a character of which the antients certainly knew nothing. Whatever be the precise description of the beauty, it is truly exquisite. He cast likewise a very celebrated head of our Saviour in silver, for the collection of Charles I.

Algardi formed himself in the school of Fiamingo. Even in his best Works he showed too plainly the art rather than the genius of the sculptor, and was too mannered, particularly in the folds of his draperies, which are in most instances the same in number and position. Rome abounds with his performances: those at St. Peter's are on a gigantic scale.

An important, but ominous epoch in the history of Italian Sculpture, is the age of Bernini.

His pa

tron, Urban the VIIIth, encouraged his love of invention to so great an excess, that the chasteness of the antique was despised; and all the sound principles upon which the Roman and Florentine schools had been established, were superseded by those of the

* "Arte di Vedere."

new favourite. Before he had attained his twentieth year, he had finished a group of Apollo and Daphne (in the Villa Borghese) of a natural size, of which so general and unbounded was the admiration, that the fame of M. Angelo was lost in a total eclipse. The public taste was captivated by this novel style +. Twisted attitudes, heads turned with a meretricious grace, incorrectly formed limbs, but loaded with flying or protruding folds of drapery, which at once exposed the want of skill in the Artist, and the solidity of the material on which his talents were employed; these were the charms by which the Roman connoisseurs, with Pope Urban at their head, were rendered insensible of former excellence, and indulged all the foolish prejudice of depreciating the examples they had before admired.

Not satisfied with other innovations, he introduced one in his designs for basso-relievos. He filled them up with buildings in perspective, clouds, water, diminished figures and attempts to represent such aërial effects, as confound or break down the boundaries of the two arts. Reynolds observes, (Disc.X.) that "his heart was so much set on overcoming this difficulty, that he was for ever attempting it, though by that attempt he risked every thing that was valuable in the Arts." The Grand Fountain in the Piazza Navona, confirmed the increasing reputation of Bernini. When Innocent X. first saw the plan, he exclaimed, “that it was impossible to see any designs of Bernini, without immediately ordering their execution." Having completely finished his work, his patron was invited to inspect it, and the approbation of this old Pope was insured by the following theatrical effect. A considerable time was allowed him to examine every part of this vast edifice of sculpture, which, as the rivulet which supplies it was not flowing, was not yet become a fountain. Upon his Holiness preparing to depart, the waters were suffered to rush into the basin, with incredible force and quantity; which circum

stance

stance so surprized and delighted him, that he assured Bernini, "that ten years would be added to his life by so unexpected a pleasure."

Louis XIV. invited Bernini into France, by a letter written with his own hand, who obeyed the summons with pretended disinclination. He was conducted by the French Ambassador, complimented with a triumphal entry into Florence; and upon his arrival at Paris was so candid or cunning, that he declined any engagement in works of architecture or sculpture, probably from a consciousness that admirers were not predisposed to him as at Rome. He declared, "that France had no occasion for the display of his talents, while she possessed a Perrault or a Puget;" for those who have preserved this anecdote, have ascribed the compliment both to the architect and sculptor. We cannot wonder that he would not come to England, though solicited by Lord Arundel, who wished to have purchased his Fountain of the Piazza Navona, or to have engaged him to repeat it.

He remained in France eight months, rewarded by an ample pension; and upon his return, in proof of gratitude, he cast an equestrian statue of Louis XIV. for the Palace of Versailles. He first introduced an obelisk as the back ground of his monuments. Few more extravagant examples of his conceit can be adduced than that upon the discovery of a fragment of an Obelisk at Rome. He mounted it on the back of a bronze ele. phant, as it now stands in the area before the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

Bernini was skilful in setting off his own works as an architect, in the Church of the Dioclesian.

The false taste disseminated by the disciples of Bernini, influenced the Art of Sculpture in every country of Europe, during the lapse of nearly two centuries. The second French school of Puget and Bouchardon were ambitious of imitating him; and in our own nation, Sculpture, which was demanded only for sepulchral monuments, wassupplied by foreign Artists, with a very few exceptions.

Bernini's manner was so contrary to the antique, that it may almost serve as a negative definition of it.

So servilely was heimitated for nearly a century after his death, that those

works which belong to his school have not been of sufficient merit to preserve the names of their several Artists. Sculptors received small encouragement from the Popes or Roman uobility, during the latter half of the last century, for any of their own performances; because their talents were solely directed to the restoration of Statues, with which every fresh excavation supplied them in abundance. It is said that during the pontificate of Pius VI. not less than 2000 statues and fragments were brought to light, restored, named, and placed in the Pio-Clementine Museum, or dispersed among the various Cabinets in Europe.

From this general censure, several of the works of Camillo Rusconi deserve to be excepted. Being a man of superior genius, he disdained to imitate the prevailing mode of design, and none of his contemporaries approached so nearly to the antique. His attitudes are animated, and his expression of the passions learned and successful. He had the art of blending happily the correctness and taste of the antients, with the dramatic fire of the moderns. Yet, during his life time, his admirers were few. (To be continued.)

Extracts from SMYTHE'S MS“ History of the Berkeley Family."

LEY *

Account of Lady KATHARINE Berke; continued from vol. LXXXVI. Part II. p. 212.

A DECLARATION of the Funeral of the Lady Katherine Berkeley, as it was performed on Thursday, the 20th of May, 1596, being Ascension-day.

"Her corpse having continued at Callowdon, in the chamber where she died, honoured with all accustomed ceremonies as well by night as day, from Wednesday the seventh of April before, on which day she died, until the second evening before the funeral, when the coffin, with her whole body enclosed, was pri vately, by persons of good quality, conveyed by night to Coventry, to the house of Sampson Hopkins, in the end of +Carles-street, where, honoured with