40 Dissertation on the Paintings of the middle Age. 



woulJ it be in any nioflern critic, who, while he proclaims 

 Raphael to be the prince of painters, should rchise to ac- 

 knoA ledge as iisclii!, or valuable, the very n^odels which 

 have enlightened and directed tlic first steps of that great 

 man, — models, which were derived t'roin the inestimable 

 sources ol- antiquity 1 



After having pointed out the lamentable effects of that 

 vanity which made the precepts of the ancients be de- 

 spised ; after having shown that it is our duly, not lO create 

 a new art, but father to recover that of the ancients; I 

 shall proceed to the history of the painters of the nsicidle 

 age, and to the classification of their different styles, which 

 has been hitherto neglected. 



Histories of the Paintings of the middle Age. 



Libraries furnish us with few or no documents of this 

 description, at least with none of a date previous to the 

 present a^ra. 



The most important modern work is by M. Agiricourt, 

 who has devoted nearly twenty years of a residence m Italy 

 to the subject. His history, which is not yet published, 

 cannot afford all the advantages which 1 could have \:ished; 

 bnt when at liomc, I have so often heard the author ex- 

 patiate on the "interest which artists must necessarily feel in 

 the study of these monuments, that I am convinced of the 

 value of his labours to the art of painting. 



Almost at the same instant there appeared another writer 

 fired with the same ardour. In a work entitled " Consi- 

 derntioiis sur V Elat dc la Peinlyre e?ilialic dans les quafre 

 Biecles qui ont precedes celui dc Raphatl," M. Artaiid has 

 present fd the world with a most valuable collection of facts. 

 IJis work contains an account. of upwards of 150 pictures 

 anterior to Perugino, and several of which are works of the 

 twelfth century. 



M. Dcnon, whose indefatigable /zeal and enlightened 

 taste are so well known, has recently enriched our public 

 collections at Paris with pictures of the above period col- 

 lected by himiiielf. These pictures cannot fail to fix the 

 aiteiuion (-f the learned. 



Among other nations, and the English in particular, a 

 similar taste begins to spread, and there can be little doubt 

 that the efforts of the zealous propagators (f the ancient 

 arts above alluded to, will be followed up by more precise 

 and more extensive chronologies of the science. 



But it is now time to speak of the cause of the scarcity of 

 these paintings, the number of which ought to be immense. 



I shall 



