RELATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS. 273 



shall find the old superstitious art represented finally by 

 Perugino, and the modern scientific and anatomical art repre- 

 sented primarily by Michael Angelo. And the epithet be- 

 stowed on Perugino by Michael Angelo, 'goffo nell' arte,' 

 dunce, or blockhead, in art, being, as far as my knowledge of 

 history extends, the most cruel, the most false, and the most 

 foolish insult ever offered by one great man to another, does 

 you at least good service, in showing how trenchant the 

 separation is between the two orders of artists,* how exclu- 

 sively we may follow out the history of all the ' goffi nelT 

 arte,' and write our Florentine Dunciad, and Laus Stultitiee, 

 in peace ; and never trench upon the thoughts or ways of 

 these proud ones, who showed their fathers' nakedness, and 

 snatched their masters' fame. 



47. The Florentine dunces in art are a multitude ; but I 

 only want you to know something about twenty of them. 



Twenty ! you think that a grievous number ? It may, 

 perhaps, appease you a little to be told that when you really 

 have learned a very little, accurately, about these twenty 

 dunces, there are only five more men among the artists of 

 Christendom whose works I shall ask you to examine while 

 you are under my care. That makes twenty-five altogether, 

 an exorbitant demand on your attention, you still think ? 

 And yet, but a little while ago, you were all agog to get me to 

 go and look at Mrs. A's sketches, and tell you what was to be 

 thought about them ; and I've had the greatest difficulty to 

 keep Mrs. B's photographs from being shown side by side with 

 the Raphael drawings in the "University galleries. And you 

 will waste any quantity of time in looking at Mrs. A's- 

 sketches or Mrs. B's photographs ; and yet you look grave, 

 because, out of nineteen centuries of European art-labour and 

 thought, I ask you to learn something seriously about the 

 works of five-and-twenty men ! 



48. It is hard upon you, doubtless, considering the quan- 



* He is said by Vasari to have called Francia the like. Francia is a 

 child compared to Perugino ; but a finished working-goldsmith and 

 ornamental painter nevertheless ; and one of the very last men to be 

 called ' goffo,' except by unparalleled insolence. 



