16 love's meinie. 



Ghiberti to complete one of the 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 Avauts 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, mintiteness and nmscnlarity 

 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 wise men : so that even 

 the best artists are gradually compelled, or beguiled, into 

 compliance with the curiosity of their day ; and Francia, 

 in the citv of Bologna, is held to be a " kind of o-od, 

 more particularly " (again 1 quote Vasari) " after he had 

 23ainted a set of caparisons for the Duke of Urbino, 

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

 whence there rushes forth an immense number of every 

 Ivind 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 other minutijB 

 in the delineation of the different animals, and in the 

 diversity of the branches and leaves of the various trees 



