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483 



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bird dart through a swarm of those insects, seize one in 

 each claw, and eat them on the wing. The kestrel returned 

 to the charge again and again, and Mr. Selhy ascertained 

 the fact beyond doubt, for lie afterwards shot the bird. 



If a kestrel can find the nest of a crow or a magpie as a 

 receptacle for its eggs, it will not take the trouble to make 

 one ; indeed, it probably never does build : sometimes it 

 lays upon the bare ledges of rocks and in old ruined 

 towers. The number of eggs is four or five, and their 

 ground-colour reddish-white, which is mottled closely with 

 dark reddish-brown and sometimes blotched with reddish- 

 brown. The young come forth from the egg towards the 

 end of April or beginning of May, and are covered with a 

 yt>llowi.-,li-v 



In the F'urli-in'/x d'Oij-i au.r, the following quatrain sums 

 up the qualities of the Kestrel : 



t*, ft antre vermine 



1 "iv]le. 

 i. Colonihelle, 

 QuV , , uyseaiix de rapine. ' 



The allusion here made to the friendship of the Kestrel 

 for the Dove is probably taken from the passage in Pliny 

 to which we have above called attention. 



N.B. M. Brchm would make three distinct species from 

 tin- hawk, under the names of, 1st, Hochkopjiger (high- 

 headed); 2nd, Mitllvrcr ('middle); and 3rd, Plalthopfiger 

 'flat-headed). Upon this M. Temminck drily observes, 

 that those who wish to multiply the catalogue of names 

 and of species in favour of each accidental or local variety, 

 may consult the work of M. Brehm. [FALCONID.E, vol. 

 x., p. 182; KESTREL.] 



TINO. [TEN-OS.] 



TIXOTOKUS. [FoRAiiiN-iFERA, vol. x.. p. 348.] 



TIXTAGELL. [BOSSIXKY.] 



TIXTERN ABBEY. [MOXMOUTHSHIRK.] 



TIXTORETTO, JA'COPO, one of the most celebrated 

 painters of modern times, and one of the heads of the 

 Venetian school, was the son of a dyer (Tintore), whence 

 the agnomen of Tintoretto : his family name was Robusti; 

 and he was bora at Venice in 1512. He exhibited a 

 remarkable facility for drawing at a very early age, which 

 induced his parents to place nim in the school of Titian. 

 Ten days however after young Tintoretto had entered the 

 school of the great painter, he was sent home again to his 

 parents ; Titian's attention being attracted by some very 

 spirited drawings hi; saw in his studio, he inquired who did 

 them, and upon Tintoretto's acknowledging himself the 

 author, Titian ordered one of his scholars to conduct the 

 boy h 



This remarkable rebuff in the career of the young painter 

 tii have added vigour to his energies, and he com- 

 menced a course of indefatigable application. He pur- 

 chased some casts from flu antique and some from the 

 models of Daniel da Volterra, from the statues of Michael 

 o of Morning, Twilight, Night, and Day, at the 

 lii-i, in San Lorenzo at Florence, resolving 

 ti> follow the .-ty'.c ol' Michael Angelo in design, and to 

 combine with it the colouring of Titian, whioh intention 

 he proclaimed to his visitors by the following line, which 

 he wrote upon the wall of his apartment : 



' II div^no di Michel Angelo, e '1 colorito ili Tiiiano.' 



By day he copied pictures by Titian ; and by night he 

 made drawings upon coloured paper, with chalk, from his 

 casts, lighted merely by a candle ; by which means he 

 acquired a taste for strong contrasts of light and shade, a 

 peculiarity for which all his works are conspicuous. To 

 these studies he added the occasional study of the living 

 model and of anatomy; and to attain a still greater mastery 

 of chiar'oscuro, he used to make models of figures in wax, 

 and place them in pasteboard cases, making apertures for 

 the light as he required it : he also suspended models and 

 trom the ceiling, for the purpose of becoming familiar 

 with various p(. . iews of the figure. In addition 



to these studies, he is said to have received much gratuitous 

 assistance from Schiavone in colouring. Tintoretto's first 

 'traded notice was one containing portraits 

 of himself and his brother, by candle-light, himself hold- 

 ing a cast in his hand, and his brother playing the guitar, 

 lie exhibited this picture in public, and shortly afterwards 

 he exhibited a large historical piece upon the Kialto, which 

 him a rank amongst the great painters of Venice, 

 undertook every commission which offered itself, and 

 frequently painted large works merely for the price of the 



materials. It would be impossible to enumerate all his 

 works here ; they amounted to many hundreds. One of 

 his first great works in fresco was a facade in the Arsenal, 

 which he painted in 1546, representing Balshazzar's Feast 

 and the Writing upon the Wall. Of his first oil pictures, 

 the following were most remarkable : The Tiburtine Sibyl, 

 for the church of Santa Anna ; the Last Supper, and the 

 Washing of the Disciples' Feet, for the church of Santa 

 Marcola ; for San Severe, a Crucifixion, very large ; and 

 in the church of the Trinita, the Temptation of Eve and 

 the Death of Abel, besides some others. 



Tintoretto was so eager for employment, and so desirous 

 of public notice and applause, that rather than be inactive 

 or unoccupied with any public work, he frequently volun- 

 teered his services, or at most required no further outlay 

 from his employer than would cover the cost of the ma- 

 terials. He painted upon such terms the facade in fresco 

 of a large house near the Ponte dell' Angelo ; on the lower 

 part of the house he painted a very spirited representation 

 of a cavalry battle, above which he placed an ornamental 

 cornice in bronze ; over this he painted a large historical 

 composition containing many figures ; between the win- 

 dows he introduced various figures of women ; and at the 

 top a rich frieze : the great extent and the boldness of 

 these paintings astonished the Venetian painters of that, 

 period. Upon very similar terms he executed two of his 

 greatest works, at Santa Maria dell' Orto, where he painted, 

 for 100 ducats, two immense pictures fifty feet high. In 

 one was the Procession of the Jews with the Golden Calf, 

 and Moses upon a rock in the background receiving the 

 Tables ol' the Law, which were supported by a group of 

 naked angels ; the other was a representation of the Last 

 Judgment, containing an immense number of figures ; an 

 extraordinary work, which, in the opinion of Vasari, would 

 have been perhaps without its rival as a work of art, if the 

 execution of the parts had been equal to the conception of 

 the whole. 



The following works also are accounted amongst Tinto- 

 retto's masterpieces : Saint Agnes restoring to life the son 

 of the Prefect, painted for the chapel of Cardinal Conta- 

 rino ; the Miracle of St. Mark, called ' II Miracolo dello 

 Schiavo,' where the saint delivers a Venetian, who had be- 

 come a Turkish slave, from a punishment ordered by his 

 master, by rendering him invulnerable, so that hammers 

 and other instruments of torture were broken upon his 

 body without hurting him ; this picture, which is gene- 

 rally considered the best of all Tintoretto's works, was 

 painted in his thirty-seventh year, for the brotherhood of 

 St. Mark, and when it was finished and put up, the worthy 

 friars disputed with one another about the price, a dispute 

 which Tintoretto settled by ordering the picture to be 

 taken down and sent home, and telling the brotherhood 

 that they should not have it at any price. He however, 

 after some entreaty, restored it to its place and received 

 his own price, and the friars further gratified him by 

 ordering him to paint three other subjects from the life 

 of the same saint, the Exhumation of the Body of the 

 Saint at Alexandria, through the two Venetian merchants 

 Buono da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello ; the Trans- 

 port of the Body to the Ship ; and the Miraculous Preser- 

 vation at. Sea of a Saracen Sailor through the Saint : the 

 miracle of the slave is in the Academy of Venice ; it has 

 been engraved by J. Mathan ; the other three are in the 

 Scuola di San Marco. Pietro di Cortona is reported to have 

 said, that if he lived in Venice, he would never pass a 

 holiday without going to see these works ; he admired 

 chiefly the drawing. The pictures he painted for the Scuola 

 di San Rocco are equally celebrated : they consist of the 

 famous Crucifixion, which was engraved by Agostino Car- 

 racci, to the greatest satisfaction of Tintoretto ; the Resur- 

 rection of Christ, engraved by E. Sadeler; the Slaughter 

 of the Innocents and the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, 

 engraved by L. Kilian ; and several others of less note. 

 To these must be added three painted for the Padri Groci- 

 feri, an Assumption of the Virgin, and a Circumcision of 

 the Infant Christ, painted in competition with Schiavone ; 

 and a Marriage at Cana, now in the church of Santa Maria 

 della Salute. .The Miracolo dello Schiavo, the Crucifixion 

 at, San Rocco, and the Marriage at Cana, are said to be 

 the only pictures to which Tintoretto put his name. There 

 is an engraving of the Marriage at Cana, by Volpato, and 

 a spirited etching by E. Fialetti. 



Tintoretto executed many great works for the govern 



3Q2 



