16 



Ghiberti to complete one of tlie ornamental festoons of 

 the gates of the Florentine Baptistery, there, (says Yasari) 

 " Antonio produced 'a quail, which may still be seen, and 

 is so beautiful, nay, so perfect, that it wauts nothing but 

 the power of flight." 



14. Here, the morbid tendency was as attractive as 

 it was subtle. Ghiberti himself fell under the influence 

 of it ; allowed the borders of his gates, with their flut- 

 tering birds and bossy fruits, to dispute the spectators' 

 favour with the religious subjects they enclosed; and, 

 from that day forward, miuuteness and muscularity 

 were, with curious harmony of evil, delighted in to- 

 gether ; and the lancet and the microscope, in the hands 

 of fools, were supposed to be complete substitutes for 

 imagination in the souls of w^ise men : so that even 

 the best artists are gradually compelled, or beguiled, into 

 compliance with the curiosity of their day ; and Francia, 

 in the city of Bologna, is held to be a " kind of god, 

 more particularly " (again I quote Yasari) " after he had 

 painted a set of cajjarisons for the Duke of Urbino, 

 on wdiich he depicted a great forest all on fire, and 

 whence there rushes forth an immense number of every 

 ]^:ind of animal, with several human figures. This ter- 

 rific, yet truly beautiful representation, was all the more 

 highly esteemed for the time that had been expended 

 on it in the plumage of the birds, and otlier minutiae 

 in the delineation of the different animals, and in the 

 diversity of the branches and leaves of the various trees 



